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“Except for Palestine” is a remarkable little book. Within it, the authors Hill and Plitnick present the larger picture that the self proclaimed progressive “universal” values of the United States are argued for in many troubled spots of the world, except for Palestine. Their introduction lays out this idea, “The conditions mentioned here should be profoundly disturbing to American liberals and progressives, as they are clearly out of step with the values they claim to hold most dear.”
For the following chapters, “we examine Israel’s escalating authoritarianism and how U.S. policy has enabled it, and we demonstrate how it is anathema to universal liberal values.” There are four chapters each covering a distinct topic, and each succeeding strongly in supporting the authors’ perspective.
The Right to Exist
The first chapter, “The Right to Exist” presents the ongoing Israeli position that the Palestinians must recognize Israel’s right to exist before other negotiations begin. This demand is made of no other countries, and no other countries make the demand of any other country. Countries exist through recognition of their governance and boundaries, not by right. There is no similar ‘given’ by the Israelis that Palestine has a right to exist, and under international law it is not a requirement for sovereignty.
Yet international law does include the right of return, a law Israel simply ignores. The Israeli position comes from two sources: right of return implies the recognition that they are an occupying colonial-settler state; and it is acknowledged that the current demographic Jewish majority, slim as it is, would be overwhelmed by refugees returning to their homeland.
As for American progressive values, the demand for recognition “is a demand rooted in a “might makes right” ethos that demands the utter subjugation, even humiliation, of one’s rivals.”
Criminalizing BDS
The second chapter, “Criminalizing BDS” discusses arguments made concerning the supposed anti-semetic nature of its demands, but as presented here, it is a basic non-violent expression of civil rights. For the U.S. and its own internal arguments, “The Supreme Court has generally interpreted refusals to do business, including through boycotts, as conduct that may be permissibly regulated….when the motivation is political or social in nature, may have more of an expressive element, which according to Supreme Court Precedent, could qualify for First Amendment protection.”
The BDS movement is not organized by the PLO/PA governance currently in place over the Palestinain people. The BDS national committee has an explicit statement concerning anti-racism and non-violence which is “an unambiguous refutation of any association with violence or anti-semitism.”
In summarizing their arguments, the authors say “While Israel should never be unfairly isolated or targetted, it also cannot be shielded from principled and organized political pressure through boycotts, divestments, and sanctions. These tactics have always been critical tools for producing peace, freedom, and justice for the vulnerable. Palestine cannot be an exception.”
Trumped-up Policy
The four years of Trump’s governance made several important concessions to Israel and created the situation in which the U.S. “could no longer function as a mediator of the conflict, and diplomacy, already barely existent, went completely dark.”
Trump’s recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, and the transfer of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem were the two main actions invalidating any supposed mediating role. Mostly unrecognized was his decision to cut off aid to UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency set up to aid Palestinian refugees), and while generally unrecognized, it carries significant importance in consideration of international law and the desires of the Israeli state.
The UNRWA was set up to aid refugees, to provide social services and neither to settle them nor define who they are. UNRWA’s role is “to provide basic services…not to resettle the refugees.” The UNHCR (the UN High Commission for Refugees) does have the mandate to help refugees settle in areas other than their homes. With Trump defunding the UNRWA the Israeli hopes are to have the Palestinian refugees settled in the countries where they currently are. On the other hand if the funding is stopped Israel could “face a humanitarian crisis that could turn world opinion sharply against the country.”
Once again, the demographic factor comes into play – with the refugees settled outside Israel a very large portion of them would then stand outside the right of return. The Palestinians steadfastly refuse this, many holding the keys to their homes (whether demolished or occupied) and maintaining their international law right of return to a militarily occupied area.
It is international law that defines refugee status and “conveys refugee status to children of other refugee populations until permanent homes can be found.” This status has been conveyed in other instances – Afghanistan, Bhutan, Burma, and Somalia.
Trump himself “possesses a dangerous combination of ignorance of the issues he was faced with and complete indifference to that ignorance.” His policies however were not anomalous. He essentially acted on policies already in place, endorsed but not activated. Part of the reason was for future potential concessions for a peace deal with Syria or negotiations for the now dead two state solution. He did not “Write a whole new act in the play…but [stripped] the mask off the United States.” Rather than belonging to Trump these situations highlight “some of our most entrenched and dangerous progressive contradictions.” Trump was a “dangerous extension, not the source, of deeply rooted bipartisan policies….[positioning] Palestine as an exception to which core liberal American values are not applied.”
The Crisis in Gaza
The final chapter, “The Crisis in Gaza” is an excellent overview of the history of events in Gaza through its many encounters with the Israeli state (and Egypt) since the Nakba. Although Gaza “constitutes one of the most pressing humanitarian crises in the world”, they are pretty much the exception where the liberal progressives do not want to intervene [not that U.S. interventions ever do any good]. While liberal hearts “bleed” for Syrians, Afghans, Libyans et al, they do not for Palestinians.
As an open air prison fully controlled by Israel “forms the basis for the widely held position that Gaza remains under Israeli occupation to this day.” As for the U.S., they have not “merely been indifferent…but played an active, significant, and thoroughly bipartisan role in degrading the conditions.” For Gaza, “Americans share significantly in the blame….Our overwhelming silence is a betrayal of the noble, definitive ideals that liberals and progressives profess to hold dear.”
Beyond the Limits
In their conclusions Hill and Plitnick note that “support for Palestinain rights is no longer a fringe position.” Ironically, some of this is due to the hasbara attempts by Israel to counter the BDS information and to counter arguments about Palestinian rights to self defense under international laws on occupation. As a side bar for Canada, a large majority of Canadians – including a majority of Conservatives – now support ICC investigations of war crimes – while all official parties still support the defunct two state solution.
The “self titled progressives..contradict their beliefs by justifying or ignoring behavior by Israel that they oppose or at least treat gravely when it is at the hands of other state actors.” So called progressives need to recognize that Palestinians “are entitled to the same rights to freedom, justice, equality, safety, and self-determination as everyone else around the world.”
Conclusion
The first three chapters are mostly contemporary, while the final chapter on Gaza is a concise, clear account of Gaza’s history and why it is today such an important denial of all that progressives and liberals claim to be. This is an excellent short read to gain an understanding of current events in Israel/Palestine. The language is clear, the examples are few but very pertinent, and the footnotes are extensive and a good part of the read for more information. “Except for Palestine” should be read by anyone interested in events in Israel/Palestine – and obviously in particular, anyone claiming to be progressive and liberal.
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Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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“I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.” – Major General Smedley Darlington Butler (1881-1940) in his book “War is a Racket” (1935).
The ending of the 20-year-war in Afghanistan, the longest ever engagement in a single conflict by the United States armed forces, has been variously described as a “catastrophe”, a “disaster” and a “debacle”. Yet this national failure from which parallels have been drawn with the Vietnam War has not had the same ring of misfortune for some.
Indeed, long before the recent scenes of calamity and collapse in Kabul brought home with resounding finality the futility of a supposed nation-building exercise, the profit-motive for the initial US invasion and the preservation of an enduring occupation was an open secret to anyone who bothered to embark on the slightest inquiry.
The gravy train of American defence spending was in full effect, facilitated by the tentacles of what US President Dwight D. Eisenhower prophesied would become the Military Industrial Complex. For the last two decades have witnessed what has been described as a “wealth transfer from US taxpayers to military contractors”. But the war, apart from confirming Afghanistan’s reputation as the “Graveyard of Empires”, also validates the phrase coined by US Major General Smedley Butler that war is a racket.
The blame game currently being played out in the United States media by the political class risks obscuring one fundamental issue: the centrality of money and the profit motive in the waging of America’s two-decade-long war in Afghanistan.
The invasion of that country had been planned well in advance of the attacks of September 11th, 2001, the event which provided the impetus for mounting a military response including the country’s occupation. The United States has long coveted gaining access to the mineral and oil rich Caspian region and Central Asia, and the coming to power of the fundamentalist Islamic Taliban movement was not seen at the time by US policy makers as an impenetrable obstacle.
As the French writers Jean-Charles Briscard and Guillaume Dasquie wrote in their book Forbidden Truth:U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy and the Failed Hunt for Bin Laden, which was published in 2002, the American government had been prepared to accept Taliban rule on condition that they agreed to the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia.
Thus, it was that in February 2001, the administration headed by George W. Bush entered talks with the Taliban, a group which along with al-Qaeda had germinated from the remnants of the local and foreign recruited anti-Soviet Mujahideen insurgents which had been supported by the Americans during the Afghan-Soviet War of 1979-1989. At one point during the negotiations, noted Briscard, the US representatives told the Taliban,
‘Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs’.”
The invasion of Afghanistan which commenced in October 2001, and which led to the overthrow of the Taliban two months later formally inaugurated the war that was ended by this month’s American withdrawal and the swift capitulation of the US-trained Afghan military.
“Operation Enduring Freedom” was described as a “police action”, but it had decidedly mixed results. While the Taliban was overthrown and several Islamist training camps were overrun and their inhabitants apprehended, the main objective of the operation, the capture of Osama Bin Laden did not come to pass. Furthermore, the Taliban remained as a guerrilla force whose control of territory would increase with the passage of time.
It is against this background that the colossal waste of American taxpayer’s money and the corresponding enrichment of American military contractors, as well as members of the Afghan elite can be documented.
The cover for this was the stated goal of “nation building”. In other words, Afghanistan was to be transformed socially and economically into a modern progressive society which would exhibit the panoply of Western values through the creation of strong democratic institutions, the equal treatment of women, as well as a free market economy.
But evidence of the waste of American taxpayers’ money eventually surfaced.
In 2015 ProPublica, an independent investigative news concern unveiled a report which revealed that the United States had blown $17 Billion through a number of uncompleted projects. There was the story of patrol boats which never left the factory and of planes which could not fly. After the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) ruled that the planes, which cost $486 million, were a “death trap”, 16 of the planes were sold as scrap for a total of $32,000.
The report referred to many more including the $14.7 million spent on a storage facility for the military, which was never used, a $456,000 police-training facility that disintegrated owing to poor construction, as well as a $335,000 unused power plant. It is worth reminding that waste is not an uncommon issue with the Military Industry given the debacles surrounding the development of the F-35 fighter jet and the Zumwalt Class naval warships.
The issue of accountability of these wastages were never satisfactorily addressed by Congress, the Department of Defense, the State Department and SIGAR.
The following year, the fifteenth of the conflict, it was estimated that the war had cost the American taxpayer more than $737 billion and was consuming another $4 million per hour, every day that it continued. The most recent estimates put the total cost at $2.26 trillion which divides into $300 million per day over the 20-year period of occupation.
And who profited from all this? The answer is the Military Industrial Complex; the “network of individuals and institutions involved in the production of weapons and military technologies” that typically lobby lawmakers for increased military spending. They consist of former senior ranking members of the US armed forces, former defence secretaries and a range of companies including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northorp Grumman, and General Dynamics.
Needless to say, the value of stock in each of the corporations has increased to extraordinary levels given not only the duration of the Afghan war but also interventions in countries such as Iraq, Libya, Syria as well as the ongoing policy of expanding NATO and ratcheting tension with Russia after the departure of Boris Yeltsin and the coming to power of his successor Vladimir Putin.
For instance, a purchase of $10,000 worth of stock in 2001 is worth an estimated $133,559 in Lockheed Martin; $129,645 in Northrop Grumman; $107,588 in Boeing; $72,516 in General Dynamics; and $43,167 in Raytheon. Unsurprising among the board members benefiting financially from this are an array of admirals and generals who held positions such as the Chief of Naval Operations and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Many names may not be familiar to the public although the name of James Mattis, a former marine corps general who served as a Secretary of State for Defense stands out.
The interlocking and interdependent structure of interests results in a revolving door culture of former military men becoming paid lobbyists and media pundits. The industry is also aided by an array of think tanks and members of congress who receive campaign donations from military contractors and the energy industry.
It is not hard to see therefore why US military intervention has been consistently encouraged and why specifically the war in Afghanistan was allowed to endure for so long: it is clear that the war provided a corporate welfare program for both the defence and chemical industries. The contractors benefited from the numerous projects including those designated as white elephants, while the chemical industries were keen to benefit from the exploitation of Afghanistan’s rare-earth minerals.
When in 1961 President Dwight Eisenhower warned about the “unwarranted influence” by the then burgeoning Military Industrial Complex in his farewell address to the American nation, he might as well have been referring to the conduct the Afghan war. He clearly foresaw the threat it could pose to America’s “economic, political (and) even spiritual” wellbeing.
So far as the corruption of America’s political institutions is concerned, Michael J. Glennon, a Tufts University professor has identified what he terms the “Trumanite” institutions of government, in contrast to the “Madisonian” institutions of state governance prescribed by the American constitution, which consist of an unaccountable collection of former military, intelligence and law enforcement offices whose influence has been pervasive enough to guarantee that America’s national security policy, one of consistent militarism, has essentially remained unchanged through successive presidential administrations.
On the economic front, an earlier speech given by Eisenhower in April 1953 which was dubbed the “Chance for Peace” speech, gives illumination to the claim that the Afghan War can be characterised as a “wealth transfer from US taxpayers to military contractors”.
Eisenhower said that “every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
His words could be extrapolated to mean in present terms that the excesses of the military industry in its ruthless extraction of taxpayer’s money, has taken away the opportunity to get rid of student debt, to tackle homelessness, alleviate poverty, put young people through college and increase spending on scientific research.
The same could be said of Afghanistan, the focus of a “nation building” project. Despite the colossal amount of money directed to the country, in 2015 the World Justice Project ranked the country at 111 out of 113 on the Rule of Law Index. Not only had the goal of creating a more ethical society with strong political institutions failed, it scored poorly in the areas of corruption and the operating of a criminal justice system.
Government services ranging from the prison system to the education system were found to be inadequate or poor. Roads were not built, sub-contractors not paid as indeed were a range of low-tier servants of the state including the police. This meant that to gain an income of sorts, members of the Afghan police were reduced to kidnapping people and then ransoming them to their families.
In Afghanistan, illiteracy and poverty reigned. The money pouring in from the United States stopped at the corrupt elites with a connection to the Afghan government and the US military. Fabulously wealthy Afghans who were invariably government officials of the US sponsored regime who owned ostentatious mansions and castle-like edifices in the upmarket districts of Kabul preferred to rent out the properties to expatriate contractors and corporate employees while they lived in parts of Pakistan and in Dubai.
“War is a racket”, wrote Smedley Butler. “It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope.” These words must surely resonate with any objective bystander when examining the US occupation of Afghanistan.
But any form of national self-examination must necessarily go further than the usual grind of political scorekeeping between the two major parties. For the wars waged by the United States have all had bipartisan approval. Those media figures identified with the “liberal left” are complicit in the militarism that has characterised the post-Cold War era. They subscribe to the doctrine of so-called “humanitarian wars” which fit hand-in-glove with the war agenda constantly pushed by the Military Industry.
This is also true of figures in the Democratic Party establishment. For while Democratic Party Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, theatrically tore up her copy of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address in 2020, she rose to applaud Trump’s expression of support for the US puppet Juan Guaido, the man who was being used by the US National Security State in an attempt to overthrow the legitimate government of Venezuela.
Given this background, it would be difficult to proffer that the expensive foreign adventures of the money-seeking Military Industry will end with the humiliating withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan. Some neoconservative figures are already calling for a redeployment of resources towards applying military pressure against Iran, while efforts aimed at confronting China in the Pacific have been steadily increasing. The American public must, as Eisenhower warned, “guard against” this constant promotion of a war agenda by the combination of Wall Street and military contractors’ who surely have long inherited the mantle of Basil Zaharoff, the notorious Greek arms dealer and industrialist who came to be known as the “merchant of death”.
As the political scientist Chalmers Johnson once noted:
When war becomes the most profitable course of action, we can certainly expect more of it.
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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Adeyinka Makinde.
Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England. he is aa frequent contributor to Global Research
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The Taliban’s lightning-fast takeover of Afghanistan ended the most important phase of the country’s civil war but hasn’t yet concluded that conflict completely. There still remain several variables that could continue to destabilize the country in the coming future. These are:
1. The US & NATO Extending Their Withdrawal Beyond The September 11th Deadline
Western leaders are under pressure from their people not to fully withdraw from Afghanistan until all of their citizens and ideally also their local allies are safely evacuated, but extending the deadline beyond September 11th would risk provoking Taliban attacks.
2. The US & NATO Bombing The Taliban’s Seized Military Equipment
The withdrawing forces are very concerned about the Taliban’s seizure of Western military equipment including warplanes and tanks, and there are already some efforts being made within some of their countries to encourage their leaderships to bomb those assets after they withdraw from Afghanistan.
3. The “Panjshir Resistance” Continuing To Militarily Oppose The Taliban
Although its prospects of long-term success are practically nil, the so-called “Panjshir Resistance‘s” continued military opposition to the Taliban could possibly provoke a disproportionate response from the group that could in turn be exploited by some members of the international community to delegitimize their rule.
4. Armed Ethno-Religious Minorities Resisting The Taliban
Whether inspired by the “Panjshir Resistance” or whatever else, some other armed ethno-religious minorities elsewhere in the country might also eventually end up resisting the Taliban with time, which could perpetuate the civil war as well as worsen average Afghans’ suffering.
The Taliban’s failure to respect minorities’ and women’s rights could provoke urban unrest among the people who re already distrustful of that group, as could deteriorating economic conditions brought about by the West’s attempts to isolate the Taliban in the event that they don’t eventually recognize its rule.
These five conflict variables can potentially be counteracted in the following ways:
1. Put International Pressure On The US & NATO To Withdraw By Their Deadline
The Taliban’s international partners like Russia and China (both of which still designate it as a terrorist group despite having pragmatic political and security relations with it) should make it clear that extending their withdrawal deadline will risk provoking another round of war and worsening the regional security situation.
2. Raise Global Awareness Of The Taliban’s Anti-Terrorist Credentials
Russia and China should also inform the international community of the Taliban’s genuine anti-terrorist credentials as the most formidable force against ISIS-K, which means that they require their seized Western military equipment in order to ensure regional stability and thus prevent another refugee crisis as well.
3. Russia & China Should Consider Mediating The Taliban-“Panjshir Resistance” Conflict
Russia and China should consider putting their diplomatic skills to use in mediating a political solution to this pressing issue in spite of Moscow’s earlier clarification that it doesn’t have any intent to do so since the “Panjshir Resistance’s” military defeat by the Taliban might delegitimize the latter’s rule.
4. Incorporate Regional Militias Into The New Afghan Security Forces
The Taliban must prioritize incorporating regional militias into the country’s new security structure together with resolutely rooting out the corruption that doomed its predecessor’s forces and eliminating the tendency towards warlordism in order to preempt the possibility of ethno-religious revolts.
5. Respect Promises & Court Foreign Investment
The Taliban must absolutely abide by its promise to respect minorities’ and women’s rights to ensure social stability while courting foreign investment from its regional partners in order to sustainably improve the economic situation by positioning Afghanistan as the crossroads of multipolar connectivity processes.
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This article was originally published on OneWorld.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: An Afghan man and children, suffering hardships from America’s longest war, pose for a portrait in Kabul, Afghanistan, on March 19, 2021. [Source: theintercept.com]
In this new and expanded edition of Michel Chossudovsky’s 2002 best seller, the author blows away the smokescreen put up by the mainstream media, that 9/11 was an attack on America by “Islamic terrorists”. Through meticulous research, the author uncovers a military-intelligence ploy behind the September 11 attacks, and the cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.
The expanded edition, which includes twelve new chapters focuses on the use of 9/11 as a pretext for the invasion and illegal occupation of Iraq, the militarisation of justice and law enforcement and the repeal of democracy.
According to Chossudovsky, the “war on terrorism” is a complete fabrication based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus. The “war on terrorism” is a war of conquest. Globalisation is the final march to the “New World Order”, dominated by Wall Street and the U.S. military-industrial complex.
September 11, 2001 provides a justification for waging a war without borders. Washington’s agenda consists in extending the frontiers of the American Empire to facilitate complete U.S. corporate control, while installing within America the institutions of the Homeland Security State.
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).
“Every day in communities across the United States, children and adolescents spend the majority of their waking hours in schools that have increasingly come to resemble places of detention more than places of learning.”—Investigative journalist Annette Fuentes
Once upon a time in America, parents breathed a sigh of relief when their kids went back to school after a summer’s hiatus, content in the knowledge that for a good portion of the day their kids would be gainfully occupied, out of harm’s way and out of trouble.
Those were the good old days, before the COVID-19 pandemic introduced a whole new level of Nanny State authoritarianism to our daily lives, locking down communities, forcing kids out of the schoolroom and into virtual classrooms, leaving vast swaths of the work force dependent on government welfare, while pushing other segments into a work-from-home model, and generally subjecting us to an increasingly obnoxious level of intrusion by the government into our private lives.
Now, after almost 18 months away from a physical classroom, students are heading back to school.
draconian zero tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior,
overreaching anti-bullying statutes that criminalize speech,
school resource officers (police) tasked with disciplining and/or arresting so-called “disorderly” students,
standardized testing that emphasizes rote answers over critical thinking,
politically correct mindsets that teach young people to censor themselves and those around them,
and extensive biometric and surveillance systems that, coupled with the rest, acclimate young people to a world in which they have no freedom of thought, speech or movement.
Young people in America are now first in line to be searched, surveilled, spied on, threatened, tied up, locked down, treated like criminals for non-criminal behavior, tasered and in some cases shot.
Nowadays, students are not only punished for minor transgressions such as playing cops and robbers on the playground, bringing LEGOs to school, or having a food fight, but the punishments have become far more severe, shifting from detention and visits to the principal’s office into misdemeanor tickets, juvenile court, handcuffs, tasers and even prison terms.
Students have been suspended under school zero tolerance policies for bringing to school “look alike substances” such as oregano, breath mints, birth control pills and powdered sugar.
Look-alike weapons (toy guns—even Lego-sized ones, hand-drawn pictures of guns, pencils twirled in a “threatening” manner, imaginary bows and arrows, fingers positioned like guns) can also land a student in hot water, in some cases getting them expelled from school or charged with a crime.
Not even good deeds go unpunished.
One 13-year-old was given detention for exposing the school to “liability” by sharing his lunch with a hungry friend. A third grader was suspended for shaving her head in sympathy for a friend who had lost her hair to chemotherapy. And then there was the high school senior who was suspended for saying “bless you” after a fellow classmate sneezed.
These outrageous incidents are exactly what you’ll see more of now that in-person school is back in session, especially once you add COVID-19 mandates to the mix.
Having police in the schools only adds to the danger.
Thanks to a combination of media hype, political pandering and financial incentives, the use of armed police officers (a.k.a. school resource officers) to patrol school hallways has risen dramatically in the years since the Columbine school shooting.
Funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, these school resource officers (SRO) have become de facto wardens in elementary, middle and high schools, doling out their own brand of justice to the so-called “criminals” in their midst with the help of tasers, pepper spray, batons and brute force.
In the absence of school-appropriate guidelines, police are more and more “stepping in to deal with minor rulebreaking: sagging pants, disrespectful comments, brief physical skirmishes. What previously might have resulted in a detention or a visit to the principal’s office was replaced with excruciating pain and temporary blindness, often followed by a trip to the courthouse.”
Young Alex Stone didn’t even make it past the first week of school before he became a victim of the police state. Directed by his teacher to do a creative writing assignment involving a series of fictional Facebook statuses, Stone wrote, “I killed my neighbor’s pet dinosaur. I bought the gun to take care of the business.” Despite the fact that dinosaurs are extinct, the status fabricated, and the South Carolina student was merely following orders, his teacher reported him to school administrators, who in turn called the police.
In almost every case, these undeniably harsh methods are used to punish kids—some as young as 4 and 5 years old—for simply failing to follow directions or throwing tantrums.
Very rarely do the kids pose any credible danger to themselves or others.
Unbelievably, these tactics are all legal, at least when employed by school officials or school resource officers in the nation’s public schools.
This is what happens when you introduce police and police tactics into the schools.
Paradoxically, by the time you add in the lockdowns and active shooter drills, instead of making the schools safer, school officials have succeeded in creating an environment in which children are so traumatized that they suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares, anxiety, mistrust of adults in authority, as well as feelings of anger, depression, humiliation, despair and delusion.
These police state tactics have not made the schools any safer.
The fallout has been what you’d expect, with the nation’s young people treated like hardened criminals: handcuffed, arrested, tasered, tackled and taught the painful lesson that the Constitution (especially the Fourth Amendment) doesn’t mean much in the American police state.
Unfortunately, advocates for such harsh police tactics and weaponry like to trot out the line that school safety should be our first priority lest we find ourselves with another school shooting. What they will not tell you is that such shootings are rare.
As one congressional report found, the schools are, generally speaking, safe places for children.
There can be no avoiding the hands-on lessons being taught in the schools about the role of police in our lives, ranging from active shooter drills and school-wide lockdowns to incidents in which children engaging in typically childlike behavior are suspended (for shooting an imaginary “arrow” at a fellow classmate), handcuffed (for being disruptive at school), arrested (for throwing water balloons as part of a school prank), and even tasered (for not obeying instructions).
Instead of raising up a generation of freedom fighters—which one would hope would be the objective of the schools—government officials seem determined to churn out newly minted citizens of the American police state who are being taught the hard way what it means to comply, fear and march in lockstep with the government’s dictates.
So what’s the answer, not only for the here-and-now—the children growing up in these quasi-prisons—but for the future of this country?
How do you convince a child who has been routinely handcuffed, shackled, tied down, locked up, and immobilized by government officials—all before he reaches the age of adulthood—that he has any rights at all, let alone the right to challenge wrongdoing, resist oppression and defend himself against injustice?
Most of all, how do you persuade a fellow American that the government works for him when, for most of his young life, he has been incarcerated in an institution that teaches young people to be obedient and compliant citizens who don’t talk back, don’t question and don’t challenge authority?
As we’ve seen with other issues, any significant reforms will have to start locally and trickle upwards.
For starters, parents need to be vocal, visible and organized and demand that school officials 1) adopt a policy of positive reinforcement in dealing with behavior issues; 2) minimize the presence in the schools of police officers and cease involving them in student discipline; and 3) insist that all behavioral issues be addressed first and foremost with a child’s parents, before any other disciplinary tactics are attempted.
If you want young people who grow up seeing themselves as prisoners, run the schools like prisons.
If, on the other hand, you want to raise up a generation of freedom fighters, who will actually operate with justice, fairness, accountability and equality towards each other and their government, then run the schools like freedom forums.
Remove the metal detectors and surveillance cameras, re-assign the cops elsewhere, and start treating our nation’s young people like citizens of a republic and not inmates in a police state penitentiary.
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The crisis in Syria’s southern province of Daraa continues, as the Syrian Arab Army’s (SAA) elite 4th Division deployed heavy rocket launchers.
They brought the weapons near the southern part of Daraa city, known as Daraa al-Balad on August 20th
Syrian pro-government sources said that the rocket launchers were deployed to mount more pressure on the gunmen, who are still refusing to leave the area and conclude any sort of agreement.
Late on August 20th, Mohamed Hilal Zatima, a former rebel commander, was killed by SAA shelling in the area where the gunmen are dug in.
The killing of Zatima will likely lead to more escalation in Daraa al-Balad, which the SAA expects, as some local media report that an ultimatum was put forth, providing the former rebels with at most 15 days to surrender their weapons.
Less than a week earlier, Russia offered local leaders in Daraa al-Balad a roadmap that would fulfill the demands of Syrian authorities and guarantee the rights of the locals, which the former rebels rejected.
Meanwhile, Russia’s efforts in Greater Idlib are a bit less diplomatic towards Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other al-Qaeda-affiliated factions.
On August 19th, Russian warplanes bombed a headquarters of HTS in the town of Ein Shib in the western Idlib countryside.
On August 20th, a series of airstrikes hit Ein Shib as well as the town of Qurqnia in the northern countryside of Idlib.
On August 21st, Russian airstrikes destroyed a compound located near the town of Hmeimat in the al-Ghab Plains in the northwestern countryside of Hama. The region is an infamous stronghold of HTS, the de-facto ruler of Greater Idlib, and the Turkistan Islamic Party.
On August 22nd, making it four days in a row, airstrikes struck the outskirts of the towns of Kansafra, Mareian and Almaouzrah in the al-Zawiya Mount in the southern countryside of Idlib.
These efforts are necessary because HTS and the factions with it continue to violate the ceasefire agreement in Greater Idlib, while Turkey does nothing but undermines it even further.
Ankara is mostly focused on fighting the Kurdish groups in Northeastern Syria.
Turkish combat drones continue to target areas held by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria’s northeastern region.
On August 21st and 22nd, Turkish drone strikes struck vehicles belonging to the SDF, no human losses were reported.
On August 20th, however, Turkey carried out two lethal drone strikes.
The first strike claimed the life of Saladin al-Shihabi, an Iranian Kurdish commander of the SDF.
The second strike claimed the lives of four personnel of the SDF, including a commander of the Tell Tamer Military Council.
The SDF blamed Russia of being unable to contain the ceasefire violations by Turkey and the terrorist factions it backs.
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The serial war criminality and immense cruelty of the US Alliance has been enabled by the extraordinary mendacity, genocidal racism and resolute exceptionalism of US Alliance governments and Western Mainstream media (MSM). Summarized below are the horrendous realities of the US Alliance-imposed Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide that are ignored by deeply racist, genocide-complicit and genocide-ignoring Western leaders and MSM.
(1) Massive US lyingenabled the 9/11 false flag excusefor the invasion and devastation of Afghanistan, Iraq and other Muslim countries. I.F. Stone: “Governments lie” and Gore Vidal: “Unlike most Americans who lie all the time, I hate lying”.
Numerous science, engineering, architecture, aviation, military and intelligence experts conclude that the US Government was responsible for the 9-11 atrocity (3,000 people killed) with some asserting Israeli and Saudi involvement, but US-beholden Western Mainstream media are united in blind belief in the “official version” of mendacious George W. Bush whose administration told 935 lies about Iraq between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq.
Detailed scientific reports from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Alaska Fairbanks reject the lying Bush “official version of 9/11” and evidence the explosive demolition of the 3 WTC skyscrapers on 9/11 (that necessarily implies US Government involvement in that atrocity). Asserted “terrorism” is to the Zionist-subverted US Alliance state terrorists as asserted “antisemitism” is to the genocidally racist, Islamophobic, anti-Arab anti-semitic, anti-Jewish anti-semitic, holocaust-complicit and holocaust-ignoring Zionists and Apartheid Israel. Re state terrorism, the British have invaded 193 countries, Australia 85, France 82, the US 72 (52 after WW2), Germany 39 and Canada 25, as compared to Japan 30, Russia 25, Apartheid Israel 12, China 2, Afghanistan zero since 1760, Iran zero since the 7th century CE, and India and nearly all of the Developing World zero (0).
(2) The Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide has been associated with 3.6 million under-5 infant deaths, 5.2 million avoidable deaths from deprivation , an estimated 1.6 million violent deaths, and 6.8 million deaths from violence and deprivation in US-, Australia- and NATO-occupied Afghanistan in 2001-2021. US-backed removal of a secular Afghan government in 1978 precipitated the Russian invasion and war involving US-backed Islamists (avoidable deaths from deprivation 2.9 million, 1979-1989) followed by civil war won by the Taliban (avoidable deaths from deprivation 3.3 million, 1989-1999). The variously US-implicated and US -imposed 1979-2021 Afghan Holocaust has been associated with 13.0 million untimely Afghan deaths.
(3) Global Opiate Holocaust. The US rapidly restored the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from 6% of world market share in 2001 back to 90% by 2007, and caused 5.8 million opiate-related deaths world-wide since 9/11. The US Government has been successively involved in the opiate scourge in Turkey, South East Asia, Afghanistan and Latin America. US-threatened and US-sanctioned Iran leads the world in interdiction of US-protected Afghan opiates that presently kill about 0.3 million people annually. For religious reasons the Taliban banned alcohol, prohibited smoking for government employees, and banned opium production. Each year smoking, alcohol and illicit drugs kill about 8 million, 2.8 million and 0.8 million people each year for total of about 11.8 million people worldwide. In contrast, 7.4 million people presently die annually from deprivation on Spaceship Earth with the First World, notably the US, in charge of the flight deck.
(4) The US-imposed Iranian Holocaust has been associated with 4 million Iranian deaths in the 4-decade US-imposed Iranian Holocaust, comprising 1 million Iranian deaths in the 1980-1988 US-backed Iran-Iraq War, and 3 million avoidable deaths from US sanctions from 1979 onwards. Iran suffered huge famines associated with British and Russian occupation in WW1 (up to 8-10 million dying in the 1917-1919 famine) and in WW2 (up to 3-4 million dying in the 1942-1943 famine). Following US withdrawal from devastated Afghanistan, a nervous world asks: which impoverished country is next? Iran heads the list followed by Venezuela and Cuba (all subject already to unsuccessful armed US invasions). Iran has zero (0) nuclear weapons as compared to the US (5,800-6,185), Russia (6.372-6.490), China (300-320), France (290), UK (200-215), Pakistan (160), India (150), Apartheid Israel (90), and North Korea (30-40).
(5) The post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust and American Holocaust. The 2001-2021 Afghan Genocide and Afghan Holocaust (6.8 million deaths from violence and imposed deprivation) is part of a US-imposed, post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide (32 million Muslim deaths from violence, 5 million, and imposed deprivation, 27 million, in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9/11 false flag atrocity that killed 3,000 people). 1.7 million Americans die preventably each year from “lifestyle choice reasons” and from “political choice reasons”. Thus 1.7 million per year x 20 years = 34 million Americans have died thus since 9/11. Since 9/11 Zionist-beholden US Administrations have spent $6 trillion on killing over 30 million Muslims abroad rather than trying to keep over 30 million Americans alive at home. 30% of Biden’s Cabinet are Jewish Zionists and the remainder are “moderate” Christian Zionists as opposed to the fervently Trumpist Evangelical Zionists.
(6) There have been 7,000 post-9/11 US combat deaths versus 146,000 US veteran deaths from suicide. About 7,018 American soldiers died in the post-9/11 US War on Terror in Occupied Iraq (4,566) and Occupied Afghanistan (3,452), but vastly more US veterans have died from suicide. The US Veterans Administration has found that an average of about 20 US veterans have suicided daily in the past few decades, and thus post-9/11 US veteran suicides have totalled (20 suicides per day) x (365.25 days per year) x 20 years = 146,100.
(7) China observes but the US Alliance grossly violates the Fourth Geneva Convention and the UN Genocide Convention. Killing in war occurs not just through violence (active killing) but also through avoidable deaths from imposed deprivation (passive killing). Mass mortality in a Subject population occurs in gross Occupier violation of Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (the Fourth Geneva Convention) that unequivocally demands that the Occupier must supply its conquered Subjects with life-sustaining food and medical requisites “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”. Infant mortality (under-1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births) is 12 ( China ), 16 ( Tibet ), 6 (USA ) and 111 (US Alliance-occupied Afghanistan). The Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) (maternal deaths per 100,000 live births) is 20-27 ( China ), 100 (Tibet ), 14 (USA ) and 400-1,200 (US Alliance-occupied Afghanistan).Contrary to US Alliance claims of a “Uighur Genocide”, in Xinjiang (50% Uighur and 50% Han Chinese) the maternal mortality rate was 27 per 100,000 in 2018, the infant mortality rate was 14 under-1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, the average life expectancy was 74.8 years in 2015, and there has been no mass sterilization in the region. That said, China is legitimately criticized for harsh treatment of Uighurs (mass imprisonment of 1 million for re-education), dissidents and Hong Kong democracy protestors. Genocide is defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”. In relation to “the fullest extent of the means available to it” the GDP (nominal) per capita (US dollars, 2021) is as follows (in brackets) for Afghanistan ($592), China ($11,819), US ($68,309), UK ($46,344), Germany ($51,860), France ($44,995) and serial war criminal US lackey Australia ($62,723).
(8) Nazi and US Alliance Occupied/Occupier death ratios of 10 and 1,970, respectively. In 1944 the Nazi Germany dictator Adolph Hitler ordered reprisals involving 10 Italian men and boys executed for every German soldier killed by Partisans (effected in the subsequent Ardeatine Caves Massacre). The Occupied/Occupier death ratio for the 2001-2021 Afghan War is accordingly 6,800,000/ 3,452 = 1,970 or about 200 times greater than the 10 advocated by Nazi mass murderer Adolph. Hitler. Ignoring violent Afghan deaths, the Occupied/Occupier death ratio for the 2001-2021 Afghan War is 5,200,000/3,452 = 1,506 or about 1,500 and thus 150 times greater than the 10 advocated by Hitler. The post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust deaths/ 9/11 death toll = 32 million/3,000 = 10,667, 1,067 times greater than the Them/Us reprisals ratio of 10 ordered by Hitler.
(9) Vital post-war aid provision for tens of millions of Afghans versus extraction of tens of thousands of US Alliance personnel, collaborators and other anti-Taliban people fearing reprisals. Occupied Afghanistan was heavily dependent on international aid and Biden has threatened to hamper such aid and hence post-liberation recovery if the new regime doesn’t play ball. Biden has already frozen the assets of impoverished Afghanistan, a move that will entrench Afghan mass mortality from dire deprivation. The Taliban have declared Amnesty for its opponents and proper treatment of women “under Islamic law” but many remain fearful based on harsh Taliban rule 20 years ago. For Occupied Afghanistan in 2020, under-5 infant deaths totalled 76,000 and avoidable deaths from deprivation totalled 106,000. In 2020 the “under-5 infant mortality as a percentage of total population” for Afghanistan (0.1950%) was a shocking 118.5 times greater than for Japan (0.00145%), evidence of gross violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention by the occupying US Alliance countries. To this carnage we must add the infant mortality and avoidable deaths from deprivation among the circa 3.3 million internally displaced Afghans and the 2.5 million registered refugees in Iran and Pakistan from Afghanistan (present population 39 million, half requiring aid). Those rightly supporting all human rights for all as set out in the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) should also spare a thought for the undoubted right of millions of ordinary Afghan women to see the survival of their children.
(10) Exposure of the perpetrators of the Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide. This is an immense crime that demandswar crimes trials of the perpetrators before the International Criminal Court (ICC). That is not going to happen because the US does not recognize the authority of the ICC whereas the ICC cravenly accepts the authority of the US. However international and intra-national war crimes trials by eminent humanitarians are feasible and urgently required. Establishment of the truth is more important than punishment of the guilty (the more so since the latter is unlikely to ever happen). Inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in post-Apartheid South Africa, war crimes trials should be legislatively constituted on the basis that there should be no punishment for truth telling accompanied by sincere apology (see Gideon Polya, “Afghan Holocaust – The Awful Truth Versus US Alliance Lies”, Countercurrents, 22 August 2021).
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After 20 years and a staggering US$2.23 trillion spent in a “forever war” persistently spun as promoting democracy and benefiting the “Afghan people,” it’s legitimate to ask what the Empire of Chaos has to show for it.
The numbers are dire. Afghanistan remains the world’s 7th poorest nation: 47% of the population lives below the poverty line, according to the Asian Development Bank. No less than 75% of the – dissolved – Kabul government’s budget was coming from international aid. According to the World Bank, that aid was responsible for the turnover of 43% of the economy – one that was mired in massive government corruption.
According to the terms of the Washington-Taliban agreement signed in Doha in February 2020, the US should continue to fund Afghanistan during and after its withdrawal.
Now, with the Fall of Kabul and the imminent return of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, it’s becoming clear that applying financial soft power tactics may be even more deadly than a mere NATO occupation.
Washington has frozen $9.5 billion in Afghan Central Bank reserves and the International Monetary Fund has canceled its lending to Afghanistan, including $460 million that’s part of a Covid-19 relief program.
These dollars pay for government salaries and imports. Their absence will lead to the “Afghan people” hurting even more, a direct consequence of inevitable currency depreciation, rising food prices and inflation.
A corollary to this economic tragedy is a classic “take the money and run” caper: Former president Ashraf Ghani fled the country after allegedly packing four cars with $169 million in cash, and leaving $5 million on the tarmac of Kabul airport.
That’s according to two witnesses: one of his own bodyguards and the Afghan ambassador in Tajikistan; Ghani has denied the looting allegations.
Ghani’s plane was denied landing in Tajikistan and also Uzbekistan, proceeding to Oman until Ghani was welcomed in the UAE – very close to Dubai, a global Mecca of smuggling, money laundering and racketeering.
The Taliban have already stated that a new government and a new political and economic framework will be announced only after NATO troops are definitively out of the country next month.
The complex negotiations to form an “inclusive” government, as repeatedly promised by Taliban spokesmen, are de facto led on the non-Taliban side by two members of a council of three: former President Hamid Karzai and Ghani’s eternal rival, the leader of the High Council for National Reconciliation, Abdullah Abdullah. The third member, acting in the shadows, is warlord-turned-politician and two-time prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Karzai and Abdullah, both vastly experienced, are regarded by the Americans as “acceptable,” so that may go a long way in terms of facilitating future, official Western recognition of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and restored multilateral institution funding.
Yet there are myriad problems including the very active role of Khalil Haqqani, who leads the Taliban Peace Council Commission while on a “terror watch list” and under UN sanctions. Not only is Haqqani in charge of Kabul’s security; he’s also side by side with Karzai and Abdullah in the discussions to form an inclusive government.
What makes the Taliban run
The Taliban have been operating outside of the Western banking system for two decades now. The bulk of their income comes from transit tax on trade routes (for instance, from Iran) and fuel levies. Profits from opium and heroin exports (domestic consumption not permitted) reportedly account for less than 10% of their income.
In countless villages across the deep Afghan countryside, the economy revolves around petty cash transactions and barter.
I received a copy of a high-level Pakistani academia-intelligence paper examining the challenges facing the new Afghan government.
The paper notes that “the standard route of development to be followed will be very pro-people. Taliban’s Islam is socialist. It has an aversion towards wealth being accumulated in fewer hands” – and, crucially, also an aversion to usury.
On the initial steps towards development projects, the paper expects them to come from Russian, Chinese, Turkish, Iranian and Pakistani companies – as well as a few government sectors. The Islamic Emirate “expects infrastructure development packages” at costs that are “affordable by the country’s existing GDP.”
Afghanistan’s nominal GDP in 2020 was $19.8 billion, according to World Bank figures.
New aid and investment packages are expected to come from Shanghai Cooperation Organization member nations (Russia, China, Pakistan) or SCO observers (Turkey and currently Iran – scheduled to become a full member at the SCO summit next month in Tajikistan). Inbuilt is the notion that Western recognition will be a Sisyphean task.
The paper admits that the Taliban have not had time to evaluate how the economy will be the key vector deciding Afghanistan’s future independence.
But this passage of the paper may hold the key: “In their consultations with the Chinese, they were advised to go slow and not rock the boat of the Western world system by talking too soon about state control of capitalism, interest-free economy, and de-linking from the IMF-based financial system. However, since the West has pulled back all the money from the Afghan exchequer, Afghanistan is likely to apply for short-term aid packages against their resource base.”
IMF-NATO as brothers in arms
I asked Michael Hudson, an economics professor at the University of Missouri Kansas City and Peking University, how he would recommend the new government to act. He answered, “For one thing, embarrass the hell out of the IMF for acting as an arm of NATO.”
Hudson referred to a Wall Street Journal article written by a former IMF advisor now with the Atlantic Council as saying that “now, since recognition is frozen, banks all over the world will hesitate to do business with Kabul. This move provides the US with leverage to negotiate with the Taliban.”
So this may be going the Venezuela way – with the IMF not “recognizing” a new government for months and even years. And on the seizure of Afghan gold by the New York Fed – actually a collection of private banks – we see echoes of the looting of Libya’s and seizure of Venezuela’s gold.
Hudson sees all of the above as “an abuse of the international monetary system – which is supposed to be a public utility – as an arm of NATO run by the US. IMF behavior, especially regarding the new drawing rights, should be presented as a litmus test” for the viability of a Taliban-led Afghanistan.
Hudson is now working on a book about the collapse of antiquity. His research led him to find Cicero, in In Favor of the Manilian Law (Pro Lege Manilia), writing about Pompeus’s military campaign in Asia and its effects on the provinces in a passage that perfectly applies to the “forever war” in Afghanistan:
“Words cannot express, gentlemen, how bitterly hated we are among foreign nations because of the wanton and outrageous conduct of the men whom in recent years we have sent to govern them. For, in those countries, what temple do you suppose had been held sacred by our officers, what state inviolable, what home sufficiently guarded by its closed doors? Why, they look about for rich and flourishing cities that they may find an occasion for a war against them to satisfy their lust for plunder.”
Switching from the classics to a more pedestrian level, WikiLeaks has been replaying a sort of Afghanistan Greatest Hits , reminding public opinion, for instance, that as far back as 2008 there was already “no pre-defined end date” for the “forever war.”
“The goal is to use Afghanistan to wash money out of the tax bases of the US and Europe through Afghanistan and back into the hands of a transnational security elite. The goal is an endless war, not a successful war.”
The “forever war” may have been a disaster for the bombed, invaded and impoverished “Afghan people,” but it was an unmitigated success for what Ray McGovern so memorably defines as the MICIMATT (Military-Industrial-Counter-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think Tank) complex. Anyone who bought stocks of Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and the rest of that crowd made – literally – a killing.
Facts are indeed dire. Barack Obama – who presided over a hefty Afghan “kill list” –throws a birthday party and invites the woke nouveaux riches. Julian Assange suffers psychological torture imprisoned in Belmarsh. And Ashraf Ghani mulls how to spend $169 million in the Dubai rackets, funds some say were duly stolen from the “Afghan people.”
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This article was originally published on Asia Times.
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).
If you have been researching the Wuhan Virus and the global geopolitical situation, you have likely come across independent journalists from around the world, who have looked at many countries’ annual death statitstics, and noticed something unusual. What they have found is that while countries have reported many people dying from Covid-19 in 2020, the annual death totals for the countries have not generally increased. This is suprising. We have not found new profound cures for all the other things people die of like old age, heart disease, cancer, and lung disease; so if these things continue as usual, and there is a new thing (Covid) that is killing lots of people, then there should be more people dying in total. If not, this supports the observation that there has been a big push through much of the world to claim Covid-19 as the cause of death, when arguably, it was something else that caused death. There are many reports to support this, some of which are found on our site www.drtrozzi.com.
To demonstrate this, consider someone who has smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for fifty years and developed severe COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). They are very fragile, live short of breath, require numerous medications to survive, and live on supplemental oxygen. Any respiratory challenge could dramatically worsen their condition and even precipitate their death. This challenge could be inhaling some dust or other irritant, catching a cold, or even a change in the weather. When someone in this situation dies, the cause of death is COPD, or “years of smoking” if you like. The cause of their death is not attributed to dust, a cold, or a change in the weather; though these things may have been the proverbial ”straw that broke the camel’s back”. However recently we find in many places, such a person was reported as dying from covid. This is a mild example. There are many reports of deaths from cancer, heart disease, and even physical trauma such as a motorcycle accident, being recorded as “death due to covid-19”. The result of this abuse of statistics is that, though the same typical number of people are dying, more of them are being recorded as deaths due to Covid-19, and less are being reported as dying from other causes. In other words, deaths are being shifted from their appropriate and real category, to the political agenda’s category: Covid-19.
This is revealed not only by the numerous physicians and health care workers blowing the whistle on the pressure to over-diagnose Covid-19 as the cause of death; but also by the lack of an increase in nations’ total death numbers.
So let’s have a look at Canada’s annual total deaths statistics, and see if lots more people are really dying.
Here are the same numbers presented in graph form.
Observations and comparison to the Spanish Flu
Canada’s number of deaths per thousand increased gradually from 2012 until 2020 from 6.9 to 7.89. Globally number of deaths per thousand vary greatly between countries. Less than 2 is very low, and 15 is very high. Living conditions, as well as the age of the population, determine a country’s number of deaths per thousand. It is poor countries with poor nutrition, poor sanitary conditions, and other harsher challenges to survival that have the highest death rates.
Notice that there is no particular big rise in Canadian deaths in 2020, though the “pandemic” began early in 2020. How can this be if a new super fatal disease is killing large numbers of people? Is it possible that we have simultaneously cured much of the real causes of death such as heart disease, lung disease and cancer. Not likely. In reality, we know that many patients who needed treatments for major illnesses such as cancer, were neglected due to the closing of hospital services during 2020, and the mortality rates of these diseases therefore likely increased.
Incorporating the Wuhan virus, and the medical neglect of serious illnesses like cancer due to hospital closures, the Canadian 2020 total death per thousand rate was 7.89 and it was just 0.23 higher than 2019. This is not an impressive or unusual change; the same figure increased by more, 0.36 in 2015. For some context, let’s consider the very genuine Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918 which alone killed approximately 6 out of every thousand Canadians.
So how did Covid 19 justify the use of the term “Pandemic. “
When most of us think of a “pandemic”, we think of an infectious disease, spreading far and wide, and causing lots of death.
Up until 2009, the WHO organization followed this definition for a pandemic:
“An influenza pandemic is a worldwide epidemic caused by a new strain of virus which leads to infection rates and mortality rates which exceed seasonal but similarly heavy waves of influenza by several orders of magnitude. A precondition for an influenza pandemic is the appearance of a viral subtype which had not yet circulated amongst the human population or which had occurred so long ago that no residual immunity remains amongst the population, and which is capable of provoking severe illness and of disseminating effectively from one human to another.”
Now let’s look at some recent history. In 2009 the WHO declared Swine Flu H1N1 as a pandemic. This resulted in massive pre-orders of new vaccines for Swine Flu across many countries, with governments accepting liability for damages caused by the vaccines. The pharmaceutical industry had a gauranteed market with little or no risk or responsibility. However, when the “pandemic” officially ended in August 2010, it had caused only 18,449 deaths globally. Compare that with the annual global seasonal flu deaths of around 250,000. The Swine Flu “pandemic” had not caused orders of magnitude more deaths than the seasonal flu, rather it had caused only 7% as much death as a seasonal flu, so it was not a real pandemic. It did not satisfy the criteria: “mortality rates which exceed seasonal but similarly heavy waves of influenza by several orders of magnitude.”
So, in 2010, The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe launched an investigation into the undue influence of Big Pharma and the WHO for falsifying a pandemic to create a lucrative vaccine market.
However, the WHO changed it’s definition of “pandemic” to no longer require a high mortality rate; they just took that part out of the definition. This paved the way for new lucrative power grabbing enterprises like the Covid-19 “pandemic”.
So Canada and the rest of the world, how is covid-19 a “pandemic”. The answer is right out of the novel 1984. The WHO changed its definition of the word pandemic.
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As I posted this morning, Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis pulled the rug out from under the lying scum that constitutes the American medical establishment by establishing throughout Florida medical centers that cure Covid instead of spreading it with vaccination.Now it has happened again.This time in faraway India.
The Indian Bar Association is charging WHO chief scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan with the mass murder of Indians.Dr. Swaminathan spoke against the use of Ivermectin in the Tamil Nadu province with the consequence that Ivermectin’s use was blocked and Covid cases skyrocketed with deaths increasing ten-fold.
In the provinces where Ivermectin was used—Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Goa— Covid cases declined sharply by 98%, 97%, 94%, and 86%. This success, which cleared large areas of India from Covid, was kept from you by the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, AMA, Biden, Schumer, Pelosi, and the rest of the criminals who control the narrative.
Acting for the Indian Bar Association, Dipali Ojha said the WHO official is accused of misconduct because she used her position as a public health official to further the agenda of special interests to maintain an Emergency Use Authorization for the lucrative vaccine industry.
Dipali Ojha further stated that the Indian Bar Association is bringing action under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code against Dr. Soumya Swaminathan and others, for murder of each person who died due to obstruction of treatment of Covid patients with Ivermectin. Punishment under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code is death or life imprisonment.
Well, finally, the beginning of accountability for the orchestrated “Covid Pandemic.”As I have emphasized for some months, Dr. Fauci, NIH, CDC, WHO, FDA, the presstitutes, and the politicians have used Covid to kill and injure large numbers of people for the sake of billions of dollars in Big Pharma vaccine profits.The health authorities, whore media, and scum politicians have lied through their teeth and prevented the use of known, safe cures.Not a single person needed to die or have health impaired by the virus.They were murdered in order to generate fear and panic to drive vaccine profits, insure the destruction of civil liberty, and perhaps serve the darker agenda of population reduction.
Here is a report of the legal action taken against WHO officials.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the American Bar Association had the integrity and courage to bring charges against, or at least sue, Fauci, Walensky, FDA, NIH, CDC, the governor’s who criminally imposed lockdowns and harmful mask mandates, and the criminal medical organizations and associations that aided and abetted mass murder by blocking Ivermectin and HCQ and punished the doctors who saved lives by prescribing these totally safe medications.
We are faced with the situation in which official government and private organizations in the US, UK, and EU are greater mass murderers than Pol Pot!And nothing will be done about it.The West is so undemocratic that accountability is impossible.
The criminals in charge are about to illegally bestow final approval on the killer vaccines so that they can continue serving their agendas with mass inoculation with a vaccine that is known both to kill and to spread the virus.
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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 frequent contributor to Global Research.
All I have to say is wow! The following is an admission that the so-called vaccine is a disaster in the making especially for those who blindly rushed to become Big Pharma’s guinea pigs.
When two great minds come to similar conclusions about the current global push to vaccinate everyone with the COVID experimental vaccines, we should pay close attention. Both highly experienced scientists have a totally negative view of the vaccination effort.
Last year once I realized that the Covid campaign was a fear campaign and not a scientific or medical campaign, I understood that the operating agenda was not a public health agenda. It became clear that there was a profit agenda and also a control agenda in which civil liberties and their legal and constitutional protections were being cast aside.
Bill Gates is actively financing and promoting new untested vaccines supposed to keep us at least somewhat safe from a ‘ghastly” death from the novel coronavirus and supposedly allow us to resume somewhat “normal” lives.
The Pfizer vaccine is on a fast track for FDA approval, hearings possible today according to the NYTimes. I suspect the political pressures are enormous. Still, how can approval be possible when the safety record of this vaccine is far worse than any vaccine in the past, including many that were pulled from the market?
To direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to ensure that any individual traveling on a flight that departs from or arrives to an airport inside the United States or a territory of the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID–19, and for other purposes.
In a report on COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness released yesterday, Dr. Geoff Mitchell MD, JD determined the shots “neither safe nor effective,” and concluded “the best data tells us that the COVID-19 vaccines are failing.”
While the COVID injections have been characterized as being somewhere around 95% effective against SARS-CoV-2 infection, this claim is the product of statistical obfuscation. In short, they’ve conflated relative risk reduction and absolute risk reduction.
The Department of Defense will require all U.S. military troops to take the COVID-19 vaccine by September 15th. The Associated Press earlier reported on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s memo.
A Haiti disaster relief scenario had been envisaged at the headquarters of US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) in Miami one day prior to the January 12, 2010 earthquake.
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Right now the Australian people are being cruelly subjugated due to the fake pandemic. The police there have been given extraordinary powers beyond what would be considered rational. These measures can be implemented without police officers having to reveal their identity.
When the police are given total freedom to impose injustices on a compliant population for a pandemic that never was it reeks of totalitarianism, and is the modern-day equivalent of Franco’s Spain, Mussolini’s Italy, Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany. Powers the Australian police have been given include:
forcible entry into buildings
preventing people from moving about
quarantining people
making people take tests and undergo medical treatment
compelling people to give information
While the Australian government releases death statistics (allegedly from Covid) on a day-to-day basis it only releases vaccine-related deaths that are at least 90 days old. Thus we know that from the 6 days 18-23 August there were 17 so-called Covid deaths, those dying after having tested positive for Covid-19. It could be that every one of those 17 deaths were vaccine victims.
The latest figures we have show that there were 123 deaths by 1 May from the two vaccines. The Covid deaths as of 23 August stood at 984. We know that by 31 August 2020 there were 682 deaths claimed to be Covid-19 deaths. We also know that people vaccinated develop Covid from the spike protein. So every vaccine associated death is likely to be a Covid-19 statistic. The vaccines are killing people and this is being covered up with at least a 3 month lag in the release of figures.
Is it any wonder that the lorry-drivers have decided to do the job idle politicians, frightened medics and lawyers choose to ignore? On 31 August the truck drivers will bring Australia to a standstill until the government caves in. Clearly they do not want to be the victims of untested, unsafe vaccines. It is not just the lorry drivers. Militia groups are beginning to form ready to back up the lorry drivers. This blog has heard of two such groups on the ground in Australia.
And there are whispers of not just private militia organisations from veteran Australians but groups ready to support them from around the world. Their battle is everyone’s battle. Their war is our war. Join them. Give them your support.
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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, All the Goss.
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Our successor to This Week in the Guardian, This Week in the New Normal is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.
1. UNIVERSITIES PUNISHING UNVACCINATED STUDENTS
Universities in the United States are issuing fines to any students who refused to take the Covid “vaccine”, according to a report from Zero Hedge.
West Virginia Wesleyan College, announced a few weeks ago that it will fine any unvaccinated student $750. Whilst Connecticut-based Quinnipiac University will fine them $100 per week increasing in $25 increments (equal to $2250 for the first semester).
Not only that, but unvaccinated students will also be denied internet access. In the modern age, attempting to function in an academic institution without access to the internet, emails or digital learning resources is almost impossible. So this is essentially a mandate under any other name.
Other campuses are instituting “testing fees” of over $1500, but only for the unvaccinated. This is in spite of the fact vaccinated people are capable of testing positive for Covid.
2. “THE GREAT JOBS RESET”
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is the big daddy when it comes to pushing out the Great Reset, it’s the brainchild of their Chairman Klaus Schwab after all, and this past week they have unveiled their latest project. It’s called the “Jobs Reset Summit”.
The summit discusses, among other things, the alleged “impact of the pandemic” on employment. Bemoaning the loss of an estimated 255 million full-time jobs from the global economy, without ever mentioning (naturally) that these job losses had nothing to do with Covid, and everything to do with lockdown policies which were never intended to stop the spread of any virus.
The most alarming position to come out of this summit, however, was definitely a tweet that stated:
Get your COVID-19 jab – or you could face consequences from your employer #COVID19 #JobsReset21
Clearly supporting the idea that unvaccinated people should face censure, or even termination, from their employers. Just like they did with their “You’ll own nothing and be happy” article, they deleted the tweet and re-titled the article after a somewhat negative reaction.
The march toward a cashless society continues apace. We’ve been told already that cash is bad for the environment, and also contaminated with germs and drugs. Now the press is simply treating the cashless future as a fait acompli.
It seems the totally real (and not-at-all agenda-driven) pandemic has accidentally facilitated the rise of a highly controlling government policy, which was around years before “Covid” even existed.
Weird how many times that’s happened in the last 18 months.
4. NO TRANSPLANTS FOR THE UNVAXXED
This week hospitals in both the USA and Ireland have admitted to removing unvaccinated patients from the donor organ waiting list.
Beaumont Hospital in Ireland sent out letters recommending doctors remove all unvaccinated patients from the kidney transplant waiting list. Whilst a man in Washington state was told he would not be considered for a heart transplant as long as he declined the Covid jab. Other patients in the same hospital, the University of Washington Medical Center, are reportedly in the same position.
The good news is that the public outcry was so intense, that the Beaumont hospital was forced to reverse its decision within days of the story breaking. But this policy will not go away, and just become more covert as it spreads.
BONUS: CREEPY SPEECH OF THE WEEK
Whoever runs the corporate puppet that lives inside Justin Trudeau’s skin has clearly decided it’s time for him to shake his rather ineffectual image and try and become a forceful public speaker. In a “strongman” speech in the run-up to the Canadian elections, Trudeau worked himself into a frenzy on vaccination:
"If you don't want to get vaccinated, that's your choice. But don't think you can get on a plane or a train beside vaccinated people and put them at risk!" #elxn44#cdnpolipic.twitter.com/SZHOlsxmEX
“If you don’t want to get vaccinated, that’s your choice. But don’t think you can get on a plane or a train beside vaccinated people and put them at risk!”
A tip for the future though – if you’re going to have the blandest man in the world try and excite a crowd, give him more than 80 people to work with. That said, however poorly delivered and however lukewarm the reception, the sentiment itself is very unsettling. Full on segregation in Canada. As someone remarked to us on Telegram, “instead of the back of the bus, it’s now no bus at all.”
IT’S NOT ALL BAD…
We’ve got the usual protests in France, Australia and all over the world to report this week. It’s also in the news that Denmark will be abandoning all Coronavirus measures from October first…but whether that’s truly good news remains to be seen.
Howver, this week’s main entry for INAB comes in the form of a music video that tells the whole story:
You can follow Lukas Lion on youtube or Instagram, and stream the song on Spotify, Apple music and other platforms.
We’d also remind everyone in the UK that next Saturday, the 28th August, is the Unite for Freedom “Freedom Carnival” protest in London (and maybe other cities around the country). You can also follow their telegram channel for updates.
There’s a lot of change in the air, a lot of agendas in the works, if you see a headline, article, post or interview you think is a sign of the times, post it in the comments, email us or share it on social media and we will add it to the next edition.
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Some have asserted the U.S. empire has reached its historic endpoint because of its defeat in Afghanistan. However, that call is as premature as political scientist Francis Fukuyama’s proclamation that history had “ended” in 1989 when Western liberalism won because the former Soviet Union was coming apart.
Afghanistan might have been the so-called “graveyard of empires” and of certain states at other points in history. But the U.S. defeat in Afghanistan had occurred years earlier, a fact verified by revelations found in the “Afghanistan Papers.” That defeat had no appreciative impact on U.S. foreign-policy makers, who continued their destructive path in places like Yemen, Libya and Syria. Only a handful of the U.S. population was still interested in continuing a war in Afghanistan up until the last week or so. But the rulers did not inform the U.S. public, so the masses did not know the war had been lost.
This point is important because one of the lessons that should be taken from understanding that the United States had squandered $2 trillion, murdered 500,000 Afghans, sacrificed 2,300 U.S. service members from the U.S. working class and wounded over 20,000 U.S. military personnel is the public finally understands these wars only benefit the ruling class and have nothing to do with the interests of the vast majority of the people.
Despite this new awareness, the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) warned in its latest Afghanistan News Update:
“While all eyes are on Afghanistan, the United States continues its other wars of aggression across the world, claiming to “fight terrorism”—the same excuse it used to invade Afghanistan 20 years ago. Biden recently authorized air strikes on Somalia, more U.S. Special Forces recently have moved into the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the United States is continuing its mission to further destabilize the Horn of Africa by pushing for so-called “humanitarian intervention” in Ethiopia. That country has been added to the nearly 40 that are under some form of deadly U.S. sanctions that deprive countries of food, fuel, and medicine. Meanwhile, the United States remains entrenched in Iraq, reportedly expanding its Ain al-Asad base despite calls for its withdrawal. All this while it claims to be withdrawing its combat forces from Iraq. Over in Syria, the United States continues the destabilization effort, as well as stealing Syrian resources. Meanwhile, Haiti struggles to effectively respond to yet another natural disaster because of the more than a century’s worth of U.S./Western imperialist aggression.”
As indicated above, while the earthquake in Haiti occurred right in the middle of the U.S.-made drama in Afghanistan, the disaster in Haiti is both a natural disaster and a human-made disaster that requires special mention.
After the devastating 2010 earthquake, billions of dollars flowed into Haiti to support reconstruction. Most of that money flowed right back out. More money went to the Washington Beltway and to the salaries and infrastructure of aid organizations than to reconstruction. Haitian organizations, and the Haitian state, were almost completely bypassed. In keeping with the nefarious logic of disaster capitalism, the so-called “poorest country in the hemisphere”—also known as “The Republic of NGOs”—made certain people rich. For example, the small local oligarchy, with properties to lease and businesses to serve foreigners, benefited. Meanwhile, the crisis in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake was used to cover imperialism’s expansion: The United States and the “Core Group” of Germany, Canada, Spain and a vassal state—Brazil—as well as the Organization of American States (OAS) were able to consolidate their power through the installation of neo-Duvalierist Michel Martelly and the Bald-Headed Party (PHTK).
Will history repeat itself in the wake of the latest earthquake?
Haiti, Afghanistan, Syria, mass incarceration in the United States, and illegal sanctions and corporate press agitation for more aggressive positions on China (simply because China is in the process of defeating Western capital at its own game) all demonstrate the repressive and lethal reality: The Pan-European colonial-capitalist white-supremacist patriarchy is not going to go away quietly. It must be decisively defeated if global humanity is to survive in a way that allows for the potential for real democracy and social justice. The work reflected in this newsletter reflects BAP’s commitment to that historic task.
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Featured image: Raider Brigade Soldiers with 2nd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division conduct a foot patrol in Afghanistan, Dec. 22, 2018, in support of Operation Resolute Support and Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. (defense.gov/army)
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The minute the first Covid case appeared the US Medical Establishment began lying through its teeth and is yet to utter one truthful word.
The entire big money vaccination campaign is based on the lie that there are no cures.The asserted absence of cures is the only reason for the emergency use of an untested and unapproved experimental vaccine.The use of HCQ and Ivermectin has been prevented by protocols established by NIH, CDC, and WHO.
By false assertion of “public health authorities”— read shills for Big Pharma—there are no cures.But President Trump was cured by one—monoclonal antibodies.As of August 21, 2021, Governor Ron DeSantis has opened 15 monoclonal antibody clinics in Florida with more opening this week. See this.
As evidence of cures pours in, the justification for emergency use of the experimental Covid Vaccine disappears.The panicked medical establishment with its imposed and false protocols is demanding full approval of the vaccine before the required testing is complete and despite the obvious failure of the vaccine.Otherwise, the vaccination marketing campaign grinds to a stop, leaving the secret agendas unserved.
We can’t have that, so the dangerous experimental vaccine must be approved so it can continue to be mandated and the secret health-unrelated agendas served.
By exposing the Covid Deception, DeSantis has painted a target on his back. A corrupt medical establishment, so determined to vaccinate all and follow up with endless booster shots that it denied sick and dying people known cures and fired and took away licenses of doctors who used the known cures to save lives, is not going to take lightly their exposure as frauds by DeSantis.Expect any day to have the presstitute scum at the Washington Post, NPR, or CNN produce women accusing DeSantis of sexual abuse, or the crazed New York Times to accuse DeSantis of being a Russian agent and working with Cuba to discredit the CDC and NIH, or the FBI to bring false corruption charges, or Democrats in the state legislature to open an investigation of misappropriation of funds.The American Establishment has ZERO tolerance for truth-tellers and for anyone who gets in the way of its self-serving agendas.
Are Floridians intelligent enough to protect their governor who kept their state open and free? Probably not.
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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 frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
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The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, or MHRA, is meant to be a neutral body that is responsible for making sure that the medicine and medical devices used in the country are acceptably safe.
However, there are serious questions about the agency’s impartiality because they receive significant funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in what can only be considered a major conflict of interest. The foundation holds major shares in COVID-19 vaccine developers Pfizer and BioNTech.
Perhaps this explains why the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine was the first one to be authorized for use in children aged 12 and over back in June and remained the only one available to this age group until Moderna’s vaccine was approved this week.
The approval of Pfizer’s vaccine was particularly shocking when you consider that 86 percent of children who participated in the very short and small clinical study used to make the decision suffered from an adverse reaction.
In a Freedom of Information request posted on the website of the MHRA, a representative of the agency admitted that they do receive funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that mainly supports work on strengthening the regulatory systems in other countries. They added that most of their income comes from fees paid by the pharmaceutical industry.
The agency stated that the current level of grant funding that they receive from the foundation is roughly $3 million, which they say is spread across several projects and three to four financial years.
They added that they would not approve any COVID-19 vaccines until they demonstrate “safety, quality and efficacy through a robust clinical trial programme, as determined by the MHRA, and unless the evidence supports its use.” However, they go on to add that they carefully reviewed the clinical trial data for Pfizer’s vaccine in a study of just 2000 children. They said that the safety data in children was on par with that seen in young adults, which is hardly comforting.
They added that the immunogenicity results, which show how well a vaccine functions, showed that children aged 12 to 15 had similar neutralizing antibody levels to those aged 16 to 25, but they only studied 200 children to reach this conclusion.
Why would any legitimate government agency want to be associated with the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation?
In 2017, the MHRA announced a partnership worth more than £980,000 with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Health Organization aimed at improving safety monitoring of medicine in low and middle-income countries. Two years later, they announced a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to research “medicine use which could impact the health of pregnant women around the world.”
This is deeply troubling to anyone who is familiar with the Gates’ track record. Bill himself has gone on the record in a TED conference as saying that vaccines, healthcare and reproductive services could be used to reduce the world’s population. The foundation has also been accused of giving vaccines with sterilization chemicals to unsuspecting Africans.
India’s National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization even went so far as to cut ties with the foundation after it was revealed that its vaccine “campaigns” being conducted on young Indian girls on the pretense of protecting them from cervical cancer were really a form of cloaked vaccine trials that used two highly controversial HPV vaccines linked to significant injury and death.
It’s hard to believe that medical regulators in any country would want any association with them, but the MHRA has been troubled for many years. In 2005, the agency came under fire from the UK’s House of Commons Health Committee for a lack of transparency, and they were accused of advancing the interests of pharmaceutical companies instead of the interests of the people by the same committee the year before.
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The Pfizer vaccine is on a fast track for FDA approval, hearings possible today according to the NYTimes. I suspect the political pressures are enormous. Still, how can approval be possible when the safety record of this vaccine is far worse than any vaccine in the past, including many that were pulled from the market?
Efficacy
Part of the answer is that CDC is not reporting the statistic most relevant to measuring efficacy. That is: Vaccination status of COVID patients. How many of the new infections and new deaths are in vaccinated individuals, and how many in unvaccinated? Of course, this information is known in CDC databases; it is scandalous that the numbers are not being made public. I do not know if they are being provided to FDA. Israel is more honest, and numbers from there are not encouraging.
Likewise, data about transmissibility, comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, are not being reported, and were not part of the clinical trials last fall.
Safety
There are several systems for reporting vaccine reactions, including deaths, but the only one available to the public is VAERS. It is incomplete, because it relies on voluntary reporting, there is no incentive to report to VAERS, and it is a cumbersome process.
We may compare reports of the COVID vaccines to past years, when there were also hundreds of millions of vaccinations, including annual flu shots and childhood vaccine schedules. The comparison is dramatic.
There were more than twice as many deaths related to the COVID vaccines this year as the sum total of all vaccine deaths in the 30-year history of VAERS.
Given this safety record, how is there any possibility of approval? Here is where the statistical fraud comes in. [I am grateful to have been alerted to this situation by Matthew Crawford]
The safety criterion they have chosen is an obscure computation called PRR for Proportional Reporting Ratio. As the name implies, it is based on RATIOS of different event types and is utterly blind to the ABSOLUTE RATE of such events.
PRR measures the distribution of different kinds of adverse events, e.g. blood clots, heart attacks, and deaths. If those ratios are severely out of line with the great variety of vaccine reactions in the past, PRR would detect that. For example, if the new vaccines caused an extraordinary risk of myocarditis, but everything else was low, then PRR would flag that. But if myocarditis was just one risk among many that have been reported from past vaccines, then PRR would not pick that up.
The real scandal is that PRR is blind to the absolute risk numbers. PRR is defined in such a way as to look for unusual PATTERNS of adverse events, but it is completely insensitive to unusual RATES of adverse events. Of course, it is the rates and not the patterns that are of primary concern, and the PRR is designed NOT to reflect that.
For example, suppose we have 2 vaccines:
Vaccine A has 1 reported death per million vaccinations, 3 reported heart attacks per million, and 20 reported headaches per million.
Vaccine B has 1 reported death per hundred vaccinations, 3 reported heart attacks per hundred, and 20 reported headaches per hundred.
Vaccine A is quite safe, and vaccine B is extremely dangerous. And yet the formula for PRR will produce the same result for vaccine A and B!
Clearly, PRR is not an appropriate criterion for evaluating safety of any particular vaccine. Someone has arranged to cook the books.
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Driving the irrational and unscientific narrative about mask wearing is the censoring of truthful and factual information by tech platforms. YouTube recently banned a video by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul in which he stated that masks don’t work
In a 2020 email obtained via a freedom of information act request, Dr. Anthony Fauci stated, “The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material”
February 25, 2020, U.K. health authorities published guidance discouraging the use of masks even for health care workers in residential care facilities, as there’s no evidence that they prevent viral spread
Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have long been regarded as the gold standard in medical research, yet RCTs are now ignored when it comes to mask wearing
Of 14 RCTs that have tested the effectiveness of masks in preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses, 11 suggest masks are either useless or counterproductive. The remaining three suggest masks may be useful, but not to a statistically significant degree
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For more than 18 months, we’ve dealt with questionable advice on masking, ranging from head-scratching and mildly amusing to outright laughable, and there seems to be no end in sight, despite the lack of scientific underpinning for universal masking.
Driving this insanity is the censoring of truthful and factual information by tech platforms such as YouTube. In the Fox News report above, Tucker Carlson calls out YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki for censoring a video by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, in which he pointed out that most masks cannot and will not protect you from the virus.
“Saying cloth masks work, when they don’t, actually risks lives,” Paul said in his banned video. Contrary to Wojcicki, Paul is an actual medical doctor, yet Wojcicki believes she’s capable of determining what is and is not medical misinformation.
Mask Recommendations Spiraled From Sensible to Irrational
Paul’s statement is far from controversial. In a 2020 email obtained via a freedom of information act request, Dr. Anthony Fauci stated, “The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material.”
In March 2020, Fauci also went on TV stating1,2 that “people should not be walking around with masks” because “it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is.”
Ditto for then-Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who February 29, 2020, tweeted: “Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus.”3 Adams has since deleted the tweet, but it lives in infamy all over the internet.4,5,6
“The point is there was nothing kooky or inaccurate about Rand Paul’s video about masks,” Carlson says. “It was … provably true, people who know what they’re talking about agree with it, including the people in charge of our COVID response, but it was censored anyway. And the fact that it was censored anyway is a scandal.”
Carlson goes on to point out that censorship always backfires because, eventually, the masses catch on to the fact that they’re being lied to, at which point they stop listening altogether. Heavy-handedness also backfires, and the COVID injection campaign is a perfect example.
Had we just been treated like adults, the vaccination rate would probably have been far higher than it currently is. The irrational push with ostentatious bribes followed by illegal implementation of vaccine mandates simply raised too many suspicions in too many people.
“Obviously, this can’t continue,” Carlson says. “You cannot have a self-governing country in which people aren’t allowed to read what they want. A free press is not an optional feature of a democracy; it’s the center of democracy. That’s obvious. It’s written down in our founding documents.”
How Did Health Authorities Get So Irrational on Masks?
In an August 11, 2021, City-Journal article,7 Jeffrey Anderson reviews the scientific evidence for universal masking, noting that February 25, 2020, U.K. health authorities published guidance discouraging the use of masks even for health care workers in residential care facilities due to the fact that they don’t prevent viral spread.
Although the guidance apparently has been wiped from the internet like Adams’ tweet, Anderson quotes it as saying, “During normal day-to-day activities facemasks do not provide protection from respiratory viruses, such as COVID-19 and do not need to be worn by staff.”
Similarly, March 30, 2020, the executive director for the World Health Organization’s Health Emergency Program stated “there is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any particular benefit.”8
Such guidance was truthful and logical. Surgical masks are not designed to protect the wearer or others against viral transmission, as the holes in the fabric are far larger than any virus. They’re merely meant to prevent a health care worker from inadvertently infecting a patient’s wound with bacteria-laden saliva or respiratory droplets. As reported by Anderson:9
“Public-health officials’ advice in the early days of Covid-19 was consistent with that understanding. Then, on April 3, 2020, Adams announced that the CDC was changing its guidance and that the general public should hereafter wear masks whenever sufficient social distancing could not be maintained.
Fast-forward 15 months. Rand Paul has been suspended from YouTube for a week for saying, ‘Most of the masks you get over the counter don’t work.’
Many cities across the country, following new CDC guidance handed down amid a spike in cases nationally caused by the Delta variant, are once again mandating indoor mask-wearing for everyone, regardless of inoculation status.
The CDC further recommends that all schoolchildren and teachers, even those who have had Covid-19 or have been vaccinated, should wear masks …
How did mask guidance change so profoundly? Did the medical research on the effectiveness of masks change — and in a remarkably short period of time — or just the guidance on wearing them?”
Why Is the CDC Using Inferior Science to Support Masking?
We’re routinely told to follow the science and that public health recommendations are based on just that. But are they really? Where is the evidence showing that masking has any impact on viral transmission?
Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have long been regarded as the gold standard in medical research, as they allow you to isolate a specific variable and reduce the ability of researchers to produce a preferred outcome. It’s still possible through a variety of tricks, but at least then you can see the bias. Curiously, RCTs are now routinely ignored when it comes to mask wearing. Why is that? Anderson reports:10
“It’s striking how much the CDC, in marshalling evidence to justify its revised mask guidance, studiously avoids mentioning randomized controlled trials …
In a ‘Science Brief’11 highlighting studies that ‘demonstrate that mask wearing reduces new infections’ and serving as the main public justification for its mask guidance, the CDC provides a helpful matrix of 15 studies — none RCTs.
The CDC instead focuses strictly on observational studies completed after Covid-19 began. In general, observational studies are not only of lower quality than RCTs but also are more likely to be politicized, as they can inject the researcher’s judgment more prominently into the inquiry and lend themselves, far more than RCTs, to finding what one wants to find.
A particular favorite of the CDC’s … is an observational (specifically, cohort) study12 focused on two COVID-positive hairstylists at a beauty salon in Missouri.
The two stylists, who were masked, provided services for 139 people, who were mostly masked, for several days after developing Covid-19 symptoms. The 67 customers who subsequently chose to get tested for the coronavirus tested negative, and none of the 72 others reported symptoms.
This study has major limitations. For starters, any number of the 72 untested customers could have had COVID-19 but been asymptomatic, or else had symptoms that they chose not to report to the Greene County Health Department, the entity doing the asking.
The apparent lack of spread of COVID-19 could have been a result of good ventilation, good hand hygiene, minimal coughing by the stylists, or the fact that stylists generally, as the researchers note, ‘cut hair while clients are facing away from them.’
The researchers also observe that ‘viral shedding’ of the coronavirus ‘is at its highest during the 2 to 3 days before symptom onset.’ Yet no customers who saw the stylists when they were at their most contagious were tested for COVID-19 or asked about symptoms.
Most importantly, this study does not have a control group. Nobody has any idea how many people, if any, would have been infected had no masks been worn in the salon.”
RCTs Show Masks Don’t Prevent Viral Transmission
Another piece of evidence leaned on by the CDC is a survey, which is even lower-quality evidence than an observational cohort study.
“Mask supporters often claim that we have no choice but to rely on observational studies instead of RCTs, because RCTs cannot tell us whether masks work or not. But what they really mean is that they don’t like what the RCTs show,” Anderson writes.
Indeed, you’d be hard-pressed to find even a single RCT showing mask wearing has a notable benefit. Anderson goes through 14 RCTs, conducted around the world, that have investigated the effectiveness of masks against respiratory viruses, discussing their findings.
Among them is a French study13 from 2010, which randomly placed sick patients and their household contacts into a mask group or a non-mask group. Adherence to the designated intervention was “good.”
Within one week, 15.8% of household contacts in the no-mask control group and 16.2% in the mask group developed an influenza-like illness. The 0.4% difference between the groups was statistically insignificant. According to the authors: “In various sensitivity analyses, we did not identify any trend in the results suggesting effectiveness of facemasks.”
The CDC’s own data14,15,16 also show 70.6% of COVID-19 patients reported “always” wearing a cloth mask or face covering in the 14 days preceding their illness; 14.4% reported having worn a mask “often.” So, a total of 85% of people who came down with COVID-19 had “often” or “always” worn a mask.
Handwashing Beats Masks and Mask-Plus-Handwashing Combo
A 2009 study17 funded by the CDC added hand washing to the mix to see if mask wearing would work better in combination with hand hygiene. One group was instructed on the use of hand hygiene only, a second group used both handwashing and face masks, and a third group did nothing.
While the mask-plus-handwashing group fared statistically better than the control group in one measure, the handwashing-only group beat the control group to a statistically significant degree in two measures.
This suggests handwashing alone was actually the most effective measure. According to the authors, “no additional benefit was observed when facemask [use] was added to hand hygiene by comparison with hand hygiene alone.”
The notion that handwashing alone beats even the combination of handwashing and mask wearing gained support in a 2011 study,18 which discovered that among those who washed their hands and wore face masks, the secondary attack rate of influenza-like illness was double that of the control group, which did nothing.
Multivariate analysis showed the same thing, leading the authors to conclude that relative to the control group, the odds of infection among those wearing masks and washing their hands was “twofold in the opposite direction from the hypothesized protective effect.”
COVID-19 Specific Mask Trial Failed to Prove Benefit
The first and to my knowledge only COVID-19-specific randomized controlled surgical mask trial,19,20published November 18, 2020, also undermined the official narrative that masking works. Interestingly, it found routine mask wearing may either reduce your risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection by as much as 46%, or it may increase your risk by 23%.
Either way, the vast majority — 97.9% of those who didn’t wear masks, and 98.2% of those who did — remained infection-free, so SARS-CoV-2 infection isn’t nearly as widespread as we think it is.
The study included 3,030 individuals assigned to wear a surgical face mask and 2,994 unmasked controls. Of them, 80.7% completed the study. Based on the adherence scores reported, 46% of participants always wore the mask as recommended, 47% predominantly as recommended and 7% failed to follow recommendations.
Among mask wearers, 1.8% ended up testing positive for SARS-CoV-2, compared to 2.1% among controls. When they removed those who did not adhere to the recommendations for use, the results remained the same — 1.8%, which suggests adherence makes no significant difference either.
Among those who reported wearing their face mask “exactly as instructed,” 2% tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 compared to 2.1% of the controls. So, essentially, we’re destroying economies and lives around the world to protect a tiny minority from getting a positive PCR test result, which we now know means nothing.
Another investigation21 that compared caseloads between states with mask mandates and those without showed states with mask mandates had an average of 27 positive SARS-CoV-2 “cases” per 100,000 people, whereas states with no mask mandates had just 17 cases per 100,000. This too suggests mask mandates have no positive impact to speak of.
More Science
If you’re still on the fence about whether masks are a necessity that must be forced on everyone, including young children, consider reading through some of the available medical literature. In addition to the research reviewed above, here’s a small sampling of what else you’ll find when you start searching for data on face masks as a strategy to prevent viral infection:
Surgical masks and N95 masks perform about the same — A 2009 study22 published in JAMA compared the effectiveness of surgical masks and N95 respirators to prevent seasonal influenza in a hospital setting; 24% of the nurses in the surgical mask group still got the flu, as did 23% of those who wore N95 respirators.
“No evidence” masks prevent transmission of flu in hospital setting — In September 2018, the Ontario Nurses Association (ONA) won its second of two grievances filed against the Toronto Academic Health Science Network’s (TAHSN) “vaccinate or mask” policy. This information also appears to have been scrubbed from the internet, but it is available in Wayback archives. As reported by the ONA:23
“After reviewing extensive expert evidence submitted … Arbitrator William Kaplan, in his September 6 decision,24 found that St. Michael’s VOM policy is ‘illogical and makes no sense’ …
In 2015, Arbitrator James Hayes struck down the same type of policy in an arbitration that included other Ontario hospitals across the province … Hayes found there was ‘scant evidence’ that forcing nurses to use masks reduced the transmission of influenza to patients …
ONA’s well-regarded expert witnesses, including Toronto infection control expert Dr. Michael Gardam, Quebec epidemiologist Dr. Gaston De Serres, and Dr. Lisa Brosseau, an American expert on masks, testified that there was … no evidence that forcing healthy nurses to wear masks during the influenza season did anything to prevent transmission of influenza in hospitals.
They further testified that nurses who have no symptoms are unlikely to be a real source of transmission and that it was not logical to force healthy unvaccinated nurses to mask.”
No significant reduction in flu transmission when used in community setting — A policy review paper25 published in Emerging Infectious Diseases in May 2020, which reviewed “the evidence base on the effectiveness of nonpharmaceutical personal protective measures … in non-health care settings” concluded, based on 10 randomized controlled trials, that there was “no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks…”
“No evidence” that universal masking prevents COVID-19 — A 2020 guidance memo by the World Health Organization pointed out that:26
“Meta-analyses in systematic literature reviews have reported that the use of N95 respirators compared with the use of medical masks is not associated with any statistically significant lower risk of the clinical respiratory illness outcomes or laboratory-confirmed influenza or viral infections …
At present, there is no direct evidence (from studies on COVID- 19 and in healthy people in the community) on the effectiveness of universal masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19.”
Mask or no mask, same difference — A meta-analysis and scientific review27 led by respected researcher Thomas Jefferson, cofounder of the Cochrane Collaboration, posted on the prepublication server medRxiv in April 2020, found that, compared to no mask, mask wearing in the general population or among health care workers did not reduce influenza-like illness cases or influenza.
In one study, which looked at quarantined workers, it actually increased the risk of contracting influenza, but lowered the risk of influenza-like illness. They also found there was no difference between surgical masks and N95 respirators.
Let’s Follow the Actual Science
If we are to follow the science — which is a good idea in general and particularly when it comes to public health mandates — we should not wear masks. As reported by Anderson:28
“In sum, of the 14 RCTs that have tested the effectiveness of masks in preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses, three suggest, but do not provide any statistically significant evidence in intention-to-treat analysis, that masks might be useful.
The other eleven suggest that masks are either useless — whether compared with no masks or because they appear not to add to good hand hygiene alone — or actually counterproductive.
Of the three studies that provided statistically significant evidence in intention-to-treat analysis that was not contradicted within the same study, one found that the combination of surgical masks and hand hygiene was less effective than hand hygiene alone, one found that the combination of surgical masks and hand hygiene was less effective than nothing, and one found that cloth masks were less effective than surgical masks.”
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We are rapidly approaching the crossroads of no return.
If and when we pass it either asleep, or thinking it will blow over – it’s going to be too late. Too late meaning – we are at the point of no return.
We are many, they are few. We can beat them.
But we must be fully conscious of what’s going on – and be absolutely non-complacent.
Complacency is the demise of everything.
We must be convinced in solidarity and We Shall Overcome!
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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he has worked for over 30 years on water and environment around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020)
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
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).
Last year once I realized that the Covid campaign was a fear campaign and not a scientific or medical campaign, I understood that the operating agenda was not a public health agenda. It became clear that there was a profit agenda and also a control agenda in which civil liberties and their legal and constitutional protections were being cast aside.
Having studied at four top universities in days gone by when education, not propaganda, was education’s purpose, I am able to comprehend most scientific reports sufficiently to understand the gist of the reports, but in the case of Covid when in doubt I rely on virologists and medical school professors to vet or correct my conclusions.
Having had famous professors including Nobel prize winners who were mocked in their earlier years by establishment opinion and having myself experienced resistance to my own innovative scholarship, I was aware that truth is often rejected until opponents are simply overwhelmed by the evidence.
For my Oxford University professor, Michael Polanyi, a physical chemist, it took a half century for his theory of chemical absorption to win over Einstein’s disapproval. In the meantime a number of his students had won the Nobel prize in science. E.P. Wigner in physics. Melvin Calvin in chemistry. His son John Polanyi in chemistry. Michael Polanyi was the most intelligent and civilized person I have ever known. He would certainly be disheartened to see the disregard of evidence in universities and media today and by public authorities.
Experiencing the Covid Deception, I am alarmed that today evidence itself has lost its authority.Throughout the Western World, agendas take precedence over truth.This is most certainly the case with Covid-19.
We are living under a Covid policy that has no evidence whatsoever in its support.Lacking any evidence for the ruling policy, suppression of the actual facts is the operating principle.The utterly corrupt public health authorities, dumbshit ignorant politicians, and scum presstitutes repeat lies over and over, relying on constant repetition to turn the lie into truth.The vast bulk of the world’s population, lacking the education and energy to think for itself, is satisfied to have the media tell them what to think.
The public health authorities, dumbshit politicians, and scum presstitutes censor the scientists and doctors who actually understand the health challenge and know what to do to get it under control, thus preventing information other than the controlled narrative from reaching the public.
Here is the known information that is suppressed:
The Covid vaccine does not protect against acquiring Covid, nor does it prevent vaccinated people from spreading the virus.
The Covid Vaccine has massive adverse effects and is on course to cause more illnesses and deaths than Covid. Among the adverse effects are infertility and spontaneous abortion.
The vaccine trains the virus to evolve variants that escape the immune response.
The lethality of the Covid virus has been massively overstated.
The number of Covid cases were massively overstated by a defective PCR test.
The outbreak of new cases ascribed to the Delta variant are worst in the countries with the most heavily vaccinated populations.
Known cures such as HCQ and Ivermectin are intentionally blocked from use by official protocol.
Large numbers of top level scientists and doctors are calling for a halt to Covid vaccination.These calls are suppressed by the scum presstitutes and ignored by official authorities.
Why?Is it just profit?Is it just control?Or is there a darker agenda?
Despite the known, clear, and incontestable failure of the vaccine to protect against infection and its known dangers, the authorities are pushing forward with more vaccination.This makes no sense whatsoever.Why have the authoritiessecured the cooperation of US employers, military, hospitals, and police forces to mandate Covid vaccination?
Why are public authorities using both government and the private sectors to coerce vaccination when the public authorities are fully aware that vaccination does not protect, but causes health injuries and deaths and spreads the virus?
Why is there no public debate about the serious threat that the Covid protocol presents to the world’s population?
How did scientific and medical truth become a “conspiracy theory”?
Today August 22 is a Sunday.Take an hour off the golf course, an hour off watching some sports event, an hour off whatever else you do to waste your time and remain ignorant and exploitable, and instead spend it watching the address by Dr. Simone Gold of Frontline Doctors to an educated audience. See:
Dr. Simone Gold is intelligent, compassionate, and overflowing with a sense of responsibility toward us. This most remarkable woman is what I remember once was the ideal American, the person we all wanted to be.
Dr. Gold’s presentation dates back to the beginning of this year.Everything that she suspected at the time but refused to assert as fact has been proven to be true.
Note that Dr. Gold stresses throughout her address the experimental status of the vaccine and the unprecedented use of an experimental, unapproved vaccine on the entire world population. Billions of people injected with we know not what.The immorality of such a mass inoculation of an untested and unapproved experimental vaccine is a charge that the corrupt public health authorities intend to escape by granting the still untested vaccines full approval not only before the required tests are conducted but in the face of the vaccine’s failure. The illegitimate corrupt President of the United States is serving as a hired voice both for pharmaceutical profits and a secret agenda.
Expect the ineffectual and extremely dangerous vaccine to be granted approval any day as an answer to Dr. Gold’s emphasis on its unapproved experimental status and as reassurance to the vaccine-hesitant that the extremely dangerous vaccine is safe.
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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 frequent contributor to Global Research.
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America’s rotting two decades of war and occupation in Afghanistan is oozing an awful stench from its bloated corpse, with the entire world an involuntary witness.
Quite a spectacle confronts us:–caches of arms and vehicles in the hands of burley, grim-faced victors; embassy staff hastily destroying ‘stuff’; a puppet president escaping, reportedly with hordes of cash; tens of thousands pleading for refuge; women disappearing behind barred doors; allies condemning the U.S.’s unilateral retreat; emergency troops arriving to secure Kabul airport while personnel, and more stuff are airlifted away.
Fears grow of how the Taliban might rule; Islamic warrior excesses from the past are recalled; rumors filter in about Taliban’s brutal takeover of outlying regions. Terror directed at minorities and woman is anticipated; assurances of mercy are disbelieved; fanatic pronouncements are expected.
American leaders claim surprise but accept no blame. Journalists are preoccupied with the drama of the mighty retreat. Few try to explain the origin and vicissitudes of this two-decade mess. News commentators turn to speculating what’s in store for those left behind —they suggest only grim scenarios —as they tally the cost: trusted leadership, countless lost and damaged lives, trillions of American tax dollars that could have improved the lives of American, or succored the world’s refugees.
(Emails arrive urging us to message Biden and congressmembers demanding no more war. How simple it seems.)
Humiliation is evident. Although no one uses the word. Defeat, rout and failure are unspeakable too, though they hover within the subtext of any discussion about this unnecessary and unwon war.
Remaining largely unaddressed is the immorality of America’s military license in Afghanistan:–tortured captives, bombed homes and farms, fabricated claims of progress, alliances with criminal warlords, gratuitous payouts for ‘ghost soldiers’, unaccounted funding for a plethora of humanitarian projects, manipulation of ethnic and religious factions. The excesses and mistakes by presidents, generals and advisors will be occupy analysts for many months.
But the odor of dishonor remains. And it’s repulsive.
Where can America direct this awful feeling of disgrace? (“It’s Your Fault”, one author facetiously argues.) I detect a displacement underway whereby this nation’s shame is transformed into a distorted sense of pride—pride in the high value Americans place on women’s rights, pride in the importance of allegiance among soldiers. Urgent appeals by women’s rights advocates jockey for media time with U.S. veterans of the war demanding asylum for their Afghan colleagues. Women and veteran advocates appropriate whatever moral space is available around the American retreat. Together they dominate the dialogue about American’s most urgent responsibility. Veterans report how their lives were saved by Afghan army partners. Women’s rights activists recall their courageous mission to liberate girls and restore dignity to Afghan women.
Who does not support frightened, imperiled Afghan women? Who would turn away Afghans who saved U.S. soldiers? Who does not feel compassion for girls who experienced the joy of school and dreamed of more enriching lives?
The real moral discussion needed is about military might: is any invasion justified by the dubious principle of the ‘responsibility to protect? (Decried in 2008 by Mahmoud Mamdani as simply “an assertion of neocolonial domination”.) Can any government intent on global dominance be trusted? The moral discussion Americans need is about budgeting war, how to control the obscene, voracious military industry. The moral discussion we need is about ways to live with alternatives to capitalism, to the American standard of a liberated woman. The moral discussion we need is about our cavalier demonization of religion and any independently-minded leader, about how through its global media power the U.S. arouses public fear in order to sanction its military ambitions.
Filmmaker Michael Moore recalls his fear as his countrymen overwhelmingly applauded the invasion of Afghanistan: “…we… are culpable in committing many acts of terror and bloodshed and we had better get a clue about the culture of violence in which we (are) active participants.” Add this Worker’s World reflection on Afghan women following their 1978 revolution, as it reviews the leadup to the 2001 U.S. invasion.
During these ‘Afghan decades’, the U.S., so arrogant with moral superiority, with its search for valor, commitment to capitalism, limitless right to world resources, complicity with fellow colonizing states, has ravaged swathes of the world; it plundered Iraq, leaving it a corrupt and floundering state; it ripped Libya into shreds; it ravaged and destabilized Syria; it applies war sanctions against proud, capable nations rendering them unstable and impoverished—fostering widespread hatred within the U.S. and abroad, all while it sucks up educated professionals and forlorn youths from those nations.
How we shouted on behalf of Afghan women 20 years ago; how we howled against fanatic religious fighters. And here we are. Again.
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A cardiologist who treated a child suffering from myocarditis – an inflammation of the heart muscle – after getting vaccinated against the coronavirus (COVID-19) told the child’s mother that “no case of myocarditis is mild.”
Fourteen-year-old Aiden Jo received his first dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine on May 12. On June 10, he woke up in the middle of the night complaining of chest pain and difficulty breathing. The boy’s mother, Emily, rushed him to the hospital where he was ultimately treated for myocarditis. Emily said she had been under the impression that the adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccines are rare and mild.
“What they didn’t explain is that mild means hospital care and follow-up care indefinitely,” she told activist group Children’s Health Defense. Emily adds: “They’re not explaining what mild myocarditis means. Aiden’s cardiologist told us no case of myocarditis is mild. That’s like saying a heart attack is mild.”
“Parents need to understand that myocarditis is not covered under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program,” Emily said. “And the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program only covers if you’re incapacitated, wheelchair-bound or dead. We have incurred thousands and thousands of dollars in medical bills. We have insurance but they don’t pay all. It does not account for tests down the road that we still have to get.”
Myocarditis reduces your heart’s ability to pump and can cause rapid or abnormal heartbeats. Severe cases of myocarditis can lead to heart attack, stroke, heart failure and sudden cardiac arrest. Signs of myocarditis in children include chest pain, breathing problems, abnormal heartbeats, rapid breathing, fever and fainting.
The condition occurred mostly in young boys. Heart inflammation was not identified as an adverse reaction during the safety trials for the vaccine, but the CDC announced in June that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would add a warning to the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines about a possible link to cases of myocarditis in teenagers and young adults.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), CDC’s vaccine advisory group, met in June to discuss cases of myocarditis in people aged 30 and younger who have received an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.
Pfizer and Moderna use mRNA technology in their COVID-19 vaccines, while Johnson & Johnson uses the more traditional virus-based technology.
The COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Technical (VaST) Work Group, which is part of ACIP, assessed the reported cases and noted that the risk of myocarditis following vaccination with the mRNA-based vaccines in adolescents and young adults is notably higher after the second dose, particularly in males.
Data suggests likely association of myocarditis with mRNA vaccines
In June, the CDC said a higher-than-expected number of young men had experienced heart inflammation after their second dose of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, with more than half the cases reported in people between the ages of 12 and 24.
The higher-than-expected rate of myocarditis cases among Americans below 30 is consistent with the data from Israel.
Israel’s Ministry of Health identified over 200 cases of myocarditis in men between 16 and 30 years old, a vast majority of those happening at the younger end of that range. That equates to a risk of between 1 in 3,000 and 1 in 6,000 of suffering from heart inflammation.
According to VaST, the data suggests a likely association of myocarditis with mRNA vaccination in adolescents and young adults.
As of July 16, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) received a total of 9,246 reports of adverse reactions among children. The 397 reports of heart inflammation made up 4.3 percent of the total. However, the system wasn’t designed to capture all cases of heart inflammation and only counted the reports which used the term myocarditis.
“While we won’t comment on internal meetings or discussions, we can say that FDA is absolutely committed to reviewing data as it becomes available to us,” the FDA said.
Pfizer, whose vaccine has been authorized for use in Americans as young as 12, previously said it had not observed a higher rate of heart inflammation than would normally be expected in the general population. Moderna said it also could not identify a causal association with the heart inflammation cases and its vaccine.
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The alleged “interim government” of Juan Guaidó is becoming more and more lonely in its abstentionist stand. The “special envoy” of the United States for Venezuela during Donald Trump’s administration, Elliott Abrams, stressed that the US government should support the Venezuelan opposition if it decides to participate in the regional elections on November 21.
“If the democratic forces in Venezuela decide to participate in the elections, we [the United States] must support them and vigorously organize international pressure to force Maduro to fulfill the promises he has made on electoral conditions,” Abrams said in an interview with The Hill. For US imperial bureaucrats, “electoral conditions” is an euphemism for Maduro/Chavismo not participating and letting the opposition win an election.
Likewise, Abrams expressed that he was in favor of eliminating or reforming the “interim government” of Juan Guaidó. “If the opposition leadership decides to change the form of the interim government, or even end it, we should also support that decision,” he said. However, he rejects the idea of the US administration reestablishing diplomatic relations with the government of President Maduro.
On the other hand, regarding the peaceful path that Venezuela has decided to undertake, starting a series of dialogues between part of the extreme sectors of the Venezuelan opposition and the government of President Nicolás Maduro, the gringo former official, known as “the butcher of Central America” for his role in supporting and financing some of the bloodiest terror regimes in the region, recommends that the Biden administration should continue to tighten the sanctions regime against the Venezuelan people.
“Unless the regime takes significant measures—unless it frees all political prisoners and stops arresting more of them, allows a free press, allows the return of political exiles, and returns democratic political parties to their elected leadership,” said Abrams, in the typical imperial interventionist stand in its endless failed attempts to oust President Maduro.
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Comments Off on U.S. Interventionism in Venezuela. Elliott Abrams: If Opposition Decides to Reform or Eliminate the ‘[ Juan Guaidó ] Interim Government,’ We Must Support It
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The Department of Defense will require all U.S. military troops to take the COVID-19 vaccine by September 15th. The Associated Press earlier reported on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s memo.
The AP reported that “the deadline could be pushed up if the vaccine receives final FDA approval or infection rates continue to rise.”
“I will not hesitate to act sooner or recommend a different course to the President if l feel the need to do so. To defend this Nation, we need a healthy and ready force,” the Defense Secretary added.
An Armed Forces member refusing to take the vaccine is subject to punishment under the U.C.M.J., the AP’s report noted. The punishment for refusal to obey an order may escalate up to court martial.
“Some unvaccinated service members have suggested they’d get the shot once it’s required, but others are flatly opposed,” the report said.
Now, some of those ‘flatly opposed’ soldiers are filing a lawsuit in court against the coming military vaccination mandate. Those listed on the lawsuit as defendants are Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin,Secretary of Health & Human Services Xavier Becerra, and Janet Woodock, Acting Commissioner of the Food & Drug Administration.
“Plaintiffs Staff Sergeant Daniel Robert, U.S. Army, and Staff Sergeant Holli Mulvihill, USMC, individually and on behalf of all other similarly situated active duty, National Guard, and Reserve servicemembers, as documented survivors of COVID-19, file this action against the Department of Defense (“DoD”), seeking a declaratory judgment that the DoD cannot force them to take a COVID-19 vaccination under existing military regulations, federal regulations, federal law, and the U.S. Constitution,” the plaintiffs’ legal complaint states.
“The Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin (the “SECDEF”) has publicly notified Plaintiffs, via Memo, that he will seek authorization from the President of the United States of America (the “President”), to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine on or about September 15, 2021,” the plaintiffs note. “Upon information and belief, the DoD is already vaccinating military members in flagrant violation of its legal obligations and the rights of servicemembers under federal law and the Constitution.”
“Army Regulation 40-562 provides documented survivors of an infection, a presumptive medical exemption from vaccination because of the natural immunity acquired as a result of having survived the infection,” the legal complaint added.
“General examples of medical exemptions include the following… Evidence of immunity based on serologic tests, documented infection, or similar circumstances,” the lawsuit cites.
“Plaintiffs also seek a declaratory judgment on the separate basis that the Emergency Use Authorization (“EUA”) DoD COVID-19 Vaccine mandate, which they have been notified is imminent, cannot be issued in violation of 10 U.S.C. §1107 [U.S. Code] and its implementing regulations, including DoD Directive 6200.2, the FDA regulation of biologics at 21 C.F.R. § 50 et seq., as well as the law regarding informed consent 50 U.S.C. 1520 (‘The Nuremburg Code’),” the lawsuit added.
Legal analysts cite prior situations that suggest that legal challenges to the COVID vaccine order may fail in court.
“Legally, vaccines under emergency use authorization require service members to grant ‘informed consent’ to receive one, which they are allowed to withhold,” U.S. News reports. “The law states a president may override that concern in the ‘interests of national security,’ according to an analysis from Duke University’s Lawfire blog in February.”
Robert Sanders, chair of the National Security Department at the University of New Haven, pointed to the case of troop vaccination to protect them from anthrax. A follow-on case found such orders did not violate troops’ constitutional rights because, “The requirement to place the needs of the nation above a service member’s personal welfare applies in peacetime as well as in war.”
Professor Sanders gave his assessment of legal challenges to the military vaccination order.
“I believe such challenges will fail on the merits under the history of the anthrax vaccine’s military litigation,” he said.
The plaintiffs are also submitting in their lawsuit expert testimony from Dr. Peter McCullough, M.D., who is board certified in internal medicine and was the Chief Fellow at William Beaumont Hospital. In addition to being a cardiologist, he also holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health from the University of Michigan. He is currently a Professor of Medicine at Texas Christian University and the University of North Texas Health Sciences Center School of Medicine.
The relevant portion of the doctor’s testimony is submitted in text image format below:
“To put it concisely and bluntly, people who have naturally created antibodies resulting from contracting and recovering from the Virus should not receive any inoculation against the virus or any family or variant thereof because it will do more harm than good,” Dr. McCullough is testifying.
The Pentagon has yet to formally issue the vaccine mandate, but the order is expected to be issued in September.
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It seems that those who have taken the Covid-19 experimental injections several months ago are starting to become seriously ill. Chicago’s WGN9 reported that “The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. and his wife, Jacqueline Jackson have both tested positive for COVID-19 and are hospitalized at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, according to a statement from Rainbow PUSH Coalition.” The report mentioned that he “was vaccinated against Covid-19 in early January.”
Jackson is a well-known activist in the US who believed in Big Pharma’s miracle cure against Covid-19 and now he is suffering from the consequences of not doing the research on the dangers of the experimental injections. In an interesting twist to the mainstream media’s reporting on the Covid-19 experimental injections, Bloomberg News headlined with a disturbing title for its readership, ‘The Vaccinated Are Worried and Scientists Don’t Have Answers’ said that the
“Anecdotes tell us what the data can’t: Vaccinated people appear to be getting the coronavirus at a surprisingly high rate. But exactly how often isn’t clear, nor is it certain how likely they are to spread the virus to others.”
This is what good doctors and scientists from all over the world have been warning us about since the experimental injection was released under Operation Warp Speed. But the mainstream media continues its relentless defense of the medical establishment as it makes the case that the experimental injection offers “powerful protections” against Covid-19 “it is evident vaccination still provides powerful protection against the virus”, then admits that “there’s growing concern that vaccinated people may be more vulnerable to serious illness than previously thought.”
All I have to say is wow! The following is an admission that the so-called vaccine is a disaster in the making especially for those who blindly rushed to become Big Pharma’s guinea pigs. A former director from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Dr. Tom Frieden can’t even give a clear answer to any questions for those who were already vaccinated on how they can protect themselves or if they will need a booster shot in the near future:
There’s a dearth of scientific studies with concrete answers, leaving public policy makers and corporate executives to formulate plans based on fragmented information. While some are renewing mask mandates or delaying office reopenings, others cite the lack of clarity to justify staying the course. It can all feel like a mess.
“We have to be humble about what we do know and what we don’t know,” said Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the head of the nonprofit Resolve to Save Lives. “There are a few things we can say definitively. One is that this is a hard question to address.”
Absent clear public health messaging, vaccinated people are left confused about how to protect themselves. Just how vulnerable they are is a key variable not just for public health officials trying to figure out, say, when booster shots might be needed, but also to inform decisions about whether to roll back reopenings amid a new wave of the virus. On a smaller scale, the unknowns have left music lovers unsure if it’s OK to see a concert and prompted a fresh round of hang-wringing among parents pondering what school is going to look like
Mass confusion is coming soon as more people who have already taken the experimental injection are becoming sick. The authors of the article, Kristen V. Brown and Rebecca Torrence add several case studies of “breakthrough infections” that makes understanding the after-effects of the experimental injections a bit more confusing:
In lieu of answers, what has emerged is a host of case studies providing somewhat different pictures of breakthrough infections. Variables including when the surveys were conducted, whether the delta variant was present, how much of the population was vaccinated and even what the weather was like at the time make it hard to compare results and suss out patterns. It’s difficult to know which data might ultimately carry more heft.
“It’s quite clear that we have more breakthroughs now,” said Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco. “We all know someone who has had one. But we don’t have great clinical data”
The article does mention the Fourth of July celebrations in the beach town of Provincetown, Massachusetts where both the vaccinated and unvaccinated partied and found that “three-fourths of the 469 new infections occurred were among the vaccinated people”:
Authors of a CDC case study said this might mean that they were just as likely to transmit Covid-19 as the unvaccinated. Even so, they cautioned, as more people are vaccinated, it’s natural that they would also account for a larger share of Covid-19 infections and this one study was not sufficient to draw any conclusions. The incident prompted the CDC to reverse a recommendation it had issued just a few weeks earlier and once again urge the vaccinated to mask up in certain settings
Here is where they use Israel’s research that suggests that the experimental injections wane after several months:
Researchout of Israel seems to back the idea that protection from severe disease wanes in the months after inoculation, and more recently, that breakthrough cases may eventually lead to an uptick in hospitalizations. The information is preliminary and severe breakthrough cases are still rare, but it bolsters the case that some people will need booster shots in coming months.
Case studies and data from some states in the U.S. have similarly shown an increase in breakthrough cases over time. But with the delta variant also on the rise, it’s difficult to tell whether waning immunity to any type of coronavirus infection is to blame, or if the vaccinations are particularly ineffective against the delta variant. It could be both, of course. Changing behavior among vaccinated people could be a factor, too, as they return to social gatherings and travel and dining indoors
In typical propaganda fashion, the Bloomberg authors basically blame the unvaccinated for the uptick in breakthrough cases:
All that said, some facts are well established at this point. Vaccinated people infected with the virus are much less likely to need to go to the hospital, much less likely to need intubation and much less likely to die from the illness. There’s no doubt that vaccines provide significant protection. But a large proportion of the nation — almost 30% of U.S. adults — have not been vaccinated, a fact that has conspired with the highly contagious delta variant to push the country into a new wave of outbreaks
Well, the Reverend Jesse Jackson may disagree with that statement now since he and his wife are hospitalized with a new round of Covid-19 delta variant despite the fact that he allowed the medical establishment to convince him that new MRNA experimental injections would protect him and his family. Bloomberg’s article ends with a clear indication that the doctors and scientists that promoted the vaccine and in most cases, are in the pockets of Big Pharma such as Dr. Tom Frieden do not know what is going on:
For the time being, there are simply more questions than answers. Are breakthrough infections ticking up because of the delta variant, waning immunity or a return to normal life? Are vaccinated people more vulnerable to severe illness than previously thought? Just how common are breakthrough infections? It’s anyone’s guess.
“It is generally the case that we have to make public health decisions based on imperfect data,” Frieden said. “But there is just a lot we don’t know”
However, there are numerous good doctors and scientists who have not sold their souls to the devil that have sounded the alarm about the dangers associated with the experimental injections such as Doctors for Covid Ethics who wrote an urgent open letter to the European Medicines Agency in March 2021. Here is what they said:
As physicians and scientists, we are supportive in principle of the use of new medical interventions which are appropriately developed and deployed, having obtained informed consent from the patient. This stance encompasses vaccines in the same way as therapeutics.
We note that a wide range of side effects is being reported following vaccination of previously healthy younger individuals with the gene-based COVID-19 vaccines. Moreover, there have been numerous media reports from around the world of care homes being struck by COVID-19 within days of vaccination of residents. While we recognise that these occurrences might, every one of them, have been unfortunate coincidences, we are concerned that there has been and there continues to be inadequate scrutiny of the possible causes of illness or death under these circumstances, and especially so in the absence of post-mortems examinations.
In particular, we question whether cardinal issues regarding the safety of the vaccines were adequately addressed prior to their approval by the European Medicines Agency (EMA)
The warnings were loud and clear from the start, but Big Pharma, the mainstream media and the rest of the political establishment ignored those who predicted the consequences from their so-called “vaccines” because they wanted to control the narrative and the profits associated with it. There is just too much too loose for the establishment since the real agenda is not to make the world a healthy place for humanity, but to rule the entire planet through coercive measures and it is called medical tyranny.
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Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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Mr. Torres of New York introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Homeland Security
A Bill
To direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to ensure that any individual traveling on a flight that departs from or arrives to an airport inside the United States or a territory of the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID–19, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
(a) In General.—The Secretary of Homeland Security, acting through the Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, shall take such actions as are necessary to ensure that any individual traveling on a flight that departs from or arrives to an airport inside the United States or a territory of the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID–19.
(b) Exception.—In carrying out subsection (a), the Secretary shall ensure there is an exception to the requirement described in such subsection for an individual who is ineligible or medically unable to be fully vaccinated against COVID–19.
(c) Definition.—In this Act, the term “fully vaccinated against COVID–19” means receiving all recommended doses of a COVID–19 vaccine that is licensed under section 351 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 262) or authorized for emergency use under section 564 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 360bbb–3).
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Patrick Wood is a leading and critical expert on Sustainable Development, Green Economy, Agenda 21, 2030 Agenda and historic Technocracy. He is the author of Technocracy Rising: The Trojan Horse of Global Transformation (2015) and co-author of Trilaterals Over Washington, Volumes I and II (1978-1980) with the late Antony C. Sutton.
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U.S. Customs and Border Patrol announced its officers at a port in Alaska recently seized thousands of fake COVID-19 vaccination cards that came from China.
The seizure opens the door for government to go forward with the technological tracking of U.S. citizens. How so?
It strengthens the arguments of pro-vaccine passport types who say Americans must be vaccinated, or else risk infecting the innocent; that Americans must prove vaccination as conditions of associating freely in public and interacting with others; that vaccine passports are obviously the easiest means by which proof of vaccination can be displayed; but that paper vaccine passports are vulnerable to counterfeit. A smartphone app that carries a scannable electronic code tied directly to the carrier’s medical records — connected directly to the clinic or doctor’s office that administered the shot — is the viable alternative. So will go the line of logic. See, see? — they’ll say: Paper passports are prone to fakery. We need something more secure. We need something technologically advanced.
In fact, this is the alternative that’s already being tested in select spots, by select tech companies.
“Smartphone developers are gearing up for a world where users can store their Covid vaccination proof in their phones’ digital wallets, making it easy to simply tap their phones when they enter new buildings,” Yahoo! News wrote. “Google, Apple and Samsung have all recently announced plans to offer a feature that readily calls up a QR code that can be scanned to quickly verify a user’s vaccination status.”
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These 1,731 gold bars (if they even still exist) were deposited with the Fed by the Afghan central bank in 1939, and are old US Assay Office gold bars that have cracks, fissures, holes and other imperfections. See details below.
While the US Treasury has not yet released an official statement on blocking the Afghan central bank assets, the Washington Post on Tuesday 17 August broke the story that a few days previously on Sunday 15 August, the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Treasury department under the direction of Janet Yellen had made the decision to execute the freeze.
Among central banks of the world, the DAB has always been one of the more transparent when it comes to divulging information about it’s gold reserve holdings, and looking at the DAB’s annual financial statements, you can see why.
In the latest annual financial statements of the DAB for the year ended 30 Qaws of solar year 1399 (which is 20 December 2020), note 7.1 to the financial statements states that the DAB holds:
“703,004.944 fine troy ounces of gold in bar from held at the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB), New York as the Bank’s international reserve.”
This 703,004.944 ozs is approximately 21.87 tonnes of gold.
Cracks, Fissures and Holes
However, note 7.1 of the 2020 accounts goes on to say that even though the Afghan central bank’s gold bars have a minimum gold purity of at least 99.5%, they are not London Good Delivery bars because the dimensions of the bars do not comply with Good Delivery gold bar dimensions, and critically, some of the bars contain cracks, fissures, holds and other imperfections.
In short, the Afghan central bank’s gold at the New York Fed looks to be a pile of old US Assay Office gold bars. Specifically, note 7.1 says that:
“As per FRB, these bars met the minimum London Bullion market Association(LBMA) London Good Delivery (LGD) standards for quality but no not comply with the requirements for dimension.
In addition, some of these bars present imperfections such as surface roughness, cracks, fissures and holes which are considered unacceptable by the LBMA.”
“Irregularities such as surface cavities, cracks, holes or blisters (debris and water can accumulate in such irregularities which can affect the weight of the Bar and accumulated water can cause an explosion when the Bars are melted)”
Its pretty obvious that the gold bars held in the FRB New York for the Afghan’s are old brick shape US Assay Office gold bars. For a full description of these type of old gold bars, see the “Gold Bars Worldwide” document about US Mint gold bars (in archive here).
Old US Assay Office ‘brick’ gold bars, part of a ‘Melt’. Source
Note 7.1 then informs us that since the Afghani gold bars in the New York Fed vault are not acceptable in international markets (or anywhere else) as Good Delivery gold bars, then the market valuation of these bars has to be discounted.
When in Doubt, Call the BIS
Having already cited the New York Fed and the LBMA, Note 7.1, then takes on the appearance of a crime scene caper finale where all the usual suspects turn up at the same time, as it wheels out the boss of them all, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
This is because the DAB has asked the BIS in Switzerland (an authority on gold bar trading?) what type of discount to apply to the DAB’s gold bars given their undesired dimensions, cracks fissures and holes. The BIS thinks a US$ 2.25 discount per bar will do the trick.
Specifically, note 7.1 says that:
“Accordingly, the Bank [DAB] has obtained an advice for the estimate of discount to the LBMA rate of 1,879.75 per troy ounce from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Switzerland, which has suggested a discount of USD 2.25 per troy ounce t the LBMA rate.”
Afghan central bank annual financial statements, year-end 20 Dec 2020. Source
This valuation adjustment to the Afghan gold at the New York Fed is not a new adjustment and was first mentioned in the Afghan central bank’s annual financial statements for the year to 20 March 2009 (year end to 30 Hoot 1387 in the Afghani calendar). i.e. the discount adjustment was first applied to the Afghan gold from 2008 onwards.
The DAB annual financial statements for year to 20 March 2009 are in an archive of the old DAB website here.
Afghan central bank annual financial statements, year-end 20 March 2009. Source
Back then in 2008, the DAB still held 703,004.944 troy ounces of gold at the New York Fed vault in Manhattan, i.e. the exact same gold bars as no gold was bought or sold by DAB between 2008 and 2021.
Exactly 1,731 old gold bars
Going back one year previously to 2007, and the Afghan central bank was even more transparent, with Note 4 of the DAB’s annual financial statements for the year to 20 March 2007 (29 hoot 1385 in the Afghan calendar) showing that the Afghan central bank holds 1,731 gold bars at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
This was exactly, as per every other year, equal to 703,004.944 fine troy ounces. So now we know that the 703,004.944 ozs of gold that the DAB holds in the New York fed vault is in the form of 1,731 gold bars.
See screenshot below for the 1,731 gold bars reference:
Afghan central bank annual financial statements, year-end 20 March 2007. Source
It is these 1,731 gold bars belonging to the Afghan central bank that have (in August 2021) now been ‘frozen’ by the US Treasury through the FRB New York.
Note 4 of the 2004 accounts, titled “Gold in Federal Reserve”, states that:
“DAB’s gold reserves are on non-interest bearing deposit with New York Federal Reserve Bank”.
See screenshot below:
Afghan central bank annual financial accounts to year-end 19 March 2004. Source
This ‘non-interest bearing deposit’ is a troubling phrase as it suggests that the Afghan central bank gold is not held under bailment via a custodian agreement where the DAB would be bailor and the FRB New York bailee, but rather as a deposit where the depositor does not retain full title and ownership.
FRBNY staff inspecting the “Wall of Gold” in the Auxiliary vault of the NY Fed, 1970s
At the current time, this is the least of the problems of the Afghan central bank, but the question must be asked, does the gold storage agreement between the DAB and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York provide full legal title and unencumbered ownership of the 1,731 gold bars to the DAB, or is the gold merely a deposit which the FRB can do whatever it wants with, such as lend, lease swap it with a commercial bank such as JP Morgan. located across the road from 33 Liberty street in the 1 Chase Plaza vault, where a tunnel connects the two vaults.
Pre-WWII: As Old as the Hills
How long has the Afghan central bank held an unchanging amount of 703,004.944 ozs of gold at the NY Fed in the form of 1,731 old US Assay Office gold bars?
Startlingly, this question is also answered by looking at the DAB’s 2004 financial statements, also in Note 4, which reveals that the Afghan central bank gold was deposited with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 1939, which is 82 year ago!
Specifically, Note 4 of the 2004 DAB accounts states that:
“The annual incremental difference between the year-end gold valuation rate and the valuation rate of $35 per Troy ounce in 1939 when the gold was deposited, is recognized in income as an unrealized valuation gain or loss.”
This is not a typo. You have read this correctly. The Afghan central bank gold at the NY Fed was deposited there in 1939, which coincides with the start of World War II.
The unrealized valuation adjustment for the DAB gold above the $35 per oz acquisition price is also confirmed in the accounting policies of the DAB financial statements which states that:
“(c) Gold reserves: Monetary gold held, as part of DAB’s foreign exchange reserves, in the vaults of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York is regarded as a monetary instrument.
It is measured at quoted market prices as of the balance sheet date. The difference between the quoted market price at the balance sheet date and the original market rate of USD 35 per ounce at the date of acquisition is recognized in income as an unrealized revaluation gain or loss.”
Also in the 2004 accounts, under “Capital and Reserves”, you can see the massive adjustment attributed to “Accumulated net unrealized revaluation gains on gold reserves” which is the difference between market price and the acquisition price of $35 per oz in 1939.
These very old US Assay Office gold bars were always produced in Melts. Melts are batches of gold bars, usually between 18 and 22 bars, that when produced, were stamped with a melt number and a fineness, but were weight-listed as one unit. The US Assay Office produced both 0.995 fine gold bars and coin bars as Melts. The gold bars in a Melt are usually stored together unless that melt has been ‘broken’.
Here’s the Federal Reserve Board says about 0.995 fine Melts:
“US Assay Office bars, like bars in other countries, are produced in melts or a series of bars, numbered in succession. For instance, melt No. I contains 20 bars. Hence, the bars are stamped 1-1, 1-2, etc… , 1-20.”
“US Assay Office bars are gold bars that are originally issued by the US Assay Office and that have not been mutilated and which, if originally issued in the form of a melt, are re-deposited as a complete melt. These bars are not melted and assayed. They weigh approximately 400 troy ounces, the fineness of their gold content is .995 (99.5% purity or better), and they come in complete melts.
“When an US Assay Office bar is removed from a melt, it is referred to as a mutilated US Assay Office bar.”
Source: “Final report of the gold team”, draft June 30th, 2000. Page 13 here.
Tag Team USA: Freeze – Unblock – Freeze
At the start of this article, it was mentioned that this is not the first time that the Afghan central bank gold holdings in the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York have been frozen by the US Treasury.
This is because the same DAB gold holdings were also frozen by the US Treasury back in July 1991 and then unfrozen in January 2001. The fact that it’s the same 703,004.944 ozs of DAB gold which was frozen in 1999 can be seen from the US Treasury statement of 24 January 2001, when the US Treasury decided to unfreeze the gold and referred to ‘unblocking approximately $193 million in gold”.
At a gold price of $274.5 on 23 January 2001, this $193 million represented 703,000 ozs of gold. The US Treasury press release of 24 January 2001, titled “Treasury signs license unblocking frozen Afghan assets”, can be seen below:
“Late yesterday the Treasury Department signed a license authorizing the Federal Reserve to unblock Afghan government assets frozen in 1999 under Executive Order 13129.
The license, signed by Richard Newcomb, Director of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, gives control of the assets to the new Afghan Interim Authority (AIA).
The license will unblock approximately $193 million in gold and $24 million in other assets of the Afghan Central Bank held atthe Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The assets had been blocked under the 1999 Executive Order that froze all assets associated with the Taliban regime.”
It was under Executive Order 13129 of 4 July 1999 signed by then US president Bill Clinton that the DAB gold at the FRB in New York was frozen/blocked by the US Treasury in 1999. The US Treasury Secretary at that time was Larry Summers, who was sworn in on 2 July 1999. The Afghan gold was unblocked on 24 January 2001, just a few days after George W. Bush took office.
These old Afghan gold bars (if they even still exist at all down the back of the Fed vault cages) have therefore seen a lot of US tag team action over the years, being blocked and frozen by Clinton and Summers in 1999, unblocked again by George Bush Jnr in 2001, and now blocked again by Biden and Yellen in 2021. History is repeating itself.
holds 1,731 very old gold bars at the FRB New York vault
that this gold was deposited by the Afghan central bank in 1939
that the Afghan gold bars at the NY Fed are not Good Delivery gold bars
that the dimensions of the bars imply they are old US Assay office gold bars
that the bars have imperfections such as cracks, fissures and holes
Well, now you know!
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Mr Paul Givan, First Minister for Northern Ireland
Mr Sajid Javid, Health Secretary
Dr Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer
Dr Patrick Vallance, Chief Scientific Officer
22 August 2021
Dear Sirs and Madam,
Our grave concerns about the handling of the COVID pandemic by Governments of the Nations of the UK.
We write as concerned doctors, nurses, and other allied healthcare professionals with no vested interest in doing so. To the contrary, we face personal risk in relation to our employment for doing so and / or the risk of being personally “smeared” by those who inevitably will not like us speaking out.
We are taking the step of writing this public letter because it has become apparent to us that:
The Government (by which we mean the UK government and three devolved governments/administrations and associated government advisors and agencies such as the CMOs, CSA, SAGE, MHRA, JCVI, Public Health services, Ofcom etc, hereinafter “you” or the “Government”) have based the handling of the COVID pandemic on flawed assumptions.
These have been pointed out to you by numerous individuals and organisations.
You have failed to engage in dialogue and show no signs of doing so. You have removed from people fundamental rights and altered the fabric of society with little debate in Parliament. No minister responsible for policy has ever appeared in a proper debate with anyone with opposing views on any mainstream media channel.
Despite being aware of alternative medical and scientific viewpoints you have failed to ensure an open and full discussion of the pros and cons of alternative ways of managing the pandemic.
The pandemic response policies implemented have caused massive, permanent and unnecessary harm to our nation, and must never be repeated.
Only by revealing the complete lack of widespread approval among healthcare professionals of your policies will a wider debate be demanded by the public.
In relation to the above, we wish to draw attention to the following points. Supporting references can be provided upon request.
No attempt to measure the harms of lockdown policies
The evidence of disastrous effects of lockdowns on the physical and mental health of the population is there for all to see. The harms are massive, widespread, and long lasting. In particular, the psychological impact on a generation of developing children could be lifelong.
It is for this reason that lockdown policies were never part of any pandemic preparedness plans prior to 2020. In fact, they were expressly not recommended in WHO documents, even for severe respiratory viral pathogens and for that matter neither were border closures, face coverings, and testing of asymptomatic individuals. There has been such an inexplicable absence of consideration of the harms caused by lockdown policy it is difficult to avoid the suspicion that this is willful avoidance.
The introduction of such policies was never accompanied by any sort of risk/benefit analysis. As bad as that is, it is even worse that after the event when plenty of data became available by which the harms could be measured, only perfunctory attention to this aspect of pandemic planning has been afforded. Eminent professionals have repeatedly called for discourse on these health impacts in press-conferences but have been universally ignored.
What is so odd, is that the policies being pursued before mid-March 2020 (self-isolation of the ill and protection of the vulnerable, while otherwise society continued close to normality) were balanced, sensible and reflected the approach established by consensus prior to 2020. No cogent reason was given then for the abrupt change of direction from mid-March 2020 and strikingly none has been put forward at any time since.
Institutional nature of COVID
It was actually clear early on from Italian data that COVID (the disease – as opposed to SARS-Cov-2 infection or exposure) was largely a disease of institutions. Care home residents comprised around half of all deaths, despite making up less than 1% of the population. Hospital infections are the major driver of transmission rates as was the case for both SARS1 and MERS. Transmission was associated with hospital contact in up to 40% of cases in the first wave in Spring 2020 and in 64% in winter 2020/2021.
Severe illness among healthy people below 70 years old did occur (as seen with flu pandemics) but was extremely rare.
Despite this, no early, aggressive and targeted measures were taken to protect care homes; to the contrary, patients were discharged without testing to homes where staff had inadequate PPE, training and information. Many unnecessary deaths were caused as a result.
Preparations for this coming winter, including ensuring sufficient capacity and preventative measures such as ventilation solutions, have not been prioritised.
The exaggerated nature of the threat
Policy appears to have been directed at systematic exaggeration of the number of deaths which can be attributed to COVID. Testing was designed to find every possible ‘case’ rather than focusing on clinically diagnosed infections and the resulting exaggerated case numbers fed through to the death data with large numbers of people dying ‘with COVID’ and not ‘of COVID’ where the disease was the underlying cause of death.
The policy of publishing a daily death figure meant the figure was based entirely on the PCR test result with no input from treating clinicians. By including all deaths within a time period after a positive test, incidental deaths, with but not due to COVID, were not excluded thereby exaggerating the nature of the threat.
Moreover, in headlines reporting the number of deaths, a categorisation by age was not included. The average age of a COVID-labelled death is 81 for men and 84 for women, higher than the average life expectancy when these people were born. This is a highly relevant fact in assessing the societal impact of the pandemic. Death in old age is a natural phenomenon. It cannot be said that a disease primarily affecting the elderly is the same as one which affects all ages, and yet the government’s messaging appears designed to make the public think that everyone is at equal risk.
Doctors were asked to complete death certificates in the knowledge that the deceased’s death had already been recorded as a COVID death by the Government. Since it would be virtually impossible to find evidence categorically ruling out COVID as a contributory factor to death, once recorded as a “COVID death” by the government, it was inevitable that it would be included as a cause on the death certificate. Diagnosing the cause of death is always difficult and the reduction in post mortems will have inevitably resulted in increased inaccuracy. The fact that deaths due to non-COVID causes actually moved into a substantial deficit (compared to average) as COVID-labelled deaths rose (and this was reversed as COVID-labelled deaths fell) is striking evidence of over-attribution of deaths to COVID.
The overall all-cause mortality rate from 2015-2019 was unusually low and yet these figures have been used to compare to 2020 and 2021 mortality figures which has made the increased mortality appear unprecedented. Comparisons with data from earlier years would have demonstrated that the 2020 mortality rate was exceeded in every year prior to 2003 and is unexceptional as a result.
Even now COVID cases and deaths continue to be added to the existing total without proper rigour such that overall totals grow ever larger and exaggerate the threat. No effort has been made to count totals in each winter season separately which is standard practice for every other disease.
You have continued to adopt high-frequency advertising through publishing and broadcast media outlets to add to the impact of “fear messaging”. The cost of this has not been widely published, but government procurement websites reveal it to be immense – hundreds of millions of pounds.
The media and government rhetoric is now moving onto the idea that “Long Covid” is going to cause major morbidity in all age groups including children, without having a discussion of the normality of postviral fatigue which lasts upwards of 6 months. This adds to the public fear of the disease, encouraging vaccination amongst those who are highly unlikely to suffer any adverse effects from COVID.
Active suppression of discussion of early treatment using protocols being successfully deployed elsewhere.
The harm caused by COVID and our response to it should have meant that advances in prophylaxis and therapeutics for COVID were embraced. However, evidence on successful treatments has been ignored or even actively suppressed. For example, a study in Oxford published in February 2021 demonstrated that inhaled Budesonide could reduce hospitalisations by 90% in low risk patients and a publication in April 2021 showed that recovery was faster for high risk patients too. However, this important intervention has not been promoted.
Dr. Tess Lawrie, of the Evidence Based Medical Consultancy in Bath, presented a thorough analysis of the prophylactic and therapeutic benefits of Ivermectin to the government in January 2021. More than 24 randomised trials with 3,400 people have demonstrated a 79-91% reduction in infections and a 27-81% reduction in deaths with Ivermectin.
Many doctors are understandably cautious about possible over-interpretation of the available data for the drugs mentioned above and other treatments, although it is to be noted that no such caution seems to have been applied in relation to the treatment of data around the government’s interventions (eg the effectiveness of lockdowns or masks) when used in support of the government’s agenda.
Whatever one’s view on the merits of these repurposed drugs, it is totally unacceptable that doctors who have attempted to merely open discussion about the potential benefits of early treatments for COVID have been heavily and inexplicably censored. Knowing that early treatments which could reduce the risk of requiring hospitalisation might be available would alter the entire view held by many professionals and lay people alike about the threat posed by COVID, and therefore the risk / benefit ratio for vaccination, especially in younger groups.
Inappropriate and unethical use of behavioural science to generate unwarranted fear.
Propagation of a deliberate fear narrative (confirmed through publicly accessible government documentation) has been disproportionate, harmful and counterproductive. We request that it should cease forthwith.
To give just one example, the government’s face covering policies seem to have been driven by behavioural psychology advice in relation to generating a level of fear necessary for compliance with other policies. Those policies do not appear to have been driven by reason of infection control, because there is no robust evidence showing that wearing a face covering (particularly cloth or standard surgical masks) is effective against transmission of airborne respiratory pathogens such as SARS-Cov-2. Several high profile institutions and individuals are aware of this and have advocated against face coverings during this pandemic only inexplicably to reverse their advice on the basis of no scientific justification of which we are aware. On the other hand there is plenty of evidence suggesting that mask wearing can cause multiple harms, both physical and mental. This has been particularly distressing for the nation’s school children who have been encouraged by government policy and their schools to wear masks for long periods at school.
Finally, the use of face coverings is highly symbolic and thus counterproductive in making people feel safe. Prolonged wearing risks becoming an ingrained safety behaviour, actually preventing people from getting back to normal because they erroneously attribute their safety to the act of mask wearing rather than to the remote risk, for the vast majority of healthy people under 70 years old, of catching the virus and becoming seriously unwell with COVID.
Misunderstanding of the ubiquitous nature of mutations of newly emergent viruses.
The mutation of any novel virus into newer strains – especially when under selection pressure from abnormal restrictions on mixing and vaccination – is normal, unavoidable and not something to be concerned about. Hundreds of thousands of mutations of the original Wuhan strain have already been identified. Chasing down every new emergent variant is counterproductive, harmful and totally unnecessary and there is no convincing evidence that any newly identified variant is any more deadly than the original strain.
Mutant strains appear simultaneously in different countries (by way of ‘convergent evolution’) and the closing of national borders in attempts to prevent variants travelling from one country to another serves no significant infection control purpose and should be abandoned.
Misunderstanding of asymptomatic spread and its use to promote public compliance with restrictions.
It is well-established that asymptomatic spread has never been a major driver of a respiratory disease pandemic and we object to your constant messaging implying this, which should cease forthwith. Never before have we perverted the centuries-old practice of isolating the ill by instead isolating the healthy. Repeated mandates to healthy, asymptomatic people to self-isolate, especially school children, serves no useful purpose and has only contributed to the widespread harms of such policies. In the vast majority of cases healthy people are healthy and cannot transmit the virus and only sick people with symptoms should be isolated.
The government’s claim that one in three people could have the virus has been shown to be mutually inconsistent with the ONS data on prevalence of disease in society, and the sole effect of this messaging appears to have been to generate fear and promote compliance with government restrictions. The government’s messaging to ‘act as if you have the virus’ has also been unnecessarily fear-inducing given that healthy people are extremely unlikely to transmit the virus to others.
The PCR test, widely used to determine the existence of ‘cases’, is now indisputably acknowledged to be unable reliably to detect infectiousness. The test cannot discriminate between those in whom the presence of fragments of genetic material partially matching the virus is either incidental (perhaps because of past infection), or is representative of active infection, or is indicative of infectiousness. Yet, it has been used almost universally without qualification or clinical diagnosis to justify lockdown policies and to quarantine millions of people needlessly at enormous cost to health and well-being and to the country’s economy.
Countries that have removed community restrictions have seen no negative consequences which can be attributed to the easing. Empirical data from many countries demonstrates that the rise and fall in infections is seasonal and not due to restrictions or face coverings. The reason for reduced impact of each successive wave is that: (1) most people have some level of immunity either through prior immunity or immunity acquired through exposure; (2) as is usual with emergent new viruses, mutation of the virus towards strains causing milder disease appears to have occurred. Vaccination may also contribute to this although its durability and level of protection against variants is unclear.
The government appears to be talking of “learning to live with COVID” while apparently practicing by stealth a “zero COVID” strategy which is futile and ultimately net-harmful.
Mass testing of healthy children
Repeated testing of children to find asymptomatic cases who are unlikely to spread virus, and treating them like some sort of biohazard is harmful, serves no public health purpose and must stop.
During Easter term, an amount equivalent to the cost of building one District General Hospital was spent weekly on testing schoolchildren to find a few thousand positive ‘cases’, none of which was serious as far as we are aware.
Lockdowns are in fact a far greater contributor to child health problems, with record levels of mental illness and soaring levels of non-COVID infections being seen, which some experts consider to be a result of distancing resulting in deconditioning of the immune system.
Vaccination of the entire adult population should never have been a prerequisite for ending restrictions.
Based merely on early “promising” vaccine data, it is clear that the Government decided in summer 2020 to pursue a policy of viral suppression within the entire population until vaccination was available (which was initially stated to be for the vulnerable only, then later changed – without proper debate or rigorous analysis – to the entire adult population).
This decision was taken despite massive harms consequent to continued lockdowns which were either known to you or ought to have been ascertained so as to be considered in the decision making process.
Moreover, a number of principles of good medical practice and previously unimpeachable ethical standards have been breached in relation to the vaccination campaign, meaning that in most cases, whether the consent obtained can be truly regarded as “fully informed” must be in serious doubt:
The use of coercion supported by an unprecedented media campaign to persuade the public to be vaccinated, including threats of discrimination, either supported by the law or encouraged socially, for example in co-operation with social media platforms and dating apps.
The omission of information permitting individuals to make a fully informed choice, especially in relation to the experimental nature of the vaccine agents, extremely low background COVID risk for most people, known occurrence of short-term side-effects and unknown long-term effects.
Finally, we note that the Government is seriously considering the possibility that these vaccines – which have no associated long-term safety data – could be administered to children on the basis that this might provide some degree of protection to adults. We find that notion an appalling and unethical inversion of the long-accepted duty falling on adults to protect children.
Over-reliance on modeling while ignoring real-world data
Throughout the pandemic, decisions seem to have been taken utilising unvalidated models produced by groups who have what can only be described as a woeful track record, massively overestimating the impact of several previous pandemics.
The decision-making teams appear to have very little clinical input and, as far as is ascertainable, no clinical immunology expertise.
Moreover, the assumptions underlying the modeling have never been adjusted to take into account real-world observations in the UK and other countries.
It is an astonishing admission that, when asked whether collateral harms had been considered by SAGE, the answer given was that it was not in their remit – they were simply asked to minimise COVID impact. That might be forgivable if some other advisory group was constantly studying the harms side of the ledger, yet this seems not to have been the case.
Conclusions
The UK’s approach to COVID has palpably failed. In the apparent desire to protect one vulnerable group – the elderly – the implemented policies have caused widespread collateral and disproportionate harm to many other vulnerable groups, especially children. Moreover your policies have failed in any event to prevent the UK from notching up one of the highest reported death rates from COVID in the world.
Now, despite very high vaccination rates and the currently very low COVID death and hospitalisation rates, policy continues to be aimed at maintaining a population handicapped by extreme fear with restrictions on everyday life prolonging and deepening the policy-derived harms. To give just one example, NHS waiting lists now stand at 5.1m officially, with – according to the previous Health Secretary – a likely further 7m who will require treatment not yet presented. This is unacceptable and must be addressed urgently.
In short, there needs to be a sea change within the Government which must now pay proper attention to those esteemed experts outside its inner circle who are sounding these alarms. As those involved with healthcare, we are committed to our oath to “first do no harm”, and we can no longer stand by in silence observing policies which have imposed a series of supposed “cures” which are in fact far worse than the disease they are supposed to address.
The signatories of this letter call on you, in Government, without further delay to widen the debate over policy, consult openly with groups of scientists, doctors, psychologists and others who share crucial, scientifically-valid and evidence-based alternative views and to do everything in your power to return the country as rapidly as possible to normality with the minimum of further damage to society.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Jonathan Engler, MB ChB LLB (Hons) DipPharmMed
Professor John A Fairclough, BM BS B Med Sci FRCS FFSEM, Consultant Surgeon, ran vaccination program for a Polio Outbreak, Past President BOSTA, for Orthopaedic Surgeons, Faculty member FFSEM
Mr Tony Hinton, MB ChB, FRCS, FRCS(Oto), Consultant Surgeon
Dr Renee Hoenderkamp, BSc (Hons) MBBS MRCGP, General Practitioner
Dr Ros Jones, MBBS, MD, FRCPCH, retired consultant paediatrician
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Featured image: Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a press conference on 16 March, with Chief Medical Officer Prof Chris Witty and Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance. Picture by Andrew Parsons
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Truth for Health Foundation – Stop the Shot Continuation – Press Conference outlining Fertility Problems resulting from the COVID-19 Vaccines.
The conference featured leading physicians and scientists presenting to the public the potentially catastrophic threats to fertility (male and female) and pregnancy with the experimental COVID shots. Specialists included Dr. Peter McCullough, Dr. Mike Yeadon, Dr. Roger Hodkinson (Pathologist), Dr. Raphael Stricker (Reproductive Immunology), and Dr. Richard Blumrick (Maternal Fetal Medicine).
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The FDA can only grant emergency use authorization for a pandemic drug or vaccine if there’s no safe and effective preexisting treatment or alternative. Since there are several such alternatives, the FDA is legally required to revoke the emergency authorization for these shots
While the COVID injections have been characterized as being somewhere around 95% effective against SARS-CoV-2 infection, this is the relative risk reduction, which tells you very little about its usefulness. The absolute risk reduction is only around 1% for all currently available COVID shots
Antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) refers to a condition where the vaccination augments your risk of serious infection. We are now starting to see evidence that ADE is occurring in the vaccinated population
One of the most common side effects of the COVID shots is abnormal blood clotting, which can result in strokes and heart attacks
Even microclots that don’t completely block the blood vessel can have serious ramifications. You can check for presence of microclots by performing a D-dimer blood test. If your D-dimer is elevated, you have clotting somewhere in your body
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In this interview, German microbiologist Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi sifts through the facts and fictions of the coronavirus pandemic. Together with Karina Reiss, Ph.D., he’s written two books on this subject, starting with “Corona False Alarm? Facts and Figures,” published in October 2020, followed by “Corona Unmasked: New Facts and Figures.”
Bhakdi graduated from medical school in Germany in 1970. After a year of clinical work, he joined the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology, where he remained for four years as a post-doc.
There, he also began researching immunology. Eventually, he ended up chairing the department of medical, microbiology and hygiene at the University of Mainz, where he worked for 22 years until his retirement nine years ago. During that time, Bhakdi also worked on vaccine development, and says he’s “certainly pro-vax with regards to the vaccinations that work and that are meaningful.”
Much of his research focused on what’s called the complement system. When activated, the complement system ends up working in such a way that it destroys rather than aids your cells. Interestingly enough, SARS-CoV-2 uses this very system to its advantage, turning your immune system toward a path of self-destruction.
The same self-destructive path also appears to be activated by the COVID shots, which is part of why Bhakdi believes they are the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. “It is our duty to aggressively inform people about the dangers that they are subjecting themselves and their loved ones to by this ‘vaccination,’” he says.
How Effective Are the COVID Shots?
While the COVID injections have been characterized as being somewhere around 95% effective against SARS-CoV-2 infection, this claim is the product of statistical obfuscation. In short, they’ve conflated relative risk reduction and absolute risk reduction. The absolute risk reduction is actually right around 1% for all currently available COVID shots.1
In “Outcome Reporting Bias in COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Clinical Trials”2 Ron Brown, Ph.D. calculates the absolute risk reduction for Pfizer’s and Moderna’s injections, based on their own clinical trial data, so that they can be compared to the relative risk reduction reported by these companies. Here’s a summary of his findings:
In a July 1, 2021, commentary in The Lancet Microbe,3 Piero Olliaro, Els Torreele and Michel Vaillant also argue for the use of absolute risk reduction when discussing vaccine efficacy with the public. They too went through the calculations, coming up with the following:
What Kind of Protection Do the COVID Shots Provide?
Aside from providing insignificant protection in terms of your absolute risk reduction, it’s important to realize that they do not provide immunity. All they can do is reduce the severity of the symptoms of infection. According to Bhakdi, they fail even at this.
“They showed absolutely zero [benefit in the clinical trials],” he says. “This is the ridiculousness. People don’t understand that they’re being fooled and have been fooled all along. Let’s take the one of these Pfizer trials: 20,000 healthy people were vaccinated and another 20,000 people were not vaccinated.
And then they observed, over a period of 12 weeks or so, how many cases they found in the vaccinated group and how many cases they found the non-vaccinated. What they found was that less than 1% of the vaccinated group got COVID-19 and less than 1% in the non-vaccinated group also got COVID-19.
The difference was 0.8 to 0.1%, which is nothing, considering the fact that they were not even looking at severe cases. They were looking at people with a positive PCR test — which as we all now know is worthless — plus one symptom, which could be cough or fever.
That is not a severe case of COVID-19. Any vaccination that is going to get authorized must be shown to protect against severe illness and death, and this has definitely not been shown. So, forget authorization. It can’t be authorized, not by any normal means.
Now [the COVID injections do not have] full authorization, it’s an emergency authorization, which again is absolute bullshit, since we know the infection fatality rate of this disease or virus is not greater than that of seasonal flu. John Ioannidis has published these numbers, which have never been contested by anyone in the world and cannot be contested.
If you are under 70 years of age and have no severe preexisting illness, you can hardly die [from SARS-CoV-2 infection]. So, there is no fatality rate that can be reduced.
And for people who are elderly and have preexisting illness, as we know from Dr. Peter McCullough and his colleagues’ work, there are very good means and medicines to treat this virus so that the fatality rates go down another 70 to 80%, which means there is no ground for emergency use whatsoever.
This means the FDA should be able to be forced to retract this emergency use authorization — unless they are in league with whoever wants to do this.”
I neglected to follow-up on his comment about 40,000 people being equally divided between the injection and no injection groups in the COVID injection trials. A few months ago, they actually abandoned the non-injection arm of the trial, so no there is no control group anymore.
The justification was that the injection was too important to deny it to the control group. It’s just another sneaky way to skirt around reporting all the adverse effects occurring in the injection group.
That said, it’s worth repeating that the FDA can only grant emergency use authorization for a pandemic drug or vaccine if there’s no safe and effective preexisting treatment or alternative. Since there are several such alternatives, the FDA is legally required to revoke the emergency authorization for these shots.
Evidence of Increased Infection Risk After Injection
Presently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims some 95% of SARS-CoV-2 infections resulting in hospitalization are occurring among the unvaccinated. This too is a statistical fiction, as they’re using data from January through June 2021, when most of the American public were unvaccinated.
Looking at more recent data, we’re finding that the majority of severe cases and hospitalizations are actually occurring among those that received the COVID jab. Unfortunately, as noted by Bhakdi:
“It’s all manipulated. And, if someone wants to manipulate something and are in a position to then propagate it, you have no chance of analyzing it and telling people because we have no voice in this affair. When we stand up and tell people this, they just turn around and say that’s not the truth.”
Disturbingly, we’re now starting to see the first indications of antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE), which many scientists were concerned about from the very beginning. India, for example, where 10% of the population has been “vaccinated,” is now seeing very severe cases of COVID-19. Bhakdi says:
“What we’re witnessing in India and probably also in Israel is the immune dependent enhancement of disease … It’s bound to happen. So, the people who are getting vaccinated now have to be fearful of the next wave of genuine infections, whether it’s [SARS-CoV-2 variants] or any other coronaviruses, because they’re all related and they will all be subject to immune dependent enhancement, obviously.”
Antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE), or paradoxical immune enhancement (PIE) refers to a condition where the vaccination results in the complete opposite of what you’re looking for. Rather than protect against the infection, the vaccine augments and worsens the infection.
ADE can occur through more than one mechanism, and Bhakdi is of the opinion that the enhancement is primarily due to over-reactive killer lymphocytes and secondary complement activation, both of which cause severe damage.
Antibodies Versus Lymphocytes
Bhakdi explains:
“There are two major arms of defense against viral infection. One is the antibodies that, if they are present, may prevent the virus from entering your cells. These are so-called neutralizing antibodies, which the vaccination is supposed to [produce].
But the antibodies are not at the place that they are needed, which is on the surface of the airway epithelium. They are in the blood, but not at the surface of the epithelium where the virus arrives. The second arm of immune defense then comes into play, and these are the lymphocytes.
There are different types of lymphocytes and I will simplify matters by saying the important lymphocytes are the so-called killer lymphocytes that sense whenever a virus product is being produced in the cell. They will then destroy the cells that harbor the virus and thus the factory is closed and you get well again.
That is the mechanism for how we can survive viral infections of the lung, and this happens all the time. So, the lymphocytes, in contrast to the antibodies, recognize many, many, many parts of the proteins. So, if a virus changes a little bit, it doesn’t matter, because the waste products that are recognized by the killer lymphocytes remain very similar.
That is why all of us, and this is now known, all of us have memory lymphocytes in our lymph nodes and lymphoid organs that are trained to recognize these coronaviruses. And whether or not a mutant is there, it doesn’t really matter, because they will recognize a mutant or variant.”
According to Bhakdi, coronaviruses can only undergo point mutations, meaning only one nucleotide at a time can be changed. The influenza virus, meanwhile, can undergo more radical mutations. For example, a flu virus can completely change its spike protein by swapping spike proteins with another virus that is simultaneously present.
This sort of shift is not possible with coronaviruses. Therefore, you will never have leaps in antigenic changes either for antibodies or for T-cell killer lymphocytes. That’s why the background immunity that evolves during the lifetime of a human being is very broad and solid.
Natural Immunity Is Far Superior to Vaccine-Induced Immunity
One of the most egregious nullifications of medical scientific truth is the claim that COVID “vaccination” confers superior protection compared than the natural immunity you get after you’ve been exposed to the virus and recover. The reality is that natural immunity is infinitely more superior to the vaccine-induced protection you get from these shots, which is both narrow and temporary.
The COVID shot produces antibodies against just one of the viral proteins, the spike protein, whereas natural immunity produces antibodies against all parts of the virus, plus memory T cells. As noted by Bhakdi:
“The very fact that the World Health Organization has changed the definition of herd immunity … is such a scandal. I’m at a loss of words to describe how ridiculous I find this all, that this is being accepted by our colleagues. How can the physicians and scientists of the world bear to listen to all this nonsense?”
How the COVID Shot Causes Damage
As explained by Bhakdi, when you get a COVID shot, genetic instructions are being injected into your deltoid muscle. Muscle drains into your lymph nodes, which in turn can enter your bloodstream. There may also be direct translocation from the muscle into smaller blood vessels.
Animal data submitted by Pfizer to Japanese authorities show the mRNA appeared within the blood within one or two hours of injection. The rapidity of it suggests the nano particles are translocated from the muscle directly into the blood, bypassing the lymph nodes.
Once inside your bloodstream, the genetic instructions are delivered to the cells available, namely your endothelial cells. These are the cells that line your blood vessels. These cells then start producing spike protein, as per the mRNA instructions. As the name implies, the spike protein looks like a sharp spike protruding from the cell wall, into the bloodstream.
Since they are not supposed to be there, your killer lymphocytes rush to the area, thinking the cells are infected. The killer lymphocytes attack the cells, which causes damage to the cell wall. This damage, in turn, provokes clot formation. We’re now seeing evidence that COVID shots are causing all manner of clotting issues, from microsized clots to massive clots stretching a foot or more in length.
Of course, when a large enough clot occurs in the heart, you end up with a heart attack. In the brain, you end up with stroke. But even microclots that don’t completely block the blood vessel can have serious ramifications. You can check for presence of microclots by performing a D-dimer blood test. If your D-dimer is elevated, you have clotting somewhere in your body.
How Vaccine-Induced Antibodies Can Cause Harm
But that’s not all. The anti-spike protein antibodies can also be harmful. Bhakdi explains:
“The other thing that has now emerged is just as frightening [as the clotting problem]. One to two weeks after the first jab, you start making antibodies in large amounts.
Now, when the second jab is done, and the spike proteins starts to project from the walls of your vessels into your bloodstream, it is not only met by the killer lymphocytes, but now the antibodies are also there and the antibodies activate [the] complement [system].
That was my first field of research. The first cascade system is the clotting system. Turn it on and the blood will clot. If you turn on the complement system with the antibodies that bind to your vessel wall, then this complement system will start creating holes in the vessel wall.
And you see these patients who have bleeding in the skin. Ask, where does that come from? Well, if you go around riddling your vessels with holes, you [get bleeding]. If the holes riddle vessels of the liver, or the pancreas or the brain, then the blood will seep through the vessels into the tissues …
[The COVID injections] are in your bloodstream for at least a week, and they will seep into any organ. And when those [organ] cells then start to make the spike protein themselves, then the killer lymphocytes will also seek and destroy them [in that organ, creating more damage and subsequent clotting].
What we are witnessing is one of the most fascinating experiments that could lead to massive autoimmune disease. When this will happen, God knows. And what this will lead to, God knows.”
COVID Jab May Trigger Latent Viruses and Cancer
The COVID jabs can also decimate your lymph nodes, as your lymph nodes are full of lymphocytes and other immune cells. Some of the lymphocytes will die immediately upon contact, causing inflammation.
Cells that don’t die and take up the mRNA and start producing spike protein will be recognized as virus producers and get attacked by the complement system. It essentially creates a war between some immune cells against other immune cells. As a result of this attack, your lymph nodes swell and become painful.
This is a serious problem, as the lymphocytes in your lymph nodes are lifelong sentinels that keep latent infection such as shingles under control. When they malfunction or are destroyed, these latent viruses can activate. This is why we’re seeing reports of shingles, lupus, herpes, Epstein-Barr, tuberculosis and other infections emerge as a side effect of the shots. Of course, certain cancers can also be affected.
“As we all know, tumors are forming every day in our bodies, but those tumor cells are recognized by our lymphocytes and then they’re snuffed out,” Bhakdi says. “So, I am worried sick that the world is being goaded into taking something into the body that is going to change the whole face of medicine.”
Informed Consent Is Virtually Impossible
After giving this issue a great deal of thought, Bhakdi is convinced that the COVID injection campaign must be stopped.
“Gene-based vaccines are an absolute danger to mankind and their use at present violates the Nuremberg codex, such that everyone who is propagating their use should be put before tribunal,” Bhakdi says.
“Especially the vaccination of children is something that is so criminal that I have no words to express my horror … We are horribly worried that there’s going to be an impact on fertility. And this will be seen in years or decades from now. And this is potentially one of the greatest crimes, simply one of the greatest crimes imaginable …
As we all know, it is laid down by the Nuremberg codex that in case experiments are to be conducted in humans, this can only be performed with informed consent.
Informed consent means that the person to be vaccinated has to be informed about all the risks, the risk benefit ratios, the potential dangers and what is known about side effects. This cannot be done with children, because children are not in the position to understand it.
Therefore, they cannot give informed consent. Therefore, they cannot be vaccinated. If anyone does that, he should be set before a tribunal. If grownups have been informed and want to get the shot, that’s all right. But don’t force anyone to get the shot. It has to be by informed consent only.”
Of course, informed consent is also virtually impossible even for adults, as they’re only given one side of the story. All side effects and risks are censored virtually everywhere and discussions about them are banned. The U.S. government is even pushing to criminalize discussion about COVID injection risks.
Where Do We Go From Here?
If you’ve already gotten one or two shots, there’s nothing you can do about that. Certainly, do not get a booster, as each booster is undoubtedly going to magnify the damage.
“In the end, I predict that we’re going to see mass illnesses and deaths among people who normally would have wonderful lives ahead of them,” Bhakdi says. The question on people’s minds is, can anything be done to reverse the damage from these shots? As yet, we do not know.
However, if you have received one or more shots and develop symptoms of an infection, Bhakdi recommends treatment with hydroxychloroquine and/or ivermectin, such as the Zelenko protocol,4and the MATH+ protocols,5 which have proven their effectiveness. It’s important to realize you may actually be more prone to serious infection, not less.
Nebulized hydrogen peroxide can also be used for prevention and treatment of COVID-19, as detailed in Dr. David Brownstein’s case paper6 and Dr. Thomas Levy’s free e-book, “Rapid Virus Recovery.” Whichever treatment protocol you use, make sure you begin treatment as soon as possible, ideally at first onset of symptoms.
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The firm, BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest asset manager, invests a staggering $9 trillion in client funds worldwide, a sum more than double the annual GDP of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Let us be under no illusions, it’s not only “experimental”, it’s a Big Pharma “killer vaccine” which modifies the human genome. The evidence of mortality and morbidity resulting from vaccine inoculation both present (official data) and future (e.g. undetected microscopic blood clots) is overwhelming.
The pathogenic or even deadly composition of this vaccine, which will also contain Nano-chips to control humanity, has certainly already been mixed in the world’s secret laboratories.
Now those who are fully vaccinated are being told they will likely need a booster shot a few months down the road. Because if two shots didn’t work, the third one will? And so on and so forth.
Scientists opposed to offering booster shots to all Americans said data provided by federal health officials wasn’t compelling enough to support the recommendation — some argued boosters could lead to more vaccine-resistant variants.
In February 2021, a World Health Organization (WHO) 4-week mission to China to study the covid plandemic’s origins, came to the conclusion that it was unlikely the virus had escaped from the Wuhan viral research laboratory, or from any other Chinese laboratory, for that matter.
Potential routes exist along the Wakhan Corridor and via Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, but it is Pakistani access to Kabul that looks the better option – as long as the Taliban can provide stability, develop Afghan society, and refrain from regional aggression.
CNN talking heads and NY Times op-ed writers have not adopted this talking point by accident; through a carefully engineered rhetorical sleight of hand, they have subtly introduced the concept that the actual unvaccinated people – and not the virus itself – are the source of ongoing suffering.
One of the key players in the anti-Soviet, U.S.-led regime change project against Afghanistan was Osama bin Laden, a Saudi-born millionaire who came from a wealthy, powerful family that owns a Saudi construction company and has had close ties to the Saudi royal family.
For apocalyptic disaster films, they don’t get much more up close and personal (and apocalyptic) than the film Greenland (2020). Set in contemporary times, the story revolves around the news that an interstellar comet named Clarke is heading for Earth, and that it was made up of fragments of rock and ice big enough to wipe out modern civilization.
This historic interview with President Carter’s National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski confirms that the so-called “Soviet-Afghan war” was triggered and initiated not by the Soviet Union but by the United States.
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In a report on COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness released yesterday, Dr. Geoff MitchellMD, JD determined the shots “neither safe nor effective,” and concluded “the best data tells us that the COVID-19 vaccines are failing.”
According to that data, says Dr. Mitchell,
“Countries with active vaccination programs have more COVID deaths than those who do not.” Moreover, “Countries with a higher percentage of their population vaccinated have more COVID deaths,” and “COVID deaths have increased with vaccination after vaccination programs were implemented.”
“The culmination of sixteen months of Africa study is that HCQ and IVM are both about 70% effective in reducing death,” he noted, “but Artemisinin and atovaquone-proguanil are (inadvertently) 95% effective in reducing COVID death. Artemisinin is reportedly intentionally used in four countries to treat COVID. The most well-known of artemisinin-treating country is Madagascar which has a 954 COVID deaths, a rate of 35 dpm. This is 2% of the U.S. rate.”
Dr. Mitchell wrote:
“Among the 104 countries which offer no demonstrable COVID vaccination programs, on 08/16/21, their COVID fatality rates averaged an unexpectedly lower 690 deaths per million.”
However, “Among the 82 countries which offer vaccination programs, on 08/16/21, their COVID fatality rates averaged 828 deaths per million which is counterintuitively higher than the COVID fatality rate for unvaccinated countries.
“In the 82 countries which offer vaccination programs, not only was the average COVID fatality rate greater than in unvaccinated countries, but the number of deaths increased as the number or percentage of residents vaccinated increased.”
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In the mirror-world which is the Julian Assange case, justice is neither transparent nor impartial. And it is certainly not swift.
Assange is now in his third year of detention in Belmarsh High Security prison. He has not been convicted of anything. His case has not yet staggered from the Magistrate’s Court, the lowest court in the land, to the Appeal Court. It has never and will never appear before a jury.
Last week two High Court judges, in a hearing about what will be allowed to be appealed by the United States government when the full appeal is heard on October 27-28 , decided that the previous High Court judge and the magistrate in the Magistrate’s Court were wrong to rule that the US could not raise, once again, questions about Assange’s mental condition and assurances that the US prison system is really a health spa in which Assange will be under no risk of suicide.
No doubt if they are denied a success at appeal the US will find more ways to keep Assange under lock and key in what is now amounting to punishment by process. Indeed, some years ago the right-wing US think tank Stratfor recommended exactly this tactic to the government in the Assange case.
This is an effective denial of Habeas Corpus, the legal principle that citizens cannot be imprisoned without trial for long periods. It is a process which is an abuse of the law.
If Assange were ever to be extradited, far worse than this would follow: lengthy pre-trial detention in a system designated as “oppressive” by the judge at Westminster Magistrate’s Court whose ruling against extradition is being appealed on October 27-28. And then a possible 175-year sentence if he is found guilty.
And for what? Telling the truth about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. So there is a deep irony that this prosecution is taking place across the same time period that the US lost control of Afghanistan and was forced to withdraw in the face of revitalised Taliban.
If only the justice system in London could hear the Assange case with the same speed that the Taliban took Kabul.
But for now all eyes must be focused on the appeal at the High Court at the end of October. Public pressure is the only thing that can end the deliberate, punitive incarceration of Assange. The entire labour movement and progressive left must rise to the occasion. This is, when all is said and done, the most important press freedom case of the 21st century.
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John Rees is a national officer of the Stop the War Coalition, an academic and writer — Twitter @JohnWRees.
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The official reason provided by the Pentagon was that the Somali National Army needed air support in its operations to counter al-Shabaab. But the actual reason was that Somalia is geo-strategically important to US empire.
Successive US administrations have cycled through a myriad of excuses to either bomb the country or to arm its dictators: Cold War politics, “humanitarian intervention,” anti-piracy, and more recently counterterrorism.
As we shall see, in the mid-2000s, a fragile coalition of soft and hard Islamists – explicitly not allied to al-Qaeda at the time – brought some measure of peace to the areas of Somalia it controlled. With help from Britain and neighboring Ethiopia, the US smashed the coalition and pushed more right-wing elements like al-Shabaab over the edge into militancy.
And of course, the global superpower bombing one of the poorest countries on Earth in the name of national security is not terrorism.
Let’s take a look at the broader context and specific chronology.
A US imperial bulwark is born in Africa
The Pentagon has divided the world into self-appointed Areas of Responsibility (AORs). The Southern Command deems itself “responsible” for operations in Central and South America, regardless of what the people of the region think.
The Central Command (CENTCOM) covers much of the Middle East and Central Asia: the key intersections of energy fields and pipelines that enable the US to influence the global economy at the expense of competitors, notably Russia and China.
The Africa Command (AFRICOM) was founded in 2007 by the George W. Bush administration and is based in Stuttgart, Germany. President Barack Obama vastly expanded its operations.
AFRICOM’s current AOR covers 53 of the continent’s 54 states, with Egypt in the northeast already under the AOR of CENTCOM due to its strategic value (more below).
AFRICOM recently bragged about how it helped coordinate with Somali “partners,” meaning elements of the regime imposed on the country by the West, to organize the Biden-led bombing of al-Shabaab.
AFRICOM says: “The command’s initial assessment is that no civilians were injured or killed given the remote nature of where this engagement occurred.” But who knows?
US commanders operating in the African theater have tended to dismiss the notion that civilian deaths should be tallied at all. In 1995, for example, the US wound down its “assistance” to the UN mission in Somalia, but ended up in a shooting war in which several Somalis died.
The US commander, Lt. Gen. Anthony Zinni, said at the time, “I’m not counting bodies… I’m not interested.”
Somalia’s geopolitical importance to US empire
In the Africa-Middle East regions, three seas are of strategic importance to the big powers: the Mediterranean, the Red Sea (connected by Egypt’s Suez Canal), and the Gulf of Aden, which is shared by Somalia in Africa and Yemen in the Middle East.
Through these seas and routes travel the shipping containers of the world, carrying oil, gas, and consumer products. They are essential for the strategic deployment of troops and naval destroyers.
Somalia was occupied by Britain and Italy during the “Scramble for Africa,” the continent-wide resource-grab by Western colonial powers that began in the late-19. Ethiopia continues to occupy Somalia’s Ogaden region.
A 1950s’ British Colonial Office report described the Gulf of Aden as “an important base from which naval, military and air forces can protect British interests in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula.” “British” interests, like “US” interests today, means elite interests.
A George W. Bush-era report by the US Army War College notes that, “Even before the Suez Canal came into being, the [Red] Sea had been of importance as an international waterway. It served as a bridge between the richest areas of Europe and the Far East.” The report emphasizes that the “geopolitical position of the Red Sea is of a special importance.”
AFRICOM was founded with a grand imperial ambition: to make the four of the five countries on Africa’s Red Sea coast – Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia, and Sudan – comply with US elite interests, and to keep the Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Suez Canal open for business and strategic deployment.
As noted before, CENTCOM covers Egypt. During the Arab Spring a decade ago, US strategists feared, like their British predecessors, that losing the Suez Canal to a democratic government in Egypt “would damage U.S. capabilities to mobilize forces to contain Iran and would weaken the overall U.S. defense strategy in the Middle East,” home of much of the world’s accessible oil.
International interference drives Somalia’s civil conflict
Somalia declared independence in 1960. Its British and Italian areas merged into a single nation led by President Aden Abdullah Osman and Prime Minister Abdirashid Ali Shermarke, who later became president. Most political parties merged with the Somali Youth League to create a de facto single-party state.
Backed by the West, Ethiopia blocked Somalia’s diplomatic efforts to reclaim the Ogaden region. As president, Abdirashid took millions of dollars in Soviet military assistance and was subsequently assassinated by one “Said Orfano,” a young police-trained man posing as a cop and erroneously referred to in contemporary sources as a “bodyguard.”
Major General Siad Barre took over in 1969 and ruled until his overthrow in 1991. An early-1970s CIA intelligence memo refers to Russian-Somali relations as “largely a liaison of convenience,” marred by “mutual” “distrust.”
After Barre’s failed war with Ethiopia over Ogaden and his explicit rejection of Soviet money and ideology, the US saw him as a client. In 1977, senior US policymakers highlighted Somalia’s “break with the Soviets.” From then until 1989, the US gave nearly $600 million in military aid to Barre’s regime to nudge it further from the Soviet sphere of influence.
The Barre regime used the newly augmented military – from 3,000 to 120,000 personnel – to crush the rival Somali National Movement, killing tens of thousands of civilians and driving a million people from their homes.
But the coalition that deposed Barre in 1991 fell apart and the rival factions fought a civil war that triggered famine and killed an additional 300,000 people within the first couple of years.
The United Nations intervened to deliver food to civilians. The US saw the move as an opportunity to test the new doctrine of “humanitarian intervention” in the form of Operation Restore Hope. President George H.W. Bush said that the objective was to “save thousands of innocents from death.”
But a master’s thesis by Major Vance J. Nannini of the US Army’s Fort Leavenworth provides a version of events much closer to the truth: “Throughout our involvement with Somalia, our overriding strategic objective was simply to acquire and maintain the capability to respond to any military contingency that could threaten U.S. interests in the Middle East, Northeast Africa and the Red Sea area.”
Restore Hope ended in a fiasco for the US, exemplified by the famous Black Hawk Down incident, and thousands of Somali deaths – “I’m not counting bodies,” as Commander Zinni said of a later mission.
A convenient target in the “war on terror”
In Djibouti in 1999, a Transitional National Government (TNG) was formed in exile and came to power in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, in 2001.
At the same time, a broad umbrella of Sufis and Salafists – the “left” and “right” of Islam – known as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) was gaining political and territorial ground.
The TNG collapsed in 2004 and was replaced with a Transitional Federal Government founded in Kenya and backed by the Ethiopian proxy Abdullahi Yusuf, a man harbored by Britain and even given a liver transplant in the UK. (The liver allegedly came from an Irish Republican Army member. “Now I am a real killer,” joked Abdullahi.)
Abdullahi was found liable for damages in a UK court over the killing of a British citizen in Somalia in 2002 by his bodyguards.
Under the post-9/11 rubric of fighting a “war on terror,” the CIA added to the chaos throughout the period by covertly funding non-Islamist “warlords,” including those the US previously fought in the 1990s. The aim was to kill and capture ICU members and other Islamists.
In addition, the Pentagon’s secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) engaged in covert operations. Estimates of the number of JSOC personnel on the ground in Somalia range from three to 100.
US Special Forces set up a network of operations and surveillance in the country, supposedly to counter al-Qaeda.
In 2003, for instance, US agents kidnapped an innocent man, Suleiman Abdullah Salim, from a Mogadishu hospital. Claiming that he was an “al-Qaeda” operative, the US had Suleiman tortured at a number of “rendition” sites before releasing him. (The operatives who grabbed him were tipped off by the “warlord” Mohammed Dheere, who was paid by the CIA.)
But one of the Arabic meanings of “al-Qaeda” is “the database,” referring to the computer file with information on the tens of thousands of mujahideen and their acolytes trained, armed, organized, and funded by the US and Britain throughout the 1980s to fight the Soviets (Operation Cyclone).
There are more direct links between the US and al-Shabaab. In his younger days, ICU secretary and later al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane joined the only major terrorist group in Somalia in the 1990s, Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya (AIAI, “Islamic Union”). The AIAI fighters trained with “al-Qaeda” in Afghanistan in the 1980s, when the US and Britain were training “al-Qaeda.” (See citation no. 7.)
Killing Somalia’s hope
By the mid-2000s, with the rise of the ICU, the hope of stability came to Somalia – but it was not to last. In 2003, the US Combined Joint Tasks Force Horn of Africa initiated training of Ethiopia’s military in tactics, logistics, and maintenance. The US backing later came in handy fighting the ICU.
The ICU was rapidly and widely painted as an extremist organization. However, a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report notes that it was “well received by the people in the areas the Courts controlled,” particularly as it provided social services.
Western propaganda spun the ICU’s shutting down of cinemas as proof of its Islamo-fascism. But the CRS report says that such measures were undertaken at the request of parents because children were skipping school, “not because of the Courts’ alleged jihadist and extremist ideology… There is no evidence to support the allegation that women were prohibited from working.”
As Western vessels continue to deplete starving Somalia’s fish stocks to sell to comparatively privileged consumers, propaganda denounces Somali “piracy” against Euro-American ships. However, a report by the Royal Institute for International Affairs (the British think tank also known as Chatham House), says: “The only period during which piracy virtually vanished around Somalia was during the six months of rule by the Islamic Courts Union in the second half of 2006.”
A World Bank report from 2006 notes that the ICU “brought a measure of law and order to the large areas of South-Central Somalia” it controlled. The US State Department, meanwhile, was hosting an international conference in a bid to remove the ICU and bolster the Transitional Federal Government (TFG).
With US and British training, including logistical support, Ethiopia invaded Somalia in late-2006 to install Abdullahi as President of the TFG.
The US and Britain worked hard to set up a new regime in a war so brutal that over 1 million people fled their homes. In addition, tens of thousands crossed the Gulf of Aden to Yemen in hazardous small boats sailed by traffickers. Hundreds of thousands ended up in dire refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, where women and girls were raped.
A US- and UK-backed regime terrorizes Somalia’s people
The Transitional Federal Government terrorized the Somali population. One of the few British journalists to report on this at the time, the Kenya-born Aidan Hartley, wrote: “several Somali leaders who have been linked to allegations of war crimes against countless civilians are living double lives in Britain.”
General Mohamed Darwish, head of the TFG’s National Security Agency, was “given British citizenship, state benefits and a subsidised home.”
The taxpayer-funded privatization unit the Department for International Development (DFID, now part of the Foreign Office) paid TFG politicians’ salaries, as well as buying police radios and vehicles.
Human Rights Watch says that the Commissioner of the Somali Police Force, Brig. Gen. Abdi Hasan Awale Qaybdib, was “a former warlord who has been implicated in serious human rights abuses that predate his tenure as commissioner.”
A House of Commons Library report confirms that the UN Development Program (UNDP) and the World Food Program (WFP) were used as unwitting conduits: “DFID has pledged over £20 million in new commitments for Somalia, including £12 million to the WFP. No money goes directly to the TFG. It is channelled through the UNDP.”
By 2011, this included training 3,000 police in Somaliland and hiring mercenaries formerly of the UK Special Boat Service, who were promised up to £1,500 a day.
The consequences for Somali civilians were devastating. In addition to the refugees noted above, the instability caused by the war triggered another famine by jeopardizing aid and driving people from areas near food distribution centers.
The US has survived shocks like 9/11 because it is a robust nation. Fragile countries like Somalia cannot withstand major political disruptions.
Transforming Somalia into an extremist haven
President George W. Bush bombed “al-Qaeda” targets in Somalia in January 2007. Al-Shabaab, then led by the hard-line Godane, survived the collapse of the ICU in the same year.
The UN Security Council then authorized the African Union (AU) to occupy Somalia with “peacekeepers,” with AMISON being the US support mission.
The British-backed TFG President Abdullahi resigned in 2008 and was replaced by the former ICU leader, the more moderate Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. Sharif met with Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009, who pledged US support to the TFG in its fight against its former armed wing, al-Shabaab.
A West Point study notes that, using sharia, al-Shabaab had by 2009 “succeeded in bringing about a period of relative stability in much of the territory it controlled,” just like the ICU before it. Shabaab was also comparatively moderate: the “leadership pursued a pragmatic approach toward clan politics and drew its leadership and rank-and-file from a relatively diverse array of clans and sub-clans, unlike many of Somalia’s other armed factions.”
But the group made tactical errors, such as the Ramadan Offensives (2009-1010) against the TFG and AMISON forces in Mogadishu. With Shabaab weakened, Godane merged the group with “al-Qaeda” in 2011.
British-backed terrorists poured into Somalia to join Godane. By the time it allied with al-Qaeda, a quarter of Shabaab’s fighters hailed from the UK. Many had been radicalized by Abu Qatada, a man once described as Bin Laden’s “right-hand man in Europe” and a protected asset of Britain’s internal MI5 Security Service.
The Nigeria-born Michael Adebolajo, who was charged in the UK with murder, had previously attempted to recruit for Shabaab in Kenya. He maintains that MI5 attempted to recruit him.
A time-tested recipe for destabilization and disaster
Since merging with “al-Qaeda,” al-Shabaab has extended its reach, reportedly sending suicide bombers into neighboring countries, including Kenya.
One could say that the Biden administration has learned no lessons after decades of interference in Somalia. But this would be inaccurate. Successive US administrations understand perfectly that stirring the pot of extremism and relying on propaganda to report the result, not the process, gives them endless excuses to occupy other countries.
The Pentagon is committed to global domination, Somalia is a strategic chokepoint, and the Department of Defense needs reasons to maintain its presence in the country.
The US created al-Shabaab in several ways. First, it escalated Islamist vs. non-Islamist tensions by backing secular “warlords” as a proxy against the ICU in the mid-2000s. This alienated the moderate factions of the ICU and empowered the right-wing Islamists.
Second, and most importantly, Washington backed Ethiopia’s invasion in late 2006, triggering a catastrophe for the civilian population, many of whom welcomed hard-line Muslims because they imposed a degree of law and order.
Third, by painting the nomadic and Sufi Islamist nation of Somalia as a hub of right-wing Salafi extremism, Western policymakers and media propagandists created a self-fulfilling prophesy in which Muslim fundamentalists eventually joined the terror groups they were already accused of being part of.
Fourth, for a country supposedly concerned with international terrorism, the US has done nothing to rein in one its closest allies, the UK, whose successive governments have sheltered a number of Islamic extremists that recruited for Somalia.
Even if we look at Somalia’s crisis through a liberal lens that ignores titanic imperial crimes, such as triggering famines, and focus on the lesser but still serious crimes of suicide bombings, it is hard not to conclude that Somalia’s pot of extremism was stirred by Western interference.
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In 2011 the Great East Japan Earthquake and ensuing tsunami devastated northeast Japan, taking the lives of more than 18,000 people and triggering one of the worst industrial accidents in history: the crippling breakdown of the Fukushima Dai’ichi nuclear power plant. Three of the plant’s six reactors suffered perilous nuclear core meltdowns and hydrogen gas explosions, releasing radionuclides into the air, water and soil. More than 160,000 people were evacuated–nuclear power refugees, many of whom have lost trust in their government’s pronouncements about “safe to return.”
Five Years Later
Considered the most complex industrial cleanup, not even robots were able to enter the main radioactive fuel-debris areas by 2016. The regional farming and the fishing industries suffered collapse and financial ruin. Permissible levels of radiation for children were raised in a callous move to keep schools open. Debates over canceling the 2020 Tokyo Olympics ensued because of the geographic spread of radioactive pollution–an issue all but forgotten as more recent debates rose over canceling the subsequent 2021 Olympics because of Covid-19 and Japan’s low vaccination rate.
Three hundred tons per day of groundwater containing large amounts of radioactive material, including cesium, strontium, iodine, and other substances, poured into the Pacific Ocean from 2010 until the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the plant’s owner, decreased it to one-tenth that volume by 2015. On site over 1,000 mammoth storage tanks hold wastewater treated by a filter process TEPCO devised to remove more than 60 radioactive chemicals to so-called safe internationally regulated levels. Only the treatment has left 70% of the filtered wastewater still contaminated above regulatory levels. Nor can it remove tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen.
In September 2015, ocean surges from Typhoon Etau overwhelmed the site’s drainage pumps; hundreds of tons of radioactive water leaked from the reactors site and ultimately into the ocean. What, then, of more severe typhoons, undersea earthquakes, and the reality of sea level rise for the oceanside plant? How will an onsite drainage system survive natural disasters worsened by climate change if they failed in 2015?
Now
On April 13, 2021, the Japanese government announced that TEPCO has the government’s permission to release 1.38 million US tons of its filtered radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, beginning in 2023. The company states that its storage capacity will run out in two years, a claim that critics dispute. Critics also deem the treatment filtration system that TEPCO invented, the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), subpar and not capable of thorough removal of radioactive waste.
Ultimately, the discharge will rely on dilution with ocean water as the solution to radioactive pollution–in denial of the food chain phenomenon in which plankton absorb the released radioactive elements in sea water, fish eat the plankton, bigger fish eat smaller fish, and humans and marine animals eat both big and small fish.
One week after Japan’s announcement on April 13 of this year, fish caught off Fukushima waters were found to contain high levels of radioactive cesium many times above permissible levels. Referring to the announcement, Takeshi Komatsu, an oyster farmer in Miyagi prefecture, north of Tokyo responded despondently about the permission for TEPCO to discharge radioactive wastewater in two years: “The (Japanese) government’s decision is outrageous, I feel more helpless than angry when I think that all the efforts I’ve made to rebuild my life over the past decade have come to nothing,” as reported by the China Daily Global.
Nearby countries that share the seas and ocean with Japan are irate and extremely critical of Japan’s decision, with some planning international legal action. Professor Choi SK Kunsan of South Korea National University warned, “Through the sea’s currents, it can affect fishes near the Korean Peninsula, East Asia, and even the entire world…” Japan retorts that they plan to re-filter and dilute the water before releasing it, until the contaminated water is “safe to drink.” If that is the case, “Then please drink it,” countered Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhoa Lijian at a news briefing. “The ocean is not Japan’s trash can.”
An observer of this verbal chess match pointed out, with some irony, that Japan has about 100,000 dams for flood control, water supply, crop irrigation and hydroelectric power with more than enough capacity to dilute TEPCO’s oversupply of radioactive wastewater to drinking water acceptability by Japan’s standard. Re-filter the contaminated wastewater using ALPS and dilute it in the mammoth dams until it is “safe enough” to drink, he proposes. Then use it for the country’s drinking water supply and crop irrigation. Problem solved. No angry neighbors.
With the back and forth about “permissible” levels of exposure in drinking water, the ocean and so on, let us keep this fact in mind. Decades of research have shown that there is no safe level of radiation, according to the National Academy of Sciences. Any exposure to radiation increases an individual’s risk of developing cancer.
The two major supporters for Japan’s decision to contaminate the Pacific Ocean with its oversupply of radioactive wastewater are the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United States. The IAEA’s mission is “to promote the safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear technologies,” in other words, to sustain the illusion–despite Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima and concern about Iran–that nuclear power can be safe and secure and its waste never at risk of being processed for nuclear weapons. The United States, the largest owner of nuclear power plants, promotes nuclear power as “safe and clean energy,” a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
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H. Patricia Hynes is a retired Professor of Environmental Health from Boston University School of Public Health and current Chair of the Board of the Traprock Center for Peace and Justice. She has written and edited seven books, among them “The Recurring Silent Spring.” She writes and speaks on issues of war and militarism with an emphasis on women, the environment, and public health.
Featured image: Yuji Onuma had come up with the slogan for the gate that orginally hung above the entrance to his home village of Futaba, north of the reactors at Fukushima. It said, “Atomic Power: Energy for a bright future.” After the disaster, he went back, with a new, handwritten correction in red, “Atomic Power: Energy for a DESTRUCTIVE future.” Image courtesy of Yuji Onuma
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The situation in Afghanistan has dramatically changed over the past week. After the recent impetuous attacks, militants of the Taliban captured the entire territory of Afghanistan with the exception of Panjshir province, where the main pro-government forces were concentrated under the leadership of the self-proclaimed head of state Amrullah Saleh.
According to regional and international media reports, clashes between the Taliban and resistance forces in the Panjshir province have increased in the Islamic Republic. The fighting is accompanied by a large number of civilian casualties, which, in turn, caused an exodus of the population to the northern borders of the country.
Members of the former Afghan government and the Taliban leaders recently held negotiations through the intermediary of China, Pakistan, Russia and the US in Qatar related to the aggravation of the situation. During the meeting, the Chairman of the Supreme Council for National Reconciliation of Afghanistan, Abdullah Abdullah, proposed a roadmap to form an inclusive government, involving representatives of all political forces and ethnic groups of the country. In addition, the participants discussed the prospects for a peaceful resolution of the Afghan crisis.
However, despite the efforts made by Afghan politicians and the international community, the lives of civilians are under threat. In particular, according to the leader of the Democratic Party of Tajikistan Saidjafar Usmonzoda, actions of the Taliban’s militants against the non-Pushtun peoples of Afghanistan, especially Tajiks, are considered as “genocide”. At the same time, Usmonzoda added that he and his party fully support the resistance to the Taliban regime.
It should be noted that the issue of maintaining the security of the non-Pashtun population of Afghanistan was one of the topics discussed at the recent negotiations in Doha city. In considering this issue, Abdullah Abdullah made clear the readiness of Amrullah Saleh to call on foreign leaders to support national minorities living in Afghanistan. According to the source close to the former Afghan government, Saleh, an ethnic Tajik, plans to seek help from Tajik President Emomali Rahmon to save Tajiks living in Afghanistan.
It is becoming clear that clashes between the resistance forces and the Taliban will intensify in the near future. The international community can witness another ethnic cleansing in the newly burning Islamic Republic in the absence of support from Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries.
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Wasef Khalili is an Afghan freelance journalist covering the recent developments in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Iran.
Featured image: An Afghan man and children, suffering hardships from America’s longest war, pose for a portrait in Kabul, Afghanistan, on March 19, 2021. [Source: theintercept.com]
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Former US Marine and geopolitical analyst Brian Berletic discusses how he was awakened to the true nature of US foreign policy and Military-Industrial-Complex.
He gives his global macro geopolitical view on the New Cold War struggle between the East (e.g. Russia, China) and West (e.g. US, EU).
He sees China as surpassing the US and the end of generations of Western hegemony. He breaks down how the US uses Color Revolutions or “democracy promotion” as outright regime change and looks at what’s happening in Myanmar as an example.
He believes the West is attempting to recreate the Arab Spring in Asia (e.g. Thailand, Malaysia).
Finally, he looks at China’s Belt & Road going forward and the move toward multipolarity.
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Instead of fighting terror, the War on Terror has only fueled terrorism. It’s a smokescreen for the US to maintain world domination and keep China in check, as well as a great excuse for the military industrial complex to keep making fortunes.
Taste of their own medicine
The War on Terror started twenty years ago after the September 11 attacks. The Pentagon went to war against Al Qaeda and their patrons, the Taliban. An odd turn of events, really, since Al Qaeda was of their own making. None other than Hillary Clinton, then U.S. Secretary of State, admitted that they were fighting terrorists they had first created and financed themselves.
Afghanistan turned out to be just a beginning. The West’s foreign interventions in Iraq and Syria spawned terror groups like IS and Jabhaat al-Nusra. The war against Libya led to chaos throughout the region and gave wings to numerous jihadi groups. They plundered Libya’s arsenals of weapons, launching their holy wars in numerous neighboring countries. Today, fundamentalist terrorist groups are active in ten African countries.
In 2009, US President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. A few years later, he was bombing seven countries simultaneously. So much warfare inevitably returns like a boomerang in one’s own face. Starting in 2015, Western countries were hit by a wave of terror attacks. Or, as jihadists put it, “The West slaughters a sheep, but it doesn’t want to get blood on its clothes.”
Who benefits from this?
The ignominious defeat in Afghanistan may not be the end of the War on Terror. Instead of fighting terror, this “endless war” has only fueled terrorism. The pyromaniacs are the firemen. Today, the Pentagon conducts counter-terror activities in 85 countries. This keeps the war industry running at full speed while the barons of the military industry reap huge profits.
The cost in resources and human lives is staggering. As a result of the post-9/11 violence of war, more than 800,000 people have been killed, almost half of them civilians. The number of war refugees and displaced persons as a result of the War on Terror is at 37 million so far.
Meanwhile, the price tag of the US wars after 9/11 has already reached the astounding amount of $6.4tn. That’s $320 billion a year or 8 times more than what the UN estimates is needed for all the world’s humanitarian aid.
Oil and other minerals
There were two main reasons why the US invaded Afghanistan. A first reason was oil and more specifically the future construction of a major pipeline from the Caspian Sea through the country to Pakistan. Both the first Afghan president and the new U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan after 2001 had previously worked for Unocal, a major American petroleum company that had long had plans for a pipeline through Afghanistan. The first foreign contract the new Afghan president signed was about building a pipeline from Turkmenistan to a port city in Pakistan, through Afghanistan…
In 2010, the U.S. military and geologists discovered that the Afghan underground contains precious minerals worth $1,000 billion. These include iron, copper, and gold. But even more important are the rare earth metals. Possibly one of the largest reserves of lithium in the world is located in Afghanistan. Lithium is an essential but scarce component of rechargeable batteries and other technologies vital to addressing the climate crisis. We now know that lithium reserves in Bolivia were one of the main reasons for the coup against Evo Morales in 2019.
Pivot to China
A second important reason is the rise of China. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dismantling of the Soviet Union, the U.S. established itself as the undisputed leader of world politics. “Our first objective,” the Pentagon said in 1992, is “to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival. We must maintain the mechanism for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.” [italics added] Thirty years later, China has become the main “rival” to be reined in.
Afghanistan is a part of this story. The country is near the New Silk Road and borders the western province of Xinjiang where the Uyghurs live.
In a candid speech in 2018, Lawrence Wilkerson, former Colin Powell[i] chief of staff, revealed the true reasons for their presence in Afghanistan:
“We’re in Afghanistan as we were in Germany post WWII. (…) It has nothing to do with Kabul and state building, nothing to do with fighting Taliban (…) and nothing to do with fighting any terrorist group. It’s everything to do with three primary strategic objectives.”
Besides keeping Pakistan in check “with the potentially most unstable nuclear stockpile on the face of the earth,” the retired colonel mentions two reasons directly related to China.
“It [the US army in Afghanistan] is the only hard power the United States has that sits proximate to the central Belt and Road initiative of China that runs across Central Asia. If we had to impact that military power, we are in position to do so in Afghanistan.”
“The third reason we’re there is because there are 20 million[ii] Uygurs. If the Cia has to mount on operation using those Uygurs as Erdogan has done in Turkey against Assad (…) well, [if] the CIA would want to destabilize China, that would be the best way to do it to form an unrest and join with those Uygurs in pushing the Han Chinese in Beijing from internal places rather than external.”
No Cold War
All this makes it clear that the War on Terror is nothing more than a pretext. It’s a smokescreen for the U.S. to maintain world domination and a great excuse for the military-industrial complex to keep making fortunes.
The War on Terror is a complete fiasco and an abomination. Unfortunately, Washington won’t give up, quite the opposite. Today there is even a threat of an important new front: a new Cold War against China.
This new Cold War could have even more pernicious consequences than the War on Terror. A Statement of the No Cold War initiative puts it very sharply: “The increasingly aggressive statements and actions being taken by the US government in regard to China (…) constitute a threat to world peace and are an obstacle to humanity successfully dealing with extremely serious common issues which confront it such as climate change, control of pandemics, racist discrimination and economic development.”
The Peace movement has a lot of work to do.
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Notes
[i] Colin Powell was Secretary of State under President Bush Jr. from 2001 to 2005. That was during the period of the invasion of Iraq.
[ii] In reality, there are about 10 million Uyghurs.
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Potential routes exist along the Wakhan Corridor and via Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, but it is Pakistani access to Kabul that looks the better option – as long as the Taliban can provide stability, develop Afghan society, and refrain from regional aggression.
International media has focused on Afghanistan these past few days and rightly so as the appalling situation left behind continues its descent into utter chaos. Little mentioned however has been the possibility of restructuring Afghanistan’s supply and trade chains after twenty years of war.
While the Russians will largely provide security in the region, China will provide the financing and help build the infrastructure and encourage industrialization and trade in return for peace and security. People tend not to fight when they are in the process of transforming their lives for the better, and Beijing understands this, although much of the social problems are the Taliban’s responsibility to solve.
There are several options for China to instigate trade routes with Afghanistan. In this article I discuss the Wakhan Corridor, the finger of Afghanistan that reaches east to the Chinese border, existing trade routes via Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and the potential to further develop the Karakorum Highway route through the Khunjerab Pass and ultimately via Peshawar to Kabul.
The Wakhan Corridor, the narrow stretch of Afghanistan that reaches to the Chinese border with Xinjiang has often been cited as a solution with an assumption it can be opened to trade. I have been to this region. It was also the route used by Marco Polo to enter China. In this article I will discuss its history, routes used across it, infrastructure plans, the current situation and, should Afghanistan be stabilized after the Western nations ignominious retreat, the potential for the Wakhan Corridor as part of the Belt & Road Initiative, in addition to the mountainous western Pamir routes through Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan as well as the southern, Pakistan option.
Wakhan Corridor – History
The Wakhan Corridor is a narrow strip of land in Afghanistan, extending east to China’s Xinjiang Province and separating Tajikistan from Pakistan. It runs between the Pamir Mountains to the north and the Karakoram Mountain range to the south. The Wakhan Corridor itself is about 350 km long and 13–65 kilometers wide as a natural valley between the two mountain ranges.
From this mountain valley the Panj and Pamir rivers develop and combine to form the Oxus River, which ultimately flows into the Aral Sea. A trade route through the Wakhan Valley has been used by travelers to and from East, South and Central Asia for thousands of years. Marco Polo is said to have used this route and to have stayed at Taxkorgan Fort, which is now ruined but can be seen at the Chinese village of Taxkorgan, on the Chinese border with Pakistan on the Karakoram Highway. Immediately to the east lies the Taklimakan Desert.
The Wakhan corridor was formed by an 1893 agreement between the then British Empire (British India) and Afghanistan, creating the Durand Line, acting as a buffer zone between the British and Russian Empires (now Pakistan and Tajikistan). Its eastern end bordered China’s Xinjiang, then ruled by the Chinese Qing Dynasty. The border with China stretches 92 kilometers and is characterized by unstable, slate rock with constant slippages. The entire border is marked by a barbed wire fence, with a Chinese border guard outpost at Keketuluke just 20 kilometers east of the pass. There are border crossings (discussed later) but much of the border area is impassable, prone to landslides and dangerous. Temperatures during the winter can reach -20 and include deep snow drifts.
To maintain diplomatic connections, both the British and the Russian maintained consulates in the nearby Chinese city of Kashgar until the 1930’s.
Politically, today the corridor is in the Wakhan District of Afghanistan’s Badakhshan Province. It is administered from the Provincial capital of Fayzabad, a city of 50,000 recently taken over by the Taliban. As of 2020, the Wakhan Corridor had 13,500 inhabitants. The northern part of the Wakhan, populated by the Wakhi and Pamiri tribes, is also referred to as the Pamir.
The China-Afghanistan Border Crossings
There are three main border crossings between Afghanistan and China, although the entire region is crisscrossed with difficult, single donkey tracks. These routes are all generally inaccessible during the winter months. None of the three main crossings are developed, except to provide border security access, although they do permit the summer cross-border passage of locals. We discuss these as follows:
The Chalachigu Valley
The Chalachigu Valley runs east of the Wakhjir Pass on the Chinese side and connects with Taghdumbash Pamir and the Wakhan Corridor. The Chalachigu Valley is about 100 km in length and is the source of the Taxkorgan River, which runs into China and is a significant water source, ranging from 1 km to 5 km wide. The entire valley on the Chinese side is closed to visitors; however, residents, and herders from the area are permitted access. Often these locals can be seen acting as traders at the Kashgar livestock market, which has been operational for thousands of years and is the largest in Central Asia.
The Wakhjir Pass
The Wakhjir Pass is at the eastern end of the Wakhan Corridor and is the only navigable pass between Afghanistan and China at this current time. It links connects Wakhan with China’s Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County in Xinjiang and has an altitude of 4,923 meters (16,152 ft). It is not an official border crossing point. China refers to the pass as the South Wakhjir Pass as there is a North Wakhjir Pass (the Tegermansu Pass) on the Chinese side.
There is no road along the Wakhjir Pass, it is purely a cut dirt track. On the Chinese side, the immediate region is only accessible to military personnel. An access road has been built for use by border guards, leading to the Karakoram Highway 80 kilometers to the east. On the Afghan side, the nearest road is a rough road to Sarhad-e-Wakhan about 100 kilometers west from the Wakhjir Pass accessible by other connecting paths. Crossing is only really possible by pack animals or heavy-duty SUV and is generally only accessible for seven months of the year (April to October). There are very few records of successful crossings by foreigners. although the British-Hungarian explorer Ariel Stein has written an account of it. Historically, the pass was a trading route between Badakhshan (Afghanistan) and Yarkand (Xinjiang) used by merchants from Bajaor (Pakistan).
The North Wakhjir (Tegermansu) Pass
The North Wakhjir, or Tegermansu Pass is a closed mountain pass on the border between Afghanistan and China in the Pamir mountain ranges. It traverses the Tegermansu Valley on the Eastern end of the Little Pamir mountains and the Chalachigu Valley in Xinjiang. Historically, it was one of the three routes between China and Wakhan. On Chinese side, there is a Chinese border post in the valley below. There have been proposals and plans by the Kashgar Regional Government to open this pass as an inland port, however this has yet to be approved. It is at an elevation of 4,827 meters.
The Current Situation At China’s Border With Afghanistan
Security and surveillance all along the Chinese border has been stepped up with initial plans to do so going back months. Part of the current situation with certain Uyghur factions being detained in China is to do with the possibility of unrest, although the radicalization of Uyghurs is more likely to come from Pakistan to the south, where the connectivity infrastructure, via both the Karakorum Highway and direct air connections to Islamabad are far better than connectivity between Afghanistan and China. There is little chance of any Taliban or other encroachment into China from the Afghanistan border as activity can easily be spotted and the terrain is extremely difficult.
Usually, at the Kashgar market, and especially the livestock market, traders do business having crossed the mountain passes under strict supervision from the Chinese border guards and the local PLA. They will typically bring Afghanistan products in addition to local herbs, plants and so on that can fetch a high price in China. Pack animals such as Donkeys, Yak and occasionally Camels are all traded here as are Fat-Tailed Sheep and rarer creatures such as Snow Leopard skins. Often these are resold onto Chinese traders, some bartering takes place with electronic and other products being taken back across and into Afghanistan. Security at present remains extremely tight.
British Armchair media has reported that “For the Taliban, the opening up of the border with China at the end of the Wakhan Corridor…” yet clearly, they are reporting on areas they have never been do and even less understand. Such is the journalistic dross one now has to contend with. Where are the impartial War Reporters? Where is Afghanistan’s Hemingway, Michael David Herr, or Martin Fletcher?
Chinese Belt & Road Infrastructure Access To Afghanistan
The three current passes, especially the Chalagigu Valley and the South Wakhijir Pass present extreme engineering and construction challenges to make viable for either road or rail. The Pamir mountain range is unstable and prone to landslips – the Karakoram Highway to Pakistan is regularly disrupted due to rockfalls. In addition, the winter months – from October to March – render these inoperable due to the extreme conditions. There is no economic justification for developing either of these two routes.
It would be possible to develop the North Wakhijir (Tegermansu) Pass and the Chinese military already have built an access road from the Karakoram Highway along an 80km route to within 6km of the border, where it becomes passable by smaller vehicles only. A small supporting garrison village sits at the border crossing inhabited by military personnel. It would be feasible to further extend that pass into Afghanistan and to the Badakhshan Provincial capital of Fayzabad, a distance of about 450km. This would open and develop Afghan-China trade, however the extent of this being economically viable is very much up in the air at present.
Alternative China-Afghanistan Belt And Road Connectivity
In fact, there are existing connections – but not with Afghanistan directly. Road connectivity runs from China’s border with Tajikistan at the border crossing at the Karasu Inland Port of Entry over the Kulma Pass, at an elevation of 4.36km above sea level. From here, the rugged AH66 route leads from connections from China’s Karakoram Highway (Kashgar and Urumqi) and over the Pamir mountains eventually to the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. It is only open for two weeks each month (16th to the 30th) from May to November as constant landslides require continual maintenance and the route requires constant repair and clearance.
However, these connect through to Tajikistan’s four border crossings with Afghanistan’s Badakhshan Province and onto Fayzabad, and are the most used China-Afghanistan haulage routes. The Afghanistan-Tajikistan border is almost entirely marked by the dividing Panj, Pamir and Oxus Rivers; with the only practical border crossing into Afghanistan via bridges.
The first bridge crossing the Tajik-Afghan border was opened in November 2002 and connects Tem in Tajikistan to Demogan in Afghanistan. A second bridge was opened in July 2004, known as the Tajikistan–Afghanistan Friendship Bridge, which connects the two banks of the Darvaz Region across the Panj River (which further downstream flows into the Oxus) at the town of Qal’ai Khumb in Tajikistan. Qal’ai Khumb is an important overnight rest stop in Tajikistan and Afghanistan and is 368 km from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. On the Afghan border Kalai-Khumb has one of the three bridges over the Panj river. In the past a Sunday market used to take place here to trade goods with Afghanistan.
Image on the right: The Panj River bridge between Afghanistan & Tajikistan
A third bridge, spanning the Panj river, connects Panji Poyon in Tajikistan to Sherkhan Bandar in Afghanistan’s Kunduz Province to the West of Badakhshan and was opened in August 2007. The fourth river crossing between Afghanistan and Tajikistan is again across the Panj river, at Vanj in Tajikistan’s Gorno Badakhshan to the Afghan Province of Badakhshan and onto Fayzabad.
All these border crossings are currently closed and are controlled by the Taliban. It is understood that Tajik, Russian, and Chinese security forces are currently present in these areas.
It would be possible to expand and develop infrastructure build, especially the existing roads and bridges connecting China, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. This would undoubtedly increase bilateral and trilateral trade between Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and China. However, with the Afghani economy currently ruined and the country in a state of significant instability, such builds will not take place or be financed until the situation calms down.
However, this does not necessarily mean that China and Tajikistan will not build and develop BRI infrastructure that could later also be deployed to service future potential Afghan trade.
The Kyrgyzstan Connectivity Route
There have been discussions about connecting Tajikistan with China via rail, although a direct route over the Pamir is almost impossible to build. Instead, a route into Tajikistan via the countries northern border with Kyrgyzstan is being considered. China’s national railway network extends as far as Kashgar (with additional talk of extending that south to Gilgit in Pakistan) with plans to link that line through to Kyrgyzstan.
A 2012 plan was devised to build almost 50 tunnels and close to 100 bridges, with a total length of 500 km. The line would traverse mountainous terrain, some sections over 3,000 meters above sea-level, with new construction of approximately 280km of track in Kyrgyzstan and about 180 km in China. The proposed line would run to Osh, a major trading city in Kyrgyzstan, and west into Uzbekistan. From Osh a spur would head south across the Kyrgyz-Tajik border to Dushanbe.
Tajikistan does have a small rail network, terminating in Dushanbe, with links to Uzbekistan and ultimately to Moscow. There has also been talk of a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan (TAT) railway that would link through west to Iran and the International North South Transportation Corridor. These plans may one day come to fruition, if not for the huge expense, but in following both China and Russia’s desire to bring regional peace to this entire region through the promotion of trade.
The Pakistan Connectivity Route
It is the southern Afghanistan connectivity that is likely to be developed first due to the northern routes via Wakhan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan being difficult and expensive, although that’s not to say they may not eventually happen. A more likely scenario for China to access Afghanistan is to expand and develop the existing road network through from Taxkorgan in Southern Xinjiang across the border to Pakistan and Gilgit. This route, the Karakorum Highway, already exists and has been in use for decades, although it too is subject to weather extremes, the terrain is rather easier to engineer. This route, known as Highway 314 in China and the N35 in Pakistan, extends through from China as far as Islamabad, the Pakistan capital. A route from Islamabad, the N5, connects through to Peshawar.
There has been significant discussions to extending the existing Chinese railway, which runs through to Kashgar and Yarkand, through the same Khunjerab Pass to Gilgit, on the Pakistan side, which has national rail connectivity to the rest of Pakistan. In 2014, China commissioned a “preliminary research study” to build an international rail link to Pakistan. In 2016 this 682 km proposed railway link was reported to be part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and was to commence construction during the second phase of CPEC between 2018-2022. However, the construction of this railway line was not mentioned in the CPEC Long Term Plan from 2017-2030 released jointly by China and Pakistan in 2017. China’s involvement in several rail projects in Pakistan is motivated primarily by commercial considerations, but it also sees distinct advantages for its improved transportation and access to Central Asia and the Persian Gulf, as Pakistan’s national rail network connects through to Pakistan’s Seaports at Karachi and Gwadar. Significant new investment has taken place at Gwadar to cater for Afghani trade, while China has also been developing Special Economic Zones in the Punjab region near Afghanistan.
The Peshawar-Kabul Connection
The Peshawar connection is also highly valuable. This is already operational as it is part of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline that bisects Afghanistan running West to East. That is supported by an existing road network providing maintenance and some trade between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan’s N5 highway runs from Islamabad to Peshawar and onto the Afghan border at Landi Kotal on the Khyber Pass to Afghanistan. From there it is now known as the AH76 which connects directly to Kabul – a five and a half hour drive.
The Afghanistan-CPEC Corridor
It is for these reasons that an extension of CPEC into Afghanistan and directly to Kabul looks the most likely option, while China’s Belt and Road connectivity with Afghanistan from its direct borders looks a longer-term play. The Wakham Corridor itself is only sparsely populated and at present offers minimal opportunities – unless any viable mineral extractions are within the region.
Accordingly, while China’s Pamir infrastructure build with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan can be expected to include the potential for future Afghan routes, a simpler, and less expensive solution for China to access Afghanistan is via the Khunjerab Pass from Kashgar into Pakistan and improving the existing Friendship Highway with links through to Islamabad and Peshawar. That can be expected to be augmented with a reappearance of the proposed Kashgar-Gilgit railway with improvements also to be made to the Pakistan national rail network from Gilgit to Peshawar as part of this. Connectivity from Peshawar to Kabul then makes sense.
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These days there is no shortage of hype surrounding the “Green New Deal” (GND). The “Green New Deal” has become a major buzz-phrase that has ensnared many along the way.
Like so many top-down schemes, the GND is being promoted by many world leaders in unison. This alone should be worrisome. History shows that this is usually a red flag. Few pro-social things come out of movements that are not real grass-roots movements. These world leaders are the main representatives of the international financial oligarchy—a tiny ruling elite obsessed with maximizing private profit no matter the damage to society and the environment. These are the same forces responsible for tragedies such as high levels of inequality, poverty, unemployment, under-employment, inflation, debt, homelessness, hunger, racism, war, occupation, pollution, de-forestation, anxiety, despair, alienation, depression, and suicide worldwide.
The GND is being presented by the rich and their political and media representatives as something great for society and humanity; everyone is under pressure to “just embrace it.”
The GND uses the “New Deal” language of the 1930s and ostensibly addresses climate change, inequality, energy efficiency, job creation, labor rights, racial injustice, and other social aims. This includes a GND for public schools, healthcare, and housing as well.
The GND is supposed to improve conditions for humanity and help us all “build back better”—a major slogan of the World Economic Forum (WEF), which is dominated by millionaires and billionaires. Alongside this disinformation, the WEF is also promoting disinformation about “reinventing capitalism” to fool the gullible. The GND is supposedly rooted in the principles of economic justice, puts the planet ahead of profits, and provides a “blueprint for change.” It is said that Green Projects will cost hundreds of billions of dollars annually.
Europe has its own version of the GND. “Variations of the [“Green New Deal”] proposal have been around for years,” says the New York Times. The so-called Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was introduced more than 20 years ago, for example. In 2007, the imperialist journalist, Thomas Friedman, wrote the following in the New York Times:
If you have put a windmill in your yard or some solar panels on your roof, bless your heart. But we will only green the world when we change the very nature of the electricity grid – moving it away from dirty coal or oil to clean coal and renewables. And that is a huge industrial project – much bigger than anyone has told you. Finally, like the New Deal, if we undertake the green version, it has the potential to create a whole new clean power industry to spur our economy into the 21st century. (See this)
Pollution, inequality, and 50 other problems have worsened since this observation was made 14 years ago. The quote rejects economic science and fails to help workers, youth, students, women, and others make sense of the economy in a way that favors their interests.
GND Means More PPPs and Tragedies
“Green New Deal” goals are to be attained through “joint” public sector and private sector “investments.” The disinformation from the rich is that the public can’t achieve the lofty goals of the GND on its own and that “investors” from the so-called “efficient,” “entrepreneurial,” “innovative,” and “smart” private sector are needed to achieve these big goals. It is by working “together” that “we” will supposedly achieve what the GND sets out to do. “New Deals” are purportedly too big for either sector to pull off alone and thus some sort of “partnership” or “alliance” is “needed.”
In reality, private competing owners of capital are unwilling and often unable to pay for major infrastructure projects and want the government to guarantee them big investments and returns using the public purse. PPPs essentially guarantee risk-free profits for various monopolies and further diminish control of the economy by workers and the public. PPPs enable major owners of capital to seize more of the added-value produced by workers through “infrastructure projects” guaranteed by the state at public expense. This further enriches a handful of people, intensifies inequality, and leaves workers and the public with less wealth and less control over the economy.
This is not how “partners” work. This is how an unequal relationship works.
Terms such as “alliance” or “partnership” are designed to fool the gullible and hide the enormous financial gain made by a handful of billionaires through PPPs that purport to advance the goals of the GND. In this, way the door is nonchalantly and pragmatically opened to imposing private alien claims on the wealth produced collectively by workers. The rich are given greater access to public funds and resources that belong to the public, all in the name of “partnership.” We are to believe that without a “Public-Private-Partnership” the GND will not become reality, meaning that the GND is possible only if the ultra-rich pocket more public wealth and resources. This is cynically called a “win-win.”
“Public-Private-Partnerships” promote the illusion that the public sector and the private sector can harmonize their philosophies, interests, aims, operations, activities, and results when in fact PPPs are antisocial, antiworker, and undercut a modern nation-building project.
The public and private sectors cannot be partners; they rest on different foundations, goals, world outlooks, operations, and legal frameworks; they are different categories and phenomena with different properties and characteristics. These differences are not trivial and cannot be reconciled or harmonized. Don’t believe neoliberals and privatizers whey they self-servingly claim that the two distinct spheres can “work together.”
Public and private are antonyms; they mean the opposite of each other; they are not synonymous. Public refers to everyone, non-competition, transparency, the common good, and society as whole (e.g., public parks, beaches, and roads). The public is pro-social and human-centered. It approaches life and relations with a big modern vision. Private refers to exclusivity, for a few, not for everyone, and usually involves rivalry and hierarchy. Private is also often associated with secrecy, not transparency, especially in business. The private sector pertains to relations between private citizens, whereas the public sector has to do with relations between individuals and the state. This distinction is critical. These spheres represent two profoundly different domains. The rights belonging to each sector are different.
Blurring the critical distinction between public and private should be avoided at all costs. It is irresponsible and self-serving to treat the public and private as being synonymous and easy to harmonize without big disadvantages for the public. The public does not benefit from blurring this distinction. The public suffers when the dissimilarity between public and private is obscured and not grasped in its depth.
PPPs conceal harsh irreconcilable class differences and interests in society. They reinforce a “no-class” outlook of society and, in doing so, distort reality at the ideological level, leaving many disoriented, unclear, and confused about their interests, which makes them vulnerable to disinformation from the rich and their media. In the world of PPPs, everyone is merely a “stakeholder.” There are no workers or owners of capital. There are no antagonistic irreconcilable social class interests. There are no classes and class struggle. There are no millionaires and billionaires on one side and workers on the other side who produce all the wealth of society.
Not surprisingly, PPPs form a big part of the antisocial “Great Reset” agenda of the world’s billionaires, which has been publicly articulated by the main leaders of the World Economic Forum such as Klaus Schwab. Many prime ministers, presidents, and prominent state leaders around the world continue to parrot the same tired slogans of the “Great Reset” agenda.
In practice, PPPs use the neoliberal state to funnel more public funds than ever to the private sector under the banner of “partnerships” and “making the world better for everyone.”
This funneling of more public funds to narrow private interests will not only solve no problems, it will intensify many problems that are already serious. The existing all-sided crisis will keep deepening under such a set-up.
As a main form of privatization, the “Green New Deal” will significantly intensify inequality, increase costs for everyone, reduce efficiency and quality, lessen accountability and transparency, increase corruption, and diminish the voice and wealth of workers and the public. It will not enhance democracy or improve the environment in any way because it will further concentrate greater economic and political power in even fewer hands, if that is even possible at this point in history. Funneling more public funds, assets, and authority to competing private interests in a highly monopolized economy is a disaster for the social and natural environment. It is the claims of workers, the public, and society that must be expanded and affirmed, not the narrow claims of competing owners of capital obsessed with maximizing their own profits at the expense of everyone and everything else.
The “Green New Deal” will not challenge the entrenched class privilege of the rich. It will not increase the power of workers or give them greater control of the wealth they produce. It will not make the economy more pro-social, balanced, diverse, and self-reliant. Pollution and de-forestation will still persist under the GND. Experience has repeatedly borne out that capital-centered environmental plans and activities ensure that things keep going from bad to worse.
A 2016 United Nations report highlights many ways that PPPs undermine the public interest and produce more problems. Global PolicyForum states that:
PPPs are used to conceal public borrowing, while providing long-term state guarantees for profits to private companies. Private sector corporations must maximize profits if they are to survive. This is fundamentally incompatible with protecting the environment and ensuring universal access to quality public services. (See this)
Public and private simply do not go together. The organization In The Public Interest offers many reports, articles, and documents that expose how PPPs harm the public interest and benefit major owners of capital at the public expense. Numerous other organizations around the world have also described and explained how PPPs make things worse for the public while enriching a handful of people.
In the context of a continually failing economy, competing owners of capital have no choice but to cloak their egocentric drive to maximize private profit by seizing public funds from the state as a “win-win” for everyone, as something great for the natural and social environment. The neoliberal state is increasingly being used to divert public funds and assets to major owners of capital as they compete with each other for domination of the economy in an increasingly unstable and dangerous environment. The old ways of profit-taking are no longer as lucrative as before, so the rich have to use PPPs to seize public funds for private financial gain under the banner of “working together” to “build back better.”
As always, the rich will not brook any opposition to their narrow private interests. They will not support anything that places a greater portion of the social wealth in the hands of those who actually produce the wealth of society: workers. They will continue to act like they have a natural right to the wealth produced collectively by workers.
Major owners of capital have no human-centered interest in improving the environment or social conditions. They pragmatically strive for what will best serve their narrow private interests and class privilege without any consideration for the well-being of all sectors of the economy as a whole. Modern nation-building cannot take place in such a context. The human-centered resolution of social, economic, and environmental problems requires confronting powerful private interests and their outdated economic system if humanity is to have a bright future.
To fix the economy and to reverse social and environmental problems requires a public authority worthy of the name. There is no reason why a real public authority cannot use the wealth and resources produced by workers to improve the social and natural environment for the nation. Planned public investment for the public and for modern nation-building is not possible under the direction and influence of competing owners of capital obsessed with maximizing private profit. Such forces are only looking out for their narrow interests, not the needs of a balanced self-reliant crisis-free economy that consistently and responsibly raises the material and cultural well-being of all.
There is no need to involve powerful private interests in social programs, social investments, or green projects. The rich are not only the cause of many problems the GND ostensibly seeks to remedy, they also have no valid and legitimate claim to any public funds, resources, and assets. The rich mainly seize and control the wealth produced by workers; they themselves do not produce the wealth of society.
The rich are an historically superfluous and exhausted force blocking social progress. Without the rich, their entourage, and their outdated political and economic system, the social product could be wielded by people themselves for the benefit of the natural and social environment. The impact of this shift and change on time and space would be monumental.
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Shawgi Tell, PhD, is author of the book “Charter School Report Card.” His main research interests include charter schools, neoliberal education policy, privatization and political economy. He can be reached at [email protected].
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America’s corporate media are ringing with recriminations over the humiliating U.S. military defeat in Afghanistan. But very little of the criticism goes to the root of the problem, which was the original decision to militarily invade and occupy Afghanistan in the first place.
That decision set in motion a cycle of violence and chaos that no subsequent U.S. policy or military strategy could resolve over the next 20 years, in Afghanistan, Iraq or any of the other countries swept up in America’s post-9/11 wars.
While Americans were reeling in shock at the images of airliners crashing into buildings on September 11, 2001, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld held a meeting in an intact part of the Pentagon. Undersecretary Cambone’s notes from that meeting spell out how quickly and blindly U.S. officials prepared to plunge our nation into graveyards of empire in Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond.
Cambone wrote that Rumsfeld wanted, ”…best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. (Saddam Hussein) at same time – not only UBL (Usama Bin Laden)… Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.”
So within hours of these horrific crimes in the United States, the central question senior U.S. officials were asking was not how to investigate them and hold the perpetrators accountable, but how to use this “Pearl Harbor” moment to justify wars, regime changes and militarism on a global scale.
Three days later, Congress passed a bill authorizing the president to use military force “…against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons…”
In 2016, the Congressional Research Service reported that this Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) had been cited to justify 37 distinct military operations in 14 different countries and at sea. The vast majority of the people killed, maimed or displaced in these operations had nothing to do with the crimes of September 11. Successive administrations have repeatedly ignored the actual wording of the authorization, which only authorized the use of force against those involved in some way in the 9/11 attacks.
The only member of Congress who had the wisdom and courage to vote against the 2001 AUMF was Barbara Lee of Oakland. Lee compared it to the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution and warned her colleagues that it would inevitably be used in the same expansive and illegitimate way. The final words of her floor speech echo presciently through the 20-year-long spiral of violence, chaos and war crimes it unleashed, “As we act, let us not become the evil we deplore.”
In a meeting at Camp David that weekend, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz argued forcefully for an attack on Iraq, even before Afghanistan. Bush insisted Afghanistan must come first, but privately promised Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle that Iraq would be their next target.
In the days after September 11, the U.S. corporate media followed the Bush administration’s lead, and the public heard only rare, isolated voices questioning whether war was the correct response to the crimes committed.
But former Nuremberg war crimes prosecutor Ben Ferencz spoke to NPR (National Public Radio) a week after 9/11, and he explained that attacking Afghanistan was not only unwise and dangerous, but was not a legitimate response to these crimes. NPR’s Katy Clark struggled to understand what he was saying:
Clark: …do you think that the talk of retaliation is not a legitimate response to the death of 5,000 (sic) people?
Ferencz: It is never a legitimate response to punish people who are not responsible for the wrong done.
Clark: No one is saying we’re going to punish those who are not responsible.
Ferencz: We must make a distinction between punishing the guilty and punishing others. If you simply retaliate en masse by bombing Afghanistan, let us say, or the Taliban, you will kill many people who don’t believe in what has happened, who don’t approve of what has happened.
Clark: So you are saying that you see no appropriate role for the military in this.
Ferencz: I wouldn’t say there is no appropriate role, but the role should be consistent with our ideals. We shouldn’t let them kill our principles at the same time they kill our people. And our principles are respect for the rule of law. Not charging in blindly and killing people because we are blinded by our tears and our rage.
The drumbeat of war pervaded the airwaves, twisting 9/11 into a powerful propaganda narrative to whip up the fear of terrorism and justify the march to war. But many Americans shared the reservations of Rep. Barbara Lee and Ben Ferencz, understanding enough of their country’s history to recognize that the 9/11 tragedy was being hijacked by the same military-industrial complex that produced the debacle in Vietnam and keeps reinventing itself generation after generation to support and profit from American wars, coups and militarism.
On September 28, 2001, the Socialist Worker website published statements by 15 writers and activists under the heading, “Why we say no to war and hate.” They included Noam Chomsky, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan and me (Medea). Our statements took aim at the Bush administration’s attacks on civil liberties at home and abroad, as well as its plans for war on Afghanistan.
The late academic and author Chalmers Johnson wrote that 9/11 was not an attack on the United States but “an attack on U.S. foreign policy.” Edward Herman predicted “massive civilian casualties.” Matt Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive magazine, wrote that, “For every innocent person Bush kills in this war, five or ten terrorists will arise.” I (Medea) wrote that ”a military response will only create more of the hatred against the U.S. that created this terrorism in the first place.”
Our analysis was correct and our predictions were prescient. We humbly submit that the media and politicians should start listening to the voices of peace and sanity instead of to lying, delusional warmongers.
What leads to catastrophes like the U.S. war in Afghanistan is not the absence of convincing anti-war voices but that our political and media systems routinely marginalize and ignore voices like those of Barbara Lee, Ben Ferencz and ourselves.
That is not because we are wrong and the belligerent voices they listen to are right. They marginalize us precisely because we are right and they are wrong, and because serious, rational debates over war, peace and military spending would jeopardize some of the most powerful and corrupt vested interests that dominate and control U.S. politics on a bipartisan basis.
In every foreign policy crisis, the very existence of our military’s enormous destructive capacity and the myths our leaders promote to justify it converge in an orgy of self-serving interests and political pressures to stoke our fears and pretend that there are military “solutions” for them.
Losing the Vietnam War was a serious reality check on the limits of U.S. military power. As the junior officers who fought in Vietnam rose through the ranks to become America’s military leaders, they acted more cautiously and realistically for the next 20 years. But the end of the Cold War opened the door to an ambitious new generation of warmongers who were determined to capitalize on the U.S. post-Cold War “power dividend.”
Madeleine Albright spoke for this emerging new breed of war-hawks when she confronted General Colin Powell in 1992 with her question, “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”
As Secretary of State in Clinton’s second term, Albright engineered the first of a series of illegal U.S. invasions to carve out an independent Kosovo from the splintered remains of Yugoslavia. When U.K. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told her his government was “having trouble with our lawyers” over the illegality of the NATO war plan, Albright said they should just “get new lawyers.”
In the 1990s, the neocons and liberal interventionists dismissed and marginalized the idea that non-military, non-coercive approaches can more effectively resolve foreign policy problems without the horrors of war or deadly sanctions. This bipartisan war lobby then exploited the 9/11 attacks to consolidate and expand their control of U.S. foreign policy.
But after spending trillions of dollars and killing millions of people, the abysmal record of U.S. war-making since World War II remains a tragic litany of failure and defeat, even on its own terms. The only wars the United States has won since 1945 have been limited wars to recover small neocolonial outposts in Grenada, Panama and Kuwait.
Every time the United States has expanded its military ambitions to attack or invade larger or more independent countries, the results have been universally catastrophic. So our country’s absurd investment of 66% of discretionary federal spending in destructive weapons, and recruiting and training young Americans to use them, does not make us safer but only encourages our leaders to unleash pointless violence and chaos on our neighbors around the world.
Most of our neighbors have grasped by now that these forces and the dysfunctional U.S. political system that keeps them at its disposal pose a serious threat to peace and to their own aspirations for democracy. Few people in other countries want any part of America’s wars, or its revived Cold War against China and Russia, and these trends are most pronounced among America’s long-time allies in Europe and in its traditional “backyard” in Canada and Latin America.
On October 19, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld addressed B-2 bomber crews at Whiteman AFB in Missouri as they prepared to take off across the world to inflict misdirected vengeance on the long-suffering people of Afghanistan. He told them, “We have two choices. Either we change the way we live, or we must change the way they live. We choose the latter. And you are the ones who will help achieve that goal.”
Now that dropping over 80,000 bombs and missiles on the people of Afghanistan for 20 years has failed to change the way they live, apart from killing hundreds of thousands of them and destroying their homes, we must instead, as Rumsfeld said, change the way we live.
We should start by finally listening to Barbara Lee. First, we should pass her bill to repeal the two post-9/11 AUMFs that launched our 20-year fiasco in Afghanistan and other wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.
Then we should pass her bill to redirect $350 billion per year from the U.S. military budget (roughly a 50% cut) to “increase our diplomatic capacity and for domestic programs that will keep our Nation and our people safer.”
Finally reining in America’s out-of-control militarism would be a wise and appropriate response to its epic defeat in Afghanistan, before the same corrupt interests drag us into even more dangerous wars against more formidable enemies than the Taliban.
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Featured image: An April 8, 2013 memorial service for Anne Smedinghoff at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Anne was killed in an insurgent attack on Saturday April, 6. 2013 while traveling to donate books to a school in Qalat, Zabul province. (Photo by Musadeq Sadeq/U.S. State Department)
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In our second summer of COVID-19, it’s fair to ask when it all ends.
Or if it all ends.
Because nothing has worked out during the pandemic the way we were told it would.
You can’t blame the experts, we’re told. COVID-19 was a new virus. There was a lot to learn. Nobody saw it coming.
So we’ll give Dr. Anthony Fauci and the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the benefit of the doubt.
It’s a big benefit of the doubt given the stakes and the track record, but so be it.
As coronavirus hit New York hard in March of 2020, we were told to lock ourselves down. So we stayed in our houses and apartments for months on end. We had our groceries, takeout food and booze delivered to our homes.
Offices went dark. Schools were shuttered. Workers lost their jobs. Businesses failed. Children lost valuable months of education.
We were told to wear masks, both indoors and outdoors. So we did that too, donning facial coverings in church, at the supermarket, on mass transit and when entering bars and restaurants.
Even though, yes, there was debate over how much protection masks truly provided, and whether they were really needed outdoors.
We were told that we could not gather in large groups. So families were separated.
We couldn’t hold weddings or funerals or graduations or religious ceremonies.
We were told to get vaccinated.
We were told by our leaders that this was the final battle in the war against COVID-19, that the end was in sight. That it was going to be a summer of freedom from the virus.
Of course, many people had to wait for weeks on end because vaccine supply initially couldn’t keep up with demand. Or because cities and states didn’t have enough vaccine infrastructure in place.
We’ve done all that.
And now we’re told it hasn’t done the trick. And might never do the trick, thanks to the Delta variant and other virus mutations.
We’re being told to mask up again.
We’re being told that kids in school may need to be masked even though schools have proven to be a low-risk environments for spreading the virus.
And now we have to be vaccinated in order to go to a ballgame or a restaurant or a concert.
Those who question the mandate in any way are told that they are putting lives at risk.
There can be no informed debate when merely raising an intellectual argument, having a thought, is considered deadly on its face.
So everyone should just get jabbed, even if you’re concerned about having your children vaccinated.
Even if you’re immunocompromised or have a chronic medical condition and are worried about how the vaccine could impact you.
Even though some workers are being given an option to be tested instead of having to get the shot.
Even when so many health-care professionals refuse to be vaccinated.
Even if you scratch your head at the fact that some fully vaccinated people have fallen ill, sometimes seriously, and have even died.
It’s all for the common good, we’re told.
Questioning the mandate automatically makes you an anti-vaxxer and practically a murderer.
If you’re comfortable in that world, bravo.
I hope there’s no mandate coming down the pike that you might find onerous. Because if you’re in for a penny, you’re in for a pound.
And, true to the slippery slope of all this, it doesn’t end there.
Now those who are fully vaccinated are being told they will likely need a booster shot a few months down the road.
Because if two shots didn’t work, the third one will?
And so on and so forth.
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Featured image is from Tom Wrobleski/Staten Island Advance
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A critically important show for physicians as well as potential and actual covid patients, Dr. Richard Urso goes into great detail about the prophylactic and early treatment protocols he uses that allow the natural immune system to handle the virus for superior, long-lasting protection, explains how prophylaxis could end the pandemic, and talks about what he’d do if he had Fauci’s job.
Link to Journal of American Medicine study showing Remdesivir lengthens hospital stays here.
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August 22nd, 2021 by Hassan Diab Support Committee
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The unjust decision on January 27, 2021, by the French Court of Appeal to send Dr. Hassan Diab to trial prolongs Hassan’s Kafkaesque nightmare. This was a shocking turn of events, not least because the Court of Appeal’s ruling was riddled with egregious misrepresentations, logical inconsistencies, and wild fabrications. Worse still, on May 19, 2021, France’s Supreme Court (Cour de cassation) upheld the Court of Appeal’s baseless ruling.
This flagrant miscarriage of justice is clearly political. We are appealing to the Canadian government to end Hassan’s persecution, ensure that Hassan will never face a second extradition, and suspend the Canada/France extradition treaty.
Please help us exert pressure on the Canadian government to end Hassan’s Kafkaesque nightmare and prevent his wrongful conviction!
Campaign of Outreach to Canadian Parliamentarians
The federal election taking place on 20 September, 2021, provides us with an excellent opportunity to increase political and public support for Dr. Hassan Diab. We also anticipate some or all of the following:
Announcement in France that a date has been set for Hassan to face trial
French demands for Hassan’s presence in France, including his extradition
Public discussion of Canada’s Extradition Act
We are launching a major campaign of outreach to Canadian parliamentarians. This election period opens new opportunities for meetings with MPs, Senators, and candidates. We are asking you to look for such opportunities over the coming weeks, making use of the following:
We are asking parliamentarians to commit to the following:
Agree to help in whatever ways possible to end Hassan’s persecution;
Work to ensure that Hassan will never face a second extradition; and
Support the suspension of the Canada/France extradition treaty in light of the failure of the French justice system to protect Hassan’s fundamental rights.
Please continue to emphasise the failure of both Canada and France to protect Hassan from the very beginning, resulting in a horrendous miscarriage of justice and the scapegoating of an innocent man.
Let us know if you would be interested in having a member of the Hassan Diab Support Committee accompany you (virtually or otherwise) to any meeting you are successful in arranging. We would be happy to assist in any way we can.
Feel free to contact Roger Clark ([email protected]) if you have any questions or need specific support. Let us know of any meetings that you are able to arrange, and remember to send us a brief summary of the outcome.
Thank you as always for all that you are doing to support Hassan. Let us know if you have any questions. In the meantime, we wish you a good summer and plenty of relaxation.
Postcards supporting Dr. Hassan Diab and addressed to Prime Minister Trudeau are now available at Octopus Books in Ottawa.
Be sure to sign a postcard the next time you’re at Octopus Books. No postage is necessary to mail the postcard from Canada.
If you are not in Ottawa, you can order up to 5 postcards by sending an email to [email protected] with your postal mailing address, and we will gladly mail postcards to you.
You can see a photo of the postcard (front and back): here.
Send “Act Now Sir!” Video to PM Justin Trudeau
Michelle Weinroth has written and produced a deeply moving and powerful poem/video about Hassan’s case, asking PM Justin Trudeau to intervene and put an end to Hassan’s ordeal.
Please write to PM Trudeau ([email protected]) and send him the following link to the poem/video:
“Act Now Sir!”
Excerpt from poem by Michelle Weinroth, addressed to PM Trudeau:
Will you stand up
For a man so cheated?
So vilified and mistreated?
Repair this injustice, Sir!
There is time yet…
Though not much.
Use not excuses as your crutch.
We are at the eleventh hour.
Your moment is here and now
To act and use your power.
Let not indecision mock your name.
Lest history link you
to a scandal of the law.
For such an outrage
will stain your fame
Will dim your glow
and deal your reputation
a stinging blow.
Flex then your moral muscle
Not your forearm.
Show your French peers
the mettle that behooves
a country’s leader
To settle and redress
a matter so unjust
as that of Hassan Diab
A man so viciously
and so vilely wronged
So grievously betrayed
Act now, Sir, not tomorrow.
And put an end to this tale of sorrow.
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Scientists opposed to offering booster shots to all Americans said data provided by federal health officials wasn’t compelling enough to support the recommendation — some argued boosters could lead to more vaccine-resistant variants.
Scientists criticized the Biden administration’s push to distribute COVID vaccine booster shots in the U.S. next month, saying data provided by federal health officials this week wasn’t compelling enough to recommend a third dose for most Americans.
According to Kaiser Health News, some scientists say the announcement is “rash and based on weak evidence” — and they worry it could undercut confidence in vaccines, with no clear benefit of controlling the pandemic.
Meanwhile, more information is needed on potential side effects or adverse effects from a booster shot, experts said.
The Biden administration Tuesday announced Americans should get a COVID vaccine booster dose eight months after they received their second shot, despite consensus among U.S. health experts last month there wasn’t enough data to recommend boosters for the general population.
Yep! Pharmaceutical companies + their CEOs have made billions from COVID vaccines, massive compensation packages + questionable stock sales while reassuring investors that plans were underway for boosters and annual shots.https://t.co/ydmME541qp
Officials announced Wednesday U.S. health leaders were preparing to offer booster shots to all eligible Americans in a plan outlined by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) acting Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock andDr. Anthony Fauci, White House chief medical advisor.
The plan is still subject to approval from the FDA and the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, but officials say they are prepared to begin the rollout of booster shots starting the week of Sept. 20.
However, the CDC has pushed back by one week a meeting by a group of outside advisers who were set to review COVID booster shots as debate heats up over the need for a third dose, according to Bloomberg.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, was scheduled to meet and possibly make a recommendation about the need for boosters on Aug. 24, but is now set to convene over two days starting Aug. 30.
Officials cited data from Israel, a Mayo study not yet peer-reviewed and three new studies released by the CDC showing the vaccines’ protection against COVID diminished over several months, and was less effective against the Delta variant.
But scientists and health experts said the data cited wasn’t compelling — characterizing the administration’s push for boosters as premature, CNBC reported.
Dr. Anna Durbin, a vaccine researcher at Johns Hopkins University, said people are still highly protected against severe disease, and vaccines are doing what they’re supposed to do.
“If we start seeing significant upticks of more severe disease and hospitalizations in vaccinated people, that would be a signal to consider boosters,” Durbin said. “While the presence of antibodies induced by the vaccine may decline, resulting in a rise in breakthrough infections, the body has other mechanisms, like T cells, that may protect someone from getting seriously sick,” she added.
There are some groups in the U.S. who would benefit from a third dose right now, according to Dr. Archana Chatterjee, member of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.
Chatterjee said data do support the need for booster doses primarily among those who are moderately to severely immunocompromised. But “breakthrough infections in the general public tend to be asymptomatic or mild,” she said.
Dr. Priya Sampathkumar, an epidemiologist at the Mayo Clinic, said a booster could be needed for the general public in the future, but “there isn’t enough data to support a third booster for all at this point.”
Dr. Hooman Noorchasm, cardiothoracic surgeon and patient safety advocate — who has been outspoken on the potential harms that may ensue from vaccinating people who have natural immunity to the infection, said:
“The FDA and CDC have been ignoring the reality that indiscriminate vaccination of recently or asymptomatically COVID-19 infected persons has caused totally avoidable harm to a non-negligible number of Americans.
“Now, CDC has announced a policy of blanket ‘booster shots’ in a subset of vaccine-compliant Americans. Using this inadequately calibrated, ‘one-size-fit-all’ approach again, CDC is almost certain to magnify harm to a subset of Americans in whom booster vaccination may be unnecessary or dangerous.”
Jennifer Nuzzo, epidemiologist and associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said, “It would be nice to understand what side effects people have after their third dose.”
Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law, said federal health officials should put their focus elsewhere: on the unvaccinated, both in the U.S. and around the world.
The announcement about pending booster shots fueled deeper confusion about what Americans need to do to protect themselves from COVID.
“I think we’ve scared people,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and adviser to the National Institutes of Health and the FDA.
“We sent a terrible message,” Offit said. “We just sent a message out there that people who consider themselves fully vaccinated were not fully vaccinated. And that’s the wrong message, because you are protected against serious illness.”
Walensky said staying ahead of the virus was the biggest driver of the eight-month booster recommendation. And vaccines have proved to be their best tool.
Vaccines can create endless variants that evade protection
According to an article in the BMJ, there have been eight notable variants of SARS-CoV-2 identified since September 2020, including Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Eta, Iota, Kappa and Lambda.
A new study — yet to be peer-reviewed — published on the preprint server bioRxiv, showed the Lambda variant has acquired immune evasion capabilities above the wildtype that involves shortening of the epitopes on the viral spike protein, as well as acquiring additional sites that can be N-glycosylated.
The authors of another recent preprint study arrived at a similar conclusion. Researchers observed a seven-residue deletion at the N-terminal domain of the Lambda variant, which they said could make the Lambda variant resistant to antiviral immunity.
Researchers noted in the second bioRxiv study that the “vaccination rate in Chile is relatively high; the percentage of the people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine was [about] 60%.”
But, the authors warned, “nevertheless, a big COVID-19 surge has occurred in Chile in Spring 2021, suggesting that the Lambda variant is proficient in escaping from the antiviral immunity elicited by vaccination.”
Hooker said the more the variant deviates from the original sequence used for the vaccine, the less effective the vaccine will be on that variant. This could explain why fully vaccinated people are getting infected with the Delta variant, Hooker said. But this isn’t the case for natural immunity, he explained.
Hooker said:
“The vaccine focuses on the spike protein, whereas natural immunity focuses on the entire virus. Natural immunity — with a more diverse array of antibodies and T-cell receptors — will provide better protection overall as it has more targets in which to attack the virus, whereas vaccine-derived immunity only focuses on one portion of the virus, in this case, the spike protein. Once that portion of the virus has mutated sufficiently, the vaccine no longer is effective.”
According to research published July 30 in Scientific Reports, vaccinated people may play a key role in helping SARS-CoV-2 variants evolve into those that evade existing COVID vaccines.
The researchers who analyzed risk factors that favor emergence and establishment of a vaccine-resistant strain found the highest risk for establishing a resistant strain occurred when a large fraction of the population had already been vaccinated, but the transmission was not controlled.
The team of scientists who published the data in Scientific Reports said their findings follow what’s known as selective pressure — the force that drives any organism to evolve.
“Generally, the more people are infected, the more the chances for vaccine resistance to emerge,” said Fyodor Kondrashov of the Institute of Science and Technt mutant actually gains a selective advantage.”
As The Defender reported March 26, a combination of lockdowns and extreme selection pressure on the virus induced by the intense global mass vaccination program might diminish the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the short-term, but ultimately, would induce the creation of more mutants of concern.
This is the result of what vaccinologist Geert Vanden Bossche calls “immune escape” (i.e., incomplete sterilization of the virus by the human immune system, even following vaccine administration).
This will trigger vaccine companies to further refine vaccines that will add to — not reduce — the selection pressure, producing ever more transmissible and potentially deadly variants.
Selection pressure causes greater convergence in mutations that affect the critical spike protein of the virus responsible for breaking through the mucosal surfaces of our airways — the route used by the virus to enter the human body, Vanden Bossche argued.
The virus will effectively outsmart the highly specific antigen-based vaccines that are being used and tweaked, depending on the circulating variants and this could lead to a hockey stick-like increase in serious and potentially lethal cases — in effect, an out-of-control pandemic.
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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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VAERS data released Friday by the CDC showed a total of 595,622 reports of adverse events from all age groups following COVID vaccines, including 13,068 deaths and 81,050 serious injuries between Dec. 14, 2020 and Aug. 13, 2021.
Data released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that between Dec. 14, 2020 and Aug. 13, 2021, a total of 595,622 total adverse events were reported to VAERS, including 13,068 deaths — an increase of 702 over the previous week.
There were 81,050 reports of serious injuries, including deaths, during the same time period — up 10,945 compared with the previous week.
In the U.S., 354.5 million COVID vaccine doses had been administered as of Aug. 13. This includes: 141 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine, 199 million doses of Pfizer and 14 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID vaccine.
The data come directly from reports submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S.
Every Friday, VAERS makes public all vaccine injury reports received as of a specified date, usually about a week prior to the release date. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before a causal relationship can be confirmed.
This week’s U.S. data for 12- to 17-year-olds show:
The most recent reported deaths include a 15-year-old boy (VAERS I.D. 1498080) who previously had COVID, was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy in May 2021 and died four days after receiving his second dose of Pfizer’s vaccine on June 18, when he collapsed on the soccer field and went into ventricular tachycardia; and a 13-year-old girl (VAERS I.D. 1505250) who died after suffering a heart condition after receiving her first dose of Pfizer.
Booster shots coming for most Americans 8 months after second dose
The Biden administration decided most Americans should get a COVID vaccine booster dose eight months after they received their second shot, despite consensus among U.S. health experts last month there wasn’t enough data to recommend boosters for the general population.
“Based on our latest assessment, the current protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death could diminish in the months ahead,” the officials, led by Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, and Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting commissioner for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said Wednesday.
The plan is still subject to approval from the FDA and the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, but officials say they are prepared to begin the rollout of booster shots starting the week of Sept. 20.
However, the CDC has pushed back by one week a meeting by a group of outside advisers who were set to review COVID booster shots as debate heats up over the need for a third dose, according to Bloomberg.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, was scheduled to meet and possibly make a recommendation about the need for boosters on Aug. 24, but is now set to convene over two days starting Aug. 30.
The first boosters are likely to go to nursing home residents, healthcare workers and emergency workers, followed by older people who were near the front of the line when vaccinations began late last year and then the general population.
Federal health officials are waiting for more data before offering guidance for J&J vaccine recipients. However, officials expect a booster will also be needed.
CDC studies show vaccine protection wanes over time
Three studies released Wednesday by the CDC confirm COVID vaccine effectiveness against infection has decreased over time, and is less effective in combating the Delta variant.
One study assessed Pfizer and Moderna’s effectiveness over time against infections among nursing home residents, and found it dropped from 75% pre-Delta to 53% when Delta became dominant. The study didn’t differentiate between asymptomatic, symptomatic and severe infections.
Another study used data from 21 hospitals to estimate the effectiveness of Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines against hospitalization over time. Among 1,129 patients who received two doses of a mRNA vaccine, vaccine effectiveness was 86% 2 to12 weeks after vaccination and 84% at 13 to 24 weeks.
The third study, using New York state data, found all three vaccines’ effectiveness against infection dropped from 92% in early May to 80% at the end of July, but the effectiveness against hospitalization remained relatively stable.
Data from the three reports in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, helped convince the Biden administration to recommend booster shots to people eight months after receiving their second dose, despite no completed late-stage clinical trials assessing the safety, efficacy and immunogenicity of a third dose.
Oxford study shows vaccinated just as contagious as unvaxxed
As The Defender reported Thursday, a British public health study released Aug. 16, indicates vaccinated people with “breakthrough” infections could pose a significant infection risk to those who have not been vaccinated.
A study by University of Oxford scientists found people who contract the Delta variant after being fully vaccinated carry a similar amount of the virus as those who catch the disease and have not been vaccinated.
The study also found protection was greatest in those vaccinated who already had natural immunity through previous infection.
Based on more than 3 million nose and throat swabs, Oxford University researchers found that 90 days after a second shot of the Pfizer or Astrazeneca vaccine, efficacy in preventing infections had slipped to 75% and 61% respectively.
Those results were down from 85% and 68%, respectively, seen two weeks after a second dose, with the decline in efficacy more pronounced among those 35 years and older.
The study also showed that after two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, effectiveness was at least as great as protection afforded by natural infection — with greater initial effectiveness against new PCR-positives but faster declines in protection against high viral burden and symptomatic infection.
Researchers said there was no evidence effectiveness varied by dosing interval, but protection was higher among those vaccinated who already had natural immunity.
The survey, which has yet to be peer-reviewed before publication in a scientific journal, underscores concerns by scientists that the Delta variant can infect fully vaccinated people at a greater rate than previous variants, and that the vaccinated could more easily transmit it.
CHD sues Rutgers over COVID vaccine mandate
Children’s Health Defense (CHD) along with 18 students on Monday filed a lawsuit in federal court against Rutgers University, its board of governors, Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway and others over the university’s decision to mandate COVID vaccines for students attending school in the fall.
The lawsuit states that in a free society, “all people have the right to decide their own medical treatment — especially to decide what to inject into their bodies. And every person has the right to make that decision voluntarily, free from coercion by anyone, and to be fully informed of the benefits and especially the risks of that decision.”
The lawsuit alleges Rutgers’ policy is a violation of the right to informed consent and the right to refuse unwanted medical treatments.
The complaint also alleges the policy is a breach of contract because in January 2021, the university assured students COVID vaccines would not be required in order to attend school. Just two months later, Rutgers flip-flopped and issued new requirements for taking the shot prior to attending classes.
According to the plaintiffs, Rutgers is working with all three manufacturers — Pfizer, Moderna and J&J — to study and develop their vaccines in on-going clinical trials, and will benefit financially if more people are required to take the shots which, until fully licensed by the FDA, are defined by the FDA as experimental.
The Rutgers requirement also constitutes a denial of equal protection, as administration, faculty and staff are not required to take the vaccine. It also conflicts with federal and state law, as neither has enacted legislation requiring COVID vaccines for citizens.
165 days and counting, CDC ignores The Defender’s inquiries
According to the CDC website, “the CDC follows up on any report of death to request additional information and learn more about what occurred and to determine whether the death was a result of the vaccine or unrelated.”
On March 8, The Defender contacted the CDC with a written list of questions about reported deaths and injuries related to COVID vaccines. We have made repeated attempts, by phone and email, to obtain a response to our questions.
Despite multiple phone and email communications with many people at the CDC, and despite being told that our request was in the system and that someone would respond, we have not yet received answers to any of the questions we submitted. It has been 165 days since we sent our first email to the CDC requesting information.
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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.
Below is the second half and conclusion of “Afghanistan, the Forgotten Proxy War”. While the previous sections examined the economic roots of imperialism, as well as the historical context of the Cold War within which to situate the Mujahideen, the following explores the anatomy of proxy warfare and media disinformation campaigns which were at the heart of destabilizing Afghanistan. These were also a large part of why there was little to no opposition to the Mujahideen from the Western ‘left’, whose continued dysfunctionality cannot be talked about without discussing Zbigniew Brzezinski. We also take a look at what led to the Soviet Union’s demise and how that significantly affected the former Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and many other parts of the world. The United States has been at war in Afghanistan for four decades now, and it will reach its 40th year on July 3, 2019.
The original “moderate rebel”
One of the key players in the anti-Soviet, U.S.-led regime change project against Afghanistan was Osama bin Laden, a Saudi-born millionaire who came from a wealthy, powerful family that owns a Saudi construction company and has had close ties to the Saudi royal family.
Before becoming known as America’s “boogeyman”, Osama bin Laden was put in charge of fundraising for the Mujahideen insurgents, creating numerous charities and foundations in the process and working in coordination with Saudi intelligence (who acted as liaisons between the fighters and the CIA). Journalist Robert Fisk even gave bin Laden a glowing review, calling him a “peace warrior” and a philanthropist in a 1993 report for the Independent.
Bin Laden also provided recruitment for the Mujahideen and is believed to have also received security training from the CIA. And in 1989, the same year that Soviet troops withdrew, he founded the terrorist organization Al Qaeda with a number of fighters he had recruited to the Mujahideen. Although the PDPA had already been overthrown, and the Soviet Union was dissolved, he still maintained his relationship with the CIA and NATO, working with them from the mid-to-late 1990s to provide support for the secessionist Bosnian paramilitaries and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in the destruction and dismantling of Yugoslavia.
The United States would eventually turn Bin Laden into a scapegoat after the 2001 terrorist attacks, while still maintaining ties to his family and providing arms, training, and funding to Al Qaeda and its affiliates (rebranded as “moderate rebels” by the Western media) in its more recent regime change project against Syria, which started in 2011. The Mujahideen not only gave birth to Al Qaeda, but it would set a precedent for the United States’ regime-change operations in later years against the anti-imperialist governments of Libya and Syria.
Reagan entertains Mujahideen fighters in the White House.
With the end to the cycle of World Wars (for the time being, at least), it has become increasingly common for the United States to use local paramilitaries, terrorist groups, and/or the armed forces of comprador regimes to fight against nations targeted by U.S. capital interests. Why the use of proxy forces? They are, as Whitney Webb describes, “a politically safe tool for projecting the U.S.’ geopolitical will abroad.”
Using proxy warfare as a kind of power projection tool is, first and foremost, cost-effective, since paid local mercenaries or terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda will bear the burden of combat and casualties rather than American troops in places like Libya and Syria. For example, it costs much less to pay local paramilitaries, gangs, crime syndicates, terrorist groups, and other reactionary forces to perform the same military operations as U.S. troops. Additionally, with the advent of nuclear weapons it became much more perilous for global superpowers to come into direct combat with one another — if the Soviet Union and the United States had done so, there existed the threat of “mutually assured destruction”, the strong possibility of instantaneous and catastrophic damage to the populations and the economic and living standards of both sides, something neither side was willing to risk, even if it was U.S. imperialism’s ultimate goal to destroy the Soviet Union.
And so, the U.S. was willing to use any other means necessary to weaken the Soviet Union and safeguard its profits, which included eliminating the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan even if it had neither the intent nor the means of launching a military offensive on American soil. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union had the means of producing a considerably large supply of modern weapons, including nuclear deterrents, to counter the credible threat posed by the United States. To strike the Soviet Union with nuclear missiles would have been a great challenge for the United States, since it would have resulted in overwhelming retaliation by the Soviet Union. To maneuver this problem, to assure the destruction of the Soviet Union while protecting the U.S. from similar destruction, the CIA relied on more unconventional methods not previously thought of as being part of traditional warfare, such as funding proxy forces while wielding economic and cultural influence over the American domestic sphere and the international scene.
Furthermore, proxy warfare enables control of public opinion, thus allowing the U.S. government to escape public scrutiny and questions about legal authorization for war. With opposition from the general public essentially under control, consent for U.S.-led wars does not need to be obtained, especially when the U.S. military is running them from “behind the scenes” and its involvement looks less obvious. Indeed, the protests against the war on Vietnam in the United States and other Western countries saw mass turnouts.
And while the U.S.-led aggression in Vietnam did involve proxy warfare to a lesser degree, it was still mostly fought with American “boots-on-the-ground”, much like the 2001 renewed U.S.-led aggression against Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In contrast, the U.S. assault on Afghanistan that began in 1979 saw little to no protest. The Mujahideen even garnered support from large portions of the Western left who joined the chorus of voices in the Western mainstream media in demonizing the PDPA — a relentless imperialist propaganda campaign that would be repeated in later years during the U.S. wars on Libya and Syria, with the difference being that social media had not yet gained prominence at the time of the initial assault on Afghanistan. This leads to the next question: why recruit some of the most reactionary social forces abroad, many of whom represent complete backwardness?
In Afghanistan, such forces proved useful in the mission to topple the modernizing government of the PDPA, especially when their anti-modernity aspirations intersected with U.S. foreign policy; these ultra-conservative forces continue to be deployed by the United States today. In fact, the long war on Afghanistan shares many striking similarities with the long war on Syria, with the common theme of U.S. imperialism collaborating with violent Sunni extremists to topple the secular, nationalist and anti-imperialist governments of these two former ‘Soviet bloc’ countries. And much like the PDPA, the current and long-time government of the Ba’ath Arab Socialist Party in Syria has made many strides towards achieving national liberation and economic development, which have included: taking land from aristocratic families (a majority of whom were Sunni Muslims while Shia Muslims, but especially Alawites, traditionally belonged to the lower classes and were treated as second class citizens in pre-Ba’athist Syria) and redistributing and nationalizing it, making use of Syria’s oil and gas reserves to modernize the country and benefit its population, and upholding women’s rights as an important part of the Ba’athist pillars.
Some of these aristocratic landlords, just like their Afghan counterparts, would react violently and join the Muslim Brotherhood who, with CIA-backing, carried out acts of terrorism and other atrocities in Hama as they made a failed attempt to topple the government of Hafez al Assad in 1982.
The connection between the two is further solidified by the fact that it was the Mujahideen from which Al Qaeda emerged; both are inspired by Wahhabist ideology, and one of their chief financiers is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (as well as Israel, a regional imperial power and a key ally of the United States). In either case, these Wahhabi-inspired forces were vehemently opposed to modernization and development, and would much rather keep large sections of the population impoverished, as they sought to replace the PDPA and the Ba’athists with Sunni fundamentalist, anti-Shia, theological autocracies — Saudi-style regimes, in other words.
These reactionary forces are useful tools in the CIA’s anti-communist projects and destabilization campaigns against independent nationalist governments, considering that the groups’ anti-modernity stance is a motivating factor in their efforts to sabotage economic development, which is conducive to ensuring a favourable climate for U.S. capital interests. It also helps that these groups already saw the nationalist governments of the PDPA and the Syrian Ba’ath party as their ‘archenemy’, and would thus fight them to the death and resort to acts of terrorism against the respective civilian populations.
Zbigniew Brzezinski stated in a 1998 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur in response to the following question:
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
[Brzezinski]: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Once again, he makes it clear that the religious extremism of the Mujahideen fighters was not an issue for Washington because the real political value lay in eliminating the PDPA and putting an end to Soviet influence in the Greater Middle East, which would give the U.S. the opportunity to easily access and steal the country’s wealth. And in order to justify the U.S. imperialist intervention in Afghanistan, as well as to obscure the true nature of the Mujahideen fighters, the intervention needed to be accompanied by a rigorous mass media campaign. The Reagan administration — knowing full well that American mainstream media has international influence — continued the war that the Carter administration started and saw it as an opportunity to “step up” its domestic propaganda war, considering that the American general public was still largely critical of the Vietnam War at the time.
As part of the aggressive imperialist propaganda campaign, anyone who dared to publicly criticize the Mujahideen was subjected to character assassination and was pejoratively labelled a “Stalinist” or a “Soviet apologist”, which are akin to labels such as “Russian agent” or “Assadist” being used as insults today against those who speak out against the U.S.-backed terrorism in Syria. There were also careful rebranding strategies made specifically for Osama bin Laden and the Mujahideen mercenaries, who were hailed as “revolutionary freedom fighters” and given a romantic, exoticized “holy warrior” makeover in Western media; hence the title of this section. The Mujahideen mercenaries were even given a dedication title card at the end of the Hollywood movie Rambo III which read, “This film is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan”; the film itself added to the constructed romantic image as it portrayed the Mujahideen fighters as heroes, while the Soviet Union and the PDPA were portrayed as the cartoonish villains. The Rambo film franchise is well known for its depiction of the Vietnamese as “savages” and as the aggressors in the U.S. war on Vietnam, which is a blatant reversal of the truth.
The Hollywood blockbuster franchise would be used to make the Mujahideen more palatable to Western audiences, as this unabashed, blatantly anti-Soviet propaganda for U.S. imperialism attracted millions of viewers with one of the largest movie marketing campaigns of the time. Although formulaic, the films are easily consumable because they appeal to emotion and, as Michael Parenti states in Dirty Truths, “The entertainment industry does not merely give the people what they want: it is busy shaping those wants,” (p. 111). Rambo III may not have been critically acclaimed, but it was still the second most commercially successful film in the Rambo series, grossing a total of $189,015,611 at the box office. Producing war propaganda films is nothing new and has been a long staple of the Hollywood industry, which serves capitalist and imperialist interests. But, since the blockbuster movie is one of the most widely available and distributed forms of media, repackaging the Mujahideen into a popular film franchise was easily one of the best ways (albeit cynical) to justify the war, maintaining the American constructed narrative and reinforcing the demonization campaign against Soviet Russia and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Now, outside of the cinema, CBS News went as far as to air fake battle footage meant to help perpetuate the myth that the Mujahideen mercenaries were “freedom fighters”; American journalists Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, although decidedly biased against the Soviet Union and its allies, documented this ruse in which the news channel participated. In terms of proxy warfare, these were just some of the ways used to distract from the fact that it was a U.S.-led war.
The dedication title card as it originally appeared at the end of the film Rambo III.
In Afghanistan, proxy forces provided a convenient cover because they drew attention away from the fact that U.S. imperialism was the root cause of the conflict. The insurgents also helped to demonize the targets of U.S. foreign policy, the PDPA and the Soviet Union, all the while doing the majority of the physical combat in place of the American military. In general, drawing attention away from the fact that it has been the United States “pulling the strings” all along, using proxy forces helps Washington to maintain plausible deniability in regard to its relationship with such groups. If any one of these insurgents becomes a liability, as what had happened with the Taliban, they can just as easily be disposed of and replaced by more competent patsies, while U.S. foreign policy goes unquestioned. Criminal gangs and paramilitary forces are thus ideal and convenient tools for U.S. foreign policy. With the rule of warlords and the instability (namely damage to infrastructure, de-industrialization, and societal collapse) that followed after the toppling of the PDPA, Afghanistan’s standard of living dropped rapidly, leading to forced mass migrations and making the country all the more vulnerable to a more direct U.S. military intervention — which eventually did happen in 2001.
Zbigniew Brzezinski: godfather of colour revolutions and proxy wars, architect of the Mujahideen
The late Brzezinski was a key figure in U.S. foreign policy and a highly influential figure in the Council on Foreign Relations. Although the Polish-American diplomat and political scientist was no longer the National Security Advisor under Ronald Reagan’s presidency, he still continued to play a prominent role in enforcing U.S. foreign policy goals in upholding Washington’s global monopoly. The liberal Cold War ideologue’s signature strategy consisted of using the CIA to destabilize and force regime-change onto countries whose governments actively resisted against Washington. Such is the legacy of Brzezinski, whose strategy of funding the most reactionary anti-government forces to foment chaos and instability while promoting them as “freedom fighters” is now a longstanding staple of U.S. imperialism.
How were the aggressive propaganda campaigns which promoted the Mujahideen mercenaries as “freedom fighters” able to garner support for the aggression against the former Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from so many on the Western left who had previously opposed the war on Vietnam? It was the through the CIA’s use of ‘soft-power’ schemes, because leftist opinion also needed to be controlled and manipulated in the process of carrying out U.S. foreign and public policy. Brzezinski mastered the art of targeting intelligentsia and impressionable young people in order to make them supportive of U.S. foreign policy, misleading a significant number of people into supporting U.S.-led wars.
The CIA invested money into programs that used university campus, anti-Soviet “radical leftist activists” and academics (as well as artists and writers) to help spread imperialist propaganda dressed up in vaguely “leftist”-sounding language and given a more “hip”, “humanitarian”, “social justice”, “free thinker” appeal. Western, but especially American, academia has since continued to teach the post-modernist “oppression theory” or “privilege theory” to students, which is anti-Marxist and anti-scientific at its core. More importantly, this post-modernist infiltration was meant to distract from class struggle, to help divert any form of solidarity away from anti-imperialist struggles, and to foster virulent animosity towards the Soviet Union among students and anyone with ‘leftist’ leanings. Hence the phenomenon of identity politics that continues to plague the Western left today, whose strength was effectively neutered by the 1970s. Not only that, but as Gowans mentions in his book, Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea’s Struggle for Freedom:
“U.S. universities recruit talented individuals from abroad, instill in them the U.S. imperialist ideology and values, and equip them with academic credentials which conduce to their landing important political positions at home. In this way, U.S. imperial goals indirectly structure the political decision-making of other countries.” (pp. 52-53)
And so we have agencies and think-tanks such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which has scholarly appeal and actively interferes in elections abroad — namely, in countries that are targets of U.S. foreign policy. Founded in 1983 by Reagan and directed by the CIA, the agency also assists in mobilizing coups and paid “dissidents” in U.S.-led regime change projects, such as the 2002 failed attempt against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, as well as helping to create aggressive media campaigns that demonize targeted nations. Another instance of this “soft power” tactic of mobilizing U.S.-backed “dissidents” in targeted nations are the number of Sunni Islamic fundamentalist madrassas (schools) sponsored by the CIA and set up by Wahhabi missionaries from Saudi Arabia in Afghanistan — which started to appear in increasing numbers during the 1980s, reaching over 39,000 during the decade. Afghanistan’s public education institutions were largely secular prior to the fall of Kabul in 1992; these madrassas were the direct, ideological and intellectual antitheses to the existing institutions of education. The madrassas acted as centres for cult-like brainwashing and were essentially CIA covert psychological operations (psy-ops) intended to inspire divisiveness and demobilize younger generations of Afghans in the face of imperial onslaught so that they would not unite with the wider PDPA-led nationalist resistance to imperialism.
The NED’s founding members were comprised of Cold War ideologues which included Brzezinski himself, as well as Trotskyists who provided an endless supply of slurs against the Soviet Union. It was chiefly under this agency, and with direction provided by Brzezinski, that America produced artists, “activists”, academics, and writers who presented themselves as “radical leftists” and slandered the Soviet Union and countries that were aligned with it — which was all part of the process of toppling them and subjugating them to U.S. free market fundamentalism. With Brzezinski having mastered the art of encouraging postmodernism and identity politics among the Western left in order to weaken it, the United States not only had military and economic might on its side but also highly sophisticated ideological instruments to help give it the upper hand in propaganda wars.
These “soft power” schemes are highly effective in masking the brutality of U.S. imperialism, as well as concealing the exploitation of impoverished nations. Marketing the Mujahideen mercenaries as “peace warriors” while demonizing the PDPA and referring to the Soviet assistance as an “invasion” or “aggression” marked the beginning of the regular use of “humanitarian” pretexts for imperialist interventions. The Cold War era onslaught against Afghanistan can thus be seen as the template for the NATO-led regime change projects against Yugoslavia, Libya, and Syria, which not only involved the use of U.S.-backed proxy forces but also “humanitarian” pretexts being presented in the aggressive propaganda campaigns against the targeted countries. It was not until 2002, however, that then-American UN representative Samantha Powers, as well as several U.S.-allied representatives, would push the United Nations to officially adopt the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) doctrine into the Charter — which was in direct contradiction to the law that recognizes the violation of a nation’s sovereignty as a crime. The R2P doctrine was born out of the illegal 78-day NATO air-bombing of Yugoslavia from March 24 to June 10, 1999. And although plans to dismantle Yugoslavia go as far back as 1984, it was not until much of the 1990s that NATO would begin openly intervening — with more naked aggression — starting with the funding and support for secessionist paramilitary forces in Bosnia between 1994-1995. It then sealed the 1999 destruction of Yugoslavia with with the balkanization of the Serbian province of Kosovo. In addition to the use of terrorist and paramilitary groups as proxy forces which received CIA-training and funding, another key feature of this “humanitarian” intervention was the ongoing demonization campaigns against the Serbs, who were at the centre of a vicious Western media propaganda war. Some of the most egregious parts of these demonization campaigns — which were tantamount to slander and libel — were the claims that the Serbs were “committing genocide” against ethnic Albanians. The NATO bombing campaign was illegal since it was given no UN Security Council approval or support.
Once again, Brzezinski was not the National Security Advisor during the U.S.-led campaign against Yugoslavia. However, he still continued to wield influence as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a private organization and Wall Street think tank. The Council on Foreign Relations is intertwined with highly influential NGOs who are essentially propaganda mouthpieces for U.S. foreign policy, such as Human Rights Watch, which has fabricated stories of atrocities allegedly committed by countries targeted by U.S. imperialism. Clearly, unmitigated U.S. imperial aggression did not end with the destruction of the former Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, nor with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The post-Cold War years were a continuation of U.S. imperialism’s scramble for more spheres of influence and global domination; it was also a scramble for what was left of the former ‘Soviet bloc’ and Warsaw Pact. The dismantling of Yugoslavia was, figuratively speaking, the ‘final nail in the coffin’ of whatever ‘Soviet influence’ was left in Eastern Europe.
The demise of the Soviet Union and the “Afghan trap” question
Image on the right: Left to right: former Afghan President Babrak Karmal, and former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Karmal took office at around the same time (December 1979) the PDPA requested that Moscow intervene to assist the besieged Afghanistan.
The sabotage and subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union meant that only one global hegemon remained, and that was the United States. Up until 1989, the Soviet Union had been the barrier that was keeping the United States from launching a more robust military intervention in Afghanistan, as well as in Central and West Asia. While pulling out did not immediately cause the defeat of Kabul as the PDPA government forces continued to struggle for another three years, Mikhail Gorbachev’s decision to withdraw Soviet troops arguably had a detrimental impact on Afghanistan for many years to come. Although there was no Soviet military assistance in the last three years of Najibullah’s presidency, Afghanistan continued to receive aid from the USSR, and some Soviet military advisers (however limited in their capacity) still remained; despite the extreme difficulties, and combined with the nation’s still-relatively high morale, this did at least help to keep the government from being overthrown immediately. This defied U.S. expectations as the CIA and the George H.W. Bush administration had believed that the government of Najibullah would fall as soon as Soviet troops were withdrawn. But what really hurt the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan’s army was when the Soviet Union was dismantled in 1991; almost as soon as the dissolution happened and Boris Yeltsin (with U.S. backing) took over as Russia’s president, the aid stopped coming and the government forces became unable to hold out for much longer. The U.S. aggression was left unchecked, and to this day Afghanistan has not seen geopolitical stability and has since been a largely impoverished ‘failed state’, serving as a training ground for terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda. It continues to be an anarchic battleground between rival warlords which include the ousted Taliban and the U.S. puppet government that replaced them.
But, as was already mentioned above, the “Afghan trap” did not, in and of itself, cause the dismantling of the Soviet Union. In that same interview with Le Nouvel Observateur, Brzezinski had this to say in response to the question about setting the “trap”:
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
[Brzezinski]: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Likewise with Cuba and Syria, the USSR had a well-established alliance with the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, one of mutual aid and partnership. Answering Kabul’s explicit request for assistance was a deliberate and conscious choice made by Moscow, and it just so happened that the majority of Afghans welcomed it. For any errors that Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary at the time, may have made (which do deserve a fair amount of criticism, but are not the focus of this article), the 1979 decision to intervene on behalf of Afghanistan against U.S. imperialism was not one of them. It is true that both the Soviet and the U.S. interventions were military interventions, but the key difference is that the U.S. was backing reactionary forces for the purposes of establishing colonial domination and was in clear violation of Afghan sovereignty. Consider, too, that Afghanistan had only deposed of its king in 1973, just six years before the conflict began. The country may have moved quickly to industrialize and modernize, but it wasn’t much time to fully develop its military defenses by 1979.
Image below: Mikhail Gorbachev accepts the Nobel Peace Prize from George H.W. Bush on October 15, 1990. Many Russians saw this gesture as a betrayal, while the West celebrated it, because he was being awarded for his capitulation to U.S. imperialism in foreign and economic policy.
Other than that, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the Soviet Union imploded due to an accumulating number of factors: namely, the gradual steps that U.S. foreign policy had taken over the years to cripple the Soviet economy, especially after the deaths of Brezhnev and Yuri Andropov. How Gorbachev responded during the U.S.-led onslaught against Afghanistan certainly helped to exacerbate the conditions that led to the dissolution. After the deaths of Brezhnev and Andropov, the Soviet Union’s economy became disorganized and was being liberalized during much of the 1980s. Not only that, but the Reagan administration escalated the arms race, which intensified after they had scrapped the ‘detente’ that was previously made in the mid-1970s. Even prior to Reagan’s hardline, bombastic rhetoric and escalation against the USSR, the Soviet Union was already beginning to show signs of strain from the arms race during the late-1970s. However, in spite of the economic strains, during the height of the war the organized joint operations between the Soviet army and the Afghan army saw a significant amount of success in pushing back against the Mujahideen with many of the jihadist leaders either being killed or fleeing to Pakistan. Therefore, it is erroneous to say that intervening in Afghanistan on behalf of the Afghan people “did the Soviet Union in.”
In a misguided and ultimately failed attempt to spur economic growth rates, Gorbachev moved to end the Cold War by withdrawing military support from allies and pledging cooperation with the United States who promised “peace”. When he embraced Neoliberalism and allowed for the USSR to be opened to the U.S.-dominated world capitalist economy, the Soviet economy imploded and the effects were felt by its allies. It was a capitulation to U.S. imperialism, in other words; and it led to disastrous results not only in Afghanistan, but in several other countries as well. These include: the destruction of Yugoslavia, both wars on Iraq, and the 2011 NATO invasion of Libya. Also, Warsaw Pact members in Eastern Europe were no longer able to effectively fight back against U.S.-backed colour revolutions; some of them would eventually be absorbed as NATO members, such as Czechoslovakia which was dissolved and divided into two states: the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Without Soviet Russia to keep it in check, the United States was able to launch an unrestrained series of aggressions for nearly two decades. Because of his decision to withdraw from the arms race altogether, in a vain attempt to transform the Soviet Union into a social democracy akin to those of the Nordic countries, Gorbachev had deprived the Russian army of combat effectiveness by making significant cuts to its defense budget, which is partly why they were forced to evacuate. Not only that, but these diplomatic and military concessions with the United States gave them no benefit in return, hence the economic crisis in Russia during the Yeltsin years. Suffice to say, the Gorbachev-Yeltsin years are not remembered fondly in Russia and many regard Gorbachev as a traitor and Western agent who helped to bring the Soviet Union to its collapse. In more recent years, efforts are being made to assess the actions taken by Gorbachev with regards to Afghanistan; this includes going against and revising the resolution put forth by him which suggested that the USSR intervention was “shameful”.
In short, Afghanistan did not cause the Soviet Union’s demise even if it required large military spending. More accurately: it was Gorbachev’s impulsive decision to quickly discard the planned economy in favour of a market economy in order to appease the United States, who made the false promise that NATO would not expand eastward. If there was a real “trap”, it was this and Gorbachev played right into the hands of U.S. imperialism; and so, the Soviet Union received its devastating blow from the United States in the end — not from a small, minor nation such as Afghanistan which continues to suffer the most from the effects of these past events. For many years, but especially since the end of WWII, the United States made ceaseless efforts to undermine the USSR, adding stress upon stress onto its economy, in addition to the psychological warfare waged through the anti-Soviet propaganda and military threats against it and its allies. Despite any advances made in the past, the Soviet Union’s economy was still not as large as that of the United States. And so, in order to keep pace with NATO, the Soviet Union did not have much of a choice but to spend a large percentage of its GDP on its military and on helping to defend its allies, which included national liberation movements in the Third World, because of the very real and significant threat that U.S. imperialism posed. If it had not spent any money militarily, its demise would most likely have happened much sooner. But eventually, these mounting efforts by U.S. imperialism created a circumstance where its leadership under Gorbachev made a lapse in judgment, reacting impulsively and carelessly rather than acting with resilience in spite of the onslaught.
It should also be taken into account that WWII had a profound impact on Soviet leadership — from Joseph Stalin to Gorbachev — because even though the Red Army was victorious in defeating the Nazis, the widespread destruction had still placed the Soviet economy under an incredible amount of stress and it needed time to recover. Meanwhile, the convenient geographical location of the United States kept it from suffering the same casualties and infrastructural damage seen across Europe and Asia as a result of the Second World War, which enabled its economy to recover much faster and gave it enough time to eventually develop the U.S. Dollar as the international currency and assert dominance over the world economy. Plus, the U.S. had accumulated two-thirds of the world’s gold reserves by 1944 to help back the Dollar; and even if it lost a large amount of the gold, it would still be able to maintain Dollar supremacy by developing the fiat system to back the currency. Because of the destruction seen during WWII, it is understandable that the Soviet Union wanted to avoid another world war, which is why it also made several attempts at achieving some kind of diplomacy with the United States (before Gorbachev outright capitulated). At the same time, it also understood that maintaining its military defenses was important because of the threat of a nuclear war from the United States, which would be much more catastrophic than the Nazis’ military assaults against the Soviet Union since Hitler did not have a nuclear arsenal. This was part of a feat that U.S. imperialism was able to accomplish that ultimately overshadowed British, French, German, and Japanese imperialism, which Brzezinski reveals in his book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives: an unparalleled military establishment that, by far, had the most effective global reach which allowed the U.S. to “project forces over long distances”, helping it to assert its global domination and impose its “political will”. And what makes the American Empire distinct from the Japanese Empire, British Empire, and other European empires is that one of the bases for its ideology is the socially constructed international hierarchy of nations, and not races as was the case with the other aforementioned empires. This constructed international hierarchy of nations is more effective because it means not only greater expansionism, but also the greater ability to exercise global primacy and supremacy. More specific to Central Asia and the Middle East, the Wahhabist and Salafist groups propped up by the CIA were always intended to nurture sectarianism and discord in order to counter a mass, broad-based united front of nations against imperialism — an example of divide-and-conquer, which is an age-old tradition of empire, except this time with Neoliberal characteristics.
Therefore, the Mujahideen against Afghanistan should not be thought of simply as “the Afghan trap”, but rather as the U.S. subjugation and plundering of West and Central Asia and an important milestone (albeit a cynical one) in shaping its foreign policy with regards to the region for many years to come. If one thing has remained a constant in U.S. foreign policy towards West and Central Asia, it is its strategic partnership with the oil autocracy of Saudi Arabia, which acts as the United States’ steward in safeguarding the profits of American petroleum corporations and actively assists Western powers in crushing secular Arab and Central Asian nationalist resistance against imperialism. The Saudi monarchy would again be called on by the U.S. government in 2011 in Syria to assist in the repeated formula of funding and arming so-called “moderate rebels” in the efforts to destabilize the country. Once again, the ultimate goal in this more recent imperial venture is to contain Russia.
Cold War 2.0? American Supremacy marches on
The present-day anti-Russia hysteria is reminiscent of the anti-Soviet propaganda of the Cold War era; while anti-communism is not the central theme today, one thing remains the same: the fact that the U.S. Empire is (once again) facing a formidable challenge to its position in the world. After the Yeltsin years were over, and under Vladimir Putin, Russia’s economy eventually recovered and moved towards a more dirigiste economy; and on top of that, it moved away from the NATO fold, which triggered the old antagonistic relationship with the United States. Russia has also decided to follow the global trend of taking the step towards reducing reliance on the U.S. dollar, which is no doubt a source of annoyance to the U.S. capitalist class. It seems that a third world war in the near future is becoming more likely as the U.S. inches closer to a direct military confrontation against Russia and, more recently, China. History does appear to be repeating itself. When the government of Bashar al Assad called on Moscow for assistance in fighting against the NATO-backed terrorists, it certainly was reminiscent of when the PDPA had done the same many years before. Thus far, the Syrian Arab Republic has continued to withstand the destabilization efforts carried out by the Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups and Kurdish militias at the behest of the United States, and has not collapsed as Libya, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan did.
But what often gets overlooked is the repeated Brzezinskist formula of funding highly reactionary forces and promoting them as “revolutionaries” to Western audiences in order to fight governments that defy the global dictatorship of the United States and refuse to allow the West to exploit their natural resources and labour power. As Karl Marx once said, “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.” Such a phenomenon is no accident or a mere mistake. The geopolitical instability that followed after the overthrow of the PDPA ensures that no sound, united, and formidable opposition against U.S. imperialism will emerge for an indefinite number of years; and it seems that Libya, where the Brzezinskist-style of regime change also saw success and which is now a hotbed for the slave trade, is on the same path as Afghanistan. This is all a part of what Lenin calls moribund capitalism when he discussed the economic essence of imperialism; and by that, he meant that imperialism carries the contradictions of capitalism to the extreme limit. American global monopoly had grown out of U.S. foreign policy, and it should go without saying that the American Empire cannot tolerate losing its Dollar Supremacy, especially when the global rate of profit is falling. And if too many nations reject U.S. efforts to infiltrate their markets and force foreign finance capital exports onto their economies in order to gain a monopoly over the resources, as well as to exploit the labour of their working people, it would surely spell a sharp decline in American Dollar hegemony. The fact that the United States was willing to go as far as to back mercenaries to attack the former Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and fight the Soviet Union, as well as to spend billions of dollars on a highly elaborate but effective propaganda campaign, shows a sign of desperation of the American Empire in maintaining its global hegemony.
Since the end of World War II the United States has been, and is by and large still, the overwhelming world-dominating power. It is true that the American Empire is in decline, in light of increasing trends towards “de-Dollarization,” as well as the rise of China and Russia which pose as challenges to U.S. interests. Naturally, Washington will desperately try to cling on to its number one position in the world by accelerating the growth of its global monopolies — whether it is through placing wholly unnecessary tariffs against competitors such as China, or threatening to completely cut Venezuelan and Iranian oil out of the global market — even if it means an increasing drive towards World War III. The current global economic order which Washington elites have been instrumental in shaping over the past several decades reflects the interests of the global capitalist class to such an extent that the working class is threatened with yet another world war despite the unimaginable carnage witnessed during the first two.
When we look back at these historical events to help make sense of the present, we see how powerful mass media can be and how it is used as a tool of U.S. foreign policy to manipulate and control public opinion. Foreign policy is about the economic relationships between countries. Key to understanding how U.S. imperialism functions is in its foreign policy and how it carries it out — which adds up to plundering from relatively small or poorer nations more than a share of wealth and resources that can be normally produced in common commercial exchanges, forcing them to be indebted; and if any of them resist, then they will almost certainly be subjected to military threats.
With the great wealth that allowed it to build a military that can “project forces over long distances,” the United States is in a unique position in history, to say the least. However, as we have seen above, the now four decade-long war on Afghanistan was not only fought on a military front considering the psy-ops and the propaganda involved. If anything, the Soviet Union lost on the propaganda front in the end.
From Afghanistan we learn not only of the origins of Al Qaeda, to which the boom in the opioid-addiction epidemic has ties, or why today we have the phenomenon of an anti-Russia Western “left” that parrots imperialist propaganda and seems very eager to see that piece of Cold War history repeat itself in Syria. We also learn that we cannot de-link the events of the 2001 direct U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan and what followed from those of 1979; Afghanistan’s colonial-feudal past, its break from that with the 1978 Saur Revolution, and the U.S.-led Mujahideen are all as much of a part of its history (and the Greater Middle East, by extension) as the events of 2001. It cannot be stressed enough that it is those historical conditions, particularly as they relate to U.S. foreign policy, that helped to shape the ongoing conflict today.
Obviously, we cannot undo the past. It is not in the interests of the working class anywhere, in the Global South or in the Global North, to see a third world war happen, as such a war would have catastrophic consequences for everyone — in fact, it could potentially destroy all of humanity. Building a new and revitalized anti-war movement in the imperialist nations is a given, but it also requires a more sophisticated understanding of U.S. foreign policy. Without historical context, Western mass media will continue to go unchallenged, weaning audiences on a steady diet of “moderate rebels” propaganda and effectively silencing the victims of imperialism. It is necessary to unite workers across the whole world according to their shared interests in order to effectively fight and defeat imperialism and to establish a just, egalitarian, and sustainable world under socialism. Teaching the working class everywhere the real history of such conflicts as the one in Afghanistan is an important part of developing the revolutionary consciousness necessary to build a strong global revolutionary movement against imperialism.
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Originally published by LLCO.org on March 30, 2019. For the full-length article and bibliography, click here.
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This text was among the first articles published by Global Research.
It was published on October 15, 2001, in the week following the US-NATO led invasion of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001.
This historic interview with President Carter’s National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski confirms that the so-called “Soviet-Afghan war” was triggered and initiated not by the Soviet Union but by the United States.
America has been at war with Afghanistan for more than forty Years. It started in July 1979. It is still ongoing.
America’s War against the people of Afghanistan started on July 3, 1979, when President Carter, on the advice of his National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski “signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul”.
Confirmed by this 1998 interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the CIA’s intervention in Afghanistan preceded the entry of Soviet forces into Afghanistan in the context of a military cooperation agreement with the Kabul government similar in form to that reached between Damascus and Moscow in the context of the ongoing war in Syria. That agreement between Moscow and Kabul was signed on December 24, 1979.
Confirmed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Soviet forces (in a cooperation agreement with a secular Afghan government) were fighting the Al Qaeda mercenaries who had been recruited by the CIA.
Amply documented, the recruitment, training and indoctrination of the Mujahideen was financed by the drug trade which was supported covertly by the CIA.
The terrorists were recruited starting in July 1979. They were used to undermine and destroy Afghanistan’s secular social structure. The decision of the Carter Administration in early July 1979 to intervene and destabilize Afghanistan’s secular government was conducive to Afghanistan’s destruction as a nation-state.
These are the realities of history.
The official justification for the US-NATO War on Afghanistan which started on October 7, 2001 was that an unnamed foreign power attacked America on September 11, 2001, and that consequently “the laws of war” apply, allowing the nation under attack, to strike back in the name of “self-defense”.
NATO’s North Atlantic Council meeting in Brussels on September 12, 2001, adopted the following resolution:
“if it is determined that the [September 11, 2001] attack against the United States was directed from abroad [Afghanistan] against “The North Atlantic area“, it shall be regarded as an action covered by Article 5 of the Washington Treaty”. (emphasis added)
The bombing and invasion of Afghanistan which commenced on October 7, 2001 was described as a “campaign” against “Islamic terrorists”, rather than a war.
And those same Al Qaeda affiliated Islamic terrorists had been recruited by the US starting in July 1979. They were supported and financed by the US.
What was initiated in 1979 is best described as “America’s War With Terrorists” whereby Al Qaeda recruits are used to destroy secular sovereign nations in a diabolical covert operation which has now extended its thrust from the Middle East to South East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Beyond.
Michel Chossudovsky, August 22, 2021
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This is the Muslim country that America deliberately Destroyed
Scroll down for Brzezinski interview followed by more photos of what Afghanistan looked like prior to US sponsored terrorism.
Kabul University 1980s
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Interview with National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski
Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs [“From the Shadows”], that American intelligence services began their aid to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahideen began during the 1980s, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 December 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise.
Indeed, it was on July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
B: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn’t believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don’t regret anything today?
B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?
Q: Some stirred-up Muslims? But it has been said and repeated Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
B:Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn’t a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.
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emphasis added
Translated from French by WilliamBlum
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As of the early 1980s, the US was actively involved in destroying Afghanistan a prosperous and progressive Muslim country with a secular government.
“Some stirred up Muslims” to use the words of Zbigniew Brzezinski.
Al Qaeda terrorists were recruited by the U.S to destroy and impoverish a country of 38 billion people.
“Biology class, Kabul University.”
“Phonograph record store.”
“Hundreds of Afghan youngsters take active part in Scout programs.”
In this new and expanded edition of Michel Chossudovsky’s 2002 best seller, the author blows away the smokescreen put up by the mainstream media, that 9/11 was an attack on America by “Islamic terrorists”. Through meticulous research, the author uncovers a military-intelligence ploy behind the September 11 attacks, and the cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.
The expanded edition, which includes twelve new chapters focuses on the use of 9/11 as a pretext for the invasion and illegal occupation of Iraq, the militarisation of justice and law enforcement and the repeal of democracy.
According to Chossudovsky, the “war on terrorism” is a complete fabrication based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus. The “war on terrorism” is a war of conquest. Globalisation is the final march to the “New World Order”, dominated by Wall Street and the U.S. military-industrial complex.
September 11, 2001 provides a justification for waging a war without borders. Washington’s agenda consists in extending the frontiers of the American Empire to facilitate complete U.S. corporate control, while installing within America the institutions of the Homeland Security State.
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Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Vietnam are all examples of American attack, destruction and occupation. In each case, the countries were left in devastation, and only Vietnam has survived to rebuild and be restored.
The Taliban have won the war, and the US has lost. Arm-chair quarterbacks are blaming everyone, including the American people for not wanting to continue an endless war. President George W. Bush made the decision to invade, with an alleged two-pronged mission: to degrade the capability of Al Qaeda, and to bring western style democracy to a central eastern nation with no experience with democracy, or western values.
The Taliban have said they will form a government based on Islam, but with some democratic aspects, like inclusion of non-Taliban members. Time will tell if their promises are fulfilled. The US is a close ally with Saudi Arabia, who has an Islamic government, and absolutely no democratic aspects.
Qatar continues to be a major sponsor of the Taliban, and the oil-rich Persian Gulf emirate is one of the main defenders of the Muslim Brotherhood, along with Turkey. The US-NATO attack on Syria, beginning in 2011, was supported by Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and utilized the Muslim Brotherhood militia “Free Syrian Army”, which was finally cut off of US support by Trump in 2017.
Al Qaeda continues to be present in Afghanistan, and they are located all over the world in pockets. The province of Idlib in Syria is occupied by Al Qaeda, and the US had formerly supported the group until Jibhat al-Nusra was designated a terrorist group. International aid agencies, including the UN, are keeping the terrorists, their families, and several million civilian hostages fed while a stalemate is enduring because Turkey has taken the side of Al Qaeda in Idlib, and has kept them weaponized. When the Taliban entered Kabul, the terrorists in Idlib rejoiced and passed around sweets, symbolizing their celebration of their brothers-in-arms victory.
“The events we see now are sadly proof that no amount of military force would ever deliver a stable, united, secure Afghanistan,” Biden said in a speech Monday defending his actions. When the US finally leaves Syria, Biden will likely say that no amount of US military force could ever overthrow an elected President in Syria.
Former President Trump had ordered the US withdrawal from Syria, but the military stood in his way, and he bent to their pressure. Trump had campaigned on bringing the troops home, and ending the endless wars. The military insisted that the US must stand by their local ally in the fight against ISIS, the Kurds. While the SDF did fight against ISIS alongside the US, they also have consolidated their occupied territory through blood-thirsty ethnic cleansing. The Kurds have laid claim to a large swath of north eastern Syria, even though they were never the majority of the population there, as were the Syrian Arabs and Syrian Christians.
President Ashraf Ghani ran away, reportedly with bags stuffed with money, so much so he had to leave some behind because the helicopter wouldn’t hold it all. Experts had been warning for years about the systemic corruption of the Afghan government, which stemmed from ill-supervised US reconstruction money. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has been producing reports showing total failure of every goal they set. The New York Times wrote in 2018 that the US government were lying to the American public about Afghanistan. When the Taliban got near Kabul, the soldiers and officials fled without firing a shot.
Bush, Obama, and Trump all made the same mistakes: to keep a winless war going. But, to Trump’s credit, he negotiated with the Taliban, and signed a withdrawal agreement which provided the timeline for Biden to follow, though Biden did delay it. Washington should have worked harder, and faster to process legitimate claims to be rescued from Afghanistan. The desperate scenes at the Kabul airport could have been avoided in part if Washington had done their job efficiently.
Lessons need to be learned, and not repeated. Will the US taxpayer’s dollars be spent in the future on another military adventure? General Dwight D. Eisenhower cautioned us many years ago about the military complex. Are we capable of preventing the US government from taking us down the same rabbit hole again?
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Ukraine’s gas transmission system operator hopes that the European Union will support them in their dispute with Russian state energy company Gazprom. According to Kiev, Gazprom is emptying its gas storage facilities in Europe in order to decrease transit through Ukraine, especially now that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline connecting Russia and Germany via the Baltic Sea is nearing completion. Because of this, Kiev argues that the EU’s antitrust body should intervene in the dispute as Ukraine will lose out on transit fees and Europe on gas that they have already paid for.
“In order to compensate Europeans for the amount of gas they do not receive, and not to increase additional transit through Ukraine, Gazprom is emptying its underground gas storage facilities (UGS) in Europe,” said Sergiy Makogon, the General Director of LLC Gas TSO of Ukraine.
Makogon also explained that data proves small stocks in Europe remain in Gazprom-controlled UGS and that Astora (owned by Gazprom) has less than 13% of gas, while other operators have an average of 63%. Astora and GSA (also Gazprom) in Austria has 14%, while other operators in the country have 48%. Makogon believes that the gas shortage in European UGS is largely artificial and not the root cause of recent price increases.
However, are his claims justified?
In the first seven months of 2021, Gazprom increased gas supplies abroad by 23% (compared to last year). That data also includes several deliveries to Turkey though. Deliveries to the EU also increased by around 20%. Therefore, Gazprom is not to blame for the decline in supply. In fact, other major gas suppliers have reduced exports to the EU, including those from Norway, Algeria and Qatar.
It is recalled that Gazprom and Ukrainian state energy company Naftogaz signed a 40 billion cubic meter transit agreement, with a “pump-or-pay” formula. In the first half of this year, Gazprom supplied 21.7 billion cubic meters of gas in transit through Ukraine instead of the agreed upon 20 billion, thus directly contradicting Makogon’s claims. In the first half of 2021, transit through Ukraine averaged 3.62 billion cubic meters per month, but in July, the period for which Ukraine makes the allegation, the volume of transit was even higher: 3.85 billion cubic meters. In order to implement deliveries above the minimum amount specified in the contract, Gazprom is actually forced to purchase additional capacity, even at a price up to 20% higher.
Kiev also auctions additional capacity of 64 million cubic meters per day on a monthly basis. The biggest difference is that when reserving additional capacity, Ukraine transits according to its capabilities, even without strict guarantees of immediate transfer. In Europe, such capacity is auctioned at a discount, but Kiev stubbornly isolates them for the same price. Gazprom, on the other hand, is not as stubborn at auctions and is much more flexible.
It is recalled that in the 2020/21 autumn and winter seasons, a record 60.6 billion cubic meters were pumped out of the UGS in Russia. In addition, Gazprom started the winter with stocks of 72.3 billion cubic meters. This year, Gazprom plans to start the new heating season with reserves of 72.6 billion cubic meters, demonstrating that the Russian UGS group is being prioritized before the UGS in Europe. This does not mean that Russia plans to keep Europe cold during the winter though, as much as Ukrainian hysteria alludes to this scenario.
At first, Naftogaz’s claims that Gazprom had not supplied the full amount of gas under the 2009 transit contract because it did not provide for a “pump-or-pay” formula were unfounded. Eventually, after arbitration in Stockholm, a political decision supported the validity of Kiev’s claims. At the end of 2019, Gazprom transferred $2.9 billion to Naftogaz, which went almost entirely to the Ukrainian state budget. Gazprom is likely unsure whether attempts to repeat this trick with EU antitrust bodies will follow.
However, Ukraine’s pressure campaign to ensure that it remains the main transit country of Russian gas reaching Europe has ended in naught. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline project is nearing a 100% completion, hence diminishing Ukraine’s status as an important energy hub. For this reason, Kiev is desperately attempting to stop this reality from going to fruition as missing out on transit fees will further push the country into economic calamity.
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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
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Corporate Media Adopts ‘Pandemic of the Unvaccinated’ to Dehumanize Skeptics
The corporate media has deluged readers and viewers to its newest “pandemic of the unvaccinated” talking points:
“As the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus fuels outbreaks in the United States, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Friday that ‘this is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated.’”
CNN talking heads and NY Times op-ed writers have not adopted this talking point by accident; through a carefully engineered rhetorical sleight of hand, they have subtly introduced the concept that the actual unvaccinated people – and not the virus itself – are the source of ongoing suffering.
The heavy implication: what does one do with a harmful pathogen? Eliminate it from society.
“The Homeland continues to face a diverse and challenging threat environment… Such threats are also exacerbated by impacts of the ongoing global pandemic, including grievances over public health safety measures and perceived government restrictions.”
Notice the gaslighting phrase “perceived” government restrictions – not “actual and obvious” ones, which they are.
MSNBC: Unvaccinated NFL Players to Be Treated as ‘Second-Class Citizens’
At the 1:52 mark of this MSNBC clip, NBC sports columnist Peter King declares NFL players who refuse the shot “will be treated as second-class citizens.”
CNN medical analyst Leana Wen, in a similar vein, said last month that “it needs to be hard for people to remain unvaccinated.”
The Atlantic Op-Ed: Time For No-Fly Lists for Unvaccinated
“While flying, vaccinated people should no longer carry the burden for unvaccinated people… a no-fly list for unvaccinated adults is an obvious step that the federal government should take.”
UK Government: Unvaxxed British Citizens No Longer Allowed to Leave the Country
“A [UK government] Minister told the Mail on Sunday the ‘logical’ move will be to make the booster shots a requirement for travel, adding that the most up-to-date Covid certification for travel will become as normal as the need to have a yellow fever jab to enter certain countries.”
Debunking the Illusion of Vaccine ‘Choice’
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” -Benito Mussolini
The federal government has insisted in its rhetoric throughout the pandemic – despite its obvious coercive measures to the contrary — that the decision to get vaxxed, like all medical decisions, is a choice left to the individual and his/her doctor.
Historical Western common law has recognized this obvious, inherent right to self-determination of medical treatment as canonical – if one has no control over what medications are injected into his or her bloodstream, one cannot be said to be free in any fundamental sense whatsoever.
When the Nazis violated this precept, their leaders got routed militarily, captured, prosecuted, and hanged at Nuremberg.
The COVID shots are “voluntary,” the government insists, but if you don’t get them you may soon no longer be allowed to:
“Get vaxxed or don’t eat” is not any kind of choice; it’s an ultimatum, a gun to the head.
The elites pass this hideous ultimatum to get jabbed or die isolated in a hole off as “choice” as if threats to sever access to vital resources and the means to participate in the economy are not coercive by definition.
Influential Professor Calls For Hate Crime Legislation to Combat ‘Anti-Science Aggression’
“We should look at expanded protection mechanisms for scientists currently targeted by far-right extremism in the United States. Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) has introduced a bill known as the Scientific Integrity Act of 2021 (H.R. 849) to protect US Government scientists from political interference… Still another possibility is to extend federal hate-crime protections.”
Hotez, or some intern in his employ, even put together a pseudoscientific flow chart to lend more credibility to his extremist anti-free speech proposition:
The above suggested remedy for normal people with a healthy skepticism of lying bureaucrats and profit-hungry pharmaceutical firms is so profoundly unethical that even countering it seems absurd, but here is a shot:
Delivering public testimony, Anthony Fauci has repeatedly, both explicitly and implicitly, told Dr. Rand Paul, a credentialed medical doctor, that he “does not know what he’s talking about” in Senate hearings.
All of which begs the question: Did Fauci science-hate-crime Dr. Rand Paul?Will Fauci be the first one brought up on charges under the Hotez rule?
Medium ‘Trust and Safety’ Team Deletes My Account Over COVID-19 ‘Misinformation’
As I anticipated would eventually occur, in early July, Medium dropped the hammer: a faceless technocrat permanently suspended my account.
I received this email from the Big Brother-style “Trust and Safety Team”:
They linked to their ultra-generic “COVID-19 Content Policy” but never bothered to cite any specific claim I had made that violated it.
Back in 2018, when every big tech social media platform banned Alex Jones overnight, only a fool would have believed such a censorship campaign would be a one-off. That was the appetizer, to set the mass censorship wheel in motion as precedent for later, wider-sweeping crackdowns.
Infowars and Milo Yiannopoulos were merely the lowest-hanging fruit due to their highly-publicized “extremist” reputations, but we’re all hanging on the same tree.
Sooner or later, unless as a society we reinstate freedom of speech into practice, the agents of corporate state are going to come for everyone – for Armageddon Prose, for The Daily Bell, for ZeroHedge.
On a long enough timeline, we’re all going to get the Alex Jones treatment.
This is information warfare.
Ben Bartee is a Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. Follow his stuff via his blog, Armageddon Prose, Substack, or Patreon.
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In February 2021, a World Health Organization (WHO) 4-week mission to China to study the covid plandemic’s origins, came to the conclusion that it was unlikely the virus had escaped from the Wuhan viral research laboratory, or from any other Chinese laboratory, for that matter. Now, under pressure from western governments – foremost the US – WHO wants to send another mission to China to further investigate the origins of the virus. The Chinese authorities refused, saying the findings WHO and Chinese scientists arrived last February at were conclusive, and no further investigation was necessary.
It would appear that WHO receives its orders from a diabolical wealthy cult emanating from Wall Street and Washington which still pretends to reign above all 193 UN member nations and above the entire UN system.
China is absolutely right to refuse. It is clear that the West keeps harping on China’s fault in this matter since China had to be encircled not only by US / NATO military bases, but also steadily demonized by the west, for anything they can find, since China is the up-and-coming economic power, overshadowing western greed-driven neoliberal exploitation capitalism.
To enhance WHO’s position against China and to tarnish China’s image in the world arena, the WHO lead scientist dispatched to Wuhan in February 2021, Peter Ben Embarek, told a Danish television documentary, transmitted on August 12, 2021 that the Chinese scientists refused to even discuss the lab leak scenario, unless the final report dismissed any need for further investigation.
Mr. Ben Embarek added, his Chinese counterpart eventually agreed to discuss the lab leak theory in the report “on the condition we didn’t recommend any specific studies to further that hypothesis.”
It is amazing that such a strong accusation goes unquestioned and that the Danish TV broadcasting unit doesn’t even question the statement and worse, doesn’t invite the Chinese opinion to juxtapose Embarek’s demeaning statement. Instead, they are just accepting point blank the western position, no questions asked, no equal voice to China in this western-driven WHO vs. China debate. The WHO’s spokesperson’s statement is highly biased, and, based on all reports emerging from the WHO February 2021, outright incorrect. See this.
This topic has been debated many times since the beginning of the “covid outbreak” — and it was clear from the beginning that the West was looking to demonize China by blaming China either for the bat story or for a Chinese lab-escaped virus.
Other theories affirm that the man-made virus escaped from a US P4 (highest security bio-war) lab, or was released on purpose.
After all, this outbreak was planned, and simulated already on October 18, 2019 by Event 201, sponsored by the Gates Foundation, Johns Hopkins Center for Health and the World Economic Forum (WEF) – a simulation in NYC, with a number of prominent participants, World Bank, IMF, FED, most of the UN system’s specialized agencies, the UN political body and so on.
WHO being fully under control of western powers and – not to forget – the western pharma-industry, WHO’s firm position against China looks like a maneuver to pave over the evidence of Event 201.
China is to blame for a “virus” that in a 2002 / 2003 outbreak victimized China, as the SARS virus was tailor-made to attack the Chinese genome.
A couple of years before the SARS outbreak, in 1999 / 2000 a group of Harvard students / scientists were quietly collecting in China DNA samples until they were discovered by Chinese authorities and then kicked out of the country. But too late. They had already collected enough Chinese DNA to design a corona virus that would especially target the Chinese genome.
This was exactly what happened in the first “trial run”, the SARS outbreak 2002 / 2003 – affecting only people of Chinese origin. Even those few that were discovered outside of China, could be traced back to Chinese origins.
In early 2020 the same happened again in Wuhan. This time it was “the end game”, so to speak. It happened worldwide, involving all of the 193 UN member countries at once. All at the same time. It is absolutely impossible for a virus to strike the entire world simultaneously. But nobody of the mainstream and the matrix-establishment seems to pay attention to such a minute detail of gigantic proportions.
However, Chinese health authorities suspected a new virus specifically made to attack the Chinese genome. That’s why they reacted so fast. This first attack, again with a SARS virus and again in China, should have been enough reason to get Chinese authorities up in arms and reject the fraudulent claim that the virus emerged from Wuhan – first from a bat in a Wet Market, then from a Wuhan lab. – What is it now? – None of the above.
Shortly after Wuhan, the so-called “novel corona virus” entitled 2019-nCoV (which had the same name as that envisaged in the Event 201 Scenario) was renamed SARS-CoV-2 by WHO which was said to cause the disease called Covid-19.
Miraculously, in no time, SARS-CoV-2 allegedly stroke the entire planet simultaneously. And that in different strands of the virus. No longer just the Chinese “variant”.
Yet if one examines the spread of the alleged pandemic, the fake numbers of positive cases recorded by the flawed RT-PCR test were ridiculously low:
83 cases for a population of 6.4 billion outside of China were used to justify the WHO calling for a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHIC) on January 30, 2020.
44,279 cases (outside of China) on March 11, 2020 to justify the global lockdown and the closing down of the national economies of 193 member states of the United Nations.
The October 2019 Military Olympics in Wuhan
We also know that there are many ways for the virus to “migrate” from a (P4) US bio-war lab to Wuhan, not least through the Military Olympics in October 2019 that took place – you got it – coincidentally also in Wuhan, to which the US sent at least 300 participants.
Different “variants” could also be released by drones and dropped on specific population groups, for example, in northern Italy, in Spain, in Iran. All these strains were very likely different. And since they occurred roughly at the same time (in exceedingly low numbers), they could hardly be mutations.
One of the US labs that is suspected of having been working with the corona / SARS virus is Fort Detrick in Maryland. Nobody seems to be interested in pursuing this route. It’s so much easier just to blame and keep blaming again and again China. Following Goebbels’s edict, “If a lie is repeated often enough it becomes the truth.” That’s what we are experiencing today.
And China knows it, that’s why they are rejecting yet another investigating team by an agency – WHO – that is known to be entirely bought up by powerful Western financial interests, namely Big Pharma, the Rockefellers and Bill Gates.
If WHO was indeed a UN agency interested in the health of the world population, it would strictly forbid vaccinating children against a virus that – if it existed at all – was about equivalent to the flu virus, with an average mortality rate of 0.03 % to 0.07%, according the Dr. Fauci’s own admission in a peer reviewed paper, Navigating the Uncharted, of 28 February 2020.
And, if WHO were seriously interested in the health of people Worldwide, it would investigate the so-called vaccines, which in fact are not vaccines, but at best “experimental gene therapies”, authorized as such by CDC.
These vaccines have so far maimed and killed way more people than covid.
The latest figures reported by the 1990 established U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), between 14 December 2020, when “vaccination” began, and 30 July 2021, were 545,338 adverse events from all age groups following COVID vaccines, including 12,366 deaths and 70,105 serious injuries. However, these numbers are estimated to be widely underreported. Real figures may more likely be between 45,000 and 100,000 deaths in the US, and about double that amount in Europe.
Even these figures are most likely way under-reported, as long before covid emerged, VAERS has a reputation of understating, to the point where real numbers could be between 50 and 100 times higher than reported.
Why is WHO silent in the face of such catastrophe – health disasters never known in recent human history? To protect Big Pharma and the dark diabolical cult behind this well-planned and orchestrated “outbreak” – those who pursue clearly a eugenist agenda?
Why does WHO turn a blind eye to such breaking discoveries like the horrific findings of blood malformations, leading to blood clots, embolism and death, revealed by German physicians in vaxxed people? – See this shocking 10 min video by Dr. Jane Ruby of 18 August 2021:
Why is WHO silent to the question of covid spike proteins being released onto cities? – Silent on the question “Transmissible Vaccines”, meaning that the spike protein injected by the “vaccine” can be passed on to other people through proximity?
Why is it an Italian medical doctor, instead of WHO, divulging the truth about the deadly vaccine and the purpose behind this mass coercion into jabbing everybody, even children? (See video here)
Why is WHO silent to the question of covid spike proteins being released onto cities? – Silent on the question “Transmissible Vaccines”? – See Mike Adams interview of Dr. Lee Merritt of 15 August 2021 here.
Why is WHO not immediately halting ALL “vaccines” worldwide and investigate the criminality behind these fluids being injected into people – into the entire world population – and that under coercion, to say the least?
Why isn’t there a worldwide criminal investigation launched immediately against all “vaxx” producing pharmas and their owners and sponsors?
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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he has worked for over 30 years on water and environment around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He is also a non-resident Sr. Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
For apocalyptic disaster films, they don’t get much more up close and personal (and apocalyptic) than the film Greenland (2020). Set in contemporary times, the story revolves around the news that an interstellar comet named Clarke is heading for Earth, and that it was made up of fragments of rock and ice big enough to wipe out modern civilization.
John Garrity, a structural engineer, receives a message from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) notifying him that he and his family have been selected to go to emergency bunkers. While he is at home a massive fragment lands on Tampa, Florida and wipes it out live on TV. Garrity receives another message with instructions to head to Robins Air Force Base for an evacuation flight. They are to be taken to large bunkers in Thule, Greenland, as the largest fragment is expected to cause an extinction level event.
However, as panic sets in among his neighbours there is mutual shock as they realise that they have not been selected, and Garrity is unsure why he was. Gradually he realises that his skills as a structural engineer would be required in the rebuilding of the post-apocalyptic world, hence the reason for his inclusion.
As others realise the value of the wristbands the family have been given for the flight to Thule, Garrity and his family become targets for different kinds of attacks and schemes to wrest the wristbands from them throughout the narrative of the film.
Overall, Greenland is a well crafted film and focuses on the family’s desperate attempts to make it to Thule before the main fragment of Clarke strikes Europe (!) and destroys civilization.
The most interesting aspect of the film is the drama around the conflicts between the ‘chosen few’ and the rest of the population. While Garrity may be an all-American citizen, he does not reject the elitism of his new status but embraces it wholeheartedly. He may be a member of a democracy, and hold democratic values but when push comes to shove, all that is very quickly forgotten about in the panic. It’s every man for himself and he accepts the changes in state ideology from citizen to elect in a heartbeat.
The ‘chosen few’
The idea of the ‘chosen few’ is not new. According to the bible, Jesus initiated a New Covenant on the night before his death during the last supper. Those who had heavenly hope would be selected by God to rule with Christ as kings with him for 1,000 years. The Bible also gives the number of those anointed:
“Revelation 14:3–4, ‘And they are singing what seems to be a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders, and no one was able to master that song except the 144,000, who have been bought from the earth.'”
The Ladder of Divine Ascent is an important icon kept and exhibited at Saint Catherine’s Monastery, located at the base of Mount Sinai in Egypt. The gold background is typical of icons such as this, which was manufactured in the 12th century after a manuscript written by the 6th century monk John Climacus who based it on the biblical description of Jacob’s ladder. It depicts the ascent to Heaven by monks, some of whom fall and are dragged away by black demons. (The recent scenes of chaos at Kabul airport with people crowding up stairs to passenger jets and falling off military jets are unfortunately brought to mind)
Elites have always tried to keep a section of their loyal, unwavering followers on board with their ideology by doling out good jobs, high status symbolism (e.g. knighthoods), or good pay (for mercenaries). While they espouse democratic ideologies which imply that everyone is important, they are also very aware that their actions lead to mass resentment (e.g. massive national debts, unemployment, inflation, declining national health systems, etc.), and the potential for mass uprising. For this reason, for example, middle-class political police can be more important to the state than working-class national armies.
The mass media play an important role in reducing resentment by playing up the activities of politicians, ideologically controlling the news and history, and popularising the use of specific language.
Everytime an idea critical of the ruling ideology becomes popular it is relabeled or branded with terms such as ‘political correctness’ (covering up or trivialising legitimate concerns about “language or behavior that can be seen as excluding, marginalizing, or insulting to groups of people disadvantaged or discriminated against”), ‘cultural Marxism’ (covering up or trivialising legitimate concerns of, for example, feminism, multiculturalism, gay rights, etc), ‘conspiracy theory’ (covering up or trivialising legitimate concerns regarding anomalies in high profile events), ‘The Good Guys’/’The Bad Guys’ (covering up or trivialising legitimate concerns regarding who the state defines as progressive or reactionary), ‘wokism’ (covering up or trivialising legitimate concerns regarding racial prejudice, discrimination and social inequality, etc.), thereby sterilising it and fitting it into ‘acceptable’, non-threatening language.
Every new deviation from the capitalist norm is diverted and instantly bubble-wrapped so that it does not impinge on the growing mass consciousness/suspicion that something is wrong. Whistleblowers are hounded (Assange, Snowden) and workers are kept quiet or ignored (Boeing).
Originally printed in New York World, October 30, 1884. Reprinted: Belshazzar Blaine and the Money Kings. HarpWeek. HarpWeek, LLC. A political cartoon parodying James G. Blaine. Wealthy and influential figures dine on dishes labeled “Lobby pudding”, “Monopoly soup”, “Navy contract”, etc. while a poor family begs.
Furthermore, Monolithism denies radical difference in ethnic groups (the most reactionary become the spokespersons of the group), while on a philosophical level Modernism, Postmodernism and Metamodernism deny reason and radical opposition. All with the promise that if you are good, if you behave yourself, you will be put on Santa’s nice list and become one of the chosen few when the financial/political/social catastrophe or cataclysm begins.
During the crisis, the rhetoric of universal protection collapses (neighbours shocked and disappointed), leading to struggle for survival in elite terms (bunkers, planes, boltholes).
The struggle for survival
It is then that the masses realise that they have been duped, misled, or even deluded. Because Greenland could be said to represent the ideology of the elites, then one sees the choices offered by the elites are: to be chosen or damnation, and no other possibilities. Similarly, when the elites represent the masses they are in negative terms of fear, for example, the symbolism of the masses of zombies in the film World War Z (2013). (See also my article here)
Historically, mass uprisings result in a fundamental change in society, not a temporary blip in the ruling ideology, therefore elites have a good reason to be afraid. For example, the Great Fear in France in 1789 ultimately resulted in the end of its feudal system:
“The members of the feudal aristocracy were forced to leave or fled on their own initiative; some aristocrats were captured and among them, there were reports of mistreatment such as beatings and humiliation, but there are only three confirmed cases of a landlord actually having been killed during the uprising. Although the Great Fear is usually associated with the peasantry, all the uprisings tended to involve all sectors of the local community, including some elite participants, such as artisans or well-to-do farmers. Often the bourgeoisie had as much to gain from the destruction of the feudal regime as did the poorer peasantry. Although the main phase of the Great Fear died out by August, peasant uprisings continued well into 1790, leaving few areas of France (primarily Alsace, Lorraine and Brittany) untouched. As a result of the “Great Fear”, the National Assembly, in an effort to appease the peasants and forestall further rural disorders, on 4 August 1789, formally abolished the “feudal regime”, including seigneurial rights.”
“You should hope that this game will be over soon.” Caricature of the Third Estate carrying the First Estate (clergy) and the Second Estate (nobility) on its back.
Current elite ideology of the future tends towards ideas of bringing about global governance, or post-apocalyptic colonies on earth, the Moon or Mars. Like lemmings going over a cliff (or the aristocracy of the eighteenth century), they can only imagine a future with themselves in total control, or total destruction.
Thule in Greenland, where there is an American military base, is symbolically appropriate as “in classical and medieval literature, ultima Thule (Latin “farthermost Thule”) acquired a metaphorical meaning of any distant place located beyond the “borders of the known world”.
Unlike the destruction wrought by comet Clarke in Greenland, we are not doomed to be destroyed or hiding in bunkers because of an errant comet, but only condemned to have our future dictated to us forever – unless we take our destiny into our own hands.
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Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Nel discorso del 16 agosto alla Casa Bianca, il presidente Biden ha fatto una lapidaria dichiarazione: «La nostra missione in Afghanistan non ha mai avuto come scopo la costruzione di una nazione, non ha mai avuto come scopo la creazione di una democrazia unificata e centralizzata».
UNA PIETRA TOMBALE, messa dallo stesso presidente degli Stati uniti, sulla narrazione ufficiale che ha accompagnato per vent’anni la «missione in Afghanistan», in cui anche l’Italia ha speso vite umane e denaro pubblico per miliardi di euro. «Il nostro unico interesse nazionale vitale in Afghanistan rimane oggi quello che è sempre stato: prevenire un attacco terroristico alla patria americana», spiega Biden. Ma sulle sue parole getta ombra il Washington Post che, volendo svuotare il proprio armadio dagli scheletri delle fake news diffuse per vent’anni, titola: «I presidenti degli Stati Uniti e i leader militari hanno deliberatamente fuorviato il pubblico sulla più lunga guerra americana, condotta in Afghanistan per due decenni».
Il pubblico è stato «deliberatamente fuorviato» da quando, nell’ottobre 2001, gli Stati uniti, affiancati dalla Gran Bretagna, attaccavano e invadevano l’Afghanistan con la motivazione di dare la caccia a Osama bin Laden, perseguito come mandante dell’attacco terroristico dell’11 settembre (la cui versione ufficiale faceva acqua da tutte le parti).
Reale scopo della guerra era l’occupazione di questo territorio di primaria importanza geostrategica, confinante con le tre repubbliche centrasiatiche ex sovietiche (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan e Tagikistan), l’Iran, il Pakistan e la Cina (la regione autonoma Xinjiang Uygur). Vi erano già in questo periodo forti segnali di un riavvicinamento tra Cina e Russia: il 17 luglio 2001, i presidenti Jang Zemin e Vladimir Putin avevano firmato il «Trattato di buon vicinato e amichevole cooperazione», definito una «pietra miliare» nelle relazioni tra i due paesi.
WASHINGTON CONSIDERAVA la nascente alleanza tra Cina e Russia una minaccia agli interessi statunitensi in Asia, nel momento critico in cui gli Stati uniti cercavano di occupare, prima di altri, il vuoto che la disgregazione dell’Unione sovietica aveva lasciato in Asia Centrale. «Esiste la possibilità che emerga in Asia un rivale militare con una formidabile base di risorse», avvertiva allora il Pentagono in un rapporto del 30 settembre 2001.
Quale fosse la reale posta in gioco lo dimostrava il fatto che, nell’agosto 2003, la Nato sotto comando Usa assumeva con un colpo di mano «il ruolo di leadership dell’Isaf», la «Forza internazionale di assistenza alla sicurezza» creata dalle Nazioni Unite nel dicembre 2001, senza che in quel momento avesse alcuna autorizzazione a farlo. Da quel momento oltre 50 paesi, membri e partner della Nato, partecipavano sotto comando Usa alla guerra in Afghanistan.
IL BILANCIO POLITICO-MILITARE di questa guerra, che ha versato fiumi di sangue e bruciato enormi risorse, è catastrofico: centinaia di migliaia di morti tra i civili, provocati dalle operazioni belliche, più un numero inquantificabile di «morti indirette» per povertà e malattie causate dalla guerra.
Solo gli Stati uniti – documenta il New York Times – vi hanno speso oltre 2.500 miliardi di dollari. Per addestrare e armare 300 mila soldati governativi, sbandatisi in pochi giorni di fronte all’avanzata talebana, sono stati spesi dagli Usa circa 90 miliardi. Circa 55 miliardi per la «ricostruzione» sono stati in gran parte sprecati a causa della corruzione e inefficienza, Oltre 10 miliardi di dollari, investiti in operazioni anti-droga, hanno avuto come risultato che la superficie coltivata ad oppio è quadruplicata, tanto che l’Afghanistan fornisce oggi l’80% dell’oppio prodotto illegalmente nel mondo.
Emblematica è la storia di Ashraf Ghani, il presidente fuggito in un esilio dorato. Formatosi all’Università Americana a Beirut, faceva carriera alle università Columbia, Berkeley, Harvard e Johns Hopkins negli Usa e alla Banca Mondiale a Washington. Nel 2004, in veste di ministro delle finanze, otteneva dai paesi «donatori», tra cui l’Italia, un «pacchetto di assistenza» di 27,5 miliardi di dollari.
NEL 2014, IN UN PAESE in guerra sotto occupazione Usa/Nato, veniva nominato presidente ufficialmente col 55% dei voti. Nel 2015 il presidente Mattarella lo riceveva con tutti gli onori al Quirinale, insieme alla ministra della Difesa Pinotti che lo aveva incontrato un anno prima a Kabul.
Questa catastrofica esperienza si aggiunge a quelle che l’Italia ha già vissuto per aver partecipato, violando la propria Costituzione, alle guerre Nato dai Balcani al Medioriente e al Nordafrica. Nessuna lezione ne viene però tratta dalle forze politiche che siedono in parlamento. Mentre a Washington lo stesso Presidente demolisce il castello di menzogne sugli «alti scopi umanitari», con cui è stata motivata la partecipazione italiana alla guerra in Afghanistan, a Roma, come nel romanzo 1984 di Orwell, si cancella la storia.
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“Vietnam is a unique case – culturally, historically and politically. I hope that the United States will not repeat its Vietnam blunders elsewhere.”
One of the great gurus of matters related to colonialism, hegemony and resistance – the late Pakistani intellectual, Eqbal Ahmad, offered some sober advice to Washington planners nearly half a century ago. Sadly, not only was it not heeded, but it no longer makes sense to categorize the compiling and cascading imperial mistakes as merely “blunders.”
It is obviously the case that every nation has its unique objective and subjective specificities. These are what ultimately define and situate the country – geo-strategically – in the world system. The Vietnamese were, objectively, just another nation in the Third World. However, the formidable organized resistance mounted against unquestioned planetary American supremacy is Vietnam’s striking subjective, particular characteristic at that time.
Despite the enormous human toll on Vietnam, the over-a-decade-long brutal American air and ground war could not defeat the resistance. At least it could not militarily.
However, politically speaking – Washington’s message was sent, loud and clear. If a nation of the Third World, or the Global South, did not submit to America’s grand design for the world, it would pay a heavy price. Vietnam was utterly destroyed by massive carpet bombing sustained year after year. What type of independence and sovereignty was there to be had when there was barely a dent made to unhinged American hegemony?
U.S. global domination would continue to manifest itself in the coups and proxy wars that America continued to indulge in – successfully in terms of its imperial ambitions – for the decades to come. The “Vietnam Syndrome” did not mean less global interventionism by the United States. It was simply expansionism via other – indirect – means. And that “syndrome” was short-lived. It was overcome by the time of the heavy American military deployment in the Gulf War of 1990-91.
The scenarios of Saigon in 1975 and Kabul in 2021 are remarkably similar, despite the considerable ideological differences of the indigenous political forces involved. The utter humiliation of the U.S. in both cases is all too palpable. Nevertheless, there is a crucial difference: the two events take place in vastly different global contexts. And that has defined the way the Taliban have retaken Afghanistan now.
By 1996, it had taken the nascent Taliban two years to defeat a bunch of warlords before establishing its reign over the country from Kabul. The new movement of “students,” or Taliban, were openly and fully backed, in all ways, including militarily, by Pakistan. Not only have the Taliban not been supported anything remotely like that this time by Islamabad or elsewhere, they have also had to confront what on paper is a much more daunting enemy: heavily trained and armed Afghan security and military personnel numbering well over 300,000. And, of course, American airstrikes.
We have seen in front of our eyes how astonishingly quickly this ethnic Pashtun insurgency took over Afghanistan once the officially announced beginning-of-the-end of the Western occupation began. The American puppet government in Saigon lasted a good three years after the U.S. withdrawal there in 1972. Indeed, even the Soviet puppet regime in Kabul lasted a good three years after the Soviets withdrew in 1989. The Ashraf Ghani government, on the other hand, collapsed even before the American deadline for withdrawal.
To emphasize this fact again: the Taliban today, unlike that of the 1990s, have accomplished what they have done in Afghanistan more or less on their own. It becomes remarkable when comparing their achievement with the lack thereof, for example, of the “moderate rebels” in Syria. Funded to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and armed to the teeth by an array of both regional actors as well as Western ones (principally the United States), this not-so-moderate proxy opposition could not bring down the Assad regime.
However critical Russian and Iranian/Hezbollah support was for the Syrian government, it in no way approximates the scale of the two decades of Western occupation of Afghanistan. The country has witnessed 20 years of U.S./NATO airstrikes, ground operations by up to 150,000 foreign forces, an equal if not larger number of mercenaries and private contractors, and the arming and training of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and security personnel – with a tally of around $2 trillion for this entire venture, only to see, in the end, the propped-up puppet fiefdom in Kabul lost power so quickly and so embarrassingly when having to confront any resistance on its own.
The larger political meaning of what has happened now in Afghanistan is what distinguishes it from the fall of Saigon in 1975. The war and military defeat in Vietnam, as Eqbal Ahmad noted, was a colossal American blunder. Beyond its geopolitical significance, the Vietnam War took a tragic human toll of epic proportions.
But the United States could easily survive that military defeat – again, politically speaking. The U.S. maintained its global hegemonic status of the superpower that “calls all the shots.” A country dreaming of independence and sovereignty may put up a valiant resistance to the American imperium. But even if such a resistance “wins,” as the Viet Cong did, its country would have been flattened to a moonscape. Ultimately, such a Third World nation would be politically and economically compelled to return to its subservient status in the American-run global order.
And that is what differentiates the Saigon defeat in 1975 from the Kabul one in 2021. Over the past few decades, the U.S. has gone from a steady decline as the hegemonic power – to a precipitous one. The disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have further validated such an assessment.
Thus, what has now occurred in Afghanistan is not just another imperial “blunder.” It is a naked manifestation, with its startling sequence of events and spectacular optics, of the terminal crisis of empire. The past two weeks, culminating in the Taliban’s capture of Kabul, represent nothing less than the final stage of the post-war American imperium.
Rather than simply examining the two events in and of themselves, Saigon in 1975 and Kabul in 2021, respectively, we must evaluate the objective structural global position of the United Sates both before and after each military intervention. And therein lies the crux of the matter. The U.S. was utterly dominant both before and after the “blunder” in Vietnam. Even after that “blunder,” the world was still divided between the winning West and the remaining rest.
That is no longer the case. The fall of Kabul was symptomatic and a product of the decades-long process of the severe weakening of American power, authority and legitimacy – in short, its hegemony. The world has become definitively multipolar, especially with the phenomenal rise of China. There has been a profound de-centering of the West in the world system that it has attempted to dominate for more than 500 years now.
The retreating American forces in Kabul, therefore, may not only be the symbolic death knell of American exceptionalism and expansionism – narratives and processes that define the nation since its birth, it may also be one of the last pages of the chapter of Eurocentric history.
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Featured image: Taliban fighters stand on a military vehicle in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, August 16, 2021. /Xinhua
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This article was originally published in September 2020 in a Letter sent to the Editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ)
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Dear Editor
We are told that the virus is everywhere – in the air, in our breath, on fomites, trapped in masks – yet public health authorities seem not to be in possession of any cultivable clinical samples of the offending pathogen.
In March 2020, the World Health Organisation instructed authorities not to look for a virus but to rely instead on a genome test, the RT-PCR, which is not specific for SARS-CoV-2 (1) (2).
A Freedom of Information request to Public Health England about cultivable clinical samples or direct evidence of viral isolation has no information and refers to the proxy RT-PCR test, quoting Eurosurveillance (3).
Eurosurveillance states:
“Virus detection by reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) from respiratory samples is widely used to diagnose and monitor SARS-CoV-2 infection and, increasingly, to infer infectivity of an individual. However, RT-PCR does not distinguish between infectious and non-infectious virus. Propagating virus from clinical samples confirms the presence of infectious virus but is not widely available (and) requires biosafety level 3 facilities” (4).
The CDC admits that, “no quantified virus isolates of the 2019-nCoV are currently available”, and used a genetically modified human lung alveolar adenocarcinoma cell culture to, “mimic clinical specimen”(5).
It appears, therefore, that we have public health bodies without clinical samples, a test which is non-specific and does not distinguish between infectivity and non-infectivity, a requirement for biosafety level 3 facilities to even look for a virus, yet we are led to believe that it is up all our noses.
So, where is the virus?
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Why have US corporations involved themselves in public health policy?Why have they taken a position that is totally contradicted by all facts and all known evidence? See this.
It is not only democratic governments that have turned totalitarian but also private corporations who are asserting authority to override the Nuremberg Laws and mandate that employees be vaccinated with the Covid Vaccine.
A vaccination is a medical procedure and requires informed consent.
It is very strange to find corporations recruited to serve a coerced marketing campaign.We hear about the “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”But there is no such pandemic.All evidence shows that the majority of new cases are among the double inoculated.
Public officials and the presstitutes are implying that it is those who refuse the vaccine who are responsible for the new outbreak when to the contrary it is the vaccinated people who are the cause of the variants and new illnesses.As Dr. Malone, the inventor of the mRNA technology used to create the vaccine, has patiently explained, the vaccine trains the virus to produce variants that escape vaccines. See this.
Considering the enormous number of deaths and injuries associated with the vaccine, we are faced with the conclusion that the vaccine gives those vaccinated Covid illnesses. Some have severe symptoms, some die, others don’t know they have it. It is the same as with the virus itself. See this.
The medical establishment has avoided autopsies of vaccine-related deaths. The narrative doesn’t want to acknowledge them. People ruined by the vaccine can get no help from the medical establishment. Finally an autopsy was done, and the first autopsy of a vaccine-caused death supports these conclusions:
“This post-mortem study only confirms our worst fears that the Covid-injections cause more harm than good, and may actually even speed up the spread of the virus.
“According to the report, researchers found that the patient’s entire body had become overrun with high viral RNA loads, also known as vaccine-induced spike proteins. This has been reported by many investigators and even further research on what really is in the vaccine. [Read Covid vaccines not as effective as you think to learn more].
“This indicates two things.
“1. The mRNA from the vaccine is not localized to the injection site where it’s supposed to be but spread on other organs. [Read New evidence explains how mRNA vaccines cause organ damage to see the evidence.]
“2. We know the decedent was exposed to Covid-19. The virus was in every organ in his body. Based on what we know about coronavirus vaccines in the past, this could be seen as a signal of antibody-dependent enhancement [Read What is pathogenic priming? And Briefing document on Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine shows evidence of pathogenic priming among older adults]
“This means that the vaccine cannot stop the virus from spreading [in Pfizer’s briefing document to the Food and Drug Administration, they already intimated about this, see FDA knew there would be many COVID cases among the fully vaccinated and Leaked Pfizer contracts show they knew of adverse effects and lack of long-term efficacy of vaccines.]
“We have been programmed to believe that we can only go back to normal through the vaccines. Our governments didn’t tell us that these vaccines are ineffective and do not offer protection. [In the article COVID vaccines not as effective as you think, we learn that the real reduction rate for these vaccines, what scientists call absolute risk reduction or the difference in protection rates between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, is lower than 1% for some vaccines.] Expect massive propaganda of lies and panic especially with the advent of variants.”
No evidence exists that supports the claim of CDC director Rochelle Walensky that the delta variant is a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
No evidence exists that the vaccine protects against Covid.Indeed, the vaccine seems to spread the virus.
We have learned that there is no such thing as “fully vaccinated.”The new program is endless booster shots every few months, the result of which will be an explosion in adverse effects from the vaccine.
The Covid policy is so counterfactual and so contradicted by all evidence that conspiracy theorists who see a darker agenda at work are gaining credibility.When a vaccine has proven itself not to protect but to cause unprecedented deaths and illnesses, how can any intelligent person arrive at the conclusion that more vaccine is the solution?
How is it possible that the president of the United States is so poorly advised that he said on Wednesday August 18:
“Earlier today, our medical experts announced a plan for booster shots for every fully vaccinated adult American. This will boost your immune response, it will increase your protection from Covid-19. It’s the best way to protect ourselves from new variants that could arise.” The American president’s statement is total ignorance and blatant nonsense.
Why the desperate rush to force the unvaccinated to accept the vaccine?
Fear was the instrument for the original vaccine push.Shame and guilt are the instruments for the second push. Is the game plan to get the world vaccinated before the deaths and illnesses from the vaccine can no longer be ignored?
It should disturb everyone and raise very serious questions why the leading experts and doctors are censored by the media and their warnings ignored by politicians and public health officials.When leading scientists and medical experts are ignored by authorities, how can we trust what politicians and bureaucrats tell us about Covid and the vaccine?
The Covid Narrative is a controlled one.Scientists are censored and public debate by scientists and doctors is prevented.
Why?Is there a secret agenda to which health and lives are being sacrificed?
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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 frequent contributor to Global Research.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
In liberal theory, news journalism is a check and balance on the ruling class, but in practice institutions and presses that once held power to account have become part of unaccountable power, and only tough reform and a revolution in the political economy of news can reverse the damage.
We entertain the illusion of bipartisanship in the media when both left and right media, both broadsheet and tabloid, are subsumed under the management of cartel conglomerates that dictate op-ed policy and therein modulate the national psyche.
The media is a convenient tool of repetition for state-endorsed lies. Research has shown that the sheer, simple force of repetition is enough to induce belief in what’s stated regardless of if there exist strong reasons to discard it.
The effect of television on people is to render them passive, induce a state where they are less likely to be paying attention, the foundation of successful brainwashing. Research has also shown that the activity of watching television induces changes in brainwaves in a manner that manipulates the processing of information.
One prominent example of media brainwashing consists in the saga of Julian Assange. Despite having never been charged for rape, repeated exposure to claims that he is a sexual predator have led the public to believe he is being pursued by the criminal justice system for being a rapist, rather than the truth that he is being punished for standard journalism that embarrassed the powerful.
Another trick of the media is to put cranks and quacks on an equal platform with experts, legitimising, giving credence to pseudo-science. This is most dangerous in the case of reporting on climate change, where deniers’ opinions are given the same respect as scientists’ facts and evidence.
The media is meant to articulate the truth in a deceit ridden politics, but that cliche is precisely that , a cliche, and one that has spawned critical complacency on the part of the public and self-appraisal on the part of the press. The contagious lie of Russiagate proved that the deceit lay within the media, who increasingly act as stenographers of power.
A lot of classified research undertaken by US intelligence agencies, like MKUltra, consists of how to induce hypnotic states of consciousness, making the media a central part of the abuse of human psychology to serve empire’s needs.
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Dr. Charles Hoffe, a family physician from Lytton, British Columbia, told health officials that his patients were suffering adverse effects from the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines
Hoffe was quickly accused of causing “vaccine hesitancy” and local health authorities threatened to report him to the licensing body
The spike protein in the vaccine can lead to the development of multiple, tiny blood clots because it becomes part of the cell wall of your vascular endothelium; these cells are supposed to be smooth so that your blood flows smoothly, but the spike protein means there are “spiky bits sticking out”
Hoffe has been conducting the D-dimer test on his patients to detect the potential presence of blood clots within four to seven days of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine; 62% have evidence of clotting
The long-term outlook is very grim, Hoffe said, because with each successive shot, it will add more damage as you’re getting more damaged capillaries
Dr. Charles Hoffe, a family physician from Lytton, British Columbia, wrote to Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C. provincial health officer, in April 2021 with serious concerns about COVID-19 vaccines. One of his patients died after the shot, and six others had adverse effects. While their small town had no cases of COVID-19, Hoffe said the vaccine was causing serious damage and he believed “this vaccine is quite clearly more dangerous than COVID-19.”1
Hoffe was quickly accused of causing “vaccine hesitancy” and local health authorities threatened to report him to the licensing body, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia. He was also told by government health authorities that he could not say anything negative about the COVID-19 vaccine,2 but the issues Hoffe was seeing compelled him to speak out anyway.
Blood Clot Formation With mRNA Vaccines ‘Inevitable’
Hoffe created the video above to explain how mRNA COVID-19 vaccines can affect your body at the cellular level.3 In each dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine are 40 trillion mRNA — or messenger RNA — molecules.
Each mRNA “package” is designed to be absorbed into your cell, but only 25% stay in your arm at the site of the injection. The other 75%, Hoffe says, are collected by your lymphatic system and fed into your circulation. The cells where mRNA is absorbed are those around your blood vessels — the capillary network, which are the tiniest blood vessels in your body.
When the mRNA is absorbed into your vascular endothelium — the inner lining of your capillaries — the “packages” open and genes are released. Each gene can produce many COVID-19 spike proteins, and your body gets to work manufacturing these spike proteins, numbering in the trillions.
Your body recognizes the spike protein as foreign, so it begins to manufacture antibodies to protect you against COVID-19, or so the theory goes. But there’s a problem. In a coronavirus, the spike protein becomes part of the viral capsule, Hoffe says, but when you get the vaccine, “it’s not in a virus, it’s in your cells.” The spike protein, in turn, can lead to the development of blood clots:4
“So it therefore becomes part of the cell wall of your vascular endothelium, which means that these cells, which line your blood vessels, which are supposed to be smooth so that your blood flows smoothly, now have these little spiky bits sticking out.
So it is absolutely inevitable that blood clots will form, because your blood platelets circulate around in your vessels and the purpose of blood platelets is to detect a damaged vessel and block that damage when it starts bleeding. So when a platelet comes through a capillary and suddenly hits all these covid spikes that are jutting into the inside vessel … blood clots will form to block that vessel. That’s how platelets work.”
62% of Recently Vaccinated Patients Have Evidence of Clotting
Hoffe spoke with Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, a retired professor, microbiologist and infectious disease and immunology specialist who, along with several other doctors and scientists, formed Doctors for COVID Ethics. Bhakdi has also warned that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binds to the ACE2 receptor on platelets.5
The subsequent activation of the platelets can lead to disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), i.e., a pathological overstimulation of your coagulation system that can result in abnormal, and life threatening, blood clotting, as well as thrombocytopenia (low platelet count) and hemorrhaging.
While some of the blood clots you may have heard about associated with the COVID-19 vaccines are the large variety that show up on MRIs and CT scans, Hoffe states that the variety he’s referring to are microscopic and scattered throughout the capillary network, so they won’t show up on any scan.
The only way to find out if this predictable mechanism of clotting is happening is with a test called D-dimer. D-dimer is a protein fragment produced by the body when a blood clot dissolves. It’s typically undetectable or present only at very low levels, buts its level may significantly rise when the body is forming and breaking down blood clots.6
According to Bhakdi, “Now a number of German doctors have been measuring the D-dimers in the blood of patients before vaccination and days after vaccinations and with respect to the symptoms they have just found out that triggering of clot formation is a very common event with all vaccines.”7
Hoffe has been conducting the D-dimer test on his patients within four to seven days of them receiving a COVID-19 vaccine and found that 62% have evidence of clotting.8 While he’s still trying to accumulate more information, he said:9
“It means that these blood clots are not rare. The majority of people are getting blood clots and they have no idea that they even have them. The most alarming thing about this is that there are some parts of your body, like your heart and your brain and your spinal cord and your lungs, which cannot regenerate. When those tissues are damaged by blocked vessels, they are permanently damaged.”
‘The Worst Is Yet to Come’
As Bhakdi explained, post-vaccination it’s possible to end up with so many blood clots throughout your vascular system that your coagulation system is exhausted, resulting in bleeding (hemorrhaging).10 Hoffe now has patients who get out of breath much more easily than they used to because “they’ve clogged up thousands of tiny capillaries in their lungs.” This is only the first problem, as it can lead to more significant, permanent damage. Hoffe noted:11
“The terrifying thing about this is not just that these people are short of breath and can’t do what they used to be able to do. Once you block off a significant number of blood vessels to your lungs, your heart is now pumping against a much greater resistance to try to get the blood through your lungs.”
The end result can be pulmonary artery hypertension, which is basically high blood pressure in your lungs, because the blood can’t get through due to the many vessels that are blocked. “People with this usually die of right-sided heart failure within three years,” Hoffe said. “So the huge concern about this mechanism of injury is that these shots are causing permanent damage and the worst is yet to come.”12
As he noted, while some tissues, like your liver and kidneys, can regenerate, others, like your heart, cannot. An increased risk of myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle, has already been seen among young males who receive an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.13 “They have permanently damaged hearts,” Hoffe explained, adding:14
“It doesn’t matter how mild it is, they will not be able to do what they used to do because heart muscle doesn’t regenerate. The long-term outlook is very grim, and with each successive shot, it will add more damage. The damage is cumulative because you’re progressively getting more damaged capillaries.”
Because of the risk of the formation of blood clots in your vessels, Bhakdi went so far as to say that giving the COVID-19 vaccine to children is a crime: “Do not give it to children because they have absolutely no possibility to defend themselves; if you give it to your child you are committing a crime.”15
Spike Protein Damages Human Cells
The key causative agent causing damage from COVID-19 vaccines appears to be the spike protein. Scientists from the University of California San Diego created a pseudo virus, or cell surrounded by the spike proteins that did not contain a virus.16
Using an animal model, the researchers administered the pseudo virus into the lungs and found the virus was not necessary to create damage. Instead, the spike protein was enough to cause inflammation, damage to vascular endothelial cells and inhibited mitochondrial function.
Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of the mRNA and DNA vaccine core platform technology,17 has also spoken out about the dangers of the spike protein used in COVID-19 vaccines.
In its native form in SARS-CoV-2, the spike protein is responsible for the pathologies of the viral infection, and in its wild form it’s known to open the blood-brain barrier, cause cell damage (cytotoxicity) and, Malone said, “is active in manipulating the biology of the cells that coat the inside of your blood vessels — vascular endothelial cells, in part through its interaction with ACE2, which controls contraction in the blood vessels, blood pressure and other things.”18 Bhakdi also described this as “a disastrous situation” paving the way for clotting:19
“This is a disastrous situation, because the spike protein itself is now sitting on the surface of the cells, facing the bloodstream. It is known that these spike proteins, the moment they touch platelets, they active them [the platelets], and that sets the whole clotting system going.
The second thing that should happen, according to theory, is that the waste products of this protein that are produced in the cell, are put in front of the ‘door’ of the cell … and is presented to the immune system.
The immune system, especially the lymphocytes, recognize these and will attack the cells, because they don’t want them to make viruses or viral parts. And the viral parts are now being made in locations where viral parts would never, ever reach [naturally], like the vessel wall in your brain …
If that ‘tapestry’ of the wall [i.e., the lining of the blood vessel] is then destroyed, then that is the signal for the clotting system to [activate], and create a blood clot. And this happens with all of these vaccines because the gene [the instruction to make spike protein] is being introduced to the vessel wall.”20
Physicians Forbidden From Countering Narrative
Equally as disturbing as the potential harm caused by experimental mRNA vaccines is the censorship going along with it, such that the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), which regulates the practice of medicine in Ontario, issued a statement21 prohibiting physicians from making comments or providing advice that goes against the official narrative — basically anything “anti-vaccine, anti-masking, anti-distancing and anti-lockdown.”22
The statement was released, according to CPSO, because physicians, in isolated incidents, have been spreading blatant misinformation via social media, which is undermining “public health measures meant to protect all of us.” But if a physician is unable to speak freely, the independent relationship between doctor and patient ceases to exist, and so does the doctor’s ability to act in the best interest of the patient.
Hoffe certainly experienced this but is still speaking out, putting his patients first and trying to get the word out that, he believes the COVID-19 vaccination program should be stopped until the causes of the many injuries and deaths are understood.23 The tragic question is, how many others with similar concerns have been intimidated into remaining silent?
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