Tens of thousands of Canadian cross-border truckers with support from their compatriots and American counterparts from coast to coast have arrived in Ottawa.
Freedom Convoy 2022 is a mass movement that was organized to address not just the vaccine mandate but also the prolonged freedom restrictions and disregard for human rights by the Trudeau government.
Millions of people are demonstrating in Ottawa and nationwide in support of the truck drivers.
Prime Minister Trudeau has casually described the Freedom Convoy as a “small fringe with unacceptable views”. His legitimacy as head of government is being challenged from coast to coast.
In turn, the corporate media has initiated a hideous propaganda campaign, intimating that “convoy organizers have history of racism, extremism“. The media casually describes the Freedom Convoy 2022 as a “far-right” initiative comparable to the Washington D.C January 6, 2021 “riot” on Capitol Hill.
One would expect under a democracy, that the Prime Minster of Canada and members of his government would enter into a constructive dialogue with representatives of The Freedom Convoy 2022 with a view to reaching a solution to the crisis. That is not going to happen. The Trudeau government considers the Freedom Convoy as a potential security threat. According to media reports:
“Amid security concerns, Trudeau and his family have been moved from their home [official resident at 24 Sussex Drive] to an undisclosed location in the nation’s capital”. (CBC)
Freedom Convoy 2022
The Freedom Convoy 2022 initiative seeks all avenues through peaceful means to restore fundamental human rights through dialogue with and within public and private institutions, law enforcement officials, members of the military and the judicial.
What is required is to break down the structures of corruption, hierarchy and abusive authority, namely to pursue what might be described as: “the democratization of decision-making within our institutions”.
This historic event is setting the stage for the world to emulate. Hope is around the corner. There is strength in numbers. Unite and resist the medical tyranny!
***
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America’s armed forces have been in the throes of a mass die-off event ever since Covid-19 “vaccines” were forced on all servicemen.
At the recent “COVID-19: A Second Opinion” panel that was hosted in Washington, D.C., Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) dropped numerous bombshells showing that Fauci Flu shots are neither safe nor effective as claimed.
Doctors and other expert panelists presented damning data showing that not only are the injections a serious medical problem, but the government’s handling of it amounts to a coordinated coverup of Big Pharma’s evil deeds.
Attorney Thomas Renz reportedly told conservative commentator Daniel Horowitz from The Blaze the details about the cancer epidemic sweeping through the military. Here is what Horowitz tweeted in a follow-up to the gathering:
“I can share with you from attorney Thomas Renz that the number of cancer diagnoses in the military’s DMED system went from a 5-year average (2016-2020) of 38,700 per year to 114,645 in the first 11 months of 2021. This is a predominantly young population.”
“Unlike VAERS where the naysayers can suggest that anyone can submit, this is only by military doctors and quantifies every single ICD code in the military for tri care billing of Humana. This is the ultimate defined and finite population with excellent surveillance.”
Horowitz also shared a video of Renz speaking at the panel about other mind-blowing data he accumulated from several whistleblowers whose credentials, he said, “are impeccable.” One of them is one of the only Green Beret doctors in the military. (Related: Renz is the same guy who warned that everything about the plandemic is centered on fear and manipulation rather than facts.)
“One of the biggest takeaways here is that the data is beyond reproach and widely accessible by the DoD, CDC, FDA, and across the Biden-Harris regime. In other words, they are all very well aware that the jabs are almost certainly causing an untenable increase in cancer in otherwise young and healthy military-age Americans and they’re keeping that information away from the people.”
America’s military is being killed off by covid injections
In a perfect world, what Renz alone said at the panel would have been more than enough to convince the government to immediately halt the jab push while reevaluating the data and coming up with a new plan. That reevaluated data would then have been publicly released for independent scrutiny.
The world is far from perfect, though. Instead of honesty and transparency, the government has instead chosen deception and secrecy when it comes to the “science” behind the injections.
“We have substantial data showing that we saw, for example, miscarriages increasing by 300 percent over the five-year average, almost,” Renz further explained at the panel. “We saw an almost 300 percent increase in cancer over the five-year average.”
Since the corporate-backed media will never report on any of this, it is up to you and others like you to share it with anyone who might be willing to listen.
“We saw – this one’s amazing – neurological,” Renz added in his presentation. “So, neurological issues which would affect our pilots, over 1,000 percent increase. 1,000.”
“Ten times,” Sen. Johnson then interjected. “That’s 10 times the rate.”
“82,000 per year to 863,000 in one year,” Renz continued. “Our soldiers are being experimented on, injured, and sometimes possibly killed.”
The latest news about Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) “vaccine” injuries and deaths can be found at Genocide.news.
The eagerly awaited “written response” from the U.S. and NATO to Russia’s security proposals is now in the hands of President Vladimir Putin. And yet there is no sign the West caved in on Moscow’s insistence that NATO rescind its 14 year-old invitation to Ukraine to join NATO.
Amidst the foreboding din in Western corporate media that, absent a written pledge to bar Ukraine from NATO, nothing else really matters to Putin and war is likely, Peskov has been much less gloomy on prospects for the bilateral talks. Immediately after the first bilateral talks on Jan. 9/10 in Geneva, for example, he noted: “It would be naive to think that one round of negotiations can bring comprehensive results.” (Bear in mind that few have been as close to President Putin as Dmitri Peskov. Their working relationship goes back more than two decades; since 2012, Peskov has been Putin’s press secretary.)
How Might Putin Regard His Half a Loaf
Call me old fashioned, but I have been practicing a simplified version of Kremlinology since the days of Nikita Khrushchev. It is called media analysis and includes a close reading of what prominent leaders say.
When he became CIA director, William Casey admitted being astonished at what we could glean from Soviet media. Well, media analysis was our bread and butter then and can provide helpful insights now as well. How best to decipher what Putin has said about the need for written agreements preventing further NATO expansion? He addressed this – and much more – head-on during a major speech on Dec. 21, 2021 before the senior military. (Please see if you can get an idea of what might be the rhetorical aim behind his emphasis on “written”; and hang in there long enough to get some feel for what he is, first and foremost, concerned about.)
Here is President Putin speaking to his top military officers:
“In particular, the growth of the US and NATO military forces in direct proximity to the Russian border and major military drills, including unscheduled ones, are a cause for concern.
“It is extremely alarming that … Mk 41 launchers, which are located in Romania and are to be deployed in Poland, are adapted for launching Tomahawk strike missiles. If this infrastructure continues to move forward, and if US and NATO missile systems are deployed in Ukraine, their flight time to Moscow will be only 7–10 minutes, or even five minutes for hypersonic systems.
“This is a huge challenge for us, for our security. In this context, as you are aware, I invited the US President to start talks on the drafting of concrete agreements. … We need long-term legally binding guarantees. Well, we know very well that even legal guarantees cannot be completely fail-safe, because the United States easily pulls out of any international treaty that has ceased to be interesting to it for some reason, sometimes offering explanations and sometimes not, as was the case with the ABM and the Open Skies treaties – nothing at all.
“However, we need at least something, at least a legally binding agreement rather than just verbal assurances.”
Gorbachev Should Have Said ‘Put It in Writing’
At this point in his speech, Putin asserts that verbal assurances from the US can be worthless, and recalls that Moscow was repeatedly told that Russian concerns about NATO expansion were without merit. “Take the recent past, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when we were told that our concerns about NATO’s potential expansion eastwards were absolutely groundless.”
Informed observers are well aware, though, that the most glaring broken promise came earlier, in Feb. 1990, when Gorbachev was persuaded to swallow the giant bitter pill of German reunification in return for an oral assurance from then Secretary of State James Baker that NATO would not expand “one inch” to the east. There is copious documentary evidence proving that this is exactly what happened.
Thus, in this major speech, Putin is telling his generals and admirals that, this time, Russia must demand written assurances. Lest he appear naive, he immediately adds that he is well aware that written pledges, as in treaties, have not stopped the US from doing whatever it wants.
Rhetoric
The point, of course, is a rhetorical one, and Moscow is well aware that Russia holds the high ground on this key issue – to which can be traced all manner of high tension to this day. It is no exaggeration: Gorbachev was tricked by a fast-talkin’ lawyer; Putin knows that; and this won’t happen on his watch.
It strains credulity to imagine that Putin really thought he could get the US and NATO to sign a document limiting NATO membership. No less incredulous was/is the widespread impression spread wide, so to speak, in the Establishment media, that Putin planned to exploit an anticipated Western rejection to “justify” a military strike on Ukraine.
If we can allow ourselves to get back to reality for a second – given the disarray becoming more and more open within NATO, does anyone really believe that Ukraine could become a member of NATO anytime soon? The point about every country being free to choose alliances to join is actually moot, if you take the time to read the text of the NATO treaty on this point.
Unlikely Likelihood
Sure, Ukraine is free to apply to join NATO. Here’s the rub: all NATO members must give unanimous approval to Ukraine’s “application’. The charter provides sole discretion to the unanimous membership about inviting new candidates and contains no requirement to invite or to consider new applicants. Thus, Article 10 of the charter states:
The Parties may, by unanimous agreement, invite any other European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area to accede to this Treaty.
In that light, what are the chances of Ukraine passing muster any time soon? And, were that not enough, President Joe Biden has himself acknowledged that “The likelihood that Ukraine is going to join NATO in the near term is not very likely.”
In view of the historical background and current reality of this issue, it would not appear beyond the ability of negotiators to finesse the issue to dovetail with “the facts on the ground,” so to speak, and perhaps even make it appear to be something of a win-win. This, of course, would assume a modicum of good will on both sides, and would require the corporate media to eat some crow.
The Other Half-Loaf: ‘Secondary’ Issues
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said yesterday that the US written response could result in “the start of a serious talk on secondary issues,” even though the document “contains no positive response on the main issue” (presumably NATO expansion). Even NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has taken a similar line, adding that a political solution is still possible.
The rhetoric about NATO membership aside, so-called “secondary issues” remain of primary importance to President Putin who is calling the shots on the Russian side. For several years now, his attention has been focused on the pretend “ABM sites” in Romania and Poland that are easily adapted for launching Tomahawk missiles, putting in jeopardy a large portion of Russia’s strategic forces.
Read again, if you will, what Putin told his admirals and generals on Dec. 21, and try for a moment to switch places with the Russian president:
“It is extremely alarming that … Mk 41 launchers, which are located in Romania and are to be deployed in Poland, are adapted for launching Tomahawk strike missiles. If this infrastructure continues to move forward, and if US and NATO missile systems are deployed in Ukraine, their flight time to Moscow will be only 7–10 minutes, or even five minutes for hypersonic systems.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer/briefer of the President’s Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
This is a serious issue, perhaps the most serious of issues in Europe, but coming as it does immediately on the heels of Russia’s prior list of demands being resolutely rejected by the U.S. and NATO yesterday, the prospects of Washington and Brussels positively responding to this one either don’t appear good.
American nuclear weapons are based in Europe exclusively under provisions of what NATO calls its nuclear sharing arrangement. Those bombs are currently in Belgium, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Turkey. NATO nuclear sharing not only provides the justification and terms for their deployment but also mandates that they are to be delivered by aircraft of the host countries and not of the U.S.
Article I:
Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly….
Article II:
Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly….
… “currently there are about 200 American nuclear air bombs of the B61 family” in five non-nuclear NATO countries
Moscow proposed to Washington to return all American nuclear weapons from NATO countries to US territory in the context of reviewing security guarantees, … Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for Nonproliferation and Arms Control Vladimir Yermakov said in an interview with TASS.
“We insist that NATO’s ‘joint nuclear missions’ should be stopped immediately, all the American nuclear weapons be returned to US national territory and the infrastructure that allows their rapid deployment should be eliminated. This aspect is one of the elements of the package of measures proposed by us to Washington in the context of considering the issues of security guarantees,” he said.
According to the diplomat, “currently there are about 200 American nuclear air bombs of the B61 family” in five non-nuclear NATO countries. Thus, the alliance is capable of rapidly deploying nuclear weapons able to reach strategic targets on Russian territory. “[NATO countries] also retain the infrastructure ensuring rapid deployment of these [nuclear] weapons capable of reaching Russian territory and striking a wide range of targets, including strategic ones,” he pointed out.
At the same time, NATO engages non-nuclear countries in training for using American nuclear weapons against Russia. “Interaction between NATO member countries in joint nuclear planning is underway. NATO ‘joint nuclear missions’ take place with non-nuclear alliance members involved in training on the use of American nuclear weapons against us,” the diplomat stressed.
He noted that the US is modernizing its nuclear arsenal with a view of the increased applicability of such weapons in real conditions, above all, in Europe.“As for modernization, the US is consistently implementing a campaign on the renovation of practically all the components of the nuclear arsenal. The B61 air bombs in their newest B61-12 modification [see video below] will have a decreased or variable yield but increased precision. This raises the question, which containment scenarios justify such ‘calibration?’ This clearly means betting on a ‘higher applicability’ of such weapons under real conditions, first of all, in Europe,” the diplomat stated.
See America’s new B61-12 High Tech Nuclear Gravity Bomb.
Tens of thousands of Canadian cross-border truckers with support from their compatriots and American counterparts travel from coast to coast to converge in Ottawa on Saturday, January 29th.
Freedom Convoy 2022 is a mass movement that was organized to address not just the vaccine mandate but also the prolonged freedom restrictions and disregard for human rights by the Trudeau government.
The demonstration is expected to be attended by at least 500,000 people. Truckers will reportedly remain in the vicinity until all mandates are dropped and until all Canadians can once again enjoy the freedom that was taken away two years ago.
This historic event is setting the stage for the world to emulate. Hope is around the corner. There is strength in numbers. Unite and resist the medical tyranny!
Read our selection below and share to your family, friends and community.
This interview by Mark Taliano suggests that there is a deliberate process on the part of the Canadian government of undermining US-Canada commodity trade, even in the case when the truck drivers have all the required documents.
There is evidence that cross-border trade is being deliberately undermined. This policy mandate is already creating shortages of essential goods including food, fuel and pharmaceuticals. It will also affect the delivery of essential commodities shipped via the US from China, the European Union and Latin America.
Join us for an interview with Chris and Robert, volunteers with Adopt-A-Trucker, as they share the latest details of what, when and where to expect events in Ottawa on January 29 when the truckers finally arrive.
May God please bless these truckers and everyone supporting the convoys and the big Saturday protest in Ottawa. Thank you for helping to set us free from this medical tyranny and genocide. We pray that Trudeau and other covid criminals will be brought to justice, and we the people will soon celebrate in a restored, free, and fair country.
Free to Fly supports this peaceful and much-needed demonstration of collective resolve. Mandates and lockdowns are violating the most fundamental of our constitutional rights, not to mention destroying lives, the economy and jeopardizing the same for future generations. This convoy has been greatly encouraging and helped galvanized much of the nation saying “Enough!”.
A COVID-19 mandatory vaccine requirement for all non-U.S. citizens coming across the borders from Canada and Mexico that includes truck drivers went into effect today, Saturday, January 22, 2022. Canada implemented a similar COVID-19 vaccine mandate for U.S. truck drivers entering Canada last week, and it is already disrupting the supply chains in Canada. Besides higher prices, food shortages have also been reported in Canada this past week.
The resistance reveals itself always in unexpected ways. As I type, thousands of truckers (numbers are in flux and are in dispute) are part of a 50-mile-long convoy in Canada, headed to the capital city of Ottawa in protest against an egregious vaccine mandate imposed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
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.
The resistance reveals itself always in unexpected ways. As I type, thousands of truckers (numbers are in flux and are in dispute) are part of a 50-mile-long convoy in Canada, headed to the capital city of Ottawa in protest against an egregious vaccine mandate imposed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
They will be joined upon arrival by vast numbers of protestors who are defying the restrictions, closures, and mandates of the last nearly two years.
The [alleged] triple-vaccinated Trudeau, meanwhile, has decided that he has to go into deep hiding because he was exposed to Covid. A clean, ruling-class, fit, and fashionable lefty like him cannot be expected to face such a pathogen directly. As a member of the vanguard of the lockdown elite, he must never take risks (however small) and must keep himself safe. It is merely a matter of coincidence that he will be locked away in hiding as the truckers arrive together with hundreds of thousands of citizens who are fed up with being treated like lab rats.
Previously, Trudeau had said nearly two years ago that the truckers were heroes. On March 31, 2020, he tweeted:
“While many of us are working from home, there are others who aren’t able to do that – like the truck drivers who are working day and night to make sure our shelves are stocked. So when you can, please #ThankATrucker for everything they’re doing and help them however you can.”
It’s true. Like many “essential workers” in the US, these truckers bravely faced the virus and many already gained natural immunity, which Canadian law does not recognize. Trudeau decided that they needed to be forced to get the vaccine anyway. Keep in mind: these are the people who get food to the stores, packages to homes, and all products that keep life moving. If they don’t drive, the people don’t eat. It’s that simple.
Few events in modern times have revealed the vast chasm that exists between the ruled and rulers, especially as it pertains to class. For nearly two years, the professional class has experienced a completely different reality than the working class. In the US, this only began to change once the highly vaccinated Zoom class got Covid anyway. Only then did we start seeing articles about how there is no shame in getting sick. It appears that in many countries, the working class that was forced into early confrontation with the virus are saying that they aren’t going to take it anymore (and many are playing that song to make the point).
It’s a massive workers’ strike but not the kind of communist dreams. This is a “working class” movement that stands squarely for freedom against all the impositions of the last two years, which were imposed by an overclass with almost no consultation from legislatures. Canada has had some of the worst, much to the shock of its citizens. The convoy is an enormous show of power concerning who really keeps the country running.
The convoy is being joined by truckers from all over the US too, rising up in solidarity. This is easily the most meaningful and impactful protest to emerge in North America. It is being joined by as many as half a million Canadian citizens, who overwhelmingly support this protest, as one can observe from the cheers on the highway along the way. Indeed, it’s likely to break the record for the largest trucker convoy in history, as well as the most loved.
Trudeau, meanwhile, has dismissed the whole thing as a “small fringe” of extremists and says it means nothing to him and will change nothing. This is because, he says, these truckers hold “unacceptable views.”
This is setting up to be one of the most significant clashes in the world in the great battle between freedom and those governments have set out to crush it.
Meanwhile, I’m looking now for information on this in the mainstream media. It is almost nonexistent outside social media. Fox is covering some of it but that’s about it. The Epoch Times is a wonderful exception, as we’ve come to expect in recent months. It’s not being covered in any depth in Canadian papers and TV. All the usual subjects in the US have completely ignored this mighty movement. It’s almost like these venues have created an alternate version of reality, one that denies the astonishing reality that anyone can see outside the window.
Yes, I know that we have all come to expect that the corporate media will not cover what actually matters, and much of what it does cover it does only with a strong bias toward narratives crafted by ruling elites. Even so, it seems to stretch credulity beyond any plausible extent for the major media to pretend that this isn’t happening. It is and it has massive implications for the present and the future.
This is not really or just about vaccine mandates. It’s about what they represent: government taking possession of our lives. If they can force you to get an injection in your arm over which you have doubts, all bets for freedom are off. There must be evidence that you complied. The phone app is next, which gets tied to your bank account and your job and your access to communications and your ability to pay your rent or mortgage. It means eventually 100% government control over the whole of life. The technology already exists. Everything going on now with these passports is driving to this point.
This is why the truckers are striking this way. It is an act of bravery but also of desperation. Once the tyranny of health passports arrives, there will be no escape. The window of opportunity to do something about this will have closed. So this is the moment. There might not be another one. Something needs to be done to fight for human rights and freedom, and put in place systems that make lockdowns and mandates impossible in the future.
This is the largest and latest example of the revolt and one that could make the biggest difference yet. But it is only one sign among many that the ruling elites in most countries have overplayed their hand. They have arrogantly imposed their plans for everyone else based on the opinions of only a few and without real consultation with experts with differences of opinion or with the people whose lives have been profoundly affected by the pandemic response.
In the US the revolt is taking many forms. There was the rally in DC this past weekend. It was impressive. Also the latest polls on political alliances show that the Democrats have lost a major part of their base. Virginia right now points to where this is headed. The party lost vast amounts of its political power in elections last year and now Republicans rule the state with great popularity.
Meanwhile, I’m looking at Biden’s latest poll numbers. I almost cannot believe my eyes. We are talking about an overall 14-point split between approve and disapprove. If this is an indication of what happens to the pro-lockdown political elite, it stands to reason that Trudeau should be worried.
In the Vietnam War, many Americans fled the draft by going to the safe haven on the northern border. That’s one way that Canada had earned its long reputation for being delightfully normal, peaceful, and mercifully boring. Pandemic policies in Canada changed that, with some of the longest-lasting stringencies in the world.
No one asked the workers. Now they are rising up. Nor does it matter that 90% of the Canadian public is vaccinated. Possessing that status alone does not mean that people no longer feel resentment for being forced to accept what they do not believe they needed and did not want in the first place. The vaccinated do not automatically give up their longing to be free and to have their human rights recognized.
The resistance to tyranny in our times is taking many unexpected forms. There will be many confrontations on the way, and there is still a very long way to go. At some point, and no one knows when or how, something has to give.
Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press and ten books in 5 languages, most recently Liberty or Lockdown. He is also the editor of The Best of Mises. He speaks widely on topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture. [email protected]
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Western governments and most media took the opportunity of the synagogue hostage-taking incident near Fort Worth, Texas to claim that it was an example of (Muslim) terrorism and anti-Semitic hatred. The truth was more difficult to explain, including apparent misreporting of the killing of the hostage-taker.
Malik Faisal Akram was on a quixotic mission from Britain to try to free Aafia Saddiqi from Carswell prison near Fort Worth. While the case of Aafia Siddiqi has been an open wound to Muslims, it is largely unknown in the US. Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark claimed it was the worst abuse of human rights that he was aware of.
Aafia Siddiqi, a Pakistani neuroscientist who should now be about 44 years old, graduated from MIT and received a PhD from Brandeis University. Recognized as an outstanding Muslim woman leader, she and her husband and two children were harassed by the government after the events of Sept. 11, 2001 into leaving the US.
Two years later, in 2003, when she was in a taxi in Karachi, Pakistan, she was arrested with her three children and taken into US custody; the arrest was brutal and her six-month old son was thought to have been killed by being thrown on the road.
Her other children initially disappeared and nothing was known of their whereabouts for some years. It appears that Siddiqi was taken to the US torture gulag in Bagram, Afghanistan, where she became known as “the grey lady”, or Prisoner No. 650, who for years screamed nights from torture and rape. Journalist Yvonne Ridley publicized the story and although the US claimed that no women were held in Bagram, many started to connect Saddiqi’s disappearance with “the grey lady”.
The US had to have realized that it had make an embarrassing mistake in torturing an innocent Muslim woman — fluent in English — who now had an international audience following her story. In 2008 — two weeks after a media event by Ridley that focused on Aafia Siddiqi, a dazed Siddiqi was found with her son (who she did not recognize) crouching by the governor’s house in Ghazni, Afghanistan with bags that reportedly contained directions to bomb US and Afghan sites and liquids in tubes. A warning had recently been issued that a woman was trying to recruit suicide bombers, so she might have been shot on sight. Siddiqi entered a male-only masjid and was then in Afghan custody. At around that time, her daughter appeared at the family home in Pakistan with an identifying sign around her neck; she could speak only English — with an American accent.
While US representatives were arguing with Afghan police about their right to take her, a US soldier shot her twice in the stomach and she was airlifted to an American base for medical help. Rather than charge her for anything that might have rationalized her five years of torture and rape in Bagram, the US charged her with trying to shoot the soldier who had shot her.
Despite showing no evidence to substantiate the charge, Siddiqi was convicted and sentenced to 86 years without parole. She reportedly forgave the judge and those who had judged her. Her family have not heard from her in four years; their attempts to communicate with her were largely blocked. It was rumored that she might have died in 2021. When the Pakistani consulate tried to contact her, she “chose” not to speak with them despite having had many contacts in past years. It was reminiscent of Julia Skripal’s “refusal” to speak to the Russian consul after her apparent murder.
Akram clearly related to the injustice of Siddiqi’s treatment at western hands; he wanted to rescue Siddiqi or at least discover if she was still alive. He flew to the US, where he spent the night in a homeless shelter and purchased a gun on the street. His hostage-taking of several people in the synagogue near the Carswell prison was captured on the live programming of the service and continued for some hours into it. Akram was heard to demand Siddiqi’s release and repeatedly told the hostages that he did not want to hurt them.
The Rabbi, Charlie Cytron-Walker, said in an Anti-Defamation League webinar that Akram’s first demand was to speak with Angela Buchdahl, the senior rabbi at Central Synagogue in New York because he believed ‘she was the most influential rabbi’.For some hours during the event, Akram spoke on the phone to his horrified family; he said he had no intention of harming anyone but assumed he would be killed.
Image on the right is from ABC News
The New York Times claimed that Akram had threatened the lives of the hostages and that the FBI had not realized that the hostages had gone when they went in for the kill because they used a different door than the hostages had used to exit. But according to the Guardian account, video from Dallas TV station WFAA shows people running out of the same door used by the police gunman seconds later: a man who then closed the door and shot off rounds of ammunition along with an explosive, apparently with no warning.
Why did Akram choose a synagogue as a venue to contact Siddiqi? He clearly believed that the Jewish community was the most influential: he had even identified the rabbi who he thought had the most clout in the United States. While his choice was spun as anti-Semitic, it can be seen as an implicit insult to the Christian community.
Akram sacrificed his life in vain: he was not able to help Siddiqi and her story was not even brought forward by the media. Editorials and opinion pieces could have explained this as a story of ongoing Muslim pain instead of weaponizing it as “terrorism”, “hatred”, and “anti-Semitism”. The British and American reactions to this story display and perpetrate the vicious racism that they attributed to yet another of their victims.
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As the COVID-19 mainstream media narrative steadily disappears from news headlines around the world, following the highly coincidental timing of last week’s Davos Agenda virtual event held by the World Economic Forum, the corporate media has now, in lockstep, moved onto what many commentators predicted they would – an escalation in the current Ukraine crisis, in which Russia has been accused of planning an ‘imminent’ invasion of its smaller Western neighbour, with Kiev having come under the control the US-EU aligned governments of Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky since the 2014 CIA and MI6-orchestrated Euromaidan colour revolution was launched in response to then-President Viktor Yanukoych’s November 2013 decision to suspend a trade deal with Brussels in order to pursue closer ties with Moscow.
Despite the narrative of an ‘imminent Russian invasion’ first appearing in the mainstream media at the end of November 2021 and being promoted by the same corporate outlets ever since then, in a manner not dissimilar to previous regime change lies such as ‘Saddam has WMDs’ or ‘Iran is building a nuclear bomb’, the sudden abandonment of COVID-19 by the corporate media in the past week has now seen a hypothetical Russian invasion of Ukraine taking centre stage and subsequently, Moscow becoming the target of a coordinated campaign of condemnation by the Western establishment – including from my own country, Ireland.
On Monday, Foreign Minister of the 26-County State, Simon Coveney, speaking in Brussels, condemned standard Russian Navy training exercises due to take place in early February, 240km off the southern Irish coast – a condemnation that, amidst the current context of the Ukraine crisis, has garnered worldwide attention, including from the Russian media, but one that also stands in stark contrast to the facilitation of both British and US imperialism by the Irish Free State since its inception.
Established following the 1921 Anglo-Irish agreement, which saw Ireland partitioned into a north-eastern six county state remaining directly under British rule, and the 26 County pro-British ‘Irish Free State’, the southern Irish government has not only consistently turned a blind eye to the British military occupation of the north-east of the country over the past century and the ensuing atrocities and injustices that it has entailed – but has also colluded in protecting British interests in order to uphold that occupation.
From June 1922 until May 1923, the fledgling Free State army used British-supplied weapons to fight a bloody counter-revolution against Irish Republicans seeking to defend the Irish Republic declared in arms in Dublin on Easter Monday 1916 – 77 Irish Republican prisoners were executed by Free State forces during this 11 month period, a figure that doesn’t include direct combat fatalities or extra-judicial killings such as the notorious Ballyseedy massacre.
Following the end of the Treaty War, the use of Free State forces to facilitate British Imperialism in Ireland continued through the use of military internment camps for Irish Republicans such as the Curragh – a practice that continues today through the use of the non-jury ‘Special Criminal Court’, where the word of a senior Garda alone can see Republicans jailed for ‘membership of an illegal organisation’ in Portlaoise Gaol, the highest security prison in Europe, in which heavily-armed 26 County troops keep Republican political prisoners under lock and key.
Following the turn of the century and the 9/11 attacks however, this facilitation of British imperialism by the Irish Free State was also widened to accommodate US imperialism, with Shannon Airport, located in County Clare on Ireland’s west coast, becoming a de facto US airbase in the run-up to the US-led war on Afghanistan, an arrangement that remains in place more than 20 years and see’s that the southern Irish State, a supposedly neutral entity, remains the first European stopover for US Forces en route to unleash devastation in the Middle East – and unlike February’s planned Russian training exercises in international waters, has come in for little to no condemnation by the Free State’s political and media establishment.
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Gavin O’Reilly is an activist from Dublin, Ireland, with a strong interest in the effects of British and US Imperialism. Secretary of the Dublin Anti-Internment Committee, a campaign group set up to raise awareness of Irish Republican political prisoners in British and 26 County jails. His work has previously appeared on American Herald Tribune, The Duran, Al-Masdar and MintPress News.
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As of January 27, Syria security remains precarious despite a slight improvement in the country’s northeastern, northwestern and southern regions.
In the northeastern region, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced on January 26 that it had retaken control of Geweran prison in the city of al-Hasakah where hundreds of ISIS terrorists were holding up.
The terrorists launched a large attack on the prison late on January 20 to free their comrades. However, they ended up capturing the entire prison and nearby areas.
The SDF said that its military operation to secure the prison and nearby areas, codenamed the People’s Hammer, was successfully concluded. More than 1,600 terrorists surrendered after running out of water, food and medical supplies. 32 hostages who were held by the terrorists were also freed.
However, the SDF’s victory is questionable to say the least. An unknown number of terrorists are still holding up at some parts of Geweran as well as in nearby areas, possibly to carry out suicide attacks. Gun shots and explosions as still being heard in the vicinity of the prison as of the morning of January 27.
It’s also worth noting that British special forces were spotted along with other formations of US-led coalition near Geweran prison on January 25. On the same day, news sources revealed that the SDF and the US-led coalition, who failed to storm Geweran prison for five consecutive days, were holding talks with the terrorists occupying the prison. Their evacuation to central Syria was reportedly discussed.
The terrorists, many of whom are foreigners, may have withdrawn to central Syria after reaching a deal with the SDF and the US-led coalition with help from British negotiators. More than two thousand terrorists who were holding up at Geweran prison are still missing.
It appears that only the weak and injured terrorists have surrendered to the SDF, while the commanders and more experienced terrorist have fled on their own or under a deal.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the battle of Geweran prison claimed the lives of 124 ISIS terrorists, seven civilians and 50 personnel of the SDF and its security forces.
Regardless of the outcome of the battle, ISIS attack on Geweran prison was a large blow to the SDF and the US-led coalition. ISIS is yet to share its account of the attack’s last days. The terrorist group will likely reveal the number of the terrorists who managed to flee the prison very soon.
In the northwestern region, known as Greater Idlib, the situation remains calm as of January 27.
A few, minor ceasefire violations by the al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies were reported on January 25 and 26. However, there were no casualties.
A harsh snow storm affecting Greater Idlib and nearby areas will likely keep the situation in the region calm at least for another week.
Meanwhile, the situation in central Syria remains tense. Government forces and their allies continue to operate against ISIS in the region.
On January 26, fighter jets of the Russian Aerospace Forces and attack helicopters from the Syrian Arab Air Force carried out more than 50 airstrikes on hideouts, equipment and personnel of ISIS in: the outskirts of the town of Ithriyah in the eastern Hama countryside; the outskirts of the town of al-Sukhnah in the eastern Homs countryside and the outskirts of the town of al-Resafa in the southern Raqqa countryside.
The Russian and Syrian airstrikes were likely a response to an attack by ISIS cells’ that targeted a convoy of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) near the ancient city of Palmyra in the eastern countryside of Homs on January 24. Seven service members of the SAA were killed and 24 others were wounded as a result of the attack. A tank and seven light military vehicles were also damaged.
The attack highlights the threat posed by ISIS cells in the central region. This threat will not likely end anytime soon.
In Syria’s southern region, which includes Daraa, al-Quneitra and al-Suwayda, the situation has been clam. No attacks on government forces were reported as of January 27. Security measures implemented by the government appear to be working, at least for the time being.
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What were the real objectives behind Britain’s ‘secret diplomacy’ with Hitler’s Germany from 1932 to Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Poland? In this Canadian Patriot Review Podcast, Matt talks with Alex Krainer about his research and three part series on the Anglo American plan for a ‘Three Block World Agenda’.
As Alex thoroughly details, this aborted blueprint for a ‘New World Order’ envisioned a trifold power block (replicated by the Trilateral Commission model today) of Anglo-American fascist control over the Americas and much of Europe, India and Africa, a German fascist control over the Eurasian Heartland, and Japanese fascist control of much of the Asia Pacific.
How this agenda was advanced by the London-centered financier oligarchy operating throughout and above the various parts of the Great Game, and how this oligarchy arranged Hitler’s annexation of Austria, carving up of Czechoslovakia to the invasion of Poland is unpacked in great detail.
The important thing to hold in mind while listening to Alex’s remarks, is that this is not a story of the past, but rather a story of the present with extreme importance for the future of civilization. It is after all, a fact that the same formula attempted in 1938 is being replicated once more on the world stage.
And just like in 1938, Russia is still a primary target.
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In his new two volume series The Clash of the Two Americas, Matthew Ehret introduces a new analysis of American history from the vantage point that the globally-extended supranational shadow government that managed the British Empire was never fully defeated and has acted within the USA itself since 1776 as a continuous multi-generational fifth column managing every significant event and assassination of American presidents for the next 250 years.
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The saber rattling is becoming scary. But Canadian officials labelling Russia “aggressive” while stoking unnecessary conflict has a long history.
Echoing a 2009 statement from Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently denounced “an aggressive Russia”. Throughout their time in office the Liberals have blamed Russia for complicated conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, as well as nuclear proliferation. In a major 2017 foreign policy speech foreign minister Chrystia Freeland called “Russian military adventurism and expansionism … clear strategic threats to the liberal democratic world, including Canada.” But NATO countries spend $1.1 trillion on their militaries each year while Russia’s military budget is $61 billion.
In a dangerous game of brinksmanship, the Trudeau government has expanded Canada’s military presence on Russia’s doorstep. In 2017 the number of Canadian troops in Eastern Europe was more than doubled from approximately 300 in the Ukraine and Poland to 800 in the Ukraine, Romania and Latvia. Alongside these forces, Canada has often had a naval frigate and a half dozen CF-18 fighter jets in Eastern Europe. Recently, they deployed special forces to the Ukraine.
Canada’s military buildup in Eastern Europe is the outgrowth of a coup in Kiev. In 2014 the right-wing nationalist EuroMaidan movement ousted president Viktor Yanukovych who was oscillating between the European Union and Russia. The US-backed coup divided the Ukraine politically, geographically and linguistically (Russian is the mother tongue of 30% of Ukrainians and as much as 75% of those in eastern cities). After Yanukovych’s ouster Russia reinforced its military presence in — or “seized” — the southern area of Crimea and then organized a referendum on secession. Home to Moscow’s major Black Sea naval base, Crimea had long been part of Russia and the bulk of the population preferred Moscow’s rule to the post-coup right wing nationalist government in Kiev.
The largely Russian speaking east protested the ouster of Yanukovych who was from the region. After a referendum and fighting the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics were proclaimed in the Donbas region bordering Russia. Moscow aided the movement but showed little interest in absorbing the newly proclaimed republics into Russia as many in the Donbas would have liked.
While we heard about Russia’s nefarious influence in the Ukraine, little attention is given to Canada or the US’s role in stoking tensions there. In July 2015 the Canadian Press reported that opposition protesters were camped in the Canadian Embassy for a week during the February 2014 rebellion against Yanukovych. “Canada’s embassy in Kyiv was used as a haven for several days by anti-government protesters during the uprising that toppled the regime of former president Viktor Yanukovych,” the story noted.
Since the end of the Cold War Ottawa has provided significant support to right wing, nationalist opponents of Russia in the Ukraine and throughout Eastern Europe. Federal government documents uncovered by Canwest in July 2007 explained that Ottawa was trying to be “a visible and effective partner of the United States in Russia, Ukraine and zones of instability in Eastern Europe.” During a July 2007 visit to the Ukraine, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said Canada would help provide a “counterbalance” to Russia. “There are outside pressures [on Ukraine], from Russia most notably. … We want to make sure they feel the support that is there for them in the international community.” As part of Canada’s “counterbalance” to Russia MacKay announced $16 million in aid to support what was labeled “democratic reform” in the Ukraine.
Support for the Ukrainian government followed on the heels of Canada’s role in the western-backed “colour” revolutions in Eastern Europe, which were largely aimed at weakening Russian influence in the region. An in-depth Globe and Mail article headlined “Agent Orange: Our secret role in Ukraine” detailed some of the ways Canada intervened in the 2004-2005 Ukrainian elections.
“Beginning in January 2004 — soon after the success of the Rose Revolution in Georgia, he [Canadian ambassador to the Ukraine, Andrew Robinson] began to organize secret monthly meetings of western ambassadors, presiding over what he called ‘donor coordination’ sessions among 20 countries interested in seeing Mr. [presidential candidate Viktor] Yushchenko succeed. Eventually, he acted as the group’s spokesman and became a prominent critic of the Kuchma government’s heavy handed media control. Canada also invested in a controversial exit poll, carried out on election day by Ukraine’s Razumkov Centre and other groups that contradicted the official results showing Mr. Yanukovich [winning].”
The Canadian embassy gave $30,000 US to Pora, a leading civil society group active in the Orange Revolution. In total Ottawa spent half a million dollars promoting “fair elections” in the Ukraine. The ambassador promised the Ukraine’s lead electoral commissioner a passport (Canadian citizenship) if he did “the right thing.” (Imagine if Russia did these things during a Canadian election.) The embassy also paid for 500 election observers from Canada, the largest official delegation from any country (another 500 Ukrainian-Canadians came independently). Many of these election observers were far from impartial, according to the Globe.
The first Eastern European “colour” revolution took place in Serbia just over a year after NATO’s 78-day bombing campaign. During NATO’s illegal bombing of Serbia in 1999, 18 Canadian CF-18 jets dropped 530 bombs in 682 sorties — approximately 10 per cent of NATO’s air operations. “One goal of the war against Yugoslavia,” noted Tariq Ali, “was to expand NATO to the very frontiers of the former Soviet Union.”
Bombing Serbia, which deepened Kosovo’s separation from that country, was the final blow to multiethnic Yugoslavia. The former Yugoslavia’s division into ethnic states was attractive to NATO because it diminished Russian influence in the Mediterranean.
Through diplomacy and peacekeeping Canada spurred Yugoslavia’s breakup in the 1990s. During the Cold War, however, Ottawa took a different tack. At a time when Russia was relatively strong, Canada got close to Yugoslavia as a way to pry it away from the Russian-led Warsaw Pact.
Established in 1955 the Warsaw Pact was a response to NATO, which some believe was a Canadian idea. The US, Britain and Canada held secrets meetings to discuss creating NATO in March 1948.
Reflected in Ottawa’s support for NATO, immediately after World War II Canadian officials spouted Cold War hysteria despite reports from our ambassador in Moscow that the Soviet elite desired peace with Washington and London. During his nine years as external affairs minister between 1948 and 1957 Lester Pearson repeatedly decried “communist imperialism” and “the international communist conspiracy” in the House of Commons. At a time when European powers controlled dozens of colonies Pearson referred to the “Greatest colonial power of all and the one which exercises power in the most arbitrary andtyrannical fashion, the Soviet Union.”
Begun during World War II the Canadian Psychological Warfare Committee continued to operate throughout the Cold War. It beamed Canadian propaganda (through the CBC International Service) to the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries. According to former Canadian ambassador to Czechoslovakia and Poland and CBC-IS founder, Jack McCordick, the aim of CBC-IS was “to engage in psychological warfare against the communist regimes.”
In the lead-up to World War II Canadian officials supported the Nazis’ anti-Russian posture and throughout the 1920sOttawa attempted to isolate Russia. Six thousand Canadian troops invaded Russia after the Bolsheviks rose to power in 1917. About 600 Canadians fought in Murmansk and Archangel where the British air force dropped diphenylchloroarsine against the Bolsheviks in the summer of 1919. Red Army soldiers fled in panic of a gas that caused uncontrollable coughing and individuals to vomit blood.
The war against the Bolsheviks was initially justified as a way to reopen World War One’s Eastern Front (the Bolsheviks signed a peace treaty with Germany). Canadian troops, however, stayed after World War One ended. In fact, 2,700 Canadian troops arrived in the eastern city of Vladivostok on January 5, 1919, two months after the war’s conclusion.
For some reason, the dominant media rarely mention any of this important background to a story that dominates today’s front pages. They don’t mention Canadian interference in other countries elections because that would make this country look hypocritical. They don’t discuss Canada’s role in the break-up of Yugoslavia into ethnic-based states because that might make a similar break-up of the Ukraine seem historically justified. They present Canadian and other western countries build-up of troops near Russia as defensive rather than offensive. Could that be because they are cheerleaders rather than objective reporters of the facts?
Militarists and the capitalists who profit from war have always used bogeymen to justify ever more military spending. For many decades it was communists who were used to frighten us. But now that they are gone, it’s clearer than ever that it is western capitalism’s ever insatiable desire to dominate that truly threatens the world.
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In case you have been under a rock, you likely noticed that there is a bit of a problem with the American supply chain — and the rest of the world in general. The pandemic, coupled with the government’s response to it has thrown the world into a whirlwind of uncertainties, inefficiencies, and complete stoppages.
As this article is being written, thousands of containers sit on ships off the California coast waiting to be unloaded. Prices of everything have gone through the ceiling and there are very few signs that anything is improving. Instead of providing meaningful solutions, the government is telling citizens to start rationing.
If you're hitting the grocery store to prepare for winter weather, please just buy what you need and leave some for others!
You may have noticed empty shelves in some stores due to national supply chain issues, but there is no need to buy more than you normally would. pic.twitter.com/RcCNNa4Zj4
— DC Homeland Security & Emergency Management (@DC_HSEMA) January 15, 2022
Thanks to misguided policies such as paying people not to work, regulatory hurdles to industry amid new covid restrictions, and government and Federal Reserve manipulation in the market, we have a historic labor shortage, record inflation, and widespread shortages.
Since the passage of the Jones Act in 1920, which was sold to the public as a means of bolstering the US maritime industry, but has been doing the exact opposite for a century, the perfect storm has been brewing for a long time.
Instead of seeing the writing on the wall and realizing that their burdensome regulatory measures have wreaked havoc on the American economy, bureaucrats have doubled down.
Thanks to the Jones Act driving up the cost of using ships to move products, the US and our neighbors to the north and south have become more dependent on the trucking industry. And now — in what could be interpreted as a purposeful attack to make the supply chain problem worse — the US is going after truckers.
For some reason, the bureaucrats in Washington think that the solution to our supply chain problem is vaccinations. Seriously. In October the Biden administration announced travel restrictions for non-U.S. residents and over the weekend, they went into effect and it is hitting truckers particularly hard.
The hundreds of thousands of truckers who enter the United States from Canada or Mexico — carrying much needed supplies — are now required to show proof of vaccination, as of Jan. 22.
“Starting on January 22, 2022, the Department of Homeland Security will require that non-U.S. individuals entering the United States via land ports of entry or ferry terminals along our Northern and Southern borders be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and be prepared to show related proof of vaccination,” said Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas. “These updated travel requirements reflect the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to protecting public health while safely facilitating the cross-border trade and travel that is critical to our economy.”
🚨 TRAVEL UPDATE 🚨
Effective TODAY: All non-U.S. individuals seeking to enter the U.S. via land ports of entry and ferry terminals at the U.S.-Mexico & U.S.-Canada borders must be fully vaccinated for #COVID19.
As if the problem wasn’t bad enough, officials are already warning folks that this arbitrary measure is going to clog up the borders, increasing shipping delays and ensuring more shortages.
“Travelers should plan for longer than normal wait times and longer lines at U.S. land border crossings when planning their trip and are reminded to exercise patience,” the DHS said in a statement.
Feel safe yet?
Highlighting the absurd and arbitrary nature of such a mandate is the fact that US truckers returning from Canada or Mexico, will not have to show proof of vaccination — only truckers carrying in supplies from Canada and Mexico will have to show their papers. Apparently their American blood is safer.
As a result of mandates like this one, the trucking industry is already reacting, accurately pointing out that this will fuel both driver shortages and inflation — as it already has.
Truckers in Canada waged a mass protest over the weekend in response to the tyrannical vaccine mandate in their country. According to Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA), this mandate will take out as many as 32,000, or 20%, of the 160,000 Canadian and American cross-border truck drivers. Apparently, imaginary lines on a map are magical covid walls that cannot be breached.
With empty shelves now a common occurrence in many parts of the country, the idea of limiting tens of thousands more trucks from carrying supplies is absolute insanity. Unfortunately, however, it appears that insanity is the new norm when it comes to the government’s reaction to COVID-19.
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Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Agorist is also the Editor at Large at the Free Thought Project. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter, Steemit, and now on Minds.
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Appearing Tuesday on Tucker Carlson Tonight, Alex Berenson, a correspondent for The New York Times for almost ten years, said, “These mRNA COVID vaccines need to be withdrawn from the market. No one should get them. No one should get boosted. No one should get double boosted. They are a dangerous and ineffective product at this point.”
“We’re in a very dangerous moment,” he told Carlson. “It is completely clear now that the vaccines don’t really work at all against [the] omicron [variant] in these highly vaccinated and highly boosted countries. Rates of infection are incredibly high, and rates of serious disease and death are also rising.”
“The Israelis are predicting that they’re going to have more serious cases than they ever had at the peak last year. And the idea that we would solve this with another booster is just off the charts insane,” he said.
Therefore, he concludes, “it is clear that to encourage booster shots for anyone — including the elderly — at this point is reckless, bordering on criminal.”
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Credits to GreatGameIndia for the initial transcript of the interview.
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On January 23 I reviewed on this website Kees Van Der Pijl’s new book, States of Emergency. Van Der Pijl answers the question so many people have of why and how a fake “deadly pandemic” was orchestrated with worldwide participation in the fraud.
He shows that the event was long in the making by a global elite consisting of philanthropists such as Bill Gates, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, elite organizations such as the World Economic Forum, tech companies and multi-billionaire owners, Fauci at NIH, CDC, FDA, WHO, pharmaceutical companies and lobbyists, and elite organizations and groups created for the purpose of concentrating power and advancing and protecting the global elites’ rule by using fear to condition the masses to being controlled and deprived of a voice and alternative explanations. I had been thinking along these lines, but lacked Van Der Pijl’s detailed knowledge of the personalities, organizations and groups and the interactions and cooperation between them. He gives us the story. It was an elaborate exercise in massive deception and censorship that was able to discredit the world’s most renowned medical scientists and to elevate pure fiction to fact and public policy.
We owe it to ourselves to read States of Emergency in order to come to terms with the fact that we are ruled by people devoid of integrity to whom truth is an inconvenience and who are concerned solely with their control and power.
We need to read the book also to understand how things really work, how decisions are really made, how careers are made and ended by whether or not you serve the narrative and how well, how regulatory agencies such as FDA, NIH, CDC, WHO are in fact marketing departments for Big Pharma, how politicians’ positions are dictated by the sources of their campaign funds, why universities and the media must function as Ministries of Propaganda for the ruling elites and their narratives, how Fauci and Big Pharma control content in medical journals via grants to medical researchers. Van Der Pijl writes that pharmaceutical industry research grants make the industry the co-author of many articles and that more than half of all The Lancet‘s revenues come from pharmaceutical companies orders of reprints of articles supportive of their products. Van Der Pijl writes “According to the former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, who had 20 years of experience, it is simply no longer possible to believe much of the published clinical research.”
The gullible, patriotic American who reads this book will have his eyes opened and become a new person. Van Der Pijl has written the book that can save Americans from their insouciance.
In October 2019 just prior to unleashing the “pandemic” on the world, what was about to happen was first tested in a simulation. The participants were: the Bloomberg-financed Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the Gates Foundation, the World Economic Forum, the CDC, the (American trained) head of the Chinese health authority, a former deputy director of the CIA, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and so on.
The participants were primarily concerned with protecting the planned deception from being exposed. They relied on social media and the presstitutes to control the narrative and censor the truth. They considered whether to close the Internet altogether, but were assured that Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Google would only allow news in keeping with the narrative and flood the Internet with information that confirms the narrative while discrediting and blocking the truth. Admiral Stephen Redd of the US Public Health Service thought that people on social media with “negative beliefs,” that is, those who took issue with the narrative, should be tracked down by intelligence services. Singapore’s finance minister said dissidents should be arrested and brought to justice. The head of the Chinese health authority worried that suspicion might arise that the virus originated in a laboratory. Johnson & Johnson wondered if the deaths and injuries in the vaccine trials should be suppressed in order to prevent public suspicion of the poorly tested vaccine.
The participants claim they were just playing a germ game, but the simulation ensured that all was in place to control the explanation prior to the release of the “pandemic.”
The research basis of Van Der Pijl’s book is massive and the information earth-shattering. I intend to return to this book in future articles. But don’t wait on me. Buy the book and read it once, twice, three times. Civil liberty in the US cannot survive if people are too lazy to inform themselves.
When the US government ceased meaningful regulation on the basis of Alan Greenspan’s assertion that “markets are self-regulating” and ceased to enforce its anti-trust laws, massive economic concentration resulted, producing individuals whose wealth greatly exceeded the budgets of public health agencies and even some countries. This gave single individuals enormous power over governments. Van Der Pijl writes that from 2004 onwards, just the annual health grants of the Gates Foundation alone exceeded the annual budget of the World Health Organization. Gates Foundation directors are executives from Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Bayer Health Care Services, companies whose stocks are owned by the Gates Foundation. This is just a tiny indication of the power that wealth concentration has given a handful of individuals over government policy.
Van Der Pijl believes that the elite’s use of an orchestrated “pandemic” to solidify their control was too ambitious and has failed. What his optimism overlooks is the possibility that another more dangerous virus will be set upon us and the fear created will sap all resistance. The Covid attempt almost succeeded, especially in Australia, Canada, Austria, Italy, and Germany. In the US it was blocked by the judiciary and by governors such as Florida’s Ron DeSantis. A second run at the unorganized and uninformed peoples of the world could succeed.
Is this an indication that a more deadly coronavirus is about to be released, one for which all treatments have been banned? See this.
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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog site, PCR Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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On 26 January, the US-backed, so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) resumed their theft of Syrian oil in the country’s northeast with a large convoy of tanker trucks heading towards the Iraqi border.
The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) quoted a local source as saying that 130 tankers with crude oil stolen from Syrian oilfields by US occupation troops with the help of SDF militia were making their way towards the Iraqi village of Al-Mahmoudiya, to the south where the illegal Al-Waleed border crossing is located.
According to SANA, the oil was being smuggled through a corridor heading toward Iraq’s Al-Mahmoudiya village, where dozens of SDF convoys pass from the Al-Hasaka region in Syria and then through the Al-Waleed border crossing with Iraq.
The corridor and the Al-Waleed border crossing were opened up by the US occupation when its proxies took control of the area.
SANA reported that after this convoy of 130 tankers passed into Iraq, a fleet of 46 refrigerated convoy tankers, as well as one carrying US logistical supplies, entered Syria on the same road through the same crossing.
The US military routinely smuggles Syrian oil into northern Iraq, in a move that is both in violation of international law and as well as routine practice that shows how deeply entrenched the US is in its occupation of both nations.
Last week, a convoy of 111 trucks stacked with military equipment passed through northeastern Syria to illegal US bases in northern Iraq.
A US convoy of 128 vehicles was caught transporting military equipment and Syrian oil to northern Iraq on 3 January.
While the US claims its presence aims to prevent the oilfields from falling into the hands of ISIS, Damascus says that the US presence in Syria is illegal, and is only there to steal Syria’s oil and other resources.
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On 30 August 2021, the United States’ 20-year military occupation of Afghanistan came to an end when the removal of American forces was completed. Although the withdrawal was botched, it was the correct move. The withdrawal is ignominious because it turns out that the much ballyhooed US fighting forces were, in the end, defeated by Afghan peasants. Has the US learned anything from its debacle in Afghanistan? One might gain an insight into that question by observing the debacle still ongoing in Syria.
Author A.B. Abrams provides an in-depth analysis on the US-led war in Syria in his excellent book World War in Syria: Global Conflict on Middle Eastern Battlefields (Clarity Press, 2021). WW in Syria documents the lead up to war in Syria, the precursors, the ideologies, the tactics, who the combatants are and who is aligned with who at different stages of the war, the battles fought, the impact of sophisticated weaponry, adherence to international law, the media narratives, and the cost of winning and losing the war in Syria for the warring parties. Unequivocally, every side loses in war. People are killed on all sides, and each death is a loss. But a victor is usually declared, and Syria with its allies has been declared as having won this war, albeit at a great price. However, the finality and clarity of the victory is muddled because Turkey and the US are still occupying and pillaging northern areas of Syria where they provide protection for Islamist remnants (or recklessly guard Islamist prisoners; as I write, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and US are fighting to defeat an Islamic State (IS) assault on a prison in northeastern Syria). In addition, apartheid Israel continues to periodically attack war-ravaged Syria.
Abrams asks why the West and Israel were bent on “regime change” in Syria. As Abrams explains, with several examples, nations that do not put themselves in thrall to the US will be targeted for overthrow of their governments. (chapter 1) “Syria was increasingly portrayed as being under some kind of malign communist influence — the only possible explanation in the minds of the U.S. and its allies for any party to reject what the West perceived as its own benevolence.” (p 10)
What is happening in Syria must be understood in a historical perspective. (p 55) Abrams details how imperialist information warfare brought about violent overthrows of socialistic governments in Indonesia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Libya. That tested template has now been applied to Syria. (chapter 2)
Abrams identifies four casus belli for attacking Syria: (1) being outside the Western sphere of influence, (2) to isolate Syria from Hezbollah and Iran, which would appease Israel and the Gulf states, (3) to remove Iran and Russia as suppliers of natural gas to Europe, (4) to isolate Syria geo-politically from China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, and (5) a new base for foisting Islamist (“Islamist” is used to refer to a political ideology rather than the faith of Muslims) groups against Western-designated enemies.
So Syria found itself beset by a multitude of aggressive foreign actors: key NATO actors Britain, France, the US, and Turkey. Jordan, Cyprus, Turkey, and Israel were staging grounds for attacks. (p 99) The Sunni regimes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates were also arrayed against Syria. At first, the mass protests — given fuel by Bashar Al Assad’s neoliberalism schemes (p 35) — served as a shield for covertly supported military operations. (p 107)
These state actors supported several Islamist entities. Abrams, who is proficient in Arabic, adroitly elucidates the complex and realigning web of Islamist proxies. Among these groups are Al Qaeda, Fatah Al Asram, Absay Al Ansar, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), and IS.
Syria would not be completely alone as fellow Axis of Resistance members Iran and Hezbollah would come to the aid of Syria. Hezbollah directly joined in the spring of 2013 and it played an important role in the pivotal capture of Al Qusayr. (p 132) Thereafter, Iran would step up its involvement in defense of Syria. (p 134)
What will be a surprise to most people is the solidarity shown by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) toward its longtime partner Syria. (Albeit this is no surprise to readers of another of A.B. Abram’s excellent books, Immovable Object: North Korea’s 70 Years at War with American Power. Review.) Gains made by the invading forces would be substantially rolled back with the entry of Russia, an event deplored by some leftists. Among the reasons for a Russian entry was fear of Islamist terrorism approaching its frontier.
With the advancing tide of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies, Westerners reacted by pressing for the establishment of a no-fly zone in Syria. However, having learned from Western manipulation of such a United Nations Security Council resolution during the war on Libya, in which Russia and China had abstained, Russia and China would veto any such attempt this time.
The enemies of Syria would engage in manufactured gas attacks abetted by disinformation. This pretext led the US and allied attackers to grant themselves the right to bomb Syria. Abrams responds, “It is hard to find a similar sense of self-righteousness and open willingness to commit illegal acts of aggression anywhere else in the world.” Abrams connected this extremism to “the ideology of western supremacism.” (p 174) Syria would relinquish the deterrence of its chemical weapons in a futile effort to forestall any future opposition-contrived chemical attacks attributed to it.
Although Hezbollah, Iran, the DPRK, and Russia were invited by the government of Syria, the western nations (without UN approval) were illegally attacking Syria. Among them were Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, and the Netherlands, and Middle Eastern actors which included Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. (p 197) Israel was abetting Al Nusra. (p 199) The Syrian borders with Jordan and Turkey were supply conduits for the Islamists. (p 203)
The US planned to create safe zones in Syria with an eye to dismemberment of Syria. (p 204-207) Russia would up the ante, killing 150 CIA-backed Islamists in airstrikes, which the US criticized. (p 221) In apparent reprisal, an IS terrorist attack would down a civilian airliner over Egypt killing 219 Russian civilians. War is a dirty endeavor. Among their other crimes, Islamists used civilians as human shields, poisoned water supplies, and carried out beheadings. American war crimes included using depleted uranium and white phosphorus (p 301).
With the US and Turkey competing to occupy land from the collapsing IS, the SAA was pressured to advance as quickly as possible in its lands.
Aside from internecine fighting among the Islamists, there were puzzling complexities described between different combatants. Turkey and the US were sometimes aligned and sometimes at loggerheads; the same complexities existed between Russia and Turkey (“a highly peculiar situation reflecting [Turkey’s] pursuit of both war and rapprochement separately but simultaneously.” p 348), and between Russia and Israel. Of course, given past and current history, any enemy-of-my-enemy alliance between Israeli Jews and Arabs against a fellow Arab country will certainly cause much head shaking.
Despairingly, the UN was also condemned for bias and being complicit in the western attempt to overthrow the Syrian government. (p 334)
Abrams criticized the American arrogation of the right to attack. He warned, “This had potentially highly destabilizing consequences for the global order, and by discarding the post-Second World War legal prohibition against crimes of aggression the West was returning the world to a chaotic order that resembled that of the colonial era.” (p 383)
In toto, Abrams finds, “Even though Syria prevailed, the West was able to achieve its destruction at very little cost to itself … meaning the final outcome of the war still represents a strengthening of the Western position at Dasmascus’ expense.” (p 384)
Israel’s War
A book review can only cover so much, and there is much ground covered in WW in Syria. Particularly conspicuous is the annex at the end of the book entitled “Israel’s War.” (p 389-413) This annex leads one to ask why there are no annexes on America’s War, Turkey’s War, Qatar’s War, Saudi Arabia’s War, UAE’s War, NATO’s War, or even the terrorists’ War. Why does Israel stand out? Prior to the recent invasion of Syria, it was only Israel that was occupying Syrian territory: the Golan Heights, annexed following the 1967 War, and recognized as a part of Israel by president Donald Trump in 2019 (quite hypocritical given US denunciations of Crimea’s incorporation into Russia). Syria does not recognize Israel, and it has not reached a peace agreement with Israel. Of Syria’s Middle Eastern allies, Iran does not recognize Israel; Lebanon signed a peace treaty with Israel under Israeli and American pressure, but Lebanon never ratified it. Hezbollah regards Israel as an illegitimate entity. Hezbollah is noted for the first “successful armed resistance on a significant scale to the Western-led order after the Cold War’s end” in 2006. (p 39) Thus, Israel views the arc from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon as a security threat. Since Israel is regarded by some foreign policy wonks in the US as its aircraft carrier in the region, that reason among others secures US “aid” and military support. That Syria will not bend its knees to US Empire is also a source of consternation to imperialists. After Egyptian president Anwar Sadat treacherously broke Arab solidarity, (p 21-26) Syria would find itself increasingly isolated. Given the rapacious nature of imperialism, Israel and its lobby have faced no serious opposition from within the imperialist alliance, allowing the Jewish State to pursue its plan for a greater Israel to which Syria, a country that does not threaten any western nation, is an impediment. Israel, writes Abrams, will continually seek to degrade the military capabilities of countries it designates as enemies. (p 406)
Closing
The situation in Syria still simmers. Those who scrupulously read the dispassionate account of WW in Syria will gain a wide-ranging insight into what underlies the simmering. It will also be clear why any attempt by western imperialists and their terrorist or Islamist proxies will not succeed in a coup against the elected Syrian government. Syrians will put up a staunch defense. Hezbollah and Iran will stand in solidarity, as will the DPRK. Having Russia, a first-rate military power, presents a powerful deterrence. In addition, China, no pushover itself, stands steadfast in support of its Russian and other partners. Thus the western imperialists’/proxies’ main goal has been thwarted; they have been shamelessly reduced to pillagers of oil and wheat and occupiers of small pockets of a sovereign country.
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Kim Petersen is a former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter. He can be emailed at: kimohp at gmail.com. Twitter: @kimpetersen. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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“The main issue is our clear position on the unacceptability of further NATO expansion to the East and the deployment of highly-destructive weapons that could threaten the territory of the Russian Federation.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
Washington delivered a slap in the face to Moscow on Wednesday when U.S. ambassador John Sullivan provided a written response to Russia’s proposals for security guarantees. The missive was given to Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko who did not reveal the contents but passed them on to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for analysis. Lavrov, in turn, issued a statement on Thursday morning confirming our worst suspicions that the Biden administration has shrugged off Russia’s reasonable demands choosing instead to intensify the provocations that are likely to trigger a war between the world’s two nuclear superpowers. This is an excerpt from an article at Tass News Agency:
“The United States and NATO don’t seem to have taken Russia’s concerns on security guarantees into account when drawing up responses to Moscow’s proposals, nor did they demonstrate any willingness to do so, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday.
“The numerous statements that our colleagues made yesterday make it clear that as for the major aspects of the draft agreements that we earlier presented to other parties, we can’t say that they took our concerns into account or showed any readiness to take our concerns into consideration.” (Tass News Agency)
Peskov is right, on the core issues the US either issued no clear response or refused to comply. In effect, the US response was designed to look like Washington was honestly negotiating when in fact, they were merely reinforcing their original position. The US response is essentially a defense of Washington’s commitment to rule the world by force and to ignore the legitimate demands of weaker states to provide even minimal security for their people. If the US and NATO are allowed to pursue their present course of action, Russian cities and towns will be within 7 to 10 minutes of nuclear missiles located in nearby Romania and Poland. Russia’s are being asked to live with a nuclear dagger pointed at their throats. This is Biden’s idea of global security. Is it any wonder why Putin does not agree? Here’s part of what Lavrov said on Thursday:
“There is no positive reaction on the main issue in this document. The main issue is our clear position that further NATO expansion to the east and the deployment of strike weapons that could threaten the territory of the Russian Federation are unacceptable.”
Lavrov has summed it up perfectly. While Sullivan was delivering his response to Grushko, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg issued a statement saying the Alliance “will not compromise” on potential expansion into Ukraine, Georgia, and other former Soviet republics, as this clashes with the NATO’s principles.” Stoltenberg’s statement removes any doubt that NATO will not only continue its eastward expansion onto Russia’s doorstep, but feels thoroughly justified in doing so. As we noted earlier, NATO’s response confirms that Washington is still committed to its overarching plan to rule the world by force regardless of how ordinary people are impacted by the policy.
On Thursday morning, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev reiterated the recently-verified claim that NATO’s eastward expansion violates the promises of US officials to Russia following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
“They promised not to expand NATO, but didn’t keep their promise,” Medvedev said speaking with the Russian media. “They say that ‘we did not sign anything.’ But we all know well who and when granted to whom such promises, such assurances….. They failed to keep their promises. They are now encroaching on our state borders.”
The steady eastward movement of troops, the buildup of lethal military hardware, and the deployment of nuclear weapons all pose an existential threat to Russia that suffered horrific losses in World War 2. The Biden administration seems to believe their sinister plan is working since people in the west generally believe reports in the media that the fake threat of “Russian invasion” is an honest account of what is actually going on the ground. But there is no threat of a Russian invasion; the story was stitched together to divert attention from Russia’s security demands which are both reasonable and appropriate. Once again, the media is shaping a narrative to fit the policy which is the very description of state propaganda.
In an effort to further downplay the importance of Moscow’s requests, US officials characterized their written response not as “a formal document but a set of ideas for further discussion.” What this means is that Washington does not feel that that Russia is its equal so it does not feel required to enter into a treaty agreement with them. Keep in mind, this response does not in any way meet the basic requirements that were clearly outlined by Putin repeatedly in December when he said thatRussia wanted a written, legally-biding treaty that could not be sloughed off by countries that prefer to conduct an impulsive, self-aggrandizing, fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants foreign policy that has left great swathes of the Middle East and Central Asia in an utter shambles. Indeed, this may not be a “formal document”, but it is clear that there will be a formal document or there will be no agreement and no peace. The choice is Washington’s.
On the issue of nuclear missile sites in Poland and Romania, as well as, the development of military bases in Ukraine, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken indicated that Washington was still open to discussion.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that if Russia were to approach this seriously, and in a spirit of reciprocity, with the determination to enhance collective security for all of us, there are very positive things in this document that should be pursued,” he said.
“Positive things”, says Blinken?
There are no “positive things” in the American response. The response is a flagrant and contemptible rejection of Moscow’s core demands on NATO expansion and the deployment of nuclear missiles to locations on Russia’s border. To understand what a fraud the Biden administration is engaged in, please, take a look at this brief excerpt from the draft treaty that Russia presented to NATO and Washington.
The United States of America shall undertake to prevent further eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and deny accession to the Alliance to the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The United States of America shall not establish military bases in the territory of the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that are not members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, use their infrastructure for any military activities or develop bilateral military cooperation with them……
The Parties shall undertake not to deploy ground-launched intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles outside their national territories, as well as in the areas of their national territories, from which such weapons can attack targets in the national territory of the other Party.
Article 7
The Parties shall refrain from deploying nuclear weapons outside their national territories and return such weapons already deployed outside their national territories at the time of the entry into force of the Treaty to their national territories.” (“Treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation on Security Guarantees,” Official Russian State Document, December 17, 2021)
Is there anything ambiguous in the language of this document?
No, there isn’t.
The US was asked to respond in writing to these explicit demands. No one is in the slightest bit interested in Blinken’s vague pontifications on “positive things”. It’s completely irrelevant. What Putin wants to know is whether US nukes are going to remain 7 minutes flight-time from Moscow and whether a hostile foreign army is going to be hunkered down in nearby Ukraine. He wants to know whether Washington plans to put a gun to Russia’s head in order to increase its power in the region. That’s what he wants to know, and that’s what this foreign policy debacle is all about.
What Blinken’s response tells us is that the provocations are going to continue unabated whether they ignite a war or not. Even as we speak, the US is sending more lethal weaponry and troops to the Ukrainian theater while other NATO allies promise to assist in the effort. It is madness.
At the same time, President Joe Biden is threatening to impose “direct personal sanctions” on Putin if the Russian president takes action to defend the Russian-speaking people in East Ukraine. The threat was issued just hours after the State Department told Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov that he “would have to leave the US by April if Moscow fails to meet certain demands made by Washington.” While these may seem like trivial developments, the two incidents help to illustrate how relations between the two nations are fast deteriorating increasing the prospect of a tragic miscalculation that could precipitate a bloody and protracted conflagration.
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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As everyone faces difficult times, the company which deals with the fulfillment of book sales on behalf of Global Research is no longer able to provide its services. We are unfortunately suspending the sale of print books until further notice.
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This interview by Mark Taliano suggests that there is a deliberate process on the part of the Canadian government of undermining US-Canada commodity trade, even in the case when the truck drivers have all the required documents.
Yair Golan is not the first retired Israeli general to become a peacenik, nor will he be the last. This has become a pattern among Israel’s generals, a pattern set by generals, like Matti Peled and Motta Gur, regarded by Israelis as heroes during their military careers.
We’re excited to be bringing you a live feed of the speeches in Ottawa this Saturday. Keep an eye out for more details. We do, however, need your support to deliver the news that matters to you. Please click the blue donate button. Join us for an interview with Chris and Robert, volunteers with Adopt-A-Trucker, as they share the latest details of what, when and where to expect events in Ottawa on January 29 when the truckers finally arrive.
As expected, Washington and its NATO arm have rejected the Kremlin’s joint security proposal, preferring dire consequences to peace. By rejecting the Kremlin’s proposal, Washington and the Europeans have told the Kremlin that Washington intends to continue its aggressive policy of placing NATO and US missile bases on Russia’s borders and arming Ukraine for attack on Donbass.
The FDA decision to block COVID-19 treatment options is very sketchy, and I sense that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis knows the science will not support the Biden administration. This story -when exposed- has the potential to bring down the Biden administration, big time… DeSantis senses it.
The ‘war hysteria’ which has taken over our airwaves in the West of late in relation to tensions on Ukraine’s border, is like a Hollywood style movie, being entirely scripted, produced, directed and acted in by the West. It bears no resemblance to the real actions and words of Russia and its representatives.
As of January 7, 2022, just over a year into the campaign to inject every human being with a gene transfer product to protect against COVID, the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) has received 9,936 reports of death following the COVID jab in the United States’ territories alone.1 When you include foreign reports received by VAERS, the death toll stands at 21,745.
The Trudeau regime’s spree of human rights violations and unlawful dictates include mandates for forced injections of cross border truck drivers. These mandates came into effect January 15th. South of the border, the unelected Biden administration have made similar mandates that started January 22.
The Public Health Ministry plans to declare Covid-19 an endemic disease by the end of this year, using its own criteria and with or without World Health Organization confirmation. Health permanent secretary Kiattiphum Wongrajit announced the intention after a meeting of the ministry’s National Communicable Disease Committee on Thursday.
On the face of it, there seems to be little in the way of connection between the treatment of Novak Djokovic by Australian authorities and the cooling of the Serbian government towards Rio Tinto. The Anglo-Australian mining giant was confident that it would, at least eventually, win out in gaining the permissions to commence work on its US$2.4 billion lithium-borates mine in the Jadar Valley.
The Pentagon doubles down: “It’s very clear the Russians have no intention right now of deescalating”. Thus the necessity, expressed by spokesman John Kirby, of readying a multinational NATO response force (NRF) of 40,000 troops: “If it is activated…to defeat aggression, if necessary”.
In the politically charged, polarizing tug-of-war that is the debate over COVID-19, we find ourselves buffeted by fear over a viral pandemic that continues to wreak havoc with lives and the economy, threats of vaccine mandates and financial penalties for noncompliance, and discord over how to legislate the public good without sacrificing individual liberty.
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This interview by Mark Taliano suggests that there is a deliberate process on the part of the Canadian government of undermining US-Canada commodity trade, even in the case when the truck drivers have all the required documents.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Once again, NATO appears to be seeking to oppose non-aligned governments in every way possible, even in outer space. In a recent document, the Western military alliance launched a new space doctrine, which is clearly focused on impeding the space progress of nations like Russia and China. Analysts around the world consider the document as unnecessary and without positive effects for world peace, only contributing to the increase of the excessive militarization of space.
On January 17, a project of new NATO space doctrine was launched, which considerably expands the alliance’s previous space policy objectives. The new document, in addition to pointing out outer space as a territory of operational domain as well as land, sea, air and cyberspace, points out the need to maximize the space power of the bloc’s member states. One of the objectives is to achieve a compatible and interoperable strength between the different states of the alliance, forming a common force capable of competing in the current space age – classified by NATO as “crowded and competitive”.
According to NATO, space competitiveness has become a growing problem mainly due to the rise of the activities of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. These countries have rapidly and efficiently developed a wide range of satellites and space equipment, both in military and commercial spheres. As these countries are geopolitical enemies of NATO, their space activities are considered a growing threat, which has raised fears about a possible incident of attack against Western satellites in outer space. In this sense, the new document makes it clear that an attack in space legitimizes the invocation of NATO’s Article 5, which affirms the bloc’s right to collective legitimate defense. However, the document does not define what precisely could be considered a space attack for NATO.
Some analysts around the world considered the NATO pronouncement unnecessary and ineffective for current international space policy situation. In fact, the measure appears to have been just a way of declaring that space warfare will be a priority in the alliance’s defense policy. There were no major innovations with this NATO new move, just a restatement of the discourse on non-aligned powers as “threats” to the West – in this case, applied to Western satellites and spacecrafts in outer space. Furthermore, it is necessary to emphasize the fact that by talking about the invocation of Article 5 without defining what would be considered a “space attack”, NATO is making room for any unwanted movement of special equipment by its enemies to legitimize an invocation of the article, which puts global peace at risk.
This seems to be the opinion even of some American experts, such as Dr. Mark Gubrud, professor of Defense at the University of North Carolina, who states:
“This NATO declaration is unneeded and unhelpful (…) Any ‘armed attack’ on space systems would be part of a larger war. If it really were something confined only to space, such as a laser dazzling of a satellite, it’s hard to see that you would want to invoke Article 5 over it”.
In the same sense, another criticism that can be made is related to the issue of the need to make the alliance’s entire spatial power compatible. By wanting to make the space capabilities of all NATO states compatible, Washington seems to be creating a discourse to legitimize the indiscriminate weaponry of all countries in the bloc. In addition to the danger this poses to global peace, there is the financial factor, considering that the US tends to sell space weapons at high prices and that NATO members will be coerced into buying them due to the bloc’s demands – in addition to the paranoia about a “space threat” that will certainly be constantly circulated from now on, urging Western countries to acquire as many space weapons as possible.
This is also the opinion of another American analyst, Professor Bruce Gagnon, director of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. He believes that the US Space Force wants to maintain global preeminence in space warfare and is encouraging the purchase of weapons by NATO countries in order to acquire resources that will be invested in the military space industry. These are some of his words:
“The US Space Command planning document stated that the US will ‘control and dominate space and deny other nations if necessary access to space (…) At the Space Command HQ in Colorado just above their doorway they have a sign that reads ‘Master of Space (…) Even with all its resources the US can’t afford to pay for its ‘Master of Space’ plan by itself (…) [In order to maintain its “preeminence”], the US sets up a story line that it ‘must protect space’ from the dark forces in Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea (…) Interoperability’ ensures that all NATO members purchase new expensive space technologies mostly from US aerospace corporations like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and others. In addition, ‘interoperability’ means that all space information, surveillance, and targeting is run through the US-dominated system. In other words, NATO allies help pay for these costly space warfare systems but the Pentagon controls the ‘tip of the spear”.
Considering all these facts, it seems that once again the American interests are being superimposed on the interests of the other NATO countries, which will be forced to adopt the measures imposed by Washington within the scope of the alliance, even if this does not correspond to their strategic plans. The US government appears to be launching a new narrative about its enemies, labelling them as a “space threat”. It is likely that from now on, any minimal space activity by Russia, China, North Korea and Iran will be interpreted as an attack against the West, justifying international sanctions.
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Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
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Yair Golan is not the first retired Israeli general to become a peacenik, nor will he be the last. This has become a pattern among Israel’s generals, a pattern set by generals, like Matti Peled and Motta Gur, regarded by Israelis as heroes during their military careers.
As a former deputy military chief and commander in the West Bank defending Israeli colonies, Golan is now a Knesset member for the dovish Meretz party, which favours Palestinian statehood, and speaks out against colonist attacks on Palestinians. He recently referred to violent colonists as “subhuman,” eliciting sharp criticism from colleagues in the right-leaning coalition and complaints from other quarters. Frankness is nothing new. As deputy military chief, he voiced concerns that Israel was becoming fascistic and compared it to Nazi Germany. This is also not a new approach as such terms were adopted decades ago by Israeli scientist and dedicated human rights activist, Israel Shahak, a survivor of Nazi death camps in Poland.
In an interview with the Associated Press Golan stated, “You can’t have a free and democratic state so long as we are controlling people who don’t want to be controlled by us. What kind of democracy are we building here long term?”
He argued that separating from the Palestinians is the only way Israel can remain democratic and based on Jewish values. This is also old hat. Even former Likud Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2007 urged Israel to negotiate a separation deal with the Palestinians in order to avoid becoming an “apartheid” state like South Africa.
While serving in the West Bank, Golan focused on combatting Palestinians resisting the occupation and continues to argue that most of the 650,000 colonists living illegally in the occupied territories are law-abiding. His favourable view of the colonists whose presence prevents the emergence of a viable Palestinian state contradicts his contention that Israelis and Palestinians should live separately.
Breaking the Silence, a group of former Israeli soldiers who oppose Israel’s occupation policies, responded to his stance by saying, “Yair Golan knows full well what settler violence looks like and what our violent control over the Palestinian people looks like. That is why his criticism is valuable, but it is not enough.” Indeed, fine words have never been enough to halt the late 19th century Zionist project of colonising the whole of Palestine and any other territory conquered by Israel.
The most high- profile general to break with Israel’s policy of ethnically cleansing or ruling Palestinians was Matti Peled who fought in Israel’s 1948-1949, 1956 and 1967 wars. Having played a role in the conquest of Palestine, Peled served as governor of conquered Gaza for six months after the tripartite Israeli, British and French aggression against Egypt. Unable to speak Arabic and having no knowledge of Palestinian history and customs, Peled found himself at a loss to deal with the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the strip until US President Dwight Eisenhower ended the occupation in 1957. He was the last US president who dared to tackle Israel and its US friends and allies.
Peled was among the hawkish generals who pressed Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol to wage a preemptive attack against Egypt in the spring of 1967. This led to the seizure of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza and the strategic colonisation of these areas to deny Palestinians their state.
He retired from the military in 1968 and continued to study Arabic which he had begun while in the army. He co-founded the Arabic Literature department at Tel Aviv University, was recognised as a scholar in this field, and gradually drifted left-wards.
In 1975, Peled helped establish the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace and in 1977 became a founder of the Left Camp. In 1982, Peled supported reserve army officers who refused to fight in Israel’s war on Lebanon which galvanised the Israeli peace camp and led to the creation of the Jewish, Palestinian Progressive List for Peace. Peled was elected a Knesset member in 1984 and helped form the Gush Shalom, peace bloc, which played a key role in the period following the 1982 Israeli war in Lebanon and led to the Norwegian-brokered negotiations with the Palestinians in 1992-93.
Paratrooper general Mordechai “Motta” Gur became another hard-line military man to oppose Israeli policies after retirement. He did not become a peacenik like Peled but, like him, took a stand against the 1982 campaign in Lebanon at a time the Israeli peace camp was strongly supported by military officers and frontline soldiers as well as centrist and leftist civilians. The peace option survived for more than a decade.
Gur joined the Zionist underground army in 1946, fought in the 1948-49 war of establishment and the 1956 war in Sinai. He commanded the 55th Paratroopers Brigade which seized East Jerusalem in 1967, served in Gaza and the northern front with Syria and commanded the 1978 Israeli occupation of portions of southern Lebanon. He was appointed lieutenant general and in 1974 became army chief-of-staff. After leaving the military, he was elected to the Knesset as a Labour party member, served as minister of health and on the Knesset’s foreign affairs committee. After Labour, under former General Yitzak Rabin, who was not a peacenik, won the 1992 election on a peace platform, Gur was appointed defence minister and worked closely with Rabin who was under popular pressure to pursue accords with both Palestinians and Syrians.
Spurred to end the conflict with the Palestinians by the First Intifada (1987-1993) Foreign Minister Shimon Peres’ deputy Yossi Beilin supervised the Israeli team negotiating a secret peace deal with the Palestinians in Norway.
In September 1993, Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organisation chairman Yasser Arafat agreed to the Oslo Accord which was meant to lead to the creation of a Palestinian state but failed due to Rabin’s refusal to halt Israeli colonisation and negotiate on Palestinian refugees, Israeli colonies, Jerusalem and other key issues. He was murdered in November 1995 by an Israeli extremist who believed, wrongly, Rabin was in the process of handing over occupied territory to the Palestinians.
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Abdulkarim Omar, the co-chair of the Kurdish administration’s foreign office, said the attack was the result of the international community’s failure to shoulder its responsibilities of the ISIS prisoners who are imprisoned in Syria. Kurdish authorities have warned for years that they are not able to properly feed and guard the massive camps of ISIS terrorists and their wives and children. Their repeated requests have never been addressed as the prisoners remain in squalor, without charges, legal procedures, or trial date.
Omar reported to the Kurdish media on Friday that they have “consistently appealed to the international community for ISIS militants in jails and camps. We warned that the current situation could not be maintained. The world and international community must carry out their responsibilities in dealing with the ISIS problem.”
“Every country should take its citizens back. Those who do not accept them should come and assist us, and ISIS members should be prosecuted,” he added.
General Mazloum Abdi is the leader of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who is the American-backed ally in Syria and the fight against ISIS. Despite repeated warnings to the Americans, the prison break succeeded with the most dangerous terrorists on earth being set free.
On Monday, the SDF confirmed that they have still not taken back control of the prison after a suicide car bomb was detonated at the gates, which then allowed the prisoners to confiscate weapons and turn them on the SDF guards. 17 of the SDF were killed, and 23 were wounded. The prison holds about 5,000 inmates, but it is still not known the exact number who were able to escape or those who had been killed or recaptured. The prison is in the northeast of Syria in a semi-autonomous region the Kurds call “Rojava”.
ISIS used young and teenage males as ‘child soldiers in the prison break. The prison is segregated into male adults, teenage boys, and women with small children. The terrorists used the opportunity of indoctrinating the teenage boys’ unit to use them not only as child soldiers but also as human shields.
In May, a United Nations human rights report said the conditions under which children were held in northeast Syria can describe torture and inhuman and degrading treatment under international law. The report described overcrowded conditions, no access to sunlight, malnourishment, and untreated injuries.
Letta Tayler, associate director at Human Rights Watch, said the crisis happening now could have been averted if the children’s home countries had agreed to repatriate them. Almost 700 child detainees are being held in Ghweran prison still under siege after the attack.
“Detention should be an exceptional measure of last resort,” she said on Twitter. “Instead, foreign countries dumped responsibility for these children on the NE Syrian authorities. If anything happens to these boys during this prison assault, the boys’ home countries will have children’s blood on their hands.”
“This attack highlights the importance of, and the need to fully fund, the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS’s initiatives to improve the secure and humane detention of ISIS fighters, including by strengthening detention facility security. It also underscores the urgent need for countries of origin to repatriate, rehabilitate, reintegrate, and prosecute, where appropriate, their nationals detained in northeast Syria.”
“The coalition has taken great measures to ensure the humane treatment of detainees, but when ISIS detainees took up arms, they became an active threat and were subsequently engaged and killed by the S.D.F. and coalition airstrikes,” said Maj. Gen. John W. Brennan Jr., commander of the anti-Isis coalition in Iraq and Syria.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Apache helicopter gunships launched airstrikes and conducted low-altitude flights in a show of force.
On June 24, Acting US Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS and Acting Counterterrorism Coordinator John T. Godfrey visited Al-Hol camp, and Ghweran prison with a delegation of officials and they assessed security arraignments.
Godfrey reported,
“Together with Coalition partners, the United States supports ongoing efforts to improve conditions and security in displacement camps and detention facilities, and to promote improved infrastructure, sanitation, health, education, and economic development in areas liberated from ISIS control.”
The Ghweran prison and others
There are over 10,000 ISIS prisoners in northeast Syria, and ISIS wives and their children make up the majority of the population of the notorious al-Hol camp which consists of about 56,000 people, with more than 10,000 of them being foreigners, many from various western democratic countries who have been held since the fall of Baghuz in 2019.
Ghweran and al-Shaddadi prisons in Hasaka hold an estimated number of 7,500 Syrian and foreign ISIS suspects, including children, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in 2020. HRW says the SDF holds about 12,000 men and boys suspected of ISIS affiliation, including 2,000 to 4,000 foreigners from almost 50 countries.
Thousands of others are held in secret detention centers where torture is rife, activist groups say.
The Arabs who live near the prison
Arab inmates have been held without charges or trial, fueling resentment by Arab tribal members who accuse the SDF of racial discrimination, and ethnic cleansing of the northeast of Syria.
It is the Syrian Arabs who are the majority of the region, but the US-backed Kurdish forces and their administrative arm are in control of the area at the expense of Syrian families who have been forced from their homes and lands at the hands of the SDF.
Arab tribal elders say some of their community have sympathy for the ISIS inmates, seeing them as victims of the Kurdish occupation of the northeast, which has spawned resentment.
In the wake of the prison break, thousands of residents of Hasaka fled their homes in the bitter cold as the SDF closed in.
Who benefits from the break?
The ISIS inmates benefit as they gain their freedom, and the SDF and the Rojava administration benefit by lessening the load they were tasked and ill-equipped for, and the US benefits by having a new reason to stay longer in Syria.
What does the international community have to say about Syria?
They resolved to focus on humanitarian needs, UN cross-border mechanism, and continued support to Syrian refugees and host countries.
Humanitarian needs are only focused on the Al Qaeda-occupied Idlib province, and a few other border areas which are Turkish-occupied areas or the US-occupied areas. The vast majority of the Syrian territory and inhabitants are under the Syrian central government in Damascus and do not receive any assistance from foreign donors. These “Friends of Syria” who meet to discuss humanitarian needs do not recognize the needs of the majority of the civilian population but are focused on only the needs of people under the occupation of US and UN-recognized terrorists.
While millions of Syrians left Syria, and some are in refugee camps in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan, more Syrians remained at home and need help inside Syria. It would seem only those who left Syria are being rewarded with international help.
The international community says they support the efforts of UN Special Envoy Geir Pedersen and the UN Security Council Resolution 2254 as the solution to almost 11 years of attack on Syria. However, part of the resolution states “as well as fighting against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.”
However, the US and EU consistently complain if the Russian forces or the Syrian Arab Army attack Al Qaeda positions in Idlib province. It would appear that UN 2254 is a tool to prolong the suffering of the Syrian people and prevent the rebuilding of their homes and lives. Besides 2254, the other favorite tool in the toolbox for the US and EU is the sanctions on Syria which prevent importing anything which will be used to rebuild Syria and has even prevented the importation of medical supplies and devices which should be exempt on humanitarian grounds, but western companies are too afraid of the US-EU sanctions to attempt to send anything to Syria.
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As expected, Washington and its NATO arm have rejected the Kremlin’s joint security proposal, preferring dire consequences to peace. By rejecting the Kremlin’s proposal, Washington and the Europeans have told the Kremlin that Washington intends to continue its aggressive policy of placing NATO and US missile bases on Russia’s borders and arming Ukraine for attack on Donbass. The rejection also tells Moscow that Ukraine and Georgia, formerly constituent parts of Russia broken off during the period of Russian weakness following the collapse of the Soviet government, remain candidates for NATO Membership despite the Kremlin’s statement that Russia will permit no such membership.
Vladmir Vasilyev, the parliamentary leader of the ruling Russian party said:
“We have waited a long time for a reasonable decision to prevail in Washington, but this is not happening. We only hear about sanctions, and about weapons being sent into the conflict zone. We cannot accept this.” The Americans “are pumping up Ukraine with missile systems, grenade launchers, and other supplies.There are also instructors there to train them how to use this equipment. This is a great danger. It is preparation for military action, and nothing else. Military action against the peaceful population that lives there.”
The Russophobic neoconservatives who dominate US foreign policy controlled the decision and got what they want. But will they want the consequences?
Washington offered to “engage in dialogue” and “listen to Russian concerns,” completely useless reassurances to the Russians. The Kremlin has already conveyed its concerns, and they have been ignored. The Kremlin made it clear that the time for talking is over and that they are not going to be drawn into endless talk that goes nowhere.
At this point the Kremlin cannot possibly back down without inviting even more provocations. So get ready for the dire consequences.
The outcome will not be favorable for Washington. American corporations have told Biden to forget about sanctions as the sanctions hurt US companies worse than they hurt Russia, and NATO is already cracking under the strain of expectations that Russia is going to start playing hardball. Two NATO members, Croatia and Bulgaria, have announced that they won’t be sending any troops to join NATO in any confrontation with Russia in Ukraine, and Germany denied the British flyover permission for their airlift of arms to Ukraine. European governments understand that NATO lacks the military means for a confrontation with Russia.
The available US and NATO troops are just token forces. Washington is reduced to deploying 1,000 soldiers in Bulgaria and Romania to reassure the countries and deter Russia. 1,000 soldiers have no possibility of deterring any Russian army, as the countries understand. No thanks, said Bulgaria.
Stoltenberg’s assurance that NATO has “plans in place” to activate 5,000 French troops and the US will be sending 8,500 troops has the opposite effect of providing comfort. No Russian force would take any notice of such a small number of soldiers. What Stoltenberg has shown is not strength, but Western military weakness.
Washington might be thinking in outmoded ways. It was once thought that a few US soldiers scattered about would prevent an attack because of reluctance to go to war with the US. But the Kremlin has already made it clear that the current security situation is unacceptable to them and that they are not going to continue living with insecurity.
I don’t think war is close at hand unless Washington succeeds in provoking Ukraine to invade Donbass in order to solidify Washington’s hold on Europe and the election for Biden by causing Russian intervention. In which case, it would be a short war with Ukraine sacrificed for Washington’s political purposes. Instead, Russia will target all of Europe with their hypersonic missiles, including the US bases in Poland and Romania and all military facilities in Ukraine as well as Kiev. They will let Europe live under the strain of rising tensions. Europeans are more harmed than benefitted by American hegemony, and sooner or later Europeans will conclude that NATO is a greater threat to them than Russia.
Washington’s decision to reject the security proposal is nonsensical. I suspect the consequence will be a reduction in American power. Washington will replace Russia as the country whose concerns are ignored.
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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog site, PCR Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Russian President Vladimir Putin (ID1974/Shutterstock) and President Joe Biden (Stratos Brilakis/shutterstock)
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According to a recent international Gallup poll, the United States is overwhelmingly considered the greatest threat to world peace, with Pakistan, China, North Korea, Israel and Iran (in that order) trailing distantly behind.
The Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam wars cost trillions of dollars and killed millions of people (mostly civilians). We now regret starting them, and never would have if we’d had a basic understanding of the situation we were getting into.
We’re about to embark on a new war with Russia, a far more formidable foe. Full-scale nuclear conflagration isn’t inconceivable. Those who underrate the possibility of nuclear apocalypse haven’t looked carefully at the numerous times we’ve come close in the past.
Consider the Russians’ point of view. Since the hopeful days of Perestroika and Glasnost, they’ve seen a nuclear-armed NATO expand right up to their borders. Does anyone remember how the U.S. reacted to nuclear missiles 70 miles from our coast? Can we blame them for feeling threatened? Russia has demanded a guarantee that Ukraine not become a member of NATO. American negotiators call that non-negotiable.
We’re teetering on the edge of unimaginable horror. Why aren’t Americans who yearn for a peaceful world speaking out? Why aren’t you?
John Linnemeier, Bloomington
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Keep an eye on this story folks; there’s something else here.
The FDA decision to block COVID-19 treatment options is very sketchy, and I sense that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis knows the science will not support the Biden administration. This story -when exposed- has the potential to bring down the Biden administration, big time… DeSantis senses it.
Earlier today, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis held a roundtable press conference with physicians, clinicians and other health officials in Florida to denounce the Biden FDA decision to revoke monoclonal antibody treatments as a therapeutic option. The FDA action was not only done without communication, but the decision was also made without study and without any input from the treatment side of the COVID-19 dynamic.
Here’s a brief segment of the DeSantis statement:
The full presser is below and is well worth watching to listen to the doctors who refute the FDA claim that monoclonal treatments do not assist patients with Omicron variant. Doctors have treated Omicron patients successfully with the monoclonal antibody treatments. The actual doctors who are treating the patients refute the FDA directly.
The input from Dr. Dwight Reynolds is very revealing. Something is very odd around this story.
UPDATE: I have located the data used to make the decision to get rid of antibody treatment.
It is a *single* non-peer-reviewed study that is not publicly available, written by an author whose name the NIH would not reveal.
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The ‘war hysteria’ which has taken over our airwaves in the West of late in relation to tensions on Ukraine’s border, is like a Hollywood style movie, being entirely scripted, produced, directed and acted in by the West. It bears no resemblance to the real actions and words of Russia and its representatives. The US is starring in its own drama, with the lines between fantasy and reality increasingly blurred.
News presenters, completely ignorant of the facts, question equally incompetent experts as to ‘what should we be doing about Russia?’ to which they are told ‘we need to send Putin a message that we won’t tolerate an invasion’. Nobody bothers to question the evidence for a Russian invasion of Ukraine, or make the very obvious point of why the largest country in the world would need any more territory.
In line with the dramatic nature of current events, the rhetoric being bandied around is equally outrageous: comparisons of Joe Biden with Neville Chamberlain; Russia with Nazi Germany and incredulously, Vladimir Putin with Adolf Hitler. Not are such equivalences wrong, but they are offensive in the extreme given the number of Russian lives which were lost in the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War Two. Need we be reminded that Adolf Hitler was an evil, egotistical maniac, intent on world domination by what he thought was his superior ‘Aryan’ race at the expense of those he thought were lesser human beings or ‘untermenschen’ (e.g. Jews and Russians)? He was intent on invading Russia in order to create ‘lebensraum’ (living space) for the expanding German population.
How anyone can possibly draw any comparisons with the current crisis is beyond my comprehension. But it speaks volumes about the lack of historical knowledge amongst leading politicians and military figures in the West these days. Hardly surprising given the one major historical topic at British schools up and down the country for decades now has been World War Two. Students may not be able to point to Russia or Ukraine on a map, but they will be familiar with Chamberlain’s ‘appeasement’ of Hitler. As such, the word resonates with the general population today and is now recklessly being applied to current events.
The West has something of a guilt complex about British PM Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler prior to WW2. Allowed to invade the Rhineland in 1936, Hitler invaded Austria before pledging to Chamberlain in the Munich agreement of 1938 he would go no further than the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. Hitler violated this agreement and took over the rest of the country the following year.
To view current events through the prism of Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler is entirely flawed. On the contrary, the West’s years of sanctions against Russia, cyber and info war campaigns, provocations in the Black Sea, and continued military buildup on Russia’s border can hardly constitute a policy of ‘appeasement’.
If we are to draw parallels between the current crisis on the Ukraine border and WW2 we should compare the Neo-Nazi ideology which dominates Ukrainian nationalism with that of Nazi Germany. The repression of minority languages, including Russian; the censorship of the media; assassinations of journalists; persecution of opposition politicians and obsession with a Russian ‘enemy’ are all symptoms of a nation, sadly, rotten at its core.
Aside from that, the two geopolitical scenarios have nothing in common. Putin is not intent on world domination; if he was, why was Donbas not annexed years ago? If the President really wanted more territory he could have tried a bit harder over twenty years, surely? The only instances to date when Russia has intervened militarily outside its borders in the last few years have been to protect Russian-speaking civilians (like in South Ossetia in 2008) and to aid sovereign states to defend themselves against uprisings (Syria, and more lately Kazakhstan).
Ironically the only country that fits the description of imperialist aggressor is the US, which has invaded countless sovereign nations since its inception. Russia has valid security concerns regarding Nato forces encroaching on its eastern border; concerns which it explicitly set out recently in a document provided to the West, but which we are hearing little about just now in the midst of war-hysteria.
Indeed for all the talk of ‘What does Putin want?’, it couldn’t be clearer what Russia wants.
The list of demands presented to the US last year was clear: no Nato membership for
Ukraine and a Nato withdrawal from the Baltic states and Eastern Europe. Russia views the Nato presence on its borders as aggressive, in the same way as the US would not tolerate Russian missiles on Cuba.
The Russian government has in fact set out its foreignpolicy objectives for years now, published on its website. Putin and Foreign Ministry representatives give regular, detailed interviews on Russia’s position, but they are rarely acknowledged by western politicians and media. Russia has never made any secret of its geostrategic goals – the problem is that the West does not listen. Even President Biden in a recent press conference suggested that President Putin would make decisions based on ‘what side of the bed’ he gets up from in the morning. This demonstrates a complete lack of analysis and appreciation of the type of character of the Russian President. Far from making impulsive decisions, he is clearly a man who takes his time to think things through properly.
Despite US and UK warnings of an invasion being ‘imminent’ with troops poised to intervene if necessary, other European countries have not been so ready to engage in such posturing. Germany has been much more reticent, refusing to participate by arming Ukraine and denying the Royal Air Force airspace to fly weapons to Kiev. Croatia has even said it will withdraw its Nato troops from Eastern Europe if a conflict between Ukraine and Russia were to ensue. Given the serious risk of escalation, such cautious behaviour can only be welcomed.
Indeed, in the current climate the rhetoric ought to be dialled down significantly in the West. This isn’t Hollywood; there is a real chance for miscalculation and for war to break out between Russia and the West. Inflammatory comparisons of Russia with
Nazi Germany are therefore reckless in the extreme and only seek to heighten tensions. Yet with western populations and their governments largely ignorant about Russia and the history of the region, I sadly don’t expect any diffusion to the current levels of war hysteria.
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Johanna Ross is a Russian Studies graduate and political analyst based in Edinburgh, Scotland.
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As of January 7, 2022, the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) has received 9,936 reports of death following the COVID jab in the U.S. When you include foreign reports received by VAERS, the death toll stands at 21,745
A total of 1,541 miscarriages have also been reported post-jab in the U.S., or 3,594 if you include foreign reports. Despite these shocking statistics, U.S. health officials and “fact checkers” insist not a single death can be attributed to the shots
According to OneAmerica, a national life insurance company, in the third quarter of 2021, working age Americans (aged 18 to 64) died at a rate that is 40% higher than the prepandemic rate, and they didn’t die from COVID
The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India also reports a 41% rise in death claims in 2021, and teens’ mortality in the U.K. shot up 47% in the three months after they became eligible for COVID shots
A recent histopathologic analysis of the organs from 15 patients who died within seven days to six months’ post-jab, ages 28 to 95, found 14 of the deaths — 93% — were caused by the jab
As of January 7, 2022, just over a year into the campaign to inject every human being with a gene transfer product to protect against COVID, the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) has received 9,936 reports of death following the COVID jab in the United States’ territories alone.1 When you include foreign reports received by VAERS, the death toll stands at 21,745.
A total of 1,541 miscarriages have also been reported post-jab in the U.S., or 3,594 if you include foreign reports. Despite these shocking statistics, U.S. health officials and “fact checkers” insist not a single death can be attributed to the shots.
During an early January 2022 Senate committee hearing on the nation’s Omicron response (see video above), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, and director for the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, testified — under oath — that they “did not know” how many deaths had been reported to VAERS following COVID “vaccination.”2,3
Walensky referred to the shots as “incredibly safe,” claiming — against all science — that they “protect us against Omicron, they protect us against Delta, they protect us against COVID.” She also falsely claimed that all reported COVID-19 vaccine deaths have been “adjudicated.”
No, VAERS Is Not a Repository of Fake Reports
Worse yet, both Walensky and Fauci claim any and all adverse events following vaccination get reported to VAERS, including accidental deaths and car accidents. They both actually claim that if a person gets the COVID shot and gets hit by a car afterward, that is reported as an adverse reaction.
Nothing could be further from the truth. First of all, adverse events are not automatically reported and, certainly, obvious accidents are not entered into the system as a suspected vaccine side effect.
As reported by Health Impact News,4 there are about 18 reports in VAERS that include “road traffic accident,” but most if not all relate to an adverse event, such as a heart attack, occurring while driving. They were not hit by someone else and entered into the system. As noted by Pam Long in a January 12, 2022, Twitter thread:5
“If anyone in public health utters ‘a person can get hit by a car & report their death to VAERS’ you need stop them, in any public meeting, and demand they explain what motive would a physician have to inflate VAERS reports with car accidents or any unrelated mortality?
Despite Walensky’s & Fauci’s cliché testimony to Congress. Not one person ‘got hit by a car’ & reported their own death to VAERS as a vaccine injury. Most reports are filed by medical professionals, using diagnostic language about drug reactions.”
VAERS was designed and created as an early warning system. It’s true that anyone can file a report, but it’s time-consuming, requires the knowledge of medical details a patient oftentimes won’t have, and carries penalties for filing a false report. There’s absolutely no reason to suspect, let alone assume, that people are filing false reports just to make the shots look bad.
Fact Checker Outs Himself as a Pharma Propagandist
Walensky and Fauci aren’t the only ones lying about the lethality of the COVID jab. Mainstream media are all-in as well. In a USA Today fact check,6 Daniel Funke claims that “COVID-19 vaccines [are] safe for children” and “not linked to deaths.”
“… online, some claim children face more risk from the vaccine than COVID-19 itself,”Funke writes. “USA TODAY previously rated False a claim that children are 50 times more likely to die from the COVID-19 vaccine than the virus. This claim is similarly wrong.
Public health officials say the vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech is safe and effective at preventing COVID-19 in children ages 5-11. As other independent fact-checking organizations have reported, the benefits of the vaccine outweigh its known and potential risks.
‘Over 700 children have died due to COVID-19 in the United States,’ Dr. Sonja Rasmussen, a professor in the departments of pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of Florida, said in an email.
‘I am not aware of any deaths in children that have been attributed to the COVID-19 vaccine’ … The benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine for children outweigh its known and potential risks, according to the CDC. The shot does not cause death.”
Funke cites data from Pfizer’s clinical trials, “which found the vaccine was safe” for children, as “no deaths were reported” in Pfizer’s trials for 12- to 25-year-olds, and those for 12- to 17-year-olds. Funke dismisses the rationale for looking at VAERS data on the basis that anyone can file a report and that reports are unverified, and therefore cannot be used to determine causation.
All Opinion and No Data
There are so many issues with this “fact-check,” no wonder Facebook attorneys are using the legal defense that fact checks are “opinion” only and not actual assertions of fact.7,8 There’s nothing but opinions in this piece. As “evidence” that the COVID shots are safe and have caused no deaths, Funke presents:
It’s hard to come up with a less compelling list of evidences for safety, but then again, propagandists have to work with what they have, and in this case, they have nothing. Funke presents zero actual data to support his opinion.
Explain the Rise in Mortality if You Can
There are many data-driven reasons to suspect, predict and even assume that the COVID shots are killing more people than they’re saving — regardless of the age group in question. It would take an entire book to cover it all, so I will only review a few of those reasons here.
One very telling clue that recently came to light is life insurance data. According to OneAmerica, a national life insurance company based in Indianapolis, in the third quarter of 2021, working-age Americans (aged 18 to 64) died at a rate that is 40% higher than the prepandemic rate, and they didn’t die from COVID.10
And, according to CEO Scott Davidson, this catastrophic abnormality is consistently seen “across every player” in the life insurance industry.11 A 40% increase in mortality is simply unheard of, and as of yet, they claim to have no clue as to what’s causing young and middle-aged people to die prematurely at such an astounding rate.
Looking at it from a sleuth’s point of view, one might ask, “What environmental factor with unknown safety was introduced in 2021 to people in this age group?” Sure, pandemic restrictions have led to spikes in drug overdoses and suicides, which affects this cohort in particular. But “deaths of desperation” cannot account for all of it.
The one wild card is the COVID jab. More than 173 million working-age Americans (18 to 64) got these experimental gene transfer injections,12 and doctors and scientists have elucidated several mechanisms by which they might injure or kill.
What’s more, the rise in deaths began AFTER the rollout of the shots, and whatever the causative factor, it is not only national but likely international in scope. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India, for example, also reports a 41% rise in death claims in 2021.13
Excess deaths (exceeding prepandemic norms) are also reported in the U.K.14 Among teens (aged 15 to 19), mortality spiked right after teens became eligible for the COVID shot.15 Between the week ending June 26 and the week ending September 18, 2020, and that same period of time in 2021, teenage deaths rose by 47%.16
A rise in disability claims17 also suggests that many who aren’t killed by this novel lethal threat are seriously injured, often long-term. For all of these reasons, the COVID jabs cannot be taken off the table. Logic demands that they be looked into as a potential causative factor.
Can VAERS Data Demonstrate Causality?
One person who has taken a strong stance against the claim that VAERS data cannot tell us anything about causation is Steve Kirsch, executive director of the COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund. In the video “Vaccine Secrets: COVID Crisis,”18 he argues that VAERS can indeed be used to determine causality.
It’s important to realize that the idea that VAERS cannot show causality is part of how and why the CDC can claim none of the deaths is attributable to the COVID shot. Kirsch argues that this premise is in fact false, and that causation can be determined using VAERS’ data.
To prove his point, Kirsch gives the following analogy: Suppose you give a two-dose vaccine. After the first dose, nothing happens, but after the second dose, people die within 24 hours of a deep vein thrombosis (DVT).
When you look at the VAERS data, what you would find is no reports associated with the first dose, and a rash of deaths after the second dose, all within the same timeframe and with the same cause of death.
According to the CDC, you cannot ascribe any causality at all from that. To them, it’s just random chance that everyone died after the second dose, and from the same condition, and not the first dose or from another condition.
Kirsch argues that causality can indeed be identified from this kind of data. It’s very difficult to come up with another explanation for why people — many who are young, in perfect health with no predisposing conditions — die exactly 24 hours after their second dose. It’s even difficult to come up with another explanation for people who do have underlying conditions.
For example, is it reasonable to assume that people with, say, undiagnosed heart conditions, would die from DVT exactly 24 hours after getting a second dose of vaccine? Or that people with undiagnosed diabetes would die from DVT exactly 24 hours after their second dose?
Why not after the first dose, or two months after the second dose, or any other random number of hours or days, or for other random cause of death? Why would people randomly die of the same condition at the exact same time, over and over again?
At bare minimum, as an early warning system, VAERS is designed to flag potential causation. It’s by looking for repeated patterns of side effects that you would begin to identify a potentially problematic vaccine. Once a pattern is identified — and there’s no denying death within 24 hours to one week is a pattern seen for the COVID shots — an investigation should be launched.
But no such investigation has been launched for the COVID jabs. Clear-cut patterns are simply ignored. As an early warning system, VAERS is performing as intended, despite severe underreporting (the CDC recently published a paper in which they admit COVID jab adverse effects in children are underreported by a factor of 6.519). It’s the follow-up that’s lacking. But lack of investigation and follow-up is not evidence that the shots can’t cause death.
Another clue that hints at SOME of the shots being able to cause rapid death is the “bad batch” phenomenon. Independent investigations have revealed that some lots of the shots are associated with very severe side effects and death, whereas other lots have no adverse events associated with their use.
According to howbadismybatch.com, a site that matches up vaccine lot codes with reports in the VAERS system, approximately 5% of the lots are responsible for 90% of all adverse reactions. Some of these batches have 50 times the number of deaths and disabilities associated with them, compared to other lots.20
Another website that basically does the same thing is TheEagle’s VAERS Dashboard. (A video explaining how to use the dashboard can be found on Bitchute.21)
Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, cofounder of the German Corona Investigative Committee, and Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, a former member of the German parliament, discuss this “smoking gun” evidence in the video above. According to Fuellmich and Wodarg, this lot-dependent data shows vaccine makers are conducting secret experiments within the larger public trial.
They appear to actually be doing lethal-dose testing on the public. Wodarg argues that the evidence for this is very clear from the data. They also appear to be coordinating these lethal-dose experiments, so that they’re not all releasing their most toxic lots at the same time, or in the same areas, so as to avoid detection through clustering.
More Data Showing COVID Jabs Can Kill
In closing, I will raise just two more pieces of evidence that speaks to COVID jabs having the ability to kill large numbers of people:
• A recent histopathologic analysis of the organs from 15 patients who died within seven days to six months’ post-jab, ages 28 to 95, found 14 of the deaths — 93% — were caused by the jab.22,23 None of the original coroners’ reports implicated the shots, however.
The association was only established through autopsy, which revealed a “process of immunological self-attack” that is “without precedent.” “Because vaccination was the single common denominator between all cases, there can be no doubt that it was the trigger of self-destruction in these deceased individuals,” Drs. Sucharit Bhakdi and Arne Burkhardt wrote.
• According to researchers at Columbia University, the real number of people killed by the COVID jabs is about 20 times the reported rate, based on their analysis of two publicly available databases (VAERS in the U.S., and another in Europe).24,25,26 That analysis was published in October 2021, but few ever heard a peep about it. According to the authors:
“Comparing our age-stratified VFRs [vaccine-induced fatality rates] with published age-stratified coronavirus infection fatality rates (IFR) suggests the risks of COVID vaccines and boosters outweigh the benefits in children, young adults and older adults with low occupational risk or previous coronavirus exposure.
We discuss implications for public health policies related to boosters, school and workplace mandates, and the urgent need to identify, develop and disseminate diagnostics and treatments for life-altering vaccine injuries.”
Based on the ever-mounting data, the claim that COVID shots have not, cannot, and/or will not cause death simply isn’t credible. And the longer these shots continue to be used, the greater the likelihood that they will indeed kill far more than the actual virus ever did. We also need to remember that the disabilities and long-term chronic ill health these shots are causing will prematurely kill many more, even if it takes 10 or 15 years, and we have no data on any of that yet.
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The Trudeau regime’s spree of human rights violations and unlawful dictates include mandates for forced injections of cross border truck drivers. These mandates came into effect January 15th. South of the border, the unelected Biden administration have made similar mandates that started January 22.
…but it seems 20% of Canada’s cross border truckers are too smart to roll up their sleeve for these unsafe and ineffective injections, even under the threat of medical apartheid.
Trudeau and his cohorts block safe effective treatments for covid; Canadians are denied access. Even without these treatments, covid has less than 0.3% mortality. With the same safe effective affordable treatments, covid’s mortality drops to a minuscule 0.045% or less.
So it seems that 20% of Canada’s cross border transport truck drivers are smart. They must have that special combination: critical thinking and self-respect.
May God please bless these truckers and everyone supporting the convoys and the big Saturday protest in Ottawa. Thank you for helping to set us free from this medical tyranny and genocide. We pray that Trudeau and other covid criminals will be brought to justice, and we the people will soon celebrate in a restored, free, and fair country.
To help finance gas, food, and lodging of our wonderful truckers in this historic convoy, you can donate here.
Rebel News is providing daily coverage to the convoy here.
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On the face of it, there seems to be little in the way of connection between the treatment of Novak Djokovic by Australian authorities and the cooling of the Serbian government towards Rio Tinto. The Anglo-Australian mining giant was confident that it would, at least eventually, win out in gaining the permissions to commence work on its US$2.4 billion lithium-borates mine in the Jadar Valley.
In 2021, Rio Tinto stated that the project would “scale up [the company’s] exposure to battery materials, and demonstrate the company’s commitment to investing capital in a disciplined manner to further strengthen its portfolio for the global energy transition.”
The road had been a bit bumpy, including a growing environmental movement determined to scuttle the project. But the ruling coalition, led by the Serbian Progressive Party, had resisted going wobbly on the issue.
Then came the maligning of the world number one tennis player in Australia. Djokovic had been tormented by a brief spell of confinement in quarters normally reserved for refugees kept in indefinite detention, and eventually defeated in the Full Court of the Federal Court. During the course of events, he saw his visa cancelled twice, first by a member of the Australian Border Force, the next time by Immigration Minister Alex Hawke. Along the way, lynch mobs were thrilled that “Novaxx” Djokovic, that great threat to Australia’s vaccinated innocence, was finally on a flight home.
The Serbian government attempted to intervene. President Aleksander Vučić made a plea to the Morrison government to resist cancelling Djokovic’s visa; the Australian Open was the Serbian tennis player’s favourite tournament, one he had won numerous times.
A diplomatic incident, more murmur than bark, was sparked. “In line with all standards of international public law, Serbia will fight for Novak Djokovic,” promised the Serbian premier. But for an Australian government that has flouted international law and fetishized border control, the call mattered little.
In Serbia, Rio Tinto then faced a rude shock. The Vučić government, having praised the potential of the Jadar project for some years, abruptly abandoned it. “All decisions (connected to the lithium project) and all licenses have been annulled,” Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabićstated flatly on January 20. “As far as project Jadar is concerned, this is an end.”
Branabić insisted, somewhat disingenuously, that this decision merely acknowledged the will of voters. “We are listening to our people and it is our job to protect their interests even when we think differently.”
This is a bit rich coming from a government hostile to industry accountability and investment transparency. The same government also decided to begin infrastructure works on the jadarite mine before the granting of an exploitation permit. Such behaviour has left advocates such as Savo Manojlović of the NGO Kreni-Promeni wondering why Rio Tinto was singled out over, for instance, Eurolithium, which was permitted to dig in the environs of Valjevo in western Serbia.
Zorana Mihajlović, Serbia’s mining and energy minister, preferred to blame the environmental movement, though the alibi seemed a bit forced. “The government showed it wanted the dialogue … (and) attempts to use ecology for political purposes demonstrate they (green groups) care nothing about the lives of the people, nor the industrial development.”
Rio Tinto had been facing an impressive grass roots militia, mobilised to remind Serbians about the devastating implications of proposed lithium mining operations. The Ne damo Jadar (We won’t let anyone take Jadar) group has unerringly focused attention on the secret agreements reached between the mining company and Belgrade. Zlatko Kokanović, vice president of the group, is convinced that the mine would “not only threaten one of Serbia’s oldest and most important archaeological sites, it will also endanger several protected bird species, pond terrapins, and fire salamander, which would otherwise be protected by EU directives.”
Taking issue with the the unflattering environmental record of the Anglo-Australian company, numerous protests were organised and petitions launched, including one that has received 292,571 signatures. Last month, activists organised gatherings and marches across the country, including road blockades.
Djokovic has not been immune to the growing green movement, if only to lend a few words of support. In a December Instagram story post featuring a picture of anti-mining protests, he declared that, “Clean air, water and food are the keys to health. Without it, every word about health is redundant.”
Rio Tinto’s response to the critics was that of the seductive guest keen to impress: we have gifts for the governors, the rulers and the parliamentarians. Give us permission to dig, and we will make you the envy of Europe, green and environmentally sound ambassadors of the electric battery and car revolution.
The European Battery Alliance, a group of electric vehicle supply chain companies, is adamant that the Jadar project “constituted an important share of potential European domestic supply.” The mine would have “contributed to support the growth of a nascent industrial battery-related ecosystem in Serbia, contributing to a substantial amount to Serbia’s annual GDP.” Assiduously selective, the group preferred to ignore the thorny environmental implications of the venture.
The options facing the mining giant vary, none of which would appeal to the board. In a statement, the company claimed that it was “reviewing the legal basis of this decision and the implications for our activities and our people in Serbia.” It might bullyingly seek to sue Belgrade, a move that is unlikely to do improve an already worn reputation. “For a major mining company to sue a state is very unusual,” suggests Peter Leon of law firm Herbert Smith Freehills. “A claim under the bilateral treaty is always a last resort, but not a first resort.”
Another option for punters within the company will be a political gamble: hoping that April’s parliamentary elections will usher in a bevy of pro-mining representatives. By then, public antagonism against matters Australian will have dimmed. The Serbian ecological movement, however, is unlikely to ease their campaign. The age of mining impunity in the face of popular protest has come to an end.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
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A specter haunts the collective West: total zombification, courtesy of an across-the-board 24/7 psy ops imprinting the inevitability of “Russian aggression”.
Let’s pierce the fog of hysteria by asking Ukrainian Defense Minister Reznikov what’s going on:
“I can absolutely say that to date, the Russian armed forces have not created a strike group that could make a forceful invasion of Ukraine.”
Well, Reznikov is obviously not aware that the White House, with access to arguably privileged intel, is convinced that Russia will invade “any-minute-now”.
The Pentagon doubles down: “It’s very clear the Russians have no intention right now of deescalating”. Thus the necessity, expressed by spokesman John Kirby, of readying a multinational NATO response force (NRF) of 40,000 troops: “If it is activated…to defeat aggression, if necessary”.
So “aggression” is a given. The White House is “refining” military plans – 18 at the last count – for all manners of “aggression”. As for responding – in writing – to the Russian proposals on security guarantees, well, that’s far too complex.
There is no “exact date” when it will be sent to Moscow. And the proverbial “officials” have begged their Russian counterparts not to make it public. After all, a letter is not sexy. Yet “aggression” sells. Especially when it may happen “any-minute-now.”
“Analyst” hacks are yelling that Putin “is now almost certain” to deliver a “limited strike” in “the next ten days”, complete with an attack on Kiev: that configures the scenario of an “almost inevitable war”.
Vladimir Dzhabarov, First Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Council Committee on International Affairs, prefers to get closer to reality: the U.S. is preparing a provocation to push Kiev to “reckless actions” against Russia in the Donbass. That ties in with foot soldiers of the Luhansk People’s Republic reporting that “subversive groups prepared by British instructors” arrived in the area of Lisichansk.
Image on the right: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen
Luminaries such as the European Commission’s Ursula von der Leyen, NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg and “leaders” from the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Poland announced, after a video call, that “an unprecedented package of sanctions” is nearly ready if Russia “invades”.
They billed it as “international unity in the face of growing Russia hostility”. Translation: NATOstan begging Russia to please invade a.s.a.p.
Of the EU 27, 21 are NATO members. The U.S. rules over the whole lot. So when the EU announces that “any further military aggression against Ukraine would have very serious consequences for Russia”, that’s the U.S. telling NATO to tell the EU “what we say, goes”. And under this strategy of tension environment, “what we say” means applying raw, imperial Divide and Rule to keep Europe totally subjugated.
The West’s fatal mistakes
One should never forget that Maidan 2014 was an operation supervised by Obama/Biden. Yet there’s still plenty of unfinished business – when it comes to bogging down Russia. So the viscerally Russophobic War Party in D.C. now has to pull all stops ordering NATOstan to cheerlead Kiev to start a hot war – and thus trap Russia. Zelensky The Comedian even went on the record wanting to “go on the offensive”.
So time to release the false flags.
The indispensable Alastair Crooke has outlined how “‘encirclement’ and ‘containment’ effectively have become Biden’s default foreign policy.” Not “Biden”, actually – but the amorphous combo behind the earpiece/teleprompter-controlled puppet I have been designating for over a year as Crash Test Dummy.
Crooke adds, “the attempt to cement-in this meta-doctrine currently is being enacted out via Russia (as the initial step). The essential buy-in by Europe is the ‘party-piece’ to Russia’s physical containment and encirclement.”
“Encirclement” and “containment” have been exceptionalist staples, under various guises, for decades. The notion entertained by the War Party that it’s possible to carry both across a three-way-front – against Russia, China and Iran – is so infantile to render any analysis idle. It does call for a drink and a good laugh.
As for extra sanctions for the imaginary “Russian aggression”, a few benevolent souls had to remind Little Tony Blinken and other “Biden” combo participants that Europeans would be much more lethally affected than Russians; not to mention these sanctions would turbo-charge the collective West’s economic crisis.
A short recap is essential to frame how we ended up mired in the current hysteria swamp.
The collective West blew the chance it had to build a constructive partnership with Russia similar to what it did with Germany after 1945.
The collective West also blew it when reducing Russia to the role of a minor, docile entity, imposing that there’s only one sphere of influence on the planet: NATOstan, of course.
And the Empire blew it when it targeted Russia even after it had allegedly “won” against the USSR.
During the 1990s and the 2000s, instead of being invited to participate in the construction of the “common European home” – with all its glaring faults – post-Soviet Russia was forced to be outside looking in on how this “home” was upgraded and decorated.
Contrary to all the promises made to Gorbachev by assorted Western leaders, the traditional Russian sphere of influence – and even former USSR territory – became objects of dispute in the looting of the “Soviet heritage”: merely a space to be colonized by NATO’s military structures.
Contrary to Gorbachev’s hope – who was naively convinced that the West would share with him the benefits of “the dividends of peace” – a hardcore Anglo-American neoliberal model was imposed over the Russian economy. Added to the disastrous consequences of this transition was the sentiment of national frustration by a society that was humiliated and treated like a vanquished nation in the Cold War, or WWIII.
That was Exceptionalistan’s fatal mistake: to believe that with the USSR vanishing, Russia as a historic, economic and strategic reality would also disappear from international relations.
The new pact of steel
And that’s why War Inc., the War Party, the Deep State, however you wanna call them, are freaking out now – big time.
They dismissed Putin when he formulated a new paradigm in Munich in 2007 – or when he returned to the Kremlin in 2012.
Putin made it very clear that Russia’s legitimate strategic interests would have to be respected again. And that Russia was about to recover its de facto “veto rights” in managing world affairs. Well, the Putin doctrine was already being implemented since the Georgian affair in 2008.
Ukraine is a patchwork of morsels that belonged until recently to different empires – Austro-Hungarian and Russian – as well as several nations, such as Russia, Poland and Romania. It regroups Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and has millions of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers with deep historical, cultural and economic links with Russia.
So Ukraine was a de facto new Yugoslavia.
The fatal mistake committed by Brussels in 2014 was to force Kiev as well as the Ukrainian population as a whole to make an impossible choice between Europe and Russia.
The inevitable result would have to be Maidan, completely manipulated by American intel, even as Russians clearly saw how the EU switched from the position of honest broker to the lowly role of American chihuahuas.
Russophobic U.S. hawks will never renounce the spectacle of their historical adversary bogged down in a slow-burning fratricidal war in the post-Soviet space. As much as they will never renounce Divide and Rule imposed over a discombobulated Europe. And as much as they will never concede “spheres of influence” to any geopolitical player.
Without their toxic imprint, 2014 could have played in quite a different manner.
To dissuade Putin to restore Crimea to its rightful place – Russia – it would have taken two things: for Ukraine to be decently managed after 1992, and not to force it to choose the Western camp, but to make it a bridge, Finland or Austria-style.
After Maidan, the Minsk agreements were as close as possible to a viable solution: let’s end the conflict in Donbass; let’s disarm the protagonists; and let’s re-establish control of the borders of Ukraine while providing real autonomy to Eastern Ukraine.
For all that to happen, Ukraine would have needed a neutral status, and a double security guarantee, by Russia and NATO. And to render the association agreement between Ukraine and the EU compatible with the close links between Eastern Ukraine and the Russian economy.
All that would have perhaps configured a European vision of decent future relations with Russia.
Yet the Russophobic Deep State would never allow it. And the same applied to the White House. Barack Obama, that cynical opportunist, was too engulfed by the dodgy Polish context in Chicago and not free from the exceptionalist obsession with deep antagonism to be able to build a constructive relationship with Russia.
Then there’s the clincher, revealed by a high-level U.S. intel source.
In 2013, the late Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski was presented with a classified report on Russian advanced missiles. He freaked out. And responded by conceptualizing Maidan 2014 – to draw Russia into a guerrilla war then as he had done with Afghanistan in the 1980s.
And here we are now: it’s all a matter of unfinished business.
A final word on the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. In the 13th century, the Mongol Empire established its suzerainty over Kievan Rus – that is, over the Christian orthodox principalities that correspond today to northern Ukraine, Belarus and part of contemporary Russia.
The Tartar yoke over Russia – from 1240 to 1552, when Ivan The Terrible conquered Kazan – is deeply imprinted in Russian historical consciousness and in the debate about national identity.
The Mongols separately conquered vast swathes of China, Russia and Iran. Centuries after Pax Mongolica, what an irony that the new pact of steel between these top three Eurasian actors is now an insurmountable geopolitical obstacle, smashing all elaborate plans by a bunch of trans-Atlantic historic upstarts.
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Pepe Escobar,born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture in Moscow. Since the mid-1980s he’s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. Pepe is the author of Globalistan – How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War; Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad during the Surge. He was contributing editor to The Empire and The Crescent and Tutto in Vendita in Italy. His last two books are Empire of Chaos and 2030. Pepe is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok.
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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“All the Dachaus must remain standing. The Dachaus, the Belsens, the Buchenwald, the Auschwitzes—all of them. They must remain standing because they are a monument to a moment in time when some men decided to turn the Earth into a graveyard. Into it they shoveled all of their reason, their logic, their knowledge, but worst of all, their conscience. And the moment we forget this, the moment we cease to be haunted by its remembrance, then we become the gravediggers.”— Rod Serling, Deaths-Head Revisited
In the politically charged, polarizing tug-of-war that is the debate over COVID-19, we find ourselves buffeted by fear over a viral pandemic that continues to wreak havoc with lives and the economy, threats of vaccine mandates and financial penalties for noncompliance, and discord over how to legislate the public good without sacrificing individual liberty.
The discord is getting more discordant by the day.
In other words, lock up the unvaccinated and use the military to determine who gets to be “free.”
These tactics have been used before.
This is why significant numbers of people are worried: because this is the slippery slope that starts with well-meaning intentions for the greater good and ends with tyrannical abuses no one should tolerate.
For a glimpse at what the future might look like if such a policy were to be enforced, look beyond America’s borders.
For those unfortunate enough to contract COVID-19, China has constructed “quarantine camps” throughout the country: massive complexes boasting thousands of small, metal boxes containing little more than a bed and a toilet. Detainees—including children, pregnant women and the elderly— were reportedly ordered to leave their homes in the middle of the night, transported to the quarantine camps in buses and held in isolation.
If this last scenario sounds chillingly familiar, it should.
While the majority of those imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camps, forced labor camps, incarceration sites and ghettos were Jews, there were also Polish nationals, gypsies, Russians, political dissidents, resistance fighters, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and homosexuals.
Culturally, we have become so fixated on the mass murders of Jewish prisoners by the Nazis that we overlook the fact that the purpose of these concentration camps were initially intended to “incarcerate and intimidate the leaders of political, social, and cultural movements that the Nazis perceived to be a threat to the survival of the regime.”
How do you get from there to here, from Auschwitz concentration camps to COVID quarantine centers?
Connect the dots.
You don’t have to be unvaccinated or a conspiracy theorist or even anti-government to be worried about what lies ahead. You just have to recognize the truth in the warning: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
This is not about COVID-19. Nor is it about politics, populist movements, or any particular country.
This is about what happens when good, generally decent people—distracted by manufactured crises, polarizing politics, and fighting that divides the populace into warring “us vs. them” camps—fail to take note of the looming danger that threatens to wipe freedom from the map and place us all in chains.
It’s about what happens when any government is empowered to adopt a comply-or-suffer-the-consequences mindset that is enforced through mandates, lockdowns, penalties, detention centers, martial law, and a disregard for the rights of the individual.
The slippery slope begins in just this way, with propaganda campaigns about the public good being more important than individual liberty, and it ends with lockdowns and concentration camps.
The danger signs are everywhere.
Claudio Ronco, a 66-year-old Orthodox Jew and a specialist in 18th-century music, recognizes the signs. Because of his decision to remain unvaccinated, Ronco is trapped inside his house, unable to move about in public without a digital vaccination card. He can no longer board a plane, check into a hotel, eat at a restaurant or get a coffee at a bar. He has been ostracized by friends, shut out of public life, and will soon face monthly fines for insisting on his right to bodily integrity and individual freedom.
For all intents and purposes, Ronco has become an undesirable in the eyes of the government, forced into isolation so he doesn’t risk contaminating the rest of the populace.
This is the slippery slope: a government empowered to restrict movements, limit individual liberty, and isolate “undesirables” to prevent the spread of a disease is a government that has the power to lockdown a country, label whole segments of the population a danger to national security, and force those undesirables—a.k.a. extremists, dissidents, troublemakers, etc.—into isolation so they don’t contaminate the rest of the populace.
The world has been down this road before, too.
Others have ignored the warning signs. We cannot afford to do so.
As historian Milton Mayer recounts in his seminal book on Hitler’s rise to power, They Thought They Were Free:
“Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about—we were decent people‑—and kept us so busy with continuous changes and ‘crises’ and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the ‘national enemies’, without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us.”
The German people chose to ignore the truth and believe the lie.
They were not oblivious to the horrors taking place around them. As historian Robert Gellately points out, “[A]nyone in Nazi Germany who wanted to find out about the Gestapo, the concentration camps, and the campaigns of discrimination and persecutions need only read the newspapers.”
The warning signs were there, blinking incessantly like large neon signs.
“Still,” Gellately writes, “the vast majority voted in favor of Nazism, and in spite of what they could read in the press and hear by word of mouth about the secret police, the concentration camps, official anti-Semitism, and so on. . . . [T]here is no getting away from the fact that at that moment, ‘the vast majority of the German people backed him.’”
Half a century later, the wife of a prominent German historian, neither of whom were members of the Nazi party, opined: “[O]n the whole, everyone felt well. . . . And there were certainly eighty percent who lived productively and positively throughout the time. . . . We also had good years. We had wonderful years.”
In other words, as long as their creature comforts remained undiminished, as long as their bank accounts remained flush, as long as they weren’t being locked up, locked down, discriminated against, persecuted, starved, beaten, shot, stripped, jailed or killed, life was good.
Life is good in America, too, as long as you’re able to keep cocooning yourself in political fantasies that depict a world in which your party is always right and everyone else is wrong, while distracting yourself with bread-and-circus entertainment that bears no resemblance to reality.
Indeed, life in America may be good for the privileged few who aren’t being locked up, locked down, discriminated against, persecuted, starved, beaten, shot, stripped, jailed or killed, but it’s getting worse by the day for the rest of us.
Which brings me back to the present crisis: COVID-19 is not the Holocaust, and those who advocate vaccine mandates, lockdowns and quarantine camps are not Hitler, but this still has the makings of a slippery slope.
The means do not justify the ends: we must find other ways of fighting a pandemic without resorting to mandates and lockdowns and concentration camps. To do otherwise is to lay the groundwork for another authoritarian monster to rise up and wreak havoc.
If we do not want to repeat the past, then we must learn from past mistakes.
January 27 marks Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, a day for remembering those who died at the hands of Hitler’s henchmen and those who survived the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps.
Yet remembering is not enough. We can do better. We must do better.
All it will take is one solid push for tyranny to prevail.
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By now almost everyone has heard about terrible conditions in hospitals as they face very high levels of COVID patients at the same time that they likely have lost staff because despite being fully vaccinated, they have COVID and are not working. Just proving that vaccines and booster shots do not work to prevent infection and its transmission.
How trustworthy is all this bad news?
Number of COVID patients and deaths
There are two issued to consider: First, let us consider the number of COVID patients that hospitals say they are dealing with and, not so incidentally, making lots of money from.
There is now a large fraction of hospital patients being classed as COVID that are better seen as incidental COVID cases. This means that come into hospitals for a host of ordinary reasons; they are tested for COVID. Even though most may be asymptomatic they test positive. Hospitals then treat these as COVID patients in every respect. This greatly burdens hospitals. Their eventual outcomes depend on how treatment for the main reason they got admitted are successful. Remember that omicron, now the dominant form of COVID, for the vast majority of people does not produce serious health problems.
When we hear about high numbers of COVID deaths in hospitals what is not clear is whether they have died from COVID or the other medical problems they went to the hospital for. It seems that COVID deaths are being greatly overblown, especially compare to data from other countries.
The truth is we cannot trust any of the COVID hospital data in number of cases or deaths.
It is true that some reporters and pundits have claimed that this picture is overly pessimistic because the hospitalization numbers include people who are simply hospitalized with COVID, rather than for COVID. These “incidental” patients who just happen to test positive while being treated for something else clearly inflate numbers and explain why hospital ICUs are jammed up.
In some places, the proportion of such cases seems high. UC San Francisco recently said a third of its COVID patients “are admitted for other reasons,” while the Jackson Health System in Florida put that proportion at half. In New York State, COVID “was not included as one of the reasons for admission” for 43 percent of the hospitalized people who have tested positive.
Other countries have produced data noting the same phenomenon of “incidental” COVID cases. In data published recently by the UK National Health Service, 33% of the 8,321 COVID-positive cases in England on December 28 were admitted to the hospital for a different reason.
The number of Covid patients on ventilators in England dropped to a six-month low as the pressure of omicron on the NHS peaks, official figures show.
A total of 524 people were in hospital recently receiving breathing support, marking the lowest daily toll since mid-July and seven times lower than at the height of the second wave this time a year ago.
With around 14,500 patients in hospital with the virus across England, it means just 3.7 per cent are ill enough to need mechanical ventilation, the smallest share since the pandemic began.
Vaccinated versus unvaccinated
Another issue deserving attention is whether you can trust hospital data about how many of their COVID patients are unvaccinated. Most reports from US hospitals say the number is very high. Can you trust this?
Turns our that if patients do not have an official card saying they have been vaccinated they are most likely to be counted as non-vaccinated. Hospitals do not research state or federal databases to determine whether a patient has been vaccinated.
Of relevance is that the US is unique in not giving official credit for natural immunity obtained from prior COVID infection. So, many hospital patients may have had a very good reason for not taking an experimental vaccine shot. Yet they have natural immunity that countless studies have found is better in all respects than vaccine immunity.
Again, US data is quite contrary to data from other countries that show nearly all hospitalized COVID patients have been fully vaccinated, and in some countries, like Israel, they also have received booster shots. Or, that they have proven natural immunity.
Remember also that according to CDC rules if people die from legitimate COVID disease within two weeks of getting a vaccine shot they are counted as unvaccinated.
Hospital treatment of COVID patients
As previous articles have considered, hospitals are hamstrung by the decision to follow federal government guidelines, such as those from NIH and CDC. They are using what the government has sanctioned and NOT using what many frontline doctors use very successfully. In a nutshell, this means hospitals are not using cheap, safe and FDA approved generics like ivermectin as well as a number of vitamins and supplements found effective.
Are true COVID patients (not the incidental ones) still dying from late state COVID infection? Yes. But we know from medical research and some examples in hospitals that ivermectin’s anti-inflammatory property can work to clear up lung problems.
Here are data comparing omicron versus delta variants worth considering relative to the current hysteria over what hospitals are dealing with:
One study showed that only 17.6% of patients required supplemental oxygen therapy versus 74% during the delta wave. Only 1.6% required mechanical ventilation (vs 12.4%) and there was an 11% decline in those who required admission to the ICU. The median length of stay of omicron hospitalizations was three days, while it was seven under delta.
Conclusions
Sadly, the worse thing that Americans can do is go to the hospital for treatment if they have incidental, asymptomatic or symptomatic COVID.
What is the alternative?
First, routinely take any of a host of vitamins and supplements (such as vitamin D and quercetin) to boost your immune systems so that it can naturally fight any COVID virus.
Second, take ivermectin as a prophylactic to prevent getting serious COVID infection.
Third, find one of the many frontline doctors who are very successfully treating COVID patients with safe and proven protocols. They are a very credible medical alternative to hospital treatments.
As a last smart move, should you find yourself in a hospital make sure you do not take remdesivir or any either of the two new antiviral drugs from Pfizer and Merck that, like vaccines, have not been proven safe in the short or long term. Admittedly, rejecting what hospital doctors want to give you is a challenge; you need an advocate like a close friend or family member. And you should invoke patient centered care that all hospitals say they strongly support, that gives you the right to control you care. Think carefully about leaving an emergency room and getting admitted into the hospital.
Also, if hospitalized, try and sneak in ivermectin to take as soon as possible.
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Dr. Joel S. Hirschhorn, author of Pandemic Blunder and many articles on the pandemic, worked on health issues for decades. As a full professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he directed a medical research program between the colleges of engineering and medicine. As a senior official at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association, he directed major studies on health-related subjects; he testified at over 50 U.S. Senate and House hearings and authored hundreds of articles and op-ed articles in major newspapers. He has served as an executive volunteer at a major hospital for more than 10 years. He is a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons and America’s Frontline Doctors and has been a long-time contributor to the sites of Kettle Moraine.
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Washington continues to advance the idea of establishing a new plan of severe sanctions against Russia over the Ukrainian crisis. Recently, US officials presented a draft of anti-Russian sanctions during a trip to Berlin. Considering the seriousness of the measures and the clear objective of suffocating Russia economically, the plan can be considered a real threat to international peace. In the same sense, the US delegation’s visit to Berlin seems to have been an attempt to coerce Berlin into adopting the same anti-Russian stance that Washington assumes.
An audacious package of sanctions against Russia was announced by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his last trip to Berlin last week. The program was developed by William Burns, top CIA official and former American ambassador in Russia, and has as its main objective to provoke a strong economic siege against Moscow in the face of escalating tensions in Ukraine in the coming months. Also, it is necessary to mention that in addition to economic measures, there are also sanctions in the diplomatic sphere, with the plan to reduce the number of foreign officers on Russian soil as much as possible.
Russian export capacity is the main target of the new sanctions package. Commodities and weapons are strategic points of high value in the Russian export economy – and the new program is aimed precisely at preventing other countries from being able to buy these products from Russia. According to data exposed by the German newspaper Bild, it is estimated that, if the sanctions are actually implemented, the total damage to Russia’s economy would be equivalent to more than 50 billion dollars – which is why, the newspaper concludes that “the US and the West… want to attack Russia’s role as the world’s largest supplier of raw materials”.
The Bild’s article also mentions that during his stay in Berlin, Blinken stated that the US wants to make all the points of the new package clear to Washington’s allies around the world, so that all measures are implemented. Blinken stated that the new restrictions are aimed at “blocking Russian trade routes around the world”, “blocking supply routes” used by Russia, and guaranteeing “a sharp reduction in the staff of Russian embassies in Western countries”. In the same sense, Blinken ignored all requests from German officials for the anti-Russian approach to be taken on a less hard and more diplomatic line, demanding unrestricted adherence to Washington’s project to suffocate Moscow.
Germany has very clear interests to ask for a more diplomatic approach to the situation: the gas issue. Berlin asks Washington for permission to establish a more lenient policy, promising that the operation of Nord Stream 2 will be paralyzed in eventual escalation in Ukraine, but ruling out the possibility of total cancellation of the energy cooperation. In turn, the US has resumed a stance of total opposition to the existence of the gas pipeline, considering it inadmissible under the current circumstances in Ukraine.
In the current situation, the US is, in a way, assuming the leadership position of a coalition opposing Berlin within the European continent. The sovereigntist stance of the German government, which wants to defend its own interests in the midst of the crisis between Russia and the West, does not only displease Washington, but also Poland and Ukraine itself, which want to maintain the monopoly of gas transport along the old routes. With the US-imposed boycott of the purchase of Russian gas by Germany, the Poland-Ukraine axis becomes the only option for Berlin. In the same vein, the UK, which has adopted a totally pro-Washington policy, supports all these measures and endorses the cancellation of Nord Stream 2 and its replacement with the old routes. With this, there is an axis forming between the US, UK, Poland and Ukraine to pressure Germany to fully adhere to anti-Russian measures.
On the other hand, Germany has the support of a part of the EU, for which a critical stance on the role of the US and NATO on the continent is increasingly indispensable. The German government feels pressured and is divided, as there are also many pro-Washington officials in the new administration – in addition to the fact that the EU itself is polarized in this regard. Berlin resists for the time being and continues to postpone indefinitely the sending of military aid to Ukraine, but it is clear that the German position within the European bloc no longer corresponds to its real relevance as European financial leader.
In fact, the EU continues to delay in taking a rigid position of distancing itself from NATO, despite the sovereigntist stance taken by the main European leaders, Germany and France, who are not willing to tolerate all NATO attitudes and their respective consequences. In this game, Germany is the most fragile part as its typical military weakness prevents it from guaranteeing the defense of its strategic interests. Blinken’s choice to travel to Berlin had a very clear meaning: increasing pressure for the new government to decline any stance inconsistent with NATO’s plans. If Berlin does not receive support from the rest of the European bloc, even its respectable financial power will not be enough for the country to continue defending its interests in the face of such external pressure.
It is unlikely that the new sanctions package presented by Blinken really depends on any escalation of tensions in Ukraine. Considering that even the movement of troops by Moscow within Russian territory itself is considered an “escalation” by Washington, it is very likely that sanctions will be implemented at some point. And that is why it urges the US’ former European allies to unite to defend their sovereign interests in the face of the growing US-UK-Poland-Ukraine axis.
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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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“There arrives a moment of truth when the West either accepts our proposals or other ways will be found to safeguard Russia’s security.” -Konstantin Gavrilov, head of the Russian delegation at the Vienna negotiations
Here’s a simple way to test your understanding of the current US-Russia standoff. All you need to do is answer one very-basic question about the nature of the conflict, and that answer will determine whether you understand what is actually going on or not. Here’s the question:
What is the source of the confrontation between the US and Russia in the Ukraine:
Russia has amassed over 100,000 combat troops near Ukraine’s eastern border and is threatening to invade.
Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to rebuild the Soviet Empire by expanding Russia’s territory beyond its borders.
The western media has concocted a fake storyline about a “Russian invasion” to divert attention from Moscow’s reasonable demands for legally-binding security guarantees that address the pressing issue of hostile foreign armies (NATO) and nuclear missiles on Russia’s doorstep.
None of the above.
If you picked Number 3, then pat yourself on the back, that is the right answer. (Please, see: “There Is No Russian Invasion Threat To Ukraine”, Moon of Alabama; Quote: “The story of Russian preparations for an invasion of the Ukraine is made up from whole cloth.”)
The current crisis has nothing to do with the fictitious “Russian invasion” that was invented to conceal the real issue.
The real issue is Russian security and the demands that Russia has made in the form of two draft treaty agreements. The western media– in concert with the Intelligence agencies, the Pentagon, the Biden administration, and the US foreign policy establishment– have done everything in their power to prevent the American people from reading the contents of these draft treaties for fear that they will see that Russia’s demands are both reasonable and appropriate. Russia isn’t asking for anything more than any sovereign country should expect. As FDR famously said, “Security for one, is security for all.” We support that sentiment and we think the American people do too.
Russians do not want to live with nuclear missiles aimed at their Capital and located just a few hundred miles from their targets. That is a nonstarter. Nor do Russians want hostile armies and military bases looming on their western flank in Ukraine. Again, that is a nonstarter.
What Russia wants, is a written agreement that prevents Washington from using NATO to pursue its long-term geopolitical strategy of encircling, weakening and ultimately, splintering the Russian Federation into smaller pieces in order to become a bigger player in the development of Central Asia and in order to exert greater control over China’s explosive growth. That is the basic Gameplan, and the US foreign policy establishment has not abandoned that plan despite 30-years of catastrophic military failures stretching from North Africa across the Middle East and into Central Asia. Here’s how author Stephen Kinzer summed it up in an article that appeared in the Boston Globe more than a decade ago:
“From the moment the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the United States has relentlessly pursued a strategy of encircling Russia, just as it has with other perceived enemies like China and Iran. It has brought 12 countries in central Europe, all of them formerly allied with Moscow, into the NATO alliance. US military power is now directly on Russia’s borders…This crisis is in part the result of a zero-sum calculation that has shaped US policy toward Moscow since the Cold War: Any loss for Russia is an American victory, and anything positive that happens to, for, or in Russia is bad for the United States. This is an approach that intensifies confrontation, rather than soothing it.” (“US a full partner in Ukraine debacle”, Boston Globe)
What can we glean from this paragraph?
We can appreciate the historical context of the current crisis which dates back to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Following the collapse of the USSR, leaders in the West felt that “History had ended” and that the western system had triumphed over communism. This triumphalism, in turn, was accompanied by wave after wave of eastward expansion, where NATO– the Cold War relic– doubled in size and pushed closer and closer to Russia’s borders. Now– 30-years on– Washington wants Ukraine to become a member of the Alliance which will put hostile armies, military bases and missile sites just a few hundred miles from Moscow. Naturally, Putin cannot allow this development to take place. Naturally, he must do everything in his power to prevent the supporters of this strategy from implementing their plan.
And that’s what the current confrontation is all about, Russia’s security. It has nothing to do with the threat of a Russian invasion. The “Russian invasion” meme was invented to garner public support for a confrontation with Russia and to conceal details about Russia’s security demands. It is basically fake news created with the clear intention of misleading the American people about an issue that should be a grave concern to them and to people around the world.
So, what is it that Putin wants, after all, we cannot determine whether the Russian leader is being reasonable or not unless we know what he is demanding. A short excerpt from the draft treaty should tell us everything we need to know. Here’s an excerpt:
The United States of America shall undertake to prevent further eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and deny accession to the Alliance to the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The United States of America shall not establish military bases in the territory of the States of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that are not members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, use their infrastructure for any military activities or develop bilateral military cooperation with them……
The Parties shall undertake not to deploy ground-launched intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles outside their national territories, as well as in the areas of their national territories, from which such weapons can attack targets in the national territory of the other Party.
Article 7
The Parties shall refrain from deploying nuclear weapons outside their national territories and return such weapons already deployed outside their national territories at the time of the entry into force of the Treaty to their national territories. The Parties shall eliminate all existing infrastructure for deployment of nuclear weapons outside their national territories.
The Parties shall not train military and civilian personnel from non-nuclear countries to use nuclear weapons. The Parties shall not conduct exercises or training for general-purpose forces, that include scenarios involving the use of nuclear weapons.” (“Treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation on Security Guarantees,” Official Russian State Document, December 17, 2021)
Is it reasonable for Putin to demand that the US and its NATO allies not install military bases and nuclear missile sites on its border? Is it appropriate for the Russian president to insist that NATO abstain from placing hostile armies on Russia’s doorstep? Here’s what Putin said in reference to these developments just two weeks ago:
“Our actions will depend not on the negotiations but on the unconditional security of Russia Putin …we have made it absolutely clear that NATOs expansion to the East is absolutely unacceptable. What is unclear about this? It is not Russia that deploys missile systems to US borders. It is the other way around. The United States has brought its missiles to our borders. They are on our threshhold …. What would the US do if we deployed our missiles to the Mexican or Canadian borders? …We are not the one’s that are threatening anyone. They came to our borders.” (“Putin: “What Would Americans Do If We Went To Canada And Mexico And Deployed Missiles There?”, Rumble)
He has a point, doesn’t he? The US would never allow China or Russia to build bases or missile sites on its borders. Shouldn’t Russia expect the same treatment?
Yes, they should, and it is certainly a principal worth fighting for. Keep in mind, Russia lost 27 million people in World War 2. That is no trifling sum. Russians have a clear understanding of the cost of war and they will do whatever it takes to prevent another one from breaking out on their soil. In the present case, that means insisting that encroaching adversaries sign legally-binding documents that block them from deploying lethal military hardware or nuclear weapons to Russia’s perimeter. That is the crux of the matter; Sign the treaty or Moscow will be forced to find other ways to establish its security.
The head of the Russian delegation at the Vienna negotiations, Konstantin Gavrilov, summed it up like this:
“There arrives a moment of truth when the West either accepts our proposals or other ways will be found to safeguard Russia’s security.”
Does that mean war?
Not necessarily, but the options are certainly narrowing. If the Biden administration ignores these red lines and continues to blunder ahead with its current policy, there will be a war because this latest NATO expansion leaves Russia at a critical disadvantage. The location of troops and nuclear weapons upsets the fundamental balance of power which Russia will be forced to restore by whatever means necessary. Is that what Biden’s foreign policy team wants?
The wiser members of the US foreign establishment have always cautioned against NATO’s reckless expansion. Check out this quote from former US diplomat and author of the Soviet “containment” policy, George Kennan, who warned that NATO expansion would have dire consequences for both Russia and the United States. He said:
“The view, bluntly stated, is that expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking … Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the Cold War to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.….I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the founding fathers of this country turn over in their graves.” (“George Kennan on Russia: Insights and Recommendations”, Russia Matters)
So, if NATO expansion is at the heart of the present confrontation, (and not the invented threat of Putin invading.), then what are the strategic objectives?
Perhaps, the best and simplest explanation of what is going on is provided by foreign policy expert John Mearsheimer in a presentation he gave at The University of Chicago in 2015 titled Why is Ukraine the West’s Fault? The whole video is worth watching but for our purposes, we’ll highlight a few of the more crucial points.
First of all, US ambitions in Ukraine have nothing to do with “democracy promotion”. The real driving force is geopolitics, just as it was a century earlier when Great Britain was engaged in the Great Game. The same rule applies today, although the motives are more effectively concealed behind a wall of propaganda. As Mearsheimer says,
“The US and its EU allies want to peel Ukraine away from its Russian orbit and incorporate it into the west. The goal is to make Ukraine a western bulwark on Russia’s border.”
Bingo. That’s it in a nutshell. The US wants to continue its encirclement and weakening of Russia, and Russia will have none of it. As Mearsheimer says, “Russia is a great power and is has no interest in allowing the US to take a big piece of real estate of great strategic importance on its western border and incorporate it into the West.”
Right again. But while Mearsheimer provides a convincing explanation for recent developments, his analysis is in no way comprehensive. There are, of course, other prominent foreign policy experts who described in much greater detail, the role that was planned for Russia as a future colony in the New World Order. In 1997, Zbigniew Brzezinski posted an article in Foreign Policy Magazine titled “A Geostrategy for Eurasia,” that makes the case that the US needs to forcefully establish itself in Central Asia in order to maintain its position as the world’s only superpower. Here’s an excerpt that explains how Brzezinski saw Russia factoring in to this new paradigm:
“Russia’s longer-term role in Eurasia will depend largely on its self-definition…Russia’s first priority should be to modernize itself rather than to engage in a futile effort to regain its status as a global power. Given the country’s size and diversity, a decentralized political system and free-market economics would be most likely to unleash the creative potential of the Russian people and Russia’s vast natural resources. A loosely confederated Russia — composed of a European Russia, a Siberian Republic, and a Far Eastern Republic — would also find it easier to cultivate closer economic relations with its neighbors. Each of the confederated entitles would be able to tap its local creative potential, stifled for centuries by Moscow’s heavy bureaucratic hand. In turn, a decentralized Russia would be less susceptible to imperial mobilization.” (“A Geostrategy for Eurasia”, Foreign Affairs, 76:5, September/October 1997)
“A loosely confederated Russia”? In other words, a splintered, Balkanized, bankrupt colony open to foreign exploitation and control. Is this Washington’s plan for Russia?
It is. A strong, vital and independent Russia is not in Washington’s interests at all, in fact, it is a clear threat to America’s global ambitions. The US still harbors lofty aspirations that have not been dampened by 30 years of foreign policy disasters. Washington still thinks it can prevail in its conflict with Moscow, establish outposts across Central Asia, further encircle China, and oversee the explosive development of the world’s most prosperous region, Asia. These are, perhaps, unrealistic objectives for a country that found it impossible to beat a makeshift militia with no formal military training (The Taliban) over a 20-year period. Nevertheless, this is the essential geopolitical roadmap the foreign policy establishment continues to pursue despite the fact that implementing the policy may trigger an unexpected conflagration with a nuclear-armed Russia that could have dire consequences for us all.
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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You are not alone! As of 28 July 2021, 29% of Canadians have not received a COVID-19 vaccine, and an additional 14% have received one shot. In the US and in the European Union, less than half the population is fully vaccinated, and even in Israel, the “world’s lab” according to Pfizer, one third of people remain completely unvaccinated.
A mass movement against the Covid mandate is unfolding coast to coast across Canada in solidarity with cross-border truck drivers. Tens of thousands of people will be joining the truck drivers in Ottawa.
The Western MSM are horning in one voice that the Russian Federation is preparing a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in the near future. They are supported by the authorities of the Anglo-Saxon states and the Brussels bureaucracy.
In the UK, GPs receive massive payments for giving vaccinations. And bonus payments if they vaccinate enough patients. Doctors get very rich out of vaccine programmes.
Threats and counter-threats flying between Washington and Moscow over Ukraine have caused a flurry of fear and confusion that escalates and expands daily. Is the world on the brink of war? What is it about, who is the aggressor and who is to blame?
Vaccination advocates like to cite polio vaccination campaigns as evidence of vaccine effectiveness. But what are we to make of this claim when these very campaigns turn into their opposite, when they produce the symptoms they are meant to prevent?
With December’s High Court decision to overturn the lower court ruling against the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States, lawyers of the WikiLeaks founder immediately got busy. The next avenue of appeal, strewn less with gold than obstacles, would be to the Supreme Court.
The current brinkmanship on the Ukraine crisis is a manifestation of this global power belligerence where the hands of civilian presidents are tied behind their backs and the Pentagon’s top brass determines the national security agenda pursued by the United States.
Canada used to have exemplary friendly relations with China to the point that it became our second-largest trading partner. With your arrest of Meng Wanzhou at the urging of former US President Trump, who promptly announced he intended to use Ms. Meng as a “bargaining chip” in his trade war with China, Canada-China relations took a nosedive.
A New York State Supreme Court judge has struck down Gov. Kathy Hochul’s mask mandate for schools and public locations. According to a court document, Judge Thomas Rademaker said that neither the governor nor the state health commissioner had the authority to enact the mandate without the state Legislature, since the governor no longer has emergency powers.
Thailand is passing a new NGO law that will require greater transparency from nongovernmental organizations. However, these organizations are resisting the bill despite wide public support for it – clearly because they have much to hide.
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As of January 24, escalation continues in Syria, mainly in the northeastern region where the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been locked in a heated battle with ISIS cells.
The battle broke out on January 20 when ISIS terrorists attacked Geweran prison in the southern part of al-Hasakah city. The terrorists, who initially intended to free their comrades, ended up occupying the prison and several nearby areas.
By January 23, the battle in al-Hasakah city has claimed the lives of 84 ISIS terrorists, seven civilians and 45 personnel of the SDF and its security forces. The battle also displaced thousands of civilians who took refuge in the government-held “security zone” in al-Hasakah’s center as well as the northern district of the city.
ISIS terrorists are now besieged by the SDF, whose forces have been receiving direct support from the US-led coalition. The battle will likely end soon.
Turkish forces took advantage of ISIS attack on Geweran prison and steeped up their operations against the SDF in northeastern Syria.
On January 21, a Turkish drone strike targeted a military vehicle near the town of Tell Tamer in the northern al-Hasakah countryside. The vehicle was a part of reinforcements sent by the SDF to al-Hasakah city. The strike claimed the lives of two fighters of the SDF.
On January 22, five civilians were killed and four others were wounded when Turkish forces shelled and attacked areas held by the SDF near the town of Ain Issa in the northern Raqqa countryside.
Contrary to northeastern Syria, the situation in the northwestern region, known as Greater Idlib, has been calm.
A harsh snow storm forced al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the de-facto ruler of Greater Idlib, and its allies to halt their provocations. The situation will likely heat up again once the storm is over in a week or less.
Meanwhile, in Syria’s central region, ISIS cells continue to launch attacks despite facing much pressure from government forces and their allies.
Early on January 22, ISIS terrorists attacked several positions of the pro-government National Defense Forces (NDF) near the town of al-Resafa in the southern Raqqa countryside. At least 12 NDF fighters were wounded.
In response, warplanes of the Russian Aerospace Forces carried out more than 82 airstrikes on hideouts of ISIS cells in the eastern countryside of Homs as well as in the deserts of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor on January 22 and 23.
While ISIS insurgency in central Syria will not likely end anytime soon, the group’s cells are still incapable of threatening key urban centers and vital roads in the region.
The situation in Syria’s southern regions was not much better. Attacks continue to target government forces.
Late on January 22, unidentified gunmen attacked a checkpoint and a base of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) near the town of Mlaiha al-Garbiah in the eastern countryside of Daraa.
The attack coincided with several strikes that hit Mlaiha al-Garbiah and the nearby town of Hrak, wounding at least ten people. Syrian opposition activists said that the SAA shelled the two towns with mortars and artillery. However, this is yet to be confirmed.
The Air Force Intelligence Directorate (AFID) responded to the attack by carrying out a series of raids in Mlaiha al-Garbiah and Hrak on January 23. At least six suspects were arrested.
The situation in the southern region and the rest of Syria will not likely improve anytime soon as a political settlement for the war in Syria remains unlikely. All recent developments indicate that the war will go on.
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Interviewfragen bereits am 16. Juni 2021 beantwortet, doch Interview erschien erst in der Januar- / Februarausgabe 2022
“Rudolf Hänsel, renowned scientist in the field of education, graduate psychologist, in an interview with “Geopolitika” magazine ‘Serbs, follow the teachings of Archibald Reiss'”.
Geopolitika: Sehr geehrter Herr Hänsel, Sie sind einer der aktivsten deutschen Intellektuellen, die sich mit der geopolitischen Lage der Welt auseinandersetzen. Besonders aktiv sind Sie seit Beginn der sogenannten Corona-Pandemie. Wie sehen Sie das Auftreten des Coronavirus und was ist das ultimative Ziel des Covid-19-Projekts?
Dr. Rudolf Hansel: Zunächst möchte ich mich bei Ihnen bedanken für die Wertschätzung, die Sie mir entgegenbringen. Ich freue mich, dass das bedeutende Magazin „Geopolitika“ wieder erscheinen wird und ich Gelegenheit bekomme, meine persönliche Meinung zu äußern.
Sodann zwei Dinge zur Klarstellung: Ein freier Denker behauptet nie, er verfüge über die Wahrheit. Für den freien Geist gibt es eine unbegrenzte Anzahl von zu entdeckenden und dem Wandel unterworfenen Wahrheiten. Wahr ist, was nicht dogmatische Fessel ist und die Menschen nicht in Gläubige und in Nichtgläubige oder Andersgläubige trennt, sondern dem Zusammenleben der Menschen nützt und ihr Einvernehmen fördert. In diesem Sinne gebe ich nur meine persönliche Meinung wieder. Und als Gast in Ihrem Land verbietet mir das Gebot des Anstands, Kritik an der Politik Ihrer Regierung zu äußern.
Nun zu Ihren Fragen: Ich empfinde es als meine Bürgerpflicht, politische und gesellschaftliche Entwicklungen nicht nur Politikern zu überlassen, sondern im Sinne des Schweizers Dichters und Politikers Gottfried Keller selbst vor die Haustüre zu treten, um nachzusehen, was es gibt.
Trotz der aufkommenden Stimmung der Angst und Panik vor einem möglicherweise tödlichen Virus, verfiel ich zu Beginn des Jahres 2020 nicht in einen Gehorsamsreflex, sondern ich diskutierte mit sicheren Feunden, was in der Welt vor sich geht. Wir empfanden sehr schnell, dass etwas faul sei im Staate Dänemark. Da ich angstfrei aufwuchs, meine Eltern keinen absoluten Gehorsam von mir einforderten und ich im Erwachsenenalter bei einem hervorragenden Psychotherapeuten, einem Schüler Alfred Adlers, Psycholologie studieren konnte, bewahre ich auch in schwierigen Situationen meinen gesunden Menschenverstand.
Da die Zivilgesellschaften aller Länder Leittragende der staatlich verordneten Freiheitsberaubung und weiterer Zwangsmaßnahmen waren, empfand ich zivilen Ungehorsam, lautstarken Protest und echte Solidarität mit den Opfern der staatlichen Willkür ein Gebot der Stunde. In unzählichen Kommentaren und Artikeln, die in „Global Research“ (www.globalresearch.ca) übersichtlich zusammengestellt sind, habe ich deshalb vesucht, meine Mitbürger aufzuklären und zum Nein-Sagen zu ermutigen.
Das Auftauchen eines unsichtbaren und bedrohlichen „Feindes“ in Form eines Virus’ wurde nach Meinung unabhängiger Wissenschaftler bereits vor Jahrzehnten von einer ultrareichen globalen „Elite“ und ihren Institutionen geplant und virtuell durchgespielt, weshalb zu vermuten ist, dass das Virus durch ein Biolabor absichtlich unter die Menschen gebracht wurde.
Das Ziel des Covid-19-Projekts dürfte inzwischen allen wachen und gut informierten Bürgern hinlänglich bekannt sein. Klaus Schwab vom World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos nannte es in seinen Veröffentlichungen „The Great Reset“.
Geopolitika: Die meisten Menschen scheinen die wahre Gefahr nicht zu sehen, die hinter der Covid-19-Maske lauert, und zwar die Erfüllung der UN-Agenda 2030, deren Ziel ein Monopol auf Saatgut, Nahrung, Wasser, die Entvölkerung der Menschheit, die Abschaffung des Bargelds, der digitale Mensch und die totale Kontrolle des Lebens ist. Stimmen Sie meiner Aussage zu?
Dr. Rudolf Hansel: Die Mehrzahl der Menschen, die keinen Zugang zu alternativen Medien haben, können die Gefahr wegen der unheilvollen Rolle der Massenmedien nicht sehen. Diese stehen ganz im Dienste ihrer Regierungen, veröffentlichen keine abweichenden Expertenmeinungen und schüren täglich von neuem die Ängste der Bürger vor einem möglicherweise qualvollen Erstickungstot.
Ihrer Aussage kann man deshalb als vernunftbegabter, gut informierter und selbst denkender Mensch uneingeschränkt zustimmen.
Geopolitika: Können Sie uns als Fachpsychologe sagen, welche Folgen die Corona-Krise und die ergriffenen politischen Maßnahmen für die psychische Gesundheit der Menschen haben? Sind Kinder stärker betroffen? Gibt es Statistiken darüber, wie viele Menschen Suizid begangen haben?
Dr. Rudolf Hansel: Die Folgen für die psychische Gesundheit der betroffenen Menschen sind katastrophal und nicht wieder gut zu machen. Darüber berichten inzwischen nicht nur unabhängige Psychologen, Psychiater, Mediziner und Soziologen, sondern auch staatliche Institutionen. Genannt werden übereinstimmend Depressionen, übersteigerte Ängste, Schlaflosigkeit, Suizidgedanken und vollendete Suizide.
Unsere Kinder und Jugendlichen sind von den menschenverachtenden politischen Maßnahmen wie soziale Distanzierung, Verbot von kulturellen und sportlichen Freizeitaktivitäten und digitaler Unterricht besonders schwer betroffen: Einsamkeitsgefühle, Lebensängste, Zunahme von Computerspiel-Sucht und Drogenkonsum, häusliche (auch sexuelle) Gewalt sowie Suizidgedanken und vollendete Suzide waren und sind die Folge. Ich schrieb zu diesem Thema den viel beachteten Artikel „Wir töten die Seelen unserer Kinder“ und meinte, dass Eltern, Lehrkräfte und Erzieher sich mitschuldig machen, wenn sie gegen diesen Lockdown-Wahnsinn nicht aufstehen.
Offizielle Statistiken zu diesem Thema kenne ich nicht, weil sie nicht veröffentlicht werden. Ich habe aber eine Menge Horrorberichte von Leitern deutscher Jugendpsychiatrien gelesen.
Geopolitika: Können Sie uns aus beruflicher Sicht sagen, warum Menschen weltweit wegen des Virus‘ Todesangst haben, obwohl alle relevanten Fakten zeigen, dass die Sterblichkeitsrate durch das Virus deutlich niedriger ist als beispielsweise durch Herz-Kreislauf-Erkrankungen und Krebs? Beeinflussen die Mainstream-Medien so stark das Bewusstsein der Menschen?
Dr. Rudolf Hansel: Ja, das ist richtig: Die Mainstream-Medien spielen weltweit eine unheilvolle Rolle. Gemäß nationaler wie internationaler Vereinbarungen sind sie der wahrheitsgemäßen Information der Bürger und dem Frieden verpflichtet. Sie könnten damit einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Aufklärung und Ermutigung der Menschen leisten. Doch das Gegenteil ist der Fall: Sie sind Werkzeuge und Dienstleute schwerreicher Männer hinter der Bühne, die die Fäden ziehen. In deren Auftrag schüren sie Tag für Tag irrationale Ängste. Das führt bei den meisten Menschen zu einem Gehorsamsreflex und einer Verstandeslähmung. Seit Alters her ist das Schüren irrationaler Ängste ein bewährtes Disziplinierungs- und Herrschaftsmittel.
Es ist das Geschäft der Journalisten in den Mainstream-Medien, die Wahrheit zu verdrehen, unverblümt zu lügen, zu pervertieren, zu schmähen, zu Füßen des Mammons zu kriechen und das eigene Land und Volk für sein tägliches Brot zu verkaufen. Diese Journalisten sind gewissermaßen „intellektuelle Prostituierte“ (John Swinton). Aus diesem Grund sind alternative Medien und unabhängige Magazine von ausschlaggebender Bedeutung für die Bewusstseinsbildung des Volkes.
Geopolitika: Wie denken Sie, wird die Geschichte mit der Corona-Pandemie enden? Während das „Anwaltsteam der Welt“unter der Leitung von Rechtsanwalt Dr. Reiner Füllmich Klagen gegen die WHO, Bill Gates und alle am Corona-Genozid beteiligten Regierungen einreichte, kündigen die „Schöpfer des menschlichen Schicksals“ eine neue, noch tödlichere Viruswelle an. Also ein Spiel ohne Grenzen?
Dr. Rudolf Hansel: Die weltweite Sammelklage des deutschen Rechtsanwalts Reiner Füllmich und seines qualifizierten Teams ist eine große Hoffnung für die Völker, weil die Lage sehr ernst ist. Aber wer kann vorhersagen, ob sie angesichts der weltweiten Korruption in allen Berufen Erfolg haben wird.
Des weiteren berichten namhafte medizinische Experten, dass sich die gentherapeutischen Experimente, die seit einigen Monaten mit den sogenannten Impfungen durchgefüht werden, in den folgenden Jahren sehr unheilvoll auf die Geimpften auswirken werden. Wie wir wissen, planen die allseits bekannten Eugeniker eine Reduktion der Weltbevölkerung.
Beunruhigend sind auch Presseberichte in alternativen Medien, dass auf die gegenwärtige Gesundheits-Diktatur eine Klima-Diktatur – nach dem Corona-Lockdown ein Klima-Lockdown – folgen werde. Die gegenwärtigen Corona-Maßnahmen und „neu entdeckte“ Virusvarianten wären nur ein Vorspiel zu dem, was demnächst folgen werde. Es wäre in der Tat ein satanisches Spiel ohne Grenzen. Hoffen wir das Beste.
Geopolitika: Sie verfolgen aufmerksam den Konflikt zwischen Russland und der Ukraine. Wie sehen Sie diesen Konflikt und wird er von der NATO und Amerika manipuliert, um so nah wie möglich an die Grenzen der Russischen Föderation zu kommen?
Dr. Rudolf Hansel: Ich denke, dass man kein Historiker sein muss, um zu sehen, welche Rolle die US-NATO und viele europäische Regierungen in dem von Ihnen angesprochenen Konflikt seit dem Ukraine-Putsch im Jahr 2014 spielen. Es ist ein Spiel mit dem Feuer. Man kann nur hoffen (und beten), dass dieser Konflikt nicht in einen offenen Krieg ausartet. Die US-NATO unternimmt im Moment jedenfalls alles, um Russland zu provozieren und überschreitet dabei „rote Linien“. Wie lange wird sich das der russische Präsident Putin noch gefallen lassen?
Die Völker Europas wollen keinen Krieg gegen Russland. Sehen Sie hierzu eine von mir und einem Freund initiierte „Öffentliche Erklärung“ in der „Neuen Rheinischen Zeitung“ (NRhZ) vom 8./9. Mai 2018 in fünf Sprachen mit Unterzeichungsmöglichkeit: „Wir Europäer sagen NEIN zu einem Krieg gegen Russland!“
Geopolitika: Warum versteht die westliche Welt die Slawen nicht, insbesondere die Serben und Russen? Man sieht in den Slawen sogar eine niedrige Rasse.
Dr. Rudolf Hansel: Das ist eine wichtige Frage. Es wäre die Aufgabe von Historikern, Soziologen, Kulturwissenschaftlern und weiteren Experten, wissenschaftlich zu klären, wann und wozu diese Vorurteile gegen slawische Menschen und Völker entstanden sind. Was ich zu dieser Frage beitragen kann, ist bescheiden: Ich bin der Auffassung, dass es geopolitische Gründe sind, die zu den menschenverachtenden Vorurteilen führten und weshalb sie weiter aufrecht erhalten werden. Der Vatikan spielt dabei eine entscheidende Rolle. Christen innerhalb slawischer Völker werden nämlich ganz anders angesehen und behandelt als orthodoxe Mitbürger.
Es sind wie gesagt Vorurteile, die mit der Realität nichts zu tun haben. Doch diese Vorurteile bestehen seit Generationen und es ist höchte Zeit, sie aus dem Bewusstsein arroganter westliche Regierender zu löschen. Die „einfachen“ Menschen haben sie meines Erachtens nicht.
Geopolitika: In intellektuellen Kreisen gelten Sie als eine Person, die mit der politischen Situation auf dem Balkan, speziell in Serbien bestens vertraut ist. Wie sehen Sie die aktuelle geopolitische Lage Serbiens? Welchen Rat würden Sie der serbischen Führung geben?
Dr. Rudolf Hansel: Obwohl ich ein Freund der Serben bin und seit über eineinhalb Jahren hier lebe, bezweifle ich, mit der politischen Situation Ihres Landes vertraut zu sein. Zudem steht es mir als einem Deutschen, der in Serben sehr freundlich aufgenommen wurde, nicht zu, der politischen Führung Ratschläge zu erteilen. Das einzige, was ich zu Ihrer Frage beisteuern kann, entstammt dem politischen Testament „Ecoutez, Serbes!“ / „Uyjte me, Spbi!“ des Schweizer Kriminologen und Universitätsprofessors Rudolf Archibald Reiss, einem großen Freund Serbiens.
In seinem Appell vom 1. Juni 1928 prangerte Reiss sowohl die Politik als auch die Gesellschaft Jugoslawiens und Serbiens an, weil sie ihm durch und durch korrupt erschien. Das serbische Volk aber beschwor er: „Lasst nicht zu, dass die Nation (…) von einer Handvoll verbrecherischer Profiteure und Wucherer geknechtet wird. (…) Besinnt euch auf eure ruhmreiche Vergangenheit, auf die ‚wahre‘ Demokratie der bäuerlichen Gemeinschaft, auf Moral, Gastfreundschaft und Patriotismus.“
Geopolitika: Wie würden Sie das serbische Volk bewerten? Was sind die guten und was die schlechten Seiten des serbischen Volkes?
Dr. Rudolf Hansel: Das serbische Volk kann und will ich nicht bewerten. Es ist ein Volk wie viele andere Völker auch. Mutig, lebensfroh und leidensfähig. Doch eine Eigenschaft sticht hervor: Die serbischen Menschen jammern nicht über ihr Schicksal – und das unterscheidet sie sehr wohltuend von meinen verwöhnten Landsleuten und den anderen westlichen Bürgern.
Geopolitika: Am Ende des Gesprächs möchte ich Sie fragen, wie Sie die Zukunft der Welt sehen? Wird die satanische Agenda der Neuen Weltordnung und das Zurücksetzen der alten Zivilisation weitergehen oder wird sich das Gute durchsetzen, wie es 95% der Weltbevölkerung wünscht – im Gegensatz zu der Minderheit, die aus ihrem Schatten heraus regiert?
Dr. Rudolf Hansel: Als Psychologe und aufgrund meiner Forschungstätigkeit als Erziehungswissenschaftler bin ich davon überzeugt, dass der Mensch gut und sozial ist. Das Gewaltstreben und die kranke Machtgier einiger weniger ist das Ergebnis ihrer Erziehung und des kapitalistischen Systems. Ich hoffe deshalb, dass das Gute letztendlich siegt. Doch das wird nicht automatisch, das heißt ohne unser beherztes Handeln passieren.
Machtgier und Gewaltstreben in der Gesellschaft müssen abgebaut und stattdessen Gemeinschaftsgefühle gepflegt und verstärkt werden. Wenn wir den Mut aufbringen, die Autoritätsängste und den damit einhergehenden Gehorsamsreflex aufzugeben und uns unseres eigenen Verstandes bedienen, dann werden wir uns mit den Mitmenschen in Freiheit assoziieren und mit ihnen gemeinsam eine menschenwürdige Zukunft aufbauen – für uns und unsere Kinder.
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The Western MSM are horning in one voice that the Russian Federation is preparing a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in the near future. They are supported by the authorities of the Anglo-Saxon states and the Brussels bureaucracy.
Every statement and step taken by Washington and London is aimed at inflaming the situation. This includes sharply increased arms supplies, the deployment of additional military contingents, the recognition that entire units of US military personnel are already in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the accusation of Russia that it dares to move troops on its sovereign territory, and much more.
A separate vector is the efforts to disrupt the dialogue on strategic stability on the part of the United States. Up to the point that the head of the press service of the State Department, Ned Price, said that the U.S. would not concede to Russia on the issue of security guarantees, hiding behind the phrase that any steps concerning Moscow’s proposals regarding European security should be taken on a bilateral basis.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said:
“Why did we make this decision now?” — The decision to bring the troops into readiness – “It is the totality of the situation that we’ve been watching and the decision is based on this military buildup, based on how we see these developments”. “I want to go back to the quote from President Biden about Russia could engage in fuller military aggressive against Ukraine at any time”. A member of the board of directors of the British BAE Systems, the largest arms manufacturing company in Europe, whose shares have soared by 10% over the past month, declared, “Biden has to be ready to support Ukraine militarily”
In his turn, Joe Biden swore at Fox News journalist Peter Dusi, who asked him not about Ukraine, but about inflation, “What a stupid son of a bitch”. Biden, apparently, once again did not pay attention to the fact that the microphones are still on.
Such a position of NATO allies is causing increasing bewilderment in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and other European countries that have retained some degree of independence in international relations.
Even the authorities in Ukraine, which is de facto under the occupation control of the United States, are beginning to express dissatisfaction with the propaganda campaign launched around the possible Russian invasion. NSDC Secretary Danilov said yesterday: “We do not see any grounds today to assert that there will be a full-scale offensive by the Russian Federation.” He also stated that there is no active departure of representatives of foreign embassies from Ukraine. According to him, to date, only three countries have announced partial evacuation – the United States, Britain and Australia.
President of Ukraine Zelensky assured his citizens that the situation in the east of the country is under control,
“there is no reason to panic.” “We are working for a complete de-escalation of the situation through a peaceful settlement.”
At the same time, Ukraine continues to concentrate strike forces in the east of the country. On January 24, it was reported that the UAF deployed a significant number of engineering and sapper equipment designed to make passages in minefields to ensure military offensive actions. On January 25, information was received from DPR officials that multiple rocket launchers and new tank units had arrived in the region to form strike groups. Combat aircraft of some NATO countries are arriving in Poland, the Baltic States and Bulgaria.
It seems that a certain part of the Washington and Brussels establishment are doing their utmost to unleash a war in Eastern Europe. In this light, the conflict can be prevented only by the joint efforts of Russia and the largest European states, such as Germany and France.
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Read this if you want to know more about vaccines than your doctor, practise nurse and health visitor.
The US Health Department’s National Vaccine Injury Compensation Programme has shown that between 2,500 and 3,000 children are killed or injured each year by vaccines.
The US Government has paid vaccine damage compensation to the parents of autistic children.
The Japanese Government has halted part of its vaccination programme because of children dying.
In the UK, GPs receive massive payments for giving vaccinations. And bonus payments if they vaccinate enough patients. Doctors get very rich out of vaccine programmes.
Vaccines are now given to eight week old babies, though there is absolutely no long-term scientific evidence available to show that it is safe to do so. By the time they reach their second birthday small children will have received over a score of vaccinations. American children will have received even more. The vaccine industry is forever looking for new vaccines to give.
You will find a full list of the research work done to investigate the safety or otherwise of mass vaccination programmes on the palm of your left hand.
The diphtheria vaccine was first introduced in Germany. After the vaccine was introduced the number of cases of diphtheria steadily increased.
The number of deaths from whooping cough had fallen long before the vaccine was introduced. The vaccine has not reduced the incidence of the disease.
The flu vaccine is, inevitably, designed to deal with last year’s flu virus.
I have never met a doctor who has regular flu jabs (or any other jabs for that matter).
In the past, a flu vaccine contained different strains of flu virus (propagated in chicken embryos); formaldehyde (a preservative); polyethylene glycol; gelatin (made from cow’s bones) and a substance which contains mercury. The odd thing is that the EU has banned barometers containing mercury because they are thought to be dangerous. But doctors inject the stuff into people.
The polio vaccine did not ‘kill off’ polio. On the contrary, the vaccine resulted in more sufferers. In Tennessee, in the US, the number of polio victims before vaccination became compulsory was 119. The year after vaccination was introduced, the figure rose to 386. Similar figures for other American states. Polio became less common as a result of better sanitation and cleaner water supplies. The vaccination had no useful effect.
Dr Jenner is widely acclaimed as the ‘inventor’ of vaccine. But it is not so well known that when he tried the first smallpox vaccine on his 10 month son, the boy became mentally retarded and died at the age of 21. Jenner refused to have his second child vaccinated. However, the medical profession saw the commercial possibilities and vaccination became popular (if deadly).
When Louis XV contracted smallpox he survived because his nurse hid him from the doctors whose vaccines had killed his father and brother.
Even though TB is now a major problem, many countries have abandoned the TB vaccine because it simply doesn’t work. Indeed, the evidence suggests that the vaccine spreads the disease.
The risk of a child given the whooping cough vaccine developing brain damage is officially said to be 1 in 100,000. But that’s the ‘best’ figure. Other research shows that the risk is as high as 1 in 6,000. There is no doubt that the vaccine causes far more harm than the disease and there is clear evidence linking the vaccine to brain damage.
Vaccines are dangerous and they don’t always work. Up to half of the people given a vaccine jab do not develop a resistance to the disease concerned.
Drug companies now publish long lists of reasons for not vaccinating patients. Doctors rarely look at the lists, let alone take any notice. For example, for one vaccine the advice is that babies who cry persistently or develop a fever should not be given another jab. No one knows how much damage is caused by giving several vaccines in a single vaccine cocktail.
The French Government abandoned its hepatitis B vaccine programme for children after more than 15,000 lawsuits were filed for brain damage and other serious health problems.
In the US a group of paediatricians with 30,000 young patients do not vaccinate at all. They have no cases of autism in their practice.
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Threats and counter-threats flying between Washington and Moscow over Ukraine have caused a flurry of fear and confusion that escalates and expands daily. Is the world on the brink of war? What is it about, who is the aggressor and who is to blame?
The dangerous standoff has lasted for most of a year. Each side accuses the other of threatening war—in a way reminiscent of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.
During a week of intense diplomatic meetings in three European capitals, which appeared to reach a dead end, President Joe Biden seemed to “blink” midweek, on January 19, telling reporters in Washington he had indicated to Russian President Putin that “we can work out something.”
New York Times senior reporter David Sanger jumped on it: “Mr. President, it sounds like you’re offering some way out here, some off-ramp—an informal assurance that NATO is not going to take in Ukraine… and we would never put nuclear weapons there.” Sanger went on to say Russia “wants us to move all of our nuclear weapons out of Europe and not have troops rotating through the old Soviet bloc.” Biden quickly said “No, there’s not space for that.”
Biden’s blink was a break in the warlike atmosphere that has prevailed endlessly. Katrina van den Heuvel wrote the day before in The Washington Post that “Hotheads [were] having a field day. A White House task force that includes the CIA [was] reportedly contemplating U.S. support for a guerrilla war if Russia seizes Ukraine; Russian hawks talk of a military deployment to Cuba and Venezuela.” Biden had “installed a team of national security managers from the ‘Blob,’ marinated in successive debacles in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and more.”
Guns and sanctions are the U.S. empire’s preferred options, van den Heuvel said: “with about 800 military bases outside the United States,” the U.S. has “more bases than diplomatic missions. (Russia’s only military bases outside the former Soviet Union are in Syria.)” She added that Secretary of State Blinken and the Blob “talk about a rules-based international order but respect it only if we make the rules, often exempting ourselves from their application.”
Spheres of influence?
“When will the U.S. stop lying to itself about global politics?” asked CUNY Professor Peter Beinart, writing in the New York Times on January 13. He took issue with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who pontificated last month that “One country does not have the right to dictate the policies of another or to tell that country with whom it may associate; one country does not have the right to exert a sphere of influence. That notion should be relegated to the dustbin of history.”
Beinart commented: “It’s a noble principle, just not one the United States abides by. The United States has exercised a sphere of influence in its own hemisphere for almost 200 years, since President James Monroe declared that the United States ‘should consider any attempt’ by foreign powers ‘to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety’.”
Blinken’s dustbin of history was still around in 2018, Beinart said, when Trump’s Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called the Monroe Doctrine “as relevant today as it was the day it was written.” And Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton boasted that “the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well.”
Blinken wants a one-way street where spheres of influence are concerned. The U.S., for him, has the right to wield influence everywhere, while others don’t.
The same day Biden blinked, French President Macron weighed in saying war would be the “most tragic thing of all.” Speaking in the European Union’s capital of Strasbourg, as new interim EU chair, Macron said he hoped to revitalize the four-way “Normandy format” talks between Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine to find a solution to the Ukraine crisis. “It is vital that Europe has its own dialogue with Russia,” Macron said. The EU had no part in the talks last week between Russia, the U.S., NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCD).
The Normandy format has been a vehicle for implementing the 2015 Minsk agreements designed to end the separatist war in Ukraine’s Donbas region. This solution has already been proposed and accepted in principle, according to Anatol Lieven, who wrote in The Nation that the Minsk II agreement was already adopted by France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine in 2015, and endorsed unanimously by the UN Security Council.
Key elements of the Minsk II deal are full autonomy for Ukraine’s eastern regions in the context of decentralization of power in Ukraine, demilitarization, and restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty. Despite agreement by all parties, political analyst Anatol Lieven says “because of the refusal of Ukrainian governments to implement the solution and refusal of the United States to put pressure on them to do so,” the settlement is a kind of “zombie policy.”
The issue of NATO expansion is another “zombie policy” as the U.S. refuses to acknowledge Russia’s legitimate opposition to it.
After the first of three negotiating sessions between the U.S. and Russia during the week of January 10, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov had declared it “absolutely mandatory” that Ukraine “never, never, ever” become a NATO member. In response, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said: “we will not allow anyone to slam closed NATO’s open-door policy.”
When U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with Ukraine’s President Zelensky in Kyiv in October, he promised U.S. support for Ukraine’s future NATO membership, and blamed Russia for “perpetuating the war in eastern Ukraine.” Russian President Putin shot back on December 23 that “Further movement of NATO eastward is unacceptable. They are on the threshold of our house.”
Last March 24, the Ukrainian president decreed that Ukraine would take Crimea back from Russia, with “military measures” to achieve “de-occupation.” The U.S. and NATO voiced “unwavering” support.
Last summer 30,000 U.S. troops led “Operation Defender Europe 2021,” a set of NATO exercises from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, according to the U.S. Peace Council. In December the U.S. staged simulated bombing raids within 12 miles of Russian airspace. NATO warplanes confronted Russian aircraft 290 times in 2021.
In this video grab taken from footage distributed by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, a Russian Air Force’s Su-27 fighter jet, bottom, maneuvers to ward off a NATO F-18 warplane over the Baltic Sea. A new report released this week revealed that most NATO warplane missions involve confrontations with Russian jets. [Source: peoplesworld.org]
On December 7, Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the U.S. has given $2.4 billion to Ukraine since 2014 “in security assistance”—$450 million in 2021 alone. (This week, the Biden administration approved an additional $200 million in military aid to add to the $450 million given last year).
Nuland helped orchestrate the 2014 coup in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, that toppled a government friendly to Russia. The new far-rightist government ended language rights for Russian speakers who are the majority in the Ukraine’s eastern provinces. Donetsk and Lugansk voted to separate, as did Crimea. Russia then annexed Crimea, to protect Russian speakers there and secure its Black Sea naval base. Russia provided humanitarian aid and trade to Donetsk and Lugansk, and stationed troops on their eastern border for protection.
ANew York Times report on January 6 said “Russia intervened militarily in Ukraine in 2014 after pro-democracy protests erupted there.” [Emphasis added.] The coup was actually carried out by fascist gangs, according to a May 2, 2018, report in The Nation by Stephen Cohen.
The gangs, including self-declared neo-Nazis, were encouraged by Nuland, Biden and other prominent U.S. politicians. The neo-Nazis were integrated into Ukraine’s official military which, since 2014, has been trained, armed and reorganized by the U.S., Britain, Canada and other NATO countries.
Stephen Cohen wrote that “the pogrom-like burning to death of ethnic Russians and others in Odessa later in 2014 reawakened memories of Nazi extermination squads in Ukraine during World War II.” These horrors have been all but deleted from the American mainstream narrative, despite being well-documented.
Cohen added that “stormtroop-like assaults on gays, Jews, elderly ethnic Russians, and other ‘impure’ citizens are widespread throughout Kyiv-ruled Ukraine, along with torchlight marches reminiscent of those that eventually inflamed Germany in the late 1920s and 1930s… The police and official legal authorities do virtually nothing to prevent these neo-fascist acts or to prosecute them. On the contrary, Kyiv has officially encouraged them by systematically rehabilitating and even memorializing Ukrainian collaborators with Nazi German extermination pogroms and their leaders during World War II, renaming streets in their honor, building monuments to them, rewriting history to glorify them, and more.”
The people of the self-declared people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine suffer under a complete economic blockade by Ukraine and its Western allies. Historically known as the Donbass region, eastern Ukraine is a mining and industrial center. Donbass miners played a crucial and heroic role in the defeat of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II. Many Russians revere the Donbass as “the heart of Russia.”
All of Ukraine east of the Dnieper river is predominantly Russian-speaking. U.S. claims of a “Russian invasion” are reminiscent of claims of North Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam after the artificial separation of Vietnam in 1954. The entire U.S. narrative about Ukraine is a cynical fabrication designed to justify aggression.
Russian Security Proposals
In mid-December Russia took a diplomatic initiative and presented a list of security proposals to the United States. According to the Wall Street Journal, they include ending NATO’s expansion further eastward to include Ukraine, a promise for each side to refrain from hostile activities, and an end to NATO military activities in all of Eastern Europe, Transcaucasia and Central Asia.
“There is no other option,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov told reporters, “since a characteristic feature of the current stage of relations between Russia and the collective West is a complete lack of trust.” The Russian diplomat also said “we have no intention to invade Ukraine.”
Among the “severe consequences” threatened by the U.S. against Russia, the Financial Times has said sanctioning Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany was “top of the list.” Western Europe is already facing an energy crunch, with skyrocketing prices for natural gas.
Europeans need energy security and are wary of war. They want the Nord Stream 2 pipeline as soon as possible, while the Biden administration calls it a “bad deal” and claims that it makes Europe vulnerable to Russian “treachery.” Texas Senator Ted Cruz has pressed hard against the pipeline, which offsets opportunities for U.S. energy companies to supply gas to the European market. U.S. foreign adventures have often constricted Europe’s energy sources.
A 2021 survey by the European Council on Foreign Affairs found that most Europeans want to remain neutral in any U.S. war against Russia or China. But new NATO member-states align with the U.S. against Russia. They have installed terminals to receive U.S. liquid natural gas deliveries, to reduce dependence on Russian gas.
Despite all the diplomatic efforts, powerful institutional and economic forces in the U.S.—the military industrial complex and big energy companies among others—are eager for a new Cold War with Russia, which would provide them with boundless opportunities for profitable deals. “The U.S. military-industrial complex needs enemies like human lungs need oxygen,” the saying goes. “When there are no enemies, they must be invented.”
The demonization of Vladimir Putin and Russia by the U.S. media is part of this policy of inventing enemies. There is a long list of foreign leaders and nations whose attempts to defy the dictates of Washington and pursue an independent foreign policy have brought down upon them the wrath of the U.S. Capitalist Empire.
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Dee Knight is a member of the DSA International Committee’s Anti-War Subcommittee. He is the author of My Whirlwind Lives: Navigating Decades of Storms, soon to be published by Guernica World Editions. Dee can be reached at: [email protected].
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“Vaccines save millions of lives every year. They are one of the safest and most effective public health interventions …”.
This statementseems to be a self-evident truth nowadays. Even many prominent critics of the current government-mandated prophylactic treatmentsfor Covid-19 profess to be proponents of vaccines.
This essay does not intend to engage in the debate about the effects of mRNA agents. Instead, it wants to test the general introductory statement. Is it backed up by the actual effectiveness of vaccines? Science knows no sacred cows whose raison d’être must not be questioned. If the research and development of vaccines is scientific, then we are also allowed to ask about the evidence for why vaccines should work and we are likewise allowed to ask about what adverse effects they have.
What are the reasons for the decline of infectious diseases?
Influenza viruses, which comprise of hundreds of subtypes and strains, as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) points out, are constantly mutating. In the United States, the influenza death rate was decreasing sharply in the first half of the 20th century,long beforethe introduction of widespread vaccination. But vaccines against the intangible influenza virus were still introduced. The number of annually distributed doses increased more than tenfold between 1979 and 2019 to over 189 million doses, yet the average influenza death rate remained almost constant in that period.[1] Similar developmentsafter the end of the 19th century were also seen in the USA and Canada for other diseases: The mortality rates of measles, tuberculosis, scarlet fever or pertussis already declined significantly before the introduction of corresponding vaccines.
Early on, mass vaccinations showed their pointlessness in other countries as well. Reliable statistics about vaccination and diseases were introduced in Europe in the 19th century. The British doctor and epidemiologist Thomas McKeown demonstrated that tuberculosis in England and Wales was in decline long before the controversy over its infectiousness was resolved and long before Robert Koch discovered the tuberculosis bacillus in 1882.[2]In his report “Reasons for the Decline of Mortality in England and Wales during the Nineteenth Century” he states that the growth of population in England and Wales, which trebled between 1700 and 1851, exceeded possible “natural changes in the behaviour of infectious diseases. If we accept this view, and if we are satisfied that specific medical measures made no significant contribution to the death rate, we must conclude that the main reason for the rise of population in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was an improvement in economic and social conditions”.
Progress curves also show the incidence of infectious diseases in Germany in the 19th and 20th century: Most of them, like tuberculosis (TB), whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus were decreasing long before the introduction of vaccination against them as the respiratory physician Gerhard Buchwald thoroughly examined. According to Buchwald, the start of mass vaccinations in Germany did not have a positive but rather a detrimental effect. After widespread vaccination campaigns, the negative slope of the curves decreased, sometimes it even turned positive: In 1925, in the year of the introduction of vaccination against diphtheria, the number of diphtheria cases in Germany was about 50,000. In the following years, cases were surging up to 150,000 by 1939. The same applies to the struggle against polio. After widespread vaccinations with the drug Virelon in the 1950s, Buchwald explains, cases increased in Germany.
We can observe equally detrimental health measures in the 21st century. A large WHO anti polio vaccination campaign led to an escalation of the disease in Northern Nigeria since 2005; hundreds of thousands became infected with cVDPV2, the circulating vaccine-derived polio virus. An even greater catastrophe took place in India in the years between 2000 and 2017.A study based on polio surveillance data acquired by the Government of India concluded that a high frequency of orally administered polio vaccines (OFP) was responsible for a sharp increase in non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP) among children in India. The study suggests that with repeated administration of OFP, the number of cases increased and that “an additional 491,000 paralyzed children” can be attributed to OFP.
Vaccination advocates like to cite polio vaccination campaigns as evidence of vaccine effectiveness. But what are we to make of this claim when these very campaigns turn into their opposite,when they produce the symptoms they are meant to prevent? Can we assume that NPAFP is just another label for typical symptoms of polio and that this term should hide the fact that these vaccinations not only failed completely, but caused much greater harm than good?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. goes into great detail about the role vaccines played in different countries in the second half of the20th andthe first decades of the 21st century. With the help of an abundance of sources, examples and case studies, he is able to substantiate his thesis that “neither [Anthony Stephen Fauci nor William Henry Gates …] ever offered empirical evidence to support their pivotal claim that their vaccines have ‘saved millions of lives’”.
Kennedy also demonstrates “that virtually all of Gates’s blockbuster African and Asian vaccines—polio, DTP, hepatitis B, malaria, meningitis, HPV, and Hib—cause far more injuries and deaths than they avert”.
Non-medical purposes
African countries long served as a testing ground for medical experiments in colonial times. Some pharmaceutical companies are continuing this tradition in Africatoday with other means. A new biometric identity platform has been evolvingin the last years in West Africa, long before the Covid-19 crisis.The Gates-funded GAVI vaccine alliance and Mastercard developed Trust Stamp. This program links a person’s biometric digital identity to his or her vaccination records. Identity data and cashless payments can now be intertwinedfor surveillance and to enforceconduct that is in compliance with government policies or WHO measures.
A biometric system in Zimbabwe in 2020 helped to find 3000 so-called ‘ghost workers’ which were then removed from the payroll. Africa thus served not only as a laboratory for medical experiments, but also as a testing ground for the digital all-round control of citizens that is now to being introduced at full throttle in Western industrialised countries in the wake of the Covid crisis. In August 2021, the WHO presented long-prepared proposals for digitally certifying or “proving” a person’s vaccination status with a two-dimensional barcode, even for purposes “not related to health care”.
War and peace – lessons from history
Let us restate. In central Europe most infectious diseases were in decline before vaccines were widely introduced. Not vaccines, but improved hygienic and sanitary living conditions were responsible, particularly clean water, a regulated waste disposal and an ample supply of food which includes enough vitamin C. These findings allow conclusions to be drawn for today’s state interventions.
India, for example,suffers from widespread under-nutrition and it shoulders the highest burden of tuberculosis (TB) in the world. The WHO attributed globally 1.3 million deaths to TB in 2012. It reported the TB incidence in the Central Eastern States of India for the years 1990 to 2010. Based on these reports, a group of health scientists estimated the impact of reducing under-nutrition. They come to the result that nutrition intervention could lower “TB related mortality in the Central Eastern Indian states ranging from 43% to 71%”. Principally they assume, “intervening on under-nutrition could have a substantial impact on TB incidence and mortality in areas with high prevalence of under-nutrition”.
A gap exists between the officially propagated effects and the impacts of mass vaccination that have actually occurred, not only in peacetime but also in wartime. In times of war, the infrastructure of a country breaks down, health systems often collapse and infection control practices are poor. This leads to a disruption of disease control programs and an inadequate coordination among humanitarian agencies. All these circumstances “enhance the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases”.
Infectious diseases can also beusedintentionally “as biological weapons”. Máire Connolly and David L. Heymann worked in different crisis regions and for the WHO. “During the Napoleonic wars”, they state, “eight times more people in the British army died from disease than from battle wounds. In the American civil war, two thirds of the estimated 660,000 deaths of soldiers were caused by pneumonia, typhoid, dysentery, and malaria, and this death toll led to a 2-year extension of the war”. In 1871, according to Gerhard Buchwald, almost the entire population in the German Empire had been vaccinated against smallpox. But tens of thousands of smallpox cases occurred. The outbreaks started in the camps of French prisoners of war. Although these prisoners were vaccinated against smallpox, the hygienic conditions in the prison camps were so poor that the smallpox epidemic spread rapidly to the German population.
At the end of the first World War, a global catastrophe claimed more lives than World War I. The Spanish fluinfected one third of all humans and claimed the lives of 50 to 100 million people. The science journalist Hans Tolzin analysed four alleged epidemics in his report “Die Seuchen Erfinder” (The plague inventors). On 40 pages he examined the “Spanish flu” by referring to contemporary sources. Tolzin shows that mass vaccinations against smallpox and typhoid in the U.S. military quarters preceded the “Spanish flu”. In 1911, typhoid vaccination became compulsory in the U.S. Army. Numerous experimental vaccinations, which were carried out on US soldiers, followed until the First World War.
However, mass vaccinations did not only take place in the army. In 1918, appeals to patriotism, marginalization or even compulsory vaccinations forced on civilians, as in the states of Arizona and Indianapolis, moved people to be vaccinatedagainst smallpox and other diseases. Robert Koch, doctor of medicine and professor of physiology, explains that in 1918 the U.S. Army “forced the vaccination of 3,285,376 natives in the Philippines when no epidemic was brewing, … Of the vaccinated persons, 47,369 came down with smallpox, and of these 16,477 died. In 1919 the experiment was doubled. 7,670,252 natives were vaccinated. Of these 65,180 victims came down with smallpox, and 44,408 died. In the first experiment, one-third died, and in the second, two-thirds of the infected ones died”.
After vaccination against typhoidbecame compulsory in the US Army, typhoid and all other diseases that were supposed to be prevented by vaccines increased rapidly. Recruitsin the U.S. military receivedbetween 14 to 25 shots before America entered World War I. Dr. Eleanor McBean states, “There was seven times more disease among the vaccinated soldiers than among the unvaccinated civilians, and the diseases were those they had been vaccinated against”. Evidence from newly published documents also points toa large-scale military vaccine experimentat that time.
In later wars, for example the gulf war of 1991, soldiers again were exposed to poisonous substances and inoculated with all kinds experimental vaccines. The U.S. government discountedor denied the existence of a “Gulf War syndrome”, a cluster of multiple and diverse debilitating symptoms which was responsiblefor the death of tens of thousands and the medical disability of hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers.
Conclusions
The foregoing examinations call into question the widespread public advocacy of vaccination, which attributes the decline in many infectious diseases to vaccines alone. Vaccinations often proved to be ineffective or counterproductive.
The effect of modern living conditions, including proper hygiene and sanitation, pure water and sufficient nutrition, led to a greater reduction in infectious diseases and mortality than prophylactic pharmaceutical interventions.
Wars, on the other hand, accelerate the spread of infectious diseases, which tend to decline after the cessation of hostilities. On the other hand, mass vaccination in times of war led to severe health consequences which were still felt years after the war. Current developments indicate that vaccination is also intended to be used for surveillance purposes in the 21st century. Human Vaccination regularly falls short of all the glittering promises.
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Marc Herbermann is an assistant professor at the Division of Global Language and Literature at Kyonggi University in Suwon, in South Korea. One of his fields of interest is medicine in German speaking countries. He is also particularly interested in studying the conditions of war and peace.
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With December’s High Court decision to overturn the lower court ruling against the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States, lawyers of the WikiLeaks founder immediately got busy. The next avenue of appeal, strewn less with gold than obstacles, would be to the Supreme Court. The central question remained: Should the publisher be extradited to face 18 charges, 17 of which use the bricks and mortar of the US Espionage Act of 1917.
This raised the thorny issue of whether a direct appeal to that body against the High Court finding would be permitted. Ease and smoothness were unlikely to be permitted – judges are not necessarily in the habit of clearing the thick undergrowth that presents itself in appellate proceedings. Doing so would have allowed all points of law raised by Assange to be considered, a dangerous prospect for the establishment fogeys.
Defeated by District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser’s ruling on January 4, 2021, an unphased US Department of Justice appealed, furnishing the High Court of England and Wales with after-the-fact assurances that they claimed Baraitser could have sought. Assange, it was promised, would not be subjected to Special Administrative Measures, or be sent to the vicious ADX Florence supermax facility. He would also receive sufficient medical attention to mitigate the risk of suicide and could serve the post-trial and post-appeal phase of his sentence in Australia. Each one of these undertakings were made subject to the conduct of the accused, ignoring the point that discretion at the hands of the authorities remains total.
The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales Ian Burnett, and Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde, in their December 2021 decision, did “not accept that the USA refrained for tactical reasons from offering assurances at an earlier stage, or acted in bad faith in choosing only to offer them at the appeal stage.” There was “no basis for assuming that the USA has not given the assurances in good faith.” And Assange had little reason to fear having his suicide risk exacerbated, given reassurances that he would not be subjected to SAMs or be sent to ADX Florence.
Journalist Mohamed Elmaazi, who was present to cover the short proceeding, boiled down the issue to the following: “in what circumstances can an appellate court receive [diplomatic] assurances which were not before the court at first instance in extradition proceedings.” Immediately, the more forensically minded would be troubled. Surely, the Assange case, a matter of politics and important publishing, is far more than hot air assurances floating across the Atlantic from Washington on his future treatment?
Assange’s legal team had submitted in countering the prosecution case that, “The introduction of fresh ‘evidence’ in support of an appeal against an adverse ruling, in order to repair holes identified in that ruling, is generally prohibited.” There were also “profound issues of natural justice” where “assurances are introduced by the requesting state for the first time at the High Court stage.”
The defence further questioned the “legality of a requirement on judges to call for reassurances rather than proceeding to order discharge”. The High Court bench had looked darkly at Baraitser’s failure to notify the US government that she intended to discharge the case against Assange, thereby giving the signal to the prosecutors to make those “assurances”.
In a short ruling on January 24, Lord Burnett kept it thin and narrow. “Assurances [over treatment] are at the heart of many extradition proceedings.” The High Court had refused permission for an expansive appeal but a decision as to whether the case needed to be heard by the Supreme Court was “a matter appropriately for its decision”.
This was polite language to say that the higher-ups can evaluate the case, if they choose to do so, but only on prescribed terms. Restricting the scope of the appeal to examining the purported undertakings by the US, the sort of diplomatic gloss that can only ever be taken at face value, ignores the less savoury aspects of the case. The goons of the CIA have contemplated Assange’s abduction and assassination. A good deal of the case against him is fabricated, the feverish imaginings of former WikiLeaks volunteer and confidence trickster Sigurdur “Siggi” Thordarson. Assange has been the victim of constant surveillance, also at the behest of US intelligence operatives.
Stella Moris, Assange’s partner, felt some reason to be satisfied. “The High Court certified that we had raised a point of law of general public importance and that the Supreme Court had good grounds to hear this appeal.” But human rights advocates such as Massimo Moratti of Amnesty International expressed concern by the pruning of the remit. The High Court had “dodged its responsibility” in refusing to permit an airing of all issues of public importance before the Supreme Court. “The courts must ensure that people are not at risk of torture or other ill-treatment. This was at the heart of the two other issues the High Court has now effectively vetoed.” Rhetorically, he added: “If the question of torture and other ill-treatment is not of general public importance, what is?”
Given that Assange’s treatment as a prisoner has been nothing short of disgraceful, a torturous measure designed to keep him confined either in the UK as his health fails or in readiness for future extradition, the issue if ill-treatment is not in doubt. To have enabled his legal team to spray the ample legal ammunition in appeal would have cast the UK legal system, and the policy of the US government, in the meanest, most venal light.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
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Days before Biden’s inauguration as president on January 20 last year, instigating Russian dissident and Putin’s longtime foe Alexei Navalny to return to Russia on January 17 from his sojourn in Germany for no apparent political advantage, after being allegedly poisoned in August 2020, was clearly the job of the US deep state that wanted to sabotage newly inaugurated Biden administration’s relations with Russia and forestall the likelihood of rapprochement between the arch-rivals.
It’s pertinent to note that as a goodwill gesture before the Biden-Putin summit at Geneva in June, Russia significantly drawdown its troop build-up along Ukraine’s border. Reciprocating the courtesy, however, the ambience and body language of the summit, clearly choreographed by the US national security establishment, were kept as austere as possible.
No joint press conferences were held, as is customary after such momentous meetings. The organizers of the farcical show strictly ordered “no breaking the bread” or refreshments during hours-long strenuous discussions. All blame games and tough talk. Even Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was held in a more cordial atmosphere than the bitter encounter between the leaders of the two global powers.
The civilian administrations of the United States, whether Trump or Biden, want to have friendly relations with other major powers, including Russia and China, and want to focus on national economy to provide much-needed financial relief to the American electorate. But the mindset and institutional logic of the US deep state has been frozen in the Cold War era, and it perceives any threat to its global military domination agenda with utmost suspicion and hostility.
The current brinkmanship on the Ukraine crisis is a manifestation of this global power belligerence where the hands of civilian presidents are tied behind their backs and the Pentagon’s top brass determines the national security agenda pursued by the United States.
It’s worth noting that it wasn’t the first time the deep state scuttled peace negotiations between the civilian administration of the United States and its global rivals. Following their first-ever rendezvous in Singapore in June 2018 and a “bromance” lasting over a period of several months, a much-anticipated two-day summit meeting between capricious North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump was held at the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam, on February 27–28, 2019.
On the last day of the Hanoi Summit, however, the White House abruptly announced that the summit was cut short and that no agreement was reached. Trump later clarified that it was due to North Korea’s insistence on ending all sanctions. The real reason of the foundering of the much-hyped North Korea nuclear negotiations, however, can be discovered in hardly noticed news headlines weeks after the summit.
“In broad daylight in late February, just days before President Trump met with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un in Hanoi, a group of masked men forced their way into the North Korean Embassy in Madrid. The intruders tied up staff and took computers and mobile phones before fleeing.
“The raid was initially a mystery, but the culprit was soon revealed: Free Joseon, an organization that calls for the overthrow of Kim’s dynasty. More details emerged this week as a Spanish judge lifted a secrecy order on the embassy raid case and claimed one of the perpetrators had later shared stolen material from the raid with the FBI.
“More startling still to North Korea watchers, however, was one of the names of the suspects Spain would reportedly seek to extradite from the United States: a Mexican citizen by the name of Adrian Hong Chang. To many, that name rang a bell.
“Adrian Hong had been a prominent figure in the tightknit world of defectors and activists in Washington and Seoul a decade earlier. Hong had spent some of his childhood in Mexico and later studied at Yale University, where he formed a now well-known NGO that campaigned for change in North Korea. He was a regular at government events and in newspaper op-eds.
“Some said the statements by Free Joseon fit in with the man they knew. For years, Hong has sought to establish a government-in-exile for North Korea. Lee Wolosky, a lawyer with Boies Schiller Flexner and a former State Department official, issued a statement on the group’s behalf Wednesday that said ‘the United States and its allies should support’ groups that oppose the North Korean government.
“Hong later formed Pegasus Strategies, an advisory firm, and was listed as president of a North Korea-focused group called the Joseon Institute. He appears to have broadened his interests to include the Middle East, traveling to Libya in 2011. ‘I consider the Arab Spring a dress rehearsal for North Korea,’ he said in an interview with the National that year.
“Park Sang Hak, a prominent North Korean defector, said he had last seen Hong in Washington in June 2018, when they both attended a meeting at the Director of National Intelligence. There has been widespread speculation in both the Spanish and South Korean media that the group has ties to the CIA. South Korea’s Munhwa Ilbo, the country’s main evening conservative newspaper, published an editorial Thursday that said the ‘US seems to be unofficially involved and providing support’ to Free Joseon.
“State Department spokesman Robert J. Palladino said Tuesday that the U.S. government ‘had nothing to do’ with the embassy incident. Kim Jung-bong, a former NIS official, said while he thought the Free Joseon movement was probably in contact with the CIA, he doubted the U.S. intelligence community would have supported the embassy raid. ‘Their moves were too sloppy,’ Kim Jung-bong said.
“It was not immediately clear how the group could have afforded to carry out raids in a foreign country or hire a prestigious law firm such as Boies Schiller Flexner.”
After reading the excerpts, it becomes abundantly clear that Adrian Hong was a CIA asset and the brazen tactics of raiding North Korea’s embassy in Madrid were deliberately made to look “sloppy” because the raid’s purpose was nothing more than sending a clear message to the North Korean leader before the Hanoi Summit.
Although Trump was eager to get a coveted feather in his diplomatic cap by making Kim Jong-un agree to discard North Korea’s nuclear program, the US national security establishment was staunchly against the negotiations since the beginning.
While Trump was holding a summit with the North Korean leader in Singapore in June 2018, the deep state shills in the mainstream media were publishing fabricated satellite images and speculating that Trump was being duped by Kim and that North Korea had shifted its nuclear arsenal at a secret location in the mountainous region bordering China.
Coming back to Ukraine’s aspirations for joining NATO and the alliance’s eastward expansion along Russia’s western borders, the ostensible cause of the current standoff, it’s pertinent to mention that the trans-Atlantic military alliance NATO and its auxiliary economic alliance European Union were conceived during the Cold War to offset the influence of the former Soviet Union which was geographically adjacent to Europe.
Historically, the NATO military alliance, at least ostensibly, was conceived as a defensive alliance in 1949 during the Cold War in order to offset conventional warfare superiority of the former Soviet Union. The US forged collective defense pact with the Western European nations after the Soviet Union reached the threshold to build its first atomic bomb in 1949 and achieved nuclear parity with the US.
But the trans-Atlantic military alliance has outlived its purpose following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and is now being used as an aggressive and expansionist military alliance meant to browbeat and coerce the former Soviet allies, the Central and Eastern European states, to join NATO and its corollary economic alliance, the European Union, or risk international economic isolation.
It was not a coincidence that the Soviet Union was dissolved in December 1991 and the Maastricht Treaty that consolidated the European Community and laid the groundwork for the European Union was signed in February 1992.
The basic purpose of the EU has been nothing more than to entice the former communist states of the Eastern and Central Europe into the folds of the Western capitalist bloc by offering financial incentives and inducements, particularly in the form of agreements to abolish internal border checks between the EU member states, thus allowing the free movement of workers from the impoverished Eastern Europe to the prosperous countries of the Western Europe.
Regarding the global footprint of the American forces, according to a January 2017 infographic [2] by the New York Times, 210,000 US military personnel were deployed across the world, including 79,000 in Europe, 45,000 in Japan, 28,500 in South Korea and 36,000 in the Middle East.
In Europe, 400,000 US forces were deployed during the height of the Cold War in the sixties, though the number has since been significantly brought down after European powers developed their own military capacity following the devastation of the Second World War. The number of American troops deployed in Europe now stands at 47,000 in Germany, 15,000 in Italy and 8,000 in the United Kingdom. Thus, Europe is nothing more than a client of corporate America.
Not surprisingly, the Western political establishments, and particularly the deep states of the US and EU, were as freaked out over the outcome of Brexit as they were during the Ukrainian Crisis in November 2013 when Viktor Yanukovych suspended the preparations for the implementation of an association agreement with the European Union and threatened to take Ukraine back into the folds of the Russian sphere of influence by accepting billions of dollars of loan package offered by Vladimir Putin.
In this regard, the founding of the EU has been similar to the precedent of Japan and South Korea in the Far East where 45,000 and 28,500 US troops have currently been deployed, respectively. After the Second World War, when Japan was about to fall in the hands of geographically adjacent Soviet Union, the Truman administration authorized the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to subjugate Japan and send a signal to the leaders of the former Soviet Union, which had not developed its nuclear program at the time, to desist from encroaching upon Japan in the east and West Germany in Europe.
Then, during the Cold War, American entrepreneurs invested heavily in the economies of Japan and South Korea and made them model industrialized nations to forestall the expansion of communism in the Far East.
Similarly, after the Second World War, Washington embarked on the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe with an economic assistance of $13 billion, equivalent to hundreds of billions of dollars in the current dollar value. Since then, Washington has maintained military and economic dominance over Western Europe.
Thus, all the grandstanding and moral posturing of unity and equality aside, the hopelessly neoliberal institution, the EU, in effect, is nothing more than the civilian counterpart of the Western military alliance against the former Soviet Union, the NATO, that employs a much more subtle and insidious tactic of economic warfare to win over political allies and to isolate adversaries that dare to sidestep from the global trade and economic policies as laid down by the Western capitalist bloc.
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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
January 26th, 2022 by Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War
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Today, the Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War sent an open letter to the Office of the Prime Minister encouraging him to rescind his diplomatic boycott and get into the spirit of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing. The open letter was sent with the co-sponsorship of a number of other organizations and individuals.
Next Monday, January 31st, the day on which Parliament reconvenes, the Hamilton Coalition to Stop The War will organize an online press conference publicly to launch the open letter and two petitions which also relate to Canada-China relations. Details of the press conference will be made available soon.
The first petition, on the Action Network, is entitled, “Allow Huawei Canada to participate in Canada’s 5G rollout.” This petition to the prime minister and cabinet is to request them to continue to allow the participation of Huawei Canada, its products and services, in the development of Canada’s new 5G network. The petition lists ten good reasons for the cabinet to do so.
The second petition is a parliamentary petition, sponsored by Hamilton Centre NDP MP Matthew Green. It arose from a resolution passed overwhelmingly at the Hamilton and District Labour Council and calls on the government “not only (to) refuse any participation in the AUKUS pact but also to strongly condemn AUKUS as a breach of the UN’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a dangerous escalation of military tensions with the People’s Republic of China and in the Asia-Pacific region.”
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The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau
Prime Minister of Canada
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2
Dear Sir,
We, the undersigned, ask you to drop your petty “diplomatic” boycott of the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympic Games: this “diplomatic” boycott flouts the Olympic spirit, is based on false reports, and promotes cold war with China.
For more than one thousand years, the ancient Olympics brought Greeks together in a peaceful, sporting, cultural, and social festival, despite inter-city conflicts. An Olympic Truce was declared so all Greeks could travel, participate, and return home safely.
Impressively, on December 2nd, 2021, in a rare consensus vote, the 193-member UN General Assembly reaffirmed the Olympic Truce for the Beijing Games. UNGA President Abdulla Shahid observed: “Nations should use sport as a tool to support dialogue and reconciliation, striving for a peaceful world aligned with the principles and values enshrined in the United Nations Charter.”International Olympic Committee Chair Thomas Bach stated, “We can only accomplish this mission… if the Olympic Games are politically neutral and do not become a tool to achieve political goals.”Clearly, in mimicking Biden’s petty “diplomatic” boycott, you are playing politics and are out of step with this international consensus.
In addition, your “diplomatic” boycott is based upon false charges of human rights abuses in China. Contrary to statements by you and ministers of your government, China’s Uyghur population is growing in number and prosperity. Unlike Canada’s native peoples, Chinese Uyghurs have an Autonomous Republic. Along with 800 million Chinese, Uyghurs were lifted out of poverty during the past five years – an unprecedented accomplishment in world history.
We note that Canada’s history is replete with systemic racism against numerous ethnic, religious, native, and racial minorities and that the continuing discoveries of the bodies of children in unmarked graves at the sites of former residential schools renders Canada an unworthy critic of the Chinese government. Simply put, people in glass houses should not throw stones.
Furthermore, we question the sincerity of your government’s concern about Uyghur Muslims in the context of Canada’s role in recent US wars. In mainly-Muslim Afghanistan, Canadian soldiers routinely conducted night-time raids on civilian homes and reportedly turned over hundreds of Afghanis for torture at the hands of the Afghan authorities, which the Government of Canada supported. Stephen Harper prorogued Parliament to avoid this scandal in 2008, but the Canadian public has yet to gain access to some 40,000 documents regarding the torture allegations. In predominantly-Muslim Libya, a Canadian general led NATO’s attack, turning Libya into a failed state. Canada was part of the US regime-change coalition in mainly-Muslim Syria, where a half million were killed and more than thirteen million turned into displaced persons. Concerning the Occupied Territories of Palestine, your government has voted against numerous United Nations’ resolution condemning Israeli violations of the human rights and national sovereignty of the mainly-Muslim Palestinian population there. So, we ask why you are so concerned about Muslims in China? We suggest there must be an ulterior motive.
It appears to us that the Obama, Trump, and Biden Administrations were and are intent on promoting a cold war with China. And that’s the ulterior motive, we believe, for calling for a “diplomatic” boycott of the Beijing Games. So far, it appears only a tiny handful countries have formally joined with the “anglosphere”- Canada, USA, UK, Australia – in promoting this “diplomatic” boycott. This tiny cabal is out of step with most of the world on many issues but especially on China, with which, since Obama’s “Pivot to Asia”, it appears endlessly to be causing problems and raising military tensions, for example most recently, on Taiwan. But there is also the AUKUS pact, in which the US and UK agreed to violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by selling nuclear submarines to Australia and the move by the Five Eyes Intelligence Network to ban Huawei Technologies from the deployment of 5G networks in Canada, the USA, UK, Australia, and New Zealand.
Canada used to have exemplary friendly relations with China to the point that it became our second-largest trading partner. With your arrest of Meng Wanzhou at the urging of former US President Trump, who promptly announced he intended to use Ms. Meng as a “bargaining chip” in his trade war with China, Canada-China relations took a nosedive. Similarly, Canada used to abide by a One-China Policy. In fact, it was your father, Pierre, who recognized that the People’s Republic of China had sovereignty over all of China, including Taiwan, a move which opened up diplomatic and trade relations with China and created five decades of prosperity for both countries. Now, your government facilitates the opening of Taipei Economic and Cultural Offices in two Canadian cities. How would your government like it if the People’s Republic of China provided office space for Canadian separatist organizations, such as the Independence Party of Alberta, inside of Canada?
The rest of the world looks to China for prosperity through its Belt-and-Road Initiative. Canada should too. Most countries are increasingly focussed on preventing the twin nightmares of nuclear warfare and climate chaos. But the “anglosphere”, to which you stubbornly adhere, Mr. Trudeau, seems intent on recreating a cold war with China, which could, in an instant, turn into a hot war. The ulterior motives behind a new cold war are US global hegemony and profits through an arms race, including Canada’s obscenely-expensive, proposed new fighter jets, warships, and predator drones.
Your “diplomatic” boycott is one more reason that Canadians have been calling for an independent foreign policy. Instead of aping US pettiness, Canadians should applaud the Olympic Truce and celebrate the participation of our athletes in Beijing. The fact that the US government has recently announced it would send forty-six officials to the Beijing Games makes a further mockery of your “diplomatic” boycott, which is actually, in our view, an UNdiplomatic boycott.
We urge you to rescind your “diplomatic” boycott today and send along Canadian officials to Beijing to demonstrate some Olympic spirit and show support for the world’s most high-profile peaceful international competition.
Yours truly,
Ken Stone
on behalf the Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War
co-sponsored by:
Cross-Canada Campaign to Free Meng Wanzhou
Canadian Peace Congress
Canada-China Council for Cooperation and Development
Global Peace Alliance, BC Society
Regina Peace Council
Mobilization Against War and Occupation (MAWO)
Fire This Time Movement For Social Justice
and these individuals:
Tamara Lorincz
Bruce Katz
Khawla Ibrahim
Mark Hagar
Larry Wasslen
Charles Posa McFadden
Karen Howell McFadden
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A 2 p.m. appeals court hearing is scheduled after yesterday’s decision by a state Supreme Court judge to strike down NY’s mask mandate.
A New York State Supreme Court judge has struck down Gov. Kathy Hochul’s mask mandate for schools and public locations.
According to a court document, Judge Thomas Rademaker said that neither the governor nor the state health commissioner had the authority to enact the mandate without the state Legislature, since the governor no longer has emergency powers.
The document says in part,
“There can be no question that every person in this State wishes, wants and prays that this era of COVID ends soon and they will surely do their part to see that is accomplished. However, enacting any laws to this end is entrusted solely to the State Legislature. While the intentions of Commissioner Bassett and Governor Hochul appear to be well aimed squarely at doing what they believe is right to protect the citizens of New York State, they must take their case to the State Legislature.”
Schools in Plainedge and Massapequa have recently made their own plans to eliminate the mask mandate next month.
The Board of Education for the Island Trees School District also voted unanimously Monday to leave the decision to wear a mask up to the person who enters the school buildings once the mandate expires.
The superintendent says Monday’s ruling shows that things could change. Even though they voted to give people the choice, he says he recognizes there could be legal challenges that impact their vote.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman says he is hopeful the ruling will stand.
“I’m very energized by the court’s ruling and I believe that is an appellate court reviews the decision of Justice Rademaker they will see that it is a well principled,” Blakeman says. “…That it’s based on the law and the constitution of the state of New York.”
Some parents were excited to hear about the court’s decision.
“Commend the judge for listening to what the community and the students have been asking for,” says Brian Peranzo. “Parent’s choice is what we’ve been asking for all along.”
Professor James Sample, of Hofstra University, says that he doesn’t believe the mandate will disappear that quickly.
“In terms of what the average rank and file New Yorkers can anticipate, I would expect that tomorrow, for example, schools, stores and businesses will still be subject to the mask mandate…” Sample says.
Sources tell News 12 that the governor’s office plans to appeal the judge’s ruling.
With the appeal expected, the State Education Department says schools must continue to follow the mask rule.
However, a parent in the Copiague school district tells News 12 they were told by the school that “as they await further direction from the court, masks will be optional in our schools.”
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The volume of pesticide use and exposure is occurring on a scale that is without precedent and world-historical in nature. Agrichemicals are now pervasive as they cycle through bodies and environments. The herbicide glyphosate has been a major factor in driving this increase in use.
The authors state that when the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) declared glyphosate to be a “probable carcinogen” in 2015, the fragile consensus about its safety was upended.
They note that in 2020 the US Environmental Protection Agency affirmed that glyphosate-based herbicides (GBHs) pose no risk to human health, apparently disregarding new evidence about the link between glyphosate and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma as well as its non-cancer impacts on the liver, kidney and gastrointestinal system.
The multi-authored paper notes:
“In just under 20 years, much of the Earth has been coated with glyphosate, in many places layering on already chemical-laden human bodies, other organisms and environments.”
However, the authors add that glyphosate is not the only pesticide to achieve broad-scale pervasiveness:
“The insecticide imidacloprid, for example, coats the majority of US maize seed, making it the most widely used insecticide in US history. Between just 2003 and 2009, sales of imidacloprid products rose 245% (Simon-Delso et al. 2015). The scale of such use, and its overlapping effects on bodies and environments, have yet to be fully reckoned with, especially outside of countries with relatively strong regulatory and monitoring capacities.”
According to Phillips McDougall’s Annual Agriservice Reports, herbicides made up 43% of the global pesticide market in 2019 by value. Much of the increase in glyphosate use is due to the introduction of glyphosate-tolerant soybean, maize, and cotton seeds in the US, Brazil and Argentina.
The global pesticide industry is valued at over $50 billion (Phillips McDougal 2018).
Eating poison
In December 2021, a piece appeared in the prominent Danish newspaper ‘Weekendavisen’. Written by Niels Bjerre, agricultural affairs manager at Bayer CropScience in Copenhagen, ‘Thank goodness for pesticides’ set out to convince readers that sustainable modern agriculture cannot be done without using pesticides.
Mason lists many pertinent studies. For instance, a French team has found heavy metals in chemical formulants of GBHs in people’s diets. As with other pesticides, 10–20% of GBHs consist of chemical formulants. Families of petroleum-based oxidized molecules and other contaminants have been identified as well as the heavy metals arsenic, chromium, cobalt, lead and nickel, which are known to be toxic and endocrine disruptors.
In 1988, Ridley and Mirly (commissioned by Monsanto) found bioaccumulation of glyphosate in rat tissues. Residues were present in bone, marrow, blood and glands including the thyroid, testes and ovaries, as well as major organs, including the heart, liver, lungs, kidneys, spleen and stomach. Glyphosate was also associated with ophthalmic degenerative lens changes.
A Stout and Rueker (1990) study (also commissioned by Monsanto) provided concerning evidence with regard to cataracts following glyphosate exposure in rats. It is interesting to note that the rate of cataract surgery in England “increased very substantially” between 1989 and 2004: from 173 (1989) to 637 (2004) episodes per 100,000 population.
A 2016 study by the WHO also confirmed that the incidence of cataracts had greatly increased: ‘A global assessment of the burden of disease from environmental risks’ says that cataracts are the leading cause of blindness worldwide. Globally, cataracts are responsible for 51% of blindness. In the US, between 2000 and 2010 the number of cases of cataract rose by 20% from 20.5 million to 24.4 million. It is projected that by 2050, the number of people with cataracts will have doubled to 50 million.
The authors of ‘Assessment of Glyphosate Induced Epigenetic Transgenerational Inheritance of Pathologies and Sperm Epimutations: Generational Toxicology’ (Scientific Reports, 2019) noted that ancestral environmental exposures to a variety of factors and toxicants promoted the epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of adult onset disease.
They proposed that glyphosate can induce the transgenerational inheritance of disease and germline (for example, sperm) epimutations. Observations suggest the generational toxicology of glyphosate needs to be considered in the disease etiology of future generations.
In a 2017 study, Carlos Javier Baier and colleagues documented behavioural impairments following repeated intranasal glyphosate-based herbicide administration in mice. Intranasal GBH caused behavioural disorders, decreased locomotor activity, induced an anxiogenic behaviour and produced memory deficit.
The paper contains references to many studies from around the world that confirm GBHs are damaging to the development of the foetal brain and that repeated exposure is toxic to the adult human brain and may result in alterations in locomotor activity, feelings of anxiety and memory impairment.
Highlights of a 2018 study on neurotransmitter changes in rat brain regions following glyphosate exposure include neurotoxicity in rats. And in a 2014 study which examined mechanisms underlying the neurotoxicity induced by glyphosate-based herbicide in the immature rat hippocampus, it was found that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based Roundup induces various neurotoxic processes.
In the paper ‘Glyphosate damages blood-testis barrier via NOX1-triggered oxidative stress in rats: Long-term exposure as a potential risk for male reproductive health’ (Environment International, 2022) it was noted that glyphosate causes blood-testis barrier (BTB) damage and low-quality sperm and that glyphosate-induced BTB injury contributes to sperm quality decrease.
The 2020 paper ‘Glyphosate exposure exacerbates the dopaminergic neurotoxicity in the mouse brain after repeated of MPTP’ suggests that glyphosate may be an environmental risk factor for Parkinson’s.
In the 2019 Ramazzini Institute’s 13-week pilot study that looked into the effects of GBHs on development and the endocrine system, it was demonstrated that GBHs exposure, from prenatal period to adulthood, induced endocrine effects and altered reproductive developmental parameters in male and female rats.
Aside from glyphosate, Mason also notes that in 1991 Bayer CropScience introduced a new type of insecticide into the US: imidacloprid, the first member of a group now known as neonicotinoids.
Imidacloprid was licensed for use in Europe in 1994. In July of that year, beekeepers in France noticed something unexpected. Just after the sunflowers had bloomed, a substantial number of their hives would collapse, as the worker bees flew off and never returned, leaving the queen and immature workers to die. The French beekeepers soon believed they knew the reason: a brand new insecticide called Gaucho with imidacloprid as active ingredient was being applied to sunflowers for the first time.
In the 2022 paper ‘Neonicotinoid insecticides found in children treated for leukaemias and lymphomas’ (Environmental Health), the authors stated that multiple neonicotinoids were found in children’s cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), plasma and urine. As the most widely used class of insecticides worldwide, they are ubiquitously found in the environment, wildlife and foods. The data revealed multiple neonicotinoids and/or their metabolites in children’s CSF, plasma and urine.
Bottom line
If the ‘Monsanto Papers’ told us anything, it is that a corporation’s top priority is the bottom line (at all costs, by all means necessary) and not public health. A CEO’s obligation is to maximise profit, capture markets and – ideally – regulatory and policy-making bodies as well.
Corporations must also secure viable year-on-year growth which often means expanding into hitherto untapped markets. Indeed, in the previously mentioned paper ‘Growing Agrichemical Ubiquity’, the authors note that while countries like the US are still reporting higher pesticide use, most of this growth is taking place in the Global South:
“For example, pesticide use in California grew 10% from 2005 to 2015, while use by Bolivian farmers, though starting from a low base, increased 300% in the same period. Pesticide use is growing steeply in countries as diverse as China, Mali, South Africa, Nepal, Laos, Ghana, Argentina, Brazil and Bangladesh. Most countries with high levels of growth have weak regulatory enforcement, environmental monitoring and health surveillance infrastructure.”
And much of this growth is driven by increased demand for herbicides:
“India saw a 250% increase since 2005 (Das Gupta et al. 2017) while herbicide use jumped by 2500% in China (Huang, Wang, and Xiao 2017) and 2000% in Ethiopia (Tamru et al. 2017). The introduction of glyphosate-tolerant soybean, maize, and cotton seeds in the US, Brazil, and Argentina is clearly driving much of the demand, but herbicide use is also expanding dramatically in countries that have not approved nor adopted such crops and where smallholder farming is still dominant.”
In response to the increasing use of GBHs in India, the influential Swadeshi Jagaran Manch recently demanded a complete ban on the use of glyphosate in the country. A petition with more than 201,000 signatories favouring a complete ban on glyphosate was submitted to the minister for agriculture.
The minister was also informed that the herbicide is blatantly being used for illegally grown genetically engineered herbicide tolerant (HT) cotton. He was told that “miscreant seed companies” are trying to illegally spread HT Bt cotton on hundreds of thousands of acres of land to promote the use of glyphosate.
In a 2017 paper, academics Glenn Stone and Andrew Flachs describe how cotton farmers in India have been encouraged to change their ploughing practices, leading to more weeds. The outcome in terms of yields (or farmer profit) is arguably no better but the change (conveniently) coincided with the appearance of an increasing supply of these illegal HT cotton seeds. Farmers are being pushed onto herbicide-intensive treadmills.
Industry figures like Niels Bjerre claim pesticide use is necessary in ‘modern agriculture’. But this is not the case: there is now sufficient evidence to suggest otherwise. It is simply not necessary to have our bodies contaminated with toxic agrochemicals, regardless of how much the industry tries to reassure us that they are present in ‘safe’ levels.
There is also the industry-promoted narrative that if you question the need for synthetic pesticides in ‘modern agriculture’, you are somehow ignorant or even ‘anti-science’. This is simply not true. What does ‘modern agriculture’ even mean? It means a system adapted to meet the demands of global agrocapital and its international markets and supply chains.
“Meeting the needs of modern agriculture – growing produce that can be shipped long distances and hold up in the store and at home for more than a few days – can result in tomatoes that taste like cardboard or strawberries that aren’t as sweet as they used to be. Those are not the needs of modern agriculture. They are the needs of global markets.”
What is really being questioned is a policy paradigm that privileges a certain model of social and economic development and a certain type of agriculture: urbanisation, giant supermarkets, global markets, long supply chains, external proprietary inputs (seeds, synthetic pesticides and fertilisers, machinery, etc), chemical-dependent monocropping, highly processed food and market (corporate) dependency at the expense of rural communities, small independent enterprises and smallholder farms, local markets, short supply chains, on-farm resources, diverse agroecological cropping, nutrient dense diets and food sovereignty.
The effects of this paradigm has had devastating ecological, environmental, social, economic and agronomic consequences on highly productive traditional agrarian systems (see Bhaskar Save’s 2006 open letter to Indian officials). Furthermore, despite claims to the contrary, it is not as though the chemical-intensive Green Revolution actually led to increased food production per capita in the first place (see Glenn Stone’s paper ‘New Histories of the Green Revolution’).
Nevertheless, predatory agri-food conglomerates have been driving this policy paradigm. In doing so, they have actively consolidated their position throughout the entire global food system while promoting the false narrative that they and their inputs are necessary for feeding the world.
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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.
Rosemary Mason is a retired doctor and environmental campaigner.
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The Biden administration withdrew its COVID vaccine-or-test mandate for large employers, saying the administration recognized the Emergency Temporary Standard could not be revived after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked it earlier this month.
The Biden administration is withdrawing its COVID vaccine-or-test mandate for large employers, the U.S. Department of Labor announced today.
In pulling the rule, the department said it recognized the Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) could not be revived after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked it earlier this month.
Instead, the Biden administration is working to set a permanent standard for the vaccine mandate based on the Supreme Court’s ruling, according to a notice provided to the court by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
“Although OSHA is withdrawing the vaccination and testing ETS as an enforceable emergency temporary standard, the agency is not withdrawing the ETS as a proposed rule. The agency is prioritizing its resources to focus on finalizing a permanent COVID-19 Healthcare Standard.”
OSHA could move a version of the vaccine-or-test rule through its rule-making process, but would still likely face legal challenges, according to David Michaels, a former OSHA administrator and professor at George Washington University.
The Labor Department’s decision to withdraw the rule means pending legal proceedings will be dropped. The case was on its way back to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals to be heard on the merits, although the lower court most likely would have followed the Supreme Court’s lead, The New York Times reported.
Without OSHA’s vaccine mandate in effect, employers must follow state and local laws on COVID workplace safety. Some states have banned vaccine mandates for private employees, while other states, like New York, require them.
“OSHA continues to strongly encourage the vaccination of workers against the continuing dangers posed by Covid-19 in the workplace,” the Labor Department wrote in the notice of its withdrawal.
The Supreme Court on Jan. 13, rejected the Biden administration’s employer mandate.
The court’s conservative majority said the administration overstepped its authority by imposing OSHA’s vaccine-or-test rule.
The Supreme Court’s decision reversed the lower court ruling, imposing a stay on the OSHA mandate.
The conservative majority expressed concerns over the implications of allowing OSHA to implement a widespread mandate without congressional authorization.
“Permitting OSHA to regulate the hazards of daily life — simply because most Americans have jobs and face those same risks while on the clock — would significantly expand OSHA’s regulatory authority without clear congressional authorization,” the opinion stated.
Furthermore, the court said, Congress has “indisputably given OSHA the power to regulate occupational dangers,” but it “has not given that agency the power to regulate public health more broadly.”
“Requiring the vaccination of 84 million Americans, selected simply because they work for employers with more than 100 employees, certainly falls in the latter category,” the opinion read.
The minority justices said OSHA’s mandate is comparable to a fire or sanitation regulation imposed by the agency, while the majority said a vaccine mandate is strikingly unlike the workplace regulations that OSHA has typically imposed as a vaccination “cannot be undone at the end of the workday.”
A majority of the Supreme Court’s justices concluded the applicants challenging OSHA’s mandate were likely to succeed in the merits of their claim and the secretary of labor lacked authority to impose the mandate, resulting in a stay while the case works its way through the 6th Circuit Court.
After the ruling, many companies were left scrambling to decide whether they should abandon the mandate or force their employees to be vaccinated while the lawsuit played out in the lower courts.
Starbucks was one of the first major retailers to backtrack on its plans to require workers to be vaccinated against COVID. Starbucks last week told its 228,000 employees at more than 9,000 U.S. coffee shops it would no longer require workers be fully vaccinated or submit to weekly COVID testing.
In a Jan. 18 memo to employees, Starbuck CEO John Culver said the company respects the court’s ruling and will comply even though it doesn’t align with the company’s beliefs.
A coalition of attorneys general from 27 states called on OSHA to rescind its ETS saying the agency lacked authority to issue a broad mandate.
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Megan Redshaw is a freelance reporter for The Defender. She has a background in political science, a law degree and extensive training in natural health.
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The lunatic occupant of the Oval Office has arbitrarily yanked from use the only “establishment approved” Covid treatment, monoclonal antibodies. As Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis correctly states: Biden’s “indefensible edict takes treatment out of the hands of medical professionals and will cost some Americans their lives. There are real-world implications to Biden’s medical authoritarianism – Americans’ access to treatment is now subject to the whims of a failing president.”
Why did the White House fool do this?
For two reasons.
One reason is to strike back at DeSantis who proved that Florida did better by ignoring the counterfactual “Covid protocols” than did the states that imposed them. DeSantis proved that Trump was right: lockdowns are unnecessary and damaging. Moreover, DeSantis set up monoclonal antibody clinics in Florida that cured infected people, thus making the dangerous “vaccine” irrelevant. Biden’s evil ruling deprives Florida’s clinics from being able to save lives. Biden is causing Florida residents to die as his punishment of DeSantis.
The other reason is that Biden is a puppet of Fauci and Big Pharma. His job is to ensure maximun vaccine profits and to protect the false narrative of deception that Fauci, Big Pharma, and the corrupt medical establishment, aided and abetted by the presstitutes, imposed on trusting Americans.
If you really believe Biden was elected, you have to accept that the American voters are the most utterly stupid people imaginable.
US regulatory agencies, such as the FDA, and public health agencies, such as NIH and CDC, have become captives of the pharmaceutical companies they are supposed to regulate. Their rulings favor the companies over public health and the people they are supposed to protect.
Americans must learn that they cannot trust any public or private institution. Everything is driven by money; nothing by truth and the public interest. The need for money has destroyed even education. In the social sciences university professors, economists for example, bring in money by producing “studies” that serve corporate interests and global capital. Physicists are primarily dependent on federal research grants, which means they must stay silent about the fake official 9/11 narrative. Our soldiers are sent to fight to defend armaments industry profits, oil interests, and Washington’s hegemony, not someone’s freedom. Wherever you look in America people cannot say what they think without being fired. You are rewarded for lying for the controlling interest groups. All the talk about defending freedom is hogwash. There is no freedom to defend.
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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog site, PCR Institute for Political Economy. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
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Amid surging tensions over Ukraine, the head of Germany’s navy had the courage to voice Europe’s fears over this totally unnecessary, contrived crisis.
In a speech to an Indian think tank, Vice-admiral Kay-Achim Schonbach proposed the Western powers ‘respect’ Russian leader Vladimir Putin and accept that Crimea would remain in Moscow’s hands.
The German admiral’s remarks produced a major uproar in Washington and tut tuts in Europe where hatred of Russia has become a state fetish. Most aggrieved were the British and Americans who deeply fear an alliance or at least entente between Germany and Russia that might undermine US domination of the continent.
Germany, Europe’s leading military force and mainstay of NATO, has hollowed out its military power. Thanks to unqualified female defense ministers, Germany’s armed forces have degenerated into parade troops. Armor and aircraft, once hallmarks of German military power, have become feeble toys, lacking in munitions, spare parts and capable crews.
Polls show Germans have very little interest in confronting Russia. Memories of World War II are still raw. Today’s Germans live in a nation that was 50% destroyed by US and British bombing. Millions of Germans come from families driven out of eastern Europe.
There is not a lot of sympathy for Ukraine’s current government that was installed by a US-financed and stage-managed coup in 2013-2014. Germany’s US-dominated media and government support Washington’s hard line on Ukraine but many ordinary Germans and French don’t agree.
America’s media and politicians strongly support the military confrontation with Russia, a low-cost way of being loudly patriotic without actually doing anything serious.
Only Poland, the Baltic states and American neocons really hunger for war – provided it is waged by the US. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, a rising star among the pro-war neocons, is pushing the confrontation with Russia – yet another bureaucrat with no military experience.
Military men quickly understand the logistic and climactic problems of fighting in the Black Sea region, but not Washington’s desk warriors and their European satraps. The US has been unwise to provoke a confrontation with Russia in its backyard. Though Russia has lost much of its Soviet-era military power, it would be a mistake to underestimate its combat capabilities and overestimate those of NATO.
Remember, Napoleon (who was seriously defeated in Russia) prayed ‘oh Lord, if I must go to war, please make it against a coalition.’
Washington’s sofa samurais are playing with fire. The neocons’ latest effort to overthrow President Putin risks backfiring badly by drawing China into the fray and undermining US domination of the continent. Let’s say US-led NATO forces thrash the 106,000 Russian troops around Ukraine’s borders. What then? An advance on Moscow? An assault on Crimea? Might Romania join the war to recover Moldova lost in WWII? Or tiny Finland? The Russians are unlikely to be quivering in their boots. Romanian troops, let’s recall, were defending the flank of Germany’s 6th Army at the Stalingrad disaster.
We are not going to see a rerun of the Great Northern War of the early 1700’s. What we are seeing is the re-birth of Russian power in its traditional sphere of influence. Admiral Schonbach is quite right. Russia will never relinquish Crimea any more than Germany would give over Hamburg or the US cede Baltimore to Cuban control.
Luckily for us, Russia is currently being run by hard men from the old KGB who are experienced and cautious. It is well that they are because Russia has thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at the US and its allies. No one in their right mind should contemplate a nuclear confrontation. Russia has repeatedly made clear that if backed into a corner, it may well use tactical nuclear weapons. China is coming around to the same thinking.
Beaten in Vietnam, Iraq and now Afghanistan, the US is seeking a cheap victory in Ukraine. But the northern rim of the Black Sea is not known for its low-hanging geopolitical fruit. And Russia always surprises.
Mr. Blinken, be cautious lest a hypersonic Russian missile comes flying through your office window.
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In mid-February 2021, Dr. Andrew Hill at Liverpool University published a scientific meta-analysis of six randomized controlled trials involving the use of ivermectin. The review, funded by the World Health Organization and UNITAID, found the drug increased viral clearance and reduced COVID-19 deaths by 75%, yet the conclusion of the paper was dismissive
In early April 2021, Hill was accused of scientific misconduct by the French civic group, Association BonSens. BonSens claims Hill manipulated data to downplay the usefulness of ivermectin. Hill admitted that the study sponsor had crafted the conclusion
In early August 2021, Hill published a public notice stating one of the six studies included in his analysis had been withdrawn due to fraudulent data. A revised analysis excluding that study was published in November 2021
In the November revision, Hill included 23 randomized clinical trials, concluding ivermectin had no statistically significant effect on survival or hospitalizations
Other meta-analyses of 13 to 24 studies have found reductions in death ranging from 62% to 91%. Recent research has also found a five-day course of ivermectin at a dose of 12 mg per day sped up viral clearance, reducing the duration of symptomatic illness by three days compared to placebo (9.7 days versus 12.7 days)
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In mid-February 2021, Dr. Andrew Hill at Liverpool University published a scientific meta-analysis of six randomized controlled trials involving the use of ivermectin in 1,255 COVID-19 patients. (The paper was initially posted on a preprint server.)
The review, which was funded by the World Health Organization and UNITAID, found that ivermectin increased viral clearance and reduced COVID-19 deaths by 75%. This is a rather massive benefit, yet the conclusion of the paper was dismissive, saying additional large clinical trials were needed to make a determination about whether or not to recommend its use.
Hill Accused of Scientific Misconduct
In early April 2021, Hill and his coauthors were accused of scientific misconduct by a French civic group called the Association BonSens. The TrialSite News video report from April 5 above reviews the details of this story. BonSens — labeled by some a “controversial group” based on its anti-mask mandate stance — accused Hill of data manipulation to downplay the usefulness of ivermectin.
According to BonSens, Hill’s analysis was then used by the WHO to recommend against ivermectin, even though it appears to have significant benefit. BonSens called on Hill to retract the paper, but Hill remained “resolute and stands behind the study,” TrialSite News said.
At the time, TrialSite News claimed to have been in conversation with “relevant and associated parties,” some of whom have asked to remain anonymous, who say Hill’s study was in fact modified, but that this was done “separate and apart from the investigator,” and that Hill had no say in the matter.
However, since then, one of the six studies Hill included in his analysis has been withdrawn “due to fraudulent data.” In a public notice1 dated August 9, 2021, Hill and his coauthors addressed the matter, saying they would submit “a revised version excluding this study, and the currently posted paper will be retracted.” A revised and updated meta-analysis was published in November 2021.2
The updated review includes data from 23 randomized clinical trials with a total of 3,349 patients. Studies with “high risk of bias” were excluded. In this analysis, Hill found that “Ivermectin did not show a statistically significant effect on survival or hospitalizations,” and had only “borderline significant effect on duration of hospitalization in comparison with standard of care.”
No significant effect on clinical recovery time was detected. In conclusion, the paper states that the WHO “recommends the use of ivermectin only inside clinical trials.” Curiously, it also states that “a network of large clinical trials is in progress to validate the results seen to date.” What results might those be? Surely, they must be referring to positive results, or else a network of clinical trials would hardly be justified.
Positive Ivermectin Studies Largely Barred From Publication
December 3, 2021, TrialSite News interviewed Dr. Tess Laurie (above) about her own ivermectin analyses and that of Hill. She points out that she was concerned when she saw the initial meta-analysis Hill published, as the conclusion didn’t match the data. The reduction in death was significant, yet the conclusion was dismissive.
Laurie contacted Hill, asking him to explain his conclusion to her. He then told her that the conclusion of the paper was not his own. It had been written by his sponsor — the WHO. Laurie was shocked, she said, as this struck her as a clear conflict of interest.
In the interview, Laurie also discusses the general difficulty researchers have had, since the beginning, in getting papers published that support ivermectin. She admits her own team has downplayed the benefits by using extremely conservative analyses in an effort to get published.
“It seems, if you tell it like it is, you are not going to get published because you might be accused of overstating your case. And if you understate it, you’re told there’s not enough evidence,” Laurie says.
Strong Evidence for Ivermectin
According to Laurie, the evidence for ivermectin in the treatment of COVID-19 is strong. In a previous interview, she reviewed a 13-study meta-analysis that found a 68% reduction in deaths. A follow-up review that included 15 studies found a 62% to 72% reduction in deaths.3
A meta-analysis4 by Laurie and her team published in the July-August 2021 issue of the American Journal of Therapeutics, which included 24 randomized controlled trials with a total of 3,406 participants, reported reductions in death ranging between 79% and 91%.
A study published February 2021 also reported that a five-day course of ivermectin at a dose of 12 mg per day sped up viral clearance, reducing the duration of symptomatic illness by three days compared to placebo (9.7 days versus 12.7 days).5
According to Laurie, what makes ivermectin particularly useful in COVID-19 is that it works both in the initial viral phase of the illness, when antivirals are required, and in the later inflammatory stage, when the viral load drops off and anti-inflammatories become necessary.
Dr. Surya Kant, a medical doctor in India who has written a white paper6 on ivermectin, claims the drug reduces replication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus by several thousand times.7 Kant’s paper led several Indian provinces to start using ivermectin, both as a prophylactic and as treatment for COVID-19 in the summer of 2020.8
Africa and Japan Defy the Odds With Ivermectin
Japan and Africa have also defied the odds with ivermectin. As reported by NewsRescue at the end of August 2021, “Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation predicted disaster in the developing world, but so far she has been dead wrong, at least as far as Africa is concerned.”9
Indeed, despite having nearly 1.4 billion people, Africa has maintained one of the lowest COVID caseloads and death rates in the world, accounting for just 4% of the global reported death rate as of mid-May 2021.10 While media feign confusion, ivermectin may well be the explanation for this phenomenon.
A study11 published at the end of December 2020 found that African countries that participated in the African Program for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC), where intensive ivermectin mass campaigns were carried out between 1995 and 2015, had 28% lower COVID-19 mortality and 8% lower infection rates than non-APOC countries that did not participate in the ivermectin campaign.
“That a mass public health preventive campaign against COVID-19 may have taken place, inadvertently, in some African countries with massive community ivermectin use is an attractive hypothesis,” the authors said.12
Similarly, Japan has seen a massive decline in cases after adopting ivermectin as standard treatment against COVID. November 3, 2021, Free West Media reported:13
“The head of the Tokyo Medical Association appeared on national television in September urging doctors to use Ivermectin and they listened. A little over a month later, COVID-19 is under control in Japan …
Japan had slavishly adhered to all the Big Pharma prescriptions, including quarantine, contact tracing, masking, social distance, but finally the pandemic had hit them hard after they started aggressive vaccination in May 2021.
The results looked good initially, but in mid-July they started rising again and on August 6 cases hit a new all-time high and continued to rise.
Ivermectin was allowed as a treatment on August 13 and after 2 weeks the cases started to come down. In fact, they are now down 99% from the peak … In Japan, doctors can now prescribe it without restrictions, and people can buy it legally from India.”
Doctors Urge Acceptance of Ivermectin to Save Lives
In the U.S., the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) has been calling for widespread adoption of ivermectin, both as a prophylactic and for the treatment of all phases of COVID-19.14,15
FLCCC president Dr. Pierre Kory, former professor of medicine at St. Luke’s Aurora Medical Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has testified to the benefits of ivermectin before a number of COVID-19 panels, including the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in December 2020,16 and the National Institutes of Health COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel January 6, 2021.17 As noted by the FLCCC:18
“The data shows the ability of the drug Ivermectin to prevent COVID-19, to keep those with early symptoms from progressing to the hyper-inflammatory phase of the disease, and even to help critically ill patients recover.
Dr. Kory testified that Ivermectin is effectively a ‘miracle drug’ against COVID-19 and called upon the government’s medical authorities … to urgently review the latest data and then issue guidelines for physicians, nurse-practitioners, and physician assistants to prescribe Ivermectin for COVID-1919 …
… numerous clinical studies — including peer-reviewed randomized controlled trials — showed large magnitude benefits of Ivermectin in prophylaxis, early treatment and also in late-stage disease. Taken together … dozens of clinical trials that have now emerged from around the world are substantial enough to reliably assess clinical efficacy.”20
A one-page summary21 of the clinical trial evidence for Ivermectin can be downloaded from the FLCCC website. A more comprehensive, 31-page review22 of trials data has been published in the journal Frontiers of Pharmacology.
At the time of this writing, the number of trials involving ivermectin has risen to 71, including 31 randomized controlled trials. A listing of all the ivermectin trials done to date, with links to the published studies, can be found on c19Ivermectin.com.23
The FLCCC’s COVID-19 protocol was initially dubbed MATH+ (an acronym based on the key components of the treatment), but after several tweaks and updates, the prophylaxis and early outpatient treatment protocol is now known as I-MASK+24 while the hospital treatment has been renamed I-MATH+,25 due to the addition of ivermectin.
The two protocols26,27 are available for download on the FLCCC Alliance website in multiple languages.
Take Control of Your Health Care
If COVID-19 were an actual medical crisis and not an excuse for a tyrannical power grab, doctors would have been allowed, indeed encouraged, to work together to find solutions. Their successes would then have been announced everywhere. Without doubt, ivermectin would have featured heavily in such reports, as doctors around the world have attested to its benefits.
That’s not what happened, though, which tells us we’re not dealing with a medical crisis that governments actually want to solve. As reported by the FLCCC, its members have “been blocked in attempts to disseminate scientific information about ivermectin on Facebook and other social media with the FLCCC’s pages repeatedly being shut down.”28
Seasoned researchers like Laurie can’t get their research published, and the main thing they have in common is that they’re reporting positive results using ivermectin (and other common remedies). For nearly two years now, doctors and scientist have repeatedly shown we can control the COVID endemic, even with new variants. We can save the vast majority from severe illness and death.
Yet “authorities” within government, regulatory agencies and health agencies have refused to listen and insist there’s only one way forward — we need novel gene transfer injections that direct our cells to churn out the very toxin that makes COVID-19 so problematic. And when those shots are proven failures, the answer, these same “leaders” say, is more boosters!
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. The good news is you can choose who you listen to. You can listen to frontline medical experts, like the FLCCC, and follow their advice.
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The US Senate will soon vote on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s nomination to a second term. One of the senators opposing Powell is Elizabeth Warren. I don’t often agree with Senator Warren, but I do agree with her assessment that Powell is “dangerous.” However, Warren actually doesn’t understand what makes Powell, or any Fed chairman, intrinsically dangerous to liberty and prosperity.
Warren thinks Powell is dangerous because she thinks he will not be supportive enough of imposing her desired new regulations on banks and other financial institutions. Senator Warren, like most progressives, clings to a fantastical notion that regulations benefit workers, consumers, and small businesses. The truth is most regulations benefit large corporations by imposing costs that big businesses can easily absorb, but that their smaller competitors cannot.
Powell is a threat to the American people. Under his tenure, the Fed has kept interest rates at or near zero. The Fed’s balance sheet has grown to over eight trillion dollars. This has caused prices to climb at a rate America has not seen in several decades.
At his nomination hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, Powell reiterated the Fed’s intention to fight inflation by reducing its monthly 120 billion dollars purchase of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities. Powell also stated that the Fed is planning to increase interest rates this year. However, even if the Fed follows through on this, interest rates will remain at historically low levels.
Powell, like Elizabeth Warren and other progressives, dangerously believes that the Fed should go “woke.” However, Powell is still not “woke” enough for progressives who lobbied President Joe Biden to replace Powell with Fed board member Lael Brainard, the biggest supporter of Elizabeth Warren-style regulations on the Fed board. Brainard is more committed than Powell to using monetary and regulatory policies to advance the “woke” agenda. President Biden did end up nominating Brainard to become vice chairman at the Fed.
A Powell-Brainard Fed would likely use “social and climate justice” as a justification for expanding the Fed’s easy money policies. President Biden has recently nominated Sarah Bloom Raskin to the Fed board, who also has advocated for the Fed to use its power to fight climate change.
A central bank committed to the social justice and climate change agendas will inevitably increase the Fed’s “inflation tax.” Contrary to the claims of some progressives, lower-income Americans are primary victims of this hidden and regressive tax.
Powell prefers to push his rather zealous and extremist philosophies behind the scenes. Thus, not surprisingly, he is a leading opponent of Audit the Fed. Powell claims that bringing transparency to the Fed’s conduct of monetary policy would somehow jeopardize the Fed’s independence. Powell’s claim is truly fake news. There is nothing in the Audit the Fed bill giving Congress or the executive branch any new power over monetary policy.
Any group of individuals given the power to manipulate the money supply, and manipulate the interest rates that are the price of money, poses a threat to our liberty and prosperity. The solution is not to replace Powell with a “better” Fed chairman, or to force the Fed to follow a “rule” that still allows it to erode the dollar’s value. The only way to protect the people from dangerous individuals like Jerome Powell, Lael Brainard, and the rest of the Fed board is to audit and then end the Fed.
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As most of you certainly know, a growing convoy of truckers and freedom-loving Canadians are heading to Ottawa, planning to converge on January 29th. Free to Fly supports this peaceful and much-needed demonstration of collective resolve.
The U.S. will close its borders to unvaccinated and partially vaccinated Canadian and Mexican truck drivers on Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security said on Thursday.
It should be obvious that the world is being sucked into a new Cold War, with old school iron curtains, anti-communist rhetoric and even nuclear sabre rattling pushed by unipolar war hawks in the west.
By the beginning of 1942 Adolf Hitler had led Nazi Germany into a desperate situation, from which there was probably no escape. At the time, this was not easily apparent to the Wehrmacht or the German population, nor indeed to the Third Reich’s enemies, particularly those in the West.
The war has already started. The drive to implement 5G microwave electronic broadcast across the United States, and around the world, as a follow up to the push for the COVID-19 vaccines that contain nano-devices and the electricity-responsive toxin graphene oxide, is an indication that we are about to enter the next stage of this war.
The numbers are unbelievably staggering: the world’s 10 richest men more than doubled their fortunes from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion —at a rate of $15,000 per second or $1.3 billion a day, according to a new study from Oxfam International.
The word “encirclement” does not appear in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), signed into law by President Joe Biden on December 27th, or in other recent administration statements about its foreign and military policies. Nor does that classic Cold War era term “containment” ever come up.
The State Department, “as a precautionary measure against a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine”, ordered the evacuation of family members and part of the staff from the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, which with 900 officials is among the largest in Europe, and raised to level 4 of risk, the maximum, the warning to U.S. citizens not to go to Ukraine.
The drama currently unfolding in which the Biden Administration is doing everything it can to provoke a war with Russia over Ukraine is possibly the most frightening foreign policy misadventure since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the 1967 Lyndon Johnson attempt to sink the USS Liberty and blame it on Egypt, either of which could have gone nuclear.
The “brutalist philosophy” of the US was made public (曝光) by Robert Daly, a former US diplomat stationed in Beijing, in 2015. Currently, he is the director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States. No diplomatic niceties here, Daly frankly states the policy of the US: China must never reach the level of the US.
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As most of you certainly know, a growing convoy of truckers and freedom-loving Canadians are heading to Ottawa, planning to converge on January 29th.
Free to Fly supports this peaceful and much-needed demonstration of collective resolve. Mandates and lockdowns are violating the most fundamental of our constitutional rights, not to mention destroying lives, the economy and jeopardizing the same for future generations. This convoy has been greatly encouraging and helped galvanized much of the nation saying “Enough!”.
“This path will be easier and shorter for all of us if we take it by mutual efforts and in close rank. If there are thousands of us, they will not be able to do anything with us. If there are tens of thousands of us, then we would not even recognize our country.” (Aleksander Solzenitysn)
I’m sure many of you will be lining highways or even joining in the convoy. For those who would like more information, please read further below. Let’s add tens of thousands of us from Free to Fly!
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The East and West routes will be arriving in Ottawa on Jan 29th.
Kingston has multiple days where people will be coming thru. The earliest people will get to Kingston is Jan 27th. Starting Jan 28th people will begin to head up to Ottawa and the last day people will be departing out of Kingston is Jan 29th.
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The U.S. will close its borders to unvaccinated and partially vaccinated Canadian and Mexican truck drivers on Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security said on Thursday.
“These updated travel requirements reflect the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to protecting public health while safely facilitating the cross-border trade and travel that is critical to our economy,” Secretary Alejandro Mayorkassaid in a statement.
NEW: Beginning Saturday, January 22, DHS will require non-U.S. individuals seeking to enter the U.S, via land ports of entry and ferry terminals at the U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada borders to be fully vaccinated for #COVID19 and provide related proof of vaccination.
The restrictions, which apply to all foreign essential workers, had been expected since U.S. officials announced them in October. They follow a similar rule that took effect at the Canadian border last Saturday.
The border COVID-19 vaccine mandates are coming into force despite pushback from the truck industry. The impact will be felt most acutely for the U.S.-Canada freight market, where around 160,000 truckers regularly cross the border — 75% of whom are Canadian.
Already capacity has tightened significantly, with huge price increases in the spot market. It adds to existing pressures, including COVID-19 itself, which left many fleets operating below full strength.
“The supply chain is already fragile — so it puts all of us in a precarious situation,” Dan Einwechter, CEO of Canadian trucking and logistics firm Challenger Motor Freight, told FreightWaves.
The Canadian Trucking Alliance and American Trucking Alliance have projected that 10%-15% of drivers may leave cross-border trucking as a result of the mandates, and exacerbate existing supply chain issues. On Monday, several dozen Canadian truckers protested near the U.S. border in Emerson, Manitoba.
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Nate Tabak is a Toronto-based journalist and producer who covers cybersecurity and cross-border trucking and logistics for FreightWaves. He spent seven years reporting stories in the Balkans and Eastern Europe as a reporter, producer and editor based in Kosovo. He previously worked at newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the San Jose Mercury News. He graduated from UC Berkeley, where he studied the history of American policing. Contact Nate at [email protected].
O Departamento de Estado, “como medida de precaução contra uma possível invasão russa da Ucrânia”, ordenou a evacuação de familiares e parte do pessoal da Embaixada dos EUA em Kiev, que com 900 funcionários é uma das maiores da Europa e elevou ao nível 4, risco máximo, a advertência aos cidadãos estadunidenses para não irem à Ucrânia ao nível 4. Imediatamente depois, o Foreign Office anunciou, com a mesma motivação, a retirada de funcionários da Embaixada Britânica em Kiev. Essas operações de guerra psicológica, destinadas a criar alarme sobre uma iminente invasão russa da Ucrânia e das três repúblicas bálticas, preparam uma escalada EUA-Otan ainda mais perigosa contra a Rússia.
A Casa Branca anunciou que o presidente Biden está considerando “deslocar milhares de soldados, navios de guerra e aviões dos EUA para países da Otan no Báltico e na Europa Oriental”. Inicialmente, espera-se a chegada de 5.500 soldados norte-americanos que, juntando-se aos 4.000 já na Polônia e seguidos por outros milhares, estenderão sua instalação permanente ao Báltico, conforme solicitado pela Letônia. Trens especiais já estão transportando tanques americanos da Polônia para a Ucrânia, cujas forças armadas são treinadas há anos, e de fato comandadas, por centenas de conselheiros e instrutores militares dos EUA, ladeados por outros da Otan. Washington, que no ano passado forneceu a Kiev armas no valor oficial de 650 milhões de dólares, autorizou a Estônia, a Letônia e a Lituânia a transferir as armas dos EUA em sua posse para a Ucrânia, em particular os mísseis Javelin. Outros armamentos são fornecidos pela Grã-Bretanha e pela República Tcheca.
A Otan informa que os países europeus da Aliança estão colocando suas forças armadas em estado de prontidão operacional e enviando outros navios de guerra e aviões de combate para serem instalados na Europa Oriental. A Itália, com os caças-bombardeiros Eurofighter, assumiu o comando da missão da Otan de “polícia aérea reforçada” na Romênia. A França está pronta para enviar tropas à Romênia sob o comando da Otan. A Espanha está enviando navios de guerra das forças navais da Otan e caças-bombardeiros para a Bulgária. A Holanda está se preparando para enviar caças F-35 para a Bulgária. A Dinamarca envia caças F-16 para a Lituânia. Ontem (24) começou o grande exercício naval Nato Neptune Strike ’22 no Mediterrâneo sob o comando do vice-almirante Eugene Black, comandante da Sexta Frota com quartel general em Nápoles Capodichino e base em Gaeta. O porta-aviões nuclear norte-americano Harry Truman participa do exercício, que dura 12 dias, com seu grupo de combate, incluindo cinco lançadores de mísseis prontos para um ataque nuclear para “tranquilizar os aliados europeus, especialmente na frente oriental ameaçada pela Rússia”.
Imediatamente após o Nato Neptune Strike ’22, o exercício da missão Clemenceau 22 ocorrerá em fevereiro, que verá engajados, em uma “operação de três porta-aviões”, o francês Charles de Gaulle, movido a energia nuclear, e seu grupo de combate, incluindo um submarino de ataque nuclear, que entrará no Adriático; o Harry Truman com seu grupo de combate e o porta-aviões italiano Cavour com os F-35 a bordo. Este exercício, é claro, também é dirigido contra a Rússia.
Enquanto a Otan ordena que a Rússia “reduza a escalada”, alertando que “qualquer agressão adicional acarretará um alto custo para Moscou”, os ministros das Relações Exteriores da União Europeia – reunidos em Bruxelas e conectados por teleconferência com o secretário de Estado dos EUA Blinken – decidiam outras medidas contra a Rússia. A União Europeia dos 27, dos quais 21 pertencem à Otan sob o comando dos EUA, ecoa a advertência da Otan à Rússia, declarando que “qualquer agressão militar adicional contra a Ucrânia teria consequências muito sérias para a Rússia”. Desta forma, a UE participa da estratégia de tensão, através da qual os EUA criam fraturas na Europa para mantê-la sob sua influência.
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