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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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.

The unprecedented sporting sanctions against Russia and its athletes has intensified, with Daniil Medvedev and other Russian and Belarusian players facing the prospect of being banned from Wimbledon unless they publicly denounce the Ukraine invasion.

Wimbledon organisers are having conversations with the British government about whether Russian tennis players — such as Medvedev — should be allowed to compete at the tournament this year if they don’t distance themselves from President Vladimir Putin.

Speaking this morning to legislators in London about Wimbledon, British Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston said:

“Absolutely nobody flying the flag for Russia should be allowed. Many of us would be willing and able to (allow them to) compete as non-aligned, non-flag-bearing entities. But I think it needs to go beyond that.

“We need some potential assurances that they are not supporters of Vladimir Putin and we are considering what requirements we may need to try and get some assurances along those lines.”

Asked by a member of parliament about any back-and-forth with the All England Club, which runs the grass-court Grand Slam tournament, Huddleston replied: “We are in discussions.”

The All England Club confirmed that discussions were ongoing with both U.K. government and tennis governing bodies.

The seven groups that run the sport around the world have condemned the war; cancelled events in Russia and Belarus, which helped with the invasion; kicked those two nations out of the Billie Jean King Cup and Davis Cup team competitions; and announced on March 1 that players from those countries will be allowed to compete in WTA, ATP and Grand Slam tournaments but not under the name or flag of Russia or Belarus.

Russia is the reigning champion in both the Billie Jean King Cup and Davis Cup, but the International Tennis Federation has announced that the country would be replaced in the 2022 Finals of each by the highest-ranked losing semi-finalist in 2021. For the Billie Jean King Cup, that is Australia; for the Davis Cup, it’s Serbia.

Wimbledon’s deadline for player entries is May 16.

The tournament is scheduled to begin main-draw play on June 27.

Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, which happened to be the day Medvedev was assured of moving atop the ATP rankings for the first time while competing at the Mexico Open.

“Watching the news from home, waking up here in Mexico, was not easy,” Medvedev said then. “By being a tennis player, I want to promote peace all over the world. We play in so many different countries; I’ve been in so many countries as a junior and as a pro. It’s just not easy to hear all this news. … I’m all for peace.”

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Featured image: Daniil Medvedev’s ‘world peace’ post on Instagram. (Instagram)

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

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

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg and Twitter at @crglobalization. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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.

A Ukrainian neo-Nazi group in the besieged city of Kharkiv is said to have received anti-tank missiles made in Belfast.

Images of the controversial Azov regiment with the Next Generation Light Anti-tank Weapon (NLAW) were tweeted on Tuesday by Nexta TV, a Belarusian opposition media outlet.

“The Azov regiment was the first to learn about [the] new weaponry,” Nexta claimed.

Britain’s defence ministry has so far delivered 3,615 NLAWs to Ukraine at an estimated cost of around £72 million.

It is highly likely the NLAWs pictured with Azov members were supplied by the UK. The only other donor of the equipment to Ukraine is believed to be Luxembourg, which recently sent 100.

Parliament has been told the British weapons are not destined for the Azov regiment, which is formally incorporated in Ukraine’s National Guard and part of its Interior Ministry.

However, the new images show members of the group, wearing their notorious Wolfsangel uniform patch, learning how to use the powerful equipment.

The Azov regiment’s founder has said that Ukraine should “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans].”

The US Congress passed a bill in 2018 that banned spending public money on arming the Azov regiment.

Another controversial Ukrainian ultra-nationalist group, the Pravy Sektor (Right Sector), has also published a photo appearing to show its members posing with UK-made anti-tank weapons.

The group denies being right-wing extremists, but continues to praise Stepan Bandera – an ultra-nationalist Ukrainian militant who collaborated with the Nazis during World War Two.

Based on present-day borders, one in four of the Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide was murdered in Ukraine.

Nato and the ‘Black Sun’

In another embarrassing development this week, Nato deleted a tweet celebrating International Women’s Day, after complaints it featured a Ukrainian soldier wearing a ‘Black Sun’ Nazi symbol on her uniform.

A Nato official told Declassified: “As part of an International Women Day collage for social media, we posted an image from stock footage of an international agency. The post was removed when we realised it contained a symbol that we could not verify as official.”

Ukraine elected a Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and neo-Nazi parties have failed at the ballot box. But the far-right plays a disproportionate role in the country’s security forces and its members are regarded as some of Ukraine’s most effective fighters.

Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin seized on the presence of such groups in an attempt to justify his illegal invasion of Ukraine. Yet ultra-nationalist and extreme right-wing groups are also present in the Russian military and society-at-large.

Putin’s troops have committed war crimes by repeatedly shelling civilian targets. Russian jets bombed a children’s hospital yesterday during a supposed ceasefire.

Authorities in Mariupol, a city in south east Ukraine, said the shelling of a maternity ward killed three people and injured 17 others, including a woman in labour.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created more than two million refugees and caused at least 1,424 civilian casualties, according to UN bodies.

Arms control fears

NLAWs are designed by Saab in Sweden and made by French arms manufacturer Thales in Northern Ireland.

Britain’s decision to supply Ukraine with these rocket launchers before the invasion has been widely praised. There are reports the weapons were used to eliminate Putin’s tanks at the start of the war.

Defence secretary Ben Wallace announced yesterday he is also considering supplying Ukraine with portable anti-aircraft missiles.

But with expectations now rising of a negotiated Russian withdrawal, some analysts are asking what will happen to these weapons after the war. The Global Organized Crime Index already describes Ukraine as “one of the largest arms trafficking markets in Europe.”

Western powers have previously pursued high risk strategies of arming extremist elements in Afghanistan, Syria and Libya to achieve short-term policy goals. Such schemes carry a high risk of ‘blowback’ in the medium to long-term.

While extreme Islamist or fascist groups may contain the most motivated and fearless warriors, they can seek to exert their own political ideology over territory they control, or even conduct terrorist attacks abroad.

A spokesperson for the UK Ministry of Defence said:

“The UK Government has gifted military aid only to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. We have robust procedures in place that allow us to vet all aspects of our exports and supply chains which are kept under constant review.”

Saab told us it is not providing comments on products related to the war in Ukraine. Thales was also approached for comment.

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

Mark Curtis is the editor of Declassified UK, and the author of five books and many articles on UK foreign policy.

Featured image: Ukraine far-right groups with UK-made rocket launchers (Design: DCUK)

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

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

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg and Twitter at @crglobalization. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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Some two years into COVID Mania, it appears that the forces for COVID tyranny have abandoned their failed war on a virus, at least for now. But they still can’t give up on the reality that it was all for nothing. They can’t acknowledge that the people in charge of society got everything they wanted, and ended up destroying hundreds of millions of lives, with nothing beneficial (at least for decent people) to show for it.

There have now been dozens and dozens of high profile detractors from the COVID narrative who have recently been deplatformed from the conversation. Yours truly, as a frequent narrative offender, is almost definitely existing there on borrowed time.

Big Tech is engaged in a giant mop up operation to protect the COVID narrative. Powerful governments and the corporate press, as their most loyal allies, is happy to churn out the material to accommodate them. These forces are creating an echo chamber that insists upon complete uniformity. So to protect the narrative, dissidents must be banished from the public square.

According to the narrative, we just discovered that these “tools” may not really work. But that can’t be the fault of the people who employed these tools. In the echo chamber, there was no dissent to this two year campaign of draconian terror. Exposing the longevity of the outsider narrative will cause a problem for the people in charge, so it’s best to instead remove evidence that this outsider narrative existed in the first place.

The Morning: Do Covid Precautions Work?

“The answer is surprisingly unclear”

Says @DLeonhardt from The NY Times.

This is infuriating. Now The NY Times starts to back-peddle on Covid protocols. And look what else! 👇 pic.twitter.com/bgLRnHufqP

— NYCHomoCon (@NYCHomoCon) March 9, 2022

You can’t have reporters showcasing evidence that all of these “the tools” to stop COVID never worked. They must proclaim that this is a new discovery, and not something these rogue independent journalists have been articulating for two years.

Glad that @DLeonhardt is at long last informing our suburbanite and UWS fellow citizens of what Red-Staters have known for the past couple of years

Vaccines, Masks, Staying At Home Did Not Make A Major Difference In COVID Case Rates, NYT Writer Says https://t.co/yTl4qnChSu

— Nan Hayworth, M.D. (@NanHayworth) March 10, 2022

Some of the greatest detractors from the COVID narrative are slowly being purged by Big Tech.

Just this week, the outstanding journalist Michael Senger, the author of “Snake Oil: How Xi Jinping Shut Down The World” was banned from Twitter.

His infraction? Restating the reality that the past two years have been a catastrophe of pseudoscience, and that all of the suffering imposed upon the masses have only created additional problems on top of the virus problem.

Twitter has permanently suspended Michael Senger for the tweet below. This is shocking and tragic, and follows on the heels of Daniel Kotzin's (thankfully temporary) suspension. They are trying to silence us, and I assume the same fate will befall me soon. pic.twitter.com/dorYaIeMJL

— Jenin Younes (@Leftylockdowns1) March 9, 2022

Friday morning, they added radio host Shannon Joy to the list for highlighting the tens of thousands of VAERS side effect reports in COVID vaccines given to children.

There had to be a reason for it all, because you don’t want people to get the impression that the whole Public Health industry is a giant ideological scam.

You don’t want to give people the idea that Big Pharma has transformed into a cartel of money and power hungry snake oil scammers and outright scam artists.

You don’t want the plebeians to start thinking that the CDC, FDA, NIH and every other Government Health departments couldn’t care less about their health, and are merely a tool of state interests.

So instead of coming clean about these aforementioned realities, the Big Tech mop up crew has turned its attention to protecting the countless lies concocted by the ruling class, so that these actors can retain good standing in the eyes of their constituency.

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Featured image is from The Dossier

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

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

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg and Twitter at @crglobalization. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Anyone saluting the courage of Russian media worker Marina Ovsyannikova, who has been arrested following her on-air anti-war protest, should join the campaign to stop the extradition of Julian Assange.

The Supreme Court’s rejection of his appeal bid is grim news for the journalist whose Wikileaks organisation has done more to expose war crimes than any other media outlet this century.

Our government lies to us about war just as relentlessly as the Kremlin does to its citizens, while our major media outlets seldom challenge official narratives, especially on foreign policy.

How else can broadcasters report with a straight face that Boris Johnson has pledged to use a trip to Riyadh to put pressure on Saudi Arabia — not over its own brutal war on Yemen (in which Britain is, after all, deeply complicit) but to condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Ovsyannikova could face jail time for her protest. Her act merits global respect, as does the open letter by thousands of alumni of Moscow State University who have condemned the war on Ukraine, as do the hundreds of protests large, small and individual by Russians standing up for peace — a woman who held up the Biblical commandment Thou Shalt Not Kill outside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour; a man led away by police in Novosibirsk simply for holding up a blank piece of paper in a reference to censorship.

But any British politician condemning Russia’s crackdown should be asked what they have done to help free Assange, who could be imprisoned in the US for 175 years.

Assange is not a US citizen, let alone an employee of the US military. He is not accused of having leaked classified information. He is accused of having published classified information that was passed to him.

The airwaves are now full of the horror being inflicted on Ukrainians by Russian bombers and artillery. So we should think back to the content of the Afghan and Iraq war logs published by Wikileaks.

The horrendous civilian death toll from US bombings in Afghanistan. Cockpit camera footage showing US helicopter pilots laughing as they machine-gunned unarmed civilians in Iraq.

The victims of US war crimes are no less worthy of the world’s attention than Russia’s. Those who have helped expose those crimes are as deserving of protection.

Yet the British state has engaged in a sustained campaign to break Julian Assange.

It has held him in conditions amounting to torture. It imprisoned him for skipping bail though the charges he had originally faced had long since been dropped.

Now it plans to hand him over for exemplary punishment intended as a message for journalists everywhere, of whatever nationality: expose our war crimes and the long arm of the United States will find you and make you pay.

The Supreme Court’s ruling comes as freedom to dissent is under extraordinary attack. Media platforms like Facebook and Google are calmly removing swathes of content critical of the Western narrative on Russia’s war. Parliament is pushing through legislation that will subject peaceful protesters in Britain to the same risk of arrest that we condemn in Russia.

And we learn from a member of Labour’s national executive that the supposed mass party of the left is wading through members’ personal correspondence looking for “unacceptable views” it can use to get them “suspended — or worse.” This is not some internal matter, of interest only to Labour members. It will have a poisonous effect across the public realm.

There has rarely been a greater need to stand up for free speech, the right to challenge authority and to express unpopular opinions. To question the huge power of privately owned comms platforms to censor and silence.

And for Assange, time may be running out. Britain’s courts will not defend his rights. His extradition must be stopped on the streets, through protest and direct action.

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Featured image: Julian Assange court sketch, October 21, 2019, supplied by Julia Quenzler.

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

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

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg and Twitter at @crglobalization. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has been fined €17 million (~$18.6 million) by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) over a string of historical data breaches.

The security lapses in question, which appear to have affected up to 30 million Facebook users, date back several years — and had been disclosed by Facebook to the Irish regulator in 2018.

The DPC, which is Meta/Facebook’s lead privacy regulator in the European Union, opened this security-related inquiry in late 2018 after it received no less than 12 data breach notifications from the tech giant in the six-month period between June 7, 2018 and December 4, 2018.

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — which came into application in May 2018 — puts a legal requirement on data controllers to swiftly disclose breaches of personal data to a supervisory authority if the leak of information is likely to pose a risk to individuals. (The most serious breaches should be notified within 72 hours.)

“The inquiry examined the extent to which Meta Platforms complied with the requirements of GDPR Articles 5(1)(f), 5(2), 24(1) and 32(1) in relation to the processing of personal data relevant to the twelve breach notifications,” the DPC wrote in a press release announcing a final decision on its Facebook inquiry.

“As a result of its inquiry, the DPC found that Meta Platforms infringed Articles 5(2) and 24(1) GDPR. The DPC found that Meta Platforms failed to have in place appropriate technical and organisational measures which would enable it to readily demonstrate the security measures that it implemented in practice to protect EU users’ data, in the context of the twelve personal data breaches.”

In a statement responding to the DPC’s penalty, a Meta spokesperson sought to play down the episode as merely a case of historically lax record-keeping — writing:

This fine is about record keeping practices from 2018 that we have since updated, not a failure to protect people’s information. We take our obligations under the GDPR seriously, and will carefully consider this decision as our processes continue to evolve.

The penalty announced by the DPC is the first final decision from Ireland on a GDPR investigation against Facebook itself since the regulation begun being applied nearly four years ago — although the regulator did issue a separate (larger) sanction against Facebook-owned WhatsApp last year for violations of transparency rules.

The DPC confirmed that its draft decision on this Facebook inquiry had faced some objections from other EU data protection authorities — something that also occurred in an earlier probe of a Twitter security breach, as well as over the transparency decision on WhatsApp. (And in both those cases the GDPR’s dispute resolution mechanism led to higher penalties being issued than Ireland had proposed.)

The DPC said two other authorities raised objections to its draft decision on this Facebook inquiry. But Ireland does not specify whether the fine was increased as a result of the objections, nor which authorities objected (or why).

It’s notable that the penalty is relatively small — certainly it’s a far cry from the theoretical maximum of 4% of Meta’s global annual turnover (which would be well over a billion dollars).

However the DPC handed an even smaller fine (~$550,000) to Twitter at the end of 2020, also over administrative failings around a security breach notification.

While there are likely variations in what went wrong in each case, it’s pretty clear that security breaches that are assessed by EU authorities as unintentional are likely to attract lower penalties than systemic or flagrant rule violations.

It also follows that a whole string of lapses has netted Facebook a larger penalty than Twitter, which had only been reporting a single breach (not a full dozen).

Major token hack

The details of all 12 security lapses Facebook ‘fessed up to over the six-month period of 2018 are not listed by the DPC in its announcement of the sanction — but in September 2018 the tech giant publicly disclosed a major hack, which it suggested affected at least 50 million accounts after hackers exploited a security vulnerability on the site.

Facebook subsequently claimed that only 30 million users had actually had their tokens stolen in the hack.

The bug, which dated back to July 2017, had allowed hackers to obtain account access tokens which are used to keep users logged in when they enter their username and password — meaning that stolen tokens can allow hackers to break into accounts.

That major token hack wasn’t the only security lapse for the tech giant in 2018, though.

In June, Facebook notified users of a bug which had created a vulnerability for several days the month before, which it said had accidentally changed the suggested privacy setting for status updates to public from whatever users had set it to last — potentially causing up to 14 million users to over-share sensitive friends-only content with strangers.

Another bug we reported on, in November 2018, had allowed any website to pull information from a Facebook user’s profile — including their “likes” and interests — without the person’s knowledge.

And later that same year, in December, Facebook publicly disclosed a Photo API bug that it said had given app developers too much access to the photos of up to 5.6 million users.

This string of security lapses followed hard on the heels of the Cambridge Analytica story breaking into a global scandal — in March 2018 — when revelations of Facebook user data being sucked out of its platform to be repurposed for targeted advertising by the Trump campaign, which was seeking to opaquely influence the U.S. elections, wiped billions of dollars off its share price.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal also led lawmakers and regulators around the world to dial up their scrutiny of Facebook’s handling of people’s information — and has, ultimately, contributed to accelerating moves to overhaul and beef up regulation of digital platforms (such as the U.K.’s incoming Online Safety legislationor the EU’s Digital Services Act).

But since the Cambridge Analytica scandal predated the GDPR coming into force, Facebook largely escaped direct regulatory sanction in Europe over that particular episode. Had the timing been a little different it might now be on the hook for a rather larger penalty.

The U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office did fine Facebook £500,000 over Cambridge Analytica, the maximum possible under its pre-GDPR data protection regime. Although Facebook challenged the regulator’s decision — before going on to agree to drop its appeal and pay the fine to settle with the ICO without admitting liability. It later emerged that the ICO had agreed to be gagged over the terms of that settlement.

The final results of full platform app audit Facebook claimed it would undertake in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in a bid to reassure users it was purging bad actors and locking down user data, meanwhile, never saw the light of day.

Since then the GDPR has brought in tougher legal regime against data abuse — at least across the EU (the U.K. is no longer a member state) — however long delays between data scandals and enforcement continue to impede smooth working of the regulation.

Ireland’s wider record on cross-border cases means a single decision against Facebook now is unlikely to do anything to ease trenchant criticism of its pace of GDPR enforcement against big tech — not least given that multiple other Facebook inquiries  remain undecided. (And, as we reported yesterday, the DPC is now being sued for inaction over a separate GDPR complaint targeted at Google’s adtech.)

It’s thus likely no accident that — also today — the regulator elected to publish a report on its handling of cross-border GDPR cases.

Among the stats it chooses to spotlight are the following claims (covering the period May 25, 2018 to December 31, 2021):

• 1,150 valid cross-border complaints have been received by the DPC; 969 (84%) as lead supervisory authority (LSA) and 181 (16%) as a concerned supervisory authority (CSA).
• 588 (61%) cross-border complaints handled by the DPC as the LSA were originally lodged with another supervisory authority and transferred to the DPC.
• 65% of all cross-border complaints handled by the DPC as the LSA since May 2018 have been concluded, with 82% of those received in 2018 and 75% in 2019 now concluded.
• Of the 634 concluded cross-border complaints handled by the DPC as the LSA, 544 (86%) were resolved through amicable resolution in the interests of the complainant.
• 72 (22%) open cross-border complaints are linked to an inquiry and will be concluded on the finalisation of the inquiry.  A large number of the remaining open complaints from 2018 and 2019 are linked to an inquiry.
• 86% of all cross-border complaints handled by the DPC as the LSA relate to just 10 data controllers.
• 38% of complaints transferred by the DPC to other EU/EEA LSAs (excluding the UK) have been concluded.

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Featured image is from TechCrunch

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.

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 condemns 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.

CNN reported March 6 [1] Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley visited a week before an undisclosed airfield near the Ukraine border that has become a hub for shipping weapons. The airport’s location remains a secret to protect the shipments of weapons, including anti-armor missiles, into Ukraine. Although the report didn’t name the location, the air strip was likely in Poland along Ukraine’s border.

The Russian military had not targeted these shipments once they entered Ukraine, a U.S. official told CNN, but there was some concern Russia could begin targeting the deliveries as its assault advances.

Today, for the first time since its military offensive began two weeks ago, Russia hit military targets[2] in western Ukraine. The airstrikes at Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk targeted two military airports used for carrying weapons shipment to Kyiv and eastern Ukraine, leaving two Ukrainian servicemen dead and six people wounded at Lutsk.

In an interview with CBC News [3] 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.”

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 [4].

A spokesman for US European Command told CNN the United States was sending two Patriot missile batteries to Poland, and was also considering deploying THAAD air defense system, a more advanced system equivalent in capabilities to Russia’s S-400 air defense system.

Besides providing 2,000 surface-to-air missiles and 17,000 anti-armor munitions, including Javelins and NLAW, to Ukraine’s security forces and allied militias, British Defense Minister Ben Wallace said [5] that the UK was considering sending the laser-guided Starstreak shoulder-fired anti-aircraft system, a significant upgrade from the Stinger missiles sent by the US, Germany and other allies. The weapon has a range of over four miles and can take down fighter planes more effectively than the Stinger.

The United States and its allies have reportedly infused [6] over $3 billion in arms into Ukraine since the 2014 Euromaidan coup, and committed to send over $850 million more in military aid late last month. The Biden administration has already delivered about $240 million of its promised $350 million in additional military equipment to Ukraine, with the rest expected to arrive in the coming days or weeks at the latest.

In addition, the European Union promised to commit nearly 500 million euros for its own military aid package. During his first year in office, the Biden administration provided $650 million [7] military aid to Ukraine.

The Politico reported [8] on March 9 that the Congress’ proposed $1.5 trillion package to fund the federal government through September would boost national defense coffers to $782 billion, about a 6 percent increase. On top of the hefty budget increase, the package was set to deliver nearly $14 billion in emergency funding to help Ukraine, nearly twice the assistance package initially proposed, including $3 billion for US forces and $3.5 billion for military equipment to Ukraine, plus more than $4 billion for US humanitarian efforts.

In an explosive scoop, the Sunday Times reported [9] on March 4 that defense contractors were recruiting former military veterans for covert operations in Ukraine for a whopping $2,000 a day: “The job is not without risk but, at almost $60,000 a month, the pay is good. Applicants must have at least five years of military experience in eastern Europe, be skilled in reconnaissance, be able to conduct rescue operations with little to no support and know their way around Soviet-era weaponry.”

Russian media alleged [10] last week that the United States security agencies had launched a large-scale recruitment program to send private military contractors to Ukraine, including professional mercenaries of Academi, formerly Blackwater, Cubic, and Dyn Corporation.

Russia’s Defense Ministry’s spokesman Igor Konashenkov warned that foreign mercenaries in Ukraine would not be considered prisoners of war if detained in line with international humanitarian law, rather they could expect criminal prosecution at best.

In fact, 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 forces in the use of caches of MANPADS and anti-armor munitions provided by the US, Germany and rest of European nations as a military assistance to Ukraine but are also directing the whole defense strategy of Ukraine by taking active part in combat operations in some of the most hard fought battles against Russia’s security forces north of Kyiv and at Kharkiv and Donbas.

In order to create an “international legion” comprising foreign mercenaries, Kyiv lifted visa requirements for anyone willing to fight. “Every friend of Ukraine who wants to join Ukraine in defending the country, please come over,” Ukrainian President Zelensky pleaded at a recent press conference, adding “We will give you weapons.”

Ukraine has already declared martial law and a general mobilization of its populace. Those policies include conscription for men aged 18-60 and the confiscation of civilian vehicles and structures, while Ukrainian convicts with military experience are being released from prison to back up the war effort.

In a show of solidarity with Ukraine, several European nations recently announced they would not only not criminalize but rather expedite citizens joining the NATO’s war effort in Ukraine.

United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said she supported individuals from the UK who might want to go to Ukraine to join an international force to fight. She told the BBC [11] it was up to people to make their own decisions, but argued it was a battle for democracy. She said Ukrainians were fighting for freedom, “not just for Ukraine but for the whole of Europe.”

Favoring providing lethal weapons only instead of British mercenaries to Ukraine’s proxy war, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said Ukraine would instead be supported to “fight every street with every piece of equipment we can get to them.”

Buzzfeed News revealed [12] on Feb. 27 thousands of foreign fighters had flocked to Ukraine since Russia’s war against the country began in 2014. While most of them had been Russians and citizens of other former Soviet republics, hundreds had come from the European Union.

“This is the beginning of a war against Europe, against European structures, against democracy, against basic human rights, against a global order of law, rules, and peaceful coexistence,” Ukrainian President Zelensky said in a statement announcing a decree on the creation of a foreign legion. “Anyone who wants to join the defense of Ukraine, Europe, and the world can come and fight side by side with the Ukrainians against the Russian war criminals.”

The news of an official foreign unit was met with excitement by members of the Georgia National Legion, an English-speaking force of volunteers with Western military experience who train Ukrainian troops and sometimes deploy to the front line with the country’s marines. “This is what we have waited for. It’s very good,” Levan Pipia, a legion soldier and Georgian army veteran of the 2008 war with Russia, told BuzzFeed New.

In an exclusive report [13] on March 8, Reuters noted although the US and UK governments had nominally discouraged citizens from travelling to Ukraine to combat Russian forces, others, such as Canada or Germany, had cleared the way for citizens to get involved.

Despite formal directive by the UK government urging citizens against traveling to Ukraine, Reuters spilled the beans that among those who had arrived to fight for Ukraine were dozens of former soldiers from the British Army’s elite Parachute Regiment, according to an ex-soldier from the regiment. Hundreds more would soon follow, he said.

Often referred to as the Paras, the regiment has in recent years served in Afghanistan and Iraq. “They’re all highly trained, and have seen active service on numerous occasions,” the ex-soldier from the regiment said. The Ukraine crisis will give them purpose, camaraderie and “a chance to do what they’re good at: fight.”

With a vast mobilization of Ukrainian men underway, the country has plenty of volunteer fighters. But there is a shortage of specialists who know how to use Javelin and NLAW anti-tank missiles, which professional soldiers train for months to use properly.

Anthony Capone, a wealthy healthcare entrepreneur in New York City, said he was providing funding for hundreds of ex-soldiers and paramedics who wanted to go to Ukraine. Capone added he was only funding ex-soldiers whose military credentials he could verify, or paramedics who currently worked in an emergency trauma setting. About 60% of those who had been in touch were American and 30% European.

Despite the recruitment of mercenaries and flushing the country with lethal weapons, regular warfare in Ukraine is already over even before it began when the mouthpiece of NATO’s imperial interventions abroad, the corporate media, is publicly acknowledging that the impending fall of Kyiv in the face of Russian blitz is a forgone conclusion and that Volodymyr Zelensky would soon form a government-in-exile, which would lead guerrilla warfare from safe havens in Poland.

The Washington Post reported [14] on March 5:

“The possible Russian takeover of Kyiv has prompted a flurry of planning at the State Department, Pentagon and other U.S. agencies in the event that the Zelensky government has to flee the capital or the country itself.

“‘We’re doing contingency planning now for every possibility,’ including a scenario in which Zelensky establishes a government-in-exile in Poland, said a U.S. administration official.

“Zelensky, who has called himself Russia’s target No. 1, remains in Kyiv and has assured his citizens he’s not leaving. He has had discussions with U.S. officials about whether he should move west to a safer position in the city of Lviv, closer to the Polish border. Zelensky’s security detail has plans ready to swiftly relocate him and members of his cabinet, a senior Ukrainian official said. ‘So far, he has refused to go.’

“During an official visit, a Ukrainian special operations commander told Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and other lawmakers that they were shifting training and planning to focus on maintaining an armed opposition, relying on insurgent-like tactics.

“As the Russian military struggles with logistical challenges — including fuel and food shortages — Waltz anticipates that the Ukrainians will repeatedly strike Russian supply lines. To do that, they need a steady supply of weapons and the ability to set improvised explosive devices, he said. ‘Those supply lines are going to be very, very vulnerable, and that’s where you really literally starve the Russian army.’”

Clearly, planning and preparations are well underway to lure Russia into NATO’s “bear trap project,” a term borrowed from the Soviet-Afghan War of the eighties when Western powers used Pakistan’s security forces and generous funding from the oil-rich Gulf States for providing guerrilla warfare training and lethal weaponry to Afghan jihadists to mount a war of attrition and “bleed the security forces” of former Soviet Union in the protracted irregular warfare.

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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] Mark Milley visited an undisclosed airfield near the Ukraine border

[2] Russian forces target airports in western Ukraine

[3] NATO chief warns Russia away from attacking supply lines

[4] Pentagon shores up its NATO defenses in Europe

[5] How Biden scuttled Polish aircraft deal

[6] US provided over $3 billion in arms to Ukraine since the 2014

[7] Biden provided $650 million military aid to Ukraine in 2021

[8] $14 billion military and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine

[9] Western mercenaries offered $2,000 a day to fight Putin

[10] Mercenaries of Academi, Cubic, and Dyn Corporation fighting in Ukraine

[11] Liz Truss said she supported individuals who might want to go to Ukraine

[12] Thousands of foreign fighters have flocked to Ukraine

[13] Ukraine offers purpose and camaraderie to mercenaries

[14] U.S. prepares for a Ukrainian government-in-exile and a long insurgency

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The Supreme Court declared last week that Americans have no right to learn the grisly details of CIA torture because the CIA has never formally confessed its crimes. The verdict symbolizes how the rule of law has become little more than a form of legal mumbo-jumbo to shroud official crimes. Why should anyone expect justice from a Supreme Court that covers up torture?

In 2002, the CIA captured Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian radical, in Pakistan, mistakenly believing he was a kingpin with al-Qaeda. The CIA tortured him for years in Thailand and Poland. As dissenting Justice Neil Gorsuch noted, the CIA “waterboarded Zubaydah at least 80 times, simulated live burials in coffins for hundreds of hours,” and brutalized him to keep him awake for six days in a row. The CIA has admitted some of the details and Zubaydah’s name was mentioned more than a thousand times in a 683-page Senate report on the CIA torture regime released in 2014.

This case turned on the invocation of a holy bureaucratic relic of dubious origin—state secrets. As the court’s 6–3 ruling, written by Justice Stephen Breyer, noted, “To assert the [state secrets] privilege, the Government must submit to the court a ‘formal claim of privilege, lodged by the head of the department which has control over the matter.’” After a government agency claims the privilege, the court “should exercise its traditional “reluctance to intrude upon the authority of the Executive in military and national security affairs,” Breyer wrote. And the most important role for the Supreme Court nowadays is apparently to sanctify the privileges it has awarded federal agencies that committed crime sprees.

Image on the right: Abu Zubaydah is a citizen of the Palestinian territories held in Guantanamo Bay. (Licensed under the Public Domain)

The court upheld a “state secrets” claim to block Zubaydah’s lawyers from serving subpoenas on the psychologist masterminds of the CIA torture program to learn the details of his interrogation in Poland. The court’s ruling also blocks Polish investigators seeking information about the crimes committed at a CIA torture site in their nation.

This case illustrated the fantasy world that permeates official Washington controversies. Federal judge Richard Paez rejected the CIA’s argument in 2019 because “in order to be a ‘state secret,’ a fact must first be a ‘secret.’” Even the president of Poland admitted that crimes were committed at that CIA torture site.

But the Supreme Court took an Alice in Wonderland approach, ruling that “sometimes information that has entered the public domain may nonetheless fall within the scope of the state secrets privilege.” According to the Supreme Court, “truth” depends solely on what federal officials have publicly confessed. American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) attorney Dror Ladin groused, “U.S. courts are the only place in the world where everyone must pretend not to know basic facts about the CIA’s torture program.”

It gets worse. Then CIA chief Mike Pompeo asserted that exposing details about torture in Poland could hinder foreign spy agencies’ partnerships with the CIA. The court upheld the “state secrets privilege” to assist the CIA in “maintaining the trust upon which those relationships [between spy agencies] are based.” The court warned, “To confirm publicly the existence of a CIA [torture] site in Country A, can diminish the extent to which the intelligence services of Countries A, B, C, D, etc., will prove willing to cooperate with our own.”

The court acted as if it were merely smoothing the path for a Girl Scout troop to sell cookies at a shopping center instead of shrouding a “crime against humanity” (the United Nations’ verdict on torture). Pompeo bluntly described the CIA modus operandi: “We lied, we cheated, we stole. It’s like we had entire training courses.” The CIA’s long record of lawless assassinations did nothing to weaken the deference they received from the court. Instead, the “mutual trust” between conniving spy agencies is more important than Americans having a reason to trust their own government.

In his decision, Justice Breyer stressed, “Obviously, the Court condones neither terrorism nor torture, but in this case we are required to decide only a narrow evidentiary dispute.” But the Supreme Court condones any crime it helps cover up. The court’s sweeping rulings on state secrets and sovereign immunity have provided a get-out-of-jail-free card for Bush-era torturers and the makers of torture. No victim of Bush-era torture has received justice in federal courts. The Bush administration even invoked “state secrets” to prohibit torture victims from disclosing to their defense attorneys the specific interrogation methods they suffered.

State secrets claims multiplied after the start of the war on terror. The Bush administration routinely invoked “state secrets” to seek “blanket dismissal of every case challenging the constitutionality of specific, ongoing government programs,” according to a study by the Constitution Project. In 2007, federal judge Harry Pregerson groused that the “bottom line … is the government declares something is a state secret, that’s the end of it. The king can do no wrong.” In 2009, a federal appeals court slammed the Obama administration’s use of state secrets: “According to the government’s theory, the judiciary should effectively cordon off all secret government actions from judicial scrutiny, immunizing the CIA and its partners from the demands and the limits of the law.”

Gorsuch noted that the Supreme Court created the doctrine in a 1953 case in which the Pentagon claimed “state secrets” to cover up the details of an Air Force crash. Half a century later, the government declassified the official report, which contained no national security secrets but proved that gross negligence caused the crash (which killed three people). State secrets is akin to a fraudulent religious miracle that was not exposed until after it became canonized.

Gorsuch, who was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor (the most liberal member of the court) in dissent, warned that granting “utmost deference” to the CIA would “invite more claims of secrecy in more doubtful circumstances—and facilitate the loss of liberty and due process history shows very often follows.” Law professor Steve Vladeck said the “ruling will make it much harder, going forward, for victims of government misconduct that occurs in secret to obtain evidence helping to prove that the conduct was unlawful.” A confidential report last month revealed that the CIA is vacuuming up masses of personal information from American citizens, probably in violation of federal law. But don’t expect to learn the tawdry details or the names of the victims because “state secrets.” Gorsuch noted that the Supreme Court decision was granting the same type of “crown prerogatives” to federal agencies that the Declaration of Independence described as evil.

Perhaps the Supreme Court should replace the “Equal Justice under the Law” slogan atop its entrance with a new motto: “Better for People Not to Know.” For five hundred years, the classic image of “Lady Justice” included a blindfold to assure impartiality. But justice nowadays supposedly requires blindfolding Americans to keep them from learning of official crimes committed in their name.

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James Bovard is the author of ten books, including 2012’s Public Policy Hooligan, and 2006’s Attention Deficit Democracy. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Washington Post, and many other publications.

Featured image is from MW

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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 condemns 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.

On February 27, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a plea for foreigners to fight against the Russian military. In a statement, Zelensky said, among other things, that

“This is not just Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This is the beginning of a war against Europe, against European structures, against democracy, against basic human rights, against a global order of law, rules and peaceful coexistence.” He added: “Anyone who wants to join the defense of Ukraine, Europe and the world can come and fight side by side with the Ukrainians against the Russian war criminals.”

In this way, Zelensky portrayed the conflict as one between a Ukraine that defends Western values, human rights and its political system against “Russian war criminals.” This narrative was disseminated to great lengths by Western media, who at the same time scoffed at the idea of a “de-Nazification” of Ukraine.

Omitted from Western media is the fact that openly neo-Nazi groups like the Mariupol-based Azov Battalion are official units of the Republican Guard, which is under the direct command of Ukraine’s Interior Ministry. It also omits that Stepan Bandera, a Nazi collaborator in World War II who encouraged Ukrainians to “destroy” Jews and Poles, leading to tens of thousands of deaths, is being rehabilitated in Ukraine and even had a major avenue in Kiev renamed after him. This is just two examples of the “Nazification” of Ukraine that is being purposefully ignored by the West.

None-the-less, by portraying the war in Ukraine as a struggle of liberalism against authoritarianism, Western liberals are whitewashing the Far Right and other foreign fighters from a myriad of illiberal ideologies as they descend on Ukraine to fight the Russians. According to Kiev, by March 6 at least 20,000 foreign fighters from 55 countries had entered Ukraine to fight against Russians.

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.

One American volunteer, who said he was with the Georgian National Legion of the 122nd Territorial Defense Brigade (Odessa), said on social media that “our base got f***ed up. The base right next to us got f***ed up.” He also said that Americans and “tons of British” were dead.

American volunteer in Ukraine describes how foreigners who flocked over to the country to fight Russia are being used as cannon fodder and are threatened by Ukrainian forces with murder if they refuse to deploy on suicide missions pic.twitter.com/D4KnyxtyVr

— Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) March 15, 2022

He explained that foreign volunteers are being sent to the front lines without sufficient weapons or armor. He continues to explain that when they refused to go and fight near Kiev under such conditions, Ukrainian soldiers threatened to shoot them, forcing the American volunteer and others to escape the country. However, he also explained that Ukrainian soldiers were cutting up the passports of foreign fighters and forcing them to the front. He chillingly warned:

“People need to stop coming here, it’s a trap, and they’re not letting you f***ing leave.”

One British fighter, an ex-Army medic named Jason Haigh, told The Sun newspaper on March 9 that he was detained by Ukrainian authorities that were carrying cable ties. He said that Ukrainian authorities slammed his head and hit him several times, resulting in a bad concussion and heavy bleeding. Eventually, he and his group were released and joined hundreds of thousands on trains to Lviv, before fleeing to the Polish border and getting a train to Warsaw.

It is also recalled that a Brazilian foreign fighter uploaded to his social media a harrowing account of the Russian strike against the International Peacekeeping and Security Center (IPSC) near Lviv and the Polish border on March 13, saying:

“I don’t even know what to say… there were special forces soldiers from all over the world [US, France, South Korea, Chile]. The information we have is that everyone died, they [Russians] managed to destroy everything… you guys don’t understand what it means when a jet drops a missile on you. Thank God I got out earlier.”

In this way, despite the lionising of foreign fighters in Ukraine by the Western media, it certainly appears that their experience has been nothing short of terrifying. It also appears that many of the foreign fighters are naïve to the fact that there are clear links between the Foreign Legion and Ukraine’s neo-Nazis.

In addition, the Australian government warned on March 15 that volunteers could end up being “cannon fodder” for Ukraine. This matches up with Matthew Robinson, a British volunteer who stressed that foreigners “can be railroaded into a legion and sent to the front line very quickly. Even though you’ve got the best of intentions to help people, you could basically be cannon fodder.”

It can be suggested that Ukraine is intentionally trying to drive up the body count of foreigners fighting against Russia to create international outrage in the hope of forcing a foreign intervention. However, due to volunteers fighting on an unofficial capacity, there is no correlation between the death of foreigners and activating NATO’s mutual defense policy.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from kyivindependent.com

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***

Today, U.S. Senator and physician Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced an amendment to eliminate Dr. Anthony Fauci’s position as the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and replace it with three separate national research institutes. 

“We’ve learned a lot over the past two years, but one lesson in particular is that no one person should be deemed “dictator-in-chief.” No one person should have unilateral authority to make decisions for millions of Americans,” said Dr. Paul. “To ensure that ineffective, unscientific lockdowns and mandates are never foisted on the American people ever again, I’ve introduced this amendment to eliminate Dr. Anthony Fauci’s position as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and divide his power into three separate new institutes. This will create accountability and oversight into a taxpayer funded position that has largely abused its power, and has been responsible for many failures and misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Background

As recently as 2012, Congress passed a law that eliminated the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) and reassigned some of its programs to a new National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), and assigned other NCRR functions to other institutes within NIH.

Dr. Paul’s amendment would keep with this precedent of reorganization, and would immediately eliminate Dr. Fauci’s position and replace it with three new directors of the following new institutes:

1. National Institute of Allergic Diseases
2. National Institute of Infectious Diseases
3. National Institute of Immunologic Diseases

Each of these three institutes will be led by a director who is appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate for a 5-year term.

This amendment also aligns with NIAID’s existing mission statement, which begins by saying:  “NIAID conducts and supports basic and applied research to better understand, treat, and ultimately prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases.”

You can read Dr. Paul’s amendment HERE.

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Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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***

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.

According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), in an article published on Tuesday, March 15, Riyadh is considering starting to price and trade its oil sales in Chinese Yuan, abandoning the dollar standard. The piece also informs that such a pricing plan has been in development for six years, having been accelerated recently as a reaction to the strong pressure exerted by the Biden government against Saudi Arabia. In the words of one of the WSJ’s Saudi informants:

“The dynamics have dramatically changed. The US relationship with the Saudis has changed, China is the world’s biggest crude importer and they are offering many lucrative incentives to the kingdom (…) China has been offering everything you could possibly imagine to the kingdom”.

As expected, the impact of the news on the financial market was immediate. 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.

In fact, the Saudi maneuver seems interesting and of high strategic value at the moment. China buys more than a quarter of Riyadh’s massive oil exports and since 2018 has offered a series of contracts priced in renminbi. Furthermore, cooperation appears to be increasing in both directions. For example, state-owned Saudi Aramco announced last week that it would help build a new oil refinery in northeast China with the capacity to produce 300,000 barrels a day. Apparently, Beijing sees Riyadh as a key energy ally for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) project, and, on the other hand, Riyadh sees the BRI as a great opportunity for profitable short-term investments. In this sense, pricing in Yuan would be an even greater engagement in cooperation, which would benefit both sides and help to reduce global dependence on the dollar standard.

Obviously, despite the clear direct economic interests, it is not possible to ignore the deep geopolitical aspect of the issue. The current US administration has maintained the most anti-Saudi stance ever seen in the White House. Last year, Biden even stopped US support for the Saudi campaign in Yemen – although he was “restricted” in many ways by the US arms industry. Biden maintains a strong humanitarian and liberal ideological stance, which does not allow him to agree with an undemocratic regime and with a campaign as violent as the war against the Houthis. In addition, he is “compelled” to renounce his democratic principles on several other points – such as the Ukrainian dictatorial regime, for example -, so he needs to choose some targets of lesser strategic importance to maintain his image as a global defender of democracy, and, apparently, he chose Saudi Arabia.

The very conflict on Ukrainian soil also favors this type of measure, as there is a global trend towards multipolarization on several levels, including the economic and financial ones. China stands against the boycotts on Russia and elevates its partnership with Moscow in every way possible, which means that the West may soon also implement coercive measures against Beijing. So, Saudi Arabia takes advantage of the moment in order to enter a possible new market route, with prices in Yuan, serving the interests of China, its partner nations – including the entire BRI – and the BRICS. In this sense, de-dollarization seems just a natural consequence of the process of formation of a polycentric world, as it is being designed with the events in Eastern Europe.

With this global scenario, the West will have a single choice: to understand that a multipolar global order presupposes multiple monetary standards, with no more room in for dependence on the American Dollar. It is inevitable that the dollar will become just another possible currency in international transactions, competing not only with the Yuan, but also with other currencies and digital assets, such as cryptocurrencies. Obviously, it is possible that Washington will re-establish good ties with Riyadh in the future, but stopping de-dollarization no longer seems an attainable goal.

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

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 condemns 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.

Introduction

Sanctions on Russia including bans on investments in the Russian energy sector are damaging the EU economy.

EU finance ministers warn sanctions being imposed on Russia over the conflict in Ukraine will severely damage the EU’s economy for an unknown period of time.

Fuel and food prices are set to rise even more sharply than they already have.

As the cost of living in the EU goes through the roof, union members held a demonstration outside a meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels on Tuesday. They want the bloc’s leaders to provide more support for EU citizens who are being hit hard by the financial ramifications resulting from the conflict in Ukraine.

Finance ministers have signed off on the 4th package of sanctions against Russia. 600 individuals have been targeted and Russian exports too. However, there is a very negative boomerang effect for the EU itself.

Russia, which is now the most sanctioned country in the world, has been removed from the so-called Most-Favored-Nation clause relating to the World Trade Organization.

Finance ministers say €200bn worth of loans are available to EU nations most impacted by the Ukrainian refugee crisis.

Critics say if Western leaders had shown more skill and compromise, when listening to Russia’s security concerns, the misery now being piled on Ukrainian citizens and the financial hardship being placed on EU citizens could have been avoided.

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PressTV: What are the effects of the Russian oil industries sanctions on the inflation rate and energy price in EU?

Peter Koenig: Horrendous! Germany depends for about 50% of its hydrocarbon energy on Russia. They have to find other sources – and that will not be immediate.

First, the US will want to sell their fracked gas to Germany at roughly 50% higher prices than currently sold by Russia.

Then, they will have to look for other sources, probably in the Middle East.

Mind you, Saudi Arabia has already declared that they would rather sell their oil and gas to China in Yuan, than to the US and the west — they feel more secure with the Chinese currency than with a faltering – and possibly soon collapsing US dollar and Euro.

What will be the inflation? Difficult to predict – could be anything between 30% and 50%, as energy affects everything, the entire food production cycle, industry, transportation, heating and much more. Severe energy shortages will also drive small and medium size enterprises into bankruptcies, create unemployment social misery and famine.

This may be at least an extreme hardship phenomenon until new energy sources are found.

PressTV: Why does Germany go along with these EU – actually US imposed — sanctions?

Germany is totally in the hands and under control of Washington – has been since the end of WWII – as Mme. Merkel clearly demonstrated, during the past 16 years. And so did her predecessors.

One of the reasons might be that Germany does still not have a Peace Agreement – yes, they don’t. Since the end of WWII, German “Peace” is administered through an armistice agreement which is controlled and framed by the so-called Allied Forces, in other words the United States, acting as the empire on behalf of the other allies.

Several pre-Merkel chancellors have tried to circumvent the strict conditions of obedience to the Washington masters. They were unmistakenly told “NO” under no circumstances… or else.

This also explains the most important NATO base in Ramstein, in Southwestern Germany, with untold nuclear warheads, despite the fact that Germany is part of the non-nuclear treaty.

PressTV: What are the prospects for the future of Russia-Ukraine negotiations?

PK: That’s a good question.

There have recently been signs that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin may meet in Jerusalem, in a summit mediated by Israeli PM Naftali Bennett.

But neither side has confirmed it, and no dates have been set.

Earlier Mr. Zelenskyy indicated that he may be willing to make certain “concessions”.

Today, March 15, RT  quotes Zelenskyy as saying “NATO allies don’t want to see Ukraine among their ranks and Kiev realizes that. Now Kiev seeks protection from individual member states.”

Let’s however not kid ourselves, Zelenskyy is a US pawn totally under Washington’s control. He cannot make sovereign decisions, especially not as far as US interests are concerned.

Ukraine is not at war – it’s the US which is carrying out a proxy war against Russia on Ukraine’s territory.

The US motive is the same as it was already during WWII – if not much earlier – and then during the Cold War, controlling the huge territory of resources-rich Russia.

And as a byline, so to speak, move closer to China’s borders – which on the East Pacific side is already encircled by many US military bases or bases that host US armament and personnel.

In addition to all the natural resources – on and under Russia’s territory – Russia and Ukraine are also Europe’s breadbasket. A war, initiated and fueled by the west, will most certainly shut that food supply line to Europe down. It may bring shortages and famine to Europe and beyond.

The empire is collapsing ever faster, and the dollar and its little sister the Euro, are also faltering at an accelerating speed.

Mind you all western leaders, including Australia and New Zealand, were chosen not by the people, but by those elite and financial corporations who manipulate the current ascent of an unseen tyranny in history as we know it.

What is in the making is a health tyranny – WHO gaining full control over all health systems of its 194 member countries, actually overriding national constitutions.

If the plan holds, it should become legal in 2024. Most people around the world don’t know it, as the media are paid to keep silent about it. All that is happening in the shadows of the war in Ukraine.

We can just hope that there will be a general waking up and the plan will fail.

Many of these so-called western leaders went to Klaus Schwab’s (CEO and founder of the WEF) “academy” for Young Global Leaders”, where they learned the tactics of dictatorship, leading to tyranny, if they encounter rebellion by the citizens.

A case in point may be Canada. These “leaders” (sic) are bought by the WEF and the WEF’s handlers, and have no interest in the people of their countries. They don’t care if their nations’ citizens live or die.

This is a long answer to a brief question about the prospects for the future of Russia-Ukraine negotiations.

Personally, I do not think that there will be a nuclear war. There is too much at stake for the elite. NATO and all its members know Russia’s military and nuclear capacity. So, they may refrain from an all-out war, and instead make believe that Russia will be collapsing under the punishment of sanctions.

Biden has just announced that his administration will allocate a billion dollars to “support” the media – in other words, corrupting them so they continue lying and propagating the false government narrative.

Russia will every day be less affected by western slandering and sanctions as the Russia-China-SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) alliance is self-sufficient on all vital goods and services.

The trend is towards a multipolar world. It is well possible that the conclusion of the Ukraine war will lead into this direction – hopefully a new peaceful world paradigm.

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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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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.”

Tinnitus is defined as hearing sounds when no actual, external sounds are present. Some people report:

• Ringing in the ears.
• Buzzing, hissing, whistling, swooshing and clicking.
• Thumping.
• Hearing music when none is being played.

According to data released March 4 by the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), 19,630 people have reported developing tinnitus after a COVID vaccine. There are no VAERS data on whether or not this condition resolved or is ongoing.

A Dec. 14, 2021 Johnson & Johnson (J&J) “Fact Sheet for Recipients and Caregivers” lists tinnitus as a side effect of the Janssen COVID vaccine, marketed by J&J.

Pfizer and Moderna do not note any causal connection between the vaccine and hearing issues, according to ABC News, and neither the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention nor U.S. Food and Drug Administration list the condition as a side effect.

Tinnitus is also a symptom of COVID, especially among “long-haulers.” Texas Roadhouse CEO Kent Taylor last year committed suicide after experiencing severe post-COVID symptoms, including tinnitus.

Spike protein in virus, vaccine may cause trigger tinnitus

Poland last month hosted a video discussion with two leading tinnitus researchers, Konstantina Stankovic, M.D., Ph.D., and Shaowen Bao, Ph.D., during which they  examined the mechanisms of tinnitus.

Stankovic, a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, has been studying tinnitus in COVID patients since the beginning of the pandemic.

Of the 10 patients she studied who had COVID and tinnitus, all of them had “either reduced or non-existent hair function.”

She found the virus entered the inner ear cells and “preferentially affected hair cells,” referring to the hair cells of the cochlea, an integral part of the inner ear and the organ responsible for the conversion of sound into an electrical signal the brain then interprets.

“The virus causing COVID-19 can directly infect the human inner ear cells, and this could explain what we are seeing,” Stankovic said.

Researchers estimate nearly 15% of people who recovered from COVID developed tinnitus, and this condition is now associated with long COVID.

Poland, who got a booster shot despite developing tinnitus after his second COVID shot, raised the question of whether or not that was the right thing to do.

Bao, an associate professor at the University of Arizona, said his research on vaccine-induced tinnitus, which is awaiting peer review, indicates the spike protein —  present in the virus and in the vaccine — is a likely contributor to tinnitus.

Although Bao did not identify a molecular mechanism for spike protein-induced tinnitus, results from his own survey indicate the incidence of tinnitus following the first shot is 10% higher than that following the second shot, a small but statistically significant percentage.

This indicates a spike protein-mediated effect and not an immune response effect because the immune response is known to be greater after the second dose, Bao said.

From his survey of 400 people who developed post-vaccination tinnitus, 100 chose to receive a second dose of the vaccine despite having unresolved tinnitus from the first injection, Bao said. Of those 100 people, 38% reported worsening symptoms after the second dose, a much higher risk than the 70 per million cases reported in VAERS.

Bao concluded that, for unknown reasons, some people are more predisposed than others to this adverse event.

Poland decided to get the booster shot. His tinnitus went away for about 24 hours only to return at a higher pitch, he said.

Poland did not return calls from The Defender about whether his condition has improved and if he reported it to VAERS.

More research needed, experts say

“These experts’ observations highlight the challenge we have in identifying the real cause of the conditions endured by people during the pandemic,” said Dr. Madhava Setty, senior science editor for The Defender.

Setty added:

“The spike protein has been implicated as the cause of many ailments following both vaccination and COVID-19, from myocarditis to clotting disorders. We cannot know which is more dangerous, the virus or the vaccine, if we do not have a large number of unvaccinated people to observe.”

The American Tinnitus Association (ATA) encourages people who develop tinnitus after a COVID vaccine to report it to VAERS.

The association states that manufacturers of COVID vaccines currently don’t list tinnitus as an expected adverse reaction (although, as reported, J&J does list it).

The ATA states:

“At present, none of the available coronavirus vaccines include information on tinnitus as a side effect. It is only through the reporting of side effects that adjustments are made in the list of common or rare side effects, so please report any adverse events that occur after vaccination.”

Poland, Stankovic and Bao concluded tinnitus should not deter people from getting their booster shots, and said more research on tinnitus is desperately needed due to its “tremendous ill effect on people’s health and well-being and healthcare costs.”

According to the ATA:

“Millions of Americans experience tinnitus, often to a debilitating degree, making it one of the most common health conditions in the country. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimates that nearly 15% of the general public — over 50 million Americans — experience some form of tinnitus. Roughly 20 million people struggle with burdensome chronic tinnitus, while 2 million have extreme and debilitating cases.”

Scientists and doctors are still getting a better understanding of this condition and ways to treat it, Bao and Stankovic said. A variety of causes have been identified, and some people experience it as an acute, temporary condition, while for others it is chronic and ongoing. It can also lead to hearing loss.

There are no available evidence-based therapeutics for treating tinnitus. Some people have seen positive results with white noise therapy. Targeting inflammation might yield the best therapeutic strategies, Bao said.

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Nolan E. Bowman is a freelance science reporter for The Defender.

Featured image is from CHD

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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 condemns 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.

 “The first casualty of war is truth.” This simple yet profound statement is attributed to many, including Hiram Johnson in a speech in the U.S. Senate in 1918, during the “war to end all wars.”  Hiram Johnson was a progressive Republican who had been elected to the Senate from California that very year.  He remained in the Senate until he died of old age on August 6, 1945, the day the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the civilian population of Hiroshima, Japan.

The Baltimore Sun quoted Senator Johnson more fully in 1929, during a Senate debate on an international agreement called the “General Treaty for the Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy” (also known as the Kellogg-Briand Treaty):

“The first casualty when war comes is truth, and whenever there is a war, and whenever an individual nation seeks to coerce by force of arms another, it always acts and always insists that it acts under self-defense.”

As the war rages in Ukraine in 2022, actual combat is eclipsed by well-practiced information warfare. It was not surprising when the White House and State Department began shouting that the Russians were about to launch a “false flag” event to justify their pending invasion of Ukraine. After all, isn’t that the way it is always done? Isn’t that the way the US did it with the Tonkin Gulf Incident in Vietnam, babies being thrown out of incubators in Kuwait, and Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. Of course, the US has a bigger challenge claiming self-defense as it invades smaller, weaker countries halfway around the globe.

Twenty-four hour news coverage is keeping Americans hyped up and dumbed down

Once the fighting commences, deception is also an important ploy on the battlefield. The ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus wrote, “God is not adverse to deceit in a just cause.” Aside from keeping the enemy guessing about when and where the next attack will be launched, it is critically important to maintain popular support for a questionable enterprise that requires the sacrifice of blood and treasure.

Twenty-four hour cable news coverage of the ugly war in Ukraine is keeping Americans hyped up and dumbed down.  The very real horror of war is on the screen for all to see. The bombed-out buildings, the mounting civilian casualties and the frightened refugees speak their own truth. Unfortunately, we rarely see the victims, the grieving families and the terrified refugees when the invader is the US. The “shock and awe” US terror bombing campaign on Baghdad was described by one network TV anchor as a “beautiful thing to see.”

Totally absent from nonstop coverage of the war and condemnations of Russian president Putin is any reporting on the role of the United States and NATO in creating the crisis over Ukraine. No reports about the relentless NATO expansion up to the very borders of Russia.  No mention of US missile emplacements in Romania and Poland.  Nothing about the unilateral US exit from vital nuclear treaties—the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (George W. Bush, 2002), and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (Donald Trump, 2018).

Such reporting would be unpatriotic in a time of war, would it not?  We don’t want to justify Russian aggression. We don’t even want to hear their side of the story. A simplistic, one-sided narrative tells us that Vladimir Putin—who is both evil and mad—has initiated a war in order to rebuild the former Russian empire. Who knows where he might stop? There is absolutely no evidence to support this implausible narrative. But the truth be damned. This is war.

A “No Fly Zone” Means World War III

President Biden is demonstrating at least a bit of prudence. The president has to make life-and-death decisions that are somewhat based in reality. He is resisting the growing calls for a No Fly Zone in Ukraine. He and the generals at the Pentagon know what that means. Even the usually pugnacious Senator Marco Rubio stated “it means World War III.”  Yet pressure is growing for a No Fly Zone—maybe a “limited” one—as both Republican and Democratic leaders take their turn on top of the war wagon.

Joe Biden is also worried about nuclear war, a serious concern for all modern presidents. Vladimir Putin is brandishing his large nuclear arsenal as a disincentive for direct US/NATO engagement in the Ukraine war. The US canceled a planned ICBM test launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California to its usual target in the much-bombed Marshall Islands. Apparently, the US did not want to risk spooking Putin, about whose mental state many people are speculating. Could it be that Putin is employing Richard Nixon’s famous “madman theory,” keeping his enemies at bay with unpredictability?

Of course, Russia has its own propaganda apparatus, but we will not be much exposed to it here in the US. Russia Today (RT) has been removed from most cable TV services as well as from YouTube. Well actually, almost everything Russian is currently being canceled, in a furious frenzy of the Russia-hating that has been central to US culture ever since World War II. The Russians are never given credit for their outsized role in defeating the Nazis, nor sympathy for the 27 million lives lost in that war.

The US routinely violates the UN Charter—and now Russia has done so

The Russian invasion is a terrible violation of the UN Charter, but hardly unprecedented. International law in no way restrained US war-making in Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Grenada, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia or Yemen. Russia’s invasion was not in self-defense—except in a preemptive sense—they were not under immediate military attack.

Some say that the ongoing Ukrainian war against two breakaway Russia-aligned provinces in eastern Ukraine provided Just Cause for Russia’s invasion. Fourteen thousand people have died in the violence there since 2014, when a US-backed coup overthrew a Russia-friendly president and replaced him with someone handpicked by the US.

Another annoying factoid is the well-documented role of Nazi militias in the 2014 coup and in the current government and military. These inconvenient truths in no way can justify the blatant Russian aggression, however, which is killing hundreds of innocent civilians and has created a dangerous crisis for humanity.

The Information War Presents the Peace Movement with a Dilemma

The nonstop barrage of information, misinformation, disinformation and rallying around the flag has presented the peace movement with a dilemma. How do peace-loving people righteously condemn the Russian invasion—the destruction of cities, the killing of hundreds of civilians, the displacement of millions?  How do we express our outrage and our strong disapproval of this aggression and violence without appearing to join in the war fervor that is sweeping the US?

Conversely, how do we explain the role of the US and NATO in creating this crisis without appearing to justify this horrible violence? How do we demand that President Biden stop pouring fuel on the fire by sending more weapons into Ukraine? How do we tell people that sanctions are not an alternative to war, but rather an escalation of war?

Escalation is the very last thing we want. The Ukraine war presents the entire world with an existential threat. It is not alarmist to say this is the greatest imminent threat of nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The one where the US was reacting to Russian nuclear missiles being positioned in Cuba, way too close for comfort. Does that ring a bell?

The Danger of Nuclear War Should Focus Our Attention

The very real danger of nuclear war should focus all our attention. With both US and Russian nukes on “hair-trigger alert,” what could go wrong? And then there are the 15 or so nuclear power plants in Ukraine, several of them reportedly compromised by the war. Is that a real threat or is it war propaganda? Perhaps both. It is in EVERYBODY’s interest to end this very dangerous war as soon as possible.

Joe Biden is not new to this conflict. Biden and—famously—his son Hunter, have been involved in the Ukraine mess at least since the 2014 coup, after which a Ukrainian oil company paid Hunter Biden $50,000 a month to sit on its Board. No conflict of interest there, all the Democrats insisted. Even without family enrichment, Joe Biden has long been dedicated to the Cold War project of putting the Soviet Union—and now Russia—in its place, which is no place, and with no respect.

The United States leads NATO—the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe is always a U.S. general. President Biden probably could have headed off the Russian invasion by simply saying publicly that Ukraine would not become a member of NATO. But he refused to do that. He called Putin’s bluff, and Putin showed him it was no bluff.

President Biden Must Act Now to De-Escalate this Dangerous War

Whatever disagreements there are about how the Ukraine war came about, reasonable people should be able to agree on this: This war is very dangerous. It threatens to become a wider war in Europe. It could even lead to a civilization-ending nuclear war.  It therefore must be brought to an end as soon as possible.

President Biden is in a position to make a bold diplomatic move that could bring this war to a screeching halt. 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.

Once the world has—hopefully—pulled back from the brink, we should begin a serious international discussion about how to abolish nuclear weapons and war once and for all. How will we avoid getting into the same kind of war with China over Taiwan? How can the United States adjust to a multi-polar world where it is no longer The Sheriff?

Veterans For Peace is offering its own Nuclear Posture Review, with sections on Russia and Europe and all the nuclear powers. It makes well-researched recommendations, such as implementing No First Use policies and taking nuclear missiles off “hair-trigger alert.” It calls on the US to rejoin the ABM and INF treaties, and to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It calls on the U.S. to initiate negotiations “to reduce and eventually eliminate all nuclear weapons,” as the five permanent UN Security Council members—the original nuclear powers—agreed when they signed the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. If the United States and other nuclear powers had kept their promise to eliminate nuclear weapons, we would probably not be at war today in Ukraine, or worrying about Armageddon.

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

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Gerry Condon is a Vietnam-era veteran and former president of Veterans For Peace.

Featured image is from Olga Sukharevskaya

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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According to Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the goal of The Fourth Industrial Revolution is to change what it means to be human by merging man and machine.

Humans are now “hackable,” in that technology now exists by which a company or government can know you better than you know yourself, and that can be very dangerous if misused.

Professor Yuval Noah Harari predicts that algorithms will increasingly be used to make decisions that have historically been made by humans, either yourself or someone else, including whether or not you’ll be hired for a particular job, whether you’ll be granted a loan, what scholastic curriculum you will follow and even who you will marry.

Harari warns that if we allow the establishment of a digital dictatorship, where the system, be it a corporation or a government, knows the most intimate details about each and every person, it will be impossible to dismantle it. Its control will be total and irreversible.

If you believe that your thoughts and behavior are and always will remain under your own control, think again. We already have the technology to directly alter thoughts, emotions and behavior.

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According to Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the goal of The Fourth Industrial Revolution¹ is 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.

In a November 2019 interview with CNN,² history professor and bestselling author Yuval Noah Harari, a Klaus Schwab disciple, warned that “humans are now hackable animals,” meaning, the technology now exists by which a company or government can know you better than you know yourself, and that can be very dangerous if misused.

He predicted that algorithms will increasingly be used to make decisions that historically have been made by humans, either yourself or someone else, including whether or not you’ll be hired for a particular job, whether you’ll be granted a loan, what scholastic curriculum you will follow and even who you will marry.

Profound Dangers Ahead

There’s also an ever-increasing risk of being manipulated by these outside forces that you’re not even fully aware of. Looking back over the last two years, it’s rather easy to confirm that mass manipulation is taking place at a staggering scale, and that it’s phenomenally effective.

As noted by Harari in 2019,³ the available capabilities already go far beyond Orwell’s “1984” authoritarian vision, and it’s only going to become more powerful from here. He’s certain that in short order, there will be the ability to monitor your emotional state through something as simple as a wearable wristband.

Importantly, Harari warned that if we allow the establishment of this kind of digital dictatorship, where the system, be it a corporation or a government, knows the most intimate details about each and every person, it will be impossible to dismantle it. Its control will be total and irreversible. And, Harari believes we may have only a decade, at most two, to prevent this digital dictatorship from taking over.

Reengineering Life Itself

Harari also discussed the coming transhumanism at the WEF’s 2020 annual meeting in Davos (above), and in this speech, he went even further. Not only does the global elite have the technological capability to create a global digital dictatorship, but “elites may gain the power to reengineer the future of life itself.”

“For four billion years, nothing fundamental changed in the basic rules of the game of life,” he said. “All of life was subject to the laws of natural selection and the laws of organic biochemistry. But this is now about to change.

Science is replacing evolution by natural selection with evolution by intelligent design, not the intelligent design of some god in the clouds, [but] OUR intelligent design, and the design of our ‘clouds,’ the IBM cloud, the Microsoft cloud. These are the new driving forces of evolution.”

It’s hard to determine whether Harari is for or against transhumanism. He speaks of it as an inevitability, and something that can be used for tremendous good. But he also recognizes its profound dangers, and seems to believe we need to discuss how these technological capabilities can be used, and whether they should.

In the featured Davos speech, it sounds as though he’s a proponent of this human intelligent design venture, but in his 2019 interview with CNN, he also stated that “we must never underestimate the stupidity of humans.” The fact that we have the technology to design new life forms, including new kinds of humans, does not necessarily mean that we’re smart enough to design something better than what natural evolution has come up with thus far.

In his Davos speech, Harari also pointed out that science is now enabling us to create life not only in the organic realm but in the inorganic realm as well. We’re talking about “living” robots and the like. He also raises the question as to who “owns” your DNA, if it can be charted and hacked. Does it belong to you, a corporation, or the government?

‘The Days of Free Will Are Over’

Whatever Harari’s true feelings about transhumanism, he emphatically states that the idea that we have a soul and free will, those days “are over.” In other clips that have been inserted into the featured video, Harari predicts that in the future, people will be able to look back and see that the COVID pandemic was the turning point where biological surveillance took over and became norm.

The explanation for how that was able to occur is given by Schwab, who has publicly admitted (see featured video) that participants in the WEF’s Young Global Leaders program have “penetrated the cabinets” of many world governments.

In Canada, for example, about half the politicians, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, have taken Schwab’s training. Schwab is all about ushering in transhumanism and changing what it means to be human, and his minions of global leaders are sure doing everything they can to make those dreams a reality. This is a dystopian future WEF and its global allies are actively trying to implement, whether humanity at large agrees with it or not.

Changing What It Means To Be Human

Schwab dreams of a world in which humans are connected to the cloud, able to access the internet through their own brains. This, of course, also means that your brain would be accessible to people who might like to tinker with your thoughts, emotions, beliefs and behavior, be they the technocratic elite themselves or random hackers.

If you believe that your thoughts and behavior are and always will remain under your own control, think again. We already have the technology to directly alter thoughts, emotions and behavior. Some of these capabilities are described in a 2021 project report by the U.K. Ministry of Defense, created in partnership with the German Bundeswehr Office for Defense Planning.

The report, “Human Augmentation — The Dawn of a New Paradigm, a Strategic Implications Project,”⁴ reviews the scientific goals of the U.K. and German defense ministries, and they are precisely what the title suggests. Human augmentation is stressed as being a key area to focus on in order to win future wars:⁵

“Human augmentation will become increasingly relevant, partly because it can directly enhance human capability and behavior and partly because it is the binding agent between people and machines.”

Key words I’d like to draw your attention to are the affirmation that human augmentation can “directly enhance behavior.” If you can enhance behavior, that means you can change someone’s behavior. And if you can change a person’s behavior in a positive way, you can also control it to the person’s own detriment.

Theoretically, absolutely anyone, any random civilian with a brain-to-cloud connection and the needed biological augmentation (such as strength or speed) could be given wireless instructions to carry out an assassination, for example, and pull it off flawlessly, even without prior training.

Alternatively, their physical body could temporarily be taken over by a remote operator with the prerequisite skills. Proof of concept already exists, and is reviewed by Dr. Charles Morgan, professor in the department of national security at the University of New Haven, in the lecture below. Using the internet and brain implants, thoughts can be transferred from one person to another. The sender can also directly influence the physical movements of the receiver.

Project Immortality

Historically, the striving for immortality has been a faith-based venture, based in the idea that the soul is immortal while the body perishes, which is a concept I am in complete alignment with. Transhumanists more or less reverse this idea. They discard the notion of soul altogether and aim for the preservation of the perceived personality, first through radical life extension of the physical body, and later through the transfer of brain data into a replacement form.

According to Dmitry Itskov, the Russian founder of the Immortality 2045 project,⁶ only 2% of people are ready to accept death — a statistic that he uses to justify the search for immortality through things like artificial organs, artificial body constructs, the simulation of mental processes and, ultimately, the transferring of one’s mind into an artificial carrier.

The goals of this project include not only the creation of the cybernetic technologies needed to achieve an immortal body, but also the creation of “a new philosophical paradigm for humanity.” Schwab has talked about the same thing, using the term “social contract” rather than “philosophical paradigm.”

The Immortality 2045’s vision, published in 2011, starts with the creation of the first robotic copy of a human body that can be remotely controlled by 2020. By 2025, they want an avatar into which the human brain can be transplanted at the end of life. By 2035, they want an avatar with a synthetic brain, into which the human personality can be transferred and, by 2045, they imagine a holographic-like avatar. Itskov says:⁷

“The aim of the first project, known as ‘Avatar,’ is the creation of a robot copy of a human being controllable through a ‘brain-computer’ interface. When I’m asked to give the gist of this project, I tell people to recall the film ‘Surrogates,’ which depicts a world in which every person has an artificial body that he controls remotely.

The makers of that blockbuster put an accent on the negative side of such a scenario. Nonetheless, the film’s highly graphic demonstration of the idea allows one to get an immediate sense of what it is.”

Does living through an avatar sound like a life devoid of spirituality to you? Not so, Itskov says, because by ending our dependency on our physical bodies, “many things will open up spiritually.” I have my doubts about that, as most spiritual adepts will tell you that being hooked on technology tends to hinder rather than elevate spiritual pursuits, which are most easily achieved by living simply, in close contact with the natural world.

I just don’t foresee being able to elevate spiritually when any number of outside parties can access your brain and dictate what you think, feel and believe. Transhumanists like Itskov tend to focus only on the perceived benefits of synthetic life. For example, he promises that his avatars will be affordable for everyone who wants them, regardless of income bracket.

Yet the WEF has clearly announced that by 2030, nobody will own anything, and while not clearly stated, that will likely even include your own body. So, to think that your avatar would be “yours” is probably unrealistic.

Looked at through the lens of the WEF’s Fourth Industrial Revolution, it seems the plan is for the elite to literally own all of humanity, which will be refashioned to their own liking. And, if people can be hacked and controlled remotely, then we can be sure they will be. That’s particularly true for synthetic or mechanical avatars that can’t “live” or remain “conscious” without a cloud connection.

Resource to Understand the Transhuman Agenda — Blockchained

Corey Lynn is a top-notch investigative journalist who covers topics the mainstream won’t touch, including the transhumanist agenda. On her website, Corey’s Digs,⁸ you can find select chapters from her book, “Global Landscape on Vaccine ID Passports.”

Chapter 4 in the book is titled “Blockchained,” which explains what digital identity is all about. Digital ID is not just a piece of identification, with which you can prove who you are. It will collect and monitor ALL of your data, from your personal finances, education, work history, GPS location 24/7, everything you’ve ever typed on your computer, your search history, social media presence, emotional status and physical biometrics, down to your DNA.

I will only cover a minor part of that chapter here, the part on human augmentation and artificial intelligence (AI), so for more, be sure to browse through her website or, better yet, read her book, which can be purchased on her site. The digital PDF is only $9.95 and a print copy is $19.95.

Big Data, Data Sharing and AI

Make no mistake, transhumanism is the ultimate goal of the technocratic elite, and both “big data” and AI are integral components of that. Without one or both of those, the transhumanist dream is dead in the water. The goal of transhumanism is undoubtedly why there’s been so much focus on those two areas in the first place.

So, remember, data gathering, data sharing and AI are not about making your life more convenient. They’re to make you obsolete. The intention is to replace you with a synthetic copy of you that can be remotely controlled.

In 2021, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization that consists of 38 countries that work with various working groups and policy makers, issued a report on the “State of Implementation of the OECD AI principles.” So far, 46 countries have adopted these AI principles.

The strategy is to develop centralized repositories of public datasets in each country, and then enable public-private data sharing to build a vast network where each dataset is connected with all the others.

Biosecurity Will Be Used to Justify Surveillance Tyranny

Another report, by the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI), founded “to advance the development of artificial intelligence” and “comprehensively address the national security and defense needs of the United States,” highlights the need to combat digital disinformation and prioritizing biosecurity.

To help with that, a U.S. government-funded supercomputer is being set up at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory under the direction of the Department of Energy. This AI supercomputer can do more than 1 quintillion calculations per second.

Some of this data sharing is already taking place. As noted by Corey, NATO launched an in-house biometrics system for data sharing between nations in November 2020, and in May 2021, the U.S. military merged its biometrics-enabled watch list with the Department of Defense’s automated biometric identification system (ABIS).

“They are working on multi-modal fusion matching and improving biometric face-matching capability through AI and machine learning, and have already improved their long-range infrared cameras,” Corey writes. “Looking toward the near future, they are also focused on palm print biometrics, faces in crowds, integration to identify threats online, and non-traditional latent DNA collection.”

We Need Biometric Privacy Laws NOW

While surveillance science is moving at lightning speed, regulations and privacy laws are trailing at a snail’s pace. A federal biometric privacy bill, the National Biometric Information Privacy Act, was introduced in 2020 but didn’t go anywhere. As noted by Corey, it could be resurrected if enough people speak up.

In the U.S., a handful of states do have biometric privacy laws, Illinois’ being one of the strictest, but the vast majority have no such protections in place. As reported by Corey:

“The Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) requires private entities to inform people in writing that their information is being collected and stored, what the purpose is, and term for collection and storage, and must secure a written release from the person.

Those same private entities are not allowed to sell, lease, trade, or profit from a person’s biometric information. A person may file suit at $1,000 for each negligent violation or $5,000 for each intentional or reckless violation, plus attorneys’ fees and costs. Actual harm is not required to establish standing.”

Clearly, we need these kinds of protections everywhere, in all states and all countries, because as it stands, the global cabal of transhumanist technocrats are building a data-sharing system that is intended to become global. The lack of legal protections against data collection, analysis and sharing is what allows this reckless expansion of surveillance. As noted by Corey:

“If it’s not crystal clear by now, globalists and eugenicists (sometimes one in the same) are running the show, and they are working very hard at achieving their ultimate desires of a controlled human race, evolution of transhumanism with a strong artificial intelligence taking the place of many humans, while they fly to Mars during their years of immortality, and observe humanity through endless surveillance systems. But their dream only becomes a reality if people allow it to.”

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Notes

¹ WEF The Fourth Industrial Revolution

^2, 3 CNN November 26, 2019

^4, 5 Human Augmentation — The Dawn of a New Paradigm, a Strategic Implications Project May 2021

^6, 7 2045.com October 16, 2011

⁸ Corey’s Digs

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***

The escalation ladder is a concept to describe how the severity of a military conflict can increase.

At the very top of the escalation ladder is all-out nuclear war.

While there are numerous countries with nuclear weapons, Russia and China are the only ones with sophisticated enough arsenals to go toe-to-toe with the US up to the top of the escalation ladder.

In other words, the US can’t obtain escalation dominance against Russia or China because they can match each escalation up to all-out nuclear war—the very top of the ladder.

For this reason, these countries are deterred from getting into a kinetic conflict with one another.

It’s also why the US military doesn’t hesitate to bomb countries like Libya, Iraq, Syria, or Afghanistan. It has little to fear because it knows these countries can’t climb very high in the escalation ladder.

This concept is well-understood in military conflicts.

However, the same dynamic exists in an economic war, and it’s far less understood by governments (and investors).

That’s why neither the US nor Russia are not deterred and are climbing up the economic escalation ladder and hurdling towards an increasingly imminent catastrophe.

The Economic War Escalates

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US government and EU have launched an unprecedented economic war… with seeming little thought on how it all ends.

Russia is not a tiny, feeble country that can’t punch back.

Even though many people don’t realize it, Russia can escalate to the top of the economic escalation ladder. Here’s why…

Russia is the world’s largest exporter of natural gas, lumber, wheat, fertilizer, and palladium (a crucial component in cars).

It is the second-largest exporter of oil and aluminum and the third-largest exporter of nickel and coal.

Russia is a major producer and processor of uranium for nuclear power plants. Enriched uranium from Russia and its allies provides electricity to 20% of the homes in the US.

Aside from China, Russia produces more gold than any other country, accounting for more than 10% of global production.

These are just a handful of examples. There are many strategic commodities that Russia dominates.

In short, Russia is not just an oil and gas powerhouse but a commodity powerhouse.

Europe cannot survive without Russian commodities.

Taking Russian commodities off of global markets would cause an across-the-board price shock that would decimate financial markets, banks, and practically every industry. Moreover, Russia also has an economic nuclear option that could blow up the Western financial system overnight.

In short, Russia has powerful cards to play.

Just like in a kinetic war, Russia can match US moves to escalate an economic war to the top of the escalation ladder.

But unlike a kinetic war, neither side is deterred. On the contrary, it seems all but inevitable that things will escalate from here, which makes the situation incredibly dangerous.

Where Are We Now?

The US has sanctioned the Russian central bank, making it illegal for any American to engage with it, the finance ministry, or the national wealth fund.

The US and European governments froze the US dollar and euro reserves of Russia—the accumulated savings of the nation—worth around $300 billion.

Certain Russian banks have been kicked out of SWIFT, the system to send international wire transfers.

A stampede of Western companies have left Russia and are banning average Russian citizens from using their platforms.

Visa, MasterCard, and American Express have cut off Russia from their networks.

The US government banned all imports of Russian oil.

In return, Russia has matched these moves with defensive maneuvers and escalations of its own.

Moscow has banned the export of rocket engines to the US, with an official saying, “In a situation like this we can’t supply the United States with our world’s best rocket engines. Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks.”

Russia and China have live alternatives to SWIFT to facilitate international financial transactions, which limits the effect of being kicked out of SWIFT.

Russian banks started issuing credit and debit cards linked to China’s global payment processing network UnionPay.

Russia has announced, or already is, doing business with China, India, Iran, Turkey, and other countries in local currencies instead of the US dollar, neutralizing much of the effect of sanctions.

In perhaps the most significant escalatory move, the Russian government has allowed all external debt obtained from unfriendly countries—estimated to be over $400 billion— to be redenominated in rubles.

As a result, instead of paying back creditors in the US and Europe in dollars and euros at Western banks, Russian companies can now repay their external debts by depositing rubles on their creditor’s behalf in Russian banks, which are inaccessible to them because of sanctions.

This move forces the US and EU to either ease sanctions so that the estimated $400 billion in external debt can be repaid or give massive losses to Western banks and other creditors.

So, that’s where things stand now.

It’s worth noting that Europe is still paying for Russian energy, and Moscow is still delivering it.

Nonetheless, Russia and the US are climbing the economic escalation ladder, with neither side showing any sign of slowing down. However, we are still several destructive steps away from the top.

What Comes Next

Putin recently announced a forthcoming ban on exports of certain commodities to certain unfriendly countries, with details coming soon. Given Russia’s dominance in the commodity markets, such a move will be significant.

A logical next step Russia could take if the US and EU increase their sanctions would be to force Europe to pay for its energy imports in rubles.

European buyers would have to first buy rubles with their euros and use them to pay for Russian gas, oil, and other exports. Such a move would neutralize the entire sanctions regime because it would force Europeans to deal with the sanctioned Russian central bank or get cut off from crucial commodities.

The Europeans have no alternative to Russian energy and would have no choice but to comply.

Moscow could implement its economic nuclear option if the US really pushes Russia to the point where it has nothing left to lose. That would be demanding payment for oil and other commodities in gold. Since Russia is such a dominant player in the commodity markets, it could dictate this.

Such a move would send gold skyrocketing and blow up the entire Western financial system overnight. Moreover, the dollar and euro would likely suffer an enormous loss in purchasing power as commodities would be repriced in gold.

That’s Russia’s financial nuclear option, and if the US continues up the escalation ladder, this is where it will ultimately lead.

With neither side backing down, escalation appears inevitable.

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***

In a Globalised World, when we see images of the conflict that is currently occurring in Ukraine on our News Feeds, Whatsapp Groups, Telegram Twitter and Instagram; as well as of course on our TeleVision sets; we tend to lose sight of the human element and how close it could have been us instead. We sit far away and analyse it, show our support for the Corporation side by posting stickers and flags on our social media profiles and we feel good; as if we have done something worthwhile with our day. As if we have somehow “helped”.

But what are we actually achieving? I wonder. I am 58 years old and I have been in Kolkata for these past 3 chaotic covid driven lockdown years due to my 86 year old mother not being well and I, feeling that I need to fulfill my obligations; almost my duty, as it were, to be with her. Not that I do much, it is just the reassurance that I am near her that helps her be a little less nervous as her age related dementia slowly takes over her life. This is the longest time I have ever spent at a stretch in the Indian Republic and it is an ongoing unique experience.

These past 3 years has allowed me to see the world and its complex intertwined machinations of media propaganda, lies and deceit from the perspective of, as if almost, of someone who has perhaps never ventured outside the Republic but is trying to make sense of it all from within a nation that is itself deeply complex and almost impossible to categorise into nice “keywords” or even “key phrases”.

This is a vast country of 1,400 million people, 350 million of whom speak English as a first language fluently, and, who are in turn deeply influenced by “Western Values” and “Corporate Media”. There are parts of this gigantic nation that are rooted firmly in the traditions and living standards of the year 1800, and, yet; turn the next corner, and you walk into parts where the value of land and apartments exceed those of New York City and the ultra-posh parts of Central London, and are awash in technology and innovation that will leave you in awe.

Yet, the Indian Republic is; regardless of the constraints that bind it like a vice, still a very important country in the overall grand scheme of things. However when you sit in London and consume the information broadcasts of the British Government owned BBC, (for which every household, by the way, needs to pay for via a tax called the TV Licence Fee of approximately 160 pounds per year), you feel that India hardly even exists; except for when there is a requirement to present a “balanced output” by showing poor Indians eating with their hands, sitting on the floor, their dark faces smiling but oh so happy; which allows the message to be conveyed that —  oh, look how spiritual they are and how nicely these Wogs behave themselves even after all the humiliation we put them through, both internationally and within their own country via sanctions and immoral IMF and World Bank loans which are now beginning to generate hyper-inflation and an internal currency crisis.

Look at them, they don’t fight back, nor, complain. They just take it “where the sun don’t shine” and get on with their lives of coolie servitude, (just like when we ruled over them; back in the good ole days). Wish these uppity Arabian sand niggas and Russian steppe niggas would do the same and not be so “Bolshy” about “denazification” and things like “demilitarization”. I mean after all, you know how it is yeah; if those Russkie boys start pulling on that denazification string than how long before it unwinds all over us in the United Kingdom and our deep complicity in fomenting and nurturing this Slavic bloodbath of death and destruction. Why can’t they be just like these “house niggas’ in India and all just sort of, you know, get along and all that.

It’s all fine and it is all good.

But living here within Kolkata and in turn, within the Indian Republic, I realise, now; how this same media machine can alter the very perception of reality for a nation where the median age is 25. A nation where the media is privately owned by huge Corporations that are all at the end of the day, funded generously from the “Home of the Brave” and “The Home of Imperial Empire”. Where a critical analysis of events that are about to radically alter their own futures is given no prominence.

Why is it that when I went downstairs to see how my mother was and to talk to her about the day, (with the TV being in her room), I saw that RT is blocked here in India with just a screen displaying the coloured test bars.

I hardly watch TeleVision and didn’t ever really take much notice before. I also noticed that the rest of the English language Indian channels are just mimicking the “West”, (by recycling selective media clips in endless loops) without any real commentary whatsoever. It is extremely surprising that India would block RT, as there has been no official Government Order to do so, until you realise that what has happened is that the private cable operators have just taken the decision upon themselves to act as guardians of good faith for their Colonial pay masters.

YouTube and FaceBook, I can understand.  They are Imperialist outlets but why the cable operators in India. India is officially neutral in this conflict but the Indian Government is clearly supporting the Russian Federation, and are fully aware themselves that the Indian Republic is now in the direct firing line for secondary sanctions from the US of A and from all the Instruments and Institutions owned by the “Exceptional Nation” and her servants and slaves; from the various UN Organisations and Agencies down to SWIFT.

There is a contradiction here. That contradiction is that the private media here in India is being exposed as totally owned by “foreign money” from the “West”; as are the cable operators, so much so that they feel they can do as their wish with regard to taking a decision to block RT without a Government Order.

This is about to lay the foundation for a problem later, as when these same foreign media sources can, and will, turn on the Government, (for not having voted against the Federation), when ordered to do so from outside the territory of the Republic to then put pressure on the Government by creating Social Chaos and Disturbant Upheaval  in India in the form of a Colour Revolution, by magnifying the already difficult situation of rising petrol prices, youth unemployment, enhanced further by inbound food scarcity and a grain price elevation crisis; that have not been caused by this conflict in Ukraine but have been building up, (actually since President Trump took office), within the Financial Derivatives Market in London, Frankfurt and New York as rising inflation was first seen in ETFs such as the RJA and WheatUsd about 3 years ago

This inflation was not caused by India, nor China, nor Russia nor by the “Global South” but rather by the Hedge Funds that forced unlimited Dollar printing of the World’s Reserve Currency in order to offset the losses from the Great Financial Crisis of 2006/2008 initiated by the Credit Default Swaps of the SubPrime Mortgage Scam. Now, with rising petrol and natural gas prices in the United Kingdom and the US of A, two economies which have both stalled and are facing stagnation and inbound “StagFlation” – a dangerously lethal combination of Stagnation coupled with Rampant Inflation, there is every incentive to destabilise India and gain total access to her vast internal market of 350 million “high end” consumers of junk, her vast resources and her fairly advanced network of technical, agricultural and scientific assets.

Now, at the moment, the Government and the Private Media are on the same page as the current Government uses them blatantly to project a larger than life image of the current Prime Minister and his fine achievements of grand oratory. Each get along nicely as they further each other’s interests. The Private Media get a vice-like grip on the consumption masses and the Government is delighted with the free publicity and lack of friction when it comes to getting them to broadcast delightful illusions to cloud over the current state of affairs, by masking the true conditions of the working classes from these very same workers. But what happens when this Private Media starts to diverge and act like private pirates and mercenaries against the Government of India. And believe me they will as they brook no allegiance except to their bosses in Wall Street, the Military-Financial-Industrial Complexes in the erstwhile, “West”.

The current Government has used this Western Financed Media like a weapon for their own gain and this very same Media knows his weaknesses and how easy it is to make him look like a fool to his own people. This Media has been, unfortunately, allowed to deeply and dangerously embed itself within the infrastructure of the entire Indian Government apparatus.

The Goose that laid the golden egg off which you fed yourself so sumptuously may be about to devour you itself.

When the order is given to punish India for not reading from the same hymn sheet as dictated by the Globalist Corporations, this very same Media will totally destabilise the Indian Republic on a grand scale.

So, it is what it is.

This is from a friend of mine in one of the Five Eyes Nations and I would like to conclude with the exact words as expressed by himself – “RT is suffering from DDOS attack. Here in Canada, you are prompted to DDOS guard when you go their site.  So the guardian of democracy and free speech is now funding hackers and blocking news sites”.

You have a site like SouthFront which has its DNS completely taken off the internet as if they never existed. These are not Denial of Service attacks where you flood them with spam much like someone shouting over you as you speak so your voice remains unheard and drowned in the noise. DNS is more akin to erasing your house and your very existence off the web, as if, you never existed to begin with.

SouthFront has been brilliantly able to overcome their difficulties under extreme pressure but the fact remains that why are you so persistent and hell bent on silencing them if you are totally on the right side of history in all this and they are but a fringe nuisance. A dog on your leg barking like a maniac. If so, then why go to such extreme methods? The more you do this the more it leaves an impression that you have something to hide. Something you don’t want SouthFront to show and talk about. After all, is this not all about Debating and Constructive Arguments that you yourself so proudly encourage within the Education System. An Education system that demeans Asians and Africans as all just barbarians that need to be civilised and Russians – ah, well; they are all — just beyond the pale. Nothing good can ever came from those steppe niggas and Slavs in the Ukraine.

I would also like to come back with another short essay of the story with which I opened. The story of a young Indian guy and how he escaped from Kiev with his one year old daughter and young Ukrainian wife and the pictures and details of the total chaos and confusion. It exposes the complicated  relationship that exists between racism, politics, being non-combatants, war, lies, propaganda and the selfless urge to survive for the sake of your child and your wife in a situation that has nothing to do with your place in it. All this is – just beyond the pale and exposes deep contradictions which are now all coming home to roost.

I hope to write that next. That is if you liked this one.

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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 condemns 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.

US media circulated false reports over the weekend alleging that Russia requested military aid from China to support its ongoing special operation in Ukraine. A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in the US was quoted by CNN on Sunday as saying that “I’ve never heard of that” while another one for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the day after that these reports were “disinformation”. This fake news scandal erupted a day before US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi on Monday in Rome to discuss Ukraine and other issues of relevance.

Prior to this information warfare provocation, similarly false reports were propagated alleging that China either knew in advance of Russia’s plans to launch its special military operation in Ukraine and told Moscow to delay its commencement until after the Beijing Winter Olympics or that Beijing could have stopped the operation outright.

What all of this fake news has in common is that it’s a doomed attempt to draw China into the conflict and misportray it as taking sides instead of being neutral like it truly is. The US is obviously disturbed by China’s very pragmatic stance towards the latest events.

That’s why American officials have recently threatened Chinese companies with so-called “secondary sanctions” if they defy the US’ unilateral and illegally imposed primary ones. The zero-sum choice that Washington is attempting to force the People’s Republic to decide upon is whether Beijing sides with Moscow or against it. This, of course, is a false choice since a third option remains the most viable, which is for China to continue with its pragmatically neutral stance of calling on all sides to prioritize a political solution as soon as possible. It’s also sending humanitarian aid to Ukraine to help the people.

From a broader perspective, the grand strategic dynamics at play are becoming clearer by the day. The US unexpectedly decided to prioritize the “containment” of Russia over China despite prior indications strongly suggesting that it would continue attempting to “contain” the latter instead. The so-called “maximum pressure” campaign being waged against Russia includes unprecedentedly intense sanctions that are targeting literally every aspect of life, especially in the energy, financial, and technological spheres. These are intended to cripple Russia’s macroeconomic growth prospects and incite unrest.

Nevertheless, the US knows very well that Russia will not collapse as a result of this latest multidimensional hybrid war campaign against it. This is especially the case because it can depend on China for support as required, which is assured as a result of their reaffirmed strategic partnership pact from early last month that was agreed to during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trip to China to attend the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics. That document specifically concerns “International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development”.

America’s attempts to divide and rule Russia and China through fake news reports and illegal “secondary sanctions” pressure are doomed to fail, but it’s still important to draw attention to how these efforts risk manipulating the perceptions of the global public.

The average news consumer who isn’t keenly aware of the facts undergirding the rock-solid Chinese-Russian Strategic Partnership might be misled by those false claims that were cited in this piece into thinking that Beijing either conspired with Moscow ahead of the latter’s special military operation in Ukraine or is about to backstab it at the US’ behest. Both impressions are flat-out false, but misleading folks into thinking one or the other is true is the US’ goal.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) declares its support for garment workers in Haiti and stands with the Haitian people who, migrating from the country for economic or political reasons, have faced racism, hostility, and terror abroad. We also condemn the neo-colonial political economic policies of the U.S. government, its international allies, and the multinational corporations who have created Haiti’s imperial crisis by continuing to undermine the sovereignty and independence of the Haitian people.

Early in the year, garment workers launched protests at the Caracol Industrial Park in Haiti’s northeast region. These protests have since spread to Port-au-Prince. The workers—mostly women—have demanded wage increases and decried the dehumanizing and demeaning sweatshops in which they are employed. Their demands have been blocked by the U.S. government and by those foreign corporations, including Hanes, New Balance, Champion, Gilden Activewear, Gap, and Walmart, which have profited from a decades-long history of Haitian labor exploitation and wage suppression. With wages at a criminally-low figure of under $5 per day, the workers are demanding an increase to $15 per day.

At the same time, thousands of Haitian people continue to abandon their homes and flee their country for economic and political reasons.

Their journeys abroad are uncertain and perilous and their encounters with foreign governments have been punitive and hostile. Only last week, a boat carrying more than 300 Haitians capsized off the coast of Florida. In Mexico, Haitian migrants confront daily the racism of immigration agents and the National Guard and thousands of Haitians have been illegally incarcerated in Tapachula in what some have described as concentration camps. The Dominican Republic, with help from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, is militarizing its border with Haiti, beginning construction on a planned 164-kilometer long wall with 70 watchtowers and 41 access points. Dominican President Luis Abinader has called it an “intelligent fence”: It will use radars, drones, movement sensors,  cameras and, of course, well-armed border patrol agents to prevent Haitian migration.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration deports Haitian asylum seekers at a record pace. Biden has continued the use of Trump-era policies including “Remain in Mexico” and “Title 42” to deny asylum seekers the right to due process and safety. More than 20,000 Haitians have been deported within Biden’s first year in office, a number greater than the record of the previous three presidents combined.

It goes without saying that the treatment of Haitian people provides a stark, racial contrast with that of Ukrainian refugees. While Biden has told Haitians, “Don’t come over,” he has welcomed Ukrainians “with open arms.”

For the Black Alliance for Peace, imperialism is the root cause of both the protests of Haiti’s garment workers and the experiences of Haitian migrants. While multinational corporations have undermined Haiti’s workers, the U.S. government, alongside U.S.-led bodies like the Organization of American States (OAS) and the CORE Group, have decapitated the Haitian state. As Haitain wages have been suppressed, Haitian democracy has been throttled. And as Haitian immigrants are abused in and deported from foreign countries, it is foreign meddling that has created the conditions forcing Haitians to migrate.

Thus, as Jemima Pierre, BAP’s Haiti/Americas Committee Coordinator, reminds us, “Haiti’s domestic crises are crises of imperialism, generated by the policies of the United States and its allies.”

The Black Alliance for Peace reaffirms its solidarity with the Haitian people in their unremitting struggles for peace, independence, and self-determination against U.S./UN imperialism. We salute our sisters and brothers fighting for higher wages and better working conditions at home, and in their quest for a better life abroad.

• The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) calls on all organized labor to organize boycotts of Hanes, Levis, Fruit of the Loom and H&M in solidarity with Haitian workers.
• BAP demands that the Biden regime stop its racist hypocrisy and end  deportations of Haitian asylum seekers.
• BAP demands that Haitian refugees and asylum seekers in the United States, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and elsewhere be treated with dignity and be afforded their legal rights under international law.
• BAP calls on all organizations in the Caribbean and Latin America to issue denunciations of the OAS and United States and organize regular pickets outside of their headquarters and embassies.
• BAP calls on all human rights organizations and members of the Black liberation movements to organize long term strategic solidarity campaigns to support self-determination for the Haitian people.

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***

It was a long time coming, but finally some key lineaments of the multipolar world’s new foundations are being revealed.

On Friday, after a videoconference meeting, the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and China agreed to design the mechanism for an independent international monetary and financial system. The EAEU consists of Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Armenia, is establishing free trade deals with other Eurasian nations, and is progressively interconnecting with the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

For all practical purposes, the idea comes from Sergei Glazyev, Russia’s foremost independent economist, a former adviser to President Vladimir Putin and the Minister for Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasia Economic Commission, the regulatory body of the EAEU.

Glazyev’s central role in devising the new Russian and Eurasian economic/financial strategy has been examined here. He saw the western financial squeeze on Moscow coming light-years before others.

Quite diplomatically, Glazyev attributed the fruition of the idea to “the common challenges and risks associated with the global economic slowdown and restrictive measures against the EAEU states and China.”

Translation: as China is as much a Eurasian power as Russia, and they need to coordinate their strategies to bypass the US unipolar system.

The Eurasian system will be based on “a new international currency,” most probably with the yuan as reference, calculated as an index of the national currencies of the participating countries, as well as commodity prices. The first draft will be already discussed by the end of the month.

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.

In the medium to long term, the spread of the new system will translate into the weakening of the Bretton Woods system, which even serious US market players/strategists admit is rotten from the inside. The US dollar and imperial hegemony are facing stormy seas.

Show me that frozen gold

Meanwhile, Russia has a serious problem to tackle. This past weekend, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov confirmed that half of Russia’s gold and foreign reserves have been frozen by unilateral sanctions. It boggles the mind that Russian financial experts have placed a great deal of the nation’s wealth where it can be easily accessed – and even confiscated – by the ‘Empire of Lies’ (copyright Putin).

At first, it was not exactly clear what Siluanov had meant. How could the Central Bank’s Elvira Nabiulina and her team let half of foreign reserves and even gold be stored in Western banks and/or vaults? Or is this some sneaky diversionist tactic by Siluanov?

No one is better equipped to answer these questions than the inestimable Michael Hudson, author of the recent revised edition of Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of the American Empire.

Hudson was quite frank:

“When I first heard the word ‘frozen,’ I thought that this meant that Russia was not going to expend its precious gold reserves on supporting the ruble, trying to fight against a Soros-style raid from the west. But now the word ‘frozen’ seems to have meant that Russia had sent it abroad, outside of its control.”

“It looks like at least as of last June, all Russian gold was kept in Russia itself. At the same time, it would have been natural to have kept securities and bank deposits in the United States and Britain, because that is where most intervention in world foreign exchange markets occurs,” Hudson added.

Essentially, it’s all still up in the air:

“My first reading assumed that Russia must be doing something smart. If it was smart to move gold abroad, perhaps it was doing what other central banks do: ‘lend” it to speculators, for an interest payment or fee. Until Russia tells the world where its gold was put, and why, we can’t fathom it. Was it in the Bank of England – even after England confiscated Venezuela’s gold? Was it in the New York Fed – even after the Fed confiscated Afghanistan’s reserves?”

So far, there has been no extra clarification either from Siluanov or Nabiulina. Scenarios swirl about a string of deportations to northern Siberia for national treason. Hudson adds important elements to the puzzle:

“If [the reserves] are frozen, why is Russia paying interest on its foreign debt falling due? It can direct the “freezer’ to pay, to shift the blame for default. It can talk about Chase Manhattan’s freezing of Iran’s bank account from which Iran sought to pay interest on its dollar-denominated debt. It can insist that any payments by NATO countries be settled in advance by physical gold. Or it can land paratroopers on the Bank of England, and recover gold – sort of like Goldfinger at Fort Knox. What is important is for Russia to explain what happened and how it was attacked, as a warning to other countries.”

As a clincher, Hudson could not but wink at Glazyev:

“Maybe Russia should appoint a non-pro-westerner at the Central Bank.”

The petrodollar game-changer

It’s tempting to read into Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s words at the diplomatic summit in Antalya last Thursday as a veiled admission that Moscow may not have been totally prepared for the heavy financial artillery deployed by the Americans:

“We will solve the problem – and the solution will be to no longer depend on our western partners, be it governments or companies that are acting as tools of western political aggression against Russia instead of pursuing the interests of their businesses. We will make sure that we never again find ourselves in a similar situation and that neither some Uncle Sam nor anybody else can make decisions aimed at destroying our economy. We will find a way to eliminate this dependence. We should have done it long ago.”

So, ‘long ago’ starts now. And one of its planks will be the Eurasian financial system. Meanwhile, ‘the market’ (as in, the American speculative casino) has ‘judged’ (according to its self-made oracles) that Russian gold reserves – the ones that stayed in Russia – cannot support the ruble.

That’s not the issue – on several levels. The self-made oracles, brainwashed for decades, believe that the Hegemon dictates what ‘the market’ does. That’s mere propaganda. The crucial fact is that in the new, emerging paradigm, NATO nations amount to at best 15 percent of the world’s population. Russia won’t be forced to practice autarky because it does not need to: most of the world – as we’ve seen represented in the hefty non-sanctioning nation list – is ready to do business with Moscow.

Iran has shown how to do it. Persian Gulf traders confirmed to The Cradle that Iran is selling no less than 3 million barrels of oil a day even now, with no signed JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement, currently under negotiation in Vienna). Oil is re-labeled, smuggled, and transferred from tankers in the dead of night.

Another example: the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), a huge refiner, just bought 3 million barrels of Russian Urals from trader Vitol for delivery in May. There are no sanctions on Russian oil – at least not yet.

Washington’s reductionist, Mackinderesque plan is to manipulate Ukraine as a disposable pawn to go scorched-earth on Russia, and then hit China. Essentially, divide-and-rule to smash not only one but two peer competitors in Eurasia who are advancing in lockstep as comprehensive strategic partners.

As Hudson sees it:

“China is in the cross-hairs, and what happened to Russia is a dress rehearsal for what can happen to China. Best to break sooner than later under these conditions. Because the leverage is highest now.”

All the blather about “crashing Russian markets,” ending foreign investment, destroying the ruble, a “full trade embargo,” expelling Russia from “the community of nations,” and so forth – that’s for the zombified galleries. Iran has been dealing with the same thing for four decades, and survived.

Historical poetic justice, as Lavrov intimated, now happens to rule that Russia and Iran are about to sign a very important agreement, which may likely be an equivalent of the Iran-China strategic partnership. The three main nodes of Eurasia integration are perfecting their interaction on the go, and sooner rather than later, may be utilizing a new, independent monetary and financial system.

But there’s more poetic justice on the way, revolving around the ultimate game-changer. And it came much sooner than we all thought.

Saudi Arabia is considering accepting Chinese yuan – and not US dollars – for selling oil to China. Translation: Beijing told Riyadh this is the new groove. The end of the petrodollar is at hand – and that is the certified nail in the coffin of the indispensable Hegemon.

Meanwhile, there’s a mystery to be solved: where is that frozen Russian gold?

*

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This article was originally published on The Cradle.

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

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Cradle

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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***

“We could completely offset the negative consequences of financial sanctions if the Bank of Russia fulfilled its constitutional duty to ensure a stable ruble exchange rate, and not the recommendations of Washington financial organizations…. It was the connivance of the Central Bank which led to the fact that Russia and its industry were drained of blood and unable to develop.” Sergey Glazyev, Russian economist and author

“A person has to wonder why Russia has taken none of these steps that would bring instant agonizing cries from the stupid West and an immediate end to all sanctions and Russophobic propaganda. Russia can dictate the terms. Why does she forgo this power?” Paul Craig Roberts

Mike Whitney: Do you agree that the motive behind Washington’s sanctions on Russia is to bring the country to its knees, remove it as a competitive rival to the US in Central Asia, and force Putin from office?

Paul Craig Roberts: Possibly. Washington is sufficiently stupid to think this. 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. The West would soon be begging for mercy and agree to whatever Russia specified.

Russia is unable to use the vast power she has over the West, because Russian economists and the central bank have been brainwashed by American neoliberal economists that Russia needs foreign exchange to develop. This is amazing rubbish, as I demonstrated in my recent column—

Indeed, Michael Hudson and I have explained it to the Russians a number of times. If you think your fate depends on foreign exchange, you continue keeping your enemy alive by selling your strategic assets to him.

What I think Washington is actually doing is taking advantage of the Kremlin’s go-slow war so as to minimize civilian casualties. This gives Washington time to conduct a psyops campaign that hardens hatred of Russia throughout the Western world and any other part of the world susceptible to Western media. Basically, it is an effort to protect Washington’s control over Europe from European negotiation with Russia. Washington with the aid of the presstitutes is putting Russia beyond the pale, making Russia off limit for European interaction.

This is actually in Russia’s interest as it defeats the internal Russian Fifth Column, the Atlanticist Integrationists who are willing to sacrifice Russian sovereignty to globalism and being a part of the West.

Once Russia is banned from foreign capital, the Russian central bank will have to do its job and finance Russia’s internal development. Foreign investment in Russia only serves to impoverish the country as the earnings are repatriated abroad and taken out of the country. Indeed, the sanctions and seizures of deposits of Russian banks is a great reason for Russia to regain ownership of its own resources by nationalizing all foreign investment in Russia. It is unclear whether the Kremlin is sufficiently sophisticated to understand this.

MW: Do you agree that the Russian Central Bank is doing precisely the wrong thing at the wrong time by raising rates (20%), allowing the ruble to be traded on the foreign exchange and by failing to fund domestic businesses through the printing of money?

PCR: Yes, I agree. The brainwashed Russian central bank is serving, without understanding it, the West and the success of the West’s sanctions. Russia should be billing for its energy and minerals in rubles, thus supporting its own currency instead of the currencies of its enemies, and should establish exchange controls to prevent currency speculators from short-selling the ruble.

More on the Russian Central Bank from an earlier article by Paul Craig Roberts:

“The Russian central bank even thinks that it cannot create rubles to finance investment projects unless the rubles are backed up by foreign exchange. This has caused the central bank to borrow money it doesn’t need on which it pays interest. In other words, the Russian central bank’s policy is nonsensical and serves Western interests at Russia’s expense.

The Russians could close down Western industry if Russia ceased exporting energy and minerals, but is afraid to do so because of the foreign exchange loss….

Russia has no need for foreign exchange. She does not need to import energy and minerals. Russia is full of engineering and science and can make whatever she needs. The central bank can finance all internal projects. But as the Americans succeeded in brainwashing Russian economists, the Russians can’t use the powerful weapon they have at hand to bring the West to its knees begging for mercy. Moreover, the Russian economists don’t have enough sense to demand payment in rubles for their energy and minerals. This would strengthen their own currency rather than the currencies of their enemies. Why does the Russian central bank forgo the opportunity to use Russia’s exports to stabilize the Russian currency?

The conclusion is that in the sanctions game the Russians hold all the cards but do not know how to play them.

The West has nothing that Russia needs, but the West cannot survive without Russian energy and minerals.” (“Washington and Moscow vie for the Stupid Prize“, Paul Craig Roberts Web Site)

MW: From your perspective, is the Central Bank chief, Elvira Nabiullina, acting as a hostile foreign agent by implementing policies that clearly undermine Russia’s financial position and greatly intensify the impact of the sanctions?

PCR: I don’t think she understands that she is doing that, but, yes, that is what she is doing. Russia is still selling strategic resources to the West and accepting payment in dollars and euros, which strengthens the currencies of Russia’s enemies and weakens the ruble. To be precise, the Russian central bank is subsidizing the success of the Western sanctions. It is mindless.

More on the Russian Central Bank from an earlier article by Paul Craig Roberts:

“Russia has the opportunity created for her by the sanctions to correct her tragic strategic blunder of allowing foreigners to buy up her productive assets. Russia can nationalize the assets owned by companies of the sanctioning countries. The sanctioning countries are stealing Russian bank deposits so Russia should retaliate by stealing their real assets.

A person has to wonder why Russia has taken none of these steps that would bring instant agonizing cries from the stupid West and an immediate end to all sanctions and Russophobic propaganda. Russia can dictate the terms. Why does she forgo this power?…..

If Russia disempowers herself by refusing to play her winning hand, she will be brought down by her own stupidity, not by Western sanctions.” (“Washington and Moscow vie for the Stupid Prize”, Paul Craig Roberts Web Site)

MW: Russia is now the most sanctioned country in the world. These sanctions have been imposed arbitrarily and without review by the WTO, without approval by the United Nations Security Council, and without any regard for due process. Russia has had no opportunity to defend itself in a court of law or make its case before an internationally-approved tribunal. How do explain the fact that the majority Americans enthusiastically applaud this anti-democratic abuse of power that is clearly designed to inflict maximum pain on the Russian people?

PCR: Americans, like Canadians and Europeans, lack an independent media that reports honestly. Instead, the West gets a narrative handed down from the ruling elite and delivered into people’s heads by the presstitutes who through repetition turn lies into truth, fiction into fact.

There are no tribunals or international laws that can be enforced against the West. Russia’s mistake is that she responds to the accusations. She should ignore them and go about her business. What she should make clear is not the facts, as facts do not matter in the Western world. She should make clear her red lines and make clear that she means them by instantly destroying whoever crosses them. That is the only way Russia will have an end to Western provocations and the world will have peace.

MW: The death of George Floyd touched off a wave of anti-racism protests across the country. The Democrat party embraced these demonstrations and disparaged anyone who hesitated to offer their unquestioning support. Now these same faux liberals are openly expressing their unbridled hatred for all-things Russian. How do you explain this wave of ethnic hatred that has overtaken the American people particularly those people who never fail to remind us how anti-racist and virtuous they are?

PCR: Liberals or conservatives, they are the same. The average person hasn’t the time, energy, interest, or know-how to find out what is happening. They are programmed by the presstitutes who repeat with one voice the elite’s narrative, whether it is Covid, Saddam Hussein, Russia, 9/11, it doesn’t matter. There is only the official narrative.

It is easy to make Americans hate Russia because they are accustomed to it by the 20th century Cold War. Americans are accustomed to Russians being the enemy. The Russian side of the story is blocked from being presented in the West. So, the only information people in the West have is the official narrative.

*

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

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

Mike Whitney, renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace. 

He is Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Featured image is from TUR

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

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

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg and Twitter at @crglobalization. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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 condemns 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.

Just your regular reminder that the US empire

(A) had solid intelligence that this war was coming,

(B) knew they could prevent it by making very reasonable, low-cost concessions like promising not to add a nation to NATO that they didn’t want to add anyway, and (C) chose not to.

*

It’s 2022 and people still believe the US is pouring weapons into a foreign country to protect freedom and democracy. That’s like being 57 and still believing in the Tooth Fairy.

*

The US empire has had a standing policy of preventing the rise of any rival superpowers since the USSR collapsed, by which I mean that policy was explicitly laid out in writing within months of the Soviet Union’s dissolution. Both Moscow and Beijing have refused to kiss the imperial ring, and crippling Russia is an essential part of hamstringing China’s rise. This was all planned years ago.

Gilbert Doctorow described back in 2017 how Moscow and Beijing have formed a mutually beneficial “tandem” based on their respective strengths; Russia as a major military force who is willing to confront the US empire, and China as a rising economic superpower. Empire managers had previously expected that Moscow would be forced to pivot to Washington and become a member state of the empire. The fact that it chose Beijing instead to retain its sovereignty is what set all this in motion.

This was all planned years in advance. It’s no coincidence that we were hammered with narratives originating from US intelligence agencies which inflamed hysteria about Russia in the years leading up to this, most of which had nothing to do with Ukraine. I mean for Christ’s sake, even the one narrative that did involve Ukraine occurred because a CIA officer (ridiculously labeled a “whistleblower” by the mass media) just so happened to be in the right place at the right time to get it rolling.

So we’re all going to suffer financially and live under the risk of total obliteration via nuclear war in a long-planned confrontation geared toward obtaining total planetary domination, just because a few manipulators in the US government decided that would be a good thing.

It doesn’t need to be this way. Never did. There’s no good reason why nations can’t just get along and work together for the common good of all. The only reason that’s not happening is because of this insane desire to dominate and control instead of collaborate and thrive.

*

Again: pouring weapons into Ukraine is not how you save lives. You save lives by accepting Russia’s conditions. Pouring weapons into Ukraine is how you try to draw Moscow into a long, bloody insurgency like the US did in Afghanistan and Syria which will cost thousands more lives.

These demands will be met whether Kyiv agrees to them or not:

The Kremlin has announced its demands for ending the war in Ukraine:
-Ukraine must change its constitution to guarantee it won't join any "blocs", i.e. NATO + EU.
-Must recognise Crimea as part of Russia.
-Must recognise the eastern separatist regions as independent.

— Patrick Reevell (@Reevellp) March 7, 2022

The only difference is agreeing to them now saves thousands of lives. Kyiv cannot stop Russia. Whether Russia is dumb enough to be drawn into waging a gruelling counter-insurgency against empire-backed proxy forces is another matter.

Western governments are making no real secret that they know this is an unwinnable war for Kyiv. They had more faith in the Afghan regime’s ability to hold up against the Taliban than they do in Ukraine. And rightly so. This is just wasting human lives.

This is a proxy war to advance US unipolarist objectives. Nothing more, nothing less. If you still support it because you like the US empire then just say that; don’t pretend it’s about saving lives, and don’t pretend you give a shit about Ukrainians.

*

It was correct to oppose the dangerous agendas that were rolled out by the US empire in the jingoistic hysteria after 9/11. Doing so didn’t make you an Osama lover, and it didn’t mean you supported the killing of Americans. And anyone who claimed otherwise was being an asshole.

It is correct to oppose the dangerous agendas being rolled out by the US empire in the jingoistic hysteria of the Ukraine war. Doing so doesn’t make you a Putin lover, and it doesn’t mean you support the killing of Ukrainians. And anyone who claims otherwise is being an asshole.

*

I’m old enough to remember when disagreeing with someone’s opinion didn’t mean they’re a secret agent conducting psyops for a foreign government.

It says so much about where we’re at as a civilization that one of the most outrageous, controversial and incendiary things you can do on social media today is criticize the most powerful government in the world for its role in starting a war.

It’s laughably absurd to demand that only Putin be criticized for this when already so few are criticizing the western actions that led us here. It’s infantile and insulting to the intellect. It deserves not the slightest shred of respect. It deserves only disdain and rejection.

You don’t get to saturate the western world with a single homogeneous and plot hole-riddled pro-NATO narrative, ban media outlets who dispute that narrative, and then still scream at people for criticizing NATO actions that led to a war. That’s not a thing. Shut your dopey mouth.

*

Nuclear war is the single greatest and most immediate threat to our species today and avoiding it should be our absolute foremost priority. Whatever your other concerns, agendas, desires or ideological preferences, none of them will matter if nobody is left on earth. For anything else you fear or desire to be at all relevant in the future, war between nuclear superpowers must first be averted. This is self-evident.

*

Western powers initiating de-escalation and detente is the only sane option on the table, and those who are calling for it are being shouted down, censored and marginalized while hawkish escalations and brinkmanship are being advocated by the entire political/media class.

*

Putin is responsible for Putin’s decisions, the western empire is responsible for the western empire’s decisions. Putin is responsible for choosing to invade, the western empire is responsible for choosing the actions which led to that decision. Not complicated.

It’s the Russian people’s job to hold their leaders to account, and it’s our job to hold our leaders to account. The western empire could end this anytime and pursue de-escalation and detente. It’s choosing not to. That choice is costing lives and leading us toward nuclear war.

You have power. If you choose to impotently masturbate your emotions about Putin rather than choosing to exercise that power by calling on your own leaders to turn away from this destructive path, then the consequences of that decision are, to some extent, on you.

You asked for a robust anti-war movement in America, you got demonstrations calling for World War 3. https://t.co/Gjk3TuUcen

— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) March 7, 2022

74 percent of Americans say they support a US/NATO no-fly zone in Ukraine because the press and the pollsters aren’t doing their fucking job and telling people what those words mean.

I repeat that it would really help if we switched from calling it a “no-fly zone” to calling it a “directly attack the Russian military zone”.

When people tell me a no-fly zone or other military attack on Russia wouldn’t lead to nuclear war I like to ask them “Are you willing to bet every life on earth that you’re right about that?” Really press them on this one. Make them answer, and make them justify their answer.

*

It’s very revealing how in the minds of empire apologists the conflict under debate is always comparable to World War 2, the one war that the US can justify having entered into eighty years ago, instead of all its many other wars since that it can’t justify at all.

*

All the talk about World War 2 lately reminds me of how the Soviets beat Hitler while the US needlessly nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki and burned 100,000 civilians alive in Tokyo and then used its global narrative control to take credit for winning the entire war.

*

When you refuse to fully examine your western privilege, defense will look like an attack.

When you refuse to examine your western privilege, you can talk about your trauma all the damn day long while inflicting vast amounts of trauma on families in the name of “not giving in” to Putin.

When you refuse to examine your western privilege, you can claim a country on the other side of the world that you didn’t know the name of last week is something you’re willing to blow the world up for in order not to “give up”, like it was ever “yours” in the first place.

When you refuse to examine your western privilege, you can comfortably buy the lie that you’re perpetually up-punching in every conflict, always the little Marvel hero coming to save the world from the big bad evil villain.

When you refuse to examine your western privilege, you refuse to examine why everything in the world is “ours” to “defend” and why no things are ever “none of our damn business.”

When you refuse to examine your western privilege, you perceive someone taking a privilege away as someone taking something that was “yours” that was never yours in the first place.

When you refuse to examine your western privilege, you indulge in a kind of political Munchausen syndrome where you are a perpetual victim that is always being bullied.

When you refuse to examine your western privilege, you can read one (1) New York Times think piece about a situation you knew literally nothing about five minutes ago and assume that your new-found opinion is the only opinion that exists and every other opinion needs censoring.

*

We don’t make a big enough deal about how MSNBC fired Phil Donahue for not supporting the Iraq war. Couldn’t ask for more damning evidence that mass media institutions care about conducting propaganda and not truth or facts or holding the powerful to account.

Corporate media have every incentive to beat the drums of war as loud as possible 24/7, from ratings, to maintaining access to government officials, to defending the status quo their plutocratic owners have built their kingdoms upon. Anyone who wants to make money in news media now knows that in order to do that you’ve got to consistently demonstrate that you will always promote the interests of the oligarchic empire at every opportunity. Donahue didn’t play the game.

*

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Featured image is from Facebook

Video: ‘There are 25+ US-funded Biolabs in Ukraine’: Tulsi Gabbard

By Rep Tulsi Gabbard and OpIndia, March 15, 2022

The former US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard Sunday posted a video on Twitter reiterating claims about US-funded Biolabs in Ukraine. Expressing concerns over the “inadvertent or intentional” breach of these dangerous pathogens, Gabbard called for an immediate ceasefire around these US-funded laboratories in Ukraine.

Police Killings Continue While the Biden Administration Calls for More Funding to Law-Enforcement

By Abayomi Azikiwe, March 16, 2022

In Minneapolis, Mayor Jacob Frey, who was in office at the time of the murder of Floyd and the subsequent rebellions in the city and around the country, has now issued a proposal to ban “No-Knock Warrants”.

Video: Shocking Findings in the CDC Data on Excess Mortality: Edward Dowd

By Alexandra Bruce, March 15, 2022

Millennials actually saw the highest increase in excess deaths of any other age group, due to the mandates imposed upon them, in order to keep their jobs, 7 times higher than the Silent Generation (those aged 85+).

Far-right Extremists in Ukraine Brag They Have Received Training from the Canadian Forces: Report

By David Pugliese, March 15, 2022

The study from an institute at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., tracked social media accounts of the far-right group Centuria, documenting its Ukrainian military members giving Nazi salutes, promoting white nationalism and praising members of Nazi SS units.

West Pressures Thailand to Take Their Side Against Russia

By Brian Berletic, March 15, 2022

In a bid to pressure the Thai government over Ukraine and Russia, the same Western-backed opposition groups and media platforms attempting to overthrow the current Thai government for years, is now being mobilized to poison the Thai public against Russia and the Thai government for not taking a firm stance alongside (or perhaps at the feet of) the West.

Putin’s Brave New World: Russia’s Objectives in Ukraine, and What They Mean for the West

By Nicholas Meyers, March 15, 2022

If we consider that Russia’s borders will inevitably be redrawn following the military intervention, and sections of what are currently modern-day Ukraine will reside within those new borders, it would perhaps seem more realistic to expect that Putin does not intend to “occupy” all of Ukraine.

Supreme Court Says Torture at CIA Black Site Is a “State Secret”

By Prof. Marjorie Cohn, March 15, 2022

Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo wrote in a declaration that although the enhanced interrogation techniques are no longer classified, the location of the CIA black site in question remains a state secret. Pompeo maintained that soliciting information about the involvement of Polish nationals in Zubaydah’s treatment could compromise national security.

Who Actually Caused this War in Ukraine?

By Eric Zuesse, March 15, 2022

Because of your underlying assumption that ONLY WRITTEN agreements count, I just now did some research on whether America’s now having unilaterally cancelled Russia’s membership in the WTO (World Trade Organization) so as to be able to tariff at sky-high rates Russian imports into the U.S. is legal. America is a signed member of WTO, and so is Russia.

The Thousands of Fetal Deaths Recorded After COVID-19 Vaccines that Nobody Wants to Report and that Facebook Is Trying Hard to Censor

By Brian Shilhavy, March 15, 2022

he U.S. Government’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) database was updated this past Friday, March 11, 2022, and it is now reporting that there have been 1,168,894 cases of injuries and deaths following COVID-19 vaccines since December of 2020, when the FDA issued emergency use authorizations for the COVID-19 vaccines.

Pfizer Pushes for 4th Shot, Says 3 Doses ‘Not That Good’ Against Infections

By Megan Redshaw, March 15, 2022

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla on Sunday said the vaccine maker plans to submit data on a fourth dose of its COVID-19 vaccine to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration because protection after three doses is “not that good against infections” and “doesn’t last very long” when faced with a variant like Omicron.

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

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

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg and Twitter at @crglobalization. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Amir Locke, a 22-year-old African American youth, was shot to death on February 2 in his bed by a Minneapolis SWAT team which entered his apartment without a warrant.

Locke was not a suspect in any crime and was armed with a licensed weapon he was holding while asleep.

This is the same municipality where George Floyd was brutally murdered in broad daylight on May 25, 2020, sparking an international movement which further exposed the racist and oppressive character of the police in the U.S. The police killers of Floyd have been convicted in state and federal courts, yet the widespread terrorizing of African Americans and other people of color communities continue at a feverish pace.

In Minneapolis, Mayor Jacob Frey, who was in office at the time of the murder of Floyd and the subsequent rebellions in the city and around the country, has now issued a proposal to ban “No-Knock Warrants”. However, the problems of police misconduct and brutality are not new to Minneapolis and the recent initiative by the City of Minneapolis does provide loopholes that would allow the type of law-enforcement intrusions into people’s homes that result in many unjustified deaths.

During a press conference on March 14, Frey told the media that:

“The purpose here is to give people who are trying to comply, people who are trying to do the right thing, giving them the ability to again, get their wherewithal, answer the call if possible, and to make sure that officers are then entering into a situation where an individual is well-informed about who is entering the place.” Nonetheless, there are no prohibitions on the use of lethal force when the police believe that a “exigent” circumstance exists in the minds of law-enforcement personnel.

Such language by Frey continues to place the onus of responsibility in encounters with the police upon the African American and other oppressed peoples. The assumption is that law-enforcement agencies are composed of people with good intentions devoid of racist and class bias.

Figures which have been gathered in recent years indicate that these false assumptions have no basis in reality. The number of people harassed, stalked, brutalized and killed by police as well as racist vigilantes has increased over the last decade.

A website which monitors the number of people dying at the hands of law-enforcement officers reveals that the problem is worsening. The mass demonstrations and rebellions which have arisen over the previous two years are in direct response to the hostility and aggressiveness of police agencies in the U.S. Among the masses of African American working class people, and their counterparts within other oppressed and marginalized population groups, there is no indication that attitudes towards the police have improved.

When the issues of security are discussed outside the ruling interests of the U.S. and its allies, there is a disconnect between proponents of increased support for the criminal justice system and those who are the victims of police brutality. Even the increase in domestic violence and street crime cannot be attributed to the lack of funding for law-enforcement. The overall social crisis in the U.S. due to economic distress aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic since early 2020, is never considered by the corporate media as a major triggering factor in interpersonal conflict.

Statista.com says of the present situation:

“Sadly, the trend of fatal police shootings in the United States seems to only be increasing, with a total 138 civilians having been shot, nine of whom were Black, as of March 2022. In 2021, there were 1,055 fatal police shootings, and in 2020 there were 1,021 fatal shootings. Additionally, the rate of fatal police shootings among Black Americans was much higher than that for any other ethnicity, standing at 38 fatal shootings per million of the population as of March 2022.”

Biden Repudiates the Main Slogan of Black Lives Matter

A State of the Union (SOTU) address delivered by President Joe Biden on March 1 drew particular attention from the corporate media when the current administration went out of its way to denounce the slogan “Defund the Police.” This slogan did not arise within a vacuum. The calls for the defunding and dismantling of law-enforcement in its present forms is rooted in the centuries-long legacy of policing which has reinforced systems of enslavement, legalized segregation, economic exploitation and national oppression.

Whether or not grassroots activists heard the resounding rejection of the BLM and the antiracist movement as a whole, the pronouncements by Biden did not go unnoticed by the corporate and government-controlled news agencies. Several articles were published the following day which emphasized this portion of the speech.

An article in USA Today, a conservative publication, said of the Biden speech:

“’Let’s not abandon our streets. Or choose between safety and equal justice,’ Biden said. ‘We should all agree: The answer is not to defund the police. The answer is to fund the police. Fund them with resources and training they need to protect our communities.’ Biden also noted that the American Rescue Plan provided $350 billion for local governments to hire more police and invest in ‘proven strategies like community violence interruption.’ His statement comes after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the slogan ‘has no place’ and is not the Democrats’ position.”

American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds allocated during 2021 have not been proven sufficient to counter the burgeoning economic downturn in the U.S. Inflation is at the highest level in over 40 years and will undoubtedly rise even faster in order to finance the current NATO war in Eastern Europe. There was much discussion during the SOTU speech on the purported threat posed by Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin. However, the major threat in many African American and working class communities are the unbridled racist police and vigilantes, compounding the failure of the Biden administration and Congress to pass legislation to assist the people in their struggle to secure housing, quality education, voting rights, environmental justice, an increase in minimum wages and gender rights.

Priorities Must Be Shifted to a People’s Agenda

2022 is a midterm election year and the present administration in Washington has consistently declined in its approval ratings among the electorate. African Americans are a key voting constituency for the Democratic Party of which Biden is the leader.

Image on the right: Ma’Khia Bryant

Two examples of the inability of the administration to satisfactorily handle the rise in police violence against the oppressed, are the recent exonerations of law-enforcement officers in the killing of Ma’Khia Bryant in Columbus, Ohio in April 2021 and Breonna Taylor during March 2020 in Louisville, Kentucky. Bryant, a 16-year-old in foster care, was gunned down by a police officer called to the scene of a fight between two teenagers.

The Guardian newspaper said of the decision by a Columbus grand jury to not charge the officer:

“Ma’Khia was killed in April 2021 by officer Nicholas Reardon as she swung a knife at a young woman, seconds after pushing another woman to the ground. Bryant was Black. Reardon is white…. Ma’Khia was shot four times. The coroner listed the cause of death as a homicide – a medical determination used in cases where someone has died at someone else’s hand but not a legal finding. It does not imply criminal intent…. Ma’Khia’s family expressed disappointment and said: ‘There should have been other non-deadly options available to deal with this situation.’ The family also called for ‘full-scale changes’ to Ohio’s foster-care system. ‘Ohio’s foster-care system is failing our children and we cannot stand by and allow this to continue,’ they said. ‘As the one-year anniversary of Ma’Khia’s death approaches, her family is resolute in their fight for justice on her behalf.’”

In the case of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old emergency medical technician was sleeping in her bed at home when police raided the apartment without notice. Breonna’s friend in the apartment with her fired shots in self-defense, while the police killed Taylor.

No one has ever been indicted in the death of Taylor. One dismissed officer was charged with reckless discharge of a firearm where bullets landed in another apartment. The former officer, Brett Hankison, was recently acquitted by a jury in Louisville.

The family of Taylor is demanding that the U.S. Justice Department prosecute the police officers involved in Breonna’s death for federal civil rights violations. The Biden administration has been reluctant to utilize its prosecutorial powers by going after police officers who kill civilians without cause. See this.

This consistent defense of deadly police officers by the courts and the political system is an important priority for African Americans and other opponents of state-sponsored violence and repression in the U.S. If the Biden administration continues to antagonize the workers and oppressed, they will be faced with renewed mass demonstrations and other forms of resistance which could negatively impact their presence and status within the White House and Congress.

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

Featured image: Breonna Taylor and Amir Locke; All images in this article are from Abayomi Azikiwe

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First published in February 2017

***

That pretty printed paper in your wallet, that stuff called money, where does it come from? What gives it value, and why can you buy things with it? The question is not an idle one, nor is it a cynical one, but rather ultimately practical. And yet, this essential question is never asked by the authorities who lecture us on economics, nor the politicians who grace us with their precious opinions from their gilt offices.

That is to say that even though the media brainwashes us into believing that money is the most important thing in the world, money itself can never be a topic for discussion.

The problem of money is an old one. The current crisis of money is a crisis of value, a crisis in which our money is cut down, eviscerated, and slaughtered before our very eyes by an invisible butcher called inflation, in a secret ritual whereby money is printed up by the Federal Reserve, using black magic, and then doled out to the rich and to the banks for free.

As we enter final horrific stage of this travesty, we will be forced to switch to digital currencies that are controlled by unaccountable powers at the Federal Reserve, powers who will turn off the money in our wallets, or freeze our accounts, or seize our money for taxes, or for fines, at their whim.

When banks print up money to buy stocks, or pay off the debts of the rich, the money in your pocket, in your savings account, decreases in value proportionally. In short, the rich are stealing your money by diluting it while you sleep. They call this theft “inflation,” implying that money becomes worth less following some natural principle. Inflation is, according to them, a natural disaster, like an earthquake or a typhoon, like a flood or a drought.

This fiction about money and value is backed up by the authoritative musings of the pay-to-play experts. But they all know that the money in your bank did not become less valuable because of an act of God. It was crushed when the banks cranked out trillions of dollars to buy worthless stock, to purchase useless weapons, to buy up farmland so that you will pay more for food, to buy up housing so that you will pay more for rent.

We cannot understand the current money crisis unless we consider the process by which we got here over the past hundred years.

Specifically, it was the establishment of the Federal Reserve on December 23, 1913 that started this downhill path. Although we needed a national bank accountable to the Congress and to the people, one in which money was created and regulated by the government in a transparent manner in accord with the Constitution, we ended up with a system wherein private banks have the final say over fiscal policy.

Sadly, the crafty and devious banker J. P. Morgan, and not visionaries like our founding fathers, put together the system that regulates money, that serves as the heart of the nation’s economy.

Although the system worked, the poison slowly spread through the body politic over the next century as the private banks used their control of money to bribe (that is to say, “to lobby”) congressmen, presidents, professors, journalists, and all other authority figures to endorse this system, thereby leading the cow to the slaughterhouse.

Ultimately, the fiscal policies of the United States, the creation, distribution, and the determination of the value of money, are determined by private bankers, or by government officials at the Department of the Treasury were raised by the banks, and are loyal to them, not to the people.

There was a period, from the 1930s to the 1970s, when the Federal Reserve was relatively well administered. Government officials were aware of the dangers of unregulated global finance and they benchmarked efforts to control capital in Europe, and even in the socialist block. But the corrupt and unconstitutional nature of this false national bank never really changed: it sought to toss off the flimsy chains put on it during the New Deal, and it reared its ugly head again in the 1990s.

When the banks discovered that their secret takeover met almost no opposition in a decadent passive society, they decided to seize control of not only the economy, but of politics, of education, of medicine, and of culture in 2020.

Men and women of conscience abandoned the federal government like rats from a sinking ship.

But let us go back to the value of money. Money was backed by gold in 1879. That meant that in theory you could redeem your dollar bill for gold, and on occasion people did so. But when the entire edifice of government and the economy collapsed in the great depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, on June 5, 1933, ended the gold standard and placed in its stead the authority of the federal government.

Although this move made sense in light of the horrific economic crisis, and the fact that the rich controlled all the gold, the result was that the dollar was no longer tied to anything but the impression that the government had authority. That is to say that the nature of money became ideological.

Yes, a tentative relationship between the dollar and gold was established again after the Federal Reserve had amassed a significant amount of gold, but that relationship was tangential. The citizen could not simply demand that his or her dollars be redeemed in gold, and even that tie was severed permanently by President Richard Nixon in 1971.

The move away from gold, from any concrete object that gave value to the slips of paper in your wallet, created a fiat currency, as it is called, and such an untethered money had a malign impact on American society, granted that the changes were so slow as to be imperceptible.

During the 1930s, the depression, the federal government printed up money to help pay those who had been impoverished by the collapse of the speculative economy.

Economic recovery for the working men and women was successful, but in a limited sense. The new role of the Federal government, the projects for electrification and road building, had a mixed impact on our society.

On the one hand, life became easier, and more convenient, and for some it was healthier. The poor were, for the first time, treated as citizens when programs like social security and welfare offered them real protection against the terrible poverty that has haunted the working man since time immemorial.

This approach to economics, to money, was deeply influenced by the experiments carried out in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, and it had real merits.

But there was a price to be paid for this solution.

The resulting New Deal was a compromise that brought change, but that demanded citizens give up economic, organizational, and intellectual independence. Our citizens came to rely on large organizations like federal government, and then later on multinational corporations—which essentially function as governments.

The small farmer in 1930 was largely independent in terms of money, energy, food, and the other necessities of life. They were many who met their needs without much interaction with banks or with government. The nation had been founded by leaders who felt that such independent self-sufficient farmers were the key to long-term democracy—a vision we should have held to.

Our citizens grew vegetables and animals for food, and could preserve that food for the winter. They produced energy from windmills, water mills, horses, and good old fashioned manual labor without depending on utility corporations, or multinational oil companies. They despised companies like Standard Oil that tried to make Americans dependent on petroleum.

Our citizens knew how to gather medicinal herbs and to treat health conditions without hospitals. They made their own furniture, bought iron tools from neighbors who forged it, or borrowed items from each other when required. Money was not critical to that economy, nor was consumption; chairs were made to last for a 100 years, dresses woven to last for 40 years. Frugality was a virtue.

The New Deal helped those devastated by the banks, but it demanded integration into a money economy run by the government, and specifically by the Federal Reserve, which remained under the control of the private banks who were just itching to toss off their reigns.

When the economy improved after the Second World War, and especially when Americans became dependent on government and corporations in the 1970s, the private banks starting making up the rules for money again, and buying off the supposed regulators.

Politicians will never suggest that we form cooperatives and establish our own local currencies, that we build a local economy that has no need for multinational banks or factory farms, no dependence on monopolistic logistics and distribution systems, no ties to marketing and sales gimmicks, nothing to do with the tools by which corporations mean to bleed us dry.

Almost all transactions today are carried out in the money controlled by the Federal Reserve, that is to say, money controlled by multinational corporations and banks, and the super-rich who hide behind them.

Moreover, as impressive as it may be that the dollar is the global currency, that means that any number of global banks and shifty billionaires around the world are interested in the dollar, not because they care about Americans, but because they wish to squeeze even more profit out of it.

You may be able to vote for a politician, and maybe your vote will be counted. But when it comes to the value of money, or to access to money, the United States is a dictatorship. The Department of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and the congressional committees overseeing monetary policy are tightly controlled by multinational private banks. No one who is not bought and paid for by them will be allowed to come near the process by which money is created and its value is determined.

And then there is the pseudoscience of economics, a field of study far less reputable than astrology and bloodletting, that tells us that interest rates, rather than the grand theft of money by multinational banks, is the cause of inflation; that tells us we must consume and waste in order to have a healthy economy; that suggests to us that importing food and other necessities from abroad through the parasitic logistics and distribution systems controlled by the banks, is a sign of growth, and that this scam is more modern and efficient than growing your own food and running your own local economy.

That fairy tale is a massive fraud. If you produce most necessities in your community and buy and sell, or barter, with each other, and if you run local banks as cooperatives, then the money, and the value, will remain in your community, and will not be siphoned off to vampire private equity firms in New York or Singapore, in London or Geneva.

*

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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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***

Fresh off a 7-day suspension from Twitter, BlackRock Whistleblower, Ed Dowd is back, with a horrifying report on Steve Bannon’s War Room.

Ed enlisted the help of an insurance industry expert to parse out the CDC Excess Deaths data. He says, “We were looking for other things but what we found was pretty shocking…He broke it down by age and he created a baselines for each age group to come up with excess mortality.

“And the money chart is really Chart 4, which shows that the Millennial age group, 25 to 44 experienced an 84% increase in excess mortality into the fall. It’s the worst-ever excess mortality, I think, in history.

Millennials actually saw the highest increase in excess deaths of any other age group, due to the mandates imposed upon them, in order to keep their jobs, 7 times higher than the Silent Generation, (those aged 85+).

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 condemns 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.

A visibly anxious and panicked Biden tweeted [1] yesterday, March 11:

“I want to be clear: We will defend every inch of NATO territory with the full might of a united and galvanized NATO. But we will not fight a war against Russia in Ukraine. A direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is World War III. And something we must strive to prevent.”

The string of rambling tweets betrayed the apprehensive mental state of a raving executive who was under tremendous pressure from certain quarters to significantly escalate the conflict with the arch-foe and wanted to console himself and the listeners that by not committing American ground and air forces to Ukraine, specifically for enforcing the no-fly zone, he was making the right decision.

Despite Russia’s massive nuclear arsenal, several Pentagon officials, full of hubris and evidently suffering from misplaced superiority complex, have recently made their misconceived institutional logic public that they no longer regard Russia as an equal military power, instead they contemptuously dubbed it “a second-rate regional power,” and if given an opportunity, they wouldn’t hesitate to take Russia head-on, even if the risk is as perilous as the conflict spiraling into a catastrophic nuclear war.

It’s noteworthy the national security and defense policies of the United States are formulated by the all-powerful civil-military bureaucracy, dubbed the deep state, whereas the president, elected through heavily manipulated electoral process with disproportionate influence of corporate interests, political lobbyists and billionaire donors, is only a figurehead meant to legitimize militarist stranglehold of the deep state, not only over the domestic politics of the United States but also over the neocolonial world order dictated by the self-styled global hegemon.

All the militaries of the NATO member states operate under the integrated military command led by the Pentagon. Before being elected president, General Dwight Eisenhower was the first commander of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE).

The commander of Allied Command Operations has been given the title Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), and is always a US four-star general officer or flag officer who also serves as the Commander US European Command, and is answerable to the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff.

CNN reported March 6 [2] Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley visited a week before an undisclosed airfield near the Ukraine border that has become a hub for shipping weapons. The airport’s location remains a secret to protect the shipments of weapons, including anti-armor missiles, into Ukraine. Although the report didn’t name the location, the airfield was likely in Poland along Ukraine’s border.

“US European Command (EUCOM) is at the heart of the massive shipment operation, using its liaison network with allies and partners to coordinate ‘in real time’ to send materials into Ukraine, a second Defense official said. EUCOM is also coordinating with other countries, including the United Kingdom, in terms of the delivery process ‘to ensure that we are using our resources to maximum efficiency to support the Ukrainians in an organized way,’ the official added.”

In Europe, 400,000 US forces were deployed at the height of the Cold War in the sixties, though the number has since been brought down [3] to almost 100,000 after European powers developed their own military capacity following the devastation of the Second World War. The number of American troops deployed in Europe now stands at 50,000 in Germany, 15,000 in Italy and 10,000 in the United Kingdom.

During the last year, the United States has substantially ramped up US military footprint in the Eastern Europe by deploying thousands of additional NATO troops, strategic armaments, nuclear-capable missiles and air force squadrons aimed at Russia, and NATO forces alongside regional clients have been provocatively exercising so-called “freedom of navigation” right in the Black Sea and conducting joint military exercises and naval drills.

The Biden administration approved on Feb. 24 an additional 7,000 US troops [4] to be deployed to Germany, bringing the total number of American forces sent to Europe to 15,000 this month, including troops previously deployed to Poland, Bulgaria and Romania. In Poland alone, the US military footprint now exceeds 10,000 troops as the majority of 15,000 troops sent to Europe last month went to Poland to join the 4,000 US troops already stationed there.

“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[5].

A spokesman for US European Command told CNN the United States was sending two Patriot missile batteries to Poland, and was also considering deploying THAAD air defense system, a more advanced system equivalent in capabilities to Russia’s S-400 air defense system.

Besides providing 2,000 surface-to-air missiles and 17,000 anti-armor munitions, including Javelins and NLAWs, to Ukraine’s security forces and allied militias, British Defense Minister Ben Wallace said [6] that the UK was considering sending the laser-guided Starstreak shoulder-fired anti-aircraft system, a significant upgrade from the Stinger missiles sent by the US, Germany and other allies. The weapon has a range of over four miles and can take down fighter planes more effectively than the Stinger.

Although NATO powers did provide Stingers to their jihadist proxies that helped turning the tide in the Soviet-Afghan war in the eighties, since then, despite providing anti-tank munitions and rest of weapons to militant groups in the proxy wars in Libya and Syria, Western powers have consistently avoided providing MANPADS to proxy forces, because such deadly anti-aircraft munitions could become a long-term threat not only to military aircraft but also to civilian airlines.

In the sheer desperation to inflict maximum material damage on Russia’s security forces, however, NATO appears to have breached its own long-standing convention of curbing the proliferation of anti-aircraft munitions. Following Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, Germany alone has proudly bragged [7] of dispatching caches of 500 US-made surface-to-air Stinger missiles and 2,700 Soviet-era, shoulder-fired Strela missiles to Ukraine’s conscript military.

Who would be responsible for the myopic and vindictive policy of providing anti-aircraft munitions to Ukraine’s irregular militias once Kyiv falls and those MANPADS are found in black markets posing grave risk to civilian airlines across the globe? In fact, Russia’s seasoned Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov alluded to the grave risk posed by the proliferation of anti-aircraft munitions in the peace talks with the Ukrainian counterpart in Turkey.

Russia’s reluctant and delayed military intervention in Ukraine is fundamentally a war of power projection, a shot across the bow to perfidious former allies, the East European states, who’ve been joining the EU and NATO in droves since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, that the collective security of Eurasian nations is a shared responsibility, and NATO’s eastward expansion along Russia’s western flank not only imperils the security of resurgent Russia but also compromises the balance of power in the multipolar world.

It’s worth recalling that before the Biden-Putin summit at Geneva last June, Russia had a similar troop build-up along Ukraine’s borders. Extending the hand of friendship, Russia significantly drawdown its forces along the western border before the summit last year. Instead of returning the favor, however, the conceited leadership of supposedly world’s sole surviving super power turned down the hand of friendship and even snubbed Putin.

Despite losing the empire in the nineties, as far as military power is concerned, Russia with its enormous arsenal of conventional as well as nuclear weapons still more or less equals the military power of the United States, as is obvious from the unfolding Ukraine war where all the NATO could do is watch it from distance, and not even attempting to enforce a no-fly zone lest the conflict spirals into a mutually destructive nuclear war.

But it’s the much more subtle and insidious tactic of economic warfare for which Russia has no antidote, as the global neocolonial order is being led by the United States and its Western European clients since the signing of the Bretton Woods Accord in 1945 following the Second World War. Because any state, particularly those pursuing socialist policies, that dares to challenge the Western monopoly over global trade and economic policies is internationally isolated and its national economy goes bankrupt over a period of time.

Despite having immense firepower at its disposal that could readily turn the tide in conflicts as protracted as Syria’s proxy war, the Russian advance in Ukraine has been slower than expected according to most estimates because Russia is only targeting military infrastructure and doing all it can to minimize collateral damage, particularly needless civilian losses in the former Soviet republic whose majority population is sympathetic to Russia.

Rather than mitigating suffering of Ukraine’s disenfranchised masses held hostage by the Zelensky regime, the self-styled champions of human rights are doing all they can to lure Russia into their “bear trap project,” a term borrowed from the Soviet-Afghan War of the eighties when Western powers used Pakistan’s security forces and generous funding from the oil-rich Gulf States for providing guerrilla warfare training and lethal weaponry to Afghan jihadists to “bleed the security forces” of former Soviet Union in the protracted irregular warfare.

The Congress’ recently announced [8] $1.5 trillion package to fund the federal government through September would boost national defense coffers to $782 billion, about a 6 percent increase. On top of the hefty budget increase, the package is set to deliver $13.6 billion in emergency funding to help Ukraine, nearly twice the assistance package initially proposed, including $3 billion for US forces and $3.5 billion for military equipment to Ukraine, plus more than $4 billion for US humanitarian efforts.

Of the $13.6 billion humanitarian and military assistance for Ukraine announced by the Biden administration, the top brass of the Pentagon is reportedly making preparations for disbursing $3.5 billion for providing military training and arms to millions of refugees who have fled Ukraine following the war.

The Machiavellian plan of NATO’s military strategists is to establish refugee settlements with the “humanitarian assistance” in the border regions of Ukraine’s neighboring countries Poland and Romania, and then provide guerrilla warfare training and lethal arms to all able-bodied men of military age in order to mount a war of attrition against Russia’s security forces.

Although NATO’s military strategists are drawing parallels with the Soviet-Afghan War of the eighties and the two-decade occupation of Afghanistan by the US forces from Oct. 2001 to August 2021 when the ragtag Afghan insurgents defeated two super powers of the era, and are betting on the success of Ukraine’s potential insurgency against Russian forces from border regions of Poland and Romania, those were two very different wars.

The former Soviet Union and the US never lacked resources to subdue insurgency in Afghanistan. What they lacked was the will to pour infinite military and economic resources into a meaningless war lacking clear strategic objectives over an indefinite period of time.

By contrast, the Vladimir Putin government is fully committed and Russia’s national security establishment regards Ukraine as an integral part of Russia, eastern Ukraine with its large Russian-speaking population in particular, and would go to any extent to integrate Ukraine into Russia’s sphere of influence and forestall NATO’s further eastward expansion along Russia’s vulnerable western flank.

If we take a cursory look at the insurgency in Afghanistan, the Bush administration toppled the Taliban regime with the help of the Northern Alliance in October 2001 in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attack. Since the beginning, however, Afghanistan was an area of lesser priority for the Bush administration.

The number of US troops deployed in Afghanistan did not exceed beyond 30,000 during George Bush’s tenure as the American president, and soon after occupying Afghanistan, Washington invaded Iraq in March 2003 to expropriate its 140 billion barrels proven oil reserves, and American resources and focus shifted to Iraq.

It was the ostensibly “pacifist and noninterventionist” Obama administration that made the Afghanistan conflict the bedrock of its foreign policy in 2009 along with fulfilling then-President Obama’s electoral pledge of withdrawing American forces from Iraq in December 2011, only to be redeployed a couple of years later when the Islamic State overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq in early 2014.

At the height of the surge of the US troops in Afghanistan in 2010, the American troops numbered around 100,000, with an additional 40,000 troops deployed by the rest of the NATO members, but they still could not manage to have a lasting impact on the relentless Taliban insurgency.

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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] Biden: Confrontation between NATO and Russia is World War III

[2] Mark Milley visited an undisclosed airfield near the Ukraine border

[3] What the US Gets for Defending Its Allies and Interests Abroad?

[4] An additional 7,000 US troops to be sent to Germany

[5] Pentagon shores up its NATO defenses in Europe

[6] How Biden scuttled Polish aircraft deal

[7] Germany to ship anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine

[8] $13.6 billion military and humanitarian assistance for Ukraine

Featured image is from The Anti-Media

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Highlights

The globalist cabal is planning to monopolize health systems worldwide through the creation of an international pandemic treaty that makes the World Health Organization the sole decision maker on pandemic matters

The WHO may also be planning to seize power over health systems more broadly. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has stated that his “central priority” as director-general of the WHO is to push the world toward universal health coverage

In the name of keeping everyone “safe” from infection, the globalist cabal has justified unprecedented attacks on democracy, civil liberties and personal freedoms, including the right to choose your own medical treatment.

Now, the WHO is gearing up to make its pandemic leadership permanent, and to extend it into the health care systems of every nation. The idea is to implement universal health care organized by the WHO as part of the Great Reset

If this treaty goes through, the WHO would have the power to call for mandatory vaccinations and health passports, and its decision would supersede national and state laws. Considering the WHO changed its definition of “pandemic” to “a worldwide epidemic of a disease,” removing the requirement of high morbidity, just about anything could be made to fit the pandemic criterion, including obesity

The SMART Health Cards system is used by more than a dozen countries, 25 U.S. states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.; the Australian Parliament is pushing a “Trusted Digital Identity Bill”; U.S. Congress is pushing the “Improving Digital Identity Act,” and the WHO has signed a deal with a Deutsche Telekom subsidiary to build the first global digital vaccine passport. All of these have one thing in common: the end goal, which is to expand them into a souped-up, global social credit system

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The globalist cabal is planning to monopolize health systems worldwide, and that plan is already underway. In June 2021, Dr. Julie Gerberding wrote a Time article¹ laying out the framework for an international pandemic-surveillance network, which would include threat prediction and preemption as well.

Gerberding served as director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2002 until 2009.² After leaving the CDC, she became the executive vice president of vaccines and then switched, years later, to strategic communications at Merck. This is particularly egregious as she was head of government’s regulatory agency for vaccines and immediately took a job with one of the largest vaccine manufacturers in the world. Unethical in spades, but perfectly legal.

Gerberding’s next spin through the revolving door was being named CEO of the Foundation of the National Institutes of Health (FNIH), March 1, 2022.³ Yesterday, I discussed the massive conflicts of interest at the FNIH, as its board is loaded with Big Pharma executives and even a representative of BlackRock, one of the top three largest investment firms in the world.

While Gerberding did not name the World Health Organization in her article, we now know that’s the organization designated as the top-down ruler of all things related to pandemics. However, some of the statements that have been made suggest that, in time, the WHO may also seize power over health systems more broadly.

The Globalists’ Next Move

In a February 18, 2022, article, Dr. Peter Breggin, author of “COVID-19 and the Global Predators: We Are the Prey,”⁴ warned that the next move in the globalists’ war on humanity is to seize control over the health care systems of the entire world:⁵

“We have discovered the next move of the global predators — already in progress — in their escalating assaults against individual and political freedom. The next big assault on human freedom involves a legalized takeover of national healthcare systems by the World Health Organization (WHO).

This stealth attack — with its initial plans already backed by many nations — will begin full implementation in 2024 if it is not quickly recognized and fought! … The Chinese Communist influence over WHO has been solid for more than a decade, and the party was able to install Tedros without any competition.

He became the first and only Director-General who is not a physician and instead is a communist politician. Now the Director-General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus — known simply as Tedros — has unveiled plans to take charge of all global health.

While addressing the WHO Executive Committee on January 24, 2022, Director-General Tedros spelled out his global health plan, including his final priority for his enormous scheme: ‘The fifth priority is to urgently strengthen WHO as the leading and directing authority on global health, at the center of the global health architecture.’

Tedros’s closing words to his report to the executive committee are chilling in their grandiosity and echo Marxist exhortations to cheering mobs by a Stalin, Mao, or Xi Jinping: ‘We are one world, we have one health, we are one WHO.’ Tedros seeks to become super-Fauci for the world, and, like Fauci, he will do it on behalf of the global predators.”

The Rise of Health Fascism

As explained by Breggin, the global health care takeover really began with Gates’ Decade of Vaccines, announced in 2010 at the World Economic Forum’s (WEF’s) annual meeting in Davos. At that time, Gates installed Fauci on his vaccine advisory board, thereby guaranteeing his plans would receive support from the NIAID. Breggin continues:⁶

“A theme for the Decade of Vaccines was ‘Public-Private Partnerships Drive Progress in Vaccine Development, Delivery’ — essentially the precursor to the Great Reset establishing a world governance of public and private health united in the spirit of fascism.

By 2012, Gates achieved official UN approval for his scheme, establishing a broad network of global predators aimed at exploiting and dominating humanity through public health.

Communist China would play a prominent role through its control over the UN and WHO and through its close relationships with global predators like Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, Mike Bloomberg, Big Tech executives, and many other billionaires and world leaders.

A decade and more later, during COVID-19, WHO has proven its usefulness to the predators in orchestrating science, medicine, and public health in the suppression of human freedom and the generation of wealth and power for the globalists.”

Under the guise of a global pandemic, the WHO, the WEF and all of its installed leaders in government and private business, were able to roll out a plan that has been decades in the making. The pandemic was a perfect cover. In the name of keeping everyone “safe” from infection, the globalists have justified unprecedented attacks on democracy, civil liberties and personal freedoms, including the right to choose your own medical treatment.

Now, the WHO is gearing up to make its pandemic leadership permanent, and to extend it into the health care systems of every nation. “The idea is ‘the principle of health for all’ — universal health care organized by WHO as part of the Great Reset,” Breggin explains.

The International Pandemic Treaty

Conspiracy theory or… pic.twitter.com/4pZ6DeY0zj

— Wittgenstein (@backtolife_2022) March 3, 2022

May 24, 2021, the European Council announced it supported the establishment of an international Pandemic Treaty, under which the WHO would have the power to replace the constitutions of individual nations with its own constitution under the banner of “pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.”⁷

March 3, 2022, the Council authorized the opening of negotiations for an international agreement. The infographic below, sourced from the European Council’s website,⁸ summarizes the process.

The WHO’s World Health Assembly has also established an intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) for this purpose.⁹ March 1, 2022, the INB held its first meeting to draft and negotiate an international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response under the authority of the WHO.¹⁰

If this treaty goes through, the WHO would have the power to, for example, call for mandatory vaccinations and health passports, and its decision would supersede national and state laws.

But considering the WHO changed its definition of “pandemic” to “a worldwide epidemic of a disease,”¹¹ without the original specificity of severe illness that causes high morbidity,^12,13 just about anything could be made to fit the pandemic criterion, including obesity, which was designated as a disease in 2013¹⁴ and occurs globally. Tedros has also gone on record stating that his “central priority” as director-general of the WHO is to push the world toward universal health coverage.¹⁵

“The world has already seen how any pandemic emergency, real or concocted, now or in the future, could then justify WHO taking over the entirety of government operations of sovereign nations, robbing all individuals of their freedoms, and fully crushing the democratic republics of the world,” Breggin warns.¹⁶

“The spirit of Communism can be felt throughout the document. We are told that the ‘purpose’ of the new strategy will be ‘guided by a spirit of solidarity, anchored in the principles of fairness, inclusion, and transparency.’ Notice, as in all pronouncements by global predators; there is no mention of individual rights, political liberty, or national sovereignty.

The great engine of human progress, human freedom, will be replaced by the great destroyer of humanity, collectivism, under the rule of the elite. Tucked into the report were the real goals … Here are three main purposes or goals of the proposed treaty:

1. response to any future pandemics, in particular by ensuring universal and equitable access to medical solutions, such as vaccines, medicines, and diagnostics

2. a stronger international health framework with the WHO as the coordinating authority on global health matters

3. the ‘One Health’ approach, connecting the health of humans, animals, and our planet

The report adds, ‘More specifically, such an instrument can enhance international cooperation in a number of priority areas, such as surveillance, alerts, and response, but also in general trust in the international health system.’ Clearly, they were building support for Tedros’s January 24, 2022 announcement that WHO would take over the international health care system.”

WHO Moves Ahead With Global Vaccine Passport Program

While countries around the world are now scrubbing their COVID measures, and many have announced they won’t be pursuing vaccine passports after all, the vaccine passport program is still alive and well — under the direction of the WHO. As reported by Off-Guardian, March 1, 2022:¹⁷

“This week, while the eyes of the world are fixed on Ukraine and the next wave of propaganda, the World Health Organization is launching an initiative to create a ‘trust network’ on vaccination and international travel.

According to a report in Politico published last week, ‘WHO making moves on international vaccine ‘passport.’

The article quotes Brian Anderson, co-founder of the Vaccination Credential Initiative, which describes itself as ‘a voluntary coalition of public and private organizations committed to empowering individuals with access to verifiable clinical information including a trustworthy and verifiable copy of their vaccination records in digital or paper form using open, interoperable standards.’

They are, to take the PR agency sheen off this phrase, a corporate/government joint project researching and promoting digital medical identification papers. In short, vaccine passports.”

Members of the VCI, which was founded in January 2021, include Google, Amazon, insurance companies, hospitals, biosecurity firms and most of the major universities in the U.S. Its steering committee consists of representatives from Apple, Microsoft, the Mayo Clinic and the MITRE Corporation, a government-funded research organization.

As noted by Off-Guardian, the International Pandemic Treaty will undoubtedly include provisions on international vaccine certification. And why wouldn’t it, seeing how a WHO-backed global health passport is already underway? While Off-Guardian predicted VCI’s SMART Health Cards system might be chosen, the WHO has now signed a deal with a Deutsche Telekom subsidiary called T-Systems to build the first global digital vaccine passport.¹⁸ As reported by the Western Standard:¹⁹

“The WHO fully intends to provide support to its 194 member states to facilitate the implementation of the digital verification technology for countries’ national and regional verification of vaccine status.

‘COVID-19 affects everyone. Countries will therefore only emerge from the pandemic together. Vaccination certificates that are tamper-proof and digitally verifiable build trust. WHO is therefore supporting member states in building national and regional trust networks and verification technology.

The WHO’s gateway service also serves as a bridge between regional systems. It can also be used as part of future vaccination campaigns and home-based records,’ said Garrett Mehl, unit head of the WHO’s Department of Digital Health and Innovation, on Deutsche Telekom’s website.”

SMART Health Cards and Digital Identity Are Tools of Tyranny

Already, the SMART Health Cards system is used by more than a dozen countries,²⁰ 25 U.S. states, Puerto Rico and D.C.²¹ The Australian Parliament is also paving the way to tyranny with its “Trusted Digital Identity Bill 2021,”²² and the U.S. Congress has its “Improving Digital Identity Act of 2021.”²³

All of these have one thing in common: the end goal, which is to expand them into a souped-up, global social credit system — one in which everything you do and say is monitored, recorded and assessed for threat value, and if you misbehave or engage in wrong-think, they have 101 ways to punish you and force you into compliance, from restricting your ability to travel to seizing your bank accounts.

Don’t think for one second that government won’t have access to or use your data against you for political purposes. As explained by Off-Guardian:²⁴

“SMART Health Cards are run by VCI, which was created by the MITRE Corporation, which is funded by the United States government. If you give SMART access to your medical records, you’d better believe the U.S. government and its agencies will get their hands on them.

They might not have their own database, but they would have access to MITRE’s database when and if they needed or wanted it. And so would Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft. That’s how private-public partnerships work. Symbiosis.

Corporate giants serve as fronts for government programs and, in return, they get a big cut of the profits, bailouts if they’re needed, and regulatory ‘reforms’ that cripple their smaller competitors …

This allows the federal government ‘truthfully’ claim to not be implementing a federal passport system, or keeping a vaccination database, all the while they are sub-contracting tech giants to do it for them. This system of backdoor government surveillance via corporate veneer is already spreading across the U.S., and it looks like it will play some part in any future ‘pandemic treaty’ too.”

Surgeon General Demands Hit List From Big Tech

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy also appears to be building a narrative to justify an international health authority. March 3, 2022, Murthy formally requested that all major tech platforms submit data on the scale of COVID-19 misinformation. This includes social networks, search engines, crowdsource platforms, e-commerce platforms and instant messaging systems. Thankfully, his request is not legally enforceable. As reported by The New York Times:²⁵

“A request for information from the surgeon general’s office demanded that tech platforms send data and analysis on the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on their sites, starting with common examples of vaccine misinformation documented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.²⁶

The notice asks the companies to submit ‘exactly how many users saw or may have been exposed to instances of Covid-19 misinformation,’ as well as aggregate data on demographics that may have been disproportionately exposed to or affected by the misinformation.

The surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, also demanded information from the platforms about the major sources of Covid-19 misinformation, including those that engaged in the sale of unproven Covid-19 products, services and treatments … The request for information is part of President Biden’s COVID National Preparedness Plan^27,28 …

In addition to demanding misinformation data from the tech platforms, the surgeon general called on health care providers and the public to submit information about how COVID-19 misinformation has negatively influenced patients and communities.”

As noted by Dr. Meryl Nass,²⁹ “This is truly frightening. Misinformation (to be controlled via tech companies) is being treated as a crime, though never defined.” Nass also highlights a new bill,³⁰introduced by two Democrat senators March 2, 2022, that would give tech companies “cover to censor and turn over private data to government.” “In other words, Congress may ‘legalize’ censorship and criminalize First Amendment rights to freedom of speech,” Nass says.

CDC Has Created Loads of Misinformation

The irony here is that the most of the CDC’s answers to “COVID myths”³¹ are themselves misinformation. For example, the CDC claims it’s a myth that natural immunity is better than the immunity you get from the COVID shot.

Yet you’d be hard-pressed to find scientific backing for that statement. They basically just made that up. It’s a long-standing scientific fact that natural immunity is more robust and longer lasting than vaccine-induced immunity.

The CDC also claims it’s a myth that mRNA shots are not vaccines. They say mRNA injections are vaccines because they trigger an immune response. What they don’t admit is that they changed the definition of “vaccine” in the middle of the pandemic.³²

Before the pandemic, a “vaccine” was “a product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease.” In the latter half of 2021, as the mRNA shots were nearing distribution, the CDC changed that definition to “a preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases,” effectively removing the need for a vaccine to produce immunity — the key thing a vaccine is supposed to do.

Incidentally, the CDC’s answer to this “myth” basically refutes its answer to the “myth” that vaccine immunity is better than natural immunity, since the COVID shots don’t provide immunity at all. They only stimulate an immune response, which by the way, can be either beneficial or detrimental, depending on how your immune system is stimulated.

The CDC also still insists that the COVID jabs cannot change or interact with your DNA in any way, yet published research shows otherwise. Swedish research actually shows the Pfizer shot’s mRNA incorporates into human DNA in as little as six hours.³³

Murthy’s unconstitutional request for data from tech companies on users who share information that violates the CDC narrative seems to be an effort to continue building justification for an international health authority with power to dictate truth around the world.

If there’s only one narrative, across every country, disseminated from a single entity, then the truth will be whatever they say it is. Eventually, research won’t even be published unless it conforms to the chosen narrative.

The WHO Is Totally Corrupt

There are many reasons to reject the WHO as the sole arbiter of health facts. It’s corrupt to the core, and has been for years.³⁴

In the aftermath of the swine flu pandemic of 2009, the vaccine for which left many thousands injured, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) concluded that “the handling of the pandemic by the WHO, EU health agencies and national governments led to a ‘waste of large sums of public money, and unjustified scares and fears about the health risks faced by the European public.'”³⁵

Specifically, PACE concluded there was “overwhelming evidence that the seriousness of the pandemic was vastly overrated by WHO,” and that the drug industry had influenced the organization’s decision-making.

A joint investigation by the British Medical Journal and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) also uncovered serious conflicts of interest between the WHO — which promoted the global vaccination agenda — and the drug companies that created those vaccines.³⁶

The WHO has also been accused of massive money mismanagement, spending more on travel expenses each year — some $200 million in 2017 — than it does on some of the biggest public health problems, including AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined.³⁷

By now, most people also know that the WHO has been bought and paid for by Bill Gates. He contributes more to the WHO’s $4.84 billion biennial budget than every member-state government. The U.S. has historically been the top funder, but the combined contributions from the Gates Foundation and GAVI made Gates the unofficial top sponsor of the WHO as of 2018.

In the documentary “TrustWHO”³⁸ (above), Lilian Franck reveals this and other clandestine influences that control the WHO, to the peril of public health. For example, we’ve seen that the WHO has strong allegiance to China, and shares China’s ruthless suppression of counternarratives.

The WHO’s investigation into COVID-19’s origin was a fake from start to finish, and even before the COVID pandemic, the WHO had been in discussions with Facebook to “ensure people can access authoritative information on vaccines and reduce the spread of inaccuracies.” Given the strong and ongoing evidence that WHO is heavily conflicted and controlled by industry, its usefulness as a guardian of public health needs to be seriously reevaluated.

The Plan for a Never-Ending Pandemic

While the White House has issued a plan to transition out of the pandemic,^39,40 it seems more like a plan for a never-ending pandemic. As reported by STAT News:⁴¹

“The report plots a course to what its authors call the ‘next normal’ — living with the SARS-CoV-2 virus as a continuing threat that needs to be managed. Doing so will require improvements on a number of fronts, from better surveillance for COVID and other pathogens to keeping tabs on how taxed hospitals are; and from efforts to address the air quality in buildings to continued investment in antiviral drugs and better vaccines.

The authors also call for offering people sick with respiratory symptoms easy access to testing and, if they are positive for COVID or influenza, a quick prescription for the relevant antiviral drug …

The report suggests the U.S. response to Covid-19 should transition from one directed solely at this single disease to one where prevention, mitigation, and treatment efforts are focused on COVID as one of a number of respiratory viruses, including influenza.”

Part of the plan is to create a new post: deputy Assistant to the president for biosecurity within the National Security Council.⁴² The deputy assistant for biosecurity would be responsible for “monitoring, addressing, and coordinating responses to and communications about any biosecurity and pandemic threats.”

Importantly, this post would also be responsible for coordinating “efforts to counter foreign and domestic sources of anti-science misinformation on vaccines and drugs.” The COVID Roadmap also details strategies to improve documentation, monitoring and accountability for communication goals.

This includes monitoring “health iniquities” to “increase public accountability and support values that promote social well-being and health equity in infectious diseases.” It sounds to me like a plan to promote propaganda that shames people who don’t want to sacrifice their own health for “the greater good.”

It also includes the establishment of “standards for streamlined clearance of health messages without political interference.” Will the WHO be responsible for such standards? Probably.

The roadmap also specifies that tech platforms and legacy media are to be urged to “design mechanisms to detect, deflect and deny the posting of harmful and false advice that hurts public health.” In other words, across the board censorship. If the WHO is given complete authority over health, censorship will be a given and science as we know it will basically cease to exist.

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Notes

¹ Time June 9, 2021

² Student Life April 15, 2021

³ FNIH Announcement March 1, 2022

⁴ COVID-19 and the Global Predators: We Are the Prey

^{5, 6, 7, 16} America Out Loud February 18, 2022

⁸ European Council March 3, 2022

⁹ Our World UN University January 28, 2022

¹⁰ DCAT December 2, 2021

¹¹ Wayback Machine, WHO Pandemic Preparedness captured September 2, 2009 (PDF)

¹² The BMJ 2010;340:c2912

¹³ Wayback Machine, WHO Pandemic Preparedness captured May 1, 2009 (PDF)

¹⁴ Obesity Medicine February 8, 2017

^15, 34, 37 National Review June 14, 2017

^17, 21, 24 Off-Guardian March 1, 2022

^18, 19 Western Standard March 2, 2022

²⁰ VCI.org, Worldwide Footprint

²² Digital Identity Bill 2021

²³ HR 4258, Improving Digital Identity Act of 2021

²⁵ New York Times March 3, 2022 (Archived)

^26, 31 CDC Myths and Facts About COVID-19

^27, 40 White House National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan

²⁸ NPR March 2, 2022

²⁹ Meryl Nass Substack March 4, 2022

³⁰ Ben Ray Lujan US Senator for New Mexico March 2, 2022

³² Miami Herald September 27, 2021

³³ the Expose February 27, 2022

³⁵ Assembly.coe.int June 24, 2010

³⁶ Natural Society February 23, 2014

³⁸ The Defender September 7, 2021

³⁹ COVID Roadmap

⁴¹ STAT News March 7, 2022

⁴² COVID Roadmap, Biosecurity and Pandemic Leadership

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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 condemns 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.

A top Russian diplomat said Saturday that Moscow has informed U.S. officials that it views Western arms shipments to Ukraine as “legitimate targets” for military attacks, heightening fears of a direct confrontation between the nuclear-armed powers.

“We warned the United States that the orchestrated pumping of weapons from a number of countries is not just a dangerous move, it is a move that turns these convoys into legitimate targets,” Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, told a state television outlet Saturday morning.

Ryabkov added that Moscow emphasized to Washington “the consequences of the thoughtless transfer to Ukraine of weapons like man-portable air defense systems, anti-tank missile systems, and so on.”

While U.S. President Joe Biden has vowed not to involve American troops directly in any conflict with Russia, the administration has been pouring arms and advanced weaponry into Ukraine for months, shipments that ramped up after Russia launched its full-scale invasion on February 24.

On March 4, as the New York Times reported, “some 14 wide-bodied aircraft transported a bristling array of Javelin antitank missiles, rocket launchers, guns, and ammunition to an airfield near Ukraine’s border.”

“The top U.S. military adviser to President Biden inspected the weapons transfer operation in an unannounced trip, meeting with troops and personnel from 22 countries who were working around the clock to unload the armaments for transport by land to the Ukrainian forces,” the Times continued. “The American weaponry, which included the Javelins as well as small arms and munitions, was part of a $350 million package that Mr. Biden authorized.”

“Within two days, one official said, the deliveries were landing at an airfield near the border that can process 17 airplanes a day,” the Times added. “What began as a trickle—with only two or three planes arriving a day—is now a steady flow, the official said, with 14 loads from one airfield alone.”

The Washington Post reported Friday that the Biden administration is currently “working with European allies to expedite more sophisticated air-defense systems and other armaments into the war zone.”

Ryabkov’s remarks Saturday came after NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned that a Russian attack on supply lines of countries providing weapons to Ukraine—which is not a NATO member—would constitute a dangerous escalation.

“The allies are helping Ukraine uphold their right for self-defense, which is enshrined in the U.N. Charter,” Stoltenberg said in an interview with CBC News.

“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,” Stoltenberg added, referring to the self-defense clause of NATO’s founding treaty.

The Intercept‘s Jeremy Scahill argued in a column on Thursday that the rapid acceleration of arms shipments into Ukraine represents “a significant escalation of Western involvement” in the deadly conflict.

“It is understandable and reasonable that people across the U.S. and Europe are demanding their governments send more weapons to support Ukraine in resisting the Russian invasion,” Scahill wrote. “Without the Western-supplied weapons Ukraine already possessed, it is very likely Russia would be in control of much larger swaths of the country.”

“It is also vital,” Scahill added, “that people advocating such a policy consider whether a sizable increase in U.S. and NATO weapons transfers will prolong the conflict and result in even more civilian death and destruction.”

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The attempt to “cancel” the existence of Russia has been promoted not only by Western liberal governments, but also by big companies, mainly multinationals in the technology sector. The so-called “Big Tech companies” have been a major point of boycott against Russia, acting on the cyber front and in information warfare. Russian profiles on social media have been deleted, pages of Russian newspapers are banned and people who express pro-Russian views are permanently blocked without any notification from the platforms. Definitely, social networks have become a battlefield on which the West seeks to banish Russian existence.

The current conflict on Ukrainian soil is generating as a side effect a real division of the world internet. Unwilling to use its physical forces to face Russian troops, the West has bet on a series of sanctions aimed at disconnecting Moscow from the rest of the world. And such measures have also been adopted autonomously by private companies, which leave their ideological principles increasingly exposed, giving up the broad Russian consumer market just to defend pro-Western political agendas. In the technology and internet sector, this situation has become more serious day by day.

Corporate giants like Meta, Google, Twitter, TikTok, and Apple are now showing their political identity, removing all or many of their products out of Russia in response to the Special Operation Ukraine. During the last two weeks, profiles of Russian citizens have been automatically removed from these platforms – and so have non-Russian users who share news’ links from Russian websites or simply write publications with positive opinions about the Russian government. Official Russian state media and even private Russian newspapers have been banned, keeping any and all information produced in Russian territory under the label of “fake news” and “disinformation campaign”, without any prior content analysis.

Undoubtedly, the most shocking actions were the ones implemented by the Meta group – the American conglomerate that controls Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and all the other companies owned by the billionaire Mark Zuckerberg. Meta’s actions went far beyond the limits of information warfare, reaching the status of incitement to physical violence and anti-Russian racism. In some countries, Facebook and Instagram have implemented exceptional measures approving hate speech against Russians on topics related to Ukraine.

In the words of Meta’s official statement to moderators, it is possible to read: “We are issuing a spirit-of-the-policy allowance to allow T1 violent speech that would otherwise be removed under the Hate Speech policy when: (a) targeting Russian soldiers, EXCEPT prisoners of war, or (b) targeting Russians where it’s clear that the context is the Russian invasion of Ukraine (…) We are doing this because we have observed that in this specific context, ‘Russian soldiers’ is being used as a proxy for the Russian military”.

In practice, the new rules mean even allowing death threats, as almost all matters involving Russia can be automatically linked to the Ukrainian issue by the platforms’ artificial intelligence. Now, for example, posts like “death to the Russians” or “death to Putin” are allowed, which reveals the bellicose and aggressive nature of the attitude taken by Meta.

Obviously, in response, the Russian government has also adopted sanctions on foreign media, being forced to react in the face of a true virtual aggression promoted by the global coalition of Big Tech companies. Russian social media networks have been favored with this scenario, starting to receive a surprising number of users in recent days. VKontakte (VK), for example, which had a stagnant number of users in recent years, is now dealing with a crowding of profiles and account creation requests, which has even obstructed the functioning of the platform at some times. The same has been happening with Telegram, which becomes a viable alternative for Russian users and pro-Russian foreign citizens as other chat media like WhatsApp increasingly sanction Moscow.

Specifically regarding Meta’s attitudes, Russian prosecutors have started a court case pointing to Meta as a terrorist organization that threatens the lives of Russian citizens. An investigative committee was formed in order to investigate the case. This could be the end of American social media on Russian territory in case they are deemed terrorists due to their new racist anti-Russian norms.

What all this means, in practice, is that once again anti-Russian sanctions can drive a process of multipolarization. For decades, social media has been controlled by Western Big Tech, which concentrate power and money in the hands of a multibillionaire elite, whose influence becomes capable of interfering in the political directions of governments around the world. With these companies leaving Russia, millions of users may lose their accounts on the networks, but this, at the same time, will favor Russian social networks and boost an alternative market – also abroad, considering the boycott against citizens from other countries who share pro-Russian ideas. In the end, Western companies will lose market and Russian companies will gain a huge consumer audience, which will make the technology sector more diverse, polycentric and competitive.

What must be fought and even condemned by the international organizations, however, is the blatant racist and terrorist-like hate speech of these platforms, which use the excuse of a conflict to advance retrograde anti-Russian ideas. Indeed, there is no “humanitarian concern” for the Ukrainians on the part of Meta and other companies – there is only an ultra-liberal ideological agenda that considers Russia an obstacle to a globalist world order, making use of anti-Russian animosity to promote a political campaign against Moscow.

In fact, Western governments already know this, as there is constant friction between liberal democracies and Big Tech companies. In Washington, Republicans and Democrats agree to impose several sanctions on the high-tech sector because they consider the influence of these groups to be a strong social threat. Obviously, Western governments will ignore the current attitude because there is a common interest between them in defeating Russia.

Big Tech is making it clear that they are willing to do anything guarantee their interests. Before, these companies were limited to “canceling” their enemies, as they did with Donald Trump. Now they are even inciting the murder of citizens of countries considered enemies. The undeniable truth, however, is that Russia is just the current enemy, and the next one could be any western government, as the ideological agenda of these companies does not respect classical democratic values, but defends a global order without National States, where companies have decision-making power at the United Nations.

The West is once again repeating the mistake of giving these companies too much power and will surely pay the price soon.

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Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.

Featured image is from tag24.com

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

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

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.

This article originally published on Ottawa Citizen in October 2021. confirms that Canadian Forces are supporting Neo- Nazi forces in Ukraine
***

Far-right extremists in Ukraine’s military have bragged they received training from the Canadian Forces and other NATO nations, a new study from an American university has uncovered.

The study from an institute at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., tracked social media accounts of the far-right group Centuria, documenting its Ukrainian military members giving Nazi salutes, promoting white nationalism and praising members of Nazi SS units.

The far-right group has been active since 2018 at the Hetman Petro Sahaidachny National Army Academy or NAA, according to the report from George Washington’s Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies.

The NAA is Ukraine’s premier military education institution and a major hub for western military assistance to the country, including from Canada.

Centuria members acknowledged on social media they have received training from the Canadian military and have participated in military exercises with Canada. In May, Centuria organizers boasted to their followers that its members currently served as officers in Ukraine’s military and “have succeeded in establishing cooperation with foreign colleagues from such countries as France, the United Kingdom, Canada, the USA, German and Poland,” according to the institute’s report.

Click here to read the full article.

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Featured image: Photo posted by “Centuria’ on Telegram, Photo posted by Roman Rusnyk on Instagram, Photo posted by Vladyslav Vintergoller on Instagram, Photo posted by Vitaliy Rosolovskiy on Instagram, Photo capture of Tweet posted by the Embassy of Ukraine to the United Kingdom.

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

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

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

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.

The former US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard Sunday posted a video on Twitter reiterating claims about US-funded Biolabs in Ukraine. Expressing concerns over the “inadvertent or intentional” breach of these dangerous pathogens, Gabbard called for an immediate ceasefire around these US-funded laboratories in Ukraine.

In a two-minute video, Gabbard said there are 25 to 30 American-funded biological laboratories in Ukraine and called for an immediate ceasefire at the laboratories as they could spread dangerous pathogens.

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

“Here are the undeniable fact”, said Gabbard, backing Russia’s claims that there are 25-30 US-funded Biolabs in Ukraine. She further warned that “According to the US government, these Biolabs and conducting research on dangerous pathogens. Ukraine is an active war zone with widespread bombing, artillery and shelling and these facilities, even in the best of circumstances, could easily be compromised and release these deadly pathogens.”

She added that

“like Covid these pathogens know no borders. If they are inadvertently or purposely breached or compromised they will quickly spread all throughout Europe, The United States, and the rest of the world causing untold suffering and death. So in order to protect the American people, the people of Europe, the people around the world, these labs need to be stud down immediately and the pathogens that they hold need to be destroyed.”

Gabbard also urged the Biden administration in the United States not to cover up, but rather to take concrete steps to immediately stop US military from operating “dangerous” Biolabs in Ukraine.

“Instead of trying to cover this up, the Biden-Harris administration needs to work with Russia, Ukraine, NATO and UN to implement immediate ceasefire for all military actions in the vicinity of the labs and until it is secured and these pathogens are destroyed,” said the former US Congresswoman.

Gabbard reiterated China’s recent accusation of the United States. She claimed that the United States has 300 or so dangerous research labs around the world similar to the lab in Wuhan, China, where COVID-19 may have originated from.

“Now after realising how dangerous and vulnerable these labs are, they should have been shut down two years ago, but they haven’t,” she further said, adding that this is not a politically partisan issue.

“The US administration and Congress needs to act now for the health and well being of every American and every person on the planet,” Gabbard said as she concluded her video monologue.

Notably, Tulsi Gabbard’s video caused quite a stir, with Utah Senator Mitt Romney harshly criticising her and implying that her remarks about the existence of so-called “US Biolabs” in Ukraine would result in people being killed.

The Republican senator accused his ex-House counterpart of spreading “treasonous lies” that amounted to “Russian propaganda”.

“Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda. Her treasonous lies may well cost lives”, Tweeted Mitt Romney in response to Tulsi Gabbard’s video post.

Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda. Her treasonous lies may well cost lives.

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) March 13, 2022

Russia and China accuse US of having Biolabs in Ukraine

It may be recalled that prior to this, both Russia and China had accused the US military of operating “dangerous” Biolabs in Ukraine. On March 9, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian Tweeted a snippet from a press conference where he asked the US to release “relevant details as soon as possible” regarding alleged US biological laboratories in Ukraine.

On Sunday, March 6, the Russian Defense Ministry had claimed that there were “evidence of a US-financed military biological program developed in Ukraine.”

US admits there are biological research facilities in Ukraine

Interestingly, on Tuesday, the US State Department official Victoria Nuland in a way had admitted that US-funded Biolabs are working on developing bioweapons on Ukrainian soil. Nuland testified before a Senate Foreign Relation Committee hearing on Ukraine in Washington, DC, and said that the United States was working with Ukraine to prevent invading Russian forces from seizing biological research material. The State Department also stated that it was concerned that Russian forces are trying to gain control of biological research facilities within Ukraine.

By stating that Russia will be held responsible for any ‘biological or chemical weapon attack,’ Nuland had effectively admitted what the Russian government has been saying all along: that US-funded Biolabs are developing bioweapons on Ukrainian soil.

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Featured image: U.S. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard speaking with attendees at the 2019 California Democratic Party State Convention at the George R. Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California. Credit: Gage Skidmore/ Flickr) 

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.

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.

At Monday’s routine news conference of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the spokesperson for the ministry rebutted the US’ inconsistent and flawed responses regarding its biological laboratories in Ukraine, urging a full clarification of its bio-military activities within and outside its borders.

When a BBC reporter asked that the US claims seem to suggest that its secret research involving viruses in Ukraine has nothing to do with the military, Zhao Lijian, the ministry’s  spokesperson, directly pointed out that the US’ response to the issue so far has been contradictory and confusing.

Under a 2005 agreement between the US and Ukraine, US Department of Defense representatives are authorized to participate in all activities related to Ukrainian facilities, and Ukraine is prohibited from releasing information that the US determines to be “sensitive.”

According to the US submission to the 2021 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) Meeting of States Parties, the US has 26 laboratories and other cooperative facilities in Ukraine.

“We can’t help but ask: Did the US send teams to Ukraine or not? What exactly is the scope of their activities? How many collaborative facilities are there? What sensitive information in the field of public health is not allowed to be disclosed? Does Ukraine know what the US is doing in Ukraine?” Zhao asked.

Public information shows that tens of biological laboratories in Ukraine were operated on the orders of the US Department of Defense, that the US has invested more than $200 million in these laboratory activities, and that US research was aimed at establishing mechanisms for the covert spread of deadly viral pathogens.

Screengrab of Russian Defence Ministry briefing showing US-sponsored biolabs on Ukraininan territory. Photo: Russian Ministry of Defence

Russian officials said that Russia found more than 30 biological laboratories affiliated with the US on the territory of Ukraine and that the relevant items were urgently destroyed, but traces of plague, anthrax and other pathogens were found.

While the US initially slammed information about its bio warfare labs in Ukraine as “fake,” on March 8, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland admitted the existence of US-funded “biological research facilities” in the country.

“If the information released by the US itself is inconsistent and full of loopholes, how can the international community believe that the US is fulfilling its BWC obligations?” Zhao asked.

The US is the only country that opposes the establishment of a verification mechanism for the BWC. At the same time, for decades the US has been accusing other countries of not complying with the treaty, and even sanctioning and using force against these countries.

“When it happens to the US, it evades inspection, which is a typical US double standard,” Zhao said.

The spokesman urged the US to make a full clarification of its bio-military activities within and outside its borders in a responsible manner and to stop opposing the establishment of a verification mechanism for the Biological Weapons Convention, which would help restore the international community’s confidence in the US compliance with its international obligations and would also help raise the level of global biosecurity.

The World Health Organization has “strongly recommended” to the Ministry of Health in Ukraine to safely destroy “high-threat pathogens” that might be housed within the country’s public health labs in order to prevent “any potential spills.”

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Featured image is from OneWorld

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

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

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

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.

Little is yet known about why Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated the special military operation in Ukraine when he did, and it seems that many pundits are also yet reluctant to risk their reputations by speculating about the potential objectives of a political leader who is viewed by many as one of the most cunning and effective strategists of the 21st century. After all, who can really claim to know what Putin is planning?

The March 3rd phone call between Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron saw a continuation of Putin’s limited statements thus far regarding his objectives, with Putin telling Macron that Russia would “achieve the goals of its military intervention in Ukraine whatever happens”.  According to a reported statement released by the Kremlin following the phone call [1]:

“Vladimir Putin outlined in detail the fundamental approaches and conditions in the context of negotiations with representatives of Kyiv. It was confirmed that, first of all, we are talking about the demilitarisation and neutral status of Ukraine, so that a threat to the Russian Federation will never emanate from its territory.”

As Putin seeks to outwardly frame the military intervention as justified self-defense, with the Kremlin stating that Russia needs to ensure that Ukraine is prevented from posing an ongoing threat to Russia and her people, many experts doubt that Putin actually views the much smaller and far less well-equipped Ukraine as an actual threat to national security, despite the ongoing clashes in Donbas since 2014. The sheer scale of Putin’s special military operation, and its territorial gains thus far, hint at greater ambitions.

Far more likely is that Putin, who turns 70 later this year, has recognized that his time is running short to cement his legacy as the greatest leader in Russian history.

Putin has never hid his admiration of the Soviet Union’s former glory and the influence wielded by that former superpower, and it has become clear in recent years that Putin is seeking to restore Russia to its rightful status on the world stage.

While Russia has always exerted influence in the near abroad, concrete steps were taken by Russia to solidify its ascension toward superpower status by expanding its territorial limits in Europe, first following the conflict in Crimea in 2014, and then following the disputed election in Belarus in 2020.

Ukraine’s legitimacy as a nation and the sovereignty it was granted at the dissolution of the Soviet Union has long been contested by Putin, so bringing Ukraine’s territory and people back into the fold as part of an expanded confederation within the Union State (currently comprising Russia and Belarus) would effectively ensure that Russia can reestablish its European borders to where they essentially existed at the height of the U.S.S.R’s glory. This would not only thwart further EU and NATO expansion eastward (the real threat to Russia’s security), it would also allow Putin to undo what some Russians view as an historical injustice. As such, many analysts speculate that the eventual goal of the special military operation is to return Ukraine to Russia by deposing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and putting in place a new government that would be cooperative with Russia.

It is not clear if Russia’s military anticipated the fierce resistance it has met thus far from Ukrainian forces and from the civilian volunteers and foreign fighters supporting them.

What is clear is that, due to Russia’s incredible military superiority and NATO’s very clear stance of non-interference, there is a risk of bloodshed on a massive scale if Russia’s armed forces unleash their full potential. If Putin does truly wish to establish closer ties with Ukraine and its people, it might seem counterintuitive to reduce the country to rubble first.

However, it is unlikely that Russia would succeed in effecting regime change in Kyiv without a dramatic escalation of violence, which certainly would not make the average Ukrainian more sympathetic towards Russia. Putin will need to find the right balance.

If we consider that Russia’s borders will inevitably be redrawn following the military intervention, and sections of what are currently modern-day Ukraine will reside within those new borders, it would perhaps seem more realistic to expect that Putin does not intend to “occupy” all of Ukraine.

It would instead appear more likely that Putin will seek to restore the Russian status of what he has indicated are “historically Russian lands” in New Russia (primarily in the south and east of the country), thus creating a much needed land bridge to Crimea. This would then allow Putin to demonstrate that his intent has never been to “occupy” Ukraine or to eliminate the concept of Ukrainian nationhood, as the Western part of the country could remain outside of the Kremlin’s control, potentially with the western city of Lviv as its potential capital.

This reduced Ukrainian state, along with Moldova (another former Soviet Republic), could then form something of a buffer between Russia and NATO members Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. From the perspective of military strategy, this might also make sense, as a prolonged campaign in western Ukraine could present additional logistical challenges for Russia; for example, maintaining supply lines for ground forces over ever-increasing distances will be difficult, as will be getting troops and equipment across the Dnieper River, which forms an important barrier limiting Russia’s ability to project their logistics chain westward. In addition, securing the logistics chain from the ever-present risk of insurgent attacks in occupied territories will become more difficult to contend with the further Russian troops move away from supply hubs in the east.

Another possibility is that Putin does not actually have major territorial ambitions, but is using this intervention as exactly what he is calling it – a special military operation, which clearly implies that the activities would be limited in scope.

As of March 4th, there has been a marked shift in President Zelenskyy’s tone, his frustration and dismay with the EU and NATO apparent. With NATO unambiguously stating that it will not intervene militarily so long as NATO countries are not attacked, not even to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine (fearing this would lead to full-fledged war in Europe), Zelenskyy told NATO in a video released March 4th that

“All the people who die from this day forward will also die because of you, because of your weakness, because of your lack of unity”, adding “Today, the leadership of the alliance gave the green light for further bombing of Ukrainian cities and villages, having refused to set up a no-fly zone” [2].

Should this sentiment become further entrenched amongst the Ukrainian political leadership and intelligentsia, and if it is indeed genuine and not merely posturing on Zelenskyy’s part (for example, in the hopes that it might shame NATO into taking action), it risks pushing Ukraine further away from eventually joining the EU and NATO.

The Ukrainian people may well conclude that they are alone in their struggles, and that the EU and NATO abandoned them when Ukraine needed them the most. This can occur despite aggression from Russia; Ukraine does not necessarily need to become closer to Russia in order to move further away from the EU and NATO.

Estrangement from the EU and NATO could then create conditions allowing Putin to return to the negotiating table from a position of power, which could in turn permit him to pull back his military knowing that he has succeeded in quashing Ukraine’s ambitions to join these Western alliances, establishing what he has long hoped would be a neutralized Ukraine devoid of any short term threat to Russia, while only holding onto relatively small portions of Ukraine’s current territory in the east and south.

This potential strategy might also explain why Russia’s military has proceeded at what might seem like a glacial pace thus far, where it’s well known that Russia could have likely battered Ukraine into submission by now, had it truly wanted to. This strategy also aligns with Russia’s well-known practice of sowing discord, supported by effective propaganda, within an adversary population; by turning the hearts and minds of Ukrainians against the EU and NATO, Putin accomplishes his goal using what would only really amount to a show of strength, thus minimizing bloodshed and not risking another Euromaidan by ruling as occupiers or via a pro-Russian proxy government over a people resolved to repel Russian influence.

Also possible is Putin’s strategy may backfire, and he may well exacerbate what is already a difficult relationship with Ukraine, where Ukrainian disappointment in NATO’s non-intervention might be relatively short-lived, and this military initiative may only further reinforce to Ukrainians their need to work towards the reforms required for them to join the EU and NATO in order to guarantee that Russia is unwilling to take military action again in the future.

Russia’s actions in Ukraine have drawn the ire of the international community, which has been swift in its condemnation of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine. The almost daily imposition of new sanctions is already impacting Russia’s economy.

On March 1st, France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire declared an “all-out economic and financial war on Russia” [3], which demonstrates that the EU and its allies are choosing to use sanctions as their weapons since they are unwilling to use conventional ones.

Major corporations are ceasing operations in Russia, including behemoths like Visa and MasterCard. Scores of western airlines are refusing to operate in Russia, and countries have closed their airspace to Russian planes.

Even famously neutral Switzerland is moving in lockstep with the European bloc, approving sanctions against Russia in a dramatic departure from its typical isolationist stance. And in one of the few places where Russia and western nations typically play nice, the Arctic Council, Russia is being isolated, with the other member states indicating on March 3rd that they won’t participate in the work of the Arctic Council, or attend any of its meetings, until further notice.

What does this mean for Russia and its people?

For one, Russia will be further isolated, and the lives of everyday Russians will only get harder. There are historical lessons to learn about similar tactics employed against such countries as North Korea and Iran, where the people in those countries suffer greatly due to economic sanctions, and their governments nevertheless continue their quest to develop nuclear capabilities unabated.

And without being overly alarmist, it is worth reminding readers that the current isolationism and crippling sanctions being imposed on Russia is not dissimilar to the severe reparations imposed on Germany post-WWI, which many historians have concluded played a role in the rise in German nationalism that acted as a catalyst for the political events that eventually led to WWII. Will these sanctions – which are likely to impact the average Russian citizen far more than the Russian government and allied oligarchs that are being targeted – cause Russians to turn against the government en masse in a series of ever-growing protests; or, will they more likely result in Russians feeling unfairly targeted by the West, which can then give rise to a renewed Russian nationalist movement, which may in turn further embolden the Russian government?

Another factor to consider is how the Western response to Russia’s special military operation might shape geopolitics in the longer term.

It seems likely that these sanctions will result in a further rapprochement between Russia and China, since many markets will now be closed to Russian imports and exports, and China’s economic ambitions could marry well with Russia’s newfound need for willing trading partners. China could, for example, provide economic support through new infrastructure projects in Russia, perhaps to further some of its Belt and Road Initiative ambitions.

China may also provide political support for Russia’s claims in Ukraine, as there are parallels with China’s claims in relation to Taiwan. However, China may well be too wary of drawing the ire of Western nations, and the potential consequences for its own economy, which could force Russia to develop new trade agreements and alliances with less scrupulous partners who might see an opportunity to better their own lots due to Russia’s perceived disadvantage.

So what does all of this spell out for the West?

In short, the EU and NATO are forced to contend with a country whose nuclear arsenal has been placed at high alert while seeking to take concrete actions that may or may not be perceived as an act of aggression – or even worse, an act or war – by a leader whose ambitions are unclear.

On March 5th, Putin warned that the economic sanctions being levied against Russia are “akin to an act of war” – how would he perceive NATO warplanes patrolling Ukrainian airspace? It appears that NATO is unwilling to find out for sure.

Without knowing what Putin specifically seeks to accomplish in Ukraine, the West is once again left in a position where it must react to Putin’s actions while trying to convince Russian negotiators to come back to the table in earnest.

While Russian and Ukrainian delegations continue important negotiations surrounding ceasefires and securing safe passage for refugees, western political leaders must keep lines of communication with the Russian leadership open in order to find a resolution to the current crisis.

The West needs to keep Putin talking, as Macron attempted, in order to develop an effective strategy for convincing Putin to put an end to his special military operation; if Putin decides that he’s done talking, perhaps because Russia will have essentially been made into a pariah state, there will be no hope left for a resolution.

A diplomatic solution is the only real solution to the situation in Ukraine, so the EU and NATO must figure out what Putin truly seeks to accomplish (by whatever means necessary) in order to attempt to meet him halfway. Right now, Putin has the upper hand, and it’s hard to imagine that banning a few Russian oligarchs from visiting Switzerland is really going to change Putin’s mind about anything.

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Nicholas Meyers writes with a focus on Russian and Eurasian issues, and draws on his military background to provide a unique perspective on geopolitics. Nicholas can be reached at [email protected].

Notes

1. Oatis, Jonathan, editor. “Putin tells Macron Russia will achieve its goals in Ukraine”. Reuters, 3 Mar 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-tells-macron-russia-will-achieve-its-goals-ukraine-2022-03-03/.

2. “NATO rejects no-fly zone; Ukraine slams ‘greenlight for bombs’”. Al Jazeera, 5 Mar 2022, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/5/nato-rejects-no-fly-zone-ukraine-decries-greenlight-for-bombs.

3. Lough, Richard. “French minister declares economic ‘war’ on Russia, and then beats a retreat”. Reuters, 1 Mar 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/france-declares-economic-war-against-russia-2022-03-01/.

Featured image is from Chen Xia/GT

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

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

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

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.

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine moves past its third week, there are slight hopes that negotiations between the two sides may soon produce a ceasefire. But with the shrill warmongering talk in Washington, it almost seems like the US government would hate to see that happen.

Congress and the US Administration seem determined to drag the United States into a war with Russia over Ukraine. Senator Lindsay Graham is openly calling for someone to kill the Russian president and many in the US House have demanded that the Administration establish a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine.

Are they insane? A no-fly zone means you destroy anything and everything that can prevent total US air dominance. That means an attack on Russian missile and air defense systems within Russia. In other words, World War III.

We can all feel disgust at the destruction in Ukraine, but is it really necessary for us to gamble with our own nuclear annihilation?

Sadly, a large bipartisan group in Congress seems to think so.

Much of what is happening in Ukraine can be traced back to the Obama Administration. State Department officials like Victoria Nuland and Antony Blinken planned and executed the overthrow of the Ukrainian government in 2014. This is what set us on this path to conflict, as the government put in place after the coup began demanding NATO membership.

Blinken, Nuland, and the others responsible for this heinous act returned to government in more senior positions under President Biden and they have continued to push their Ukraine agenda.

Last week Secretary of State Blinken – our top diplomat – sought to send Soviet-era Polish fighter jets into Ukraine to shoot Russians. When the Poles said they’d be happy to ship the planes to a US base in Germany and let the Pentagon transfer them to Ukraine, the Pentagon finally stepped in to quash an extraordinarily high-risk move that even the Pentagon said would have no real effect on the outcome of the war.

The State Department is trying to get us into a war and the Pentagon is trying to keep us out. How ironic!

Back when I was on the campaign trail I would say that we have a few thousand diplomats in government, it might not be a bad idea to use them. But I certainly did not mean that we should use them to try and get us further involved in a war!

Three weeks into this terrible war, the US is not pursuing talks with Russia. As Antiwar.com recently reported, instead of supporting negotiations between Ukraine and Russia that could lead to a ceasefire and an end to the bloodshed, the US government is actually escalating the situation which can only increase the bloodshed.

The constant flow of US and allied weapons into Ukraine and talk of supporting an extended insurgency does not seem designed to give Ukraine a victory on the battlefield but rather to hand Russia what Secretary of State Blinken called “a strategic defeat.”

It sounds an awful lot like the Biden Administration intends to fight Russia down to the last Ukrainian. The only solution for the US is to get out. Let the Russians and Ukrainians reach an agreement. That means no NATO for Ukraine and no US missiles on Russia’s borders? So what! End the war then end NATO.

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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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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.

I don’t know if the U.S. foreign-policy elite wanted Russia to invade Ukraine – an argument could be made for the affirmative – but I’d hate to think it did. Yet given its long record of global mischief (a polite word for its machinations), we certainly cannot rule out the point a priori.

Perhaps the best evidence in favor of the proposition is that President Biden refused to take the few simple steps that might have averted the whole thing. (The attempt would have cost nothing.) But if an invasion might have been averted and was unwanted, why was so much weaponry and other military aid poured into Ukraine in apparent anticipation of a splendid little war?

I acknowledge that none of this constitutes a smoking gun (pun intended), but the question is worth asking. One might say it was a “just in case” move, but the risks were high because, first, US support might have encouraged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to do something foolish, and second, the arms flow itself might have provoked a Russian response, particularly since the Ukrainian National Guard has the pro-Nazi Azov Battalion incorporated into it.

That said, I am far more confident that, from Biden on down – if I’m not giving him too much credit – the foreign-policy makers foresaw benefits in the reprehensible Russian invasion.

Benefits? Qui bono? To whom? Well, certainly not the Ukrainians who are dying, hurting, and fleeing their homes in terror. Nor do the beneficiaries include the rest of the world’s regular people, including Americans, who now must wonder if the end of the world is at hand, or if not that, then how they’ll cope with the inevitable economic hardship that war and sanctions impose: rising prices, food shortages, and so on.

But make no mistake: there are beneficiaries, as there are in all wars. (“There’s not much I can tell you about this war. It’s like all wars, I guess. The undertakers are winning.”) The American foreign-policy elite itself is a beneficiary because the heightened tensions and potential for conflict offer enormous political opportunities for bigger budgets, grander missions, and the prestige that comes from playing Winston Churchill.

Then there are the sheer economic benefits – the profits, compliments of the taxpayers – to the military-industrial complex, which has profited handsomely from NATO expansion since 1998 and from the increased military budgets in NATO countries. Crystal City, Va., will not be on hard times, so matter how the rest of us fare. (Remember when Salesman-in-Chief Donald Trump used to chide the NATO countries for spending too little on their militaries? Get it now? Did you really think he had the American taxpayers in mind?)

And let’s face it, NATO needed a shot in the arm. The Soviet Union was long gone, and international terrorism has just not lived up to its ominous billing. It hasn’t had the staying power to justify the sinecures that the obsolete alliance had provided over the years. Now things have changed – in Finland and Sweden, historically neutral countries, “public support for joining NATO has surged to record levels,” Yasmeen Serhan writes in The Atlantic.

Nor should we underrate the satisfaction that the elite expects to get from the likely prolonged Russian quagmire. As Scott Horton writes,

Weapons to Ukraine had all been supposedly “calibrated” they said, “not to provoke Mr. Putin,” officials told the New York Times. Maybe arming an insurgency truly is Plan B after an invasion they truly meant to deter and these Democrats are just very poor at “calibration.” But they sure seem to be thinking ahead to how an invasion could hurt Russia, with the poor Ukrainians serving as merely an instrument against them.

“The level of military support would make our efforts in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union [in the 1980s] look puny by comparison,” said former Hillary Clinton adviser retired Adm. James Stavridis. I sense some anticipatory glee.

The failed presidential candidate herself – the one who did as much as anyone to ratchet up tensions with Russia during and after her witless campaign – herself weighed in during a Feb. 28 MSNBC interview. She was asked what she thought about Americans going to fight as private individuals (as they did during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s), and also whether other countries, including NATO members, ought to send troops to fight the Russians. Clinton responded:

It may well be that some people will go into Ukraine to help fight the Russians.

I don’t think it`s a good idea for that to be a government-sponsored effort. And I think people who go should be made aware that they are going on their own.

It is heartbreaking to see Ukraine standing alone against Russia, although they`re doing so far an amazing job in rallying their citizens. I don`t think you will find any country right now that will do that.

And then she added:

But, remember, the Russians invaded Afghanistan back in 1980. And although no country went in, they certainly had a lot of countries supplying arms and advice and even some advisers to those who were recruited to fight Russia. It didn`t end well for the Russians. There were other unintended consequences, as we know. But the fact is that a very motivated and then funded and armed insurgency basically drove the Russians out of Afghanistan.

Did you catch the carefully buried reference to 9/11 and all the death and destruction that ensued in the “war on terror” and that still plagues the Middle East? It’s in these words: “There were other unintended consequences” – as though what followed was an insignificant detail of the valiant effort to aid the mujahideen – al Qaeda was there – against the Russians beginning in 1979.

Scott Horton, the author of Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism, commented:

People really should watch the entire clip to see the way Clinton smirks at the cute little irony of al Qaeda’s attacks against America and the entire 20-year terror war: What are two million dead humans, 10 trillion dollars wasted, the 21st century and new millennium started off soaking in blood just a decade after the peaceful victory for the West after the fall of the USSR? Just a few little-old “unintended consequences,” not even worth mentioning.

Anyone who can talk the way Clinton does is a seriously flawed human being. And she’s not the first. Recall that President Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, bragged, no doubt with exaggeration, that he personally lured Russia into Afghanistan so Russia would have its own “Vietnam.” Now here’s Hillary Clinton essentially saying that, with Western help, Ukraine just might be Russia’s 21st-century Afghanistan. Oh, joy!

We shouldn’t be surprised by her cynical neglect of the suffering Afghans and Ukrainians. Remember, she was co-president in the 1990s when she and her husband, Bill Clinton the triangulator, helped to pave the way for every virtually manmade disaster of the 21st century.

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Sheldon Richman is the executive editor of The Libertarian Institute, senior fellow and chair of the trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society, and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com. He is the former senior editor at the Cato Institute and Institute for Humane Studies, former editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education, and former vice president at the Future of Freedom Foundation. His latest book is What Social Animals Owe to Each Other.

Featured image is from Al Mayadeen

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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***

Abu Zubaydah, whom the CIA once mistakenly alleged was a top al-Qaeda leader, was waterboarded 80+ times, subjected to assault in the form of forced rectal exams, and exposed to live burials in coffins for hundreds of hours. Zubaydah sobbed, twitched and hyperventilated. During one waterboarding session, he became completely unresponsive, with bubbles coming out of his mouth. “He became so compliant that he would prepare for waterboarding at the snap of a finger,” Neil Gorsuch wrote in his 30-page dissent in United States v. Zubaydah.

On March 3, in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court dismissed Zubaydah’s petition requesting the testimony of psychologists James Mitchell and John Jessen, whom the CIA hired to orchestrate his torture at a secret CIA prison (“CIA black site”) in Poland from December 2002 until September 2003. Zubaydah was transferred to other CIA black sites before being sent to Guantánamo in 2006, where he remains today with no charges against him.

Zubaydah sought information: (1) to confirm that the CIA black site in question was located in Poland; (2) about his torture there; and (3) about the involvement of Polish officials. First the Trump administration — now the Biden administration — claim that confirming the location of the CIA black site in Poland is a “state secret” that would significantly harm U.S. national security interests. Zubaydah needs Mitchell and Jessen’s testimony to document his treatment from December 2002 to 2003 at the CIA black site in Poland for use in the ongoing Polish criminal investigation of Poles complicit in his torture. Those details have not been publicly documented.

Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo wrote in a declaration that although the enhanced interrogation techniques are no longer classified, the location of the CIA black site in question remains a state secret. Pompeo maintained that soliciting information about the involvement of Polish nationals in Zubaydah’s treatment could compromise national security.

But the location of the Polish CIA black site has been publicly acknowledged in several venues. The 683-page report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, published in 2014, detailed the CIA detention and interrogation program, including details about Zubaydah’s torture prior to being sent to the CIA’s black site in Poland. In 2007, the Council of Europe issued a long report that found Zubaydah was held at the Polish CIA black site after his capture in 2002. The former president of Poland told reporters in 2012 that the CIA black site in Poland was established with his knowledge. In 2014, the European Court of Human Rights concluded beyond reasonable doubt that Zubaydah was held in Poland from December 2002 to September 2003.

Moreover, in 2017, the U.S. government allowed Mitchell and Jessen to testify about how they developed the idea of waterboarding, that they asked the CIA to stop using “enhanced interrogation techniques” (aka torture) on Zubaydah, and how the CIA leadership refused. Once again, in 2020, the U.S. government permitted the two psychologists to testify at military commission hearings at Guantánamo about how Zubaydah was waterboarded and kept awake for 120 consecutive hours.

Zubaydah’s attorneys sought to elicit information about Zubaydah’s conditions of confinement and the details of his treatment without risk to any state secrets. They asked that the two psychologists be allowed to testify without confirming the location of the black site or the cooperation of foreign nationals. They offered to use code words to avoid specific reference to Poland or the involvement of Polish officials.

“The Polish prosecutor already has information [that it happened in Poland] and doesn’t need U.S. discovery on the topic,” David Klein, Zubaydah’s attorney, told the court during oral argument. “What he does need to know is what happened inside Abu Zubaydah’s cell between December 2002 and September 2003. So I want to ask simple questions like, how was Abu Zubaydah fed? What was his medical condition? What was his cell like? And, yes, was he tortured?”

Breyer Defers to Pompeo’s Spurious National Security Claims

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the state secrets privilege did not apply to information already publicly known, and since Mitchell and Jensen are private parties, their disclosures would not be attributed to the U.S. government. But the Supreme Court disagreed and reversed the Ninth Circuit’s decision, deferring to Pompeo’s spurious national security claims.

Stephen Breyer (whose less-than-liberal voting record I documented in my February 5 Truthout article) wrote the plurality opinion, joined by five of his right-wing colleagues on the court. Gorsuch filed a scathing dissent on behalf of himself and Sonia Sotomayor. Elena Kagan agreed with the dissent that Zubaydah’s petition should not be dismissed, but she disagreed with the dissent’s reasoning.

Even though it was widely known that the site where Zubaydah was tortured was located in Poland, the court’s plurality agreed with the Biden administration and held that allowing Mitchell and Jessen to testify at a criminal proceeding in Poland would officially reveal a state secret — i.e., the location of the CIA black site in Poland — that could harm national security.

“[A] court should exercise its traditional ‘reluctan[ce] to intrude upon the authority of the Executive in military and national security affairs,”’ Breyer wrote. He cited Pompeo’s claim that “sensitive” relationships with other countries are “based on mutual trust that the classified existence and nature of the relationship will not be disclosed.”

The plurality rejected the Ninth Circuit’s conclusion that since Mitchell and Jensen are private parties, their disclosures did not amount to the U.S. confirming or denying anything. Because the psychologists “worked directly for the CIA as contractors,” created and implemented the enhanced interrogation program, and personally interrogated Zubaydah, their confirmation or denial “would be tantamount to a disclosure from the CIA itself,” Breyer concluded.

Thus, the court held, Zubaydah cannot secure the testimony of Mitchell and Jensen about any of his three requested categories of inquiry, including the details of Zubaydah’s torture during the period in question.

Gorsuch’s Dissent Says That Publicly Known Information Would Not Harm National Security

“Nothing in the record of this case suggests that requiring the government to acknowledge what the world already knows to be true would invite a reasonable danger of additional harm to national security,” Gorsuch wrote in dissent. He noted that the government has the burden to prove it is entitled to assert the state secrets privilege, and it has failed to carry that burden.

Decrying the court’s failure to even probe the government’s privilege claim at all, Gorsuch observed, “We have replaced independent inquiry with a rubber stamp.”

“The Constitution did not create a President in the King’s image but envisioned an executive regularly checked and balanced by other authorities,” Gorsuch declared. He cited the executive branch’s over-classification of documents and cautioned the court against “abdicating any pretense of an independent judicial inquiry into the propriety of a claim of privilege and extending instead ‘utmost deference’ to the Executive’s mere assertion of one.”

The dissent accused the government of seeking dismissal of Zubaydah’s petition to avoid “further embarrassment for past misdeeds.” Gorsuch noted that “our government treated Zubaydah brutally — more than 80 waterboarding sessions, hundreds of hours of live burial, and what it calls ‘rectal rehydration.’”

Indeed, as Zubaydah’s attorney Joseph Margulies said in 2016, Abu Zubaydah is “the poster child for the torture program, and that’s why they never want him to be heard from again.”

Gorsuch concluded his dissent by writing, “But as embarrassing as these facts may be, there is no state secret here. This Court’s duty is to the rule of law and the search for truth. We should not let shame obscure our vision.”

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Copyright Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

Marjorie Cohn, a former criminal defense attorney, is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, past president of the National Lawyers Guild, and member of the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. She has published four books about the “war on terror”: Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law; The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse; Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent; and Drones and Targeting Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues. 

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: By 2006, at least 100 prisoners had died in US custody in Afghanistan and Iraq, most of them violently, according to government data. (Photo: US torture Image by Witness Against Torture)

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

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

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

***

The west doesn’t care about the people it kills. Part of the evidence for this has been on the front pages of every newspaper and on every news show since Russia launched the Ukrainian invasion. The rest of the evidence is what has been missing on the front pages of the newspapers and TV shows. The contrast makes the point.

You see no universal Western outrage over the US support for the Saudi blockade on Yemen. The war had  killed an estimated 377,000 by the end of 2021, the majority of them children dead of famine. We see an occasional story but nothing remotely like the moral outrage over the Ukrainian invasion. The children are Arabs and we are supporting the ones most responsible for killing them.

And then there are our sanctions on Afghanistan and the American theft of their money. In that link, Ezra Klein in the New York Times attributes good intentions to Biden officials but makes it clear what the obvious results will be—immense suffering and death. He suggests they might be blinded by their ideology, unable to zoom out from it.

WFP Provides Food Assistance to a Record 7 Million People In Yemen In August 2017. UN World Food Program. [Source: wfp.org]

And then there are the sanctions we are imposing on various countries such as Iran, Syria and Venezuela. These sanctions are designed precisely to pressure governments by causing suffering and in the end, increased mortality rates among the population. Richard Nephew who designed the sanctions imposed on Iranduring the Obama Administration explicitly admits that sanctions are meant to cause pain in his book “The Art of Sanctions”. (The “look inside” feature on Amazon shows enough to see Nephew’s declaration about the purpose of sanctions being the inflicting of pain.)

And of course there is the ongoing American support for the apartheid state of Israel, with photos of brutality against Palestinians which people have falsely attributed to the Russian invasion.

All of these things are happening right now and the Yemen and Afghanistan crises involve mass death, with a child dying of war-caused famine every nine minutes in Yemen and the possibility of worse in Afghanistan.

There hasn’t been anything close to the level of outrage or calls for action on these issues as there has been for the Ukraine invasion. The Russian invasion has its own uniquely dangerous and terrifying feature because there is the very real danger of a nuclear war breaking out due to escalation and miscalculation. But most of the outrage has been directed towards the war itself and Putin’s responsibility for the suffering. If this outrage were motivated by genuine universal concern for human life, we would be seeing daily photos or at least references to the children dying in Yemen and this would be linked to our support for the Saudis, but we don’t.

The recent Atlantic profile of Mohammed bin Salman refers to the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, but says nothing about the Saudi blockade. It only references US attempts to cut back on Saudi bombing of civilians, implying that we are the good guys– but the Saudis are using American planes dropping American bombs. The Houthis are not innocents either, but there is a liberal coating of whitewash given to American responsibility in Yemen.

That said, over the past 20 years no American who has paid attention to the news and becomes exercised over political issues can legitimately claim ignorance. As bad as the mainstream press usually is, as laced with bias and jingoism as it tends to be, there has been enough accurate reporting for people to know that the US commits war crimes or supports others who do, and these are not simply the excesses of the occasional soldier but are in fact policy.

Sanctions are policy. Blockades are policy. Massive bombing of civilians in Raqqa and Mosul was policy. Support for Israel no matter what it does to Palestinians is policy.

And yet little of this knowledge is reflected in our political culture, and European countries are no better. People act as though Putin’s brutality is some uniquely awful thing that “civilized” people would never do to other “civilized” people in our enlightened era. And all of these attitudes become part of everyday life. On my daily commute I just started seeing a church with a big blue and yellow banner saying “Pray for Ukraine”. In the many years I have driven past that church I don’t recall ever seeing a banner about Yemen or Gaza.

Why are we so brutally callous towards our own victims? The question partly answers itself. People don’t like to admit that the politicians they support, both Democrats and Republicans, are implicated in war crimes. So they ignore them or worse, justify them. It is easy to criticize, Democratic partisans will say. Republicans barely even bother to care (with a few exceptions).

The rest of the explanation, of course, is a mixture of racism and ethnocentrism. There is an explicit admission by some reporters and others that they care about Ukrainians because they look like “us” ( white people are “us”, apparently), and Ukraine is a “civilized” (white) place. At other times I have seen people state in so many words that our actions that plunge other countries into chaos are not so bad because they would be killing each other anyway.

But most important is the role of the press. As stated before, the Western press sometimes does report on Western atrocities, but with nothing like the level and quantity of moral outrage they reserve for the crimes of our enemies. People may think they can rise above this, but observation suggests this is largely false. If there isn’t a constant drumbeat of stories about our atrocities as there is for Putin’s, and pundits aren’t constantly agonizing over our need to do something, the unspoken message is that our crimes simply aren’t that important or bad. And there is always the social pressure to conform. And people absorb this message. They are embarrassed by the wrong kind of moral outrage. It isn’t normal and not the sort of thing you see serious people doing. That said, an explanation is not an excuse.

In the current climate of extreme stupidity the standard reaction to my argument would be that it is an example of “whataboutism.” Yes, that is exactly what it is, and only a moral imbecile would think there is something wrong with it because of that.

When people are behaving like hypocrites, denouncing one set of crimes committed by their enemies and ignoring, excusing or actually advocating the crimes committed by their own country or its allies, you should say to those people “what about the crimes your country supports”? And we aren’t even comparing past crimes committed by the US with current crimes committed by Putin. All of these crimes are occurring now.

Two more points. There are several pieces published recently where people try to outline a morally consistent anti-war position, where lefties oppose both American imperialism and imperialism by other countries such as Russia. This is a fine goal, and do it because it is right, but don’t do it because you think it will gain you more credibility with mainstream liberals. The ideology of mainstream liberalism requires them to see themselves as “civilized”. They may make tragic mistakes but always with good intentions. It can’t be that they are supporters of a system that has them making the same types of “tragic mistakes” over and over again. They are nice people. They can’t possibly be as guilty as someone like Putin. I am not being sarcastic. People in the Western world who make the decisions or identify with those who make the decisions are not going to accept a truly principled anti war critique. They will see the equation of their crimes with Putin’s as “whataboutism” and therefore not serious. Ezra Klein bumped up against that attitude ( we are the good guys doing our best) in the officials he questioned when writing his post on our Afghanistan policy. If these people accepted the anti war critique they would have to resign and speak out. Fundamentally Western liberals who consider themselves serious people cannot admit to themselves that Western leaders might be morally as responsible for war crimes as someone like Putin. It can’t be accepted. It also means that even when they do admit something is wrong, like Yemen or Afghanistan, it has to be seen as a tragic mistake by well intentioned people and not the result of an ideology and attitudes which keep leading to such “mistakes”. Tony Blinken is this nice soft-spoken guy but I gather he was in favor of both the Iraq invasion and the decision to support the Saudi war in Yemen. All liberals care about is that he is a nice guy (which I think he is), like them.

And finally, having condemned brutal sanctions, including the ones we may level on Russia (Russians are considered “them”, btw), how could I support BDS? Speaking only for myself, it is because BDS is largely symbolic and not remotely lethal. The reaction of Israel and its supporters demonstrates this. On the one hand they laugh off the effects as trivial economically, which they are, but on the other hand they react with near hysterical accusations of antisemitism if some musician or author refuses to perform in Israel or have a book translated by some Israeli firm. The symbolism frightens them.

It is impossible to imagine that the “civilized” West would ever allow “civilized” Israel to be subjected to the sorts of brutal sanctions that “civilized” nations inflict on “uncivilized” nations. So I don’t have to face the moral dilemma but what if it happened? One could decide based on what Palestinians themselves actually living there would say, because they as the people with no power are the ones who would suffer the most. Perhaps they would be united in favor of sanctions that would hit them hard. I would still not want to be responsible for killing people.

Gazan artist killed by Israeli soldiers (Source: Just World Educational)

Meanwhile, in the real world, being a citizen of the US, I already am responsible for killing people. We are doing exactly that to various countries, and Gazans are living in a giant prison camp, so the preceding paragraph amounted to moral posturing regarding a situation that Western nations would never allow to happen to one of their own. Westerners inflict sanctions that hurt people living under authoritarian governments, hoping to see people suffer so much they might rebel or at least pressure their respective government to change course.

But somehow affluent citizens of democratic countries are never seen as suitable subjects for targeted sanctions even though they should have far more control over their own country’s actions.  One can’t easily target only the guilty classes on a large scale (you can hit individual oligarchs or dictators or in theory American politicians) which is why sanctions in practice, the ones imposed on an entire country, generally hit the poor the hardest.  And Westerners are fine with that.

Two concluding notes.

1. There are very early examples of the validity of whataboutism in the Bible. Notably in the famous line from the Sermon on the Mount, where Matthew quotes Jesus: “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”

2. Here is a later example of a hypocrite objecting to a legitimate question regarding accountability.

Last June Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership issued a statement rejecting Rep. Ilhan Omar’s criticisms of American and Israeli actions. “[D]rawing false equivalencies between democracies like the U.S. and Israel and groups that engage in terrorism like Hamas and the Taliban foments prejudice and undermines progress toward a future of peace and security for all,” the leaders said.

What triggered the hypocrites? Omar questioned Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the International Criminal Court prosecuting war crimes:

I know you opposed the court’s investigation in both Palestine and in Afghanistan. I haven’t seen any evidence in either cases that domestic courts both can and will prosecute alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. And I would emphasize that in Israel and Palestine, this includes crimes committed by both the Israeli Security Forces and Hamas. In Afghanistan, it includes crimes committed by the Afghan national government and the Taliban.

Blinken responded to Omar that the US and Israel are accountable. This is ludicrous. And as someone who was part of the decision to give the Saudis the green light on bombing Yemen, he shouldn’t be speaking about accountability.

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Featured image: Yemen children impacted by genocidal war (Credits to the owner of the photo)

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.

On 24 February 1990, U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush secretly informed German Chancellor Helmut Kohl at Camp David, that though Bush and all of his agents such as Secretary of State James Baker had verbally promised the Soviet Union’s leader Mikhail Gorbachev that (as Baker put it) NATO would not expand “one inch to the east” (toward Russia’s border) if communism and the Soviets’ NATO-mirror military alliance Warsaw Pact would end, and the Soviet Union break up, this had been only in order to deceive Gorbachev, and, that actually, the Cold War on the U.S.-and-allied side would secretly continue until Russia itself would ultimately become part of the U.S.-controlled empire. Later, Bush similarly informed other U.S.-allied heads-of-state.

A colleague recently told me that he considers this okay because there was no signed agreement by Gorbachev and Bush on this matter; so, those promises should just have been ignored by Gorbachev. (In other words: Bush’s intention for America and its allies to conquer Russia was okay.) I responded to him as follows:

Because of your underlying assumption that ONLY WRITTEN agreements count, I just now did some research on whether America’s now having unilaterally cancelled Russia’s membership in the WTO (World Trade Organization) so as to be able to tariff at sky-high rates Russian imports into the U.S. is legal. America is a signed member of WTO, and so is Russia.

The WTO Treaty (called “GATT” for “General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade”) opens with Article 1, Paragraph 1, which prohibits any member from providing “any advantage, favour, privilege or immunity granted by any contracting party to any product originating in or destined for any other country” unless the same treatment is being provided to all other member countries. That’s the core of the GATT: non-discriminatory international trade

The next question is whether (or under what conditions) a country can be expelled from the WTO (as America and its allies claim to be doing). The entire WTO Treaty fails even so much as to just mention expulsion — and, so, the honest answer here is clearly No.

Yet America ‘did’ it, and its vassal-nations (‘allies’) joined in — all of them clearly violating that written Treaty, which all of them (just as Russia had done) had signed.

On 12 March 2022, the neoconservative Washington Post, Jeff Bezos’s newspaper, bannered “There are two ways to kick Russia out of the world trade system. One is more likely to work.”, and it argued that, “Even if WTO members do not act collectively to suspend or expel Russia, they can act individually to effectively remove Russia’s WTO privileges. Indeed, Ukraine and Canada have already done so.”

The argument is that this can be done if “a WTO member ‘considers necessary for the protection of its essential security interests . . . taken in time of war or other emergency in international relations.’” That excuse can be used by any country against any country it wants to harm, but since the Treaty includes no provision to expel any member, any country that uses this as a mere excuse — i.e., when NOT under threat (unlike Ukraine, which IS actually at war with Russia) — such as the U.S. and its allies are — violates the Treaty’s opening paragraph.

Previously, America’s having punitively tariffed China in 2018 had been ruled illegal by the WTO in 2020.

On 22 August 2018, the neoconservative Wall Street Journal had headlined “For U.S. to Stay in WTO, China May Have to Leave. Instead of unilateral tariffs, the U.S. and its allies could use the World Trade Organization to force China to alter its trade-distorting behavior — or leave”. It reported that:

There may be a more effective solution: threaten China with expulsion from the WTO. Calling this the nuclear option doesn’t really do it justice since the nuclear weapons don’t even exist. The WTO lacks a formal mechanism to throw out a member. But its founding charter, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, includes a section, Article XXIII, that can achieve the same thing. It allows a case to be brought against a member for behavior that doesn’t specifically violate the treaty but “nullifies or impairs” the benefits every other country expects to derive from the WTO.

Of course, since their argument was merely smoke and mirrors, the only people whom it might have fooled would have been other neoconservatives — certainly no international legal body. (That’s WHY the WTO rejected it.)

Consequently, it is clear that at least in regard to America’s having signed onto the WTO Treaty, its signature (and that of its vassal-nations) means actually nothing. That was a signed, sealed, and delivered American-and-international contract (Treaty), but America (and its ‘allies’) violate it with impunity. (They, in fact, do this routinely.)

So, the real issue here isn’t ‘signed’ versus ‘only spoken’, but, instead, honest versus dishonest, and maybe even more basically war (coercive) versus peace (non-coercive). Russia had done everything it could to avoid needing to invade Ukraine in order to disempower the nazis who have been running the country ever since Obama’s 2014 coup placed it into the hands of rabidly anti-Russian racist-fascists there.

Both the U.S. regime and its NATO military alliance answered Russia’s demand clearly: No, never — only we can have any say over whether or not Ukraine, on Russia’s border, joins NATO!

What other option did Putin then have, in order to avoid a Cuban-Missile-Crisis-in-the- reverse-direction? Why is U.S. President Biden (and why aren’t his predecessors and his allies) who refused even to consider Putin’s very reasonable demand to exclude Ukraine from NATO, not being blamed as having actually caused this war?

On 24 February 1990, Bush introduced the plan. The war in Ukraine is one climactic result of that plan, which G.H.W. Bush had started and Barack Obama raised to the threat-level it now poses. Vladimir Putin really is responding to that plan, in the only way that is realistically left to him to do.

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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.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

This incisive article by the late Robert Parry published almost eight years ago (July 8, 2014), documents a process which is now unfolding in Ukraine on a much larger scale with the influx of Islamic mercenaries.

The legacy of Robert Parry lives. 

***

In a curiously upbeat account, The New York Times reports that Islamic militants have joined with Ukraine’s far-right and neo-Nazi battalions to fight ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. It appears that no combination of violent extremists is too wretched to celebrate as long as they’re killing Russ-kies.

The article by Andrew E. Kramer reports that there are now three Islamic battalions “deployed to the hottest zones,” such as around the port city of Mariupol. One of the battalions is headed by a former Chechen warlord who goes by the name “Muslim,” Kramer wrote, adding:

“The Chechen commands the Sheikh Mansur group, named for an 18th-century Chechen resistance figure. It is subordinate to the nationalist Right Sector, a Ukrainian militia. … Right Sector … formed during last year’s street protests in Kiev from a half-dozen fringe Ukrainian nationalist groups like White Hammer and the Trident of Stepan Bandera.

“Another, the Azov group, is openly neo-Nazi, using the ‘Wolf’s Hook’ symbol associated with the [Nazi] SS. Without addressing the issue of the Nazi symbol, the Chechen said he got along well with the nationalists because, like him, they loved their homeland and hated the Russians.”

As casually as Kramer acknowledges the key front-line role of neo-Nazis and white supremacists fighting for the U.S.-backed Kiev regime, his article does mark an aberration for the Times and the rest of the mainstream U.S. news media, which usually dismiss any mention of this Nazi taint as “Russian propaganda.”

During the February 2014 coup that ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych, the late fascist Stepan Bandera was one of the Ukrainian icons celebrated by the Maidan protesters. During World War II, Bandera headed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-B, a radical paramilitary movement that sought to transform Ukraine into a racially pure state. At times coordinating with Adolf Hitler’s SS, OUN-B took part in the expulsion and extermination of tens of thousands of Jews and Poles.

Though most of the Maidan protesters in 2013-14 appeared motivated by anger over political corruption and by a desire to join the European Union, neo-Nazis made up a significant number and spearheaded much of the violence against the police. Storm troopers from the Right Sektor and Svoboda party seized government buildings and decked them out with Nazi insignias and a Confederate battle flag, the universal symbol of white supremacy.

Then, as the protests turned bloodier from Feb. 20-22, the neo-Nazis surged to the forefront. Their well-trained militias, organized in 100-man brigades called “sotins” or “the hundreds,” led the final assaults against police and forced Yanukovych and many of his officials to flee for their lives.

In the days after the coup, as the neo-Nazi militias effectively controlled the government, European and U.S. diplomats scrambled to help the shaken parliament put together the semblance of a respectable regime, although four ministries, including national security, were awarded to the right-wing extremists in recognition of their crucial role in ousting Yanukovych.

At that point, virtually the entire U.S. news media put on blinders about the neo-Nazi role, all the better to sell the coup to the American public as an inspirational story of reform-minded “freedom fighters” standing up to “Russian aggression.” The U.S. media delicately stepped around the neo-Nazi reality by keeping out relevant context, such as the background of national security chief Andriy Parubiy, who founded the Social-National Party of Ukraine in 1991, blending radical Ukrainian nationalism with neo-Nazi symbols. Parubiy was commandant of the Maidan’s “self-defense forces.”

Barbarians at the Gate

At times, the mainstream media’s black-out of the brown shirts was almost comical. Last February, almost a year after the coup, a New York Times article about the government’s defenders of Mariupol hailed the crucial  role played by the Azov battalion but managed to avoid noting its well-documented Nazi connections.

That article by Rick Lyman presented the situation in Mariupol as if the advance by ethnic Russian rebels amounted to the barbarians at the gate while the inhabitants were being bravely defended by the forces of civilization, the Azov battalion. In such an inspirational context, it presumably wasn’t considered appropriate to mention the Swastikas and SS markings.

Now, the Kiev regime has added to those “forces of civilization” — resisting the Russ-kie barbarians — Islamic militants with ties to terrorism. Last September, Marcin Mamon, a reporter for the Intercept, reached a vanguard group of these Islamic fighters in Ukraine through the help of his “contact in Turkey with the Islamic State [who] had told me his ‘brothers’ were in Ukraine, and I could trust them.”

The new Times article avoids delving into the terrorist connections of these Islamist fighters. But Kramer does bluntly acknowledge the Nazi truth about the Azov fighters. He also notes that American military advisers in Ukraine “are specifically prohibited from giving instruction to members of the Azov group.”

While the U.S. advisers are under orders to keep their distance from the neo-Nazis, the Kiev regime is quite open about its approval of the central military role played by these extremists – whether neo-Nazis, white supremacists or Islamic militants. These extremists are considered very aggressive and effective in killing ethnic Russians.

The regime has shown little concern about widespread reports of “death squad” operations targeting suspected pro-Russian sympathizers in government-controlled towns. But such human rights violations should come as no surprise given the Nazi heritage of these units and the connection of the Islamic militants to hyper-violent terrorist movements in the Middle East.

But the Times treats this lethal mixture of neo-Nazis and Islamic extremists as a good thing. After all, they are targeting opponents of the “white-hatted” Kiev regime, while the ethnic Russian rebels and the Russian government wear the “black hats.”

As an example of that tone, Kramer wrote:

“Even for Ukrainians hardened by more than a year of war here against Russian-backed separatists, the appearance of Islamic combatants, mostly Chechens, in towns near the front lines comes as something of a surprise — and for many of the Ukrainians, a welcome one. … Anticipating an attack in the coming months, the Ukrainians are happy for all the help they can get.”

So, the underlying message seems to be that it’s time for the American people and the European public to step up their financial and military support for a Ukrainian regime that has unleashed on ethnic Russians a combined force of Nazis, white supremacists and Islamic militants (considered “brothers” of the Islamic State).

[For more on the Azov battalion, see Consortiumnews.com’s “US House Admits Nazi Role in Ukraine.”]

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 and barnesandnoble.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 includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

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

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

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

***

The U.S. Government’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) database was updated this past Friday, March 11, 2022, and it is now reporting that there have been 1,168,894 cases of injuries and deaths following COVID-19 vaccines since December of 2020, when the FDA issued emergency use authorizations for the COVID-19 vaccines. (Source.)

By way of contrast, there were 926,031 cases of injuries and deaths following all FDA-approved vaccines for the previous 30+ years, from 1990 through November of 2020. (Source.)

So there have been more injuries and deaths recorded in VAERS during the past 15 months following COVID-19 vaccines, than there were for the previous 30+ years combined following all vaccines recorded in VAERS.

Fetal Deaths Increase by 3,525% Following COVID-19 Vaccines

This most recent update of VAERS shows that there have now been 3,852 fetal deaths following COVID-19 vaccines. (Source.)

To arrive at the number of fetal deaths recorded in VAERS I tested several different searches on listed “symptoms” and then checked to see if the search results documented fetal deaths, since there is no demographic for “fetal deaths.”

The following is the current list of “symptoms” in VAERS that reveals fetal deaths:

• Aborted pregnancy
• Abortion
• Abortion complete
• Abortion complicated
• Abortion early
• Abortion incomplete
• Abortion induced
• Abortion induced incomplete
• Abortion late
• Abortion missed
• Abortion of ectopic pregnancy
• Abortion spontaneous
• Abortion spontaneous complete
• Abortion spontaneous incomplete
• Ectopic pregnancy
• Ectopic pregnancy termination
• Ectopic pregnancy with contraceptive device
• Foetal cardiac arrest
• Foetal death
• Premature baby death
• Premature delivery
• Ruptured ectopic pregnancy
• Stillbirth

This list may not be exhaustive. But if we use the exact same search using these symptoms, we can compare “apples to apples” in examining fetal deaths following COVID-19 vaccines as compared to fetal deaths following all non-COVID vaccines.

Using this search for all FDA-approved vaccines for the previous 30+ years before the COVID-19 vaccines were given emergency use authorization in December of 2020, we find 2,550 fetal deaths, the vast majority of which followed vaccines produced by Merck, which would include the Gardasil vaccines. (Source.)

Here are the yearly averages then according to VAERS:

• 85 fetal deaths per year following non-COVID vaccines
• 3082 fetal deaths per year following COVID-19 vaccines

That’s a 3,525% increase in fetal deaths following COVID-19 vaccines, compared to reported fetal deaths following all FDA approved vaccines combined for the previous 30 years.

And still, I have not seen one single source in the Alternative Media report on these statistics (although a few of them have picked up our articles on the topic.)

Why is that?

Is it because they are afraid to cite us as a source for coming up with these search parameters, due to the fact that we also report the truth on pro-vaccine Donald Trump, and the pro-vaccine superstar doctors, which would upset their reader base and supporters?

Is that why these statistics are censored in the Alternative Media? If so, then you all have blood on your hands, because you are withholding what could be life-saving information to help a pregnant woman or child-bearing age woman make an informed decision about whether or not to receive one of these shots.

I don’t need any credit or links back for this information to be published! Do your own searches and report the same thing if you don’t want to be associated with us. There’s no ego here, and I do not earn any money from publishing these statistics.

This is about informed consent, and giving the public the statistics from the U.S. Government’s own database to have the data one needs to make an informed decision about these COVID-19 vaccines.

Facebook Fact Checkers Try to Discredit These Reports but End Up Verifying Them Instead!

Source.

Since we appear to be the only one publishing these statistics on fetal deaths, they have been shared widely on Facebook, as one would expect, forcing Facebook to call out their “Fact Checkers” to kill the traffic to our websites where we publish this data.

If you look at the image above from one of their “Fact Checking” sites, Politifact, one is led to believe that they have actually fact checked our data and found it be false.

But if you read the actual article they wrote, if you understand English and have at least a 3rd grade reading level, you will quickly see that they do not deny the facts we are reporting at all, but instead are attacking us based on the search tool we used to extract this data from VAERS, which is Medalerts.org.

But even then, they are not disputing the fact that the data extracted from VAERS through Medalerts.org is inaccurate or different from the CDC’s own front-end search tool for VAERS, because it is not, it is because they do not like the organization who developed this search tool, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), who they refer to as “an anti-vaccine organization.”

If you have ever studied logic, you will know that this is a logical fallacy called an “ad hominem” attack, which means an attack against the reputation of the person making a claim, but not the actual facts of what they are claiming.

The opposite of an “ad hominem” fallacy is the “appeal to authority” fallacy, which says that something is true based on the person’s reputation independent of whatever “facts” they are claiming to be reporting.

And that’s all Facebook is doing here. They are saying that the results from Medalerts.org are not trustworthy because the NVIC is “an anti-vaccine organization,” and they are disagreeing that the facts from VAERS proves that the COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous for pregnant women, because the CDC, The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and The American Academy of Pediatrics all agree that the vaccines are safe for pregnant women, regardless of what is published in VAERS.

Notice that they never once say that the actual data from VAERS is inaccurate, because it is not. The data extracted from VAERS via Medalerts.org is exactly the same data you will extract from VAERS on the CDC website, but the search tool on the CDC website is very difficult to use (intentionally??), which is why most people will choose to use Medalerts.org instead.

If you search for all cases filed in VAERS following a COVID-19 vaccine from Medalerts.org today, you will get a result of 1,168,894 cases. (Source.)

One of the nice features of the Medalerts.org search tool is that they provide a URL at the bottom of every search conducted to display the results of that search, so you can go back to it and share the link with others.

The CDC VAERS search tool does not supply that. But if you do a search on their site for all cases in VAERS following a COVID-19 vaccine, you get the exact same number: 1,168,894.

In another, more recent, Facebook “Fact Check” article that did not slander Health Impact News, but Steve Kirsch, where they also tried to discredit Medalerts.org, they actually admit that the Medalerts.org search tool is the original one, and that the CDC Wonder tool came years later.

Again, if you simply just look at their headline: “How an alternative gateway to VAERS data helps fuel vaccine misinformation“, and don’t actually read the article, you would be led to believe that they totally discredited Medalerts.org as reporting false data.

But this is what they actually wrote about Medalerts.org, after you get past all the ad hominem attacks against Kirsch:

Understanding MedAlerts

MedAlerts is an online search tool that allows users to sort through records from VAERS, the federal repository of reports about things that happen to people after they are vaccinated. Created in 2003, a few years before the Centers for Disease Control developed its own Wonder search tool, MedAlerts was a pioneering step in making VAERS reports more accessible and visible to the general public.

The MedAlerts site says that it has “a better user interface, more powerful search capabilities, and more extensive reporting,” than CDC Wonder, “making it the best VAERS search facility.” (Source.)

They even give credit to the NVIC for being the ones who originally made this data in VAERS accessible to the public!

NVIC says it played a role in developing the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which Congress passed in 1986. The law created a compensation program for families who claimed injury from vaccines, while limiting the legal exposure for drug makers.

“NVIC has monitored and reported on the implementation of the safety provisions in the (National Childhood Vaccine Injury) Act since it was enacted in November 1986,” Barbara Loe Fisher, NVIC’s president and co-founder, told PolitiFact.

The law also led to the creation in 1990 of VAERS, the reporting system that the government would use to track suspected vaccine side effects, Seth Mnookin wrote in “The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear,” a history of the anti-vaccine movement.

For years, VAERS reports were mostly invisible to the public. Until 2001, the public could access the reports only through a Freedom of Information Act request. In the early Internet era, the reports were digitized and made available for download from the VAERS website. Only in 2006 did the government develop CDC Wonder, a search tool for all of the agency’s data.

MedAlerts came before that. It was initially created by computer scientist Steven Rubin in 2003, before becoming subsumed by NVIC in 2005. The purpose of MedAlerts is to provide the public with a “user-friendly way to search the VAERS database,” Fisher said.

MedAlerts presents users with a simpler interface for queries and search results displayed in neatly formatted, easy-to-read tables. Whether they’re accessed through MedAlerts or CDC Wonder, though, the underlying data are the same VAERS reports. (Source.)

Never once do they state that the data pulled from VAERS via the Medalerts.org search tool is inaccurate.

Again, they attack NVIC instead, which is a non-profit, and their biggest donor, Dr. Joseph Mercola, but not the accuracy of the data they extract from VAERS.

And what is NVIC’s biggest sin in allowing people to use this free tool to easily retrieve data from VAERS according to this “Facebook Fact Checker” article?

One key difference between the two search tools is how forthcoming they are about those limitations and flaws. CDC Wonder requires users to acknowledge a lengthy disclaimer before initiating a search, and repeats the full text of the disclaimer with the search results.

On the NVIC’s MedAlerts, by contrast, you can search freely without ever seeing the disclaimer. There’s an inconspicuous link to the government disclaimer on the home page, and another link shown with the search results.

But people who don’t notice or click on the link won’t see the warnings. This leaves little standing in the way between the public and raw, unverified data. (Source. Emphasis mine.)

Oh no!!! We can’t let the public have access to the raw data without the Government explaining it and making them sign a disclaimer agreeing with the government before letting them search! Oh no, that should not happen because the public is too stupid to read raw data! They might actually believe that there are safety problems with the vaccines, and that would hurt sales!

If you read the Government disclaimer, which they even admit is provided on Medalerts.org, just not required to agree to prior to searching, it basically says that the information in VAERS is not reliable and that only the U.S. Government can interpret it.

I am sure they would love to get rid of VAERS completely, but they are required by law to maintain this database. It was one of the requirements in the 1986 Act that now prevents people from suing vaccine manufacturers over injuries and deaths due to vaccines.

The pharmaceutical companies have legal immunity from these lawsuits, and one has to sue the Federal Government in their own Vaccine Court instead, and even then you cannot sue for any damages from a COVID-19 vaccine, because they are part of the PREP Act.

So if the U.S. Government wants us to believe that VAERS is not reliable and should not be used to determine if a vaccine is safe or not, then the 1986 National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program should be abolished, and people should be able to start suing the pharmaceutical companies again if they put bad vaccines into the market that kill and maim people (which is pretty much all of them).

In the meantime, Facebook’s “Fact Checkers” are anything but sources of checking “facts.” They are constantly being sued, and in a lawsuit filed last year, they were forced to take the position that their “fact checking” articles were actually “protected opinions” so that they could at least have the illusion of being protected by the First Amendment right to “Free Speech.”

The labels themselves are neither false nor defamatory; to the contrary, they constitute protected opinion. (Source.)

As for the fetal deaths that are following the COVID-19 vaccines in record numbers, here are two recent stories from young mothers who lost their unborn babies just after receiving a second COVID-19 vaccine.

Perhaps their words and their experiences, which obviously represent, at least, many thousands of others, can better communicate just how truly horrible this is.

This is on our Bitchute channel, Odysee channel, and also on our Telegram channel.

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Featured image is from HIN

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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***

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is the fifth leading cause of death in elderly adults according to researchers in Taiwan. The progressive disease can heavily deteriorate the life and independence of an individual, sometimes just years after showing the first symptoms.

Now, those same researchers are investigating whether a specific species of mushroom might offer hope. The mushroom, known to scientists as Hericium erinaceus, is commonly known as The Lion’s Mane Mushroom. Lion’s Mane is a gourmet edible mushroom that possesses neuroprotective properties. These could help prevent or improve the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.

While many studies conducted on cell cultures and mice show promise in the treatment of Alzheimer’s with Hericium erinaceus, a limited number of extensive clinical trials have been performed. The research team led by I-Chen Li from the Biotech Research Institute in Taoyuan City, Taiwan conducted a study to test the efficacy of these mushrooms for patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease. They published their study in June 2020 in the section “Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias”  from the peer-reviewed scientific journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.

This 49-week double-blind study used 2 parallel groups; one was fed three 5 mg/g capsules with Hericium erinaceus extract per day while the placebo group received identical-looking placebo capsules. Throughout the study period, data from ophthalmic examinations, biomarker collection, neuroimaging, and cognitive tests were collected to measure the effects of the treatment.

The researchers saw the potential in Hericium erinaceus because two important, low-molecular weight chemicals had previously been isolated and studied from this mushroom. These relatively hydrophobic compounds, Hericenones and Erinacines, have been proven to stimulate nerve growth factor synthesis, an important biochemical for the growth of nerve cells.

The team used Erinacines in particular because evidence suggests that they are capable of easily passing the blood-brain barrier. What makes Erinacines interesting is that they are not actually produced in large quantities by the mushroom fruiting bodies but instead they are produced in the mycelium, the underground white “roots” of the fungus. For this reason, researchers made an extract from the cultivated mycelium of Hericium erinaceus that contained high quantities of Erinacines.

The results of this study show that subjects with mild Alzheimer’s Disease consuming Hericium erinaceus capsules showed improvement in their cognitive abilities. Patients receiving the mushroom capsules had remarkably high scores in cognitive tests and neutral examinations. The authors of the study believe that this may be associated with the improvement of blood biomarkers and the reduced structural deterioration in certain parts of the brain.

This is good news for many individuals personally affected by Alzheimer’s disease. Unlike other major diseases, which have shown progress in the development of novel therapies, no new treatment for Alzheimer’s disease has been approved since 2003. Researchers suggest that this is because of the challenging nature of this disease which may cause damage for years before the onset of symptoms.

In addition to showing promise as a natural way to help treat or prevent mild cases of Alzheimer’s disease, Hericium erinaceus could also improve our understanding of neurology and cognitive health. By understanding how Hericium erinaceus reacts in the body, researchers hope to gain deeper insights into the cryptic workings of the brain and how to develop new medicines to fight this illness.

The study is available online.

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Timo Mendez is an environmental scientist, naturalist, and writer. His work mostly focuses on topics related to mushrooms and organic gardening.

Sources

Li, I., et al. “Prevention of early Alzheimer’s disease by erinacine A-enriched Hericium erinaceus mycelia pilot double-blind placebo-controlled study.” Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience 12 (2020): 155. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2020.00155

Featured image: Hericium erinaceus mushroom growing from old rotting trunk. Source: NCBioteacher WikiCommons.

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

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

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

***

There is new evidence of how the Biden Administration’s total disregard for reality evident in its blundering its way into war with Russia has severely damaged what once used to be referred to as national security. And while the White House and its media barking dogs continue to push the false argument that Russia’s intervention in Ukraine is somehow a threat to the United States, many thousands of illegal immigrants and alleged political refugees continue to enter the country under the radar without any serious attempt being made to determine if the flood of new arrivals is in any way beneficial.

This flow of illegals will undoubtedly increase dramatically with the fighting in Ukraine, which will produce the usual wave of refugees, most of whom will likely be Jewish based on the reality of who has power in Washington DC and will be able to influence the selection process. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has already declared that his country is prepared to welcome thousands of Ukrainian refugees and he has predictably appointed a Jewish former Member of Parliament as government minister to lead the effort. Appointee Richard Harrington is also a former head of Conservative Friends of Israel.

There have been reports that claim Ukrainians, aided by charities in the US, are already heading towards Mexico in significant numbers, buying up cheap used cars and heading north to the border to claim asylum. As this development continues and accelerates, the shifting demographics which have already changed the character of the nation will almost certainly do more damage to the economy and the cultural and political cohesion of the United States.

Entry by illegal immigrants into the United States has doubled in the past year and it is estimated that nearly 47 million US residents, 14.2% of the total population of the country, are now foreign born, the highest percentage in the past 112 years. As many are illegals and are not on a path to eventual citizenship, the Democratic Party policies has sought to empower them by relaxing voting requirements at state levels, meaning that the potential for fraudulent voting will be enormous. As expected, the White House and Congress use a euphemism to explain their position, calling it “voting rights,” which it most definitely is not. In some cases, the Democrats are pushing for illegal extension of the voting franchise. New York City, for example, has already declared that it will allow non-citizens to vote in local elections.

The Biden Administration has systematically ignored and has challenged court rulings requiring asylum seekers along the southern border to remain in Mexico while their cases are being reviewed and it has even been using taxpayer money to aid in the transporting of the illegals to cities like San Antonio, from which point they are put on planes and buses and moved to other parts of the country where they disappear into the local immigrant population. Mexico, for its part, has ignored agreements failed to implement agreements intended to slow the flow of the potential immigrants through its territory.

The Border Patrol has reported over two million “encounters” with illegal immigrants in the past year, with a likely half million more who entered the country without being detected. Deportations of the illegals have declined precipitously under orders from Washington. In January alone, 62,573 illegal immigrants were “released” by the Administration and administratively allowed to enter the US, more than were released in all of 2021, so the trend is to develop something like an open border in the south of the country. US Border Patrol personnel who object to what is going on are themselves frequently punished under orders coming from the White House and the Department of Homeland Security.

Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Alejandro Mayorkas even boasted last month of having “fundamentally changed” immigration enforcement, declaring that even criminal illegals have rights under the Biden Administration. He said that “For the first time ever, our policy explicitly states that a noncitizen’s unlawful presence in the United States will not, by itself, be a basis for the initiation of an enforcement action.” Illegal immigrants who kill someone while drunk driving are, for example, not subject to deportation. In other words, the US government is enabling illegal and even criminal activity. Get past the border and no one will bother you.

The White House and tame media have effectively hidden much of what is going on along the country’s southern border, but a new immigrant issue has recently surfaced relating to potential security issues relating to asylum seekers and refugees. The Department of Homeland Security is seeking to resettle in the United States thousands of Afghans who recently fled the change of government in their country. The program has the usual euphemistic tag attached to it: “Operation Allies Welcome.”

One of the processing centers being set up is in Northern Virginia, in Loudoun County, at the National Conference Center. Depending on what information one believes to be reliable, between one and two thousand Afghan refugees will be housed and transitioned monthly to their new lives, possibly the first wave of a total of 16,000 or more other asylum speakers who will follow. The first new arrivals, a group of 300, arrived last Tuesday. They and the other future arrivals are reportedly coming from screening in Qatar and some are also apparently already being held at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey. Reportedly, more than 80,000 Afghan refugees have already been settled in the United States as “displaced persons from Afghanistan” who have been admitted into the country under a special immigrant visa (SIV) or humanitarian parole. Many thousands more are still waiting in processing centers overseas and will also be in the pipeline.

No one is denying that the United States government has an obligation to assist the Afghans who actually worked for or directly assisted US forces in Afghanistan before the country fell to the Taliban in August. Those individuals would have documentation confirming their status and identities and those documents should be confirmable through records retained by the US Embassy and military commands in the country at the time. They and their families should and must be helped.

So the question comes down to “Are all these refugees legitimate? And what do we know about them?” And “What are the security implications of their being resettled in our communities?” One can only recall how hundreds of people escaping Kabul were stuffed into airplanes and the presumption has to be that very little was known about many of them. According to DHS, the refugees include members of groups considered to be in danger if they had staying in Afghanistan, to include teachers and “women rights activists.” How were these latter groups identified and authenticated? DHS also claims that all asylum seekers entering the US had received “rigorous screening and vetting” before being let into the country.

The be sure, the Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman has advised some caution and and raised some issues about the vetting process that has apparently taken place as well as the security at the conference center. He observed that only 30% of the arriving Afghans reportedly speak any English, which challenges the claim that they were interpreters or worked closely with American personnel. Bear in mind that the Department of Homeland Security will inevitably want those on the receiving end of the resettlement to believe whatever narrative it chooses to promote, so it claimed that 15 Federal Protection Officers would be on site to provide security and control the movements of the refugees. Chapman observed, however, that they have no law enforcement authority in Virginia so they can hardly be called upon to police their wards.

Sheriff Chapman’s concerns about the selection and vetting process are in line with my own experience. I was in Kabul in early 2002 as part of the joint team that was setting up airport and facility security. The issue of how to determine Afghans who were actually friendly or non-threatening from those who might be otherwise was of prime importance. We quickly learned that identifying Afghans was not easy. Many Afghans had only one name or names that were not distinguishable. Most had no identity documents of any kind. Few knew when they were born, and often where they were born. It was so difficult to determine who they were that we began using biometrics and created our own records based on that physical information. Since 2002, Afghanistan has had a puppet government that did not control much of the country and has been assailed by an active insurgency. I would have to believe that any possible process to identify the Afghan people has not progressed very much outside of Kabul. So who are they, these folks coming over here as a result of Biden’s great bungle in the evacuation of Afghanistan?

The Loudoun political establishment led by Chair Phyllis Randall, a loyal Democratic Party team player, asserts that “These individuals are not refugees; they are our allies and family members of American citizens and lawful permanent residents,” but that is contradicted by other government sources. In fact, as Sheriff Chapman suggested, there have been problems. Dozens of the so-called Afghan refugees already released inside the country have Pentagon records that “indicate potentially significant security concerns,” according to a new federal audit, mostly due to failure to properly vet thousands of the Afghans. The possibly dangerous refugees are somewhere in the US and cannot be located, with the Department of Defense observing that “As a result of…not vetting Afghan evacuees against all available data, the United States faces potential security risks if individuals with derogatory information are allowed to stay in the country.”

President Biden ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to be the lead agency in the program to resettle the Afghans and the White House assured Americans that the refugees would be thoroughly screened. That has not materialized and for months media reports have “exposed crimes, including child molestation, assault and domestic violence committed by Afghans temporarily housed at military bases throughout the US.” And it should be noted that those Afghans at the military bases are free to wander around outside the perimeters after they receive medical clearance, contrary to the assurances given to Sheriff Chapman.

To put it succinctly, there is a certain recklessness about how the Biden Administration does or does not apply any standards regarding measures to be taken before new potential citizens or permanent residents arrive in this country. It is changing the country and not for the better. One does not have to go far to encounter other Americans who are beginning to wonder if the nation as conceived by the Founders can survive at all. It is a legitimate concern.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla on Sunday said the vaccine maker plans to submit data on a fourth dose of its COVID-19 vaccine to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration because protection after three doses is “not that good against infections” and “doesn’t last very long” when faced with a variant like Omicron.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla on Sunday told CBS “Face the Nation” a fourth dose of its COVID-19 vaccine will be necessary to maintain manageable levels of hospitalizations and mild infections.

The company plans to submit data on a fourth dose to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is working on a vaccine that protects against all COVID variants for at least a year.

In an interview on “Squawk Box,” Bourla said:

“I think we’re going to submit to FDA a significant package of data about the need for a fourth dose, and they need to make their own conclusions, of course, and then CDC also. […] to see that clearly  there is a need in an environment of Omicron to boost the immune response.”

Bourla said a fourth dose is “necessary for right now” because protection after three doses of Pfizer’s vaccine is “not that good against infections” and “doesn’t last very long” when faced with a variant like Omicron.

Bourla said Pfizer is making a vaccine that covers Omicron and all other variants and is optimistic about the preliminary data he’s seen so far.

“There are so much trials that are going right now, and a lot of them we’ll start reading by the end of the month,” he added.

Bourla told CBS he foresees Americans needing to prepare themselves every fall for a COVID booster just like they do with the flu vaccine.

Pfizer CEO @AlbertBourla tells @margbrennan his company is working “very diligently” to make a covid vaccine that will protect against variants & will protect “for at least a year.” pic.twitter.com/yf2baRwy4K

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) March 13, 2022

A third dose of Pfizer’s vaccine is currently available to anyone 12 and older who received a second dose at least five months prior to seeking the third dose.

Pfizer always planned for yearly boosters to boost profits

As The Defender reported Feb. 26, 2021, just two months after the FDA granted Emergency Use Authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, Bourla was already telling media outlets the company’s plan long-term was to have yearly vaccine boosters.

“Every year, you need to go to get your flu vaccine,” Bourla said during an interview with NBC News. “It’s going to be the same with COVID. In a year, you will have to go and get your annual shot for COVID to be protected.”

That will mean even more sales — and more profits — from the vaccine, reported WRCBtv, a CBS subsidiary.

During a February 2021 earnings call, Bourla told analysts, big banks and investors the company could make significant profits by charging higher prices and implementing routine booster doses for new variants of the virus.

During the Barclays’ Global Health Conference in March 2021, CFO Frank D’Amelio said Pfizer didn’t see this as a one-time event, but “as something that’s going to continue for the foreseeable future.”

At the time, Pfizer had already launched a study of a third vaccine dose to address variants, called for annual boosters and told investors to expect a revenue stream similar to that of flu vaccines.

The FDA said at the time it was willing to authorize booster shots based on small clinical trials, accepting data on how well vaccines prime the immune system rather than holding out for long-term safety and efficacy results on protection against COVID.

Pfizer said last month it expects 2022 sales of its COVID vaccine and antiviral pill, Paxlovid, to yield $54 billion, Reuters reported.

Pfizer said its vaccine is projected to bring in $32 billion in 2022 — a 13% decline from 2021 levels.

New UK data suggest vaccines aren’t effective

According to data published on Substack by Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter, hospitalizations and deaths in the UK “remain stubbornly high and overwhelmingly occur in vaccinated people.”

Last month, 90% of the 1,000 Britons who died each week of COVID were vaccinated. During the four weeks ending Feb. 27, 397 unvaccinated people in Britain died of COVID compared to 3,512 who were vaccinated.

Berenson wrote:

“Using a broader definition, which may include more incidental deaths unrelated to COVID infections, the numbers are even worse, with 5,871 vaccinated people dying compared to 570 unvaccinated. (The United States does not publicly provide this data; it is not even clear American public health authorities collect it comprehensively.)

“The report also shows for the first time that adults under 50 are now just as likely to be hospitalized for COVID whether they are boosted or unvaccinated. The report does not provide a similar hospitalization estimate for people who were vaccinated but unboosted, but based on the raw numbers it does provide, those rates are the highest of all.

“Meanwhile, new Covid infections have nearly doubled in Britain in the last two weeks, and now top 60,000 a day.”

According to data, even boosters appear to “offer no protection against hospitalizations in younger people,” Berenson wrote.

Pfizer shot for kids under 5 could be authorized by May, company says

According to The New York Times, more than 22 million people in the U.S. under 18 are fully vaccinated with Pfizer’s vaccine, but the number of people getting vaccinated is tapering off. Yet, there is still a demand to vaccinate children under the age of 5.

Last month regulators pressed Pfizer and BioNTech to submit preliminary results from its three-dose pediatric trial. The FDA was poised to begin vaccinating the youngest age group with two doses even though it did not yet have final results on three doses.

While it’s still not clear why the effort collapsed, data from Pfizer showed overwhelmingly that two doses failed to adequately protect against symptomatic infection.

“The data that we saw made us realize that we needed to see data from a third dose, as in the ongoing trial, in order to make a determination that we could proceed with doing an authorization,” Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, told reporters on a call.

Marks said he hoped the decision would “reassure” people the FDA was “making sure that anything that we authorize has the safety and efficacy that people have come to expect from our regulatory review of medical products.”

Asked about the situation on Sunday, Bourla said FDA officials were “very keen” for the company to send the data over but Pfizer executives were “a little bit reluctant to submit on two doses because we felt that the three-dose [regimen] is what kids will need.”

​​Bourla said data on how a three-dose regimen works for children as young as 6 months will probably be available in April, with authorization granted in May, “if it works.”

Pfizer asked FDA to waive reporting of some safety data

While Pfizer doesn’t know if its vaccine will prove effective enough for the youngest age group, the company says its research shows the vaccine is safe.

According to the most recent data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) — the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S. — a total of 1,168,894 adverse events following COVID vaccines were reported between Dec. 14, 2020, and March 4, 2022.

The data included a total of 25,158 reports of deaths — and 203,888 reports of serious injuries, including deaths, during the same time period.

Of the total adverse events reported, 667,973 are attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine. Of the 25,158 reported deaths following COVID vaccines, 16,475 are attributed to Pfizer’s vaccine.

Historically, VAERS has been shown to report only 1% of actual vaccine adverse events.

According to Pfizer data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, the company applied for an FDA waiver to avoid recording certain safety data on the injections because the company claimed the VAERS system was adequate in revealing any safety issues with the injections.

In its waiver request, Pfizer stated VAERS is a “robust” system that is “designed to detect safety concerns with vaccines.”

Pfizer documents also revealed the company paid $2.87 million when it submitted its COVID vaccine application to the FDA, which has been reluctant to release the documents forming the basis of approval for Pfizer’s vaccine.

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Megan Redshaw is a freelance reporter for The Defender. She has a background in political science, a law degree and extensive training in natural health.

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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 condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.

First posted on Global Research on March 1, 2022

***

Notes from a 1991 meeting prove that the US, UK, France, and Germany assured the Soviet Union that NATO would not expand east. It’s part of a growing body of evidence that the West broke its promise to Russia.

A newly discovered document provides more evidence that Western governments broke their promise not to expand NATO eastward after German reunification.

Notes from a 1991 meeting between top US, British, French, and German officials confirm that there was a “general agreement that membership of NATO and security guarantees [are] unacceptable” for Central and Eastern Europe.

Germany’s diplomatic representative emphasized that the Soviet Union was promised in 1990 that “we would not extend NATO beyond the Elbe” river, in eastern Germany.

The document, which was formerly classified as secret, comes from the British National Archives.

It was made widely known this February by the German newspaper Der Spiegel, but was actually first published by US political scientist Joshua Shifrinson in 2019.

Well, here's something: German Foreign Ministry official explaining in March 1991 that NATO "made it clear" to Sovs it wouldn't expand "beyond the Elbe" and so couldn't "offer membership of NATO to Poland and the others." Validates my @Journal_IS thesis: https://t.co/jLjHPTCrS0! pic.twitter.com/f5bO8okZYz

— Josh Shifrinson (@shifrinson) August 11, 2019

The document describes a meeting between senior officials from the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany in the city of Bonn on March 6, 1991.

The subject of the gathering was “Security in Central and Eastern Europe.”

German diplomat Jürgen Chrobog is quoted in the notes saying,

“We had made it clear during the 2+4 negotiations that we would not extend NATO beyond the Elbe. We could not therefore offer membership of NATO to Poland and the others.”

The 2+4 negotiations were talks in 1990 that allowed for the reunification of Germany, featuring capitalist West Germany and socialist East Germany (the 2) along with the United States, Soviet Union, Britain, and France (the 4).

Chrobog’s comments in the notes, therefore, confirm that the Western powers had promised the USSR in 1990 that they would not expand NATO eastward after German reunification.

Further clarifying this fact, the document adds that there was a “general agreement that membership of NATO and security guarantees [are] unacceptable” for countries east of Germany.

NATO has added 14 member states east of Germany since end of First Cold War

Since the end of the First Cold War and the overthrow of the Soviet Union,14 countries in Central and Eastern Europe have joined the US-led NATO military alliance – all countries east of Germany, in flagrant violation of the promise not to expand.

In 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined NATO.

In 2004, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia joined as well.

In 2009, Albania and Croatia joined.

In 2017, Montenegro joined.

In 2020, North Macedonia joined.

NATO has also discussed the possibility of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine joining in the future.

In December 2021, the Russian Federation demanded that NATO agree to a series of security guarantees, including a promise not to add any more members. The United States and NATO rejected Moscow’s demands.

Map of NATO expansion

More evidence that NATO broke its promise not to expand east of Germany

The newly discovered 1991 diplomatic record is part of a growing body of evidence that the Russian government’s accusation that NATO broke its promise is indeed correct.

As Multipolarista previously reported, declassified documents from the governments of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and the former Soviet Union and Russian Federation prove that NATO pledged not to expand east.

The National Security Archive at George Washington University in Washington, DC published records showing that US Secretary of State James Baker reassured Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev “not once, but three times” that NATO would expand “not one inch eastward,” in a February 9, 1990 meeting.

Baker admitted that “not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.”

US Secretary of State Blinken claimed the military alliance “NATO never promised not to admit new members.”

This is a lie contradicted by multiple Western government documents, showing NATO promised the USSR not to expand "one inch eastward" past Germanyhttps://t.co/X6sSXLDngV

— Multipolarista (@Multipolarista) January 27, 2022

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***

Saudi Arabia’s execution of 81 people at the weekend is a sharp reminder of the need to challenge Britain’s hypocritical foreign policy.

Boris Johnson is reportedly planning to travel to the Gulf kingdom this week to plead for increased oil production to make up for the impact of sanctions against Russian oil following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Yet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — a man whose British propaganda operation included emblazoning London taxis with the slogan “Saudi Arabia is changing” a few years ago, a charm offensive undermined by the murder and dismemberment of critical journalist Jamal Khashoggi — is not only a tyrant presiding over a sharp increase in state beheadings.

His state is engaged in a brutal war against its poverty-stricken southern neighbour Yemen that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

Russia’s savage attack on Ukraine has rightly been condemned across the political spectrum.

Yet the British establishment has a very different attitude to the war in Yemen.

The two are in some ways analogous.

In 2014, a Ukrainian government friendly to the regional big power, Russia, was overthrown in an uprising sponsored by the United States and EU.

In 2014, a Yemeni government friendly to the regional big power, Saudi Arabia, was overthrown in an uprising supported by Iran.

Russia’s response to the Maidan coup of 2014 was immediate, through the annexation of Crimea and the provision of support to a separatist uprising in the Donbass.

Eight years on, Moscow has decided to launch a full-scale invasion of its neighbour, whose precise war aims are still unclear — Putin’s demands for “demilitarisation,” “de-Nazification” and “de-communisation” are open to varying interpretations — but appear rooted in a determination to reverse Ukraine’s alliance with the United States.

Saudi Arabia launched its onslaught on Yemen in 2015. And it has been horrific.

The Saudis have bombed children on their way to school — on August 9 2018 they bombed a school bus, killing 40 children aged between six and 11.

They bought the bomb in question from US arms firm Lockheed Martin, whose share value is now soaring because of the new war in Ukraine.

The world erupted in justified outrage last week at the Russian bombing of a hospital in Mariupol.

The Saudis have bombed hospitals in Yemen repeatedly. In 2017, just two years into the war, Save the Children and Watchlist recorded 160 attacks against medical facilities and personnel in Yemen.

In 2016 they bombed the Abs hospital in Hajjah, killing 19 and injuring 24. The two charities’ report specifies that “at the time of the attack, 23 patients were undergoing surgery [and] 25 children including 13 newborns were in the paediatric unit.”

So blatant has been the deliberate killing of civilians that the US Congress even voted to stop selling arms to the Saudis, though Washington has since resumed doing so.

Britain has maintained an uninterrupted supply of weapons to Saudi Arabia and continues to provide logistical assistance for the war. The wounding of five British special forces soldiers in Yemen in 2019 indicates that our military is even more deeply involved than is officially admitted.

To point to the crimes of one country in response to the crimes of another is sometimes dismissed as “whataboutery.”

If it is a bid to deflect blame the accusation carries weight. Putin’s crimes in Ukraine are no less shocking because of Bin Salman’s crimes in Yemen.

But it is absolutely justified for British campaigners to highlight the hypocrisy of our government that cries crocodile tears for Ukraine while actively supporting Saudi Arabia’s war. And to campaign for that support to end right now.

At its conference last autumn, Labour shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy said Britain should stop arms sales to Saudi Arabia. If Sir Keir Starmer is to avoid the charge of being as hypocritical as Johnson, he must repeat that demand this week.

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Strategic Thinkers Who Warned for NATO Expansion

By Marc Vandepitte, March 15, 2022

One of the most fascinating aspects of the Ukraine war is the large number of top strategic thinkers who have been warning for years that this war was imminent if we continued down this path. We list the most important of these warnings.

Massive Conflicts of Interest at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, March 14, 2022

One of the primary vehicles for kickbacks and fraud seems to be foundations associated with federal agencies. The reason they’re so frequently used for questionable transactions is because foundations are private entities and not subject to Freedom of Information Act requests and other open records laws.

The Mainstream Media Now Acknowledges that The PCR Test is Flawed

By Jo Macfarlane and Prof Michel Chossudovsky, March 14, 2022

Media disinformation has prevailed for more than two years despite the fact that the WHO and the CDC (with the usual innuendos) have confirmed what was known from the very outset in January 2020, namely that the RT-PCR test used to justify every single policy mandate including lockdowns, social distancing, the mask, confinement of the labor force, closure of economic activity, etc. is flawed and invalid.

Biden Administration Secretly Paid Media to Promote COVID Shots

By Megan Redshaw, March 14, 2022

The Biden administration made direct payments to nearly all major corporate media outlets to deploy a $1 billion taxpayer-funded outreach campaign designed to push only positive coverage about COVID-19 vaccines and to censor any negative coverage, according to documents obtained by The Blaze.

“War Hysteria”: No Earthly Justification Excuses the Capitulation of Reason to Public Opinion

By Dr. Rudolf Hänsel, March 14, 2022

More than 100 years later, we citizens of the West are once again confronted with war hysteria and a deeply racist US-dominated public opinion that makes a mockery of all common sense.

Former Yugoslav FM: US, NATO Expansion Root Cause of Ukraine War

By Živadin Jovanović and Xinhua, March 14, 2022

U.S. and NATO military expansion in Eastern Europe is the root cause of the current Ukraine crisis, Zivadin Jovanovic, former minister of foreign affairs of Yugoslavia, has said.

NATO Is Arming and Training Nazis in Ukraine, as US Floods Russia’s Neighbor with Weapons

By Ben Norton, March 14, 2022

NATO is sending weapons and trainers to help neo-Nazis in Ukraine’s white-supremacist Azov movement fight Russia. This follows numerous reports of Western government support for Ukrainian far-right extremists.

Video: Long List of COVID Vaccine Side Effects: Dr. John Campbell

By Dr. John Campbell and Dr. Gary G. Kohls, March 14, 2022

The FDA, the CDC, Fauci, any agency, clinic, hospital, physician or pharmacy that administered or recommended vaccination without giving proper information about these dangers — and perhaps even your Public Health agencies — need to be sued for ADRs experienced (and probably DO NOT ask for a booster!).

Majority of Americans Sense Something Doesn’t Add Up in the Media Ukraine Narrative

By Sundance, March 14, 2022

The bad news is the propaganda from the global media and intelligence apparatus is astronomical surrounding the Ukraine narrative.  The good news is that most Americans can sense the background manipulation, even if they cannot quite put a finger on it.

RIP, William Hurt. Thank You for Speaking the Truth About 9/11

By AE911Truth and William Hurt, March 14, 2022

Many eulogies will be written about William in the coming days, and virtually all of them will omit the fact that one of the things he cared most about in the latter years of his life was exposing what really happened on September 11, 2001, and bringing justice to the families of those who perished that day.

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***

Julian Assange, even as he is being judicially and procedurally tormented, has braved every legal hoop in his effort to avoid extradition to the United States.  Kept and caged in Belmarsh throughout this farce of judicial history, he risks being extradited to face 18 charges, 17 based on the US Espionage Act of 1917.

District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser initially ruled on January 4, 2021 against the US, finding that Assange would be at serious risk of suicide given the risk posed by Special Administrative Measures and the possibility that he would end his days in the ADX Florence supermax facility.  It took little to read between the lines: the US prison system would do away with Assange; to extradite him would be oppressive within the meaning of the US-UK Extradition Treaty.

The US Department of Justice appealed to the High Court of England and Wales, citing a range of implausible arguments.  Baraitser, they argued, could have sought reassurances from the prosecutors about Assange’s welfare.  A number of diplomatic reassurances were duly offered after the fact.  Assange would not be subjected to SAMs, or spend his time in the supermax facility.  Adequate medical attention to mitigate the risk of suicide would also be provided.  Just to sweeten matters, the publisher would be able to serve the post-trial and post-appeal phase of his sentence in Australia.

Every one of these undertakings was served with a leaden caveat. Everything was dependent on how Assange would behave in captivity, leaving it to the authorities to decide on whether to honour such undertakings.  Given that the US authorities have previously instigated surveillance operations against Assange while he was in the Ecuadorian embassy, and contemplated his possible poisoning and abduction, such undertakings sounded crudely counterfeit.

The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales Ian Burnett, and Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde, in their December 2021 decision, ate from the hands of the US prosecution.  They did “not accept that the USA refrained for tactical reasons from offering assurances at an earlier stage, or acted in bad faith in choosing only to offer them at the appeal stage.”  There was no evident “basis for assuming that the USA has not given the assurances in good faith.”  It followed that Assange’s suicide risk would be minimised – he had, the judges reasoned, little to worry about.  He would not be subjected to SAMs or be sent to ADX Florence.

Assange’s legal team made several formidable arguments, suggesting that the US prosecution had inappropriately introduced fresh evidence against an adverse ruling “in order to repair holes identified” in their case.  Natural justice issues were also at stake given the timing of the move to provide assurances at such late stage.  There were also issues with the “legality of a requirement on judges to call for reassurances rather than proceeding to order discharge”.

The defence readied themselves for an appeal.  In a short ruling on January 24, Lord Burnett kept the grounds of the appeal to the UK Supreme Court anaemically thin.  “Assurances [over treatment] are at the heart of many extradition proceedings.”  The question left facing the Supreme Court was a lonely one: “In what circumstances can an appellate court receive assurances from a requesting state which were not before the court at first instance in extradition proceedings”.  This did not even consider the point that diplomatic assurances are not legal considerations but political undertakings to be modified and broken.

Other public interest grounds were also excluded.  No mention of press freedom.  No mention of the role played by the CIA, the dangers facing Assange of ill-treatment in the US prison system, or risks to his mental health.  There was nothing about the fact that the prosecution case is wretchedly shoddy, built upon the fabricated testimony of Sigurdur “Siggi” Thordarson, famed conman, convict and trickster.  This was an appeal encumbered with the serious prospect of failure.

Despite this, Assange’s partner, Stella Moris, was initially confident that the High Court had done enough, certifying that “we had raised a point of law of general public importance and that the Supreme Court had good grounds to hear this appeal.”

On March 14, Moris and others of same mind were roundly disabused.  The Supreme Court comprising Lord Reed, Lord Hodge and Lord Briggs, were curt in dismissal.  In the words of the Deputy Support Registrar, “The Court ordered that permission to appeal be refused because the application does not raise an arguable point of law.”

Birnberg Peirce Solicitors, the firm representing Assange, expressed “regret that the opportunity has not been taken to consider the troubling circumstances in which Requesting States can provide caveated guarantees after the conclusion of a full evidence hearing.”  In the matter of Assange, “the Court found that there was a real risk of prohibited treatment in the event of his onward extradition.”

Dismay at the decision was expressed by Amnesty International’s Deputy Research Director for Europe, Julia Hall.  “The Supreme Court has missed an opportunity to clarify the UK’s acceptance of deeply flawed diplomatic assurances against torture.  Such assurances are inherently unreliable and leave people at risk of severe abuse upon extradition or other transfer.”

The next stage in this diabolical torment of the WikiLeaks founder involves remitting the case to Westminster Magistrates’ Court, which will only serve a ceremonial role in referring the decision to the Home Secretary, Priti Patel.  Only the most starry-eyed optimists will expect extradition to be barred.  (Patel is fixated with proposed changes to the UK Official Secrets Act that will expansively criminalise journalists and whistleblowers who publish classified information.)  The defence will do their best in submissions to Patel ahead of the decision, but it is likely that they will have to seek judicial review.

In the likely event of Patel’s approval, the defence may make a freedom of press argument, though this is by no means a clear run thing.  It will still be up to the higher courts as to whether they would be willing to grant leave to hear further arguments.  Whichever way the cards fall, this momentous, torturous journey of paperwork, briefs, lawyers, and prison will continue to sap life and cause grief.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

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***

One of the most fascinating aspects of the Ukraine war is the large number of top strategic thinkers who have been warning for years that this war was imminent if we continued down this path. We list the most important of these warnings.

George Kennan, architect of the Cold War in 1998:

“I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else.

Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are — but this is just wrong.”

Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State in 2014:

“If Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side’s outpost against the other — it should function as a bridge between them. The West must understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country.

Even such famed dissidents as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Joseph Brodsky insisted that Ukraine was an integral part of Russian history and, indeed, of Russia.

Ukraine should not join NATO.”

John Mearsheimer, John Mearsheimer, one of the foremost geopolitical experts in the US, in 2015:

“Russia is a great power and it has absolute no interest in allowing the United States and its allies to take a big piece of real estate of great strategic importance on its western border and incorporate it into the West.

This should be hardly surprising to the United States of America as all of you know we have a Monroe doctrine. The Monroe doctrine says that the Western hemisphere is our backyard and nobody from a distant region is allowed to move military forces into the western hemisphere.

You remember how we went stark raving crazy at the idea of the soviets putting military forces in Cuba. This is unacceptable. Nobody puts military forces in the western hemisphere. That’s what the Monroe doctrine is all about.

Can you imagine 20 years from now a powerful China forming a military alliance with Canada and Mexico and moving Chinese military forces onto Canadian and Mexican soil and us just standing there and saying, this is no problem?

So nobody should be surprised that the Russians were apoplectic about the idea of US putting Ukraine on the Western side of the ledger. … But we did not stop our efforts to make Ukraine part of the West.

The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked […] What we’re doing is in fact encouraging that outcome.

If you think these people in Washington and most Americans are having trouble dealing with the Russians, you can’t believe how much trouble we are going to have with the Chinese.”

Jack F. Matlock, the last US Ambassador to the Soviet Union, in 1997:

Als de NAVO het belangrijkste instrument moet zijn om het continent te verenigen, dan is de enige manier waarop ze dat kan doen, logischerwijs door uit te breiden tot alle Europese landen. Maar dat lijkt niet het doel van de regering te zijn, en zelfs als dat zo is, is de manier om het te bereiken niet door geleidelijk nieuwe leden toe te laten.”

“NATO expansion was the most profound strategic blunder made since the end of the Cold War.

Far from improving the security of the United States, its Allies, and the nations that wish to enter the Alliance, it could well encourage a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat to this nation [Russia] since the Soviet Union collapsed.

If NATO is to be the principal instrument for unifying the continent, then logically the only way it can do so is by expanding to include all European countries. But that does not appear to be the aim of the administration, and even if it is, the way to reach it is not by admitting new members piecemeal.”

William Perry, Secretary of Defense under Bill Clinton in 1996:

“I feared that NATO enlargement at this time would shove us into reverse. I believed that a regression here could squander the positive relations we had so painstakingly and patiently developed in the opportunistic post–Cold War period.

I believed that we needed more time to bring Russia, the other major nuclear power, into the Western security circle. The over-riding priority was obvious to me.

When I considered that Russia still had a huge nuclear arsenal, I put a very high priority on maintaining that positive relationship, especially as it pertained to any future reduction in the nuclear weapons threat.”[i]

Noam Chomsky, one of the most important living intellectuals in 2015:

“The idea that Ukraine might join a Western military alliance would be quite unacceptable to any Russian leader. This goes back to 1990 when the Soviet Union collapsed. There was a question of what was to happen with NATO. Gorbachev agreed to allow Germany to be unified and to join NATO. That was a very remarkable concession, with a quid pro quo that NATO would not extend one inch to the east.

What happened. NATO instantly incorporated East Germany. Then Clinton expanded NATO right to the borders of Russia. The new Ukrainian government voted to move to join the NATO. President Poroshenko was not protecting Ukraine, but threatening it with major war.”

Jeffrey Sachs, top advisor to the US government and to the UN, three days before the invasion:

“The US would not be very happy were Mexico to join a China-led military alliance, nor was it content when Fidel Castro’s Cuba aligned with the USSR 60 years ago. Neither the US nor Russia wants the other’s military on their doorstep.

It was especially reckless in 2008 for President George W Bush to open the door to Ukraine’s (and Georgia’s) NATO membership.

Russia has long feared invasions from the west, whether by Napoleon, Hitler or latterly NATO.

Ukraine should aspire to resemble the non-NATO members of the EU: Austria, Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Malta and Sweden.”

This compilation is an adaptation of a twitter thread by Arnaud Bertrand.

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Notes

[i] Perry W., My Journey at the Nuclear Brink, Stanford 2015, p. 128-9.

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One of the primary vehicles for kickbacks and fraud seems to be foundations associated with federal agencies. The reason they’re so frequently used for questionable transactions is because foundations are private entities and not subject to Freedom of Information Act requests and other open records laws

The board of directors of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) is heavily populated with Big Pharma players. This raises serious questions about conflicts of interest, as the foundation oversees the distribution of hundreds of millions of dollars — unregulated funds that typically go right back into the coffers of the drug industry

This conflict of interest also, at least in part, helps explain the actions of Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and now-retired director of the NIH, Dr. Francis Collins. Both have gone out of their way to protect the makers of COVID shots and dismiss evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was created in and escaped from a lab.

Dr. Julie Gerberding became the FNIH CEO March 1, 2022. She was formerly director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After leaving the CDC, she became the executive vice president of strategic communications at Merck

The FNIH’s board of directors includes seven current or former drug company executives, the FDA, the Sackler family (notorious for its creation of a deadly opioid epidemic), Johns Hopkins (co-sponsor of Event 201, which “predicted” COVID-19 and the subsequent destruction of human rights), and two major investment bankers, Goldman Sachs and BlackRock

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One of the primary vehicles for kickbacks and fraud seems to be foundations associated with federal agencies. This article will highlight and expose yet another way we are being conned and manipulated by examining the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health¹ (FNIH), whose board is plastered with major Big Pharma players.

This raises serious questions about conflicts of interest, seeing how the foundation oversees the distribution of hundreds of millions of dollars — unregulated funds that typically go right back into the coffers of the drug industry. It’s a very clever strategy to extract even more funds from the American taxpayers.

This conflict of interest also, at least in part, helps explain the actions of Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and now-retired director of the NIH, Dr. Francis Collins.² Both have gone out of their way to protect the makers of COVID shots and dismiss evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was created in and escaped from a lab.

FNIH Board — A Who’s Who of Big Pharma

In 2020, Fauci received the FNIH’s Charles A. Sanders MD Partnership Award for his leadership and support of “FNIH programs propelling research in lethal infectious diseases.”³

Dr. Charles Sanders was the FNIH chairman between 1996 and 2016. Before that, he was the chairman and CEO of Glaxo Inc. He also spent eight years with Squibb Corp., where he held several positions, including CEO of the Science and Technology Group.⁴ He’s currently a member of the FNIH board of directors.

In the video above, Fauci is interviewed by Dr. Freda Lewis-Hall about his career, his achievements and the public-private partnerships that allowed for the creation of Operation Warp Speed and the rapid deployment of a COVID-19 jab. Lewis-Hall is a former chief medical officer and executive vice president at Pfizer. She is also a current board member of the FNIH.

Another striking member of the FNIH’s board is Dr. Julie Gerberding. If you have a sharp memory for details, you may recall she served as director of the CDC from 2002 to 2009.

After resigning from the CDC, she entered the express revolving door between industry and government and was hired by Merck as their vice president in charge of vaccines. Imagine that — the head of the government agency responsible for policing vaccines is hired by one of the world’s largest producers of vaccines.

Sadly, it’s all perfectly legal. Later, she oversaw global public policy and strategic communications at Merck, followed by a position as chief patient officer and executive vice president for population health and sustainability.⁵ Gerberding has now taken her nefarious behavior to an entirely new level. She’s slid back through yet another revolving door and is the CEO of FNIH as of March 1, 2022.⁶Other FNIH board members include:

The two non-voting directors are Collins and Dr. Stephen Hahn, the current commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. This is quite the list.

We’ve got seven current or former drug company executives, the CDC, the FDA, the Sackler family (notorious for its creation of a deadly opioid epidemic), Johns Hopkins (co-sponsor of Event 201, which “predicted” COVID-19 and the subsequent destruction of human rights), and two major investment bankers, Goldman Sachs and BlackRock.

The inclusion of BlackRock is particularly interesting, and disturbing, considering they have a hidden monopoly on global asset holdings. Together with Vanguard, BlackRock has ownership in some 1,600 American firms, which in 2015 had combined revenues of $9.1 trillion. If you add in the third-largest global asset holder, State Street, their combined ownership encompasses nearly 90% of all S&P 500 firms.⁷ Just what is BlackRock doing on the FNIH’s board of directors?

Then there are the donors. The largest donor to the FNIH is none other than Bill Gates. According to the FNIH’s 2020 statutory report,⁸ The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donated $96,981,262 that year, accounting for 15% of the Foundation’s annual revenue.⁹

In 2019, the Gates Foundation’s contribution of $49,827,480 accounted for 35% of the annual revenue.^10,11,12 As the top donor, it’s not farfetched to assume Gates might have significant leverage over the direction of the foundation and its funds. GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Pfizer and Wellcome also donated between $5 million and $10 million each in 2020.¹³ FNIH programs funded by the Gates Foundation include but are not limited to:

• Combining Epitope Based Vaccine Design with Informatics-Based Evaluation
• Comprehensive Cellular Vaccine Immune Monitoring Consortium
• Global collaborative for Coordination of Gene Drive Research and Development
• The Partnership to Accelerate Novel TB Regimens
• mRNA encoded HIV Env-Gag Virus-like-particle Vaccines

The last program on the list — the creation of novel mRNA-based HIV vaccines — is described¹⁴ as a project to “test a new HIV vaccine concept in animals using noninfectious ‘virus-like particles’ encoded by an RNA vaccine with the goal of inducing protective antibody responses.”

The initial request for collaboration came from the NIAID at the end of July 2020. In August 2020, the FNIH Portfolio Oversight Committee approved the project, “contingent upon a commitment of full funding in the amount of $1.45 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.”

The Gates Foundation fulfilled that commitment in October 2020. A memorandum of understanding between the FNIH and the NIAID was finalized in early 2021. A sub-award was granted to the University of Montreal (CHUM), and Bioqual was given a service agreement to manage the clinical trial.

Bill Gates also contributes to the FNIH through Gates Ventures,¹⁵ a rapidly growing venture capital and investment firm that works side by side with the Gates Foundation’s program teams “to identify investment opportunities.”¹⁶ Specifically, Gates Ventures is an organizational donor to the FNIH’s Biomarkers Consortium (BC), a cancer steering committee, alongside a long list of drug companies.

Congress Seeks Greater Transparency

As mentioned earlier, all of this can help explain Fauci’s and Collins’ behavior during the COVID pandemic. Collins is a board member, Fauci got the foundation’s top reward for support in 2020, and money flows into the foundation from drug companies and Gates, all of whom have vested interests in making sure that whatever the NIH does and recommends to the public, it will produce profits for them.

According to its 2020 Statutory Report,¹⁷ the FNIH has raised more than $1.2 billion, and as mentioned earlier, most of that money goes right back to the drug industry, without Congressional appropriation or oversight. While the whole thing reeks of conflicts of interest, it may be difficult to get to the bottom of because, as a 501c3, the FNIH is cleverly exempt from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Nonprofits are considered private entities, and therefore not subject to FOIA and other open records laws.^18,19 However, the NIH is subject to FOIA since it’s a government agency, and the funds raised go to the NIH. Basically, it’s a system set up to bypass oversight, and the U.S. Congress is responsible for creating this fraud-fraught system.

Congress Created This Fraud-Fraught System

Congress is responsible for the oversight of federal agencies, but in the early 1990s, it created what sure looks like a pay-to-play system. Not only did Congress create the FNIH, they also set up the CDC Foundation,²⁰ which funnels millions of dollars from drug companies and vaccine makers into the CDC.²¹

This explains the CDC’s highly irrational and harmful COVID recommendations. The fact that the CDC lies about its pharma funding only makes it all the more suspicious. The CDC has long fostered the perception of independence by stating it does not accept funding from special interests.

In disclaimers peppered throughout the CDC’s website²² and in its publications, it says the agency “does not accept commercial support” and has “no financial interests or other relationships with the manufacturers of commercial products.” With the information exposed in this article it is obvious that this is a cleverly obfuscated pack of lies — all possible through sheer semantics, as the funds are diverted through the foundation rather than going straight to the CDC.

In 2019, several watchdog groups — including the U.S. Right to Know (USRTK), Public Citizen, Knowledge Ecology International, Liberty Coalition and the Project on Government Oversight — petitioned²³ the CDC to stop making these false disclaimers²⁴ because, in reality, the CDC receives millions of dollars each year from commercial interests through its government-chartered foundation, the CDC Foundation, which funnels those contributions to the CDC after deducting a fee.²⁵

On the CDC Foundation’s website, you’ll find a long list²⁶ of “corporate partners” that have provided the CDC with funding over the years. The CDC even accepts money earmarked for specific studies or programs aimed at expanding corporate profits or reducing drug companies’ liability exposure.²⁷

As just one example, in 2018, Collins ended up canceling a $100 million study to assess the effects of moderate alcohol consumption after it was discovered that the NIH had inappropriately solicited money for the study directly from the spirits industry, and had designed the study “to satisfy industry interests.”²⁸ Collins also had to ditch a $400 million study into opioid dependency after an independent panel warned there were potential conflicts of interest.²⁹

In 2018, a congressional spending panel also warned the FNIH and the CDC Foundation that their disclosures of financial donations were inadequate. As reported by Science at the end of June 2018:³⁰

“Congress created the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) and the CDC Foundation … to raise private funds to support federal biomedical and health research.

It hoped to encourage transparency and prevent potential conflicts of interest by specifying in the law that the foundations had to report ‘the source and amount of all gifts’ they receive, as well as any restrictions on how the donations could be used.

But last week, legislators on the House of Representatives appropriations subcommittee that oversees NIH and CDC expressed concern that the foundations may not be following those disclosure rules …

A report accompanying a 2019 spending bill moving through Congress reminds the foundations to abide by the PHSA when writing their annual reports … The lawmakers also say it’s not OK to hide the identity of donors who have attached strings to their gift by labeling them as ‘anonymous.’

The language ‘is a marker that we want more transparency,’ says one House appropriations staffer, speaking on background because of committee rules on who can speak to the press. ‘We’d like to see [the foundations] go further, and this language is meant to start a conversation.’”

Among “anonymous” donors to the FNIH in 2016 were the Gates Foundation, despite having given a sizeable $19.1 million grant.³¹ While the financial statements of these foundations may have improved since 2018, the system itself, which gives private industry the power to influence regulatory agencies through unregulated funding, remains unchanged.

Globalists Aim to Take Over Health Systems Worldwide

The reason for having a BlackRock representative on the FNIH’s board of directors could potentially have something to do with the globalists’ plan to monopolize health systems worldwide — a plan that is taking shape as we speak.

In June 2021, Gerberding, now head of the FNIH, wrote a Time article³² laying out the framework for an international pandemic-surveillance network, which would include threat prediction and preemption as well. While Gerberding did not name the World Health Organization, we now know that’s the organization designated as the top-down ruler, not only of all things related to pandemics but also health in general. I’ll have an entire article detailing this in tomorrow’s newsletter.

It’s important to realize that unless we can somehow prevent the WHO from acquiring this power, it will be able to dictate things like mandatory vaccinations and health passports moving forward, and its dictates would supersede all national and state laws. We simply cannot let this happen.

At the same time, we need to realize just how bought and paid for our U.S. regulatory agencies are, and figure out a way to clean up that mess. There’s been a revolving door between government and private industry for decades, which is how we got here in the first place. Closing that door might be a first step in the right direction, but it’s not going to be enough by itself.

The NIH, CDC and the Food and Drug Administration are all so thoroughly infiltrated by industry, restoring them to their intended functions is no easy task. Disturbingly, the same technocratic powers that are working to give the WHO global power over global health have also infiltrated these U.S. agencies. As a result, they’re unlikely to push back. They’re going to be more than willing to take orders from the WHO.

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Notes

¹ FNIH.org

² NIH.gov December 16, 2021

³ Leading Authorities Freda Lewis-Hall interviews Anthony Fauci

⁴ FNIH Charles Sanders

⁵ Merck Julie Gerberding Bio

⁶ FNIH Announcement March 1, 2022

⁷ The Conversation May 10, 2017

^8, 17 FNIH 2020 Statutory Report

⁹ FNIH Financial Statements 2019 and 2020, Page 23

¹⁰ FNIH 2020 Statutory Report, Page 23

¹¹ FNIH Financial Statements 2019 and 2020

¹² FNIH 2020 Annual Report, Financial Highlights

¹³ FNIH 2020 Annual Report Donations by Amount

¹⁴ FNIH 2020 Statutory Report, Page 5

¹⁵ Gates Ventures

¹⁶ Gates Foundation Strategic Investment Fund

¹⁸ Legal Beagle Is 501c3 Exempt from the Sunshine Law?

¹⁹ Nonprofit Quarterly May 30, 2017

^{20, 28, 29, 30, 31} Science June 29, 2018

²¹ Lew Rockwell November 20, 2019

²² CDC.gov MMWR Disclosure

²³ USRTK Petition to the CDC, November 5, 2019 (PDF)

²⁴ USRTK November 5, 2019

²⁵ USRTK Petition to the CDC, November 5, 2019 (PDF), Page 3

²⁶ CDC Foundation Our Partners: Corporations

²⁷ USRTK Petition to the CDC, November 5, 2019 (PDF), Page 4

³² Time June 9, 2021

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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.

The whole idea of boycotting Russian vodka reminds too much of “freedom fries” from Gulf War II. It seems stupid and silly until you realize we are stupid and silly and this is how we are led to war.

The tsunami of pro-Ukrainian propaganda is only matched by its transparency. The Ghost of Kiev was crafted out of an aircraft computer game. The Ukrainians on that island who would rather die than surrender surrendered. The supermodels joining the army are holding toy rifles. Zelensky is Where’s Waldo, popping up in undated video with unidentifiable backgrounds, dressed in military cosplay reminiscent of George W. Bush in his flight suit. The simplistic narrative is the same simplistic narrative: plucky freedom fighters against some evil dictator. It’s the same story of the resistance fighters in Syria against Assad, the Kurds against ISIS, the Northern Resistance, the Sunnis who joined our side, the Taliban who Ronald Reagan called the equivalent of our Founding Fathers for their fight against the Red Army.

Putin now is the most evil man on earth, unhinged, mentally unwell. Saddam once was, Assad used to be, and Qaddafi was to the point where America cheered as he was sodomized with a knife on TV.  Putin is so unstable we don’t know what he’ll do. Familiar voices are raised: The Brookings Institution’s Ben Wittes demands: “Regime change: Russia.” The Council on Foreign Relations’ Richard Haass roared that “the conversation has shifted to include the possibility of desired regime change in Russia.” One headline wishfully notes “knocking Putin’s teams off the sports stage leaves him exposed to his own people.” No one seems to recall, however, our last attempt at regime change in Russia is what put Putin into power in the first place.

Putin’s goals have gone in a matter of days from sorting out Cold War borders to “the restoration of a triumphalist, imperialistic Russian identity, or another bloodstained nationalistic surge to cover for the criminality of his regime, or whether he just has come egotistically unmoored.” One former Iraqi War cheerleader tells us Ukraine, the “front line between democracy and autocracy, is a core interest of the United States… Ukraine is where the battle for democracy’s survival is most urgent. ”

Others are more direct. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Senator Roger Wicker, and Zelensky demand a no-fly zone. They have friends; a poll as the invasion began found “52 percent of Americans see the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as a critical threat to US vital interests” with almost no partisan division. No polling on what those vital interests might be. Rep. Eric Swalwell and Rep. Ruben Gallego want all Russians deported from the US. As if preparing for war, the U.S. has already closed its embassies in Ukraine and Belarus, and placed Embassy Moscow on “Authorized Departure” status for non-emergency staff and family members. On the other end of the government, the CIA is training Ukrainians for an insurgency. You know, like with the mujahedeen in Afghanistan years ago. Lawmakers at a congressional hearing discussed having American intelligence provide more direct assistance to Ukraine, including ground operatives.

No dissent is allowed. You are either “with us or against us.” The homogeneity of our social and MSM is terrifying. Censorship is in full fury; the fact checkers are hands off even the most outrageous claims (the Ukrainians have trained cats to spot Russian laser sights) and Twitter calls out Russian sources but not pro-Ukrainian ones. Facebook and YouTube post Ukrainian propaganda made in violation of the Geneva Convention. Google News will not include anything from Russian state media. The NYT is running anonymously-sourced tales claiming the Russians are deserting or sabotaging their own vehicles. Rolling Stone is naming “the American right-wingers covering for Putin as Russia invades Ukraine,” currently Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, J.D. Vance, and Tulsi Gabbard. The worst of all of course is Trump, whom Liz Cheney claims “aids our enemies” and whose “interests don’t seem to align with the interests of the United States.” When he proposed Congress vote on military escalations by the US in Ukraine, Senator Mike Lee was quickly called “Moscow Mike.”

If all that isn’t laying the ground work for a fight, it has been an awful lot of work for nothing.

We’ve been here before when everything was the same but not the same. Following Putin’s 2014 seizure of Crimea, and feints toward Ukraine, then-President Barack Obama said Ukraine is a core Russian interest but not an American one, so Russia will always be able to maintain escalatory dominance there. “The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do.” Obama showed the same realism in 2013 when in the face of war-mongering over Assad “gassing his own people in Syria” he backed away from widening the war (if only Obama had been equally pragmatic over Libya.)

But Biden is not Obama. Biden, due to age and background, is not a strong man. Unlike Obama, he does not see himself awash in the stream of history, but more as a caretaker until the Democratic Party can regroup, the Gerald Ford of his era. Biden is a weak man who will come under increasing pressure to “do something” as it becomes apparent the newest layer of sanctions against Russia accomplishes as little as the last layer of sanctions. The previous sanctions, among other things, did not stop Putin from invading Ukraine.

But more than anything else, Joe Biden is a Cold Warrior, burdened fully with a world view Obama was not. That world view says the role of the United States is to create a global system and enforce its rules. We can invade nations that did not attack us and demand regime change but you cannot. We decide which nations have nuclear weapons and which can not. We can walk our NATO-alliance right to your border but you cannot do the same with yours. We decide what systems control international commerce and who can participate in them. It is right and just for us to talk about crippling an economy, but not you. It was all best expressed by Condoleezza Rice, who commented with a straight face on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine “When you invade a sovereign nation, that is a war crime.”

This world view says the United States can empower former Soviet satellites and grow American influence by expanding NATO eastward (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, and Romania formally joined the alliance, East Germany by default) and to do this while taking the nuclear weapons away from those states so that none of them would become a threat or rival in Europe. It was American policy to have weak but not too weak states between Russia and the “good” part of Europe, dependent on America for defense.

As the Soviet Union collapsed, borders were redrawn to match the West’s needs (the same mistake was made earlier by the British post-WWI in the Middle East.) The reality of 2022 is Putin is seeking to redraw borders. Ukraine as a possible NATO member is a threat to Putin and he is now taking care of that. Americans live in a country that has no border threats and fails to understand the mindset time after time; imagine Mexico joining the Warsaw Pact in 1970.

We were warned. After the Senate ratified NATO expansion in 1998 despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ambassador George Kennan stated “I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely. I think it is a tragic mistake. No one was threatening anybody else. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way.”

That’s the circa-1998 trap Joe Biden is being lured back into. Only months after the America collapse and retreat from Afghanistan, Biden learned nothing. Our defeat did not teach us humility and restraint. It did not school us that America can no longer dictate global rules, sitting as judge while an ally invades a neighbor and then turning to hurl lightening bolts when an enemy invades one. It did not budge us a hair away from the destructive moral certainty that fuels our foreign policy. All that’s missing now is for someone to claim Russia and China are a new Axis of Evil.

Putin invaded Ukraine because, unlike Biden, he understands the new, new world order has different rules. Joe Biden, not always a quick study, has two choices. He can give in to the voices for war and try and prop up the myth of World’s Policemen for another round, or he can understand the consistent failures of American crusades and the global Pax Americana since WWII, especially those in the Middle East of the past two decades, plus the rise of multipolar economic powers to include China, have changed the rules. Negotiation is no longer appeasement. We aren’t in control anymore, and despite Iraq and Afghanistan, Biden may seek another bloody confirmation of that. Or he can understand America’s core interests are not in Ukraine and keep the peace.

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Introductory Note

From the very outset of this crisis in January 2020, the media has deliberately ignored the scientific evidence concerning the PCR test.

The results of the PCR test routinely tabulated by the WHO have been used to justify the lockdown policies imposed on more than 190 member states of the United Nations. Economic and social chaos has been triggered Worldwide.

Media disinformation has prevailed  for more than two years despite the fact that the WHO and the CDC (with the usual innuendos) have confirmed what was known from the very outset in January 2020, namely that the RT-PCR test used to justify every single policy mandate including lockdowns, social distancing, the mask, confinement of the labor force, closure of economic activity, etc. is flawed and invalid. 

The WHO issued its Mea Culpa more than a year ago on January 20, 2021. A few months later, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)  (July 21, 2021) called for the withdrawal of the PCR test as a valid method for detecting and identifying SARS-CoV-2. As of December, 31 2021, the PCR test is no longer considered valid by the CDC in the U.S.  

For more details see: CDC No Longer Recognizes the PCR Test As a Valid Method for Detecting “Confirmed Covid-19 Cases”?

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, March 14, 2022

Below are excerpts of  Daily Mail Online article entitled:

Did Flawed PCR Tests Convince Us COVID Was Worse Than It Really Was? Britain’s Entire Response Was Based on Results – but One Scientist Says They Should Have Been Axed a Year Ago

by Joe MacFarlane

March 12, 2022

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It has been one of the most enduring Covid conspiracy theories: that the ‘gold standard’ PCR tests used to diagnose the virus were picking up people who weren’t actually infected.

Some even suggested the swabs, which have been carried out more than 200 million times in the UK alone, may mistake common colds and flu for corona.

If either, or both, were true, it would mean many of these cases should never have been counted in the daily tally – that the ominous and all-too-familiar figure, which was used to inform decisions on lockdowns and other pandemic measures, was an over-count.

And many of those who were ‘pinged’ and forced to isolate as a contact of someone who tested positive – causing a huge strain on the economy – did so unnecessarily.

Such statements, it must be said, have been roundly dismissed by top experts. And those scientists willing to give credence to such concerns have been shouted down on social media, accused of being ‘Covid-deniers’, and even sidelined by colleagues.

But could they have been right all along?

Today, in the first part of a major new series, The Mail on Sunday investigates whether ‘the science’ that The Government so often said they were following during the pandemic was flawed, at least in some respects.

In the coming weeks we will examine if Britain’s stark Covid death figure was overblown. We will also ask if lockdowns did more harm than good.

Were the pandemic infection figures deliberately ‘sexed up’ to scare people in complying with lockdown rules?

But this week, we tackle the debate around Covid tests, and examine whether there is any truth to the claims that they were never fit for purpose.

(emphasis added)

To read complete article, click here.

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***

Yoon Suk-yeol, a conservative from the People’s Power Party has won the South Korean Presidency by the narrowest edge in the country’s history. In an election marred by several spectacular scandals, extreme voter apathy, and young voters representing the decisive margin, the outcome has given the U.S. a new hawkish partner in the region.

The foreign policy stances of the two candidates have been described in essence as the opposite from whatever the opposition party feels, and Yoon Suk-yeol is no exception, taking the contrary stances on China, Japan, the North, and the U.S. to his opponent Lee.

As such, Yoon is set to join in the chorus of the Pentagon’s “Pivot to Asia” which was going swimmingly until the character of U.S.-Russia relations changed from December on to the war in Ukraine. Biden has already congratulated Yoon over the phone, and emphasized cooperation for security in the Indo-Pacific.

In the 2018 National Security Posture review, the Trump Administration sought to decouple from unpopular “forever wars” in the Middle-East, and “Pivot to Asia” with the Pacific Deterrence Initiative—a massive new spending project to pepper the seas around allied island nations with bases, airfields, missile batteries, and surveillance stations in order to antagonize China.

At that same time however, attempts to hold summits with North Korea saw and suspension in the “longstanding practice of sending strategic bombers and carrier striker groups to the Korean Peninsula” as well as a “dramatically downsized scale and public profile of its combined military exercises with South Korea in an effort to create conditions for diplomatic negotiations,” reports CNA.

Yoon’s election will almost certainly mean a return to old deployment schedules, placing more weapons and American personal on the Peninsula, ballooning military budgets during the highest period of American inflation of money and credit since the 1970s, and the worst energy crisis since 2008.

An eye for an eye makes a few men very rich

Throughout the campaign Yoon slammed the incumbent Democrat Moon Jae-in’s North Korea policy as “subservient” and vowed he would keep up sanctions and dismiss all peace agreements until the North “makes active efforts in complete and verifiable denuclearization,” the same demand which killed off the 2019 summit organized by the Trump Administration.

Totally in the American spirit of “for thee and not for me,” Yoon’s advisors desire the return of American tactical nuclear missiles and other weapons to South Korea along the NATO-sharing lines, as well as potentially a South Korean-made nuclear deterrent, and even the greenlight to instantly use them in the face of kinetic Northern provocations.

During the campaign, Yoon stated “You can only prevent war when you have the capability for preemptive strikes and have the intent to do so,” according to translations from the Center for a New American Security fellow, Duyeon Kim.

This enhanced deterrence/sanctions policy without any meaningful reassurances, as Senior Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft writes, “has failed to stop North Korea’s nuclear armament and increased North Korea’s desire for nuclear weapons as a security guarantee.

Indeed, when Trump’s spur of the moment North Korean peace plan saw him opt out of re-authorizing another round of sanctions on humanitarian grounds, the opposition was that his “soft” stance would see Korea would allow the subsequent economic growth arm up even more; previous decades of stockpiling and weapons tests during the sanctions regime obviously didn’t count.

Late in December, incumbent President Moon Jae-in’s foreign minister stated that a draft agreement to formally end the Korean War had been reached along with the U.S., to which the North responded favorably. Time is not on Moon’s side however, and even if there were a draft agreement, it would take a Periclean effort to implement it.

Indo-Pacific policy is peppered with some of the most expensive items in the defense budget, and the 2023 NDAA, as well as future arms sales to Korea, should see many additional billions of printed dollars flow into the hands of weapons manufacturers.

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Featured image: President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol speaks during a press conference at the National Assembly Library. PC: James Lee. Fair Use, retrieved from Xinhua.

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***

The Biden administration made direct payments to nearly all major corporate media outlets to deploy a $1 billion taxpayer-funded outreach campaign designed to push only positive coverage about COVID-19 vaccines and to censor any negative coverage, according to documents obtained by The Blaze.

The Biden administration made direct payments to nearly all major corporate media outlets to deploy a $1 billion taxpayer-funded outreach campaign designed to push only positive coverage about COVID-19 vaccines and to censor any negative coverage.

Media outlets across the nation failed to disclose the federal government as the source of ads in news reports promoting the shots to their audiences.

According to a Freedom of Information Request filed by The Blaze, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) purchased advertising from major news outlets including ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, CNN and MSNBC.

HHS also ran media blitzes in major media publications including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, BuzzFeed News, Newsmax and hundreds of local TV stations and newspapers across the nation.

In addition to paying news outlets to push the vaccines, the federal government bought ads on TV, radio, in print and on social media as part of a “comprehensive media campaign,” HHS documents show.

The ad campaigns were timed in conjunction with the increased availability of COVID vaccines. They featured “influencers” and “experts,” including Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to the White House and director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

In March 2021, Facebook announced a social media plan to “help get people vaccinated,” and worked with the Biden administration and U.S. health agencies to suppress what it called “COVID misinformation.”

BuzzFeed News advised everyone age 65 or older, people with health conditions that put them at high risk of severe illness from COVID, healthcare workers and those at high risk of exposure to the virus to get vaccine boosters, in accordance with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Other publications, including the Los Angeles Times, featured advice from experts on how readers could convince “vaccine-hesitant people” to change their minds.

The Washington Post presented “the pro-vaccine messages people want to hear.”

Newsmax said COVID vaccines have “been demonstrated to be safe and effective” and “encouraged citizens, especially those at risk, to get immunized.”

Yet, the latest data from the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System shows 1,151,450 reports of adverse events from all age groups following COVID vaccines, including 24,827 deaths since Dec. 14, 2020.

Numerous scientists and public health experts have questioned the safety and efficacy of COVID vaccines, as well as the data underlying the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s authorization of the shots.

The media rarely covered negative news stories about COVID vaccines, and some have labeled anyone who questions the shots “science denialists” or “conspiracy theorists.”

“These outlets were collectively responsible for publishing countless articles and video segments regarding the vaccine that were nearly uniformly positive about the vaccine in terms of both its efficacy and safety,” The Blaze reported.

Congress appropriates $1 billion tax dollars to ‘strengthen vaccine confidence’

In March 2021, Congress appropriated $1 billion U.S. tax dollars for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to spend on activities to “strengthen vaccine confidence in the United States,” with $3 billion set aside for the CDC to fund “support and outreach efforts” in states through community-based organizations and trusted leaders.

HHS’s public education efforts were co-chaired by U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, former National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis Collins, Fauci, Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, and CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky — with Vice President Kamala Harris leading the effort from the White House.

Federal law allows HHS, acting through the CDC and other agencies, to award contracts to public and private entities to “carry out a national, evidence-based campaign to increase awareness and knowledge of the safety and effectiveness of vaccines for the prevention and control of diseases, combat misinformation about vaccines and disseminate scientific and evidence-based vaccine-related information, with the goal of increasing rates of vaccination across all ages … to reduce and eliminate vaccine-preventable diseases.”

HHS did not immediately respond to The Blaze when asked if the agency used taxpayer dollars to pay for people to be interviewed, or for a PR firm to place experts and celebrities in interviews with news outlets.

The Blaze also reached out to several news organizations whose editorial boards claimed “firewall policies” preventing advertisers from influencing news coverage, but which nevertheless took money from HHS for targeted ads.

“Advertisers pay for space to share their messages, as was the case here, and those ads are clearly labeled as such,” Shani George, vice president of communications for The Washington Post, said in a statement. “The newsroom is completely independent from the advertising department.”

Although The Washington Post may have several departments, they’re all under the authority of the same CEO and key executive team.

A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Times said their “newsroom operates independently from advertising.”

Former Newsmax anchor confirms network paid to promote only positive coverage

According to Desert News, Emerald Robinson, an independent journalist who previously served as the chief White House correspondent for Newsmax and One America News, said she was contacted by a whistleblower inside Newsmax who confirmed the news organization’s executives agreed to take money from HHS under the Biden administration to push only positive coverage of COVID vaccines.

Robinson was also contacted by top Newsmax executives in 2021, and told to stop any negative coverage of the COVID shots as “it was problematic.”

Robinson said she was warned multiple times by executives and was told by PR experts who worked with Newsmax that medical experts or doctors likely to say negative things about COVID vaccines would not be booked as guests.

Robinson was reportedly fired by Newsmax after tweeting “conspiracy theories” about COVID vaccines and was later banned from Twitter for “repeatedly violating the platforms’ rules on COVID-19 misinformation.”

Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy in an op-ed applauded Biden for his vaccine efforts.

Ruddy wrote:

“At Newsmax, we have strongly advocated for the public to be vaccinated. The many medical experts who have appeared on our network have been near-unanimous in support of the vaccine. I myself have gotten the Pfizer vaccine. There’s no question in my mind, countless lives would have been saved if the vaccine was available earlier.”

In other examples cited by The Blaze, “fear-based vaccine ads” from HHS featuring “survivor” stories from COVID patients who were hospitalized in intensive care units were covered by CNN and discussed on ABC’s “The View” last October.

HHS ads on YouTube featuring celebrities like Sir Michael Caine and Sir Elton John garnered millions of views.

As The Defender reported in September, a group of people injured by COVID vaccines reached out to the media to tell their stories, only to be told by news agencies they could not cover COVID vaccine injuries.

Kristi Dobbs, 40, was injured by Pfizer’s COVID vaccine. Dobbs spent months pleading with U.S. health agencies to research the neurological injuries she and others are experiencing in hopes of finding a treatment.

Dobbs said she and others who developed neurological injuries after getting a COVID vaccineshared their experiences with a reporter, in hope of raising awareness about their experiences.

Dobbs said she and others knew they needed to tell their stories, without causing “vaccine hesitancy,” to protect others from the same fate — so members of the group started writing and calling anyone who would listen, including reporters, news agencies and members of Congress.

Dobbs said they tried the best they could as simple Americans to reach out to those who would hear their stories. Finally, a reporter from a small media company was willing to do a story. Dobbs and others from the group participated in a 2-hour and 40-minute interview.

“The story never went anywhere,” Dobbs said. She said the reporter told them a “higher up” at Pfizer made a call to the station and pressured staff there into not covering any other stories about vaccine adverse reactions.

As previously reported by The Defender, the same investment firms with financial interests in Pfizer also hold large ownership stakes of corporate media outlets.

Yep! Investment giants BlackRock + The Vanguard Group stand to benefit from their ownership stakes in most of the corporations that imposed COVID vaccine mandates, and in some of the technology firms developing vaccine passports.https://t.co/4hykJNQBsC

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) February 17, 2022

In addition, Pfizer has contracts with the federal government, which has spent billions of American tax dollars both buying COVID vaccines and promoting only positive coverage to the public.

Liberty Counsel founder and Chairman Mat Staver told Desert News, “People have been injured and died as a result of the most extensive propaganda campaign in U.S. history and it was paid for with our taxpayer dollars.”

COVID vaccines are not safe or effective, but the American public has been given propaganda by the Biden administration instead of truth from the news media, Staver said.

“The consequence is that many people have needlessly suffered as a result of the censorship and propaganda.”

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Megan Redshaw is a freelance reporter for The Defender. She has a background in political science, a law degree and extensive training in natural health.

Featured image is from CHD

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***

At the outbreak of the First World War, Romain Rolland (1), the French Nobel laureate for literature, spoke out in passionate appeals, articles and letters against the war hysteria and chauvinism of the Germans and the French. Hatred of war, which distances peoples from each other and destroys love, was a leitmotif in Rolland’s work. For him, however one justifies the origin of war, with whatever theses and reasons one explains it, it was certain: “No earthly justification excuses the capitulation of reason to public opinion.” (2)

More than 100 years later, we citizens of the West are once again confronted with war hysteria and a deeply racist US-dominated public opinion that makes a mockery of all common sense. Yet again, the common sense of many fellow citizens capitulates to the prevailing opinions and judgements about the Russian people and their president – who has now even been cleared for firing. This fatal behaviour of fellow citizens will only change when we have enough “enlighteners” and “free spirits” to take away people’s individual and collective prejudices and irrational fears and strengthen them.

The sinking of the individual soul into the abyss of the mass soul

In his anti-war novel “Clerambault – History of a Free Conscience in War” (3), Romain Rolland introduces the reader to the incipient mass psychosis before the First World War on the French side. That was over 100 years ago. It is worthwhile to take the time to read about that time again and compare it with today. For Rolland, the war resembles a “cosmic crisis”, a “phenomenon of collective pathology”. In the introduction to his novel, he clarifies:

“The subject of this book is not war, although war overshadows it. Its real subject is the sinking of the individual soul into the abyss of the mass soul. And this, to my mind, is a much more decisive phenomenon for the future of humanity than the temporary supremacy of one nation or another.” (S.11)

Rolland’s novel is a call for the necessary struggle of personal conscience against the masses. One page later he calls for learning to “think for all alone”:

“Whoever wants to be of use to others must first be free. Love, too, is worthless as long as it is that of a slave. Free souls, strong characters – that is what the world needs most today!” (…) Dare to separate yourselves from the flock that draws you away! Every human being, if he is a true human being, must learn to stand alone within all, to think alone for all – if necessary, even against all! To think sincerely means to think for all, even if one thinks against all. Humanity needs those who offer it chess out of love and rebel against it when it is necessary! You serve humanity not by falsifying your conscience and your thoughts for the sake of humanity, but by defending its sanctity against social abuse of power; for they are organs of humanity. If you become unfaithful to yourselves, you are unfaithful to them. Siders, March 1917, R. R.” (p. 12f.)

In the second part of his novel, Rolland vividly describes a phenomenon that we can also observe in discussions today: The protagonist of the novel tries to win his fellow citizens over to the anti-war idea, but he always encounters mechanisms of partly unconscious resistance from his discussion partners:

“Clerambault tried to talk to one or the other. But everywhere he encountered the same mechanism of subterranean, half unconscious resistance. They were all iron-girded with the will not to understand, or actually with a persistent counter-will. Their reason was as little touched by counter-arguments as a duck is by water. In general, people are equipped with a quite inestimable quality for the purpose of their comfort, namely, they can make themselves blind and deaf if they wish, if they do not want to see or hear something. And if by some embarrassing chance they have already noticed something that is annoying to them, they know the art of immediately forgetting it again. How many citizens there were in all the fatherlands who knew exactly how things stood with regard to mutual responsibility in the war, who knew exactly the fatal role of their political leaders, but they preferred to deceive themselves and pretend that they knew nothing about it. In the end, they even managed to believe the exact opposite.” (4)

Enlighten people, empower them and dissolve irrational fears

People’s reason will no longer capitulate to public opinion only when there will be enough enlightened people who will be able to take away from the broad masses of people those individual and collective prejudices that are the ideological background of humanity’s catastrophes. More than ever, therefore, we need “free spirits” to teach us what is truth and what is a lie. In this, the intellectual has a much greater responsibility than one would generally like to admit, because it would be his duty to think for other people and to proclaim freedom in general with the freedom of thought.

In the past two years, unscrupulous financial sharks, together with the eugenicist from Davos and the politicians and corporate media in bondage to them, have “successfully” stirred up irrational fears of an agonising death by suffocation among the people. Church leaders did not oppose this. The intended effect did not fail to materialise: Due to the prevailing religious and authoritarian upbringing, most people look up to politicians like children and therefore they reacted to the unleashed fears of the supposed authorities with an absolute obedience reflex.

Today, due to the irresponsible political actions of immoral and power-hungry “statesmen”, the fear of an intended or accidentally triggered nuclear war is added. Urgent admonitions by recognised personalities such as Albert Schweitzer with his teaching of “Reverence for Life” in the 1954 collection of writings “Peace or Nuclear War” were not heard. In the 1950s, it was a moral authority, a guiding principle in the fight against the nuclear armament of nations.

Due to social constraints and imponderables and because of prevailing educational practices, irrational fears and individual and collective prejudices, it is not possible – I am convinced of this from decades of personal experience – to directly set fellow human beings in motion for a humane, peaceful and free society. The psychological deficits of the great masses are too penetrating for that. If certain popular leaders and masses were able to overthrow the existing power relations somewhere as a result of the favour of certain circumstances, they usually set up copies of the earlier forms of rule, only with other names and other ideological disguises. Consequently, psychological groundwork would have to be done first. But where can such offers be found?

Only through calm and patient psychological education can people be relieved of their irrational fears. At the same time, they must be encouraged and strengthened emotionally. Only after such an uplifting experience will they be able to understand the psychological motivations for their mostly unconscious and involuntary “surrender of reason” to public opinion and draw appropriate conclusions from this understanding.

As long as I breathe, I hope….

For the intellectual enlightener, the point is not to condemn or reject the “good public servant”, but to understand his or her motives and, at times, his or her inner hardships. Even if he or she wanted to, he or she must not and cannot contradict public opinion. It would behoove every free spirit not to place itself emotionally above its fellow citizen. Perhaps the other did not have the same favourable conditions in his childhood and later life. The point is to pick up the fellow citizen where he is emotionally.

In my opinion, intellectual enlighteners and free spirits often delude themselves. They usually write for like-minded colleagues; they do not reach the vast majority of fellow citizens. Nevertheless, they are indispensable.

A final very personal hope concerns the political interest and commitment of the younger and younger generation. Since their near and distant future in particular is at stake, they should not allow themselves to be permanently lied to by the state and corporate media. This does not fit at all with an enlightened, progressive youth.

Finally, a quote attributed to Martin Luther: “Even if I knew that the world would end tomorrow, I would still plant an apple tree today.”

The tree represents life and hope.

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

Notes

(1) Romain Rolland (1866-1944): with the Red Cross in Geneva during the First World War; 1915 Nobel Prize for Literature; 1936 trip to the Soviet Union, encounter with Gorky; commitment to peace and social justice.

This article takes sections from an article published on 3 June 2015 in the “Neue Rheinische Zeitung” NRhZ No. 513 entitled “Learning to think for everyone alone!” and builds on them

(2) Prologue to the novel, p. 7

(3) Reinbeck near Hamburg (1988). Translated from the French by Stefan Zweig. First published in 1920 by the Paris publishing house Ollendorff. Original title “One against all” (1917).

(4) op. cit., p. 105 f.

Featured image: Romain Rolland (Licensed under public domain)

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***

Recent diatribes between Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Chile’s Gabriel Boric and Colombian presidential candidate Gustavo Petro allow us to analyze two things: the Latin American left’s internal state and future relations between these governments.

Former Brazilian president Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva and Peru’s Pedro Castillo should also be added to the discussion. All have shown a clear intention to radically distance themselves from Caracas, shielding against the so-called “Venezuelanization” of the region’s politics.

The progressive leaders have denounced an alleged “democracy deficit” in the Venezuelan government. Meanwhile, Caracas has blasted the Latin American leftists for not taking a strong stance against US sanctions on Venezuela or conveniently forgetting to even mention the issue.

These leftist sectors’ position is no coincidence. Venezuela has become one of the main arguments the region’s right-wing bloc uses to attack any progressive formula or proposal that arises. Especially in countries with a large presence of Venezuelan migrants.

Corporate media and establishment actors have led a campaign to criminalize leftist leaders by linking them to Maduro. In response, these actors have tried to circumvent these “accusations” in the most pragmatic way: attacking the Venezuelan government or, if possible, avoiding the matter altogether.

To tell the truth, this argument has been a failed weapon when it comes to electoral processes since it was ineffective in Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Honduras and Chile. In all these countries, the winning candidates were precisely those who mainstream media tried to ideologically link to Caracas. Voters proved not to be easily manipulated.

However, the electoral campaign wrapped up and Boric has continued to reject the Maduro administration. Far from supporting a dialogue process in Venezuela, he is now joining the right-wing crowd that accuses Maduro of alleged human rights abuses, aligning with the United Nations High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet. It is worth recalling that while former Chile president Sebastian Piñera “recognized” US-backed Juan Guaidó, Boric has not shown yet his official stand on the matter.

For his part, Maduro without mentioning any names has said:

“A cowardly left has emerged trying to attack the successful and victorious Bolivarian model, our historical legacy, my office and the Bolivarian Revolution.”

This episode explains, to a certain degree, the internal situation of the Latin American left while giving a glimpse of how relations between these governments will shape up.

A new political cycle and the Venezuelan conundrum

The new progressive cycle that Latin America is experiencing now is not similar to the one at the beginning of the century.

In this new era, leftist politicians are trying to reach power after being defeated (not to say demolished) in the first cycle, as we saw in Brazil and Argentina. Meanwhile in Peru and Chile, progressive governments face opposing legislative powers as well as aggressive media and economic emporiums. All this is in addition to a judicialization drive that has targeted progressive figures. As a result, these politicians have opted for a more moderate discourse, depending on alliances and political pragmatism to survive.

Revolutionary experiences that survived the first cycle, such as Venezuela and Nicaragua, managed to do so by closing ranks as well. Their strategy was the judicialization of politics and radicalizing their stance against the US government while facing a high-level financial and even military siege. They ended up isolated and placed in an “axis of evil” that the new left is trying to avoid.

Today’s Latin American progressive bloc is composed of two major currents that do not have the ideopolitical cohesion of those first cycle surviving left forces.

Although it might happen, and it is already happening, that they could align strategically.

Despite clashes between leftist forces, the leadership of Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the potential victory of Lula da Silva in Brazil could help smooth out differences. Both leaders have clout over the region’s ideological currents and could coordinate efforts to reach a common strategy.

López Obrador has already achieved an unexpected “milestone,” having sat Maduro next to right-wing presidents in last year’s VI Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Summit in Mexico City.

On the reelection campaign trail, Lula has stated that “Bolsonaro is worse than Maduro” in order to distance himself from the Venezuelan leader. However, there are no harsh tensions between Lula and Maduro and if the former president reaches power again, Brazil could offer Caracas different types of political and economic backing. While in prison, Lula publicly acknowledged his support for Venezuela against US aggression. Whether he will continue to do so… remains to be seen.

In conclusion, these confrontations can be seen as part of a (pragmatic) political rhetoric, but their protagonists could end up aligned if there is strong leadership that prioritizes the defense of the region’s interests.

Would tensions persist or fade away?

Maduro has not opened fire or responded directly to criticism spawning from other leaders. He hopes that once in office, they will progressively backtrack their political approach towards Venezuela. With these potential progressive governments, the scenario of an invasion or increased pressure against Caracas is going out the window.

An example of this “slow normalization of relations” is Petro’s response to Maduro’s swipe about a “cowardly left.” The Colombian politician took the barb for himself and set even more distance from Caracas: “I suggest Maduro stop his insults. Cowards are those who do not embrace democracy.”

Although Petro continues to clash with Maduro, at the same time he has offered to resume relations if he wins Colombia’s presidential vote on May 29. This could be the final blow to the US interventionist agenda against Venezuela, currently sustained by the Iván Duque administration.

The same applies to Pedro Castillo. Even amidst his ambivalent position and Peru’s internal crisis, the progressive leader has recognized the Maduro government, condemning to the hall of historical failures the once-powerful Lima Group, which coordinated the attack against Venezuela in the last five years.

All these regional leaders have questioned Washington’s economic blockade against Venezuela. It is true though that they have changed their speech depending on the audience they are facing. Still, the fact that they have pledged to stabilize relations with the Maduro government in itself represents an invaluable political resetting.

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Ociel Alí López is a Venezuelan researcher who has published numerous written and multimedia works. He analyzes Venezuelan society for several European and Latin American media outlets. He is also co-founder of the alternative state television station Avila TV and recipient of the CLACSO/ASDI research prize and the Luis Britto García literature award.

Featured image: Nicolás Maduro has called out Chile’s Boric and Colombia’s Petro over their stances vis-a-vis Venezuela. (Venezuelanalysis)

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 condemns 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.

U.S. and NATO military expansion in Eastern Europe is the root cause of the current Ukraine crisis, Zivadin Jovanovic, former minister of foreign affairs of Yugoslavia, has said.

In an interview with Xinhua, Jovanovic who currently presides over the think-tank Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals, said that the crisis resulted from “the U.S.-NATO strategy of military expansion to the Russian borders, rejection of the principle of equal and indivisible security.”

Serbia was the first victim of NATO’s expansion strategy, Jovanovic recalled.

In 1999, NATO troops led by the United States blatantly set the UN Security Council aside and carried out a 78-day continuous bombing of Yugoslavia under the guise of “preventing humanitarian disasters,” killing and injuring over 8,000 innocent civilians and uprooting nearly 1 million.

Jovanovic called for a peaceful solution to the conflict in Ukraine, “taking into account legitimate security concerns of all countries and peoples involved.”

Jovanovic said that the Ukrainian conflict and all that had preceded it, “calls to end the policy of military expansion, for recognition of legitimate rights of all countries to equal security without undermining the security of others,” as well as for the “global recognition of the new multi-polar world order.”

“We hope that the Ukrainian conflict will be resolved as soon as possible peacefully, through dialogue, taking into account the need for equal security of all countries and peoples. Sanctions, threats, double standards, one-sided approaches…are undermining peace efforts and therefore should cease,” he added.

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Our thanks to Rick Rozoff for bringing this to our attention.

Featured image is from CODEPINK