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Spain’s top court has ruled that the country’s national COVID-19 lockdown was unconstitutional following a lawsuit filed by the populist Vox party.

“While leaving intact most of the state of emergency’s terms, the court said that the key articles ordering the population off the streets except for shorts trips for shopping and unavoidable commutes for work and other official business were unconstitutional,” reports the Associated Press.

“According to TVE, the ruling said that the limitations on movement violated citizens´ basic rights and therefore the state of emergency was insufficient to give them constitutional backing. The six magistrates said that a state of exception, which does allow the government to suspend basic rights, would have been necessary.”

During the first six weeks of the lockdown, stay at home measures were so strict that Spaniards weren’t even allowed to go outside to exercise or walk their dogs.

In one case, police were called after a neighbor spotted two brothers playing soccer in their own back yard.

As we previously highlighted, Spain’s lockdown laws were so draconian that at one point authorities briefly told citizens that wearing masks while swimming in the sea was mandatory.

For many months during hot weather, wearing masks in every outdoor setting, even on beaches, was compulsory.

People were also issued fines of €2,000 euros for “disrespecting” a police officer during lockdown.

Numerous instances of police beating people for not wearing masks also emerged, while protesters at one point freed a woman from police arrest while cops were trying to handcuff her for not wearing a face covering.

Early on during the first lockdown, police helicopters fitted with loudspeakers were also used to aggressively order beachgoers to go home.

The Spanish government many now face multiple lawsuits as a result of the lockdown being declared unlawful.

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Featured image: Anti-racist campaign launched by Attorney Antonio Liu Yang in Spain to combat misinformation about coronavirus. | Photo: @antonioliuyang

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Thousands of people protested against mandatory vaccinations and other measures imposed by the Greek government to  tackle the pandemic in Athens, Thessaloniki and other cities around Greece on Wednesday.

Alongside the around 4,000 that turned out in front of the Greek Parliament in Athens, police said several hundred people also took to the streets in the cities of Thessaloniki, Ioannina and Heraklion for the same reason.

Source: Greek Reporter

These were the largest demonstrations in Greece against mandatory vaccination, state radio reported.

The demonstrations followed the Greek government’s announcement recently that only vaccinated people would be allowed to eat inside at restaurants and to enter cultural institutions.

Immune-only venues and spaces in Greece will be only for those who have been fully vaccinated or have immunity through having had the virus in the last six months.

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***

The battle in central Yemen remains as volatile as ever, with Saudi-led coalition and Ansar Allah clashing for Marib city, but also for Baydha.

In Baydha, the Houthis (as Ansar Allah movement is known) are on the defensive, as the Saudi-led coalition began an offensive to recapture the area earlier in July.

Fighting raged between Yemen’s government forces and Houthi rebels, killing 320 fighters from both sides in the central province on July 12^th and 13^th.

Fighting in Bayda came as the Houthis attempted to break through government defenses in the strategic city of Marib, also located in central Yemen. The rebels have been trying to capture it from the Saudi-led coalition since February.

The government has been sending reinforcements to Bayda since losing to the Houthis some of the districts.

The Houthis, alongside defending from the Saudi-led coalition are also reportedly fighting ISIS and Al-Qaeda elements from Baydha, announcing recently the clearing of terrorists in Al-Soma’a and Al-Zahir.

Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree claimed that the group would stop the Saudi-led coalition’s advance in Baydha and push them back in “three days” from July 13^th.

This comes as Ansar Allah have stopped their almost daily drone and rocket attacks on various positions in Saudi Arabia.

Still, on July 14, a series of explosions rocked the outskirts of the central Saudi city of al-Kharaj to the south of the Kingdom’s capital Riyadh.

Local activists shared videos on social media showing large explosions near al-Kharaj, where ammunition depots and military bases are known to be located.

A spokesman for the Saudi Ministry of Defense, Brigadier General Turki al-Malki, claimed in a brief statement that an “accident” was behind the explosions.

Despite the statement, some sources suppose that the al-Kharaj explosions were the result of an attack by the Houthis. The group is yet to make any claims in regard to the explosions.

Saudi Arabia continues its daily airstrikes, in addition to hundreds of ceasefire violations in al-Hudaydah, despite claiming that it has stopped. It only hasn’t targeted the capital Sana’a for a while.

Meanwhile, any form of peace appears out of reach. The Yemen puppet government in Aden urged the Saudi-backed coalition to shift its way of dealing with the Iranian-backed Houthi militias’ inflexibility in peace efforts.

Still, the government speaks against the Houthis and says that they need to back down, as well. Apart from condemning the Houthis for their aggressions, the Yemen government praised the Saudi-led Arab Coalition for backing pro-government forces in their fight against the militias and their efforts to restore security, peace and stability to Yemen.

*

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***

Profligate, vain and utterly pleased with himself, British billionaire Sir Richard Branson could boast about his latest adventure of megalomania.   Unlike others of the stinking rich set, he is incapable of keeping quiet.  He pretends to be the people’s tycoon.  His wealthy adventurism is as much for himself as it is for us.  “The pitch,” wrote the late Jenny Diski of this type, “is to demand to be seen as ordinary, just like you and me, only richer and more glamorous, of course, because it does the populace a power of good to see heightened images of what they might have been, kitted out in fine frocks and indulging in dangerous sports no one else can afford.”

Such demand was evident in spades on July 11.  Branson made his way in his Virgin Galactic rocket plane for a 1.5-hour mission to the edge of space, a mission he promised to embark upon as far back as 2004.  Then, he told the BBC that some 3,000 people “would want to do this.”  Were he to develop a successful program, he envisaged “orbital flights and then, possibly, even get a hotel up there.”

The effort was plagued with delays and difficulties, a tendency not alien to the Virgin brand.  In 2014, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo space tourism craft succumbed to what the company described as “a serious anomaly”.  The crash in the Mojave Desert killed a pilot and injured another.  “Space is hard – but worth it,” a regretful Branson said at the time.  “We will persevere and move forward together.” 

On this occasion, there was no flop or anomaly.  The VSS Unity reached the appropriate height to achieve weightlessness.  Branson and his crew swooned and clucked at the panoramic views of Earth.  Using a feathering system, the craft then made its gliding way back.

On his blog, Branson referred to those childhood memories filled with thoughts of space travel.  “I have dreamt about this moment since I was a child, but nothing could have prepared me for the view of Earth from space.  It was magical.”  On Twitter, he did his man of the people act, with a note of encouragement.  “To the next generation of dreamers: if we can do this, just imagine what you can do.” 

This first official salvo of space tourism on the VSS Unity prompted much chatter as to what Branson had actually done.  Had the Briton’s brief journey really qualified as space travel?  One line of authority accepts that the boundary of space lies at the point aerodynamics ends and aeronautics begins, otherwise known as the Kármán Line and recognised by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.  The US government designation of the edge of space is 80 km above sea level, 20 km less than the Kármán Line. 

In a correcting mood, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson told CNN that Branson had not actually journeyed in space. “First of all, it was suborbital.  NASA did it 60 years ago with Alan Shepard, took off from Cape Canaveral and landed in the ocean.  If you don’t go fast enough to reach orbit you will fall and return to Earth.”  For all that, he was delighted about this “new tourist attraction” which “should have happened decades ago”.

There was also another reason for the Briton to be smug.  Branson had pipped another of the megalomaniacal fraternity wishing to cash in on suborbital space tourism to the post.  On July 20, Amazon magnate Jeff Bezos, along with his brother Mark and aviator Wally Funk, are scheduled to make a journey on Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket.  And just to make things worthwhile for Branson, the individual who won a ticket through a charity auction valued at $28 million for the pleasure of keeping Bezos company had a change of heart due to “scheduling conflicts”.  The winner has been replaced by recent high school graduate, the 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, a move which did not lack Bransonian overtones.  “Oliver,” Blue Origin stated, “represents a new generation of people who will help us build a road to space.

Branson is not ignorant to the fact that his project is a vanity of vanities.  According to David Runciman, he is playing the same game as many a Russian oligarch but through the looking-glass.  The wealthy will do what they always do, and projects dealing with climate change, the pandemic and economic inequality, while important, should not prevent the pursuit of play.  “I 100% agree that people who are in positions of wealth should spend most of their money, 90% or more of their money, trying to tackle these issues,” Branson explained, “but we should also create new industries that can create 800 engineers, and scientists who can create wonderful things that can make space accessible at a fraction of the environmental cost that it’s been in the past.” 

Branson’s message, along with those of other space adventurers, has its willing consumers and advocates.  Rick Tumlinson, founder of the venture capital firm SpaceFund, sees the egos as only distractingly problematic.  “These are not the robber barons of the 1800s.”  They were, instead, Apollo’s children.  The last space race “was between nations that wanted to blow us up and take the planet with them.”  Taxpayer dollars go towards developing weapons of mass death and destruction.  By focusing on the ills of state-based competition, Tumlinson praises the commercial instinct, ignoring its defects.  The likes of Branson, Bezos and Elon Musk are, all too conveniently, let off the hook.

*

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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: Branson in April 2009 at the launch of Virgin America in Orange County, California (CC BY 3.0)

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***

The drive toward a cashless society has been in progress for some time, but the COVID-19 pandemic has been used as a pretext to accelerate the process

In the documentary “Cash or Card — Will COVID-19 Kill Cash?” producer Kersten Schüssler asks some important questions, like what’s at stake if society truly goes cashless? The answer is both your privacy and your freedom

The digital footprints or financial data trails that you leave every time you pay by card or mobile app are being watched closely and form an important part of surveillance capitalism

Information like how much alcohol you drink or how much you spend on vacation can all be tracked and “sold to the highest bidder”

As a result of this data, you and your neighbor might end up paying different prices for things like flights and hotels, or you might be refused insurance or be passed over for a job offer

Electronic payments are extremely lucrative for banks and payment service providers, while the data broker industry is also making huge revenues

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Cash has long been king, but an increasing number of people have ditched cash in favor of credit cards and other contactless, digital payment options. The drive toward a cashless society has been in progress for some time, but the COVID-19 pandemic has been used as a pretext to accelerate the process.

With infectious disease at the top of everyone’s mind, bills and coins suddenly seemed especially filthy, even though they haven’t been linked to disease transmission, while electronic payment was clean, convenient and fast.

But, in the DW documentary “Cash or Card — Will COVID-19 Kill Cash?”¹ producer Kersten Schüssler asks some important questions, like what’s at stake if society truly goes cashless? The answer is both your privacy and your freedom.

You Pay for Cashless Payments With Your Privacy

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has been vocal about its agenda of moving away from cash and to a digital currency, including in the U.S., for years.² But in the last year, the pandemic has led to a drastic acceleration. In Germany, where people have been famously reluctant to embrace payment by card or app, the number of people paying by card increased by 26% since the start of the pandemic.³

Cash is still being widely used there and is even the only currency accepted in many markets and bakeries. This isn’t the case in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, however, where cash has practically become a thing of the past. You won’t find ATMs very often and if you go to a convenience store, you’re likely to be told you have to pay by card.

In Sweden, your cash may be no good at a bakery, and shop employees view this as a good thing. One young bakery clerk interviewed in the film said it’s much safer to not have any cash at the store because it cuts down on robberies.

Till Grune-Yanoff, a professor of philosophy at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, also states that payment apps let him monitor exactly what his two children are buying. And this is a key tenet of the cashless system. While cash is anonymous, paying by card or app leaves a digital trail.

Already in Sweden, most banks no longer give out cash because it’s too much of a hassle, and payment using cellphone apps is booming. You can transfer money from one cellphone to another as easily and quickly as you can send a text message.

“Here, money has become merely digital information,” Schüssler said. But there’s a downside for the convenience. “This also means that Swedish electronic payment systems can track most people’s financial transactions. Big Brother is watching you.”

Is This the End of Cash?

The film questions whether Sweden is the shape of things to come, “a future in which cash is a thing of the past — and every payment for everything we buy can be traced and tracked.”⁴ Marion Laboure, a Harvard lecturer and research analyst at Deutsche Bank, has stated that COVID-19 could be the catalyst to bring digital payments into the mainstream.⁵ She told Schüssler:⁶

“It’s not the end of cash yet. But what we have noticed since the beginning of this year, and especially since the start of the corona crisis, the amount of cash in circulation has definitely increased because it’s considered as safe in terms of holding its value.

However, if we consider cash as a means of payment, it has definitely decreased. Fewer and fewer people are paying by cash. In December, 30% of people made contactless payments in Germany. And today, it’s almost 50%.”

Laboure described even more striking advances in other countries, such as South Korea and China, which quarantined and destroyed bank notes. In the U.S., “the Fed decided to quarantine banknotes coming from Asia to make sure they were safe,” she said. When asked whether this was a reasonable response to the pandemic, Laboure said, “The risk is very low. But they felt it was necessary.”⁷

Throughout the pandemic, it’s been implied that contactless, cashless payments are the preferred “safer” choice, allowing you to keep your distance and eliminating the need to pass “dirty” cash back and forth. But are you really at greater risk of catching COVID if you pay with cash?

Johannes Beermann, an executive board member of Bundesbank in Berlin, doesn’t think so, and he also doesn’t believe cash will be replaced by apps or cards anytime soon. “I would say that’s been sufficiently disproven,” he said. “If you look at the bank notes, like the five-euro or 10-euro bills here — which are in particularly heavy circulation — they have a special coating. We know from research that bills and coins don’t play any role in the spread of infections.”⁸

Corruption and money laundering concerns were also cited when banks stopped issuing 500-euro bills in 2019, while the Better Than Cash Alliance, an initiative with 77 members, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Visa and Mastercard,⁹ that is “committed to digitizing payments,” has also called for cash to be abolished due to “slush funds, dirty money, money laundering and big sums not declared to tax authorities or the state.”¹⁰

“Of course, we have to combat money laundering, tax evasion and the financing of terrorism, and I think cash has to be monitored, as should other payment methods,” Beermann said. “We have to ensure that. But I don’t think that this [digitized payments] will vanquish the underground economy.”

Leaving a Digital Footprint With Every Payment

The digital footprints or financial data trails that you leave every time you pay by card or mobile app are being watched closely. Sarah Spiekermann, professor for information systems and society at Vienna’s University of Economics and Business, researches how this data is observed and analyzed, and states that credit card information and electronic payment data are feeding an industry of data brokers:¹¹

“We know that credit card companies pass on this data. In the meantime, they can observe everyone in real time via all the digital media that they use to create large-scale profiles. It’s almost become normal to have 30,000 to 40,000 pieces of data on each person. And with this high-resolution history, they know what you do, the routes you take, what you buy, what you pay for, where you go on vacation, how much you pay. They know it all.”

Information like how much alcohol you drink or how much you spend on vacation can all be tracked and “sold to the highest bidder.” We’re at a point where once fledgling startups have morphed into immense information empires, in control of our information and our privacy is in their hands.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear how valuable digital technologies are in acting as a safety net to allow many activities to continue, but because governments haven’t dealt with fundamental issues to protect privacy and digital rights, these information empires continue to own and operate the Internet and global means of communication.

These monopolies lead to uncontrolled power that, in turn, leads people to be even more constrained and living in a society based increasingly on surveillance, and digital payments are a necessary part of this plan and further surveillance capitalism. Spiekermann explained:¹²

“We’ve analyzed, for example, how Oracle Blue Kai has described collecting 30,000 user attributes from 200 data vendors, which would allow them to create the profiles of 700 million people. That’s probably the entire western world.

And if we look to see who’s providing that data: Visa, Mastercard or Acxiom, Google, Facebook, Twitter interfaces. That’s surveillance capitalism. Surveillance capitalism involves hundreds and thousands of companies with data exchange agreements working together behind the scenes.”

As a result of this data, you and your neighbor might end up paying different prices for things like flights and hotels, or you might be refused insurance or be passed over for a job offer. You might think these things are just bad luck or fate, she said, “when in reality, it’s the result of databases making some sort of prediction about them. And people behind the scenes are earning money to create these profiles of people. It’s disgraceful.”¹³

There are no laws in place to curtail this brand-new type of surveillance capitalism, and the only reason it has been able to flourish over the past 20 years is because there’s been an absence of laws against it, primarily because it has never previously existed. Surveillance has become the biggest for-profit industry on the planet, and your entire existence is now being targeted for profit.

Payment Technologies Are Rapidly Developing

You’ve probably used one or more types of contactless, digital payments, but this is only the beginning of the payment technologies to come. In China, Chinese and U.S. companies are testing “smile to pay” facial recognition technology, which ties your ability to pay for goods and services with your smile.

But it doesn’t end there. Ultimately, the plan is to use facial scans when you enter a store, which employ artificial intelligence to recognize the person and their credit rating. AI also detects emotions, social affiliations and whether you’re under stress or getting sick.

All of this personal information is the cost of relying on this digitized system, and it could have significant ramifications for both psychology and security. Spiekermann, who wants cash to be retained, said in the film:¹⁴

“If I pay with a smile and I start to connect smiling to economic transactions, then this habit will also leave its imprint in my real world. I don’t think we really want those kinds of associations to develop. Our society and social interactions would become subtly commercialized … [also] power can be rapidly knocked out, as can IT systems. It’s a matter of security. We need a concrete backup. We still need cash — for security reasons.”

While all-digital mobile banks are already up and running, alternative options are also emerging. Berlin company Barzahlen.de offers a modern digital-analogue hybrid payment system that uses encrypted barcodes to get money or make a payment.

The barcode stipulates how much is paid in or out. No transfer of account or credit card data is needed, and each transaction gets a new barcode, allowing you to use cash in a digital context but without leaving behind data trails.

In addition, while U.S. federal law does not require businesses to accept cash as payment, cities and states can enact local laws to do so. At least 21 cities and states, including Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Jersey, have passed or are considering laws that prohibit retailers from refusing cash payments.

It’s unclear how strictly such laws are being enforced, but in New York City, for example, businesses can face steep fines for refusing cash or charging higher prices to customers paying cash.¹⁵

Former Interpol President Opposes Cash-Free Society

Bjorn Eriksson, former Interpol president, was also interviewed for the film. He’s familiar with cyberattacks and money laundering, and states that cash should be available as an option for people, including those who aren’t tech savvy — a population he estimates to be about 1 million people in Sweden alone.

“They are looked on as unprofitable. Just leave them,” he said. “I don’t like that type of society.” Security is another major concern to leaving cash behind. “What happens if the Russians, Putin or somebody, switches off the system? We have no defense. How do you then defend yourself if you just have this card that doesn’t function? Cash is a perfect option.”¹⁶

The interference with your freedom and privacy, however, is what he believes will drive young people to push for cash to be preserved:¹⁷

“[What] … attracts a lot of young people is what they see in China and some other nations where you use these to control your citizens. Because if you have a system with card, you’ll have a technology with cameras, you have a technology with artificial intelligence, you’re really going to be checked. Young people don’t like that.”

He also believes the pandemic is being used as pretext to switch to a cashless society even though “there is no proof whatsoever that cash is carrying that type of threat from corona.”

The push to eliminate cash is going to continue, especially since electronic payments are extremely lucrative for banks and payment service providers, while the data broker industry is also making huge revenues, Schüssler said.¹⁸ Still, cash represents a form of freedom, one that should be passed on to the next generation to preserve as much autonomy and privacy as possible.

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***

In less than six months in office President Joe Biden has already developed a national security policy that appears to lean strongly towards proactive use of military force in questionable circumstances, as if war is the answer to every problem. Biden should nevertheless be applauded for his persistence in withdrawing from Afghanistan after twenty years of ill-considered nation building, but even the departure from that country appears to be characterized by a lack of coordination, rather reminiscent of helicopters taking off from the embassy roof in Saigon in 1975.

For the second time the president has ordered a US bombing raid on two targets in Syria, and for the first time, he also attacked a site inside Iraq. According to one report possibly as many as seven Iraqis died in the attacks which targeted alleged weapons storage facilities along the Syria-Iraq border belonging to Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada militias. The US claims that the two Iraqi militias have ties to Iran, which may be more than usually true because the Iraqis and Iranians have cooperated regularly in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria (ISIS). The Pentagon also claims that the militias were behind recent attacks on American targets, see more below.

After the attacks carried out by US fighter-bombers, the excuse provided was the same one employed after Biden’s first air attack in February, namely that the US, as described by Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, “conducted defensive precision airstrikes against facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups in the Iraq-Syria border region.” He added verbiage what has now become a regular feature of all US military actions, that “the United States acted pursuant to its right of self-defense.” For those who are intrigued by Pentagon newspeak the expression “defensive precision airstrikes” must be considered as a new entry in the crowded field of phrases that largely have no meaning.

The strikes were framed as being retaliatory, but the most interesting aspect of this latest bombing is that the initial US government justifications for the action were on somewhat tentative. Reportedly, someone had used drones with explosives attached for mostly night-time attacks directed “against places where Americans were located in Iraq,” which were further described as including diplomatic, intelligence and military facilities. The Pentagon refers to the drones as “unmanned aerial vehicles” or UAVs. No Americans were killed in the alleged attacks and there were no reports of any substantial damage, though the Pentagon is apparently collecting information and preparing a comprehensive report which the public undoubtedly will not be allowed to see.

Oddly, the initial media reporting on what had occurred and who had been blamed for it included a weasel word, “suspected.” In government-speak that frequently means there was little or no evidence that the militias that had been targeted were actually the perpetrators, but it is convenient to assume that they are responsible, making them “suspects.” After all, it is relatively easy to transport a number of drones on the bed of a pickup truck, drive with it to a location where one is unlikely to be observed and then release them at a fixed target. Even if you don’t hit anything, you will spread fear and trigger a response that might well be exploited to vilify the occupying forces. You will also provide justification for your own retaliation.

The Iraqi government, which was not informed in advance of the US bombings, not surprisingly reacted strongly, registering its opposition to such activity on the part of its so-called ally, though occupier has been suggested as a more appropriate description. Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s office called the airstrikes a “blatant and unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty and Iraqi national security.” After the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani at Baghdad Airport in January 2020, the Iraqi Parliament had called for the departure of all US forces, but the Trump Administration ignored the demand, claiming that it was in Iraq to help the Iraqis in their fight against ISIS and other terrorist groups.

The US currently has a claimed 2,500 soldiers in Iraq who, it asserts, are in country advising and training their local counterparts. Meanwhile, “Fighting terrorists and training friendly forces” is roughly the same excuse that has been used to justify remaining in neighboring Syria, where the US has deployed roughly 500 soldiers who have been taking possession of the production of the country’s oil fields, which it then provides to Israel. The US is also, by the way, trying to overthrow the legitimate Syrian government in Damascus, using some of the very terrorists it claims to be fighting to do the job, but that is of course another story.

If the United States government is beginning to sound a bit like the Israeli government that should surprise no one, as Israel is clearly heavily involved in whatever on goes vis-à-vis Syria and Iran directly and in Iraq by proxy. One almost expects new Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to provide an endorsement, parroting the Pentagon line as well as his own country’s rhetoric, saying “the US has a right to defend itself.” Of course, the unasked question then becomes “to defend itself against what?” Israel was at least able to pretend that there was some kind of threat coming from Gaza since the two share a border, but the United States would be hard pressed to explain why it has soldiers in Syria and Iraq at all, particularly since the Iraqi government has called upon them to depart.

A neocon journalist supportive of a global crusade to spread “democracy” once quipped that the nice thing about having an empire is never having to say you are sorry, but that has not meant that mindless acts of violence inflicted throughout the Middle East are have been consequence free. One has to suspect in this case that the use of force to include a target within the borders of a nominal ally was also mostly intended to send a signal to Iran. A Pentagon spokesman ironically boasted afterwards that “This action should send a message to Iran that it cannot hide behind its proxy forces to attack the United States and our Iraqi partners.” The spokesman appears to be oblivious to the fact that it was Iraqi militiamen tied to the government that had been killed, not Iranians. And his assumption that it would reduce the level of violence also proved wrong as there have been a number of new drone, rocket and mortar attacks against American targets in Iraq since Biden’s “defensive precision airstrikes” were launched. One of the militias that lost fighters to the US airstrikes, said it would “avenge the blood of our righteous martyrs.”  Another Iranian supported group, the Popular Mobilization Forces went further, threatening to “enter an open war with the American occupation.” In short, all the attacks really accomplished was to anger the Iraqi people over the continued US presence and to guarantee more incidents.

Biden’s “sending a message to Iran” would undoubtedly be intended to do the same to the Iraqi government, telling them that drawing any closer to the Iranians is too close as far as the Pentagon and White House are concerned. In terms of the timing of the airstrikes, it is also important to note that the US has been working closely with the new Israeli government to establish a unified policy on Iranian “regional aggression” and its nuclear program. Biden met recently with retiring Israeli President Reuven Rivlin at the White House and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has been having discussions with Israel’s foreign minister, Yair Lapid. Iran was the focus of both meetings.

So, Joe Biden and whoever is advising him are continuing down the path that began with George W. Bush, with military action used as a substitute for any real foreign policy. The problem with the meddling in the Middle East is primarily that it permits no exit strategy. It will end ignominiously when it ends as is happening in Afghanistan, without any remorse and little to show for all the expense and the deaths. Given that reality, rather than concoct largely fabricated reasons to keep US troops in Iraq and Syria the Administration should be looking for ways to end the torment for everyone involved.

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Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] 

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Vice President Joe Biden, Austin, and Command Sergeant Major Earl Rice, at an event marking the award of the Iraq Commitment Medal in December 2011

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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

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Doctors for Covid Ethics has written three open letters to the European Medicines Agency regarding COVID-19 vaccine dangers. In those letters we have insisted upon evidence that risks of clotting, bleeding and platelet abnormalities were appropriately ruled out in legitimate empirical trials prior to human use. We foresaw deaths and harm from clotting, warning of these dangers before blood clots led to vaccine suspensions around the world.

The first letter, emailed February 28 and hand-delivered March 1st, can be found here. The EMA’s reply of March 23rd can be found here, and our rebuttal letter, of April 1st, here, all summarised in a press release here. Our most recent letter, warning that “cardinal symptoms of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) dominate the list of adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines” is here.

Doctors, scientists and colleagues in allied disciplines related to health, ethics, law and human rights can sign the open letters by sending their name, qualifications, areas of expertise and country of practice to: [email protected], with web verification (eg workplace or registration link, not for publication).

Signatories across the three letters are as follows:

Founding signatories

Professsor Sucharit Bhakdi MD, Professor Emeritus of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Former Chair, Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz (Medical Doctor and Scientist) (Germany and Thailand)

Dr Marco Chiesa MD FRCPsych, Consultant Psychiatrist and Visiting Professor, University College London (Medical Doctor) (United Kingdom and Italy)

Dr C Stephen Frost BSc MBChB, Specialist in Diagnostic Radiology, Stockholm, Sweden (Medical Doctor) (United Kingdom and Sweden)

Dr Margareta Griesz-Brisson MD PhD, Consultant Neurologist and Neurophysiologist (studied Medicine in Freiburg, Germany, speciality training for Neurology at New York University, Fellowship in Neurophysiology at Mount Sinai Medical Centre, New York City; PhD in Pharmacology with special interest in chronic low level neurotoxicology and effects of environmental factors on brain health), Medical Director, The London Neurology and Pain Clinic (Medical Doctor and Scientist) (Germany and United Kingdom)

Professor Martin Haditsch MD PhD, Specialist (Austria) in Hygiene and Microbiology, Specialist (Germany) in Microbiology, Virology, Epidemiology/Infectious Diseases, Specialist (Austria) in Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine, Medical Director, TravelMedCenter, Leonding, Austria, Medical Director, Labor Hannover MVZ GmbH (Medical Doctor and Scientist) (Austria and Germany)

Professor Stefan Hockertz, Professor of Toxicology and Pharmacology, European registered Toxicologist, Specialist in Immunology and Immunotoxicology, CEO tpi consult GmbH. (Scientist) (Germany)

Dr Lissa Johnson, BSc BA(Media) MPsych(Clin) PhD, Clinical Psychologist and Behavioural Scientist, Expertise in the social psychology of atrocity, torture, collective violence and propaganda, former professional body Public Interest Advisory Group member (Psychologist) (Australia)

Professor Ulrike Kämmerer PhD, Associate Professor of Experimental Reproductive Immunology and Tumor Biology at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University Hospital of Würzburg, Germany, Trained molecular virologist (Diploma, PhD-Thesis) and Immunologist (Habilitation), Remains engaged in active laboratory research (Molecular Biology, Cell Biology) (Scientist) (Germany)

Associate Professor Michael Palmer MD, Department of Chemistry (studied Medicine and Medical Microbiology in Germany, has taught Biochemistry since 2001 in present university in Canada); focus on Pharmacology, metabolism, biological membranes, computer programming; experimental research focus on bacterial toxins and antibiotics (Daptomycin); has written a textbook on Biochemical Pharmacology, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada (Medical Doctor and Scientist) (Canada and Germany)

Professor Karina Reiss PhD, Professor of Biochemistry, Christian Albrecht University of Kiel, Expertise in Cell Biology, Biochemistry (Scientist) (Germany)

Professor Andreas Sönnichsen MD, Professor of General Practice and Family Medicine, Department of General Practice and Family Medicine, Center of Public Health, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna (Medical Doctor) (Austria)

Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, Specialist in Pulmonary and Bronchial Internal Medicine, Hygiene and Environmental Medicine, Epidemiology, and Public Health; Honorary Member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and former Head of the Health Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe; former Member of Parliament, German Bundestag; Initiator and Spokesman for the study commission ‘Ethics and Law in Modern Medicine’; Author and University Lecturer (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Dr Michael Yeadon BSc (Joint Honours in Biochemistry and Toxicology) PhD (Pharmacology), Formerly Vice President & Chief Scientific Officer Allergy & Respiratory, Pfizer Global R&D; Co-founder & CEO, Ziarco Pharma Ltd.; Independent Consultant (Scientist) (United Kingdom)

Endorsing signatories

Dr Reem Abu-Sbaih, DO, Doctor of Osteopathy, Associate Professor Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine/ Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine (Medical Doctor) (USA)

Dr Adriana Reyes Agudelo, MD, Surgeon (Medical Doctor) (Spain)

Dr Véronique Ahari, General Practitioner (Medical Doctor) (France)

Dr Maria José Martínez Albarracín, Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery, Physician and Professor of Clinical Diagnostic Processes, Specialized in Clinical Analysis (Medical Doctor) (Spain)

Dr Alicja Alda, General Practitioner and Ear Nose and Throat specialist (Medical Doctor) (Norway)

Dr Fernando Ania, ND, Naturopathic Doctor (Canada)

Dr Carmen Soler Arnedo, Surgeon, General Medicine (Medical Doctor) (Spain)

Dr Lenn-Adolph D. Arre, PhD, FNIU, Former Associate Professor of Molecular Biology and Microbiology, San Beda University, Manila (Scientist) (Philippines)

Dr Mario Cabrera Avivar, MD, Specialist in Public Health, former Consultant to the Pan American Health Organisation, the World Health Organisation Regional Office for the Americas (OPS/OMS) (Medical Doctor) (Uruguay)

Rena Bartolettti, Pharmacist, previously of the General Pharmacy Inspectorate, Registration Service Medicines, Federal Public Health and Safety Authority (Pharmacist) (Belgium)

Dr Gabriela Bachmann, General Medicine, Specialising in children and young people (Medical Doctor) (Austria)

Dr. Elizabeth Bastian, BSc (Genetics and Microbiology), MDCM, Family Medicine, General Practitioner in Oncology, sub specialty trained in Palliative Care (Medical Doctor) (Canada)

Dr Pedro López Bastido, Stomatologist (Medical Doctor) (Spain)

Dr Professor Mila Aleckovic Bataille, Specialising in Psychiatry, Psychology and Anthropology (Medical Doctor and Social Scientist) (France, Serbia)

Dr Michael D Bell, MB, ChB (1978 Edinburgh) MRCGP (1989), General Practitioner (Medical Doctor) (United Kingdom)

Rev. Reuben P. Bell, DO, MS, MDiv, PhD, Osteopathic family physician since 1982, Bachelors and Masters degrees in Zoology, formerly Professor of Biology (including Molecular Genetics and Developmental Biology), M.Div. and Ph.D. in theological studies, with attention to issues of science and religion (Medical Doctor and Scientist) (USA)

Dr Francisco Lacruz Bescos, MD, PhD, Consultant Neurologist with special training and dedication to Neuroimmunology and Multiple Sclerosis (Retired) (Medical Doctor) (Spain)

Dr Thomas Binder, MD, specialised in Cardiology and Internal Medicine, thesis in Immunology and Virology, with 32 years experience in diagnosis and treatment of Acute Respiratory Illness (Medical Doctor) (Switzerland)

Sarah Binns, MA VetMB, MS, MRCVS, MSc, PhD, DipLSHTM, Former Veterinary Infectious Disease Epidemiologist (United Kingdom)

Dr Rainer Bliefert, Dentist (Switzerland)

Dr Michael Brandner, Dr. Med. (Medical Doctor) (Germay)

Dr Rachel Brown, MBChB, LLM (Medical Law & Ethics), MRCPsych CFMP, Consultant Psychiatrist (Medical Doctor) (United Kingdom)

Dr Roxana Bruno, PhD in Immunology, Researcher in Biochemistry, Immunology, Neuroinmunology and Genetics (Scientist) (Argentina)

Dr Elizabeth Burton, MBChB, General Medical Practitioner (Retired)(Medical Doctor) (United Kingdom)

Dr Natalia Prego Cancelo, MD, Community and Family Medicine Specialist, founder of “Médicos por la Verdad” (Doctors for the Truth) worldwide, platform of doctors in more than 17 countries (Medical Doctor) (Spain)

Professor David P. Capper, MD, Internal Medicine, Hospice & Palliative Medicine, Professor and Chair, Department of Clinical Sciences, Director of Palliative Care (Medical Doctor) (USA)

Dr Ronald S. Carlson, AB Chem/Bio, DDS, Dentist (USA)

Dr Rafael Reinoso Casado, Family and Community Medicine (Medical Doctor) (Spain)

Dr Alexandra Henrion Caude, Researcher, PhD in Molecular Biology and Genetics, Focus in Epigenetics and non-coding RNA and mitochondria, Focus on simple, durable ethical, low-cost solutions for Health and One Health, CEO of SimplissimA Research Institute, Former Director of Research at the French NIH (Retired), Member of the Circle for Innovation Galien (France), Member of the IDF Ethical Space Committee, Eisenhower Fellow from the Multination Program (Scientist) (France and Mauritius)

Dr Volker Christoffel, PhD in Biochemistry, Specialist in preclinical development (Scientist) (Germany)

Dr Vernon Coleman, MB, ChB, General Practice Principal (Retired) (Medical Doctor) (United Kingdom)

Isabella Cooper, BSc (Hons) Biochemistry, AFHEA, AMRSB, AfENDO, Doctoral Researcher, Areas of expertise: hyperinsulinaemia, disseminated intravascular coagulability, mitochondrial molecular biology and cancer metabolism (Scientist) (United Kingdom)

Dr Johan Corthouts, General Practitioner (Medical Doctor) (Belgium)

Jonathan Jay Couey, Assistant Professor of Research, Pitt School of Medicine Research Faculty, Department of Neurobiology, examining cortical and subcortical microcircuits using promotor/enhancer driven gene expression (Scientist) (USA)

Dr David Critchley, BSc, PhD, Clinical Research Scientist with more than 30 years experience, including projects in Virology and Immunology (Scientist) (United Kingdom)

Professor Barbara A Crothers, DO, Associate Professor, Pathology, Gynecologic, Breast and Cytopathology (USA)

Dr Rita Darby, General Practitioner (Medical Doctor) (Wales)

Dr. Daniel de la Torre Llorente, Biology Professor, Biotechnology-Plant Biology Department, Agronomic, Food and Biosystems Engineering School (ETSIAAB) Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Scientist) (Spain)

Dr John Day, MD, Family Medicine (Board certified since 1990) (Medical Doctor) (USA)

Dr Hilde De Smet, General Practitioner (Medical Doctor) (Belgium)

Dr Johan Denis, General Practitioner (Medical Doctor) (Belgium)

Dr Steven Depicker, General Practitioner (Medical Doctor) (Belgium)

Dr Cindy de Villiers, MBChB, General Practitioner (Medical Doctor) (New Zealand)

Dr M. Doesburg-van Kleffens, MSc, PhD, Specialist in Laboratory Medicine (Clinical Chemistry), of Stichting Artsen Covid Collectief, an independent Dutch Collective of Medical Professionals (Scientist) (The Netherlands)

Dr Geanina Dragnea, Obstetrician-Gynecologist (Medical Doctor) (Romania)

Dr Doris Draehne, Specialist in Obstetrics and Gynaecology (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Dr Nyjon Eccles, BSc, MBBS, MRCP, PhD, Specialist in Functional & Environmental Medicine (Medical Doctor) (United Kingdom)

Dr Karin Eisfeld, Molecular Biologist, Senior Regulatory Affairs Manager in the approval of new drugs and medical devices (Scientist) (Germany)

Dr Blanca Assumption Lario Elboj, Specialsit in Ophthalmology (Medical Doctor) (Spain)

Dr Kjetil H. Elvevold, Senior Scientist, worked as Senior Scientist in a Contract Research Organization (CRO) in Norway that performed pre-clinical experiments for the pharmaceutical industry (Scientist) (Norway)

Dr Andreas Emmert, Specialist in Microbiology, Head Physician at Østfold Regional Hospital, Norway (Medical Doctor) (Norway)

Merit Enckell, Civ. Ing, PhD, Independent researcher, Structural Health Monitoring and Emerging Technologies, Formerly of KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Scientist) (Sweden)

Dr Sonia Andrés Espallardo, Psychiatrist (Medical Doctor) (Spain)

Dr Radimé Farhumand, Specialist in Anesthesia (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Dr Thomas Faulkner, MChiro, DC, Managing Director and Chiropractor (United Kingdom)

Dr Susan Flett, Specialist in Psychiatry, Child Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (Semi-retired) (Medical Doctor) (United Kingdom)

Dr Konstantinos Fountzoulas, MD, PGDiP Orth Eng., FEBOT, FRCS (Tr & Orth), Consultant Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgeon (Medical Doctor) (England and Italy)

Dr Paul Christian Friedl, Ophthalmologist (Medical Doctor) (Austria)

Dr Carrie Ganek, MD, Adult Psychiatry (Medical Doctor) (USA)

Dr Martin E Ganek, MD, Board Certified Paediatrician (Medical Doctor) (USA)

Dr Emanuel E. Garcia, MD (University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, 1986), Psychiatrist (Medical Doctor) (USA)

Dr Parisi Giovanni, Specialist in Ophthalmology and Sports Medicine (Medical Doctor) (Italy)

Dr Hartmut Glossmann, Professor Emeritus, Doctor of Medicine and Specialist in Pharmacology / Clinical Pharmacology, Institute for Biochemical Pharmacology, Innsbruck (Medical Doctor and Scientist) (Germany)

Amparo de Luque González, Dentist (Spain)

Dr Alexandra Efthimiadou Griva, MD, Physician, practicing natural medicine for over 40 years (Medical Doctor) (Greece)

Dr Maria-Myrto Griva, MD, Physician, with a special focus on natural medicine (Medical Doctor) (Greece)

Dr Kleanthis Grivas, MD, PhD, Neurologist — Psychiatrist, author of books and articles, writer on Totalitarian Therapeutic State (Medical Doctor) (Greece)

Dr Céline Guérin, PhD in Neurosciences, Master in Microbiology and Genetics (Scientist-Practitioner) (France)

Dr Nicholas James Guntobon, MBBCh, BAO, LRCP, SI, General Practitioner (Medical Doctor) (Malaysia)

Dr. Olga Petrovna Guzova, Pediatrician, Dermatologist and Dermatopathologist (Medical Doctor) (Panama)

Dr Hans-Michael Hackenberg, Family Doctor and Sports Medicine Specialist (Retired) (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Dr Roman Häussler, General Medicine (Austria)

Dr Jutta Heinrich-Nols, Doctor and Clinical Pharmacologist (Medical Doctor and Scientist) (Germany)

Julie Henrotte, Quality System Expert, 12+ years in GSK Pharma (Scientist) (Belgium)

Dr Angel Ruiz-Valdepeñas Herreros, Bachelor of Medicine, Licenciado en Medicina por la Universidad de Murcia, Specialist in Family and Community Medicine, co-founder of “Médicos por la Verdad” (Doctors for the Truth) worldwide, platform of doctors in more than 17 countries (Medical Doctor) (Spain)

Dr Birgit Hörger, Resident Doctor, Specialist in General Medicine (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Dr Mignon Hugues, MD, General Practitioner (Medical Doctor) (Belgium)

Dr April M. Hurley, MD, Family Physician for 35 years (Medical Doctor) (USA)

William Ip, BSc. MIBMS, Former NHS Biomedical Scientist (Specialist in Microbiology), for over 30 years (Sicentist) (United Kingdom)

Prof. Dr Ciro Isidoro, Doctor of Science and Medical Doctor, Full Professor of Pathology, School of Medicine, Department of Health Sciences, Università del Piemonte Orientale, Novara (Medical Doctor and Scientist) (Italy)

Dr Hervé Janecek, Veterinarian (France)

Hannah Januszczyk, Psychiatric Pharmacist (England)

Jerzy Jaskowski, MD, PhD, MS, Specialties in General Surgery, Environmental Medicine, Physics and Biophysics (Retired)(Medical Doctor and Scientist) (Poland)

Dr. Elisabeth Jenik, General Medicine, Occupational Medicine and Psychosomatic Medicine (Medical Doctor) (Austria)

Dr Alain Joseph, General Medicine Specialist (Retired) (Medical Doctor) (France)

Dr Konstantinos Kakleas, MD, MRCPCH, MSc, PhD, Paediatric Allergy Consultant, Leicester Royal Infirmary Hospital (Medical Doctor) (United Kingdom)

Dr George Katsonis, Homeopathic Doctor (Medical Doctor)(Cyprus)

Dr Hootan Kazemi, BDS Dental Surgeon, MSc(Distinc.) Clinical Biochemistry, BSc(Hons) Physiology (General Dental Practitioner) (United Kingdom)

Dr Richard Kent MB BS, Retired General Practitioner (Medical Doctor) (United Kingdom)

Dr Ingrid Kiesel, Specialist in Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and General Medicine (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Dr Alina Kislich, General Practitioner, Graduated from the Medical University of Vienna (Medical Doctor) (Austria)

Dr Wiltrud Kling, Specialist in General Medicine (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Dr Ewa Konik, MD, Heart Transplant Cardiologist (Medical Doctor) (USA)

Dr Doris Krien, Assistant Doctor, Günzburg District Hospital (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Brigitte Lacroix, clinical PKPD and PBPK modeler (Pharma industry), PhD in Pharmacy (Paris XI University), PhD in Pharmacometrics (Uppsala University) (Scientist) (France, Sweden)

Dr Andreas Lang, MD (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Dr Paul Laursen, PhD, Adjunct Professor, AUT University (Scientist) (New Zealand and Canada)

Dr Michael S Lavender, Consultant Anaesthetist (Medical Doctor) (Australia)

Dr Tess Lawrie, MBBCh, PhD, Guideline methodologist and evidence synthesis expert, Director of The Evidence Based Medicine Consultancy Ltd, Bath UK. Honorary Researcher at the Royal United Hospital, Bath UK (Medical Doctor and Scientist) (United Kingdom)

Dr Bronia Lee, MBBCh, MRCGP, Retired General Practitioner (Medical Doctor) (United Kingdom)

Dr Katrina Lewis, MD, BSc in Immunology and Physiological Chemistry, triple Board certified ( USA) in Anesthesiology, Pain Medicine and Functional Medicine (Medical Doctor) (South Africa, USA)

Dr Derek Lohan, Consultant Radiologist and Director, Helix Radiology (Medical doctor) (Ireland)

Dr Ricardo Arriola López, General Medicine, (Medical Doctor) (Spain)

Dr. Adele Lorigan, BSC (Chiro), Chiropractor (Australia)

Dr Antje Lueg, Specialist in Ophthalmology (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Dr. Thomas Ly, MD, Infectologist and Paediatrician, Specialized in Tropical Medicine, Head of MedicalQM, a think tank on medical quality management and patient safety, Founder of the upcoming International Institute for Human Pathogenic Infectious Diseases “InfectCore” (Medical Doctor) (Germany and Thailand)

Dr Kulvinder S. Manik, MBChB, MA, LLM, MRCGP, GP (Medical Doctor) (England)

Dr. Rosemarie Mayr, Specialist in Psychiatry and Psychotherapeutic Medicine and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, ÖÄK Diploma for Homeopathy (Retired) (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Dr Nathi Mdladla, Associate Professor and Chief of ICU, Dr George Mukhari Academic Hospital and Sefako Makgatho University (Medical Doctor) (South Africa)

Dr Janet Menage, MA, MB, ChB, General Medical Practitioner (Retired) Qualified Psychological Counsellor (Medical Doctor) (United Kingdom)

Dr Niall McCrae, PhD, MSc, RMN, Mental health researcher, Psychiatric Nurse (United Kingdom)

Professor Nathalie McDonell, MD, PhD (human genetics), Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology (Medical Doctor and Scientist) (France)

Dr Ciaran Montague, MVB, MRCVS, Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons certified veterinary dermatologist with 25 years general and referral practice (Veterinarian) (N. Ireland)

Dr Alistair J Montgomery, MB.ChB., MRCGP, DRCOG, NHS General Practitioner (Retired) (Medical Doctor) (UK)

Dr Sabine de Monvallier, General Practitoner (Medical Doctor) (France)

Dr Ines Mörbitz, Specialist in General Medicine (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Dr Amir Mortasawi, Physician and author (Germany)

Dr Jens Münch, Neurologist, Psychoanalyst and Specialist in Psychosomatic Medicine and Trauma (Medical Doctor) (France)

Dr. Graeme Munro-Hall, BDS, Dentist (retired), pioneered the use of glutathione with vitamin C, awarded a Fellowship of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology in 1996 (Dentist) (United Kingdom)

Dr Souha Nasreddine, MD, Ob/Gyn, Graduated from the Free University of Brussels Belgium, Holistic Gynecology (Lebanon)

Dr Meryl Nass, MD, BS Biology (M.I.T.), Specialist in Internal Medicine, with a focus on fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, Gulf War illnesses, and anthrax vaccine injuries. First person to demonstrate that an epidemic resulted from biowarfare. Helped lead a coalition to fight anthrax vaccine mandates and revoke the vaccine license (Medical Doctor) (USA)

Dr Anthousa Nicolaidou, MD, General Practitioner and Holistic Doctor (Medical Doctor) (Cyprus)

Akhmetzhanova Tamara Nikolaevna, Therapist and Cardiologist, the Republican Medical Genetic Center, Ufa (Medical Doctor) (Russia)

Dr Terezia Novotna, General Practitioner, Emergency Doctor, and Anesthesiologist in Training (Medical Doctor) (Austria)

Ole C G Olesen, Double specialist in General Surgery, as well as Orthopedic Surgery and Trauma (Medical Doctor) (Denmark, Norway, Sweden and United Kingdom)

Dr Carlos Muñoz-Caravaca Ortega, Graduate in Surgery, Specialist in Emergency Medicine (Medical Doctor) (Spain)

Dr Fatma Özguler, Specialist in Internal Medicine, General Medicine and Emergency Medicine (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Dr Waltraud Parta-Kehry, Biologist and Doctor for Gynaecology and Reproductive Medicine (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Dr Arun Kumar Patel, MBBS, MPH, MRCPH, FFPH, Medical Public Health Specialist (Retired), NHS (Medical Doctor) (United Kingdom)

Dr E. Peeters, MD, Internal Medicine Specialist, Endocrinology, of Stichting Artsen Covid Collectief, an independent Dutch Collective of Medical Professionals (Medical Doctor) (The Netherlands)

Dr Berber Pieksma, General Practitioner (Medical Doctor) (The Netherlands)

Dr. Cristina Pinho, MD, Gastroenterologist (Medical Doctor) (Portugal)

Dr Hélène Potrich, General Practitioner (Medical Doctor) (France)

Panagiotis Papaspyrou, Specialist in Orthopedics (Germany)

Dr Fabio Quirici, Swiss Medical Association (Medical Doctor) (Switzerland)

Professor Denis Rancourt, PhD, Researcher, Ontario Civil Liberties Association, Member scientist, PANDA (Pandemics Data & Analysis), Retired former Full Professor of Physics, University of Ottawa, with expertise in environmental nanoparticles, molecular science, molecular dynamics, statistical analysis methods and mathematical and epidemiological modelling (Scientist) (Canada)’

Dr Sabine Rauch, General Practitioner, Specialist in General Medicine (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Dr Rafael Reinoso, Family and Community Medicine (Medical Doctor) (Spain)

Dr Nicola Reiser, Anaesthetist and Intensive Care Physician, Senior Physician at the University Clinic UMEÅ (Medical Doctor) (Sweden)

Claudia Riempp, Psychologist and psychotherapist, expert in health education (Germany)

Dr Tred J Rissacher, DC, Chiropractor specialising in obesity and diabetes (USA)

Pablo Enrique Palomo Robles, Pharmaceutical Chemist, Ministry of Public Health and Social Assistance (Scientist) (Guatemala)

Rhys Rogers, BSc, Physiotherapy, 12 years experience as a frontline Physiotherapist (United Kingdom)

Dr Tamara Roycroft, BMBS, BSc (Hons) Nutrition, AIT RCGP, Doctor, Nutritionist and Former Research Scientist/Research Physician in the pharmaceutical industry, and Co-Investigator on vaccine trials (Medical Doctor and Scientist) (United Kingdom)

Professor Simon Ruijsenaars, Professor in Mathematical Physics, School of Mathematics, University of Leeds (Scientist) (United Kingdom)

Dr Claudio Sacilotto, MD, Otolaryngologist and Audiologist, former Professor at the University of Udine and former Doctor at the Udine University Hospital, former Professor at the Music Conservatory of Udine (Medical Doctor) (Italy)

Dr Sam Saidi, MB, ChB, BSc, FRCOG, PhD, University of Sydney (Medical Doctor and Scientist) (Australia)

Dr. Vanessa Schmidt-Krüger, Cell Biologist with over 20 years’ experience in molecular medicine, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (Scientist) (Germany)

Dr Claudia Schoene,Veterinarian with specialisation in Veterinary Epidemiology and Tropical Veterinary Medicine, Animal Health Management and Wildlife management, Formerly Scientific Researcher at the Institute for Epidemiology of the German Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, and the Information Centre for Biological Security of the Robert-Koch Institute (Veterinarian and Scientist) (Germany)

Dr Eva-Maria Schottdorf, MD, MSc, Master of Science in Drug Research and Management, Emergency Physician, Board Certified Specialist in Radiation Oncology (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Dr Ullrich Schubert, (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Dr Pamela Shervanick, DO, Medical doctor and Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, with specialization in Psychiatry (Medical Doctor) (USA)

Dr Guido Spanoghe, Gastroenterologist (Medical Doctor) (Belgium)

Dr Dietmar Spengler, Paediatrician and Neonatologist (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Dr. Jutta Steinacker-Palden, General Practitioner (Medical Doctor) (Austria)

Dr Paul Steven Spradbery, Forensic and Research Biologist, Foundation for Science and Technology, Lisbon, Intertek Life Sciences, London (Scientist) (United Kingdom)

Dr Duncan Syme, MBBS, FRACGP, Dip Prac Derm University of Cardiff, Graduate Monash University 1987, General Practitioner (Medical Doctor) (Australia)

Dr Carol Taccetta, MD, FCAP (Fellow of the College of American Pathologists), Pharmaceutical Physician for over 25 years, specializing in drug safety (Medical Doctor) (USA)

Dr Noel Thomas, MA, MB, ChB, DCH, DObsRCOG, DTM&H, MFHom. Semi retired NHS GP and homeopath (Medical Doctor) (United Kingdom)

Dr Corinne Tilloy, General Practitioner, (Medical Doctor) (France)

Dr Gilbert Tominez, General Practitioner (Retired) (Medical Doctor) (France)

Dr M. Tóth, MD, Psychiatrist, of Stichting Artsen Covid Collectief, an independent Dutch Collective of Medical Professionals (Medical Doctor) (The Netherlands)

Dr Julio Trindade, Masters in Epidemiology, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, Masters in Strategy (Veterinarian & Epidemiologist) (Uruguay)

Dr Georgy Urushadze, Naturopathic Doctor, Paediatrician (Pirogov Russian National Medical University), Emergency Doctor, Physiotherapist, Researcher (Russia)

Dr Francisco J. Llull Vera, Dental Medicine Doctor, graduated from the Dental Medicine School (University of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico), Postdoctoral Studies in Infectious Diseases (Harvard University, MA), Postdoctoral Studies in Dental Implantology and Oral Surgery (NYU Dental Medicine School, NY), Former President Puerto Rico College of Surgeons Dentists, South Region (Dentist) (Puerto Rico)

Dr H. Visser, MD, Internal Medicine Specialist and Infectologist, of Stichting Artsen Covid Collectief, an independent Dutch Collective of Medical Professionals (Medical Doctor) (The Netherlands)

Dr Jasmina Vucic-Peev, PhD, studied in Freiburg, Germany, training in Psychiatry in Switzerland (Medical Doctor) (Germany, Switzerland, Portugal)

Dr William H. Warrick III, MD, Family Practice Doctor (Retired) (Medical Doctor) (USA)

Dr Jo Waller, UK State registered Biomedical Scientist since 1990 (Scientist) (United Kingdom)

Dr Maja Waibel, Dermatologist with specialty in Melanoma prevention (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Dr Gerard A Waters, Mb, Bch, BAO, MICGP, General Practitioner (Medical Doctor) (Ireland)

Dr Craig M. Wax, DO, Family Physician, Founder of Independent Physicians for Patient Independence, Host of Your Health Matters (Medical Doctor) (USA)

Dr Markus Wegscheider, General Practitioner (Austrla)

Dr Ronald Weikl, Gynecologist and General Practitioner (Medical Doctor) (Germany)

Dr Helen Westwood MBChB (Hons), MRCGP, DCH, DRCOG, GP (Medical Doctor) (United Kingdom)

Dr R Matison White, MD, Family Practice Physician of 49 years (Medical Doctor) (USA)

Dr Madhu Wickremaratchi, MBChB, MRCP, Acute and General Medicine (United Kingdom)

Dr Anna Maria Wiedemann, General Practitioner, Specialist in General Medicine (Medical Doctor) (Sweden and Germany)

Dr Clive Wilder-Smith, FRCP, AGAF, MD, Consultant Gastroenterologst, Director of Research (Medical Doctor) (Switzerland)

Thomas Robin Wilks, MA, BSc(Hons) FHEA, CPhys, MInstP, University Science Lecturer, Maths, Mathematical Modelling and Physics, Open University (Scientist) (United Kingdom)

Dr Christopher Wood, MBBS, Retired General Practitioner (Medical Doctor) (United Kingdom)

Dr Olga Sergeevna Yakimanskaya, General Practitioner, Polyclinic Physician (Medical doctor) (Russia)

Dr Reinhild Zenklusen, MD, Pathologist and Cytopathologist (Medical Doctor) (Switzerland)

Signatures of Colleagues in Allied Disciplines relating to Ethics, Health and Human Rights

Reece Francis Allawatt, Registered Nurse, Specialty in Psychiatry and Mental Health (USA)

Sue Cook, BSc (Hons) Lic LCCH, Neurodevelopment Specialist (United Kingdom)

Joseph Dassas, LLB, LLM, LPC, Solicitor and Advocate (Greece, Israel, United Kingdom)

Professor Peter Gichure, Associate Professor of Theology and Peace Studies, Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Director of Graduate Studies, with special interest in ethics (Kenya)

Nuria Iturralde, LL.M, MBA, Human Rights Lawyer (Luxembourg)

Dr Chris Lavers, BSc Hons (Exon), PhD, FHEA, M Inst P, C Phys, C Sci, ILTM, RUT, PGCE(LTHE), Academic Programme Manager DipHE in Marine Studies, Subject Matter Expert (Sensors), Dartmouth Centre for Sea Power and Strategy, Plymouth University at Britannia Royal Naval College, Visiting Research Fellow, Changing Character of War Centre, Pembroke, Oxford (UK)

Dr. Reinhard Lindner, MBA, Economist (Austria)

Shabnam Palesa Mohamed, Journalist, Activist and Mediator (South Africa)

John O’Sullivan, CEO of Principia Scientific International, an independent international scientific body defending the traditional scientific method, incorporated for charitable purposes as a Community Interest Company (United Kingdom)

Matthieu Smyth, Anthropologist, University of Strasbourg (France)

Dr Violeta Sotirova, MPhil, PhD, Lecturer in English (United Kingdom)

United People’s Front (EPAM) Health Committee, Independent political party (Greece)

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Moderna will begin studying its COVID vaccine in pregnant women, according to a posting on ClinicalTrials.gov. The observational study, expected to begin July 22, will enroll about 1,000 females over age 18 who will be studied over a 21-month period.

Women who received a Moderna vaccine during the 28 days prior to their last menstrual period, or at any time during pregnancy, are eligible.

The brief summary of the trial states the main goal is “to evaluate the outcomes of pregnancy in females exposed to the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine (mRNA-1273) during pregnancy.”

The study will measure the number of participants who have infants with suspected major and minor congenital malformations, the number of participants with any pregnancy complications, the number of participants with any pregnancy outcomes and the number of participants with infant outcomes, Fox Business reported.

Currently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says pregnant women can get a COVID vaccine. But the CDC also acknowledges there is limited data available about the safety of COVID vaccines for people who are pregnant.

The CDC website states:

“No evidence exists of risk to the fetus from vaccinating pregnant people with non-replicating vaccines in general. However, the potential risks of COVID-19 vaccines to the pregnant person and the fetus are unknown, because these vaccines have not been extensively studied in pregnant people.”

According to the CDC’s website, as of June 29, data collected from the CDC and U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) safety monitoring systems had not identified “any safety concerns for pregnant people who were vaccinated or their babies,” but the agencies stressed findings are preliminary.

Experts urge caution

“Pregnant women are taking what may be a huge risk with the COVID vaccine,” said Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D., author of “Your Baby, Your Way.”

Margulis told The Defender in an email:

“We have no long-term studies showing it’s safe. We made this mistake with diethylstilbestrol— a synthetic estrogen thought to be safe during pregnancy that was later found to cause aggressive (and sometimes lethal) cancer in the genitals of young teenagers whose moms had been prescribed it.”

Margulis believes it is irresponsible, and even unethical, to assert that we know the Moderna vaccine is safe for pregnancy.

She said:

“It’s imperative to use the precautionary principle when it comes to this highly experimental technology. The burden of proof must be on the intervention. We have no evidence that this is safe. But ample evidence shows that it is dangerous to expose pregnant women and unborn babies to drugs and interventions that can disrupt immunity.”

The most recent data from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) — one of the safety monitoring systems co-managed by the FDA and CDC — has received 2,678 reports of adverse events related to COVID vaccines in pregnant women, including 994 reports of miscarriage or premature birth between Dec. 14, 2020 and July 2, 2021.

Data assessing safety of COVID vaccines in pregnant women is lacking

Since the FDA in December 2020 granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for COVID vaccines, the CDC has recommended pregnant women be offered the vaccine — despite the fact that pregnant women were excluded from preauthorization clinical trials, and despite the limited data on safety and efficacy of COVID vaccines during pregnancy.

In January, the World Health Organization said pregnant women should not receive a COVID vaccine. A week later, the agency changed its guidance and advised everyone to take the shot, including pregnant women.

According to a March 1 safety update by the CDC’s vaccine safety panel on the COVID vaccine and pregnancy, post-authorization safety monitoring and research are the primary ways the CDC obtains safety data on COVID vaccination during pregnancy.

In other words, the vaccine is given to pregnant women before studies determine whether the vaccine is safe for that population. The CDC’s website states that 133,466 pregnant women have already received a COVID vaccine as of July 12.

“It seems bass-ackwards to release the vaccine to pregnant women before doing a clinical trial or proper animal studies,” said Lyn Redwood, RN, MSN and president emerita of Children’s Health Defense.

Redwood said:

“Does the vaccine lipid nanoparticle cross through the placenta? If so, what is the effect on the offspring with regard to morbidity or mortality? These are questions we need to be asking. Pregnancy used to be a time where we were to protect the mother and baby from any potential harms, especially during the first trimester.”

In April, the CDC started actively recommending all pregnant women get vaccinated for COVIDbased off of one retrospective study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The retrospective study, “Preliminary Findings of mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine Safety in Pregnant Persons,” relied on multiple vaccine surveillance systems from December 2020 to February to assess the safety of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines in more than 35,000 pregnant women who had chosen to get vaccinated after the vaccines were approved for emergency use.

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The authors of the study stated they found no increased risks during pregnancy, or birth complications or identifiable risks to the fetus among those who received the vaccine.

Shortly after, the CDC updated its official recommendations that pregnant women receive a COVID vaccine based on the study’s data compiled over the course of two months.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky highlighted the findings at an April 23 briefing where she stated the “CDC recommends that pregnant people receive the COVID-19 vaccine.”

According to Dr. Brian Hooker, Ph.D., P.E., Children’s Health Defense chief scientific officer and professor of biology at Simpson University, the results regarding pregnancy loss were highly skewed.

Hooker told The Defender:

“The majority of the denominator received their vaccine in the third trimester where pregnancy loss would be much less. Most of the pregnancy losses were in the first trimester and there are no data on the outcomes of the other women who received their vaccine in the first trimester (i.e., whether they carried to term), or data on the temporal relationship between receipt of the vaccine and miscarriage which is suspect.

“There is also no data regarding any incidence of clotting disorders reported or any type of blood malady that may occur (e.g., spotting or bleeding during pregnancy), and very limited treatment of neonatal outcomes (no APGAR score, etc.) due to the very limited duration of the study.

“This is typical ‘nothing to see here’ CDC propaganda and the paper is essentially meaningless regarding pregnancy outcomes. In order to adequately assess these outcomes, pregnancies need to be followed to term.”

Although Moderna’s clinical trial is expected to begin July 22, Pfizer and J&J already are conducting clinical trials testing the safety and efficacy of their vaccine in pregnant women.

*

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Megan Redshaw is a freelance reporter for The Defender. She has a background in political science, a law degree and extensive training in natural health.

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***

In a 20-page report, three doctors who are all founding members of Doctors for COVID Ethics outline in detail the compelling argument for why COVID vaccines are not only unnecessary and ineffective, but also dangerous for children and adolescents.

For months, Doctors for COVID Ethics, a Europe-based international alliance of hundreds of concerned doctors and scientists, has been issuing urgent warnings about the short- and long-term risks of COVID vaccines, particularly for children.

In May, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) extended Pfizer’s Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) — previously granted for ages 16 and up — to 12- to 15-year-olds.

Pfizer was the first company to test experimental COVID vaccines in children, and is the only manufacturer thus far to have been granted EUA for vaccine recipients under age 18.

In addition to submitting three admonitory letters to the EMA — on March 10, April 1 and April 20— Doctors for COVID Ethics on May 18 served Notices of Liability to all members of the European Parliament for COVID-vaccine-related harms and deaths to children.

Now, three of the group’s founding signatories — Dr. Michael Palmer (Canada), Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, (Germany) and Stefan Hockertz, Ph.D. (Germany) — have assembled in one document powerful expert evidence showing COVID vaccines are not only unnecessary and ineffective but also dangerous for children and adolescents.

On July 3, Italian lawyer Renate Holzeisen submitted the expert document to the European General Court as part of a lawsuit challenging the EMA’s late-May decision to extend emergency use of Pfizer’s vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds.

The 20-page report’s value stems not just from the three authors’ impeccable professional credentials but from their meticulous aggregation and analysis of manufacturer data, regulatory agency assessments and published science.

As the medical/scientific trio compellingly argues, the evidence allows only one possible conclusion: Not only should Pfizer’s vaccine not be given to adolescents, but its use needs to stop immediately in all age groups.

Not necessary

The report begins by demolishing the argument that adolescents need to be vaccinated against COVID. The three experts emphasize the “particularly low” COVID-19 prevalence in adolescents and the utter absence of severe cases in children and teens 10 to 17 years old obviates any rationale for vaccinating young people — particularly given the availability of effective treatmentsfor the tiny proportion who experience anything other than mild illness.

Recent studies confirm this crucial point, showing that “the risks of severe illness or death from SARS-CoV-2 are extremely low in children and young people.”

The expert summary also highlights other factors negating the case for teen vaccination. For example:

• A “large proportion of individuals in all age groups, including adolescents, already have specific, reliable immunity to COVID-19” and are also protected from severe disease by robust cross-immunity, which, the European experts point out, “will be particularly effective in healthy adolescents and young adults.”
• According to Doctors for COVID Ethics, large-scale studies have “unambiguously” refuted the notion of “asymptomatic transmission” (used to support the claim that kids pose a risk to others). These studies show that no illness has been traced to individuals who tested “positive” but did not exhibit signs of illness.
• From the beginning, the COVID infection fatality rate (IFR) — the number of deaths divided by the number of infections — has been strongly biased toward the elderly. In addition, a recent study, which revised “biased inflated estimates” of the IFR downward to an average of 0.15%, “reassuringly” makes the IFR for COVID comparable to that of influenza.

The three authors mention, in passing, that few European countries view childhood vaccination against influenza as either “urgent or necessary.” In fact, European infectious disease experts have stated they do not want the pediatric vaccine schedule to be “too busy,” while also acknowledging the “mixed” evidence on flu shot effectiveness and the unknown “long-term effect of repeated annual vaccination from an early age.”

These notes of caution could apply equally well to COVID shots that are threatening to morph into an annual (or even more frequent) requirement. Disturbingly, France is preparing to administermillions of booster shots in September, barely seven to eight months since experimental COVID vaccination began.

Not effective

The second section of the expert report digs into Pfizer’s claims of 95%–100% effectiveness for its COVID vaccine — representations, the report’s authors assert, that “cannot be trusted.”

The three scientists first note (as Children’s Health Defense and others have done as well) that the manufacturers’ figures represent relative rather than absolute efficacy. In absolute terms, Pfizer vaccine efficacy is “very modest,” protecting (at best) less than 1% of clinical trial participants who took the jab.

According to the three experts, however, even this dubious achievement “cannot be accepted at face value.” Their scrutiny of assessments prepared by the FDA and EMA shows Pfizer’s data are rife with “unlikely claims and contradictions,” including the intimation that after the first dose of vaccine, immunity sets in “very suddenly and uniformly on day 12 exactly.”

Given that immunity typically develops more slowly and gradually, the authors of the report state, the day 12 effect is “not at all a biologically plausible outcome.”

An additional puzzling finding concerns two contradictory sets of data about COVID-19 incidence in the vaccine and placebo groups — results that “cannot possibly be reconciled.” The experts’ conclusion? One of the two data sets was, in all likelihood, “fabricated.”

Dissecting a Pfizer study conducted with adolescents, the three scientists conclude the injections produced a net negative due to their impact on overall morbidity. Whereas none of the participating adolescents experienced severe COVID, vaccine side effects were “exceedingly common,” with 55% to 65% experiencing headaches, among other undesirable reactions.

The expert trio points out that severe headaches are sometimes associated with blood clots — a serious adverse event associated with all four COVID vaccines currently authorized in Europe and/or the U.S.

Taking side effects into account makes it plain that “overall morbidity was far greater in the vaccinated than in the placebo group,” the authors write.

As the three scientists understatedly comment, “That neither the FDA nor the EMA picked up on any of these inconsistencies does not instill confidence in the thoroughness and integrity of their review processes.”

They conclude:

“The clinical trials carried out by Pfizer contain no proof of any benefit conferred by the vaccine with respect to any clinically relevant endpoints. This applies to all tested age groups, and in particular also to adolescents.”

Not safe

The most alarming section of the report is Palmer’s, Bhakdi’s and Hockertz’s discussion of the Pfizer vaccine’s “catastrophically bad” safety profile in both adults and adolescents.

The Pfizer injection’s destructive impact is readily discernible by anyone with the patience to pore through the vaccine injury reports submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System(VAERS) in the U.S. or the EudraVigilance database in Europe.

For 12- to 17-year-old Americans receiving a COVID shot, VAERS received more than 13,000reports of adverse events by July 2, including more than 1,909 reports (Pfizer alone) of anaphylaxis, 343 reports (Pfizer alone) of heart problems, 56 reports (Pfizer alone) of blood clotting disorders and 14 deaths,  of which 13 were reported after a Pfizer vaccine.

This is not to absolve the other COVID vaccines being administered to those 18 and up — for example, the Johnson & Johnson injection now comes with warnings about increased risks of blood clots and Guillain-Barré syndrome.

As for the two messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines — Pfizer’s and Moderna’s — the European experts express concerns about the toxicity of the lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) that deliver the injections’ payload of mRNA and the spike protein expressed by that mRNA.

Ordinarily, the capillary barrier is supposed to keep large molecules out of the blood. In preclinical studies of the mRNA vaccines, however, researchers found the LNPs circulated in the bloodstreamand concentrated in vital organs such as the ovaries, liver and spleen.

Other research shows that following intravenous injection, LNPs can penetrate the most highly “fortified” capillary barrier of all — the blood-brain barrier.

The “upshot,” in the opinion of the European scientists, is “the vaccine will appear in the bloodstream, in large amounts and on short order” [emphasis in original]. Unfortunately, more blood clotting complications are the likely result.

In addition, high levels of spike protein expression in places like the ovaries, placenta and lactating mammary glands raise the prospect of disturbing reproductive and neonatal outcomes, including female infertility, miscarriages and, as has been anecdotally reported, deaths in breastfeeding newborns.

Stop the ‘systematic negligence’ and fraud

In 2020, Pfizer was the second-largest pharmaceutical company by revenue, manufacturing not just COVID vaccines but more than 350 pharmaceutical products, many of which are household names.

But it is important not to lose sight of Pfizer’s criminal track record — a pattern of “habitual” fraud and dishonesty so pervasive and longstanding that it can only be understood as an intentional business model.

Describing prosecutors’ refusal to hold Pfizer executives personally liable for criminal actions, a health policy analyst concluded in 2010, “both criminal and civil penalties appear to be, to Pfizer at least, a business expense worth incurring.”

Despite this troubling record, analysts celebrate Pfizer as a solid market presence, stating that “People know and trust [the company’s] brands.” Widely used Pfizer products include Advil, Ativan, Centrum multivitamins, Chapstick, the contraceptive Depo Provera, Emergen-C, EpiPen, Flagyl, Lipitor, Lyrica, Neosporin, Premarin, Preparation H, the best-selling childhood vaccine Prevnar, Robitussin cough syrup, Viagra, Xanax, Zithromax and Zoloft.

For consumers distressed by the carnage that seems to follow Pfizer’s COVID injections — and by the company’s recurrent lawsuits, recalls and problems with quality control — it may be time to stop buying Pfizer’s many “instantly identifiable” products and also shun the more than 96,000 worldwide employees who make the company’s wanton harms possible.

Buttressed by the evidence carefully assembled by the Doctors for COVID Ethics, it also goes without saying that we need to push back in every conceivable way against COVID vaccine mandates for children.

*

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“Why should the United States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such expeditions, become involved in immense duplications of research, construction, and expenditure? Surely we should explore whether the scientists and astronauts of our two countries–indeed of all the world–cannot work together in the conquest of space, sending someday in this decade to the moon not the representatives of a single nation, but the representatives of all of our countries….” – President John F. Kennedy (September 20, 1963)

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November 22, 1963. The Kennedy family lost a brother. America lost a president. And the world lost a hope for a more peaceful world.

This incident, perhaps the most famous ‘conspiracy theory’ of them all, is once again being memorialized in film as Hollywood’s challenger of official government narratives releases yet another epic blast of controversy in the Cannes film festival. It’s called JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass.

Oliver Stone directed this movie. It takes place 30 years after the release of his previous blockbuster JFK which focused on the work of the Louisiana District Attorney Jim Garrison the only person to challenge the narrative in relation to the U.S. president. This sequel is less a re-enactment of a past event than a documentary. It updates us with information that has become available thanks to the files that had been de-classified since the last Kennedy movie mesmerized eyeballs in theatres across the country.

The fact is that in this special case, certain people cannot quite let go of facts surrounding the case. How did Lee Harvey Oswald, assuming he was even in the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository at the time, fire as many shots as were discovered at the scene of the crime? Why was the evidence of so many witnesses of a second gunman ignored? Why did the Zapruder film of the execution showing his head moving backward when the killer was shooting from behind him? Why was President Kennedy’s autopsy conducted in Maryland as opposed to Dallas where the murder happened?

The Global Research News Hour has possibly the best expert available to address these questions and more. James DiEugenio not only has conducted multiple extensive written works on the subject, he is also the screenwriter for the very film Oliver Stone has just directed!

Over the course of an hour, DiEugenio provides his assessment of the feedback he has so far gotten on the recent movie, details of the problems with the official story surviving the 1978 House Selections Committee on Assassinations, the motive behind his murder and the role of media in assisting the cover-up.

The Global Research News Hour also provides a brief overview of some of the press attention to the JFK Revisited movie.

James DiEugenio has an MA in Contemporary American History from California State University Northridge. He authored the book Destiny Betrayed, probing the Garrison investigation of the JFK assassination, expanded in 2012. He also wrote Reclaiming Parkland in 2013 expanded again in 2016 and then re-issued again with additional material in the 2018 book The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today. He co-authored the book The Assassinations: Probe Magazine on JFK, MLK, RFK and Malcolm X.

Mr DiEugenio also has a website: kennedysandking.com with materials related to one or more of the assassination targets.

(Global Research News Hour Summer 2021 Series)

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The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM out of the University of Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca .

Other stations airing the show:

CIXX 106.9 FM, broadcasting from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. It airs Sundays at 6am.

WZBC 90.3 FM in Newton Massachusetts is Boston College Radio and broadcasts to the greater Boston area. The Global Research News Hour airs during Truth and Justice Radio which starts Sunday at 6am.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 7pm.

CJMP 90.1 FM, Powell River Community Radio, airs the Global Research News Hour every Saturday at 8am. 

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday afternoon from 3-4pm.

Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 9am pacific time.

Notes:

1. Address Before the 18th General Assembly of the United Nations, 20 September 1963 | JFK Library (credit to Mark Robiowitz); www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKWHA/1963/JFKWHA-218/JFKWHA-218

Space Odyssey 2021: The Big Failure

By South Front, July 15, 2021

On July 11, an outstanding news shook the world. The space race between two notorious millionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, was allegedly won by the latter. Branson went up into space nine days before Bezos. In response, Blue Origin refused to recognize Virgin Galactic’s voyage as a space flight.

MH17 Trial Judge Reveals US Intelligence Switch — From Satellite Images Which Don’t Exist in Washington to Tapes and Videos Fabricated in Kiev

By John Helmer, July 15, 2021

In a new ruling read out in a Dutch courtroom yesterday, the judge presiding in the trial of allegations against the Russian state, military command and four named soldiers for shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 revealed new details of the US evidence allegedly proving that a Russian missile caused the crash.

Red Alert in Iraq… Time for the U.S. to Decide

By Amro Allan, July 15, 2021

No American soldiers have been killed in these recent intense activities in Iraq and Syria. However, Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, explains ‘It’s already very intense. The strikes aren’t killing people, but they could, easily, if they want them to’, and he adds ‘The missile defences are quietly working quite well. But what we haven’t seen is determined efforts to kill Americans’.

Canadian Doctor: 62% of Patients Vaccinated for COVID Have Permanent Heart Damage

By Brian Shilhavy, July 15, 2021

We have previously covered the story of Dr. Charles Hoffe, the brave doctor who has been practicing medicine for 28 years in the small, rural town of Lytton in British Columbia, Canada. After he had administered about 900 doses of the Moderna experimental mRNA COVID-19 injections, he sounded the alarm over the severe reactions he was observing in his patients who chose to get the shot (he chose NOT to get it himself), which included death.

To the People of Cuba: Is Washington Preparing a “Soft Coup”? The Co-optation of Cuban Intellectuals

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, July 15, 2021

The Cuban Revolution constitutes a fundamental landmark in the history of humanity, which challenges the legitimacy of global capitalism. In all major regions of the World, the Cuban revolution has been a source of inspiration in the relentless struggle against neo-colonial domination and US imperialism.

Ukraine Reprised: Victoria Nuland Discusses Belarus with Ukrainian Official

By Rick Rozoff, July 15, 2021

Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland held a phone conversation with the Head of the Ukrainian President’s Office Andriy Yermak to discuss what the National News Agency of Ukraine reported was the situation in Belarus. The two were described as having “expressed concern” over developments in Ukraine’s northern neighbor. A nation doesn’t want Nuland to be concerned, much less gravely concerned over its internal affairs given her political track record.

Graphene Meets RNA Technology, for Cancer Vaccines

By Jon Rappoport, July 15, 2021

As soon as Operation Warp Speed was announced, I made it clear that one of the prime goals was: winning approval for experimental RNA technology. RNA tech had never gotten a green light prior to the COVID vaccine. Why? Because it was highly dangerous. Generally speaking, massive inflammatory response was the issue: the body attacks itself.

The Nuclear Race Accelerates

By Manlio Dinucci, July 15, 2021

At the Redzikowo base in Poland, work has begun on the installation of the Aegis Ashore system, at a cost of more than $180 million. It will be the second U.S. missile base in Europe, after that of Deveselu in Romania became operational in 2015. The official function of these bases is to protect, with the “shield” of SM-3 interceptor missiles, the U.S. forces in Europe and those of European NATO allies from “current and emerging ballistic missile threats from outside the Euro-Atlantic area”.

China’s Lead in Artificial Intelligence (AI) Technology and Quantum Computers

By Karsten Riise, July 15, 2021

China is no longer in a position of technological inferiority but instead sees itself as close to catching up with and overtaking the United States in AI. The USA still trots on its idea of yesterday as if it were still the new thing – something called “ informatized” (信息化) warfare. China is conceptually already beyond the US. China now implements “intelligentized” (智能化) warfare.

The SCO’s New Great Game in Central Asia: China’s Economic Corridor into Afghanistan

By Pepe Escobar, July 15, 2021

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is on a Central Asian loop all through the week. He’s visiting Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The last two are full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, founded 20 years ago.

Nota del autor

En octubre de 2010, fue invitado a la casa de Fidel Castro  en las afueras de La Habana para discutir la política exterior de Estados Unidos, los peligros de la guerra nuclear, la crisis económica global y el desarrollo del Nuevo Orden Mundial.

Estos encuentros, que se prolongaron durante varios días, dieron como resultado una amplia y fructífera conversación que fue publicada por Global Research y Cuba Debate.

Debo mencionar que  Fidel Castro era un ávido lector de Global Research. Sus escritos también aparecieron en  nuestro sitio web. 

Si bien Fidel comprendió completamente el papel insidioso de las ONG y las fundaciones filantrópicas en el apoyo a las operaciones encubiertas de injerencia de Washington dentro de Cuba, expresó su esperanza de que hubiera un cambio de rumbo con Obama, a quien tenía gran estima.

Cuando iniciamos nuestras discusiones un martes por la tarde, Fidel ya había leído por completo el libro de Bob Woodward titulado Obama’s Wars, que fue lanzado unos días antes en Washington (expedidos a La Habana en la valija diplomática). 

Cinco años después, en octubre de 2015, regresé a Cuba por invitación del  Centro de Investigaciones de Política Internacional (CIPI ), un centro de investigación y grupo de expertos afiliado al Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores.

Había una sensación de optimismo en el apogeo del segundo mandato de Obama. El tema de la conferencia fue analizar el proceso de transición geopolítica abierto por la reanudación de las relaciones diplomáticas entre Cuba y Estados Unidos.

Durante esa visita, me reuní con varios amigos y colegas (académicos, miembros del parlamento) que estaban muy conscientes del papel encubierto de Washington en la cooptación política. Expresaron su preocupación (octubre de 2015) porque se estaba gestando un llamado Golpe Blando , a saber, “Golpe suave”.

Las sanciones unilaterales nunca se abandonaron. En 2019, Donald Trump instauró el Título III de la Ley Helms Burton de 1996, que desató las sanciones económicas más severas contra Cuba desde que se introdujo el bloqueo por primera vez en 1962.

Tras el acceso de Biden a la Casa Blanca, el bloqueo se mantuvo a pesar del voto de la Asamblea General de la ONU  (184 a favor 3 en contra) exigiendo el fin del bloqueo económico de 60 años de Estados Unidos a Cuba.

La crisis del Covid-19

Pero hay otra cuestión importante que se ha pasado por alto en gran medida. La narrativa del covid-19, así como sus diversas políticas (incluyendo la vacuna) se han convertido en una parte integral de la política exterior de Estados Unidos bajo la administración de Biden.

La crisis de Covid tiene obvias implicaciones geopolíticas. Constituye un medio para desestabilizar países que no se ajustan a los dictados del capitalismo global. En toda América Latina es fuente de caos económico y social. También es un medio para desestabilizar a los gobiernos progresistas en todo el continente, incluidos Venezuela, Cuba y México.

En este sentido, el encierre del Covid-19 (confinamiento) de marzo de 2020 ordenado por las altas esferas del establecimiento financiero ha destruido literalmente la economía cubana, específicamente la industria turística, que es la principal fuente de divisas del país.

El “confinamiento”  y la vacuna Covid-19 se presentan a la opinión pública como un medio para proteger la vida de la población. Eso es una mentira descarada. 

El llamado  “confinamiento” covid-19 en fecha del 11 de marzo de 2020 que condujo al “cierre” simultáneo de 190 economías nacionales fue un acto deliberado de sabotaje económico, social y político.

Con respecto a Cuba, la crisis del Covid-19 ha causado estragos. Lo abarca todo. Se extiende más allá del régimen de sanciones de Estados Unidos que el gobierno cubano ha manejado de manera efectiva durante los últimos 59 años.

El  confinamiento Covid-19 ha debilitado las instituciones del país, ha creado divisiones sociales, ha empobrecido a la población de Cuba. También ha creado condiciones para una posible “revolución del color” (operación encubierta llevado por EEUU).

Sin embargo, al mismo tiempo, la legitimidad de la narrativa de Covid-19, que emana de Washington y Wall Street, ha sido aceptada y respaldada por el pueblo cubano y su gobierno.

Desafortunadamente, a pesar del fraude y las falsedades científicas ampliamente documentadas, la narrativa de Covid-19  ha sido respaldada por “progresistas” en toda América Latina. Esto, a su vez, ha llevado a declaraciones erróneas por parte de la Izquierda sobre las causas del movimiento de protesta en Cuba. El enfoque subyacente se centra únicamente en el bloqueo y el regimen de sanciones impuestos por EEUU como causa de la escasez de alimentos, la pobreza y el desempleo. Los devastadores impactos sociales y económicos del “confinamiento covid” que está socavando los logros de la Revolución Cubana no son motivo de análisis.

 

Michel Chossudovsky , Día de la Bastilla, 14 de julio de 2021

***

A la luz de los desarrollos recientes, incluida la erupción de movimientos de protesta, Global Research está volviendo a publicar mi artículo publicado en noviembre de 2016.

 

 

Michel Chossudovsky , Día de la Bastilla, 14 de julio de 2021

***

Al pueblo de Cuba: ¿Está Washington orquestando un “golpe blando”? La cooptación de los intelectuales cubanos

por Michel Chossudovsky

Noviembre de 2016

Al pueblo de Cuba:

La Revolución cubana representa un hito fundamental en la historia de la Humanidad, pues cuestiona la legitimidad del capitalismo mundial. En las principales regiones del mundo, la Revolución cubana ha sido fuente de inspiración en la lucha implacable contra la dominación neo-colonial y el imperialismo estadounidense.

Hoy el mundo se encuentra en una encrucijada crítica. En este momento de nuestra historia, la mayoría de los movimientos progresistas “auténticamente” comprometidos con el socialismo han sido destruidos y derrotados por Estados Unidos y la Organización del Tratado de Atlántico Norte (OTAN) a través de guerras, intervenciones militares, campañas de desestabilización, cambios de régimen, golpes de Estado, “golpes “blandos”.

Los movimientos progresistas así como “la Izquierda” en Europa Occidental y Estados Unidos, en gran medida han sido cooptados, financiados regularmente por fundaciones empresariales de élite.

El proyecto socialista en Cuba, sin embargo, prevalece a pesar del bloqueo económico impuesto por Estados Unidos, las operaciones de espionaje de la Agencia Central de Inteligencia (CIA, por sus siglas en inglés) y las triquiñuelas políticas.

Mientras el legado de Fidel Castro viva, no nos hagamos ilusiones, la intención de Washington no se restringirá solamente a la destrucción de la Revolución cubana, sino también buscará borrar la historia del socialismo.

Diseño diabólico elaborado en Washington

Actualmente hay indicios de que los políticos de Washington contemplan un “cambio de régimen” en Cuba. La administración Trump ha sido contundente en este sentido. Las repercusiones se harán sentir en toda América Latina.

Durante la campaña electoral, Trump “se comprometió a revertir la orden ejecutiva del presidente Obama presentada como “La normalización Estados Unidos-Cuba” (una misiva conformada por 12 páginas oficialmente conocida como “PPD-43”). (The Nation, Octubre 2017). Sin declaración alguna sobre el tema tras su inauguración presidencial, Trump aún no lleva a cabo la medida.

Es importante destacar la decisión de Trump de colocar a la doctora Judy Shelton al frente de la Fundación Nacional para la Democracia (NED, por sus siglas en inglés), un ‘think-tank’ financiado y encaminado a incentivar cambios de régimen. Como ex vicepresidente de la NED, Shelton estuvo “directamente involucrada en legitimar el otorgamiento de préstamos respaldados por Estados Unidos para la subversión en Cuba como parte de un plan que durante décadas ha buscado derrocar al gobierno de La Habana y ampliar la hegemonía estadounidense en la región caribeña”.

En cuanto a “La normalización Estados Unidos-Cuba” pensada por la administración de Trump, no cabe duda de que se trata de un intento de restauración del capitalismo a través de actos de sedición, infiltración, etc., combinados a su vez con la imposición de reformas económicas de tipo neoliberal, incluyendo una “poderosa medicina económica” que sería administrada por el Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI). El aspecto crucial es cómo es que Cuba y el pueblo cubano, en el contexto actual, van a responder a estas amenazas.

¿Cómo planea Washington llevar a cabo este plan? Fundamentalmente a través de:

1) Medidas que contribuyan a desestabilizar la economía cubana y su sistema monetario.

2) Procedimientos que conduzcan a una eventual incrustación de la economía cubana en el entramado del FMI, el Banco Mundial y la Organización Mundial de Comercio (OMC), incluida una serie de condicionamientos políticos que desmantelen los programas sociales en Cuba, el racionamiento de los bienes de consumo esenciales, etc.

3) Para alcanzar sus objetivos, Washington y sus aliados europeos han concebido durante años diversos mecanismos encubiertos de infiltración y cooptación con el fin de influir en los responsables políticos en el gobierno, los directivos de las empresas del sector público, así como en los intelectuales. En este sentido, Washington depende también de sus socios europeos que mantienen relaciones bilaterales con Cuba.

 

Fidel Castro Ruz y Michel Chossudovsky, Octubre de 2010

Este artículo se va a concentrar, fundamentalmente, en las actividades del ala derecha europea a través de fundaciones implicadas en el financiamiento de grupos de expertos y centros de investigación de origen cubano.

El objetivo es la cooptación de investigadores, académicos e intelectuales. El plan consiste en construir una “nueva normalidad” que abonará el camino para la incrustación del socialismo cubano en la lógica del capitalismo mundial. Mientras se mantiene la narrativa socialista, este proceso pretende en último término socavar la Revolución cubana, abriendo la puerta a la desregulación económica, la inversión extranjera y la privatización. El “visto bueno” de esta “nueva normalidad” entre los intelectuales cubanos es crucial para alcanzar el objetivo de la restauración capitalista.

Antecedentes: El intervencionismo de Estados Unidos

En los últimos años, las modalidades de intervencionismo de Estados Unidos han cambiado radicalmente: El impulso de la política exterior de Estados Unidos consiste en buena medida en la desestabilización de países soberanos a través de un proceso de “cambio de régimen” (también conocido como “revolución de color”). Este último consiste en la desestabilización de la economía local, la manipulación de las elecciones nacionales, la cooptación de intelectuales de izquierda, el soborno de líderes políticos, el financiamiento de los partidos de la oposición, violencia y apuntalamiento de los movimientos de protesta.

En América Latina, las dictaduras militares pro-estadounidenses han sido sustituidas por “democracias” pro-estadounidenses. A su vez, las reformas económicas neoliberales, bajo la dirección del Banco Mundial y el FMI, han servido para empobrecer a la población, produciendo así condiciones que favorecen la protesta, así como las luchas sociales y políticas.

Además del fraude en las elecciones en América Latina y el apuntalamiento de los movimientos de protesta, la cooptación de intelectuales de izquierda es financiada tanto por Estados Unidos, fundaciones europeas y Organizaciones No Gubernamentales (ONG), con fuertes vínculos con los aparatos de inteligencia estadounidense.

La Fundación Nacional para la Democracia (NED) creada en 1983 junto con otras fundaciones con sede en Estados Unidos ha tomado la batuta. Oficialmente, el mandato de la NED consiste en promover la democracia y los derechos humanos en los países en desarrollo.

Pero en realidad, la NED es un brazo no oficial de la CIA. Según el ex presidente de la NED, Carl Gershman:

“Sería terrible para los grupos democráticos de todo el mundo ser vistos como entes subvencionados por la CIA… no hemos tenido la capacidad de hacer esto, y es por eso que se ha creado la Fundación”.

En palabras del primer presidente de la NED, Alan Weinstein: “Mucho de lo que hacemos hoy ya se hacía hace 25 años por la CIA pero de forma encubierta” (The Washington Post, 22 de septiembre de 1991).

El Proyecto NED en Cuba: Intromisión a través de la “puerta trasera”

Mientras que la NED está prohibida en Cuba, no obstante realiza operaciones de financiamiento de modo indirecto -a través de fundaciones y diversas ONG ubicadas en Florida- en un gran número de los denominados “proyectos de la democracia”. Muchos de estos socios (localizados en Estados Unidos), que incluyen la Dirección Democrática Cubana (Directorio), el Instituto Cubano por la Libertad de Expresión y Prensa, y el Observatorio Cubano de Derechos Humanos, tienen vínculos con los servicios de inteligencia estadounidense. Históricamente, la NED ha funcionado a través de socios de la Unión Europea con vínculos bilaterales formales con Cuba.

En relación a Alemania, la Fundación Friedrich Ebert (vinculada al Partido Socialdemócrata), el Hans Böll Stiftung (Partido Verde) y la Hanns Seidel Stiftung (vinculada al ala derecha del Partido Demócrata Cristiano de Baviera (CSU)) mantienen acuerdos con Cuba.

Agente de Estados Unidos: La Fundación Hanns Seidel es un instrumento del ala derecha del partido CSU de Baviera

Este ensayo se centrará principalmente en el papel de la Fundación Hanns Seidel, haciendo referencia específicamente al papel que ha desempeñado en Cuba y Venezuela.

La Hanns Seidel Stiftung (HSS), a través de la derecha Baviera CSU, tiene una relación directa con el gobierno de Angela Merkel que, en muchos aspectos, es considerada un agente al servicio de Estados Unidos Históricamente, las actividades de la HSS han abarcado el apoyo a las políticas intervencionistas puestas en marcha por el ala derecha europea.

Muchas de las actividades de la HSS en los países en desarrollo así como en Europa del Este, se efectúan en colaboración con fundaciones estadounidenses, incluyendo la NED y la Fundación Open Society. La HSS también tiene vínculos con una gran variedad de grupos de pensamiento, incluyendo Chatham House (Instituto Real de Asuntos Internacionales) y el American Enterprise Institute. Es organizadora de conferencias, así como de programas de capacitación en colaboración con la OTAN, la Unión Europea y el gobierno alemán.

La Hanns Seidel Stiftung (HSS) ha intervenido en muchos países, de forma regular lo hace en colaboración con la NED y el Departamento de Estado de Estados Unidos. A principios de la década de 1990 participó en la llamada “revolución naranja” en Ucrania, provocando pobreza masiva y desestabilización de la economía ucraniana.

Más recientemente, la Hanns Seidel (HSS) ha construido fuertes vínculos con el régimen actual de Kiev, en gran parte con el fin de hacer frente a Moscú y llevar adelante la desestabilización de Donbass.

La HSS a través de su oficina de Washington realiza consultas de forma recurrente con el gobierno de Estados Unidos, el Congreso, grupos de expertos, incluidas las principales fundaciones asociadas.

HSS sigue manteniendo estrechos vínculos con el régimen de Kiev el cual, hay que decirlo, está integrado por dos bloques neonazis. La CSU y el HSS tienen vínculos informales con el servicio de inteligencia alemán, la Bundes Nachrichtendienst (BND).

Una de las principales actividades de la Fundación Hanns Seidel ha sido la cooptación de intelectuales de izquierda y académicos. Esto se ha llevado a cabo a través del financiamiento de grupos de pensamiento que están detrás de la toma de decisiones políticas clave así como de los institutos de investigación.

La Fundación Hanns Seidel en Venezuela

Es importante destacar que la Fundación Hanns Seidel (HSS) participó activamente en el financiamiento del candidato opositor Henrique Capriles Radonski en las elecciones de Venezuela el año 2012. Sus actividades se extienden mucho más allá de su apoyo a la candidatura de Capriles. En su informe trimestral, la HSS reconoce abiertamente su inconformidad con el proceso bolivariano. En este sentido, el HSS participó en la organización de una serie de conferencias en contra del gobierno [venezolano], en buena medida con el objetivo de defender el capitalismo de libre mercado (neoliberalismo) y desprestigiar al gobierno de Chávez. La HSS se utilizó también para crear vínculos con los partidos de derecha, incluyendo Copei y Primero Justicia.

Vale la pena señalar que hace más de 40 años, los partidos CDU y CSU (a la que la Fundación Hanns Seidel está afiliada) estaban involucrados en el otorgamiento de apoyos financieros a los protagonistas del golpe militar contra el presidente [de Chile] Salvador Allende. Y como consecuencia del golpe, luego proporcionaron ayuda económica al gobierno militar de Augusto Pinochet.

La HSS aún está involucrada en Venezuela, financiando una serie de proyectos. Su objetivo declarado es la desestabilización del gobierno bolivariano.

La Hanns Seidel, en representación de la CSU de Baviera, está metida además en el escenario político de varios países latinoamericanos como Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina y Bolivia. En Ecuador, la CSU a través la Hanns Seidel está cooperando con la Corporación Autogobierno y Democracia, la Fundación Acción y Desarrollo Comunitario (ACDECOM) y otras organizaciones de este tipo.

La Fundación Hanns Seidel en Cuba

Ahora voy a colocar el foco de atención en Cuba, centrándome en una actividad específica de la Fundación Hanns Seidel en la que yo estuve involucrado personalmente.

En octubre de 2015, fui invitado a participar en un evento internacional del Centro de Investigaciones de Política Internacional (CIPI), un centro de investigación y ‘think-tank’ que está afiliado al Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores. El tema de la conferencia fue analizar el proceso de transición geopolítica de cara a la normalización de las relaciones diplomáticas entre Cuba y Estados Unidos.

El evento llevaba el título: Transición geopolítica del poder global: Entre la cooperación y el conflicto

El evento fue financiado por la Hanns Seidel Stiftung. Se invitó a estudiosos de Europa Occidental, América Latina, África, Estados Unidos y Canadá.

Pocas semanas después de que acepté participar en el evento organizado por el CIPI, recibí un mensaje de la Fundación Hanns Seidel Stiftung informándome que el evento estaba siendo auspiciado por ellos y que estaban dispuestos a financiar la totalidad de mis gastos, incluyendo honorarios. El mensaje señalaba que iban a estar en contacto conmigo para tratar todos los asuntos relacionados con el contrato. También me pidieron que presentara una “propuesta de servicios” (oferta por mis servicios profesionales).

Yo estaba plenamente consciente de la historia detrás de la HSS, especialmente tenía conocimiento de la forma en que habían intervenido en las elecciones presidenciales de Venezuela de 2012 a favor de Capriles Radonski, con el fin de socavar en último término, a Hugo Chávez.

Me quedé muy sorprendido por el hecho de que la CIPI había solicitado fondos de la HSS. La intención de la HSS (actuando en nombre de la CSU de Baviera, un partido de derecha), en colaboración con sus organizaciones asociadas en Washington no era otro sino borrar del mapa el socialismo de Cuba. Todo esto a través de la cooptación de académicos e intelectuales cubanos para, después, dar paso a un proceso de transformación política de gran calado.

Respondí a la invitación HSS señalando tanto a ellos como a los organizadores del CIPI que yo mismo iba a ocuparme del financiamiento de mis gastos de viaje y alojamiento y que no veía ninguna necesidad de recibir financiamiento de parte de la HSS. Esta decisión generó confusión a lo largo de mi participación en la conferencia.

La conferencia de octubre en el año 2015

Lo que ocurrió: Hubieron muy buenas intervenciones de parte de destacados académicos y científicos cubanos y latinoamericanos sobre una gran variedad de temas de relevancia. Pero había varios hoyos negros en el programa [del evento], relacionados sin lugar a dudas con el hecho de que la HSS, vinculada a la CSU de Baviera, era quien estaba financiando el encuentro y, con ello, conseguido imponer sus propias condiciones.

1. Uno de los paneles de discusión tremendamente importante durante la conferencia fue el que abordó la realidad venezolana, centrándose en el futuro del gobierno bolivariano y su relación histórica con Cuba.

Sorprendentemente, ni un solo participante de Venezuela había sido invitado a la conferencia, con lo cual, se saboteó todo diálogo y debate entre los intelectuales de Cuba y Venezuela.

Todas las ponencias sobre Venezuela fueron de estudiosos de origen cubano.

Sin duda, la HSS había bloqueado la invitación de los intelectuales progresistas venezolanos comprometidos con la revolución bolivariana. El tema de la conferencia (es decir, la transición y la normalización con Estados Unidos) es de importancia crucial tanto para Cuba como para Venezuela.

Debe entenderse que, en el contexto actual, el futuro del socialismo cubano depende en gran medida del mantenimiento y la construcción de [buenas] relaciones entre Cuba y Venezuela en el marco de la revolución bolivariana. Así, la HSS se empeñó en negar diálogo político y debate entre los intelectuales de Cuba y Venezuela. El objetivo de la HSS era torpedear y debilitar la larga relación entre Cuba y el gobierno bolivariano de Venezuela. Irónicamente, nadie entre los organizadores y los participantes cubanos estaba al tanto de las triquiñuelas políticas que la Fundación Hanns Seidel había cometido en Venezuela.

En contraste, el panel de discusión sobre México incluyó cuatro distinguidos académicos de México. Había una delegación numerosa de mexicanos, así como de otros países de América Latina. Pero no se invitó a un solo venezolano.

2. En la sesión de la política exterior de Estados Unidos se incluyó al académico israelí Yossi Mekelberg, asociado con Chatham House, Instituto Real de Asuntos Internacionales (Reino Unido), un grupo de pensamiento de origen británico súper reaccionario, vinculado con el Consejo de Relaciones Exteriores (CFR, por sus siglas en inglés) con sede en Washington.

La ponencia del académico israelí puso de relieve una interpretación sesgada de lo que estaba ocurriendo en Siria y Palestina. La insurgencia terrorista comandada por Estados Unidos en Siria se presentó casualmente como una “guerra civil”, los palestinos fueron tachados de terroristas, y el presidente Bashar al Assad fue acusado de matar a su propia gente, de la misma forma que lo han venido acusando los medios de comunicación corporativos de Estados Unidos y el Reino Unido.

De acuerdo con Mekelberg, citado por la revista Newsweek, el ISIS “se parece” a los palestinos:

http://europe.newsweek.com/netanyahu-ramming-atttacks-isis-palestinians-inspired-541097?rm=eu

Los académicos cubanos que participaban en este panel de discusión no se tomaron ni siquiera la molestia de responder o expresar su desacuerdo.

La pregunta es ¿Por qué este individuo (afiliado a la Chatham House, de apoyo del régimen sionista de Tel Aviv) es invitado a la Cuba socialista por un centro de investigación asociado con el Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores de Cuba?

Históricamente, Cuba ha hecho patente su solidaridad con Palestina, lo mismo con las luchas de los pueblos de Siria e Irak, que actualmente son blancos de actos de agresión militar de parte de Estados Unidos y la OTAN.

¿Por qué no invitar a un experto socialista comprometido de origen palestino a debatir la política exterior de Estados Unidos? ¿O es que haberlo hecho contravenía las condiciones impuestas por el ala derecha de CSU de Baviera a través de la Fundación Hanns Seidel (HSS)?

3. Otro panel de discusión se centró en el tema de Ucrania. Entre los participantes se encontraba el presidente del Instituto Internacional para la Paz con sede en Viena, el profesor Hannes Swoboda, un (ex) miembro del Parlamento Europeo. Swoboda esbozó su apoyo a las operaciones de Estados Unidos y la OTAN en Europa del Este dirigidas en contra de Rusia, así como su respaldo al actual régimen de Kiev (integrado por dos bloques neonazis). Tampoco hubo reacción de parte de los intelectuales cubanos que participaron en esta discusión.

No lo olvidemos, el gobierno cubano ha expresado su solidaridad con el pueblo de Donbass y Crimea. A su vez, la gente de Donbass hizo expresa su solidaridad con Cuba y las enseñanzas de Fidel Castro (Véase más adelante). Pero nada de esto fue uno de los temas a discutir dentro de la conferencia organizada por el CIPI.

En palabras de Fidel Castro:

Cuba, que siempre ha destacado su solidaridad con el pueblo de Ucrania, y en los días difíciles de la tragedia de Chernóbil proporcionado atención médica a muchos niños afectados por la radiación nociva producto del accidente, siempre dispuesta a seguirlo haciendo, no puede dejar de expresar su repudio a la acción del gobierno anti-ruso, anti-ucraniano y pro-imperialista [Kiev]. (14 de julio de 2014)

Hannes Swoboda, invitado a Cuba por el CIPI es, ni más ni menos, un “anti-ruso, anti-ucraniano y pro-imperialista”. Como eurodiputado, inició (junto con otros diputados) las gestiones en el Parlamento Europeo para avalar las incursiones de la OTAN en contra de  Rusia, solicitando apoyo para el régimen ilegítimo Kiev. (Véase abajo)

Reflexiones finales: El legado de Fidel Castro                

Deseo sinceramente que los argumentos esgrimidos en el presente artículo sean puestos a discusión en Cuba. El gobierno cubano tiene por misión proteger los logros de la Revolución. En el contexto actual, esta no es una tarea sencilla. Como se ha señalado en la introducción, Washington tiene la intención no solamente de destruir la Revolución cubana, sino de borrar toda la historia del socialismo.

La intención de las fundaciones occidentales -operando directa o indirectamente, en nombre de Washington- no es otra sino la de producir grietas al interior de la sociedad cubana, a través de la infiltración y la cooptación, cuyo objetivo último es la restauración del capitalismo.

Estos mecanismos también se ven facilitados por el sistema de doble moneda en Cuba, situación que ha permitido a la Hanns Seidel y otras fundaciones europeas realizar pagos a grupos de pensamiento e institutos de investigación de origen cubano en moneda convertible (CUC).

El incremento de la “dolarización” entre los precios de consumo al por menor (expresado en CUC) propicia el empobrecimiento y las desigualdades sociales.

Los cubanos están muy conscientes de la escalada de esta crisis: las personas que obtienen ingresos en pesos convertibles CUC han ganado poder adquisitivo. Por el contrario, aquellos cuyos ingresos están denominados en pesos cubanos no convertibles, se han visto marginados de la economía de consumo en CUC.

La estrategia de amplio espectro ejecutada por Washington es la de poner en marcha medidas que contribuyan a desestabilizar la economía cubana y su sistema monetario, es decir, cualquier acción orientada a reintegrar a Cuba en una economía dolarizada mundial.

Las medidas de Washington contemplan además reintegrar a la economía cubana a la larga en el entramado del FMI, el Banco Mundial y la OMC, incluida la imposición de condicionalidades como parte de las políticas dirigidas hacia el desmantelamiento de los programas sociales de Cuba, el racionamiento de los bienes de consumo esenciales, etc.

Es decisivo poner un alto a todas estas iniciativas. El debate y la discusión sobre los mecanismos de la “normalización capitalista” son cruciales, tanto en Cuba como en el plano internacional.

Es que una narrativa revolucionaria en sí misma no puede soportar el legado de Fidel, a menos que esté respaldada por acciones concretas y políticas diseñadas cuidadosamente.

Los mecanismos de la restauración capitalista así como los distintos modos de interferencia política y de ingeniería social deben abordarse con firmeza y seriedad.

La batalla contra la guerra y el neoliberalismo sigue en pie.

Por la erradicación del neoliberalismo y la militarización que destruye las vidas de las personas,

Por la penalización absoluta de las guerras imperiales impulsadas por Estados Unidos,

Por un mundo de justicia social con una auténtica “responsabilidad de proteger” a los demás seres humanos,

Larga vida a Fidel Castro Ruz

Michel Chossudovsky

Artículo original en inglés:

To the People of Cuba: Is Washington Preparing a “Soft Coup”? The Co-optation of Cuban Intellectuals, publicado el 6 de marzo de 2017.

Traducido por Ariel Noyola Rodríguez para el Centro de Investigación sobre la Globalización (Global Research).

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

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

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On July 11, an outstanding news shook the world. The space race between two notorious millionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, was allegedly won by the latter. Branson went up into space nine days before Bezos. In response, Blue Origin refused to recognize Virgin Galactic’s voyage as a space flight.

From the beginning, New Shepard was designed to fly above the Kármán line so none of our astronauts have an asterisk next to their name. For 96% of the world’s population, space begins 100 km up at the internationally recognized Kármán line. pic.twitter.com/QRoufBIrUJ

— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) July 9, 2021

Unfortunately, a closer look at such incredible news should make readers more disappointed than impressed. In fact, even despite the wide popularization in recent years, nothing has happened in the field of space exploration for decades, nothing other than large PR campaigns.

Today is July 12th, 2021. The end of the first quarter of the 21st century is approaching. The first satellite was launched more than 60 years ago, back in 1957. The first man went into space in 1961. Americans landed on the Moon in 1969.  A major breakthrough was made in 1977, when a space probe U.S. Voyager 2 was launched to study the outer planets and interstellar space beyond the Sun’s heliosphere. It reached Uranus back in 1986 and Neptune in 1989.

This series of revolutionary discoveries ended with decades of fiasco. What happened next? A small US satellite called New Horizon, which is almost twice as light as Voyager 2, was launched directly to Pluto only 25 years later, and reached it in 2015.

The real aim of this “historical mission” can be seen in the stuff that the probe was filled with. A place that could be used to install more scientific equipment on board of the New Horizon was used for displacement of:

• a capsule with ashes of astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto,
• a CD with 434,738 names of people who participated in the NASA campaign “Send Your Name to Pluto”,
• two coins,
• two US flags,
• a fragment of the first inhabited private spacecraft Space Ship One,
• a CD with photos of the device and its developers,
• a US stamp of 1990 “Pluto: Not Yet Explored”.

What did those who sent this stuff into outer space think about? Did they expect that the American coin, flags and some ash would impress a potential outer space civilization, which might collide with this half-ton piece of metal somewhere beyond our galaxy? Obviously not. There are much less dummies in NASA than in the White House. Unfortunately, NASA reports to the White House, and not vice versa.

Sending trash to the outer space by the New Horizon was a large PR campaign, designed to shake up the information net on Earth. Indeed, the Voyager 2 was sent for scientific purposes. The New Horizon launched had two main goals:

• money laundering;
• shaking the global MSM.

Thus, today, there is nothing more than another campaign aimed at shaking of the global net, which serves as a bouncy castle for two representatives of the global oligarchy, Bezos and Branson, accompanied by Musk.

Branson, who published his famous book “Loosing My Virginity” back in 1998, finally built a super rocket and managed to rise it to an altitude of less then 100 km, making the second acrobat Bezos pitching a fit. What a sensational news in 2021!

Let’s remember the legendary epic “2001: a Space Odyssey”, filmed back in 1968 by Stanley Kubrick, such geniuses of science fiction as Arthur Clarke, Azik Azimov, Robert Heinlein, Stanislav Lem, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Ivan Efremov and others. All of them, who evaluated the potential directions of intensive mankind evolution in the second half of the 20th century, could not imagine that in 2021 Bezos&Branson PR would replace all really important achievements in the outer space exploration.

The social processes we are facing today are not an organic way of evolution, but they are deliberately moderated, since harnessing the energy of the solar system would dramatically change our reality. Overcoming of the closed system we are living in is the only way to achieve the real implementation of the ideal of universal equality, which socialists dreamed of in the second half of the 19th century.

The ability to go up into space not at someone’s own whim, but to achieve the common good, available to those who deserve it because of their knowledge, desires and physical capabilities and not because of their wallets, is what human progress is missing, while following the elite’s child play.

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In a new ruling read out in a Dutch courtroom yesterday, the judge presiding in the trial of allegations against the Russian state, military command and four named soldiers for shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 revealed new details of the US evidence allegedly proving that a Russian missile caused the crash. The judge, Hendrik Steenhuis, then refused to allow the lawyers representing the Russian defence to cross-examine the man from the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) who, Steenhuis now says,  signed his name to the evidence and has been sought for questioning. According to Steenhuis, questioning him would be “pointless”.

The allegation that a US satellite recorded the launch of a Russian-made BUK missile and then tracked it to detonation against MH17 on July 17, 2014, began in Washington not long after the incident. It originated with then-Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry has subsequently refused to substantiate his allegation. The US government has repeatedly refused to provide Dutch investigators of the crash with the satellite images. For the full story, read the book.

Left: Secretary of State John Kerry announced his claim to have seen US satellite images of the BUK attack on MH17 in Washington on July 20, 2014; he repeated the allegation in Australia on August 12, 2014. Centre:  the book refuting Kerry’s claim; it was published on October 1, 2020, and is available in Kindle and paperback.  Right: Dutch General Onno Eichelsheim whose military intelligence reports have contradicted Kerry’s allegations. In January of this year Eichelsheim was promoted to become chief of the Dutch Armed Forces.

There is explicit Dutch intelligence evidence available in the book that the US has been lying about what the satellite records show, and reason to believe they do not exist at all. This is because the classified US images have never been provided to the Dutch military intelligence agency MIVD which has requested them, nor to the Dutch police and prosecutors who have been trying to convict the Russians of premeditated murder in the shoot-down.

According to the MH17 trial record to date, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in Washington sent a memorandum to MIVD in The Hague, dated August 23, 2016; this claimed to prove that a Russian-made and Russian-fired BUK (also known as SA-11A) missile destroyed the MH17 in flight above eastern Ukraine.  However, since that date in mid-2016, US officials have refused to allow the evidence of the satellite images, or the details of the secret memorandum from being repeated, tested, and verified by the Dutch investigators and judges who have been requesting the evidence for several years. Read more on Steenhuis’s court statement on this issue last month here.

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‘President Joe Biden may be nearly done with America’s two-decade military involvement in Afghanistan, but another nearby war zone, where U.S. troops have been based for almost as long, is threatening to become a major thorn in the White House’s side: Iraq’, says Foreign Policy in its Situation Report on July 8, 2021, entitled ‘Red Alert in Iraq’. This comes after two fairly heated weeks in Iraq and Syria, where an escalation in the resistance groups operations against American troops was noticeable, both in frequency and in nature.

For instance, on Wednesday, July 7, 14 rockets hit Ain al-Assad Air Base, the largest military installation in Iraq housing U.S. troops, wounding at least two American soldiers. Another suicide drone attack, a day before, targeted U.S. forces based in Erbil airport, not far from where the U.S. consulate is located. Also, there were multiple improvised explosive device (IED) attacks against convoys transporting U.S. military logistic supplies, that took place in various Iraqi towns and cities in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, in Eastern Syria, U.S. occupation forces were busy fending off suicide drone and rocket attacks targeting al-Omar oilfield and nearby areas. Al-Omar oilfield is the largest in the country, and It is invested with both the U.S. forces and their collaborators  the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

No American soldiers have been killed in these recent intense activities in Iraq and Syria. However, Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, explains ‘It’s already very intense. The strikes aren’t killing people, but they could, easily, if they want them to’, and he adds ‘The missile defences are quietly working quite well. But what we haven’t seen is determined efforts to kill Americans’.

Many analysts consider this escalation a retaliation for the second round of U.S. airstrikes under Biden’s administration on June 27. Those airstrikes used the pretext ‘Iran-backed militia’, although in reality, they targeted a static Iraqi-Syrian border position of the Iraqi security forces (Popular Mobilisation Forces) under Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, killing four members of brigade 14 of the PMF.

While agreeing with this analysis in principle, I believe widening the scope would put the latest events in the broader context they deserve.

It is quite clear that Biden’s administration’s main foreign policy strategy, and indeed the U.S. establishment’s attitude in general of late, is to concentrate its overseas efforts on opposing the rise of China and Russia:  what Biden dubbed defending and strengthening democracy. This focus shift first took shape during Obama’s days in 2012 with his (unsuccessful) ‘Pivot to Asia’ policy and it has remained in principal a U.S. foreign policy objective since. But this shift naturally requires an improved allocation of U.S. resources.

Thus, when Biden came to power, he followed in the steps of his two predecessors in aiming to disengage from the ‘Middle East’ and West Asia in general as much as possible.

As the QUINCY Paper No. 7 entitled ‘Nothing Much to Do: Why America Can Bring All Troops Home From the Middle East’, published on June 24, 2021, poses the question ‘Three successive American Presidents — Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden — have pledged to end the post 9/11 wars and reunite U.S. soldiers with their families.

Yet, fulfilling that pledge has proven tougher than expected. Do U.S. interests in the region require so much of the U.S. military that full-scale withdrawals are not feasible?’. The paper argued that ‘the United States has no compelling military need to keep a permanent troop presence in the Middle East.

The two core U.S. interests in the region — preventing a hostile hegemony and ensuring the free flow of oil through the Straits of Hormuz — can be achieved without a permanent military presence. There are no plausible paths for an adversary, regional or extra-regional, to achieve a situation that would harm these core U.S. interests. No country can plausibly establish hegemony in the Middle East, nor can a regional power close the Strait of Hormuz and strangle the flow of oil. To the extent that the United States might need to intervene militarily, it would not need a permanent military presence in the region to do so’.

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, to be presumably fully completed by September 2021, was the first manifestation of Biden’s drawdown policy from West Asia. However, when it came to Iraq and Syria, the equations were quite different.

Despite Biden’s pledge to return to the JCPOA in his election campaign, there was an assessment that was widely spread between Iranian officials which says that the Biden administration would capitalise on Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ policy to extract concessions from Iran, before re-joining the JCPOA. Those concessions are related to two aspects:

• Change in Iran’s foreign policy, especially its support for resistance groups in the region. This is to  the benefit of the Zionist entity, which remains a core influence on U.S. foreign policy.
• Imposing restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missiles programme.

This American approach became apparent after Biden took office, and during the latest Vienna talks to salvage the nuclear deal. However, contrary to Biden’s false assumptions, the Americans found out that Iran will not give them any concessions, and that it meant what it said when Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei stated back in 2015 ‘We negotiated with the U.S. on the nuclear issue for specific reasons. The Americans performed well in the talks, but we didn’t and we won’t allow negotiation with the Americans on other issues’.

This has put the Americans in a quandary. Biden found that he could not withdraw from Iraq and Syria without getting guarantees from Iran and the Axis of Resistance related to the security of the Zionist entity, as the Axis of Resistance will never offer any guarantees at the expense of the Palestinians’ inalienable rights. Nor could Biden maintain the same level of American involvement in the ‘Middle East’ indefinitely. As this would be at the expense of the main U.S. foreign policy strategy, “Facing the Chinese challenge”, according to the terminology the  U.S. uses.

Furthermore, this American quandary has deepened after the battle of the ‘Sword of Jerusalem’ exposed many of the Zionist Entity’s [Israel]  weaknesses tactically and strategically in the face of the Axis of Resistance.

Based on this overview, we can expect a fairly heated summer for the U.S. occupation forces in the region, as from the Axis of Resistance point of view, the negotiations for the American withdrawal from the ‘Middle East’ and West Asia in general are not open-ended.

And it seems that the U.S. needs a nudge to decide whether: to start a meaningful and peaceful drawdown, with minimal losses; or risk a new ‘Middle East’ all-out war by trying to impose its sovereign will on the whole region.

And I believe, based on the Americans’ experience of the past two decades, that the consensus within the U.S. institutes is that the latter option would be highly costly. Not to mention that based on the current balance of powers in the region, as we read them, the outcome is not guaranteed to be in the favour of the U.S., nor in the favour of  “Israel” its closest ally.

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Amro Allan ( [email protected]), is an independent Palestinian writer and Political researcher. He writes for various Arabic news outlets, some of which are Al-Akhbar newspaper, Al-Mayadeen Satellite News Channel, Arabi 21, and Rai Al-Youm.

Featured image: U.S. transfers an airfield to Iraqi government forces in 2020. Credit: public domain

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Dr. Leana Wen, CNN analyst and Distinguished Fellow at the Fitzhugh Mullan Institute of Health Workforce Equity at George Washington University, has caused a stir due to her recent declaration on CNN that “it needs to be hard for people to remain unvaccinated.” With France implementing a mandatory “health pass” and private companies like Morgan Stanley requiring vaccinations for employees to return to work, we can expect more protests and challenges around the world. Those cases are likely to focus on whether mandatory requirements are based on medical or political imperatives. Wen’s comment is likely to be repeated in many filings as another case of “saying the quiet part out loud.” She appears to advocate measures defined to coerce people to take vaccinations due to the continuing refusal of a sizable number of people.

Wen is a well-known medical analyst and the former head of Planned Parenthood. She is a visiting professor at George Washington University.

Wen made clear that health measures should be used to make life hard for people who refuse the vaccine so that they yield to public demands: “[b]asically, we need to make getting vaccinated the easy choice.” In the Washington Post, Wen also called for “Biden to make the case for vaccine requirements.”

There is already open pressure from the White House on private companies to require vaccinations. Morgan Stanley responded by doing just that this week. They can likely do so. The most serious challenges could come from those with religious objections. However, even if they are allowed to work remotely, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman stated in July that “If you want to get paid New York rates, you work in New York. None of this, ‘I’m in Colorado…and getting paid like I’m sitting in New York City. Sorry, that doesn’t work.” The message could not be clearer that working remotely will come at a penalty.

The Biden White House is clearly concerned that making vaccines mandatory will cause not just court challenges but a public backlash. However, such mandatory programs have been upheld. As I discussed in a column last year, there is a 1905 case where the Supreme Court upheld a state mandatory vaccination program of school children for small pox in Massachusetts. In Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905), the Court found that such programs are the quintessential state power rather than a federal power. It also held that “every well-ordered society charged with the duty of conserving the safety of its members the rights of the individual in respect of his liberty may at times, under the pressure of great dangers, be subjected to such restraint, to be enforced by reasonable regulations, as the safety of the general public may demand.” States are allowed to subject citizens to restraints to protect “general comfort, health, and prosperity of the State.”

The fear is that, as with social media companies carrying out censorship of political and social viewpoints, companies will now serve as surrogates for the state on vaccinations. The Administration would prefer to do precisely what Wen advocated: ratchet up the private penalties and difficulties for anyone who wants to remain unvaccinated.

The problem is when you have leading analysts arguing for such measures as coercive devices. While there is considerable deference on such matters, the courts could take note of such demands to make life hard on those who are not “getting with the program.”

As of July 11, a total of 159,266,536 Americans have been fully vaccinated. That is 48 percent of the country’s population. When you consider the extremely high rate of vaccination for those over 65, the percentage of adults under 65 is even smaller. Despite all of the press and bizarre reward systems, the government is clearly hitting a wall with many people declining the vaccines.  (For the record, I took the vaccine and all of my family has been vaccinated).

That is a sizable number of voters and the Democrats are leery of openly forcing vaccines before the 2022 election. That is why the push is to make life more difficult through private companies. However, if these measures are viewed as designed to coerce, courts may be more scrutinizing of the public health necessity for the measures.

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We have previously covered the story of Dr. Charles Hoffe, the brave doctor who has been practicing medicine for 28 years in the small, rural town of Lytton in British Columbia, Canada.

After he had administered about 900 doses of the Moderna experimental mRNA COVID-19 injections, he sounded the alarm over the severe reactions he was observing in his patients who chose to get the shot (he chose NOT to get it himself), which included death.

The result of him sounding the alarm was a gag order issued against him by the medical authorities in his community. He defied this gag order and was interviewed by Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson on her show where he sounded the alarm. See: Canadian Doctor Defies Gag Order and Tells the Public How the Moderna COVID Injections Killed and Permanently Disabled Indigenous People in His Community

His punishment for going public to warn others on the dangers of these experimental shots was that he was relieved from hospital duty and lost half of his income: Canadian Doctor Removed from Hospital Duty after Speaking out about COVID “Vaccine” Side Effects

Last week, Dr. Hoffe was interviewed again by Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson, and he continues to share his findings with the public regarding the experimental COVID-19 shots.

Dr. Hoffe is truly a hero today, risking not only his reputation, but probably his very life to bring important information regarding the COVID-19 shots that the Globalists who control the corporate media and social media are trying very hard to censor.

In this latest interview, Dr. Hoffe states that the blood clots that are being reported in the corporate media as being “rare” are anything but rare, based on his own testing of his own patients who had recently received one of the shots.

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.

Using this test with his own patients, Dr. Hoffe claims that he has found evidence of small blood clots in 62% of his patients who have been injected with an mRNA shot.

He states that these people are now permanently disabled, and they will no longer “be able to do what they used to do.”

These people have no idea they are even having these microscopic blood clots. 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.

His warning is very dire: “These shots are causing huge damage and the worst is yet to come.”

This is an 8 minute clip from the original interview, and we have posted it on our Bitchute channel and Rumble channel.

Is Canada Finally Starting to Pay Attention to these Dissenting Doctors Sounding the Alarm?

Dr. Hoffe is not the only doctor to sound the alarm over serious side effects from the COVID-19 shots.

Last month we covered the press conference given in Ontario at Parliament Hill that was arranged by MP Derek Sloan and featured four other Canadian doctors who were also being censored over what they are seeing and reporting regarding the COVID-19 shots. See: Canadian Politician Derek Sloan Uses Parliament Hill to Give Voices to Censored Doctors and Scientists Blowing the Whistle on COVID-19 Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity

Are these public testimonies from doctors who dare to question the official narrative in the face of tremendous censorship, ridicule, and even threats starting to make a difference in Canada?

Maybe.

Yesterday there was a Press Release from the COVID-19 Immunity Task Force in Canada. This group is comprised of:

experts from across Canada in matters related to serologic surveillance, immunology, virology, infectious diseases, public health, and clinical medicine. It also includes ex-officio members representing agencies of the Government of Canada, including the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and the office of the Chief Scientific Advisor to the Prime Minister, as well as representatives of Provincial-Territorial Ministries of Health, and McGill University (host of the Secretariat). (Source.)

This is the first time I have ever seen in any country a group with ties to government health agencies admit that there are seriously injured individuals from the COVID-19 shots, and that strategies need to be developed to deal with their injuries.

Some injuries have been acknowledged in the U.S. by the FDA, but the only action they have taken is to add warnings to the shots – nothing about how to treat the victims and their injuries.

To be sure, this group in Canada keeps stating the official narrative that “the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccination continue to outweigh the risks” while supplying no underlying data or studies to prove this statement, but the fact that they are even admitting that there are people injured by the shots that need help, is huge.

The Government of Canada, through its COVID-19 Immunity Task Force (CITF) and Vaccine Surveillance Reference Group (VSRG), is investing approximately $800,000 for a study that aims to further improve Canada’s identification and response to adverse events people may experience following COVID-19 vaccination across 10 provinces. This study is an extension of an existing vaccine safety program that provides important public health information about adverse events following immunization (AEFI) for all vaccines authorized for use in adults and children.

Let’s hope this is not just another excuse to spend money with no results, but that something substantive could come out of such a study, that quite possibly was motivated by the honest physicians in Canada who risked their careers and lives to bring the truth to the public.

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Brianne Dressen, who accumulated more than $250,000 in medical bills after participating in AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine clinical trial, is collaborating with two U.S. Senators to get help for others injured by COVID vaccines.

A Utah woman and two U.S. senators are teaming up to get answers from federal health agencies about life-altering injuries people have experienced after receiving a COVID vaccine.

Brianne Dressen is a preschool teacher from Utah who was injured after participating in AstraZeneca’s COVID vaccine clinical trial in November 2020. She has accumulated more than $250,000 in medical bills as a result of injuries she believes were caused by the vaccine.

Dressen said within one hour of being vaccinated she had tingling down her arm. By the time she got home her vision was blurry and doubled. Her sensitivity became so severe that she had to wear earmuffs and sunglasses all the time.

That’s when things took a turn for the worse. “Things progressed quickly,” Dressen said. She experienced neurological decline, but no one could explain why. After a neurological scan, doctors said it looked as if she had multiple sclerosis (MS).

According to Mayo Clinic, MS is a potentially disabling disease of the brain and spinal cord where the immune system attacks the protective sheath (myelin) that covers nerve fibers and causes communication problems between the brain and the rest of the body.

Dressen lost the use of her legs, as her symptoms worsened. After running several MRI’s, CT scans and lumbar punctures, doctors still had no answers, ABC4 News reported.

Dressen said she spent months teaching herself how to walk, eat and form sentences again — all while she traveled in search of answers.

“The hospital didn’t know what was going on … none of the neurologists that I saw knew what was going on,” Dressen said. “I called the test clinic several times and they had no idea what was going on.”

Dressen spoke with others who are dealing with the same symptoms after getting vaccinated, and she wants people injured by COVID vaccines to get help.

“I want the CDC to do the right thing and communicate with the medical community so these people can get help,” Dressen said. “I want the public to be able to have the full picture so they can make an informed decision.”

Senators demand answers from CDC, FDA and vaccine makers

Dressen, along with other people who said they were injured by vaccines but “repeatedly ignored” by the medical community, participated late last month in a news conference held by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

.@SenRonJohnson + former Green Bay Packers Ken Ruettgers held press conference with families who want to "be seen, heard + believed by medical community" after suffering adverse reactions to COVID vaccines.

SUBSCRIBE #TheDefender: https://t.co/zL66Edfiw5https://t.co/RIOEvNJ4uj

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) June 29, 2021

Following the news conference, Johnson and Utah Sen. Mike Lee wrote a letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stating the agencies had ignored requests for assistance and answers from families injured by COVID vaccines.

The Senators wrote:

“The very existence of these infirmities is financially, physically and emotionally debilitating for the afflicted individuals and their families. These individuals have previously expressed to both CDC Director Walensky and Food and Drug Administration Acting Commissioner Woodcock that they desire answers and assistance. Thus far, their requests have been ignored or gone without a substantive response.”

Lee and Johnson said widespread lack of acknowledgement of adverse events following receipt of a COVID vaccine has made it nearly impossible for some individuals to obtain the medical treatment they need, and that risks must be disclosed to the medical community and general public.

“If any of the COVID-19 vaccines truly cause adverse events of the severity noted above, even in a small percentage of cases, these risks must be disclosed, particularly to the medical community so that healthcare professionals are properly informed and may provide necessary treatment, care, and information to the general public as they weigh the risks and benefits of being vaccinated,” the Senators wrote.

In the letter, Lee and Johnson asked the FDA and CDC about the adverse events suffered during clinical trials, disclosed in the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization Memorandum for the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, as well as reported injuries from the U.S. AstraZeneca trial.

Lee and Johnson asked whether the CDC is working with physicians and researchers at the FDA, National Institutes of Health or other medical research bodies to provide the various individuals who experienced adverse effects vaccine treatment and care.

According to the most recent VAERS data, between Dec. 14, 2020, and July 2, 2021, a total of 438,441 total adverse events were reported to VAERS, including 9,048 deaths and 41,015 serious injuries.

Obtaining federal compensation for COVID vaccine injuries is rare

As The Defender reported July 8, people facing huge medical bills after being injured by a COVID vaccine have few options beyond what their own health insurance covers, because a federal law shields vaccine makers from liability.

People injured by COVID vaccines are asking for help on GoFundMe as the U.S. government shields vaccine makers from liability.

SUBSCRIBE #TheDefender: https://t.co/zL66Edfiw5https://t.co/361lGVhZJv

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) July 8, 2021

The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 and U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Russell Bruesewitz et al v. Wyeth et al, guaranteed vaccine manufacturers, doctors and other vaccine administrators have almost no legal accountability or financial liability in civil court when a government recommends or mandates a vaccine that causes permanent injury or death.

In 2005, Congress passed the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP), which authorizes the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to issue a declaration providing immunity from tort liability for claims of loss caused by medical countermeasures (e.g., vaccines, drugs, products) against diseases or other threats of public health emergencies.

On Feb. 4, 2020, HHS invoked the PREP Act when it declared COVID-19 to be a public health emergency. On Jan. 21, HHS amended the act, extending the liability shield to include additional categories of qualified persons authorized to prescribe, dispense and administer COVID-19 vaccines authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

In exchange for immunity for vaccine makers, under the PREP Act, the federal government pledged compensation for adverse reactions to COVID treatments and vaccines through a program called the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), run by HHS.

As The Defender reported July 1, since the CICP program’s inception in 2010, only 29 claims have been paid, with an average payout of around $200,000. The other 452 claims (91.4%) were denied. Ten claims won approval but were deemed ineligible for compensation.

Only about 8% of people who applied to the CICP with vaccine injuries in the past received payouts, and there are no protections from the U.S. legal system.

Prominent vaccine injury law firm says it can’t help people injured by COVID vaccines because COVID vaccines are not covered under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, forcing many to raise funds for their injuries online.https://t.co/pob7n5TZiw

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) July 2, 2021

HHS forced to post data related to the CICP

HHS last month agreed to post data related to the CICP, thanks to an investigation by Atlanta television news station, 11Alive, an affiliate of WXIA-TV.

For nine months, 11Alive’s investigative team reported on the lack of transparency within the CICP. Last month, the government released data on the CICP requested by 11Alive and agreed to make the data available to the public.

As of July 1, the CICP reported 1,165 claims filed. According to its website, the CICP has not compensated any COVID-19 claims. Two COVID-related claims were denied because the applicant couldn’t prove the countermeasure caused their injury. One claim was associated with intubation, the other the vaccine. Almost all of the claims are still waiting to be medically reviewed.

“I think people sometimes have a distrust in government and people think that the government is hiding things from them when they’re not being transparent,” said Melissa Wasser with Project on Government Oversight. “The public has a right to know this information, especially with all of the government resources being used.”

The CICP website outlines the parameters of the program, which provides compensation for medical expenses, lost employment income and survivor death benefits as “the payer of last resort,” covering only what remains unpaid or unpayable by other third parties, such as health insurance.

Under the CICP program, attorney fees are not covered. There is no court, judge or right to appeal. Those who believe they’ve suffered an injury from a COVID vaccine only have one year from the date of injury to file a claim.

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Megan Redshaw is a freelance reporter for The Defender. She has a background in political science, a law degree and extensive training in natural health.

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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is on a Central Asian loop all through the week. He’s visiting Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The last two are full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, founded 20 years ago.

The SCO heavyweights are of course China and Russia. They are joined by four Central Asian “stans” (all but Turkmenistan), India and Pakistan. Crucially, Afghanistan and Iran are observers, alongside Belarus and Mongolia.

And that leads us to what’s happening this Wednesday in Dushanbe, the Tajik capital. The SCO will hold a 3 in 1: meetings of the Council of Foreign Ministers, the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group, and a conference titled “Central and South Asia: Regional Connectivity, Challenges and Opportunities.”

At the same table, then, we will have Wang Yi, his very close strategic partner Sergey Lavrov and, most importantly, Afghan Foreign Minister Mohammad Haneef Atmar. They’ll be debating trials and tribulations after the hegemon’s withdrawal and the miserable collapse of the myth of NATO “stabilizing” Afghanistan.

Let’s game a possible scenario: Wang Yi and Lavrov tell Atmar, in no uncertain terms, that there’s got to be a national reconciliation deal with the Taliban, brokered by Russia-China, with no American interference, including the end of the opium-heroin ratline.

Russia-China extract from the Taliban a firm promise that jihadism won’t be allowed to fester. The endgame: loads of productive investment, Afghanistan is incorporated to Belt and Road and – later on – to the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).

The SCO’s joint statement on Wednesday will be particularly enlightening, perhaps detailing how the organization plans to coordinate a de facto Afghan peace process farther down the road.

In this scenario, the SCO now has the chance to implement what it has been actively discussing for years: that only an Asian solution to the Afghan drama applies.

Sun Zhuangzhi, executive director of the Chinese Research Center of the SCO, sums it all up: the organization is capable of coming up with a plan mixing political stability, economic and security development and a road map for infrastructure development projects.

The Taliban agree. Spokesman Suhail Shaheen has stressed, “China is a friendly country that we welcome for reconstruction and developing Afghanistan.”

On the Silk Road again

After economic connectivity, another SCO motto encouraged by Beijing since the early 2000s is the necessity to fight the “three evils”: terrorism, separatism and extremism. All SCO members are very much aware of jihadi metastases threatening Central Asia – from ISIS-Khorasan to shady Uighur factions currently fighting in Idlib in Syria, as well as the (fading) Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).

The Taliban is a way more complex case. It’s still branded as a terrorist organization by Moscow. Yet on the new, fast-evolving chessboard, both Moscow and Beijing know the importance of engaging the Taliban in high-stakes diplomacy.

Wang Yi has already impressed upon Islamabad – Pakistan is a SCO member – the need to set up a trilateral mechanism, with Beijing and Kabul, to advance a feasible political solution to Afghanistan while managing the security front.

Here, from China’s point of view, it’s all about the multi-layered China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), to which Beijing plans to incorporate Kabul. Here is a detailed CPEC progress update.

Building blocks include the deal struck between China Telecom and Afghan Telecom already in 2017 to build a Kashgar-Faizabad fiber optic cable system and then expand it toward a China-Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan-Afghanistan Silk Road system.

Directly connected is the deal signed in February among Islamabad, Kabul and Tashkent to build a railway that in fact may establish Afghanistan as a key crossroads between Central and South Asia. Call it the SCO corridor.

All of the above was solidified by a crucial trilateral meeting last month among China-Pakistan-Afghanistan Foreign Ministers. Team Ghani in Kabul renewed its interest in being connected to Belt and Road – which translates in practice into an expanded CPEC. The Taliban said exactly the same thing last week.

Wang Yi knows very well that jihadism is bound to target CPEC. Not Afghanistan’s Taliban, though. And not the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), as quite a few CPEC projects (fiber optics, for instance) will improve infrastructure in Peshawar and environs.

Afghanistan in trade connectivity with CPEC and a key node of the New Silk Roads could not make more sense – even historically, as Afghanistan was always embedded in the ancient Silk Roads. Crossroads Afghanistan is the missing link in the connectivity equation between China and Central Asia. The devil, of course, will be in the details.

The Iranian equation

Then, to the West, there’s the Iranian equation. The recently solidified Iran-China strategic partnership may eventually lead to closer integration, with CPEC expanded to Afghanistan. The Taliban are keenly aware of it. As part of their current diplomatic offensive, they have been to Tehran and made all the right noises towards a political solution.

A map shows the route of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/ Wanishahrukh

Their joint statement with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif privileges negotiations with Kabul. The Taliban commit to refrain from attacking civilians, schools, mosques, hospitals and NGOs.

Tehran – an observer at the SCO and on the way to becoming a full member – is actively talking to all Afghan actors. No fewer than four delegations were visiting last week. The head of Kabul’s team was former Afghan Vice President Yunus Qanooni (a former warlord, as well), while the Taliban were led by Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, who commands their political office in Doha. This all implies serious business.

There are already 780,000 registered Afghan refugees in Iran, living in refugee villages along the border and not allowed to settle in major cities. But there are also at least 2.5 million illegals. No wonder Tehran needs to pay attention. Zarif once again is in total synch with Lavrov – and with Wang Yi, for that matter: a non-stop war of attrition between the Kabul government and the Taliban could lead only to “unfavorable” consequences.

The question, for Tehran, revolves around the ideal framework for negotiations. That would point to the SCO. After all, Iran has not participated in the snail-paced Doha mechanism for over two years now.

A debate is raging in Tehran on how to deal practically with the new Afghan equation. As I saw for myself in Mashhad less than three years ago, migration from Afghanistan – this time from skilled workers fleeing the Taliban advance – may actually help the Iranian economy.

Aerial view of Mashhad. Photo: Wikipedia

The director general of the West Asia desk at Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Rasoul Mousavi, goes straight to the point:  “The Taliban yield” to the Afghan people. “They are not separated from Afghanistan’s traditional society, and they have always been part of it. Moreover, they have military power.”

On the ground in western Afghanistan, in Herat – linked by a very busy highway corridor across the border to Mashhad – things are more complicated. The Taliban now control most of Herat province, apart from two districts.

Legendary local warlord Ismail Khan, now in his mid-70s, and carrying an overloaded history of fighting the Taliban, has deployed militias to guard the city, the airport and its outskirts.

Yet the Taliban have already vowed, in diplomatic talks with China, Russia and Iran, that they are not planning to “invade” anyone – be it Iran or the Central Asian “stans.” Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen has been adamant that cross-border trade in different latitudes, from Islam Quilla (in Iran) to Torghundi (in Turkmenistan) and across northern Tajikistan will “remain open and functional.”

That non-withdrawal withdrawal

In a fast-evolving situation, the Taliban now control at least half of Afghanistan’s 400 districts and are “contesting” dozens of others. They are policing some key highways (you can’t go on the road from Kabul to Kandahar, for instance, and avoid Taliban checkpoints). They do not hold any major city, yet. At least 15 of 34 regional capitals – including strategic Mazar-i-Sharif – are encircled.

Afghan news media, always very lively, have started to ask some tough questions. Such as: ISIS/Daesh did not exist in Iraq before the 2003 US invasion and occupation. So how come ISIS-Khorasan emerged right under NATO’s noses?

Within the SCO, as diplomats told me, there’s ample suspicion that the US deep state agenda is to fuel the flames of imminent civil war in Afghanistan and then extend it to the Central Asian “stans,” complete with shady jihadi commandos mixed with Uighurs also destabilizing Xinjiang.

This being the case, the non-withdrawal withdrawal – what with all those remaining 18,000 Pentagon contractors/mercenaries, plus special forces and CIA black op types – would be a cover, allowing Washington a new narrative spin: the Kabul government has invited us to fight a “terrorist” re-emergence and prevent a spiral towards civil war.

The protracted endgame would read like win-win hybrid war for the deep state and its NATO arm.

Well, not so fast. The Taliban have warned all the “stans” in no uncertain terms about hosting US military bases. And even Hamid Karzai is on the record: enough with American interference.

All these scenarios will be discussed in detail this Wednesday in Dushanbe. As well as the bright part: the – now very feasible – future incorporation of Afghanistan to the New Silk Roads.

Back to the basics: Afghanistan returns, in style, to the heart of the 21^st Century New Great Game.

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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: The Great Game: This lithograph by British Lieutenant James Rattray shows Shah Shuja in 1839 after his enthronement as Emir of Afghanistan in the Bala Hissar (fort) of Kabul. Rattray wrote: ‘A year later the sanctity of the scene was bloodily violated: Shah Shuja was murdered.’ Photo: Wikipedia

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The following commentary reflects on how China is slowly catching up to the USA in terms of AI technology and moving away from informatized warfare to intelligentized warfare. China is no longer in a position of technological inferiority and is slowly making its presence felt in the world.

China is no longer in a position of technological inferiority but instead sees itself as close to catching up with and overtaking the United States in AI. The USA still trots on its idea of yesterday as if it were still the new thing – something called “ informatized” (信息化) warfare. China is conceptually already beyond the US. China now implements “intelligentized” (智能化) warfare.

1. Quantum Computing

Quantum computing can solve combinations. Let’s say that a code-key has 1 trillion possibilities and only one solution. A supercomputer spending 1 microsecond to check each possibility will spend about one week to find the one solution on average. A quantum computer can do it in about 1 second. Quantum computing will create unbreakable codes and communication. Even against other quantum computers. And quantum-seals will prove if a message (for example, sensor data or an electronic combat order) has been tampered with. Quantum computing will make it possible to crack all codes and messages in existence today within the realm of non-quantum technologies. A quantum superpower can protect its networks – and overtake or deceive combat platforms, sensors (including in space, air, and oceans), combat units, nodes, and the combat-HQ of the opponent. In addition, quantum computing will revolutionize other sciences, including chemistry and material sciences relevant for militaries. Quantum computing will also revolutionize power management and logistics – including the military.

In military conceptualization, C4ISR stands for Command, Control, Communications, Computers (C4) Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR). Quantum computing code technologies can overtake the opponents’ C4ISR and civilian infrastructure, disturb it, disable it, destroy it, or turn the opponent’s forces against him. Without firing a shot. Quantum computing will bring encryption, AI, and everything else computing up to a level so high that it is still incomprehensible by human imagination.

China, in May 2021, announced that the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) had developed the World’s most advanced quantum computer. When we compare the measurements of the three P’s – People, Products, and Processes – in quantum computing, it is clear that China comes out number one. The USA is in second place.  

2. Artificial Intelligence

China is also already the World-leader in AI. This year, China announced Wu Dao 2.0 – by far the most advanced AI system in the World – ever. China is also by far the World’s leader in the production of AI research papers. The USA is number two, and India stands third. Patents are essential but a problematic measure because a lot of AI depends upon how you apply it. China will also be wary of disclosing all its tech secrets through patent filing. The USA has a law to secretly confiscate all foreign patents and give them to its own US military industry. At the same time as the USA secretly appropriates patents and Intellectual Property (IP), the USA shouts up about others “copying” and “spying” on the USA. The USA, through the Invention Secrecy Act of 1951 (Publ. L. 82-256) also prevents own military relevant patents from being filed.

According to the China AI Development Report, July 2018 (CAIDR), China is the global leader in AI investments, with 60% of total AI investments 2013-Q12018 (the USA less than 30%). The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) was by 2018 the research institution with the World’s highest concentration of AI talent, with 1,244 researchers. Number two was NASA with 103 (CAIDR fig. 2-35). Having AI talent concentrated is a considerable advantage, which does not preclude intense competition between teams. China is betting big by opening high profile AI research institutions. For instance, in 2018, China established the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence (BAAI). Outside China, the most significant private companies represent a spread-out of AI talent on IBM (538), Microsoft (341), Google (256), Tata of India (189), and Siemens (176) (CAIDR fig. 2-37). China is now on its way to becoming the first global superpower for Artificial Intelligence. 

3. Intelligentized warfare

No doubt, with quantum computing and AI, China is excellently positioned to become a World leader in using computing science, also for military purposes. And China reveals advanced conceptual thinking beyond what the USA can do by developing frontier-breaking new military concepts like “intelligentized” warfare. So, what is “intelligentized” warfare? It is an open-ended idea – an idea with enormous power. This idea will develop so fast that we might as well ourselves start to build on it. So let me, therefore, present my perspective on it.

For example, wide beyond “autonomous” systems, “intelligentized “warfare also includes:

Intelligence-enhanced sensor-networks. AI is already needed to map changes in satellite images. Add to this the challenge of data-fusion, creating and interpreting a full real-time map of events across the electromagnetic spectrum, across space, air, land, and sea assets – plus other sources like media, political and popular events etc. For instance, Google’s “Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone” (GDELT 2.0) monitors media in 65 languages in the whole World, translates it, categorizes all events, counts, quotes, people, organizations, social media posts, locations, themes, analyze images, videos, and 2,300 emotions, and places this in a global context – within 15 minutes. Such AI-supported analyses of the World of politics, public units, ethnic and social units can then be further analyzed for strengths or weaknesses on a specific issue for a country like BRI and China.

Add the above capability to analyze global speech, topics, and tones and sender-receiver in all languages when secretly tapping into the totality of all global electronic communication (like the USA does, ref. Edward Snowden).

AI can then analyze and manipulate social and political events and decisions at all levels, including distortion of messages or inserting fake messages. AI systems can simulate the voicing, text style, and even video of any person pretending to be that person. Sender- receiver believe they communicate with each other – but in reality, both communicate with a CIA controlled AI system, which changes their communication without any of them knowing. That can bring down governments, either through fracture or by engineered “color revolution”. This is only a small beginning. 

Cyber-security will real-time be mapped onto the same situational picture. And keep in mind that several threats today move so fast and in such complex ways that they will not be perceptible to the human mind (at least not before it is too late). 

To understand this complexity, we must have two dimensions in mind: First is speed. At hypersonic speed, there will be little or no time for the human mind to react. The second is complexity and cognition. Some political, media, economic, and military developments do not move that fast. But they are so complex that the human mind, limits of education, and imagination (!) result in immense problems combining such diverse fields to a comprehensive picture – and hence simply understand it and act constructively.

This drives a need for AI and automatization of the whole battle-understanding, which becomes ever more challenging to comprehend fully on ALL levels. From the individual fighters to units, groups, divisions, armies, to the top-most grand strategic level across combat, economy, culture, information, propaganda, counter-propaganda on own and opposite populations and units. 

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This article was originally published on USANAS Foundation.

Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden. 

Featured image is from Gerd Altmann via USANAS Foundation

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As winter turned to spring, many in the United States breathed a sigh of relief because the pandemic picture seemed to be getting better. People flooded social media with vaccination pics as case counts trended down and news outlets mused about just how great summer would be—reunions, restaurant dinners, and travel finally made safer. But with the remnants of Fourth of July barbecue still baked onto America’s patio grills, Pfizer and BioNTech, the makers of one of the most powerful COVID-19 vaccines, decided to bring a big, sopping wet blanket to the social reopening that news outlets have started to call “hot vax summer.”

Pfizer’s chief scientific officer Mikael Dolsten told Reuters that six months after getting the Pfizer shot, “there likely is the risk of reinfection as antibodies, as predicted, wane.” The company planned to ask the US government to authorize a third shot of its near-miraculous vaccine and even test a new vaccine specifically tailored to the new highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus causing the pandemic.

White House officials worried the announcement would drive vaccine skepticism if people thought the shots were good only for six months. World Health Organization officials lashed out at Pfizer for recommending boosters when health care workers and others in much of the world couldn’t even get a first shot, much less a controversial third shot of the vaccine. And scientists questioned whether the boosters were even necessary.

With less than 50 percent of the United States fully vaccinated, and the low-hanging fruit of the country’s vaccine drive (e.g., everyone who posted a picture of their vaccine card on social media) mostly vaccinated, the Biden administration and state and local officials are struggling to boost coverage, including in areas where vaccine hesitancy can run high.

Despite lotteries and scholarship giveaways, and even as cases start to tick up in many states, vaccination trend lines are creeping down.

“You know what would really help?” Ashish K. Jha, dean of Brown School of Public Health, tweeted. “Ensuring the 25M who have 1 shot get their 2^nd. And [e]nsuring the 100M eligible who have zero shots get their first. That would help keep everyone safe”

Other experts question whether boosters are even necessary. “At this point I see no evidence to support recommending them,” Emory University expert Carlos del Rio tweeted.

As part of its push for booster shots, Pfizer cited Israeli data showing that after six months, its vaccine was less effective at preventing both infection and symptomatic disease. On July 5, the government reported vaccine’s effectiveness at preventing infection and symptomatic disease had fallen to 64 percent, while in May, the government reported the Pfizer vaccine was 95 percent effective at preventing infection, hospitalization, and severe disease, according to Reuters. Some scientists questioned the Israeli data’s limitations, but the government there has already started giving Pfizer booster shots to patients with compromised immune systems.

Pfizer has suggested a reduction in antibodies to the coronavirus as a reason a booster shot is needed, but the immune system has more than one trick up its sleeve. In addition to antibodies that help the body identify pathogens, the body also produces memory B cells, for example, which exist in bone marrow and bodily organs and can produce new antibodies after an exposure. These cells can persist for years. “Antibody response is not the only measure of immune protection,” Leana S. Wen, a former health commissioner for Baltimore, told The New York Times.

If the US government changes course and recommends boosters, the move would likely put even more wind in Pfizer’s already billowing financial sails. The company reported a more than $1 billion increase in net income in the first three months of the year as compared to 2020 and has projected it would sell $26 billion of COVID-19 vaccination doses in 2021. John P. Moore, an immunologist at Weill Cornell Medicine, told The Washington Post he worried that Pfizer was making an opportunistic pitch. Boosters may be necessary, he said, “but to say we need it now and give the public the impression the vaccines are failing and something needs to be done as a matter of urgency. … The time isn’t now,” he said.

With booster shots representing a potential market of somewhere between $11 and $37 billion for Pfizer, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence analysis, and hints that the company’s discounted pandemic pricing may come to end (currently shots cost the US government $19.50, but the company has said a more typical price might be as high as $175), Pfizer clearly has a financial incentive to push boosters.

Pfizer didn’t answer a question about whether the profit motive was driving its push for boosters, instead telling the Bulletin in a statement that the company has  “a sense of urgency in staying ahead of the virus.” It’s a sentiment, the statement said, that the US government also shared. For now, at least, the federal government is keeping its excitement over boosters in check. “Americans who have been fully vaccinated do not need a booster shot at this time,” the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration said in joint statement. So for now, in the United States at least, the hot vax summer goes on.

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Matt Field is an associate editor at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Before joining the Bulletin, he covered the White House, Congress, and presidential campaigns as a news producer for Japanese public television. He has also reported for print outlets in the Midwest and on the East Coast. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University.

Featured image is from Pixabay

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Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland held a phone conversation with the Head of the Ukrainian President’s Office Andriy Yermak to discuss what the National News Agency of Ukraine reported was the situation in Belarus. The two were described as having “expressed concern” over developments in Ukraine’s northern neighbor. A nation doesn’t want Nuland to be concerned, much less gravely concerned over its internal affairs given her political track record.

Unlike her telephone conversation with then U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt in 2014 in which she dictated the composition of a post-coup government in that nation weeks before the event, the above conversation has not been recorded and placed on YouTube yet, so its exact contents remain unknown.

It is to be hoped that Yermak was duly deferential to the highest-ranking member of the U.S. Foreign Service, as he would never have been granted the position he currently holds by his personal friend President Volodymyr Zelensky but for Nuland’s deft coup plotting of seven years ago. Before nepotism gained him his current position, he had been appointed Presidential Aide for Foreign Policy Issues shortly after Zelensky took office. Yermak, also an attorney, had been a film producer when he met Zelensky, at the time general producer of the TV channel Inter. Somehow one imagines the prospect of a Ukrainian television miniseries with a title like “The Battle for the Soul of Belarus” or “Free at Last, Released from the Bonds of Despotism” or, better yet, “Rock ‘n Roll Revolution” with a soundtrack by U2, Rage Against the Machine and Nicki Minaj.

What is known of his conversation with Nuland, the pastry peddlar of Maidan Square and patron saint of the seven-year war in the Donbass, is a brief account of it related by Ukraine’s presidential press secretary, Serhiy Nykyforov:

“Andriy Yermak and Ms. Victoria Nuland discussed the situation in Belarus and expressed concern about what is happening there now. They also discussed some security issues related to Russia’s West-2021 exercises and moved on to the topic of Ukraine.”

The joint Belrusian-Russian exercise (Zapad in Russian) is a routine one and Ukraine has no reason to fear anything from it; but Ukrainian officials, including Zelensky, for months have been prophesying, like a blind Greek soothsayer of the time of Sophocles, a threat to the very existence of Ukraine emanating from Belarus. Ukraine has a population almost five times the size of Belarus’ and armed forces trained to meet NATO standards in addition to military equipment provided by the U.S. and other alliance members.

The government of Belarus recently closed its border with Ukraine, accusing the latter of allowing arms to be smuggled into the country for Western-backed “protesters.” The sort of peaceful protesters that set over a hundred Ukrainian policemen on fire with gas bombs in Kiev in 2014, burning several to death. Their efforts were noted, appreciated and rewarded by Nuland and John McCain, who dispensed snacks to the CANVAS-trained perpetrators between bouts of hurling Molotov cocktails at unarmed law enforcement personnel.

By the way, the government of President Viktor Yanukoych was overthrown only thirteen months before a scheduled presidential election. Surely Nuland, McCain and their friends in the National Endowment for Democracy and other “democracy enhancement” organizations could have delivered the desired result short of setting much of the Ukrainian capital on fire, overthrowing an internationally-recognized head of state and plunging the nation into endless war; with the indispensable assistance of bomb-wielding “youth activists” as in 2004 and 2014, of course.

But a standard color revolution would have had disadvantages. Campaign slogans from approved candidates like Vote for Me and Join NATO or Support Us or We’ll Burn Your Country to the Ground don’t always appeal to targeted demographics. At least not sufficiently to motivate them to walk to the polling station on a rainy afternoon. Besides, rigging an election in 2015 might not have guaranteed a festering war with ethnic Russians in the Donbass and an excuse for further NATO buildup in the Black Sea – much less the opportunity of war with Belarus.

For the likes of Nuland with her Bachelor of Arts in Something or Other (BASOO), film producer Yermak and his boss, comedian Zelensky (Did you hear the one about the hooker and the mushroom cloud?), politics and war are just so, like, boring without a little panache. A little flair. Éclat. Some fireworks. Taunting a neighbor with the world’s second-largest nuclear arsenal by overthrowing the government of its only ally in Europe would do the trick. Now you’re talking. F*ck the world!

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

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

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Southern African Development Community (SADC) with support from the Addis Ababa based African Union Commission (AUC) have together set July 15 the beginning of the deployment of the joint regional military troops in Mozambique.

According to the statement released by SADC, the mission has as its objective, to support the Republic of Mozambique in the fight against acts of terrorism and extremist violence, in addition to supporting the country in restoring the rule of law in the affected areas of Cabo Delgado province.

Rwanda, at the official request from the Government of Mozambique, is contributing a 1,000-person force contingent from its National Defence Force (RDF) and Rwanda National Police (RNP).

Major General Innocent Kabandana is heading the Joint Force made up of 700 soldiers from the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) and 300 officers from the Rwanda National Police (RNP). Kabundana, a former commander of Rwandan Special Forces, with experience in fighting rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2020, he was appointed commander of the Rwanda Military Academy at Gako.

Rwanda and Mozambique are neighbors with a common border and members of the regional bloc. Rwandan troops to Mozambique primarily aim to help the country combat the escalating insurgency. According to the Rwandan government, the troops will join forces with Mozambique and the standby force from the SADC region.

The deployment is based on the good bilateral relations between Rwanda and Mozambique, following the signing of several agreements between the two countries in 2018. The deployment is also grounded in Rwanda’s commitment to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine and the 2015 Kigali Principles on the Protection of Civilians, according to the statement by the Government of Rwanda.

It is not yet clear who will lead the SADC Standby Force, and the force needs to have its legal status signed. The South African Defence Minister, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, has vehemently expressed absolute dissatisfaction that Rwanda had deployed its troops into Mozambique before SADC forces arrived, because it was expected that Rwanda would have gone in under a SADC mandate.

“It is regrettable that this dispatch takes place before the deployment of Sadc troops, because whatever the bilateral relations between Rwanda and Mozambique, one would expect Rwanda to go to Mozambique in the context of a mandate given by heads of state in the SADC region,” Mapisa-Nqakula said, added “a situation over which we have no control.”

Mozambique’s Minister of Defence, Jaime Neto, denies the move was meant to undercut SADC’s intervention efforts.

“At the ministerial level, we may not always have concrete information on what has been dealt with but Cabo Delgado is a privileged subject for heads of state at the level of SADC region and obviously at our level it’s up to us to take decisions from consultations that occurred out at the level of the heads of state.”

But the controversy about the operation has not ended there. The president of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo – the main opposition party in Mozambique) criticized the deployment of Rwandan military personnel in Mozambique, further describing it as “illegal” and that the Mozambican parliament and other countries in the SADC region should have been told in advance, it implies the unilateral decision taken the president on Rwandan force.

“The Rwandan military are in the country illegally, given the fact that the Assembly of the Republic was not informed and that other countries that are part of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) were themselves taken by surprise,” Ossufo Momade told a local media at the end of a visit to Cabo Delgado province, northern Mozambique.

Several official reports indicated that the Rwandan military and police are going to work closely with Mozambique Armed Defence Forces (FADM) and with the regional force from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in designated sectors of responsibility, support efforts to restore security by conducting combat and security operations, as well as stabilization and security-sector reform (SSR). The forces will only return home once its mission is accomplished.

Moussa Faki Mahamat, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC), highly commended and described it “as a strong and concrete act of African solidarity” on the part of the Rwandan Government and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

The forces are to be based in Cabo Delgado Province, Mozambique. That region has suffered from what is, always referred to as acts of terrorism. Beginning in October 2017, armed extremists linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) launched an insurgency in the Cabo Delgado region of Mozambique. On March 24, the militants again seized Palma in northern Mozambique.

The European Union has also adopted a decision setting up an EU military training mission in Mozambique (EUTM Mozambique). The EUTM Mozambique mission will last 28 months and be headed by the Portuguese Army Brigadier-General Nuno Lemos Pires. The aim of the mission is to train and support the Mozambican armed forces in protecting the civilian population and restoring safety and security in the Cabo Delgado province.

According to the media release of the European Council, the EU’s Integrated Approach to the crisis in Cabo Delgado, in conjunction with support for peacebuilding, conflict prevention and dialogue support, humanitarian assistance and development cooperation, and the promotion of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda.

In his letter of 3 June 2021, the President of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi, welcomed the deployment of an EU military training non-executive Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) mission in the country. The mandate of the mission will initially last two years.

SADC (Southern African Development Community) has authorized Mozambique to seek support from other friends, said Nyusi, according to Radio Mozambique.

“We took a long time to think, to organize and to plan. The foreign contingents will be under Mozambican command.”

Nyusi has historically been resistant to foreign boots on his grounds. Defending Mozambique is the exclusive responsibility of Mozambicans, he insisted. Friends can help, but sooner or later, they would return to their own countries, and it would be up to Mozambicans to guarantee security.

Nyusi, himself a former defence minister, had for long shied away from asking for foreign military intervention to fight the armed militants, instead relying on private military companies. He strongly believes that the violence is linked to the mineral wealth discovered in Cabo Delgado, particularly in Palma district, where there are enormous offshore deposits of natural gas. Those behind the terrorism are arranging the war in order to control the wealth.

The first large-scale insurgency broke out in Mozambique’s northeast in 2017. Since then, the rebels have stepped up attacks. The latest March 24 heinous attack left more than 2,800 deaths, according to several reports, and about 714,000 people displaced, according to government sources. According to the United Nations, more than 900,000 people are under severe food insecurity in Cabo Delgado, and host communities are in urgent need of shelter, protection and other services.

With an approximate population of 30 million, Mozambique is endowed with rich and extensive natural resources but remains one of the poorest and most underdeveloped countries in the world. It is one of the 16 countries, with a collective responsibility to promote socio-economic and political and security cooperation, within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) created in 1980.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), is now a frequent and passionate contributor to Global Research.

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The UN Security Council’s unanimous decision to extend the organisation’s use of the Bab Al Hawa crossing on the Syrian-Turkish border by six months, with another six-month extension if approved by the secretary general, has renewed a lifeline for the hapless civilians living in Syria’s Idlib province. The UN will continue to ferry food and medical supplies across that frontier, and coordinate and fund the flow of supplies provided by relief agencies. It is estimated that 1,000 loaded lorries cross every month into Syria. Three-quarters of the 3-plus million people residing in north-west Syria depend on foreign aid, 85 per cent of which, reportedly, enters through this crossing.

Russia and the US were at loggerheads over Bab Al Hawa. Moscow sought to close this crossing, arguing that all aid should be channelled through government-held crossings since maintaining Bab Al Hawa violates Syrian state sovereignty. Russia is correct. Most countries, including the US, would reject the imposition by the UN or another external agency of an entry point that would allow the free flow of goods into their territory outside government control. Particularly, if the goods were destined for an area held by an inveterate enemy.

After all, Hay’at Tahrir Al Shamm the takfiri group  which holds north-west Idlib province, has tried to overthrow the Syrian government, is crushing rival factions and is trying to set up a separate state in Idlib and adjacent tracts of territory.

Washington wanted to open another two crossings, one into the north-west and the other into the north-east which would supply the US-backed Kurdish held area, comprising 25 per cent of Syria. There had, originally, been four crossings, three of which the Russians had insisted on closing down. Russia compromised by holding back its veto on Bab Al Hawa.

This has, of course, angered humanitarian agencies which had called for the opening of all four, making their job easier. US President Joe Biden, reportedly, raised this issue when he met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Geneva last month.

While the humanitarian significance of Bab al-Hawa is all too obvious. The majority of the 3.5 million Syrians who live in Idlib and other northern areas depend on it for food, medical supplies and shelter. But donors think of the politico-military importance of this crossing. By providing for the population of Idlib, UN and the Western donors stabilising the reign of Hay’at Tahrir Al Sham, which is an off-shoot of Al Qaeda and has established its base in Idlib, at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. This could expose the backyard of Europe to takfiri infiltration and should pose a dilemma for Western politicians but does not.

Perhaps, the intention of the Western powers is to use leverage provided by Tahrir Al Sham to exert pressure on the Syrian government to capitulate to Western demands. So far this has failed. Western powers adopted such a policy earlier when they refused to tackle Daesh while it campaigned in western Iraq, capturing major Sunni cities before conquering the Syrian city of Raqqa in 2014 and sweeping across the border to occupy Iraq’s second city, Mosul, and 40 per cent of that country.

Founded as Jabhat al-Nusra in December 2012, by Abu Mohammad Al Julani, Tahrir Al Sham is a sibling of Daesh and no less ambitious. The two are the most successful of the takfiri groups which were born in Iraq after the US occupation and crossed the border into Syria to wage war on the Damascus government. The Jabhat was meant to the Syrian branch of Daesh. But once Daesh itself entered the Syrian conflict, it attempted to dominate the Jabhat which declared independence and became Al Qaeda’s official arm in Syria.

Like Daesh, the Jabhat attacked minority religious groups in Syria — Christians, Druze and Alawites, as well as Sunnis who did not subscribe to its beliefs or submit to its rule. Unlike Daesh which not only fights the Syrian government but also has a mission to strike at the West, Julani’s objective has been confined to overthrowing the Syrian government. Julani was ordered by Al Qaeda chief Ayman al- Zawahiri not to mount attacks in the West. Nevertheless, the Jabhat has been designated a “terrorist” group since 2012.

Although Julani allegedly severed ties with Al Qaeda, Zawahiri dispatched key aides to join the Jabhat’s leadership. His priority was for the group to capture enough strategic Syrian territory to establish a permanent Al Qaeda power base. This is precisely what it has done.

In 2017, the Jabhat, which had undergone multiple name changes, rebranded itself as Hay’at Tahrir Al Sham and since then has asserted control of most of Idlib. The group seeks to turn Idlib into a separate entity governed exclusively by Tahrir Al Sham, which has ordered rival factions to dissolve and their fighters to join its ranks or leave Idlib. Al though pledged not to mount operations in the West, Tahrir Al Sham has celebrated such attacks by Daesh and other takfiri factions . Tahrir Al Sham is, after all, the child of Al Qaeda and sibling of Daesh. Perhaps Tahrir Al Sham has adopted the practice of Takiyya, dissimulation as a means of self-protection, until the group is powerful enough to export both adherents and ideology from its base in northwest Syria.

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Very bad news for those who still care about freedom of the press and what the fate of Julian Assange means for the artifact-First Amendment added to the U.S. Constitution 240 years ago. The UK High Court just announced it will hear the US appeal of a lower court decision against extraditing Julian Assange.

Godot is likely to arrive before the US/UK finish the legal pantomime denying Assange his freedom.

The High Court decision solidifies Britain’s status as a US vassal state – the 800-year legacy of the Magna Carta be damned. Giving obsequious hypocrisy a bad name, the High Court’s announcement comes a week and half after the prime witness for the latest indictment of Assange recanted his testimony.

It should come as no surprise that British “Justice” officials are following the detailed “Washington Playbook” approach that was exposed by WikiLeaks itself in Feb. 2012.

Some readers may recall that WikiLeaks-revealed confidential emails from the US private intelligence firm Stratfor mentioned that the US already had a secret indictment against the WikiLeaks founder. Bad enough.

Inspector Javert

What also showed up in the Stratfor emails was the unrelenting, Inspector-Javert-type approach taken by one Fred Burton, Stratfor’s Vice-President for Counterterrorism and Corporate Security. (Burton had been Deputy Chief of the Department of State’s counterterrorism division for the Diplomatic Security Service.)

Here’s Javert – I mean Burton:

“Move him [Assange] from country to country to face charges for the next 25 years. But seize everything he and his family own, to include every person linked to Wiki.” [my comment: “country to country”, or – equally effective – court to court]

“Pursue conspiracy and political terrorism charges and declassify the death of a source, someone which could link to Wiki.”

“Assange is a peacenik. He needs his head dunked in a full toilet bowl at Gitmo.”

“Take down the money. Go after his infrastructure. The tools we are using to nail and de-construct Wiki are the same tools used to dismantle and track al-Qaeda.”

“Bankrupt the arsehole first; ruin his life. Give him 7-12 years for conspiracy.”

“Assange is going to make a nice bride in prison. Screw the terrorist. He’ll be eating cat food forever … extradition to the US is more and more likely.”

Nice people – once sworn under oath “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic”. Since comparisons are invidious, apologies to “Javert” and Victor Hugo.

Meanwhile Back at Belmarsh

It is not clear whether the likes of Fred Burton have been able to dictate the menu for Julian Assange (but who would be surprised?). What is clear is that, unless a major grassroots campaign can gather more steam, and soon, Julian is likely to be moved from court to court, prison to prison – all under color of law – until they destroy what is left of him. It is a sad pantomime, a mockery of justice. Talk about Les Miserables!

As UN Rapporteur for Torture Nils Melzer has pointed out, Julian Assange is being subjected to psychological torture – in full view of the rest of the world. And, as reprehensible as this crime is – still more is at stake for democracies, which cannot exist without a free media.

Last Saturday Julian Assange “celebrated” his 50th birthday in London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison. I was asked to record a message to be loud-speakered at the demonstration in support of Julian before the prison that day. Here is the recording. For those lacking appreciation for my singing, the 8-minute talk is transcribed here.

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Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer/briefer of the President’s Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

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

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As soon as Operation Warp Speed was announced, I made it clear that one of the prime goals was: winning approval for experimental RNA technology.

RNA tech had never gotten a green light prior to the COVID vaccine. Why? Because it was highly dangerous. Generally speaking, massive inflammatory response was the issue: the body attacks itself.

But RNA tech allows new vaccines to be developed faster, easier, and cheaper. Therefore, researchers could claim to discover new viruses at the drop of a hat (without authentic proof), and pharma companies could develop new vaccines (aka genetic RNA treatments) overnight.

It became Bill Gates’ and Tony Fauci’s mission to drag an RNA COVID vaccine across the finish line to emergency-use approval, come hell or high water. They were determined to crack open the marketplace for a flood of RNA medical products.

In yesterday’s, article, I highlighted the arrival of a “miracle” substance, graphene, trumpeted as the core of a whole new frontier in medicine.

For example, Merck is using it to research the creation of IMPOSED nerve responses in the body, in order to knock out a whole host of “disease conditions.”

Of course, the acknowledged toxicity of graphene nanoparticles is underplayed; in particular, their tendency to cause lung infections.

And now graphene and RNA tech meet, in new research into cancer vaccines. As they say, what could possible go wrong?

The reference is “In Situ Transforming RNA Nanovaccines from Polyethylenimine Functionalized Graphene Oxide Hydrogel for Durable Cancer Immunotherapy,” 2/17/21, ACS Publications.

Here is an excerpt from the optimistic abstract: “Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine is a promising candidate in cancer immunotherapy…Here, we report an injectable hydrogel formed with graphene oxide (GO) and polyethylenimine (PEI). The released nanovaccines can protect the mRNA from degradation and confer targeted delivering capacity to lymph nodes…”

The scramble is now underway to deploy both RNA genetic tech and graphene in all sorts of medical “innovations.”

You don’t get just one danger; you get two.

And here is a third wrinkle. According to conventional vaccine theory, the injected RNA would cause cells of the body to produce a protein unique to cancer tumors. The immune system would attack this protein and, up the road, be prepared to destroy cancer before it could gain a foothold.

It’s possible that researchers from the old failed US viral cancer project of the 1960s and 70s could now rewrite history, get in line, and say, “We never failed. Robert Gallo DID discover two cancer viruses, which also have unique proteins. Let’s develop an RNA-graphene injection that empowers the immune system to attack these viruses…”

I mention this because those failed cancer researchers went on to claim a new virus called HIV caused a condition called AIDS. And like COVID, the “causative virus” was never isolated, never proved to exist.

HIV and SARS-CoV-2 are both phantom fantasies. And in both cases, the drug/vaccine treatments are massively destructive.

The medical cartel at work.

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

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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Recent attention has focussed on the detrimental health impacts of graphene nanoparticles contained in the face mask as well as in the mRNA vaccine as documented in a scientific study by a groups of Spanish researchers.

This study was originally published in 2016.

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Former Obama administration Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Tuesday on CNN’s “OutFront” that Americans who have not received a coronavirus vaccine should not be allowed to work or have access to children and be limited on where they are allowed to go.

Sebelius said,

“We’re in a situation where we have a wildly effective vaccine, multiple choices, lots available, free of charge, and we have folks who are just saying I won’t do it. I think that it’s time to say to those folks, it’s fine if you don’t choose to get vaccinated. You may not come to work. You may not have access to a situation where you’re going to put my grandchildren in jeopardy. Where you might kill them, or you might put them in a situation where they’re going to carry the virus to someone in a high-risk position.”

She continued,

“That’s, I think the point where we are, is freedom is one thing, but freedom when you harm others like secondhand smoke and issues that we’ve dealt with very clearly in the past you can’t drive drunk. You can drink, but you can’t drive drunk because you can injure other people. You can’t smoke inside of a public place where you can give cancer to someone else in spite of their never having been a smoker.”

Sebelius added,

“So I think we’re reaching that point in the United States where those of us who are vaccinated, I want to take off my mask. I want to be able to live my life with vaccination, and right now, I’m being impinged on by people who say I don’t want to get vaccinated. It’s fine. I want them to maybe have a limitation on where they can go and who they can possibly infect.”

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During times of instability in Haiti, progressives both in the Caribbean nation and abroad often fear impending US military intervention. This makes sense, given Washington’s long history of deploying soldiers to shape Haitian affairs.

Since President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated Wednesday the Haiti Information Project has reported that combat vessel USS Billings is in Santo Domingo on the other side of the island. They also published photos of two US C-20 military aircraft unloading passengers and gear at the Toussaint Louverture Airport in Port-au-Prince. A video appears to show plainclothes men, reportedly Special Forces, being met by US embassy representatives.

But, what about Canadian Forces? While I have yet to find evidence of any Canadian deployment, it’s important for progressives to be vigilant considering this country’s history of using or threatening to use force to influence Haitian politics.

Amidst a February 2019 general strike that nearly toppled Moïse, heavily-armed Canadian special forces were videoed patrolling the Port-au-Prince airport. The Haiti Information Project suggested that they helped family members of Moïse’s corrupt, repressive and unpopular government flee the country.

On February 29, 2004, JTF2 commandos took control of the airport from which Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was bundled (“kidnapped” in his words) onto a plane by US Marines and deposited in the Central African Republic. According to AFP, “about 30 Canadian special forces soldiers secured the airport on Sunday [Feb. 29, 2004] and two sharpshooters positioned themselves on the top of the control tower.” Reportedly, the elite fighting force entered Port-au-Prince five days earlier ostensibly to protect the embassy. The JTF2 deployment was part of the Canada/France/US campaign to destabilize and overthrow Haiti’s elected government. According to the military’s account of Operation PRINCIPAL, “more than 100 CF personnel and four CC-130 Hercules aircraft … assisted with emergency contingency plans and security measures” during the week before the coup.

For the five months after Aristide was ousted five hundred Canadian soldiers joined US and French forces in protecting Haiti’s foreign installed regime. A resident of Florida during the preceding 15 years, Gerard Latortue was responsible for substantial human rights violations. There is evidence Canadian troops participated directly in repressing the pro-democracy movement. A researcher who published a report on post-coup violence in Haiti with the Lancet medical journal recounted an interview with one family in the Delmas district of Port- au-Prince: “Canadian troops came to their house, and they said they were looking for Lavalas [Aristide’s party] chimeres, and threatened to kill the head of household, who was the father, if he didn’t name names of people in their neighbourhood who were Lavalas chimeres or Lavalas supporters.” Haiti and Afghanistan were the only foreign countries cited in the Canadian Force’s 2007 draft counterinsurgency manual as places where Canadian troops participated in counterinsurgency warfare. According to the manual, the CF had been “conducting COIN [counter-insurgency] operations against the criminally-based insurgency in Haiti since early 2004.”

After a deadly earthquake rocked Haiti in 2010 two thousand Canadian troops were deployed while several Heavy Urban Search Rescue Teams were readied but never sent. According to an internal file, Canadian officials worried that “political fragility has increased the risks of a popular uprising, and has fed the rumor that ex-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, currently in exile in South Africa, wants to organize a return to power.” The government documents also explain the importance of strengthening the Haitian authorities’ ability “to contain the risks of a popular uprising.” To police Haiti’s traumatized and suffering population 2,050 Canadian troops were deployed alongside 12,000 US soldiers and 1,500 UN troops (8,000 UN soldiers were already there). Even though there was no war, for a period there were more foreign troops in Haiti per square kilometer than in Afghanistan or Iraq (and about as many per capita).

Canadian soldiers were part of the UN mission in the country between 2004 and 2017. A handful of Canadian military officials filled senior positions in the MINUSTAH command structure, including Chief of Staff. 34 Canadian soldiers were quietly dispatched to Haiti during the final six months of 2013.

Canada’ military involvement in Haiti dates to the previous century. Canadian troops joined the US led operation immediately after 20,000 troops descended on the country in 1994. Afterwards Canada took command of the UN force and about 750 Canadian soldiers were on the ground. At a 1996 NATO summit Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was caught on an open microphone saying, “he [US President Bill Clinton] goes to Haiti with soldiers. The next year, Congress doesn’t allow him to go back. So he phones me. Okay, I send my soldiers, and then afterward I ask for something in return.”

According to the 2000 book Canadian Gunboat Diplomacy, Canadian vessels have been sent to Haiti on multiple occasions. In response to upheaval in the years after Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier fled Haiti warships were deployed in 1988 and 1987. Another vessel was deployed in 1974. This time, reports military historian Sean Maloney, “Canadian naval vessels carried out humanitarian aid operations to generate goodwill with the Haitian government so that Haiti would support Canadian initiatives in la Francophonie designed to limit French interference in Canadian affairs.”

As Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier’s first mandate came to an end in May 1963, the country was gripped with upheaval.When Haitian military officers accused of plotting against Duvalier fled into the Dominican Embassy in Port-au-Prince there was a major diplomatic incident between Duvalier and Dominican President Juan Bosch. Fearing forces sympathetic to Cuba may take advantage of the instability to grab power, HMCS Saskatchewan, a British vessel and seven US warships approached Haiti’s coast (three other Canadian ships stood by). The next year HMCS Saskatchewanwas again sent to Haiti to ensure Duvalier did not move towards Cuba.

‘Canada’ intervened militarily in previous centuries as well. In November 1865 HMS Galatea bombed Cap-Haitien in support of a Haitian political leader battling an opponent. Based in Halifax and Bermuda, the British frigate was part of the Empire’s North America and West Indies Station. Two decades later Halifax based HMS Canada was dispatched to Haiti on two occasions over six-months.

British/Canadian forces also sought to crush the Haitian slave revolution. Britain’s primary naval base in North America, Halifax played its part in London’s efforts to capture one of the world’s richest colonies (for the slave owners). Much of the Halifax-based squadron arrived on the shores of the West Indies in 1793 and a dozen Nova Scotia privateers captured at least 57 enemy vessels in the West Indies between 1793 and 1805. A number of prominent Canadian-born (or based) individuals fought to capture and re-establish slavery in Saint Domingue (Haiti). First Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe, led the British invasion of Saint Domingue in 1796. As Governor, Simcoe re-instated slavery in areas he controlled.

Canada has a long history of intervening militarily in Haiti. Amidst the current instability, we should seek to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

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“No person … shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” — Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Abdulsalam al-Hela is a 53-year-old Yemeni cleric who has been incarcerated by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba since 2004. He has not been charged with any crime. His case has a long and complex legal history, but it is instructive to all who believe that the Constitution means what it says.

Hela is represented by competent counsel who have filed numerous petitions in his behalf asking the courts to compel the government to comply with the Constitution and justify his confinement. The underlying constitutional principles here are due process and habeas corpus. The obligations of complying with both are imposed upon the federal government by the Constitution.

Due process — which is guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment — means that every person confined or charged by the government is absolutely entitled to a notice of the charges against him, a fair hearing on those charges before a neutral judge and jury, and the right to appeal any adverse decision to other fair and neutral judges. Hela is also entitled to a writ of habeas corpus. It permits all confined persons to ask a judge to compel the government to justify the confinement.

When Hela asked for due process and habeas corpus relief in federal district court in Washington, D.C. — the judicial venue for all Guantanamo Bay detainees — a district court judge denied his petition because the government has called Hela an enemy combatant and the president, the court ruled, has the lawful power to confine him for the duration of whatever hostilities he and the U.S. were engaged in.

But the government acknowledges that Hela was not engaged in any hostilities. Moreover, the United States itself is no longer engaged in hostilities in the Middle East, though presidents Donald Trump and Joseph Biden have, from time to time, sent missiles into that scorched-earth part of the world just to remind the folks there who still claims to be king of the hill.

Hela appealed the district court’s denial of habeas corpus and due process relief to the federal appellate court in Washington, D.C. A panel of three judges from that court chose not to address due process directly and instead denied Hela’s application for habeas. It did so not because the president — Trump, at the time — claims the power to confine foreign supporters of foreign groups violently at odds with the U.S., but for the historically novel reason that Hela has no property in the U.S. and is not confined here.

This is not only an absurd rationale, as the Constitution imposes no property requirement as a precondition to the use of habeas corpus, but it also defies several Supreme Court opinions that hold that wherever the government goes lawfully and permanently, the Constitution goes with it. Stated differently, the court has ruled that the government must uphold basic human and constitutional rights for all those it confines for more than a passing period, including those at Guantanamo Bay.

Why is this case important?

Hela is obviously an unsympathetic figure. The government says that as a cleric, he used words — which, if used in the United States, would have been protected by the First Amendment — to encourage young people to join militias that either did or could have attacked American troops. But the courts have never upheld confinement without charge for the mere use of words. Nor have they condoned a 17-year confinement without so much as the filing of any charges.

One can conclude that the government lacks evidence with which to charge and prosecute Hela. If that is so, it must let him go. This is basic constitutional law. But you would not know that from the position taken by the Biden Department of Justice.

According to The New York Times, DOJ lawyers debated privately for weeks over whether Hela has due process rights. The deadline for the DOJ’s response to Hela’s appeal was last Friday. No surprise, the DOJ filed its brief to the court under seal but then leaked certain parts to the press.

The leaks revealed that lawyers at the DOJ could not agree if the word “person” in the Fifth Amendment means “every person” or “every American person.” And so, in this monumental case, in which a federal appellate court negated long-recognized constitutional rights based on a novel and unconstitutional theory, the Biden Department of Justice remained mute. The Times also reported that Attorney General Merrick Garland recused himself from the case entirely because he once sat on the federal appeals court in Washington, though not on the panel that rejected Hela’s appeal.

What’s going on here? We have another political Department of Justice. But this one is afraid to take an unpopular stance — even though such a stance is dictated by the Constitution and the plain meaning of its words.

The DOJ’s failure to attack the made-up-out-of-thin-air property or physical presence requirement is not just a failure of nerve or a cover for the White House; it is a failure of the DOJ’s obligation to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, no matter how obscure or unpopular the object of that defense may be.

The whole idea that rights can be turned off like a light switch and those in whose hands we have reposed the Constitution for safekeeping can get away with doing nothing when this happens is sadly consistent with the lack of fidelity to the Constitution so regularly displayed by those in government today.

I have asked this question before, without answer: Why do we repose the Constitution for safekeeping into the hands of those who subvert it?

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One of the worst racial pogroms in U.S. history might have been prevented if city and state leaders had done their jobs responsibly

The parallels to our own time unfortunately resonate—as government leaders continue to provide a cover for criminal activity and grant impunity to the perpetrators of atrocities

For years, the story of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre was suppressed, left out of history books and school curricula and ignored in the media. Many people who grew up in Tulsa said that they had never heard about the massacre, even though it took place in their own backyard.

As living witnesses and participants died off, the horrific events were belatedly rediscovered—and due to pressure from local Black leaders like Vanessa Hall Harper, the City of Tulsa allowed for the excavation of grave sites to try to determine precisely how many people had been killed.

Then on the 100^th anniversary, the President of the United States visited Tulsa, and major media featured stories about the massacre and television networks aired films about it.

The Tulsa Race Massacre is now thought of by many people as a parable about America’s dark racial history, and the need to transcend it—a goal that appears uncertain in the era of Charlottesville and Donald J. Trump.

There is another moral to the story of the Tulsa Race Massacre, though, that is equally resonant today but has not been widely recognized.

A probe into the events of 1921 reveals the miserable failure of public officials tasked with the responsibility of protecting the public and upholding the rule of law in society.

Instead of trying to protect the Black community, Tulsa law enforcement and city officials, along with state authorities and the U.S. Army, gave carte blanche to, and even assisted, white vigilantes as they attacked and destroyed Black Tulsa.

The perpetrators of the mob violence were subsequently granted impunity: not one white person was ever prosecuted for murder, torture, looting or arson, even though those crimes were amply documented.

Blacks were also not allowed to return to their community, as the city took over their land and insurance companies deprived them of compensation.

While it is easy to attribute the failure of government officials at that time to the racism of the Jim Crow era, the parallels to today unfortunately are salient.

A new generation of leaders still protects the powerful when they violate the law while refusing to afford protection for their constituents from predation.

In just the last few years, government officials have helped cover up for rogue law enforcement agents who killed innocent citizens, such as Breonna Taylor and Laquan McDonald, and enacted laws that oppress minority groups and help further marginalize the poor. They also failed to hold powerful corporations and public officials accountable for massive war crimes on the international stage along with offenses like perjury.

The Obama administration tellingly refused to prosecute Bush administration officials for torture, Wall Street executives for financial fraud that helped crash the economy, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper for lying to Congress about the extent of U.S. government surveillance—which was itself illegal.

The implications of the failure of government officials—whether liberal or conservative—to serve as arbiters of justice is ultimately as significant today as it was in 1921.

In both cases, the victims of major crimes were never afforded restitution, and impunity of the perpetrators ensured that they or their heirs could act again.

Overview of the Tulsa Race Massacre 

On the last weekend of May 1921, a white mob burned down the Greenwood District where African-Americans had achieved some prosperity and established a Black Wall Street despite living under segregation.

Tulsa at the time was a new city that had sprung up because of an oil boom.

A large Black population had come to the Oklahoma territory beginning in the 1830s as the slaves of Native Americans who had been relocated there under Andrew Jackson’s Indian removal policy, and because of the offer of land allotments to freed slaves after the Civil War.

Guthrie Oklahoma during land rush. [Source: Britannica.com]

The white community was resentful of the success of Black Wall Street and fact that Blacks who worked for whites were spending their money in Black-owned businesses.

At least 300 Blacks were killed in the pogrom, and 1,000 Black homes, businesses and churches were razed and plundered by some 15,000 white citizens, law enforcement officials, and military personnel.

The massacre began because of an allegation of sexual assault of a young white woman by a Black man, Dick Rowland.

On the morning of May 30, 1921, Sarah Page, 18, a white elevator operator, was alone in an elevator with Rowland, aged 19, in a downtown building. There is much speculation but little evidence as to why they were alone or what transpired in that closed intimate space, but we do know that Page screamed and then Rowland fled the scene.

Downtown building where Page-Rowland encounter took place. [Source: tulsaworld.com]

Oral accounts of the incident circulated among the city’s white community and became more exaggerated with each telling. Tulsa police arrested Rowland the following day, a Tuesday, and began an investigation.

The Tulsa Tribune, the city’s afternoon daily newspaper, reported that Rowland had attempted to rape Page and published a now-lost editorial about the incident titled “To Lynch Negro Tonight.”

When a white lynch mob formed to get Rowland, a Black rescue party, made up mostly of Black World War I veterans, mobilized to try to protect him.

Image on the right: Inflammatory article in Tulsa Tribune. [Source: tulsaworld.com]

The sensational reporting of the Tulsa Tribune spurred a confrontation between the Black rescue party and the white lynch mob around the courthouse.

Both groups were heavily armed.

When a white man attempted to disarm a Black veteran, shots were fired and people on both sides of the racial divide died immediately.

The outnumbered Blacks began retreating to the Greenwood Avenue business district. Many Black Tulsans fled for safety, but some with military experience stayed, opting to stand their ground and defend their community from an oncoming angry mob.

Fighting erupted along the Frisco railroad tracks, but Black defenders were eventually overpowered by superior numbers and firepower as angry whites descended on the Black enclave in Greenwood.

One eyewitness wrote: “All night long they could be heard firing from both sides, while the Whites were marshalling more than 5,000 men who had surrounded the Negro section to make an early attack in the morning on more than 8,000 Negroes.

As daylight approached, the Whites were given a signal by a whistle, and the dirty, cowardly outrage took place. All of this happened while innocent Negroes were slumbering and did not have the least idea that they would fall victims of such brutality.

At the signal of the whistle, more than a dozen airplanes went up and began to drop turpentine bombs upon the Negro residences, while the 5,000 Whites, with machine guns and other deadly weapons began firing in all directions.”^[1]

The Greenwood District was pillaged and burned to the ground. Crop duster airplanes were used to drop makeshift bombs onto buildings. Torchlights were used with gasoline to raze the Black settlement. The National Guard—under the direction of J. Patrick Hurley, who was later appointed as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ambassador to China—carried a cutting edge, high caliber machine gun through the streets of North Tulsa.

Greenwood District on fire during the massacre. [Source: history.com]

Black Tulsans made haste to flee the city to safety, but many Black men, women, and children were killed by the mob. Women dragged their children while running for their lives. Whites, who had gathered overnight from all over the region, fired at them as they ran. Black hospitals, with the sick and injured inside, were burned as many Blacks died in the flames.

Photo of one of many victims of the massacre. [Source: wikipedia.org]

Several Black Tulsans were tied to the backs of automobiles and dragged through the streets while bullets were being fired into their bodies. As the fighting progressed, the remaining Blacks were captured and rounded up by the National Guard to be placed in an internment camp in a downtown convention hall.

Most Blacks were taken prisoner. After more than 400 homes had been cleared of their Black owners, the burning and looting continued.

The Greenwood District, also derogatorily referred to as Little Africa, was pillaged, and burned to the ground. Hundreds of innocent and defenseless citizens were slaughtered. Not only was Tulsa’s legacy tarnished, but a huge volume of Black life, liberty, and property was lost that day.

Police Complicity and Terrorism

The Tulsa Race Massacre was a state-sponsored massacre.

Tulsa’s law enforcement, local, and state government employed intimidation, coercion, and violence to instill terror in Black Tulsans to the ends of political and economic exploitation. Black Tulsans tried to take up arms and defend themselves against their own government, but to no avail.

Oklahoma Assistant Attorney General Kathryn Van Leuven—the first female in her position in the country—launched an investigation into Tulsa law enforcement just months before the massacre and reported that the police department suffered from corruption, incompetence and a gross lack of resources. Poor local law enforcement made mob rule inevitable.

The police chief at the time of the Tulsa Race Massacre, John Gustafson, had worked as a spy for private detective agencies that infiltrated labor and leftist groups, and had a reputation for condoning lynching under his jurisdiction.

Tulsa County Sheriff Willard McCullough warned that Gustafson had been connected with the criminal underworld—snitches and crooks—and that he would “have no other kind of men on his force, and that such a police force would be a menace to the City of Tulsa.”

These words proved to be prophetic.

Neither the sheriff nor Chief Gustafson made a serious effort to disperse the white crowd that gathered to witness or participate in the lynching of Dick Rowland.

The arrival of approximately 200 armed Blacks, including World War I veterans in the midst of an angry white lynch mob 2,000-strong proved too much for the ill-trained and ill-prepared peacekeepers of Tulsa County.

The entire Tulsa police force was never called to the scene, and the few present were ill-equipped for the pending threat of mob violence. While the sheriff made a diligent effort to protect the life of Dick Rowland, no law enforcement agency made any effort to disarm or disperse the white rioters.

Once the violence erupted, Captain George H. Blaine of the Tulsa Police Department broke into McGee’s Hardware Store (Black-owned) and dealt out guns to white rioters. Gustafson deputized the same whites from the mob to help murder and inter the city’s Black populace.

On June 2, 1921, Adjutant General Charles Barrett of the Oklahoma National Guard declared that these special officers were chiefly instrumental in inciting the outbreak and did most of the shooting. Twenty years later, Barrett wrote that “they became as deputies the most dangerous part of the mob” and were the heart of Greenwood’s incendiaries.

Tulsa police congregate outside main police headquarters on the eve of the massacre. [Source: tulsaworld.com]

Mayor T.D. Evans—a Failed Umpire

Tulsa’s Mayor at the time of the massacre, T.D. Evans (1920-1922), had been a Judge who, in November 1917, convicted 17 members of the anarcho-syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, aka “Wobblies”) of not owning a war bond—a conviction that smacked of political and ideological retaliation.

Because the war effort consumed so much oil, Tulsa stood to gain economically from it and any opposition to it was viewed as a threat to prosperity and success. Oil industry executives also hated the Wobblies because of the threat of strikes that might dampen their profits.

After the trial, the “Wobblies” were placed in police cars and delivered into the custody of the Black Robes of Liberty, a vigilante group affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), which drove the Wobblies outside of town, tied them to trees, and horse-whipped them and poured boiling tar on their backs.

Newspaper headline detailing torture of Wobblies and founding of Tulsa’s Klan out of the incident. [Source: thislandpress.com]

An investigation by the National Civil Liberties Bureau determined that one of the main perpetrators of the torture was Tulsa’s police chief, Ed Lucas.

A Republican lawyer and wealthy real estate investor, Evans won the mayoralty on a platform of building a pipeline to bring fresh water to Tulsa. He was also sympathetic to the local KKK.

After the violence, Mayor Evans publicly blamed North Tulsa for the destruction, charging 55 Black Tulsans with inciting a riot.

He further disbanded the Executive Welfare Department in charge of post-riot “humanitarian” efforts—accusing it of challenging his authority—and replaced it with friends, cronies, and real estate business partners—among them members of the KKK—who made up the Reconstruction Committee or Real Estate Exchange.

No Black Tulsans sat on the exchange, which decided not to raise any funds to aid the rebuilding of Black Wall Street and to relocate survivors of the massacre further north.

The exchange in turn schemed to transfer Black lands, resources, and wealth into the coffers of some of the wealthiest white Tulsans through a plan to rezone the burned district into an industrial zone and by constructing a profitable railroad station on the smoldering remains of “Little Africa.”

Local real estate groups saw the destroyed district as lucrative for future industrial use and Blacks as an obstacle to the economic development of the city.

After a low-ball attempt by Evans’s committee of speculators to purchase the land from the massacre victims backfired, a maneuver was made to rezone the district as part of city fire limits.

This ordinance made it financially impossible for most Black Tulsans to rebuild their homes. Mayor Evans rejected the Chamber of Commerce’s suggestion to help Blacks rebuild on their own land and actively worked to relocate Black Tulsans to temporary shacks that could be easily condemned when railroad plans were ready.

Evans showed undeniable hostility toward Blacks as he tried to prevent the Red Cross from distributing emergency tents for Black families during the winter of 1921 and halted all incoming donations for rebuilding the Black district.

His overtly predatory business tactics against some of his most vulnerable constituents classify his actions as nothing less than a betrayal of his office.

In the end, Mayor Evans’s and his cronies’ plan to rezone Black Wall Street was thwarted thanks to the efforts of Black attorney Buck Colbert Franklin (1897-1960), whose son John Hope Franklin became a pioneering Black historian.

Franklin’s successful lawsuit against the city won the votes of three Oklahoma Supreme Court justices who agreed that the fire ordinance supported by Evans was unconstitutional and took private property without due process.

Land-grab efforts persist today as gentrification and eminent domain efforts continue to relocate poor, Black, and Brown families from profitable areas in North Tulsa.

White Supremacy and the Breakdown of Law and Order

The KKK operated in the open at the time of the Tulsa Race Massacre and counted some of the most prominent Tulsans as its members.

Members of the Ku Klux Klan ride through Tulsa in 1923. [Source: wpr.org]

Foremost among these was Wyatt Tate Brady, a pioneer Tulsa developer and Oklahoma’s first Democratic Party national committeeman, who served as a guiding member of Evans’s real estate exchange.

According to descendants of survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre, Brady helped coordinate the attack on Greenwood from his mansion in downtown Tulsa, setting up a war room in his house replete with maps.

At one point, he reported for “Guard duty” and oversaw the killing of five Blacks, including one who had been dragged from a car with a rope around his neck.

Just three years before the massacre, Tulsa had hosted the largest reunion of Confederate veterans after city leaders raised $100,000 to cover the cost of the event.

W. Tate Brady—whose father had fought with the Confederacy—was the primary organizer of the reunion. Its committee members included judges, ministers, and influential names that are still widely recognized in Tulsa.

[Source: thislandpress.com]

Alfred L. Brophy, Professor of Law at the University of Alabama and author of Rebuilding the Dreamland, argues that the massacre represents a complete breakdown of law in early Oklahoma. “City and state law officials are largely to blame for the destruction of the Greenwood community,” he said, because of their endorsement of the violence by the white mob and failure to hold any of the perpetrators accountable for their actions.

According to Brophy, two separate understandings of the definition of law existed prior to these events: Whites interpreted the law to subjugate Blacks, while Blacks interpreted the law as the most prudent avenue to equal treatment.

As mayors and sheriffs participated in the lynching of Black men, however, Blacks’ confidence in the law weakened, and they were prompted to arm themselves in self-defense—something the white community could never accept.

James S. Hirsch, in his book Riot and Remembrance, argues that Tulsa’s reputation as a haven for bandits—along with white supremacists—contributed to the aura of lawlessness that lay behind the race massacre.

According to Hirsch, Tulsa’s lawless nature was so beneficial to its economy that local law enforcement was encouraged not to uphold the law and therefore chaos thrived. Citizens were assaulted and lynched without a single arrest or prosecution, as “whites established racism as a custom and wrote it into law.” When Tulsa Blacks tried to assert their rights, they were put back into their place, which is what the race massacre was all about.

Long Pattern of Racist Terrorism

The Tulsa Race Massacre followed a long pattern throughout the southern U.S. of racist terrorism and vigilantism that was abetted by state authorities and law enforcement officials.

Two years earlier in Elaine, Arkansas, the governor had called in local troops to assist a white mob that had attacked Black sharecroppers who tried to organize a union. The troops were “under order to shoot to kill any negro who refused to surrender immediately”; they killed at least 200.

[Source: ualr.edu]

Steve Green was a Black field hand in Arkansas at the turn of the 20^th century. In 1910, Green and his employer, William Sidle, had a labor dispute of an unclear nature. Steve quit his position on Sidle’s farm and moved his family to work on another farm just a few miles away.

Steve’s former employer promptly alerted his prospective employer that Green was not permitted to work for anyone else, only Sidle.

When Sidle showed up to physically collect Green, a scuffle ensued. Steve’s former employer shot him three times. Green was somehow still able to reach a firearm and return fire, killing his former boss.

Despite clear evidence of self-defense, white-owned newspapers claimed it was senseless murder. Green’s character was publicly trashed. A white lynch mob began forming.

Fearing overwhelming threats of violence from white vigilantes in his small Arkansas community, Green fled to Chicago where he was later apprehended by local authorities there.

Facing extradition from Chicago back to Arkansas, Green attempted suicide while in custody but failed. He later begged law enforcement authorities for the means to take his own life so that he would not have to go home and face the horrors of being ritualistically tortured and lynched by a white mob of vigilantes.

Famous Chicago anti-lynching crusader, Ida B Wells caught wind of Green’s plight and invested in his physical and legal defense. She hired a team of Black lawyers to protect his legal rights, and relied on a tight-lipped network of anti-lynching activists to physically protect him.

Ultimately, Green was exonerated of all charges. This was a rare victory that encouraged Blacks to become more assertive with their legal defense on behalf of groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and in defending their communities from white intimidation and terrorism.

Lynching 

Though not a sectional crime per say, the great majority of lynchings in the United States took place in the southern and border states, Oklahoma included.

Until the late 1800s, lynching was used to punish alleged criminals by both Black and white lynch mobs. Following the end of the Civil War and the birth of the KKK, lynching became racialized.

In 1918, the NAACP began lobbying Congress to legislate against lynching on the federal level, but their efforts failed in the U.S. Senate in 1922.

Lynchings of Laura Nelson and her son, Okemah, Oklahoma. [Source: wikipedia.org]

Lynchings involved public spectacle, ritualistic torture and, in the case of Laura Nelson’s lynching in Okemah, Oklahoma, rape. Black bodies were often beaten by multiple members of the mob. Burning at the stake was common. Black men accused of any transgression, especially against white women, would often have their genitals cut off while still alive.

Lynchings were sometimes family events where lucky participants could walk away with a piece of mutilated Black body (finger, ear, or other appendage) as a souvenir. Steve Green would have rather taken his own life than experience this.

Many of the lynchings took place with the help of or due to the negligence of local law enforcement agencies and individuals. White vigilantes often removed their victims from jail cells with little to no resistance from officials.

Mobs carried out inhumane torture rituals on helpless Blacks. White law enforcement officers had an unfortunate history of either refusing or being unable to help. Knowing that the law offered little to no security, some Blacks saw fit to protect their own lives, sometimes with lethal force.

Tulsans Decide to Defend Themselves

Black Tulsans were very familiar with the story of Steve Green due to both Black and white media coverage.

Black Tulsans were not only reading white newspapers, but also Black papers, The Tulsa Star and Black Dispatch out of Oklahoma City.

Non-violence versus self-defense in the face of mob violence became a popular news topic. More stories of Black courage when faced with white lynch mobs flooded the media.

Blacks were also reading stories of Black self-defense closer to home. An increase in the number of local and national news stories of resistance to the culture of lynching led Black Tulsans to rush to the aid of Dick Rowland in June 1921.

They thought they could save Rowland as they had Jim Adkinson, who had been accused of sexually assaulting a white woman in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, in October 1920. In his case, the sheriff was forced to intervene and vowed to protect Adkinson’s right to a fair trial after more than 1,000 African-Americans armed themselves and protected him from a white lynch mob.

Thanks to the vigilance of the Black community, Adkinson survived to see his trial and was found not guilty.

Perhaps the most influential display of Black self-defense leading up to the burning of Greenwood was John McShane’s escape from police custody in April 1921.

Less than two months before the Tulsa Race Massacre. John McShane had been arrested in Muskogee, Oklahoma, after winning a fistfight with a white man. Upon learning of rumors of the Klan coming for McShane, a group of armed Black men executed a sensational rescue.

A deputy was shot in the process of freeing McShane, but many Black Oklahomans saw this sensational escape as empowering in the fight against racial terror. This event was still very fresh in the minds of Black Tulsans when things came to a head on Black Wall Street.

When the threat of Dick Rowland’s lynching became imminent in June 1921, Black men, mostly World War I veterans in the Greenwood community, saw it as their noble masculine duty to protect the young man from mob violence. Rowland had also been accused of sexually assaulting a white woman and a white lynch mob was demanding that the sheriff hand him to the crowd.

The group of Black men who chose to defend Rowland’s life had also been motivated and inspired by the local and national trend of self-defense in the face of white racialized violence and the breakdown of local law enforcement. The impunity accorded to white vigilantes was a feature of the Jim Crow era that led to catastrophes like the Tulsa Race Massacre.

Failure to Overcome Its Demons

As strong an effort as there has been to commemorate the victims of those horrible events long ago, the City of Tulsa has as of yet refused to provide reparations to Tulsa’s Black community—a situation which is now in litigation.

Black Tulsans demand reparations in front of Tulsa City Hall in March 2021. [Source: tulsaworld.com] 

The city has also refused to rename the Brady district—a flourishing commercial area replete with nightclubs, restaurants, and a ballpark built directly on the ruins of Black Wall Street.^[2]

As the centennial commemorations were being prepared this year, Oklahoma’s Republican-dominated state legislature passed House Bill 1775, which outlaws public school teachers from teaching how racism played a role in shaping American society.

The chair of the Oklahoma City Public Schools Board of Education, Paula Lewis, characterized HB 1775 as “an outright racist and oppressive piece of legislation.”

Former State Senator Anastasia Pittman (D) stated that “the suppression of education is oppression. Every student has a right to know their historical experience and contributions and HB 1775 took that away.”

The absurdity of the new law was explained by Devin J. Veney, a Black history teacher at Carver Middle School in Tulsa, who said that it would restrict him from teaching students what happened on Greenwood Avenue—the very street where his school is situated.

Neither the city of Tulsa nor the state and country where it rests has changed as much as people would like to think since the dark weekend 100 years ago when Black Wall Street was destroyed.

Not only do racial divisions linger, but so do deep class divisions and the “good ol’ boys club” mentality of government leaders, which prevents our society from overcoming its demons and evolving into a more humane place.

*

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Anthony Cherry is a James Madison Fellow and received his Master’s degree in History at the University of Tulsa. He teaches history at Holland Hall School in Tulsa. Before that he taught at Booker T. Washington High-School. Anthony can be reached at [email protected].

Notes

1. Mary E. Jones Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster (Tulsa: John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation, 1923, 2009), 48.

2. In 2013, after activists had raised an outcry that the Brady district was named after W. Tate Brady, the City Council decided to rename Brady Street to M.B Brady Street after Mathew Brady, a famous civil war photographer who had no connection to Tulsa. Many felt this was a way to avoid renaming the street and district.

Featured image: Ruins of the Greenwood District, known as Black Wall Street, following the Tulsa Race Massacre. Whites refused to allow its reconstruction. [Source: publicintegrity.org]

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They were in with a shot.  The English team, deliriously floating on chants of Football’s Coming Home, had made it to their first major tournament final since 1966.  The UEFA European Football Championship would be decided at Wembley against an Italian side unblemished by defeat since September 2018.  But the English, coached by the much admired Gareth Southgate, succumbed in that most cruel of deciders: the penalty shootout. 

In English footballing history, the penalty shootout has been responsible for a string of famous defeats.  In 1990, the national side lost to the West German juggernaut in the semi-final of the World Cup.  In the European Championship in 1996, the result was repeated, with the Germans again winning.  Southgate will have particularly vivid memories of that: he was one of the players who missed.  The shelf of defeat was beginning to sag.   

Then came the European Championships of 2020, delayed by the global pandemic.  England were fortunate in their draw and, unlike many of their opponents, played most of their matches on home soil.  But their record proved impressive, with Southgate’s side keeping a clean sheet till the semi-final against Denmark.  It became clear that Southgate had created a team unit as opposed to a team of stars bristling with contesting egos.   Previous footballing practices extolled celebrity within the team, with predictable consequences.  “Beckhamisation”, named after the recognisable former England captain and Manchester United player David Beckham, did much to create estrangement within the ranks between the celebrities and the foot soldiers. 

The success of Southgate’s team also did much to tease out discussions about English identity and a supposedly new form of progressive Englishness. “In England we have spent a bit of time being a bit lost as to what our modern identity is,” observed Southgate prior to the 2018 World Cup.  “I think as a team we represent that modern identity and hopefully people can connect with us.”  The UK Migration Museum even declared that, “Without players with at least one parent or grandparent born overseas, England would be down to just 3 players.”

The draining final played on July 11 finished with each side having scored a goal.  In the penalty shootout, the steely discipline of the Italians resolved the match in their favour.  Pundits spent hours debating England’s tactics against the Italian goalkeeper, as if it mattered.  Should the tender-aged Bukayo Saka have taken the fifth penalty kick as opposed to a more seasoned player?  Was Southgate being too bookish in sticking to the original line up of players? 

But the defeat did more than produce the usual rivers of commentary on tactical slips and fortuitous blunders.  Darker demons were released from the froth of despair.  Vengefully, they focused on matters of race, scalding and unsparing about those who had failed to score.  A torrent of abuse was released upon Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Saka, a vicious, smouldering kind that has come to typify social media commentary.  Natalie Elphicke, Conservative MP for Dover and Deal, heaped scorn on Rushford in a private WhatsApp group.  “They lost – would it be ungenerous to suggest that Rashford should have spent more time perfecting his game and less time playing politics?”  

A mural of Rashford in Withington, Manchester, was defaced with obscenities.  In appealing for information on the incident, Chief Superintendent Paul Savill warned that hate crime would not be tolerated and was “not welcome in this city.”  Notes of support were placed across the mural like plastering bands of reassurance across cuts and bruises. 

Team captain Harry Kane took to Twitter to praise the three players who had the courage to take the penalty and should be celebrated for that fact. “They deserve support & backing not the vile racist abuse they’ve had since last night.  If you abuse anyone on social media you’re not an @England fan and we don’t want you.” 

Three lads who were brilliant all summer had the courage to step up & take a pen when the stakes were high. They deserve support & backing not the vile racist abuse they’ve had since last night. If you abuse anyone on social media you’re not an @England fan and we don’t want you. pic.twitter.com/PgskPAXgxV

— Harry Kane (@HKane) July 12, 2021

On the issue of condemning racial abuse, certain players found the messages from the Johnson government jarringly insincere. The pot of identity was again being stirred and the result was increasingly ugly.  Home secretary Priti Patel received a sharp barb from English footballer Tyrone Mings for having previously refused to condemn fans who had booed the England team in taking the knee in protesting against racism.  In his opinion, Patel had undercut her own case. “You don’t get to stoke the fire at the beginning of the tournament by labelling our anti-racism message as ‘Gesture Politics’ and then pretend to be disgusted when the very thing we’re campaigning against, happens.” 

It was not just that the home secretary had voiced her view against such displays of “gesture politics”.  She also saw little problem in the conduct of the fans: “That’s the choice for them, quite frankly.”  The hordes were duly summoned.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has also been known to dabble with the race card, penning pieces of some notoriety and doing his bit of stoking from time to time.  London radio presenter James O’Brien noted one article in particular mocking Islamic dress.  “In the three weeks after the ‘letterboxes’ article was published in August 2018, 42 per cent of offline Islamophobic incidents reports ‘directly referenced Boris Johnson and/or the language used in his column.” 

Labour’s opposition leader Keir Starmer was even more explicit in Parliament, accusing Johnson of giving racism “the green light” and engaging in his own culture war.  “And I’ll tell you the worst kind of gesture politics, putting an England shirt on over a shirt and tie whilst not condemning those booing”.

Johnson has promised to take “practical steps to ensure that the Football Banning order regime is changed so that if you were guilty … of racist abuse online of footballers then you will not be going to the match, no ifs, no buts, no exemptions and no excuses.”

The government was also seeking other handy alibis.  As usual, social media platforms were walked into those roles to provide ammunition.  Johnson claimed to have had a firm word with representatives from social media at his Downing Street residence on July 13, warning that he would “legislate to address this problem in the Online Harms Bill, and unless they get hate and racism off their platforms, they will face fines amounting to 10% of their global revenues.”  The more astute comment in this move was made by former Premier League player Anton Ferdinand: sort out your own house first.  And that house is in severe need of tidying.

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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]

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At the Redzikowo base in Poland, work has begun on the installation of the Aegis Ashore system, at a cost of more than $180 million. It will be the second U.S. missile base in Europe, after that of Deveselu in Romania became operational in 2015. The official function of these bases is to protect, with the “shield” of SM-3 interceptor missiles, the U.S. forces in Europe and those of European NATO allies from “current and emerging ballistic missile threats from outside the Euro-Atlantic area”.

In addition to the two land installations, four ships equipped with the same Aegis system, deployed by the U.S. Navy at the Spanish base of Rota, cross the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Baltic Sea. The U.S. Navy has about 120 destroyers and cruisers armed with this missile system.

Both ships and Aegis land installations are equipped with Lockheed Martin’s Mk 41 vertical launchers: vertical tubes (in the body of the ship or in an underground bunker) from which the missiles are launched. Lockheed Martin itself, illustrating the technical characteristics, documents that it can launch missiles for all missions: anti-missile, anti-aircraft, anti-ship, anti-submarine and attack against land targets. Each launch tube is adaptable to any missile, including “those for long-range attack,” including the Tomahawk cruise missile. It can also be armed with a nuclear warhead.

It is therefore impossible to know which missiles are actually in the vertical launchers of the Aegis Ashore base in Romania and which will be installed in the one in Poland. Nor which missiles are on board the ships that cross the limits of Russian territorial waters. Not being able to check, Moscow takes for granted that there are also nuclear attack missiles. Same scenario in East Asia, where Seventh Fleet Aegis warships cross in the South China Sea. The main US allies in the region – Japan, South Korea, Australia – also have ships equipped with the US Aegis system.

This is not the only missile system the US is deploying in Europe and Asia. In his speech at the George Washington School of Media and Public Affairs, General McConville, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, stated last March that the U.S. Army is preparing a “task force” with “long-range precision fire capability that can go anywhere, consisting of hypersonic missiles, medium-range missiles, precision strike missiles” and that “these systems are capable of penetrating anti-aircraft barrage space. The general pointed out that “we plan to deploy one of these task forces in Europe and probably two in the Pacific.”

In such a situation, it is not surprising that Russia is accelerating the deployment of new intercontinental missiles, with nuclear warheads that, after ballistic trajectory, glide for thousands of kilometers at hypersonic speed. Nor is it surprising to hear the news, published by the Washington Post, that China is building over one hundred new silos for intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. The arms race takes place not so much on the quantitative level (number and power of nuclear warheads) as on the qualitative one (speed, penetrating capacity and geographical location of nuclear carriers). The response, in case of attack or presumed attack, is increasingly entrusted to artificial intelligence, which must decide the launch of nuclear missiles in a few seconds. It increases the possibility of a nuclear war by mistake, risked several times during the Cold War.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted by the United Nations in 2017 and entered into force in 2021, has so far been signed by 86 states and ratified by 54. None of the 30 NATO and 27 EU countries (except Austria) have ratified or even signed it. In Europe, only Austria, Ireland, Malta, San Marino and the Holy See have signed and ratified it. None of the nine nuclear countries – the United States, Russia, France, Great Britain, Israel, China, Pakistan, India and North Korea – has ratified or even signed it.

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This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.

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

Featured image: Aegis Ashore deckhouse (Public Domain)

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“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
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Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute   

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Yesterday afternoon, in what would have otherwise been breaking news of Watergate proportions, the Food and Drug Administration acknowledged the growing menace of experimental Covid-19 “vaccines” by attaching warning labels on Johnson & Johnson’s boosters. If we had a government that worked for the American people and actually cared about our interests, the “vaccines” would have been pulled off the market immediately the same way the “vaccine” called Pandemrix was discontinued after killing 47 people.

Alas, our government has been hijacked by corporations so the most they are willing to do is slap warning labels on Johson & Johnson’s “vaccines”. The FDA will have you believe that they did this out of an abundance of caution, but the truth is that no one will read these warning labels because they are not products that people can purchase over-the-counter. I’ve seen people get jabbed; health professionals don’t avail the boxes the vials are packaged in. To the contrary, folks who get “vaccinated” are not even given the full risk profiles of these snake oils that being pumped in their arms and causing thousands of deaths and injuries.

Chills all over me 🙏 pic.twitter.com/kM8F69DZ4M

— Nashville Angela (@Angelasfreenews) July 6, 2021

The warning labels that no one will be able to read are exactly what I and countless others have been ringing the alarm over only to be dismissed as “anti-vaxxers” and “conspiracy theorists”. People who are getting injected with Johnson & Johnson’s “vaccines “are developing a rare yet deadly autoimmune disease called Guillain-Barré syndrome. A neurological disorder in which the body’s immune system attacks and damages nerve cells with the potential of causing paralysis and death, Guillain-Barré syndrome is a debilitating ailment that is showing up in more and more people who got “vaccinated” for Covid-19.

This horrific development is not a fluke occurrence, they knew about this potential all along but chose to suppress this information from the wider public in order to increase the “vaccine” participation rate. When they tested mRNA “vaccines” on lab animals in the past, specifically ferrets and cats, they were eventually wiped out when they developed a lethal autoimmune condition called Antibody-Dependent Enchancment (ADE). What I feared all along is that people who get jabbed and acquire synthetic antibodies will eventually develop ADE when their antibodies wear off.

The emergence of Guillain-Barré syndrome in “vaccinated” people could very well be the canary in a coalmine of what awaits us this autumn. A couple of months ago I wrote an article titled “Sudden Adult Death Syndrome: Conditioning Us to Accept an Upcoming ‘Vaccine’ Holocaust”. I hope and pray I am wrong because I have family members who are “vaccinated” but I’m bracing for the worst-case scenario. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security is currently injecting immigrants in detention centers with Johnson & Johnson’s “vaccines” knowing full well they could be condemning people to their deaths. The spirit of Josef Mengele is alive and well in America, UK, France and beyond.

What has become abundantly clear is that our government and the establishment writ large are no longer trusted sources when it comes to these experimental “vaccines” or really anything else. If you are thinking about getting jabbed, before you make a decision that is irreversible, do your due diligence before you end up paralyzed or worse. There are some who will condemn me for being a scaremonger, but time has vindicated people like me and revealed people in positions of authority to be sheep in wolves clothing. Don’t fall for fear tactics and peer pressure, your life is precious and it should not be sacrificed at the altar of biotech corporations.

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Teodrose Fikremariam is the co-founder and editor of the Ghion Journal. Prior to launching the Ghion Journal, he was a political organizer who once wrote a speech idea in 2008 that was incorporated into Barack Obama’s South Carolina primary victory speech. He is originally from Ethiopia and a direct descendent, seven generations removed, of one of Ethiopia’s greatest Emperors Tewodros II.

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The domestic consequences of the global economic crisis caused by the world’s uncoordinated response to COVID-19 are being exploited as a cover for carrying out a US-backed Color Revolution attempt in Cuba, meaning that while some demonstrators might have legitimate grievances as do most of their peers across the world during this difficult time, there also are undoubtedly some who are actively trying to take advantage of this in order to overthrow their government.

Cuba’s back in the news after protests unexpectedly broke out in the capital. The participants claim that they’re demonstrating in response to their deteriorating socio-economic conditions caused by their government’s response to COVID-19 while the government accused them of being part of a US-backed plot to carry out a Color Revolution. The truth, like always, likely lies somewhere in the middle since the situation is much more complicated than either side portrays it as. It’s also made all the worse by American officials, including US President Biden, putting pressure on their Cuban counterparts for self-interested political reasons.

The island nation’s decades-long socio-economic challenges are the direct result of the US’ unilateral sanctions policy whereby it also threatens to impose so-called “secondary sanctions” against a wide array of foreign entities that might decide to do business in Cuba. The Cuban people, led by their country’s communist party, have valiantly persevered during this difficult time but the toll is still impossible to ignore. Observers also can’t dismiss the long-term psychological impact of the US’ pernicious information warfare campaign on shaping the youths’ perceptions of their future.

What’s happening right now is that COVID-19 exacerbated Cuba’s socio-economic problems and consequently created the pretext for Color Revolution “sleeper cells” to hit the streets. It would be amiss to accuse everyone who’s protesting of being a so-called “American agent” since the grievances that they have are legitimate ones that are presently shared by most of the global population to a certain extent. Nevertheless, the issue is that some of the demonstrators are blaming their government and in particular its communist ideology as being responsible for their woes, which isn’t an accurate assessment of the facts.

Those individuals are either connected to the US in some way or are at the very least behaving as its “useful idiots”, which suddenly transforms their superficially socio-economic protests into a pressing security threat considering their regime change intent. Official US statements might also hint at another wave of sanctions against the island nation strategically timed to further worsen the situation there in order to catalyze a self-sustaining cycle of unrest per the basics of Color Revolution theory. Deteriorating living standards might naturally prompt more protests, some of which could turn riotous and provoke the security services to respond.

The state’s defense of public order and the rule of law could then very easily be misportrayed through edited footage as being supposed evidence of so-called “unprovoked attacks against peaceful unarmed pro-democracy protesters”, which could then be the basis upon which more sanctions are imposed. Even so, however, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the government’s last days are near. They and the people that they represent survived much worse during the 1990s following the collapse of Cuba’s Soviet patron. There’s no reason to predict that the government will fall if the US imposes more sanctions and continues meddling in its affairs.

What’s most worrisome, however, is how the youths’ perceptions might continue to be shaped by the latest events. The US’ infowar modus operandi is to gradually sow the seeds of doubt into the minds of young people in every country whose government doesn’t fully comply with America’s diktats. Cuba’s been their target for decades, but it wasn’t until the information-communication technology (ICT) revolution of the 1990s onward that this began to have somewhat of a noticeable effect in Cuba. As the internet continues to proliferate and more young people become exposed to US narratives, some of them might lose faith in their country’s system.

It’s this demographic that’s the vanguard of every Color Revolution attempt even if they’re sometimes led by older folks, a few of whom might remain in the shadows but all of which are somehow or another tied to the US in the Cuban context. Realistically speaking, there’s only so much that the Cuban government can do for its people considering the crippling sanctions circumstances and the black swan event of COVID-19. No state’s response to the virus has been perfect and everyone across the world has suffered in some way. It’s delusional to imagine that everything would have been perfect in Cuba had it not been for the communists.

To the contrary, everything has developed as much as it has precisely because of those same communists who liberated Cuba from the US’ neo-imperialist grasp. The country used to be little more than a large plantation with a few brothels and casinos thrown in for American tourists’ entertainment. Although it has yet to reach Western socio-economic developmental levels, it’s still done fairly well for itself and survived so long despite all the odds, especially when remembering that it’s literally in what the US considers its own “backyard”. It’s this revolutionary spirit of principled resistance that kept Cuba going for as long as it has.

As such, it’s only natural that the US has aggressively targeted those ideals for decades. It’s thus far failed, but the global economic crisis brought about by COVID-19 created the perfect pretext for trying yet again, albeit under a different cover. Instead of being motivated by purely ideological pursuits like before, “sleeper cells” can now somewhat more plausibly claim to be driven by objectively existing socio-economic grievances, though misportrayed as the sole fault of the communists while ignoring the US sanctions factor. Washington wants to mislead as many youth as possible in order to indirectly assemble a critical mass of anti-government protesters.

With this insight in mind, there’s no doubt that the current events are indicative of a US-backed Color Revolution, but the protests are also inspired by the global economic crisis caused by COVID-19. Not everyone who’s upset with the status quo and particularly with what might be their declining living standards is an “American agent”, but those who defy the law and shout regime change slogans are at the very least “useful idiots” of their country’s nemesis. The situation is also being exploited by the US to threaten more sanctions, and it’s possible that it might become a partisan issue ahead of next year’s midterm elections too.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

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

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***

Wer zweifelt noch daran, dass wir uns seit über einem Jahr im Krieg befinden? Im Dritten Weltkrieg einer superreichen und machtgierigen „Elite“ gegen uns Bürger. Doch Krieg ist nach Auffassung des berühmt-berüchtigten preußischen Generalmajors und Militärstrategen Carl von Clausewitz „das Gebiet der Ungewissheit“. Damit birgt jeder Krieg für den Bürger eine Chance. Er muss sie nur ergreifen. George Orwell war der Auffassung:

„Die Moral, die aus diesem Albtraum gezogen werden soll, ist eine einfache: Lass es nicht geschehen! Es hängt ab von dir!“ (1) 

Nebel des Krieges – Fog of War 

Der Begriff „Nebel des Krieges“ bezeichnet die Tatsache, dass kriegsrelevante Informationen aufgrund verschiedener Umstände immer eine gewisse Unsicherheit und Unvollständigkeit aufweisen (2). Er taucht erstmals bei Carl von Clausewitz (1780 bis 1831) auf. In seinem Hauptwerk „Vom Kriege“ beschreibt er die strategische Notwendigkeit, Entscheidungen unter Zeitdruck mit unvollständigen Informationen nach bestem Wissen und Gewissen zu treffen:

„Der Krieg ist das Gebiet der Ungewissheit; drei Vierteile derjenigen Dinge, worauf das Handeln im Kriege gebaut wird, liegen im Nebel einer mehr oder weniger großen Ungewissheit. Hier ist es also zuerst, wo ein feiner, durchdringender Verstand in Anspruch genommen wird, um mit dem Takte seines Urteils die Wahrheit herauszufühlen.“ (3)

Seine Theorien über Strategie, Taktik und Philosophie hatten in allen westlichen Ländern großen Einfluss auf die Entwicklung des Kriegswesens und werden bis heute an Militärakademien gelehrt. Auch im Bereich der Unternehmensführung sowie im Marketing finden sie Anwendung.

„The Fog of War“ war auch ein preisgekrönter US-amerikanischer Dokumentarfilm, der Im Jahr 2003 mit dem Untertitel „Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara“ erschien. In einer deutschen Zusammenfassung des Films in „google.com“ heißt es:

„Grob geschätzt wurden 160 Millionen Menschen im 20. Jahrhundert getötet. Es war eines der gewalttätigsten in der Geschichte der Menschheit. Der Film legt uns nahe, dieses tragische Jahrhundert näher zu betrachten, als Anhaltspunkt dafür, wie wir eine Wiederholung im 21. Jahrhundert vermeiden können. (…).“ (4)

Wohlan, schreiten wir zur Tat! Auch angesichts des satanischen Masterplans Eugenik der machtgierigen „Elite“ sowie der psychologischen Kriegsführung gegen die Zivilgesellschaft können wir gemeinsam eine Wiederholung oder gar Verschlimmerung der gewalttätigen Geschichte in unserem Jahrhundert verhindern: Wenn wir es nicht geschehen lassen!

Psychological Operations (PSYOP) 

Es ist bittere Realität, dass im gegenwärtigen Krieg gegen uns Bürger alle möglichen Methoden und Maßnahmen zur Beeinflussung unseres Verhaltens und unserer Einstellungen angewandt werden: die Moral wird gestört und vermindert, der Wille zerbrochen und die Wahrnehmung verfälscht. Im NATO-Sprachgebrauch hat sich der Begriff „Psychological Operations“ (PSYOP) durchgesetzt als Paralleldisziplin zu MEDIAOPS (Media Operations), worunter im zivilen Sprachgebrauch „Public Relations“ / Medienarbeit zu verstehen ist. PSYOPS und MEDIAOPS sind Teilgebiete von INFOOPS (Informational Operations) (5).

Als Beispiel für die systematische Zerstörung der menschlichen Psyche werden im Folgenden die Techniken der Nötigung, des Zwangs und der Wahrnehmungsprogrammierung dargestellt, die der Psychologe Dr. Albert Biedermann 1956 unter dem Titel „Bidermanns Diagramm des Zwangs“ zusammenfasste. Mit diesen Techniken sollen das Denken, der Wille und die Selbstachtung der Menschen zerstört werden. Militärs haben damit (falsche) Geständnisse von Kriegsgefangenen erzwungen. Unter dem Begriff „Mind Kontroll“ werden sie seit vielen Jahren an Einzelpersonen und Gruppen praktiziert (6).

Da man im Internet schnell fündig wird, werden die sieben Maßnahmen zur Brechung des Willens und der Erzeugung von Gehorsam von Dr. Biedermann nur kurz aufgezählt. Doch bereits dadurch werden vielen Lesern die offensichtlichen Parallelen zu den illegitimen „Notstands-Maßnahmen“ der heutigen Politik deutlich werden:

1. Isolation

Isolation bedeutet, einem Menschen jede soziale Unterstützung durch Mitmenschen zu entziehen, um so die Fähigkeit, Widerstand zu leisten zu durchbrechen. Siehe „Social Distancing“.

2. Monopolisierung der Wahrnehmung

Es wird nur noch eine Meinung, die Mainstream-Meinung akzeptiert und geduldet und jede davon abweichende Meinung diffamiert oder der Zugang dazu blockiert.

3. Induzierte Erschöpfung und Entkräftigung

Erschöpfung schwächt die geistige und körperliche Widerstandsfähigkeit. Indem Ängste geschürt und Umstände von ständiger Unsicherheit geschaffen werden, wird einem jegliches Gefühl von Sicherheit und Stabilität genommen.

4. Androhen von negativen Folgen, Strafen und Gewalt bei Nichteinhaltung von Regeln

Bedrohungen von außen schaffen Angst und Verzweiflung. Der einzelne Mensch hat keine Entscheidungsmacht mehr.

5. Gelegentliche Zugeständnisse

Zum Beispiel lautet ein Versprechen: Wenn sich genügend Menschen haben impfen lassen, dann können wir vielleicht zurück zur alten Normalität.

6. Demütigung und Erniedrigung

Durch die Androhung harter Strafen auf unsinnige Maßnahmen und die Diffamierung derjenigen, die sich nicht an die Regeln halten, verliert der Mensch immer mehr den Mut zum Widerstand.

7. Das Opfer von Täter abhängig machen

Je mehr die Wirtschaft und die materiellen Lebensgrundlagen zerstört werden, desto mehr werden die Bürger abhängig von den Zuwendungen des Staates. Je abhängiger das Opfer vom Täter, je höriger wird es.

George Orwell: „Lass es nicht geschehen! Es hängt ab von dir!“

Ein englisches Cartoon aus der Stummfilmzeit um die 1920er-Jahre ließ mich schließlich aufatmen: „An Early Warning Cartoon ‚How To Take Over The World‘“. Ein Cartoon mit der Vorwarnung „Wie man die Welt übernimmt“ (7). Bereits vor 100 Jahren zeigte man den neuzeitlichen Machthabern, welche infame Methoden dazu geeignet sind, die Welt und ihre Menschen in Besitz zu nehmen.

Das muss doch den letzten Zweifler davon überzeugen, dass die heute angewandten politischen „Notfall-Maßnahmen“ altbekannte Disziplinierungs- und Herrschaftsmittel sind, die der aufgeklärte Bürger mit ein bisschen Mut unterlaufen kann. Untermalt wurden die einzelnen Schritte durch eine Grafik und entsprechende Musik:

1. Setze eine Grippe als Waffe ein
2. Überschwemme Zeitung und Radio mit dem Tod
3. Schließe Geschäfte und Kirche
4. Nutze die Gesetzesvollstrecker, um abweichende Meinungen zu unterdrücken
5. Stelle die Kranken und Toten zur Schau
6. Injiziere einen Impfstoff, um die Arbeitsscheuen zu sterilisieren und die Alten einzuschläfern
7. Die Leute, denen die Banken gehören, besitzen nun auch die Krankenhäuser
8. Das ist ihr Plan, um DICH zu besitzen

Nach dem Cartoon wurde ein kurzer Interviewausschnitt von George Orwell (1903 bis 1950) eingeblendet. Darin prophezeit er wohl gegen Ende seines Lebens eine düstere Zukunft:

„Wenn Sie ein Bild der Zukunft wollen, stellen Sie sich einen Stiefel vor, der unaufhörlich in ein menschliches Gesicht trltt. Die Moral, die aus diesem Albtraum gezogen werden soll, ist eine einfache: Lass es nicht geschehen! Es hängt ab von dir! (8) 

Die Chance nutzen!

Der Aufforderung George Orwells ist nicht viel hinzuzufügen.

Kommt man noch einmal auf die eingangs zitierten Worte des Militärstrategen Carl von Clausewitz zurück, so ist zu konstatieren, dass im Nebel des Krieges nicht nur das Militär zuerst seinen feinen, durchdringenden Verstand in Anspruch zu nehmen hat, um mit dem Takte seines Urteils die Wahrheit herauszufinden. Es ist auch die Aufgabe jedes Bürgers, die Wahrheit herauszufinden, damit der Albtraum ein Ende findet.

Zwar behauptet ein freier Denker nie, er verfüge über die Wahrheit. Für den freien Geist gibt es eine unbegrenzte Anzahl von zu entdeckenden und dem Wandel unterworfenen Wahrheiten. Wahr ist für ihn, was nicht dogmatische Fessel ist und die Menschen nicht in Gläubige und in Nichtgläubige oder Andersgläubige trennt, sondern dem Zusammenleben der Menschen nützt und ihr Einvernehmen fördert.

Was jedoch im Moment in unserer Gesellschaft passiert, widerspricht ganz und gar der menschlichen Natur, schadet dem Zusammenleben und zerstört das Einvernehmen. Deshalb werden die Bürger aufwachen, noch bevor man ihr menschliches Bewusstsein ferngesteuert lahmlegt. Noch immer haben sich Diktaturen mit der Zeit überlebt, weil die Machthaber den unbedingten Lebenswillen und die Widerstandskraft der Bürger unterschätzten.

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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel ist Diplom-Psychologe und Erziehungswissenschaftler.

Fussnoten: 

[1] Warnte ein altes Cartoon uns vor?

[2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebel_des_Krieges

[3] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebel_des_Krieges

[4] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog_of_War

[5] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychologische_Kriegsführung

[6] https://www.inspiriert-sein.de/systematische-zerstoerung-menschlichen-psyche-biedermanns-diagramm-des-zwangs

[7] Warnte ein altes Cartoon uns vor?

[8] Warnte ein altes Cartoon uns vor?

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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***

In the wake of anti-government demonstrations in Cuba, many US officials are calling for Washington to intervene. The mayor of Miami has gone as far to suggest that the US should consider bombing Cuba.

In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Mayor Francis Suarez argued in favor of US military intervention and listed examples of previous US wars that involved airstrikes. When asked if he is suggesting that the US bomb Cuba, Suarez said,

“What I’m suggesting is that option is one that has to be explored and cannot be just simply discarded as an option that is not on the table.”

“And there’s a variety of ways the military can do it. But that’s something that needs to be discussed and needs to be looked as a potential option in addition to a variety of other options that can be discussed,” he added.

In a separate interview with Fox Business News on Tuesday, Suarez again argued for US military invention.

“The US has intervened in Latin America in numerous occasions and has been very successful,” he said. Echoing the Cold War, Suarez said Cuba is a threat to the US because it is “exporting communism throughout the hemisphere.”

Luckily, it doesn’t appear that the Biden administration has any plans to invade or bomb Cuba. The State Department said Tuesday that it is looking at ways to “support” the Cuban people but is downplaying the impact of the decades-old US embargo on Cuba.

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***

The Biden administration and allied groups, including the Democratic National Committee (DNC), are “planning to engage fact-checkers more aggressively and work with SMS [Short Message Service] carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines sent over social media and text messages,” according to a report today in Politico by White House correspondents Natasha Korecki and Eugene Daniels.

The initiative is part of the administration’s attempt to get more people vaccinated for COVID after failing to reach its goal of having 70% of American adults receive at least one vaccine dose by July 4.

“We are steadfastly committed to keeping politics out of the effort to get every American vaccinated so that we can save lives and help our economy further recover,” White House spokesperson Kevin Munoz said, according to Politico. “When we see deliberate efforts to spread misinformation, we view that as an impediment to the country’s public health and will not shy away from calling that out.”

Politico’s Korecki tweeted this:

NEW: Bidenworld is taking a more aggressive approach to combat vaccine fear-mongering by conservative forces.
That includes
– Calling on SMS carriers to mete out false messages
– urging social media platforms to fact-check

w/ @EugeneDaniels2 https://t.co/HlAcOnQRgA

— Natasha Korecki (@natashakorecki) July 12, 2021

Politico did not clearly define what the administration meant by “monitoring” of text messages, including if messages would be flagged or if they would be prevented from being delivered.

The media outlet also did not clarify how the administration or social media platforms would determine what exactly constitutes “misinformation.”

Critics were quick to condemn the administration’s latest move. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a constitutional lawyer, tweeted this:

So now the Biden Administration wants to get into people’s text messages … to force vaccine compliance and who knows what else https://t.co/Q1v1qkOOfB

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 13, 2021

This isn’t the first time the White House signaled its intent to work with social media platforms to monitor or suppress information it believes will deter people from getting the vaccine.

As The Defender reported in February, the White House asked Big Tech giants Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet Inc.’s Google to “clamp down on chatter that deviates from officially distributed COVID-19 information,” according to the New York Post and other news reports.

Social media tycoons are now openly serving as government surrogates in #censoring factually accurate information that departs from government policies and pronouncements. #TheDefenderhttps://t.co/9JLX3arHyB

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) February 22, 2021

Reuters reported that Biden, concerned that “fear about taking the vaccine has emerged as a major impediment” to his administration’s pandemic plan, wants help from the social media moguls to keep “misinformation” from going viral.

Biden’s door-to-door vaccine campaign

The Biden administration faced backlash last week after President Biden announced plans to ramp up the federal government’s efforts to get more Americans vaccinated by going “door-to-door” to encourage Americans to get vaccinated.

In response, critics accused the administration of “tyrannical” government overreach. But Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief medical advisor, replied Sunday accusing them of misinterpreting Biden’s program.

“The big misinterpretation that Fox News or whomever else is saying is that they are essentially envisioning a bunch of federal workers knocking on your door, telling you you’ve got to do something that you don’t want to do,” said Fauci.

“That’s absolutely not the case, it’s trusted messengers who are part of the community doing that — not government officials,” he added. “So that’s where I think the disconnect is.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki offered similar pushback in a White House press briefing July 9, when asked about South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster’s push for the state’s Department of Health to prohibit “‘door-to-door’ tactics in the state’s ongoing vaccination efforts.”

Last week South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, in a letter to the South Carolina Board of Health and Environmental Control, wrote:

“Enticing, coercing, intimidating, mandating or pressuring anyone to take a vaccine is a bad policy that will deteriorate the public trust and confidence in the state’s efforts.”

McMaster said he was going to prohibit the state health agency from using the administration’s targeted tactics.

Psaki responded to McMaster’s letter, saying it was a disservice to the country to provide “inaccurate disinformation at a moment when we’re still fighting a pandemic” and that “the failure to provide accurate public health information, including the efficacy of vaccines and the accessibility of them to people across the country, including South Carolina, is literally killing people, so maybe they should consider that.”

Psaki said the administration has “engaged with local community groups and pastors to handle door-to-door sharing of information with neighbors about the vaccines” for months.

According to Politico, the Biden administration has teamed up with the COVID Collaborative, which describes itself as a “diverse and comprehensive team of experts, leaders and institutions in health, education, and the economy” which works to “develop consensus recommendations, and engage with local, state and national leaders.”

The collaborative, an initiative of the Office of American Possibilities, charted vaccine hesitancy by zip code and is working to convince people to get vaccinated as part of the door-to-door campaign.

The COVID Collaborative has partnerships with the CDC Foundation, which partners with Pfizer and the Pfizer Foundation. It also has partnerships with The American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, The Rockefeller Foundation, National Association of Manufacturers (which also partners with Pfizer), and numerous organizations that receive funding from pharmaceutical companies that  manufacture COVID vaccines.

COVID Collaborative co-founder John Bridgeland said his group had already seen a shift on the ground with people shutting doors “in their faces because they don’t want to get vaccinated.”

Bridgeland’s biggest concern is that “these lies convince communities [who] are already wary of the vaccines, creating sects of the country where the virus just bounces among the unvaccinated.”

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Megan Redshaw is a freelance reporter for The Defender. She has a background in political science, a law degree and extensive training in natural health.

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***

After meeting with Pfizer executives Monday, U.S. regulators said they are still not ready to recommend COVID vaccine booster shots.

“Nothing has really changed,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN’s Chris Cuomo after the meeting.

Pfizer executives met privately with U.S. senior scientists and regulators Monday evening to press their case for quick authorization of COVID booster vaccines amid pushback from federal health agencies who last week said the extra doses are not needed.

Officials said after the meeting that more data — and possibly several more months — would be needed before regulators could determine whether booster shots were necessary.

During the 1-hour online virtual meeting, Pfizer’s chief scientific officer briefed top doctors in the federal government, including: Fauci; Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health; U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy; Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA); Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Rachel Levine; and Dr. David Kessler, chief science officer of the Biden administration’s COVID response team.

The meeting was largely seen as a courtesy after Pfizer’s announcement last week that it would seek Emergency Use Authorization for its booster shot led to unusual pushback from the FDA and CDC.

U.S. federal health agencies and the maker of one of the most popular COVID vaccines are publicly at odds over whether fully vaccinated people will soon need a third booster shot.

SUBSCRIBE #TheDefender: https://t.co/zL66EdwTnDhttps://t.co/AYEjOZu32q

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) July 11, 2021

The two agencies responded to Pfizer’s news in a joint statement, issued last week by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in which they said fully vaccinated Americans don’t need boosters right now and the science is lacking.

“The CDC and the FDA said that based on the data that we know right now, we don’t need a boost,” Fauci told CNN Monday. “That doesn’t mean that that won’t change. We might need, as a matter of fact, at some time to give boosters either across the board or to certain select groups, such as the elderly or those with underlying conditions,” Fauci said.

Officials said any recommendations about booster shots are likely to be scaled, even within age groups. For example, if booster shots are recommended, they might go first to nursing home residents who received their vaccines in late 2020 or early 2021, while elderly people who received their first shots in the spring might have a longer wait, The New York Times reported.

Then there is the issue of what kind of booster will be needed: a third dose of the original vaccine, or a shot tailored to the Delta variant.

“It was an interesting meeting,” Fauci said. “They shared their data. There wasn’t anything resembling a decision. This is just one piece of a much bigger puzzle, and it’s one part of the data, so there isn’t a question of a convincing case one way or the other.”

Pfizer called the meeting “productive”:

“We had a productive meeting with U.S. public health officials on the elements of our research program and the preliminary booster data in our ongoing trials. Both Pfizer and the U.S. government share a sense of urgency in staying ahead of the virus that causes COVID-19, and we also agree that the scientific data will dictate next steps in the rigorous regulatory process that we always follow.”

Pfizer said it would be publishing “more definitive data in a peer-reviewed journal and continuing to work with regulatory authorities to ensure that our vaccine continues to offer the highest degree of protection possible.”

According to The New York Times, HHS, which convened the meeting, issued its own statement reiterating the administration’s stance. “At this time, fully vaccinated Americans do not need a booster shot,” the agency said.

An HHS spokesperson told CNN the CDC and FDA take laboratory data, clinical trial data, cohort data — which can include data from specific pharmaceutical companies, but do “not rely on those data exclusively.”

The administration is prepared for booster doses if the science demonstrates they are needed, the spokesperson added, and will continue to review any new data as it becomes available.

Prior to Monday’s meeting, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former FDA commissioner and current board member at Pfizer, told CBS News updated efficacy numbers from the Israeli Ministry of Health led Pfizer to seek Emergency Use Authorization for a booster dose of its COVID vaccine.

Israel’s health ministry said in a statement last week it had seen the efficacy of Pfizer’s vaccine drop from more than 90% to about 64% as the Delta variant spread.

As a result, Israel started administering a third dose of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine to immunocompromised people and heart transplant patients — despite the vaccine’s link to heart inflammation.

WHO says Pfizer should focus on improving access to vaccine, not boosters

World Health Organization (WHO) officials insisted there was not enough evidence to show the need for third doses of COVID vaccines. They said Pfizer should concentrate instead on improving vaccine access around the world, The Guardian reported.

The WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said grotesque vaccine disparities were driven by “greed.”

“We are making conscious choices right now not to protect those in need,” Ghebreyesus said, adding that people who have yet to receive a single dose should be prioritized. He  called on Pfizer and Moderna to “go all out to supply COVAX, the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Task Team and low- and middle-income countries.”

Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, chief WHO scientist, said:

“At this point … there is no scientific evidence to suggest that boosters are definitely needed.”

Swaminathan said the WHO would make recommendations on booster shots “based on the science and data, not on individual companies declaring that the vaccines should now be administered as a booster dose.”

Dr. Michael Ryan, WHO emergencies chief, suggested if rich countries decide to administer booster shots rather than to donate them to the developing world, “we will look back in anger and I think we will look back in shame.”

Pfizer stands to make billions from boosters

Pfizer stands to benefit financially if booster doses are needed, according to The Motley Fool which wrote: “The more COVID vaccine doses are required, the higher the companies’ sales will be and the better its vaccine stocks will likely perform.”

According to YAHOO Finance, Pfizer has recently experienced an increase in support from the world’s most elite money managers. Among these funds, Diamond Hill Capital held the most valuable stake in Pfizer — worth $407.3 million at the end of the fourth quarter.

In second place was New York-based hedge fund Two Sigma Advisors, which amassed $387.2 million worth of shares. Citadel Investment Group and AQR Capital Management — an investment management firm dedicated to delivering results for its clients — became one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company.

In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position, Healthcare Value Capital allocated the biggest weight to Pfizer.

Specific money managers include Marshall Wace LLP, which invested $56.1 million in the company at the end of the quarter, and Steven Boyd’s Armistice Capital, which made a $43.5 million investment in the stock during the quarter.

Other funds with brand new Pfizer positions are Charles Clough’s Clough Capital Partners, Michael Rockefeller and KarláKroeker’s Woodline Partners, and Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management.

As The Defender reported July 9, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla has said for months a booster would likely be needed within a year of the initial two-dose inoculation — followed by annual vaccinations, even as public health officials and academic scientists said it wasn’t clear yet when a booster would be needed.

Booster shots for COVID are expected to serve as a key revenue driver in the years to come for Pfizer and its primary rival in the U.S., Moderna. Pfizer in May projected global sales of its COVID vaccine to reach $26 billion in 2021.

The company has also been frank that its current pricing — $19.50 per dose in the U.S. — is temporary. On an earnings call in February, Frank A. D’Amelio, Pfizer’s executive vice president of global supply, assured investors the company sees the vaccine market evolving as the pandemic wanes, and will likely be able to charge more per dose than it was getting under pandemic supply deals.

D’Amelio said a more typical price for a vaccination was $150 or $175 per dose.

Pfizer has been working on two different booster strategies it anticipates could carry sales beyond the immediate pandemic need: a third 30 mg dose of its current vaccines and an updated vaccine that targets the South African variant.

The company said it would begin testing a booster shot specifically programmed to combat the Delta variant in August, reaffirming concerns by scientists who predicted in April that pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer, would create a vaccine treadmill with continuous booster shots targeted at emerging variants — which is music to the ears of investors.

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Megan Redshaw is a freelance reporter for The Defender. She has a background in political science, a law degree and extensive training in natural health.

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***

The College of Charleston is amending is policies regarding Covid-19 vaccinations for students this summer and fall after parents voiced concerns to the school – and to the office of South Carolina attorney general Alan Wilson.

Documents obtained by this news outlet reveal that Wilson’s office was inundated with inquiries regarding the school’s policies – which would have required unvaccinated students to subject themselves to monthly Covid-19 testing or face unspecified sanctions.

Specifically, the school initially required any unvaccinated student who failed to fill out a university-mandated form attesting to their status “be placed in a monthly Covid-19 required testing protocol.”

In a letter to CofC president Andrew Hsu dated yesterday (July 6, 2021), Wilson wrote that the school’s policies “could be read to imply that an unvaccinated student (who) refuses to participate in a survey and monthly testing protocols may be subject to a reprimand, the harshness of which is unclear.”

According to Wilson, state lawmakers have banned “any state institution from requiring Covid-19 vaccinations” – although some state agencies appear to be flouting this ban.

“As state law makes clear, no state institution may mandate Covid-19 vaccinations or retaliate against those that choose not to receive a vaccination,” Wilson wrote in his letter (.pdf). “I strongly urge the college to review and revise its proposed Covid-19 policy to ensure that it complies with state law. The college should clarify that while it may encourage vaccinations, there will be no reprimand, punishment or adverse consequence for any student (who) exercises their individual right not to receive a vaccination.”

On Wednesday morning – less than 24 hours after receiving Wilson’s letter – the college announced it was updating its policies.

According to an email obtained by this news outlet from the parent of a CofC student, the school acknowledged that its policy requiring monthly testing resulted in “a few questions from students and families regarding requirements around vaccines and testing.”

That’s putting it charitably …

I spoke to one parent this week who expressed concern that “the potential health risks of an experimental vaccine that has not been fully approved by the FDA outweigh the health benefits for a healthy 19-year-old at this time.” This parent indicated they were willing to keep an open mind as to the efficacy of the vaccine, but in the meantime the CofC vaccination policy “imposes a de-facto vaccine passport, which is banned in South Carolina.”

According to the school, no such passport is being required.

“As has always been the case, students are not required to be vaccinated in order to enroll or attend the College of Charleston or participate in any campus activities,” the email updating the school’s polices noted, although it added that school officials would continue to “strongly encourage all students to get vaccinated in order to assist in the College’s Covid-19 mitigation efforts.”

The key shift in policy contained in the missive?

According to the updated guidance, unvaccinated students will no longer be “required to participate in monthly testing protocols” – although “given the social nature and high density of a college campus, public health experts strongly encourage monthly testing for those individuals, at a minimum.”

The school said it would offer “voluntary weekly testing” in an effort to help “facilitate this effort.”

In a letter to Wilson accompanying the school’s updated guidance, president Hsu personally assured the attorney general that “no student will have any adverse consequence for making the personal choice not to be vaccinated.”

“I feel confident that with this message the college’s position is very clear,” Hsu wrote in his letter (.pdf).

It is clear … now.

I suspect Wilson’s letter on this subject will receive significant airplay across South Carolina in the months to come as numerous state agencies – and political subdivisions of the state – grapple with the legality of their proposed vaccine policies. In the meantime, Covid-19 cases and related hospitalizations and deaths continues to fall off the map in the Palmetto State – while the number of vaccinated South Carolinians continues to climb.

According to the latest data from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC), 48.8 percent of South Carolinians over the age of 12 have received at least one vaccine dose while 43 percent have “completed” the vaccination process. These numbers lag behind the rest of the nation, though. Nationally, 64.4 percent of Americans over the age of 12 have gotten at least one shot, while 55.6 percent are “fully vaccinated.”

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Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina and before that he was a bass player and a dive bar bouncer. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven children. And yes, he has LOTS of hats (including the above-pictured Carolina Mudcats’ lid).

Featured image is from FITSNews

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***

To no avail, the water pump wheezes tonight. Iraq, the land between two rivers, is thirsty. Barely a few drops drip from the kitchen faucet in my family’s residence in Baghdad.

The power is off, too, and private diesel generators roar deep into the night. The tranquility that used to lullaby Baghdad’s alleys, allowing its residents to sleep during the hot summer nights on rooftops, has long gone. So has the safety that enabled them to do so in a now-distant lifetime, hardly visible beyond the thick plumes of smoke rising from a violent past that – in the collective memory of Iraqis – continues to burn.

“Iraq’s night is long,” the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish once wrote in a poem for his Iraqi peer, Saadi Youssef. In his own prophetic poem, “A Vision”, Youssef wrote:

“This Iraq will reach the ends of the graveyard / It will bury its sons in open country / Generation after generation / And it will forgive its despot.” *

More than two decades have passed since the late Youssef wrote those lines in 1997, and Iraq still buries its sons, generation after generation.

As the last military choppers rape their way through the skies of Baghdad back to their military camps, and the lilting echo of the last Quran verse recited in nearby mosques fades away in grim alleys, where anguished mothers sob for lost sons, news arrives of the day’s fair share of death.

It is during the night that reports of air strikes, terrorist assaults and militia rocket attacks arrive. This lawlessness is enabled by the same lethal failure that pushes miserable youths to hang themselves, or to leap from the highest bridges in towns that, despite being bombed by western armies, rarely appear on TV screens in the West.

Western opportunists

Growing up in Iraq is traumatising. To be an Iraqi writer is life-threatening. I watch the daily repertoire of deadly misery, but for an endless series of assassinations and intimidation, I opt to stifle my pen. It leaves me suffocated, shouting aloud inside my head words I cannot write.

In today’s Iraq, one needs to live by the saying “eat and chirp”. Those dissatisfied with living on crumbs and who stray from the herd are mowed down in broad daylight, executed by “unknown” gunmen under the gaze of CCTV cameras at their doorsteps.

An Iraqi woman standing next to her maryred son’s portrait in Baghdad on 25 February 2021 (Photo by Nabil Salih)

This thuggery makes me think twice before writing a single word on Iraq – if a platform even considers a native’s perspective worthy of publishing in the first place.

Iraq, after all, is a dream destination for many western opportunists drooling over the prospects of the next opening in the Global South. Not only are we, inferior humans, unable to travel and work in their countries as easily, but we are unable to find equal opportunities in our own lands, too.

They build their careers not only on our suffering, but also on our insights, tips and evocative stories. While these indolent tourists, who are usually detached from the streets, occupy jobs usually inaccessible to us, and write divisively from the safety of bureaus in a ghetto on the Tigris banks, we local writers pray that our emails merit a reply from equally clueless foreign Middle East editors.

But judging by the recycled, boring “hit” stories they deem “great”, the latter seem to have struggled to write a postcard during their time “on the ground” without the help of local “colleagues” they keep in their shadow.

Stranger in Baghdad

So when writing becomes both dangerous and an unattainable luxury, I walk. Every evening, I put on a pair of beaten shoes and wander the alleys of Baghdad alone.

What today’s Iraq has to offer stabs me in the eyes, leaving me muted. How do I conjure adequate words in the presence of such tragedy?

The streets on which I flicked marbles with my friends and scurried under bullets no longer seem familiar. Or am I the stranger here? I do feel like one in Baghdad, a city where militiamen and fine-suited crooks grow rich, and dead youth stare from billboards at the living who will soon follow them to the Najaf cemetery, either in coffins or in the company of coffined relatives or friends – all thanks to war criminals of Donald Rumsfeld’s ilk.

With a heavy heart, I walk the streets of Baghdad, bitter to have arrived too late to see the city I love in its glamour, and grateful to have lived a few peaceful days in its bosom before war destroyed it.

How happy and naive and hungry we were before Kanan Makiya and his friends danced to the bombardment of Iraq! The “liberation” his ilk cheered for entailed dropping cluster bombs on my family’s garden in Baghdad, where in previous years, my friends and I had chased a nylon football in bare feet, with joyful hearts. We were oblivious to a war that was holding a sickle over the gates of Iraq, to hordes of warmongering columnists in New York salivating at the imminent sight of fireworks over Baghdad.

I remember huddling with my family in my late grandmother’s room when the bombing started. On one of those nights, we received a telephone call from my aunt, telling us to keep a bucket of clean water and pieces of cloth handy in case of a chemical attack on Baghdad.

Endless bombs

Of course, the sons and daughters of the Green Zone’s democracy knights, who decorated their Christmas trees abroad while we starved under genocidal UN sanctions, have rosy childhood memories.

They weren’t submitted to humanitarian starvation imposed by western officials yet to be held accountable for the killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, nor did they hear the deafening sounds of “liberatory” bombing that scarred the face of Baghdad.

But I did, and I still have bombs going off inside my head.

After former US President George W Bush announced “mission accomplished” in 2003, every day carried news of tragedy in Iraq. Images of women beating their chests in mourning of sons torn apart on the streets became constantly present on our TV screens.

Off the screen, I would wake up to Abrams tanks cruising down our street at hysterical speeds, and walk past camouflaged gunmen and rotten corpses on my way to school.

Both my father and my uncle were abducted by gunmen from rival armed groups. Later, both families received death letters, and we were both forcibly displaced from our homes.

Those years have engraved indelible images of carnage on the inner walls of my memory, and they haunt me as I stroll the streets of Baghdad at night.

Bodies of the dead

In my childhood alley, the elegant houses with luscious gardens of palms and Ziziphus trees have long disappeared, along with the familiar faces. In place of each house, three or four, or even more, ugly apartments have sprung up – an erasure of the city’s architectural identity, and a burden on the water and electricity grids.

From the labyrinth of my neighbourhood, I make my way to a nearby bridge. There, on a distant afternoon, someone in an orange jumpsuit was hanged from the railing. His lifeless body swayed in the air as speeding cars zipped by beneath his dangling feet.

We were young then, myself and friends now scattered around the globe, and we watched the spectacle from a vacant lot where once, on another distant afternoon, gunmen dumped the corpses of two women onto piles of garbage.

Time flies, I think to myself. We are grownups and traumatised now. The stray dogs who fed on the dead bodies littering my neighbourhood alleys must be dead by now, I suspect. But who knows? I know that the little girl whose father’s car was blown up on this same bridge was still young.

It was one of the loudest bombings I’d ever heard, and I have heard so many in my life. The explosion killed the father that day, and tore the daughter’s body in two. My neighbour, who now lives in exile after gunmen held him and his family members at gunpoint in their own kitchen, found the lower part of the girl’s body in the trunk of the family’s charred, blue Volkswagen.

It is painful to be Iraqi. Even the streets of memory are littered with the bodies of our dead.

I think of the little girl as I make my way home, and I wish her a good night. I hope she has toys and friends up “there”, where hopefully no bombs need to go off, and she never looks down to see what’s happening to the rest of us here, in an Iraq that still buries its sons in open country, generation after generation.

*

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Translated from Arabic by Khaled Mattawa.

Nabil Salih is an independent writer, journalist and photographer from Baghdad. His writings and photography appear in Al Jazeera English, Jadaliyya and Open Democracy. He is an incoming MA in Arab Studies (MAAS) candidate at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in Georgetown University.

Featured image: An Iraqi man walks the streets of Baghdad on 25 January 2021 (Nabil Salih)

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***

A caveat must be added to the famous line by Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay, NATO’s first Secretary General and Winston Churchill’s chief military assistant during the Second World War, that the purpose of the Alliance was “to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”. 

The alliance is no longer adequate to pin Germany “down” on the dissection table. The multipolarity in world politics creates space for a powerhouse like the reunified Germany to raise its head above the parapet of big-power politics. Germany has outgrown the NATO as a rising world power. 

Quite obviously, Germany’s lack of enthusiasm for NATO’s eastward expansion blocked Washington’s agenda for Ukraine and Georgia’s induction into the alliance as full members. Berlin doesn’t want to complicate Europe’s relations with Russia. Ukraine and Georgia were not invited even as ‘observers’ to the recent summit in Brussels despite the 2008 Bucharest summit’s formal decision on their membership. 

At the end of the day, Germany also moderated the Biden administration’s push to drag the alliance to the Asia-Pacific. Curiously, last Monday, within 3 weeks of the European summit with the US and the NATO and G7 summits, Chinese President Xi Jinping had a three-way video call with the French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel where he expressed the hope that China and Europe would expand cooperation to better respond to global challenge.  

This has been the third such ‘summit’ in the past 3 months and reinforces Beijing’s belief that European countries have not tied themselves to the US chariot and although there are many similarities in terms of values and systems between the US and the EU, the latter is attaching more importance to strategic autonomy. read more 

Indeed, the latest efforts by Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron to organise another EU-Russia summit would have also caused irritation in Washington. read more 

Therefore, the big question surrounding Merkel’s forthcoming visit to Washington on Thursday will be how far Washington wields power to make Germany sacrifice for the US hegemony anymore. The salience of the visit will be that it illuminates the diversity and flexibility of Germany’s thoughts on global issues. 

Merkel’s July 15 visit to the White House marks only the third time a foreign leader will have met with Biden in Washington since he became president — and, she is the first European leader to do so. White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Friday that Biden hopes to affirm “deep and enduring” ties between the NATO allies while also tackling some areas of disagreement.

A deal on Nord Stream 2? 

Psaki called it an “official working visit” aimed at shoring up the partnership between the two countries and identifying ways to further strengthen cooperation, while an official in Berlin said, “From the German perspective, this will be a working visit.” 

The laundry list is long — Biden’s decision to end the forever Afghan war, Covid-19, trade issues, Nord Stream 2. In practical terms, the Nord Stream 2, will be a heavily loaded issue, given its profound impact on German-Russian relations for decades to come, Europe’s energy security, Moscow’s current tensions with the European Union and the US’ trans-Atlantic leadership itself. 

On Sunday, the managing director of Nord Stream 2 AG, which is running the pipeline project, and its German chief executive Matthias Warnig disclosed in an interview with the Handelsblatt newspaper that the construction is 98% completed by now and may be finished already in August. 

According to Warnig, three months will be needed to receive various certificates and undergo trials. The process has already kicked off in respect of the pipeline’s first line that has already been completed. Our goal is “to commission [the project] already this year,” he noted. 

Importantly, Warnig said he was convinced gas transit via Ukraine from Russia would be continued after 2024.

“Transit via Ukraine will still be part of Russian gas transportation to Europe even after 2024. I have not a slightest doubt,” he stressed. [Significantly, Merkel invited Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to visit Berlin today in the run-up to her US trip.]

In May, the Biden administration took a nuanced step to waive sanctions on the Swiss-based Nord Stream 2 AG and its German CEO. The waiver gives Berlin and Washington three more months until mid-August to reach an agreement on Nord Stream 2. read more 

President Putin exuded confidence in a TV interview last month when he said that

“it was already pointless to resist the construction of the pipeline and to impose sanctions. Because we have already completed it, the first branch is ready. It seems like [the US] has abandoned these sanctions.” 

The question of what to do with the pipeline still could prove the first big headache for the next German government. Merkel pushed back at the heavy US pressure to abandon the project but she is retiring in September. Polls suggest that the elections to the Bundestag in September may yield big gains for the Green Party which opposes the Nord Stream 2 project. read more

Suffice to say, the Biden-Merkel meeting could provide important momentum for getting to a deal on Nord Stream 2. Berlin hopes to resolve the issue by August and on his part, Biden is also eager to improve ties with Germany, which is a key ally to deal with major global issues of climate change, post-pandemic economic recovery and relations with Iran and China.

TRIPS waiver a bridge too far?

From the Indian perspective, there is going to be keen interest on the outcome of the Biden-Merkel talks in regard of the contentious issue of a temporary waiver of intellectual property rights for the Covid-19 vaccines being considered by World Trade Organisation [WTO] members to help end the pandemic. 

Last October, India and South Africa had floated the proposal to waive IP rights at the WTO’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights [TRIPS] Council. 

The Biden administration has expressed backing for the waiver. But Germany poured cold water on the idea, maintaining that the greatest constraints on production of vaccines were not intellectual property but increasing capacity and ensuring quality. A German statement in May said, “The protection of intellectual property is a source of innovation and must remain so in the future.” 

Evidently, European industry’s heavyweights — home to major players such as BioNTech and AstraZeneca — resist the waiver. In early June, the European Commission, under German influence,  submitted an alternative plan to the WTO, proposing other measures such as limits on export restrictions, and the compulsory licensing of the patents in some circumstances. read more

However, the ground beneath the feet somewhat shifted on June 10 when the European Parliament backed the TRIPS waiver in relation to COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and equipment. The European Parliament amendment was passed by 355 votes to 263, with 71 abstentions, largely following left-right lines, with leftists such as the Socialists and Democrats backing the waiver and those on the right opposing it. read more

Of course, the Commission is not bound by the European Parliament’s amendment but the vote sends a strong political message nonetheless: Europe is gradually shifting to the pro-waiver camp. Meanwhile, Germany is increasingly lonely in its opposition to the waiver, as France flipped lately and crossed over to the patent-suspension camp.

The tide seems to be turning, although there is still a long way to go, as the waiver camp also has multiple voices and appearances such as France’s can be deceptive.

Merkel may have got unexpected support from an influential quarter in Washington when World Bank President David Malpass [a Trump administration nominee, by the way] waded into the controversy, saying ”We don’t support that [TRIPS waiver] for the reason that it would run the risk of reducing the innovation and the R&D in that sector.” 

To be sure, on Friday, when asked if Biden would seek to convince Merkel to support the patent waiver, Psaki was evasive. She would only say Biden is a “strong proponent” of the waiver, while Psaki went on to add, “It’s one tool in our toolbox.  There are a number of others, including increasing manufacturing.” That sounded closer to Merkel’s thinking.

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It’s the summer of 2026, five years after the Biden administration identified the People’s Republic of China as the principal threat to U.S. security and Congress passed a raft of laws mandating a society-wide mobilization to ensure permanent U.S. domination of the Asia-Pacific region. Although major armed conflict between the United States and China has not yet broken out, numerous crises have erupted in the western Pacific and the two countries are constantly poised for war. International diplomacy has largely broken down, with talks over climate change, pandemic relief, and nuclear nonproliferation at a standstill. For most security analysts, it’s not a matter of if a U.S.-China war will erupt, but when.

Does this sound fanciful? Not if you read the statements coming out of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the upper ranks of Congress these days.

“China poses the greatest long-term challenge to the United States and strengthening deterrence against China will require DoD to work in concert with other instruments of national power,” the Pentagon’s 2022 Defense Budget Overview asserts. “A combat-credible Joint Force will underpin a whole-of-nation approach to competition and ensure the Nation leads from a position of strength.”

On this basis, the Pentagon requested $715 billion in military expenditures for 2022, with a significant chunk of those funds to be spent on the procurement of advanced ships, planes, and missiles intended for a potential all-out, “high-intensity” war with China. An extra $38 billion was sought for the design and production of nuclear weapons, another key aspect of the drive to overpower China.

Democrats and Republicans in Congress, contending that even such sums were insufficient to ensure continued U.S. superiority vis-à-vis that country, are pressing for further increases in the 2022 Pentagon budget. Many have also endorsed the EAGLE Act, short for Ensuring American Global Leadership and Engagement — a measure intended to provide hundreds of billions of dollars for increased military aid to America’s Asian allies and for research on advanced technologies deemed essential for any future high-tech arms race with China.

Imagine, then, that such trends only gain momentum over the next five years. What will this country be like in 2026? What can we expect from an intensifying new Cold War with China that, by then, could be on the verge of turning hot?

Taiwan 2026: Perpetually on the Brink

Crises over Taiwan have erupted on a periodic basis since the start of the decade, but now, in 2026, they seem to be occurring every other week. With Chinese bombers and warships constantly probing Taiwan’s outer defenses and U.S. naval vessels regularly maneuvering close to their Chinese counterparts in waters near the island, the two sides never seem far from a shooting incident that would have instantaneous escalatory implications. So far, no lives have been lost, but planes and ships from both sides have narrowly missed colliding again and again. On each occasion, forces on both sides have been placed on high alert, causing jitters around the world.

The tensions over that island have largely stemmed from incremental efforts by Taiwanese leaders, mostly officials of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), to move their country from autonomous status as part of China to full independence. Such a move is bound to provoke a harsh, possibly military response from Beijing, which considers the island a renegade province.

The island’s status has plagued U.S.-China relations for decades. When, on January 1, 1979, Washington first recognized the People’s Republic of China, it agreed to withdraw diplomatic recognition from the Taiwanese government and cease formal relations with its officials. Under the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, however, U.S. officials were obligated to conduct informal relations with Taipei. The act stipulated as well that any move by Beijing to alter Taiwan’s status by force would be considered “a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States” — a stance known as “strategic ambiguity,” as it neither guaranteed American intervention, nor ruled it out.

In the ensuing decades, the U.S. sought to avoid conflict in the region by persuading Taipei not to make any overt moves toward independence and by minimizing its ties to the island, thereby discouraging aggressive moves by China. By 2021, however, the situation had been remarkably transformed. Once under the exclusive control of the Nationalist Party that had been defeated by communist forces on the Chinese mainland in 1949, Taiwan became a multiparty democracy in 1987. It has since witnessed the steady rise of pro-independence forces, led by the DPP. At first, the mainland regime sought to woo the Taiwanese with abundant trade and tourism opportunities, but the excessive authoritarianism of its Communist Party alienated many island residents — especially younger ones — only adding momentum to the drive for independence. This, in turn, has prompted Beijing to switch tactics from courtship to coercion by constantly sending its combat planes and ships into Taiwanese air and sea space.

Trump administration officials, less concerned about alienating Beijing than their predecessors, sought to bolster ties with the Taiwanese government in a series of gestures that Beijing found threatening and that were only expanded in the early months of the Biden administration. At that time, growing hostility to China led many in Washington to call for an end to “strategic ambiguity” and the adoption of an unequivocal pledge to defend Taiwan if it were to come under attack from the mainland.

“I think the time has come to be clear,” Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas declared in February 2021. “Replace strategic ambiguity with strategic clarity that the United States will come to the aid of Taiwan if China was to forcefully invade Taiwan.”

The Biden administration was initially reluctant to adopt such an inflammatory stance, since it meant that any conflict between China and Taiwan would automatically become a U.S.-China war with nuclear ramifications. In April 2022, however, under intense congressional pressure, the Biden administration formally abandoned “strategic ambiguity” and vowed that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would prompt an immediate American military response. “We will never allow Taiwan to be subjugated by military force,” President Biden declared at that time, a striking change in a longstanding American strategic position.

The DoD would soon announce the deployment of a permanent naval squadron to the waters surrounding Taiwan, including an aircraft carrier and a supporting flotilla of cruisers, destroyers, and submarines. Ely Ratner, President Biden’s top envoy for the Asia-Pacific region, first outlined plans for such a force in June 2021 during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. A permanent U.S. presence, he suggested, would serve to “deter, and, if necessary, deny a fait accompli scenario” in which Chinese forces quickly attempted to overwhelm Taiwan. Although described as tentative then, it would, in fact, become formal policy following President Biden’s April 2022 declaration on Taiwan and a brief exchange of warning shots between a Chinese destroyer and a U.S. cruiser just south of the Taiwan Strait.

Today, in 2026, with a U.S. naval squadron constantly sailing in waters near Taiwan and Chinese ships and planes constantly menacing the island’s outer defenses, a potential Sino-American military clash never seems far off. Should that occur, what would happen is impossible to predict, but most analysts now assume that both sides would immediately fire their advanced missiles — many of them hypersonic (that is, exceeding five times the speed of sound) — at their opponent’s key bases and facilities. This, in turn, would provoke further rounds of air and missile strikes, probably involving attacks on Chinese and Taiwanese cities as well as U.S. bases in Japan, Okinawa, South Korea, and Guam. Whether such a conflict could be contained at the non-nuclear level remains anyone’s guess.

The Incremental Draft

In the meantime, planning for a U.S.-China war-to-come has dramatically reshaped American society and institutions.  The “Forever Wars” of the first two decades of the twenty-first century had been fought entirely by an All-Volunteer Force (AVF) that typically endured multiple tours of duty, in particular in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. was able to sustain such combat operations (while continuing to maintain a substantial troop presence in Europe, Japan, and South Korea) with 1.4 million servicemembers because American forces enjoyed uncontested control of the airspace over its war zones, while China and Russia remained wary of engaging U.S. forces in their own neighborhoods.

Today, in 2026, however, the picture looks radically different: China, with an active combat force of two million soldiers, and Russia, with another million — both militaries equipped with advanced weaponry not widely available to them in the early years of the century — pose a far more formidable threat to U.S. forces. An AVF no longer looks particularly viable, so plans for its replacement with various forms of conscription are already being put into place.

Bear in mind, however, that in a future war with China and/or Russia, the Pentagon doesn’t envision large-scale ground battles reminiscent of World War II or the Iraq invasion of 2003. Instead, it expects a series of high-tech battles involving large numbers of ships, planes, and missiles. This, in turn, limits the need for vast conglomerations of ground troops, or “grunts,” as they were once labeled, but increases the need for sailors, pilots, missile launchers, and the kinds of technicians who can keep so many high-tech systems at top operational capacity.

As early as October 2020, during the final months of the Trump administration, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper was already calling for a doubling of the size of the U.S. naval fleet, from approximately 250 to 500 combat vessels, to meet the rising threat from China. Clearly, however, there would be no way for a force geared to a 250-ship navy to sustain one double that size. Even if some of the additional ships were “uncrewed,” or robotic, the Navy would still have to recruit several hundred thousand more sailors and technicians to supplement the 330,000 then in the force. Much the same could be said of the U.S. Air Force.

No surprise, then, that an incremental restoration of the draft, abandoned in 1973 as the Vietnam War was drawing to a close, has taken place in these years. In 2022, Congress passed the National Service Reconstitution Act (NSRA), which requires all men and women aged 18 to 25 to register with newly reconstituted National Service Centers and to provide them with information on their residence, employment status, and educational background — information they are required to update on an annual basis. In 2023, the NSRA was amended to require registrants to complete an additional questionnaire on their technical, computer, and language skills. Since 2024, all men and women enrolled in computer science and related programs at federally aided colleges and universities have been required to enroll in the National Digital Reserve Corps (NDRC) and spend their summers working on defense-related programs at selected military installations and headquarters. Members of that Digital Corps must also be available on short notice for deployment to such facilities, should a conflict of any sort threaten to break out.

The establishment of just such a corps, it should be noted, had been a recommendation of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, a federal agency established in 2019 to advise Congress and the White House on how to prepare the nation for a high-tech arms race with China. “We must win the AI competition that is intensifying strategic competition with China,” the commission avowed in March 2021, given that “the human talent deficit is the government’s most conspicuous AI deficit.” To overcome it, the commission suggested then, “We should establish a… civilian National Reserve to grow tech talent with the same seriousness of purpose that we grow military officers. The digital age demands a digital corps.”

Indeed, only five years later, with the prospect of a U.S.-China conflict so obviously on the agenda, Congress is considering a host of bills aimed at supplementing the Digital Corps with other mandatory service requirements for men and women with technical skills, or simply for the reinstatement of conscription altogether and the full-scale mobilization of the nation. Needless to say, protests against such measures have been erupting at many colleges and universities, but with the mood of the country becoming increasingly bellicose, there has been little support for them among the general public. Clearly, the “volunteer” military is about to become an artifact of a previous epoch.

A New Cold War Culture of Repression

With the White House, Congress, and the Pentagon obsessively focused on preparations for what’s increasingly seen as an inevitable war with China, it’s hardly surprising that civil society in 2026 has similarly been swept up in an increasingly militaristic anti-China spirit. Popular culture is now saturated with nationalistic and jingoistic memes, regularly portraying China and the Chinese leadership in derogatory, often racist terms. Domestic manufacturers hype “Made in America” labels (even if they’re often inaccurate) and firms that once traded extensively with China loudly proclaim their withdrawal from that market, while the streaming superhero movie of the moment, The Beijing Conspiracy, on a foiled Chinese plot to disable the entire U.S. electrical grid, is the leading candidate for the best film Oscar.

Domestically, by far the most conspicuous and pernicious result of all this has been a sharp rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans, especially those assumed to be Chinese, whatever their origin. This disturbing phenomenon, which began at the outset of the Covid crisis, when President Trump, in a transparent effort to deflect blame for his mishandling of the pandemic, started using terms like “Chinese Virus” and “Kung Flu” to describe the disease. Attacks on Asian Americans rose precipitously then and continued to climb after Joe Biden took office and began vilifying Beijing for its human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. According to the watchdog group Stop AAPI Hate, some 6,600 anti-Asian incidents were reported in the U.S. between March 2020 and March 2021, with almost 40% of those events occurring in February and March 2021.

For observers of such incidents back then, the connection between anti-China policymaking at the national level and anti-Asian violence at the neighborhood level was incontrovertible. “When America China-bashes, then Chinese get bashed, and so do those who ‘look Chinese,’” said Russell Jeung, a professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University at that time. “American foreign policy in Asia is American domestic policy for Asians.”

By 2026, most Chinatowns in America have been boarded up and those that remain open are heavily guarded by armed police. Most stores owned by Asian Americans (of whatever background) were long ago closed due to boycotts and vandalism, and Asian Americans think twice before leaving their homes.

The hostility and distrust exhibited toward Asian Americans at the neighborhood level has been replicated at the workplace and on university campuses, where Chinese Americans and Chinese-born citizens are now prohibited from working at laboratories in any technical field with military applications. Meanwhile, scholars of any background working on China-related topics are subject to close scrutiny by their employers and government officials. Anyone expressing positive comments about China or its government is routinely subjected to harassment, at best, or at worst, dismissal and FBI investigation.

As with the incremental draft, such increasingly restrictive measures were first adopted in a series of laws in 2022. But the foundation for much of this was the United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021, passed by the Senate in June of that year. Among other provisions, it barred federal funding to any college or university that hosted a Confucius Institute, a Chinese government program to promote that country’s language and culture in foreign countries. It also empowered federal agencies to coordinate with university officials to “promote protection of controlled information as appropriate and strengthen defense against foreign intelligence services,” especially Chinese ones.

Diverging From the Path of War

Yes, in reality, we’re still in 2021, even if the Biden administration regularly cites China as our greatest threat. Naval incidents with that country’s vessels in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait are indeed on the rise, as are anti-Asian-American sentiments domestically. Meanwhile, as the planet’s two greatest greenhouse-gas emitters squabble, our world is growing hotter by the year.

Without question, something like the developments described above (and possibly far worse) will lie in our future unless action is taken to alter the path we’re now on. All of those “2026” developments, after all, are rooted in trends and actions already under way that only appear to be gathering momentum at this moment. Bills like the Innovation and Competition Act enjoy near unanimous support among Democrats and Republicans, while strong majorities in both parties favor increased funding of Pentagon spending on China-oriented weaponry. With few exceptions — Senator Bernie Sanders among them — no one in the upper ranks of government is saying: Slow down. Don’t launch another Cold War that could easily go hot.

“It is distressing and dangerous,” as Sanders wrote recently in Foreign Affairs, “that a fast-growing consensus is emerging in Washington that views the U.S.-Chinese relationship as a zero-sum economic and military struggle.” At a time when this planet faces ever more severe challenges from climate change, pandemics, and economic inequality, he added that “the prevalence of this view will create a political environment in which the cooperation that the world desperately needs will be increasingly difficult to achieve.”

In other words, we Americans face an existential choice: Do we stand aside and allow the “fast-growing consensus” Sanders speaks of to shape national policy, while abandoning any hope of genuine progress on climate change or those other perils? Alternately, do we begin trying to exert pressure on Washington to adopt a more balanced relationship with China, one that would place at least as much emphasis on cooperation as on confrontation. If we fail at this, be prepared in 2026 or soon thereafter for the imminent onset of a catastrophic (possibly even nuclear) U.S.-China war.

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Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular, is the five-college professor emeritus of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association. He is the author of 15 books, the latest of which is All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change. He is a founder of the Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy.

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The Biden administration’s effort to reenter the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is languishing, and there is an increasing likelihood that the nuclear deal won’t be salvaged:

Hopes for a quick re-entry to the accord that Donald Trump abandoned have dimmed after six rounds of negotiations in Vienna, with little sign of when a seventh might start.

If that happens, it will not only be a major, avoidable foreign policy failure for Biden, but it will also reward Iran hawks for their years of sabotage. A collapse of the JCPOA would be a significant setback for the cause of nonproliferation, and it would send a message that the U.S. is incapable of making and honoring agreements even when they are extremely favorable to our side. It hasn’t happened yet, and administration officials may manage to stave off a complete collapse before the end of the summer, but it is worth considering how things reached this sorry state. It is not entirely the Biden administration’s fault, but they do bear a large part of the blame for letting things get to this point.

The administration’s main mistakes have been wasting too much time up front, refusing to offer any sanctions relief, and publicly entertaining the so-called “longer and stronger” follow-on agreement that no one truly thinks is possible. The Israeli government threw a wrench in the works with its campaign of assassination and sabotage, which then prompted the Iranian reaction that opponents of the deal have sought to use to discredit the agreement. Iran’s move to end implementation of the Additional Protocol clearly hasn’t helped matters, and that is a consequence of the Israeli attacks. Iranian demands for a “guarantee” that the U.S. won’t betray them again are impossible to meet (any such guarantee would be meaningless and non-binding in any case), since we all know that the next administration could easily throw the agreement in the trash again.

All of these things have contributed to the current problem, but it is the administration’s unwillingness to provide any sanctions relief and to take the most basic step of formally rejoining the agreement that have made it much more difficult to save the agreement. That unwillingness is driven at least in part by fear of being attacked by domestic hawkish critics and regional clients. No doubt Biden would have been attacked for taking the initiative in rejoining the agreement and lifting sanctions, but he did not spare himself from these attacks by dragging his feet and now he risks botching things. It is unclear to what extent Biden administration officials genuinely support the absurd “longer and stronger” agreement idea, but it hasn’t gained them anything with their domestic critics and it has helped to undermine the effort to rejoin the agreement.

Keeping all of the Trump-era “maximum pressure” sanctions in place has been the major error that may very well end up dooming that effort. For all intents and purposes, Biden has been continuing Trump’s Iran policy, and it has had the same predictable results. Had Biden begun by making significant changes to that policy by winding down the economic war that the U.S. has waged on the Iranian people, the nuclear deal’s chances of survival would be much better. As things stand now, the administration now has to salvage their salvage operation before time runs out later this year.

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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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As the human population grows, so does our demand for food, and soy is one of the key crops meeting that demand. Found in far more than tofu, soy is the largest source of protein for animal feed (such as cattle) and the second-largest source of vegetable oil globally after palm oil.

The largest soy importer, China, saw a 2,000% increase in soy imports over the past two decades, with the majority going to feed cattle to meet the Chinese population’s increasing meat consumption.

“As long as the whole market is increasing meat consumption and developing countries are getting wealthier per capita and they’re changing their diets, we’re going to see soybean expand,” Matt Hansen, a professor in the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland, told Mongabay.

Rising global soy production has led to the clearing of forests, especially in the tropics. More than half of the world’s soy is grown in South America, and between 2000 and 2019, the production of the crop on the continent has doubled, according to new research published in the journal Nature Sustainability.

Deforestation for soy in the Amazon. Photo by Rhett A. Butler for Mongabay.

The researchers used satellite imagery to identify areas of soy cultivation. Guided by this data, five teams drove around the continent to verify the extent of farms across all the biomes where soy is grown: the Amazon Rainforest, the Atlantic Forest, the Cerrado scrubland, the Chaco dry forest, the Chiquitania savanna, the Pampas grassland, the Pantanal wetland, and the Caatinga thorn-scrub forest.

The study reveals that soybean coverage in South America increased from 26.4 million hectares (65.2 million acres) in 2001 to 55.1 million hectares (136.2 million acres) in 2019, an area larger than the state of California. Most of this expansion happened in Brazil, which saw a 160% increase in the area of soybean cultivation, and Argentina, with a 57% increase in area.

Over the past three decades, human impact on natural land cover in South America has averaged 8.1 million hectares (20 million acres) per year, which is equivalent to 21.6 soccer fields per minute. Roughly 40% of all landmass in South America has been impacted by human activity since 1985.

But tracking the rates of deforestation is just one part of the story, said Hansen, a co-author of the study. Knowing what land uses replace cleared forests can help clarify the economic underpinnings of deforestation. This data allows us to ask what crops or practices are causing deforestation.

“If you know what the underlying causes are and where the new frontiers are,” Hansen said, “you can start making plans around changing the story if the story is a bad one.”

The story in South America is that livestock pasture often comes first, followed by soy. Soybean farms are typically planted on old cattle pastures, and as soy encroaches, pasture is forced into new frontiers.

“Pasture actually acts like a sponge,” Hansen said, “it soaks up this soybean demand.”

As pasture frontiers march onward, so does soy, expanding from areas of traditional cultivation. In Argentina, soy is moving south into the Chaco. In Paraguay, soy farms threaten the Atlantic Forest. Soy is also replacing the Chiquitania forest of Bolivia and the Campos grasslands in Uruguay.

And in the Amazon, where soy has expanded the most, the moving frontier of pasture drives both deforestation and fires, which are set to clear deforested lands.

This interplay between beef and soy is simple to see, Hansen says, when you make a map of deforestation, land use and fires over time. This kind of data can help clarify what really is going on when things like a big fire year or the politicization of land use and commodities occur.

For example, when the fires in the Amazon caught international attention in 2019, France, the largest buyer of Brazilian soy flour in the European Union, said it would ban imports of soybean driving deforestation and subsequent fires.

One of the first major fires of 2021, detected on the southern edge of the Brazilian Amazon. Fires are set to clear lands for pasture. Image courtesy of MAAP.

However, this new research found that only 5% of forest loss was driven directly by soybean, meaning that the time between forest clearing and soy cultivation was less than three years. Most of this direct soybean-driven deforestation occurred in the Cerrado and in the Brazilian Amazon.

Soy farmers are not starting fires, Hansen says. “We’ve been out in the field with farmers who work really hard to use cover crops to build up organic layers in their soil to make their soil more productive and they hate fire … Fire is horrible for them. It destroys the soil.”

Yet soy remains an indirect driver of deforestation and fire, and the interplay of land use is the number one point, Hansen says. Policies addressing deforestation have to consider multiple commodities at once.

“If soybean is replacing all of this cattle production land,” Hansen said, “well then where’s that cattle production being displaced?”

The public outcry over clear-cutting for soy cultivation led many large transnational companies, including Cargill, Bunge and Amaggi, to sign the voluntary Amazon Soy Moratorium, which banned direct conversion of the Amazon Rainforest for soy cultivation.

A recent study suggests that, between 2006 and 2016, deforestation was 35% lower than it would have been without the moratorium. But critics say this discounts the effects of indirect deforestation and spillover into other biomes. Because the moratorium only protects the Amazon, soy farms have moved into surrounding areas like the Cerrado savanna.

“The soy moratorium is a good example of a solution for one commodity in one place, but it covers only one biome, ignoring deforestation in the Cerrado and also the role of beef,” Vivian Ribeiro, a data scientist for Trase, told Mongabay.

Trase works to map the supply chains of commodities such as soy, beef and palm oil from where they are grown to the final buyer. This allows buyers to determine if their goods came from an area with deforestation.

Cattle ranching is the primary cause of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon today, with much of the meat exported. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.

Increasingly, companies are making private commitments to source from zero-deforestation supply chains. This is a promising strategy, Ribeiro says, but in order to work, the market needs to be more transparent. The goal is for companies to report that they are not sourcing from deforestation and to prove reliable monitoring, verification and reporting systems. “Transparency is the top thing,” she says.

“So what we’re trying to communicate to these actors is that by buying the product from some specific places, you’re exposed to deforestation,” Ribeiro said. “So if you really want, you can change the source of your production from a place associated with a lot of recent deforestation, which is basically the same as supporting deforestation.”

Previously Trase relied on regional, private, or governmental monitoring, but there were gaps in time coverage and for certain biomes. The data used in the Nature Sustainability study allows Trase and others to look at soy expansion using a standardized format on a continental scale, Ribeiro said.

Beyond these zero-deforestation commitments, Hansen says, we also need to designate “no-go zones” or areas of nature that are off-limits to any kind of development: ecosystems that exist to regulate climate, protect biodiversity, support Indigenous people, and for their own intrinsic value.

“Sometimes you have to say, ‘we’re not going to let any commodity go in,’” Hansen says. “I think that would be a better way to look at it.”

 

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Liz Kimbrough is a staff writer for Mongabay. Find her on Twitter @lizkimbrough_

Featured image: Soy farm in Maranhao, Brazil. Image courtesy of Matt Hansen.

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***

France seems to have admitted its defeat in Mali. Last Friday, President Emmanuel Macron announced the closing of military bases and the withdrawal of troops from the African country, ending a long journey of occupation and conflicts that seriously damaged the entire structure of French foreign policy. After decades of interventionism, Paris recognizes its current inability to deal with African problems with a strategy of permanent occupation in the Sahel.

For months, Macron had been stating that France would no longer play a central role in the fight against terrorism in North Africa. Now, finally, the closing of the military bases has been announced, which will result in the withdrawal of more than 2,000 French soldiers. This ends the so-called “Operation Barkhane”, which was a military mission marked by a tactic of permanent occupation of the Sahel countries by French troops, aiming to impede terrorist militias from advancing after the success of the Operation Serval – which expelled terrorists from Mali in 2013, leading the state to regain control over its territory with the support of French forces.

Despite the victory in Operation Serval, the French occupation was a terrible strategic choice, which had serious consequences for the French armed forces. Having to deal with a vast territory, facing terrorist organizations and without the support of local authorities which are totally unstable and weak due to the security chaos, French troops have not managed to obtain satisfactory results in the Sahel, especially in Mali, which is currently under a politically troubled situation and sees terrorism increasing exponentially day by day. The size of the Malian territory was perhaps the main responsible for the failure of the French occupation policy: without the military personnel necessary to neutralize all strategic points, European forces became powerless in the face of the advance of terrorism, leading to the current scenario in the region.

Faced with this situation, Macron’s attitude was simple: withdraw troops and avoid further expenses and waste of material and human resources. Between the end and the beginning of 2021, almost all French facilities will be closed in Mali. The process of closing the bases will begin in the north of the country. Subsequently, the bases of Kidal, Tessalit and Tombouctou will also be deactivated, thus extinguishing the main key points in the fight against illegal armed groups currently working in the Malian territory.

By the beginning of next year, troops will have been reduced by half and will be restricted to regions that are not strategic for combating terrorism, which indicates that they will probably only act in the security of specific points, such as diplomatic and international organizations’ facilities. Furthermore, it was announced that relations with the armies of the Sahel G5 countries – Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, and Niger – will be focused on supplying material, training, and consultancy, with no real joint combat operations. The work of fighting the militias will be exclusively destined to the forces of the local governments. Obviously, these armies do not have force enough to deal with such a threat alone, which indicates a terrible future for the region.

The French government, however, apparently will try to reorganize its strategy in Africa, with a radical change in its focus of attention: troops are being displaced from the Sahel to be relocated to other parts of the continent. It seems that the focus of action from now on will be the Gulf of Guinea. In the same speech in which he announced the withdrawal of troops from Mali, Macron stated: “Our enemies have abandoned their territorial ambition in favor of spreading their threat not only across the Sahel, but across all of West Africa (…) implies increased pressure on all the Gulf of Guinea countries, which is already a reality (…) We are going to reorganize ourselves in line with this need to stop this spread to the south, and it will lead to a reduction of our military footprint in the north”. However, no information on how these operations to the south will take place have been provided yet, raising suspicions about the French plans.

It is necessary to remember that a strong critical view about the French presence in Africa has been developing within French territory itself. With an increasingly Islamic population, allied to liberal humanitarianism of native people, the classification of operations in Africa as neo-colonialism tends to grow, which leads public opinion to support the withdrawal of troops. The reason Macron wants to leave the Sahel goes beyond the mere material issue, there is also an attempt to obtain popular support for the next elections. Furthermore, even the far-right parties of French politics tend to be against operations in Africa, as they consider combating terrorism within France a priority. So, it does not make sense that Macron will actually invest in a strategy of changing focus and reallocating troops at the present time.

What seems to be happening is a “freezing” in the French strategy for Africa, with which Paris tries to keep alive, but inactive, its historical ties with the region. The main bases in Mali will be deactivated and soldiers will be relocated to the south. But there will still be some soldiers, at an insignificant level, in Mali and the troops, in the same sense, will not have enough strength to prevent the advance of terrorism in the south. With this, Paris manages to maintain its presence in Africa in a “cold”, inactive, and inexpressive way, saving resources and pacifying French public opinion. This is an interesting strategic scenario, as it allows Macron’s successor – or Macron himself – to reorganize the strategy for Africa more efficiently after the election period and the stabilization in military spending.

On the other hand, the terrorists will not wait for a French return and the withdrawal of troops will mean an immediate advance of the militias, which will continue to expand across the entire African continent, controlling vast regions and forming small local caliphates. For any African country, the French plans do not matter so much, and the withdrawal of troops practically means that Paris recognizes its defeat. This will lead them to try to sign international cooperation agreements with other countries, such as Russia, China and Middle Eastern States. These countries tend increase their presence in Africa in the near future, and this leads us to believe that, above a strategic element, there is in fact a “French defeat” in the Sahel, considering that Paris will be giving space to the actions of other powers in that region that historically “belong” to France. What Macron is trying to do is rein in his losses and create a scenario that will allow the French presence to resurface later.

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Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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***

One of the rare honest statements by Bill Gates was his remark in early 2021 that if you think covid measures are bad, wait until the measures for global warming. The European Union is in the process of imposing, top-down, the most draconian measures to date, that will effectively destroy modern industry across the face of the 27 states of the European Union. Under cute names such as “Fit for 55” and European Green Deal, measures are being finalized in Brussels by unelected technocrats that will cause the worst industrial unemployment and economic collapse since the crisis of the 1930s. Industries such as automobile or transport, power generation and steel are on the chopping block, all for an unproven hypothesis called manmade global warming.

While most EU citizens have been distracted by endless restrictions over a flu-like pandemic called covid19, the technocrats at the EU Commission in Brussels have been preparing a program of planned dis-integration of the EU industrial economy. The convenient aspect of an unelected supranational group far away in Brussels or Strasbourg is that they are not accountable to any real voters. They even have a name for it: Democratic Deficit. If the measures about to be finalized by the EU Commission under German President Ursula von der Leyen and Vice President for Global Warming Dutch technocrat Frans Timmermans, are enacted, here is a hint of what will happen.

“Fit for 55”

On July 14, the EU Commission presents its “Fit for 55” green agenda. While the title sounds more like an ad for a middle-ager health studio, it will be the most draconian and destructive de-industrialization program ever imposed outside of war.

Fit for 55 will be the central framework of new laws and rules from Brussels to reduce CO2 emissions dramatically, using schemes such as carbon taxes, emission caps and cap and trade schemes.

In April 2021 the EU Commission announced a new EU climate target: Emissions to be reduced by 55 percent by 2030 compared to 1990, up from the 40 percent as previously agreed. Hence the cute name “Fit for 55.” But the industry and workforce of the EU states will be anything but fit if the plan is advanced. Simply said, it is technocratic fascism being imposed without public debate on some 455 million EU citizens.

This Fit for 55 is the first time in the world that a group of countries, the EU, officially imposes an agenda to force an absurd “Zero” CO2 by 2050 and 55% less CO2 by 2030. EU Green Deal czar, Commissioner Frans Timmermans said in May, “We will strengthen the EU Emissions Trading System, update the Energy Taxation Directive, and propose new CO2 standards for cars, new energy efficiency standards for buildings, new targets for renewables, and new ways of supporting clean fuels and infrastructure for clean transport.” In reality it will destroy the transport industry, steel, cement as well as coal and gas fuel electric generation.

Here are major parts of the sinister Fit For 55.

Cars and Trucks

A major target of the EU Green Deal will be measures that will force internal combustion engine vehicles– gasoline or diesel cars and trucks—to adhere to such punitive CO2 emission limits that they will be forced off the roads by 2030 if not sooner. The plan will change the current target of a 37.5% reduction in vehicle CO2 emissions by 2030 to a rumored zero emissions by 2035.

On July 7 a coalition of trade unions, transport industry companies and suppliers including the European Trade Union Confederation and the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, wrote an urgent appeal to EU Green Czar Frans Timmermans. They stated, “…we want to see industrial transformation and innovation in Europe, rather than de-industrialisation and social disruption.” The letter pointed out that the EU has no plans for a so-called “Just Transition” for the EU auto industry including no new skills training for displaced workers: “Currently, there is no such framework for the 16 million workers in our mobility eco-system, and notably Europe’s automotive sector which is a powerhouse of industrial employment.”

This is no minor issue as the transition from internal combustion engine cars and trucks to E-autos will mean a huge unprecedented disruption to the present auto supplier chains. The letter points out that EU-wide, the auto sector has 8.5% of all European manufacturing jobs and in 2019 produced nearly 10% of GDP in Germany alone, along with 40% of the country’s research and development spending. The EU today makes up more than 50% of the world’s exports of auto products. They point out that the transition to zero CO2 vehicles will mean a loss of at least 2.4 million skilled, high-wage jobs across the EU. Entire regions will become depressed. The letter points out that Brussels has yet to even map the consequences for the auto sector of the Green Deal.

In April German EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen indicated July Fit for 55 could extend a draconian carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS) from beyond power plants or industry to cover road transport and buildings in a “polluter pays” add on. The tie to the ETS will automatically force financial penalties on drivers or home owners beyond the present carbon taxes despite a very limited impact of some 3% on emissions. This, on top of tighter auto emission standards, will deal a killer blow to consumers and industry. When the French government imposed such a carbon tax in 2018 it triggered the Yellow Vests national protests and forced Paris to withdraw it.

Steel

The drastic EU plan contains new provisions that will mean drastic change for the energy-intensive EU steel and cement industries. Steel is the second biggest industry in the world after oil and gas. Currently the EU is the second largest producer of steel in the world after China. Its output is over 177 million tons of steel a year, or 11% of global output. But the Timmermans plan will introduce new measures that ostensibly penalize steel imports from “dirty” producers, but that in fact will make EU steel less competitive globally. Leaks of the EU plan indicate that they plan to eliminate current free ETS pollution permits for energy-intensive industries such as steel or cement. That will deal a devastating blow to both essential industries. They call it the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. As the Center for European Policy Network points out, EU steel exporters will “not receive any compensation for the discontinuation of the free allocation. As a result, they suffer considerable competitive disadvantages compared to their competitors from third countries.“

Coal Carbon Taxes

The EU’s new 55% climate target for 2030 implies a near-complete coal phase-out by 2030 in the whole EU. This will hit Germany, far the largest EU coal power user. The German government, already with the world’s most expensive electric power owing to the Merkel Energiewende transition to unreliable solar and wind that will see the last nuclear power plant closed in 2022, has just recently dropped its plan to phase out coal by 2038. It will phase out far earlier, but for obvious political reasons in an election year, has not revealed its new “zero coal” date.

The absurdity of believing the EU, especially Germany, will be able to achieve zero coal by 2030, replacing not even with natural gas, but rather unreliable solar and wind, is already clear. On January 1, 2021 as part of the Government mandate on coal power reduction, 11 coal-fired power plants with a total capacity of 4.7 GW were shut down. That phase out lasted eight days as several of the coal power plants had to be reconnected to the grid to avoid blackouts due to a prolonged low-wind period. The shut coal plants were ordered to operate on reserve status at the cost of the consumers. The Berlin government commission that drafted the coal phase-out plan included no power industry representatives nor any power grid experts.

With the new element of the destructive EU Commission Fit for 55 plan, the heart of European industry, Germany, is pre-programmed not only for severe industrial unemployment in steel, cement and auto sectors. It is also pre-programmed for power blackouts such as that that devastated Texas in early 2021 when wind mills froze. In 2022 in Germany, as noted, the last nuclear plant along with other coal power will be closed, removing 3% of the power. An added 6,000 wind turbines also will exit due to age, for a total cut of 7%. Yet planned addition of new wind and solar doesn’t come close to replace that, so that by 2022 Germany could have a shortfall of between 10% and 15% in capacity on the generation side.

WEF Great Reset and EU Green Deal

The hard thing for ordinary sane citizens to grasp with this EU Fit for 55 and the Davos Great Reset or the related UN Agenda 2030 globally, is that it is all a deliberate technocratic plan for dis-integration of the economy, using the fraudulent excuse of an unproven global warming danger that claims– based on dodgy computer models that ignore influence of our sun on Earth climate cycles– that we will see catastrophe by 2030 if the world does not slash harmless and life-essential CO2 emissions.

The ever-active Davos World Economic Forum as part of its Great Reset is also playing a significant role in shaping the EU Commission’s Europe Green Deal. In January 2020, the World Economic Forum at its Annual Meeting in Davos brought together leaders from industry and business with Executive Vice-President Frans Timmermans to explore how to catalyze the European Green Deal. The July 14 unveiling by Brussels is the result. The WEF supports the CEO Action Group for the European Green Deal to get major corporations behind the Brussels dystopian plan. 

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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. 

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

Featured image is from NEO

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Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

Author Name: F. William Engdahl

ISBN Number: 978-0-937147-2-2

Year: 2007

Pages: 341 pages with complete index

List Price: $25.95

Special Price: $18.00

 

This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.”

This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.

The author cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.

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***

Who still doubts that we have been at war for over a year? In the Third World War of a super-rich and power-hungry “elite” against us citizens. But war, according to the notorious Prussian Major General and military strategist Carl von Clausewitz, is “the realm of uncertainty”. Thus, every war holds an opportunity for the citizen. He only has to seize it. George Orwell believed:

“The moral to be drawn from this nightmare is a simple one: Don’t let it happen! It depends on you!”(1)

Fog of War – Fog of War

The term “fog of war” refers to the fact that information relevant to war always has a certain uncertainty and incompleteness due to various circumstances (2). It first appeared in Carl von Clausewitz’s (1780 to 1831) work. In his main work “On War”, he describes the strategic necessity of making decisions under time pressure with incomplete information to the best of one’s knowledge and conscience:

“War is the field of uncertainty; three-fourths of those things on which action in war is built lie in the mist of a more or less great uncertainty. Here, then, it is first where a fine, penetrating mind is called upon to feel out the truth with the tact of its judgment.” (3)

His theories on strategy, tactics and philosophy had a great influence on the development of warfare in all Western countries and are still taught at military academies today. They are also applied in the field of business management as well as in marketing.

“The Fog of War” was also an award-winning US documentary film released in 2003 with the subtitle “Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara”. A German summary of the film in “google.com” states:

“Roughly 160 million people were killed in the 20th century. It was one of the most violent in human history. The film suggests that we take a closer look at this tragic century as a clue to how we can avoid a repeat in the 21st century. (…).” (4)

Come on, let’s get to work! Even in the face of the satanic master plan of eugenics of the power-hungry “elite” as well as the psychological warfare against civil society, together we can prevent a repetition or even a worsening of violent history in our century: If we don’t let it happen!

Psychological Operations (PSYOP)

It is a bitter reality that in the current war against us citizens, all kinds of methods and measures are used to influence our behaviour and attitudes: morale is disturbed and diminished, the will is broken and perception is distorted. In NATO parlance, the term “Psychological Operations” (PSYOP) has become established as a parallel discipline to MEDIAOPS (Media Operations), which in civilian parlance means “public relations” / media work. PSYOPS and MEDIAOPS are sub-disciplines of INFOOPS (Informational Operations) (5).

As an example of the systematic destruction of the human psyche, the techniques of coercion, compulsion and perceptual programming, which the psychologist Dr. Albert Biedermann summarised in 1956 under the title “Bidermann’s Diagram of Coercion”, are presented below. These techniques are designed to destroy people’s thinking, will and self-respect. Military personnel have used them to force (false) confessions from prisoners of war. Under the term “mind control” they have been practised on individuals and groups for many years (6).

Since one can quickly find what one is looking for on the internet, the seven measures for breaking the will and producing obedience are only briefly listed by Dr. Biedermann. But already this will make clear to many readers the obvious parallels to the illegitimate “emergency measures” of today’s politics:

1. Isolation

Isolation means depriving a person of all social support from fellow human beings in order to break through the ability to resist. See “social distancing”.

2. Monopolisation of perception

Only one opinion, the mainstream opinion, is accepted and tolerated and any opinion that differs from it is defamed or access to it is blocked.

3. Induced exhaustion and debilitation

Exhaustion weakens mental and physical resilience. By stoking fears and creating circumstances of constant insecurity, one is deprived of any sense of security and stability.

4. Threats of negative consequences, punishments and violence for non-compliance with rules.

Threats from outside create fear and despair. The individual no longer has any decision-making power.

5. Occasional concessions

For example, one promise is: If enough people got vaccinated, then maybe we can go back to the old normal.

6. Humiliation and degradation

By threatening harsh punishments for nonsensical actions and defaming those who do not play by the rules, people increasingly lose the courage to resist.

7. Making the victim dependent on the perpetrator

The more the economy and material livelihoods are destroyed, the more the citizens become dependent on the benefits of the state. The more dependent the victim is on the perpetrator, the more obedient he or she becomes.

George Orwell: “Don’t let it happen! It depends on you!”

An English cartoon from the silent film era around the 1920s finally made me breathe a sigh of relief: “An Early Warning Cartoon ‘How To Take Over The World'”. (7). Already 100 years ago, the modern rulers were shown what infamous methods are suitable for taking over the world and its people.

This must convince the last doubter that the political “emergency measures” used today are old-fashioned means of discipline and domination that the enlightened citizen can subvert with a little courage. The individual steps were accompanied by a graphic and appropriate music:

1. use flu as a weapon
2. flood the newspaper and radio with death
3. close shops and church
4. use law enforcers to suppress dissent
5. display the sick and the dead
6. inject a vaccine to sterilise the work-shy and put the old to sleep
7. the people who own the banks now own the hospitals.
8. this is their plan to own YOU

After the cartoon, a short interview excerpt by George Orwell (1903 to 1950) was inserted. In it, he probably predicts a bleak future towards the end of his life:

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot incessantly kicking a human face. The moral to be drawn from this nightmare is a simple one: don’t let it happen! It depends on you! (8)

Seize the opportunity!

There is not much to add to George Orwell’s exhortation.

If we return to the words of the military strategist Carl von Clausewitz quoted at the beginning of this article, it must be stated that in the fog of war it is not only the military that must first call upon its fine, penetrating intellect in order to find out the truth with the tact of its judgement. It is also the task of every citizen to find out the truth so that the nightmare may come to an end.

To be sure, a free thinker never claims that he has the truth. For the free mind, there is an unlimited number of truths to be discovered and subject to change. For him, truth is what is not a dogmatic shackle and does not divide people into believers and non-believers or those of other faiths, but rather benefits the coexistence of people and promotes their understanding.

However, what is happening in our society at the moment goes completely against human nature, harms coexistence and destroys harmony. That is why citizens will wake up even before their human consciousness is paralysed by remote control. Dictatorships have never survived over time because those in power underestimated the unconditional will to live and the resilience of the citizens.

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Dr Rudolf Hänsel is a graduate psychologist and educationalist. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes

(1) Warnte ein altes Cartoon uns vor?

(2) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebel_des_Krieges

(3) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebel_des_Krieges

(4) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog_of_War

(5) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychologische_Kriegsführung

(6) https://www.inspiriert-sein.de/systematische-zerstoerung-menschlichen-psyche-biedermanns-diagramm-des-zwangs

(7) Warnte ein altes Cartoon uns vor?

(8) Warnte ein altes Cartoon uns vor?

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Letter to Physicians: Four New Scientific Discoveries Regarding the Safety and Efficacy of COVID-19 Vaccines

By Doctors for COVID Ethics, July 13, 2021

Rapid and efficient memory-type immune responses occur reliably in virtually all unvaccinated individuals who are exposed to SARS-CoV-2. The effectiveness of further boosting the immune response through vaccination is therefore highly doubtful. Vaccination may instead aggravate disease through antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE).

Post-COVID Vaccine Deaths Are Not Being Autopsied – Why?

By Ethan Huff, July 13, 2021

Dr. Jane Orient, M.D., the executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), wants to know why the medical system is refusing to perform autopsies on the bodies of people who died not long after getting “vaccinated” for the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19).

Graphene Sensors Read Low-frequency Neural Waves Associated with Distinct Brain States

By Tom Foley, July 13, 2021

Graphene Flagship scientists have developed a sensor based on CVD graphene that detects brain signals in a wide frequency band, from extremely low frequencies to high frequency oscillations. The sensor is biocompatible and could be used to measure and predict brain states. Furthermore, the graphene sensors could be used in chronic implants due to their high stability in the brain.

President Joe Biden Announces Door to Door Pursuit to Inoculate Millions of Americans Within Their Own Homes

By Renee Parsons, July 13, 2021

As if the conflict between American parents, their public school districts and CDC requirements were not already enough to create a firestorm of unpredictable proportions, pretend President Joe Biden has dramatically increased the stakes by announcing an imminent door to door pursuit to inoculate millions of Americans within their own home.

The War Economy Must End. Where Do These Aegis Naval Destroyers Go?

By Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, July 13, 2021

Aegis also carry SM-3 interceptor missiles whose job is to take out any retaliatory strikes after the US launches a first-strike attack on China or Russia. (So-called ‘missile defense’.) SM-3 missiles are not nuclear – they are called ‘kinetic’ which means they crash into the other missiles and they both explode.

FDA to Add Warning to J&J Vaccine of ‘Serious but Rare’ Autoimmune Disorder

By Megan Redshaw, July 13, 2021

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will announce a new warning on Johnson & Johnson’s COVID vaccine saying the shot is linked to Guillain–Barré syndrome. In April, the agency added a warning about blood clotting disorders to the J&J shot.

The Miami-Haiti Connection: Another Mercenary, Another Day

By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, July 13, 2021

This weekend we found out that the Colombian men arrested in connection with the assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse may have been hired by a Florida private security company with Venezuelan connections. Furthermore, they might have been deployed on behalf of an Haitian ex-pat in Miami who wanted to replace Moïse as president.

NATO Chief Meets with Egyptian, Israeli Foreign Ministers at Alliance Headquarters

By Rick Rozoff, July 13, 2021

On June 12 NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg met with Israeli Foreign Minister and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid at the military bloc’s headquarters in Brussels. Stoltenberg praised Israel as “one of NATO’s most engaged and capable partners,” one of over twenty years’ standing, and a member of the bloc’s Mediterranean Dialogue military partnership.

Video: Electromagnetic Properties of the Vaccine: The Magnet Challenge. We Want Answers

By Not On The Beeb, July 13, 2021

We want answers! 100s of people prove the magnet challenge in this compilation. This collection of videos is a glimpse of the 1000s worldwide discovering they have been magnetic and we demand answers. Is there a substance in the vaccine vial which triggers this phenomenon?

Why Human Rights in China and Tigray, but Not in Haiti, Palestine or Colombia?

By Black Alliance for Peace, July 13, 2021

U.S. President Joe Biden and the Democrats have been playing the “Black Lives Matter” tune on their fiddle. Biden even raised the issue of Black Lives Matter during his presidential campaign. But, just days after Biden was sworn into office, his administration lent support for the Haitian dictator, Jovenel Moïse, who stayed in office past his term to the dismay of the Haitian people, who flooded the streets in protest.

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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***

“Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent.”—Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis

A federal COVID-19 vaccination strike force may soon be knocking on your door, especially if you live in a community with low vaccination rates. Will you let them in?

More to the point, are you required to open the door?

The Biden Administration has announced that it plans to send federal “surge response teams” on a “targeted community door-to-door outreach“ to communities with low vaccination rates in order to promote the safety and accessibility of the COVID-19 vaccines.

That’s all fine and good as far as government propaganda goes, but nothing is ever as simple or as straightforward as the government claims, especially not when armed, roving bands of militarized agents deployed by the Nanny State show up at your door with an agenda that is at odds with what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis referred to as the constitutional “right to be let alone.”

Any attempt by the government to encroach upon the citizenry’s privacy rights or establish a system by which the populace can be targeted, tracked and singled out must be met with extreme caution. These door-to-door “visits” by COVID-19 surge response teams certainly qualify as a government program whose purpose, while seemingly benign, raises significant constitutional concerns.

First, there is the visit itself.

While government agents can approach, speak to and even question citizens without violating the Fourth Amendment, Americans have a right not to answer questions or even speak with a government agent.

Courts have upheld these “knock and talk” visits as lawful, reasoning that even though the curtilage of the home is protected by the Fourth Amendment, there is an implied license to approach a residence, knock on the door/ring the bell, and seek to contact occupants. However, the encounter is wholly voluntary and a person is under no obligation to speak with a government agent in this situation.

Indeed, you don’t even need to answer or open the door in response to knocking/ringing by a government agent, and if you do answer the knock, you can stop speaking at any time. You also have the right to demand that government agents leave the property once the purpose of the visit is established. Government officials would not be enforcing any law or warrant in this context, and so they don’t have the authority of law to remain on the property after a homeowner or resident specifically revokes the implied license to come onto the property.

When the government’s actions go beyond merely approaching the door and knocking, it risks violating the Fourth Amendment, which requires a warrant and probable cause of possible wrongdoing in order to search one’s property. A government agent would violate the Fourth Amendment if he snooped around the premises, peering into window and going to other areas in search of residents.

It should be pointed out that some judges (including Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch) believe that placing “No Trespassing” signs or taking other steps to impede access to the door is sufficient to negate any implied permission for government agents or others to approach your home, but this view does not have general acceptance.

While in theory one can refuse to speak with police or other government officials during a “knock and talk” encounter, as the courts have asserted as a justification for dismissing complaints about this police investigative tactic, the reality is far different. Indeed, it is unreasonable to suggest that individuals caught unaware by these tactics will not feel pressured in the heat of the moment to comply with a request to speak with government agents who display official credentials and are often heavily armed, let alone allow them to search one’s property. Even when such consent is denied, police have been known to simply handcuff the homeowner and conduct a search over his objections.

Second, there is the danger inherent in these knock-and-talk encounters.

Although courts have embraced the fiction that “knock and talks” are “voluntary” encounters that are no different from other door-to-door canvassing, these constitutionally dubious tactics are highly intimidating confrontations meant to pressure individuals into allowing police access to one’s home, which then paves the way for a warrantless search of one’s home and property.

The act of going to homes and taking steps to speak with occupants is akin to the “knock and talk” tactic used by police, which can be fraught with danger for homeowners and government agents alike. Indeed, “knock-and-talk” policing has become a thinly veiled, warrantless exercise by which citizens are coerced and intimidated into “talking” with heavily armed police who “knock” on their doors in the middle of the night.

“Knock-and-shoot” policing might be more accurate, however.

“Knock and talks” not only constitute severe violations of the privacy and security of homeowners, but the combination of aggression and surprise employed by police is also a recipe for a violent confrontation that rarely ends well for those on the receiving end of these tactics.

For example, although 26-year-old Andrew Scott had committed no crime and never fired a single bullet or threatened police, he was gunned down by police who knocked aggressively on the wrong door at 1:30 am, failed to identify themselves as police, and then repeatedly shot and killed Scott when he answered the door while holding a gun in self-defense. The police were investigating a speeding incident by engaging in a middle-of-the-night “knock and talk” in Scott’s apartment complex.

Carl Dykes was shot in the face by a county deputy who pounded on Dykes’ door in the middle of the night without identifying himself. Because of reports that inmates had escaped from a local jail, Dykes brought a shotgun with him when he answered the door.

As these and other incidents make clear, while Americans have a constitutional right to question the legality of a police action or resist an unlawful police order, doing so can often get one arrested, shot or killed.

Third, there is the question of how the government plans to use the information it obtains during these knock-and-talk visits.

Because the stated purpose of the program is to promote vaccination, homeowners and others who reside at the residence will certainly be asked if they are vaccinated. Again, you have a right not to answer this or any other question. Indeed, an argument could be made that even asking this question is improper if the purpose of the program is merely to ensure that Americans “have the information they need on how both safe and accessible the vaccine is.”

Under the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. 552a, an agency should only collect and maintain information about an individual as is “relevant and necessary to accomplish a purpose of the agency.” In this situation, the government agent could accomplish the purpose of assuring persons have information about the vaccine simply by providing that information (either in writing or orally) and would not need to know the vaccination status of the residents. To the extent the agents do request, collect and store information about residents’ vaccination status, this could be a Privacy Act violation.

Of course, there is always the danger that this program could be used for other, more nefarious, purposes not related to vaccination encouragement. As with knock-and-talk policing, government agents might misuse their appearance of authority to gain entrance to a residence and obtain other information about it and those who live there. Once the door is opened by a resident, anything the agents can see from their vantage point can be reported to law enforcement authorities.

Moreover, while presumably the targeting will be of areas with demonstrated low vaccination rates, there is no guarantee that this program would not be used as cover for conducting surveillance on areas deemed to be “high crime” areas as a way of obtaining intelligence for law enforcement purposes.

We’ve been down this road before, with the government sending its spies to gather intel on American citizens by questioning them directly, or by asking their neighbors to snitch on them.

Remember the egregiously invasive and intrusive American Community Survey?

Unlike the traditional census, which collects data every ten years, the American Community Survey (ACS) is sent to about 3 million homes per year at a reported cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. Moreover, while the traditional census is limited to ascertaining the number of persons living in each dwelling, their ages and ethnicities, the ownership of the dwelling and telephone numbers, the ACS is much more intrusive, asking questions relating to respondents’ bathing habits, home utility costs, fertility, marital history, work commute, mortgage, and health insurance, among other highly personal and private matters.

Individuals who receive the ACS must complete it or be subject to monetary penalties. Although no reports have surfaced of individuals actually being penalized for refusing to answer the survey, the potential fines that can be levied for refusing to participate in the ACS are staggering. For every question not answered, there is a $100 fine. And for every intentionally false response to a question, the fine is $500. Therefore, if a person representing a two-person household refused to fill out any questions or simply answered nonsensically, the total fines could range from upwards of $10,000 and $50,000 for noncompliance.

At 28 pages (with an additional 16-page instruction packet), the ACS contains some of the most detailed and intrusive questions ever put forth in a census questionnaire. These concern matters that the government simply has no business knowing, including questions relating to respondents’ bathing habits, home utility costs, fertility, marital history, work commute, mortgage, and health insurance, among others. For instance, the ACS asks how many persons live in your home, along with their names and detailed information about them such as their relationship to you, marital status, race and their physical, mental and emotional problems, etc. The survey also asks how many bedrooms and bathrooms you have in your house, along with the fuel used to heat your home, the cost of electricity, what type of mortgage you have and monthly mortgage payments, property taxes and so on.

However, that’s not all.

The survey also demands to know how many days you were sick last year, how many automobiles you own and the number of miles driven, whether you have trouble getting up the stairs, and what time you leave for work every morning, along with highly detailed inquiries about your financial affairs. And the survey demands that you violate the privacy of others by supplying the names and addresses of your friends, relatives and employer. The questionnaire also demands that you give other information on the people in your home, such as their educational levels, how many years of school were completed, what languages they speak and when they last worked at a job, among other things.

While some of the ACS’ questions may seem fairly routine, the real danger is in not knowing why the information is needed, how it will be used by the government or with whom it will be shared.

Finally, you have the right to say “no.”

Whether police are knocking on your door at 2 am or 2:30 pm, as long as you’re being “asked” to talk to a police officer who is armed to the teeth and inclined to kill at the least provocation, you don’t really have much room to resist, not if you value your life.

Mind you, these knock-and-talk searches are little more than police fishing expeditions carried out without a warrant.

The goal is intimidation and coercion.

Unfortunately, with police departments increasingly shifting towards pre-crime policing and relying on dubious threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports aimed at snaring potential enemies of the state, we’re going to see more of these warrantless knock-and-talk police tactics by which police attempt to circumvent the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement and prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.

Here’s the bottom line.

These agents are coming to your home with one purpose in mind: to collect information on you.

It’s a form of intimidation, of course. You shouldn’t answer any questions you’re uncomfortable answering about your vaccine history or anything else. The more information you give them, the more it can be used against you. Just ask them politely but firmly to leave.

In this case, as in so many interactions with government agents, the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments (and your cell phone recording the encounter) are your best protection.

Under the First Amendment, you don’t have to speak (to government officials or anyone else). The Fourth Amendment protects you against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. And under the Fifth Amendment, you have a right to remain silent and not say anything which might be used against you.

You can also post a “No Trespassing” sign on your property to firmly announce that you are exercising your right to be left alone. If you see government officials wandering around your property and peering through windows, in my opinion, you have a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Government officials can ring the doorbell, but once you put them on notice that it’s time for them to leave, they can’t stay on your property.

It’s important to be as clear as possible and inform them that you will call the police if they don’t leave. You may also wish to record your encounter with the government agent. If they still don’t leave, immediately call the local police and report a trespasser on your property.

Remember, you have rights.

The government didn’t want us to know about—let alone assert—those rights during this whole COVID-19 business.

After all, for years now, the powers-that-be—those politicians and bureaucrats who think like tyrants and act like petty dictators regardless of what party they belong to—have attempted to brainwash us into believing that we have no right to think for ourselves, make decisions about our health, protect our homes and families and businesses, act in our best interests, demand accountability and transparency from government, or generally operate as if we are in control of our own lives.

But we have every right, and you know why?

Because as the Declaration of Independence states, we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights—to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness—that no government can take away from us.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped the government from constantly trying to usurp our freedoms at every turn. Indeed, the nature of government is such that it invariably oversteps its limits, abuses its authority, and flexes its totalitarian muscles.

Take this COVID-19 crisis, for example.

What started out as an apparent effort to prevent a novel coronavirus from sickening the nation (and the world) has become yet another means by which world governments (including our own) can expand their powers, abuse their authority, and further oppress their constituents.

The government has made no secret of its plans.

Just follow the money trail, and you’ll get a sense of what’s in store: more militarized police, more SWAT team raids, more surveillance, more lockdowns, more strong-armed tactics aimed at suppressing dissent and forcing us to comply with the government’s dictates.

It’s chilling to think about, but it’s not surprising.

In many ways, this COVID-19 state of emergency has invested government officials (and those who view their lives as more valuable than ours) with a sanctimonious, self-righteous, arrogant, Big Brother Knows Best approach to top-down governing, and the fall-out can be seen far and wide.

It’s an ugly, self-serving mindset that views the needs, lives and rights of “we the people” as insignificant when compared to those in power.

That’s how someone who should know better such as Alan Dershowitz, a former Harvard law professor, can suggest that a free people—born in freedom, endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights, and living in a country birthed out of a revolutionary struggle for individual liberty—have no rights to economic freedom, to bodily integrity, or to refuse to comply with a government order with which they disagree.

According to Dershowitz, who has become little more than a legal apologist for the power elite, “You have no right not to be vaccinated, you have no right not to wear a mask, you have no right to open up your business… And if you refuse to be vaccinated, the state has the power to literally take you to a doctor’s office and plunge a needle into your arm.”

Dershowitz is wrong: as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, while the courts may increasingly defer to the government’s brand of Nanny State authoritarianism, we still have rights.

The government may try to abridge those rights, it may refuse to recognize them, it may even attempt to declare martial law and nullify them, but it cannot litigate, legislate or forcefully eradicate them out of existence.

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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.

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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Protests erupted in various Cuban cities the weekend of July 11 over dire economic conditions and a surge in Covid-19 cases. They are the biggest protests to hit Cuba in three decades, and they may well continue in the coming weeks. They come on the heels of artists’ protests in Havana at the end of 2020, and have extended to many parts of the island. But their scale has been exaggerated by the Western press and by Cuban Americans who have been predicting, for 60 years, the imminent fall of the Cuban government.

Media outlets like The New York Times wrote about “hundreds of Cubans” while Reuters described them as thousands. In either case, Cuba has a population of 11 million people. The protests pale in comparison, both in terms of turnout and in state repression, to mass mobilizations that have rocked Colombia, Haiti, Chile, Ecuador and other Latin American countries over the past few years—or even Portland, Oregon, or Ferguson, Missouri. Moreover, U.S. media have paid little attention to the counter protesters, who have gone out into the streets to express their support for the government and Cuban Revolution. This includes Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who marched in the streets of Havana after denouncing the protests as an attempt to “fracture the unity of the people.”

The protests should also be understood in the context of a brutal economic war waged by the United States against the island nation for more than 60 years. This was laid out clearly by the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in 1960, when he explicitly called for “denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” This strategy has failed in its goal of regime change for decades, and it is unlikely to be successful now.

There is no denying that Cubans are facing very severe conditions at the moment. The country has been hit by blackouts, as well as shortages of medicine, food and other basic necessities. The food shortages haven’t led to hunger or famine, but people have to wait in long lines to obtain goods—often at inflated prices—and their diet is extremely limited.

In terms of health, even basic medicines and equipment like syringes are difficult to acquire. Additionally, there has been an increase in Covid-19 cases, particularly in the city of Matanzas. However, this surge—as onerous as it is on the people of Matanzas—should also be kept in perspective. Cuba, a nation of roughly 11 million people, has had fewer than 240,000 cases of Covid-19 and 1,537 deaths. By comparison, Ohio, which has a similarly sized population, has had 1.1 million cases and more than 20,000 deaths. Despite the shortages, Cuban health policies have protected the population from the worst of the pandemic. With 139 deaths from Covid-19 per million population, Cuba places among the best performers in the hemisphere, miles ahead of the 1,871 deaths per million in the United States. Furthermore, Cuba has already proven that two of the five Covid-19 vaccines that it is developing are successful in preventing coronavirus infections and has vaccinated over two million people with their locally produced vaccines.

The shortages are being used by proponents of regime change to accuse the Cuban government of failing its citizens. Even the Biden White House called on Cuba’s authorities to “hear their people and serve their needs at this vital moment rather than enriching themselves.” It is unclear who Biden thinks has been “enriching themselves” in Cuba, but any criticism of Cuba that does not include a thorough analysis of the internationally condemned U.S. blockade will miss the most important factor in why Cubans are currently undergoing such hardships.

While the blockade has been in place for over six decades, it was tightened in significant ways under the Trump administration’s policy of “maximum pressure.” This strategy targeted Cuba’s tourism, energy and other key economic sectors. It even restricted the amounts of money Cuban Americans can send home and closed the Cuban branches of Western Union, the main vehicle for sending remittances. These policies have had a disastrous impact on the Cuban economy, especially when the Covid-induced shutdown of the tourist industry has deprived the island of billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. For its part, the Biden administration has been “reviewing” its Cuba policy for six months, all the while continuing Trump’s strategy of economic warfare that is designed precisely to create the shortages Cubans are now experiencing.

U.S. economic warfare on Cuba has always been coupled with other strategies to overthrow the Cuban government. These include assassination attempts, support for terrorists (like Luis Posada Carriles, who blew up a Cuban airliner in 1976, killing 73 people), an attempted invasion and millions of dollars spent on “soft” power. For example, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) spends about $20 million a year funding dissident groups in Cuba. The U.S.-funded Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which runs the opposition networks Radio and TV Martí, has over 100 employees and an annual budget of about $28 million, broadcasting an endless stream of anti-government propaganda.

This propaganda extends to social media, where the hashtag #SOSCuba began trending in Florida days before the protests began. This suggests that there was a coordinated campaign to target the Cuban government and blame it for the hardships the Cuban people are facing. It is also reminiscent of a scandal that broke in 2020, when CLS Strategies, a company with State Department ties, was found to have flooded social networks with harmful fake news about leftist governments in Latin America.

This social media campaign appears to be working, but not in Cuba. Instead, it has riled up the anti-Cuba lobby and its supporters in Florida. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez has gone so far as to call for U.S. intervention. The truth is that what happens in Florida will likely have more of an impact on the Cuban people than what happens in Cuba itself.

While the protests are very unlikely to topple the Cuban government, they could have the potential to disrupt important progress being made to pressure the Biden administration into lifting the Trump-era sanctions and re-engaging with Cuba, just as the Obama administration did. For example, in March, 80 members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to President Biden urging him to end restrictions on travel and remittances without delay. Right now, a group of Cuban Americans, led by high school teacher and war veteran Carlos Lazo, is walking from Miami to Washington, D.C., to call for an end to the embargo. And as part of this anti-blockade pressure, thousands of Americans have donated about $500,000 to buy syringes for Cuba’s Covid-19 vaccinations.

This grassroots and political pressure might be derailed by a right-wing agenda that will seek to further punish Cubans in the name of saving them. It would not be surprising to see President Biden cave to the right and maintain the cruel sanctions. Judging by the White House statement, President Biden is putting crass political calculations that deal with domestic politics ahead of the well-being of 11 million Cubans.

But by continuing the sanctions, Biden may well find himself dealing with a Cuban migration crisis. Over the past few months, the U.S. Coast Guard has reported an increase in the number of rafts sailing from Cuba to Florida. Nearly 500 would-be migrants have been returned to Cuba by U.S. authorities in 2021, compared to 49 people last year. As long as the Cuban economy continues to be battered by U.S. sanctions, more Cubans will attempt the treacherous overseas journey. This has the potential to become a crisis that will damage the Biden administration, given its recent focus on deterring migration.

With the stroke of a pen, Biden could lift all of the coercive measures that Trump put in place. This would save Cuban lives, and it could begin to reset Biden’s foreign policy on the more diplomatic path that Obama finally started to embrace in his second term, but which Biden has so far rejected toward Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, China and other self-inflicted problem areas in U.S. foreign policy.

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Medea Benjamin, cofounder of CODEPINK, is the author of several books on Cuba, including No Free Lunch: Food and Revolution in Cuba Today.

Leonardo Flores is a Latin American policy analyst and campaigner with CODEPINK.

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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Another great banner made by ARRT! (Artist Rapid Response Team) here in Maine.

ARRT! is led by long-revered artist/activist Natasha Mayers who has been a regular at the protests at Bath Iron Works (BIW) where naval Aegis destroyers are built.

The banner was conceived with these questions in mind: Where do these destroyers go when they leave Bath? How do they impact the rest of the world politically and environmentally?

 

 

BIW Aegis destroyers do not actually carry nuclear weapons. They carry cruise missiles that could be outfitted with nuclear warheads. They are primarily first-strike attack weapons.

Aegis also carry SM-3 interceptor missiles whose job is to take out any retaliatory strikes after the US launches a first-strike attack on China or Russia. (So-called ‘missile defense’.) SM-3 missiles are not nuclear – they are called ‘kinetic’ which means they crash into the other missiles and they both explode.

In Maine most people just think about BIW as a jobs engine but the impact of these warships is far more than just jobs. If we were really concerned about creating jobs we’d be building commuter rail systems at BIW as well as tidal power systems to help us deal with climate crisis.

The war economy must end

Since WW II the US economy has been running on endless war.

We are excited about taking this new banner out to BIW for one of our upcoming bi-monthly vigils so the sailors and shipbuilders can gaze upon it. We want them to think about the political dimension of their ‘mission’ and also the environmental impacts of these warships.

There will be a ‘christening’ ceremony held at the shipyard in the coming weeks as they prepare to launch one of the six destroyers they are currently working on. Our current small vigils are warm-up acts for the bigger public rally. We’ll let you know when a date is set for the destroyer ‘christening’.

We all pay for this

So how do we get the public to step up (even with knees shaking) and answer this fundamental question – Do you really support this?

Empire is so over.

Please….help speak out against the madness.

Our only hope for survival is to turn America away from complicity with corruption, endless war, and climate crisis.

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***

As if the conflict between American parents, their public school districts and CDC requirements were not already enough to create a firestorm of unpredictable proportions, pretend President Joe Biden has dramatically increased the stakes by announcing an imminent door to door pursuit to inoculate millions of Americans within their own home.  The prospect of a simultaneous national at-your-front-door mandatory vaccination program represents a massive Fourth Amendment assault that threatens the future of our Constitutional republic.  As appears to have been the case since Covid was first identified, politics continues to guide public health decisions rather than the science.

The immunization effort includes the utilization of a spike protein bioweapon under the guise of what is more commonly referred to as a Covid 19 vaccination which is still classified by the FDA as an untested Emergency Use Authorization in order to facilitate public usage.

As if Biden’s announcement was not enough to cause great clanging alarm bells, WH press secretary Jan Psaki removed any doubt as to the government’s true agenda. Her follow up to Biden’s announcement included reference to the creation of ‘strike forces’ which removed any benign appearance from what may be shaping up to be the implementation of a nation-wide militarized deployment.

“Dr. Fauci has addressed this a number of times and has conveyed that ‘herd immunity’ is kind of an outdated term. So we had set a goal of reaching 70% of adults by July 4^th and we reached that goal of adults 27 and older by that date.  We’ll continue to press to reach it and we will in the next couple of weeks for adults over the age of 18.  Our work doesn’t stop there and we are going to continue to press to get 12-18 year olds vaccinated…to continue to work with communities where there’s lower vaccination rates.  That’s one of the reasons we initiated these strike forces to go into communities and work with them to determine what they need; to take a localized specific approach that works with elected officials and communities.” 

With only 47.9% of Americans fully vaccinated against Covid (approximately 157.9 million), the government failed to meet Dr. Fauci’s 70% target of vaccinated Americans – which necessitated the vaccination of children.  Biden provided no other details on exactly how the deed would be accomplished other than to suggest his ‘outreach team,’ later referred to as “surge response teams,” will consist of CDC officials, FEMA and other health related agencies as they initially focus on ‘targeted communities’ in 1000 American counties which had achieved only a 30% vaccination rate.  As part of the HHS Department, a Community Corps has already been dispatched to provide Covid information to unvaccinated residents.

Meanwhile, in a recent CNN interview, US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra threw kindling on a smoldering fire when he told CNN that it is ‘absolutely the government’s business to know who has been vaccinated.”  Becerra went on to condescend to Americans who pay the bills and who have suffered the consequences of the Federal government’s surrender to Fauci and Big Pharma when he suggested that “Perhaps we should point out that the federal government has had to spend trillions of dollars to try to keep Americans alive during this pandemic, so it is absolutely the government’s business.” Further totally missing the impending crisis, he suggested that “knocking on a door has never been against the law” as Republican governors begin to line up in opposition to a door to door visit from the Federal  government.

Becerra declared that his comments had been “wildly out of context” as he later tweeted that “government has no database tracking who is vaccinated” which is not a factual statement.   Each vaccinatee has received a preliminary id card just as the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has sent out multiple solicitations to Colorado’s unvaccinated residents.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Co) questioned “Door to door to vaccinate Americans this year… door to door to confiscate guns next year?”

Abandoning Herd Immunity

When Dr. Tony Fauci conveniently abandoned the herd immunity concept as no longer a goal and that a vaccination rate of 70% – 85% was required to conquer Covid, he inexplicably continued to ignore natural immunity. Herd immunity occurs when enough people become immune to a contagious disease thereby limiting further spread of the disease. What Fauci ignored is that undercounting or removing the number of Americans who possess natural immunity is considered a scientific error of omission.  While infection disease professionals estimate that 60% of the population needs to have been exposed for herd immunity to be reached, Johns Hopkins has estimated that 80% – 85% of American adults have acquired natural immunity.

Fauci’s view has remained critically unexamined by the old guard medical, political and media establishments as his speculation justified the need to include a mandatory vaccination policy for children.   The failure to acknowledge natural immunity has led to a government policy of indiscriminate vaccinations.

In early March, a California Department of Public Health report said that only 8.7% of the state’s population had ever tested positive for Covid-19 while at least 38.5% of the population had the coronavirus antibodies. Adjusting for cases between now and then, and accounting for the amount of time it takes for the body to make antibodies, it can be estimated that as many as half of Californians have natural immunity today. The same report found that 45% of people in Los Angeles had Covid-19 antibodies.

Fourth Amendment

The Fourth Amendment which reads, in part, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…” was originally taken from the British maxim that ‘every man’s house is his castle.’

More than any other amendment, the Fourth is a direct consequence of pre-revolution Colonial America when the British parliament enacted the Quartering Act in 1774 which allowed royal governors, rather than colonial governments, to ‘quarter’ British soldiers.  Colonists were further enraged by having a ‘standing foreign’ army quartered among a civilian population which they saw as a usurpation of American liberty. Upon the eve of what became the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson was tasked with preparing the list of grievances against King George III which became the Declaration of Independence. Those 27 grievances were ultimately culled into the Bill of Rights and adopted into the U.S. Constitution.

As in Katz v. United States (1967), the Supreme Court held that Fourth Amendment protections extend to intrusions on the privacy of individuals as well as their physical locations and that “.. to claim protection of the Amendment depends not upon a property right in the invaded place but upon whether… there was a reasonable expectation of freedom from governmental intrusion.”

While it is true that radical, challenging times like what we are living through today can bring a sense of despair against seemingly insurmountable odds, it is also true that such dire straits can bring out the most courageous, encourage the best from each of us and that such difficult, profound situations require each to rise to their highest, their most authentic potential in the name of truth, justice and integrity.

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Renee Parsons served on the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and as president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, staff in the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found at [email protected].