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The Taliban held their first press conference, following their victory in the two-decade war.

Taliban’s co-founder and second-in-command, Abdul Ghani Baradar, reportedly came to Afghanistan from Doha. He is expected to become Afghanistan’s President in the near future.

This new leadership may face resistance from the Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who said that, under the constitution, he should be in charge after former President Ashraf Ghani left the country.

Saleh is attempting to mount some form of resistance, with forces under his command wrestling the Charikar district in Parwan province, north of Kabul.

The VP and those allied to him are gathering field commanders who do not agree with the rule of the Taliban.

Meanwhile, the Taliban are attempting to remove people’s ability to effectively fight back if they wished to do so.

One of the Taliban’s first acts in power was to confiscate firearms owned by civilians. In Kabul, fighters claimed the collecting of weapons because “people no longer need them for personal protection.”

The same day, the group warned that U.S. troops have to leave Afghanistan by Sept. 11, the 20-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks in the U.S. that led to the war on terrorism.

For the first time ever, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid revealed his face at the Taliban’s press conference. He said that the group won’t allow Afghan territory ‘to be used against anybody or any country’.

Mujahid assured the group’s commitment to protect the rights of media workers and that there will be no discrimination against women.

This is a significant change from the previous iteration of Taliban rule in Afghanistan. The spokesman said that the group had evolved over the years, and the past’s mistakes would not be repeated. The same day, they declared a general amnesty in the country.

Still, the United States, after spending trillions of dollars over 20 years, and 4 different Presidents, and, as a result, replaced Taliban rule with Taliban rule.

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The ex-Soviet states of the Caucasus and Central Asia have, following the early 1990s, been “all about America’s energy security” according to Bill Richardson, the Clinton era diplomat and former American ambassador to the United Nations.

For seven decades, the Soviet Union’s existence blocked the way to the vast fossil fuel sources of the Caucasus, Central Asia and also the Caspian Sea. This reality had been of ongoing frustration to Western strategic planners, but the Soviet collapse 30 years ago provoked jubilant scenes in Washington and London.

An oil rush ensued for mastery over Eurasia. Among those competing for its riches were America and its junior partner Britain, along with France, Germany and China. The US, as still comfortably the earth’s most powerful country, led the charge. Political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski, an influential former US National Security Advisor, wrote how “Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some 500 years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power”. (1)

Brzezinski, whose advice was sought by consecutive US presidents, defined Eurasia as the entirety of the landmass east of Germany and Poland, spanning the thousands of miles of Russian and Chinese terrain to the Pacific Ocean; including the coveted Middle East and south Asia (2). Brzezinski revealed that after the USSR’s disintegration the US looted around $300 billion in Russian assets, severely undermining the rouble, while ensuring the Kremlin would be reliant on the West economically and politically.

The Americans are often concerned with simply having control over oil and gas reserves, rather than extracting it; and so denying the raw materials to their principal rivals, Russia and China, while increasing their own power. On other occasions it is apt to build the necessary infrastructure, such as pipelines and refineries, which are used to dispatch the mineral resources westwards and that are guarded by US and NATO troops.

The Caspian Sea, which is larger in size than Germany, has long been desired by colonial planners and oil men (3). In the late 19th century for example Tsarist Russia, which claimed the Caspian Sea for its own, fought efforts to buy it up from the US Standard Oil Company, owned by John D. Rockefeller, America’s richest man.

Undeniably, the Caspian Sea is a magnificent body of water, stretching across the horizon for hundreds of miles. It is home to endangered animals such as the Caspian seal, and rare sturgeon species like the beluga; this is the largest freshwater fish in the world, reaching a maximum of over 23 feet in length, and the beluga sturgeon may just surpass the great white shark in size, though not in weight. Impressive mammals can occasionally be seen roaming along the Caspian Sea’s shorelines, like the Eurasian lynx, Caspian wolf, wild boar and Caspian red deer. (4)

The Caspian Sea contains the planet’s second largest oil and gas reserves, after the Persian Gulf (5). These raw materials would have a pivotal part in fulfilling humanity’s future energy demands including, most of all, that of the US. Per capita, America is currently the biggest consumer of fossil fuels on earth by far and also historically, an indication of its unrivalled industrial power. In 1960, there were 61 million vehicles in the US for a population of 181 million, equating to 1 car for every 3 Americans; whereas in Britain in 1960, there were under 5 million vehicles for a population of 52 million, amounting to less than 1 car for every 10 Britons (6) (7).

The Caspian Sea was important to America for other reasons. President George W. Bush, and his successor Barack Obama, made extensive efforts to shift the east European state of the Ukraine under NATO’s umbrella; in part, so the Ukraine would act as a spring board to assist America in penetrating much of Eurasia, enabling them to reach the Caspian Sea. Obama’s government had a central role in instituting a pro-Western regime in Kiev, during February 2014. Obama made further steps to expand US influence across eastern Europe, under the pretexts of the Ukraine crisis and humanitarian concerns.

Russia’s incorporation of the Crimean peninsula in March 2014, which was a response to the putsch in Kiev, was a blow to Western power. The Crimea acts as an oil and gas corridor, in which the Caspian Sea natural resources are sent through, thereafter criss-crossing Ukrainian land.

For the Americans, to safeguard their control over crucial areas while protecting the oil and gas pipelines, they started to militarise their transport routes – from the eastern Mediterranean to the edge of China’s western borders. Along these regions, about 100,000 US soldiers were stationed in order “to deter aggression and secure our own interests”. (8)

As planned, it would allow America to win the great game in the heart of Eurasia’s landmass, and consequently to secure their global hegemony. Washington stated that they wanted, “A stable and prosperous Caucasus and Central Asia” which would “facilitate rapid development and transport to international markets of large Caspian oil and gas resources, with substantial US commercial participations”.

Afghanistan in south-central Asia became highly significant to US ambitions. There have been three potential routes that the pipelines can be laid through: across Russian, Iranian or Afghan territory (9). Reliance on Russia is out of the question, while the White House has spent decades trying to isolate and overthrow the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Afghanistan, therefore, ranks as a core pipeline hub. The US-NATO invasion of Afghanistan sanctioned on 7 October 2001, and clearly planned months before the 9/11 attacks, was concerned supposedly with capturing Al Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden, defeating the Taliban, and defending human rights. These were smokescreens to obscure their real goals, like securing the pipeline routes. Two months after the invasion began, a small group of US special forces conducted a half-hearted search for Bin Laden in the Tora Bora caves and mountains of eastern Afghanistan. It was a spectacle put on for the cameras.

By early December 2001, Bin Laden was not in Afghanistan at all but was present in north-western Pakistan. American General Tommy Franks, commanding US military operations in Afghanistan, had already confirmed on 8 November 2001, “We have not said that Osama bin Laden is a target of this effort”. (10)

Regarding the now much lamented Taliban, in the mid-1990s they were welcomed and supported by the US government and sections of the media. One of the largest circulating American newspapers, the Wall Street Journal, announced in May 1997,

“The Taliban are the players most capable of achieving peace. Moreover, they are crucial to secure the country as a prime trans-shipment route for the export of Central Asia’s vast oil, gas, and other natural resources”. (11)

No concern was voiced about the Taliban’s extremism and human rights violations, while they were courted too by the US oil industry. In December 1997, the Taliban leadership was flown over to America and the oil state of Texas, whose governor was the future president Bush (12). Senior Taliban members were invited to the city of Houston, and there they were entertained by top executives of the energy multinational UNOCAL (Union Oil Company of California).

UNOCAL offered to pay the Taliban 15 cents for every 1,000 cubic feet of gas they allowed to be pumped across Afghan land (13). In agreement with the Taliban, UNOCAL signed a “memorandum of understanding” to construct a pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan. This was in conjunction with other Western fossil fuel corporations like ExxonMobil, Chevron, British Petroleum (BP), Enron and Amoco; the latter firm was formerly the Standard Oil Company of Indiana, established by Rockefeller.

The importance of Afghanistan to Washington and its NATO allies has related to further large-scale initiatives, as the American historian Noam Chomsky writes,

“the projected $7.6 billion TAPI pipeline that would deliver natural gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India, running through Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, where Canadian troops are deployed”. (14)

Enron, mentioned above, was an American energy company founded by disgraced US businessman Kenneth Lay in 1985. Lay had been an old friend of the Bush family, and he was among the largest financial donors to Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign (15). As Enron’s boss, Lay was in the late 1990s one of America’s highest paid chief executives. Enron filed for bankruptcy in December 2001, and in July 2004 Lay was indicted by a Grand Jury in Texas on criminal charges. In May 2006 he was found guilty on 6 counts of conspiracy and fraud, facing up to 45 years in jail. He died of a heart attack in July 2006.

Meanwhile, UNOCAL’s vice-president John J. Maresca had said in February 1998 “we have made it clear that construction of the pipeline we have proposed across Afghanistan could not begin until a recognised government is in place, that has the confidence of governments, leaders and our company [UNOCAL]”. Maresca later became the first US Special Ambassador to Afghanistan. Central in pushing the pipeline deals were prominent US politicians like Dick Cheney, James Baker and Brent Scowcroft. They had all served in the cabinet of president George H. W. Bush (Bush Senior); Cheney and Baker have long-held ties to the oil business.

Bush Senior was a paid consultant to the wealthy Bin Laden family through the Carlyle Group, a Washington-based private equity multinational. It is involved in the fossil fuel and weapons industries. A number of Bin Laden family members invested millions in the Carlyle Group. (16)

Bush Senior was a key adviser to the Carlyle Group, and he met the Bin Laden family on two occasions (17). According to journalist Cindy Rodriguez in the Denver Post, on the very day of the 9/11 attacks “members of the Carlyle Group – including Bush Senior and his former Secretary of State, James Baker – were meeting at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C., along with Shafiq bin Laden, another one of Osama bin Laden’s brothers” (18). This conference was hosted by the Carlyle Group.

Bush Senior quit his role with Carlyle in October 2003, after five and a half years advising them. The former president resigned from his position at Carlyle because he was “under pressure due to the company’s massive Iraqi war profits”, the American author Deanna Spingola writes, referring to the March 2003 US-led invasion of that country launched by Bush Junior.

The relationship between Carlyle and Bush Senior did not end there, however. Spingola wrote that after the elder Bush’s resignation, “He retained his Carlyle stock, and gave speeches in Carlyle’s behalf, for a $500,000 fee. Carlyle is notorious for buying defense companies and ‘doubling or tripling their value’ due to abundant, frequently no-bid, defense contracts”. (19)

Associated too with the Carlyle Group was Baker, the Secretary of State under Bush Senior from 1989 to 1992. Baker was an adviser to Carlyle for 12 years until 2005, and he had a staff member role in Bush Junior’s administration. John Major, the former Conservative Party leader and British prime minister for over 6 years, was also employed by Carlyle. Major was paid hefty sums by that US investment firm.

Major previously labelled bloated incomes as “distasteful”, and yet he accepted hundreds of thousands of pounds from Carlyle (20). It provides another insight into the world of political elites. Bush Junior had founded an oil company in Texas during the late 1970s, called Arbusto Energy. Bin Laden’s eldest brother, Salem bin Laden, was an investor in the company. (21)

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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes

1 John Pilger, The New Rulers Of The World (Verso Books, 20 February 2003) p. 116

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid., p. 110

4 Caspian Environment Programme, “Biodiversity, Animals of the Caspian Sea”, 9 September 2010

5 Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, The World Disorder: US Hegemony, Proxy Wars, Terrorism and Humanitarian Catastrophes (Springer; 1st ed. 2019 edition, 4 Feb. 2019) p. 316

6 Mary Gormandy White, “Car Ownership Statistics”, Lovetoknow

7 Retrowow, “Cars in the 60s – UK”

8 Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, The Second Cold War: Geopolitics and the Strategic Dimensions of the USA (Springer 1st ed., 23 June 2017) p. 28

9 Pilger, The New Rulers of the World, p. 111

10 Tom Bowman, Marego Athans, “General says U.S. attacks on track”, The Baltimore Sun, 9 November 2001

11 Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire and the Future of America (University of California Press; 1st edition, 1 September 2007) p. 130

12 BBC News, “Taleban in Texas for talks on gas pipeline”, 4 December 1997

13 George Monbiot, “America’s pipe dream”, The Guardian, 23 October 2001

14 Noam Chomsky, Making the Future: Occupations, Interventions, Empire and Resistance (Hamish Hamilton, 23 February 2012) All Options Are On The Table

15 Vinoth Ramachandra, Subverting Global Myths: Theology and the Public Issues Shaping Our World (Inter-Varsity Press, 1 June 2008) p. 23

16 Cindy Rodriguez, “Bush ties to Bin Laden haunt grim anniversary”, The Denver Post, 11 September 2006

17 Pilger, The New Rulers of the World, p. 113

18 Rodriguez, The Denver Post, 11 September 2006

19 Deanna Spingola, The Ruling Elite: The Zionist Seizure of World Power (Trafford Publishing, 12 June 2012) p. 567

20 Patrick Hosking, “Part-time Major earns £850,000”, thisismoney.co.uk, 14 March 2002

21 Ralph Lopez, “Bush family ties to terror suspects re-opened by 9/11 ’28 pages’”, Digital Journal, 21 February 2015

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The lawsuit alleges, among other things, that Rutgers is working with Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson to study and develop their vaccines in on-going clinical trials, and will benefit financially if more people are required to take the shots.

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.

According to the complaint, the Rutgers vaccine requirement “is an affront to human dignity and personal freedom because it violates our basic right to control our bodies.”

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 Johnson & Johnson — 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 U.S. Food and Drug Administration (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.

“This mandate undermines our Constitution and Bill of Rights by denying students the freedom to make their own medical decisions,” said CHD President and General Counsel Mary Holland.

“No one should be forced or coerced into accepting any medical procedure against her wishes,” Holland said. “When the low risk to young adults from COVID and the known and unknown risks from the vaccines are taken into account, Rutgers’ actions recklessly endanger its students.”

As confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, young people are at minimal risk of long-term effects or death from COVID and have a 99.985% survival rate if infected with the virus.

However, the most recent COVID vaccination injury update from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) — one of the tracking systems of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — shows that between mid-December, 2020 and August 6, 2021, 559,040 adverse events were reported to VAERS, including 12,791 reports of deaths, many in young people ages 12 to 25.

In comparison, after approximately 50 total deaths following swine flu vaccination in 1976, that vaccine campaign was immediately aborted.

“The Rutgers mandate stems from the financial relationship the university has with the vaccine makers which is clearly a conflict of interest,” said New Jersey Attorney Julio Gomez, who represents the students.

“Unjustified fear and insatiable greed drive the vaccine industry, especially now, during the pandemic,” Gomez said. “This has created an opportunity for manufacturers to bring to market expensive, novel and patentable drugs, vaccines, biologics, treatments and medical devices that will reap huge profits.”

Rutgers student Peter Cordi, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said it is “ incredibly unnerving” that his own school would play Russian Roulette with the lives of the students it claims to protect, “with greed and ties to Big Pharma being prioritized over our safety and free will.”

In addition to Gomez, plaintiffs are represented by New Jersey Attorney Susan Judge of Scotch Plains, with support from attorneys Mary Holland and Ray Flores, special counsel to CHD.

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Switch mental gears and stop thinking about the pandemic.  Think about the endless news stories you have seen and heard on all mainstream media that headline stories with a large number of deaths.  The deaths may result from large scale criminal acts like mass shootings or all kinds of natural disasters.  Big media makes big news when a dozen or more people get killed, or when hundreds die in floods or hurricanes.  Rarely are thousands dead, but when that happens, usually in other countries, that is really big news.  And it happened for the 9/11 attack when about 3,000 people died in the US.

The point of this article is that the media now is largely ignoring the thousands dying from the experimental COVID vaccines.  My exhaustive analysis of medical studies and data reveal that Americans are dying in two different ways because they got jabbed.

Two types of vaccine deaths

A few thousand people have died from breakthrough infections because the vaccines are not effective in preventing a new infection.  What is now crystal clear is that the experimental vaccines lose their effectiveness over some months.  The number of breakthrough infections are accelerating for two reasons.  As more people get the shot a larger pool of vaccinated people drive more breakthrough infections.  And now with declining vaccine effectiveness, possibly related to new variants, the odds of getting a breakthrough infection go up.  While many breakthrough infections do not cause major medical problems, in a fraction of cases victims need hospitalization and some die.

The other cause of vaccine deaths are complex blood problems, namely different kinds of blood clots, the loss of blood platelets and resulting bleed events that are lethal.  Think in terms of brain bleeds, strokes and heart attacks.  Vaccine induced blood problems have been discussed here.

Number of vaccine deaths

My data analysis indicates that now we have probably lost close to 5,000 American lives from the two vaccine related deaths and most likely this will increase to perhaps 10,000 deaths by the end of this year.

The vaccine related deaths of many hundreds and certainly thousands of people should be a big news story.  It is not.  Why not?  Because all of the corrupt and dishonest powers mismanaging the pandemic want to keep pushing and coercing everyone to get the shot.  So, they stifle the truth about vaccine dangers.

They keep justifying this by saying that only a small statistical fraction of the vaccinated die and compare this to the over 600,000 COVID deaths that the experimental vaccines supposedly could have prevented.  Here is the truth.  Vaccine induced deaths cannot be prevented.  They result from the deficiencies of the vaccines.

On the other hand, COVID deaths have always been highly preventable, say 85 percent or more, because since March 2020 we have known that several cheap, safe and FDA approved generics cure COVID and also can be used to prevent the infection.  Plus, many of those official COVID deaths were probably for people dying from other causes; they died with COVID, not from it.

Here is what people need to keep in mind.  Can you imagine anything worse than getting a shot of an experimental COVID vaccine and then sometime later dying from the infection or a blood problem?  I can’t.  How could the government let such vaccines be widely used?  Follow the money.  All the way to big drug companies making vaccines.

Breakthrough infection data

It is hard to get good, reliable data on the post-vaccination breakthrough infection death rate.  The likely answer is that the government wants to keep that data as hidden as possible.  Why?  Because the more that Americans know about breakthrough deaths, the more they will question the medical wisdom of getting either the first shot or a booster jab.

So, what does the breakthrough death data look like?  That depends where you look for the data.  Can you expect to see the same numbers everywhere?  No.  Can you expect to see such data in your daily newspaper or on you evening network news?  No.

One seemingly good source is an August New York Times compilation of breakthrough deaths from 40 states and the District of Columbia.  That list yields 1,527 deaths.  But when extrapolated to the whole nation, that adds up to possibly 1,899 deaths.  Expectedly, all the pro-vaccine people in government, public health and the medical establishment think that kind of number is just fine.

Their argument is simple.  With so many millions of people vaccinated a few thousand breakthrough deaths is acceptable.  Except for those who die and their family and friends.  Something akin to putting a bandage on a cut after putting some antiseptic on it and then sometime later losing a limb or your life from a terrible infection.  Just one of those statistical ugly and unlikely realities.

I checked out some other places for similar data.  Here is what I found.

A Los Angeles Times article from May said:

“In all, 160 fully vaccinated people with a breakthrough infection died during the study period.  That’s 2% of those with breakthrough infections, and 0.0001% of U.S. residents who were fully vaccinated by April 30.  All 160 people were between the ages of 71 and 89.”

Just 160, sounds pretty good, especially compared to close to 2,000.  And the statistics make it seem oh so unlikely that you will die from COVID after vaccination.   That figure of 160 came from a CDC report.  And there now are breakthrough deaths in much younger people.

An article from Heritage in August cited a figure of 1,507 fatal cases of breakthrough infection in line with the New York Times data.  This too was cited; “164 million Americans were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with 191 million people having acquired partial immunity through at least one dose.”  Seems like you just have to bet on being statistically safe.

An August story on CNBC reported:

“NBC News has found that at least 125,000 fully vaccinated Americans have tested positive for Covid and 1,400 of those have died.  Still, the 125,682 “breakthrough” cases in 38 states found by NBC News represented less than 0.08% of the 164.2 million-plus people (and counting) who have been fully vaccinated since the start of the year, or about one in every 1,300.”

Here is the headline of story in New York Magazine from this month: “Don’t Panic, But Breakthrough Cases May Be a Bigger Problem Than You’ve Been Told – Current public-health messaging may understate the scale and risk.”

This was a wise observation:

“a closer look at the data reveals that some of the public-health communication may be overstating the vaccine effect on transmission and understating the scale and risk of breakthrough infections, which, while far from predominant, do appear prevalent enough to be helping shape the course of the disease.”

“The message that breakthrough cases are exceedingly rare and that you don’t have to worry about them if you’re vaccinated — that this is only an epidemic of the unvaccinated — that message is falling flat,” Harvard epidemiologist Michael Mina said.

Also noted was a large pre-print study published by the Mayo clinic that suggested the efficacy against infection had fallen as far to 42 percent, far below numbers in the 90s you have been hearing about since the experimental vaccines received emergency authorization.  This helps explain escalating breakthrough cases.

The article also pointed these facts out: “In Utah, 8 percent of new cases were breakthroughs in early June, but by late July, as Delta grew, the share grew, too, to 20 percent (even while the total number of cases almost doubled).  According to leaked CDC documents, there were, as of late last month, 35,000 symptomatic breakthrough cases being recorded each week — about 10 percent of the country’s total.

Presumably many more breakthrough cases were asymptomatic, which would drive the share up further.”  But as of late May CDC started to only count breakthrough cases resulting in hospitalization or death.  Their objective was to not count more minor breakthrough cases that would reveal reduced vaccine effectiveness.

“The breakthrough problem is much more concerning than what our public officials have transmitted,” Dr. Eric Topol said. “We have no good tracking.  But every indicator I have suggests that there’s a lot more under the radar than is being told to the public so far, which is unfortunate.” The result, he said, was a widening gap between the messaging from public-health authorities and the meaning of the data emerging in real time.

“I think the problem we have is people — whether it’s the CDC or the people that are doing the briefings — their big concern is, they just want to get vaccinations up.  And they don’t want to punch any holes in the story about vaccines.  But we can handle the truth.  And that’s what we should be getting.”

Blood problem deaths

The US government is not providing good data on vaccine induced blood problem deaths.  There are some websites that provide large numbers of videos about those who have died from brain bleeds, strokes and other conditions related to blood clots, loss of blood platelets and lethal bleeding.  Health Impact News and 1000 Covid Stories are terrific.

Here is some data from a recent UK research study that addressed blood clots in “veins of the legs and in lung arteries.”  The researchers offered rather high rates of the main blood clot/low platelet condition from the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine: 1,000 per 100 million for people 50 and over and 2,000 per 100 million for younger people.  These suggest a potential for thousands of vaccine induced blood deaths in the US.  Keep in mind that many people may be dying from blood problems but no test done to verify it is caused by a vaccine.

Additionally, a Canadian doctor found evidence of microscopic blood clots in 62 percent of his patients that had received the Moderna vaccine.  He predicted dire long term health impacts from these clots in capillaries.  He said this:

“The blood clots we hear about which the media claim are very rare are the big blood clots which are the ones that cause strokes and show up on CT scans, MRI, etc.  The clots I’m talking about are microscopic and too small to find on any scan.  They can thus only be detected using the D-dimer test…The most alarming part of this is that there are some parts of the body like the brain, spinal cord, heart and lungs which cannot re-generate.  When those tissues are damaged by blood clots they are permanently damaged.”

Future medical problems and deaths from the microscopic blood clots at this point are speculative.

Conclusions

Here is my logical bottom line.  Getting a shot these days is gambling that you will not be that statistical fluke, dying from a lack of protection against COVID from any of the experimental vaccines.  Keep in mind that with so many millions of people being vaccinated breakthrough infections are likely to keep rolling up.

And think of your gamble as related to the possibility that you might die from vaccine induced blood clots or bleeding, especially in the brain.  And then add these two pieces of true science facts.

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Mass psychosis is defined as an epidemic of madness that occurs when a large portion of society loses touch with reality and descends into delusions

The witch hunts that occurred in the Americas and Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, when tens of thousands of people, mostly women, were burned at the stake is a classic example of mass psychosis. The rise of totalitarianism in the 20th century is another

When a society descends into madness, the results are always devastating. Individuals who make up the affected society become morally and spiritually inferior, unreasonable, irresponsible, emotional, erratic and unreliable. Worst of all, a psychotic mob will engage in atrocities that any solitary individual within the group would normally never consider

The psychogenic steps that lead to madness includes a panic phase, where the individual is frightened and confused by events they cannot explain, and a phase of psychotic insight, where the individual explains their abnormal experience of the world by inventing an illogical but magical way of seeing reality that eases the panic and gives meaning to the experience

Menticide is a term that means “killing of the mind.” It’s a way of controlling the masses by systematically killing the human spirit and free thought. It’s a system through which the ruling elite imprints their own delusional worldview onto society. A society is primed for menticide by the intentional sowing of fear and social isolation

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The 20-minute video above, “Mass Psychosis — How an Entire Population Becomes Mentally Ill,” created by After Skool and Academy of Ideas,¹ is a fascinating illustration of how mass psychosis can be induced.

Mass psychosis is defined as “an epidemic of madness” that occurs when a “large portion of society loses touch with reality and descends into delusions.”

One classic historical example of mass psychosis is the witch hunts that occurred in the Americas and Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, when tens of thousands of people, mostly women, were tortured, drowned and burned alive at the stake. The rise of totalitarianism in the 20th century is a more recent example of mass psychosis.

Man’s Worst Enemy

As noted in the video:

“The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.”

That’s a quote attributed to Gustave Le Bon, a French social psychologist renowned for his study of crowds. His book, “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind,”² takes a deep dive into the characteristics of human crowds and how, when gathered in groups, people tend to relinquish conscious deliberation in favor of unconscious crowd action. Similarly, psychologist Carl Jung once stated that:

“It is not famine, not earthquakes, not microbes, not cancer, but man himself who is man’s greatest danger to man, for the simple reason that there is no adequate protection against psychic epidemics, which are infinitely more devastating than the worst of natural catastrophes.”

When a society descends into madness, the results are always devastating. Jung, who studied mass psychoses, wrote that the individuals who make up the affected society “become morally and spiritually inferior.” They become “unreasonable, irresponsible, emotional, erratic and unreliable.”

Worst of all, a psychotic mob will engage in atrocities that any solitary individual within the group would normally never consider. Yet through it all, those affected remain unaware of their condition and cannot recognize the error in their ways.

What Causes Mass Psychosis?

To understand how an entire society can be driven to madness, you must first understand what drives any given individual to insanity. Barring drug or alcohol abuse, or a brain injury, psychosis is typically triggered by psychogenic factors, i.e., influences that originate in the mind.

One of the most common psychogenic factors that can trigger psychosis is a flood of negative emotions such as fear or anxiety that drives the person into a state of panic. When in a panic, the natural inclination is to seek relief. A psychologically resilient individual may adapt by facing their fear and ultimately defeating it.

Another coping mechanism is a psychotic break. As explained in the video, a psychotic break is not the descent into chaos, but rather a reordering of one’s experiential world in a way that blends fact and fiction, reality and illusions, in such a way that a sense of control is restored and panic ends. The psychogenic steps that lead to madness can be summarized as follows:

1. Phase of panic — Here, the individual begins to perceive the world around him or her in a different way and is frightened on account of it. There’s a perceived threat, whether it be real, fabricated or imagined. Confusion grows as they can’t find a way to rationally explain the strange occurrences taking place around them.
2. Phase of psychotic insight — Here, the individual manages to explain his abnormal experience of the world by inventing an illogical but magical way of seeing reality. The term “insight” is used, because the magical thinking allows the individual to escape from the panic and find meaning again. However, the insight is psychotic, because it’s based on delusions.

Just as a psychologically weak and vulnerable individual can be driven to madness, so can large groups of weak and vulnerable people descend into madness and magical thinking.

In the 20th century, we’ve seen a rise in totalitarianism, defined by professor and religious studies scholar Arthur Versluis as:

“The modern phenomenn of total centralized state power coupled with the obliteration of individual human rights: In the totalized state, there are those in power and there are the objectified masses, the victims.”

In a totalitarian society, there are two classes: the rulers and the ruled, and both groups undergo a pathological transformation. Rulers are raised to a god-like status where they can do no wrong — a view that easily leads to corruption and unethical behavior — while the ruled are transformed into dependent subjects, which leads to psychological regression.

Joost Meerloo, author of “Rape of the Mind,” compares the reactions of citizens living in totalitarian states to that of schizophrenics. Both rulers and the ruled are ill. Both live in a delusional fog, as the entire society and its rules are sustained by delusional thinking.

As noted in the video, only deluded people regress to a child-like state of total submissiveness, and only a deluded ruling class will believe they possess the knowledge and wisdom to control society in a top-down manner. And, only a deluded person will believe that a power-hungry elite ruling a mentally regressed society will result in anything but mass suffering and financial ruin.

The mass psychosis that is totalitarianism begins within the ruling class, as the individuals within this class are easily enamored with delusions that augment their power. And no delusion is greater than the delusion that they can, and should — indeed are destined to — control and dominate all others.

Whether the totalitarian mindset takes the form of communism, fascism or technocracy, a ruling elite that has succumbed to their own delusions of grandeur then sets about to indoctrinate the masses into their own twisted worldview. All that’s needed to accomplish that reorganization of society is the manipulation of collective feelings.

Killing of the Mind

Menticide is a term that means “killing of the mind,” and it’s an ancient way of controlling the masses by systematically killing the human spirit and free thought. It’s a system through which the ruling elite imprints their own delusional worldview onto society.

A society is primed for menticide by the intentional sowing of fear. A particularly effective way to induce fear and panic that results in psychosis is the unleashing of waves of terror, and it doesn’t matter if the “terror” in question is real or fictitious. The waves of terror technique can be graphed out as an escalating wave pattern where each round of fear is followed by a round of calm.

After a short period of calm, the threat level is elevated again, with each round of fearmongering being more intense than the one before. Propaganda — fake and misleading news — are used to break down the minds of the masses, and over time, it becomes easier and easier to control everyone as confusion and anxiety give way to the magical thinking and psychotic insight presented as solutions through the media.

Contradictory reports, nonsensical recommendations and blatant lies are deployed intentionally, as it heightens confusion. The more confused a population is, the greater the state of anxiety, which reduces society’s ability to cope with the crisis. As the ability to cope withers, the greater the chances a mass psychosis will develop.

As noted in the video, “Confusion heightens the susceptibility of a descent into the delusions of totalitarianism.” Or, as Meerloo noted in his book:

“Logic can be met with logic, while illogic cannot. It confuses those who think straight. The big lie and monotonously repeated nonsense have more of an emotional appeal … than logic and reason. While the people are still searching for a reasonable counterargument to the first lie, the totalitarians can assault them with another.”

The Rise of Technocracy

What sets modern-day totalitarianism apart from previous totalitarian states is technology. The means to incite fear and manipulate people’s thinking has never been more efficient or effective. TV, internet, smartphones and social media are all sources of information these days, and it’s easier than ever to control the flow of that information.

Algorithms automatically filter out the voices of reason and rational thinking, supplanting them with fear narratives instead. Modern technologies also have addictive qualities, so many voluntarily expose themselves to the brainwashing. Commenting on man’s reliance on technology, Meerloo notes:

“No rest, no meditation, no reflection, no conversation. The senses are continually overloaded with stimuli. Man doesn’t learn to question his world anymore. The screen offers him answers already made.”

Isolation — A Mass Psychosis-Inducing Tool

Aside from the onslaught of fearmongering and false propaganda, the ultimate tool to induce psychosis is isolation. When you are deprived of regular social interactions and discussions, you become more susceptible to delusions for a number of reasons:

Once a society is firmly in the grip of mass psychosis, totalitarians are free to take the last, decisive step: They can offer a way out; a return to order. The price is your freedom. You must cede control of all aspects of your life to the rulers, because unless they are granted total control, they won’t be able to create the order everyone craves.

This order, however, is a pathological one, devoid of all humanity. It eliminates the spontaneity that brings joy and creativity to one’s life by demanding strict conformity and blind obedience.

And despite the promise of safety, a totalitarian society is inherently fearful. It was built on fear, and is maintained by it too. So, giving up your freedom for safety and a sense of order will only lead to more of the same fear and anxiety that allowed the totalitarians to gain control in the first place.

How Can Mass Psychosis Be Reversed?

Can totalitarianism be prevented? And can the effects of mass psychosis be reversed? Yes, but just as the menticidal approach is multipronged, so must the solution be. To help return sanity to an insane world, first you need to center yourself and live in such a way as to provide inspiration for others to follow. As noted by Jung:

“It is not for nothing that our age cries out for the redeemer personality, for the one who can emancipate himself from the grip of the collective psychosis and save at least his own soul, who lights a beacon of hope for others, proclaiming that here is at least one man who has succeeded in extricating himself from the fatal identity with the group psyche.”

Next, you need to share and spread the truth — the counternarrative to the propaganda — as far and wide as possible. Because truth is always more potent than lies, the success of propaganda relies on the censoring of truth. Another tactic is to use humor and ridicule to delegitimize the ruling elite.

A strategy proposed by Vaclav Havel, a political dissident who became the president of Czechoslovakia, is called “parallel structures.” A parallel structure is any kind of business, organization, technology, movement or creative pursuit that fits within a totalitarian society while being morally outside of it.

Once enough parallel structures are created, a parallel culture is born that functions as a sanctuary of sanity within the totalitarian world. Havel explains this strategy in his book, “The Power of the Powerless.”

Last but not least, to prevent the descent into totalitarian madness, sane and rational action must be taken by as many people as possible. The totalitarian elite do not sit around twiddling their thumbs, hoping and wishing to increase their power and control. No. They are actively taking steps to augment their position. To defend against them, the would-be-ruled must be just as active and resolute in their counter-push toward freedom.

All of this can be extremely challenging as people around you succumb to collective psychosis. But as Thomas Paine once said:

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

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Notes

¹ Academy of Ideas

² The Crowd: A Study of the Population (PDF)

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Afghanistan has “fallen”, that’s the line. The Taliban forces have taken the opportunity of US/NATO withdrawal and swept across the entire country, taking every major city within a week and with barely a shot fired.

Joe Biden is being blamed for his “lack of plan”, even as Democrats try and shift the blame to Trump who first decided to pull the US out of Afghanistan over 18 months ago.

Meanwhile, the press are reporting dozens of stories about the humanitarian crises, refugees fleeing the new regime, the fate of women under the Taliban, and “shocking videos” of desperate people.

That’s the official story. But what’s really going on?

1. DID THE TALIBAN REALLY JUST WIN?

Firstly, let’s be clear, the US has not “pulled out” of Afghanistan, not in the true sense of the phrase. They still reserve the right to bomb the place. There are still private contractors in the country. And the Pentagon are already booking their return tickets.

Secondly, the Taliban didn’t “win”, they were unopposed. More than unopposed, they were directly aided. When the US abandoned Bagram airbase they left hundreds of armored vehicles, weapons and over 5000 alleged Taliban prisoners…all of which “accidentally” fell into the hands of the advancing Taliban forces.

The Afghan army, under command of US puppet President Ashraf Ghani, essentially folded without a shot being fired. Tens of thousands of US-trained and armed troops did nothing to stop the advance of the enemy.

There are a LOT of articles in the MSM endeavouring to explain this. The Guardian. And The Telegraph. The Financial Times. And the non-financial Times. They all give it a go.

The Washington Post’s Max Boot, writing for the Council on Foreign Relations, ties himself in mental knots trying to explain how the Afghan army, with superior numbers AND firepower, “collapsed under pressure”.

The Independent reports that the billions the Pentagon spent on training Afghan security forces has “accidentally” benefited the Taliban, who have now seized vehicles, missiles and aircraft.

The press clearly sees it for what it is – a hole in their story they really need to plug.

All things being equal, the simplest explanation is often the most likely. And the simplest explanation here is that the Afghan security forces were ordered to stand down as part of a deal with the Taliban. There are reports and rumours on social media of deals being done:

The Secret Deal b/w US, Taliban & Afghan Govt (A thread):

It is said that the trio agreed to peacefully handover #Afganistan to #Taliban. Which is why the 350K Forces including 10K AirForce collapsed like dominos in the span of a week only and without a single bullet fired. 1/7 pic.twitter.com/0az3qVymhK

— The Afghan Perspective (@TAfPerspective) August 16, 2021

And, of course, the exact terms of the peace agreement, signed by Trump and Taliban last year, are not known. But it’s interesting to note that this agreement actually called for a handover of exactly 5000 Taliban prisoners. The same number “accidentally” left unguarded at Bagram Airbase.

One interpretation is that the withdrawal has gone exactly as planned in the deal signed by Trump. And that the melodrama and “chaos” of the pull-out was either a part of the deal, or a later addition to either cause a distraction or save some face.

2. IS THE CHAOS REAL?

The media have been generating memes to sell the “chaos” of the Taliban’s advance. The go-to comparison has been the fall of Saigon, because the (completely unintentional) “near-identical images” (completely unintentionally) “went viral”.

We’re treated to a lot of viral video footage. Ranging from the questionable:

Does this video not ring true to anyone else? If these are all desperate refugees, where are the women & children? Why are most of them jogging nonchalantly & making no effort to get on the plane? Why are people stopping, smiling & waving to the camera? #AfghanistanAirport https://t.co/SnBuJ384FU

— Kit Knightly (@kit_knightly) August 16, 2021

To the outright bizarre:

🚨 | NEW: Taliban take control of a theme park in Kabul pic.twitter.com/pdpVlEXtGt

— News For All (@NewsForAllUK) August 16, 2021

All of this serves a purpose, aside from the distraction of emotive metaphors and lurid headlines. It all aids in the construction of a narrative.

In this case, the ideas of US “mistakes” and “incompetence” and “wishful thinking” are discussed at length, without ever touching on the true mendacity at the heart of the Afghan invasion.

The “end” of the Afghan war is being used to re-brand its beginnings. The Taliban are propped up as villains, again, and associated with Al Qaeda, as if they were ever anything but a Western tool in the first place.

People are talking about “spreading democracy” and “counter-terrorism” as if they were the real aims of the war, instead of long-discredited lies.

Marketing Afghanistan as a “defeat” for the US camouflages the truth of it – the war was a VERY profitable business venture.

And, of course, it all serves to reinforce the frail official story of 9/11, a vital keystone in the construction of our geo-political “reality”.

3. WHAT ABOUT THE HEROIN?

The press has a long history of, not just lying about Afghan heroin, but totally inverting the truth. In 2019 for example, during the farcical “leak” of the Afghanistan Papers, the press lamented the US’ “failure to curb” the opium trade.

Afghanistan currently produces around 90% of global heroin. When the US invaded in 2001, that number was much closer to zero. The Taliban outlawed the growing of opium poppies in early 2001, and by the end of the year the business was almost extinct.

The US invaded in October 2001, and opium production has increased almost every year since then. We don’t need to go into the CIA’s links to the drug trade here, or how much money people have made from this heroin production. That’s not relevant, what we need to ask is, what now?

Will the newly-reinstated Taliban put an end to this trade again? Or will production continue?

According the press, the heroin will continue to flow. In fact the Taliban will increase production because the “illegal drug trade helps fuel” them.

Reuters reports that the US plan to halt heroin production “failed”, and that the opoium trade is a “boon” for the Taliban.

The Telegraph headlines that “Taliban mulls flooding the West with heroin to shore up Afghan economy”. So we should be prepared for the illegal heroin trade to increase now the US has “withdrawn” from Afghanistan.

But the idea that heroin benefits the Taliban, and the US wants to put an end to it is a myth. Afghan heroin is, and always has been, a US/Deep State/corporate enterprise to the bone.

And, If the Taliban do allow the US to continue to use their land to mass-produce heroin, that is yet another piece of evidence supporting a deal between the Taliban and the West.

4. WILL THERE BE ANY POLITICAL FALLOUT?

So what are the next steps? Where is this going?

Well, in the US, President Joe Biden is experiencing some pretty heavy FLAK. Even his usually-stalwart supporters at CNN ran the headline “Joe Biden is facing a crisis of competence”. Which could mean they’re in the early stages of prepping us for President Kamala Harris.

Geo-politically, the talk is of Russia and China – the only two counties to officially recognise the Taliban government – “stepping into the void”. This is being played as a victory for America’s enemies (and another stick with which to beat Biden), but does that really mean anything?

The Covid “pandemic” has been an eye-opener in terms of conflict between nations. They’ve shown us that, when they really need to, they work together to the same end. They tell the same lies, sell the same stories, and want the same thing. The wall at the back of the theatre has been revealed, in that regard.

The truth is, no matter which nations notionally hold sway in Afghanistan, the profits from the war, the lithium and the heroin will all end up going to the same few pockets. Corporations rule, not countries. Nation-states are no longer the players of the Great Game, they are the pieces. Toys for corporate megaliths. Their owners can make them fight each other, or bump them together and make kissy noises. Each is equally meaningless.

5. IS THERE ANOTHER “REFUGEE CRISIS” ON THE WAY?

The Afghanistan narrative will fuel other big narratives going forward.

Firstly, there is the coming “refugee crisis”.

The “worst since world war II”, according to Tobias Elwood MP (who can always be relied upon to promote Deep State talking points), which is weird because I’m sure that’s what they said about the refugee crisis in 2016, too. Oh, and in 2019.

The UK’s Defence Secretary has already announced plans to allow Afghan asylum seekers into Britain without passports. Merkel is advocating for similar steps in Germany, and the US press is also on board.

Will these refugees be forced to stay in “quarantine hotels” at their own expense? Have they all been “double jabbed”? We don’t know. Nobody’s thinking about that, that’s from the other narrative. We’re talking about refugees today, Covid can wait.

Anybody opposing asylum seekers entering the country because of Covid will be branded a racist, and medical professionals will claim that “racism is a public health issue more dangerous than covid”, just like they did when the Covid narrative collided with the Black Lives Matter narrative last summer.

That importing asylum seekers, undocumented, from a near-failed state could be suggested at all during an allegedly “deadly pandemic” is a sign of just how contrived both narratives are.

It’s not said much – but corporations love refugees. Just like illegal immigrants, undocumented refugees can be used as cheap labour, with none of the legal protections of full citizens. They can then be blamed for deteriorating living standards, unemployment and wage stagnation. They act as a heat-sink for public anger.

Further, “refugees” with no passports are a great way to get your trained mercenaries, agitators, saboteurs, and/or special forces across national borders without leaving a trail.

The resulting army of undocumented men of fighting age can then serve as a pool of potential “terrorists” who can be “radicalised” at a moments notice and deployed to spread panic at home or abroad.

Which leads us neatly onto…

6. WILL WE SEE A MAJOR TERRORIST ATTACK?

It’s only been a few days since the “fall” of Kabul, but already the “renewed terrorism threat” is making waves in the press.

The Sun, in its usual understated style, headlines:

RED ALERT Britain faces ‘direct threat of terrorism’ from Taliban’s Afghan takeover in new wave of terror against West

A rather more sedate report in from AP says: “Concerns over US terror threats rising as Taliban hold grows.”

The New York Times goes almost fully schizophrenic, reporting “A decade ago, a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq opened the door for the Islamic State. Will the withdrawal from Afghanistan do the same for the Taliban? and warning of other terror attacks in the future…

…without ever acknowledging that the US never “withdrew” from Iraq at all. Or that they armed, and trained, ISIS.

Bloomberg warns that “The Taliban are already inspiring terror beyond Afghanistan”. The Times is worried about the “terrorist elite” the Taliban freed from Bagram prison.

Project Syndicate reports that “The world should not ignore the risk that Afghanistan under the Taliban could become a breeding ground for international terrorism.”

Politicians from France, the US and UK been eager to talk it up, too:

Immediate priority for UK govt: secure safe passage for British citizens & Afghans who have supported us.

But the long term threat is that terrorists will use Afghanistan as a base to attack the UK.

PM must set out a strategy for strengthening our counter-terrorism capability. pic.twitter.com/tOMEkyy80M

— Stephen Kinnock (@SKinnock) August 17, 2021

The former head of NATO has said the West needs to “bolster its terror defences”, whilst the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has said “terror groups will re-constitute in Afghanistan faster than expected” and the UN is calling for “unity against the global terrorist threat”.

There’s a common theme to some of these dire warnings, too. Tobias Elwood MP (him again), told the Independent:

I would not be surprised if we see another attack on the scale of 9/11, almost to bookend what happened 20 years ago,

Whilst Ivor Roberts, another senior Tory, used the exact same phrase in the Metro, as does this article in The Sun.

All of that in just the last two days.

Does this mean we will see a major terrorist attack?

Maybe, maybe not. We are past due for one, certainly. Major international terrorism, much like the flu, took some time off during the “pandemic.” But, in many ways, the threat is just as effective as the attack itself.

The Covid fear fog is thinning, people are starting to wake up a little, and the people running things need everyone to be afraid.

Conclusion

To sum up the official narrative on US withdrawal from Afghanistan in bullet points:

• Trump signed a deal with the Taliban, over a year ago, to withdraw from the country and hand over 5000 prisoners.
• Despite having over a year to plan, the US “withdrawal” was chaotic and messy.
• The US accidentally left behind weapons, helicopters, ammunition and armoured vehicles, which the Taliban took.
• The US accidentally left behind 5000 prisoners, whom the Taliban freed.
• Without US support, the Afghan army, which outnumbers and outguns the Taliban, folded without firing a shot and the Taliban took control of the entire country in less than week.
• Despite shutting down the heroin trade prior to the US invasion, the Taliban now intend to keep it going, and even increase production.

Do you believe this story? Is it at all believable?

Ignore the sound and fury from the media. The press are like a street magician, if you want to understand what they’re up to you have to look past the hand he’s waving in your face, and look at the one behind his back.

It seems fairly obvious, to me anyway, that US gave weapons and vehicles to the Taliban in exchange for a promise to keep the heroin production going (and maybe access to mineral mines, no word on that yet).

Meanwhile, the “fall out” of the totally manufactured “chaos” is being used to fan the flames of fear-porn. Promoting division over asylum seekers and spreading panic about terrorism.

In short, the Afghanistan story, as related by the mainstream press, is a twisted illogical ball of confusion, intended to provide fuel for future narratives of control.

…which is pretty much true of everything in the news, these days.

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124 consumer, health and environmental groups sent letters today calling on Lowe’s (NYSE: LOW) and Home Depot (NASDQ: HD) to immediately end the sale of Roundup following Bayer’s recent decision to remove cancer-causing glyphosate from weedkiller Roundup by 2023 for the U.S. consumer market. Urging that the health of people and pollinators can’t wait, the groups contend that unless major home and garden retailers act now, consumers will continue to use and be exposed to glyphosate via Roundup for the next two years.  

The main chemical ingredient in Roundup — glyphosate — is the most widely used pesticide in the world.  Glyphosate is a probable human carcinogen. Research has linked glyphosate to high rates of kidney disease in farming communities and to shortened pregnancy in a cohort of women in the Midwest. Animal studies and bioassays also link it to endocrine disruption, DNA damage, decreased sperm function, disruption of the gut microbiome, and fatty liver disease. 

Friends of the Earth and allies have been campaigning for Home Depot and Lowe’s to end sales of Roundup and other glyphosate-based weedkillers based on science linking the chemical to cancer and other serious health concerns, as well as threats to pollinators and endangered species. 

The groups are also pushing Lowe’s and Home Depot to not supply Bayer’s reformulated Roundup products once they are available in 2023 unless they are truly safe for people and pollinators. A recent analysis showed that half of all herbicides offered by these retail giants contain highly hazardous ingredients, highlighting the need for truly safe alternatives. In a process known as “regrettable substitution,” the replacements for high-profile chemicals of concern like glyphosate are often as toxic as the original chemicals.  

Bayer’s decision is a response to years-long court battles the company inherited after acquiring Roundup manufacturer Monsanto in 2018. In a series of high-profile court cases, glyphosate exposure has been linked to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in farmers, groundskeepers, and homeowners using the herbicide for lawn care. 

However, Bayer’s decision only applies to consumer markets – the company will continue selling glyphosate-based formulas for agricultural and professional use. 

“Despite Bayer’s decision, the battle against glyphosate is far from over — massive amounts of this toxic chemical will continue to be bought and sprayed in our yards, communities and farms. Retailers and regulators must act now to protect people and the planet from this cancer-linked weedkiller,” said Paolo Mutia, food and agriculture campaigner for Friends of the Earth. 

“It is great news that after years of public outcry, Bayer is finally going to stop selling cancer-linked glyphosate products in U.S. home and garden stores. But we need to get these dangerous products off of shelves now, not in two years,” said Lacey Kohlmoos, U.S. campaign manager for SumOfUs. “Lowe’s and Home Depot need to show that they care about their customers’ health by ending all sales of Roundup and other glyphosate products immediately.” 

According to Akayla Bracey, science and regulatory manager for Beyond Pesticides, “People generally aren’t aware that the pesticides widely available in garden retailers like Home Depot and Lowe’s are a threat to health and the environment, and that there are safer products that are available and used in organic land management.” 

“Home Depot and Lowe’s need to take action for human and environmental health and immediately end the sale of Roundup and all other pesticides and herbicides with toxic chemicals,” said Todd Larsen, executive co-director for Green America.  “When people go to big box stores looking for weedkiller, they don’t realize the chemicals they are purchasing are harming them and pollinators. It’s up to retailers to sell only products that are safe to use, and as the largest Do It Yourself stores in the U.S., Home Depot and Lowe’s need to be leaders in selling only the safest products.” 

“In light of Bayer’s announcement, Home Depot and Lowe’s have no reason to wait until 2023 to end the sales of Roundup and other toxic glyphosate-based herbicides,” said Rebecca Spector, west coast director for the Center for Food Safety. “It’s time for these major retailers to demonstrate bold leadership that prioritizes environmental stewardship and human health over short-term profits resulting from continued sales of these harmful products. Our pollinators cannot wait two more years, and as consumers, we deserve better, now.” 

“We will not accept the continued sale of glyphosate; it wreaks havoc on both environmental and human health,” said Rose Williamson president for Herbicide Free Campus Loyola Marymount University. “It should no longer be sold on Lowe’s and Home Depot shelves starting today, rather than waiting until 2023.”  

“This is a win against the toxic chemical market; we the people hold the power and, with this news, we are more motivated than ever to continue working with our campuses to eliminate synthetic herbicide use,” said Christie Jones, a student activist with Herbicide-Free Campus at Emory University.  

Glyphosate is also linked to environmental damage. The EPA warms that glyphosate can injure or kill 93% of U.S. endangered species. It is a primary driver of the decimation of monarch butterfly populations because it destroys the milkweed plants their young depend on. Recent research has also shown that glyphosate can disrupt honeybee gut microbiomes, affect larval development, increase colony vulnerability to pathogen infestation, reduce productivity, and impair honeybee navigation, linking the herbicide to declines in bee populations.

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Yesterday morning, shortly after the acting Afghan central banker chief, Ajmal Ahmady, fled the country (after he was “somehow pushed on board” of a military plane by his colleagues), and warning on twitter that the country has no dollars left domestically (i.e., any dollars and gold currently stored at the local central bank vault have been pillaged by the Taliban even though the country’s new rulers vowed on Saturday that the treasury, public facilities and government offices were the property of the nation and “should be strictly guarded”), sparking domestic bank runs and a record rout in the local currency, the Afghani, some asked what that means for Afghan reserves stored offshore.

Conveniently, overnight Reuters provided a handy breakdown of the international reserves owned by the DAB (as the Afghani central bank is called). The most recent financial statement posted online shows DAB holds total assets of about $10 billion, including $1.3 billion-worth of gold reserves and $362 million in foreign currency cash reserves, according to currency conversion rates on June 21, the date of the report. Notably, a big chunk of the reserves aren’t held in the country as we observed yesterday.

Digging deeper, the DAB’s June statement stated that the bank owned investments worth $6.1 billion. While the latest report did not provide details of those investments, a breakdown in the year-end report showed that the majority of those investments were in the form of U.S. Treasury bonds and bills, most likely held by proxy at the Fed where they make up a portion of the $3.5 trillion in securities held in custody by the US central bank. As Reuters further notes, investments were made through the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), an arm of the World Bank, or through the FRBNY and held in New York. Among its smaller items are shares in an investment pool by the Bank for International Settlement, which is based in Switzerland, as well as the Economic Cooperation Organisation Trade and Development Bank in Turkey.

This is important because as we also learned yesterday, the US Treasury imposed a freeze on all Afghan reserves, depriving the Taliban – who remain on US international sanctions lists – of much needed cash. An Bidn admin official confirmed as much telling Reuters: “Any central bank assets the Afghan government have in the United States will not be made available to the Taliban.”

Additionally, DAB’s foreign currency cash holdings worth around $362 million consist almost entirely of U.S. dollars and were held at the bank’s head offices and branches as well as the presidential palace, which is now in the hands of the Taliban and is likely lost for ever.

That’s not all that is gone: according to the DAB, some $160 million worth of gold bars and silver coins held at the bank’s vault at the presidential palace. Also gone is a hoard of 2,000-year-old gold jewellery, ornaments and coins known as the Bactrian Treasure, which was held in the Afghan central bank’s vaults. The around 21,000 ancient artifacts were presumed lost until 2003, when they were found in a secret vault in the central bank’s basement, having survived the previous era of Taliban rule undiscovered. This time, they will be lost for good (Afghan lawmakers in January floated the idea of sending the treasures abroad for safe keeping, warning they were vulnerable to theft, according to local broadcaster Tolo News).

Afghan foreign reserves also consist of a pending $650 billion allocation of Special Drawing Rights currency reserves to the Fund’s 190 member countries on Aug. 23, whose fate as of this moment remains unclear. The distribution of the SDRs, the Fund’s unit of exchange based on dollars, euros, yen, sterling and yuan, aims to shore up the reserves of developing countries strained by the COVID-19 pandemic. As an IMF member, Afghanistan is eligible for an allocation of about $455 million, based on its 0.07% quota shareholding in the Fund.

It is unlikely that the IMF will proceed with making any disbursements to the Taliban as insurgents gaining access to those assets would be hard to digest in capitals around the globe. Indeed, in 2019, the IMF suspended Venezuela’s access to its SDRs after more than 50 member countries representing a majority of the Fund’s shareholding refused to recognize Nicolas Maduro’s government as Venezuela’s legitimate ruler following disputed 2018 elections. We doubt there will be an international scramble to legitimize the Taliban, even if the regime is now desperate to portray itself as the moderate, women-respecting Taliban 2.0 (for obvious reason: it knows it needs access to the cash).

But most notably, the central bank’s consolidated statement revealed that the New York Fed’s gold vault located hundreds of feet below street level, held gold bars worth 101,770,256,000 afghanis – or some $1.32 billion – on behalf of the Afghan central bank at end-2020. And since this gold is effectively non-recourse to Afghanistan’s new Taliban government, we asked publicly if this means that the Afghan gold has now been effectively confiscated.

AFGHANISTAN CENTRAL BANK HAS $10 BILLION IN ASSETS, BUT A MAJORITY OF THE FUNDS ARE HELD BY THE FEDERAL RESERVE IN NEW YORK -RTRS

And now the gold is gone. All gone

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 17, 2021

Using gold as leverage would hardly be a first: most recently the Bank of England refused to release some $1 billion worth of Venezuela gold to the Maduro regime after he was found to be an illegitimate president, and instead the monetary authority said it would only deliver the gold to Juan Guaidó, whom Britain had found as “constitutional interim president of Venezuela.” However now that Guaido’s prospects have been snuffed, Venezuela’s gold located in the UK remains in limbo.

A similar fate will befall the Afghanistan, pardon Taliban, gold which is now effectively confiscated by the NY Fed, which will not disburse the precious metal to a regime which the Treasury has designated as illegitimate.

Curiously, after maintaining a radio silence for the past 48 hours, the acting head of the Afghanistan central bank, Ajmal Ahmady, who now functions out of an unknown location after his prompt departure, shared some much needed clarity on the local central bank’s holdings in a lengthy threat on twitter, amusingly using our tweet as a basis to argue that “most assets are held in safe, liquid assets such as Treasuries and gold.”

First, total DAB reserves were approximately $9.0 billion as of last week.

But this does not mean that DAB held $9.0 billion physically in our vault.

As per international standards, most assets are held in safe, liquid assets such as Treasuries and gold https://t.co/onpttXyTv7

— Ajmal Ahmady (@aahmady) August 18, 2021

While we republish Ahmady’s entire thread – which largely confirms what Reuters reported overnight – below, we wish to point out some of his notable disclosures, starting with his breakdown of major investment categories which include the following assets (all figures in billions)

• Federal Reserve = $7.0
  • U.S. bills/bonds: $3.1
  • WB RAMP assets: $2.4
  • Gold: $1.2
  • Cash accounts: $0.3
• International accounts = 1.3
• BIS = $0.7

Ahmady also revealed that “given Afghanistan’s large current account deficit, DAB was reliant on obtaining physical shipments of cash every few weeks.” Since it was the US that was providing said shipments of cash, we look forward to the Congressional hearings that will figure out just how much such cash was deployed to Afghanistan, and how much has now been lost.

In any case, as the acting central bank head notes, “The amount of such cash remaining is close to zero due a stoppage of shipments as the security situation deteriorated, especially during the last few days.”

And then a remarkable admission, suggesting that the Biden administration was fully aware that the Taliban were about to sweep control:

On Friday morning, I received a call notifying me that there would be no further USD shipments (we were expecting one on Sunday, the day Kabul fell).  On Saturday, banks placed very large USD bids as customer withdrawals accelerated.

On Friday morning, I received a call notifying me that there would be no further USD shipments (we were expecting one on Sunday, the day Kabul fell)

On Saturday, banks placed very large USD bids as customer withdrawals accelerated.

— Ajmal Ahmady (@aahmady) August 18, 2021

It is then that the currency collapse and the dollar run began in earnest because as Ahmady notes, “for the first time, I therefore had to limit USD access to both banks and dollar auctions to conserve remaining DAB dollars. We also put out a circular placing maximum withdrawal limits per customer. During the day, afghani depreciated from 81 to almost 100 and then back to 86.”

And then some more remarkable disclosures, which effectively confirm that the US “had good intelligence as to what was going to happen.”

On Saturday at noon, I met with President Ghani to explain that the expected Sunday dollar shipment would not arrive.

On Saturday evening, President Ghani spoke with Secretary Blinken to request dollar shipments to resume. In principle it was approved.

Again, seems ridiculous in retrospect, but did not expect Kabul to fall by Sunday evening.

In any case, the next shipment never arrived.  Seems like our partners had good intelligence as to what was going to happen.

Notwithstanding what the US may or may not have known ahead of time when it decided to block the most recent scheduled shipment of cash to Afghanistan, Ahmady takes a step back to observe the strategic implications of what just happened.

First, “in no way were Afghanistan’s international reserves ever compromised. Assets are all held at Fed, BIS, RAMP, or other bank accounts. Easily audited. We had a program with both IMF and Treasury that monitored assets. No money was stolen from any reserve account.”

Repeating what we already knew, the acting central bank chief then says that “given that the Taliban are still on international sanction lists, it is expected (confirmed?) that such assets will be frozen and not accessible to Taliban. I can’t imagine a scenario where Treasury/OFAC would given Taliban access to such funds.”

If indeed the vast majority of Afghanistan reserves remain offshore, Ahmady says that “we can say the accessible funds to the Taliban are perhaps 0.1-0.2% of Afghanistan’s total international reserves. Not much. Without Treasury approval, it is also unlikely that any donors would support the Taliban Government.”

While this is bad news for the new Taliban government which will suddenly find itself with no reserves to keep the country functioning, it is even worse news for local commerce as “local banks have told customers that they cannot return their dollars – because DAB has not supplied banks with dollars.” This is the case “not because funds have been stolen or being held in vault” although they very well may have been – after all we are dealing with the Taliban here – “but because all dollars are in international accounts that have been frozen.”

Somewhat defensively the central banker then tweets that “the Taliban should note this was in no way the decision of DAB or its professional staff. It is a direct result of US sanctions policy implemented by OFAC. Taliban and their backers should have foreseen this result.”

As a reminder, when detailing the coming monetary collapse of Afghanistan we said that “for all the focus on the humanitarian crisis unfolding at an unprecedented pace in Afghanistan, many are forgetting that an even worse economic disaster awaits the “Islamic Emirate” of Afghanistan now that the Taliban are in charge.”

Ahmady concludes as much saying that “Taliban won militarily – but now have to govern. It is not easy.”

It certainly won’t, so to help out his successor, the central banker has a 4-point plan of what to do next:

• Taliban have to implement capital controls and limit dollar access
• Currency will depreciate
• Inflation will rise as currency pass through is very high
• This will hurt the poor as food prices increase

In short, the Taliban won. But since they are now financially blacklisted and locked out of dollar commerce, the country faces hyperinflation, currency collapse, and economic ruin.

The only question is what happens to the Afghanistan gold located at the NY Fed, and which now appears to be confiscated. We will just remind readers of one notable fact: the NY Fed’s vault is inexplicably connected to the vault next door – the largest gold vault in the world – which is located at 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza, and which until 2013 was owned by JPMorgan at which point the building (and attached vault) now known as 28 Liberty Street, was sold to one of the largest privately-owned Chinese conglomerates, Fosun international.

*

Below is the full thread from the acting head of the Afghanistan central bank (link here).

This thread is to clarify the location of DAB (Central Bank of Afghanistan) international reserves

I am writing this because I have been told Taliban are asking DAB staff about location of assets. If this is true – it is clear they urgently need to add an economist on their team.

First, total DAB reserves were approximately $9.0 billion as of last week. But this does not mean that DAB held $9.0 billion physically in our vault. As per international standards, most assets are held in safe, liquid assets such as Treasuries and gold

AFGHANISTAN CENTRAL BANK HAS $10 BILLION IN ASSETS, BUT A MAJORITY OF THE FUNDS ARE HELD BY THE FEDERAL RESERVE IN NEW YORK -RTRS

And now the gold is gone. All gone

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 17, 2021

The major investment categories include the following assets (all figures in billions)

(1) Federal Reserve = $7.0

• U.S. bills/bonds: $3.1
• WB RAMP assets: $2.4
• Gold: $1.2
• Cash accounts: $0.3

(2) International accounts = 1.3

(3) BIS = $0.7

Interesting note was that the IMF had approved a SDR650 billion allocation recently. DAB was set to receive approximately $340 million on August 23rd. Not sure if that allocation will now proceed with respect to Afghanistan

AFGHANISTAN CENTRAL BANK HAS $10 BILLION IN ASSETS, BUT A MAJORITY OF THE FUNDS ARE HELD BY THE FEDERAL RESERVE IN NEW YORK -RTRS

And now the gold is gone. All gone

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 17, 2021

Given Afghanistan’s large current account deficit, DAB was reliant on obtaining physical shipments of cash every few weeks. The amount of such cash remaining is close to zero due a stoppage of shipments as the security situation deteriorated, especially during the last few days

NEW: The Biden administration last week canceled bulk shipments of dollars headed for Afghanistan as Taliban fighters were poised to take control of the capital city of Kabul@KateDavidson @IanTalley https://t.co/Thewvrsgpb

— Andrew Restuccia (@AndrewRestuccia) August 17, 2021

On Friday morning, I received a call notifying me that there would be no further USD shipments (we were expecting one on Sunday, the day Kabul fell). On Saturday, banks placed very large USD bids as customer withdrawals accelerated. For the first time, I therefore had to limit USD access to both banks and dollar auctions to conserve remaining DAB dollars.

We also put out a circular placing maximum withdrawal limits per customer. During the day, afghani depreciated from 81 to almost 100 and then back to 86. On Saturday at noon, I met with President Ghani to explain that the expected Sunday dollar shipment would not arrive.

On Saturday evening, President Ghani spoke with Secretary Blinken to request dollar shipments to resume. In principle it was approved. Again, seems ridiculous in retrospect, but did not expect Kabul to fall by Sunday evening.

In any case, the next shipment never arrived. Seems like our partners had good intelligence as to what was going to happen.

Please note that in no way were Afghanistan’s international reserves ever compromised. Assets are all held at Fed, BIS, RAMP, or other bank accounts. Easily audited.

We had a program with both IMF and Treasury that monitored assets. No money was stolen from any reserve account.
Given that the Taliban are still on international sanction lists, it is expected (confirmed?) that such assets will be frozen and not accessible to Taliban.

I can’t imagine a scenario where Treasury/OFAC would given Taliban access to such funds. Therefore, we can say the accessible funds to the Taliban are perhaps 0.1-0.2% of Afghanistan’s total international reserves. Not much. Without Treasury approval, it is also unlikely that any donors would support the Taliban Government. See this.

I believe local banks have told customers that they cannot return their dollars – because DAB has not supplied banks with dollars

This is true. Not because funds have been stolen or being held in vault, but because all dollars are in international accounts that have been frozen.

Taliban should note this was in no way the decision of DAB or its professional staff. It is a direct result of US sanctions policy implemented by OFAC. Taliban and their backers should have foreseen this result

Taliban won militarily – but now have to govern. It is not easy.

Therefore, my base case would be the following:

• Treasury freezes assets
• Taliban have to implement capital controls and limit dollar access
• Currency will depreciate
• Inflation will rise as currency pass through is very high
• This will hurt the poor as food prices increase

*

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***

The quick collapse of the US-backed government in Afghanistan has revealed how little ordinary people should trust Canada’s military, arms industry and associated ideological supporters. Their justifications for war, their claims of progress and then victory have proven to be no more than propaganda and lies.

Canada’s biggest military deployment since World War II, more than 40,000 Canadian troops fought in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014. Canada spent $20 billion on the military operations and related aid mission and over 200,000 Afghan civilians and combatants were killed in two decades of fighting. As I detailed Monday, Canada engaged in significant violence and war crimes in the central Asian country. Canadian special forces participated in highly unpopular night-time assassination raids and a JTF2 member said he felt his commanders “encouraged” them to commit war crimes in Afghanistan.

The reasons presented for Canada’s war in Afghanistan were to fight fundamentalists, build democracy and support women’s rights. These rationales never added out.

Just before Canada ramped up its fighting in Kandahar in 2006 Canadian troops invaded Haiti to overthrow the elected government there. Five hundred Canadian soldiers backed violent rebels — Haiti’s Taliban, if you like — who employed rape as a means of political control. A study in the prestigious Lancetmedical journal revealed there were 35,000 rapes in the Port-au-Prince area in the 22 months after the overthrow of the elected government. So much for advancing women’s rights.

The other supposed motivation for the invasion and occupation was to weaken Al Qaeda and Jihadist forces. As Canadian troops wound down their occupation of Afghanistan a half dozen Canadian fighter jets bombed Libya. With a Canadian general overseeing the war and Canadian naval vessels helping out, NATO helped rebels in the east of the country opposed to Muammar Gadhafi’s secular government. A year and a half before the war a Canadian intelligence report described eastern Libya as an “epicentre of Islamist extremism” and said “extremist cells” operated in the anti-Gadhafi stronghold. In fact, during the bombing, noted Ottawa Citizen military reporter David Pugliese, Canadian air force members privately joked they were part of “al-Qaida’s air force”. Lo and behold hardline Jihadists were the major beneficiaries of the war, taking control of significant portions of the country.

If fighting Jihadists, building democracy and defending women’s rights were not Canada’s main objectives in Afghanistan what was?

Supporting the US was the main reason Canada was fighting. “Washington’s reactions tended to be the exclusive consideration in almost all of the discussions about Afghanistan,” explains The Unexpected War: Canada In Kandahar. “The political problem, of course, was how to support Washington in its war on terror without supporting the war in Iraq. The answer to the problem was the so-called ‘Afghan solution’.” Former Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham explained “there was no question, every time we talked about the Afghan mission, it gave us cover for not going to Iraq.”

But there’s more to it than that. The military saw the conflict in Afghanistan as a way to increase its profile. There was a surge of martial patriotism in Canada with initiatives such as Highway of Heroes and Project Hero. In the mid-2000s every province adopted a special licence plate to signify the driver is a veteran.

The military saw Afghanistan as a way to assert its warfighting bona fides. As Chief of the Defence Staff Rick Hillier infamously proclaimed: “We are going to Afghanistan to actually take down the folks that are trying to blow up men and women … we’re not the public service of Canada, we’re not just another department. We are the Canadian Forces, and our job is to be able to kill people.”

The Canadian Forces have a predilection for war. As basically all but Canadian special forces had been withdrawn from Afghanistan, the Chief of the Defence Staff publicly demanded a new war. “We have some men and women who have had two, three and four tours and what they’re telling me is ‘Sir, we’ve got that bumper sticker. Can we go somewhere else now?’” General Walter Natynczyk told Canadian Press in 2012. “You also have the young sailors, soldiers, airmen and women who have just finished basic training and they want to go somewhere and in their minds it was going to be Afghanistan. So, if not Afghanistan, where’s it going to be? They all want to serve.”

Various think tanks and militarist organization such as the Conference of Defense Associations as well as academics writing on military issues benefited from millions of dollars in public funds. The war justified an increase in the size of the military and a major spike in military spending.

Private security firms did well in Afghanistan. Conflict in that country helped propel Montréal’s Garda’s to become the biggest privately held security firm in the world with some 80,000 employees today.

Military service contractors such as SNC Lavalin and ATCO also expanded their involvement with the Canadian Forces. During the war in Afghanistan Canadian Commercial Corporation president Marc Whittingham wrote in the Hill Times, “there is no better trade show for defence equipment than a military mission.” The crown corporation has expanded its role in the international weapons trade.

On Monday The Intercept reported that the stock price of the top five US arms firms rose nearly ten fold since US President George W. Bush signed the Authorization for Use of Military Force on September 18, 2001. In “$10,000 Invested in Defense Stocks When Afghanistan War Began Now Worth Almost $100,000” Jon Schwarz notes that these companies’ stock prices increase was 58% greater than the gains of the overall New York Stock Exchange.

Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics all have Canadian subsidiaries. The US-based firms are not simply branch plants. They do research in Canada, have offices near Parliament Hill and hire former top Canadian military officials. A number of them do international business through their Canadian divisions. General Dynamics Canada, for instance, has the largest ever Canadian export contract selling Light Armoured Vehicles to Saudi Arabia. Tracing its Canadian history to 1948, General Dynamics has ties to Canadian educational institutions, politicians and the CF. It has over 2,000 employees and does research and development work.

The stock price of the biggest Canadian-based arms firm, CAE, has also risen sharply since 2001. It trains US pilots as well as the operators of Predator and Reaper drones. The Montréal-based company openly talks about profiting from increased US military spending. “Le patron de CAE veut profiter de la hausse des budgets de l’armée américaine” (CAE boss wants to take advantage of rising US military spending), read a 2018 La Presse headline.

The war in Afghanistan was good for the arms industry. It also bolstered the Canadian military. But the quick unraveling of 20-years of war and occupation ought to sap some of the power of Canada’s military, arms companies and associated ideological institutions. The quick collapse of the US- and Canadian-backed Afghan military and government proves they should not be trusted. Their primary goal is, and always has been, to benefit the military-industrial complex, not to improve the lives of people in other countries. Or to tell the truth to Canadians.

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***

Anas Haqqani, a member of the Taliban’s political office, and other Taliban members met with former president Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, the chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation, in Kabul on Wednesday, sources said.

The meeting took place at the house of Abdullah Abdullah, according to the sources, but details on what was discussed are not yet available.

The Taliban took control of Kabul on Sunday.

Earlier, Mawlawi Khairullah Khairkhwah, a member of the Taliban’s political office in Doha who is currently in Kandahar city, has confirmed that Taliban deputy leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and eight other Taliban members arrived in Kandahar on Tuesday from Qatar.

“We do not see anybody as our enemies anymore now,” said Khairkhwah.

He did not provide further details about Baradar’s trip to Kandahar.

On Tuesday the Taliban confirmed to TOLOnews that they seek to establish an inclusive government in Afghanistan.

A Taliban official told TOLOnews that the results of their discussions with Afghan politicians and representatives from the international community about forming an “inclusive government” will be made public soon.

Sources close to Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah said that Amir Khan Motaqi, a senior member of the Taliban leadership, in a meeting with Afghan politicians on Monday pledged to establish an inclusive government.

Mutaqi met with Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah on Monday.

“The discussion is how can an inclusive government be established that is accepted by all and that will lead society toward prosperity,” said Gul Rahman Qazi, a close aide to Hamid Karzai.

“They are busy in discussions about an inclusive government, a government that is accepted by all Afghans and where differences are overcome,” said Sayed Akbar Agha, head of the Rah-e-Nejat Council of Afghanistan.

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***

The first Taliban press conference after this weekend’s Saigon moment geopolitical earthquake, conducted by spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, was in itself a game-changer.  

The contrast could not be starker with those rambling pressers at the Taliban embassy in Islamabad after 9/11 and before the start of the American bombing – proving this is an entirely new political animal.

Yet some things never change. English translations remain atrocious.

Here  is a good summary of the key Taliban statements, and here (in Russian) is a very detailed roundup.

These are the key takeaways.

• No problem for women to get education all the way to college, and to continue to work. They just need to wear the hijab (like in Qatar or Iran). No need to wear a burqa. The Taliban insist, “all women’s rights will be guaranteed within the limits of Islamic law.”
• The Islamic Emirate “does not threaten anyone” and will not treat anyone as enemies. Crucially, revenge – an essential plank of the Pashtunwali code – will be abandoned, and that’s unprecedented. There will be a general amnesty – including people who worked for the former NATO-aligned system. Translators, for instance, won’t be harassed, and don’t need to leave the country.
• Security of foreign embassies and international organizations “is a priority.” Taliban special security forces will protect both those leaving Afghanistan and those who remain.
• A strong inclusive Islamic government will be formed. “Inclusive” is code for the participation of women and Shi’ites.
• Foreign media will continue to work undisturbed. The Taliban government will allow public criticism and debate. But “freedom of speech in Afghanistan must be in line with Islamic values.”
• The Islamic Emirate of Taliban wants recognition from the “international community” – code for NATO. The overwhelming majority of Eurasia and the Global South will recognize it anyway. It’s essential to note, for example, the closer integration of the expanding SCO – Iran is about to become a full member, Afghanistan is an observer – with ASEAN: the absolute majority of Asia will not shun the Taliban.

For the record, they also stated that the Taliban took all of Afghanistan in only 11 days: that’s pretty accurate. They stressed “very good relations with Pakistan, Russia and China.” Yet the Taliban don’t have formal allies and are not part of any military-political bloc. They definitely “won’t allow Afghanistan to become a safe haven for international terrorists”. That’s code for ISIS/Daesh.

On the key issue of opium/heroin: the Taliban will ban their production. So, for all practical purposes, the CIA heroin rat line is dead.

As eyebrow raising as these statements may be, the Taliban did not even get into detail on economic/infrastructure development deals – as they will need a lot of new industries, new jobs and improved Eurasian-wide trade relations. That will be announced later.

The go-to Russian guy

Sharp US observers are remarking, half in jest, that the Taliban in only one sitting answered more real questions from US media than POTUS since January.

What this first press conference reveals is how the Taliban are fast absorbing essential P.R. and media lessons from Moscow and Beijing, emphasizing ethnic harmony, the role of women, the role of diplomacy, and deftly defusing in a single move all the hysteria raging across NATOstan.

The next bombshell step in the P.R. wars will be to cut off the lethal, evidence-free Taliban-9/11 connection; afterwards the “terrorist organization” label will disappear, and the Taliban as a political movement will be fully legitimized.

Moscow and Beijing are meticulously stage-managing the Taliban reinsertion in regional and global geopolitics. This means that ultimately the SCO is stage-managing the whole process, applying a consensus reached after a series of ministerial and leaders meetings, leading to a very important summit next month in Dushanbe.

The key player the Taliban are talking to is Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s special presidential envoy for Afghanistan. In yet another debunking of NATOstan narrative, Kabulov confirmed, for instance, “we see no direct threat to our allies in Central Asia. There are no facts proving otherwise.”

The Beltway will be stunned to learn that Zabulov has also revealed,  “we have long been in talks with the Taliban on the prospects for development after their capture of power and they have repeatedly confirmed that they have no extraterritorial ambition, they learned the lessons of 2000.”  These contacts were established “over the past 7 years.”

Zabulov reveals plenty of nuggets when it comes to Taliban diplomacy:

“If we compare the negotiability of colleagues and partners, the Taliban have long seemed to me much more negotiable than the puppet Kabul government. We proceed from the premise that the agreements must be implemented. So far, with regard to the security of the embassy and the security of our allies in Central Asia, the Taliban have respected the agreements.”

Faithful to its adherence to international law, and not the “rules-based international order”, Moscow is always keen to emphasize the responsibility of the UN Security Council:

“We must make sure that the new government is ready to behave conditionally, as we say, in a civilized manner. That’s when this point of view becomes common to all, then the procedure [of removing the qualification of the Taliban as a terrorist organization] will begin.”

So while the US/EU/NATO flee Kabul in spasms of self-inflicted panic, Moscow practices – what else – diplomacy. Zabulov:

“That we have prepared the ground for a conversation with the new government in Afghanistan in advance is an asset of Russian foreign policy.”

Dmitry Zhirnov, Russia’s ambassador to Afghanistan, is working overtime with the Taliban. He met a senior Taliban security official yesterday. The meeting was “positive, constructive…The Taliban movement has the most friendly; the best policy towards Russia… He arrived alone in one vehicle, with no guards.”

Both Moscow and Beijing have no illusions that the West is already deploying Hybrid War tactics to discredit and destabilize a government that isn’t even formed and hasn’t even started working. No wonder Chinese media is describing Washington as a “strategic rogue.”

What matters is that Russia-China are way ahead of the curve, cultivating parallel inside tracks of diplomatic dialogue with the Taliban. It’s always crucial to remember that Russia harbors 20 million Muslims, and China at least 35 million. These will be called to support the immense project of Afghan reconstruction – and full Eurasia reintegration.

The Chinese saw it coming

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi saw it coming weeks ago. And that explains the meeting in Tianjin in late July, when he hosted a high-level Taliban delegation, led by Mullah Baradar, de facto conferring them total political legitimacy. Beijing already knew the Saigon moment was inevitable. Thus the statement stressing China expected to “play an important role in the process of peaceful reconciliation and reconstruction in Afghanistan”.

What this means in practice is China will be a partner of Afghanistan on infrastructure investment, via Pakistan, incorporating it into an expanded China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) bound to diversify connectivity channels with Central Asia. The New Silk Road corridor from Xinjiang to the port of Gwadar in the Arabian Sea will branch out: the first graphic illustration is Chinese construction of the ultra-strategic Peshawar-Kabul highway.

The Chinese are also building a major road across the geologically spectacular, deserted Wakhan corridor from western Xinjiang all the way to Badakhshan province, which incidentally, is now under total Taliban control.

The trade off is quite straightforward: the Taliban should allow no safe haven for the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), and no interference in Xinjiang.

The overall trade/security combo looks like a certified win-win. And we’re not even talking about future deals allowing China to exploit Afghanistan’s immense mineral wealth.

Once again, the Big Picture reads like the Russia-China double helix, connected to all the “stans” as well as Pakistan, drawing a comprehensive game plan/road map for Afghanistan. In their multiple contacts with both Russians and Chinese, the Taliban seem to have totally understood how to profit from their role in the New Great Game.

The extended New Axis of Evil

Imperial Hybrid War tactics to counteract the scenario are inevitable. Take the first proclamation of a Northern Alliance “resistance”, in theory led by Ahmad Masoud, the son of the legendary Lion of the Panjshir killed by al-Qaeda two days before 9/11.

I met Masoud father – an icon. Afghan insider info on Masoud son is not exactly flattering. Yet he’s already a darling of woke Europeans, complete with a glamour pose for AFP, an impromptu visit in the Panjshir by professional philosopher swindler Bernard-Henri Levy, and the release of a manifesto of sorts published in several European newspapers, exhibiting all the catchphrases: “tyranny”, “slavery”, “vendetta”, “martyred nation”, “Kabul screams”, “nation in chains”, etc.

The whole set up smells like a “son of Shah” [of Iran] gambit. Masoud son and his mini-militia are completely surrounded in the Panjshir mountains and can’t be de facto effective even when it comes to regimenting the under 25s, two-thirds of the Afghan population, whose main worry is to find real jobs in a nascent real economy.

Woke NATOstan “analyses” of Taliban Afghanistan don’t even qualify as irrelevant, insisting that Afghanistan is not strategic and even lost its tactical importance for NATO. It’s a sorry spectacle illustrating how Europe is hopelessly behind the curve, drenched in trademark neo-colonialism of the White Man’s Burden variety as it dismisses a land dominated by clans and tribes.

Expect China to be one of the first powers to formally recognize the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, alongside Turkey and, later on, Russia. I have already alluded to the coming of a New Axis of Evil: Pakistan-Taliban-China. The axis will inevitably be extended to Russia-Iran. So what? Ask Mullah Baradar: he couldn’t care less.

*

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

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from OneWorld

Afghanistan’s “Color Revolution”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, August 18, 2021

The formation of a US sponsored interim regime should come as no surprise. US withdrawal from Afghanistan has been  the object of extensive negotiations between Washington and the Taliban. An earlier deal was signed in Doha in late February 2020 during the Trump administration.

Video: Does the Virus Exist? Has SARS-CoV-2 Been Isolated? Interview with Christine Massey

By Christine Massey and Prof Michel Chossudovsky, August 18, 2021

The Chinese authorities announced on January 7, 2020 that they had isolated and identified “a new type of virus”.  Then on the 28th of January 2020, the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that the novela corona virus had been isolated.

Six Things You Need to Know About Afghanistan and the Taliban

By Marc Vandepitte, August 18, 2021

The story starts in 1979. Afghanistan had a left-wing government, which of course was not to the liking of the US. Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s adviser, devised the plan to arm and train jihadists – then still called mujahideen – in Afghanistan. The aim was to provoke a Soviet invasion, in order to saddle Moscow with a Vietnam-like scenario.

1,135,579 Injuries 1,559 Dead in the UK Following COVID-19 Injections According to UK Government

By Brian Shilhavy, August 18, 2021

The report covers data collected from December 9, 2020, through August 4, 2021, for the three experimental COVID “vaccines” currently in use in the U.K. from Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Moderna.

The Vaccine Offers No Protection against the Virus: COVID Will Prevail as Long as the Known Cures Are Against Protocol

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, August 18, 2021

For the entirety of the time that the “pandemic” has been upon us, the official protocol enforced by CDC, NIH, FDA, and WHO has prevented known preventatives and cures—HCQ and Ivermectin—from being used to treat patients. 

Afghanistan: A New Pivot in the Greater Middle East?

By Peter Koenig and GEOFOR, August 18, 2021

The withdrawal was decided long before Biden took office. Pressure for disengaging from the US longest war – about 20 years – from Congress and the public has been building up steadily, but ever increasingly since Obama’s promise early on in his second term to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan.

Is The Sun, Rather than CO2, Behind Global Warming?

By Abdel Jabber, August 18, 2021

The peer-reviewed paper, produced by a team of almost two dozen scientists from around the world, concluded that previous studies did not adequately consider the role of solar energy in explaining increased temperatures.

Vax or Jail? The Dilemma Facing Some Americans

By Hannah Cox, August 18, 2021

The 21-year-old was sentenced to two years probation for fentanyl possession by Judge Christopher Wagner of Hamilton County, Ohio on August 4, but his sentence came with a twist: he was ordered to get a COVID vaccine as a condition of his probation.

Kabul Has Fallen – But Don’t Blame Biden

By Rep. Ron Paul, August 18, 2021

The US war on Afghanistan was not lost yesterday in Kabul. It was lost the moment it shifted from a limited mission to apprehend those who planned the attack on 9/11 to an exercise in regime change and nation-building.

In the Tradition of U.S. Puppets, When They Finally Get Kicked Out, They Steal as Much of the Country’s Treasure as They Can

By Jeremy Kuzmarov, August 18, 2021

Ghani’s ignominious departure resembles that of another deposed U.S. client, Nguyen Van Thieu, who according to the New York Times, tried to smuggle $73 million worth of gold bullions out of South Vietnam in April 1975 after Vietnam had been liberated by the communist forces.

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

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

***

Daily efforts are continuing aimed at the overthrow of the recently elected administration of President Pedro Castillo of Peru.

Castillo, a member of the Free Peru Party, a socialist organization which grew out of the popular struggles of workers and farmers largely based in the rural areas of this South American state, won the national presidential elections during July.

The president is a former elementary school teacher, union leader and is a new participant in electoral politics in the often-volatile social atmosphere prevailing in Peru for several decades. Over the last five years, Peru has had the same number of presidents who departed due to impeachments and resignations.

A cabinet composed of progressives and socialists has to be approved by the legislative Congress of the Republic which is dominated by right-wing elements. There have already been demonstrations in the capital of Lima demanding the ouster of Castillo and his administration. The national currency, the Sol, has lost value as a direct result of the right-wing opposition allied with international finance capital committed to maintaining Peru and other South American and regional states under the domination of Washington and Wall Street.

On August 17, Foreign Minister Hector Bajar, 85, turned in his resignation after the conservative press backed by the western corporate media launched a campaign citing comments he made during a lecture given long before the election of Castillo and the taking of office by Free Peru. Bajar, a longtime activist and socialist theoretician, joined the revolutionary movement in Peru during the 1960s.

Bajar was a leading member of the National Liberation Army (ELN) which waged a political and armed struggle against the neo-colonial regime of the period. He was arrested and spent five years in prison stemming from his guerilla activities.

In 1968, after a military seizure of power by General Juan Velasco Alvarado, Bajar was granted amnesty and asked to join the regime of what was called the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces. The coup in 1968 was motivated by the repressive and corrupt policies of President Fernando Belaunde. After being deployed to the rural areas where the poverty and deprivation of the peasants and farmers were revealed to members of the military, they pressured the leadership of the armed forces to seize power. Many believe that this coup was carried out in an effort to preempt a people’s revolution in the country. Although many ELN members were killed, arrested and forced into exile during the early to mid-1960s, the objective conditions remained ripe for widespread unrest.

Bajar was assigned to work on land reform in Peru after being released from detention. The Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces held power until 1975. Bajar would work in subsequent years as a writer, professor and community organizer.

In a videotaped lecture before a left-wing audience dated during 2020, which aired on Peru’s Panorama television program on August 15, Bajar asserted that: “I’m convinced, although I can’t prove it, that the Shining Path was in large part created by the CIA and (other) intelligence services.” Shining Path was a guerilla movement in Peru during the 1980s and early 1990s. A counter-insurgency campaign against the rebels by the military led to the deaths of 70,000 people. Bajar linked the supposed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation to the Peruvian Navy, which immediately responded demanding his resignation.

An article published by Reuters press agency said of the political crisis in Peru:

“The foreign minister’s departure is likely to add more political uncertainty to an administration already navigating a highly volatile and polarized first few weeks that saw the country’s sol currency fall to record lows against the dollar. Castillo, a member of a Marxist-Leninist party, has come under fire for naming a Cabinet that critics say is filled with fringe and inexperienced ministers. His backers say the Cabinet represents Peru’s marginalized masses.”

Such assessments are rife within the western-based corporate media. Although Bajar was pressured to resign for criticizing the Shining Path and the Navy, other reports have sought to link Prime Minister Guido Bellido to the same self-proclaimed Maoist grouping which operated under the banner of the Communist Party of Peru—Sandero Luminoso. An article published by the Wall Street Journal recently made claims that Sandero Luminoso had carried out killings recently inside of Peru leaving pamphlets at the scene calling for a boycott of the elections which brought Free Peru to power.

Regional Dimensions of the Political Struggle in Peru

These attacks on the government of President Castillo are following a similar pattern utilized repeatedly throughout Latin America. In the Caribbean, the Republic of Cuba has been under a United States blockade for more than six decades.

An attempt to destabilize the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) government on July 11 through the instigation of counter-revolutionary demonstrations and violence against the people failed to gain any traction among the masses. Thousands of PCC cadres and members of mass units of the Revolution came out into the streets in defense of the government of President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez.

Corporate and governmental media outlets in the U.S. immediately began to publish articles accusing the Cuban government of ruthlessly suppressing the demonstrations which the White House said were legitimate representations of the people. The administration of President Joe Biden, which has not rolled back additional sanctions imposed on Cuba by its predecessor, Donald Trump, and instead implemented new punitive measures against the military apparatus of the country.

In Venezuela, the Bolivarian Republic government led by President Nicolas Maduro, has been the target of numerous coup attempts engineered by the CIA and the State Department. The Trump administration recognized Juan Guido, a largely unknown political figure, as the “legitimate” head-of-state in Venezuela. The Biden administration has not lifted any of the sanctions against Caracas and still recognizes Guido as the person they are promoting to displace the revolutionary government.

Bolivia has voted back into office the Movement for Socialism which was overthrown by the military in 2019. Since taking office, Bolivian President Luis Arce has withdrawn from the so-called Lima Group established at the aegis of imperialism aimed at the illegal overthrow of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

There was much speculation that former Foreign Minister Hector Bejar would totally disassociate Peru from the counter-revolutionary Lima Grouping. President Castillo must appoint another foreign minister while awaiting the approval of the Congress of the Republic where Free Peru and its allies do not have a majority.

Revolutionary Legacy in Peru Remains Relevant

Peru is a deeply exploited and impoverished state in South America which historically has produced tremendous wealth for the world capitalist system. The country is well-endowed with mineral resources which include gold, copper, silver, lead, zinc as well as petroleum.

The struggle for genuine democracy and socialism has been waged for many decades. The Marxist theorist and co-founder of the Socialist and Communist Parties during the 1920s, Jose Carlos Mariategui La Chira, wrote extensively on the Peruvian situation within the context of the global crisis of capitalism and imperialism.

In a series of lectures entitled “History of the World Crisis” Mariategui outlines what he perceived as the central issues facing the working class in Peru. The first lecture was called “The World Crisis and the Peruvian Proletariat” delivered to the Peruvian Student Federation on June 15, 1923, Mariategui emphasizes:

“In this great contemporary crisis, the proletariat is not a spectator; it is an actor. In it the fate of the world proletariat is to be resolved. From it will emerge — according to all odds and predictions — the proletarian civilization, the socialist civilization, destined to succeed the declining, decadent, moribund capitalist, individualist, and bourgeois civilization. The proletariat needs, now more than ever, to know what happens in the world. It cannot know it by way of the fragmented, occasional, homeopathic reports of the daily cable — badly translated, and worse written, in most instances — coming always from reactionary agencies charged with discrediting the Revolution’s parties, organizations, and men (people), and of discouraging and disorienting the world proletariat…. We are witnessing the disintegration, the agony of a worn-out, senile, decrepit society, and, at the same time, we are witnessing the slow and restless gestation, the formation, the creation, of the new society. All men (humanity), for whom a sincere ideological filiation binds to the new society and separates us from the old, must profoundly fix our gaze on this, agitated and intense, transcendental period in human history.”

Today throughout South America, Central America and the Caribbean this struggle against imperialism and for socialist transformation continues. Anti-imperialists throughout the region and in North America have a role to play in fostering solidarity with the oppressed and struggling peoples of the world.

*

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

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***

.

1. Monstrous covenant with jihadis

The story starts in 1979. Afghanistan had a left-wing government, which of course was not to the liking of the US. Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s adviser, devised the plan to arm and train jihadists – then still called mujahideen – in Afghanistan. The aim was to provoke a Soviet invasion, in order to saddle Moscow with a Vietnam-like scenario.

Carter followed his advice and provided the mujahideen the necessary help. The plan worked. The government in Kabul ran into difficulties and asked the Kremlin for help. The Afghan quagmire forced the Soviet Union to remain in the Central Asian country for ten years.

During that period, the CIA pumped $2 billion in aid, weapons, and logistical support to the mujahideen. They were even supplied with the infamous Stinger missiles with which they could shoot down Soviet planes and helicopters. Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo III is a Hollywood depiction of this collaboration. The movie was dedicated to “the brave Mujahideen fighters”.

As long as the Soviet troops remained in the country, the government in Kabul could hold out. However, in 1989 Gorbachev decided to end their military aid. Once the Soviet troops left the country, civil war broke out. The best organized and most brutal group, the Taliban, eventually prevailed and took power in 1996.

2. Creation of Al Qaeda

The most prominent figure to emerge during that period is Osama bin Laden. In 1988, he founded Al Qaeda, a fundamentalist and ruthless terrorist group. Through the intelligence service of Pakistan [in liaison with the CIA], he could count on a lot of support from the US. In exchange for that aid, Al Qaeda provided a number of services to the US and its Western allies.

During the “civil war” in Yugoslavia (1992-1995), the Pentagon flew thousands of Al Qaeda fighters into Bosnia to support the Muslims there. During the war against Yugoslavia in 1999, Al Qaeda fought side by side with the KLA terrorists (the Kosovo Liberation Army was fighting for the separation of Kosovo from Yugoslavia and for a Greater Albania), covered in the air by NATO. Al Qaeda fighters have also popped up in Chechnya, Xinjiang (where the Uighurs live), Macedonia, and in many other countries in the region and far beyond.[i]

The cooperation between the Bush administration and Osama bin Laden is brought to light in Michael Moore’s documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.

3. It’s the oil stupid!

There are promising oil and gas reserves around the Caspian Sea. But to transport these resources to the West there are only three possibilities: through Russia, through Iran, or through Afghanistan.

The US obviously won’t give it to the Russians and since the fall of the Shah in 1979, Washington has lost its influence in Iran. So, there’s only one option left: Afghanistan. At the end of 1994, in full civil war, the US thought that  the Taliban had the best assets to ‘stabilize’ the country. That was a necessity for the construction of the pipeline. According to the CIA, the Taliban were seen as “a possible tool in yet another replay of the Great Game – the race for energy riches in Central Asia.”

The US became the main sponsor of this new rogue regime. It did not matter that the Taliban at that time were the most virulent violators of human rights in the world. According to an American diplomat, the Taliban would “probably develop like the Saudis did. There will be Aramco [consortium of oil companies controlling Saudi oil], pipelines, an emir, no parliament, and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that.”

4. Taliban fail to deliver

Initially, the Taliban achieved one military success after another, but ultimately failed to conquer the entire country. The hoped-for stabilization – necessary for the pipeline – did not materialize. The US then changed strategy and sought a reconciliation of all warring parties.

Washington demanded that the Taliban enter into talks with the Northern Alliance to form a coalition government. The talks that lasted until the end of July 2001 failed. The US warned it wouldn’t stop there: “Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs” was the message from US representatives to the Taliban at the end of July.

The Taliban did not give in. The bombing started in October. A little later, it leaked that the plans for this had already been on President Bush’s desk two days before September 11. In the Washington Post of December 19, 2000, Professor Starr wrote that the US “has quietly begun to align itself with those in the Russian government calling for military action against Afghanistan and has toyed with the idea of a new raid to wipe out Osama bin Laden.”

In late June 2001, more than two months before the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, Indiareacts.com magazine reported that “India and Iran will ‘facilitate’ US and Russian plans for ‘limited military action’ against the Taliban if the contemplated tough new economic sanctions don’t bend Afghanistan’s fundamentalist regime.”

5. President Pipeline

The attacks on September 11 in any case were the perfect excuse for Washington to invade Afghanistan and oust the Taliban from power. Thus, the plans for the pipeline could be realized for the time being.

Gore Vidal, a leading US columnist, put it very bluntly:

“As it proved, the conquest of Afghanistan had nothing to do with Osama. He was simply a pretext for replacing the Taliban with a relatively stable government that would allow Union Oil of California to lay its pipeline for the profit of, among others, the Cheney-Bush junta.”

The facts on the ground showed us this was true. On December 22, 2021, Hamed Karzai became Afghan Prime Minister. He was a CIA confidant and had previously worked as a counselor at Unocal. Unocal was a very large American petroleum company that long has had plans for a pipeline through Afghanistan.

Nine days later, another of this company’s advisers, Zalmay Khalilzad, was appointed by Bush as special envoy to Afghanistan. Khalilzad had in the past participated in talks with Taliban officials about the possibility of building gas and oil pipelines. He had urged the Clinton administration to take a softer line on the Taliban.

Both men were fulfilling their duties properly. On 30 May 2002, the BBC reported that Karzai had reached an agreement with his Pakistani and Turkmen counterpart for a pipeline from Turkmenistan to a port in Pakistan, across Afghanistan.

A few weeks earlier, Business Week commented on the evolution in the region as follows:

“American soldiers, oilmen, and diplomats are rapidly getting to know this remote corner of the world, the old underbelly of the Soviet Union and a region that’s been almost untouched by Western armies since the time of Alexander the Great. The game the Americans are playing has some of the highest stakes going. What they are attempting is nothing less than the biggest carve-out of a new U.S. sphere of influence since the U.S. became engaged in the Mideast 50 years ago.”

It didn’t work out as planned. The Taliban were defeated, but not knocked out. They also had a much higher morale than the government army, which could only hold out thanks to NATO air cover and other logistical support. When Biden decided to withdraw that support a few weeks ago, it collapsed like a house of cards.

6. Cost and ‘results’ of the war

The longest war in US history has cost more than $2,000 billion, according to the New York Times. That is 100 billion dollars annually, almost 20 times as much as the entire government budget of the Afghan government.

Despite the huge amounts of aid, the results are staggering. Almost half of the population today lives in poverty. Infant mortality is among the highest in the world and life expectancy among the lowest.

In the period before the war, opium cultivation was almost completely eradicated. Today, Afghanistan supplies 80 percent of the world’s heroin. The war resulted in 5.5 million refugees. That number is now likely to rise sharply.

The cost of human life is high. 47,000 civilians, 66,000 Afghan soldiers and policemen, and 51,000 Taliban and other rebels have been killed in the past 20 years. On the Western side, nearly 4,000 US soldiers and 1,100 soldiers from other NATO countries died. [official figures, do not include the deaths of civilians].

After twenty years of occupation, we are back to square one. A Belgian TV journalist describes it as “a catastrophe, a failure of the Western model to try to change a country like Afghanistan.”

*

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Notes

[i] Chossudovsky M., War and Globalisation. The Truth Behind September 11, Ontario 2002; Howard S., ‘The Afghan Connection: Islamic Extremism in Central Asia’ in National Security Studies Quarterly Volume VI, nr. 3 (Summer 2000); Rashid A., L’ombre des Taliban, Paris 2001.

Featured image is from New Eastern Outlook

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

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

***

“We’ve reached the point where state actors can penetrate rectums and vaginas, where judges can order forced catheterizations, and where police and medical personnel can perform scans, enemas and colonoscopies without the suspect’s consent. And these procedures aren’t to nab kingpins or cartels, but people who at worst are hiding an amount of drugs that can fit into a body cavity. In most of these cases, they were suspected only of possession or ingestion. Many of them were innocent… But these tactics aren’t about getting drugs off the street… These tactics are instead about degrading and humiliating a class of people that politicians and law enforcement have deemed the enemy.”—Radley Balko, The Washington Post

Freedom is never free.

There is always a price—always a sacrifice—that must be made in order to safeguard one’s freedoms.

Where that transaction becomes more complicated is when one has to balance the rights of the individual with the needs of the community.

Philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau envisioned the social contract between the individual and a nation’s rulers as a means of finding that balance. Invariably, however, those in power grow greedy, and what was intended to be a symbiotic relationship with both sides benefitting inevitably turns into a parasitic one, with a clear winner and a clear loser.

We have seen this vicious cycle play out over and over again throughout the nation’s history.

Just look at this COVID-19 pandemic: the whole sorry mess has been so overtly politicized, propagandized, and used to expand the government’s powers (and Corporate America’s bank balance) that it’s difficult at times to distinguish between what may be legitimate health concerns and government power grabs.

After all, the government has a history of shamelessly exploiting national emergencies for its own nefarious purposes. Terrorist attacks, mass shootings, civil unrest, economic instability, pandemics, natural disasters: the government has been taking advantage of such crises for years now in order to gain greater power over an unsuspecting and largely gullible populace.

This COVID-19 pandemic is no different.

Yet be warned: we will all lose if this pandemic becomes a showdown between COVID-19 vaccine mandates and the right to bodily integrity.

It doesn’t matter what your trigger issue is—whether it’s vaccines, abortion, crime, religion, immigration, terrorism or some other overtly politicized touchstone used by politicians as a rallying cry for votes—we should all be concerned when governments and businesses (i.e., the Corporate State) join forces to compel individuals to sacrifice their right to bodily integrity (which goes hand in hand with the right to conscience and religious freedom) on the altar of so-called safety and national security.

That’s exactly what’s unfolding right now, with public and private employers using the threat of termination to force employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Unfortunately, legal protections in this area are limited.

While the Americans with Disabilities Act protects those who can prove they have medical conditions that make receiving a vaccination dangerous, employees must be able to prove they have a sensitivity to vaccines.

Beyond that, employees with a religious objection to the vaccine mandate can try to request an exemption, but even those who succeed in gaining an exemption to a vaccine mandate may have to submit to routine COVID testing and mask requirements, especially if their job involves contact with other individuals.

Under the First Amendment and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, individuals have a right of conscience and/or religious freedom to ask that their sincere religious beliefs against receiving vaccinations be accommodated. To this end, The Rutherford Institute has issued guidance and an in-depth fact sheet and model letter for those seeking a religious exemption to a COVID-19 vaccine mandate in the workplace. The Rutherford Institute’s policy paper, “Know Your Rights: How To Request a Religious Accommodation for COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates in the Workplace,” goes into the details of how and why and in which forums one can request such accommodation, but there is no win-win scenario.

As with all power plays of this kind, the ramifications of empowering the government and its corporate partners to force individuals to choose between individual liberty and economic survival during a so-called state of “emergency” can lead to terrifying results.

At a minimum, it’s a slippery slope that justifies all manner of violations in the name of national security, the interest of the state and the so-called greater good.

If the government—be it the President, Congress, the courts or any federal, state or local agent or agency—can willfully disregard the rights of any particular person or group of persons, then that person becomes less than a citizen, less than human, less than deserving of respect, dignity, civility and bodily integrity. He or she becomes an “it,” a faceless number that can be tallied and tracked, a quantifiable mass of cells that can be discarded without conscience, an expendable cost that can be written off without a second thought, or an animal that can be bought, sold, branded, chained, caged, bred, neutered and euthanized at will.

That’s exactly where we find ourselves now: caught in the crosshairs of a showdown between the rights of the individual and the so-called “emergency” state.

All of those freedoms we cherish—the ones enshrined in the Constitution, the ones that affirm our right to free speech and assembly, due process, privacy, bodily integrity, the right to not have police seize our property without a warrant, or search and detain us without probable cause—amount to nothing when the government and its agents are allowed to disregard those prohibitions on government overreach at will.

This is the grim reality of life in the American police state.

Our so-called rights have been reduced to technicalities in the face of the government’s ongoing power grabs.

Yet those who founded this country believed that what we conceive of as our rights were given to us by God—we are created equal, according to the nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence—and that government cannot create nor can it extinguish our God-given rights. To do so would be to anoint the government with god-like powers and elevate it above the citizenry.

And that, in a nutshell, is what happens when government officials are allowed to determine who is deserving of constitutional rights and who should be stripped of those rights for whatever reason may be justified by the courts and the legislatures.

In this way, concerns about COVID-19 mandates and bodily integrity are part of a much larger debate over the ongoing power struggle between the citizenry and the government over our property “interest” in our bodies. For instance, who should get to decide how “we the people” care for our bodies? Are we masters over our most private of domains, our bodies? Or are we merely serfs who must answer to an overlord that gets the final say over whether and how we live or die?

This debate over bodily integrity covers broad territory, ranging from abortion and euthanasia to forced blood draws, biometric surveillance and basic healthcare.

Forced vaccinations are just the tip of the iceberg.

Forced vaccinations, forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws, forced breath-alcohol tests, forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, forced inclusion in biometric databases: these are just a few ways in which Americans continue to be reminded that we have no control over what happens to our bodies during an encounter with government officials.

Consider the case of Mitchell vs. Wisconsin in which the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision found nothing wrong when police officers read an unconscious man his rights and then proceeded to forcibly and warrantlessly draw his blood while he was still unconscious in order to determine if he could be charged with a DUI.

To sanction this forced blood draw, the cops and the courts hitched their wagon to state “implied consent” laws (all of the states have them), which suggest that merely driving on a state-owned road implies that a person has consented to police sobriety tests, breathalyzers and blood draws.

More than half of the states (29 states) allow police to do warrantless, forced blood draws on unconscious individuals whom they suspect of driving while intoxicated.

Seven state appeals courts have declared these warrantless blood draws when carried out on unconscious suspects are unconstitutional. Courts in seven other states have found that implied consent laws run afoul of the Fourth Amendment. And yet seven other states (including Wisconsin) have ruled that implied consent laws provide police with a free pass when it comes to the Fourth Amendment and forced blood draws.

Read the writing on the wall, and you’ll see how little remains of our right to bodily integrity in the face of the government’s steady assaults on the Fourth Amendment.

Our freedoms—especially the Fourth Amendment—continue to be strangulated by a prevailing view among government bureaucrats that they have the right to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.

Worse, on a daily basis, Americans are being made to relinquish the most intimate details of who we are—our biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)—in order to clear the nearly insurmountable hurdle that increasingly defines life in the United States: we are now guilty until proven innocent.

Such is life in America today that individuals are being threatened with arrest and carted off to jail for the least hint of noncompliance, homes are being raided by militarized SWAT teams under the slightest pretext, property is being seized on the slightest hint of suspicious activity, and roadside police stops have devolved into government-sanctioned exercises in humiliation and degradation with a complete disregard for privacy and human dignity.

While forced searches—of one’s person and property—may span a broad spectrum of methods and scenarios, the common denominator remains the same: a complete disregard for the dignity and rights of the citizenry.

Unfortunately, the indignities being heaped upon us by the architects and agents of the American police state—whether or not we’ve done anything wrong—are just a foretaste of what is to come.

The government doesn’t need to tie you to a gurney and forcibly take your blood or strip you naked by the side of the road in order to render you helpless. As this showdown over COVID-19 vaccine mandates makes clear, the government has other methods—less subtle perhaps but equally devastating—of stripping you of your independence, robbing you of your dignity, and undermining your rights.

With every court ruling that allows the government to operate above the rule of law, every piece of legislation that limits our freedoms, and every act of government wrongdoing that goes unpunished, we’re slowly being conditioned to a society in which we have little real control over our bodies or our lives.

You may not realize it yet, but you are not free.

If you believe otherwise, it is only because you have made no real attempt to exercise your freedoms.

Had you attempted to exercise your freedoms before now by questioning a police officer’s authority, challenging an unjust tax or fine, protesting the government’s endless wars, defending your right to privacy against the intrusion of surveillance cameras, or any other effort that challenges the government’s power grabs and the generally lopsided status quo, you would have already learned the hard way that the American Police State has no appetite for freedom and it does not tolerate resistance.

This is called authoritarianism, a.k.a. totalitarianism, a.k.a. oppression.

As Glenn Greenwald notes for the Guardian:

Oppression is designed to compel obedience and submission to authority. Those who voluntarily put themselves in that state – by believing that their institutions of authority are just and good and should be followed rather than subverted – render oppression redundant, unnecessary. Of course people who think and behave this way encounter no oppression. That’s their reward for good, submissive behavior. They are left alone by institutions of power because they comport with the desired behavior of complacency and obedience without further compulsion. But the fact that good, obedient citizens do not themselves perceive oppression does not mean that oppression does not exist.

Get ready to stand your ground or run for your life.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, our government “of the people, by the people and for the people” has been transformed into a greedy pack of wolves that is on the hunt.

“We the people” are the prey.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president The Rutherford Institute. His books Battlefield America: The War on the American People and A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State are available at www.amazon.com. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

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***

Below is  the executive summary of an important study conducted by AMLD

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***

Climate scientist Dr. Ronan Connolly, Dr. Willie Soon and 21 other scientists claim the conclusions of the latest “code red” IPCC climate report, and the certainty with which those conclusions are expressed, are dependent on the IPCC authors’ narrow choice of datasets.

The scientists assert that the inclusion of additional credible data sets would have led to very different conclusions about the alleged threat of anthropogenic global warming.

According to Alex Newman reporting in the Epoch Times

“The sun and not human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) may be the main cause of warmer temperatures in recent decades, according to a new study with findings that sharply contradict the conclusions of the United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The peer-reviewed paper, produced by a team of almost two dozen scientists from around the world, concluded that previous studies did not adequately consider the role of solar energy in explaining increased temperatures.

The new study was released just as the UN released its sixth “Assessment Report,” known as AR6, that once again argued in favor of the view that man-kind’s emissions of CO2 were to blame for global warming. The report said human responsibility was “unequivocal.”

But the new study casts serious doubt on the hypothesis.

Calling the blaming of CO2 by the IPCC “premature,” the climate scientists and solar physicists argued in the new paper that the UN IPCC’s conclusions blaming human emissions were based on “narrow and incomplete data about the Sun’s total irradiance.”

Indeed, the global climate body appears to display deliberate and systemic bias in what views, studies, and data are included in its influential reports, multiple authors told The Epoch Times in a series of phone and video interviews.

“Depending on which published data and studies you use, you can show that all of the warming is caused by the sun, but the IPCC uses a different data set to come up with the opposite conclusion,” lead study author Ronan Connolly, Ph.D. told The Epoch Times in a video interview.

“In their insistence on forcing a so-called scientific consensus, the IPCC seems to have decided to consider only those data sets and studies that support their chosen narrative,” he added.  theepochtimes.com

The following is a statement released by the scientists.

Click here to view the full document.

The following is the abstract of the study;

How much has the Sun influenced Northern Hemisphere temperature trends? An ongoing debate

By Ronan Connolly, Willie Soon, Michael Connolly, Sallie Baliunas, Johan Berglund, C. John Butler, Rodolfo Gustavo Cionco, Ana G. Elias, Valery M. Fedorov, Hermann Harde, Gregory W. Henry, Douglas V. Hoyt, Ole Humlum, David R. Legates, Sebastian Lüning, Nicola Scafetta, Jan-Erik Solheim, László Szarka, Harry van Loon, Víctor M. Velasco Herrera, Richard C. Willson, Hong Yan (艳洪) and Weijia Zhang

In order to evaluate how much Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) has influenced Northern Hemisphere surface air temperature trends, it is important to have reliable estimates of both quantities. Sixteen different estimates of the changes in TSI since at least the 19th century were compiled from the literature. Half of these estimates are “low variability” and half are “high variability”. Meanwhile, five largely-independent methods for estimating Northern Hemisphere temperature trends were evaluated using: 1) only rural weather stations; 2) all available stations whether urban or rural (the standard approach); 3) only sea surface temperatures; 4) tree-ring widths as temperature proxies; 5) glacier length records as temperature proxies. The standard estimates which use urban as well as rural stations were somewhat anomalous as they implied a much greater warming in recent decades than the other estimates, suggesting that urbanization bias might still be a problem in current global temperature datasets – despite the conclusions of some earlier studies. Nonetheless, all five estimates confirm that it is currently warmer than the late 19th century, i.e., there has been some “global warming” since the 19th century. For each of the five estimates of Northern Hemisphere temperatures, the contribution from direct solar forcing for all sixteen estimates of TSI was evaluated using simple linear least-squares fitting. The role of human activity on recent warming was then calculated by fitting the residuals to the UN IPCC’s recommended “anthropogenic forcings” time series. For all five Northern Hemisphere temperature series, different TSI estimates suggest everything from no role for the Sun in recent decades (implying that recent global warming is mostly human-caused) to most of the recent global warming being due to changes in solar activity (that is, that recent global warming is mostly natural). It appears that previous studies (including the most recent IPCC reports) which had prematurely concluded the former, had done so because they failed to adequately consider all the relevant estimates of TSI and/or to satisfactorily address the uncertainties still associated with Northern Hemisphere temperature trend estimates. Therefore, several recommendations on how the scientific community can more satisfactorily resolve these issues are provided.

Read more: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1674-4527/21/6/131

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An accusation of data cherrypicking to conceal uncertainty and in effect orchestrate a pre-conceived conclusion in my opinion is very serious.

Accepting the IPCC’s climate warnings at face value without considering strenuous objections from well qualified scientists as to the quality of the procedures which led to those conclusions could lead to a catastrophic global misallocation of resources.

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First published on August 6, 20121

***

GEOFOR Interviews geopolitical analyst and World renowned economist Peter Koenig on the Biden administration’s decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan. According to Koenig, this is a smokescreen decision, it’s “not really a full departure. What these departures usually mean is purposefully creating chaos.”

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GEOFOR: What are the goals of the Biden Administration, so hastily withdrawing his troops from Afghanistan? What is the reason for this? Moreover, that last year, when it became known about the agreements of the Trump Administration with the Taliban, the Democrats raised a real storm of criticism against the possible withdrawal of troops from that country. Should this departure be considered as the withdrawal of the United States from the Greater Middle East?

Peter Koenig: The withdrawal was decided long before Biden took office. Pressure for disengaging from the US longest war – about 20 years – from Congress and the public has been building up steadily, but ever increasingly since Obama’s promise early on in his second term to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan. A promise he did not respect. Mr. Biden, Obama’s Vice-President at the time, had always tended to reduce the US engagement in Afghanistan. So, this can hardly be considered a “hasty” withdrawal.

There were many “storms” the Democrats raised against President Trump, including on troops withdrawal in Afghanistan – and most of those “storms” were, in fact, anti-Trump propaganda, strongly supported by the highly government (Trump opposition) subsidized mainstream media. You could say the same about Trump’s relation with China. In his election campaign, Biden put the perspective for a better relation with China on the table – nothing of the kind happened, so far. To the contrary, he follows the same hardline against China, as did Trump – especially in trade relations.

The US “departure” from Afghanistan is a planned “departure” – as was Syria – not really a full departure. What these departures usually mean is purposefully creating chaos in a country. We see this in Iraq in Syria and everywhere the US had either troops stationed and a war going on, or indirectly, where US had enormous influence on local politics – Egypt, Tunisia and others – when they “leave”, they leave an ongoing mess behind. Because instability is what makes a country weak, turns a country into a failed state – Lebanon is perhaps another example – and can be manipulated much easier from outside, without troops on the ground.

It is foreseeable that the same may happen in Afghanistan – or at least was planned for Afghanistan. Because Washington knows that Afghanistan offers perfect transit routes for the Chinese Belt and Road – which, as we know, the US despises.

And, therefore, no, the “departure” from Afghanistan should in no ways be considered a US withdrawal from the Middle East.

GEOFOR: Judging by how quickly the Taliban are taking control of the country’s territory and by the fact that they are already on the outskirts of Kabul, it is hardly appropriate to talk about the possibility of creating a transitional, compromise government. How do you see the situation in the region after the future regime change? Which international and regional players will fill in the vacuum that will have formed with the withdrawal of the US military and its allies?

PK: Yes, it looks like the Taliban will take over fast. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be in control – especially not in the long run. And especially since Afghanistan may become an important thoroughfare for China’s Belt and Road. Remember the Mujahedeens, created by the US Secret Services, to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan? Well, these Mujahedeens have become the Taliban.

The US is very much used to create and fund an opposition in a country and then “remote-control” them. That was done and is still being done in Iraq, where US troops allegedly left years ago.

What AP reported on June 25, 2021, points exactly into this direction.

“Roughly 650 U.S. troops are expected to remain in Afghanistan to provide security for diplomats after the main American military force completes its withdrawal, which is set to be largely done in the next two weeks, U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Thursday.

In addition, several hundred additional American forces will remain at the Kabul airport, potentially until September [2021], to assist Turkish troops providing security, as a temporary move until a more formal Turkey-led security operation is in place, the officials said. Overall, officials said the U.S. expects to have American and coalition military command, its leadership and most troops out by July Fourth [2021], or shortly after that, meeting an aspirational deadline that commanders developed months ago.

The officials were not authorized to discuss details of the withdrawal and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.”

Therefore, it’s not sure at all that the US will actually leave behind a vacuum. To the contrary, they will be less visible and will be able to direct the – maybe – emerging chaos from behind the scene. This is the usual “eternal war” practice of the Pentagon and its NATO sub-organization.

GEOFOR: Can the events in Afghanistan have a negative impact on the situation in neighboring countries? In this regard, we would like to note the recent speech of the representative of the Pakistani military in the Parliament, who warned lawmakers about the possibility of an increase in terrorist activity and outbreaks of separatism (in particular in Pakistani Baluchistan). Moreover, these negative phenomena were directly related to the achievements of the Taliban.

PK: At this point it is difficult to predict what impact US / NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan will have on the Region. The fear of the Pakistani military expressed in Parliament, that the Taliban will create unrest in Baluchistan, is, in my opinion, unfounded. There is no evidence that the Taliban were the initiators of terrorism and separatism in Pakistani Baluchistan.

Throughout this 20-year Washington-initiated war, the Taliban have never shown an expansionist ambition. This is true also for the Mujahideen war with the Soviets. Expansionism does not appear to be in the “genes” of the Afghan people. They would finally like to live in peace, an elusive peace that the west has, so far denied them.

To recall a bit of history, modern Afghanistan exists since 1919, when the country became “fully” independent of British rule. Actually, Afghanistan was never fully independent. Even though, they were officially no longer under British rule, the Brits were still very influential.

In 1973, the pro-Soviet Gen. Mohammed Daoud Khan overdrew the last king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, in a military coup. Although Khan modernized Afghanistan into a communist state, he was killed in 1978 in a so-called “communist coup”. The veracity of the true killers is still debatable.

In any case, Nur Mohammad Taraki, one of the founding members of the Afghan Communist Party, took control of the country as president, and signs a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union, which, of course goes against the grains of the Brits and the United States. In foresight and to prevent an emerging communist state in this pivotal piece of land in the Middle East, the US created the Mujahadeen guerilla movement that eventually fought the Soviet Union after their invasion in 1979 to defend Afghans right to self-determination.

GEOFOR: Recently, at a meeting with representatives of the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow, a delegation of the political wing of the Taliban, which is located in Qatar, tried in every possible way to convince their Russian counterparts that the Taliban has no intention to move beyond Afghanistan’s northern border, and does not represent a threat to the Central Asian republics. To what extent, in your opinion, this political wing is capable of controlling the actions of field commanders?

PK: Indeed, it is very plausible that the Taliban have no intentions to move beyond their borders, not in the north, nor anywhere else. As mentioned before, the Taliban – or the Afghan people – have never sought expansion into other countries’ territories.

What a modern, post-NATO Afghanistan needs is a coalition government of the different political factions within the Afghan people. They need a new Constitution that respects basic human rights, like giving equal rights to women, in education, politics and the workplace, as they once had under Soviet influence. That may make Afghanistan over time a truly independent and sovereign nation. That’s what the Afghan people deserve.

The Taliban may not want to give up on an Islamic state and convert into a western style “democracy”, as the recently failed negotiations in Doha indicated. But being an Islamic state does not prevent them from respecting human rights and gender equality, as was proven under Saddam Hussein in Iraq and now under Syria’s Bashar Hafez al-Assad.

Is the creation of a new sovereign and independent Afghanistan possible under the surveillance of the remnant US / NATO troops – and influence? – The UN, especially the Human Rights Commission, may have a special role to play in helping with a new Afghan coalition government and with drafting a new, Human Rights based Constitution that puts emphasis on gender equality.

It is possible and very likely and would geopolitically and economically be very beneficial that the new Afghanistan may join regional associations, for example, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a strong Eurasian political, economic, and security alliance, created in Shanghai, China, in June 2001.

SCO’s current membership is impressive, including China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, and more recently also India and Pakistan, two neighboring countries; with Iran, Malaysia and Mongolia in an SCO special status situation. The SCO has almost 50% of the world’s population and controls about 30% of the world’s GDP. Afghanistan would do well aspiring becoming a member of and being embraced by this powerful organization.

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This interview was originally published in THE GEOFOR. Reposted with the permission from THE GEOFOR. 

Click here to read the Russian version.

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.

Featured image: U.S. Army Sgt. Christian Cisineros takes a moment to speak with his interpreter March 17, 2009, while on a dismount patrol mission near Forward Operating Base Baylough in the Zabul Province of Afghanistan. Cisineros is assigned to  Company B, 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, U.S. Army Europe. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Adam Mancini/Released)

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***

Since the NIH, CDC, FDA, WHO and the presstitutes began mass marketing their Covid vaccine campaign a year and a half ago, they have been telling you that the vaccine is safe, bad reactions are “very rare,” the vaccine is 97.5% effective in its protection, and other outrageous lies.

The entirety of the Western world’s public health bureaucracies have not spoken a single word of truth.  The vaccine does not protect you.  To the contrary, it makes you ill.  

Adverse reactions are not “rare,” they are commonplace.

The vaccine offers no protection against the virus.

Reports from everywhere are that the vast majority of new Covid cases are among the fully vaccinated.  

The US, EU, and UK databases of adverse vaccine reactions show tens of thousands of deaths and over 5 million health injuries associated with the Covid vaccine. As the databases only capture between 1% and 10% of the adverse effects, the vaccines have done more harm than the Covid virus.

For the entirety of the time that the “pandemic” has been upon us, the official protocol enforced by CDC, NIH, FDA, and WHO has prevented known preventatives and cures—HCQ and Ivermectin—from being used to treat patients.  Eli Lilly has announced a new cure, but it has “been put on hold,” that is, blocked from usage.  Why has the medical establishment blocked treating Covid patients with known safe cures?

In clear words, the official medical protocol is entirely responsible for the Covid deaths. It was the lack of treatment, not the virus, that killed people.

Why were people not treated?  They were not treated because the absence of any known treatment is the sole legal basis for the use of an untested, unapproved, experimental “vaccine.”  The law is clear.  Unapproved vaccines cannot be used if there is a cure.  

Both known cures and preventatives—HCQ and Ivermectin—were blocked by the protocol established to guarantee mass inoculation with the “vaccine.” The protocol guaranteed billions in vaccine profits and sharply rising share prices of vaccine companies. The “pandemic” has created enormous riches for those running the show.

Profits prevailed over public health and still prevails over public health.

As information pours in that the vaccine does not protect but does harm, the low grade moron appointed Defense Secretary by the election thief has ordered all US military personnel to be inoculated by a date in September.  An intelligent US Navy officer has pointed out that this order, in view of the known evidence, is detrimental to the national security of the US as the vaccine is known to fail to protect but is guaranteed to cause large numbers of illnesses and deaths among the troops. See this.  

It seems that even the dumbshit US Secretary of Defense is in league with Big Pharma.  Little doubt he will be put on a pharmaceutical  company board and with his bonuses end up worth $100 million, good pay for a quota hire.

That is the way the American political system works.

Iceland, a small island country, has achieved a 95% fully vaccinated population, and Iceland, like Israel, which is also heavily vaccinated, is now undergoing a new virus pandemic. Where is vaccine immunity? Nowhere to be found.  According to the Iceland health authorities, 62% of those in intensive care are fully vaccinated.  80% of the most serious cases — those on ventilators — are fully vaccinated.  

As I have examined many times, did the vaccine give otherwise healthy people Covid?  Are these vaccine injuries? Does the vaccine, as distinguished experts say, train variants to escape the vaccine and the human immune system, thus producing variants unconstrained by vaccines?

Until these questions are answered by expert analysis and agreement, anyone who gives a Covid inoculation is committing a crime against the patient.  Any patient who accepts the vaccine is driven by fear and peer pressure and is putting both his life and lifetime health at risk. 

Americans and all peoples of the world who foolishly look to the US for leadership need to understand that the American health care system is dysfunctional.  Private medical practice is ceasing to exist. Obamacare and other legislated and liability factors are forcing doctors into becoming mere employees of massive “health care” organizations that protect themselves from liability by following the protocols laid down by NIH and CDC.  As NIH and CDC are in league with Big Pharma, the doctors are essentially following orders from the pharmaceutical companies. 

Independent doctors can still think and use their training and skill to find a way to help their patients.  But the establishment is determined to extend its control over the remaining independent doctors.  To control independent practices, the establishment uses the power to revoke medical licenses.  This power is now being used against doctors who actually treat and cure Covid patients.

We brainwashed Americans hear so much about how we have free medicine instead of socialized medicine like Europe.  This is supposed to make us feel superior.  But what Americans have is a health care system dominated by Big Pharma.  In America health care serves profits, not health care.

The trouble with the West is that once the aristocrats, who had a sense of honor, even the corrupt ones, were driven out of politics, we only have “dumbshits” and the basely corrupted.

Consider for example, the Australian Health Minister who announced that 24,000 students will be injected with the deadly Covid vaccine regardless of parental objection. 

The criminal’s name is Brad Hazzard. The criminal announced that the forced inoculation is “a golden opportunity” to become safe. See this. 

Here we have the hubris of evil. Hazzard is appropriately named.  He is a hazard to 24,000 young Australians.  It is a wonder that no one has decided that 24,000 Australian youths are worth more than a murderous health minister.

In New Zealand the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who from the look of her has an IQ of about 70, has put the entire country under lockdown because a single case of Covid, “likely the Delta variant,” was discovered in the city of Auckland.  

Large numbers of the most distinguished and high ranking scientists on earth have said that the vaccine, at best, is a failure.  Nothing can be done about the Delta variant. No amount of vaccination, lockdowns, mask mandates.  All are impotent. The Delta variant will run through the population. The only solution is cures.  Known cures are known and in use by independent practices.  In India, Ivermectin completely stopped Covid in the districts permitted to use it. See this.

But in the great scientific all-knowing exceptional, indispensable superpower, all known cures are against protocol.

When I write that America is a totally dumbshit country, you now know what I mean. We have a “pandemic” because US public health officials have established a protocol, upheld by the presstitute media, that prevents treatment with known proven cures.  Instead, an experiemental “vaccine” is used to spread illnesses.

And the dumbshit American population sits there sucking its thumb while jobs are destroyed, freedom is destroyed, the Constitution is destroyed, and Tyranny is erected in their place.

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***

The Taliban overran Afghanistan in a matter of months, leaving many Afghans risking life and wellbeing to attempt an escape.

The United States took control of Kabul Airport forcing it into operation, while evacuating primarily its own citizens and other foreigners.

US forces shot and killed two armed men who fired on them. There is no indication that the two men were not Taliban members.

Videos are abound online showing desperate Afghans clinging to US military planes as they take off.

There is gruesome footage showing people falling out of flying airplanes and into people’s houses.

About 2,500 US troops were at the airport, by the end of August 17^th, the US Department of Defense expects a reinforcement to arrive, up to 3,000.

In the days leading to August 19^th, this number is expected to reach 6,000 to guarantee security at the airport.

The US military had temporarily suspended air operations at the airport while US troops cleared Afghans who had flooded onto the airfield in a desperate rush to escape the Taliban.

It is understandable that the Afghans feel completely abandoned and reeling. US CENTCOM commanding officer General Frank McKenzie met with Taliban leaders in Doha, Qatar, to underscore that the sole US mission was to get people out safely.

As the Biden administration prioritizes the evacuation of American personnel from the country, it curtailed the number of government-sponsored evacuation flights to the United States for Afghans who worked alongside the US for the time being.

Afghans’ sense of abandonment and possibly betrayal is entirely justified.

It is every man for himself, and Afghan soldiers found another way to escape from the country under the Taliban’s control.

On August 14 and 15, about 22 military aircraft and 24 military helicopters of the Afghan Air Force entered the airspace of Uzbekistan. According to various reports, at least 500 Afghan soldiers had run away up until that point.

On August 15, three Afghan military aircraft Embraer 314 requested landing at Khanabad Airport in Uzbekistan. One Afghan aircraft and a MiG-29 of Uzbekistan Air Force collided and crashed in the Sherabad district of Surkhandarya region. According to the claims of Uzbek officials.

Another Afghan aircraft was intercepted by Uzbek air defense forces in the same region.

Two planes with military personnel from Afghanistan have recently landed in Tajikistan. The aircraft were allowed to land at the airport of the city of Bokhtar after having sent the SOS signals.

The Afghan Armed Forces have entirely given up, after the president resigned and simply fled the country, together with other top officials.

Meanwhile, the Taliban reportedly declared a general amnesty, including for all government officials and urged them to return to work, two days after taking power following a lightning sweep through the country.

The Taliban say that they will shortly have full control over Kabul and that all government workers and others should return to their daily lives.

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Civilisation has tended to be seen like a gift by those claiming to grant it.  It is done, in the sense Rudyard Kipling intended it, with solemn duty.  It is a task discharged as a burden borne heavily.  In its modern form, notably in the hands of the US, it comes with fast food, roads, schools and blue chip stocks.  Civilisation, in this context, is also unsolicited, imposed upon a country, whether they would wish it to be.  Autonomy comes into it superficially: the custodianship of a puppet regime, often rapacious. 

The results of such unsolicited gifts are there to be seen by the proclaimed civilisers who eventually leave, of which Afghanistan is simply another example.  They create classes and groups of citizens who risk being compromised by the forces that seize power. They cause discord and disruption to local conditions.

When the paternalism of civilisation’s builders goes wrong, the only ones blamed are those who either did not understand it, or ignored its beneficent properties.  This was the implication in the August 16 speech by President Joseph Biden.  To be fair, Biden had never believed in a “counsterinsurgency or nation building” mission to begin with.  Being in Afghanistan had, in his mind, only one purpose: counterterrorism.  And the threat had changed, “metastasized” to include a global consortium of challenges: al-Shabaab in Somalia, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Nusra in Syria, the efforts of ISIS.

While the speed of the Taliban’s advance had surprised the president, he noted those Afghan “political leaders” who “gave up and fled the country.”  The US-armed Afghan military had “collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight.”  All of this provided firm reassurance to him “that ending US military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision.”  US troops “cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.”

An acknowledgment was also made about the money, training and material provided – those attributes of imperial supply – to local soldiers who simply would not pull their weight.  “We spent over a trillion dollars. We trained and equipped an Afghan military force of some 300,000 strong – incredibly well equipped – a force larger in size than the militaries of many of our NATO allies.”  Such a picture of ingratitude!  

The paternalists, stricken by a misplaced sense of duty of care, insist that more must be done to save personnel who worked for Coalition forces and Afghans who served their projects.  Washington’s allies have been scolding, accusing Biden of not carrying the standard of Western values high enough, let alone long enough.  Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the German parliament’s foreign relations committee, assessed the withdrawal as fundamentally damaging “to the political and moral credibility of the West.”  These were “bitter events” for the believers “in democracy and freedom, especially for women”. 

German politicians had gone so far as to see the mission in Afghanistan in moral terms.  It was meant to be an invasion without those historically militarist overtones that had characterised previous uses of German military strength.  “The security of the Federal Republic of Germany,” declared former Defence Minister Peter Struck in justifying the troop presence, “is also being defended in the Hindu Kush.”

Tom Tugendhat, Conservative chair of the UK parliament’s foreign affairs committee, put a touch of Britannic gloss on the episode, using all the themes that come with benevolent, and eventually departing empire.  “Afghanistan is the biggest foreign policy disaster since Suez.  We need to think again about how we handle friends, who matters and how we defend our interests.” 

In the US itself, the worried paternalists on the Hill are many.  Democratic Senators Bob Menendez of New Jersey, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire have women’s rights on their mind.  In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, the signed parties “strongly” urged the creation of “a humanitarian parole category especially for women leaders, activists, human rights defenders, judges parliamentarians, journalists, and members of the Female Tactical Platoon of the Afghan Special Security Forces and to streamline the paperwork process to facilitate referrals to allow for fast, humane, and efficient relocation to the United States.”

For these worried souls, the demonic Taliban is responsible for war crimes, summary executions, public beatings and flogging of women, sexual violence and forced marriage, as well as a press “clampdown”.  There is no mention of a restoration of order, the reining in of banditry, and the protection of property.  Their version of the Afghan conflict is one resolutely cockeyed.

Shaheen of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees issued a plea to Biden for “swift, decisive action” lest Afghan civilians “suffer or die at the hands of the Taliban.”  Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Seth Moulton chastised the leaders from both parties who refused to go on with the occupation.  They had “failed to hold the votes for re-authorizing this conflict for the last two decades since we invaded to find Osama bin Laden.  For that, all of us in Congress should be ashamed.”    

The subtext to all of this: we should be telling the Afghans what to do, how to sort out squabbles and how to march to the beat of our nation-building tune.  Like fans of the deceptively named “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine, it is left to powerful states to determine the conditions under which such responsibility is determined, and when the gift of civilisation shall be provided.  The line between the duty to protect and the idea of might is right is not only crossed but rubbed out altogether.

Amidst the warnings, pleas and bleeding heart urgings, the apologists ignore that the mission civilisatrice in Afghanistan came with its own barbarisms: atrocities, torture, the use of drones and an assortment of devilishly lethal weapons.  But these were seen as a necessary toll.  The events unfolding over the last few days should be offering US lawmakers and Washington’s allies firm lessons.  These promise to be ignored.   

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image: Today President Biden spoke with Secretary Blinken, Secretary Austin, and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan about the ongoing efforts to safely drawdown the civilian footprint in Afghanistan. (White House photo)

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True to Form, Last Sunday the U.S. Puppet President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, Fled Kabul with Four Luxury Vehicles and a Helicopter Stuffed So Full of Cash That a Huge Pile of It Could Not Fit and Had to Be Left on the Tarmac

46 years earlier, U.S. client Nguyen Van Thieu tried to smuggle $73 million worth of gold bullion out of South Vietnam after its liberation by the communists

These two men symbolize the corruption and greed that lies at the core of the U.S. empire

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The Russian embassy in Kabul reported on Monday that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled Afghanistan with four vehicles and a helicopter full of cash as the Taliban took control of Kabul.

The former World Bank academic — who holds a doctorate from New York City’s Columbia University — didn’t say where he was going, but Al Jazeera reported later that he had flown to Uzbekistan.

Nikita Ishchenko, a Russian embassy spokesman in Kabul stated that as far as the “collapse of the (outgoing) regime, it is most eloquently characterized by the way Ghani fled Afghanistan.”

“Four cars were full of money, they tried to stuff another part of the money into a helicopter, but not all of it fit. And some of the money was left lying on the tarmac,” Ishchenko was quoted as saying.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special representative on Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov earlier expressed hope that Ghani and other fleeing officials would not take all the money from the state budget—which would be difficult to recoup.

Saad Mohseni, who owns one of Afghanistan’s popular television stations said that Ghani would forever “be known as the Benedict Arnold of Afghanistan. People will be spitting on his grave for another 100 years.”^[1]

Nguyen Van Thieu and Smuggled Gold

Image on the right: Lt. Gen. Nguyễn Văn Thiệu at Cam Ranh Base, October 26, 1966 (Public Domain)

Ghani’s ignominious departure resembles that of another deposed U.S. client, Nguyen Van Thieu, who according to the New York Times, tried to smuggle $73 million worth of gold bullions out of South Vietnam in April 1975 after Vietnam had been liberated by the communist forces.

Thieu ended up living out his days in a wealthy suburb of Boston and skiing in the pristine mountains of Vermont.

In 1963, he was one of the Young Turks responsible for the assassination of South Vietnamese Premier Ngo Dinh Diem.

Subsequently, he emerged as the head of a ruling military tribunal and then after a few rigged elections, president of South Vietnam.

According to his obituary in the New York Times, Thieu ruled the Republic during its bloodiest years and proved himself a brilliant strategist, not on the battlefield, but in surviving palace intrigues and feuds.

His power-broker, General Dang Van Quang, controlled the South Vietnamese Navy, which harbored an elaborate drug smuggling organization.

On the July 15, 1971 edition of NBC Nightly News, the network’s Saigon correspondent Phil Brady quoted extremely reliable sources as saying that General Quang, Thieu’s chief intelligence adviser, was “the biggest [drug] pusher” in South Vietnam.^[2]

Ashraf Ghani and the Beirut Club

As CAM previously reported, in the 1970s, Ghani had been part of a group of mostly Pashtuns known as the Beirut club, which had been sent to study at the American University of Beirut after, in a visit to Kabul, Henry Kissinger noticed that Afghan leader Mohammed Daoud Khan was surrounded by Soviet advisers.

From that point on, members of the Beirut club–which included neoconservative Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2004-2005–were groomed for power, and brought into the American orbit.

From 2002-2004, Ghani served as Foreign Minister of the Hamid Karzai government where he oversaw the flow of billions of dollars of foreign assistance.

A huge amount of the money was stolen or used to pay bribes to corrupt government officials.

Later as President from 2014-2021, Ghani allied with Khalilullah Frozi, who was supposed to be serving a 15-year prison sentence for his role in defrauding Kabul Bank of nearly $1 billion of depositors’ money.^[3]

Afghanistan in this period ranked among the 20 countries “having the highest perceived level of corruption” as laid down by the Corruption Perception Index.

Symbols of Greed

U.S. government leaders claim over and over again that they are intervening in foreign countries to spread good governance and democracy though end up empowering leaders of the caliber of Ghani and Thieu who steal and cheat their fellow countrymen and grow wealthy off their misery.

The reason for this outcome is not that hard to discern if we consider the underlying interests driving U.S. foreign policy.

Both Afghanistan and South Vietnam were viewed by the real drivers of U.S. foreign policy—the Kissingers, Rumsfield’s, Kagan’s and Brzezinski’s—as chess pieces, that the U.S. strove to control for its own purposes.

In Vietnam, the goal was to project U.S. power in the Asia Pacific and prevent the emergence of a strong socialist nation; and in Afghanistan, it was to project power in the Middle East and Central Asia and tap into the country’s unexploited mineral wealth.

Given these agendas, the only local-based leaders who would ally with the U.S. were unscrupulous opportunists willing to sell-out their own countrymen and women.

The U.S. furthermore created opportunities for corruption through the massive interjection of foreign aid on an otherwise hollow economic base.

Ashraf Ghani and Nguyen Van Thieu were thus both made in America.

They serve as symbols of an empire underlain by violence and greed whose global legitimacy has suffered another major blow.

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Jeremy Kuzmarov is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine. He is the author of four books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019) and The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018). He can be reached at: [email protected].

Notes

1. Matthew Rosenberg and Adam Nossiter, “’He’s a Coward’: Ghani’s Exit Infuriates His Countrymen,” The New York Times, August 17, 2021, A8. 
2. Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, 2^nd ed. (New York: Lawrence Hill Books, 1991), 229. 

3. Ghani referred to his Vice-President Rashid Dostum meanwhile as a “known killer.” 

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***

Listen to Dr. Simone Gold, Founder of American Frontline Doctors (AFLD)

Video Below.

AFLD physicians strongly object to any persons being coerced, mandated or forced to take any experimental medication, whether it is labeled a vaccine, drug, therapeutic, modality, agent etc. Our scientific recommendations as to who should consider the experimental COVID-19 vaccines, currently in investigational stages only, are contained within the White Paper. Federal law, per the FDA, prohibits any persons from being coerced to take the experimental COVID-19 vaccine. Please read attached Pfizer and Moderna Fact Sheets published by the FDA and found here.

Watch the viral video here, uncut and uncensored!

Discover the truth: COVID-19 Experimental Vaccines

Read our detailed report on the risks, failures, and complications involved in pharmaceutical companies’ expedited COVID-19 vaccine research.

Post-Vaccine Questions

The fundamental problem with releasing medications that have not been fully researched, is we don’t know what we don’t know. AFLDS is highly concerned about what we don’t know! Download and read.

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***

The UK Government’s reporting system for COVID vaccine adverse reactions from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency released their latest report last Friday, August 13, 2021.

The report covers data collected from December 9, 2020, through August 4, 2021, for the three experimental COVID “vaccines” currently in use in the U.K. from Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Moderna.

They report a total of 1,559 deaths and 1,135,579 injuries recorded following the experimental COVID injections.

Here are the breakdowns from the three shots:

• AstraZeneca: 1036 deaths and 809,489 injuries. (Source.)
• Pfizer- BioNTech: 486 deaths and 284,776 injuries. (Source.)
• Moderna: 10 deaths and 38,285 injuries. (Source.)
• Unspecified COVID-19 injections: 27 deaths and 3,029 injuries. (Source.)

In addition to these official UK Government statistics, on 25 June 2021, Public Health England released a report showing that those dying in the UK with a diagnosis of “COVID”, usually referred to as “COVID deaths” whether or not it can be proven that a positive COVID test result means that COVID caused the death, 62% of these deaths were people who had already received one of the COVID-19 jabs. (Source.)

These statistics supplied by the UK Government are part of their “Yellow Card” reports, and some people in the UK have now tried to share these statistics, which are censored in the corporate media, with people at COVID-19 vaccination clinics. (Something I have yet to see happen in the U.S.)

Remarkably, in most cases people don’t want to see them, even calling them “propaganda.”

This is from our Rumble channel, and it will also be on our Bitchute channel.

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ONE: A bombshell. Alex Berenson, former New York Times reporter, August 6: “Covid vaccine maker Moderna received 300,000 reports of side effects after vaccinations over a three-month period following the launch of its shot, according to an internal report from a company that helps Moderna manage the reports.”

“That figure is far higher than the number of side effect reports about Moderna’s vaccine publicly available in the federal system that tracks such adverse events.”

BOOM. 300,000 vaccine adverse effects NOT reported to VAERS, the federal database.

Berenson: “The 300,000 figure comes from an internal update provided to employees by IQVIA, a little-known but enormous company that helps drugmakers manage clinical trials. Headquartered in North Carolina, IQVIA has 74,000 employees worldwide and had $11 billion in sales last year.”

“Earlier this week, Richard Staub, the president of IQVIA’s Research & Development Solutions division, sent a ‘Q2 2021 update’ which was labeled ‘Confidential – For internal distribution only’.”

“A person with access to the presentation provided screenshots of the relevant slide, which clearly explains the 300,000 side effect reports were received over ‘a three-month span’ – not since the introduction of the vaccine in December…”

TWO: Independent researcher Virginia Stoner has issued a stunning new report on the VAERS numbers, and the effort by mainstream scientists to minimize the destructive effects of the COVID vaccines. Here are key quotes from her report:

“More deaths have been reported to VAERS from the covid shots than from all other vaccines combined for the last 30 years.”

“There’s a code of silence shielding the massive increase in deaths (and other serious injuries) reported to VAERS from the covid shots. Not only do CDC web pages and press releases omit that inconvenient fact—vaccine research studies omit it as well.”

“The number of covid shots [in the US] administered so far in 2021 (309 million) is roughly the same as all other vaccines administered in 2020 (316 million). But a shocking 36-times more deaths were reported this year from the covid shots than were reported last year from all other vaccines.”

“Someone died from a vaccine they [a medical provider] administered…could it potentially call their professional judgment into question, or result in a malpractice lawsuit? If you were a doctor, or supervisor at a drive-thru covid vaccination clinic, and you were given a choice between spending the evening filing a VAERS report, or having dinner with friends, which would you choose?”

“There are reasons to think death may be one of the most underreported vaccine injuries of all—mainly because the victim is dead, and can’t file a VAERS report. Nor can they prod their doctor into filing a VAERS report. Unless they’re fortunate enough to have a relative or doctor who knows they got the vaccine, knows about VAERS, understands the potential for vaccine injury, and is willing to go through the onerous process of filing a VAERS report, it won’t happen.”

THREE: Open letter from Doctors for COVID Ethics accusing governments and media of lying to the people:

“Official sources, namely EudraVigilance (EU, EEA, Switzerland), MHRA (UK) and VAERS (USA), have now recorded more Injuries and Deaths from the ‘Covid’ vaccine roll-out than from all previous vaccines combined since records began.”

“TOTAL for EU/UK/USA – 34,052 Covid-19 injection related deaths and over 5.46 million injuries reported as at 1 August 2021.”

“It is important to be aware that the official figures above (reported to the health authorities) are but a small percentage of the actual figures. Furthermore, people continue to die (and suffer injury) from the injections with every day which passes.”

“This catastrophic situation has not been reported by the mainstream media, despite the official figures above being publicly available.”

“The Signal of Harm is now indisputably overwhelming, and, in line with universally accepted ethical standards for clinical trials, Doctors for Covid Ethics demands that the ‘Covid’ vaccine programme be halted immediately.”

“Continuation of the programme in the full knowledge of ongoing serious Harm and Death to both adults and children constitutes a Crime Against Humanity/Genocide for which those found to be responsible or complicit will ultimately be held personally liable.”

“Governments worldwide are lying to you the people, to the populations they purportedly serve.”

“The figures above demonstrate that the mRNA vaccines are deadly.”

FOUR: The well-known 2010 Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Inc. study of VAERS bluntly stated: “Adverse events from vaccines are common but underreported, with less than one percent reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Low reporting rates preclude or delay the identification of ‘problem’ vaccines, potentially endangering the health of the public.”

Following the finding of that study, you would multiply the number of reported vaccine injuries by 100 to arrive at a proper figure.

FIVE: In view of the massive number of vaccine injuries and deaths, how would we expect the public to react? Here is a major clue. Stat News, July 21: “Millions of unused Covid-19 vaccines are set to go to waste as demand dwindles across the United States and doses likely expire this summer, according to public health officials…”

“Currently, states have administered 52.36 million fewer doses than have been distributed to them, according to federal data.”

“A significant tranche of Pfizer doses is expected to expire in August… Given waning domestic vaccine demand, those doses are unlikely to be fully used before they must be tossed.”

“’We’re seeing demand [for the vaccine] falling off across all the states,’ said Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.”

SIX: Understanding this, government, media, and corporate criminals are ramping up vaccine mandates wherever and however they can, to force the needle into your arm.

“You’re aware that our product is highly dangerous and destructive? We’ll make you take it.”

SEVEN: RESIST. REBEL.

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Sources

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/some-actual-news

https://www.virginiastoner.com/writing/2021/8/10/update-on-the-deadly-covid-vaccine-coverup-plus-how-to-estimate-risk-better-than-the-cdc

J’Accuse! The Gene-based “Vaccines” are Killing People. Governments Worldwide Are Lying to You the People, to the Populations They Purportedly Serve

https://digital.ahrq.gov/ahrq-funded-projects/electronic-support-public-health-vaccine-adverse-event-reporting-system

statnews.com/2021/07/20/states-are-sitting-on-millions-of-surplus-covid-19-vaccine-doses-as-expiration-dates-approach/

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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Brandon Rutherford was recently presented with a dilemma in an Ohio courtroom: get vaccinated or face incarceration.

The 21-year-old was sentenced to two years probation for fentanyl possession by Judge Christopher Wagner of Hamilton County, Ohio on August 4, but his sentence came with a twist: he was ordered to get a COVID vaccine as a condition of his probation.

Should Rutherford fail to comply, he could be sent to jail for up to 18 months.

“I’m just a judge, not a doctor, but I think the vaccine’s a lot safer than fentanyl, which is what you had in your pocket,” Wagner told Rutherford.

Wagner gave Rutherford 60 days to get vaxxed and said,

“You’re going to maintain employment. You’re not going to be around a firearm. I’m going to order you, within the next two months, to get a vaccine and show that to the probation office.”

The judge only knew Rutherford’s vaccination status in the first place because he questioned him when he arrived in court wearing a mask—a rule Wagner put in place for any unvaccinated people in his courtroom.

Rutherford was outraged by the mandate.

“Because I don’t take a shot they can send me to jail? I don’t agree with that,” he said. “I’m just trying to do what I can to get off this as quickly as possible, like finding a job and everything else. But that little thing (COVID vaccine) can set me back.”

The judge’s order created a stir, prompting Wagner to issue a response.

“Judges make decisions regularly regarding a defendant’s physical and mental health, such as ordering drug, alcohol, and mental health treatment,” he wrote in a statement. He also said it was his responsibility to “rehabilitate the defendant and protect the community.”

Wagner is not the only Ohio judge to take such actions. He joined judges in Franklin and Cuyahoga counties who made similar demands.

Bodily Autonomy

As Rutherford’s case vividly demonstrates, in the wake of COVID-19, the world is grappling with the question of how much control an individual should have over their own body.

Bodily integrity, also commonly referred to as bodily autonomy, is a longstanding principle of human rights and individual liberty. In recent years, discussion on this topic has centered around the #MeToo movement regarding sexual harassment and abuse in many of our institutions. It is obvious that violating another person’s body is inherently wrong; no one questions this premise when discussing matters of sexual violence.

Yet, for too many those clear-cut lines become blurred with other issues, especially when the conversation turns to medical bodily autonomy. And history shows there is a long, troubling tradition in the US of violating the bodily integrity of Americans, particularly the marginalized and disadvantaged.

As an example, a Tennessee judge and sheriff launched a forced-sterilization program for inmates around 2017. They allowed people in jail to shorten their sentences by 30 days if they agreed to the medical procedures. They were, thankfully, sued over this and the program was overturned on constitutional grounds. The attorney who obtained justice in this case, Daniel Horwitz, said at the time, “Inmate sterilization is despicable, it is morally indefensible, and it is illegal.”

Forced sterilization among inmates isn’t the only medical crime against bodily autonomy in our past either. In 1932, the Tuskegee Experiment was launched and ran for decades. The United States Public Health Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducted the study, during which they lied to the 600 black male participants about their syphilis status and told them they were receiving free healthcare. In reality, they were given placebos, ineffective treatments, and denied penicillin—even as it became widely available as a treatment for syphilis. The particular case elevated the issue of informed consent in medical procedures and highlighted how far the country still had to go in respecting inalienable rights, including “The right of the people to be secure in their persons,” as articulated in the US Constitution.

Globally, human rights advocates have fought a long and uphill battle to assert these basic principles of bodily autonomy and informed consent in society.

In 1948, the United Nations passed its Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 3 of this Declaration states, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”

The timing of this Declaration is key as it came at the heels of World War II, a period during which arguably the greatest violations of human rights in modern history were committed, including forced scientific and medical experimentation on human beings on a mass scale. The subsequent Nuremberg Trials—held between 1945 and 1949—resulted in the Nuremberg Code of 1947, a set of 10 standards that confronted questions of medical experimentation on humans. The Nuremberg Code established a new global standard for ethical medical behavior. Within its requirements? Voluntary informed consent of the human subject.

Then, in 1966, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights declared in its Article 7: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.”

Forced medical procedures are an especially monstrous violation of the fundamental right of bodily integrity and autonomy. This lesson was hard-learned through the course of the 20th Century. But it seems to have been unlearned amid the panic over COVID-19.

The cases in Ohio are especially troubling because they involve defendants whose bodily autonomy is being violated not only once, but twice by their government.

Our justice system routinely puts bodies in cages over what the owners of those bodies choose to put in them—whether an actual crime results from that consumption or not. That’s thanks in large part to the immoral and unjust War on Drugs, as well as the wide range of non-violent offenses we currently criminalize in our country. Now, on top of arresting the defendants for choosing to put a substance in their bodies, we have judges threatening further incarceration to coerce those same people into putting a different substance in their bodies.

In both instances, this is an egregious violation of an individual’s bodily autonomy. But many progressives who regularly express outrage over mass incarceration and the War on Drugs are noticeably either silent on vaccine mandates or advocating for them.

Prescient Philosophers

The economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) had a lot to say about governments interfering in what individuals choose to consume. In his book Human Action he wrote the following:

“Opium and morphine are certainly dangerous, habit-forming drugs. But once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments.”

This is applicable to the War on Drugs, which was gaining steam around the time of Mises’ death, but it is also relevant to the current pandemic policy. Whether or not it is prudent for a person to get vaccinated for their own health is not the correct question. It is not the government’s duty to protect individuals against their own folly. Mises went on to write:

“A good case could be made out in favor of the prohibition of alcohol and nicotine. And why limit the government’s benevolent providence to the protection of the individual’s body only? Is not the harm a man can inflict on his mind and soul even more disastrous than any bodily evils? Why not prevent him from reading bad books and seeing bad plays, from looking at bad paintings and statues and from hearing bad music? The mischief done by bad ideologies, surely, is much more pernicious, both for the individual and for the whole society, than that done by narcotic drugs.”

Why indeed.

As is the case most of the time, when liberty advocates object to a public policy that big-government advocates believe to be “common sense,” we are not doing so simply over the immediate implications but rather because we know where such policies can lead. If the government can force me to get a vaccine for my own good, what else can it force me to do? The proverbial can of worms is open, the legal precedent set, and any student of history knows it only goes downhill from there. Mises continued:

“These fears are not merely imaginary specters terrifying secluded doctrinaires. It is a fact that no paternal government, whether ancient or modern, ever shrank from regimenting its subjects’ minds, beliefs, and opinions. If one abolishes man’s freedom to determine his own consumption, one takes all freedoms away. The naïve advocates of government interference with consumption delude themselves when they neglect what they disdainfully call the philosophical aspect of the problem. They unwittingly support the case of censorship, inquisition, religious intolerance, and the persecution of dissenters.”

Strong words, but earned ones. And highly relevant today, as governments are rapidly progressing from “we must mandate public health measures” to “we must censor and persecute those who defy and speak out against our public health measures.”

Those who advocate for the government’s ability to deprive humans of their freedom on the basis of consumption in effect promote a wide array of injustices and human rights violations. There is simply no gray area here.

Human Action wasn’t the only place Mises appears to be writing from the grave for our modern times. In his work, Liberalism he says the following:

“We see that as soon as we surrender the principle that the state should not interfere in any questions touching on the individual’s mode of life, we end by regulating and restricting the latter down to the smallest detail. The personal freedom of the individual is abrogated. He becomes a slave of the community, bound to obey the dictates of the majority.”

Think how this applies to the increasingly intolerant conformity culture we see mounting in the age of COVID. He continues:

“It is hardly necessary to expatiate on the ways in which such powers could be abused by malevolent persons in authority. The wielding, of powers of this kind even by men imbued with the best of intentions must needs reduce the world to a graveyard of the spirit. All mankind’s progress has been achieved as a result of the initiative of a small minority that began to deviate from the ideas and customs of the majority until their example finally moved the others to accept the innovation themselves. To give the majority the right to dictate to the minority what it is to think, to read, and to do is to put a stop to progress once and for all.”

It is interesting that those who fancy themselves “progressives” are pushing for the world to come to an abrupt stop and for all individuals to bend their will to the national narrative they have chosen in this time.

Finally, from Mises:

“Let no one object that the struggle against morphinism and the struggle against ‘evil’ literature are two quite different things….The propensity of our contemporaries to demand authoritarian prohibition as soon as something does not please them, and their readiness to submit to such prohibitions even when what is prohibited is quite agreeable to them shows how deeply ingrained the spirit of servility still remains within them. It will require many long years of self-education until the subject can turn himself into the citizen. A free man must be able to endure it when his fellow men act and live otherwise than he considers proper. He must free himself from the habit, just as soon as something does not please him, of calling for the police.”

His writings are so spot-on and prescient, it’s almost eerie.

We do not have to like or condone another person’s actions. We don’t have to associate with them. But we must endure other humans acting and living as they see fit without going full Karen and calling the cops. When you argue for government force to violate an individual’s bodily autonomy in any manner, you stand on the side of gross injustice and human rights violations—just ask Brandon Rutherford who now faces jail time over his decisions about what he will or will not put in his body.

“I’m not taking the vaccine,” Rutherford told CNN. And he ought to have every right to make that decision.

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This weekend the US experienced another “Saigon moment,” this time in Afghanistan. After a 20 year war that drained trillions from Americans’ pockets, the capital of Afghanistan fell without a fight. The corrupt Potemkin regime that the US had been propping up for two decades and the Afghan military that we had spent billions training just melted away.

The rush is on now to find somebody to blame for the chaos in Afghanistan. Many of the “experts” doing the finger-pointing are the ones most to blame. Politicians and pundits who played cheerleader for this war for two decades are now rushing to blame President Biden for finally getting the US out. Where were they when succeeding presidents continued to add troops and expand the mission in Afghanistan?

The US war on Afghanistan was not lost yesterday in Kabul. It was lost the moment it shifted from a limited mission to apprehend those who planned the attack on 9/11 to an exercise in regime change and nation-building.

Immediately after the 9/11 attacks I proposed that we issue letters of marque and reprisal to bring those responsible to justice. But such a limited and targeted response to the attack was ridiculed at the time. How could the US war machine and all its allied profiteers make their billions if we didn’t put on a massive war?

So who is to blame for the scenes from Afghanistan this weekend? There is plenty to go around.

Congress has kicked the can down the road for 20 years, continuing to fund the Afghan war long after even they understood that there was no point to the US occupation. There were some efforts by some Members to end the war, but most, on a bipartisan basis, just went along to get along.

The generals and other high-ranking military officers lied to their commander-in-chief and to the American people for years about progress in Afghanistan. The same is true for the US intelligence agencies. Unless there is a major purge of those who lied and misled, we can count on these disasters to continue until the last US dollar goes up in smoke.

The military industrial complex spent 20 years on the gravy train with the Afghanistan war. They built missiles, they built tanks, they built aircraft and helicopters. They hired armies of lobbyists and think tank writers to continue the lie that was making them rich. They wrapped their graft up in the American flag, but they are the opposite of patriots.

The mainstream media has uncritically repeated the propaganda of the military and political leaders about Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and all the other pointless US interventions. Many of these outlets are owned by defense industry-connected companies. The corruption is deep.

American citizens must also share some blame. Until more Americans rise up and demand a pro-America, non-interventionist foreign policy they will continue to get fleeced by war profiteers.

Political control in Afghanistan has returned to the people who fought against those they viewed as occupiers and for what they viewed as their homeland. That is the real lesson, but don’t expect it to be understood in Washington. War is too profitable and political leaders are too cowardly to go against the tide. But the lesson is clear for anyone wishing to see it: the US global military empire is a grave threat to the United States and its future.

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Featured image is from OneWorld

The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity

Michel Chossudovsky

The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-6-0

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

List Price: $22.95

Special Price: $15.00

Click here to order.

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Santa Barbara County has released a revised final environmental impact report for ExxonMobil’s proposal to transport oil by tanker trucks so it can restart three drilling platforms off California, setting up hearings and a vote on the project this fall. Santa Barbara County Planning Commission hearings on the plan were set for Sept. 29 and Oct. 1.

The plan calls for up to 70 oil-filled trucks per day on coastal Highway 101 and hazardous Route 166, 24 hours a day, for up to seven years. Santa Barbara County planning staff last year recommended against trucking on Route 166 as too dangerous for motorists and natural resources such as the Cuyama River.

The county revised the original FEIR that was released in July 2020 following news in August 2020 that Phillips 66 is shutting down its Santa Maria Refinery and related pipelines by 2023, placing an end date on ExxonMobil’s preferred option for getting its offshore oil to market.

“ExxonMobil wants to put California communities and motorists in harm’s way, just to restart its dirty and dangerous offshore platforms,” said Kristen Monsell, ocean legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s unbelievable they still want to use hazardous Highway 166 over the strong objections of county planning staff. These decrepit offshore platforms should be decommissioned instead of brought back to life to threaten our lives and climate.”

The FEIR concludes that there would be significant, unavoidable impacts from the project, including significant impacts on wildlife and cultural resources in the event of an oil spill from a tanker truck. The FEIR does not analyze the numerous harmful impacts of bringing Exxon’s offshore platforms back online.

“The county’s final environmental impact report fails to disclose the devastating impacts that will result if ExxonMobil is allowed to resume oil drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel and truck oil along our scenic highways,” said Linda Krop, chief counsel for the Environmental Defense Center, which represents Get Oil Out! and SBCAN. “ExxonMobil’s proposal will result in more oil spills, air pollution, and increased climate change at a time when we need to pursue clean energy alternatives.”

A majority of Santa Barbara County voters say they oppose proposals to restart ExxonMobil’s offshore drilling platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel, according to a November 2019 poll. Nearly 3 out of 4 respondents said they were concerned “about the safety of our local highways if up to 70 oil tanker trucks are allowed on our roads each day.”

“Trucks are the least safe way to transport oil — in human death, property destruction, and amount of oil spilled,” said Katie Davis, chair of the Sierra Club’s Los Padres Chapter. “Not only that, but this environmental report is severely lacking by leaving out the oil spills and other risks of restarting the aging oil rigs and Gaviota Coast oil facilities, which were one of the largest sources of air pollution in the county. No wonder this proposal has faced immense backlash and opposition from Chumash elders to students to businesses to city councils.”

ExxonMobil’s three offshore platforms near Santa Barbara were shut down in 2015 after the Plains All American Pipeline ruptured and spilled thousands of gallons of oil along the California coast. The company proposes to restart its platforms and load its offshore oil onto tanker trucks at its Las Flores Canyon processing facility. The trucks would transport up to 470,400 gallons of oil per day up to 140 miles to refineries in Santa Maria and then Kern County.

“In light of the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, we are reminded that climate change is happening now, and it is worse than we thought,” said Ken Hough, executive director of the Santa Barbara County Action Network. “We cannot afford to approve any new projects that will facilitate fossil fuel extraction in Santa Barbara County, including ExxonMobil’s proposal to restart its platforms and truck its oil. We need companies like ExxonMobil to stop polluting our atmosphere, air, and waters, and to instead lead the renewable energy transition.”

California suffers hundreds of oil-truck incidents a year, and many result in oil spills. There were 258 trucking accidents along the route from 2015 to 2021, California Highway Patrol data show, resulting in 10 deaths and 110 injuries. A tanker truck crashed off Highway 166 In March 2020, spilling more than 4,500 gallons of oil into the Cuyama River above Twitchell Reservoir.

Tanker trucks spill hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil per year, according to an American Petroleum Institute report. These oil spills can cause fires and explosions. An Associated Press study of six states where truck traffic has increased because of increased oil and gas drilling found that fatalities in traffic accidents have more than quadrupled since 2004 in some counties.

“Not only do the Chumash people originate from our local lands and waters, but Chumash culture itself is created from the relationship we have maintained with all beings in these ecosystems since time immemorial,” said Alicia Cordero, First Nations program officer with the Wishtoyo Chumash Foundation. “It is our sacred duty to protect and care for this natural abundance that all beings depend upon. As residents in the Chumash homelands today, we call on all of the peoples of Santa Barbara County to share this responsibility with us to safeguard the area’s natural cultural resources. We must reject Exxon’s dangerous proposal which presents an unacceptable risk to these lands, waterways, and the ocean itself.”

Offshore oil development also poses unacceptable risks of spills and air and water pollution. Oil spills near the Santa Barbara coastline threaten a wide range of federally protected endangered species, including blue whales, sea otters and California tiger salamanders.

“As an organization representing the younger generation, we are concerned for the health and safety of our local community as well as the implications that a seven-year trucking program will have in the fight against climate change,” said Soham Ray of the UCSB Environmental Affairs Board. “ExxonMobil knows that it is a significant contributor to climate change yet continues to exacerbate the problem by pushing projects like this unsafe and unjust trucking plan.”

ExxonMobil plans to restart its offshore platforms and onshore processing facility will also generate enormous levels of greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to climate change, undermining goals set by the county’s Energy and Climate Action Plan adopted in May 2015.

The coalition opposing ExxonMobil’s trucking plan includes Wishtoyo Chumash Foundation, 350 Santa Barbara, the Center for Biological Diversity, Climate First: Replacing Oil and Gas (CFROG), Environmental Defense Center, Food and Water Action, GOO!, SBCAN, Sierra Club’s Los Padres Chapter, UCSB Associated Students External Vice President for Statewide Affairs Esmeralda Quintero-Cubillan, UCSB Environmental Affairs Board (EAB), Surfrider Foundation Santa Barbara County Chapter, Los Padres ForestWatch, and the Cuyama Valley Community Association and the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation.

Image from animation of trucking accidents along Exxon’s proposed route, 2015-2021. (Curt Bradley/Center for Biological Diversity)

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57 Top Scientists and Doctors Release Shocking Study on COVID Vaccines and Demand Immediate Stop to All Vaccinations

By Dr. Roxana Bruno, Dr. Peter McCullough, and et al., August 17, 2021

A group of 57 leading scientists, doctors and policy experts has released a report calling in to question the safety and efficacy of the current COVID-19 vaccines and are now calling for an immediate end to all vaccine programs. We urge you to read and share this damning report.

The Spoils of War: Afghanistan’s Multibillion Dollar Heroin Trade

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, August 17, 2021

The US withdrawal has been the object of extensive negotiations between US-NATO and the Taliban. A deal was signed in Doha in late February 2020 at the outset of the Biden Administration. Did the U.S. reach a “secret agreement” with the Taliban regarding the opium trade?

Navy Commander Warns of “National Security Threat” from Mandatory Vaccination of U.S. Military Personnel

By Revolver and Commander Jay Furman, August 17, 2021

An officer with the U.S. Navy is warning of a full-blown “national security threat” if the military moves ahead with its planned universal COVID-19 vaccination mandate, in a paper obtained exclusively by Revolver News.

The People vs. Medical Tyranny? Resistance on a Global Scale Grows Against Mandatory Vaccinations, Health Pass Requirements and Face Masks

By Timothy Alexander Guzman, August 17, 2021

The world knows that Big Pharma is in the business of making profits over health no matter what the outcome is.  Agence France-Presse (AFP) ‘Pharmaceutical Firms Rake in Billions with COVID Jabs’ reported on how much profits Big Pharma made from its vaccines or ‘experimental injections’ so far.

Board Certified Occupational Therapist Whistleblower: More Patients Are Dying from the Vaccine than from COVID

By Brian Shilhavy, August 18, 2021

Abrien Aguirre is a board certified occupational therapist who recently went public with his knowledge of working in 3 COVID units in Hawaii, two of them “isolation units.” He states that he works in the largest skilled nursing facility in Oahu, working with the geriatric population.

Afghanistan & the American Imperial Project

By Dr. Jack Rasmus, August 17, 2021

On August 16, 2021 President Biden addressed the nation to explain why the US military is pulling out of Afghanistan. To a lesser extent, he also tried to explain why the Afghan government and its 300,000 military forces imploded over the past weekend.

A Chaotic US Exit from Afghanistan: American Emperors Have No Clothes

By Prof Rodrigue Tremblay, August 17, 2021

After terrorist Osama Bin Laden was allegedly assassinated in Pakistan, on May 2, 2011, President Barack Obama could have called for the end of the Afghanistan military adventure and declare victory.

In the Shadows of the American Century – The Rise and Decline of US Global Power.

By Jim Miles, August 17, 2021

In “America and the Autocrats” McCoy  discusses some of the various governments the U.S. has created and supported from Iran through Vietnam and on to Egypt and Afghanistan.

Investigating 9/11 and Naming Suspects. Evaluating Evidence

By Kevin Ryan, August 17, 2021

When people ask me what more can be done to achieve 9/11 truth and justice, I tell them to spend less time calling for a new investigation and more time investigating. Even without subpoena power, independent investigators can make a lot of progress.

The Houses of Dead and Crooked Souls

By Edward Curtin, August 17, 2021

There is a vast and growing gulf between the world’s rich and poor. An obscene gulf. If we can read houses, they will confirm this.  They offer a visible lesson in social class.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Back with a Bang

By Pepe Escobar, August 17, 2021

In the end, the Saigon moment happened faster than any Western intel “expert” expected. This is one for the annals: four frantic days that wrapped up the most astonishing guerrilla blitzkrieg of recent times. Afghan-style: lots of persuasion, lots of tribal deals, zero columns of tanks, minimal loss of blood.

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

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

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Abrien Aguirre is a board certified occupational therapist who recently went public with his knowledge of working in 3 COVID units in Hawaii, two of them “isolation units.” He states that he works in the largest skilled nursing facility in Oahu, working with the geriatric population.

He was interviewed by a group known as “Hawaii Free Speech News.”

His testimony was recorded at a recent outdoor protest held at the Hawaii State Capitol in Honolulu.

He starts out his testimony by saying that the media is misrepresenting what is happening with hospitalized COVID patients. He states:

The people moved to the COVID unit, didn’t have COVID. They tested positive with the PCR test, but most of them were asymptomatic and only suffering from their pre-existing conditions.

He explains how people with terminal illnesses were put on the COVID death lists, which he says is “complete fraud.”

They rolled out the Moderna mRNA experimental injections at his facility, and he says:

I’ve seen 32 elderly people pass away immediately after taking the Moderna vaccine. None of that is being talked about on the News. It doesn’t fit their narrative.

I’ve seen more people pass away from the vaccine, than I have in COVID units.

He explains that he worked as a “Director of Rehab” in one skilled nursing facility for 5 months, and he saw where the billing department would have his therapist change medical diagnosis codes from things like pulmonary disorder to COVID because of higher reimbursements. And this even happened with cases that were not only asymptomatic, but sometimes they did not even have a positive PCR test result for COVID.

It’s just fraud on every level.

Mr. Aguirre states that he has reached out to politicians to expose this fraud, including the Governor of Hawaii, and their response is silence. Not one of them has responded.

His last advice in the interview:

My advice to people: if your elderly are sick, your grandmother, your great grandmother, your mom, don’t send them to a skilled nursing facility. They’re not going to receive adequate care.

Treatment is going to be withheld from them. They’re going to be forced to wear a mask all day, and social distance.

They’re going to become depressed and want to commit suicide. Because that is what I am seeing in our facilities.

This testimony by Abrien Aguirre is one of the most damning interviews I have ever seen. Everyone should send a copy of this video to their “elected” officials, because the U.S. medical system has now become thoroughly corrupt.

Mr. Aguirre has nothing to gain, and much to lose by going public, putting his career and possibly even his life on the line to go public with this damning information.

Since politicians are complicit with these murders and crimes, it is unlikely that they will do anything about it.

But by exposing their crimes, especially those who claim they are “just doing their jobs,” we can ensure that they will most certainly be held accountable for these murders and crimes against humanity.

There is no place in Hell too hot for where most of these people are going to end up.

This is from our Rumble Channel, and it is also on our Bitchute Channel.

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Featured image is from HIN

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Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

***

On August 16, 2021 President Biden addressed the nation to explain why the US military is pulling out of Afghanistan. To a lesser extent, he also tried to explain why the Afghan government and its 300,000 military forces imploded over the past weekend. With the Afghan State’s quick disappearing act, in a puff of smoke up went as well the more than $1 trillion spent by the US in Afghanistan since 2001.

Biden glossed over the real answer to the first point why the US is now pulling out. The second he never really answered.

The real answer to the first point is simple: the USA as global hegemon can no longer afford the financial cost of remaining in that country, so it is pulling out. New projected costs of maintaining US global empire in the decade ahead have risen dramatically since the Afghan war began in fall of 2001. US elites now realize they can longer afford the new rising costs of Empire elsewhere, while simultaneously keep throwing money down the 20 year financial black hole called Afghanistan. The US is pulling out because, for the first time since 1945, it has decided to cut its costs in less strategic areas in order to be able to finance the growing costs of empire elsewhere.

The new areas are:

• the rapidly rising costs of investing in next generation technologies needed to compete with China, both militarily and economically;
• the costs of cybersecurity investments needed to deal with Russia, China, and with select lesser cyber challengers;
• and the investments needed to answer the threat to US security from the new emerging War with Nature (sometimes called Climate Change)

In all three new challenges, the USA is currently behind the curve. Nature’s reaction to capitalist production in the form of climate warming means Nature is winning the early skirmishes and the US thus far has not even been able to mount a serious counter-response. Russia, China and other apparent state-less challengers are also winning the cybersecurity war. The US can’t even protect its basic infrastructure and businesses from hacking and ransomware that has the potential of shutting down wide sectors of its economy. And so far as next generation technologies, like Artificial Intelligence and 5G wireless, is concerned the fight with China—and a lesser extent with Russia over new tech weaponry—has only just begun.

All three areas represent costly strategic challenges to US global hegemony, requiring massive new capital investments by US government and the US State. US imperial interests increasingly realize they cannot continue to throw away trillions of dollars more in wars in Afghanistan, let alone the broader middle east—whether Iraq, Libya, Syria/Isis, Iran containment, or financing Arab states’ war in Yemen.

An Empire Built on Fiscal Sand

How the US financed the wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East as it exercised its global hegemony since 2000 is another obstacle to meeting the new strategic challenges. That method of imperial finance—like the war in Afghanistan itself—is no longer sustainable.

The first two decades of the 21st century is the first time in the entire history of the USA that wars have been financed without raising taxes and, indeed, while the US has simultaneously implemented massive tax cuts.

Up to and including Vietnam, taxes have always been raised to pay for war costs at least in part. But not in the 21st century! Not for the wars for the Middle East. Since 2000 and the USA’s Middle East war adventures, it has spent $ trillions of dollars on wars while cutting taxes by even $ trillions more. This had never happened before. It became a formula for eventual disaster—driven ultimately by US elites’ greed combined with an historic hubris of mistaken military invincibility.

That tax cutting since 2000 has amounted to at least $15 trillion! For the record:

George W. Bush cut taxes, largely on behalf of wealthy investors and businesses, by more than $4 trillion over the first decade, 2001-10. Barack Obama added over a $1 trillion more in his first two years in office 2009-2010—in the form of $288 billion new tax cuts in 2009 and by continuing the Bush tax cuts another $803 billion for two years, 2011-2012—after the Bush tax cuts had been set to expire in 2010. Obama then struck a deal with Republicans at the end of 2012 to extend the Bush tax cuts for another 8 years. That cost another $5 trillion. Donald Trump in December 2017 then added yet another layer of tax cuts on the Bush-Obama prior $10 trillion. Trump’s contribution amounted to $4.5 trillion for another decade, 2018 to 2028. Each tax cut layer provided even more of the total to investors, corporations and wealthy households. Trump’s went almost exclusively to investors, wealthy households, and especially to multinational US corporations. In the latest addition, Congress cut taxes another $650 billion in its ‘Cares Act’ passed in March 2020. That’s more than $15 trillion tax cuts in total!

Tax cutting since 2000 contributed in turn to massively annual budget deficits and the consequent explosion of the federal national debt.

But $15 trillion in tax cutting was not the only cause of a deep decline in potential tax revenues, chronic budget deficits and rising national debt, however. A chronically weak US economy, especially after 2008 and continuing throughout the Obama years, has also sharply reduced potential federal tax revenues. The average annual US growth since 2007 has barely reached 1% a year. Tax revenues—from both cutting taxes and inadequate economic growth—account for at least 60% of deficits and thus for the national debt, according to many studies.

Concurrent with the unprecedented drumbeat of constant tax cuts for capitalists large, medium and small has been the equally unprecedented rise in defense/war spending to pay for the wars since 2000—abroad and at home (homeland security costs, war on immigrants costs, militarization of policing, etc.). The wars abroad since 2001 alone cost an estimated $7 trillion.

$15 trillion in tax cuts plus $7 trillion in war spending since 2001 roughly equals the total US national debt by the end of the second decade of the 21st century. As a result of tax cutting and defense spending, the US national debt rose from roughly $4 trillion in 2000 to $9 trillion by end of 2008 (as Bush left office) to $17 trillion by 2016 (as Obama left office) and thereafter to $21 trillion when Trump left office by January 2020. The budget deficit this year, 2021, will rise another $2.5 to $3 trillion!

It is now projected to rise to at least $28 trillion by end of the current decade! For added to the tax cuts and war spending excesses must be as well the costs of the 2008-09 great recession, the chronic slow economic growth that followed under Obama for years after, and most recently the costs of legislation and programs to contain the Covid related 2020-21 crash and second great recession now underway. Should chronic slow growth follow the current second great recession—as it did its predecessor in 2008-09—the $28 trillion national debt estimate by end of decade will almost certainly be passed.

In this fiscal system built on sand, US imperial interests must somehow find the capital and resources to finance massive investments to wage its growing technological-economic war with China, its cybersecurity war with Russia and others, and its war with Nature.

Empires are seldom conquered from without. They always rot from the inside first. And the rot is well underway in the USA’s.

US Costs of Empire Are Rising

The US economic empire is under increasing economic stress because the options to finance it going forward are in decline. Massive new costs loom on the horizon. Next generation technologies will determine both economic and military dominance by 2030. Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Security, and 5G wireless broadband are all necessary for the development of smart, hypersonic weapons, as well as for disrupting an opponent’s domestic communications, power systems infrastructure, and even key production systems. The USA knows this. China knows this. Russia knows this. (Europeans and Japanese know it too but simply cannot compete and are not even in the game anymore). The above triad of technologies are also key to the development of new industries and thus for economic growth as well in the decade ahead.

The US empire today faces a massive bill of investment over the next decade. In some ways it already lags behind China, as a result of US corporations moving offshore (to China), building R&D and production partnerships in China and elsewhere offshore, and allowing China to penetrate US R&D in the USA, at least until recently. In other ways it is also behind Russia technologically (especially in hypersonic missile and tactical missile defense technologies).

As the US global empire has weakened over the past decade, it has thrown more money into defense/war spending, cumulatively at least $7 trillion. That spending—of which Afghanistan contributed $1 trillion at minimum—US elites know will now have to be redirected to the new ‘wars’: the technology-economic war with China, the cybersecurity war with Russia, and the war with Nature itself in the form of investments directed to climate change mitigation.

Apart from the costs of these new wars of 2020-2030, it is more likely than not that more economic crises will arise. After two consecutive great recessions in roughly a decade (2008-09 and 2020-21) it is likely a third cannot be avoided either. Trillions of dollars more in emergency social program spending to contain the collapse of household consumption and small businesses once again is more likely than not.

It is therefore not at all surprising that Biden, and US empire elites in general, have concluded it’s best to cut losses in Afghanistan and get out now. Ditto for general costs of empire throughout the middle east. There’ll be no more traditional wars there for the USA. Such adventures are no longer affordable. Nor necessary, since the USA is now the largest producer of oil and gas in the war as result of new fracking technology at home, exceeding both Russia and Saudi Arabia. The main strategic reason for US wars in the middle east—i.e. oil—is no longer a consideration
In summary: the cost of wars in the middle east (Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Iran containment, etc.) are being substituted for by the technology-economic war with China, the cybersecurity war with Russia, plus the need for expected additional commitments for the ‘war with nature’ (climate change costs).

The US empire can simply no longer afford the total bill for all the above. And that is the number one reason why the US is exiting Afghanistan altogether. That’s why Biden’s cutting US losses in Afghanistan and getting out. As he signaled in his TV address to the nation on August 16 that war is no longer in the US global interests. There are more important tasks. Tasks that will take even more funds. US interests have shifted. So must its expenditures of empire. That’s why it’s finally getting out of Afghanistan.

Is US Empire in Rapid Decline?

US elites realize that they can’t have their cake and eat it any longer. They can’t have unprecedented tax cutting, jump into civil wars everywhere around the globe, precipitate excuses for military intervention for domestic political purposes, and deal with the increasingly frequent deep recessions while financing the new ‘wars’ on the horizon with China, Russia, and nature itself. That’s what the US exit from Afghanistan fundamentally represents. It is an early indicator of the future decline of the US global hegemony. However, that decline is still in its very early stages and should not be overestimated.

The US empire and global hegemony rests on its economic power in the global economy. The US empire is not like that of the former British or the older European colonial empires. It wields political power indirectly over indigenous economic elites. It does not directly run the political systems of its client countries. Or at least rarely resorts to that. It wields political power through its economic power. And that economic power resides in its dominance of its global currency, the US dollar; in its control of the (SWIFT) international payments system; in the influence of its central bank, the Federal Reserve, over other countries’ central banks; in the dominance of its banks and financial institutions worldwide; and its ultimate control of global economic institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Until the US dollar is seriously challenged as the world’s reserve and trading currency, until its control of the global payments system is supplanted by an alternative, until the dominance of its banks and financial institutions is broken, and until dual institutions challenging the IMF and World Bank are an effective alternative—the US global economic empire will continue and exercise hegemony.

Afghanistan represents not the end and defeat of the US imperial project. At most, it is a marker for the USA having peaked perhaps as global hegemon. Instead, it represents a fundamental shift at best and the start of a new phase in the history of the US empire.

As noted previously, global empires are rarely conquered from without militarily. Military failures or successes are not evidence of imperial virility. All empires rot internally before decline. And they begin a period of decline only when they cannot any longer afford to finance themselves.

Rome’s collapse in its west after 400 C.E. began when Germanic invaders seized Rome’s agricultural grain surplus base in Spain, Sicily and North Africa as the eastern Roman empire also cut off its grain surplus in Egypt. That agriculture base was the source of its taxation and in turn the funding of its military legions.

The British empire began its decades-long decline when its colonies began to disappear in the 20th century as result of economic war costs after 1918 and 1945. Basically bankrupted by wars, after World War II it no longer had the finances to hold onto its colonies. Some, like India, simply went independent. Others were ceded to the USA de facto as a condition of loans from America to Britain during and immediately after the second World War. Britain’s colonial empire could not be economically sustained any longer.

The Soviet Union’s de facto empire collapsed only after a decade of economic stagnation in the 1980s and after Gorbachov signaled to opportunist Communist Party leaders in charge of the economy it was ok to convert to capitalists as they continued their management of the economy. The apparatchiks virtually overnight became oligarchs, threw out Gorbachov, and brought in US capitalists as partners in exploitation and capitalist restoration. A decade of severe economic depression followed throughout the 1990s. The Soviet Union empire spun apart politically thereafter—first in east Europe, then the Baltics, then the Caucasus, then Belarus-Ukraine. And that was that.

The USA is in the very early stages of something similar. It has not yet lost control of its foreign resources and markets, as did ancient Rome. It has not yet bankrupted itself with wars, as did Britain in the 20th century. Its elites have not yet turned on the system itself, although the splits between the Trump forces and traditional US capitalists has been clearly intensifying. So too are divisions rapidly growing between its populace, at state and local levels. Wide sections of the populace no longer believe in the system, its traditional values and ideology, nor its fundamental institutions. That has all occurred rapidly in just a couple decades. That scenario clearly signals something similar to past imperial systems’ decline is underway within the USA. However, the US political elites and dominant capitalists behind them still wield significant resources, economic and political.

Afghanistan does not represent the beginning of the end but rather, along with US domestic trends, the end of the phase of the shift to Neoliberal empire created in the late 1970s-early 1980s, in response to the economic crises and stagnation of the 1970s. The US is now at another juncture. Neoliberal economic policies no longer suffice to sustain the empire and US global hegemony. What comes next this decade is yet to be determined.

But whatever the current decade portends, it is clear that after 20 years of wasting nearly $30 trillion on wars, tax cuts, and dealing with two great recessions and their economic aftermath, US elites realize they cannot pay for middle east wars and confront the costs of the new challenges to maintain the empire. The focus henceforth will be on the Great Technology War with China, cybersecurity conflicts with Russia, while attempting to up investment as well to deal with the other war the US is now clearly losing: Climate Change. These are the key strategic interests of the American Empire in this decade and beyond—not Afghanistan.

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***

The Taliban won in Afghanistan, after 20 years of war and grand claims by the United States.

In the early hours of August 15^th, the Taliban were at Kabul’s threshold and the city was surrendered before the end of the day.

The capital was captured largely without a fight, the presidential palace was taken without resistance.

Around midday on August 15^th, the group announced that the Mujahedeen entered parts of Kabul to “prevent chaos and theft” and take over a number of outposts which were abandoned by government forces.

A video was released showing the evacuation of Afghanistan’s top officials from the center of Kabul, towards the airport via US Air Force helicopters.

Former President Ashraf Ghani flew to Tajikistan immediately after signing his resignation.

Former Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali officially became the head of the transitional Government. This will be temporary, as the Taliban is reportedly going to declare the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” from the presidential palace in Kabul.

Prisoners are being released from the largest Afghanistan’s prison in Kabul province, and these include Al-Qaeda, as well as ISIS terrorists, in addition to Taliban fighters and others.

Thousands of citizens also flooded the airport attempting hoping to flee the country, the situation is intensely chaotic. The Taliban’s fighters are present near the airport, and it is solely at their discretion not to overrun it.

It all began on August 13^th, when a rapid Taliban offensive that ultimately led to the capture of most key provincial capitals, and brought militants to Kabul’s doorstep.

On that day, the Taliban gained control over Kandahar, the second largest city in the country.

Afghan government forces retreated after failing to stop the Taliban.

The group also captured the following provincial centers, such as Lashkar Gah, Qala-e-Naw, Firuzkoh, Herat.

In a matter of two days, the entire country was lost, abandoned US equipment was used as reinforcements to assist in the victory.

Al Jazeera was given an interview by Taliban officials, from former President Ghani’s office. They boasted that after 20 years of fighting foreign forces, the Taliban have come out as victors.

The group’s leadership is preparing to return to Kabul from Qatar. Ashraf Ghani released a statement saying he vacated his position and left the country to avoid a large Taliban offensive on Kabul.

Meanwhile, his compatriots are all but abandoned. The US military announced that all commercial flights from and to the airport were suspended. Military evacuation is, however, still ongoing. Shots were reportedly fired at US troops evacuating American diplomats and citizens at the airport.

Those who are unable to flee will have to live with the results of the Taliban success, and the United States’ failure. After 20 years, the Islamic group is much more prominent, both politically and militarily, while Washington’s forces simply turned tail and ran.

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In June 2021, the U.S. National Security Council released a new National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism document. While it’s being largely framed as a tool to fight extremism, the definition of what constitutes a “domestic terrorist” is incredibly vague and based on ideologies rather than specific behaviors

This policy can easily be used to silence political opposition simply by labeling anyone who disagrees with the government as a domestic terrorist and charging them with a hate crime, and we’re already seeing signs of this

Dr. Peter Hotez recently published a paper in PLOS Biology, in which he suggests criticizing Dr. Anthony Fauci and other scientists ought to be labeled a “hate crime”

Former assistant secretary for Homeland Security Juliette Kayyem is urging the U.S. government to put unvaccinated citizens on a no-fly list

The San Francisco Chronicle editorial board believes we ought to “make vaccination the price of admission to society”

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In June 2021, the U.S. National Security Council released a new “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism” document.¹ While it’s being largely framed as a tool to fight White supremacy and political extremism, the definition of what constitutes a “domestic terrorist” is incredibly vague and based on ideologies rather than specific behaviors.

It’s not difficult to imagine this policy being used to silence political opposition simply by labeling anyone who disagrees with the government as a domestic terrorist and charging them with a hate crime.

We’re already seeing signs suggesting that this is the path we’re on. July 28, 2021, Dr. Peter Hotez published a paper² in PLOS Biology titled “Mounting Antiscience Aggression in the United States,” in which he suggests criticizing Dr. Anthony Fauci and other scientists ought to be labeled a “hate crime.” Commenting on the paper, Paul Joseph Watson at Summit News writes:³

“This is yet another transparent effort to dehumanize anti-lockdown protesters and demonize people who merely want to exercise bodily autonomy while elevating Fauci and his ilk to Pope-like status. Science isn’t supposed to be a religious dogma that is set in stone, it’s an ever-evolving knowledge base that changes and improves thanks to dissent and skepticism.”

Science Depends on Questioning and Challenging Assumptions

Attorney Jonathan Turley also responded to Hotez’s paper in an August 4, 2021, blog post, saying:⁴

“’Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.’ Feynman’s statement captures how science depends upon constant questioning and challenging of assumptions …

[T]here remain important debates over not just the underlying science relation to Covid-19 but the implications for such science for public policies. Criminalizing aspects of that debate would ratchet up the threats against those with dissenting views, including some scientists. That would harm not just free speech but science in the long run.”

Should We Have Protected Classes That Cannot Be Questioned?

Turley also points out how making scientists a protected class (and one would assume only those with specific political leanings) is a slippery slope that will likely have unwieldy ramifications:⁵

“The federal hate crime laws focus on basis of a person’s characteristics of race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. We have seen calls for adding professions like police officers, which I also opposed.

As with police officers, the inclusion of such professions would have a direct and inimical impact on free speech in our society. Indeed, it would create a slippery slope as other professions demand inclusion from reporters to ministers to physicians. Hate crimes would quickly apply to a wide array of people due to their occupations.”

Will America Accept No-Fly List for Unvaccinated?

Writing for The Atlantic,⁶ former assistant secretary for Homeland Security Juliette Kayyem posits that people who do not want to be part of the COVID injection experiment “need to bear the burden” when it comes to preventing the spread of SARS-CoV-2.

“The number of COVID-19 cases keeps growing, even though remarkably safe, effective vaccines are widely available,” Kayyem writes.⁷ “Many public agencies are responding by reimposing masking rules on everyone.

But at this stage of the pandemic, tougher universal restrictions are not the solution to continuing viral spread. While flying, vaccinated people should no longer carry the burden for unvaccinated people.

The White House has rejected a nationwide vaccine mandate … but a no-fly list for unvaccinated adults is an obvious step that the federal government should take.

It will help limit the risk of transmission at destinations where unvaccinated people travel — and, by setting norms that restrict certain privileges to vaccinated people, will also help raise the stagnant vaccination rates that are keeping both the economy and society from fully recovering.”

According to Kayyem, traveling in general and flying in particular is not a human right, and putting unvaccinated individuals on a no-fly list is a matter of national security, in the sense that the country needs to protect itself from people capable of spreading this dangerous virus.

She makes no mention of the scientifically confirmed fact that none of the COVID shots actually prevent you from getting infected, and that “vaccinated” individuals carry the same viral load as the unvaccinated,^8,9 which means they’re just as infectious. The main difference is that vaccinated individuals might not realize that they’re carriers, as the primary effect when the injections do work is lessening symptoms of infection.

Kayyem also cites a New York Times and Kaiser Family Foundation poll in which 41% of unvaccinated respondents had said prohibition on airline travel would sway their decision, including 11% of those “adamantly opposed” to vaccination. In other words, where free doughnuts and million-dollar lotteries have failed to coerce people to get the shot, an airline travel ban might do the trick.

Despite her former position within government, she makes no mention of laws forbidding coercion of medical volunteers, such as the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations 45 CFR 46 (subpart A, the Belmont report),¹⁰ the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights treaty,¹¹ the Declaration of Helsinki¹² or the Nuremberg Code.¹³ Supreme court rulings have also clarified that Americans have the right to choose their own health care in general.^14,15

Reframing to Confuse the Issue

Kayyem suggests circumventing such basic human rights by reframing the issue. She writes:¹⁶

“The public debate about making vaccination a precondition for travel, employment, and other activities has described this approach as vaccine mandates, a term that … suggests that unvaccinated people are being ordered around arbitrarily.

What is actually going on, mostly, is that institutions are shifting burdens to unvaccinated people … rather than imposing greater burdens on everyone.

Americans still have a choice to go unvaccinated, but that means giving up on certain societal benefits. Nobody has a constitutional right to attend The Lion King on Broadway or work at Disney or Walmart … People who still want to wait and see about the vaccines can continue doing so. They just can’t keep pushing all the costs on everyone else.”

As pointed out by Swift Headline,¹⁷ the owner of Atlantic magazine, Laurene Powell Jobs, the billionaire widow of Steve Jobs, owns two private jets herself, giving her the freedom to fly around the world at will, regardless what vaccine mandates might be in place. Many other ultra-rich individuals would also be able to ignore the rules due to wealth alone, essentially turning them into a protected class. Swift Headline points out this projection:¹⁸

“The Atlantic went on to say unvaccinated people who are exercising their individual rights as free Americans ‘do not deserve’ to be a ‘protected class’ …

Jobs’s wealth and class status is detailed in Breitbart News’ Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow’s book, ‘Breaking the News: Exposing the Establishment Media’s Hidden Deals and Secret Corruptions,’ which ‘exposes the hidden connections between the establishment media and the activist left.’

As Marlow details, Jobs’s past is a privileged one … Jobs ‘married well and inherited a lot of money, and her wealth is tied up in some of world’s biggest companies,’ Marlow continues. ‘She is the establishment.’”

The Price of Admission to Society

August 2, 2021, the San Francisco Chronicle also published an opinion piece¹⁹ by the Chronicle editorial board, in which they suggested we ought to “Make vaccination the price of admission to society.” One way to evaluate the reasonableness of such a proposition is to replace COVID “vaccination” with anything else. How about: “Make proof of contraception use the price of admission to bars and nightclubs.”

“Make clear skin the price of admission to gyms and public swimming pools.” “Make being taller than 5’ 9” the price of admission to theme parks.” “Make having a BMI below 25 the price of admission to airline flights.” “Make proof of not having an illness the price of admission to in-hospital care.”

According to the Chronicle editorial board, “the unvaccinated account for over 95% of hospitalizations and deaths.”²⁰ The board does not cite where it got that data from, so let’s review the source of that data.

In an August 5, 2021, video statement, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Rochelle Walensky noted that this statistic was obtained by looking at hospitalization and mortality data from January through June 2021 — a timeframe during which the vast majority of the United States population were unvaccinated.

January 1, 2021, only 0.5% of the U.S. population had received a COVID shot. By mid-April, an estimated 31% had received one or more shots,²¹ and as of June 15, 48.7% were fully “vaccinated.”²²

The CDC has also pointed out that you are not considered “fully vaccinated” until two weeks after your second dose (in the case of Pfizer or Moderna), which is given six weeks after your first shot.²³This means that if you receive your first dose on June 1, you won’t be “fully vaccinated” until eight weeks later, around August 1.

So, the narrative that we’re in a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” was created by using statistics from a time period when the U.S. as a whole was largely unvaccinated. When you look at more recent data, the trend is swinging in the opposite direction.

Vaccinated Now Comprise the Bulk of Hospitalizations

For example, August 1, 2021, Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, director of Israel’s Public Health Services, announced half of all COVID-19 infections were among the fully vaccinated.²⁴

A few days later, August 5, Dr. Kobi Haviv, director of the Herzog Hospital in Jerusalem, appeared on Channel 13 News, reporting that 95% of severely ill COVID-19 patients are fully vaccinated, and that they make up 85% to 90% of COVID related hospitalizations overall.²⁵

In Scotland, official data on hospitalizations and deaths show 87% of those who have died from COVID-19 in the third wave that began in early July were vaccinated,²⁶ and in Gibraltar, which has a 99% COVID jab compliance rate, COVID cases have risen by 2,500% since June 1, 2021.²⁷

A CDC investigation of an outbreak in Barnstable County, Massachusetts between July 6 through July 25, 2021, found 74% of those who received a diagnosis of COVID19, and 80% of hospitalizations, were among the fully vaccinated.^28,29 Most, but not all, had the Delta variant.

“What the breakthrough cases appear to show is that the delta variant of the coronavirus is more easily carried and transmitted by vaccinated people than its predecessors,” the Chronicle editorial board writes.³⁰

“In any case, the greater apparent transmissibility of the variant makes it that much more important to protect as many people as possible from severe COVID by increasing inoculation rates.”

What the board appears to be saying is that unvaccinated people must be protected against severe infection, against their will, if need be, and the best way to do that is to discriminate against them and treat them like second-class citizens.

Again, a simple way to check the reasonableness of this argument is to swap out the COVID reference for something else. How about, “It’s important to protect as many people as possible from dying in car accidents by raising car prices so fewer people can get behind the wheel.”

Can ‘Big Brother’ Save You From a Virus?

As early as April 2020, The Times in the U.K. weighed in with similar suggestions, stating “We need Big Brother to beat this virus.”³¹ Clare Foges, the author of the piece in question, went on to say, “Don’t let the civil liberties lobby blind us to the fact that greater state surveillance, including ID cards, is required.”

The argument that Big Brother can protect us from infection is ludicrous on its face, because no amount of people surveillance can prevent microscopic viruses from circulating.

The No. 1 place of viral spread is in institutions, such as nursing homes and hospitals, yet the staff within them are among the most well-trained in pathogenic control. If trained hospital staff can’t prevent the spread of viruses, how can government officials do it?

Importantly, the argument that we need vaccine passports to prove we’re “clean” enough to participate in society immediately falls apart when you take into account the fact that the COVID shots do not provide immunity. You can still be infected, carry the virus and spread it to others.

We’ve already seen several examples of situations where 100% of people were fully “vaccinated” against COVID-19 yet an outbreak occurred. We’ve even seen over 100 fully COVID injected people die from COVID in one state alone, Massachusetts,³² so it is likely there are now many thousands of fully “vaccinated” who have died from COVID.

Even a 100% Vaccination Rate Cannot Eliminate COVID

Most recently, Carnival cruise lines experienced an outbreak despite every last person on that ship having proof of COVID “vaccination.”³³ The cruise liner had even intentionally reduced capacity from 4,000 to 2,800 to provide ample social distancing capability. None of the measures worked. People got sick anyway, which makes perfect sense if you remember that the shot doesn’t provide immunity, only symptom reduction.

Cases such as these clearly reveal that even if everyone gets the shot, SARS-CoV-2 will mutate and continue to circulate, taking people out here and there. To think that giving up basic rights and freedoms is the answer simply isn’t logical. Taking responsibility for your own health is, and that includes deciding if and how you want to protect yourself from SARS-CoV-2.

Not everyone is deathly afraid of COVID-19. Many realize there are safe and effective treatments available, such as the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance’s I-MASS Prevention and At-Home Treatment protocol and I-MASK+ Early Outpatient Treatment protocol.

Nebulized hydrogen peroxide can also be used for prevention and treatment of COVID-19, as detailed in Dr. David Brownstein’s case paper³⁴ and Dr. Thomas Levy’s free e-book, “Rapid Virus Recovery.” And if there’s effective treatment, there’s little need to risk permanent side effects from an experimental gene technology that can only provide a narrow range of protection in the first place.

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Notes

¹ WhiteHouse.gov, National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism June 2021

² PLOS Biology July 28, 2021 DOI: 10.1371.journal.pbio.3001369

³ Summit News August 5, 2021

^4, 5 Jonathanturley.org August 4, 2021

^6, 7, 16 The Atlantic August 3, 2021

^8, 28 CDC MMWR July 30, 2021; 70

^9, 29 CNBC July 30, 2021

¹⁰ HHS.gov The Belmont Report

¹¹ UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

¹² WMA Declaration of Helsinki

¹³ British Medical Journal December 7, 1996; 7070(313): 1448 (PDF)

¹⁴ Justia Rochin v. California

¹⁵ Justia Griswold v. Connecticut

^17, 18 Swift Headline August 5, 2021

^19, 20, 30 San Francisco Chronicle August 2, 2021 (Archived)

²¹ Bloomberg COVID Vaccine Tracker, see US Vaccinations vs Cases graph, top portion

²² Mayo Clinic COVID Vaccine Tracker

²³ CDC.gov When You’ve Been Fully Vaccinated Updated July 27, 2021

²⁴ Bloomberg August 1, 2021 (Archived)

²⁵ American Faith August 8, 2021

²⁶ The Daily Expose July 29, 2021

²⁷ Big League Politics August 4, 2021

³¹ The Times April 20, 2021

³² Boston.com August 10, 2021

³³ FBA News August 9, 2021

³⁴ Science, Public Health Policy and The Law July 2020; 1: 4-22 (PDF)

Featured image is from Mercola

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Key Points

Question: What are the findings on cardiac imaging in children with myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccination?

Findings: In this case series of 15 children who were hospitalized with myocarditis after receipt of the BNT162b2 messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccine for 1 to 5 days, boys were most often affected after the second vaccine dose, 3 patients had ventricular systolic dysfunction, and 12 patients had late gadolinium enhancement on cardiac magnetic resonance imaging. There was no mortality, and all but 1 patient had normal echocardiogram results on follow-up 1 to 13 days after discharge.

Meaning: COVID-19 vaccine-associated myocarditis may have a benign short-term course in children; however, the long-term risks remain unknown.

Importance: The BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccine was authorized on May 10, 2021, for emergency use in children aged 12 years and older. Initial reports showed that the vaccine was well tolerated without serious adverse events; however, cases of myocarditis have been reported since approval.

Objective: To review results of comprehensive cardiac imaging in children with myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccine.

Design, Setting, and Participants: This study was a case series of children younger than 19 years hospitalized with myocarditis within 30 days of BNT162b2 messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccine. The setting was a single-center pediatric referral facility, and admissions occurred between May 1 and July 15, 2021.

Main Outcomes and Measures: All patients underwent cardiac evaluation including an electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging.

Results: Fifteen patients (14 male patients [93%]; median age, 15 years [range, 12-18 years]) were hospitalized for management of myocarditis after receiving the BNT162b2 (Pfizer) vaccine. Symptoms started 1 to 6 days after receipt of the vaccine and included chest pain in 15 patients (100%), fever in 10 patients (67%), myalgia in 8 patients (53%), and headache in 6 patients (40%). Troponin levels were elevated in all patients at admission (median, 0.25 ng/mL [range, 0.08-3.15 ng/mL]) and peaked 0.1 to 2.3 days after admission. By echocardiographic examination, decreased left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction (EF) was present in 3 patients (20%), and abnormal global longitudinal or circumferential strain was present in 5 patients (33%). No patient had a pericardial effusion. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging findings were consistent with myocarditis in 13 patients (87%) including late gadolinium enhancement in 12 patients (80%), regional hyperintensity on T2-weighted imaging in 2 patients (13%), elevated extracellular volume fraction in 3 patients (20%), and elevated LV global native T1 in 2 patients (20%). No patient required intensive care unit admission, and median hospital length of stay was 2 days (range 1-5). At follow-up 1 to 13 days after hospital discharge, 11 patients (73%) had resolution of symptoms. One patient (7%) had persistent borderline low LV systolic function on echocardiogram (EF 54%). Troponin levels remained mildly elevated in 3 patients (20%). One patient (7%) had nonsustained ventricular tachycardia on ambulatory monitor.

Conclusions and Relevance: In this small case series study, myocarditis was diagnosed in children after COVID-19 vaccination, most commonly in boys after the second dose. In this case series, in short-term follow-up, patients were mildly affected. The long-term risks associated with postvaccination myocarditis remain unknown. Larger studies with longer follow-up are needed to inform recommendations for COVID-19 vaccination in this population.

SARS-CoV-2 was first identified in China and evolved rapidly to a global pandemic. Vaccines to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection are the current standard approach for curbing the pandemic. In the US, the BNT162b2 messenger RNA (mRNA) (Pfizer-BioNTech), mRNA-1273 (Moderna), and Ad26.COV2.S (Janssen) vaccines were granted emergency use authorization for adults. On May 10, 2021, the emergency use authorization for the BNT162b2 vaccine was extended to children aged 12 years and older.¹

Myocarditis has been reported as a rare complication of vaccination against other viruses.² It was not reported in the initial messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccine trials, although the ability to detect rare events was limited by sample size. Since the emergency use authorization, myocarditis in adolescents and young adults after COVID-19 vaccine has been reported.^3-5 In this series, we detail the occurrence of myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccination in an adolescent population, including comprehensive cardiac imaging evaluation and follow-up.

Read the full article here.

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Featured image:  A hand holding an mRNA vaccine vial. (Spencer Davis / Unsplash)

The article below was first published in 2005. Below is a detailed update followed by the original 2005 article. 

Author’s Note and Update

The US opioid crisis broadly defined bears a relationship to the export of heroin out of Afghanistan.

How will  this multibillion trade (which until recently was protected by US forces) be affected by the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. Private mercenary companies are also involved in supporting the opium trade.

The US withdrawal has been the object of extensive negotiations between US-NATO and the Taliban. A deal was signed in Doha in late February 2020.

Did the U.S. reach a “secret agreement” with the Taliban regarding the opium trade?

Restoration of the Drug Trade. Did the Invasion of Afghanistan Contribute to the Increase in Heroin Addiction

What is important to understand is that one of the key strategic objectives of the 2001 war on Afghanistan was to restore the opium trade following the Taliban government’s successful 2000-2001 drug eradication program which led to a 94% collapse in opium production. This program was supported by the United Nations. (For details, see below)

In the course of the last 19 years following the US-NATO October 2001 invasion,  there has been a surge in Afghan opium production. In turn the number of heroin addicts in the US has increased dramatically. Is there a relationship?

There were 189,000 heroin users in the US in 2001, before the US-NATO invasion of Afghanistan.

By 2016 that number went up to 4,500,000 (2.5 million heroin addicts and 2 million casual users).

In 2020, at the hight of the covid crisis, deaths from opioids and drug addiction increased threefold.

It’s Big Money for Big Pharma.

Graph based on CDC data Source PBS

In a bitter irony, Johnson and Johnson which is marketing its “experimental” COVID-19 adenovirus viral vector vaccine, just so happens to be a major producer of prescription opioids.

In November 2020 a “a tentative $26 billion settlement was reached with counties and cities across America which sued J and J and its distributors on behalf of opioid victims.

This  class action law suit was “the largest federal court case in American history”.  It coincided with the launching of the Covid vaccine initiative in early November 2020. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky’s E-Book, Chapter VI).

According to the Washington Post:

Johnson & Johnson and the “Big Three” distributors, McKesson, Cardinal Health and Amerisource Bergen, potentially brings a large measure of legal closure for the companies and will funnel money to communities devastated by an addiction crisis that claims more than 70,000 lives in America every year.  (emphasis added)

Afghanistan currently produces 84 percent of the World’s opium which feeds the heroin and opioid markets.

Lest we forget, the surge in opium production occurred in the immediate wake of the US invasion in October 2001.

Who is protecting opium exports out of Afghanistan?

“In 2000-2001,  the Taliban government –in collaboration with the United Nations– had imposed a successful ban on poppy cultivation. Opium production declined by more than 90 per cent in 2001. In fact the surge in opium cultivation production coincided with the onslaught of the US-led military operation and the downfall of the Taliban regime. From October through December 2001, farmers started to replant poppy on an extensive basis.” (quoted from article below)

The Vienna based UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reveals that poppy cultivation in 2012 extended over an area of  more than  154,000 hectares, an increase of 18% over 2011. A UNODC  spokesperson confirmed in 2013 that opium production is heading towards record levels.

In 2014 the Afghan opium cultivation hit a record high, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s 2014 Afghan Opium Survey.( See graph below). A slight decline occurred in 2015-2016.

Source:  United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC)

There is reason to believe that this figure of 3700 tons is grossly underestimated. Moreover, it contradicts the UNOCD’s own predictions of record harvests over an extended area of cultivation.

While bad weather and damaged crops may have played a role as suggested by the UNODC, based on historical trends, the potential production for an area of cultivation of 154,000 hectares, should be well in excess of 6000 tons.  With 80,000 hectares in cultivation in 2003,  production was already of the order of  3600 tons.

It is worth noting that UNODC has modified the concepts and figures on opium sales and heroin production, as outlined by the  European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).

A change in UN methodology in 2010 resulted in a sharp downward revision of Afghan heroin production estimates for 2004 to 2011. UNODC used to estimate that the entire global opium crop was processed into heroin, and provided global heroin production estimates on that basis. Before 2010, a global conversion rate of about 10 kg of opium to 1 kg of heroin was used to estimate world heroin production (17). For instance, the estimated 4 620 tonnes of opium harvested worldwide in 2005 was thought to make it possible to manufacture 472  tonnes of heroin (UNODC, 2009a). However, UNODC now estimates that a large proportion of the Afghan opium harvest is not processed into heroin or morphine but remains ‘available on the drug market as opium’ (UNODC, 2010a). …EU drug markets report: a strategic analysis, EMCDDA, Lisbon, January 2013 emphasis added

There is no evidence that a large percentage of opium production is no longer processed into heroin as claimed by the UN. This revised UNODC methodology has served, –through the outright manipulation of statistical concepts– to artificially reduce the size of of the global trade in heroin.

According to the UNODC, quoted in the EMCDDA report:

“an estimated 3 400 tonnes of Afghan opium was not transformed into heroin or morphine in 2011. Compared with previous years, this is an exceptionally high proportion of the total crop, representing nearly 60 % of the Afghan opium harvest and close to 50 % of the global harvest in 2011.

What the UNODC, –whose mandate is to support the prevention of organized criminal activity– has done is to obfuscate the size and criminal nature of the Afghan drug trade, intimating –without evidence– that a large part of the opium is no longer channeled towards the illegal heroin market.

In 2012 according to the UNODC,  farmgate prices for opium were of the order of 196 per kg.

Each kg. of opium produces 100 grams of pure heroin. The US retail prices for heroin (with a low level of purity) is, according to UNODC of the order of $172 a gram. The price per gram of pure heroin is substantially higher.

The profits are largely reaped at the level of the international wholesale and retail markets of heroin as well as in the process of money laundering in Western banking institutions.

The revenues derived from the global trade in heroin constitute a multibillion dollar bonanza for financial institutions and organized crime.

“Opium production in Afghanistan rose by 43 per cent to 4,800 metric tons in 2016 compared with 2015 levels, according to the latest Afghanistan Opium Survey figures released today by the Afghan Ministry of Counter Narcotics and the UNODC. The area under opium poppy cultivation also increased to 201,000 hectares (ha) in 2016, a rise of 10 per cent compared with 183,000 ha in 2015.

.

Source: UNODC

The following article first published in May 2005 provides a background on the history of the Afghan opium trade which until recently was protected by US-NATO occupation forces on behalf of powerful financial  interests.

Michel Chossudovsky,  May 2o16, August 2021  

The Spoils of War: Afghanistan’s Multibillion Dollar Heroin Trade

by Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, May 2005

Since the US led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the Golden Crescent opium trade has soared. According to the US media, this lucrative contraband is protected by Osama, the Taliban, not to mention, of course, the regional warlords, in defiance of the “international community”.

The heroin business is said to  be “filling the coffers of the Taliban”. In the words of the US State Department:

“Opium is a source of literally billions of dollars to extremist and criminal groups… [C]utting down the opium supply is central to establishing a secure and stable democracy, as well as winning the global war on terrorism,” (Statement of Assistant Secretary of State Robert Charles. Congressional Hearing, 1 April 2004)

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), opium production in Afghanistan in 2003 is estimated at 3,600 tons, with an estimated area under cultivation of the order of 80,000 hectares. (UNODC at http://www.unodc.org/unodc/index.html ).An even larger bumper harvest is predicted for 2004.

The State Department suggests that up to 120 000 hectares were under cultivation in 2004. (Congressional Hearing, op cit):

 “We could be on a path for a significant surge. Some observers indicate perhaps as much as 50 percent to 100 percent growth in the 2004 crop over the already troubling figures from last year.”(Ibid)

“Operation Containment“

In response to the post-Taliban surge in opium production, the Bush administration has boosted its counter terrorism activities, while allocating substantial amounts of public money to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s West Asia initiative, dubbed “Operation Containment.”

The headlines are “Drugs, warlords and insecurity overshadow Afghanistan’s path to democracy”. In chorus, the US media is accusing the defunct “hard-line Islamic regime”, without even acknowledging that the Taliban  –in collaboration with the United Nations– had imposed a successful ban on poppy cultivation in 2000. Opium production declined by more than 90 per cent in 2001. In fact the surge in opium cultivation production coincided with the onslaught of the US-led military operation and the downfall of the Taliban regime. From October through December 2001, farmers started to replant poppy on an extensive basis.

The success of Afghanistan’s 2000 drug eradication program under the Taliban had been acknowledged at the October 2001 session of the UN General Assembly (which took place barely a few days after the beginning of the 2001 bombing raids). No other UNODC member country was able to implement a comparable program:

“Turning first to drug control, I had expected to concentrate my remarks on the implications of the Taliban’s ban on opium poppy cultivation in areas under their control… We now have the results of our annual ground survey of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan. This year’s production [2001] is around 185 tons. This is down from the 3300 tons last year [2000], a decrease of over 94 per cent. Compared to the record harvest of 4700 tons two years ago, the decrease is well over 97 per cent.

Any decrease in illicit cultivation is welcomed, especially in cases like this when no displacement, locally or in other countries, took place to weaken the achievement”

(Remarks on behalf of UNODC Executive Director at the UN General Assembly, Oct 2001, http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/speech_2001-10-12_1.html )

United Nations’ Coverup

In the wake of the US invasion, shift in rhetoric. UNODC is now acting as if the 2000 opium ban had never happened:

“the battle against narcotics cultivation has been fought and won in other countries and it [is] possible to do so here [in Afghanistan], with strong, democratic governance, international assistance and improved security and integrity.”

( Statement of the UNODC Representative in Afghanistan at the :February 2004  International Counter Narcotics Conference,  p. 5).

In fact, both Washington and the UNODC now claim that the objective of the Taliban in 2000 was not really “drug eradication” but a devious scheme to trigger “an artificial shortfall in supply”, which would drive up World prices of heroin.

Ironically, this twisted logic, which now forms part of a new “UN consensus”, is refuted by a report of the UNODC office in Pakistan, which confirmed, at the time, that there was no evidence of stockpiling by the Taliban. (Deseret News, Salt Lake City, Utah. 5 October 2003)

Washington’s Hidden Agenda: Restore the Drug Trade

In the wake of the 2001 US bombing of Afghanistan, the British government of Tony Blair was entrusted by the G-8 Group of leading industrial nations to carry out a drug eradication program, which would, in theory, allow Afghan farmers to switch out of poppy cultivation into alternative crops. The British were working out of Kabul in close liaison with the US DEA’s “Operation Containment”.

The UK sponsored crop eradication program is an obvious smokescreen. Since October 2001, opium poppy cultivation has skyrocketed.   The presence of occupation forces in Afghanistan did not result in the eradication of poppy cultivation. Quite the opposite.

The Taliban prohibition had indeed caused “the beginning of a heroin shortage in Europe by the end of 2001”, as acknowledged by the UNODC.

Heroin is a multibillion dollar business supported by powerful interests, which requires a steady and secure commodity flow. One of the “hidden” objectives of the war was precisely to restore the CIA sponsored drug trade to its historical levels and exert direct control over the drug routes.

Immediately following the October 2001 invasion, opium markets were restored. Opium prices spiraled. By early 2002, the opium price (in dollars/kg) was almost 10 times higher than in 2000.

In 2001, under the Taliban opiate production stood at 185 tons, increasing  to 3400 tons in 2002 under the US sponsored puppet regime of President Hamid Karzai.

While highlighting Karzai’s patriotic struggle against the Taliban, the media fails to mention that Karzai collaborated with the Taliban. He had also been on the payroll of a major US oil company, UNOCAL. In fact, since the mid-1990s, Hamid Karzai had acted as a consultant and lobbyist for UNOCAL in negotiations with the Taliban. According to the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan:

“Karzai has been a Central Intelligence Agency covert operator since the 1980s. He collaborated with the CIA in funneling U.S. aid to the Taliban as of 1994 when the Americans had secretly and through the Pakistanis [specifically the ISI] supported the Taliban’s assumption of power.” (quoted in Karen Talbot, U.S. Energy Giant Unocal Appoints Interim Government in Kabul, Global Outlook, No. 1, Spring 2002. p. 70. See also  BBC Monitoring Service, 15 December 2001)

History of the Golden Crescent Drug trade

It is worth recalling the history of  the Golden Crescent drug trade, which is intimately related to the CIA’s covert operations in the region since the onslaught of the Soviet-Afghan war and its aftermath.

Prior to the Soviet-Afghan war (1979-1989), opium production in Afghanistan and Pakistan was directed to small regional markets. There was no local production of heroin. (Alfred McCoy, Drug Fallout: the CIA’s Forty Year Complicity in the Narcotics Trade. The Progressive, 1 August 1997).

The Afghan narcotics economy was a carefully designed project of the CIA, supported by US foreign policy.

As revealed in the Iran-Contra and Bank of Commerce and Credit  International (BCCI) scandals, CIA covert operations in support of the Afghan Mujahideen had been funded through the laundering of drug money.  “Dirty money” was recycled –through a number of banking institutions (in the Middle East) as well as through anonymous CIA shell companies–, into  “covert money,” used to finance various insurgent groups during the Soviet-Afghan war, and its aftermath:

“Because the US wanted to supply the Mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan with stinger missiles and other military hardware it needed the full cooperation of Pakistan. By the mid-1980s, the CIA operation in Islamabad was one of the largest US intelligence stations in the World. `If BCCI is such an embarrassment to the US that forthright investigations are not being pursued it has a lot to do with the blind eye the US turned to the heroin trafficking in Pakistan’, said a US intelligence officer. (“The Dirtiest Bank of All,” Time, July 29, 1991, p. 22.)

Researcher Alfred McCoy’s study confirms that within two years of the onslaught of the CIA’s covert operation in Afghanistan in 1979,

“the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world’s top heroin producer, supplying 60 per cent of U.S. demand. In Pakistan, the heroin-addict population went from near zero in 1979  to 1.2 million by 1985, a much steeper rise than in any other nation.”

“CIA assets again controlled this heroin trade. As the Mujahideen guerrillas seized territory inside Afghanistan, they ordered peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary tax. Across the border in Pakistan, Afghan leaders and local syndicates under the protection of Pakistan Intelligence operated hundreds of heroin laboratories. During this decade of wide-open drug-dealing, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to instigate major seizures or arrests.

U.S. officials had refused to investigate charges of heroin dealing by its Afghan allies because U.S. narcotics policy in Afghanistan has been subordinated to the war against Soviet influence there.  In 1995, the former CIA director of the Afghan operation, Charles Cogan, admitted the CIA had indeed sacrificed the drug war to fight the Cold War. ‘Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets. We didn’t really have the resources or the time to devote to an investigation of the drug trade,’ I don’t think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has its fallout.  There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan.'”(McCoy, op cit)

The role of the CIA, which is amply documented, is not mentioned in official UNODC publications, which focus on internal social and political factors. Needless to say, the historical roots of the opium trade have been grossly distorted.

(See UNODC http://www.unodc.org/pdf/publications/afg_opium_economy_www.pdf

According to the UNODC, Afghanistan’s opium production has increased, more than 15-fold since 1979. In the wake of the Soviet-Afghan war, the growth of the narcotics economy has continued unabated. The Taliban, which were supported by the US, were initially instrumental in the further growth of opiate production until the 2000 opium ban.

(See UNODC http://www.unodc.org/pdf/publications/afg_opium_economy_www.pdf

This recycling of drug money was used to finance the post-Cold War insurgencies in Central Asia and the Balkans including Al Qaeda. (For details, see Michel Chossudovsky, War and Globalization, The Truth behind September 11, Global Outlook, 2002,  http://globalresearch.ca/globaloutlook/truth911.html )

Narcotics: Second to Oil and the Arms Trade

The revenues generated from the CIA sponsored Afghan drug trade are sizeable. The Afghan trade in opiates constitutes a large share of the worldwide annual turnover of narcotics, which was estimated by the United Nations to be of the order of $400-500 billion. (Douglas Keh, Drug Money in a Changing World, Technical document No. 4, 1998, Vienna UNDCP, p. 4. See also United Nations Drug Control Program, Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 1999, E/INCB/1999/1 United Nations, Vienna 1999, p. 49-51, and Richard Lapper, UN Fears Growth of Heroin Trade, Financial Times, 24 February 2000). At the time these UN figures were first brought out (1994), the (estimated) global trade in drugs was of the same order of magnitude as the global trade in oil.

The IMF estimated global money laundering to be between 590 billion and 1.5 trillion dollars a year, representing 2-5 percent of global GDP. (Asian Banker, 15 August 2003). A large share of global money laundering as estimated by the IMF is linked to the trade in narcotics.

Based on recent figures (2003), drug trafficking  constitutes “the third biggest global commodity in cash terms after oil and the arms trade.” (The Independent, 29 February 2004).

Moreover, the above figures including those on money laundering, confirm that the bulk of the revenues associated with the global trade in narcotics are not appropriated by terrorist groups and warlords, as suggested by the UNODC report.

There are powerful business and financial interests behind narcotics. From this standpoint, geopolitical and military control over  the drug routes is as strategic as oil and oil pipelines.

However, what distinguishes narcotics from legal commodity trade is that narcotics constitutes a major source of wealth formation not only for organised crime but also for the US intelligence apparatus, which increasingly constitutes a powerful actor in the spheres of finance and banking.

In turn, the CIA, which protects the drug trade, has developed complex business and undercover links to major criminal syndicates involved in the drug trade.

In other words, intelligence agencies and powerful business syndicates allied with organized crime, are competing for the strategic control over the heroin routes. The multi-billion dollar revenues of narcotics are deposited in the Western banking system. Most of the large international banks together with their affiliates in the offshore banking havens launder large amounts of narco-dollars.

This trade can only prosper if the main actors involved in narcotics have “political friends in high places.”  Legal and illegal undertakings are increasingly intertwined, the dividing line between “businesspeople” and criminals is blurred. In turn, the relationship among criminals, politicians and members of the intelligence establishment has tainted the structures of the state and the role of its institutions.

Where does the money go?  Who benefits from the Afghan opium trade?

This trade is characterized by a complex web of intermediaries. There are various stages of the drug trade, several interlocked markets, from the impoverished poppy farmer in Afghanistan to the wholesale and retail heroin markets in Western countries. In other words, there is a “hierarchy of prices” for opiates.

This hierarchy of prices is acknowledged by the US administration:

“Afghan heroin sells on the international narcotics market for 100 times the price farmers get for their opium right out of the field”.(US State Department quoted by the Voice of America (VOA), 27 February 2004).

According to the UNODC, opium in Afghanistan generated in 2003 “an income of one billion US dollars for farmers and US$ 1.3 billion for traffickers, equivalent to over half of its national income.”

Consistent with these UNODC estimates, the average price for fresh opium was $350 a kg. (2002); the 2002 production was 3400 tons.  (http://www.poppies.org/news/104267739031389.shtml ).

The UNDOC estimate, based on local farmgate and wholesale prices constitutes, however, a very small percentage of the total turnover of the multibillion dollar Afghan drug trade. The UNODC, estimates “the total annual turn-over of international trade” in Afghan opiates at US$ 30 billion. An examination of the wholesale and retail prices for heroin in the Western countries suggests, however, that the total revenues generated, including those at the retail level, are substantially higher.

Wholesale Prices of Heroin in Western Countries

It is estimated that one kilo of opium produces approximately 100 grams of (pure) heroin. The US DEA confirms that “SWA [South West Asia meaning Afghanistan] heroin in New York City was selling in the late 1990s for $85,000 to $190,000 per kilogram wholesale with a 75 percent purity ratio (National Drug Intelligence Center, http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs/648/ny_econ.htm ).

According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) “the price of SEA [South East Asian] heroin ranges from $70,000 to $100,000 per unit (700 grams) and the purity of SEA heroin ranges from 85 to 90 percent” (ibid). The SEA unit of 700 gr (85-90 % purity) translates  into a wholesale price per kg. for pure heroin ranging between $115,000 and $163,000.

The DEA figures quoted above, while reflecting the situation in the 1990s, are broadly consistent with recent British figures. According to a report published in the Guardian (11 August 2002), the wholesale price of (pure) heroin in London (UK) was of the order of 50,000 pounds sterling, approximately $80,000 (2002).

Whereas as there is competition between different sources of heroin supply, it should be emphasized that Afghan heroin represents a rather small percentage of the US heroin market, which is largely supplied out of Colombia.

Retail Prices

US

“The NYPD notes that retail heroin prices are down and purity is relatively high. Heroin previously sold for about $90 per gram but now sells for $65 to $70 per gram or less. Anecdotal information from the NYPD indicates that purity for a bag of heroin commonly ranges from 50 to 80 percent but can be as low as 30 percent. Information as of June 2000 indicates that bundles (10 bags) purchased by Dominican buyers from Dominican sellers in larger quantities (about 150 bundles) sold for as little as $40 each, or $55 each in Central Park. DEA reports that an ounce of heroin usually sells for $2,500 to $5,000, a gram for $70 to $95, a bundle for $80 to $90, and a bag for $10. The DMP reports that the average heroin purity at the street level in 1999 was about 62 percent.”  (National Drug Intelligence Center, http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs/648/ny_econ.htm ).

The NYPD and DEA retail price figures seem consistent. The DEA price of $70-$95, with a purity of 62 percent translates into $112 to $153 per gram of pure heroin. The NYPD figures are roughly similar with perhaps lower estimates for purity.

It should be noted that when heroin is purchased in very small quantities,  the retail price tends to be much higher. In the US, purchase is often by “the bag”; the typical bag according to Rocheleau and Boyum contains 25 milligrams of pure heroin.

(http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/drugfact/american_users_spend/appc.html )

A $10 dollar bag in NYC (according to the DEA figure quoted above) would convert into a price of $400 per gram, each bag containing 0.025gr. of pure heroin. (op cit). In other words, for very small purchases marketed by street pushers, the retail margin tends to be significantly higher. In the case of the $10 bag purchase, it is roughly 3 to 4 times the corresponding retail price per gram.($112-$153)

UK

In Britain, the retail street price per gram of heroin, according to British Police sources, “has fallen from £74 in 1997 to £61 [in 2004].” [i.e. from approximately $133 to $110, based on the 2004 rate of exchange] (Independent, 3 March 2004). In some cities it was as low as £30-40 per gram with a low level of purity. (AAP News, 3 March 2004). According to Drugscope (http://www.drugscope.org.uk/ ), the average price for a gram of heroin in Britain is between £40 and £90 ($72- $162 per gram) (The report does not mention purity). The street price of heroin was £60 per gram in April 2002 according to the National Criminal Intelligence Service.

(See:http://www.drugscope.org.uk/druginfo/drugsearch/ds_results.asp?file=%5Cwip%5C11%5C1%5C1%5Cheroin_opiates.html )

The Hierarchy of Prices

We are dealing with a hierarchy  of prices, from the farmgate price in the producing country, upwards, to the final retail street price. The latter is often 80-100 times the price paid to the farmer.

In other words, the opiate product transits through several markets from the producing country to the transshipment country(ies), to the consuming countries. In the latter, there are wide margins between “the landing price” at the point of entry, demanded by the drug cartels and the wholesale prices and the retail street prices, protected by Western organized crime.

The Global Proceeds of the Afghan Narcotics Trade

In Afghanistan, the reported production of 3600 tons of opium in 2003 would allow for the production of approximately 360,000 kg of pure heroin. Gross revenues accruing to Afghan farmers are roughly estimated by the UNODC to be of the order of $1 billion, with 1.3 billion accruing to local traffickers.

When sold in Western markets at a heroin wholesale price of the order of $100,000 a kg (with a 70 percent purity ratio), the global wholesale proceeds (corresponding to 3600 tons of Afghan opium) would be of the order of 51.4 billion dollars. The latter constitutes a conservative estimate based on the various figures for wholesale prices in the previous section.

The total proceeds of the Afghan narcotics trade (in terms of total value added) is estimated using the final heroin retail price. In other words, the retail value of the trade is ultimately the criterion for measuring the importance of the drug trade in terms of revenue generation and wealth formation.

A meaningful estimate of the retail value, however, is almost impossible to ascertain due to the fact that retail prices vary considerably within urban areas, from one city to another and between consuming countries, not to mention variations in purity and quality (see above).

The evidence on retail margins, namely the difference between wholesale and retail values in the consuming countries, nonetheless, suggests that a large share of the total (money) proceeds of the drug trade are generated at the retail level.

In other words, a significant portion of the proceeds of the drug trade accrues to criminal and business syndicates in Western countries involved in the local wholesale and retail narcotics markets. And the various criminal gangs involved in retail trade are invariably protected by the “corporate” crime syndicates.

90 percent of heroin consumed in the UK is from Afghanistan. Using the British retail price figure from UK police sources of $110 a gram (with an assumed 50 percent purity level), the total retail value of the Afghan narcotics trade  in 2003 (3600 tons of opium) would be the order of 79.2 billion dollars. The latter should be considered as a simulation rather than an estimate.

Under this assumption (simulation), a billion dollars gross revenue to the farmers in Afghanistan (2003) would generate global narcotics earnings, –accruing at various stages and in various markets– of the order of 79.2 billion dollars. These global proceeds accrue to business syndicates, intelligence agencies, organized crime, financial institutions, wholesalers, retailers, etc. involved directly or indirectly in the drug trade.

In turn, the proceeds of this lucrative trade are deposited in Western banks, which constitute an essential mechanism in the laundering of dirty money.

A very small percentage accrues to farmers and traders in the producing country. Bear in mind that the net income accruing to Afghan farmers is but a fraction of the estimated 1 billion dollar amount. The latter does not include payments of farm inputs, interest on loans to money lenders, political protection, etc.

(See also UNODC, The Opium Economy in Afghanistan,  http://www.unodc.org/pdf/publications/afg_opium_economy_www.pdf , Vienna, 2003, p. 7-8)

The Share of the Afghan Heroin in the Global Drug Market

Afghanistan produces over 70 percent of the global supply of heroin and heroin represents a sizeable fraction of the global narcotics market, estimated by the UN to be of the order of $400-500 billion.

There are no reliable estimates on the distribution of the global narcotics trade between the main categories: Cocaine, Opium/Heroin, Cannabis, Amphetamine Type Stimulants (ATS), Other Drugs.

The Laundering of Drug Money

The proceeds of the drug trade are deposited in the banking system. Drug money is laundered in the numerous offshore banking havens in Switzerland, Luxembourg, the British Channel Islands, the Cayman Islands and some 50 other locations around the globe.  It is here that the criminal syndicates involved in the drug trade and the representatives of the world’s largest commercial banks interact. Dirty money is deposited in these offshore havens, which are controlled by the major Western commercial banks. The latter have a vested interest in maintaining and sustaining the drug trade. (For further details, see Michel Chossudovsky, The Crimes of Business and the Business of Crimes, Covert Action Quarterly, Fall 1996)

Once the money has been laundered, it can be recycled into bona fide investments not only in real estate, hotels, etc, but also in other areas such as the services economy and manufacturing. Dirty and covert money is also funneled into various financial instruments including the trade in derivatives, primary commodities, stocks, and government bonds.

Concluding Remarks: Criminalization of US Foreign Policy

US foreign policy supports the workings of a thriving criminal economy in which the demarcation between organized capital and organized crime has become increasingly blurred.

The heroin business is not  “filling the coffers of the Taliban” as claimed by US government and the international community: quite the opposite! The proceeds of this illegal trade are the source of wealth formation, largely reaped by powerful business/criminal interests within the Western countries. These interests are sustained by US foreign policy.

Decision-making in the US State Department, the CIA and the Pentagon is instrumental in supporting this highly profitable multibillion dollar trade, third in commodity value after oil and the arms trade.

The Afghan drug economy is “protected”.

The heroin trade was part of the war agenda. What this war has achieved is to restore a compliant narco-State, headed by a US appointed puppet.

The powerful financial interests behind narcotics are supported by the militarisation of the world’s major drug triangles (and transshipment routes), including the Golden Crescent and the Andean region of South America (under the so-called Andean Initiative).

Table 1

Opium Poppy Cultivation in Afghanistan

Year                         Cultivation in hectares               Production (tons)

1994                                 71,470                                    3,400

1995                                 53,759                                    2,300

1996                                 56,824                                    2,200

1997                                 58,416                                    2,800

1998                                 63,674                                    2,700

1999                                 90,983                                    4,600

2000                                 82,172                                    3,300

2001                                   7,606                                       185

2002                                 74 000                                    3400

2003                                 80 000                                    3600

Source: UNDCP, Afghanistan, Opium Poppy Survey, 2001, UNOCD, Opium Poppy Survey, 2002. http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afg/afg_opium_survey_2002.pdf

See also Press Release: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/press_release_2004-03-31_1.html , and 2003 Survey:  http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afg/afghanistan_opium_survey_2003.pdf

Notice the dip in 2001

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According to the most recent stats released by the CDC this past Saturday, August 14, 2021, their Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) now has recorded more than twice as many deaths following the non-FDA approved experimental COVID-19 shots during the past 8 and a half months, than deaths recorded following ALL FDA approved vaccines for the past 30 years.

This has to be the most censored information in the U.S. right now, even though these statistics come directly from the CDC.

They have now recorded 12,791 deaths, 16,044 permanent disabilities, 70,667 emergency room visits, 51,242 hospitalizations, 13,139 life threatening events, among 682,873 reported injuries from 571,831 cases.

Source.

The CDC’s official response to these statistics is that they are basically coincidences, and are not related to the experimental COVID-19 shots.

Reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination, including deaths, do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem. A review of available clinical information, including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records, has not established a causal link to COVID-19 vaccines. (Source.)

Trusting in the CDC for COVID-19 safety information is quite obviously deadly. Because it is widely known that these statistics that they admit to are but a fraction of actual cases, as very few medical professionals are willing to classify an injury or death as caused by COVID-19 injections.

By way of contrast, deaths following all FDA-approved vaccines for the 30 years prior to the emergency use authorizations of the COVID-19 shots total 6,068 over 30 years according to the CDC.

Source.

What are NOT included in these 12,791 deaths the CDC is reporting following COVID-19 shots, are the number of fetal deaths following COVID-19 injections into pregnant women, which now numbers 1,360 deaths according to the CDC.

Source.

The FDA and CDC Serve Big Pharma – Not the Public

The Big Pharma cartel is now fully in control of just about every aspect of our lives. They own the corporate media which is not reporting any of these statistics from VAERS, and they control the health agencies like the NIH, the CDC, and the FDA.

They are rushing now to remove the emergency use authorization on these COVID-19 shots, and give them full approval, so that they can legally be mandated, and the Pentagon has already stated that they will mandate them for the U.S. Military in September.

The FDA has also just recently authorized a 3rd booster COVID-19 shot “for those who are immunocompromised.”

Los Angeles County started offering these 3rd Pfizer COVID-19 shots this past weekend.

Anthony Fauci did the Sunday talk show tour yesterday, and stated that Americans need to surrender their liberties (yes, he actually said that) because we are all fighting a common enemy, “the virus.”

In addition, the Department of Homeland Security has now issued a bulletin declaring that anyone who questions COVID-19 measures like masks and “vaccines” are potential “domestic terrorists.”

They are using a bogus COVID-19 “outbreak” called the “Delta variant,” and the CDC has already been caught lyingabout who are actually being hospitalized right now, falsely stating that the “unvaccinated” are filling up hospitals, when almost the exact opposite is happening around the world. Israel, Australia Report 95-99% Hospitalized are Fully Vaccinated

The real tragedy that is happening in our nation’s hospitals is that they are financially motivated to treat as many COVID patients as possible, and this has resulted, especially among our senior population, in more deaths due to COVID-19 injections than to actual cases of COVID. See: Board Certified Occupational Therapist Whistleblower: More Patients are Dying from the Vaccine than from COVID

This is our top-read story and most watched video for the past 7 days, and for good reason, because it EXPOSES EVERYTHING!

People are dying NEEDLESSLY because they are being forced to be treated as COVID patients in hospitals, and this is truly a crime against humanity.

Please see this article if you have not yet read it, and be sure to read the comments at the bottom to understand what families are going through today when a family member is admitted to a hospital and ends up DEAD: Standard COVID Protocol Treatments Still Killing Patients in Hospitals – When will the Murders Stop?

What are you going to do America? Humanity literally hangs in the balance.

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Earlier this month, the National Committee for Refugees of Brazil (Conare) extended until December 31, 2022 the simplified process for analyzing applications from Venezuelan asylum seekers. According to Correio Brazilienze, Conare recognized the “serious and widespread violation of human rights” in Venezuela, and therefore decided to extend the deadline.

“The decision reinforces the position of the Brazilian government in the humanitarian acceptance of our neighbors in the face of the serious crisis that has been taking place in Venezuela in recent years,” said the minister of Justice and Public Security, Anderson Torres.

More than 50,000 Venezuelans were recognized as refugees in June, according to data from the Ministry of Justice and Public Security. Since Venezuela is plunged into an economic, political and health crisis of almost catastrophic proportions, this was an important decision made by Brazil. According to an August 5 UN report, there are 5.6 million Venezuelans who have migrated or sought refuge in other countries. Brazil is behind Chile, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador in receiving Venezuelan migrants despite their own significant economic, political and health crisis, raising questions on why the country is taking on such a huge burden.

Since the accession of Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency in 2019, Brazil has lost its status as a leading South American country as it pursues the interests of Washington without question or thought on whether it is in the interests of the continent. In fact, Brazil’s lack of leadership, despite being South America’s largest country in terms of size, economy and population, is seen with Mexico, a non-South American country (although it is Latin American), take a lead in trying to negotiate between the Nicolás Maduro government and the Venezuelan opposition.

Bolsonaro uses an anti-communist and anti-socialist narrative to galvanize his supporter base. It was partly because of this platform that he found success in the 2018 election-cycle, something he is hoping to repeat next year when the re-election campaign begins. Therefore, the subject of socialist Venezuela will undoubtedly be a part of Bolsonaro’s re-election campaign, just as it was in 2018 for him. However, Bolsonaro was also galvanized by riding the wave of Donald Trump’s election success in 2016, often employing the same rhetoric and ideas as his former American counterpart.

What Bolsonaro does not acknowledge though is that the world is different to what it was even just a few years earlier. Bolsonaro’s approval rating continues to reach new lows. His disapproval rating in July passed 50 percent for the first time, according to a poll published by the Datafolha Institute, marking a new low in the leader’s declining popularity. His approval rating also stayed at its lowest mark of 24 percent, which was set in May.

Even if Bolsonaro’s anti-leftist narrative will involve Venezuela in the re-election campaign, he will not be alone as some political forces more aligned with liberals and so-called progressives will also speak out against the so-called “Maduro dictatorship.”

Former leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took a stand on the issue, saying that U.S. policy towards Venezuela is imperialist. Lula is expected to run in the next election and will represent a bloc that aims to limit and contain U.S. influence in the region whilst also promoting Pan-(Latin) Americanism. Lula’s outlook regarding Venezuela is more realistic as Maduro has already successfully defended himself against several coup attempts, and has the support of the Armed Forces, state bureaucracy, and the majority of the people. Even the U.S.-led sanctions applied against Venezuela are no longer effective in pushing the government towards collapse.

Sanctions are only effective in keeping many Venezuelans stuck in poverty, something that had been reducing since the accession of Bolivarian ideology to state power in 1999. Venezuela’s vast natural resources can allow the country to redevelop, especially since China, Russia and others countries like Iran and Turkey have significant economic interests in the South American country.

If Maduro has not fallen after years of endless U.S.-orchestrated assassination and coup attempts, it is unlikely he will ever fall through external pressure. Despite this reality, coupled with Trump’s failure to be re-elected, Bolsonaro is still likely to wager on the Venezuela issue to boost his collapsing popularity. The return of Lula and the survival of Maduro puts Bolsonaro in a precarious position, especially since Joe Biden has expressed no interest in Brazil because of the Bolsonaro governments hostility towards the now president during last year’s U.S. election campaign. The Bolsonaro administration are among the biggest fanatics of Trump.

Part of this fanaticism for Trump led to Brazil breaking with Latin American consensus and ruining their relations with Venezuela. As part of the U.S.-led pressure campaign against the Venezuelan president, Brazil became a key player. However, instead of removing Maduro from power, Bolsonaro only helped instigate a migration crisis, forcing him to simplify the process for analyzing applications from Venezuelan asylum seekers, at a time when Brazil itself is struggling to deal with a collapsing economy and a pandemic.

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An officer with the U.S. Navy is warning of a full-blown “national security threat” if the military moves ahead with its planned universal COVID-19 vaccination mandate, in a paper obtained exclusively by Revolver News.

In a memorandum released on Monday, Biden Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced his intention to require a COVID-19 vaccination for all service members by mid-September, or immediately should any COVID vaccines clear FDA approval (the vaccines are currently only authorized for emergency use). Servicemen who refuse to submit to the vaccine will potentially face court martials, prison time, and even less-than-honorable discharge from the service.

If that plan goes ahead, though, CDR J.H. Furman warns the results could conceivably be catastrophic.

“The forced vaccination of all military personnel with the present COVID-19 vaccines may compromise U.S. national security due to the unknown extent of serious vaccine complications,” writes Furman. “Further study is needed before committing the Total Force to one irreversible experimental group. Initial reports leave more concern for the COVID-19 vaccinations than the virus itself for the (at present) exceptionally healthy military population.”

Furman is a career United States naval officer, naval aviator, and foreign area officer with extensive experience advising senior military, diplomatic, and international organization leadership. The commander has spent years serving throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East at sea, ashore and airborne. He also holds a Master of Arts in Security Studies from the Naval Postgraduate School.

Furman’s paper is not long, weighing in at just two and a half pages plus an equally long list of citations. But he nevertheless hits all the key points for why imposing COVID-19 vaccines on the entire general populace is driven by hysteria, not real concern for saving lives or stamping out the virus.

Furman’s key points are:

• The average member of the U.S. military is young and in excellent physical fitness, two categories that are nearly immune to the dangers of COVID. So far, only 24 people out of 2.2 million military personnel have died of COVID-19, a rate of less than one per 91,000.
• There is reason to believe severe or even fatal side-effects from existing COVID-19 vaccines are more common than reported, and could even prove deadlier to otherwise-healthy servicemen than COVID-19.
• There is also the outlier possibility that mRNA vaccines (the kind used by the Moderna and Pfizer shots) may have unanticipated negative effects on the immune systems of recipients.
• Currently, the U.S. military has proven completely capable of weathering COVID-19 without any loss of effectiveness, so forcibly making the entire service a test case for a novel type of vaccine is a pointless risk.

We invite readers to read CDR Furman’s entire paper below

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We thank Revolver News for having brought this article to our attention.

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Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination – A National Security Threat

CDR Jay Furman, USN*

The forced vaccination of all military personnel with the present COVID-19 vaccines may compromise U.S. national security due to the unknown extent of serious vaccine complications. Further study is needed before committing the Total Force to one irreversible experimental group. Recent reports leave more concern for the COVID-19 vaccinations than the virus itself for the (at present) exceptionally healthy military population, which is not appreciably impacted by the virus without vaccination.

First, SARS-CoV-2 is unlike any other virus. We have yet to completely understand the virology and it is rapidly mutating. Second, the COVID-19 vaccines are all experimental. The world is simultaneously learning about this new technology amongst the largest vaccine rollout in human history. The data on both the virus and vaccines are new and not yet scientifically reliable. Basic assumptions are changing with unprecedented levels of breakthrough cases in the vaccinated population. The U.S. military service member is extremely healthy compared to the general population and is not succumbing to the virus at any significant level, even without the vaccination. According to the CDC, “COVID overall has a 99.74% survival rate. Among young people, that number is even higher. For people aged 18 to 29, the survival rate is 99.97%.” As of August 12, 2021, only 29 (or 0.001%) of the 2.2 mil military population had expired from COVID-19.

To date, the vaccine is more seriously injuring this unique population than the virus itself. A Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) study finds 23 U.S. service members experienced post-vaccination moderate to severe myocarditis who were otherwise healthy and non-symptomatic. There have been many other COVID-19 vaccine harm or death outcomes documented in the U.S. Government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). In fact, COVID-19 vaccine adverse events comprise a full one-third (over 500,000) of the three-decade total for all VAERS reports. Plus, the VAERS system is underreporting COVID-19 vaccine deaths by a factor of five, according to a whistleblower who is described in their court filing as a “[…] subject matter expertise in the healthcare data analytics field, and has access to Medicare and Medicaid data maintain by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).” They attested that the 9,048 reported COVID-19 vaccine-related deaths in VAERS is more like 45,000, after reconciling the various databases.

The UK government agency Public Health England recently published a report showing that, “people who received the COVID-19 shot are more than three times as likely to die than those who have not received the vaccine.” Early signs in Israel indicate the same. Officials there recently reported that at least 85% of all severe and new COVID-19 hospitalizations are prior vaccinated individuals. The inventor of m-RNA technology, Dr. Robert Malone, recently disclosed that “[…] new data indicates that people who have taken the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are at greater risk of getting Covid than someone who is not vaccinated.” The Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines also demonstrate significant problems as compared to the negligible military COVID-19 mortality rates. In the European Union (EU), more than 22,000 vaccination-associated deaths are now documented in the EU drug adverse events database. Which caused Doctors for COVID Ethics (an international doctors group from over 30 countries) to conclude on July 9, 2021 “[…] the benefits of vaccination are highly doubtful. In contrast, the harm the vaccines do is very well substantiated […]” Vaccine-enhanced herd immunity is in question. On August 3, Iceland’s Chief Epidemiologist announced that their 95% nation-wide full vaccination rate, “[…] has not led to the herd immunity that experts hoped for. In the past two to three weeks, the Delta variant has outstripped all others in Iceland and it has become clear that vaccinated people can easily contract it as well as spread it to others,”

There is precedence for vaccine failure in respiratory viruses as noted in the journal Nature Microbiology last September, “Data from the study of SARS-CoV and other respiratory viruses suggest that anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies could exacerbate COVID-19 through antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE), resulting in failed vaccine trials.” Evidence suggests ADE could cause viral interference and along with other (influenza) vaccines alter our immune systems non-specifically to increase susceptibility to other infections. The mRNA vaccines may redirect our cells away from suppressing latent immunity issues from previous infections (e.g., chicken pox). Consider along with what Dr. Malone describes as an “entire population [that] has been trained via a universal vaccination strategy to have the same basic immune response, then once a viral escape mutant is selected, it will rapidly spread through the entire population – whether vaccinated or not.” It could mean massive problems ahead for the global COVID-19 vaccinated as they encounter variations and even simple viruses like the flu, in combination.

Natural immunity already possessed by the military population recovered from COVID-19 is effective against all known variants and also likely durable over time, according to Dr. Peter A. McCullough, who is regarded as one of the most credentialed experts on COVID-19 in the U.S.This past January, the journal Nature published that greater than 95% of COVID-19 recovered people have “[…] durable memories of the virus […]” There is precedence here, as well, with SARS-CoV-1 demonstrating 17 years of natural immunity. A Cleveland Clinic study concluded, “Individuals who have had SARS-CoV-2 infection are unlikely to benefit from COVID-19 vaccination […]” Another recent Israeli study questions “[…] the need to vaccinate previously-infected individuals […]” after comparing re-infection rates for the vaccinated and recovered segments of the country’s national health database.” Dr. McCullough strongly asserts that the current vaccination programs have become dangerous and should be shut down immediately – that mass vaccination programs in the middle of a pandemic actually causes the variations, making the entire vaccinated population vulnerable to those same variants.

Currently, about 50% of all active and reserve service members have yet to receive a COVID-19 shot of any type. Based on recent reporting data supported by published research findings, this paper argues that instead of lumping two very large unknowns (COVID-19 virology & vaccine efficacy) into one experimental group — possibly threating U.S. military personnel combat readiness — the DOD should maintain the “unvaccinated-half” as a force protection CONTROL GROUP, thus guarantying a viable fighting force. Similar safeguards should also be considered for the civilian DOD population to support the Warfighter, regardless of the long-term vaccine verdict.

Given the COVID-19 mortality in the military, the U.S. can presently maintain the nation’s defensive manning levels, in all critical fields. Pressing forward against these extremely large unknowns by mandating COVID-19 vaccines could potentially threaten basic military deployment assumptions, to say nothing of the long-term destruction to morale and recruiting. If it is true that the military is, in fact, essential to national survival thereby justifying massive budgets and sweeping measures to protect the Force, then deciding to gamble the entirety of those vital forces on what little is certain, is reckless at best. To do so given such low demonstrated serious outcomes in the unvaccinated Force could prove fratricidal. With a better than 99.74% COVID-19 recovery rate in the military population, the singular act of stopping the present vaccination drive, thus preserving a force protection CONTROL GROUP, could prove existentially critical to the country. Immediately, cease and desist all coerced COVID-19 vaccination initiatives for service members and civilians (except for any remaining co-morbidity groups). Moreover, the force protection CONTROL GROUP should commence harmless alternative and preventative protocols like I-MASK+ currently used in nations around the world with great efficacy. According to the American Journal of Therapeuticsin their May-June 2021 issue “Multiple, large ‘natural experiments’ occurred in regions that initiated ‘Ivermectin distribution’ campaigns followed by tight, reproducible, temporally associated decreases in case counts and case fatality rates compared with nearby regions without such campaigns.”

Bottom line, the known science does not justify committing the entire U.S. troop strength to one singular experimental group. Given the many unknowns and what we have come to learn most recently, mandatory COVID-19 vaccination may not only be rash, but perhaps become life-threatening to the nation vis-à-vis those dedicated to her defense, against very well-known strategic competitors. Simply, COVID-19 forced-inoculation could prove to be a grave national security threat at a time when the nation can least afford it. We must immediately pause and reevaluate the U.S. defensive strategic assessment of COVID-19 vaccinations for the entire Department. There is absolutely no imperative of ‘benefits outweighing the risks’ to continue with mandating the COVID-19 vaccines to the military population who do not self-elect. Doing so could potentially trigger manning shortfalls brought on by resignations and lost enlistments from this all-volunteer armed force. At this time, there is more than enough justification for a COVID-19 vaccination safety standdown to reconsider how the decision to mass vaccinate will critically impact overall mission effectiveness.

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Commander Jay Furman is a career United States naval officer, naval aviator and foreign area officer with extensive experience advising senior military, diplomatic, and international organization leadership. The Commander has spent years serving throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East at sea, ashore, and airborne. He holds a Master of Arts in Security Studies from the Naval Postgraduate School.

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A continuous fear campaign by the mainstream media against those who are skeptical about the covid-19 pandemic is obvious when you read this headline from the Washington Post ‘Goldilocks Virus; Delta Vanquishes all Variant Rivals as Scientists Race to Understand its Tricks’ says that “The variant battle in the United States is over. Delta won.”  That’s it, it’s all over.  Now we must take the vaccines because the world has lost the battle with the Covid-19 delta variant. If this is not a fear campaign, I don’t know what is:

Since late last year, the country has been overrun by a succession of coronavirus variants, each with its own suite of mutations conferring slightly different viral traits. For much of this year, the alpha variant- officially known as B.1.1.7 and first seen in the United Kingdom — looked like the clear winner, accounting for the majority of cases by April. In second place was iota, B.1.526, first seen in New York City. A few others made the rogue’s gallery of variants: gamma, beta, epsilon. Then came delta — B.1.617.2. It had spread rapidly in India, but in the United States, it sat there for months, doing little as the alpha advanced. As recently as May 8, delta caused only about 1 percent of new infections nationally

So the Delta variant is part of the long war against deadly diseases at least according to the Washington Post, “today, it has nearly wiped out all of its rivals. The coronavirus pandemic in America has become a delta pandemic” the article continues “the speed with which it dominated the pandemic has left scientists nervous about what the virus will do next. The variant battles of 2021 are part of a longer war, one that is far from over.”

Governments, the mainstream media, multi-national corporations especially the pharmaceutical industry, social engineering cheerleaders such as Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the rest of the so called “global rulers” are determined to vaccinate the entire planet, yet I remain quite optimistic of my fellow human beings who desire the freedom of choice when it comes to their health.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO) and other health governing institutions around the world which are pushing Covid-19 vaccines has lost credibility since they declared a worldwide pandemic back in 2020.

The world knows that Big Pharma is in the business of making profits over health no matter what the outcome is.  Agence France-Presse (AFP) ‘Pharmaceutical Firms Rake in Billions with COVID Jabs’ reported on how much profits Big Pharma made from its vaccines or ‘experimental injections’ so far:

Pfizer has earned more than its competitors, raking in $10.8 billion (9.2 billion euros) in the first half of this year.  The US company has raised its outlook for 2021, expecting to make $33.5 billion in sales for the full year.

BioNTech reported on Tuesday revenues of $7.3 billion euros in the first half. Unlike its larger partner, the company’s only product on sale is the coronavirus vaccine.  BioNTech expects vaccine revenues to reach 15.9 billion euros for the full year, up from a previous estimate of 9.8 billion euros

First and foremost, we know that Big Pharma’s ‘MRNA vaccine’ is not a vaccine, rather it is an ‘experimental injection’.  The inventor of the MRNA, Dr. Robert Malone clearly explained how the spike protein in those vaccines will have adverse effects if it is separated from already infected cells in an uncensored video produced by the Dark Horse Podcast and that was posted by the Children’s Health Defense website:

They were aware that there was a risk of spike being biologically active in having adverse events if it did not stay stuck to the cells that were transfected that got the RNA and made it.

Okay. and they used a genetic engineering method of putting a transmembrane domain on it to ensure that it stayed anchored and stayed put.  And there, they did limited non-clinical studies to say looks like it stays stuck. We engineered it to stay stuck. And they publish that. Here is the thing Okay. Is that’s generally not good enough in a non-clinical data package. So before we get a product released to use in humans in the normal situation where we’re not in a rush, we have some really rigorous tests that have to be done in animals. And revealing that spike gets cleaved off of express cells and becomes free is something that absolutely should have been known and understood well before this ever gotten put into humans. I’ll just leave it at that

Not only that the MRNA vaccine is a new technology that has never been tested and is currently killing and injuring many people around the world, the PCR-RT Covid tests are also a scam. Here is what Dr. Joseph Mercola had said about the PCR tests:

Even though they’ve been widely used across the U.S. and around the world to determine who has a positive case of Covid, PCR assays are not designed to be used as diagnostic tools, as they can’t distinguish between inactive viruses and “live” or reproductive ones.  Besides that, previously, the WHO had recommended 45 “amplification” cycles of the test to determine whether someone was positive for COVID or not.

The thing is, the more cycles that a test goes through, the more likely that a false positive will come up — anything over 30 cycles actually magnifies the samples so much that even insignificant sequences of viral DNA end up being magnified to the point that the test reads positive even if your viral load is extremely low or the virus is inactive and poses no threat to you or anyone else

Dr. Mercola is now being harassed by the mainstream media such as CNN because he exposed the truth about Covid-19 and the agenda behind Big Pharma.

So from an untested new technology found in the MRNA vaccines to the SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR tests that are producing false positives, what else do you expect from average people across the world who happen to use common sense should do besides reject the establishment’s agenda of vaccinating the entire planet with their deadly experimental injections?

From France to Greece: A Violent Revolution Against Medical Tyranny is Inevitable

US President John F. Kennedy once said “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Vive la Révolution!  France is in motion to restart a new revolution since the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette proclaimed ‘let them eat cake during a time in history that the French people were starving during the French Revolution, now the French people are starting to fight back once again, this time against government mandates including the enforcement of Covid-19 experimental injections and the required health passes to enter certain places including restaurants.

How soon before they implement such mandates on supermarkets and small mom and pop grocery stores?  Reuters published an article on what was going on in France ‘We don’t want your health pass’ – protesters march in France for fourth weekend’ reported that

“Protesters marched in cities across France on Saturday in a fourth consecutive weekend of demonstrations, denouncing what they see as oppressive rules compelling health workers to get COVID-19 shots and citizens to have a health pass for many daily activities.”

They were more than 230,000 French citizens from all walks of life participating in the protests “Among the protesters are hard-left anarchists and far-right militants, remnants of the anti-government “Yellow Vest” movement that shook Macron’s leadership during 2018-2019, and also other citizens who are anti-vaccine or consider the health pass to be discriminatory.”  France and also Italy is witnessing a unity among the population that are coming from all walks of life as ABC News reported in ‘Europe’s vaccine passes reveal some pockets of resistance’:

In France and Italy, demonstrations against vaccine passes or virus restrictions in general are bringing together otherwise unlikely allies, often from the political extremes. They include far-right parties, campaigners for economic justice, families with small children, those against vaccines and those who fear them

The article said that protesters in France and Italy even wore “yellow Stars of David, like those the Nazis required Jews to wear during World War II.”

Last month in Greece, protesters also took to the streets according to Reuters, “Greek police used teargas and water cannon to disperse people who had gathered in central Athens on Saturday to protest against mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations” the article says that it was the third time in July that the Greek protesters took to the streets:

More than 4,000 people rallied outside the Greek parliament for a third time this month to oppose mandatory inoculations for some workers, such as healthcare and nursing staff.  A police official, who asked not to be named, said some protesters had thrown petrol bombs, prompting the police to respond with tear gas

The people in the UK and Australia (the worst medical tyranny in the English speaking world) are also following the rest of the world in relentless protests against the medical tyranny that they are currently facing.  All of the protests just mentioned is just the start of many things to come as the establishment and its hired goons tightens the noose on the people.

In the US and Canada: The People vs. Medical Tyranny?

In the United States, many people are starting to realize that mandatory masks (or what I like to call Face Diapers) and experimental injections are becoming a dangerous precedent.  Health freedoms are under attack on various levels especially in the Democrat run cities and states who ironically preach ‘my body my choice’ are leading the charge against the unvaccinated.  New York City mayor Bill De Blasio announced his regime’s approach to the unvaccinated:

So, today, I announce a new approach, which we’re calling the Key to NYC Pass. The key to New York City – when you hear those words, I want you to imagine the notion that because someone’s vaccinated, they can do all the amazing things that are available in this city. This is a miraculous place literally full of wonders. And, if you’re vaccinated, all that’s going to open up to you. You’ll have the key. You can open the door. But, if you’re un-vaccinated, unfortunately, you will not be able to participate in many things

US President Joe Biden’s announcement about expanding a “door to door outreach campaign” will eventually lead to some sort of resistance, even violence in some cases, it’s inevitable.  Biden has announced that states within the union will have federal employees and volunteers going door to door to inform and educate the public on the importance of getting vaccinated.  The New York Post reported that “President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that his administration would step up efforts to get Americans vaccinated against COVID-19 with a new program that would go “door to door, literally knocking on doors” urging people to get the shots” according to the article, Biden said that “We need to go community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, and oft times, door to door, literally knocking on doors” to encourage vaccination.” More than one-third and in some cases, half of the populations depending where in the US and EU are un-vaccinated.  Even in one of the world’s most vaccinated countries on the planet, Israel still has one-third of the remaining population that is categorized as unvaccinated.

In the US, parents of children are taking up the fight against a variety of mandates, especially mask mandates as Katharine C. Gorka of RealClearPolitics.com reported:

Moms for Liberty, Informed Parents of California, EdFirstNC, NJ Parental Rights, No Left Turn in Education and Parents Against Critical Theory are just a few of the hundreds of new parent groups that have emerged across the country in recent months. Many parents have become education activists because of schools’ failure to bring children back into the classroom or their continued imposition of mask mandates

In Montreal, Canada large protests also took place as reported by cbc.ca, ‘Large crowd marches in Montreal to protest against Quebec’s vaccination passport’:

A large group of people gathered in downtown Montreal on Saturday to protest against Quebec’s vaccination passport, just a few weeks before the system is expected to be in place.  The crowd, which stretched at least four to five blocks on René-Lévesque Boulevard West, began marching toward  Place des Festivals at 2 p.m. ET, with people chanting “No to vaccine passports,” in French.

Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé confirmed earlier this week that a vaccination passport system will be implemented as of Sept. 1 in an effort to combat a growing COVID-19 caseload and what he described as an “inevitable” fourth wave

Resistance will grow as the people grow tired of their freedoms being limited because they refuse to get the experimental injections and wear face diapers.

Someone had emailed me a video clip from a 1960’s American television sitcom called ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ on how an average American’s view on certain medical technologies and vaccines were during that time.  The scene involves a county nurse by the name of Ms. Mary Simpson who tried to convince a man named Ray to get vaccinated, his response was classic:

Watch the video here.

There’s Even a Growing Resistance in the Caribbean

Resistance is also growing in the Caribbean as the people from St. Vincent and the Grenadines protest against vaccine mandates.  However, the Prime Minister of the eastern Caribbean nation, Ralph Gonsalves was hospitalized by one of the protesters who threw a rock at him, hitting him in his head:

St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has been hospitalized after a demonstrator threw a rock at his head during an anti-vaccine protest in the eastern Caribbean island. His office issued a statement late Thursday saying Gonsalves was bleeding profusely but is expected to recover. Authorities said Gonsalves was injured when he stepped out of his car and tried to walk into Parliament amid a crowd of some 200 people that had blocked the entrance as they set roadblocks on fire. The crowd had gathered to reject proposed measures to fight COVID-19, although Gonsalves clarified that he would not make vaccines mandatory

The jamaicagleaner.com first reported that the country of Barbados also had protests against mandatory vaccinations as well:

Hundreds of Barbadians took to the streets of Bridgetown this morning to protest mandatory and coerced vaccination.  “No vaccine!” shouted some people carrying placards.  Most of them were dressed in white.   “We have rights,” some others said as motorists honked their horns in support

Not only humanity is facing a medical tyranny that is relentless in its pursuit to vaccinate the world, a devastating world war is upon us with an uncertain global economic situation that will be difficult to avoid. 

We all are going to live through a difficult period in our lives and we all need to band together and fight for our freedoms and human rights no matter where we are on this earth because we have children and grand children, some even great grandchildren to think about.

What type of planet are we leaving behind when our time has come to pass?  What is our destiny?  It’s up to all of us to stop this insanity from taking place, and we can and I believe we will because our future depends on it.

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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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***

The Afghanistan war was a botched operation from day one, when George W. Bush invaded that country, in October  2001, “because something had to be done after the 9/11 attack on the United States”.

Then, George W. Bush sealed the issue for the future when he withdrew a large number of U.S. troops from Afghanistan to invade the country of Iraq, in March 2003, with his big lie about “weapons of mass destruction” in that country.

After terrorist Osama Bin Laden was allegedly assassinated in Pakistan, on May 2, 2011, President Barack Obama could have called for the end of the Afghanistan military adventure and declare victory. He did not, because he knew full well that without U.S. military support, the puppet Afghan government would collapse, and he would have to take full responsibility for the disaster.

And in February 2020, then President Donald Trump made an ominous ‘deal’ with the Islamic Taliban, in Doha, Qatar, fixing the date of May 2021 for a complete withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. Even though President Joe Biden extended that date to late summer 2021, he more or less followed Trump’s plan of withdrawal, no matter what.  N.B. The Trump-taliban agreement was to be implemented after the November 2020 election, which Mr. Trump expected to win.

Now, President Joe Biden is likely to be the only one bearing the full political cost of twenty years of a bad American foreign policy by previous administrations.

Granted, the Biden administration should have better anticipated the chaos to follow a precipitous American withdrawal from Afghanistan and better planned in consequence. The images of sheer chaos seen around the world will follow the United States for years to come.

That will make it easier for Donald Trump and Republicans in the U.S. Congress to dump the entire responsibility for the disaster on the sitting president, on his Security advisor Jake Sullivan and on his Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

Who says that politics is a fair and honest game?

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International economist Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay is the author of the book “The code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles” of the book “The New American Empire“, and his last book, in French, “La régression tranquille du Québec, 1980-2018“. He holds a Ph.D. in international finance from Stanford University.

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

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***

The object in war,” argued Liddell Hart “is a better state of peace — even if only from your point of view. Hence, it is essential to conduct war with constant regard to the peace you desire.” Sound advice, but as Americans are learning, the true purpose of the mission in Afghanistan had little to do with a better state of peace and much more to do was with finding ways to extend the commitment of American funds, resources, and military power for as long as possible.

In January 1973, when the Paris Peace Agreement ending American involvement in South Vietnam was signed, Saigon and its armed forces still relied heavily on guaranteed U.S. air, artillery and logistical support. The removal of U.S. military power always guaranteed Saigon’s defeat against a determined attack from North Vietnam. The removal of economic and military support from Afghanistan today is having a similar impact, but the outcome in Afghanistan is arguably much worse. Why?

It’s very likely that the loss of over $2 trillion and tens of thousands of U.S., Allied and Afghan lives is no deterrent to repeating the established recipe for strategic failure in some future country. In the words of LTG Richard Clarke, the new commander of Special Operations Command,

“I don’t necessarily see this [Afghanistan] as the end of an era, but, instead, as part of a new one that is full of opportunities for all of us.”

In other words, the Departments of State and Defense (DOD) will enable SOCOM’s future use of sensors, satellites, drones, proxy foreign forces and armies of foreign clients equipped with US supplied training and military gear to invade ungoverned spaces or failed states Africa, South Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean Basin. The words, “all of us” suggest the intelligence agencies, the defense industries, and numerous supporting contracting entities including mercenaries to create “other than U.S. forces” for foreign internal defense and development.

To the aforementioned cast of potential beneficiaries should also be added members of Congress from both parties who regularly receive vast sums of money from privately owned defense contractors. The political campaign cycle in the 2019-2020 saw more than $30 million in donations from defense contractors to GOP and DNC candidates. In 2020, lobbying by top defense industries involved outlays of nearly $100 million. However, these amounts only scratch the surface of the $2 trillion squandered over 20 years in Afghanistan.

Defense outlays for basing in Diego Garcia, Guam, Okinawa, Germany, Japan, Italy, Africa and a host of other locations around the world can also be connected to the projection of American military power to Afghanistan and the greater Middle East. Even these defense outlays pale before the mammoth engine of corruption inside Afghanistan that a series of Inspectors General routinely insisted was as great a threat to stability and progress as the Taliban.

Unfortunately, since the SOCOM intervention and assistance model is never blamed for the strategic failures that it helps to create, it remains funded and able to ramp up for the next lucrative military intervention. Only the country-specific policy is viewed as a strategic failure because in Clarke’s words, “there’s no precise end, there’s not necessarily a winner.”

Clarke, however, failed to note another substantial class of beneficiaries: the armed forces’ active duty Flag Officers, particularly the four stars. At the height of World War II, 12.2 million Americans served in the U.S. Armed Forces. The 12.2 million Americans in uniform were commanded by just seven four stars: In the Army and Army Air Forces, MacArthur, Marshall, Arnold and Eisenhower; in the U.S. Navy and Marines, Leahy, King, and Nimitz. In the last phase of the war several senior officers were promoted to four and five stars, but these promotions were honorific, not operational military ranks.

Today, for an active duty force of 1.12 million Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines, there are 44 active duty four stars. When Marshall was approached by members of the Senate who urged him to promote their flag officer friends in uniform to four stars, Marshall said, “Senator, I don’t have time to argue. I’ve got to win the war.” As General Clarke explains, Americans are not likely to hear Marshall’s words these days.

Face it, military interventions are cash cows for generals. From 2008 to 2018 at least 380 high-ranking DoD officials and military officers enriched themselves as lobbyists, board members, executives, or consultants for defense contractors within two years of taking off their uniforms.

In 2001, when the modest application of American military power rapidly overwhelmed the Taliban and al Qaeda, to paraphrase Arthur Schlesinger’s words, euphoria reigned; Bush and his inner circle thought for a moment that the world was plastic and the future unlimited. Today, this euphoria seems misplaced especially when one considers that the initial mission in Afghanistan was to kill or capture fewer than 500 individuals associated with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. I leave it to others to ask why U.S. Forces remained in Iraq after capturing Saddam Hussein and his inner circle.

On 3 August, 1972, Henry Kissinger told President Nixon, “After a year, Mr. President, Vietnam will be a backwater,” and “no one will give a damn.” Kissinger was essentially correct. Sadly, it’s a safe bet that a similar attitude prevails inside the Biden White House. Americans can only hope that this time the odor of multi-trillion dollar corruption, deceit and military failure in Afghanistan will likely linger far longer in American nostrils and have consequences.

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Featured image: An Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) from 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) waits onboard a C-130 from the Royal Air Force to ascend the altitude of 12,500 feet to conduct a high altitude low opening (HALO) parachute jump with members of the Canadian Special Operations Regiment and Para-Rescue Airmen from the Air forces Special Operations Command Hurlburt Field, Fl., April. 25, 2013. (SOCOM)

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***

Reading “In the Shadows of the American Century” is a bit of an up and down ride.  The best part of the book for personal interest concerning the author is the Introduction.  The author, Alfred McCoy, discusses his personal situation in relation to his family and the environment in which he was raised and the family friends whose lives ended through tragedy.  For the majority of the rest of the book he discusses the US empire: briefly its rise and highlights, followed by its “Strategies for Survival”, and ending with the “Dynamics of US Decline”. He ends with “Five Scenarios for the End of the American Century” the weakest part of the book, not so much in that no one can accurately predict the future, but in that he suddenly presents arguments almost contradictory to his discussion of empire previously presented.

Understanding

The three chapters on “Understanding the US Empire” covers a broad range of topics.  He examines the strategic ideas behind Halford Mackinder’s “world island” and the idea that whoever controls it, then controls the world.  From that, any reader who keeps up with current events can see that the world island, while surrounded by US military power, is not so slowly slipping away from US imperial grasp.

In “America and the Autocrats” McCoy  discusses some of the various governments the U.S. has created and supported from Iran through Vietnam and on to Egypt and Afghanistan.  He summarizes,

“There was – and is – a fundamental structural flaw in any American entente with such autocrats. Inherent in these unequal alliances is a peculiar dynamic that makes the eventual collapse of American-anointed leaders an almost commonplace occurrence.”

The “Covert Netherworld” is mostly about the CIA and its drug money relationships.  He starts by outlining some of the CIA’s interventions and summarizing, “…this recurring reliance on covert interventions transformed secret services from manipulators at the margins of state power into major players in international politics.”   He proceeds arguing the obvious, “Illicit Commerce serves as the economic foundation for the covert netherworld, allowing…a measure of political autonomy….”  His summary, based largely on his description of the CIA, the Taliban, and the poppy, “the impending [this was written in 2017] defeat of US intervention in Afghanistan”  serves “as an indicator of…Washington’s ability to control the covert elements of global politics but its weakening hold on world power over the long run.”

Survival

McCoy’s first topic for survival of the empire is surveillance.  The rise of the U.S. surveillance state has costs abroad – “The trust of its closest allies” – and at home where citizens “forgo any right to privacy, with other rights likely to follow.”

His section on “Torture and the Eclipse of Empires” – (why plural?) – details mostly the story of the Bush era and its arguments for torture.  Simply put in the context of empirical decline, the U.S. cannot “simultaneously claim both moral leadership of the international community and the sovereign prerogative to torture at will in defiance of international law.”

The discussion on “The Pentagon’s Wonder Weapons” looks at the development of cyberspace and computer intelligence, mostly within the war on terror, a global excuse for costly high tech gadgets.  While indicating that the U.S.’ reliance on high tech gadgetry will lead to operations with “uncertain outcomes” McCoy only mentions China and Russia within the “threat of actual armed conflict.”  He does not mention – and maybe this is hindsight criticism of knowledge available in 2017 – the effectiveness of Russia’s electronic defensive postures nor the capabilities of Chinese cyber war capabilities.

Scenarios

Skipping his revisitation of the ‘world island’ as per Brzezinski and the CIA, McCoy ends with “Five Scenarios for the End of the American Century” where his ideas suffer from a touch of the empire’s exceptionalism blinders and some contradictory arguments if considered from what he presented earlier in the work.

While describing the first scenario, “Evolving World Order”, he argues, “Every modern empire has had some source of universal appeal for its foreign subjects….”  That is quite an amazing statement considering all that has preceded it in his own presentation.  Then he adds “Spain offered Christianity”…..whoa, sure, convert or die Christianity (see the Papal Bull of 1542), and then when you convert you are still less than the white man’s superior abilities.   Britain offered “free markets and fair play”….sure, just ask the millions of dead Indians (east and west) and the trillions in value of all the resources harvested from its many colonies – hardly fair play – oh yeah, the Boer War was also fair play, just so you know.  The Palestine/Israel situation is never discussed, truly a miss on the argument for fair play. Pardon my sarcasm, but these are truly incomprehensible arguments except for someone who supports empires.

Twice he iterates that the U.S. contributes “democracy, human rights, and the rule of law” in full contradiction to all the evidence he himself presents in the main portion of the book.

Other misses include the statement that Russia is “an economically rickety petro-state with a large military” – certainly the latter is true but Russia is economically well safe-guarded as it has eliminated its dependence on the US$ and ironically thanks to sanctions, has developed an agricultural surplus and supported other non-petro capacities.

McCoy foresees “the liberal international order” surviving and thriving while NATO and the Davos and Bilderberg “might form a supranational nexus to supersede any nation or empire.” Now that’s a happy thought – a world controlled by the super wealthy and corporate power. Yet how does that account for the loss of global reserve status for the US$, US financial ruin because of that – or how about the coming climate disasters?   In spite of all that he sees “a residual role, mediating international conflicts and monitoring the global commons beyond these human cesspits.”  These “cesspits” are his imagined urban warfare centers; and the reasons for U.S. decline are very much U.S. meddling in conflicts and monitoring the global commons!

There is a scenario of economic decline, looking at the situation with Chinese computer processing advances, the poverty of the U.S. educational system, inflation, and the acknowledgement that both China and Russia are working towards ending the US$ dominance.  That leaves the U.S. “only with military domination” for a while, but with the US$ worthless, all that high tech gadgetry will not be viable financially.  What will be left is an “economically ricketty petro-[dollar] with a large military” – sound familiar?

Somehow a military scenario is presented without any casualties to either side (versus China) with the full collapse of the U.S. due to electronic and anti-satellite kinetic warfare.  Impossible, as hundreds will die as airplanes fall out of the sky at minimum; at maximum, the U.S. would go nuclear – the Samson option if all else fails – and take the world out with themselves.

Finally, he presents a climate disaster scenario, one that is already in process – as really the other options are also all in process.

More importantly, while they are presented as separate scenarios, they are all highly integrated.  The military, the economy, the climate – all are intertwined and inseparable, and the future of a U.S. decline also includes declines in the world in general.   In short, the U.S. has screwed up big time and has very little room to maneuver in order to help save some portion of humanity – and to be honest, I do not expect them to, do not see their capabilities in order to do so.  It is up to the ‘rest of the world’ to do that.

Last word: after all this McCoy argues the U.S. “has brought…viable international institutions, global economic integration, the rule of law, the advance of human rights, the spread of democracy, a period of relative peace, and a decline of disease and world poverty.”

Oh la la!  Quel désastre!  That last statement could have pages and pages of rebuttal.  Just one example:  the decline in world poverty is mainly due to China’s successful efforts to almost eliminate poverty for 600 million Chinese.   A fuller rebuttal is contained in McCoy’s general arguments “In the Shadows of the American Century,” as well as many other works describing the failures of the U.S. empire.

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Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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***

Overall, June was a ‘buy all the US things’ month for foreign investors

• Long-Term Treasurys +$10.9BN
• Agencies +22.7BN
• Corporate Bonds $13.8BN
• Corporate Stocks +$25.2BN

That is the biggest stock buying binge since March, led by non-official source buying (Foreign Official institutions -5.4BN, Other foreign entities: +30.6BN)…

For the 4th straight month, China dumped US Treasuries in June (the latest TIC data). In fact, over the last two months, China sold over $34 billion in Treasuries – the biggest dump since 2016…

Source: Bloomberg

Belgium also saw significant selling (often considered a proxy for China selling via Everclear), now with the lowest holdings since Sept 2020…

Source: Bloomberg

Japan bought Treasuries in June (after selling in May)…

Source: Bloomberg

And finally, hedge funds appear to have been big buyers of bonds in June as Catman Islands added almost $16bn (up for the 3rd month in a row)…

Source: Bloomberg

As a reminder, the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield decreased about 13 basis points in June to 1.47%.

Finally, we note that the shift from Treasuries to Gold among global reserves remains in tact…

Source: Bloomberg

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While testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a top Biden administration Pentagon official confirmed today that the illegal U.S. military presence in Syria would continue:

The Biden administration is committed to retaining US military presence in northeast Syria.

This is consistent with reporting from last month that said that U.S. forces would be staying there. The continued presence in Syria has the least justification of any mission in the region, and it has absolutely no legal authorization, so of course it is the one that will continue indefinitely. Officially, the approximately 900 troops in Syria are there to advise the Syrian Democratic Forces against the remnants of the Islamic State, but now that ISIS has been defeated they have no reason to be there. They also have no authorization to be there, and their mission has nothing to do with U.S. security. U.S. forces have been operating illegally in Syria for the last seven years ever since the Obama administration expanded the campaign against ISIS there, and every day that they remain in Syrian territory is another day that the U.S. proves that it has no respect for international law.

The mission in Syria is a perfect example of a military deployment that puts U.S. forces in harm’s way without Congressional approval. Multiple administrations have stretched the 2001 authorization beyond recognition so that it now applies to fighting the remnants of a group that was created as a result of an illegal U.S. invasion of a country that had no connection to the 9/11 attacks. No one seriously believes that the 2001 AUMF applies to whatever is happening in Syria today, but that is the legal fig leaf that effectively lets the U.S. intervene wherever it wishes.

U.S. forces in Syria periodically exchange fire with pro-government forces and Russian mercenaries, and on occasion they have clashed with the Russian military as well. The most recent incident involved coming under fire in response to the U.S. bombing of Iraqi militias. The U.S. has been lucky up until now that these exchanges have not resulted in American fatalities, but U.S. forces in Syria are at risk every day they stay there. These troops are undeniably engaged in hostilities, and they are in danger of coming under attack at any time. This is exactly the kind of situation that Congress wanted to prevent by passing the War Powers Act, but strangely the illegal mission in Syria almost never comes up in discussions of reclaiming Congressional authority in matters of war. That needs to change. The U.S. military presence in Syria is illegal and puts Americans at risk for no good reason. Congress needs to force the issue and demand an end to the mission.

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The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity

Michel Chossudovsky

The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-6-0

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

List Price: $22.95

Special Price: $15.00

Click here to order.

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***

On August 11, in a rare occurrence, the U.K. High Court’s Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde and Justice Dame Judith Farbey overruled the July 5 decision of Justice Jonathan Swift and allowed the Biden administration to add two additional grounds for its appeal against Julian Assange, who is being held on charges filed by the Trump administration under the Espionage Act. Assange was indicted for revealing evidence of U.S. war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo that Chelsea Manning furnished him and WikiLeaks. He faces 175 years in prison if he is extradited from the U.K., tried and convicted in the United States.

Justice Swift had ruled that the United States could base its appeal on three of the five grounds it requested. The August 11 ruling allows the U.S. to argue two additional grounds as well. The expansion of the U.S. appeal is a worrying sign for Assange — and for the future of investigative journalism.

In September 2020, a three-week extradition hearing was held in Assange’s case. On January 4, U.K. District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser issued her decision denying the Trump administration’s request to extradite Assange to the United States to stand trial. Judge Baraitser ruled that Assange would be a high risk for suicide in light of his mental state and conditions under which he would be held in U.S. prisons. As Donald Trump was leaving office, his administration successfully petitioned the High Court for permission to appeal Judge Baraitser’s ruling.

Joe Biden should have dismissed Trump’s appeal — consistent with the Obama-Biden administration’s refusal to indict Assange out of fear that indicting a journalist would imperil the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press. No journalist or media outlet has been prosecuted under the Espionage Act for publishing truthful information. The First Amendment protects journalists who publish illegally obtained material that is a matter of public concern, including evidence of war crimes. The U.S. government has never prosecuted a journalist or media outlet for publishing classified information, which constitutes an essential tool of journalism.

But Biden is doubling down and continuing Trump’s appeal.

When the United States’s appeal is heard on October 27 and 28, the High Court may reweigh factual findings made by the District Court judge who was uniquely positioned to determine the credibility of the witnesses who testified at the extradition hearing.

U.S. Grounds for Appeal

The five grounds on which the Biden administration is appealing the denial of extradition are as follows:

• Judge Baraitser committed legal error when she concluded that extradition would be unjust or oppressive due to Assange’s mental or physical condition under section 91 of the 2003 Extradition Act;
• Judge Baraitser should have notified the United States in order to provide it an opportunity to offer assurances to the court that Assange would not be subjected to conditions that imperiled his health and his life;
• Judge Baraitser should have excluded, or assigned less weight to, the evidence of defense psychiatric expert Professor Michael Kopelman regarding the severity of Assange’s mental condition;
• Judge Baraitser committed error in her overall assessment of the evidence of suicide risk; and
• After the extradition hearing, the United States provided the U.K. with a package of “assurances” regarding the conditions under which Assange would be held if extradited to the U.S. The United States also offered an assurance that if Assange is convicted, it would consent to his transfer to Australia to serve his custodial sentence.

On July 5, the High Court allowed the United States to appeal on all but grounds three and four. After the August 11 ruling, the U.S. is now permitted to appeal on all five grounds.

Psychiatrist Kopelman’s Testimony

Judge Baraitser relied largely, but not exclusively, on the evidence presented by psychiatric expert Michael Kopelman. In her January 4 ruling, Judge Baraitser wrote:

[Kopelman] assessed Mr. Assange during the period May to December 2019 and was best placed to consider at first-hand his symptoms. He has taken great care to provide an informed account of Mr. Assange’s background and psychiatric history. He has given close attention to the prison medical notes and provided a detailed summary annexed to his December report. He is an experienced clinician and he was well aware of the possibility of exaggeration and malingering. I had no reason to doubt his clinical opinion.

Kopelman, an international authority on neuropsychiatry, evaluated Assange in prison and concluded that he was at severe risk of suicide if imprisoned in the U.S. Judge Baraitser cited Kopelman’s statement, “I am as confident as a psychiatrist ever can be that, if extradition to the United States were to become imminent, Mr. Assange will find a way of suiciding.” She noted that other experts corroborated Kopelman’s predictions of suicide.

The United States is arguing on appeal that Judge Baraitser should have excluded Kopelman’s evidence (or given it less weight) because he omitted from his December 2019 report that Assange had a partner, Stella Morris, and they had two young children together. Kopelman knew about them but was concerned about Morris’s anxiety about the privacy of her children. Both Kopelman’s subsequent report in August 2020 and his testimony at the September 2020 extradition hearing referred to Morris and their children. By then, it had become public knowledge.

Judge Baraitser considered Kopelman’s two reports as well as his testimony before rendering her January 4 ruling. She acknowledged the initial concealment but excused it, writing:

I did not accept that Professor Kopelman failed in his duty to the court when he did not disclose Ms. Morris’s relationship with Mr. Assange…. In my judgment, Professor Kopelman’s decision to conceal their relationship was misleading and inappropriate in the context of his obligations to the court, but an understandable human response to Ms. Morris’s predicament…. In short, I found Professor Kopelman’s opinion to be impartial and dispassionate; I was given no reason to doubt his motives or the reliability of his evidence.

It is well-established in English courts that the appellate court will not generally review factual findings — including credibility determinations — made by the trial court.

Lord Justice Holroyde admitted that it is “very unusual for an appellate court to have to consider the position of an expert witness whose written evidence has been found to be misleading, but whose opinion has nonetheless been accepted by the court below.” He added that there is not a “complete bar” to an appellate court finding “that the judge below was wrong in her assessment of the evidence. I have come to the conclusion that it is here at least arguable that the present case is one in which such a power may operate.”

U.S. “Assurances”

The United States is presenting “assurances” that if Assange is extradited to the U.S., tried, convicted and imprisoned, he will not be subject to special administrative measures (SAMs) — which are onerous conditions that would keep him in virtual isolation — or be held at the ADX maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado. And the U.S. would not object to Assange serving any custodial sentence he may receive in Australia.

These so-called assurances are conditional, however. The U.S. reserves the right to impose SAMs or hold Assange at ADX if future behavior warrants it. And the U.S. cannot guarantee that Australia would consent to host Assange’s incarceration.

The U.S. is arguing that Judge Baraitser should have told them during the extradition hearing that she intended to refuse extradition based on Assange’s life and health if imprisoned in the United States. They would then have presented assurances at that time. But their current proffer amounts to new evidence that should have been submitted at the extradition hearing.

In October, the High Court during the appeal hearing will consider the grounds that the United States is raising on appeal and determine whether to sustain or overrule Judge Baraitser’s decision denying extradition. If the High Court affirms the District Court ruling, the United States could ask the U.K. Supreme Court to review the case. If the High Court overrules the District Court decision, Assange could appeal to the Supreme Court and then to the European Court of Human Rights if the Supreme Court ruling goes against him.

If the United States is ultimately allowed to extradite Assange and try him under the Espionage Act, it will send an ominous message to investigative journalists that they publish material critical of the U.S. government at their peril. This would threaten freedom of the press under the First Amendment and deprive the American people of crucial information with which to hold their government accountable.

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Copyright © Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and a member of the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. Her books include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues. 

She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

COVID-19 and the Shadowy “Trusted News Initiative”

By Elizabeth Woodworth, August 13, 2021

Exposing this uncanny censorship of eminent voices is especially vital to the fate of children and youth, who are being aggressively targeted for low-benefit, sometimes lethal, inoculations.

India’s Ivermectin Blackout. Censorship of Peer-reviewed Analysis

By Dr. Justus R. Hope, August 16, 2021

There is a blackout on any conversation about how Ivermectin beat COVID-19 in India. When I discussed the dire straits that India found itself in early this year with 414,000 cases per day, and over 4,000 deaths per day, and how that evaporated within five weeks of the addition of Ivermectin, I am often asked, “But why is there no mention of that in the news?”

“Our Species is Being Genetically Modified”: Humanity’s March Toward Extinction? Analysis of the Microbiome and Virome

By David Skripac, August 15, 2021

Vaccine manufacturers have now made it possible for the human genome to be permanently altered—and humanity’s relationship with nature forever changed—by means of an experimental pharmaceutical injection that is being falsely referred to as a “vaccine.”

Colossal Financial Pyramid: BlackRock and The WEF “Great Reset”

By F. William Engdahl, August 15, 2021

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.

China vs. the WHO. “The Virus did not Originate in China”. The WHO was an Initiative of the Rockefellers

By Peter Koenig and Press TV, August 15, 2021

China has rejected as politically-motivated the World Health Organization’s calls for a renewed probe into the origins of Covid-19. The organization conducted its first investigation in January in the Chinese city of Wuhan. But, the probe failed to conclude how the virus started.

The Great “Global Warming” Alarm Is Part of the WEF’s “Great Reset”

By Julian Rose, August 16, 2021

Limits to Growth might have appealed to those who oppose neo-liberal capitalist insistence on the necessity for a ‘permanent growth’ economy; but the real intent behind those words is the conditioning of the receiver to take a self imposed pseudo-sacrificial attitude about ‘limitation’.

Does China’s Rise Really Threaten the U.S., Or Just Its Sociopathic Power Elite, Who Want to Keep Ruling the World Even if It Drags Us into WW III?

By Dee Knight, August 16, 2021

The U.S.-led cold war against China has escalated quickly and dramatically. President Biden is trying to harness the G7 and NATO to isolate China, and Congress is fast-tracking bills to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative and punish China for alleged human rights violations.

All of the Evidence Is In: The COVID Vaccine Is a Failure, More Dangerous than the Virus

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, August 16, 2021

In my efforts to provide good information in place of Big Pharma-serving propaganda about Covid and the vaccine, I have reported to you from the official databases the large number of deaths and health issues associated with the vaccine.  For some age groupsthe vaccine is more dangerous than the virus.

Was America Attacked by Afghanistan on September 11, 2001?

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, August 16, 2021

The legal argument used by Washington and NATO to invade Afghanistan was that the September 11 attacks constituted an undeclared “armed attack” “from abroad” by an unnamed foreign power, and that consequently “the laws of war” apply, allowing the nation under attack, to strike back in the name of “self-defense”.

Don’t Let Them Fool You: Afghanistan Has Been a “Tremendous Success”

By Keith Lamb, August 16, 2021

With the Taliban having just captured three more provincial capitals, and now in control of two-thirds of Afghanistan, the liberal oligarchic press is awash with narratives of Afghanistan being both a “failure” and a “mistake”. However, the 20 years’ war has, for them, been an unprecedented success.

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

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Wait until the war is over
And we’re both a little older
The unknown soldier
Breakfast where the news is read
Television children fed
Unborn living, living, dead
Bullet strikes the helmet’s head
And it’s all over
For the unknown soldier

The Doors, “The Unknown Soldier”

In the end, the Saigon moment happened faster than any Western intel “expert” expected. This is one for the annals: four frantic days that wrapped up the most astonishing guerrilla blitzkrieg of recent times. Afghan-style: lots of persuasion, lots of tribal deals, zero columns of tanks, minimal loss of blood.

August 12 set the scene, with the nearly simultaneous capture of Ghazni, Kandahar and Herat. On August 13, the Taliban were only 50 kilometers from Kabul. August 14 started with the siege of Maidan Shahr, the gateway to Kabul.

Ismail Khan, the legendary elder Lion of Herat, struck a self-preservation deal and was sent by the Taliban as a top-flight messenger to Kabul: President Ashraf Ghani should step out, or else.

Still on Saturday, the Taliban took Jalalabad – and isolated Kabul from the east, all the way to the Afgan-Pakistan border in Torkham, gateway to the Khyber Pass. By Saturday night, Marshal Dostum was fleeing with a bunch of military to Uzbekistan via the Friendship Bridge in Termez; only a few were allowed in. The Taliban duly took over Dostum’s Tony Montana-style palace.

By early morning on August 15, all that was left for the Kabul administration was the Panjshir valley – high in the mountains, a naturally protected fortress – and scattered Hazaras: there’s nothing there in those beautiful central lands, except Bamiyan.

Exactly 20 years ago, I was in Bazarak getting ready to interview the Lion of the Panjshir, commander Masoud, who was preparing a counter-offensive against … the Taliban. History repeating, with a twist. This time I was sent visual proof that the Taliban – following the classic guerrilla sleeping cell playbook – were already in the Panjshir.

And then mid-morning on Sunday brought the stunning visual re-enactment of the Saigon moment, for all the world to see: a Chinook helicopter hovering over the roof of the American embassy in Kabul.

‘The war is over’

Still on Sunday, Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem proclaimed: “The war is over in Afghanistan,” adding that the shape of the new government would soon be announced.

Facts on the ground are way more convoluted. Feverish negotiations have been going on since Sunday afternoon. The Taliban were ready to announce the official proclamation of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in its 2.0 version (1.0 was from 1996 to 2001). The official announcement would be made inside the presidential palace.

Yet what’s left of Team Ghani was refusing to transfer power to a coordinating council that will de facto set up the transition. What the Taliban want is a seamless transition: they are now the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Case closed.

By Monday, a sign of compromise came from Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen. The new government will include non-Taliban officials. He was referring to an upcoming “transition administration,” most probably co-directed by Taliban political leader Mullah Baradar and Ali Ahmad Jalali, a former minister of internal affairs who was also, in the past, an employee of Voice of America.

In the end, there was no Battle for Kabul. Thousands of Taliban were already inside Kabul – once again the classic sleeper-cell playbook. The bulk of their forces remained in the outskirts. An official Taliban proclamation ordered them not to enter the city, which should be captured without a fight, to prevent civilian casualties.

The Taliban did advance from the west, but “advancing,” in context, meant connecting to the sleeper cells in Kabul, which by then were fully active. Tactically, Kabul was encircled in an “anaconda” move, as defined by a Taliban commander: squeezed from north, south and west and, with the capture of Jalalabad, cut off from the east.

At some point last week, high-level intel must have whispered to the Taliban command that the Americans would be coming to “evacuate.” It could have been Pakistan intelligence, even Turkish intelligence, with Erdogan playing his characteristic NATO double game.

The American rescue cavalry not only came late, but was caught in a bind as they could not possibly bomb their own assets inside Kabul. The horrible timing was compounded when the Bagram military base – the NATO Valhalla in Afghanistan for nearly 20 years – was finally captured by the Taliban.

That led the US and NATO to literally beg the Taliban to let them evacuate everything in sight from Kabul – by air, in haste, at the Taliban’s mercy. A geopolitical development that evokes suspension of disbelief.

Ghani versus Baradar

Ghani’s hasty escape is the stuff of “a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing” – without the Shakespearean pathos. The heart of the whole matter was a last-minute meeting on Sunday morning between former President Hamid Karzai and Ghani’s perennial rival Abdullah Abdullah.

They discussed in detail who they were going to send to negotiate with the Taliban – who by then not only were fully prepared for a possible battle for Kabul, but had announced their immovable red line weeks ago – they want the end of the current NATO government.

Ghani finally saw the writing on the wall and disappeared from the presidential palace without even addressing the potential negotiators. With his wife, chief of staff and national security adviser, he escaped to Tashkent, the Uzbek capital. A few hours later, the Taliban entered the presidential palace, the stunning images duly captured.

Commenting on Ghani’s escape, Abdullah Abdullah did not mince his words: “God will hold him accountable.” Ghani, an anthropologist with a doctorate from Columbia, is one of those classic cases of Global South exiles to the West who “forget” everything that matters about their original lands.

Ghani is a Pashtun who acted like an arrogant New Yorker. Or worse, an entitled Pashtun, as he was often demonizing the Taliban, who are overwhelmingly Pashtun, not to mention Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras, including their tribal elders.

It’s as if Ghani and his Westernized team had never learned from a top source such as the late, great Norwegian social anthropologist Fredrik Barth (check out a sample of his Pashtun studies here).

Geopolitically, what matters now is how the Taliban have written a whole new script, showing the lands of Islam, as well as the Global South, how to defeat the self-referential, seemingly invincible US/NATO empire.

The Taliban did it with Islamic faith, infinite patience and force of will fueling roughly 78,000 fighters – 60,000 of them active – many with minimal military training, no backing of any state – unlike Vietnam, which had China and the USSR – no hundreds of billions of dollars from NATO, no trained army, no air force and no state-of-the-art technology.

They relied only on Kalashnikovs, rocket-propelled grenades and Toyota pick-ups – before they captured American hardware these past few days, including drones and helicopters.

Taliban leader Mullah Baradar has been extremely cautious. On Monday he said: “It is too early to say how we will take over governance.” First of all, the Taliban wants “to see foreign forces leave before restructuring begins.”

Abdul Ghani Baradar is a very interesting character. He was born and raised in Kandahar. That’s where the Taliban started in 1994, seizing the city almost without a fight and then, equipped with tanks, heavy weapons and a lot of cash to bribe local commanders, capturing Kabul nearly 25 years ago, on September 27, 1996.

Earlier, Mullah Baradar fought in the 1980s jihad against the USSR, and maybe – not confirmed – side-by-side with Mullah Omar, with whom he co-founded the Taliban.

After the American bombing and occupation post-9/11, Mullah Baradar and a small group of Taliban sent a proposal to then-President Hamid Karzai on a potential deal that would allow the Taliban to recognize the new regime. Karzai, under Washington pressure, rejected it.

Baradar was actually arrested in Pakistan in 2010 – and kept in custody. Believe it or not, American intervention led to his freedom in 2018. He then relocated to Qatar. And that’s where he was appointed head of the Taliban’s political office and oversaw the signing last year of the American withdrawal deal.

Baradar will be the new ruler in Kabul – but it’s important to note he’s under the authority of the Taliban Supreme Leader since 2016, Haibatullah Akhundzada. It’s the Supreme Leader – actually a spiritual guide – who will be lording over the new incarnation of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Beware of a peasant guerrilla army

The collapse of the Afghan National Army (ANA) was inevitable. They were “educated” the American military way: massive technology, massive airpower, next to zero local ground intel.

The Taliban is all about deals with tribal elders and extended family connections – and a peasant guerrilla approach, parallel to the communists in Vietnam. They were biding their time for years, just building connections – and those sleeper cells.

Afghan troops who had not received a salary for months were paid not to fight them. And the fact they did not attack American troops since February 2020 earned them a lot of extra respect: a matter of honor, essential in the Pashtunwali code.

It’s impossible to understand the Taliban – and most of all, the Pashtun universe – without understanding Pashtunwali. As well as the concepts of honor, hospitality and inevitable revenge for any wrongdoing, the concept of freedom implies no Pashtun is inclined to be ordered by a central state authority – in this case, Kabul. And no way will they ever surrender their guns.

In a nutshell, that’s the “secret” of the lightning-fast blitzkrieg with minimal loss of blood, inbuilt in the overarching geopolitical earthquake. After Vietnam, this is the second Global South protagonist showing the whole world how an empire can be defeated by a peasant guerrilla army.

And all that accomplished with a budget that may not exceed $1.5 billion a year – coming from local taxes, profits from opium exports (no internal distribution allowed) and real estate speculation. In vast swaths of Afghanistan, the Taliban were already, de facto, running local security, local courts and even food distribution.

Taliban 2021 is an entirely different animal compared with Taliban 2001. Not only are they battle-hardened, they had plenty of time to perfect their diplomatic skills, which were recently more than visible in Doha and in high-level visits to Tehran, Moscow and Tianjin.

They know very well that any connection with al-Qaeda remnants, ISIS/Daesh, ISIS-Khorasan and ETIM is counter-productive – as their Shanghai Cooperation Organization interlocutors made very clear.

Internal unity, anyway, will be extremely hard to achieve. The Afghan tribal maze is a jigsaw puzzle, nearly impossible to crack. What the Taliban may realistically achieve is a loose confederation of tribes and ethnic groups under a Taliban emir, coupled with very careful management of social relations.

Initial impressions point to increased maturity. The Taliban are granting amnesty to employees of the NATO occupation and won’t interfere with businesses activities. There will be no revenge campaign. Kabul is back in business. There is allegedly no mass hysteria in the capital: that’s been the exclusive domain of Anglo-American mainstream media. The Russian and Chinese embassies remain open for business.

Zamir Kabulov, the Kremlin special representative for Afghanistan, has confirmed that the situation in Kabul, surprisingly, is “absolutely calm” – even as he reiterated:

“We are not in a rush as far as recognition [of the Taliban] is concerned. We will wait and watch how the regime will behave.”

The New Axis of Evil

Tony Blinken may blabber that “we were in Afghanistan for one overriding purpose – to deal with the folks who attacked us on 9/11.”

Every serious analyst knows that the “overriding” geopolitical purpose of the bombing and occupation of Afghanistan nearly 20 years ago was to establish an essential Empire of Bases foothold in the strategic intersection of Central and South Asia, subsequently coupled with occupying Iraq in Southwest Asia.

Now the “loss” of Afghanistan should be interpreted as a repositioning. It fits the new geopolitical configuration, where the Pentagon’s top mission is not the “war on terror” anymore, but to simultaneously try to isolate Russia and harass China by all means on the expansion of the New Silk Roads.

Occupying smaller nations has ceased to be a priority. The Empire of Chaos can always foment chaos – and supervise assorted bombing raids – from its CENTCOM base in Qatar.

Iran is about to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a full member – another game-changer. Even before resetting the Islamic Emirate, the Taliban have carefully cultivated good relations with key Eurasia players – Russia, China, Pakistan, Iran and the Central Asian ‘stans. The ‘stans are under full Russian protection. Beijing is already planning hefty rare earth business with the Taliban.

On the Atlanticist front, the spectacle of non-stop self-recrimination will consume the Beltway for ages. Two decades, $2 trillion, a forever war debacle of chaos, death and destruction, a still shattered Afghanistan, an exit literally in the dead of night – for what? The only “winners” have been the Lords of the Weapons Racket.

Yet every American plotline needs a fall guy. NATO has just been cosmically humiliated in the graveyard of empires by a bunch of goat herders – and not by close encounters with Mr Khinzal. What’s left? Propaganda.

So meet the new fall guy: the New Axis of Evil. The axis is Taliban-Pakistan-China. The New Great Game in Eurasia has just been reloaded.

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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.

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is by South Front

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

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

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“A house constitutes a body of images that give mankind proofs or illusions of stability.”      – Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

There is a vast and growing gulf between the world’s rich and poor.  An obscene gulf. If we can read houses, they will confirm this.  They offer a visible lesson in social class.

Houses stand before us like books on a shelf waiting to be read, and when the books are missing, as they are for a vast and growing multitude of the homeless exiled wandering ones and those imprisoned, their absence serves to indict the mansion-dwelling wealthy and to a lesser extent those whose homes serve to shield them from the truth of the ill-begotten gains of the wealthy elites who create the world’s suffering through their avarice, lies, and war making.

Many regular people want to say with Edmund in Eugene O’Neill’s play, Long Day’s Journey into Night:

The fog is where I wanted to be. Halfway down the path you can’t see this house. You’d never know it was here. Or any of the other places down the avenue. I couldn’t see but a few feet ahead. I didn’t meet a soul. Everything looked and sounded unreal. Nothing was what it is.That’s what I wanted – to be alone with myself in another world where truth is untrue and life can hide from itself….Who wants to see life as it is, if they can help it?

Yet the rich don’t hide or give a damn. They flaunt their houses.  They know they are crooks and creators of illusions.  Their nihilism is revealed in their conspicuous consumption and their predatory behavior; they want everyone else to see it too.  So they rub it in their faces.  Their wealth is built on the blood and suffering of millions around the world, but this is often hidden knowledge.

For many regular people prefer the fog to the harsh truth.  It shields them from intense anger and the realization that the wealthy elites who run the world and control the media lie to them about everything and consider them beneath contempt.  That would demand a response commensurate with the propaganda – rebellion.  It would impose the moral demand to look squarely at the houses of death with their tiny cells in which the wealthy elites and their henchmen imprison and torture truth tellers like Julian Assange, an innocent man in a living hell; to make connections between wealth and power and the obscene flaunting of the rich elite’s sybaritic lifestyles in houses where every spacious room testifies to their moral depravity.

The recent news of Barack Obama’s vile selfie birthday celebration for his celebrity “friends” at his 29-acre estate and mansion (he has another eight-million-dollar mansion in Washington, D. C.) on Martha’s Vineyard is an egregious recent case in point.  If he thinks this nauseating display is proof of his stability and strength – which obviously he does – then he is a deluded fool.  But those who carry water for the military-intelligence-media complex are amply rewarded and want to tell the world that this is so.  It’s essential for the Show.  It must be conspicuous so the plebians learn their lesson.

Obama’s Vineyard mansion stands as an outward sign of his inner disgrace, his soullessness.

Trump’s golden towers and his never-ending self-promotion or the multiple million-dollar mansions of high-tech, sports, and Hollywood’s superstars send the same message.

Take Bill Gates’ sixty-three-million-dollar mansion, Xanadu, named after William Randolph Hearst’s estate in Citizen Kane, that took seven years to build.

Take the house up the hill from where I live in an erstwhile working-class town that sold for one million plus and now is being expanded to double its size with a massive swimming pool that leaves no grass uncovered. Every week, three black window-tinted SUVs arrive with New Jersey plates to join two white expensive sedans to oversee the progress in this small western Massachusetts town where McMansions rise throughout the hills faster than summer’s weeds.

Take the blue dolomite stone Searles Castle with its 60 acres, 40 rooms, and “dungeon” basement down the hill on Main St. that was recently bought by a NYC artist who also owns seven grand estates around the country that he showcases as examples of his fine artistic taste.  “All these houses have endless things to do — it’s just mind-boggling,” he has said. The artist, Hunt Slonem, calls himself a “glamorizer,” and his “exotica” paintings, inspired by Andy Warhol’s repetition of soup cans and Marilyn Monroe, hang in galleries, museums, cruise ships, and the houses of film celebrities.  Like his showcase houses, his exotica must have endless things to do.

What would Vincent van Gogh say?  Perhaps what he wrote to his brother Theo: that the greatest people in painting and literature “have always worked against the grain” and in sympathy with the poor and oppressed.  That might seem “mind-boggling” to Slonem.

Such ostentatious displays of wealth and power clearly reveal the delusions of the elites, as if there are no spiritual consequences for living so.  Even if they read Tolstoy’s cautionary tale about greed, How Much Land Does A Man Need?, it is doubtful that its truth would register.  Like Tolstoy’s protagonist Pahόm, they never have enough.  But like Pahόm, the Devil has them in his grip, and like him, they will get their just rewards, a small room, a bit of land to imprison them forever.

His servant picked up the spade and dug a grave long enough for Pahóm to lie in, and buried him in it. Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed.

Where does the money for all these estates, not just Slonem’s, come from? Who wants to ask?

Getting to the roots of wealth involves a little digging.  Slonem’s castle was originally commissioned in the late 1800s by Mark Hopkins for his wife.  Hopkins was one of the founders of the Central Pacific Railroad, which was built by Irish and Chinese immigrants.  Labor history is quite illuminating on the ways immigrants have always been treated, in this case “the dregs of Asia” and the Irish dogs.  Interestingly enough, the great black scholar and radical, W. E. B. Du Bois, a town native, worked at the castle’s construction site as a young man.  No doubt it informed his future work against racism, capitalism, and economic exploitation.

Wealthy urbanites flooded this area after September 11, 2001, and now, in their terror of disease and death, they have bought every house they could find.  Their cash-filled pockets overflow with blood-money and few ask why. To suggest that massive wealth is almost always ill-begotten is anathema.  But innocence wears many masks, and the Show demands washed hands and no questions asked.

It is rare that one becomes super-wealthy in an honest and ethical way.  The ways the rich get money almost without exception lead downward, to paraphrase Thoreau from his essay, “Life Without Principle.”

Since the corona crisis began, investment firms such as the Blackstone Group have been gobbling up vast numbers of houses across the United States as their prices have gone through the roof.  The lockdowns – an appropriate prison term – have set millions of regular people back on their heels as the wealthiest have gotten exponentially wealthier. Poverty and starvation have increased around the world.  This is not an accident.  Despair and depression are widespread.

There is a taboo in life in general and in journalism: Do not ask where people’s money comes from.  Thoreau was so advised long ago:

Do not ask how your bread is buttered; it will make you sick…

But the super-wealthy do not get sick.  They are sick.  For they revel in their depravity and push it in the faces of regular people, many who envy them and wish to become super-rich and powerful themselves.  Of course there are the blue bloods whose method is understatement, but it takes many decades to enter their theater of deception.  In many ways, these people are worse, for their personae have been crafted over decades of play-acting and public relations so their images are laundered to smell fresh and benevolent.  They often wear the mask of philanthropy, while the history of their wealth lies shrouded in an amnestic fog.

Yet soul murder includes suicide, and while the old and new moneyed ones smoothly justify their oppression of the vast majority, many regular people kill the best in themselves by envying the rich.

Years ago, I discovered some documents that showed that one of this country’s most famous philosophers, known for his lofty moral pronouncements, owned a lot of stock in companies that were doing evil things – war making, poisoning and killings huge numbers with chemicals, etc.  But his image was one of Mr. Clean, Mr. Good Guy. I suspect this is typical and that there are many such secrets in the basements and attics of the rich.

But let us also ask where the writers and presenters of the mainstream and alternative media get their money.  Although “to follow the money” is a truism, few do.  If we do, we will learn that money talks and those who take it toe the line, nor do they live in shacks by the side of the road or rent like so many others.  They invest with Black Rock and their ilk and have money managers who can increase their wealth while shielding them from the ways that money is made on the backs of the poor and working people.  And they lie about people like Assange, Daniel Hale, Reality Winner, Craig Murray, et al., all imprisoned for daring to reveal the depredations of the power elites, the violence at the heart of predatory capitalism.

Yes, houses speak.  But few ever speak of where their money comes from.  Those that are on the take – which has multiple meanings – always plead innocent.  Yes, I can hear you say that I am being too harsh; that there are exceptions.  That is obvious.  So let’s skip the exceptions and focus on the general principle. There is a Buddhist principle that right livelihood is a core ethic in earning money.  Jesus had another way of putting it but was of course in agreement, as were so many others whom people hold in highest esteem.

Thoreau wrote: “If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications.”

The truth is that for most people, work, if they can find it, is drudgery and hard, a matter of survival. The late great Studs Terkel called it hell and rightly said that most jobs are not big enough for people because they crush the soul, they lack meaning.  And behind all ledgers of great wealth lie crushed souls.  This reality is so obvious and goes by many names, including class warfare, that further commentary would be redundant.

A few years ago, I visited Mark Twain’s house in Hartford, Connecticut.  It is advertised as “a house with a heart and a soul.”  It is not a house but a mansion, and it was an ostentatious display in Twain’s time. Similar or worse than Obama’s mansion on Martha’s Vineyard today.  It has no soul or heart.  It was built with Twain’s wife’s family money.  Her father was an oil and coal tycoon from upstate New York.  Twain reveled in opulent respectability.  He lived the life of a Gilded Age tycoon, an American magnate. It is not a pretty story, but the Twain myth says otherwise.  Not that he catered to popular tastes to please the crowd and his domineering wife and that he lived in luxury, but that he was a radical critic of the establishment.  This is false.  For he withheld for the most part the publication of his withering take on American imperialism until after his death.  He committed soul murder.  But his mansion impressed his neighbors and his humor distracted from his luxurious lifestyle.  His house still stands as a cautionary tale for those who will read it.

Baudelaire once said that in palaces “there is no place for intimacy.”  This is no doubt why in people’s dreams small, simple houses with a light in the window loom large.  Bachelard says, “When we are lost in darkness and see a distant glimmer of light, who does not dream of a thatched cottage or, to go more deeply still into legend, of a hermit’s hut.”  For here man and God meet in solitude; here human intimacy is possible.  “The hut can receive none of the riches ‘of this world.’  It possesses the felicity of intense poverty; indeed, it is one of the glories of poverty; as destitution increases, it gives access to absolute refuge.”

He is not espousing actual poverty, but the oneiric depths of true desire, the dreams of hope, reconciliation, and simple living that run counter to the amassing of wealth to prove one’s power and majesty. A humble house of truth, not a mansion of lies. This, to borrow the title of William Goyen’s novel, is “the house of breath” where the spirit can live and pseudo-stability gives way to faith, for insecurity is the essence of life.

There is such a hermit’s hut where the light shines.  It is the tiny cell in Belmarsh Prison where Julian Assange hangs onto his life by a thread.  His witness for truth sends an inspiring message to all those lost in the world’s woods to look to his fate and not turn away.  To follow to their sources the money that greases the palms of all the so-called journalists and politicians who want him dead or imprisoned for life, who tell their endless lies, not just about him, but about everything.

The house of propaganda is built on unanimity.  When one person says no, the foundation starts to crumble.  The houses of the rich dead and crooked souls, erected to project the stability of their bloody illusions, start to crumble into sand when people dissent one by one.

Soon the fog lifts and there is no hiding any more.  At the end of the path, you can see the vultures circling overhead as their prey go running out of their mansions in terror.

Sing Hallelujah!

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

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

Featured image: The Obamas’ new home. (LANDVEST/REALTOR.COM)

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***

This article was originally published in 2016.

When people ask me what more can be done to achieve 9/11 truth and justice, I tell them to spend less time calling for a new investigation and more time investigating. Even without subpoena power, independent investigators can make a lot of progress. To help with that effort, here are three steps for an independent investigation and an objective way to evaluate suspects in the 9/11 crimes.

The first step is to ask specific, well-formulated questions. What do we need to know? We need to know things like how explosives got into the WTC, how the North American air defenses failed, how the U.S. chain of command and communication systems failed, how the alleged hijackers got away with so much, and how the planes were hijacked.

Here are examples of specific questions that will help answer these questions.

1. What more can we learn from the official accounts about transponder and autopilot use on 9/11?
2. Who was invited to the explosive disposal/terrorism meeting at WTC 7 on the morning 9/11 and what was the agenda?
3. What do the strip clubs, bars, and other businesses frequented by the alleged hijackers have in common?

The second step is to collect information that might help to answer the questions. Good sources of information include the following.

• National Archives (NARA)
• National Security Archive at GWU
• 911 Document Archive at Scribd
• 911DataSets.org
• 911Review.com
• History Commons Complete 9/11 Timeline
• Internet Search Engines: These are more useful for those who learn how to use search operators.
• University libraries
• The WayBack Machine: Wonder what a web page looked like 15 years ago?

It also helps to interview people who have detailed knowledge about the events. Most of the people who were present at the time of the attacks and during the official investigations are still alive and some of them will answer questions.

Additionally, useful information can be obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Direct requests to federal, state, or local agencies using resources like these:

• Federal: http://www.foia.gov/how-html
• New York State: http://www.dos.ny.gov/coog/html
• Other help and example letters: http://nfoic.org

The third step to investigation is to collect the information, analyze it, and then communicate it clearly and objectively. Collecting the information is relatively easy. Analysis might include categorizing or framing the information in ways that help to see linkages. Examples include creating a timeline of events or a matrix of people and events, and considering if the new information fits into the existing body of knowledge. Once new information is ready to communicate to others, there are a lot of venues for doing that. A good example is 911Blogger.

Naming Suspects and Evaluating Evidence

As answers are found or proposed, it becomes clear that there are people who can be named as legitimate suspects in the 9/11 crimes. Things can get a bit tricky here and it’s easy to be misled. What makes someone a legitimate suspect? To answer that, it helps to understand three different types of evidence: direct, indirect, and negative. Let’s start with five examples of what I would cite as direct evidence related to 9/11.

Direct evidence

1. The suspect was in a position on 9/11 to directly facilitate the crimes.
2. Evidence exists that the suspect did something on 9/11 that directly facilitated the crimes.
3. Evidence exists to charge the suspect with a crime related to 9/11.
4. The suspect was in a position prior to 9/11 to facilitate the 9/11 crimes.
5. Evidence exists to charge the suspect with having done something prior to 9/11 that facilitated the 9/11 crimes.

All of the suspects in my book, Another Nineteen, were named based on direct evidence. An example is Wirt Dexter Walker. As the CEO of Stratesec, he was in position to provide access to those who planted explosives in the WTC, as well as prevent that access from being detected. Walker can also be charged with 9/11 insider trading.

Another example is Ralph Eberhart, who sponsored the military exercises that obstructed the air defenses on 9/11. Eberhart also appears to have lowered the Infocon (communications defense) level just hours before the attacks, and gave orders that directly obstructed the interceptors. He also lied to the U.S. Congress about having received documented notification of the hijackings (a crime).

When one or more of pieces of direct evidence are established for a suspect, it makes sense to evaluate indirect evidence. Here are five types.

Indirect evidence

1. The suspect had foreknowledge of the 9/11 crimes.
2. The suspect benefited from the 9/11 crimes.
3. The suspect failed to cooperate with the official 9/11 investigations, obstructed those investigations, or lied to investigators.
4. The suspect was an expert in the technologies that were required to make 9/11 happen (e.g. communications systems, remote control technology).
5. Evidence exists that the suspect was involved in other terrorist acts or previous U.S. deep state events.

An example of a suspect for which both direct and indirect evidence exists is Barry McDaniel, the Chief Operating Officer of Stratesec. Besides having the power to grant access to those who planted explosives in the WTC, McDaniel also had expertise in the distribution of explosives from his days as the U.S. Army’s director of Materiel Readiness. That same previous position makes him a suspect in the Iran-Contra crimes. McDaniel benefited from 9/11 by starting a police-state supply company with Dick Cheney’s old business partner, Bruce Bradley.

Similarly, Ralph Eberhart is a suspect for whom there exists both direct and indirect evidence. As CINCNORAD and CINCSPACE, Eberhart was an expert on the air defense, communications, and possibly related space, systems. He also failed to cooperate with the official investigations, telling his staff to just change their responses to investigators as those responses were shown to be invalid.

Is it enough to use only indirect evidence? For example, is it enough to say that the suspect benefited from the crimes? If so, there are millions, or maybe billions, of suspects. This includes everyone who profited from the 9/11 Wars or the police state policies that have resulted. It might also include anyone who was threatened by the countries that the U.S. has attacked since 9/11: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. That would be a huge number of people so the answer is no, benefiting from 9/11 is not enough to make someone (or an entire country) a legitimate 9/11 suspect.

Is foreknowledge of the attacks enough to name someone as a legitimate suspect? If so, the governments of at least a dozen countries are all suspects. Therefore the answer is no, in the absence of direct evidence foreknowledge is not enough to name a person (or an entire country) as a 9/11 suspect.

For instance, some people are convinced that Israel committed the crimes of 9/11. When asked why they think this, the answer is usually that Israel had foreknowledge as indicated by the “Dancing Israelis” and that Israel benefited because of the countries that were attacked after 9/11. However, as indicated above this reasoning is not convincing and would certainly never stand up in a court of law.

Both foreknowledge and benefiting are examples of indirect evidence. And although indirect evidence can be helpful, direct evidence is needed to charge someone with a crime. Moreover, the direct evidence must focus on what actually happened on 9/11 that should not have happened, and what did not happen that should have happened. And that means we must focus on the specific people who were in position to make those things so.

Once direct evidence exists for a suspect, negative evidence can also be used to build the case. Negative evidence related to the 9/11 crimes includes the fact that some people did not do their jobs, either in defending the country or in investigating the case afterward. For example, Ralph Eberhart, for whom there exists both direct and indirect evidence that he was involved, failed to implement military control over U.S. airspace when he should have.

In the end, it’s possible that only independent investigation will reveal more of the truth about what happened on 9/11. But that power exists within people who spend considerable time today calling for others to investigate or posting strongly worded messages on social media. If we can harness that power and direct it toward the logical and objective answering of pertinent questions, we can make real progress.

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Kevin Ryan blogs at Dig Within.

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***

“You will own nothing and you will be happy”.

If anyone says to you “the weather extremes are a sure sign of global warming”, it’s because they take this information directly from the media and assume it to be fact.

The media get it from government – or government ‘expert advisors’.

The ‘expert advisors’ get it from a computer modelling exercise (e.g. Imperial College London).

The computer modelling exercise gets it from a large financial incentive offered by the corporate conglomerate and bought-out government, with the explicit instruction to produce a result which fills the needs of their combined political goals. In this case, to magic-up ‘scientific proof’ that global warming is real.

The need to have ‘proof’ that this invention is real is arrived at in spite of the fact that global warming’s main proponents know that the idea was dreamed-up at the Club of Rome in 1972 under a widely publicised treatise with the catchy title ‘Limits to Growth’. It gained a further boost from the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, when the infamous Agenda 21 was launched to impose largely irrational environmental constrictions as a forerunner to the highly discriminating ‘carbon taxes’ in operation today.

Limits to Growth might have appealed to those who oppose neo-liberal capitalist insistence on the necessity for a ‘permanent growth’ economy; but the real intent behind those words is the conditioning of the receiver to take a self imposed pseudo-sacrificial attitude about ‘limitation’.

Ergo, limiting one’s self for the sake of a ‘higher cause’ – saving the natural environment from Global Warming!

This form of conditioning becomes the perfect precept for encouraging naturally concerned citizens to not just embrace cutting back the typical material excesses of their lives, but ultimately the pseudo-saintly renunciation of all material interests. The ghoulish plan behind Klaus Schwab’s quasi religious Sermon from the Mount WEF

“You will own nothing and you will be happy”.

Schwab’s psycho-social engineering ‘deep mind experts’ having planned-out the precise stepping stones necessary for a ‘check-mate’ seamless handing-over of all private wealth to the insatiably materialistic elite masters of deception. A thoroughly odious yet quite brilliant slight of hand.

The great ‘Global Warming’ alarm was raised as a calculated way for leading industrialists, bankers and royalty to ensure their future as the premier influencers and controllers of global affairs.

Blanket controlled media indoctrination, using rampant fear mongering as its key component, is designed to convert public sentiment to the cause. The elite industrialist club know full well that ‘fear’ makes desperate people turn to their perceived leaders to protect them – and tell them what to do.  The historial precedent for this is ubiquitous.

The notion that the climate was dangerously warming had no scientific evidence to back it up. That was cooked-up later under the auspices of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPPC).

It is more than unfortunate that the great majority of green oriented NGO’s also swallowed the bait and, being by then mostly well funded by corporate backed governments, took the money, closed their eyes and minds – and jumped on board – thus embracing the deadly distortion of their original green commitments.

It is now the turn of Klaus Schwab (director of World Economic Forum) to take up the reins handed down to him by earlier representatives of the small but powerful elite that runs planetary affairs via such puppet heads of state as Bush, Cheney, Blair – and other aspiring despots of that time.

Schwab’s job is to ensure that ‘stop global warming’ goals are fully implemented through the channels of The Green New Deal, Great Reset, Fourth Industrial Revolution, Zero Carbon agenda. He must get this fake-green ball firmly rolling down the road especially designed for it by highly paid technocrats, whose particular bent is to create an ‘inventory of everything’ to make possible the control of all aspects of life on Earth.

These techno’s view the management of the world as an exercise in accounting. A sterile reductionist mind-set closely linked to robotics and the notion that advanced mechanisation and calculation is superior to the creativity of the human mind. Hence the WEF’s announcement of the forthcoming ‘Internet of Everything’, the 5G powered Smart City surveillance and control grid which forms the centrepiece of The Great Reset agenda.

An agenda that has been specifically positioned under the title ‘green’- a name stolen from the original ecology movement of the 1970’s and 80’s, whose ethos was – and remains – the promotion of a human scale, light footprint ‘people’s ecology’. An authentic vision that bears no resemblance whatsoever to today’s gigantic corporate led Fourth Industrial Revolution, held up by the WEF masters of deception to be the only solution for ‘greening the planet’.

What it actually is, of course, is a wholesale corporate/cabal grab for the control of the world’s primary resources and money supply. The word ‘green’ could hardly have been more butchered.

So with this fake green ideology now at the forefront of the central control global planning elite’s blueprint for a brave new world, the drive is on to utilise every opportunity possible to enforce conditions that constrict mankind’s behaviour patterns to fit the cunningly concocted demands of ‘preventing global warming’. The great Club of Rome scare story, designed specifically to leave a frightened and confused public completely dependent upon the technocrat ‘experts’ coming up with a ‘life saving solution’ to prevent the planet from frying. 

Now, ‘the life saving solution’ to the fictional ‘problem’ the technocrats came up with, has to fulfil the hard-wired goals of this small but very powerful elite that forms the shadow government of the planet. A despotic cabal whose intention is to master-mind the future according to a darkly inflated sense of self importance and superiority over the rest of humanity.

The first thing needed to smooth the way for the unfettered display of such rampant megalomania is to ensure the least possible public resistance. Least resistance to the rolling-out of ‘the grand plan’, whose implementation requires – to make it credible – a continuous process of environmental disruption and degradation. 

The cause of this disruption can then be pinned on the advance of the ‘catastrophic’ warming’ – to which all solutions must be ‘technological’. Technological in the sense of high tech, robotic, digital and electro magnetic.

Killing at least two birds with one stone is a popular concept within the ranks of New World Order proponents. So it was found that the effects of a general dumbing-down of brain power could be enhanced when combined with individually targetted mind control, hypnosis and torture, all of which had already been well tested via the US MK Ultra programme.

In this program human beings were ruthlessly experimented upon to find at what point they ‘cracked’ and became controllable tools for carrying out the secret operations needed to undermine the orderly functioning of society and to enact psy-ops, false flag events and even – when deemed necessary, murders. 

A variation on these same techniques were used behind closed doors during Covid lockdown, especially in care homes, where genocide has become thematic and old people are considered disposable matter in the cause of ‘stopping Covid’.

Mind control is the central weapon of the elite planners. Its presence is ubiquitous in all aspects of daily life – starting with the TV – a particularly vital component of (State) control of the masses, and extending into all mainstream media operations, cell phone technologies, computer programmes, Wi Fi and advanced military ‘silent’ weaponry. There is a wafer thin line of distinction between the process and function of mind control, propaganda and straight indoctrination.

All the above are now being deployed to get the joys of Klaus Schwab’s Great Reset, Zero Carbon, Green Deal and 5G Smart Cities firmly installed in the brain cells of culpable human beings, who are also to be induced to hand-over all their private assets ‘for the cause’. Do not underestimate the mind bending power it takes to get ordinary folk to embrace the notion “You will own nothing and you will be happy”.

Coming-up this November is the COP International Climate Conference in Cornwall, UK. All the most sophisticated mind controlling wizardry will be employed to make this event appear to be ‘a world saving’ gathering of the good and the great. This is because it is nothing less than ‘fear of global warming’ that holds the entire Great Reset/Green Deal invention together.

Without this scary message of ‘disaster if we don’t act’ underpinning it, the future of the New World Order’s master control agenda would fall apart at the seams. Covid was sprung on the scene to ensure the fear factor would receive a turbo-charged boost, enough to carry it through to the point where the COP could double-up on it – and thus increase the chance of a witless public finally throwing up their arms and shouting “Save us at any cost!”

Atmospheric Aerosol Geoengineering (Chemtrails), Covid, 5G, The High Auroral Atmospheric Research Program (HAARP), WiFi, GMO, the chemical saturation of household products and especially foods – are all examples of contemporary weapons whose deployment is sold to us as ‘important progressive science’, but whose true purpose is to suffocate the life force that drives human and environmental vigour, natural health and spiritual vibrance.

Right down to the manipulation and degradation of  human, animal and plant DNA and the genome of life itself.

At the end of this egregious mono cybernetic intrusion into the divinity of creation is ‘Robotic Man’. The transhumanist singularity omega point. A soulless cyborg ‘inhuman race’ which gets all its instructions through having its neocortex permanently wired to a central super computer.

This is actually the vision of the evolution of humanity that Schwab’s dark controllers have planned-out to be ‘The New Normal’; making the sentient human race largely obsolete by around 2050 – and almost so by 2030/2040. A human race that will by then have been culled down to approximately one quarter of its current number, if all goes according to plan for the psychopathic architects of the Great Reset/New World Order/Green Deal.

It is vital to grasp that the monstrous Covid invention, whose toxic ‘vaccinations’ are a genocide inducing weapon dressed up as ‘protection’, is just one of the cards in the ‘kill and control’ pack. A significant one, but one whose manifestation is symptomatic of the demonic bag of tricks available to the insentient perpetrators of raw evil.

Corona Virus and Global Warming are first cousins. They both owe their creation to exactly the same ‘rabbit from a hat’ conjuring trick. That of applying the art of deception-hypnosis en masse, in order to make people believe that what is unreal is real – what is fake is actual. And they both use the same fascist control mechanisms to achieve their ends.

Now we have put together the disparate parts of this genocide operation called: The Great Reset (forced totalitarian take-over), Green New Deal (fake green fascism), Zero Carbon (no carbon=no life), Fourth Industrial Revolution (completely robotic workplace)  we can recognise that each element is actually integral to the overall plan. Strung together in this way we can finally see the whole diabolical picture.

It is therefore vital to recognise that we can only be effective in our defence of Life on Earth by seeing and acting on this ‘whole picture’. Not being drawn into treating each symptom as a separate and unrelated crises in its own right. Which is precisely what the instigators want us to do, of course.

For a steadily growing number of people, these dark days are actually having the reverse effect than that intended. They are stimulating the manifestation of great shafts of counteractive light! Suddenly, tens of thousands are finding a commonality of purpose and joining together to take-on the masters of deception, through standing strong for truth, justice and freedom.

It portends a remarkable shift of emphasis in all our lives. One of truly dramatic proportions that heralds the tangible unfolding of a new era for humanity. An era in which a dissolving of old barriers of race, class, religion and money – ushers in a profound sense of universal brother and sister hood; a great expansion of the spiritual and a new form of worldwide social and economic cooperation.

Cooperation in which shared humanitarian goals steadily replace the divisive and destructive greed of the profit predicated global market place.

This heart-led flowering of humanity is to be the truly defining factor of the great Global Warming/Covid Scam, as the history books will one day relate. The overwhelming use of fear and deception has provoked the opposite state to come out of hiding and to manifest as what, for its detractors, will be an unendurable counter force –  emanating from none less than the energetic source of Creation Itself.

Such an astounding metamorphosis is now underway, and it has taken an extraordinary, blatant manifestation of darkness to ignite the counteractive fire which is now calling forth a great renaissance of the true powers of man. This is the age of truth, enlightenment and action.

Take your courage in both hands and step forth! Set your sights on nothing less than disarming and dismantling the technocratic top-down total-control system that attempts to enslave you, me and every sentient human being who seeks to remain true to the deepest values of Life.

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Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, writer, international activist, entrepreneur and holistic teacher. Julian is co-founder of HARE The Hardwick Alliance for Real Ecology see https://hardwickalliance.org/. His acclaimed book ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind – Why Humanity Must Come Through’ is particularly recommended reading for this time: see www.julianrose.info.

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: People hold signs during the March for Science in Melbourne, Australia on April 22, 2017. (Photo: Takver/flickr/ccc)

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

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

***

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the White House and most mainstream media, what we have now is a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” with 95% to 99% of COVID-related hospitalizations and deaths being attributed to the unvaccinated

To achieve that statistic, the CDC included hospitalization and mortality data from January through June 2021. The vast majority of the United States population was unvaccinated during that timeframe

January 1, 2021, only 0.5% of the U.S. population had received a COVID shot. By mid-April, an estimated 31% had received one or more shots, and as of June 15, 48.7% were fully “vaccinated”

Natural immunity offers robust protection against all variants, whereas vaccine-induced immunity can’t. The reason for this is because when you recover from the natural infection, you have both antibodies and T cells against all parts of the virus, not just the spike protein

According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Delta variant is both more transmissible and more dangerous than the original virus and previous variants, but real-world data show it is actually weaker and far less dangerous, even though it does spread more easily

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Watch the video here.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the White House and most mainstream media, what we have now is a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”¹

According to the official narrative, 99% of COVID-19 deaths and 95% of COVID-related hospitalizations are occurring among the unvaccinated. In a July 16, 2021, White House press briefing,² CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky claimed “over 97% of people who are entering the hospital right now are unvaccinated.”

But as reported by Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham on “The Ingraham Angle,” “that statistic is grossly misleading,”³ and in an August 5, 2021, video statement, Walensky inadvertently revealed how that 95% to 99% statistic was created.

Grossly Misleading Data Manipulation

As it turns out, to achieve those statistics, the CDC included hospitalization and mortality data from January through June 2021. It does not include more recent data or data related to the Delta variant, which is now the most prevalent strain in circulation. The problem is, the vast majority of the United States population was unvaccinated during that timeframe.

January 1, 2021, only 0.5% of the U.S. population had received a COVID shot. By mid-April, an estimated 31% had received one or more shots,⁴ and as of June 15, 48.7% were fully “vaccinated.”⁵Keep in mind that you’re not “fully vaccinated” until two weeks after your second dose (in the case of Pfizer or Moderna), which is given six weeks after your first shot. This is according to the CDC.⁶

So, those receiving an initial dose in June, for example, won’t be “fully vaccinated” until eight weeks later, sometime in July or August.

By using statistics from a time period when the U.S. as a whole was largely unvaccinated, the CDC is now claiming we’re in a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” in an effort to demonize those who still have not agreed to receive this experimental gene modification injection.

Selective Pressure Promotes Emergence of New Variants

Here’s what Canadian viral immunologist and vaccine researcher Dr. Byram Bridle told Ingraham about the claim that we’re in a pandemic of the unvaxxed, and that the unvaccinated are hotbeds for dangerous variants:

“Absolutely, it’s untrue to be calling this a pandemic of the unvaccinated. And it’s certainly untrue … that the unvaccinated are somehow driving the emergence of the novel variants. This goes against every scientific principle that we understand.

The reality is, the nature of the vaccines we are using right now, and the way we’re rolling them out, are going to be applying selective pressure to this virus to promote the emergence of new variants. Again, this is based on sound principles.

We have to look no further than … the emergence of antibiotic resistance … The principle is this: If you have a biological entity that is prone to mutation — and the SARS-CoV-2, like all coronaviruses is prone to mutation — and you apply a narrowly focused selective pressure that is nonlethal, and you do this over a long period of time, this is the recipe for driving the emergence of novel variants.

This is exactly what we’re doing. Our vaccines are focused on a single protein of the virus, so the virus only has to alter one protein, and the vaccines don’t come close to providing sterilizing immunity.

People who are vaccinated still get infected, it only seems particularly good at blunting the disease, and what that tells you therefore is that these vaccines in the vast majority of people are applying a nonlethal pressure, narrowly focused on one protein, and the vaccine rollout is occurring over a long period of time. That’s the recipe for driving variants.”

Bridle also explains why natural immunity offers robust protection against all variants, whereas vaccine-induced immunity can’t. When you acquire the infection naturally, your body develops antibodies against ALL of the viral proteins whereas the COVID shots only trigger antibodies against one, namely the spike protein.

As mentioned above, when you have antibodies against just one of the viral proteins, the virus only needs to mutate that one protein in order to evade your immune system. When you have natural immunity, on the other hand, your antibodies will recognize all parts of the virus, so even if the spike protein is mutated, your body will recognize other parts of the virus and mount an attack against those.

That SARS-CoV-2 works the same way other viruses do was shown in a Nature Reviews Immunology study⁷ by Alessandro Sette and Shane Crotty, published in October 2020. The study, “Cross-Reactive Memory T Cells and Herd Immunity to SARS-CoV-2” argued that naturally-acquired immunity against SARS-CoV-2 is potent, long-lasting and very broad in scope, as you develop both antibodies and T cells that target multiple components of the virus and not just one.

If we are to depend on vaccine-induced immunity, as public health officials are urging us to do, we’ll end up on a never-ending booster treadmill. Boosters will absolutely be necessary, as the shot offers such narrow protection against a single protein of the virus. Already, data around the world show vaccine-induced protection is waning rapidly in the face of new variants, and Moderna has publicly stated that the need for additional boosters is expected.⁸

How Dangerous Is the Delta Variant?

According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Delta variant is both more transmissible and more dangerous than the original virus and previous variants. July 4, 2021, he told NBC News:⁹

“It is more effective and efficient in its ability to transmit from person to person. And studies that we’ve seen where they have been the variant that’s dominated in other countries, it’s clear that it appears to be more lethal in the sense of more serious — allow you to get more serious disease leading to hospitalization, and in some cases leading to deaths.”

In a June 29, 2021, interview,¹⁰ Fauci called the Delta variant “a game-changer” for unvaccinated people, warning it will devastate the unvaccinated population while vaccinated individuals are protected against it.

Remember, Fauci is not a clinician and has never treated someone infected with SARS-CoV-2. Other health experts and practicing physicians who treat COVID-19 patients disagree with Fauci’s claims, arguing that not only is the Delta variant not more dangerous, it’s certainly not more dangerous for the unvaccinated.

As reported by Ingraham in June 2021 (video above), there’s an evolutionary genetics theory called Muller’s Ratchet, which states that as an outbreak starts to peter out, the virus tends to mutate into a more transmissible form, but at the same time it grows weaker, causing far less serious infection. According to epidemiologist and cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough, this is exactly what we’re seeing. He told Ingraham:

“The good news is on the 18th of June, the United Kingdom presented their 16th report¹¹ on the mutations — and they’re doing a great job, much better than our CDC — and what they demonstrated is that the Delta is more contagious but it’s far less deadly, far less worrisome. In fact, it’s a much weaker virus than both the U.K. [Alpha] and the South African [Beta] variants.”

Spike Mutations Render Vaccinated Vulnerable to Delta

Importantly, the Delta variant contains three different mutations, all in the spike protein. This, McCullough explains, allows this variant to evade the immune responses in those who have received the COVID jabs — but not those who have natural immunity which, again, is much broader. In a June 30, 2021, appearance on Fox News (video above), McCullough stated:¹²

“It is very clear from the UK Technical Briefing¹³ that was published June 18th that the vaccine provides no protection against the Delta variant. It’s a very mild variant.

Whether you get the vaccine or not, patients will get some very mild symptoms like a cold and they can be easily managed … Patients who have severe symptoms or at high risk, we can use simple drug combinations at home and get them through the illness. So, there’s no reason now to push vaccinations.”

Children’s Health Defense chief scientific officer Brian Hooker, Ph.D., has echoed McCullough’s sentiments. The Defender quotes Hooker:¹⁴

“What we’re seeing is virus evolution 101. Viruses like to survive, so killing the host (i.e. the human who is infected) defeats the purpose because killing the host kills the virus, too. For this reason, new variants of viruses that circulate widely through the population tend to become more transmissive but less pathogenic. In other words, they will spread more easily from person to person, but they will cause less damage to the host.

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.”

Real-World Data Show Most of Infected are Fully ‘Vaccinated’

Real-world data from areas with high COVID jab rates show the complete converse of what media, the CDC and White House officials are telling us. In addition to the British Technical Briefing No. 16,¹⁵ cited above, we have additional data from Israel, Scotland, Massachusetts and Gibraltar:

While those who benefit from keeping the pandemic going would like you to cower in fear at the thought of the Delta variant, there’s really no evidence that it’s any worse than the original. It’s more transmissible, yes, but far less dangerous, as its primary symptoms are that of a regular cold.

According to Harvard and Stanford professors, the actual number of Americans dying from or with COVID-19 are actually at an all-time low, so alarmism is uncalled for.²⁴

And, as for viral social media posts by doctors and nurses claiming hospitals are overflowing with unvaccinated COVID patients, don’t believe them. Most are bots. We’ve repeatedly seen evidence that fearmongering is being spread not by real people but by fake accounts run by artificial intelligence. This includes blue check accounts. Here’s a sampling of recent bot farm tweets trying to scare everyone:²⁵

Don’t Fear It, Just Treat It

In closing, remember there are several different treatment protocols for COVID-19 that appear just as effective for variants as for the original virus, including the following:

• Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance’s I-MASS Prevention and At-Home Treatment protocol
• The FLCCC’s I-MASK+ Prevention and Early Outpatient Treatment protocol
• The FLCCC’s I-RECOVER management protocol for long-haul COVID-19 syndrome
• Nebulized hydrogen peroxide for prevention and treatment of COVID-19, as detailed in Dr. David Brownstein’s case paper²⁶ and Dr. Thomas Levy’s free e-book, “Rapid Virus Recovery.” Levy believes nebulized hydrogen peroxide can also be an invaluable strategy for combating spike protein toxicity²⁷ because, in addition to being a powerful antiviral, it will also augment and speed up cellular healing, in part by improving oxygenation

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Notes

¹ The New York Times July 16, 2021

² WH.gov Press Briefing July 16, 2021

³ Fox News

⁴ Bloomberg COVID Vaccine Tracker, see US Vaccinations vs Cases graph, top portion

⁵ Mayo Clinic COVID Vaccine Tracker

⁶ CDC.gov When You’ve Been Fully Vaccinated Updated July 27, 2021

⁷ Nature Reviews Immunology October 6, 2020; 20: 709-713

⁸ The Hill August 5, 2021

⁹ NBC News July 4, 2021

¹⁰ PBS June 29, 2021

^11, 13, 15 Public Health England, SARS-CoV-2 Variants Technical Briefing 16, June 18, 2021 (PDF)

¹² Covidcalltohumanity.org July 5, 2021

¹⁴ The Defender August 3, 2021

¹⁶ Bloomberg August 1, 2021 (Archived)

¹⁷ American Faith August 8, 2021

¹⁸ Our World in Data, Data for Israel

¹⁹ The Daily Expose July 29, 2021

²⁰ CDC MMWR July 30, 2021; 70

²¹ CNBC July 30, 2021

²² NBC News August 7, 2021

²³ Big League Politics August 4, 2021

²⁴ FEE.org July 28, 2021

²⁵ Padrak.com Vaccine Propaganda Bot Farms (PDF)

²⁶ Science, Public Health Policy and The Law July 2020; 1: 4-22 (PDF)

²⁷ Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, June 21, 2021

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***

Another name has been chiseled on the tombstone in the graveyard of empires.

The United States of America. 2001-2021.

From the swords of Alexander the Great, the British empire, the Russians before and after Lenin, and the US as the newest members of the Great Game, military powers have seen the Afghan sand swallow their ambitions. “Look upon my works ye mighty….’’

Some commentators have said the abandonment of Afghanistan was the worst crisis facing the West since Suez. They are wrong. This is much worse. The canal crisis was about two empires with setting suns, the British and French, not appreciating or admitting their diminishing post-war role before the US stepped in to restore perspective. Afghanistan is about betrayal, defeat and an increased terror threat. As the 20^th anniversary of 9/11 approaches it is sobering to remember that the US went in to Afghanistan to topple the Taliban in 2001 and thereby reduce the terror threat. It left in 2021 and allowed the Taliban to take over. At the very least, it is difficult to explain.

The West in Asia is discredited. North Korea and China can be expected to take advantage.

It would be remiss of military planners in South Korea and Japan not to formulate a new defense strategy, one more firmly based on their own capabilities, in the light of the flight from Kabul.

America’s defeat by the Taliban will also comfort terror groups.

The Chinese saw it coming. Little commented on in the West, the Chinese hosted the Taliban in Tianjin at the end of July as Western military officials kept on talking about a timescale of months before Kabul was endangered. The Chinese realized in July that the Taliban were going to win within a matter of days or weeks. Which is why China’s foreign minister Wang Yi, met Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s political chief, in Tianjin, 100km east of Beijing, at the end of July. Just before this meeting the Chinese had hosted the US deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman, also in Tianjin. When they met the Taliban a few days later it was an indicator that they were taking the Taliban seriously. It was also a snub to the US, putting the Taliban envoy on par with Sherman.

Wang, as the occasion demanded, exchanged niceties with the Taliban. Beijing expected it to “play an important role in the process of peaceful reconciliation and reconstruction in Afghanistan”, according to a readout of the meeting from the foreign ministry.

What this really means; China will help the Taliban in aid and investment through the conduit of Pakistan. In return the Taliban must not interfere in China’s restive region of Xinjiang, where Muslims are in the majority and up to a million are incarcerated by Beijing.

There is money to be made and plenty of deals to be done.

The Belt and Road Initiative, China’s plan, in part, to establish trade routes from the East to Europe that cannot be targeted by US sanctions, needs to get into Afghanistan to better access the Central Asian republics. Beijing is constructing a major road through the narrow Wakhan Corridor—the strip of mountainous territory connecting Xinjiang in China to Afghanistan (see map above and image right).

This will provide a key route for its Belt and Road Initiative to Pakistan and Central Asia. These routes are essential for Beijing to pursue its goals of increased trade with the region. Crucially, Afghanistan’s natural resources, especially rare earths, essential for the computer and telecoms industry, can be mined and transported.

Laughable as it sounds now, Kabul had shunned participation in the initiative to avoid getting on the wrong side of Washington.

China’s approach is based both on commerce as well as security. It hopes to rebuild Afghanistan’s infrastructure indirectly. In terms of Afghanistan, China has been described as Pakistan’s ATM. This approach also gives China a hands-off deniability.

Beijing hopes to avoid the harsh lessons of history. Afghanistan is a country where history is marked in tombstones.

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Geopolitical analyst Tom Clifford reporting from Beijing is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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In my efforts to provide good information in place of Big Pharma-serving propaganda about Covid and the vaccine, I have reported to you from the official databases the large number of deaths and health issues associated with the vaccine.  For some age groups the vaccine is more dangerous than the virus.

I have also reported to you from official reports that the largest percentage of new cases are associated with those who are fully vaccinated.  The question is: are these actually new cases or are they vaccine-associated illnesses?  

Following the conclusions of a Nobel prize-winner in medicine and other top level experts, I have attributed what the medical establishment calls new cases, breakthroughs, delta variant, to adverse responses to the vaccine itself, thus questioning the existence of the delta variant.  But after listening to Dr. Robert Malone, it appears that there are variants also, and will be more variants. Thus the new breakout of what are reported as Covid cases consists of both adverse reactions to the vaccine and illnesses from the new variants.

Dr. Malone is the inventor of the mRNA technology that was used to develop the mRNA vaccine.  He is a member of the establishment.  He is not a kook, conspiracy theorist, or anti-vaxxer.  He is so solid a member of the establishment that the Department of Defense has relied on him for years.  Where Dr. Malone differs from the establishment is in his unwillingness to keep quiet when he sees that the ruling Covid narrative does not fit the facts.

Dr. Malone explains (at the 50 minute mark) that what the vaccine is doing, in addition to killing and injuring people’s health, which he does not emphasize, is evolving the virus, in a manner of speaking, training it to escape vaccines. In other words, the vaccine itself amplifies variants that cannot be prevented by vaccines.  

You can listen to his explanations in the first 57 minutes of this video address to a professional group of educated people in Silicon Valley.  Even if you are not well educated, Malone speaks with a clarity that will allow you to understand the gist of the explanation. Watch below or click here.

The first 25 minutes are taken up with Malone’s explanation of who he is, his background and experience.  He explains the origin and reason for the official public health policy that experts, no matter how distinguished, are censored when they depart from the official (and ever-changing) CDC, NIH, WHO, FDA narrative. In other words, the official public health bureaucracies have a monopoly on the explanation. He explains that the mainstream media is interlocked with the public health bureaucracies and acts as censoring agent.   He speaks with humor. He describes being “fact checked” and  deplatformed by a high school dropout employed to shutdown “misinformation,” which is everything that diverges from the official narrative of the day. We have reached the point in our absurdity where distinguished scientists are censored by total dumbshits.

Beginning at the 35 minute mark, Malone gets into the heart of the dilemma we face.  He makes it crystal clear that the authorities were wrong and that there is no hope that vaccines are the answer.  He makes it clear that the delta variant is going to run through the population and no amount of vaccination, masks, and lockdowns can do anything about it.  The focus must be switched to treatment.  There are known effective treatments, and more are under development and testing. Malone himself was cured by Ivermectin.

Fortunately, he reports, the delta variant is less serious than Covid-19, but future variants might not be if we continue to use a vaccine that trains new variants to escape immune systems.  A number of distinguished scientists have reached the same conclusion.  See this for example.

For the first time in history, the world’s population has been used for mass clinical testing of an experimental vaccine.  The evidence is piling up.  Official reporting databases show extraordinary numbers of deaths and injuries associated with the Covid vaccine.  The vast majority of new cases are associated with the fully vaccinated.  The fully vaccinated spread the virus as easily as unvaccinated Covid patients according to the CDC and Dr. Fauci himself. The vaccine is associated with spontaneous abortions.  These are all facts now quietly acknowledged by the bungling public health bureaucracies, but still mainly kept from the people.

The public health bureaucracies do not know how to respond to the vaccine failure as they bet the entire ball game on the mRNA vaccine.  All the hopes and claims associated with the vaccine were mistaken.  It is a long limb to climb back, especially when they have no other policy to suggest.

Not knowing what to do, the CDC recommends more jabs with the toxic vaccine. See this. 

All the “fact check” mechanisms put in place to silence those who understand what is happening are still in place and still censoring the experts who have real solutions.

Clearly, the suppression of experts must now stop. The health dilemma that the ignorance and arrogance of public health officials, dumbshit politicians, and dumbshit media have trapped us in can only be resolved by open debate among the world’s experts.  No more controlled explanations, or we may all die if not from the vaccine then from a variant created by the vaccine.

Ivermectin Has Stopped Covid in India and the Media Covers Up the Good News, see report on Epoch Times.

Covid Financed by NIH Has Brought Totalitarianism to the World

Pressure on Unvaccinated Intensifies, see report on Global Research

Those Who Protest against the “Official” Covid-19 Narrative are Categorized as “Psychopaths”, see Michel Chossudovsky on Global Research. 

CDC Is Murder Incorporated

CDC’s Own Statistics Show 1,270  Fetal Deaths Following COVID Shots but CDC Continues to Recommend Pregnant Women Get COVID Injections, see report on Global Research. 

If you take the vaccine, this could be your fate:

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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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Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

***

In the early 11th century, King Canute—while at the peak of his power—set out to demonstrate to his fawning courtiers the limited power of royal edicts.

After having his throne placed by the sea’s edge, he sat down and commanded the tide to stop rising. When the water began washing over his feet, he declared, “Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings.”

Nearly a thousand years later, facing a different force of nature—Covid-19—an entire global generation of presidents, prime ministers, governors, mayors, public health officials, scientists and citizens is being given the same lesson.

However, where Canute’s lesson sprang from his humility, this lesson springs from the hubris of the present-day ruling class and the credulity of the masses who place far too much faith in their rulers’ power.

The lesson was pointedly driven home on July 19th. That was “Freedom Day” in the United Kingdom, with government ending restrictions on social contact, allowing the reopening of remaining establishments such as nightclubs, and abandoning mask mandates.

Two weeks before Freedom Day, as the Delta variant relentlessly pushed the UK’s case count higher, 122 prominent scientists and doctors submitted a letter to The Lancet calling the planned easing of restrictions “a dangerous and unethical experiment.”

On the eve of Freedom Day, the UK’s daily case count was over 40,000 [invalid estimates]. Imperial College London mathematical biologist Neil Ferguson told the BBC it was “almost inevitable” the end of restrictions would prompt daily cases to soar to 100,000 and perhaps even 200,000.

Mother Nature was about to deliver a harsh comeuppance to Ferguson and others who’d have us believe government restrictions and mask mandates offer a potent defense against Covid contagion: Cases promptly went into a two-week free fall.

Daily New Cases in the United Kingdom

In addition to fostering well-founded doubt about the benefits of lockdowns and face coverings, the turn of events should also cultivate healthy skepticism about the pronouncements of the public health establishment.

Hopefully, Ferguson’s particular humiliation will immunize officials, journalists and citizens against trusting Imperial College London’s Covid-19 models.

Those models, which played a key role in enabling unprecedented, draconian lockdowns around the world—have been wildly wrong again and again. For example, Imperial College London projected Sweden’s relaxed approach to Covid-19 would leave nearly 100,000 Swedes dead by July 1, 2020. The actual count: 5,700.

The United States has endured its own false alarms about what will happen when government-imposed restrictions are eased. Grim predictions and accusations of gubernatorial indifference to human life accompanied the ending of restrictions and mandates in states like Iowa, Texas and Florida, and proved as wrong as the ones made in the UK last month.

Lacking Canute’s humility and undaunted by contrary evidence, the great majority of officials, scientists and pundits who’ve favored coercive government measures have proven stubbornly incapable of entertaining the possibility that these interventions—which have boosted depression, suicide, alcohol abuse, drug overdoses, domestic violence and undiagnosed cancer—aren’t a net positive for public health after all.

That resistance to contrary evidence extends to a great many everyday citizens whose unwavering support of lockdowns, business restrictions, remote schooling and mask mandates is part of a politicized tribal identity.

Exasperatingly, that tribe embraces “trust science” as a mantra, oblivious to the fact that the scientific method hinges on the reliable replication of results that supports one’s theory—something sorely lacking where lockdowns, masking and other measures are concerned.

The “trust science” crowd is likewise oblivious to the fact that scientists are far from unanimous in supporting those government-imposed nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), and that highly-credentialed scientists from esteemed institutions are among the most vigorous dissenters.

The most prominent demonstration of such dissent came with the October 2020 “Great Barrington Declaration.” Led by professors from Harvard, Oxford and Stanford, epidemiologists and public health scientists from around the world expressed their “grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies.”

The declaration has now been signed by more than 58,000 medical and public health scientists and medical practitioners. Their numbers and credentials don’t guarantee their views are correct; however, they do bely the presumption of a scientific consensus behind coercive mitigation policies.

Among three original Stanford signatories to the declaration is biophysics professor and Nobel Prize recipient Michael Levitt. He and a group of Stanford and international scholars have been analyzing Covid-19 data since January 2020.

Referring to the steep drop in cases after UK restrictions were eased, Levitt recently asked the Twitter-verse: “Can anyone show clear correlation between NPI or other restrictions & reduced COVID-19 cases anywhere? I keep trying & failing. We really need to know this to deal better with future pandemics.”

Levitt isn’t the only reputable scientist who sees little if any correlation between government-imposed NPIs and Covid-19 trajectories.

“We’ve ascribed far too much human authority over the virus,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, in a recent interview with the New York Times. “These surges have little to do with what humans do. Only recently, with vaccines, have we begun to have a real impact.”

“We had record high cases, hospitalizations and deaths in January, followed by a precipitous decline throughout February and into March…this does not reflect anything to do with…human mitigation. This is the natural ebb and flow of the virus we’ve seen time and again around the world,” said Osterholm on his Covid-19 podcast.

In that vein, those who exclusively attribute today’s surging case counts in southern states to lagging vaccination rates and purported local mismanagement should note that:

• The southern wave’s timing roughly parallels the region’s 2020 summer surge, which should prompt consideration that seasonality—alongside Delta’s greater transmissibility among even the vaccinated—may be the dominant driver
• While Florida is considered the new epicenter of the pandemic, the state’s vaccination rate matches the national average
• Oregon, despite an above-average vaccination rate, is experiencing its own sharp spike—but has been spared the kind of contemptuous scorn that journalists and Democratic politicians heap on Republican-led Florida

Every NPI Deserves Scrutiny

Over the course of the pandemic, some anti-Covid-19 measures have fallen out of favor in light of new findings and observations. For example, with the understanding that surface transmission of Covid-19 is extremely unlikely, far fewer people are wiping groceries with Clorox.

Perhaps because they’re bolted into place, the nation’s thicket of plexiglass dividers have shown more staying power, despite research indicating they may not only be futile, but could actually be making matters worse by thwarting ventilation. In March, the CDC withdrew its recommendation for barriers on school desks, but has apparently stopped short of discouraging their broad use elsewhere.

Though it’s now socially acceptable to question the use of disinfectants and plexiglass, questioning masks can get you suspended from social media and tarred as a promoter of disinformation—even when you’re citing peer-reviewed studies.

However, with other widely-embraced mitigation measures fading in light of new data, intellectually honest people should be equally open to the question of whether widespread face-covering—particularly with anything other than an N-95 mask—is worthwhile.

That forbidden discussion is starting to creep into mainstream media. In a recent appearance on CNN, the University of Minnesota’s Osterholm—a former Covid-19 advisor to President Biden—caused a stir by saying, “We know today that many of the face cloth coverings that people wear are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out.”

That’s because Covid-19 particles are astoundingly small. Hard as it is to imagine, the imperceptible gaps in surgical masks can be 1,000 times the size of a viral particle. Gaps in cloth masks are well larger than that.

Osterholman has offered a highly relatable standard by which to judge if a particular face covering serves as a meaningful barrier against particles that small: “If you were in a room with somebody smoking, would you smell it in your device that you are using?”

That standard not only eliminates cloth masks, but surgical ones too.

Beyond the realities of nanoparticle science and the conclusions of previous studies, the case for masking is undermined by what we’ve observed during the pandemic.

Sweden, for example, never widely embraced masking. While its per capita Covid death count is well higher than neighboring Finland and Norway, it’s the 15th lowest out of the 31 European Union countries and the UK.

If face-covering were such an essential life-saving practice, Sweden wouldn’t be found in the middle of the EU pack. It would be dead last.

That said, using Covid-19 death counts alone to evaluate outcomes is problematic. Different testing protocols can mean an individual would be positive in one country and negative in another. Jurisdictions also differ in what exactly comprises a Covid-19 death—was it a death from Covid or merely with Covid?

More importantly, though, when we solely focus on Covid-19 deaths, we ignore the suicides, fatal overdoses and other unintended deaths that result from the lockdowns themselves.

That’s why it’s best to compare countries using excess all-cause mortality: total deaths beyond what’s expected in a normal year. By that measure, lockdown- and mask-eschewing Sweden had one of the best 2020 excess mortality rates in all of Europe—23rd-lowest out of 30 countries.

(It again trailed Finland and Norway, but a variety of factors undermine the idea they present a full-on apples-to-apples comparison; what’s more, by some measures, Finland and Norway had even less stringent policies during the first several months of the pandemic.)

CDC is “Following the TV Pundits”

Vinay Prasad is an associate professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco and co-author of Ending Medical Reversal: Improving Outcomes, Saving Lives. “Medical reversal” is what happens when new data shows a commonly-accepted practice is not helpful—or is actually harmful.

Decrying the lack of randomized trials backing many Covid-19 policies, Prasad recently wrote, “When it comes to non-pharmacologic interventions such as mandatory business closures, mask mandates, and countless other interventions, the shocking conclusion of the last 18 months is this: We have learned next to nothing,”

Referring to the CDC’s decision to once again recommend universal indoor masking in areas of higher Covid-19 transmission, Prasad wrote, “The CDC director calls this ‘following the science,’ but it is not. It is following the TV pundits.”

While declaring his openness to the possibility that masking can be an effective public health intervention, Prasad says mandates should be driven by evidence—and that the CDC isn’t offering any.

Prasad, who doesn’t shy away from endorsing coercive government action when he thinks it’s warranted, concludes:

“When the history books are written about the use of non-pharmacologic measures during this pandemic, we will look as pre-historic and barbaric and tribal as our ancestors during the plagues of the middle ages. What the books won’t capture is how, in the moment, our experts were simply so sure of themselves.”

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This is the 11th of the regular round-ups of Covid vaccine safety reports and news compiled by a group of medical doctors who are monitoring developments but prefer to remain anonymous in the current climate (find the 10th one here). By no means is this part of an effort to generate alarm about the vaccines or dissuade anyone from getting inoculated. It should be read in conjunction with the Daily Sceptic‘s other posts on vaccines, which include both encouraging and not so encouraging developments. At the Daily Sceptic we report all the news about the vaccines whether positive or negative and give no one advice about whether they should or should not take them. Unlike with lockdowns, we are neither pro-vaccine nor anti-vaccine; we see our job as reporting the facts, not advocating for or against a particular policy. The vaccine technology is novel and the vaccines have not yet fully completed their trials, which is why they’re in use under temporary and not full market authorisation. This has been done on account of the emergency situation and the trial data was largely encouraging on both efficacy and safety. For a summary of that data, see this preamble to the Government’s page on the Yellow Card reporting system. (Dr Tess Lawrie recently wrote an open letter to Dr June Raine, head of the MHRA, arguing that: “The MHRA now has more than enough evidence on the Yellow Card system to declare the COVID-19 vaccines unsafe for use in humans,” a claim that has been “fact checked” here.) We publish information and opinion to inform public debate and help readers reach their own conclusions about what is best for them, based on the available data.

• Public Health Scotland is reporting deaths (from all causes) within 28 days of a vaccine. So far, 5,523 deaths have been reported since February.
• The Times of Israel reports that 14 Israelis who have received both vaccines and a third booster shot have later been infected with Covid.
• Professor Peter Schirmacher, the Director of the Pathological Institute of the University of Heidelberg, has expressed deep concerns after conducting over 40 autopsies on people who have died within two days of their Covid vaccination. These concerns, particularly regarding damage to the brain and organs, are further echoed by pathologist Dr Ryan Cole in this presentation.
• The Jerusalem Post reports on a multicentre Israeli study led by Professor Zohar Habot-Wilner from Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center, which finds Covid vaccines may be linked to specific eye inflammation disorders, specifically anterior uveitis and Multiple Evanescent White Dot Syndrome.
• A study from the U.S. CDC shows 9,246 adverse events reported among adolescents aged 12 to 17, including 863 serious events, 14 deaths and 397 reports of myocarditis. Vaccine has published a report on six cases of myocarditis post-vaccination.
• Associate Professor Michael Palmer and Professor Sucharit Bhakdi explain the dangers of the spike protein in SARS-CoV-2 and its implications in the development of vaccines.

Summary of Adverse Events in the U.K.

According to an updated report published on August 6th, the MHRA Yellow Card reporting system has recorded a total of 1,120,009 events based on 337,064 reports. The total number of fatalities reported is 1,547.

• Pfizer (20.5 million first doses, 13.8 million second doses) now has one Yellow Card in 208 people vaccinated. Deaths: 1 in 42,803 people vaccinated (478).
• AstraZeneca (24.8 million first doses, 23.6 million second doses) has one Yellow Card in 110 people vaccinated. Deaths: 1 in 24,219 people vaccinated (1,024).
• Moderna (1.3 million first doses, 0.4 million second doses) has one Yellow Card in 118 people vaccinated. Deaths: 1 in 162,500 people vaccinated (8).

Key events analysis:

• Acute Cardiac = 13,531
• Myocardial Infarction & Heart Failure = 705
• Anaphylaxis = 1,272
• Blood Disorders = 17,119
• Headaches = 105,289
• Migraine = 10,406
• Eye Disorders = 18,434
• Blindness = 368
• Deafness = 532
• Psychiatric Disorders = 22,911
• Spontaneous Abortions = 407 + 9 (figures imply 12 related maternal deaths)
• Vomiting = 14,729
• Facial Paralysis incl. Bell’s Palsy = 1,513
• Nervous System Disorders = 226,745
• Strokes and CNS haemorrhages = 2,421
• Guillain-Barré Syndrome = 418
• Dizziness = 32,872
• Tremor = 10,925
• Arthralgia, Myalgia & Muscle Spasms = 68,901
• Pulmonary Embolism & Deep Vein Thrombosis = 3,170
• Thrombocytopenia = 1,350
• Nosebleeds = 2,937
• Seizures = 2,578
• Paralysis = 1,006
• Haemorrhage (All types) = 7,221
• Vertigo/Tinnitis = 8,852
• Reproductive/Breast = 32,337

Source: Pfizer; Moderna; AstraZeneca; Unspecified. “F” denotes fatal.

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Before this pandemic, it would have been unimaginable for Congress to consider a bill that would ban tens of millions of Americans from flying.  But now everything has changed.  A new bill has been introduced that would specifically ban all unvaccinated individuals from ever flying again.  When I first heard about this, I thought that it couldn’t possibly be true.  But it is true.  The following comes from the description of H.R. 4980 that has been posted on Congress.gov…

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.

The full text of the bill has not been received by Congress.gov yet, and so we don’t know the specifics of the proposed law.

But what we do know is that it would ban you from any flight “that departs from or arrives to an airport inside the United States” if you have not been “fully vaccinated”.

So if you have only had one injection, you would be banned too.

This comes at a time when many in the liberal media are also calling for unvaccinated people to be banned from flights.  For example, the following excerpt comes from an article entitled “Unvaccinated People Belong on the No-Fly List”…

But at this stage of the pandemic, tougher universal restrictions are not the solution to continuing viral spread. While flying, vaccinated people should no longer carry the burden for unvaccinated people. The White House has rejected a nationwide vaccine mandate—a sweeping suggestion that the Biden administration could not easily enact if it wanted to—but a no-fly list for unvaccinated adults is an obvious step that the federal government should take. It will help limit the risk of transmission at destinations where unvaccinated people travel—and, by setting norms that restrict certain privileges to vaccinated people, will also help raise the stagnant vaccination rates that are keeping both the economy and society from fully recovering.

This level of extremism deeply alarms me.

We put terrorists on the “no-fly list”.

Now they want to treat unvaccinated people the same way?

That should chill all of us to the core.

If they are going to get this extreme over COVID, what is going to happen when a much more serious pandemic comes along?

Just this week, we learned that someone has died of the Marburg virus in Africa…

A patient with the rare, but highly infectious Marburg virus disease has died in Guinea, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) statement on Monday. It’s the first case of the Ebola-like virus in West Africa.

The Marburg virus is far, far more deadly than COVID.

During past outbreaks, mortality rates for the Marburg virus have ranged between 24 percent and 88 percent…

“Case fatality rates have varied from 24% to 88% in past outbreaks depending on virus strain and case management,” the statement said. “In Africa, previous outbreaks and sporadic cases have been reported in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda.”

So if you catch the Marburg virus, there is a really, really good chance that you are going to die.

There is no vaccine for the Marburg virus and there is no cure.

And according to the CDC, ugly sores on the chest, back and stomach are one of the symptoms of the disease…

After an incubation period of 5-10 days, symptom onset is sudden and marked by fever, chills, headache, and myalgia. Around the fifth day after the onset of symptoms, a maculopapular rash, most prominent on the trunk (chest, back, stomach), may occur. Nausea, vomiting, chest pain, a sore throat, abdominal pain, and diarrhea may then appear. Symptoms become increasingly severe and can include jaundice, inflammation of the pancreas, severe weight loss, delirium, shock, liver failure, massive hemorrhaging, and multi-organ dysfunction.

This is the sort of virus that I am on alert for, and so I will be monitoring future developments very carefully.

Meanwhile, a “deadly bacterial disease” that also causes sores on the skin has popped up right here in the United States.

At this point, confirmed cases of the disease have already been identified in four different states…

Four people in the U.S. have mysteriously fallen ill with a rare and sometimes deadly bacterial disease that’s usually seen only in other countries with tropical climates, according to health officials. Yet none of these patients had traveled outside the country.

The four cases, which were identified between March and July, occurred in Georgia, Kansas, Texas and Minnesota, according to a statement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Two of the patients died and two were hospitalized for long periods of time. The first death occurred in Kansas in March, and the second death occurred last month in Georgia.

The disease is known as “Meliodosis”, and normally it is only found in tropical climates…

The patients were all diagnosed with melioidosis, a disease caused by the bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei. The bacteria grows in tropical climates, and it is most commonly seen in Southeast Asia and northern Australia. The only places in the U.S. where this bacterium is naturally found are Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands,  according to the CDC.

None of the confirmed cases had recently traveled internationally, and so scientists don’t know how this deadly bacterial disease got here.

And what really got my attention was the fact that the CDC is warning that it can cause a rash “on the trunk, abdomen and face”…

Melioidosis can cause a wide range of symptoms. In the current cases, symptoms ranged from cough and shortness of breath to weakness, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, intermittent fever, and rash on the trunk, abdomen and face, the CDC said in an alert to doctors about the cases.

So just like the Marburg virus, we are talking about a disease with a high mortality rate that causes sores on the skin.

These outbreaks are nothing to panic about yet, but I will be carefully watching the news for any updates.

These are such troubled times, but when the next great pandemic arrives our troubles will suddenly become a whole lot worse.

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The Awareness Foundation COVID-19 Roundtable is a sign of wakefulness and hope during times of censorship and suppression

It includes honest opinions and expertise from 14 high-profile doctors, including myself, with a focus on the potential dangers being posed by the experimental mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign

Experts discuss how COVID-19 vaccines may cause a coming tsunami of hospitalization and deaths, along with debilitating chronic disease, early signs of which are already appearing

All agree that there’s enough evidence to halt the global COVID-19 vaccination campaign, either for everyone or — particularly — for those to whom the vaccines pose the greatest risks with little to no benefit, namely children and young people, pregnant women and those who have already recovered from COVID-19

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Watch the video here.

In this time of extreme censorship and suppression of scientific debate, The Awareness Foundation COVID-19 Roundtable,¹ hosted by Katherine Macbean of the Awareness Foundation, is a sign of wakefulness and hope. It includes honest opinions and expertise from 14 high-profile doctors, including myself, with a focus on the potential dangers being posed by the experimental mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign.

Each has faced censorship when speaking out, and though there are some differing viewpoints, all agree that there’s enough evidence to halt the global COVID-19 vaccination campaign, either for everyone or — particularly — for those to whom the vaccines pose the greatest risks with little to no benefit. This includes children and young people, pregnant women and those who have already recovered from COVID-19.

I highly recommend setting aside two hours to watch this roundtable discussion in full — it’s a rarity in the present day to hear such candor and open debate. However, I’ve also compiled some of the highlights below, which include warnings about the dangers these experimental vaccines may pose to society.

A Tsunami of Chronic Disease and Death

Will COVID-19 vaccines cause a coming tsunami of hospitalization and deaths, along with debilitating chronic disease? One expert on the panel, Dr. Peter McCullough, an internist, cardiologist, epidemiologist and full professor of medicine at Texas A&M College of Medicine in Dallas with a master’s degree in public health, said he’s focused more on the short-term adverse effects from the shot. These nonfatal injuries fall into four major categories:

1. Neurologic
2. Immunologic
3. Hematologic
4. Cardiac

“What I’m seeing is just the late emergence of various neurologic syndromes. And it probably depends on where the seeding occurs of, uh, of, you know, the uptake of the genetic material in the brain or support cells in the brain, but there’s a whole variety of cerebral, cerebellar, even peripheral nervous system abnormalities,” McCullough said, adding:²

“I’ve seen it in my clinic and they seem to be emerging three, four or five, six months later after vaccination … So I’m getting increasingly alarmed here that this is not just a simple one- or two-day problem. And so there’s great concern, particularly in younger kids that over a course of three or six or nine months, they’ll end up with heart failure or cardiac death.

… What I see is, potentially from these signals, not mass death, but just a large number of Americans and people around the world with a new chronic disease of some sort of neurodegenerative disease or cardiac disease. The patients that I’m aware of, these problems seem to be quite disabling.”

Another panel member, Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, who has treated thousands of COVID-19 patients using hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), azithromycin and zinc sulfate,³ with great success, has a different take. He believes there is a very distinct possibility that everyone who receives the COVID jab may die from complications in the next two to three years:⁴

“I’m just going to give you the perspective of a clinician who deals with people that are dying … 4 million dead people can testify to the unique clinical syndrome to put them there. Basically, a natural animal virus was changed to infect humans, and then its lethality was augmented to cause blood clots and lung damage.

And in concept here, we’re dealing with a Hitler/Stalin type of mentality with weapons of mass destruction and the way to win this war — and it’s very winnable — is in the following manner. It’s a narrative war. So we need to spread the following two ideas … Don’t give into the fear and choose to destroy yourself, No. 1. No. 2, treat your problem early. If these two ideas could penetrate the fixed calls of humanity, then it’s really the end of this crisis.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie, whose company The Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy has worked with the World Health Organization, agreed that the vaccines are unsafe for children and adults alike:⁵

“They’re actually not safe for anybody, and it’s clear. The databases are screaming. The databases are early warning systems, and the databases around the world are screaming that we are facing a tsunami of chronic disease.”

Dr. Richard Urso, an ophthalmologist in Houston, Texas, is also concerned:⁶

“Early on, we were seeing things, mostly thrombotic, but later, as we get into two and three months [after vaccination], we’re seeing a lot of inflammatory issues. I’ve had a host of people with inflammatory ocular disorders, as well as having orbital inflammatory diseases.

I typically don’t see this rash number of people. For people who don’t know, my clinical practice is probably one of the largest in the United States, if not the largest, and we get a tremendous number, in volume, of patients who come through our office. And I’m seeing late inflammatory disease, and it responds quite well to inflammatory medicines.”

Some have brushed off the notion that the virus could be a bioweapon because it didn’t cause sudden, mass deaths. But this is a misconception. A successful bioweapon can be something that causes long-term, progressive, chronic-type diseases, noted Dr. Richard Fleming, a physicist, nuclear cardiologist and attorney.

In 1994, Fleming introduced the theory of inflammation and vascular disease, which explains why these inflammable thrombotic diseases, and the causes, including viruses like SARS-CoV-2, produce disease states like COVID-19.

“As I laid out in the theory in 1994,” Fleming said, “you’re going to see an inflammable thrombotic response. That’s the primary thing that people are noticing, be that heart disease or retinol disease.” The other factor is a prion component of this virus, “which is also a chronic smoldering disease.” Fleming noted:⁷

“If you’re going to actually develop something that’s going to have a massive effect on your ‘enemy,’ your goal isn’t to kill the enemy any more than it was the goal of the United States in Vietnam to kill the enemy.

The goal was to maim the enemy so that more of the enemy would be taken off the field. What we’ve seen is something that’s been implemented that is an ideal by a weapon designed to demoralize and to feed people the enemy, and to cause a slow smoldering process.”

Fleming cited data from Pfizer that showed in the 12 to 14 days following the second injection of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine, elderly individuals had a 2.6-fold increase in symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. “This is an inflammable thrombotic process affecting every organ system and prion diseases that not only affect the brain, but also affect the heart and other vital organs of the body.”⁸

Dr. Ryan Cole, a Mayo Clinic-trained, triple-boarded pathologist, also said that he’s seeing potential cancer-causing changes, including decreases in receptors that keep cancer in check, and other adverse events post-vaccine:⁹

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

In addition to that — and correlation is not causation — but in the last six months I have seen — you know, I read a fair amount of women’s health biopsies — about a 10- to 20-fold increase of uterine cancer compared to what I see on an annual basis. Now we know that the CD8 cells are one of our T-cells to keep our cancers in check.

I am seeing early signals … what I’m seeing is an early signal in the laboratory setting that post-vaccinated patients are having diseases that we normally don’t see at rates that are already early considerably alarming.”

Do the Vaccinated Pose a Risk to the Unvaccinated?

Sherri Tenpenny has heard thousands of anecdotal reports that something is being transmitted from the vaccinated to the unvaccinated:¹⁰

“We’re injecting a synthetically made messenger RNA and strips of synthetically made double-stranded DNA by different mechanisms, and if that transmission goes to the other person, they don’t get COVID, they don’t get COVID symptoms that we typically recognize as COVID. They get bleeding, they get blood clots, they get headaches, they get heart disease, they get all of these different things.”

Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of the mRNA and DNA vaccine core platform technology,¹¹ doesn’t agree that anything is being “passed” from vaccinated people to others, adding that while it may be possible for mRNA to be shed through breast milk to nursing infants, possibly causing gastrointestinal symptoms, anything else is just speculation.

Others suggest it could be more of a hormonal or pheromonal issue than some type of “shedding,” which may help explain why women are also reporting abnormalities with their menstrual cycles following vaccination. Dr. Lee Merritt, an orthopedic and spinal surgeon, brought up a 2015 report by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which looked at “shedding” in mRNA vaccines, which they call gene therapies.¹² She explained:¹³

“They talk about, they’re very concerned about the shedding — and they do call it shedding, whether that’s technically correct … And they tell you in this thing who to protect, they tell you to protect neonates, immunocompromised people and elderly with bad immune systems.

They also say, we don’t know what’s being shed. They say it could be genetic material. It could be activated viruses and it could be a recombinant product. This is what’s in the FDA data.”

Immediately Halt the Vaccine Program

All of the experts agreed that evidence suggests the mass COVID-19 vaccination program should be halted. “There is enough evidence now just from the European Medicines Agency alone, 1.7 million in reported adverse events and 17,000 deaths that the four clinical trials should be stopped,” said Dolores Cahill, a professor at the school of medicine at the University College Dublin.

“They are detailed in the classifications, cardiac related immune, uh neuropathological and fertility associated.

So I think we all have duties as doctors and scientists to say, if something is causing more harm than good, which this clearly is, we should, I think, unify and called for a stop to the clinical trials worldwide, and also that any individual prime ministers and regulators that continue the trial would have to be liable for any adverse events.”

Malone believes that the vaccines have merit for certain populations, namely the elderly, but is advocating for prohibition on vaccination for infants and newborns, through young adults up to ages 30 to 35. “And specifically,” he said, “I’m trying to stop this crazy effort to force universities and schools to have universal vaccination.” In addition, he added:

“We can argue about risk-benefit for elderly, but the risk-benefit ratio for newborns through young adults is explicitly clear. It is upside down. It’s not subtle there. You’re going to kill more. And, and personally, I also feel that we can dig in really hard on the reproductive health in pregnancy, in women, that there just aren’t data to support the use of this product because of the potential female reproductive health consequences.”

Dr. Urso added the other significant population that has far more to risk than gain from vaccination: the COVID-recovered. “The immune status should be more important than the vaccination status,” he said.

“So I think there’s three groups that are easily winnable arguments [to avoid vaccination]: pregnant women, the young and … the COVID recovered … I mean, that’s a, that’s a lousy thing to do to get all these people that are COVID recovered, good immune status and give them a vaccination for something they don’t need.”

How to End Fear and Optimize Your Immune System

The roundtable participants are planning to continue their discussion offline to formally request an end to mass COVID-19 vaccination for the mentioned groups as well as create a statement to end government interference with the practice of medicine. Many physicians have had their hands tied when it comes to prescribing early treatments for COVID-19, like ivermectin. As Fleming noted:

“… The reason why people die with COVID is because they’re not receiving treatment, so I would argue that we need to make certain that people, the physicians, are allowed to treat without government interference and that we put a hold on the dissemination of the vaccines at this point in time, until we can further investigate them safely.”

Dr. Sam White, whose reputation has been under attack since he released a video on social media detailing his concerns about the suppression of the science around therapeutics in the U.K., added:

“We could end the fear overnight by allowing access to therapeutics and changing the mainstream media narrative that there’s no need for masks. There’s no need for lock downs. This is more treatable than flu, as far as I’m concerned, we’re just not allowed to do any treatment. If the public knew that it changes the narrative overnight.”

While we work on changing the narrative, or at least opening up discussions of science outside of the narrative, it’s always a good idea to optimize your immune system.

Toward this end, I recommend optimizing your vitamin D levels to 60 to 80 nanograms per milliliter and improving your metabolic flexibility so your body can seamlessly transition between burning fats and glucose as your primary fuel. One way to do this is to condense your eating window to about six to eight hours a day.

Even without changing your calories, this can make a profound difference, but from a perspective of choosing the right foods, one of the most important strategies that I’ve learned over my four decades of studying this is to avoid processed foods, nearly all of which are loaded with vegetable, or seed, oils.

These oils have a high content of linoleic acid, which contributes to mitochondrial instability and increases susceptibility to oxidative stress. This, in turn, increases immune dysfunction and mitochondrial dysfunction. These are simple strategies I recommend, as they’re useful to improve your overall health and resiliency to fight any infection.

As mentioned, I highly recommend listening to the discussion in full to get all of the details that weren’t included here. At the next meeting, the group plans to discuss how to move forward to challenge the narrative in greater detail, including fighting back against the organizations, such as the Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, that are heavily investing in this.

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Notes

^{1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13} The Awareness Foundation COVID-19 Roundtable July 30, 2021

³ matzav.com March 24, 2020

¹¹ Trial Site News May 30, 2021

¹² FDA, Design and Analysis of Shedding Studies for Virus or Bacteria-Based Gene Therapy and Oncolytic Products August 2015