I cinque cerchi spezzati

February 8th, 2022 by Manlio Dinucci

Le Olimpiadi invernali del 2014 – che si aprirono a Sochi in Russia il 7 febbraio alla vigilia dell’esplosione della crisi ucraina con il putsch di Piazza Maidan (18-20 febbraio) – furono definite nella campagna mediatica anti-russa le «Olimpiadi dello zar Putin». Il presidente Obama e il vice Biden, seguiti da altri, le boicottarono accusando la Russia di violare i diritti umani degli Lgbt. Stesso scenario oggi con le Olimpiadi invernali di Pechino, definite nella campagna mediatica anti-cinese «i Giochi di potere di Xi, il Grande timoniere olimpico» (La Repubblica, 3 febbraio).

Il presidente Biden le ha boicottate, accusando la Cina di violare i diritti umani degli Uiguri. Al seguito degli Stati uniti, la Gran Bretagna, il Canada, l’Australia, la Lituania, l’Estonia e il Kosovo (noto difensore dei diritti umani, inquisito per traffico di esseri e organi umani alla Corte dell’Aja) hanno dichiarato il «boicottaggio diplomatico» delle Olimpiadi di Pechino.

Il boicottaggio fa parte della strategia di Washington di «contenimento» della Cina. Essa non è rimasta semplicemente la «fabbrica del mondo» in cui le multinazionali statunitensi ed europee hanno delocalizzato da decenni gran parte delle loro produzioni, ricavandone colossali profitti. La Cina ha realizzato un proprio sviluppo produttivo e tecnologico e, su tale base, progetti come la Nuova Via della Seta: una rete terrestre (viaria e ferroviaria) e marittima tra la Cina e l’Europa attraverso l’Asia Centrale, il Medio Oriente e la Russia. In tale quadro, le relazioni economiche tra Cina e Russia si sono rafforzate, soprattutto dopo le sanzioni imposte da Stati uniti e Unione europea alla Russia.

L’interscambio tra Stati uniti e Cina resta maggiore, ma, dato che molti prodotti sul mercato statunitense sono fabbricati in Cina da multinazionali Usa o forniti da società cinesi, gli Stati uniti registrano nel commercio bilaterale un deficit di oltre 300 miliardi di dollari annui. La Cina ha inoltre fortemente ridotto i propri investimenti negli Usa. Ancora più grave per Washington è il fatto che la quota in dollari delle riserve valutarie cinesi è sensibilmente calata e che la Cina cerca monete alternative a quella statunitense da usare nel commercio internazionale, mettendo in pericolo l’egemonia del dollaro.

Non potendo arrestare tale processo che può mettere fine al predominio economico degli Stati uniti, Washington getta la spada sul piatto della bilancia. Il «contenimento» economico diventa «contenimento» militare. L’ammiraglio Davidson, capo del Comando dell’Indo-Pacifico – la regione che nella geopolitica di Washington si estende dalla costa occidentale degli Usa a quella dell’India – ha richiesto al Congresso 27 miliardi di dollari per costruire attorno alla Cina una cortina di basi missilistiche e sistemi satellitari. «Dobbiamo cominciare ad affrontare la Cina da una posizione di forza», ha dichiarato il segretario di Stato Antony Blinken.

In tale quadro rientra l’Aukus, il partenariato strategico-militare costituito da Stati uniti, Gran Bretagna e Australia con «l’imperativo di assicurare la pace e stabilità nell’Indo-Pacifico», Stati Uniti e Gran Bretagna aiuteranno l’Australia ad acquisire sottomarini a propulsione nucleare, armati di missili sicuramente anche a testata nucleare, tipo il Trident D5 Usa che può trasportare fino a 14 testate termonucleari indipendenti. Questi sottomarini di fatto sotto comando Usa, avvicinandosi alle coste della Cina e della Russia, potrebbero colpire in pochi minuti i principali obiettivi in questi paesi con una capacità distruttiva pari a oltre 20 mila bombe di Hiroshima.

Cina e Russia rafforzano di conseguenza non solo la loro cooperazione economica, ma anche quella politica e militare. Nella dichiarazione congiunta a Pechino, i presidenti Xi Jinping e Vladimir Putin hanno sottolineato che «Russia e Cina si oppongono ai tentativi di forze esterne di minare la sicurezza e stabilità nelle loro regioni adiacenti» e che «si oppongono all’ulteriore allargamento della Nato». La strategia Stati uniti-Nato della tensione e della guerra, che riporta al confronto tra blocchi contrapposti, spezza i cinque cerchi intrecciati, simbolo olimpico dei cinque continenti uniti per «un mondo migliore e pacifico».

Manlio Dinucci

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NATO plans to build a gas pipeline from Spain to Germany – media

By 112 Ukraine

February 7, 2022

NATO is considering building a pipeline from Spain to France and Germany that will “reduce Central Europe’s dependence on Russian gas.” This was reported by La Vanguardia, citing sources in the Spanish government.

“The gas pipeline between Spain and Germany will reduce Central Europe’s dependence on Russian gas in the coming years,” the statement said.

According to the agency, the construction of a new Trans-Pyrenean connection to send gas from Algeria to Central Europe is being considered. It is noted that there are eight regasification stations required for liquefied gas treatment in the Iberian Peninsula, namely in Spain and Portugal.

It is noted that the authorities are studying the option of restarting the Midcat project, which was stopped three years ago. The project involves the creation of a Mediterranean gas corridor to deliver gas from Algeria to central Europe. The newspaper claims that Germany is extremely interested in it.

It was reported earlier that the authorities of Poland and Ukraine are discussing the construction of a joint gas pipeline to transfer large volumes of gas from west to east in the near future.

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NATO Reportedly Contemplates Building New Pipeline in Bid to Reduce Dependency on Russian Gas

By Tasnim News

February 6, 2022

NATO has plans to build a pipeline that would connect Catalonia, Spain and France in order to reduce Europe’s reliance on Russian natural gas, the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia reported, citing anonymous sources in the country’s government.

The proposed structure could reportedly be used to transfer around 7 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year from Algeria and foreign LNG shipments. The latter could be stored and processed in eight LNG plants located in Spain and Portugal, the newspaper said. La Vanguardia’s sources claim the proposal is on NATO’s “working table” and that Germany is “very interested” in the project, Sputnik reported.

The pipeline project itself is not new and is known as Midcat. It was first proposed three years ago, but was rejected by Spanish and French regulators as potentially unprofitable due to Europe’s plans to achieve net-zero emissions by the middle of the century via the use of green energy.

The reports of a new pipeline being discussed come in the wake of a tough year for the European energy industry, which faced spiking gas prices in 2021. The price tag first breached the ceiling of $1,000 per thousand cubic meters due to the EU’s reservoirs being half full after a tough winter, only to reach $2,000 at the end of the year.

The skyrocketing prices were generally put down to the EU’s failure to fill up its reservoirs in 2021, growing consumption amid the closing of several nuclear power plants in Europe, and the failure to buy extra LNG abroad due to Asian nations buying up all the free stocks of it. Yet, numerous European politicians and their American allies blamed Russia and the EU’s dependency on gas supplies from Moscow.

Moscow and the Russian gas exporting company Gazprom rejected the accusations, with both stressing that the country has fulfilled all of its contractual obligations on natural gas supplies.

At the same time, a joint EU-Russian venture, the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which was finished in September 2021, still remains non-operational due to a lack of certification. The process of issuing the latter was put “on pause” according to German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. Berlin claims the pipeline, which could pump up to 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year, might be violating European energy laws, specifically the Third Energy Package.

However, there have been several media reports, as well as suggestions from American politicians, that Nord Stream 2’s future might fall victim to Western sanctions against Russia in the context of ongoing tensions around Ukraine.

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Borrell: US, EU to help Ukraine develop energy security

By 112 Ukraine

February 7, 2022

Ukraine is now better prepared for any conflict but it still needs to increase investments in its own sources of renewable energy

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell claimed that the U.S. and the EU will jointly assist Ukraine with maintaining the energy security. The politician wrote that on his blog on the website of the European External Action Service.

“While we seek to address the EU’s own energy and climate goals and enhance our resilience, we must do the same for Ukraine. In terms of energy security, Ukraine today is already better prepared for any conflict. As in the rest of Europe, true energy security can however only come through more investment in domestic renewables and better connections with the EU market”, reads the message.

Before going to the session of the EU-US Energy Council in Washington, Borrell claimed that the meeting “will be an opportunity to seek even tighter coordination on energy market reforms needed in Ukraine to reinforce corporate governance and transparency ahead of Ukraine’s synchronisation to the European electricity network, planned in 2023”.

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Rick Rozoff, renowned author and geopolitical analyst, actively involved in opposing war, militarism and interventionism for over fifty years. He manages the Anti-Bellum and For peace, against war website.

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

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The 2014 Winter Olympics – which opened in Sochi, Russia, on February 7, on the eve of the explosion of the Ukrainian crisis with the putsch in Maidan Square (February 18-20) – were defined in the anti-Russian media campaign as the “Olympics of Czar Putin”.

President Obama and Deputy Biden, followed by others, boycotted them accusing Russia of violating the human rights of LGBT people. Same scenario today with the Beijing Winter Olympics, defined in the anti-Chinese media campaign as “the Games of power of Xi, the Great Olympic helmsman” (La Re-pubblica, February 3). President Biden boycotted them, accusing China of violating the human rights of the Uighurs. Following the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, Lituania, Estonia and Kosovo (a well-known human rights defender, indicted for trafficking of human beings and human organs) declared a “diplomatic boycott” of the Beijing Olympics.

The boycott is part of Washington’s strategy of “containment” of China. China has not simply remained the “factory of the world” in which U.S. and European multinationals have relocated for decades much of their production, earning huge profits. China has realized its own productive and technological development and, on this basis, projects such as the New Silk Road: a land (road and rail) and sea network between China and Europe through Central Asia, the Middle East and Russia. Within this framework, economic relations between China and Russia have strengthened, especially after the sanctions imposed by the United States and the EU on Russia. Trade between the USA and China remains strong, but since many products on the US market are manufactured in China by US multinationals or supplied by Chinese companies, the USA has a deficit in bilateral trade of over 300 billion dollars annually.

China has also strongly reduced its investments in the US. Even more serious for Washington is the fact that the dollar share of China’s foreign exchange reserves has dropped significantly and that China is looking for alternative currencies to the U.S. currency to use in international trade, endangering the hegemony of the dollar.

Unable to stop this process that can put an end to the economic dominance of the United States, Washington throws the sword on the scales. Economic “containment” becomes military “containment”. Admiral Davidson, head of the Indo-Pacific Command – the region that in Washington’s geopolitics extends from the west coast of the U.S. to that of India – has asked Congress for $27 billion to build a curtain of missi-listic bases and satellite systems around China. “We must begin to approach China from a position of strength,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

In this framework is part the Aukus, the strategic-military partnership formed by the United States, Great Britain and Australia with “the imperative to ensure peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific”. The United States and Great Britain will help Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, armed with missiles certainly also with nuclear warheads, such as the U.S. Trident D5 that can carry up to 14 independent thermonuclear warheads. These submarines under U.S. command, approaching the coasts of China and Russia, could hit in a few minutes the main targets in these countries with a capacity of over 20 thousand Hiroshima bombs.

As a result, China and Russia are strengthening not only their economic but also their political and military cooperation. In their joint statement in Beijing, Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin stressed that “Russia and China oppose attempts by external forces to undermine security and stability in their adjacent regions” and that they “oppose further enlargement of NATO.” The U.S.-NATO strategy of tension and war, which brings back to the confrontation between opposing blocs, breaks the five intertwined circles, the Olympic symbol of the five continents united for “a better and peaceful world”.

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This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.

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

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In an exclusive insider account [1] with its vast network of NATSEC shills, the New York Times has chronicled the most detailed “official story” of the killing of al-Baghdadi’s shadowy successor at Syria’s border along Turkey in a Special Ops night raid on Thursday.

But the whole screed is based on the testimony of five unnamed witnesses, including the one with pseudonym Abu Muhammad. I’m assuming his real name wasn’t Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, the fearsome head of al-Nusra Front, the savage terrorist organization controlling Syria’s northwest Idlib province, where the new ISIS Caliph, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi, was killed, considering the Times reporters virtually played the role of terrorist apologists for myriad groups of Islamic jihadists and “moderate rebels” during Syria’s decade-long proxy war.

Sarcasm aside, the Times report notes:

“About 11 months ago, a Syrian truck driver rented the house targeted in the raid, said Muhammad Sheikh, whose family owns it. The truck driver paid $130 per month and lived there on the second floor with his wife, their three children, his sister and her daughter, Mr. Sheikh said.

“Late last year, the United States got a tip that Mr. al-Qurayshi was living on the top floor, Biden administration officials said. He never left the building, but sometimes bathed on the rooftop. To communicate with the far-flung terrorist organization he headed, he relied on the polite truck driver who lived downstairs.”

Although the Times report alleges the ISIS leader was killed in a non-descript three-story house on the outskirts of Atmeh, a densely populated town in Syria’s northwest Idlib province straddling the border with Turkey, and the building and the impoverished locality were purportedly inhabited by “civilian refugees,” the fortified neighborhood was in fact an al-Nusra Front redoubt populated by militants and their families, with an al-Nusra Front checkpoint only 200 meters away, a Turkish police station 500 meters and a Turkish military outpost a kilometer away from the building, according to credible sources [2] with inside information of Syria’s Idlib.

Clearly, both the self-styled caliphs of ISIS, al-Baghdadi and al-Quraishi, were hiding in Syria’s Idlib with the blessings of al-Nusra Front and Turkish security forces and were used as bargaining chips to extract geo-strategic concessions from the Trump and Biden administrations, respectively.

The scapegoating of both the ISIS caliphs by the Erdogan government, first in October 2019 to let Turkey mount Operation Peace Spring in northeast Syria and then on February 3 to reconcile with the Biden administration as Erdogan was repeatedly snubbed by Biden throughout his maiden year as president due to Erdogan’s personal friendship and business partnership with Biden’s political rival Trump, are reminiscent of the killing of the foremost terrorist leader, Osama bin Laden, also in a Special Ops night raid in May 2011, who was also hiding under the “protection” of Pakistan’s security forces until he was betrayed by his patrons for “geo-strategic concerns.”

As a Saudi citizen and belonging to the powerful Saudi-Yemeni clan of Bin Ladens, which has business interests all over the Middle East, Osama bin Laden was almost a royalty. He had so much clout even in the governments of Middle Eastern countries that he was treated like a “royal guest” by Pakistan’s military at the behest of the Saudi royal family for five years from 2006 after his escape from Afghanistan right up to his death in 2011.

In comparison, even though they adopted the nom de guerre Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Quraishi, respectively, in fact both Ibrahim Awad and Amir Muhammad Sa’id Abdal-Rahman al-Mawla were simply rural clerics in mosques in Iraq before they assumed the title of the caliphs of the Islamic State.

Regarding the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, despite a few minor discrepancies, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has published the most credible account to-date of the execution of Bin Laden in his book and article titled: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden [3], which was published in the London Review of Books in May 2015.

According to Hersh, the initial, tentative plan of the Obama administration regarding the disclosure of the execution of Bin Laden to the press was that he had been killed in a drone strike in the Hindu Kush Mountains on the Afghan side of the border, which could also have provided face-saving to Pakistan’s military authorities.

But the operation didn’t go as planned because a Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound and later blown up by the Navy Seals. Consequently, the whole sleepy town now knew that an operation was underway and several social media users based in Abbottabad live-tweeted the whole incident on Twitter.

Therefore, the initial plan was abandoned and the Obama administration had to go public within hours of the operation with a hurriedly cooked-up story. This fact explains so many contradictions and discrepancies in the official account of the story, the most glaring being the United States Navy Seals conducted a raid deep inside Pakistan’s territory on a garrison town without the permission of Pakistani authorities.

According to a May 2015 AFP report [4], Pakistan’s military sources had confirmed Hersh’s account there was a Pakistani defector who had met several times with Jonathan Bank, the CIA’s then-station chief in Islamabad, as a consequence of which Pakistan’s intelligence disclosed Bank’s name to local newspapers and he had to leave Pakistan in a hurry in December 2010 because his cover was blown.

In his May 2016 report [5], Greg Miller of the Washington Post posited that Mark Kelton, the CIA station chief in Islamabad at the time of Bin Laden’s killing in May 2011, was poisoned by Pakistan’s intelligence service due to Kelton’s role in the killing of Bin Laden. It’s worth noting that Mark Kelton succeeded Jonathan Bank in January 2011, after the latter’s name was made public by Pakistan’s military intelligence due to Bank’s “suspicious activities.”

According to inside sources of Pakistan’s military, after the 9/11 terror attack, the Saudi royal family had asked Pakistan’s military authorities as a favor to keep Bin Laden under protective custody, because he was a scion of a powerful Saudi-Yemeni Bin Laden family and it was simply inconceivable for the Saudis to hand him over to the US. That’s why he was found hiding in a spacious compound right next to the reputed Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad.

But once the Pakistani walk-in colonel, as stated in Seymour Hersh’s book and corroborated by the aforementioned AFP report, told then-CIA station chief in Islamabad, Jonathan Bank, that a high-value al-Qaeda leader had been hiding in a safe house in Abbottabad under the protective custody of Pakistan’s intelligence service, and after that when the CIA obtained further proof in the form of Bin Laden’s DNA through the fake vaccination program conducted by Dr. Shakil Afridi, then it was no longer possible for Pakistan’s military authorities to keep denying the whereabouts of Bin Laden.

In the book, Seymour Hersh has already postulated various theories that why it was not possible for Pakistan’s military authorities to simply hand Bin Laden over to the US, one being that the Americans wanted to catch Bin Laden themselves in order to gain maximum political mileage for then-President Obama’s presidential campaign slated for November 2012.

Here, let me only add that in May 2011, Pakistan had a pro-American People’s Party government led by then-President Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of late Benazir Bhutto, in power. And since Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, then the army chief of Pakistan’s military, and the former head of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Shuja Pasha, were complicit in harboring Bin Laden, thus it cannot be ruled out that Pakistan’s military authorities might still have had strong objections to the US Navy Seals conducting a raid deep inside Pakistan’s territory on a garrison town.

But Pakistan’s civilian administration under then-President Asif Ali Zardari persuaded the military authorities to order the Pakistan Air Force and air defense systems to stand down during the operation. Pakistan’s then-ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani’s role in this saga ruffled the feathers of Pakistan’s military’s top brass to the extent that Husain Haqqani was later implicated in a criminal case regarding his memo to Admiral Mike Mullen and eventually Ambassador Haqqani had to resign in November 2011, just six months after the May 2011 raid.

In his March 2017 article [6] for the Washington Post, Husain Haqqani confessed to the role played by the Asif Ali Zardari government in facilitating the killing of Bin Laden. Husain Haqqani identified then-President Asif Ali Zardari as his “civilian leader” and revealed: “In November 2011, I was forced to resign as ambassador after Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus gained the upper hand in the country’s perennial power struggle. Among the security establishment’s grievances against me was the charge that I had facilitated the presence of large numbers of CIA operatives who helped track down bin Laden without the knowledge of Pakistan’s army, even though I had acted under the authorization of Pakistan’s elected civilian leaders.”

In his April 2013 article [7] for the New York Times, Mark Mazzetti noted: “Husain Haqqani had orders from Islamabad to be lenient in approving the visas, because many of the Americans coming to Pakistan were — at least officially — going to be administering millions of dollars in foreign-aid money. By the time of the Lahore killings, in early 2011, so many Americans were operating inside Pakistan under both legitimate and false identities that even the US Embassy didn’t have accurate records of their identities and whereabouts.”

Although Mark Mazzetti scrupulously avoided mentioning the role played by the mole inside Pakistan’s security forces and the CIA station chiefs in locating the couriers of Bin Laden in his article and even tried to distract attention to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the timing of the surge of CIA operatives in Pakistan, late 2010 and early 2011, was telling, because those were exactly the months when the CIA was tracking Bin Laden’s whereabouts.

Finally, although Seymour Hersh claimed in his account of the story that Pakistan’s military authorities were also on board months before the operation, let me clarify that according to the inside sources of Pakistan’s military, only Pakistan’s civilian administration under the pro-American People’s Party government was on board, and military authorities, which were instrumental in harboring Bin Laden and his family for five years, were intimated only at the eleventh hour in order to preempt the likelihood of Bin Laden’s “escape” from the custody of his facilitators in Pakistan’s security apparatus.

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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 the Middle East regions. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military industrial complex and petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor of meticulously researched and credibly sourced investigative reports to Global Research.

Notes

[1] ‘Those Who Remain Will Die’: Neighbors Recall Night of Fear in Syria Raid: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/03/world/middleeast/isis-raid-idlib-qurayshi.html

[2] Slain ISIS Terror Leader Resided In Turkish Occupation Area Of Syria: https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-commandos-take-out-top-isis-leader-daring-raid-syrias-idlib

[3] Seymour Hersh: The Killing of Osama bin Laden: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden

[4] Pakistan military officials admit defector’s key role in Bin Laden operation: http://www.dawn.com/news/1181530/pakistan-military-officials-admit-defectors-key-role-in-bin-laden-operation

[5] CIA station chief in Islamabad was poisoned by Pakistan’s intelligence service: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-bin-laden-raids-shadow-bad-blood-and-the-suspected-poisoning-of-a-cia-officer/2016/05/05/ace85354-0c83-11e6-a6b6-2e6de3695b0e_story.html

[6] Ambassador Husain Haqqani’s article in the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/03/10/yes-the-russian-ambassador-met-trumps-team-so-thats-what-we-diplomats-do/

[7] How a Single Spy Helped Turn Pakistan Against the US: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/magazine/raymond-davis-pakistan.html

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Many world leaders have visited the Chinese capital of Beijing to support their national teams in the ongoing Winter Olympics, but the trips of three in particular stand out as extremely strategic. These are the meetings that Argentine President Alberto Fernández, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, and Russian President Vladimir Putin had with Chinese President Xi Jinping. This analysis will highlight the top takeaways from each meeting and explain their impact on the emerging Multipolar World Order.

Argentina is a developed economy that participates in the G20. It’s a regional leader and currently holds the rotating presidency of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). President Fernández’s visit also coincided with the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between his country and China. He became president in 2019, which also resulted in former Cristina Fernández de Kirchner becoming Argentina’s Vice President. Both politicians are regarded as firm believers in multipolarity.

It’s therefore fitting that President Fernández signed a Memorandum of Understanding with China on Cooperation within the Framework of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative. They also reached a deal on nuclear power too, which is fully in line with both leaders’ environmentalist visions. These outcomes showed that developed economies also mutually benefit by cooperation with China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI), which takes more forms than just roads and ports.

Moving along to Prime Minister Khan, his country has long been regarded as China’s iron brother due to their fraternal ties over the decades. His meeting with President Xi saw the two sides further strengthen the Pakistan-China All-Weather Strategic Cooperative Partnership following a 33-paragraph joint statement. They reaffirmed their full support for one another on every issue of importance and agreed to expand the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is BRI’s flagship project.

Unlike Argentina, Pakistan is a developing country but even it too immensely benefits from BRI. Prime Minister Khan specifically praised the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) lifting of 770 million people out of poverty and hopes to emulate its success. To that end, they also signed a number of other deals, including on investment and vaccine cooperation, et al. Both countries also discussed expanding CPEC to Afghanistan and enhancing their cooperation in international fora to promote real multilateralism.

President Putin stands apart from those two other leaders by virtue of the fact that he leads a major country, one that also happens to be experiencing unprecedented pressure from the declining US unipolar hegemon at the moment. Since China and Russia jointly serve as the most powerful engines of the emerging Multipolar World Order, they released a whopping 5,300-word statement together. This declaration confirmed that they see practically everything of global significance the same way.

This meeting was very important for President Putin because Russia was relying on its comprehensive strategic partners in China to serve as a pressure valve vis-à-vis the West. President Xi, of course, didn’t disappoint. Their joint statement literally concerned “International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development”. They also agreed to another gas deal for Russia to supply China with 10 billion cubic metres more of gas a year, which will reduce Russia’s export dependence on the EU.

Most people don’t think of Argentina, Pakistan, and Russia as having much if anything in common, but the Beijing Winter Olympics proved that their leaders all have a shared interest in visiting China to cheer on their national teams and also meet with President Xi. Each of their countries are China’s respected BRI partners, all of whom are envisioned as playing different but complementary roles in this global connectivity vision.

Argentina, by virtue of its developed economy status and presence in Latin America, shows that BRI isn’t just for developing countries in the Eastern Hemisphere like some have wrongly thought. Regarding Pakistan, its hosting of CPEC makes this country’s comprehensive success integral to BRI’s. As for Russia, this country doesn’t just serve as a bridge between Eastern Eurasia and Western Eurasia but is a fiercely sovereign major country that won’t submit to US bullying. All three countries also support multipolarity.

The Winter Olympic Games themselves are a purely apolitical event focusing solely on sporting but they nevertheless served as a convenient reason for many world leaders to visit Beijing and meet with their gracious host President Xi while they were there. The timing couldn’t have been better since the deals that were reached are truly game-changing in the grand strategic sense and came precisely at the moment when the US’ unipolar hegemonic decline has unprecedentedly accelerated.

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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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Video: War in Northern Syria Is Gaining Momentum

February 8th, 2022 by South Front

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As of February 6, Turkish forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) continue to exchange fire in Syria’s northern and northeastern regions, further destabilizing the situation in the war-torn country.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) was drawn into the stand-off between the two sides on February 4 when three of its service members were wounded as a result of a series of Turkish artillery strikes that targeted the SDF-held towns of Mara’naz, Shawargha and al-Irshadiyah in the northern countryside of Aleppo.

The SAA responded on the same day by targeting a vehicle of the Turkish-backed Mu’tasim Division near the town of Marea in the northern Aleppo countryside with an anti-tank guided missile. One militant was killed and two others were wounded as a result of the strike.

On the same day, the SDF shelled Marea as well. The attack resulted in some material damage and several civilians were wounded.

On February 5, a primitive suicide drone that was launched by Turkish-backed militants crashed as a result of a technical failure in the outskirts of the SDF-held town of Baylouniyah in the northern countryside of Aleppo. The target of the drone was likely a position of the SDF.

Turkey took matters into its own hands on February 6. Turkish combat drones targeted two positions of the SDF near the village of Arab Hassan in the northeastern countryside of Aleppo. However, no casualties were reported. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, both positions were evacuated before the strikes.

The situation in northern and northeastern Syria may escalate even more in the upcoming days, especially as Turkey appears to be looking for excuses to launch an operation against the SDF.

Meanwhile, in Syria’s central region, the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) continue its combat operations against ISIS cells.

On February 5, at least 16 Russian airstrikes targeted several caves and dens in the eastern Homs countryside and the Hama-Aleppo-Raqqa triangle where ISIS terrorists were hiding.

On February 6, more than 32 Russian airstrikes hit the terrorist hideouts near the town of Ithriyah in the eastern Hama countryside and the town of al-Resafa in the southern countryside of Raqqa.

The recent decline in ISIS attacks indicates that the terrorists group has sustained some serious damage as a result of the recent Russian and Syrian operations in the central region.

In Syria’s northwestern region, known as Greater Idlib, the ceasefire is still holding up despite a few minor ceasefire violations by the al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies.

The VKS responded to these violations on February 6. A series of Russian airstrikes hit the outskirts of the town of Kafer Shalaya in the southern countryside of Idlib. The targets were likely positions belonging to HTS.

The situation in Greater Idlib may deteriorate in the upcoming days as the weather is getting better. This will allow HTS and its allies to carry out larger attacks.

Meanwhile in the southern Syrian regions, the situation has been calm. No security incidents were reported in al-Quneitra, Daraa or al-Suwayda as of February 7. However, there are no guarantees that the situation will remain stable in a short term.

Overall, the escalation between Turkish forces and the SDF in Syria’s northern and northeastern regions remain the biggest threat to the security and stability of the country. A full-on military confrontation between the two sides could break out soon.

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GoFundMe’s suspension of millions to support protesting truckers in Canada shocked many, particularly when the company initially announced its intention to distribute the money to other charities.  It was less of a surprise for those of us who have criticized the company for years over its use of the platform to target and block funds for conservative and libertarian causes. Indeed, the company has revised an old practice known as the “Nag’s Head light” in luring the unsuspecting into what has become a liberal lockbox on funds.

In the Carolinas, locals would sometimes tie a lantern under the head of a horse to lure ships to their doom.  Thinking the light was a ship in deep water, the ships would unwittingly sail into the shore rocks where they would be stripped of their cargo. That is how the resort town Nag’s Head, North Carolina got its name.

GoFundMe is the ultimate Nag’s Head operation. It draws conservative and libertarian causes to its shore with promise of being a neutral crowdfunding site. At its creation, the founders pledged to change the world by “disrupting giving” by handing control to average people in supporting others with common values and views.

The easy-to-use technology and need for crowdfunding services quickly expanded the company into a multibillion enterprise. However, it soon became clear that the company was using its control of funds to advance its own political agenda. Worse yet, the company effectively coaxing groups into fundraising campaigns on its site, only to freeze accounts before the money could be used.

In the case of the Canadian truckers protesting Covid mandate, the company perfectly replicated the Nag’s Head Light. It allowed people to donate over $10 million, thinking that they were helping the truckers and presumably not donating to other sites. It then suspended the account and announced that it would distribute the money to other charities in consultation with the truckers. Once the ships crashed on its rocks, it was literally going to salvage the wreckage.

The announcement was breathtakingly moronic and led some to call for criminal investigations.  It turns out that soliciting funds for one reason and then using them for another (“better”) cause is considered fraud in some circles. The company quickly backtracked. However, it still refused to allow the donations to go to the truckers. It will return the money.  In the meantime, critical time and support has been lost for those who trusted the company.

It is a familiar pattern for the company in allowing people to send money for badly needed support only to lock the funds away at the last minute. The company’s record has moved it well beyond any plausible deniability that it is not using access to donations as a way of advancing its own priorities.

Consider GoFundMe’s freezing of funds for legal defense funds. One would think that funding litigation costs would be unassailable since it is an effort to secure judicial review of the underlying merits of a case or a cause. After all, if a cause is based on disinformation, a court can quickly sort out the truth. Right? Wrong.

GoFundMe froze donations needed to support Kyle Rittenhouse’s legal defense because he was accused of a violent crime. However, that is the point of a trial. He was accused of a crime and he was entitled to a presumption of innocence. However, the media ran false accounts of the story while social media companies like TikTok censored pro-Rittenhouse material. One police officer was fired for simply donating to Rittenhouse anonymously on GoFundMe. Neither the company nor the media came to the defense of Norfolk Police Officer William Kelly. Rittenhouse was, of course, acquitted. Then GoFundMe released the funds after they were no longer needed to support his trial.

The company also suspended litigation funds for accused police officers as well as parents who sought to challenge vaccinate mandates in courts.

When the company blocked the distribution of donations to Rittenhouse, it declared “GoFundMe’s Terms of Service prohibit raising money for the legal defense of an alleged violent crime.” It is a ridiculous policy since defendants have a presumption of innocence and we should all parties being able to present their best cases before independent judges. That includes Canadian truckers, Black Lives Matter, Antifa and other groups facing litigation. Moreover, critics have noted that the company has supported legal funds supporting rioters in various cities as well as an appeal for the 2020 Seattle Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP.)

The hypocrisy of the company on such issues has been flagged repeatedly, including by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

It does not matter. Like the social media companies, GoFundMe controls billions in funds and has become the very scourge that it was designed to combat. Rather than empower average people, it now operates more like a corporate overlord on what causes are worthy of crowdfunding.

Notably, GoFundMe relied on accounts from the Canadian government to label the truckers as violent despite the fact that the truckers are protesting the government. The protests have been largely peaceful, particularly in comparison to the “mostly peaceful” protests in past summers (by groups allowed to crowdfund by the company). It is the same pattern used by other companies in serving as a conduit of government priorities and policies.

YouTube and Twitter have blocked critics of Putin or governments like India. Even the W.H.O. has supported such censorship to deal with what it now calls the “infodemic,” which includes criticism of itself. YouTube and Twitter have blocked critics of Putin or governments like India. In the United States, Democratic leaders (including President Joe Biden) have pushed for more corporate censorship on subjects ranging from global warming to gender issues to election integrity to vaccines.

The inclusion of GoFundMe in this increasingly united front is particularly chilling. As the Supreme Court has repeatedly held, money is a critical part of free speech. You speak through your donations and those funds then support further free speech and associations. As companies like Twitter actively silence dissenting voices, GoFundMe has served as a chokepoint for funds. The result is that many are finding it not only difficult to use social media to voice their views but to use crowdfunding to garner the support of like-minded people.

GoFundMe can clearly redefine itself as a progressive company. It has free speech rights like those who it is seeking to silence. Like many in the media, the company has largely written off half of the country. The problem of the company is when the crowd in its crowdfunding business goes somewhere else.

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“The Canadian government has been doing everything it can to stop and hinder the Freedom Trucker Convoy from continuing,” said journalist and political commentator, Kim Iversen on the latest episode of The Hill’s “Rising.”

Iversen said government officials are issuing $700 tickets and threatening to arrest anyone who brings fuel or other essential supplies to the truckers.

They also declared a state of emergency in Ottawa, giving police more power to begin towing and removing protestors, Iversen said.

Iversen described how the government successfully pressured GoFundMe to withhold more than $9 million in donations from the truckers.

It all started when Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson announced the city was contemplating legal action against GoFundMe, in the hope of diverting the donations raised on behalf of the truckers to the city’s coffers.

Watson told CBC his “hope” was that GoFundMe would understand that “this is a completely inappropriate use of dollars.”

Unfortunately GoFundMe caved to the political pressure and threats of legal action and announced they wouldn’t be dispersing the money to the truckers, and instead the money would be rerouted to approved charities,” Iversen said.

Watson took to Twitter to “sincerely thank” GoFundMe for seizing the trucker’s funds and implored other crowdfunding platforms to “take the same position.”

Iversen characterized the move as “pure theft.” She said:

“People don’t give money to GoFundMe, people give money to others through GoFundMe. For the platform to take the money and then reroute it to someone other than intended is theft. There’s no other way to put it.”

When donors complained, the platform announced it would offer refunds, but only if, as Iversen put it, donors “jumped through the hoops of filling out forms.”

After several U.S. state attorneys general threatened to sue the crowdfunding platform, GoFundMe announced it would offer automatic refunds.

“Had GoFundMe been allowed to reroute the money, they would have been able to keep their 3% fee, which is probably the reason they didn’t offer refunds automatically,” Iversen argued. “The 3% fee on the $9 million confiscated is about $270,000.”

“Extremely shady stuff,” she said.

The peaceful anti-mandate trucking protests are spreading, and “trouble could be heading to DC,” Iversen said.

“A convoy is forming with the intent to head to the nation’s capital to pressure Biden into dropping the mandates,” she reported. “But of course, Facebook shut down the organizers page.”

“There’s nothing like Big Tech colluding with the government to censor and silence working class protestors,” Iversen said.

Watch the segment here:

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Jeremy Loffredo is a freelance reporter for The Defender. His investigative reporting has been featured in The Grayzone and Unlimited Hangout. Jeremy formerly produced news programs at RT America.

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Pfizer Seeks COVID Shot Authorization for Children Under 5

February 8th, 2022 by Dr. Joseph Mercola

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February 1, 2022, Pfizer/BioNTech asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to grant emergency use authorization (EUA) for their COVID shot to babies and children aged 6 months through 4 years

The EUA will be for a two-dose regimen, with the possibility of extending it to a third dose, as two injections have been shown to be ineffective in 2- to 4-year-olds

Children aged 6 months to 4 years will get a dose that is one-tenth the adult dose

Were Pfizer to wait until the triple-dose experiment is completed, the EUA request would not be possible until late March 2022, and federal officials are reportedly “anxious to begin a vaccination program for the youngest children because the studies showed there were no safety concerns with two doses”

Meanwhile, Pfizer’s own data raise massive safety concerns, as they received 42,086 injury reports, including 1,223 fatalities in the first 2.5 months of their COVID jab rollout for adults

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I’m sure you’re aware of the massive catastrophe we have with children under 5 dropping ill like flies from COVID, as this is the justification Pfizer is using to get an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) so they can jab these defenseless and innocent children. No? Me, neither.

Despite conclusive evidence that young children have virtually no risk of severe complications or death from COVID-19, Pfizer is hustling to get our infants and toddlers injected with their experimental gene transfer technology.

February 1, 2022, Pfizer/BioNTech asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to grant emergency use authorization (EUA) for their COVID shot to babies and children aged 6 months through 4 years.1,2,3

In mid-December 2021, Pfizer admitted that two injections, at one-tenth the adult dose, failed to produce an adequate immune response in 2- to 4-year-olds. They’re now experimenting to see if three doses will produce adequate results in that age group. In the meantime, the EUA will be for a two-dose regimen, with the possibility of extending it to a third dose.

As reported by The New York Times,4 were Pfizer to wait until the triple-dose experiment is completed, the EUA request would not be possible until late March 2022, and federal officials are reportedly “anxious to begin a vaccination program for the youngest children because the studies showed there were no safety concerns with two doses.”

In other words, they apparently don’t care whether the shots are effective or not. They claim the shots are “safe,” so it’s OK to inject young children even though they might not gain any benefit. Does that make any sense?

According to MSN:5

“[Pfizer] and its partner BioNTech said that the submission was at the request of the FDA, which is an unusual move. Quickly after the announcement, the FDA scheduled a meeting of its vaccine advisory committee for Feb. 15 to discuss the application.

Allowing Pfizer to submit the request now means that, if authorized, ‘parents will have the opportunity to begin a COVID-19 vaccination series for their children while awaiting potential authorization of a third dose,’ according to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla. Data on the third dose will be submitted to the FDA ‘in the coming months,’ the company said.”

COVID Shots Shown to Destroy Immune Function

Click here to watch the video.

The list of concerns is a long one. We’ve already seen that Pfizer’s own data reveal there are serious problems with the shots, and real-world data confirming worst fears are mounting by the day.

A number of medical experts, scientists and published studies have warned the COVID shots can reprogram your immune system to respond in a dysfunctional manner. For example, a study6posted on the preprint server medRxiv, May 6, 2021, found the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID jab “reprograms both adaptive and innate immune responses,” causing immune depletion.

While the jab “induced effective humoral and cellular immunity against several SARS-CoV-2 variants,” the shot “also modulated the production of inflammatory cytokines by innate immune cells upon stimulation with both specific (SARS-CoV-2) and nonspecific (viral, fungal and bacterial) stimuli.”

People who were “fully vaccinated,” having received two doses of the Pfizer shot, also produced significantly less interferon upon stimulation, which hampers vitally important innate immune responses.

In other words, we’re looking at a horrible tradeoff. You may get some protection against SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, but you’re weakening your overall immune function, which opens the door wide to all sorts of other health problems, from bacterial, fungal and viral infections to cancer and autoimmunity.

Is it really wise to expose babies and toddlers to such risks? Just because children aren’t dying within a few weeks of the shot does not mean it’s harmless and therefore safe to use. Most of the damage from these jabs will emerge far down the road, long after they’ve gotten the shot.

The FDA is really behaving in an irresponsible and negligent manner, putting every child in America in harm’s way in the longer term — and for no reason at all, since they know very well two doses won’t work in 2- to 4-year-olds, and they have no idea if three doses will do the trick.

Pfizer Data Strengthen Safety Concerns

Pfizer’s own trial data,7 which are starting to be released in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the FDA, also do nothing to assuage safety concerns. Quite the contrary. Cumulatively, between December 1, 2020, and February 28, 2021 — a period of just 2.5 months — Pfizer received 42,086 injury reports, including 1,223 fatalities.

Compare that to the 1976 swine flu vaccine, which was pulled after 25 deaths. Pfizer even acknowledges the abnormal rate of injuries. They actually had to hire more data entry and case processing personnel to handle the influx of adverse events reports. Still, they insist everything is hunky-dory and there’s absolutely no problem.

Initially, the FDA wanted 55 years to release all of Pfizer’s trial data at a rate of 500 pages per month. After finding another trove of related documents, they asked for 75 years. A judge denied both requests, ordering the agency to release the data at a rate of 55,000 pages per month, starting March 1, 2022, to finalize the full release in about eight months.8

Judging by what we found in the initial 500-page batch released in November 2021, it’s no wonder the FDA wanted enough time to make sure all culpable parties would be dead and buried before the full truth of their malfeasance came out. If all goes well, we should have all that evidence by September 2022.

Pfizer Intervenes in FOIA Lawsuit

There’s yet another wrinkle in the FOIA lawsuit against the FDA, though. Pfizer is now pushing to intervene in the case. Pfizer says it wants to “help” the FDA with the redaction of the documentation, claiming it contains trade secrets and proprietary information that need to be protected and might be inappropriately disclosed if rushed.9,10 January 26, 2022, Reuters reported:11

“Pfizer Inc. wants to intervene in a Texas federal lawsuit seeking information from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration used in licensing the company’s COVID-19 vaccine, a litigation move that plaintiffs who are suing for the data say is premature.

Pfizer’s lawyers at DLA Piper told U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman on Jan. 21 it wanted a role in the proceedings to help the FDA avoid ‘inappropriately’ disclosing trade secret and confidential commercial information …

The group of doctors and scientists who sued last year over public access to the FDA’s Pfizer licensing records said in a court filing that the company’s bid to jump into the lawsuit was untimely because the plaintiffs have not challenged any redactions to requested records.”

The Defender further reported:12

“The FDA claimed Pfizer is entitled to intervene in the case and the process of redacting the documents in question, due to the “Trade Secrets Act,” signed into law by President Obama in 2016, stating:

‘FDA anticipates that coordination with Pfizer to obtain the company’s views as to which portions of the records are subject to Exemption 4, the Trade Secrets Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1905, or other statutory protections will be a necessary component of the agency’s endeavors to meet the extraordinary exigencies of this case.’

However, according to The Gateway Pundit, the Trade Secrets Act is being misinterpreted by the FDA and Pfizer: ‘[T]he protections provided under that law allow for an owner of a trade secret to sue in federal court when its trade secrets have been misappropriated and does not even imply that a company could intervene in a public records request through the FOIA.’

[Aaron] Siri [of the Siri & Glimstad law firm] also questioned the FDA’s commitment to transparency and hinted at a cover-up, stating: ‘The Court is, other than Congress, the only check on the FDA …

It is understandable that the FDA does not want independent scientists to review the documents it relied upon to license Pfizer’s vaccine given that it is not as effective as the FDA originally claimed, does not prevent transmission, does not prevent against certain emerging variants, can cause serious heart inflammation in younger individuals, and has numerous other undisputed safety issues.’

Siri said the FDA’s ‘potential embarrassment’ over its decision to license the Pfizer vaccine must take a back seat to the transparency demanded by FOIA and ‘the urgent need and interests of the American people to review that licensure data.’”

‘The Truth About Pfizer’

Click here to watch the video.

The British “Dispatches” documentary above, “Vaccine Wars: The Truth About Pfizer,” reviews a number of issues relating to Pfizer’s handling of the COVID pandemic, including its “war profiteering” (focusing on profits during a pandemic) and spreading misleading claims about its competitors, a whistleblower’s claims of scientific misconduct, and questions about Pfizer “playing God” by unilaterally dictating who would get its jab and who wouldn’t, thereby prolonging the pandemic.

According to the Dispatches report, Pfizer’s jab was not only more expensive than its rival AstraZeneca to begin with, costing the U.K. government £18 per dose compared to £3 for AstraZeneca, but as a third booster dose rolled out, Pfizer raised its price to £22, a decision that has raised questions about the company’s motives. It seems fairly obvious that it’s all about the money for them.

Pfizer will, of course, disagree with that obvious conclusion. According to professor Sir Andrew Pollard, who helped develop the Pfizer shot, the company’s incentive was never about maximizing profits. U.S. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, on the other hand, told Dispatches that Pfizer clearly made no effort to rein in their pricing or limit their profits.

Unprecedented Profiteering

According to Dispatches, Pfizer’s COVID jab has become the most profitable pharmaceutical product the world has ever seen. As of the third quarter of 2021, Pfizer’s revenues were 130% above operational costs, with COVID jab revenue for 2021 reaching $36 billion. Revenue from the jab is predicted to rise to $55 billion in 2022 — equivalent to the gross domestic product (GDP) of Croatia.

One of the reasons for Pfizer’s record-breaking profits, Dispatches says, is because it has been prioritizing sales to wealthier Western nations willing and able to pay the higher cost. Pfizer has also refused to license its patented recipe to ensure an adequate supply for poorer nations.

Its gross profit margin is estimated to be somewhere around 80%, or perhaps a little more. Pfizer, meanwhile, claims its profit margin for the jab is in the high-20%. Pfizer defends its profiteering, in part, by saying it pays for needed research and development, but let’s remember that taxpayers paid for all of the research and development that went into this jab in the first place.

As explained in the video, the initial development of the Pfizer jab was done by BioNTech, which received millions of euros of public funding from both the German government and the European Union. Essentially, the public paid for its development and then got fleeced while Pfizer makes out like a bandit.

By the end of 2021, Pfizer had manufactured 2 billion doses of the jab. But while the company claims it’s dedicated to provide “equitable and affordable access,” only 16% had gone to lower- and middle-income countries, and only 1% to the poorest of nations.

In 2022, Pfizer intends to produce 4 billion doses. According to Dispatches, the total cost of manufacturing is somewhere between 80 cents and $1.40 per dose. The most likely cost is right around $1.05. Pfizer disputes this, saying it “does not reflect the true costs” of making the jab, as this cost does not include the cost of scaling up manufacturing efforts, global distribution and clinical trials.

The U.K., which pays the highest price for Pfizer’s jab, had at the end of 2021 paid Pfizer an estimated £2.6 billion (about $3.5 billion) which, based on the cost of production, is thought to be about £2 billion (around $2.7 billion) more than it should have paid, had the profit margin been more reasonable.

Pfizer Spread Misinformation About Rivals

According to Dispatches, Pfizer is also responsible for spreading misinformation about rival COVID shots, including the AstraZeneca injection. A Canadian PowerPoint presentation sent to medical professionals included a slide detailing alleged disadvantages of viral vector DNA injections (such as the AstraZeneca shot).

The slide states that viral vector DNA injections might cause chromosomal integration and oncogenesis. In other words, the DNA might become permanently integrated in your genes, and could cause cancer. There was also a warning against its use in immunocompromised patients.

Curiously enough, when asked, Pollard claims there’s no truth to any of those claims. So, “how did those claims come to be shown to health professionals across Canada?” Dispatches asks. After some digging, they discovered the presentation was, in part, funded by Pfizer, and that the key speaker who gave the presentation had received Pfizer funding.

More specifically, the portion of the presentation that listed disadvantages of viral vector DNA products was written by a team that included at least one member who had previously worked in Pfizer’s vaccine department.

When asked about the risks associated with vaccine misinformation, Pollard says there are “huge risks,” as anything that causes people to be hesitant about getting the shot can result in them risking their lives.

So, seeing how Pfizer appears to have undermined a competing COVID jab, aren’t they then guilty of causing vaccine hesitancy and putting lives at risk? And, seeing how Pollard claims there’s no truth to any of those warnings, doesn’t that suggest Pfizer put people’s lives at risk for no other reason than to maximize their own profits? Pfizer, of course, denies having had any influence over the creation of the presentation.

Keep in mind, I strongly disagree with Dispatches’ claims that the Pfizer shot is a life-saving drug. I also disagree with Pollard’s claim that vaccine hesitancy is potentially life-threatening. What I’m pointing out here is the hypocrisy.

While Dispatches valiantly tries to paint Pfizer as a global savior, albeit a greedy one, I believe all COVID jabs are a dangerous scam that are doing far more harm to humanity than good. They’re literally raking in unprecedented profits from the suffering and death of untold millions.

Were Corners Cut?

After giving the audience a blanket assurance that the Pfizer jab is “clearly safe and effective,” Dispatches goes on to review whistleblower testimony13 from Brooke Jackson, a clinical research coordinator and former regional director of Ventavia Research Group, a research organization charged with testing Pfizer’s COVID jab at several sites in Texas.

Jackson, who worked on Pfizer’s Phase 3 COVID jab trial in the fall of 2020, claims she found evidence of trial data being falsified. She was also shocked to realize that patients in the clinical trials were unblinded.

Their charts contained information showing whether they got the real shot or a placebo, which is a serious breach. “In all the time I’ve been doing research, I’ve never seen the type of misconduct that I saw [at Ventavia],” Jackson says.

She repeatedly informed her superiors about concerns over poor laboratory management, patient safety and data integrity issues — all of which were ignored. She also tried to get in touch with the Pfizer site liaison, but was never able to speak to him directly. Eventually, she filed a complaint with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and that too was ignored. To top it off, she was fired.

In response to Dispatches inquiries, Pfizer claims they conducted “a thorough investigation” into Jackson’s claims, that “actions were taken to correct and remediate” the problems she’d reported, and that no evidence was found that would “invalidate the data or jeopardize the integrity of the study.” Ventavia also claims they found Jackson’s accusations to be “unsubstantiated,” and the FDA insists it has “full confidence” in Pfizer’s data.

Why Are We Experimenting on Children?

Historically, children have been excluded from early human trials, and for good reason. The possibility of harm is great no matter what the drug, and here we’re talking about a never-before-used gene transfer technology that hasn’t even been tested on animals.

Worse yet, hundreds of thousands of American adults have experienced very serious and debilitating side effects. More than 10,300 have died post-jab, as of January 21, 2022, in the U.S. territories alone.14 Why is the FDA risking our children?

As mentioned, we already know children are essentially at zero risk of dying from COVID. They might test positive. They might develop symptoms, but they get through it just like they get through the common cold or flu. There’s no reason to jeopardize their long-term health with a COVID jab. They don’t need it, and therefore ANY risk of the jab, no matter how small, is unconscionable and unacceptable.

Fortunately, many parents, including many who got the shot themselves, are not willing to gamble their young ones. By mid-December 2021, just under 20% of children between the ages of 5 and 11 in the U.S. had received their first COVID shot, with vaccination rates among urban children being twice that of those living in rural areas.15

However, since then, the injection rate has rapidly dropped off. In Florida, the weekly injection rate among children 5 to 11 was 55,548 in mid-November 2021, when the EUA for this age group went into effect. By the last week of January 2022, that weekly rate had dwindled to 10,084.16 I would sincerely hope that as the EUA is extended all the way down to 6-month-olds, parents simply refuse their children’s participation in this ongoing experiment.

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Notes

1, 4 New York Times January 31, 2022 (Archived)

2, 5 MSN February 1, 2022

3, 16 Yahoo! News February 1, 2022

6 medRxiv May 6, 2021

7 PHMPT.org Pfizer documents

8 Denver Gazette January 7, 2022

9 Endpoint News January 27, 2022

10, 12 The Defender January 31, 2022

11 Reuters January 26, 2022

13 The BMJ 2021; 375:n2635

14 OpenVAERS US/Territories data as of January 21, 2022

15 NBC News December 15, 2021

Featured image is from National File

US Battling to Swing Thailand Away from China

February 8th, 2022 by Richard S. Ehrlich

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US Plays QUAD Card During Beijing Olympics

February 8th, 2022 by M. K. Bhadrakumar

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African Union Summit Addresses Continental and Global Issues

February 8th, 2022 by Abayomi Azikiwe

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***

Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed of the Democratic Federal Republic of Ethiopia welcomed presidents, ministers and other delegates to the first African Union (AU) Summit held since the advent of COVID-19 in 2020.

This gathering was held under the theme of “Strengthening Resilience in Nutrition and Food Security on the African Continent: Strengthening Agro-Food Systems, Health and Social Protection Systems for the Acceleration of the Human, Social and Economic Development”.

Image on the right: Ethiopia Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed at AU Summit, Feb. 2022 (Source: Ethiopian Press Agency via Abayomi Azikiwe)

During the course of the summit held on February 5-6, a change of leadership took place as the chairperson serves only a one-year term of office. President Macky Sall of the Republic of Senegal assumed control of the AU from H.E. Felix- Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo, President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), who ended his term as the Chairperson of the African Union for 2021. The transitional ceremony occurred as part of the official opening of the 35th AU Summit of Heads of State and Government, in the presence of the Chairperson of the AU Commission (AUC), H.E. Moussa Faki Mahamat, the Deputy Chairperson of the AUC, H.E Dr. Monique Nsanzabaganwa, representatives of the United Nations, the Economic Commission for Africa, dignitaries and invited guests as well as the AU staff.

The AU headquarters has been located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia since the inception of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the predecessor of the AU, in May 1963. The formation of the OAU in 1963 came just three years after the so-called “Year of Africa” during 1960 when 18 former colonies gained their independence. Prior to 1960, several African territories such as the Gold Coast, now Ghana, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco had already gained their freedom from colonial rule. Liberia was formed by emancipated Africans from the United States with the assistance of the American Colonization Society (ACS) in 1847, while Ethiopia, which had never been formally colonized although the country was occupied between 1936-1941 by the Italian fascist regime.

In 2002, two decades ago, the OAU was transformed into the AU, where the organizational charter was revised to adopt strengthened principles and guidelines as it relates to the overall objective of enhancing unity through economic, cultural and military cooperation. In recent years, an African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was formed in Rwanda and headquartered in Ghana as more states join the initiative to integrate national planning.

Contemporary Questions Facing the AU

Since the early months of the pandemic two years ago, AU member-states have adopted various means of curbing the public health disaster which has compounded the existing social problems related to underdevelopment stemming from the international system of neo-colonialism.

Initially there was the difficulty in security effective coronavirus tests and later after it was broadly acknowledged that the pandemic was spreading rapidly across Africa, the energy was rapidly shifted to the acquisition and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. The African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (ACDC), an affiliate of the AU based in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, has taken on a leading role in educating the African people, the international community and the media on the status of the pandemic, the rollout of the vaccination programs and the already operational production facilities manufacturing vaccines in Africa for continental and foreign distribution.

In the opening report by AU Commission Chair Faki Moussa Mahamat commented extensively on the security crisis on the continent. There have been a rash of military coups that have exposed the lack of effectiveness of regional organizations such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Inter-governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in light of the seizure of power by army officers under the guise of fighting terrorism.

In West Africa, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Chad and Niger have either had coups or attempted usurpation of state power by the military. These defense forces elements have all been shown to enjoy close ties with the Pentagon and the French foreign services. The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has thousands of troops occupying permanent and temporary bases from Djibouti in the Horn of Africa to Mali in West Africa. Annual joint military exercises involving Pentagon, French and allied national defense forces have not enhanced the security status of the affected states. To further illustrate the threat of instability, DRC President Tshisekedi was compelled to leave the AU Summit before its conclusion due to the arrest of a leading official inside his government on suspicions of a plot to undermine the authority of the state.

The reality is that the increasing presence of western imperialist military and intelligence agencies has been positively correlated with the worsening security crisis in African states. A coup in the Republic of Sudan in April 2019 has been utilized by Washington and the state of Israel to further penetrate and manipulate the domestic and foreign policy imperatives of the interim regime. Since the masses appear to want immediate democratic rule, the imperialists realize that the realization of self-determination for the people of Sudan could prove disadvantageous for Washington and its allies.

In reference to the character of the discussions at the AU Summit, the North Africa Post reports from the 35th Ordinary Summit that:

“Addressing the session, Chairperson of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat expressed concern over the security situation in the African continent. ‘The security situation of the continent today is deeply marked by terrorism and the dangerous resurgence of unconstitutional changes of governments,’ Mahamat said.

Chairperson of the pan-African bloc said terrorism and violent extremism was Africa’s security challenge last year with international terror links are embedded in east, west, and southern Africa. ‘The security situation on the continent now calls for a real new approach which should question our peace and security architecture and its correlation with the new destabilizing factors in Africa,’ Mahamat said.”

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the AU Summit was the challenge by South Africa and Algeria to the unilateral decision made during 2021 by Commission Chair Mahamat to grant Israel observer status within the continental organization. Historically the progressive and anti-imperialist forces in Africa have demonstrated unconditional solidarity with Palestine along with other national liberation movements fighting colonialism. To grant Tel Aviv observer status absent broad consultations within the organization raises questions about the loyalty and commitment to the most progressive legacy within the OAU-AU tradition.

Mahamat in a lengthy memorandum explaining his rationale for the decision to grant such a concession to the apartheid Israeli state, attempted to utilize the already existing diplomatic relations between Tel Aviv and various African states to justify further acquiescence to Washington’s foreign policy in West Asia and North Africa by the continental organization. The Camp David Accord signed in 1978 between Egypt and Israel has not led to the liberation of Palestine. This was the position articulated by Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh of the Palestinian Authority who spoke at the AU Summit. The people of Gaza and the West Bank died in large numbers during 2021 due to the bombing by the Israel Air Force (IAF) and the security apparatus utilizing live ammunition against nonviolent demonstrators in Jerusalem and other areas of occupied Palestine. These attacks on the oppressed Palestinians are facilitated by U.S. weapons, intelligence technology and diplomatic cover. (See this)

According to a report published by Al Jazeera on Shtayyeh’s speech, it emphasized:

“’Israel should never be rewarded for its violation and for the apartheid regime it does impose on the Palestinian people,‘ he said. ‘Your excellencies, I’m sorry to report to you that the situation of the Palestinian people has only grown more precarious. The decision to grant Israel an observer status is a reward that [Tel Aviv] does not deserve, and we call for this decision to be withdrawn.’”

By the second day of the AU Summit, it was announced that the debate on Palestine would be suspended and relegated to a special committee to be discussed at a later date. Mahamat suggested that the Palestinian question should not divide the AU. Nonetheless, there is nothing more important in the present period than the solidarity of the African people with the Palestinians in their struggle against colonialism and for an independent sovereign state.

Pan-Africanism Cannot Accommodate Apartheid and Neo-colonialism

These contradictions within the AU deliberations must be resolved in order for the majority of African workers, farmers, women and youth to be adequately represented in international bodies. By upholding the right to self-determination of oppressed peoples inside and outside of Africa would considerably lend moral authority to regional organizations which have not been readily effective in resolving internal political crises stemming from the continuing dependency of the 1.3 billion Africans to the world capitalist system.

Today in states where military coups have occurred, the people are rapidly turning against the former colonial and current neo-colonial power blocs within North America, Britain and the European Union (EU). In Mali, the coup government has expelled the French ambassador while people have gone into the streets in the thousands to celebrate the erosion of the legitimacy of Paris.

In both Burkina Faso and Mali, people raised the Russian flag alongside their national symbols as a means of demonstrating their exasperation with France. However, to remove French and U.S. military penetration of African states, the masses must be organized and mobilized independently of imperialist-backed apparatuses in order to exercise genuine liberation and sovereignty.

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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: African Union appoints new chair Senegal President Macky Sall (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)

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The global coup that in these two years of psycho-pandemic farce has been carried out by the globalist elite appears most clearly if we do not limit ourselves to considering what happened in individual Nations, but broaden our gaze to what has happened everywhere. 

Your protest, dear Canadian truck driver friends, joins a worldwide chorus that wants to oppose the establishment of the New World Order on the rubble of nation states, through the Great Reset desired by the World Economic Forum and by the United Nations under the name of Agenda 2030. And we know that many heads of government have participated in Klaus Schwab’s School for Young Leaders – the so-called Global Leaders for Tomorrow – beginning with Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron, Jacinta Ardern and Boris Johnson, and before that Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Tony Blair. 

It would seem that Canada is – along with Australia, Italy, Austria and France – one of the nations most infiltrated by the globalists. And in this infernal project we must not only consider the psycho-pandemic farce, but also the attack on traditions and Christian identity – indeed, more precisely the Catholic identity – of these countries. 

You understood this instinctively, and your yearning for freedom was shown in all its coordinated harmony, moving towards the capital Ottawa. Dear truck drivers, you are facing great difficulties, not only because you give up your work to demonstrate, but also because of the adverse weather conditions, long nights in the cold, and attempts to be cleared away that you face. But along with these difficulties you have also experienced the closeness of many of your fellow citizens, who like you have understood the looming threat and want to support you in protesting against the regime. Allow me also to express to you my support and my spiritual closeness, to which I join the prayer that your event may be crowned with success and may also extend to other countries. 

In these days we see the masks of tyrants from all over the world fall, and unfortunately we also see so much conformism, so much fearfulness, so much cowardice in people who up until yesterday we regarded as friends, even among our family members. Yet, precisely because of this extreme situation, we discover with amazement gestures of humanity made by strangers, signs of solidarity and brotherhood on the part of those who feel close to us in the common battle. We discover so much generosity and so much desire to shake us from this stupor. We discover that we are no longer willing to passively suffer the destruction of our world imposed by a cabal of unscrupulous criminals, thirsty for power and money. 

In this relentless attack on the traditional world, not only your way of life and your identity have been affected, but also your possessions, your activities, and your work. This is the Great Reset, this is the future promised by slogans like Build Back Better, this is the future of billions of people being controlled in their every move, in all their transactions, in every purchase, every bureaucratic practice, every activity. Automatons without souls or wills, deprived of their identity, reduced to having a universal income that allows them to survive, to buy only what others have already decided to put up for sale, transformed by a gene serum into people who are chronically ill. 

Today more than ever it is essential that you realize that it is no longer possible to passively assist: it is necessary to take a position, to fight for freedom, to demand respect for natural freedoms. But even more, dear Canadian brothers, it is necessary to understand that this dystopia serves to establish the dictatorship of the New World Order and totally erase every trace of Our Lord Jesus Christ from society, from history, and from the traditions of peoples. 

Demonstrate for your rights, Canadian friends: but may these rights not be limited to a simple claim to the freedom to enter supermarkets or not to be vaccinated: may it also be a proud and courageous claim to your sacrosanct right to be free men. But your demonstration should be one of true freedom, reminding you that it is the Truth – that is, Our Lord Jesus Christ – who alone can guarantee you freedom: the truth will make you free.

I would like to conclude my appeal by asking you to pray with me, with the words that Our Lord has taught us: may they be the seal of this awakening, of this national liberation. Let us all pray it together, out loud, so that our prayer may rise to Heaven, but also so that it may resound powerfully in these squares, in these streets, all the way to the palaces of the powerful:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. Amen.

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Featured image: Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò at the Rome Life Forum on May 18, 2018. (Source: Steve Jalsevac / LifeSiteNews)

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New tensions are emerging over the legitimacy of British rule over the Falkland Islands. In a joint statement with the Argentine president, Xi Jinping declared that China supports Buenos Aires’ sovereignty over the islands’ territory. In response, the UK’s foreign minister published a statement reaffirming British sovereignty, starting a war of words and narratives over this old and controversial topic, which still seems far from any final resolution.

Last week, Argentine President Alberto Fernandez visited Beijing in order to attend the Winter Olympics. On the occasion, Fernandez met with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, and a broad dialogue took place about several issues relevant to both countries. The most important result of the meeting was the release of a joint statement, in which the Chinese government said it supports the Argentine sovereignty over the territory of the Falkland Islands – a South American island area dominated by the UK and historically claimed by Argentina.

The case generated deep fury in the British government. Chinese support for Argentine claims about the Isles sounded unacceptable to London, leading government officials to publish several pronouncements repudiating the joint attitude of the Chinese and Argentine presidents and reaffirming British sovereignty over the Falklands. The British Foreign Minister, Liz Truss, for example, wrote the following words in one of her webpages: “We completely reject any questions over the sovereignty of the Falklands. The Falklands are part of the British family and we will defend their right to self-determination. China must respect the Falklands’ sovereignty”.

Responding the words of Truss and other politicians and media agencies, the Chinese Embassy in London issued a new document reaffirming its unconditional support for Argentine sovereignty over that disputed zone. With this, new tensions arose, with the legitimacy of British rule over the Falkland Islands being questioned once again.

In fact, British dominance in that region has always been controversial. The territory is located within the Argentine coastal zone, but in the 19th century the British began to invest in a strong policy of occupation, turning most of the local people into British citizens, which later came to ‘justify’ the UK’s claims in this regard – which has never been accepted by Argentina. In the early 1980s, the situation reached the extreme of tensions. At the time, the Argentine military invested in a military intervention with the objective of regaining control over the region, but, after a two-month war, the London’s forces obtained their victory, making UK’s sovereignty over the territory official.

In fact, there are many reasons for a government to defend Argentine dominance in the Falkland Isles – called “Malvinas” by the Argentinians. The very fact that the zone is located within the Argentine national territory is a very strong argument, for example. However, the biggest curiosity in this case is the advanced degree of Chinese involvement. Chinese foreign policy is guided by a trade agenda, in search of global partners for economic cooperation projects. With this, the country avoids getting involved in major international controversies or disputes involving two or more states. In general, for China, it is enough that there are mutual commercial interests in order to establish a bilateral partnership.

It is not a typical attitude for China to engage in foreign territorial disputes, but the country not only issued a declaration of support for Argentine sovereignty in the islands but also reiterated its support after the actions of British officials. This kind of attitude is interesting, considering the Chinese internationalist tradition, but can easily be explained if we remember some recent events involving China and the UK.

Since it leaved the European Union, the UK has been trying to invest in new markets around the world and has combined its commercial strategy with a policy of automatic support for US international plans. As a result, the British government has adopted aggressive measures in Asia and the Pacific to combat Chinese influence. One such measure has been the attempt to restore colonial ties in Hong Kong.

British politicians created, for example, a law that facilitates the process to get a permanent visa in case of Hong Kong citizens. As a result, a wave of mass emigration was initiated, with risks of harm to the local demography. All these factors directly affect China’s interests and motivates the country to develop response measures. In this regard, taking a position in historical territorial disputes and defending the interests of its partners (China and Argentina are nations with great bilateral partnerships in various areas, mainly agribusiness) really seems to be one of the tactics used by Beijing today.

It is still too early to say to what extent the position taken by China will represent some political force for the nations chosen as partners, however, this is undoubtedly an interesting step in strengthening south-south cooperation. Beijing’s message is simple: if the West continues to interfere in China’s internal affairs with its dissident territories, the Asian country will be also willing to use its power and influence to act contrary to its enemies in their respective internal affairs.

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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 unitedworldint.com

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“Why is Boris Johnson making false claims about Starmer and Savile?” runs a headline in the news pages of the Guardian. It is just one of a barrage of indignant recent stories in the British media, rushing to the defence of the opposition leader, Sir Keir Starmer.

The reason? Last week the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, blamed Starmer, now the Labour party leader, for failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile, a TV presenter and serial child abuser, when his case came under police review in 2009. Between 2008 and 2013, Starmer was head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Savile died in 2011 before he could face justice.

Johnson accused Starmer, who at the time was Director of Public Prosecutions, of wasting “his time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile”. 

The sudden chorus of outrage at Johnson impugning Starmer’s reputation is strange in many different ways. It is not as though Johnson has any record of good behaviour. His whole political persona is built on the idea of his being a rascal, a clown, a chancer.

He is also a well-documented liar. Few, least of all in the media, cared much about his pattern of lying until now. Indeed, most observers have long pointed out that his popularity was based on his mischief-making and his populist guise as an anti-establishment politician. No one, apart from his political opponents, seemed too bothered.

And it is also not as though there are not lots of other, more critically important things relating to Johnson to be far more enraged about, even before we consider his catastrophic handling of the pandemic, and his raiding of the public coffers to enrich his crony friends and party donors.

Jumping ship

Johnson is currently embroiled in the so-called “partygate” scandal. He  attended – and his closest officials appear to have organised – several gatherings at his residence in Downing Street in 2020 and 2021 at a time when the rest of the country was under strict lockdown. For the first time the public mood has shifted against Johnson.

But it was Johnson’s criticisms of Starmer, not partygate, that led several of his senior advisers last week to resign their posts. One can at least suspect that in their case – given how quickly the Johnson brand is sinking, and the repercussions they may face from a police investigation into the partygate scandal – that finding an honorable pretext for jumping ship may have been the wisest move.

But there is something deeply strange about Johnson’s own Conservative MPs and the British media lining up to express their indignation at Johnson’s attack on Starmer, a not particularly liked or likable opposition leader, and then turning it into the reason to bring down a prime minister whose other flaws are only too visible.

What makes the situation even weirder is that Johnson’s so-called “smears” of Starmer may not actually be smears at all. They look like rare examples of Johnson alluding to – admittedly in his own clumsy and self-interested way – genuinely problematic behaviour by Starmer.

One would never know this from the coverage, of course.

Here is the Guardian supposedly fact-checking Johnson’s attack on Starmer under the apparently neutral question: “Is there any evidence that Starmer was involved in any decision not to prosecute Savile?”

The Guardian’s answer is decisive:

“No. The CPS has confirmed that there is no reference to any involvement from Starmer in the decision-making within an official report examining the case.

“Surrey police consulted the CPS for advice about the allegations after interviewing Savile’s victims, according to a 2013 CPS statement made by Starmer as DPP.

“The official report, written by Alison Levitt QC, found that in October 2009 the CPS lawyer responsible for the cases – who was not Starmer – advised that no prosecution could be brought on the grounds that none of the complainants were ‘prepared to support any police action’.”

That’s a pretty definite “No”, then. Not “No, according to Starmer”. Or “No, according to the CPS”. Or “No, according to an official report” – and doubtless a determinedly face-saving one at that – into the Savile scandal.

Just “No”.

Here is the Guardian’s political correspondent Peter Walker echoing how cut and dried the corporate media’s assessment is: “[Starmer] had no connection to decisions over the case, and the idea he did emerged later in conspiracy theories mainly shared among the far right.”

So it’s just a far-right conspiracy theory. Case against Starmer closed.

But not so fast.

Given Savile’s tight ties to the establishment – from royalty and prime ministers down – and the establishment’s role in providing, however inadvertently, cover for Savile’s paedophilia for decades, it should hardly surprise us that the blame for the failure to prosecute him has been placed squarely on the shoulders of a low-level lawyer in the Crown Prosecution Service. How it could be otherwise? If we started unpicking the thorny Savile knot, who knows where the threads might unravel?

Sacrificial victim 

Former ambassador Craig Murray has made an interesting observation about Johnson’s remark on Starmer. Murray, let us remember, has been a first-hand observer and chronicler of the dark arts of the establishment in protecting itself from exposure, after he himself was made a sacrificial victim for revealing the British government’s illegal involvement in torture and extraordinary rendition.

As Murray notes:

“Of course the Director of Public Prosecutions does not handle the individual cases, which are assigned to lawyers under them. But the Director most certainly is then consulted on the decisions in the high profile and important cases.

“That is why they are there. It is unthinkable that Starmer was not consulted on the decision to shelve the Savile case – what do they expect us to believe his role was, as head of the office, ordering the paperclips?”

And of the official inquiry into Starmer’s role that cleared him of any wrongdoing, the one that so impresses the Guardian and everyone else, Murray adds: 

“When the public outcry reached a peak in 2012, Starmer played the go-to trick in the Establishment book. He commissioned an ‘independent’ lawyer he knew to write a report exonerating him. Mistakes have been made at lower levels, lessons will be learnt… you know what it says. Mishcon de Reya, money launderers to the oligarchs, provided the lawyer to do the whitewash. Once he retired from the post of DPP, Starmer went to work at, umm,…”

Yes, Mischon de Reya.

Starmer and Assange

Murray also notes that MPs and the British media have resolutely focused attention on Starmer’s alleged non-role in the Savile decision – where an “official report” provides them with cover – rather than an additional, and far more embarrassing, point made by Johnson about Starmer’s behaviour as Director of Public Prosecutions.

The prime minister mentioned Starmer using his time to “prosecute journalists”. Johnson and the media have no interest in clarifying that reference. Anyway, Johnson only made it for effect: as a contrast to the way Starmer treated Savile, as a way to highlight that, if he chose to, Starmer was quite capable of moving to prosecute.

But this second point is potentially far more revealing both of Starmer’s misconduct as Director of Public Prosecutions and about the services he rendered to the establishment – the likely reason why he was knighted at a relatively young age, becoming “Sir” Keith.

The journalist Johnson was presumably referencing is Julian Assange, currently locked up in Belmarsh high-security prison as lawyers try to get him extradited to the United States for his exposure of US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.

At an early stage of Assange’s persecution, the Crown Prosecution Service under Starmer worked overtime – despite Britain’s official position of neutrality in the case – to ensure he was extradited to Sweden. Assange sought political asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy in London in 2012, when Starmer was still heading the Crown Prosecution Service. Assange did so because he got wind of efforts by the Americans to extradite him onwards from Sweden to the US. He feared the UK would collude in that process.

Assange, it turns out, was not wrong. With the Swedish investigation long ago dropped, the British courts are now, nearly a decade on, close to agreeing to the Biden administration’s demand that Assange be extradited to the US – both to silence him and to intimidate any other journalists who might try to throw light on US war crimes.

The Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi has been pursuing a lengthy legal battle to have the CPS emails from Starmer’s time released under a Freedom of Information request. She has been opposed by the British establishment every step of the way. We know that many of the email chains relating to Assange were destroyed by the Crown Prosecution Service – apparently illegally. Those would doubtless have shone a much clearer light on Starmer’s role in the case – possibly the reason they were destroyed.

The small number of emails that have been retrieved show that the Crown Prosecution Service under Starmer micro-managed the Swedish investigation of Assange, even bullying Swedish prosecutors to pursue the case when they had started to lose interest for lack of evidence. In one email from 2012, a CPS lawyer warned his Swedish counterpart: “Don’t you dare get cold feet!!!”. In another from 2011, the CPS lawyer writes: “Please do not think this case is being dealt with as just another extradition.”

Prosecutors arm-twisted 

Again, the idea that Starmer was not intimately involved in the decision to arm-twist Swedish prosecutors into persecuting a journalist – a case that the UK should formally have had no direct interest in, unless it was covertly advancing US interests to silence Assange – beggars belief.

Despite the media’s lack of interest in Assange’s plight, the energy expended by the US to get Assange behind bars in the US and redefine national security journalism as espionage shows how politically and diplomatically important this case has always been to the US – and by extension, the British establishment. There is absolutely no way the deliberations were handled by a single lawyer. Starmer would have closely overseen his staff’s dealings with Swedish prosecutors and authorised what was in practice a purely political decision, not legal one, to persecute Assange – or as United Nations experts defined it, “arbitrarily detain” him.

Neither Murray nor I have unique, Sherlock-type powers of deduction that allow us to join the dots in ways no one else can manage. All of this information is in the public realm, and all of it is known to the editors of the British media. They are not only choosing to avoid mentioning it in the context of the current row, but they are actively fulminating against Boris Johnson for having done so.

The prime minister’s crime isn’t that he has “smeared” Starmer. It is that – out of desperate self-preservation – he has exposed the dark underbelly of the establishment. He has broken the elite’s omerta, its vow of silence. He has made the unpardonable sin of grassing up the establishment to which he belongs. He has potentially given ammunition to the great unwashed to expose the establishment’s misdeeds, to blow apart its cover story. That is why the anger is far more palpable and decisive about Johnson smearing Starmer than it ever was when Johnson smeared the rest of us by partying on through the lockdowns.

Scorched-earth tactic? 

Look at this headline on Jonathan Freedland’s latest column for the Guardian, visibly aquiver with anger at the way Johnson has defamed Starmer: “Johnson’s Savile smear was the scorched-earth tactic of a desperate, dangerous man”. 

A prime minister attacking the opposition leader – something we would normally think of as a largely unexceptional turn of political events, and all the more so under Johnson – has been transformed by Freedland into a dangerous, scorched-earth tactic.

Quite how preposterous, and hypocritical, this claim is should not need underscoring. Who really needs to be reminded of how Freedland and the rest of media class – but especially Freedland – treated Stramer’s predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn? That really was a scorched-earth approach. There was barely a day in his five years leading the Labour party when the media did not fabricate the most outrageous lies about Corbyn and his party. He was shabby and unstatesmanlike (unlike the smartly attired Johnson!), sexist, a traitor, a threat to national security, an anti-semite, and much more.

Anyone like Freedland who actively participated in the five-year campaign of demonisation of Corbyn has no credibility whatsoever either complaining about the supposed mistreatment of Starmer (a pale shadow of what Corbyn suffered) or decrying Johnson’s lowering of standards in public life.

We have the rightwing populist Johnson in power precisely because Freedland and the rest of the media relentlessly smeared the democratic socialist alternative. In the 2017 election, let us recall, Corbyn was only 2,000 votes from winning. The concerted campaign of smears from across the entire corporate media – and the resulting manipulation of the public mood – was the difference between Corbyn winning and the Tories holding on to power.

Corbyn was destroyed – had to be destroyed – because he threatened establishment interests. He challenged the interests of the rich, of the corporations, of the war industries, of the Israel lobby. That was why an anonymous military general warned in the pages of the establishment’s newspaper, The Times, that there would be a mutiny if Corbyn ever reached 10 Downing Street. That was why soldiers were filmed using an image of Corbyn as target practice on a firing range in Afghanistan.

Johnson’s “smears” aside, none of this will ever happen to Starmer. There will be no threats of mutiny and his image will never used for target practice by the army. Sir Keir won’t be defamed by the billionaire-owned media. Rather, they have shown they have his back. They will even promote him over an alumnus of the Bullingdon Club, when the blokey toff’s shine starts to wear off.

And that, it should hardly need pointing out, is because Sir Keir Starmer is there to protect not the public’s interests but the interests of the establishment, just as he did when so conscientiously he was Director of Public Prosecutions.

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This essay first appeared on Jonathan Cook’s blog: https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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

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As Turkey attempts to economically recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is facing uncertainties due to formidable challenges, including high inflation rates, depleting central bank reserves and continued depreciation of the local currency, the lira. The uncertainties have further intensified due to a sudden energy crisis following shortages of natural gas. Facing the brunt of power shortage are the Turkish people and industries. But this does not auger well for a nascent economic recovery, especially as Ankara refuses to deescalate its military adventures and provocations.

Turkey recently experienced electricity shortages due to Iran’s unexpected cut in gas supply for ten days under the pretext of a “technical malfunction.” Although Tehran announced restarting the supply after payment of the outstanding dues, the possibility of shortages in the future is haunting Turkey and its industrial sector.

While people bore immitigable pain during the cold winter, the electricity outage (January 24-28) caused an estimated cost of $5 billion to industry. The industrialists, who cannot fulfill their export commitments due to the energy outage, are afraid of orders from foreign clients being cancelled.

Power shortage and price hike is also fuelling inflation in the country. From the beginning of 2021, the price of natural gas used by Turkish industry increased 5.5 times and the price of natural gas used in electricity production increased four times.

Recovery of the Turkish economy depends on some of the crucial sectors, especially automobiles and tourism. However, during the power shortage, car maker Renault SA stopped production for 15 days at its Bursa plant. Automakers such as Tofas halted production altogether. It is reminded that the automotive sector contributed to 11% of Turkish exports in 2021.

Power shortage in the country is partly caused by non-payment of dues to traditional suppliers. Ankara also erred in planning and making early decision about gas supply contracts. Although Iran’s share in Turkey’s total gas supply is 16% and plays a crucial role in the country’s energy matrix, Turkey also imports gas from Russia and Azerbaijan. Despite varying energy sources, Turkey was not able to get the required gas due to the great global energy demand this winter.

Analysts say that Ankara failed to take adequate measures despite expected harsh winters and high oil prices. Turkish leaders expected a fall in energy prices, which might have saved deterioration in the economic crisis amidst the COVID-19 impact, but it did not happen. The error in judgment by Ankara led to the non-renewal of medium and long-term natural gas contracts.

A sudden surge in international energy prices is now forcing Ankara to buy Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) at the spot market. Fearing for the worst, Ankara secured a deal with Azerbaijan to import an additional four million cubic meters of natural gas per day in February.

Spokesperson for the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Faik Öztrak, stated that “the [Erdoğan] government gambled thinking that natural gas prices would decrease, but they lost.”

This gamble has caused further pressure on its foreign exchange reserves, which is already under pressure for debt servicing requirements in immediate terms.

Ankara is facing multiple problems since the COVID-19 pandemic exposed Turkey’s volatile and high-risk economic policies. Its annual inflation has already reached 49%, hitting a 20 year high, and the lira depreciated by over 40% last year. Turkey is now trying to ward off recession and pins its hope on an expected tourism revenue of $30 billion in 2022 – so long as the pandemic does not strike once again.

Meanwhile from a low base of economic growth of under 2% in the last three years since 2018, Turkey’s growth rate has been estimated to be around 9% in 2021, only to be moderated to 3.3% in 2022 and 3.9% in 2023. However, it all depends how Ankara addresses it impending economic problems, including power shortage, and perhaps most importantly, military adventurism.

With inflation out of control and the Turkish lira at its weakest point, Turkey is unrelenting in continuing its military occupations of Cyprus, Syria, Libya and Iraq, as well as sponsoring war in the South Caucasus. This too absorbs up desperately needed funding.

Turkish military expenditure has increased by 8.6% since 2010 to reach an estimated $20.4 billion in 2019, representing 2.7% of GDP. However, this does not take into account its secret operations, such as financing, training and arming terrorist forces, including ISIS and Al-Qaeda.

With military adventurism sucking up finances, compounded by energy issues, Turkey’s economy is in dire straits. This is also now being reflected in polls as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s approval rating was only at 40.7% in January. His disapproval rating still remains higher though, at 54.4%.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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While the Biden administration is sending more troops and weapons to inflame the Ukraine conflict and Congress is pouring more fuel on the fire, the American people are on a totally different track. 

A December 2021 poll found that a plurality of Americans in both political parties prefer to resolve differences over Ukraine through diplomacy. Another December poll found that a plurality of Americans (48 percent) would oppose going to war with Russia should it invade Ukraine, with only 27 percent favoring U.S. military involvement.

The conservative Koch Institute, which commissioned that poll, concluded that

“the United States has no vital interests at stake in Ukraine and continuing to take actions that increase the risk of a confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia is therefore not necessary for our security. After more than two decades of endless war abroad, it is not surprising there is wariness among the American people for yet another war that wouldn’t make us safer or more prosperous.”

The most anti-war popular voice on the right is Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has been lashing out against the hawks in both parties, as have other anti-interventionist libertarians.

On the left, the anti-war sentiment was in full force on February 5, when over 75 protests took place from Maine to Alaska. The protesters, including union activists, environmentalists, healthcare workers and students, denounced pouring even more money into the military when we have so many burning needs at home.

You would think Congress would be echoing the public sentiment that a war with Russia is not in our national interest. Instead, taking our nation to war and supporting the gargantuan military budget seem to be the only issues that both parties agree on.

Most Republicans in Congress are criticizing Biden for not being tough enough (or for focusing on Russia instead of China) and most Democrats are afraid to oppose a Democratic president or be smeared as Putin apologists (remember, Democrats spent four years under Trump demonizing Russia).

Both parties have bills calling for draconian sanctions on Russia and expedited “lethal aid” to Ukraine. The Republicans are advocating for $450 million in new military shipments; the Democrats are one-upping them with a price tag of $500 million.

Progressive Caucus leaders Pramila Jayapal and Barbara Lee have called for negotiations and de-escalation. But others in the Caucus–such as Reps. David Cicilline and Andy Levin–are co-sponsors of the dreadful anti-Russia bill, and Speaker Pelosi is fast-tracking the bill to expedite weapons shipments to Ukraine.

But sending more weapons and imposing heavy-handed sanctions can only ratchet up the resurgent U.S. Cold War on Russia, with all its attendant costs to American society: lavish military spending displacing desperately needed social spending; geopolitical divisions undermining international cooperation for a better future; and, not least, increased risks of a nuclear war that could end life on Earth as we know it.

For those looking for real solutions, we have good news.

Negotiations regarding Ukraine are not limited to President Biden and Secretary Blinken’s failed efforts to browbeat the Russians. There is another already existing diplomatic track for peace in Ukraine, a well-established process called the Minsk Protocol, led by France and Germany and supervised by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

The civil war in Eastern Ukraine broke out in early 2014, after the people of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces unilaterally declared independence from Ukraine as the Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR) People’s Republics, in response to the U.S.-backed coup in Kiev in February 2014. The post-coup government formed new “National Guard” units to assault the breakaway region, but the separatists fought back and held their territory, with some covert support from Russia. Diplomatic efforts were launched to resolve the conflict.

The original Minsk Protocol was signed by the “Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine” (Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE) in September 2014. It reduced the violence, but failed to end the war. France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine also held a meeting in Normandy in June 2014 and this group became known as the “Normandy Contact Group” or the “Normandy Format.”

All these parties continued to meet and negotiate, together with the leaders of the self-declared Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR) People’s Republics in Eastern Ukraine, and they eventually signed the Minsk II agreement on February 12, 2015. The terms were similar to the original Minsk Protocol, but more detailed and with more buy-in from the DPR and LPR.

The Minsk II agreement was unanimously approved by the U.N. Security Council in Resolution 2202 on February 17, 2015. The United States voted in favor of the resolution, and 57 Americans are currently serving as ceasefire monitors with the OSCE in Ukraine.

The key elements of the 2015 Minsk II Agreement were:

  • an immediate bilateral ceasefire between Ukrainian government forces and DPR and LPR forces;
  • the withdrawal of heavy weapons from a 30-kilometer-wide buffer zone along the line of control between government and separatist forces;
  • elections in the secessionist Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk (LPR) People’s Republics, to be monitored by the OSCE; and
  • constitutional reforms to grant greater autonomy to the separatist-held areas within a reunified but less centralized Ukraine.

The ceasefire and buffer zone have held well enough for seven years to prevent a return to full-scale civil war, but organizing elections in Donbas that both sides will recognize has proved more difficult.

The DPR and LPR postponed elections several times between 2015 and 2018. They held primary elections in 2016 and, finally, a general election in November 2018. But neither Ukraine, the United States nor the European Union recognized the results, claiming the election was not conducted in compliance with the Minsk Protocol.

For its part, Ukraine has not made the agreed-upon constitutional changes to grant greater autonomy to the separatist regions. And the separatists have not allowed the central government to retake control of the international border between Donbas and Russia, as specified in the agreement.

The Normandy Contact Group (France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine) for the Minsk Protocol has met periodically since 2014, and is meeting regularly throughout the current crisis, with its next meeting scheduled for February 10 in Berlin. The OSCE’s 680 unarmed civilian monitors and 621 support staff in Ukraine have also continued their work throughout this crisis. Their latest report, issued February 1, documented a 65% decrease in ceasefire violations compared to two months ago.

But increased U.S. military and diplomatic support since 2019 has encouraged President Zelensky to pull back from Ukraine’s commitments under the Minsk Protocol, and to reassert unconditional Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea and Donbas. This has raised credible fears of a new escalation of the civil war, and U.S. support for Zelensky’s more aggressive posture has undermined the existing Minsk-Normandy diplomatic process.

Zelensky’s recent statement that “panic” in Western capitals is economically destabilizing Ukraine suggests that he may now be more aware of the pitfalls in the more confrontational path his government adopted, with U.S. encouragement.

The current crisis should be a wake-up call to all involved that the Minsk-Normandy process remains the only viable framework for a peaceful resolution in Ukraine. It deserves full international support, including from U.S. Members of Congress, especially in light of broken promises on NATO expansion, the U.S. role in the 2014 coup, and now the panic over fears of a Russian invasion that Ukrainian officials say are overblown.

On a separate, albeit related, diplomatic track, the United States and Russia must urgently address the breakdown in their bilateral relations. Instead of bravado and one upmanship, they must restore and build on previous disarmament agreements that they have cavalierly abandoned, placing the whole world in existential danger.

Restoring U.S. support for the Minsk Protocol and the Normandy Format would also help to decouple Ukraine’s already thorny and complex internal problems from the larger geopolitical problem of NATO expansion, which must primarily be resolved by the United States, Russia and NATO.

The United States and Russia must not use the people of Ukraine as pawns in a revived Cold War or as chips in their negotiations over NATO expansion. Ukrainians of all ethnicities deserve genuine support to resolve their differences and find a way to live together in one country – or to separate peacefully, as other people have been allowed to do in Ireland, Bangladesh, Slovakia and throughout the former U.S.S.R. and Yugoslavia.

In 2008, then-U.S. Ambassador to Moscow (now CIA Director) William Burns warned his government that dangling the prospect of NATO membership for Ukraine could lead to civil war and present Russia with a crisis on its border in which it could be forced to intervene.

In a cable published by WikiLeaks, Burns wrote, “Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.”

Since Burns’s warning in 2008, successive U.S. administrations have plunged headlong into the crisis he predicted. Members of Congress, especially members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, can play a leading role in restoring sanity to U.S. policy on Ukraine by championing a moratorium on Ukraine’s membership in NATO and a reinvigoration of the Minsk Protocol, which the Trump and Biden administrations have arrogantly tried to upstage and upend with weapons shipments, ultimatums and panic.

OSCE monitoring reports on Ukraine are all headed with the critical message: “Facts Matter.” Members of Congress should embrace that simple principle and educate themselves about the Minsk-Normandy diplomacy. This process has maintained relative peace in Ukraine since 2015, and remains the U.N.-endorsed, internationally agreed-upon framework for a lasting resolution.

If the U.S. government wants to play a constructive role in Ukraine, it should genuinely support this already existing framework for a solution to the crisis, and end the heavy-handed U.S. intervention that has only undermined and delayed its implementation. And our elected officials should start listening to their own constituents, who have absolutely no interest in going to war with Russia.

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Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq

Featured image: Peace protest at the White House (Source: iacenter.org)

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Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau portrayed Ottawa’s protesters as violent, racists, and more… Here is one of many trucker’s tales showing this is as far from reality as it can go.

“Trucker’s Tales” is a collection of great testimonies from Canadians who take a stand for truth and freedom. God bless their souls.

In French:

Le premier ministre Justin Trudeau a dressé un portrait méchant des manifestants à Ottawa. Violents, racistes, islamophobes et j’en passe… Pour montrer la réalité, j’ai collecté des témoignages de manifestants Canadiens. La réalité ne ment pas, les manifestants sont en grande majorité des citoyens exemplaires. Dieu bénisse leurs âmes.

 

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Featured image is a screenshot from the video

The Truckers, GoFundMe, and the CIA; Connecting the Dots

February 8th, 2022 by Jon Rappoport

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As of this writing, GoFundMe has cut off (stolen) $9 million from the Canadian Trucker Convoy.

The money was donated by thousands of individuals to support the truckers, who are demanding the Canadian government cancel vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, and brutal COVID restrictions.

After a major backlash from the enraged public, GoFundMe has stated it will automatically refund all $9 million to the individual donors.

Regardless, GoFundMe will not forward the money to the group it was intended for: the truckers.

All right: here come the dots—

A venture capital firm, Accel, and Technology Crossover Ventures, own the majority stake in GoFundMe.

The big infusion of cash that sent Mark Zuckerberg and his fledgling college enterprise on their way came from Accel, in 2004.

Jim Breyer, head of Accel, attached a $13 million rocket to Facebook, and nothing has ever been the same. (Breyer—billionaire, CFR, World Economic Forum, major fund investor in China.)

Earlier in 2004, a man named Gilman Louie joined the board of the National Venture Capital Association of America (NVCA). The chairman of NVCA? Jim Breyer. Gilman Louie happened to be the first CEO of the important CIA start-up, In-Q-Tel.

In-Q-Tel was founded in 1999, with the express purpose of funding companies that could develop technology the CIA would use to “gather data.”

That’s not the only connection between Facebook funder and Accel’s Jim Breyer and the CIA’s man, Gilman Louie. In 2004, Louie went to work for BBN Technologies, headed up by Breyer. Dr. Anita Jones also joined BBN at that time. Jones had worked for the CIA’s In-Q-Tel and was an adviser to DARPA, the Pentagon’s technology department that helped develop the Internet.

With these CIA/DARPA connections, it’s no surprise that Jim Breyer’s jackpot investment in Facebook is not part of the popular mythology of Mark Zuckerberg. Better to omit it. Who can fail to realize that Facebook, with its endless stream of personal data, and its tracking capability, is an ideal CIA asset?

Accel co-owns the majority stake in GoFundMe. Accel has a history of rubbing shoulders with the CIA. Accel helped launch Facebook, the largest profiling and data-mining company in the world.

Given all this, it might be more surprising if GoFundMe DIDN’T cut off the Canadian truckers’ $9 million.

It’s also worth mentioning that Accel has invested in Spotify, the platform whose number-one star is Joe Rogan. Spotify is now under pressure to cancel Rogan, because his views and guests don’t align 100% with the official COVID narrative. In step one of a new censorship program, Spotify has stated it will post warning messages on all content that veers from official COVID positions and offer links to approved government and public health sources (for outrageous lies).

GoFundMe, Accel, Facebook, CIA, In-Q-Tel, Jim Breyer, CFR, World Economic Forum, major investments in China.

Basically, The Club.

The member’s statement of belief: “More money for me, less freedom for the peons, global control.”

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The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.

Featured image is from The Daily Signal

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A peer-reviewed study published last month found the prophylactic use of ivermectin reduced COVID mortality by 90% among more than 223,000 study participants in a town in Southern Brazil.

A peer-reviewed study published last month found the prophylactic use of ivermectin reduced COVID mortality by 90% among more than 223,000 study participants in a town in Southern Brazil.

The study, published in the Cureus Journal of Medical Science, also found a 44% reduction in COVID cases among those who took the re-purposed drug.

Between July 7, 2020, and Dec. 2, 2020, all residents of Itajaí were offered ivermectin. Approximately 3.7% of ivermectin users contracted COVID during the trial period, compared with 6.6% of residents who didn’t take the drug.

Based on the results, Dr. Flavio Cadegiani, one of the study’s lead authors, said, “Ivermectin must be considered as an option, particularly during outbreaks.”

Dr. Pierre Kory told The Epoch Times the results of the study “should convince any naysayer. What they found was astounding.”

Kory said:

“You would think this would lead to major headlines everywhere. And yet, nothing. And this is not new, this censorship of this highly effective science and evidence around repurposed drugs. The censoring of it, it’s not new, it’s just getting more and more absurd. And it has to stop.”

Kory said it’s not even about ivermectin, “it’s about the pharmaceutical industry’s capture of our agencies and how our policies are all directed at suppressing and avoiding use of re-purposed drugs” in favor of high-profit medicines.

As is common with studies that show ivermectin as an effective treatment for COVID, various “fact-checkers” were quick to discount the study.

A number of sources, including Politifact, cited a long Twitter thread by an Australian graduate student in epidemiology, Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, as evidence the study was “flawed.”

One tweet called the study “a fairly simple example of observational research that you’d do on routine medical data” but alleged the controls for confounding factors such as occupation and risk factors were “pretty inadequate given the purpose.”

Cadegiani called the criticism unfounded, saying researchers controlled for “all relevant factors,” including comorbidities, age, sex and race.

He said the inability of critics “to focus on the data provided by the study itself is … proof of the extreme high quality of the study.”

“To us, this is the best observational study on COVID-19 to date,” Cadegiani concluded, “with a power almost equivalent to a huge, randomized clinical trial.”

Cadeigiani and his colleagues also plan to publish further results about hospitalization rates based on the study.

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

Featured image is from CHD

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Video: Trudeau’s Brother Kyle Kemper takes Firm Stance against the Vaccine Mandate and “The Great Reset”

By Kyle Kemper, February 07, 2022

Its’ a “globally orchestrated phenomenon” by the World Economic Forum.  According to Kyle Kemper, the COVID scam is there to facilitate a massive processes of wealth appropriation as outlined in  WEF’s Great Reset.

Life Insurance Payouts Skyrocket 258% as Post-Vaccine Deaths Rapidly Accelerate

By Mike Adams, February 07, 2022

In a little-known Reuters story that garnered almost no attention in the corporate media, Dutch insurer Aegon revealed its third quarter, 2021 life insurance payouts skyrocketed 258% compared to third quarter, 2020 payouts.

The British Medical Journal Story That Exposed Politicized “Fact-Checking”

By Matt Taibbi, February 07, 2022

Thacker has an in-your-face style and a dark sense of humor, and talking to him can feel like being lost in a Bill Hicks routine, but his information is good. In his years in the Senate, his job was publicizing damaging information about the world’s most litigious companies.

Bowing to Authority: The Real Contagion of Our Time

By Julian Rose, February 07, 2022

There must be some powerful subconscious process at work throughout a large swathe of the population to cause such a high percentage to do what they are told, in spite of the fact that what they are told to do lacks any practical justification or logical explanation and is highly likely to harm them.

How the Corporate Media Smears Canada’s Freedom Convoy. Trudeau Accuses Them of “Racism, Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Homophobia, Transphobia”

By CJ Hopkins, February 07, 2022

Trudeau had vowed to stand and fight, but he had no choice but to flee the capital after he mysteriously tested positive for Covid (which also might have been the work of the Russians, possibly the same professional team of weed-smoking, hooker-banging Novichok assassins that got to the Skripals back in 2018).

Video: Freedom Convoy Address to the Nation. “State of Emergency Update”. Movement Spreads Across Canada

By Marcel Irnie, February 07, 2022

Ottawa Mayor declared a state of emergency. How Ottawa Police taking the convoy fuel and occupying the convoy tents does not impact the Freedom Convoy logistics.

Video: Prove It’s Misinformation: Dr. Peter McCullough after the Joe Rogan Show on Covid

By Dr. Peter McCullough and Kristina Borjesson, February 07, 2022

Dr. Peter McCullough talks about the fallout from his bombshell interview on the Joe Rogan Experience: celebrities have left or are threatening to leave Spotify because they’re angry Rogan interviewed guests like him who they say are spreading covid disinformation.

An Inconvenient Truth: The Peasant Food Web Feeds the World

By Colin Todhunter, February 07, 2022

In October 2020, CropLife International said that its new strategic partnership with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) would contribute to sustainable food systems. It added that it was a first for the industry and the FAO and demonstrates the determination of the plant science sector to work constructively in a partnership where common goals are shared.

Hidden Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Trial Data Suggests All Pregnant Vaccinated Women Miscarried

By Captaindaretofly, February 07, 2022

A lawsuit filed by Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency produced documents from Pfizer revealing that its Covid-19 vaccine caused all of the pregnant women in its trial to miscarry.

British Children Up to 52 Times More Likely to Die Following a COVID Shot: Government Report

By David McLoone, February 07, 2022

Britain’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) has released data indicating that children who received the COVID-19 jabs have suffered a death rate 54 times greater than that of their un-jabbed counterparts.

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A Tribute to Sidney Poitier

February 8th, 2022 by Ed Rampell

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The January 6 death of Sidney Poitier came at a portentous time. The screen’s seminal Civil Rights icon died on the one-year anniversary of an attempted insurrection by Confederate flag-waving white supremacists and as the voting rights he had campaigned for remained in limbo.

More than the career of any other major actor in Hollywood history, the motion picture odyssey of the man who became the first Black male to win an Oscar for playing Homer Smith resembles a tightrope act. Poitier, who was born in 1927 in Miami but raised in the Bahamas, somehow had to fulfill the expectations of two constituencies: Obviously, of Blacks, but also of whites, who formed the dominant majority culture, bought most movie tickets and financed films. To please both audiences Poitier had to somehow perform a delicate, intricate balancing act between appearing to be an Uncle Tom on the one hand and an “uppity” you-know-what on the other.

The following is a motion picture postmortem, an analysis of the political highlights and meanings of Sidney Poitier’s screen career, which stretched for more than half a century and included at least 55 acting credits and more.

In terms of the African-American screen image, Poitier was a transitional figure. In D.W. Griffith’s 1915 racist epic The Birth of a Nation, the Ku Klux Klan put the Reconstruction Era’s Badass Brothers and Sisters back into “their place.” For the next 35 years or so Black actors played mostly subservient, sexless, superstitious, celluloid stereotypes typified by Stepin Fetchit, Mantan Moreland and Butterfly McQueen.

Then three things happened that would change these humiliating onscreen depictions: The independence movements in Africa; the Civil Rights cause in the segregated South; and World War II. Blacks who fought against fascism abroad were unwilling to continue accepting racism at home. One of those WWII-era veterans was Poitier, who lied about his age while he was only 16 to join the Army.

In Sidney’s first credited movie role, 1950’s No Way Out, he plays a doctor who treats the criminal Richard Widmark, despite his abusive racism. The film, directed and co-written by Joe Mankiewicz, also depicts a race riot. In a way, No Way Out set the template for Sidney’s most successful screen image, as the noble Black who loftily sacrifices himself for ignoble whites.

Cult Movie: Sidney Poitier race drama No Way Out is a minor masterpiece -  The Irish News

Sidney Poitier in No Way Out (1950). [Source: irishnews.com]

But before he returned to this motion picture persona Poitier played a reverend in the 1951 South Africa-set anti-apartheid drama Cry, the Beloved Country, clandestinely co-written by the blacklisted Communist Party member John Howard Lawson, one of the Hollywood Ten.

Cry, the Beloved Country (1951) - IMDb

Source: imdb.com

In 1957 Poitier co-starred in three roles that were departures from the “Good Negro” characters. In the Civil War drama Band of Angels, featuring Gone with the Wind’s Clark Gable, Poitier plays a plantation “House Negro” who escapes and joins the Union Army. In Something of Value opposite Rock Hudson, Sidney became a leader of the violent Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya against British colonialism. In The Mark of the Hawk, Poitier plays a character with the presidential sounding name of “Obam” (!) and is again embroiled in Africa’s anti-colonial cause, but this time he opts for non-violence.

Poitier achieved greater success in Stanley Kramer’s 1958 The Defiant Ones, as an escaped convict who sacrifices himself for the bigoted prisoner he has been chained to. White audiences cheered when Sidney gave up his chance for freedom to instead help Tony Curtis, but according to James Baldwin, Black ticket buyers jeered this act of self-sacrifice.

Amazon.com: The Defiant Ones : Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Theodore Bikel,  Charles McGraw, Lon Chaney Jr., Stanley Kramer, Stanley Kramer: Movies & TV

Source: amazon.com

A Hollywood favorite, both of these were Oscar-nominated and The Defiant Ones received five more nominations, including for Best Picture, and won two Academy Awards (including for blacklisted screenwriter Ned Young, who used a pseudonym but was glimpsed in the opening credits).

Sidney played the crippled title character in Otto Preminger’s 1959 adaptation of the George Gershwin opera Porgy and Bess. He attained well-deserved acclaim for playing the chauffeur who yearns for a better life in 1961’s screen adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’s “moving-on-up” Broadway hit A Raisin in the Sun.

That year, Poitier also co-starred with Paul Newman as expatriate jazz musicians who romance Diahann Carroll and Joanne Woodward in Paris Blues, directed and written by Martin Ritt and Walter Bernstein, who had both been blacklisted. Carroll pointedly reminds her expat beau that after their Parisian idyll, they eventually must return home to fight for their people’s rights.

In 1962’s Pressure Point, Poitier once again played a Black medical practitioner caring for a white racist, this time as a psychiatrist treating Bobby Darin’s imprisoned neo-Nazi.

In 1964—as LBJ was launching the Great Society—Poitier became the first Black performer to win a Best Actor Academy Award for a leading role and the first Black to win any Oscar since Hattie McDaniel had won for playing the slave-cum-servant Mammy in 1939’s Gone with the Wind.

As Homer Smith in 1963’s Lilies of the Field, Poitier is the lord’s servant, henpecked by nuns into building a chapel. Because they are celibate women of the cloth, handsome Sidney is allowed close proximity to these white females.

Lilies of the Field (1963 film) - Wikipedia

Source: wikipedia.org

But four years later, at the pinnacle of his stardom, Poitier was permitted to openly woo a white woman in Kramer’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? The year this tepid interracial romance was lensed, Sidney also starred in two other major releases, including as a teacher presiding over troubled white pupils from the slums of London’s East End in James Clavell’s pseudo-hip To Sir, with Love.

In 1967, Poitier had become the world’s number one box office star. Until that point, Poitier’s career trajectory had reflected the pro-integration, non-violent, Civil Rights Movement. But by 1967, as militants such as Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown and the Black Panthers vied with Dr. Martin Luther King for hegemony over the African-American masses, as civil disobedience competed with armed struggle. “Black Power” impacted movies, too.

In the third and best of the trilogy of Sidney’s 1967 productions, he played a Philadelphia detective who confronted Southern bigotry. Norman Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won five, including for Best Picture, Best Writing and Best Actor for Rod Steiger.

There’s a key, compelling scene that has been repeatedly screened in TV tributes to Sidney after his death, wherein Poitier the tightrope walker transcended passive resistance, moved toward militancy and helped set the stage for the return of the Badass Brothers (who’d been banished from the screen by Griffith and his Klansmen in 1915) in militant and Blaxploitation pictures.

In this pivotal, singular sequence a prominent plantation owner slaps Poitier who, instead of just simply, subserviently taking it, slaps whitey back. When the powerful Endicott (Larry Gates) asks the police chief what he’s going to do about the blow, Steiger is staggered, at a loss as to how to react. It was the slap heard ’round the world, which may have cost Poitier another Oscar nomination but announced the emergence of a new movie militancy.

Poitier’s leftward-veering screen image reflected the offscreen Stokely vs. King, “The-Fire-Next-Time” vs. the “We-Shall-Overcome” dynamic and dialectic. As the title to Heat’ssequel suggests, Poitier insists upon his honorific—and, like Aretha, respect—in 1970’s They Call Me Mister Tibbs! Male Blacks are second-class “boys” no more. As the picket signs of protesters way down yonder in the land of cotton had been poignantly proclaiming: “I am a Man.”

The 1968 assassination of Reverend King and ensuing urban rebellions also marked the death knell of passive resistance as a viable tactic in the equal rights crusade. That same year, when the revolutionary H. Rap Brown (who famously said: “Violence… is as American as cherry pie”) became its Chairman, SNCC (which had already expelled all white members and staffers by 1967) changed its name from the Student NONVIOLENT Coordinating Committee to the Student NATIONAL Coordinating Committee.

Trying to stay timely and relevant, Poitier appeared in several movies with Black Power themes, although his characters were not necessarily militants per se. Carol Reed’s 1947 Odd Man Out IRA drama was adapted and updated, relocated to a Black militant milieu in Philadelphia in 1969’s The Lost Man. Poitier uses the activist group as a diversion in order to pull a heist.

When Poitier returns home in a small Southern town to attend his sister’s funeral in 1971’s Brother John, he is suspected of being an outside agitator from the North on a mission to incite Black folks. Instead, in a version of the “magical Negro” trope, this mystical movie reveals that John Kane is the messiah—and he’s Black! (Call it “Guess Who’s Second Coming to Dinner?”) In 1971 Sidney also reprised his role as Lt. Virgil Tibbs in The Organization, cooperating with a band of Black radicals to stop drug trafficking in the community.

While Poitier fights with a white lawman in Brother John, Melvin Van Peebles actually shoots and kills a Caucasian policeman for using excessive force as the title character in Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song in the actor/writer/director’s trendsetting militant movie made the same year as the tamer Brother John. Like Van Peebles’ 1970 Watermelon Man, both of these indies were far more militant than any of Poitier’s political pictures and openly advocated armed self-defense.

In 1975’s South Africa-set, Kenya-shot The Wilby Conspiracy, Poitier is an anti-apartheid activist teamed up with Michael Caine, a pairing reminiscent of The Defiant Ones. Sidney went on to portray Thurgood Marshall in the 1991 TV miniseries Separate But Equal and as Nelson Mandela opposite Michael Caine again in another South Africa-set production, the so-so 1997 made-for-TV movie Mandela and de Klerk.

The Wilby Conspiracy (1975) - IMDb

Source: imdb.com

But Poitier never fully made the transition for the new Black Consciousness audience and its expectations. His smooth, middle class, integrationist image and oeuvre were too ingrained for more politically aware, nationalistic, militant moviegoers of the sizzling sixties and seventies, as the Black proletariat replaced the Black bourgeoisie.

Although Poitier continued to act, he started directing mass entertainment pictures that he sometimes also acted in and were particularly popular with African-American audiences, starting with the 1972 Western Buck and the Preacher, co-starring Harry Belafonte. Most of the nine movies Sidney helmed featured Black casts and were more lighthearted fare, comedies and/or shoot-’em-ups, starring actors such as Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, and also Gene Wilder.

Poitier’s movie moment as the top box office attraction for the Civil Rights period had passed as he became increasingly passe. The Blaxploitation genre largely stripped Sweetback of its political awareness while perpetuating some of Van Peebles’ empowering elements with muscular, sexualized, nitty-gritty characters such as Shaft, Superfly or “Dracula’s soul brother,” Blacula. With an eye on the dominant majority culture, which bought most movie tickets and financed all Hollywood productions, and only one foot in the changing Black community, the superstar never shed his turn-the-other-cheek, Civil Rights skin to successfully evolve into a more assertive, empowered persona that connected with theatergoers.

Poitier never resolved the contradictions engendered by a new “Black and Proud” nationalist sense of self and ethnic pride. And after the upsurge of the “We-Shall-Overcome” and Black Power periods from the 1950s to the 1970s had subsided, and Reaganism reigned, there was less of a demand for Black-themed films and stars. President Reagan’s racial rants about “welfare queens” replaced Blaxploitation characters such as Pam Grier as Coffy and Foxy Brown or Tamara Dobson as Cleopatra Jones or Vonetta McGee as Blacula’s wife and the Angela Davis-like political prisoner in 1977’s Brothers.

As the current iteration of America’s racial reckoning unfolds, it is up to Black artists of today, such as Daniel Kaluuya, who won an Oscar for portraying a Black Panther revolutionary in Judas and the Black Messiah, Michael B. Jordan who was in the Africa-set Black Panther superhero blockbuster, directors Spike Lee and Ava DuVernay, et al., to complete the image arc in the 21st century that Sidney Poitier helped launch in 1950.

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Ed Rampell is an L.A.-based film historian and critic who also also reviews culture, foreign affairs and current events. Ed can be reached at [email protected].

Featured image: Sidney Poitier in his glory days. [Source: achievement.org]

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***

Near the entrance to the Black Sea.

Charles de Gaulle is the only nuclear aircraft in the world aside from the U.S.’s eleven.

The USS Bainbridge, USS Gonzalez, USS Gravely and USS Ross are Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers designed to fire Standard Missile 3 anti-ballistic missiles of the sort stationed in their so-called Aegis Ashore version in Romania and Poland. The USS Cole, USS Jason Dunham and USS San Jacinto are Ticonderoga-class cruisers are also equipped for Standard Missile 3 interceptors.

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Below is an excerpt from the following article:

American, French, Italian Carrier Strike Groups Sail Together in the Mediterranean Sea

By U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa/U.S. Sixth Fleet Public Affairs

February 7, 2022

Naval forces from France, Italy and the U.S. sailed together while conducting naval training in the Mediterranean Sea, Feb. 6-7.

The Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group (HSTCSG) integrated with the French carrier Charles de Gaulle’s Task Force 473 and Italian carrier Cavour strike groups….

“The capabilities of a US aircraft carrier strike group are made stronger by operating alongside our allies and partners; and adding the French and Italian carrier teams provides an exciting chance to strengthen our interoperability together.”

The HSTCSG completed participation in the NATO-led activity Neptune Strike 22, Feb. 4, 2022. This activity involved the handover of the HSTCSG to NATO command and control, highlighting the natural evolution of NATO’s ability to integrate the high-end maritime warfare capabilities of a carrier strike group to support the defense of the Alliance.

The Italian aircraft carrier Cavour and elements of its associated carrier strike group also participated in Neptune Strike 22, strengthening their maritime partnership with both the U.S. and NATO. This partnership has shone through in other activities in recent months as well, as SIXTHFLT units participated in Italy’s Mare Aperto exercise in October 2021 and as American and Italian naval units continue to operate alongside one another bilaterally and through the NATO alliance on a routine basis.

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“There are few nations that are able to operate carrier strike groups and this was a great opportunity to confirm the high level of integration.”

The Charles de Gaulle CSG departed Toulon, France, to begin its 14th deployment in the Mediterranean, Feb. 1. This deployment, named Clemenceau 22, brings together a variety of allied resources, including the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Ross.

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The convergence of three allied aircraft carrier strike groups strengthens maritime integration by allowing naval crews and aircraft to operate in relatively close water and airspace…..

Elements of the strike group include the staff of Carrier Strike Group 8; flagship USS Harry S. Truman; the nine squadrons of Carrier Air Wing 1; the staff and guided-missile destroyers of Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 28, which include: USS Gonzalez , USS Bainbridge, USS Gravely ; the Royal Norwegian Navy’s Fridtjof-Nansen class frigate HNoMS Fridtjof Nansen deployed as part of the Cooperative Deployment Program; and the Ticonderoga-class cruiser USS San Jacinto. USS Coleand USS Jason Dunham are also part of the carrier strike group and currently supporting U.S. Fifth Fleet Area of Operations….

 

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Rick Rozoff, renowned author and geopolitical analyst, actively involved in opposing war, militarism and interventionism for over fifty years. He manages the Anti-Bellum and For peace, against war website.

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image is from U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa/U.S. Sixth Fleet Public Affairs

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Its’ a “Globally orchestrated phenomenon” by the World Economic Forum.  

According to Kyle Kemper, The Covid Scam is there to facilitate a massive processes of wealth appropriation as outlined in  WEF’s Great Reset  

Below is an important interview with Justin Trudeau’s Brother, who has taken a firm stance against the Vaccine Mandate

 

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In a little-known Reuters story that garnered almost no attention in the corporate media, Dutch insurer Aegon revealed its third quarter, 2021 life insurance payouts skyrocketed 258% compared to third quarter, 2020 payouts. The difference, of course, is found in covid vaccines. In 2020, vaccines weren’t yet available, so payouts for Aegon only reached $31 million. But after three quarters of aggressive vaccinations throughout 2021, the death benefit payouts hit $111 million, an increase of 258%.

From Reuters via Yahoo Finance:

Dutch insurer Aegon, which does two-thirds of its business in the United States, said its claims in the Americas in the third quarter were $111 million, up from $31 million a year earlier. U.S. insurers MetLife and Prudential Financial also said life insurance claims rose. South Africa’s Old Mutual used up more of its pandemic provisions to pay claims and reinsurer Munich Re raised its 2021 estimate of COVID-19 life and health claims to 600 million euros from 400 million.

Insurance companies are slowly coming to realize the truth about covid vaccines, even as the complicit, murderous mainstream tries to cover up the accelerating deaths. The death signals now emerging in the finances of insurance companies can’t simply be swept under the rug, and given that a 258% increase was recorded for Q3, 2021, it begs the obvious question: How much worse will this be for Q4, 2021? Or Q1, 2022?

On any “normal” (pre-covid) day in America, about 7,700 people die. If those deaths rise by 100%, that means an extra 7,700 people are dying each day. Multiply that over one year, and it’s an additional 2.8 million deaths. Note this is for merely a 100% increase in deaths.

Aegon is reporting a 258% increase in payouts on life insurance policies. Although Aegon doesn’t insure the entire country, obviously, this data point should be raising alarms among those people paying attention. If we start to consistently see something like a 200% increase in all-cause mortality, that would mean an extra 15,000+ people are dying each day in America. That’s a vaccine holocaust playing out in real time.

Truth be told, we’re probably at that point right now. The data sets just haven’t caught up yet with the reality of what’s happening in February, 2022. Cancer death rates have almost certainly doubled in 2021 and are headed for even higher numbers in 2022, but the cancer industry — dominated by pharma interests — will of course bury the numbers as long as possible to avoid anyone asking questions of why so many people are dying from cancer all of a sudden.

(The answer is obvious: It’s the mRNA vaccines.)

So not only do we have an actual vaccine holocaust taking place in America right now, we have a cover-up being run by all the complicit, murderous parties, including Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Media and Big Government. They’re all in on it. They’re all mass murderers, and they’re all working to cover this up as long as possible so they can coerce even more people into committing vaccine suicide before the body count becomes undeniable.

That’s the level of evil we’re dealing with in society right now, and it’s all being run under the banner of “science.”

Under this dangerous death cult of “science,” the whole world is supposed to pretend that covid vaccines are halting infectious, transmission and hospitalizations, all while looking the other way when so many vaccinated people prematurely die. Israel, at a 96.2% vaccination rate across the population, is now leading the world in covid cases per capita. This proves the vaccine has the opposite effect that we were promised in the name of “science.” In fact, the more a country vaccinates its people, the higher covid cases rise.

That’s because, of course, the vaccine is the pandemic. Covid would be over by now if not for the vaccines continuing to inject people with spike protein bioweapons that cause organ failure and death. It’s no coincidence that vaccine injury symptoms are then categorized as “covid” by the corrupt, murderous medical establishment that receives financial kickbacks from the government for killing people with ventilators and remdesivir.

The Hershey company

The Hershey company, meanwhile, is firing all its unvaccinated employees, confirming that it is an evil corporation that denies faith-based exemptions from deadly vaccines. As The Epoch Times reports:

“I really thought I’d be OK,” Kim Durham, a payment analyst and sourcing buyer, told The Epoch Times. “I thought, you cannot question my faith. Nobody can question that.”

Durham asked for a religious accommodation in August and assumed she would get it.

“I thought this was behind me until September when I met with an HR representative. It was an interrogation on your religious beliefs. They twisted your words and tried to put words in your mouth. It was terrible. I was asked such personal questions that had nothing to do with religion.”

She was shocked when, in November, she received word that her request for religious accommodation had been denied.

Everyone interviewed mentioned being troubled by similar questions during the meetings, usually held with an immediate supervisor and someone from HR, such as:

Have you ever been vaccinated? Are your children vaccinated? How do you protect yourself when you leave your home? How often do you go to church? Do you take Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Tums, or Midol?

So the Hershey company, which sells low-grade processed, sugar-filled candy bars that promote diabetes and obesity, is interrogating employees over whether they take Tums? And if they take Tums, they’re not allowed to object to spike protein mRNA injections?

 

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In February of 2010, the New York Times released a front page story entitled, “Research Ties Diabetes Drug to Heart Woes.” The lede read:

Hundreds of people taking Avandia, a controversial diabetes medicine, needlessly suffer heart attacks and heart failure each month, according to confidential government reports that recommend the drug be removed from the market.

The Times piece quoted an internal F.D.A. report that said the GlaxoSmithKline diabetes drug Avandia, also known as Rosiglitazone, was “linked” to 304 deaths in 2009, adding the conclusion of the two doctors who authored the report: “Rosiglitazone should be removed from the market.” The story was released in advance of a Senate Finance Committee study that produced a series of damning internal documents, including one in which an FDA safety officer expressed concern that Avandia presented such serious cardiovascular risks that “the safety of the study itself cannot be assured, and is not acceptable.”

One of the chief investigators on that study was Paul Thacker, at the time a committee aide under Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley. Multi-year document hauls like the Avandia report were Thacker’s stock in trade. I first met him around then because his committee frequently dealt with financial crisis issues I covered. Thacker, who went on to contribute to a number of commercial and academic journals, was trained in a tradition of bipartisan committee reporting that relies heavily on documents and on-the-record testimony, i.e. the indisputable stuff both sides are comfortable backing.

Thacker has an in-your-face style and a dark sense of humor, and talking to him can feel like being lost in a Bill Hicks routine, but his information is good. In his years in the Senate, his job was publicizing damaging information about the world’s most litigious companies. Certain Washington jobs require a healthy fear of the $1000-an-hour lawyers that every Fortune 500 company has on speed dial, and Thacker has always retained the Beltway investigator’s usefully paranoid approach to publishing.

“I know how to do these things,” he says. “I know how to work with whistleblowers.”

It was more than a little surprising, then, when Thacker’s name appeared in the middle of a bizarre international fact-checking controversy. In an article for one of the world’s oldest academic outlets, the British Medical Journal, Thacker wrote a piece entitled, “Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial.”

He did what he’d done countless times, shepherding into print the tale of an apparent whistleblower with an unsettling story. Brook Jackson worked for a Texas firm called Ventavia that conducted a portion of the research trials for Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine. This is the same vaccine that Thacker himself, who now lives in Spain and is married to a physician, had taken.

After going through both legal and peer review, but without contacting Ventavia — apparently, they feared an injunction — the BMJ published Thacker’s piece on November 2nd, 2021. The money passage read:

A regional director who was employed at the research organization Ventavia Research Group has told The BMJ that the company falsified data, unblinded patients, employed inadequately trained vaccinators, and was slow to follow up on adverse events reported in Pfizer’s pivotal phase III trial.

Beginning on November 10th, 2021, the editors began receiving complaints from readers, who said they were having difficulty sharing it. As editors Fiona Godlee and Kamran Abbassi later wrote in an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg:

Some reported being unable to share it. Many others reported having their posts flagged with a warning about “Missing context … Independent fact-checkers say this information could mislead people.” Those trying to post the article were informed by Facebook that people who repeatedly share “false information” might have their posts moved lower in Facebook’s News Feed. Group administrators where the article was shared received messages from Facebook informing them that such posts were “partly false.”

Facebook has yet to respond to queries about this piece. Meanwhile, the site that conducted Facebook’s “fact check,” Lead Stories, ran a piece dated November 10th whose URL used the term “hoax alert” (Lead Stories denies they called the BMJ piece a hoax). Moreover, they deployed a rhetorical device that such “checking” sites now use with regularity, repeatedly correcting assertions Thacker and the British Medical Journal never made. This began with the title: “The British Medical Journal Did NOT Reveal Disqualifying And Ignored Reports Of Flaws In Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine Trials.”

The British Medical Journal never said Jackson’s story revealed “disqualifying flaws” in the vaccine. Nor did it claim the negative information “calls into question the results of the Pfizer clinical trial.” It also didn’t claim that the story is “serious enough to discredit data from the clinical trials.” The BMJ’s actual language said Jackson’s story could “raise questions about data integrity and regulatory oversight,” which is true.

The real issue with Thacker’s piece is that it went viral and was retweeted by the wrong people. As Lead Stories noted with marked disapproval, some of those sharers included the likes of Dr. Robert Malone and Robert F. Kennedy. To them, this clearly showed that the article was bad somehow, but the problem was, there was nothing to say the story was untrue.

In a remarkable correspondence with BMJ editors, Lead Stories editor Alan Duke explained that the term “missing context” was invented by Facebook:

To deal with content that could mislead without additional context but which was otherwise true or real… Sometimes Facebook’s messaging about the fact checking labels can sound overly aggressive and scary. If you have an issue with their messaging you should indeed take it up with them as we are unable to change any of it.

“Missing context” has become a term to disparage reporting that is true but inconvenient. As Thacker notes in the Q&A below, “They’re checking narrative, not fact.”

The significance of the British Medical Journal story is that it showed how easily reporting that is true can be made to look untrue or conspiratorial. The growing bureaucracy of “fact-checking” sites that help platforms like Facebook decide what to flag is now taking into account issues like: the political beliefs of your sources, the presence of people of ill repute among your readers, and the tendency of audiences to draw unwanted inferences from the reported facts. All of this can now become part of how authorities do or do not define reporting as factual.

“But that’s not a fact check,” says Thacker. “You just don’t like the story.”

The BMJ story is about a woman, Jackson, who was fired shortly after complaining of sloppy practices to the F.D.A. and also to Pfizer. Ventavia claims her firing was unconnected to her official complaint — “Ventavia was not aware of a complaint made to the FDA until we saw it on Twitter in early November of 2021,” they told me. They also contest other aspects of her story:

These same accusations were made a year ago, at which time Ventavia notified the appropriate parties. The allegations were investigated and determined to be unsubstantiated.

I asked Ventavia who these “appropriate parties” were, and who conducted the investigation. At this, they brought in an outside PR consultant who asked for more time to answer, but ultimately decided not to answer further.

It’s not easy to see how the firm can claim the allegations were “unsubstantiated,” since Jackson supplied the BMJ with documents, photos, and recordings. Also, a number of the article’s claims were backed up, directly or indirectly, by other former employees. One, admittedly unnamed, told Thacker about the Pfizer trial, “I don’t think it was good clean data… It’s a crazy mess.”

The British Medical Journal didn’t publish all of the potentially damaging information. In one recorded meeting, to which I was allowed to listen, a senior Ventavia executive tells Jackson he knows the trial situation is a “cleanup on aisle five. And we know that it’s significant.”

In that same meeting, in which Jackson seems to be quizzed by two of the company’s top executives about whether or not she might have shared her concerns outside the company (“What have you done?” she’s asked), there’s another bizarre exchange.

“We haven’t even finished quantifying the number of errors, and categorizing the types of errors that we’re seeing. In my mind, it looks like it’s something new every day,” one of the executives says to her.

Obviously, Jackson’s story by itself doesn’t suggest the Pfizer vaccine didn’t work, or contain proof of damaging side effects. However, her story does suggest that the subcontractors hired by Pfizer to conduct its trials were and are, at best, incautious. In one meeting, an executive talks about seeing “exposed, used needles thrown into biohazard bags” instead of sharps containers as required. There is also information about breaking protocol on blinding, failing to follow up properly with subjects experiencing adverse reactions, mislabeling specimens, and other problems.

Whether about maintenance issues at American Airlines or a bank employee’s reports about the pooling and marketing of defective mortgages, such “bad practices” reporting has long been a staple of investigative journalism. Previously, the idea of spiking or flagging such reports on the grounds that they might have convinced some people not to fly or use banks would have been laughable. Having done many of thesestories myself, I’m familiar with demands for “missing context,” but always from a corporate defense lawyer or a political spokesperson. That it’s coming from media gatekeepers now is crazy.

Lead Stories eventually wrote a second piece entitled, “Why Lead Stories Fact Checked the BMJ,” which complained that a variety of sites ranging from the Conservative Beaver to Natural News to The Free Thought Project had written fake or misleading stories based upon the BMJ piece. This second article also complained Robert F. Kennedy’s site, The Defender, republished the piece.

Worse, they wrote, Kennedy had republished three other Thacker stories, with titles like “New WHO Group to Look Into Pandemic Origins Dogged by Alleged Conflicts of Interest” and “The covid-19 lab leak hypothesis: did the media fall victim to a misinformation campaign?” This is how Lead Stories phrased their complaint:

This was not the first BMJ piece from Thacker copied by the Defender this way. The site has an entire author profile page for him with the oldest article listed dating back to July 2021.

Were there factual issues with any of those other pieces? If so, Lead Stories didn’t indicate any. The mere fact that Robert F. Kennedy liked previous Thacker stories was the apparent issue. Lead Stories also took issue with the fact that Thacker thanked Dr. Robert Malone on Twitter for highlighting the BMJ response to their fact check. You can’t see the whole exchange, because of course Twitter has since zapped Malone’s account:

I asked Duke if he believes who reads or retweets an article bears upon its factuality. “Who does or does not retweet or read something has no bearing on the factuality,” he conceded. “But it can reveal important clues about how it is received or understood.”

Another apparent source of “clues” about a piece of factual reporting? The political views of the sources. These passages are from the first Lead Stories “fact check”:

“On Twitter, Jackson does not express unreserved support for COVID vaccines…”

Elsewhere on Twitter, the Brook Jackson account wrote that vaccination makes sense if a person is in a high-risk category and called a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the Biden Administration’s vaccine mandates “HUGE!

I asked Duke if Jackson’s failure to express “unreserved support” for vaccines, or if her agreement with the roughly half of Americans who opposed Biden’s mandate plan, had bearing on the factuality of the story. If they didn’t, why was this information in the piece? Was the suggestion that she fabricated documents and photographs because she doesn’t like mandates? Lead Stories has not yet responded, but I’ll update the piece as they do.

It goes without saying that in this environment, any negative information about Pfizer, or any report of issues with the company’s trials, is likely to be upheld as meaningful by people suspicious of the vaccine. That does not mean one gets to exonerate companies based upon audience reaction. Are we now saying that anything Robert Kennedy Jr. or Robert Malone finds newsworthy is suspect? By this method, we’re taking stories that aren’t “anti-vax” by any rational standard, and making them anti-vax by association.

This new “fact-checking” standard bastardizes the whole idea of reporting. It’s also highly convenient for corporations like Pfizer, which incidentally have extensive records of regulatory violations. As Thacker details below, firms have successfully manipulated reporters and Internet platforms into seeing a binary reality in which all critics are conspiracy theorists.

“We don’t have main and minor [points of view] anymore,” he says. “What we have is truth, and conspiracy.”

After the BMJ episode, a “Missing context” flag should be understood for what it is: an intellectual warning label for true but politically troublesome information.

Thacker has written for, and been a source for, both conservative and mainstream outlets. A year ago he was writing an article in The Daily Beast that was widely shared by center-left audiences because it suggested Pharma companies had undue influence on Donald Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed.” He now has his own site on Substack, the Disinformation Chronicle, that continues his career-long focus on malfeasance involving companies that produce pharmaceuticals, genetically modified food, and other products. I talked to him about the BMJ mess:

Matt Taibbi: How much experience with this type of story do you have?

Paul Thacker: I’ve done investigations for about 15 years involving corruption in science. I did investigations of the pharmaceutical industry for about three years in the Senate Finance Committee. These were big investigations. Avandia was the best-selling drug for diabetes on the planet then, a $3 billion a year product. When the final report came out, the Swiss bank UBS said GlaxoSmithKline faced $6 billion in litigation exposure. So, I know how to do these things, and I know how to work with whistleblowers.

Taibbi: Is part of the story about how easy it is to get into the business of doing clinical trials, and how little oversight there is in this world?

Thacker: There’s a lot of money in this type of research. If you can get a doctor to sign on and say that he’s going to be the physician for your research company, you can basically start one of these research groups in America. That’s how it works.

Jackson realizes the place is just kind of a mess. She thinks, “I’m going to fix this.” But then she realizes also, you’re not supposed to say there are problems. But their own internal emails speak to this.

One internal email that went out essentially said, “We can’t keep up.” She started taking pictures. One of the things she found was that they were putting sharps in a plastic bag. You’re supposed to put them in what’s called a sharps container.

What the fact-checker sites came back with was, “Well that doesn’t mean anything about data.” Which is true. But it tells you something. I worked in a lab before I went into journalism, doing research at Emory University, and I knew how to handle sharps. I looked at it sort of like that old trick that restaurant reviewers will use, checking out the bathroom. If the bathroom is fucking dirty, what do you think the kitchen is like?

She got scared and started making recordings. In one, they brought her into a room to counsel her for doing her job and finding problems. In this conversation, one of the guys, he says in the interview, “Look, we know it’s a cleanup on aisle five. And we know it’s significant.” He called it a cleanup on aisle five! Fucking ridiculous. They didn’t put that in the BMJ because that’s an American saying. So I had it in the story but they took out the idiom because it’s a very American thing.

Taibbi: How unusual would a lack of a response from the FDA be, and did that happen here? [Note: the FDA has not responded to queries]

Thacker: She realizes, “No one’s listening to me.” So she files a complaint with the FDA, lays out like 12 different problems she’s encountered there. Later that afternoon Ventavia calls her up and fires her, and says that it’s not a good fit. She notified Pfizer, so Pfizer knew. Pfizer turns back around, and if you look them up, they hired Ventavia to do other clinical trials for them. The FDA never goes and inspects.

Now, there’s no regulatory response, but the company was expecting one. I’ll read from an email that Ventavia sent out about a week before she was fired. It says:

I’ll say it again here, it’s not a matter of IF the FDA is coming, it’s a matter of when the FDA is coming. And they are coming soon. This is the biggest clinical trial in the entire world and we are a top enroller.

And then here it’s like all bold, underlines, all caps.

THE FDA IS COMING SOON, in a matter of days, if I had to make a guess.

They were in a fucking panic, man. [The original documents are on Thacker’s Disinformation Chronicle site].

Taibbi: When did you first hear about a potential problem with the “fact check”?

Thacker: I was ignoring it at first. I thought, “How are they going to fact check this?” I’ve dealt with this before. The smartest people in terms of finding error are the fucking lawyers working for the drug companies. There’s an army of those people who will go through and find anything that’s out of order and throw it up in the air. And they couldn’t find anything here. So what issue could there possibly be?

Then I went to the “fact check,” and it was just insane. It looked like it’d been written by high school students. It describes the British Medical Journal as a “blog.” I was joking with my editors about how they work. They pick some proposition out of the blue and then they debunk it, and it’s like, “Aha, win!” Bullshit. It’s like, “Did the BMJ prove that the vaccine kills Martians? No! Fact check: wrong.” And you’re thinking, “Wait, what?”

Here’s what they do. They’re not fact checking facts. What they’re doing is checking narratives. They can’t say that your facts are wrong, so it’s like, “Aha, there’s no context.” Or, “It’s misleading.” But that’s not a fact check. You just don’t like the story.

Taibbi: How new is this phenomenon? If there was one, when did the change happen?

Thacker: Here’s what always happened in America previously. You got a big, broad look. In science and in the media, we would always have a main narrative or a main theory. And then around that, within science, there would be other minor theories, other alternative viewpoints. The New York Times would have something. On the left, the New Republic had a view, and on the right you’d get the National Review. They’re reexamining it, but they don’t change the facts.

Well, we don’t have main and minor anymore. What we have is truth, and conspiracy. Or vax, and anti-vax. There are only two possibilities you can go through. Do you know where you find that kind of black-white thinking? In people who have major personality disorders. And psychopaths. Psychopaths and people with narcissistic personality disorder engage in black-white thinking. America right now is in this weird situation in which it’s a country that to the outside looks psychopathic or disordered.

Taibbi: Have you seen this phenomenon in other big news stories?

Thacker: What’s happened with this pandemic is the same shit that happened with the 2008 meltdown. People were like, “Well, how the fuck did this happen? We didn’t see it coming.” And then you find out later: maybe it’s because all these fucking reporters are in bed with these guys in Wall Street and see them as the masters of the universe, and don’t cover them very effectively, because they think they’re fucking awesome.

Taibbi: It’s similar also in the respect that the safety and compliance procedures are flawed inside these companies, yet the reporters don’t want to go near those stories, because they’re afraid of upsetting sources.

Thacker: The people we have, I don’t call reporters. I call them science writers. The people who write for Science, Nature, Scientific American, these are people who write forscience, not on science. They see their job as telling you how fucking awesome science is. That’s what they do for a living.

That’s in part what’s going on with this story about Pfizer. It’s the same shit that has been going on with these goddamn vaccines. Because if you watch and see what happened when these vaccines rolled out, you would see there’d be a story in The New York Times about, “Pfizer announces,” or “Pfizer Expected To Ask for Authorization,” blah, blah, blah. And then about four or five paragraphs, you go down and you realize: “Wait, this is just a Pfizer press release.” This isn’t a study or anything. This is a Pfizer press release. You just reported a fucking press release as a news story.

They do press release journalism. You can argue that’s good or bad, but what that does — and no one talks about this — is it creates all this social pressure on the FDA for approval. It creates all this expectancy amongst the public that the product is coming. So, by the time you go in front of an FDA panel for authorization, it’s already been churned up in the media, they’ve got a month of positive press.

They’ve been running this game from the beginning. They’re just much better at it now.

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How the Elite Gets Rid of Populists

February 7th, 2022 by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

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***

 

 

 

 

 

Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were maverick outsiders unacceptable to the ruling elite. In his new book, States of Emergency, Kees Van Der Pijl explains how the establishment got rid of both. The ruling elite’s effort to remove Trump with Russiagate and impeachment failed.

Had the plan to steal the election also failed, everything was ready for Trump to be removed by the military. Sanders was twice undermined by the elite, with the Democrat nomination going first to Hillary Clinton and then to Joe Biden, two reliable puppets of the establishment.

In chapter 3, “Restructuring the Ruling Class in the IT Revolution,” Van Der Pijl explains in the section,

“The Coup Against Trump,” that Federal Continuity Directive 1 was issued a few days prior to Trump’s inauguration and served as a basis for a military coup to remove Trump from office. The directive provided the military the authority to take over the government “in the event that a US administration would fail to ‘demonstrate leadership that is visible to the nation and the world and preserve the confidence of the American people.’”

The elite’s propaganda organs then started on Trump. First there was Russiagate. Then Impeachgate. As the second term election approached, letters from retired generals were printed saying that if Trump contested the election he had to be removed by the military.

Trump’s Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, ignored Trump’s order to use the Insurrection Act to put down the widespread destruction and looting that comprised the George Floyd protests. General James Mattis, Esper’s predecessor,

“called Black Lives Matter a healthy and unifying force and pointed to the lack of mature leadership in the White House.”

Generals denounced Trump for wanting to use the military against the people although the Continuity in Government procedure designed to be implemented by the military in the event of widespread disturbances in support of Trump does precisely that. DefeatDisinfo.org run by retired General Stanley McChrystal went to work discrediting all of Trump’s statements about Covid. Critics accused Trump of spreading disinformation about Covid and questioned Trump’s authority as president. Social, print, and TV media denied President Trump and his supporters forums.

The discredited president was an easy target for a coup, which was a certainty had the theft of the election not succeeded. The ruling elite used the orchestrated “Trump insurrection” to stop the January 6 examination by Congress of the evidence of election theft, and has prosecuted hundreds of Trump supporters as insurrectionists and domestic terrorists. You can bet your life that all future presidential candidates got the message.

Van Der Pijl sees the orchestrated “Trump insurrection” as essentially a color revolution that is

“a further step toward the conversion of the US into an authoritarian state, which in the aftermath of 9/11 had already taken a huge step forward with the Patriot Act.”

Another big step was taken with the “Covid pandemic.” In chapter 4 Van Der Pijl describes “the virus scenario as the basis for a seizure of power.”

People without understanding are sitting ducks for tyranny. Van Der Pijl gives you information. If enough Americans can pass from insouciance to understanding, our freedom can survive.

Readers will be surprised to find a leftwinger giving Trump a fair shake. Van Der Pijl is one of the well educated and thoughtful old European left. He understands that this is not a left-right issue. It is no longer the capitalists against the workers. It is the elite against the people, and he stands with the people.

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Bowing to Authority: The Real Contagion of Our Time

February 7th, 2022 by Julian Rose

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There must be some powerful subconscious process at work throughout a large swathe of the population to cause such a high percentage to do what they are told, in spite of the fact that what they are told to do lacks any practical justification or logical explanation and is highly likely to harm them.

Examples abound. One of the most stark is ‘the great Covid mask wearing scam’. Why would anyone go along with the order to wear such a mask? With the minimal amount of research one would instantly recognise it to be a useless bit of cloth/paper that restricts one’s breathing and makes one look like a criminal. 

Why would anyone trust and follow the advice of a politician who demonstrates no understanding of that which he demands his constituents conform to?

How could anyone capable of independent thought  – without even stopping to reflect – consider that some editorial in the corporate backed mainstream media represents the voice of reason?

Why would anyone unquestioningly fall in line with an announcement on the BBC telling viewers to denounce someone who chooses not to vaccine herself? And so forth and so on.

Deep in our psyches there must be a strong predetermined need to conform. To choose ‘political correctness’ and uncritical obeisance to the instructions of authority figures and so called ‘experts’. Something that causes people to fall on their knees to a certain kind of figurehead, without ever bothering to check the authenticity of that person’s proclamations.

It is particularly apparent how TV exerts such an instantly subversive effect on people’s judgement. “I saw him on TV!”says the exited being justifying his reason for giving special importance to the words and views of that individual. It’s enough that this person ‘appeared’ on the hallowed screen.

To appear on TV gives someone an instantly superior status to someone of a similar standing who doesn’t. 

The authenticity of the TV company or journalist is rarely questioned. National TV stations have developed a carefully crafted ‘aura of authority’ and those who appear on them are elevated into a category of ‘important’ even if what they say is sheer gibberish.

Like the reaction to the doctor in his white coat and stethoscope – the majority appear to lose all sense of balance when this mythic figure comes through the door and says “What seems to be the problem?”

This form of obeisance to authority is age old. And one of its key authority icons is a figurehead called ‘god’.

How many reading this were raised on a diet of Old and New Testaments?  The old one, as I recall, was chock-full of pronouncements by a highly dictatorial god. An authority particularly keen on vengeance and war, who used ‘fear of disobedience’ to ensure that his lofty position was never under serious threat.

It was hard not to feel a sense of awe concerning this god’s seemingly omniscient powers.

Then moving on, we find this same highly authoritarian figure punishing Adam and Eve for having dared to take a bite from a particularly alluring apple. ‘The forbidden fruit.’ Something this god had specifically ordered them not to do “Do not eat from the tree of knowledge” said he.

Now why on earth would he give that order? Nature surely gave that apple a special aura, a natural attraction that would appeal directly to one’s taste buds and sense of curiosity – God given gifts of every human being, after all.  And if this apple also grew on ‘the tree of knowledge’, well, one would be doubly tempted to pluck it and take a bite. Well I would – wouldn’t you?

But oh, what disaster – Adam and Eve had the timerity to disobey the authority of some heavenly control freak – and got the boot from the Garden of Eden. What Adam and Eve were subsequently accused of is referred to as ‘the original sin’. But is it a sin to to defy the word of some irrational god who wants to control the behaviour of two prototypes of humanity?

The whole tribe of man has been suffering under the yoke of this false ‘proclamation of guilt’ ever since.[1]

I see here a powerful myth which, to this day, works on the psyche of those who follow the commands of those deemed to be ‘higher’ than them. Adam and Eve, for me, were the first properly documented practitioners of ‘civil disobedience’. There is something distinctly heroic about their defiance of ‘the word of god’.

In this bold act I recognise a very necessary breaking out from a state (and place) of child like innocence in which one’s ‘freedom’ is dependent upon unquestioningly obeying the father figure and having no true mind of one’s own. We are talking about adults, not children.

Yet all around are those who appear to have not yet discovered that they have a mind of their own, especially when coming-up against those who get up on their political pedestals to declare “You must vaccinate yourself”. “You must not leave your home”. “You must be afraid of Covid”. “You must trust us.”

What about to trust yourself? Who is advising one to do this?

To trust one’s self is to trust one’s powers of discernment. To trust one’s intuition, one’s ability to be aware – and one’s ability to say ‘NO’.

That ‘self’ which you grow to trust above all else, is a conduit of cosmic consciousness, a fragment of the divine. By getting on good terms with this ‘self’ you discover that you are following the path of truth and thereby overcoming the fake authority figures who want you to buy their lie and abandon your precious freedom for their deadly protection.

At this very moment hundreds of millions are finding in themselves this treasure and learning to trust it. What’s more they are finding themselves attracted to the same richness in others – and are getting together as part of a powerful global resistance movement.

It is this movement that is destined to topple the sterile gods from their hollow narcissistic thrones.

For those who are addicted to bowing to the fake gods, this is going to be a rough ride. Freedom involves using one’s mind; taking responsibility; forming creative relationships and becoming a mature human being.

Those fearful of moving down this road will thus remain trapped in their less than human slavery. But once their dark protectors have been forced to flee by the rising tide of manifest truth – where will they hide?

The turning point for most comes at the moment our comfort zone diversions have all but dried up.

When the chimeric ‘authority’ we allowed to run the show is no longer there to be blamed for a continual backward slide into slavery, a void opens-up. A void which those addicted to the old fake order will find themselves a part of.

While those already freed from compromised dependency on the rules of the matrix, will come together, joined in the liberating pursuit of encouraging the manifestation an enlightened new era. Those who have been through the fire and come out the other side freed from illusion.

Covid has done us a favour. It has given us the chance to finally face our delusional addictions and to see that ‘the authorities’ pushing this egregious lie are nothing more or less than the hired hands of a Lucifer infected criminal cabal.

If we want never to be fooled again we have to be fully cured from the contagion of deference to false gods and sickly bowing to fake authorities.

The time has come to unsheath our swords, cast out the demons and regain our self respect – as warriors of Truth.

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Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, writer, international activist, entrepreneur and holistic teacher.  He is President of The International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside. His latest book ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind – Why Humanity Must Come Through’ is particularly recommended reading for this time: see www.julianrose.info

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes

[1] See Overcoming the Robotic Mind – chapter: ‘Original Sin – A Myth Whose Time Is Up’

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***

They rolled up on Ottawa’s Parliament Hill like one of the plagues in the Book of Revelations, honking their infernal air horns, the grills of their tractors grinning demonically, the sides of their dry vans painted with blasphemies like

“FREEDOM TO CHOOSE,”

“MANDATE FREEDOM,”

“NO VACCINE MANDATES,” and

“UNITED AGAINST TYRANNY.”

Yes, that’s right, New Normal Canada has been invaded and now is under siege by hordes of transphobic Putin-Nazi truckers, racist homophobes, anti-Semitic Islamaphobes, and other members of the working classes!

According to the corporate media, these racist, Russia-backed, working-class berserkers are running amok through the streets of Ottawa,

waving giant “swastika flags, (Guardian)

defecating on war memorials,

sacking multi-million-dollar “soup kitchens,”

and eating the food right out of homeless people’s mouths.

Rumor has it, a kill-squad of truckers has been prowling the postnatal wards of hospitals, looking for Kuwaiti babies to yank out of their incubators.

I know, this is Canada, so that sounds a little dubious, but this has all been thoroughly fact-checked by the fact checkers at the New Normal Ministry of Truth … you know, the ones that fact-checked Russiagate, and the Attempted Putin-Nazi Insurrection of January 6 at the US Capitol, and the safety and effectiveness of the Covid “vaccines,” and the masks, and the inflated Covid statistics, and the rest of the official Covid narrative.

Or just take it from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau …

Now, this is the actual prime minister of Canada, not just some woke fanatic on Twitter.

He was tweeting from his fortified Covid Bunker in an undisclosed location somewhere in the Yukon, or possibly the United States, where he fled as the transphobic Putin-Nazi truckers rolled up outside his office in Ottawa.

Trudeau had vowed to stand and fight, but he had no choice but to flee the capital after he mysteriously tested positive for Covid (which also might have been the work of the Russians, possibly the same professional team of weed-smoking, hooker-banging Novichok assassins that got to the Skripals back in 2018).

Russian involvement has not yet been confirmed by the ex-CIA and NSA officials posing as “analysts” on CNN, but according to the CBC, “there’s concern that Russian actors could be continuing to fuel things as the protest grows, and perhaps even instigating it from the outset.”

And, in light of the exposure of Putin’s plot to produce a “very graphic” false-flag video “involving the deployment of corpses” as a pretext to invade the Ukraine and set off nuclear Armageddon, or at least a raft of economic sanctions and DEFCON 1-level bellicose verbiage, it’s possible that the entire “Covid pandemic” was an elaborate Putin-Nazi ruse designed to bring down the Trudeau government, and sabotage the implementation of the New Normal global-segregation system, and the compulsory mRNA “vaccination” of every man, woman, and child on earth, and “democracy,” and transgender rights … or whatever.

But, seriously, this is where we are at the moment. We are in that dangerous, absurdist end-stage of the collapse of a totalitarian system or movement where chaos reigns and anything can happen.

The official Covid narrative is rapidly evaporating. More and more people are taking to the streets to demand an end to whole fascist charade … no, not “transphobic white supremacists” or “anti-vax extremists,” or “Russian-backed Nazis,” but working-class people of all colors and creeds, families, with children, all over the world.

The Covidian Cult has lost control. Even hardcore mask-wearing, social-distancing, triple-vaxxed-double-boosted members are defecting. Formerly fanatical New Normal fascists are mass-deleting their 2020 tweets and switching uniforms as fast as they can. No, it isn’t over yet, but the jig is up, and GloboCap knows it. And their functionaries in government know it.

And therein lies the current danger.

There is a narrow window — a month or two, maybe — for governments to declare “victory over the virus” and roll back their segregation systems, mask-wearing mandates, “vaccine” mandates, and the rest of the so-called “Covid restrictions.” Many governments are already doing so, England, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Ireland, etc. They have seen which way the wind is blowing, and they are rushing to dismantle the New Normal in their countries before … well, you know, before a convoy of angry truckers arrives at their doors.

If they let that happen, they will find themselves in the unenviable position that Trudeau is now in. The Canadian truckers appear to be serious about staying there until their demands are met, which means Trudeau only has two options: (1) give in to the truckers’ demands, or (2) attempt to remove them by force. There’s already talk about bringing in the military. Imagine what an unholy mess that would be. Odds are, the military would disobey his orders, and, if not, the world would be treated to the spectacle of full-blown New Normal Fascism in action.

Either way, Trudeau is history, as long as the truckers stand their ground. I pray they do not give an inch, and I hope the leaders of other New Normal countries, like Australia, Germany, Austria, Italy, and France, are paying close attention.

Some of my readers will probably remember a previous column in which I wrote:

“This isn’t an abstract argument over ‘the science.’ It is a fight … a political, ideological fight. On one side is democracy, on the other is totalitarianism. Pick a fucking side, and live with it.”

This is it. This is that fight. It is not a protest. It is a game of chicken. A high-stakes game of political chicken. In the end, politics comes down to power. The power to force your will on your adversary. GloboCap has been forcing the New Normal on people around the world for the past two years. What we are witnessing in Canada is the power of the people, the power the people have always had, and which we will always have, when we decide to use it … the power to shut down the whole GloboCap show, city after city if necessary.

So get out there and support the Canadian transphobic Putin-Nazi truckers … or your local transphobic Putin-Nazi truckers. Don’t worry if you don’t have a swastika flag. The agents provocateurs and the official propagandists in the corporate media will take care of that!

*

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***

In latest developments, the Movement is Spreading Across Canada,

Demonstrations in solidarity with the  “Freedom Convoy” have unfolded across Canada, in Toronto, Quebec City and Vancouver.

The Trudeau Government does not have a leg to Stand On.  “Indefinite Quarantine for Justice Trudeau”. It’s a Big Lie.

All  Covid Mandates must be be  immediately suspended.  

The evidence is overwhelming. 

Consult Global Research Articles to Get the Truth on the Covid Crisis. 

Our thoughts today are with The Truckers of Freedom Convoy 2022

M. Ch.  Global Research, February 7, 2022

***

Freedom Convoy Leadership Update – Address to the Nation at 7:00pm on February 6, 2020.

Ottawa Mayor declared a state of emergency. How Ottawa Police taking the convoy fuel and occupying the convoy tents does not impact the Freedom Convoy logistics.

 

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***

Dr. Peter McCullough talks about the fallout from his bombshell interview on the Joe Rogan Experience: celebrities have left or are threatening to leave Spotify because they’re angry Rogan interviewed guests like him who they say are spreading covid disinformation.

McCullough has also been fraudulently fact-checked by several media outlets and says he’s willing to have a public discussion with any pro-vax expert as credentialed as he is but so far has no takers.

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This article was originally published on The Whistleblower Newsroom.

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Belarus since Monday, in response to the blocking of the transit of potash fertiliser through the Baltic port of Klaipėda, lowered the barrier against trains with Lithuanian petroleum products and fertilizers, especially those going to Ukraine. For several days now, economists and policymakers in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius have been counting possible economic losses due to their transit war with Belarus. The current crisis in the relations between Minsk and Vilnius was instigated by Lithuania’s ruling coalition, particularly Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė and Foreign Minister Gabriel Landsbergis.

“We see it as threats that need to be taken seriously – no matter even if threats sometimes seem strange or incomprehensible, we have experience when those threats have been implemented. Let us say that this was the case with the organization of illegal migration at the borders of the European Union, which was also a threat from Minsk. It was organized with the help of the Minsk regime,” Šimonytė said after reports of retaliation from Belarus.

Social media commentators bitterly responded to the Prime Minister, with many highlighting that his calls for a change of power and endless sanctions against a neighboring country are quite obviously threats themselves and contradictory.

Lithuanian Railways has already received an official notification from Belarus that oil products belonging to Poland’s ORLEN Lietuva and fertilizers from Lithuanian company Achema will no longer be able to be transported through Belarus to consumers in Ukraine.

“Belarus reserves the right to take further economic actions, including together with partners,” explained Anatoly Glaz, spokesperson for the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko even added:

“We have lost nothing, maybe we have even won. Lithuania’s economy is lost.”

None-the-less, Lithuanian Minister of Economy and Innovation Aušrinė Armonaitė said:

“We do not know exactly what retaliatory sanctions Belarus can impose.”

One of the transit options under consideration is Polish railways, but there is one problem – Poland uses the European railway gauge. This means that carriages going to Ukraine will have to be changed twice, which will ultimately affect the cost of goods and their competitiveness in the market. The second transit option is via Latvia and Russia, however, this costs no less. Another plan is to move the goods from railway to the road and bypass Belarus completely or at least just quickly cross the country by road. However, Minsk can close the borders to drivers heading towards Ukraine, thus making this option fragile and risky.

In this way, although Vilnius believes it is pressuring Belarus, it is actually on the path of creating a complete paralysis of its own transportation system and industry. Lithuania’s provocative behavior is all the more confusing when noting the dire economic situation in the country. Vilnius’ action may start a chain reaction that will affect the entire economy of the excessively “proud” country, especially when we consider its endless “defiance” of Beijing in serving Washington’s interests.

“If we step back, then any country will be kneeling and asked to apologize for any other violation in China’s eyes. It is now up to us to decide whether the Chinese order will be in force in the European Union and around the world or whether it will be any different,” said Viktorija Čmilytė- Nielsen, Speaker of the Seimas (Parliament) of the Republic of Lithuania.

In December 2021, China imposed a customs blockade on Lithuanian exports amid the deepening spat between Beijing and Vilnius about the Baltic state’s decision to allow Taiwan to open a de facto embassy. Although Lithuania trades largely with European Union countries, it still exported 300 million euros worth of goods to China in 2020, making it the 22nd largest export destination.

Although this is paltry, especially when remembering that 120 countries out of 193 UN Member States have China as their largest trading partner, it can be observed that Lithuania’s ruling coalition prioritizes serving the Anglo Alliance (US and UK) agenda against Russia and its neighboring partners then that of their own state and citizens. China in 2020 overtook the US to become the EU’s top trading partner for the first time, yet despite this trend, Vilnius has opted not to take advantage to improve their weak economic situation.

Other economically weak EU countries like Greece have taken advantage of trade with China to claw their way out of a devastating decade-long recession. However, it appears that Lithuania, rather than utilising every advantage from the Great Powers to help boost its ailing healthcare and education system, increase industrial output and end the mass emigration that is leading to a brain drain, is prioritizing the geopolitical interests of the Anglo Alliance.

Rather, instead of only provoking the far-off East Asian country of China, Lithuania is now doubling down on provoking Belarus and Russia, which in turn just negatively affects its own economy once again, and thus the cycle repeats itself.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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An Inconvenient Truth: The Peasant Food Web Feeds the World

February 7th, 2022 by Colin Todhunter

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In October 2020, CropLife International said that its new strategic partnership with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) would contribute to sustainable food systems. It added that it was a first for the industry and the FAO and demonstrates the determination of the plant science sector to work constructively in a partnership where common goals are shared.

A powerful trade and lobby association, CropLife International counts among its members the world’s largest agricultural biotechnology and pesticide businesses: Bayer, BASF, Syngenta, FMC, Corteva and Sumitoma Chemical. Under the guise of promoting plant science technology, the association first and foremost looks after the interests (bottom line) of its member corporations.

Not long after the CropLife-FAO partnership was announced, PAN (Pesticide Action Network) Asia Pacific along with 350 organisations wrote a letter to FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu urging him to stop the collaboration and for good reason.

A 2020 joint investigation by Unearthed (Greenpeace) and Public Eye (a human rights NGO) revealed that BASF, Corteva, Bayer, FMC and Syngenta bring in billions of dollars by selling toxic chemicals found by regulatory authorities to pose serious health hazards.

It also found more than a billion dollars of their sales came from chemicals – some now banned in European markets – that are highly toxic to bees. Over two thirds of these sales were made in low- and middle-income countries like Brazil and India.

The Political Declaration of the People’s Autonomous Response to the UN Food Systems Summit in 2021 stated that global corporations are increasingly infiltrating multilateral spaces to co-opt the narrative of sustainability to secure further industrialisation, the extraction of wealth and labour from rural communities and the concentration of corporate power.

With this in mind, a major concern is that CropLife International will now seek to derail the FAO’s commitment to agroecology and push for the further corporate colonisation of food systems.

The July 2019 UN FAO High Level Panel of Experts Report concluded that agroecology provides greatly improved food security and nutritional, gender, environmental and yield benefits compared to industrial agriculture. This report formed part of the FAO’s ongoing commitment to agroecology.

But agroecology represents a direct challenge to the interests of CropLife members. With the emphasis on localisation and on-farm inputs, agroecology does not require dependency on proprietary chemicals, seeds and knowledge nor the long-line global supply chains dominated by transnational agrifood corporations.

There does now appear to be an ideological assault from within the FAO on alternative development and agrifood models that threaten CropLife International’s member interests.

In the report ‘Who Will Feed Us? The Industrial Food Chain vs the Peasant Food Web (ETC Group, 2017), it was shown that a diverse network of small-scale producers (the peasant food web) actually feeds 70% of the world, including the most hungry and marginalised.

The flagship report indicated that only 24% of the food produced by the industrial food chain actually reaches people. Furthermore, it was shown that industrial food costs us more: for every dollar spent on industrial food, it costs another two dollars to clean up the mess.

However, two prominent papers have since claimed that small farms feed only 35% of the global population.

One of the papers is ‘How much of our world’s food do smallholders produce?’ (Ricciardi et al, 2018).

The other is an FAO report, ‘Which farms feed the world and has farmland become more concentrated? (Lowder et al, 2021).

Eight key organisations have just written to the FAO sharply criticising the Lowder paper which reverses a number of well-established positions held by the organisation. The letter is signed by the Oakland Institute, Landworkers Alliance, ETC Group, A Growing Culture, Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, GRAIN, Groundswell International and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

The open letter calls on the FAO to reaffirm that peasants (including small farmers, artisanal fishers, pastoralists, hunters and gatherers and urban producers) provide more food with fewer resources and are the primary source of nourishment for at least 70% of the world population.

ETC Group has also published the 16-page report ‘Small-scale Farmers and Peasants Still Feed the World‘ in response to the two papers, indicating how the authors indulged in methodological and conceptual gymnastics and certain important omissions to arrive at the 35% figure – not least by changing the definition of ‘family farmer’ and by defining a ‘small farm’ as less than 2 ha. This contradicts the FAO’s own decision in 2018 to reject a universal land area threshold for describing small farms in favour of more sensitive country-specific definitions.

The Lowder et al paper also contradicts recent FAO and other reports that state peasant farms produce more food and more nutritious food per hectare than large farms. It maintains that policy makers are wrongly focused on peasant production and should give greater attention to larger production units.

The signatories of the open letter to the FAO strongly disagree with the Lowder study’s assumption that food production is a proxy for food consumption and that the commercial value of food in the marketplace can be equated with the nutritional value of the food consumed.

The paper feeds into an agribusiness narrative that attempts to undermine the effectiveness of peasant production in order to promote its proprietary technologies and agrifood model.

Smallholder peasant farming is regarded by these conglomerates as an impediment. Their vision is fixated on a narrow yield-output paradigm based on the bulk production of commodities that is unwilling to grasp an integrated social-cultural-economic-agronomic systems approach that accounts for the likes of food sovereignty and diverse nutrition production per acre.

This systems approach also serves to boost rural and regional development based on thriving, self-sustaining local communities rather than eradicating them and subordinating whoever remains to the needs of global supply chains and global markets. Industry lobbyists like to promote the latter as ‘responding to the needs of modern agriculture’ rather than calling it for what it is: corporate imperialism.

The FAO paper concludes that the world small farms only produce 35% of the world’s food using 12% of agricultural land. But ETC Group says that by working with the FAO’s normal or comparable databases, it is apparent that peasants nourish at least 70% of the world’s people with less than one third of the agricultural land and resources.

But even if 35% of food is produced on 12% of land, does that not suggest we should be investing in small, family and peasant farming rather than large-scale chemical-intensive agriculture?

While not all small farms might be practising agroecology or chemical-free agriculture, they are more likely to be integral to local markets and networks, short supply chains, food sovereignty, more diverse cropping systems and healthier diets. And they tend to serve the food requirements of communities rather than those of external business interests, institutional investors and shareholders half a world away.

When the corporate capture a body occurs, too often the first casualty is truth.

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 Renowned author Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) in Montreal.

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A lawsuit filed by Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency produced documents from Pfizer revealing that its Covid-19 vaccine caused all of the pregnant women in its trial to miscarry.

The report, titled “Cumulative Analysis of Post-authorization Adverse Event Reports,” describes events reported up to February 2021 and shows that not a single pregnant woman who took the Pfizer vaccine delivered a live baby.

Table 6 of the report, titled “Missing Information,” reveals under the first topic of “Use in pregnancy and lactation” the following statement:

“Pregnancy outcomes for the 270 pregnancies were reported as spontaneous abortion (23), outcome pending (5), premature birth with neonatal death, spontaneous abortion with intrauterine death (2 each), spontaneous abortion with neonatal death, and normal outcome (1 each). No outcome was provided for 238 pregnancies (note that 2 different outcomes were reported for each twin, and both were counted).

This suggests that of 270 pregnancies, there were 23 spontaneous abortions, five “outcomes pending,” two premature births with neonatal death, two spontaneous abortions with intrauterine death, one spontaneous abortion with neonatal death, and one normal outcome. However, there is also that tricky statement: “no outcome was provided for 238 pregnancies.”

One outlet reported:

“We have no idea what happened with 243 (5 + 238) of the pregnancies of these injected women; they have just not been included in the report.

“What we do know is that of 27 reported pregnancies (270 subtract 243), there are 28 dead babies! This appears to mean that someone was pregnant with twins and that 100 percent of the unborn babies died.”

It is possible that the five “outcomes pending” may have resulted in a normal and healthy delivery, but this remains unclear. This means, that at best, 87.5 percent of babies within fully vaccinated wombs died as opposed to 100 percent.

Regardless, this is still an incredibly horrific and disgusting outcome. No babies should be dying as a result of these “safe and effective” vaccines, and no mother should be harmed in the process.

Pfizer sneakily attempted to cover this up with an article titled “Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine,” which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on Dec. 31, 2020.

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When US Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) held a hearing on vaccine safety in January this year, a number of DOD whistleblowers stepped forward with alarming data. They shared data from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) which tracks every illness of military members.

The purpose of gathering such data is expressly to spot adverse health trends that could affect combat readiness. It is therefore accurate, complete and designed for early detection.

Lawyer Thomas Renz reported on five years of data during the hearing which showed an alarming rise in medical problems related to Covid vaccines. The whistleblowers stepped forward because their superiors had ignored the problem. Renz plans to pursue the matter in a US federal court.

Arguably, the DMED is the best epidemiological database in the world and since neither Pfizer nor Moderna is able to provide better data, this upward trend related to vaccine injury must be cause for great concern.

In a declaration under penalty of perjury, the three military physicians Samuel Sigoloff, Peter Chambers, and Theresa Long, exposed the 300 percent increase in DMED codes registered for miscarriages in the military in 2021 over the five-year average. The five-year average has been 1499 codes for miscarriages per year, but during the first 10 months of 2021, it shot up to 4 182.

The same trend was seen in spiking cancer cases, from a five-year average of 38 700 per year to 114 645 in the first 11 months of 2021, coinciding with the vaccine. And reported neurological disorders increased by an incredible 1000 percent.

DoD suddenly discovers a ‘glitch’ after the hearing

A spokesman for the Defense Health Agency has explained the alarming data by a “glitch” in their own epidemiological surveillance system, with no details as to how a “glitch” could have escaped the competent and well-paid staff for the last five years.

The “glitch” curiously stopped plaguing DMED in January 2021, but it was never detected until Thomas Renz testified before Senator Johnson.

The data was downloaded by several named and unnamed military physicians and they signed a sworn affidavit blaming the mass vaccination campaign for the increase in ailments. These ailments are similar to what German doctors have seen.

  • Hypertension – 2 181 percent increase
  • Diseases of the nervous system – 1 048 percent increase
  • Malignant neoplasms of esophagus – 894 percent increase
  • Multiple sclerosis – 680 percent increase
  • Malignant neoplasms of digestive organs – 624 percent increase
  • Guillain-Barre syndrome – 551 percent increase
  • Breast cancer – 487 percent increase
  • Demyelinating – 487 percent increase
  • neoplasms of thyroid and other endocrine glands – 474 percent increase
  • Female infertility – 472 percent increase
  • Pulmonary embolism – 468 percent increase
  • Migraines – 452 percent increase
  • Ovarian dysfunction – 437 percent increase
  • Testicular cancer – 369 percent increase
  • Tachycardia – 302 percent increase

“One would think this data would be the biggest national news story for the ensuing week, but the revelation was met with radio silence. Then, late Monday night, PolitiFact finally drops its obligatory ‘fact-check’ and posts the first and only response from a defense official. Shockingly, they validate the data, but suggest without cause that somehow the 2016-2020 data in the system was all a glitch,” noted Daniel Horowitz.

The DMED system has been taken offline to “identify and correct the root-cause of the data corruption”, but it may have been done to hide data manipulation. “This statement, taken at face value, is the equivalent of a political and national security nuclear bomb that requires immediate follow-up questions just to make sense of it, yet PolitiFact takes this absurdity at face value and goes on to rule the articles on the DMED data ‘false’.”

Suggesting that the entire military health surveillance system malfunctioned on every diagnostic code for five years in a row, is somewhat farfetched, to say the least. This very expensive database was purposely designed to give “military health officials unprecedented access to epidemiologic data on active component service members and tailored queries that respond in a timely and efficient manner”.

The Defense Health Agency chose not to put out a press release to inform the public of this grave issue and rather had it “fact-checked”.

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Britain’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) has released data indicating that children who received the COVID-19 jabs have suffered a death rate 54 times greater than that of their un-jabbed counterparts.

In December, the ONS published age-standardized data on the mortality rates of individuals in 5-year age sets in Britain, grouped by their “vaccination” status for the COVID-19 shots. The data accounts for the period from January 1 to October 31, 2021.

The ONS tabulated “Monthly age-standardised mortality rates by age-group and vaccination status for deaths involving COVID-19, per 100,000 person-years” but presented the data only for ages 18 and over. However, the jabs are available to children as young as 12, and those children are allowed to receive the shot against their parents’ wishes. In limited cases, children as young as 5 have been given a reduced dosage of the shots.

Nevertheless, as noted by The Exposé, a separate table outlining “deaths and person-years by vaccination status” includes 5-year age groups from 10-years-old and up. From the data provided, a calculation of the mortality rate per 100,000 person-years can be made.

The rate per 100,000 person-years delineation is used in preference over the simpler 100,000 population calculation to better represent the mortality rates over a specific period of time, as people in one “vaccination” group – such as un-jabbed, single-jabbed, and double-jabbed – soon move into the next group.

Table 9 of the ONS report shows the “deaths and person-years by vaccination status and five-year age group” for the entire ten-month period. According to the report, the un-jabbed 10–14-year-old group represents 2,094,711 person-years, and the 15–19 age set 1,587,072 person-years over the same time.

Table 9, ONS Report

From the above table the 100,000 person-years calculation can be made, with the younger group coming out at 20.9 un-jabbed per 100,000 person-years and the older group at 15.9. Following this, the mortality rate per 100,000 person-years is worked out by dividing the number of deaths within each group by the 100,000 person-years calculation.

The result is that for the 10–14 year group, the un-jabbed mortality per 100,000 person-years is 4.6 while the un-jabbed mortality rate per 100,000 person-years for the 15–19 group is 10.1.

Using the same data set and calculation, the mortality rate for 10­–14-year-olds who received one dose of the jabs suffered a 45.1 per 100,000 person-years death rate, while 15–19-year-olds with one jab suffered 18.3 deaths per 100,00 person-years.

Table 9, ONS Report

Table 9, ONS Report

Among those who received two doses of the COVID jabs in both young age groups, the death rates were higher still, with 32.9 deaths per 100,000 person-years among the 15–19 age group and a staggering 238.4 deaths per 100,000 person-years among 10–14-year-olds in the U.K.

The data show a stark increase in deaths among children both single- and double-jabbed compared to their un-jabbed counterparts. For children aged 15–19, the risk of death increases by almost double if they take the first shot and by over three times if they take the second.

10–14-year-olds, on the other hand, run the risk of dying almost by a factor of ten following the first dose while the second dose brings a 51.8 times greater risk of death than if they had remained un-jabbed.

On average, it means that children between 10 and 19 years of age who had received at least one shot of the COVID jabs had a 3.7 times greater chance of dying between January and October last year.

Additionally, according to the ONS’ “five-year average weekly deaths by sex and age group” figures between 2015 and 2019 among children ages 10-14, recorded deaths have risen by 44 percent above the average in weekly figures provided by the ONS for 2021.

The JCVI, an independent adviser to the U.K. government on immunization programs, determined in a September 3 statement that the “available evidence indicates that the individual health benefits from COVID-19 vaccination are small in those aged 12 to 15 years.” They added that any benefit granted by the shots is only “marginally greater than the potential known harms,” while acknowledging that “there is considerable uncertainty regarding the magnitude of the potential harms.”

Given the uncertainty of risks involved with the COVID shots, the JCVI considered the benefits “too small to support advice on a universal programme of vaccination of otherwise healthy 12- to 15-year-old children at this time.”

Moreover, COVID shot trials have never produced evidence that the vaccines stop infection or transmission. They do not even claim to reduce hospitalization, but the measurement of success is in preventing severe symptoms of COVID-19 disease. Indeed, there is strong evidence that the “vaccinated” are just as likely to carry and transmit the virus as the unvaccinated.

Many Catholics and other Christians have rejected the currently available COVID inoculations because they were developed or tested using cell lines derived from aborted children.

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Between 1935 and 1952 seven films were made based on the novels of Charles Dickens.[1] They were filmed in the social realist style, a style that was popular after the Great Crash and reflected the hardships facing people at the time. Social realism is a style often used by directors, artists, composers and writers to expose the living conditions of the poor and government lack of action.

Dickens’s works on film, as in their literary forms, satirise the money lenders, bankers, the rich, the aristocracy, and the landed gentry, while at the same time showing the effects of poverty on the working class in what some would see as overly sentimental depictions. This is not surprising as sentimentalism was an earlier literary movement at the time and which Dickens was likely to have been influenced by. However, Dickens’s novels went way beyond the sentimentalist style and delved into critical realism which made them ideal for later social realist films. These films stand in stark contrast to much cinema today for their satire, humanity and empathy with the downtrodden. Here I will look it the ideas and influences in Dickens’s novels and why they are still important as a standard for contemporary literature.

Was Dickens a sentimentalist or realist?

The extent of extreme poverty in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is not disputed but at the time few wrote about the poverty and less cared about it. Robert C. Solomon wrote that: “There have always been the very rich. And of course there have always been the very poor. But even as late as the civilized and sentimental eighteenth century, this disparity was not yet a cause for public embarrassment or a cry of injustice. […] Poverty was considered just one more “act of God,” impervious to any solution except mollification through individual charity and government poorhouses to keep the poor off the streets and away from crime.” [2]

Enlightenment ideas eventually gave rise to social trends that emphasised humanism and the heightened value of human life. These trends had their complement in art, creating what became known as the ‘sentimental novel’. While today sentimentalism evokes maudlin self-pity, in the eighteenth century it was revolutionary as sentimental literature that:

“focused on weaker members of society, such as orphans and condemned criminals, and allowed readers to identify and sympathize with them. This translated to growing sentimentalism within society, and led to social movements calling for change, such as the abolition of the death penalty and of slavery. Instead of the death penalty, popular sentiment called for the rehabilitation of criminals, rather than harsh punishment.”

So how did the elites react to such criticism of their way of life in literature? In the eighteenth century, as Ralph Fox writes: “‘Society,’ by which we mean the ruling class, could not allow the moral perversion of the ‘public'”. However, the writer of the English novel in the eighteenth century could “sit apart and observe the life of the nation, to be angry, ironical, pitiful and cruel as the occasion demanded” as “there was no chance of any but the smallest number of his characters, the wealthy and the privileged ones, reading his books.” [3]

However, this all changed as books became more affordable and a large reading public developed in the nineteenth century. Literary style moved from the subjectivity of sentimentalism to the objectivity of realism:

“Realism as a movement in literature was a post-1848 phenomenon, according to its first theorist Jules-Français Champfleury. It aims to reproduce “objective reality”, and focused on showing everyday, quotidian activities and life, primarily among the middle or lower class society, without romantic idealization or dramatization. It may be regarded as the general attempt to depict subjects as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation and “in accordance with secular, empirical rules.”

The interest in documenting the living and working conditions of the poor in objective literary works could be seen in such works as The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) by Friedrich Engels, London Labour and the London Poor (1851) by Henry Mayhew, and Past and Present (1843) by Thomas Carlyle. The works of Mayhew and Carlyle had a profound effect on Dickens. The incorporation of such observations and detailed contemporary reports into Dickens’ style of writing effectively made him more of a realist than a sentimentalist. In fact, the critical nature of his work and the popularity of the realist style led Marx to comment:

“The present splendid brotherhood of fiction-writers in England, whose graphic and eloquent pages have issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together, have described every section of the middle class from the “highly genteel” annuitant and fundholder who looks upon all sorts of business as vulgar, to the little shopkeeper and lawyer’s clerk. And how have Dickens and Thackeray, Miss Brontë and Mrs. Gaskell painted them? As full of presumption, affectation, petty tyranny and ignorance; and the civilised world have confirmed their verdict with the damning epigram that it has fixed to this class that “they are servile to those above, and tyrannical to those beneath them.””

Films based on Charles Dickens novels

Here I will summarise briefly not the plot of each movie but the characters and their treatment that Dickens wants to draw attention to:

David’s father dies before David is born and his mother remarries with Murdstone, a harsh man who is intent on beating education and respect into the young boy with a cane (reflecting changing attitudes towards children and childhood). David is sent to work in a bottling plant and this gives Dickens a chance to show working conditions and child labour (of which he knew from first-hand experience, Dickens was forced to leave school and work ten-hour days at Warren’s Blacking Warehouse). David leaves the factory and seeks out his aunt who appears harsh at first but is actually a humane person who deals kindly with her mentally unstable friend, Mr. Dick (reflecting changing attitudes towards the mentally ill).

A Tale of Two Cities (1935)

An historical novel set in London and Paris covering several years before and during the French Revolution. It deals with the inhumane attitudes of the aristocracy which led to the revolution. Dickens shows that not all were bad as the main aristocratic villain’s nephew, Charles Darnay, is sympathetic to the plight of the oppressed and impoverished French masses. He is denounced by his uncle, relinquishes his title and goes to England to begin a new life. The long suffering peasants gather to see the aristocrats executions at the guillotine. Dickens also depicts the ultimate in heroism as the cynical lawyer Sydney Carton switches places with Darnay, who is innocently condemned to die at the guillotine.

 

Great Expectations (1946)

Orphan Phillip “Pip” Pirrip lives with his shrewish older sister and her kindhearted blacksmith husband, Joe Gargery. Pip meets an vicious escaped convict, Magwitch, who threatens him into bringing some some food and drink back to him the next day. This he does and the convict thanks him. However the convict is caught and is seen quietly being returned to prison. A rich spinster arranges for him to visit and play with her adopted daughter. Six years later Pip is informed that he has a mysterious benefactor who has offered to transform him into a gentleman. Grown up and living in London Pip is visited by Magwitch and is shocked and anxious after his childhood experience. Magwitch tells Pip that he escaped from prison again and made a fortune sheep-farming in New South Wales, Australia. He then tells Pip that he was very taken by the Pips kindness in bring the food in stead of revealing his whereabouts to the police, and resolved to help Pip have a better life with his new found wealth. Here Dickens shows the basic humanity of convicts as victims of an oppressive society who can change for the better, in line with popular sentiment that called for the rehabilitation of criminals, rather than harsh punishment.

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1947)

Nicholas Nickleby, travels to London with his mother and his younger sister Kate, to seek help from their wealthy but cold-hearted uncle Ralph, a money-lender. Nicholas gets a job teaching at a boarding school which is run like a prison. The owners “physically, verbally, and emotionally abuse their young charges on a regular basis”. He meets Madeline Bray whose father who gambled away his fortune and now is indebted to Nicholas’s uncle. In this narrative Ralph’s past deeds catch up with him and he faces prison and financial ruin, but instead commits suicide.

Oliver Twist (1948)

Here Dickens shows up the institutional abuse of the parish workhouse as children go hungry and corrupt officials live well. Oliver runs away to London and falls in with a street gang whose leaders corrupt the boys and train them to steal valuables for their benefit. In his spare time Dickens campaigned vigorously for children’s rights, education and other social reforms.

Scrooge (1951)

Scrooge is a well known film and adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843). The plot revolves around Scrooge being informed that he will be visited by three spirits: the Ghost of Christmas Past (a device to show Scrooge’s lonely childhood, and broken engagement because of his dedication to “a golden idol”),  the Ghost of Christmas Present (a device to break down Scrooge’s misanthropy and cynicism), and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come (a device to show that unless he changes his ways he will leave no positive reputation or respect behind him). Thus, Dickens “catalysed the emerging Christmas as a family-centered festival of generosity, in contrast to the dwindling community-based and church-centered observations, as new middle-class expectations arose.”

The Pickwick Papers is a sequence of loosely related adventures written for serialization in a periodical wherein Dickens satirises a wide range of English types and English life in a good humoured style.

In his books, Dickens manages to comment on every section of society and dramatise it in such way as to create empathy where there was none, and to satirise those who thought they could enrich themselves without criticism. José Ortega y Gasset wrote about the effect of realism on culture:

“Works of this nature are only partially works of art. In order to enjoy them we do not have to have artistic sensitivity. It is enough to possess humanity and and a willingness to sympathize with our neighbour’s anguish and joy. It is therefore understandable that the art of the nineteenth century should have been so popular, since it was appreciated by the majority in proportion to its not being art, but an extract from life.” [4]

Ortega y Gasset also wrote about emotions in art, and why they are important:

“What do the majority of people call aesthetic pleasure? What goes on in their mind when a work of art ‘pleases’ them? There is no doubt about the answer: people like a work of art that succeeds in involving them in the human destinies it propounds. The loves, hates, griefs and joys of the characters touch their heart: they participate in them, as if they were occurring in real life. And they say a work is ‘good’ when it manages to produce the quantity of illusion necessary for the imaginary characters to rate as living persons.” [5]

Contemporary fiction

It is in this way that Dickens’s novels delighted and enraged his audiences. His style of critical realism, in terms of form and content, is still relevant today. Sally Rooney, the Irish novelist, writes that:

“The problem with the contemporary Euro-American novel is that it relies for its structural integrity on suppressing the lived realities of most human beings on earth. To confront the poverty and misery in which millions of people are forced to live, to put the fact of that poverty, that misery, side by side with the lives of the ‘main characters’ of a novel, would be deemed either tasteless or simply artistically unsuccessful. […] Do the protagonists break up or stay together? In this world, what does it matter? So the novel works by suppressing the truth of the world — packing it down tightly underneath the glittering surface of the text. And we can care once again,as we do in real life, whether people break up or stay together – if, and only if, we have successfully forgotten about all the things more important than that, i.e. everything.” [6]

Yet, it is still possible to enter the mainstream with satire and humour, to recognise “the lived realities of most human beings on earth”, to acknowledge the importance of social truth in art and to be sharply critical of social and political ills.

What can the writer write about? Tara Henley (TV and radio producer, on-air columnist) summarises her frustration with media policy at CNC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) while inadvertently showing so many things that can be part of contemporary fiction, without being “either tasteless or simply artistically unsuccessful”. Things that may be suppressed at media policy level but not in a work of art. She writes:

“It is to endlessly document microaggressions but pay little attention to evictions; to spotlight company’s political platitudes but have little interest in wages or working conditions. It is to allow sweeping societal changes like lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and school closures to roll out — with little debate. To see billionaires amass extraordinary wealth and bureaucrats amass enormous power — with little scrutiny. And to watch the most vulnerable among us die of drug overdoses — with little comment. It is to consent to the idea that a growing list of subjects are off the table, that dialogue itself can be harmful. That the big issues of our time are all already settled. It is to capitulate to certainty, to shut down critical thinking, to stamp out curiosity. To keep one’s mouth shut, to not ask questions, to not rock the boat. This, while the world burns.”

Dickens did it and was hugely popular for it. Today, there is certainly plenty to be critical about. There is, of course, plenty of wealth, as there was in  Dickens’s day. But there is also poverty, very high rents, low-paid jobs, homelessness, avaricious banks, and a general system of economics and culture to make sure it stays that way. Sure, it does not have the same look as poverty did in Dickens’s era. There are social welfare systems, better standards of housing, and better working conditions. However overall contemporary income in many cases allows young people and the working class to just about get by without much hope for improvement, despite living in a system that produces massive amounts of wealth. In other words, there are similarities with  Dickens’s time but on a modern, international scale that also deserve a sharp, critical, writerly eye.

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Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here.   

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Notes

[1] Silent films were made too but I will just discuss the talkies.

[2] Robert C Solomon, A Passion for Justice: Emotions and the Origins of the Social Contract (Rowman and Littlefield Pub., Lanham, 1995) p13

[3] Ralph Fox, The Novel and the People (Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1979) p71

[4] José Ortega y Gasset, The Dehumanization of Art, p69

[5] José Ortega y Gasset, The Dehumanization of Art, p67

[6]  Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You (Faber and Faber, London, 2021) p95/6

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Biden’s Strike in Idlib Proves It Is an ISIS Headquarters

February 7th, 2022 by Steven Sahiounie

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***

Obama killed bin Laden, Trump killed Baghdadi, and now Biden has his trophy kill.

President Biden said that the operation to kill Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi in Idlib “took a major terrorist leader off the battlefield.” He added,

“Operating on my orders, the United States’ military forces successfully removed a major terrorist threat to the world, the global leader of ISIS, known as Hajji Abdullah. This operation is testament to America’s reach and capability to take out terrorist threats no matter where they try to hide anywhere in the world,” he said.

Idlib wasn’t much of a hiding place, as it is the most obvious place on earth for ISIS commanders, followers, and their Al Qaeda brothers in arms. Intelligence found that al-Qurayshi was living in Atmeh, Idlib province, within walking distance of Turkey, and identified his house and his neighbors.  He had succeeded al-Baghdadi as the head of ISIS; however, not much is known about him or his inner circle, but he had ordered a series of atrocities, including against the Yazidi people.

“U.S. Special Operations forces under the control of US Central Command conducted a counter-terrorism mission this evening in northwest Syria,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said in a news conference on Thursday afternoon. “To the degree, there’s loss of innocent lives, it’s caused by Abdullah and his lieutenants,” he said.

No sooner had the statement by Biden and Kirby hit the airwaves, reports coming in from the US-backed “White Helmets” and the UN said six children and four women were among 13 people killed as a result of the US special ops raid. The Whitehouse and Pentagon attributed the civilian loss of life to the terrorist killed, as he had detonated a suicide bomb during the raid.  However, witnesses and activist groups did not agree with the sanitized version.

In December, an investigation by the New York Times based on confidential Pentagon documents, that US air wars in the Middle East have been marked by “deeply flawed intelligence” and “faulty targeting” that has resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 civilians over the last decade.

Idlib

Idlib is identified by western media as “the last rebel stronghold in Syria”.  In reality, it is a conclave of armed militias who are all following Radical Islam, which is not a religion, or a sect, but a political ideology.  Whether it is the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, or ISIS they all share the same goal: to remove governments and establish an Islamic State globally.

“Idlib is essentially the largest collection of Al Qaeda affiliates in the world right now,” Michael Mulroy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, said at the Center for a New American Security in Washington.  US officials also have voiced concerns about the presence of tens of thousands of foreign terrorists in Idlib, but no US policy was ever formed to address the issue.  The US policy was to protect Idlib from attack by either Russia or the Syrian government in Damascus and allow Turkey, a US ally and NATO member to continue supporting and protecting the terrorists there.

Whenever there were Russian or Syrian airstrikes on Idlib, the western allies of the US would call for a UN security council meeting to condemn any action against Al Qaeda or ISIS in Idlib.  However, there have been several cases in which the US made attacks on Idlib, in a display of double standards.

Idlib province is mostly controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, who used to be called Jibhat al-Nusra, who was designated a terrorist group by the US and the UN. With a name change, the US was able to justify continued support of the bloodthirsty terrorist who is well known for beheading, rape, kidnapping, and murder.

The civilian population is about 2 million and they are kept as human shields.  They are not welcome in Turkey, and they live in tents without warm clothes and heating.  Recently, Syria and Lebanon have been hit with unusual amounts of rain and snow. Two babies have died from the cold after heavy snow and freezing temperatures hit camps in Idlib. A UN official reported that the seven-day-old and two-month-old girls had died there.

The UN has warned that the situation is getting worse due to a severe economic downturn in Syria that has seen food prices double in a year, as well as a shortage of funding to provide winter aid and increased needs.

Save the Children’s Syria response director, Sonia Khush said it was “incomprehensible that any child should face the winter scared for their life”. “Almost 11 years after the crisis in Syria started, it feels like the world has forgotten about children in northwest Syria,” she added.

The US killed Baghdadi in Idlib 

The former leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was also killed in Idlib by an American special ops raid in October 2019, similar to the recent raid.  He also detonated a suicide vest when cornered.  The two operations were similar: the same place, helicopters used, and the suicide vest.

One key common component shared by both raids is the location directly on the Turkish border.  Whether it was the US-sponsored Free Syrian Army, Al Qaeda, or ISIS the key component in the puzzle is Turkey.  President Erdogan of Turkey heads a party which is Muslim Brotherhood supporters. During the Trump administration, the Whitehouse made it clear that Turkey was more involved with helping terrorists in Syria, than fighting ISIS.  In 2017, Trump had pulled the plug on the CIA program headquartered in Turkey, “Timber Sycamore”, which trained and supported armed terrorists in Syria, in hopes of ‘regime change’.

Sadradeen Kinno, a Syrian researcher who closely follows Islamic militant groups in Syria, told VOA that following the defeat of ISIS in its last pocket of control in eastern Syria in March 2019, a significant number of its fighters fled to Idlib.

“ISIS and Al Qaeda affiliated groups in Syria disagree ideologically, but now they face a common existential threat from the U.S. and Russia. So I believe al-Baghdadi ended up in Idlib by striking a deal with Huras al-Din and other groups that are active there,” he said.

White Helmets

The Syrian Civil Defense is a group purporting to be rescuers in areas under the occupation of terrorist groups, such as Idlib.  The group stole the name from the real group of the same name, which is a working fire department and paramedics group in locations across Syria.  While Biden and Kirby were explaining the attack in Idlib, the “White Helmets” were issuing details on the ground, that at least 13 people were killed, including four women. Our teams rushed an injured child to the hospital. The child’s entire family was killed in the operation. The teams also rushed another person to the hospital who was injured in the clashes when he approached the scene to witness what was happening.”

The White Helmets won the Alternative Nobel Prize in 2016, and a Netflix documentary about the group won an Oscar in 2017. They have been accused of working with Al Qaeda and ISIS, and of having staged videos of rescues.

Videos and photos online show that the “White Helmets” have supported terrorists and ISIS, and in one case they are seen removing the dead bodies after a terrorist massacre. It would be difficult to work alongside, and in a supporting role, with armed terrorists in Syria without having formed a personal affiliation with the fighters.

“There’s no way to deny it,” says Nur (not his real name) who helps manage the White Helmets’ media online. “Former volunteers were in pictures waving flags.” This is about the black ISIS flag. Some men joined the “White Helmets” having left terrorist groups, he says.

“The White Helmets cannot be considered a humanitarian organization when they are embedded with a designated terrorist organization al-Qaeda, and of course, ISIS and various other armed groups… They do not behave in any way like a humanitarian organization inside Syria, and therefore… they are a legitimate target in a war situation,” Vanessa Beeley said in an interview in2020. The British activist has become the foremost expert on the “White Helmets” after spending almost 10 years in Syria during the conflict.

James Le Mesurier, a former British officer once honored by the queen, married Emma Winberg, a former diplomat, and fellow activist. They were married in Istanbul, Turkey where Mayday was headquartered. However, he committed suicide thereafter it was revealed he had used the humanitarian group’s money inappropriately.

Le Mesurier founded Mayday in 2014 after having spent some time organizing aid and arranging initial training sessions for Syrian emergency responders in Turkey.  Between 2014 and 2019, Western governments would provide around 120 million euros in support to Mayday, about 20 million of it coming from Germany. Mayday has since been dissolved, though the White Helmets are continuing their operations in Idlib with backing from the US and Europeans.

The Russian-Turkish deal on Idlib

Idlib has been a divisive point between Russia and Turkey, who share energy interests. Russia back the central government in Damascus, which Turkey backs the terrorists.  In September 2018, Moscow and Ankara reached an agreement that postponed a planned Syrian offensive on Idlib and other areas near the Turkish border. As part of that agreement, Turkey was required to remove all extremist groups from the province, some of which are allied with Al Qaeda.

3 and one-half years later, Turkey has failed to implement its commitment with Russia, leaving most of Idlib under the control of Al Qaeda, and some pockets of ISIS. Turkey has maintained several military outposts while illegally occupying sections of Syria, and Russia has chosen not to open an armed conflict with the NATO member.

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Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Canadian Media Is Happy to Risk Arming Neo-Nazis in Ukraine

February 7th, 2022 by Davide Mastracci

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In recent days, Western media has been declaring that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is imminent, and discussing what Canada’s role should be in light of that possibility. 

Last year, I wrote an article tracking Canadian media’s editorial support for wars the country has participated in over the years. I found that editorial boards supported these ventures (from the First World War to the operation against ISIS) 98 per cent of the time. In the past, I’ve also privately tracked Canadian media calling for regime change in countries where war has yet to happen. From these efforts, I know the question to ask about Canadian media is not what it takes for them to support a war, but rather what would it take for them to oppose one.

There are many good reasons for Canada not to go to war in Ukraine, continue to help train their troops or send military aid. But these reasons probably aren’t convincing to Canadian media pundits, who tend to have much different political views than I do.

So, I’ll go with one I think we can all agree on: Canada should avoid participating in Ukrainian military ventures because doing so would require working with neo-Nazis. Certainly everyone across the political spectrum in mainstream Canadian media could agree on that, right?

Wrong!

I’m going to break down some media coverage over the past few years to show you how editorial support for sending Canadian troops and arms to Ukraine didn’t waver when any of the following three things became clear: neo-Nazis were fighting alongside the official Ukrainian forces in volunteer paramilitaries; the neo-Nazis paramilitaries were incorporated into official Ukrainian forces; Canada worked specifically with the neo-Nazi elements of the Ukrainian forces.

Neo-Nazis Fighting In Ukraine 

In May 2014, amidst the unrest in Ukraine, the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion was formed as a civilian paramilitary group to combat Russian separatists. The organization has never been shy about its Nazi links and ideology. For example, in a 2015 interview with USA Today, a drill sergeant with the group “admitted he is a Nazi and said with a laugh that no more than half his comrades are fellow Nazis.” Disputing the claim, a spokesperson for the group told the outlet that “only 10 per cent to 20 per cent of the group’s members are Nazis.” Not exactly reassuring.

Since the group was created, reporters have worked to expose its neo-Nazi ideology.

A German TV show in September 2014, for example, broadcast images of Azov members with swastikas and SS runes on their helmets. This news made its way into American outlets as well. So, from May 2014 onward, at the very least, we knew there were neo-Nazis fighting alongside official Ukrainian forces in an organized paramilitary. But this didn’t stop Canadian media outlets from encouraging Canada to help out.

For example, in September 2014 the Toronto Star published an editorial arguing that while Canadians shouldn’t “feel obliged to spend an extra $20 billion on defence because Russian President Vladimir Putin is bullying Ukraine,” we can “help them manage the threat without busting the bank.” Their suggestion was that, “Harper could reasonably commit CF-18 fighter-bombers, airlift, troops and armour to NATO’s brigade, on a rotating basis and through military exercises.”

The article didn’t mention Nazis.

Neo-Nazis Joining The Official Ukrainian Forces

At the time, perhaps the Star and other papers would have said that while they wouldn’t support neo-Nazis, the Azov Battalion wasn’t part of the official Ukrainian forces, so it shouldn’t be a major concern. That excuse, however, couldn’t work for long.

In November 2014, the Battalion was officially incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard. This means the Ukrainian government knowingly decided to make a neo-Nazi group part of its forces, giving, at the very least, a tacit acceptance of their ideology. This news, and the extent of the neo-Nazi presence in Ukraine’s forces, would get reported on extensively over the next few years, including (to a more limited extent) in Canadian media.

On Nov. 26, 2014, the National Post published a letter by John Meinhold, responding to an editorial from the paper: “I was aghast at the statement in your article: ‘As a general rule, Canada is opposed to the glorification of Nazism.’ In which cases does Canada support Nazism? Is it the neo-Nazis in Ukraine, to which the rule does not apply? It is not OK for Canada or the United States to be allied with Ukrainian fascist groups such as Right Sector, Svoboda Party and the Azov Battalion. Just like the Nazis, these groups have spearheaded atrocious crimes against humanity in eastern Ukraine.”

Postmedia would also publish several articles by Ottawa Citizen reporter David Pugliese over the next few years, who has done great work on this topic.

For example, on April 18, 2015, Postmedia published an article by Pugliese, which noted that the Azov Battalion spokesperson admitted up to 20 per cent of its members are Nazis, and that the group’s symbol is “similar to the insignia used by some Nazi SS units.”

On June 17, 2015, they published another article by Pugliese, where he wrote, “Defence Minister Jason Kenney acknowledged in April that Canadian military leaders discussed how to avoid training extremists in the upcoming Ukraine mission. He said Canadian soldiers would not be training ad hoc militias and would only instruct units of the Ukrainian National Guard and the army. But Conyers pointed out while the Azov Battalion is a 1,000-man militia unit, it is also now part of the Ukrainian National Guard.”

And yet, once again, editorials calling on Canada to support Ukrainian forces continued.

On June 8, 2015, the Post published an article arguing that, “Money, training and whatever military assistance we can supply, including weapons and munitions, must be made available [to the Ukrainian forces].”

On Jan. 31, 2017, the Globe and Mail published an editorial arguing,

“The Canadian military personnel can’t do anything to directly help the civilians of southeast Ukraine, or the Ukrainian troops in the Donbass region itself. But they can and should continue with their training mission, and could do even more by expanding the mission.”

On March 9, 2017, the Toronto Star published an editorial arguing that “it was entirely right for the Trudeau government to announce this week that Canada will extend its military deployment in Ukraine for another two years.”

None of these articles mentioned the presence of neo-Nazis in Ukraine’s forces.

Canadians Directly Working With Nazis

Throughout this period, newspaper staff could have made the argument that while the neo-Nazi battalion was now officially part of Ukraine’s forces, they made up just a small chunk of it, and Canada’s aid would likely go elsewhere. Once again, however, this excuse wouldn’t hold up for long.

For example, Pugliese reported that,

“In June 2018 the Canadian government and military officials in Ukraine met with members of the ultranationalist Azov Battalion, which earlier that year had been banned by the U.S. Congress from receiving American arms because of its links to neo-Nazis. The Canadians were photographed with Azov battalion members, images that were shared on the battalion’s social media site.”

In October 2021, he followed up on this reporting with an article noting,

“Canadian officials who met with members of a Ukrainian battalion linked to neo-Nazis didn’t denounce the unit, but were instead concerned the media would expose details of the get-together, according to newly released documents.  The Canadians met with and were briefed by leaders from the Azov Battalion in June 2018. The officers and diplomats did not object to the meeting and instead allowed themselves to be photographed with battalion officials despite previous warnings that the unit saw itself as pro-Nazi. The Azov Battalion then used those photos for its online propaganda, pointing out the Canadian delegation expressed ‘hopes for further fruitful co-operation.’”

Pugliese also writes,

“One gathering that journalists didn’t find out about was a December 2018 event in Ukraine attended by then Canadian Army commander Lt.-Gen. Jean-Marc Lanthier, according to the documents. Members of the Azov Battalion were present, but, again, instead of denouncing the battalion’s Nazi sympathies, the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces focused concern on the possibility that photos might have been taken showing Canadian soldiers with members of the Azov unit. Chris Henderson, then assistant deputy minister for public affairs, emailed more than 20 DND public-relations officers, worried that photos might appear online.”

Another Pugliese article from October noted,

“Far-right extremists in Ukraine’s military have bragged they received training from the Canadian Forces and other NATO nations.” Pugliese writes that one group, Centuria, “acknowledged on social media they have received training from the Canadian military and have participated in military exercises with Canada.” A Canadian Forces spokesperson said that they don’t vet the forces they’re training.

And yet, despite all of this, Canadian media is still, even in just the past few days, publishing editorials and articles calling for sending weapons and military training to troops in Ukraine.

On January 20, Sun Media published a chain-wide editorial attacking Canada and other NATO members for “urging a diplomatic solution” without committing “significant military support.”

On January 21, the Star published an editorial arguing,

“Canada should formally renew [its training mission] now for another six months to underline its determination to stand by Ukraine. And it should send additional military equipment to Ukraine as a further sign of its commitment to the country’s independence and integrity.”

On January 23, the Toronto Sun published an opinion article by multiple contributors, calling for Canada to “deploy special forces and provide some financial aid,” “expand our military training mission,” and “work in concert with our allies to immediately send arms and resources to Ukraine.”

The next day, the Sun published an article by a columnist calling for Canada and allies to “send Ukraine anti-aircraft weapons, drones, air and coastal defence systems, Javelins, Stingers. And arms — and ammunition, and armed drones, long-range counter-artillery radar, electronic warfare capabilities, anti-ship capabilities, and anti-tank and naval mines. Failing that, access to NATO military stockpiles and intelligence. Immediately. Now.”

Not one of these articles mentions neo-Nazis in Ukraine. And the examples go on. But what’s the excuse now?

In mid-2014, we knew neo-Nazis were fighting alongside the Ukrainian forces. In late-2014, we knew that they were officially incorporated into their forces. Since then, the Canadian army has been confirmed, on multiple occassions, to have worked directly with the neo-Nazis. And not only do the calls for arming continue, but they aren’t even qualified with the shallowest words of warning about neo-Nazis.

 

Trudeau Invited Neo-Nazi leader and co-founder of Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Party Svoboda to Ottawa in 2014

 

The only remaining excuse I can think of is that media pundits would argue Canadian forces have a Nazi problem as well, so who are we to judge? In that case, even more reason not to send troops to Ukraine, and instead abolish the Canadian Armed Forces entirely.

Canada is certainly not in a position to lecture other armed forces about keeping neo-Nazis out of their ranks, but it shouldn’t make things worse by sending its extremist forces to train theirs.

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China’s Support Is a Game Changer for Russia

February 7th, 2022 by M. K. Bhadrakumar

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During the visit by President Vladimir Putin to Beijing on Friday, the world attention was focused on how far China would go in support of Russia in the latter’s standoff with the US and NATO. From the joint statement issued after the visit, China has given fulsome support to Russia, endorsing Moscow’s demand for security guarantee and its opposition to NATO expansion, the two core issues. 

Russia never expected or sought any Chinese intervention in any military confrontation with the western alliance. Russia has the capability to safeguard its sovereignty.

The Chinese support to Russia at the present juncture can still manifest in a variety of ways. Aside China’s backing at the UN Security Council, what really matters most for Moscow would be the myriad ways in which Beijing can mitigate the effect of any harsh western sanctions against by way of transfer of technology, trade, investments, etc. Conceivably, Putin and Xi Jinping have reached an understanding. 

Already, a significant step has been taken this direction during Putin’s visit with the agreement on new Russian oil and gas deals with China worth an estimated $117.5 billion, and China promising to ramp up Russia’s Far East exports. A new 30-year contract to supply 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year to China from Russia’s Far East was signed. 

Separately, Russian oil giant Rosneft signed a deal with China’s CNPC to supply 100 million tonnes of oil through Kazakhstan over 10 years, effectively extending an existing deal, which is worth an estimated $80 bn. The construction of the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline to China with a massive capacity of 50 bcm annually is also under discussion. 

No doubt, Russia is seriously diversifying its markets for oil and gas exports. This will create space for Moscow to negotiate with its European partners. The new deal with Beijing will not necessitate diversion of Russia’s gas exports to Europe, as they are linked to the gas reserves from the Pacific island of Sakhalin, whereas Russia’s European pipeline network sources gas from the Siberian fields. 

The ball is in now entirely in the European court — whether to continue to source assured energy supplies from Russia at such incredibly low prices or punish itself by forgoing that option. 

While sanctions may inflict some dislocation initially necessitating readjustments, Moscow will cope with it, as past experience shows. With around $640 billion in foreign exchange reserves, Moscow could persevere longer than the Europeans in the energy market. 

The big question is about Putin’s decisions regarding the dangerous situation on Russia’s western borders. The short answer is that Putin will not be browbeaten by the Biden Administration’s threat of sanctions. 

China does not consider that a full scale invasion of Ukraine is in the Russian calculus but it neatly sidesteps the issue, nonetheless. Putin acts very cautiously, and almost always is reactive. Be it in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria or Ukraine itself, that has been the pattern. Of course, it is a different matter that in all these instances, Putin acted decisively to make sure his objectives were realised. 

In the situation surrounding Ukraine, the Biden Administration is forcing Putin’s hands. The latest US and NATO troop reinforcements to Russia’s neighbours—particularly to the Baltic states, in close proximity to St. Petersburg — were completely unwarranted and can only be seen as a calculated act of provocation when there has so far been no evidence of an adequate justification for a major Russian military operation. 

Yet, there could be a method in this madness, given the real possibility of risky military operations in Donbass by an emboldened Ukrainian military or even worse, by the nationalist battalions in that region (to whom NATO has secretly provided a large influx of arms in recent weeks.) 

In the event of any attack on Donbass, make no mistake, Russian intervention is guaranteed. The legislation under consideration with the Duma in Moscow currently factors in precisely such a contingency. It calls upon the Russian government to recognise the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk and, secondly, authorises the government to provide with new weapons to these two “people’s republics.”            

A plausible scenario could be that Russia will patiently wait for the Ukrainian provocation. That is, it all boils down to a question of resolve. For Russia, the stakes are exceedingly high and its staying power is far greater than that of its Western adversaries. 

There is a big element of brinkmanship here. What is happening in Europe at the moment has turned out to be a huge distraction for the US and as time passes, the Biden Administration would rue that its Indo-Pacific strategy is faltering and it is bogged down. The likelihood of Russia backing off is zero.

Evidently, the North Korean missile testing is already putting enormous strain on the US’ alliance system in the Far East. Unlike Ukraine, the US’ security interests are directly affected. Yet, on Friday, a US-drafted statement condemning Pyongyang crash-landed. 

Ironically, China called on the US to be more flexible in its dealings with North Korea and joined six other member countries (including Russia and India) in refusing to sign the joint statement. 

China’s ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jun later told reporters,

“If they do want to see some new breakthrough, they should show more sincerity and flexibility. They should come up with more attractive and more practical, more flexible approaches, policies and actions and accommodating the concerns of the DPRK.” 

This is where the US is facing the new reality that its Cold War mentality to isolate China in the Asia-Pacific region and Russia in Europe will not work.

The solidarity between China and Russia reflected in Friday’s joint statement goes far beyond the immediate crisis in Ukraine or the tensions over Taiwan and has an epochal significance heralding a new era in international relations based on a pluralistic world order where the role of the US will no longer be exclusive or defining. 

Russia and China have a broad consensus today on almost all core issues related to global strategic stability, which is unprecedented in modern history. 

The joint statement mentions the US not less than five times while highlighting the common stance of China and Russia on several key regional and global issues, including the expansion of NATO, the US-led ideological clique in the name of democracy, the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy, AUKUS, etc. 

Xi told Putin he is willing to work with him to plan a blueprint and guide the direction of China-Russia ties under the new historical conditions. China has lent support to the fundamental principle of the indivisibility of security that Russia is upholding. In these circumstances, if the US with its zero-sum mindset thinks it can defeat Russia through sanctions, it is being delusional. 

Stonewalling the Russian demands is not going to be feasible, either. The challenge facing the Biden Administration will be how to preserve its credibility, especially in the European eyes. For, if Russia is compelled to act militarily to defend its non-negotiable core interests, as it will be at some point, a dangerous escalation may happen. 

Is the US ready for an open-ended conflict with Russia? Are its allies game for it? Can they afford it? Will their domestic opinion allow it — war with a thermonuclear nuclear power in Europe to defend ill-defined notions? 

A far better judicious course will be to seek a diplomatic formula that takes into account all these self-evident realities and negotiate some kind of a document that guarantees Russia’s legitimate security needs.

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Featured image: Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) held talks with visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, Beijing, Feb. 4, 2022. (Source: Indian Punchline)

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The American tactic of disinformation about the Ukrainian security situation continues to advance. Now, Washington appears willing to invest in short-term alarmism rather than adopting a long-term narrative. In recent years, US officials have insisted that Russia plans to invade Ukraine, but in a new statement, Jake Sullivan, national adviser to the Biden administration, said such an invasion is about to happen at any time soon, which generates even more concern, fear, and undeserved anti-Russian sentiments around the West.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, US national advisor Jake Sullivan stated that the Russian invasion against Ukrainian territory is very close to happening, in a matter of days. The official’s words lead to a significant rise in international tensions, escalating general distrust towards Moscow. In this regard, previously, the UN Secretary General had already asked Washington to avoid such alarmist actions, as this unnecessarily intensifies anxieties, but the US government seems unwilling to change its discourse, whose only objective is to induce Western society to support the imposition of more and more anti-Russian sanctions.

These were some of Sullivan’s words:

“We are in the window. Any day now, Russia could take military action against Ukraine, or it could be a couple of weeks from now. […] We believe that there is a very distinct possibility that Vladimir Putin will order an attack on Ukraine (…) It could take a number of different forms. It could happen as soon as tomorrow, or it could take some weeks yet. He has put himself in a position with military deployments to be able to act aggressively against Ukraine at any time now”.

As expected, the adviser failed to present any evidence that there is a Russian plan in this regard. Apparently, it has become a tradition of American foreign policy to accuse Russia of all kinds of hostile attitudes without presenting any evidence or information about what leads the White House to conclude about the existence of such “risks”. Several American media channels spread the accusations that Moscow’s plan is to conduct the invasion in the next few days, staging one of the most successful operations of spreading fake news in recent time.

A few days ago, Bloomberg had accidentally spread a news headline claiming that Russia had already invaded Ukraine. The agency apologized for the mistake and removed the article from its website, but the news had already spread quickly, making thousands of readers believe that a new war had already started in Eastern Europe. There is no reason to believe that the publication was intentional, but the accident itself is unacceptable because in a globalized and interconnected world this type of negligence is capable of generating a major global crisis in a few seconds. Now, the US government appears to be doing something similar, claiming that the invasion will take place at any time – but it is doing so officially and intentionally.

The power of the mass media to influence international crises is notorious. With the complete absence of evidence about the alleged Russian invasion plan, the media has become the only method by which allegations in this regard are able to form public opinion. There is no scientific validity in the arguments for the population to be rationally convinced that there is a “Russian threat”, there are only unfounded accusations that start to receive credibility after being repeated countless times by the media agencies.

With this, anti-Russian paranoia is expected to grow significantly. The populations of western countries, victimized by the unethical action of the pro-NATO media in the dissemination of fake news, will start to support any anti-Russian measure in order to neutralize the “imminent risk” of a new war on European soil, including “preventive measures” of NATO on the Russian border. This means that new sanctions will be imposed on Moscow and NATO will have “justification” in public opinion to seek further militarization of Eastern Europe – disregarding the Russian government’s calls for such militarization to cease.

However, this kind of attitude certainly has an expiration date. Moscow does not want to invade Ukraine, and, with that, the ”next few days” will become increasingly distant. At some point, the Western media will lose all its arguments to keep constantly postponing war predictions and then Western public opinion will decrease its support for NATO. It remains to be seen when the White House will understand that no foreign policy project can be long-lasting based on lies and fallacious narratives.

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

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“Turn on the closed-circuit cameras in Ottawa,” Says Justice Centre

February 7th, 2022 by Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms

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The Justice Centre today sent a letter to the City of Ottawa, advising that Justice Centre lawyers are in Ottawa representing the Freedom Convoy 2022, and outlining the efforts being made by the Freedom Convoy to maintain safety and security during the peaceful protest. The Chief of Ottawa Police, the Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner, and the Parliamentary Police Service Superintendent are copied on the letter.

The Justice Centre was recently advised that during the first few days of the truckers’ peaceful protest in Ottawa, closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras were offline entirely, and remain off.

“These cameras do not actually show what is happening on the ground in downtown Ottawa. For safety reasons we strongly urge you to remedy this situation and restore live feed from those CCTV cameras. It is imperative that law enforcement and the public have access to video footage, in order to know what is actually occurring in and around the protest,” states Eva Chipiuk, Staff Lawyer at the Justice Centre.

“Canadians have the legal right to protest peacefully in their capital city. The freedom of peaceful assembly is expressly protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Freedom Convoy has always been clear that it supports only peaceful assembly,” states Ms. Chipiuk.

The Freedom Convoy has stated consistently, repeatedly, and publicly that unlawful activity will not be condoned, and that unlawful conduct will undermine the goals of this peaceful protest. The Freedom Convoy has expressed concerns that there may be individuals or groups who may instigate conflict or engage in illegal behaviour in order to undermine this peaceful citizens’ protest. The Freedom Convoy has maintained a relationship and a direct line of communications with the Ottawa Police Services (“OPS”), Ontario Provincial Police (“OPP”), Royal Canadian Mounted Police (“RCMP”), and the Parliamentary Protective Services (“PPS”).

The Freedom Convoy benefits from the expertise of Danny Bulford, a recently resigned member of the RCMP with 15 years of service. Mr. Bulford has extensive experience in large scale events and protective operations, stating:

“I would like to just put people’s minds at ease. The …heavy police presence…the barricades, and some of the equipment that people have seen …[are] all standard practice, and it’s no reason for panic. Anytime we have a massive event such as this, such as Canada Day in downtown Ottawa, that’s the norm, so it’s no reason for alarm, I assure you. We have been working closely with the Ottawa Police Service, the OPP, the RCMP, and the Parliamentary Protective Service.”

When receiving information that relates to public safety concerns, the Freedom Convoy immediately informs the respective police services, to guarantee the safety of the truckers, public and first responders.

“We are aware of media reports about people associated with the Freedom Convoy being arrested and charged. These were agitators not affiliated with us. Offences related to property damage and an alleged assault were witnessed by a trucker and one of our volunteer security personnel, who reported this to the Ottawa Police Service,” states Mr. Bulford.

“What I have seen with my own eyes [is] …  truckers and supporters of the movement feeding the homeless for free, right on Wellington Street and filling their backpacks. Truckers taking a whole trailer full of food down to the homeless shelter. Maintaining cleanliness of city streets, including picking up discarded masks all over the ground that we’ve come to see. Centralized garbage collection, shoveling snow at the War Memorial and the Terry Fox statue, decorating those two locations, and providing security for those two locations.”

“I’ve even seen people have tents set up right by Terry Fox in order to protect that statue and I expect that that level of commitment to the City of Ottawa and respecting our traditions in this country is just getting started,” adds Mr. Bulford.

“It is disturbing to see this peaceful protest being mischaracterized,” states Ms. Chipiuk.

“The truckers in the Freedom Convoy are feeding the homeless, shovelling snow downtown and cleaning up garbage. They want their voices heard for themselves and behalf of all Canadians and are conveying their message peacefully and lawfully,” concludes Ms. Chipiuk.

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This article was originally published on Canadian Dimension on May 21, 2020.

Stoking the fire

For over six years, Ukrainian and Russian-supported separatist forces have been in a stand-off in an armed conflict that has ravaged the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine. It has claimed the lives of over 13,000 people, including over 3,000 civilians. Awaiting return to peaceful life, residents have had to pass through military checkpoints to go to work, visit family, and deal with administrative matters. Further, the coronavirus crisis has resulted in additional measures preventing movement between the separatist-controlled regions and the rest of Ukraine.

Canada’s policy of providing Ukraine military aid has been disproportionately shaped by both Ukrainian far-right nationalism and the domestic right-wing lobby in Canada. The far-right in Ukraine holds a degree of military power and a corresponding threat of violence that surpasses that of other comparable European ultranationalist organizations. Numerous acts of violence by the far-right have directly contributed to enflaming and prolonging the drawn-out war, in some cases subverting action taken toward peace. Yet, Canada’s preference for fueling a military resolution has come at the expense of addressing the Donbass region’s complex underlying discontent, and at the cost of normalizing ultranationalist right-wing factions within the country.

A year after the conflict erupted, the Conservative Party of Canada under former Prime Minister Stephen Harper initiated a military mission in Ukraine known as Operation UNIFIER, through which Canada provided training and weapons to the Ukrainian military and paramilitary police. On March 18, 2019, former Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Minister of National Defense Harjit Sajjan announced the extension of UNIFIER until 2022. This extension was notably endorsed by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and by the Conservative Party of Canada. James Bezan—the Conservative Shadow Minister for National Defense and Manitoba’s MP for Selkirk-Interlake-Eastman—also promoted Canadian military aid and weapons sales to Ukraine in the House of Commons.

Until the appointment of François-Philippe Champagne as the Liberals’ Foreign Minister in November 2019, military engagement in the Donbass conflict was conspicuously championed by Freeland, who walked in-step with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. In May 2019, Ukraine elected President Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian with no prior political experience, on the ‘pro-peace’ and anti-corruption platform of his “Servant of the People” party. Champagne’s appointment has also signaled a slight shift away from Freeland’s approach toward more neutral diplomacy, as he has not been as personally invested in the Donbass war.

Two Minsk agreements were signed between Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in September 2014, calling for ceasefire and withdrawal of heavy weapons from eastern Ukraine. Some progress on the agreements has since been made, including a pact on April 10, 2020 to exchange 37 prisoners. On May 5, Zelensky also appointed representatives for the Trilateral Contact Group to interface with the self-declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.

The Minsk agreements notably proposed a form of semi-autonomous governance for Donbass. Both the government and separatist-controlled regions of Donbass have significant diversity, with mixed Ukrainian-Russians, Russian-speaking Ukrainians, and an ethnic Russian diaspora. During his term, Poroshenko introduced a slew of nationalist legislation targeting the Russian diaspora in Ukraine, including a law which granted special status to the Ukrainian language, making it mandatory for public sector workers, particularly those in regional administration in areas with large cultural minorities—such as the Donbass.

While on a dramatically different scale, the issue of minority rights in Ukraine resonates at different frequencies elsewhere in the country. Hungary, for example, has recently withheld its support for NATO-Ukraine Council meetings due to a perceived neglect of Hungarian minority rights, particularly language rights, in the western Ukrainian region of Zakarpattya. Far-right groups that have promoted views of an ethnically homogenous Ukraine have instigated violence at key moments that inform the crisis in the Donbass.

In numerous papers, Ivan Katchanovski, political scientist and professor at the University of Ottawa who has been researching the far-right, has drawn attention to the continuity between far-right violence in the Maidan and the Odessa massacres, and the Donbass war.

Members of far-right groups were found to be responsible for the murder of protesters with hunting pellets during the Maidan coup of February 2014. One of the most prominent participating groups was the Right Sector, an alliance of the ultranationalist organizations Tryzub, Social National Assembly, and Patriot of Ukraine. The latter group was inspired by the Nazi Ukrainian Insurgent Army of the Second World War.

Since May 2014, the Right Sector has also included the Ukrainian National Assembly (UNA) and its paramilitary branch, known as the Ukrainian National Self Defence Organization (UNSO). The UNA-UNSO has been identified by Human Rights Without Frontiers as anti-Semitic, and recognized as a neo-fascist organization. In their eyes, the narrative of a sovereign Ukraine is that of a homogenous country made up of “ethnically pure” Ukrainians. The UNA-UNSO has deplored “abhorrent Russification” and openly called for the slaughter of Russians.

In the Odessa massacre of May 2, 2014, fifty people died in the arson of the House of Trade Unions. Most of those who died were pro-Russian Odessans in the wake of the February coup—which deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, who had received majority support in eastern Ukraine, after he rejected Ukraine’s association agreement with the European Union.

Ukraine’s shift toward the West carried heavy implications for the Donbass, a region that is relianton coal-mining, metallurgical and chemical industries. The dissolution of the Soviet Union left many people divided across new state borders, with differing expectations of economic promise in eastern Ukraine that, over the past decades of neoliberalization, were not realized.

“You have people in the Donbass who actually feared going into the European Union, and feared for their jobs and their livelihoods because their whole industry, their whole economy is very geared toward Russia,” noted Andrew Rasiulis, former defense official and fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, who was responsible for Canadian national defense policy in the 1990s on central and eastern Europe.

“There is the whole cultural, ethnic mindset in western Ukraine that is very different, and the trick for Ukraine is to actually accommodate both sides,” he noted. “I think the west has a hard time understanding that there’s this nuance. The west tends to read the Ukrainian nationalist narrative as being the holistic narrative for all of Ukraine.”

Both Russia and the separatists have since supported the Minsk agreement’s call for reintegration of Donbass into Ukraine. Normandy summit talks in December 2019 were intended to re-affirm the Minsk agreements, which would mean steps toward the withdrawal of troops, and Ukrainian government support for an election in Donbass under the observation of the OSCE.

Zelensky continues to face criticism from influential ultranationalist factions in Ukraine, who have depicted the president’s actions since his election victory as “treason” and a form of “capitulation” to Russia. Nationalist far-right groups like the Azov Battalion have significantly more influence in western Ukrainian cities like Lviv, where Zelensky also garnered the least support during last year’s elections.

Street exhibit commemorating the Azov Battalion in Kharkiv (Kharkov), Ukraine, August 2018. Photo from Flickr.

Created in the spring of 2014 out of the Social National Assembly and Patriot of Ukraine, the Azov Battalion has been one of the most prominent far-right organizations volunteering on the Donbass frontlines. The paramilitary group has notably been involved in undermining actions toward demilitarization in Luhansk by the Ukrainian military, as with the case of Zolote in October 2019 when the volunteer battalion replaced withdrawing Ukrainian troops.

Andriy Parubiy, leader of the Svoboda party that grew out of the neo-Nazi Patriot of Ukraine party, clearly stated in 2014 that attacks on ‘insurgents’ would continue after withdrawal of Russian troops. An amnesty agreement for Donbass has been debated since 2015 but has still not been signed, although Ukraine has proposed amendments for a draft agreement.

While Canada has focused on providing weapons and military training to Ukraine, many experts agree that a more productive role for Canadian involvement would be to advance the Minsk agreement for the reintegration of Donbass.

Rasiulis has pointed to the potential for Canada to play a more proactive role through the OSCE, where Canada has a seat, by supporting Russian language rights, for example, and federalism to facilitate the integration of Donbass into a culturally heterogenous Ukraine. “These are things that Canada has a lot of experience in,” he notes.

Canada has instead taken a less productive route. As Rasiulis observes, “we have distanced ourselves and aligned ourselves with the nationalist sector of Ukrainian politics.” Increasing Canadian weapons sales and military aid to Ukraine has shown that some Canadian actors in the Donbass conflict have only their own interests at heart.

Video of an announcement by Andrei Biletskii, the first commander of the volunteer-based Azov Regiment of the National Guard of Ukraine, with volunteer fighters near Zolote. Still image from YouTube.

Out of our hands

In August 2018, Global Affairs Canada approved a record-breaking arms deal to sell Ukraine fifty LRT-3 50 calibre sniper rifles manufactured by Winnipeg’s PGW Defense Technologies. With an approximate range of 1,800 meters, the rifles are described by PGW as intended for “long-range engagements of both hard and soft targets”—in other words, machines and people.

The sale became controversial because in June 2014 Ukraine had formally integrated extremist far-right militias including the Aidar, Dnipro, Donbass, and Azov battalions into the National Guard—which is itself under the command of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. With this integration, the distinction between the official military and its extremist, far-right volunteer factions has been blurred.

In September 2014, Amnesty International released a report on war crimes by the far-right Aidar Battalion. Aidar was found to have detained, beaten and tortured civilians in Donbass including businessmen and farmers that members of the battalion accused of collaborating with the separatists. The UN Human Rights Commission reported on executions of Donbass civilians by members of the Dnipro Battalion. Testimonials by captives have also described torture by both National Guard servicemen and volunteer battalions.

Winnipeg’s PGW made headlines when sniper rifles sold to Saudi Arabia (Coyote, LRT-3, and Timberwolf) were found in the possession of Yemeni soldiers, and also captured by Houthi forces who targeted civilians in Yemen. As Project Ploughshares researcher Kelsey Gallagher explained, the PGW rifles that made their way to Yemeni soldiers “have recently been illegally diverted from Saudi Arabian stockpiles to illicit third-parties in Yemen, in breach of Canadian export controls.” General Dynamics Land Systems light armoured vehicles (LAVs)—manufactured in London, Ontario—were also found as part of Yemeni convoys.

When PGW’s rifles were found in Houthi hands, the rifle company’s founder Ross Spagrud hired consultant Kory Teneycke, of lobbying firm Coriolis Public Affairs, former VP of Sun News and previously Director of Communications for the Conservatives under Harper.

Teneycke confirmed by email that he advised PGW on both Saudi Arabia and Ukraine in 2016, indicating PGW’s concerns with the potential controversy in the Ukrainian deal months before Canada even approved sales of restricted weapons to Ukraine. Canada had lifted the restrictions on prohibited firearms trade with Ukraine in December 2017, adding the country to Canada’s Automatic Firearm Country Control List (AFCCL).

Compared to the Canadian arms trade with Saudia Arabia and Israel—both of which are destinations for the majority of Canadian military exports—$1 million worth of sniper rifles is not a large military sale. The rapid increase in exported weapons following the addition of Ukraine to the AFCCL, however, allows the sale of Canadian-made firearms, making the Donbass conflict a profitable opportunity for Canadian weapons manufacturers.

As Kelsey Gallagher explained, the AFCCL is supposed to act as an arms control instrument but actually becoming a member of the AFCCL “frequently predates an associated spike in Canadian arms sales, acting to facilitate the Canadian arms trade, as opposed to hinder it.”

This became clear when Canada’s total military exports to Ukraine in 2018 quickly doubled that of 2014, rising to $5.2 million. What’s more, shortly before Canada added Ukraine to the AFCCL, Minister Harjit Sajjan met with former Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak in September 2017 to discuss the construction of a joint ammunition production plant in Ukraine.

While the far-right battalions in Ukraine’s National Guard are not representative of the country’s army as a whole, they still play an active role on the front-lines of Donbass and may be the recipients of American Javelin missiles or Winnipeg-made sniper rifles. Gallagher noted that Canada’s lack of a “functioning post-export inspection regime” means there is not enough oversight to ensure that weapons are not being used by far-right extremists.

In the case of Ukraine, Canadian equipment has already been found with the volunteer battalions, whose integration into the National Guard makes it all the more difficult to track weapons use. According to Ivan Katchanovski, “Azov got several Spartan armoured personnel carriers, which were produced in Ukraine under a Canadian license.” Ukrainian officials have also recently discovered a weapons cache at what was alleged to be a volunteer battalion base.

The human rights violations of the volunteer battalions and their disregard for civilians—documented for years by Amnesty International, the UN Human Rights Commission, and other human rights non-profits—should have triggered alarm concerning the far-right groups within the Ukrainian military.

“This fact alone would, [under] Canadian export law, preclude the transfer of these rifles to Ukraine,” said Gallagher. “Yet we continue to see Global Affairs very flexibly interpret their obligation to stem weapon exports [into] scenarios where there is overriding risk that these violations can occur, or where Canadian weapons can contribute to ongoing instability.”

Phil Gurski, former senior strategic analyst at CSIS specializing in terrorism and president of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting, referred to such arms deals as “strictly a political decision”. Global Affairs Canada can approve deals, like PGW’s rifles, overriding concerns from National Defense or CSIS on the risk of weapons being diverted to, or captured by, extremists.

By the end of May 2019, Operation UNIFIER had trained over 12,500 Ukrainian troops. The Canadian government has offered assurances that the Canadian Armed Forces would not provide training or support for Ukrainian extremists. But there is no explicit law prohibiting Canadian military aid to Azov or other far-right regiments. This is in contrast to restrictions adopted, at least on paper, by the United States. Katchanovski’s academic studies of the Ukrainian far-right contributed to the US adoption of a defense appropriations bill amendment in 2018, which banned U.S. military aid including prohibitions on providing arms, funding or training to the Azov Regiment.

Official statements by the Canadian government haven’t stopped Canadian military personnel from training the neo-Nazi battalions on their own initiative. Retired Canadian Armed Forces Major Oksana Kuzyshyn—who previously served in Israel, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Haiti—spent 60 days training the Azov Battalion to NATO standards. She even gave a presentation about it in 2016 to the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Association of Calgary. Kuzyshyn was a member of the Canadian military since 1985, and since May 2014 has worked as a CAF contract officer.

Canadian civilians have also fought with Ukraine’s far-right battalions—finding common cause in the nativist, extremist politics of these battalions. An anonymous data-dump on the now-defunct far-right message board Iron March in November 2019 released a list of identities connected with various violent far-right groups including Atomwaffen—a terrorist group created through the forum—National Action, and Golden Dawn. The Azov Battalion was also among them.

The message board, now archived and maintained by The Jewish Worker, included messages between members discussing joining Azov at the headquarters in Kiev. Boris Mihajlovic, a Canadian Navy reservist based in Alberta—identifying as Serbian with Croatian citizenship—acted as a moderator on the Iron March forum, and brokered arms deals in Bosnia. Known as MOONLORD, Mihajlovic promoted training to forum members with the Canadian Armed Forces.

Excerpt from a conversation about the Azov Battalion on the Iron March message board.

The Florida-based Atomwaffen already had members embedded within the Canadian military. As Mack Lamoureaux and Ben Makuch reported for Vice in May 2019, Canadian military intelligence documented over 50 CAF members as connected to a hate group or who “made statements/took actions deemed to be discriminatory in nature.”

In its September 2019 report on the transnational rise of violent white supremacism, the New York-based Soufan Centre called out the Azov Battalion for its “neo-Nazi beliefs”. Citing the global connections of white supremacist groups, the Centre described how far-right agents have taken advantage of the conflict in eastern Ukraine to pursue their own agendas. The highest numbers of foreign volunteers in Ukraine, other than Russia, have come from Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Croatia, Georgia, and Italy, among others.

Undue influence

Rather than distancing themselves from the ultranationalist Ukrainian far-right, influential institutions within the Ukrainian Canadian diaspora have instead supported these alliances. The Toronto-based Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC), for example, is one of the main organizations lobbying the Canadian government to send weapons to Ukraine. As Moss Robeson reported for The Grayzone, the UCC had denounced support for Ukrainian fascist martyr Stepan Bandera in its early years, yet has recently adopted his symbolism of Ukrainian nativist unity and historical alliance with the Nazis. Canadian Armed Forces Major Oksana Kuzyshyn—the contract officer who trained the Azov Battalion to NATO standards—is a board member of the UCC.

In addition to Canada’s official military aid, Canadian civilians have raised funds and provided lethal aid to Ukraine through channels in the Canadian-Ukrainian diaspora. The UCC has fundraised for Right Sector and Army SOS, an organization that operates a drone factory based in Kiev that was founded by investment banker Yaroslav Tropinov. In the early years of the conflict, Army SOS claimed that it worked “directly with commanders and soldiers (bypassing corrupt generals),” providing drones, weapons and vehicles, among other forms of military aid. According to the Globe and Mail in 2015, Army SOS had also “purchased parts for sniper rifles and tripwire detonators.”

As a result, Canadian foreign policy on Ukraine and, by extension, the media narrative, has also been largely influenced by right-wing factions of the Ukrainian Canadian diaspora, which have an influential electoral base with strong support for Conservatives in the Canadian mid-west. According to Rasiulis, they have had a disproportionate influence on Canadian foreign policy.

In Ukraine, far-right groups continue to undermine the role of Ukrainian authorities and implement their own interpretation of the law. For example, a volunteer battalion known as National Druzhina, formed out of Azov veterans, is known to have attacked Roma camps in 2018, when it decided that a Roma community had not complied with an ultimatum issued on Facebook to clear out of their camp. The ultimatum stated, “When the police don’t act, the National Druzhyna takes control of the situation.” Druzhina also announced its intention to monitor the 2019 presidential elections.

The links to the Ukrainian far-right as well as to domestic right-wing politics have ultimately affected Canada’s actions with respect to the resolution of the Donbass conflict. Rasiulis maintains that “the nationalists’ influence on Canada—and Freeland particularly in her role as Deputy Prime Minister—still restrains Canadian diplomacy from going so far as to actually work toward a solution.”

Canada has used its stature as a perceived leader in international development, humanitarian, and peace and security assistance efforts to forge dubious alliances, supposedly promoting what Freeland has referred to “rules-based international order”. Since 2014, however, Canada’s focus on military aid and arms deals with Ukraine has done more to foment hostilities and lend legitimacy to ultranationalist subversion in the Donbass. Everyday people in Donbass have been treated by their governments as political pawns, by Canadian politicians as fodder for distant, nationalist electorate bases, and by North American weapons manufacturers as dispensable justification for profit. But Canadian politicians have opted to disregard their involvement in supporting the far-right and simply look the other way.

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Lital Khaikin is an author and journalist based in Tiohtiá:ke (Montréal). She has published articles in Toward Freedom, Warscapes, Briarpatch, and the Media Co-op, and has appeared in literary publications like 3:AM Magazine, Berfrois, Tripwire, and Black Sun Lit’s “Vestiges” journal. She also runs The Green Violin, a slow-burning samizdat-style literary press for the free distribution of literary paraphernalia.

Featured image: Members of the Azov Battalion and other far-right groups march through Kyiv during Defenders of Ukraine Day, October 14, 2018. Photo from Leave the West Behind.

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All the nations involved in wars in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) region for the past thirty years (in Europe for the last seventy-seven years) were represented: Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia (Kosovo), Macedonia, Georgia (South Ossetia), Ukraine and Azerbaijan (Nagorno-Karabakh), with NATO mainstays the U.S., Britain and Turkey as overseers at the meeting as they were of the wars.

See this. Also see this.

The 8th ministerial meeting of the Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council was held in Baku on February 4 at the Gulustan Palace.

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev attended the meeting.

One of the largest projects of the 21st century, the Southern Gas Corridor consists of four segments – the Shah Deniz Phase II, the South Caucasus Pipeline, the TANAP and TAP gas pipelines. Azerbaijan always hosts ministerial meetings within the Southern Gas Corridor Consultative Council, established on the initiative of President Ilham Aliyev….

Although the meeting was held in a video conference format due to the pandemic last year, this time EU commissioners, the United States, Great Britain, Turkey, Georgia, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Croatia, Hungary, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Northern Macedonia and high-level representatives of Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine and Turkmenistan met in Baku.

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Rick Rozoff, renowned author and geopolitical analyst, actively involved in opposing war, militarism and interventionism for over fifty years. He manages the Anti-Bellum and For peace, against war website.

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

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In a recent press conference held on the occasion of a visit to Moscow by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about continued NATO expansion, and the potential consequences if Ukraine was to join the trans-Atlantic alliance.

“Their [NATO’s] main task is to contain the development of Russia,” Putin said. “Ukraine is simply a tool to achieve this goal. They could draw us into some kind of armed conflict and force their allies in Europe to impose the very tough sanctions that are being talked about in the United States today,” he noted. “Or they could draw Ukraine into NATO, set up strike weapons systems there and encourage some people to resolve the issue of Donbass or Crimea by force, and still draw us into an armed conflict.”

Putin continued,

“Let us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and is stuffed with weapons and there are state-of-the-art missile systems just like in Poland and Romania. Who will stop it from unleashing operations in Crimea, let alone Donbass? Let us imagine that Ukraine is a NATO member and ventures such a combat operation. Do we have to fight with the NATO bloc? Has anyone thought anything about it? It seems not.”

But these words were dismissed by White House spokesperson Jen Psaki, who likened them to a fox “screaming from the top of the hen house that he’s scared of the chickens,” adding that any Russian expression of fear over Ukraine “should not be reported as a statement of fact.”

Psaki’s comments, however, are divorced from the reality of the situation. The principal goal of the government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is what he terms the “de-occupation” of Crimea. While this goal has, in the past, been couched in terms of diplomacy – “[t]he synergy of our efforts must force Russia to negotiate the return of our peninsula,” Zelensky told the Crimea Platform, a Ukrainian forum focused on regaining control over Crimea – the reality is his strategy for return is a purely military one, in which Russia has been identified as a “military adversary”, and the accomplishment of which can only be achieved through NATO membership.

How Zelensky plans on accomplishing this goal using military means has not been spelled out. As an ostensibly defensive alliance, the odds are that NATO would not initiate any offensive military action to forcibly seize the Crimean Peninsula from Russia. Indeed, the terms of Ukraine’s membership, if granted, would need to include some language regarding the limits of NATO’s Article 5 – which relates to collective defense – when addressing the Crimea situation, or else a state of war would de facto exist upon Ukrainian accession.

The most likely scenario would involve Ukraine being rapidly brought under the ‘umbrella’ of NATO protection, with ‘battlegroups’ like those deployed into eastern Europe being formed on Ukrainian soil as a ‘trip-wire’ force, and modern air defenses combined with forward-deployed NATO aircraft put in place to secure Ukrainian airspace.

Once this umbrella has been established, Ukraine would feel emboldened to begin a hybrid conflict against what it terms the Russian occupation of Crimea, employing unconventional warfare capability it has acquired since 2015 at the hands of the CIA to initiate an insurgency designed specifically to “kill Russians.”

The idea that Russia would sit idly by while a guerilla war in Crimea was being implemented from Ukraine is ludicrous; if confronted with such a scenario, Russia would more than likely use its own unconventional capabilities in retaliation. Ukraine, of course, would cry foul, and NATO would be confronted with its mandatory obligation for collective defense under Article 5. In short, NATO would be at war with Russia.

This is not idle speculation. When explaining his recent decision to deploy some 3,000 US troops to Europe in response to the ongoing Ukrainian crisis, US President Joe Biden declared,

“As long as he’s [Putin] acting aggressively, we are going to make sure we reassure our NATO allies in Eastern Europe that we’re there and Article 5 is a sacred obligation.”

Biden’s comments echo those made during his initial visit to NATO Headquarters, on June 15 last year. At that time, Biden sat down with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and emphasized America’s commitment to Article 5 of the NATO charter. “Article 5 we take as a sacred obligation,” Biden said. “I want NATO to know America is there.”

Biden’s view of NATO and Ukraine is drawn from his experience as vice president under Barack Obama. In 2015, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work told reporters,

“As President Obama has said, Ukraine should … be able to choose its own future. And we reject any talk of a sphere of influence. And speaking in Estonia this past September, the president made it clear that our commitment to our NATO allies in the face of Russian aggression is unwavering. As he said it, in this alliance there are no old members and there are no new members. There are no junior partners and there are no senior partners. There are just allies, pure and simple. And we will defend the territorial integrity of every single ally.”

Just what would this defense entail? As someone who once trained to fight the Soviet Army, I can attest that a war with Russia would be unlike anything the US military has experienced – ever. The US military is neither organized, trained, nor equipped to fight its Russian counterparts. Nor does it possess doctrine capable of supporting large-scale combined arms conflict. If the US was to be drawn into a conventional ground war with Russia, it would find itself facing defeat on a scale unprecedented in American military history. In short, it would be a rout.

Don’t take my word for it. In 2016, then-Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, when speaking about the results of a study – the Russia New Generation Warfare – he had initiated in 2015 to examine lessons learned from the fighting in eastern Ukraine, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that the Russians have superior artillery firepower, better combat vehicles, and have learned sophisticated use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for tactical effect. “Should US forces find themselves in a land war with Russia,” McMaster said, “they would be in for a rude, cold awakening.”

In short, they would get their asses kicked.

America’s 20-year Middle Eastern misadventure in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria produced a military that was no longer capable of defeating a peer-level opponent on the battlefield. This reality was highlighted in a study conducted by the US Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade, the central American component of NATO’s Rapid Deployment Force, in 2017. The study found that US military forces in Europe were underequipped, undermanned, and inadequately organized to confront military aggression from Russia. The lack of viable air defense and electronic warfare capability, when combined with an over-reliance on satellite communications and GPS navigation systems, would result in the piecemeal destruction of the US Army in rapid order should they face off against a Russian military that was organized, trained, and equipped to specifically defeat a US/NATO threat.

The issue isn’t just qualitative, but also quantitative – even if the US military could stand toe-to-toe with a Russian adversary (which it can’t), it simply lacks the size to survive in any sustained battle or campaign. The low-intensity conflict that the US military waged in Iraq and Afghanistan has created an organizational ethos built around the idea that every American life is precious, and that all efforts will be made to evacuate the wounded so that they can receive life-saving medical attention in as short a timeframe as possible. This concept may have been viable where the US was in control of the environment in which fights were conducted. It is, however, pure fiction in large-scale combined arms warfare. There won’t be medical evacuation helicopters flying to the rescue – even if they launched, they would be shot down. There won’t be field ambulances – even if they arrived on the scene, they would be destroyed in short order. There won’t be field hospitals – even if they were established, they would be captured by Russian mobile forces.

What there will be is death and destruction, and lots of it. One of the events which triggered McMaster’s study of Russian warfare was the destruction of a Ukrainian combined arms brigade by Russian artillery in early 2015. This, of course, would be the fate of any similar US combat formation. The superiority Russia enjoys in artillery fires is overwhelming, both in terms of the numbers of artillery systems fielded and the lethality of the munitions employed.

While the US Air Force may be able to mount a fight in the airspace above any battlefield, there will be nothing like the total air supremacy enjoyed by the American military in its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The airspace will be contested by a very capable Russian air force, and Russian ground troops will be operating under an air defense umbrella the likes of which neither the US nor NATO has ever faced. There will be no close air support cavalry coming to the rescue of beleaguered American troops. The forces on the ground will be on their own.

This feeling of isolation will be furthered by the reality that, because of Russia’s overwhelming superiority in electronic warfare capability, the US forces on the ground will be deaf, dumb, and blind to what is happening around them, unable to communicate, receive intelligence, and even operate as radios, electronic systems, and weapons cease to function.

Any war with Russia would find American forces slaughtered in large numbers. Back in the 1980s, we routinely trained to accept losses of 30-40 percent and continue the fight, because that was the reality of modern combat against a Soviet threat. Back then, we were able to effectively match the Soviets in terms of force size, structure, and capability – in short, we could give as good, or better, than we got.

That wouldn’t be the case in any European war against Russia. The US will lose most of its forces before they are able to close with any Russian adversary, due to deep artillery fires. Even when they close with the enemy, the advantage the US enjoyed against Iraqi and Taliban insurgents and ISIS terrorists is a thing of the past. Our tactics are no longer up to par – when there is close combat, it will be extraordinarily violent, and the US will, more times than not, come out on the losing side.

But even if the US manages to win the odd tactical engagement against peer-level infantry, it simply has no counter to the overwhelming number of tanks and armored fighting vehicles Russia will bring to bear. Even if the anti-tank weapons in the possession of US ground troops were effective against modern Russian tanks (and experience suggests they are probably not), American troops will simply be overwhelmed by the mass of combat strength the Russians will confront them with.

In the 1980s, I had the opportunity to participate in a Soviet-style attack carried out by specially trained US Army troops – the ‘OPFOR’ – at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, where two Soviet-style Mechanized Infantry Regiments squared off against a US Army Mechanized Brigade. The fight began at around two in the morning. By 5:30am it was over, with the US Brigade destroyed, and the Soviets having seized their objectives. There’s something about 170 armored vehicles bearing down on your position that makes defeat all but inevitable.

This is what a war with Russia would look like. It would not be limited to Ukraine, but extend to battlefields in the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, and elsewhere. It would involve Russian strikes against NATO airfields, depots, and ports throughout the depth of Europe.

This is what will happen if the US and NATO seek to attach the “sacred obligation” of Article 5 of the NATO Charter to Ukraine. It is, in short, a suicide pact.

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Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter

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Following the killing of al-Baghdadi’s shadowy successor at Syria’s border along Turkey in a US Delta Force night raid on February 3 on a tipoff from the Turkish intelligence, although the mainstream media is alleging the ISIS leader was killed in a non-descript three-story house on the outskirts of Atmeh, a densely populated town in Syria’s northwest Idlib province straddling the border with Turkey, and the building and the impoverished locality were purportedly inhabited by “civilian refugees” displaced by the decade-long conflict, the fortified neighborhood was in fact an al-Nusra Front redoubt populated by militants and their families providing much-needed security to the slain ISIS caliph.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led by al-Nusra Front Emir Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, controls most of the territory in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province with the tacit approval of Turkish security forces that have established numerous military outpost in the Syrian enclave bordering Turkey.

As with the May 2011 Navy Seals raid at a fortified compound in the garrison town of Pakistan that eliminated al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his courier, the three-story building on the outskirts of Atmeh, “a stone’s throw away” from the Turkish border, too, was occupied by the slain ISIS leader, his courier, who also acted as a trusted bodyguard, and their families.

The courier, variously described as a mechanic or a truck driver, occupied the ground portion of the building along with his family and frequently ventured out of the house on a motorbike and fixed neighbors’ cars as pastime, according to a Guardian report [1], whereas the ISIS leader occupying the top floor of the building with his family seldom came out of the house.

The courier had allegedly rented the house for $130 about eleven months ago, according to a New York Times report [2], though a more plausible scenario is that the Islamic State must have paid a large amount of protection money to al-Nusra leadership for hosting in its territory both the slain caliphs of the Islamic State, al-Baghdadi and al-Qurayshi, who were killed in October 2019 and February 3 raids, respectively.

All the adjoining houses in the neighborhood were reportedly occupied by al-Nusra Front militants and their families, with an al-Nusra Front checkpoint only 200 meters away, a Turkish police station 500 meters and a Turkish military outpost a kilometer away from the building, according to credible sources [3] with inside information of Syria’s Idlib.

The militants were given forewarning of the imminent raid and were strictly ordered not to fire upon the US forces by the al-Nusra leadership and the Turkish intelligence. Still, the trigger-happy Delta Force commandos shot down two militants while evacuating and also blew up a helicopter that encountered malfunction.

Most of the alleged “civilian casualties” that occurred during the raid, as reported by Syria’s dubious “humanitarian organization” the White Helmets, were of militants and their families belonging to the Islamic State who remained loyal to the slain caliph instead of the collaborators belonging to the al-Nusra Front.

In fact, some of the casualties took place in a firefight between the two terrorist outfits that immediately ensued following the raid after the al-Nusra militants stabbed the ISIS caliph in the back for $10 million bounty. The shootout on the ground was the reason why the evacuating US forces had to open fire on the militants down below, assuming their choppers were being targeted.

As in the February 3 Delta Force raid eliminating al-Baghdadi’s successor al-Qurayshi, it’s important to note in the news coverage of the killing of al-Baghdadi in October 2019 that although the mainstream media was trumpeting for several years before the raid that the Islamic State’s fugitive chief was hiding somewhere on the Iraq-Syria border in the east, he was found hiding in northwest Idlib province, under the control of Turkish militant proxies and al-Nusra Front, and was killed at Barisha village, just five kilometers from the Turkish border.

According to the “official version” of Washington’s story regarding the dramatic killing of al-Baghdadi in the October 2019 raid, the choppers took off from an American airbase in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, flew hundreds of miles over the enemy territory in the airspace controlled by the Syrian and Russian air forces, killed the self-proclaimed “caliph” of the Islamic State in a Hollywood-style special-ops raid, and took the same route back to Erbil along with the dead body of the terrorist and his belongings.

Although Washington had conducted several airstrikes in Syria’s Idlib in the past, those were carried out by fixed-wing aircraft that fly at high altitudes, and the aircraft took off from the American airbases in Turkey, which were just across the border from Syria’s northwestern Idlib province. Why would Washington risk flying troops at low altitudes in helicopters over hostile territory controlled by myriads of Syria’s heavily armed militant outfits?

In fact, several Turkish journalists, including Rajip Soylu, the Turkey correspondent for the Middle East Eye, live-tweeted on the night of the special-ops raid that the choppers took off from the American airbase in Turkey’s Incirlik.

It’s pertinent to note that in October 2019, the Trump administration promised to comply with Turkish President Erdogan’s longstanding demand to evacuate the American forces from the Kurdish-held areas in northeast Syria in October 2019.

Immediately following the announcement of the withdrawal of the US forces from northeast Syria by the Trump administration on October 6, Turkey mounted Operation Peace Spring on October 9 in which the Turkish armed forces and allied Syrian militant proxies invaded and occupied 120 kilometers wide and 32 kilometers deep stretch of Syrian territory between the northeastern towns of Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn, creating a “buffer zone” between the Turkish border and the territory held by the Syrian YPG Kurds in northeast Syria, which Turkey has designated as “terrorists.”

In return, Trump got a coveted feather in his diplomatic cap, as Turkey let US Special Forces kill fugitive leader of the Islamic State Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on October 26, weeks after the Turkish Operation Peace Spring in northeast Syria on October 9.

Clearly, both the self-styled caliphs of ISIS, al-Baghdadi and his successor al-Qurayshi, were hiding in Syria’s Idlib with the blessings of al-Nusra leadership and the Turkish security forces, which have trained and armed myriad groups of jihadists during Syria’s decade-long proxy war, and were used as bargaining chips to extract geo-strategic concessions from Washington.

The scapegoating of both the ISIS caliphs by the Erdogan government, first in October 2019 to let Turkey mount Operation Peace Spring in northeast Syria and then on February 3, was done to reconcile with the Biden administration as Erdogan was repeatedly snubbed by Biden throughout his maiden year as president due to Erdogan’s personal friendship and business partnership with Biden’s political rival Trump.

During the four years of the Trump presidency, Erdogan acted with impunity in regional conflicts, from Syria and Libya to Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, because he had forged a personal bonhomie with Donald Trump, as Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner was a business partner of Erdogan’s son-in-law and former finance minister of Turkey Berat Albayrak, who was summarily dismissed from the ministry as soon as Trump lost the US presidential election in November 2020.

Biden tightened the screws not only on Erdogan but also on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman after being elected president, and now both the Middle Eastern “strongmen” are bending over backwards to reconcile with the Biden administration to regain their lost international prestige.

Offering the traditional Turkish cuisine, the ISIS caliph, on a platter to powerful guests is Erdogan’s customary way of fawning over patrons in the White House, as is obvious from the killing of al-Baghdadi in October 2019 and the elimination of his successor in the February 3 raid.

Regarding the nexus between the militants of the Islamic State and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the jihadist group controlling Syria’s Idlib, it’s noteworthy that Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of al-Nusra Front, has emerged as the most influential militant leader in Syria’s decade-long proxy war after the killing of Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a US Special Ops raid two years ago. In fact, since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in August 2011 to April 2013, the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front used to be a single jihadist organization that chose the title Jabhat al-Nusra.

Although the current al-Nusra Front has been led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, he was appointed[4] the emir of al-Nusra Front by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the slain caliph of the Islamic State, in January 2012. Thus, al-Jolani’s Nusra Front is only a splinter group of the Islamic State, which split from its parent organization in April 2013 over a leadership dispute between the two organizations.

In August 2011, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was based in Iraq, began sending Syrian and Iraqi jihadists experienced in guerrilla warfare across the border into Syria to establish an organization inside the country. Led by a Syrian militant known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the group began recruiting fighters and establishing militant cells throughout the country. On 23 January 2012, the group announced its formation as Jabhat al-Nusra.

In April 2013, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi released an audio statement in which he announced that al-Nusra Front had been established, financed and supported by the Islamic State of Iraq. Al-Baghdadi declared that the two groups were merging under the name the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” (ISIS). The leader of al-Nusra Front, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, issued a statement denying the merger and complaining that neither he nor anyone else in al-Nusra’s leadership had been consulted about the arbitrary decision.

Al-Qaeda Central’s leader and the successor of Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, tried to mediate the dispute between al-Baghdadi and al-Jolani but eventually, in October 2013, he endorsed al-Nusra Front as the official franchise of al-Qaeda Central in Syria. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, however, defied the nominal authority of al-Qaeda Central and declared himself the caliph of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

Bearing this background in mind, it becomes abundantly clear that a single militant organization operated in Syria and Iraq under the leadership of al-Baghdadi until April 2013, which chose the banner of al-Nusra Front, and that the current emir of the breakaway faction of al-Nusra Front, al-Jolani, was actually al-Baghdadi’s deputy in Syria.

Thus, the Islamic State operated in Syria since August 2011 under the designation of al-Nusra Front and it subsequently changed its name to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in April 2013, after which it overran Raqqa and parts of Deir al-Zor in Syria in the summer of 2013. In January 2014, it overran Fallujah and parts of Ramadi in Iraq and reached the zenith of its power after it captured Mosul in June 2014.

After the dismantling of the Islamic State “caliphate” in 2019 with the remnants of militants being on the run and the rest having already joined the ranks of al-Nusra Front, it’s about time al-Jolani, the wily lieutenant of al-Baghdadi who hosted both the slain “caliphs” of the Islamic State in his territory in Syria’s Idlib to return the favor until they were both betrayed and killed in the US Special Ops raids, to do away with pretenses and declare himself the caliph of the Islamic State, instead of letting another obscure jihadist, like undistinguished al-Qurayshi, assume the “venerated” jihadist title.

But Abu Mohammad al-Jolani is a cunning operator skilled in realpolitik, public relations and Machiavellian intrigues who would never shoot himself in the foot. In a May 2015 interview [5] with Qatar’s state television al-Jazeera, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani took a public pledge at the behest of his Turkish and Gulf-based patrons that his organization simply had regional ambitions limited to fighting the Syrian government and had no intention, whatsoever, of mounting terror attacks in the Western countries.

That’s the only salient distinction assuring the safety of his militant network in Syria’s northwestern enclave and guaranteeing continued financial and military support from Turkey, the Gulf States and the Western powers to the violent jihadist organization that has the blood of as many Syrians on its hands during the decade-long conflict as the Islamic State.

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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 the Middle East regions. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military industrial complex and petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor of meticulously researched and credibly sourced investigative reports to Global Research.

Notes

[1] ‘We are still shocked’: the Syrians who discovered Islamic State’s leader was their neighbor: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/04/we-are-still-shocked-the-syrians-who-discovered-islamic-states-leader-was-their-neighbour

[2] ‘Those Who Remain Will Die’: Neighbors Recall Night of Fear in Syria Raid: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/03/world/middleeast/isis-raid-idlib-qurayshi.html

[3] Slain ISIS Terror Leader Resided In Turkish Occupation Area Of Syria: https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-commandos-take-out-top-isis-leader-daring-raid-syrias-idlib

[4] Al-Jolani was appointed as the emir of al-Nusra Front by al-Baghdadi: http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/16689

[5] Al-Jolani’s interview to Al-Jazeera: “Our mission is to defeat the Syrian government”: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/nusra-front-golani-assad-syria-hezbollah-isil-150528044857528.html

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Yesterday I had the great pleasure to spend the day in Ottawa in order to experience the Freedom Convoy with my own eyes.

This is the real deal.

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This article was originally published on the Canadian Patriot Review.

Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , and Senior Fellow at the American University in Moscow. He is author of the ‘Untold History of Canada’ book series and Clash of the Two Americas (which you can purchase by clicking those links or the book covers below). In 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation .

Featured image is from CPR

Hemispheric Gangsterism: The US Embargo Against Cuba Turns 60

February 7th, 2022 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

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It all seems worn, part of an aspic approach to foreign policy.  But US President Joe Biden is keen to ensure that old, and lingering mistakes, retain their flavour.  Towards Cuba, it is now 60 years since President John F. Kennedy’s Presidential Proclamation 3447 imposed an embargo on all trade with the island state.

The proclamation was packed with Cold War righteousness and much sanctimony.  Cuba under the revolutionary Fidel Castro, fresh from overthrowing a Washington favourite and blood-smeared thug, Fulgencio Batista, was “incompatible with the principles and objectives of the Inter-American system”.  The US was “prepared to take all necessary actions to promote national and hemispheric security by isolating the present Government of Cuba and thereby reducing the threat posed by its alignment with communist powers.”

A year later, Kennedy invoked the Trading with the Enemy Act with the purpose of expanding the scope of the embargo, covering trade, travel, and financial transactions except those licensed by the Secretary of the Treasury, as directed by the president.

Prior to inking the prohibition of the importation into the US of all goods of Cuban origin and all goods imported from or through Cuba, Kennedy had a particular vice that needed feeding.  The resourceful press secretary Pierre Salinger was ordered to scour Washington and gather as many Cuban cigars (the H. Upmann Petit Upmann was a favourite) as he could by the morning.  The mission was a success: 1,200 cigars were found.

Acting with suitable presidential hypocrisy, Kennedy could then authorise the proclamation.  As Salinger recalls, “Kennedy smiled, and opened up his desk.  He took out a long paper which he immediately signed.  It was the decree banning all Cuban products from the United States.  Cuban cigars were now illegal in our country.”

It was very much in keeping with Kennedy’s own family’s tradition of self-enrichment and opportunism.  His father, Joe Kennedy, used his efforts in the latter part of 1933 to nab British importation acts to distribute a range of spirits, including Gordon’s gin, Haig & Haig Scotch whiskey, and Dewar’s.  Father Kennedy’s nose had picked up the right political scent: the disastrous era of Prohibition was coming to an end, and he was hardly going to miss out capitalising on it.  By the end of 1934, net profits had quadrupled.

The embargo began a series of justifications and rationales for a venal system that has proven to be bankrupt and, in large measure, ineffective.  Cuba has been the hemisphere’s villain so designated by the biggest of them all, at various points condemned for its relationship with the Soviet Union, its socialism, human rights abuses, and its lending of support for revolutions in Africa and Latin America.

Even before Kennedy came to power, the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower had concluded that the Castro regime could only be deprived of its support “through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship.”  The April 1960 memorandum from Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Lestor D. Mallory, seeking to justify an unlawful interference in the affairs of a sovereign state, suggested that such policies be adopted in an “adroit and inconspicuous” way to make “the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation, and overthrow government.”  This, in the argot of international relations, was the language of war.

At points, US officials could pettily gloat about the various effects of the embargo.  The prohibition of food sales to Cuba during Lyndon B. Johnson’s Presidency (Kennedy had exempted them) saw a delighted Gordon Chase, member of the National Security Council staff between 1962 and 1966, praise the “effective control over lard supplies.”  Cuba had resorted to importing “an inedible product from the Netherlands and then turn into an edible product.  It is low quality and the Cubans don’t like it.”  A truly mighty outcome.

The sanctions regime has, for the most, been in place for six decades.  There have been brief spells of tinkering.  In 1975, for instance, the embargo on trade between Cuba and the companies of US subsidiaries working in third countries, was lifted.  Two years later, under the Carter administration, the complete travel ban was lifted, and remittances to family members based on the island permitted.

But more typical were the apoplectic responses such as that of President Ronald Reagan, who re-imposed the travel ban and placed Cuba on the US State Department’s list of State Sponsors of International Terrorism.  Both Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton pushed the democratic fetish with some aggression, including the Cuba Democracy Act of 1992 and the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996.  This was hemispheric gangsterism in plain sight.

In 1982, despite admitting that the sanctions had initially done significant damage to “Cuba’s growth and general development”, a CIA case study had to concede that the embargo had fallen short in meeting its objectives.  Cuba’s capital base had diversified, making use of Soviet, East and Western European, and Japanese machinery and equipment.  Havana had guilefully resorted to front companies “to obtain various types of US products, particularly consumer goods.”

While falling short of admitting it had been a crude failure, the same study prosaically remarked that Castro’s position remained unchanged.  “Sanctions implied a grave external threat, which Castro exploited to carry out the radicalization of all Cuban political, economic, and social institutions.”

In 2012, at the five-decade point of US-Cuba sanctions, the Obama administration made some modest concessions to allowing US businesses to establish themselves in Cuba.  This policy shift had its own Trojan Horse element to it.  “By further easing these sanctions,” US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew reasoned at the time, “the United States is helping to support the Cuban people in their effort to achieve the political and economic freedom necessary to build a democratic, prosperous and stable Cuba.”

On December 17, 2014, President Barack Obama announced that he would be “ending an outdated policy that had failed to advance US interests and support reform and a better life for the Cuban people on the island over several decades.”  The new normalisation policy would increase engagements between Washington and Havana in “areas of mutual interest, and increase travel to, commerce with, and the free flow of information to Cuba.”  Rabid opponents foamily insisted that no measure should aid this satanic communist State.

The Trump administration proceeded to reverse what adjustments had been made to the US-Cuban relationship.  Individual travel by US citizens to Cuba for educational and cultural changes was prohibited.  Most functions of the US embassy in Havana were suspended.  Trump even went so far as to deem Cuba a state sponsor of international terrorism under the Export Administration Act of 1979.

President Biden has shown an almost soporific lack of interest in challenging the sanctions regime.  When it has acted, it has kept the system in place, going so far as to impose specific sanctions on Cuban security and interior ministry officials.  Responding to claims of Cuban government brutality in suppressing protests, Biden declared last July that the “United States will continue to sanction individuals responsible for oppression of the Cuban people.”

Some members of that mendacious class known as Congress are urging a trimming of sanctions, though their views remain modest and calculating in the name of benevolent self-interest.  In mid-December, 114 or so members sent a letter to the President calling for “humanitarian actions” to lift economic sanctions on food, medicine and other forms of humanitarian assistance.  “Engagement is more likely to enable the political, economic and social openings that Cubans may desire, and to ease the hardships that Cubans face today.”

Whichever group in Congress is consulted, from the vociferous Cuban American lobby in Florida to the claimed progressives in the metropolitan centres, all agree with one objective, however achieved: regime change.  The hemispheric gangster is simply biding its time.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

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Workers of the World Unite, and the Left Hates It

February 7th, 2022 by Jarrett Stepman

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The workers are uniting against government mandates and the left now calls it fascism.

What began as a GoFundMe campaign for Canadian truckers who lost their jobs due to COVID-19 mandates for cross-border travel turned into a massive “Freedom Convoy” that drove across Canada and into the capital, Ottawa.

Left-wing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dismissed the truckers as a “small fringe” with “unacceptable views.”

This is how Trudeau addressed the protest:

“I have attended protests and rallies in the past, when I agreed with the goals, when I supported the people expressing their concerns and their issues,” Trudeau said. “Black Lives Matter is an example of that. But I have also chosen not to go anywhere near protests that have expressed hateful rhetoric, violence towards fellow citizens, and a disrespect, not just of science, but of the front-line health workers, and quite frankly, the 90% of truckers who have been doing the right thing to put food on our tables.”

Let’s break this down.

Canada’s prime minister supports protests he agrees with. How brave!

Are we really to believe that the Black Lives Matter protests didn’t include “hateful rhetoric” and violence? They certainly didn’t practice social distancing or universal mask use when that was demanded by the capital “S,” science.

Unlike those “mostly peaceful” protests that ended up in many cases burning down large sections of cities, no arrests or police incidents have occurred so far as a result of the Freedom Convoy.

Trudeau concludes that these workers—the same ones he effusively praised in 2020—should just shut up, keep their heads down, and keep feeding us, even though many will be out of work and won’t be able to feed themselves because of his policies.

To double down on this remarkable rhetoric and leadership, Trudeau suddenly abandoned his country’s capital, citing “safety concerns,” and came to the United States.

All that honking was just too much.

Trudeau, who has been vaccinated and boosted, then tested positive for COVID-19.

The Canadian prime minister wasn’t alone in his lambasting of the truckers. The media, always eager to bring truth to power and all that, jumped in on the put-downs.

Media outlets portrayed the whole operation as some kind of dark, pernicious plot by deplorable people and sinister foreign actors. Some touted the high vaccination rates of Canadian truck drivers as evidence that this protest is somehow not genuine.

Is it so ridiculous to think that truck drivers are simply banding together as a sign of solidarity against what they see as an unjust mandate that affects fellow workers in their industry?

As videos of the convoy attest, this isn’t a small group. It’s thousands of trucks and tens of thousands of people. The line of trucks that drove into Ottawa was likely the longest convoy of vehicles ever. It was certainly one of the longest.

It’s a genuine outpouring of frustration from truckers who have worked to keep the economy and supply chain of their country, to say nothing of the global economy, moving in troubled times.

When countless people were able to switch to remote work and other arrangements when the pandemic began, these men and women stayed on the roads to make sure the necessities and comforts of life kept moving and got to where they were wanted and needed.

Again, Trudeau and many on the left acknowledged that until the truckers broke with the narrative.

What the protesters have received in response is derision from the Canadian government and sneering and smearing by media outlets.

A Washington Post cartoonist depicted the convoy with the word “fascist” drawn on the side of each truck. Everything the left doesn’t like is fascist, you see.

What’s notable about the left’s response to the Freedom Convoy is how it completely undermines the idea that the left is on the side of the worker.

Sometimes The Babylon Bee, the satirical website, really gets to the heart of a matter better with comedy than anything else.

The left has morphed into the political movement of an elite, global managerial class that believes it has the right to rule and govern in any way it sees fit.

It believes that any policy—no matter how repressive—that suits its cultural beliefs, tastes, and general political milieu must be made mandatory.

Opposition is inherently illegitimate as the left sees it.

And those who stand in opposition are not to be reasoned with. They are to be dismissed, ridiculed, bullied, and smashed into submission by the state and the Big Tech companies that do their bidding. Opponents deserve neither sympathy nor decency from the global movement of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

But, as one trucker wrote for Newsweek, this movement in Canada is unlikely to fade. The truckers won’t stay quiet, and people are becoming aware that something is rotten in the heart of the presumably free societies of the Western world.

The petty tyrannies of a failed ruling class are becoming as difficult to ignore as the honking in Canada’s capital.

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On Friday Feb 4th, 2022, Keith Wilson, the lawyer representing “Truckers for Freedom 2022” put out an urgent message [01] to the public concerning an earlier announcement made by the Ottawa Police chief [02] on their determination to crush the peaceful protests which they characterized as violent protests.

The Ottawa police chief unleashed a tirade of unfounded accusations at the peaceful movement that reminds of violent ideologies and brutal police states of the past.

By his words, the Ottawa police Chief said they are preparing to attack the truckers protest and the law-abiding citizens who support them based on the delusional perceptions of our Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The police warning comes a day after the truck convoy leaders held their own press conference [03] to address various issues surrounding their ongoing peaceful protest.

Later in the day, on Feb 04th, 2022, the “Go Fund Me” executive also made an announcement that they had shut down the “Truckers for Freedom” page at the behest of the Ottawa Police, and that financial donors had until Feb 19th to reclaim their money or it would be given to charities of the Go Fund Me executive’s choice.

Organizers of the Truckers Convoy have since addressed the allegations of the Ottawa Police [04] in a video statement to the public and have opened a page on the “Give Send Go” platform for donations at the following link: Freedom Convoy 2022 [05]If history has taught us anything, it is this; when a despotic Government’s deception fails at demonizing a movement, the only overreaching tool left in their toolbox, is force.

If the Ottawa police carry out their threats in the coming days, they will, in effect, tear the fabric of our country apart and throw the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms into the trash bin of history, leaving millions of people, who are emotionally invested, without hope.

The labels and lies that both Justin Trudeau and the Ottawa police are throwing at the peaceful Canadian blue-collar protest movement right now, are truly disturbing, provocative, and delusional.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is so out of touch with reality, that he considered bringing in the Canadian army!

Just so we are clear on the severity of that prospect, Armies are used as a deadly force. The request alone, should tell everyone about the character of this sociopathic dictator, Justin Trudeau. Good thing the Canadian Army turned him down [06]. The Ottawa police however, seems ready to go through with Trudeau’s threats to break up and destroy the protest. A protest Trudeau refuses to communicate with or acknowledge as peaceful.

When the Prime Minister of Canada can’t even face the people that he’s paid to govern, but instead goes into hiding, not only does he show that he’s clearly not a leader but that he’s an ignorant coward. The best thing for him to do at this point, for himself, the Liberal Party and the nation, is to resign!

Tyrant Trudeau Tells Lies, Trucker’s forge Ties

All week long the protesters have shown the exact opposite of what our so-called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has labeled them. There is massive video documentation of the Truckers for Freedom Movement not only being peaceful but pitching in to help the Ottawa community with feeding the homeless, picking up garbage and discarded masks, protecting monuments, etcetera.

The Truckers for Freedom movement has single handedly united our country at a time of great suffering. The convoy has lifted the spirits of millions of people across the country who’ve had to endure Federal & Provincial draconian police state measures that have preyed upon the emotional stability of everyone but especially our children. These unnecessary mandatory mask, vax and vax passport measures have destroyed our way of life. They’ve restricted our freedom of movement, freedom of speech, freedom to work, destroyed our businesses, divided the country, broken families and set us all on a course of total collapse, emotionally and economically.

The trucker convoy changed all that and brought us all hope. Yet, now, in a fit of rage, Justin Trudeau, will do what all tyrannical sociopathic despots do when he doesn’t get his way, he’ll unleash his wrath of violence on Canadians, to crush their hope and unity while destroying our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and our nation at the same time.

I can’t allow that to happen. That is why I stand with the Freedom Trucker movement AGAINST the Fascist Trudeau government and the police state that he has mandated for the past two years! I will protect my children and the future of this country. I will NOT comply with a fascist dictatorship!

Final Word

I have a message to the Ottawa police, “STAND DOWN!” Let the people exercise their constitutional rights; the rights and freedoms that our fore fathers secured with their blood. Do not be a willing participant in destroying the peaceful nature of our protest. Call in sick with Justin’s disease or join in with fellow Canadians to protest against the government lies and dictatorship. Be a shining example to our children, be hero’s and stand with their parents, do not comply or follow orders that will destroy our values, communities and country.

To all patriotic Canadians protesting across the country and in Ottawa, do not engage in violence if attacked by police or agent provocateurs, for that is precisely what tyranny requires to justify itself. We win this by peaceful means. Don’t hand the mainstream media an opportunity to further demonize this peaceful movement through their one-sided narrative reporting as they have been doing since the beginning.

If confronted by agent provocateurs or violent opposition, contact event security, who will then deal with the criminal element.

To the security personnel, be sure to remove the masks of any troublemakers for photo identification.

As for the mainstream media like CTV, & CBC, you’ve shown just how deceitfully evil you really are for your blatant lies, labels and deception. When this is all over, there will be a criminal investigation into the deliberate lies and propaganda you’ve used to divide and destroy our great nation. The evidence rests in the millions of video clips and scientific data taken throughout the course and time of this movement and pandemic. You’ve exposed yourselves as to what you really are, treasonous, special interest owned, anti-Canadian, propaganda constructs. It’s time for reporters to stand up for truth, honesty and REAL investigative journalism! Rise and join with us, participate in the greatest peaceful movement in generations. We are ALL Canadian!

As for compromised government representatives who are standing in the way, there will be an accounting for all the deaths directly related to your harmful mandates and power grabs which to Canadians felt more like a foreign occupation wielding terrorist power. Stand Down and remove all the restrictions you’ve placed on Canadians.

Get out of the way so Canadians can take their lives back! FREE CANADA!!

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IMPORTANT UPDATE:

Give Send go is the new sight to donate to the Truckers for Freedom Here is the link: Freedom Convoy 2022
About Stewart Brennan:

Stewart Brennan is a Geo-political and economic analyst, activist, blogger and author. He’s worked in the Aviation, Packaging, Transportation and Logistics Industries and is the author of “The Activist Poet”, two books of political activism and poetry. (See Here and Here) He’s also the author of several blogs including World United News and World United Music and a contributor on Global Research.

LINKS:

[01] (Video) Freedom Trucker Lawyer Keith Wilson with Urgent Message from Ottawa
[02] (Video) Ottawa Police Chief Announcement
[03] (Video) Truck convoy leaders hold news conference in Ottawa – February 3, 2022
[04] (Video) Organizers of the Truckers Convoy addressing the allegations of the Ottawa Police.
[05] Truckers for Freedom – Give Send Go page

[06] Canadian Army Rejects Trudeau’s Call to Evict Truckers

 

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There are reports that the Ottawa police, faithful servants, not of the people, but of the ruling elite, are attempting to prevent food and water and all “material support” from reaching the Truckers. 
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In other words, the ruling elite is making an effort to starve out the truckers.
There are also reports that Washington has appeared on the Canadian scene with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security.  
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These two American agencies of the ruling elite are there to do “enhanced investigation.” The FBI and DHS are focused on identifying every protester and everyone involved in organizing and supporting the convoy and everyone who can be charged with “enabling the harmful and unlawful” protest.  Vehicle registration, driver ID, and insurance status are among the data that “will be used in criminal prosecutions.”
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Advisory of Ottawa Police

Ottawa Police announce digital surveillance of Freedom Convoy protesters, supporters, and donor

The Ottawa Police Service has announced a new operation where it is partnering with federal intelligence agencies to create “enhanced intelligence operations and investigations” that will target individuals who are taking part in and supporting the Canadian Truckers Freedom Convoy.

The Ottawa police said that it’s partnering with the US’s FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to investigate “online threats.”

Ottawa police the “enhanced investigation” will start with focusing on those who were involved in organizing the protest convoy and will use surveillance to “identify and target protestors who are funding/supporting/enabling unlawful and harmful activity by protesters.”

The police also said they are focusing on gathering “financial, digital, vehicle registration, driver identification, insurance status, and other related evidence that will be used in criminal prosecutions.”

Ottawa Police have also said they’re working with police agencies across Ontario, the RCMP, and Sûreté du Québec.


The question is whether this is real or whether it is public announcements to scare people away from the protest and to break the strong morale of the truckers.
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It might be that like the “Trump Insurrection” prosecutions, a few hundred people will be selected for ruin in order to teach the public a lesson.
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But this time, the net could be cast wider.  They might even arrest people who sent money.
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The ruling elite are completely against the people and have secret agendas that are detrimental for the people. The elite know that they cannot tolerate any kind of protest or refusal to obey illegal mandates.
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Whereas I was encouraged by the truckers’ protest, I was concerned that, like those at the Trump rally, the truckers and their supporters did not understand that their protest rights are limited to protesting for the elite, not against them.  The Constitution, First Amendment, Freedom of Assembly are impotent because they are not respected by the authorities in power.  For some time it has been clear that peaceful protests are impotent, because the authorities don’t respect the people or care what they think or want.  The authorities only serve a tiny handful of elites who hold the people in contempt.
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If the truckers and their supporters were well armed and prepared to resort to violence, the situation would be too large for the police and even for the Canadian Army.  Trudeau would have to come out of hiding and ask for Washington’s intervention to save the elite from the people.  In other words, the US would have to invade Canada.
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At the present time, the elite are strong but not strong enough to justify to the world a US invasion to overthrow and suppress the Canadian people.  Not even the whore American and Canadian media could dress this up as “saving democracy from domestic terrorists.” The Canadian government would have to give in to the protest and retract its illegal, counterfactual , and counterproductive mandate.
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If the Canadian government prevails, tyranny will have taken a giant step forward. The elites will know that they can break the back of any protest.
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There is no peaceful way to deal with Evil. Evil prevails when those facing it do not realize what they are up against and fail to take decisive action when it would have won the day.  I fear this will be the fate of the truckers’ protest.

****

Consult also the following

From Denis Rancourt  Ottawa Police Operation against the Truckers

 

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***

First published in May 2021

‘Terrifying’ new research finds vaccine spike protein unexpectedly in bloodstream. The protein is linked to blood clots, heart and brain damage, and potential risks to nursing babies and fertility.

New research shows that the coronavirus spike protein from COVID-19 vaccination unexpectedly enters the bloodstream, which is a plausible explanation for thousands of reported side-effects from blood clots and heart disease to brain damage and reproductive issues, a Canadian cancer vaccine researcher said last week.

“We made a big mistake. We didn’t realize it until now,” said Byram Bridle, a viral immunologist and associate professor at University of Guelph, Ontario, in an interview with Alex Pierson last Thursday, in which he warned listeners that his message was “scary.”

“We thought the spike protein was a great target antigen, we never knew the spike protein itself was a toxin and was a pathogenic protein. So by vaccinating people we are inadvertently inoculating them with a toxin,” Bridle said on the show, which is not easily found in a Google search but went viral on the internet this weekend.

Bridle, a vaccine researcher who was awarded a $230,000 government grant last year for research on COVID vaccine development, said that he and a group of international scientists filed a request for information from the Japanese regulatory agency to get access to what’s called the “biodistribution study.”

“It’s the first time ever scientists have been privy to seeing where these messenger RNA [mRNA] vaccines go after vaccination,” said Bridle. “Is it a safe assumption that it stays in the shoulder muscle? The short answer is: absolutely not. It’s very disconcerting.”

Vaccine researchers had assumed that novel mRNA COVID vaccines would behave like “traditional” vaccines and the vaccine spike protein — responsible for infection and its most severe symptoms — would remain mostly in the vaccination site at the shoulder muscle. Instead, the Japanese data showed that the infamous spike protein of the coronavirus gets into the blood where it circulates for several days post-vaccination and then accumulated in organs and tissues including the spleen, bone marrow, the liver, adrenal glands, and in “quite high concentrations” in the ovaries.

“We have known for a long time that the spike protein is a pathogenic protein. It is a toxin. It can cause damage in our body if it gets into circulation,” Bridle said.

The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is what allows it to infect human cells. Vaccine manufacturers chose to target the unique protein, making cells in the vaccinated person manufacture the protein which would then, in theory, evoke an immune response to the protein, preventing it from infecting cells.

A large number of studies has shown that the most severe effects of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, such as blood clotting and bleeding, are due to the effects of the spike protein of the virus itself

“What has been discovered by the scientific community is the spike protein on its own is almost entirely responsible for the damage to the cardiovascular system, if it gets into circulation,” Bridle told listeners.

Lab animals injected with purified spike protein into their bloodstream developed cardiovascular problems, and the spike protein was also demonstrated to cross the blood brain barrier and cause damage to the brain.

A grave mistake, according to Bridle, was the belief that the spike protein would not escape into the blood circulation.

“Now, we have clear-cut evidence that the vaccines that make the cells in our deltoid muscles manufacture this protein — that the vaccine itself, plus the protein — gets into blood circulation,” he said.

Bridle cited the recent publication of a peer-reviewed study which detected spike protein in the blood plasma of three of 13 young healthcare workers that had received Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine. In one of the workers, the spike protein circulated for 29 days.

Effects on heart and brain

Once in circulation, the spike protein can attach to specific ACE2 receptors that are on blood platelets and the cells that line blood vessels. “When that happens it can do one of two things: it can either cause platelets to clump, and that can lead to clotting. That’s exactly why we’ve been seeing clotting disorders associated with these vaccines. It can also lead to bleeding.” Bridle also said the spike protein in circulation would explain recently reported heart problems in youths who had received the shots.

The results of this leaked Pfizer study tracing the biodistribution of the vaccine mRNA are not surprising, “but the implications are terrifying,” Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told LifeSiteNews. “It is now clear” that vaccine content is being delivered to the spleen and the glands, including the ovaries and the adrenal glands.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently announced it was studying reports of “mild” heart conditions following COVID-19 vaccination, and last week 18 teenagers in the state of Connecticut alone were hospitalized for heart problems that developed shortly after they took COVID-19 vaccines.

AstraZeneca’s vaccine was halted in a number of countries and is no longer recommended for younger people because of its link to life-threatening and fatal blood clots, but mRNA COVID vaccines have been linked to hundreds of reports of blood clotting events as well.

FDA warned of spike protein danger

Pediatric rheumatologist J. Patrick Whelan had warned a vaccine advisory committee of the Food and Drug Administration of the potential for the spike protein in COVID vaccines to cause microvascular damage causing damage to the liver, heart, and brain in “ways that were not assessed in the safety trials.”

While Whelan did not dispute the value of a coronavirus vaccine that worked to stop transmission of the disease (which no COVID vaccine in circulation has been demonstrated to do), he said, “it would be vastly worse if hundreds of millions of people were to suffer long-lasting or even permanent damage to their brain or heart microvasculature as a result of failing to appreciate in the short-term an unintended effect of full-length spike protein-based vaccines on other organs.”

Vaccine-associated spike protein in blood circulation could explain myriad reported adverse events from COVID vaccines, including the 4,000 deaths to date, and nearly 15,000 hospitalizations, reported to the U.S. government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) as of May 21, 2021. Because it is a passive reporting system, these reports are likely only the tip of an iceberg of adverse events since a Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare study found that less than one percent of side-effects that physicians should report in patients following vaccination are in fact reported to VAERS.

Nursing babies, children and youths, frail, most at risk

Bridle said the discovery of vaccine-induced spike protein in blood circulation would have implications for blood donation programs. “We don’t want transfer of these pathogenic spike proteins to fragile patients who are being transfused with that blood,” he said.

The vaccine scientist also said the findings suggested that nursing babies whose mothers had been vaccinated were at risk of getting COVID spike proteins from her breast milk.

Bridle said that “any proteins in the blood will get concentrated in breast milk,” and “we have found evidence of suckling infants experiencing bleeding disorders in the gastrointestinal tract” in VAERS.

Although Bridle did not cite it, one VAERS report describes a five-month-old breastfed infant whose mother received a second dose of Pfizer’s vaccine in March. The following day, the baby developed a rash and became “inconsolable,” refused to nurse, and developed a fever. The report says the baby was hospitalized with a diagnosis of Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura, a rare blood disorder in which blood clots form in small blood vessels throughout the body. The baby died.

The new research also has “serious implications for people for whom SARS Coronavirus 2 is not a high risk pathogen, and that includes all of our children.”

Effect on fertility and pregnancy?

The high concentration of spike protein found in testes and ovaries in the secret Pfizer data released by the Japanese agency raises questions, too. “Will we be rendering young people infertile?” Bridle asked.

There have been thousands of reports of menstrual disorders by women who had taken a COVID-19 shot, and hundreds of reports of miscarriage in vaccinated pregnant women, as well as of disorders of reproductive organs in men.

Vicious smear campaign

In response to a request, Bridle emailed a statement to LifeSiteNews on Monday morning, stating that since the radio interview he had received hundreds of positive emails. He added, too, that “a vicious smear campaign has been initiated against me. This included the creation of a libelous website using my domain name.”

“Such are the times that an academic public servant can no longer answer people’s legitimate questions with honesty and based on science without fear of being harassed and intimidated,” Brindle wrote. “However, it is not in my nature to allow scientific facts to be hidden from the public.”

He attached a brief report outlining the key scientific evidence supporting what he said in the interview. It was written with his colleagues in the Canadian COVID Care Alliance (CCCA) — a group of independent Canadian doctors, scientists, and professionals whose declared aim is “to provide top quality, evidence-based information about COVID-19, intent on reducing hospitalizations and saving more lives.”

A focus of the statement was the risk to children and teens who are the target of the latest vaccine marketing strategies, including in Canada.

As of May 28, 2021, there have been 259,308 confirmed cases of SARS-CoV-2 infections in Canadians 19 years and under. Of these, 0.048% were hospitalized, but only 0.004% died, according to the CCCA statement. “Seasonal influenza is associated with more severe illness than COVID-19.”

Given the small number of young research subjects in Pfizer’s vaccine trials and the limited duration of clinical trials, the CCCA said questions about the spike protein and another vaccine protein must be answered before children and teens are vaccinated, including whether the vaccine spike protein crosses the blood-brain barrier, whether the vaccine spike protein interferes with semen production or ovulation, and whether the vaccine spike protein crosses the placenta and impacts a developing baby or is in breast milk.

LifeSiteNews sent the Public Health Agency of Canada the statement of CCCA and asked for a response to Bridle’s concerns. The agency responded that it was working on the questions but did not send answers before publication time.

Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson did not respond to questions about Bridle’s concerns. Pfizer did not respond to questions about how long the company was aware of its research data that the Japanese agency had released, showing spike protein in organs and tissue of vaccinated individuals.

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Yesterday I stood with friends and colleagues at one of the many highway overpasses in Toronto as we watched a truly historic moment unfold before our tear-filled eyes. Thousands of liberty-loving Canadians from all walks of life were gathered there—as they were throughout the country—in the freezing cold, holding aloft flags and signs to show support for hundreds of courageous transport truck drivers as they passed by us in the Freedom Convoy on the way to our nation’s capital.  

An estimated 50,000 truckers from all across Canada are now heading to Ottawa in what must surely be the largest protest in Canadian history.

Perhaps it is also the longest convoy of trucks ever assembled in the world. Once the truckers have converged in the capital, the mission of these Freedom Convoy constituents is to peacefully yet firmly demand that the federal and provincial governments:

  1. Terminate vaccine passports and all other obligatory vaccine contact tracing programs or inter-Canada passport systems.
  2. Terminate Covid vaccine mandates and respect the rights of those who wish for whatever reason to remain unvaccinated.
  3. Cease the divisive verbal attacks on Canadians who disagree with and resist these government mandates.
  4. Cease taking coercive measures that limit debate and that censor opinions diverging from the establishment’s party line on all pandemic topics. 

The common sentiment expressed by supporters of the Freedom Convoy is that we are not objecting to vaccines—only to government and corporate vaccine mandates and other related restrictions. Ours is not an anti-vaxx protest, but, rather, an anti-mandate movement.

Millions of Canadians, both jabbed and unjabbed, stand behind the Freedom Convoy in spirit and in actions, including generous offers of financial help. Already, Can$6.5 million in funds have been raised for the truckers’ fuel, food, and other immediate needs. 

What’s prompting the massive turnout of truckers and their flag-carrying fans?

Quite simply, we are sick of seeing our civil liberties being eroded by the nonsensical, dangerous demands of our dictatorial politicians and public health bureaucrats.

After watching our Charter of Rights and Freedoms—the highest law of the land—be completely eviscerated over the past two years, we are rising up as one body to declare, Canada has had enough!

As inspiring and intrepid as our country’s Freedom Convoy truckers may be, we must not lose sight of the tactics the state may use to destabilize and destroy this entire freedom movement. History has shown us that what may start out as well-intentioned anti-government protests—think of Arab Spring in 2010 and Occupy Wall Street in 2011—can be infiltrated and subverted by state security forces and ultimately derailed from their intended objective. 

Governments usually deploy a three-step process to destabilise a freedom movement.

First, they use the media to smear the protestors in an effort to delegitimise their cause.

Second, they use their undercover security forces to masquerade as legitimate protestors so that they can insert themselves successfully into a movement at various levels.

Third, once these agents provocateurs have infiltrated an organization, they attempt to incite violence by any means necessary, knowing full well that their state sponsors will respond in kind, with devastating brutality.

In addition, the state actors also try to fragment a cohesive protest by creating splinter groups—a divide-and-conquer-and-rule strategy.  Government officials may even surreptitiously give protest leaders generous payoffs to further derail an organization—indeed, an entire freedom-demanding movement—and prevent it from fulfilling its worthy goals.

For instance, during the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest in July 2011, the US government used the Federal Bureau of Investigation to infiltrate and monitor the organization from day one. In the end, the FBI, working in concert with the big banks, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the Federal Reserve, the Naval Investigative Service, and the Domestic Security Alliance Council, orchestrated the crushing defeat of OWS.

Thus, the organizers of the Freedom Convoy must be extra-vigilant and avoid anyone who is even remotely suggesting they use violence to achieve their objective.

They must stay on constant alert for anyone who could be trying to derail their legitimate and focused demands. Nonviolent noncompliance must be the order of the day—and of all the days ahead of us.

In the end, tyranny can never extinguish the light of love or the torch of freedom. As long as we refuse to acquiesce peacefully, disobey unlawful orders peacefully, we the people will prevail!

David Skripac has a Bachelor of Technology degree in Aerospace Engineering. He served as a Captain in the Canadian Forces for nine years. During his two tours of duty in the Air Force he flew extensively in the former Yugoslavia as well as in Somalia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. He is author of a recently published e-book, “Our Species Is Being Genetically Modified.” 

He is a regular contributor to Global Research


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First published on December 18, 2021

Activists are charging UK officials and the world’s most powerful health figures with genocide, citing a range of statistics on the effects of COVID “vaccines” and policies. 

A group that includes former Pfizer vice president Dr. Michael Yeadon filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) on behalf of UK citizens against Boris Johnson and UK officials, Bill and Melinda Gates, chief executives of Big Pharma companies, World Economic Forum executive chairman Klaus Schwab, and others for crimes against humanity.

The UK group, including an astrophysicist and a funeral director, additionally charged Dr. Anthony Fauci; Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO);  June Raine, chief executive of Medicines and Healthcare products regulatory agency (MHRA); Dr. Radiv Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation; and Dr. Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance,  as “responsible for numerous violations of the Nuremberg Code … war crimes and crimes of aggression” in the UK and other countries.

After repeated unsuccessful attempts to raise a case with the English Court system, the applicants resorted to calling with “the utmost urgency” for the ICC

“to stop the rollout of COVID vaccinations, introduction of unlawful vaccination passports and all other types of illegal warfare … being waged against the people of the UK.”

In the group’s complaint filed December 6, they present evidence that COVID-19 “vaccines” are in fact experimental gene therapies engineered with gain-of-function research from bat coronaviruses, arguing that these “vaccines” have caused massive death and injury and that the UK government has failed to investigate such reported deaths and injuries;

that COVID case and death numbers have been artificially inflated;

that face masks are harmful due to hypoxia, hypercapnia and other causes;

and PCR tests are “completely unreliable” and “contain carcinogenic ethylene oxide.”

They furthermore argued that effective treatments for COVID-19 such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, were suppressed, leading to a greater death toll from COVID-19 than what should have occurred.

They make the case that the lockdowns were enacted under the pretext of artificially inflated infection and death numbers from an engineered virus, as well as the experimental “vaccines” have resulted in:

Massive short-term damage and death, with at least 395,049 reported adverse reactions to COVID “vaccines” in the UK alone;

a sharp uptick in ChildLine calls from vulnerable children during lockdowns; “destruction of wealth and businesses” through imposed lockdowns;

” “severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law,” including bans on travel and gatherings, and forced quarantine and self-isolation; apartheid due to segregation by vaccine passport possession;

and “expected reduction in fertility” after “vaccination,” among other harmful physical and psychological effects.

In addition, the applicants maintain that “the suppression of safe and effective alternative treatments for Covid-19 amounts to murder and warrants a full investigation by the court.” They noted that besides censorship of online information on and promotion of these alternative treatments, “some academic journals are blocking the publication of studies showing the effectiveness of drugs such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

The applicants also cited quotes from Holocaust survivors who have drawn “stark parallels between Covid restrictions and the beginning of the Holocaust.” In an open letter, the Holocaust survivors have asked medical regulatory authorities  to “stop this ungodly medical experiment on humankind immediately,” which they maintain violates the Nuremberg Code.

They even allege that “another holocaust of greater magnitude is taking place before our eyes.” One survivor, Vera Sharav, noted in an interview cited in the complaint,

“What sets the Holocaust apart from all other mass genocides is the pivotal role played by the medical establishment, the entire medical establishment. Every step of the murderous process was endorsed by the academic, professional medical establishment. Medical doctors and prestigious medical societies and institutions lent the veneer of legitimacy to infanticide, mass murder of civilians.”

According to the applicants, all of the damaging consequences of the “vaccines,” lockdown and virus meet the criteria for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes against the people of the UK, because the guilty “members of the UK government and world leaders have both knowledge and intent with respect to these alleged crimes.”

In fact, they argue that the destructive consequences of the “vaccines,” lockdowns and engineered virus are deliberate attempts at depopulation and societal destabilization as part of a globally coordinated plan to consolidate wealth and power in the hands of a few.

They argue that these measures therefore also constitute a “crime of aggression,” that is, the effort “effectively to exercise control over or to direct the political or military action of a State.”

In this case, they claim, the goal is to “dismantl[e] all the Democratic Nation States, step by step,” and to “destroy small and medium sized businesses, moving the market shares to the largest corporations,” owned by the ultra-rich, to give this “elite” group greater political and monetary control.

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What Are the Truly Verifiable Facts Surrounding COVID-19?

February 6th, 2022 by David Skripac

Incisive and carefully researched article by David Skripac, first published on Global Research on August 14, 2020

***

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”

Those words, uttered by two-time Nobel Prize-winning chemist and physicist Marie Curie, are as relevant today as they were in her era (1867–1934). With most of the planet under some form of medical martial law, we would do well to follow her advice: understand more and fear less about the pandemic. The way to do that is to establish the verifiable, scientific facts about the SARS-CoV-2 virus and separate those facts from the fiction being touted by a fear-mongering news media. Only then will we stop surrendering our inherent freedoms to COVID-19 propaganda.

Fiction #1: Wearing a face mask will protect you and others from the coronavirus.

Fact #1: Contrary to what many medical and government officials tell us, there is no evidence to support the claim that face masks—whether N95, surgical, or cloth—protect the wearer from any virus. These so-called “medical experts” usually reference a purportedly scientific publication to support their claim. However, when the studies they point to—namely, in The Lancet and from the Mayo Clinic—are put under closer scrutiny, they fail to pass one crucial test: they never used a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT). Reputable scientists consider the RCT the Holy Grail when it comes to conducting a study on a large group of people, because it eliminates the possibility of any population bias in the testing.

When we look at trials that have used the RCT method to analyze the efficacy of face masks, we find starkly different results from those that have not.

For instance, an exhaustive dental study conducted in 2016 revealed that disposable surgical face masks are incapable of providing protection from respiratory pathogens.

Then there was the study conducted this past February by Long Y, Hu T, Liu, et al., titled “Effectiveness of N95 respirators versus surgical masks against influenza.” It involved a total of six RCTs and 9,171 participants. The study concluded that “the current meta-analysis shows the use of N95 compared with surgical masks is not associated with a lower risk of laboratory-confirmed influenza. It suggests that N95 respirators should not be recommended for general public and nonhigh-risk medical staffs those are not in close contact with influenza patients or suspected patients.” 

Even the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has done studies on face masks by correctly using RCTs. In one report, titled “Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol.26, No.5” and published in May 2020, the CDC did ten Randomized Controlled Trials before concluding, “Disposable medical masks (also known as surgical masks) are loose-fitting devices that were designed to be worn by medical personnel to protect against accidental contamination of patient wounds, and to protect the wearer against splashes or sprays of bodily fluids. There is limited evidence for their effectiveness in preventing influenza virus transmission either when worn by the infected person for source control or when worn by uninfected persons to reduce exposure. Our systematic review found no significant effect of face masks on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”

As for those people who wear a cloth mask in the belief that “it’s better than wearing nothing,” a RCT conducted in 2015 showed that cloth masks do not work at all. In actuality, a cloth mask puts the wearer at increased risk of respiratory illness and viral infections.

In light of the plethora of available science on face masks, it is heartening to see that some governments are making rational decisions based on that science. In the Netherlands, for example, officials are refusing to mandate mask-wearing in public.

In the end, the face mask should be viewed as a device used by authoritarians to control the masses and enforce compliance to lawless edicts. The mask lulls wearers into feeling protected from biological harm. Meanwhile, the real harm being done to them is psychological and spiritual. By submitting to mandatory face-covering orders based on flawed science and imposed by either unelected-but-politicized medical officials and technocrats or elected-but-compromised politicians who hold positions in all levels of government—these mask wearers don’t realize that they’re handing over their precious liberties, their individuality, and even, one might say, their very souls to soulless tyrants.

Fiction #2: Scientists have isolated and purified the SARS-CoV-2 RNA virus.

Fact #2: To date, not a single team of scientists has isolated and purified the SARS-CoV-2 RNA virus. Some researchers claim to have done so. But when their findings are scrutinized, they fall short. Just as Randomized Controlled Trials are required to do accurate studies of the efficacy and safety of medical devices like face masks or products such as prescription drugs, so, too, is there a major benchmark that must be satisfied if one is to prove that he has indeed correctly identified and isolated a virus. That benchmark has been, since 1890, a set of principals known as the Koch postulates, named after famed German physician and bacteriologist Robert Koch. All researchers must apply his four postulates if they are to prove or disprove a cause-and-effect relationship between a pathogen and a particular clinical disease.

For example, in February 2020, Chinese and Dutch researchers published studies purporting to show that they had isolated the SARS-CoV-2 virus by satisfying all of the Koch postulates. Four months later, however, freelance writer Armory Devereux and molecular biologist and researcher Rosemary Frei revealed the truth about those studies in an Off-Guardian article. Their heavily investigated and well-documented piece confirms that the Chinese and Dutch researchers did not fulfill Koch’s third postulate, which involves replicating or cloning the DNA to form a new copy of the virus and then injecting that new copy into a significant number of living hosts (usually lab animals) with the intent to reproduce the same discrete diagnostic symptoms associated with the virus. In fact, Frei discovered, after reviewing numerous research papers from all over the world, that not a single group of scientists was able to replicate or clone the DNA to form a new copy of the virus. In short, they failed to meet Koch’s third postulate.

Another team of investigative journalists, Torsten Engelbrecht and Konstantin Demeter, wrote an equally comprehensive article on the same subject for Off-Guardian. They, too, concluded that there is not a single research paper out there demonstrating that the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been successfully isolated and finally purified. In addition, Engelbrecht and Demeter discovered that “there is no scientific proof that those RNA sequences are the causative agent of what is called COVID-19.”

In other words, by not successfully fulfilling all of Koch’s postulates, scientists have thus far not proven the existence of any new coronavirus. This is why molecular biologist Dr. Andrew Kaufman has suggested in numerous interviews—on The Highwire and The Last American Vagabond and elsewhere—that the current coronavirus is not a new disease. Dr. Kaufman submits, moreover, that the particles scientists say they are looking at through their electron microscopes are perhaps not the virus at all but are, rather, exosomes being produced by the body. These exosomes, containing the same genetic material as a virus, are naturally produced by the human body as a defense mechanism in response to an external attack by a toxin emanating from our polluted environment. This would be a possible explanation as to why the “pandemic” started in China’s Wuhan province. This area of China is one of the most polluted places on earth. In Wuhan, the ecosystem in all its glorious biodiversity has been utterly destroyed by man-made pollutants and the heavy use of glyphosate in industrial farming.

Besides pollution, there is yet another plausible explanation as to why this particular coronavirus (if it exists, which some reputable experts highly doubt) may have possibly started in Wuhan. The internationally funded Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has proven financial tiesto the US government and is known for its poor safety standards, was involved in dangerous gain-of-function research to make bat viruses more lethal to humans. Several disturbing studies conducted by the lab “successfully” combined animal and human virus traits in ways that made them more dangerous to humans. This description of the institute’s research raises many questions. At present, there is not enough evidence to prove whether a pathogen was either intentionally released by the lab or was accidentally leaked into the environment. And, even if a virus was intentionally released into the environment as a bioweapon, the developers of this weapon did not do a good job. As we will see in the last fiction versus fact (below), this coronavirus has had virtually the same global infection fatality rate as the average seasonal flu. If anything, the influenza virus of 2017 was far more lethal than this year’s coronavirus.

Finally, this brings us to the multi-billion-dollar question on the virus isolation issue: If scientists have not properly identified the virus or the RNA gene sequences associated with the virus, how on earth are the vaccine companies developing a mRNA vaccine against a novel coronavirus, and what exactly will be in this vaccine? Perhaps this is why the initial vaccine trials conducted by biotech company Moderna, the US vaccine front-runner, and AstraZeneca, which leads the British Oxford Vaccine Group, have been unsatisfactory.

Fiction #3: The Reverse Transcriptase quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-qPCR) test is the best way to diagnose a patient with COVID-19.

Fact #3: The PCR test, which is currently being used by every nation to test for COVID-19, was initially designed by Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Kary Mullis. From its inception, the PCR was, and still is, a thermal cycling method used to replicate billions of copies of a specific DNA sample. Simply put, the PCR makes the DNA large enough so that scientists can study it. Although Mullis unexpectedly passed away in August 2019, we know what his thoughts were when it came to using his test as a diagnostic tool, thanks to an invaluableinterview he did in 1994 with investigative journalist Celia Farber. The interview leaves no doubt that Mullis argued against using the PCR as a diagnostic tool for detecting viruses.

Granted, the PCR test is capable of detecting even the minutest piece of DNA or RNA, but this is meaningless if scientists have not determined what specific RNA sequences they are actually searching for. And, in light of Fact #2, which established that no correct isolation and purification of the presumed virus has been executed, the PCR test is scientifically illogical.

That the PCR test is being misused, either unwittingly or wittingly hence fraudulently, on COVID-19 diagnoses cannot be overstated. According to the aforementioned Off-Guardian article by Torsten Engelbrecht, “it is worth mentioning that the PCR tests used to identify so-called COVID-19 patients presumably infected by what is called SARS-CoV-2 do not have a valid gold standard to compare them with. This is a fundamental point. Tests need to be validated to determine their ‘sensitivity’ and ‘specificity’—by comparison to a ‘gold standard,’ meaning the most accurate method available.” Engelbrecht makes clear that, to date, there is no valid gold standard for the PCR test because, thus far, no one has isolated and purified the alleged virus. Only unequivocal proof of the existence of a new SARS-CoV-2 can be considered the gold standard.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise when we find that the PCR test is plagued with outcomes that can indicate “false negatives” of up to 20 percent or “false positives” of up to an outrageous 70 percent! Both the US CDC and the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) are well aware that the PCR test has some major pitfalls. The CDC, for instance, states that “this test cannot rule out diseases caused by other bacterial or viral pathogens.” Meanwhile, the FDA has reviewed and summarised, for Accelerated Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) purposes, Laboratory Corporation of America’s LabCorp COVID-19 RT-PCR test and has slapped on it a warning label: “This test has not been FDA cleared or approved.” In the same summary, the FDA explains that “the agent detected may not be the definite cause of the disease.”

Given everything we now know about the inaccuracy of the PCR test, why is the World Health Organization (WHO) still insisting that every nation continue testing as many people as possible with this method?

Could it be because the entire narrative about the “pandemic” is riding on the distorted PCR test results?

Could it also be that the very high “false positive” rate perfectly fits an agenda of inflating the infection case numbers (not the mortality numbers) so as to instill fear into the minds and hearts of as many people as possible?

Could it be that injecting fear into the population enables the technocrats and their pawns to continue the draconian stay-at-home lockdowns and economically devastating business shutdowns and the ridiculous containment measures (such as physical distancing) and other punitive restrictions (e.g., fourteen-day quarantines after travel, even when the travel is a simple car trip between adjoining US states)? Could it be that they are purposely placing the lives of millions of people under enormous stress and in precipitous poverty?

Is this all part of a behavior modification process that will make it easier for social engineers (technocrats) to completely redesign society so that the distribution of all goods and services to the entire population and the consumption of energy by that population will be orchestrated by a select few self-appointed “experts”?

Technocracy News & Trends’ researcher/writer Patrick Wood lays out a plausible explanation for this scenario in his recent interview withDr. Joseph Mercola. In it, Wood notes that the technocracy movement, which started in the early twentieth century, “was always an economic movement, not a political system.” The destruction of the global economy, the removal of everyone’s inherent freedoms, the elimination of national sovereignty, and the accumulation of layers and layers of rules and regulations based on unsubstantiated science are ingredients that constitute the perfect recipe for any technocrat whose goal is to completely redesign society and implement an entirely new economic system.

Fiction #4: A “second wave” of new COVID-19 cases has already started in the United States.

Fact #4: There is no “second wave” of COVID-19 cases, nor will there be a “third wave.”

Sure, at first glance, it would appear that states like South Carolina, Nevada, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California are indeed experiencing a huge surge in new COVID-19 cases. Upon second glance, though, we find two factors that explain this unnatural phenomenon.

First, what the media assiduously avoids mentioning is that in June these very same states undertook major campaigns to screen a vast swath of their populace with the PCR test—a viral assay that is employed not as an accurate diagnostic tool but, rather, as a means of inflating positive case counts.

While it is true that not all of the positive cases fall into the category of “false positive,” it is equally true, as Fact #2 makes clear, that the PCR assay detects even the minutest particle of RNA associated with any virus. Thus, the test can detect people who have developed antibody T-cells to any previous coronavirus or who are asymptomatic. Either way, these individuals are automatically classified as COVID-19 cases. How convenient for the pandemic-pushers! Such a generous classification means that even those patients undergoing elective surgery who happen to test positive during the hospital admission process are categorised as “hospitalised with COVID-19.”

John Thomas Littell, MD, a family physician in Ocala, Florida, wrote an astute letter to the editor of the Orlando Medical News, in which he perfectly summarises the COVID-19 data manipulation:

“So, in essence, any person with an influenza-like illness (ILI) could be considered a ‘case’ of COVID-19, even WITHOUT confirmatory lab testing.  The CDC has even advised to consider any deaths from pneumonia or ILI as ‘COVID-related’ deaths—unless the physician or medical examiner establishes another infectious agent as the cause of illness.

“Now perhaps you see why the increasing number of cases, and even deaths, due to COVID-19 is fraught with misinterpretation and is NOT in any way a measure of the ACTUAL morbidity and mortality FROM COVID-19.”

Second, the news media rarely, if ever, mentions the all-important point that, although cases may be on the rise, the rates of mortality allegedly caused by the supposed new coronavirus are actually decreasing in the US, just as they are in the rest of the world.

How could that be? Because this non-novel, run-of-the-mill virus is on its way out. In reality, the states that were hit first at the start of the year—predominantly northern states like Washington, Ohio, and New York—were also the first to experience a consistent downward trend in mortality rates, commencing around mid-to-late April. (See the Worldometers website, which, despite its bloated fatality numbers, is nevertheless a good source for interpreting trends in mortality rates.) States in warmer climates, such as California, Arizona, Texas, and Florida, are only now, in mid-to-late-summer months, reaching their peak daily death rates. Soon they, too, will begin to show a decline in mortality rates.

Why is there a difference in the timing of these peaks and descents among the states? It just means that for any number of reasons—for instance, a variation between individuals in their susceptibility to infection and their propensity to infect others—different regions of the country have reached the Herd Immunity Threshold (HIT) at different times. The HIT is the percentage of the population that needs to be immune in order to prevent the disease from spreading. This value varies among not only regions but nations as well. It is usually around the 10 percent to 20 percent mark for the seasonal flu—meaning that once the HIT value passes 20 percent, the rate of new infections starts to decline until the virus is extinguished.

In January 2020, health officials and scientists originally thought that the HIT value for COVID-19 was going to be over 60 percent. But after five months a very different picture emerged. From a team of international research scientists who released a paper on herd immunityin late July, we learn that the global HIT this year was in the aforementioned 10–20 percent range. And thanks to the intrepid research done by J.B. Handley, a frequent contributing writer to the Children’s Health Defense website, we now know that the HIT value for COVID-19 in the US this year has also been in the 10-20 percent range, just like any seasonal flu. Hence, we can conclude from this data that over 70 percent of the population has already developed a natural immunity to the virus from previous exposure to corona-type viruses.

All of this proves that our complex and beautifully designed immunity system, which produces killer T-cells and antibodies to fight off all viruses for the purpose of building herd immunity, is doing exactly what it has been doing for the past 200,000 years. Not incidentally, most of those years were before vaccines were dreamed up, developed, and brought to market. Had this not been the case, the human species would have vanished off the face of the earth long ago.

Despite the empty rhetoric of our politicians, we now know that the draconian, counterproductive lockdown measures (read: the shutdown of the global economy) imposed by local, state, provincial, and national governments (read: and their technocrat handlers) have nothing to do with defeating the spread of the virus. If anything, the mandatory lockdowns only postpone the day when herd immunity is inevitably reached. Even New Zealand, which completely closed itself off from the rest of the world at the start of the fake pandemic, was simply delaying its day of reckoning.

If one wanted to delay a society from reaching herd immunity from the flu for as long as possible, one would do the following to everyone (including healthy people, who have no comorbidities): impose strict, lengthy quarantine measures after travel, isolate even non-travelers in their homes for most hours of the day, enforce physical distancing rules, require the use of face masks, close everything from beaches and amusement parks and stadiums to restaurants and hair salons and, God forbid, churches and temples and mosques! Oh, and shut down schools. As we have seen, this is exactly what the political and medical “rulers”—including fake philanthropists—of most countries did, to their barely suppressed delight and to everyone else’s dismay.

A country that stands in stark contrast to this stalling tactic is Sweden. It has refused to participate in the total lockdown strategy. Instead, from the first, it allowed herd immunity to build up naturally. Yet Sweden’s HIT value is at 14 percent—in the same range as the nations that did impose lockdowns. By keeping its economy open and isolating only its vulnerable citizens (the elderly and people with comorbidities), Sweden was the only major economy in the world that grew in the first quarter of the year. Meanwhile, according to the data collected by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the US decreased 34.3 percent, or $2.15 trillion, in the second quarter, to a level of $19.41 trillion. This is the most devastating collapse in GDP ever recorded.

The GDP drop doesn’t take into account the incalculable human losses—the slide into poverty, the despair, the mental breakdowns, the suicides—that the cruelly counterproductive lockdown has created. Commenting on these detrimental effects, Stanford University’s 2013 Chemistry Nobel Laureate Dr. Michael Levitt said in an interview: “There is no doubt in my mind that when we come to look back on this, the damage done by the lockdown will exceed any saving of lives by a huge factor.”

Fiction #5: The Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) for COVID-19 is far greater than the seasonal influenza.

Fact #5: The IFR is the ratio of deaths attributed to a disease divided by the number of actual infections. Unique to COVID-19, the IFR includes both confirmed and undiagnosed cases, as perversely directed by the CDC. Family physician Dr. Scott Jensen, who is also a Minnesota state senator, explains in an interview on Fox News that this practice of combining both diagnosed and undiagnosed cases is simply a tool to “game the numbers” so that the government can conveniently inflate the death toll and scare the public into believing COVID-19 is more deadly than it actually is.

(Aside: Jensen’s refreshing candor stands in stark contrast to the apparent go-along-to-get-along mentality of the many doctors who remained silent when he sounded the alarm over the health authorities’ suspicious-sounding instructions. Not that Jensen is without equally courageous colleagues. In fact, he belongs to a new group of more than 600 physicians who call themselves America’s Frontline Doctors and who are calling out US authorities for suppressing information about and access to the coronavirus-slaying drug Hydroxychloroquine. Their July 27th press conference video from the steps of the US Supreme Court went viral before being banned across all social media platforms.)

In the developed world, the Infection Fatality Rate for a seasonal influenza is 0.1–0.2 percent. Bizarrely, the WHO’s initial estimate in March 2020 pegged the IFR for COVID-19 at 3.4 percent. We have since learned, from the meticulous serological studies done by Stanford University epidemiologist and professor of medicine Dr. John Ioannidis (and from many other equally scrupulous scientists around the world), that the global average for COVID-19 is actually about 0.2 percent—in line with the seasonal flu and vastly lower than the WHO’s 3.4 percent gross overestimate. In light of this scientific fact, we must ask the obvious question: Why do we need a global vaccine regimen imposed on everyone for a virus that has the same low fatality rate as the seasonal flu?

Though Dr. Ioannidis’ study was published in late May, he had determined as early as April—after analyzing twelve separate IFR studies conducted by researchers around the world—that the IFR for COVID-19 was in the range 0.07 to 0.2 percent. In addition, one month after his conclusion was published, the US CDC admitted that the overall IFR rate is just 0.26 percent. Yet even this number is slightly high. For when the CDC calculates the mortality rate, it includes both confirmed and presumptive positive cases of COVID-19. The CDCannouncement should have caused every government to pause and rethink their restrictive, hurtful strategies. But nothing changed. Instead, this desperately needed perspective from the world’s leading scientists never even made headlines. Why? Apparently it fit neither the official narrative of COVID-19’s dangers nor the promises being made by “public health expert” Bill Gates of the wonders of the coming anti-COVID-19 vaccine.

Cui Bono?

From the inception of this manufactured crisis, way back in January 2020—which now feels like a lifetime ago!—the stated purpose for the lockdown measures was to “flatten the curve” so that hospitals everywhere would not be overwhelmed by the inevitable wave of incoming COVID-19 patients. Governments around the world did exactly that: they flattened the curve to the point of destroying the lives of millions of people and ruining their own national economies.

Strange, isn’t it, that apparently very few hospitals, including in big cities, have been overrun by patients. Take for example, the Berlin hospital that a German journalist walked through at the height of the pandemic, only to discover, to his surprise, that no one was there. Or check out what citizen journalists were video recording in supposedly maxed-out-with-patients hospitals around the US. Incidentally, this Dana Ashlie video, which can be seen on BitChute, was banned from YouTube for purportedly violating Terms of Service. (Translation: Facts that contradict the pandemic propagandists’ fakery mustn’t be seen or heard by the general public, lest their fear of a virulent, fatal disease be deflated like a popped balloon.)

Strange, too, that many so-called COVID-19 cases were anything but. Consider, for example, the situation in Italy, where “only 12 per cent of the death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity—many had two or three.”

Strange, too, that in New York State, all the cases deemed to be COVID-19 were elderly patients who were removed from hospitals and dumped in nursing homes, where neglect and overcrowding and even the emotional toll produced by loneliness and fear resulted in many sickeningly sudden and sad deaths.

And isn’t it especially strange that one of the most obvious outcomes of flattening the curve was the loss of everyone’s constitutional, civil, medical, parental, and religious rights? It was as if there had been a plan all along to dispense not only with lives, but also with rights—including the right to dissent!

Now here we are, months later, still being bombarded by scary scenarios. Every major news outlet pounds us with fear-mongering predictions of second and third waves. The engineered-to-skyrocket cases of COVID-19 in the US are dominating the headlines. Some state governors and state and county health authorities and privately owned establishments are imposing ever-more-onerous rules regarding face masks and physical distancing—rules they realize would never pass the legal smell test in normal times, much less in a court of law. Meanwhile, the same dictators are doubling down on their innocent-sounding “let’s all get tested” message.

As the above five facts have shown, all of these public health measures are based on unsubstantiated science. Moreover, we have not even begun to feel the long-lasting economic effects of the “pandemic.” In the coming months and years, our national economies will become much more precarious. Is it possible that we already cash-strapped citizens will be ordered to pay back the billions of dollars that have been divvied out to us by our Big Brother governments?

In some places, lockdowns may be gradually easing. But the relief measures being implemented have not helped the countless mid-sized and small business owners who have, one by one, decided to board their doors and close up shop forever. They are suffering twice-over: they must watch their own families be penalized and at the same time feel guilty for having to bid farewell to their employees, who by the millions are looking for non-existent jobs and standing in long unemployment lines. As layoffs keep mounting, nations are facing a massive fiscal crisis at the very time when their badly needed tax revenues are disappearing. In the near future, national governments will be forced to hand over entire sectors of the economy to their creditors, such as Goldman Sachs and BlackRock. In the end, private financial oligarchies will literally own the US and other nations, further eviscerating the concept of national sovereignty.

So, why are we being forced to travel down this rocky road? One possible explanation could be that many governments may consider it political suicide to admit that their approach has been wrong. Thus, instead of immediately correcting their course of action, they are incrementally shifting gears. But could there be something far more sinister at play here? Could this entire “pandemic” be a gigantic smokescreen designed to conceal the diabolical actions of the globalist technocrats, whose agenda is to literally create, possess, and control a single worldwide economy and a single worldwide government?

If we follow the money trail, we can determine who some of the possible beneficiaries of such a fiendish agenda could be.

To begin, let’s look at the financial sector. Since the US mortgage and market crash of 2008, none of the mechanisms that allowed the crash to occur have been removed. True, for the past twelve years, the stock market has appeared to recover. In reality, though, the market is the opposite of healthy. It has been surviving mainly on stock buybacks by companies that have been using some of their profits to buy their own stocks in order to prop up prices. This scheme has provided the illusion that the economy is thriving. But the stock market’s action is not an absolute indicator of the real economy’s production and consumption.

Indeed, by the summer of 2019 it had become evident that not even the stock buyback strategy was going to keep the lumbering economy alive. Thus, as a short-term solution, the New York Federal Reserve last September started injecting billions of dollars into the stock market in the form of short-term loans (repos).  While the intent was to keep the stock market chugging along, the effect was more like kicking an empty tin can down the road for as long as possible until finally the road ends. Eventually, a long-term solution would have to be found to reset the entire world economy. Enter the “shadow bank” BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with over $7 trillion dollars in assets under direct management and another $20 trillion managed through its Aladdin risk-monitoring software.

In a statement released in August 2019 on Bloomberg News, BlackRock observed that “the current policy space for global central banks is limited and will not be enough to respond to a significant, let alone a dramatic, downturn.” To solve this problem, BlackRock hired former central bankers from the US, Canada, and Switzerland. Their orders were to devise a plan that would enable BlackRock to expand its role in the global fiscal and monetary policy arena by blurring the lines between government fiscal policy and central bank monetary policy. The plan was due by the end of August.

Are we surprised that the COVID-19 crisis precipitated the very dramatic downturn to which BlackRock alluded mere months earlier? Hardly. Both the pandemic and the ensuing stock market crash have presented the perfect opportunity for BlackRock and other central banks to take full control of global monetary policy. The economic reset that the globalists have been talking about since 2014, both at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS)—and, more recently, in June 2020, at the World Economic Forum (WEF)—is now well underway.

After the market crashed in late February, the Federal Reserve came out with a $10 trillion USD bailout package, of which $454 billion is to be administered by BlackRock under the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act). In other words, this money from taxpayers to the government will be used to directly buy stocks, bonds, junk bonds, mortgages, and junk mortgages from Wall Street investment firms. These purchases are designed to inflate the value of stock market assets. In the US, some 85 percent of these assets are held by the richest 10 percent of Americans. BlackRock has also been hired by the Bank of Canada and Sweden’s central bank, Riksbank, to implement their respective stimulus plans.

Keep in mind that none of this money will be fueling real economic activity. None of it will be used to help millions of people revive their small businesses and improve their living standards. It is, pure and simple, a bailout package for the players in the global stock market. It provides the illusion that the Main Street economy is on the mend. Governments claim the stimulus money will be used to build the means of production and help small business. Truthfully, the exact inverse is occurring: the largest redistribution of wealth in human history is taking place, which will only increase the gap in income inequality throughout the world.

Although there is no “smoking gun” to definitively prove that the COVID-19 pandemic was the preplanned pretext for launching the much-vaunted “Great Reset,” the timing is nonetheless too coincidental to ignore.

Now, let’s look at another group that could massively gain from this supposed pandemic: the pharmaceutical industry. If this industry, with Bill Gates at its helm, successfully launches its campaign to vaccinate every person on the planet against SARS-Cov-2, the drug-and-vaccine-makers could potentially rake in tens of billions of dollars.

Big Pharma holds tremendous sway in the political realm—both internationally and domestically. In mid-April, President Donald Trump announced that the US would be ending its financial support for the World Health Organization, which he accused of “severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.” In previous years, the top funder for WHO had been the US government, followed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The third-biggest donor to WHO was Gates-founded-and-funded GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance. Thus, if Trump’s move to defund that international body goes through, it will elevate both the Gates Foundation and Gates’s GAVI to the top of the global health pyramid. This would further tighten Bill and his wife Melinda’s already firm grip on WHO and thus strengthen their ability to formulate global “health” policy.

As if further signaling its disdain for WHO, in early June the Trump administration boosted its support for GAVI with a donation of a $1.16 billion USD (again, taxpayer dollars) via the first-ever virtual Global Vaccine Summit. That huge sum stands in stark contrast to the US government’s modest contributions to WHO of $401 million in 2017 and $281.6 million in 2018.

During the same summit, GAVI received from many other nations large contributions that totaled $8.8 billion USD. (The Rockefeller Foundation, which has numerous ties to the vaccine agenda, kicked in $5 million of that sum.) These injections of liquidity—ominously reminiscent of the injections of liquid that are known as vaccines—will provide GAVI with all of the funding it needs for the purpose of pushing the global vaccine agenda on governments and for maintaining its role in “public-private partnerships” with governmental bodies and private companies.

For those of us who may not be conversant with the lobbying process, here’s how it works across national borders. Because neither Bill Gates nor his foundation can directly lobby a foreign government, being a founding partner of GAVI enables Gates to seek out and hire representatives in targeted nations who will lobby on behalf of his interests.

In Canada, for instance, GAVI has hired Crestview Strategy, an Ottawa-based lobbying firm that specialises in shaping government policy by speaking directly to the Canadian government’s key decision-makers and opinion leaders. The government relations page on Crestview’s website defines its mission thusly:

“Crestview Strategy effectively represents the interests of corporations, not-for-profits and industry associations to achieve results with governments around the world.”

While representing “the interests of corporations, not-for-profits and industry associations” in pushing the vaccine message on behalf of GAVI, has Crestview crossed an ethical threshold? In other words, has there been any collusion between Gates proxy Crestview and the Canadian government? Or is it pure coincidence that Prime Minister Trudeau shares Bill Gates’s view that only a mass vaccination program will allow populations to return to lives of normalcy?

It depends who you ask and what they know. Journalists at Canuck Law, an independent media outlet that investigates political corruption in Canada, answer “yes” to collusion and “no” to pure coincidence. Canuck Law researchers dug up the fact that Crestview Strategy employs two former Liberal Party associates, Jason Clark and Zakery Blais, to lobby the Canadian government on behalf of GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance. These two Liberal Party operatives-turned-lobbyists met with the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) staff—the chief of staff, the director of policy and planning, a policy advisor, and a special assistant—as well as with members of Parliament on at least nineteen occasions between March 2018 and January 2020 to push the GAVI vaccine message. Records show that a third Crestview employee, Jennifer Babcock, who has since left the firm, lobbied the government for GAVI just one time.

Canuck Law explains: “These are just 20 reports that are on file with the Office of the Lobbying Commissioner. It’s fair to assume that there have been many, many more talks that aren’t documented.” It therefore comes as no surprise that Ottawa has thus far shelled out some $800 million for Gates’s global vaccine agenda and that PM Justin Trudeau constantly refers to society as living in “the new normal until a vaccine is found.”

In the US government, the level of corruption among vaccine promoters is more entrenched and insidious. Big Pharma far outpaces all other industries in spending on lobbying in Washington, D.C. In 2019, for instance, it spent twice as much on lobbying as the oil and gas industry and almost three times more than the defense industry. There are more pharmaceutical industry lobbyists than the 435 representatives in the House and the 100 US senators combined. Drug-and-vaccine-makers and their industry associations and paid corporate lobbyists aim to influence any and all related legislation and regulations. They also seek preferential treatment through campaign contributions. No wonder the State of Tennessee has already mandated that students are required to get the COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available. No wonder, too, that the Trump administration on July 31st handed over $2.1 billion in taxpayer money to GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Sanofi to expedite further COVID-19 vaccine development.

The Total Surveillance Grid is Forming

Now that we have seen who some of the financial winners are in this orchestrated pandemic, let’s examine how the know-it-all technocrats and parasitic, predator globalists plan to monitor and track our every move.

Their total surveillance grid, hiding in plain sight behind the COVID-19 scamdemic, is being tested in West Africa before it is rolled out in the rest of the world. Here, the Gates-tied GAVI and Mastercard and the AI-powered “identity authentication” company Trust Stamp have joined forces in the effort to link a biometric digital identity system, vaccination records, and a “cashless” payment system all into a single platform.

Under this alliance, Mastercard’s Wellness Pass program will be integrated into Trust Stamp’s biometric identity platform. The Wellness Pass will thus be capable of providing biometric identity information on any person, even in areas of the world lacking internet access or cellular connectivity. Moreover, the Wellness Pass will also be linked to an individual’s cashless payment system. This could potentially provide authorities with the ability to block a person’s account if he does not abide by certain mandates regarding health measures. Such massive surveillance and control are eerily similar to China’s “social credit” system.

This entirely new Trust Stamp platform will be coupled with the COVID-19 vaccination program, if and when a vaccine becomes available, through a COVI-PASS, the brand name for a digital health passport, which authorities will automatically download (push) to your device. The COVI-PASS, which was developed by British cybersecurity company VST Enterprises in partnership with several other tech firms, is slated to be rolled out in fifteen countries across the world, including Canada, Italy, Portugal, France, Spain, Panama, South Africa, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, and the Netherlands. The pass will contain a person’s COVID-19 test results and vaccination history plus any relevant health information. A truly Orwellian prospect!

Gates’s funding is not strictly limited to the field of global health. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in cooperation with GAVI, is also deeply tied to ID2020—a global digital ID system that will combine both birth registration records and vaccination records to create a digital identity for every person on planet Earth.

At first glance, ID2020 may seem like it’s the same concept as the COVI-PASS, but it is actually far more. The COVI-PASS, as mentioned above, relates more to one’s health record, whereas ID2020 is a complete identification record of your entire life. It is your driver’s license, passport, work identification pass, building access card, debt and credit cards, transit passes, police record, health records, and more—all wrapped up in one identification system. It is being sold to us by the statists as a new and improved means of “protecting our civil liberties and personal data,” when in reality the exact inverse is true: as with any electronic device, it can and will be used by the-powers-that-shouldn’t-be to monitor a person’s every move, and if necessary, restrict a person’s movements.

Although ID2020 was originally formed in 2019, when GAVI joined forces with the Rockefeller Foundation, Microsoft, Accenture, and IDEO.org, it was put into motion by the globalists at the onset of the supposed pandemic. And it is now being tested in Bangladesh. Once again, as we have already seen in the above-mentioned economic reset, the COVID-19 crisis presents the perfect opportunity to launch the ID2020 system.

The Path Forward

We must now ask ourselves: Is it merely coincidence that these measures—the economic reset, the implementation of ID2020, the creation of Trust Stamp, and Mastercard’s Wellness program—are all being put into motion, simultaneously, on the heels of the fabricated pandemic? We may never find out if their joint appearance is a coordinated effort by just a few top technocrats or by all the participants in these schemes—the usually compartmentalization of information and tasks keeps the lower-level actors from knowing the real purpose and the high-up players in any scheme of this sort.

What is certain, though, is that all of the medical martial law edicts that have been issued in united fashion have been based on unsubstantiated science. Equally clear is that the drive for a global COVID-19 vaccine regimen and the global surveillance grid are moving ahead in concert to transform the world as we know it—if we allow it to happen. As Professor Michel Chossudovsky and others have often said, we need mass movements, such as the #ExposeBillGates movement, to counter and dismantle the technocrats’ diabolical designs on us.

When and if our governments ever signal—presumably post-mass vaccination— that it is time to return to normal, beware. We must nevergo back to the old normal. For it is this old normal—based on a corrupt and broken paradigm—that landed us in pandemic prison in the first place. We must move forward with the new knowledge we have acquired in recent months, and we must build a better paradigm—one based on truth and compassion for all of humanity.

Madame Curie was right. Nothing is to be feared, it is only to be understood. We must fearlessly speak out and share this information.

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David Skripac has a Bachelor of Technology degree in Aerospace Engineering. He served as a Captain in the Canadian Forces for nine years. During his two tours of duty in the Air Force he flew extensively in the former Yugoslavia as well as in Somalia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. 

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First published on October 14, 2021

An estimated 350,000 of our military service members are being dishonorably discharged for refusing to take a completely unnecessary and experimental mRNA nanotech injection, which is now proven to degrade immune systems and cause many serious side effects.

Committing Total Force to these reckless injections, which do not protect troops from getting COVID, and, in fact, increase the threat of the spread and result in many provable side effects, is the greatest failure of military leadership in our history, at best. At worst, it is a deliberate treasonous attack against the U.S. military by the top of the Chain of Command.

To make matters even worse, an estimated 450,000 service members have recently been injected with the non-FDA approved Pfizer shot, even though many were falsely led to believe that they were getting the FDA-approved version, which is not even available in the U.S..

The outright lies, confusion and shocking lack of knowledge and incompetence demonstrated over the past week throughout the Chain of Command, which is covered in our 4-hour video here, is a low point in U.S. military history.

As you are reading this, many of these coerced troops are now beginning to experience side effects and COVID infection rates are increasing throughout the force. Many pilots are now grounded because of high risks of blood clots and heart failure while flying.

An estimated 400,000 military service members did not want the nanotech injections but submitted to taking them because they couldn’t afford to live without pay, benefits and the devastating scarlet letter of a dishonorable discharge.

A dishonorable discharge has severe ramifications when it comes to being employed throughout the civilian workforce. It is essentially sentencing many of our troops to a life of low-wage work and poverty in the draconian mandate economy, which also now demands injections for many jobs, with all the severe economic sanctions under the guise of “public health” that they will now face in civilian life.

Based on our assessments, it is now clear the Global Private Military Complex has captured the top of the U.S. military Chain of Command and is systematically degrading the U.S. military as part of a worldwide strategy to weaken national civilian militaries.

Our military is their greatest adversary and primary target.

Make no mistake, to dishonorably discharge thousands of our most elite fighting forces is a blatant Act of War against the American people.

The all-out systemic attacks against the American people are Acts of War.

There are so many outrageously corrupt activities and systemic abuses presently happening under the guise of “public health” throughout the government that it is now very obvious that the American people do not have any effective representation on the federal level.

The dishonorable discharge policy also makes it likely that many of our most elite fighting forces will now be inclined to take jobs as mercenaries in the Global Private Military Complex to support their young families – how convenient.

The American people are now up against the same imperial playbook of policies that have been strategically deployed to destabilize the Middle East, Latin America and many other nations worldwide.  Now, the globalist “War on Terror” is targeting first world populations. This “mandate” attack against our military, police, doctors, nurses and other critical sectors is tactical destabilization 101.

Bottom line, there are significant numbers of people throughout the Intelligence Community, military, and Special Forces in particular, who know Rome has fallen.

The “New World Order” terrorists attacking humanity have become absurdly arrogant.  We are experiencing the imperial overreach that occurs when an endangered oligarchy’s power structure collapses.

The compromised Biden Administration has also launched an attack against all U.S. veterans who do not submit to nanotech injections. As of November 1, all non-injected veterans will be denied V.A. healthcare – another Act of War to add to the long list of abuses.

There is also a new “Red Flag” gun law that targets veterans and newly discharged troops. If anyone reports them for vague and minor suspensions, they will have their guns taken away from them.

The Biden Administration is even trying to call in the United Nations’ Blue Helmet troops to be deployed throughout the U.S. to enforce international gun control and undermine our 2nd Amendment rights.

Everything that has happened over the past week is all coming right after a “deliberately botched” Afghanistan withdrawal, which was strategically designed to destroy troop morale and create division throughout the ranks.

In fact, Lt. Col. Stuart Sheller, who has been fighting this war for 17 years and is the highest ranking Marine to publicly speak out — after 13 of his fellow troops were unnecessarily killed — and demanded accountability from the top of the Chain of Command, is now a political prisoner in pre-trial brig solitary for an indefinite period of time, while no charges have even been filed against him.

Crimes Against Humanity

All of this is happening as more than 7,800 doctors and scientists have signed a “Physicians  Declaration” condemning policymakers for “authoritarian” strategies that have resulted in “needless illness and death,” which amount to “Crimes Against Humanity.”

As we covered in our video, official COVID policies have led to over 500,000 unnecessary civilian deaths throughout the United States.  The systemic shutdown of well-proven life-saving, safe and effective treatments, in favor of now well-proven harmful treatments, is blatant systemic medical malpractice.

Based on our assessments, it is clear that COVID is a bio-weapon that has been strategically released, and the spike protein and other ingredients in the mRNA nanotech injections are weaponized.

We also know that lockdowns have done significantly more harm than good, and now, with all these new mandates, our doctors, nurses and millions of essential workers throughout every sector of the economy are losing their jobs.

We are witnessing the deliberate incremental systematic dismantling and destruction of our country. The Global Private Military Complex is tactically turning America into Afghanistan and Iraq.

The amount of military movement throughout and around the continental U.S. is highly alarming. The designation and building of “internment facilities” under the guise of “public health,” and the fortification of Walmarts across the country, is also concerning.

The shocking complete opening of our entire Southern border by the Biden Administration is another new major National Security threat. We have credible intelligence that terrorists, drug cartels and global intel-backed mercenaries have entered the country and are being strategically deployed throughout the United States.

They are primarily targeting critical infrastructure and essential services, supply lines and states that are not enforcing “injection” mandates.

We are also deeply concerned about all the cargo ships that are now overwhelming all of our ports.  Our supply lines of essential goods are being strategically disrupted and these ships and their unknown cargo represent an urgent critical National Security threat.

As we covered in our video, weapons systems, missiles and drones are suspected to be in some of these cargo ships.  The military must immediately inspect and process every container.

We have a wide-open Southern border and we are surrounded by hundreds of cargo ships. In totality, it is a complete shitshow of systemic breakdown, corruption, incompetence and arrogance, and all this is happening right after the botched Afghanistan exit, which killed 13 troops and left behind $85 billion in weapons – and now we are discharging hundreds of thousands of troops while hundreds of thousands are now injected with a weaponized “vaccine.”

Clearly, Rome has fallen and rogue forces have compromised the Chain of Command.

The American people are under attack.

The Constitution is under attack.

We are under attack!

Therefore, we are now forced to engage tactical operations to save our nation and our families. We want to maintain peace while being surgical in detaining the terrorists.

Detain The Terrorists: Fauci, Gates, Schwab & Fink

As we highlighted in our video, the two most publicly known terrorists responsible for these systemic Crimes Against Humanity and Acts of War against the American people, and humanity in general, are Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates.

In addition, Klaus Schwab and Larry Fink have been key strategic driving forces behind overall systemic attacks against us.

“Markets like totalitarian governments.”

“Democracies are very messy, as we know in the United States.”

“China has done a magnificent job of engineering their economy.”

~ The Shadow King of Wall Street, Larry Fink, Black Rock CEO, Czar of the Lockdown Economy

We are calling for the immediate detainment and prosecution of those four War Criminals.

Failure to do so, will result in a complete loss of faith in the Intelligence Community and the top of the military Chain of the Command.

We are also calling upon DoD and Intelligence Community Inspector Generals to immediately deploy large-scale wide-ranging investigations into corrupt policy decision-making processes and to conduct a forensic analysis of every move that every agency has made.

If the Office of the Inspector General does not move with immediate overwhelming force, their failure to act will result in a complete loss of faith in our systemic accountability mechanisms.

We want peace and Continuity of Government based on TRANSPARENT processes.

We have a duty and responsibility to protect our nation and our families from these barbaric and vicious systemic attacks.

We know that the Global Private Military is strategically attacking and systematically dismantling the United States and trying to incite division, desperation, confusion and chaos throughout the civilian population.

As the fog of war gets thicker than ever, we will do everything that we can to keep the peace and be a source of stability and critical information throughout the populace.

We are calling upon the American people to unite with their local Sheriff, police and community members to urgently begin full-scale preparations to protect their families.

We believe that the Global Private Military is going to launch terror attacks throughout the U.S. as they increase their asymmetric unconventional warfare against us.

We need to do everything in our power to prevent violent outbreaks.

The Global Private Military wants chaos and violence to erupt throughout our country – that’s why they have been proactively systemically undermining our ability to obtain basic necessities and dismantling critical infrastructure and dismissing hundreds of thousands of police, military, healthcare and essential workforces via non-scientific and non-sensical mandates.

They are deploying the same divide and conquer tactics that they have used to destabilize the Middle East; to get us to fight amongst each other and provoke a civil war. They are using their mainstream media companies to exacerbate confusion and division.

Whether it is inciting the vaccinated vs the unvaccinated or identity politics, it is driven by psychological operations (PSYOP) strategies. Identity politics are strategically designed to silo civilian populations off into the smallest possible demographics so they fight amongst each other while imperial forces take over.

Therefore, we need to unite, keep the peace and be surgical in our counter-offensives.

Let it be known to all who perpetrate attacks against the American people that the overwhelming majority of our Special Operations Forces, combat troops and a standing decentralized militia of over 40 million U.S. veterans and well-armed combat-ready civilians are now prepared to defend this country.

The unconventional warfare tactics deployed against us through COVID policies must come to an end now.

Know Your Primary Enemies

The World Economic Forum, Business Roundtable, Black Rock, Vanguard and the most powerful global corporations have used and abused China and its people as a vassal state for low-wage sweatshop labor for decades.  What they have done to the people of China they now want to do to the people of the United States.

We are calling upon the people of China and Russia to join us in this fight against our common enemy. The most powerful global imperial interests have been exploiting and abusing all of us.  Now they are trying to get us to go to war with each other so they can enforce a tyrannical fascist New World Order.

It is absolutely critical to understand that the war against freedom and humanity is not a battle between nation states.  The Global Private Military has no loyalty to any one nation state – the worldwide release of a “vaccine” (bio-weapon?) and systemic oppression of all nations via draconian lockdown policies and mandates should now make that clear to everyone.

In many ways, COVID is the newest front in the 20-year old imperial power grab known as the “War on Terror.” Global imperial powers have brutally dominated the third and developing world for many decades.  With COVID, the fascist imperial seed has now blossomed, and they are now targeting first world populations.

Bottom line, if we are going to survive all of these ongoing attacks against us, we have to be surgical in our counter-offenses and we must be laser-focused on the heads of the snake.

It is our goal to have them detained and legally prosecuted for Crimes Against Humanity – that’s why we are demanding the immediate detainment of Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab and Larry Fink as a first step in restoring faith in our government.

We all have a duty and responsibility to protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies.

Let it be clearly understood: any government official who continues to be derelict in this duty is committing treason and is an accomplice in a war against the American people.

As the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear, it is up to you, the individual, to disobey unlawful, unconstitutional orders. You cannot legally defend yourself by saying you were just following orders.

It is now time for you to boldly stand up in defense of the American people.

The line is drawn.

What side of history will you be on?

DE OPPRESSO LIBER

~ POGSOF.COM

Here is our video featuring publicly available first-hand accounts from many U.S. soldiers who are now being discharged:

Please share our statement and video as widely as possible.

Given all the suppression and censorship tactics that are strategically deployed against us throughout the mainstream media, Google and social media platforms, it is absolutely vital for you to share them.

Let them be rocks for your slingshot. Let’s take down Goliath.

Our Freedom Fighting troops must be heard!!

We will fight for the freedom that the United States was built upon.

We will defeat the global fascist forces again.

We are a decentralized alliance of freedom fighting people worldwide.

Our forces of freedom and justice cover the globe.

We are an overwhelming critical mass of aware and well-armed fighters.

Our allies are the 99.99% of humanity that the fascists are trying to oppress.

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Featured image is from In Defense of Humanity