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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.

***

Unknown for decades, declassified documents show that FDR’s mail was deliberately diverted and falsified to prevent a historic meeting with Mao Zedong that might have shortened the war, changed history, and reshaped the modern world.

Historians cite the 1972 meeting between Mao Zedong and Richard Nixon as the original spark for U.S.-China Globalization in which the U.S. and China began cooperating to industrialize China and integrate the two countries’ economies.

But a much younger Mao Zedong had tried to interest President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on Globalization 27 years earlier, and history would have turned out differently if Roosevelt had agreed.

The Korean and Vietnam Wars—which resulted in millions of deaths—could have been avoided along with the Taiwan Straits crisis of 1958, which nearly resulted in a nuclear apocalypse, and Taiwan would not have been separated from Mother China.

On January 9, 1945, Mao Zedong reached out from his headquarter in Yan’an to President Roosevelt. U.S. Army Major Ray Cromley—acting chief of the U.S. mission in Yan’an— forwarded this message to U.S. Army headquarters in Chungking:

Mao and Zhou will be immediately available either singly or together for exploratory conference at Washington should President Roosevelt express desire to receive them at White House as leaders of a primary Chinese party.

At this time Mao Zedong was a vibrant 51-year-old at the height of his powers. Washington officials at this moment knew little about the twentieth century’s largest revolution as it developed from embryo to maturity. Mao had transformed Yan’an, which six years earlier most Chinese had never heard of, into a base which American tanks and airplanes could not threaten and also made it into one of China’s largest educational centers.

Mao founded the University of Resistance, which graduated more than 10,000 students a year. He built primary schools, middle schools, three colleges, the largest arts academy in China, and a vocational training school. A publishing house—hidden deep in the loess hills—printed books, magazines, and newspapers. A factory produced many types of medicines. Mao created the Women’s University, housed in a series of caves connected by internal walkways.

Zhou Enlai (left) and Mao Zedong (center) in Yan’an in the mid-1930s. [Source: alphahistory.com]

In contrast, Franklin Roosevelt was a sickly 62-year-old just weeks from death, struggling to comprehend events in his administration. Two months after Mao had reached out to him, a grey and worn FDR appeared before a joint session of Congress on March 1 to report the Yalta agreement. Observers were taken aback to see the diminished president seated in his wheelchair, the first time he had done so when addressing Congress.

Roosevelt explained, “I have just completed a fourteen-thousand-mile trip.” When FDR met with Vice President Harry Truman, Roosevelt’s hands shook so much that he could not drink a cup of coffee without spilling it.

General Albert Wedemeyer recorded his thoughts after a meeting in the White House:

“I had not seen the President for several months and was shocked at his physical appearance. His color was ashen, his face drawn, and his jaw drooping. I had difficulty in conveying information to him because he seemed in a daze. Several times I repeated the same idea because his mind did not seem to retain or register.”

Chiang Kai-shek, Mayling Soong, and General Joseph Stilwell. Off the record, General Stilwell said about Chiang: “The trouble in China is simple: We are allied to an ignorant, illiterate, superstitious, peasant son of a bitch.” [Source: commons.wikimedia.org]

Many American observers—like General Joseph Stilwell and the State Department China Hands—sensed the political reality in China and understood that Mao was much more than a “leader of a primary Chinese party.”

The truth was that Mao was about to claim the Mandate of Heaven and become China’s next Emperor. This was not only because of his revolutionary policies but also because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had played a central role in the defeat of the Japanese invaders, while Chiang had used U.S. aid to fight the communists.

But back in Washington, Roosevelt—like most Americans—was oblivious to the CCP’s political strength and believed in the China mirage.

America’s China mirage began in the early 1800s. American merchants and missionaries believed that poor China was collapsing like an old barn. And what better way for China to heal than to emulate up-and-coming America and embrace Capitalism and Christianity.

Nineteenth Century Twentieth Century

In the 1840s, President Roosevelt’s grandfather, Warren Delano, Jr., made a fortune as the American Opium King of China.

In a Washington press conference with Madame Chiang Kai-shek at his side, President Roosevelt told this whopper to the American people:

The people of China well over a century have been, in thought and in objective, closer to us Americans than almost any other peoples in the world—the same great ideals. China, in the last—less than half a century has become one of the great democracies of the world.

FDR was mouthing gibberish, but maybe the cause was “hopium.” The Soong family had bankrolled Chiang Kai-shek and had convinced FDR that Chiang yearned to be a democrat in Roosevelt’s image and that the Chinese people wished to be just like Americans.

American officials from the U.S. Army and the State Department stationed in China—many of them fluent in Chinese like General Stilwell—saw Mao’s rise as inevitable, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt followed Grandpa Warren Delano’s belief that America was destined to Christianize and democratize China.

The president’s mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, was fond of saying that Franklin was “a Delano, not a Roosevelt at all.” When Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau gave a recommendation regarding U.S.-China relations, FDR sniffed, “Please remember that I have a background of a little over a century in Chinese affairs.”

The Soong family’s China Lobby understood America’s China mirage, they had all been schooled in East Coast universities, including FDR’s Harvard. They cooed to FDR about the inevitable Americanization of China and presented their front man—Chiang Kai-shek—as FDR’s vehicle to inject trickle-down Christianity and Capitalism into China.

Roosevelt was convinced that he would make China America’s best friend in Asia. Others outside the glare of America’s China mirage were more realistic. Prime Minister Winston Churchill referred to FDR’s China dream as “the Great American illusion.”

In England, the British enjoyed a radio comedy program that featured a Chiang Kai-shek character named General Cash My Cheque. Yet FDR expended more taxpayer funds on his Chiang-China mirage than he did on the Atom Bomb.

The late David Halberstam described America’s China mirage of the 1930s and 1940s:

The China that existed in the minds of millions of Americans was the most illusory of countries, filled as it was with dutiful, obedient peasants who liked America and loved Americans, who longed for nothing so much as to be like them. It was a country where ordinary peasants allegedly hoped to be more Christian and were eager, despite the considerable obstacles in their way, to rise out of what Americans considered a heathen past. Millions of Americans believed not only that they loved (and understood) China and the Chinese, but also that it was their duty to Americanize the Chinese. “With God’s help, we will lift Shanghai up and up, ever up until it is just like Kansas City,” said Senator Kenneth Wherry of Nebraska. . . .

There were two Chinas. There was the China in the American public mind, a China as Americans wanted it to be, and the other China, the real China…. The illusory China was a heroic ally, ruled by the brave, industrious, Christian, pro-American Chiang Kai-shek …

By 1945, Mao oversaw an empire of one hundred million, about twice the population of Britain, but FDR incorrectly judged that Chiang would be the Chinese people’s choice and Mao a disaffected party.

Mao Zedong had reached out to the American president through FDR’s representatives at Mao’s base, the U.S. Army. Unknown for decades was that confidential U.S. Navy operators commanded by Captain Milton “Mary” Miles of U.S. Navy Intelligence diverted the U.S. Army-generated cable and handed it over to the head of Chiang’s secret police, Mr. Dai Li. Captain Miles and Dai Li rewrote the memo to make it appear that Mao was attempting to discredit U.S. Ambassador Patrick Hurley in FDR’s eyes.

Mao Zedong, Ambassador Patrick Hurley, and Chiang Kai-shek. Hurley called Mao “Moose Dung. “ Mao called Hurley “The Clown.” [Source: wiki.china.org]

Neither Mao Zedong, Ambassador Hurley nor FDR ever realized that their relations had been manipulated by U.S. Naval Intelligence and Chiang’s Gestapo. FDR was soon dead, and millions would die in preventable conflicts—the Chinese Civil War, the Korean War and the Vietnam War—before the U.S. would embrace Mao’s vision.

We know the vision Mao would have presented to FDR because Mao had sketched his dream to a brilliant U.S. State Department representative just months earlier who spent hours with China’s presumptive leader and took copious notes.

Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, John Service, Mao Zedong, unknown. Later the U.S. State Department would fire all Americans who had spoken to Mao Zedong. [Source: twitter.com]

In August 1944, Mao Zedong and John Service met in Mao’s Yan’an cave home. For eight intense hours—with a break for dinner cooked by Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing—John Service had more substantive conversations with Mao than any other American government official would have for the next quarter century.

John Service was an excellent choice to be America’s interlocutor with Mao Zedong. Born in China, the 35-year-old Service was fluent in a handful of Chinese dialects. Service had dealt often with Chiang and Mao. He had also traveled the country by public transport to plumb the attitudes of the ordinary Chinese.

Service and General Stilwell—along with many other Americans in China—understood that continued support of Chiang would put the U.S. on the wrong side of history, that whatever the U.S did in China, Mao was destined to claim the Mandate of Heaven.

In his cave home Mao told Service what was obvious to many American officials in China:

“Chiang Kai-shek was elected President by only ninety members of a single party … even Hitler has a better claim to democratic power … fundamentally he is a gangster…. Chiang holds the bayonets and the secret police … The fact is clear … that China’s political tendency is towards us….”

Mao told Service why he preferred Wall Street over Russian borscht:

The Russians have suffered greatly in the war and will have their hands full with their own job of rebuilding. We do not expect Russian help.

Mao then sketched a win-win relationship between the U.S. and China:

China must industrialize. This can be done—in China—only by free enterprise and with the aid of foreign capital…. Chinese and American interests are correlated and similar. They fit together, economically and politically. We can and must work together … we will be interested in the most rapid possible development of the country on constructive and productive lines.

America does not need to fear that we will not be cooperative. We must cooperate and we must have American help … we cannot risk crossing you—cannot risk any conflict with you.

Two months after his cable to FDR had been spiked, Mao Zedong met with John Service once more, again pleading for U.S.-China friendship:

Between the people of China and the people of the United States there are strong ties of sympathy, understanding and mutual interest…. China’s greatest postwar need is economic development. She lacks the capitalistic foundation necessary to carry this out alone…. America and China complement each other economically; they will not compete … America is not only the most suitable country to assist this economic development of China, she is also the only country fully able to participate. For all these reasons there must not and cannot be any conflict, estrangement or misunderstanding between the Chinese people and America …

Mao Zedong extended the hand of friendship to Roosevelt through the highest-ranking U.S. Army and State Department officials to whom he had access. The vision he described was what we now call Globalization: the U.S. and China cooperating to industrialize China, with Russia a far distant partner.

Historians can argue that Mao was insincere, that he was sweet-talking Moscow at this same time. But Mao was much more a realist in search of power than a political ideologue. Support from the richest country on earth, the most industrialized World War II power with the world’s deepest pools of capital—doesn’t it make sense that a practical and ambitious Mao would have deserted Joe Stalin for FDR any day?

Imagine if Mao Zedong had been able to break through FDR’s China mirage and convince him that American Army and State officials were trying to show him the reality in China? Roosevelt cooperated with Soviet Communists, why not Chinese? Imagine no Chinese Civil War, no Korean War, no Vietnam War, no vexing Taiwan problem still dogging the world today?

One Washington official warned John Service that writing the truth about China was dangerous: “Jesus, Service! I read that thing of yours, and I certainly agree with you, but it is going to get you in a lot of trouble.”

In 1949 Mao Zedong shattered America’s China mirage when he claimed the Mandate of Heaven.

Rather than admit they had been self-deluded by the idea that the Chinese wanted to be just like them, Americans asked in shock, “Who lost China?”

On February 9, 1950, Senator Joe McCarthy nailed John Service’s hide to the wall:

Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity…. As one of our outstanding historical figures once said, ‘When a great democracy is destroyed, it will not be because of enemies from without, but rather because of enemies from within … This is glaringly true in the State Department … When Chiang Kai-shek was fighting our war, the State Department had in China a young man named John S. Service … [H]e sent official reports back to the State Department urging that we torpedo our ally Chiang Kai- shek—and stating, in effect, that communism was the best hope of China.

I have here in my hand 57 cases of individuals who would appear to be either card-carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party, but who nevertheless are still helping to shape our foreign policy.

John Service and others had accurately reported reality from WWII China, but they then ran head-on into the China mirage, an American belief system about China as old as the Republic. Soon the State Department fired all employees who spoke Chinese. Many years later, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara—the chief whiz-kid architect of the Vietnam War—observed:

Our government lacked experts for us to consult to compensate for our ignorance. When the Berlin crisis occurred in 1961 and during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, President Kennedy was able to turn to senior people … who knew the Soviets intimately. There were no senior officials in the Pentagon or State Department with comparable knowledge of Southeast Asia…. The irony of this gap was that it existed largely because the top East Asian and China experts in the State Department (such as John Service)—had been purged during the McCarthy hysteria of the 1950s.

Popular history credits the birth of U.S.-China cooperation and Globalization to President Richard Nixon. Lost in the mist of time was that the winning combination of American capital and technology and Chinese labor was an idea that Mao Zedong first suggested in 1944. A generation would pass before Nixon—motivated by the American quagmire in Vietnam and competition with Russia — came to a similar conclusion.

In 1971 Nixon announced his upcoming journey to the Middle Kingdom. Chinese leaders graciously remembered their American friends from the cave meetings in Yan’an. Premier Zhou Enlai welcomed John Service back to China.

After he returned from China, John Service testified to the Senate:

My recent visit to China convinces me that the root of the current Chinese reality may be found in what we reported from Yan’an in 1944…. I think that our involvement in Vietnam, our insistence on the need to contain China and to prevent what we thought was the spread of Communist influence in Southeast Asia, was based very largely on our misunderstanding and our lack of knowledge of the Chinese, the nature of the Chinese Communist movement, and the intention of their leaders. We assumed that they were an aggressive country, and I don’t believe that they really have been, and, therefore, I think that we got into Vietnam largely, as I say, through the misinterpretation and misfounded fear of China.

If the United States in 1945 had been able to … shed some of its illusions about China, to understand what was happening in that country, and to adopt a realistic policy in America’s own interests, Korea and Vietnam would probably never have happened … We would not still be confronted with an unsolvable Taiwan problem …

No Korean and Vietnam Wars. No conflict now over Taiwan. As I write this, I am 67 years old. Raised in America during the 1950s and 1960s, I was taught that Mao Zedong had an irrational hatred for America.

It was only many years later that I learned that Mao Zedong had actually pitched U.S.-China cooperation and that it was America that harbored an irrational hatred. None of my teachers ever told me that Mao Zedong had once pleaded with the State Department’s John Service:

There must not and cannot be any conflict, estrangement or misunderstanding between the Chinese people and America.

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James Bradley hosts the podcast Untold Pacific, featuring stories from his decades of experience in Asia. James is the author of the New York Times #1 best-selling book, Flags of Our Fathers (2000) that was made into a movie by Stephen Spielberg and Clint Eastwood. Bradley wrote three other critically acclaimed books about the United States in Asia: Flyboys, The Imperial Cruise and The China Mirage.

Featured image: Mao Zedong in a U.S. army jeep with U.S. Ambassador to China, Patrick J. Hurley, behind him in hat. [Source: thinkchina.sg]

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.

***

In the Soviet Union, everybody was aware that the media was controlled by the state. But in a corporate state like the U.S., a veneer of independence is still maintained, although trust in the media has been plummeting for years.

The Washington Post’s glaring conflicts of interest have of late once again been the subject of scrutiny online, thanks to a new article denouncing a supposed attempt to “soak” billionaires in taxes. Written by star columnist Megan McArdle — who previously argued that Walmart’s wages are too high, that there is nothing wrong with Google’s monopoly, and that the Grenfell Fire was a price worth paying for cheaper buildings — the article claimed that Americans have such class envy that the government would “destroy [billionaires’] fortunes so that the rest of us don’t have to look at them.” Notably, the Post chose to illustrate it with a picture of its owner, Jeff Bezos, making it seem as if it was directly defending his power and wealth, something they have been accused of on more than oneoccasion.

There was considerable speculation online as to whether Bezos himself wrote the piece, so blatantly in his interest it was. Unfortunately, this sort of speculation has raged ever since the Amazon CEO bought the newspaper in 2013 for $250 million.

Did a billionaire publish th– oh wait pic.twitter.com/0FZlRLBSrc

— P Nielsen Hayden (@pnh) June 10, 2021

Undue influence

Being owned by the world’s richest individual does not mean that The Washington Post and its employees are rolling in dough themselves. Far from it: Bezos’ revolution at the newspaper, which has led to both increased pageviews and company value, has been largely based on simply squeezing workers harder than before. In an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review, management acknowledged that Post reporters are pushed to produce almost four times as many stories as their peers at The New York Times. Furthermore, the Post writes and rewrites the same story but from slightly different angles and with different headlines in order to generate more clicks, and thus more revenue. Thanks to new technology, reporters’ every keystroke is monitored and they are under constant pressure from management not to fall behind. The technique of constant surveillance is not unlike what hyper-exploited Amazon warehouse workers who wear GPS devices or Fitbit watches have to endure.

Bezos is currently worth a shade under $200 billion, with his wealth nearly doubling since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. With such a fortune to protect, the obvious solution is to acquire media outlets to control the narrative in the face of rising public disenchantment with rampaging inequality. Omar Ocampo, a researcher for the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies, said that this is a common tactic among the super wealthy. “Billionaire ownership of major news outlets is but another tool the billionaire class deploys for the purpose of wealth defense. It gives them the power to set the terms of the agenda and influence public opinion in their favor,” Ocampo told MintPress.

But Bezos is far from the only senior figure with questionable connections. The company’s CEO, Frederick Ryan, was a senior member of the Reagan White House, rising to become the 40th president’s assistant and later the chairman of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. He later became CEO of Politico. In the Post’s announcement of the hiring move, they themselves noted that among Ryan’s biggest achievements at their rival outlet was “helping the news organization win a lucrative advertising deal with Goldman Sachs and host presidential debates before the 2008 and 2012 Republican primaries.”

Another neoconservative in a key position is Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt. Under Hiatt’s tenure, anti-establishment columnists like Dan Froomkin were let go and warmongers like the late Charles Krauthammer, Paul Wolfowitz, and David Ignatius moved in. “After being so wrong on such a huge story as the invasion of Iraq, hawkish ideologue Fred Hiatt should have been terminated as editorial page editor,” Jeff Cohen, former Professor of Journalism at Ithaca College and founder of media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, told MintPress, adding:

In a decent media system, someone who has been so inaccurate on so many issues as Hiatt would not be in a powerful media position two decades later. Powerful voices in U.S. media often argue that society should be a ‘meritocracy’ — with advancement based on ability or achievement. Hiatt proves that the U.S. corporate media system is just the opposite — a ‘kakistocracy’ — where the unqualified and unprincipled rise to the top.”

Other highly questionable hires include Jerusalem correspondent Ruth Eglash, who spent seven years putting out content that was often indistinguishable from Israeli government propaganda. At the time of her hire, activists highlighted the conflicts of interest she had, given her husband’s job as a PR rep for the country. In November 2020, Eglash quit the Post to become chief of communications for the Israeli ambassador to the United States and United Nations. “My experiences as a journalist have afforded me a great instinct of how to better tell Israel’s unique story,” she said, adding “a strong U.S.-Israel relationship and showcasing Israel’s successes to the world has [sic] always been a passion of mine.”

At the center of the news cosmos

The Washington Post is among the most powerful, influential, and widely-read media outlets in the United States. Its position as the dominant newspaper in the nation’s capital reinforces its place as a thought-leading, agenda-setting publication. Whatever appears in the Post will likely be in the rest of the nation’s media, so authoritative is its reputation.

There are no more important pages than its editorial section, where its board comes together to lay out the collective wisdom of its most senior journalists and editors. Through its editorial page, the senior staff lay out the newspaper’s line to others and broadcast what they see as the correct position on the most pressing issues of the day. Hence, editorials are essentially instructions to their well-heeled and influential readers in D.C. and around the country on what to think about any given subject.

This is particularly troublesome as, despite the fact the newspaper presents itself as a defender of liberty and a champion of the people (its tagline is “Democracy Dies in Darkness”), the editorial board has represented the interests of the powerful over ordinary Americans on issue after issue. The following editorials are examples of this in action.

Could we be any more pro-war?

The Post’s editorial board has generally been extremely supportive of whatever conflicts the U.S. has started, and has consistently warned against ending the violence. In a 2015 editorial entitled “Drone strikes are bad; no drone strikes would be worse,” it balked at the idea of stopping the highly controversial bombing campaigns throughout the Middle East and North Africa. By that time, President Barack Obama was bombing seven countries simultaneously. Nevertheless, the Post argued that drones had successfully defeated Al-Qaeda and that the use of drone strikes “shouldn’t be up for review.”

In recent times, the rising newspaper of record has also been a driver of increased hostilities with China, describing Beijing’s military’s moves in the South China Sea as “provocations” against the U.S., spreading rumors about the COVID-19 virus’s origin, and demanding American companies like Apple “resist China’s tyranny” and begin to relocate their production facilities elsewhere to punish the Chinese government.

On Latin America too, the editorial board has proven to be extremely hawkish. It immediately endorsed a U.S.-backed far-right coup in Bolivia in 2019, insisting that “there could be little doubt who was ultimately responsible for the chaos: newly resigned President Evo Morales.” The Post condemned him for refusing to “cooperate” with “Bolivia’s more responsible leaders,” who were organizing his overthrow, and chastised him for using the word “coup” for what was going on. Morales, they concluded, was a victim of his own “insatiable appetite for power” and his inability to “accept that a majority of Bolivians wanted him to leave office.”

In 2002, the paper also supported a coup against Hugo Chavez, falsely claiming the Venezuelan president had ordered the shooting of thousands of demonstrators and absurdly asserting that “there’s been no suggestion that the United States had anything to do with [it].

The WaPo editorial board’s less than subtle take on drone warfare

In more recent times, it has demanded more action to unseat Chavez’s successor, Nicolas Maduro, including supporting U.S. sanctions that have now killed over 100,000 people, according to a United Nations rapporteur. The Post’s justification in 2017 was that Maduro was on the verge of carrying out his own “coup,” “abolish[ing] the opposition-controlled legislature, cancel[ing] future elections and establish[ing] a regime resembling that of Cuba’s” — none of which has happened. In its efforts to oust the democratically-elected leader, the Post even aligned itself with Donald Trump and endorsed far-right coup leader Juan Guaidó as “Venezuela’s legitimate president,” a position some polls have suggested as little as 3% of Venezuelans hold.

The editorial board has expressed its desire to see regime change in leftist-controlled Nicaragua, too. President Daniel Ortega, it claims, is “taking a sledgehammer” to opposition against him, while it also demands that the U.S., which has done nothing but offer “mild verbal opposition” to his rule, do more. What happened to the U.S. of the 1980s, “which spent so much money and political capital to promote democracy in Nicaragua?” they ask sadly.

In reality, of course, the U.S. is currently trying to strangle Nicaragua’s economy through sanctions. And in the 1980s, Washington’s “democracy promotion” agenda included the funding, training and arming of fascist death squads who wrought havoc across Central America, killing hundreds of thousands in genocides from which the area may never recover. The architects of the violence were found guilty in U.S. courts, while the Reagan administration was tried and convicted by the International Court of Justice on 15 counts that amount to international terrorism. That the Post’s editorial board remembers that history as “promoting democracy” is particularly worrisome.

Fake news, fake newspapers

The Washington Post was the key supporter of fake news detection system “PropOrNot,” which was almost immediately exposed as a fake operation itself, forcing the newspaper to publicly distance itself from its own reporting. Yet it was the Post itself that perpetuated the most notorious and damaging fake news story of the 21st century: the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction hoax and Saddam Hussein’s fictional links to al-Qaeda.

In a highly influential editorial entitled “Irrefutable” the Post wrote that, after watching Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech at the United Nations, “it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction… And [Powell] offered a powerful new case that Saddam Hussein’s regime is cooperating with a branch of the al-Qaeda organization that is trying to acquire chemical weapons and stage attacks in Europe.”

“No page was more crucial in propelling the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq than the Post‘s editorial page — which beat the drums for war in a couple dozen editorials in the six months leading up to the invasion,” Cohen told MintPress, adding:

The Post’s op-ed page was almost as cartoonishly wrong on Iraq, offering little dissent or corrective to the editorial page’s jingoism — especially in that pivotal media moment following Colin Powell’s error-filled U.N. speech. While the editorial page offered up its ‘Irrefutable’ verdict, the op-ed page’s liberal voice offered an embarrassing column, headlined ‘I’m Persuaded’.”

The Post played a major role in manufacturing consent for the deadliest war since Vietnam, publishing 27 editorials in support of an invasion. As with PropOrNot, it backtracked long after the dust had settled, apologizing for its role in amping the public up to accept that war. Yet to this day it continues to push for others.

Surveillance state champion

Despite telling its readers that “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” The Washington Post certainly has a negative opinion about those individuals who work to shine a light on illegal government activities. In 2016, its editorial board demanded “no pardon for Edward Snowden,” condemning his backers like filmmaker Oliver Stone and expressing outrage that Snowden had revealed that the U.S. was spying on Russia and carrying out cyberattacks against China. In its long denunciation, it insisted that the NSA’s massive surveillance operation against the American public resulted in “no specific harm, actual or attempted.” As such, the editorial board made history by becoming the first newspaper ever to call for the imprisonment of its own source, on whose back and information it won a Pulitzer Prize.

If Snowden was not worthy of defending, then it is no surprise that the Post’s editorial team expressed their delight when Julian Assange was dragged out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, declaring it a “victory for the rule of law.” “Julian Assange is not a free-press hero. And he is long overdue for personal accountability,” they wrote, spreading baseless conspiracy theories that the Australian publisher worked with Russia to hack American democracy.

After relying on him as a source, the Post went after Snowden and any who dared to back him

The Ecuadorian government of Rafael Correa, which offered asylum to the Western dissidents, also came under fire. In 2013, the Post (falsely) labeled Correa an “autocrat” and “the hemisphere’s preeminent anti-U.S. demagogue.” They also directly threatened him, writing that, “If Mr. Correa welcomes Mr. Snowden, there will be an easy way to demonstrate that Yanqui-baiting has its price.”

Of course, the Post is now intimately linked with the national security state after Amazon signed a number of deals to provide intelligence and computing services to several three-letter agencies. In 2020, the Bezos-owned Amazon Web Services signed a new deal with the CIA worth tens of billions of dollars.

The editorial board has also gone up to bat for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) multiple times, insisting that it is “the wrong target for outrage,” presenting the agency as key in the battle against art theft and nuclear proliferation. “Abolishing ICE is not a serious policy proposal,” the board wrote in 2018, despite the fact that the U.S. survived without the agency perfectly well until its creation in 2003.

Attacking any pro-people policy

The Washington Post has aggressively attempted to beat back any new political movements challenging the establishment. Chief among them has been the one around Bernie Sanders, for whom the newspaper has reserved a special ire. In 2016, it famously ran 16 negative stories on Sanders in the space of 16 hours and has used its fact-checking page to relentlessly undermine him, sometimes to bizarre effect.

“Bernie Sanders keeps saying his average donation is $27, but his own numbers contradict that,” read the headline of one article, which detailed how his average donation was actually $27.89, not $27. It also gave his statement that six men (one of whom is Bezos) hold as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population “three Pinocchios” — the designation just below the most egregious lie. This was because, they argued, billionaires’ wealth is tied up in stocks, not money itself, and most people own essentially nothing. Why this disproved his assertion they did not explain. Going undisclosed is that both Bezos and the Post’s chief fact-checker Glen Kessler, who is the scion of a fossil fuel baron, would stand to lose a fortune if Sanders were elected.

Likewise, the Post’s editorial board did all it could to ensure Sanders was not elected in 2016, publishing editorials such as “Bernie Sanders’s fiction-filled campaign,” which defended big banks from Sanders’s attacks; “Mr. Sanders’s shocking ignorance on his core issue,” which presented Hillary Clinton as a more credible Wall Street reformer; and “Mr. Sanders peddles fiction on free trade,” which championed the long-discredited North American Free Trade Agreement as a jobs creator. Unsurprisingly, the editorial board was also a vociferous supporter of the Trans Pacific Partnership.

In 2020, the Post was no less hostile to Sanders, publishing an editorial headlined “We should pay more attention to the Democrats who pay attention to reality,” which stated that “Mr. Sanders promises unlimited free stuff to everyone; other candidates propose smarter, more targeted approaches.”

The Post’s higher-ups have been careful to oppose virtually every piece of progressive or pro-people policy proposals. Chief among them has been healthcare. The United States is alone in the developed world in not offering some kind of universal healthcare to its population. Its privatized system is multiple times more expensive than that of comparable countries and has the worst outcomes in the West. Yet the board has consistently scare-mongered its readers, claiming “Single-payer health care would have an astonishingly high price tag,” and attacking Medicare-For-All proponents running for office. “Why go to the trouble of running for president to promote ideas that can’t work?” it asked rhetorically, before going on to insist that moving towards a healthcare system like that of Canada, Japan or Western Europe does not meet a “baseline degree of factual plausibility.”

On education, it has been just as regressive. “There are consequences to making college free,” it warned readers. Chief among these would be that private universities would make less money, which, apparently should be a major concern. “Forgiving student loans the wrong way will only worsen inequality,” ran the headline of another editorial, in which the board pretended to be ultra-left elite-hating radicals, arguing that we should not make college free because Ivy League graduates would benefit the most (around one-third of the Post’s editorial team attended an Ivy League school). It also feigned a far-left position on charter schools, pretending that essentially privatizing schools and handing them over to businesses to run would solve racial inequality in America, and that anyone who opposed them (like teachers’ unions) was no progressive.

Perhaps the most blatant conflict of interest the Post has displayed is in their committed opposition to a wealth tax. “Elizabeth Warren wants a ‘wealth tax.’ It might backfire,” they wrote, making a series of bizarre and illogical arguments against the plan, such as immigrants will stop wanting to come to the U.S. if such a tax is imposed (the threshold for paying a wealth tax is $50 million). Five months later, the board reaffirmed their position: “A wealth tax isn’t the best way to tax the rich,” they wrote, claiming that rich people “can afford the best accountants and lawyers,” and so taxing them is presumably impossible.

Of course, the Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos, has every reason to go all out to prevent a wealth tax gaining traction. A CNBC study calculated that Bezos would be forced to pay $5.7 billion annually if Warren’s tax plans came to fruition.

The Post has also taken a firm stand against serious regulation of monopolies, decrying a supposed “antitrust onslaught” against Google, spearheaded by simplistic “break-them-up” rhetoric from dishonest actors. In 2016, it also lambasted Sanders for his “oversimplified,” “crowd-pleasing” demagoguery on Wall Street regulation, insisting that there has actually been widespread reform of the financial sector since 2008, making another crash unlikely.

Unsurprisingly for an outlet owned by a poverty-wage employer, the Post has also consistently opposed a national $15 minimum wage. In March, it categorically stated that “[a] $15 minimum wage won’t happen” and Democrats should stop trying to make it happen. Instead, they advised, they should “practice the art of the possible.” This, the board explained, meant falling in line behind Arkansas arch-Republican Senator Tom Cotton to support his proposals for a creeping state-by-state rise to $10.

On the climate, too, the Post has pushed extremely regressive positions, opposing a Green New Deal outright and suggesting the atmosphere be turned into a giant free market where polluters can trade credits and speculate. “The left’s opposition to a carbon tax shows there’s something deeply wrong with the left,” they wrote. They also endorsed the highly controversial process of fracking. Seeing as the Post’s editorial board is littered with former employees of the notorious climate-change denying Wall Street Journal, its stance is perhaps not surprising.

On COVID, the Post has consistently opposed teachers’ unions calls to keep schools closed, as well as standing against $2,000 checks. A universal payout is a “bad idea” they stated, but one “whose time has come because of politics, not economics.” So committed was the editorial team’s opposition to the idea of helping the poor that it presented Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as a voice of sanity in Washington.

This does not mean that the Post was against direct payments to all people. In fact, all Postemployees received a $2,021 bonus from management in January as a gesture of appreciation for their work during the pandemic. Two grand for me, not for thee.

Junk-food news

The point of a fourth estate is that it is supposed to shine a light on the powerful and hold them to account. But when corporate media are largely owned and sponsored by the super wealthy themselves, the claim that this is what they do is increasingly hard to maintain. In the Soviet Union, everybody was aware that the media was controlled by the state. But in a corporate state like the U.S., a veneer of independence is still maintained, although trust in the media has been plummeting for years.

While The Washington Post presents itself as an adversarial publication standing up to power, the fact that its senior staff constantly comes to such a hardline neoliberal elitist consensus on so many issues shows how little ideological diversity there is among its staff. Democracy dies at The Washington Post editorial board.

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Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

Featured image is from Antonio Cabrera/MintPress News

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***

It is painful to read the US reports commenting on the result of Iran’s presidential  election. The New York Times carried a blurb on Monday, “Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s ultraconservative president-elect, said that he would not meet with President Biden, and that Tehran’s position on its ballistic missile program was “nonnegotiable.” 

The report estimated that “The comments appeared to signal a hardening of Iranian policies as the conservative faction takes control of all branches of the government: Parliament, the judiciary and soon, the presidency.” 

The Times report would cast a pall of gloom over the prospects for the US-Iran relationship for the foreseeable future. To be sure, thorny shrubs clutter the Biden administration’s pathway. 

However, the Biden administration has no dearth of sophisticated minds with discerning capacity to decode Iran’s ‘Shia’ politics. Indeed, in the tricky period of transition that lies ahead when the frozen relationship holds a tantalising potential to become deliquescent, a misreading can prove very costly. 

Typically, thorny bushes can be a challenge, but if the shrubs and their locations are chosen carefully, they can also be highly valuable in the home landscape design. 

Such characterisation — “ultraconservative” — conjures up misleading notions. If it means that Raisi is profoundly committed to Iran’s Velayat-e faqih, its Islamic jurist system of governance, yes, it is possibly so. But why should that perturb the White House — that is, assuming that the Biden administration is not aiming at a regime change in Iran? 

Now, below that threshold comes a variety of concerns. In the economic sphere, does “ultraconservative” mean the North Korean or the erstwhile Soviet model of command economy? Certainly, that is not the case with Raisi who is an ardent votary of the market. 

In fact, he kickstarted his election campaign at Tehran’s Grand Bazaar. His agenda to rejuvenate Iran’s economy places high importance to the private sector’s role, participation and initiatives. Ironically, being “conservative” in Iran’s context actually means somewhat “leftish” in regard of allocation of resources and industrial policy. 

All indications are that Raisi will pursue an economic model that would approximate to what President Biden himself is aiming at — the government stepping in to moderate capitalist principles through selective intervention and by resorting to public investments on infrastructure with a view to create and sustain a welfare programme and, importantly, to foster job creation. 

Like Biden, Raisi is also under compulsion to woo the lower middle class and the working class, which is an imperative need to arrest further erosion in the social base of the Islamic Revolution. 

Raisi is unhappy that the infamous bonyads which are supposedly charity organisations, render scanty services to the poor and have become conglomerates at the hands of interest groups and fuelled the black market and spawned corruption. 

As chief justice, Raisi has had first hand knowledge of the cancerous growth of corruption in Iran and he took his gloves off to confront that malaise, with the full backing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He can be called an “ultraconservative” in the intolerance he has shown toward corrupt syndicates. 

But why should the US resent it if Raisi pilots an anti-corruption campaign in Iran with renewed vigour as president? Arguably, it will only create better business climate for investors from abroad. 

There is absolutely no doubt that Raisi is intensely conscious of the imperative need to improve the living standards of the common people. He is not alone here. The entire top leadership has reason to feel worried. 

The voter apathy in the recent election (50%) gives a stunning message to the political elite that Hassan Rouhani is leaving office as a discredited “reformist”. 

Of course, Rouhani’s tragedy was that Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo made a lethal duo who, with an eye on the utility of the Israeli lobby and the evangelicals to help advance their political career, decided to give Iran hell. Period. But Biden is not a prisoner of wealthy Jews, nor does he need evangelics for pillow talk. 

At his very first press conference in Tehran on Monday, Raisi said, “The world should know that our government’s foreign policy does not start by the nuclear deal and it will not be limited to the nuclear deal. We will pursue interaction with the whole world and all the world states under broad and balanced interaction in foreign policy, and only those negotiations which ensure national interests are definitely supported, but we will not tie economic situation and people’s conditions to the negotiations…We will continue contacts if they yield results for the people in line with lifting restrictions…” 

Raisi added: “European countries and the US should look at what they have done towards the nuclear deal; the US violated the nuclear deal and the Europeans did not fulfil their undertakings. We tell the US that it is duty-bound to lift all sanctions and that it should return and implement its undertakings. The Europeans should not be influenced by the US pressure and should act upon what they have promised. This is the Iranian nation’s demand from them.” 

What does it add up to? Plainly put, Raisi’s message is that Iran will not remain entrapped in the bitterness of the JCPOA saga that Trump and Pompeo conspired to create in self-interest, but is instead keen to move on. 

He has pledged to pursue “interaction with the whole world and all the world states under broad and balanced interaction in foreign policy” in the country’s national interests. It is crystal clear that Raisi will welcome western investments, trade, technology transfer and so on that will help ameliorate the “people’s conditions”. 

Succinctly put, Raisi underscored that the European countries and the US would have an obligation toward his government by fulfilling, even if belatedly, their commitment to integrate Iran to the world economy. 

The Biden administration should be well aware that the possibilities are almost seamless in economic cooperation with Iran. Iran is a fabulously rich country potentially and can generate an income level that can make it the last frontier for the post-pandemic economy recovery of the industrial world. 

Wisdom and sagacity lies in leveraging the economic cooperation to enter into serious non-nuclear conversations with Iran’s leadership. “Footfalls echo in the memory/Down the passage which we did not take/Towards the door we never opened/Into the rose-garden.” TS Eliot’s words are most appropriate here. 

This is not the moment to get frantic about Iran’s ballistic missiles programme, or its regional policies in general, which quintessentially relate to certain circumstances prevailing in that country’s external environment. The US played a big role in contriving to create those circumstances. And, herein lies the paradox: the US is also best placed to moderate those circumstances. 

If the Biden administration does that, the regional states and the international community will only applaud it as its finest legacy in the politics of West Asia. 

Successive administrations in the Beltway have experienced that unless the relations with Iran got normalised, the US’ policies would  remain ineffectual and unproductive. Iran is one of those regional powers — such as India, for instance — that cannot be suppressed. 

On the contrary, good relations with Iran would have positive fallouts on a number of fronts in the West Asian region as well as in surrounding regions — as far apart as Afghanistan and Yemen. That is why, a good beginning with Raisi becomes critically important.

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Featured image: Iran’s president-elect Ebrahim Raisi addresses his first press conference in Tehran, June 21, 2021 (Source: Indian Punchline)

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***

Sometimes it is worth stating the obvious. The United Kingdom does not have a coast in the Black Sea. British warships are not infesting the Black Sea out of a peaceful intent, and there is no cause for them to be entering disputed waters close to anybody’s coast. This is not a question of freedom of navigation under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea. There is nowhere that a British warship can be heading from the UK under the right of innocent passage that would require it to pass through coastal waters by Crimea. The Black Sea is famously a cul-de-sac.

There is certainly a right to pass to the Ukrainian port of Odessa – but that in now way requires passing close to Crimea. This is therefore not “innocent passage”. There is a right of passage through the Kerch strait, which Russia has to date respected. Russia has not just a right but a duty to enforce sea lanes for safe navigation through the strait, exactly as the UK does off Dover.

I expect we will now be in for a mad frenzy of Russophobia, yet again. I shall comment further once I have more details of why and exactly where Russia was firing warning shots. But just remember this, it was not Russian warships near the British coast, it was British warships in an area where they had no business other than ludicrous, British nationalist, sabre-rattling.

The UK needs to lose its imperial delusions. Sending gunboats to the Crimea is as mad as – well, sailing an aircraft carrier expressly to threaten the Chinese. There are those who see this activity as evidence of the UK’s continued great power status. I see it as evidence of lunacy.

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***

Ukraine and Great Britain have agreed on the joint construction of warships and bases for the domestic Navy, the press service of the Defense Ministry of Ukraine announced.

On June 21 in Odesa aboard the HMS DEFENDER missile destroyer of the Royal Navy, Defence Procurement Minister of Great Britain Jeremy Quin and Deputy Defense Minister of Ukraine Oleksandr Myroniuk signed “a memorandum on maritime partnership projects between the UK industry consortium and the Ukrainian Navy,” the ministry said.

In particular, the memorandum provides for the joint design and construction of warships in Ukraine and Great Britain, the reconstruction of Ukrainian shipbuilding enterprises and the construction of two bases of the Ukrainian Naval Forces.

The signing ceremony took place aboard one of the most modern ships of the Royal Navy, HMS Defender, and was witnessed by the Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov, the First Sea Lord Admiral Tony Radakin and the British Ambassador to Ukraine Melinda Simmons.

They also observed joint training activity of Ukrainian, UK and US Special forces.

HMS Defender arrived in Odesa on Friday. This magnificent warship is the second Royal Navy ship to visit Odesa in the last couple of weeks after HMS TRENT.

Joint naval projects and regular warships visits are important examples of the close ties between the UK and Ukraine, as partners and friendly nations.

The HMS DEFENDER destroyer arrived in Odesa last Friday, June 18. This is the second Royal Navy warship to visit Odesa in the last few weeks, after HMS TRENT.

“This is another step in the development of bilateral cooperation between Ukraine and the UK, which is aimed at strengthening the Ukrainian fleet as it continues to face danger in the Black and Azov seas,” the Ukrainian defense ministry said.

The UK will help Ukraine revive its shipbuilding industry, the Ukrainian defense ministry said. The two countries will design and build warships in Ukraine and in the UK and set up two bases for the Ukrainian navy.

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***

After the Biden-Putin meeting there was fanciful commentary about reduced tensions and avoidance of war. As I explained in my column and several interviews, as long as Washington has hegemonic aspirations and needs the “Russian threat” to justify its military/security complex budget and NATO, little can be done to reduce tensions.

The meeting succeeded in again portraying Putin as a tyrant who poisons and imprisons his political opponents (see this).

As for war tensions, Washington immediately raised war dangers by arranging a 32-country two-week war game from June 28 to July 10 held off Russia’s Black Sea Coast. According to Washington the war game will practice “multiple warfare areas including amphibious warfare, land maneuver warfare, diving operations, maritime interdiction operations, air defense, special operations integration, anti-submarine warfare, and search and rescue operations.”

Russia warned of the risk of deadly incidents and demanded the war game be scrapped. See this.

Sure enough even prior to the start of the war game a British warship inside Russian waters had to be driven out with warning shots and attack threat from Russian aircraft. See this.

Washington’s war game is irresponsible and juvenile. The 32 countries include Senegal, Morocco, Pakistan, South Korea, Poland. Does Washington really think that these countries have naval forces capable of combating Russian forces?

This is a mindless provocation by Washington. Idiocy of this sort is likely to result in the Russian Pacific Fleet conducting war games off the coast of Hawaii and, eventually, Russian/Chinese/Iranian naval exercises in the Gulf of Mexico.

While Washington plays tough guy in the Black Sea, the US military shows every sign of collapsing morale. At Nellis air base the US Air Force just put on a drag queen show in order, in the words of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to “enhance moral and cohesion and military readiness.”

“Ensuring our ranks reflect and are inclusive of the American people is essential to the morale, cohesion, and readiness of the military. Nellis Air Force Base is committed to providing and championing an environment that is characterized by equal opportunity, diversity, and inclusion.”

There you have it. Sexual perversion is essential to US military morale and readiness. What must Russia, China, and the Muslim world think? While the Pentagon panders to sexual perversion, Russia and China train men in actual combat.

How much longer will straight white men serve in the US military? They already suffer discrimination and humiliation by having to take sensitivity training. I cannot imagine Marines and paratroopers accepting drag-queen and transgendered officers.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, PCR Institute for Political Economy.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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***

The landslide election of Ebrahim Raisi as 8th president of Iran could be a turning point for the Islamic Republic. The landslide victory for the ultra-conservative former chief justice and protege of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could lead to an overhaul of the framework put in place when the two-tier regime was established in 1979. This structure imposed powerful clerical institutions on elected presidents and parliaments.

The clerical institutions dominat3ed by the valayet-e-faqih, the “guardianship of the Islamic jurist”, i.e., the supreme leader, includes the 12-main appointed Guardian Council which vets all candidates for office, and the 88-member elected Assembly of experts which chooses the supreme leader. Vetted candidates of the latter body are popularly elected for eight-year terms.

While this body was originally empowered to debate and even reject candidates for the all-important post of supreme leader, the Assembly now rubber stamps whoever is chosen. Consequently, the rule of the clerics has been exercised by the appointed supreme leader, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the Guardian Council.

Ahead of previous presidential elections, the Guardian Council permitted prominent political figures and moderates to stand, but for last Friday’s poll only seven of nearly 600 potential candidates were qualified: Five conservatives and two low profile moderate/reformists. Only Raisi was widely recognised because, at Khamenei’s instigation, he ran in the 2017 presidential race and was roundly defeated by Hassan Rouhani who was standing for his second term. He took 57 per cent of the votes in a turn-out of 73 per cent.  Raisi only took 38 per cent.

He was guaranteed to win this time around. As many Iranians considered the outcome of the election predetermined, some boycotted while others did not bother to vote.  Raisi secured 62 per cent of the vote far ahead of his challengers in a turn-out of 48 per cent, the lowest since the founding of the Islamic Republic. Twelve per cent, the second largest number of ballots were spoiled, twice that in any other previous election. If spoiled ballots are counted, the turn-out would be reduced to 36 per cent.

Iran’s clerical establishment is unphased by the lack of competitiveness and low turn-out which reduce the popular legitimacy of this presidential election because electing Raisi could set the stage for implementing a plan he suggested during his campaign when he called for a “fundamental change in the executive management of the country”.

With his election, the clerical regime, which now controls all the levers of power in Iran, set in train its plan to achieve this goal.  The presidency will groom Raisi to succeed Khamenei, a fragile 82, in the post of supreme leader. He has a compelling personal reason for elevating Raisi, a trusted confidant. Khamenei is determined to protect and provide for his family. Once out of office Iranian politicians and members of their families have been muzzled, marginalised and confined under house arrest.

On the internal level, Iran experts predict Raisi could propose the transformation of the system of governance from a presidential system to a parliamentary system. This would reduce the already waning influence of the “republicans”, Iranians who seek to use elections to check the power of the clerics and make it easier for loyalist conservatives to win comfortable majorities in parliament and choose prime minsiters favoured by the clerical establishment.

Although an untra-conservative, Raisi is also a pragmatist.  He has promised to tackle corruption. In this endeavour he has some experience. As chief justice he has accused and prosecuted a number of individuals for graft but, his detractors, argue that those targeted are critical of the regime. Therefore, if he is serious, he will have to be even handed and cite powerful members and supporters of the regime.

He has also pledged to provide a safety net for the poor and the stressed middle class hit hard by the collapsing economy. If he is to avoid large-scale protests like those of 2019, he will have to deliver on this promise.

In order to prevent protests by young Iranians who have benefitted relaxations instituted the moderates, he will have to resist pressure from his conservative base to reinstate social resstrictions and limitations on cultural activities.

On the external level, Raisi can be expected to adhere to the political line laid down by his mentor, Khamenei. Unlike many ultra-conservatives, Raisi supports the 2015 nuclear agreement for limiting Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for lifting sanctions and has pledged to carry on with negotiations until the deal is restored. Without Khamenei’s backing it would never have been reached or preserved after Donald Trump’s 2018 abandonment and imposition of 1,500 punitive sanctions. Until sanctions are lifted or seriously reduced, Iran’s economy cannot recover.

Raisi will pursue relations with China and Russia as well as to carry on with reconciliation talks with the Emirates and Saudi Arabia with the aim of regularising relations with regional powers. He will continue to back Iran’s allies, Hizbollah in Lebanon, Shia militias in Iraq, and the Syrian government. He will push for a deal to end to the war in Yemen which favours the Houthi rebels. Raisi will not pursue ties with the US.

The conservative clerics might not have made their power grab if US President Joe Biden had made good on his promise to return the US to the nuclear deal well before May 25 when the Guardian Council announced the names of the seven candidates it had approved to run for the presidency. If Biden had done this while President Hassan Rouhani was still in charge of the nuclear file and had begun to ease sanctions, the Council might have included high profile moderates among the candidates and one or other might have defeated Raisi. Biden procrastinated and prevaricated and will now have to face a hard-line Iranian president fronting for the supreme leader.

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Featured image: Raisi speaking at a presidential campaign rally in Tehran’s Shahid Shiroudi Stadium (CC BY 4.0)

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***

It was common knowledge that a U.S. failure to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal (known as the JCPOA) before Iran’s June presidential election would help conservative hard-liners to win the election. Indeed, on Saturday, June 19, the conservative Ebrahim Raisi was elected as the new President of Iran.

Raisi has a record of brutally cracking down on government opponents and his election is a severe blow to Iranians struggling for a more liberal, open society. He also has a history of anti-Western sentiment and says he would refuse to meet with President Biden. And while current President Rhouhani, considered a moderate, held out the possibility of broader talks after the U.S. returned to the nuclear deal, Raisi will almost certainly reject broader negotiations with the United States.

Could Raisi’s victory have been averted if President Biden had rejoined the Iran deal right after coming into the White House and enabled Rouhani and the moderates in Iran to take credit for the removal of U.S. sanctions before the election? Now we will never know. 

Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement drew near-universal condemnation from Democrats and arguably violated international law. But Biden’s failure to quickly rejoin the deal has left Trump’s policy in place, including the cruel “maximum pressure” sanctions that are destroying Iran’s middle class, throwing millions of people into poverty, and preventing imports of medicine and other essentials, even during a pandemic. 

U.S. sanctions have provoked retaliatory measures from Iran, including suspending limits on its uranium enrichment and reducing cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Trump’s, and now Biden’s, policy has simply reconstructed the problems that preceded the JCPOA in 2015, displaying the widely recognized madness of repeating something that didn’t work and expecting a different result.

If actions speak louder than words, the U.S. seizure of 27 Iranian and Yemeni international news websites on June 22nd, based on the illegal, unilateral U.S. sanctions that are among the most contentious topics of the Vienna negotiations, suggests that the same madness still holds sway over U.S. policy.

Since Biden took office, the critical underlying question is whether he and his administration are really committed to the JCPOA or not. As a presidential candidate, Senator Sanders promised to simply rejoin the JCPOA on his first day as president, and Iran always said it was ready to comply with the agreement as soon as the United States rejoined it. 

Biden has been in office for five months, but the negotiations in Vienna did not begin until April 6th. His failure to rejoin the agreement on taking office reflected a desire to appease hawkish advisers and politicians who claimed he could use Trump’s withdrawal and the threat of continued sanctions as “leverage” to extract more concessions from Iran over its ballistic missiles, regional activities and other questions. 

Far from extracting more concessions, Biden’s foot-dragging only provoked further retaliatory action by Iran, especially after the assassination of an Iranian scientist and sabotage at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, both probably committed by Israel. 

Without a great deal of help, and some pressure, from America’s European allies, it is unclear how long it would have taken Biden to get around to opening negotiations with Iran. The shuttle diplomacy taking place in Vienna is the result of painstaking negotiations with both sides by former European Parliament President Josep Borrell, who is now the European Union’s foreign policy chief.

The sixth round of shuttle diplomacy has now concluded in Vienna without an agreement. President-elect Raisi says he supports the negotiations in Vienna, but would not allow the United States to drag them out for a long time. 

An unnamed U.S. official raised hopes for an agreement before Raisi takes office on August 3, noting that it would be more difficult to reach an agreement after that. But a State Department spokesman said talks would continue when the new government takes office, implying that an agreement was unlikely before then. 

Even if Biden had rejoined the JCPOA, Iran’s moderates might still have lost this tightly managed election. But a restored JCPOA and the end of U.S. sanctions would have left the moderates in a stronger position, and set Iran’s relations with the United States and its allies on a path of normalization that would have helped to weather more difficult relations with Raisi and his government in the coming years.

If Biden fails to rejoin the JCPOA, and if the United States or Israel ends up at war with Iran, this lost opportunity to quickly rejoin the JCPOA during his first months in office will loom large over future events and Biden’s legacy as president.

If the United States does not rejoin the JCPOA before Raisi takes office, Iran’s hard-liners will point to Rouhani’s diplomacy with the West as a failed pipe-dream, and their own policies as pragmatic and realistic by contrast. In the United States and Israel, the hawks who have lured Biden into this slow-motion train-wreck will be popping champagne corks to celebrate Raisi’s inauguration, as they move in to kill the JCPOA for good, smearing it as a deal with a mass murderer.

If Biden rejoins the JCPOA after Raisi’s inauguration, Iran’s hard-liners will claim that they succeeded where Rouhani and the moderates failed, and take credit for the economic recovery that will follow the removal of U.S. sanctions. 

On the other hand, if Biden follows hawkish advice and tries to play it tough, and Raisi then pulls the plug on the negotiations, both leaders will score points with their own hard-liners at the expense of majorities of their people who want peace, and the United States will be back on a path of confrontation with Iran.

While that would be the worst outcome of all, it would allow Biden to have it both ways domestically, appeasing the hawks while telling liberals that he was committed to the nuclear deal until Iran rejected it. Such a cynical path of least resistance would very likely be a path to war.

On all these counts, it is vital that Biden and the Democrats conclude an agreement with the Rouhani government and rejoin the JCPOA. Rejoining it after Raisi takes office would be better than letting the negotiations fail altogether, but this entire slow-motion train-wreck has been characterized by diminishing returns with every delay, from the day Biden took office. 

Neither the people of Iran nor the people of the United States have been well served by Biden’s willingness to accept Trump’s Iran policy as an acceptable alternative to Obama’s, even as a temporary political expedient. To allow Trump’s abandonment of Obama’s agreement to stand as a long-term U.S. policy would be an even greater betrayal of the goodwill and good faith of people on all sides, Americans, allies and enemies alike.

Biden and his advisers must now confront the consequences of the position their wishful thinking and dithering has landed them in, and must make a genuine and serious political decision to rejoin the JCPOA within days or weeks.

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

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

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***

A newly published analysis in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science argues that a toxic soup of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides is causing havoc beneath fields covered in corn, soybeans, wheat and other monoculture crops. The research is the most comprehensive review ever conducted on how pesticides affect soil health.

The study is discussed by two of the report’s authors, Nathan Donley and Tari Gunstone, in a recent article appearing on the Scientific American website. The authors state that the findings should bring about immediate changes in how regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assess the risks posed by the nearly 850 pesticide ingredients approved for use in the USA.

Conducted by the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth and the University of Maryland, the research looked at almost 400 published studies that together had carried out more than 2800 experiments on how pesticides affect soil organisms. The review encompassed 275 unique species or types of soil organisms and 284 different pesticides or pesticide mixtures.

Pesticides were found to harm organisms that are critical to maintaining healthy soils in over 70 per cent of cases. But Donley and Gunstone say this type of harm is not considered in the EPA’s safety reviews, which ignore pesticide harm to earthworms, springtails, beetles and thousands of other subterranean species. The EPA uses a single test species to estimate risk to all soil organisms, the European honeybee, which spends its entire life above ground in artificial boxes. But 50-100 per cent of all pesticides end up in soil.

The researchers conclude that the ongoing escalation of pesticide-intensive agriculture and pollution are major driving factors in the decline of soil organisms. By carrying out wholly inadequate reviews, the regulatory system serves to protect the pesticide industry.

The study comes in the wake of other recent findings that indicate high levels of the weedkiller chemical glyphosate and its toxic breakdown product AMPA have been found in topsoil samples from no-till fields in Brazil.

Writing on the GMWatch website, Claire Robinson and Jonathan Matthews note that, despite  this, the agrochemical companies seeking the renewal of the authorisation of glyphosate by the European Union in 2022 are saying that one of the greatest benefits of glyphosate is its ability to foster healthier soils by reducing the need for tillage (or ploughing).

This in itself is misleading because farmers are resorting to ploughing given increasing weed resistance to glyphosate and organic agriculture also incorporates no till methods. At the same time, proponents of glyphosate conveniently ignore or deny its toxicity to soils, water, humans and wildlife. With that in mind, it is noteworthy that GMWatch also refers to another recent study which says that glyphosate is responsible for a five per cent increase in infant mortality in Brazil.

The new study, ‘Pesticides in a case study on no-tillage farming systems and surrounding forest patches in Brazil’ in the journal Scientific Reports, leads the researchers to conclude that glyphosate-contaminated soil can adversely impact food quality and human health and ecological processes for ecosystem services maintenance. They argue that glyphosate and AMPA presence in soil may promote toxicity to key species for biodiversity conservation, which are fundamental for maintaining functioning ecological systems.

These studies reiterate the need to shift away from increasingly discredited ‘green revolution’ ideology and practices. This chemical-intensive model has helped the drive towards greater monocropping and has resulted in less diverse diets and less nutritious foods. Its long-term impact has led to soil degradation and mineral imbalances, which in turn have adversely affected human health.

If we turn to India, for instance, that country is losing 5334 million tonnes of soil every year due to soil erosion and degradation, much of which is attributed to the indiscreet and excessive use of synthetic agrochemicals. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research reports that soil is becoming deficient in nutrients and fertility.

India is not unique in this respect. Maria-Helena Semedo of the Food and Agriculture Organization stated back in 2014 that if current rates of degradation continue all of the world’s topsoil could be gone within 60 years. She noted that about a third of the world’s soil had already been degraded. There is general agreement that chemical-heavy farming techniques are a major cause.

It can take 500 years to generate an inch of soil yet just a few generations to destroy. When you drench soil with proprietary synthetic agrochemicals as part of a model of chemical-dependent farming, you harm essential micro-organisms and end up feeding soil a limited doughnut diet of toxic inputs.

Armed with their multi-billion-dollar money-spinning synthetic biocides, this is what the agrochemical companies have been doing for decades. In their arrogance, these companies claim to have knowledge that they do not possess and then attempt to get the public and co-opted agencies and politicians to bow before the altar of corporate ‘science’ and its bought-and-paid-for scientific priesthood.

The damaging impacts of their products on health and the environment have been widely reported for decades, starting with Rachel Carson’s ground-breaking 1962 book Silent Spring.

These latest studies underscore the need to shift towards organic farming and agroecology and invest in indigenous models of agriculture – as has been consistently advocated by various high-level international agencies, not least the United Nations, and numerous official reports.

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Colin Todhunter, renowned development studies author and analyst focussing on the food economy, GMO, the rights of farmers and the social, economic and environmental impacts of global agribusiness.

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

Featured image is licensed under Creative Commons

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***

Peace and human rights advocates joined the United Nations General Assembly Wednesday in their annual condemnation of the United States’ disastrous economic embargo against Cuba.

For the 29th straight year, the members of the General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution demanding an end to the 60-year U.S. economic blockade on Cuba. This year, 184 nations voted in favor of the resolution, while the U.S. and Israel voted against it. Three nations—Brazil, Colombia, and Ukraine—abstained.

Critics this year noted the detrimental effects of the embargo on Cuba’s ability to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.

The UN vote re US blockade on Cuba was a chance for President Biden to show global leadership. He failed miserably. The US & Israel vs 184 nations—and 11 million Cubans who suffer from this wretched policy—DURING A PANDEMIC. Shame on Biden. #EndtheBlockade #EliminaElBloqueo

— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) June 23, 2021

Cuba may not be able to widely administer Abdala, Cuba's highly successful COVID-19 vaccine, to the Cuban people because the US blockade has caused a shortage of 20 million syringes. 💉

This is the devastating reality of the US embargo on Cuba. #ElMundoDiceNo

— CODEPINK (@codepink) June 23, 2021

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Padilla slammed the blockade as a “massive, flagrant, and unacceptable violation of the human rights of the Cuban people” and “an economic war of extraterritorial scope against a small country already affected in the recent period by the economic crisis derived from the pandemic.”

“Like the virus, the blockade suffocates and kills and must end,” Rodríguez told the General Assembly.

Spain’s U.N. delegation said that the U.S. embargo against Cuba “has a detrimental impact on the country’s economic situation and negatively affects the standard of living of the Cuban people.”

The US embargo on #Cuba has a damaging impact on the economic situation of the country and negatively affects the living standards of the Cuban people🇨🇺

🇪🇺EU Member States unanimously vote in favour of the #UNGA resolution calling for its lifting. pic.twitter.com/RkhK9XGZGj

— 🇪🇺EU at UN-NY (@EUatUN) June 23, 2021

Indonesia’s U.N. mission asserted that the blockade “violates norms and principles of international law and sovereign equality of states” and hinders Cuba’s “recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Sofiane Mimouni, Algeria’s ambassador to the U.N., reaffirmed his country’s “unwavering solidarity with the government and brotherly people of Cuba as well as its support for the lifting of the longstanding and unnecessary embargo imposed on Cuba.”

Mexico’s U.N. mission said it “reiterates its condemnation of the economic, commercial, and financial blockade against Cuba, and calls for its end.”

The United States and Israel would rather see people die than let the world see how Cuba can thrive without the embargo. These two countries are actively preventing world progress because capitalism and apartheid are more important to them. https://t.co/vlOSvQKLUi

— Left Flank Veterans (@LeftFlankVets) June 23, 2021

Rodney Hunter, political coordinator for the U.S. mission to the U.N., countered that sanctions are “one set of tools in Washington’s broader effort toward Cuba to advance democracy, promote respect for human rights, and help the Cuban people exercise fundamental freedoms.”

Although the Obama administration took steps to normalize relations with Cuba, the past 60 years have been characterized by varying degrees of U.S. hostility toward the socialist government and, by extension, the Cuban people.

Having lost effective economic control of the island in 1959 following the successful socialist revolution led by Fidel Castro, successive U.S. administrations waged a decadeslong campaign of state-sanctioned exile terror, attempted subversion, failed assassination attempts, economic warfare, and covert operations large and small in a fruitless policy of regime change. There have been 13 U.S. administrations since the triumph of the Cuban revolution.

Cuba is ready to vaccinate the world. The 60-year-old US embargo stands in the way. The embargo is not only illegal and inhumane. It is incredibly unpopular. pic.twitter.com/HDZ6YDjKbA

— Progressive International (@ProgIntl) June 22, 2021

According to the Cuban government, U.S.-backed terrorism has claimednearly 3,500 lives and cost the island’s economy at least hundreds of billions of dollars.

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

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***

A leading light in the campaigns to overthrow white minority rule and to foster African unity, Dr. Kenneth Kaunda, has died in Zambia at the age of 97.

Kaunda was born on April 28, 1924 in Lubwa Mission in Chinsali, an area then known as Northern Rhodesia and controlled by Britain.

This colony along with Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, were established by the capitalist colonizer Cecil Rhodes during the late decades of the 19th century. Rhodes created the British South African Company leading the economic and consequent political seizure of the land and resources of the indigenous African people.

After the land seizures by the settler-colonialists, Africans were forced to work in the mines and plantations of the British corporations. Africans revolted against the encroachment during a series of wars in 1896-1897. Eventually, through the force of superior armory, the British maintained control over Northern and Southern Rhodesia until the mid and late 20th century.

The young Kaunda was the eighth child of a minister father and school teacher mother. His father died while Kaunda was quite young leading to many hardships. Kaunda would continue his education becoming a teacher within the colonial educational system.

By 1949, at the age of 25, Kaunda had become involved in mass politics with the Northern Rhodesian African National Congress. He would later form other more militant organizations such as the Zambian African National Congress and eventually founding the United National Independent Party (UNIP), which played an essential role in the liberation struggle of the 1960s.

Kaunda was imprisoned by the British colonial authorities on several occasions in the 1950s and early 1960s. He would later come to dominate political life in the country under the leadership of UNIP. By 1964, the colony had gained independence and changed its name to Zambia.

Pioneering Stalwart of the Pan-African Movement of the Post World War II Era

Tributes to Kaunda have been articulated throughout the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU) as a whole.

The co-founder and longtime president of the mineral-rich nation formerly known as Northern Rhodesia under colonialism, emerged from the national oppressive conditions imposed by British imperialism beginning in the late 19th century. Kaunda at a very early age began to understand the character of institutional racism and state tyranny.

During his tenure as president of Zambia, the country hosted numerous national liberation movements from throughout Southern Africa and other regions. Despite his stated commitment to nonviolent social change during the efforts to win independence in the 1950s and early 1960s, after attaining power Kaunda provided a base for liberation movement organizations which advanced armed struggle as an important means to break the chains of European domination.

Radio Freedom, the Voice of the African National Congress (ANC), was broadcast from Lusaka, the capital of the country. Radio Freedom relayed information to people inside South Africa under apartheid bringing a message of resistance and organizational culture to the masses of people seeking to unleash their fury against the racist system of colonial exploitation and social degradation.

An article published by Al Jazeera based in Qatar, says of the Kaunda legacy that:

“Leaders across Africa have paid tribute to Zambia’s founding president, Kenneth Kaunda, who died on Thursday at the age of 97, declaring several days of mourning in their respective countries.

While in power, Kaunda hosted many of the movements fighting for independence or Black equality in other countries around the continent, standing up to white minority rule in countries such as Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.”

The development policy of the UNIP was based upon the nationalization of key economic assets principally in the mining sector which were owned by foreign capital. Zambia under President Kaunda expanded access to primary and secondary education which had been denied in the colonial era.

At the time of independence in October 1964, very few Zambians had acquired secondary education and far less were able to attain post-secondary training. Consequently, in 1966, Kaunda founded the University of Zambia in Lusaka. The University contained numerous faculties along with a medical school. The country became a center for regional education throughout Southern Africa.

Zambia maintained close economic and political ties with the People’s Republic of China during the era of leadership of Chairman Mao Zedong. In addition, the UNIP government developed good relations with the Soviet Union and the Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia.

When threatened by the military power of the former South African Defense Forces (SADF) under the apartheid regime, Kaunda had requested to purchase sophisticated military equipment from the U.S. The request was denied, while soon after Kaunda was supplied with MIG-25 fighter aircraft from the USSR. The Humanism of the UNIP in Zambia resembled other efforts aimed at non-capitalist reconstruction in the post-colonial independence period.

Modern Ghana, founded by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in the 1950s and 1960s, adopted policies aimed at industrialization and the mass education of the population. Nkrumaism, a term given to the thoughts, ideas and organizational work of the former prime minister and president of the First Republic, represented an attempt to apply socialist theory to the concrete conditions as they existed in Africa at the time.

Other post-independence African states such as Guinea-Conakry under President Ahmed Sekou Toure, Egypt (United Arab Republic) during the era of President Gamal Abdel Nassar, Tanzania as well, while former President Julius Nyerere was in power, among others, all advanced ideological and political policies designed to achieve genuine independence guided by internationalism in alliance with the struggle for world socialism.

The Significance of Kaunda and the Legacy of the Independence Struggle

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has paid tribute to Kaunda acknowledging publicly the Zambian leader’s role in the eradication of the racist apartheid system since 1994. Kaunda spoke at the funeral of former President Nelson Mandela in December 2013 conveying the importance of the alliance between the Frontline States and the liberation movements which clinched the defeat of white minority rule in Southern Africa.

Kaunda was a co-founder in 1980 along with the late President of Mozambique, Samora Machel, of the Southern African Development Coordinating Council (SADCC), the predecessor to SADC, founded in 1992. SADC convened a summit beginning on June 23 where tribute was paid to Kaunda.

An article appearing in the state-controlled Zimbabwe Herald on the visit of President Emmerson Mnangagwa to the SADC summit being held in the Mozambican capital of Maputo emphasizes:

“The summit is taking place at a time when the region is mourning the death of Zambian founding father Kenneth Kaunda who died last week at the age of 97. Flags are flying at half mast at this summit in reverence to the late Pan Africanist.” (See this)

President Kaunda was removed from office after the1991 election in Zambia. The UNIP government had been under pressure by global finance capital through the pressure exerted upon the country by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF and World Bank caused tremendous social dislocation during the early independence decades in Africa through the imposition of economic conditionalities which directly sought to remove nationalization policies, free public education and the growth in industrialization projects which sought to build economic independence from imperialism.

Kaunda eventually abandoned the one-party political system which guided the national development strategy based upon his theory of Humanism. After other political parties were allowed to contest national elections with the support of the western powers, UNIP fell from power.

Although the Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD) led by Frederick Chiluba won the 1991 elections saying their grouping would end corruption and inefficiencies, Chiluba and subsequent administrations over the last three decades have faced the same contradictions as UNIP under Kaunda. In fact, corruption increased within Zambia during the 1990s while the country lost its leading role in African and international political arenas.

The historical trajectory of the post-independence African states should be studied by the current generation of activists and political organizers. Any serious review of the period extending from the late 1940s through the 1990s will clearly conclude that Kaunda earned an important place within the struggle for African emancipation.

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

Featured image: Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda and President Nelson Mandela

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***

With the possible extradition of a Venezuelan diplomat to the US on bogus charges, an emergency human rights delegation organized by the International Campaign to Free Alex Saab was quickly dispatched to Cabo Verde, where he is imprisoned. This island archipelago nation off the west coast of Africa is one of the smallest, poorest, and geographically isolated countries in the world. 

The international human rights delegation did not gain Alex Saab’s freedom. They were even denied a visit with him. But breakthroughs were made raising the visibility of the case, which involves enormous political, legal, and moral issues with long-term political consequences.

The case involves the abduction of a diplomat by the world’s sole superpower locked in an unequal struggle to destroy the formerly prosperous, oil rich country of Venezuela. The attack on Venezuela is not motivated on the US part by the imperfections in Venezuelan society, but on Venezuela’s past successes in fighting poverty, promoting regional integration, and acting like a sovereign nation. Otherwise, the US would be lavishing Venezuela with aid instead of the apartheid state of Israel, the narco-state of Colombia, and the absolute monarchy of Saudi Arabia.

The kidnapping of Alex Saab is a dramatic and far-reaching effort to enforce the illegal US-decreed policy of economic sanctions. The US is attempting to impose its will on a country by deliberately attacking the civilian population. Illegal sanctions are a conscious policy of imposing economic havoc to “make the economy scream.”

Saab, a Venezuelan diplomat abducted by the US government a year ago, was held under torturous conditions. The illegal denial of diplomatic immunity by the US is a violation of international law.

International campaign to Free Alex Saab 

The powerful corporate media, by omission, can render a news item invisible. The Saab case is virtually unknown in the US, even among progressive political journalists, left organizations, and solidarity activists. Washington’s demand for the extradition of Alex Saab is being covered more extensively in African and Latin American publications. In Venezuela, as expected, the case is well known.

Among some, who are aware of the case, there is an inordinate concentration on the Saab the individual, obscuring the larger issues of sovereignty and human rights.

Gathering information on what was involved was no easy task. The US charge of “money laundering” by a private businessman in a country wracked by extreme shortages hardly created sympathy for Mr. Saab’s case. It was only as the actual facts emerged that a support plan evolved for the international solidarity campaign.

The fact that Alex Saab has withstood a year-long arrest, torture, months of solitary confinement rather than comply with U.S. demands to cooperate indicates that he is not just a businessman willing to sell to the highest bidder.

The four-person human rights delegation in Cabo Verde, knocked on government doors, conducted interviews, and spoke with the media. They were supported by an activist movement and a strong legal team. The delegation was led by a Cabo Verde citizen, Bishop Filipe Teixeira, OFSCJ, a religious leader living in the Boston area with congregation of Cabo Verdeans and a history of participation in social justice campaigns. Tweets, Facebook links, and news reports helped penetrate the wall of silence.

An international petition campaign building momentum, collecting thousands of signatures which are being forwarded the president and prime minister of Cabo Verde and to the US president. Several webinars were held, including one with Saab’s lawyers speaking from Cabo Verde and Nigeria.

Role of solidarity activists 

Solidarity and people’s movements working together can become a powerful material force, breaking through silence, fear, and repression. The focus for international solidarity work in this period is to strongly defend movements and even countries under relentless US imperialist attack and destabilization without placing unrealistic expectations or creating unrealistic images of how wonderful the internal situation in the targeted country is. Solidarity is not a pass for interference, second guessing, criticism, or for euphoric idealism.

It is essential to focus full attention on the source of the problem – US imperialism – and not get lost in the weeds of the criticizing the victim. US sabotage, imposed shortages, mercenary attacks, and fueling national antagonism are intended to create and intensify internal
divisions. Shortages are intended to increase corruption, side deals, privilege, and resentment. The targeted country may, thus, be wrongly blamed for the unfolding crisis created by the US actions.

Simply put, many progressive goals are thwarted under conditions of illegal sanctions, because that is the purpose of the sanctions. Self-defense by the victimized country is an obligation in the face of destabilization and constant sabotage.

At each step, keeping the focus on the crime of the US actions provides a grounding for progressive solidarity. This is true not only in defending attempts at revolutionary change, such as Cuba or Venezuela. But even in Cabo Verde, the focus on the role of the US was important. It was hardly a decision by the government of Cabo Verde to pull Alex Saab from his plane or to order him held. Cabo Verde’s isolation and strategic position simply made that country a convenient location for the long arm of US extraterritorial judicial overreach.

This case must become a global challenge to arrogant US lawlessness.

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Sara Flounders, International Action Center

Roger D. Harris, Task Force on the Americas, were in Cabo Verde June 3-10 on the emergency human rights delegation organized by the International Campaign to Free Alex Saab 

Featured image: Picture of Alex Saab provided by the United States Department of the Treasury (Source: Public Domain)

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***

A Massacre and a Cover-up: How Baghdad Protesters Gunned Down by Iraqi Forces Faced ‘Inevitable Death’

By Suadad al-Salhy, June 23, 2021

It was early morning on Friday 4 October 2019 when calm finally prevailed in the streets near eastern Baghdad’s upscale Al-Nakheel Mall. Hours earlier, hundreds of protesters had filled the streets on the third day of mass anti-government demonstrations in the capital, as well as cities across the south, demanding the end of corruption, more jobs and improved public services.

One Nation Under Greed: The Profit Incentives Driving the American Police State

By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead, June 23, 2021

Not only are Americans forced to “spend more on state, municipal, and federal taxes than the annual financial burdens of food, clothing, and housing combined,” but we’re also being played as easy marks by hustlers bearing the imprimatur of the government. With every new tax, fine, fee and law adopted by our so-called representatives, the yoke around the neck of the average American seems to tighten just a little bit more.

The Spike Protein Is the Killer – Beware of mRNA “Vaccines”

By Peter Koenig, June 23, 2021

Beware of the Spike Protein! Beware of mRNA injections! To do so, you have to absolutely avoid taking or being coerced into accepting the mRNA “non-vaccine” – experimental gene therapy. Because that’s what it is. The experiment is you.

The British Medical ‘Profession’ Is Complicit in the Inoculation of an Unnecessary and Toxic Experimental ‘Vaccine’

By Dr. David Halpin, June 23, 2021

Yesterday HMG was pleased to record that 27,000 young adults were logging on for the ‘jab’ in every hour. I write as a citizen and well educated and experienced doctor against this activity promoted by NHS England and Public Health England with the necessary complicity of NHS doctors in general practice and in the hospitals.

Turkey’s “Secret Plan” (2014) to Invade Greece and Armenia?

By South Front, June 23, 2021

A plan for a simultaneous Turkish invasion of both Greece and Armenia was prepared by Turkey, according to the secret documents of the Turkish General Staff. According to these documents, the plan called “CERBE” was prepared in 2014 and updated in 2016.

Free Trade Is Code for Forced Trade

By Rod Driver, June 23, 2021

Advanced nations have tried to force poor countries to participate in what is called free trade. This is a propaganda term to mislead people into being uncritical of what actually happens. This post explains what free trade really means.

Joseph Biden, a Champion of Human Rights?

By Manlio Dinucci, June 23, 2021

On June 16 in Geneva the US-Russia Summit was defined by President Biden “good, positive” and by President Putin “quite constructive”. Should we, therefore, feel a little reassured in a situation where Europe is at the forefront of what NATO called “the lowest point in our relationship with Russia since the end of the Cold War”? The facts tell us otherwise. 

History of World War II: Operation Barbarossa: Myths and Reality

By Dr. Jacques R. Pauwels, June 23, 2021

War against the Soviet Union was what Hitler had wanted from the beginning. He had already made this very clear in the pages of Mein Kampf, written in the mid-1920s. As a German historian, Rolf-Dieter Müller, has convincingly demonstrated in a well-documented study, it was a war against the Soviet Union, and not against Poland, France, or Britain, that Hitler was planning to unleash in 1939.

The COVID Lockdowns Showed Us How Dangerous Social Engineers Have Become

By Dr. Birsen Filip, June 23, 2021

Since the onset of the covid-19 pandemic, governments around the world, along with a handful of unelected medical experts, have been behaving as though they are the social engineers of totalitarian regimes.

Greed, Debt and Parasitic Capitalism

By Nora Fernandez, June 23, 2021

The 2008 financial collapse still impacts the world and many call it a Great Depression. Rescuing big corporations -rather than saving the real economy, made the scams and pillaging seem almost acceptable. The concentration of money and politics, and the power either generates, it is a global challenge that pushes a particular agenda of privatization of commons and of making money out of everything -prisoners, immigrants, women, children, addictions, sexual abuse and that has no limits.

Big Pharma White Coats: The Psychology of Unquestioningly Obeying Depraved Authority

By Teodrose Fikremariam, June 22, 2021

Stanley Milgram conducted a psychological experiment in 1961 that was truly mind-numbing in terms of revealing the depths of evils people are able to commit in order to comply with authority. Referred to as the Milgram experiments, the aim of the study was to see how far participants were willing to go when they were given orders that were appalling and unconscionable.

California Medical Board Hears Testimony in Trial of Physician Who Risks Losing License for Writing Vaccine Medical Exemptions

By Greg Glaser, June 23, 2021

A California physician could lose her medical license for not strictly following the guidelines for writing vaccine medical exemptions as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

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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***

It was early morning on Friday 4 October 2019 when calm finally prevailed in the streets near eastern Baghdad’s upscale Al-Nakheel Mall.

Hours earlier, hundreds of protesters had filled the streets on the third day of mass anti-government demonstrations in the capital, as well as cities across the south, demanding the end of corruption, more jobs and improved public services.

Now dozens of protesters slept under the Mohammed al-Qassim Bridge, bedding down after security forces had prevented them from reaching Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the country-wide movement.

Tahrir Square, pictured in February 2020, was the epicentre of the protest movement in Baghdad (MEE/Murtaja Jasim)

At half-past six, a yellow tuk-tuk pulled up by a blast wall which security forces had erected near a gas station to block the main road to the square. Inside were three passengers. Two left the vehicle carrying small blue backpacks, then broke the chains surrounding segments of the cement blast wall.

Awoken by the activity, some of the protesters gathered, hoping they now had a chance to reach their friends – and the square – through the new opening.

What happened next caught them unaware.

Suddenly, the tuk-tuk passengers lobbed Molotov cocktails over the wall and onto the security forces, before making a quick exit. Most of the protesters, still asleep, had no idea what had happened until “the gates of hell”, as one eyewitness described it, opened onto them and bullets started flying.

“The firing was intense and continuous, and only stopped for a few seconds from time to time,” Talib Saad, 27, an activist who was at the scene, told Middle East Eye.

“We were facing inevitable death. When the shooting stopped for a few minutes, we ran to take shelter in the nearby Al-Nahdha car showrooms. Bullets were piercing their sandwich panel walls,” he said.

“The shooting lasted about half an hour. It was clear that they were shooting at us with automatic machine guns. Four of the protesters fell in front of me. There was no opportunity to evacuate them or even stop to see if they were still alive or dead.”

Rumours circulated among the protesters that unidentified snipers stationed above the mall had been picking off protesters during the mayhem.

In the hours and days that passed, Iraqi officials also told the public that unknown snipers on rooftops had targeted security forces and demonstrators “to incite sedition”. Four people, including two security personnel, had been killed in the area between Tayaran Square and the mall, according to official statements.

But the official narrative about the attack has never come close to explaining what actually happened.

The total number of victims, the manner of their deaths and the identification of the killers has never been disclosed – until now.

MEE has interviewed more than a dozen former and current civilian and military officials with direct knowledge of the investigation and examined official documents that have never been released to the public.

MEE has found that 32 protesters may have been killed in the attack near al-Nakheel Mall. Further, evidence seen by MEE has raised questions about whether the al-Nakheel attack was only a snapshot of systematic violence perpetrated by security forces in Baghdad over several days that October.

While government officials have continued to blame the al-Nakheel attack on unknown forces, sources tell MEE that investigators tasked by Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi knew within 11 days exactly who was responsible.

Behind closed doors, the perpetrators were admonished and sent to fight Islamic State militants in Kirkuk, where officials hoped they would die and “push the incident into oblivion”. The government quietly offered financial compensation to families of those killed in the attack, but never clarified who was behind the killings.

Meanwhile, officials who knew what happened remained silent and, at multiple junctures, obstructed human rights and UN investigators from discovering the truth. And the families of the protesters killed that day – and the wider Iraqi public who have now seen around 600 protesters killed since that week – have been left in the dark.

“They killed my son. They killed Muqtada with a bullet to the head. I don’t know until today who his killers are,” Abdul Razzaq Abdullah, whose 17-year-old son was shot on 4 October near the mall, told MEE this week.

“I want to know the killer so that I can rest.”

Blast walls and firebombs

Iraq was roiling in October 2019. Tens of thousands of people flooded the streets of Baghdad and eight southern governorates, raging against poor basic life services, widespread corruption in state institutions and high unemployment.

There had been protests across Iraq before – but these were different. After years of accumulated frustration without seeing improvement in their daily lives, the Shia community exploded onto the streets against the Shia-led government.

Demonstrators have repeatedly taken over the streets of Baghdad in protest, as pictured here in January 2020 (MEE/Murtaja Jasim)

The protests were hugely embarrassing to the government both because of how massive they were and also because of the anger of the Shia masses against Shia political forces.

The capital was the protest movement’s heartbeat and the greatest concern for the government of the prime minister and his allies. Youths swarmed in and around central Baghdad’s Tahrir and al-Khilani squares. Only the Tigris River separated the demonstrators from the fortified Green Zone, home to most Iraqi government departments and international diplomatic missions.

In response, the Baghdad Operations Command secured sensitive locations by dividing the city centre into several blocks. Each section was jointly run by local, anti-riot federal police, the Rapid Response forces, Iraqi army troops, the Commando Brigade of the Baghdad Operations Command and other supportive forces and security services.

The block extending from Tayaran Square to the al-Hamzah traffic intersection adjacent to al-Nakheel Mall, an area containing the ministries of interior, oil and transport, was one of the most sensitive.

Three days of bloody confrontations between security forces and demonstrators prompted authorities to cut off the main road leading to Tayaran Square – only about 300 metres from Tahrir Square – with concrete blocks that served as blast walls.

The security forces’ exact distribution was unknown, though the cordon they built was clear to all – and it was inevitable that troops and police would be stationed behind blast walls.

So when the tuk-tuk passengers lobbed firebombs over the wall, they had plenty of targets to hit. Two security personnel were killed and several military vehicles torched as a result, security officials told MEE.

And it’s from here that the official narrative and MEE’s findings diverge.

The official narrative

The Friday morning attack near al-Nakheel Mall was not the only protest that first week of October to turn fatal.

Hundreds of demonstrators were killed and wounded across Baghdad and the south, as the government oversaw a systematic crackdown that combined force with curfews, internet blockages and restricted access.

Most independent journalists and human rights observers were unable to get anywhere near the city squares, the focus for the protesters, which witnessed widespread killings, kidnappings and arrests.

Domestic and international pressure piled on Abdul Mahdi. On 12 October, he formed a supreme ministerial fact-finding committee and ordered an inquiry into the killings, including those near al-Nakheel Mall.

Ten days later, some of the committee’s findings were announced on the state-owned Iraqiya satellite channel.

One hundred and forty-nine civilians and eight security personnel had been killed in eight governorates due to the use of “excessive force and live ammunition” to quell the protests, the committee concluded.

Demonstrations in Baghdad alone accounted for 107 civilian deaths, most of them as a result of head wounds, the committee announced. However, it did not provide further details about what had happened in the capital – at least publicly.

Privately, however, ministerial investigators produced a 14-page report, which MEE has obtained, labelled “top secret” and dated 21 October 2019.

It noted that the largest number of deaths in Baghdad had happened in the area near al-Nakheel Mall.

The report also says that the committee found evidence “that sniper fire targeted protesters from the roof of a building in central Baghdad”.

There were indications, the report says, of “the existence of a sniper site in one of the structures of the buildings opposite a gas station in central Baghdad, and upon inspection of the site, several empty cartridges of a sniper weapon were found”.

No further details were provided about the building alleged, nor about the number or type of cartridges that its investigators found.

However, MEE saw an even earlier draft of the classified report. That version contains a paragraph making it clear that the building referenced in the final report was located near the area where the al-Nakheel attack occurred.

But what investigators avoided mentioning even in the early draft of the classified report was that their evidence only suggested a lone sniper.

“There was only one sniper. That’s what our investigation revealed,” a former Iraqi minister and a key member of the supreme ministerial fact-finding committee told MEE.

“The strange thing is that we don’t know yet who put him [the sniper] there and to which forces he belongs. All the field commanders denied having any connection with him or giving orders to him to be stationed there or to take part in the events.”

Despite this, sources informed about the attack tell MEE that Iraqi officials used the committee’s findings to push the idea that unknown snipers were behind the killings.

Lieutenant General Jalil al-Rubaie, the commander of Baghdad operations at the time, was among the first to officially promote the narrative of the unknown snipers.

The day after the attack, Rubaie told the leaders of the al-Karkh tribe that “a sniper was stationed in one of the capital’s areas and targeted the demonstrators who went out to demand their rights”.

“The intelligence tried to arrest him, but he managed to escape to an unknown destination,” he said.

He was not alone in his assertions.

The gas station, across from a building that was the focus of the authorities’ sniper narrative, in January 2020 (MEE/Murtaja Jasim)

In a television interview weeks later, Najah al-Shammari, a former defence minister, said that “a third party was involved in killing protesters”, alluding to the involvement of Iranian-backed armed factions.

A senior security official who saw footage of the al-Nakheel attack said the explanations were a convenient way to shut down further investigations.

“What was required was to cover up what happened. Blaming unknown snipers means hinting at the involvement of a party outside the equation [the demonstrators and the security forces],” he said.

“The atmosphere was fully prepared for the narration of the snipers and the protesters themselves, who were echoing it and confirming it in their testimonies.”

He added: “The aim was to blame the armed factions [supported by Iran], to shut out any demands that the real perpetrator be held accountable.”

What really happened?

The gunmen who killed the protesters early on 4 October were not unknown snipers, but the Iraqi security forces tasked with protecting the area, MEE has been told.

After the tuk-tuk passengers threw the Molotov cocktails over the blast wall, soldiers reacted with frantic shooting, according to the senior security official who watched footage of the attack recorded on a surveillance camera.

“When some of the soldiers saw their colleagues burning in their vehicles, they lost their nerve and started firing hysterically and indiscriminately from machine guns installed on their vehicles,” he said.

“It was a real massacre. There were no prior orders to use live ammunition, but an unqualified officer lost his nerve and started firing, so the others followed.”

The force deployed at the scene, he added, was trained to fight in wars and had no experience with domestic security.

“It was certainly not qualified to deal with the demonstrators,” he said.

Most of the protesters were hit by indirect fire coming from a soldier stationed on top of a military vehicle with a medium-range machine gun, he said.

The senior security official’s account was corroborated by several eyewitnesses, three officers and two officials familiar with the results of the investigations, who all told MEE that automatic-weapon fire was responsible for the majority of casualties.

But it wasn’t the soldiers’ frantic shooting alone that inflicted such high casualties – but also the angle at which they were firing.

Officers told MEE that the types of vehicle-mounted machine guns used by Iraqi forces would “tear the target apart” if shot directly into a crowd.

Fired upwards at an angle of between 60 and 90 degrees, the shooting would be loud enough to scare away crowds, but not fatal, they said.

But the soldiers on 4 October, according to the senior security official, were not shooting directly at protesters, but at an angle of 30 to 45 degrees “and with the time, the hands of some of them would get tired and go lower”.

“This is the ideal firing angle [30-45 degree],” a military armour officer told MEE, explaining that the force of the bullets, when they hit their target, would be the same force as when they left the barrel of the machine gun. “So it will be fatal.”

And that’s what the senior security official witnessed in the footage.

“Most of the casualties that day were caused by bullets that fell, not from direct fire,” the senior security official said.

The senior security official’s account is consistent with the findings detailed in the private report of the supreme ministerial fact-finding committee, which pointed out that about 70 percent of the murdered protesters in Baghdad were hit in the head and chest areas.

A commissioner with the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights (IHCHR) confirmed this detail based on the testimonies of physicians cooperating with them.

When the shooting ended, at least 18 protesters and two soldiers were dead, according to the senior security official who saw surveillance video of the attack. Dozens more were wounded.

Even at this stage, officials sought to cover up what had happened, victims’ relatives and physicians working in Baghdad emergency rooms told MEE.

The health ministry, they said, gave strict instructions to hospitals that victims should be denied forensic autopsies, meaning that details identifying the cause of death were forbidden from being included on death certificates.

The IHCHR commissioner told MEE that they were aware a massacre took place near al-Nakheel Mall but could not get any “concerted information” on what happened or the real number of casualties.

Protesters seek shelter under Mohammed al-Qassim Bridge. On 4 October 2019, many were asleep there when sudden gunfire broke out (MEE/Murtaj Fasim)

“The ministries of health and the interior refused to provide us with any statistics or details. They were not cooperative with us most of the time,” the commissioner said.

“While the official public position said that only four people were killed, including two security personnel, a physician working at Al-Kindi Hospital near the area called to tell us that they had received on that day 18 bodies, mostly killed by fatal injuries to the head and the upper parts of the body.”

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), the UN Security Council’s mission in Iraq set up in 2003 to support and advise the Iraqi government at its own request, investigated the incident but was also unable to establish more detail.

In May, UNAMI published its sixth report on human rights violations committed during demonstrations in Iraq, citing “an unidentified shooter, or shooters” behind the attack near the mall.

The exact number of casualties was unknown, UNAMI reported, but of the 107 protesters killed in Baghdad between the first and eighth of October 2019, the highest number of casualties occurred around the mall.

The mission noted without elaboration that it had encountered “significant challenges” in gathering information on the mall attack and several others “due to an environment of fear and secrecy surrounding the identity of the perpetrators”.

Explicit admission

While UN and human rights investigators strived in vain to identify the perpetrators, the government had already approved compensation packages for families of those killed during the attack, MEE was told.

In late October 2019, after the fact-finding committee finished its work, the prime minister’s cabinet passed Resolution 340, which classified the protesters killed near the mall among others killed that week as “victims of wrong military operations”, according to an official at the Foundation of Martyrs, a government department responsible for victims of banned Baath Party crimes, terrorism and military activity gone awry.

The foundation, for example, has compensated civilians who were killed and homeowners whose houses were damaged by Iraqi security forces or the US-led international coalition during the fight against IS.

To fulfil Resolution 340, the Ministry of Health’s forensic medicine department eventually gave the foundation lists of demonstrators killed during the protests in October and November 2019 “because they were included in the compensation and privileges of the martyrs”, the foundation official said.

MEE has obtained copies of the lists, which cover deaths in October and November 2019 in Baghdad. Their authenticity has been confirmed by several government sources, including the foundation and the prime minister’s office.

They are the only official documents that have appeared to date containing details about how many protesters were killed, where they were killed and on what dates, their cause of death and the serial numbers of their death certificates.

The documents show that on 4 October, 32 people were recorded killed in Baghdad in areas mostly near al-Nakheel, not two as the Iraqi authorities have claimed over the past two years – or 18 as MEE’s senior security source believed.

But the lists also raise further questions about the killing of demonstrators beyond the Al-Nakheel attack in Baghdad during that first week in October.

Protesters’ deaths classified as victims of wrong military operations, according to the lists seen by MEE, began on 1 October, the very first day of demonstrations.

The number of protesters who were killed and classified as victims of wrong military operations rises significantly from two on the first day to 24 on the third day then 32 on the fourth day and 18 on the fifth day.

Most of the victims were killed as a result of bullets to the head or the upper parts of the body, the lists record.

The majority of those killed were then handled by the Bab al-Sheikh and al-Saadoun police stations, which were responsible for the area extending from Tahrir Square to al-Ghilani gas station near al-Nakheel Mall.

The question that has emerged with urgency is whether the 4 October attack near al-Nakheel Mall was an isolated reaction to the killing of two soldiers or a snapshot of systematic violence that lasted for several days.

The senior security official who saw the footage of the attack near al-Nakheel says even he is not sure exactly when the killing started, or what set it off.

“My closest interpretation of what happened is that the soldiers were killed on the third of October, not the fourth as the military authorities announced at the time. That is, the massacre at al-Nakheel actually began on the third of October and lasted for three days,” he said.

“You can’t imagine how many governmental and non-state actors have colluded to cover up this incident,” the official said bitterly.

The government’s payments to the families of killed protesters were an explicit admission that they had been killed by Iraqi security forces. But what no one has been told, including the victims’ relatives, is which forces exactly.

Who did it?

The mishmash of police units and military divisions swirling around the streets of Baghdad on that day makes pinning down who opened fire in the area near the mall extremely difficult.

MEE sought official comment on the exact number of victims of the al-Nakheel incident. It also sought further details from the government’s perspective.

More than a dozen senior officials who were involved in the investigative committees set up by the governments of Abdul Mahdi and his successor, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, declined to answer questions or claimed they were not authorised to disclose any details.

But after interviews with more than a dozen former and current civilian and military officials with direct knowledge of the investigation, MEE has learned that the area between Tayaran Square and Al-Nakheel Mall was under the control of two main forces on the day of the attack.

They were the Commando Regiment of the Baghdad Operations Command and the 45th Infantry Brigade of the 11th Division – Iraqi Army, in addition to other security services.

According to these sources, soldiers in the Commando Regiment of the Baghdad Operations Command were wearing the uniforms of the Rapid Response Forces, who were not deployed in the area.

But witnesses, who had no idea about the uniform change, were convinced that the Rapid Response Forces had carried out the killings, a detail no one involved in the official investigations had disclosed until today.

Behind closed doors, however, the fact-finding committee formed by Abdul Mahdi was well aware of who was involved, MEE has learned.

After 11 days of investigation, it recommended on 22 October:

• the removal of 87 officers from their posts and their involvement in the attack registered in their records
• the dismissal of the Baghdad Operations Commander, his security assistant, the commander of the 11th Infantry Division – Iraqi Army, the commander of the 1st Division – Federal Police, and the commander of the 45th Infantry Brigade
• the removal of the commander of the 2nd regiment of the 45th Infantry Brigade, the command of the Commando Regiment of the 1st division – Federal Police from their posts, while referring them to military investigation boards

The committee handed over information and CDs containing evidence to the Supreme Judicial Council clarifying exactly what happened in Baghdad that week, including at al-Nakheel Mall.

What none of the committee members announced or revealed – and what everyone sought to hide with “strange complicity”, according to a senior military official familiar with the investigation – is that the two soldiers who were killed were members of the 45th Brigade of the 11th Infantry Division – Iraqi army.

Also not revealed until now is that those involved in the al-Nakheel Mall massacre were their comrades from the brigade.

MEE was told this by officers who were briefed on the findings of an investigation into the reasons for the sudden increase in the number of protesters killed in Baghdad carried out by Lieutenant-General Abdul-Amir al-Shammari, the current deputy commander of joint operations and a former general inspector of the Ministry of Defence.

Their testimonies were corroborated by a senior officer in the Rapid Response Forces and a key member of the supreme ministerial fact-finding committee, who also spoke to MEE.

“Some things are better kept secret because revealing them would stir up sedition,” a former minister and a key member of the ministerial fact-finding committee told MEE. “Announcing such matters will not solve the problem, but will only make it worse.”

He added: “What happened [at al-Nakheel Mall] was a very natural and expected reaction. The soldier treats any target in front of him as an enemy, so what can we expect when two of his colleagues are burned in front of him?

“What do we expect from a soldier we brought from the fronts and fierce fighting with IS, and we put him face to face with a protester who was throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at him?”

Accountability

Beyond the dismissals and disciplinary notes added to files, there was one further measure taken, according to the security official who watched the surveillance footage of the massacre.

Lieutenant-General Abdul-Amir Yarallah, who was the deputy commander of joint operations at the time, ordered the transfer of the entire 45th Infantry Brigade to Kirkuk as a “punishment”, the source said.

“Yarallah decided to punish them and send them to the battlefronts in Kirkuk to face death there in the fight with IS,” the security official said.

The transfer decision, he said, caused a “sharp quarrel” between Yarallah and Lieutenant-General Othman al-Ghanimi, who was the army chief of staff at the time.

“Ghanimi refused to punish them, but Yarallah insisted on transferring them,” the source said.

MEE understands that the brigade was transferred to Kirkuk in November 2019. Neither Ghanimi nor Yarallah responded to requests for comment.

“The decision to transfer them was aimed at keeping them away and pushing the incident into oblivion, while they [members of the 45th Brigade] were pushed to death,” the source said.

He concluded sarcastically: “This is how we deal with our problems in this country, by recycling death and its causes.”

But relatives of those killed are demanding more. Several family members who spoke to MEE say they have filed cases against the government but their cases have been brushed aside.

Abdul Razzaq Abdullah, whose son Muqtada was killed on 4 October, is one of them.

“I filed a case against the government and the former prime minister [Adel Abdul Mahdi], [Faleh] al-Fayyad (the head of the Popular Mobilisation Authority), and all the gang members,” he said.

“Muqtada was a child and I don’t know what sin he committed to be killed in this hideous way.”

*

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***

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” ― Frédéric Bastiat, French economist

If there is an absolute maxim by which the American government seems to operate, it is that the taxpayer always gets ripped off.

Not only are Americans forced to “spend more on state, municipal, and federal taxes than the annual financial burdens of food, clothing, and housing combined,” but we’re also being played as easy marks by hustlers bearing the imprimatur of the government.

With every new tax, fine, fee and law adopted by our so-called representatives, the yoke around the neck of the average American seems to tighten just a little bit more.

Everywhere you go, everything you do, and every which way you look, we’re getting swindled, cheated, conned, robbed, raided, pickpocketed, mugged, deceived, defrauded, double-crossed and fleeced by governmental and corporate shareholders of the American police state out to make a profit at taxpayer expense.

The overt and costly signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian regime that passes itself off as the United States government are all around us: warrantless surveillance of Americans’ private phone and email conversations by the FBI, NSA, etc.; SWAT team raids of Americans’ homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh punishments meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance; drones taking to the skies domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending; militarized police; roadside strip searches; privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans; fusion centers that collect and disseminate data on Americans’ private transactions; and militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling.

Meanwhile, the three branches of government (Executive, Legislative and Judicial) and the agencies under their command—Defense, Commerce, Education, Homeland Security, Justice, Treasury, etc.—have switched their allegiance to the Corporate State with its unassailable pursuit of profit at all costs and by any means possible.

By the time you factor in the financial blowback from the COVID-19 pandemic with its politicized mandates, lockdowns, and payouts, it becomes quickly apparent that we are now ruled by a government consumed with squeezing every last penny out of the population and seemingly unconcerned if essential freedoms are trampled in the process.

As with most things, if you want to know the real motives behind any government program, follow the money trail.

When you dig down far enough, you quickly find that those who profit from Americans being surveilled, fined, scanned, searched, probed, tasered, arrested and imprisoned are none other than the police who arrest them, the courts which try them, the prisons which incarcerate them, and the corporations, which manufacture the weapons, equipment and prisons used by the American police state.

Examples of this legalized, profits-over-people, government-sanctioned extortion abound.

On the roads: Not satisfied with merely padding their budgets by issuing speeding tickets, police departments have turned to asset forfeiture and red light camera schemes as a means of growing their profits. Despite revelations of corruption, collusion and fraud, these money-making scams have been being inflicted on unsuspecting drivers by revenue-hungry municipalities. Now legislators are hoping to get in on the profit sharing by imposing a vehicle miles-traveled tax, which would charge drivers for each mile behind the wheel.

In the prisons: States now have quotas to meet for how many Americans go to jail. Increasing numbers of states have contracted to keep their prisons at 90% to 100% capacity. This profit-driven form of mass punishment has, in turn, given rise to a $70 billion private prison industry that relies on the complicity of state governments to keep the money flowing and their privately run prisons full, “regardless of whether crime was rising or falling.” As Mother Jones reports, “private prison companies have supported and helped write … laws that drive up prison populations. Their livelihoods depend on towns, cities, and states sending more people to prison and keeping them there.” Private prisons are also doling out harsher punishments for infractions by inmates in order to keep them locked up longer in order to “boost profits” at taxpayer expense. All the while, prisoners are being forced to provide cheap labor for private corporations. No wonder the United States has the largest prison population in the world.

In the schools: The security industrial complex with its tracking, spying, and identification devices has set its sights on the schools as “a vast, rich market”—a $20 billion market, no less—just waiting to be conquered. In fact, the public schools have become a microcosm of the total surveillance state which currently dominates America, adopting a host of surveillance technologies, including video cameras, finger and palm scanners, iris scanners, as well as RFID and GPS tracking devices, to keep constant watch over their student bodies. Likewise, the military industrial complex with its military weapons, metal detectors, and weapons of compliance such as tasers has succeeded in transforming the schools—at great taxpayer expense and personal profit—into quasi-prisons. Rounding things out are school truancy laws, which come disguised as well-meaning attempts to resolve attendance issues in the schools but in truth are nothing less than stealth maneuvers aimed at enriching school districts and court systems alike through excessive fines and jail sentences for “unauthorized” absences. Curiously, none of these efforts seem to have succeeded in making the schools any safer.

In the endless wars abroad: Fueled by the profit-driven military industrial complex, the government’s endless wars are wreaking havoc on our communities, our budget and our police forces. Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $32 million per hour. Future wars and military exercises waged around the globe are expected to push the total bill upwards of $12 trillion by 2053.  Talk about fiscally irresponsible: the U.S. government is spending money it doesn’t have on a military empire it can’t afford. War spending is bankrupting America.

In the form of militarized police: The Department of Homeland Security routinely hands out six-figure grants to enable local municipalities to purchase military-style vehicles, as well as a veritable war chest of weaponry, ranging from tactical vests, bomb-disarming robots, assault weapons and combat uniforms. This rise in military equipment purchases funded by the DHS has, according to analysts Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz, “paralleled an apparent increase in local SWAT teams.” The end result? An explosive growth in the use of SWAT teams for otherwise routine police matters, an increased tendency on the part of police to shoot first and ask questions later, and an overall mindset within police forces that they are at war—and the citizenry are the enemy combatants. Over 80,000 SWAT team raids are conducted on American homes and businesses each year. Moreover, government-funded military-style training drills continue to take place in cities across the country.

In profit-driven schemes such as asset forfeiture: Under the guise of fighting the war on drugs, government agents (usually the police) have been given broad leeway to seize billions of dollars’ worth of private property (money, cars, TVs, etc.) they “suspect” may be connected to criminal activity. Then—and here’s the kicker—whether or not any crime is actually proven to have taken place, the government keeps the citizen’s property, often divvying it up with the local police who did the initial seizure. The police are actually being trained in seminars on how to seize the “goodies” that are on police departments’ wish lists. According to the New York Times, seized monies have been used by police to “pay for sports tickets, office parties, a home security system and a $90,000 sports car.”

Among government contractors: We have been saddled with a government that is outsourcing much of its work to high-paid contractors at great expense to the taxpayer and with no competition, little transparency and dubious savings. According to the Washington Post, “By some estimates, there are twice as many people doing government work under contract than there are government workers.” These open-ended contracts, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, “now account for anywhere between one quarter and one half of all federal service contracting.” Moreover, any attempt to reform the system is “bitterly opposed by federal employee unions, who take it as their mission to prevent good employees from being rewarded and bad employees from being fired.”

By the security industrial complex: We’re being spied on by a domestic army of government snitches, spies and techno-warriors. In the so-called name of “precrime,” this government of Peeping Toms is watching everything we do, reading everything we write, listening to everything we say, and monitoring everything we spend. Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you communicate, because it is all being recorded, stored, and catalogued, and will be used against you eventually, at a time and place of the government’s choosing. This far-reaching surveillance, carried out with the complicity of the Corporate State, has paved the way for an omnipresent, militarized fourth branch of government—the Surveillance State—that came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum. That doesn’t even touch on the government’s bold forays into biometric surveillance as a means of identifying and tracking the American people from birth to death.

By a government addicted to power: It’s a given that you can always count on the government to take advantage of a crisis, legitimate or manufactured. Emboldened by the citizenry’s inattention and willingness to tolerate its abuses, the government has weaponized one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers. The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands. Now that the government has gotten a taste for flexing its police state powers by way of a bevy of COVID-19 lockdowns, mandates, restrictions, contact tracing programs, heightened surveillance, censorship, overcriminalization, etc., “we the people” may well find ourselves burdened with a Nanny State inclined to use its draconian pandemic powers to protect us from ourselves.

These injustices, petty tyrannies and overt acts of hostility are being carried out in the name of the national good—against the interests of individuals, society and ultimately our freedoms—by an elite class of government officials working in partnership with megacorporations that are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.

This perverse mixture of government authoritarianism and corporate profits has increased the reach of the state into our private lives while also adding a profit motive into the mix. And, as always, it’s we the people, we the taxpayers, we the gullible voters who keep getting taken for a ride by politicians eager to promise us the world on a plate.

This is a far cry from how a representative government is supposed to operate.

Indeed, it has been a long time since we could claim to be the masters of our own lives. Rather, we are now the subjects of a militarized, corporate empire in which the vast majority of the citizenry work their hands to the bone for the benefit of a privileged few

Adding injury to the ongoing insult of having our tax dollars misused and our so-called representatives bought and paid for by the moneyed elite, the government then turns around and uses the money we earn with our blood, sweat and tears to target, imprison and entrap us, in the form of militarized police, surveillance cameras, private prisons, license plate readers, drones, and cell phone tracking technology.

All of those nefarious deeds by government officials that you hear about every day: those are your tax dollars at work.

It’s your money that allows for government agents to spy on your emails, your phone calls, your text messages, and your movements. It’s your money that allows out-of-control police officers to burst into innocent people’s homes, or probe and strip search motorists on the side of the road. And it’s your money that leads to Americans across the country being prosecuted for innocuous activities such as growing vegetable gardens in their front yards or daring to speak their truth to their elected officials.

Just remember the next time you see a news story that makes your blood boil, whether it’s a police officer arresting someone for filming them in public, or a child being kicked out of school for attending a virtual class while playing with a toy gun, remember that it is your tax dollars that are paying for these injustices.

There was a time in our history when our forebears said “enough is enough” and stopped paying their taxes to what they considered an illegitimate government. They stood their ground and refused to support a system that was slowly choking out any attempts at self-governance, and which refused to be held accountable for its crimes against the people.

Their resistance sowed the seeds for the revolution that would follow.

Unfortunately, in the 200-plus years since we established our own government, we’ve let bankers, turncoats and number-crunching bureaucrats muddy the waters and pilfer the accounts to such an extent that we’re back where we started.

Once again, we’ve got a despotic regime with an imperial ruler doing as they please.

Once again, we’ve got a judicial system insisting we have no rights under a government which demands that the people march in lockstep with its dictates.

And once again, we’ve got to decide whether we’ll keep marching or break stride and make a turn toward freedom.

But what if we didn’t just pull out our pocketbooks and pony up to the federal government’s outrageous demands for more money?

What if we didn’t just dutifully line up to drop our hard-earned dollars into the collection bucket, no questions asked about how it will be spent?

What if, instead of quietly sending in our checks, hoping vainly for some meager return, we did a little calculating of our own and started deducting from our taxes those programs that we refuse to support?

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, if the government and its emissaries can just take from you what they want, when they want, and then use it however they want, you can’t claim to be anything more than a serf in a land they think of as theirs.

This is not freedom, America.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

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

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

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***

We are a broad and diverse group of Canadian physicians from across Canada who are sending out this urgent declaration to the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of our various Provinces and Territories and to the Public at large, whom we serve.

On April 30, 2021, Ontario’s physician licensing body, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), issued a statement forbidding physicians from questioning or debating any or all of the official measures imposed in response to COVID-19. ¹

The CPSO then went on to threaten physicians with punishment – investigations and disciplinary action.

We regard this recent statement of the CPSO to be unethical, anti-science and deeply disturbing.

As physicians, our primary duty of care is not to the CPSO or any other authority, but to our patients.

When we became physicians, we pledged to put our patients first and that our ethical and professional duty is always first toward our patients. The CPSO statement orders us to violate our duty and pledge to our patients in the following ways:

1. Denial of the Scientific Method itself: The CPSO is ordering physicians to put aside the scientific method and to not debate the processes and conclusions of science.

We physicians know and continue to believe that throughout history, opposing views, vigorous debate and openness to new ideas have been the bedrock of scientific progress. Any major advance in science has been arrived at by practitioners vigorously questioning “official” narratives and following a different path in the pursuit of truth.

2. Violation of our Pledge to use Evidence-Based Medicine for our patients: By ordering us not to debate and not to question, the CPSO is also asking us to violate our pledge to our patients that we will always seek the best, evidence-based scientific methods for them and advocate vigorously on their behalf.

The CPSO statement orders physicians for example, not to discuss or communicate with the public about “lockdown” measures. Lockdown measures are the subject of lively debate by world-renown and widely respected experts and there are widely divergent views on this subject. The explicitly anti-lockdown Great Barrington Declaration (PDF ) was written by experts from Harvard, Stanford and Oxford Universities and more than 40,000 physicians from all over the world have signed this declaration. Several international experts including Martin Kuldorf (Harvard), David Katz (Yale), Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford) and Sunetra Gupta (Oxford) continue to strongly oppose lockdowns.

The CPSO is ordering physicians to express only pro-lockdown views, or else face investigation and discipline. This tyrannical, anti-science CPSO directive is regarded by thousands of Canadian physicians and scientists as unsupported by science and as violating the first duty of care to our patients.

3. Violation of Duty of Informed Consent: The CPSO is also ordering physicians to violate the sacred duty of informed consent – which is the process by which the patient/public is fully informed of the risks, benefits and any alternatives to the treatment or intervention, before consent is given.

The Nuremberg Code, drafted in the aftermath of the atrocities perpetrated within the Nazi concentration camps – where horrific medical experiments were performed on inmates without consent – expressly forbids the imposition of any kind of intervention without informed consent.

In the case of the lockdown intervention for example, physicians have a fiduciary duty to point out to the public that lockdowns impose their own costs on society, including in greatly increased depression and suicide rates, delayed investigation and treatment of cancer (including delayed surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy), ballooning surgical waiting lists (with attendant greatly increased patient suffering) and increased rates of child and domestic abuse.

We physicians believe that with the CPSO statement of 30 April 2021, a watershed moment in the assault on free speech and scientific inquiry has been reached.

By ordering physicians to be silent and follow only one narrative, or else face discipline and censure, the CPSO is asking us to violate our conscience, our professional ethics, the Nuremberg code and the scientific pursuit of truth.

We will never comply and will always put our patients first.

The CPSO must immediately withdraw and rescind its statement of 30 April 2021.

We also give notice to other Canadian and international licensing authorities for physicians and allied professions that the stifling of scientific inquiry and any order to violate our conscience and professional pledge to our patients, itself may constitute a crime against humanity.

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Notes

¹ College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario Statement on Public Health Misinformation (4/30/21).
https://twitter.com/cpso_ca/status/1388211577770348544

The College is aware and concerned about the increase of misinformation circulating on social media and other platforms regarding physicians who are publicly contradicting public health orders and recommendations. Physicians hold a unique position of trust with the public and have a professional responsibility to not communicate anti-vaccine, anti-masking, anti-distancing and anti-lockdown statements and/or promoting unsupported, unproven treatments for COVID-19. Physicians must not make comments or provide advice that encourages the public to act contrary to public health orders and recommendations. Physicians who put the public at risk may face an investigation by the CPSO and disciplinary action, when warranted. When offering opinions, physicians must be guided by the law, regulatory standards, and the code of ethics and professional conduct. The information shared must not be misleading or deceptive and must be supported by available evidence and science.

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***

To the Devon Local Medical Committee, to the Medical Director of Torbay Hospital Mr Ian Currie,

to the Chief Medical Officer at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital Professor Adrian Harris,

and to Dr Paul Johnson  Chairman of the Devon Clinical Commissioning Group,

 

Yesterday HMG was pleased to record that 27,000 young adults were logging on for the ‘jab’ in every hour.

I write as a citizen and well educated and experienced doctor against this activity promoted by NHS England and Public Health England with the necessary complicity of NHS doctors in general practice and in the hospitals.

I bear in mind the miniscule mortality rate in the healthy of all ages who have suffered clinically diagnosed Covid_19 illness without significant co-morbidity.

I have already alerted the GMC to the neglect of a friend of mine who suffered definite adverse effects of the AstraZeneca Vaccine on the 10th of March 2021, see this and this.

Previously I wrote to a general practice underlining the ethical and legal duty to ensure informed consent.

Late last year I wrote of grossly inadequate standards of care both at Torbay Hospital – 6 cases, and the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital.

See this and this.

This anecdote prompts me to speak up again and to demand the cessation of all ‘vaccination’ of those under 30, and indeed in those older persons.

The index patient is an acquaintance whom I met yesterday in our local town and whom I have greeted in passing for many years.  A 72 yr old, a happy man of humble origin.  He knows me, and partly from my having replaced arthritic hips in two of his extended family.

March 2021 – drove to Westpoint ‘Vaccination’ Centre (normal function the Devon Annual Agricultural Show)  No informed consent.  Both ‘jabbed’ with the AS ‘shot’.  No immediate adverse effects.  2 weeks later he noted sudden blindness of his left eye.  Seen in the opthalmology department of Torbay Hospital.  Not certain what diagnosis was made.  But certainly told the blindness was not an adverse effect of the ‘jab’.

More recently, had the second one.  5 days afterwards he became deaf to a severe extent in the left ear.  He has long standing deafness in the right and is thus disabled to an extent, and I had to speak loudly to him.  His wife has suffered no ill effects.

He knew nothing of the Yellow Card system, going for decades in the UK, a passive system.

In the US, the reporting of adverse ‘events’ to the Centre for Disease Control was studied at Harvard University.  Between 1 to 10% were actually received by the CDC.  Humans receiving these inoculations of an experimental vaccine in the UK are not made aware of the Yellow Card nor of the importance of reporting adverse effects for those who are to follow.

Although there is absolute censorship in the UK of dissenting voices, of reports of adverse effects, and of the clear benefit of the readily available ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine in the acute disease, there is now much information available in the US.

**

These were received from Peter McCullough MD this am – a senior cardiologist and ‘internist’, and with a deep knowledge appropriately of epidemiology – Fox News.

Tucker and Bopp, see this.

Hannity and Makary and Jarrett, see this.

Ingraham and McCullough, see this.

I add this 15 minute video for wider context (usual ‘social’ platforms in the UK censor all dissenting views and experience):

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***

The centenary of the Northern Irish state comes amidst a deep crisis of unionism in the north and talk of a United Ireland growing across the island by the day. Ben Wray, Bella’s European Feature Writer, speaks to authors and campaigners for a United Ireland about the origins of partition and the prospects for re-unification.

On 3 May 1921, the UK passed the Government of Ireland Act, which was intended to divide Ireland into two governing entities: north and south Ireland. Both territories would remain British jurisdictions, and provisions were in place for their eventual reunification. 

The British southern state never got off the ground, rejected by the vast majority of people in the 26 counties in favour of independence, but the smaller six-county Northern Irish state held an election on 24 May, with the Ulster Unionist Party winning 67% of the vote. On the 22 June, the Northern Irish parliament officially opened. Ireland had been partitioned.

100 years on, the Northern Irish state remains, but increasingly its hook to the UK state appears to be on a shoogly peg. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the biggest party in Stormont and the leading voice of unionism in Northern Ireland for almost two decades, is in a deep crisis, ditching two leaders in the space of a few weeks, and with collapsing support in the polls. Sinn Féin, the Irish nationalist party, is on course to win the NI Assembly elections next year and thus take the First Minister’s chair in Stormont for the first time. Whatever the architects of partition had in mind, it wasn’t this.

Partition: A “compromise solution”, or an imperialist ploy?

The BBC is running a series to mark the centenary of Northern Ireland and in a piece on how the Irish border was created, Eimear Flanagan states: “Partition was viewed by the British Government as a compromise solution.”

He adds:

“Nationalists had campaigned for ‘Home Rule’ for decades, seeking a devolved parliament in Dublin. But unionists, who were mainly Protestant, did not want to be ruled from Dublin.

“Unionists held a majority in the province of Ulster in the north-east, but in Ireland as a whole they were greatly outnumbered by nationalists, who were mainly Catholic.”

In this presentation, the British Government appears as the paternal, even-handed administrator, simply looking to keep the peace by negotiating a compromise, and with no intrinsic interests of its own. Kieran Allen, Sociology professor at the University of Dublin and author of the recently released ’32 counties: the failure of partition and the case for a United Ireland’, is unsurprised by the BBC’s depiction.

“That is traditionally how the British Empire is presented, that it’s a sort of neutral arbiter, between Hindus and Muslims in India, or being Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.”

Allen says that Irish partition was actually part of a broader Tory strategy towards Empire, which sought to deal with growing discontent in the colonies after WW1 by “whipping up chauvinism”. The creation of the six-county state in the north was specifically designed with this purpose in mind; as a bulwark against revolution.

“What they drew up was essentially an arbitrary division [of Ireland],” Allen tells Bella. “The original proposal for partition in 1912 was for four-counties, then there was a proposal in 1920 for a nine-county Ulster, and eventually they settled on a six-county Ulster, because, as James Craig, the first prime minister of Northern Ireland, said at the time, that was the largest amount of territory that would allow for ‘a decisive Protestant majority in which unionist power would be guaranteed, in perpetuity’. That’s why it happened.”

The violence against Catholics and nationalists who opposed the creation of the new state, especially in Belfast, provides further evidence of the sectarianism in the project from its birth. Ten per cent of the nationalist population were forced out of Belfast in the first years of the NI state. Those that remained were treated as second-class citizens. The fact that one party, the Ulster Unionist Party, was in power for over 50 years from 1921 to 1972, when Stormont was abolished, an unprecedented electoral domination in the western world, tells its own story. 

The less talked about side of partition is the impact it had on the 26-counties on the other side of the border, which became a “mirror image” of the northern state in its conservatism, Allen argues.

“What you have in the south is a revolutionary wave after 1918,” he says, “but with the the help of British guns and the British cajoling a section of the republican movement into suppressing their former allies, a counter-revolution developed. That counter-revolution meant suppressing all the social grievances, but it also meant using Catholicism as a kind of spiritual anti-depressant: ‘we are the most Catholic country in the world, we want nothing to do with divorce, nothing to do with abortion and so on’.

“The proof that partition produced this mirror image of conservatism is that it was one of the few countries in western Europe where there was no left-right divide.”

Today, while much has changed on both sides of the border, much still stays the same. In the north, a census poll due later this year is likely to show that there are more Catholics than Protestants for the first time, but also the number of people who don’t identify as either has tripled since 1990 to 18%. Still, nearly a quarter of a century after the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Irish politics remains locked in a sectarian prism, evidenced over the past week by the DUP’s resistance to an Act for Irish language rights at Stormont. 

In the South, a massive Yes vote in the 2015 and 2018 referendums on abortion rights and equal marriage has shown the Catholic Church no longer is the dominant institution it once was. Nonetheless, it still runs 94% of primary schools, and is still politically shielded by the two conservative establishment parties which have dominated Irish politics in the 26 counties since independence, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, which remain in power at the Dáil today, in a three-way coalition with the Greens. Ireland is still shaped by partition.

Brexit and the crisis of unionism: short-term, or existential?

Boris Johnson was cheered to the rooftops when he turned up at a 2018 DUP conference to say that “no British Conservative government could or should sign up to any such arrangement” which included border checks and customs controls down the Irish Sea. Two years later, after replacing Theresa May as Prime Minister on the back of such commitments and with the clear support of the DUP for his leadership, Johnson did exactly what he promised not to do, in the form of the Irish protocol in his Brexit agreement with the EU. The DUP had been duped. 

What has followed is a deep crisis of unionism in Northern Ireland, with the DUP at the centre of the recriminations. The party got rid of Arlene Foster as First Minister for her part in the protocol, only to junk her replacement, Edwin Poots, weeks later. Poots’ close ally Paul Givan, who has just been installed as the new First Minister to replace Foster, has now been told by the party that he has to go too. Meltdown would be putting it lightly. 

Profound questions have now been opened up for unionists: ‘If the protocol remains, are we really a full part of the UK anymore? And if the Tories are willing to betray us for a deal with the EU, what are we really worth to the British anyway?’

The rage and despair this existential crisis has brought on has been on full show as marching season has kicked in. One report in the Guardian of one such march heard from Joe, 63, terminally ill with cancer, who lit aflame a banner saying ‘United Ireland’ on it. Asked if the sort of violence seen in The Troubles could return within his lifetime, he said: “If that’s the way it has to be, then that’s how it’ll be.”

We have already seen rioting in April, and marching season has been described as a “tinderbox” with the ongoing ‘sausage war’ between the UK and the EU over the protocol looming in the background. It may be the case that Johnson can find another compromise with Brussels which can give the DUP an out, but Daniel Finn, features editor of Jacobin and author of ‘One Man’s Terrorist: A political history of the IRA’ (2019), tells Bella that the DUP now faces long-term electoral pressures which will not go away easily.

“The DUP has got this dilemma, because in the polls they are losing support in both directions – on one side to the Alliance party, which is a more liberal party, and on the other side to the Traditional Unionist Voice, which is a very-hard line unionist party. You can’t really win back both of those groups of people, so there is a re-alignment that is taking place which I think will continue.”

How likely is a border poll?

While the DUP is in crisis, Sinn Fèin is on the rise. The 2020 Republic of Ireland election gave the Irish nationalists the most votes in the 26-county state for the first time. In 1997, the year before the Good Friday Agreement, they had won just 2.5% of the vote and one seat in the south. Sinn Fèin were only kept out of power by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil agreeing a power-sharing deal, along with the Greens. Since then, polls show Sinn Fèin extending its lead to one-third of voters.

The party’s newly found support in the south has been built on focusing on social justice issues like housing and health, which has attracted young people in particular, but given Brexit and the crisis of unionism, Sinn Fèin’s growing support on both sides of the border is galvanising demands for a border poll. This is causing Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, which for years have paid lip service at best to the idea of a United Ireland at some point in the distant future, to have to adapt their rhetoric.

At the weekend, Leo Varadkar, the former Taoiseach and current leader of Fine Gael and deputy prime minister in the government, made waves after telling his party conference that it “should be part of our mission as a party to work towards” re-unification, and that “no one group can have a veto” on the issue. 

Following criticism of his remarks, including from Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis, who told him to “dial down the rhetoric, particularly at this time of year”, Varadkar said that for many people, including in his own party, it was “always the wrong time” to talk about a united Ireland, adding that there was “no majority anymore” in NI for unionism or nationalism, and that a new middle-ground, particularly of young people, want to talk about it. 

Allen says Varadkar’s comments highlight the “massive shift in consciousness in the south” on the national question.

“It’s a fact that about 70% of the southern population are for Irish unity, and not just are they for it, they believe it will happen in the coming decade. And therefore Fine Gael, being a clever bourgeois party, are re-positioning themselves to say ‘we are for Irish unity as well’.”

Gerry Carlile, CEO of Ireland’s Future, a civic organisation campaigning for Irish re-unification, welcomed Varadkar’s intervention, but said that “planning and preparing should be well underway” in Dublin, citing the Scottish example pre-2014 referendum – where a White Paper was published on independence – as the sort of work that should be taking place in the Dáil. Specifically, Ireland’s Future are calling on the RoI government to establish a Citizen’s Assembly on the constitutional future of Ireland.

Pressuring the RoI state into seriously pushing for Irish unity is just one hurdle to overcome in getting a border poll. The biggest one is the UK state. The Good Friday Agreement contains a clause which says that the Northern Ireland Secretary “shall exercise the power [to call a referendum] if at any time it appears likely…that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom”. This leaves the power over Ireland’s future in the hands of a British minister, and on conveniently vague terms as to how the Minister is to decide whether NI “appears likely” to vote for Irish unity.

Carlile tells Bella that they believe “the criteria has been met” for a border poll, highlighting that a majority of Northern Irish members of the UK Parliament are for the first time pro-Irish unity. Ireland’s Future have written to Brandon Lewis to clarify what is the criteria the UK Government uses to decide whether a referendum should be held. 

Some have speculated that while the UK state may have had a material interest in holding onto NI in the past, today it may be quite happy to see it go, especially given that NI spending massively outstrips its tax revenues. Finn says that while he “wouldn’t dismiss that view out of hand”, there are good reasons to believe that they still have a “political interest”.

“A political interest doesn’t have to have a direct economic motive; there are questions about the general power and prestige of the British state in world affairs. The state relies to an extent on symbolic power – or soft power – as well as economic and military power, and its territory is part of the prestige of the state.

“And there is also the political factor of British nationalism. Even if you assume that Johnson’s government doesn’t have any particular interest in partition for its own sake and doesn’t really care about what happens in Northern Ireland, which is to some extent true when you see the way they reached their agreement on Brexit and the Irish Protocol, they also have to think about the knock on implications [of Irish unity], for instance in terms of what happens with Scotland.”

What kind of United Ireland?

If a border poll can be secured and a yes vote won, what would a United Ireland look like? As the possibilities of an end to partition have grown, an increasing number of thinkers on left and right have been putting their minds to this question. 

Michael McDowell, a former leader of Ireland’s first openly neoliberal party, the Progressive Democrats, has made the case for Irish unity based on minimal change to the current state structures on both sides of the border via a confederal system.

“A confederal form of unity would leave both jurisdictions largely intact and in which…only limited powers [would be] devolved by each part of the confederation to its institutions,” he argues.

This limited change vision is an attempt to reassure elites in the north and south that Irish unity can be achieved without the interests of either being undermined and to convince unionists in the north that they will still have important representation following re-unification. However, for many who are coming round to the idea of a United Ireland, it’s surely the prospect for transformative change across the island which motivates them.

In Northern Ireland, chronic low wages and sluggish investment rates – well below other UK regions – has led to many questioning what Stormont and the UK state have actually delivered in terms of improving living standards since the Good Friday Agreement. In the Republic of Ireland, the country has carved out a unique position within the EU as a tax haven, attracting some of the world’s largest companies to headquarter in Dublin, but that model has brought with it astronomical private rents as wealth inequality surges, some of the most expensive childcare in the EU, large primary school class sizes and the longest hospital waiting times in Europe. A poll found one-quarter of the electorate in the North said the lack of an NHS in the south makes them more likely to vote for the Union in any referendum. 

If constitutional change does not deliver social justice on both sides of the border, merely integrating the north to create a whole-island tax haven, then is that really progress?

For Carlile, emerging debates about what a United Ireland should look like is a healthy sign.

“The reality is the conversation is happening on the ground and right across this entire island,” he says. 

Ireland’s Future are currently setting up public meetings across the country to facilitate that conversation, and Carlile is optimistic about the Irish unity movement’s prospects.

“Without a doubt this is a very promising period,” he tells Bella. “Coming out of the pandemic, this is the time for change, the time to start thinking about what would make the country better.”

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***

The annual U.S.-led multinational naval exercise in the Black Sea, Sea Breeze, will begin on June 28 and continue until July 10. As with previous iterations this year’s exercise will be co-hosted by the U.S. and Ukraine.

Though as the name indicates primarily a series of maritime drills, Sea Breeze also includes air and land components.

Currently there are three warships from NATO nations in the Black Sea: the U.S. interceptor missile/guided-missile destroyer USS Laboon, the British destroyer HMS Defender and Dutch frigate HNLMS Evertsen. The first is part of the carrier strike group attached to the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier and the latter two to the new HMS Queen Elizabeth carrier.

As the massive Defender Europe 21 war games wrapped up this week, several components of which were held in the Black Sea, the public relations bureau of U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa and U.S. Sixth Fleet announced that this year’s Sea Breeze will include military personnel, ships, planes and equipment from the most nations ever: 32. From six continents. Participating countries are: Albania, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, France, Georgia, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Morocco, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Senegal, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates and the U.S. All are NATO members or partners except for Brazil and Senegal, but Brazil has been contributing to war games held by the U.S. in Africa and Europe lately and may well soon join its neighbor Colombia as a NATO partner; and Senegal, which is also now participating in the U.S./NATO African Lion military exercise, may join fellow African NATO partners Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia.

U.S. Navy graphic

The war games will include 5,000 troops, 32 ships, 40 aircraft and 18 special operations and diving teams.

The American chargé d’affaires to Ukraine, Kristina Kvien (a graduate of the U.S. Army War College), was quoted by U.S. Navy stating: “The United States is proud to partner with Ukraine in co-hosting the multinational maritime exercise Sea Breeze, which will help enhance interoperability and capabilities among participating nations. We are committed to maintaining the safety and security of the Black Sea.”

Interoperability is a NATO catchword for military integration. This year’s maneuvers will include amphibious warfare, land warfare, air defense, special operations and anti-submarine warfare facets.

Only one of the six (recognized) nations on the Black Sea is not a NATO member (Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey) or a NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partner (Georgia and Ukraine): Russia. It is that country that troops, ships and military aircraft from 32 nations on six continents will be deployed against in a few days.

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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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***

A plan for a simultaneous Turkish invasion of both Greece and Armenia was prepared by Turkey, according to the secret documents of the Turkish General Staff.

According to these documents, the plan called “CERBE” was prepared in 2014 and updated in 2016.

According to the Nordic Monitor, “Turkey was inspired by the name of its secret war plans for the eastern Mediterranean, from a significant victory Ottoman naval machine against a fleet of Christian alliance that strengthened Turkish rule in the Mediterranean.”

According to a PowerPoint presentation prepared by the General Staff for a review of interior design, Turkey has drawn up a plan for a secret military operation called “TSK [Turkish Armed Forces] Cerbe Operation Planning Directive”.

The plan was dated January 7, 2014, which means that it was probably updated amid increased tension between Turkey and Greece / Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean, the report also states. Cerbe is the name of an island in southern Tunisia near the border with Libya.

It was there that the Battle of Djerba took place in May 1560 between the Ottoman forces and the fleet of the Christian Alliance, which consisted mainly of Spanish, Papal, Genoese, Maltese and Neapolitan forces.

“The Turks won the battle, which gave them dominance in the Mediterranean Sea,” the report said, adding that “the name of Turkey’s comprehensive war game plan in the eastern Mediterranean fits in with the narrative promoted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan” and his associates, who often place Turkey’s problems with its Western allies as part of a renewed conflict between Christian Europe and Muslim Turkey. A slide from the powerpoint from the secret document lists the military plans of Turkey against Greece, Armenia and Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean with corresponding dates that show when they were drawn up “.

“The existence of Turkey’s war plan for the east was discovered in a court file in the Turkish capital, with prosecutor Serdar Coşkun, loyal to the Turkish president, apparently forgetting to remove the classified documents before submitting them to the court,” the statement said, which continues: “

They were collected from the headquarters of the General Staff during an investigation into the failed coup on 15 July 2016. The documents, including the plan to invade Greece and Armenia, were found to have been sent among the top commanders to the General Staff through a secure internal email.

Koskun ordered the army to forward copies of all emails for the previous two months, including the encrypted ones, on August 1, 2016. Ten days later, on August 11, 2016, the prosecutor instructed his trusted assistant, a police officer named Yüksel Var, collect emails from the General Staff’s internal servers and report to him. A panel set up by military technicians under Var completed its work on 14 February 2017. Finally, the indictment filed by prosecutors Necip Cem İşçimen, Kemal Aksakal and İstiklal Akkaya in March 2017 at the 17th Supreme Criminal Court of the All of Ankara the e-mails collected from the computers of the General Staff “.

The Nordic Monitor concludes: “No communication was found in the e-mails indicating any  coup attempt, which many believe was a disorientation operation organized by Erdogan and his intelligence and military leaders to trap the opposition to persecution and mass purges.

The document does not contain details about the specifics of the program other than its name and updated date. The details of the war plan must have been labeled “confidential” and therefore could not be communicated through the intranet system running on the Turkish army’s email exchange servers. A review of the documents also shows that the General Staff, which notified the emails at the outset, panicked eight months later about the possible impact of the disclosure of sensitive documents and began sounding the alarm. The first warning letter was written on March 8, 2017 by the Chief of General Staff Unur Tarçın, Head of the Communication, Electronic and Information Services System of the General Staff (Muhabere, Elektronik ve Bilgi Sistemleri, or MEBS).

He warned the General Staff Legal Service that the documents contained secret documents related to Turkey’s national security, classified intelligence reports and operations in Syria and the eastern Mediterranean. He said the documents should be kept secret and not disclosed to unauthorized persons. The Deputy Chief Legal Adviser of the General Staff, Colonel Aydın Seviş, then wrote to the 17th Ankara High Criminal Court on 24 August 2017, reiterating the same concerns about the secret documents and urging the establishment of a committee to review them. However, the Turkish prosecutors did not seem to pay attention to their concerns and included all the emails with the attached secret documents in the case file, revealing the highly classified information including the name of the invasion plan for Greece”.

*

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***

The emergence of a new SARS-CoV-2 variant from India, called “Delta,” may result in a new round of lockdowns around the world, including the U.K. and Chile

Chile has one of the highest COVID-jab rates in the world; 58% of the population have received two doses and 75% have received their first dose. Santiago locked down as of June 10, 2021, after the capital reported the highest COVID-19 case numbers since the beginning of the pandemic

Research by Public Health England (PHE) suggests two doses of Pfizer’s mRNA COVID shot is 88% effective against the Delta variant, while AstraZeneca’s DNA injection appears to be 60% effective. After a single dose, either of the shots was only 33% protective against symptomatic illness

PHE claims the Delta variant is 64% more likely to transmit within households than the Kent (Alpha) variant that had previously dominated, and that it’s 40% more transmissible outdoors and more likely to affect younger people

Variants are unlikely to pose significantly differing risk to people with natural immunity compared to the original, as resistance is primarily based on your T cells, which have been shown to recognize and attack variants that are up to 80% dissimilar. SARS-CoV-2 variants are at most 0.3% dissimilar from the original, which means T cell immunity will easily recognize and protect against them

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According to the regional director of the European office of the World Health Organization, Hans Henri Kluge, a new coronavirus variant called “Delta” (its scientific name being B.1.617.2 and originating in India) is “poised to take hold” in Europe, which may necessitate renewed lockdowns.¹

In a June 10, 2021, article, The Hill reported that the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant “can spread quickly and infect those who have received one of two vaccine doses at higher rates than the fully vaccinated.”²

According to Kluge, Europe is facing the same situation as they did back in the winter of 2020, when cases rapidly rose, resulting in “a devastating resurgence, lockdowns and loss of life.” “Let’s not make that mistake again,” Kluge said during the press conference.

Indian Variant Refuels Fear

The Delta variant is now the dominant strain in the U.K., where a surge in cases, supposedly, has occurred predominantly among younger people between the ages of 12 and 20.³

Research by Public Health England (PHE) suggests two doses of Pfizer’s mRNA COVID shot is 88% effective against the Delta variant, while AstraZeneca’s DNA injection is “supposedly” 60% effective. After a single dose, either of the shots was only 33% protective against symptomatic illness.^4,5

However, while single-dose recipients are said to be at greater risk than those having received two doses, more fully “vaccinated” people have actually died from this variant. According to the PHE, of the 42 Britons who had died with the Delta variant as of mid-June 2021, 12 had received two doses of gene therapy, compared to just seven single-dose recipients.⁶

More importantly, a June 11, 2021, PHE report⁷ shows that as a hospital patient, you are six times more likely to die of the COVID Delta variant if you are fully vaccinated, than if you are not vaccinated at all.

The information shows up in Table 6 of the 77-page document, which are labled as the attendance to emergency care and deaths by vaccination status and confirmed Delta cases from February 1, 2021, to June 7, 2021.

Of 33,206 Delta variant cases admitted to the hospital, 19,573 were not vaccinated. Of those, 23 (or 0.1175%) died. But, of the 13,633 patients who were vaccinated with either one or two doses, 19 (or 0.1393%) died, which is an 18.6% higher death rate than for the unvaccinated patients. Seven of the 5,393 patients who were partially vaccine with one dose died, or 0.1297%.

Of the 1,785 patients who had both vaccine doses 14 days or more before admission, 12 (or 0.6722%) died. This death rate is 5.72 times higher than that for unvaccinated patients. Put another way, if all 33,206 patients had been fully vaccinated, there would have been 223 deaths.

The PHE also claims the Delta variant is 64% more likely to transmit within households than the Kent (Alpha) variant that had previously dominated, and that it’s 40% more transmissible outdoors.⁸

Knowing what we now know about how science and statistics are being manipulated to give the appearance of a serious problem where there is none, I take these statements and data with a grain of salt. World leaders, however, are using the data to impose yet more restrictions. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is now considering keeping lockdown rules in place until spring of 2022.⁹

Similarly, Chile, which has one of the highest COVID-jab rates in the world, with 58% of the population having received two doses and 75% having received their first dose, authorities announced a blanket lockdown across the capital of Santiago, June 10, 2021. The lockdown came in response to the highest COVID-19 case numbers since the beginning of the pandemic.¹⁰

In the U.S., Delta accounts for about 10% of cases and is doubling every two weeks, according to the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who spoke about the variant on a “Face the Nation” broadcast June 13, 2021.^11,12

According to Gottlieb, Delta is likely to “spike a new epidemic heading into the fall.”¹³ Showing just how crazy a repeat this is, Gottlieb is again citing data from Neil Ferguson. Yahoo! News calls Ferguson a “prominent British epidemiologist” but in fact, the man is beyond untrustworthy and has been thoroughly — and publicly — disgraced.

His only prominence is that of a failed statistician whose models have been repeatedly proven faulty to a ridiculous degree. The fact that Gottlieb is again using Ferguson’s models ought to set off warning bells that this is fear propaganda to justify even further COVID jabs and nothing else.

It was Ferguson’s Imperial College model¹⁴ that predicted the death of 2 million Americans and 500,000 Britons unless draconian lockdown and social distancing measures were implemented. A major flaw in his model was that he didn’t account for the fact that the susceptible population is only ever a small portion of people, never 100%.¹⁵

Ferguson was also the source of the December 2020 prediction that the Alpha variant B117 — the so-called “Kent” strain that became the predominant strain before Delta — would be 50% to 70% more contagious than previous variants circulating in the U.K., and would infect children and teens to a greater extent than previous variants.¹⁶

Well, what happened? PHE data reveal the rolling average of infections (i.e., positive tests, which may be symptomatic or asymptomatic) sharply declined starting in January 2021, from a high of 68,053 cases in early January to a low of 1,649 cases in early May 2021.¹⁷

Daily hospitalizations also dropped, as did the number of daily deaths, which plunged from a high of 1,610 in January 2021 to a low of eight on June 13, 2021.¹⁸ Apparently, the much-feared and “far more infectious” B117 strain didn’t unleash a mass-death cascade after all.

What’s more, the fact that mainstream media and health authorities have not highlighted the number of children infected or hospitalized is a clear hint that children really weren’t at great risk from B117 either. They just wanted you to fear the possibility of it being so.

In the U.S., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data¹⁹ show adolescent hospitalizations for COVID-19 peaked at a rate of 2.1 per 100,000 hospital admissions in early January 2021. By mid-March, that had declined to 0.6 per 100,000. In April, it rose a little again, to 1.3 per 100,000. In actual numbers, we’re talking about a total of 204 teens — aged 12 to 17 — being admitted to hospital for assessment between January 2021 and March 2021.

These statistics are indeed quite far from catastrophic. Fewer than one-third required intensive care and none died. Meanwhile, there are at least four reported deaths among 12- to 17-year-olds following COVID “vaccination,” along with several hundred adverse effect reports, including dozens of cases of heart inflammation.²⁰

As Ferguson’s calamitous predictions for Alpha variant B117 having failed to come to fruition, it appears the same fearmongering narrative has now simply shifted over to the Delta variant.

Clearly, they want us to fear for our children, as this will improve compliance with freedom-robbing measures and boost vaccine uptake. Right now, they’re having a really hard time explaining why children, whose risk of serious complications or death from COVID-19, and who aren’t a primary disease vector, would need to participate in an uncontrolled gene therapy experiment.

COVID Measures Did Not Work and Should Never Be Repeated

Watch the video here.

After a year and a half of lies and disinformation, it seems clear the technocrats pushing for a Great Reset are more than willing to make things up as they go, simply to keep the pandemic going. According to Kluge, the way out of this new phase of the pandemic is “a combination of public health measures and vaccination, not one or the other.”²¹

This despite the fact that we already know that none of these strategies actually work. As noted by pathologist Dr. Roger Hodkinson²² in a May 27, 2021, Last American Vagabond interview,²³ masks, social distancing and lockdowns did not work and never will, and the COVID jabs are too dangerous to pursue.

In the interview above, Hodkinson reviews the very real concerns surrounding vaccine-induced spike proteins and their potentially devastating effects on health and human reproduction,²⁴ seeing how Pfizer’s own research demonstrates free spike proteins are disseminated throughout your body within hours of injection.^25,26,27

I detailed this research in “Researcher: ‘We Made a Big Mistake’ on COVID-19 Vaccine,” which featured an interview with Canadian immunologist and vaccine researcher Byram Bridle, Ph.D. I’ve also explained the mechanics of why the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is so dangerous and toxic in “The Many Ways in Which COVID Vaccines May Harm Your Health.”

Anti-Vax Hater Predicts Nightmare Summer

In a June 11, 2021, Daily Beast article,²⁸ Dr. Peter Hotez — a rabid anti-vax hater — is now saying that children living in conservative “red” states, where COVID jab refusal tends to be higher, face a dangerous “nightmare summer.”

Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, has in the past called for violent suppression of vaccine safety information, bullying parents of vaccine-injured children²⁹ by calling them “anti-vaxxers” even though they’re discussing their children’s injuries that occurred as a result of vaccination, not because they didn’t vaccinate them.

In 2018, Hotez classified vaccine safety and pro-informed consent advocacy groups such as the National Vaccine Information Center as “hate groups” that “hate children,”³⁰ and said we must “snuff out” (a term typically reserved for gangster style murder) the “anti-vaccine” movement.^31,32 He’s also stated that vaccination “is not a choice; it’s a responsibility.”³³ Not surprisingly, Hotez has very strong ties to the vaccine industry.

During a March 23, 2019, appearance on the Joe Rogan show, Hotez suggested Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Reddit, Instagram and other online platforms should hire chief scientific officers to manage, filter and regulate content.³⁴ Hotez has also called for the use of cyberwarfare tactics against people who dare discuss potential vaccine problems, including yours truly.

No doubt, he’s loving the current Dark Age of online censorship that arose with the COVID pandemic.

“The only way to prevent these variants from gaining a foothold is to step up the pace of vaccinating everyone over the age 12 (and hopefully children younger than that by the fall),”Hotez writes in his Daily Beast article.³⁵

“But in these robust pockets of vaccine resistance, it’s hard to imagine getting anywhere close to full coverage of young people. For example, more than 50 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds are vaccinated (received at least one dose of vaccine) in Massachusetts and Vermont, whereas less than 10 percent of those in this same age group have been vaccinated in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Here’s what might happen if we don’t fully vaccinate the South. First, the number of cases could accelerate in July and August, just as they did last year … In addition, we might see the new variants rise in frequency and disproportionately affect children, adolescents, and young adults, possibly including a multisystem inflammatory syndrome of children or MIS-C.

Some children’s hospitals in the region may already be seeing an acceleration in hospitalizations and ICU admissions. In fact, the CDC just reported on rising hospitalization rates among adolescents this spring.”

Hotez Overstates Risk to Children and Teens

Here, Hotez cites the CDC data³⁶ I discussed earlier, and the way he does it ends up misrepresenting the trend. To repeat, no teenagers have died from COVID-19. And the uptick in hospitalization he’s talking about is an uptick from the mid-March low. But the April 2021 hospitalization rate for teens is still only about half the January 2021 rate (1.3 per 100,000 hospitalizations compared to 2.1 per 100,000). We are not looking at a doomsday trend here.

“The nation has to be fully and evenly vaccinated if we are to have any hope of navigating our way out of this epidemic. It’s also the surest way to protect young people in this region,” Hotez writes.³⁷

I disagree. Already last year, in 2020, data suggested the vast majority of the global population already had full or partial natural immunity. Initially, experts estimated that 70% of the population or more would need to be exposed and develop immunity before natural herd immunity would be achieved.³⁸

By mid-October 2020, more than a dozen scientists claimed the herd immunity threshold is actually somewhere between 43% and 9%, which means a vast majority of the global population — by then — were already at very low risk of serious illness.^{39,40,41,42,43} Data from Stockholm, Sweden, which didn’t shut down during 2020, showed a herd immunity threshold of 17%.⁴⁴

Contrast that to the COVID jabs, which do NOT actually make you immune. You can still contract the illness and spread the virus. The vaccine makers admit the design of the shots mean they will only lessen your symptoms if or when you get infected. Theoretically, this will prevent or lower your risk of hospitalization and death.

However, on the flipside, scientists have fervently warned that the COVID shots may trigger antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE), making vaccinated individuals far more prone to serious complications and death when encountering the wild virus.

Children and teens also are not dying from COVID-19 in droves. In fact, they’re not dying from it at all, so the idea that they are in dire need of gene therapy is simply not true.

No Need to Fear Mutations

Watch the video here.

Is there cause to be concerned about the new Delta variant? Or any other variant for that matter? According to Michael Yeadon, Ph.D., a life science researcher and former vice-president and chief scientist of allergy and respiratory research at Pfizer, the answer is a firm “no.” In the interview above, which is part of the full-length documentary “Planet Lockdown,”⁴⁵ Yeadon explains why.

“Basically, everything your government has told you about this virus, everything you need to do to stay safe, is a lie,” Yeadon says. “Every part of it … None of the key themes that you hear talked about — from asymptomatic transmission to top-up vaccines [i.e., booster shots] — not one of those things is supported by the science.

Every piece is cleverly chosen adjacently to something that probably is true, but is itself a lie, and has led people to where we are right now.”

When it comes to your susceptibility to variants, mutated versions of SARS-CoV-2, your resilience is not dependent on antibodies as much as it’s dependent on your T-cell immunity, also known as cellular immunity. Yeadon explains:

“You’ve got four or five different arms of the immune system: innate immunity, mucosal, antibody, T-cells and compliment[ary systems]. There are all of these different wonderful systems that have integrated, one with another, because it needs to defend you against all sorts of different threats in the environment.

What I’m telling you is that the emphasis on antibodies in respect of respiratory viral infections is wrong, and you can establish that quite easily by doing some searching …

I’m not saying antibodies have no role, but they’re really not very important. This has been proven. There are some people in whom a natural experiment has occurred. They have a defect and they actually don’t make antibodies, but they’re able to fight off COVID-19, the virus SARS-CoV-2, quite well.

The way they do that is, they have T-cell immunity, cellular immunity. [T-cells] are cells that are trained to detect virus-infected cells and to kill those cells.

That’s how you defend yourself against a virus. So, all of these mentions of antibody levels, it’s just bunk. It is not a good measure of whether or not you’re immune. It does give evidence that you’ve been infected, but their persistence is not important as to whether you’ve got immunity …

We’ve known this for decades. We’ve known about T-cells for decades. They were clearly in my undergraduate textbooks. And we’ve known about their importance in defending you against respiratory viruses since probably the 1970s, certainly the 1980s …

It’s quite normal for RNA viruses like SARS-CoV-2, when it replicates, to make typographical errors. It’s got a very good error detection, error correction system so it doesn’t make too many typos, but it does make some, and those are called ‘variants.’

It’s really important to know that if you find the variant that’s most different from the sequence identified in Wuhan, that variance … is only 0.3% different from the original sequence.

I’ll say it another way. If you find the most different variance, it’s 99.7% identical to the original one, and I can assure you … that amount of difference is absolutely NOT possibly able to represent itself to you as a different virus. [So] when your government scientists tell you that a variant that’s 0.3% different from SARS-CoV-2 could masquerade as a new virus and be a threat to your health, you should know, and I’m telling you, they are lying.”

To recap, what Yeadon is saying is that a virus cannot mutate into a version that is so dissimilar from the original that your body cannot identify it. If you have T cell immunity, your immune system will recognize the mutated virus and take care of it, just as it would with the original version of the virus.

He explains how, earlier in the pandemic, scientists obtained blood from patients who had been sickened with the SARS virus 17 or 18 years ago. SARS-CoV-1, responsible for that SARS outbreak, is only 80% similar to SARS-CoV-2. They wanted to know if the immune systems of these patients would be able to recognize SARS-CoV-2 — which they did. They still had memory T-cells against SARS-CoV-1, and those cells also recognized SARS-CoV-2, despite being only 80% similar.

Now, if a 20% difference was not enough to circumvent the immune system of these patients, why should you be concerned with a variant that is at most 0.3% different from the original SARS-CoV-2? And why would we need booster shots for these near-identical variants?

Booster Shots, a Trojan Horse?

Yeadon is extremely suspicious of the intentions behind booster shots for different variants, saying:

“You should be terrified at this point, as I am, because there’s absolutely no possible justification for their manufacture. There’s no possible benign interpretation of this. I believe they [the booster shots] are going to be used to damage your health and possibly kill you. Seriously. I can see no sensible interpretation other than a serious attempt at mass depopulation.

This will provide the tools to do it, and plausible deniability. They’ll create another story about some sort of biological threat and you’ll line up and get your top-up vaccines, and a few months or a year or so later, you’ll die of some peculiar inexplicable syndrome. And they won’t be able to associate it with the vaccines.

That’s my belief — that they’re lying to you about variants so they can make damaging top-up vaccines that you don’t need at all. I think they will be used for malign purposes …”

Reject the ‘New Normal’ and Reclaim Your Life

Until or unless someone in the know steps up to the plate with a confession, we have no way of knowing whether depopulation is actually an intended outcome of these shots. Still, even if there’s no ill intent behind them, the real-world outcome may still be a mass-casualty event.

What seems clearer is that world leaders are sowing fear that is wildly disproportionate to the actual health threat of this virus and its variants, and the most logical reason for this is because they need this pandemic to continue in order to usher in the Great Reset.

The Great Reset, in turn, is part of a parallel agenda built around transhumanist ideologies, ideas and ideals, where man is merged with machine and biologically controlled through the use of nanotechnology and digital surveillance.

If I’m correct, then the COVID pandemic narrative will continue to be spun, not for the next several months but years. The fearmongering will persist until permanent tracking has been implemented, getting regular gene therapy injections have become the norm and no one does anything unless government says it’s OK. In other words, until life has been permanently turned into a hell fit for robots alone.

In the video below, talkRADIO host Julia Hartley-Brewer shares her opinion on the matter, saying that if the U.K. does not open on “Freedom Day,” June 21, 2021, as planned, then lockdowns are likely to continue forever.

She points out that the “vaccines” are working better than anyone dared hope, and a far larger portion of the population than expected have willingly taken them. People are as safe as they’re ever going to get, yet government is still vacillating, saying it’s not enough. It’s time to go back to the old normal where people are free to live their own lives, Hartley-Brewer says, and she’s absolutely right.

Boris Johnson will announce a four week delay to lockdown lifting. But Julia says: "We have to get out of this and if it's not now, it may be never. We need to get back to the old normal where we have our freedom."@JuliaHB1 pic.twitter.com/slAnzM5xVx

— talkRADIO (@talkRADIO) June 14, 2021

The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) recently posted more than 50 video presentations from the pay-for-view Fifth International Public Conference on Vaccination held online October 16 to 18, 2020, and made them available to everyone for free.

The conference’s theme was “Protecting Health and Autonomy in the 21st Century” and it featured physicians, scientists and other health professionals, human rights activists, faith community leaders, constitutional and civil rights attorneys, authors and parents of vaccine injured children talking about vaccine science, policy, law and ethics and infectious diseases, including coronavirus and COVID-19 vaccines.

In December 2020, a U.K. company published false and misleading information about NVIC and its conference, which prompted NVIC to open up the whole conference for free viewing. The conference has everything you need to educate yourself and protect your personal freedoms and liberties with respect to your health.

Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity. I was a speaker at this empowering conference and urge you to watch these video presentations before they’re censored and taken away by the technocratic elite.

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Notes

^{1, 2, 3, 4, 21} The Hill June 10, 2021

⁵ Aljazeera May 23, 2021

^{6, 8, 9, 17} Daily Mail June 13, 2021, Updated June 14, 2021

⁷ Public Health England Briefing 15 June 3, 2021

¹⁰ Investment Watch Blog June 13, 2021

¹¹ Yahoo! News June 15, 2021

^12, 13 CBS News Scott Gottlieb Transcript June 13, 2021

¹⁴ National Review May 6, 2020

¹⁵ Unherd.com June 4, 2020

¹⁶ The New York Times December 21, 2020

¹⁸ Daily Mail June 13, 2021, Updated June 14, 2021, Graph: Number of deaths per day in the UK

^19, 36 CDC MMWR June 11, 2021; 70(23): 851-857

²⁰ The Defender June 4, 2021

²² Freedom of Speech May 24, 2021

²³ The Last American Vagabond May 27, 2021

²⁴ The Last American Vagabond May 30, 2021

²⁵ SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccine BNT162 Biodistribution Study

²⁶ Trialsitenews May 28, 2021

²⁷ The Last American Vagabond June 12, 2021

^28, 35, 37 Daily Beast June 11, 2021

²⁹ NVIC March 10, 2018

³⁰ Health Choice February 20, 2018

³¹ Vaccine Reaction March 19, 2017

³² Scientific American March 3, 2017

³³ Free Speech and Shutting Down the Vaccine Debate

³⁴ Joe Rogan Experience #1261, Peter Hotez on Vaccines

³⁸ Immunity May 19, 2020; 52(5): 737–741

³⁹ The New York Times April 23, 2020

⁴⁰ medRxiv September 10, 2020 DOI: 10.1101/2020.09.06.20189290

⁴¹ medRxiv August 31, 2020 DOI: 10.1101/2020.07.23.20160762

⁴² Cornell University arXiv.org May 6, 2020

⁴³ Science August 14, 2020; 369(6505): 846-849

⁴⁴ medRxiv May 22, 2020 DOI: 10.1102/2020.05.19.20104596 (PDF)

⁴⁵ Planet Lockdown

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***

Netanyahu’s 15 years as prime minister have come to an end, but his legacy lives on. If there were questions about what exactly that legacy might be, the never-shy Bibi was quick to list his accomplishments in a “valedictory speech” before the Knesset.

In Trump-like fashion, he boasted that he, and he alone: made Israel a “global power” — able to stand up to enemies; resisted pressure from allies to stop building settlements; ended Israel’s “socialist economy” transforming the country into a free-market haven; challenged the old doctrine of “land for peace” and replaced it with “peace for peace” without surrendering an inch of land or “uprooting a single Jew from his home”; gave Israel uncontested military might able to operate anywhere in the region; “transformed Israel into a cyber power”; and paved the way for Donald Trump to end the “Iran deal” and recognise Israeli control over all of Jerusalem.

What interested me most about Netanyahu’s presentation was the way it revealed the extent to which he has operated according to the same playbook throughout his entire career and, although he’ll never acknowledge it, he has had accomplices both writing the playbook and implementing it.

Netanyahu is sometimes viewed as a maneuvrer with no goal other than personal power. That is simply not true. He is, and has always been, an ideologue, a neo-conservative ideologue.

The Netanyahu family ties with American neo-conservatives go back to BenZion’s (Benjamin’s father) role in helping to launch the movement in the late 1970s. In Bibi’s writings and public speaking, he has always adhered to the neocon’s Manichean apocalyptic world view: that there is absolute good (Israel and the West) and absolute evil (the rest); that good must fight evil with unrelenting overwhelming force; that weakness or compromise is unacceptable; and that victory is assured.

Shortly after the 1993 White House signing of the Oslo Accords, Netanyahu and a few Israeli colleagues, launched an initiative to sabotage the agreements which they identified as a sign of weakness and compromise with evil. They lobbied members of Congress sending regular faxes making the case that the PLO wasn’t to be trusted and that steps must be taken to abort the agreement because of the dangers it posed to Israel and America.

One of Netanyahu’s main allies in Congress was Newt Gingrich. When Republicans gained control of Congress and Gingrich became speaker of the House in 1995, the matchup in Washington became Clinton/Rabin supporting the Oslo Accords versus Gingrich/Netanyahu opposing them. Never before had an Israeli opposition party challenged its own government in Washington. Rabin was incensed and angrily condemned this effort.

Back in Israel, Rabin was so demonised by opponents of Oslo, that he was eventually assassinated in 1995 for what they called “his act of treason”, a murder that Rabin’s widow always maintained was the result of Netanyahu’s incitement against her husband.

When Netanyahu was elected prime minister in 1996 on a platform committed to ending the peace process, Gingrich invited him to address a joint session of Congress. In preparation for his speech, Netanyahu’s American neocon advisers wrote a position paper for him devoted to “Making a Clean Break” from weaknesses that characterised the former Israeli government. It emphasised the need to project power to affirm the moral superiority of Israel and the West and the resolve to resist pressure from those who sought compromise.

They stressed undoing the “peace process” with the Palestinians, weakening the PLO, creating alternatives to its leadership, and blocking any official Palestinian presence in Jerusalem. They also called for building regional alliances based on strength to confront enemies, singling out Syria and removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Additionally, they called for eliminating US economic aid to reduce any possible future source of pressure, while maintaining US military aid, enabling Israel to continue to fight the West’s and its enemies.

That was 1996. In 15 of the next 25 years, Netanyahu has done what he set out to do, at enormous cost. But he didn’t do it alone. He had enablers, in Congress and in the George W. Bush and Trump administrations.  First and foremost were his neo-conservative allies, who helped develop his plan and aided and abetted him along the way. Playing a supporting role were weak-kneed Democrats who refused to see the game that was afoot and hesitated to block this insidious design.

Here’s what they did to enable Netanyahu’s “accomplishments”, making it ludicrous for him to claim that he and he alone is responsible for Israel’s “successes”.

It is hard to make the case that Israel became economically and militarily powerful on its own and is a model capitalist society, when the US annually gives an unrestricted $3.8 billion in military aid some of which goes to Israel’s own weapons industry allowing it to become a major arms exporter. For years the US has contributed additional billions to jump-start Israel’s high-tech sector and underwrites billions of dollars in unrestricted loan guarantees. And it allows tax-exempt donations from US groups to provide everything from support for social services to illegal land purchases and development in the occupied lands.

It is also hard for Netanyahu to claim that he stands up to the US when he is only able to do so because Israel has the support of Republicans who have thrice invited him to address joint sessions of Congress to “stand up” against Democratic presidents. If it were not for the US turning a blind eye and/or providing protective cover and sanctions against international bodies, Israel would be penalised for its illegal behaviours.

Claiming, therefore, that it was his leadership that made Israel strong and able to resist pressure takes chutzpah to say the least.

It is patently false for Netanyahu to claim that Israel and the West are more secure and the “forces of good” have prevailed because of his leadership and his neocon allies. Today, the Middle East is a mess, still reeling from the disastrous Iraq war which did remove Saddam, but unleashed and emboldened Iran and caused extremist movements to grow and metastasize, leaving the US to face a multipolar region in turmoil. As we have recently witnessed, despite the boasts and bravado, Israel while militarily strong is internally fractured and most definitely not at peace because Palestinians, despite decades of oppression, continue to rise in fierce opposition to the denial of their rights.

This is Netanyahu’s legacy. Not his boasts of success, but chaos so great and a hole so deep that it will take decades before we can see real peace and stability based on justice and rights, not on false claims of strength.

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“Not since the conquistadores plundered Latin America has the world experienced a flow (of wealth from poor countries to rich) in the direction we see today” (Morris Miller(1)) 

Advanced nations have tried to force poor countries to participate in what is called free trade. This is a propaganda term to mislead people into being uncritical of what actually happens. This post explains what free trade really means.

The Opposite of Free Trade is Properly Regulated Trade 

Most countries have to trade with other countries so that they can buy things that they cannot produce. Lots of countries do not have their own oil or gas deposits to provide energy, and many do not have the facilities to produce advanced goods. In order to have foreign currency to make these purchases, they need to sell something themselves. Free trade means that there should be as few obstacles as possible to trade between countries. However, many of the rules that exist to regulate trade exist for good reasons: to protect the health of workers and customers; to stop the use of poisonous chemicals in products; or to enable the development of new industries. If trade is not properly regulated, it can have disastrous consequences. If trade is properly regulated, it can provide jobs and technologies that will help poor countries to rapidly become wealthier, and solve their poverty issues.

There are no level playing fields

As with ‘free markets’, the term ‘free trade’ (sometimes called liberalisation) sounds like a wonderful theory in a textbook. Every business from every country competes with as few rules as possible, and with no assistance from government, so no business has any unfair advantages. This is supposed to create what is called a level playing field.

In the real world, we start from a position of extreme inequality. Big corporations have huge marketing budgets, they can easily borrow large amounts of money and they employ armies of lawyers, accountants and tax specialists to give them every possible advantage. They have connections with other businesses, they can hide money offshore, they pay bigger bribes, and for short periods they can offer prices so low that they can put local competitors out of business. They also receive help from their own government. Small companies in poor countries do not have these advantages. What we get in the real world has been compared to a match between a team of professional footballers (the biggest corporations) and children who are still learning to walk (the small businesses of the developing world). The big companies almost always win, and the small companies go out of business. 

Forced Trade – End Subsidies and Tariffs in Poor Countries 

Businesses and industries often make little profit when they are new or developing and are therefore vulnerable to going bankrupt. For this reason it is important for governments to be able to assist them in the early stages. The idea of protecting developing industries has been compared to protecting and educating a child as it grows up.(2) We do not expect children to compete for jobs, because they require many years of learning, experimenting and making mistakes before they are ready to look after themselves. The same is true of businesses in developing countries. They have to be allowed to protect themselves against competition. This is known as infant industry protection and can be achieved using tariffs. Tariffs are where goods from foreign producers are taxed more than goods from local producers. This not only protects local industries, it also raises money for governments.

Over the years, almost all advanced nations have protected their industries against the downsides of competition. From 1790-1914, tariffs were the biggest source of income for the US government, before income taxes became more important.(3) Recently developed countries, like Taiwan and South Korea, were very careful to make sure that only some of their markets were opened up to foreign competitors, and then only gradually. If Japan had adopted free trade after World War 2, it would have been “unable to break away from the Asian pattern of stagnation and poverty.”(4) The car company Toyota provides one of the shining examples of what can be achieved if a country protects its developing industries. A few decades ago, Toyota cars were badly made and inefficient in comparison to those from Europe and the US. Toyota would have gone out of business if it had been forced to compete against Western rivals. By protecting it, Japan now has the most advanced car company in the world.(5)

The downside of tariffs is that they make goods more expensive for the buyer. The point here is not to suggest that tariffs are ideal, merely to state that poor countries must be allowed to protect industries if they want to. The US, Britain and many other rich nations still have tariffs on some good,(6) but as with so many other double standards throughout the world, they try to force poor countries to remove theirs.

De-industrialisation 

We saw in an earlier post that advanced nations subsidise their businesses. When big, subsidised corporations from rich countries compete against unprotected, smaller businesses in poor countries, the end result is that the smaller businesses go bust. When Jamaica was forced to open up its trade to big overseas corporations, subsidised, powdered milk from the US was cheaper than fresh milk from local cows. Many milk sellers in Jamaica went out of business, almost overnight.(7) When Haiti was forced to open up its markets, rice growers and poultry farmers went out of business. After local producers have been eliminated, those countries become dependent on food exports from advanced nations. This is known as ‘food dependency’ and is a deliberate goal of US policy.(8)

In the Ivory Coast, the chemical, textile, automobile and shoe industries collapsed. In Kenya, the sugar, tobacco, beverages and textiles industries have struggled to survive. When Nigeria opened up to foreign competition, 35 textile mills closed and 200,000 workers lost their jobs.(9) This is not limited to a handful of examples. This process has led to the de-industrialisation of many countries – the opposite of what they need to do to become advanced nations.

Propaganda distorts our understanding of subsidies and protection 

The rules on subsidies, tariffs and trade are one of the more obvious areas of double standards and outright deceit by business leaders, politicians and trade negotiators from rich countries. This is what some writers(10) call ‘really existing capitalism’. It has nothing to do with competition or market forces. The rules are wrong twice over. Rich countries provide unnecessary subsidies to big corporations, but at the same time, poor countries are forced to remove necessary protection for their industries. The media does occasionally discuss this, but the debate is misleading. It tends to focus only on rich-country subsidies to farmers, without explaining all of the other subsidies that businesses in rich countries receive, and without discussing the need for  protection in poor countries.

It is important to stress that even without the rich-country subsidies, most big corporations from rich countries would still be likely to dominate in the developing world, so poor countries must be able to protect their developing industries if they choose. Traders in poor countries will never be successful if they have to compete against big corporations before they are ready.

Rich people love free trade 

When a poor country opens up its borders to products from advanced nations, there is an influx of higher end consumer goods such as tv’s and fridges made in rich countries. They are widely purchased by rich and upper middle class people in the poor country. Their standard of living goes up – how could anyone object? But there is a bigger picture. What happens to the white goods industry in the poor country? Either it doesn’t already exist, in which case it will never exist at all, or it is in the early stages of development, in which case it is unable to compete with better products from overseas, and will tend to be destroyed. The long-term problem is that poor countries will find it difficult to ever develop advanced industries.

Rich people in poor countries are unaware, or do not care, that their own domestic industries are being destroyed. They also do not care that they are surrounded by poverty. For most of them, they have always been surrounded by poverty. They like having large numbers of extremely poor people to work for them as domestic servants at extremely low pay. Rich people prefer not to discuss the idea that many policies which work for them are disastrous for others.

When the mainstream media are discussing trade, they mostly focus on the improvements for the rich, and sometimes the middle class, and generally overlook the downsides for the poor, and the long-term downsides for the country.

Free Trade is Propaganda to Conceal Corporate Exploitation 

Free trade and the free movement of money have the following real purposes(11):

• They allow investors to move money freely.
• They allow investors and companies to set up complex international structures to manipulate prices and profits.
• They enable companies from advanced nations to extract raw materials in other countries on unfair terms.
• They enable companies from advanced nations to sell in other countries, eliminating local production.
• They enable companies from advanced nations to access cheap labour in poor countries.

When discussing a trade agreement between the US and Columbia, one commentator summarized it as follows: 

“what actually happens is that jobs leave the richer nation and go to the country where workers are paid a pittance, while goods from the richer country flood the poorer, pushing out indigenous production”(12)

Negotiators often use the term ‘trade agreements’, when what they really mean is ‘agreements that give investors more power than governments.’ The combination of trade policies and the integration of poor countries into a global system of trade is sometimes called globalisation. One critical commentator said: 

“globalization is what we in the third world have for several centuries called colonization.”(13)

Properly Regulated Trade Works Really Well 

It is certainly true that some countries have used unnecessary regulations to enrich people with government connections. The former British Ambassador, Craig Murray, has written about his experiences in Uzbekistan, where the dictator enriched himself and his friends by controlling many industries.(14) Other countries have unnecessary bureaucracy, which creates opportunities for bribery and corruption. However, these are not arguments for free trade. They are arguments for properly regulated trade. 

A small group of countries have made spectacular progress in the last 75 years, since 1945. South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and Israel were actively assisted by the US because they were useful to the US for political purposes.(15) They are often held up as examples of rapid development using free trade, but this is propaganda. Representatives from those governments, together with numerous academic studies, have shown that these countries did not follow free-market policies. They did what other advanced nations did to become successful. They protected developing industries against competition from overseas, and they provided government assistance to key industries and exporters. The same is now true of China.

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Rod Driver is a part-time academic who is particularly interested in de-bunking modern-day US and British propaganda, and explaining war, terrorism, economics and poverty, without the nonsense in the mainstream media. This article was first posted at medium.com/elephantsintheroom 

Notes 

1) Morris Miller, Former executive director of the World Bank, cited in Abdul Satter, ‘Is the IMF the cure?’, at https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/467953-is-the-imf-the-cure, also discussed in Mark Curtis, Ambiguities of Power, p.230

2) Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans

3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_in_American_history

4) Vice President of Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry, cited in Mark Curtis, The Great Deception, p.100

5) Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans, pp.19-21

6) BBC, ‘Trade wars, Trump tariffs and protectionism explained’, 10 May 2019, at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-43512098

7) ‘WTO Agreement On Agriculture: The Implementation Experience, Jamaica’, at www.fao.org/DOCREP/005/Y4632E/y4632e0m.htm 

8) Michael Hudson, ‘Food blackmail, the Washington Consensus and Freedom’, 24 June 2019, at https://michael-hudson.com/2019/06/food-blackmail-the-washington-consensus-and-freedom/ 

9) Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans, p.68

10) Noam Chomsky, ‘Can civilization survive really existing capitalism’, 2013 University College Dublin Philosophy Society, 3 April 2013, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uuYjUxf6Uk

11) Matt Kennard, The Racket: A Rogue reporter vs the Master of the Universe, p.61-78

12) Matt Kennard, The Racket: A rogue reporter vs the masters of the universe, p.72

13) Martin Khor, cited in Matt Kennard, The Racket, p.57

14) Craig Murray, Murder in Samarkand, 2007

15) Robert Wade, ‘Escaping the Periphery: The East Asian ‘mystery solved’, WIDER Working Paper 2018/101, Sep 2018, at https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/escaping-periphery

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In an incident, a 22-year-old girl died of severe neurological complications after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine jab. Read to find out the symptoms you need to look out for post-vaccination.

In yet another shocking incident, a 22-year-old girl from Delhi suffered deadly neurological complications after receiving the COVID-19 vaccination and was declared brain dead at a hospital in the national capital. According to the primary reports, the girl has no history of any serious illness. “An autopsy report is awaited to confirm the cause of the death,” officials were quoted as saying.

The deceased girl’s family told a national newspaper that she was administered with the Covishield vaccine on June 2. Soon after she started developing chronic headache accompanied with high body temperature. The girl was rushed to the hospital where some of the reports suggested that she has blood clots in the brain’s venus sinuses due to which was platelet count was decreasing rapidly. According to the reports, the girl was admitted to a private hospital in Delhi’s Saket on June 14, and all the necessary arrangements were made to keep her safe. “On June 18, the girl was declared brain dead by the doctors at around 5am,” an official was quoted as saying.

The sources in NOTTO said that they since the girl died due to complications post-COVID vaccination, a postmortem report will be required to confirm whether the death was due to adverse effects of the vaccination or some other health abnormalities. “Postmortem is necessary in cases of suspected or confirmed Adverse Events Following Immunisation (AEFI) to know how vaccine related side-effects affect organs,” TOIquoted an official of NOTTO as saying.

Blood Clot Symptoms To Watch Out For After Taking Covishield

The Union health ministry had earlier listed a few symptoms of blood clot which everyone should look out for after taking the Covishield COVID-19 vaccine jab. “AEFI (Adverse Event Following Immunisation) data in India showed that there is a very miniscule but definitive risk of thromboembolic events,” the health ministry said in a statement, citing a report by the National AEFI Committee. What are these thromboembolic events? According to the experts, these refer to the formation of a clot in a blood vessel that might also break loose and be carried by the bloodstream to plug another vessel. The list of symptoms mentioned in the ministry’s advisory are:

• Difficulty in breathing
• Chronic chest pain
• Pain or unexplained swelling in limbs
• Persistent abdominal pain
• Severe and persistent headache
• Blurred vision or pain in eyes
• Brain fog
• Persistent vomiting without any reason

(Note: These symptoms, the ministry said, occur within 20 days of taking a shot — particularly Covishield)

Are COVID-19 Vaccine Safe?

The recent incident has again raised questions about the safety issues of COVID-19 vaccines. Although, the real cause of the death of the girl is yet to be confirmed, questions like whether vaccines can lead to serious health complications and eventually cause death or not is lingering in everyones mind. So, when it comes to the safety part of the vaccines — yes, they are safe and some post-vaccination symptoms are common and not at all life threatening. However, make sure to consult a doctor immediately in case you develop any persistent symptoms or the ones listed above.

What Do We Know So Far?

According to the guidelines by the health officials, everybody is safe to take the vaccine jab as the trial reports have proven the efficacies of each of the doses. Are vaccines safe? Yes, based on the research reports, the vaccines for COVID-19 have a very good safety profile. COVID-19 vaccines can help your body make antibodies to fight off the virus and keep you protected and safe. To go further into this topic, here are some guidelines for all those who must avoid taking the vaccine jab.

Who Should Not Take The COVID-19 Vaccine Jab?

India is currently administering two vaccines for the COVID-19 infections — Covishield and Covaxin. Here are a few things to keep in mind when you want to get the jab: Anyone who is allergic to the ingredients of the vaccine — must avoid taking it (or consult your physician before administering). Other than this anyone who is above 18 can get the jab. 

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In updated guidance, the World Health Organization said children have milder disease compared to adults and there is not enough evidence to recommend vaccinating children against COVID.

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) latest guidance clarifying who should get the COVID vaccine states, “Children should not be vaccinated for the moment.”

According to the WHO website:

“There is not yet enough evidence on the use of vaccines against COVID-19 in children to make recommendations for children to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Children and adolescents tend to have milder disease compared to adults.”

The WHO had previously said vaccinating children against COVID was not a priority given the limited global supply of doses, Fox News reported.

During a social media session June 3, Dr. Kate O’Brien, a pediatrician and director of the WHO’s vaccines department, said children should not be a focus of COVID immunization programs, even as increasing numbers of wealthy countries authorize the shots for teens and children.

“Children are at [a] very, very low risk of actually getting COVID disease,” said O’Brien. She said the rationale for immunizing children was to stop transmission rather than to protect them from getting sick or dying.

O’Brien added it wasn’t necessary to vaccinate children before sending them back to school safely.

“Immunization of children in order to send them back to school is not the predominant requirement for them to go back to school safely,” O’Brien said. “They can go back to school safely if what we’re doing is immunizing those who are around them who are at risk.”

The U.S., Canada and European Union have all given the green light to some COVID vaccines for children 12 to 15 years old. In the UK, a decision to vaccinate all 12- to 17-year-olds is unlikely to be recommended by experts anytime soon, BBC NEWS reported.

One argument for not vaccinating children against COVID is they get relatively little benefit from it.

“Fortunately one of the few good things about this pandemic is children are very rarely seriously affected by this infection,” said Adam Finn, who sits on the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

Infections in children are nearly always mild or asymptomatic, which is in sharp contrast to older age groups who have been prioritized by vaccination campaigns.

A study across seven countries — including the U.S. — published in the Lancet, found that fewer than two out of every 1 million children died with COVID during the pandemic.

Even children with medical conditions that would raise the risks of COVID infection in adults are not being vaccinated in the UK. Only those at “very high risk of exposure and serious outcomes” are recommended to be vaccinated.

For kids, benefits of COVID vaccines don’t outweigh risks

As The Defender reported, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on June 10 held a meeting  to discuss granting Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for COVID vaccines for children under 12. Numerous experts spoke out against the plan saying the benefits don’t outweigh the risks for young children.

Peter Doshi, Ph.D., associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and senior editor of The BMJ, said during the open public hearing session there is no emergency that would warrant using EUA to authorize COVID vaccines for children.

Pointing to Pfizer’s trial of 12- to15-year-olds which supported the recent EUA, Doshi said the harms outweighed the benefits, and those who had the placebo were “better off” than those who received the vaccine.

In terms of the benefits, Doshi said

“the reported 100% efficacy in Pfizer’s trial was based on 16 COVID cases in the placebo group versus none in the fully vaccinated group. But there were about 1,000 placebo recipients so just 2% got COVID. Put another way, 2% of the fully vaccinated avoided COVID, whereas 98% of the vaccinated wouldn’t have gotten COVID anyway.”

On the other side of the ledger, Doshi said, side effects were common:

“Three in 4 kids had fatigue and headaches, around half had chills and muscle pain, around 1 in 4 to 5 had fever and joint pain. The list goes on. In sum, all the fully vaccinated 12- to 15-year-olds avoided symptomatic COVID but most wouldn’t have gotten COVID even without the vaccine. So, the benefit is small but it came at the price of side effects that were mild to moderate in severity and lasted a few days.”

Doshi pointed to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showing 23% of 0- to 4-year-olds and 42% of 5- to17-year-olds have already had COVID and have robust natural immunity.

Kim Witczak, an FDA consumer representative, expressed great concerns over the premature approval of COVID vaccines for children. Witczak said data shows children are neither in danger or dangerous, and the growing evidence of harm caused by COVID vaccines should not be ignored.

Witczak and Doshi were two of 27 researchers and clinicians around the world who launched a citizen’s petition demanding the FDA withhold full approval of COVID vaccines until efficacy and safety measures are met.

Dr. Sidney Wolf, founder and senior advisor of Health Research Group, also pointed out during the FDA meeting that CDC data from Jan. 1 to March 31 showed only 204 hospitalizations and 0 deaths in the 12- to17-year-old age group due to COVID.

As The Defender reported May 26, two papers recently published in the journal of Hospital Pediatrics, found pediatric hospitalizations for COVID were overcounted by at least 40%, carrying potential implications for nationwide figures used to justify vaccinating children.

COVID vaccine causing heart inflammation in teens

Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, deputy director of the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office, said during the June 10 FDA meeting, “there are ‘very few’ reports of myocarditis or pericarditis in 12- to 15-year-olds who have been given coronavirus vaccines.”

However, the CDC data Shimabukuro presented showed a higher-than-expected number of cases of heart inflammation among young people recently vaccinated with their second doses of mRNA vaccine. The agency identified 226 reports that might meet the agency’s “working case definition” of myocarditis and pericarditis following the shots.

Among 16- to 17-year-olds through May 31, 79 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis were reported. The expected rate among people in this age group is between two and 19 cases, Shimabukuro said during his presentation.

CDC data also showed that among 18- to 24-year-olds, there were 196 reports of myocarditis and pericarditis. The expected rate is between eight and 83 cases.

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) scheduled an emergency meeting for June 18 to update data and further evaluate myocarditis following vaccination with Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. However, the CDC delayed the meeting until the June 23-25 ACIP meeting in observation of the Juneteenth National Independence Day holiday. Register here to watch Wednesday’s meeting.

According to the latest data from VAERS, there have been 1,117 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis (heart inflammation) in all age groups reported in the U.S. following COVID vaccination between Dec.14, 2020 and June 11, 2021. Of those, 109 reports occurred in children 12-to-17-years-old with 108 attributed to Pfizer.

Another horrifying story! OSU student, elite athlete + member of ROTC developed severe heart complications following his second dose of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine.

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— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) June 21, 2021

Currently, Pfizer’s COVID vaccine is authorized for emergency use in people as young as age 12. Moderna is authorized for people 18 and older, although the company has asked the FDA to authorize its use in children as young as 12. Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine is authorized in people 18 and older.

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Dr. Kelly Sutton risks losing her medical license for not strictly following CDC guidelines for writing vaccine medical exemptions. Attorney Greg Glaser, who represents Sutton, provided this eyewitness account.

A California physician could lose her medical license for not strictly following the guidelines for writing vaccine medical exemptions as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

Earlier this month, the Medical Board of California conducted a trial during which they heard testimony from witnesses in support of and those opposed to Dr. Kelly Sutton’s approach to writing vaccine medical exemptions for her patients.

The three-day trial, which ended June 16, took place in an administrative court with a single judge and no right to a jury. The judge is expected to issue a decision sometime in the fall of 2021 on whether or not to rescind Sutton’s medical license.

Sutton, an integrative physician, argued that her clinical observations confirm her unvaccinated patients are healthier than those who are vaccinated.

During her trial, Sutton was represented by health freedom attorney Rick Jaffe, who marshaled evidence from three top experts in defense of Sutton’s methods to protect patients from vaccine injury.

The state produced one expert, who lacked basic knowledge of vaccine risk, and who stated that all doctors should follow whatever the CDC’s one-size-fits-all vaccine schedule recommends at any given time.

Below are highlights from testimony provided during Sutton’s trial.

Sutton’s testimony on her behalf:

• Sutton provided thoughtful discussion of how she helps and heals patients. She is a doctor member of Physicians for Informed Consent (PIC), which puts patients first. She was humble throughout the trial, going out of her way to be kind to everyone involved in the proceeding — including the state expert testifying against her. Her kindness and credibility were so strong that even the prosecuting attorney was forced to change his tone of voice to lessen the blameful nature of his scripted words.
• Sutton did not need a script. She showcased her detailed scientific knowledge by explaining the biological mechanisms of disease and vaccine risk. At times the court reporter could not keep up with Sutton’s fluent use of scientific terminology.
  Sutton described how California’s Senate Bill 277 removed parental rights to medical decision-making and made the doctor’s discretion the standard for medical exemptions.
• Sutton discussed the process of meeting with integrative colleagues at PIC to arrive at best practices for medical exemptions.
• Sutton discussed the benefit of a physical exam for patient intake, and when it is needed (i.e., diagnosing an ear infection) versus when it is not needed (i.e., taking a family history). She also discussed the reality that certain patients cannot afford the time and/or money to conduct unnecessary physical exams.
• Sutton reviewed each of the relevant patient records cited by the medical board as evidence of Sutton’s non-compliance with CDC recommendations, focusing on vaccine risk based on the individual patients’ complex medical histories.
• Sutton emphasized her proactive approach to protect patient privacy when writing medical exemptions.
• Sutton discussed the extensive scientific citations she provided to the medical board to support her medical decisions, including Dr. Chris Exley’s findings on aluminum. The board tried to use a technical objection to prevent Sutton from introducing the science behind her decisions. However, during Jaffe’s questioning of Sutton, she was able to explain the science of vaccine risk.
• Sutton testified that doctors make a lot of money by giving vaccinations, but not a lot from writing medical exemptions. Indeed, there is no profit in writing medical exemptions, only prosecution — so the doctors who write them truly care for the patient’s best interest rather than pharma’s.
• Sutton testified that it is neither intelligent nor humane to force a family to continue to vaccinate after one of their children has already died or been injured by a vaccine.
• Sutton said the government’s failure to compare vaccinated persons to fully unvaccinated persons is a systematic and intentional blind spot in science designed to wrongfully promote vaccines.

State’s expert witness, Dr. Deborah Lehman, infectious disease physician at the University of California, Los Angeles:

• Lehman repeatedly claimed that, as a physician, her one-size-fits-all vaccine opinion was medical fact and should not be challenged.
• During cross examination, Lehman was asked to quantify the risk of all vaccine injuries. Lehman responded, “I don’t think I need a number …  I can’t give you a number.” She stated, “I don’t need to cite articles in my report, because the science has been decided … If you want answers to these questions, I would refer you to the CDC.” Lehman ignored that the only way to obtain the vaccine injury rate is to compare vaccinated people to fully unvaccinated people. She did not appear to know that the government refuses to study the fully unvaccinated, but instead only compares vaccinated patients to other vaccinated patients.
• Lehman testified she had never heard of Dr. Peter Aaby, one of the world’s foremost vaccine experts who has published more than 400 articles on PubMed. Lehman, who has published about 15 articles on PubMed, tried to dismiss Aaby’s publications on vaccine danger by falsely claiming Aaby published in a low-impact journal. Lehman stated she would never read this type of research by Aaby, and that it is the same kind of “anti-vax” information found through a Google search.
• Lehman testified she is not aware of any pertussis vaccine deaths. She claimed if there were any deaths caused by the pertussis vaccine she would have heard about them. Her callous admission proves her ignorance of even basic information from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System or any other source.
• Lehman admitted she has never personally written a medical exemption. At most she communicated with other doctors that all medical exemptions should adhere to the one-size-fits-all per the ACIP’s contraindications.
• Lehman testified she didn’t know about the mandatory vaccine law at issue in the case, namely the California Health and Safety Code section 120370, authorizing medical exemptions.
• Lehman at one point angrily blurted out, “We’re being saved by COVID vaccines.”
• Lehman repeatedly used nebulous phrases such “greater risk” and “lower risk,” yet never cited any risk value numbers with the exception of a handful of false numbers. For example, in one instance she falsely cited a 1/1,000 death rate for measles cases. This is a false number because it is based only on reported cases and ignores the fact that only about 1/10 cases are reported.
• Lehman criticized Sutton’s already vaccinated patients for having some infections. Lehman did not see the self-contradicting nature of her own testimony. In other words, Lehman overlooked that vaccines are causing increased risk of infection in already vaccinated patients. She ignored published studies and Sutton’s observation that patients experience less infection over time as they stop vaccinating, and fully unvaccinated patients are the healthiest of all.
• Lehman testified the standard of care is whether another physician would treat the medical issue the same or similarly. But she intentionally omitted the phrase “in the same community,” meaning that the standard of care is not simply “another physician” but “another physician in the same community.” Sutton is in the integrative medicine community, of which Lehman is not a member. It is common for conventional physicians to use one-size-fits-all thinking.
• Lehman testified that before the meningococcal vaccine, she performed several lumbar punctures to treat meningitis. However, Lehman never stated how many of the meningitis patients were already vaccinated with meningococcal and other vaccines (i.e., polio vaccine).
• Lehman testified that children with asthma have a higher rate of morbidity and mortality. But Lehman failed to provide any numerical risk value for her testimony. For example, she cited no studies showing health outcomes of children with asthma when vaccines are stopped versus when vaccines are continued. In fact, no such studies exist to support Lehman’s position. Moreover, Lehman didn’t cite any of the studies linking asthma to increased risk from vaccination. It is common for conventional doctors to lack knowledge that common chronic illnesses are proven to be immune-mediated and caused by vaccination.
• Lehman testified “febrile seizures have no long-lasting effect.” Her testimony directly contradicts even government-accepted scientific evidence that approximately 5% of febrile seizures develop into full-blown epilepsy.

Defense expert Dr. Andrew Zimmerman, pediatric neurologist:

• Zimmerman is a highly published pediatric neurology expert, with expertise in diagnosing and treating autism, mitochondrial dysfunction and many other conditions.
• Zimmerman testified that Sutton followed the community standard of care to protect her patients outside the narrow CDC/ACIP guidelines. With expert attention to detail about neurodevelopmental disorders, Zimmerman agreed with Sutton’s risk assessments to protect her patients. He discussed the interaction between the immune system and the brain.

Defense expert Dr. James Neuenschwander, family physician with vaccine expertise:

• Neuenschwander treats chronic illness, including autism. He attends ACIP meetings and has offered public comment. He does not administer vaccines.
• Neuenschwander cited a bell curve phenomenon, which represents an inverse relationship: 10% of people who fail to respond to a vaccine compared to 10% of people who overreact to a vaccine. His example illustrates a point often overlooked by mainstream scientists.
• Neuenschwander explained that vaccines cause the immune system to remain in hyperactivation, creating vaccine injuries like brain inflammation.
• Neuenschwander said autoimmune conditions result when the vaccine creates antibodies against the human body itself through the mechanism of chronic immune activation. Neuenschwander cited scientific evidence to support the fact that it is logical for Sutton to ask patients about their personal and family history risk factors, such as recurring infections, asthma and autism.
• Neuenschwander discussed vaccines one by one to show how conventional physicians exaggerate infection risk. Neuenschwander confirmed conventional physicians are vaccinating for rare diseases on the CDC schedule while failing to ask about vaccine injury.  Neuenschwander emphasized that even common diseases have questionably effective vaccines, such as flu which has a high vaccine failure rate.
• Neuenschwander said the CDC/ACIP system categorically fails to properly study vaccine injury, by comparing vaccinated individuals to unvaccinated individuals, despite the CDC’s admission in a 2016 white paper showing such a study could be done.
• Neuenschwander cited numbers throughout his testimony. For example, he exposed Lehman’s above-referenced lie about 1/1000 measles deaths (where Lehman falsely only included reported measles cases rather than all measles cases). Neuenschwander cited the correct numbers.
• Neuenschwander highlighted the three recent published peer-reviewed studies, Mawson 2017, Hooker 2020 and Thomas 2020, showing the unvaccinated are exponentially healthier than the vaccinated. He also explained Aaby’s findings showing a five-fold increased death rate from diphtheria vaccines in Africa.
• Neuenschwander cited government admissions, for example Institute of Medicine (IOM) publications, revealing a lack of data on vaccine safety and absence of government studies on vaccinated v. fully unvaccinated patients.

Defense expert Dr. LeTrinh Hoang, pediatrician:

• Hoang is an experienced integrative pediatrician in California with a busy and successful clinic.
• Hoang emphasized integrative medicine’s role to protect patients in ways conventional medicine systemically fails. Hoang criticized one-size-fits-all vaccination, and the specific ways ACIP/CDC creates a ridiculously limited vaccine contraindication list that ignores entire areas of independent research and clinical findings.
• Hoang criticized Lehman’s casual approach to vaccine injury.
• Hoang emphasized her clinical experience that unvaccinated patients are exceptionally healthy, by contrast to vaccine-injured patients whom she must heal regularly and on an ongoing basis because of their chronic illnesses.

Society is learning valuable lessons from this trial about vaccine injury, including about the consequences of allowing biotechnology to disrupt natural human immune systems.

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Greg Glaser, J.D. is a vaccine rights attorney with a litigation and transactional law background.

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The US pullout from Afghanistan is moving according to plan, while the Taliban are capturing district after district.

On June 21st, Taliban fighters took control of a key district in Afghanistan’s northern Kunduz province, encircling the capital of the same name.

Fighting around the Imam Sahib district began late on June 20th and by midday the next day, the Taliban had overrun the district headquarters and were in control of the police headquarters.

Imam Sahib is strategically located near Afghanistan’s northern border with Tajikistan, a key supply route from Central Asia.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed confirmed that the Imam Sahib district was in Taliban hands.

Dozens of districts have fallen to the Taliban since May 1, when U.S. and NATO troops began their final departure from Afghanistan.

The Taliban have taken several regions across the three northern provinces of Kunduz, Baghlan and Balkh.

Significantly, witnesses said the Doshi district in Baghlan province was in Taliban hands.

This means the Taliban have assumed control of the one road that links five northern provinces to the capital Kabul.

Government forces later claimed the recapture of the Doshi area, but the Taliban is still active in the district, capturing more areas and seizing more military equipment in bases left by national forces.

Similarly, to the Imam Sahib district in northern Kunduz, the significance of the captured districts often lies in their proximity to roads and major cities.

The Maywand district in Kandahar province fell to the Taliban after a tunnel bombing targeting the main Afghanistan Armed Forces base in the area.

The Taliban have circulated videos on their website and to WhatsApp groups in which they claim show government soldiers who have surrendered being promised to return to their homes and receiving money from the Taliban.

On June 20th, Taliban leader Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhunzada issued a statement ordering his soldiers to “treat those who surrender well and display good behavior with them.”

The Afghan Armed Forces, in response, continue their operations, but they have had limited success, despite reports of heavy casualties on the Taliban side.

147 Taliban militants were killed and 53 others were wounded as a result of Afghan Army operations in Nangarhar, Laghman, Uruzgan, Kandahar, Zabul, Faryab, Balkh, Helmand, Nimruz and Kunduz provinces just on June 20, according to the Afghan Defense Ministry.

Instead of gains in these provinces, the Afghan Armed Forces are losing ground.

US President Joe Biden will meet Afghan President Ashraf Ghani soon, the White House said.

Biden’s talks with Ghani will be their first face-to-face meeting.

The US leader is set to pledge diplomatic, economic and humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan to prevent it from becoming a haven for militants.

Meanwhile, Turkey is attempting to implement itself into the solution in Afghanistan, and assume control of Kabul International Airport, how it will potentially fare against the Taliban remains a mystery.

Any significant success is mostly unexpected.

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This article has been revised as of 8:05 PM EST after the World Health Organization literally sanitized their website to erase any mention of a guidance that they issued on June 3rd (this is WHO’s achieved page that contains the version they deleted) concerning the “vaccination” of children and adolescents for Covid-19. Up until an hour ago, WHO’s position was that children should not get “vaccinated” because, in their words, “there is not yet enough evidence on the use of vaccines against COVID-19 in children to make recommendations for children to be vaccinated against COVID-19”. 

It is beyond breathtaking that a renowned global institution with the status and name recognition of WHO would stoop so low as to rescind a guidance that was made by public health officials within the organization in an effort to protect children from a “vaccine” that is clearly unsafe given the rash of children and young adults who are developing debilitating and potentially life long ailments like myocarditis, blood clots and even death.

What WHO did today by issuing a warning that children should not get “vaccinated” and then expunging it is even worse than not acknowledging the perils of these experimental boosters that are being pumped into the arms of billions of people around the world. Beyond the fact that they proved the point I raised yesterday, which is that unelected and unaccountable billionaires like Bill and Melinda Gates have a veto power over global institutions that are dedicated to public health policies, WHO is now endangering the lives of tens of millions of children around the world by encouraging them to get jabbed with “vaccines” that are not yet proven safe according to their own guidance.

This is an issue that hits close to home for me not only for me but for billions of people around the world. As a father of a two year old and someone who lost his mother to Covid-19 last year, I am beyond enraged that WHO, at the prodding of their corporate masters, are playing politics with something as serious and grave as this dreaded pandemic. They have confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that their concern is not about public safety nor the wellness of society, this is all about money and protecting the interests of powerful entities that stand to lose billions of dollars if people don’t continue to get jabbed.

The rest of this article, after this paragraph, is preserved as it was published two hours before WHO deleted their guidance. I had to use a screen shot of their original statement because it is no longer available on their website. You can compare for yourself what they are now saying compared to the screenshot you see below. This type of censorship is the stuff of Joseph Stalin who used to execute his enemies and delete any evidence of their existence. Today, WHO joined Stalin in the hall of shameful conduct as they executed truth and then deleted it from their website.

In a shocking development that caught the establishment by complete surprise, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued an alarm urging children and adolescents to avoid getting “vaccinated” for Covid-19. The following statement is lifted directly from WHO’s website:

This guidance that was issued by WHO on June 3rd was just deleted in an effort to keep the public in the dark and keep encouraging parents to place their children in harms way by getting them “vaccinated”. Click on picture above to see a clearer version of WHO’s original guidance

Though their revised guidance vis- à-vis kids and young adults getting jabbed was buried at the bottom of their bulletin, it nonetheless marked a fundamental break from the conventional and deranged logic of “vaccinating” everyone irrespective of their age, health status or risk profile. This vaxxsanity reached peak level when doctors like Leana Wen pressed parents to have their children injected with an experimental nostrum that has yet to gain FDA approval.

To the surprise of no one, mainstream media has completely ignored this development. Instead of WHO’s about face being treated as the breaking news it is, the supposed “free-press” have willfully and maliciously omitted this story that all parents should know about. At this exact moment, there are children being taken to clinics to be injected with a “vaccine” that is causing debilitating and potentially life long ailments like myocarditis (heart inflammation), blood clots or worse. Last week, a thirteen year old boy died three days after receiving a second shot of the Covid-19 “vaccine”. When will this madness stop!

Heartbroken that a child has died & send the family my condolences. But that his Aunty is on twitter to announce it was due to vaccine induced myocarditis but she would still give it to her child & 'monitor their heart rate' is evidence that we have gone mad. Kids don't need it. pic.twitter.com/OQMS9jRNVf

— Renee Hoenderkamp (@DrHoenderkamp) June 21, 2021

By refusing to broadcast WHO’s revised guidance, mainstream media and the establishment writ large will have the blood of every child who dies from Covid-19 “vaccinates “going forward. I can’t even imagine what it must be like as a parent knowing that they allowed their sons or daughters to get jabbed because they trusted opinion leaders who preached how safe and effective these “vaccines” were only to find out that WHO is now saying they are anything but. My blood boils at the thought of cities like Toronto that set up injection pop up sites where they jabbed children without their parent’s notification, presence nor consent.

As livid as I am about the suppression of this critical development that is literally a matter of life and death, I am heartened by the glimmer of hope that WHO just provided with their decision to reverse their “vaccination” guidance. Though they buried the lead, the fact that they issued this alarm is a significant shift from the status quo. As I’ve noted in previous articles, within every organization the vast majority are good and decent people who sadly allow an unhinged minority—mostly in positions of leadership—to dictate policies that lead to untold human suffering.

The political class and the establishment as a whole, who have a vested interest in these experimental “vaccines”, are intent on cheering us on as billions of people self-harm by way of jabs

Though we don’t know the backstory yet in terms of how the World Health Organization defied their patron devils Bill and Melinda Gates, I am certain that the decision was reached after a critical mass of employees made noise and potentially threatened to resign. If you work at WHO and have information on that front, email us at [email protected] and everything you convey to us will be off the record. I just hope that the CDC, who are currently sleeping at the wheel while children are developing severe heart complications after getting jabbed, follows in the footsteps of WHO and puts a halt to the “vaccination” of children instead of offering our sons and daughters as sacrificial lambs for biotech corporations.

WHO belatedly arrived at a position that many staked out only to be vilified as “anti-vaxxers” and dismissed as “conspiracy theorists”. The same way dissenters like Hans Blix and Chris Hedges were castigated by the establishment for rightly pointing out that Iraq did not have WMDs only to be vindicated by history, people who have been tarred and feathered for questioning the safety and efficacy of these “vaccines” will eventually be proven right. Sadly, our exculpation might very well come with unbearable cost. I pray for the safety of every man, woman and child—including my own family members—who got jabbed.

What has become abundantly clear is that governments, mainstream media and almost every major institution of note have zero interest in looking out for the health and wellness of the very people they are supposed to protect. If you had any doubt about the criminal nature of the debased (I refuse to call them elites), the fact that they are literally saying nothing as more and more children are being injured or killed by mRNA and adenovirus “vaccines” should dispel all doubt. Facebook has gone one step further on the malevolence scale and are actually censoring news about WHO’s decision. You can’t make this stuff up!

It is imperative that this story reaches a broader audience; I implore everyone who is reading this article to share it on social media and go one step further. Given how much Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and LinkedIn are censoring independent journalists like me, I ask you to go low-tech where they are silencing speech using high-tech algorithms. What I mean by that is to share this link via email, text and the most low-tech but most effective means of communication which is voice conversation. We cannot depend on politicians, pundits and opinion leaders living in gated chalets and sipping expensive Chablisto save us, we must get this message out ourselves.

Lastly, if you are a parent, for God’s sake, please do not let your child or children get jabbed with these experimental gene therapy “vaccines”! The overall mortality rate of Covid-19 is 0.66%, this number drops to 0.02% for people who are younger than 21. The risk of developing severe sickness or death from Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Sinopharm and Sputnik’s “vaccines” is higher than the risk of Covid-19 itself. Do not allow your kids to take part in an ongoing clinical trial and risk harming them irreparably. Children have their whole lives ahead of them, don’t cripple them with biotech snake oils that do not prevent contraction nor transmission of Covid-19.

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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 2008 financial collapse still impacts the world and many call it a Great Depression. Rescuing big corporations -rather than saving the real economy, made the scams and pillaging seem almost acceptable. The concentration of money and politics, and the power either generates, it is a global challenge that pushes a particular agenda of privatization of commons and of making money out of everything -prisoners, immigrants, women, children, addictions, sexual abuse and that has no limits. 

Michael Hudson identifies financial capitalism as the challenge; environmental degradation emerged from consumerism but “debt pollution” he says results from spending while financed by debt. Debt is not wealth, interest and amortization payments absorb future earnings –and earnings are not increasing. Industrial capitalism results in class war (workers v employers) but financial capitalism is parasitic raiding and carving up industrial corporations, downsizing and out-sourcing their labor force while creating unemployment, a war against workers too. The debt-overhead of the economy grows faster than the real economy increasing personal, national and global debt. (1a, 1b)

Only a growth economy (a real economy) creates value. Parasitic economy focus is on not paying any form of tax while seeking capital gains through ensuring higher land prices for real estate. It exploits us by mobilizing pension funds, social security and other retirement savings to increase the stock market, bonds and real estate prices. Finances manage real estate, oil and gas, mining and forestry, insurance and banking. The savings of workers, via pension funds, have increased but are invested in finances so we never know if workers’ savings will ever be used to their benefit or to further enrich the rentier class. (1a, 1b)

Confusion Inside: Monopolists’ take over

Hundreds of Lehman employees abandoning their Manhattan building in 2008 seemed confused trying to explain the shocking collapse of their investment bank. Lehman, a Wall Street institution, more than 150 years old, had no support from the US government while Merrill Lynch, American International Group and Bear Stearns were rescued. Hank Paulson explained that they had to preserve the US financial system, saving those who were “too big to fail.” The crisis of 2008 was the most severe since the Great Depression, but not the only crisis since then. There were signs before: the Savings and Loans crisis (1980s) resulted in a bailout of U$S 500 billion; the unraveling of Enron (2000-2004), the bankruptcy of World.com (U$S 104 billion), and the looting of Tyco International and Adelphia Communications by their own CEOs were all signs. (2)

The 2008 meltdown is rooted in federal policies expanded post WW2 through the G. I. Bill offering low-cost home loans to war veterans. (3) For the US government new houses meant consumption, production and jobs. But the US had changed: if in 1978 the financial sector debt was U$S 3 trillion, by 2007 it soared to U$S 36 trillion. Ideology had changed too: there was increasing blind faith in the “self-correcting nature” of the markets and in their ability to “police themselves.” As mortgage debt rose (2001-07) and home prices double, institutions and people indebted themselves borrowing extensively without proof of capacity to pay, jobs, income or assets. (4, 5)

The Final Report of the National Commission on the Causes of the Financial and Economic Crisis of the US identified factors connected to the crisis but selected massive borrowing as key. The Federal Reserve System imposed low interest rates since 2001 to control inflation but it translated in low returns for investments. The U.S. financial sector developed securities backed by mortgage payments offering high returns and these securities, rated high by agencies (Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s), were acceptable to financiers. Lenders sold mortgages (bundled by banks into securities) to institutional investors who trusted them because they were high-rated by top ratings agencies. (4, 5)

Monopoly: Money power in Politics 

In the US, and since the Great Depression, government use stringent regulation for banks, insuring commercial banks and savers through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and separating commercial from investment banks, generally riskier, through the Banking Act of 1933 (Glass-Steagall Act). This system was in place until late 1970s but since then, politicians pushed for de-regulation eroding the Glass-Steagall Act over two decades, and eventually repealing what was left of it in Congress in 1999.  Big commercial banks were now free to enter (with deposits from savers) areas of the financial business until then limited to investment banks, which pushed investment banks into yet riskier ventures. Political changes to US policies were not by chance but the work of money; the financial sector spent U$S 2.7 billion in lobbying and additional U$S 1 billion in campaign contributions to this end between 1999 and 2008. (4, 5)

In 2000, the US Congress approved the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, deregulating over-the-counter derivatives -securities that in essence are bets made privately by two parties on the future price of an asset. Investment banks could now reap huge profits by betting on the ongoing rise of real-estate values. Banks added billions of illusory money to their balance sheets, but American borrowers, overextended, will end in default and bankruptcy. In the US most states were affected by loans with negative equity (the value of homes, below the value of mortgages). Nevada had the highest share of such loans (more than 50%) but most states were affected. The collapse of the housing bubble led to a financial meltdown at home and abroad. In the US it left 26 million people unemployed, 4 million families without homes, large and small business in deep recession while 17 trillion of U$S evaporated in 21 months (including retirement accounts and life savings). The collateral damage was global via the securitization of toxic mortgages valued in trillions of US dollars and affecting an entire generation of people and communities. (4, 5)

Ten years after the crisis Chris Hedges tours the US showing in his book the level of decay, addictions and despair of working people; the pornography, prostitution and sadism promoted as “business;” and the hate and gambling prevalent in American society.  Marx, he says, was aware of the dynamics of capitalism and the power of ideologies serving the interests of elites, ensuring their rule over us. Marx could foresee that in later stages of global capitalism, corporations would exercise a monopoly on the world’s markets and that these corporations, whether in banking, fossil fuels, agriculture and food, arms or communication, would use their power through the mechanisms of the state to prevent others from challenging their global monopolies. Marx knew that capitalist expansion was not eternally sustainable and that, unable to expand, the system will consume the structures that sustained it. All empires collapse showing commonalities; the American empire will not be an exception and Hedges shows us the complexity of decline from inside. (6)

Corporations fix prices to maximize profit, push through trade deals that weaken nation-states so they cannot control exploitation, impose environmental regulations or monitor working conditions. Corporations talk about free market competition but their monopolies end any competition. In the US, corporate capitalism pushed for de-industrialization and financial deregulation so that a weakened state will be forced to privatize public assets and impose austerity leading to cuts of public social services but welfare for corporations and the very rich is very much in place. Corporations feast on taxpayer money: the US government will spend U$S 348 billion between 2015-2025 in modernizing nuclear weapons and submarines but nobody has ever challenged (or audited) the Pentagon’s budget. The US spends U$S 100 billion a year on surveillance -70% of these monies going to private contractors. The fossil fuel industry takes U$S 5.3 trillion a year worldwide in hidden costs and additional U$S 492 billion in direct subsidies, as reported by the International Monetary Fund. US taxpayers give big banks U$S 83 billion a year in subsidies. (6)

In Latin America people have fought the neoliberal agenda of corporations. It was imposed in Chile during the dictatorship of Pinochet, and, soon after the military coup (1973) Chicago trained economists were promoted to ministerial positions –some studied under Friedman in Chicago. The Chicago Boys applied privatization of public assets (state controlled companies went from 300 to 24) and cut budgets for infrastructure, for housing, for education and for social security causing huge inequality and increased poverty.  In Peru similar policies were applied (1990) during the dictatorship of Alberto Fujimori, in jail today, throwing almost overnight millions of Peruvians into despairing poverty. Popular pots, a labor unions tradition during strikes, emerged everywhere to deal with hunger. Fujimori’s daughter, Keiko, was allowed to run for 2020-21 presidential elections, despite public knowledge of charges for money laundering that will take her to jail unless she becomes president. Most Latin American countries fought neoliberalism, some successfully, many not; the oligarchic dream of total control, abject poverty and national subordination to external powers was imposed mainly by force or by deceit.

In Canada neoliberals emerged with the coming together of Reagan and Mulroney, and their trade agreement pushing for “tough-love” capitalism. Neo-liberal monetary policy was implemented very soon. The Bank of Canada, first under Governor Gerald Bouey (1980s) and then under Governor John Crow (1990s), favoured aggressive disinflation -a neoliberal monetary policy ignoring unemployment rates, quality of employment and social needs. A new “normal” was imposed on Canadians. With the signing of the Canada US Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA) the new normal was cemented through Canada’s increasing reliance on resource extraction and exports. The CUSFTA agreement was sold as a way to ensure “special access” to the US market but resulted in the US gaining strategic access to Canadian energy while Canada’s share of US imports decreased. The North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) moved Canada into further harmonizing, now with Mexico in addition to the US. Global and continental strategies became dominant but national strategies were not even developed. Harmonizing pushed wages down in Canada, attacked the welfare state and limited advances towards a “just society.” Due to Canadian deindustrialization public debt grew: it stands today as CAN$ 2.434 trillion, surpassing the Canadian Gross Domestic Product of CAN$ 2.311 trillion. (9)

The improbable death of neoliberalism…

Some believe the neoliberal push towards the 19^th century has stalled, hopefully dead after the 2008 collapse or the covid-19 pandemic. The neoliberal political project attacked and blocked alternative models effectively, but since, the meltdown and the pandemic have made explicit its human costs in the US and everywhere. While the human costs of the financial collapse have been discussed, the connection of pandemic costs to the liberal project remained mostly in the dark. Worldwide numbers point to almost 3.9 million deaths by corona-virus and the neoliberal machine has been responsible for dismantling existing public health care systems, research and lab-capacity for vaccines, seriously limiting countries in their response to the pandemic. It is quite telling that the highest total of deaths per country is in the US, with more than six hundred thousands people dead because of covid-19; Brazil follows with half a million dead and India with 385 thousands. But it is also interesting to look at death per million population as Peru emerges as the country with the highest rate: almost 5.700 death/per million, followed by Hungary with 3.110, Bosnia Herzegovina with 2.953 and Czechia (Czech Republic) with 2.822 which point that Eastern Europe has performed badly. These are countries devastated by neoliberalism or war; and, their rates are above the rates per million of the US, Brazil, India, Russia, UK and even France. (8)

Upon reflection, the neoliberal project has made it almost a sin to advocate for people and towards the provision of public health care, low cost medications, good quality public education and fair wages everywhere. It has also been responsible for limiting citizens’ impact on politics all over the world and for turning politics into dust by destroying any emerging alternative project. We are severely limited in shaping our societies towards equity, sustainability and fairness because of neoliberalism. Importantly, this criminal project attacks the “collective” –insulating policy makers from popular demands and eliminating state capacity for intervention in favor of the collective; still, state support for financial elites and their corporations and interests is allowed. Socialism for the rich is not a problem but socialism for the rest of us is not possible. The assault on collective actors, labor unions, anti-neoliberal political parties and collective negotiation and agreements has been effective. (10)  Domesticated governments, from “trickster” politicians like Mulroney or Lenin Moreno, or from “tough-love ones” like Thatcher, Trump or Bolsonaro, all endorse the “oligarchic dream” and ensure that no anti-neoliberal politician gets into power or keeps it.

Financial capitalism grows in illicit wealth and power while ruling politicians are either allies or pawns. Eventually it became difficult for regular people to believe or participate in politics that are meaningless to them and turned into a show to fool, distract and betray the public interest and the common good. Around the world, with few exceptions, “politics” becomes a bad word. Monopolists win, shaping their image as deserving, intelligent, sophisticated, even visionary benefactors and philanthropists. The poor and vulnerable -women, men, children, ignored, blamed, shamed; their very survival undermined, eventually increasingly invisible. The talk is not about them but about the “middle class”  Those urban subjects from Hallmark movies, enjoying their jobs with benefits, living in romantic settings of “small town USA” as successful “writers” or “chefs,” walking their dogs through cute shopping streets and squares, having supportive families, facing mainly the challenge of unfulfilled “love.”  While Hollywood remains focused on making money through shocking us with violence and meanness, scaring us into accepting that we humans are not better than the vicious caricatures they present, nor more real than their violent superheroes; but, where is Superman when greedy capitalism threatens us and the planet?

A compliant Media, says Hedges, shifts its focus from the common good to race, and to crime and law and order, while trying to convince us that the problem we face is not emerging from corporate greed but from a threat to national integrity (6).  In Canada the Media also ignores the growing inequality, low wages, addictions, and personal and national debt. It focuses away from our reality to either sustain a vision of “technological bliss and middle-class fancy” or an illusory “enemy,” yesterday Russia today China tomorrow who knows? While created visions and threats are both illusory, threats increase attacks on real Asian people in Canada; and often, aboriginal Canadians looking “Asian,” like the Inuit, are attacked too.

In the US, increased poverty leads to increased homelessness. In Canada you can also see men in sleeping bags in downtown Toronto and Vancouver and many asking for money in the streets of every city. In the US people live in “tent cities” and campgrounds weather allowing. A book (and a movie) points to the US phenomenon of the “houseless,” people who live in their vehicles (adapted or not) and move like nomads around the US.  Many of the nomads are seniors with small pensions who cannot afford to pay rent; most are white -it maybe too dangerous for people of color to do this. Jessica Bruder raises awareness in her book about the consequences of the 2008 financial meltdown. But Nomadland (the movie) is a fiction much less clear about financial connections and tempted to present (as most movies) a quasi romantic view of nomads as finding “freedom.” But, nomads work tough jobs for seniors with minimum wages that can endanger them mainly to cover living expenses. They are survivors of US crises presenting us with poverty after a life of work; while most are women, the majority lonely, it is difficult to believe they are not forced into this “option.” Individualism prevalent until the very end: our perception of the need to survive on “our own” no matter what. (12)

A wish for Implosion…

American capitalism has become very savvy at exploiting its own people; to this end it sustains corporations making money from citizens jailed in privatized prisons funded by the state; made to work for wages of 24 cents/hour; these are true “maquilas” at home. Undocumented immigrants face a similar fate when captured in the US; government pays private corporations for their keeping too and the conditions are terrible. It proves to us that there is nothing corporations are not willing to do for money–war, jail, addictions, prostitution, exploitation of any kind, denigration and deviance, is all on the table, and nothing and nobody is safe anywhere. (6, 7)

For Hudson monopolists believe debt can grow for ever. It cannot. Debt caused many to fall before even in antiquity. Wealth and power addiction is hubris, he says, when you become so successful it goes to your head and you believe you can do absolutely anything. After WW2 the US expanded and nobody pushed back so it believed it would be like this forever. “And now there is a pushback and it thinks it is not natural. America is exceptional. Don’t countries get it?”  But other countries do not believe it; China, Russia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization nations are going their way, de-dollarization and creation of their own economy on non-neoliberal lines, opposed to the US. We can expect increased homelessness and cost of living in the US. During Obama times there were 10 million evictions; Trump did a moratorium during the pandemic but numbers are accumulating so Biden may evict again -about 5 million more this time. The economy painted itself into a debt corner. Subways and transport systems, more schools and public services are probably going to be privatized. Many people are going to lose their status and become impoverished. The US is becoming a breeding ground for fascism. (1)

Hedges can see the implosion of the empire bringing more chaos too. To protect us from it, he argues, “intentional communities” with a focus on acts of kindness and caring for each other can help. Parallel institutions, able to challenge corporate hegemony, are needed and we need to favor leaders capable of building trust and true to their calling. We need to move the country away from the Democrat-Republican duopoly, he says. There is resistance, like in the water protectors of Bismarck (North Dakota); there is disruption, as in the Earth Quaker Action Team throwing wrenches into the “corporate machine;” and there is a need to work at making alliances with people and groups. (6)

In Latin America Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, maybe even Peru, Argentina and Mexico stand facing ongoing attacks. The people of Colombia, Chile, Brazil take to the streets at high personal costs. In Mexico Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) brought to the forefront the poor, at a time when most want to believe Mexico “more prosperous and egalitarian than ever.” AMLO walked Mexico; he knows this is a lie and ending poverty is crucial; in the political arena his discourse forced elites to public policies that acknowledge the need for increased public spending in education; a minimum wage and unionizing. (11) Together with his par in Argentina, AMLO saved Evo Morales’ life during the coup in Bolivia. It was crucial and Bolivia may very well be the first country in our continent bringing to justice the organizers and implementers of a “coup d’etat.” It shows, I think, that at the core of any chance for success in confronting Monopolists there is solidarity with each other and respect for the diversity of actions that Latin America may take to ensure its liberation.

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Notes

(1a) Hudson, Michael, Financial Capitalism v Industrial Capitalism (1998) https://michael-hudson.com/1998/09/financial-capitalism-v-industrial-capitalism/ (1b) Michael Hudson, Multipolarity and Financial Capitalism (2021),  https://michael-hudson.com/2021/01/multipolarity-and-financial-capitalism/

 (2) Ulick, Jake (2002, Dec 17) CNN, Year of the scandal 2002: greed, accounting conflicts, book-cooking helped derail Wall Street. Will 2003 be any better? https://money.cnn.com/2002/12/17/news/review_scandals/index.htm

(3) History.com, World War II, GI Bill,       https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/gi-bill

(4) Ladrón de Guevara Cortés, Rogelio & Francisco Javier Melendez Hernández (2011), Analysis of the Financial Crisis Inquiry, Universidad Veracruzana, México, http://isini2011.uson.mx/articles/Ladron%20de%20Guevara,%20R.%20-%20ANALYSIS%20OF%20THE%20FINANCIAL%20CRISIS%20INQ.pdf

(5) Final Report of the National Commission on the Causes of the Financial and Economic Crisis of the United States (January 2011), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-FCIC/pdf/GPO-FCIC.pdf

(6) Hedges, Chris (2018), America. The Farewell Tour, Alfred A. Knopf.

(7) Washington, John and Jose Olivares, (2021) Nothing is Changing…The Intercept, https://theintercept.com/2021/06/03/ice-irwin-closing-open-detainees/

(8) Worldometer COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic per country, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

(9) Stanford, Jim (2014) Canada’s transformation under neoliberalism,     Canadian Dimensions https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/canadas-transformation-under-neoliberalism

(10) Madariaga, Aldo (2021) Neoliberalism has always been a threat to democracy, Jacobin Magazine https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/06/neoliberalism-democracy-populist-right

(11) Ríos, Viridiana (2019) Los verdaderos éxitos de AMLO, NY Times, https://www.nytimes.com/es/2019/06/17/espanol/opinion/lopez-obrador-economia.html

(12) Nomadland, book by Jessica Bruder (2020) Interview by Jeffrey Brown, PBS News Hour, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofQdKojklWw

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On June 16 in Geneva the US-Russia Summit was defined by President Biden “good, positive” and by President Putin “quite constructive”. Should we, therefore, feel a little reassured in a situation where Europe is at the forefront of what NATO called “the lowest point in our relationship with Russia since the end of the Cold War”? The facts tell us otherwise. At the same time when the US-Russia Summit was underway in Switzerland, the Baltops 50 was underway in the Baltic, one of the 20 major US-NATO military exercises in Europe in 2021. 

The Baltops 50 was organized and directed by the US-African naval forces commander with headquarters in Naples-Capodichino, Admiral Robert Burke, who at the same time is head of the NATO Command in Lago Patria (JFC-Naples). From June 6 to 18, over 4,000 soldiers with 40 ships and 60 aircraft – belonging to 18 NATO member and partner countries, including Italy – practiced the air-naval war in the Baltic and surrounding regions”, close to the Russian territory. Warships and bombers with nuclear capability took also part in the maneuver, and for the first time, the new NATO Space Center was integrated into the exercise.

While this big war exercise was underway, clearly directed against Russia, President Putin declared in the press conference after the Summit: “We conduct military exercises within our territory, we do not bring our equipment and personnel close to the borders of the United States of America, as the USA and its partners are now doing near our borders”. 

The geographic location of the military forces, especially nuclear ones, is of primary importance: a tactical missile deployed 10,000 km away cannot hit the target but, if deployed at 1,000 km. has the same destructive effect as an ICBM.  The two presidents’ declaration on “strategic stability“, including the extension of the New Start Treaty for the control of nuclear weapons, will be nullified if the US installs new “tactical” nuclear weapons in Europe as it has planned. 

This and other key issues have been ignored by the media who according to Washington’s direction used the Summit as a kind of trial with Putin in the dock. The President of the United States is a public minister who did not just answer the questions like Putin, after refusing to hold the traditional joint press conference, but presented his own report on the Summit. According to  Biden, he told Putin how he reacts anytime he sees violations of human rights in Russia and elsewhere: «How could I be the President of the United States of America and not speak out against human rights violations? Defending fundamental freedoms is part of the DNA of our country».

This is solemnly declared by the current President of the United States, the Democrat Joseph Biden who in 2001 supported the war of Republican President Bush in Afghanistan and, in 2002 promoted a bipartisan resolution that authorized President Bush to invade Iraq on charges (later proved false) that it possessed weapons of mass destruction.

This was solemnly declared by Joseph Biden who was one of the architects of the US-NATO wars against Libya and Syria as vice president of the Obama Administration,   he supported Islamic fundamentalist groups to undermine these countries from within, he favored the use of  neo-Nazis in Ukraine for the putsch that opened the new confrontation with Russia. He was one of the architects of the “kill list”, including people from all over the world who were secretly killed because they were judged harmful for the United States (The New York Times, President Obama’s Kill List, May 29, 2012). These wars and covert operations have caused directly and indirectly millions of deaths and the worst human rights violations. However, good feelings are not lacking: in a long official obituary on Twitter (reported in full by Ansa), President Biden announced: “Our hearts are heavy today as we let you know that our beloved German shepherd Champ died peacefully at home”.

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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.

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Since the onset of the covid-19 pandemic, governments around the world, along with a handful of unelected medical experts, have been behaving as though they are the social engineers of totalitarian regimes.

To be more precise, this select group of political leaders and medical experts have upended economies, as well as the lives of billions of ordinary people, by implementing extremely coercive and restrictive lockdowns and physical distancing measures for the stated purpose of bringing the pandemic under control and preventing future outbreaks.

Specific measures have included curfews; police patrols on the streets; the compulsory closure of businesses deemed nonessential, as well as workplaces, schools, and institutions of higher education; the banning of social gatherings; the cancelation of sporting and cultural events; the suspension of religious services; and restrictions on personal movement and interactions at the local, national, and international levels.

In many parts of the world, people have been subjected to mandatory stay-at-home orders, requiring them to spend most of the day confined and isolated in their homes. Lockdown measures have also been used to prohibit people from engaging in public protests and freely expressing their opinions, as failure to comply with limits on social gatherings has led to people being arrested, detained, and fined. It has also not been uncommon to see excessive police force being used to enforce lockdowns and curfews, and to disperse protests against unreasonable restrictions. Some governments have also set up detention centers for international travelers entering into their countries, where they are forced to quarantine at their own expense while they wait for the results of their covid-19 tests. Shockingly, in early June 2021, the provincial government in Ontario, Canada, went so far as to announce that residents in long-term care homes would soon be permitted to engage in “close physical contact, including handholding” and “brief hugs” with visitors when both parties are fully immunized.

Unfortunately, instead of criticizing this state of affairs, the mainstream media and major social media platforms are fully on board. They have turned out to be willing collaborators of the governments in these matters by glorifying their oppressive and punitive measures, censuring critical viewpoints, and fostering a culture of surveillance, all while spreading fear. They have also been ceaselessly promoting the injection of experimental vaccines as the only solution that will bring totalitarian lockdown measures to an end.

If Karl Popper and Friedrich Hayek had witnessed the type of central planning that has taken place since the beginning of the pandemic, they would have called it “holistic social engineering.” They were convinced that supporters of the concept of a social engineer sought to extend “the power of the State” in controlling and reshaping society as a whole in accordance with their own ideals, goals, and wills.1 According to Popper, social engineers believe that they can diagnose the goals and needs of society, and then implement a strategy to achieve them through large-scale planning.2 However, such an undertaking would require social engineers to centrally coordinate the activities of millions of people by replacing the wills and ends of those individuals with their own. Meanwhile, Hayek stated that the best way to make everybody serve the ends of the social engineers is

to make everybody believe in those ends. To make a totalitarian system function efficiently it is not enough that everybody should be forced to work for the same ends. It is essential that the people should come to regard them as their own ends. Although the beliefs must be chosen for the people and imposed upon them, they must become their beliefs, a generally accepted creed which makes the individuals as far as possible act spontaneously in the way the planner wants. If the feeling of oppression in totalitarian countries is in general much less acute than most people in liberal countries imagine, this is because the totalitarian governments succeed to a high degree in making people think as they want them to.3

Social engineers of the pandemic have been largely successful in convincing the masses that the oppressive lockdown measures that they are being forced to endure are ultimately in the best interests of society as a whole. In many instances, they have managed to make many people believe that the goals of the lockdowns are in fact their own goals. At the same time, social engineers have been discouraging “criticism,” as they do not “easily hear of complaints concerning the measures” that they have instituted.4 Accordingly, the critical views put forth by some journalists, activists, dissenters, legal experts, medical professionals, and anybody else who cares about freedom, human rights violations, and the common good have been systematically silenced. Popper explained that the social engineer:

will have to be deaf to many complaints; in fact, it will be part of his business to suppress unreasonable objections. (He will say, like Lenin, “You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.”) But with it, he must invariably suppress reasonable criticism also.5

After nearly a year and a half of antiliberal, undemocratic, unethical, antiscientific, ahistorical, and oppressive governmental measures, while denying billions of people their basic human rights, freedom, and sovereignty, social and economic life has essentially been completely crippled in many countries and regions. Nonetheless, social engineers of the pandemic period have treated critics and complaints as “a blemish,” proof of irrationality, and violations of the common good.6

Hayek and Popper incessantly warned about the form of central planning that we are currently being subjected to, which has been used by numerous dictators and tyrants such as Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. They specifically argued that it would not only lead societies down “the road to serfdom,” but also cause irreversible, large-scale social and economic damage.

In fact, since the lockdowns began, general freedom (e.g., freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, and intellectual freedom), negative freedom (i.e., freedom from coercion), positive freedom (i.e., freedom of self-development), subjective freedom (i.e., freedom to act based on one’s own will and views), objective freedom (i.e., freedom of “being with other”), and economic freedom (e.g., freedom to earn one’s living, to produce, to buy, to sell, etc.) have been all violated to some extent. Furthermore, hundreds of millions of people have lost their jobs or endured income reductions, many small and medium-sized companies have gone bankrupt, unemployment rates have increased across major economies, and most countries have gone into recession.

Moreover, the lockdowns have also had a number of unintended social and health consequences, including increases in domestic violence to unprecedented levels, in the form of both physical and emotional abuse; a significant rise in substance abuse and related deaths (i.e., overdoses); worsening mental health problems leading to depression and suicides; isolation and antisocial lifestyles and behavior, particularly in children; physical inactivity and weight gain; and, the cancellation or delay of medical procedures, surgeries, and consultations. The unexpected destructive consequences of the totalitarian lockdown measures will undoubtedly be felt for decades to come.

Hayek and Popper would not have been surprised that the lockdown measures generated so many adverse impacts on people, the economy, and society. In fact, they warned that social engineering could never successfully achieve its predetermined goals and ends in the real world for two main reasons: the limited and dispersed nature of human knowledge and the spontaneous forces of society. Based on the concept of dispersed knowledge, “we know little of the particular facts to which the whole of social activity continuously adjusts itself in order to provide what we have learned to expect. We know even less of the forces which bring about this adjustment by appropriately coordinating individual activity.”7

Hayek and Popper would have argued that social engineers of the pandemic could not realistically possess the type and the abundance of knowledge needed to plan such large-scale oppressive lockdowns. According to them, by ignoring the dispersed nature of human knowledge, social engineers falsely believed that they could possess all of the knowledge required to redesign an entire society while also having complete control over all efforts directed toward the achievement of teleologically evaluated goals. In fact, Hayek and Popper concluded that it was impossible to exercise complete control over society via social engineering because the limitations of human knowledge meant that nobody could foresee all of the possible consequences of human actions, which is necessary if common goals are to be achieved. These sentiments apply to contemporary social engineers of the pandemic, and could explain why they were unable to accurately predict the consequences of many of the oppressive policies and measures that were intended to mitigate the spread and impacts of covid-19.

Popper and Hayek argued that even if it were hypothetically possible for a social engineer to possess all the knowledge needed to centrally plan and organize an entire society, they would still be unable to attain their teleologically evaluated goals in the manner they envisioned on account of the spontaneous forces of society, which represent the second main obstacle to the success of large-scale central planning. The spontaneous forces of society would make it impossible to effectively collect detailed information about the constantly changing activities, private interests, particular circumstances, complex relationships, and preferences of millions of people. The unexpected and unplanned outcomes associated with the spontaneous forces of society mean that the original plans of any social engineer will end in failure, because “the real outcome will always be very different from the rational construction” of the social engineer. In order to realize their predetermined goals, social engineers would be forced to continuously modify and change their plans, while using their exclusive power to coerce individuals for the purpose of imposing increasingly restrictive measures. That is to say, they would need to constantly interfere in the choices that individuals make without having to obtain any input from them.

Hayek warned that the coercive measures employed by social engineers could “destroy those spontaneous forces which have made advance” and progress possible across history, and inevitably result in “a stagnation of thought and a decline of reason.”8 He wanted people to understand that while “it may not be difficult to destroy the spontaneous formations which are the indispensable bases of a free civilization, it may be beyond our power deliberately to reconstruct such a civilization once these foundations are destroyed.”9 This is why Popper called social engineering the “greatest and most urgent evil of society.”10 According to him, “even with the best intentions of making heaven on earth it only succeeds in making it hell—that hell which man alone prepares for his fellow-men.”11

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This article was originally published on Mises Wire.

Birsen Filip holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and master’s degrees in economics and philosophy. She has published numerous articles and chapters on a range of topics, including political philosophy, geo-politics, and the history of economic thought, with a focus on the Austrian School of Economics and the German Historical School of Economics. She is also the author of The Rise of Neo-liberalism and the Decline of Freedom (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).

Notes

1. Birsen Filip, “Hayek and Popper on Piecemeal Engineering and Ordo-liberalism,” in Robert Leeson, ed., Hayek: A Collaborative Biography: Part XIV: Liberalism in the Classical Tradition: Orwell, Popper, Humboldt and Polanyi (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), p. 244.

2. K.R. Popper, The Poverty of Historicism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960).

3. F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom: Texts and Documents, ed. Bruce Caldwell, vol. 2 of The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek, ed. Bruce Caldwell (1944; repr., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), p. 157.

4. Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945; repr., London: Routledge, 2011), p. 149.

5. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, p. 150.

6. F.A. Hayek, The Counter Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason (1952; repr., Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Press, 1979), p. 153.

7. F.A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, ed. Ronald Hamowy, vol. 17 of The Complete Works of F.A. Hayek (1960; repr. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), p. 76.

8. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, p. 90.

9. F.A. Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order (1948; repr., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 25.

10. Popper, The Poverty of Historicism, p. 84.

11. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, p. 157.

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The Rise of Neo-liberalism and the Decline of Freedom

Author: Birsen Filip

Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan

ISBN: 978-3-030-61622-9

Number of Pages: VI, 357

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By Dr. John Cunnington, June 22, 2021

At the top of the medical hierarchy is the neurosurgeon. Neurosurgeons are surrounded by a mystique of omniscience and omnipotence. Imagine my surprise, therefore, as a lowly medical student, to discover that the senior neurosurgeon in our institution, Robert Hughes, was being sued for malpractice.

Malian Whirlwinds: AFRICOM and the Military Presidency

By Abayomi Azikiwe, June 22, 2021

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Big Pharma White Coats: The Psychology of Unquestioningly Obeying Depraved Authority

By Teodrose Fikremariam, June 22, 2021

Stanley Milgram conducted a psychological experiment in 1961 that was truly mind-numbing in terms of revealing the depths of evils people are able to commit in order to comply with authority. Referred to as the Milgram experiments, the aim of the study was to see how far participants were willing to go when they were given orders that were appalling and unconscionable.

Uncensored History: Who Were the Khazars?

By Timothy Alexander Guzman, June 22, 2021

There is an unknown empire that is barely mentioned in western history books, education institutions, in the media or in Hollywood.  The name is not mentioned anywhere especially in the West, and that is why most people never heard about it.  It was called Khazaria, it was an empire that still remains relatively unknown today.

Video: What’s the Latest on Variants and COVID Vaccine Safety?

By Dr. Peter McCullough and Fox News Insider, June 22, 2021

Peter McCullough, MD, MPH appears on the Ingraham Angle on June 21, 2021 to explain why we don’t need to panic about the “Delta variant” and what younger individuals should know about the mRNA vaccines.

15,472 Dead 1.5 Million Injured (50% Serious) Reported in European Union’s Database of Adverse Drug Reactions for COVID-19 Shots

By Brian Shilhavy, June 22, 2021

The total number of countries in Europe is much higher, almost twice as many, numbering around 50, although there are some differences of opinion as to which countries are technically part of Europe. So as high as these numbers are, they do NOT reflect all of Europe. The actual number in Europe who are reported dead or injured due to COVID-19 shots would be much higher than what we are reporting here.

Defending International Order: U.S., British, Dutch Warships Converge in Black Sea

By Rick Rozoff, June 22, 2021

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Collusion by the White House, the Pentagon, and the mainstream media resulted in disparagement, denial, and suppression of eyewitness testimony confirming that most POWs were actually well-treated by their North Vietnamese captors (in contrast to the brutal torture and death often meted out to North Vietnamese POWs by U.S. forces).

When numerous U.S. POWs began to understand the truth about the war they had been fighting, they spoke out against it—voluntarily—as an act of conscience. But they were cynically portrayed as traitors, turncoats and “camp rats,” their reputations and lives destroyed, driving many to despair and even suicide.

Among the few memories that most Americans still retain of the Vietnam War—now nearly 60 years in the past—one of the most vivid centers around the torture suffered by Senator John McCain at the hands of his brutal Vietnamese captors while a prisoner of war in Hanoi’s Hoa Lo prison (AKA The Hanoi Hilton).

This story has been told, retold, and continually burnished countless times by admiring media interviews and a flood of books and memoirs, including several by McCain himself.

Another memory of the war, still believed by millions of Americans, is that hundreds or even thousands of American soldiers classified as MIA (Missing in Action) are actually being held and tortured in secret North Vietnamese POW camps, callously abandoned by our government and desperately praying to be rescued—preferably in a Hollywood-style rescue by Chuck Norris or Sylvester Stallone, who starred in the spate of Commie-hating blockbuster movies inspired by their plight.

This belief is continually reinforced by POW/MIA flags which fly at every post office, and a ready supply of new books and movies, such as the 2018 release of the film M.I.A. A Greater Evil.

But both memories of the Vietnam War are false memories. However passionately believed, they were cynically manufactured fantasies implanted in all-too-willing American minds for political purposes.

How and why these counter-factual beliefs were so successfully foisted on the American public is the subject of the new myth-shattering book by Tom Wilber and Jerry Lembcke, Dissenting POWs: From Vietnam’s Hoa Lo Prison to America Today (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2021).

Wilber is the son of a dissenting POW, Walter “Gene” Wilber, who is featured in the book, and has contributed to the award-winning documentary film The Flower Pot Story by Ngọc Dũng. Lembcke is a distinguished sociologist from College of the Holy Cross who has written a number of books debunking popular myths about the Vietnam War.

The two start their book by noting that the dominant war hero image of the POW—who endured torture and resisted service to enemy propaganda—was to a large extent created by high-ranking men like McCain who were captured early in the conflict.

McCain’s oft-told story of ill-treatment and torture is contradicted by Nguyen Tien Tran, the chief prison guard of the jail in which McCain was held. In a report by The Guardian, “[Tran] acknowledged that conditions in the prison were ‘tough, though not inhuman’. But, he added: ‘We never tortured McCain. On the contrary, we saved his life, curing him with extremely valuable medicines that at times were not available to our own wounded’. . . . [H]e denied torturing him, saying it was his mission to ensure that McCain survived. As the son of the US naval commander in Vietnam, he offered a potential valuable propaganda weapon.”

Most of the others promoting a heroized image of U.S. POW’s were graduates of service academies and came from privileged backgrounds. They included a) James Stockdale, who ran for Vice President in 1992 as the running mate of Ross Perot; b) Robinson Risner, a double recipient of the Air Force Cross, the second highest military decoration for valor; and c) Jeremiah Denton, who went on to become the first Republican Senator from the state of Alabama and a close ally of President Ronald Reagan.

John McCain fit well with this group because he was also academically privileged and his family included high-ranking military officers like his father, Jack, who was an admiral and the Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command.

James Stockdale while in captivity. [Source: military.com]

With post-war military careers at stake, these high-ranking officers played up the alleged barbarity of the North Vietnamese, demanded resistance to interrogations from other captives, and threatened so-called deviants with disciplinary charges after release to the U.S.

The Nixon administration advanced their credibility and status in a desperate ploy to stir up support at home for an unpopular conflict abroad; and further concocted a story—announced in a press conference by Defense Secretary Melvin Laird on May 19, 1969—that 1,300 American soldiers deemed “missing in action” were believed to be prisoners of war.

Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird gives the opening statement of a press conference on May 19, 1969, to publicize the plight of U.S. POWs and MIAs in North Vietnam. [Source: courant.com]

The unaccounted for would now publicly be described as “POW/MIA,” implying that any serviceperson missing in Vietnam could also be a prisoner of war. This transformed the war from a political issue into a humanitarian one, trading public support for sympathy. It didn’t matter why we were there in the first place: Our boys were there, and by God were we going to do anything to get them home.

Suddenly, the public image of Vietnam looked very different. The very real footage of brutalized Vietnamese bodies, wailing children, and napalmed villages was traded for a fantasy—all of the violence that had been done in Uncle Sam’s name was now being done to him.

Images like this famous one of a Vietnamese girl, Phan Thi Kim Phúc, running from a U.S. napalm strike, were supplanted by the fixation with the plight of American POW/MIAs. This was a brilliant public relations maneuver by the Nixon administration in collusion with the media. [Source: irishtimes.com]

The POW issue soon became a cause célèbre. In the early 1970s, millions of “POW bracelets” were sold by a student group called VIVA (Voices in Vital America), each branded with the name of a missing American serviceman.

POW/MIA bracelet. [Source: pinterest.com]

These shiny nickel bracelets were spotted on the wrists of celebrities like Sonny and Cher—who had often before dressed like hippies—and Sammy Davis, Jr, and allegedly Princess Grace of Monaco put in an order for two bracelets.

The silver bracelets could even be spotted on the fashion runway, where models with an interest in political activism took to wearing them. A New York Times profile from the day quotes a model named Astrida Woods, who said she was “dissatisfied” with her life as a model and felt the urge to give back. “I began to do some work with Ralph Nader, and now [wearing the bracelets]. It’s a way to contribute something.”

Many U.S. GIs and pilots, however, reported being humanely treated during their captivity, with access to adequate food, recreation facilities and reading material.

Wilber and Lembcke conclude that “instances of brutal treatment” were “less common than [has been] purported” and that evidence of systematic torture drawn from visitor reports, POW statements, and oral histories was scant.

Those POWs who questioned the war were dismissed by the military for their supposedly “weak personal character” and “lack of education and backgrounds in broken and poor families,” a typical case of “psychologizing the political.”

These men were in turn stigmatized and then forgotten by the public amidst the manufactured concern about POW/MIAs who were supposedly brutalized and then kept in captivity and abandoned by their government.

Camp Rats?

The ranks of the POW dissenters included Lt. Col. Edison Miller, a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross and Purple Heart from California who spent six years in captivity after his fighter plane was shot down over North Vietnamese skies on October 13, 1967.

A contemporary described Miller, a Californian who flew previously over Korea, as a “first-rate pilot with a zeal for combat but an independent sort.”

John McCain falsely accused Miller of being a turncoat because he appeared in North Vietnamese propaganda.

In his 1999 best-selling book Faith of My Fathers, McCain wrote about Miller as one of two “camp rats”—the other being Tom’s father Gene, who had been executive officer of a squadron of F-4s when he was shot down over North Vietnam on June 16, 1968.

McCain said both “had lost their faith completely.”

“They not only stopped resisting but apparently crossed a line no other prisoner I knew had even approached,” McCain wrote. “They were collaborators, actively aiding the enemy.”

Miller told the Orange County Register in response to these charges that McCain had “lied about me … The attacks on my character and integrity are totally without merit or justification. I did stand up and say the war was wrong. I would speak against the war, but I never spoke against my country. And I gave up no secrets.”

McCain accused Miller of receiving eggs, bananas and other delicacies to eat from camp guards. Miller says, however, that he never saw eggs during his internment and that McCain was never in a position to see the food brought to him.

McCain further claimed that Miller turned him into a North Vietnamese guard when McCain tried to befriend him, and that the guard then beat McCain. Miller said: “I never ratted out a fellow American. McCain has fabricated and exaggerated his experience for political advantage.”

Miller’s anti-war views had been sharpened in conversation with Navy Commander Robert Schweitzer, a captive from 1968 to 1973 who died a year after his release while still on active duty in San Francisco.

Schweitzer felt that, because the U.S. had never declared war, there could not legally be any North Vietnamese prisoners of war, only “Americans detained by a foreign power,” Miller said.

A tape of a conversation between Miller and Schweitzer was played for other prisoners, who heard not only an anti-war message but a challenge to the legality of the U.S. military action in Vietnam.

In 1970, when Miller and Gene Wilber were interviewed on national television, Wilber called for an immediate U.S. troop withdrawal “so that the Vietnamese can solve their own problems.”

U.S. journalists at the time, however, did not take their interview seriously, regarding it rather as a North Vietnamese propaganda show.

The two men along with Schweitzer continued to write protest statements and together with fellow dissenters met with American peace activists visiting North Vietnam, including actress Jane Fonda and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

Jane Fonda (center) during trip to North Vietnam in 1972. [Source: flickr.com]

Empathy for the War’s Victims

Most dissenting POWs came from a working-class background.

James A. Daly, an African-American infantryman from the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, for example, was raised in poverty by a single mother.

His 1975 book, Black Prisoner of War, describes his three years of jungle confinement after his capture by North Vietnamese soldiers and the South Vietnam-based National Liberation Front (NLF), followed by a two-month trek north to Hanoi on the Ho Chi Minh trail where he experienced what it was like to be on the receiving end of U.S. ordnance.

Bob Chenoweth, from a white working-class family in Oregon, similarly developed an empathy for the Vietnamese people and a distaste for the racist views of most Americans toward the Vietnamese.

A helicopter crew member, before he was shot down and captured, Chenoweth said he “couldn’t see how U.S. forces could possibly be helping the Vietnamese given the attitude that GIs had, viewing them as ‘subhuman’ and disparaging them as ‘gooks and dinks.’”

Chenoweth and other of his contemporaries authored anti-war statements, wrote messages to GIs asking them to follow their consciences, sent letters to politicians, and recorded tapes to be aired via Radio Hanoi.

Higher ranking POWs responded by trying to isolate the dissenters from other American prisoners while charging them with participating in a conspiracy against the United States.

One of the dissidents, Abel Kavanaugh, committed suicide as a result of the intense pressure and prospective stigma of a dishonorable discharge only a few months after coming home from Vietnam.

Charges against the POW dissidents were eventually dropped, Wilber and Lembcke believe, so as to not jeopardize the hero-prisoner story with too much attention on dissent and through a possible exposure of inconsistencies in the accusers’ own prison biographies.

Fear of Communist Infiltration

A critical trope in Cold War America was the fear of communist infiltration and internal subversion through brainwashing and mind control.

This trope was fortified by a CIA propaganda effort that depicted Korean War POWs who defected to the North Korean and Chinese side as having been brainwashed in interrogation.

CIA propaganda tract accusing Communist China of brainwashing U.S. POWs. The stereotype of cunning and evil Oriental communists endured through the Vietnam War and beyond and impacted how Americans viewed the dissenting POWs in Vietnam. [Source: goodreads.com]

Most of these defectors were in fact African-Americans who did not want to return to the Jim Crow South, while others were attracted by communist ideals or saw the U.S. war as immoral.^[1]

Clarence Adams with Korean POWs and Communist captors in 1954. Adams lived in China for 12 years. He said he was well treated in captivity and stayed on in China because he was offered the chance at education there. Later he made propaganda broadcasts for Radio Hanoi, eventually returning to his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, where he ran a chain of successful Chinese restaurants. [Source: u.osu.edu]

The stereotype of the brainwashed POW of the Korean War turned collaborator and traitor because of his weak character would become the backdrop for the discrediting of the dissident POWs of the Vietnam War.

In an appearance on CBS’s 60 Minutes, Gene Wilber was grilled on whether he had given in to the enemy to make antiwar statements. That he had acted on his own “conscience and morality” was drowned out by host Mike Wallace’s implications of collaboration and opportunism.

When he was subsequently invited to the White House POW reception, Wilber found his hotel room broken into and marked with accusations of treason when he returned from the reception.

In the summer of 1973, James Stockdale charged Wilber and Edison Miller with collaborating with the enemy, mutiny, and inciting personnel to insubordination. However, military judges found insufficient evidence to prosecute the case, and Wilber and Miller instead received letters of censure for their failure to meet the standard expected of officers.

Hollywood Revisionism

POW films starting from this time focused on returnees’ estrangement with their families and society and were told as stories of spousal infidelity, representing both individual drama as well as a sense of “home-front betrayal.”

These films were part of a post-war revisionism, which included a spate of films that contributed to the legend of American servicemen left behind in Vietnam.

In the 1980s, a new subgenre emerged focused on Vietnam veterans heroically taking on the task of returning to Indochina and liberating the left-behind POWs, who had been betrayed on the home front and abandoned by the U.S. government.

The POWs were depicted as victimized and emasculated captives who needed to be rescued by individualist heroes and whose honor as Americans was to be restored.

This image, Wilber and Lembcke argue, fits the post-war efforts to psychologize the once political conflicts of the Vietnam War and to depict the veteran as a victim and loser.

More of a heroized image and the POWs’ endurance of torture was revived with the 1987 film, The Hanoi Hilton, which starred Michael Moriarty, Ken Wright and Paul Le Mat as U.S. POWs who defy their captors while enduring brutal treatment at Hanoi’s Hoa Lo prison (aka The Hanoi Hilton).

[Source: imdb.com]

This film meshed particularly well President’s Ronald Reagan’s characterization of the Vietnam War as a “noble cause,” fought by noble men, with the POW dissenters by implication being ignoble.

Persistence of the Hero-Prisoner Story

In their quest to comprehend the persistence of the hero-prisoner story, Wilber and Lembcke take their readers back to American colonial history and the captivity narratives emerging during that time.

These stories are about a complex mix of violence against captives, temptations to stay with their captors, the ideal to remain loyal with their fellow colonists, and their Christian beliefs.

Illustration of captives in the Indian Wars. [Source: legendofamerica.com]

Such tensions and correlations between the Self and the Other were critical in the making of an American identity. The wars in Korea and Vietnam and the POW experiences there can be understood as a new chapter of this identity-making process. Here, too, Americans must prove their will and ability to endure the brutality of a racialized Other.

A wrench in the story, however, is revealed in the autobiographical accounts of POW-heroes like Stockdale, Denton, and Risner. They wrote about fasting as a way of enforcing self-discipline and self-assurance, sometimes with a religious subtext.

More bizarrely, they also wrote about self-mutilation—the deliberate infliction of physical wounds on themselves that would be visible during filmed interviews.

The aim was to make it appear to other POWs (and to the U.S. public) that they had been tortured. One officer wrote of how he purposely damaged his vocal apparatus so he could not be forced to make propaganda statements.

In addition to some high-ranking officers attempting to portray themselves as heroes by means of self-mutilation, Wilber and Lembcke also noted that they tried to keep political literature and news of dissent back home away from other POWs, fearing that these would enhance critical positions on the war and against their authority within the prison population.

Moreover, these ranking officers often despised the more humane view of the Vietnamese displayed by other prisoners, including an interest in their language and culture, and an understanding of why they were fighting back against an invasion of their country by the most powerful military force in the world.

Bringing Back Forgotten Dissenters

Wilber and Lembcke’s book helps restore these forgotten POW dissenters to their rightful—and honored—place among the large and diverse Vietnam generation of dissidents, draft resisters, oppositional GIs, veteran activists, deserters, and all those who supported them.

[Source: vietnampeace.org]

The book also shows that, despite all destruction and death brought by the invaders from the sky, North Vietnam maintained a moral superiority through oftentimes fair treatment of the captured Americans. This was in stark contrast to the more systematic adoption of torture methods by USAID and CIA-trained police under the Operation Phoenix and like-minded programs.

Vietnam War protesters create mock Tiger Cage, replicating one in the USAID-run Con Son prison where Vietnamese inmates were tortured in a way American POWs claimed they had been tortured. [Source: easyyolktoofiles.wordpress.com]

The POW/MIA flag that flies today over the White House is intended to honor the men who endured captivity; however, it continues to perpetuate a distorted understanding of a war that was as abominable as it was unjust, and helps to advance a dangerous nationalist ideology that will lead to future Vietnams.

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Paul Benedikt Glatz is the author of Vietnam’s Prodigal Heroes: American Deserters, International Protest, European Exile, and Amnesty (Lexington Books, 2021).

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

Steve Brown is a member of the Editorial Board of CovertAction Magazine.

Notes

1. See Clarence Adams, An American Dream: The Life of an African American Soldier and POW Who Spent Twelve Years in Communist China (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007).

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Incumbent Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party won the most votes in Sunday’s parliamentary elections by far though it’s unclear at the time of writing whether he has enough to form a government, but in any case, there are top five priorities that the next administration should focus on in order to improve the situation for everyday Armenians.

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In the aftermath of a second military coup within nine months in the West African state of Mali both the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union (AU) are calling for a speedy return to civilian rule.

ECOWAS and the AU suspended the coup leaders from the regional organizations while France has threatened to reduce its military presence in Mali until the political situation is stabilized while suggesting that a more “internationalized” force is needed.

Mali has been a center of attention by the United States and its former colonial rulers in France for many years. The most prevalent notion about the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and Paris’ Operation Barkhane in West Africa is that these foreign military forces are there to assist in the wars against Islamic rebels.

Yet long before the threat of armed groups in northern Mali, the U.S. was already making preparations to militarize the country. Concurrently, France has always sought to maintain a military involvement in its former colonies and other independent states for the purpose of protecting and expanding its economic interests in the region.

An attack on Operation Barkhane forces in central Mali on June 21 may give the imperialist power pause in regard to its downsizing of military troops. A car bomb explosion was reported in the Kaigourou neighborhood in the city of Gossi injuring several troops. Eyewitnesses say that there was a flurry of military helicopters racing towards the scene of the attack to evacuate wounded soldiers. (See this)

Such operations are attributed to the Islamist armed groups which are ostensibly fighting the central government in the capital of Bamako which is in the south of the vast country. Several days prior to this incident, France had reported the arrest of a rebel leader inside of Mali.

The group which the rebel leader was heading is known as the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (EIGS). This is one of several rebel organizations which have been battling the Malian government and its French military backers since 2013.

Mali is not the only state within the Sahel region which is facing similar security issues. An area which connects Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso has been a focal point for jihadist activity prompting the interventions of Operation Barkhane and AFRICOM.

These three states have resources which are important to the western industrial complex. Mali and Burkina Faso have gold and Niger is a major source for uranium. The basis for colonial intervention on the African continent beginning in the 15th century was to acquire slave labor, mineral resources, agricultural commodities, and new avenues for transnational commerce.

After the collapse of the Atlantic Slave Trade and classical colonialism during the 19th and later 20th centuries, the phenomenon of neo-colonialism came to the fore. This new form of economic and political domination can only be carried out if the African continent and other nationally oppressed regions remained under the domination of the global capitalist system.

The imperialist governments have consistently interfered in the internal affairs of the AU member-states to the extent that the national security of these nations remain elusive. Since 2012, France has admitted that 5,100 troops under their command have served in the tri-state territories of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso along with Mauritania and Chad. Yet these countries remain sources of instability throughout the West and Central African regions.

With specific reference to the present situation in Mali and other contiguous states, the news agency France24 says:

“Dadi Ould Chouaib, also known as Abou Dardar, was arrested on June 11 in the flashpoint ‘tri-border’ region between Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, the site of frequent attacks by jihadist groups, according to the French military….  The extremists, affiliated with al-Qaida and the Islamic State militant group, have moved from the arid north to more populous central Mali since 2015 where their presence has stoked animosity and violence between ethnic groups in the area.”

Therefore, the ongoing role of Operation Barkhane and AFRICOM is not resolving the security issues in the Sahel region. Quite to the contrary, not only is the level of uncertainty escalating, the conflicts between various groupings within these states are worsening.

Malian Coup Leader Trained by the Pentagon

Of course, the situation in Mali and throughout the Sahel region in Africa illustrates the detrimental impact of imperialist militarism. Since the military coup led by Col. Assimi Goita even the Voice of America (VOA), a U.S. propaganda radio, television and print media outlet funded by the State Department, has openly admitted that this individual who has staged two coups in contravention of the protocols of the AU and ECOWAS was indeed trained by the Pentagon.

According to an article published on August 22, 2020 by the VOA, it notes that:

“[T]he Pentagon acknowledged that Goita previously has participated in training with U.S. Africa Command and its special forces as part of multinational efforts to counter violent extremism in the region. But the Pentagon also condemned the mutiny, which it said runs counter to the training it has provided. ‘Colonel Goita and many other Malians have participated in Flintlock training exercises focused on countering violent extremist organizations, the rule of law in armed conflict, professionalism, and the primacy of civilian authority,’ Col. Christopher P. Karns, spokesperson for the U.S. Africa Command, said in an email to VOA. Flintlock is an annual special forces exercise organized by AFRICOM. ‘U.S. Africa Command has had a partnership and engaged with the Malian armed forces to confront violent extremism in the Sahel, a common interest and mutual concern.’”

Although the Pentagon and the U.S. government as a whole are saying they disapproved of the military usurpation of power by Col. Goita, this is not the first instance of Pentagon-trained officers in Mali seizing power from an elected administration. In 2012 a similar situation developed when lower-ranking army officers took control of the government after an escalation in attacks by Tuareg and Islamist fighters in the north of the country.

The 2012-2013 recrudescence of military coups against civilian governments was linked to the failure of the administration of President Amadou Toumani Toure to quell the Tuareg rebellion in the north of the country. Another mid-level military officer, Amadou Sanogo, led a coup against the government in March of 2012.

Sanogo as well was given instructions in Pentagon-controlled military training facilities in the U.S. where he purportedly studied counter-terrorism tactics. Therefore, the link between counter-terrorism training, military coups against civilian governments and the continuing problems of insurgencies indicate that the existing policies towards Africa by the imperialist states can only result in more underdevelopment and political stagnation.

Whither Mali and the Sahel?

These are profound lessons for the post-colonial African administrations attempting to build their state structures and economies in a world system still controlled by international finance capital. In the U.S., the newly elected administration of President Joe Biden has yet to articulate a foreign policy towards Africa which distinguishes itself from the previous regimes of Donald Trump and Barack Obama.

In fact, it was the Obama administration which engineered the imperialist war against Libya resulting in the destabilization of North and West Africa. The dislocation from Libya has been cited in the resurfacing of the regional conflict in Mali only this time it involves the presence of Islamist rebel groups.

These same Islamist groupings were utilized in Libya as a means to justify the sanctions, blanket bombings and overthrow of the former government of Col. Muammar Gaddafi. Since 2011, the problems of displacement have intensified leading to the migration of tens of millions of people not only from Libya and neighboring states, notwithstanding the initiation of a war in Syria and Yemen, contributing to further instability and forced migration as refugees.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Mali under the political leadership of Modibo Keita, was a leading force in Pan-Africanism and non-capitalist development. Keita along with President Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and President Ahmed Sekou Toure of Guinea-Conakry formed a coalition known as the Ghana-Guinea-Mali Union. They pledged to integrate the economies and political structures of their countries as a first step towards continental unification.

President Modibo Keita was overthrown by the military leader Moussa Traore in November 1968. Nkrumah was removed from office at the aegis of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in February 1966. President Toure of Guinea died in April 1984 in the U.S. while receiving medical treatment and his government headed by the Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG) was removed from office by lower-ranking military officers soon after his death.

All three countries: Ghana, Mali and Guinea-Conakry, have never been able to reclaim their vanguard role within the African Revolution since these respective time periods when they fell victim to imperialist intrigue and opportunism. Consequently, the role of the military in post-colonial Africa has largely been a reactionary one. These historical trends can only be reversed when the masses of workers, farmers and youth take control of the state structures to construct socialism and African unification.

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

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U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa reported that the guided-missile destroyer USS Laboon, deployed to the Black Sea on June 11, engaged in passing and communications exercises with two warships assigned to the carrier strike group of the new HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier currently in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.

The latter ships are the British destroyer HMS Defender and the Royal Netherlands Navy’s De Zeven Provinciën-class frigate HNLMS Evertsen.

Laboon is the fifth American ship sent to the Black Sea so far this year and the fourth guided-missile warship (three destroyers and a cruiser), all four Aegis Combat System vessels equipped with Standard Missile-3 interceptor missiles.

Last week Queen Elizabeth and its carrier strike group engaged in joint exercises in the Mediterranean with France’s nuclear aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and its carrier strike group which included 15 ships and 57 aircraft from Britain, France, the U.S., Greece, Italy and the Netherlands. The British group represents the largest-ever deployment of F-35 combat aircraft and the largest fifth-generation fighter carrier air wing in the world.

In addition to Defender and Evertsen, the Queen Elizabeth strike group includes the British destroyer HMS Diamond, the U.S. destroyer USS The Sullivans and the British frigates HMS Richmond and HMS Kent.

Laboon is assigned to the carrier strike group of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhowernuclear aircraft carrier as are fellow destroyers USS Mitscher, USS Mahan and USS Thomas Hudner and cruiser USS Monterey. Thomas Hudner and Monterey were deployed to the Black Sea earlier this year.

In addition to the four guided-missile warships assigned to Dwight D. Eisenhowerand the one to Queen Elizabeth, the U.S. maintains four more destroyers at the Naval Station Rota in Spain. So the U.S. currently has ten guided-missile ships in the Mediterranean and Black Seas capable of firing 55 Tomahawk cruise missiles apiece and Standard Missile-3 interceptors of the sort that earlier this month was used to conduct “a ballistic missile intercept in outer space.”

The recent exercise in the Black Sea with British, U.S. and Dutch warships was described by its British commander in these anything but modest words:

“This opportunity for ourselves and the HNLMS Evertsen to operate with the USS Laboon in the Black Sea has again demonstrated the agility and flexibility that exists between NATO allies to be able to work seamlessly together on Maritime Security operations in order to defend international order and promote global peace and stability”

Defending the international order in a region where only one adversary is targeted: Russia.

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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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The European database of suspected drug reaction reports is EudraVigilance, which also tracks reports of injuries and deaths following the experimental COVID-19 “vaccines.”

A subscriber from Europe recently emailed us and reminded us that this database maintained at EudraVigilance is only for countries in Europe who are part of the European Union (EU), which comprises 27 countries.

The total number of countries in Europe is much higher, almost twice as many, numbering around 50, although there are some differences of opinion as to which countries are technically part of Europe.

So as high as these numbers are, they do NOT reflect all of Europe. The actual number in Europe who are reported dead or injured due to COVID-19 shots would be much higher than what we are reporting here.

The EudraVigilance database reports that through June 19, 2021 there are 15,472 deaths and 1,509,266 injuries reported following injections of four experimental COVID-19 shots:

• COVID-19 MRNA VACCINE MODERNA (CX-024414)
• COVID-19 MRNA VACCINE PFIZER-BIONTECH
• COVID-19 VACCINE ASTRAZENECA (CHADOX1 NCOV-19)
• COVID-19 VACCINE JANSSEN (AD26.COV2.S)

From the total of injuries recorded, half of them (753,657) are serious injuries.

“Seriousness provides information on the suspected undesirable effect; it can be classified as ‘serious’ if it corresponds to a medical occurrence that results in death, is life-threatening, requires inpatient hospitalisation, results in another medically important condition, or prolongation of existing hospitalisation, results in persistent or significant disability or incapacity, or is a congenital anomaly/birth defect.”

A Health Impact News subscriber in Europe ran the reports for each of the four COVID-19 shots we are including here. This subscriber has volunteered to do this, and it is a lot of work to tabulate each reaction with injuries and fatalities, since there is no place on the EudraVigilance system we have found that tabulates all the results.

Since we have started publishing this, others from Europe have also calculated the numbers and confirmed the totals.[1]

Here is the summary data through June 19, 2021.

Total reactions for the experimental mRNA vaccine Tozinameran (code BNT162b2,Comirnaty) from BioNTech/ Pfizer: 7,420 deaths and 560,256 injuries to 19/06/2021

• 16,133   Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 81 deaths
• 12,637   Cardiac disorders incl. 964 deaths
• 101        Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 6 deaths
• 7000      Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 4 deaths
• 265        Endocrine disorders incl. 1 death
• 8,122     Eye disorders incl. 17 deaths
• 51,030   Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 348 deaths
• 155,486 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 2,290 deaths
• 468        Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 31 deaths
• 6,110     Immune system disorders incl. 32 deaths
• 17,549   Infections and infestations incl. 762 deaths
• 6,275     Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 104 deaths
• 13,249   Investigations incl. 285 deaths
• 4,162     Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 139 deaths
• 79,125   Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 88 deaths
• 325        Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl. cysts and polyps) incl. 23 deaths
• 100,895 Nervous system disorders incl. 780 deaths
• 384        Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 10 deaths
• 107        Product issues
• 9,928     Psychiatric disorders incl. 105 deaths
• 1,765     Renal and urinary disorders incl. 115 deaths
• 2,696     Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 3 deaths
• 23,689   Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 848 deaths
• 26,641   Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 66 deaths
• 846        Social circumstances incl. 10 deaths
• 281        Surgical and medical procedures incl. 19 deaths
• 14,987   Vascular disorders incl. 289 deaths

Total reactions for the experimental mRNA vaccine mRNA-1273 (CX-024414) from Moderna: 4,147 deaths and 122,643 injuries to 19/06/2021

• 2,239     Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 29 deaths
• 3,315     Cardiac disorders incl. 446 deaths
• 39           Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 3 deaths
• 1,454     Ear and labyrinth disorders
• 82           Endocrine disorders incl. 1 death
• 1,883     Eye disorders incl. 7 deaths
• 10,655   Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 142 deaths
• 33,936   General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 1,759 deaths
• 209        Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 11 deaths
• 1,117     Immune system disorders incl. 5 deaths
• 3,835     Infections and infestations incl. 234 deaths
• 2,480     Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 77 deaths
• 2,670     Investigations incl. 89 deaths
• 1,297     Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 85 deaths
• 15,131   Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 77 deaths
• 128        Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl. cysts and polyps) incl. 15 deaths
• 21,684   Nervous system disorders incl. 424 deaths
• 255        Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 2 death
• 20           Product issues
• 2,437     Psychiatric disorders incl. 69 deaths
• 807        Renal and urinary disorders incl. 52 deaths
• 459        Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 1 death
• 5,640     Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 399 deaths
• 6,538     Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 28 deaths
• 504        Social circumstances incl. 13 deaths
• 397        Surgical and medical procedures incl. 38 deaths
• 3,432     Vascular disorders incl. 141 deaths

Total reactions for the experimental vaccine AZD1222/VAXZEVRIA (CHADOX1 NCOV-19) from Oxford/ AstraZeneca: 3,364 deaths and 793,036 injuries to 19/06/2021

• 9,136     Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 132 deaths
• 12,135   Cardiac disorders incl. 396 deaths
• 95           Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 2 deaths
• 8,797     Ear and labyrinth disorders
• 309        Endocrine disorders incl. 2 deaths
• 13,459   Eye disorders incl. 12 deaths
• 81,806   Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 161 deaths
• 212,663 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 891 deaths
• 525        Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 25 deaths
• 3,085     Immune system disorders incl. 11 deaths
• 17,791   Infections and infestations incl. 217 deaths
• 7,854     Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 77 deaths
• 16,731   Investigations incl. 79 deaths
• 9,765     Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 50 deaths
• 123,637 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 45 deaths
• 332        Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl. cysts and polyps) incl. 8 deaths
• 169,286 Nervous system disorders incl. 532 deaths
• 223        Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 4 deaths
• 103        Product issues
• 14,931   Psychiatric disorders incl. 27 deaths
• 2,809     Renal and urinary disorders incl. 29 deaths
• 5,967     Reproductive system and breast disorders
• 26,631   Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 387 deaths
• 36,457   Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 22 deaths
• 772        Social circumstances incl. 4 deaths
• 671        Surgical and medical procedures incl. 16 deaths
• 17,066   Vascular disorders incl. 235 deaths

Total reactions for the experimental COVID-19 vaccine JANSSEN (AD26.COV2.S) from Johnson & Johnson: 541 deaths and 33, 331 injuries to 19/06/2021

• 306        Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 16 deaths
• 496        Cardiac disorders incl. 56 deaths
• 14           Congenital, familial and genetic disorders
• 177        Ear and labyrinth disorders
• 8             Endocrine disorders incl. 1 death
• 383        Eye disorders incl. 3 deaths
• 3,086     Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 23 deaths
• 8,761     General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 137 deaths
• 52           Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 4 deaths
• 85           Immune system disorders
• 392        Infections and infestations incl. 13 deaths
• 320        Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 8 deaths
• 2,003     Investigations incl. 37 deaths
• 184        Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 10 deaths
• 5,718     Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 17 deaths
• 16           Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl. cysts and polyps)
• 7,093     Nervous system disorders incl. 68 deaths
• 9             Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 1 death
• 9             Product issues
• 355        Psychiatric disorders incl. 5 deaths
• 119        Renal and urinary disorders incl. 8 deaths
• 114        Reproductive system and breast disorders
• 1,130     Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 43 deaths
• 804        Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 2 deaths
• 72           Social circumstances incl. 3 deaths
• 336        Surgical and medical procedures incl. 26 deaths
• 1,289     Vascular disorders incl. 60 deaths

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Notes

[1] These totals are estimates based on reports submitted to EudraVigilance. Totals may be much higher based on percentage of adverse reactions that are reported. Some of these reports may also be reported to the individual country’s adverse reaction databases, such as the U.S. VAERS database and the UK Yellow Card system. The fatalities are grouped by symptoms, and some fatalities may have resulted from multiple symptoms.

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***

Cuba’S economy lost more than $9 billion (£6.5bn) amid the coronavirus pandemic last year, due to the impact of the six decade-long US blockade, government officials said on Thursday.

The losses in 2020 were up from $5.6bn (£4bn) in 2019, according to Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez.

“The human damage, suffering and deficiencies caused to Cuban families are incalculable,” he said.

Cuba has lost some $754bn (£543bn) since the economic blockade was first imposed in 1962 by then US president John F Kennedy.

He intended it to strangle the nascent Cuban revolution and oust the government of Fidel Castro, which had swept the power in 1959 by overthrowing the US-backed Batista dictatorship.

The blockade was a retaliatory measure in response to the nationalisation of property carried out by the revolutionary government. Despite widespread international condemnation, it has remained in place ever since.

Former US president Donald Trump ratcheted up the pressure on the Cuban economy in 2019 by enacting title three of the so-called Helms-Burton Act, which, although passed into law in 1996, had been suspended by successive US administrations.

It placed severe restrictions on foreign companies, essentially banning them from doing business with Cuba on pain of US lawsuits for alleged “trafficking” if they failed to comply.

Last year, Washington was accused of an act of “Wild West brutality” after it used the Act to block a ship carrying vital medical aid from China from docking on the socialist island.

The supplies, including two million masks, 400,000 rapid diagnostic kits and 104 ventilators, were destined for some 24 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and Peru.

Days before leaving the White House, the Trump administration placed Cuba on a list of state sponsors of terrorism, despite a lack of credible evidence.

Hopes of a shift in policy have been dashed by President Joe Biden, who has so far failed to remove Cuba from the list, despite promising a review, as his government pursues an increasingly aggressive foreign policy.

Last month, the State Department listed Cuba as among those countries “not co-operating fully with United States anti-terrorism efforts.”

Havana’s economic figures will be presented to the United Nations general assembly as part of an annual resolution condemning the blockade. The motion usually receives the support of all member states except the US and Israel.

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***

Will the Great Pandemic permanently unleash governments around the world? Covid-19 is enabling politicians to turn freedom from an individual right into a conditional bureaucratic dispensation. Defining down freedom was exemplified by the G-7 Summit that became a ludicrous and hypocritical Lockdowners Victory Lap. 

The G-7 leaders, meeting in Cornwall, issued a communique pledging to “protect individuals from forced labour and to ensure that global supply chains are free from the use of forced labour.” But the political bosses had no concern about “forced non-labor” – their own decrees that destroyed tens of millions of jobs. That was no problem because, as the G-7 leaders boasted, “We have provided unprecedented support to citizens and businesses… totalling over $12 trillion including fiscal support and liquidity measures.”

But handouts are no substitute for freedom and self-reliance. Government aid is always only one decree away from mandating terms of submission. In 1942, the Supreme Court declared, “It is hardly lack of due process for the government to regulate that which it subsidizes.” The G-7 Summiteers proclaimed a boatload of environmental goals. Will future “stimulus payments” be restricted to people who reduce their “carbon footprint” or abandon their non-electric vehicles?

The Biden administration was thrilled that G-7 Summiteers adapted its slogan, “Build Back Better,” in the communique. That slogan will entitle politicians to snare more revenue and power to repair the damage from the shutdowns they inflicted. Biden-style rebuilding presumes that any government spending confers vast benefits, at least on politicians. Biden’s colleagues also seconded his call for placing at least 30% of all land and water under government restrictions in the name of conservation.

G-7 leaders enjoyed parties and plenty of backslapping – privileges denied to nearby British citizens whose lives continue semi-paralyzed by pervasive government restrictions. Brits were told that their lockdown misery would end on June 21, which became known as “Freedom Day.” But British politicians have invoked the fear of new variants to justify extending the lockdown at least another month and possibly far longer. Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared on Monday, “Now is the time to ease off the accelerator,” regardless of how many individual rights become roadkill. Spiked editor Brendan O’Neil declared that “this further suspension of liberty, is only possible in a society that has thoroughly devalued freedom” and derided the “creeping embrace of the lockdown lifestyle among significant sections of the Smart Set.”

In the U.S., President Joe Biden designated the Fourth of July as Americans’ shrink-wrapped “Freedom Day.” On March 11, Biden declared that, if people obey government decrees, “there’s a good chance you, your families and friends, will be [permitted] to get together in your backyard or in your neighborhood and have a cookout or a barbecue and celebrate Independence Day.” Biden repeated his declaration on April 21: “To celebrate our independence from this virus on July 4th with family and friends in small groups…. We all need to mask up… until everyone has a chance to get their shot.”

Biden converted the Fourth of July into a benchmark of submission to presidential decrees. On May 4, Biden announced that he wanted 70% of American adults to have at least one Covid vaccine by July 4. On June 2, Biden declared that people should “exercise your freedom” to get vaccinated so Americans can enjoy a “summer of freedom.” Freedom to get politically-mandated injections was not one of the clauses included in the Bill of Rights. Regardless of the Biden administration’s alarmism, most states have already lifted lockdown orders.

Biden’s attempted expropriation of Independence Day had no impact on his honeymoon with the media. When the Pulitzer Prizes were bestowed last Friday, no awards were given for exposing the frauds and follies of repressive Covid-19 policies that ravaged prosperity and freedom. Instead, the Pulitzer for Public Service was awarded to a New York Times team that included Donald McNeil. As Jeffrey Tucker reported, early during the pandemic, McNeil fanned fear with a bizarre article headlined, “To Take On the Coronavirus, Go Medieval on It.” He urged American policymakers to rely on tactics “from the era of the Black Death… pen terrified citizens up inside their poisoned cities… Harsh measures horrify civil libertarians, but they often save lives, especially when they are imposed in the early days.” McNeil turbocharged his alarmism by overestimating the likely death toll by over 20-fold. Ironically, at a time when the American media has become far more critical of police power, pundits have consecrated bureaucratic power.

In the Covid era, destroying freedom is a negligible loss, akin to a government agency misplacing a few hundred filing cabinets. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti faced minimal criticism last December when he banned all unnecessary “travel, including, without limitation, travel on foot, bicycle, scooter, motorcycle, automobile, or public transit.” The mayor offered no evidence to justify placing four million residents under house arrest. Similar restrictions hit residents of Michigan, New York, Oregon, and other states. Federal judge William Stickman IV aptly declared last September, “Broad population-wide lockdowns are such a dramatic inversion of the concept of liberty in a free society as to be nearly presumptively unconstitutional.” But the scant controversy over lockdowns is a sign that many media outlets are happy to see liberty “inverted” into unquestioning obedience to any command issued by any government official.

Politicians could decimate freedom because their Covid-19 decrees almost instantly became hallowed with the aura of “science” – regardless of how often the official guidance changed. Since Biden became president, Covid vaccines have also become sacrosanct and casting any doubts on their safety or efficacy is portrayed as proof of idiocy or villainy. Politicians and their media allies now talk as if the only reliable gauge of health and safety is the percentage of Americans who have been injected (ignoring the natural immunity that the 115 million people who had Covid infections enjoy). The result is a long series of socialist-style victory proclamations, substituting the number of arms injected for bogus statistics on the wheat harvest from collective farms. And anyone who refuses to be vaccinated is the new Kulak, reviled and portrayed as a dire threat to the survival of everything decent. It would not be surprising if politicians limited future Covid handouts to individuals who could prove they were vaccinated.

Many Americans presume that the political travails of Covid are mostly in the rearview mirror. The small print of the G-7 Communique is hell on such optimism. “The COVID-19 pandemic is not under control anywhere until it is under control everywhere,” the Summiteers warned. And as long as the pandemic is out of control, rulers must remain unleashed. If anyone has the virus, then no one is free – or at least no one should be permitted to be free. The prerogatives and precedents that multiplied during the Covid pandemic are waiting to be exploited for the next viral outbreak – or maybe simply to make some really dramatic gestures on climate change.

The G-7 Communique endlessly promised “transparency” but only fools should expect official candor during pandemics or other politically-proclaimed emergencies. British scientists who shaped government Covid policies recently admitted using “unethical” and “dystopian” fearmongering to terrorize people into submission. One scientist declared that “using fear smacks of totalitarianism,” and another scientist admitted being “stunned by the weaponization of behavioral psychology” to enforce compliance with Covid dictates. 

American politicians and government agencies relied on many of the same fear tactics in this country. Docile media helped sway people to view other Americans’ freedom as the deadliest threat to their own health. Instead, the biggest danger citizens faced was that their rulers would not have sufficient power to force everyone else to stop working, stop worshipping, stay inside, and get injected.

No-fault Czars are no substitute for individual liberty. Politicians vindicated lockdowns by claiming that all the sacrifices are justified if they “save just one life.” But what about “just one freedom” – especially freedoms previously enjoyed by hundreds of millions of people? Instead of “Build Back Better” further empowering reckless rulers, we need to “Build Back Freer.”

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James Bovard is the author of ten books, including Public Policy Hooligan, Attention Deficit Democracy, The Bush Betrayal, and Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Washington Post, New Republic, Reader’s Digest, and many other publications. He is a member of the USA Today Board of Contributors, a frequent contributor to The Hill, and a contributing editor for American Conservative.

Featured image is from AIER

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***

Last week, the Federal Reserve announced it will maintain an interest rate target of zero to 0.25 percent for the rest of 2021. The Fed said it will also continue its monthly purchase of 120 billion dollars of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities.

Some Fed board members are forecasting a rate increase by late 2022 or 2023, though with the rate still not reaching one percent. The Fed will neither allow interest rates to rise to market levels nor reduce its purchase of Treasury securities. A significant increase in interest rates would make the government’s borrowing costs unsustainable.

The Fed also raised its projected rate of inflation to three percent, although it still insists the rise in prices is a transitory effect of the end of the lockdowns. There is some truth to this, as it will take some time for businesses to get back to full capacity. However, the Fed began taking extraordinary measures to prop up the economy in September of 2019, when it started pumping billions of dollars a day into the repo market that banks use to make short-term loans to each other. The lockdowns only postponed and deepened the forthcoming Fed-caused meltdown.

Germany’s Deutsche Bank recently released a paper warning about the Federal Reserve continuing to disregard the inflation risk caused by easy money policies designed to “stimulate” the economy and facilitate massive government spending. Germans have reason to be sensitive to the consequences of inflation, including hyperinflation. Out-of-control inflation played a major role in the collapse of the German economy in the 1920s, which led to the rise of the National Socialists.

This pattern could repeat itself in America where we have already witnessed the rise of authoritarian movements. Last summer, groups exploited legitimate concerns about police misconduct to ferment violence across the country. Can anyone doubt that an economic crisis that leads to mass unemployment, foreclosures, and maybe even shortages will result in large-scale violence? Or that the violence will be exploited by power-hungry politicians? Or that many people will once again fall for the big lie that preserving safety requires giving up their liberty?

The apparatus of repression already exists in the form of a surveillance state, police militarization, and big tech’s cooperation with big government to stamp out dissent. Now, President Biden and his congressional allies want to use the January 6 US Capitol turmoil to justify expanding government powers in the name of stopping “domestic terrorists.” Part of this new campaign is expanding censorship of “extremism,” defined as any views that threaten the status quo. The Biden administration has taken a page from the Communist playbook in suggesting people report their friends and family who are becoming “radicalized.”

We may still have time to prevent collapse in America, or at least to make sure the collapse leads to a transition to a free society. The key to success is spreading the ideas of liberty until we have the ability to force the politicians to dismantle the welfare-warfare state and the fiat money system that is the lifeblood of authoritarian government.

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***

The unjust decision earlier this year by a French Court of Appeal to send Dr. Hassan Diab to trial prolongs a 13-year miscarriage of justice. The decision ignored overwhelming evidence of Hassan’s innocence, and engaged in contradictory reasoning and unfounded speculation. Even France’s own avocat général had asked the Cour de Cassation to quash the Court of Appeal decision due to its legal flaws. However, the Cour de Cassation upheld the Court of Appeal decision.

Hassan’s Kafkaesque nightmare highlights the human cost of unjust prosecution due to politics, aided and abetted by a Canadian extradition law deficient in human rights protections. 

We need to exert pressure on the Canadian government to end Hassan Diab’s persecution and prevent a wrongful conviction!

We have an ongoing Parliamentary petition and letter-writing campaign. If you haven’t done so already, please to sign the petition below:

• https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-3400 (English)
• https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/fr/Petition/Details?Petition=e-3400 (French)

And please send a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. You may write your own letter, or send the online letter at:

• If you live in Canada: https://iclmg.ca/diab-letter (a copy of the letter will be sent to your Member of Parliament)
• If you live outside Canada: https://iclmg.ca/diab-letter-intl

Thanks to everyone who already signed the Parliamentary petition and sent a letter to PM Trudeau! 

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Il Summit Usa-Russia, il 16 giugno a Ginevra, è stato definito dal presidente Biden «buono, positivo» e dal presidente Putin «abbastanza costruttivo». Dovremmo quindi sentirci un po’ rassicurati in una situazione in cui l’Europa è in prima linea in quello che la Nato definisce «il punto più basso della nostra relazione con la Russia dalla fine della guerra fredda»? I fatti ci dicono il contrario. Nel momento stesso in cui in Svizzera era in corso il Summit Usa-Russia, nel Baltico era in corso la Baltops 50, una delle 20 grandi esercitazioni militari Usa-Nato in Europa nel 2021.

La Baltops 50 è stata organizzata e diretta dal comandante delle Forze navali Usa-Africa con quartier generale a Napoli-Capodichino, l’Ammiraglio Robert Burke, che allo stesso tempo è a capo del Comando Nato di Lago Patria (JFC-Naples). Dal 6 al 18 giugno, oltre 4.000 militari con 40 navi e 60 aerei – appartenenti a 18 paesi membri e partner della Nato, tra cui l’Italia – si sono esercitati alla guerra aeronavale nel Baltico e nelle regioni circostanti», a ridosso del territorio russo. Hanno preso parte alla manovra navi da guerra e bombardieri anche a capacità nucleare, e, per la prima volta, è stato integrato nell’esercitazione il nuovo Centro Spaziale Nato.

Mentre era in corso questa grande esercitazione di guerra chiaramente diretta contro la Russia, nella conferenza stampa dopo il Summit il presidente Putin dichiarava: «Noi conduciamo le esercitazioni militari all’interno del nostro territorio, non portiamo i nostri equipaggiamenti e il nostro personale vicino ai confini degli Stati Uniti d’America, come invece stanno facendo ora vicino ai nostri confini gli Usa e i loro partner». La dislocazione geografica delle forze, soprattutto di quelle nucleari, è di primaria importanza: un missile tattico dislocato a 10.000 km di distanza non può colpire l’obiettivo ma, se dislocato a 1.000 km, ha lo stesso effetto distruttivo di un missile intercontinentale.

La Dichiarazione dei due presidenti sulla «stabilità strategica», che include l’estensione del Nuovo Trattato Start per il controllo delle armi nucleari, sarà vanificata se gli Usa, come hanno in programma, installeranno in Europa nuove armi nucleari «tattiche». Questa e altre questioni chiave sono state ignorate dai media che, secondo la regia di Washington, hanno usato il Summit quale una sorta di processo, con Putin sul banco degli imputati.

Pubblico ministero il Presidente degli Stati uniti che, dopo aver rifiutato di tenere la tradizionale conferenza stampa congiunta, non ha come Putin solo risposto alle domande, ma ha presentato una sua relazione sul Summit. Secondo quanto riferisce, Biden ha detto a Putin come reagisce quando vede violare i diritti umani in Russia e altrove: «Come potrei essere il presidente degli Stati Uniti d’America e non parlare contro la violazione dei diritti umani? Difendere le libertà fondamentali fa parte del DNA del nostro paese». Lo dichiara solennemente l’attuale Presidente degli Stati Uniti, il democratico Joseph Biden che nel 2001 sostenne la guerra del presidente repubblicano Bush in Afghanistan e, nel 2002, promosse una risoluzione bipartisan che autorizzava il presidente Bush a invadere l’Iraq con l’accusa (poi dimostratasi falsa) che esso possedeva armi di distruzione di massa.

Lo dichiara solennemente Joseph Biden che, quale vicepresidente dell’amministrazione Obama, è stato uno degli artefici delle guerre Usa-Nato contro la Libia e la Siria, del sostegno ai gruppi fondamentalisti islamici per scardinare questi paesi dall’interno, dell’impiego dei neonazisti in Ucraina per il putsch che ha aperto il nuovo confronto con la Russia, della «kill list» comprendente persone di tutto il mondo che, giudicate nocive per gli Stati uniti, erano segretamente uccise (The New York Times, President Obama’s Kill List, 29 maggio 2012), Guerre e operazioni segrete che hanno provocato, direttamente e indirettamente, milioni di morti e le peggiori violazioni dei diritti umani. Non mancano però i buoni sentimenti: in un lungo necrologio ufficiale su Twitter (riportato per intero dall’Ansa), il presidente Biden annuncia: «I nostri cuori sono pesanti oggi mentre vi facciamo sapere che il nostro amato pastore tedesco, Champ, è morto in pace a casa».

Manlio Dinucci

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***

A coalition of wildlife advocacy groups, represented by the non-profit environmental law firm Earthjustice, today asked the U.S. Forest Service to issue new protections for wolves in designated wilderness areas following Idaho and Montana’s enactment of a rash of aggressive anti-wolf laws.

The groups’ petition, submitted to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and top Forest Service officials, asks the agency to enact measures to protect wolves in National Forest wilderness areas from new Idaho and Montana laws authorizing use of professional contractors and private reimbursement programs resembling 19th-Century wolf bounties to dramatically reduce wolf populations in the two states.

During their 2021 sessions, the legislatures of Idaho and Montana both enacted harsh anti-wolf laws that target up to 1,800 wolves across the two states. One goal of the laws is to artificially inflate elk populations to levels last seen in the mid-1990s, before wolves were reintroduced to their historic range in the Northern Rockies.

“A wilderness is supposed to be a wild place governed by natural conditions, not an elk farm,” said Earthjustice attorney Timothy Preso. “We are calling on the Forest Service to prevent Montana and Idaho from taking the wild out of wilderness through their aggressive wolf-removal campaigns.”

The groups’ petition focuses on a guarantee in the 1964 Wilderness Act that the Forest Service must manage designated wilderness as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, … retaining its primeval character and influence, … which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions.” New laws that authorize professional contractors and subsidized trappers to drive down wolf populations threaten to degrade wilderness conditions by upsetting the balance of predator and prey and eliminating a keystone wildlife species that is an icon of the wilderness landscape.

The petition asks the Forest Service to issue new regulations and closure orders to prevent wolf killing by professional and subsidized hunters and trappers across nearly 8 million acres of designated wilderness in Idaho and Montana, including such flagship areas as the Bob Marshall Wilderness in northwest Montana and the Frank Church-River of No Return and Selway-Bitterroot Wildernesses in central Idaho.

“Wolves need wildernesses to serve as a refuge where they can be safe from the slaughter they face across Idaho and Montana,” said Andrea Zaccardi, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Protecting wilderness requires the Forest Service to also protect wolves, which are so ecologically important to our national forests.”

“The state-sanctioned killing of wolves in Idaho and Montana threatens to needlessly damage the natural balance within our wilderness areas in these states for years to come,” said McCrystie Adams, managing attorney at Defenders of Wildlife. “We urge the U.S. Forest Service to abide by its duty and take immediate action to safeguard the unique character of our wilderness areas against these states’ wolf-killing measures.”

“The wild Clearwater region is the northern half of the largest relatively intact ecosystem in the lower 48 states,” said Gary Macfarlane, ecosystem defense director for Friends of the Clearwater. “Wolves and other species make places like the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness truly wild. This petition seeks to keep it that way.”

“Dispatching trappers and private contractors to cruelly and ruthlessly kill wolves on public lands threatens both the survival of the species and the character of the wilderness areas where they range,” said Nicholas Arrivo, managing attorney for the Humane Society of the United States. “The Forest Service must take action to mitigate the damage that Idaho and Montana’s reckless wolf-killing legislation will cause.”

“The Forest Service has long recognized that the presence of the Northern Rockies’ treasured wolves on the landscape enhances and preserves congressionally designated wilderness areas,” said Keisha Sedlacek, director of regulatory affairs for the Humane Society Legislative Fund. “The agency must carry out Congress’ intent to protect wolves from commercially driven slaughter.”

“The Montana Wildlife Federation supports ethical, fair chase hunting of wolves, but this is anything but ethical or fair chase,” said Nick Gevock, conservation director of Montana Wildlife Federation. “Paying contractors to go into wilderness areas and kill wolves amounts to an all-out eradication effort that harkens back to the 19th Century. These are wild areas that offer some of the best hunting in the country for all species, and these moves degrade that. It’s disgraceful and it needs to be stopped.”

“Wolves are essential to the overall health of ecosystems, but Montana and Idaho’s new laws aim to decimate their populations in the Northern Rockies. We cannot allow the modern equivalent of a bounty system for wolf killing to operate in wilderness areas— the very places meant to provide refuge for wildlife to thrive,” said Dan Ritzman, director of lands, water and wildlife at the Sierra Club. “With the extinction crisis bearing down, we need wilderness areas to remain intact and in support of life-sustaining biodiversity more than ever.”

“Wilderness is a place where natural processes should prevail, and the howl of the wolf should echo from peak to vale,” said Erik Molvar, executive director of Western Watersheds Project. “Healthy populations should be allowed to thrive throughout the range of the gray wolf, and their ability to flourish should not be impeded by commercially-driven killing, especially in Wilderness.”

“Montana and Idaho have declared a despicable war on wolves and on the very idea of Wilderness itself,” said George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness Watch. “The Forest Service has the authority and mandate to protect these special places and their wildlife. It needs to put a stop to this ugly slaughter.”

“Americans need to know that wolves can exist unmolested by man in our few remaining wildernesses,” said Marc Cooke, representative of Wolves of the Rockies.

The petitioner groups include the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Friends of the Clearwater, Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society Legislative Fund, International Wildlife Coexistence Network, Sierra Club, Western Watersheds Project, Wilderness Watch, and Wolves of the Rockies.

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The foreign ministers of Turkey and Ukraine, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and Dmytro Kuleba, met during the weekend’s three-day Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey to discuss yet further strengthening bilateral military cooperation.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry disclosed this about the content of the meeting:

“Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu assured that Turkey would continue to support Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration in all possible ways. The ministers discussed the possibilities of enhanced cooperation between the Ukrainian and Turkish navies which will help implement NATO standards in the Ukrainian Navy, increase their defense capabilities and interoperability with NATO member states, and generally strengthen cooperation between the countries for security in the Black Sea.”

Foreign Minister Kuleba expressed gratitude to Turkey for its steadfast support for its admission to NATO leading up to and during the June 14 NATO summit in Brussels. Ankara’s backing for Ukraine’s NATO accession is second to none in the 30-nation military bloc.

Kuleba told reporters at the conference that his nation is purchasing Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones “because Turkish drones are very good,” and very good precisely in this context:

“Drones are needed to deter Russia so that Russia thinks twice, before planning, any escalation or any large-scale attack on Ukraine.”

The foreign minister added that Turkey and Ukraine are collaborating “very closely” on exploiting the issue of Crimean Tatars to give Moscow an additional headache. Turkey, fresh from supporting the 44-day Azerbaijani war against Nagorno-Karabakh, would surely not object to replicating the model of “liberating” a Turkic/Muslim brother people from Russian occupation. Ukraine’s designation of Crimea, one which Turkey faithfully echoes, is that of temporarily-occupied territory: the same way Turkey views that portion of Nagorno-Karabakh not yet “liberated,” and Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which its Georgian ally also proclaims occupied territories.

Turkey is accommodating Ukraine’s military buildup, assisting its war in the Donbass, facilitating its entrance into NATO and preparing it to confront Russia in the Black Sea as it incites Tatar separatism in Crimea.

The Turkish and Ukrainian foreign ministers also discussed plans for the impending 10th meeting of the High-Level Strategic Council chaired by presidents Volodymyr Zelensky and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the next meeting of the two nations’ Quadriga format consisting of the defense and foreign ministers of both countries.

In April the Turkish and Ukrainian heads of state met in the Turkish capital for the most recent meeting of the High Level Strategic Council, which produced a twenty-point statement. In that document Turkey fully backs the position of Ukraine and its sponsors in the U.S., NATO and European Union in regard to forcing the Donetsk and Lugansk republics to return to Ukraine, driving Russia out of Crimea and granting NATO membership to Kiev. The Joint Declaration of the 9th meeting of the High-Level Strategic Council between Ukraine and the Republic of Turkey demands “the de-occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, as well as the territories in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.”

After the April 10 meeting, the web page of the Ukrainian president confirmed that “all aspects of the strategic partnership between the two countries were considered at today’s meeting.” Zelensky was cited emphasizing commitments to joint work in the energy sphere and in weapons manufacturing. The energy factor involves among other matters the prospect of Ukraine connecting with the 1,100-mile Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan oil pipeline and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline running from the Caspian Sea region to Turkey.

Zelensky stated that Turkish-Ukrainian defense cooperation is “the locomotive of the strategic partnership between the two countries.”

The last meeting of the Quadriga (2 + 2) was held on March 24, also in Ankara. The four ministers issued a joint statement afterward which in part reads:

“National coordinators discussed ways to deepen cooperation between Ukraine and Turkey in the field of security and defense to restore stability and security in the Black Sea region, and to further develop cooperation in the defense industry. A separate topic of the consultations was the current situation on the Crimean peninsula temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation and the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions….The participants in the consultations exchanged views on the prospects for resolving conflicts in the regions of the Middle East, North Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus.”

Shortly before that meeting Armenian Lebanese scholar Yeghia Tashjian warned:

“[My] greatest fear is on a regional level. It is no secret that Ukraine is preparing for war or at least triggering an armed conflict in Russian-controlled Donbass with Turkish and Western blessings. It has been two weeks since I began monitoring the Ukrainian and Russian army’s supply routes and deployment of heavy weapons near Donbass. Kyiv, motivated by the Turkish and Azerbaijani victory in Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh], tried to establish military relations with Turkey and bought Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones. Russia, aware that it may engage in a two-front war and knowing well that Armenia cannot defend itself against another Turkish-Azerbaijani invasion, is consolidating its presence in southern Armenia by building military posts and reopening the abandoned airfield of Sisian in Syunik.”

When the news about the discussions between the Turkish and Ukrainian foreign ministers became public, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov issued this characteristically tepid statement:

“We have made our position in regards to attempts to pull Ukraine into NATO very unambiguous. I have no doubts that serious, responsible states understand very clearly, what we mean. We plan another contact within our regular dialogue with the Turkish colleagues. I believe we will discuss this topic as well, of course.”

A couple of days earlier, when asked about Turkey considering opening a military base in conquered Nagorno-Karabakh – the statement was made by the Turkish president himself and published in the Turkish press – Lavrov shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t respond to rumors.”

As to how truly concerned the Russian government is about the behavior of its Turkish colleagues, this effusion by President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov a few weeks ago should clarify matters:

“Turkey and Turkey’s commitment to its independent course of development, which is quite firm, are generally the subject for heightened attention and, perhaps, concern at NATO. And, of course, this is a subject of US concern and the way the United States is trying to raise its voice at Ankara…obviously indicate that Washington does not like how [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is confidently leading Turkey forward and that they would prefer a more compliant Turkey.”

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On June 23, the United Nations General Assembly will vote to condemn the six-decade-long United States embargo of Cuba. Again.

The world has been doing this since 1992. In 2019, 187 countries supported the motion, with only three (the US, Israel and Brazil) opposing.

What makes this year’s vote more pressing, and more distressing, is that US President Joe Biden—who vowed during last year’s presidential campaign he’d reverse 240 Trump administration measures that “inflicted harm on the Cuban people and [did] nothing to advance democracy and human rights”—is now making life worse instead of better for the Cuban people.

In May, Biden renewed Trump’s determination that Cuba is not “cooperating fully” in US anti-terrorism efforts. It’s a bogus claim that has everything to do with winning favour with South Florida voters and nothing to do with anti-terrorism or reality.

But it inflicts harm on the Cuban people by penalizing companies and countries that dare trade with the socialist island state.

The original intent of what is now the longest lasting trade embargo in modern history was to force regime change in Cuba. In 2018, the United Nations calculated the embargo had cost Cuba over $130 billion.

The US has not achieved its regime change ambition. But it has succeeded in making life ever harder for the Cuban people.

Cuba is facing especially difficult times. Tourism has dried up. COVID continues. The embargo exacerbates every hardship.

Consider just a few examples.

Because of the embargo, Cuba has to source supplies from around the world instead of its more convenient (and cheap) next-door neighbour. But global suppliers, nervous about US extra-territorial laws, often refuse to trade with Cuba. If they do, they tack on a large markup to cover their risk. The US government has also slapped sanctions on dozens of companies and financial institutions simply for doing business with Havana.

But perhaps the most troubling aspect of the escalating embargo is its escalating impact on the health of Cubans.

In 1997, the American Association for World Health issued a detailed 300-page report, subtitled “Denial of Food and Medicine” which condemned the “de facto embargo on medical supplies” that “has wreaked havoc” on the Cuban medical system.

It’s worse now.

When two traditional European suppliers of ventilators for Cuban hospitals—IMT Medical AG and Acutronic—were purchased by an American company recently, for example, they immediately announced they would no longer sell to Cuba.

Last year, when the Cuban government sought to update contracts with US-based drug companies, pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly refused to have further commercial dealings with the island. Elsewhere, Bayer claimed its licence no longer permitted it to deal with Cuba, and Pfizer and Merck Sharp didn’t even bother to respond to requests to purchase badly needed medicines.

Last March, as COVID spread across the world, a Chinese company, Alibaba, tried to donate badly needed ventilators, diagnostic kits and masks to Cuba. But the major shareholder in the airline it hired to deliver those medical supplies was American. Fearing US retaliation, it refused to fly them to Cuba.

In April, several Swiss banks (UBS, Banque Cler and Basler Kantonalbank) also fearing sanctions, refused to transfer funds so local organizations there could purchase testing equipment and personal protective equipment for Cuba.

In January, Congressman James McGovern—who described US efforts to block humanitarian assistance to Cuba as an “outrage”—urged Biden to “act early, quickly and comprehensively” to reverse all Trump-imposed anti-Cuba measures and “immediately end the application of any sanctions against food, medicine and other humanitarian assistance to Cuba.”

He hasn’t.

Nor has Biden responded to a March letter signed by 80 House Democrats calling for an immediate end to restrictions on travel and travel remittances. “With the stroke of a pen, you can assist struggling Cuban families and promote a more constructive approach,” they wrote.

When Biden was vice president, his boss, Barack Obama, recognized the obvious and, in 2014, declared US efforts to isolate Cuba a failure. “It’s time for a new approach,” he said.

That is even more true today. The question is, will Joe Biden finally listen to the united voice of the world?

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Stephen Kimber is a professor of journalism at the University of King’s College and the author of 11 books, including the award-winning What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five.

John Kirk, a professor emeritus of Latin American studies at Dalhousie University, is the author or co-editor of 18 books on Latin America.

Featured image: Plaza de la Revolución, Havana. Photo by Gilbert Sopakuwa/Flickr.

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Peter McCullough, MD, MPH appears on the Ingraham Angle on June 21, 2021 to explain why we don’t need to panic about the “Delta variant” and what younger individuals should know about the mRNA vaccines.

Click here to watch the video.

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The media focus on the Summit meeting between Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin has to a certain extent crowded out news about the new government in Israel, headed by hardline nationalist Naftali Bennett. In those media outlets that are actually discussing the change there is an odd sort of perception that Israel’s new government will have to adjust to the new regime in Washington. That would imply that the Israelis will have to mitigate some of their more outrageous behavior to accommodate themselves to Biden’s intention to take actions that will be disapproved of in Jerusalem, to include a possible rapprochement with Iran over its nuclear program and a White House reengagement with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) of 2015.

The New York Times has an interesting article written by its Washington bureau diplomatic correspondent Michael Crowley with contributions from its new correspondent in Jerusalem Patrick Kingsley. The article is entitled “Shift in Israel Provides Biden a Chance for Better Ties” with a sub-heading that reads “The departure of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister is a relief for Democrats, but Iran and the Palestinians could test Mr. Biden’s relations with a fragile new Israeli government.”

The article argues that the fact that Biden did not call Netanyahu for three months after his own inauguration but called Bennett within three hours is significant. In the phone call Bennett reportedly blamed Netanyahu for “poisoning” the relationship with the United States, which should surprise no one as that was one of the issues hammered at repeatedly by Bennett during his own electoral campaign.

But one has to look beyond that and ask where is the evidence that Netanyahu’s admittedly acidic personality and arrogance led to any retribution by the White House, either under Barack Obama, Donald Trump or Joe Biden? It was generally reported and probably quite correct that Obama deeply disliked Netanyahu, even once being caught on an open mike speaking to French President Nicolas Sarkozy and regretting the fact that he had to interact with the petulant Israeli Prime Minister every week. Yet Obama then turned around and did something that no American President had ever done, arranging to give the Israeli’s a guaranteed $38 billion in military assistance over the course of ten years. The money was not conditional on Israeli behavior, did not reflect actual US interests, and was then sweetened by another half billion per year to support the Jewish state’s Iron Dome air defense system.

In 2015 the Obama Administration did indeed enter into the JCPOA, a multilateral agreement to monitor and limit Iran’s existing nuclear program, a move that was strongly opposed by Israel, but the only time the White House actually demonstrated any annoyance with Israel was when it abstained on a United Nations vote critical of the Jewish state’s settlements shortly before Obama left office. And it should be observed that Obama was duly punished by Israel for his bad attitude, with Netanyahu showing up at a joint session of Congress to denounce the impending Iran pact in March 2015. Bibi received twenty-nine standing ovations from a completely brainwashed gathering of the “peoples’ representatives.”

And then there is Donald Trump, who was probably the most pro-Israeli president in US history. Trump promoted Israeli interests repeatedly, moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing the annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights, de facto approving eventual incorporation of the Palestinian West Bank into Israel, and assassinating a senior Iranian general while also turning a blind eye to illegal settlement expansion and bombing attacks on both Syria and Lebanon. The US also repeatedly used its United Nations veto to prevent any criticism of Israel and its policies. Trump’s Ambassador to Israel David Friedman was notorious for his pander to Israeli interests, approving harsh measures against Palestinians and war crimes directed against its neighbors, so much so that he was perceived as a spokesman-apologist for Israel rather than the US.

Not much “poison” in the relationship as reflected by facts on the ground, is there? The money kept flowing, the political support hardly wavered, and the United States government at all levels could hardly stop gushing about how the Jewish state was a “democracy” and a “close ally,” both of which assertions were and are not true.

So now we come to Biden and talk about a reset. The Times oddly concedes that “The change in government in Israel will hardly wipe away deep differences with the Biden administration: The right-wing Mr. Bennett is ideologically closer to Mr. Netanyahu than to Mr. Biden. And it did not make the longstanding issues in the Middle East any less intractable. But the early interactions suggest a shift in tone and an opportunity, analysts said, to establish a less contentious relationship, with potential implications for dealing with Iran, the Palestinians and the wider region.”

Excuse me, but Bennett ran on a very hard line. He opposes any nuclear agreement with Iran and will not permit anything like a Palestinian state. He has been in office only a short time and has already approved airstrikes against targets in Syria and Gaza as well as a march by thousands of settlers through Palestinian East Jerusalem calling for “Death to Arabs.” A change in tone might be welcome, but as the United States already supinely agrees to support everything claimed by Israel, what will it mean on the ground? Nothing. And the “contentious relationship” is likewise hard to find. The thunder heard along the Potomac several weeks ago consisted of Congress and the White House’s synchronized chanting of “Israel has a right to defend itself!” And then there is the Iranian nuclear deal, which seems to be slipping away as Secretary of State Tony Blinken seemingly adds “conditions” to US reentry. So what are, in reality, the deep differences between Jerusalem and Washington that will be more manageable with “better tone?”

The Times argues perhaps more credibly that the damage has been done re the Israeli government relationship with the Democratic Party itself. It says “Mr. Biden has long considered Mr. Netanyahu a friend, albeit one with whom he often disagrees. But many administration officials and Congressional Democrats viscerally disdain the ousted Israeli leader, whom they came to see as a corrosive force and a de factopolitical ally of Republicans, including former President Donald J. Trump.”

Excuse me yet again, but such thinking is pie in the sky. To be sure a handful of Democratic Party progressives have come down hard on Israel’s recent slaughter of Gazans, but those who have any real power in the party have not voiced a single criticism of the war crimes committed. Biden might have been able to intervene to shorten the conflict, but he did nothing in reality to put pressure on Israel. His view of the Palestine problem is to give them a state though he is inevitably fuzzy on the details and will put no pressure on the Israelis to take any peace initiatives. In short, he and the Israelis will likely work behind the scenes to reduce the tension so there is no more mass killing and therefore no more negative media. If they are successful, that will make the Palestinians go away.

Joe Biden has called himself a “Zionist” and is proud of it and his first move after Israel was through killing Arabs was to send them $735 million on top of what they already receive from the US taxpayer. And, most important to him is all those Jewish donors whose hands are clutching their checkbooks while their hearts are in Israel, contributing something like two-thirds of all the money going to the Democratic Party. They are led by Hollywood producer Israeli-American Haim Saban who has said unambiguously that he is a “one issue guy and that issue is Israel.” In a sense, Washington is also run by a duopoly that has “one issue” in foreign policy and that issue is also Israel.

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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]

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The following commentary looks at the QUAD alliance in great detail to understand India’s position within this alliance and the more significant geopolitical relevance and significance. This article also examines the complex politics of the Asia-Pacific and the role the US partnership has to play in this complex setup.

Quad – is there anything in the name? There are many talks; some would call it to hype about the “Quad” these days. The Quad is a semi-formalized grouping organized by the USA involving Japan, Australia – and India. Without the USA to organize it, there would be no Quad.

Geostrategy is an excellent old tool for evaluating the Quad. To start, let us look at the map. Does India have common borders for shared army operations with Japan or Australia, or the USA? No – far from. Do these countries share “common waters” for India’s navy to operate in with them? Not at all – except, of course, if one thinks that all waters in the world are territorial waters of the USA. Do these countries share a common air space? Not that either.

What about a mutual logistics chain? No, not even that. Any Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC) between India and Japan would, in case of conflict, be cut off in the South China Sea, which China controls. Is India reliant on US-Japanese-Australian armament producers? No – fortunately not.

Does India need the US F-35 aircraft or the US Patriot / THAAD missile systems? No – they are nearly worthless. Is the Quad a kind of alliance where Japan will guarantee to come to India’s aid? No. Is that about to change? No. Is there a grand strategy, cultural heritage or big vision tying India to Japan, Australia, and the USA? Far from. Very far from. The US has decided to strive for US global primacy for the indefinite future. India is and always will be against the US’ agenda of unipolar primacy. China is rising, and that is the problem of the USA. It is all about size.

Shortly after the Soviet Union disappeared, on 8 March 1992, the US Department of Defence in the Pentagon developed a new global objective for the USA:

“… the Defense Department asserts that America’s political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to insure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territory of the former Soviet Union.” (emphasis added)

Evidently, the U.S. objective was to continue US primacy indefinitely by ensuring that no other power would ever emerge or be able to emerge to rival the USA.

The US strategy of thwarting any new rival power from emerging is consistent with all US foreign policy and political actions since then. Moreover, it covers the whole world, including all of Europe, China—and even India.

What China does or does not do is evidently only an excuse for the USA. Since 1992, the USA has accepted no power to rival or surpass it. The real problem for the US is simply that China is rising and will soon surpass the USA. They can always invent further arguments in each case. China is, of course, a concern for India, too, especially due to the old wounds about an unsettled border. But we must remember that India is rising too. One day in this century, India will surpass the USA.

This is India’s vision, and the USA will be against it. There is no shared strategic vision. The Quad has no material content. When something is devoid of material content, what remains is pure imagination.

This is why I call the Quad a thing from Disneyland. Despite being devoid of material content, the Quad has been sold to the global media as something “new”. The Quad is a PR operation for influence. India already has options to work together with the USA in naval exercises, special forces methods, intelligence, etc. One of the objectives of the American Quad hype about “shared values” is to sell more US weapons like the F-35, which are decidedly not what India needs (or can afford). You are always invited to spend your money. There is no need for a “Quad”. India should, of course, be open to security cooperation with all relevant countries — the USA, Japan, and Australia. And not only with them but also with Russia and NATO. Even with Pakistan, one day, when you find peace together in your shared South Asian family.

Is the USA a Valuable Partner?

The USA has a lot of military expertise, technology, experience, practice, and intelligence. India should learn everything there is to learn from US “expertise”. However, it is worth noting that the US has not won a major war since 1945. There must be a reason for that. The Korean war ended in 1953 with a tie. The USA could not even win in Korea.

Vietnam was a significant defeat for the USA in 1975. The only winner after two US wars against Iraq was Iran. And now, the USA has lost its longest war ever in Afghanistan.

What is wrong with the US military? India needs to ask this question.

One thing is that the USA is obviously fighting the wrong wars – wars of (bad) “choice”. The USA also has unconditional and unattainable aims. The US also lacks a sense of equal partnership with other peoples and cultures globally, especially non-European cultures. It is also worth noting that the USA since 1945—except for minor actions like Grenada—has had nothing but bad military outcomes despite the American use of overwhelming military force. Enormous or oversized efforts and adverse US outcomes must indicate that the USA has an ineffective and deficient military. The most effective army in Europe was Germany until 1945.

In his book “Fighting Power”, Martin van Creveld compares the performances of the German and US armies during WW II.  Measured on several parameters, Martin van Creveld consistently found that the German Army during WW II was widely superior to the US Army in fighting power. Japan learned from Germany already in the late 19th century. Did the USA make a comprehensive effort to learn and adopt the German military’s methods, thinking, traditions, and doctrines?

No. The USA in World War I copied French methods, a static programmed thinking with amassed use of artillery (today bombardment from the air) and less movement, which led to defeat for France in two world wars. The USA back then also had a lack of competent officers and soldiers. Therefore, the USA developed enormous oversized military staff, detailed planning for how those in contact with the adversary should act in minor detail.

Precisely the opposite of the “Auftragstaktik” which Gerhard von Scharnhorst instituted in Prussia, Germany, building on well-educated officers and soldiers, who were given a mission (Auftrag), had high education, trust from above, and leeway to act optimally in the ever-changing circumstances of conflict, as long as they pursued the “commander’s intent”. Carl von Clausewitz was a pupil of Scharnhorst.

It is a well-known phenomenon that Generals often prepare to fight the last war over again. I will assert that the USA is mentally still fighting wars of the past. The US Pacific War of 1941-45 was won with massive strategic bombing (the B-29) and big aircraft carriers. Since 1950, the B-29 were upgraded to the B-52, which has been a backbone of US air strategy ever since. The US aircraft carriers are also more significant than they were in 1945. But basically, the structure of the US strategic setup is the same till today, 76 years later.

The USA now (with Biden) is also re-fighting the Cold War over again. The re-fighting of a new Cold War is also evident in the title and content of the “Longer Telegram” published in the Atlantic Council by a US government-related source called “Anonymous”. The “Longer Telegram” in the title, aim, and general approach overtly references George F. Kennan’s “Long Telegram” about containment of the Soviet Union, which kicked off the first Cold War on 22 February 1946.

This time, however, the USA will not prevail victorious in a Cold War. Biden is making a fatal mistake of trying to repeat it. As Kishore Mahbubani rightly points out, China is better prepared internally and better integrated with the world economy than the USA.

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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. At the time of appointment, he was the youngest and the first non-German in that top position within Mercedes-Benz’ worldwide sales organization. He writes regularly for the Russian International Affairs Council.  

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Stanley Milgram conducted a psychological experiment in 1961 that was truly mind-numbing in terms of revealing the depths of evils people are able to commit in order to comply with authority. Referred to as the Milgram experiments, the aim of the study was to see how far participants were willing to go when they were given orders that were appalling and unconscionable. The experiment involved one authority figure who donned a lab coat, participants who were instructed to electrocute someone each time that person got an answer wrong and an actor who pretended to writhe in pain and scream each time he or she received shocks.

Participants were shown the electric chair the person they thought they were shocking was strapped into; they even went as far as giving participants mild shocks to convince them that the exercise was real. Once the participants were manipulated to believe that the shocks they were about to give to the recipient were authentic, they were separated by a partition to ensure that the participants could only hear the agonizing pleas for mercy not see the whole thing was staged. Each time the actor who was supposedly sitting in an electric chair answered a question incorrectly, the authority figure instructed participants to press a button that supposedly delivered a shock to the person who got the answer wrong.

Astonishingly, every participant administered at least 300-volts to the person they thought they were shocking—a level so high that it has the potential of inducing severe harm or even death. What was even more shocking, excuse the pun, is that 65% of participants complied with the lab coat wearing overseers and delivered a lethal 450-volts, depending on the Amps, to the poor soul they believed was being electrocuted. Each time participants resisted and wanted to stop upon hearing the person they thought was getting shocking scream out in anguish and banging the wall in agonizing pain, the authority figure leveraged his status and ordered them to keep torturing the out of sight subject.

Milgram conducted these experiments because he wanted to see if the sheer number of Germans who complied and followed orders during the era of Hitler was an outlier or a universal human trait. What was discovered through his experiments, as unethical as they were, is that regular people have an innate ability to commit mass-atrocities not out of wonton desire but because they are being compelled to do so by people in a positions of power. Milgram used a scientific method to arrive at a conclusion that anyone who studies genocides understands very well; opinion leaders are able to condition society to commit unspeakable acts of terror against their fellow citizens through division, fear and indoctrination.

Human beings are able to commit unspeakable acts of terror against their fellow humans when they are given orders by depraved leaders

Milgram’s illuminating results are very germane to what is taking place at this precise moment. Authority figures—from heads of state like Biden to unelected technocrats like Fauci  and beyond—weaponized their status and clout to condition billions of people around the world to be paralyzed by fear, give up their freedoms and eventually turn themselves into lab animals by receiving experimental “vaccines” into their arms. The unethical treatments that Milgram subjected participants in his study to is nothing compared to the criminal ways that the ruling class have conducted a psychological operation against the global population over the past 18 months.

Instrumental in this malicious biotech driven scheme were medical professionals who were convinced to take part either out of greed or out of fear of repercussion. There is a reason why Milgram had the authority figures in his experiments wear lab coats; doctors have a nearly unparalleled ability to convince people to follow their advice even if they feel unsure about the instructions they are being given. This almost God-like power to oblige society to act without questioning is the reason that doctors were enlisted from the outset in order to effectuate this insane mass-“vaccination” campaign. Such is the case with Dr. Leana Wen—who is intimately associated with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—who is outrageously recommending that children get “vaccinated” even though Covid-19, outside of outlier cases, has not impacted the young. Nuremberg Trials 2.0 cannot come fast enough!

There's a pervasive narrative that kids aren't at risk from #covid19, and that with declining infection rates, authorizing vaccines for younger children is no longer a priority.

As a mom of 2 young kids, I strongly disagree. Here's why: 🧵@PostOpinions https://t.co/ZGViTGboZt

— Leana Wen, M.D. (@DrLeanaWen) June 15, 2021

Realizing that society has lost trust in politicians and mainstream media, biotech corporations along with Bill and Melinda Gates funded and paraded a litany of doctors to impel us to socially isolate, mask up and ultimately get jabbed. They turned to the very tactics used by Stanley Milgram 50 years ago; they made sure that the authority figures who were leading this “vaccine” crusade were doctors with white coats. They then tormented us with “breaking news” as mainstream media took their turn by channeling images of death and carnage on a 24 by 7 basis. This is a type of social conditioning that Nazis perfected and incorporated by the United States government thanks to Operation Paperclip.

We stood no chance! The same way participants in Milgram’s studies submitted to the demands of authority figures even as they resisted, we too buckled when the pressure was applied. If you see people driving in their cars with masks on, don’t judge them too harshly, they are victims of a psychological war that has been conducted on us for a year and a half. What is being done to us is a carbon copy of the propaganda techniques perfected by Joseph Goebbels mixed with the good cop/bad cop technique used by the police to break a suspect they are interrogation. By alternating between “benevolence” as they reopen businesses and “allowing” us enjoy the freedoms we once took for granted only to announce a new outbreak and go back to lockdowns, the establishment are crushing our will to fight and gaslighting us into total submission.

After a year and a half of unending fears and anxieties that have been imbued in our minds, we have allowed our rights to be stripped away for the sake of security that will never come

It’s not an accident that about one-third of the participants in Milgram’s gruesome experiments opted out once the orders crossed the boundary and strayed into the realm of barbarity. The same phenomenon is evident now; most polls show that about 33% of Americans are either hesitant or outright hostile against the idea of getting jabbed. Over the coming months, the government-media-corporate complex are going to really turn up the heat to persuade at least 70% of the population to get “vaccinated”; the closer they get to that number, the easier it is for them to coerce the holdouts to get jabbed. They will do so by demonizing the unvaccinated, taking away their rights and potentially using force to arrive at their preferred outcome.

There to assist this pernicious agenda are Gates funded doctors and industry insiders like John Mattison, Leana Wen, Haney Mallemat and Danish Nagda who are running afoul of their Hippocratic oath and the AMA doctor-patient guidelines. Though there are countless number of doctors who are either very concerned or outright alarmed over these experimental “vaccines”, the only medical professionals you see on TV and given blue checkmarks on social media are the ones who are completely in the tank when it comes to these gene therapy snake oils that are being peddled to the world as a panacea.

I pray we wake up from this collective psychosis that we are in and challenge people in positions of authority. Having a PhD doesn’t make anyone infallible, especially when these doctors have conflicts of interests they are not telling us about. Billions of people around the world have become like the actors in Milgram’s experiments who were pretending to be tortured; except this time around the electrocutions we are getting are very real. If we do not push back and defend our rights, a 450-volt shock will come for us by the time autumn arrives.

The ruling class are already setting the pretext for the abuses they have in store as they sow fear about the Delta variant. They will let us enjoy summer and get a taste of freedom before lowering the hammer. A potential first wave of “vaccine” deaths will be attributed to the Delta variant; the “unvaccinated” will get blamed even though people who are “vaccinated” continue to contract and transmit Covid-19. Facts will matter little when they enact draconian measures to address a crisis they created in a lab. Winter is coming; the only question is will people defy and rise up or will they do like the Germans did last century and follow orders.

“When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.” ~ Thomas Paine

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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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Dr. Robert Malone invented the mRNA and DNA vaccine core platform technology. He has grave concerns about the lack of transparency of side effects, censoring of discussion and the lack of informed consent that these bring

Free SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is biologically active — contrary to initial assumptions — and causes severe problems. It is responsible for the most severe effects seen in COVID-19, such as bleeding disorders, blood clots throughout the body and heart problems. These are the same problems we now see in a staggering number of people who have received the COVID-19 “vaccine”

The spike protein also has reproductive toxicity, and Pfizer’s biodistribution data show it accumulates in women’s ovaries. Data suggests the miscarriage rate among women who get the COVID “vaccine” within the first 20 weeks of pregnancy is 82%

Israeli data show boys and men between the ages of 16 and 24 who have been vaccinated have 25 times the rate of myocarditis (heart inflammation) than normal

The COVID-19 injections have emergency use authorization only, which can only be granted if there are no safe and effective remedies available. Such remedies do exist, but have been actively censored and suppressed

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Watch the video here.

In the video above, DarkHorse podcast host Bret Weinstein, Ph.D., an evolutionary biologist, interviews Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of the mRNA and DNA vaccine core platform technology,¹ and Steve Kirsch, an entrepreneur who has been researching adverse reactions to COVID-19 gene therapies.

I realize that this is an absolutely epic three-hour interview but if you ever valued what I have been teaching, you must at a bare minimum very carefully read this entire article.

Malone is the scientist that actually invented the technology that makes the COVID jab possible and he spills the beans on just how this introduction has been ethically compromised to make informed consent absolutely impossible for the average person. Watch the interview if your schedule allows, but carefully read this article for sure.

Kirsch recently published the article, “Should You Get Vaccinated?” in which he reviews how and why he has changed his mind about the COVID-19 “vaccines.” This after he got both doses of the Moderna shot, as have his three daughters.

If you or someone you know is equivocal about the COVID jab, then please, you simply MUST read Kirsh’s article as it is clearly one of the best pieces written on the topic and provides the other side of the story that is NEVER given in the mainstream media. Remember, without full disclosure of the vaccine’s risk, it is impossible to have informed consent.² If you read Kirsch’s article, you will get, in great detail, the other side that the conventional media refuses to share. He writes:

Based on what I now know about the miniscule vaccine benefits (approximately a 0.3% reduction in absolute risk), side effects (including death), current COVID rates, and the success rate of early treatment protocols, the answer I would give today to anyone asking me for advice as to whether to take any of the current vaccines would be, ‘Just say NO.’

The current vaccines are particularly contraindicated if you have already been infected with COVID or are under age 20. For these people, I would say ‘NO! NO! NO!’

In this article, I will explain what I have learned since I was vaccinated that totally changed my mind. You will learn how these vaccines work and the shortcuts that led to the mistakes that were made.

You will understand why there are so many side effects and why these are so varied and why they usually happen within 30 days of vaccination. You will understand why kids are having heart issues (for which there is no treatment), and temporarily losing their sight, and ability to talk. You will understand why as many as 3% may be severely disabled by the vaccine.”

The Spike Protein Is a Bioactive Cytotoxin

As explained by Malone, many months ago he warned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that the spike protein — which the COVID-19 “vaccines” instruct your cells to make — could be dangerous. The FDA dismissed his concerns, saying they did not believe the spike protein was biologically active. Besides, the vaccine makers specifically designed the injections so that the spike protein would stick and not float about freely.

Well, they were wrong on both accounts. It’s since been well-established that, indeed, the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein gets free, and that it is biologically active and causes severe problems. It is responsible for the most severe effects seen in COVID-19, such as bleeding disorders, blood clots throughout the body and heart problems.

These are the same problems we now see in a staggering number of people having received one or two shots of COVID-19 “vaccine.” For more in-depth information about how the spike protein causes these problems, please see my interview with Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., and Judy Mikovits, Ph.D.

Using the word vaccine isn’t really appropriate here, and I don’t want to contribute to the misuse of that word. These injections are clearly not vaccines. They don’t work like any previous conventional vaccines. As the actual inventor of the mRNA vaccines clearly says in the interview, they are gene therapy. So, please understand that when I say vaccine or vaccination, I’m really talking about gene therapy.

In a recent interview³ with Alex Pierson, Canadian immunologist and vaccine researcher Byram Bridle, Ph.D., discussed previously unseen research obtained from the Japanese regulatory agency through a freedom of information act request.

The study was a biodistribution study done by Pfizer, which showed that the mRNA in the vaccine does not stay in and around the vaccination site but is widely distributed in the body, as is the spike protein.⁴

This is a serious problem, as the spike protein is a toxin shown to cause cardiovascular and neurological damage. Once in your blood circulation, the spike protein binds to platelet receptors and the cells that line your blood vessels. When that happens, it can cause platelets to clump together, resulting in blood clots, and/or cause abnormal bleeding. I detailed these and other findings in “Researcher: ‘We Made a Big Mistake’ on COVID-19 Vaccine.”

Dangerous Corners Were Cut

The spike protein also has reproductive toxicity, and Pfizer’s biodistribution data show it accumulates in women’s ovaries. Kirsch cites data suggesting the miscarriage rate among women who get the COVID “vaccine” within the first 20 weeks of pregnancy is 82%.⁵ The normal rate is 10%, so this is no minor uptick. Kirsch writes:⁶

“It is baffling that the CDC says the vaccine is safe for pregnant women when it is so clear that this is not the case. For example, one our family friends is a victim of this. She miscarried at 25 weeks … She had her first shot 7 weeks ago, and her second shot 4 weeks ago.

The baby had severe bleeding of the brain and other disfigurements. Her gynecologist had never seen anything like that before in her life. They called in a specialist who said it was probably a genetic defect (because everyone buys into the narrative that the vaccine is safe it is always ruled out as a possible cause).

No VAERS report. No CDC report. Yet the doctors I’ve talked to say that it is over 99% certain it was the vaccine. The family doesn’t want an autopsy for fear that their daughter will find out it was the vaccine. This is a perfect example of how these horrible side effects just never get reported anywhere.”

Disturbingly, the Pfizer biodistribution data package reveals that corners were cut in the interest of speed, and one of the research facets that were skipped was reproductive toxicology. Yet, despite the lack of an initial reproductive toxicology investigation and a rapidly growing number of reports of miscarriages (which is likely to be a significant undercount), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still urging pregnant women to get vaccinated. Why is that?

Is There Purposeful Suppression of VAERS Data?

What’s more, as discussed in the interview, there’s evidence that data in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is being manipulated as reports that were filed are now missing. Why were they removed? And without the filers’ consent?

Even with that manipulation, the number of deaths reported post-vaccination against COVID-19 is beyond anything we’ve ever seen. According to Kirsch, the rate of death from COVID-19 shots exceeds that of more than 70 vaccines combined over the past 30 years, and it’s about 500 times deadlier than the seasonal flu vaccine,⁷ which historically has been the most hazardous.

Other serious effects are also off the charts. For example, Israeli data show boys and men between the ages of 16 and 24 who have been vaccinated have 25 times the rate of myocarditis (heart inflammation) than normal.⁸ Additionally, many young people are actually dying as a result of this myocarditis.⁹

Malone points out that, in re-reading the most current version of the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) that governs these COVID shots, he discovered that the FDA opted not to require stringent post-vaccination data collection and evaluation, even though they had the latitude to do so.

As noted by Weinstein, this is yet another anomaly that needs an answer. Why did they opt for such lax data capture, because without it, there’s no way of evaluating the safety of these products. You cannot identify the danger signals if you don’t have a process for capturing effects data and evaluating all of it.

“The whole logic of EUA is you’re basically substituting real-time capture of key information for prospective capture of key information,” Malone explains. “But to do that, you’ve got to get the information and it has to be rigorous.”

Other Anomalies

Furthermore, as noted by Weinstein, if you release a vaccine under emergency use — because you say there’s an unprecedented health emergency and there are no other options, therefore it’s worth taking a larger than normal risk — then you still would not give it to people who are at no or low risk of the disease in question.

This would include children, teens and healthy individuals under the age of 40, at bare minimum. Children appear naturally immune against COVID-19¹⁰ and have been shown to not be disease vectors,¹¹ and people under 40 have an infection fatality ratio of just 0.01%.¹² That means their chances of survival is 99.99%, which is about as good as it gets.

Pregnant women would also be excluded as they are a high-risk category for any experimentation, and anyone who has recovered from COVID would be excluded as they now have natural immunity and have no need for a vaccine whatsoever. In fact, a recent Cleveland Clinic study^13,14 found people who had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 at least 42 days prior to vaccination reaped no additional benefit from the jabs.

Yet all of these incredibly low-risk groups are urged and even inappropriately incentivized to get vaccinated, and this too is anomalous behavior. Part of the risk-benefit analysis is not only the risk of serious outcomes and death from the disease, but also the availability of alternative treatments, and here we have the third massive anomaly.

We’ve seen a clear suppression of information showing that there are not just one but several effective remedies that could reduce the risk of COVID-19 to a number of cohorts down to virtually zero. Examples include hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, both of which have been safely used for decades in many millions of people around the world.

The precautionary principle dictates that as long as a drug or treatment strategy doesn’t do harm, even if the positive effect may be small, it should be used until better data or better treatments becomes available. This is the logic they used with masks (even though the data overwhelmingly showed no statistical benefit and there are a number of potential harms).

But when it comes to hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, they suppressed the use of these drugs even though they are extremely safe when used in the appropriate doses and have been shown to work really well in many dozens of studies. As noted by Kirsch in his article:¹⁵

“Repurposed drugs [such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin] are safer and more effective than the current vaccines. In general, early treatment with an effective protocol reduces your risk of dying by more than 100X so instead of 600,000 deaths, we’d have fewer than 6,000 deaths. NOTE: The vaccine has already killed over 6,000 people and that’s from the vaccine alone (and doesn’t count any breakthrough deaths).”

Doctors are also being muzzled and their warnings suppressed and censored. Dr. Charles Hoffe has administered Moderna’s COVID-19 “vaccine” to 900 of his patients. Three are now permanently disabled and one has died. After writing an open letter to Dr. Bonnie Henry, the provincial health officer for British Columbia, in which he stated that he’s “been quite alarmed at the high rate of serious side-effects from this novel treatment,”¹⁶ his hospital privileges were yanked.

Bioethics Laws Are Clearly Being Broken

In a May 30, 2021, essay,¹⁷ Malone reviewed the importance of informed consent, rightly concluding that censorship makes it so that informed consent simply cannot be given. Informed consent isn’t just a nice idea or an ideal. It is the law, both nationally and internationally. The current vaccine push also violates bioethical principles in general.

“By way of background, please understand that I am a vaccine specialist and advocate, as well as the original inventor of the mRNA vaccine (and DNA vaccine) core platform technology. But I also have extensive training in bioethics from the University of Maryland, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and Harvard Medical School, and advanced clinical development and regulatory affairs are core competencies for me,” Malone writes.

“Why is it necessary to suppress discussion and full disclosure of information concerning mRNA reactogenicity and safety risks? Let’s analyze the vaccine-related adverse event data rigorously. Is there information or patterns that can be found, such as the recent finding of the cardiomyopathy signals, or the latent virus reactivation signals?

We should be enlisting the best biostatistics and machine learning experts to examine these data, and the results should — no must — be made available to the public promptly. Please follow along and take a moment to examine the underlying bioethics of this situation with me …

The suppression of information, discussion, and outright censorship concerning these current COVID vaccines which are based on gene therapy technologies cast a bad light on the entire vaccine enterprise. It is my opinion that the adult public can handle information and open discussion. Furthermore, we must fully disclose any and all risks associated with these experimental research products.

In this context, the adult public are basically research subjects that are not being required to sign informed consent due to EUA waiver. But that does not mean that they do not deserve the full disclosure of risks that one would normally require in an informed consent document for a clinical trial.

And now some national authorities are calling on the deployment of EUA vaccines to adolescents and the young, which by definition are not able to directly provide informed consent to participate in clinical research — written or otherwise.

The key point here is that what is being done by suppressing open disclosure and debate concerning the profile of adverse events associated with these vaccines violates fundamental bioethical principles for clinical research. This goes back to the Geneva convention and the Helsinki declaration.¹⁸ There must be informed consent for experimentation on human subjects.”

Experimentation without proper informed consent also violates the Nuremberg Code,¹⁹ which spells out a set of research ethics principles for human experimentation. This set of principles were developed to ensure the medical horrors discovered during the Nuremberg trials at the end of World War II would never take place again.

Lines Have Been Crossed That Must Never Be Crossed

In the U.S., we also have the Belmont report,²⁰ cited in Malone’s essay, which spells out the ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research, covered under the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations 45 CFR 46 (subpart A). The Belmont report describes informed consent as follows:

“Respect for persons requires that subjects, to the degree that they are capable, be given the opportunity to choose what shall or shall not happen to them. This opportunity is provided when adequate standards for informed consent are satisfied.

While the importance of informed consent is unquestioned, controversy prevails over the nature and possibility of an informed consent. Nonetheless, there is widespread agreement that the consent process can be analyzed as containing three elements: information, comprehension and voluntariness.”

Americans, indeed the people of the whole earth, are being prevented from freely accessing and sharing information about these gene therapies. Worse, we are misled by fact checkers and Big Tech platforms that ban or put misinformation labels on anyone and anything discussing them in a critical or questioning way. The same censorship also prevents comprehension of risk.

Lastly, government and any number of vaccine stakeholders are encouraging companies and schools to make these experimental injections mandatory, which violates the rule of voluntariness. Government and private businesses are also creating massive incentives to participate in this experiment, including million-dollar lotteries and full college scholarships. None of this is ethical or even legal. As noted by Malone:²¹

“… as these vaccines are not yet market authorized (licensed), coercion of human subjects to participate in medical experimentation is specifically forbidden. Therefore, public health policies which meet generally accepted criteria for coercion to participate in clinical research are forbidden.

For example, if I were to propose a clinical trial involving children and entice participation by giving out ice cream to those willing to participate, any institutional human subjects safety board (IRB) in the United States would reject that protocol.

If I were to propose a clinical research protocol wherein the population of a geographic region would lose personal liberties unless 70% of the population participated in my study, once again, that protocol would be rejected by any US IRB based on coercion of subject participation. No coercion to participate in the study is allowed.

In human subject clinical research, in most countries of the world this is considered a bright line that cannot be crossed. So, now we are told to waive that requirement without even so much as open public discussion being allowed? In conclusion, I hope that you will join me; stop to take a moment and consider for yourself what is going on. The logic seems clear to me.

Again, if your schedule allows, I sincerely hope you take the time to listen to Weinstein’s interview with Malone and Kirsch. Yes, it is very long — about 3 ½ hours — but they are all astute in their observations, which makes for an enlightening conversation. And remember to read and widely share Kirsch’s article, “Should You Get Vaccinated?”²²

The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) recently posted more than 50 video presentations from the pay-for-view Fifth International Public Conference on Vaccination held online October 16 to 18, 2020, and made them available to everyone for free.

The conference’s theme was “Protecting Health and Autonomy in the 21st Century” and it featured physicians, scientists and other health professionals, human rights activists, faith community leaders, constitutional and civil rights attorneys, authors and parents of vaccine injured children talking about vaccine science, policy, law and ethics and infectious diseases, including coronavirus and COVID-19 vaccines.

In December 2020, a U.K. company published false and misleading information about NVIC and its conference, which prompted NVIC to open up the whole conference for free viewing. The conference has everything you need to educate yourself and protect your personal freedoms and liberties with respect to your health.

Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity. I was a speaker at this empowering conference and urge you to watch these video presentations before they’re censored and taken away by the technocratic elite.

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“You (the Jews) will never be able to live here in peace, because you left here black and came back white.” – Gamal Abdel Nasser, President of Egypt (1952)

There is an unknown empire that is barely mentioned in western history books, education institutions, in the media or in Hollywood.  The name is not mentioned anywhere especially in the West, and that is why most people never heard about it.  It was called Khazaria, it was an empire that still remains relatively unknown today.

So what was Khazaria?  Its origins date back to the middle ages (c.650-950), its inhabitants were mostly semi-nomadic Turkic people made up of multiple ethno-linguistic groups that came from Eastern, Western, Northern and Central Asia as well as from parts of Europe and North Africa.  Many languages that were spoken belonged to the “Turkic Language family” as they shared many cultural traits and similar histories that shared common ancestries.  Today, Turkic ethnicities include Azerbaijanis, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz people, Uyghurs, Uzbeks and several other groups.   However, during the eighth and ninth centuries, the Khazars, a warlike Turkic people converted to Judaism who had dominated a vast area in Southern Russia and the Ukraine in what was known as Khazaria until they were destroyed by Russia.

What happened to the Khazarian empire and its people since their destruction has been debated, in fact it is a conundrum, a mystery in a sense on what happened to the Khazars.  Some historians have speculated that the Khazars are the ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews.  It was well-known that Jews were persecuted throughout Christian Europe which allowed some to migrate to the Middle East while others went to the Kingdom of Khazaria which was considered a “beacon of hope” for Jews who were able to live in peace since the ruling Khazars were considered tolerant of the Jews.  Khazar rulers had allowed Jewish refugees from Byzantine  and Persia to call Khazaria their home.

It was those actions of the Khazar rulers who discovered Judaism and soon adopted the religion.  In an interesting article from 2014 by Jim Wald from The Times of Israel ‘Leaked report: Israel acknowledges Jews in fact Khazars; Secret plan for reverse migration to Ukraine’ argues that “it is well known that, sometime in the eighth to ninth centuries, the Khazars, a warlike Turkic people, converted to Judaism and ruled over a vast domain in what became southern Russia and Ukraine” he continued “what happened to them after the Russians destroyed that empire around the eleventh century has been a mystery” a mystery indeed.  Wald says that the Khazar hypothesis is an attempt by the Arabs to deny Jewish claims to the land of Palestine:

Arabs have long cited the Khazar hypothesis in attempts to deny a Jewish historical claim to the land of Israel. During the UN debate over Palestine Partition, Chaim Weizmann responded, sarcastically: “lt is very strange. All my life I have been a Jew, felt like a Jew, and I now learn that I am a Khazar.” In a more folksy vein, Prime Minister Golda Meir famously said:  “Khazar, Schmazar. There is no Khazar people. I knew no Khazars In Kiev. Or Milwaukee. Show me these Khazars of whom you speak”

Jim Wald claims that prominent researchers have come forward with their observations on the gene pool from today’s Jews that led them to the Khazars:

Contrarian Hungarian ex-communist and scientist Arthur Koestler brought the Khazar hypothesis to a wider audience with The Thirteenth Tribe (1976), in the hope that disproving a common Jewish “racial” identity would end antisemitism. Clearly, that hope has not been fulfilled. Most recently, left-wing Israeli historian Shlomo Sand’s The Invention of the Jewish People took Koestler’s thesis in a direction he had not intended, arguing that because Jews were a religious community descended from converts they do not constitute a nation or need a state of their own. Scientists, however, dismissed the Khazar hypothesis because the genetic evidence did not add up. Until now. In 2012, Israeli researcher Eran Elhaik published a study claiming to prove that Khazar ancestry is the single largest element in the Ashkenazi gene pool. Sand declared himself vindicated, and progressive organs such as Haaretz and The Forward trumpeted the results

Let’s begin with one of the books mentioned by Wald, Arthur Koestler’s ‘The Thirteenth Tribe’ which claims that “what is in dispute is the fate of the Jewish Khazars after the destruction of their empire, in the twelfth or thirteenth century” and that’s where the problem begins because its “various late mediaeval Khazar settlements are mentioned in the Crimea, in the Ukraine, in Hungary, Poland and Lithuania.”  This is where Koestler’s observation on the issue of where the Khazars settled over the years following their empire’s destruction by the Russians:

The general picture that emerges from these fragmentary pieces of information is that of a migration of Khazar tribes and communities into those regions of Eastern Europe – mainly Russia and Poland – where, at the dawn of the Modern Age, the greatest concentrations of Jews were found

So Khazar tribes ended up in parts of Eastern Europe, southern Russia and Poland:

This has led several historians to conjecture that a substantial part, and perhaps the majority of eastern Jews – and hence of world Jewry – might be of Khazar, and not of Semitic Origin. The far-reaching implications of this hypothesis may explain the great caution exercised by historians in approaching this subject – if they do not avoid it altogether

What was interesting about Koestler’s analysis points to the fact that the Khazars have bloodlines in Crimea, Poland and southern areas of Russia:

Thus in the 1973 edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica the article “Khazars” is signed by Dunlop, but there is a separate section dealing with “Khazar Jews after the Fall of the Kingdom”, signed by the editors, and written with the obvious intent to avoid upsetting believers in the dogma of the Chosen Race: The Turkish-speaking Karaites [a fundamentalist Jewish sect] of the Crimea, Poland, and elsewhere have affirmed a connection with the Khazars, which is perhaps confirmed by evidence from folklore and anthropology as well as language. There seems to be a considerable amount of evidence attesting to the continued presence in Europe of descendants of the Khazars

Historian and Emeritus Professor of history at Tel Aviv University, Shlomo Sand published ‘The Invention of the Jewish People’, a controversial book that pinched a nerve among Israeli society.  In a 2014 article written by Sand in The Guardian, ‘Shlomo Sand: ‘I wish to resign and cease considering myself a Jew’ describes his thoughts on being a Jew in Israel which was a bold move by the historian.  Here is his opening statement on the matter:

During the first half of the 20th century, my father abandoned Talmudic school, permanently stopped going to synagogue, and regularly expressed his aversion to rabbis. At this point in my own life, in the early 21st century, I feel in turn a moral obligation to break definitively with tribal Judeocentrism. I am today fully conscious of having never been a genuinely secular Jew, understanding that such an imaginary characteristic lacks any specific basis or cultural perspective, and that its existence is based on a hollow and ethnocentric view of the world. Earlier I mistakenly believed that the Yiddish culture of the family I grew up in was the embodiment of Jewish culture. A little later, inspired by Bernard Lazare, Mordechai Anielewicz, Marcel Rayman and Marek Edelman – who all fought antisemitism, nazism and Stalinism without adopting an ethnocentric view – I identified as part of an oppressed and rejected minority. In the company, so to speak, of the socialist leader Léon Blum, the poet Julian Tuwim and many others, I stubbornly remained a Jew who had accepted this identity on account of persecutions and murderers, crimes and their victims.

Now, having painfully become aware that I have undergone an adherence to Israel, been assimilated by law into a fictitious ethnos of persecutors and their supporters, and have appeared in the world as one of the exclusive club of the elect and their acolytes, I wish to resign and cease considering myself a Jew

It can be said that Sand’s statement upset the Zionist community:

Although the state of Israel is not disposed to transform my official nationality from “Jew” to “Israeli”, I dare to hope that kindly philosemites, committed Zionists and exalted anti-Zionists, all of them so often nourished on essentialist conceptions, will respect my desire and cease to catalogue me as a Jew. As a matter of fact, what they think matters little to me, and still less what the remaining anti-Semitic idiots think. In the light of the historic tragedies of the 20th century, I am determined no longer to be a small minority in an exclusive club that others have neither the possibility nor the qualifications to join.

By my refusal to be a Jew, I represent a species in the course of disappearing. I know that by insisting that only my historical past was Jewish, while my everyday present (for better or worse) is Israeli, and finally that my future and that of my children (at least the future I wish for) must be guided by universal, open and generous principles, I run counter to the dominant fashion, which is oriented towards ethnocentrism

Sand’s controversial book ‘The Invention of the Jewish People’ which was published in 2009 explores how genetics research involved what he calls Zionist mythology corrupting the true outcome of  the common biological origin of what is a “real” Jew is by adopting genetic anthropology and linking it to stories found in the Holy Bible:

Zionist pedagogy produced generations of students who believed whole-heartedly in the ethnic uniqueness of their nation. But in the age of scientific positivism, nationalist ideology needed more substantial reification than the “soft” materials produced in the humanities. The biological laboratories were called upon to provide it, and at first they did so in fairly subduedmanner. Nurit Kirsh, who in recent years completed her doctoral dissertation at Tel Aviv University, has investigated the early stages of genetics research in Israel.^”* Her conclusion is unambiguous: genetics, just like archaeology at the time, was a tendentious science subordinated to the national historical concept, which sought at all costs to discover a biological homogeneity among the Jews in the world. The geneticists internalized the Zionist myth and, consciously or not, attempted to adapt their findings to it. As she sees it, the main difference between the Zionist anthropologists in the pre-State period and the new scientists in Israel was that genetics became less prominent in the public arena in Israel. Research findings that, despite their ideological bias, were published in international scientific journals were hardly noticed in the Hebrew-language media. This meant that their pedagogical function in the general education system was marginal

Sand gives another example of a British scholar by the name of Arthur E. Mourant who was influenced by a mentor who literally believed that the British people were the descendants of the “Ten Lost Tribes”, so you know where this is going:

In 1978 Oxford University Press published The Genetics of the Jews, by a team of researchers headed by Arthur E. Mourant.’ This British scholar was influenced by a much-loved mentor who belonged to a sect that believed the British people were descendants of the “Ten Lost Tribes,” hence his interest in the Jews. For much of his life, the enthusiastic Mourant believed that he and all the people around him were authentic Jews. When the British forces capturedPalestine, he was convinced that this signaled the beginning of salvation. Years later, he set out to discover the common biological origin of the “real” Jews, and adapted his genetic anthropology to the biblical story. As the Israeli genet-icist Raphael FaUc described it, the British scientist “first fired his arrows, then drew the target around them”^^ To Mourant and his colleagues, the marked differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews notwithstanding, they all had to have a single common origin. By examining the frequency of A and B alleles in separate communities, he strove to show that the genes of Jews fromdifferent regions displayed a higher degree of uniformity than could be found when those same subjects’ genes were compared to those of their non- Jewish neighbors. But if the genetic findings did not exactly support the ideological purpose, it would be necessary to search for other results.

Although Mourant’s theory was weak and unfounded — the application of genetics to such diffuse categories as “Ashkenazi” and “Sephardic” was senseless, as they represent varieties of religious rituals — it legitimized and invigorated the search for the Jewish gene in the life sciences at Israel universities

The New York Times came out with a scathing article criticizing Sand’s book shortly after its release which claims that Jews from Central and Eastern Europe including American Jews can be traced to the Khazars in ‘Book Calls Jewish People an Invention’:

History of the Turkic peoples (Public Domain)

Since Professor Sand’s mission is to discredit Jews’ historical claims to the territory, he is keen to show that their ancestry lines do not lead back to ancient Palestine. He resurrects a theory first raised by 19th-century historians, that the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, to whom 90 percent of American Jews trace their roots, are descended from the Khazars, a Turkic people who apparently converted to Judaism and created an empire in the Caucasus in the eighth century. This idea has long intrigued writers and historians. In 1976, Arthur Koestler wrote “The Thirteenth Tribe” in the hopes it would combat anti-Semitism; if contemporary Jews were descended from the Khazars, he argued, they could not be held responsible for Jesus’ Crucifixion.

By now, experts who specialize in the subject have repeatedly rejected the theory, concluding that the shards of evidence are inconclusive or misleading, said Michael Terry, the chief librarian of the Jewish division of the New York Public Library. Dr. Ostrer said the genetics also did not support the Khazar theory

While the New York Times continued its attack on professor Sand, it does admit that the Jews of Khazaria where converts:

That does not negate that conversion played a critical role in Jewish history — a proposition that many find surprising given that today’s Jews tend to discourage conversion and make it a difficult process. Lawrence H. Schiffman, chairman of the Skirball department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University, said most historians agree that over a period of centuries, Middle Eastern Jews — merchants, slaves and captives, religious and economic refugees — spread around the world. Many intermarried with people from local populations, who then converted. 

There is also evidence that in antiquity and the first millennium Judaism was a proselytizing religion that even used force on occasion. From the genetic research so far, Dr. Ostrer said, “It’s pretty clear that most Jewish groups have Semitic ancestry, that they originated in the Middle East, and that they’re more closely related to each other than to non-Jewish groups.” But he added that it was also clear that many Jews are of mixed descent.

“The ancient admixed ancestry explains the blond hair and blue eyes of Ashkenazi Jews whose grandparents and great-grandparents all lived in shtetls two and three generations ago,” Dr. Ostrer said. They brought the genes for coloration with them to Eastern Europe. These genes were probably not contributed by their Cossack neighbors”

The conclusion from the article emphasizes that Professor Sand’s take on Jewish history is “A mingling of myth, memory, truth and aspiration similarly envelopes Jewish history, which is, to begin with, based on scarce and confusing archaeological and archival records” continued “Experts dismiss the popular notion that the Jews were expelled from Palestine in one fell swoop in A.D. 70. Yet while the destruction of Jerusalem and Second Temple by the Romans did not create the Diaspora, it caused a momentous change in the Jews’ sense of themselves and their position in the world.”  They accuse Sand of generating an old myth by using the same tactics as the Zionists in how they manipulate history to justify their narrative so that they are recognized as the indigenous people of Palestine which is now known as Israel:

Professor Sand accuses Zionist historians from the 19th century onward the very same scholars on whose work he bases his case of hiding the truth and creating a myth of shared roots to strengthen their nationalist agenda. He explains that he has uncovered no new information, but has “organized the knowledge differently.” In other words, he is doing precisely what he accuses the Zionists of shaping the material to fit a narrative.

In that sense, Professor Sand is operating within a long established tradition.  As “The Illustrated History of the Jewish People,” edited by Nicholas Lange (Harcourt, 1997), notes, “Every generation of Jewish historians has faced the same task: to retell and adapt the story to meet the needs of its own situation.” The same could be said of all nations and religions.  Perhaps that is why on both sides of the argument some myths stubbornly persist no matter how often they are debunked while other indubitable facts continually fail to gain traction

Review31 based in the UK interviewed Sand and asked him how he became interested in Israel’s historical background and the myths within the bible “What was it that made you go looking for that information?”his response was the following:

In the framework of the Masters Studies programme at Tel Aviv University I invited a very famous researcher on the Bible. This is the first time that something started to move inside me. This very, very careful guy gave a lecture and he said that the exodus from Egypt never happened. He said that the kingdoms of David and Solomon are myths. I decided to write a book about this discovery, to compose the Bible as a historical book, because Shlomo Sand and all the children in Israel are studying the Bible as a historical book, not as a theological book. Now, after Simon Schama accused me, and he wasn’t the only one, I understood also that the insistence of Zionism, of Zionist historiography, Zionist politics about the concept of a people, has to do with the fact that people have territories. And then I understood that I have to move into understanding what is a homeland, what is a national territory; and that is the second book.

I went back to the ancient times like always, and I could find the political concept of modern homeland only in two cases in the past in western civilization: the Greek one, and the Roman one before the empire, in the republic. In Judaism there isn’t any traditional patriotism, any tradition of homeland. Palestine, Judea, it wasn’t the homeland of the Jews. And I discovered that the Christians were much more attached physically to the land. And very quickly I discovered that the first Zionists were not Jews; they were your [British] ancestors 

In 2012, Eran Elhaik, an Israeli-American geneticist at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health at the time published a study titled ‘The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses‘claimed that the Khazar ancestry is one of the main elements in the Ashkenazi gene pool.  Sciencedaily.com ‘New study sheds light on the origin of the European Jewish population.’  The article explains Elhaik’s controversial findings, “Elhaik’s findings strongly support the Khazarian Hypothesis, as opposed to the Rhineland Hypothesis, of European Jewish origins.”  What the difference between the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypothesis?:

The Rhineland Hypothesis has been the favoured explanation for the origins of present-day European Jews, until now. In this scenario Jews descended from Israelite-Canaanite tribes left the Holy Land for Europe in the 7th century, following the Muslim conquest of Palestine. Then, in the beginning of the 15th century, a group of approximately 50,000 left Germany, the Rhineland, for the east. There they maintained high endogamy, and despite wars, persecution, disease, plagues, and economic hardships, their population expanded rapidly to around 8 million in the 20th century. Due to the implausibility of such an event, this rapid expansion was explained by Prof Harry Ostrer, Dr Gil Atzmon, and colleagues as a miracle. Under the Rhineland Hypothesis, European Jews would be very similar to each other and would have a predominant Middle Eastern ancestry.

The rival explanation, the Khazarian Hypothesis, states that the Jewish-convert Khazars — a confederation of Turkic, Iranian, and Mongol tribes who lived in what is now Southern Russia, north of Georgia and east of Ukraine, and who converted to Judaism between the 7th and 9th centuries — along with groups of Mesopotamian and Greco-Roman Jews, formed the basis of eastern Europe’s Jewish population when they fled eastward, following the collapse of their empire in the 13th century. European Jews are thus expected to exhibit heterogeneity between different communities. While there is no doubt that the Judeo-Khazars fled into Eastern Europe and contributed to the establishment of Eastern European Jewry, argument has revolved around the magnitude of that contribution

Elhaik defined his hypothesis by focusing on the origins of the Khazars that included various tribes:

The competing “Khazarian hypothesis” considers Eastern European Jews to be the descendants of Khazars. The Khazars were a confederation of Slavic, Scythian, Hunnic–Bulgar, Iranian, Alans, and Turkish tribes who formed in the central–northern Caucasus one of most powerful empires during the late Iron Age and converted to Judaism in the 8th century CE.  The Khazarian, Armenian, and Georgian populations forged from this amalgamation of tribes  were followed by relative isolation, differentiation, and genetic drift in situ. Biblical and archeological records allude to active trade relationships between Proto-Judeans and Armenians in the late centuries BCE, that likely resulted in a small scale admixture between these populations and a Judean presence in the Caucasus. After their conversion to Judaism, the population structure of the Judeo–Khazars was further reshaped by multiple migrations of Jews from the Byzantine Empire and Caliphate to the Khazarian Empire

Elhaik declared that the Jews are an “assortment of Tribes who accepted Judaism” in other words, converts:

Although both the Rhineland and Khazarian hypotheses depict a Judean ancestry and are not mutually exclusive, they are well distinguished, as Caucasus and Semitic populations are considered ethnically and linguistically distinct. Jews, according to either hypothesis, are an assortment of tribes who accepted Judaism, migrated elsewhere, and maintained their religion up to this date and are, therefore, expected to exhibit certain differences from their neighboring populations. Because both hypotheses posit that Eastern European Jews arrived at Eastern Europe roughly at the same time (13th and 15th centuries), we assumed that they experienced similar low and fixed admixture rates with the neighboring populations, estimated at 0.5% per generation over the past 50 generations. These relatively recent admixtures have likely reshaped the population structure of all European Jews and increased the genetic distances from the Caucasus or Middle Eastern populations. Therefore, we do not expect to achieve perfect matching with the surrogate Khazarian and Judean populations but rather to estimate their relatedness

Elhaik concluded in his hypothesis that European Jews have genes that trace back to the Khazarian empire:

We compared two genetic models for European Jewish ancestry depicting a mixed Khazarian–European–Middle Eastern and sole Middle Eastern origins. Contemporary populations were used as surrogates to the ancient Khazars and Judeans, and their relatedness to European Jews was compared over a comprehensive set of genetic analyses. Our findings support the Khazarian hypothesis depicting a large Near Eastern–Caucasus ancestry along with Southern European, Middle Eastern, and Eastern European ancestries, in agreement with recent studies and oral and written traditions. We conclude that the genome of European Jews is a tapestry of ancient populations including Judaized Khazars, Greco–Roman Jews, Mesopotamian Jews, and Judeans and that their population structure was formed in the Caucasus and the banks of the Volga with roots stretching to Canaan and the banks of the Jordan

After World War II, there was a vision, an idea for a Jewish homeland by mainly European Jews whose genes can be traced to several ancient populations including “Judaized Khazars, Greco–Roman Jews, Mesopotamian Jews, and Judeans” in a place called Palestine and the rest is history.

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Timothy Alexander Guzman is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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***

Alongside its trade war, the US government is also engaged in a digital war against China. A central target of this US war is microchips, the heart of all information technology devices and development.

In September 2020, the US imposed a draconian ban on export of crucial materials needed by China’s leading chip manufacturer Semiconductor Manufacturing International Company (SMIC). The ban was instigated at the behest of the US Department of Defense on the alleged grounds that Chinese chips posed a threat to the US. This move also came in the wake of an earlier ban on export of chips for use by leading Chinese telecommunication company Huawei.

On June 3, US President Joe Biden issued a revised and expanded list that forbids owning or trading any stocks or securities related to 59 Chinese companies, on the supposed ground of threat from “Chinese surveillance technology.” Major Chinese companies listed include SMIC, China Mobile, China Unicom, China National Offshore Oil Corp, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co and Huawei.

On June 8, the US Senate passed a legislation containing a whole range of anti-China provisions, including a $52 billion “Chips for America Fund” intended to deprive China of access to high-end chips by subsidizing manufactures who locate either factories in the US. This legislation is expected to go to the US House of Representatives and become law. Grounds for this legislation also include claims that microchips in Chinese hands somehow constitute a security threat to the US.

Finally on June 9, Biden issued an order for foreign-based apps to be examined for “unacceptable national security risks they pose to US interests.” The Executive Order on Protecting American Sensitive Data from Foreign Adversaries explicitly points to Chinese apps as among ones that are antithetic to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the US.

The US seeks to justify its digital war with spurious, unsubstantiated claims that Chinese companies and technologies constitute a military or “security threat” to the US. The real objective, however, is to halt Chinese development of high-tech industries that the US regards as threatening its drive to exert economic and military dominance in Asia and around the world.

To understand just why Chinese high-tech is deemed a threat to US dominance, we need to look at the current path of technology development. Social, economic, political, military, educational, scientific, and personal life already increasingly rely on the internet. With the advent of the internet of things (IoT), the internet will rapidly become the fundamental infrastructure for all human life on earth.

It’s crucial to understand that – important as human-to-human interaction is – the internet is no longer primarily about human communication and information sharing. The internet is jumping down from our computer and phone screens into the entire world around us including the bodies, minds, and selves of human beings.

The IoT includes billions of networked entities of all kinds. Each of these entities interacts simultaneously with the real world around it and with one another via the online world. These networked entities typically include sensors to monitor the world around them, which allows them to act based on their information.

The IoT currently includes six million connected human beings and 50 billion other entities, which is projected to climb in the next few years to 500 billion. As artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics merge with the IOT, the world will soon consist of innumerable connected entities and increasing numbers of intelligent connected entities.

IoTs do not stand alone. They talk to one another online generally with little or no human intervention. They can be of almost any type, including bridges, buildings, cities, human bodies, cows, refrigerators and cars; government functions and military aircraft and missiles; factory machines, logistics and product distribution; science labs and education.

IoT technology is currently converging with artificial intelligence (AI), big data and robotics. IoT entities are typically equipped with a “controller,” which includes a set of sensors to monitor their immediate environment and an actuator, which can initiate action based on input from the sensors and online input and interactions with other online entities

These entities frequently generate “big data” – huge amounts of data – which human beings alone cannot effectively interpret. AI is then needed to manage and make decisions based on the big data. Robotics, previously a separate discipline, is also converging with the IoT as connected robots.

In the face of these world-changing developments, the US and China have opposite approaches.

The US’ approach is to exercise control of digital technology to ensure that it can be used to maintain its dominance of the planet. That approach is telegraphed in the phrase now used by Biden and other US politicians that “the US must win the 21st century.” The idea that one country must win – i.e. own – a century is disturbing to say the least.

China’s approach, on the other hand, is quite different. It is to develop and share the technology for the benefit of the Chinese people and to share it with the world for “building a community with a shared future for mankind.”

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This article was originally published on Global Times.

Eric Sommer is a Canadian scholar and a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Global Times

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***

At the top of the medical hierarchy is the neurosurgeon. Neurosurgeons are surrounded by a mystique of omniscience and omnipotence. Imagine my surprise, therefore, as a lowly medical student, to discover that the senior neurosurgeon in our institution, Robert Hughes, was being sued for malpractice. In fact, Robert Hughes, to his chagrin, went on to make Canadian medical and legal history on the issue of informed consent.

In 1970 Hughes performed a carotid endarterectomy (cleaning out of the carotid artery to the brain) on a 44-year-old man, John Reibl, who then went on to suffer a stroke that left him paralyzed on one side and unable to continue working. Reibl sued Hughes, claiming that he was not informed that he might suffer a stroke from this elective surgery, and that had he known this he would have delayed the surgery until he’d become eligible for a Ford Motor Company pension less than two years later.

Here is Reibl’s testimony to the Court:

Q. Did he talk to you about what would happen if you didn’t have the operation?

A. Yes, he said, “It is up to you if you want to have it or not. You can live a few years. You can live about 7 or 10 years or longer. One of these days you are going to fall on your nose, and that’s it. If you are going to do it now in the beginning you are not going to have any problem later.”

Q. Did Dr. Hughes say anything else about any risks of the operation?

A. He didn’t mention anything.

Reibl v Hughes went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada and in 1980 the Court articulated the current standard for informed consent, specifically that the physician (or other health care provider) “must give the patient sufficient information so that an objective, reasonable person in the patient’s position would be able to make an informed choice about a medical procedure”. The court defined failure to disclose the attendant risks as negligence.

Thus, in Canada, to receive a treatment or procedure, the subject must not just verbally agree and sign a consent form, but must give informed consent after having the risks explained to them.

Forty-one years after the Supreme Court decision our federal and provincial governments are engaged in a program of administering to the entire Canadian population above the age of 12, a completely new, untried, experimental, non-FDA approved, gene therapy treatment. This therapy, according to US and European government adverse vaccine reaction databases, is reasonably suspected of having killed thousands of people, and created serious injury in tens of thousands. Meanwhile, the long-term consequences of the therapy are simply unknown.

Are Canadians who are receiving this treatment getting this information? Are they being told what they need to know to give informed consent? A friend of mine recently got the injection. I asked him if he was informed of the possibility of side effects. He said none were mentioned!

As far as I can determine, Canadians are not being informed that there are risks. When they show up at the injection site it appears that they are told to sign a form and hold out their arm. Those giving the treatment are not discussing with them the pros and cons, the risks and benefits of the injection prior to “vaccine” administration. Most Canadians taking the shot have no idea that there is a risk of blood clotting disorders, such as pulmonary embolism and stroke, of life-threatening immune processes such as vaccine-induced thrombocytopenia, or that young people taking the shot are at risk of the potentially fatal complication of myocarditis (nor are they informed that the risk of Covid itself is almost negligible for the young and healthy). Such lack of information is a violation of the Supreme Court decision on consent. If you are injured by the vaccine and did not provide informed consent, you have grounds to sue your health authorities for negligence and damages.

Note: The onus is not on patients to do their own research. The onus is on the health care provider to inform patients of the risks so that an objective, reasonable person in the patient’s position would be able to make an informed choice. Does anyone really believe that a 12 to 15-year-old child is able to sufficiently understand the complex issues involved in experimental gene therapy to give informed consent? Does enticing children with ice cream (Toronto), or adults with a lottery (Alberta), constitute informed consent?

If Reibl v Hughes sets the standard for approved treatments, what then should be the standard for unapproved treatments, for experimentation on humans with new and untried technologies? As a consequence of experiments performed by Nazi doctors on concentration camp prisoners and the subsequent Nuremberg trials, that Court articulated ten research ethics principles to guide medical experimentation in humans. The first principle is that “the voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential”. Although the Nuremberg Code, created more than 70 years ago, did not use the word “informed”, it did use the word “consent,” and it is hardly a stretch to conclude that the consent they spoke of was “informed consent”. Most Canadians taking these novel gene therapy injections have no idea that these “vaccines” are not an approved therapy, like a flu shot, and they are unaware that they are in fact being enrolled in clinical trials which are still ongoing.

Our federal and provincial governments, premiers, public health administrators and personnel are negligent in administering the Covid vaccines to tens of millions of Canadians without clearly informing them that this is an experimental therapy, one which could result in serious adverse events, including life-altering injuries or death, and that the long-term side effects, for example potential auto-immune diseases, are as yet unknown.

When governments use all the means in their power, including control of the media and widespread censorship of dissenting voices, to induce people to get a medical treatment without adequately informing them of the risks, they are violating the fundamental trust between the people and their government.

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John Cunnington is a former McMaster University associate professor. After a 38-year career as a respirologist and internal medicine physician, he retired in 2018.

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Meine Dame!

Als ich mir heute zum wiederholten Male ein Video von Rechtsanwalt Dr. Reiner Füllmich von der deutschen Stiftung Corona-Ausschuss ansah – dieses Mal ein Video von „Report 24 News“ vom 9. Mai 2021 mit dem Titel „Rechtsanwalt fragt: ‚Warum ordnete Regierung wissentlich tödliche Maßnahmen an?‘“ –, empfand ich, dass es jetzt reicht. Obwohl ich seit Anfang 2020 regelmäßig Kommentare, Artikel und Offene Briefe zur Corona-Thematik schreibe, die in den unabhängigen alternativen Medien wie „Global Research“, „Neue Rheinische Zeitung NRhZ“ oder „RUBIKON“ und einmal auch in „Epochtimes“ veröffentlicht wurden, habe ich Sie und Ihre Rolle in dem ganzen Wahnsinn bisher ausgespart.

Wie Sie sich sicher erinnern werden, hatte ich vor vielen Jahren bereits zweimal die Gelegenheit, Sie als damalige Familienministerin in Sachen „Verein zur Förderung der psychologischen Menschenkenntnis VPM“ zusammen mit Kollegen in Bonn und Berlin persönlich zu sprechen. Entschuldigen Sie meine Offenheit: Aber damals war ich sehr erstaunt darüber, dass Sie spontan nie zur Sache Stellung nehmen konnten, sondern stets darum baten, erst Ihre Berater befragen zu dürfen, um sich eine persönliche Meinung bilden zu können.

Heute bin ich davon überzeugt, dass Sie nach den vielen Jahren in einem sehr verantwortlichen Amt sehr wohl wissen, was Sie tun und voll und ganz hinter Ihren politischen Entscheidungen stehen. Angefangen bei Ihrer Entscheidung „Wir schaffen das!“, als Sie versuchten, die gewaltige Migrationskrise und den Bevölkerungsaustausch in ganz Europa klein zu reden bis heute, wo Sie – um nochmals Dr. Füllmich zu zitieren – zur vermeintlichen Bewältigung der ausgerufenen Pandemie zusammen mit den anderen Regierungsmitgliedern wissentlich tödliche Maßnahmen anordneten und weiterhin fordern.

Durch diese Maßnahmen wurde ein unermesslicher wirtschaftlicher, gesellschaftlicher und individuell-menschlicher Schaden angerichtet, dessen Ausmaß heute noch gar nicht abzusehen und der nicht wieder gut zu machen ist. Aber das ist von Ihnen und Ihresgleichen vermutlich gewollt, um die allseits bekannten diabolischen Pläne des „Great Reset“ und der „Neuen Weltordnung NWO“ durchzusetzen. Das eigene Volk dazu zu ermuntern, sich einem nur notfallmäßig zugelassenen Killer-„Impfstoff“ auszuliefern, ist nur die Spitze des Eisbergs eines gigantischen Betrugs und Verbrechens an der Menschheit.

Meine Dame!

Ich frage Sie deshalb: In wessen Auftrag handeln Sie? Ganz sicher nicht im Auftrag des deutschen Volkes, was ja bekanntermaßen Ihre Aufgabe wäre. Wie ist es möglich, dass Sie sich trotz Ihrer gegen die Interessen des deutschen Volkes gerichteten Handlungen so lange an der Spitze der deutschen Regierung halten konnten? Ich persönlich habe Ihre Politik nicht mehr ertragen und deshalb mein Vaterland verlassen.

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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel ist Diplom-Psychologe und Erziehungswissenschaftler.

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Translated from German by the author

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My lady!

When I watched a video by lawyer Dr Reiner Füllmich of the German Corona Committee Foundation again today – this time a video from “Report 24 News” of 9 May 2021 entitled “Lawyer asks: ‘Why did government knowingly order lethal measures?'” –, I felt that enough was enough. Although I have been writing regular commentaries, articles and open letters on the Corona issue since early 2020, published in the independent alternative media such as “Global Research”, “Neue Rheinische Zeitung NRhZ” or “RUBIKON” and once also in “Epoch Times”, I have so far left you and your role in the whole madness out.

As you will surely remember, many years ago I already had the opportunity to speak to you personally twice as the then Minister for Family Affairs in matters concerning the “Verein zur Förderung der psychologischen Menschenkenntnis VPM” together with colleagues in Bonn and Berlin. Excuse my frankness: but at that time I was very surprised that you were never able to spontaneously comment on the matter, but always asked to be allowed to question your advisors first in order to be able to form a personal opinion.

Today I am convinced that after many years in a very responsible office, you know very well what you are doing and stand fully behind your political decisions. Starting with your decision “We can do it!”, when you tried to talk down the huge migration crisis and the population exchange throughout Europe, until today, when you – to quote Dr. Füllmich again – knowingly ordered and continue to demand lethal measures together with the other members of the government in order to supposedly cope with the declared pandemic.

These measures caused immeasurable economic, social and individual-human damage, the extent of which cannot even be foreseen today and which cannot be repaired. But this is probably what you and your kind want in order to push through the well-known diabolical plans of the “Great Reset” and the “New World Order NWO”. Encouraging your own people to turn themselves over to a killer “vaccine” approved only on an emergency basis is only the tip of the iceberg of a gigantic fraud and crime against humanity.

My Lady!

I therefore ask you: on whose behalf are you acting? Certainly not on behalf of the German people, which, as you know, would be your task. How is it possible that you have been able to stay at the head of the German government for so long despite your actions being against the interests of the German people? Personally, I could no longer stand your politics and therefore left my fatherland.

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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel is a qualified psychologist and educationalist.