March 16th, 2021 by National Vaccine Information Centre (NVIC)
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Pharmaceutical and medical device giant Johnson & Johnson, Inc. (J&J) announced on February 28, 2021, plans to test its experimental Ad26.COV2.S vaccine for COVID-19 on infant children (including newborns), pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems.
J&J did not include infants, pregnant women or the immunocompromised in the U.S. population in clinical trials on the experimental COVID-19 vaccine last year.1,2,3 A recent article in New York Magazine noted:4
“The initial clinical trials for COVID-19 vaccines didn’t include children, which is standard practice; now, trials for younger children are happening in descending order of age, calibrating the best dosage for each cohort.”
The announcement by J&J came the day after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted J&J subsidiary Janssen Biotech Inc. an emergency use authorization (EUA) to distribute the vaccine in the U.S. for use by individuals 18 years of age and older. Currently, the single-dose Ad26.COV2.S vaccine cannot be given to anyone in the U.S. under 18 years old.5,6,7,8,9
According to a spokesperson for Janssen, which manufactures Ad26.COV2.S, the single-dose vaccine will first be tested on children between 12 and 18 years old. Afterward, J&J will proceed quickly to test the vaccine on infants, pregnant women and immunocompromised people.10
FDA Reviewed J&J Plans to Test COVID-19 Vaccine on Babies
J&J’s move to test its COVID-19 vaccine on very young children, as well as pregnant woman and immunocompromised people, was expected. The plans to perform these clinical trials were reportedly included in J&J’s application to the FDA for EUA and were discussed by members of the FDA advisory committee that reviewed J&J’s data on Ad26.COV2.S.11,12
“They (J&J) did not get into a lot of detail about it but did make it clear they will be pursuing pediatric and maternal coronavirus immunization studies,” said FDA advisory committee member Dr. Ofer Levy, Ph.D., director of the Precision Vaccines Program at Harvard University’s Boston Children’s Hospital.13
Other Companies Testing COVID-19 Vaccines on Older Children
J&J’s planned COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials will be the first to include infants. AstraZeneca plc, which has produced the experimental AZD1222 vaccine for COVID-19 in partnership with Oxford University, has been conducting clinical trials on children as young as 6 years of age, while Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc. (in partnership with BioNTech SE) are currently testing their experimental mRNA-1273 and BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccines on children as young as 12.14,15
J&J began shipping out 4 million doses of Ad26.COV2.S on March 1, 2021. The company has pledged that it will have 20 million doses of the vaccine ready to distribute by the end of March and 100 million doses by this summer.16
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As our nation continues to be occupied by the greedy, the exploitive and the arrogant Super Rich, we need to call them out for what and WHO they are.
The Rolling Stones 1968 hit song “Sympathy for the Devil” still resonates some 53 years later. At the end of my column please read carefully Mick Jagger’s account of this evil.
As one studies the ‘True’ history of our nation, one can see how every single war we have either created or participated in, excepting to some extent WW2, none of them had anything to do with humanitarian causes.
It was always about control and power over other peoples. Internally, it has always been the great cause to further Capitalism within our boundaries and you have a ‘Devil of a horror’.
The Super Rich who still run things do not give a ‘Rat’s Ass’ for the health and welfare of our citizenry, excepting of course their own ‘Class’ of Super Rich. They own all the means of production, media and of course our government.
Observe all our presidents, and not one was free of their control and orchestration. The sole president who had his Epiphany not even after a year in office was conveniently taken out.
{Watch the powerful 1973 David Miller film Executive Action starring Burt Lancaster (screenplay by Dalton Trumbo) and the great 1974 Alan Pakula film The Parallax View starring Warren Beatty to get a handle on how these ‘eliminations’ are done}.
Progressive writers like Chris Hedges, Ed Curtin, Caitlin Johnstone and a myriad of others continually reveal how far off the radar our so called ‘Democracy’ has trekked. They show us how propaganda, bastard child of what Goebbels accomplished so well in Germany over 80 years ago, is our ‘New Normal’. Our country is simply a feudal outpost in a Super Rich Man’s world.
The Devils are the War Economy, the Landlord Class, the Media Giants and the Corporate World… always protected by mostly ‘Bought and Paid For’ Politicians who serve them so well, for so long. They divide us so shrewdly by color and most importantly by Class. They have the Upper Middle Class hating the Middle Class, the Middle Class hating the Lower Class, and of course whites fearing blacks and browns.. and even blacks and browns fearing each other. Like ‘Ants at a picnic’ they have us fighting for the crumbs from their table.
The Two Party/One Party charade they created generations ago continues to dish out this ‘Lesser of Two Evils’ logic, or should I say Illogic? Meanwhile, us, the suckers, see our hard earned tax dollars continue to be used to destroy the Safety Net we were promised would save us from falling too hard. The only Safety Net is for the ‘Less than 1%’ who own America.
Socialism is the only cure to not only stave off but ostracize those Devils among us. Wake up Trump Thumpers, Republican and Democratic Party supporters, and realize as Cassius put it so succinctly: “The fault dear Brutus is not in our stars but in ourselves.”
Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
I’ve been around for a long, long years
Stole million man’s soul an faith
And I was ’round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
Stuck around St. Petersburg
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed Tsar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain
I rode a tank
Held a general’s rank
When the blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
Ah, what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah
I watched with glee
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades
For the gods they made
I shouted out
Who killed the Kennedys?
When after all
It was you and me
Let me please introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
And I laid traps for troubadours
Who get killed before they reached Bombay
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah, get down, baby
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what’s confusing you
Is just the nature of my game
Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
‘Cause I’m in need of some restraint
So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
Use all your well-learned politnesse
Or I’ll lay your soul to waste, mm yeah
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Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, Countercurrents.org, and Off Guardian sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 400 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid‘ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at [email protected].
All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
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As calls for mandatory COVID-19 vaccination grow around the world, it’s becoming ever more crucial to understand what these injections actually are. The mRNA “vaccines” created by Moderna and Pfizer are in fact gene therapies.
As I’ll explain below, there’s simply no way around this, and drug manufacturers and public health officials must be made to admit this fact. Why? Because it makes all the difference in the world. You cannot mandate a gene therapy against COVID-19 any more than you can force entire populations to undergo gene therapy for a cancer they do not have and may never be at risk for.
Interestingly enough, mainstream media, fact checkers and various industry front groups insist the gene therapy claim is bogus, even though every single detail about the vaccines shouts otherwise. Why are they spreading this disinformation? Why do they not want you to know what these injections actually are?
In short, they know labeling them as “gene therapies” would be like slapping a skull and crossbones label on them. Most people have enough common sense to realize that gene therapy is a different ballgame from a regular vaccination, and might be a bad idea, especially for children and younger individuals.
mRNA ‘Vaccines’ Fulfill None of the Criteria for a Vaccine
To start, let’s take a look at some basic definitions of words. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a vaccine is:1
“A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease.”
Immunity, in turn, is defined as:
“Protection from an infectious disease,” meaning that “If you are immune to a disease, you can be exposed to it without becoming infected.”
That’s the medical definition. The legal definition, in the few cases where it has been detailed, is equally unequivocal:
Iowa code2 — “Vaccine means a specially prepared antigen administered to a person for the purpose of providing immunity.”
Washington state code3,4 — “Vaccine means a preparation of a killed or attenuated living microorganism, or fraction thereof …” The statute also specifies that a vaccine “upon immunization stimulates immunity that protects us against disease …”
These definitions, both medical and legal, present problems for mRNA “vaccines,” since:
mRNA injections do not impart immunity. Moderna and Pfizer both admit that their clinical trials aren’t even looking at immunity. As such they do not fulfill the medical and/or legal definition of a vaccine.
They do not inhibit transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 infection. As such they do not fulfill the medical and/or legal definition of a vaccine.
Dictionaries Attempt to Rewrite Medical Terms
We should not be fooled by attempts to condition the public to accept redefined terms. As of February 2019, Merriam-Webster defined5 “vaccine” as “a preparation of killed microorganisms, living attenuated organisms, or living fully virulent organisms that is administered to produce or artificially increase immunity to a particular disease.” By February 26, 2021, they had updated the definition of “vaccine” to:6
“A preparation that is administered (as by injection) to stimulate the body’s immune response against a specific infectious disease:
a: an antigenic preparation of a typically inactivated or attenuated … pathogenic agent (such as a bacterium or virus) or one of its components or products (such as a protein or toxin)
b: a preparation of genetic material (such as a strand of synthesized messenger RNA) that is used by the cells of the body to produce an antigenic substance (such as a fragment of virus spike protein)”
Let’s be clear. Merriam-Webster does not dictate medical terminology. It can be used, however, to confuse people. For now, all medical dictionaries still show the traditional definition of vaccine,7 as Merriam-Webster did up until this year. That said, I would not be surprised if changes are made there as well, eventually, if the misrepresentation of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines is allowed to stand.
mRNA Therapy Doesn’t Satisfy Public Health Measure Directive
There’s also the issue of whether a gene therapy can be mandated, and this may hinge on it being accepted as a vaccine. The 1905 Supreme Court ruling in Jacobson v. Massachusetts8 essentially established that collective benefit supersedes individual benefit.
Put another way, the ruling argues (although legal experts diverge on some of the finer details of its interpretation) that it’s acceptable for some individuals to be harmed by a public health directive as long as it benefits the collective. However, if vaccination is a public health measure meant to protect and benefit the collective, then it would need to accomplish two things:
Ensure that the vaccinated person is rendered immune from the disease.
Inhibit transmission of the disease from the vaccinated person to other individuals.
We’re now back to the original problem that mRNA therapies for COVID-19 do not accomplish either of these things. Since these gene therapies do not render the person immune, and do not inhibit transmission of the virus, they cannot qualify as a public health measure capable of providing collective benefit that supersedes individual risk.
On the contrary, the only one benefiting from an mRNA “vaccine” is the individual receiving the gene therapy, since all they are designed to do is lessen clinical symptoms associated with the S-1 spike protein.
In other words, they won’t keep you from getting sick with SARS-CoV-2; they are only supposed to lessen your infection symptoms if or when you do get infected. So, getting vaccinated protects no one but yourself. Since you’re the only one who will reap a benefit (less severe COVID-19 symptoms upon infection), the justification to accept the risks of the therapy “for the greater good” of your community is blatantly irrational.
Marketing mRNA Therapy as Vaccine Violates Federal Law
Since mRNA “vaccines” do not meet the medical and/or legal definition of a vaccine, referring to them as vaccines, and marketing them as such, is a deceptive practice that violates9 15 U.S. Code Section 41 of the Federal Trade Commission Act,10 the law that governs advertising of medical practices.
The lack of completed human trials also puts these mRNA products at odds with 15 U.S. Code Section 41. Per this law,11,12 it is unlawful to advertise “that a product or service can prevent, treat, or cure human disease unless you possess competent and reliable scientific evidence, including, when appropriate, well-controlled human clinical studies, substantiating that the claims are true at the time they are made.”
Here’s the problem: The primary end point in the COVID-19 “vaccine” trials is not an actual vaccine trial end point because, again, vaccine trial end points have to do with immunity and transmission reduction. Neither of those was measured.
What’s more, key secondary end points in Moderna’s trial include prevention of severe COVID-19 disease (defined as need for hospitalization) and prevention of infection by SARS-CoV-2, regardless of symptoms.13,14 However, Moderna did not actually measure rate of infection, stating that it was too “impractical” to do so.
That means there’s no evidence of this gene therapy having an impact on infection, for better or worse. And, if you have no evidence, you cannot fulfill the U.S. Code requirement that states you must have “competent and reliable scientific evidence … substantiating that the claims are true.”
Making matters worse, both Pfizer and Moderna are now eliminating their control groups by offering the real vaccine to any and all placebo recipients who want it.15 The studies are supposed to go on for a full two years, but by eliminating the control group, determining effectiveness and risks is going to be near impossible.
What Makes COVID Vaccines Gene Therapy?
Alright. Let’s move on to the definition of “gene therapy.” As detailed on MedlinePlus.gov’s “What Is Gene Therapy” page:16
“Gene therapy is an experimental technique that uses genes to treat or prevent disease … Researchers are testing several approaches to gene therapy, including: … Introducing a new gene into the body to help fight a disease …
Although gene therapy is a promising treatment option for a number of diseases (including inherited disorders, some types of cancer, and certain viral infections), the technique remains risky and is still under study to make sure that it will be safe and effective. Gene therapy is currently being tested only for diseases that have no other cures.”
Here, it’s worth noting that there are many different treatments that have been shown to be very effective against COVID-19, so it certainly does not qualify as a disease that has no cure. It makes sense that gene therapy should be restricted to incurable diseases, as this is the only time that taking drastic risks might be warranted. That said, here’s how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration defines gene therapy:17
“Human gene therapy seeks to modify or manipulate the expression of a gene or to alter the biological properties of living cells for therapeutic use. Gene therapy is a technique that modifies a person’s genes to treat or cure disease. Gene therapies can work by several mechanisms:
Replacing a disease-causing gene with a healthy copy of the gene
Inactivating a disease-causing gene that is not functioning properly
Introducing a new or modified gene into the body to help treat a disease”
November 17, 2020, the American Society of Gene + Cell Therapy (ASGCT) announced “COVID-19 Vaccine Candidates Show Gene Therapy Is a Viable Strategy,” noting that:18
“Two COVID-19 vaccine trials, both of which use messenger RNA (or mRNA) technology to teach the body to fight the virus, have reported efficacy over 90 percent.
These findings, announced by Moderna on Nov. 16 and by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech on Nov. 9 … demonstrate that gene therapy is a viable strategy for developing vaccines to combat COVID-19.
Both vaccine candidates use mRNA to program a person’s cells to produce many copies of a fragment of the virus. The fragment then stimulates the immune system to attack if the real virus tries to invade the body.”
mRNA Deliver New Genetic Instructions
As explained in the ASGCT’s video above, mRNA are molecules that contain genetic instructions for making various proteins. mRNA “vaccines” deliver a synthetic version of mRNA into your cells that carry the instruction to produce the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, the antigen, that then activates your immune system to produce antibodies. Then there’s Moderna’s trial website,19 where they describe their technology thus:
“Typical vaccines for viruses are made from a weakened or inactive virus, but mRNA-1273 is not made from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It is made from messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), a genetic code that tells cells how to make protein, which help the body’s immune system make antibodies to fight the virus.”
November 18, 2020, Wired magazine made a big deal about COVID-19 vaccines being “genetic vaccines,” noting:20
“The active ingredient inside their shot is mRNA — mobile strings of genetic code that contain the blueprints for proteins. Cells use mRNA to get those specs out of hard DNA storage and into their protein-making factories. The mRNA inside Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine directs any cells it reaches to run a coronavirus spike-building program.”
Importantly, as reported by David Martin, Ph.D.,21,22 “Moderna … describes its product not as a vaccine, but as ‘gene therapy technology’ in SEC filings. This is because neither Moderna nor Pfizer … make any claims about their products creating immunity or preventing transmission.” Additionally, Moderna’s SEC filings specifically state that “Currently, mRNA is considered a gene therapy product by the FDA,” as well.23
In a February 2021 article, MIT Technology Review reviewed the history of mRNA technology in general, and Moderna’s in particular, stating:24
“Vaccines were not their focus. At the company’s founding in 2010, its leaders imagined they might be able to use RNA to replace the injected proteins that make up most of the biotech pharmacopoeia, essentially producing drugs inside the patient’s own cells from an RNA blueprint. ‘We were asking, could we turn a human into a bioreactor?’ says Noubar Afeyan, the company’s cofounder …”
Bloomberg, in August 2020, reported25 that the Moderna vaccine would seek to transform your body into “a vaccine-making machine.” The New York Times was more to the point. In May 2020, they reported26 that “Researchers at two Harvard-affiliated hospitals are adapting a proven form of gene therapy to develop a coronavirus vaccine.” Read it again — A proven form of gene therapy.
So, to summarize: The definition of “genetic” is something relating to genes, and the definition of “therapy” is the medical treatment of a disease. The definition of “gene therapy” is the process of modifying or manipulating the expression of a gene, or altering the biological properties of living cells.
mRNA are snippets of genetic code that instructs cells to produce proteins. mRNA COVID-19 therapies “deliver genetic instructions into your cells,” thereby triggering your body to produce a fragment of the virus (the spike protein). So, mRNA vaccines ARE gene therapy. There’s simply no way around this. They fulfill all the definitions of gene therapy and none of the definitions for a vaccine.
Defining ‘COVID-19’
There’s yet one more potential problem with the “COVID-19 vaccine” narrative as a whole, which Martin unpacked in a January 25, 2021, interview on the Wise Traditions podcast (above).27 In it, he explains:
“COVID-19 is not a disease. It is a series of clinical symptoms. It is a giant umbrella of things associated with what used to be associated with influenza and with other febrile diseases.
The problem that we have is that in February [2020], the World Health Organization was clear in stating that there should not be a conflation between [SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19]. One is a virus, in their definition, and one is a set of clinical symptoms. The illusion in February was that SARS-CoV-2 caused COVID-19.
The problem with that definition, and with the expectation, is that the majority of people who test positive using the RT-PCR method for testing, for fragments of what is associated with SARS-CoV-2, are not ill at all. The illusion that the virus causes a disease fell apart. That’s the reason why they invented the term asymptomatic carrier.”
In short, SARS-CoV-2 has yet to be definitively proven to be the actual cause of COVID-19. So, a gene therapy that instructs your body to produce a SARS-CoV-2 antigen — the viral spike protein — cannot even be touted as a preventative against COVID-19, as the two have not been shown to be causally linked.
“They have been willfully lying since the inception of this,” Martin says in the interview.“There is not a causal link between these things … It has never even been close to established.
We have a situation where the illusion of the problem is that people say, ‘I don’t want to get COVID-19.’ What they mean is they don’t want to get infected with a virus. The problem is those two things are not related to each other. A viral infection hasn’t been documented in the majority of what is called cases.
There is no basis for that conflation other than the manipulation of the public. That’s the first half of the problem. The second half of the problem is that what is being touted as a vaccination … is not a vaccine. This is gene therapy …
What is this doing? It’s sending a strand of synthetic RNA into the human being and is invoking within the human being, the creation of the S1 spike protein, which is a pathogen … A vaccine is supposed to trigger immunity. It’s not supposed to trigger you to make a toxin …
It’s not somewhat different. It’s not the same at all … It’s not a prohibiting infection. It’s not a prohibiting transmission device. It’s a means by which your body is conscripted to make the toxin that then, allegedly, your body somehow gets used to dealing with, but unlike a vaccine — which is to trigger the immune response — this is to trigger the creation of the toxin.”
Why the Misrepresentation?
As for why drug companies are misrepresenting this technology, Martin suspects “it’s done exclusively so that they can get themselves under the umbrella of public health laws that exploit vaccination.”
Experimental gene therapies do not have financial liability shielding from the government, but pandemic vaccines do, even in the experimental stage, as long as the emergency use authorization is in effect. This is indeed a major incentive to make sure this technology is perceived as a vaccine and nothing else.
So, by maintaining the illusion that COVID-19 is a state of emergency, when in reality it is not, government leaders are providing cover for these gene therapy companies so that they are insulated from any liability.
The take-home message here is that these injections are not vaccines. They do not prevent infection, they do not render you immune and they do not prevent transmission of the disease. Instead, they alter your genetic coding, turning you into a viral protein factory that has no off-switch. What’s happening here is a medical fraud of unprecedented magnitude, and it really needs to be stopped before it’s too late for a majority of people.
If you already got the vaccine and now regret it, you may be able to address your symptoms using the same strategies you’d use to treat actual SARS-CoV-2 infection. I review these strategies at the end of “Why COVID Vaccine Testing Is a Farce.”
Last but not least, if you got the vaccine and are having side effects, please help raise public awareness by reporting it. The Children’s Health Defense is calling on all who have suffered a side effect from a COVID-19 vaccine to do these three things:28
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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In an open letter to WHO and in a follow-up video interview, Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche, says that by vaccinating everyone with a vaccine that doesn’t prevent transmission, we are destroying people’s immune systems, and setting the stage for a global health disaster.
Bossche says the COVID vaccines approved so far have been developed by “just brilliant” people and he has no criticism of them But, as he tells Dr. Phillip McMillan in an interview, “please use the right vaccine at the right place. And don’t use it in the heat of a pandemic on millions of millions of people.”
Bossche says that a mass vaccination campaign in the middle of a pandemic, with vaccines that don’t prevent transmission, is disastrous at an individual — and at a global — level:
“We are going to pay a huge price for this. And I’m becoming emotional because I’m thinking of my children, of the younger generation. I mean, it’s just impossible what we are doing. We don’t understand the pandemic.”
In an open letter to the World Health Organization (WHO), Bossche wrote that “we are currently turning vaccinees into asymptomatic carriers shedding infectious variants.”
Bossche hasn’t heard back from WHO, which concerns him.
“It is about humanity … I mean, it’s about your children. It’s your family. It’s my family. It’s everyone. Right. And it’s simply for me, I put everything at stake because I’ve done my homework. And this is simply a moral obligation. A moral obligation.”
Watch the video:
Read the interview transcript:
McMillan: I think the first thing that we have to clarify is that we have to explain you are someone who is in the vaccine development business, so to speak. What has that background been like?
Bossche: Well, I have a background essentially in, as far as vaccines are concerned, in industry as well as in the non-for-profit sector. So I have been working with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, GAVI [The Vaccine Alliance] especially concentrating on vaccines for global health.
And I’ve also been working with several different companies, vaccine companies developing of course essentially prophylactic vaccines and my main focus of interest has always been, in fact, the design of vaccines. So the concept, how can we educate the immune system in ways that are to some extent more efficient than we do right now with our conventional vaccines.
McMillan: Right. And so any effect, this is the area of work you’ve been in. You develop vaccines, you are as well working with the Ebola vaccine as well. One of the really, really dangerous viruses we have out there in the world. How does that work? Is it, is that easy to do?
Bossche: Well, I was not, let me be very clear. I was a coordinator of the Ebola program at GAVI. So we were interacting with several different vaccine companies that were developing Ebola vaccines, because it was important for GAVI to make the right choice, the right vaccine in order for this vaccine to be rolled out in the Western African countries that had this severe Ebola crisis back a number of years ago. So that was not a, let’s say operational practical work.
This was more a role of coordination, but of course was also a role of assessing what would be the impact of using some of these vaccines in larger populations and in an area where an epidemic really is going on because that’s a very particular and peculiar situation.
McMillan: Yes. And so in effect, we’ve had so much success over the past hundred years with some very big breakthroughs with vaccines, smallpox, you know, measles, mumps, rubella, polio. But we have struggled with other vaccines. Without going into the details, because this is very difficult to get across, but is there a difference with how viruses operate that make some easier to get a vaccine for?
Bossche: Well, I think we have a, Philip. Essentially, we need to distinguish, of course, between what we call acute self-limiting diseases. These are diseases that naturally come to an end in a sense that ultimately the individual will eliminate the pathogen. Of course, some people may die. Of course, let’s be very clear. Those who survive will ultimately eliminate the pathogen.
That is the vast majority of the vaccines we have been developing so far. The, you know, I don’t need to tell you that with other viruses where we clearly see that they spread in a completely different way. They spread, for example, from cell to cell, they tend to be more intracellular.
They tend to develop chronic infections where it’s not self-limiting, it’s not acute self-limiting, it’s chronic. It is much more difficult. And the reason primarily is that most of the vaccines we are developing are still antibody-based vaccines.
So we need these antibodies in the blood, or we need these antibodies to translate to the mucosa, for example, in order to capture the pathogen and to neutralize it. So some of the other work, I mean, they have a very insidious strategy in the sense that they hide in cells, that they can already at the mucosal barrier penetrate, you know, immediately into cells. And then the cells may migrate, for example, to the lymph nodes.
So they are shielded from the antibodies and that makes it very, very difficult because we know that we can catch them to some extent in the blood, but what they do all the time is that they insert mutation and they escape, they fully escape to our antibody responses.
So that makes it way more difficult. It’s also the reason why also against cancer, et cetera, we have not been extremely successful with vaccines as I would say, stand alone therapy.
McMillan: Yeah, absolutely. Yes. So it, it brings us into where we are with regards to COVID-19. Now, if we have 20/20 vision at the moment, when we look back at the pandemic and where we started from, and I’ve always said that at the time, when the pandemic started, when it got from China and Italy into Europe, into the UK. I thought that the only way that we could manage this is to lock down and to prevent the spread of this apparently, this very dangerous virus. We do have to stand back and to see whether or not those decisions were correct. But as we said, that hindsight is 20/20. What would you say now, as we look back at the decisions we made then, were we about on the right track? Did we make any mistakes?
Bossche: Well, frankly speaking, from the very beginning, and I mean, there are many people who can witness this or testify this. I always said that it was a bad idea to do lockdowns that would also affect the younger people.
That we would prevent younger people from having contact, from being exposed. Because remember, the big difference back then was, of course, that we had a viral strain, COVID strain, that was circulating, dominant strain, and that was not as highly infectious as those that we are seeing right now.
Of course, when a new virus gets into a population, it immediately gets to the folks that have, you know, weak immunity. And we know, we know these people, this is to a large majority, of course, elderly people, people that have underlying diseases or are otherwise immune suppressed, et cetera.
And of course, I mean, it was certainly the right thing to do, to protect these people, and for them also to isolate, but we have to distinguish, frankly speaking, and that is what we have not been doing, between those people that have strong innate immunity. I mean, it’s not a, you cannot see when you see a person, you don’t know this, but we know that young people have quite decent innate immune response and therefore they are naturally protected and even more, I mean, if they get in contact with coronavirus, it will boost their natural immunity.
So therefore from the very beginning, I disapproved, you know, the fact that schools got to close and universities and that youngsters were prevented even from having contact with each other. That situation is of course completely different.
If you look at vulnerable people, the virus, this comes to the population, there is no, you know, humoral immunity. There is no immunity at all. In fact, so nobody has been in contact.
So the youngsters, they can rely on good innate immunity. Elderly people, I mean, the innate immunity is waning. It gets increasingly replaced by antigen-specific, by specific immunity as people get older.
So these people very, very clearly needed to be protected, but it has taken a lot of time before we understood, in fact, how exactly the immune response and the virus were interacting.
So there’s been a lot of confusion. A lot of mistakes made. Mistakes, I mean, retrospectively. And that has also led to, you know, bad control right from the beginning. I would say.
McMillan: With that in mind and where we are now, as countries across the world have been drifting towards the Christmas period, there’s still a rise in cases. Countries had to try and lock down, mask mandates and so on, but we all had the hope that vaccines would come and break the cycle. This is where clearly now from your expertise, you seem to have a different thought about how we should have been thinking about vaccines then, and even now, what is your perspective?
Bossche: Well, my perspective was, and still is, that if you go to war, you better make sure that you have the right weapon and the weapon in itself can be an excellent weapon. And that is what I’m saying really about the current vaccines.
I mean, just brilliant people who have been making these vaccines in no time and with regulatory approval and everything. So the weapon in itself is excellent.
Question is, is this the right weapon for the kind of war that is going on right now? And there my answer is definitely no, because these are prophylactic vaccines and prophylactic vaccines should typically not be administered to people who are exposed to high infectious pressure.
So don’t forget we are administering these vaccines in the heat of a pandemic. So in other words while we are preparing our weapon, we are fully attacked by the virus. The virus is everywhere. So that is a very different scenario from using such vaccines in a setting where the vaccine is barely or not exposed to the virus.
And I’m saying this, because if you have a high infectious pressure, it’s so easy for the virus to jump from one person to the other.
So if your immune response, however, is just mounting, as we see right now with the number of people who get their first dose, they get the first dose, the antibodies are not fully mature, the titers are maybe not very high. So their immune response is suboptimal, but they are in the midst of this war while they are mounting an immune response, they’re fully attacked by the virus and every single time. I mean, this is textbook knowledge.
Every single time you have an immune response that is suboptimal in the presence of an infection, in the presence of a virus, that infected person, you are at risk for immune escape.
So that means that the virus can escape the immune response. And that is why I’m saying that these vaccines, I mean, in their own right, are, of course, excellent. But to use them in the midst of a pandemic and do mass vaccination, because then you provide within a very short period of time, the population with high antibody titers – so the virus comes under enormous pressure.
I mean, that wouldn’t matter if you can eradicate a virus, if you can prevent infection, but these vaccines don’t prevent infection.
They protect against disease because we are just, unfortunately, we look no further than the end of our nose in the sense that hospitalization, that’s all what counts, you know, getting people away from the hospital.
But in the meantime, we are not realizing that we give all the time during this pandemic, by our interventions, the opportunity to escape to the immune, to the immune system.
And that is of course, a very, very, very dangerous thing. Especially, if we realize that these guys, they only need 10 hours to replicate.
So if you think that by making new vaccines, a new vaccine against the new infectious strains, we going to catch up, it’s impossible to catch up. I mean, virus is not going to wait until we have those vaccines ready. I mean, this thing continues.
And as I was saying, the thing is, I mean, if you do this in the midst of a pandemic, that is an enormous problem.
These vaccines are excellent, but they are not made for administration to millions of people in the midst, in the heat of a pandemic. So that is my thoughts.
McMillan: Is this equivalent then, because you’ve mentioned this in your paper, is this equivalent to using either a partial dose of antibiotics in anti-microbial or in a bacterial infection where you then produce super bugs. Is this the kind of example that you’re alluding to?
Bossche: Well, that is a very good parallel. It’s also the parallel I’m using actually in the paper. We just post it on LinkedIn [bad choice, LinkedIn has been deplatforming and censoring scientists and doctors more than any other platform] which, you know, should be so open for everybody [wrong, they outsource to low paid “fact checkers” who aggressively censor according to left media news narratives].
I mean, it’s pure science because as you were pointing out, the thing is the rule is it’s very simple. I mean, same with antibiotics. Either the antibiotics do not match very well with the bug. That’s not good. That’s why we are making antibiograms, you know, to first identify which is the germ. And then we choose the antibiotics. We need to have a very good match. Otherwise there could be resistance.
So when I compare this to the current situation, do we have a good match with our antibodies? No, at this point in time, we don’t have a good match anymore because we have this kind of like almost heterologous variants.
So that differs from the original strain. So the match isn’t very good anymore. And hence we see people are still protected, but they are already shedding the virus. So that is one thing.
The other thing is the quantity, of course. You tell people, you know, you take your antibiotics according to the prescription, please don’t as soon as you feel well, that doesn’t mean that you can stop the antibiotics. Same here.
And I get just one example. If you give people just like one dose, I mean, they are in the process of mounting their antibodies. The antibodies still need to fully mature, et cetera. So this is a suboptimal situation. We are putting them in a suboptimal situation with regard to their immune protection. And on the other end, they are in the midst of the war. They are fully attacked by all, you know, by all these kinds of a highly infectious variants.
So, I mean, it’s very clear that this is driving immune escape and will ultimately drive resistance to the vaccines.
So my point is, yes, Philip, it’s very similar. There is one difference. The virus needs living cells. I mean, if you’re driving immune escape, but the guy has no chance to jump on somebody else, who cares?
This situation is now different because we are in the midst of a war, there is a high infectious pressure. So the likelihood that an immune escape immediately finds another living cell, that means another host is very, very high. It’s per definition. It’s the definition almost of a pandemic.
McMillan: So it raises a simple question that somebody has put in front of us here, which is, it’s perfectly common sense. What do we do?
Bossche: That question is very easy. I mean, we need to do a better job when we are confronted with situations that seem very dramatic. Like, you know, an epidemic. Our generation has not, you know, been living in times where there are epidemics or pandemics.
And so we immediately take action and jump on the beast with the tools we have instead of analyzing what is really going on. And one thing that I thought was extremely interesting was, and it’s something that was not really understood. We know that the number of people or asymptomatically infected, so they are infected, but they don’t develop severe symptoms. Of course they can have some mild symptoms of respiratory disease, whatever.
So the question is what exactly happens with those folks that they can eliminate the virus, they eliminate the virus, they don’t transmit it.
They will shed it for like a week or so. And then they eliminate this, or you could say, yeah, of course we know that antibodies eliminate … Oh, wait a minute. The antibodies come later, you have first the search of, you know, shedding of the virus.
And it’s only afterwards that you see, you know, a moderate and short-lived raise of antibodies. So the antibodies can not be responsible for elimination of the virus. So what is responsible for elimination of the virus? Luckily enough, we have a number of brilliant scientists, independent, brilliant scientists that have now increasingly been showing. And there is increasing evidence that what in fact is happening is that NK cells are taking care of virus.
So NK cells that the virus gets into, into these epithelial cells and starts to replicate, but NK cells get activated and they will kill, they will kill the cell, you know, in which the virus tries to replicate.
So I was saying that the virus needs to rely on a living cell. So you kill that cell. It’s gone, it’s all over. So we have the solution in the pathogenesis because some people eliminate it.
McMillan: Absolutely. I just wanted to clarify, because when you said NK cells, somebody may not quite know what you mean. So you mean non killer cells. So it’s a specific group of …
Bossche: Natural killer cells …
McMillan: Sorry. It’s natural killer cells, a special group of white blood cells that go and take out the viral infected cell. So, yes, you’re right. Because I have seen from a clinical perspective, very old patients who you would expect to be overwhelmed by the virus and they have a few symptoms and then they’re okay. So they, the body does manage to get rid of it in some cases.
And so it raises the point that I’ve always been saying is that we haven’t spent enough time understanding how the virus impacts the body and understanding how the pandemic then will impact the world. We’ve spent all of our time just going for solutions. Has that been a mistake?
Bossche: Of course, this has been the, you know, the most important mistake, I think. I’m not sure many people and I, I was part of them. So in all modesty, I was part of them. Not sure whether many people understand how a natural pandemic develops and why we have this first wave. We have the second wave. And we have this third wave.
And, I mean, these waves of disease and mortality and morbidity, they shift from one population to another. So I’m saying, for example, the second wave, this was typically also the case with influenza, World War I, when basically more soldiers, young people died in the trenches of influenza than from from injuries or whatever. So firstly, elderly, I mean, weak immune system, et cetera. Then it gets to the wave of morbidity and mortality to the younger people.
And then it gets back to people who have antibodies. So we have to understand this first, Oh, how does this come? Why all of a sudden does this wave of morbidity and mortality shift, for example, why are the three waves? How do we explain this? And also, how does it come that some people are naturally protected and others are not? What are these mechanisms, what are these molecular mechanisms?
Because if you make vaccines and all these things, at the end of the day, this is going to interact at the molecular level. And we have not been understanding this. I would just explain it. We don’t understand our weapon because we don’t understand that prophylactic vaccines should not be used in the midst of an epidemic. And we don’t understand exactly what the virus is, do we. So we go to a war and we don’t know our enemy. We don’t understand the strategy of our enemy. And we don’t know how our weapon works. I mean, how is that going to go? We have a fundamental problem to begin with.
McMillan: I understand, and I completely accept that, but at the same time, I am still thinking that if the governments don’t respond in some way, because they have to be seen to be doing something. They seem to be in a lose-lose situation. If they don’t do anything, they’re going to be criticized. And if they do do something, they’re going to be criticized. Is that a fair statement to make?
Bossche: I don’t think so. What was this, oath of, what’s the name of the guy? Hippocrates. You know the rule?
McMillan: The first. Do no harm.
Bossche: Okay. Well, I mean, it wouldn’t matter if you start vaccinating people and even if it doesn’t work. Problem is that we induce a long lived antibody response. And as a matter of fact, we know, I mean, that is not my knowledge. It’s all published.
Problem is that we fail to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Fact is that these long lived antibodies, which have high specificity, of course, for the virus. They out-compete our natural antibodies because they’re natural antibodies, they have a very broad spectrum, but they have low affinity. Right?
And so by doing this, even if your antibodies don’t work anymore, because there is resistance or, you know, that the strains are too different from the original strain, we still, these antibodies, specific antibodies will still continue to out-compete your natural antibodies. And that is a huge problem because I was saying just a few minutes ago, these natural antibodies, they provide you with broad protection.
This protection is, yes, it is variant nonspecific. Doesn’t matter what variant you get. It doesn’t even matter what type of coronavirus is coming in. They will protect you. Unless, of course, you suppress this level of innate immunity, or it is, for example, out-competed by long lived specific antibodies. And so it’s not like, okay, you know, you missed it. Okay, let’s try again. No, you did some harm. I mean, this is different from drugs.
Immunizing somebody is installing a new software on your computer. Don’t forget. I mean, these antibodies, they will be recalled every single time you’re encountering a coronavirus, right? I mean, you cannot just erase this. So this is very serious. This is very serious.
McMillan: So this is an important point because when I was looking at some of the research around the challenges that they faced with the initial SARS, called the first epidemic, and they tried to develop the vaccines. One of the things they found, certainly when they tested it on the ferrets, was that when they expose them to a coronavirus again, they got a very severe response to it. Is this what you’re saying? That we’re putting ourselves in a position where we can then have much more severe disease even to viruses that should normally be quite benign?
Bossche: Well, you know, you see all my passion and my conviction, but I mean, I’ve been the last to criticize the vaccines in terms of, would they, in some regard, could they, in some regard be unsafe because, you know, you would have even this exacerbation of disease due to antibodies that doesn’t match very well with the coronavirus they’re exposed to et cetera.
I know there is reports on this, and there is a lot of serious thoughts about this. But I think what we are talking about right now, the epidemic or the pandemic problem of having a population that is at no point during the pandemic and to large extent, due to our intervention, has not a strong immune response. I mean, this is already serious enough. This is more concerning than one or the other adverse events that could maybe elicited, I’m not downplaying it, but that could maybe be elicited because people have antibodies that do no longer match very well with the strain they were or with the strain they are exposed to.
And therefore, you know, they build a complex, they don’t neutralize the virus, they build a complex and this complex could maybe even enhance viral entry into susceptible cells and hence lead to exacerbation of disease.
I mean, this may be possible, but the problem I’m talking about is a global problem. It’s not an individual getting an adverse event. It’s a global problem of, you know, making this virus increasingly infectious because we live it all the time, a chance and opportunity to escape an immune system and to drive this.
So to wake this up, you know, up to a level where the virus is so infectious, that we can even no longer control it, because I mean, these highly infectious strains, some people think, Oh, the virus is going to calm down and it will insert a number of mutations, you know, just to be gentle and kind with us. That’s not going to happen. I mean, this highly infectious range remains.
It is not going to be spontaneous mutations that all of a sudden would become, would make this virus again harmless because such a virus would have a competitive disadvantage, could not be dominant anymore, so that’s not going to happen. So we’re talking about a very, very, very serious problem here.
McMillan: So I’ve seen the question many times and quite frankly, I get asked the questions. We’re coming to a point where people are going to have to take these vaccines. That looks as though it’s the reality. Either in the context of work or in the context of travel. Based on what you’re saying, they’re in a lose-lose situation. What does this mean?
Bossche: Well, what does this mean? It’s very clear. It’s very clear what this is going to mean.
So let’s consider the consequences of this both at a population level and at an individual level, because I would well understand if for the population is maybe not the best thing to do, but you know, on an individual level, it’s still okay. Yeah. Then it’s not an easy, that’s not an easy question.
But as a matter of fact, it’s exactly the opposite. Well, it’s not the opposite. It is detrimental both on a population level, as on an individual level. And I’m telling you why. I think the population level I explained to you, we are increasingly facing highly infectious strains that already right now, we cannot control because basically what we are doing is that we are turning — when we vaccinate somebody, we are turning this person in a potential asymptomatic carrier that is shedding the virus.
But at an individual level, I just told you that if you have these antibodies and at some point, and I’m sure this, people can challenge me on this, but, you know, reality will prove it.
Bossche: I think we are very close to vaccine resistance right now. And it’s not for nothing that already people start developing, you know, new vaccines against the strains, et cetera.
But what I was saying is that, okay, if you miss the shoot, okay, you could say nothing has happened. No. You are at the same time losing the most precious part of your immune system that you could ever imagine.
And that is your innate immune system, because the innate antibodies, the natural antibodies, the secretary IGMs will be out-competed by these antigen-specific antibodies for binding to the virus. And that will be long lived. That is a long lived suppression.
And you lose every protection against any viral variant or coronavirus variant, et cetera. So this means that you are left just with no single immune response with your, you know, it’s none, your immunity has become nil.
It’s all gone. The antibodies don’t work anymore. And your your innate immunity has been completely bypassed and this while highly infectious strains are circulating.
So, I mean, if that isn’t clear enough, I really don’t get it. And people please do read my, you know, what I posted because it’s science, it’s pure science, pure science. And as everybody knows, I’m a highly passionate vaccine guy, right?
And I’ve no criticism on the vaccines, but please use the right vaccine at the right place. And don’t use it in the heat of a pandemic on millions of millions of people.
We are going to pay a huge price for this. And I’m becoming emotional because I’m thinking of my children, of the younger generation. I mean, it’s just impossible what we are doing. We don’t understand the pandemic.
We have been turning it into an artificial pandemic.
Who can explain where all of a sudden, all these highly infectious strains come from? Nobody can explain this.
I can explain it. But we have not been seeing this during previous pandemics, during natural pandemics. We have not been seeing it. Because at every single time, the immunity was low enough so that the virus didn’t need to escape. So back at the end of the pandemic, when things calmed down and it was herd immunity, it was still the same virus circulating.
What we are now doing is that we are really chasing this virus and it becomes all, you know, increasingly infectious. And I mean, this is just a situation that is completely, completely completely out of control.
So it’s also, we are now getting plenty of asymptomatic shedders. People who shed the virus because if they are vaccinated or they have even antibodies from previous disease, they can no longer control these highly infectious variants.
So how does that come? Does anybody still understand the curves? I see all these top scientists looking at this curve, at its waves. Like somebody else is looking at the currency rates at the stock market.
All they can say is, Oh, it goes up, it’s stabilizing. It may go down, may go up, et cetera. I mean, that is not science. They don’t have any clue.
They don’t even know whether the curve is gonna go up exponentially or whether it’s gonna go down or whatever. They’re completely lost. And that is extremely scary. That has been the point where I said, okay, guy, you have to analyze. You have to, but you know, these people are not listening. That is the problem.
McMillan: So you are, in effect, putting your reputation on the line because you feel so passionately about this because I guarantee you that no government, no health system is going to want to hear what you are saying. You are, in effect, almost giving fuel to the fire for an anti-vaxxer who doesn’t want the vaccine.
Bossche: No, no, well, no. Because I’ve clearly also addressed some emails from anti-vaxxers. I mean, I’m not interested, but I’m clearly telling them that at this point, it’s so irrelevant, you know, whether you’re a pro vaxxer or an anti-vaxxer, et cetera, it is about the science. It’s about humanity, right?
I mean, let’s not lose our time now with criticizing people or, I mean, anti-vaxxer, okay. If you’re not an anti-vaxxer, you could be a stalker.
You could be, you know, we like to stigmatize because if you stigmatize people, you don’t need to bother about them anymore.
Oh, this guy’s an anti-vaxxer. Okay. I mean, he’s out of the scope. Oh, he’s a stalker. He’s out of the scope. I mean, that is a discussion that is completely irrelevant at this point.
It is about humanity. And of course I’m passionate. Of course, I mean, it’s about your children. It’s your family. It’s my family. It’s everyone. Right. And it’s simply for me, I put everything at stake because I’ve done my homework. And this is simply a moral obligation. A moral obligation.
McMillan: Wow. Wow. I mean, there’s very little one can say, as I said, when you position that you are in the business of developing vaccines and helping societies protect against infections through the use of vaccines, and in this circumstance, you are saying, hold it, we’re doing the wrong thing here. It’s very difficult to not listen to that. That’s the truth.
Bossche: Well, the answer is very easy. I mean, this is human behavior. If you’re, you know, having panic, we do something and we try to make ourselves believe that it is the right thing to do, until there is complete chaos and there is a complete disaster.
And then people say, well, you know, I mean, politicians will probably say, you know, we have been advised by the scientists and scientists, you know, will maybe point to somebody else, but this is now a situation.
I’m asking every single scientist to scrutinize, to look what I’m writing, to do the science and to study exactly the, I call these the immune pathogenesis of the disease. And because I like people to do their homework.
And if the science is wrong, you know, if I’m proven wrong, I will admit it, but I can tell you, I’m not putting my career, my reputation at stake.
I would not do this when I would not be 200% convinced. And it’s not about me, not about me at all. It’s about humanity. People don’t understand what is currently going on. And we have an obligation to explain this.
And I posted my paper on LinkedIn and I invite all independent scientists please to look at it because this can be easily understood by microbiologists, immunologists, geneticists, you know, plenty of biochemists, etc., etc., all the biologists, all these people who have elementary knowledge, it’s not rocket science, elementary knowledge of biology should be able to understand this.
And I mean, I can only appeal to these people, you know, to stand up as independent scientists and to voice their opinion.
McMillan: Yes, yes, yes. I mean, that was a long point that somebody put on about the innate immune response, the false overreacting of the innate immune response, leading to detrimental effects in other coronaviruses. So I think you’ve expressed this so well, Geert. I think that just hearing your explanation, the passion, the focus on the science, I think that that’s as much as you can do. I think that I don’t even want to say any more because I don’t want to lose that passion that you have just expressed.
How much you are doing in terms of trying to see if you can make a difference with regards to the impact that we are having in this pandemic. You know, we really, really appreciate that, Geert. We really, really appreciate that. I hope enough people share this, and listen to it, certainly because I’m connected with a lot of scientists. Please connect to Geert, take a look at his paper and see what you think. And as you said, let’s make decisions based on science. That’s the best that we can do at this point.
Wonderful. Just stay on the line there. We’re just going to close off now, Geert. So thank you again very, very much, Geert. And I hope maybe we can speak again in the near future to expand a little bit further on what you have said.
Bossche: Thanks, Philip, for having me on.
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Nestled in the heart of a seemingly innocuous business park in the hinterlands of Milton Earnest is a bleak, squat building contained within walls of taut barbed wire. This is Yarl’s Wood, the notorious detention centre where asylum seekers are detained indefinitely without trial, before being deported. People can get lost in its labyrinthine bowels for years, stuck on the punishing treadmill of our vast immigration bureaucracy. In recent years, reports of dehumanizing conditions within Yarl’s Wood have led to a gradual awareness amongst the public that the world inside its walls is a terrifying place, where a culture of impunity leads to gross abuses of power. What is to be done?
Certainly there is a powerful argument that the facility shouldn’t exist at all.
It has a nefarious reputation for a reason. Access to basic, vital rights to personal and social protection is denied to detainees, particularly harming those from vulnerable backgrounds. During a fire in 2007, officers complied with orders to lock detainees in the burning building, injuring five people and risking their lives. In another disturbing instance of heinous neglect, during a wildcat hunger strike by women at least 70 of them were locked in an airless corridor without water or toilet facilities by way of punishment for their dissent.
Moreover, there are numerous corroborated allegations that staff have sexually assaulted detainees, and in 2011 the High Court ruled that children were being kept in unlawful conditions. All of this raises questions about who is being entrusted with running this facility. If all they are good for is abusing inmates, it raises the question of whether Yarl’s Wood serves a public function at all. It is, in fact, very damaging, and embarrassing for a country with pretensions to being civilized.
Copyright the New Internationalist
A large part of the problem with Yarls Wood is the fact that it is privately owned and thus isn’t subject to measures of accountability, oversight and scrutiny which are the modus operandi for publically owned organisations. The reputation of the center has decreased noticeably during the period when Serco have been in charge. The corporation entrusted with running Yarl’s Wood has demonstrated severe deficiencies in their behaviour time and again, but they glide from scandal to scandal with near total impunity, rewarded for their ineptitude with eye-watering profits. Privatization of detention facilities has created a machine in which the relentless creation of profit triumphs over the duty of doing a good public service. Prisoners aren’t treated as people. In the eyes of the administrators the bottom line matters more than quality of life. That’s how prisoners end up sick, dead and abused.
Equally as disturbing as the frequency of abuse is the complicity of the government in letting Serco off the hook. The Home Office have refused Freedom of Information requests demanding statistics on the number of people sexually assaulted, on the grounds that it would jeopardise commercial interests. They have done everything in their power to shroud Yarl’s Wood in secrecy, rather than using their influence to force daylight on to the nefarious practices inside.
They are complacent in the face of abuse, and have made no efforts to stop it. At a time when even the conservative Australian government is agreeing to close a controversial detention center on the grounds that it is unconstitutional, it is perhaps surprising that Britain is not seriously considering the same future for Yarl’s Wood. Yet with the rise of xenophobia, politicians will choose to cynically scapegoat asylum seekers for the problems they created and try to turn us against each other, rather than against the real danger to our society: Yarl’s Wood itself.
In a climate where there is no political will to hold Serco to account, the bold and rancorous Movement For Justice By Any Means Necessary have called upon allies in the resistance against Yarl’s Wood to protest against the facility and its inhumane conditions once again. The movement campaigns against detention and deportation by the Home Office, working very closely with the detainees themselves in a grassroots campaign that has grown from strength to strength in recent years. Their tactics usually involve surrounding the building with a braying crowd of allies. It is firstly a way of reminding detainees they have noisy support on the outside. Secondly, it is supposed to remind the oppressors of the fragility of their perimeters. The gates and the guards and the barbed wire can easily be overwhelmed by enough people. The message proclaimed is that our society, with a positive regard for the lives of asylum seekers, is bigger than yours. People have the power.
It is a flaw in our thinking that we have a tendency to see problems as existing in the past, but never in the present. History remembers Ellis Island for violating its detainees. Similar experiences of oppression still burble under the face of our society, under the illusion of its progress, but politicians would sweep the truth under the rug in order to service the myth that we have become a more tolerant and open-minded society. The Movement For Justice By Any Means Necessary tries to break lethal inaction and silence with direct action, stirring up a cauldron of opposition which has shocked and frightened the detention services.
A fundamental and momentous question about public services and their purpose consists in the debate about the future of Yarl’s Wood: does it serve the needs of business, or the wider society? Do we even get a say? If there is no space for public consultation on its future, is democracy a ruse?
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The bloc thought that it could dispel suspicions of its motives by emphasizing that it came together for humanitarian reasons almost two decades ago but that narrative is nothing more than an attempt to deceive the rest of the world.
The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, popularly known as the Quad, held its first-ever leadership summit on Friday via virtual means. The leaders of the US, Australia, India, and Japan discussed a slew of issues that concern their mutual interests in the broad space that they describe as the Indo-Pacific. The bloc has long been suspected of tacitly harboring anti-Chinese intentions, but its leaders attempted to clarity that this isn’t the entirety of its purpose in their joint statement that was released after their video conference. In fact, they didn’t even directly address China at all, though they did imply that it was discussed during their meeting.
The only indirect reference to China was the joint statement’s claims that its members “will continue to prioritize the role of international law in the maritime domain, particularly as reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and facilitate collaboration, including in maritime security, to meet challenges to the rules-based maritime order in the East and South China Seas.” Nevertheless, this is still very significant since it directly affects China’s national security interests in those two bodies of water considering its territorial claims there that are contested by several other countries.
The Quad’s joint statement also pointed out that this bloc was supposedly created after the 2004 tsunami, though without mentioning the growing consensus in their countries over the past few years that it’s actually a platform for attempting to contain China. Their talk about shared interests in the spheres of trade, humanitarian aid, disaster relief, cybersecurity, COVID-19, investment, and other such topics actually seem to be a smokescreen for strengthening coordination between them on these fronts in order to more rigorously compete with China.
Of particular concern is the Quad’s references to a “free and open Indo-Pacific”, “democratic values”, and “territorial integrity”, which can be understood by the larger strategic context as being directed against China. That’s because those countries have repeatedly accused China of allegedly undermining all three of those interests around which the Quad is converging. At face value, the bloc’s claims of ASEAN’s centrality seem innocuous enough but take on a more sinister meaning if one suspects the Quad of trying to court those countries for the purpose of containing China in the South China Sea.
With this in mind, the Quad’s first-ever leadership summit did indeed clarify the bloc’s purpose through its indirect strategic references to containing China, which are patently obvious to those observers that are capable of reading between the lines in the current strategic context. The bloc thought that it could dispel suspicions of its motives by emphasizing that it came together for humanitarian reasons almost two decades ago but that narrative is nothing more than an attempt to deceive the rest of the world. The Quad has always had tacit anti-Chinese intentions, though these don’t need to remain its raison d’etat.
For example, instead of excluding China and aiming to contain it, the Quad could incorporate the People’s Republic into this transregional platform through non-military outreaches focused on trade, investment, infrastructure, COVID-19, climate change, and disaster relief. It’s impossible to contain China, let alone in its home region, which is why the Quad should focus on cooperating with it. The overarching purpose of such outreaches could be to lay the basis for expanding the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) which Quad-members Australia and Japan are already part of with China to include the US and India with time.
The Indo-Pacific isn’t “free and open” when China is excluded from the Quad’s emerging transregional integration platform, nor are “democratic values” embraced by refusing to cooperate with it. To the contrary, the Quad is attempting to make the Indo-Pacific increasingly captive and closed in an anti-democratic way which threatens China’s territorial integrity in the East and South China Seas. It’s for this reason why the Quad must radically reconsider its raison d’etat by moving away from its doomed-to-fail attempts to contain China and towards actively cooperating with it instead.
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This article was originally published on OneWorld.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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As American economic power continues to decline, a division has emerged within the U.S. politicalestablishment as to which of its designated adversaries is to blame for the country’s woes — Russia, or China.
The dispute came to a head during each of the last two presidential elections, with the Democratic Party first blaming Moscow for Hillary Clinton’s shocking defeat in 2016 over unproven “election meddling” by the Kremlin. After Joe Biden’s equally controversial victory over Donald Trump this past November, the GOP has retaliated by portraying the 46th president as “soft on China” just as their counterparts drew critical attention to Trump’s alleged ties to Russia — even though both men have taken tough stances toward each respective country. As a result of this neo-McCarthyist political atmosphere, détente has been criminalized. In order to understand what is driving this interwar between factions of the Anglo-American elite amid the rise of China and Russia on the world stage, a revisiting of the history of relations between the three nations is necessary.
From the first millennia until the 19th century, China was one of the world’s foremost economic powers. Today, the People’s Republic has largely recaptured that position and by the end of the decade is expected to overtake the U.S. as the world’s largest economy, a gain that may beexpeditedby the post-pandemic U.S. recession compared with China’s rapid recovery. Unfortunately, the Western attitude toward China remains stuck in the ‘century of humiliation’ where from the mid-19th century until the Chinese Revolution in 1949, it was successively raped and plundered by the Western, Japanese, and Russian imperial powers. The reason the English-speaking world clings to this backwards view is because apart from that centennial period, the West has always been second place to China as the world’s most distinguished country providing the global standard in infrastructure, technology, governance, agriculture, and economic development. Even at the peak of the Roman Empire, the Han dynasty where the ancient Silk Road began was vastly larger in territory and population.
For two consecutive years in the early 1930s, the best-selling fiction book in the U.S. was Pearl S. Buck’sThe Good Earthwhich depicted the extreme poverty and famine of rural peasant life in pre-revolutionary China. In many respects, the picture of China in the Western mind remains a composite impression from Buck’s Nobel Prize-winning novel. The former Chinese Empire underwent its ‘hundred years of humiliation’ after suffering a series of military defeats in the Opium Wars which funded Western industrialization, where the ceding of territories and war reparations in unequal treaties left China subjugated as the “sick man of Asia.” Like Russia which lagged behind Europe after the Industrial Revolution until the Soviet centralized plans of the 1930s, China was able to transform its primarily agricultural economy into an industrial giant after its communist revolution in 1949. However, it was only a short time until the Sino-Soviet split in 1961 when China began to forge its own path in one of the most widely misunderstood geopolitical developments of the Cold War.
In 1956, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev gave what is commonly known as his “Secret Speech” to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, a report entitled “On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences”, where the Ukrainian-born politician denounced the excesses of his deceased predecessor, Joseph Stalin. The news of the shocking address to the Politburo did not just further polarize an international communist movement already divided between Trotskyists and the Comintern but had geopolitical consequences beyond its intended purpose of accommodating Washington to deescalate the arms race. At first, China took a relatively neutral stance toward the Soviet reforms during its Hundred Flowers Campaign, even as Mao encouraged the USSR to put down the 1956 counter-revolution in Hungary.
The real turning point in Sino-Soviet relations came when the bureaucratic placation of the Khrushchev Thaw began to discourage movements in the developing world living under Western-backed dictatorships from taking up arms in revolutionary struggle. With the support of Enver Hoxha and Albania, China began to fiercely criticize de-Stalinization and accused the Soviet Union of “revisionism” for prioritizing world peace and preventing a nuclear war over support for national liberation movements, becoming the de facto leader of ‘Third Worldism’ against Western imperialism. Moscow reciprocated by freezing aid to China which greatly damaged its economy and relations soured between the world’s two biggest socialist countries, transforming the the Cold War into a tri-polar conflict already multifaceted with the Non-Aligned Movement led by Yugoslavia after Josep Broz Tito’s falling out with Stalin.
As the PRC continued to break from what Mao viewed as the USSR’s deviation from Marxism-Leninism, China went down the primrose path of the Cultural Revolution during the 1960s amid the rise of the “Gang of Four” faction who took the anti-Soviet policies a step further by condemning the USSR as “social imperialist” and an even greater threat than the West. This led to several huge missteps in foreign policy and a complete betrayal of internationalism, as China aligned with the U.S. in support of UNITA against the MPLA in the Angolan civil war, the CIA-backed Khmer Rouge genocidaires in Cambodia against Vietnam, and the fascist Augusto Pinochet regime in Chile. After years of international isolation, U.S. President Richard Nixon and his war criminal Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were received as guests in 1972. Despite the initial reasons for the Sino-Soviet split, it was ironically the Soviet Union which ended up carrying the mantle of national liberation as the USSR backed numerous socialist revolutions in the global south while China sided with imperialism.
In hindsight, the Cold War’s conclusion with the demise of the USSR was arguably an inevitable result of the Sino-Soviet split. Ultimately, mistakes were made by both sides that are recognized by the two countries today, as can be seen in the Communist Party of the Russian Federation’s negative historical view of Khrushchev and the denunciation of the Cultural Revolution and Gang of Four by the CPC (not “CCP”). In fact, China has since even apologized to Angola for its support of Jonas Savimbi. Nevertheless, the break in political relations with Moscow also set the process in motion for China to develop its own interpretation of Marxism-Leninism that diverged from the Soviet model and eventually allowed a level of private enterprise which never occurred under the USSR, including during the short-lived New Economic Policy of the 1920s. If truth be told, this may have been the very thing which prevented China from meeting the same fate.
Starting in 1978, China began opening its economy to domestic private enterprise and even foreign capital, but with the ruling party and government retaining final authority over both the private and public sectors. The result of implementing market-oriented reforms while maintaining mostly state ownership of industry was the economic marvel we see today, where China has since become the ‘world’s factory’ and global manufacturing powerhouse. For four decades, China’s real gross domestic product growth has averaged nearly ten percent every year and almost a billion people have been lifted out of poverty, but with capital never rising above the political authority of the CPC. Unfortunately, the success of Deng Xiaoping’s reform of the Chinese socialist system was not replicated byperestroika(“restructuring”) in the USSR under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev who completely failed to revive the Soviet economy and eventually oversaw its dissolution in 1991.
During the 1990s, Russia underwent total collapse as its formerly planned enterprises were dismantled by the same neoliberal policies to which Margaret Thatcher once phrased “there is no alternative” (TINA). The restoration of capitalism sharply increased poverty and unemployment while mortality fell by an entire decade under IMF-imposed ‘shock therapy’ which created an obscenely wealthy new class of Russian “oligarchs” overnight. So much so, the fortunes of the Semibankarschina (“seven bankers”) were compared to the boyars of tsarist nobility in previous centuries. This comprador elite also controlled most of the country’s media while funding the election campaigns of pro-Western President Boris Yeltsin who transformed the previously centralized economy into a free market system. That was until his notorious successor assumed power and brought the energy sector back under control of the Russian state which restored wages, reduced poverty, and expelled corrupt foreign investors like Bill Browder. Needless to say, the U.S. was not pleased by Vladimir Putin’s successful revival of the Russian economy because the U.S. already faced a geopolitical contender in China.
As China has been the world’s ascending economic superpower through its unique mixture of private and state-owned enterprises, the U.S. economy has shrunk as trade liberalization and globalization de-industrialized the Rust Belt. Simultaneously, the expense of the military budget has grown so gargantuan that it can’t be audited while rash imperialist wars in the Middle East following 9/11 marked the beginning of the end for American hegemony. In 2016, Donald Trump rose to power railing against the political establishment over its “endless wars” and anti-worker free trade deals, abandoning the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on his first day in office and imposing protectionist tariffs which kickstarted a U.S.-China trade war. Unfortunately, any efforts to return U.S. productive power outsourced to China by multinationals and scale back American empire-building were destined to fail.
Trump was also politically persecuted by the Democrats and the intelligence community for daring to embrace détente with Moscow as a candidate and spent his entire administration trying to appease the deep state in Washington with little result. Oddly enough, it wasreportedlynone other than Henry Kissinger who encouraged Trump to ease the strained relations with Russia as a strategy to contain China, the traditional enemy he once convinced Richard Nixon to make steps toward peace with. The GOP, representing the interests of the military-industrial complex, has reciprocated the anti-Russia hysteria by accusing incumbent Joe Biden of being weak on China, even though the previous Obama-Biden administration presided over an unprecedented military buildup in the Pacific as part of the U.S. “pivot to Asia.” The views of constituents from both parties also seem to fall on partisan lines, as indicated in arecent Gallup pollwhere only 16% of Democrats held a positive view of Russia and a mere 10% of Republicans regard China favorably.
The rise of Russia and China on the global stage presents such a threat to Washington’s full spectrum dominance that the head of U.S. Strategic Command, Admiral Charles Richard, recentlywarnedof the very real possibility of a nuclear war in the future with both countries. Under the administration of Xi Jinping, China has reshaped the geopolitical order with its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) infrastructure project, also known as the New Silk Road. At the same time, Russia has reintegrated several of the former Soviet republics with the formation of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Conceivably, the return of Russia to world politics has the potential to transform the sphere of competition between the U.S. and China into a multipolar plane where the balance of power can shift toward a more stable geopolitical landscape in the long run. Nevertheless, the challenge made by the Xi-Putin partnership to the dominion of Western capital is the basis for the bellicosity toward Eurasia by the U.S., as is their joining forces to repair the Sino-Russian political relations broken decades ago.
When the Soviet Union dissolved, the tentative US–China alliance effectively ended and Sino-Russian rapprochement began. But what prevented the PRC from going the same route as the Eastern Bloc? Why did Deng succeed and Gorbachev fail? After all, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests were concurrent with the numerous ‘Color Revolutions’ behind the Iron Curtain, even though the Western narrative about the June Fourth Incident omits that among the “pro-democracy” demonstrators were many Maoists who considered Deng’s market reforms a betrayal of Chinese socialism. As it happens, Xi Jinping himself correctly identified one of the main reasons why the USSR dissolved in a 2013speech:
“Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate? Why did the Soviet Communist Party fall from power? An important reason was that the struggle in the field of ideology was extremely intense, completely negating the history of the Soviet Union, negating the history of the Soviet Communist Party, negating Lenin, negating Stalin, creating historical nihilism and confused thinking. Party organs at all levels had lost their functions, the military was no longer under Party leadership. In the end, the Soviet Communist Party, a great party, was scattered, the Soviet Union, a great socialist country, disintegrated. This is a cautionary tale!”
Xi is correct in that China, unlike the Soviet Union, never made the crucial error of playing into the hands of the West through the condemnation of its own history as Khrushchev did in his “Secret Speech.” Despite the fact that the report by the Soviet leader contained demonstrable falsehoods such as the absurd claim that Stalin, one of Russia’s most formidable bank robbers as a revolutionary, was a coward deathly afraid of the Nazi invasion as it neared Moscow during WWII, the self-serving speech split the international communist movement and laid the internal groundwork for the USSR’s eventual downfall. As for the economic reasons for the different outcomes, the late Marxist historian Domenico Losurdoexplained:
“If we analyse the first 15 years of Soviet Russia, we see three social experiments. The first experiment, based on the equal distribution of poverty, suggests the “universal asceticism” and “rough egalitarianism” criticised by the Communist Manifesto. We can now understand the decision to move to Lenin’s New Economic Policy, which was often interpreted as a return to capitalism. The increasing threat of war pushed Stalin into sweeping economic collectivisation. The third experiment produced a very advanced welfare state but ended in failure: in the last years of the Soviet Union, it was characterised by mass absenteeism and disengagement in the workplace; this stalled productivity, and it became hard to find any application of the principle that Marx said should preside over socialism — remuneration according to the quantity and quality of work delivered. The history of China is different: Mao believed that, unlike “political capital,” the economic capital of the bourgeoisie should not be subject to total expropriation, at least until it can serve the development of the national economy. After the tragedy of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, it took Deng Xiaoping to emphasise that socialism implies the development of the productive forces. Chinese market socialism has achieved extraordinary success.”
Since China’s economic upswing has been simultaneous with the downturn of American capitalism, it has left the U.S. with only one option but to equate the PRC with its own crumbling system. Sadly, in most instances it is the Eurocentric pseudo-left which has parroted the propaganda of Western think tanks that China is “state capitalist” and even “imperialist.” This also means that its unparalleled economic gains must therefore be a result of capitalism, not state planning, which is another fabrication. Has there ever been a clearer case of neocolonial projection than the baseless accusation of “debt-trap diplomacy” hurled at China’s BRI by the West?
It is true that China seeks to profit in the global south, but based on terms of mutual benefit for developing nations previously plundered by Western financial institutions which actually impose debt slavery on low income countries. In reality, Beijing is only guilty of offering a preferable win-win alternative to states exploited under the yoke of imperialism. Once upon a time, the U.S. itself envisioned a peaceful world of mutual cooperation and trade under Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy, a forgotten legacy that Xi’s BRI is fulfilling.
None of this is to say China is undeserving of any criticism. To the contrary, its paradoxes are as deep as its achievements and it would be naive to think that Chinese capital, if left unchecked, doesn’t have the potential to be as predatory as the Western variety. Free enterprise is so inherently unstable that its destructive nature will be impossible to contain forever even by a party like the CPC and must be disassembled eventually. Without the retention of a large state sector maintaining vital infrastructure and public services, the market relations in China would wreak havoc as it did in post-Soviet Russia. Not to mention, the biggest progress made by the PRC was in the years prior to the pro-market reforms and ultimately served as the foundation upon which “socialism with Chinese characteristics” is able to thrive. The lesson of the fall of the USSR is that even a society capable of the most incredible human advancements is not invincible to a market environment. The Soviet Union withstood an invasion by more than a dozen Allied nations during the Russian Civil War and an onslaught by the Nazi war machine in WWII, but succumbed toperestroika. While Russia may be under the free market, both nations are a threat to Western capital because they represent a new win-win cooperative model in international relations and an end to American unipolarity.
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Max Parry is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst. His writing has appeared widely in alternative media. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Max may be reached at[email protected]
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Reuters in a new report has admitted the “unthinkable” now looks very possible: despite Europe’s fierce public criticism of Russia’s coronavirus vaccine, it found that “Behind the scenes, the bloc is turning to Moscow’s Sputnik V shot as it tries to get its stuttering efforts to vaccinate its 450 million people back on track, EU diplomatic and official sources told Reuters.”
At least four EU states are now said to be seeking procurement via the bloc and Brussels has greenlighted formal talks with Sputnik V’s developers at a moment anger and public pressure is mounting over a slow vaccine roll-out.
“Hungary and Slovakia have already bought the Russian shot, the Czech Republic is interested, and the EU official said Italy was considering using the country’s biggest vaccine-producing bioreactor at a ReiThera plant near Rome to make Sputnik V,” Reuters notes.
Somewhat absurdly, and as a reminder that actual science and public health more often takes a far backseat to political calculation and questions of ‘perception’, resistance to dealing with Russia in addition to the six Western vaccine makers the EU currently has agreements with has more to do with not allowing Moscow a “win”.
This is precisely what’s at issue, as Reutersalso admits:
If Sputnik V were to join the EU’s vaccine arsenal, it would be a diplomatic triumph for Russia, whose trade with the bloc has been hamstrung for years by sanctions over its annexation of Crimea and its intervention in eastern Ukraine.
It would also risk dividing the bloc between those states dead set against giving Moscow any kind of win and those in favor of showing that Brussels can cooperate with the Kremlin.
As a prime example of this kind of fear-driven motivation fueling the controversy and debate, just last week Charles Michel, who chairs summits of EU leaders, reiterated a commonly echoed theme among diplomats and Western officials: “We should not let ourselves be misled by China and Russia, both regimes with less desirable values than ours, as they organize highly limited but widely publicised operations to supply vaccines to others,” he said.
Michel added, “Europe will not use vaccines for propaganda purposes.”
Thus the bloc’s mere willingness to even enter talks with Sputnik V developers shows Brussels is fast changing its tune amid vaccine roll-out delays, with the pragmatists on the issue appearing to now take the driver’s seat.
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On this exact day ten years ago, NATO, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Turkey and Israel began a coordinated campaign of regime change against President Bashar al-Assad and the destruction of Syria. This has led to the death of over 500,000 people, millions of refugees, destroyed infrastructure and an economy in crisis. Despite numerous political maneuvers, this alliance against Syria catastrophically failed and could not achieve regime change. Not only did Assad survive the onslaught, but the geopolitical situation dramatically changed as a result.
Each aggressor had its own ambitions in Syria but was united in the goal to achieve regime change. Thanks to the contributions made by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, the Syrian government survived the coordinated aggression. Whilst NATO and Turkey continue to insist on regime change, Arab states, most prominently Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, were forced to normalize their relations with Syria to counter the growing threat of Turkish expansionism and influence into the Arab World that they had not anticipated when they decided to destroy Syria ten years ago.
Although a U.S.-dominated unipolar system was consolidated with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia’s 2008 intervention to defend the de facto republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia against NATO-encouraged Georgian forces was the first sign of an emerging multipolar system. A multipolar system, where there is a more equal distribution of power compacted into spheres of influence, was strengthened whilst the US could only helplessly watch as Russia successfully defended South Ossetia and Abkhazia in a region that falls under Moscow’s sphere of influence.
It was Russia’s direct military intervention in Syria, which began on September 30, 2015 that truly consolidated 21st Century Multipolarity. As the US had Pentagon-funded jihadists battling CIA-funded jihadists, Moscow had clear goals and policies towards Syria – the survival of the state and government. Not only did Russia successfully defend the government, despite the fact that large areas of Syria remain occupied by US and Turkish-backed forces, it put its military footprint by assuming control of the Khmeimim Airbase and extended its lease over Tartous Port. In this way, Russia ensures that regime change is not possible in Syria, rendering the American and Turkish occupation of large areas of northern and eastern Syria as extremely cynical policies that prolong the suffering and economic catastrophe in the country.
Prior to the war, Damascus and Ankara had amicable relations, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan even once describing Assad as “my brother.” However, the so-called Arab Spring provided Erdoğan with the opportunity to pursue his neo-Ottoman policy. Not only has this resulted in large areas of northern Syria being illegally occupied by Turkey, but an intense Turkification process is underway with the Turkish school curriculum, currency and language being imposed on the local population.
What Turkey had not anticipated in Syria though was the re-emergence of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) under the guise of the People’s Protection Units (YPG). In fact, before the war, Syria, which once supported the PKK, expelled the group and ended its support for it to improve its relations with Turkey. By Ankara supporting the collapse of the Syrian state, it allowed the conditions for the PKK to return to Syria and once again find a new base of operations to continue its insurgency against Turkey. In addition, Turkey wrongly believed that regime change would be a quick endeavor, and the prolonged war saw millions of refugees flood into the country, not only putting a major strain on the economy, but also a rapid increase in terrorist attacks across the country.
Israel is the only aggressor country that has not suffered due to regime change attempts against Syria. Israel’s main interest is not necessarily the removal of Assad from power, but the complete destruction of the country. The continuation of the war serves Israel’s interests as Syria was the only Arab state that posed an existential threat to the Jewish State. The destruction of the economy and weakening of the military has ensured that Syria will not pose a threat to Israel for several decades as it will have a long path towards recovery.
Ten years on since the beginning of the Syrian War, U.S.-led NATO, Turkey and participating Arab States failed to achieve their goal of regime change to implant their own puppets in Damascus. The US failed to sever the Axis of Resistance (Iran-Syria-Hezbollah), the Arabs failed to install a Sunni president that would be against Iran and completely aligned with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey not only failed to install a neo-Ottomanist into power, but also reinvigorated the PKK that had not existed for years in Syria.
More importantly, the initial coalition against Syria has collapsed, with Turkey frustrated over the US’ sustained support for the YPG and the Arabs pivoting back to Syria as they now find greater concern over Turkey’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and interference in Arab affairs. In fact, the US finds itself in a weaker position in the region as the Axis of Resistance is preserved and Russia now has greater military presence and influence in Syria that it did not have prior to the war. Russia’s success in preserving the Syrian state is the strongest indicator that the unipolar world system has collapsed and a new multipolar system has taken its place in the 21st century.
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken defended the Trump administration’s position on the International Criminal Court at a Wednesday congressional hearing and refused to say whether U.S. sanctions against war crimes investigators would be lifted.
Blinken told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the Biden administration wants a “productive relationship” with the ICC, but echoed the Trump administration’s “concerns” about the Hague-based war crimes court attempting to investigate Israeli and U.S. troops.
“Are you saying there is legitimacy to the sanctions that were placed under Trump on the ICC?” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D–Minn.) asked.
“No, all I’m saying is that it’s something that is under review, and at the same time we have real concerns about some of the assertions of jurisdiction with which we disagree,” Blinken replied.
He declined to answer why the sanctions had not been lifted, or whether they would be lifted at all.
The Hague had angered the Trump administration last year by opening investigations into alleged war crimes by multiple sides — including U.S. and Israeli forces, as well as their opponents — in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories. The investigation is also looking into the CIA’s alleged torture of prisoners captured in Afghanistan and rendered to third countries.
Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo responded by freezing the assets of two ICC prosecutors, Fatou Bensouda and Phasiko Mochochoko, and banning their family members from entering the United States.
“The Trump administration’s perverse use of sanctions, devised for alleged terrorists and drug kingpins, against prosecutors seeking justice for grave international crimes, magnifies the failure of the U.S. to prosecute torture,” Richard Dicker, international justice director for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement at the time.
The Trump and Biden administrations have maintained that the ICC lacks the jurisdiction to investigate Americans or Israelis, as neither country had ratified the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the court.
Afghanistan, however, is a signatory to the Rome Statute. So is the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority, which the ICC recognizes as a state but the United States and Israel do not.
Blinken reaffirmed in a statement last week that the United States does not recognize Palestinian Authority as an independent state.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has argued that the court’s ruling places Israel’s “heroic and moral” troops “under attack” and represents “the essence of antisemitism.” The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which is also under investigation for alleged war crimes, welcomed the ICC’s investigation.
The current standoff is not the first disagreement between a U.S. administration and the ICC.
The Clinton administration signed the Rome Statute in 2000, but the Bush administration reversed course soon after to the extent of threatening other countries that ratified the Statute with a cut-off in U.S. assistance. In 2002, then-President George W. Bush signed the American Servicemen Protection Act, also known as the “Hague Invasion Act,” which bans U.S. support to the ICC and authorizes the use of military force to free American citizens held by it.
The Obama administration took a middle path, adopting a policy of “positive engagement” with some ICC investigations while also attempting to exempt U.S. forces from prosecution.
The Biden administration seems to be framing its policy in similar terms.
“We of course share the goal — the broad goal — of international accountability for atrocity crimes. That’s not the issue,” Blinken said at Wednesday’s hearing. “We have the capacity ourselves to provide accountability.”
“We’ve spoken out, we’ve been clear, and we’ll see going forward how we can most effectively engage the ICC to avoid these assertions of jurisdiction when they’re not warranted,” he concluded.
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Featured image: Tony Blinken At His Confirmation Hearing, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jan. 19, 2021. Screenshot. via Mondoweiss
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A relaxing, profitable and, quite frankly, secure job has turned into a nightmare. It is now dangerous, difficult, and simply stressful. And it is all due to the actions of the “cowardly Assad regime” and its Russian backers.
Indeed, this relates to being an oil trafficker in Northern Syria. In the past be it the ISIS oil fields, or those in the Syrian Democratic Forces-controlled areas, “exporting” oil to Turkey was an easy and simple business. This has all changed.
On March 14th, a large-scale strike with missiles and heavy rockets hit oil traffickers in the Turkish-occupied areas. The were two targets. The first was the al-Himran crossing, which is located near the town of Jarabulus on the border with Turkey. The second was the village of Tarhin north of the town of al-Bab, featuring a network of makeshift refineries and oil storage facilites. Videos and photographs showed an apocalyptic sight, with massive fires and nothing but destruction.
On March 6th, catastrophic losses were suffered by oil traffickers from missile strikes on Tarhin and al-Himran in Aleppo. More than 200 oil tankers were destroyed. The White Helmets “rescue organization” said that four people were killed in the strike. At least 42 others were injured, some of them are reportedly in critical condition.
There are a plethora of videos and photographs of attacks on oil traffickers starting from early January 2021 onwards. Initially, the strikes were attributed to unknown attackers.
In the first days of the new year, there were numerous reports of “mysterious missile strikes” targeting oil smugglers. It turned out to be a sort of tradition – tankers exploding, so that they can’t provide the almost free oil to Turkey taken away from the Syrian people.
Still, another point of view should be considered – that of the oil traffickers. If the Western establishment were asked, they would say that they are a part of the moderate opposition and that they are doing the Syrian people a favor. Taking oil away from the “bloody Assad regime” is, after all, a good thing. The Syrian government, with Russian help, ruined yet another business opportunity.
It is clear that Damascus and Moscow have joined forces to impede the business development of Northern Syria. They began by dismantling ISIS’ (illegal) oil business, and then moved on to the Turkish-backed one.
Turkey itself claims that the “Syrian regime” is simply targeting civilian settlements. According to the Turkish Defense Ministry, this was uncalled for, and warranted a response from Turkey and its proxies. There was some shelling, but ultimately it led to nothing. The tyranny of destroying the democratic oil businessmen from the “moderate opposition” has no end.
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Perhaps what is most startling about the etchings of Francisco Goya, presently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is the artist’s intensity of focus, his obsession with understanding the nature of human evil. Goya was a child of the Enlightenment, and he knew what it was to see humanity as the pinnacle of creation, the paragon of animals, the embodiment of reason, “in form and understanding how like a god?” as Hamlet would say. Yet this same creature, the light of reason in the world, was capable of the most barbaric cruelty. In one series after another Goya’s etchings attempt to grasp the universality of evil, to see it as an essentially human problem to be understood in terms of our capacity for moral choice. Evil is universally human, for Goya – a propensity in human beings that is at once basic and inextinguishable.
Among the exhibition’s opening prints are works from a series based on paintings by the Spanish artist Diego Velázquez, including “A Court Jester, El Primo” (1778) – and like his venerated predecessor, Goya emphasizes his subject’s interiority; even going beyond Velázquez in his accentuation of El Primo’s penetrating, and rather defiant gaze.
The “Garroted Man” (ca 1775-78) is an important piece in that it indicates the humanitarian concerns that would return with full force in the Disasters of War series, created between 1810 and 1820. Goya has removed from the image anything that could draw the viewer’s attention away from the man who has just been strangulated – he sits with his legs outstretched, his eyes swollen and shut, and his back against a wooden post, outfitted with a lever to choke the life out of him.
“Garroted Man” (ca 1775-78) (Source: Public Domain)
Francisco Goya’s Los Caprichos, created between 1793 and 1798, is one of the most astonishing achievements in the history of printmaking. The series of eighty aquatint etchings, published in 1799, may be said to constitute and convey a pessimistic appraisal of the human condition. There is little if any relief from its frank, uninhibited exploration and depiction of human folly, error, and superstition. If there is any hope of salvation, it lies in the unity of reason with the infinite fecundity of human imagination.
The Caprichos can be fiercely critical of Bourbon Spain, underscoring the pervasive hypocrisy, corruption and ignorance; made only worse by the “Lamentable abuse of early education,” as he writes in the caption to plate three, entitled “Here comes the bogeyman.” Goya included ironic, satirical, or ambiguous captions to accompany each of the eighty prints – generally reflecting his disillusionment and increasing bitterness towards a world he saw slipping into chaos and confusion.
In plate twelve, “Out hunting for teeth,” we find Goya’s first reference to witchcraft, a theme which would recur and develop as the series progressed. A woman is attempting to pluck the teeth from the dangling corpse of a hanged man, as these were popularly believed to possess magical properties: “without this ingredient there’s not much you can do,” as Goya writes with typically biting irony. Once again, the poverty of education allows the common people, and women in particular, to continue to “believe such nonsense.”
Goya explicitly and vehemently rebukes the Spanish Inquisition in the twenty-third plate’s depiction of an auto-da-fé, beginning and ending his caption with the same two words, Mal hecho, (“For shame!”). A condemned woman sits atop a raised platform, her head bowed in abject humiliation: during such ceremonies of public penance the accused would wear a capirote, a pointed hat of conical form indicating their supposed crimes. This ritual was generally followed by the execution of the heretic, by public burning or some other suitably horrific method.
Plate forty-three, “The sleep of reason produces monsters,” is among the most recognizable images of the entire series: a figure, presumably the artist himself, cradles his head, face down, within his folded arms, in an attitude of profound anguish and desolation. Surrounding him are a frightful bevy of nocturnal creatures, owls, bats, and felines. Goya himself was no stranger to severe depression, undoubtedly exacerbated by repeated bouts of severe illness which left him essentially deaf at the age of 46.
Witches and witchcraft, sorcery and supernatural creatures are recurring themes and Goya does not flinch from examining the darkest corners of the human mind, the nightmarish, and what we might call metaphysical evil. Plate forty-five, “There is plenty to suck” reveals a basketful of dead infants whose life has been “sucked” out of them by two witches or vampires, who are now taking a pinch of snuff after their ghastly meal. This is an especially striking example of Goya’s exploration of what we may call the horror of evil.
Plate sixty-four, “Bon Voyage” offers perhaps the darkest vision of the entire series, a group of witches and demons swoop through the nighttime fog carried on the back of a loathsome creature with human legs, batlike wings, and one of Goya’s most terrifying of faces – turning the scene into something at once spellbinding, dreadful and appalling to behold. The series concludes with the return of dawn in Plate eighty, “It is time” – as we see four men in ecclesiastical robes stretch and yawn; but their deformed and distorted features remind us that, for Goya, it is the corrupted and fraudulent clergy who are the true witches and hobgoblins.
Bon Voyage (Source: Public Domain)
Evil is something real and substantial for Goya. He rejects the long-held belief that evil is nothing in itself, mere privation, an absence of being. Saint Augustine for example would argue that evil lacked any positive reality of its own. As he states in Book XI, Chapter nine of City of God: “[Evil] is not a positive substance: the loss of good has been given the name ‘evil’.” Augustine’s notion of evil as a negation or mere lack of being predominated well into the modern era, and indeed may be seen to linger on to this day. But it is far from perfect and seems to fly in the face of abundant experience to the contrary. In “God save us from such a bitter fate,” (1816-20) a bandit has seized on a young woman and boy and is leading them away to meet a cruel end, underscored by the exaggerated use of the dagger which he keeps pointed at his victims.
The horror we register in facing evil arises from realizing far from being a mere absence of being, evil overruns, it spills over; not simply because it can be awful and unendurable, but because, as Goya is well aware, we cannot adequately comprehend evil. Like Shakespeare, Goya sees evil as something existing in itself – indeed, the horror of evil arises precisely from its excess. It overflows and refuses to be contained by or integrated into our categories of reason or comprehension. By its very nature, evil refuses to remain within prescribed bounds – to remain fixed, say, within an economy where evil is counterbalanced by good. Evil is always excess of evil.
Nowhere is this more evident than in war. Goya offers us a profound and sustained meditation on the nature of war that does more than anticipate Sherman’s dictum that war is hell. The image of a Napoleonic soldier gazing indifferently on a man who has been summarily hanged, probably by his own belt, expresses the tragedy of war – its dehumanization of both war’s victims and victors. War destroys the bonds of our shared humanity. Goya was a witness to the scenes he portrays and part of his aim is documenting history, rescuing the fallen and the defeated from the oblivion of time. “Cartloads to the cemetery” (1812-14) is one of several prints that Goya devoted to Madrid’s 1811-12 famine, during which some fifteen percent of the city’s population died. Even in invoking the anonymity of mass burials, Goya does not lose sight of the individual, unique and irreplaceable.
There are moments when Goya appears almost ready to despair – for example, in plate seventy-nine, “Truth has died” (1814-15), we see a radiant young woman – the personification of Truth – lying lifeless on the ground. In its companion piece, however, plate eighty, “Will she rise again?” the young woman has opened her eyes and light appears to be streaming from her to the anger and amazement of those around her. The enticement to evil is indeed a defining characteristic of the human condition; but Goya is unwilling to despair, even amidst the darkness of war – the child of the Enlightenment holds out hope in the final victory of Truth, and Imagination united with Reason.
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Sam Ben-Meir is a professor of philosophy and world religions at Mercy College in New York City. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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Part of history is reading historical documents, and it is in this light that reading “Bible and Sword” by Barbara Tuchmann should be considered. It is beyond current events, but still within the lifetimes of a few, and is written about a series of earlier epochs. It is not Tuchmann’s best work and while it makes an interesting read and provides a good general thematic approach to the subject, it has a few problems.
Problems
The title suggests that this is about England and Palestine, but more correctly it is about England’s perspective on Palestine and very little on Palestine itself. The Middle East in general is portrayed from the ‘Orientalist’ western viewpoint of a rather primitive and backward place – which to be fair under the Ottoman empire it was allowed to be neglected during the last decades of its control and under pressure from various European empires for concessions and alliances.
Palestine itself, while not directly described, carries the narrative quite directly through cited sources as being the stereotypical western view as being an “empty land”, a land without people, a desert, with a few Bedouins wandering around. Further its biblical heritage is consistently upheld as truth backed by “science” although the scientific evidence is not presented.
The author herself is aware of her bias, but does not overcome it. Having a Jewish background she writes in the later preface (1984) “As regards the fortunes of the Jews and of Israel, I am not detached but emotionally involved.” When her publisher tried to have her write the history up to the 1948 nakba (certainly not a word she would have used) she objected that her “advocacy…invalidates the work of a historian” and for her to write that part of history “was all impossible to relate without outrage.”
The preface then continues with what at the time probably seemed like reasonable propositions. Tuchmann writes, “Sovereignty in Israel has imparted dignity, confidence, self-respect and a straighter stature to Jews wherever they live.” She sees Jews as no longer being the “butt for persecution….because Jews will no longer feel like victims. It is the vulnerable and the helpless who invite persecution, but…Israel [has] gained the courage and confidence of self-defence.”
This has some truth, but the majority of it – no longer the victim, no longer vulnerable and helpless – is not. Those two ideas are a large part of the ongoing Israeli narrative as to why it acts in the manner that it does. The Jews are forever proclaiming victimhood as per the holocaust and all the various holocaust memorials and memorial societies available. The politicians constantly advertise their vulnerability, and helplessness against attack in order to control their population as well as the susceptible populations of Europe and the U.S.
Yes, they have gained courage and confidence, backed up by their massive militarized security state, their arsenal of nuclear weapons, and their support and manipulation arriving from the U.S. Unfortunately, a lot of that “courage and confidence” involves subjugating another people to military rule in an apartheid state.
Christianity, while not directly denigrated, is certainly considered a lesser moral structure, with a touch of preaching by the author when she writes, “the Ten Commandments represent a code that men can follow…the Sermon on the Mount has been, so far, a code beyond the grasp of society.”
Eras
In a book that covers several different eras, some 2500 years generally, a narrow focus is required. With that, Tuchmann maintains a strong focus on how the British public, politicians, and religious leaders viewed Palestine.
Her first chapter “Origins: A Fable Agreed Upon” is a bit of a stretch, relying more on inventions and fables than historical or scientific work. She begins with pre-Celt Britons as having originated “from the same part of the world” – which is true as all people in Europe – apart from genetic lines that may have transferred back across Eurasia during the time of the Mongol hordes – all had to pass through this narrow neck of land to access the Levant and on into Europe. She goes on to say, “When the truth – that is verifiable fact – is unobtainable, then tradition must substitute.” Having acknowledged that, the first chapter becomes mostly substitute information and seems to be too much of an attempt to tie the British heritage directly back to the Israeli heritage.
After that, she works through more factual history, sourced through other older historical documents but not based on original research based on more current document discoveries (keeping in mind this was written in 1955). Following chapters do have a stronger more data based thematic approach to what British perspectives were on Palestine.
Themes
Broadly speaking there are two themes as indicated by the title: the sword, being the military and strategic interests of politicians and business; and the Bible, being the moral rationalizations and attitudes towards Palestine [and as a side note here, Tuchmann does constantly use the reference to Palestine, indirectly negating the Israeli pretext that Palestine does not and never has existed]. The military as usual in western society supports the latter in its self-righteous efforts to control other people and places.
All the above criticism aside, Tuchmann does proceed through the different eras of British history demonstrating the rise and fall and rise and fall again of sentiments and actions towards Palestine and the Middle East. She looks critically at the crusades, passes on into the fundamentalism of the Puritan Christian Zionists, followed by an era of only passing interest while Britain sorted out her own religious power structures, and ending with the rise of a renewed Christain Zionism aligned with the efforts of Herzl and Weismann.
There are sub themes. Britain wanted Palestine for its control of East Indian trade routes and to stop Russian, French, and German interests – hints of approaching World War I. Britain also developed a “moral” obligation to right the wrongs of Christianity imposed on the Jews over the centuries, an attitude willingly adopted by those interested in strategic purposes. Along with the moral purpose is the all inclusive imperial belief in “civilizing benefits” and “manifest destiny”, attributes all empires call upon for domestic arguments – and alive and well in the current Anglo-American empire globally and still in the Middle east.
Another part of the search for a Jewish homeland was the desire to keep the east European Jews, considered undesirable, out of Britain. This latterly became a focus for Herzl and Weissmann as the assimilated Jews, now quite powerful in British political and social life, were quite unwilling to give money or moral support to the endeavour of renewing the Jewish homeland.
The Ottoman empire, long considered on its way out, was also a consideration in establishing a British presence in Palestine through its avowed desire to settle Jews in the region. Not successful in obtaining concessions from the Ottoman leaders for transferring a Jewish population to Palestine, a more militaristic intention developed. Once the Ottoman empire was gone, its pieces were distributed between France and Britain with varying degrees of failure.
Postscript
Her postscript, where her outrage prevented her from going further, implies the outrage stems from British weakness and the enmity the British created in the region.
Tuchmann was alive during the 1967 war, at the time considered to be an attack upon Israel by combined Arab forces. What later documents have revealed is that the war was pre-emptive against Egypt, and then having succeeded so well there, proceeded on into Syria. She died shortly after the first intifada (1987) in December 1989. Since then, much has been revealed about Jewish methods in ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and the establishment of illegal settlements on Palestinian land (it’s all Palestinian) and the control of the indigenous people under military rule and many discriminating domestic laws, and the creation of an apartheid state.
I wonder where her “outrage” would be directed now, if her own personal timeline had permitted her to see how Israel currently operates in the region? She would have two choices: outrage at the manner in which Israel is currently being harassed by charges of humanitarian and war crimes against the Palestinians; or outrage at the manner in which Israel is treating the Palestinians under draconian military and domestic laws? Where would she stand on the label of apartheid by B’Tselem, on the IHRA defintion of antisemitism, on the nature of the BDS movement?
Obviously there are no answers to those questions as people can and do change perspectives with more time and more information.
Having presented a somewhat negative view of “Bible and Sword – England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour” it is worth the read, partly for its perspective on how much of the western powers thought of Israel only seven years after its war and declaration of its creation, and partly because it does outline the major themes involved in British perspectives towards Palestine, very few of them honourable from an indigneous viewpoint.
Her other writings – I have read all of them now – are much stronger and are well worth reading. Her style makes history accessible, removing it from the dryness of timelines and dates, making it more of a story than a history. Bible and Sword stops at the Balfour letter, but the whole era is better represented in her two works on the leadup to World War I: The Proud Tower (Random House, 1996/originally 1966) and The Guns of August (Presidio Press, 2004/originally 1962).
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The United States-NATO invasion of Libya was launched a decade ago this month, as the Western powers engineered the ousting of the country’s leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who had been in power for more than 40 years.
A central reason behind this military assault, which began on 19 March 2011, was to reinforce Western control over Libya’s oil wells. Libya has long held the largest oil reserves in Africa, and it contains greater quantities of this resource than either the superpowers of America or China.
The quality of Libya’s oil is particularly high and its cost low; 92% of the nation’s revenue came from trading in it. What’s more, Western oil specialists believe it likely that Libya possesses large volumes of undiscovered oil deposits, on top of the ample sources which it already has. With good reason, much of Libya remains unexplored. The country consists mostly of a treeless, barren landscape which stretches out for hundreds of miles over the horizon. Libya is a highly complex nation, a semi-tribal society with an array of beliefs, loyalties and kinship.
As part of the Middle East and North African countries (MENA), the significance of Libya becomes apparent. Former US president Dwight Eisenhower called the Middle East “the most strategically important area of the world”, mainly due to its enormous oil sources. Libya has a broad coastline resting on the Mediterranean Sea, a body of water critical to the exportation of raw materials for the world market.
Fears over radical nationalism prevailed also regarding Libya. The US-NATO attack involved the elimination of the independent nationalist threat from Libya; both through the removal of Gaddafi, and by nipping the Arab Spring uprising in the bud, while encouraging a civil war. It was no coincidence, just as Libya was being bombarded by NATO warplanes, that the Arab Spring protests had been taking off in parts of North Africa and the Middle East.
Before the US-NATO intervention started, political leaders such as Fidel Castro of Cuba wrote of the Americans on 9 March 2011,
“The empire is now attempting to turn events around to what Gaddafi has done or not done, because it needs to militarily intervene in Libya, and deliver a blow to the revolutionary wave unleashed in the Arab world”. (1)
The spectre of uncontrollable nationalist movements has been a leading concern of Anglo-American governments for decades. Henry Kissinger, former US National Security Advisor (1969-1975), summarised the feeling in Washington by saying that an area which falls outside of US auspices can become a “virus” that will “spread contagion”, and which must be inoculated.
Civilian welfare in Libya again proved a low priority – and was cynically exploited as a justification for the Western intervention following their procurement, on 17 March 2011, of UN Security Council Resolution 1973, calling for a “no-fly zone” over Libya.
Moniz Bandeira, the experienced Brazilian historian, wrote that,
“The United States, Britain and France didn’t establish the no-fly zone to protect civilians, an ambiguous and questionable concept introduced through resolutions on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, and approved by the UN Security Council. They carried out the war against Libya through air strikes and by allying themselves openly with the rebels, just as Nazi Germany had done during the civil war in Spain (1936–1939), when it not only bombed Guernica, but several other cities”. (2)
Among the NATO goals was to prevent a peaceful, negotiated settlement that may have favoured the unreliable Gaddafi; and, in turn, could have harmed Western hegemony across North Africa and beyond. Gaddafi accepted in principle the careful diplomatic proposals put forth by the African Union (3), and which had the consent of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Gaddafi’s attempt, to seek dialogue through a position of strength, was brushed aside in the West. As though he were a global police chief, Barack Obama said on 3 March 2011 that Gaddafi “has lost the legitimacy to lead and he must leave”.
Moreover, China’s growing presence in North Africa was viewed in Washington as an encroachment on its regional interests. By the start of 2011 China had invested around $18.8 billion in Libya, through 75 companies (4). More than 10% of Libya’s oil exports were being sold to Beijing. Three of China’s biggest oil corporations had developed projects in Libya at this point: the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the Sinopec Group, and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).
Some of these Chinese sites were attacked in Libya, as the upheaval grew. Around the time of the NATO bombardment, there were 36,000 Chinese in Libya, mostly construction workers employed on infrastructural programs. They thereafter had to be evacuated from the country. It reveals something about international affairs, that while China was involved in strengthening Libya’s industry and infrastructure, the Western powers were more intent on raining down bombs from the air.
The no-fly zone had been a grotesque notion, and was violated instantly, beginning with air strikes from French Rafale and Mirage aircraft. In coming months, NATO warplanes would carry out around 9,600 air raids over Libya, destroying approximately 5,900 targets (5). These attacks led to a sharply increased rate of civilian casualties, which rose at least tenfold following the US-NATO invasion (6), leaving Libya in the hands of warring militias and fanning the flames of terrorism even further. NATO’s “humanitarian intervention” in Libya also sent a wave of refugees from North Africa to Europe. Another of Washington’s unstated aims here, was to take over lucrative regions of Africa that had traditionally been under French control.
Meanwhile, the Arab Spring was looked on with much concern in Washington, London and Paris, whose staunch allies in the Middle East are the oil dictator countries, such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait. The Arab Spring protests, we can note, barely took off the ground in these states, where few calls were heard from the western democracies that the autocrats be removed. Such an outcome, whereby the masses seek to influence their own affairs, could easily result in a diminishing of US control over the Middle East’s oil, as is well known.
A Gaddafi victory against the insurgents would have enhanced his prestige and independence, an unacceptable outcome for US-NATO. Gaddafi was viewed with some misgiving in the West; he did not routinely obey orders, was unpredictable and erratic. Having met Gaddafi on a number of occasions through the decades, Castro described him in March 2011 as “a Bedouin Arab soldier of unusual character and inspired by the ideas of the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser”. (7)
Nasser had strong nationalist beliefs, was independent-minded and a social reformer. As a result, he was viewed with alarm from the mid-1950s onward. Panicky officials in Washington and London called Nasser “a new Hitler”. US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles believed Nasser to be “an extremely dangerous fanatic” with a “Hitlerite personality”, and the Americans were grateful when Israel put the brakes on Nasser during the Six-Day War.
By 12 March 2011, Gaddafi was on course for victory versus the anti-government forces, as his army captured strategically important Libyan towns such as Ra’s Lanuf; before the US-NATO attack, beginning the following week, quickly turned the tables on him. Bandeira observed how, “Without NATO’s logistical support and bombing campaign” and “without the flow of CIA intelligence supplied by the drones, the so-called rebels would not have advanced far beyond Benghazi”.
The “freedom fighters” opposing Gaddafi, whom the Western media were championing, comprised largely of contingents tied to terrorist organisations like Al Qaeda and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG); along with hundreds of other men with extremist pasts, previously pardoned by Gaddafi and who were roaming freely in Libya. Among them initially were 350 militants with backgrounds mainly from the LIFG, who in 2009 had moved on to Benghazi. By early 2011, this number rose to 850 in Benghazi (8). Many of the freed insurgents would link up with Al Qaeda, in a bid to foment unrest and topple Gaddafi, who was hated by conservative Islam and the above terrorist groups.
Furthermore, radical Muslims, Salafists who had been exiled by Gaddafi, were returning to Libya through Mali, Egypt and other nations. Benghazi was a centre of radical, Salafist Islam in Libya, as was the city of Derna just over 150 miles east of Benghazi.
Among the members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group was Abu Yahya al-Libi, a hardline extremist from Libya and top level member of Al Qaeda. Al-Libi was described by ex-CIA analyst Jarret Brachman as a “rising star within Al Qaeda, and I think he has become the heir apparent to Osama bin Laden in terms of taking over the entire global jihadist movement” (9). While pursuing jihad against Gaddafi, Al-Libi publicly supported the terrorist campaigns aimed at Chinese authorities in Xinjiang province, north-western China.
Bin Laden himself gave his blessing to the terrorists in Libya. He called such “revolutions” made by his “Libyan brothers” as “a great and glorious event”. The elusive Egyptian-born Al Qaeda chief, Ayman al-Zawahiri – who would shortly succeed Bin Laden – had dispatched veteran jihadists to Libya in early 2011, so as to build a base of operations there against Gaddafi (10). The first revolts in opposition to the Gaddafi regime began between the 13th and 16th of January 2011, in the cities of Benghazi and also Beyad and Derna, all in north-eastern Libya; that is, in the region of Cyrenaica, a province of Libya with traditionally separatist leanings, and which happens to contain about 80% of the country’s known oil reserves.
During these opening actions, public buildings and police barracks were attacked, as the terrorists killed dozens of soldiers and policemen (11). Some were executed, either decapitated or hanged. These acts were not spontaneous but had clearly been planned and coordinated, as an air base and police station were captured.
Since Gaddafi’s taking of power in 1969, Benghazi had never completely accepted his rule. To complicate matters, some of the indigenous groups in Libya, such as the Tuareg, Warfalla and Hasawna tribes, were far from friendly to Gaddafi. They would support the armed revolts.
Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, head of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, admitted in late March 2011 that Al Qaeda members were operating under his command (12). For instance, they were engaging in combat against Gaddafi’s troops in the town of Ajdabiya, north-eastern Libya. Al-Hasidi said that the Al Qaeda fighters he was leading were “good Muslims”.
The US-NATO alliance was supplying many of the extremists with funds, weaponry and logistical assistance. This included information pertaining to the planning of operations, and the guiding of bombings such as drone attacks, in which the CIA was instrumental. Autocratic, Western-backed countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and Jordan had all dispatched elite soldiers to bolster Gaddafi’s foes, as likewise did Bulgaria, a NATO and EU state (13). Qatar and the UAE further provided airplanes to NATO over a six month period during the bombing campaign, while other nations like Bahrain and Oman co-operated with NATO.
Mustafa al-Gherryani, spokesman for the anti-Gaddafi insurgents, said that arms were being imported to Libya from neighbouring countries such as Egypt. The weapons were paid for by the Americans. Passing through Libya’s eastern frontier, this military hardware was sent with Washington’s consent by the Egyptian Army. It was delivered to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, and to jihadists of Al Qaeda’s factions in North Africa. NATO’s supreme commander in Europe, Admiral James Stavridis, acknowledged at the end of March 2011, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, that US intelligence services had detected “flickers” of Al Qaeda among the rebel forces. (14)
There is clear evidence that the anti-Gaddafi revolt was, in fact, at least partly instigated by the imperial powers to begin with. France at this time was led by the unpopular right-wing president Nicolas Sarkozy. He was recently sentenced to jail for corruption, amid other damaging claims that his successful 2007 election campaign received significant funding from Gaddafi (15). The Italian journalist Franco Bechis wrote on 23 March 2011 that, under Sarkozy, France’s foreign intelligence agency DGSE “had probably started planning the rebellion in Benghazi on October 21, 2010”, many weeks before the uprising began.
Also during October 2010, Gaddafi’s intelligence chief Nuri al-Mismari fled Libya, passing through neighbouring Tunisia as he sought exile in France. Once on French soil, Al-Mismari met with France’s military and started to scheme against Gaddafi – a plot which involved enemies of Libya’s government based in Benghazi.
Present on Libyan soil prior to the March 2011 US-NATO invasion were: CIA advisors, US Navy SEALs, British MI6 spies, and Special Air Service (SAS) soldiers from the British Army (16). In Libya too were French secret agents from the above-mentioned DGSE, and commandos from the French Army Special Forces Command. These elite units from the triumvirate of America, Britain and France were often dressed as Arabs, therefore posing as “false flaggers”; in order to conceal their identities from Libyans, and allow them to provoke resistance unmolested. So much then for the Western powers not having “boots on the ground” in Libya.
For example on 24 February 2011, just over three weeks before the NATO assault started, a British frigate HMS Cumberland sailed into the port of Benghazi, and disembarking from this vessel were British SAS commandos. (17)
London had already dispatched MI6 agents and SAS officers to consult with forces headed by Libya’s former Minister of Justice, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, a strong critic of Gaddafi who was co-operating with the West. From March 2011 until August 2012, Jalil was chairman of the so-called National Transitional Council (NTC), which was seeking to replace Gaddafi. From early on, allying itself with the NTC were the extremists of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (18), as members of this latter organisation had announced to the press in March 2011.
Another high-ranking Gaddafi official who defected to the West was Moussa Koussa, Libyan Minister of Foreign Affairs from March 2009 to March 2011. Koussa was previously co-opted by MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence agency (19). On 28 March 2011, he travelled by car across Libya’s north-western border to Tunisia, where he got in contact with London. Koussa then climbed aboard a Swiss private airplane at Djerba Airport in Tunisia, and flew directly to the English capital.
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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Notes
1 Fidel Castro Ruz, “NATO, war, lies and business”, Granma, 9 March 2011
2 Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, The Second Cold War: Geopolitics and the Strategic Dimensions of the USA, (Springer 1st ed., 23 June 2017) p. 176
3 Noam Chomsky, Who Rules The World? (Metropolitan Books, Penguin Books Ltd, Hamish Hamilton, 5 May 2016) p. 251
5 Sebastian Moffett, “NATO underplayed civilian deaths in Libya: HRW”, Reuters, 14 May 2012
6 Chomsky, Who Rules The World?, p. 251
7 Castro, Granma, 9 March 2011
8 Bandeira, The Second Cold War, p. 160
9 Fred Burton, Samuel M. Katz, Under Fire: The Untold Story of the Attack in Benghazi (Icon Books Ltd., 2 Oct. 2014) Part One, The Dawn Before Benghazi
10 Bandeira, The Second Cold War, p. 161
11 Ibid., p. 157
12 Praveen Swami, Duncan Gardham, Nick Squires, “Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have Al Qaeda links”, Daily Telegraph, 25 March 2011
13 Bandeira, The Second Cold War, p. 178
14 Lara Marlowe, “’Flickers’ of Al Qaeda among rebels, says NATO chief”, Irish Times, 30 March 2011
15 Kim Willsher, “Gaddafi ‘contributed €50m to Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential election fund’”, The Guardian, 12 March 2012
16 Bandeira, The Second Cold War, p. 176
17 Ibid.
18 Konye Obaji Ori, “Libya: The mosque and the State”, The Africa Report, 5 December 2013
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Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva showed on Wednesday that his political career is far from over. Lula, as he is more commonly known, returned to address the nation after the annulment of his corruption convictions.
Lula was previously known for his casual attire, including many red shirts, in honour of the Workers’ Party, which he founded in 1980. This time, sporting a sharp dark suit with a powder blue dress shirt, the 75-year-old’s message was clear. He is back.
Last Monday, a justice of Brazil’s Supreme Court annulled Lula’s two bribery convictions, clearing the way for the former president to run in the 2022 elections and challenge the far-Right president Jair Bolsonaro. Lula, who led Brazil between 2003 and 2011, said he remained unsure about whether to seek a third term.
Barely looking down at his notes during a speech that lasted nearly two hours, Lula showcased his trademark confidence and charisma throughout. A metalworker who rose to prominence in the 1980s as a union leader, Lula used everyday language to discuss the economy and to criticise Bolsonaro for his handling of the COVID-19 crisis that has besieged the country, claiming that Brazil currently “has no government”.
Although it remains unconfirmed whether his name will be on the ballot next year, many pundits and members of the public are certain it will. Certainly, his public appearance this week bore all the hallmarks of a presidential campaign.
Addressing journalists while standing in front of a famous picture of himself being held aloft by a crowd of supporters, and with a banner in the top right-hand corner reading; “Health, jobs and justice for Brazil”, Lula immediately took aim at the injustice that had been bestowed upon him.
Many harboured suspicions that his arrest was engineered to ensure a Bolsonaro victory
Declaring himself “the victim of the biggest judicial lie told in the country’s 500-year history”, Lula went on to describe the suffering he endured in prison from April 2018 to November 2019, when the Supreme Court ruled that defendants may remain free while their appeals are pending.
Lula was sentenced to 26 years after being convicted of accepting bribes from Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned, multinational oil company, in two separate corruption and money-laundering cases.
He was investigated as part of the largest anti-corruption effort in Brazil’s history, Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato), which was led by a mega taskforce from the federal police’s Curitiba branch.
Scandal, ambition and Operation Car Wash
Lula’s conviction and subsequent arrest prevented him from running in the 2018 presidential elections, which took place six months after his sentencing. While sitting in jail, Lula still led Bolsonaro in the polls, with many harbouring suspicions that his arrest was engineered to ensure a Bolsonaro victory.
While Lula’s star dimmed in jail, the man who was hailed by many to be the solution to Brazil’s deep-seated corruption problems, Sergio Moro, shot to stardom. The former judge gained widespread recognition for his active role in the taskforce and for ordering Lula’s arrest. He became a hero in the eyes of half of the population in a divided nation.
The other half believed him to be a self-serving careerman with political aspirations. When Bolsonaro announced he had picked Moro as his justice minister, the accusations of bias grew louder. Nevertheless, admirers of Operation Car Wash stood by his decision to accept a political office.
Lula is now free to run for office until he is re-tried in the country’s capital, which could take years
However, the situation changed in mid-2019, just six months into Bolsonaro’s presidency and Moro’s new role. On 9 June, the online publication The Intercept Brasil, led by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, began publishing a series of leaked messages exchanged on Telegram between figures involved in the taskforce. Many of them seemed to suggest that Judge Moro communicated frequently with prosecutors and that he even counselled the team behind Lula’s corruption charges.
That was to prove the beginning of the end for Moro. After falling out of favour with Bolsonaro, the former judge resigned in April 2020, less than a year after the scandal that became known as Vaza Jato (roughly translated as Car Wash Leaks).
Even before The Intercept’s bombshell revelations, jurists often pointed out the inconsistencies and contradictions in the case against Lula. In the eyes of his supporters, Lula was a political prisoner, and inspired the Free Lula movement (Lula Livre). The leaked messages renewed hopes among his supporters that his convictions would be overturned.
Lula’s defence team asked the Supreme Court to judge whether Moro had acted with the necessary impartiality. On Tuesday, the five justices assigned to the case tabled the decision. They tied in a 2-2 vote after the fifth judge, who joined the court in November, said he was unable to cast an opinion because he lacked sufficient knowledge of the case.
Pathway to the presidency
While connected to the accusations against Moro, this week’s annulments stemmed from a different argument.
Justice Edson Fachin – who voted against the prejudice charge against Moro back in December – ruled that the four cases against Lula fell outside of the jurisdiction of the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba, contending that the crimes did not happen in the city, located in the southern state of Paraná. The cases will be forwarded to the capital of Brasilia for reconsideration.
Fachin’s decision does not exonerate Lula, as the judge did not determine whether the former president was innocent or guilty of the charges brought against him. Regardless, Lula is now free to run for office until he is re-tried in the capital, which could take years. To become ineligible again, Lula would have to be convicted before submitting his candidacy in mid-2022, which is unlikely to happen.
Brazil’s attorney general’s office has appealed against Fachin’s decision, asking the Supreme Court to reverse it. However, Fachin’s arguments are in line with previous decisions taken by the country’s highest court, which legal experts claim are unlikely to be overturned.
Seeing that Fachin sided with Moro in the prejudice accusations against him, the internal assessment in the Supreme Court is that he opted to overturn the convictions against Lula to prevent others from using the same argument against the former judge, starting a domino effect that could jeopardise the entire Car Wash inquiry.
Economic decline and the Amazon
Though Lula is now free to run for office, the political landscape has changed since he left the president’s office in January 2011 with a record 83% approval rate, which made him Brazil’s most popular president in modern history.
Lula’s re-emergence comes at a time where Brazil is still struggling with the pandemic, with a death toll of more than 270,000 – the world’s second highest. Bolsonaro has consistently been criticised for downplaying the pandemic and his denial of science, aggravating the problem in a country where implementing social distancing measures is already challenging given that 41.4% of the population depend on informal jobs and at least 13.6 million live in overcrowded, marginalised neighbourhoods known as favelas.
Despite Bolsonaro being elected partly thanks to his ultraliberal economic promises, Brazil’s GDP, which had grown by a disappointing 1% in the first year of his presidency, has shrunk by 4.1% amid the pandemic – the worst setback since 1996.
Bolsonaro, with his growing far-Right agenda, has lost support among the financial elite and investment in the country has fallen by half. His disregard for the environment – particularly the Amazon, which has had record deforestation rates under his administration – has also hurt Brazil’s relationship with some of the world’s most powerful economies: US President Joe Biden has threatened Brazil with sanctions, while European companies have threatened boycotts of Brazilian products.
Although Brazil’s current predicaments may encourage Lula, especially after the events of the past week, there is still room for caution. The annulment of his conviction is not a definitive victory for him or his supporters. In a country with a 400-page constitution and a complex judicial system, decisions can be made and unmade in a matter of days. But Lula and his supporters will certainly be celebrating while they can. After all, Bolsonaro seems shaken.
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So which American president is going to take full credit for supporting the rapid development of Big Pharma’s Covid-19 vaccines that are already killing and injuring people?
Both Trump and Biden are claiming that it was their efforts that deserves global recognition for fighting a devastating pandemic by rolling out life-saving experimental vaccines. Fox News was one of the first networks to report on how former President, Donald Trump bragged about his success when he pre-maturely pushed the untested experimental Covid-19 vaccine by “arguing that without him, Americans wouldn’t receive a vaccine for years.”
“I hope everyone remembers!”Yes Donald, eventually everybody will remember how you pushed an experimental vaccine under Operation Warp Speed, in fact, they will also remember how you even bragged about it!
“Trump’s Wednesday comments came after an event earlier in the day when President Biden announced he would order 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson (J&J)” the report said “after meeting with CEO’s from J&J and Merck, Biden celebrated their partnership to produce the former’s vaccine.”
The Covid-19 vaccine was produced in less than one year. The actual time frame to produce a safe and effective vaccine takes anywhere from 10-15 years and sometimes even longer because of the complex nature of testing along with various rules and regulations led by government agencies in collaboration with multi-national pharmaceutical companies and they still in many cases, are untrustworthy.
By early April almost 80 companies and institutes in 19 countries were working on vaccines, most gene-based instead of using traditional approaches, such as those that have been employed in influenza vaccines for more than 70 years. The labs predicted that a commercial vaccine could be available for emergency or compassionate use by early 2021—incredibly fast, given that vaccines to brand-new pathogens have taken a decade to be perfected and deployed
The article explains how the Ebola vaccine took at least 5 years before any trials, “even the Ebola vaccine, which was fast-tracked, took five years to reach widespread trials. If Barouch and his counterparts can offer a safe, effective concoction in a year, “it will be the fastest vaccine development in history,” he says. What is interesting is that the article itself admits that there has been several labs who created gene-based vaccines for other viruses in the past, but none have been “commercialized for a human illness.” Instead of using the traditional way of creating a vaccine, (although most vaccines still have many problems regardless of how safe Big Pharma claims they are) they went along with the new gene-based approach of creating a different kind of vaccine as they explain:
Scientists use information from the genome of the virus to create a blueprint of select antigens. The blueprint is made of DNA or RNA—molecules that hold genetic instructions. The researchers then inject the DNA or RNA into human cells. The cell’s machinery uses the instructions to make virus antigens that the immune system reacts to. Cells respond to the instructions as a normal part of their daily existence. This is the same trait infectious viruses exploit; they cannot reproduce on their own, so they use a cell’s machinery to make copies of themselves. They burst out of the cell and infect more cells, widening the infection
Labs were using three ways to deliver the artificial spike protein:
Virtually all the labs want to find a way to train human cells to make an antigen called the spike protein. It juts out from SARS-CoV-2 like a stud on a tire, allowing the virus to bind to a human cell and sneak inside. Almost all the labs are using one of three approaches to deliver the spike blueprint. The first is a DNA plasmid, typically a small, hoop-shaped molecule. A plasmid is a handy tool because if a virus mutates, researchers can readily swap in a new blueprint. DNA-plasmid vaccines have been made for veterinary uses in fishes, dogs, swine and horses, but human applications have lagged, mostly because the vaccines have had difficulty passing through a cell’s protective outer membrane to reach the machinery inside. One recent improvement is to inject the vaccine with an instrument that administers brief electrical charges to cells near the injection site, which open pores in the cell membranes so the vaccine can enter
The scientists use DNA-plasmid vaccines which are programmed to infuse the RNA with the genetic blueprint code within the cell machinery that produces what is called the spike antigens “but scientists can skip the plasmid step by embedding a blueprint in a strand of RNA—a second approach known as RNA vaccines.”
The next step is to “mobilize” the immune system to create antibodies.
“The RNA is carried in lipids that are injected into the body; lipids are fatty molecules that can pass easily into cells.”
Scientific American also mentioned Johnson and Johnson’s (J&J) approach by
“inserting the DNA blueprint into a common cold virus. When injected, this adenoviral vector, as it is called, infects human cells and delivers the blueprint it is carrying.”
The Children’s Health Defense commented on J&J’s rollout with their own experimental vaccine:
Rather than use the messenger RNA (mRNA) technology being deployed for the first time in the Pfizer and Moderna injections, J&J’s vaccine (made by the company’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals subsidiary) features a genetically engineered “viral vector” design reliant on a weakened common-cold virus called adenovirus 26.
Adenovirus vaccines have a lengthy history of use in the U.S. military, but the FDA’s emergency green light for J&J’s COVID injection represents the first time the agency has authorized an adenovirus-vectored vaccine for civilian use.
Despite the fact that the latest data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) under the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System(VAERS) which does record deaths and injuries shows how dangerous these vaccines are.
It has been reported that since the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines between December 14th, 2020 and February 8th, 2021 there were approximately 19,907 incidents that have been reported in terms of adverse events’ that includes 1,095 deaths and more than 3,767 serious injuries.
Right at the start of the vaccine rollout, there was already a handful of cases caused by Trump’s beautiful shot. In as early as December 10th, 2020, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine already had caused injuries, one of the injuries is called‘Bell’s Palsy’ which is a case of temporary facial paralysis.
The FDA said the issue should be monitored as the jab becomes more widely available.” The report FDA Briefing Document titled ‘Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee Meeting’ on the outcome of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine:
Among non-serious unsolicited adverse events, there was a numerical imbalance of four cases of Bell’s palsy in the vaccine group compared with no cases in the placebo group, though the four cases in the vaccine group do not represent a frequency above that expected in the general population. Otherwise, there were no notable patterns or numerical imbalances between treatment groups for specific categories of non-serious adverse events (including other neurologic, neuroinflammatory, and thrombotic events) that would suggest a causal relationship to BNT162b2 vaccine
Shortly after, a registered nurse from Nashville, Tennessee by the name of Khalilah Mitchell got Bell’s Palsy after taking the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine:
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The Tennessee Department of Health confirmed to The Associated Press that there is no record of a registered nurse under that name. Though four people in the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine trial and three people in the Moderna trial who received vaccines reported Bell’s palsy, a disorder that causes paralysis on one side of the face and is temporary for most people, at this time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not established a link between the vaccines and the condition
At the start of the new year, a tragedy occurred in South Florida with the death of a beloved obstetrician, Dr. Gregory Michael. The Sun-Sentinel of South Florida reported on the death of Dr. Gregory Michael, a Miami-Beach obstetrician ‘A ‘healthy’ doctor died two weeks after getting a COVID-19 vaccine; CDC is investigating why’ said that “two weeks after getting a first dose of a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, a 56-year-old doctor in South Florida died this week, possibly the nation’s first death linked to the vaccine.” the report said that health officials from Florida and the CDC are investigating if the vaccine had anything to do with his death although his family said that Dr. Michael was in good health.
On December 18th he received a Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and a few days later
“small spots began to appear on his feet and hands and he went to the emergency room at Mount Sinai where he has worked in private practice for 15 years.”
One of the after-effects was a low blood count. The report said that “experts from all over the country were involved in his care” according to his wife Heidi Neckelmann. Dr. Michael had a stroke and died before he was to undergo “a last resort surgery.”
On January 15TH more than 10 people had died in Germany due to the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine according to the Paul Ehrlich Institute who was investigating the incident. Yahoo Newsoriginally published the report from Asia News International (ANI) and Sputnik:
Specialists from Germany’s Paul Ehrlich Institute are looking into the deaths of 10 people who passed away soon after having been inoculated against the novel coronavirus disease, Brigitte Keller-Stanislawski, the head of the institute’s department of the safety of medicinal products and medical devices, said on Thursday. According to the medical expert, the deceased were aged from 79 to 93, all with antecedent diseases. The time between vaccination and death ranged from several hours to four days.
“Until yesterday we had nine cases; we have to wait for the data from Lower Saxony [about another alleged case], then there will be 10. We are talking about patients in extremely grave condition, with multiple diseases, who were receiving palliative treatment. I have already said that we are studying these cases … Based on our current data we assume they died from their main diseases, coinciding in time with the vaccination,” Keller-Stanislawski said at a press conference
It was reported that Pfizer (US) and BioNTech (Germany) had 842,000 people in line for the vaccine with the elderly and the staff at nursing homes being the first people to be vaccinated. However, it came with a heavy price with the rushed vaccine:
The institute also reported six anaphylaxis cases. So far, there have been 325 cases of side-effects allegedly related to the vaccine, including 51 severe ones. Keller-Stanislawski stated that those results are within expectations and correspond to the US vaccination statistics
On January 16TH, The Jerusalem Post’13 Israelis suffer facial paralysis after corona virus vaccine – report’ originally from a Ynet News source based in Israel reported the following:
Some 13 people have experienced mild facial paralysis as a side effect after taking the COVID-19 vaccine, the Health Ministry reported, and estimates are that the number of cases could be higher. Health officials have raised questions about whether or not to administer the second dose to these individuals, but the Health Ministry is recommending that the second dose be given
One person described his ordeal after the vaccine “For at least 28 hours I walked around with it [facial paralysis],” one person who had the side effect told Ynet. “I can’t say it was completely gone afterwards, but other than that I had no other pains, except a minor pain where the injection was, but there was nothing beyond that.” Another reaction was described by a medical director who met someone that was vaccinated and ended up with paralysis:
I recently came across, for example, someone vaccinated who was dealing with paralysis, and decided not to give her a second dose,” Prof. Galia Rahav, director of the Infectious Diseases Unit at Sheba Medical Center told Ynet. “It is true that it can be given according to the Health Ministry, but I did not feel comfortable with it
The following day, Dr. Erica S. Pan who is based in Sacramento, California said that“a higher-than-usual number of possible allergic reactions were reported with a specific lot of Moderna vaccine administered at one community vaccination clinic. Fewer than 10 individuals required medical attention over the span of 24 hours.”
On January 18th, following the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination campaign in Norway, 33 people who were over the age of 75 years-old had died. According to Bloomberg News“In Norway, 33 people aged 75 and over died following immunization, according to the agency’s latest figures. All were already seriously ill, it said.”
Norway has vaccinated more than 48,000 people in nursing homes. “The reported fatalities are well under 1 out of 1,000 nursing-home patients to be vaccinated, he said. The side effects of immunization can, in some cases, “tip the patients into a more serious course of the underlying disease,” Madsen said. “We can’t rule that out.” In a January 15th report from Bloomberg News ‘Norway Warns of Vaccination Risks for Sick Patients Over 80′ said the following:
Norway said Covid-19 vaccines may be too risky for the very old and terminally ill, the most cautious statement yet from a European health authority as countries assess the real-world side effects of the first shots to gain approval.
Norwegian officials said 23 people had died in the country a short time after receiving their first dose of the vaccine. Of those deaths, 13 have been autopsied, with the results suggesting that common side effects may have contributed to severe reactions in frail, elderly people, according to the Norwegian Medicines Agency
These are just a few examples of what happened with the release of various Covid-19 vaccines right from the start. This is just the beginning.
No one knows what the long-term effects will be but from what the early reports are showing, the Covid-19 experimental vaccines will unfortunately kill or injure many more people in the foreseeable future. Trump’s “beautiful shot” will be part of his legacy, one that will remember him as the propagandist who sold himself to Big Pharma and the deep state, the same entities he supposedly tried to remove from power.
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Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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“We are willing to help people who believe the way we do.” —Dean Acheson, Truman’s Secretary of State, 1947
Introduction
I cannot stress enough the overwhelming toxic spell that Cold War propaganda cast on the minds of three generations, including some of the most intelligent people, and its influence continues today.
Relentless Cold War rhetoric accomplished a near total indoctrination of our entire US culture.
Religious institutions, academic and educational institutions from kindergarten through graduate school, professional associations, political associations from local to national, scientific community, economic system, entertainment industry from radio and TV to Hollywood and sports, fraternal organizations, boy scouts, etc.—all systematically colluded and cooperated to preserve unquestioning belief in the unique nobility of the US American system while instilling pathological, rabid, paranoid fear of “enemies”— in our midst as well as “out there”—in order to rationalize otherwise pathologically inexplicable behavior around the world as well as at home.
The atrocities committed in the name of defeating communist bogeymen are nearly beyond belief. As this example shows, our cultural schooling is so pervasive as to generate a universally compelling mythology powerful enough to conceal its own contradictions.
Our cultural corruption was so complete we proudly utilized B-52s blessed by God-fearing chaplains flying five miles high to bomb unarmed, mostly Buddhist peasants living nine thousand miles across the Pacific. It is very difficult to recognize in ourselves what would be considered criminally insane behavior if carried out by others.
Forty years of fanatical “good us versus evil them” leads directly from the 1917 Russian Revolution, the authentic beginning of the Cold War, leading to Korea and Viet Nam.
Prior to 1917, Russia has been a semi-colonial possession of European capital that had settled into typical “Third World” patterns, supplying raw materials to industrial countries while primarily internally developing with foreign capital while experiencing dramatic escalation of debt and impoverishment.
The Russian Revolution was a radical break from western-dominated exploitation, very unacceptable to the capitalist west, the so-called “advanced” industrial countries. It was, in effect, a radical alternative to the way things had been settling in among “moderns” around the non-indigenous global capitalist world.
During Russia’s 1918–1920 Civil War, a number of the allied nations and Japan invaded Russia in efforts to crush socialism.
Winston Churchill, England’s Minister for War and Air (1919–1921), sought desperately “to strangle at its birth” the Bolshevik state.[1] A determined effort by 11 Western nations and Japan to nip the revolution in the bud formed expeditionary forces that invaded Russia in 1918 with nearly nine hundred thousand troops in three regions.
Archangel in northern Russia, including five thousand US troops; the Odessa region and Crimea in Southern Russia; and Vladivostok in eastern Russia, including seven thousand US troops who remained there until 1920. US casualties during the occupation in northern Russia were nearly 2,900. The State Department told Congress: “All these operations were to offset effects of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia”.[2]
This US intervention into Russia occurred on President Wilson’s orders without a Congressional declaration of war. It also occurred during peace negotiations that had gotten underway on January 4, 1919 in Versailles, France, to formally end the First World War.
The Versailles Treaty was signed June 28, 1919, by Germany and Britain, France, Italy, and Russia, but not by the US.
The intervention into Russia illustrates how terrified the US and the West were of the ideological alternative to capitalism that the Bolsheviks represented.
“High level US planning documents identify the primary threat as ‘radical and nationalistic regimes’ that are responsive to popular pressures for ‘immediate improvement in the low living standards of the masses’ and development for domestic needs, tendencies that conflict with the demand for a ‘political and economic climate conducive to private investment,’ with adequate repatriation of profits and ‘protection of our raw materials.’”[3]
In essence, the Soviet Union was considered a gigantic “rotten apple,” a “challenge . . . to the very survival of the capitalist order.” As Europe was beginning to self-destruct, the US was for the first time becoming a decisive world influence. The Bolshevik revolution, i.e., Communism, was seen as a global enemy that had to be crushed.[4]
The Truman Doctrine Ushers in a National Security State
Truman’s March 12, 1947 containment speech, often described as the formal declaration of the Cold War between the Free World and the forces of Communism, helped entrench the idea that the entire world is the specific business of the United States.
Expressing fear of an international Communist threat and marking the beginning of US containment policy, his appeal to congress officially launched the first of thousands of US covert and overt interventions around the world.
Despite Truman’s focus on Greece and Turkey in this speech, internal documents reveal that South Korea was as important, if not more important in terms of needing to be contained. This was made clear in 1949, when both Secretary of State Acheson and the head of State’s policy planning, George Kennan, (image right) concluded that successful suppression by Syngman Rhee of a Korean people’s independence movement would be a key litmus test of the US’s emerging policy of global containment of Communism, despite the Korean’s passion for self-determination.
Quelling popular self-determination aspirations (autonomy, democracy) around the world became critical for the assurance of continued global Western hegemony. Thus, the Cold War really was a series of hundreds of smaller, but brutal hot wars against popular and revolutionary movements in the “Third World” seeking liberation from historic colonialism (the essential lessons of the Russian Revolution), movements that were essentially supported by the alternative represented by the Soviet Union, in addition to the major post-WWII Third World revolutions in Korea and Viet Nam. In the first, we were stalemated in 1953; the second we lost militarily/politically in 1973, though in each case we decimated and destroyed each culture’s infrastructure while murdering a combined 10 million plus people.
NSC-68: The US, Not the Soviets, Possessed a Global Monolithic Plan
On April 14, 1950, President Truman approved a comprehensive National Security Council study known as NSC 68 (1949-1950). The most fundamental document of the US Cold War, its recommendations began to be implemented on the eve of our hot war in Korea.
NSC-68 asserted that the US had the unique right and responsibility to impose our chosen “order among nations” so that
“our free society can flourish. . . . Our policy and action . . . must be such to foster a fundamental change in the nature of the Soviet system” and “foster the seeds of destruction within the Soviet system” that will “hasten” its “decay.”
It added,
“The Soviet Union, unlike previous aspirants to hegemony, is animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own, and seeks to impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world.”
The foundation of the strategy was a “view to fomenting and supporting unrest and revolt in selected satellite countries” and “to reduce the power and influence of the Kremlin inside the Soviet Union.” Any less global imperial policy would have “drastic effects on our belief in ourselves and in our way of life.”
US ability to act had apocalyptic ramifications: “fulfillment or destruction not only of this Republic but of civilization.”
NSC-68 concluded that “the assault on free institutions is world-wide” and “imposes on us, in our own interests, the responsibility of world leadership” such that we must seek “to foster a world environment in which the American system can survive and flourish.” “Any measures, covert or overt, violent or nonviolent” will be called upon as necessary for “frustrating the Kremlin design,” which included “overt psychological warfare” as well as various kinds of “economic warfare.” Utmost care “must be taken to avoid permanently impairing our economy and the fundamental values and institutions inherent in our way of life”.[5]
NSC-68 went on to claim that even “if there were no Soviet Union we would face the great problem of the free society . . . of reconciling order, security . . . with the requirement of freedom.”
The subsequent Korean War was the first time the CIA operated in a hot war. Its arguments became the foundation for tripling the “Defense” budget, stationing troops in Europe, and significantly boosting US conventional and nuclear weapons systems, thus further escalating the arms race.[6]
NSC-68 reveals this incredible irony: Throughout the Cold War years, we were taught to fear the evil Soviets, while our government spent literally trillions of dollars defending our real monolithic plan from their fictional one. Further, the Cold War and its consequent expensive arms race only ensured preservation of an obsessively consumptive Western way of life that is literally destroying life on the planet as we face eco- catastrophe due to global warming. Industrial civilization is an intense heat engine.
Staggering Soviet Losses in WWII Ignored by the West
The US government knew that the Soviet Union was so devastated from the war that it had no capacity or will to imagine or carry out a monolithic plan to control the West. Yet, post -World War II hostility toward the Soviet Union resumed anti-Bolshevik and anti-Communist hatred that had begun in 1917-1918. This, despite the fact, as mentioned earlier in this chapter, that the Soviet armies essentially were responsible for the final defeat of the Nazis in World War II, a war in which the Soviets suffered incredible losses.
A 1994 study published by the Russian Academy of Science estimated USSR casualties at 26.6 million, or 13.5 percent, of its pre WWII war population of 196.7 million.[7]
Before their defeat in 1945, the Nazis had leveled or crippled 15 large Soviet cities, more than 1,700 towns, 70,000 villages, and nearly 100,000 collective farms, while devastating most of its factories, railroads, highways, bridges, and electric power stations.[8] In contrast, the US suffered less than 420,000 deaths, or only three-tenths of a percent of its population, and did not lose any infrastructure.
US Naval Intelligence reported in January 1946 that the USSR was “exhausted . . . not expected to take any action during the next five years which might develop into hostilities with Anglo-Americans.”
Its policies were determined to be defensive in nature, designed only “to establish a Soviet Monroe Doctrine for the area under her shadow, primarily and urgently for security”.[9] Honest historians, academicians, and political leaders knew the basis of Stalin’s insistence on having friendly neighbors and secure borders on its west flank. Unlike the US, the Soviet Union had no oceans to protect it from external aggression.
In 1812, Napoleonic France invaded Russia through Germany. Imperial Japan invaded Siberia in 1906.
Germany invaded Russia in 1914 and again in 1941.
And Poland invaded Russia in 1920 over an old territorial dispute and new ideological fears of Bolshevism.
Thus, Russia’s Western border had been invaded at least four times.[10] George Kennan, architect of the US containment policy, ultimately concluded that
“the image of a Stalinist Russia poised and yearning to attack the West was largely a fiction of the Western imagination.”
He reminded US Americans that the Russian people believed profoundly in “decency, honesty, kindness, and loyalty in the relations between individuals, in fact that the Russians are human beings after all”.[11]
It has been our delusions and arrogance under “God” ever since our own cultural origins in forceful dispossession of hundreds of “strange” Indigenous cultures, both in the Western Hemisphere stealing land and in Africa stealing chattel labor, that we have possessed the cultural DNA of selfishness and narcissism at the expense of others and the Planet Earth. Our Age of stupid and ecocide/suicide is not recognized, as we have depended upon the techniques of denial and the comforting trick of basking in the arrogance of exceptionalism.
And this pattern of US-inflicted atrocities around the globe continues as a bi-partisan political plundering project of Democrats and Republicans, recently accentuated especially since Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump in the 2016 election with the hoax of Russophobia.
This 400-year bestial history of racism, classism, and sexism imposed by primarily White men, on virtually everyone else for 20 generations, was captured perfectly in the 8 minute 46 second video taken by a 17-year-old teenager of a Minneapolis White police officer with the full force of his knee on Black George Floyd’s neck as he tortured, then murdered him.
That knee is on all of our necks now. This has caused more reasons for millions of Whites people to intensely preserve their fantasy of denial.
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Brian Willsonis a Viet Nam veteran and trained lawyer. He has visited a number of countries examining the effects of US policy. He wrote a psychohistorical memoir, Blood on the Tracks: The Life and Times of S. Brian Willson (PM Press, 2011), and in 2018 wrote Don’t Thank Me for my Service: My Viet Nam Awakening to the Long History of US Lies(Clarity Press). He is featured in a 2016 documentary, Paying the Price for Peace: The Story of S. Brian Willson, and others in the Peace Movement, (Bo Boudart Productions). His web essays: brianwillson.com. He can be reached: [email protected].
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Notes
[1] Michael Zezima, Saving Private Power: The Hidden History of the ‘The Good War’ (New York: Soft Skull Press, 2000), 26-7.
[2] Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History (New York: Henry Holt, 1994), 515-516; D. F. Fleming, The Cold War and Its Origins, 1917-1920, Vol I (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1961), 16-35; Howard Zinn, The Twentieth Century: A People’s History (New York: Perennial Library/Harper & Row, 1984), 110-111; David S. Foglesong, America’s Secret War AgainstBolshevism: U.S. Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1917-1920 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 2-9, 272-3.
[3] Noam Chomsky, “The Face of Colonialism a Century Later” (PeaceWork, July/August 1998), 19.
[4] Noam Chomsky, Year 501: The Conquest Continues (Boston: South End Press, 1993), 67; Chomsky, Chomsky, Deterring Democracy (New York: Hill and Wang, 1992), 37.
[5]National Security Memorandum No. 68 (NSC-68) on “United States Objectives and Programs for National Security” written by a Joint State-Defense Department Committee, under the supervision of Paul Nitze, Director of the Policy Planning Staff, in April 14, 1950, pursuant to the President’s Directive of January 31, 1950.
[6] John Lewis Gaddis, We Know Now: Rethinking Cold War History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 84, 109.
[7] Michael Ellman and S. Maksudov, “Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War: A Note,” Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 46, No. 4, 1994, 671-680.
[8] Harvey Wasserman, America Born & Reborn (New York: Collier Books/Macmillan, 1983), 168; Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold war, 1945-1971 (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1972), 14.
[9] Lawrence Wittner, Cold War America (New York: Praeger, 1974), 9; Edward Pessen, Losing Our Souls: The American Experience in the Cold War (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1993), 63; Wasserman, 168.
[10] Marty Jezer, The Dark Ages: Life in the United States 1945-1960 (Boston: South End Press, 1982), 23.
“Founding Father” John Jay possessed a vision that “the people who own the country ought to govern it”. This referred to those who owned land, slaves, and commercial enterprises. Jay also believed that the upper classes “were the better kind of people”.
“Draconian public health measures are imposed on society with little proof of effectiveness, and much proof of collateral damage, there is little debate covered in the commercial media about public health issues.”
Several European countries have now suspended the mRNA AstraZeneka Vaccine including Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Austria, Bulgaria. And more recently: Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, France, Italy, Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Romania.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned last Friday that the US’ reportedly planned deployment of intermediate-range missiles to Japan “will certainly entail our retaliation”, which could realistically take the form of informally creating a Russian-Chinese-North Korean missile alliance.
The renowned physicist, thinker and activist Vandana Shiva proposes ecofeminism as a response to the current moment, in which the capitalist patriarchy is leading us to destruction and death, after having colonized nature, women and the future.
Progressive members of Congress are demanding that President Joe Biden bring pressure to bear on Saudi Arabia to end its yearslong blockade on Yemen—which has been maintained with U.S. help—after new reporting provided a closer look at the horrific suffering caused by the kingdom’s ongoing obstruction of food, medicine, and other essential supplies.
Last year, former US President Donald Trump announced very clearly, that part of the US forces mission in Syria is to protect the oil fields and to take a share of them. This statement was an official admission of the US forces’ plundering of Syrian natural resources.
The recent disclosure by the Wall Street Journal that Israel has been waging a covert war against Syria-bound Iranian oil tankers, using water mines and other explosives does not come as a surprise.
“As Canadian medical doctors, we’re gonna tell you what the best science now has to say and we think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Research now shows that the PCR test is practically worthless. Only 3% of patients with a positive test actually have the coronavirus.”
Somehow, the opinion-makers in the media, the bloated military brass, and the members of Congress who like to gin up fears among the voters so they’ll keep voting for them have gotten everyone thinking that Russia is still hell bent on world communist takeover and that China it trying to replace the US as global hegemon.
COVID vaccine makers have not only introduced new primary ingredients to the U.S. vaccine stage, but they’ve bundled these new ingredients with “inactive” ingredients in unprecedented ways that raise the risk for dangerous allergic reactions.
In a world built of spin, our goal has always been to present you with the facts.
We act as a global platform for much needed debate and dialogue within the context of several very complex crises. We need to stand together to find our way amid misled politicians, media misrepresentations, and the suppression of independent thought.
We are powered by our readers and are indebted to your support. If you too believe in the preservation of critical thought and discourse, we ask you to support Global Research by making a donation or becoming a member today.
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Out of habit, American economists worry about federal debt. But federal debt can be redeemed by the Federal Reserve printing the money with which to retire the bonds.The debt problem rests with individuals, companies, and state and local governments.They have no printing press.
We have explained that the indebtedness of the population means there is little discretionary income with which to drive the economy.The offshoring of middle class jobs lowered incomes, and after paying debt service—mortgage interest, car payments, credit card interest, student loan debt—Americans’ pockets are empty.
This situation has been worsened by Covid lockdowns.In the US the federal government has sent out a few Covid payments to help keep people’s heads above water as they face expenses without income.The financial press refers to these Covid checks as “fiscal stimulus,” but there is no stimulus.The Covid checks do not come close to replacing the missing wages, salaries and business profits from lockdowns.
Corporations have indebted themselves and impaired their capitalization by borrowing money with which to repurchase their stock. This has built up their debt in the face of stagnant or declining consumer discretionary income.
We propose to deal with the debt crisis by forgiving debts as was done in ancient times.Our basic premise is that debts that cannot be paid won’t be. Widespread foreclosures and evictions would further worsen the distribution of income and wealth and further contrain the ability of the economy to grow.Writing debt down to levels that can be serviced would clear the decks tor a real recovery.Income that would be siphoned off in debt service would instead be available to purchase new goods and services.
A few economists muttered that we were overlooking the “moral hazzard” of absolving people of their debts.But leaving the economy stagnated in debt is also a moral hazzard.
Policymakers did not endorse our proposal, but, in effect, policymakers adopted our policy.However, instead of forgiving the debt itself, they forgave payment of the debt service.Individuals and businesses who cannot pay their landlords or lenders cannot be evicted or foreclosed until June.This doesn’t hurt the lenders or banks, because the loans are not in default, and their balance sheet is not impaired. The banks add the unpaid payments to their assets, and their balance sheets remain sound.
When June arrives, the prohibition against eviction and foreclosure will have to be extended as the accrued debt service cannot be paid.Extending the moratorium on foreclosures and evictions will just build up arrears. Is the implication a perpetual moratorium?
The question is: If policymakers are willing to forgive debt service, why not just forgive the debt.The latter is neater and clears the decks for an economic renewal.
The US economy has been financialized. Debt has been built up without a corresponding gain in productive capital investment in order to carry the mounting debt.
In financialized capitalism, the main purpose of bank loans is to refinance existing investments, not to expand productive capacity with which to service the debt.It is not possible to grow out of debt in a financialized economy, because too much income is used for debt service.The way to deal with this problem is to write down debts.
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Michael Hudson is an American economist professor of economics at the university of Missouri Kansas City and a researcher at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College.
Paul Craig Roberts has had careers in scholarship and academia, journalism, public service, and business. He is chairman of The Institute for Political Economy.
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Prominent signatories and five former OPCW officials are calling on the chemical watchdog to address the cover-up of its chemical weapons investigation in the Syrian city of Douma, and to hear out the dissenting scientists whose findings were censored.
Five former officials from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons have joined a group of prominent signatories to urge the OPCW to address the controversy surrounding its investigation of an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria in April 2018.
Leaks from inside the OPCW show that key scientific findings that cast doubt on claims of Syrian government guilt were censored, and that the original investigators were removed from the probe. Since the cover-up became public, the OPCW has shunned accountability and publicly attacked the two whistleblowers who challenged it from inside.
The “Statement of Concern” is signed by five former OPCW officials, including the organization’s founding leader, José Bustani, and others including Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Tulsi Gabbard, John Pilger, Lord West of Spithead, as well two former senior UN officials, Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck.
“The issue at hand threatens to severely damage the reputation and credibility of the OPCW and undermine its vital role in the pursuit of international peace and security,” the statement says. “It is simply not tenable for a scientific organization such as the OPCW to refuse to respond openly to the criticisms and concerns of its own scientists whilst being associated with attempts to discredit and smear those scientists.”
Pushback host Aaron Maté details the letter and airs clips of his and Tulsi Gabbard’s recent “Tucker Carlson Tonight” appearance discussing the OPCW controversy.
Statement of Concern: The OPCW investigation of alleged chemical weapons use in Douma, Syria March 11, 2021
We wish to express our deep concern over the protracted controversy and political fall-out surrounding the OPCW and its investigation of the alleged chemical weapon attacks in Douma, Syria, on 7 April 2018.
Since the publication by the OPCW of its final report in March 2019, a series of worrying developments has raised serious and substantial concerns with respect to the conduct of that investigation. These developments include instances in which OPCW inspectors involved with the investigation have identified major procedural and scientific irregularities, the leaking of a significant quantity of corroborating documents, and damning statements provided to UN Security Council meetings. It is now well established that some senior inspectors involved with the investigation, one of whom played a central role, reject how the investigation derived its conclusions, and OPCW management now stands accused of accepting unsubstantiated or possibly manipulated findings with the most serious geo-political and security implications. Calls by some members of the Executive Council of the OPCW to allow all inspectors to be heard were blocked.
The inspectors’ concerns are shared by the first Director General of the OPCW, José Bustani, and a significant number of eminent individuals have called for transparency and accountability at the OPCW. Bustani himself was recently prevented by key members of the Security Council from participating in a hearing on the Syrian dossier. As Ambassador Bustani stated in a personal appeal to the Director General, if the Organization is confident in the conduct of its Douma investigation then it should have no difficulty addressing the inspectors’ concerns.
To date, unfortunately, the OPCW senior management has failed to adequately respond to the allegations against it and, despite making statements to the contrary, we understand has never properly allowed the views or concerns of the members of the investigation team to be heard or even met with most of them. It has, instead, side-stepped the issue by launching an investigation into a leaked document related to the Douma case and by publicly condemning its most experienced inspectors for speaking out.
In a worrying recent development, a draft letter falsely alleged to have been sent by the Director General to one of the dissenting inspectors was leaked to an ‘open source’ investigation website in an apparent attempt to smear the former senior OPCW scientist. The ‘open source’ website then published the draft letter together with the identity of the inspector in question. Even more alarmingly, in a BBC4 radio series aired recently, an anonymous source, reportedly connected with the OPCW Douma investigation, gave an interview with the BBC in which he contributes to an attempt to discredit not only the two dissenting inspectors, but even Ambassador Bustani himself. Importantly, recent leaks in December 2020 have evidenced that a number of senior OPCW officials were supportive of one OPCW inspector who had spoken out with respect to malpractice.
The issue at hand threatens to severely damage the reputation and credibility of the OPCW and undermine its vital role in the pursuit of international peace and security. It is simply not tenable for a scientific organization such as the OPCW to refuse to respond openly to the criticisms and concerns of its own scientists whilst being associated with attempts to discredit and smear those scientists. Moreover, the on-going controversy regarding the Douma report also raises concerns with respect to the reliability of previous FFM reports, including the investigation of the alleged attack at Khan Shaykhun in 2017.
We believe that the interests of the OPCW are best served by the Director General providing a transparent and neutral forum in which the concerns of all the investigators can be heard as well as ensuring that a fully objective and scientific investigation is completed.
To that end, we call on the Director General of the OPCW to find the courage to address the problems within his organization relating to this investigation and ensure States Parties and the United Nations are informed accordingly. In this way we hope and believe that the credibility and integrity of the OPCW can be restored.
Signatories in Support of the Statement of Concern:
José Bustani, Ambassador of Brazil, first Director General of the OPCW and former Ambassador to the United Kingdom and France.
Professor Noam Chomsky, Laureate Professor U. of Arizona and Institute Professor (em), MIT.
Andrew Cockburn, Washington editor, Harper’s Magazine.
Daniel Ellsberg, PERI Distinguished Research Fellow, UMass Amherst. Former Defense and State Department official. Former official of Defense Department (GS-18) and State Department (FSR-1).
Professor Richard Falk, Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University.
Tulsi Gabbard, former Presidential candidate and Member of the US House of Representatives (2013-2021).
Professor Dr. Ulrich Gottstein, on behalf of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW-Germany).
Katharine Gun, former GCHQ (UKGOV), whistleblower.
Denis J. Halliday, UN Assistant Secretary-General (1994-98).
Professor Pervez Houdbhoy, Quaid-e-Azam University and ex Pugwash.
Kristinn Hrafnnson, Editor in Chief, Wikileaks.
Dr. Sabine Krüger, Analytical Chemist, Former OPCW Inspector 1997-2009.
Ray McGovern, ex-CIA Presidential Briefer; co-founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council (rtd); member, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence.
Professor Götz Neuneck, Pugwash Council and German Pugwash Chair.
Dirk van Niekerk, former OPCW Inspection Team Leader, Head of OPCW Special Mission to Iraq
John Pilger, Emmy and Bafta winning journalist and film maker.
Professor Theodore A. Postol, Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dr. Antonius Roof, former OPCW Inspection Team Leader and Head Industry Inspections.
Professor John Avery Scales, Professor, Pugwash Council and Danish Pugwash Chair.
Hans von Sponeck, former UN Assistant Secretary General and UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator (Iraq).
Alan Steadman, Chemical Weapons Munitions Specialist, Former OPCW Inspection Team Leader and UNSCOM Inspector.
Jonathan Steele, journalist and author.
Roger Waters, Musician and Activist.
Lord West of Spithead, First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff 2002-06.
Oliver Stone, Film Director, Producer and Writer.
Colonel (ret.) Lawrence B. Wilkerson, U.S. Army, Visiting Professor at William and Mary College and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell.
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Aaron Maté is a journalist and producer. He hosts Pushback with Aaron Maté on The Grayzone. He is also is contributor to The Nation magazine and former host/producer for The Real News and Democracy Now!. Aaron has also presented and produced for Vice, AJ+, and Al Jazeera.
All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
This is the first of a number of interviews with women from all continents who are committed to life. A project that has led us to a collective process that is allowing us to grow as individuals and as a whole.
The renowned physicist, thinker and activist Vandana Shiva proposes ecofeminism as a response to the current moment, in which the capitalist patriarchy is leading us to destruction and death, after having colonized nature, women and the future.
What do all the causes she defends have in common? She confesses,
“Everything comes out of me, like the love of life and freedom, whether it is the defense of seeds or being with my peasant sisters defending the land… [everything I do] has to do with the defense of life and freedom, from a place of love and resistance also in the face of the lack of freedom.”
Dr. Shiva proposes to take advantage of the ten-year window we still have to decolonize ourselves and change the direction we are taking, relying on feminist movements and young environmental defenders, thus saving the planet and, therefore, humanity and life.
Don’t miss the strength of her expression and listen to the words of a woman who is convinced and convincing about the fight for the future and life. Enjoy it!
Attached is the link to the Earth University courses, including the Ecofeminism course:
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Prof. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecofeminist, philosopher, activist, and author of more than 20 books and 500 papers. She is the founder of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, and has campaigned for biodiversity, conservation and farmers’ rights, winning the Right Livelihood Award [Alternative Nobel Prize] in 1993. She is executive director of the Navdanya Trust.
Vandan Shiva is a frequent contributor to Global Research
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The Netherlands will suspend the use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine until at least March 29 as a precaution, the Dutch government said on Sunday (Mar 14).
The move, which follows a similar decision by Ireland earlier in the day, is based on reports from Denmark and Norway of possible serious side effects, the government said.
No such cases had been found yet in the Netherlands, the Dutch Health ministry said in a statement, adding that there was no proof yet of a direct link between the vaccine and the reports from Denmark and Norway.
The government said it would now wait for an investigation by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
“We can’t allow any doubts about the vaccine,” Dutch Health minister Hugo de Jonge said.
“We have to make sure everything is right, so it is wise to pause for now.”
The Dutch late last week said there was no reason to stop using the vaccine, following reports of the formation of blood clots in some people who had been injected with it.
The EMA and the World Health Organisation have said there is no indication that these events were caused by the vaccination, and AstraZeneca has also said it had found no evidence of increased risk of deep-vein thrombosis.
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Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned last Friday that the US’ reportedly planned deployment of intermediate-range missiles to Japan “will certainly entail our retaliation”, which could realistically take the form of informally creating a Russian-Chinese-North Korean missile alliance in defensive response to that destabilizing scenario.
The US is so obsessed with attempting to “contain” China that it might ultimately be responsible for creating a Russian-Chinese-North Korean missile alliance if it doesn’t reconsider its reportedly planned deployment of intermediate-range missiles to Japan. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned last Friday that such a move “will certainly entail our retaliation” because it “would have an extremely destabilizing effect from the standpoint of international and regional security.” The Neo-Realist theory of International Relations preaches that states will always put their security interests first, which in this case could realistically lead to Russia, China, and North Korea coordinating their defensive response to America’s emerging missile-driven threat as is their right under international law. Such an outcome would arguably be against the US’ regional security interests, including those of its Japanese and South Korean allies.
It must be remembered that the Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership received an enormous boost in 2014 following the simultaneous onset of Western sanctions against the Eurasian Great Power during the Ukrainian Crisis in parallel with the US’ doubling down on its provocative actions in the South China Sea. The US’ strategic rivals as it officially considers them to be nowadays were pushed closer together than ever before due to their shared interests in responding to these provocations along their peripheries. Nevertheless, neither feelscomfortable becoming the other’s military ally because they don’t want to get caught up fighting their partner’s possible wars in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia respectively. That calculation might informally change as a result of the US’ reportedly planned intermediate-range missile deployment to Japan since such a move goes against both of their security interests in Northeast Asia, as well as that of their shared North Korean partner.
Russia and China already closely cooperate in the military sphere, with Moscow even helping Beijing construct a missile-attack warning system. This speaks to how much they trust one another. With that in mind, it’s only natural that they’d be pressed to take their military cooperation even further in the face of the US’ possible missile threats against them in Northeast Asia. North Korea might also coordinate with them in the event that it decides to double down on its missile program in response, thereby likely scuttling the already stalled denuclearization talks and possibly leading to another related crisis in the region. More multilateral pressure being put upon North Korea in that scenario would only push it closer to its Russian and Chinese neighbors, who both share Pyongyang’s concerns about the possible deployment of the US’ intermediate-range missiles in Japan. As such, an informal missile alliance between them wouldn’t be surprising.
The US doesn’t want Russia and China increasing their military cooperation even further than they already have, yet those two would have little choice but to do so as was argued, including through possible coordination with North Korea in the missile sphere. Some have previously speculated that such a scenario would be nightmarish for the US, but that’s exactly what the US is practically forcing them to do. In other words, from the American strategic standpoint, this outcome would be completely counterproductive for its interests. This observation raises the question of why responsible policymakers aren’t warning about that scenario considering how obvious it is. It can’t be known for sure, but it might very well be that the American strategic community has been captured by Sinophobic ideologues who are so blinded by their hatred of the People’s Republic that they don’t see how disadvantageous their so-called “missile diplomacy” with China is.
From the opposite perspective, those in favor of accelerating the onset of the Multipolar World Order will probably cheer the informal creation of a Russian-Chinese-North Korean missile alliance as a long-overdue development. They’ve been hoping that Russia and its partners would take such a step for a while already, yet it might ironically turn out that they needed American pressure to do so. It’ll remain to be seen what happens of course, but it seems unlikely that the US will hold back on its reported decision to deploy intermediate-range missiles to Japan or elsewhere in the region, thus catalyzing some form of the predicted response from Russia and its partners and thus potentially turning that scenario into a fait accompli. In any case, the world will find out soon enough what will ultimately happen, with the outcome interestingly being decided by none other than the US since its decision whether or not to provoke an Asian missile race will prove pivotal.
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This article was originally published on OneWorld.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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This report, No-First Use of Nuclear Weapons: A Policy Assessment (by William A. Chambers; Caroline R. Milne; Rhiannon T. Hutton; and Heather W. Williams), mandated by Congress to assess No First Use (NFU), argues strongly and unambiguously against any change in declaratory policy, and concludes that “the weight of all the evidence indicates significant potential for NFU to impart more harm than good”.
It appears written as a justification for prior determined positions, and rehashes familiar arguments for the status quo.
It claims an extensive research base from interviews with unnamed individuals (presumably representative of defence establishments) in defending speculative conclusions expressed in robust and definitive terms with little to no evidence. This in spite of its initial acknowledgement that it is near impossible to verify any conclusions in this area.
The essence of the argument repeated many times in the report is outlined on page 30. A US NFU would reduce uncertainties in the minds of adversaries and potentially embolden them in crises. But for this to be significant there would need to be a strong presumption on the part of adversaries and allies that the US currently plans to and would intend to use nuclear weapons first in plausible scenarios. And if accepted it is an argument that would apply in all circumstances and in perpetuity, relevant against any proposal that limits the freedom of action of a US President to authorize nuclear use in any circumstance.
In other words, the arguments marshalled against NFU in this report are not specific to an NFU, but rather are arguments in favour of maximising the practice of strategic ambiguity. In arguing this point the report singularly fails to address the most important negative consequence of strategic ambiguity, namely its undermining international solidarity and trust, and its tendency to drive arms races amongst defence establishments predisposed to worst case scenario planning. It ignores the immeasurable damage to US credibility and interests within the international community arising from its attachment to strategic ambiguity and exceptionalism.
The reaction of allies
Chapter 5 on the reaction of allies is particularly depressing and is the focus of this response. It hinges essentially on the idea that an NFU declaration would be interpreted by allies as a signal that the United States is less committed to extending military capabilities to defending its allies, and so would demand compensation elsewhere (such as increased deployments of conventional capabilities in theatre). The logic is fallacious, and the idea that allies have the power to demand ‘material compensation’ from an NFU declaration is equally bizarre.
There is no direct connection between an NFU and actual reduced commitment, other than clarifying what must already be known by allies and adversaries… that there are no realistic scenarios in which the United States would benefit from using nuclear weapons first in any regional conflict. Yet the fallacy has swayed previous decisions in Washington over NFU, and this report argues should do so again. If this link is misperceived by allies and an NFU interpreted as a reduction in commitment, then US officials need to better explain the situation as they consult allies over the decision. An explicit NFU would simply clarify the situation and bring greater transparency and stability to nuclear diplomacy. The fact that the United States continues to offer an extended nuclear deterrent underlines its commitment to the defence of its allies in those remaining scenarios where an aggressor might contemplate nuclear first use.
The report even goes as far to suggest that an NFU would create a discomfort within the UK and France, and divergence within NATO that could then be exploited by adversaries.
This argument is bizarre and erroneous, and the fact that it is used damages the report’s credibility. Both states have a nuclear posture already very divergent to that of the United States. They both, for example, have a completely different force posture, policies of minimum deterrence, a different targeting approach, and no formal arms control arrangements that involve inspections and verification.
Should the United States declare NFU some defence officials may experience some discomfort. There may be political pressure internally to follow the lead of the United States. But there would be no logical or strategic reason that would force such a change, particularly if the United States made it clear that they themselves would not expect them to follow suit. The report’s conclusion that Russia and China “will seek to leverage [US NFU] to gain diplomatic capital and undermine alliances” [p.37] has no evidence or explanation, and is without merit. What possible diplomatic capital could accrue to these states from tighter US declaratory policy? The idea explicitly referenced in the report that any such difference would be interpreted as disarray and could embolden Russia in a crisis is preposterous, suggesting a fragility to the Alliance that borders on the paranoid.
So-called ‘deterrence gaps’
The chapter makes reference to ‘deterrence gaps’, a controversial concept resuscitated by the Trump Nuclear Posture Review. It implies a wide acceptance of the concept and its applicability that is simply not there. The example given is in relation to the possibility that a country like Russia might consider limited use of nuclear weapons to force the United States and allies to back down in a regional conflict. There is no suggestion that the United States does not have global military superiority over its competitors – this would clearly be preposterous. The issue is whether a competitor might believe it has a window of superiority in a particular region in a particular moment, such that they act fast and hard to deter any US response. It would be a fearsome and risky calculation for any adversary, given the global capabilities fielded by the United States. Yet these so-called deterrence gaps need to be filled with capabilities in that region, so the thinking goes.
The implied requirement for full spectrum dominance in every region rapidly deepens negative threat perceptions of the United States, forcing an extended arms race and driving counter moves that are destabilising (consider Putin’s announcement of novel nuclear weapons in March 2018). It illustrates an insatiable desire for total security through military dominance if states have the capacity to pursue it, or making alliance with other states willing to provide cover.
If there is any use in this report it is in exposing the poverty of thinking that has obstructed moves towards an NFU in the past. We can only hope that clearer thinking within the new US Administration and within allied governments prevail and that an NFU gets a fair hearing.
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Paul Ingram is an independent commentator on nuclear deterrence and disarmament and director of Emergent Change. He was Executive Director of the British American Security Information Council (BASIC) 2007-2019, and is now working closely with the Swedish Foreign Ministry on the Stepping Stones Approach, the basis of the 16 state Stockholm Initiative on global nuclear disarmament. He is also a core member of Middle East Treaty Organisation (METO), the civil society group working to realise a WMD free zone.
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Progressive members of Congress are demanding that President Joe Biden bring pressure to bear on Saudi Arabia to end its yearslong blockade on Yemen—which has been maintained with U.S. help—after new reporting provided a closer look at the horrific suffering caused by the kingdom’s ongoing obstruction of food, medicine, and other essential supplies.
“With 400,000 children now at risk of starvation in Yemen, the U.S. must tell the Saudis in no uncertain terms: immediately end the blockade and let humanitarian aid in,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Thursday.
A CNNinvestigation into the U.S.-backed Saudi blockade on Yemen, which began in 2015, found that it has been more than two months since the blockade “has allowed tankers packed with the necessary fuel for food and supplies to reach starving Yemenis [and] to dock at the crucial port Hodeidah, which is controlled by the Houthis.”
“Fourteen tankers scheduled to dock there are currently being held off the Saudi coast, according to a vessel tracking app,” CNN reported Wednesday. “All of which goes against a United Nations agreement.”
Nima Elbagir, an international correspondent to CNN, traveled to northern Yemen to observe—and to show the public—the appalling conditions that the head of the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) described earlier this week as “hell.”
“We have a vaccine for this. It is called food,” said WFP executive director David Beasley, who warned that Yemen is on the brink of the worst famine in modern world history.
“Our window to save lives in Yemen is closing fast,” Beasley tweeted Friday. “We cannot turn our backs on the innocent victims of this war.”
Watch Elbagir’s dispatch (Warning: The footage is disturbing):
CNN‘s reporting prompted fresh pressure on the Biden administration—which has vowed to bring an end to the Saudi-led coalition’s war on Yemen—to use the U.S. government’s leverage as a major Saudi partner to force the brutal kingdom to lift the blockade, which the United Arab Emirates is also helping to enforce.
“President Biden should demand: ‘MBS, lift the blockade,'” tweetedRep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), referring to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “They will fold. They are desperate for American military aid, troop presence, and investment opportunities. This is a moment for moral clarity and bold leadership.”
Matt Duss, a foreign policy adviser to Sanders, noted that the “U.S. hasn’t just ‘partially funded’ this war. We’ve provided the planes, bombs, targeting intel, and midair refueling.”
“We are fully implicated in Yemen’s destruction,” said Duss. “We need to be an equal part of its reconstruction.”
Excellent, courageous journalism here.
Would only add that the US hasn't just "partially funded" this war. We've provided the planes, bombs, targeting intel, and midair refueling. We are fully implicated in Yemen's destruction. We need to be an equal part of its reconstruction. https://t.co/yw4wkTJMOc
Biden won widespread applause from peace organizations and progressive lawmakers for moving last month to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition’s “offensive operations” in Yemen, but observers questioned whether the administration’s move would have any impact on the devastating air, land, and sea blockade, which has persisted through the coronavirus pandemic.
“As long as the blockade is in place, millions of Yemenis will be at risk,” Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, toldAl-Jazeera last month. Last week, Riedel called the blockade an “offensive military operation that kills civilians.”
Writing for Responsible Statecraft on Friday, Middle East analyst Arwa Mokdad arguedthat “if Biden is truly dedicated to ending U.S. offensive support to the Saudis and supporting peace in Yemen, he must press the two Gulf powers to immediately end their blockade.”
“By lifting the blockade,” Mokdad wrote, “we can avert the looming famine and start productive peace negotiations.”
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Someone needs to say this, and it looks like it’s gotta be me: China and Russia are not our enemies.
Somehow, the opinion-makers in the media, the bloated military brass with all their ribbons and stars and with little to do but worry about how to keep their massively overbuilt operation afloat with ever more taxpayer money, and the members of Congress who like to gin up fears among the voters so they’ll keep voting for them have gotten everyone thinking that Russia is still hell bent on world communist takeover and that China it trying to replace the US as global hegemon.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
First let’s talk military forces:
The US has an army of 2.5 million — 1.5 million active duty and one million reservists and National Guard units,
Russia’s army numbers 2.9 million but only 900,000 of those are active duty, with two million being reservists.
China has 2.8 million active duty troops, but that number is deceptive. 800,000 of them are so-called armed police, the Wu Jing, and their job is keeping a restive population in check. They are not for fighting wars, but for controlling the people of the country.
Now let’s talk military budgets:
The US will spend, if we want to be purists, $716 billion on the military. It’s actually a lot more because the National Security Agency is part of the military, and the CIA to all intents and purposes is military in nature and between them their secret budgets top more than the $50 billion that was leaked in a Congressional hearing eight years ago, and could be double that now since so much more US military activity is now handled by Special Forces acting under the direction of the CIA, but for sake of argument let’s just leave it at $716 billion.
Russia’s military budget is $65 billion, and even if you tripled that to account for how much more expensive everything is in the US from soldiers’ pay to weapons systems would represent less than a third of what the US spends.
China’s military budget $183 billion, and again, you could double that if you like to account for different costs and it would be less than half of the US military budget.
That is to say, even if you put the Chinese and Russian militaries together, their budgets would be significantly smaller than the US military budget.
On top of that there’s the matter of where those three militaries are.
The US has 800 bases in 70 countries and at least the last time the White House reported on the subject, in a 2018 report to Congress, it had troops fighting in seven countries.
Russia, according to a report in Izvestia, has 21 military bases operating outside of the country, many of them in states that were formerly part of the Soviet Union until 1990, like Tajikistan, Armenia and Belarus. The only place it has soldiers fighting is in Syria.
China has four overseas basis — one in Djibouti, one in Tajikistan, and two signal facilities in Myanmar and at the southern tip of Argentina.
Finally, and this is important, the US has nine operational aircraft carrier battle groups, eight based in the US and one in Japan, all available for force projection anywhere in the world, and carrying more planes than almost any of the world’s other air forces not counting Russia and China. The US carriers are all nuclear powered and can remain away from home port indefinitely. US carriers have frequently been posted for operational use off the coast of Afghanistan, in the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf and in the Mediterranean. One was even sent into the Arctic Ocean a few years back.
Russia has one oil-powered aircraft carrier. It rarely leaves port.
China has two aircraft carriers, which stay close to home.
In terms of nuclear weaponry, the US and Russia each have 1600 actively deployed nuclear warheads, limited by a treaty that is currently in fragile shape. They each have a total of over 6000 nuclear warheads, with over 4500 of them in each country in storage.
China has 380 nuclear warheads, more than double what India has.
As far as delivery systems for those nukes, the US has 405 Minuteman III missiles, each capable of carrying three independently targetable and highly accurate warheads. It also has 14 Trident missile-firing nuclear submarines each capable of carrying 24 Trident missiles with up to 8 independently targetable warheads, though these subs are currently limited to carrying just eight missiles and four or five warheads on each, for a total of 40 nukes per submarine.
Russia in 202 claimed to have 517 land-based missile launchers on its territory to carry those warheads to targets.It also has 11 missile launching subs each capable of carrying 16 missiles with multiple warheads.
China is estimated to have 100 nuclear capable missiles of various ranges. Not all could reach the US.It has six nuclear missile carrying submarines.
While even one nuclear weapon striking a country — even a country as large as are Russia, China and the US — it is clear from all these figures that the US has by far the most dominant military in the world.
Russia or China would be crazy to take on the US militarily, and in fact, there is no indication that either country is even considering doing such a thing. Indeed, where the US engages its military at will all over the globe, China and Russia have consistently limited their military activities to areas near their home countries.
The Pentagon and its backers in the US media and in Congress, have to strain like a person with severe constipation in order to produce anything resembling a threat from either country, as when Russia a few years ago flew one of its aging long-range bombers over the pole and landed with some supplies to donate to Venezuela, and the US press was filled with alarms that the jet was “capable of carrying nuclear weapons, as I Russia might decide to drop one on Miami of Boston on the return flight home.
If readers could get past the heavy breathing of the reporters they might have recalled that the US sends it’s nuclear capable bombers, both B-52 Stratofortresses and the much more ominous B-2 Stealth bombers, half way around the world, to actively bomb other countries (with conventional ordnance) or to “send a signal” just by flying near a country like Iran.
The real threat posed by Russia and China is commercial. The US acts as though a Russian pipeline called Nordstream, being built under the North Sea to bring cheap Russian natural gas to Western Europe is a virtual act of war. And China, with its huge “belt and road” project to link eastern China to Europe with high-speed rail and all-weather highways to facilitate trade between Europe and Asia is some kind of devious military maneuver.
Let’s get real. The US military is the biggest threat to the future of the United States. It’s ravenous appetite for ever more money, which Congress obliges year after year, is gobbling up almost the entire discretionary budget of the federal government — an amount which, even if you just count the official numbers represents half of the total tax collection of the government each year.
A great example of this is the F-35 nuclear-capable fighter bomber, a $1.7-trillion dollar boondoggle which now, mid-way through its production process, the Pentagon admits is a complete failure as an aircraft, unreliable, incapable of flying at supersonic speed as it destroys its “stealth” coating, too heavy to engage other planes in aerial dogfights, and a danger to pilots because of avionics that are unreliable. It is likely to end up in a very expensive scrap heap and nobody is being blamed for this epic waste.
If we were actually concerned about national security, we would slash the US military by 90 percent and its budget by the same amount, bring all the ships and troops home from those 800 overseas bases, get out of all the conflicts into which the government injects our military — usually illegally—and start taking care of this country, which is, from the stand point of education, environment, health care, infrastructure, economy, and democratic governance in pretty sad shape.
Anyone who has traveled to Europe or Asia can attest that in many countries one feels like a visitor from the Third World. The US has abilities — like the landing of the Perseverance Rover on Mars — but meanwhile Japanese and Chinese people whisk between cities on smooth-as-glass high-speed trains while Europeans get their health care delivered free at point of service, mostly covered by taxes paid by all, get six or more weeks of paid vacation and retire without a suffering plunge in living standard.
Lets us US citizens smarten up and start figuring out who our real enemies are. Guess what? They’re right here at home, not in Beijing or Moscow, and the biggest one is a big five-sided building across the Potomac River from the Lincoln monument.
Back in October 1967, Abbie Hoffman led a group of protesters during a huge antiwar demonstration outside the Pentagon in a mock attempt to levitate the monstrous building constructed during World War II. Maybe it would be better to just raze it, use eminent domain to evice Trump’s hotel from the old Washington Post Office building so it can house a much smaller and appropriately re-named War Department bureaucracy, and then force them tne new tenant to share the space with a new Department of Peace.
We and the peoples of the world would all be better off for the change.
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Featured image: America’s biggest threat: The Pentagon (US Department of ‘Defense’ photo)
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The recent disclosure by the Wall Street Journal that Israel has been waging a covert war against Syria-bound Iranian oil tankers, using water mines and other explosives does not come as a surprise. But it would be misleading to attribute this only to a continuing historic rivalry between Israel and Syria, or the contemporary one with Iran. Instead, it is clear that the actions of Israel along with the recent United States air strikes against purported Iranian-backed militias in Syria, as well as the imposition of sanctions against Syria represent the continuum of a failed policy to overthrow the government of Syria.
All of these ill-considered measures do not stand a chance of causing the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, instead they risk prompting an all-out war between Iran and its regional adversaries Israel and Saudi Arabia. However, the fact that the Wall Street Journal used US government and regional officials as sources for the story may indicate that there are dissenting voices in Washington which seek to promote a different course from that taken by successive US administrations.
It has long been an open secret that the government of the United States has, with the connivance of its allies in the Middle East, sought to overthrow the Ba’athist government led by President Bashar al-Assad. This policy, revealed in a succession of position papers, economic manoeuvres and covert warfare, much of which was predicated on the utility of Islamist proxies, was an overarching one designed to reshape the Middle East and North Africa by taking down the governments in a number of countries, all of which shared a common opposition to the State of Israel.
The succession of policy documents prepared by Israel-friendly, often neoconservative, think-tanks, were often explicit about which countries to take down as well as the means of accomplishing this. General Wesley Clark’s recollection of a memorandum shown to him by former colleagues in the Pentagon in 2001 detailed how the United State was going to “take out seven countries in five years”. Those targeted were Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran. This was consistent with the ‘Statement of Principles’ of the now defunct Project for the New American Century, as indeed they were with the ‘Clean Break’ document, that is, AClean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, a policy document produced in 1996 for Binyamin Netanyahu during his first tenure as prime minister of Israel. Part of the strategy alluded to the “weakening, controlling and even rolling back” of Syria.
Other papers provided the suggested means of destroying these states. The RAND Corporation-produced and Pentagon-funded 2008 paper entitled Unfolding the Future of the Long War: Motivations, Prospects and Implications for the U.S. Army pointed towards the exacerbation of tensions between Sunni and Shia communities, while a declassified Defense Intelligence Agency document from August 2012 which was circulated to US government agencies such as the State Department, the CIA and the FBI, explicitly desired the creation of a “declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria”, a state of affairs which it suggested could be achieved by declaring a ‘No Fly Zone’ as had been done in Libya when NATO had given cover to Islamist militias, including the al-Qaeda-affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which had overthrown the government of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi during the previous year. There was evidence that a segment of the jihadists who were involved in the overthrow of Gaddafi were transferred to the Syrian theatre most notably through Turkey, which along with Israel and the Gulf emirates, was facilitating the infiltration of Syria by foreign Islamists.
It is against this background that Israeli strikes on Iranian tankers, the launching by the Biden administration of missile strike in Syria and the implementation of sanctions against Syria can be understood.
These actions come in the wake of the failure to unseat the government of Syria. At the heart of this were the actions of Syria’s regional allies, the component nations of the so-called Shia Crescent represented on the ground by the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The intervention of Russia proved decisive in preventing the fall of the secular government of Syria. The Syrian Arab Army alongside its Shia allies and the use of Russian air power gradually reclaimed most of the major cities of the country. This reconquest from Islamist groups such as the so-called Islamic State would have been total but for the actions of the United States in occupying the oil-producing eastern part of the country and Turkey in doing the same along parts of its border with Syria. Turkey has also been instrumental in protecting the last bastion of Islamist control in the city of Idlib in north eastern Syria.
The substantive interest of the United States in taking down the government of Syria is not immediately obvious to an impartial observer. And with the perennial economic motives related to mineral wealth absent, the centrality of Israeli interests to which the United States has strenuously catered to for many decades becomes all the more apparent. Certainly, Roland Dumas, a former foreign minister of France, when speaking on the French Parliamentary TV network station LCP in June of 2013, was clear in his assessment that the war in Syria, which had been in his words “prepared, conceived and organised” at least two years before the insurgency began in 2011, was pursued for the benefit of Israel.
Israel’s influence on American foreign policy is well documented as is its historical mission to achieve and maintain its regional hegemony by a continuous policy of seeking to balkanise its Arab and Muslim neighbours. One clear motive for achieving the dismemberment of Syria would be the difficulty of successor statelets to reclaim the Golan Heights which it illegally annexed in 1981.
Israel has pursued its covert war on Iranian tankers with a well practiced amorality and cynicism. The damage or destruction of oil carrying vessels obviously runs the risk of polluting the oceans and nearby coastlines, and the revelations of this subterfuge puts into doubt Israeli accusations that Iran was responsible for the deliberate spilling of oil which reached its coastline and caused what is believed to be one of Israel’s worst ecological disasters. The suggested “environmental terrorism” on the part of the Iranians as claimed by Gila Gamliel, the Israeli Environmental Protection Minister, may likely be in fact the proceed of Israeli terrorism on the high seas.
The moral bankruptcy of the policy pursued by the United States and Israel in providing both direct and indirect aid to Islamist groups bent on overthrowing the Syrian government continues with the acts of terror committed by the Israelis on the oceans, a policy condoned by the Trump administration.
President Joe Biden’s decision to launch strikes into Syrian territory meant that he became the third successive U.S. President to do this against a sovereign country with which the United States is not officially at war.
It is disturbing to note that apart from some voices who questioned the constitutionality of taking such action given that War Powers Act of 1973 expressly prohibits the executive branch from committing the country to an armed conflict without prior authorisation from Congress, few political figures apart from former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard have referred to the context of America’s strategy of regime change.
Also lacking a moral basis is the regime of sanctions imposed on Syria by the United States through the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019 (the ‘Caesar Act’), an action which only serves to deprive the bulk of the Syrian population of food and medicine. The aforementioned occupation of Syrian territory by the United States and Turkey is depriving the war ravaged country of food which could be made from wheatfields and oil which would provide revenues desperately needed for national reconstruction.
Sanctions often only have the effect of increasing mass suffering in the countries which are targeted. One example is the estimated deaths of at least half a million children in Iraq during the regime of Saddam Hussein. The U.S. Secretary of State of the time Madeleine Albright unfortunately asserted that she believed that the price was “worth it.”
The cold-blooded callousness behind Albright’s words are no less relevant to what is being imposed on Syria today by the United States which bears responsibility as the grand author of the Syrian tragedy. There is less chance of the United States and Israel succeeding in overthrowing Assad through an economic war than there was in overthrowing him via a covert war. The combination of multiple airstrikes on Syrian territory by Israel and the imposition of sanctions only serves to prolong the presence of Iran and Russia in Syria, a country where as the invitees of the legitimate government of a sovereign state, they have a legal presence in contrast to the illegal occupation of the United States.
The prolongation of anti-Syrian actions risks sparking a destructive regional war between Iran and its regional allies on the one hand and the Israelis and the Saudis on the other, with the latter bloc hoping to involve the United States. Such a war would not only be catastrophic for the region, it would ensure that American moral authority would sink to greater depths after decades of waging a succession of illegal wars.
There is some hope perhaps that sanity will prevail because the help given by official sources to the Wall Street Journal which revealed the sabotage policy being pursued by the Israeli state, can be construed as a rebuke for the futile sustaining of a discredited and failed policy of regime change.
Time will tell.
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Adeyinka Makinde is a writer and law lecturer based in London who has an interest in geopolitics. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.
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Forget the global university rankings of any list. The global university promotion exercise is filled with snake oil and perfumed refuse, an effort to corrupt the unknowing and steal from the gullible. The aim here is to convince parents, potential students and academics that their institutions of white collar crime are appealing enough to warrant enrolment and employment at.
Writing in 2019, Ellen Hazelkorn, who has had an eye on the rankings system for some years, observed that 18,000 university-level institutions could be found across the globe. “Those ranked within the top 500 would be within the top 3% worldwide. Yet, by a perverse logic, rankings have generated a perception amongst the public, policymakers and stakeholders that only those within the top 20, 50 or 100 are worthy of being called excellent.”
Rankings are complicated by a range of factors: methodological problems in arriving at the figure, what institutions themselves submit, their wealth (endowments, well moneyed donors, grants received) and age (old ties, networks), and, fundamentally, what is being asked of that institution. Such grading systems have been found, as Nancy Adler and Anne-Wil Harzing describe it, to be “dysfunctional and potentially cause more harm than good”.
One factor that does not find itself into the rankings bonanza is that of academic freedom. This surely would be one of the primary considerations in what is irritatingly called the “knowledge economy”. None of the three most consulted registers – the QS rankings, Times Higher Education or the Shanghai Academic Rankings of World Universities – makes mention of it.
This has obvious implications. Higher education institutions in countries where repression, censorship, surveillance and punishment of academics are condoned do not need to worry about being compromised in the climb up the ladder. An obvious example is the application of the Chinese National Security Law to Hong Kong, which has seen entities such as the Chinese University of Hong Kong sever ties with the freshly elected student union. Campus events at both CUHK and the University of Hong Kong have also been cancelled for fears of violating the NSL.
The PRC is merely an obvious example. Countries supposedly romping home in any academic freedom contest also face questions. In Australia, thuggish administrators and academic turncoats are moving in on crushing the contrarians, reducing the entire teaching syllabus and research agenda to the drool of wonky projections and outcomes. The idea is simple: You must be decent and liked, boringly acceptable in discourse and compliant in observing directives from management. The project is guaranteed through such slime-coated documents as the “code of conduct”, which is meant to make everyone good by keeping education and incompetence in the higher echelons of university governance safe. Discomfort is eschewed; different thoughts suppressed.
Australian learning and research institutions, as in other developed countries, have been tempted by various powerful financial incentives – money from Chinese sources, for instance – to make any campus criticism difficult. Last year, the University of Queensland took a dim view of the protest efforts of student activist Drew Pavlou, citing 11 allegations of misconduct in a bulky 186-page document befitting any show trial process. Pavlou was suspended for “prejudicing” the university’s reputation by, in his words, “using my position as an elected student representative to express support for Hong Kong’s democratic protesters.” UQ’s Vice Chancellor Peter Høj was damning in silence, telling the university’s alumni in a July 17, 2020 email that UQ lived and breathed “an ongoing commitment to the protection and promotion of free speech every day.”
A number of scholars and activists have suggested an institutional corrective to the deceptive picture of rankings. The Academic Freedom Index is one such proposal, developed by members of the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi), the Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), the Scholars at Risk Network and the V-Dem Institute.
In their report Free Universities: Putting the Academic Freedom Index Into Action, Katrin Kinzelbach, Ilyas Saliba, Janika Spannagel and Robert Quinn hope to “bring a rights and freedoms perspective into debates on higher education governance and policy.” They make the point that academic excellence and reputation are currently considered mere functions of outputs in the current scheme. “As a result, institutions in repressive environments have climbed the reputation ladder and now occupy the top ranks.” Confidently, the authors make the claim that featuring an adjusted rank “would lower the chances for institutions constrained by such restrictive environments to improve their international reputations and attract academic talents”.
The AFi is also drawn from 2,000 experts who were asked to contribute on various indicators “in the de facto realization of academic freedom”: the freedom to teach and research; freedom of academic exchange and dissemination; institutional autonomy; campus integrity; and freedom of academic and cultural expression.
As with any index, questions will be asked about what is left out. There is also something inherently artificial in the exercise of correcting a ranking using the AFi measure. Even the contributors to the report admit to not knowing “enough about academic freedom and the factors that sustain or threaten it.” Declining levels of academic freedom are noted in Belarus, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and Zambia; Gambia is earmarked as being stellar for permitting scholars’ freedom to collaborate and disseminate their findings.
As Saliba explained, most states which had witnessed a deterioration of academic freedom relative to 2019 were those implementing “novel regulations that limit freedom to research, teach and publish” and initiated “repressive political acts against pro-democracy movements with a strong base among students and faculty.” These are conventional measures, and do not consider the more subtle forms of suppression and regulation to be found in various Western states. Australian institutions, for instance, maintain their undeservingly high rankings, suggesting that much more needs to be done to make the index accurate.
A recommendation to the collective can be suggested. One of the most potent threats to the academy lies in the commercial and corporate bureaucratisation of the university, suggesting that the very notion of rankings, drawn from a global knowledge economy parcelled in the language of outcomes, is not only misplaced but deeply flawed. The AFi has merit on some level, but does not shed light on the more sinister policies focused on reputation management. In its current form, the index risks becoming a tool for managers keen to show they are making changes which leave no substantive effect.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
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The number of doses to be administered in Ireland this week has been reduced by more than a third of the original plan due to the pause in the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) has recommended that the administration of the Covid-19 AstraZeneca vaccine be temporarily deferred, pending the outcome of an investigation at EU level.
In a statement this morning, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn said the recommendation has been made following a report from the Norwegian Medicines Agency of four new reports of serious blood clotting events in adults after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine.
“It has not been concluded that there is any link between the Covid-19 vaccine AstraZeneca and these cases,” Dr Glynn said.
“However, acting on the precautionary principal, and pending receipt of further information, the NIAC has recommended the temporary deferral of the Covid-19 vaccine AstraZeneca vaccination programme in Ireland.”
80,000 vaccines were due to be administered in Ireland this week, the HSE told TheJournal.ie.
“We now expect to administer approximately 50,000,” the HSE said.
“While we are expecting to administer about 30,000 less than planned they would not all be ‘cancelled appointments’ as specific appointments would not have been made for many later in the week.”
The Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) is in a continued dialogue with the EMA and national medicines regulators across Europe in respect of the ongoing European review.
The decision to temporarily suspend use of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine was based on new information from Norway that emerged late last night. This is a precautionary step. The National Immunisation Advisory Comm meets again this morning and we’ll provide an update after that
Norwegian health officials yesterday reported a number of further cases of blood clots or brain haemorrhages in younger people who received the AstraZeneca Covid-19 jab, but said they could not yet say they were vaccine-related.
The Norwegian Medicines Agency said similar incidents had been reported in other European countries. While there was no proof of a link to the vaccine, anyone under 50 who felt unwell and developed large blue patches after vaccination should seek medical attention.
Yesterday, the Norwegian Medicines Agency said it had “received several adverse event reports about younger vaccinated people with bleeding under the skin (tiny dots and /or larger blue patches) after coronavirus vaccination.
“This is serious and can be a sign of reduced blood platelet counts,” it said.
“Today, we received three more reports of severe cases of blood clots or brain haemorrhages in younger people who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine. These are now receiving hospital treatment,” it added.
Geir Bukholm, director of Infection Control and Environmental Health at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, said that following the decision to suspend the jab, it was now “the Norwegian Medicines Agency’s role to follow up on these suspected side effects and take the necessary measures”.
Explaining the concern regarding the latest clotting reports from Norway, Dr Glynn told RTÉ Radio One’s This Week that there had been a number of disparate reports during the week from a number of different places, and that “the majority of those reports were to do with clots in the leg or cloths in the lung,”
However, he added that:
“The four reports that have come through from Norway are specific to clotting events involving the brain, and again they’re clotting events in younger people in their 30s and 40s, which is unusual.
To date, the HPRA has received a small number of reports associated with blood clots following vaccination with the AstraZeneca vaccine. However, it has not received any reports of the nature of those described by the Norwegian Medicines Agency.
The HRPA said it will continue to monitor national reports “very closely”.
Speaking to RTÉ Radio One’s Brendan O’Connor this morning, NIAC chairperson Professor Karina Butler said the question currently is whether the newly reported clots are “totally coincidental, random events” or if “there could be a casual relationship that the vaccine may have triggered” the symptoms.
“We, above all, want to ensure that what we’re recommending is safe and that we can maintain confidence in the vaccine programme, we felt that we had to pause, just pause, until we get the additional information that could possibly, hopefully, give us the reassurance that this is fine,” Professor Butler said.
“We did this out of abundance of caution,” she said.
She added that she hopes if the roll-out of the AstraZeneca vaccine can resume, the public will have “even greater confidence that this has been looked at absolutely rigorously, absolutely thoroughly and there was no need to worry”.
Professor Butler said that it is hoped there will be a “conclusion” to this situation by “the end of the week”.
The World Health Organization has said no causal link had been established between the vaccine and blood clotting after Denmark, Norway and Iceland on Thursday temporarily suspended the use of the vaccine over concerns about patients developing post-jab blood clots.
The HPRA said in a statement this afternoon that “there is currently no indication that the vaccine was the cause of these events and there may be alternative explanations for their occurrence that are unrelated to the vaccine”.
“However, the safety of the public is of the utmost importance, and it is essential that reports of potential safety concerns, even if very rare, are rigorously and swiftly investigated so that the public can be reassured and if required, appropriate action can be taken,” it said.
Roll-out impact
It’s currently unclear how long the AstraZeneca vaccine roll-out will be suspended for.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio One’s This Week, Dr Ronan Glynn said the EMA is due to meet again on Wednesday or Thursday to discuss data collected regarding the situation.
With regards to the roll-out of the Pfizer/Moderna vaccine, HSE’s Chief Clinical OfficerDr Colm Henry told the programme that the distribution of those will continue “without disruption”.
The people affected by the suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine will be the remaining healthcare workers and, to some extent, the category of people aged 16-69 who have high risk conditions, according to Dr Henry.
“They are the group that for whom the vaccination appointments are suspended pending the outcome of the EMA [investigation],” Dr Henry said.
AstraZeneca response
AstraZeneca, an Anglo-Swedish company which developed the vaccine with Oxford University, has defended the safety of its product.
In a statement released this morning, a spokesperson for the company said an analysis of its safety data that covers reported cases from more than 17 million doses of vaccine administered “has shown no evidence of an increased risk of pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis or thrombocytopenia with Covid-19 vaccine AstraZeneca”.
“In fact, the reported numbers of these types of events for Covid-19 vaccine AstraZeneca are not greater than the number that would have occurred naturally in the unvaccinated population,” the spokesperson said.
“In clinical trials, no trends or patterns were observed with regard to pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis, or events possibly related to thrombocytopenia,” they said.
“A careful review of all available safety data including these events is ongoing and AstraZeneca is committed to sharing information without delay. We also note that the European Medicine Agency (EMA) has asked for an assessment of events related to thrombocytopenia from other COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers (per communication 11 March).”
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Last year, former US President Donald Trumpannounced very clearly, that part of the US forces mission in Syria is to protect the oil fields and to take a share of them.
This statement was an official admission of the US forces’ plundering of Syrian natural resources in a flagrant and declared violation of international laws, which prohibit a country from stealing another country’s property, and depriving an entire people of the benefits of this wealth.
By the end of last June, it was announced from Washington the signing of an agreement between the “SDF” and an American oil company, regarding the extraction of oil from the Syrian fields, and the US Secretary of State at the time “Mike Pompeo” didn’t hesitate to announce that the agreement came under the direct supervision of the US State Department.
Sources reported that the stealing of the Syrian oil hadn’t stopped since the beginning of the American presence in the regions of the Syrian Jazeera under the pretext of fighting “ISIS”, indicating that the quantities of oil that the organization was stealing during the period of its control over the region are now going to the benefit of the Americans with giving a part of it in favor of the “SDF”.
The source pointed out that the stolen oil convoys from the fields of Deir Al-Zour and Al-Hasakah, especially the fields of “Al-Tanak” and “Al-Omar” in the countryside of Deir Al-Zour takes several routes to transport what is looted of oil, as some of them go to the east towards the region of “Kurdistan” Iraq through the illegal Al-Waleed corridor, and it’s sold there for the benefit of the Americans, as for the share that the SDF takes from the stolen oil, it’s either sold in the areas of the Syrian Jazeera under the control of the SDF, or it’s smuggled to the areas controlled by the Turkish forces and the factions loyal to it in northern Syria despite the declared hostility between “Ankara” and the “SDF”.
The source pointed out that the theft of oil, selling it, and ignoring that it belongs to the entire Syrian people, is a major source of the continuous bleeding of the Syrian economy and a major point in the accumulation of war losses, which figures indicate that they amounted to 1.2 trillion dollars during 10 years.
The source mentioned that when it contracted with An American company, it chose the newly emerging “Delta Crescent Energy” company, indicating that it wasn’t a coincidence and that the directives coming from “Washington” ordered the “SDF” to contract with this company in particular, despite the illegality of the contract by virtue of the fact that the “SDF” isn’t a legitimate authority empowered to control the country’s wealth.
But the striking point is that the company that was selected is related to the names of 3 former officials of the US administration, and they are the former US ambassador to Denmark James Kane, the retired officer from the Delta forces in the US army James Raine, and the director of the oil executive in the company “John Durrer”, who previously worked with American oil companies in the middle east and forged relations with American administration officials, so that the company was chosen to be the main investor in the oil fields.
The source indicated that the company was allowed to carry out all activities of energy development, transportation, refining, marketing and exploration in the Syrian fields, which means that it has acquired wide powers in controlling the oil production and determining its price and the destination to which it will be exported, in an organized and publicized theft of the capabilities of the Syrian people.
Despite the international condemnation for signing the contract, whether from the Syrian government or even from Turkey, Russia and many others, the American forces continued to steal the Syrian wealth, while the rest of the Syrians were deprived of their right to the wealth of their country in the middle of the increasing living difficulties due to the economic war waged by Washington against Damascus through sanctions.
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This article which is of relevance to the ongoing debate on the Covid-19 vaccine, was first published on the Duluth Reader in December 2019.
“The FDA receives 45% of its annual budget from the pharmaceutical industry. The World Health Organization (WHO) gets roughly 50% of its budget from private sources, including Big Pharma and its allied foundations. And the CDC, frankly, is a vaccine company; it owns 56 vaccine patents and buys and (very profitably) distributes $4.6 billion in vaccines annually through the Vaccines for Children program, which represents over 40% of its total budget.” — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr
“The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) derives a majority of its outside contributions – estimated at more than $25 million per year – from pharmaceutical companies that make vaccines. The pediatricians that the AAP represents derive the majority of their annual revenues from the administration of vaccines to their pediatric patients.) — J.B. Handley
“Perhaps the most infamous example of corruption at the CDC is how the head of the CDC from 2002 to 2009, Julie Gerberding, left her government job to become president of Merck’s $5 billion dollar/year Vaccine Division. Merck’s CEO understandably described Gerberding as an “ideal choice”. She held that position until 2014 and currently holds the Merck job title of “Executive Vice President & Chief Patent Officer, Strategic Communications, Global Public Policy and Population Health”. That is to say, the former CDC director is now in charge of Merck’s propaganda efforts. One might say she’s basically doing the same job now that she did for the CDC, but even more lucratively. Apart from her salary, in 2015, Gerberding sold shares of Merck worth over $2.3 million. While at the CDC Gerberding shepherded Merck’s highly controversial and highly profitable Gardasil vaccine through the regulatory maize” — From Collective-evolution.com
“The majority of studies that authorities point to as (contrived) proof that vaccines do not cause autism have been published in a journal called Pediatrics, the official journal of the AAP. As we know, the AAP is a trade union for pediatricians.” – J.B. Handley “Since vaccines are liability-free – and effectively compulsory to a captive market of 76 million children – there is meager market incentive for companies to make them safe. The public must rely on the moral scruples of Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, and Pfizer. But these companies have a long history of operating recklessly and dishonestly, even with (the many drug) products for which they can be sued for injuries. The four companies that make virtually all of the recommended vaccines are all convicted felons. Collectively they have paid over $35 billion since 2009 for defrauding regulators, lying to and bribing government officials and physicians, falsifying science, and leaving a trail of (incurable chronic illnesses) injuries and deaths from products they knew to be dangerous and still sold under pretense of safety and efficacy.” – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr
“I ate breakfast last week with the president of a network news division at CBS, and he told me that during non-election years, 70% of the advertising revenues for his news division come from pharmaceutical ads. And if you go on TV any night and watch the network news, you’ll see they become just a vehicle for selling pharmaceuticals. He also told me that he would fire a host who brought onto his station a guest who lost him a pharmaceutical account.” — Robert F. Kennedy Jr “Fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported. The CDC’s entire vaccination propaganda campaign rests on their claim that side effects from vaccination are exceedingly rare, but according to the blatantly pro-over-vaccination, and Big Pharma-funded CDC, in 2016 alone, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) received 59,117 vaccine adverse event reports. Among those reports were 432 vaccine-related deaths, 1,091 permanent vaccine-related disabilities, 4,132 vaccine-related hospitalizations, and 10,274 vaccine-related emergency room visits. What if these numbers actually represent less than 1% of the total as this report asserts? You multiply those numbers by 100.” – William Christenson
Please study immediately below the following quotes about the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil, which Merck’s propaganda/lobbying department has very successfully marketed, even acquiring fast-track status from the FDA that eliminated the need for long-term safety or efficacy studies.
Gardasil has been heavily marketed even prior to its FDA-approval in 2006 (for the Gardasil-4 vaccine – and again in 2014 for the Gardasil-9 vaccine) for the theoretical prevention of cancer of the cervix for young healthy adolescent females 30 – 40 years into the future that will require periodic vaccination booster shots that contain aluminum adjuvants for life – the exact frequency of which has yet to be determined, since the long-term efficacy and safety studies haven’t been performed!!
Incidentally, the following vaccines contain aluminum:
“Anthrax, DT, DTaP (Infanrix), DTaP-IPV, DTaP-HepB-IPV (Pediarix), DTaP –IPV/Hib, Hep A, Hep B, HepA/Hep B (Twinrix), HIB (PedvaxHIB), HPV (Gardasil and Cervarix), Japanese encephalitis, MenB (Bexsero), Pneumococcal (Prevnar 13), Td, TDaP.”
The following few quotes about the unacknowledged dangers of any aluminum-saturated vaccine (which applies to both HPV vaccines, including GlaxoSmithKline’s (Cervarix, approved by the FDA in 2009) come from Canadian research physician Dr Lucija Tomljenovic. These important quotes were excerpted from Dr Tomljenovic’s alarming medical journal article that revealed the histologic findings of the cerebral vasculitis (toxic inflammation of the blood vessels in the brain) from two previously healthy young women following their deaths after their routine Gardasil vaccinations, see this.
Here are more important quotes:
“Gardasil is a recombinant vaccine and contains virus-like particles (VLPs) of HPV types 6, 11, 16, and 18 as active substances…The VLPs are adsorbed on amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate (AAHP) adjuvant nanoparticles. Animal models show that aluminum adjuvant nanoparticles are taken up by monocytes after injection, translocate to lymph nodes, then travel across the blood-brain barrier and eventually accumulate in the brain where they can cause significant immune-inflammatory adverse reactions. Thus, the presence of VLP particles in cerebral vasculature in the brain tissue specimens from young women who have died following vaccination with Gardasil may be explained by a “Trojan horse” mechanism that is dependent on circulating macrophages by which these particles adsorbed to aluminum adjuvant to gain access to brain tissue.”
“Circulating immune complexes can result from either
1) normal responses to infection,
2) tissue injury or
3) artificial responses to vaccination.
The fact that vaccines are designed to hyper-stimulate antibody production (thus producing much higher antibody levels than what occurs following natural infection), suggests that vaccination may carry a much higher risk for immune vasculopathies (and other autoimmune disorders). Gardasil injections induce sustained antibody titers (for HPV-16) that are more than 10-fold higher than natural HPV infection titers.”
“Vaccine-induced cerebral vasculitis is a serious disease which typically results in fatal outcomes when undiagnosed and left untreated. The fact that many of the symptoms reported to vaccine safety surveillance databases following HPV vaccination are indicative of cerebral vasculitis, but are unrecognized as such (i.e., intense persistent migraines, syncope, seizures, tremors, tingling, myalgia, locomotor abnormalities, psychotic symptoms and cognitive deficits, etc), is a serious concern…It thus appears that in some cases vaccination may be the triggering factor of fatal autoimmune/neurological events. Physicians should be aware of this association.” – Dr Lucija Tomljenovic
And here is what widely-published Canadian researcher Dr Christopher Shaw has to say about aluminum adjuvants in vaccines:
“…our current results are consistent with the existing evidence on the toxicology and pharmacokinetics of Aluminum adjuvants which altogether strongly implicate these compounds as contributors to the rising prevalence of neurobehavioral disorders in children. Given that autism has devastating consequences in a life of a child, and that currently in the developed world over 1% of children suffer from some form of Autism Spectrum Disorder, it would seem wise to make efforts towards reducing infant exposure to aluminum from vaccines.“ — C A Shaw, PhD
“There is a serious problem with vaccine safety. Vaccine aluminum adjuvant has adverse neurological effects, at dosages that are recommended by the US CDC. Vaccine critics are supported by the science. Parents refusing to vaccinate according to the recommended CDC schedule are supported by the science. Use aluminum-containing vaccines with great caution, or not at all.” – Chris Shaw, PhD
And here is what Dr Christopher Exeley, the world-renowned British aluminum toxicologist reported recently about Alzheimers Disease (widely reported to be of “unknown origin”) which seems to affect mostly fully-vaccinated, fully-drugged older people:
“We have made the first ever measurements of aluminium in brain tissue from 12 donors diagnosed with…Alzheimer’s disease. The concentrations of aluminium were extremely high, for example, there were values in excess of 10 μg/g tissue dry wt. in 5 of the 12 individuals. Overall, the concentrations were higher than all previous measurements of brain aluminium except cases of known aluminium-induced encephalopathy.” – Dr Christopher Exeley
Scandalously, for the volunteer patients that were included in the seven separate pre-clinical studies that Merck researchers performed, the researchers did NOT do any questioning of any of the study participants beyond 15 days after each of the series of 3 intramuscular vaccinations had been completed!! Therefore no safety studies beyond the exceedingly short-term were done and thus the “vaccine/industrial complex” has no justification in insisting that Gardasil is safe!!
Scandalously, the study participants were actually not questioned, but were simply told to fill out Vaccine Report Cards (VRCs) and send them in at 15 days following the most recent of the 3 injections!!
Scandalously, 5 of the 7 clinical trials used an aluminum adjuvant – instead of a saline control – as a “placebo”!!
Scandalously, only one of the 7 studies was properly controlled with a true saline placebo.
Scandalously, the seventh trial was totally uncontrolled!!
Scandalously, the seven groups of active vs. “placebo” were lumped together in the study’s conclusions, which made adequate interpretation of efficacy essentially impossible!!
Scandalously, the so-called “placebo” that was used in the vast majority of the trials was the known neurotoxin, Amorphous Aluminum Hydroxyphosphate Sulfate (AAHS), which was the very same adjuvant that was – and still is – in the active Gardasil shot!!
Scandalously, aluminum-containing AAHS, the highly neurotoxic and autoimmunity-inducing adjuvant, is in many other childhood and adult vaccines and is known to accumulate in the body with each injection!!
Scandalously, no mention was made by Merck that aluminum was in the so-called “placebo” shots until page 12 of the 28-page product information insert – and the amount of aluminum was only mentioned once!!
Scandalously, the participants that did not complete the entire series of 3 vaccinations were dropped from the final tabulations, meaning that those who died or had any of the most serious adverse outcomes (the reason for dropping out) were not included in the final statistics, deceptively minimizing negative outcomes!!
Scandalously, any trial drop-outs that died, had a stroke, developed seizure disorders, had a heart attack or had other serious adverse outcomes such as one of the many autoimmune disorders were not listed in the literature or product inserts if the victim did not receive all three shots!!
The following information is taken directly from Merck’s Gardasil product insert that accompanies each vial of vaccine and is to be made available to prospective patients before they give their consent:
The High Incidence of Headaches Following the Gardasil Vaccine Experiment is Likely Due to the Aluminum Adjuvant
The incidence of new-onset headaches in this healthy, previously headache-free population, for example, was the most commonly-reported systemic adverse reaction – with an incidence of 28% in both active and “placebo” treatment groups!!
(Note that Gardasil recipients experienced an incidence of > 28.2% and the aluminum-adjuvanted [AAHS] “placebo controls” had a headache incidence of > 28.4%!!)
This high incidence of serious headaches was highly likely a sign of cerebral vasculitis, which could then cause many of the other adverse effects commonly seen in these previously well patients including chronic fatigue syndrome, seizure disorders, narcolepsy, psychological illnesses or death!!
Among the causes of death listed in the product insert from 2010, there was printed the following Gardasil-associated deaths among the scrupulously-screened, exceptionally healthy study participants that completed the series of 3 shots:
2 deaths from sepsis,
1 death from pancreatic cancer,
1 fatal arrhythmia,
1 death from pulmonary tuberculosis, 1 death from hyperthyroidism,
1 death from post-operative pulmonary embolism and acute renal failure,
1 death from cardiac arrest and resultant traumatic brain injury, 1 death from systemic lupus erythematosus,
1 death because of a stroke,
1 death from breast cancer, and 1 death from nasopharyngeal cancer.
In the AAHS/aluminum adjuvant-containing, alleged “placebo” group there was reported:
1 death from “asphyxia”,
1 death from acute lymphocytic leukemia,
1 death from “chemical poisoning” and
1 death from myocardial infarction.
Significantly, zero deaths occurred in the true saline placebo group.
Fully-informed Consent to Potentially-Risky Medical Treatments Used to be a Part of Medical Ethics
The following Patient Counseling Information comes from the FDA-approved, Merck-generated 2010 Product Information Insert that licensed health practitioners (or the individuals delegated by them to inject the Gardasil) were advised to inform prospective vaccinees (or their parents or guardians) prior to proceeding with the potentially-dangerous, possibly even less-than-useless Gardasil vaccination protocol. (No Gardasil recipient has yet lived long enough to know if the vaccine will have actually prevented cervical cancer!)
It is highly likely that Merck’s legal advice below is not being followed by the vast majority of America’s medical professionals, whose clinics are profiting heavily by promoting Gardasil vaccinations (HPV vaccines are the most expensive vaccines in the history of the world) for their previously healthy adolescent female patients, who won’t know if it was worth all the shots and costs and risks of chronic illnesses until their reach their mid-40s – the peak age at which the diagnosis of cancer of the uterine cervix is made.
No matter, for patients harmed or killed by ANY vaccine – whether or not they were warned about adverse effects – cannot sue vaccine manufacturers, marketers or the vaccine-injecting medical profession for injuries or deaths. Scandalous!!
Most of the following excerpts are verbatim quotes from the product insert:
Patient counseling information for Gardasil vaccinations
Vaccination does not eliminate the necessity for women to continue to undergo recommended cervical cancer screening.
Women who receive GARDASIL should continue to undergo cervical cancer screening per standard of care.
Recipients of GARDASIL should not discontinue anal cancer screening if it has been recommended by a health care provider.
GARDASIL has NOT been demonstrated to provide protection against disease from vaccine and non-vaccine HPV types to which a person has previously been exposed through sexual activity.
Since syncope (fainting) has been reported following vaccination sometimes resulting in falling with injury, observation for 15 minutes after administration is recommended.
Vaccine information is required to be given with each vaccination to the patient, parent, or guardian.
Information regarding benefits and risks associated with vaccination.
GARDASIL is not recommended for use in pregnant women.
Importance of completing the immunization series unless contraindicated.
Report any adverse reactions to their health care provider
The remainder of this article contains information that was obtained directly from the Gardasil package insert (and sometimes paraphrased from what was printed there). I have also bolded, enlarged and/or italicized some of the words or phrases to point out and/or emphasize the not-so-subtle, frequent obfuscation of data that the FDA allowed Merck to publish, data which likely was designed to distort (or at least put a positive spin on) the information – for both patients and physicians: 5.1 Syncope Because vaccinees may develop syncope (fainting shortly after a Gardasil shot), sometimes resulting in injury, observation for 15 minutes after administration is recommended. Syncope, sometimes associated with tonic-clonic movements and otherseizure-like activity, has been reported following vaccination with GARDASIL When syncope is associated with tonic-clonic movements (tonic/clonic movements ARE SEIZURES!!), the activity is usually transient and typically responds to restoring cerebral perfusion by maintaining a supine or Trendelenburg position.
Some vaccine victims died, some had strokes, some had heart attacks, some developed chronic epilepsy, some developed chronic fatigue syndrome, etc.
Table 5: Common Systemic Adverse Reactions in Girls and Women 9 Through 26 Years of Age
(GARDASIL ≥ Control) Adverse Reactions (1 to 15 Days Postvaccination) GARDASIL (N = 5088) AAHS/aluminum adjuvant “placebo” (N = 3790)
Fever 13% with Gardasil; 11.2% with AAHS/Aluminum adjuvant “placebo”, Nausea 6.7% Gardasil; 6.5% Aluminum, Dizziness 4.0% Gardasil; 3.6% Aluminum Diarrhea 3.6% Gardasil; 3.5% Aluminum Vomiting 2.4% Gardasil; 1.9% Aluminum Cough 2.0% Gardasil; 1.5% Aluminum Toothache, Upper respiratory tract infection, Malaise, Arthralgia, Insomnia, Nasal congestion all had an incidence over 1.0%. Many other adverse effects that had an incidence of less than 1.0% were not listed.
6.1 Clinical Trials Experience Studies in Girls and Women (ages 9 Through 45) and Boys and Men (9 Through 26 Years of Age) 18,083 individuals were administered GARDASIL or aluminum/AAHS “placebo” or saline placebo on the day of enrollment, and approximately 2 and 6 months thereafter, and safety was evaluated using Vaccination Report Cards (VRC) for 14 days after each injection. The individuals that were monitored using the Vaccination Report Cards included 10,088 individuals 9 through 45 years of age at enrollment who received GARDASIL and 7,995 individuals who received the aluminum “placebo” or the saline true placebo.
99.8% of trial participants continued to the end of the 6-month trial despite many of them suffering significant adverse effects from both the vaccine and the aluminum adjuvant.
Table 9:Summary of Girls and Women 9 Through 26 Years of AgeWho Reported an Incident Condition Potentially Indicative of a Systemic Autoimmune Disorder After Enrollment in Clinical Trials (Recall that Aluminum adjuvants have a long history of causing autoimmune disorders. It should be required for everybody to read and understand the extensive scholarly literature that had led to the identification of the ASIA Syndrome = “Autoimmune/Inflammatory Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants” here.
Note: Patients with the vaccine-induced ASIA Syndrome commonly present with post-vaccination symptoms such as chronic fatigue syndrome, cognitive impairment, arthralgias, myalgias, fevers, dry eyes and dry mouth, symptoms that are totally compatible with the ASIA Syndrome and are now found to occur following Gardasil vaccinations. Included are some of these disorders:
Arthralgia/Arthritis/Arthropathy 120 Gardasil-injected volunteers reported arthropathic signs and symptoms that were compatible with autoimmune arthropathies (and the ASIA Syndrome).98 aluminum-adjuvanted “control group” members also reported arthropathies.
There were 10 cases of Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (a known autoimmune disorder) in the Gardasil group and there were 6 cases of IDDM among the aluminum-adjuvant group.
Also occurring among these previously totally healthy groups of young women were cases of these autoimmune, ASIA disorders: Autoimmune Thyroiditis, Celiac Disease, Erythema Nodosum, Hyperthyroidism, Hypothyroidism, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Nephritis, Optic Neuritis, Pigmentation Disorder, Psoriasis, Raynaud’s Phenomenon, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Scleroderma/Morphea, Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, Uveitis.
6.2Post-marketing Experience The following adverse events have been spontaneously reported during post-approval use of GARDASIL. Because these events were reported voluntarily (unsolicited) from a population of uncertain size, it is not possible to reliably estimate their frequency or to establish a causal relationship to vaccine exposure.
Blood and lymphatic system disorders: Autoimmune hemolytic anemia, Idiopathic (autoimmune) thrombocytopenic purpura, Lymphadenopathy. Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders: Pulmonary embolus. Gastrointestinal disorders: Nausea, Pancreatitis, Vomiting.
General disorders and administration site conditions: Asthenia, Chills, Death, Fatigue, Malaise. Immune system disorders: Autoimmune diseases, Hypersensitivity reactions including anaphylactic/anaphylactoid reactions, Bronchospasm/Asthma, and Urticaria. Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders: Arthralgia, Myalgia. Nervous system disorders: Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, Dizziness, Guillain-Barré syndrome, Headache, Lower motor neuron disease, Paralysis, Seizures, Syncope (including syncope associated with tonic/clonic movements and other seizure-like activity) sometimes resulting in falling with injury, Transverse myelitis.
Infections and infestations: Cellulitis. Vascular disorders: Deep venous thrombosis GARDASIL is not indicated for women 27 years of age or older. However, safety data in women 16 through 45 years of age was collected, and 3819 women (GARDASIL N = 1894 vs. AAHS control (aluminum adjuvant) or saline placebo N = 1925) reported at least 1 pregnancy each. The overall proportions of pregnancies that resulted in an adverse outcome, defined as the combined numbers of: Spontaneous abortion, Late fetal death, and Congenital anomalies (45 cases in Gardasil vaccinees and 34 cases in aluminum-adjuvanted “placebo cases)out of the total number of pregnancy outcomes for which an outcome was known (and excluding elective terminations), were 22.6% (446/1973) in women who received GARDASIL and 23.1% (460/1994) in women who received AAHS control or saline placebo. Overall, 55 and 65 women in the group that received GARDASIL or AAHS control or saline placebo, respectively (2.9% and 3.4% of all women who reported a pregnancy in the respective vaccination groups), experienced a serious adverse reaction during pregnancy.
There were 45 cases of congenital anomaly in pregnancies that occurred in women who received GARDASIL and 34 cases of congenital anomaly in pregnancies that occurred in women who received AAHS control or saline placebo. Further sub-analyses were conducted to evaluate pregnancies with estimated onset within 30 days or more than 30 days from administration of a dose of GARDASIL or AAHS control or saline placebo. For pregnancies with estimated onset within 30 days of vaccination, 5 cases of congenital anomaly were observed in the group that received GARDASIL compared to 1 case of congenital anomaly in the group that received AAHS control or saline placebo.
The congenital anomalies seen in (Gardasil-affected) pregnancies with estimated onset within 30 days of vaccination included
Pyloric stenosis, Congenital megacolon,Congenital hydronephrosis, Hip dysplasia, and Club foot.
Conversely, in pregnancies with onset more than 30 days following vaccination, 40 cases of congenital anomaly were observed in the group that received GARDASIL compared with 33 cases of congenital anomaly in the group that received AAHS (aluminum!) “control” or saline placebo.
GARDASIL or AAHS control were given to a total of 1133 (breast-feeding) women (vaccine N = 582, AAHS control N = 551) during the relevant Phase 3 clinical studies.
Overall, 27 and 13 infants of women who received GARDASIL or AAHS control, respectively (representing 4.6% and 2.4% of the total number of women who were breast-feeding during the period in which they received GARDASIL or AAHS control, respectively), experienced a serious adverse reaction. In a post-hoc analysis of clinical studies, a higher number of breast-feeding infants (n = 7) whose mothers received GARDASIL had acute respiratory illnesses within 30 days post vaccination of the mother as compared to infants (n = 2) whose mothers received AAHS control.
11. DESCRIPTION GARDASIL, Human Papillomavirus Quadrivalent (Types 6, 11, 16, and 18) Vaccine, Recombinant, is a non-infectious recombinant quadrivalent vaccine prepared from the purified virus-like particles (VLPs) of the major capsid (L1) protein of HPV Types 6, 11, 16, and 18. The L1 proteins are produced by separate fermentations in recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae and self-assembled into VLPs.
The fermentation process involves growth of S. cerevisiae on chemically-defined fermentation media which include vitamins, amino acids, mineral salts, and carbohydrates. The VLPs are released from the yeast cells by cell disruption and purified by a series of chemical and physical methods.
The purified Virus-Like Particles are adsorbed on pre-formed aluminum-containing adjuvant (Amorphous Aluminum Hydroxyphosphate Sulfate).
The quadrivalent HPV VLP vaccine is a sterile liquid suspension that is prepared by combining the adsorbed VLPs of each HPV type and additional amounts of the aluminum-containing adjuvant and the final purification buffer. GARDASIL is a sterile suspension for intramuscular administration.
Each 0.5-mL dose contains approximately 20 mcg of HPV 6 L1 protein, 40 mcg of HPV 11 L1 protein, 40 mcg of HPV 16 L1 protein, and 20 mcg of HPV 18 L1 protein.
Each 0.5-mL dose of the vaccine contains approximately 225 mcg of aluminum (as Amorphous Aluminum Hydroxyphosphate Sulfate adjuvant), 9.56 mg of sodium chloride, 0.78 mg of L-histidine, 50 mcg of polysorbate 80, 35 mcg of sodium borate. And yet, despite the fact that there is no proof that Gardasil has prevented a single case of cervical cancer, the CDC website does not dare to discuss the details and personal stories of the thousands of young, previously health young women that experienced serious, even fatal, adverse effects both before the costly vaccine was marketed and after it was sanctioned by the CDC, the AAFP and the AAP.
Indeed, the CDC’s website (https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/pdf/data-summary-hpv-gardasil-vaccine-is-safe.pdf) reassuringly states, totally ignoring the warnings in the Gardasil product insert that medical ethicists say must be revealed to the patient or guardian prior to a vaccine injection or a drug prescription – per the age-old medical ethical standard of “fully informed consent”:
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Academy of Family Physicians, and American Academy of Pediatrics strongly recommend children receive all vaccines according to the recommended schedule.”
Here is that CDC-recommended schedule that is now mandatory, no questions to be asked, in California: After studying it and trying to calculate exactly how much injected mercury, aluminum, live viruses and the various impurities that the schedule will deliver to any California child that wants to go to public school, it is important to ask any physician that orders their patients to comply with the CDC schedule (exactly as posted) any of the questions listed further below this 2018 schedule that contrasts the number of vaccinations from previous years. This totally accurate diagram is posted at: http://somehelpful.info/Science/Vaccination-Russian-roulette.html.
After being enlightened about America’s mandated, obvious over-vaccination schedule, are there any Questions?
Such as:
What might happen if my baby doesn’t take ALL of the vaccines?
What might happen if I delay having my baby start the vaccine schedule until he/she has reached blood-brain barrier and immunological maturity?
Why are the unvaccinated people that I know also the healthiest people, the ones with the fewest chronic illnesses, the ones that aren’t on cocktails of potentially toxic drugs, the ones with no autoimmune disorders and the ones that never catch the flu anyway?
What if there is a mis-match between the influenza viruses that circulated in Australia during their flu season last year and the viral antigens that were chosen to be included in the current flu shot?
What if I had an adverse reaction to a previous vaccine, should I still be vaccinated with that shot? (And what is the strength of the evidence for your recommendation that my baby stick to the CDC’s mandated schedule?)
What if there is a family history of vaccine adverse effects?
Why should I have my baby follow the CDC schedule when my autistic first baby had his first seizure, near-SIDS event and his first autistic symptoms immediately after a cocktail of vaccinations that was given at your clinic?
Did your medical school only teach you about the benefits of vaccinations and not about the actual risks?
Were your medical school professors actual practicing physicians or were they mainly academically-oriented and therefore with minimal practical experience in pediatric patient care?
And here are some enlightening and very useful quotes from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, who knows more and is more articulate about vaccines and the dangers of over-vaccinating American children than 99% of US physicians and 99.9% of US politicians.
“For American kids born in 1986, only 12.8% had chronic diseases (especially autoimmune disorders). That number has grown to 54% among the vaccine generation (those born after 1986) in lockstep with the expanding schedule.”
“Safety testing, which typically requires months and years for other medical products, often lasts only a few days with vaccines – not nearly long enough to spot cancers or chronic conditions like autoimmune diseases (e.g., juvenile, insulin dependent diabetes mellitus, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis), allergic illnesses (e.g., food allergies, allergic rhinitis, eczema, asthma), or neurological and neurodevelopmental injuries (e.g., ADD, ADHD, narcolepsy, seizure disorders, and the spectrum of autistic disorders). The vaccine inserts that accompany every vial of mandated vaccines include warnings about these and over 400 other injuries including many serious immune, neurological, and chronic illnesses for which FDA suspects that vaccines may be the cause.” “Many of these illnesses became epidemic in American children after 1986, coterminous with the exploding vaccine schedule. For American kids born in 1986, only 12.8% had chronic diseases. That number has grown to 54% among the vaccine generation (those born after 1986) in lockstep with the expanding schedule.”
“The children who comprise this vaccine-injured generation are now aging out of schools that needed to build quiet rooms and autism wings, install wobble chairs, hire security guards and hike special ed spending to 25% to accommodate them. They are landing on the social safety net which they threaten to sink. As lawmakers all around the nation vote to mandate more vaccines and call for the censorship of experts (including parents of vaccine-injured or killed children) that are expressing concerns about vaccine safety, Democratic Presidential candidates argue about how to fix America’s dysfunctional and unaffordable health care system without addressing the reality of the vaccine-related chronic disease and autoimmune disorder epidemic. The good news for Big Pharma, of course, is that many of these vaccine-injured children have lifelong dependencies on blockbuster drugs like insulin, Adderall, anti-psychotic drugs, Epi-Pens, asthma inhalers, and diabetes, arthritis, and anti-seizure meds made by the same companies that made the vaccines.”
“An overwhelming majority of the FDA officials directly charged with licensing vaccines, and the CDC officials who effectively mandate them for children, have personal financial entanglements with vaccine manufacturers. These “public servants” are often shareholders in, grant recipients from, and/or paid consultants to vaccine manufacturers, and, occasionally, even patent holders of the very vaccines they vote to approve. Those conflicts of interest motivate them to recommend ever more vaccines with minimal support from evidence-based science” – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
“The FDA receives 45% of its annual budget from the pharmaceutical industry. The World Health Organization (WHO) gets roughly half its budget from private sources, including Pharma and its allied foundations. And the CDC, frankly, is a vaccine company; it owns 56 vaccine patents and buys and distributes $4.6 billion in vaccines annually through the Vaccines for Children program, which is over 40% of its total budget.” — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr
“An overwhelming majority of the FDA officials directly charged with licensing vaccines, and the CDC officials who effectively mandate them for children, have personal financial entanglements with vaccine manufacturers. These “public servants” are often shareholders in, grant recipients from, and/or paid consultants to vaccine manufacturers, and, occasionally, even patent holders of the very vaccines they vote to approve. Those conflicts of interest motivate them to recommend ever more vaccines with minimal support from evidence-based science” – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
“The FDA receives 45% of its annual budget from the pharmaceutical industry. The World Health Organization (WHO) gets roughly half its budget from private sources, including Pharma and its allied foundations. And the CDC, frankly, is a vaccine company; it owns 56 vaccine patents and buys and distributes $4.6 billion in vaccines annually through the Vaccines for Children program, which is over 40% of its total budget.” — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr
“The HHS (US Health and Human Services partners with vaccine makers to develop, approve, recommend, and pass mandates for new products and then shares profits from vaccine sales. HHS employees can personally collect up to $150,000 annually in royalties for products they work on. For example, key HHS officials collect money on every sale of Merck’s controversial HPV vaccine Gardasil, which also yields tens of millions annually for the agency in patent royalties.” — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr
“In 1986, Congress—awash in Pharma money (the pharmaceutical industry is number one for both political campaign contributions and lobbying spending on legislators over the past 20 years) enacted a law granting vaccine makers blanket immunity from liability for injuries caused by vaccines. The subsequent gold rush by pharmaceutical companies boosted the number of recommended inoculations from twelve shots of five vaccines in 1986 to 54 shots of 13 vaccines today. A billion-dollar sideline grew into the $50 billion vaccine industry behemoth.” — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr
“Since vaccines are liability-free – and effectively compulsory to a captive market of 76 million children – there is meager market incentive for companies to make them safe. The public must rely on the moral scruples of Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, and Pfizer. But these companies have a long history of operating recklessly and dishonestly, even with (the many non-vaccine) products that they must market to the public and for which they can be sued for injuries. The four companies that make virtually all of the recommended vaccines are all convicted felons. Collectively they have paid over $35 billion since 2009 for defrauding regulators, lying to and bribing government officials and physicians, falsifying science, and leaving a trail of injuries and deaths from products they knew to be dangerous and still sold under pretense of safety and efficacy.” – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr
Addenda:
The Health Resources Services Administration runs an under-advertised Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). Information on how to file a vaccine injury claim is available at (https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/data/index.html).
Scandalously, even your neighborhood pharmacy has been given approval to have poorly trained, vaccinology-ignorant sales staff, who don’t know a deltoid muscle from a triceps, to inject the full-gamut of 13 adult vaccines into anybody who asks for one or more of them at the store!! One wonders: Are risks or contraindications even inquired about? Is the concept of fully informed consent understood by the pharmacy employees when potentially toxic medical procedures are offered? Since vaccine-makers and physician clinics and hospitals are free from liability, does that hold for pharmacies as well?
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Dr Gary G. Kohls is a retired American family physician who practiced holistic (non-drug) mental health care during the last decade of his professional career. His patients came to see him asking for help in getting off the psychotropic drugs to which they were addicted and which they knew had sickened them and disabled their brains and bodies. He was successful in helping significant numbers of his patients get off or cut down on their cocktails of drugs using a time-consuming program that was based on psychoeducational psychotherapy, brain nutrient therapy and a program of gradual, closely monitored drug withdrawal.
He warns against the abrupt discontinuation of any psychiatric drug – legal or illicit – because of the common, often serious withdrawal symptoms that can occur in patients who have been taking such drugs. It is important to be treated by an aware, informed physician who is familiar with treating drug withdrawal syndromes and brain nutritional needs.
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“As Canadian medical doctors, we’re gonna tell you what the best science now has to say and we think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Research now shows that the PCR test is practically worthless. Only 3% of patients with a positive test actually have the coronavirus.” – Dr. Stephen Malthouse
Watch the video below.
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Back in August 2020, Dr. Ronald B. Brown, PhD disrupted the academic world’s doomsday predictions about the COVID-19 pandemic when the journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness published his first paper on the SARS-CoV-2 virus. As he told me in an interview:
The manuscript cites the smoking-gun, documented evidence showing that the public’s overreaction to the coronavirus pandemic was based on the worst miscalculation in the history of humanity, in my opinion.
In Brown’s first coronavirus paper, he showed how mistaking infection fatality rates for case fatality rates exaggerated the predicted lethality of the SAR-CoV-2 virus. In this second paper, he shows how relative risk reduction measures are being used to exaggerate the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines.
I’ve read the latest paper two-and-half times (but only claim to understand 90% of it). The overall conclusion, however, seems clear to me: The COVID-19 vaccine trials, in fact, only showed a negligible reduction in risk of acquiring a symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection; not the near perfect immunization the media is portraying.
As Dr. Brown writes in the paper’s conclusion:
Such examples of outcome reporting bias mislead and distort the public’s interpretation of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine efficacy and violate the ethical and legal obligations of informed consent.
The following is an informal interview I conducted with Dr. Brown, from his office in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. It offers a layman’s interpretation of his findings and conclusions.
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MANLEY: I’ve run into many people who refuse to even look at the vaccine trial data. They say they leave interpretation of the data to the “experts.” So, I’m glad we now have an expert like yourself to offer another interpretation of the data.
BROWN: But regardless of my expertise, I don’t have the power or license to tell people what to do. I don’t advise people. As a researcher, my goal is to present evidence so that people can choose to make more informed decisions about their health. I can explain the scientific evidence in layman’s terms, but I don’t think anyone, layman or expert, should take anything I “explain” on face value alone. Other experts could look at the same evidence and rightfully interpret it in an entirely different way, leading to an academic debate.
MANLEY: A debate? Aren’t those illegal? I guess not yet. But then, many people like to argue that there is no “right answer” because it is open for debate, and that we must rely on a consensus.
BROWN: As the evidence is presented from both sides during a debate, eventually the “truth” will emerge. By truth, I don’t mean merely a consensus. You can have 100% consensus that turns out to be 100% wrong, as in groupthink. Rather, I mean that the evidence is so clear that there is little point in arguing anymore… there is no longer any “reasonable doubt.”
MANLEY: Considering how little open debate there has been regarding not only the vaccine, but also COVID-19 itself, how close would you say we are to the truth?
BROWN: Today, we are nowhere near possessing knowledge that is beyond reasonable doubt concerning infectious viral diseases like COVID-19. Yet, as draconian public health mitigation measures are imposed on society with little proof of effectiveness, and much proof of collateral damage, there is little debate covered in the commercial media about public health issues. In my opinion, public health officials and politicians are under pressure to do something to protect the public, even if they have no idea what actually works. They see an open debate in the media as something that weakens their power and control.
There are other issues. The world copied China’s mitigation measures because China’s reported case rates are so low. But China’s rates are low because they use different case definitions than we do. If you want to instantly reduce cases of a disease, change the case definition. I have written about this in more detail in a new manuscript undergoing peer review. Also, we have a multitude of genomic sequencing technicians who are newly sequencing every common cold virus and variant they can find. Their findings are often translated immediately by public health officials, without sufficient vetting by epidemiologists who can put the information into proper context and prevent hysterical overreactions by public health officials and politicians.
Virology Cannot Answer Basic Questions
MANLEY: In many ways, we still don’t even understand how a virus functions, do we?
BROWN: What is a virus, where does it come from, what is its purpose, and what happens to it in the body? How pathogenic is it, and how infectious is it? Virology does not have the full answers to these basic questions, and yet, public health policy is predicated on assumptions about the nature of viruses that may prove to be the complete opposite of reality. I have spent the year reviewing the past and most recent virology literature, and I have come upon some astonishing evidence that could turn the whole infectious disease paradigm on its ear. That evidence will be presented in the near future in yet another manuscript currently under peer review.
MANLEY: Isn’t such exploration the basis of science? Wouldn’t such debate not only bring us closer to the truth, but also provide some sort of intellectual entertainment for the public?
BROWN: Yes, but a public health debate investigating these questions is being undermined by the official narrative dominating the commercial media. All other views are immediately dismissed in the commercial media as misinformation.
Modern Medicine Prone to Censorship
MANLEY: Would you agree that this type of censorship has been going on for probably as long as modern medicine has been around?
BROWN: Agreed, this is not unique to COVID-19. For example, I have tried to use the public media to report my novel evidence-based research findings about the cause of cancer, but with little success because my findings challenged the mainstream status quo (see Phosphate toxicity and tumorigenesis, 2018).
MANLEY: So how do we get the public more involved and interested in supporting open scientific debates?
BROWN: From open debates comes new knowledge, and new knowledge increases one’s power. The public must defend its right to access new knowledge, and the public should remain open-minded enough to consider all views. At the same time, one must remain skeptical and reject any explanation that is not backed up with sufficient evidence.
MANLEY: That’s where a lot of people have been trained to leave examining evidence to so-called “experts.”
BROWN: People can’t depend solely on the “approved” experts to tell them if the evidence is sufficient or not. We have so-called public health experts already telling us that now and look at the results. Experts from all sides must be given a fair hearing to present their case to the public and defend their case against the cases presented by other experts. It may be that pieces of evidence must be synthesized together from many sources to arrive at the final truth. That is the method I use to conduct my research. I look for pieces of evidence from a variety of research literature to synthesize together into a logical explanation or evidence-based theory (see Breakthrough knowledge synthesis in the Age of Google, 2020). If someone else presents additional evidence that refutes or proves my theory wrong, then everyone benefits and scientific knowledge advances.
MANLEY: Is that not where the public gets confused by their proud belief in “sound science” — relying on scientific theories rather than scientific evidence?
BROWN: Theories are just the starting point in the flow of scientific information, and the quality of a theory is related to the evidence upon which it rests. A good theory starts with a clean slate and inductively emerges out of the synthesis of reliable evidence. By contrast, evidence in a weak theory is cherry picked to support a predetermined conclusion or agenda, while ignoring contradicting or refuting evidence. But a weak theory doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
In my vaccine manuscript, I included background information about Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM). Canada has been a major contributor to EBM through the work of David L. Sackett at McMaster University, who later worked at Oxford University. I added text to the manuscript citing Sackett’s research on clinical epidemiology. Sackett and Richard J. Cook, from the University of Waterloo, published clinical epidemiology tools to critically appraise the veracity and usefulness of clinical evidence in medical treatments and diagnosis. My manuscript attempts to carry on this great Canadian academic research tradition by applying these same clinical epidemiologic tools to a critical appraisal of mRNA vaccine clinical trials.
Why the COVID-19 Vaccine is Useless and Ineffective
MANLEY: Can you give us a layman’s explanation of your COVID-19 vaccine manuscript?
BROWN: The public and many health professionals are unaware of outcome reporting bias in COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials. Clinical trial outcomes reported by the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine manufacturers for their messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines were reviewed and authorized for emergency use by an advisory committee of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
MANLEY: Do you know if the vaccines were actually approved or were they merely “authorized?” This is what the FDA did with the PCR tests, stating they were authorized for emergency use because they did not have an approved alternative. I was wondering if the same word game is being played here.
BROWN: It sounds like the same authorization for emergency use. The vaccines have not been officially approved, and the experimental trials are continuing. However, trial participants in the placebo group may choose to drop out to receive the vaccine, based on the too-good-to-be-true reported outcome of approximately 95% risk reductions in symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections.
MANLEY: Without an ongoing placebo group, would that mean, essentially, there is no long-term safety evaluation happening beyond the trial period?
BROWN: With more people dropping out, the statistical power of the study would weaken, although there are many thousands of people in the studies. More importantly, an ethical dilemma has surfaced to either encourage participants in the placebo group to drop out of a study and receive the vaccine benefits, or have those participants continue on with the placebo without the vaccine benefits. However, this dilemma assumes that the reported too-good-to-be-true efficacy of the mRNA vaccines is valid. My article uses clinical epidemiology tools to critically appraise the efficacy of the mRNA vaccine clinical trial outcomes. These tools are available online and may be used by anyone to verify the efficacy reported by the vaccine manufacturers, assuming that people can get their hands on reliable published data.
Also, since the article was published, follow up reports of observational studies have claimed that the vaccines are proving highly effective within the population. But the level of evidence in uncontrolled observational studies is inferior to that of clinical controlled trials, which is considered the gold standard of evidence. Observational studies may not compare results to control groups, and the studies don’t always adequately account for confounding factors, such as the deceleration of cases in the bell curve of seasonal influenza. Of course, people may protest that COVID-19 is much more lethal than seasonal influenza, but I exposed those biases in my first article. Furthermore, there are other biases in the reported high number of COVID-19 fatalities, which I critically appraise in my new manuscripts currently under peer review.
Relative Versus Absolute Risk Reduction
MANLEY: So exactly how much risk reduction are the manufacturers crediting their vaccine with?
BROWN: The reduced risk of COVID-19 infection reported by the manufacturers is approximately 95%, which is an accurate relative risk reduction measure. However, missing from the vaccine reports are absolute risk reduction measures which are much more clinically relevant to the reduced risk of COVID-19 infection. The absolute risk reduction of the vaccines in the present critical appraisal is approximately 1%, indicating practically no clinical efficacy or usefulness of the vaccines to reduce COVID-19 infection.
MANLEY: Essentially, then you are saying for all practical purposes, the vaccine is useless and ineffective?
BROWN: For applied clinical and public health interventions, yes, they appear to be almost completely ineffective. The members of the FDA advisory committee overlooked FDA guidelines to include absolute reduction measures when reporting clinical trial outcomes to the public, leading to outcome reporting bias in the FDA’s authorization of the mRNA vaccines.
MANLEY: Can you explain what is the difference between Relative Risk Reduction (RRR) and Absolute Risk Reduction (ARR)?
BROWN: Figure 2 in my article (shown below) sums up all the information you need to know as a layperson. The other calculations in the manuscript are intended for other researchers. You can calculate both relative risk reduction (RRR) and absolute risk reduction (ARR) from the same clinical trial data.
The Pfizer vaccine is represented by the column on the left of Figure 2, and the Moderna vaccine is on the right. The blue part of each column shows each vaccine’s relative risk reduction. This is the vaccine efficacy reported in the press.
MANLEY: So the Pfizer vaccine reduces the relative risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection by 95.1% and the Moderna vaccine reduces the risk by 94.1%, correct?
BROWN: Correct. So far, so good. However, what is not reported in the press, or in the clinical trial documents, is the orange portion of the columns showing the absolute risk reduction. This is only 0.7% (that’s seven-tenths of one percent) for the Pfizer vaccine, and 1.1% for the Moderna vaccine. These numbers are the most important numbers to consider when determining how much the vaccine will actually reduce your risk of infection. RRRs are intended for use in comparing an overall summary of one trial with other trials to determine which is more efficacious; RRRs are not intended for direct clinical and public health applications.
MANLEY: So, it appears as if they went with the relative risk reduction, because it looked more favourable?
BROWN: Yes, reporting relative risk outcomes, without absolute risk outcomes, has been a huge problem in research for decades. Notice that the ARR numbers are close to zero. The vaccines have almost no effect at all! In fact, the numbers are so low compared to the RRRs that I had to use a special percentage scale on the left of the figure that increases by ten times for each interval, otherwise the figure would be many times larger to span the enormous gap between the ARR levels and RRR levels.
MANLEY: Shouldn’t this be illegal? Or, at least, fall under the category of misleading advertising?
BROWN: The FDA guidelines say to report both RRRs and ARRs to the public, but the FDA advisory committees ignored the guidelines when they authorized the COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use, and they left out the ARRs. The New England Journal of Medicine also did not include ARRs when it published the clinical trial data for the vaccines. I agree with you that the people responsible for this misleading information should be held accountable. Check out the article’s reference to the roster members of the FDA advisory committee.
MANLEY: How do the COVID-19 risk ratios compare to influenza vaccines?
BROWN: That’s another bombshell in the article that people should be aware of. One of the peer reviewers suggested that I discuss other examples of outcome reporting bias involving relative risk measures in randomized clinical trials. My article shows that clinical trials of influenza vaccines have a 1.4% ARR compared to the usual 40% to 60% RRRs reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
MANLEY: So, people are being led to believe that the COVID-19 vaccine(s) will all but eliminate their risks, when, the data suggests, it actually only makes a barely detectable difference?
BROWN: Correct. Some people may point out that 1% of a million vaccinated people are still 10,000 prevented symptomatic infections. Fair enough; then report a 1% reduction and see how many people are still interested in getting the vaccine. Furthermore, there is no reliable evidence that even a reported 1% reduction is valid. For example, normal saline solutions used in the placebo groups are associated with fevers and other symptoms common to coronavirus infections. The credibility of the entire enterprise is compromised.
Violating the Right to Informed Consent
Brown: This type of outcome reporting bias violates the public’s legal and ethical right to informed consent about the true efficacy of the vaccines. Regardless if you are provax or antivax or are undecided, you have a right to all the facts to inform your personal opinion and choice. Bottomline: you have before you smoking-gun evidence of a huge public health scandal — if the word ever gets out! This problem has been ongoing for decades and really took off when the pharmaceutical companies were granted permission to advertise directly to consumers in the 1980s. Think of all the systematic reviews of clinical trials that could be compromised by this type of clinical trial outcome reporting bias.
MANLEY: You were born in New York, but have lived in Ontario, Canada for the last 46 years. How open do you feel Canadians are to dissecting the claims being propagated around this COVID-19 vaccine?
BROWN: A Canadian friend told me that the truth is bad news. I thought to myself, “Think what you’re saying. You’re saying it is better to go along with what you are told, even though it is a lie.” Where I was raised (New York City), people are encouraged to speak out when they see something wrong. Apparently, Canadians aren’t encouraged to do that. Rocking the boat doesn’t fit in with the Canadian motto: Peace, Order, and Good Government (not great government, mind you, just good enough. Mustn’t set our expectations too high).
MANLEY: Yes, a Canadian businessman recently told me, “If you’re going to tell the truth, have one foot on your stirrup.” It is interesting that you, who are one of the few doctors in Canada to be speaking out, were actually born in the States. Anthony Fauci was also born in New York, was he not?
BROWN: Yes. And David L. Sackett, a founder of EBM, was also an American who immigrated to Canada. I came to Canada, in 1975, to teach music and perform as a professional musician. Fauci is from Brooklyn, and I was born in the Bronx, so he and I are part of a traditional NY rivalry going back to the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Bronx Bombers (Yankees) when I was growing up in the 50s.
Fauci and I obviously don’t see eye to eye. In a recent interview about the AZT clinical trials for AIDS, Fauci described what to do if the efficacy of a treatment “has not yet reached statistical significance.” Fauci’s quick-fix solution is that “the data needs to be further analyzed.” I don’t know of any other data analysis method that increases statistical significance as quickly as relative risk reduction measures. The public should be cautious of modern day snake-oil salesmen. Characters like that make a buck by filling people with fear and then selling a worthless quick-fix remedy to them. In my opinion, that’s exactly what’s happening in this pandemic.
MANLEY: Well, I’m glad you are on our side and have been able to have your work published in peer-reviewed journals.
BROWN: We live in a time of censorship and suppressed debate. Fear based on ignorance is the rule. The only way out is to publish the truth and science, have the public weigh the evidence, and let people make up their own minds. It’s a painfully slow process, and that’s frustrating, but I believe the truth will eventually win out. In the meantime, the only advice I can offer is for people to have patience. Have faith that when this is all over there will be a call for change and accountability.
Image by Dr. Brown, reminiscent of the snake-oil salesman from the American Wild West.
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Ronald B. Brown, PhD has authored over a dozen peer-reviewed articles in the U.S. National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health; as well as a chapter on breakthrough knowledge synthesis in Contemporary Natural Philosophy and Philosophies. In addition to his epidemiologic research on infectious disease and vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, his current areas of research include prevention of cancer, cardiovascular disease, dementia, and other chronic diseases. You can read his paper, “Outcome Reporting Bias in COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Clinical Trials,” at the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute.
John C. A. Manley has spent over a decade ghostwriting for medical doctors, naturopaths and chiropractors. Since March 2020, he has been writing articles that question and expose the contradictions in the COVID-19 narrative and control measures. He is also completing a novel, Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story. You can visit his website at MuchAdoAboutCorona.ca.
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Ilana Rachel Daniel, health advisor and politician, talked about Israel’s green passport that essentially creates a second citizenry, “a true medical apartheid, disallowing healthy law-abiding taxpaying citizens from entering their places of culture if they do not participate in this experiment.”
“They’re making this green passport where half the population cannot get into theaters or malls or all sorts of things unless you have taken the vaccination. They are creating a medical Apartheid,”
Part of a program dubbed Operation Back to Life , the “Green Pass” system restricts entry to registered gyms, theaters, hotels, restaurants, universities and secondary schools to holders of scannable vaccine passport only.
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This report was originally published in 2019.
Introduction
On November 13, 2018, police and other paramilitary personnel entered the neighborhood of Lasalin in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. What followed was a massacre of the civilian population. Buildings, including schools, were fired uponand destroyed, people were injured and killed, with some burned alive, women were sexually assaulted and raped and hundreds were forcibly displaced from homes. Bodies were either burned, taken away to be disappeared, buried, never to be found, or in some cases left to be eaten by dogs and pigs.
There has been widespread acknowledgement from the Haitian government, mainstream human rights groups and even the United Nations occupiers in Haiti, known by the acronym MINUJUSTH, that something terrible took place in Lasalin. However, in every case, there has been an attempt to downplay and obscure what actually happened. The numbers of the dead and wounded have been minimized, the extent of destruction to communities and displacement downplayed, and the violence has been primarily blamed on “gangs fighting over territory.”
The Lasalin massacre was designed to punish and destroy a neighborhood long known as a stronghold of the grassroots Lavalas movement and center of opposition. Our investigation determined that the narrative of “gang warfare” obscures the reality that the attack on Lasalin was government-orchestrated and supported, with police collaborating with and weaponizing criminal elements. According to many Lasalin residents and survivors, the coordinator of the massacre was Pierre Richard Duplan, alias Pierrot, of the PHTK (Parti Haïtien Tèt Kale, the ruling party of Jovenel Moise). Duplan had failed in his bid to become the mayor of Port-au-Prince and was now the government delegate for the West Department of Haiti.[1] A UN human rights report released on June 21st, 2019, also implicates Duplan.[2] The Miami Herald disclosed in a May 15th article that a police investigation had confirmed the involvement in the massacre of high-level government officials in the government of Jovenel Moise, tracing an assault rifle assigned to the National Palace to the massacre[3] These are just some of the examples of government involvement in the massacre.
On April 1, 2019, members of the Haiti Action Committee (HAC) and the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) went to Haiti to investigate the November 13th massacre in Lasalin as well as the ongoing pattern of repression and extrajudicial killings targeting the people of Lasalin and other neighborhoods known for their activism against the government. We found a clear pattern of paramilitaries/death squads being armed and abetted by the government in order to terrorize the population and prevent opposition. This level of violence and repression has not been seen since the 2004 coup against President Aristide which, according to a study published in the medical journal The Lancet, resulted in an estimated 8,000 deaths in the Port-au-Prince area alone.[4]
Our team included Judith Mirkinson, President of the San Francisco Chapter of the National Lawyers’ Guild; Margaret Prescod, producer of the “Sojourner Truth” radio program nationally syndicated on Pacifica Radio and member of Women of Color/ Global Women’s Strike; Ramiro Funez, assistant producer of “Sojourner Truth”, and Seth Donnelly, member of Haiti Action Committee and the California Teachers Association. Margaret Prescod provided coverage of our delegation’s findings on “Sojourner Truth” and on “The Real News Network” television program.[5]
Report Methodology
On April 1, 2019, our team went to Lasalin and conducted interviews with residents who had witnessed the killings and/or who had lost loved ones in the massacre. We also gathered physical evidence of the killings. That same afternoon, we went to an abandoned market in Waf Jeremy and interviewed some of those residents who had been forced to flee from their homes in Lasalin.
We followed up these direct interviews on April 2nd by speaking to Haitian investigative journalists who had been closely following the situation in Lasalin, from before the massacre to the present day. We also met with Haitian human rights workers.
After our visit, another U.S. human rights delegation went to Haiti between April 24th and April 27th to follow up on our investigation. This second delegation included U.S. Representative Maxine Waters, investigative journalist Margaret Prescod, Haiti Action Committee co-founder Pierre Labossiere, actor Danny Glover, and NLG human rights attorneys Walter Riley and Brian Cocannon. The additional evidence gathered by this second delegation confirms the findings of this report.
As Walter Riley expressed:
“We have eyewitness reports that these attacks are not simply gangs as they are being referred to by the press and the US Embassy, but part of militias backed by some in the Moïse administration. The murder and brutality is a policy of the Haitian government which is backed by the United States.”
Similarly, Brian Concannon stated:
“I have worked on political violence cases in Haiti for 24 years and the witness reports from Lasalin, Tokyo and Site Vincent are all too similar to other notorious acts of state-sponsored oppression … With the Duvaliers’ Ton- Ton Macoutes, the FRAPH death squads and now the violent groups under the Moïse administration, the motive for each has been silencing calls for justice and democracy and terrorizing government opponents, while disguising government participation.”[6]
Congresswoman Waters said she was ‘appalled and shocked’ at the killings and promised to engage with her colleagues in Congress to use ‘whatever leverage and power we have to help make the violence cease because this is not conscionable and not tolerable.’”[7]
In addition to the information collected from these steps and sources, we have also read and analyzed reports by Haitian human rights organizations on the November 13th massacre. Furthermore, we have extracted corroborating evidence for our findings from investigative Haitian journalists and from a public interview with one of the key perpetrators of the massacre, former police officer Jimmy Cherizier, aka “Barbecue”.
Why Lasalin?
Lasalin is a neighborhood with a population of about 5,000 in the downtown section of Port- au-Prince. It is part of the West Department of Haiti and borders the infamous port of Croix des Bossales where enslaved Africans were first brought to Haiti by the French. The port is still heavily used for commercial traffic. Lasalin has been known as a stronghold of Lavalas—the
mass popular grassroots party of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide—ever since President Aristide was a parish priest there in the St. Jean Bosco Church. During the Aristide period, hospitals, housing and schools were all built there in accordance with policies enacted throughout the country. These buildings were particularly targeted during the massacre.
The attack on Lasalin comes at a time of increasing violence and repression. Starting in July 2018, there have been massive demonstrations protesting the theft of 4.2 billion dollars of Petro-Caribe money: oil lent by Venezuela to Haiti which could then be sold for a profit. The extra money could then be used to fund social programs in Haiti. Instead, this money simply vanished. Over three days in July 2018, tens of thousands protested in the streets demanding an end to gas price hikes, an accounting for the missing funds and the resignation of President Jovenel Moise. The demonstrations brought Port-au-Prince to a virtual standstill and resulted in the resignation of Prime Minister Jacques Guy Lafontant. The demonstrations, which are met with tear gas, rubber bullets, and live ammunition continue to the present day.
Timeline of Events
Based upon extensive interviews with Haitian human rights workers, journalists, and the residents of Lasalin, we have constructed the following timeline of events leading up to and following the November 13th massacre.
On October 13, 2017, a government delegation including Haitian First Lady Martine Moise and then Minister of the Interior Roudolphe Saint Albin went to Lasalin and met with Herve Bonnet Barthelemy, known as “Bout Jan Jan”, and other community leaders. Among other matters discussed, the government delegation asked these leaders not to allow anti-government, opposition demonstrations within and through Lasalin, as well as in Saint Jean Bosco, an area in front of the nearby Tokyo neighborhood, close to an intersection frequently used for protests.[8]
On October 15, 2018, representatives of the political opposition held a press conference in Lasalin, supporting the PetroCaribe movement and demanding the end of the government of Jovenel Moise.[9]
On October 17, 2018, a national holiday commemorating the death of Haitian revolutionary leader Jean Jacques Dessalines, people in Lasalin refused to welcome President Jovenel Moise who came to the neighborhood in order to lay the traditional wreath at a monument for Dessalines.
Instead, Moise’s presence was protested vigorously by the community. Police responded with gun fire. Moreover, there was a massive Petro Caribe protest that occurred within and passed through Lasalin that day.[10]
According to Lasalin residents, First Lady Martine Moise visited Lasalin in October, 2018 days before the killings started in November. She reportedly tried bribing the community with offers of money. Her attempt to secure their loyalty was unsuccessful.
On November 1, 2018, a holiday known as “All Saints Day”, Serge Alectis aka “Ti Junior,” leader of Chabon—a paramilitary force working with the government—led an attack on Bout Jan Jan and Julio Pyram, aka “Kiki” in Lasalin, killing Kiki along with four others, and wounding Bout Jan Jan.[11] Police subsequently arrested Bout Jan Jan in the hospital despite community opposition and he remains imprisoned to this day. According to community members who met with us, Chabon was the only group in the larger area that had wanted former President Michel Martelly (who had picked Jovenel Moise to be his successor) to come to the neighborhood to perform during the past Mardi Gras festivities.
On November 13, 2018, Ti Junior and his group Chabon returned to Lasalin— heavily armed—and carried out the massacre. They were accompanied by other government-backed paramilitary elements, including the police officer Jimmy Cherizier, alias “Barbecue,” police officer Gregory Antoine, alias “Ti Greg,” and other police officers. The perpetrators used several vehicles, including an armored truck given to them by the Brigade of Operation and of Departmental Intervention (BOID), and several public transport vans. The residents reported that several police units, including one from BOID and Departmental Unit to Maintain Order (UDMO), involving officer Gustave Jouspite, were heavily involved in supporting Chabon, including providing them with munitions. The massacre, which started on November 13, continued intermittently for the following several days.[12] On June 21, the UN finally issued a report on the massacre that implicated Pierre Duplan as a coordinator, just as Lasalin eyewitness survivors had been doing since November. According to the UN report, Duplan reportedly admitted to direct communication with perpetrators of the massacre on the ground in Lasalin.[13]
Lasalin residents and Haitian journalists with Radio Timoun reported that there were as many as eight attacks by government-backed paramilitary forces on the people of Lasalin between the November 13th massacre and our arrival in Lasalin. In an interview with a Radio Timoun journalist who has reported consistently from Lasalin, we were told that over the last week in March one paramilitary attack burned down a popular market and killed 13 people. While in Lasalin, this reporter saw the remains of people who had tires put around their necks and were then burned to death.[14]
The Police and Right Wing Activists Boast of their Roles in the Massacre
Former Police leader Jimmy Cherizier (Barbecue) publicly stated that he had a number of police officers in his group block escape routes from Lasalin during the November operation. This statement corroborates the testimony given by survivors in Lasalin accusing him and other police officers of participating in the massacre. Cherizier has denied support from the government for his organization, correctly identified as a death squad by survivors. Yet, this denial is to be expected given Barbecue’s high profile status as a member of the PHTK and as someone who remains uncharged and at large. Significantly, Barbecue does publicly thank Reginald Boulos—widely regarded by the Haitian public as a right-wing oligarch—for his financial support. Boulos had been integral in financing the 2004 coup against the democratically elected and popular President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. During a radio interview, Boulos admitted that he was financially supporting paramilitary elements, claiming that they were providing social programs when the state was absent.[15]
They also took us to a small school riddled by bullets. We were told that five students and two teachers had been killed there.
Counting the Victims
Due to the fact that so many bodies were taken away and so many people displaced, it has been difficult to get an accurate number of those killed, injured and/or sexually assaulted The ages of those attacked on November 13th and the days following, ranged from 10 months to 72 years.
One Haitian human rights organization, RNDDH (Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains), did interview many residents, and was able to identify 71 murdered. However, residents and local human rights defenders maintain that this number is deplorably low, based only on the number of bodies actually left on the ground and not taking into account either those buried or taken away.[16] The RNDDH report lists the names of the victims and describes in detail how each victim was killed, some being hacked to death with machetes with their body parts fed to pigs, some being burned alive, others being riddled with bullets.[17] The methodology employed by the RNDDH to reach these findings involved, among other steps, interviewing four hundred and thirty-nine (439) community members of Lasalin including victims and victims’ relatives. The December 1, 2018 report concludes with a decisive classification of the November 1st killings as a “state massacre” and categorically states that the killings could not have occurred without the current government’s support—on all levels—for the perpetrators.
French journalist Amelie Baron, reporting for Agence France-Presse from Haiti, initially placed the number at 283 in an article that no longer seems to be available online.
Journalists and human rights workers who visited the scene shortly after the massacre told us: “We will never know how many were killed”: many bodies were not identified, their surviving family members having been forced to leave the area. Other bodies and remains were soon disposed of; religious leaders claimed some, while many others, including those burned beyond recognition, were simply taken away by garbage trucks and dumped somewhere. Many people were also brought to hospitals: it’s estimated that hundreds were wounded in the attacks. Then there are tho se who were simply jailed, no records being taken. None of these additional numbers are accounted for in any issued reports. Since the PetroCaribe protests which began in the summer of 2018, hundreds have randomly been thrown in jail, without charges, never having seen a judge.
Women were assaulted and raped—some left pregnant. One 14-year old girl raped by Ti Junior actually went to radio stations to report the crime, but could not get help. Due to the continuing stigma surrounding rape and because many were forced to flee, the true numbers of those sexually assaulted is not known.
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While the number of fatalities attributed to Covid-19 is carefully tracked by governments, few people have recognized how pandemic-spurred crackdowns have devastated democracy around the world. Emergency proclamations have entitled presidents and other government officials to seize vast new powers previously forbidden to them. Government bureaucrats became a new priesthood that could sanctify unlimited sacrifices merely by invoking dubious statistical extrapolations of future perils.
In October, Freedom House issued a report, Democracy under Lockdown – The Impact of COVID-19 on Global Freedom, which warned that since the pandemic started, “the condition of democracy and human rights has worsened in 80 countries.” Sarah Repucci, co-author of the report, warned that “governments’ responses to the pandemic are eroding the pillars of democracy around the world.” Abuses of power have been propelled by a presumption that government officials are entitled to all the power they claim to need to keep people safe.
When the pandemic arrived in America, governors in many states responded by dropping the equivalent of a Reverse Neutron Bomb – something which destroys the economy while supposedly leaving human beings unharmed. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo set the standard when he effectively declared that he was entitled to inflict any burden on his state’s residents to “save just one life.” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmerprohibited anyone from leaving their home to visit family or friends. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti banned people from walking or bicycling outside. More than ten million jobs were lost thanks to lockdowns, a major reason why life expectancy in the United States last year had its sharpest plunge since World War Two.
Australia imposed some of the most heavy-handed restrictions. In August, the state of Victoria dictated an 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew for the Melbourne area and prohibited people from venturing more than three miles from their residence. Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews decreed: “Where you slept last night is where you’ll need to stay for the next six weeks.” Melbourne has been hit by repeated lockdowns since then.
Britain unleashed some of the most absurd restrictions. In June, it prohibited couples who live in different homes from having sex indoors. The Independent (U.K.) noted, “People who have sex outside can be punished under pre-existing laws on outraging public decency and indecent exposure.” Steve Watson reported in January for Summit News that British cabinet ministers “have privately debated preventing people from talking to each other in the street and in supermarkets, and even preventing people from leaving home more than once per week, and introducing curfews.” British vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi fretted, “I’m worried about some of the pictures I’ve seen of social interactions in parks, if you have to exercise you can go out for exercise only.” Apparently, a national vow of silence is necessary to fight Covid. Summit News noted, “Police are also demanding new powers to force entry into the homes of suspected lockdown violators.” Former British Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption complained last month, “Foreign travel is being prohibited, turning us into a hermit island on the basis we cannot know what mutations may be lurking out there. The logic of these policies is that we must be locked down for ever simply because the world is a dangerous place.”
New Zealand has imposed four separate lockdowns in its pursuit to banish the virus from the island, repeatedly placing residents in the capital city under house arrest. In October, the government announced it was creating “quarantine centers” for anyone who tests positive and refuses to obey government orders. One Twitter wag scoffed, “New Zealand went from gun bans to concentration camps in less than a year.”
Covid horrors have been more dramatic in some developing nations. In Uganda, as the Economist reported, Francis Zaake, a member of parliament, delivered food to his neediest constituents during a pandemic lockdown. But “Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has ordered that only the government may hand out food aid. Anyone else who does so can be charged with murder, Mr Museveni has threatened, since they might do it in a disorderly way, attract crowds and thereby spread the coronavirus.”
Police and soldiers forcibly entered Zaake’s house and “dragged him into a van and threw him in a cell. He says they beat, kicked and cut him, crushed his testicles, sprayed a blinding chemical into his eyes, called him a dog and told him to quit politics. He claims that one sneered: ‘We can do whatever we want to you or even kill you…No one will demonstrate for you because they are under lockdown.’”
In Kenya, police killed at least 15 people during brutal crackdowns on alleged violators of lockdown decrees. Amnesty International declared that the Covid-19 pandemic provided “the perfect storm for indiscriminate mass violence” by the police, thanks to the “pervasive culture of impunity among [police] service members who rely on systemic corruption.”
Journalists in many nations risked their hides if they violated politicians’ monopoly on fear-mongering. Almost a hundred nations have imposed new restrictions on freedom of speech and freedom of the press since the pandemic began. Freedom House reported: “Governments enacted new legislation against spreading ‘fake news’ about the virus. They also limited independent questioning at press conferences, suspended the printing of newspapers, and blocked websites.” Reporters Without Borders, a nonprofit for press freedom, warned, “Most governments yielded to the temptation, using a variety of repressive measures…, of making official channels the only credible and authoritative sources of information.” Many regimes have expanded the definition of “fake news” to justify repression:
“In Ethiopia, the definition of misinformation is so broad that it gives the authorities the discretionary power to declare any piece of information false.”
“In India, Egypt, Botswana and Somalia, only government statements on the subject may be published.”
“In Cambodia, the government gave itself the legal power to ban the publication of “any information that could cause unrest, fear or disorder.”
In Rwanda, the journalist who runs the YouTube news channel Ishema TV was imprisoned for violating Covid lockdown regulations. “At the time of his arrest he was reporting on the effects of the lockdown on the population and investigating allegations of rape committed by soldiers enforcing the lockdown,” Reporters without Borders notes.
In Zimbabwe, anyone “who publishes or disseminates ‘false’ information about an official, or that impedes the response to the pandemic, faces up to 20 years in prison,” the Economistreported.
Tanzania suffered a wave of censorship after the nation’s president publicly denounced Covid-19 as a “Western plot.” “Several news outlets, including the country’s leading Swahili-language newspaper Mwananchi, were closed down after publishing stories about Covid-19. Others were forced to broadcast apologies after carrying reports on the subject which angered the authorities,” Reporters without Borders noted.
In Thailand, Amnesty International reported, “authorities are prosecuting social media users who criticize the government and monarchy in a systematic campaign to crush dissent which is being exacerbated by new COVID-19 restrictions. Authorities have wasted no time using existing repressive laws in order to censor ‘false’ communications related to COVID-19.” The government decreed five-year prison sentences for any Thai journalists or media outlets that published information officials decree to be “capable of causing fear in the public.”
“Government knows best” is the subtext for arbitrary decrees issued around the world. An Associated Press article in January explained why Californians were denied access to the information that determined the fate of their freedom: “State health officials said they rely on a very complex set of measurements that would confuse and potentially mislead the public if they were made public.” But many data-driven dictatorial policies relied on data that was either fraudulent, politically contrived, or laughably inaccurate. On the day that Joe Biden was inaugurated as president, the World Health Organization changed the test standard for defining Covid cases, guaranteeing that far fewer “cases” would be reported and thereby making a mockery of the previous 10 months data.
The pandemic’s precedents pose a long-term peril for liberty around the globe. Freedom House expects that “official responses to COVID-19 have laid the groundwork for government excesses that could affect democracy for years to come.” This was foreseeable from the start of the pandemic but the media in some Western nations were the biggest cheerleaders for obliterating limits on political power. The secrecy that proliferated during the pandemic will make it harder for citizens to recognize how badly they have been misgoverned.
Going forward, citizens in many nations might appreciate this old adage from American politics: “The Constitution isn’t perfect but it’s better than what we have now.” Federal judge William Stickman IV declared in 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 unless there is a similar stark ruling from the Supreme Court, shutdowns could return whenever politicians can panic enough citizens with some new threat.
Lockdown victims around the globe would be wise to heed Thomas Jefferson’s 1798 warning that the doctrine “that the general government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it [is] nothing short of despotism; since the discretion of those who administer the government, and not the Constitution, would be the measure of their powers.” The pandemic painfully illustrated how government officials can always concoct the data to justify whatever decree they itch to issue. And regardless of the needless deaths and disruptions caused by government policies, it will be the opponents of lockdowns who will be labeled grandma-killers.
The Biden administration is reviving America’s proselytizing for democracy around the globe. But Covid-19 crackdowns are a warning for people to be wary of oppressive governments regardless of their purported mandate. The world doesn’t need any more Cage Keeper Democracies where citizens’ ballots merely designate who will place them under house arrest.
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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.
All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
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Essentially property – in the form of stolen land, slave labor, and raw materials – serves as the foundation for our nation, along with the attendant desire for material prosperity. This is illustrated in an examination of the participants at the founding Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, May 25 to September 17, 1787, and the final document they authored, a convention held entirely in enforced secrecy during its 116-day duration.
Encroachments on Indian land was exacerbated by the amount of profit that was envisioned in acquiring this phenomenal resource.The Ohio Company was formed in 1749 when the King granted the Virginia governors huge tracts of land that extended into the Ohio region.It is noteworthy that many of the White men we call members of our “Founding Fathers” such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Morris, Patrick Henry, and Benjamin Franklin, were early speculators/investors collectively in hundreds of thousands of acres of land in association with a number of land companies.
It was in their financial interests to participate in various ways in the anti-Indian genocide, as their private land holdings could only dramatically appreciate in value once the Indigenous had been conquered. Most of their lands had been stolen from the Indians in illegal defiance of the Proclamation of 1763 which strictly prohibited colonial expansion and settlements west of a line parallel to the Appalachian Mountains. Those lands were reserved for Indians only.From 1763 to the Revolution, settlers and investors in land were increasingly at odds with the British Crown, which seemed more interested in maintaining peace with the Indians than serving the expansionist desires of the European colonists.
In addition to the Ohio Company there were others such as the Potomac Company, the James River Company, the Mississippi Company, the Loyal Company, the Vandalia Company, the Indiana Company, the Walpole Company, the Greenbrier Company, and the Great Dismal Swamp Company.
More than half of the selected delegates to the Convention were educated lawyers. The remaining were planters, merchants, physicians, and college professors. Not one member represented, in his immediate personal economic interests, the small farming or mechanic classes.Most believed their property rights were adversely affected by the relatively “weak” Articles of Confederation government and thus they were highly economically motivated to reconstruct the system.Thus the Founding Fathers reflected an extraordinary anti-majoritarian, i.e., explicitly anti-democratic bias.This explains the Constitutional theme of preserving private property and commercial enterprises, controlled by a small minority, ultimately at the expense of human freedom and the health of the Commons.
“Founding Father” John Jay possessed a vision that “the people who own the country ought to govern it”.This referred, of course, to those who owned land, slaves, and commercial enterprises. Jay also believed that the upper classes “were the better kind of people”, those “who are orderly and industrious, who are content with their situation and not uneasy in their circumstances”.
No less than 85 articles and essays, a collection of documents known as the Federalist Papers, were written in 1787-1788 to urge ratification of the newly drafted US Constitution. The authors were Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. Aristocratic Hamilton possessed such contempt for commoners he declared that “the people are a ‘great beast’ that must be tamed . . . rebellious and independent farmers had to be taught, sometimes by force, that the ideals of the revolutionary pamphlets were not to be taken too seriously”.
The Constitution was never submitted to the public for ratification. Since no direct popular vote was even attempted, it is impossible to know what the popular sentiment was.
A considerable proportion of the adult white male population was prohibited from participating in the election of the delegates to the separate ratifying state conventions due to property and disqualifications for voting. Historian Charles A. Beard conjectures that of the estimated 160,000 who voted in the election of delegates for the various state conventions, not more than 100,000 favored adoption of the Constitution.
And of course, women, African slaves, the original Indigenous inhabitants, un-propertied white adult males, and white males under 21 had no vote at all. The 1790 Census counted a total United States population of 3.93 million persons: 3.2 million free and nearly 700,000 African slaves. But of the 3.2 million “free” persons, the vast majority were prohibited from voting. So, in effect, the approximately 100,000 propertied white males who may have favored adoption comprised but two-and-a-half percent of the population. So it cannot be said that the Constitution was “an expression of the clear and deliberate will of the whole people” nor of a majority of the adult males, nor at the outside, of one-fifth of them.In essence, debtors, the poor and un-influential, women, Indigenous natives, slaves – the overwhelming majority of all human beings living in the 13 states of the Union at the time – were either opposed to the Constitution or were not allowed to register a formal, legal opinion.
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Brian Willsonis a Viet Nam veteran and trained lawyer. He has visited a number of countries examining the effects of US policy. He wrote a psychohistorical memoir, Blood on the Tracks: The Life and Times of S. Brian Willson (PM Press, 2011), and in 2018 wrote Don’t Thank Me for my Service: My Viet Nam Awakening to the Long History of US Lies(Clarity Press). He is featured in a 2016 documentary, Paying the Price for Peace: The Story of S. Brian Willson, and others in the Peace Movement, (Bo Boudart Productions). His web essays: brianwillson.com. He can be reached: [email protected].
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
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The CDC added more data today into the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a U.S. Government funded database that tracks injuries and deaths caused by vaccines.
The data goes through March 5, 2021, with 31,079 recorded adverse events, including 1,524 deaths following injections of the experimental COVID mRNA shots by Pfizer and Moderna.
Besides the recorded 1,524 deaths, there were 5,806 visits to Emergency Room doctors, 630 permanent disabilities, and 3,477 hospitalizations.
The CDC also updated their Selected Adverse Events Reported after COVID-19 Vaccination page on March 9th this past week, and according to this report, VAERS has received 1,637 reports of death following COVID “vaccinations” – more than 100 deaths than are in the VAERS data dump released today.
The CDC continues to state that not one of these recorded deaths following experimental COVID injections are related to the shots.
A review of available clinical information including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records revealed no evidence that vaccination contributed to patient deaths. (Source.)
AstraZeneca COVID Vaccine Inoculations Halted in Many Countries Due to Fatal Blood Clots
As we reported yesterday, many countries in Europe (and now also Thailand) have halted the vaccinating of people with the AstraZeneca experimental vaccine after reports of fatal blood clots following the injections.
And while the AstraZeneca COVID shots are not yet authorized for emergency use in the U.S., some have commented that the side effects for the mRNA “vaccines” currently issued EUAs in the U.S. for Pfizer and Moderna have just as many, if not more, adverse side effects, questioning whether any of these new experimental and non-FDA-approved COVID vaccines should be continued.
So we searched today’s CDC data on adverse reactions to the two COVID “vaccines” being used in the U.S. for “pulmonary embolism,” which is an “acute lung disease caused by a dislodged blood clot,” and the reason why the AstraZeneca COVID shot is now being halted in about a dozen countries worldwide after two fatalities and others injured.
Seven of the deaths followed the Moderna mRNA COVID shot, while five deaths followed the Pfizer mRNA COVID shot.
This number is obviously far greater than the two deaths reported so far from pulmonary embolism following the AstraZeneca COVID shots being distributed around the world right now.
Can We Trust the CDC that NONE of These 1,637 Recorded Deaths are Caused by the Experimental COVID mRNA Shots?
The CDC has been caught many times since COVID-19 started elevating that death counts attributed to COVID by declaring that ALL deaths where there was a positive PCR test for COVID were assumed to be caused by COVID, even if the patient had pre-existing conditions, and even in some cases where the patient died due to an accident, such as a traffic accident.
Now it appears that they are doing the exact opposite, particularly with those over the age of 65 where the vast majority of recorded deaths have occurred following the experimental COVID injections, stating that pre-existing conditions are what caused the patient to die, and that in ZERO cases was the experimental COVID “vaccine” responsible.
However, there is probably a good reason why a majority of healthcare workers who work with seniors are refusing the experimental COVID shots, since they have a front row seat to see exactly how these patients react in the days and weeks following COVID injections.
One CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) has gone public with what he has seen with the residents he has worked with, and the video of his testimony has now been viewed over 280,000 times on our Rumble Channel, and over 88,000 times on our Bitchute Channel.
One viewer offered their own observations with their mother after she received a COVID injection in the comment section on the Rumble video:
My 90 year old mother HAD beginning stages of dementia. Nothing terribly serious. She forgot things a lot, and would often tell you the same things over again whenever you talked to her.
But her mind was still pretty good for being 90. She liked to do Sudoku puzzles and Jumbles.
She had eye issues that she was dealing with for about a year. She had gotten periodic shots in her eyes this past year to help her with her eye issues. She could still see things, but maybe not as clearly as she should.
But…then she took the vaccine, when she had told me previously that she no intention of taking the vaccine. She would further state that she had never even taken a flu vaccine.
Less than 1 month later, her health has spiraled downward since then. Now her speech is slurred (as if she had a stroke–but she has not); her vision has gone down so much this past month, such that all she sees is colors and shapes; and her dementia has spiraled to the point that she thinks it’s 1935 or 1945.
She recently fell in her home and knocked over the TV and either broke or bruised her ribs–I assume because she couldn’t see, though she may be having balance issues now, as well.
Doctors are preparing to send her to a rehab facility for 3-4 weeks.
I doubt I’ll ever see her alive again–especially if she gets the second shot.
I don’t expect to be allowed to visit her in a facility in KY, which is backwards when it comes to dealing with COVID restrictions and lockdowns.
So, when I see a reasonably healthy 90 year old exhibit stroke signs (without having had a stroke), almost totally lose their vision, and begin exhibiting signs of advanced dementia all within a month period after having taken the experimental mRNA COVID Vaccine, I don’t think I can blame this all on a brown recluse spider bite or vitamin deficiency.
I only hope that this post will give you pause if you or someone elderly you know is preparing for this shot.
My one question is if you are not elderly, and are in somewhat good health and you don’t feel that you are in any danger from taking this shot, is it possible that side effects will just show up at a later time with you, perhaps when you are already sick and your health is compromised.
I mean, it’s not like my Mom had immediate side effects. Stories I have read indicate that it has often taken 3-4 weeks.
Again, no way will I ever take this shot. But I sincerely wish those getting the shot the best of luck!
This kind of information is being censored by the corporate media and Big Tech, and now they have begun to call those of us who publish this kind of information “domestic terrorists” for even daring to say or publish anything negative about these experimental COVID shots.
Please make an effort to share your own experiences with these experimental shots. The lives of many people are now at stake, and truthful information is empowering.
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Ignorant, backwards, unscientific, religious fanatics: This is how the western corporate media presents Pakistanis who don’t like vaccines produced in western countries.
I have covered their resistance to vaccines for over a decade now, and I view them very differently. They are perhaps one of the most knowledgeable and intelligent people anywhere in the world when it comes to understanding the dangers of vaccines.
Sadly, what they have learned about vaccines has come from experience, and not from watching talking head “experts” in the western media, mostly owned and controlled by Big Pharma.
They don’t care too much for Bill Gates and his “philanthropy” and “free” vaccines to supposedly make their lives better.
They’ve been on to him for years, and his eugenicist population control plans, long before COVID fearmongering invaded the planet last year, and when all of a sudden multiple documentaries about Bill Gates and his vaccine empire started appearing everywhere.
The anti-Big Pharma Pakistanis are perhaps the best example of “vaccine resistance” the world has seen during the past decade or so, as they fight against the odds by going up against the western military industrial complex and their weaponizing of vaccines, all in an effort to protect their families and children.
CIA Uses Fake Vaccine Program to Collect DNA in Pakistan and Capture Osama Bin Laden
In 2014 the Obama Whitehouse admitted that the CIA used a fake vaccination program in Pakistan to collect DNA and to find and kill Osama Bin Laden.
Here is the Press Release from then, originally published by Reuters.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House promised on Monday that the CIA will not use immunization programs for its operations following a complaint that the spy agency used such a campaign in its hunt for Osama bin Laden.
The deans of 12 public health schools had complained about a reported vaccination program conducted by a Pakistani doctor, who used a hepatitis immunization survey in the Pakistani city where bin Laden was later killed in a secret U.S. mission.
The CIA orchestrated the survey to try to obtain fluid containing DNA from relatives living near the bin Laden residence, the Washington Post reported. It said the effort failed and the surgeon, Shakil Afridi, was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said Obama homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco had assured the deans in a letter that CIA policy as of August 2013 makes clear “the CIA will make no operational use of vaccination programs, which includes vaccination workers.”
“Similarly, the agency will not seek to obtain or exploit DNA or other genetic material acquired through such programs. This policy applies worldwide, and to U.S. persons and non-U.S. persons alike,” she said. (Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Ken Wills)
Pakistanis Understood the Oral Polio Scam – And What it was Doing to Their Children
In 2015, The Guardian reported that 471 parents were jailed in Pakistan for refusing to give their children the oral polio vaccine.
Just to emphasize the point here, these are parents of children who are being rounded up and thrown into jail in Pakistan. Not terrorists, not murders, not thieves, but parents who do not want their children to receive the polio vaccine.
As can be seen in the photo above, the oral polio vaccine is being given right on the street, and not in a clinic. How many times were these children forced to receive this vaccine? How would the health worker even know the vaccine history of these children? Do they have pre-existing conditions that would make the vaccine a risk to harm them?
It would seem such basic health questions could not be answered when the order is to vaccinate every child by force right on the street, with no objections allowed.
The oral polio vaccine is so dangerous that it is no longer used in developed countries like the U.S. But, it is mandated, purchased, and distributed in poor countries.
The real tragedy with the live oral polio vaccines is that they can cause the very thing they are supposed to be preventing: polio.
Both “vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis” and “non-polio acute flaccid paralysis” are known side effects of the live oral polio vaccine.
It sheds the virus from the vaccine through feces and into sewers and sanitation systems.
Even though the oral polio vaccine was banned in the U.S. many years ago, they still continued to deny that the vaccine was dangerous as it was distributed to poor countries.
But in 2019, in an almost unprecedented admission of vaccine failure in the corporate media, National Public Radio (NPR) published a show explaining how the present-day oral polio vaccine is a failure, and is actually contributing to the rise of polio in poor countries.
They reported that the U.S. CDC is now recognizing that there is a problem with the oral polio vaccine, which as a live-virus vaccine is actually causing polio around the world, a fact reported here at Health Impact News for over 8 years now.
And the Pakistanis knew it all along.
Why Would Pakistanis Want an Experimental COVID “Vaccine”?
So here we are once again in 2021, and the Pakistanis are yet again being vilified for being skeptical of western vaccines, and this time the experimental COVID “vaccines.”
Don’t let the title fool you, however, that this is a pro-Pakistan piece.
The author, Zuha Siddiqui, makes it quite clear that the stereotypes of the “ignorant, religious fanatic anti-vaccine Pakistanis” are alive and well in this pro-vaccine piece, as he relates his encounter with a hospital employee at the beginning of the article.
When asked if he plans to participate in Pakistan’s coronavirus vaccine rollout, Qasim Gul laughs flippantly. Gul, 32, is a clerk at a teaching hospital in Pakistan’s southeastern city of Karachi. Over the past 10 months, he has been in close proximity with several coronavirus patients, and yet, he says, the virus is a hoax.
While speaking with me outside of his hospital, Gul drags his surgical mask down to his chin. I balk and ask him to cover his nose and mouth; he tells me to seek faith in God.
“Yeah, those stupid anti-vaxxer religious fanatics, what do they know. They’re a threat to public health.”
Oh wait. Those aren’t words just used for Pakistanis anymore.
But I wonder if Americans have as much faith as the Pakistanis have had all these past many years? Will Americans risk prison rather than allow their children to be forcibly vaccinated, as the Pakistanis have done over the years?
Will the Americans’ resistance be so strong that the military will need to be used to administer vaccines at gunpoint, by force, as has been done in Pakistan these past many years?
Judging but what we have seen so far, I doubt it.
But there is a day still coming, and it will probably be soon, where words will be meaningless, and actions will mean everything.
I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut.
I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.
I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars—I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you.
Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth.
I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. (Revelation 3:8-11)
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COVID vaccine makers have not only introduced new primary ingredients to the U.S. vaccine stage, but they’ve bundled these new ingredients with “inactive” ingredients in unprecedented ways that raise the risk for dangerous allergic reactions.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) claims that vaccines “use only the ingredients they need to be as safe and effective as possible.” The star of the show in any vaccine is the “active” ingredient, which is the one designed to create an antibody response.
But the other, supposedly “inactive” ingredients — known as excipients — also play significant, and in many cases risky, co-starring roles.
Studies of licensed vaccines have identified many problems with these secondary ingredients — adjuvants like aluminum, preservatives like thimerosal and stabilizers like gelatin — not to mention highlighting the presence in vaccines of residual DNA from cell lines used in the manufacturing process as well as disclosed and undisclosed contaminants.
Not only that, but vaccine makers have bundled these new primary ingredients with “inactive” excipients in unprecedented ways — polyethylene glycol (PEG) in the case of the mRNA vaccines and polysorbate 80 in the J&J shot.
Given that at least 1,689 recipients of the Pfizer and Moderna injections have reported anaphylactic or serious allergic reactions (as of March 5), and that two J&J clinical trial participantsalso suffered severe allergic reactions, some allergy experts are recommending that closer attention be directed to the risks of both excipients.
Hypersensitivity to structurally similar excipients
Children’s Health Defense has written extensively about the risks of PEG, the coating for the lipid nanoparticle RNA delivery system in the Pfizer and Moderna injections. Two recent studies echo some of the concerns we raised.
Writing in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) in February, physician-researchers Mariana Castells (Brigham and Women’s Hospital) and Elizabeth Phillips (Vanderbilt University) note that “no other vaccine that has PEG as an excipient has [ever] been in widespread use” until COVID. The two authors then zero in on the evidence linking PEG to anaphylaxis, suggesting that it may represent a “hidden danger.”
In fact, leading Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official Peter Marks acknowledged in December that PEG could be the “culprit” responsible for anaphylaxis observed following COVID vaccination.
Although Castells and Phillips state that the anaphylaxis risks of adenoviral-vectored vaccines formulated with polysorbate 80 — vaccines like J&J’s — are “currently unknown,” Phillips and other Vanderbilt colleagues published a paper in mid-2019 (in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice) that reported a startling discovery, namely that “Immediate hypersensitivity to polyethylene glycols and polysorbates” is “more common than we have recognized.”
In that paper, Phillips and her colleagues also warned their fellow allergists that the similarities between polysorbates and PEGs may produce cross-reactive hypersensitivity that is likely “under recognized in clinical practice.”
Unlike the PEGs making their debut as vaccine excipients, polysorbate surfactants (polysorbate 80or polysorbate 20) are already present in numerous licensed vaccines — including vaccines with diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis components, hepatitis A and B vaccines, vaccines against influenzaand rotavirus, meningococcal and pneumococcal vaccines, shingles injections and Gardasil 9.
Disturbingly, nearly all of these vaccines list anaphylaxis and anaphylactoid reactions as documented adverse events in their package inserts, although the inserts offer no explanation or even speculation about the specific triggering agent(s).
The use of polysorbate 80 in vaccines also raises other potential concerns that have not attracted sufficient attention, including the compound’s ability to cross the blood-brain barrier and potential evidence of carcinogenic activity in animal studies.
The mysteries of sensitization
Allergic sensitization is a complicated affair that even allergists do not fully comprehend, and there are ongoing questions about the mechanism of sensitization to PEGs (and, by implication, to polysorbates).
In their 2019 paper, Phillips and co-authors describe two case studies involving recurrent exposures to medical products relying on PEG excipients (colonoscopy preparations and corticosteroids), also describing occupational exposure from glycol-containing hydraulic fluids. In both instances, these exposures resulted in cross-reactivity to polysorbates.
In his final exposure to PEG, the first patient lost consciousness, “knocking a hole in the drywall with his head,” and after experiencing plummeting blood pressure of 60/20 spent a night in the emergency room. Subsequent skin testing showed positivity to polysorbate-80-containing products ranging from a corticosteroid (triamcinolone acetonide) and eye drops to a pneumococcal vaccine.
The scenario was similar for the second patient, who became dangerously hypotensive following PEG exposure, ended up in the emergency room and had a positive allergy skin test to the same polysorbate-containing corticosteroid.
As a result of industry’s pervasive reliance on PEGs, approximately 72% of contemporary samples of human blood analyzed in 2016 revealed detectable and sometimes high levels of anti-PEG antibodies — with 8% displaying extremely elevated levels strongly associated with anaphylaxis.
No comparable study seems to be available for polysorbates, but a 2005 study drew attention to polysorbate 80 as “a ubiquitously used solubilizing agent that can cause severe nonimmunologic anaphylactoid reactions” and described its “current relevance as a ‘hidden’ inductor” of such reactions.
In addition to their presence in vaccines, the FDA allows polysorbates’ direct use in foods (“as adjuvants of flavoring agents or as multipurpose additives”) and also permits an “indirect” food additive role.
Examples of these food uses include as an emulsifier in ice cream and other frozen desserts, as a “solubilizing and dispersing agent” in pickles and as a “defoaming agent” for cottage cheese. The cosmetics and personal care industries make liberal use of polysorbates in skin products and makeup.
Phillips’ 2019 paper includes a medication excipient review. In the review, the authors identify 1,155 FDA-approved medications containing PEG 3350 (one type of PEG) as an active or inactive ingredient, most commonly in “film coated tablets, topical gels, and parenteral [intravenous or injected] steroids.”
In addition, about six times as many FDA-approved medications (N=6,821) contain polysorbate 80 (as either an active or inactive ingredient), mostly in the same types of products as well as in vaccines.
Recommendations ignored
CDC officials maintain that anaphylaxis following COVID vaccination is a “rare event,” but Castells and Phillips, in their 2021 NEJM paper, report that “the incidence of anaphylaxis associated with the Pfizer SARS-Cov-2 mRNA vaccine appears to be approximately 10 times as high as the incidence reported with all previous vaccines.”
They also note that “preexisting sensitization to a component of the vaccine” (such as a PEG or polysorbate excipient) could account for the types of reactions being observed.
Importantly, they not only recommend that patients who have experienced anaphylaxis after a Pfizer or Moderna injection avoid any further exposure to PEG-formulated mRNA vaccines, but also that such individuals avoid “all PEG and injectable polysorbate 80 products.”
Disturbingly, the CDC is ignoring this prudent recommendation. Au contraire — making no mention of the issue of potential PEG-polysorbate cross-reactivity, the CDC, according to a March 1 CNBC report, says “that people who have an allergic reaction to the first dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine could get the J&J vaccine instead.”
On its webpage providing “Information about COVID-19 vaccines for people with allergies,” the CDC tells people who have had a severe or immediate allergic reaction to “any ingredient in an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine” not to get the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, and warns individuals who have had a severe or immediate allergic reaction to any ingredient in J&J’s COVID vaccine not to get that injection.
Allergy expert Scott Commins at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill endorses the J&J shot as “safe for the overwhelming majority of people with food or environmental allergies.” While conceding that polysorbates are associated with “very rare allergic reactions,” Commins states that because they are so common, “people with sensitivity to polysorbate may already know.”
However, the remarks of an individual who commented on a January STAT news report about vaccine-related allergic reactions illustrate the difficulty that members of the public may have in sorting through these complexities:
“I have stage 4 carcinoid cancer, medically induced diabetes, asthma … I want to take vaccine but have had mild to anaphylactic reaction to meds. Some like Contrast dye with iodine suddenly developed severe reaction after decades of no issues. Had terrible reaction to flu vac yrs ago … I don’t know which meds contain polysorbate or polyethylene glycol to know if I’m allergic to ingredients in vaccine.”
Writing in late January, a month before the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization of the J&J COVID vaccine, the American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) stated that there is “no consensus” on how to evaluate a patient’s history of severe reactions to PEGs or polysorbates in advance of vaccination, but noted that “some would argue that [skin] testing to the vaccine is required.”
Although not foolproof (false negatives are possible), skin testing for PEG and polysorbate by an allergist can be informative for people who are uncertain of their allergy status. Some healthcare facilities are now offering such testing.
The AAAAI adds, “If skin testing is positive the individual is not a candidate for the currently available mRNA vaccines,” also stating that skin testing for polysorbate reactivity could become important should the J&J vaccine enter into general use.
Alarmingly, the media are fostering the perception that J&J’s vaccine is “allergy free,” even going so far as to state that “clinics may not need to watch patients for severe reactions for 15 minute after getting the shot.”
Even more sobering, Castells and Phillipps remind us that the uber-healthy individuals typically studied in clinical trials “may not reflect a predisposition to adverse events that may exist in other populations.”
Only time will tell whether the individuals taking J&J’s COVID injection because they believe it to be “allergy free” have been steered in a safe direction.
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In seinem im Juni 1939 erschienenen Gedicht „An die Nachgeborenen“ legte Bertolt Brecht ehrlich, erschütternd und mahnend Rechenschaft ab über sein Leben in finsteren Zeiten:
.
.
„Wirklich, ich lebe in finsteren Zeiten! Das arglose Wort ist töricht. Eine glatte Stirn Deutet auf Unempfindlichkeit hin. Der Lachende Hat die furchtbare Nachricht Nur noch nicht empfangen.
Was sind das für Zeiten, wo Ein Gespräch über Bäume fast ein Verbrechen ist Weil es ein Schweigen über so viele Untaten einschließt! Der dort ruhig über die Straße geht Ist wohl nicht mehr erreichbar für seine Freunde Die in Not sind?“
Drei Generationen später leben wir wieder in finsteren Zeiten.
Die Nachgeborenen sollen transhumane Wesen werden,
entseelte Menschmaschinen, Diener und Energieträger
für die kleine Zahl „Auserwählter“.
Wir hätten es wissen können, wissen müssen!
Diese Zukunft, die nur noch ihre sein soll,
haben sie seit langem offen angekündigt.
Doch wir konnten die Flammenschrift an der Wand, dieses Menetekel,
nicht deuten – so wie Belsazar. Konnten nicht glauben,
dass die von Machtgier zerfressenen Despoten und Anhänger Satans
ihre teuflischen Pläne tatsächlich umsetzen werden.
Unser Geist ist nicht frei, wir haben die Ängstlichkeit nicht abgeworfen.
Von Kindheitstagen an glauben wir an Autoritäten, sind ihnen hörig,
übergeben ihnen die Macht und haben nicht den Mut, uns unseres
gesunden Menschenverstands zu bedienen
– wir sind nur in der Lage zu gehorchen.
Diese skrupellosen Despoten schüren die Ängste der Bürger
vor Hunger und Versklavung, vor dem Tod und der Hölle.
Auch bedienen sie sich der Dienste korrupter Philosophen, Psychologen
und Naturwissenschaftler, die ihre Seele verkaufen.
Ihr Ziel ist es, das Volk zu unterwerfen, ihnen alle Rechte zu nehmen,
sie in transhumane Wesen zu verwandeln, damit sie gehorchen
und dienen.
Dabei seien Thron und Altar Spießgesellen…, die sich verstehen
würden wie zwei Beutelschneider. Das meinte Jean Meslier,
der französische Philosoph des 17. Jahrhunderts,
ein Atheist im Priesterrock (1).
Im Vorwort seines berühmten „Memorandums der Gedanken
und Überzeugungen“, schrieb er, dass er unlängst einem Mann
begegnet sei, der „kein Studierter war, doch offenkundig genügend
Menschenverstand besaß, um die widerwärtigen Missbräuche zu erkennen
und zu verurteilen“, denn er habe gesagt,
„man solle alle Großen der Erde mit den Gedärmen der Priester erwürgen und daran aufhängen…“
Meslier fügt hinzu:
„Diese Redeweise erscheint gewiss rauh, ungehobelt und anstößig, aber man muss zugeben, dass sie offenherzig und freimütig ist, kurzgefasst und eindrucksvoll.“ (2)
Zu den Großen der Erde gehören heute unter anderem die Rockefellers
und Rothschilds, die Brzezinskis, die Kissingers und Ihresgleichen,
die Coudenhove-Kalergis und die anderen Weisen.
Als sie die Neue-Welt-Ordnung – eine Eine-Welt-Regierung, eine
Eine-Welt-Religion und für uns normale Bürger Dantes Hölle –
ankündigten, waren sie sich sicher: sie werden gewinnen.
Und so sieht es auch aus!
Viele große Frauen und Männer – auch in der Neuzeit – versuchten,
uns aufmerksam zu machen, zu warnen: Zum Beispiel Baron d’Holbach
oder Fürst Peter Kropotkin, Michael Bakunin oder Karl Marx, Graf Tolstoi
oder Johannes Messner, Emma Goldmann oder Bertha von Suttner,
Siegmund Freud oder Alfred Adler, Aldous Huxley oder George Orwell,
Rosalie Bertell oder Maria Mies, Albert Schweitzer oder Carl Friedrich von Weizäcker, Hannah Arendt oder Michel Chossudovsky.
Doch wir hörten ihnen nicht zu, weil wir es besser wussten.
Auch wollten wir es nicht wissen, weil es unsere Kreise störte.
Deshalb stellt sich heute die dringende Frage: Was tun?
„Was tun?“, sprach Zeus, „die Götter sind besoffen und bekotzen den Olymp.“
Ein Freund meinte es gut und gab mir den Rat:
Wage es, weise zu sein und übergib keinem die Macht!
Lebe dein Leben, aber sei auch Hüter deiner Brüder und Schwestern!
Erhebe den Gemeinsinn zur leitenden Idee!
Schütze die Jugend, fördere und fordere sie!
Gib, wenn du kannst und hasse nicht, wenn möglich!
Mische dich als Intellektueller ein und zeige jeweils einen konstruktiven
und gewaltfreien Ausweg auf!
Habe Mitgefühl mit allen Geschöpfen, denn erst das macht dich
wirklich zum Menschen!
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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel ist Diplom-Psychologe und Erziehungswissenschaftler.
Fußnoten:
1. Hagen, Friedrich (1977). Ein Atheist im Priesterrock. Jean Meslier und die französischen Freidenker des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. Eine Streitschrift von Friedrich Hagen. Leverkusen und Köln, S. 42
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In a previous article I argued “Why It’s Necessary to End NATO”. However, recent events are making clear that the urgency of this need is increasing, instead of decreasing.
In 2011, the U.S. Government started planning a take-over of Ukraine, which, at that time, was a neutral country that has a 1,625-mile border with Russia. At its nearest point to Moscow, that border is only 5 minutes flight-time away from Moscow, via the fastest missiles. Obviously, that’s far too little time for Russia’s Government to be able to evacuate themselves from Moscow and to launch a retaliation against a U.S. blitz-attack. The U.S. goal is to get Ukraine into NATO, so that America can position its missiles there and really achieve “Nuclear Primacy” (which I discussed in that earlier article as being America’s meta-strategy since at least 2006 — safely to destroy Russia, even though that won’t actually be possible).
On February 1st of 2021, Ukraine’s President, Volodmyr Zelenskyy,made undeniably clear his intention to fulfill on Obama’s plan, for Ukraine to become a NATO member. Whether Joe Biden is going to push for that will be the most important decision of his Presidency, because it would be a commitment to World War III. It would, in effect, be a U.S. declaration of war against Russia. Whether the blitz-invasion would come from the U.S. (presumably assisted by missiles placed in Ukraine), or instead from Russia (in order to wipe out those and all other U.S. missiles), would be the only remaining question. Who will try the blitz-attack first? Either way, the world — at least the biosphere that sustains human life — would end.
Zelenskyy said:
We are grateful for everything, but Ukraine is not just saying in words that it wants to be an equal member of the Alliance, an equal member of NATO, because this is one of the most important security points – the same security that President Biden is speaking about. How should we further state the desire to accede [join], if it is enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine – the movement towards the European Union, European integration, as well as accession to NATO? Therefore, I have a very simple question – why is Ukraine still not in NATO? Putting away these phrases that we will all contemplate and communicate, the first simple question from me would be: “Mr. President, why are we not in NATO yet”?
If Ukraine becomes a NATO-member, then Ukraine will have the right to demand that America join its war to grab back the former Donbass region and also the former region of Crimea. The U.S. Government would then be put into the position of having to either fulfill its NATO commitment to the new NATO member (presuming that restoration of both Crimea and Donbass to Ukraine would be accepted as being a part of that commitment to what then would be a fellow-NATO-member) or else become very embarrassed by not doing so. If such a NATO commitment would be fulfilled, the world as it has always been known would end very fast — less than an hour.
The way that WW III would then start is that Ukraine would become more heavily armed by the U.S. and then would invade both Donbass and Crimea, Russia would then attack Ukraine for doing that, and the U.S. would then launch a blitz-attack against Moscow from Ukraine, and, simultaneously launch against all other command-and-control targets in Russia, so that before those have become hit, Russia would already have been decapitated.
The United States Government is fortunately not obliged to allow Ukraine into NATO and has many ways to prevent it from joining NATO. Some of these ways wouldn’t at all embarrass the U.S. Government, and the reason for this is that if any one NATO-member nation refuses to okay Ukraine as becoming a member, then Ukraine won’t become a member, and the scenario that has been described won’t then happen. The U.S. Government has enormous clout with each existing NATO member-nation, because NATO was created by the North Atlantic Treaty (also called the “Washington Treaty”) in Washington, DC, on 4 April 1949, at a conference that was chaired by U.S. diplomat Theodore Achiles, who subsequently retired to become a Director of the Atlantic Council, which also is in Washington, and which is the PR arm of NATO. The U.S. Government could easily get at least one NATO-member country to say no to Ukraine’s joining. However, if U.S. President Biden announces that the U.S. endorses NATO-membership for Ukraine, then that’s, in itself, virtually a U.S. declaration of war against Russia, and Russia might not wait for it to be made official before responding to it — blitz-invading the U.S. and its allies.
The NATO spirit was born in that Working Group. Derick Hoyer-Millar, the British Minister, started it. One day he made a proposal which was obviously nonsense. Several of us told him so in no uncertain terms, and a much better formulation emerged from the discussion. Derick said, and I quote, “Those are my instructions. All right, I’ll tell the foreign office I made my pitch, was shot down and try to get them changed.” He did. From then on we all followed the same system. If our instructions were sound, and agreement could be reached, fine. If not, we worked out something we all, or most of us, considered sound, and whoever had the instructions undertook to get them changed. It always worked, although sometimes it took time. That spirit has continued to this day, I believe, although the size to which NATO has grown makes it far less easy. Two years later we began in London to put the “O” on the NAT by creating the organization. Some of the members of the delegations had been members of the Working Group, some had not.
Was that the beginning of the end of the world? Perhaps Biden will decide whether it is, or not.
However, if he does decide to do it, then I doubt he’d do the attack prior to getting Ukraine into NATO — if he can do that. On March 10th, The Saker headlined “Is the Ukraine on the brink of war (again)?” and speculated whether Biden will provide now the backing that the Obama-installed stooge-regime there wants. Though the stooge-regime might re-invade Donbass (and maybe even attack Crimea), I doubt that Biden will provide the type of assistance that the U.S.-stooge regime in Kiev would need in order to retake that land (and certainly not Crimea). I would expect that Biden is therefore informing Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy not to try. So, I would expect that, instead, the crucial decision will be whether or not the regime in Washington will decide that it really does want Ukraine to become a member of NATO.
On March 10th, Sweden’s Defense Research Agency issued in two different parts, a 300-page report, “Western Military Capability in Northern Europe 2020,” which concluded that Russia would likely win WW III in Europe, and which analyzed only conventional war and virtually totally ignored even the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons in WW III — the presumption was instead that the meta-strategy “MAD” still would prevent that, and they ignored the U.S. regime’s actual abandonment of “MAD” and switch to “Nuclear Primacy”. They also simply presumed that the U.S. is their ally and non-aggressive and that Russia is their enemy and is aggressive. In other words: it is fantasyland, at least in the Swedish Government.
Furthermore: the core strategic question, of whether the loser in a conventional WW III would accept defeat instead of blitz-nuclear-attack the opponent so as to ‘win’ the war, was simply ignored, as if there would be a 100% likelihood that the conventional-war loser would just surrender and not escalate to a blitz nuclear attack against the opposite side in order to ‘win’ and would leave its enormous nuclear stockpile unused. They ignored the fact that NATO, after the Warsaw Pact ended in 1991, is the trip-wire to an all-out nuclear war — the exact opposite of an asset to its participants’ national security. NATO-participation makes all of them inevitably a part of the battlefield, and forces Russia to target them. Sweden’s Defense Research Agency produced there an insanely stupid study, and one which shows that Europeans, at least in Sweden, are being ‘defended’ by a government that is either in the pocket of the U.S., or else is simply idiotic. That study is shockingly stupid; it makes some of the craziest assumptions imaginable — assumptions that are tragically at variance with established facts (facts such as that America is, by far, the world’s most aggressive nation, and perpetrates far more coups, sanctions, and invasions, than does any other nation). At least regarding foreign relations, Sweden’s Government is monstrously disserving its public, and yet Swedes aren’t enraged against it. Are their news-media really that bad, so as for Swedes to tolerate a military alliance with the world’s most aggressive nation?
The only sane path forward for the nations that currently are NATO members (or “Partners” as Sweden is) is to withdraw and to urge other members (and Partners) likewise to withdraw, so that NATO will end — as it should have ended when the Soviet Union’s NATO-mirror organization the Warsaw Pact ended in 1991. End the Cold War, finally. NATO — the American military alliance against Russia — is simply the trip-wire to WW III. End it. Now. Even 30 years after 1991 isn’t, yet, too late to do it. But, maybe, 31 years would be. That’s why it must be done now, delayed no further. Either NATO will end, or it will end all of us.
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Nanna Skov Høpfner, or as she is known by her friends Nanna Fri (Nanna Freedom), talked at a rally against the Danish Government and their corona restrictions. In her speech she made many good points, but also ended with “lets go smash this town up in a non-violent way. Lets make some noise, so they can hear, we are here”.
For this she was sentenced 2 years in jail, because they used an option to double the sentence, when it’s corona related. The law was never meant to be used against activists, but to punish people committing coronary crimes like fraud. Nanna is 30 years old and the mother of 2 small children and has no background of activism or violent behavior.
Activist Per Brændgaard comments on Nannas case. Per is a Cand. Scient. in Human Nutrition, works as a nutrition consultant, author and lecturer on life quality and natural health. He is also one of the strongest public voices against corona restrictions in Denmark, also started a new party to fight political corruption. Per and other important groups in Denmark, such as The People’s Freedom Movement, the JFK21 Party, More Freedom Less Control – have helped to uncover the many incoherencies in the corona pandemic narrative, as well as the frightening tyrannical development in Danish politics during thi period.
Per comments on Nannas case:
It is my impression from here that the police have absolutely no evidence that Nanna Fri has done anything criminal. The police, on the other hand, are trying to set up Nanna Fri on a conspiracy theory that the police themselves have prepared. It is a theory about a conspiracy among protesters to commit violence against the police, which Nanna Fri was supposed to lead.
March 12, 2021 will go down in history as one of the darkest days in Denmark. Nanna Fri was today sentenced by the Copenhagen City Court to 2 years unconditional imprisonment for having said these words from a scene at a demonstration: “let’s smash the city – in a non-violent way”. Nanna was convicted of an undocumented conspiracy theory drawn up by police. I hope the three district court judges are well and truly ashamed now, but unfortunately they probably are not. I especially hope that many more Danes are now starting to wake up and realize what a system corona fascism has introduced in Denmark.
The Nanna Fri case is tragic in many ways. It is also tragic for the Danish police, which many Danes have probably now lost the last remnant of respect for. If the police think, and they obviously do, that a young mother must be punished so severely for uttering those words, yes it’s just WORDS, then it is very difficult to take the police seriously in other areas in the future. It is detrimental to the work of the police against real crime and to the protection of the population. I would urge every single police officer to look at the Nanna Fri verdict and decide for themselves whether it is such a fascist system one wants to work for or whether it is time to move on. If the police can not hire people to carry out the fascist tasks, then the fascists in suits behind the scenes will have to go on the streets themselves, and they probably will not dare, after all. We must have the police on our side, the people’s, by peaceful, lawful means. Let’s hug them over here – over here on Lyste’s page!
Here is a critical review of Per Brændgaard’s opinion of the city court against Nanna Fri.
Per Brændgaard: Nanna Skov Høpfner, who is also known as Nanna Fri, was sentenced by the Copenhagen City Court yesterday, 12 March 2021, to 2 years unconditional imprisonment.
The legal judge in the case was Uffe Habekost Sørensen. In addition, two lay judges participated in the verdict against Nanna. Judge Uffe Habekost Sørensen writes about himself on LinkedIn that he has previously worked for the Ministry of Justice as resp. clerk in 2016 and student in 2005-2007. He thus has a past in the executive branch before switching to the judiciary.
The Copenhagen City Court has published this justification for the verdict, which I assume was written by judge Habekost. Here is a list of points that I wonder about when reviewing the text.
I quote from the text of the judgment:
“It is thus proven that the accused approx. at 18.30 from a podium in front of about 400 demonstrators in the Town Hall Square over a loudspeaker, among other things, stated “Okay, are you ready to walk around and smash the city in a non-violent way? Just to make Copenhagen aware that we are here? ”,“ We ??are here.
We are angry and we are tired and we are going insane ”,
“ Is no one listening to us? There is no one listening to us friends. So what do we do? We get them to listen and how do we do it. Time will tell ”and“ Are you in? Are we done accepting that shit? So let’s smash it, friends! Democracy okay? ” and
“The people into the Folketing. Smash that system. Thank you. Fuck the system. Fuck Mette. Fuck Poli. Fuck it all man. Thank you ”, whereby she helped to light Roman candles, cannon shots and fired fireworks at Copenhagen City Hall during and after her speech.
Per Brændgaard’s comment: I simply do not see where there should be any incitement to violence or other forms of crime. It is a speech given in youth language in the context of a demonstration to mainly other younger people who, in my opinion, feel a completely just resentment over the corona-fascist abuses of national freedom and public health. It may be stupidly worded, but if it is to give two years in prison to make a stupid statement, then half the population should be behind bars now.
How can the judges misunderstand “smashing the city in a non-violent way”?
They can only do so when they choose to judge in favor of the executive, of which they themselves, unfortunately, are a part. How has the communication been between judge Habekost and the police / prosecution in the period up to the trial? Is it possible to gain insight into this with a view to investigating any crime committed by Judge Habekost?
The verdict further states:
“Furthermore, it is proven that shortly after the speech, the defendant participated in a serious disturbance of public order in, among other places, Rådhuspladsen, H.C. Andersens Boulevard and Blegdamsvej, as she repeatedly took the lead in the demonstration and by her presence, shouting, including using a megaphone, and behavior, in conjunction with her previous speech, participated in and encouraged others to attack by throwing objects, including cannon shots, fireworks, cans and stones, against the police officers present, injuring several of them and not less than 16 police officers were hit by objects.
Per Brændgaard’s comment: It is simply too vague! What did Nanna say? What has Nanna done? What is the documentation for this? And what about the video documentation that Nanna Fri was actually trying to calm the agitated protesters? Have the judges chosen to override this in order to instead believe in the police’s undocumented conspiracy theory about Nanna as the great mastermind in a coordinated attack on the police?
I have no doubt that there were police officers who were injured. But what about the evidence that the police themselves contributed to the escalation of the situation? And what about the many protesters who were beaten to death half by the police?
If this judgment sets a precedent, then one will e.g. could also be convicted of speeding if driving on a road where other cars are driving too fast. It is absurd that you can be convicted of the crime that others in a group may commit simply because you join the group yourself. We do not find ourselves being treated inhumanly like sheep that way!
Judge Habekost further writes:
It is also proven that the defendant failed to comply with the authority’s lawfully served order to the crowd to divorce and encouraged others to new gross disturbance of public order and violent behavior of the above-mentioned nature, while playing the police uplift form on HC Andersens Boulevard ca. at 19.35 in a megaphone stated “freedom for Denmark, we have had enough”, “up the ass with the queen” and “get some time in the drum there man”, just as the defendant participated in the run, including at the intersection Blegdamsvej / Tagensvej approx. at 20.50, where objects were also thrown at the police, until the riot was dissolved approx. at 21.00.
Per Brændgaard’s comment: So the police’s evidence is that Nanna has stated “freedom for Denmark, we have had enough” and “up the ass with the queen”, and that she has encouraged a drummer to play her instrument?
Judge Habekost continues to excel:
“The court finds in general that the defendants in the above statements and actions have contributed to gross disturbance of public order as well as the use of violence against the police officers present, including aggravated violence and attacks with objects. In this connection, the accused is found to have acted in association and by prior agreement or by common understanding with a larger group of identified and unidentified accomplices.
Here it is so black and white that the Copenhagen City Court chooses to believe the conspiracy theory that the Copenhagen Police has developed about Nanna Fri.
What is the evidence that Nanna Fri has entered into a “prior agreement” to commit criminal acts? It does not appear that there is any documentation whatsoever. It’s all based on presumptions, and that’s not how a district court should judge in a civilized legal society, in my opinion.
The madness of the city court ruling is further apparent from the text of the judgment in this continuing section: The court notes that the two police commissioners who have given explanations in the case have explained, among other things, that prior to the demonstration on January 9, 2021, organized by Men In Black , were concerns about violence against police. The background for this was, among other things, Men In Black’s previous activities and the storm at the US Congress on January 6, 2021.
So Nanna Fri has been convicted based on not only what other people have done at that demonstration but also what others have done on completely different occasions and in the US?
Judge Habekost continues:
The court finds it proven that the defendant at least had probable intent, as the defendant must have realized that it was overwhelmingly probable that she with her statements and actions contributed to the mentioned offenses. Emphasis has been placed on the information about the circumstances of the defendant’s speech at Rådhuspladsen, including that the defendant knew that arrests had been made and that she perceived that fireworks were being fired. It is also emphasized that it appears from the video recording of a speech that the defendant gave on 11 November 2020 that she was careful to avoid encouraging clashes with the police. Furthermore, it is emphasized that the defendant’s actions and statements took place over a longer period of time and continued after she had seen fellow demonstrators commit the offenses in question.
Per Brændgaard’s comment: In other words: The documentation that Nanna Fri actually tried to put a damper on the tempers is used by the Copenhagen City Court as proof that she is guilty of provoking violence against the police. If we had a Minister of Justice who was interested in people’s freedom, then he would fire Judge Habekost immediately and send him for a mental examination before he is given new tasks as a judge.
The text of the judgment from the Copenhagen City Court contains a large number of other nonsense that confirm to me that Denmark has become an idiocy and not a democracy.
Now this should not be seen as a call for criminal acts against the clearly incompetent judge Habekost. After all, he cannot pretend to be incompetent, or perhaps he has been subjected to pressure or bait, which he has not been able to resist. He is also only a human being. The Folketing, on the other hand, should make a proposal to the Minister of Justice that Habekost be dismissed immediately and that Nanna Fris’ city court ruling be overturned under the leadership of a competent and competent judge. At the same time, Nanna Fri should be set free now so she can go home to her children while she waits for the case to come before a new judge who will judge fairly and not politically.
All of this is merely an expression of my opinion as a politically committed non-lawyer. If the police should decide to arrest me for this, then I remind you of sections 71, 72 and especially 77 of the Constitution.
The Social Democrats and the Danish People’s Party report fascist suit
Per Brændgaard’s comment: S, DF and DR participate in advanced propaganda for continued corona fascism. In a new propaganda article from the state media DR with the headline Corona double punishment against 30-year-old woman arouses tremors at Christiansborg, S and DF state that they believe that double punishment for Nanna Fri is completely in place, as the case was connected to covid- 19.
It does not get behind me with S, who should immediately go to a numerologist and change his name from the Social Democrats to the Social Fascists, but DF you never quite know where you are, unless the case is about Muslims. Now the DF has also shown their true fascist suit with this announcement, and we know that the DF will in future stand for Danish Fascists. The more advanced propaganda in the DR article comes from statements from the Radicals and SF as well as from DR’s organization of the propaganda itself, which is disguised as a journalistic article by Nicolai S. Nielsen and Caroline Clante. The latter I return to at the end of this article.
Both the Socialist People’s Party and the Radicals disagree that the special corona clause should have been used in the Nanna Fri case, but with their statements they are interfering in a pending lawsuit. The Radicals’ legal spokesman Kristian Hegaard says: “- She has done something illegal.” SF’s legal spokesperson Karina Lorentzen-Denhardt says to DR: “- There is no doubt that some very serious things have been committed here. I will not defend that. This woman must also take her judgment for that. ” I assume that none of these politicians have read the reasoning for the verdict, which at least in my and many others’ point of view suggests that it is city court judge Habekost and not Nanna Fri who has done something illegal. She is convicted on a very extremely thin basis, which is not worthy of a society governed by the rule of law.
DR emphasizes this propaganda trick by taking something for granted – “Nanna is guilty” – even though it is definitely not a matter of course!
And then they use another propaganda trick to shift focus from Nanna’s guilt to the corona clause on double punishment, thereby derailing the debate. The case is about a judge in the Copenhagen City Court having made a political and not a legal judgment against a citizen who has had big enough balls (or ovaries) to stand up on a lectern and speak against the occupying power and its followers. Nanna Fri is a freedom fighter, a folk hero who should be praised instead of being subjected to this abuse in a system that gradually reminds a lot more of China than of Denmark.
DR starts the propaganda article as follows:
“It is a most sensational verdict that has been handed down by the Copenhagen City Court this afternoon. Not so much because a 30-year-old woman has been convicted of inciting violence against police during a demonstration against coronary restrictions. But because the punishment is double the normal. ” It is in this way that they make the readers accept that Nanna is guilty, even though that is exactly what the debate should be about now. The case is the worst judicial murder in recent times. Even committed against a young mother of two small children.
May the culprits of the police, the prosecution and the district court be ashamed and punished by the negative karma that their intentions and actions in this case must inevitably have brought!
Translated from Danish
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Comments Off on In Denmark, Activist Mother Against Covid Restrictions Sentenced to 2 Years in Jail for Saying “Let’s Go Smash this Town Up in a Non-violent Way“
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A controversial attempt to mark Pope Francis‘s March 7 visit to Iraqi Kurdistan with a commemorative postage stamp has stoked regional tensions, prompting irate reactions from Turkey and Iran.
The stamp portrayed Pope Francis partially superimposed on a map of territory claimed by Kurdish nationalists as “Greater Kurdistan” – a contested area that includes Iraqi cities such as Kirkuk and Nineveh, as well as large swathes of southeastern Turkey and western Iran.
The circulation of the design on the Internet was met with condemnation, especially from Turkey and Iran. The Turkish Foreign Ministry called on Kurdish regional authority to rectify the “error”.
“Certain presumptious authorties in KRG [the Kurdistan Regional Government] dared to abuse the mentioned visit to express their unrealistic aspirations against the territorial integrity of Iraq’s neighbouring countries,” a statement from the Turkish foreign ministry said.
“KRG authorities are in the best position to remember the disappointing outcomes of such deceitful aims,” the Turkish statement warned ominously
Iran characterised the publication of the stamp design as an “ unfriendly action.”
“What has been published by the Kurdistan Regional Government is against international laws and principles,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh was quoted by official news agency IRNA as saying.
KRG authorities responded with a statement saying the stamps were unofficial, having been presented by artists and designers rather than by any official body.
Hatem Al-Taie, a spokesman for the Arab Council in Kirkuk, said in a press statement on Friday that the stamps were “separatist”, adding that Kirkuk, a city retaken by Iraqi central government security forces from Kurdish peshmerga fighters in 2017, was not part of Kurdistan.
Kirkuk is a diverse city with an ethnically mixed population of Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, and Assyrians.
However, many Iraqi Kurds consider it the “capital” of the Kurdistan Region, which is currently administered from Erbil.
Al-Taie added that the Kurdistan region was part of the Iraqi state and that the issuing of any postage stamp must be done through the Ministry of Transport.
Niyazi Mimaroglu, the leader of the Turkmen Front and a former member of the Iraqi parliament, accused the Kurdistan Regional Government of having “promoted such a map for years.”
During a televised interview he said that “the publication of the postage stamp was not spontaneous, but planned.” He called on the Iraqi parliament to investigate and “not be silent about this sensitive issue.”
However, KRG spokesman Gutiar Adel said the stamp designs had not been approved by Kurdish authorities.
“Artists have submitted samples of proposed stamp designs to be printed on the occasion of the Pope’s visit to Iraq,” he said in a statement. “So far, none of these models have been approved.”
A member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the governing party in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, confirmed in a phone call to The New Arab’s Arabic service that the stamps “are usually made as part of a design competition for artists and amateurs and are later approved by the government in Erbil.”
However, he said the stamps had never been made official. “This is just an excuse to persecute the Erbil government,” he said.
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Featured image: The stamp design caused outrage in Iran and Turkey [Getty]
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On March 11, the foreign ministers of Russia, Turkey, and Qatar met in a trilateral effort to push for a political resolution to the 10-year-old conflict in Syria. They held a joint press conference in Doha and issued a broad statement concerning the future of Syria, and their joint commitment to the UN peace process under resolution 2254.
The trio emphasized their commitment to preserving the sovereignty, independence, unity, and territorial integrity of Syria while stating that the only solution to the conflict was a political settlement, while all agreed on fighting terrorism which is part of the UN charter.
The next meeting will be held in Turkey, and later in Moscow. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s said,
“This is the first meeting at foreign ministers’ level on the Syrian crisis. We emphasized the importance of a political solution to the Syrian crisis, and this meeting is not an alternative to the Astana path.”
1. to preserve the sovereignty, independence, unity, and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic under the UN Charter.
2. no military solution, only a political solution in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 2254 and Geneva Communique of 2012.
3. to combat terrorism and stand against separatist agendas.
4. to support the role of the Constitutional Committee without foreign interference.
5. to support the efforts of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to Syria, Geir Pedersen.
6. to support the Covax initiative, and prioritize vaccination inside Syria.
7. to increase humanitarian assistance to all Syrians throughout the country.
8. the safe and voluntary return of refugees and internally displaced persons.
9. the release of detainees.
Russia
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the three countries were not seeking to replace the Astana process, in which Turkey, Russia, and Iran had jointly been meeting since 2017, to reduce fighting in Syria and discuss a political solution.
Lavrov said the meeting in Doha agreed on fighting terror, the free and peaceful return of Syrian refugees and displaced people to their homes, and called for the release of detainees.
Lavrov began his Middle East tour by paying a working visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on March 9 and later to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Russian President Vladimir Putin maintains consistent contacts with leaders of Arab monarchies.
While in Abu Dhabi, Lavrov met with Crown Prince of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Qatar
Qatar has supported Radical Islamic terrorists who sought to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Qatar’s role in the conflict was based on its support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which Turkey shares. The former Qatari prime minister publically acknowledged that Qatar had funneled cash and weapons to the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria and that it was done at the behest of the US Obama administration.
Qatar currently supports Hayat Tahir al-Sham, formerly known as Jibhat al-Nusra, the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, which holds the civilian population of Idlib under occupation.
Qatar was important to the trio meeting in Doha since they are the only Arab country of the three.
Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the ministers had also discussed mechanisms for delivering humanitarian aid across the whole of Syria. Presently, only Idlib receives humanitarian aid from international charities, which is seen as a reward for following Radical Islam or living under Sharia law.
Qatar upholds Syria’s suspension from the Arab League in 2011 and does not want Syria to be reinstated. Sheikh Mohammed made it clear that the reasons for the suspension of Syria’s membership remain, and Turkey and Qatar both remain opposed to engaging with Assad.
On March 11, the Permanent Representative of Qatar to the United Nations Office in Geneva, Ambassador Ali Khalfan al-Mansouri, delivered an address at the Human Rights Council with the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic.
Mansouri attacked the Syrian government using all the familiar western media litany of complaints, while accusing Russia of obstructing efforts to reach a political solution based on UN resolution 2254, thwarting the work of the Constitutional Committee, and seeking a military solution to the Syrian conflict.
While the Russian foreign minister was sitting in Doha, the Qatari Ambassador was attacking Russia to the UN concerning the very same points that were being agreed upon by Russia, Turkey, and Qatar on the very same day.
Turkey
Turkey has supported Radical Islamic terrorists who sought ‘regime change’ in Syria under an Obama-directed US-NATO project. The CIA under Obama was directed in a $3 billion program, Timber Sycamore, which funneled cash, training, and weapons to terrorists using Turkey as their transit point into Syria. In 2017 Trump shut it down.
Turkey made a dramatic shift and began working with Russia in Syria once the US had supported the Syrian Kurds’ separatist terrorists, who Turkey views as aligned with the PKK, which is an internationally recognized terrorist group.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said,
“Today we launched a new trilateral consultation process,” while adding in Doha, “Our goal is to discuss how we can contribute to efforts towards a lasting political solution in Syria.”
Cavusoglu said recent international engagement with Syria’s Assad government hindered efforts for a political solution by giving it more legitimacy, and Ankara remains opposed to engaging with Assad, a point shared by Doha. Cavusoglu said Turkey would host the next round of talks.
Whether Turkey begins normalizing relations with Damascus depends on its relations with Washington, which have been frosty under Biden. If it does not thaw, Turkey might reach out to Damascus.
UAE
Russia is pushing to end Assad’s isolation, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is ready.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov began a tour of the Gulf region with a meeting with UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan on March 9, who said that Syria’s return to the Arab fold is “inevitable”. Iraq’s Foreign Minister also called to restore Syria’s membership in the Arab League.
“The Caesar Act is the biggest challenge facing joint work with Syria,” the Emirati minister said about a US law that imposes sanctions on anyone dealing with the government of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with Russia’s special envoy for Syrian settlement, Alexander Lavrentiev, in Riyadh on March 9.
USA
Lavrov noted that the unilateral sanctions imposed by the US and EU on the Syrian government are hindering the peace process in Syria.
The message by the three countries meeting in Doha appeared to be targeting the United States, which is defending Syrian Kurdish separatists in the oil-rich northeast of the country, with hundreds of US special forces occupying Syria, and no plans to leave.
“Turkey will continue to defend Syria’s territorial integrity, protect civilians and fight terror groups,” Cavusoglu said in Doha. He was referring to the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which is the US-led coalition’s top partner but is also linked to the PKK, an international terrorist group.
Lavrov concurred that separatism posed a threat to Syria’s neighbors.
“Our common goals — of Russia, Turkey [and] Qatar — are reflected in the joint statement that we have just approved, which confirms our determination to fight terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, to counter separatist plans that undermine the territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic, which threaten the security of neighboring countries,” he said.
The UAE wants to accelerate recognizing President Assad, even though the US is pressuring them to abandon the plan.
Iran
In 2017, the Astana meetings were begun by Turkey, Iran, and Russia to find a solution to the Syrian war. Though ceasefires and de-escalation zones have been agreed to as a result, the process did not produce a solution.
Lavrov said the three countries meeting in Doha were not seeking to replace efforts which Turkey, Russia, and Iran had jointly been making since 2017.
Some experts and officials have tried to pressure President Joe Biden to link a new Iran nuclear deal with a Syrian peace deal. Lavrov objects to this notion,
“There are growing voices that say more needs to be discussed, that Iran’s missile program needs to stop, that Iran’s regional activities need to stop. The Iran deal needs to be treated separately, we should not incorporate any other elements or concern no matter how grave they may be,” he said.
Russia may see the Doha trilateral group as a way to bring a potential resolution to Syria to the US, without Iranian involvement.
“It’s extremely difficult to co-operate with Syria in some issues because of this Act, not just at the state level but for the private sector as well. We expressed our opinion frankly to the US.”
UN, Refugees, and humanitarian aid inside Syria
The Doha meeting discussed providing humanitarian initiatives to deliver aid to all Syrian lands. This is in marked contrast to existing plans which deliver aid only to areas under the control of terrorists following Radical Islam, which is a political ideology.
Qatar Charity continues delivering aid to internally displaced Syrians in camps located in Idlib Province.
They agreed to support the negotiations of the Syrian Constitutional Committee and the safe and voluntary return of refugees, urged UN agencies and the World Health Organization to prioritize COVID-19 vaccinations inside Syria.
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It is still early to be certain what strategy the new US administration will adopt in the Levant. Yet the recent actions of the US and its allies can give a good indication of what is in store for the region. Especially when those actions reinforce the validity of some intelligence obtained from a well-informed source, and when they fit the facts on the ground.
For the past ten years, the US and its allies have been engaged in a war against Syria. However, this war did not achieve its main strategic objective. On the contrary, Syria has become involved with the Axis of Resistance more than ever. And despite the pitfalls in some places, and slow achievements in others, the Axis of Resistance has gained more influence in the Levant overall. One aspect of this is that the route from Tehran to Beirut, through Baghdad and Damascus, is solidifying every day. Securing this route can greatly facilitate trade and economic collaboration between those four capitals- something that will enhance the living situation of the people of those countries and fortify their resilience.
The US understands the strategic challenge that this poses to its influence in the Levant and indeed in West Asia in general; as it has been expressed in many pro-US-articles.
A vital result of securing this route is the leverage it provides to the Axis of Resistance to overcome
the ‘maximum pressure’ policy which the US has been pursuing of late, not just against Iran, but also against Syria using
the ‘Caesar Act’. And because the events of the past few years exposed the unreadiness of the US to engage in an all-out war against Iran and its allies, that leaves the ‘maximum pressure’ policy as the only cost-effective card for the US to play against the Axis of Resistance.
Another result of the events of the last ten years in the Levant is that the Iraqi and Syrian arenas have become more interconnected.
Hence, the aftershocks of any change in the political balance in one domain will be felt in the other. And because of the Russian presence in Syria, as well as the strategic alliance between Russia and the Syrian government, the US margin of manoeuvre within Syria is more constrained than it is in Iraq. Thus, it appears that the new strategy of Joe Biden’s administration is to work towards changing the status quo within Iraq to the advantage of the US, through targeted assassinations and special operations. It seems that the end goal is to strengthen the US allies within the Iraqi ruling class, benefiting from the volatile Iraqi political situation, so as to align Iraq with the US stance in the region.
This strategy, if it succeeds, will achieve two objectives for the US: breaking the Baghdad link in the afore-mentioned route chain, and tightening the economic sanctions imposed on Syria. The latter objective can then be used to force the Syrian government to make political concessions in the upcoming presidential elections and in the negotiations with the ‘separatists Kurdish factions’ in the east of the Euphrates, where the Syrian oil and wheat fields lie.
The latest US airstrike on the Iraqi security forces, the ‘Popular Mobilization Forces’ (PMF), is believed to be in this context despite the US pretexted justification. Choosing to bomb a position on the Syrian Iraqi borders and in the vicinity of a vital Syrian Iraqi crossing point cannot be at random.
Another sign of the US intent to change the political balance in Iraq is the recent lengthy interview with Raghad Saddam Hussein on the Saudi-owned news channel Al-Arabiya (the Saudis are a strategic US ally). In this interview, she spoke about internal Iraqi affairs, attacked what she called Iranian influence in Iraq, and refused to rule out a possible future role in Iraqi politics.
A well-informed source confirmed the existence of such a plan:
‘The US has put into action a new plan to shift the balance in Iraq to their advantage through targeted assassinations and inciting strife within Iraq. This plan is to be carried out in collaboration with some top positions in the current Iraqi government, and the Iraqi Ba’ath party’ the source added. On this question, it is worth noting the since-retracted statement by Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby that Iraqi authorities helped the US to carry out ‘successful strikes’ on Syria’s territory in February, and in spite of the Iraqi Defence Ministry denying any knowledge of this airstrike beforehand.”
If the next few weeks prove this analysis to be true, then it would be logical to assume that the Axis of Resistance will take countermeasures, and this would very likely raise the stakes in an already heightened situation in a volatile region.
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Featured image: A U.S. tank of the type that carried depleted uranium shells fires its main gun into a building in Fallujah, Iraq, in December 2004. A Dutch study found the U.S. used the radioactive shells in civilian areas (Photo: U.S.M.C./Wikimedia Commons).
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Reporters without Borders charges Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his accomplices with crimes against humanity for murdering Jamal Khashoggi and persecuting/torturing other Saudi journalists.
Reporters Without Borders lawyer Paul Coppin talks about the 500-page complaint he has filed with a German court detailing the savage and inhuman treatment of Saudi journalists ordered by Prince Bin Salman and carried out by his close associates and other members of the Saudi Government. Coppin also explains why these activities are legally classified as crimes against humanity.
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The battlefield in Yemen is getting more volatile with each passing day.
On March 10th, the Saudi-led coalition released a video claiming to have destroyed an Ansar Allah air defense system.
The video shows a 2P25 transporter erector launcher of the system, a nearby missile depot and an unidentified radar system. All of them had been destroyed in airstrikes.
The Ansar Allah system reportedly comprising a Soviet-made SA-6 “Gainful” was positioned in the province of Marib. More specifically, the defense hardware is a locally upgraded version of the SA-6 air-defense system dubbed “Fater-1”.
In the days leading up to its alleged destruction, a Saudi Vestel Karayel drone was downed, and the air defense system might have been responsible for it. The UAV was downed on March 7th, and the Houthis released a video showing its debris.
The Saudi-led coalition is attempting to push back the Houthis with heavy airstrike activity. The ground offensive by Ansar Allah seems to only be challenged by air raids, and little else.
On March 9th alone, the Saudi-led coalition carried out at least 32 airstrikes, including some on the capital Sana’a.
The frontline is in a state of chaos, and a constant back and forth can be observed with the slight upper hand appearing to be for the Houthis, so far.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, in Syria, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) exchanged heavy fire with the al-Qaeda affiliated “moderate opposition” in Greater Idlib.
It all reportedly began after a joint shelling by Ansar al-Tawhid and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on SAA positions in southern Idlib. The aim was to dismantle positions of the SAA’s 25th Special Forces Division, also known as the Tiger Forces.
Ansar al-Tawhid claimed that 8 Syrian soldiers were killed and more were injured. This was entirely denied. The attacks reportedly failed, as the Russian Aerospace Forces detected them early on and issued a warning.
In response, the SAA rained hell, allegedly killing dozens of militants. Videos of the exchange were released and they show the heavy shelling that took place.
In recent days, the SAA has been steadily carrying out various attacks and small-scale offensives all around Greater Idlib and the Aleppo countryside. A larger-scale operation is in the works, and it is likely a matter of days or weeks before the stage is set for a push to regain further areas, before HTS can be totally rebranded into non-terrorists.
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Since March 2011, Washington has led a coalition of NATO countries, Arab monarchies and Israel, in a proxy regime change war, using terrorist mercenaries as foot soldiers. Today, US troops illegally occupy nearly a third of Syria, containing much of Syria’s oil and gas and some of its best farmland. In addition, the US maintains a proxy army of Kurdish separatists in Syria’s north that seeks to dismember the country by carving out a Kurdish state where the population was overwhelmingly Arab prior to US intervention. The February 25th, 2021, US bombing of Syria signaled the Biden government’s intention to continue the US war of attrition on Syria.
With allies Russia, China, Iran, Hezbollah, and Palestinian militias; support of Venezuela and Cuba to North Korea; and supporters in the global peace movement, the Syrian government has frustrated most of the above schemes, and avoided becoming a Libya-style failed state.
The wide portrayal of the conflict as a “revolution” or popular uprising ignores Wikileaks revelations that the US has been promoting destabilization and sectarianism inside Syria since 2005. The Syrian people have shown great courage and endured great sacrifices in order to preserve their secular, pluralistic, and Arab socialist state, with universal free education and medical care.
The Syria Solidarity Movement seeks to end the criminal war on Syria, and we call upon others to join this effort. In particular, we ask you to put pressure on your elected officials to
Stop the war against Syria;
Resume diplomatic relations with Damascus;
End the coercive economic measures against Syria and Syrians;
Support the reconstruction of SSM International, March 15, 2021.
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“We are on a path to a world in which it will be possible to decode people’s mental processes and directly manipulate the brain mechanisms underlying their intentions, emotions and decisions; where individuals could communicate with others simply by thinking“.
The scientists noted as well that “powerful computational systems linked directly to people’s brains“ will “aid their interactions with the world such that their mental and physical abilities“ will be “greatly enhanced“.
According to their estimates this situation could materialize already within years, since some of the biggest world investors, “including Elon Musk’s and Kernel start-up firm Neuralink“, launched in 2017, “are investing in the creation of devices that can both ‘read’ human brain activity and ‘write’ neural information into the brain” (it can be done rather easily, since the information in the brain is transmitted by number and frequency of nerve impulses and thus is in principle digital).
According to the scientists current spending on neurotechnology by for-profit industry in 2017 was “already US$100 million per year, and growing fast“ and the U.S. government has spent “500 millions dollars“ on development of neurotechnology since 2013. The companies Apple and Samsung had in 2017 already neuro gadgets connected to their Iphones, which could read brain activity via brain-computer interfaces based on EEG readings, and they expected that direct connection of brains and computers will gradually replace the use of keyboards, mouses and voice instructions (see this). Scientists from the University of California in 2018 developed a device which can collect the peoples brainwaves, analyze them to find among them vowels and consonants and then put people’ thoughts on display. A para lyzed man could in this way type without using the keyboard. The accuracy of this device in 2018 was 90% and the scientists believed that within the next five years they will develop a smart phone to which this device could be connected. Of course it would display hidden thoughts as well (see this and this).
To transmit thoughts into the brain you only need to transmit there electrical signals in the frequencies of the activity of targeted neurons, which will absorb this energy and thus the new neuronal activity produced from outside will appear in the brain. In this way human emotions, thoughts and decisions can be produced from the outside.
In August 2020 Rafael Yuste, the scientist, who collected the signatures for the article in the magazine Nature, told a journalist from The New York Times that “once the manipulation goes directly into the brain… you will not be able to tell you are being manipulated“ (see this) (Italian scientists in 2013 interconnected two brains of volunteers via electrodes and internet and they achieved extrasensorial communication among several pairs of them, when their brain frequencies synchronized depending on sound stimuli perceived by only one of them.
Connecting his brain to the internet will become a necessity for anybody, who will wish to be recognized for his intellectual activity, since without it he will not be able to compete with others on the labour market. According to scientists this submission to machines will produce the bypassing of the normal sensorimotor function of brains and bodies. The human being will no longer be in natural contact with its immediate environment and derive from this interaction its thoughts, deeds and decisions.
At least during the working hours people will resign on their independence in their decision making and thinking and at least during the working hours they will be losing their identity. But if there are no appropriate legislations they will keep losing their identities even at their leisure time, because the advertising companies will easily find ways how to manipulate their nervous systems and brains to make them buy products, for the marketing of which they are paid. Companies like Google, Disney, CBS and Frito-Lay used already in 2017 services of neuromarketing companies for measurements of customer preferences and impact of their advertisement on customers. Neuromarketing companies EmSense, Neurosense, MindLab International a Nielsen regularly use technics of nervous activity analysis to analyse and predict the customer’s behavior and even to influence it (see this).
If neuromarketing companies are allowed to manipulate the minds of customers, the governments would feel silly to not use it to “convince“ their citizens about the usefulness of their projects. Of course those projects will reflect the needs and opinions of the richest national and international corporations and bankers. If mankind will advance in this direction, it will basically accept the Chinese model of the governing of society and inevitably will abandon democracy, since it will be governed by principles that “someone“ will download on the internet. It is a question of how much the loss of identity, caused in this way, will cause people serious psychological problems resulting in rebellions and in case of their failures to suicides.
There is no doubt that the governments should start to solve this issues in the nearest possible future. But it is good to note, that the same effects as by sending electrical currents into the brain can be achieved by transmission of microwaves, pulsed in brain frequencies, or extra long electromagnetic waves in brain frequencies into the brain, or by any other energy devised by quantum physics transmitted into the brain, which will be converted there into electric currents in brain frequencies.
These technologies were developed by Russian and American and scientists from their allied nations since the fifties of the past century. Last news about the work of those researchers was published in 1974 by accident, when an American scientist published the research of a military scientist, who told him about it in a phone conversation. Ron Justesen wrote in the magazine Psychology Today that Joseph Sharp was transmitting by means of pulsed microwaves into his brain words that he could understand. (see this and this).
In 2007 The Washington Post wrote: “In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed for this article, the Air Force released unclassified documents“ concerning patent for microwave transmission of the sound into the brain and that those documents contained “records that note that the patent was based on human experimentation in October 1994 at the Air Force lab, where scientists were able to transmit phrases into the heads of human subjects, albeit with marginal intelligibility.
Research appeared to continue at least through 2002“ (see this). If those transmitted phrases were converted into ultrasound, people would not hear them and for that matter would not realize them, but the brain would accept them and in this way they would become the “thoughts“ of the targeted person. In 2020 the American Academy of Sciences wrote in the report on attacks on American diplomats in Cuba and China that the most probable cause of their problems were pulsed microwaves (see this). In October, 2020 the CIA employees complained that they were targets of the same attacks in Australia (see this).
Russian politician Vladimir Lopatin, who at the turn of the millenium, strived for the world wide ban of those weapons, wrote a book “Psychotronic War and the Security of Russia“, where he wrote, that “psychotronic war“ is “actually taking place without declaration of war”. In other words those technologies are already being used at the present time, but due to their classification people can not demand their ban. In case that they were used globally in the contest to gain control of the whole mankind, it would most probably provoke a world war with the use of nuclear weapons which would result in the destruction of civilisation and the extinction of mankind.
In 2018 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where every year world politicians and managers of international corporations meet, Israelian historian Juval Noah Harari warned in his speech against the rise of new totality based on the access to the human brain. He said:
“Once we have algorithms that can understand you better than you understand yourself, they could predict my desires, manipulate my feelings and even take decisions on my behalf. And if we are not careful the outcome can be the rise of digital dictatorships. In the 21st century we may be enslaved under digital dictatorships“ (see this).
The founder of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab wrote a book “Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution“, where he said that looming technological changes will allow governments to “intrude into the hitherto private space of our minds, reading our thoughts and influencing our behavior.” (see this) Since Klaus Schwab is the founder of the World Economic Forum, it is evident that his ideas are widely discussed among top world entrepreneurs and politicians.
At the present time there exists no legislations banning the use of mind control technologies and for that matter scientists feel free to work on the development of “nanobots”,- nanoparticles which can penetrate into the blood and connect the brain to internet, where it could collect information without being obliged to learn. Professor of mechanical engineering at the University in San Diego James Friend believed in 2017 that effective use of nanbotes could start in two to five years (see this). In 2018 James Giordano, working for The American Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, said in a lecture for military cadets that several weeks ago his agency succeeded in producing nanoparticles which can be aerosolised and when breathed in will penetrate into the brain and control its activity. Watch the video below 00:38.
Since the world media do not inform the populations in their countries about the growing danger that people will be deprived of their freeedom of thought, it is obvious that the governments are at least hesitating whether they prefer this kind of future. One way to remind them that people care about their freedom of thought would be to form new parties or movements or at least Facebook groups, whose goal would be to defend the freedom of thought of people.
To guarantee the freedom of human thinking it is necessatry to enact legislations which woudl ban (using harsh sentences) the transmissions in the air or into the brain of any energy in frequencies corresponding to frequencies of the activity of the human brain. The only way to connect the human brain to internet or other communication channels could be by voluntary decision of a person to connect to to them with a cable.
The governments will have to provide for detection of banned transmissions and search for their sources. It must be established in the legislations that the representatives of human rights organisations will participate in the detection of those transmissions. Governments should also establish teams, with the particitapation of representatives of human rights organisations, capable of verifying the claims of their citizens about their exposure to energetic attacks at their nervous systems or bodies.
In the international politics the governments should work toward the international agreement banning manipulation of human minds or causing harm to bodies of citizens of foreign states by means of energies corresponding to frequencies of the activity of the human brain or body. It would also be useful if they made an effort to replace, in the world politics, the diluvial struggle for power by politics of good neighborhood.
Mojmir Babacek is the founder of the International Movement for the Ban of the Manipulation of the Human Nervous System by Technical Means, He is the author of numerous articles on the issue of mind manipulation.
He is a frequent contributor to Global Research
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The EU-China Investment Agreement, signed on December 30 by the European Commission, may not be ratified by MEPs on the grounds that Beijing violated human rights. It is the screen behind which the real reason is hidden: the growing pressure exerted on Europe by the United States to create a coalition against China. Washington’s strategy – from Obama to Trump and now Biden – is that of the “containment” of China, whose growth calls into question the world economic order, so far dominated by the United States and the major Western powers.
The multinationals and other US and European companies have relocated much of their production to China for decades, making huge profits. However, China did not remain simply the “factory of the world” where people go and produce because labor costs less. It has implemented its own production and technological development and, on this basis, projects such as the New Silk Road. At an advanced stage of construction, it consists of a road and rail network between China and Europe through Central Asia, the Middle East, and Russia, combined with a sea route through the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean. Investments of over $ 1 trillion are planned for road, rail, and port infrastructures in over 60 countries.
In this context, China has become Russia’s main trading partner. Economic relations between the two countries have strengthened with an exchange that has exceeded 100 billion dollars a year and is growing, especially after the sanctions imposed by the United States and the EU on Russia.
Trade between the United States and China is six times greater. But, given that many products on the US market are manufactured in China by the US multinationals or supplied by Chinese companies, the US has a deficit of over $ 300 billion annually in bilateral trade. There was also a collapse in Chinese investments in the US for production purposes, which fell by 90% in three years (from 46.5 to 4.8 billion dollars), while US investments in China remained at around 13 billion.
At the same time, China’s share of US debt $ 27 trillion or more fell from 14% in 2011 to 5% in 2020. Even more serious for Washington is the fact that the dollar share of Chinese foreign exchange reserves has dropped from 79% to 59% in four years and that China is looking for alternative currencies to the dollar to be used in international trade.
Unable to stop this process that can put an end to the economic dominance of the United States, Washington forced the situation. Economic “containment” becomes military “containment.”
Admiral Phil Davidson, who heads the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (its area of responsibility covers China and 35 other countries), has requested of Congress over $ 27 billion in five years to build a curtain of missile bases and satellite systems around China, including a space-platform radar constellation. “We have to start facing China from a position of strength,” Antony Blinken, the Biden Administration Secretary of State, told the Senate.
At the Munich Security Conference, on February 19, NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg reiterated:
“Europe and North America must defend the international order that China and Russia challenge by trying to rewrite its rules for the benefit of their own interests. ” After accusing Russia of “destabilizing behavior,” he declared that “the rise of China is a crucial issue for the transatlantic community.” He then announced an upcoming “update of NATO’s strategic concept” because “we need to strengthen ourselves militarily” together with “close partners like Australia and Japan.”
Therefore: a call to arms for US allies, not only against Russia in Europe but against China in Asia. As a result, Russia and China are also strengthening their alliance on the military level.
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This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.
Manlio Dinucci is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
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In his new, six-part, seven hours plus documentary – “Can’t Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World” – the celebrated English documentary filmmaker, Adam Curtis, who has worked for the BBC for decades, tells us that nothing makes sense anymore and it is “pointless to try to understand the meaning of why things happen.” A profound shift in our understanding has occurred, he tells us early on, and he then proceeds to replicate this fragmented, unknowing modern mind by showing us an endless stream of video images from the BBC archives that jump from one seemingly disconnected subject to another to reinforce his point.
As the reviewer Lucy Mangan of The Guardian approvingly writes, the film is “a dazzling, overwhelming experience.” This is true, but not in the way she thinks with her five-star rating. The film does dazzle, and fascinate, but in the sense of bewildering or casting a spell. But to what end?
For Curtis maintains that there is no meaning anywhere (not even in a review); we are all living as if we are on “an acid trip”; and we will never know what the hell is going on in the world because…well, because there is no logic to anything and our brains are scrambled with fragmented memories, fleeting images, and paranoid thoughts just like the movie Curtis narrates in his unemotional, matter-of-fact voice. He doesn’t have to say that he’s cool and everyone else is nuts. The style is the man when the authoritative voice calmly speaks above the din. Quite BBCish.
“Everything is relative,” is the underlying message, except that Curtis fails to spell out the contradiction in this post-modern meme: Everything is relative but the statement that everything is relative. It is absolute. Some people know and others don’t. Next video clip please.
After watching his pastiche film that is filled with his compulsively fragmented skepticism about “a world where anything could be anything because there was no meaning anywhere,” I was reminded of what a famous philosopher once wrote in his “Critique of Pure Dread”:
In formulating any philosophy, the first consideration must always be: What can we know? That is, what can we be sure we know, or sure that we know we knew it, if indeed it is at all knowable. Or have we simply forgotten it and are too embarrassed to say anything? Descartes hinted at the problem when he wrote, ‘My mind can never know my body, although it has become quite friendly with my legs.’ By ‘knowable,’ incidentally, I do not mean that which can be known by perception of the senses, or that which can be grasped by the mind, but more that which can be said to be Known or to possess a Knownness or Knowability, or at least something you can mention to a friend.
Like Curtis’s title, I have never been able to get those profound words out of my head because they have always seemed in their own way to have captured the underlying zeitgeist of the past half-century and more – the unspoken message that has come to inform the neurotic skepticism of our times. And unlike Curtis’s solemnity, at least Woody Allen makes me laugh.
Curtis is a serious man, and when he very seriously tells us in Part 1 that Jim Garrison, the New Orleans district attorney, who was the only person to ever bring a trial in the assassination of President John Kennedy, was a man devoid of logic who once wrote a memo to his staff urging them to think illogically and just look for patterns based on “time and propinquity,” he wishes us to consider Garrison a crazy conspiratorial thinker who saw strange patterns when there were none. To see Garrison as a deranged man who used a pastiche method of cutting and pasting disparate unconnected facts to form a conspiracy theory to convince you that there were hidden forces operating behind the façade of American society.
Echoing the CIA’s famous memo to its agents and accomplices in the media to use the phrase conspiracy theory/theorist to ridicule its critics, Curtis so solemnly tells the viewer that such crazy conspiracy theories and the method for arriving at them and their claims that there were hidden forces operating behind the scenes are paranoid nonsense and that they would come to infect the modern mind. Most of Garrison’s thinking, he says, was pure fantasy and he could produce no evidence for his claims. In other words, Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy, not the CIA.
This claim is factually false, but it becomes the basis for the next five parts of the documentary. And perversely, the entire documentary is constructed using the same method of cutting-and-pasting, “time and propinquity,” pastiche/collage so beloved of postmodernists, that Curtis accuses Garrison of using, a method devoid of logic or meaning.
This is not a Woody Allen joke.
There is no doubt that Curtis has found and presents very interesting historical film footage that ranges back and forth across the world and time. He knows how to engage an audience and to draw them into emotive and dreamy experiences of fear and paranoia. As one watches, one feels the walls closing in and terrible disasters lurking in the shadows because no one is in control, for control is an illusion. You’ll never know. You’ll never know. Everything is relative.
Yet there is much to learn and consider from his footage. But context is all, and the hours one spends watching lead to part six when Curtis circles back to part one to tie the knot on his “emotional history” within what the writer George Trow once called “the context of no context.” We learn about chaos and complexity theories, artificial intelligence, multiple selves, drugs, how neuroscientists and psychiatrists have claimed that consciousness does not exist, and that even though people think they are individuals in the age of individualism, they are deluded. In the digital age people are now doing exactly what Garrison did fifty years ago; now they are creating conspiracy theories from patterns of data on the internet and it’s all a form of madness.
Thrown in as an aside, Curtis says of the attacks of September 11, 2001, that “no one had seen them coming.” This, of course, is blatantly false, since the U.S. government was not surprised, as is very well known and confirmed, but Curtis’s claim reinforces the idea no one knew or knows what’s going to happen, that incompetence is the norm, that “nothing makes sense anymore,” and that the official narrative on 9/11 is correct, just as it is regarding the assassination of JFK, for Jim Garrison, the man who bravely and brilliantly explored the case early on, was just a nut case who believed in strange coincidences. And his crazy way of connecting the dots has infected our world today. We can’t get him out of our heads.
When he finally brings us into the present, Curtis tells us that COVID-19 “was a force that came from completely outside the systems of power.” Of course! Despite abundant evidence to the contrary, we are living in a world where the ruling elites are at the mercy of chance and we think they are in control. No, that is our illusion. Shit happens. After spending hours showing us how the world’s elites are corrupt and do all kinds of devious things to maintain their power – conspire to do so – we are also told there are no conspiracies. There are and there aren’t. We are trapped in an insane world of double-binds, “a world where anything could be anything because there was no meaning anywhere.”
I suppose this might apply to this film. But no, it is very meaningful – in the way exquisite propaganda is.
Woody Allen can be hilarious, but Curtis is quite funny himself. After seven plus hours of telling us we live in the world of nightmares where we are trapped and this sense of imprisonment is something we can’t get out of our heads and we’re all going bonkers, he ends by repeating his opening caption, which are the words of the anthropologist David Graeber:
The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something we make. And could just as easily make differently.
Really? I never knew that. Did you?
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Is Israel heading for mandatory covid jabbing or the equivalent through draconian policies?
Last month, energy minister Yuval Steinitz called for legislation to require Israelis to be jabbed for covid or face unspecified punitive measures.
Israeli health minister Yuri Edelstein warned that “(w)hoever does not get (jabbed for covid) will be left behind.”
While not mandated so far, refusniks may be denied access to workplaces, schools, air travel, retail shops and other public places.
Guidelines under consideration suggest that policies will be instituted to punish individuals who refuse to jeopardize their health on the phony pretext of public health protection.
Some employers said unjabbed workers will be denied access to their office, but allowed to work at home if their jobs permit operating this way.
In late February, Knesset lawmakers approved legislation to collect information on individuals unwilling to be jabbed for seasonal flu-renamed covid.
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I) denounced what it called passing “a draconian law which crushes medical ethics and patient rights.”
Collected information will be shared with national and local authorities, the equivalent of a yellow Star of David mandated for Jews by Nazi Germany.
Is this where things are heading in Israel, perhaps to be followed by the US and other Western countries?
Is the Nuremberg Code heading for what GW Bush once called the US Constitution: “Just a goddamned piece of paper.”
Medical ethicist Ezelyne Shuster earlier stressed the “significance of the Nuremberg Code,” as follows, saying:
Voluntary consent to all things medical “is absolutely essential…without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion.”
Consent “is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.”
If mass-jabbing is mandated (directly or indirectly) by any nations for any reasons, the policy will be an unparalleled threat to health and well-being of their people.
If inoculation passports are required for unrestricted access to public places ahead, refusniks unwilling to jeopardize their health will be ostracized from society.
Individuals will be damned if they do or don’t go along with being jabbed by experimental, unapproved, high-risk, DNA altering drugs — what no one valuing their health should permit being jabbed into their bodies.
The Association for Civil Rights (ACRI) in Israel addressed the issue as follows, saying:
“Israel is not, and should not, enforce vaccinations.”
“We are following the situation closely, with an eye to the populations who cannot (or will not) get (jabbed).”
This includes individuals “16 years old and under, people with allergies or certain health conditions – as well as populations which, for institutional lack of trust in the government or lack of access to information and resources, are generally less likely to get the vaccination, mainly the Ultra-Orthodox and Arab communities.”
Along with PHR-I, ACRI “petitioned (Israel’s) High Court of Justice against the (now adopted Knesset) law (discussed above) on March 1, 2021.
“The law is dangerous and constitutes a violation of citizens’ privacy and a precedent of violating medical confidentiality,” said ACRI.
“We fear the likely misuse of information by local authorities.”
“The violation of privacy and medical confidentiality is grave, and the precedent of transferring medical information without consent to other authorities is a dangerous one.”
Israel’s largest labor union Histadrut proposed a way around the Knesset law.
It suggested that inoculation refusniks who cannot or won’t be allowed to work at home present negative PCR tests to employers every 72 hours.
Ignored was that nearly always when these tests are positive, they’re false.
Member of Israel’s Rappeh human rights group transformed into a political movement Ilana Rachel Daniel denounced the new reality in the country, saying:
Get jabbed for covid or “your life is basically over,” adding:
“No entrance to shopping malls. No more theater visits.”
“Children about 16 who did not take the injection are not allowed to take their exams.”
“Protesting parties in the Knesset are brought to silence and threatened by the military.”
“City council receives medical dossiers to check if you” were jabbed.
“Israel became the hell on earth because of the covid lie.”
“The rest of the world will follow if we do nothing.”
Is that where things are heading? Will Western and other nations go the draconian way of Israel?
Will our choice ahead be between risking our health and well-being or being ostracized from society?
What amounts to no choice at all requires mass resistance as the only viable alternative, pushing back against what no one should tolerate.
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Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
Ten Years since the onslaught of the War on Syria, mid-March 2011.
The following article by Felicity Arbuthnot was first published in March 2012
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“We have met the enemy and he is us.” (Walt Kelly, 1913-1973.)
It was political analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, in November 2006, who wrote in detail(1) of US plans for the Middle East:
“The term ‘New Middle East’, was introduced to the world in June 2006, in Tel Aviv, by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (who was credited by the Western media for coining the term) in replacement of the older and more imposing term, the “Greater Middle East’ “, he wrote.
Sanity dictated that this would be a U.S. fantasy rampage too far and vast – until realization hit that the author of the map of this New World, planned in the New World’s “New World Order”, was Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters, who, in one of the most terrifying articles ever published, wrote in 1997:
“There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines …The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.”(2) (My emphasis.)
At the time, Peters was assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, where he was responsible: “for future warfare.” His plans for Iraq worked out just fine – unless you are an Iraqi.
Peter’s Map of the New Middle East
Ralph Peters Map: The Project for the New Middle East
A month after Nazemroaya’s article was published, William Roebuck, Director for the Office of the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, was composing an end of year strategy for Syria(3) from his study in the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, where he had been based between 2004-2007, rising to Deputy Chief of Mission.
The subject title was: “Influencing the SARG (Syrian Arab Regime Government) in the end of 2006.”
“The SARG ends 2006 in a much stronger position domestically and internationally (than in) 2005.” Talking of President Assad’s: “growing self-confidence”, he felt that this might lead to: “mistakes and ill-judged … decisions … providing us with new opportunities.” Whilst: “additional bilateral or multilateral pressure can impact on Syria”, clearly he had even more ambitious plans:
“This cable summarizes our assessment of … vulnerabilities, and suggests that there may be actions, statements and signals, that the USG (US Government) can send that will improve the likelihood of such opportunities arising .”
The proposals would need to be: “fleshed out and converted into real actions and we need to be ready to move quickly to take advantage of such opportunities.” (no, not a Le Carré, Forsyth, or Fleming, “diplomat” in Damascus.)
“As the end of 2006 approaches” wrote Roebuck, “Bashar appears … stronger than he has done in two years. The country is economically stable …regional issues seem to be going Syria’s way.”
However: “vulnerabilities and looming issues may provide opportunities to up the pressure on Bashar … some of these vulnerabilities “(including the complexities with Lebanon)”… “can be exploited to put pressure on the regime. Actions that cause Bashar to lose balance, and increase his insecurity, are in our interest.”
The President’s: “ mistakes are hard to predict and benefits may vary, if we are prepared to move quickly and take advantage of opportunities …”
A “vulnerability”, wrote Roebuck, was Bashar al Assad’s protection of: “Syria’s dignity and international reputation.” Pride and “protection”, clearly a shocking concept.
In the light of the proposed Tribunal in to the assassination of Lebanon’s former`Prime Minister, Rafick Hariri (14th February 2005) killed with his friend, former Minister of Economy Bassel Fleihan and twenty colleagues and bodyguards, in a huge bomb, detonated under his motorcade, this “vulnerability” could be exploited.
Unproven allegations have pointed the finger at Israel, Syria, Hezbollah and myriad others, as behind another Middle East tragedy, but Roebuck regarded it as an: “opportunity to exploit this raw nerve, without waiting for the formation of the Tribunal.”
Another idea outlined under a further “vulnerability” heading, was the growing alliance between Syria and Iran. “Possible action”, was to: “play on Sunni fears of Iranian influence.” Although these were: “often exaggerated”, they were there to be exploited:
“Both the local Egyptian and Saudi missions here … are giving increasing attention to the matter and we should co-ordinate more closely with their governments on ways to better publicize and focus regional attention to the issue.”
Concerned Sunni religious leaders should also be worked on. Iraq-style divide and rule model, writ large.
The “divide” strategy, of course, should also focus on the first family and legislating circle, with: “ targeted sanctions (which) must exploit fissures and render the inner circle weaker, rather the drive its members closer together.”
The public should also be subject to: “continual reminders of corruption … we should look for ways to remind …”
Another aspect to be exploited was: “The Khaddam factor.”
Abdul Halim Khaddam, was Vice President, 1984-2005, and acting President in 2000, during the months between Bashir al Assad’s accession and his father’s death.
Thought to have Presidential ambitions himself, there was a bitter split between Khaddam and al Assad after Hariri’s death. Allegations of treasonous betrayal by Khaddam have validity.
The ruling party, writes Roebuck: “…follow every news item involving Khaddam, with tremendous emotional interest. We should continue to encourage the Saudis and others to allow Khaddam access to their media … providing him with venues for airing the SARG’s dirty laundry.”
Morever, it was anticipated that: “an over reaction by the regime [would] add to its isolation and alienation from its Arab neighbours.”
On January 14th 2006, Khaddam had formed a government in exile, and had predicted the end of the al-Assad government by the year’s end.
He is currently regarded as an opposition leader, and has claimed, on Israel’s Channel 2 TV.(4) receiving money from the US and the EU to help overthrow the Syrian government.
The ever creative Mr Roebuck’s further plans included:
“Encouraging rumours and signals of external plotting.” To this end: “Regional allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia should be encouraged to meet with figures like Kaddam and Rifat (sic) al Assad, with appropriate leaking of the meetings afterwards. This … increases the possibility of a self-defeating over-reaction.”
Rifaat al Assad, Bashar’s uncle, was in charge of the Defence Brigade, who killed up to thirty thousand people in, and flattened much of, the city of Hama, in February 1982. So much for endlessly trumpeted concerns for: “human rights violations.” Rifaat al Assad lives in exile and safety, in London. Khaddam lives in Paris.(5)
Here is a serious cause for concern for the overthrow-bent: “Bashar keeps unveiling a steady stream of initiatives on reform and it is certainly possible he believes this is his legacy to Syria …. These steps have brought back Syrian expats to invest … (and) increasing openness.”
Solution? “Finding ways to publicly call into question Bashar’s reform efforts.” Indeed, moving heaven and earth to undercut them, is made clear.
Further: “Syria has enjoyed a considerable up-tick in foreign direct investment”; it follows: foreign investment is to be: “discouraged.”
In May of 2006, complains Roebuck, Syrian Military Intelligence protested: “what they believed were U.S. efforts to provide military training and equipment to Syria’s Kurds.” The Iraq model, yet again.
The answer was to: “Highlight Kurdish complaints.” This, however: “would need to be handled carefully, since giving the wrong kind of prominence to Kurdish issues in Syria, could be a liability for our efforts … given Syrian … civil society’s skepticism of Kurdish objectives.”
In “Conclusion”, this shaming, shoddy document states: “The bottom line is that Bashar is entering the New Year in a stronger position than he has been, in several years”, meaning “vulnerabilities” must be sought out.
“If we are ready to capitalize, they will offer us opportunities to disrupt his decision-making, keep him off balance – and make him pay a premium for his mistakes.”
The cable is copied to: The White House, U.S. Secretary of State, U.S. Treasury, U.S. Mission at the UN, U.S. National Security Council, CENTCOM, all Arab League and EU countries.
The only U.S. Embassy which received a copy is that in Tel Aviv. William Roebuck worked at the Embassy in Tel Aviv (2000-2003) embracing the invasion of Iraq year.
In 2009, he was Deputy Political Consul In Baghdad: “leading efforts to support the critical 2009 Iraqi elections.” The “free and fair, democratic” ones, where people were threatened with the deaths of their children even, if they did not vote the “right” way.
The result was Nuri al Maliki’s premiership, complete with his murderous militias. The man under whose Ministry of the Interior, U.S. soldiers discovered tortured, starving prisoners.
The Damascus cable comes courtesy Wikileaks.
Lt. Colonel Peters called, on Fox News, for founder, Julian Assange, to be assassinated. The forty second clip(6) is worth the listen.
The Colonel also writes fiction and thrillers under the name Owen Patterson. Perhaps he is living the dream.
Felicity Arbutnot is Global Research’s Human Rights Correspondent based in London
Mid-March 2011. Ten Years Ago, Marks the Commencement of the War on Syria
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The following eight concepts are intended to clarify the nature of the war on Syria, which started ten years ago on March 17-18, 2011.
It was never “a civil war”. It was an undeclared war of aggression using Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists as the foot-soldiers of US-NATO and their Middle East allies.
From day one, terrorists were involved in the killing of civilians.
It started in Daraa as an insurgency integrated by Salafist mercenaries.
Most of what is presented below is backed up by mainstream and official sources of information.
1. The Daraa “Protest Movement” on March 17-18 2011
Daraa is a small border town. National protest movements are invariably initiated in large urban areas.
The Daraa “Protests” had all the appearances of a staged event involving covert support to “Islamic terrorists”.
Government sources pointed to the role of radical Salafist groups. In chorus, the Western media described the events in Daraa as a protest movement against Bashar Al Assad. Tacitly acknowledged by the media, many of the alleged “demonstrators” were professional killers.
In a bitter irony, the deaths of policemen were higher than those of “demonstrators”. It was not a protest movement, it was an armed insurgency.
In Daraa, roof top snipers were targeting both police and protesters
Reading between the lines of Israeli and Lebanese news reports (which acknowledge the police deaths) a clearer picture of what happened in Daraa on March 17-18 had emerged. The Israel National News Report(which can not be accused of being biased in favor of Bashar al Assad) confirmed that:
“Seven police officers and at least four demonstrators in Syria have been killed in continuing violent clashes that erupted in the southern town of Daraa last Thursday. … and the Baath Party Headquarters and courthouse were torched, in renewed violence on Sunday. (Gavriel Queenann, Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protests, Israel National News, Arutz Sheva, March 21, 2011, emphasis added)
The Lebanese news report also acknowledged the killings of seven policemen in Daraa.
[They were killed] “during clashes between the security forces and protesters… They got killed trying to drive away protesters during demonstration in Dara’a”
The Lebanese Ya Libnan report quoting Al Jazeera also acknowledged that protesters had “burned the headquarters of the Baath Party and the court house in Dara’a” (emphasis added)
These news reports of the events in Daraa confirmed that from the very outset this was not a “peaceful protest” as claimed by the Western media.
Moreover, from an assessment of the initial casualty figures (Israel News), there were more policemen than “demonstrators” who were killed.
This is significant because it suggests that the police force may have initially been outnumbered by a well organized armed gang of professional killers.
2. Recruitment and Training of Terrorists From the Very Outset in 2011
Image on the right is from Massoud Nayeri
From Day One, the Islamist “freedom fighters” were supported, trained and equipped by NATO and Turkey’s High Command. According to Israeli intelligence sources:
NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Turkish high command are meanwhile drawing up plans for their first military step in Syria, which is to arm the rebels with weapons for combating the tanks and helicopters spearheading the Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent. … NATO strategists are thinking more in terms of pouring large quantities of anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns into the protest centers for beating back the government armored forces. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011)
This initiative, which was also supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, involved a process of organized recruitment of thousands of jihadist “freedom fighters”, reminiscent of the enlistment of Mujahideen to wage the CIA’s jihad (holy war) in the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war:
Also discussed in Brussels and Ankara, our sources report, is a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (Ibid, emphasis added)
These mercenaries were subsequently integrated into US and allied sponsored terrorist organizations including Al Nusrah and ISIS.
3. June 2014. The Staged ISIS “Invasion” of Iraq
The Islamic State is protected by the US and its allies.
If they had wanted to eliminate the Islamic State brigades, they could have “carpet” bombed their convoys of Toyota pickup trucks when they crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in June 2014.
\
The Syro-Arabian Desert is open territory (see map below). With state of the art jet fighter aircraft (F15, F22 Raptor, CF-18) it would have been -from a military standpoint- a rapid and expedient surgical operation
But the objective was not to eliminate them, the objective was to support them.
4. September 2014. Obama’s “Counter-Terrorism Campaign”. US-NATO and Coalition “Humanitarian” Airstrikes “Directed against ISIS”
In September 2014, Obama ordered a “counter-terrorism” bombing campaign against the ISIS in both Syria and Iraq. This major bombing campaign was initiated two months months after the entry of the ISIS convoy of Toyota pickup trucks into Iraq in June 2014. The bombing campaign has now entered into its third year. Its objective was NOT to go after the Islamic State (ISIS-Daesh). The coalition consisted of some 4o countries five allied Arab monarchies, which are known to provide support to both ISIS and al Qaeda. The “40-nation coalition that unleashed more than 200 airstrikes in Syria on a single night with state-of-the-art U.S. fighter planes and help from five allied Arab monarchies” Among the advanced weapons system allegedly used against the ISIS was the F-22 Raptor.
The total number of US and coalition sorties against Syria and Iraq is of the order of 111,410. This translates into an average of 147 sorties a day (over a period of 755 days).
More than 8,300 strike sorties have been carried out against Syria according to US Department of Defense sources.
The non-strike sorties have been used for the purposes of reconnaissance, logistics and coordination with terrorist commandos on the ground.
31,900 targets in Syria and Iraq have been hit by US war planes (see table below) including public buildings, residential areas, economic infrastructure (all of which was waged under a fake campaign against ISIS- Daesh).
Over a two year period (September 2014- September 2016)
Its all for a good cause. None of these strikes were directed at the Syrian people, according to official statements.
And these humanitarian statements have never been challenged by the Western media.
The initiative was part of the “Global War on Terrorism”. It was in violation of international law. What we are dealing with are extensive war crimes directed against the people of Syria and Iraq.
5. 2014-2016: 31,900 “Targets Damaged/Destroyed” by US and Coalition Air Raids
Source of Tables US Department of Defense, copyright US DoD, 2016
6. The Cost of Obama’s Air Campaign: 9.3 billion dollars
755 days, 12.3 million dollars a day since August 2014
These are the costs of destroying Iraq and Syria. killing tens of thousands of Syrians, triggering a refugee crisis. These costs are ultimately financed by tax dollars. We are dealing with the conduct of extensive war crimes. The mainstream media remains on silent this issue.
These 12.3 million dollars a day are the cost of destroying Syria and Iraq and killing their people.
In the table above the “official” breakdown is provided, the figures refer to US strikes against Syria and Iraq.
31,900 targets as part of a war on terrorism. Ironically, the number of terrorists has increased dramatically as a result of the “counter-terrorism” campaign, not to mention the NATO sponsored international campaign of recruitment of terrorists.
The US and its allies (including Turkey and Saudi Arabia) have relied on the illicit trade in light weaponry produced in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, China, etc. for delivery to rebel groups inside Syria, including ISIS-Daesh and Al Nusra. In turn, operating out of the occupied Golan Heights, Israel’s IDF has provided weapons, ammunition, logistical support to Al Qaeda rebels operating in Southern Syria.
While Washington’s Middle East allies undertake shady transactions in a buoyant market for light weapons, a significant part of these illicit weapons shipments is nonetheless directly commissioned by the US government.
These shipments of weapons are not conducted through internationally approved weapons transfers. While they are the result of a Pentagon (or US government) procurement, they are not recorded as “official” military aid. They use private traders and shipping companies within the realm of a thriving illicit trade in light weapons.
Based on the examination of a single December 2015 Pentagon sponsored shipmentof more than 990 tons, one can reasonably conclude that the amounts of light weapons in the hands of ”opposition” rebels inside Syria is substantial and exceedingly large.
8. Weapons “Made in Canada” Delivered to Saudi Arabia, A State Sponsor of Terrorism
Ottawa’s deal with Saudi Arabia is coordinated with Washington. It essentially serves the Pentagon’s military agenda in the Middle East, it channels billions of dollars to the US military industrial complex.
Amply documented, Saudi Arabia is the state sponsor of Al Qaeda affiliated “opposition groups” in Syria including the Islamic State (ISIS). Riyadh –acting in liaison and on behalf of Washington– plays a central role in the financing of the Islamic State (ISIS) as well as the recruitment, training and religious indoctrination of terrorist mercenary forces deployed in Syria and Iraq.
What this signifies is that Canada is selling weapons to a country which is supporting and sponsoring terrorist organizations. Moreover Saudi Arabia is currently involved in a war of aggression against Yemen in blatant derogation of international law.
The weapons are “Made in Canada” produced by General Dynamics Land Systems, London, Ontario., a subsidiary of US defense contractor General Dynamics.
General Dynamics has subsidiaries in 43 countries including Canada.
Ottawa’s official stance is that these weapons which include “combat vehicles with machine guns and anti-tank cannons” are to be used by Saudi Arabia solely for purposes of national defense. They are not be used against civilians.
Opponents of Canada’s $15-billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia took Ottawa to court. The action was led by law Professor Daniel Turp together with students of the University of Montreal. In a recent judgment (January 23) by Federal Court in Montreal, the case was dismissed: “Justice Daniele Tremblay-Lamer ruled that the court’s role was not to “pass moral judgment” on the decision by then-foreign affairs minister Stéphane Dion to issue export permits allowing the deal.”
9. The Liberation of Aleppo
While Aleppo has been liberated against the scourge of US-NATO supported terrorism, most mainstream media are accusing Syrian government forces of committing atrocities against civilians, describing Aleppo as a humanitarian crisis. What they fail to mention is that for the last four years the Eastern part of Aleppo has been occupied by Al Qaeda terrorists who are now upheld as “opposition” rebels.
The terrorists are described as the victims of Syrian government aggression. From the very outset, the atrocities committed by the terrorists are casually blamed on Syrian government forces and their allies.
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It’s no secret that Bill Gates and the advocates of the UN Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 are also devout promoters of human eugenics, the “thinning of the Human Herd” as Britain’s misanthropic Prince Philip once put it. Some such as Joachim Schnellnhuber, climate adviser to the Pope, openly welcome a human population below one billion as “sustainable.” Now serious research is emerging that one of the most effective reducers of the human population is being spread by so-called “modern scientific agriculture” through the select use of toxic agrochemicals, pesticides deemed safe which are anything but safe.
According to a new book by Dr Shanna Shaw, Count Down, the male sperm count in Western industrial countries, including the EU and USA, is falling at a dramatic rate. Shaw estimates that over the past four decades the average sperm count has dropped by 50% or more. In other words a young male today seeking to have a family has only half the sperm count his grandfather did, half the chance to conceive. Shaw estimates that unless toxic chemical exposures in agriculture and the environment are dramatically altered, we may not have the ability to reproduce naturally much longer, and that by 2050 most human beings in the industrial countries, including China, will need technological assistance to procreate.
Shaw’s book is a further elaboration of a 2017 peer-reviewed scientific paper which Shaw and colleagues published. In the paper, Shaw carefully analyzed a total of 244 estimates of Sperm Concentration and Total Sperm Count (TSC) from 185 studies of 42 935 men who provided semen samples in 1973–2011. What they found was alarming to the extreme. But beyond a few media headlines, no changes of consequence resulted, as the powerful agrochemical corporations such as Bayer-Monsanto, Syngenta, DowDuPont (now Corteva) lobbied regulators to ignore the findings.
Shaw found that “Among Unselected Western studies, the mean Sperm Concentration declined, on average, 1.4% per year with an overall decline of 52.4% between 1973 and 2011.” The same group of males, had “an average decline in mean TSC of 1.6% per year and overall decline of 59.3%.” That is a sperm count decline as of a decade ago of more than 59% in men, unselected by fertility, from North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. And it continues to decline year by year.
Because of lack of serious support for new studies, updated data is limited. Fifteen years ago, over half of potential sperm donors in Hunan Province, China, met quality standards. Now, only 18% do, a decline blamed on endocrine disrupting chemicals according to one study. A similar fall in sperm count was registered by researchers in Taiwan, as well as a similar result for Israel. Shaw concludes, “male reproductive health, not just semen quality by the way, is in trouble, and this has consequences, not just for the ability to have a child, but it also impacts the health of the man.” She cites as examples, “low sperm count, infertility, testicular cancer, and various general defects. One of them is undescended testicles, another one is a condition where the opening of the urethra is not where it should be…”
Endocrine Disruptors
Swan, today with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, believes the cause is to be found in the huge rise in toxic chemical exposures in recent decades, especially of chemicals known as “endocrine disruptors” or hormone disruptors. She points to “chemicals that make plastics soft, which are phthalates, or chemicals that make plastics hard like Bisphenol A, or chemicals that are flame retardants, chemicals that are in Teflon, and so on, pesticides…”
The last, pesticides, is the group that should send loud alarm bells ringing because it is proven to get into groundwater and the human food chain. Today the two most widely used pesticides in the world are Bayer-Monsanto’s Roundup containing the probable carcinogen, glyphosate, and Azatrine made by Syngenta, which today is owned by ChemChina.
Atrazine effects
In 2010 a renowned University of California, Berkeley scientist, Tyrone B. Hayes, professor of integrative biology, led a major study of the effect of Atrazine exposure for frogs. He found that the pesticide, widely used on US corn crops and sugarcane, wreaks havoc with the sex lives of adult male frogs, emasculating three-quarters of them and turning one in 10 into females. He found ,“These male frogs are missing testosterone and all the things that testosterone controls, including sperm.” Moreover Hayes noted that the 10% of frogs exposed to Atrazine that “turn from males into females – something not known to occur under natural conditions in amphibians – can successfully mate with male frogs but, because these females are genetically male, all their offspring are male.” Hayes declared, “I believe that the preponderance of the evidence shows atrazine to be a risk to wildlife and humans.”
Atrazine is a potent endocrine disruptor. Atrazine is also the second-most widely used herbicide in the US behind Monsanto’s glyphosate product, Roundup. Despite the evidence, in a controversial ruling the US Environmental Protection Agency, in 2007 ruled that “Atrazine does not adversely affect amphibian sexual development and that no additional testing was warranted.” End of story? Hardly. But in 2004 the EU banned Atrazine saying Syngenta failed to prove its safety in drinking water.
Another agrochemical that has been determined to be an endocrine disruptor is Monsanto’s Roundup with glyphosate. Roundup is the world’s most widely used pesticide, in over 140 countries including Russia and China. Its use on US GMO crops has exploded in recent years as almost 90% of US corn is GMO, and a similar percent of its soybeans. Between 1996 when GMO Monsanto corn and soybeans were authorized in the USA, and 2017, Americans’ exposure to the chemical grew 500 percent. It has been tested in drinking water, cereals in stores and in urine of pregnant women. Almost all meat and poultry is saturated with glyphosate from animal feed.
A recent study carried out in Australia by researchers at Flinders University found that Roundup killed the cells that produce progesterone in women, causing their levels to drop. Glyphosate and Roundup have been “linked to birth defects, reproductive problems and liver disease, and it has been shown to have the potential to harm the DNA of human umbilical cord, placental and embryonic cells.”
In 2015 scientists in Nigeria examined the effects of combined exposure to both glyphosate and Atrazine on rats. They found the combination was even worse with effects on sperm, testosterone synthesis and male reproductive organs.
In 2016 China’s state-owned chemicals giant, ChemChina, bought Syngenta for a colossal $43 billion. At the time ChemChina had distribution rights in China and other Asian countries for Monsanto Roundup as well. On the ChemChina website it lists Atrazine among the herbicides it sells, calling it a “safe and efficient herbicide for corn fields…” ChemChina is also the leading producer of glyphosate for the Chinese agriculture market.
Today China is facing, by its own admission, a major agriculture crisis and is also struggling with ways to insure food security. Reports are that an increased role for GMO crops with Chinese patents will be a central part of a new five year plan which would undoubtedly mean using glyphosate and Atrazine. At the same time the state is increasingly alarmed by the falling birth rate which has not improved despite relaxations on the One Child policy. With Chinese farmers using significant amounts of pesticide chemicals including glyphosate and Atrazine to improve yields, they are pursuing a disastrous combination that will not only not solve the growing food crisis, but also may destroy the reproductive potential of a major portion of its 890 million rural population, as well as countless millions of urban citizens.
Are these dangerous endocrine disrupting agrochemicals allowed worldwide because of bureaucratic ignorance of the damage caused by glyphosates, Atrazine and other endocrine disrupters on the human reproduction? Is it only because of corporate greed for hyper profits that they exist? A 1975 quote from Henry Kissinger, author of the eugenics document NSSM-200 during the Nixon-Ford era is instructive: “Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the third world, because the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries.”
And from Bill Gates: \“The world today has 6.8 billion people…that’s headed up to about 9 billion. If we do a really great job on vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 to 15 percent.”
Or the grand old dog of eugenics, Prince Philip: “I must confess that I am tempted to ask for reincarnation as a particularly deadly virus.” ~ Prince Philip, in his Foreword to “If I Were an Animal” – United Kingdom, Robin Clark Ltd., 1986.
We are rapidly making the human species extinct as we continue to ignore dangers of these toxins to human and other life forms.
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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
