Global Research

Editor’s Note: From our archives. This was one of the first articles published by Global Research on October 18,  2001

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Over 1.8 million people are currently behind bars in the United States. This represents the highest per capita incarceration rate in the history of the world. In 1995 alone, 150 new U.S. prisons were built and filled.

This monumental commitment to lock up a sizeable percentage of the population is an integral part of the globalization of capital. Several strands converge at ” the end of the Cold War, changing relations between labor and capital on an international scale, domestic economic decline, racism, the U.S. role as policeman of the world, and growth of the international drug economy ” creating a booming prison/industrial complex. And the prison/industrial complex is rapidly becoming an essential component of the U.S. economy.

Prisons are Big Business

Like the military/industrial complex, the prison/industrial complex is an interweaving of private business and government interests. Its twofold purpose is profit and social control. Its public rationale is the fight against crime.

Not so long ago, communism was “the enemy” and communists were demonized as a way of justifying gargantuan military expenditures. Now, fear of crime and the demonization of criminals serve a similar ideological purpose: to justify the use of tax dollars for the repression and incarceration of a growing percentage of our population. The omnipresent media blitz about serial killers, missing children, and “random violence” feeds our fear. In reality, however, most of the “criminals” we lock up are poor people who commit nonviolent crimes out of economic need. Violence occurs in less than 14% of all reported crime, and injuries occur in just 3%. In California, the top three charges for those entering prison are: possession of a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance for sale, and robbery. Violent crimes like murder, rape, manslaughter and kidnapping don’t even make the top ten.

Like fear of communism during the Cold War, fear of crime is a great selling tool for a dubious product.

As with the building and maintenance of weapons and armies, the building and maintenance of prisons are big business. Investment houses, construction companies, architects, and support services such as food, medical, transportation and furniture, all stand to profit by prison expansion. A burgeoning “specialty item” industry sells fencing, handcuffs, drug detectors, protective vests, and other security devices to prisons.

As the Cold War winds down and the Crime War heats up, defense industry giants like Westinghouse are re-tooling and lobbying Washington for their share of the domestic law enforcement market. “Night Enforcer” goggles used in the Gulf War, electronic “Hot Wire” fencing (“so hot NATO chose it for high-risk installations”), and other equipment once used by the military, are now being marketed to the criminal justice system.

Communication companies like AT&T, Sprint, and MCI are getting into the act as well — gouging prisoners with exorbitant phone calling rates, often six times the normal long distance charge. Smaller firms like Correctional Communications Corp., dedicated solely to the prison phone business, provide computerized prison phone systems — fully equipped for systematic surveillance. They win government contracts by offering to “kick back” some of the profits to the government agency awarding the contract. These companies are reaping huge profits at the expense of prisoners and their families; prisoners are often effectively cut off from communication due to the excessive cost of phone calls.

One of the fastest growing sectors of the prison/industrial complex is private corrections companies. Investment firm Smith Barney is a part owner of a prison in Florida. American Express and General Electric have invested in private prison construction in Oklahoma and Tennessee. Correctional Corporation Of America, one of the largest private prison owners, already operates internationally, with 48 facilities in 11 states, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Under contract by government to run jails and prisons, and paid a fixed sum per prisoner, the profit motive mandates that these firms operate as cheaply and efficiently as possible. This means lower wages for staff, no unions, and fewer services for prisoners. Private contracts also mean less public scrutiny. Prison owners are raking in billions by cutting corners which harm prisoners. Substandard diets, extreme overcrowding, and abuses by poorly trained personnel have all been documented and can be expected in these institutions which are unabashedly about making money.

Prisons are also a leading rural growth industry. With traditional agriculture being pushed aside by agribusiness, many rural American communities are facing hard times. Economically depressed areas are falling over each other to secure a prison facility of their own. Prisons are seen as a source of jobs — in construction, local vendors and prison staff — as well as a source of tax revenues. An average prison has a staff of several hundred employees and an annual payroll of several million dollars.

Like any industry, the prison economy needs raw materials. In this case the raw materials are prisoners. The prison/industrial complex can grow only if more and more people are incarcerated — even if crime rates drop. “Three Strikes” and Mandatory Minimums (harsh, fixed sentences without parole) are two examples of the legal superstructure quickly being put in place to guarantee that the prison population will grow and grow and grow.

Labor And the Flight of Capital

The growth of the prison/industrial complex is inextricably tied to the fortunes of labor. Ever since the onset of the Reagan-Bush years in 1980, workers in the United States have been under siege. Aggressive union busting, corporate deregulation, and especially the flight of capital in search of cheaper labor markets, have been crucial factors in the downward plight of American workers.

One wave of capital flight occurred in the 1970s. Manufacturing such as textiles in the Northeast moved south to South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama non-union states where wages were low. During the 1980s, many more industries (steel, auto, etc.) closed up shop moving on to the “more competitive atmospheres” of Mexico, Brazil, or Taiwan where wages were a mere fraction of those in the U.S., and environmental, health and safety standards were much lower. Most seriously hurt by these plant closures and layoffs were African-Americans and other semiskilled workers in urban centers who lost their decent paying industrial jobs.

Into the gaping economic hole left by the exodus of jobs from U.S. cities has rushed another economy — the drug economy.

The War on Drugs

The “War on Drugs,” launched by President Reagan in the mid-eighties, has been fought on interlocking international and domestic fronts.

At the international level, the war on drugs has been both a cynical cover-up of U.S. government involvement in the drug trade, as well as justification for U.S. military intervention and control in the Third World.

Over the last 50 years, the primary goal of U.S. foreign policy (and the military/industrial complex) has been to fight communism and protect corporate interests. To this end, the U.S. government has, with regularity, formed strategic alliances with drug dealers throughout the world. At the conclusion of World War II, the OSS (precursor to the CIA) allied itself with heroin traders on the docks of Marseille in an effort to wrest power away from communist dock workers. During the Vietnam war, the CIA aided the heroin producing Hmong tribesmen in the Golden Triangle area. In return for cooperation with the U.S. government’s war against the Vietcong and other national liberation forces, the CIA flew local heroin out of Southeast Asia and into America. It’s no accident that heroin addiction in the U.S. rose exponentially in the 1960s.

Nor is it an accident that cocaine began to proliferate in the United States during the 1980s. Central America is the strategic halfway point for air travel between Colombia and the United States. The Contra War against Sandinista Nicaragua, as well as the war against the national liberation forces in El Salvador, was largely about control of this critical area. When Congress cut off support for the Contras, Oliver North and friends found other ways to fund the Contra re-supply operations — in part through drug dealing. Planes loaded with arms for the Contras took-off from the southern United States, offloaded their weapons on private landing strips in Honduras, then loaded up with cocaine for the return trip.

A 1996 exposé by the San Jose Mercury News documented CIA involvement in a Nicaraguan drug ring which poured thousands of kilos of cocaine into Los Angeles’ African-American neighborhoods in the 1980s. Drug boss, Danilo Blandon, now an informant for the DEA, acknowledged under oath the drugs- for-weapons deals with the CIA-sponsored Contras.

U.S. military presence in Central and Latin America has not stopped drug traffic. But it has influenced aspects of the drug trade, and is a powerful force of social control in the region. U.S. military intervention — whether in propping up dictators or squashing peasant uprisings — now operates under cover of the righteous war against drugs and “narco-terrorism.”

In Mexico, for example, U.S. military aid supposedly earmarked for the drug war is being used to arm Mexican troops in the southern part of the country. The drug trade, however (production, transfer, and distribution points) is all in the north. The “drug war money” is being used primarily to fight against the Zapatista rebels in the southern state of Chiapas who are demanding land reform and economic policy changes which are diametrically opposed to the transnational corporate agenda.

In the Colombian jungles of Cartagena de Chaira, coca has become the only viable commercial crop. In 1996, 30,000 farmers blocked roads and airstrips to prevent crop spraying from aircraft. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) one of the oldest guerrilla organizations in Latin America, held 60 government soldiers hostage for nine months — demanding that the military leave the jungle, that social services be increased, and that alternative crops be made available to farmers. And given the notorious involvement of Colombia’s highest officials with the powerful drug cartels, it is not surprising that most U.S. “drug war” military aid actually goes to fighting the guerrillas.

One result of the international war on drugs has been the internationalization of the U.S. prison population. For the most part, it’s the low level “mules” carrying drugs into this country who are captured and incarcerated in ever-increasing numbers. At least 25% of inmates in the federal prison system today will be subject to deportation when their sentences are completed.

Here at home, the war on drugs has been a war on poor people. Particularly poor, urban, African-American men and women. It’s well documented that police enforcement of the new, harsh drug laws have been focused on low- level dealers in communities of color. Arrests of African-Americans have been about five times higher than arrests of whites, although whites and African- Americans use drugs at about the same rate. And, African-Americans have been imprisoned in numbers even more disproportionate than their relative arrest rates. It is estimated that in 1994, on any given day, one out of every 128 U.S. adults was incarcerated, while one out of every 17 African-American adult males was incarcerated.

The differential in sentencing for powder and crack cocaine is one glaring example of institutionalized racism. About 90% of crack arrests are of African-Americans, while 75% of powder cocaine arrests are of whites. Under federal law, it takes only five grams of crack cocaine to trigger a five-year mandatory minimum sentence. But it takes 500 grams of powder cocaine — 100 times as much — to trigger this same sentence. This flagrant injustice was highlighted by a 1996 nationwide federal prison rebellion when Congress refused to enact changes in sentencing laws that would equalize penalties.

Statistics show that police repression and mass incarceration are not curbing the drug trade. Dealers are forced to move, turf is reshuffled, already vulnerable families are broken up. But the demand for drugs still exists, as do huge profits for high-level dealers in this fifty billion-dollar international industry.

>From one point of view, the war on drugs could actually be seen as a pre- emptive strike. The state’s repressive apparatus working overtime. Put poor people away before they get angry. Incarcerate those at the bottom, the helpless, the hopeless, before they demand change. What drugs don’t damage — in terms of intact communities, the ability to take action, to organize — the war on drugs and mass imprisonment will surely destroy.

The crack down on drugs has not stopped drug use. But it has taken thousands of unemployed (and potentially angry and rebellious) young men and women off the streets. And it has created a mushrooming prison population.

Prison Labor

An American worker who once upon a time made $8/hour, loses his job when the company relocates to Thailand where workers are paid only $2/day. Unemployed, and alienated from a society indifferent to his needs, he becomes involved in the drug economy or some other outlawed means of survival. He is arrested, put in prison, and put to work. His new salary: 22 cents/hour.

>From worker to unemployed to criminal to convict laborer, the cycle has come full circle. And the only victor is big business.

For private business, prison labor is like a pot of gold. No strikes. No union organizing. No unemployment insurance or workers’ compensation to pay. No language problem, as in a foreign country. New leviathan prisons are being built with thousands of eerie acres of factories inside the walls. Prisoners do data entry for Chevron, make telephone reservations for TWA, raise hogs, shovel manure, make circuit boards, limousines, waterbeds, and lingerie for Victoria’s Secret. All at a fraction of the cost of “free labor.”

Prisoners can be forced to work for pennies because they have no rights. Even the 14th Amendment to the Constitution which abolished slavery, excludes prisoners from its protections.

And, more and more, prisons are charging inmates for basic necessities from medical care, to toilet paper, to use of the law library. Many states are now charging “room and board.” Berks County prison in Pennsylvania is charging inmates $10 per day to be there. California has similar legislation pending. So, while government cannot (yet) actually require inmates to work at private industry jobs for less than minimum wage, they are forced to by necessity.

Some prison enterprises are state run. Inmates working at UNICOR (the federal prison industry corporation) make recycled furniture and work 40 hours a week for about $40 per month. The Oregon Prison Industries produces a line of “Prison Blues” blue jeans. An ad in their catalogue shows a handsome prison inmate saying, “I say we should make bell-bottoms. They say I’ve been in here too long.”

Bizarre, but true…

Prison industries are often directly competing with private industry. Small furniture manufacturers around the country complain that they are being driven out of business by UNICOR which pays 23 cents/hour and has the inside track on government contracts. In another case, U.S. Technologies sold its electronics plant in Austin, Texas, leaving its 150 workers unemployed. Six week later, the electronics plant reopened in a nearby prison.

Welcome to the New World Order

The proliferation of prisons in the United States is one piece of a puzzle called the globalization of capital.

Since the end of the Cold War, capitalism has gone on an international business offensive. No longer impeded by an alternative socialist economy or the threat of national liberation movements supported by the Soviet Union or China, transnational corporations see the world as their oyster. Agencies such as the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, bolstered by agreements like NAFTA and GATT are putting more and more power into the hands of transnational corporations by putting the squeeze on national governments. The primary mechanism of control is debt. For decades, developing countries have depended on foreign loans, resulting in increasing vulnerability to the transnational corporate strategy for the global economy. Access to international credit and aid is given only if governments agree to certain conditions known as “structural adjustment.”

In a nutshell, structural adjustment requires cuts in social services, privatization of state-run industry, repeal of agreements with labor about working conditions and minimum wage, conversion of multi-use farm lands into cash crop agriculture for export, and the dismantling of trade laws which protect local economies. Under structural adjustment, police and military expenditures are the only government spending that is encouraged. The sovereignty of nations is compromised when, as in the case of Vietnam, trade sanctions are threatened unless the government allows Camel cigarettes to litter the countryside with billboards, or promises to spend millions in the U.S.- orchestrated crackdown on drugs.

The basic transnational corporate philosophy is this: the world is a single market; natural resources are to be exploited; people are consumers; anything which hinders profit is to be routed out and destroyed. The results of this philosophy in action are that while economies are growing, so is poverty, so is ecological destruction, so are sweatshops and child labor. Across the globe, wages are plummeting, indigenous people are being forced off their lands, rivers are becoming industrial dumping grounds, and forests are being obliterated. Massive regional starvation and “World Bank riots” are becoming more frequent throughout the Third World.

All over the world, more and more people are being forced into illegal activity for their own survival as traditional cultures and social structures are destroyed. Inevitably, crime and imprisonment rates are on the rise. And the United States law enforcement establishment is in the forefront, domestically and internationally, in providing state-of-the-art repression.

Within the United States, structural adjustment (sometimes known as Contract With America) takes the form of welfare and social service cuts, continued massive military spending, and skyrocketing prison spending. Walk through any poor urban neighborhood: school systems are crumbling, after school programs, libraries, parks and drug treatment centers are closed. But you will see more police stations and more cops. Often, the only “social service” available to poor young people is jail.

The dismantling of social programs, and the growing dominance of the right- wing agenda in U.S. politics has been made possible, at least in part, by the successful repression of the civil rights and liberation movements of the 1960s and 70s. Many of the leaders — Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and many others — were assassinated. Others, like Geronimo ji Jaga Pratt, Leonard Peltier, and Mumia Abu-Jamal, have been locked up. Over 150 political leaders from the black liberation struggle, the Puerto Rican independence movement, and other resistence efforts are still in prison. Many are serving sentences ranging from 40 to 90 years. Oppressed communities have been robbed of radical political leadership which might have led an opposition movement. We are reaping the results.

The number of people in U.S. prisons has more than tripled in the past 17 years — from 500,000 in 1980 to 1.8 million in 1997. Today, more than five million people are behind bars, on parole, probation, or under other supervision by the criminal justice system. The state of California now spends more on prisons than on higher education, and over the past decade has built 19 prisons and only one branch university.

Add to this, the fact that increasing numbers of women are being locked up. Between 1980 and 1994, the number of women in prison increased five-fold. Many of these women are mothers — leaving future generations growing up in foster homes or on the streets.

What is to be done?

Prisons are not reducing crime. But they are fracturing already vulnerable families and communities.

Poor people of color are being locked up in grossly disproportionate numbers, primarily for non-violent crimes. But Americans are not feeling safer.

As “criminals” become scapegoats for our floundering economy and our deteriorating social structure, even the guise of rehabilitation is quickly disappearing from our penal philosophy. After all: rehabilitate for what? To go back into an economy which has no jobs? To go back into a community which has no hope? As education and other prison programs are cut back, or in most cases eliminated altogether, prisons are becoming vast, over-crowded, holding tanks. Or worse: factories behind bars.

And, prison labor is undercutting wages –something which hurts all working and poor Americans. It’s a situation which can only occur because organized labor is divided and weak and has not kept step with organized capital.

While capital has globalized, labor has not. While the transnationals truly are fashioning our planet into a global village, there is still little communication or cooperation between workers around the world. Only an internationally linked labor movement can effectively challenge the power of the transnational corporations.

There have been some wonderful, shining instances of international worker solidarity. In the early 1980s, 3M workers in South Africa walked out in support of striking 3M workers in New Jersey. Recently, longshore workers in Denmark, Spain, Sweden and several other countries closed down ports around the world in solidarity with striking Liverpool dockers. The company was forced to negotiate. When Renault closed its plant in Belgium, 100,000 demonstrated in Brussels, pressuring the French and Belgium governments to condemn the plant closure and compel its reopening.

Here in the U.S., there is a glimmer of hope as the AFL-CIO has voted in some new, more progressive leadership. We’ll see how that shapes up, and whether the last 50 years of anti-communist, bread-and-butter American unionism is really a thing of the past.

What is certain is that resistance to the transnational corporate agenda is growing around the globe:

In 1996, the people of Bougainville, a small New Guinea island, organized a secessionist rebellion, protesting the dislocations and ecological destruction caused by corporate mining on the island. When the government hired mercenaries from South Africa to train local troops in counterinsurgency warfare, the army rebelled, threw out the mercenaries, and deposed the Prime Minister.

A one day General Strike shut down Haiti in January 1997. Strikers demanded the suspension of negotiations between the Prime Minister and the International Monetary Fund/World Bank. They protested the austerity measures imposed by the IMF and WB which would mean laying off 7,000 government workers and the privatization of the electric and telephone companies.

In Nigeria, the Ogoni people conducted a protracted eight year struggle against Shell Oil. Acid rain, and hundreds of oil spills and gas flares were turning the once fertile countryside into a near wasteland. Their peaceful demonstrations, election boycotts, and pleas for international solidarity were met with violent government repression and the eventual execution of Ogoni writer-leader Ken Saro Wiwa.

In France, a month-long General Strike united millions of workers who protested privatization, a government worker pay freeze, and cutbacks in social services. Telephone, airline, power, postal, education, health care and metal workers all joined together, bringing business to a standstill. The right-wing Chirac government was forced to make minor concessions before being voted out for a new “socialist” administration.

At the Oak Park Heights Correctional Facility in Minnesota, 150 prisoners went on strike in March 1997, demanding to be paid the minimum wage. Although they lost a litigation battle to attain this right, their strike gained attention and support from several local labor unions.

Just as the prison/industrial complex is becoming increasingly central to the growth of the U.S. economy, prisoners are a crucial part of building effective opposition to the transnational corporate agenda. Because of their enforced invisibility, powerlessness, and isolation, it’s far too common for prisoners to be left out of the equation of international solidarity. Yet, opposing the expansion of the prison/industrial complex, and supporting the rights and basic humanity of prisoners, may be the only way we can stave off the consolidation of a police state that represses us all — where you or a friend or family member may yourself end up behind bars.

Clearly, the only alternative that will match the power of global of capital is an internationalization of human solidarity. Because, truly, we are all in this together.

“International solidarity is not an act of charity. It is an act of unity between allies fighting on different terrains toward the same objective. The foremost of these objectives is to aid the development of humanity to the highest level possible.”

Linda Evans is a former anti-imperialist political prisoner. She was locked up for 16 years due to her political actions opposing racism and U.S. military intervention around the world. While in prison, she organized AIDS education for prisoners and participated in anti-racism work. Her sentence was commuted by President Clinton and she was released on January 20, 2001. Since her release, Linda has been speaking at college campuses and community groups about political prisoners and the prison-industrial complex.

Eve Goldberg is a writer, filmmaker and political activist. She is currently involved in the campaigns for global peace as well as support to U.S. political prisoners.

Linda and Eve wrote this article while Linda was still incarcerated. Linda Evans was doing research while in prison and was in touch with Global Research during her incarceration.

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Although there is no concrete evidence of a direct Israeli government link with the Azov Battalion or other neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine, there are clearly Israeli citizens who are directly aiding them.

Western media have attempted to all but deny the existence of neo-Nazis in Ukraine, alleging that Russia’s goal to de-Nazify Kiev is not possible because Ukraine’s president is Jewish. But what is to be made of an Israeli Jew openly calling himself the co-founder of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion?

Kiev’s infamous Azov Battalion, officially part of the National Guard of Ukraine, has been widely acknowledged as a neo-Nazi volunteer paramilitary force. It has also been connected with foreign white supremacist organizations. In addition to this, the far-right, neo-Nazi and white-nationalist members in its ranks have even been criticized by the likes of Human Rights Watch and the United Nations for human rights abuses.

Despite the well-documented history of racially motivated crimes and attacks on Ukraine’s LGBTQ+ community, the battalion has been indirectly and continually armed by Western powers.

In June 2015 the United States and Canada banned the support and/or training of Azov by their forces, specifically citing its neo-Nazi connections. However, the following year the U.S. lifted its ban owing to pressure from the Pentagon. In 2019, The Nation magazine published an article in which it was stated that “[p]ost-Maidan Ukraine is the world’s only nation to have a neo-Nazi formation in its armed forces.” All of which is to say that Azov can conclusively be labeled neo-Nazi. This may be why reports are now emerging of White Supremacists and far-Right militia members flocking to Ukraine, to fight alongside extremist forces in the country.

Israeli support of and involvement in the Azov Battalion

Prior to Azov becoming an integrated part of the Ukrainian military, the group was funded primarily by Ukrainian oligarchs, the most well known of whom was Igor Kolomoisky. Kolomoisky is of Jewish heritage and is an Israeli citizen and well-known billionaire businessman. Despite his being a Jewish Israeli, he had no problem pouring money into neo-Nazi volunteer militias such as the Azov and Aidar, among other far-right groups that feature elements hostile to Jewish people.

Although the Jewish president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is often held up by mainstream Western media as proof that there is no problem with neo-Nazis in Ukraine, he himself received financial backing from the same oligarch – Igor Kolomoisky – who was financing neo-Nazis. Zelenskyy’s presidential bid in 2019, which saw him win 73% of the vote, was successful on the basis that he was running in order to combat corruption and create peace in the country but, as the leaked documents known as the Pandora Papers revealed, he himself was storing funds in offshore bank accounts. Zelenskyy’s campaign was at the time boosted and bankrolled by the Israeli-Ukrainian-Cypriot billionaire Kolomoisky – who was himself accused of stealing $5.5 billion from his own bank.

The nerve of it . The BBC’s first response to my formal complaint about their failure to report the presence of neo-Nazis, in a news item about Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/kl88gR5sY0

— Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) February 21, 2022

It may come as a shock, but there are actually many Israeli Jews who fight with ultra-nationalist Ukrainian groups and who coordinate closely with, or even belong to, neo-Nazi groups such as Azov. Konstantyn Batozsky, for example, who stated that he worked as a political consultant in Donetsk for the Azov Battalion between 2014-15, even defended Azov members who had tattoos of Nazi symbols.

“They were soccer hooligans and wanted attention, so yeah, I was shocked when I saw guys with swastika tattoos,” Batozsky said of Azov Battalion members he personally got to know. He then followed that statement by saying. “But I talked with them all the time about being Jewish and they had nothing negative to say. They had no anti-Jewish ideology.” Another Jewish Israeli, Daniel Kovzhun, claims that “there were Orthodox Jews in Azov,” which he claims came down to all members being Ukrainian nationalists and therefore Jewishness was not an issue.

Muslims however, seem to be a major issue for the Azov Battalion. The Islamophobia present not only in Azov, but also in the National Guard of Ukraine, came through strongly on social media as the official National Guard site glorified the Azov Battalion as they dipped their bullets in pig fat. The video was directed at Muslim soldiers from Chechnya who are fighting on the side of Russia and were described as “orcs” by the National Guard on Twitter. In the video, one of the Azov fighters can be heard saying: “Dear Muslim brothers, in our country, you will not go to heaven.” It is a belief shared by some white supremacists that if they kill a Muslim with a bullet coated in pig fat, the Muslim will not enter heaven.

Although little is published about this fact in English, according to the BBC, an Israeli-Ukrainian named Natan Khazin claims to have co-founded the Azov Battalion. In an interview conducted by BBC Ukraine in 2018, which attempted to downplay the claims of rising antisemitism in Ukraine, Khazin is quoted as saying: “I can say that, despite the difficult situation in Ukraine and the war, the level of antisemitism is not growing. Someone in the West simply does not understand the real state of things in Ukraine in this area.”

In The Forward, a Jewish news outlet, Khazin is described as a “yarmulke-wearing … veteran of the Israel Defense Forces and an ordained rabbi.” The description continues:

[He is] representative of many young Ukrainian Jews who are Zionist, religiously observant and at the same time strong Ukrainian patriots. Some of them refer to themselves humorously as Zhido-Banderists — a fusion of the pejorative term for “Jew” with the name Stepan Bandera, leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which fought for Ukrainian independence during World War II. The organization’s forces also participated in the massacre of Jews, so the term Zhido-Banderist is self-consciously ironic.”

During an interview, published in a condensed form by The Forward, Khazin is asked, “If it isn’t confidential, where did you serve [while  in the Israeli military]?” He answers:  “In the Gaza Strip. I know what it’s like to move down a street with people shooting, throwing stones or burning objects.”

All the above examples of Israelis actively collaborating with known neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine are of private Israeli citizens and there is no direct connection to the Israeli government. However, the Israeli government itself seems to have participated, much like the United States and other NATO nations, in supplying weapons to the Ukrainian military, which is considered by some as a form of indirectly arming the Azov Battalion and other ultra-right elements. In 2018, more than 40 human rights activists filed a petition with the Israeli High Court, in which they argued that the Israeli weapons were being sent to serve those who espouse neo-Nazi beliefs. They cited “evidence that the right-wing Azov militia, whose members are part of Ukraine’s armed forces, and are supported by the country’s ministry of internal affairs,” were using the weapons, according to a report published in Haaretz.

Although there is no concrete evidence of a direct Israeli government link with the Azov Battalion or other neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine, there are clearly Israeli citizens who are directly aiding them. There are, however, reports that claim that Israeli forces have directly trained the Azov Battalion and Azov has been shown to possess Israeli-made weapons. When such a connection between neo-Nazi groups and Israeli Jews in Ukraine clearly exists, this in of itself should call into question the sincerity of Western media’s attempt to use President Zelenskyy’s Jewish identity in order to push to the side claims that there are hardline neo-Nazi elements inside Ukraine. Furthermore, these groups are clearly able to coexist beside Israeli citizens, so long as those Jewish Israelis are themselves Ukrainian nationalists. This is not to say that anti-Semitism does not exist in these groups, however.

Ukrainian police official requests list of Jews in the city of Kolomyya, western Ukraine:

For some reason, the extreme and very dangerous anti-Semitism in Ukraine (which has a very ugly history) gets little attention in the west. Wonder why:https://t.co/lfQHrg0IES

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 10, 2020

Israeli far-right alignment in Europe

The propensity for right-wing Israelis to align themselves with right-wing Europeans has long been clear, and this propensity has even meant allying themselves with groups accused of antisemitism. The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) – a right wing German party condemned by World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder as being “a disgrace for Germany,” and frequently accused of antisemitism – has strong links to Israel. Interestly, figures regarded as being from the far-right – such as Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, France’s Marine Le Pen, Britain’s Nigel Farage, and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán – are all on record as being pro-Israeli and have made efforts to align themselves with the Jewish State. Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also made it clear that he would meet and align himself with figures accused of antisemitism, such as Orbán.

Netanyahu tried hard to cement Israel’s alliance with the Visegrad bloc — Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic — which Foreign Policy magazine described as forming “a common entity imbued with hostility to the values of the Enlightenment, to human rights, to the concept of a nation as a community of citizens, to the principle of equality, and, generally speaking, to foreigners.” Of course, when it comes to Israeli government endeavors, there is a pragmatic incentive for Israel, and such alliances with the far-right should not be taken as a purely love-bond relationship. But the fact that these relationships have existed, and continue to exist, should indicate that right-wing Israelis can readily coexist with the European far-right.

As for white supremacists in the United States, there are many who openly align themselves with Israel. One such example is White Nationalist leader Richard Spencer, who is an open supporter of Israel and came out in 2018 to back Israel’s Nation State Bill, which affirmed that  “the realization of the right to national self-determination in Israel is unique to the Jewish people.” The bill was widely pegged as racist and Spencer said of it that he has “great admiration for Israel’s Nation-State Law. Jews are, once again, at the vanguard, rethinking politics and sovereignty for the future, showing a path forward for Europeans.” Israel’s system of racial supremacy is viewed with great admiration by many white supremacists, who seek to model their own system along similar lines, according to people like Richard Spencer.

This sort of mentality, which aligns Israel and the Western far-right, cannot simply be ignored and demonstrates why it is not necessarily a valid point to say that the presence of Jewish individuals in Ukraine’s fight against Russia debunks the claims of neo-Nazi elements existing. As is demonstrated above, these groups not only exist in spite of Jewish individuals being present, but in some cases even feature Israeli Jews in their ranks.

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Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47

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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There are enormous implications that flow from President Vladimir Putin’s alleged assertion that the Russian government intends to “denazify” Ukraine as part of the process of its “demilitarization.” So far, however, these implications have yet to been seriously addressed by the mainstream media. 

Indeed, honest and balanced reports of all aspects of the conflict are few and far between. Instead we in the so-called “West” are delivered onslaughts of anti-Russian hysteria written and spoken by the propagandists charged to keep the business of war booming. Amidst the journalistic demands for blood and more blood come many variations on the absurd meme that Putin is entirely to blame, that “Putin is the Hitler of the 21^st Century.”

 

See this.

There is a failure to put this controversy into anything like its true historical context. The incentives are great on the side of the United States and its NATO accomplices to hide and misrepresent their own roles in creating the conditions for the current conflict.

The Russian leader’s emphasis on the denazification of Ukraine brings forward a corrupted version of the core clash in the Second World War. The outcome of WWII was ultimately decided in the Russian and Ukrainian heartland where the Soviet Armed Forces landed the decisive blows that fatally crippled the National Socialist Army of Adolph Hitler. This blow to the Third Reich was accompanied by the sacrifice of the lives of over 25,000,000  soldiers and civilians on the Soviet-side of the conflict.

When the issue of denazification is raised outside the propagandistic framework of the Putin-as-Hitler meme, the matter is usually dismissed as ridiculous or outright delusional. The most common response is that the Ukraine could not host prominent Nazi factions because the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, is himself Jewish.

Watch left & right wing factions of MSM unite to declare any allegations of Nazism in Ukraine to be Russian fake news because President Zelensky is Jewish. Featuring Senators Marsha Blackburn & Mark Warner, former CIA spy Dan Hoffman & "Ukraine Whistleblower" Alexander Vindman pic.twitter.com/vruyDUoWxv

— Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) February 28, 2022

This kind of simple-minded reductionism is unworthy of the very important topic of nazification and denazification at this momentous juncture in human history.

New Depths of Profanity

These days many authorities are prone to maliciously smear their own political opponents as “neo-Nazis” or “White supremacists” or people who “stand with the swastika.” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is one of those politicians who regularly exhibits careless resorts to some of the weaponized terms of our time. He takes the obscenities of wedge politics to new depths of profanity not seen so far from any previous Canadian prime minister.

On the eve of Putin’s declaration that his government was going to intervene in Ukraine, Trudeau extravagantly accused Canadian Truckers as well as members of Canada’s Official Opposition Party that they “stand with the swastika.” When Trudeau introduced this allegation into the Canadian Parliament, he himself was deeply engaged in supporting and encouraging Nazi factions within the Ukrainian government.

In 2014 the neo-Nazi elements that have long been integral to Ukranian nationalism were brought into the government and embedded in important roles in policing, the Armed Forces and national security. This nazification of the Ukrainian government, a process continuing to this day, was carried out in a US-led government regime change identified with demonstrations at Kiev’s Maidan Square.

See this and this.

With the oversight of Victoria Nuland, US President Barack Obama’s designate, the puppet regime was based on the integration of neo-Nazi factions with a powerful class of oligarchs.

Its most influential member, by far, was Igor Kolomoisky who managed to seize control of major natural gas reserves in Ukraine. In this capacity he paid Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, to sit on the Board of Burisma Holdings. After buying up TV stations, Kolomoisky also funded one of his more popular actors, Volymyr Zelensky, in the performer’s successful run in 2019 for the Ukrainian presidency. Along the way Kolomoisky helped finance neo-Nazi fighting forces including the Azov, Aidar and Dnipro Battalions.

See this.

Those fascistic forces in Ukraine have also received resources and moral backing from the leadership of many Western countries including that of Canada, one of NATO’s original members.

Justin Trudeau and his Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, are prominent among those that have supported  “fascistic elements” of Ukrainian nationalism, a position that has a significant vote-rich constituency of Canadian citizens.

The private fortunes of the oligarchs typically started with their appropriation of large chunks of state wealth as the Soviet Union disintegrated. This new oligarchical class came to power in the early 1990s under the Russian presidency of Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin’s replacement, Vladimir Putin, navigated his way to domination of the Russian government by many tactics, both fair and foul. These tactics included Putin’s strategic navigation between oligarchical friends and foes.

As World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab points out, Vladimir Putin passed through the same WEF Young Leaders program as, for instance, Justin Trudeau, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron.

See this.

Putin, however, seems to have moved away from the globalist and corporatist preoccupations of the Davos School to a more aggressively nationalist strategy for guiding his own country into the twenty-first century. This journey is part of the process that gave rise to the present clash of competing forces situating humanity on the abyss of global war.

See this.

Ukraine as an Vehicle of Animosity to Russia

Joe Biden came to presidential power in the United States as a key beneficiary and participant in a very elaborate campaign of high-echelon dirty tricks. The objective of this campaign was to discredit US President Donald Trump by fabricating a lie, including through the fabrication of documents, that he was some sort of Russian agent under the thumb of President Putin.

Inside and outside the White House, Biden was a key US operative in the project of shaping the government of Ukraine as a major strategic liability for Russia. Biden’s role in helping shape Ukraine as an instrument of US animosity towards Russia was recorded in many ways, including in the corrupt business dealings in Kiev of his wayward son, Hunter.

In an essay entitled, “Uncle Sam’s Nazi Warriors,” Mike Whitney addresses the latest turn in now-President Joe Biden’s involvements in Ukraine. Whitney highlights the inconsistencies in the Biden administration’s domestic and foreign policies. Whitney writes,

“Readers should take a minute to savor Washington’s duplicity… While the Biden administration and the entire MSM was denouncing the January 6 [US Capitol] protestors as “racists” and “white supremacists”, the US government was busy arming and training “white crusader” Nazis to carry out its war on Russia….. these are not your garden-variety, right-wing militants. These are full-fledged, battle-hardened Nazi storm troopers that have engaged in all-manner of illegal and sadistic activities including “the mass killing of prisoners, the concealment of corpses in mass graves and the systematic use of physical and psychological torture techniques.”

See this.

Whitney’s citation comes from the analysis presented by Msgr. Carlo Maria Viganò on the background and context of the Russia-Ukraine Crisis. The analysis includes a well documented section on “Neo-Nazi and Extremist Movements in Ukraine.” Prominent among the highlighted groups is the Azov Battalion, a paramilitary organization that has been officially integrated into the National Guard of the Ukrainian Army.

See this.

The primary symbol of the Azov Battalion is the SS symbol. This SS emblem is proudly brandished as part of the military apparatus of the Ukrainian government. The Azov Battalion has played a prominent role in the virtual civil war since 2015 pitting many thousands of self-identifying Russian Ukrainians, mostly in eastern Ukraine including prominently the Donbass and Lugansk region.

The Russian government recognized the independence of these regions prior to President Putin’s decision to simultaneously demilitarize and denazify Ukraine. Another major aspect of the Russian Armed Forces’ current assignment in Ukraine is to seize and dismantle about 30 bioweapons laboratories built and maintained by the US Pentagon. This initiative is turning out to have broad-ranging implications for the prospects of war and peace in the international community.

There are 25+ US-funded biolabs in Ukraine which if breached would release & spread deadly pathogens to US/world. We must take action now to prevent disaster. US/Russia/Ukraine/NATO/UN/EU must implement a ceasefire now around these labs until they’re secured & pathogens destroyed pic.twitter.com/dhDTH5smIG

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) March 13, 2022

The Invention and Manipulation of Enemies

At the highest levels of command and control there are many keys to asserting and maintaining top-down power over subordinates. One of the keys to maintaining pre-eminence in the exercise of power is in developing the capacity to invent enemies and to control their imagery and activities through covert means.

Especially since the introduction of a specious interpretation of the events of 9/11, the resort to the illusions of false flag “terrorism” have become a crucial element in the exercise of power at the highest levels. More recently the manufactured COVID crisis demonstrated a new twist on old techniques in the scientific engineering of fear to grab and maintain new forms of imperial dominance.

The most important battleground of all, is the theatre of the human mind where beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours have become the main prize for the conquistadors of psychological warfare. In extending the legacy of MK-Ultra, Operation Mockingbird and other initiatives in thought control, the CIA seems well embarked in using the Ukrainian cauldron as a means of inventing and manipulating new enemies to demonize and fight against.

Much like some al-Qaeda operatives were CIA recruited, financed and trained in the USA, the CIA is currently involved in a similar scheme in training the Azov Battalion and attending intelligence operatives at military installations in the southern United States. These parallels figure prominently in Whitney Webb’s essay, “Ukraine and the New al-Qaeda.”

See this.

Webb suspects that the CIA has been pulling strings behind the scenes to push Putin over a major “Red Line,” including the announcement by the Ukrainian President of his government’s intention to acquire nuclear weapons.

See this.

In Webb’s view, the CIA’s plan might well be to train and finance yet another proxy force of insurgents to be manipulated in order to gain advantages in various arenas of mental, military and cultural conflict. Webb speculates that “this latest escalation of the Ukraine-Russia conflict has merely served as the opening act for the newest iteration of the seemingly endless ‘War on Terror.’”

The road to the Global War on Terror began in the 1980s with the US government’s decision to recruit, arm, train and finance a Muslim Army to overthrow the Soviet-backed puppet regime in Afghanistan. The creation of al-Qaeda was part of this anti-Soviet strategy. After the defeat of the Red Army in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were deployed in 2001 as primary patsies associated in the media with the false flag operation of 9/11.

It is entirely conceivable that after another contrived false flag event, the Azov Battalion could be pressed into transnational roles similar to those earlier performed by the CIA’s al-Qaeda creation or its subsequent replacement, ISIS.

Whitney’s expectation that that the real culprits of 9/11 are planning something like a reiteration of the events engineered to initiate the Global War on Terror are echoed by Patrick Lawrence in Consortium. Where once al-Qaeda was the set up as a vehicle of Deep State deception, now it is “the Nazi militias that infest the Ukraine’s National Guard that the US arms and trains.”

See this.

Are the Governments that Back Nazi Fighting Units in Ukraine Affected by Their Willingness to Support Nazi Fascism?

What were its intentions when the US government moved its embassy from Kiev to Kviv several days before Putin declared his intentions to intervene with Russian boots on the ground of Ukraine? Eric Zuesse points out that Kyiv was the “the Ukrainian city that was the most ardently pro-Hitler during WW II.”

See this.

In 1941 in Kviv, the local leader of Stepan Bandera’s Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists declared, prematurely as it turned out, the independence of a Ukrainian state allied with Nazi Germany.  The US establishment of a new embassy in a location where Ukrainian nationalism most clearly coincides with the Nazi dimension of Ukrainian history, is highly suggestive.

Most recently the Azov Battalion has been making news on several fronts including for its role in opposing the attempt by Russian Armed Forces to evacuate Russian-speakers from the Mariupol area.

See this.

The Azov group also gets much attention for its efforts to recruit members internationally, a project related to its hosting of a military training camp for children. This project, which includes the goal of encouraging young people to imbibe the philosophy of National Socialism, is pushed forward in violation of UN Conventions.

See this.

Campo del Battaglione Azov per i bambini ucraini https://t.co/h6qgTMOD5u pic.twitter.com/jBETSK5DKz

— Chance 🤺 Giardiniere 🍊 (@ChanceGardiner) March 4, 2022

Taking his lead from neocon politician Chrystia Freeland and from US politicians like Senator John McCain, Trudeau allowed Canadian soldiers to train fascist units including the Azov Battalion and the Right Sector. The fascist militarism of Ukraine’s Right Sector is expressed in a Canadian branch that sometimes takes part in Ukrainian-Canadian jamborees and such.

As Yves Engler has observed “Alongside the U.S., Canada also funds, equips, and trains the neo-Nazi–infiltrated National Police of Ukraine.”

See this.

Shortly after he acquired the job of Canadian PM in 2015, Trudeau showed interest in developing diplomatic relations with Svoboda, the Ukrainian “Social-Nationalist” political party. The reversal of the National Socialist label is not accidental. In 2016 and 2019 Canada’s Prime Minister met with Svoboda leader, Andriy Parubiy. Parubiy is a political ally of Oleh Tyahnybok who has made no secret of his pro-Nazi convictions.”

See this and this.

The impact of Ukrainian fascism on Canada and other NATO countries should not be understated. Prof. Michel Chossudovsky has addressed these larger existential questions in 2014 when he observed the effect of on the backers of Neo-Nazism in Ukraine. He wrote,

“Supporting Neo-Nazism in any country in the world, from my standpoint, is an act of complicity, particularly in the Ukraine where the Neo-Nazi parties have a long history and where the forefathers were involved in atrocities directed at the Ukrainian population but also at the Jewish community in the Ukraine.”

In the Canadian context the Canadian government’s flirtation with Ukrainian-style Nazism seems to be reflected in the disgraceful treatment of the Canadian Truckers’ movement still seeking an end to mandated injections. The Trudeau Liberals’ actions showed up in the decision to subject peaceful protesters to police brutality, to seize bank accounts without an ounce of due process, and to criminalize under dubious circumstances the members of the Coutts 13.

Chossudovsky concluded with some apt remarks highlighting the contemporary role of corporate rule and financial privatization in our own times by pointing attention to the conditions surrounding Hitler’s rise to power in Germany in the 1930s. Chossudovsky explained,

“The United States supported German conglomerates during World War II and the privatization program launched by Adolph Hitler in 1933 was, in some regards, similar to that adopted in the UK under Margaret Thatcher. The first thing they did was to privatize the railways, and then they privatized the banks and they privatized heavy industry, so that, in effect, the thrust of the Nazi economy in the course of the 1930s was not the state; it was the private sector and it was a profit-driven military agenda.”

See this.

Prof. Chossudovsky’s concluding comments help put in context the role of US-based mercenary soldier businesses in the current conflict. The corporate belligerents preparing to send troops into Ukraine Academi (formerly Blackwater) as well as Cubic and the Dyn Corporation.

 

The UN General Assembly’s December 2021 Motion: “Combating the Glorification of Nazism and neo-Nazism”.

On December 16, 2021, two months before the intervention by the Russian government, a motion was passed “combating the glorification of Nazism and neo-Nazism.” Section 5 of the motion included

“Expresses deep concern about the glorification, in any form, of the Nazi movement, neo-Nazism and former members of the Waffen SS organization, including by erecting monuments and memorials….. as well as by the renaming of streets glorifying them.”

See this.

Tellingly, only the USA and Ukraine voted against the resolution. Canada and the EU were among 49 polities to abstain. Supporting the resolution were 130 countries.

We need much more sage and sober discussion concerning the meaning of nazification and denazification in our own times.

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Dr. Anthony Hall is editor in chief of the American Herald Tribune. He is currently Professor of Globalization Studies at University of Lethbridge in Alberta Canada. He has been a teacher in the Canadian university system since 1982. Dr. Hall, has recently finished a big two-volume publishing project at McGill-Queen’s University Press entitled “The Bowl with One Spoon”.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

 

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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Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg and Twitter at @crglobalization.

 

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Today, the dangers of military escalation are beyond description.

What is now happening in Ukraine has serious geopolitical implications. It could lead us into a World War III Scenario.

It is important that a peace process be initiated with a view to preventing escalation. 

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The history of this war must be understood.

The bombing and shelling led by Ukraine’s Armed Forces directed against the people of Donbass started eight years ago, resulting in the destruction of residential areas and more than 10,000 civilian casualties.

A  bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

 

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From one day to the next, a sudden change of priorities – of official UN and government, as well as media priorities, that is. Covid is out and war is in. And we, the people, are to believe it. Everything changed. Corona, held our breath for the last two years, suddenly it disappears, as if it never happened, and makes place to a war, practically overnight. A war that risks to escalate – they say – into a nuclear war. And a war where Russia attacks Ukraine and may use nuclear weapons, thereby prompt NATO to retaliate also with nuclear missiles – and bingo, we have WWIII. This a scenario that western media paint.

“A Russian war of aggression.” That’s the common western narrative. The villain has suddenly shifted from covid to Russia.

Nobody seems to ask how and why?

Hardly anybody seems to ask for the motives, the background and the history preceding this war.

It’s the media again that dictates global, or at least western, beliefs.

Klaus Schwab – WEF – has coined several statements denigrating humanity’s intelligence, such as

“You will own nothing and you will be happy”, or a more recent one,

“It’s not the Big Fish eating the Small Fish; but the Fast One swallowing the Slow One.”

It shows a certain disdain against humanity.

Does he have a point, as long as much of humanity is still asleep, is slumbering away in illusions, that the status quo is happiness – living in some kind of cognitive dissonance?

Waking up is not easy under the tremendous western billion-and-billion-dollar funded media lie-propaganda. We, with access to alternative media, should help those, who are still living on Cloud Nine, so they may also see the light.

In fact, I strongly believe, it is our moral obligation to do so. Not only to help them, but to help the world to become a better place, a place of togetherness, of solidarity – a place in the LIGHT.

Yes, we shall prevail, over Klaus Schwab and those whose tool, the WEF, he represents

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Parenthesis: My Meeting with Andean Peasant Farmer 

The other day I had an interesting conversation with a man, a peasant farmer from Peru’s Andean mountains. He didn’t know much about world affairs, and then asked me some questions about a war in Europe….

With my usual enthusiasm I tried to explain West versus East. He listened carefully, and then he said,

“I‘m so sorry for these people. They are in the dark and would like to see the light, but don’t know how. They feed on our hatred. That’s energy for them. The more we hate them and their actions, the more they thrive – as they cannot see the light. If we are compassionate and feel pity for them, and actually like them – we take away their energy that keeps them in darkness, and may help them see and ascend to the light. Some may not make it – but others will.”

He closed by saying, “the energy that we send around the world with love instead of hate, has an enormous power we can’t see and we don’t know where and when it strikes. But it will never be lost.”

Then he shook my hand and went his way.

This brief interlude left me in awe. It brought to mind The Eagles “Hotel California”, the lyrics of which tell a hidden story, depicting the dark forces trying to govern us. This wise man was perhaps a Shaman – with vibes swinging on a different dimension of consciousness. What a challenge for most of us. But not unsurmountable.

To vibrate on a higher level, loving instead of hating, we also need to know and understand what is happening, open our eyes and ears and be aware that Big Interests want to dominate us. Once we understand this, we become free of fear and may follow the Wise Man’s advice.

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The Current War Scare in Ukraine. Spreading Fear

Does anybody believe that the current war scare replacing the covid scare, is a coincidence?

Or is there something else behind it? A sophisticated plan? Pursuing the same goal as Covid – the pursuit of UN Agenda 2030?

What we need to understand: In geopolitics there are no “coincidences”, only plans and strategies – and short, medium and long-erm objectives. So, Covid never exited the world arena and the war didn’t suddenly enter it.

According to Manlio Dinucci,

“the strategic plan of the United States against Russia was elaborated three years ago by the Rand Corporation (the manifesto, Rand Corp: how to bring down Russia, May 21, 2019)”. See this for details.

Both Covid and war are – it appears – instruments for reaching the same objective; multiple purpose instruments, on the one hand to continue spreading fear – actually increasing the fear and panic level of people with a “nuclear scare”, fearful people can be manipulated easier.

And on the other, with the war bringing in a new strategy to hide the real agenda of the darkness-soaked oligarchs, who want to completely subdue the world population and Mother Earth with all her resources.

Yes, let’s not forget, we are sorry about them and we don’t hate them. We just have to be aware what their plan may be.

While all eyes are riveted on Ukraine and the “bad Russians”, the WHO is preparing a special all controlling agenda, that would give the WHO the power over all UN member countries on anything concerning health actually overriding nations sovereignty. We know this as a fact – annihilating the hilarious “fact-checkers”. See this and this.

The light is gradually forging her way into the world arena, the People’s Arena.

US Bio-Labs in Ukraine

By now we know that Ukraine has some 30 US-funded bio-weapon labs, almost all of them category 3-danger / risk level. (All was vehemently denied by the US governments and western media.)

The denial lies were confirmed by multiple fact-checkers. Until a few days ago, when the lies rather abruptly were contradicted by the very State Department.

A few days ago, Senator Marco Rubio from Florida, called Victoria Nuland, Deputy Secretary of State to testifying in front of a Senate Committee about the more than two dozen bio-labs in Ukraine. To most listeners’ surprise, Madame Nuland, THE expert on the Ukraine conflict, admitted to Senator Rubio that the US funded indeed “research labs” in the Ukraine, and that the US was afraid they might get into the hands of the Russian aggressors.

Ms. Nuland was instrumental in engineering the Maidan Coup on 22 February 2014 in Kiev, together with US Ambassador, Geoffrey Pyatt (see this Nuland- Pyatt telephone transcript by BBC):

More on The Bio Labs

The sudden admission after the weeks-long “fact-checked” denials is hysterical. Victoria Nuland underlined her story by saying that Russia lies, of course as always, and Washington, therefore, has to consider actions to disarm these labs. Hours earlier, the fact that these labs existed, disappeared from the internet.

For details of the Senate Rubio-Nuland hearing see this transcript of Fox News analyst, Tucker Carlson, of 9 March 2022 and this actual Tucker Carlson video analysis.

This debunks all the fake “fact-checkers”.

The Kiev-planned Donbas offensive

On 9 March 2022, Tass allegedly released a news bulletin, asserting that the Russian Defense Ministry got hold of a Secret Plan concocted and issued by the Commander of the Ukrainian National Guard Colonel General Nikolay Balan, on January 22, 2022. – The Kiev Government apparently had planned an attack on the Donbas area in early March 2022, on the People’s Republics Donetsk (DPR) and Lugansk (PRL). See this for details.

Allegedly, based on this information, President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, apparently decided on 24 February to intervene in Ukraine, primarily to save the about 4.1 million mostly Russian-origin inhabitants from yet another Kiev assault.

In the 8 years since the western US / NATO / EU organized Maidan coup on 22 February 2014, close to 14,000 Donbas citizens were killed by Kiev aggressions. Some 2 million have fled Donbas, mostly for Russia.

It might be assumed that the WEF and its handlers – whom, as we should not forget have a much larger agenda, namely the UN Agenda 2030 – had “organized” the document to prompt the timely Russian invasion, thus, coinciding with the apparent disappearance of covid. Yet, given Mr. Putin’s intelligence background and savvy, Russia most likely new independently of the so-called “leaked” secret document about the impending Kiev attack on the Donbas Republics.

Russia has three stated goals with her intervention in Ukraine, (i) demilitarize Ukraine and make her into a neutral nation; (ii) denazification of Ukraine, and (iii) obtain a tangible commitment by the west, that NATO would never enter Ukraine, and, furthermore, that NATO should pull back to the geographic lines before 1997. This was part of an agreement by the “allied forces” vis-à-is the new Russia, at the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and later confirmed by the Minsk Agreement of 5 September 2014.

The Agreement was never adhered to. See this map with NATO in 1998 and in 2022.

Now, western and world media “warn” of a nuclear war, literally a WWIII Scenario. True, this could happen, but unlikely provoked by Russia.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the western empire, including Europe, risks an imminent collapse. During the onset of this collapse, the empire may act like a dying beast, lashing around, pulling with it down the drain, as much as possible. This might happen, but I’m positive it won’t. There is too much at stake. The devastation of at least a good portion of Europe.

The risk of a WWIII may be further reduced, as a massive war, a nuclear war, might run out of hand and interfere with the Agenda 2030 – when the major goals of the Great reset ought to be completed. Let me repeat them:

i) massive depopulation – yes, a WWIII would contribute to this goal, but would also destroy crucial, uncalcuable and vital infrastructure the surviving elite might need to further their cause;

ii)  gigantic capital and assets transfers from the lower and middle class and especially from small and medium-size enterprises’ bankruptcies to the top, creating widespread unemployment, misery, famine and death; and

iii) digitization of everything. This includes the end of cash and the ascent of fully digitized money, monetary transactions and commerce; implementation of Bill Gates Agenda ID2020, in the form of the QR-code which already today is everywhere. It has literally infiltrated itself in people’s daily lives, and nobody seems to specially care.

The QR-code is poison. It has literally unlimited data storage capacity. Since it covers your bank account, your health records, your criminal record, your every step you take, it will allow total surveillance of everybody’s every move they make. 

Bad behavior may be punished by closing down or (temporarily) blocking your bank account. Total surveillance could remotely “neutralize” undesired and / or unnecessary subjects, as robots and AI may gradually take over – first manual jobs, then increasingly intellectual jobs – eliminating humans and transhumans – unnecessary eaters. 

Sounds brutal?

Yes, but that’s the plan. The Great Reset.

Will they achieve it? – Think positive and they won’t. Human dynamics and spiritual capacity, as well as solidarity and sovereign thinking — and foremost believing in mankind’s potential to move into the LIGHT and vibrate on a higher consciousness, one that doesn’t hate, but love, and aspires cooperation, worldwide – in a non-globalized format of nation-states’ sovereignty and, foremost, local money – cash not digital.

Remember the story of the Andean wise man – about Love, Compassion and Peace?

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

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

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

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This leaked telephone exchange was originally published online. It was reported by several media including the BBC in February 2014.  This conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt confirms unequivocally that Washington was involved in a Ukraine “regime change” operation in February 2014.

Below is the transcript with comments by BBC’s Jonathan Marcus

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As you would expect from brain-dead Biden and the people controlling him, American policy has been moving in the wrong direction. Whatever you think about the situation in the Ukraine, one thing is obvious. It’s a crisis. Shouldn’t we try to stay out of danger? Instead, the US has led the way in imposing drastic economic sanctions on Russia, backing Putin into the wall. What if he gets desperate and uses atomic weapons? This could result in the end of civilized life on our planet. Is this what Americans want?

The danger isn’t just something I and other critics of American policy have conjured up.

President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday [March 5] that Western sanctions on Russia were akin to a declaration of war and warned that any attempt to impose a no-fly zone in Ukraine would lead to catastrophic consequences for the world. . . “These sanctions that are being imposed are akin to a declaration of war but thank God it has not come to that,” Putin said, speaking to a group of flight attendants at an Aeroflot training centre near Moscow. He said any attempt by another power to impose a no-fly zone in Ukraine would be considered by Russia to be a step into the military conflict.

The neocon warmongers brush this danger aside. They say that “we” have to do something to defend the Ukraine from an unprovoked Russian attack. But this totally distorts what is happening there. The Ukrainian government started things by moving against Donbass, a territory that declared independence and is allied with Russia. According to the Ukrainian government, the Ukrainians can secede from Russia but people can’t secede from the Ukraine. As Rick Rozoff pointed out in an article on February 2,

Two-thirds of Ukrainian army servicemen have been amassed along the Donbas contact line, Eduard Basurin, spokesman for the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) militia, said on Thursday.

“Another three brigades are on their way [to Donbas], which is 20,000 to 25,000 troops more. The total number will reach 150,000, not to mention the nationalists. This is about two-thirds of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ personnel,” Basurin said on the Rossiya 1 television channel (VGTRK) on Thursday.

The Ukrainian troops are stationed along the 320-kilometer front line, he said…. The situation in Donbass has reached a critical mark in the past week due to Ukraine’s aggressive actions, Donetsk People’s Republic representative at the Minsk talks, DPR Foreign Minister Natalia Nikonorova said on Thursday.

But the provocative actions against Russia go much further back. Vasko Kohlmayer gives an excellent account of these and highlights the danger of nuclear war that reckless American policy has caused:

The war drums are, of course, beating for US involvement in the Ukrainian conflict.

“Declare a NoFlyZone over Ukraine,” tweeted Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.).

Lindsey Graham, a powerful US Senator, went so far as to publicly advocate the assassination of the Russian head of state. Tweeted he:

Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military? The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out. You would be doing your country—and the world—a great service.

Such brazen incitement to murder by a highly positioned US official could be construed as a war act by the other side.

Watching the mounting hysteria, we can be certain that the beating of the war drums is going to become only louder in the days ahead…. Before the situation escalates into a nuclear Armageddon, ordinary people would do well to ask themselves whether we have any dog in this fight.

And if we do, what is the size of this dog? Is it big enough to run the risk of nuclear annihilation?

Until last week, most Americans knew almost nothing about Ukraine. If you asked them what is its capital or major river, you would get no response…. What triggered Putin was the globalists’ push to expand NATO to Russia’s doorstep in Ukraine. The globalists wanted to make it part of their New World Order which they use to prettily enrich themselves.

Joe Biden’s family has been at it for years already. They pulled millions from that land through the President’s son Hunter in one of the most brazen and shameless schemes of influence peddling in American history…. If Trudeau, Biden and their friends want us to go to war with Russia, they must explain to common people how exactly it is in their vital interest that Ukraine join NATO.

Until they give us a good reason, we should say NO to the war in Ukraine.

The Russians have made it amply clear what they want. They want a neutral Ukraine that is free of NATO. This is a reasonable demand. To start World War III over this would be an act of most regrettable foolishness.

Is there anything we can do to deescalate the situation? The greatest congressman in American history, Dr. Ron Paul, has the answer. American should end its encirclement of Russia and disband NATO. Let’s look at his vital message to us:

When the Bush Administration announced in 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia would be eligible for NATO membership, I knew it was a terrible idea. Nearly two decades after the end of both the Warsaw Pact and the Cold War, expanding NATO made no sense. NATO itself made no sense.

Explaining my “no” vote on a bill to endorse the expansion, I said at the time:

NATO is an organization whose purpose ended with the end of its Warsaw Pact adversary…. This current round of NATO expansion is a political reward to governments in Georgia and Ukraine that came to power as a result of US-supported revolutions, the so-called Orange Revolution and Rose Revolution.

Providing US military guarantees to Ukraine and Georgia can only further strain our military. This NATO expansion may well involve the US military in conflicts unrelated to our national interest …

Unfortunately, as we have seen this past week, my fears have come true. One does not need to approve of Russia’s military actions to analyze its stated motivation: NATO membership for Ukraine was a red line it was not willing to see crossed. As we find ourselves at risk of a terrible escalation, we should remind ourselves that it didn’t have to happen this way. There was no advantage to the United States to expand and threaten to expand NATO to Russia’s doorstep. There is no way to argue that we are any safer for it.

NATO itself was a huge mistake…. I believe as strongly today as I did back in my 2008 House Floor speech that, “NATO should be disbanded, not expanded.” In the meantime, expansion should be off the table. The risks do not outweigh the benefits!

The same people who imposed covid tyranny on us now want us to risk war with Russia. Let’s stop them before it’s too late.

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Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., is founder and chairman of the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, and editor of LewRockwell.com.

Featured image is from Mises Wire

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This week marks the 19th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and in the last two decades there has been no serious American reckoning with the magnitude of the crime that our government and its allies committed. 

The invasion was an unprovoked war of aggression in flagrant violation of the U.N. Charter, and it led to decades of violence and instability whose effects continue to plague the region until today. The war was also one of the biggest strategic errors of modern U.S. history, but it is insufficient to acknowledge the war as a “mistake” and leave it at that. The U.S. still presents itself as a defender of international order, but in 2003 it broke the most important rule that prohibits the use of force except for self-defense.

For the last 20 years, the U.S. has treated the sovereignty of many states as conditional, reserving the right to attack others when it so chooses. If we should learn anything from U.S. wars in this century, it is that aggression against other states is always wrong and it erodes the protections under international law that help to maintain peace and security. No matter the pretext or rationalization, no state has the right to attack another. Supposedly good intentions are no justification.

The lesson of the Iraq war is not only that the U.S. should stay out of the regime change business, but also that the U.S. should renounce preventive warfare once and for all.

The 2003 invasion was responsible for inflicting and unleashing violence that took the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, injured countless more, and displaced millions. The instability created by the invasion also contributed to the emergence of the Islamic State and the conflict in Syria. The people of Iraq will be living with the war’s effects for decades to come, and we need to remember that they are the ones who suffered and lost the most from the reckless decision of our government. While most Americans quickly forget about these policies, our government’s destructive actions have lasting consequences for tens of millions of people. Those actions will be remembered generations from now.

Because our government wields so much power, it is essential that it learns to use force sparingly and only when absolutely necessary. This means that the U.S. must not threaten other states with attack to compel them to make concessions, and it must under no circumstances initiate hostilities against another state. The U.S. should not act as an international vigilante seeking to bludgeon so-called “rogue” states into submission. The most important thing the U.S. can do to uphold international order is to adhere to it in its own conduct. Routine U.S. violations of international law serve to undermine it and invite others to treat it with the same contempt.

Preventive war cannot be defensive, and it cannot be just. The Bush administration deceptively branded the attack on Iraq as “pre-emption,” but there was no imminent threat to pre-empt. The Iraq war was sold to the public by stoking the irrational fear of some possible future threat that was never going to materialize. Even if the remote threat had been real, it still would not have justified the invasion.

This is directly relevant to the ongoing debate over the possible use of force against Iran’s nuclear facilities. While the nuclear deal may soon be revived for the next few years, the danger that the U.S. might resort to military action to “solve” the problem will not be completely gone. There are still many American advocates for military action even now, and it is possible they could find a receptive audience in a future administration. If the nuclear deal collapses sooner rather than later, there will almost certainly be a pressure campaign in favor of an attack. That makes it important to emphasize that any such attack would be illegal and outrageous. Military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities can’t be justified as self-defense, especially since Iran possesses no nuclear weapons program. There is no legitimate basis for the U.S. or any other state to launch attacks on targets inside Iran.

Rejecting aggressive warfare has implications for other areas of U.S. foreign policy as well. If the U.S. refuses to start wars, it should also refuse to arm and support other states that launch illegal attacks in neighboring countries. Even when client governments dress up that aggression as “self-defense,” the U.S. should not provide them with any weapons or military assistance so long as they are striking at their neighbors. That would mean cutting off support to Saudi Arabia and the UAE over their aggression in Yemen, and it would also mean no support for Israel while their government launches attacks against targets in Syria and Iraq. The U.S. should both refrain from aggression and stop enabling the aggression of others.

If the use of force is restricted only to self-defense, that implies that the U.S. should also renounce waging wars for ostensibly humanitarian reasons. This is not only because humanitarian interventions often fail to meet the criteria for just war, but also because the U.S. does not have the authority on its own or as part of a group of states to decide that the prohibition on the use of force can be disregarded whenever it sees fit.

It was fashionable after the 1999 U.S./NATO intervention in Kosovo to describe that war as “illegal but legitimate,” but if the prohibition means anything it can’t be violated like that. If NATO is to be a truly defensive alliance, it shouldn’t be used as a platform for wars that have nothing to do with the defense of its members.

It is commonplace for politicians and policymakers to say that they believe war should be a last resort, but in practice far too many Americans rush to support military options whether they make any sense or not. Despite being citizens of the most powerful country in the world, many of our leaders encourage us to be frightened of minuscule and manageable dangers on the other side of the world. If we would have a foreign policy that isn’t defined by constant warfare and fearmongering, Americans will have to learn not to be so easily alarmed.

The United States is extraordinarily secure from physical attack, so the instances when the U.S. needs to use force to defend itself will be very rare. An integral part of not going abroad in search of monsters to destroy is to refuse to concoct excuses for taking military action against states that don’t and usually can’t threaten our country.

What the Iraq War experience taught us is that the United States needs to take advantage of its natural security, and be willing to fight only when our country or one of our treaty allies comes under attack. The temptation to start or join wars unrelated to self-defense will always be present, and that is why it is imperative that we as Americans learn from the folly of the last twenty years.

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Dr. Robert Malone discusses COVID-19 shots’ effects on fertility and targeting children with social pressure and coercion to get jabbed

In this nearly four-hour discussion with Candace Owens, Malone touches on the global narrative that’s intent on hunting down physicians and taking away their licenses for providing early COVID-19 treatment and how Bill Gates and Big Tech have succeeded in creating monopolies and gained control of information

Malone describes three Department of Defense (DOD) whistleblowers who datamined the DOD health database, revealing disturbing increases in rates of miscarriage, cancer, neurological disease and stillbirths since COVID-19 jabs rolled out

Malone is dedicated to speaking out because he wants to protect future generations; he’s concerned about the pandemic response’s effects on children, stating that public policies have had a particularly strong adverse effect on the young

If people reconnect and come together once again for a real greater good, Malone believes we can avoid a Great Reset and instead experience a Great Awakening

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I hope you enjoy this two-part interview of two intellectual giants by Candace Owens with Dr. Robert Malone, inventor of the mRNA and DNA vaccine core platform technology.¹ They discuss some of the most important issues facing humanity today. In their nearly four-hour discussion, they touch on everything from COVID-19 shots’ effects on fertility to the “red line” that’s been crossed — referring to targeting children with social pressure and coercion to get jabbed.

Malone has been thrust into the spotlight for speaking out about the risks of COVID-19 shots, with his words going viral before quickly being erased from YouTube and Twitter. It doesn’t matter if what he’s saying is true; if it creates “vaccine hesitancy,” it will be censored. Toward that end, Malone has been targeted by the media and labeled an “anti-vaxxer,” which is ironic since he’s received COVID-19 shots.

That fact should make it all the more apparent that he’s speaking out not due to a predetermined agenda or because he’s getting rich — to the contrary, his reputation is constantly under attack — but because he believes it’s the right thing to do, and he feels morally obliged to help anyone he can.

COVID-19 Shots Are Affecting Fertility

Anecdotal reports of alterations in women’s menstrual cycles following COVID-19 shots have poured in around the globe. Changes include heavier and more painful periods² and changes in menses length, as well as unexpected breakthrough bleeding or spotting among women on long-acting contraception or those who are postmenopausal and haven’t had a period in years or even decades.³

Health officials have tried to brush off the reports, and doctors have told women that it’s just a result of stress — something dubbed “hysteria” in earlier times. Upon hearing that so many women’s concerns were brushed off as hysteria, Malone said:⁴

“Is this the 1950s? Have I just gone back a century? This whole thing that women are being histrionic is so mid-century. But that’s how they rolled it out. And it’s not just younger women. It’s post-menopausal women that start having menstruation. That’s another big one, which is, for pathologists, which is part of my background, that’s a red flag for cancer.”

Sure enough, a study published in Obstetrics & Gynecology in January 2022 — funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Research on Women’s Health — confirmed an association between menstrual cycle length and COVID-19 shots.⁵

Pfizer’s biodistribution study, which was used to determine where the injected substances go in the body, also showed the COVID spike protein from the shots accumulated in “quite high concentrations” in the ovaries.⁶

A Japanese biodistribution study for Pfizer’s jab also found that vaccine particles move from the injection site to the blood, after which circulating spike proteins are free to travel throughout the body, including to the ovaries, liver, neurological tissues and other organs.⁷ Malone explained:⁸

“The thing that drives menstruation is the ovary. We know that the lipids — the synthetic, positively charged fats that wrap the RNA to get it to slip into cells — have never been administered to humans before. We know from the Pfizer data package that came out of Japan that these lipids go to the ovary … your children, your girls are born with all the eggs that they will ever have in their entire lives.

And we don’t know yet what the reproductive harm is going to be, but we do know that in young women, reproductive age women, we are seeing this phenotype, this characteristic.

And not only am I very worried about it, I did testimony — as did many others — with the Orthodox Jewish community … they made the determination and sent out a formal statement to their community that these vaccines should not be used in children and strongly discourage their use in adults.

And one of the reasons is they are very focused on reproductive health. What we’re talking about is a deep issue that is not treatable at all … I think we can say this with confidence that if we’re having menstrual irregularities, we are having alterations in fertility.”

Thomas Renz, a lawyer that Malone knows personally, had three Department of Defense (DOD) whistleblowers come forward. They had datamined the DOD health database, which Malone states is one of the best in the U.S.⁹

They looked through data from 2015 to 2020, establishing a baseline of the number of cases of miscarriage, cancer, neurological disease and stillbirths. Then, they compared it to 2021, after the COVID-19 shots rolled out. Renz showed Malone some of the disturbing data:¹⁰

“I just skimmed the data. Thomas had his laptop open and showed me some of the things that are popping up. They pulled a massive amount of data out of the DOD databases and then did a whistleblower complaint. Ron Johnson has now extended Senate protection to them formally as whistleblowers.

So they came to Thomas Renz with this information, and from what I saw — now this is preliminary, we haven’t dissected it yet — but at the top level, I thought it was mind-blowing. The information about miscarriages, the information about cancers, which is validating what Ryan Cole has been concerned about, neurologic disease and the stillbirths is there.

And apparently, according to Thomas, these brave whistleblowers have captured examples and information, with the cardiac events, for instance, of the Department of Defense — whoever is doing this, the data management — is actually going in and deleting cases, manipulating the database.”

Owens also saw the data and said the lowest category increase was 248%, while others increased by 1,000%. “It’s not subtle,” Malone said.¹¹

Experts Raise Cancer Concerns

Dr. Ryan Cole, the Mayo Clinic-trained, triple-boarded pathologist who Malone referred to, has stated that he’s seeing potential cancer-causing changes, including decreases in receptors that keep cancer in check, and other adverse events post-shot:¹²

“I’m seeing countless adverse reactions … it’s really post-vaccine immunodeficiency syndrome … I’m seeing a marked increase in herpetic family viruses, human papilloma viruses in the post vaccinated. I’m seeing a marked uptick in a laboratory setting from what I see year over year of an increase of usually quiescent diseases.

In addition to that — and correlation is not causation — but in the last six months I have seen — you know, I read a fair amount of women’s health biopsies —about a 10- to 20-fold increase of uterine cancer compared to what I see on an annual basis.

Now we know that the CD8 cells are one of our T-cells to keep our cancers in check. I am seeing early signals … what I’m seeing is an early signal in the laboratory setting that post vaccinated patients are having diseases that we normally don’t see at rates that are already early considerably alarming.”

In addition to the effects on the ovaries, the Japanese study found vaccine deposits were found in bone marrow, raising additional cancer concerns, Malone says:¹³

“Bone marrow is really sensitive to local environments … and produces a whole lot of different types of cells that are involved in bone metabolism. This is something that matters a lot to women, particularly as they move through menopause — bone density. I

So there are cells that regulate bone remodeling and bone density that come from your bone marrow. Much of your blood elements come from stem cells that sit in your bone marrow. Red cells and white cells.

There are many types of cancer that can occur when those stem cell populations that live in your bone marrow get changed so that they lose their normal controls on growth. So that’s really what cancer is. So lymphoma, leukemia, chronic myelogenous leukemia, all these things, are all bone marrow cancer diseases.”

The Silencing of Mass Formation Psychosis

If you’ve heard the term “mass formation psychosis” recently, it’s likely because Malone mentioned it on an episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” December 31, 2021, which was viewed by more than 50 million people.¹⁴ January 2, 2022, mass formation psychosis reached a value of 100 on Google Trends,¹⁵ which means it had reached peak popularity, after previously being practically unheard of.

The technocrats quickly took action, manipulating search results and populating Google with propaganda to discredit Malone and the mass formation psychosis theory — even though Mattias Desmet, professor of clinical psychology at the University of Ghent in Belgium, who has 126 publications to his name,¹⁶ has been studying it for many years, and the phenomenon actually dates back over 100 years.

Those under the spell of mass formation psychosis obsessively focus on a failure of the normal world or a particular event or person, who becomes the focus of the attention and can effectively control the masses.

Mass formation can occur in a society with feelings of social isolation and free-floating anxiety among a large number of people, and provides a coherent explanation of why so many people have fallen victim to the unbelievable lies and propaganda of the mainstream COVID-19 narrative. The phenomenon leads to totalitarian thinking and, eventually, to totalitarian states, but as Malone told Owens, fortunately about one-third of people are resistant to it.

Speaking Out to Save Children

Malone is dedicated to speaking out because he wants to protect future generations. He’s concerned about the pandemic response’s effects on children, stating that public policies have had a particularly strong adverse effect on the young.

He called COVID-19 injection mandates “completely unjustified” for children¹⁷ and recommends that youths who have received COVID-19 injections have their hearts checked for damage,¹⁸ given the real risk of myocarditis and heart damage. Mask mandates in schools have also interfered with children’s psychological health, and Malone believes they’re causing developmental delays in children.

Further, a bill has now been introduced in California that would allow 12-year-olds to consent to COVID-19 shots, which Malone presents as another way the government is enforcing control where it doesn’t belong:¹⁹

“In terms of kids, moms and dads have to take ownership … it’s your job, it’s my job to protect the kids, and don’t let the government get in the middle of your family. That’s another thing that has been so wrong here, how we’ve allowed the government to insert itself into the family, and that has got to stop …

What we’ve learned is that children are being subjected to intense social pressure and pressure by their school teachers. So technically in the clinical research world, we call this coercion. Just like giving out ice cream to take jabs is enticement …

They’re seeking to create a situation in which children are going to be subjected to coercion by their school teachers and their peers to take an unlicensed medical product that they don’t need to take because they are not at risk from the disease, and which has real risks of causing them harm. That’s, to be blunt, where we’re at. What do I say to parents? I say get informed.”

Will There Be a Great Reset or a Great Awakening?

We’re at the point now where all media is being manipulated and information is being controlled. “There’s a school of thought,” Malone said, “that this happened long ago with the rise of the Rockefellers, and the perversion of the entire medical enterprise and medical schools.”²⁰

In the immediacy, people who have been harmed by COVID-19 shots are being called crazy by their friends and family. Those who have banded together with other victims on social media, forming groups to share their experiences that even many doctors continue to deny, have also been shut down, their pages deleted. “It’s the ultimate gaslighting,” Malone said.²¹

He and Owens touch on much more in the interview, from the global narrative that’s intent on hunting down physicians and taking away their licenses for providing early COVID-19 treatment to how Bill Gates and Big Tech have succeeded in creating monopolies and gained control of information.

Malone, however, wants to empower people with information and tools to think so they can make their own decisions about the world around them. If that occurs, and people reconnect and come together once again for a real greater good, he believes we can avoid a Great Reset and instead experience a Great Awakening:²²

“There’s the Great Reset, which is often tied to this language of ‘build back better,’ because that’s the approved language from the World Economic Forum. So there’s this Great Reset toward a world where we own nothing and we’re happy … and we’re told what to do and we do it.

And there’s the Great Awakening, where it could be a renaissance. If we use the metaphor of Europe in the 1400s, 1500s and 1600s, moving from a dark age into a renaissance … there was a period of intense explosion when people got intellectually engaged …

If we allow ourselves to start thinking again and engaging with the world and engaging with each other, could we get to a point where we have a Great Awakening instead of a Great Reset? Where we become committed to each other and to a life of the mind and the body? I think that is a possibility. I don’t think that we’re too far gone.”

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Notes

¹ Trial Site News May 30, 2021

² Boston University September 9, 2021

³ NPR August 9, 2021

⁴ Rumble, The Red Line With Dr. Robert Malone, Part I February 3, 2022, 13:46

⁵ Obstetrics & Gynecology: January 5, 2022 – Volume – Issue – 10.1097

⁶ Children’s Health Defense June 3, 2021

⁷ Rights and Freedoms, Confidential Pfizer Research Document

⁸ Rumble, The Red Line With Dr. Robert Malone, Part I February 3, 2022, 27:47

^9, 10 Rumble, The Red Line With Dr. Robert Malone, Part I February 3, 2022, 18:48

¹¹ Rumble, The Red Line With Dr. Robert Malone, Part I February 3, 2022, 21:32

¹² Verve Times August 29, 2021

¹³ Rumble, The Red Line With Dr. Robert Malone, Part I February 3, 2022, 24:07

¹⁴ Church Militant January 11, 2022

¹⁵ Google Trends, mass formation psychosis

¹⁶ University of Ghent, Professor Mattias Desmet, Academic Bibliography

¹⁷ YouTube, Senator Ron Johnson January 25, 2022, 10:51

¹⁸ Rumble, The Red Line With Dr. Robert Malone, Part 2 February 2, 2022, 30:31

¹⁹ Rumble, The Red Line With Dr. Robert Malone, Part 2 February 2, 2022, 56:00, 1:42

²⁰ Rumble, The Red Line With Dr. Robert Malone, Part 2 February 2, 2022, 55:07

²¹ Rumble, The Red Line With Dr. Robert Malone, Part 2 February 2, 2022, 1:34

²² Rumble, The Red Line With Dr. Robert Malone, Part 2 February 2, 2022, 2:04

Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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In an interview with former BlackRock advisor Edward Dowd on “RFK Jr. The Defender Podcast,” Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Dowd discussed why they believe COVID vaccine makers committed fraud, and government agencies know it.

In an interview with former BlackRock advisor Edward Dowd on “RFK Jr. The Defender Podcast,” Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Dowd discussed the financial and moral implications of fraudulent data from the COVID-19 vaccine trials.

Dowd, a managing director with BlackRock from 2002 to 2012, said, “what tipped me off to the fraud” was when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it wouldn’t release the trial data for 75 years. He knew something wasn’t right.

Dowd told Kennedy:

“The FDA is in on the cover-up, something went down. The other tip for me was in November of last year, a friend of mine from the biotech industry discovered that Pfizer had failed their all-cause mortality endpoint. And that was not available to us when this fanfare occurred in November of 2020, when they all got excited about 95% efficacy.”

Dowd concluded, “the FDA didn’t really look at this clinical trial data” yet rushed it through due to political pressure or “maybe straight-up bribes,” but either way, he said, the vaccines should have never been approved.

Kennedy and Dowd discussed how the trial numbers were skewed to make it seem the vaccines were effective when the real data showed otherwise.

Kennedy said:

“What it really means is you have to give 22,000 vaccines to prevent one COVID death. And if you’re gonna give 22,000 vaccines, you better make sure that the vaccines don’t kill anybody. Because if they kill one person, you’ve canceled out any benefit.”

Kennedy described how the vaccine makers manipulated the data and the news to maximize profits. He asked Dowd why he thinks there will be consequences.

Dowd said:

“I think there’s enough proof for people to investigate fraud in the clinical data and the FDA’s complicity in this … The tragic part of this is we had to wait for real-world evidence. And the real-world evidence is so awful that there’s gonna be a public outcry. And even though the mainstream media is not participating with this yet, they will. You can’t hide this anymore.”

Dowd also told Kennedy, “investors are slowly waking up to the fact that something is not right” and some are selling their shares in Pfizer and Moderna.

He also said that when the insurance industry awakens to the fraud, there will be greater consequences:

“There’s an industry that’s been defrauded. It’s the insurance industry. They are currently paying for excess deaths due to a product that kills. And they’re gonna be paying for years of disability from vaccine injuries. I don’t think they’re gonna put up with that once they realize what’s happened.”

Kennedy described how the insurance industry has ignored the autism epidemic and the general degradation of health in the U.S. He asked Dowd to explain why insurance industry executives would react any differently to illness and death caused by COVID vaccines.

Dowd said:

“The insurance industry didn’t price this, this is the problem. So it’s such a catastrophic number and the injuries that are gonna be created for years, they’re gonna hurt their capitalization over time… you’ve been seeing a problem that’s been going on for years, but it was in different, smaller areas — but now they bit off more than they can chew. They just poisoned 220 million Americans. This is literally a bridge too far.”

Kennedy and Dowd discussed why the false narrative surrounding COVID is about to crumble.

Kennedy commented on people’s reluctance to doubt the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry:

“The big pushback you get, at least that I get, when I try to explain to loved ones and family and friends — they say, ‘We don’t believe it. There’s a million doctors out there, and you’re saying that they’re all involved in a conspiracy? That they all know that they’re giving this poison to people and that they’re killing them? There’s no way that’s happening.’

“And what I say is, the doctors don’t know — they believe what the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and FDA tell them. All sorts of information. Very few of them are actually reading the peer-reviewed publications.

“We’re thinking independently and questioning the authorities.”

Watch the full interview here.

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Featured image is from CHD

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***

I have over 50 pieces of data that is simply impossible to explain if the vaccines are safe and effective. I’ll be adding them to this article over time, so check back for the latest. I’ll post the most recent additions at the top to make this easy.

I’m starting with just one item right now which is the only item you need to know to stop the vaccine mandates. It is so important, I wanted to push it out now.

Why doctors say nothing

Because the medical boards threaten to take away their license if they say anything publicly or privately against the vaccine.

In California, doctors used to write exemptions for the vaccine and mask wearing. The medical boards got a list of those doctors and contacted them.

After that, no more exemptions got written.

To test this someone called up hundreds of physicians saying their child had a severe anaphylactic reaction after the first shot and nearly died and they wanted to see if the doctor would write an exemption for the child. They all said no.

UK government data shows the vaccines make things worse. We were misled.

This is data from an unimpeachable source: the UK government in its week 32 to 35 report for 2021. Look at the rates per 100,000 for doubly vaxxed vs. unvaccinated people for age ranges 40 to 80. Yup, you are more likely to be infected if you are vaccinated in each sub-range within 40 to 80. So there is no age confounding on this data. It’s simply impossible to explain. It shows why vaccine mandates are making you more susceptible to infection for people 40 to 80, not better.

Show this chart to your blue pill friends and ask them to explain why the vaccine should be mandated. Here’s what one reader wrote:

I actually shared a similar report with my cardiologist yesterday. When he just looked at me, saying nothing, I said, “Well, at least the NHS in the UK is being honest about the vaccines.” People will do what they’re going to do, I just pray that most will wake up!

Here’s the most recent data (March 17, 2022 from page 45) and it is much worse:

There is simply no way to explain this data if the vaccine works as is claimed. In the footnote, they use what is known as a handwaving argument which is speculation based on zero data. For example, they say there could be more cases for vaccinated people because they test more often (really? whereas the data to back that up?).

They can hand-wave all they want and it doesn’t change the facts.

For example, in Santa Clara County they did of freedom of information act request and found that vaccinated and unvaccinated first responders had effectively the same rate of infections. In other words, it wasn’t protecting people where I live either.

What is most telling are the huge population studies, for example, in 145 countries showing that almost without exception, the more you vaccinate, the higher the cases and deaths. Funny, the UK government never cites any studies at all that challenge the narrative. There are plenty and over a dozen are listed in Incriminating Evidence.

We have all been victims of a massive fraud.

But the whole point of mandates was that it would protect you from getting sick so you wouldn’t infect others. Clearly, the mandates make you more likely to get sick. This is opposite what you were told. Everyone should be outraged at this.

The same UK report claims a death benefit, but that’s only if you ignore all the deaths caused by the vaccine. If you include those, it’s negative as well.

In South Korea, COVID cases are through the roof but nearly everyone is vaccinated

Here’s a quote from Alex Berenson’s article:

On Thursday, South Korea reported 600,000 new Covid infections – the equivalent of more than 4 million in the United States. In a single day.

Since they are all vaccinated, how is that possible?

The mRNA shots have negative efficacy against Omicron infection within months – meaning that vaccinated people are more likely to become infected. Data from Canada, Britain, Scotland, the United States, and other countries all agree on this point. I’m not sure anyone serious even argues it anymore.

In New Zealand, for example, unvaccinated people now have even lower infection rates than those who have received boosters:

Why the deception?

One reader asked “why would our authorities mislead us?” The answer is simple: everyone believed Tony Fauci when he chose to focus on the vaccine and completely discredit early treatment. At that point, it was too big to fail since every world leader supported the vaccine. When the data showed the vaccine was unsafe and ineffective (the data showed it killed over 100,000 Americans), they had to cover up their mistake or nobody would ever trust them again. The medical community isn’t speaking up because they will have their licenses revoked. The press won’t say anything because America will never trust them again. Same for Congress, the NIH, CDC, and FDA. The FDA and CDC looked the other way at the safety signals because the vaccine was too big to fail: it HAD to work in order to end the pandemic.

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Dr. Joseph Hickey, a data scientist at the Bank of Canada (Canada’s central bank) was placed on unpaid leave without benefits by his employer in November 2021, for declining to receive injections of a COVID-19 vaccine [See also: OCLA blog post, media article 1, media article 2].

On March 16, 2022, Dr. Hickey submitted an internal appeal of the Bank’s decision. His 766-page submission describes and cites the scientific evidence that demonstrates there are many medical reasons for declining vaccination, including that:

• There was no emergency that caused large amounts of deaths in Canada in 2020-2021 that would justify vaccinating the entire population;
• There is no reliable evidence that the COVID-19 vaccine products provide any health benefit;
• Vaccine products injected via intramuscular routes are in-effect physiologically incapable of preventing infection and transmission of respiratory illnesses;
• There is autopsy, surveillance, and statistical evidence of grave dangers of COVID-19 vaccine products;
• There are more than 1000 peer-reviewed articles providing evidence of harm from COVID-19 vaccine products;
• There is a significantly increased risk of dangerous heart inflammation following injection with a COVID-19 vaccine product, especially for younger males, and this danger is heightened for those who engage in strenuous physical activity;
• Natural immunity provides robust and sufficient protection against respiratory illnesses; and
• It is a fundamental principle of medicine that individual assessment of risk is a personal and confidential choice and the decision to receive or not receive a medical intervention must be made with free and informed consent.

A copy of the submission can be read at the link here. The sections containing the scientific and medical submissions begin on pg. 14, and can be navigated using the “bookmarks” in the PDF file (in the left column in Adobe PDF reader).

Excerpts from the submission:

Click here to read the submission.

Hickey’s submission also contains sections describing:

• his religious and human rights (age & sex) grounds for accommodation (section 3);
• Canadian caselaw demonstrating that the vaccine mandates violate the Charter rights to freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, and life, liberty, and security of the person, and other legal principles (section 4).

Joseph Hickey is also the (volunteer) Executive Director of the Ontario Civil Liberties Association (OCLA).

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More than 230 peace activists in Canada and the United States came together on March 14 for a Zoom webinar on the Ukraine crisis. In addition, the Facebook live stream had 184 views with many more expected with the replay. Organized by the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War (Canada), the exchange was co-sponsored by United National Anti-War Coalition (US), Fire This Time Movement for Social Justice (Canada), Mobilization Against War and Occupation (Canada), Orinoco Tribune (Venezuela), the International Action Center (US) the International Manifesto Group (Canada) and the Regina Peace Council (Canada). The Canada Files was the media sponsor. The panel was bilingual, English and French, with simultaneous translation. The webinar title was: The Ukraine Crisis: What Is the Cause, Russia or US/NATO?

The five panelists were in agreement that the mainstream media were engaging in hysterical demonization of Russia, confusing the people concerning the causes of the conflict.  They expressed the need for developing an anti-war movement and for expanding the alternative media.  They expressed concern for a growing censorship and silencing of persons, organizations, and ideas that defend Russia.

Danny Haiphong (US), a contributor to Black Agenda Report in the USA and co-editor of Friends of Socialist China, stressed that Russia is not our enemy, and that it is important to listen to the Russian perspective in seeking to understand the conflict.  From the Russian perspective, one sees the historic aggressive opposition of Western imperialism to the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union; and the expansion of NATO, following the fall of the Soviet Union, to the east and to the Russian border.  Haiphong noted that Russia had persistently made clear the unacceptability of the incorporation of Ukraine into NATO and the violence, since 2014, against the Russian population in the Donbass region.  NATO, he maintained, is the source of endless imperialist wars, and NATO must be eliminated.

Arnold August, a Montreal-based author, journalist, a columnist for Trabajadores (Cuba), a Contributing Editor for The Canada Files, and member of the International Manifesto Group, observed that we all hope that the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will come to fruition, but the governments of Canada and the United States are sabotaging the negotiations, ignoring those European voices saying that it was a mistake to promise NATO to Ukraine.  August maintained that “false flags” are part of American DNA; that is to say, the United States has a long history of disseminating false stories to justify itself imperialist intervention. This began with the USS Maine, and its has continued with respect to Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, and Syria.  The media goes to great lengths to disseminate false flags, as can be seen in the distorted story of a supposed Russian attack of a hospital. August exposed the real story that is ignored by the mainstream media, Ottawa and Washington: the hospital had neither patients nor medical staff but was occupied by the fascist Aznov battalion of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Sara Flounders (US), Co-Director of the International Action Center in New York City and a contributing editor of Workers’ World, stressed the need to put forth clear and unifying demands, in order to effectively overcome challenges confronting the mobilization of the people in response to the dangerous imperialist war in Ukraine.  She proposes: “US/NATO Out of Ukraine;” “Stop the US war on Ukraine;” “NATO Out;” “Disband NATO;” and “Disband the US/NATO War Machine.”

Flounders maintains that since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the NATO war machine has been used to enforce capitalist relations, and to this end, NATO has been involved in Iraq and Afghanistan.  In the case of Russia, NATO has been encircling Russia with the intention of dismembering it, as NATO did with Yugoslavia.  NATO seeks to enable U.S. control over Russian raw materials, and with the goal of eliminating Russia’s alliances with anti-imperialist governments of the world.  The campaign against Russia has included the de facto incorporation of Ukraine into NATO.

Flounders declared that economic sanctions are an act of war.  More than forty countries have had economic sanctions imposed, constituting one/third of the world’s population.  Imperialism launches military and economic war against nations that refuse to comply with the dictates of Washington.

Flounders projected that the governments of the world are going to increasingly refuse to accept the US/NATO War against Ukraine and Russia, because it is against their economic interests.  US/NATO wars serve only the interests of U.S. corporations.

Ken Stone, Treasurer of the Hamilton Coalition to Stop The War and Executive Member of the Syria Solidarity Movement, noted that Canadian support for Ukrainian President Zelensky is a great act of hypocrisy, because for 100 years, Canada has been interfering in Ukrainian affairs; initially as an ally of British imperialism, and later as an ally of U.S. imperialism.

Stone observed that NATO has expanded to the east since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Russian military operation of February 24 responds to 100 years of Western interventions and to post-Soviet NATO expansions.  Canada, the United States, and NATO should be blamed for the war, not Russia.

Ali Yerevani, political editor of Fire This Time newspaper, was a participant in the 1979 Iranian Revolution.  He addressed the need to respond to imperialist propaganda, which falsely claims that the Russian military action was unprovoked, and that Ukraine is a democracy, while it overlooks the role of fascism in the opposition to Russia.  The mainstream media script, he declared, has been written by the U.S. Department of State.  We must understand, he maintained, that Russia had no alternative to the military operation, taking into account the de facto incorporation of Ukraine into NATO and the violence against the Russian population in the eastern region of Ukraine.

In his closing remarks, Arnold August observed that since the pandemic the world has changed. Neoliberal capitalism today demonstrates that it is unable to respond to the most basic human problems, such as health services; meanwhile, China demonstrates a capacity to manage the pandemic and to expand its economy in a sustainable form.  A multipolar world is further emerging, with some countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Russia, China, and Iran being important centers, while the US leashes out by striving to maintain its world domination. This explains in part its most recent aggressive policy toward Russia to weaken it, thus provoking the current crisis.

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Published originally in Spanish on March 16, 2022 in Trabajadores, the Cuban trade union daily. 

Charles McKelvey is a U.S. writer who has travelled extensively to Cuba.  His Substack column defends Cuban and Chinese socialism and other anti-imperialist and socialist revolutions and movements of the world. 

Featured image is from Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War

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Today, the dangers of military escalation are beyond description.

What is now happening in Ukraine has serious geopolitical implications. It could lead us into a World War III Scenario.

It is important that a peace process be initiated with a view to preventing escalation. 

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The history of this war must be understood. 

The bombing and shelling led by Ukraine’s Armed Forces directed against the people of Donbass started eight years ago, resulting in the destruction of residential areas and more than 10,000 civilian casualties.

A  bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

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Editor’s Note:

Outstanding analysis by Nauman Sadiq

“To further help, there is a push to get Eastern European allies to send new air defense systems to Ukraine that the U.S. doesn’t have”, according to Rep. Mike McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee,

The bitter irony is that the S-400 is Russia’s advanced air defense system which was delivered to Turkey in the context of a bilateral military cooperation agreement.

Turkey is NATO’s heavyweight after the U.S. and now Washington is requesting its European NATO allies to donate the enemy’s S-300  and S-400 advanced air defense system (which Russia knows inside out) to Ukraine as a means to “defending itself against Russia”.

What a mess. The Biden administration needs Russian military technology to “wage war on Russia”??? 

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, March 20, 2022

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On Wednesday, March 16, President Biden announced an unprecedented package of $800 million in addition to $200 million previously pledged in military assistance to Ukraine, which includes 800 Stinger anti-aircraft systems, 2,000 anti-armor Javelins, 1,000 light anti-armor weapons, 6,000 AT-4 anti-armor systems and 100 Switchblade kamikaze drones.

Texas Rep. Mike McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Politico [1]:

“The U.S. was working with allies to send more S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to Ukraine. The country has had the S-300 for years, so troops should require little-to-no training on how to operate the Soviet-era anti-aircraft equipment. CNN reported that Slovakia had preliminarily agreed to transfer their S-300s to Ukraine.

“A Western diplomat familiar with Ukraine’s requests said Kyiv specifically has asked the U.S. and allies for more Stingers and Starstreak man-portable air-defense systems, Javelins and other anti-tank weapons, ground-based mobile air-defense systems, armed drones, long-range anti-ship missiles, off-the-shelf electronic warfare capabilities, and satellite navigation and communications jamming equipment.

“To further help, there is a push to get Eastern European allies to send new air defense systems to Ukraine that the U.S. doesn’t have. At the top of the list are mobile, Russian-made missile systems such as the SA-8 and S-300. Like the S-300, Ukraine also possesses SA-8s. The SA-8 is a mobile, short-range air defense system still in the warehouses of Romania, Bulgaria and Poland. The larger, long-range S-300 is still in use by Bulgaria, Greece and Slovakia.

“Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s trip to Europe this week will include not only NATO headquarters in Brussels, but also stops in Bulgaria and Slovakia — countries that own S-300s and SA-8s — before heading back to Washington.”

Slovakia’s defense minister said Thursday, March 17, that the country was willing to give Ukraine its S-300 surface-to-air missile defense systems if it receives a “proper replacement.” At a press conference in Slovakia with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Slovak Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad said Slovakia was discussing the S-300s [2] 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 said.

As with the Slovak defense minister asking for “proper replacement” in return for handing over its S-300 air defense system to Ukraine, Secretary of State Tony Blinken similarly suggested that Poland could hand over its entire fleet of 28 Soviet-era MiG-29s to Ukraine, and in return, the United States government would “backfill” the Polish Air Force with American F-16s.

“We are looking actively now at the question of airplanes that Poland may provide to Ukraine, and looking at how we might be able to backfill it should Poland decide to supply those planes,” Blinken told a briefing in Chisinau on March 6.

The transfer might have been possible if the deal was kept under wraps, but that became impossible after Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign affairs and security policy chief, declared unequivocally to reporters on Feb. 27 that the bloc would provide Ukraine with fighter jets.

The Ukrainian government heard the proposal and ran with it, producing infographics claiming they were about to receive 70 used Russian fighter jets from Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria. A Ukrainian government official told Politico [3] that Ukrainian pilots had even traveled to Poland to wrap up the deal and bring the planes back over the border.

Upon getting wind of the shady deal, Russian defense spokesman Igor Konashenkov issued a stark warning that any attempt by an outside power to facilitate a no-fly zone over Ukraine, including providing aircraft to Kyiv, would be considered a belligerent in the war and treated accordingly.

Hours after the Russian warning, the Polish Foreign Ministry issued an emphatic denial, saying providing aircraft to Ukraine was out of question as the MiG-29 fleet constituted the backbone of the Polish Air Force.

The deal was categorically scuttled on March 3 by Polish President Andrzej Duda:

“We are not sending any jets to Ukraine because that would open military inference in the Ukrainian conflict. We are not joining that conflict. NATO is not party to that conflict,” Duda said [4].

In a bizarre turn of events overriding its own president’s categorical statement, Poland announced on March 8 that it was ready to transfer the aircraft to the Ramstein Air Base in Germany at the disposal of the United States which could then hand them over to Ukraine.

But the denouement of the diplomatic fiasco came on March 9, after the United States, occupying a high moral ground, unequivocally rejected the “preposterous” Polish offer, initially made on Warsaw’s behalf by the EU’s foreign affairs head and the US secretary of state.

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

The only conclusion that could be drawn from the reluctant Polish offer of transferring its entire fleet of MiG-29s to Ramstein at the disposal of the United States is that it was simply a humbug designed to provide face-saving to its NATO patron while it was already decided behind the scenes that Washington would spurn Poland’s nominal offer.

The New York Times reported Saturday [5], March 19:

“American officials have floated the idea of Turkey’s government providing Ukraine with the sophisticated S-400 antiaircraft system. It is the very system, made by Russia, that American officials punished Turkey — a NATO ally — for buying from Moscow several years ago. Now American diplomats see a way to pull Turkey away from its dance with Russia and give the Ukrainians one of the most powerful, long-range antiaircraft systems in existence.

“The proposal for Turkey to supply Ukraine with Russian-made S-400 antiaircraft systems would also test what Mr. Putin is willing to accept from NATO — and how far a NATO ally that in recent years often appeared to be building bridges to Moscow is willing to go in reiterating its commitment to the alliance and backing Ukraine.

“The idea came up when Wendy R. Sherman, the deputy secretary of state, visited Turkey two weeks ago. Ms. Sherman declined to talk about her discussions. A different senior American official said the United States knew the proposal would anger Mr. Putin. Ukraine already uses Turkish-made drones, but Turkey is worried that providing the antiaircraft systems could make the country a target of Russia’s wrath.

“At the same time, the upside for Turkey could be substantial: It was suspended by the Trump administration from the F-35 fighter program — in which it was both a buyer and a manufacturer of parts for the advanced aircraft — after its purchase of the Russian S-400s. A deal to send the antiaircraft systems to Ukraine could open the door to re-entry into the F-35 program.”

Notwithstanding, private military contractors in close co-ordination and consultation with covert operators from CIA and Western intelligence agencies are not only training Ukraine’s conscript military and allied neo-Nazi militias in the use of caches of MANPADS and anti-armor munitions provided by the US, Germany and the rest of European nations as a military assistance to Ukraine but are, in fact, directing the whole defense strategy of Ukraine.

The Intercept reported [6] Thursday, March 17, the US military had deployed extensive ISR, or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, assets to countries neighboring Ukraine to monitor developments within the embattled nation. The aircraft include MQ-9 Reaper drones, Boeing RC-135 Rivet Joints, and Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS, which have been used to eavesdrop on communications and collect imagery intelligence.

“‘The U.S. is using a variety of drone and fixed-wing collection assets to obtain tactical information of the battlefield,’ the official said, adding that the intelligence is then passed on to the Ukrainians through a liaison officer. On Sunday, a Russian drone briefly crossed into Poland, a NATO member, leading to a warning from the alliance that it could respond with force — an alarming threat of direct confrontation with Russia.

“An MQ-9 drone pilot with the U.S. military also told The Intercept that Reapers had been deployed to the region. He said the U.S. was using MQ-9 services leased from private contractors before withdrawing them and replacing with government assets, which he said have been slower to stand up.

“The U.S. has particular experience with this type of indirect weapons and intelligence assistance against Russia, having previously sent arms to Syrian rebels combating the Russian-backed regime of President Bashar al-Assad.”

In many ways, the proxy war in Ukraine resembles the CIA’s Operation Timber Sycamore and the Pentagon’s $500 million train-and-equip program to provide guerrilla warfare training and lethal weaponry to rebels battling the Syrian government in the training camps located at border regions of Turkey and Jordan during Syria’s decade-long conflict.

In fact, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month was only a logical culmination of a long-simmering, eight-year war of attrition initiated by NATO powers against Russia in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region after the 2014 Maidan coup toppling Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and consequent annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia.

In an explosive scoop [7], Zach Dorfman reported for the Yahoo News on March 16:

“As part of the Ukraine-based training program, CIA paramilitaries taught their Ukrainian counterparts sniper techniques; how to operate U.S.-supplied Javelin anti-tank missiles and other equipment; how to evade digital tracking the Russians used to pinpoint the location of Ukrainian troops, which had left them vulnerable to attacks by artillery; how to use covert communications tools; and how to remain undetected in the war zone while also drawing out Russian and insurgent forces from their positions, among other skills, according to former officials.

“When CIA paramilitaries first traveled to eastern Ukraine in the aftermath of Russia’s initial 2014 incursion, their brief was twofold. First, they were ordered to determine how the agency could best help train Ukrainian special operations personnel fight the Russian military forces, and their separatist allies, waging a grinding war against Ukrainian troops in the Donbas region. But the second part of the mission was to test the mettle of the Ukrainians themselves, according to former officials.”

Besides the CIA’s clandestine program for training neo-Nazi militias in eastern Donbas and the US Special Forces program for training Ukraine’s security forces at Yavoriv Combat Training Center in the western part of the country bordering Poland that was hit by a barrage [8] of 30 cruise missiles launched from Russian strategic bombers killing at least 35 militants on March 13, Zach Dorfman claims in a separate January report [9] that the CIA also ran a covert program for training Ukraine’s special forces at an undisclosed facility in the southern United States.

“The CIA is overseeing a secret intensive training program in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other intelligence personnel, according to five former intelligence and national security officials familiar with the initiative. The program, which started in 2015, is based at an undisclosed facility in the Southern U.S., according to some of those officials.

“While the covert program, run by paramilitaries working for the CIA’s Ground Branch — now officially known as Ground Department — was established by the Obama administration after Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, and expanded under the Trump administration, the Biden administration has further augmented it.

“By 2015, as part of this expanded anti-Russia effort, CIA Ground Branch paramilitaries also started traveling to the front in eastern Ukraine to advise their counterparts there. The multiweek, U.S.-based CIA program has included training in firearms, camouflage techniques, land navigation, tactics like cover and move, intelligence and other areas.

“One person familiar with the program put it more bluntly. ‘The United States is training an insurgency,’ said a former CIA official, adding that the program has taught the Ukrainians how ‘to kill Russians.’ Going back decades, the CIA has provided limited training to Ukrainian intelligence units to try and shore up an independent Kyiv and prevent Russian subversion, but cooperation ramped up after the Crimea invasion, said a former CIA executive.”

After perusing these informative reports, not only the defensive rationale for Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine on Feb. 24 becomes abundantly clear but it also shines light on the fact that Russia’s intervention in Syria was actually in retaliation for the CIA arming and training mercenaries and neo-Nazi militias in east Ukraine in order to destabilize Russia.

Following the Maidan coup in 2014 after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula and the CIA initiated the covert program to train and arm neo-Nazi militias in order to provoke Russia, the Kremlin’s immediate response to the escalation by Washington was that it jumped into the fray in Syria in September 2015, after a clandestine visit to Moscow by General Qassem Soleimani, the slain commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force who was assassinated in an American airstrike on a tip-off from the Israeli intelligence at the Baghdad airport on January 3, 2020.

When Russia deployed its forces and military hardware to Syria in September 2015, the militant proxies of Washington and its regional clients were on the verge of driving a wedge between Damascus and the Alawite heartland of coastal Latakia, which could have led to the imminent downfall of the Bashar al-Assad government.

With the help of Russia’s air power and long-range artillery, the Syrian government has since reclaimed most of Syria’s territory from the insurgents, excluding Idlib in the northwest occupied by Turkish-backed militants and Deir al-Zor and the Kurdish-held areas in the east, thus inflicting a humiliating defeat on Washington and its regional allies, Israel, Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf States.

Karl Marx presciently said: “History repeats itself, first as a tragedy and then as a farce.” Those who don’t learn from traumatic experiences are bound to repeat their calamitous mistakes.

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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 Af-Pak and Middle East 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.

Notes

[1] US sends Switchblade drones to Ukraine

[2] Slovakia Says It Will Give Ukraine S-300 If It Gets Replacement

[3] How Biden scuttled Polish aircraft deal

[4] Poland will not send fighter jets into Ukraine, Andrzej Duda

[5] For the U.S., a Tenuous Balance in Confronting Russia

[6] U.S. quietly assists Ukraine with intelligence

[7] CIA training program in Ukraine helped Kyiv prepare for Russian invasion

[8] Pentagon push to send more trainers to Ukraine was scrapped

[9] CIA-trained Ukrainian paramilitaries may take central role if Russia invades

Featured image: Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 6, 2021. [State Department photo by Ron Przysucha]

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

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The internet has changed radically in the past decade or so. Where social-media giants once boasted about being ‘the free speech wing of the free speech party’, in recent years, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms have become increasingly censorious, cracking down on dissenting views and offensive speech. Big Tech has relished this role as the unofficial arbiter of acceptable thought. But while the likes of Facebook may have severely wounded free speech online, it could be the UK government that deals the killer blow.

This week the long-awaited Online Safety Bill was published, which aims to make the UK the ‘safest place to be online in the world’ – in other words, the country with the most strictly regulated and censored internet of any liberal democracy. This mammoth piece of legislation was five years in the making, and those five years show. The bill is vast in scope, and terrifying in its implications for free speech.

Most significant is the ‘duty of care’ the bill imposes on social-media firms. Tech platforms will be legally required to prevent users from seeing both illegal content and ‘legal but harmful content’.

What actually constitutes ‘harmful content’ has yet to be revealed. If the Online Harms White Paper (published in 2020) is any guide, then this is likely to include content which might cause psychological harm, disinformation and trolling or harassment. Of course, all of these ‘harms’ are subjective. ‘Trolling’ can extend from playful banter to persistent harassment. Which views tech firms consider to be ‘disinformation’ has less to do with lies and truth than political expediency.

Once this list of harms is approved by parliament, the culture secretary will have the power to add more categories of harm, and firms will be required to report new ‘emerging harms’ to Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator. So we should expect the bill’s censorious remit to expand over time.

Firms which fail to comply with the new duty-of-care requirements, or are obstructive or provide false information to Ofcom, can be fined up to 10 per cent of their annual worldwide revenue, and platform executives can be sentenced to up to two years in jail. These severe penalties have allowed UK culture secretary Nadine Dorries to claim that she is taking on Big Tech, and that she is holding Silicon Valley firms ‘accountable’. But it is not Big Tech firms that suffer when free speech is curtailed online. Indeed, they have already demonstrated their indifference to free speech.

After all, it is not Facebook, Twitter or Google that produce the ‘harmful’ content the government wants to eliminate. It is us, the users of social media, the deplorable, unruly citizens, who are saying things that our political masters would rather we did not say. It is our ability to express ourselves that will be curtailed by this legislation, not theirs. And this is why this bill is so troubling.

As if Big Tech were not censorious enough, the Online Safety Bill adds a further commercial incentive to censor. Firms are not going to risk fines to protect the free expression of Gary from Sidcup or Jemimah from Penge. The bill means that platforms, when confronted with content that might possibly edge somewhere near the threshold of ‘harmful’, will censor it first, and ask questions later. (A similar law in Germany, encouraging Big Tech to censor more proactively, ended up censoring one of the government ministers who pushed for the legislation.)

Yet despite this, with astonishing chutzpah, Dorries has even tried to present her new regime of digital censorship as a victory for free speech. ‘Facebook and others will no longer be able to arbitrarily silence users with the click of a mouse, without explanation or access to appeal’, she wrote in the Telegraph this week.

That’s because the bill will allow the government to define what is harmful, rather than Big Tech. But that does not stop this from being censorship. Besides, the responsibility still lies with Big Tech to enact the censorship – and the bill could hardly be more clear that the way for platforms to deal with harmful content is to censor it. This is state censorship, outsourced to a private company.

Dorries also points to the fact that the bill contains provisions for users to ‘appeal’ a platform’s decision to remove their content. This assumes that there will be a large gap between what Big Tech wants to censor and what the government wants to censor. There have been suggestions that the UK government might be more generous towards ‘gender-critical beliefs’ than Silicon Valley. But it hardly negates the fact that the government is set to introduce swathes of new rules.

And all of these problems discussed so far concern just one aspect of this gigantic bill. In fact, hardly anything escapes its remit. As the Online Safety Bill has evolved over the years, new elements have crept in, seemingly in response to every tragedy or scandal that made the news. As Sky News points out, it is a bill that seeks to prevent everything from knife crime to eating disorders to anonymous trolling to scammers, all at once, simply because these things might be connected to the internet.

But while the bill itself might be confused, its consequences are all too clear. The Online Safety Bill means the end of the free internet as we know it. Free speech online could become a relic of the past.

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Fraser Myers is deputy editor at spiked and host of the spiked podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @FraserMyers.

Featured image is from spiked

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Today, the dangers of military escalation are beyond description.

What is now happening in Ukraine has serious geopolitical implications. It could lead us into a World War III Scenario.

It is important that a peace process be initiated with a view to preventing escalation. 

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The history of this war must be understood.

The bombing and shelling led by Ukraine’s Armed Forces directed against the people of Donbass started eight years ago, resulting in the destruction of residential areas and more than 10,000 civilian casualties.

A  bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

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Three weeks into the Ukraine war, all of the sides involved are taking ever greater risks. The hitherto unthinkable, a nuclear exchange in Europe, is being openly considered and built up as a threat. Voices of caution, restraint and appeals to reason have largely fallen silent. Despite the looming catastrophe, NATO is not prepared to compromise.

In a televised speech the day before the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian president Vladimir Putin had already issued this threat:

“Whoever tries to get in our way and create further threats to our country and our people must know that Russia’s response will come immediately and will lead to consequences without precedent in history. All the necessary decisions have been taken. I hope you hear my words.”

This was a clear reference to Russia’s nuclear arsenal which, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, consists of more than 6,000 warheads, 900 of which are immediately operational, according to NATO.

Instead of de-escalating the situation, however, NATO has poured oil onto the fire. It has categorically rejected Putin’s request for security guarantees, which the latter—following decades of NATO eastward expansion, extensive NATO manoeuvres along the Russian border and direct NATO interference in Ukraine and Georgia—must have taken as an existential threat.

Since the beginning of the war, NATO has done everything in its power to cut off any chance of retreat for Putin—ranging from draconian economic sanctions to the threat of dragging him before an international tribunal. NATO is not waging war itself in name only. It is flooding Ukraine with high-tech weapons, concentrating its own troops on the border and intervening ever more directly in the war.

So far, the alliance has shied away from open military action against Russia. On March 11, US President Joe Biden insisted on Twitter that “we will defend every inch of NATO territory with the full might of a united and galvanized NATO.” He rejected direct military intervention in Ukraine, however, writing: “A direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is World War III. And something we must strive to prevent.”

But even this hurdle is disappearing rapidly. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, several Eastern European heads of government, as well as other political figures in Europe and the US, are emphatically calling for the establishment of a no-fly zone, which would be tantamount to NATO officially entering the war.

Thomas Enders, CEO of Airbus until 2019 and since then president of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), is particularly aggressive in this respect.

“Establishing such a no-fly zone over western Ukraine is not just feasible; it is necessary,” he wrote in an article for Politico. “It is time for the West to expose Putin’s nuclear threats for what they really are—a bluff to deter Western governments from military intervention.”

What, however, if Putin’s nuclear threats are not a bluff? What if he makes good on them because his back is against the wall? Kaliningrad is only 530 kilometres from Berlin. The nuclear-capable medium-range missiles stationed there would take just four-and-a-half minutes to reach the German capital with its almost four million inhabitants. In between lie Warsaw and many other cities.

Enders is playing Russian roulette with nuclear weapons. He risks the nuclear destruction of Europe and large parts of the globe. And to what end? It would be absurd to think the aim is to simply allow bitterly poor Ukraine to become a member of the European Union and NATO!

Enders speaks for a ruling class that has lost its moorings and, faced with the insoluble contradictions of the capitalist system, is once again striving for conquest and dictatorship; that regards the war in Ukraine as an opportunity to realise the biggest rearmament programme in Germany since Hitler.

He speaks for a ruling class which, in Germany alone, sacrifices 250 lives every day to a pandemic which—as China has shown—can be controlled; which, despite record infections, is lifting all Corona protections, driving social inequality to unprecedented extremes and can only maintain its over-indebted financial system by declaring war on the working class.

Three years ago, Enders, onetime head of Europe’s largest arms company, Airbus, spoke out in favour of “an open, non-ideological, strategic debate” on a military and great power policy for Germany, which he likened to a vegetarian in a “world full of carnivores.”

Two years ago, in Die Zeit, he declared: “We need to talk about nuclear weapons.” The time was “ripe for a bold step towards a new European security architecture,” he wrote. This would include “our own nuclear umbrella.” If Europe were to learn “the language of power” again, “so as not to be crushed between the old and new great powers,” it would have to “become a military power again.” The “construction of a powerful European Defence Union” is “absolutely inconceivable without nuclear backing. ”

The war in Ukraine serves to realise these militaristic goals. The Ukrainian population, which is bearing the brunt of the war, is merely a pawn on the chessboard of the imperialist powers. They will suffer the same fate as the Iraqis, Afghans and Libyans, all of whose countries sank into chaos and misery after being “liberated” by the US and its NATO allies.

The disastrous consequences of the dissolution of the Soviet Union thirty years ago are now becoming fully apparent. Former Stalinist secret service agent Putin was among those who fully supported the plundering of the economy by oligarchs, dreamed of their wealth to come and derided the term “imperialism” as an invention of Lenin—or even worse, Leon Trotsky.

The Bolshevik leaders had insisted that wars were inevitable as long as capitalism was not overthrown by the working class. Imperialist war, Trotsky wrote in 1940, derives “its origin inexorably from the contradictions of international capitalist interests. Contrary to the official fables designed to drug the people, the chief cause of war as of all other social evils—unemployment, the high cost of living, fascism, colonial oppression—is the private ownership of the means of production together with the bourgeois state which rests on this foundation.”

Now, the imperialist powers are using Putin’s reactionary war against Ukraine to strangle Russia economically, even at the risk of wiping out humanity. They are even confiscating the yachts of Russian oligarchs, whose unrestrained enrichment they had once hailed as a “victory of freedom.” The oligarchs will of course get their yachts back if they turn against Putin. The Ukrainian oligarchs are allowed to keep their boats; after all, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Elon Musk also cruise the world’s oceans on $500 million yachts.

The threat of war can only be stopped by the means of class struggle. The working class, which has to bear the costs of war, sanctions, pandemic and financial crisis and is inevitably thrown into conflict with the bankrupt capitalist system, must unite internationally and fight for a socialist programme.

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***

The Tehran-Tel Aviv war is out in the open. Israel’s Mossad is actively pursuing an infiltration of Iran’s strategic depth and edging up to its borders. But now Iran will retaliate to oust the Israelis from places they don’t belong.

Multiple rockets fell in Erbil, the capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR), early on Sunday with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claiming responsibility for the attack.

A dozen Fateh missiles hit an unknown target at 1:30 am local time, a small distance from the site of the new US consulate on the outskirts of Erbil. Although no deaths were reported by Kurdish authorities, Iranian sources have claimed multiple deaths and injuries of Mossad operatives, and several buildings were collaterally impacted in the strike including the headquarters of the Kurdistan24 news agency.

The IRGC however, claimed that the targeted site was an Israeli intelligence outpost:

“Following the recent crimes of the fake Zionist regime and our previous statements that the crimes and evils of this infamous regime will not go unanswered, last night, the strategic center of Zionist conspiracy and evil was targeted by powerful missiles of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” an IRGC statement read hours following the incident.

In further contrast to media reports, Iranian state media Mehr published a list of the reportedly slain Israeli Mossad operatives in the attack.

A senior Iranian security source told The Cradle on Monday that the IRGC operation was conducted in direct retaliation for a 14 February Israeli attack on an IRGC-operated drone base in the Mahidasht district of Kermanshah, inside Iran.

Israel and the Kurds

The Kurds have decades of established ties with Israel which date back to the 1950s, and has included covert military training. However, the existence of Mossad spy bases operating in the IKR has been disputed by Kurdish authorities and the spokesperson for the autonomous region’s government last year, not for the first time, denied the “baseless accusations”.

Erbil’s Governor Omed Khoshnaw told reporters in the aftermath of Sunday’s strikes that “the topic of Israel has been talked about for a long time, that is baseless, there is no Israeli base in that area.”

Iraqi law prohibits relations with Israel – restrictions that were fortified last year after a highly-publicized pro-Israel event in Erbil fell flat.

Nevertheless, a senior US official briefed on the Erbil attack told the New York Times on Monday that the building struck by IRGC ballistic missiles served as an Israeli training facility. The US consulate was not targeted but the IRGC didn’t mind that it was nearby, the official added. This claim was dismissed a day later by a “senior Biden administration official” who described the targeted site as a civilian residence only.

Erbil, a Mossad spy hub

According to Kurdish political commentator Niyaz Hamid, “It was agreed between these parties that the city of Erbil should become the center of the Israeli Mossad, where several Iranian Kurdish opposition groups are also based. This agreement has had the consequence of making the city of Erbil the center of the war between Israel and Iran.”

“This affects the people of the area,” he argues. We saw this when Iran bombed the Mossad’s secret bases in Erbil.”

Hamid’s comments were made in relation to the visit on 12 March – the day before the Erbil missile attack – between the IKR’s President Nechirvan Barzani and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Antalya, Turkey.

While relations between Turkey and Iran had become strained following last year’s Iraqi elections, the Ankara has moved swiftly in recent months to improve its ties with Israel and the UAE. The three countries, he believes, want to form a government in Iraq that serves serve their interests. “On the other hand, Iran is an obstacle to the formation of this [kind of] government.”

Iranian-Kurdish journalist Pooya Mirzaei, using security camera footage provided by Kurdistan 24, does not believe the target was a civilian site. “Contrary to claims by the Iraqi government and the KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government), a secondary explosion after the rockets hit may indicate the presence of ammunition and explosives” at the alleged Mossad base in Erbil.

Iran’s motives

In an interview with The Cradle, the official spokesman of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party’s Erbil office, Azad Jolla, concludes “the Iranian attack on Erbil did not happen without a reason. Attacks on Iraqi Kurdistan have happened before – 27 times to be precise – where either Iran or groups that are close to Iran have somehow attacked the Kurdistan region, Erbil in most of these occurrences. Yet this one differs a lot from previous attacks.”

According to Jolla, in order to understand the motive behind the attack, it is important to appreciate Iran’s reasoning.

“One issue that can be seen here is the agreements made between Nechirvan Barzani and Erdogan to send gas through Turkey to Europe, as a substitute for Russian gas. But also the sending of oil through Turkey to Israel and other parts of the world.”

“Russia does not want to allow Turkey to do this, and there is a possibility it attempts to block this through Iran. That is a possibility, although a small one,” he emphasized.

“But on the other side, there is another possible explanation. And that is that there are a mix of different intelligence agencies present in Iraq, and most prominently in the Kurdistan region. There is the presence of Turkish MIT, Iranian Ettalaat, and yes, also Israeli Mossad, the American CIA, agencies from European countries, and even Russian KGB.”

“So yes, there is – among others – an Israeli Mossad presence. And this presence provokes Iran to attack their sites in the Kurdistan region. Iran has done this before, and will probably do it again.”

One of the buildings impacted by Sunday’s attack was a villa owned by the CEO of the Iraqi Kurdish oil company KAR group, Sheikh Baz Karim Barzinji. “Iran is our neighbor and has assisted Kurdistan’s people during difficult times,” he was quoted as saying and also invited Iran’s ambassador to Iraq to visit his home to see the damage for himself.

Kurdish politician Hiwa Seid Salim told The Cradle he suspects the reason for the Iranian attack on the Barzinji’s villa was due to his business activities, which Iranian security sources claim includes selling Iraqi oil and gas to Israel.

But Salim believes “the real theatre of conflict between Israel and Iran is in Syria, not in the Kurdistan region, and that the targeting of the house of Sheikh Baz Karim Barzinji has more to do with his influence in the KRG on the export of gas, which has become a hot topic since the start of the war between Ukraine and Russia. There are talks concerning Kurdish gas becoming an alternative for Russian gas in export to Europe, which is an initiative Iran would like to block.”

Jolla, the PUK spokesman, has a more nuanced view. Asked how the alleged Mossad presence could be tied to Kurdish businessman Barzinji, Jolla responded with a detailed description of the site of the attack.

“This villa compound is closed off to the public, it has walls and barbed wire, security guards, checkpoints around, and nobody is allowed to approach the compound. Nobody could approach the compound as it was heavily secured. If this villa compound is targeted with missile attacks by the Iranians, this is not done without a reason. All people here in Erbil are ready to accept this reality.”

The Cradle’s Iranian security source said much the same, while offering further exclusive details on the IRGC’s target: “The structure of these two villas had two roofs that completely protected it from 240mm missiles. An explosion-proof engineering roof under a shock-absorbing roof that had two layers under the gable roof.” He says that post-operation images confirm this assessment. The building, despite being hit by 12 missiles, maintained its structural integrity.

Dismissing the dominant Kurdish Democratic Party’s (KDP) spin on Sunday’s strikes, Azad Jolla claims that the party’s “media, personalities and leaders try hard to convince the public that the targeted villa is the house of a businessman, and where he lives with his wife and children, and there was nobody or nothing else present. This is also crystal clear not true, because what would Iran have to do bombarding the house of a businessman and his family, why would it target it? How come the house received 12 missiles and is in ruins, but there is no family member or personnel of sheikh Baz Karim wounded or dead in the attack?”

“It looks like the statements presented [by the KDP] are a constructed narrative, and it looks like something was definitely going on at this site. There should and will be more investigations about what was going on at this site.”

Israel’s support of Iranian Kurdish militants

Ties between the KDP and Israel have existed for decades as part of Tel Aviv’s ‘Alliance of the Periphery’ strategy – initiated by Israel’s very first president David Ben Gurion – that focuses on attracting allies against its once united Arab opposition. The Kurds, but also Turkey and pre-Islamic revolution Iran, were approached as possible allies toward this end.

Nowadays, Israel uses its connection with Kurdish leaders in its proxy conflict against the Islamic Republic, including militant Iranian Kurdish opposition groups. This is also the main reason Israel has shown major interest in monitoring Kurdish politics and the movement of Kurdish insurgent organizations, and has financially supported several of these groups. It is also a plausible reason behind Iran’s cooperation with Turkey in carrying out joint military operations against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

The disclosure of classified US diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks contains statements made by Meir Dagan, Israel’s former Mossad chief, to US officials in August 2007 calling for the support of Kurdish opposition groups, among them the anti-Iran, militant Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), in an attempt to destabilize Tehran.

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported a year after the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq: “Israel has hundreds of agents, including members of Mossad operating in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq. In addition Mossad is now conducting covert operations in Kurdish areas of Iran and Syria.” One former Israeli intelligence officer told Hersh in a sweeping New Yorker piece that same year: “It’s Realpolitik… By aligning with the Kurds, Israel gains eyes and ears in Iran, Iraq and Syria.”

Not for the last time

In the murky world of espionage, it can naturally be difficult to decipher fact from fiction. However, Iran looks set to take a more assertive retaliatory role in its confrontation with Israel, which was recently hit by the largest cyber attack in its history the day after the Erbil strikes. Interestingly, this also affected the Mossad website, according to prominent Israeli daily Haaretz.

Iran’s ambassador to Iraq, Iraj Masjedi, has now warned of further attacks against “Israeli strategic centers” in Erbil. The Iranians presented tangible intel and evidence to both Iraqi and Kurdish officials in advance of last weekend’s missile strikes.

A “well-informed Iraqi source” was quoted by The New Arab as saying “Masjedi submitted documents to the Iraqi foreign ministry officials proving that Israeli drones have flown from a mansion in Erbil and carried out attacks against a fleet of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) drones in Mahidasht region of Kermanshah province, west of Iran in 14, February” – information also confirmed by The Cradle earlier this week.

The Iranians are dead-set on establishing deterrence, and have, for a few years now, warned they would deliver an equal ratio of counterattacks to Israeli salvos – whether at sea or on land.

On Sunday, they warned the next attack on Israeli operations will be a “harsh, decisive and destructive response.” As Tel Aviv actively works to counter Iran’s strategic depth by locating directly or via proxies near Iranian borders, it is unclear whether Tehran’s next operation will be in Iraq or another neighboring state.

What is known is that the attacks on Sunday against alleged Israeli intelligence targets in Erbil were neither isolated nor unprecedented, and are therefore unlikely to be the last.

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Featured image: A story of oil, gas, espionage, subterfuge and sabotage sprung to the fore after Iran’s missile strikes on a Mossad base in Erbil revealed some unsavory connections in Iraqi Kurdistan. Photo Credit: The Cradle

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***

“We abuse land because we see it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” – Aldo Leopold

Have you ever heard of a natural asset company or NAC in short (and we’re not referring here to the glutathione precursor, N-acetyl-cysteine)? It won’t surprise us if you haven’t. We’ve only recently come across the term ourselves and we’re coming to the view that it may facilitate the biggest corporate land grab in recent history. That’s if we, the people, don’t put a stop to it.

If you believe that Nature should never become a commodity that’s bought and sold by a powerful few, read on. The fact that the moneyed minority feel that they have a right to effectively barcode Nature is quite breathtaking in its greed and arrogance. Though not all that surprising when you look at what’s been happening over the past 2 years. We really are being called to ‘clean house’ on so many levels.

We’ve created an infographic (see below) to summarise the plans for the exploitation of what’s now being termed, Nature’s Economy. You can see at a glance the price tag that’s been placed on her head and why suddenly traditional philanthropy — based on giving — has been declared ‘a total failure’ and is being replaced by ‘investment philanthropy’. You’ll be familiar with the names involved in kicking off this new kind of non-giving (aka. taking) philanthropy. If you were wondering how philanthropic investing could be declared a failure, look no further than André Hoffmann, the vice chairman of pharmaceutical giant, Roche.

Please download and share as far and wide as you can. This is a message that needs to take flight rapidly.

Graphics by Mike Abbott, head of media, ANH-Intl

What is an NAC?

In September 2021 the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) quietly announced that it had created a new asset class with a listing, “To preserve and restore the natural assets that ultimately underpin the ability for there to be life on Earth”. It looks both innocent and protective. Who doesn’t want to preserve and restore the planetary resources on which we all depend?

However, the subtext is that corporations who fit into this asset class, ‘natural asset company’ (NAC), get to maintain, manage and develop the natural resources on a given piece of land. It’s effectively a fast track to commodifying Nature’s natural resources. Less about protecting nature and more about making money through ‘Nature’s Economy’ — which has been attributed a tantalising price tag.

Source: The Intrinsic Exchange

“Our hope is that owning a natural asset company is going to be a way that an increasingly broad range of investors have the ability to invest in something that’s intrinsically valuable, but, up to this point, was really excluded from the financial markets.”-  The Intrinsic Exchange

The NYSE recently unveiled a partnership that’s been two years in the making with the Intrinsic Exchange Group(IEG) to open up investment opportunities in what it calls ‘Nature’s Economy’. IEG describes itself as a ‘pioneering natural asset company’. One of its key investors is the Rockefeller Foundation.

Why exploit natural resources?

The commoditisation of nature is justified as being driven by the protection of natural resources. But scratch beneath the surface and the greed and avarice is clear to see.

Researchers back in 2012 highlighted the danger of ‘green grabbing’ and cited the appropriation of land and resources using ‘green’ credentials to justify the land grab as an emerging process of deep and growing significance. They go as far to say that green grabbing builds on well-known histories of colonial and neo-colonial resource alienation in the name of the environment.

It’s absolutely no surprise then to see the World Economic Forum getting in on the act with its Nature Risk Rising report in 2020. The subtitle is “Why the crisis engulfing Nature matters for business and the economy” and notes, in its second report, The Future of Nature and Business, that, “A new Nature economy could generate up to $10.1 trillion in annual business value and create 395 million jobs by 2030”.

Don’t be fooled by how benevolent and humanitarian it all seems.

Mark Wilson in his 2013 paper, highlights how the so-called ‘green economy’ fails to address five fundamental problems and, thus, has the potential to increase environmental degradation and cause even greater social inequity than we see today:

1. Ecosystem services are inherently difficult to price
2. The consideration of the rebound effect is insufficient
3. Primacy of economics over the environment is ensured
4. Markets offer little protection for the poorest people
5. Existing market mechanisms aimed at safeguarding the environment have not succeeded.

In addition, in 2022, we echo the following reasons why NACs are likely to be more tempted to act against Nature than for it:

1. The ‘assets’ from Nature’s Economy are valued at more than US$4,000 trillion or $4 quadrillion (the current economy is valued at approx. US$512 trillion; that makes the current economy around only 8% the value of the Nature’s Economy)
2. Each ‘asset’ will have an owner
3. The ownership through NACs allows domination of not just the economy, but the entire natural world
4. Removal of freedoms. So many practices today are reframing freedom as a service or a privilege, not a fundamental right
5. Owners will dictate who gets access to clean water, clean air, wild spaces and yet untapped, dwindling natural resources.

How do NACs plan to do this?

These new NACs will act a bit like real estate agents for Mother Nature. Imagine a situation where a company is able to pick an area of nature, assign it a price, disenfranchise any prior claimants, take ownership and then sell pieces of that land/lake/ocean/mountain etc. to institutional shareholders — specifically, the multinational corporations who may have funded the NAC in the first place.

If it could be assured that all NACs will be ‘conscious corporates’ this may well be the way to steward and safeguard our future, but history, as well as current events, speaks to a very different outcome.

“NACs will attempt to assign value to services — such as carbon retention, freshwater generation, pest control, groundwater storage and erosion prevention — intrinsically provided by natural resources” – Kevin Turner & Lara Rios, Holland & Knight Energy and Natural Resources blog – Natural Asset Companies: A Nature-Based Solution to Unlock the Value of Natural Resources

Here are some of the ways in which ‘green’ actions are already netting billions of dollars:

• Carbon offsetting/biodiversity offsets. Offsetting harm caused elsewhere by regreening areas denuded by previous development. Large corporations such as BlackRock, JPMorgan, Disney are investing significant amounts in this area
• Green bonds
• Extraction of natural resources e.g. oil, gas, minerals
• Destruction of natural habitats to grow food
• Greenwashing – the process by which a company conveys a false impression about the environmental credentials of its products and/or services
• Seed patents
• Patenting genetically modified/engineered plants and animals
• Purchasing large swathes of agricultural land. Large investors, such as Bill Gates along with other large investors are making huge inroads into this area
• Control of water supplies.

Working with, not against Nature

The Dasgupta Review describes Nature as “our most precious asset”. We, as humanity, must ensure that our demands on Nature do not exceed its sustainable supply. So many of the things that are destroying the natural world are now being sold as its salvation.

Source: The Dasgupta Review

Green consumption is still consumption. Modern food practices are responsible for almost 60% of global biodiversity loss. Did you know that Indigenous People’s territories account for approximately 80% of the world’s biodiversity? Shame on us in the so-called developed world for letting this happen.

What if, instead of allowing the land grab by the elites, we:

• Removed the word ownership and used stewardship instead?
• Give parts of the natural world legal self-sovereignty e.g. oceans, polar ice caps, rivers & lakes, the top of mountains above a certain level. There’s already a river in New Zealand that has the same legal rights as a human being. Same for Mount Taranaki and a national park. India has granted human rights to the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.
• Encourage local communities to manage the land around them
• Use carbon insetting rather than offsetting, which is about so much more than simply reducing a company’s carbon footprint. It’s about businesses reducing their carbon footprint and carbon sequestration within their value chains. It doesn’t pass the buck to someone else and it ultimately will increase the businesses’ resilience and provide significant, measurable benefits to communities surrounding the value chain
• Prioritise agroecology
• Practise regenerative agriculture
• Reduce consumption of goods to preserve natural resources
• Save and share seeds as a matter of course
• Create and accept a universal declaration of rights for Mother Earth.

Don’t also forget the power of your wallet or purse. How we spend our money has a great impact on which investments see the light of day. Nature doesn’t need investment because it simply ‘is’. But it does need nurturing, and then it will provide for us. Let us give it also the respect it deserves, as our physical bodies are its product.

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Meleni Aldridge, executive coordinator.

Melissa Smith, outreach and development officer.

Featured image is from Alliance for Natural Health

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***

Eleven years ago, on 19 March 2011, the United States and its military arm NATO unleashed a sustained bombardment against Libya, where Colonel Muammar Gaddafi had been in charge for over four decades. Gaddafi would be killed in brutal fashion seven months later, while Libya descended into chaos as warring parties in this fractured country turned on each other.

The US-NATO invasion of Libya was not restricted to air raids. In the opening hours of the attack, American and British war ships and submarines fired scores of cruise missiles which, by 21 March 2011, had wiped out Gaddafi’s entire strategic air defence system along the Libyan coastline. US B-2 spirit bombers destroyed Libya’s largest airport, in the capital Tripoli, while Tornado aircraft launched Storm Shadow missiles at numerous strategic targets.

Gaddafi’s critical mistake “was to give up his nuclear weapons agenda”, as noted by prominent Indian historian Vijay Prashad (1). In a deal with the Western powers, Gaddafi had abandoned the enrichment of uranium for nuclear bombs, while sanctions were lifted on Libya. Various nations, including Iran and North Korea, informed Gaddafi that it was a serious error to weaken his defences and pursue overtly friendly relations with the West.

Hawkish Bush administration official John Bolton had explicitly warned Libya, Iran and Syria on 5 April 2003 that the US attack on Iraq “sends a message” to those countries, conveying that “the cost of their pursuit of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is potentially quite high”. (2)

Early this century, Iraq had of course no nuclear or biological weapons, as was known before the March 2003 US invasion began. Saddam Hussein was just as defenceless as Gaddafi would be eight years later, both ideal targets in nations which, by no coincidence, possess major oil sources and lie in strategically important regions. The lesson is stark and ugly – if one wishes to be secure from attack by the imperial powers, turn one’s country into a nuclear state or military fortress.

Following nine months of negotiations, on 20 January 2004 president George W. Bush said that Gaddafi had “correctly” committed himself to “voluntarily” liquidating his WMD programs. More than 10 facilities in Libya were dismantled where uranium enrichment had been taking place for nuclear bombs. Gaddafi’s biological weapons arsenal was also destroyed.

In 2005, some of the largest US and British oil corporations flocked to Libya such as ExxonMobil, Chevron and British Petroleum (BP). That year they set up the US-Libya Business Association; this rosy relationship, however, was not as it seemed.

Image on the right: Gen. Wesley Clark (DoD photo by R. D. Ward)

Washington’s planned removal of Gaddafi dated to the first term of George W. Bush’s presidency, part of his global “pro-democracy campaign”. Like Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Gaddafi was displaying too much independence and disobedience. After invading Afghanistan in October 2001, Bush intended to attack 7 other countries in 5 years, those being: Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran, Somalia, Sudan and Lebanon. This was revealed by ex-NATO commander Wesley Clark, in comments he made in an interview on 2 March 2007. Rather tellingly, Clark stressed later on, “Obama’s invasion of Libya was planned under the Bush administration, Syria is next”. (3)

Long before intervening militarily in Libya, the new president Barack Obama had ordered that the US Treasury Department freeze the accounts of Gaddafi’s state-owned Libyan National Oil Corporation, including the seizure of $30 billion. According to the IMF, Gaddafi further had 143.8 tons of gold, worth over $6.5 billion, deposited as international reserves in 25 countries. These funds were likewise frozen by the Americans (4). In sanctions imposed on Libya through the UN Security Council, the US-NATO partnership appropriated the Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF), in which Libya had invested abroad as an oil-exporting country.

Any unrest in Libya was a domestic issue. Gaddafi was not threatening to invade other countries, unlike the NATO organisation, nor was he a menace to international security. He had no nuclear or biological weapons, and did not even have at his disposal a large and well-trained army. Three months after the US-NATO invasion of Libya his son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, said in an interview that Libya made crucial errors in its neglection of constructing a proper army, along with having “delayed buying new weapons, especially from Russia”. He went on, “Our example means one should never trust the West and should always be on alert. We thought Europeans were our friends; our mistake was to be tolerant with our enemies”. (5)

North Korea learnt the hard way long ago. In the early 1950s, their country had been levelled by US Air Force bombing raids. The Kim Dynasty thereafter armed the country to the teeth. Even so, president Bill Clinton almost ordered an attack on North Korea during the summer of 1994. What ultimately deterred the Americans was the might of North Korea’s military, and consequently the Pentagon’s grim prediction that such an invasion would result in perhaps a million deaths (6). In the event of a US attack, North Korea’s generals would have retaliated by decimating the South Korean capital Seoul with the full force of its arsenal, positioned just 50 miles or so away.

As soon as the rebellion started in early 2011 in Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city, anti-Gaddafi insurgents advised by British and French special forces attempted to capture Libya’s oil refineries, located in the north and north-east of the country. Vicious battles were subsequently fought around these oil installations. Almost immediately, a leading goal of the Western powers was revealed: retaining control over Libya’s oil, using proxy fighters.

A group of special forces from the Netherlands, a NATO and EU nation, had been captured by Gaddafi’s troops in Sirte, northern Libya, on 27 February 2011. Three days later, 400 US soldiers from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, and also the Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF), landed in Crete, just 300 miles from the Libyan coastline. Major Carl Redding, spokesman for the US Marine Corps, said that these troops had been dispatched “as part of our contingency planning to provide the president flexibility on a full range of options regarding Libya”. (7)

In the weeks before the March 2011 invasion, elite personnel from the triumvirate of America, Britain and France were present on Libyan soil. This included everything from CIA advisors and US Navy SEALs, to MI6 spies and British SAS soldiers, along with French secret agents. (8)

To ensure the toppling of Gaddafi, the Western powers were collaborating with terrorists of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), whose members included such men as Abu Yahya al-Libi. He belonged to the highest echelon of Al Qaeda. The LIFG was centrally involved in the anti-Gaddafi revolts. US-NATO were furnishing Al Qaeda factions in North Africa with arms, equipment and intelligence support, while the LIFG itself was closely aligned to Al Qaeda. The uprising against Gaddafi was, actually, being led on the ground by extremists who had previously fought against the US Army in Afghanistan and Iraq, and were now being supported by the West in Libya.

Brazilian professor Moniz Bandeira wrote that,

“The rebels who were hailed as so-called freedom fighters were, in fact, mujahidin, radical Islamists who participated in the war against the United States in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and returned to Libya, probably with the backing of Saudi Arabia and Qatar”. (9)

On 23 December 2010 three anti-Gaddafi insurgents arrived in Paris: Ali Ounes Mansouri, Farj Charrant and Fathi Boukhris. They joined forces with Gaddafi’s former intelligence chief, Nuri Al-Mismari, along with the French military, so as to organise the movement to oust Gaddafi. Together with the Libyan rebel commander Ali al-Hajj, these men had a part in igniting the February 2011 uprising in Benghazi.

In early 2011, the Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri dispatched veteran terrorists to Libya, so as to establish a foothold there (10). The uprising in Libya was supported strongly by Osama bin Laden, who was delighted to see his “Libyan brothers” wage jihad on Gaddafi.

Image below: Col. Muammar Gaddafi and Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy

The French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who was influencing the insurgents in Libya before the NATO attack, said in late February 2011 that “Mr Gaddafi must leave” (11). Sarkozy knew he could rely on US support, and Obama echoed Sarkozy’s comments a week later.

Why were Sarkozy and Obama publicly demanding that Gaddafi should go? Another reason may be that, in 2009, the French energy multinational Total SE was forced to accept significantly reduced terms, pertaining to its oil and gas production initiatives in Libya. This was also the case with the US oil firms, Chevron and Occidental Petroleum, whose contracts with Libya’s National Oil Corporation were scaled back in 2009. WikiLeaks documents revealed that Total SE and other Western energy companies were entitled to only 27% of oil production in Libya, a sizable fall (12). Moreover, the West’s cut of gas production was reduced to 30%, instead of the 50% they had been granted in previous contracts.

Living conditions in Gaddafi’s Libya, just before the US-NATO bombardment began, are revealing and interesting. The 2010 UN Human Development Report, published in November of that year, expounded that overall living standards in Libya were quite good – and easily the highest in Africa. UN studies for 2010 ranked Libya in 53rd place out of the world’s 194 countries on the Human Development Index (13). This placed Libya towards the top end of the High Human Development bracket, and just outside Very High Human Development.

Quality of life in Libya – based on annual income, schooling, average life expectancy, etc., – showed that Libyans were better off than people resident in major countries like Brazil, Turkey, China and India. The average yearly wage earned by a Libyan in 2010 was larger by comparison to either the typical Brazilian, Turk or Chinese. This is not to suggest that Libya was a paradise under Gaddafi. One in five Libyans was illiterate, mainly those in the country’s numerous and complex indigenous groups, who placed a barrier between themselves and Gaddafi’s government; there were problems with unemployment in the country, and the poorest suffered from a lack of access to adequate housing. (14)

Yet at the end of Gaddafi’s reign, living standards in Libya were superior furthermore in comparison to a number of European countries, such as Bulgaria, the Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia and Albania. Gross Domestic Product (GDP), though not often an accurate indicator of human welfare, had increased by a remarkable 16.6% in Libya during 2010 alone (15). The supposed universal suffering of Libya’s six million people under Gaddafi falls apart on closer inspection.

Having toured Libya and its capital Tripoli in May 2001, Fidel Castro was correct later on when he wrote in early March 2011,

“In contrast with what is happening in Egypt and Tunisia, Libya occupies the first spot on the Human Development Index for Africa, and it has the highest life expectancy on the continent. Education and health receive special attention from the State”. (16)

The real hardships for the Libyan populace began with the US-NATO assault. By the end of 2011 Libya’s UN Human Development ranking fell by more than 10 places, to 64th. (17)

By 2015 Libya had dropped to 94th and four years later, at the end of 2019, the country was placed a lowly 105th on the Human Development Index (18). This constitutes a fall of more than 50 places in less than a decade, as Libya witnessed one of the biggest declines in living standards recorded globally; and due in large part to NATO’s “humanitarian intervention”.

Libya under Gaddafi used to have a higher GDP (PPP) per capita than the EU, and in some periods higher than the US. (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Just 10 days into the US-NATO attack, by 29 March 2011 the Americans had already spent $550 million in the effort to dislodge Gaddafi. Through ostensibly outsourcing the war to NATO, Washington could deny accountability, and in the background apply the full measure of its economic and military power. Bandeira noted that what the Obama administration and its allies “really wanted was regime change in Libya” while “the United States continued to spend $10 million each day to sustain the operations, using drones, the unmanned aircraft guided by the CIA, and committing war crimes and human rights violations through the bombing and massacre of civilian populations, such as those that occurred in Sirte [northern Libya] and several other cities”.

NATO warplanes especially targeted Sirte for bombing, located near much of the country’s known oil reserves. By the end of the invasion in late October 2011, Sirte was lying in rubble, the majority of its surviving inhabitants having fled the ruined city.

Nor were the aerial incursions over Libya restricted to the Western powers. Aircraft from the US-backed oil dictator states, of Qatar and the UAE, undertook illegal flights over Libya, partaking in both surveillance and strike operations. As too did Swedish airplanes, a supposedly neutral and non-aligned country, and Jordan (19). Aircraft from NATO and EU state Italy also partook in reconnaissance flights over Libya – despite the North African country being Italy’s largest trading partner, with dealings relating mainly to oil transactions.

The Qatari regime, which hosts thousands of US troops, performed a considerable role in weakening Gaddafi’s position. Indeed, “the numbers of Qataris on the ground were hundreds in every region” in Libya, according to Qatar’s Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, Major-General Hamad bin Ali al-Attiyah (20). The Qatari special units acted as a direct link between the anti-Gaddafi elements and NATO. Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard, chief of the “NATO military mission to Libya”, praised the “Qataris’ forces performance” which “is justifiable from every perspective”.

On 14 April 2011, Obama, Sarkozy and British prime minister David Cameron wrote an article to justify the invasion, and which was published in the New York Times. They stated,

“Our duty and our mandate under UN Security Council Resolution 1973 is to protect civilians, and we are doing that. It is not to remove Qaddafi by force. But it is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Gaddafi in power”.

In reality, civilian casualties in Libya rose at least tenfold following the US-NATO invasion (21). This was an entirely predictable outcome, as NATO warplanes carried out almost 10,000 air raids over the country during a seven month period. In doing so, they had shamelessly violated Resolution 1973 which called for a “no-fly zone” over Libya. The bombardment was also a boon to terrorists, helping to spread the jihadi plague across North Africa and beyond.

On 20 August 2011, five months into the invasion, a NATO vessel laid down anchor on the Libyan shoreline; it was laden down with heavy weaponry and arms. Disembarking from this ship were special forces from America’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), members of the French Army Special Forces Command (BFST), and SAS commandos. These groups hammered out a plan for a quick advance on Tripoli, which assisted in the capture of the Gaddafi stronghold in late August 2011. (22)

For years separate parts of north-eastern Libya, encompassing the cities of Benghazi and Derna, had been hotspots for radical Islamists. Per capita, the contribution of Libyan terrorists to the jihad in Iraq, following the 2003 US invasion, was higher than any other country on earth (23). Upon return to Libya, many of the jihadi fighters incited unrest against Gaddafi and were involved in the uprising. They were bolstered by hundreds of Libyan militants with extremist pasts, who had been freed by Gaddafi in the immediate years preceding 2011.

The Wall Street Journal named three former mujahidin extremists who, after landing at the Libyan port city of Derna, began training recruits and thwarting their infiltration by Gaddafi followers (24). One of the them was Abu Sufian bin Qumu, a Libyan Army veteran who had worked for Bin Laden in Sudan, and was later employed by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. By April 2011, Bin Qumu was training anti-Gaddafi insurgents recruited to the east of Derna. He had previously spent six years in the US-run Guantanamo concentration camp.

Gaddafi had ample warning of the imperialist states’ untrustworthy nature, and the brutal manner of their offensives. In the 1999 US-NATO invasion of Yugoslavia, Serbia’s third largest city, Niš, was struck with hundreds of “precision-guided” missiles, only 2% of which landed on military installations. Serbia as a whole was subjected to NATO cluster bomb attacks which killed women, children and the elderly. During the Kosovo War, the NATO list of civilian targets for their bombing of Yugoslavia, codenamed “Stage Three”, was published on the internet and completely ignored by the mass media.

Civilian infrastructure in Yugoslavia earmarked for attack by NATO ranged from hospitals and schools, to museums and churches (25). Canada’s Ambassador to Yugoslavia James Bissell said, “It was common knowledge that NATO then went to Stage Three: Civilian targets. Otherwise they would not have been bombing bridges on Sunday afternoons and market places”.

A key reason for the attack on Yugoslavia was that its president, Slobodan Milosevic, had not been sufficiently obeying Washington’s orders, like Gaddafi after him. Canadian author Michael Ignatieff outlined that “the really decisive impulse” behind the invasion of Yugoslavia “was the need to impose NATO’s will on a leader [Milosevic] whose defiance, first in Bosnia and then in Kosovo, was undermining the credibility of American and European diplomacy and of NATO’s willpower”.

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Notes

1 Vijay Prashad, Arab Spring, Libyan Winter (AK Press, 7 May 2012) p. 233

2 Acronym Institute for Disarmament Policy, “’We Are Hoping That The Example Of Iraq…Would Be Persuasive’: Interview with US Undersecretary of State John Bolton, April 5”, 2003

3 Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, The Second Cold War: Geopolitics and the Strategic Dimensions of the USA, (Springer 1st ed., 23 June 2017) p. 178

4 Ibid., p. 177

5 RT, “US looks on Libya as McDonald’s – Gaddafi’s son”, 30 June 2011

6 Jamie McIntyre, “Washington was on brink of war with North Korea 5 years ago”, CNN, 4 October 1999

7 Bandeira, The Second Cold War, p. 176

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid., p. 168

10 Ibid., p. 161

11 Reuters, “France’s Sarkozy says that Gaddafi must go”, 25 February 2011

12 Bandeira, The Second Cold War, p. 172

13 Human Development Report 2010, 20th Anniversary Edition, The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development, pp. 148-149

14 Bandeira, The Second Cold War, p. 160

15 Ibid.

16 Fidel Castro Ruz, “NATO’s Inevitable War: The Flood Of Lies regarding Libya”, Global Research, 4 March 2011

17 Human Development Report 2011, Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All, p. 18

18 United Nations Development Programme 2019, Human Development Reports, p. 11 of 19

19 Bandeira, The Second Cold War, p. 177

20 Ian Black, “Qatar admits sending hundreds of troops to support Libya rebels”, The Guardian, 26 October 2011

21 Noam Chomsky, Who Rules The World? (Metropolitan Books, Penguin Books Ltd, Hamish Hamilton, 5 May 2016) p. 251

22 Bandeira, The Second Cold War, pp. 178-179

23 Ibid., p. 163

24 Charles Levinson, “Ex-Mujahedeen Help Lead Libyan Rebels”, Wall Street Journal, 2 April 2011

25 John Pilger, The New Rulers of the World (Verso Books, 20 Feb. 2003) p. 148

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A close friend of mine who is deeply committed to stopping the spreading cancer of tyranny in the United States, asked me recently,

“When will the press cover our fight for freedom and justice?”

I hesitated, as I did not want to discourage her tremendous efforts that she has made, and the bravery that she has displayed.

But, ultimately, I had to tell her the truth because nothing is more dangerous for us than deceiving ourselves as to how long, and how brutal, this battle to create a healthy, accountable, and sustainable society will be. We must not be discouraged by the new obstacles thrown in our way daily by the plutocrats. Nor should we be contented with a bit of progress on this or that front, a bone tossed us by the kings feasting in splendor on our labor and our money.

After a few moments, I replied,

“When we have created our own newspapers and television broadcasts that reflect America as it is, not as multinational corporations want us to think it could be, when we have set up our own government in accord with the constitution that is accountable to the people and transparent in its actions, when we have created our own schools for our children that teach fundamental morality, responsibility to family and society, and that train them to think for themselves and to investigate the world around them using the scientific method, when we have created our own currencies that are based on real assets and not chimera cooked up by the bankers, and when we have established an economy for the people, by the people, and of the people, then, and only then, will our movement be covered by the press, will our actions draw the attention that they deserve.”

The system of government in the United States was never perfect, but it once aimed for something better in the past. Now government is but a fuzzy glove to hide the cold steel fist of global corporations.

Now is the critical moment for us all to assert through our words, and more importantly, through our actions, that we are an independent citizenry and that we are laying the foundations for a constitutional republic to replace the rotten edifices collapsing into muck in Washington D.C. That once splendid capital has been overrun by the money changers who flock there as carrion vultures to pluck out and devour what tasty scraps remain.

We know what their agenda is now. Although many Americans are still struggling to understand the scale of the fraud, to wrap their minds around the evil of this plan to take over all aspects of human life, and of all life, from our DNA, to our food and our bodies, to our thoughts and our dreams.

But the growing awareness of the dangers posed by billionaires lurking behind bogus NGOs, bought and paid for government agencies, multinational corporations and banks, has motivated the money changers to push even further, even faster, for their total takeover of our world.

They are making plans for a world war as we speak, in the Ukraine, or in Taiwan, or elsewhere.

Whether this war will be a real war killing millions, or perhaps ending human existence, or a false war planned to aid the further transfer of wealth, the implementation of totalitarian governance around world, and to usher in the new world order, we still do not know. We do know that the Ukraine has become a place to experiment with a radical vaccine passport, track and control society.

What we know from history is that schemes to use war as a tool in political games can easily go astray and that once the dogs of war have been unleashed, they know no master.

The drive for world war is linked at the hip with the drive to privatize government, and to control all economic and social interaction between citizens. If they get their way, all exchanges will have to go through the internet, or be moderated by AI, human-free, platforms that offer the citizen no opportunity to confirm who is making what decision, and no way to hold accountable the evil forces promoting the cancerous convergence of corporations and government, at home and abroad.

We will become the prisoners of the systems set up, supposedly, to serve us; that nightmare is drawing close, like the spreading shadows at dusk.

Decisions are made in secret, digitally, somewhere deep in computer banks controlled by multinational financial organizations, like BlackRock or Vanguard, or by multinational corporations like Amazon and Facebook. We are fed the results of those decisions, and we are ordered to obey the rules made up in darkness. We will not be given a chance to speak with a human, or to confirm through a third party, how decisions are made. War is the perfect way to force this great reset through.

If the entire process of governance is farmed out to for-profit corporations, then whoever, or whatever, it is that makes fatal decisions about our lives is not a government in the constitutional sense, or in an ethical sense—or in any sense at all.

They are hoping that you have been conditioned by television to just accept their authority as the government. After all, they have already replaced what was left of it with puppets, dangling from the strings of multinational corporations.

At the same time, they are paying good money to outliers, voices in the wilderness, coded as conservative, liberal, or socialist, voices that tell you that the problem is government. Voices that will never tell you who controls the government, who owns what, and how to take it back.

The game in politics is control; it always has been. But this transformation, specifically the elimination of humans from government, and from corporations, in the United States, has a more sinister character.

When government is fully replaced by AI services via the internet, when there are no humans in government or corporations with whom you can reason, or to whom you can appeal, then the takeover will be complete.

You are not supposed to notice the replacement of humans by computers, by programs, and by drones and robots. This transformation is marketed as convenient and modern, even as an inevitable consequence of science and technology.

But, mark my words, like the sadist who gets his victim to put on handcuffs by cajoling and engaging in fun games, once the system is fully up, there will be absolutely no limit to how far they will go to lock you down, to lock you up. In this new world, there will be no humans left to get in the way of brutal efficiency.

Police violence is suddenly played up in the media so as to convince you that replacing the police with robots and drones will be safer. The process is well underway, starting with the border with Mexico. The robot and drone can be controlled directly by the super- rich, from a hidden bunker or from a satellite. There will be no appeal possible.

We must reject this misuse of technology to enslave and we must educate citizens, block by block, street by street, about the dangers and evils that will result from these actions.

This destruction of government is paralleled by the replacement of money with systems of virtual credit that can be seized, or erased, by the hidden powers at any time.

Money and finance form a perfect dictatorship. A tiny handful of the rich can print up all the money they want for themselves, and thereby devalue the money in your wallet, at will. With the forced use of digital currencies, already in the pipeline, and the forced use of credit cards in a no-cash society, government and corporations will be free to freeze, or seize, your money at any time.

What we must do

We have a real chance of turning things around, of redirecting this deadly trend towards tyranny, at home and abroad, in our favor.

Victory, however, is far from assured. And everyone, on every street, in every office, in every classroom, must do his or her part to combat that corporate fascism right here and right now. As Rabbi Hillel wrote, “If not me, who? If not now, when?”

We must establish parallel systems for education, for money, for food and for distribution that are entirely independent of this criminal network that strives, domestically and globally, to enslave us.

As the old saying goes,

“Don’t get mad, organize!”

Don’t waste your precious time protesting against throwaway, garbage politicians like Joe Biden. These clowns, Democrat and Republican, are frozen in a zombie state, and they are put there for you to get mad at so that you will be distracted from the wizard behind the curtain, allowing the financiers to convert our economy covertly.

All citizens need to understand precisely how the super-rich, using their banks of super-computers, their banks of digital currency, control our society, manipulate our economy, and dumb down our citizenry using a mind-numbing entertainment-news-social network complex.

Once citizens start to understand how things really work, and how they must be fixed, then we will be ready to take action.

What we should never do is follow the directions for action fed to us by the charismatic figures cultivated and propped up by the super-rich. Who are those people? Well, basically any public intellectual who is allowed to appear in the corporate media is bought and paid for.

We must not fall for the trick of blaming nation states, China or Russia. These nations, and of course the United States, engage in all sorts of horrible actions. What we face, however, is transnational class warfare which is expressed through nation states in the fairy tales presented to us by the corporate media.

Also promoted by the super-rich through their proxies and lackeys is the sad ritual of blaming the “left.” For example, the corporate-owned war mongering Democratic Party is identified in alternative “conservative” media as “leftist.” I suspect that this misuse of the term “leftist” is a strategy to confuse, to make it seem as if leftist thinking, socialist and communist policies, and Marxist analysis is the cause of the corporate fascism that we witness flowering around us.

No doubt this strategy is employed to discourage us from even considering what socialist and Marxist analysis might offer to us in responding to the takeover of the economy by the rich. You are never supposed to even think about how planned economies, or the redistribution of wealth, might help to solve current problems. No, you are just supposed to get mad at corrupt and dishonest politicians without a thought about the economic structure.

The short-comings of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong and other communist and socialist leaders are fully documented and their mistakes offer us valuable lessons.

But they presented in their writings valuable insights into the deep structural problems of an economy powered by profit and of power relations determined by capital. All of them proposed solutions aimed at fundamental change, not just icing on a putrid cake. Such a fundamental shift, in ideology and the economy, as opposed to incremental or progressive change, is precisely what we need today.

We can, and we must, consider what the leftist traditions of economics, politics and social policy were. We must think deeply about what worked, and what did not work, among the experiments undertaken in those revolutions. Remember that many of the experiments from the Soviet Union inspired the regulated economy implemented in the United States during the New Deal of the 1930s.

The trillions of dollars stolen by the billionaires over the last two years, and the even greater sum stolen through inflation, through the destruction of work by multinational corporations over the last twenty years, this theft has fundamentally altered the structure of our society.

We cannot return to a healthy society unless we radically redistribute the wealth from the super-rich to ordinary citizens.

If we just try to maintain the status quo, we will be heading for a slave society.

Do not foolishly believe everything written by Marxist theorists. At the same time, do not allow pride, or propaganda, to blind you to the valuable ideas to be found in that tradition. We must be practical and we should never fear to find solutions in unexpected places when facing a crisis.

We will ultimately need to occupy the headquarters of the super-rich, to shut down their financial networks, to seize their supercomputers, and to take down their weaponized silos hidden away in the mountains where they plan to hide from us.  We should not throw away any idea, any policy, any strategy, that could be helpful in the brutal battle that lies ahead.

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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.

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It is significant that – while anyone who provides news about Ukraine that does not correspond to that of the Ministry of Truth is censored – the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom denies Julian Assange permission to appeal against extradition to the U.S., since the WikiLeaks founder’s request “did not raise an arguable point of law.” So the journalist who brought to light the hidden truths about the wars that prepared and provoked the one in Ukraine risks to be sentenced to 175 years in prison (after being imprisoned for ten years). 

On the other hand, all those who, on the mainstream, conduct the hammering psychological warfare to represent Russia as a fierce enemy that threatens us all have a free field. A strategic advisor of the Italian Ministry of Defense, on a mainstream channel, described as “Putin’s beasts who rape and play soccer with children’s heads” those Syrian soldiers who, after fighting ISIS with Russian help, went to help the Russians in Ukraine.

Even the news provided by the Secretary General of NATO himself, revealing the strategy of war, are ignored, such as the one that “for many years NATO allies have trained tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and supplied them with huge amounts of weapons” and that there are “in Europe one hundred thousand U.S. soldiers” deployed in recent years for the escalation against Russia. Ignored by the mainstream also the analysis of experts like Gianandrea Gaiani, director of Analisi Difesa, who warns that, by supplying weapons to Ukrainian forces, Italy has become indirectly belligerent against Russia, and that not even the Parliament knows exactly which weapons are supplied and even less in which hands they go. They “could be used to carry out criminal actions or end up on the illegal market that feeds organized crime and terrorist groups”.

GRANDANGOLO INTERNATIONAL PRESS REVIEW on BYOBLU, digital terrestrial channel 262 every Friday at 20:30.

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• Saturday 9:00 / 16:00
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From the Tuesday following the first broadcast, the episode of Grandangolo is visible, together with the previous ones, on the site here.

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

Featured image is from TungCheung – stock.adobe.com

Historical precedents demonstrate the withering of US hegemony. From international terrorism to COVID-19, Pax Americana is not only proven dysfunctional but is also challenged for its viability for all actors in the international system. 

The deleterious sanctions on Russia that include a blanket ban on Russian citizens witness growing polarities in the international community where even Western allies question the motives of their masters. Is the Ukraine war the final nail in the coffin of US hegemony?

Read our selection below and feel free to circulate widely.

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Ukraine: No-fly Zone Proposal Rejected by Americans

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, March 18, 2022

One of the most debated topics in recent days, related to the conflict in Ukraine, is the “no-fly zone” issue. The measure was initially proposed by Kiev to establish an aggressive response to Russia, but it has been treated with some resistance by NATO itself, although it receives absolute approval from the western media.

Why a Ukraine ‘No-fly Zone’ Would Mean the End of the World…Literally

By C.J. Atkins, March 18, 2022

The proposal for a no-fly zone is getting a lot of attention right now. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is making the pitch for one every time he has the attention of Western politicians. Many anti-war demonstrations around the world feature posters and signs demanding it. Reporters constantly pepper the White House with questions about why it’s not moving to close Ukraine’s skies.

U.S. Threatens Nuclear War or Sanctions

By Sara Flounders, March 18, 2022

The well-established capitalist disorder, dominated by U.S. imperialism and in place since World War II, is on shaky ground. Extreme economic sanctions imposed on Russia are dragging the whole world into a war that started long before the Russian intervention in Ukraine on Feb. 24.

Opportunistic Diplomacy: Biden Embraces Rivals to Isolate Russia

By Nauman Sadiq, March 17, 2022

The thaw in the frosty relations between the Western powers and Iran signals that a tentative understanding on reviving the Iran nuclear deal has also been reached behind the scenes, particularly in the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis and the Western efforts to internationally isolate Russia. After sanctioning Russia’s 10 million barrels daily crude oil output, the industrialized world is desperately in need of Iran’s 4 million barrels oil production to keep the already inflated oil price from causing further pain to consumers.

Say Hello to Russian Gold and Chinese Petroyuan

By Pepe Escobar, March 16, 2022

The Eurasian system is bound to become a serious alternative to the US dollar, as the EAEU may attract not only nations that have joined BRI (Kazakhstan, for instance, is a member of both) but also the leading players in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as well as ASEAN. West Asian actors – Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon – will be inevitably interested.

West Pressures Thailand to Take Their Side Against Russia

By Brian Berletic, March 15, 2022

These same representatives blatantly violating Thailand’s sovereignty and interfering in the nation’s internal political affairs in recent years, now want to recruit Thailand to support them and their efforts to do likewise – undermine peace, stability, and sovereignty – in Eastern Europe.

Beijing-Riyadh Oil Sales Cooperation And the “De-dollarization Process”

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, March 16, 2022

The value of the offshore Yuan has risen considerably compared to the dollar across the Asian market, generating many expectations of investments in the Chinese currency. The impact is expected to be even greater in the coming days or weeks, considering that, amidst the current context of tensions and conflicts, Riyadh has the ideal scenario to make public and advance its financial measures of de-dollarization without waiting for large-scale international sanctions on the part of the West – which has other priorities at the moment.

The Last American War … Will be in Europe

By Abdel Bari Atwan, March 11, 2022

It is Europe, after all, which will be the main theater of a nuclear clash unless current mediation efforts bear fruit. And any ‘political solution’ of the conflict spells victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his country, as Moscow will not accept anything short of a complete purging of NATO’s strategic depth in Ukraine.

Ukraine Makes Strange Bedfellows. “Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett Called Vladimir Putin Offering Mediation on Ukraine”

By M. K. Bhadrakumar, March 01, 2022

The world community is aghast over the acute tensions between the United States and its NATO allies on one side and Russia on the other, which is poised critically on the brink of a military confrontation, the like of which the world didn’t see in the entire Cold War era. 

War Propaganda About Ukraine Becoming More Militaristic, Authoritarian, and Reckless

By Glenn Greenwald, February 28, 2022

Having the U.S. risk global nuclear annihilation over Ukraine is an indescribably insane view, as one realizes upon a few seconds of sober reflection. We had a reminder of that Sunday morning when “Putin ordered his nuclear forces on high alert, reminding the world he has the power to use weapons of mass destruction, after complaining about the West’s response to his invasion of Ukraine” — but it is completely unsurprising that it is already being suggested.

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). 

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

This incisive article by Prof. Luciana Bohne was first published by Global Research on February 12, 2004

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When the starving and exasperated people of Paris stormed the Bastille’s prison fortress on 14 July 1789, King Louis XVI wrote in his diary the single word, “Rien”–for “nothing happened.” Such imperious dismissal of the rage of 30,000,000 subjects, encapsulated in the attack on the Bastille, can only derive from privilege’s “sense of perfect safety,” as Edmund Burke wrote, lambasting not the king but his revolutionary successors (Burke’s magnificent prose was wasted on his subject: the defense of monarchy). A few years later (1793), Louis XVI’s clueless head rolled free from his royally-sorry body, parted by the razor-sharp steel of the people’s guillotine. Out of the world’s first ideologically social revolution, the modern, democratic age was finally born–in the shadow of the guillotine; in the memory of the abused people’s rage; in the bloodlust of popular vengeance against tyranny–ever after plagued by the tyrants’ real or threatened return.

The people and democracy have ever since been at best distant cousins in most of the world’s liberal-styled democracies.

Flash forward to 15 February 2003. Fifteen million people march across the world protesting the impending Anglo-American attack against Iraq on the pretext that its alleged WMDs threaten world peace. The Bush dynastic dauphin calls this mass mobilization against his war a “focus group.”

In fact, in the White House Imperial Palace today, the Bush dauphin continues to replay that Ancien-Regime history of arrogant cognitive dissonance as a sordid and criminal farce. David Kay, chief arms detective of the cretinous dauphin’s appointed Iraqi Survey Group (300 million dollars spent on the elusive hunt for phantom WMDs; 600 million more to go), announced recently that he is tired of playing blind-man-buff in Iraq and quits. WMDs simply cannot be tagged. In fact, they do not seem to exist. And haven’t seemed to exist significantly since the dauphin’s father, George I, last bombed and crippled the essential infrastructure of Iraq, as an insurance bonus, among other beastlier reasons, against its military rising like a phoenix again from its former Third-World-US-client-dependent, US-financed and armed, oil-soaked, neo-colonial ashes. To the world’s clamoring question, “Where are the WMDs,” our Full-Spectrum-Dominance little Caesar replies, “I want to know the facts.”

Unbelievable. He wants to know the facts. Now.

After he and his corporate courtiers and political caballers screamed all over the media for months, “Nuclear cloud about to hover over New York; Saddam must go!”

After the governing elites (!!!) of this putative democracy philippized the United Nations, its allies, and fifteen million global protesters with calls for “Verdict first, trial later,” like some psychotic queen in “Alice in Wonderland.”

After not listening to those who could tell him the facts before the full moon rose over Baghdad in mid-March of 2003 to light the targets for the wave of technological vampires of the Dracula-like flying force invading the night skies of Iraq; not waiting to listen to the United Nations’ inspectors, Blix, el Baradei, or former inspector Scott Ritter; to guffawing Israeli security folks who knew (and if they knew, the CIA knew, and certainly the Likudniks in Bush’s inner circle knew) and told Ritter in 1998 that Iraq was reduced to their number six threat, down from number one eight years before; to the British Defence Intelligence Staff, Britain’s best qualified analysts on WMDs, who all privately agreed that Blair’s Iraqi Dossier’s September 2002’s 45-minute claim of Hussein’s threat should have been “carefully caveated,” according to Brian Jones, leading expert on WMD in Britain’s Ministry of Defence, writing in UK’s Independent this past week.

After he, and his faith-based, oil-totemistic policy diviners, perhaps practising ancient prophecy by rummaging through chicken entrails left over from Republican fundraisers, decided to terrorize (“shock and awe”) a portion of humanity without regard to more prudent voices in the Pentagon, State Department, CIA, and Department of Defense, shamming and ridiculing, instead, their intelligence services’ reports. You can read about this all-deliberate haste, the sheer obsessive pathology that bulldozed the propaganda’s path to war in Robert Dreyfuss’s and Jason West’s article, “The Lie Factory,” in the Jan-Feb issue of “Mother Jones”.

Before the evidence was in—before the United Nations inspectors could finish their work and in spite of our European and other allies’ (notably excluding the Great British Poodle and the Howard war-walkabout in Australia, both of whom their people are now ready to electorally or otherwise string up) derided entreaties that the inspectors be allowed to complete the investigation– our ruling buffoon and former Lord High Executioner of Texas charged that Iraq had 30,000 warheads, 500 tons of chemical weapons, 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulism toxin, 1 million pounds of sarin, mustard, and VX nerve gas, and tons of yellowcake uranium. And on the basis of this list, later to be exposed as a fantasy of threats, our people went to war against the people of Iraq, a genocidally sanctioned and decimated population–war-ravaged from over twenty years of our meddling and wars, no-fly-zone daily bombings, hungry, oppressed by the very dictator we helped to sick on them, and unarmed at the time of our assault.

Now, the virtual criminal who led us into this illegal war is changing course. He is telling us he had an intelligence failure. Is he referring to his tiny brain or is he suffering from residual alcoholic blackout? Was there no Office of Special Planning (OSP), created to sidestep the CIA, because, as Richard Perle said, “The CIA is status quo oriented. They don’t want to take risks”? (Dreyfuss and West). Translation: who needs the CIA’s old, Cold-War style of covert operations when now we can be overt in our subversion of the world to our imperial whims and plans, without any interference from that sclerotic and annoying Soviet Union? The war was confected and manufactured by these new-world-order, neo-imperial fanatics and spinmasters who would “take a little bit of intelligence, cherry-pick it, make it sound more exciting, usually by taking it out of context, often by juxtaposition of two pieces that don’t belong together,” as retired Air Force Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, former analyst for the Pentagon’s Near East and South Asia unit, declared. What the OSP relied on to whip up war fever among the people “wasn’t intelligence,– it was propaganda,” she said (Dreyfuss and West).

In other words: intelligence didn’t fail; it was invented, massaged, or abused. And plagiarised. From an old thesis by a US doctoral student. Cribbed from the internet. That was the level of contempt for the people’s trust and intellect that these appointed mis-leaders had. That was the quality of Colin Powell’s highest authority for his overdetermined case for war on February 5th, 2003, at the United Nations, freaking-out the people on junk military science and fake intelligence.

The dauphin and his court knew there were no WMDs in Iraq. He lied because the truth could not have moved the people of the United States to go to war. His father had the same problem. Remembering Gulf War I, Brent Scowcroft, quoted in the Los Angeles Times in 2003, put it this way: “The question of how we would initiate the use of force . . . remained. How could we act without it appearing as aggression on the part of the [US-led] coalition” (Larry Everest, “Oil, Power, and Empire”). It came down to pegging Hussein as a reincarnation of Hitler (a comparison for historical illiterates and political imbeciles), premature Kuwaiti babies by the hundreds thrown out of incubators by Iraqi troops (a lie), and a pending invasion by massive concentration of Iraqi troops on Saudi Arabia’s border (another lie). For the dauphin in 2003 it was Halabja (not a lie but a pret-a-porter resuscitated fact)–the annoying claim that Hussein gassed “his own people,” implying that it would have been all right had he gassed somebody else’s people–while never admitting that the massacre at Halabja in the 1980s was made possible by generous funds, weapons, intrigue, and poisonous brews, supplied by the US government and its allies.

Father and son lied because they could not say to the honest people of the United States that Iraqi oil was the prize for which young Americans might have to die. Bush I put it succinctly, however, in National Security Directive #54 of 15 January 1991: “Access to Persian Gulf oil and the security of key friendly states in the area are vital to US national security . . .” (Larry Everest, “Oil, Power, and Empire”). He won the war and lost the election. The word “oil” became jinxed. His dauphin’s war planners never uttered the word “oil” in the presence of US people unless to say that they would hold Iraqi “oil” in trust (never happened) for the people of Iraq until they democratically grew up–which, if the US could help it, would be never, as the Iraqis now resisting the occupation have suspected since the invasion and have verified because the threatened appointocracy (Naomi Klein’s apt word), called the Iraqi “election,” will provide the Arab facade to a lasting US protectorate.

September 11 gave them another word-facade–“terror”–so that the next oil war, in Afghanistan as in Iraq, morphed into the “War on Terror.” No, it’s not just about owning the oil. It’s about controlling prices, controlling competing economies, controlling the world economy. Yes, as the oil goes so go the nations. “Saudi oil production” writes Larry Everest “can quickly increase or decrease daily production by as much as two to three million barrels. The Energy Information Administration calls this spare capacity . . . even more significant than Saudi reserves because it allows this US client to quickly ramp up oil production to head off shortages or price explosions.” The demise of the Soviet Union was hastened by a Saudi price war in the 1980’s that brought the price of oil per barrel down to under $10, fatally reducing revenues for the ailing Soviet economy (“Oil, Power, and Empire”).

But at the White House Imperial Palace, they think we don’t understand these things, for if we did, wouldn’t we be among the 1% of the US population that owns between 40% and 50% of the wealth?

Perhaps, but here’s a sobering tally of the moral and material cost of the war which the ruling rich supported (Bush’s cabinet is the richest in history, at a personal average wealth of ten million dollars per member), while condemning our “unpatriotic” opposition and being unable to conceive our stupidity for refusing to build our “freedom [to exploit]” and our “democracy [for the deserving few]”–in other words, vast wealth– on the backs of the poor and the powerless, on the conquest of lands that don’t belong to us, and on the eternal condemnation of future generations for once having blighted the world with the scourge of war:

“232, the number of combat deaths in Iraq between May 2003 and May 2004. 501, the number of American servicemen to die in Iraq so far. Zero number of American combat deaths in Germany after the Nazis surrendered . . . Zero, number of coffins of dead soldiers returning home from Iraq that the Bush administration has allowed to be photographed. Zero, numbers of funerals or memorials that President Bush has attended for soldiers killed in Iraq. 100, the number of fundraisers attended by Bush or Vice President Cheney in 2003. . . . 16,000 the approximate number of Iraqis killed since the start of the war. 10,000, the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the beginning of the conflict. 100 billion dollars,estimated cost of the war to American citizens in 2003. 36%, increase in the number of desertions from the US Army since 1999. 92% of Iraq’s urban areas that had access to drinkable water a year ago. 60%, the percentage of of Iraq’s urban areas that have access to drinkable water today” (“George W. Bush and the Real State of the Union,” The Independent, UK).

The view from the White House Palace: “As democracy takes hold of Iraq, the enemies of freedom will do all in their power to spread violence and fear” ( President George W. Bush, “State of the Union,” 2004).

See? He thinks democracy sows violence and fear. In this unintentional slip of judgment, he may be entirely genuine: it’s what oligarchs generally believe. And it’s no use telling him, “It’s the war, stupid, that spreads violence and fear–and inequality spreads hunger and unemployment.”

For the likes of him, kings, dauphins, emperors, and ruling elites, the people’s rage is inconseqential and irrelevant to their divine right to rule. Did he even hear that 100,000 Iraqis protested in the streets demanding free elections? Dan’t matter: “Not one drop of [his] blood has [he] shed in the cause of the country he has ruined, . . . having squandered away the precious treasure of [his] crime” (Edmund Burke, “Reflections on the Revolutions in France,” attacking the wrong people with words suited for despots).

“Rien.”

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Luciana Bohne co-founded Film Criticism and teaches at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.

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

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March 20th 2003 was the start of the Iraq War, a war many argue was an illegal “war of aggression” as prescribed under the Nuremberg Principles.

The Chilcot Inquiry found that Tony Blair was privately committed to the military option even though he lied to the Cabinet, Parliament and the British public that war would only be a last resort, and so was himself an active and knowing participant in the conspiracy to invade another sovereign nation on a false premise.

In doing this, he was breaching the “Nuremberg Principles” which clearly outlined the crime of waging aggressive war; the principle under which military and political leaders of the Nazi regime such as General Alfred Jodl, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and Joachim von Ribbentrop were convicted and later hanged.

For instance, in a telephone conversation with President Bush in December 2001, which made reference to the need to be rid of Saddam, Blair noted that an “extremely clever plan would be required.” (December 3rd, 2001) In July of the following year, he told Bush: “I will be with you, whatever.” (“Secret Personal Note on Iraq”, July 28th 2002). He was advised by Richard Dearlove, the Head of MI6 that the evidence of weapons of mass destruction was “thin”, but that that would be no problem advised Dearlove because “intelligence and facts were being fixed (by the US) around the policy.” (“Downing Street Memo”, Sunday Times, 1st May 2005).

In doing so, Blair was:

1. Abrogating his solemn responsibility to Parliament
2. Defying international law
3. Engaging in a criminal conspiracy
4. Abusing the powers vested in his office.

As a result, he was prima facie liable for the following criminal proceedings:

1. A criminal trial at a court of international jurisdiction for Waging a War of Aggression.
2. A prosecution under The Hague and Geneva rules which prohibit the pillage of another nation state by fundamentally transforming the economy of an occupied nation.
3. A trial in the Palace of Westminster following impeachment as a holder of public office for “high treason or other crimes and misdemeanours.”
4. Trial for the common law indictable offence of Public Misconduct. This is defined as occurring where a public officer acting in the course of their duties wilfully neglects to perform his duty or wilfully misconducts himself to such a degree as to amount to an abuse of the public’s trust in the office holder.

The war was illegal because it breached UN Charter Article 2(4) which provides that all member states must refrain from the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. And neither of the two exceptions of self-defence, that is the threat of an imminent attack, and Security Council authorisation applied.

In 2008, Lord Thomas Bingham used the occasion of his first major speech after his retirement from Britain’s highest court to describe the invasion of Iraq as a “serious violation of international law.”

The judgement of the International Military Tribunal said the following:

“War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

The long term effects of the conspiracy have been catastrophic to human life and regional stability. The occupation of Iraq which included massacres by the US military and torture in places such as Abu Ghraib; the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria all combined to create a huge death toll, permanent injuries, ecological damage, and population displacement which are still with the world to this day.

Unfortunately, Tony Blair has been able to escape prosecution, not only due to the lack of will of the political class in Britain, but because of two key legal obstacles, both centring on the lack of justiciability:

1. The decision to postpone the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court over the crime of aggressive war for a period which covered the conspiracy to attack Iraq and its launch.
2. The dualist tradition of the British legal system meant that although Britain was a signatory to the Nuremberg Principles, unlike the situation in a monist state where international law becomes part of domestic law without being implemented by a national legislature, Parliament had not translated the crime of waging aggressive war into an Act.

So far as 1 is concerned, a suitable definition was finally reached in 2010 when it was decided that alleged offenders should not be prosecuted until further agreement in 2017. And regarding 2, the case of R v Jones (2006) put to rest the argument that the crime of aggressive war had filtered into British municipal law. Ironically the judge who gave the leading statement, Lord Bingham would refer to the Iraq War as a “serious violation of international law” after his retirement.

The definition adopted at the Review Conference of the Rome Statute held in Kampala, Uganda provided the following:

“The planning or preparation or initiation by a person in a position effectively to exercise control or to direct political or military action of a state of an act of aggression which by its character, gravity and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of the charter of the UN.”

Although this wrongdoing is one of several “core” crimes such as genocide which do not have a statute of limitations, the legal principle against the retrospective application of laws is seen as a stumbling block. Of course, it is argued that the law ought not have been in a vacuum. It has also been argued that Blair could be tried in a court within a monist state such as Switzerland where the Nuremberg Principles were in existence at the time of the war.

However, the former British Prime Minister has continued to evade prosecution.

I was interviewed about the culpability of Tony Blair in 2016 on ‘The Mind Renewed’ about Tony Blair’s alleged participation in a War of Aggression:

Part 1 of ‘Can the British State Convict itself?‘

I wrote this piece in 2016.

“COMMENTARY: Blair’s Instincts on Iraq Were Woefully Wrong”

I wrote this piece in 2012.

“COMMENTARY: Tony Blair – War Crimes Suspect”

I posted this newsreel last year.

Blair’s First “Dodgy Dossier” | Launch of UK Government Document on Iraq’s Alleged WMDs | Sept. 2002

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Adeyinka Makinde.

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England. He has an interest in history and geopolitics. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. 

Featured image: “Photo Op”. Credit: Imperial War Museum/Peter Kennard & Cat Philips (2005)

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UK coroners in two separate cases this week concluded individuals who received AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine died from blood-clotting disorders caused by the vaccine, which uses the same adenovirus technology as the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine authorized for emergency use in the U.S.

UK coroners in two separate cases this week concluded individuals who received AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine died from blood-clotting disorders caused by the vaccine.

Kim Lockwood, a 34-year-old mother from South Yorkshire, died in March 2021 of a catastrophic brain bleed nine days after getting the AstraZeneca shot.

Lockwood complained of an excruciating headache eight days after getting the vaccine. Her condition quickly deteriorated and she was pronounced dead 17 hours after being admitted to the hospital.

South Yorkshire Coroner Nicola Mundy, calling Lockwood “extremely unlucky,” recorded the cause of death as vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT).

Separately, a Sheffield County inquest on Monday concluded Tom Dudley, a 31-year old father of two who received the Astra-Zeneca vaccine on April 27, 2021, died of a vaccine-induced brain hemorrhage on May 14, 2021.

The UK’s National Health Service on May 7, 2021, changed the guidance for the AstraZeneca vaccine, suggesting healthy individuals under 40 should avoid it due to possible blood-clotting complications.

Assistant coroner Tanyka Rawden said that at the time of Dudley’s death the potentially fatal blood-clotting issue “was not a known and recognized complication of this vaccine. It seems to me that the guidelines have been changed,” she said. “They were changed very, very quickly after Tom had his vaccination.”

For both Lockwood and Dudley, the change in recommendations came just weeks too late.

UK Government figures show 437 reported cases and 78 deaths from blood-clotting conditions after an estimated 24.9 million first doses and 24.2 million second doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

In April 2021, many European countries, including Germany, France, Italy, and Spain, suspendedthe use of the AstraZeneca vaccine after experts found dangerous blood clots in some vaccine recipients, according to various news sources.

Research published May 5, 2021, in The BMJ confirmed evidence of blood clotting and found a small risk after receiving just one dose of AstraZeneca’s vaccine.

The researchers wrote:

“We did, however, observe an increased rate of venous thromboembolic events, corresponding to 11 excess venous thromboembolic events per 100,000 vaccinations and including a clearly increased rate of cerebral venous thrombosis with 7 observed events versus 0.3 expected events among the 282,572 vaccine recipients.”

An AstraZeneca executive today said the British drugmaker won’t consider submitting its vaccine for approval in the U.S. if the regulatory process takes too long.  A company official said the company would instead focus on selling the vaccine in other countries, though it will continue talks with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

In U.S., J&J vaccine singled out for blood-clotting disorders

Although the AstraZeneca vaccine is not offered in the U.S., it uses the same adenovirus technology as the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID vaccine authorized for emergency use in the U.S.

On Dec. 16, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made a “preferential recommendation” that people 18 and older get the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna mRNA vaccines instead of the J&J shot.

Two days earlier, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration updated its fact sheets for Emergency Use Authorization of the J&J vaccine, adding a contraindication to the shot for adults with a history of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) following the J&J or any other adenovirus-vectored vaccine.

The agency did not add a contraindication for people with pre-existing conditions, including coagulation disorders, or for those who may have experienced blood clots after receiving an mRNA vaccine.

The FDA said TTS was reported in men and women, in a wide range of ages, with the highest rate in women aged 30 to 49. The agency noted approximately 15% of TTS cases were fatal.

According to analysis of data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), between Dec. 14, 2020, and March 4, 2022, there were 2,607 reports of blood-clotting disorders after administration of the J&J shot.

The Defender has reported on numerous deaths from blood-clotting disorders after the J&J vaccine, including that of Jessica Berg Wilson, a 37-year-old stay-at-home mother from Washington, who died suddenly on Sept. 7, 2021.

According to Wilson’s obituary, doctors diagnosed her with VITT.

Pfizer, Moderna mRNA vaccines also linked to blood clots

The FDA and CDC have not issued warnings about blood-clotting disorders specific to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, despite studies showing the mRNA vaccines can cause similar conditions.

For example, a study published in April 2021 by Oxford University found the number of people who developed cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) after COVID vaccines were about the same for Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines. (J&J is not approved for use in the EU, where the study originated.)

According to the study, 4 in 1 million people experienced CVST during the two weeks following vaccination with the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, versus 5 in 1 million people for the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Although researchers found a significantly higher incidence of blood clots in people who were infected with COVID, the incidence of blood clots following vaccines was still much higher than the background incidence of 0.41, a strong signal that the vaccines pose this specific risk.

Another study, published in February 2021 in the Journal of Hematology, examined thrombocytopenia following Pfizer and Moderna vaccination in response to the death of a 56-year-old Florida physician — the first identified patient who died from a brain hemorrhage after receiving Pfizer’s vaccine.

Researchers examined 20 case reports of patients with immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) following vaccination, including 17 without pre‐existing thrombocytopenia, using data from the CDC, FDA, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (VAERS), published reports and communications with patients and treating providers.

The researchers could not exclude the possibility that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines had the potential to trigger ITP and recommended additional surveillance to determine the incidence of thrombocytopenia post-vaccination.

“While the main concern associated with ITP is bleeding, it may come as a surprise that ITP is also associated with a 20% increased risk for blood clots,” said Lyn Redwood, RN, MSN, former  president emeritus of Children’s Health Defense, citing a March 8 article by Dr. Robert Bird, director of hematology at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane, Australia.

According to the latest available VAERS data, between Dec. 14, 2020, and March 4, 2022, there were 5,992 reports of blood-clotting disorders after the Pfizer vaccine, and 4,784 reports following the Moderna vaccine.

Of the total reports of blood-clotting disorders during that time period, 22% of the total number of reports (13,428, including J&J, Pfizer and Moderna) were among individuals 17 to 43 years old; 34.8% among individuals 44 to 64 years old; and 32% among individuals 65 years or older, suggesting the issue is not limited to adults under 40.

The J&J shot remains available in the U.S. and in October 2021, the FDA granted Emergency Use Authorization for the J&J booster shot for adults 18 and older.

The New York Times on Tuesday reported “mounting evidence” the Janssen vaccine is showing levels of efficacy on par with the mRNA vaccines.

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David Charbonneau, Ph.D. is a fellow for The Defender.

Featured image is from CHD

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CIA paramilitaries had been training Ukrainian forces on the frontlines of the Donbas war against Russian-backed separatists since 2014 and were only pulled out by the Biden administration last month, Yahoo News reported on Wednesday, citing former US officials.

The CIA first sent a small number of paramilitaries to eastern Ukraine when the war started in 2014, which was sparked by a US-backed coup in Kyiv and the Donbas separatists declaring independence from the post-coup government.

As part of the training, CIA paramilitaries taught Ukrainian forces sniper techniques, how to operate US-provided Javelin anti-tank missiles, and how to avoid being tracked on the battlefield by using covert communications and other means. The former officials said at first the CIA was surprised at the capability of Russia and the separatists compared with US adversaries in the Middle East.

The US military held similar training programs for Ukrainian forces in western Ukraine that have been publicly acknowledged. In January, Yahoo News revealed that the CIA had also been holding a US-based training program for Ukrainian forces. A former CIA official said the US-based program was training “an insurgency” and taught Ukrainians how to “kill Russians.”

The secret CIA program in eastern Ukraine was much more provocative than the other training programs since it essentially meant the US was involved in a proxy war on Russia’s border. The former officials told Yahoo News that During the first year of the Trump administration, National Security Officials reviewed the program, which had begun under the Obama administration.

The CIA paramilitaries were directed to advise and train but not participate in combat. Trump administration officials feared the authorities were too broad and that the mission was too ambiguous. One former official said questions that were asked included: “How far can you go with existing covert action authorities? If, God forbid, they’ve shot some Russians, is that a problem? Do you need special authorities for that?”

The former official said that the Trump administration discussed what Russia’s redlines could be and determined the US support for Ukrainian forces fell within historically acceptable bounds. “There was a school of thought that the Russians spoke the good old language of proxy war,” the official said.

Despite the concerns, the secret program continued for years until February. The former officials said that when a Russian invasion became “increasingly acute,” the Biden administration pulled all CIA personnel out of Ukraine, including the paramilitaries. One former official said the Biden administration was “terrified of even clandestine folks being on the frontline.”

Although it’s hard to know what the military situation looks like in Ukraine, the US claims Ukraine is putting up a much fiercer resistance than Russia expected. The former officials who spoke with Yahoo News suggested the resistance was in part thanks to the CIA training program. The US continues to fuel the fighting as President Biden has already pledged over $1 billion in new military aid for Ukraine since the invasion started.

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

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Zelensky has just signed into law the first steps of Schwab’s Great Reset. He announced he is introducing a Social Credit Application combining Universal Basic Income (UBI), a Digital Identity & a Vaccine Passport all within their Diia app. He also says that because so much money is coming into Ukraine as he has become an international celebrity, he has legalized cryptocurrencies in Ukraine. He will allow foreign and Ukrainian cryptocurrencies exchanges to operate legally, according to the country’s Ministry of Digital Transformation.

So far, he has taken in over $63 million in cryptocurrency donations.

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Featured image is from Armstrong Economics

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This book is a brilliant and comprehensive analysis of the Covid-19 crisis and the worldwide states of siege instituted under its cover.  Reading it, one cannot help but shake one’s head in outrage at the long-planned nature of the wealthy global elite’s seizure of power under the guise of a germ emergency and the revolutionary crisis it has created.

I say this not only because I am predisposed to the author’s thesis, but because he buttresses his argument with overwhelming documentation that is meticulously sourced and noted.  This is a work of genuine scholarship of the highest order, and to read it closely and with an open mind one can’t help but be convinced of its essential truth.

Kees van der Pijl, the author of The Making of an Atlantic Ruling Class and the winner of the 2008 Deutscher Prize for Nomads, Empires, States: Modes of Foreign Relations and Political Economy, introduces his study with these words:

The psychological shock of the proclamation of a pandemic, like the purpose behind torture, is intended to induce acceptance of a ‘new normal’ and to turn off critical judgment. This state of mind is achieved by withholding information about what is really going on, through the extremely one-sided information by politicians and mainstream media. Divergent views by often highly qualified experts are not mentioned or are dismissed as ‘conspiracy theories.’ This can be compared to the sensory deprivation in psychological torture. . . .We are dealing with a biopolitical  seizure of power, initiated at the level of global governance and reaching deep into the sovereignty of the individual, a seizure that involves a  whole range of forms of violence. [my emphasis]

The reason van der Pijl’s analysis is so powerful is because he clearly sees the historical context for the Covid crisis, how it is linked to issues of geo/economic-politics going back thirty-five years or more, culminating in the 2008 economic crash that ended years of capitalist speculation.  Then when President Barack Obama, serving as the front man for the big speculators, banks, and shadow banks, bailed out those entities and created a new financial order, popular revolts, such as those which were brewing on the eve of the New Deal in the 1930s, broke out around the world in the ensuing years and had to be subdued.  “Strikes, riots, and antigovernment demonstrations have broken existing records in every category during this period [since 2008].”

The elites knew that such revolts of an uncontrollable world population had to be kept under control, and that the growing numbers approaching 8 billion people had also to be culled. But van der Pijl’s subtitle, while intimating both with its double-entre, leads him to focus on the former that he deems “much more important.” While popular unrest and rage have been more or less suppressed since 2020 with the Covid crisis effectively used to put down its latest signs of eruption and to replace it with a permanent sense of anxiety, fear and trembling was first introduced on a massive scale with the attacks of September 11, 2001, the connected insider anthrax attacks, the Patriot Act, and emergency propaganda measures used to fuel the war on terror that has no end.  This terrorizing of the world has taken multiple forms with an ongoing series of U.S. wars on other countries – Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc., not to mention the proxy wars – supported by massive digital propaganda meant to take populations hostage to the lies.

Van der Pijl cogently shows how the Covid crisis fear campaign’s official account is untrue; how it is a political and not a medical emergency; and that it will collapse, as it has, at least temporarily, but how its deeper purpose is to create a  permanent authoritarian, surveillance social order controlled by transnational elites through global digital IDs, etc. This “new normal” relies on the corporate mass media to do the dissemination of the propaganda of fear and lies, and so he correctly emphasizes the central importance of the IT revolution and the single complex triangle of intelligence services-IT-media, which are in essence one entity.  The information warfare of mind control of the ruling class is fundamental, as he writes:

This is the core around which the ruling class in the West began to regroup after 2008 and which is now waging the information war against the global population by means of the Covid state of emergency.

He sees the elites’ seizure of power as an effort to foreclose a democratic transformation through the Information Technology (IT) revolution that he compares to the invention of the printing press in the 15^th century, which as such could potentially serve as a liberating force.  However, he also views IT, digitization, and the Internet from its inception as fundamental to the elites’ repressive control.  This double-edged perspective (about which I will return later) raises important questions.

But the body of the book is devoted to all the ways the intelligence-IT-media triangle has conducted its information warfare campaign based on techniques developed years ago in CIA counterinsurgency operations in Vietnam – Operation Phoenix – and its Strategy of Tension operations in Italy and Europe in the 1970s, and Lebanon and Central America in the 1980s.

He shows how these operations, stretching back so many decades, are connected to events today, greatly enhanced by the digital devices – particularly the cell phone.

He shows how Barack Obama’s 2012 initiation of aggressive global cyber operations – Total Information Awareness – whose details Edward Snowden made public, expanded the war against the population through cyber pacification techniques.

He tells the reader how the methods of such warfare that were used in Afghanistan and Iraq were brought home with the return of JSOC commander Stanley McChrystal, who just so happens to head an advisory group, the McChrystal Group, that plays a pivotal role in the Covid crisis by allegedly countering disinformation and promoting the government’s version of Covid truth.

He reminds readers about McChrystal’s journalist enemy, Michael Hastings, who after writing an article about McChrystal that led to his recall from Afghanistan and firing, would just so happen to be killed when his Mercedes was “hacked and detonated by remote control in a collision” in Los Angeles a few years later.

Van der Pijl shows how it just so happened that the new digital technologies were privatized in the defense and intelligence areas to form “Private-Public Partnerships” and how the World Economic Forum (WEF) hosted the UN’s 2030 Vision with all its multivarious connections to the imposition of the Covid crisis from above.

He draws the connections between the WEF, Bill Gates, U.S. intelligence, vaccines, the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, the Carnegie institutions, journalists on the CIA’s payroll, In-Q-Tel (the CIA’s venture capital arm), Bloomberg, Jeff Bezos, Black Rock, and so many other individuals and groups with the goal of establishing The Great Reset when the elites will try to exert total electronic control over people’s lives through a digital world economy, artificial intelligence, etc.

He details the U.S./Nazi connections going back to WW II and the U.S. biological weapons research and warfare targeting China and Russia, including the bio-laboratories in Ukraine.  He tells us how:

This goes back to a 2005 agreement between the Pentagon and Ukraine’s Ministry of Health. It prohibits the Kiev government from disclosing sensitive information about the program; Ukraine is required to hand over the dangerous pathogens produced there to the U.S. Department of Defense for further biological research. . . . One of the Pentagon’s laboratories is located in Kharkov where at least 20 Ukrainian soldiers succumbed to a flu-like virus within two days in 2016 . . . . In 2014 there was an outbreak in Moscow of a new, highly virulent variant of the Cholera agent Vibrio Cholera, related to the species identified in Ukraine.

He connects Anthony Fauci, the director of EcoHealth Alliance Dr. Peter Daszak, Christian Drosen of PCR notoriety, Fort Detrick, Wuhan, the World Military Games held in Wuhan between 18-27 October 2019, etc.

He explains how the Covid pandemic and lockdowns are a form of disaster capitalism that is a global project whose tentacles stretch extensively from the Gates Foundation to the Poynter Institute to the McChrystal Group to Philip Zelikow to the pharmaceutical companies and their “vaccine” push and propaganda to DARPA … to… to…  He writes:

It appears again and again that behind both the biopolitical and the IT-media power blocs lies the strategy of the American national security complex. . . One of the most alarming aspects of the transition from mechanical to psychological warfare against the population is that the authorities have now set their sights on the human genetic code as well.

In seven densely packed chapters, van der Pijl weaves and documents a vast tapestry of devious conspiratorial forces behind the states of emergency aimed at world control.  Reading them and following his sources, one would have to be brain dead to not realize that what is now happening throughout the world is not an accident or the result of things just happening but is a long planned operation conducted by very sophisticated forces interconnected in the group he calls the “intelligence-IT-triangle” that is waging mind control warfare to disguise the truth about their deadly bio/germ-weapons, their military wars around the world, and their economic assault on regular people.  It is a world war conducted on multiple fronts whose goal is elite control, the extinguishing of democracy, and the reduction of human being to appendages of the mega-machine.

But I would be remiss if I didn’t say that I think his conclusion may be too optimistic.  For even though he argues that the Information Technology revolution is central to elite propaganda and control, he believes IT – this “social brain” – holds revolutionary democratic potential if it can be liberated from elite dominance.  I don’t see how this can happen, though I wish he were right.  A decentralized, democratic internet seems like a pipe dream to me.  A dream not unlike that of so many others who have assumed technology’s beneficence and inevitability even when they sense its insidious, destructive capabilities.

He is right to say that ”everything revolves around the one universal currency, information,” and that digital infrastructure is now at the center of social organization.  This is beyond dispute.  However, those intelligence/military/IT forces that created and control the internet and digital technologies will not voluntarily cede control.  They will wage information war with it, censor it, de-platform people and sites, etc.  I believe this technology is intrinsically anti-democratic.  Nevertheless,  his concluding chapter on this issue is very important for broaching this dilemma and getting people to debate it.

This book should be read by anyone who cares about our world.  It is brilliant and extremely timely.

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

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

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

To order his book click the cover page.

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

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

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

 

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Today, the dangers of military escalation are beyond description.

What is now happening in Ukraine has serious geopolitical implications. It could lead us into a World War III Scenario.

It is important that a peace process be initiated with a view to preventing escalation. 

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The history of this war must be understood.

The bombing and shelling led by Ukraine’s Armed Forces directed against the people of Donbass started eight years ago, resulting in the destruction of residential areas and more than 10,000 civilian casualties.

A  bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

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It is rare in western media – even with some of the so-called alternative media – to hear so much truth about Ukraine, the Ukraine-Russia war, as recounted in an interview by Real America’s Voice with Lara Logan, who was a Ukraine on-the-ground journalist.

The interview is actually a bombshell of truth, especially when compared with the usual anti-Putin narrative.

Lara Logan tells about the lies about President Putin, about Russia’s military strength, about the bio-war labs – some 25 to 30 of them, funded by the United States.

In her ten-minute interview, she talks about the history of NATO’s 20-yearlong (or more) provocation of Russia to get into Ukraine, attempting to building her into a NATO nation, right in front of Moscow’s doorsteps.

Just think, how Washington would react if Russia or China were to decide to establish a military base in Mexico or another sovereign Central American country – or in the Caribbean. God forbid. Remember the Cuba Missile Crisis in October 1962, which almost led to an nuclear annihilation of the world…

Laura also talks about the utter corruption of the Ukraine “government” – the Nazi presence, the Nazi-Azov battalion that has been fighting and bombarding the mostly Russian Donbas area for the last 8 years, since the Maidan Coup in February 2014, leaving 14,000 civilian dead, including some 3000 children – the Maidan Coup also prepared by the US / NATO / EU in 2013 through early 2014.

Ms. Logan even refers to the infamous telephone conversation between Victoria Nuland, then Deputy Secretary of State, and the then US Ambassador in Kiev, Geoffrey Pyatt. You may remember, when they discussed who should be put at the helm of the new “putsched” Ukraine – the conversation that ended with the infamous exclamation by Ms. Nuland “F**k the EU”. See this.

She brings to light how all imaginable crimes converge in Ukraine, from the trading of children and women, money laundering – in the billions and billions – drug trafficking, shady business deals (see Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son – and other “high-class”, high-visibility people), as well as weapons dealing – let alone the forementioned war-labs – and all done managed by western mafias and white-collar criminals.

And much more. – None of it is mentioned by the western media.

See for yourself. It may change your mind, by at least understanding what is happening in Ukraine.

This is not to justify war. War can never be justified, but understanding the history of the lead-up to war may help you – in the name of PEACE – press your governments for a dialogue solution – a negotiated solution – by the top players in the international arena – like China, the US, Germany, UK and France – along with Russia and the Ukraine.

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

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

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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The results of the most comprehensive glyphosate testing of food products ever conducted in the U.S. were released by The Detox Project on last week, in a detailed report that shows the true levels of weedkiller contamination in essential foods sold by some of the top grocery stores in the country.

The world’s most used weedkiller, glyphosate, was discovered in a wide range of essential food products including bread, pulses and grains from top grocery stores such as Hy-Vee, Whole Foods Market, Amazon, Walmart and Target.

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in the weedkiller Roundup, is a probable human carcinogen according to WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and has led to the manufacturers of Roundup, Bayer/Monsanto, being forced to pay over $10 Billion in damages to gardeners, groundskeepers and farmers who are suffering with blood cancer (non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma).

Of the products that were tested, a range of whole wheat breads contained the highest levels, alongside chickpeas and Quaker Oats. The worst offending products were found in Hy-Vee, Whole Foods Market and Walmart, with the products with the lowest levels being found in Natural Grocers.

In what may be a surprise to many consumers, 18 of the 26 Non-GMO labeled products tested contained glyphosate, including two of the highest five levels discovered (535 ppb and 1040 ppb respectively).

Where is the glyphosate coming from and why is it in Non-GMO labeled foods?

This report shows the damning reality that preharvest spraying (desiccation), an off-label use of glyphosate-based weedkillers, is leading to the mass contamination of essential foods that form the base of our diet.

These alarming results also show that Bayer/Monsanto, scientists, and government regulators have long failed to understand or even explore the basic risks and level of exposure from the U.S. food supply.

Besides wheat, oats and barley, Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides are regularly sprayed on more than 70 crops, including almonds, apples, dry edible beans, lentils, chickpeas (garbanzo beans), peas, grapes, rice, and sunflowers.

Are the levels of glyphosate discovered in essential foods safe?

It is first important to understand how the ‘safe’ level of any toxic chemical is set. Currently the U.S. EPA sets a Reference Dose (RfD), which is known as the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) in Europe, by taking the lowest no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) from animal studies and dividing it by 100.

The big problem is that both the RfD in the U.S. (1.75 mg / kg bw / day) and the ADI in the EU (0.3 mg/kg bw /day) for glyphosate have already been proven to be far too high by independent peer-reviewed studies.

In the pilot phase of the most comprehensive study ever performed on glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides – the Global Glyphosate Study – it was shown that glyphosate-based herbicides cause genotoxicity, alteration of the intestinal microbiome as well as reproductive and developmental effects in both male and female rats, at the U.S RfD level. Other peer-reviewed studies have also shown change in gene function and DNA Damage at the U.S. RfD level.

This would normally mean that the EPA’s current RfD safe level should be reduced by at least 100x. However, even that may not be enough of a reduction, as in smaller non-comprehensive peer-reviewed studies, levels that are lower than 0.1 mg/kg have been shown to cause serious kidney and liver damage in rats.

“Currently, we do not know the full effects on our health of glyphosate exposure at very low levels and we thus must follow the precautionary principle and ban the herbicide from being sold immediately. It is simply not yet possible to set a safe level for glyphosate exposure and anyone who attempts to do so is bending the science,” Henry Rowlands, Director of Sustainable Pulse and The Detox Project, concluded.

How was the testing performed?

This testing project was performed In exactly the same way as government regulators occasionally perform checks for pesticides in off-the-shelf food products; a selection of different essential foods, including bread, grains, pulses (lentils, beans, peas and chickpeas) and protein bars and shakes were purchased from top grocery stores and sent directly to an expert ISO 17025 certified third-party laboratory in California. They were then tested using gold standard mass spectrometry methods (LC-MS/MS).

The number of samples and the wide selection of essential food types tested make this the most comprehensive single glyphosate testing project ever performed in the U.S.. Similar smaller projects on specific areas of the food supply have previously shown glyphosate contamination in cereals, hummus and protein supplements, with some of the results having been reported in the New York Times.

The latest testing project was funded by the Rose Foundation, based in California, which supports projects that protect and support nature, human rights and environmental justice.

You can find the full testing report here.

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Today, the dangers of military escalation are beyond description.

What is now happening in Ukraine has serious geopolitical implications. It could lead us into a World War III Scenario.

It is important that a peace process be initiated with a view to preventing escalation. 

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The history of this war must be understood.

The bombing and shelling led by Ukraine’s Armed Forces directed against the people of Donbass started eight years ago, resulting in the destruction of residential areas and more than 10,000 civilian casualties.

A  bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

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One of the most debated topics in recent days, related to the conflict in Ukraine, is the “no-fly zone” issue. The measure was initially proposed by Kiev to establish an aggressive response to Russia, but it has been treated with some resistance by NATO itself, although it receives absolute approval from the western media. In practice, the creation of such a zone only means giving Kiev and the West the “right” to shoot down Russian planes and helicopters, which would mean the beginning of a new world war. These factors make the measure irresponsible  and unnecessary, but the hegemonic media continues to ignore this and point to the idea as the correct path to follow. On the other hand, recent polls indicate that the project is not popular, receiving strong disapproval among ordinary people.

From the beginning, the US government and NATO have rejected the Ukrainian project to create a no-fly zone in order to allow the shooting of Russian planes. This kind of escalation sounds too aggressive even for Western governments, which fear that the conflict in Ukraine will trigger a world war – which would harm all sides without distinction. The position is not shared by the main media agencies, which insist that the creation of the zone is an urgent and necessary measure, despite all the risks it entails. And, in this sense, one of the main arguments of such agencies is to claim that there is a strong popular support for the measure.

In fact, in major polls, when asked whether or not they support the formation of a no-fly zone in Ukraine, most Americans have answered “yes.” But a curious fact has been revealed in a more recent survey by YouGov: most people just do not seem to know what a no-fly zone means in practice. In this survey, YouGov agents asked people two questions. In the first, they simply asked, “Would you support or oppose the U.S. enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine?”. And in the second, they asked more broadly: “Would you support or oppose the U.S. enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which would mean the U.S. military would shoot down Russian military planes flying over Ukraine, possibly triggering a war between the U.S. and Russia?”

For anyone who knows what a no-fly zone means, these questions mean absolutely the same thing. But, surprisingly, there was a discrepancy in results. For the first question, 40% of respondents stated that they would support a US-enforced no-fly zone, while only 25% opposed it and another 35% responded that they were unsure about the topic. On the other hand, for the second question, 23% of respondents said they would support such a zone. 43% percent opposed it, with 34% unsure.

The result brings us a series of interesting reflections. First of all, it is possible to conclude that popular support for the creation of the no-fly zone is a big farce. What happens is that public opinion, influenced by Western media’s discourse, tends to support the existence of anti-Russian measures. And from the moment that the media agencies say that it is necessary to create a no-fly zone, people tend to automatically agree. But, in the opposite direction, American citizens fear the emergence of a new conflict, which is natural for a people as accustomed to wars as the American, who have been suffering the consequences of Washington’s interventionist policy for decades. When they become aware that a no-fly zone would be the trigger for a new conflict, Americans stop supporting the measure, because nothing can seem worse to an American than war.

When Western media agencies claim that there is popular support for the creation of the no-fly zone, they are simply lying irresponsibly, trying to pressure the government to implement a bellicose measure, which will possibly generate a world war, based on a fallacious argument that has been “confirmed” with biased and flawed surveys. Indeed, there is no real support from the American people for any step that could culminate in a war.

It is necessary that the entire population of western countries be aware that “no-fly zone” means an air space of prohibited or restricted flights by the local State, with the right – and sometimes the obligation – for local forces to shoot down aircraft that fly over there. Creating such a situation in a scenario of conflict in the Russian strategic environment means making NATO shoot down Russian military aircraft, which will certainly not be passively accepted, generating a war between Russia and NATO.

So, with people knowing all the consequences of such a zone, there will be no support for this type of irresponsible measure. It is a project that only pleases the Ukrainian government itself and other states with a high degree of anti-Russian nationalism – such as Lithuania, Estonia and Slovenia, which are officially supporting the zone. There is no room to defend this kind of idea in the US and Western democracies.

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

Featured image is from Yves Engler

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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Today, the dangers of military escalation are beyond description.

What is now happening in Ukraine has serious geopolitical implications. It could lead us into a World War III Scenario.

It is important that a peace process be initiated with a view to preventing escalation. 

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The history of this war must be understood.

The bombing and shelling led by Ukraine’s Armed Forces directed against the people of Donbass started eight years ago, resulting in the destruction of residential areas and more than 10,000 civilian casualties.

A  bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

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The political scientist John Mearsheimer has been one of the most famous critics of American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. Perhaps best known for the book he wrote with Stephen Walt, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” Mearsheimer is a proponent of great-power politics—a school of realist international relations that assumes that, in a self-interested attempt to preserve national security, states will preëmptively act in anticipation of adversaries. For years, Mearsheimer has argued that the U.S., in pushing to expand NATO eastward and establishing friendly relations with Ukraine, has increased the likelihood of war between nuclear-armed powers and laid the groundwork for Vladimir Putin’s aggressive position toward Ukraine. Indeed, in 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea, Mearsheimer wrote that “the United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for this crisis.”

The current invasion of Ukraine has renewed several long-standing debates about the relationship between the U.S. and Russia. Although many critics of Putin have argued that he would pursue an aggressive foreign policy in former Soviet Republics regardless of Western involvement, Mearsheimer maintains his position that the U.S. is at fault for provoking him. I recently spoke with Mearsheimer by phone. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed whether the current war could have been prevented, whether it makes sense to think of Russia as an imperial power, and Putin’s ultimate plans for Ukraine.

Click here to read the full article.

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March 7, 2022, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hosted a roundtable discussion about COVID treatment, early treatment suppression, vaccine risks, the collateral damage from school closures and lockdowns and more

March 8, 2022, the Florida Department of Health updated its guidance, formally recommending against COVID vaccination for healthy children, 5 to 17. Florida is the first state to go against CDC vaccine recommendations

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo stressed that, as we move forward, we must insist on holding decision makers accountable for their harmful public health decisions. “Their choices, that they made for everyone, were the wrong choices that led to, basically, no appreciable benefit,” Ladapo said

According to Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, one of the most egregious mistakes made was to ignore the fact that there’s a thousand-fold difference in risk between the lowest and highest risk groups. Children are at virtually no risk of dying from COVID, yet children have been forced to bear the burden of disease prevention. “Almost from the very beginning of the pandemic, we adopted policies that seem like they were tailor-made to harm children,” he said

According to Dr. Sunetra Gupta, what we’ve seen over the past two years is an “inversion of the schedule of uncertainty.” Doubt was cast on things that were certain, while certainty was claimed for things we had no clue about. Decision makers chose to do the very things we knew, for certain, would cause harm. They inverted the precautionary principle to minimize harm, and chose to maximize harm instead

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March 7, 2022, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hosted a roundtable discussion¹ about COVID treatment, early treatment suppression, vaccine risks, the collateral damage from school closures and lockdowns, and how to end the COVID theatre once and for all. Panelists included physicians, scientists and academics from around the U.S., including:

We Must Hold Decision Makers to Account

As noted by Ladapo, one of the things we must remember and remain intent upon as we move forward is to hold people accountable for their public health decisions. Two years after the “two weeks to slow the spread,” we have ample evidence proving the decision makers “didn’t know what they were talking about,” Ladapo says.

They abused their power, they manipulated data, they lied, and they now want us all to forget what they said and did. We cannot let them get away with it. Many errors were made, and those responsible must be held to account.

“Their choices, that they made for everyone, were the wrong choices that led to, basically, no appreciable benefit,” Ladapo says. “We cannot let them forget. We have to hold them accountable. We have to let the country, the world, know what the truth is — because it’s the right thing to do, and because it can happen again if we don’t.”

Thousand-Fold Difference in Risk Was Ignored

Bhattacharya was one of the first to investigate the prevalence of COVID-19 in 2020, and he found that by April, the infection was already too prevalent for lockdowns to have any possibility of stopping the spread.

He points out that one of the most egregious mistakes made was to ignore the fact that there’s a thousand-fold difference in risk between the lowest and highest risk groups. Children and teens are at virtually no risk of dying from COVID. Overall, the risk of COVID is primarily relegated to the very old and those with multiple comorbidities.

Bhattacharya has called the COVID-19 lockdowns the “biggest public health mistake ever made,”³stressing that the harms caused have been “absolutely catastrophically devastating,” especially for children and the working class, worldwide.⁴

In some areas of the world, children have not been in school for two years, and the ramifications of that will likely reverberate for decades. Public health has also been negatively impacted by lockdowns and other measures — measures which Bhattacharya states were based in fear, not fact.

Kulldorff, in his opening remarks, points out what he believes is one of the most stunning parts of this pandemic, and that is the denial of the basic science of natural immunity. Even doctors and hospitals that “should know better have demanded vaccine mandates for people who have already had COVID,” he says.

Perhaps even worse, hospitals have fired staff who have had COVID and have natural immunity, simply because they did not want to get the experimental jab. Those with natural immunity are not just less likely to get COVID again, they’re also far less likely to spread it to others. This makes them among the most valuable staff members a hospital can have, yet they were routinely discarded.

“That goes against basic principles of public health,” Kulldorff says. “And to have a director of the CDC who questions natural immunity, which we have now, is sort of like having a director of NASA who questions whether the earth is flat or round. It’s just mindboggling that we’ve come into a situation like that.”

Fraiman, whose clinical research expertise includes risk-benefit analysis, also expresses disbelief and frustration over the scientific censorship we’ve seen in the last two years. He points out that many of his colleagues are simply too afraid of getting fired to speak the truth.

DeSantis, similarly, highlights how incredibly difficult it has been to publish and find research that contradicted the official narrative, and even when available, the mainstream media would refuse to acknowledge it, whereas they would endlessly publicize speculation and statements of opinion that had no basis in fact or science, but supported — however flimsily — the official narrative.

I would add that so-called fact checkers have even gone so far as to “fact check” scientific peer-reviewed publications,^5,6,7 labeling them as “misinformation” or outright “false,” resulting in their being censored on social media!

That’s an astounding development. It does not bode well for science when noncredentialed individuals with zero experience in the topic at hand are given the authority to decide the “truthfulness” or accuracy of scientists’ work.

The Inversion of the Precautionary Principle

Gupta, who has some 30 years of expertise in mathematical modeling of infectious disease, points out that what we’ve seen over the past two years is an “inversion of the schedule of uncertainty.” In short, doubt was cast on things that were rather certain — so-called “unknowns were not unknown,” Gupta says — while certainty was claimed for things we had no clue about.

“The powers that be told us the measures and restrictions would work, but we didn’t know they would work,” she says. Moreover, we didn’t know what their purpose actually was. “It was a rather incoherent set of goals,” she says. One thing we knew for certain was that lockdowns and other restrictions “would have enormous cost,” she says.

“That was the one thing we were certain about, yet that’s what we went ahead and did. We inverted the precautionary principle of trying to minimize harm, by doing the one thing we knew would cause harm.”

I would add that the scale of that harm was never calculated or addressed at any point along the way. It’s as though it didn’t matter how great the harm was, as long as there was the appearance that we were doing everything in our power to prevent COVID.

Plausibility Versus Science

Risch brings up a similar point, saying we’ve seen a lot of misdirection. What’s been conveyed to the public have been things that are plausible, but not scientific. “There’s a big difference between things that seem plausible and things that are scientific,” he says.

For example, lockdowns are a plausible countermeasure, but they’re not based in science. In fact, all the science we have, show them to be harmful, with little or no benefit whatsoever. “The same has been true for medications,” Rish says.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration put out warnings saying that hydroxychloroquine should not be used in outpatients, even though they had no data on outpatient use of the drug. They only had data on in-hospital use, and the two situations are not comparable.

Early COVID symptoms are completely different from symptoms of later-stage, severe infection and the two stages require completely different treatments. Hydroxychloroquine only works well when used very early. It’s not useful in the later stages, and frontline doctors were well aware of this.

No Justification for Mandating Vaccines for Children

Malone — speaking on behalf of the International Alliance of Physicians and Medical Scientists,⁸which currently has some 17,000 members — stressed that, in terms of COVID policies, the Alliance has “made a series of very clear, unambiguous statements.”

“There is no justification for mandating vaccines for children. Full stop,” he says. “We’re of the strong opinion that if there is risk there must be choice. This is fundamental bioethics 101.”

As noted in the second Physicians Declaration⁹ by dated October 29, 2021, children’s clinical risk from SARS-CoV-2 infection is negligible and long term safety of the shots cannot be determined prior to the enactment of mandatory vaccination policies. Not only are children at high risk for severe adverse events, but having healthy, unvaccinated children in the population is crucial to achieving herd immunity. Malone continues:

“No. 2, as far as we’re concerned, there is no medical emergency now, and there is therefore no justification for the declaration of medical emergency and the suspension of rights …”

The Alliance also condemns “the hunting of physicians and the restriction of physicians’ ability to prescribe and treat with early treatment.” With regard to vaccines, Malone also highlights the fact that while a Pfizer/BioNTech COVID injection has been approved by the FDA, that product is not available.

So, there is NO FDA approved COVID “vaccine” on the market in the U.S. The only products available in the U.S., for children and adults alike, are emergency use authorization (EUA) products, for which liability is waived.

Now, in order for the COVID injections to qualify for EUA, there could not be any other treatments available, which appears to have been the driving factor behind the suppression of early treatment with repurposed drugs such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.

Mask Mandates Have Not Had Any Benefit

Speaking to the issue of mask mandates, Hoeg has published several studies, looking at the effects of universal mask wearing. One of them assessed compliance and outcomes in the Wisconsin school system. On average, 92% of children complied with the mask wearing, and only seven students out of 7,000 caught COVID during the 2021 school year.

This was used by media to proclaim that masks work. The problem is, there was no control group, and the low infection rate could have been due to anything. Hoeg points out we have studies from Scandinavia, where masks were not worn, and they too had extremely low infection rates among children.

Again and again, we’ve seen that children just aren’t susceptible to COVID, especially not severe infection. So, low incidence really says nothing about the effectiveness of masks.

DeSantis also notes that neighboring schools — one that had a mask mandate and another that did not — had no discernible difference in infection rates, which he believes is rather compelling evidence that mask mandates have no benefit. What’s more, of the two largest randomized controlled trials, both showed that masks do not prevent the spread of infection.

According to Hoeg, we’ve inverted the precautionary principle with respect to mask wearing as well. Without any high-quality evidence of benefit, we’ve chosen to mask children even though we know there are harms. They interfere with communication, impede learning, hinder breathing, promote bacterial infections and more.

The Collateral Damage Has Been Immense

As noted by Fraiman, any time you consider a public health measure, you have to conduct a thorough risk-benefit analysis. Who may benefit and to what degree? What are the harms, who will be harmed the most, what’s the extent of the collateral damage? Do the benefits outweigh all of the risks?

In the case of school closures, “the collateral damage has been immense,” Fraiman says. Physical and mental health has been impacted. According to Fraiman, there’s been a doubling of obesity and diabetes, for example, during the pandemic. There’s been a dramatic increase in anxiety, depression and stress.

Recent statistics show a shocking spike in fentanyl overdose deaths among high school-aged adolescents in the U.S. during 2020 and 2021. The following graph, from a December 24, 2021, preprint article¹⁰ posted on medRxiv and tweeted¹¹ out by Dr. John B., a scientist, illustrates the situation better than words.

According to the authors:¹²

“Adolescent overdose mortality saw a sharp increase between 2019 and 2020, from 2.35 per 100,000 to 4.58 per 100,000, representing a 94.3% increase, the largest percent increase of any 5-year age group …

Trends were driven by fatalities involving IMFs [illicitly-manufactured-fentanyls], which nearly tripled from 2019 to 2020, and represented 76.6% of adolescent overdose deaths in 2021 … Our results should also be understood in the context of rising rates of adolescent mental illness during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“I think it’s quite clear that the collateral damage outweighed any benefit that was there,” Fraiman says. “So, I think we need to take a more systems-level approach before embarking on this kind of policy the next time.”

Was Harming Children Intentional?

Bhattacharya adds, “Almost from the very beginning of the pandemic, we adopted policies that seem like they were tailor-made to harm children.” Lower-income children were disproportionally harmed by lockdowns and school closures. “The effect on these kids has been catastrophic,” he says.

He cites a study that calculated that, as a result of the school closures during the spring of 2020, children in the U.S. will lose 5.5 million life years. Lost learning literally ripples through the child’s entire lifetime. They lead less healthy and shorter lives and are more likely to be steeped in poverty.

In some areas of the world, schools have been closed for nearly two years. As noted by Bhattacharya, we’ve “robbed an entire generation of their birthright.” Mask mandates have made the impact on children even worse.

He points out that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is the only public health agency in the world that still recommends masking toddlers, “with literally not a single study showing it has any consequence on the spread of the disease.”

“The only reason they continue to mask [toddlers] is because [the toddlers] are powerless,”he says. “We’ve adopted this idea that children are the central problem; children are the ones who should bear all the burden of infection control.

In fact, that’s not true. It has revealed the values we have as a society, and it’s not a pretty picture. None of this has actually worked to protect the vulnerable. Still, 80% of the deaths are in people over 65. What have these restrictions on children bought? Not very much, if at all. And it’s caused tremendous harm that we’re going to have to address for years to come.”

Florida Recommends Against COVID Shots for Healthy Children

In late February 2022, Ladapo and DeSantis also updated the state’s policy on masks, formally discouraging mask wearing.¹³ Toward the end of the roundtable, Ladapo announced the Florida Department of Health would also formally recommend against COVID shots for healthy children, aged 5 to 17,¹⁴ as they “may not benefit from receiving the currently available COVID-19 vaccines.”

During the roundtable, risks such as myocarditis were also discussed. Florida is the first state to go against the CDC’s vaccine recommendations. In a statement published with the new guideline, March 8, 2022,¹⁵ Ladapo said:

“Based on currently available data, the risks of administering COVID-19 vaccination among healthy children may outweigh the benefits. These decisions should be made on an individual basis, and never mandated.”

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Notes

¹ Epoch Times March 3, 2022 (Archived)

² Great Barrington Declaration

³ Newsweek March 8, 2021

⁴ Rumble, Ron DeSantis March 7, 2022, 32:00

⁵ Reclaim the Net December 17, 2021

⁶ Medscape December 20, 2021

⁷ ZeroHedge December 20, 2021

⁸ Physicians Declaration by the International Alliance of Physicians and Medical Scientists

⁹ Physicians Declaration October 29, 2021

^10, 12 medRxiv December 24, 2021 DOI: 10.1101/2021.12.23.21268284

¹¹ Twitter Dr. John B December 25, 2021

¹³ AP News February 24, 2022

¹⁴ NBC News March 7, 2022, Updated March 8, 2022

¹⁵ Florida Health March 8, 2022

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

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Today, the dangers of military escalation are beyond description.

What is now happening in Ukraine has serious geopolitical implications. It could lead us into a World War III Scenario.

It is important that a peace process be initiated with a view to preventing escalation. 

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The history of this war must be understood.

The bombing and shelling led by Ukraine’s Armed Forces directed against the people of Donbass started eight years ago, resulting in the destruction of residential areas and more than 10,000 civilian casualties.

A  bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

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In an emotional appeal that left some members of Congress with tears in their eyes, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky repeated his plea that U.S. officials impose a “no-fly zone” over his country. What he failed to mention during the course of his talk, is the virtual certainty that such an action would lead to nuclear war between the United States and Russia. 

Contrary to what Zelensky, President Biden, the Pentagon, the CIA, members of Congress, and other interventionists would like to believe, the war in Ukraine is not about freedom. It is about NATO, a corrupt bureaucratic entity that should have gone out of existence when the Cold War racket came to an end. 

Zelensky wanted Ukraine to join NATO. So did Biden, the Pentagon, the CIA, and other interventionists. For some 25 years, Russia has made it clear that that is a “red line” for Russia. Why? Because if Ukraine joins NATO, the Pentagon and the CIA will be able to establish their nuclear missiles, tanks, weaponry, and military bases on Russia’s border. Russia has steadfastly opposed that notion as fiercely as the U.S. government would oppose the same thing happening in Cuba or along the Mexico border.

Moreover, all the way up to the invasion, Russia made it clear that if Zelensky gave up his hopes and dreams of having Ukraine join NATO, there would be no Russian invasion of his country.

Alas, Zelensky could not let go of his love for this Cold War dinosaur. His love of NATO got the best of him. In the final analysis, he decided to sacrifice tens of thousands of his citizens in the hopes that Ukraine could defeat Russia in a war and then join NATO. He undoubtedly figured that he could induce Biden, the Pentagon, and the CIA to come to his aid. In fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Biden, the Pentagon, and the CIA misled Zelensky into believing that he could count on their support once Russia invaded Ukraine.

And now that Zelensky realizes that his high-stakes gamble might not pay off, he’s willing to sacrifice the American people in a nuclear war with Russia. In other words, if he’s going down, which is very possible, he wants millions of Americans to go down with him — again, not for freedom, but for NATO. He wants millions of Americans to be willing to die for NATO, just like tens of thousands of Ukrainians are now dying for NATO.

Let’s break down exactly what a “no-fly zone” is that Zelensky wants the Pentagon to establish over Ukraine. It involves U.S. fighter aircraft shooting down Russian military planes over Ukraine. Those Russian planes would contain Russian soldiers, perhaps even hundreds of Russian soldiers in transport planes.

That’s not all. From the ground, Russian forces will be firing missiles intended to shoot down American planes. Thus, it would be necessary for American planes to fire missiles at the ground with the aim of knocking out those anti-aircraft missile facilities. People near those areas would be incinerated. (In fact, when U.S. officials established a “no-fly zone” over Iraq during the 1990s, I recall one incident in which an errant U.S. missile killed a young boy tending his sheep.)

The moment one Russian plane is shot down, the United States and Russia will be in a state of war. At that point, anything can happen. All bets are off. The war might remain conventional, in which case the United States would be almost certain to win, given its vast military superiority. 

But it then becomes in Russia’s interests to employ tactical nuclear weapons. But if that’s the case, everyone know where that is going to lead. Therefore, almost immediately both sides would have to calculate whether to be the first to fire their strategic missiles. There would be little time for thought and reflection. In a nuclear war, no one wants to be firing his nuclear arsenal second. It becomes in the interests of both nations to fire their nuclear arsenal first.

That’s what Zelensky is willing to risk with his call for a Pentagon-enforced “no-fly zone” over Ukraine — the entire United States radiated — hundreds of millions of Americans suddenly and unexpectedly killed in an all-out nuclear exchange — most of our country destroyed — just so that Ukraine can join NATO. 

Statists are referring to Zelensky as a “George Washington.” But George Washington would never have been willing to sacrifice even one American or even one foreigner, much less millions of innocent people, for the sake of joining a corrupt bureaucratic entity like NATO or any other “entangling alliance.”

With friends like Zelensky, who needs enemies?

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Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.

Featured image: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (centre) attends the drills of the Ministry of Internal Affairs during his working trip to the Kherson region, Ukraine, Saturday, February 12, 2022

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

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Mass media in the United States and throughout the countries of Western Europe are exhaustively and intensely depicting the suffering of the Ukrainian people as Ukraine confronts the Russian army.

It is the U.S. and its NATO proxy who have now broadened the war being fought in Ukraine.

What the media is not covering is the impact of this war on the working and poor people inside Russia.

In an alliance with the most economically powerful capitalist governments and their central banks, the U.S. has managed to cut the Russian economy off from many of the world’s financial arteries. According to the conservative weekly The Economist, “No major economy in the modern world has ever been hit so hard by such weapons.” (March 5)

Hundreds of billions of dollars in Russia’s central bank reserves were frozen by this capitalist consortium of banks. This has meant that Russia could not defend the value of its currency by buying rubles. Russia’s ruble lost 30% of its value over the weekend of Feb. 26-27.

Currently, the U.S. has imposed sanctions on over 10,000 people or firms, affecting over 50 countries making up 27% of the world’s GDP.

To say that the sanctions on Russia have had an unprecedented impact is clearly to define a catastrophic situation.

War’s impact on workers

Big business Western media have spent a lot of time, screen minutes and ink asserting travel bans against Russia are only disrupting the luxurious vacations of the Russian ultrarich — the people they call oligarchs.

The capitalist media spend no time talking about ordinary working people who have had their lives disrupted catastrophically.

Since Russia imports substantial supplies of food, chemicals and machinery, the prices that workers in Russia now face — and have to pay to meet their daily needs — are going to spike. The world’s two largest shipping companies — Maersk and MSC — have suspended operations to and from Russia.

Google Pay, Apple Pay, Mastercard, Visa, Discover and Amex have all announced that they are suspending or restricting operations in Russia. Tens of thousands of people living in Russia — who use these cards to pay their bus and subway fares to get to work, school, pharmacies or supermarkets — could not do so starting Feb. 25, because the card companies were sanctioning Russia.

The jobs of tens of thousands of workers in Russia employed by foreign companies are in jeopardy. If they work, they must be paid, but their companies have no legal way to pay them. Some foreign-owned companies have put themselves up for sale, and others are abandoning their investments.

Canceling credit/debit cards, closing air spaces and imposing travel bans have meant that the 150,000 people who domicile in Russia but who were outside the country were likely without funds, unable even to pay their bills, at the time of sanctions. The 27,000 people in countries covered by air travel bans have an additional major worry — simply getting home. (NPR, March 2)

Inside Russia, even people from the U.S. and other countries who support the sanctions face being stranded and unable to leave. Given legal restrictions on financial transactions, whether they can pay their bills is questionable. The U.S. Embassy is advising U.S. citizens to leave immediately.

Class war

Sanctions cut both ways. The current sanctions against Russia have one big exception: Russia will be allowed payment for supplying Western Europe with 40% of its oil and gas. If this flow were sanctioned, oil prices, which have been volatile but trending higher due to war uncertainty, might go through the roof.

Russia then might do better selling less oil at higher prices on the spot market. Then again it might not. There’s a fog of war and a fog of sanctions.

Either way, workers in the U.S. and Europe involved in producing goods or services for Russia will lose. This loss won’t be tracked, because the governments involved want to pretend that the only cost of sanctions is on the nation that is sanctioned.

The tens of thousands of sanctions imposed by the U.S. cost many thousands of workers their jobs. In Russia, a cratering currency, short supplies and skyrocketing inflation point to life becoming much harder for ordinary working people.

*

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Featured image: Workers at a Moscow bank attempt to gain access to their money tied up by U.S. sanctions, March 1. (Source: IAC)

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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---

Today, the dangers of military escalation are beyond description.

What is now happening in Ukraine has serious geopolitical implications. It could lead us into a World War III Scenario.

It is important that a peace process be initiated with a view to preventing escalation. 

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The history of this war must be understood.

The bombing and shelling led by Ukraine’s Armed Forces directed against the people of Donbass started eight years ago, resulting in the destruction of residential areas and more than 10,000 civilian casualties.

A  bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

---

With Russian bombers raining down destruction on Ukrainian cities, the call for establishing a “no-fly zone” over the country might at first seem like a no-brainer. If Putin’s air force can be kept out of the skies, then Ukrainians might be spared the terror of death from above, right?

The proposal for a no-fly zone is getting a lot of attention right now. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is making the pitch for one every time he has the attention of Western politicians. Many anti-war demonstrations around the world feature posters and signs demanding it. Reporters constantly pepper the White House with questions about why it’s not moving to close Ukraine’s skies.

And opinion polls show 72% of U.S. citizens—no doubt outraged by the civilian casualties in places like Kherson and Mariupol broadcast on their televisions every day—are in favor of grounding Russian planes.

While it might sound like a noble thing to do in the abstract, a NATO-enforced no-fly zone over Ukraine is actually a very, very bad idea. It would almost guarantee the start of World War III and nuclear annihilation of life on this planet.

What is a no-fly zone?

Too many foreign policy commentators and Ukrainian government spokespeople are talking about a no-fly zone like it’s something that can just be declared, as though it’s an administrative matter to be decided upon by Western states.

Zelensky has been direct in his appeals for the U.S. government to step in. Bizarrely invoking the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech, the Ukrainian president told the U.S. Congress Wednesday that he dreamed of a no-fly zone.

“Is it a lot to ask for, to create a no-fly zone over Ukraine to save people? Is this too much to ask, a humanitarian no-fly zone, [so] that Russia would not be able to terrorize our free cities?”

The day before, speaking to Canadian lawmakers, Zelensky pleaded: “Please close the sky, close the airspace, please stop the bombing…. How many more cruise missiles have to fall on our cities until you make this happen?”

Zelensky had virtually every member of Congress on their feet applauding, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi cheering the right-wing battle cry, “Slava Ukraini!” But only a handful of U.S. politicians appeared to be won over to the idea of a no-fly zone. Florida Sen. Rick Scott was one; he said President Joe Biden is “heartless and ignorant” if he doesn’t “close Ukrainian skies to Russian attacks.”

Zelensky would have us believe that Washington or Ottawa can simply issue a statement saying Ukraine’s skies are closed, and then, like magic, the Russian military will halt its air assault. Sen. Scott says anyone who opposes it is ignorant. But it is the advocates of a no-fly zone who are the ignorant ones.

The reality is that enforcing a no-fly zone would literally mean that NATO (which basically implies U.S.) warplanes and missiles would be shooting down Russian planes—American military personnel killing Russian military personnel.

That would mean war—immediate war between Russia and the 30 nations of the U.S.-dominated NATO alliance. And a war between Russia and the United States could very easily escalate to an all-out nuclear confrontation. Russia already put its nuclear forces on high alert before the invasion of Ukraine and warned others to stay out, and U.S. missiles are always ready to launch at a moment’s notice.

No one should underestimate the consequences at stake.

A nuclear war between Russia and the United States would mean hundreds of millions of people dead within hours, or even minutes. Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, London, Paris, Berlin, and so many more cities would be wiped off the map. In such a nuclear exchange, it would probably also be hard to keep other nuclear powers from being dragged in, so Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei, and various metropolises far removed from the war zone could also be vaporized.

Some voices in the media, well aware of what a no-fly zone would risk, are willing to gamble the future of humanity. Sam Bowman, editor of the publication Works in Progress and former executive director of the Adam Smith Institute, a capitalist think tank, wrote on Twitter on March 14:

“My view is basically that nuclear war is worth risking for some things, like keeping as much of Europe free and independent of Russia as we can. But I think that’s a hard position to hold if you think the extinction of humanity is so bad that avoiding it trumps everything else.”

God save the free market, everything else be damned—so goes the logic apparently.

Luckily, Biden, other NATO leaders, and most in the U.S. Congress recognize the reality that if there is a nuclear war, there won’t be any Europe, any free markets, any humanity, or anything else left—and so they continue to resist calls for a no-fly zone, so far.

When many people hear about a no-fly zone, perhaps they have memories of Iraq in the 1990s or the Bosnian war amid the breakup of Yugoslavia that same decade. Leaving aside the legality of those wars for now, the situations in those places are not comparable to what’s unfolding in Ukraine right now. In those cases, the U.S. had a total military advantage in comparison to Saddam Hussein or the Bosnian Serbs.

Neither of the U.S.’ adversaries in those 1990s conflicts could match it in weaponry, and neither possessed a nuclear capability. If an Iraqi or Serbian plane was shot down, or vice-versa, if a U.S. plane was shot down, there was little likelihood that those wars would automatically and drastically spin out of control into other countries.

Mutually Assured Destruction

By contrast, a direct confrontation between U.S. and Russian pilots over Ukraine, or the destruction of a Russian bomber by an American missile, would immediately drag us all into a much wider war that no one could win.

During the Cold War, both the USSR and the United States acknowledged that both countries would be destroyed if either of them ever initiated a nuclear war. That awareness was called M.A.D.—Mutually Assured Destruction—and it kept the world safe, though there were more than a few close calls over the years.

U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met in 1985 and declared to the world, “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” That principle should be central to all discussions of a no-fly zone right now, and it should put to rest any notion that one should be enforced.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the heavy civilian casualties it is causing, and Putin’s order to put his country’s nuclear forces on high alert have made this a dangerous moment. But the United States, too, has taken many provocative steps which brought us to this precipice.

In 2002, reversing decades of nuclear arms control progress, President George W. Bush pulled the U.S. out of the landmark 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. His successor, Barack Obama, moved along two tracks, negotiating a New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with Russia while also spending billions upgrading the capabilities of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Then, under Donald Trump, the U.S. left the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Today, U.S. missiles are deployed to Poland and the Czech Republic, not far from the Russian border.

The progress that was previously made toward reducing the nuclear war danger has been eroded. This is a major part of the context through which calls for a no-fly zone in Ukraine must be evaluated. Many of the backstops to prevent global nuclear destruction have already been removed, so we can’t afford to take any risks.

Negotiations now, not nuclear annihilation

The people of Ukraine are now caught up in the middle of a conflict between great powers. They’re paying the most immediate cost of this fight, with thousands losing their lives. The rest of the globe is now also subjected to the risk of a new world war.

U.S. imperialism, determined to encircle Russia and cement its dominance in Europe, helped overthrow the government of Ukraine in a coup in 2014 and dangled the prospect that the country would be brought into the anti-Russia NATO military alliance. The coup empowered the extreme right wing in Ukraine and helped set off a civil war in the east that raged for over eight years.

The ruling clique around Putin was certainly provoked by many years of escalating U.S. threats to Russian security, but it also has its own agenda. Dreams of a new Russian empire that will bring old subjects back under Moscow’s rule and reverse Soviet-era openings for national self-determination are a key motivation, judging by the Russian president’s own speech on the eve of the Ukraine invasion.

Old Czarist Russia, before the time of the Communist revolution of 1917, was known as the “prison house of nations.” It is that past which Putin seems determined to resurrect.

Russia must halt its offensive and recognize Ukraine’s right to exist. Ukrainian authorities must enter into serious dialogue on the questions of military neutrality and resolution of the civil war in the Donbass regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, including bringing fascist and neo-Nazi elements in the armed forces under control. NATO must pledge not to seek expansion into Ukraine. And the U.S. must stop pumping the region full of weapons and troops.

To save the people of Ukraine and to save the world from a global war, negotiation is the only realistic path ahead. A no-fly zone, however noble some may think it sounds, is not the solution to the terrors now being visited upon Ukrainians. Indeed, a no-fly zone is the quickest way to ensure the extinction of Ukraine—and the rest of us—from the face of the Earth.

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

Featured image: The world’s first nuclear explosion – the U.S. ‘Trinity’ atomic test in New Mexico, July 16, 1945. If a nuclear war breaks out today, the devastation caused by modern nuclear weapons would make Trinity’s power look small by comparison. Most life on Earth would likely be wiped out. | U.S. Department of Energy

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Great reformers are not normally found in theocratic monarchies.  Despite assertions to the contrary, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia remains archaic in the way it deals with its opponents.  In its penal system, executions remain standard fare.  With liberal democratic countries fixated with the Ukraine conflict and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, it was prudent for Saudi authorities to capitalise.

On March 12, the Saudi Ministry of the Interior announced the execution of 81 Saudi and non-Saudi nationals, bringing the total of those put to death by Riyadh in 2022 to 92.  The last grand bout of killing was in 2019, when 37 people, including 33 Shi’a men, were put to death after being convicted by customarily dubious trials.

Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, claimed that this orgy of state killing was “all the more chilling in light of Saudi Arabia’s deeply flawed justice system, which metes out death sentences following trials that are grossly and blatantly unfair, including basing verdicts on ‘confessions’ extracted under torture or other ill-treatment.”

Another sordid feature of the system described by Maalouf is the tendency of authorities to underreport the number of trials that result in death sentences being meted out.  Death row, in other words, is a burgeoning feature of the Kingdom’s repertoire.

The executed victims were convicted of a whole miscellany of charges.  According to Human Rights Watch, 41 of the men, as has become a standard practice, were of the Shi’a group. The crimes ranged from murder, links to foreign terrorist groups and the vaguely worded offence of “monitoring and targeting officials and expatriates”.  Other offences included planting landmines, the attempted killing of police officers, the targeting of “vital economic sites” and weapons smuggling “to destabilize security, sow discord and unrest, and cause riots and chaos”.

Mohammad al-Shakhouri, sentenced to death on February 21 last year, was accused of violent acts while participating in anti-government protests.  Through the course of detention and interrogation, he lacked legal representation.  His family were not permitted to see him till eight months after his arrest.

The judge of the Specialised Criminal Court (SCC) overseeing his trial took only qualified interest in the evidence submitted by the accused that he had been tortured.  He had also lost most of his teeth due to the handiwork of security officers.  Al-Shakouri’s withdrawal of the worthless confession extracted under such pressure meant that he was given a discretionary death sentence.

In addition to al-Shakouri, Human Rights Watch also noted that in four other cases – Aqeel al-Faraj, Morada al-Musa, Yasin al-Brahim and Asad al-Shibr – due process violations were rife.  All spoke of torture and ill-treatment under interrogations; all claimed that their confessions had been extracted under duress.

These state killing sprees are not out of the ordinary in Saudi Arabia.  On January 2, 2016, 47 people were executed, the largest since 1980.  A prominent figure in the death list was Shi’a cleric Nimr al-Nimr, a critic of the House of Saud.  He died along with other members of the Shiite community and captives accused of terrorist related charges after, in the words of the Interior Ministry, much “reason, moderation and dialogue”.

The governing formula for Saudi Arabia’s rulers has been to maintain an iron hand over protest and dissent while fashioning Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as a visionary reformer.  In 2020, the same petulant figure behind the brutal murder of the journalist and Saudi national Jamal Khashoggi, gave signals that a generous resort to the death penalty would be stopped.  Islamic scripture would guide the future use of capital punishment.

This was hardly reassuring.  The legal reforms announced on February 8, 2021, which include the first written penal code for discretionary crimes – those under Islamic law not defined in writing and not carrying pre-determined penalties – are being undertaken without civil society involvement.  This promises to be a very top-down affair.

The calendar events of state inflicted death may well cause outrage, but governments and companies continue to deal with the Kingdom with business-minded confidence.  Unlike the treatment now handed out to Russia, there has never been a mass cancellation of its officials from public appearances for its butcheries, be they legally sanctioned at home, or in such theatres in Yemen. Anger and disapproval, if expressed, are only done so in moderation.  Debates about the death penalty remain confined to such theatres as the UN General Assembly.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, with typically bad timing, also showed why Riyadh has nothing to be worried about when it comes to its treatment of dissidents and convicts.  The UK continues to find the Saudis appreciative of made-in-Britain weapons, which are used readily in the war against the Houthis in Yemen.

The priority now is less reforming barbaric legal measures than finding alternative energy suppliers.  Johnson hopes to weanBritain and Western countries off their “addiction” to Russia’s hydrocarbons.  “We need to talk to other producers around the world about how we can move away from that dependency.”

This entailed a visit to the Kingdom, which Johnson gave no indication of calling off.  Mark Almond, director of the Crisis Research Institute, is very much in support of this morally bankrupt calculus.  “The realpolitik of this situation is that to free ourselves from our dependence on Russian fossil fuels, we will have to turn a blind eye to other evils in other regimes.”

The trip proved fruitless.  The Prime Minister failed to secure an agreement to increase oil production, a point brushed aside in Downing Street by a spokesman’s platitudes.  “Both the Crown Prince of the UAE and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia agreed to work closely with us to maintain stability in the energy market and continue the transition to renewable and clean technology.”

So cocky has Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince become, he even refused to take the call of US President Joe Biden on opening negotiations on the rising oil prices. And he can point out that allied countries such as the United States still maintain capital punishment in their chest of judicial weapons against the errant and deviant.  Things have never looked better for the murderous schemer.

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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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This was originally published on February 19, 2019. It is of utmost relevance to Ukraine Crisis

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed a constitutional amendment committing the country to becoming a member of NATO and the European Union.

Addressing parliament on February 19, Poroshenko said he saw securing Ukraine’s membership in NATO and the EU as his “strategic mission.”

Ukraine should “submit a request for EU membership and receive a NATO membership action plan no later than 2023,” the president told the Verkhovna Rada.

However, he acknowledged that his country needs to come a “long way” to meet the criteria of joining both institutions.

European Council President Donald Tusk attended the signing of the constitutional amendment in the parliament building.

 

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Featured image: Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko addresses the country’s parliament on February 19. (Source: president.gov.ua)

 

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A seismic shift is sending shock waves through the global economy. 

The well-established capitalist disorder, dominated by U.S. imperialism and in place since World War II, is on shaky ground. Extreme economic sanctions imposed on Russia are dragging the whole world into a war that started long before the Russian intervention in Ukraine on Feb. 24.

A big calculation is which countries will be forced to accept the onerous economic sanctions imposed on Russia by the U.S. Countries representing a majority of the world’s population are not willing to tie their sovereignty to total Wall Street control. To the shock of U.S. war strategists, almost all of Latin America, the Caribbean, many countries in Africa, and most of Asia have rejected the sanctions on Russia.

The open defiance by so many countries and major trading blocs is a stunning confirmation of the weakening hold of U.S. economic power.

U.S. dominance challenged

It is well recognized that U.S. economic dominance in Europe, and globally, has been challenged by increased European Union trade with Russia and China. The growing integration of the Eurasian bloc of countries, stretching from China and South Asia through Central Asia and Russia to Europe, gives a huge economic advantage to the countries involved.

The growing integration of EU trade and investment with Russia and China threatens both the domination of U.S. corporate power in Europe and U.S. global hegemony. It is in the interest of corporate power in the U.S. to cynically provoke a conflict where it is the least affected, but doing so in a region where its capitalist rivals in the EU will carry the heaviest burden.

U.S. threatens nuclear war to get sanctions 

The U.S. has instigated a crisis by encircling Russia with NATO bases, organizing constant military operations and supplying heavy weapons to Ukraine to fire on Russia’s borders.

The United States is the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons. It incinerated two entire cities — Hiroshima and Nagasaki — in 1945. It is the only country that refuses to agree to a “No First Use” nuclear policy.

By placing nuclear weapons in Europe and setting up nuclear-capable weaponry on Russia’s borders, it has been openly provoking Russia to strike in self-defense. The U.S. used the nuclear threat not only on Russia but to impel the European Union to impose harsh sanctions on Russia, even though it was against EU interests to cut economic ties with Moscow.

With the EU, and especially Germany, unwilling to impose sanctions that would break all relations with Russia, the U.S. played hardball. President Joe Biden threatened the EU on Feb. 26, two days after Russia began its military operation in Ukraine, that the only alternative to going along with the U.S. sanctions “would be the Third World War.”

“You have two options. Start a Third World War, go to war with Russia, physically. Or, two, make sure that the country that acts so contrary to international law ends up paying a price for having done it. . . . I know these sanctions are the broadest sanctions in history, and economic sanctions and political sanctions.”

In an interview with blogger Brian Tyler Cohen, Biden said his “goal from the very beginning” was to keep NATO and the European Union “on the same page.” (See this)

The EU, a bloc of capitalist economies dominated by Germany, is unable and unwilling to directly challenge U.S. hegemony, especially when they are threatened with nuclear war in Europe if they don’t comply. The EU imposed all the sanctions demanded by the U.S. Their sanctions mirror those imposed by Washington. However, they are still able to purchase some gas from Russia, based on an agreement with the U.S.

Sanctions were imposed on Russia in 2014 after the majority Russian population in Crimea voted to rejoin Russia. This followed a U.S.-supported fascist coup in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. At that time, two regions in East Ukraine — Donetsk and the Lugansk People’s Republics — broke away from the fascist gangs in Kiev.

Since the 1999 U.S./NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, and despite constant warnings of danger even from its own political strategists, the policy of the U.S. government has been to keep absorbing more East European countries into NATO, building NATO bases around Russia, recruiting and training soldiers and mercenaries, creating provocations on the Russian border and using Ukraine as a pawn to destabilize the entire region.

These years of constant economic and military attacks on Russia are hidden from the public in the U.S. and the EU.

What is behind U.S. war policy? 

Why is EU/Russian trade and integration so threatening to U.S. imperialism?

The EU is the biggest investor in Russia. A new and larger double pipeline, called Nord Stream 2, was built to carry cheap natural gas from Russia through the Baltic Sea and into Europe. It was supposed to provide fuel for EU industries and heat for millions of homes, while avoiding a reliance on high-polluting coal and oil. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz suspended the project Feb. 22.

Energy comes to 62% of the EU imports from Russia. It costs much less than gas from the U.S., which is the largest exporter of fracked LNG gas. This is a challenge to opening new markets. With war and sanctions, U.S. gas and oil corporations will immediately profit from skyrocketing prices for fuel and guarantee their future control of the European market.

The clash is larger than just a gas pipeline. The U.S. economy is focused on military production. It is the largest exporter of weapons systems. But U.S. imperialism is unable to match China’s Belt and Road development plans. More than 138 countries have signed on for new ports, railroads, industrial hubs and low-interest loans.

China’s Belt and Road development loans are far more attractive than U.S. weapons systems and the harsh austerity plans that are attached to IMF and World Bank loans.

U.S. finance capital is alarmed that two-thirds of the member countries of the European Union have signed on as formal members of China’s Belt and Road Development projects. Port cities in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Hungary are being rebuilt. New energy projects are underway. Europe’s trade with China now exceeds its trade with the United States. (See this)

In the struggle to maintain its dominant position, U.S. imperialism has only one tool against these rapidly developing and sharply competing economic relations: war. Both military war and the economic war of sanctions.

Sanctions are war

Sanctions are not a deterrent to war or a substitute for war. They are in fact an escalation of the war.

Using the dominant role of the dollar in the world economy, Washington has imposed over 5,500 sanctions on Russia and is forcing other countries to reconfigure their economies to abide by these extreme economic penalties. The sanctions on Russia are the world’s most extreme economic war measures. (See this)

Sanctions create hyperinflation, artificial famines, social upheavals and health crises that punish civilian populations. As deadly as bombs, sanctions are an act of war. They are correctly labeled a Crime Against Humanity.

Will sanctions succeed in restoring the position of U.S. imperialism? That is clearly the calculation.

International Monetary Fund senior deputy managing director Gita Gopinath gave an authoritative view of this expectation that financial sanctions will drive Russia into “deep recession,” and “shift global economic order. . . . It has implications for the global economic order as we know it.” (See this) Other news articles predict that the Russian economy is “going down the ice chute,” will “tumble,” “go into free fall,” etc.

Several economists warn that it will impact the global economy. To the bankers and financiers, the pain of millions, even within the U.S., is of no concern, as long as they can pick up the pieces afterwards.

Speculators predict “defense” industries and energy companies will prosper. All financial predictions in the U.S. and Europe are that this will hit the European economy much harder.

Third of world sanctioned

Today more than 40 countries, encompassing one-third of the world’s population, already suffer under economic measures imposed by Washington. The U.S. has sanctioned Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, China, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Sudan and others. Countries that trade with targets of U.S. sanctions face heavy fines. This deadly form of economic warfare impacts all the surrounding countries and destroys regional development.

Many of these countries, however, are finding ways to survive through complex barter and exchange programs that are developing as the number of sanctioned countries grows.

Almost all of the countries hit by these harsh U.S. destabilizing measures and asset confiscations sanctions have signed up with China’s Belt and Road Initiative development programs. Many of the sanctioned countries, including Venezuela, Cuba and Syria receive reliable shipments of needed fuel and grain from Russia. These new forms of exchange, developed through necessity, are beginning to weaken the intended economic strangulation. Russia still has a strong market for its exports beyond the reach of U.S. sanctions.

Russia is also a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This is an economic and security alliance that is the world’s largest regional organization, covering approximately 60% of the area of Eurasia, 40% of the world’s population and more than 20% of global gross domestic product (GDP). Of the 14 members of this trading bloc, six are already under U.S. sanctions but continue normal economic relations.

Countries refuse to comply

To the shock of Washington’s war strategists, many countries not currently under U.S. sanctions are refusing to comply with the U.S. and EU sanctions imposed on Russia. To date India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Mexico, and other countries with smaller economies have refused to comply with U.S. measures that damage their own trade relations.

These are nations with growing economies and large populations. Several countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union and are now part of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) — Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan — are not likely to comply.

Several countries, not willing to openly confront U.S. economic wrath, have vaguely stated they would only comply with sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council, where a Russian or Chinese veto would make such a vote unlikely.

U.S. economic and political pressure on all these countries to comply will intensify in the coming period.

Threatening China

China’s top banking regulator, Guo Shuqing, says: “We will not participate in such sanctions, and we continue to maintain normal economic and trade and financial exchanges with relevant parties.” (New York Times, March 11) After Mastercard and Visa stopped their operations, Russian banks turned to China’s UnionPay, which offers payment options in 180 countries.

China has not yet given economic or military assistance to Russia. It has simply refused to cut off its normal economic relations. This is infuriating the Biden administration.

The U.S. publicly threatened China for helping Russia evade sanctions. China was reminded that two of its biggest trading partners are the U.S. and European Union. China needs access to those markets.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan threatened China directly, stating:

“We are communicating directly and privately to Beijing that there absolutely will be consequences” if China helps Russia “backfill” its losses from the sanctions. “We will not allow that to go forward and allow there to be a lifeline to Russia from these economic sanctions from any country anywhere in the world.”

Sullivan said China and all countries are on notice that they cannot “basically bail Russia out . . . give Russia a work-around to the sanctions,” with impunity. (See this)

If such brazen and insulting threats are being openly made to China, then harsher threats are being raised to other countries.

New forms of trade and exchange do challenge the hegemony power of the U.S. dollar. But extreme measures imposed on Russia will create intense economic pain of spiraling inflation and unemployment on a global scale.

The U.S. ruling class, the U.S. Congress and the U.S. corporate media are at this time unanimously in support of an economic war and even a military confrontation, regardless of how destructive they would be to human life, as long as they would break open new markets and destroy their rivals.

The Democrats quickly dropped Build Back Better promises and a COVID-19 health package in order to saturate Ukraine with weapons. Working people in both the U.S. and Europe will pay the price.

The growing danger is that a U.S. imperialist war on this scale, combined with the demand that the whole world participate, could dangerously escalate.

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This article was originally published on Workers World.

Sara Flounders is Co-Director of the International Action Center. She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: People line up to withdraw U.S. dollars and euros from an ATM in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Feb. 25. (Source: Workers World)

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The Germans learned more from defeat in the First World War than the Allies had learned from victory. During the interwar years (1918–1939), German militarists paid much greater attention to the potential of the tank (panzer) and tactics of infiltration than did either the British or French.

In Berlin, it was decided by 1938 that at the head of the invading spearheads would not be placed infantry, moving at 3 miles per hour, but rather panzers advancing at 30 miles per hour.

The German colonel Heinz Guderian’s views, expounded in his 1937 book ‘Achtung Panzer’, held significant weight in shaping Wehrmacht thinking; through which Guderian outlined in detail the vast possibilities of mechanised armour in warfare. “Strike hard and quickly and don’t disperse your forces”, Guderian wrote in summarising Blitzkrieg methods. Not every senior German officer agreed without reservation in such opinions. What proved critical in the Wehrmacht adopting the Blitzkrieg was, it must be said, the Nazi Party and its far-right autocrat Adolf Hitler.

Military analyst Donald J. Goodspeed wrote,

“Had it not been for Hitler and for the whole climate of opinion brought in by the Nazi Party, the Wehrmacht might have proved little more enlightened about the possibilities of armored warfare than the British and French. The Nazis, however, as befitting men who considered themselves revolutionaries, were all for what was new, bold and modern, and the idea of great tank forces caught their imagination. Armored and mechanised warfare had an immense attraction for them. The Blitzkrieg fitted Nazi policies as a glove fits a hand”.

The Nazi cause had been aided by the opposition’s inferior quality – an outmoded, under-equipped Polish military, and a French Army plagued by obsolescent First World War doctrines and an attitude centred on defence. They had forgotten one of Napoleon’s favourite mottos, “The side that stays within its fortifications is beaten”.

The French armed forces had not recovered from the mutinies, which had spread through its ranks during the spring and summer of 1917. By 9 June 1917, mutinies had broken out in an eye-watering 54 French divisions. Even in those units where no mutinies occurred, more than half of French soldiers returning from leave reported back drunk. Rather than the problems being brought out into the open, discussed and possibly cured, the mutinies were covered up. Poor morale remained widespread in the French Army, by the time the Germans invaded on 10 May 1940. The French had decided, by 1917, that the cost of war was not worth the price paid in blood.

The Blitzkrieg promised results which the Germans most needed: Short and conclusive victories, which would not put an undue strain on their limited manpower and mineral resources. The Nazis added their own touches to the Blitzkrieg envisaged by Guderian. Under fascist influence the Blitzkrieg was designed to disorganise and overwhelm the enemy, cities would be bombed, refugees would be targeted by aircraft along roads, fifth columns would divide and undermine the opposition, propaganda was used while terror followed in the wake of occupation.

Regardless, the Blitzkrieg still had more of a psychological effect rather than a physical one. German air raids inflicted minor damage by comparison to Anglo-American aerial bombing, which was increasingly executed with huge four-engined aircraft. The German blitz of Britain, lasting for 8 months until May 1941, resulted in between 40,000 to 43,000 deaths. In little more than a week during the late summer of 1943, the British and American bombing of Hamburg (Operation Gomorrah) killed almost the same number of people, between 34,000 to 43,000 deaths. Among other buildings destroyed in Hamburg, 24 hospitals and 277 schools were levelled by the Anglo-Americans in Operation Gomorrah.

The Blitzkrieg led to great victories against the unwary and demoralised. This was at least part of the reason why Operation Barbarossa had been so successful, in its opening days and weeks. Russian specialist Evan Mawdsley realised,

“in the short-term, in 1941, the collective mentality of the rank and file of the Red Army was a source of weakness. Many Soviet soldiers fought badly or surrendered without a fight in 1941, demoralized troops in a demoralized society… The Wehrmacht did not fight with these handicaps. German soldiers and airmen were better organized, better trained, and more experienced. This goes a long way towards explaining why Hitler’s forces were able to achieve so much without decisive numerical superiority”.

It is conventionally believed, for an invasion to succeed decisively, the attackers should outnumber the defenders by 3 to 1. Almost from the beginning of the Nazi-Soviet War, the Germans were outnumbered in manpower, tanks, planes and artillery.

The German-led armies invaded the USSR on 22 June 1941 with 3,767,000 men, while in the USSR at that time the Soviet military consisted of 5,373,000 personnel. As the attack started, 11,000 Soviet tanks were immediately in opposition to 4,000 German-Axis tanks; there were 9,100 Soviet combat aircraft in the western USSR against 4,400 German-Axis combat aircraft, and 19,800 Soviet artillery pieces as opposed to 7,200 German-Axis artillery pieces.

In the whole of the USSR, the Red Army had an astounding 23,100 tanks in June 1941, along with 20,000 aircraft. Mawdsley has provided the figures. By the end of September 1941, the German-Axis forces had destroyed 14,900 Soviet tanks and 7,000 aircraft.

Considerable numbers of Soviet soldiers were indeed demoralised in 1941. This was, in the main, because of the devastating effects of Joseph Stalin’s purges of the Red Army high command (1937-41), which had resulted in the liquidation of many thousands of talented Soviet military officers. Moreover, there was questionable loyalty to Soviet Russia in the Baltic states, which had only been absorbed into the Soviet Union the year before in June 1940. In Estonia, the English author Chris Bellamy recalled how, “Immediately after the German attack, Estonian soldiers began to desert from Soviet bases in large numbers”.

A similar scenario unfolded in neighbouring Latvia, during the days after Barbarossa was unleashed. Bellamy, in his study of the Nazi-Soviet War continued, “Only about 3,000 Latvian soldiers retreated with the Red Army: the rest, either as individuals or as whole units led by their commanders, deserted, and then started to attack Red Army and NKVD units”.

Hitler was intent on treating the Baltic and eastern European populations as second class citizens, subject to their German colonial masters. The cold brutality of Nazi rule would prove a secondary factor in the eventual Wehrmacht defeat.

The Blitzkrieg looked at first to be running smoothly in the Baltics. General Erich von Manstein’s 56th Panzer Corps advanced 155 miles in 4 days, to reach Daugavpils in south-eastern Latvia on 25 June 1941. Yet the Blitzkrieg’s innate military imbalance became apparent in the Soviet Union’s gigantic terrain. Manstein’s panzers had to wait for 6 days at Daugavpils, before German infantry from the 16th Army could catch up with them. This issue would surface time and again.

Goodspeed observed of the Blitzkrieg “there was always something a little gimcrack and fraudulent about it, something militarily unsound, which could succeed only by bluff and braggadocio”.

Stalin was caught off guard as the German attack commenced. When awakened and informed of large-scale German artillery attacks Stalin “muttered that the outbreak of hostilities must have originated in a conspiracy within the Wehrmacht”, historian and Stalin biographer Robert Service wrote. Hitler had been seriously planning out his invasion for almost a year, from the second half of July 1940. Hitler pondered attacking the USSR in the autumn of 1940; but he was convinced not to by the 58-year-old Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, who knew more about war than the Führer. Keitel implored that logistics would not be ready in time.

A story has persisted for many years, on learning the Germans had invaded, that Stalin suffered a mental collapse and went into hiding. This is far from the truth. When told of the German bombardment, Stalin unrealistically hoped that Hitler was not aware of it and would cancel the invasion. This feeling was dispelled within hours of the German attack, when the Third Reich’s Ambassador to the USSR, Friedrich von Schulenburg, relayed the German declaration of war to Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Minister.

On hearing this Stalin was distraught, unable to focus his mind on essential matters. Out of shock and embarrassment, Stalin could not bring himself to inform the Russian public of the German attack. It was instead Molotov who announced to the people by radio, at noon on 22 June 1941, that their country had been invaded, and rumours then spread as to where Stalin was. The records show, such as in Stalin’s visitors’ book, that he did not disappear but continued to work for long hours, consulting with a range of military and political personnel. For example from 3.20 am on 23 June, Stalin worked for 15 hours without a break.

Then about a week after the invasion began, the full weight of the disaster began to hit home. On 27 June, Stalin had learned on a visit to the Ministry of Defence that the Germans had already reached Minsk, the capital of Soviet Belarus. The invaders had blown away the Red Army divisions located closest to the Nazi border, forces which Stalin thought could hold the Germans up. It seems at this time that Stalin feared a Soviet defeat was an inevitability. In such a frame of mind his morale plummeted, and he retired to his dacha early on 29 June. It was not a nervous breakdown but a natural reaction of despondency to a catastrophe. Service wrote “the greatest military disaster of the twentieth century” was unfolding.

The Soviet leader had only snapped out of his depression, when Molotov led the way in visiting him at his residence and soothingly encouraged him to return to work. Molotov later acknowledged of his leader, “It can’t be said he fell apart; certainly he was suffering but he did not show it. Stalin definitely had his difficulties. It would be stupid to claim he didn’t suffer”.

As the German invasion elapsed into weeks, the morale of Stalin ebbed and flowed, and it was probably never as low again as it had been in late June 1941. One of the biggest blows thereafter was the fall of Kiev, on 19 September 1941. It is interesting to note that it took the Wehrmacht, the world’s strongest military power, 4 weeks to capture Kiev – from the time that Hitler had ordered a southward move into the Ukraine on 21 August, through southern Belarus and western Russia. The fighting did not die down in the Kiev region until 26 September, so one could stretch the battle out to 5 weeks.

Of the present day Ukrainian crisis many in the Western mainstream, military analysts and media commentators, have ludicrously claimed in recent weeks that Russian forces should have successfully entered Kiev in 2 or 3 days. They would do well to consult the history books. Kiev is furthermore a far larger city today than it was in 1941, and it would obviously take longer to encircle and subdue.

A parallel should, however, not at all be drawn between the circumstances of 1941 and the current Ukraine crisis. The Nazi war against the Soviet Union was unprovoked, genocidal and imperialist to the core. The author is not suggesting that he supports the Russian military intervention in the Ukraine, but it may be worth understanding the scenario from the Kremlin’s perspective.

Diplomatic options were open to Moscow in February 2022. Who knows how it could have developed had talks been pursued, and they still can be. Yet it would seem unlikely that the Kremlin could have made headway diplomatically with the West. The Russians have repeatedly been frustrated by Western duplicity, led overwhelmingly by an aggressive and expansionist United States, which continues to dominate much of the world, often through gunboat diplomacy.

The experienced Pakistani lieutenant-general, Tariq Khan, who could hardly be described as pro-Russian, wrote early this month “the West goaded Russia into a corner where it probably had no other alternative other than an invasion of Ukraine. This was done by the gradual creep forward policy of NATO which, in 1990, had 16 members and now has expanded to 30 members and that too after the Cold War… This was unacceptable to Russia, but the West was unmoved and continued to implement alignments and agreements that were a direct threat to Russia”.

The Russian offensive in the Ukraine came as a reaction to long-held, plausible security concerns in Moscow: relating, as Lt. Gen. Khan has highlighted, to relentless US–NATO enlargement to Russia’s very borders – along with ongoing, increased Western militarisation and politicisation of the Ukraine itself; despite it being a territory with centuries-long historical and cultural ties to Russia, and not the West.

The Ukraine is of utmost geostrategic importance to the Russian state. A century ago the Polish-born revolutionary socialist, Rosa Luxemburg, especially criticised what she called “silly Ukrainian nationalism”. Luxemburg stated that Ukrainian nationalism was very different from Czech, Polish or Finnish nationalism; because Ukrainian nationalism was “nothing more than extravagance, the vain pride of a dozen petty-bourgeois intelligentsia with no roots whatsoever in the economic, political, or spiritual situation of the land and no historical tradition”; since the Ukraine had “never constituted a nation or a state and was devoid of a national culture”.

Luxemburg noted that “nationalism in the Russian Ukraine hadn’t represented anything until the Bolshevik revolution of October 1917. It was a soap bubble, the vanity of a dozen professors and lawyers, the majority of whom couldn’t even read Ukrainian”. Herein lie the roots of Ukrainian nationalism.

Luxemburg believed that the Bolshevik Party leader, Vladimir Lenin, should have retained the territorial integrity of the Russian Empire, under the patronage of the socialist revolution. As Luxemburg predicted, the prospect of self-determination split the Ukraine up into pretentious little spheres; and she forecast that the Ukraine would perform a “fatal role” in the fate of the Russian revolution.

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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree and he writes primarily on foreign affairs and historical subjects. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Sources

Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War, 1941-1945 (Hodder Arnold, 23 Feb. 2007)

Donald J. Goodspeed, The German Wars (Random House Value Publishing, 3 April 1985)

Greig Watson, “Operation Gomorrah: Firestorm created ‘Germany’s Nagasaki’”, BBC News, 2 August 2018

Chris Bellamy, Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War (Pan; Main Market edition, 21 Aug. 2009)

C.J. Polychroniou, “Noam Chomsky: A No-Fly Zone Over Ukraine Could Unleash Untold Violence”, Truthout, 8 March 2022

Lt. Gen. Tariq Khan, “An Unequal World – The West Cries For A Civilised Ukraine”, Reporter’s Diary, 2 March 2022

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

Robert Service, Stalin: A Biography (Pan; Reprints edition, 16 April 2010)

David C. Gompert, Hans Binnendijk, Bonny Lin, Blinders, Blunders, and Wars: What America and China Can Learn, Chapter 7 Hitler’s Decision to Invade the USSR, 2014, Publisher: Rand Corporation, p. 4 of 12, Jstor

U.S. Congress Admits Nazi Role in Ukraine

By Robert Parry, March 17, 2022

Despite the newsworthiness of a U.S.-backed government dispatching Nazi storm troopers to attack Ukrainian cities, the major U.S. news outlets have gone to extraordinary lengths to excuse this behavior, with the Washington Post publishing a rationalization that Azov’s use of the Swastika was merely “romantic.”

Bombshell: Ukraine: NATO in the Constitution

By Manlio Dinucci, March 17, 2022

The day after the signature of NATO’s membership protocol with North Macedonia as its 30th member, Ukraine did something without precedent:it included in its Constitution the engagement to enter officially into NATO and the European Union at the same time.

War, Terrorism and the Global Economic Crisis. Ninety-nine Interrelated Concepts

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, March 17, 2022

Everything is interrelated: war, terrorism, the police state, the global economy, economic austerity, financial fraud, corrupt governments, poverty and social inequality, police violence, Al Qaeda, ISIS, media disinformation, racism, war propaganda  weapons of mass destruction, the derogation of international law, the criminalization of politics, the CIA, the FBI, climate change,  nuclear war, Fukushima, nuclear radiation, crimes against humanity, The China-Russia alliance, Syria  Ukraine, NATO, false flags, 9/11 Truth …

Bombshell: New Release of Pfizer Confidential Documents. “10,000 pages out of a cache of over 450,000 of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine-related data”

By Sonia Elijah, March 17, 2022

Last December, I wrote an investigative report for TrialSite News reviewing Pfizer’s cumulative analysis of vaccine adverse events, a shocking 38-page document, which was part of the first wave of released records. The document revealed over 1228 deaths occurring after the administration of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine with 42,086 individuals (cases) reporting 158,893 vaccine adverse events, many of which were serious, within a 3-month period.

Russia-Ukraine: A Light at the End of the Tunnel?

By Peter Koenig, March 17, 2022

The Kyiv Independent reported on Monday, 14 March, that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy had proposed meeting President Putin in Jerusalem. This is what Mr. Zelenskyy told foreign journalists on March 12. He had suggested to Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, to act as intermediary. See this.

China’s Wait-and-See Inaction in the Ukraine War

By Tom Clifford, March 17, 2022

Just a couple of months after the two leaders declared their “no limits” partnership, it is clear that there are, in fact, boundaries to how much support Beijing will offer Moscow. Xi has no interest in being entangled in foreign wars and the precariousness of the Chinese economy has his full attention.

Col. Doug Macgregor: Washington Wants War to Continue as Long as Possible in Hopes to Overthrow Putin

By Tyler Stone, March 17, 2022

Former senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense Col. Doug Macgregor joins Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate for a candid, live discussion of the Russia-Ukraine war and his time in the Trump administration when an Afghan withdrawal was sabotaged and conflict with Iran and Syria continued.

US Has Created Conflicts to Pressure Russia and China

By Ararat Kostanian and Steven Sahiounie, March 17, 2022

The conflict in Ukraine has divided the world into those who support the US, and those who do not support a superpower in charge of the world.  The Ukraine conflict is pitting the US and their western allies, against other nations who seek a new world order, free of US domination.

Shock and Awe: Then and Now. “Two Decades of Death and Destruction at the Hands of the U.S. Military”

By Dee Knight, March 17, 2022

“Shock and awe” was George Bush senior’s name for his “Desert Storm” attack on Iraq in 1990 – 91. A United Nations report described the effect on Iraq as “near apocalyptic,” sending Iraq back to the “pre-industrial age.” But it wasn’t enough.

European Energy War: Who is Raising the Prices?

By Konrad Rękas, March 17, 2022

If this war does not end soon – next winter, Europe will run out of 109 billion cubic meters of natural gas, and the individual consumers will be forced to reduce their consumption by at least 14%.

Assange Extradition: On to the Next Hurdle

By Craig Murray, March 17, 2022

It interested me in particular that the Supreme Court refused to hear Julian’s appeal on the basis there was “no arguable point of law”. When the Supreme Court refused to hear my own appeal against imprisonment, they rather stated their alternative formulation, there was “no arguable point of law of general public interest”. Meaning there was an arguable point of law, but it was merely an individual injustice, that did not matter to anybody except Craig Murray.

“Não detenhas um exército que recua à casa; o inimigo lutará até a morte. 

Ao adversário cercado deve-se deixar uma saída… 

Não pressiones demasiado um inimigo em desespero”

 (Sun Tzu, “A Arte da Guerra”)

 

Breve decálogo sobre as guerras, em tempo de acirramento bélico e pacifismo raso – se não demagogo. Uma reflexão sobre a categoria marxista da totalidade, que é bem mais de que a soma das partes (pois que em movimento). E algumas sugestões para palavras de ordem menos etéreas.

Preâmbulo sobre o bélico presente

Não há como se compreender um conflito armado tomado pela emotividade, pelo sentimento de tristeza que causam as desgraças sempre presentes em cada uma de suas batalhas; sem que se observe em detalhes os interesses e principais forças ocultas por detrás dos tantos fantoches.

Tempos bem esquisitos estes em que, ao invés de se ouvir socialistas, humanistas, dizerem em uníssono “pelo fim da ofensiva da OTAN, para que parem os bombardeios (dos acuados) russos”, ou ainda “pela derrubada do golpismo ucraniano ‘laranja’ (e de suástica à vista)”, ouve-se desvairados purismos, tal qual esse descuido que vem ressonando em ambientes assépticos: “pelo fim dos bombardeios russos e (assim que der) da OTAN”. 

Nesta exigente palavra de ordem – ou quem sabe seja antes uma comanda divina – só faltaria incluir algo como “pelo fim imediato do capitalismo, dos dedos nos olhos globais, e ainda pela extinção de todas as maldades e iniquidades do universo – e tem que ser hoje!”. 

Como demonstrou Karl Marx, após a observação isolada dos diversos aspectos de problemas sociais, por demais complexos, há sempre que se reportar à realidade maior, à totalidade concreta que relaciona tais problemas. E este cuidado deveria ser tão mais considerado à medida que o debate envolva temas de urgência humanitária, seja o da fome, das epidemias, da destruição do metabolismo planetário, seja o do poder bélico e controle despótico do mundo. 

Notas sobre as guerras

1- Ninguém em seu são juízo gosta ou aprecia uma guerra – o afã por competitividade é um dos aspectos patológicos do sistema capitalista;

2- Nem sempre aquele que dá o primeiro tapa é o que agrediu primeiro – ou o vilão; detrás da guerra deflagrada (em ato), há os conflitos latentes (em potência), mais abrangentes;

3- Ainda que seja extremamente complexa em suas causas, motivações imediatas, possibilidades de desfecho ou consequências futuras, diante de uma guerra aberta, já deflagrada entre duas frentes, cabem somente dois caminhos – um ou outro lado [*E ao contrário do que diz o Estadão, no presente não há assim uma “escolha tão difícil”];

4- Bradar pelo empate, pela paz dos deuses, exigir imediatamente a imediata humanização do ser humano milenarmente desumanizado é – na melhor das hipóteses – sussurrar aos pássaros que voam;

5- Optar pela neutralidade, pela suposta paz (completamente fora da possibilidade de paz), abster-se de escolhas em um conflito exposto, mesmo tendo consciência histórica dos interesses que o compõem – inclusive de terceiros indiretamente envolvidos em alguma das frentes–, significa sempre e unicamente (como bem lembra Sartre): apoiar o mais forte; 

6- Fomentar desde fora a resistência de um exército frágil, sem oferecer-lhe reais condições de vitória, sem se assumir uma posição manifesta no confronto deflagrado, serve apenas para prolongar escaramuças, para aprofundar ao final as perdas de ambos os opositores, vitoriosos e derrotados (inclusive causando mais danos aos civis entre fogos) – situação que só interessa a terceiros, a outros inimigos não diretamente envolvidos no presente conflito, mas desejosos do próximo;

7- Quanto maior for o equilíbrio prévio de forças opostas em tempos de paz – da paz instável e armada a que se vem chamando guerra fria –, menores serão as audácias, os arroubos bélicos;

8- Armas mortíferas, que ameaçam a espécie como um todo, são prova maior da derrota humana que é a razão instrumental moderno-burguesa – melhor não existissem nunca; mas em existindo, e sobretudo, estando em posse de inimigos, que oxalá as tenham também alguns inimigos desses inimigos; ou por assim dizer: bombas, melhor não tê-las, mas se as têm, melhor aos pares;

9- Mais perigoso de que o monopólio das ideias, da imprensa, da economia, das almas, do discurso sobre o que é ou não cultura e civilização, é o monopólio do poder geopolítico (pois garante boa parte dos demais);

10- Para as periferias do mundo, mais vale dois patrões – ou potências – estremecidas, que brindando alegremente.

Dito isto, faça-se coro ao coração dos pacifistas! Mas sem permanecermos tão no raso… 

Pelo fim da guerra – das guerras –, das epidemias e desastres induzidos pela ganância! Pelo fim da fome, do uso vil da miséria como arma de guerra! 

Pelo cessar das atrocidades cotidianas – pela Palestina independente, integral, sem a ignomínia de um apartheid neofascista adornado com lantejoulas democráticas! Pelo Afeganistão e o Iraque livres, pela Líbia reconstruída… e a Sérvia-Iugoslávia! 

Pelo fim também das sanções econômicas, estes fuzis indiretos – mas tão diretos – que violentam economias não alinhadas em busca por autonomia: pelo direito de Cuba, Venezuela, Irã seguirem seus caminhos! 

E outrossim – já que tudo se pode sonhar, gritar e, por que não, pôr no papel: por um Brasil livre desse maldito golpe cujo atraso nos martiriza há quase 6 décadas, e quase sem ininterrupções. 

Mas claro, para que as divagações etéreo-socialistas mantenham suas asas de cera longe do sol, voltemos ao tema do fogo aberto, pois também na Terra a chapa anda quente… Então: pelo fim dos bombardeios gerais, em especial, não esquecer, dos massacres perpetrados – neste mesmo momento em que estas linhas são escritas – pela OTAN e Israel ontem na Síria, em Gaza, hoje no Iêmem, na Somália! Aliás, tratam-se de atrocidades mais sangrentas de que a que ora estoura na Europa em queda-livre, subalterna e fascistizada. Mas certa esquerda menos sensível às civilizações “bárbaras” (que se diz-que-existe, até mesmo para além do Mediterrâneo) não teve tempo na agenda para observar, enquanto discursava inflamada acerca da necessária paz entre pretensos arianos, no intervalo de um ou outro copo de vinho Bordeaux.

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Os socialistas de todos os campos, de anarquistas a social-reformistas – incluindo os ditos esquerdistas, anticapitalistas, humanistas ou mesmo os adeptos de outros adjetivos mais puros –, ganhariam em qualidade interpretativa da realidade se apreendessem ao menos uma ideia básica com o comunismo marxista, com o pensamento da práxis: a noção de totalidade, de imbricamento entre o todo e as suas partes. Partes estas cuja análise minuciosa, ainda que de suma importância, não pode bastar-se em si mesma, mas tem de ser referida novamente ao todo, incluída no entendimento do todo, para assim ajudar a recompor, a partir de novas percepções dos diversos aspectos do real, a concepção da totalidade concreta – e em movimento conflituoso –, na qual estamos inseridos. 

*

Em suma e finalmente: por tudo de ético e belo e bom e harmônico que as imaginações crítico-críticas, senhoras dos mais perfeitos julgamentos e valores, puderem sonhar! 

Mas também: por tudo de mais urgente, de mais chão, de mais objetivamente terreno que as mentes prático-idealistas menos indolentes puderem realizar, ainda que não tão bem-feito, ainda que menos nobre. 

E que um dia, tomara, possamos fazer melhor o necessário, o básico, o inadiável – e de modo mais bem-feito. Teorias, efetivamente, comprovam-se apenas na prática – já dizia Marx, em sua famosa e breve frase que sintetiza a filosofia da práxis e funda o pensamento contemporâneo. 

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Pelo fim da modernidade, do cientificismo mecânico, do progresso tecnicista, competitivo, que à revelia do humano se calcula no lucro!

Yuri Martins-Fontes

Foto : 

Esta foto é de 21 de outubro de 1967 de um protesto em frente ao Pentágono contra a Guerra do Vietnã.  Marc Ribaud nasceu em Lyon, França, em 24 de junho de 1923 e foi fotógrafo freelance.

Fonte : Flickr.com

Carefully documented article by the late Robert Parry, first posted on GR in June 2015.

***

Read carefully. Of relevance to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. 

“Rather than fully inform its readers about a crisis that has the potential of becoming a nuclear showdown between the United States and Russia, the [NY] Times has chosen to simply be a fount of State Department propaganda, often terming any reference to Kiev’s Nazi storm troopers to be “Russian propaganda.”

Now, however, a unanimous U.S. House of Representatives — of all things — has acknowledged the unpleasant truth.” (Robert Parry, June 2015, emphasis added)

***

Last February [2014], when ethnic Russian rebels were closing in on the Ukrainian port of Mariupol, the New York Times rhapsodically described the heroes defending the city and indeed Western civilization – the courageous Azov battalion facing down barbarians at the gate. What the Times didn’t tell its readers was that these “heroes” were Nazis, some of them even wearing Swastikas and SS symbols.

The long Times article by Rick Lyman fit with the sorry performance of America’s “paper of record” as it has descended into outright propaganda – hiding the dark side of the post-coup regime in Kiev. But what makes Lyman’s sadly typical story noteworthy today is that the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives has just voted unanimously to bar U.S. assistance going to the Azov battalion because of its Nazi ties.

When even the hawkish House of Representatives can’t stomach these Nazi storm troopers who have served as Kiev’s tip of the spear against the ethnic Russian population of eastern Ukraine, what does that say about the honesty and integrity of the New York Times when it finds these same Nazis so admirable?

And it wasn’t like the Times didn’t have space to mention the Nazi taint. The article provided much color and detail – quoting an Azov leader prominently – but just couldn’t find room to mention the inconvenient truth about how these Nazis had played a key role in the ongoing civil war on the U.S. side. The Times simply referred to Azov as a “volunteer unit.”

Yet, on June 10, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bipartisan amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act – from Reps. John Conyers Jr., D-Michigan, and Ted Yoho, R-Florida – that would block U.S. training of the Azov battalion and would prevent transfer of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles to fighters in Iraq and Ukraine.

“I am grateful that the House of Representatives unanimously passed my amendments last night to ensure that our military does not train members of the repulsive neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, along with my measures to keep the dangerous and easily trafficked MANPADs out of these unstable regions,” said Conyers on Thursday.

He described Ukraine’s Azov Battalion as a 1,000-man volunteer militia of the Ukrainian National Guard that Foreign Policy Magazine has characterized as “openly neo-Nazi” and “fascist.” And Azov is not some obscure force. Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who oversees Ukraine’s armed militias, announced that Azov troops would be among the first units to be trained by the 300 U.S. military advisers who have been dispatched to Ukraine in a training mission codenamed “Fearless Guardian.”

White Supremacy

On Friday, a Bloomberg News article by Leonid Bershidsky noted that “it’s easy to see why” Conyers “would have a problem with the military unit commanded by Ukrainian legislator Andriy Biletsky: Conyers is a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Biletsky is a white supremacist. …

“Biletsky had run Patriot of Ukraine [the precursor of the Azov battalion] since 2005. In a 2010 interview he described the organization as nationalist ‘storm troops’ … The group’s ideology was ‘social nationalism’ — a term Biletsky, a historian, knew would deceive no one. …

“In 2007, Biletsky railed against a government decision to introduce fines for racist remarks: ‘So why the “Negro-love” on a legislative level? They want to break everyone who has risen to defend themselves, their family, their right to be masters of their own land! They want to destroy the Nation’s biological resistance to everything alien and do to us what happened to Old Europe, where the immigrant hordes are a nightmare for the French, Germans and Belgians, where cities are “blackening” fast and crime and the drug trade are invading even the remotest corners.’”

The Bloomberg article continued, “Biletsky landed in prison in 2011, after his organization took part in a series of shootouts and fights. Following Ukraine’s so-called revolution of dignity last year, he was freed as a political prisoner; right-wing organizations, with their paramilitary training, played an important part in the violent phase of the uprising against former President Viktor Yanukovych. The new authorities — which included the ultra-nationalist party Svoboda — wanted to show their gratitude.

“The war in the east gave Biletsky’s storm troopers a chance at a higher status than they could ever have hoped to achieve. They fought fiercely, and last fall, the 400-strong Azov Battalion became part of the National Guard, receiving permission to expand to 2,000 fighters and gaining access to heavy weaponry. So what if some of its members had Nazi symbols tattooed on their bodies and the unit’s banner bore the Wolfsangel, used widely by the Nazis during World War II?

“In an interview with Ukraine’s Focus magazine last September, Avakov, responsible for the National Guard, was protective of his heroes. He said of the Wolfsangel: ‘In many European cities it is part of the city emblem. Yes, most of the guys who assembled in Azov have a particular worldview. But who told you you could judge them? Don’t forget what the Azov Battalion did for the country. Remember the liberation of Mariupol, the fighting at Ilovaysk, the latest attacks near the Sea of Azov. May God allow anyone who criticizes them to do 10 percent of what they’ve done. And anyone who’s  going to tell me that these guys preach Nazi views, wear the swastika and so on, are bare-faced liars and fools.’”

Though the House vote on June 10 may have shined a spotlight into this dark corner of the U.S.-embraced Kiev regime, the reality has been well-known for many months – though played down in most of the Western news media, often dismissed as “Russian propaganda.”

Even the Times has included at least one brief reference to this reality, though buried deep inside an article. On Aug. 10, 2014, a Times’ article mentioned the Nazi taint of the Azov battalion in the last three paragraphs of a lengthy story on another topic.

“The fighting for Donetsk has taken on a lethal pattern: The regular army bombards separatist positions from afar, followed by chaotic, violent assaults by some of the half-dozen or so paramilitary groups surrounding Donetsk who are willing to plunge into urban combat,” the Times reported.

“Officials in Kiev say the militias and the army coordinate their actions, but the militias, which count about 7,000 fighters, are angry and, at times, uncontrollable. One known as Azov, which took over the village of Marinka, flies a neo-Nazi symbol resembling a Swastika as its flag.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “NYT Discovers Ukraine’s Neo-Nazis at War.”]

A Shiver Down the Spine

The conservative London Telegraph offered more details about the Azov battalion in an article by correspondent Tom Parfitt, who wrote: “Kiev’s use of volunteer paramilitaries to stamp out the Russian-backed Donetsk and Luhansk ‘people’s republics’… should send a shiver down Europe’s spine.

“Recently formed battalions such as Donbas, Dnipro and Azov, with several thousand men under their command, are officially under the control of the interior ministry but their financing is murky, their training inadequate and their ideology often alarming. The Azov men use the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel (Wolf’s Hook) symbol on their banner and members of the battalion are openly white supremacists, or anti-Semites.”

Based on interviews with militia members, the Telegraph reported that some of the fighters doubted the reality of the Holocaust, expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and acknowledged that they are indeed Nazis.

Biletsky, the Azov commander, “is also head of an extremist Ukrainian group called the Social National Assembly,” according to the Telegraph article which quoted a commentary by Biletsky as declaring: “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.”

In other words, for the first time since World War II, a government had dispatched Nazi storm troopers to attack a European population – and officials in Kiev knew what they were doing. The Telegraph questioned Ukrainian authorities in Kiev who acknowledged that they were aware of the extremist ideologies of some militias but insisted that the higher priority was having troops who were strongly motivated to fight. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ignoring Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers.”]

But a rebel counteroffensive led by ethnic Russians last August reversed many of Kiev’s gains and drove the Azov and other government forces back to the port city of Mariupol, where Foreign Policy’s reporter Alec Luhn also encountered the Nazis. He wrote:

“Blue and yellow Ukrainian flags fly over Mariupol’s burned-out city administration building and at military checkpoints around the city, but at a sport school near a huge metallurgical plant, another symbol is just as prominent: the wolfsangel (‘wolf trap’) symbol that was widely used in the Third Reich and has been adopted by neo-Nazi groups. …

“Pro-Russian forces have said they are fighting against Ukrainian nationalists and ‘fascists’ in the conflict, and in the case of Azov and other battalions, these claims are essentially true.”

SS Helmets

More evidence continued to emerge about the presence of Nazis in the ranks of Ukrainian government fighters. Germans were shocked to see video of Azov militia soldiers decorating their gear with the Swastika and the “SS rune.” NBC News reported: “Germans were confronted with images of their country’s dark past … when German public broadcaster ZDF showed video of Ukrainian soldiers with Nazi symbols on their helmets in its evening newscast.

“The video was shot … in Ukraine by a camera team from Norwegian broadcaster TV2. ‘We were filming a report about Ukraine’s AZOV battalion in the eastern city of Urzuf, when we came across these soldiers,’ Oysten Bogen, a correspondent for the private television station, told NBC News. “Minutes before the images were taped, Bogen said he had asked a spokesperson whether the battalion had fascist tendencies. ‘The reply was: absolutely not, we are just Ukrainian nationalists,’ Bogen said.”

Despite the newsworthiness of a U.S.-backed government dispatching Nazi storm troopers to attack Ukrainian cities, the major U.S. news outlets have gone to extraordinary lengths to excuse this behavior, with the Washington Post publishing a rationalization that Azov’s use of the Swastika was merely “romantic.”

This curious description of the symbol most associated with the depravity of the Holocaust and the devastation of World War II can be found in the last three paragraphs of a Post lead storypublished in September 2014. Post correspondent Anthony Faiola portrayed the Azov fighters as “battle-scarred patriots” nobly resisting “Russian aggression” and willing to resort to “guerrilla war” if necessary.

The article found nothing objectionable about Azov’s plans for “sabotage, targeted assassinations and other insurgent tactics” against Russians, although such actions in other contexts are regarded as terrorism. The extremists even extended their threats to the government of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko if he agrees to a peace deal with the ethnic Russian east that is not to the militia’s liking.

“If Kiev reaches a deal with rebels that they don’t support, paramilitary fighters say they could potentially strike pro-Russian targets on their own — or even turn on the government itself,” the article stated.

The Post article – like almost all of its coverage of Ukraine – was laudatory about the Kiev forces fighting ethnic Russians in the east, but the newspaper did have to do some quick thinking to explain a photograph of a Swastika gracing an Azov brigade barracks. So, in the last three paragraphs of the story, Faiola reported: “One platoon leader, who called himself Kirt, conceded that the group’s far right views had attracted about two dozen foreign fighters from around Europe.

“In one room, a recruit had emblazoned a swastika above his bed. But Kirt … dismissed questions of ideology, saying that the volunteers — many of them still teenagers — embrace symbols and espouse extremist notions as part of some kind of ‘romantic’ idea.”

Despite these well-documented facts, the New York Times excised this reality from its article about the Azov battalion’s defense of Mariupol last February. But isn’t the role of Nazis newsworthy? In other contexts, the Times is quick to note and condemn any sign of a Nazi resurgence in Europe. However, in Ukraine, where neo-Nazis, such as Andriy Parubiy served as the coup regime’s first national security chief and Nazi militias are at the center of regime’s military operations, the Times goes silent on the subject.

Rather than fully inform its readers about a crisis that has the potential of becoming a nuclear showdown between the United States and Russia, the Times has chosen to simply be a fount of State Department propaganda, often terming any reference to Kiev’s Nazi storm troopers to be “Russian propaganda.” Now, however, a unanimous U.S. House of Representatives — of all things — has acknowledged the unpleasant truth.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon andbarnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includesAmerica’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

This important article by Manlio Dinucci first published on February 13, 2019 is a Bombshell.

Bilateral  Russia-Ukraine negotiations regarding Ukraine’s relationship to NATO will require an Amendment to Ukraine’s Constitution

“The initiative for having introduced into the Ukrainian Constitution the commitment to enter officially into NATO goes to Ukraine’s Parliamentary President Andriy Parubiy. Co-founder in 1991 of the Ukrainian National-Socialist Party, on the model of Adolf Hitler’s National-Socialist Party”.

 

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The day after the signature of NATO’s membership protocol with North Macedonia as its 30th member, Ukraine did something without precedent: it included in its Constitution the engagement to enter officially into NATO and the European Union at the same time.

On 7 February, on a proposition by President Petro Poroshenko – the oligarch who made himself rich by plundering public properties, and who is once again a candidate for the presidency – the Kiev parliament, by 34 votes to 35 with 16 abstentions, approved these amendments to the Constitution.

The Introduction pronounces “the irreversible movement of Ukraine towards Euro-Atlantic integration”; articles 85 and 116 state that it is a fundamental duty of the parliament and the government to “obtain Ukraine’s full membership of NATO and the EU”; article 102 stipulates that “the President of Ukraine is the guarantor of the strategic decisions of the State aimed at obtaining full membership of NATO and the EU”.

The inclusion in the Ukrainian Constitution of the engagement to enter officially into NATO bears with it some very serious consequences.

On the interior, it alienates the future of Ukraine from this choice, by excluding any alternative, and outlaws de facto any party or person who might oppose the “strategic decisions of the state”. Already, the Central Electoral Commission has forbidden Petro Simonenko, director of the Ukrainian Communist Party, to participate in the Presidential elections to be held in March.

The merit for having introduced into the Ukrainian Constitution the engagement to enter officially into NATO goes in particular to Parliamentary President Andriy Parubiy. Co-founder in 1991 of the Ukrainian National-Socialist Party, on the model of Adolf Hitler’s National-Socialist Party; head of the neo-Nazi paramilitary formations which were used in 2014 during the putsch of Place Maïdan under US/NATO command, and in the massacre of Odessa; head of the Ukraine National Security and Defense Council, which, with the Azov Battalion and other neo-Nazi units, attacked Ukrainian civilians of Russian nationality in the Eastern part of the country and used his squadrons for acts of ferocious abuse, the plunder of political headquarters and other auto-da-fés in a truly Nazi style.

On the international level, we should keep in mind that Ukraine is already linked to NATO, of which it is a partner: for example, the Azov Battalion, whose Nazi character is represented by the emblem copied from that of the SS unit Das Reich, has been transformed into a special operations regiment, equipped with armoured vehicles and trained by US instructors from the 173rd Airborne Division, transferred to Ukraine from Vicence, and seconded by other NATO members.

Since Russia has been accused by NATO of having illegally annexed Crimea, and of launching military operations against Kiev, should Ukraine officially join NATO, the 30 other members of the Alliance, on the basis of article 5, would be obliged to “assist the party or parties under attack by adopting immediately, individually and in agreement with the other parties, any action that it should deem necessary, including the use of armed force”.

In other words, they would have to go to war with Russia.

These dangerous implications of the modification of the Ukrainian Constitution – behind which are most certainly strategies by the USA and NATO – have been met with political and media silence. Including that of the Italian parliament, which, in 2017 established an agreement with the Ukrainian parliament, supported by Laura Boldrini and Andriy Parubiy.

Thus cooperation has been reinforced between the Italian Republic, born of resistance against fascism and Nazism, and a régime which has created in Ukraine a situation similar to that which brought about the arrival of fascism in the 1920’s and Nazism in the 1930’s.

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This article was originally published on Il Manifesto. Translated by Pete Kimberley.

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

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Evidence has come to light strongly indicating that the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines are not really “vaccines” in the medical and legal sense of the word, but rather “experimental gene therapies.”  If proven true, the significance and legal ramifications of this allegation are profound.

This article summarizes a presentation by Dr. David Martin, a national intelligence analyst and founder of IQ100 Index, a developer of linguistic genomics, and molecular biologist Dr. Judy Mikovits.

In the presentation, Dr. Martin states,

“You cannot have a vaccine that doesn’t claim to result in either immunity or blocking transmission.”  He goes on to say, “By their own patents and reference material, neither Pfizer nor Moderna claims this.  Rather, they only classify their products as ‘gene therapy.'”

Dr. Martin states the Moderna and Pfizer products

“do not prevent you from getting the COVID-19 infection, nor do they prevent its spread.  They are really experimental gene therapies — unlike real vaccines, which use an antigen of the disease you’re trying to prevent, the Moderna and Pfizer injections contain synthetic RNA fragments encapsulated in a nanolipid carrier compound, the sole purpose of which is to lessen clinical symptoms associated with the S-1 spike protein, not the actual virus.”

If indeed Moderna and Pfizer corporations are misrepresenting their experimental gene therapies as bona fide vaccines, Dr. Martin states that

“the legal ramifications of this deception are immense — from a legal view, both Moderna and Pfizer qualify as using illegal deceptive practices by making medical claims without clinic trial proof of immunity and transmission blocking.  The U.S. Federal Trade Commission Act, 15 U.S. Code, Section 41, outlaws such deceptive practices.”

During the presentation, various entities and individuals were identified as supporters of the above alleged deception, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina, and other individuals.

Why call an experimental gene therapy product a “vaccine”? Dr. Martin believes that there are two basic reasons: 1) to circumvent liability for damages, and 2) if the products were called gene therapy or a similar label, most people would wisely refuse to use them.

Regarding avoiding liability for damages, as long as the U.S. is under a state of emergency, things like COVID-19 “vaccines” are allowed under emergency use authorization.  As long as the emergency use authorization is in effect, the makers of these “vaccines” are not financially liable for any damages that comes from their use.  However, Dr Martin states that “there is no liability shield for a medical emergency countermeasure that is gene therapy.”  In fact, if the documentation Pfizer and Moderna provided the Federal Drug Administration for emergency use authorization can be proven fraudulent, then there is no legal protection.

Given the above, a multitude of multi-million-dollar lawsuits are possible, if not probable, against the two pharmaceutical companies by parties who have been “injured” in one way or another by Moderna and Pfizer inoculations.  Depending on the evidence produced, criminal indictments may also be a possibility.

What needs to happen next?  Dr. Martin urges citizens to contact their state attorney, governor, representatives, and anyone else who might be in a position to take action to address and correct what he calls a tremendous fraud on the American people.  He hopes his presentation will be viewed and acted upon by officials with the authority to thoroughly investigate his findings.

He states,

“Defense contractors are violating FTC law, and gene therapy companies — not vaccine manufacturers — are conducting experimental trials under deceptive medical practices.  They’re making claims of being ‘vaccines’ without clinical proof, and must be held accountable for their deceptive marketing and medical practices.”

The need for accountability extends to anyone who promoted the use of the Moderna and Pfizer products while having full knowledge that they were not bona fide vaccines as described herein.

Dr. Martin states,

“World governments and global and national health organizations are all complicit in this illegal deception and must be held accountable.”

In conclusion, Dr. Martin makes a most sobering comment:

“These injections are not vaccines.  They do not prevent infection, they do not render you immune, and they do not prevent transmission of the disease.  Instead, they alter your genetic coding.”

Given the above, perhaps it is time for several state attorneys general to band together and thoroughly investigate the activities of Moderna, Pfizer, and various individuals in this matter.  This could develop into a similar cooperative multi-state effort reminiscent of the 1998 Big Tobacco lawsuit.  In this action, 52 state and territory attorneys general ultimately signed a Master Settlement Agreement with the four largest tobacco companies in the U.S. to settle dozens of state lawsuits brought to recover billions of dollars in health care costs associated with treating smoking-related illnesses.

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Paul S. Gardiner is a retired Army officer, Vietnam veteran, and lover of America.  He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina, University of Alabama, and the United States Army War College.  He is hopeful that the truth will eventually emerge about the Moderna and Pfizer inoculation products as well as truth about statements made by various high-ranking officials promoting their use.

Featured image is by qimono via Pixabay, Pixabay License.

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On March 1, the eagerly awaited new installment of Pfizer’s documents was made publicly available thanks to the recent judicial ruling. 10,000 pages out of a cache of over 450,000 of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine-related data, which the FDA relied upon to grant Emergency Use Authorization, can now be reviewed.  

The first wave of documents was released last November, following a FOIA request from the plaintiff group, Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT), made up of over 30 scientists, medical professionals and academics, led by Dr. Peter McCullough and represented by Aaron Siri, of Siri & Glimstad LLP.

Last December, I wrote an investigative report for TrialSite News reviewing Pfizer’s cumulative analysis of vaccine adverse events, a shocking 38-page document, which was part of the first wave of released records. The document revealed over 1228 deaths occurring after the administration of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine with 42,086 individuals (cases) reporting 158,893 vaccine adverse events, many of which were serious, within a 3-month period.

Up until January, the FDA has been fighting a legal battle not to release the data, in breach of FOIA law. The agency ‘dragged their feet’ and was willing to only produce 500 pages a month- meaning the public would have to wait 75 years to see all the documents. On 6 January, district judge, Justice Mark Pittman ordered the FDA to publicly release all the Pfizer documents within 8 months at a rate of 55,000 pages a month.

The following is a summary of my findings after an initial review of the plethora of papers in a limited space of time.

The Case Report Forms (CRFs)

A Case Report Form (CRF) is a printed or electronic document used in clinical trial research to capture standardised clinical data from each patient including adverse events. It’s a critical part of the clinical trial process and plays an important role in pharmacovigilance.

The majority of CRFs released originated from various trial sites run by Ventavia, one of the clinical research groups contracted by Pfizer to conduct the Covid-19 vaccine trials. The company is currently facing a law suit brought by Brook Jackson, the former Ventavia regional director, turned whistle-blower, who provided The BMJ with a preponderance of internal company documents and photos which revealed the Pfizer contractor’s poor laboratory management; their compromising of data integrity and patient safety. Ms Jackson will be talking exclusively with TrialSite News in an upcoming interview about this matter. Readers may remember that Facebook literally fact checked The BMJ for reporting on this incident. They had no reason to censor the medical journal’s article indicating the possibility of programmatic algorithmic bias.

The errors and anomalies

Subject # 11281009 was part of Pfizer’s phase 2/3 trials in the healthy population. This cohort were deemed eligible by the clinical judgement of the investigator in meeting the criteria of ‘healthy.’

One can see evidence below that this participant was far from healthy, when reviewing their general medical history. The participant was a type 2 diabetic; suffered from angina and had a cardiac stent placement following a myocardial infarction (heart attack).

It’s puzzling how a trial investigator from Ventavia would identify this participant as healthy and include them in the trial. There were other participants who I came across, who were included in these phases of the trials (on the healthy population) who had an extensive list of conditions as part of the general medical history.  How much pressure was exerted by the sponsor (Pfizer) on the contract research organization and participating trial sites enrolling vaccine trial participants?

Another CRF for this participant reveals an adverse event of myocardial infarction (heart attack) requiring hospitalization, noted as serious; however, the serious adverse event (SAE) number was left blank (see screenshot below). Later, a SAE number was entered but it’s surprising that the clinical research associates would make such significant data reporting errors such as this. Were SAE numbers left blank a common occurrence at Ventavia trial sites?  Again, what type of pressure were the CROs, and sites exposed to?

Another note-worthy point are the start and end dates of these SAEs. The myocardial infarction start date is recorded on 27October with the end date on very next day, which happens to be the start date of pneumonia (see screenshot below).

Interestingly, the myocardial infarction outcome is recorded as ‘recovered/resolved’ (see screenshot below) with the entered end date recorded only one day after the start date. This is unusual as a CRF reveals that the participant was hospitalized because of the event (see earlier screenshot).This anomaly raises doubt as to the accuracy of these recorded dates, potentially violating ALOCA-C clinical site documentation guidelines for clinical trials. That is the data must be:

• Attributable
• Legible
• Contemporaneous
• Original
• Accurate
• Complete

For the SAE of pneumonia, we can again see below that trial investigator, Salim Boguermouth entered ‘potential COVID-19 related pneumonia should have triggered a Covid illness visit.’ The fact this was an open query evidence that the protocol was not consistently followed.

Another investigator opens the same query, declaring that the AE term of pneumonia should be updated to Covid Pneumonia. The response back is interesting as it simply states ‘site has not been made aware that it was Covid pneumonia. Per PI (principal investigator) pneumonia is related to an infection, therefore the term cannot be updated as such.’ This response seems to satisfy the query and it’s closed. No other questions were asked; no investigations appear to be made. (See screenshot below)

Within Pfizer’s protocol (section 8.2.4), enhanced COVID-19 (antibody dependent enhancement potentially caused by the vaccine) was on their watchlist, which indicates that they had some concern about this condition.  It’s important to note that unblinded teams were reviewing cases for severe COVID-19 and reviewing AEs for additional potential cases.

‘In Phase 2/3, the unblinded team supporting the DMC, including an unblinded medical monitor, will review cases of severe COVID-19 as they are received and will review AEs at least weekly for additional potential cases of severe COVID-19. At any point, the unblinded team may discuss with the DMC chair whether the DMC should review cases for an adverse imbalance of cases of COVID-19 and/or severe COVID-19 between the vaccine and placebo groups.’

Inadvertently, this could have led to bias, as the unblinded teams would have been aware which participants were assigned the placebo and those who received the vaccine. They might have been under pressure by the sponsor for the trial to go a certain way and for events like ‘Covid Pneumonia’ to be classified simply as pneumonia.

Given the FDA’s non-binding guidance to manufacturers of covid-19 vaccines urging them to devise a method to allow volunteers in their studies’ placebo arms to receive the vaccine, in October 2020- Pfizer’s trial participants assigned to the placebo were later offered the vaccine.

This would have triggered the unblinding of the participant and everyone else involved. Given close to half of the participants would have received the placebo in phase 1/2/3 of the trials, it’s fair to say that a significant portion of those would have been assessed as eligible for the actual vaccine. The data collected on those participants would have been completely unblinded. This raises an important issue where unblinded studies (observational) as opposed to double-blinded (where both the participant and those administering the treatment are blinded) are subject to substantial biases which can significantly affect data integrity.

A systematic review study was conducted and published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, in its conclusions, it stated: ‘This study provides empirical evidence of pronounced bias due to lack of patient blinding in complementary/alternative randomized clinical trials with patient-reported outcomes.’

However, according to Pfizer’s clinical trial protocol, its trials (which are still in progress) are not double blinded but ‘observer-blinded’ where sponsor staff, study managers, clinical research associates and those who are involved with ‘ensuring protocol requirements’ are unblinded.

By Pfizer essentially unblinding the vaccine trials for what at least some experts refer to as a novel gene therapy product, did they establish a new precedent? In an interview with the British Medical Journal (BMJ), Steven Goodman, associate dean of clinical and translational research at Stanford University said “by allowing unblinding it will set as de facto standard for all vaccine trials to come and that is dangerous.”

Perhaps one of the most significant errors and anomalies found on the CRFs for subject #11281009 is the one below, which astonishingly reveals the participant’s death being recorded before a ‘Covid ill’ visit.  Of course, it’s impossible for a study subject to die and then visit and participate in the clinical trial.

The clinical investigator makes note of this by writing ‘There cannot be a date later than date of death. Please remove data from the COVID illness visit and add cough and shortness of breath as AEs (adverse events).’  What kind of pressure was being exerted here?

Subject # 11281014

This participant was enrolled at the same Ventavia site (1085). The participant was administered the first dose of the blinded treatment on July 31 and the second dose was administered on August 27 (outside the 3-week window protocol).

The screenshot above shows when the second dose was given. At this point this author would like to raise an area of concern given that close to every CRF reviewed at the standard entry for line 10 includes the term: ‘The protocol specified observation period’ has been entered, with some CRFs stating ‘30 minutes.’ This is in reference to the timeframe period which the subject is observed by trial staff after being administered the treatment. It’s worth noting that 30 minutes is the minimum amount of time that the subject should be observed after treatment. For the majority of the CRFs to simply state what appears an automatic entry for line 10 is cause for concern, raising the question that perhaps participants were not observed for adequate amounts of time, thus putting their safety at risk. This backs up what Brook Jackson, the Ventavia/Pfizer whistle-blower has stated in numerous interviews.

What’s unusual about the CRFs for this subject is that they reveal that this participant had a serious fall, the following day on August 28 after the second dose was given, resulting in them being hospitalized. (See screenshot below)

The fall caused facial lacerations, which was recorded as a separate AE but were not reported as serious, even though the toxicity grade level assigned was 2 and the participant was hospitalized for 26 days, see below.

Screenshot below shows AE report for facial lacerations.

Line 9 includes an unusual anomaly stating the event is ‘NOT RELATED’ to the study treatment but ‘Hypotension’ but in the AE report form for the ‘Fall’ (see screenshot below) it’s due to ‘fall.’

Screenshot below shows missing SAE number for ‘Facial lacerations.’

This was flagged by a trial investigator, see below

For these two SAEs the Ventavia staff share both events were due to ‘other reasons’ and not related to the study treatment. However, doubts can be raised over the credibility of this information given the fall and facial lacerations were intrinsically related. So, if facial lacerations were due to ‘hypotension’ then the fall should be due to that too.

It’s note-worthy that the fall happened the day after the second treatment dose was given, which at least raises the question of causality.

It’s also concerning that the screenshot below shows how AER #2020337848 (this number referenced in line 15 of the AE report above for the fall) ‘the causality was recorded as RELATED in SAE form however, reported as NOT RELATED on AE CRF’

Subject #11281103

The general medical history for this female participant shows no evidence of impaired kidney function (such as hypokalaemia and kidney stones).

She was administered dose 1 of the blinded treatment on August 12 and the second dose on September 1. A month later she is reported to have kidney stones, hypokalaemia, and a urinary tract infection on October 3.

All recorded start dates match and so do the recorded end dates.

The AE report for the kidney stones is below.

The line 9 entry shows ‘this event is due to other…renal calculus’ and for the AE of severe hypokalaemia (see below) the event is attributed to ‘hypokalaemia.’ Both events are ‘NOT RELATED’ to the study treatment as reported by trial staff.

Given this participant had no previous history of impaired renal function before taking part in the trial and the fact that kidney stones along with renal function impairment have been reported as side effects of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine- it’s highly questionable why these AEs were not investigated further in relation to them being related to the study treatment, especially when they arose just one month after the second treatment dose.

The missing Serious Adverse Event (SAE) numbers

When looking through the CRFs for participant, subject # 10851246, an AE report is logged with ‘Exposure during pregnancy’ entered for the adverse event. This term is given when ‘a female participant is found to be pregnant while receiving or after discontinuing study intervention.’

A query is made about the SAE number being left blank for this participant at another Ventavia site (1085).

For Subject #10851216, a serious adverse event number is left blank regarding a ‘left leg fracture’ after a fall.

At Ventavia site #1085 there seems to be a pattern of leaving SAE numbers left blank.

The missing barcodes

In the process of writing this report, this author not only reviewed thousands of CRFs, but also encountered lots of entries of missing barcodes for samples collected from participants, such as the one below. This suggests a serious possibility that sufficient evidence reveals a pattern of questionable Ventavia trial site data at best, perhaps compromised in more worse case scenarios.

All the evidence gleaned over a limited time appears to back up whistle-blower Jackson’s claims of poor trial site data management and raises questions as to how Ventavia conducted the Pfizer clinical trials. The errors and anomalies in the CRFs also allude to her claims that the clinical research associates were not trained adequately, with many having had no prior clinical experience history. If such egregious findings are true at these sites, could they manifest at other trial sites around North America and beyond?

It’s worth pointing out that the FDA conducted inspections of only 1% of the clinical trial sites.

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“Embassy alley” in Beijing, in reality a patchwork of tree-lined streets with two story houses, mostly built in the 1960s in a style reminiscent of the 1930s, seems far from the madding crowds. Heavily guarded and monitored, it does not attract, let alone welcome, casual strollers. Which is why few people in the city have noticed that most Western embassies are displaying Ukrainian solidarity signs near their entrances. Indeed, a rupture has taken place that many are unaware of.

“Friendship between the two states has no limits” Chinese president Xi Jinping said after he signed a joint statement with Russian president Vladimir Putin less than a month before the Ukraine invasion. For this reason Xi will not, yet, try to persuade his friend to curtail the attack. But those limits have, in fact, been reached. China’s relationship with Russia has always been more complicated, less solid, than it appears.  Just a couple of months after the two leaders declared their “no limits” partnership, it is clear that there are, in fact, boundaries to how much support Beijing will offer Moscow. Xi has no interest in being entangled in foreign wars and the precariousness of the Chinese economy has his full attention.

Nor can China, for all its economic clout, step in and ease the pain of Western economic sanctions. Russia is China’s third-largest supplier of gas, behind Australia and Turkmenistan. About one-third of Russian exports of crude oil went to China in 2020. But China imported only 10bn cubic meters of natural gas from Russia in 2021 via the only pipeline from Siberia that links the two countries. This pales in comparison to the 175bn cubic meters imported by Europe. The pipeline infrastructure for fossil-fuel exports between China and Russia is woefully inadequate.

The West wants China to use its influence over Russia. But intervening too early risks, in Beijing’s view, weakening the Russian president. Better wait, to see if he can take Kiev, before stepping in. But the obvious consequence of this approach is that Xi will be tarnished as a cynical opportunist who lacks the leadership qualities needed by a leader on the world stage.

War is raging in Europe and China hopes this will help it to achieve a long-cherished strategic goal. Like imperial powers of 140 years ago, Beiijng wants the world carved up. China to dominate Asia and Africa, Russia to get a veto over European security and America to retreat back to the Monroe Doctrine and South America.

Russia’s war in Ukraine could accelerate this global scenario, some in Beijing think. They are wrong. China wants the US to accept its decline.

But China too is declining. It’s not the power it was, even just a few years ago.

Covid and corruption are playing havoc with its construction-scandal weakened economy. It remains powerful but growth is uneven and stalling. Russia, as an ally, is diminished. China’s wait-and-see-inaction seems sclerotic. Chinese officials have sent out confusing and frankly incoherent statements. They stress, parrot like, the importance of territorial integrity but blame the US for the crisis.

China is not having a good war and the US and its allies, after the fiasco of the Afghanistan withdrawal, are again united. NATO, which declared China a security risk in 2021, is rejuvenated. Germany is rearming, a prospect that needs to be examined far more comprehensively than it is. European governments now look at defense spending as a priority. The Chinese leadership gives an impression of being caught wrong-footed by a world that is changing rapidly.

To China, Ukraine is not a far away country. As recently as January, Xi and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky exchanged congratulatory messages on 30 years of ties and vowed to strengthen their “fruitful” cooperation. Ukraine is a key part of the Belt and Road Initiative, Xi’s signature infrastructure and foreign policy project. That too seems a casualty of war.

But Beijing will not ditch Moscow, condemn the invasion, and emerge as a peacemaker. Russia is still a useful ally to Beijing in what it sees as its real struggle, with the US.

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Geopolitical analyst Tom Clifford reporting from Beijing. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Here is why.

Democrats, Republicans, and independents, all need this person in the U.S. White House. We are the American people; and he represents, more articulately than anybody else does, on the most urgent and important issue confronting the world, what all Americans — and all of the people in the world — need. That’s a fact. That need is a fact. How can it become implemented?

This need has become desperate.

On March 13th, Fox News headlined “US senators dismiss ‘World War III’ worries, say US would dominate Russian troops”. Almost none of the 5,000+ reader-comments there cared much about the fact that WW III would destroy all life on this planet, and most of the readers were concerned only about whether ‘we’ would ‘win’ that war — a war that would utterly destroy the entire world.

The American public no longer consider a war between the world’s nuclear superpowers (U.S. and Russia) to be fundamentally different from, and enormously more unacceptable than, any prior war.

The massive fear of nuclear war in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis is gone, though nuclear war would be hundreds of times more destructive in 2022 than it would have been in 1962.

The rabidly neoconservative American press has whipped up the international hatreds and blocked out the crucial facts in its international news-reporting, so as to produce America’s present misinformed and zombie-like public. This is idiocy on a massive scale, in our own nation, right now; and, so, America will have no public opinion restraining its leaders from destroying the entire planet in order to ‘save’ Ukraine — a previously unimaginable lunacy, but the reality today.

Only leadership such as Douglas Macgregor  would offer the type of leadership that might overcome this ugly present reality and transform America into a decent nation again — one that takes deadly seriously the deadliest of dangers, not only dangers to Americans, but dangers to the entire planet. America’s existing leadership is atrocious beyond anything in all of human history.

We’ve not had the type of leadership that Macgregor can supply ever since at least the time of JFK, but the post-9/11 period has been especially nonchalant about the unacceptability of any WW III. For warfare, the atomic age brought with it a change of type, not ONLY a change of ITEM, but that basic fact has now been effectively forgotten in America, and this poses the greatest threat to the world in all of the world’s history — and this reality of Americans’ stunning ignorance and nonchalance about what a WW III would mean must change, and fast.

Before nuclear weapons, there could have been any number of World Wars (superpower-conflicts); but, after the 1945 advent of nuclear weapons, there can be only one more World War, and it would begin the process that would soon end all life on this planet.

Our nation’s leaders now are no longer restrained by the public about bringing it on. Shall we accept that?

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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.

Featured image is a screenshot from a Grayzone video

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The Kyiv Independent reported on Monday, 14 March, that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy had proposed meeting President Putin in Jerusalem. This is what Mr. Zelenskyy told foreign journalists on March 12. He had suggested to Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, to act as intermediary. See this.

Latest reports from Russia – 16 March 2022 – indicate that since Biden called Putin a “war criminal” – there will very likely be no Putin-Zelenskyy meeting.

On 13 March 2022, RT reports Moscow and Kiev seem to be moving closer to an agreement, according to Leonid Slutsky, a member of the Russian negotiation team. He believes there has been “significant progress” in talks between Kiev and Moscow. It may soon lead the two sides in the conflict to sign an agreement.

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Former senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense Col. Doug Macgregor joins Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate for a candid, live discussion of the Russia-Ukraine war and his time in the Trump administration when an Afghan withdrawal was sabotaged and conflict with Iran and Syria continued.

“Well at this point we have to conclude that there is a universal opposition to any peace arrangement that involves a recognition of any Russian success,” Macgregor said. “In fact if anything, it looks more and more, as though Ukrainians are almost incidental to the operation in the sense that they are there to impale themselves on the Russian army. And die in great numbers, because the real goal of this entire thing is the destruction of the Russian state and Vladimir Putin.”

“No one is prepared to stop anything as long as there is the slightest hope that something terrible will happen to Russia and Putin,” Macgregor said. “Of course, I don’t see much evidence that that is going to be the case. But it doesn’t really matter here, everyone has universally signed on to the hatred for Russia campaign. That seems to go on regardless what is reported, and frankly the absence of much truth in reporting and a lot wishful thinking in its place is hard to overestimate or exaggerate, it’s terrible.”

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Featured image is from OneWorld

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Today, the dangers of military escalation are beyond description.

What is now happening in Ukraine has serious geopolitical implications. It could lead us into a World War III Scenario.

It is important that a peace process be initiated with a view to preventing escalation. 

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The history of this war must be understood.

The bombing and shelling led by Ukraine’s Armed Forces directed against the people of Donbass started eight years ago, resulting in the destruction of residential areas and more than 10,000 civilian casualties.

A  bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

 

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The conflict in Ukraine has divided the world into those who support the US, and those who do not support a superpower in charge of the world.  The Ukraine conflict is pitting the US and their western allies, against other nations who seek a new world order, free of US domination.

Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse interviewed Ararat Kostanian in an effort to understand the back-story of the events in Ukraine, and the emergence of a new multi-polar world order.

Ararat Kostanian is an expert on Middle Eastern studies and International Relations. He currently works as a Junior Fellow and a PhD candidate at the Institute of Oriental Studies, National Academy of Science of Armenia, and has published essays and articles on Political Islam, Turkey, the Syrian War, and the emergence of multipolar world and on Armenian foreign policy.

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Steven Sahiounie (SS):  Turkey, Israel, and Azerbaijan seem to be taking a position against Russia, and in support of Ukraine in the current conflict. In your opinion, what might be the Russian response?

Ararat Kostanian (AK):  If we look at the conflicts in Middle East and South Caucasus that preceded the current conflict in Ukraine, it is evident that Turkey, Israel and Azerbaijan are allies both in the imposed war on Syria and against the Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh.

Similarly, amid the conflict in Ukraine the above-mentioned countries are supporting Ukraine both officially and publicly, but at the same time showing willingness of mediating between Russia and Ukraine; not to offend Russia and to gain credentials in return both in Middle East and South Caucasus.

Historically, Turkey has ambitions for advanced role in the Black Sea and considers Crimea a Turkish land based on the Tatar Turkic population.

Thus, that agenda at front, Turkey is willing to reach to Central Asia through Azerbaijan and a bigger role in Crimea would enhance Turkey a foothold in Europe on its way of creating the pan-Turkish empire. Likewise, for Israel, the Jewish community of Ukraine and especially in Odessa has great importance linking the Black Sea with the Mediterranean. Which means it links the Eastern Europe with the Middle East.

On the other hand, Russia for more than a decade, has started an advanced diplomacy with different countries such as Turkey, Israel, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia, India etc. We should admit that Russia has achieved positive outcomes in its relations with Saudi Arabia and India in terms of gaining the neutrality of both against the harsh policy of the United States against Russia and its allies. Conversely, it is evident now that the containment policy with Turkey, Israel and Azerbaijan wasn’t successful when Israel is continuing its illegal air attacks in Syria, Turkey joined the war against Nagorno Karabakh that is against the principles of international law. Thus, must form a new policy towards the above-mentioned country and empower its allies against Turkey, Israel and Azerbaijan, instead of containing them through diplomatic maneuvers.

SS:  What is Armenia’s position on the conflict in Ukraine, and their relationship with Russia in the past?

AK:  Armenia is a key ally of Russia in the region and has strong political, economic, historical, and cultural ties with Russia. Currently, we have a big and influential community in Russia. Moreover, the Russian base is situated in the city of Gyumri and the Russian peacekeepers are in Nagorno Karabakh safeguarding the Armenians from further attacks by Azerbaijan. Moreover, we have historical relations and Armenian community in Ukraine as well, but politically Armenia supports Russia as an ally and on the other hand Ukraine supported Azerbaijan in the second war in Nagorno Karabakh last year. I should admit that we have also a small number of people that support Ukraine backed by few political figures who see the future of Armenia must be linked with the western camp, but they represent very small portion of the population.

SS:  Information has surfaced that the chaos in Kazakhstan was supported by the US and the Muslim Brotherhood. In your opinion, can there be made a comparison between Kazakhstan and Ukraine?

AK:  The comparison is not very accurate, but also it is linked together. The United States intentionally has created hot spots in different parts of the world to pressure Russia, China and Iran.

In other words, the emerging superpowers that are willing to form the bi-polar and multipolar world. After the failure of the United States in Afghanistan and the diplomatic success of Russia and China with the Taliban, Kazakhstan being a key country in Central Asia, the Western camp has tried to engage in color revolution with the help of Turkey to destabilize the region and force Russia and China to enter in war. Russia and CSTO has reacted in time and stopped the ambitions of the United States and Turkey in turning Kazakhstan into another Syria or Iraq. The West went silent, because of Russia’s quick move and shifted its direction this time to Europe to create tension in Ukraine the closest to Russian borders. Of course, the tension has been there since 2014 after the coup in Ukraine and the installment of a regime that is anti-Russian and openly announced the desire to join the NATO.

SS:  The EU and the US have banned Russia’s Sputnik and RT from accessing the western media market. The ban has even involved reporters from Russian media. In your opinion, should journalism be free and open, or should the West be allowed to censor the content of information their citizens have access to?

AK:  The freedom of speech must be accepted as a universal value and should not be monopolized in the hands of the western media and government. Unfortunately, not only Russian owned televisions are being closed in the West, but also many YouTube channels are being shut down, many pages are being suspended in social media, we are seeing hatred towards Russians in European cities, international brands and shops are being closed in Russia and I believe these incidents are taking place with orders by the United States. These actions prove that democracy and human rights do not exist in the minds of the western politicians and when a crisis arise, their only tool is spreading hatred and racism. In fact, this situation will have negative impact on the image of the United States itself and it will lose trust among the countries that are in good relations with.

SS:  Many analysts have said that President Putin may have been too late in taking action against Ukraine because of Russian national security concern. In your opinion, should Russia have acted sooner?

AK:  As I have mentioned above, Russia for more than a decade had decided to solve the problems in civilized diplomatic methods; to not ignite other wars in Europe, South Caucasus, or Asia. Unfortunately, the United States not sympathetic with the reality of the emergence of the multipolar world, is pushing its allies and puppet governments for escalating wars and delaying peace processes in different parts of the world to keep the decades ago situation of a unipolar world and its method is not negotiation and cooperation, but resistance to keep the hegemony by igniting color revolutions and wars. In this sense, Russia acted very accurate in the Middle East previously with an official request from the Syrian government and in Kazakhstan as well, and in Ukraine supported the population of Donetsk and Lugansk more than 8 years from the harsh treatments of the Ukrainian racist armed groups.

The crisis has started due to the provocative Ukrainian announcements of joining NATO, establishing an arena for nuclear weapons and enhanced Russophobia in Ukraine against the Russian population. Moreover, Russian officials in the negotiations with their counterparts of the United States several times noted the redlines that shouldn’t be crossed and they will never accept any form of NATO powers in their neighboring country.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia had the willingness to solve all the questions in diplomatic manners and had been given guarantees from the United States that NATO would not expand to the East. As we have seen, the United States did not keep the promise.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

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

Featured image is from MD

Author’s Note and Update

Vladimir Putin’s statement on February 21st, 2022 was in response to US threats to use nuclear weapons on a preemptive basis against Russia, despite Joe Biden’s “reassurance” that the US would not be resorting to “A First Strike” nuclear attack against an enemy of America.

The  article below first published in February 2006 addresses US Military Doctrine focussing on the integration of nuclear and conventional warfare. 

The results of this research were subsequently integrated into my book entitled Towards A World War Three Scenario, The Dangers of Nuclear War, Global Research Publishers, 2011. 

Having carefully reviewed US military doctrine for more than 20 years, I can confirm that under the Biden Administration, preemptive nuclear war against  Russia, China, Iran and North Korea is “on the table”.  

It should be noted that Joe Biden’s 1.2 trillion dollars nuclear weapons program is slated to increase to 2 trillion by 2030 allegedly as a means to safeguarding peace and national security at taxpayers expense.

How many schools and hospitals could you finance with 2 trillion dollars?

Truth is a Powerful and Peaceful Weapon, which is the object of Google and Facebook censorship. 

Nuclear War Threatens the Future of Humanity. No mainstream media analysis. That statement is the object of  censorship. 

Say No to Joe Biden’s $1.2 Trillion Nuclear Weapons Program.

SAY YES TO WORLD PEACE

Please forward this article, post it on your blog. Spread the word. Initiate a campaign against nuclear war.

Michel Chossudovsky,  Global Research, March 11, 2022

***

It Started with Harry Truman

“We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark…. This weapon is to be used against Japan … [We] will use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new. …  The target will be a purely military one… It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful.”

(President Harry S. Truman, Diary, July 25, 1945)

Remember Hiroshima: “A Military Base” according to Harry Truman

“The World will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians..” (President Harry S. Truman in a radio speech to the Nation, August 9, 1945).

[Note: the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945; the Second on Nagasaki, on August 9, on the same day as Truman’s radio speech to the Nation]

(Listen to Excerpt of Truman’s speech, Hiroshima audio video, link n longer active)

The Unthinkable

At no point since the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, has humanity been closer to the unthinkable.  All the safeguards of the Cold War era, which categorized the nuclear bomb as “a weapon of last resort” have been scrapped. “Offensive” military actions using nuclear warheads are now described as acts of “self-defense”.

 

The distinction between tactical nuclear weapons and the conventional battlefield arsenal has been blurred. America’s new nuclear doctrine is based on “a mix of strike capabilities”. The latter, which specifically applies to the Pentagon’s planned aerial bombing of Iran,  envisages the use of nukes in combination with conventional weapons.

As in the case of the first atomic bomb, which in the words of President Harry Truman “was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base”, today’s “mini-nukes” are heralded as “safe for the surrounding civilian population”.

The Dangerous Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations

Known in official Washington, as “Joint Publication 3-12”, the new nuclear doctrine (Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations  (DJNO) (March 2005)) calls for “integrating conventional and nuclear attacks” under a unified and  “integrated” Command and Control (C2).

It  largely describes war planning as a management decision-making process, where military and strategic objectives are to be achieved, through a mix of instruments, with little concern for the resulting loss of human life.

The Pentagon’s Toolbox

Military planning focuses on “the most efficient use of force” , -i.e. an optimal arrangement of different weapons systems to achieve stated military goals.

In this context, nuclear and conventional weapons are considered to be “part of the tool box”, from which military commanders can pick and choose the instruments that they require in accordance with “evolving circumstances” in the war theater.

None of these weapons in the Pentagon’s “tool box”, including conventional bunker buster bombs, cluster bombs, mini-nukes, chemical and biological weapons are described as “weapons of mass destruction” when used by the United States of America and its coalition partners.

The stated objective is to:

 “ensure the most efficient use of force and provide US leaders with a broader range of [nuclear and conventional]  strike options to address immediate contingencies. Integration of conventional and nuclear forces is therefore crucial to the success of any comprehensive strategy. This integration will ensure optimal targeting, minimal collateral damage, and reduce the probability of escalation.” (Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations   p. JP 3-12-13) emphasis added

The New Nuclear Doctrine turns Concepts and Realities Upside Down

It not only denies the devastating impacts of nuclear weapons, it states, in no uncertain terms, that nuclear weapons are “safe” and their use in the battlefield will ensure “minimal collateral damage and reduce the probability of escalation”.

The issue of radioactive fallout is barely acknowledged with regard to tactical nuclear weapons. These various guiding principles which describe nukes as “safe for civilians” constitute a consensus within the military, which is then fed into the military manuals, providing relevant “green light” criteria to geographical commanders in the war theater.

“Defensive” and “Offensive” Actions

While the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review sets the stage for the preemptive use of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, specifically against Iran (see also the main PNAC document Rebuilding America`s Defenses, Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century ), The Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations goes one step further in blurring the distinction between “defensive” and “offensive” military actions:

“The new triad offers a mix of strategic offensive and defensive capabilities that includes nuclear and non-nuclear strike capabilities, active and passive defenses, and a robust research, development, and industrial infrastructure to develop, build, and maintain offensive forces and defensive systems …” (Ibid) (key concepts indicated in added italics)

The new nuclear doctrine, however, goes beyond preemptive acts of “self-defense”, it calls for “anticipatory action” using nuclear weapons against a  “rogue enemy” which allegedly plans to develop WMD at some undefined future date:

 Responsible security planning requires preparation for threats that are possible, though perhaps unlikely today. The lessons of military history remain clear: unpredictable, irrational conflicts occur. Military forces must prepare to counter weapons and capabilities that exist or will exist in the near term even if no immediate likely scenarios for war are at hand. To maximize deterrence of WMD use, it is essential US forces prepare to use nuclear weapons effectively and that US forces are determined to employ nuclear weapons if necessary to prevent or retaliate against WMD use. (Ibid, p. III-1, italics added)

Nukes would serve to prevent  a non-existent WMD program (e.g. Iran) prior to its development. This twisted formulation goes far beyond the premises of the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review and NPSD 17. which state that the US can retaliate with nuclear weapons if attacked with WMD:

“The United States will make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force – including potentially nuclear weapons – to the use of [weapons of mass destruction] against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies.” … (NSPD 17)

“Integration” of Nuclear and Conventional Weapons Plans

The Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations outlines the procedures governing the use of nuclear weapons and the nature of the relationship between nuclear and conventional war operations.

The DJNO states that the:

 “use of nuclear weapons within a [war] theater requires that nuclear and conventional plans be integrated to the greatest extent possible”

(DJNO, p 47 italics added, italics added, For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Nuclear War against Iran, Jan 2006 )

The implications of this “integration” are far-reaching because once the decision is taken by the Commander in Chief, namely the President of the United States, to launch a joint conventional-nuclear military operation, there is a risk that tactical nuclear weapons could be used without requesting subsequent presidential approval.

In this regard, execution procedures under the jurisdiction of the theater commanders pertaining to nuclear weapons are described  as “flexible and allow for changes in the situation”:

“Geographic combatant commanders are responsible for defining theater objectives and developing nuclear plans required to support those objectives, including selecting targets. When tasked, CDRUSSTRATCOM, as a supporting combatant commander, provides detailed planning support to meet theater planning requirements. All theater nuclear option planning follows prescribed Joint Operation Planning and Execution System procedures to formulate and implement an effective response within the timeframe permitted by the crisis..

Since options do not exist for every scenario, combatant commanders must have a capability to perform crisis action planning and execute those plans. Crisis action planning provides the capability to develop new options, or modify existing options, when current limited or major response options are inappropriate.

…Command, control, and coordination must be flexible enough to allow the geographic combatant commander to strike time-sensitive targets such as mobile missile launch platforms.” Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations Doctrine (italics added)

Theater Nuclear Operations (TNO)

While presidential approval is formally required to launch a nuclear war, geographic combat commanders would be in charge of  Theater Nuclear Operations (TNO), with a mandate not only to implement but also to formulate command decisions pertaining to nuclear weapons. ( Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations Doctrine )

We are no longer dealing with “the risk” associated with “an accidental or inadvertent nuclear launch”  as outlined by former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara , but with a military decision-making process which provides military commanders, from the Commander in Chief  down to the  geographical commanders with discretionary powers to use tactical nuclear weapons.

Moreover, because these “smaller” tactical nuclear weapons have been “reclassified” by the Pentagon as “safe for the surrounding civilian population”, thereby “minimizing the risk of collateral damage”, there are no overriding built-in restrictions which prevent their use. (See Michel Chossudovsky, The Dangers of a Middle East Nuclear War , Global Research, February 2006) .

Once a decision to launch a military operation is taken (e.g. aerial strikes on Iran),  theater commanders have a degree of latitude. What this signifies in practice is once the presidential decision is taken, USSTRATCOM in liaison with theater commanders can decide on the targeting and type of weaponry to be used.  Stockpiled tactical nuclear weapons are now considered to be an integral part of the battlefield arsenal. In other words, nukes have become “part of the tool box”, used in conventional war theaters.

Planned Aerial Attacks on Iran

An operational plan to wage aerial attacks on Iran has been in “a state of readiness” since June 2005. Essential military hardware to wage this operation has been deployed. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Nuclear War against Iran, Jan 2006 ).

Vice President Dick Cheney has ordered USSTRATCOM to draft a “contingency plan”, which “includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons.” (Philip Giraldi, Attack on Iran: Pre-emptive Nuclear War , The American Conservative, 2 August 2005).

USSTRATCOM would have the responsibility for overseeing and coordinating this military deployment as well as launching the military operation. (For details, Michel Chossudovsky, Nuclear War against Iran, Jan 2006 ).

In January 2005 a significant shift in USSTRATCOM’s mandate was implemented. USSTRATCOM was identified as “the lead Combatant Command for integration and synchronization of DoD-wide efforts in combating weapons of mass destruction.”  To implement this mandate, a brand new command unit entitled  Joint Functional Component Command Space and Global Strike , or JFCCSGS was created.

Overseen by USSTRATCOM, JFCCSGS would be responsible for the launching of military operations “using nuclear or conventional weapons” in compliance with the Bush administration’s new nuclear doctrine. Both categories of weapons would be integrated into a “joint strike operation” under unified Command and Control.

According to Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, writing in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists,

“The Defense Department is upgrading its nuclear strike plans to reflect new presidential guidance and a transition in war planning from the top-heavy Single Integrated Operational Plan of the Cold War to a family of smaller and more flexible strike plans designed to defeat today’s adversaries. The new central strategic war plan is known as OPLAN (Operations Plan) 8044…. This revised, detailed plan provides more flexible options to assure allies, and dissuade, deter, and if necessary, defeat adversaries in a wider range of contingencies….

One member of the new family is CONPLAN 8022, a concept plan for the quick use of nuclear, conventional, or information warfare capabilities to destroy–preemptively, if necessary–“time-urgent targets” anywhere in the world. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld issued an Alert Order in early 2004 that directed the military to put CONPLAN 8022 into effect. As a result, the Bush administration’s preemption policy is now operational on long-range bombers, strategic submarines on deterrent patrol, and presumably intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).”

The operational implementation of the Global Strike would be under CONCEPT PLAN (CONPLAN) 8022, which now consists of  “an actual plan that the Navy and the Air Force translate into strike package for their submarines and bombers,’ (Japanese Economic Newswire, 30 December 2005, For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Nuclear War against Iran, op. cit.).

CONPLAN 8022 is ‘the overall umbrella plan for sort of the pre-planned strategic scenarios involving nuclear weapons.’

‘It’s specifically focused on these new types of threats — Iran, North Korea — proliferators and potentially terrorists too,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing that says that they can’t use CONPLAN 8022 in limited scenarios against Russian and Chinese targets.’ (According to Hans Kristensen, of the Nuclear Information Project, quoted in Japanese Economic News Wire, op. cit.)

Nuclear Weapons Deployment Authorization

The planning of the aerial bombings of Iran started in mid-2004, pursuant to the formulation of CONPLAN 8022 in early 2004. In May 2004, National Security Presidential Directive NSPD 35 entitled Nuclear Weapons Deployment Authorization was issued.

The contents of this highly sensitive document remains a carefully guarded State secret. There has been no mention of NSPD 35 by the media nor even in Congressional debates.  While its contents remains classified, the presumption is that NSPD 35 pertains to the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in the Middle East war theater in compliance with CONPLAN 8022.

In this regard, a recent press report published in Yeni Safak (Turkey) suggests that the United States is currently:

“deploying B61-type tactical nuclear weapons in southern Iraq as part of a plan to hit Iran from this area if and when Iran responds to an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities”. (Ibrahim Karagul, “The US is Deploying Nuclear Weapons in Iraq Against Iran”, (Yeni Safak,. 20 December 2005, quoted in BBC Monitoring Europe).

This deployment in Iraq appears to be pursuant to NSPD 35 ,

What the Yenbi Safak report suggests is that conventional weapons would be used in the first instance, and if Iran were to retaliate in response to US-Israeli aerial attacks, tactical thermonuclear B61 weapons could then be launched  This retaliation using tactical nuclear weapons would be consistent with the guidelines contained in the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review and NSPD 17 (see above).

Israel’s Stockpiling of Conventional and Nuclear Weapons

Israel is part of the military alliance and is slated to play a major role in the planned attacks on Iran. (For details see Michel Chossudovsky, Nuclear War against Iran, Jan 2006 ).

Confirmed by several press reports, Israel has taken delivery, starting in September 2004 of some 500 US produced  BLU 109 bunker buster bombs (WP, January 6, 2006). The first procurement order for BLU 109 [Bomb Live Unit] dates to September 2004. In April 2005, Washington confirmed that Israel was to take delivery of 100 of the more sophisticated bunker buster bomb GBU-28 produced by Lockheed Martin ( Reuters, April 26, 2005).  The GBU-28 is described as “a 5,000-pound laser-guided conventional munitions that uses a 4,400-pound penetrating warhead.” It was used in the Iraqi war theater:

The Pentagon [stated] that … the sale to Israel of 500 BLU-109 warheads, [was] meant to “contribute significantly to U.S. strategic and tactical objectives.” .

Mounted on satellite-guided bombs, BLU-109s can be fired from F-15 or F-16 jets, U.S.-made aircraft in Israel’s arsenal. This year Israel received the first of a fleet of 102 long-range F-16Is from Washington, its main ally. “Israel very likely manufactures its own bunker busters, but they are not as robust as the 2,000-pound (910 kg) BLUs,” Robert Hewson, editor of Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, told Reuters. (Reuters, 21 September 2004)

The report does not confirm whether Israel has stockpiled and deployed the thermonuclear version of the bunker buster bomb. Nor does it indicate whether the Israeli made bunker buster bombs are equipped with nuclear warheads. It is worth noting that this stock piling of bunker buster bombs occurred within a few months after the Release of  the NPSD 35¸ Nuclear Weapons Deployment Authorization   (May 2004).

Israel possesses 100-200 strategic nuclear warheads . In 2003, Washington and Tel Aviv confirmed that they were collaborating in “the deployment of US-supplied Harpoon cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads in Israel’s fleet of Dolphin-class submarines.” (The Observer, 12 October 2003) . In more recent developments, which coincide with the preparations of  strikes against Iran, Israel has taken delivery of  two new German produced submarines “that could launch nuclear-armed cruise missiles for a “second-strike” deterrent.” (Newsweek, 13 February 2006. See also CDI Data Base)

Israel’s tactical nuclear weapons capabilities are not known

Israel’s participation in the aerial attacks will also act as a political bombshell throughout the Middle East. It would contribute to escalation, with a war zone which could extend initially into Lebanon and Syria. The entire region from the Eastern Mediterranean to Central Asia and Afghanistan’s Western frontier would be affected..

The Role of Western Europe

Several Western European  countries, officially considered as “non-nuclear states”, possess tactical nuclear weapons, supplied to them by Washington.

The US has supplied some 480 B61 thermonuclear bombs to five non-nuclear NATO countries including Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey, and one nuclear country, the United Kingdom. Casually disregarded by the Vienna based UN Nuclear Watch, the US has actively contributed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons in Western Europe.

 

As part of this European stockpiling, Turkey, which is a partner of the US-led coalition against Iran along with Israel, possesses some 90 thermonuclear B61 bunker buster bombs at the Incirlik nuclear air base. (National Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons in Europe , February 2005)

Consistent with US nuclear policy, the stockpiling and deployment of B61 in Western Europe are intended for targets in the Middle East. Moreover, in accordance with  “NATO strike plans”, these thermonuclear B61 bunker buster bombs (stockpiled by the “non-nuclear States”) could be launched  “against targets in Russia or countries in the Middle East such as Syria and Iran” ( quoted in National Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons in Europe , February 2005)

Moreover, confirmed by (partially) declassified documents (released under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act):

“arrangements were made in the mid-1990s to allow the use of U.S. nuclear forces in Europe outside the area of responsibility of U.S. European Command (EUCOM). As a result of these arrangements, EUCOM now supports CENTCOM nuclear missions in the Middle East, including, potentially, against Iran and Syria”

(quoted in  http://www.nukestrat.com/us/afn/nato.htm italics added)

With the exception of the US, no other nuclear power “has nuclear weapons earmarked for delivery by non-nuclear countries.” (National Resources Defense Council, op cit)

While these “non-nuclear states” casually accuse Tehran of developing nuclear weapons, without documentary evidence, they themselves have capabilities of delivering nuclear warheads, which are targeted at Iran.  To say that this is a clear case of “double standards” by the IAEA and the “international community” is a understatement.

Germany: De Facto Nuclear Power

Among the five “non-nuclear states” “Germany remains the most heavily nuclearized country with three nuclear bases (two of which are fully operational) and may store as many as 150 [B61 bunker buster ] bombs” (Ibid). In accordance with “NATO strike plans” (mentioned above) these tactical nuclear weapons are also targeted at the Middle East.

While Germany is not officially a nuclear power, it produces nuclear warheads for the French Navy. It stockpiles nuclear warheads and it has the capabilities of delivering nuclear weapons.  The European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company – EADS , a Franco-German-Spanish  joint venture, controlled by Deutsche Aerospace and the powerful Daimler Group is Europe’s second largest military producer, supplying .France’s M51 nuclear missile.

France Endorses the Preemptive Nuclear Doctrine

In January 2006, French President Jacques Chirac announced a major shift in France’s nuclear policy.

Without mentioning Iran, Chirac intimated that France’s nukes should be used in the form of  “more focused attacks” against countries, which were “considering” the deployment of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

He also hinted to the possibility that tactical nuclear weapons could be used in conventional war theaters, very much in line with both US and NATO nuclear doctrine (See Chirac shifts French doctrine for use of nuclear weapons , Nucleonics Week January 26, 2006).

The French president seems to have embraced the  US sponsored “War on Terrorism”. He presented nuclear weapons as a means to build a safer World and combat terrorism:

Nuclear weapons are not meant to be used against “fanatical terrorists,” nevertheless “the leaders of states which used terrorist means against us, as well as those who considered using, in one way or another, weapons of mass destruction, must understand that they are exposing themselves to a firm, appropriate response on our side…”.(Ibid)

Although Chirac made no reference to the preemptive use of nuclear weapons, his statement broadly replicates the premises of the Bush administration’s 2001 Nuclear Posture Review , which calls for the use of tactical nuclear weapons against ”rogue states” and “terrorist non-state organizations”.

The stockpiled weapons are B61 thermonuclear bombs.  All the weapons are gravity bombs of the B61-3, -4, and -10 types.2 .

Those estimates were based on private and public statements by a number of government sources and assumptions about the weapon storage capacity at each base

.(National Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons in Europe , February 2005)

Building a Pretext for a Preemptive Nuclear Attack

The pretext for waging  war on Iran essentially rests on two fundamental premises, which are part of the Bush administration’s National Security doctrine.

1. Iran’s alleged possession of  “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMD), more specifically its nuclear enrichment program.

2. Iran’s alleged support to “Islamic terrorists”.

These are two interrelated statements which are an integral part of the propaganda and media disinformation campaign.

The “Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)” statement is used to justify the “pre-emptive war” against the “State sponsors of terror”, –i.e. countries such as Iran and North Korea which allegedly possess WMD. Iran is identified as a State sponsor of so-called “non-State terrorist organizations”. The latter also possess WMDs and potentially constitute a nuclear threat. Terrorist non-state organizations are presented as a “nuclear power”.

“The enemies in this [long] war are not traditional conventional military forces but rather dispersed, global terrorist networks that exploit Islam to advance radical political aims. These enemies have the avowed aim of acquiring and using nuclear and biological weapons to murder hundreds of thousands of Americans and others around the world.” (2006 Quadrennial Defense Review ),

In contrast, Germany and Israel which produce and possess nuclear warheads are not considered “nuclear powers”.

In recent months, the pretext for war, building on this WMD-Islamic terrorist nexus, has been highlighted ad  nauseam, on a daily basis by the Western media.

In a testimony to the US Senate Budget Committee, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Iran and Syria of destabilizing the Middle East and providing support to militant Islamic groups. She described Iran as the “a central banker for terrorism”, not withstanding the fact amply documented that Al Qaeda has been supported and financed  from its inception in the early 1980s by none other than the CIA. (See Michel Chossudovsky, Who is Osama bin Laden, Global Research 2001).

“It’s not just Iran’s nuclear program but also their support for terrorism around the world. They are, in effect, the central banker for terrorism,”  (Statement to the Senate Budget Committee, 16 February 2006)

“Second 9/11”: Cheney’s “Contingency Plan”

While the “threat” of Iran’s alleged WMD is slated for debate at the UN Security Council, Vice President Dick Cheney is reported to have instructed USSTRATCOM to draw up a contingency plan “to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States”. This “contingency plan” to attack Iran uses the pretext of a “Second 9/11” which has not yet happened, to prepare for a major military operation against Iran.

The contingency plan, which is characterized by a military build up in anticipation of possible aerial strikes against Iran, is in a “state of readiness”.

What is diabolical is that the justification to wage war on Iran rests on Iran’s involvement in a terrorist attack on America, which has not yet occurred:

The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing—that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack—but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections. (Philip Giraldi, Attack on Iran: Pre-emptive Nuclear War , The American Conservative, 2 August 2005)

Are we to understand that US military planners are waiting in limbo for a Second 9/11, to launch a military operation directed against Iran, which is currently in a “state of readiness”?

Cheney’s proposed “contingency plan” does not focus on preventing a Second 9/11. The Cheney plan is predicated on the presumption that Iran would be behind a Second 9/11 and that punitive bombings would immediately be activated, prior to the conduct of an investigation, much in the same way as the attacks on Afghanistan in October 2001, allegedly in retribution for the role of the Taliban government in support of the 9/11 terrorists. It is worth noting that the bombing and invasion of Afghanistan had been planned well in advance of 9/11. As Michael Keefer points out in an incisive review article:

“At a deeper level, it implies that “9/11-type terrorist attacks” are recognized in Cheney’s office and the Pentagon as appropriate means of legitimizing wars of aggression against any country selected for that treatment by the regime and its corporate propaganda-amplification system….  (Keefer, February 2006 )

Keefer concludes that “an attack on Iran, which would presumably involve the use of significant numbers of extremely ‘dirty’ earth-penetrating nuclear bombs, might well be made to follow a dirty-bomb attack on the United States, which would be represented in the media as having been carried out by Iranian agents” (Keefer, February 2006 )

The Battle for Oil

The Anglo-American oil companies are indelibly behind Cheney’s “contingency plan” to wage war on Iran. The latter is geared towards territorial and corporate control over oil and gas reserves as well as pipeline routes.

There is continuity in US Middle East war plans, from the Democrats to the Republicans. The essential features of Neoconservative discourse were already in place under the Clinton administration. US Central Command’s (USCENTCOM) theater strategy in the mid-1990s was geared towards securing, from an economic and military standpoint, control over Middle East oil.

“The broad national security interests and objectives expressed in the President’s National Security Strategy (NSS) and the Chairman’s National Military Strategy (NMS) form the foundation of the United States Central Command’s theater strategy. The NSS directs implementation of a strategy of dual containment of the rogue states of Iraq and Iran as long as those states pose a threat to U.S. interests, to other states in the region, and to their own citizens. Dual containment is designed to maintain the balance of power in the region without depending on either Iraq or Iran. USCENTCOM’s theater strategy is interest-based and threat-focused. The purpose of U.S. engagement, as espoused in the NSS, is to protect the United States’ vital interest in the region – uninterrupted, secure U.S./Allied access to Gulf oil.

(USCENTCOM, http://www.milnet.com/milnet/pentagon/centcom/chap1/stratgic.htm#USPolicy , italics added)

Iran possesses 10 percent of global oil and gas reserves,  The US is the first and foremost military and nuclear power in the World, but it possesses less than 3 percent of global oil and gas reserves.

On the other hand, the countries inhabited by Muslims, including the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, West and Central Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, possess approximately 80 percent of the World’s oil and gas reserves.

The “war on terrorism” and the hate campaign directed against Muslims, which has gained impetus in recent months, bears a direct relationship to the “Battle for Middle East Oil”.  How best to conquer these vast oil reserves located in countries inhabited by Muslims?  Build a political consensus against Muslim countries, describe them as “uncivilized”,  denigrate their culture and religion, implement ethnic profiling against Muslims in Western countries, foster hatred and racism against the inhabitants of the oil producing countries.

The values of Islam are said to be tied into  “Islamic terrorism”. Western governments are now accusing Iran of “exporting terrorism to the West” In the words of Prime Minister Tony Blair:

“There is a virus of extremism which comes out of the cocktail of religious fanaticism and political repression in the Middle East which is now being exported to the rest of the world. “We will only secure our future if we are dealing with every single aspect of that problem. Our future security depends on sorting out the stability of that region.””You can never say never in any of these situations.” (quoted in the Mirror, 7 February 2006)

Muslims are demonized, casually identified with “Islamic terrorists”, who are also described as constituting a nuclear threat. In turn, the terrorists are supported by Iran, an Islamic Republic which threatens the “civilized World” with deadly nuclear weapons (which it does not possess). In contrast, America’s humanitarian “nuclear weapons will be accurate, safe and reliable.”

The World is at a Critical Crossroads

It is not Iran which is a threat to global security but the United States of America and Israel.

In recent developments, Western European governments –including the so-called “non-nuclear states” which  possess nuclear weapons– have joined the bandwagon. In chorus, Western Europe and the member states of the Atlantic alliance (NATO) have endorsed the US-led military initiative against Iran.

The Pentagon’s planned aerial attacks on Iran involve “scenarios” using both nuclear and conventional weapons. While this does not imply the use of nuclear weapons, the potential danger of a Middle East nuclear holocaust must, nonetheless, be taken seriously. It must become a focal point of the antiwar movement, particularly in the United States, Western Europe, Israel and Turkey.

It should also be understood that China and Russia are (unofficially) allies of Iran, supplying them with advanced military equipment and a sophisticated missile defense system. It is unlikely that China and Russia will take on a passive position if and when the aerial bombardments are carried out.

The new preemptive nuclear doctrine calls for the “integration” of “defensive” and “offensive” operations. Moreover, the important distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons has been blurred..

From a military standpoint, the US and its coalition partners including Israel and Turkey are in “a state of readiness.”

Through media disinformation, the objective is to galvanize Western public opinion  in support of a US-led war on Iran in retaliation for Iran’s defiance of the international community.

War propaganda consists  in “fabricating an enemy” while conveying the illusion that the Western World is under attack by Islamic terrorists, who are directly supported by the Tehran government.

“Make the World safer”, “prevent the proliferation of dirty nuclear devices by terrorists”, “implement punitive actions against Iran to ensure the peace”.  “Combat nuclear proliferation by rogue states”…

Supported by the Western media, a generalized atmosphere of racism and xenophobia directed against Muslims has unfolded, particularly in Western Europe, which provides a fake legitimacy to the US war agenda. The latter is upheld as a “Just War”. The “Just war” theory serves to camouflage the nature of US war plans, while providing a human face to the invaders.

What can be done?

The antiwar movement is in many regards divided and misinformed on the nature of the US military agenda. Several non-governmental organizations have placed the blame on Iran, for not complying with the “reasonable demands” of the “international community”. These same organizations, which are committed to World Peace tend to downplay the implications of the proposed US bombing of Iran.

To reverse the tide requires a massive campaign of networking and outreach to inform people across the land, nationally and internationally, in neighborhoods, workplaces, parishes, schools, universities, municipalities, on the dangers of a US sponsored war, which contemplates the use of nuclear weapons. The message should be loud and clear: Iran is not the threat. Even without the use of nukes, the proposed aerial bombardments could result in escalation, ultimately leading us into a broader war in the Middle East.

Debate and discussion must also take place within the Military and Intelligence community, particularly with regard to the use of tactical nuclear weapons, within the corridors of the US Congress, in municipalities and at all levels of government. Ultimately, the legitimacy of the political and military actors in high office must be challenged.

The corporate media also bears a heavy responsibility for the cover-up of US sponsored war crimes. It must also be forcefully challenged for its biased coverage of the Middle East war.

For the past year, Washington has been waging a “diplomatic arm twisting” exercise with a view to enlisting countries into supporting of its military agenda. It is essential that at the diplomatic level, countries in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America take a firm stance against the US military agenda.

Condoleezza Rice has trekked across the Middle East, “expressing concern over Iran’s nuclear program”, seeking the unequivocal endorsement of  the governments of the region against Tehran. Meanwhile the Bush administration has allocated funds in support of Iranian dissident groups within Iran.

What is needed is to break the conspiracy of silence, expose the media lies and distortions, confront the criminal nature of the US Administration and of those governments which support it, its war agenda as well as its so-called “Homeland Security agenda” which has already defined the contours of a police State.

The World is at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. The US  has embarked on a military adventure, “a long war”, which threatens the future of humanity.

It is essential to bring the US war project to the forefront of political debate, particularly in North America and Western Europe. Political and military leaders who are opposed to the war must take a firm stance, from within their respective institutions. Citizens must take a stance individually and collectively against war.

Michel Chossudovsky is the author of the international best seller “The Globalization of Poverty ” published in eleven languages. He is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Center for Research on Globalization, at   www.globalresearch.ca . He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica.  His most recent book is entitled: America’s “War on Terrorism”, Global Research, 2005. 

To order Chossudovsky’s book  America’s “War on Terrorism”, click here.

Note: Readers are welcome to cross-post this article with a view to spreading the word and warning people of the dangers of nuclear war.

Part I of this text was published as a separate article entitled:

The Dangers of a Middle East Nuclear War
New Pentagon Doctrine: Mini-Nukes are “Safe for the Surrounding Civilian Population”
by Michel Chossudovsky

Related Texts by the author:

Nuclear War against Iran, by Michel Chossudovsky, January 2006

Planned US-Israeli Attack on Iran, by Michel Chossudovsky, May 2005

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Annex A

Five basic types of US Military Plans:  

• Campaign Plan (CAMPLAN): A plan for a series of related military operations aimed at accomplishing a strategic or operational objective within a given time and space (e.g., campaign plan for Iraq incorporating a number of subordinate specific plans).

• Operations Plan (OPLAN): A completed plan required when there is compelling national interest, when a specific threat exists, and/or when the nature of the contingency requires detailed planning (e.g., North Korea). OPLANs contains all formatted annexes (see below), and Time Phased Force and Deployment Data (TPFDD), a database containing units to be deployed, routing of deploying units, movement data of forces, personnel, logistics and transportation requirements. An OPLAN can be used as a basis for development of an Operations Order (OPORD).

• Operations Plan in Concept Form Only (CONPLAN): An operations plan in an abbreviated format prepared for less compelling national interest contingencies than for OPLANs and for unspecific threats. A CONPLAN requires expansion or alteration to convert into an OPLAN or OPORD. It normally includes a statement of Strategic Concept and annexes A-D and K (see below). CONPLANs that do have TPFDDs are usually developed because of international agreement or treaties.

• Functional plans (FUNCPLAN): An operations plan involving the conduct of military operations in a peacetime or non-hostile environment (e.g., disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, counter-drug, or peacekeeping operations).

• Theater Security Cooperation and Theater Engagement Plans (TSCPs and TEPs): Day-to-day plans to set the initial conditions for future military action in terms of multinational capabilities, U.S. military access, coalition interoperability, and intelligence

SOURCE: Supplement to Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World , by William Arkin   (Copyright William Arkin, 2005)

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ANNEX B

Timeline  in the Development of US Nuclear doctrine (2002-2006)  [excerpts]

Source The Nuclear Information Project   (copyright Nuclear Information Project, click to see complete and detailed Timeline )

2002

January 8: The Nuclear Posture Review is officially published.

June: White House issues National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 14, “Nuclear Weapons Planning Guidance.”

September 14: White House issues National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 17, “National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

September 17: White House issues the National Security Strategy of the United States. The document publicly formulates a more proactive preemption doctrine

December 10: White House issues “National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction,” the unclassified version of National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 17. The wording in NSPD 17 of using “potentially nuclear weapons” is replaced with “all of our options.”

December 16: White House issues National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 23, “National Policy on Ballistic Missile Defense.”

2003

January 10: President Bush signs Change 2 to the Unified Command Plan (UCP), which assigns four emerging missions to STRATCOM: missile defense, global strike, information operations, and global C4ISR. (Command and Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Sensors and Reconnaissance). The directive identifies global strike as “a capability to deliver rapid, extended range, precision kinetic (nuclear and conventional) and non-kinetic (elements of space and information operations) effects in support of theater and national objectives.”

March: Defense Secretary Rumsfeld issues “Nuclear Posture Review: Implementation Plan, DOD Implementation of the December 2001 Nuclear Posture Review Report to Congress.”

April: STRATCOM issues CONPLAN (Concept Plan) 8022-01, Strategic Concept.

June 4: STRATCOM issues CONPLAN 8022-02, Strategic Concept draft.

June: White House issues National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 28, “United States Nuclear Weapons Command and Control, Safety, and Security.” The guidance “provides direction on various nuclear issues, to include security.”

October 1: OPLAN (Operation Plan) 8044, the first strategic plan not using the name SIOP, is put into effect by STRATCOM.

November: The first CONPLAN 8022 (Global Strike) is completed by STRATCOM.

2004

April 19: Defense Secretary Rumsfeld issues NUWEP (Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy). The document states in part: “U.S. nuclear forces must be capable of, and be seen to be capable of, destroying those critical war-making and war-supporting assets and capabilities that a potential enemy leadership values most and that it would rely on to achieve its own objectives in a post-war world.”

May 24: Air Combat Command publishes Global Strike CONOPS.

May: White House issues National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 35, “Nuclear Weapons Deployment Authorization,” which authorizes deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe.

July 8: STRATCOM commander General E. Cartwright informs Congress that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld “just signed the Interim Global Strike Alert Order, which provides the President a prompt, global strike capability.” The Alert Order directs the Air Force and Navy to put CONPLAN 8022 into effect on selected strike platforms including long-range bombers and strategic submarines.

August 17: STRATCOM publishes Global Strike Interim Capability Operations Order (OPORD).

October 1: OPLAN 8044 Revision 01 becomes effective. According to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard B. Myers, “STRATCOM has revised our strategic deterrence and response plan that became effective in the fall of 2004. This revised, detailed plan provides more flexible options to assure allies, and dissuade, deter, and if necessary, defeat adversaries in a wider range of contingencies.” (emphasis added)

November: CJCS publishes “Strategic Deterrence Joint Operating Concept.”

2005

January 10: CJCS issues Global Strike Joint Integrating Concept, Version 1.

March 1: President Bush signs Unified Command Plan 2004.

October 1: OPLAN 8044 Revision 02 is put into effect by STRATCOM. According to the Pentagon, this was a “major revamping” of the U.S. strategic war plan which, among other issues, included the “integration of conventional strike options into [the] OPLAN.”

2006

Early 2006: CJCS is scheduled to publish updated Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations (Joint Pub 3-12). However, this and three other Joint Pub nuclear documents were cancelled.

February 6: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld released the Quadrennial Defense Review.

Source: The Nuclear Information Project   Copyright The Nuclear Information Project 2005

 

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Wars disturb and delude.  The Ukraine conflict is no exception.  Misinformation is cantering through press accounts and media dispatches with feverish spread.  Fear that a nuclear option might be deployed makes teeth chatter.  And the Russian President Vladimir Putin is being treated as a Botox Hitler-incarnate, a figure worthy of assassination.

The idea of forcing Putin into the grave certainly tickled South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.  Liberated by more generous rules regarding hate speech (freedom in Silicon Valley is fickle), Graham took to Twitter to ask whether Russia had its own calculating Brutus willing to take the murderous initiative.  Moving forward almost two millennia for a historical reference, the Senator pinched an example from the Second World War (when else?). “Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military?”  The only way to conclude the conflict was “for somebody in Russia to take this guy out.”

Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military?

The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out.

You would be doing your country – and the world – a great service.

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) March 4, 2022

In support of the proposition came Fox News host Sean Hannity, using long discredited logic in dealing with the leaders of a country.  “You cut off the head of the snake and you kill the snake.  Right now, the snake is Vladimir Putin.”

Armchair psychologist types tend to suggest that homicidal fantasies are fairly common.  Julia Shaw of University College London told those attending the Cheltenham Science Festival in 2019 that this was to be expected from humans, enabling them to think through “the consequences” of their actions, obey a moral code and “develop our empathy.”

Shaw might have missed a beat on this one, especially regarding the harm wished upon the Russian leader from a certain number in self-declared Freedom’s Land.  Empathy has been in short supply, and the moral code, if it can be called that, has gone begging.

Graham’s homicidal call did bring out its critics, but the outrage was far from unconditional.  To have shown balance would have betrayed the cause and revealed solidarity for wickedness.  There were the mild, spanking rebukes from Democrat Congresswoman Ilhan Omar from Minnesota.  “As the world pays attention to how the US and its leaders are responding, Lindsey’s remarks and remarks made by some House members aren’t helpful.”

Republican Senator Ted Cruz thought it “an exceptionally bad idea”, preferring “massive economic sanctions”, boycotts of Russian oil and gas, and the provision of military aid to Ukraine.  Democratic Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz, Chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, wondered if a certain number of people had lost their minds.  “I have seen at least a half a dozen insane tweets tonight.  Please everyone keep your wits about you.”

This is an exceptionally bad idea.

Use massive economic sanctions; BOYCOTT Russian oil & gas; and provide military aid so the Ukrainians can defend themselves.

But we should not be calling for the assassination of heads of state. https://t.co/crPGHw9xyJ

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 4, 2022

Billionaire financier Bill Browder, the inspiration behind the Magnitsky Act of 2012, preferred to diminish Putin as “a very little man.  He’s very scared of everybody, and he’s very vindictive.  And so he’s constantly looking around for betrayal.”  Hardly worth assassinating, it would seem.

One should give Graham some leeway here, despite the flat assertion by White House press secretary Jen Psaki that assassination was “not the policy of the United States.”  Given that the US has not been averse to assassinating leaders or prominent figures, why be squeamish now?  President Abraham Lincoln thought it morally appropriate to condone the assassination of leaders who had caused suffering for an extended period of time, and could not be ousted by peaceful or legal means.  With Cleo’s irony, he would himself be assassinated along the lines of such logic by thespian John Wilkes Booth.

For decades, Washington wished to do away with Cuba’s obstinately resilient Fidel Castro, bumbling along and eventually failing.  (Such oafish, nursery incompetence surely demands a Netflix production.)

With the People’s Republic of China starting to make its mark in the 1950s, President Dwight Eisenhower thought it appropriate that a blow be struck by singling out one of the Communist state’s brighter lights, Premier Zhou Enlai.  The Central Intelligence Agency’s murderous effort involved blowing up an Air India flight for Bandung in 1955, killing 16 passengers.  Zhou never boarded the flight.  A second effort at attempted poisoning was aborted.

The CIA did not always fail, even if it gave an excellent impression of doing so.  There was more success in operations against Congo’s Patrice Lumumba and the Dominican Republic’s Rafael Trujillo.

During the absurdly named “Global War On Terror”, drones became the weapon of choice to target high profile figures, a murderous policy given a bubble wrapping of weasel words.  As recently as January 2020, President Donald Trump went so far as to order the killing of one of Iran’s most popular figures, the legendary leader of the Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani.

At stages, US officials have shown remarkable candour on the policy of targeting heads of state, despite the existence of Executive Order 12333 which states that, “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.”

In 1990, Air Force Chief of Staff General Michael Dugan promised that, in the event of war between the two countries, US planes would make a special point of targeting Saddam Hussein, his family and his mistress.  It must have then come as a surprise to him that a certain Secretary of Defense, the usually amoral Dick Cheney, would sack him for making comments possibly in violation of the assassination ban.  Dugan should have stuck to generalities, such as targeting the country’s leadership.  It’s all in the presentation.

What of the point of assassination, that most severe form of censorship?  Stephen Kinzer is solid in pointing out that liquidating that man in the Kremlin will hardly guarantee a more accommodating replacement.  “No one who hopes to secure power in Moscow […] could ever accept Ukraine’s entry into NATO or the presence of hostile troops on Ukrainian soil.”  But Kinzer is even more on the mark for pointing out that US efforts tend to be hallmarks of stunning failure.

All this chat about purported tyrannicide should not detract from the pattern of US history, which has affirmed that the imperium will dispose of leaders and prominent figures it does not like, even if it fails along the way.  Little wonder that Graham and his ilk are urging Russians to fulfil their blood-soaked fantasies.

*

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image is from Notes from the Twilight Zone

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Today, the dangers of military escalation are beyond description.

What is now happening in Ukraine has serious geopolitical implications. It could lead us into a World War III Scenario.

It is important that a peace process be initiated with a view to preventing escalation. 

Global Research does not support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The history of this war must be understood.

The bombing and shelling led by Ukraine’s Armed Forces directed against the people of Donbass started eight years ago, resulting in the destruction of residential areas and more than 10,000 civilian casualties.

A  bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori, two British-Iranian nationals held in Iran since 2016 and 2017, respectively, were unexpectedly set free and were permitted immediately to travel[1] to the United Kingdom today. In return, the British government, in what gave the impression of a ransom payment, triumphantly announced it had settled a £400m debt owed to Iran from the seventies.

The thaw in the frosty relations between the Western powers and Iran signals that a tentative understanding on reviving the Iran nuclear deal has also been reached behind the scenes, particularly in the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis and the Western efforts to internationally isolate Russia. After sanctioning Russia’s 10 million barrels daily crude oil output, the industrialized world is desperately in need of Iran’s 4 million barrels oil production to keep the already inflated oil price from causing further pain to consumers.

Last week, Venezuela similarly released [2] two incarcerated US citizens in an apparent goodwill gesture toward the Biden administration following a visit to Caracas by a high-level US delegation, despite the fact that Washington still officially recognizes Nicolas Maduro’s detractor Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s “legitimate president.” Nonetheless, Venezuela is one of Latin America’s largest oil producers and opening the international market to its heavy crude might provide a welcome relief in the time of global oil crunch.

Niftily forestalling the likelihood of strengthening of mutually beneficial bonds between China and Russia when the latter is badly in need of economic relief, the United States pre-emptively accused China of pledging to sell military hardware to Russia, when the latter, itself one of the world’s leading arms exporters, arguably didn’t even make any such request to China.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan held an intense seven-hour meeting in Rome with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi yesterday, March 15, and warned China of “grave consequences” of evading Western sanctions on Russia. Besides wielding the stick of economic sanctions, he must also have dangled the carrot of ending trade war against China initiated by the Trump administration.

The Wall Street Journal reported [3] last week the White House unsuccessfully tried to arrange calls between President Biden and the de facto leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as the US was working to build international support for Ukraine and contain a surge in oil prices.

“Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the U.A.E.’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan both declined U.S. requests to speak to Mr. Biden in recent weeks, the officials said, as Saudi and Emirati officials have become more vocal in recent weeks in their criticism of American policy in the Gulf.

“‘There was some expectation of a phone call, but it didn’t happen,’ said a U.S. official of the planned discussion between the Saudi Prince Mohammed and Mr. Biden. ‘It was part of turning on the spigot [of Saudi oil].’

“But the Saudis and Emiratis have declined to pump more oil, saying they are sticking to a production plan approved by OPEC. Both Prince Mohammed and Sheikh Mohammed took phone calls from Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, after declining to speak with Mr. Biden.”

To add insult to the injury, Saudi Arabia has reportedly invited [4] Chinese President Xi Jinping for an official visit to the kingdom that could happen as soon as May, and is also considering pegging its vast oil reserves in yuan, a move that could spell end to the petrodollar hegemony.

Trump aptly observed: “Now Biden is crawling around the globe on his knees begging and pleading for mercy from Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela.” It appears quite plausible in its relentless efforts to internationally isolate Russia, the Biden administration is likely to unravel the whole neocolonial economic order imposed on the world after the signing of the Bretton Woods Accord following the Second World War in 1945.

The Intercept reported [5] March 11 that despite staging a massive military buildup along Russia’s border with Ukraine for nearly a year, Russian President Vladimir Putin did not make a final decision to invade until just before he launched the attack in February, according to senior current and former US intelligence officials. It wasn’t until February that the agency and the rest of the US intelligence community became convinced that Putin would invade, the senior official added.

“Last April, US intelligence first detected that the Russian military was beginning to move large numbers of troops and equipment to the Ukrainian border. Most of the Russian soldiers deployed to the border at that time were later moved back to their bases, but US intelligence determined that some of the troops and materiel remained near the border.

“In June 2021, against the backdrop of rising tensions over Ukraine, Biden and Putin met at a summit in Geneva. The summer troop withdrawal brought a brief period of calm, but the crisis began to build again in October and November, when US intelligence watched as Russia once again moved large numbers of troops back to its border with Ukraine.”

Extending the hand of friendship, Russia significantly drawdown its forces along the western border before the summit last June. Instead of returning the favor, however, the conceited leadership of supposedly world’s sole surviving super power turned down the hand of friendship and haughtily refused to concede reasonable security guarantees demanded by Russia at the summit that would certainly have averted the likelihood of the war.

In the 2001 census, a third of Ukraine’s over 40 million population registered Russian as their first language. In fact, Russian speakers constitute a majority in urban areas of industrialized eastern Ukraine and socio-culturally identify with Russia. Ukrainian speakers are mainly found in sparsely populated western Ukraine and in rural areas of east Ukraine.

Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian together belong to East Slavic family of languages and share a degree of mutual intelligibility. Thus, Russians, Byelorussians and Ukrainians are one nation and one country whose shared history and culture goes all the way back to the golden period of 10^th century Kyivan Rus’.

In addition, Russians and Ukrainians share Byzantine heritage and together belong to the Greek Orthodox Church, one of the oldest Christian denominations whose history goes all the way back to the Christ and his apostles. Protestantism and Catholicism are products of the second millennium after a Roman bishop of the Byzantine Empire declared himself pope following the 1054 schism between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches.

In comparison, what do Ukrainians have in common with NATO powers, their newfound patrons, besides the fact that humanitarian imperialists are attempting to douse fire by pouring gasoline on Ukraine’s proxy war by providing caches of lethal weapons to militant forces holding disenfranchised Ukrainian masses hostage.

CNN’s national security correspondent Jim Sciutto tweeted [6] today:

“US & NATO allies are sending several surface-to-air missiles systems to Ukraine. A senior US official tells me these systems include Soviet-era SA-8, SA-10, SA-12 and SA-14 mobile air defense systems, w/range higher than Stingers, giving capability to hit cruise missiles.”

Only in the last year, which was incidentally the maiden year of the purportedly “pacifist and noninterventionist” albeit manifestly Russophobic Biden presidency, the US has reportedly provided [7] over 600 Stinger surface-to-air missiles and approximately 2,600 Javelin anti-armor systems to Ukraine, along with an assortment of radar systems, helicopters, grenade launchers, guns and ammunition, and $650 million worth military equipment.

One of Europe’s supposedly “most progressive nations” since the fall of the Third Reich albeit still a US client, Germany alone has proudly bragged [8] of dispatching 500 US-made surface-to-air Stinger missiles and 2,700 Soviet-era, shoulder-fired Strela missiles to Ukraine’s conscript military and allied irregular militias.

Although the mainstream media has publicly acknowledged NATO member states have provided a total of 2,000 surface-to-air missiles, including Stingers, and 17,000 anti-armor munitions, including Javelins and NLAWs, to Ukraine’s security forces, the actual number of weapons sent to Ukraine is many times the number that has officially been admitted.

In an interview with CBC News [9] on March 8, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned that a Russian attack on the supply lines of allied nations supporting Ukraine with arms and munitions would be a dangerous escalation of the war raging in Eastern Europe. “Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine is defending itself. If there is any attack against any NATO country, NATO territory, that will trigger Article 5.”

Reminiscent of the Three Musketeers’ motto “all for one and one for all,” Article 5 is the self-defense clause in NATO’s founding treaty which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all 30 member nations.

“I’m absolutely convinced President Putin knows this and we are removing any room for miscalculation, misunderstanding about our commitment to defend every inch of NATO territory,” Stoltenberg said.

NATO chief said there’s a clear distinction between supply lines within Ukraine and those operating outside its borders.

“There is a war going on in Ukraine and, of course, supply lines inside Ukraine can be attacked,” he said. “An attack on NATO territory, on NATO forces, NATO capabilities, that would be an attack on NATO.”

Besides deploying 15,000 additional troops in Eastern Europe last month, total number of US troops in Europe is now expected to reach 100,000. “We have 130 jets at high alert. Over 200 ships from the high north to the Mediterranean, and thousands of additional troops in the region,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told CNN [10].

The Russian military had not targeted weapons shipments once they entered Ukraine, a US official told CNN, but there was some concern Russia could begin targeting the deliveries as its assault advances.

On Sunday, March 13, Russian forces launched a missile attack [11] at Yavoriv Combat Training Center in the western part of the country. The military facility, less than 25 km from the Polish border, is one of Ukraine’s biggest and the largest in the western part of the country. Since 2015, US Green Berets and National Guard troops had been training Ukrainian forces at the Yavoriv center before they were evacuated alongside diplomatic staff in mid-February.

The training center was hit by a barrage of roughly 30 cruise missiles launched from Russian strategic bombers, killing at least 35 people, though Russia’s defense ministry claimed up to 180 foreign mercenaries [12] and a large number of foreign weapons were destroyed at the training center. The Ukraine conflict is clearly spiraling out of control and has the potential of dragging NATO powers into direct confrontation with Russia, which could then lead to a catastrophic Third World War.

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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 Af-Pak and Middle East 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.

Notes

[1] Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori on way to UK:

[2] Venezuela frees two Americans after talks with US:

[3] Saudi, Emirati leaders decline calls with Biden amid Ukraine Crisis:

[4] Saudi Arabia invites China’s Xi to visit:

[5] US intel says Putin made a last-minute decision to invade Ukraine:

[6] NATO sending advanced surface-to-air missile systems to Ukraine:

[7] US provided 600 Stingers and 2,600 Javelins to Ukraine:

[8] Germany to ship anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine:

[9] NATO chief warns Russia away from attacking supply lines:

[10] Pentagon shores up its NATO defenses in Europe:

[11] Pentagon push to send more trainers to Ukraine was scrapped:

[12] Russian airstrike killed 180 foreign mercenaries at Yavoriv:

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***

“Shock and awe” was George Bush senior’s name for his “Desert Storm” attack on Iraq in 1990 – 91. A United Nations report described the effect on Iraq as “near apocalyptic,” sending Iraq back to the “pre-industrial age.” But it wasn’t enough. After a decade of sanctions against Iraq, which further decimated the country and its people, George Bush junior launched a new invasion in 2003. Together with a parallel war in Afghanistan, the world has seen two decades of wholesale death and destruction at the hands of the U.S. military, at a cost of trillions and countless deaths estimated between one and two million.

When the savagery of the U.S. war was exposed by Wikileaks and Chelsea Manning, the official U.S. reaction was to demonize the whistle blowers, as if they were terrorists. Commenting on official U.S. hysterical condemnations of Russia and U.S. coverups of its own aggression elsewhere, Margaret Kimberley of Black Agenda Report writes that “it is the white supremacist underpinnings of U.S./NATO foreign policy which has created all of Ukraine’s suffering. The narrative that only white people deserve peace and security is all the more shameful because the global south suffers from war and privation as a direct result of U.S./NATO actions. It is NATO that destroyed the nation of Libya, NATO which attempted to do the same in Syria, NATO that occupied Afghanistan, NATO which wages war across African countries with U.S., French and British troops deployed across the continent.”

Kimberley adds that

“Ukraine has been pushed to the forefront of American thought in order to defend the imperialist foreign policy which led to the current conflict with Russia. If the blue eyed nation is suffering it is because of U.S. and NATO arrogance and aggression. Ukraine’s current situation is a direct result of the 2014 coup engineered by the U.S. and its EU partners. An elected president was dispatched and a civil war began that has killed some 14,000 people. Ukraine is a U.S. colony with a puppet government now under military attack.”

Cartoon courtesy of Patreon/Tim Murphy

John Mearsheimer, a leading proponent of the “realist school” of international relations, echoes Kimberley on the cause of the current crisis. In 2014, after the coup that brought far-right Ukrainians to power, Mearsheimer wrote that “the United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for this crisis.” He told the New Yorker

“all the trouble in this case really started in April 2008, at the NATO Summit in Bucharest, where afterward NATO issued a statement that said Ukraine and Georgia would become part of NATO. The Russians made it unequivocally clear at the time that they viewed this as an existential threat, and they drew a line in the sand.”

The war toll in Ukraine is lower than all the earlier NATO interventions. Despite intense war hysteria and propaganda, the BBC admitted on February 28 that many of the viral claims about “Russian atrocities” are false. The UN Human Rights office said March 8 it had verified 1,335 civilian casualties in Ukraine–474 killed and 861 injured–since February 24. (This does not include more in recent days.)

In the Donbass, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights found that more than 14,000 people had been killed between 2014 and early 2022, with another 50,000 non-fatal casualties. About two million Ukrainian refugees have escaped to Poland and other European countries. Another million eastern Ukrainians have been evacuated to Russia, which is seldom reported in western mainstream media.

Official U.S. government claims—echoed by the mainstream media—of global condemnation of Russia are not validated by reality. Much of the global south, led by China, India, Pakistan, middle eastern and African countries, and a substantial number of Latin American ones, have “abstained” from the avalanche of condemnations of Russia by the U.S. and its European allies.

The U.S. is waging a new “shock and awe” campaign, shipping countless tons of war material, mobilizing neo-fascist “volunteers” to join an “insurgency” against Russia, and urging NATO ally Poland to lend Soviet era bombers to Ukraine. President Zelensky of Ukraine is demanding a “no fly zone,” with strong support from many U.S. members of Congress. That would mean U.S. fighter jets shooting down Russian aircraft–“it means starting World War III,” according to Senator Marco Rubio.

Sanctions threaten global economy

Sweeping sanctions imposed on Russia by the U.S. and western Europe threaten the global economy. The Biden administration has imposed an embargo on Russian oil, frozen Moscow’s central bank assets and attempted to cut off most Russian banks from the SWIFT bank transfer system, not including the banks European countries use to pay for Russian gas they urgently need. All civilian air traffic between Europe and Russia has ended, and shipments of virtually all commerce to and from Russia have been frozen. U.S. and European companies have pulled out of Russia, with uncertain consequences.

Who gets hurt by this shock and awe campaign? It may be too early to tell. Starvation looms in north Africa, which depends on wheat from Russia and Ukraine. The COVID19 pandemic paralyzed the economies of many countries. As they struggle now to recover, this new hit could be a knockout blow. Gasoline prices and general inflation are skyrocketing everywhere.

European countries may not continue going along with the sanctions. Economist Michael Hudson argues the U.S. war on Russia is actually a U.S. war on Europe, to keep the EU subordinated to U.S. capital. Now European industry is shutting down as energy prices soar due to sanctions. Hudson says U.S. sanctions aim to “prevent America’s NATO and other Western allies from opening up more trade and investment with Russia and China,” to keep them “firmly within America’s own economic orbit.”

To offset the loss of Russian oil on the global market, the U.S. is rushing to reopen negotiations with Iran and Venezuela. This is a sign of over-extension: one set of U.S. sanctions complicates or even cancels others.

Russia offers ceasefire and peace talks

On March 7, Reuters reported that Russia offered to immediately cease hostilities–to end its military actions “in a moment”–if Ukraine and the West would do four things:

• Cease military action as part of a wider ceasefire;
• Change Ukraine’s constitution to enshrine neutrality, and pledge to stay out of NATO;
• Acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory;
• Recognize the separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states.

A New York Times report on March 10 said “talks fail to stop the fighting.” Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said Russia remained open to talks, suggesting a meeting between the presidents. Lavrov highlighted Ukrainian President Zelensky’s recent comments that he was prepared to make concessions over Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO to stop the war.

“We are ready to discuss security guarantees for the Ukrainian state along with security guarantees for European countries and, of course, for the security of Russia,” Mr. Lavrov said. “And the fact that now, judging by the public statements of President Zelensky, an understanding of just such an approach is beginning to take shape, inspires a certain optimism.” The Times reported that the White House press secretary said “the United States also speaks to Mr. Putin’s interlocutors before and after all these conversations.”

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas Davies report that after President Zelensky’s election in 2019, Ukraine’s extreme right threatened him with removal from office, or even death, if he negotiated with separatist leaders from Donbas and followed through on the Minsk Protocol, which would grant autonomy to the Donbas region. Zelensky had run for election as a “peace candidate,” but under threat from the right, he refused to even talk to Donbas leaders, whom he dismissed as terrorists.

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky shakes hands with neo-Nazi militia commander. [Source: thegrayzone.com]

John Mearsheimer said he thinks “the Russians would be willing to live with a neutral Ukraine, and that it won’t be necessary for Moscow to have any meaningful control over the government in Kyiv… They just want a regime that is neutral and not pro-American.”

A role for China?

U.S. Secretary of State Blinken has called Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi numerous times during this crisis, pressing China to use its leverage on Russia. Each time the Chinese have emphasized “rock-solid” friendship with Russia. Wang told Global Times March 10, “we would like to see an early ceasefire and cessation of fighting, which is also the common aspiration of the international community.”

The Global Times report said “the major consensus reached by Chinese, French and German leaders during a virtual summit” was “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries must be respected, the purposes and principles of the UN Charter must be fully observed, the legitimate security concerns of all countries must be taken seriously, and all efforts that are conducive to the peaceful settlement of the crisis must be supported.”

Concerning the three rounds of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, Wang said that although there remain obvious differences between the two sides, the differences will be reduced each time the two speak, the hope for peace will increase, and the goal of a ceasefire and cessation of fighting will be further advanced. “China has put forward a six-point proposal to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Ukraine,” Wang said, “and is ready to step up communication with France and push the UN Security Council to reach a relevant consensus.” There was no comment on a possible mediator role for China.

A united anti-war movement?

The Ukraine crisis has taken its toll, at least for the moment, on the still modest forces of the U.S. and international antiwar movements, according to Jeffrey Mackler, a founder and leader of the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC). He said two poles are emerging with counterposed strategic conceptions. “In the U.S., a growing minority, perhaps a majority, feels compelled to denounce with equal fervor both sides, Russia on the one, and U.S./NATO on the other.” In sharp contrast, he said, “organizations representing the major antiwar coalitions demand: ‘No to U.S./NATO War in Ukraine! No wars with Russia! No sanctions! No to NATO and NATO expansion’—a central cause of the present crisis—and, ‘Fund human needs, education, housing, the environment and healthcare, not war!’”

That group includes UNAC, Black Alliance for Peace, ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and Eliminate Racism), CodePink, International Action Center, Popular Resistance, U.S. Peace Council, Black Agenda Report, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Veterans For Peace, World Without War, and Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.

These groups agree that “the U.S. imperialist government, with 1,100 military bases around the world in 110 countries is by far the world’s greatest purveyor of force and violence. This all-encompassing violence includes an Orwellian-like U.S. and worldwide surveillance system, cyber wars aimed at disrupting or disabling vital communication and power generating systems, drone wars, sanction wars against 40 nations, embargo-blockade wars, CIA Special Operation wars, death squad assassination wars and open military interventions aimed at ‘regime change’ and conquest.

It also includes wars of multi-lateral UN-sponsored ‘humanitarian’ interventions in the name of “democracy” as is the case of the present US/UN occupation of Haiti.”

Source: thehistoryreader.com

The Biden administration, in a required report to the U.S. Congress a few months ago, listed 158 countries where U.S. military operations are underway. And the US AFRICOM (African Command) conducts military operations in 53 African countries, where there have been five coups d’etat just in the past year.

In contrast China maintains a single military base outside its borders—in Djibouti, at the Horn of Africa—while Russia maintains six military bases, mostly in the former Soviet Republics and one in Syria.

The U.S. spends more on its military, at least $1 trillion annually, including the CIA budget, than most of the rest of the world combined. Russia’s military budget is $60 billion. China’s is about $232 billion. China and Russia are near-totally surrounded by U.S. military bases.

Who are the imperialists?

Mackler says defining China and Russia as imperialist countries along with the U.S., and concluding that they must be equally condemned, is wrong. “U.S. imperialism planned and orchestrated a fascist-led coup aimed at obliterating the minority Russian-speaking people, 30 percent of the population, and the same U.S. government seeks to orchestrate Ukraine’s affiliation to NATO, replete with nuclear weapons on Russia’s doorstep.”

Ukraine’s oppressed Russian-speaking population has asked for Russian aid in this crucial matter, Mackler says. “We support this right of all poor and oppressed nations to be free from imperialist war and conquest. This includes their right to seek aid from other nations… to help defend their sovereignty, if not their very existence.”

Oil wars are the U.S. stock-in-trade, Mackler says, from the outright theft of Iraq’s oil via the U.S. war against Iraq, to the sanctions, coup attempts and hot wars against Venezuela, Syria, Iraq, Libya and Iran, all aimed at keeping their competitive oil off the world market, or transferring it outright to U.S. corporations.

Michael Hudson adds that “the aim of U.S. sanctions is to keep the world oil trade firmly under U.S. control, because oil is energy and energy is the key to productivity and real GDP.”

“U.S. imperialism lit the fuse that ignited and sustains the present war in Ukraine,” Mackler concludes. “The U.S. antiwar movement’s simple demand ‘U.S./NATO Out Now!’ remains central to its future success.” He calls for a united front, democratic and mass action antiwar movement capable of defeating the U.S. warfare state’s endless atrocities. “U.S. working people, allied with the nation’s oppressed and exploited have a key role to play in the coming struggles.”

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Dee Knight is a member of the DSA International Committee’s Anti-War Subcommittee. He is the author of My Whirlwind Lives: Navigating Decades of Storms, soon to be published by Guernica World Editions. Dee can be reached at: [email protected].

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***

Critics of the European Union’s energy policy were rubbing their hands too early, believing that the Ukrainian crisis would lead to a change of priorities and introduce an element of rationalisation to the limits, fees and regulations imposed on member states.  On the contrary, the war only allowed to freely justify further speculation on the market of gas and refined fuels options. 

Europe’s energy transformation is to take place even faster, with an increase in resources dependence on the United States and the assumption that costs will be passed on to households. 

If this war does not end soon – next winter, Europe will run out of 109 billion cubic meters of natural gas, and the individual consumers will be forced to reduce their consumption by at least 14%.

Climate Target, Ukraine – or taking control and maximising profits?

Treated a bit like a shameful admission of guilt, the theory of securitisation in international relations notes that any issue becomes a “security threat” only when the government and the media focus public opinion on that.  For if something has real effects – it is real, at least in the audience’s minds.

That is where the image of the endangered good is constructed – e.g. the standard of living, personal safety, individual consumption, etc.  At the same time, this chosen value is securitised by triggering approval to take emergency actions.

In the case of the Ukrainian crisis, we can talk about one more element.  By taking radical steps to change the European energy mix – the European Commission successfully hid the real object of securitisation.

Of course the vision of a rapid departure from Russian natural gas is explained, among others, by protecting the market from disruptions, striving to reduce energy prices, etc. Bu it is obvious that as the concern about the holy Climate Target has suddenly stopped – now the protection of the interests of energy oligarchs and foreign investors operating in Ukraine has become crucial.  And of course combines with even stronger control over our lives using energy instruments.

Who is raising energy prices?

A 10-Point Plan to Reduce the European Union’s Reliance on Russian Natural Gas in the perspective of several months, it is not so much a failure of European energy policy – but rather a star from the sky for those seeking its further radicalisation.

Only in 2021 EU gas imports from Russia amounted to around 140 billion cubic meters of natural gas, and another 15 bmc of Russian LNG.  In total, it represents 45% of whole EU imports and 40% of gas consumption in the European market.  Fortunately for the Winter that is just about to end – Russian gas pipelines, both the Baltic Nord Stream1 and the Brotherhood lines running through Ukraine, are working smoothly despite the ongoing fights, and supply follows the schedule.

Therefore, any further increases in the retail prices of gas or electricity cannot be explained by the actions of the Russian side, which is fulfilling its own obligations despite the economic war announced in the West.  It is in the West where true reasons of the increases should be looked for.

The stock speculation on options is to be blamed and similar situation is with fuel prices increase.  Contrary to popular opinion, it is not the current price of a barrel of crude oil that has the greatest impact on it – but again, speculation on refined fuel options and increasing of refining surcharges.  It is not Putin who raises prices at stations – but Shell, BP and others. These are their profits, their game and… their war. And we remain its soldiers.

Tightening the belt – or a garrotte?

And we will be mobilised without even leaving our homes.  There is a lot to fight for – the EU has just estimated the value of its own energy market at approx. EUR 200 billion, and the spending of the member states on adapting to the new strategy – at another EUR 55 billion.  The main assumptions of The 10-Point Plan are:

• increase LNG imports “from other sources” (i.e. from the USA and Qatar),
• maximum usage of reserve capacity and rising storage levels,
• delay nuclear retirements,
• and invariably further transformation towards renewable sources.

And all this with draconian austerity forced by tough pricing policies, loosening of social covers and forcing ordinary citizens to use less energy.  And we will need more money for their next purchases as well, for example to replace even new gas stoves with heat pumps. You know, these huge roaring boxes for which you have to dig the entire garden and then they switch itself to electric heaters anyway.  And what if someone doesn’t have a garden? Well, then better buy a blanket while you can still afford it…

Who destroyed coal mining?

It is not any better with the rest of the EU assumptions.  As analysed by the leading analytical think-tank Aurora Energy Research, associated with the University of Oxford, all these visions more or less stick together only if the Ukrainian conflict and its consequences last no longer than 2 years. 

That means if Russian natural gas continues to flow through Ukraine and the NS2 delay will be no longer than until 2025.  Indeed, some of the EU’s concepts do not make sense – they ignore the inability to automatically increase imports from Algeria and Libya, concerning all difficulties in meeting domestic demand there.  Also, interconnectors between Spain and France would not be able to transmit the increased capacity.

Neither Norway nor the United Kingdom (which is still robbing Scotland of natural gas and oil) cannot increase production so fast and to assumed level.  Postponing of the Dutch Groningen Gas Field closure, planned for this year – is not possible without a significant increase in expenditure, etc.  It is not advised to fulfil spare storage in 90% before the next winter because of safety reasons and even if so, it would cost another EUR 100 billion.

Not to mention the fact that the nuclear power plant is not an amusement park and cannot be assembled and disassembled just like that.  Especially when for those intended for closure – no fuel was ordered.  The same applies to coal-fired power plants, which the European Commission suddenly looked kindly at (forgetting about the expected increase in the average emission to 22MtCO₂).  Simply put – the only one country which would be able to deliver Uranium and coal quickly and at reasonable prices is… Russia.  And let’s hope that all those who had closed coal mines and ignored the energy competitiveness of Russian and Donbas pea-coal – appreciate the charming black humour of the current situation.

It will be more expensive – even by a third

But the rest, that is all consumers, will not be amused.  While cuts for industry are assumed for this year at the level of 5-10% – individual customers are expected to reduce their demand by approx. 14% and should be prepared to 30-35% increase of current prices.

And no, the cavalry on a fracking horse will not come, although there are some suggestions of adopting in Europe this environmentally murderous, beloved by Americans method of extraction.  Even maximising of LNG import from the USA and Qatar could cover only 70% of gap created by the elimination of Russian gas.  And yet most Western countries would have to first incur further expenditures to use such amounts within own energy systems.

So, for today, the energy message, stripped of ornaments, theory and propaganda – sounds like this: it will be more expensive, darker, colder.  And no one will help us, while profits will be gained by the usual suspects.

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Konrad Rękas is a renowned geopolitical analyst and 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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***

With Julian still, for no rational reason, held in maximum security, the legal process around his extradition continues to meander its way through the overgrown bridlepaths of the UK’s legal system. Today the Supreme Court refused to hear Julian’s appeal, which was based on the grounds of his health and the effect upon it of incarceration in the conditions of the United States prison service. It stated his appeal had “no arguable legal grounds.”

This is a setback which is, most likely, going to keep Julian in jail for at least another year.

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.

By introducing the assurances only at the appeal stage – which is only on points of law and had no fact-finding remit – the USA had avoided any scrutiny of their validity. The Home Office have always argued that diplomatic assurances must simply be accepted without question. The Home Office is keen on this stance because it makes extradition to countries with appalling human rights records much easier.

In saying there is no arguable point of law, the Supreme Court is accepting that diplomatic assurances are not tested and are to be taken at face value – which has been a major point of controversy in recent jurisprudence. It is now settled that we will send someone back to Saudi Arabia if the Saudis give us a piece of paper promising not to chop their head off.

It interested me in particular that the Supreme Court refused to hear Julian’s appeal on the basis there was “no arguable point of law”. When the Supreme Court refused to hear my own appeal against imprisonment, they rather stated their alternative formulation, there was “no arguable point of law of general public interest”. Meaning there was an arguable point of law, but it was merely an individual injustice, that did not matter to anybody except Craig Murray.

My own view is that, with the Tory government very open about their desire to clip the wings of judges and reduce the reach of the Supreme Court in particular, the Court is simply avoiding hot potatoes at present.

So the extradition now goes to Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, to decide whether to extradite. The defence has four weeks to make representations to Patel, which she must hear. There are those on the libertarian right of the Tory party who oppose the extradition on freedom of speech grounds, but Patel has not a libertarian thought in her head and appears to revel in deportation, so personally I hold out no particular hope for this stage.

Assuming Patel does authorise extradition, the matter returns to the original magistrate’s court and to Judge Baraitser for execution. That is where this process takes a remarkable twist.

The appeals process that has just concluded was the appeal initiated by the United States government, against Baraitser’s original ruling that the combination of Julian’s health and the conditions he would face in US jails, meant that he could not be extradited. The United States government succeeded in this appeal at the High Court. Julian then tried to appeal against that High Court verdict to the Supreme Court, and was refused permission.

But Julian himself has not yet appealed to the High Court, and he can do so, once the matter has been sent back to Baraitser by Patel. His appeal will be against those grounds on which Baraitser initially found in favour of the United States. These are principally:

• the misuse of the extradition treaty which specifically prohibits political extradition;
• the breach of the UNCHR Article 10 right of freedom of speech;
• the misuse of the US Espionage Act;
• the use of tainted, paid evidence from a convicted fraudster who has since publicly admitted his evidence was false;
• the lack of foundation to the hacking charge.

None of these points have yet been considered by the High Court. It seems a remarkably strange procedure that having been through the appeals process once, the whole thing starts again after Priti Patel has made her decision, but that is the crazy game of snake and ladders the law puts us through. It is fine for the political establishment, of course, because it enables them to keep Julian locked up under maximum security in Belmarsh.

The defence had asked the High Court to consider what are called the “cross-appeal” points at the same time as hearing the US appeal, but the High Court refused.

So the ray of light that was Baraitser’s ruling on health and prison conditions is now definitively snuffed out. That means that rather than the possibility of release by the Supreme Court this summer, Julian faces at least another year in Belmarsh, which must be a huge blow to him just before his wedding.

On the brighter side, it means that finally, in a senior court, the arguments that will really matter will be heard. I have always felt ambivalent about arguments based on Julian’s health, when there is so much more at stake, and I have never personally reported the health issues out of respect for his privacy. But now the High Court will have to consider whether it really wishes to extradite a journalist for publishing evidence of systematic war crimes by the state requesting his extradition.

Now that will be worth reporting.

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First published by GR on March 15, 2008

March 17 is St. Patrick’s Day, when people of all national origins raise a glass and declare, “Today we’re all a bit Irish!” This may be truer than we know. The Irish were driven to America by debt, and they are leading the Western world in household debt today. The London Daily Telegraph reported on March 13, 2008 that household debt in Ireland has reached 190 percent of disposable income, the highest in the developed world; and that the Irish banking system is suffering such acute strains from the downturn in the housing market that it may have to nationalize its banks.1 The same may soon be happening in the United States, and for much the same reasons.

Debt Drives the Irish to America

A short review of the history of the Irish in North America reveals that few were here before 1845, when a disease struck the potato crops of Ireland, wiping out the chief or only source of food for many poor farmers. Famine continued for the next five years, killing over 2.5 million people.

“God put the blight on the potatoes,” complained the Irish farmers, “but England put the hunger upon Ireland.”

Farmers who were heavily in debt were shipped to England to pay the rent owed to their landlords. Impoverished Irish immigrants saved what little money they could to send family members across the Atlantic, traveling on overcrowded ships on which many died of disease or hunger on the way. When they arrived, the Irish men had to fight – often physically – to get labor jobs involving long hours and low pay; while the women worked mainly as servants (called “Brigets”) to upper-class families. Despite their very low wages, they managed to send a bit of money back to their families, until other family members had enough to buy the ship tickets to America. In the American South (mainly New Orleans), the Irish lived in swamp land infested with disease. Here, Irish men were looked upon as actually lower than slaves. As one historian put it, if a plantation owner lost a slave, he lost an investment; if he lost a laborer, he could always get another. Because the Irish workers were plentiful and expendable, they were often sent in to do dangerous jobs for which the slave-owners were reluctant to send their valuable slaves.2

“Debt Slavery” Replaces Physical Slavery

This form of “debt slavery” or “debt peonage” was not just an accidental development of history. It was a deliberately-planned alternative to the slave arrangement in which owners were responsible for the feeding and care of a dependent population, and it is still with us today. Although European financiers were in favor of an American Civil War that would return the United States to its colonial status, they admitted privately that they were not necessarily interested in preserving slavery. They preferred “the European plan”: capital could exploit labor by controlling the money supply, while letting the laborers feed themselves. In July 1862, this ploy was revealed in a notorious document called the Hazard Circular, which was circulated by British banking interests among their American banking counterparts. It said:

Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war power and chattel slavery destroyed. This, I and my European friends are glad of, for slavery is but the owning of labor and carries with it the care of the laborers, while the European plan, led by England, is that capital shall control labor by controlling wages. This can be done by controlling the money. The great debt that capitalists will see to it is made out of the war, must be used as a means to control the volume of money. To accomplish this, the bonds [government debt to the bankers] must be used as a banking basis. . . . It will not do to allow the greenback, as it is called, to circulate as money any length of time, as we cannot control that.3

A system of “debt peonage” is inextricably linked to a banking system in which money is issued privately by bankers and lent to the government rather than being issued as “greenbacks” by the government itself Today the “European plan” has evolved into the private central banking system, and it has come to dominate the economies of the world. A private central bank creates money simply by printing it or entering it as an accounting entry, then lends it to the federal government in exchange for government bonds or debt. Private commercial banks create many more dollars in the same way, advancing money created as accounting-entry loans without even incurring the cost of a printing press. Except for coins, the entire U.S. money supply is now created as a debt to private bankers.4

Banks create the principal but not the interest necessary to pay back their loans, so more money is always owed back than was put into the money supply in the first place. More loans must therefore continually be taken out to cover the interest, spiraling the economy into increasing levels of debt and inflation, in a futile attempt to repay principal and interest on a debt that is actually impossible to repay. The result is “debt peonage,” and it has systematically reduced the people to working for the company store, bound to their corporate masters for the food, shelter and health care formerly provided by slave owners under the old physical-slave system.

The Colonial Alternative: The Pennsylvania System of Benjamin Franklin’s Day

This is not the only way to run an economy. Until 1913, when the Federal Reserve Act was passed, the European system of debt peonage competed with what was called “the American system” – debt-free government-issued dollars generated by provincial governments to pay their expenses. This “greenback” system was not actually used in the United States after the American colonies became a nation, except during the Civil War; but the “American system” flourished for decades in colonial America. Paper money was issued by local provincial governments not only to pay their own expenses but as commercial loans. The most effective and efficient of these government-issued money systems was in Pennsylvania, where a publicly-owned bank issued paper notes and lent them to farmers. Since this money returned to the government, it did not inflate the money supply; and since the government issued and spent an additional sum of money on public works, enough money was kept in the system to pay the interest on the loans and prevent the debt spiral afflicting the private banking system. The Pennsylvania system worked so well that it completely funded the provincial government without taxes or inflation.

Benjamin Franklin and others maintained that the chief reason for the American Revolution was that Parliament forbade the colonies from issuing their own money. Paper money issued by the Revolutionary government got the colonists through the Revolutionary War, but the British heavily counterfeited this money as a deliberate war tactic, and by the end of the war it had been inflated so much that it was nearly worthless. Fear of inflation led the Continental Congress to completely omit paper money from the Constitution, which does not say who can issue paper money or under what circumstances. The private banks filled the breach, and by 1913 the United States had the same private central banking system that England had.

Today, the pyramid scheme of lending 10 dollars and requiring 11 back has resulted in the very inflationary spiral the Founding Fathers feared. The money supply is inflated with more and more debt, shrinking the value of the dollars paid to workers and propelling larger and larger portions of the population into debt peonage. If the government were to issue its own money rather than borrowing from banks that issued it, and if this money were used to pay for real goods and services (roads and bridges, sustainable energy development, health services, and the like), demand and supply would remain in balance and inflation would not result. A government with a properly designed and monitored system of publicly-issued money could fund itself without taxes, inflation or debt.

Publicly-owned banks are also called “national” banks or “nationalized” banks – the very thing that threatens the private banking system in Ireland today. We have come full circle: a system of national banks is what used to be called “the American system.” This may be what we actually need – a public banking system operating for the benefit of the public. The private European system of debt peonage has failed. On this 2008 St. Patrick’s Day, we the modern-day Irish of all persuasions can raise a glass to the possibility of being freed from the debt peonage that has kept us wage-slaves for most of our national history.

Notes

1. “Irish Banks May Need Life-support as Property Prices Crash,” www.telegraph.co.uk (March 13, 2008).  

2. “Irish in America,” www.essays.cc.

3.”Hazard Circular,” 1862, quoted in Charles Lindburgh, Banking and Currency and the Money Trust (Washington D.C.: National Capital Press, 1913), page 102.  

4.See Ellen Brown, “Dollar Deception: How Banks Secretly Create Money,” www.webofdebt.com (July 3, 2007).

Ellen Brown, J.D., developed her research skills as an Attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and “the money trust.” She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her eleven books include the bestselling Nature’s Pharmacy, co-authored with Dr. Lynne Walker, which has sold 285,000 copies. Her websites are www.webofdebt.com  and www.ellenbrown.com.

What You Need to Know About the Transhumanist Agenda

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, March 16, 2022

According to Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the goal of The Fourth Industrial Revolution¹is to change what it means to be human by merging man and machine. In short, while the term “transhumanism” is not being used, that’s exactly where the global cabal intends to take us, willing or not.

“Is Russia’s Central Bank Chief a “Hostile Foreign Agent” Deliberately Sabotaging the Russian Economy?”

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts and Mike Whitney, March 16, 2022

For the sanctions to have deleterious effects on Russia requires bad decisions by Russia, such as the Russian central bank is making. The West has nothing that Russia needs, but Western countries are extremely dependent on Russian energy and minerals. Russia could reply to sanctions with counter-sanctions, such as turning off the oil, natural gas, and minerals.

Say Hello to Russian Gold and Chinese Petroyuan

By Pepe Escobar, March 16, 2022

The Eurasian system is bound to become a serious alternative to the US dollar, as the EAEU may attract not only nations that have joined BRI (Kazakhstan, for instance, is a member of both) but also the leading players in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as well as ASEAN. West Asian actors – Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon – will be inevitably interested.

Message to Biden: Help De-Escalation in Ukraine or Risk Nuclear War

By Gerry Condon, March 16, 2022

Instead of pouring in weapons and piling on sanctions, we should call on President Biden to begin good faith negotiations with all concerned parties, respecting each of their security concerns.

Vaccine Researcher Develops Tinnitus 90 Minutes After COVID Shot, Calls for More Research

By Nolan E. Bowman, March 16, 2022

A vaccinologist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota said he developed tinnitus after his second dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. Dr. Gregory Poland’s symptoms began 90 minutes after receiving the vaccine. He described the condition as “fairly severe” and “extraordinarily bothersome, interfering with sleep and the ability to concentrate.”

Beijing-Riyadh Oil Sales Cooperation And the “De-dollarization Process”

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, March 16, 2022

Amidst the unstable relations between Saudi Arabia and the US, which since last year have oscillated between a total boycott and a moderate cooperation, Riyadh now shows interest in contributing to advance the process of de-dollarization of the world economy. According to recent reports, the Saudi government is willing to trade oil in Chinese Yuan. The measure would be a major blow against the American financial power, which has the Petrodollar as its base of monetary security.

Foreign Fighters Flee from Ukraine

By Paul Antonopoulos, March 16, 2022

The volunteers are a mix of neo-Nazis, radical Islamists, naïve liberals, pan-Turkists and a variety of Russophobes. Although Western media are lionising the foreign fighters, the accounts they give of their time in Ukraine are truly horrifying – from being tortured by Ukrainian soldiers, to being used as cannon fodder, and facing devastating missile strikes from Russian forces.

Ramsey Clark to Barack Obama: Stop the War in Ukraine! “Peaceful Coexistence” between Russia and America is the Answer

By Ramsey Clark, March 16, 2022

The years of U.S. funding of fascist forces in Ukraine and the recognition of a government in Kiev that overthrew the elected government, seized power and appointed extreme right-wing groups to head the police, army and national guard in order to pull Ukraine into NATO membership makes the U.S. complicit in the complete denial of the rights of the Ukrainian people. It is also a provocation against the entire region.

War and a “Hurricane of Hunger” – Transforming Food Systems

By Colin Todhunter, March 17, 2022

Ukraine is the world’s largest exporter of sunflower oil, the fourth largest exporter of corn and the fifth largest exporter of wheat. Together, Russia and Ukraine produce more than half of the world’s supply of sunflower oil and 30% of the world’s wheat. Some 45 African and least-developed countries import at least a third of their wheat from Ukraine or Russia with 18 of them importing at least 50%.

UK Supreme Court Denies an Appeal Hearing to Journalist Julian Assange

By Dr. Leon Tressell, March 17, 2022

On Monday 14th of March the British Supreme Court denied Julian Assange the right to appeal his extradition to the United States. This judgement continues the British judiciary’s subservience to the interests of American imperialism as it perpetuates the grave miscarriages of justice inflicted on the WikiLeaks publisher over the last 10 years.

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On Monday 14th of March the British Supreme Court denied Julian Assange the right to appeal his extradition to the United States. This judgement continues the British judiciary’s subservience to the interests of American imperialism as it perpetuates the grave miscarriages of justice inflicted on the WikiLeaks publisher over the last 10 years. An esteemed panel of three judges refused Julian’s permission to appeal on the basis that “the application does not raise an arguable point of law.”

Stella Morris, the partner and mother of Assange’s young children, has lambasted the decision of the Supreme Court and explained why the US continues its persecution of a journalist:

“Whether Julian is extradited or not, which is the same as saying whether he lives or dies, is being decided through a process of legal avoidance. Avoiding to hear arguments that challenge the UK courts’ deference to unenforceable and caveated claims regarding his treatment made by the United States, the country that plotted to murder him. The country whose atrocities he brought into the public domain. Julian is the key witness, the principle indicter, and the cause of enormous embarrassment to successive US governments.’’

The High Court in January and now the Supreme Court in March have both refused to consider the deeply troubling circumstances in which a requesting state (in this case the United States) can give assurances regarding the treatment of a person after the conclusion of a full evidential hearing. We should recall that In January 2020 judge Vanessa Baraitser blocked Assange’s extradition to the US on the grounds that he would be a high risk for suicide due to the appalling conditions in the American penal system.

In the words of Assange’s partner Stella Morris, “A system that allows this is a system that has lost its way.’’

Julian Assange’s case will now go back to the Westminster court, which will then refer the decision for extradition to that beacon of enlightened tolerance: the British Home Secretary Piri Patel. Julian’s Legal team will have the right to submit evidence to the Home Secretary, arguing the case against Julian’s extradition to the United States where he will face charges that carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

According to Julian Assange’s legal team, he does have other legal options:

“It will be recollected that Mr Assange succeeded in Westminster Magistrates’ Court on the issue subsequently appealed by the US to the High Court. No appeal to the High Court has yet been filed by him in respect of the other important issues he raised previously in Westminster Magistrates’ Court. That separate process of appeal, of course, has yet to be initiated.’’

The Biden regime is continuing with the extradition process that was initiated by the apparently lawless Trump, which is in flagrant violation of the First Amendment of the US constitution.

Stella Morris has observed that the United States is persecuting a journalist for doing his job, which in this case was to inform the public about grave violations of international law:

“Julian was just doing his job, which was to publish the truth about wrongdoing. His loyalty is the same as that which all journalists should have: to the public. Not to the spy agencies of a foreign power. He published evidence that the country that is trying to extradite him committed war crimes and covered them up; that it committed gross violations that killed tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children; that it tortured and rendered; that it bombed children, had death squads, and murdered Reuters journalists in cold blood; that it bribed foreign officials and bullied less powerful countries into harming their own citizens, and that it also corrupted allied nations’ judicial inquiries into US wrongdoing. For this, that country wants him in prison for 175 years.’’

Sadly, the Western media appears to be completely uninterested in this travesty of justice. It screams and rants about the human rights abuses committed by the geopolitical opponents of the American Empire while maintaining a grave silence over the psychological torture of an Australian journalist.

Even worse, in many respects has been the object failure of the British Labour Party leadership to speak out in defence of Julian Assange. This shameful silence reveals the moral bankruptcy of the Labour Party leader Keir Starmer.

The British labour movement has a long and distinguished history of defending the victims of state-sponsored political persecution. It should follow the example of the National Union of journalists, which has unequivocally condemned the imprisonment of Julian Assange and called on all trade unions to join the campaign against his extradition.

The Life of Julian Assange is literally on the line. He has suffered a stroke in prison while his mental health has been greatly impacted by the psychological torture that he has suffered. Time is not on the side of Julian Assange. The clock sticking what are you going to do?

You can make a donation to the legal defence fund of Julian Assange here and sign a petition here which calls on the US Attorney General to drop the extradition case.

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

Featured image: Stella Moris, Julian Assange’s partner, addressing his supporters outside the High Court in 2021 during the U.S. appeal hearing in London. (Don’t Extradite Assange Campaign)