Global Research

This is part one of a special series devoted to the global pandemic that has coordinated an unprecedented attack on lives and civil liberties everywhere. In this chapter, we have two guests concluding that the threat is not nearly catastrophic as to demand lock-downs and masks.

The first guest is Sucharit Bhakdi. This renowned expert in microbiology along with Karina Reiss wrote a book – Corona: False Alarm? Facts and Figures. He breaks down how the facts he chronicles show how mightily deceived the public has been.

Our next guest is Mark Crispin Miller. A noted academic from New York, he took a particular interest in the mask question used to contain the spread of the virus. He analyzes the situation in an article that he is in the process of writing. He joins us to share his thoughts about masking, and the various methods used to further this remedy and other aspects of the COVID situation.

Sucharit Bhakdi, MD is a physician and  a post-doctoral researcher. He was named chair of Medical Microbiology at the University of Mainz in 1990, where he remained until his retirement in 2012. He has published over three hundred articles in the fields of immunology, bacteriology, virology, and parasitology, for which he has received numerous awards and the Order of Merit of Rhineland-Palatinate. He is a specialist in microbiology and one of the most cited research scientists in German history. His book, co-authored by Karina Reiss, is Corona: False Alarm? Facts and Figures. 

It is available now in the English language.

Mark Crispin Miller is a professor of media, culture and communication at New York University, and author of numerous articles on media censorship and election fraud. He is also authoring a major article which is focused on the widespread lies about the safety of the masks we put on to protect us from the threat of COVID 19.

 

Transcript of Sucharit Bhakdi in Conversation with Global Research News Hour host Michael Welch.

Global Research: Sucharit Bhakdi.

Sucharit Bhakdi, MD: If you look at the statistics of how many percent of infected, in terms of the coronavirus, I would ask the audience whether they had any inkling how many percent died. Was it 40 percent? 20 percent? 10 percent? 5 percent? Make a cross when you think you’ve got the answer. I tell you, it was way, way under 1 percent. Meaning that even without any antibodies, we didn’t have any antibodies, therefore they got the infection with this new, so called new coronavirus that was supposedly deadly and dangerous.

Anyone below the age of 70 even with pre-existing illnesses, the chances of dying was less than 1 percent. And if you have no pre-existing illness, the chances of dying of this COVID-19 was less than 0.1 percent meaning that 99.9 percent would not die because of course, we have modern medicine today. We have excellent possibilities of treating these patients. We are not of the age 1918 where there were no antibiotics, no intensive care medicine so you can’t go around comparing this sort of thing. And if you do, you may be making a big mistake.

GR: Today, from the onset of the virus, 200,000 people in the United States died from the virus. So should these numbers not spark an outrage?

SB: Well you see the whole problem about this virus is that the definition of virus, death, corona, victim” – entirely unscientific and violated all the basic rules of infectious disease. If you had a positive test for this virus, a lab test mind you, which is a PCR test, this is a test where you…The gene or gene fragments of the virus are multiplied so that it’s like putting a loop on what you’re trying to look at to see if the virus is there or not. This test was never intended for diagnostic use. This test was created for laboratory use and there was no mention at all that you could use this test to diagnose an infection and in fact this test does not diagnose an infection.

If you have a positive test it does not mean that you have an active infection. It does not mean that the infection made you ill. And it certainly does not equate with, if you die of this, that the infection killed you. Because this is something that caused the whole wave of misunderstanding to go off all over the world. If anyone tested positive for this virus and jumped off a cliff, then it wasn’t suicide anymore, the virus killed him. All right? I mean, it’s so ridiculous and this is what has been happening and what is happening, even today, even in the US. The virus does no more and no less than any other coronavirus that would have done a year ago or two years ago. Except that last year and the year before, no one would have thought about looking for a coronavirus because these viruses are not important enough to get diagnosed.

If you die of a heart attack, you die of a heart attack, and for that virus there, or a flu virus, or any other virus, it’s immaterial. It doesn’t really matter, and it shouldn’t matter, because if you do this sort of thing you are forcing upon others a false diagnosis. And making the correct diagnosis at death is so important for science and medicine, and you can see, after six months, how much self destruction has already taken place, how many existence are ruined, how many, you know, people have died because they haven’t been treated properly because hospitals have been closed to them. My god, now people in Europe are wearing masks, children are forced to wear masks in school, they’re going crazy, all these sort of thing, for what? Just because people are afraid. But if you look at the number of deaths, you see that if you’re under 70 it’s very, very soft. I’m not being [inaudible] it’s almost difficult to die.

The people who are dying are those whose lives are coming to an end with pre-existing illnesses, and it is correct these people are at risk, but they are at risk for the flu, they’re at risk for pneumococcal, they’re at risk for any agent that happens to hit them. So what one has to do is to protect those people specifically. In the nursing home, in the… People of old age are being taken care of. But you don’t go around doing what governments are doing now, putting masks on people who are not infected, prohibiting them to make a living. You know this is crazy.

GR: Could you talk about the lockdowns that were introduced, because there are some countries that went to extremes and others that did not. Could you maybe point to a few scenarios that show that the lock down…Lockdowns, I mean, on the one hand, maybe you’re protecting people from the virus, on the other hand there are a lot of, you know –

SB: Collateral damage

GR: —collateral damage that could be committed by the lock down, so could you just point to an example that shows that the lockdowns that are triggered is not really making the, doing it, making a positive difference?

SB: Well, the pure evidence in retrospect is that the lockdowns never did any good…and… because they came too late anyway. When the epidemics were already going down, any effect that you thought you might see was there anyway and of course you… Prime example is Sweden which didn’t do the lockdown, as we all know, and without the lockdown Sweden has not been doing worse than France, Italy, the U.S. And, you know, looking at this there’s no question whatsoever that the lockdowns have done nothing but damage. Damage. And all these restrictions that have been continued in Germany, in Switzerland, in France, Spain, whereby in Scandinavia. There is no mask there. They don’t have to wear masks, nothing happens to them either. I mean, it is as clear as day and we can’t understand that people just don’t stand up and say no mask anymore.

GR: Dr Bhakdi, you mentioned the masks, could you point to examples of how these masks were not only ineffective but could even be harmful to those who wore it.

SB: Well, it is well known that wearing masks causes so many psychological damage, harm to children in schools. You know they go really crazy and we have so many examples of children who hate these masks. The moment out they’re out of school they tear them to bits, and they start saying and they scream, “I don’t want to go to school anymore. I hate these masks!”

Masks are also known to increase the concentration of CO2, you know, that you breathe in and out because CO2 does accumulate in the mask. And this is very bad for elderly people who have lung problems…people who… I can tell you openly that my mother-in-law has lung cancer, and she’s an old lady. She’s in terminal stage lung cancer, she was forced to wear a mask when she went to buy milk and bread in the supermarket, and she collapsed in the supermarket and almost had to be taken to a hospital, but then she said, “I will not go to the hospital because if I go to the hospital I will never see my grandson again, and I will also probably never see my children. And if you try to take me to the hospital, I have a plastic bag that I’m going to put over my head.” She did.

And so I’m rather emotional about this. I myself, I can tell you cannot wear a mask because my blood pressure is on the border line. My blood pressure is about 135 to 140, okay? When I put in a mask within 10 to 15 minutes my blood pressure is 145/150 which shortens my life. Now there are millions of you in America, there are millions of people in Germany, in Europe, who are in the same position as me, and when they wear these damn masks, their blood pressure goes above the critical limit and their lives are being shortened. Not by years, but by days and maybe months. I don’t know how much, but I refuse to wear a mask. These are just two examples, but there’s so many others, there are people who get frantic when they put on masks, they get psychic, you know, break downs. And so it’s absolutely unethical that the politicians are forcing their people…They’re dehumanizing them all right, I’m using a very strong word, but it’s true.

GR: Could you maybe just talk about the role of other scientists because I know that there’s a fairly high number of people that are refusing to go along with this, something in the order of the hundreds, but there’s still some scientists who stick to that…you know, the idea that this is something that we should be taking precautions against it and so on. Could you maybe elaborate a little bit on what would guide them to go along with the normal course of action.

SB: Well, we’re all so perplexed, we can’t really understand that our colleagues don’t see through this. We have colleagues who are absolutely terrified of the virus despite the fact that after six months, what I’ve been telling you is… anyone can look up these numbers in the register. I mean it’s so easy, just look at the numbers and you see that everything I said is true. And despite this, they still refuse to stop being afraid and stop inciting fear in their patients and all their friends.

But there’s a real rift now in the medical community. Ever more physicians and people at the front who are seeing patients see that it is not true that this virus is going rampant. We have hardly any patients in the ICUs in Germany with COVID-19. Hardly any. We have hardly any deaths. You can count them on one hand every day. No, we have 2500 deaths a day in Germany and we have maybe five so-called COVID-19 deaths because they are dying with or because of the virus. So, in fact the COVID-19 is one of the most seldom causes of death in Germany at the moment.

To our great delight, it was yesterday, I think, that one thousand four hundred Belgium doctors signed and opened their voices, their opinion, that they said that this whole thing is a bogey. That SARS-COVID-2 is not the killer virus that people have been saying it is. And yet, just yesterday I think, Boris Johnson tightened the measures, and the Bavarian government are thinking of getting soldiers in to control people. It’s incredible, they want to mobilize the army. Oh my god, I mean where are we going? I hope that America doesn’t go this way, but sometimes when I see what the Americans are doing, I start to get my doubts.

We’re in Switzerland right now, I’m trying to talk to the Swiss because the Swiss are also behaving very, very childishly, extremely unSwiss. This was, used to be, the courageous independent people who showed the world the way to go. America used to be one of those too, but no. No way.

GR: That was Dr Sucharit Bhakdi, microbiology specialist and author on the threat of COVID-19 being exaggerated. Sucharit Bhakdi’s book, Corona, False Alarm? published by Chelsea Green Publishing is now available in the English language. Go to the site chelseagreen.com to order a copy or order from your local bookstore.

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Mark Crispin Miller: Well, over the summer, in fact since this crisis began, and once I came over, I got over my own panic over the coronavirus…I mean, I lost a friend to it and nearly lost another. You know, whatever exactly it is. And I’m seventy, I have Lyme disease so I was duly cautious and kind of on the fence about its seriousness, but as time wore on, I became more and more struck by a significant chinks in the official narrative.

I mean, going all the way back to the zoonotic origin theory that it had leapt from a bat to human, you know it comes right out of the end of the movie Contagion. I’m a student of propaganda, that’s probably my major intellectual interest nowadays and has been for some time. So I realized that this was, we’re living in the midst of, and in a world devastated by a propaganda drive of unprecedented scope and sophistication. And as the mask mandates were imposed and became all the more aggressive, I was increasingly struck by this, in particular.

It started with…what peaked my interest in the beginning was the fact that governor Greg Abbott of Texas who had been a staunch proponent of reopening and had even been invited to the oval office by Donald Trump to get the presidential salute for his position. Suddenly, I think in June, abruptly pivoted, and was now mandating masks in Texas. His pivot is very similar to the one by the CDC and Dr Fauci and the WHO, all three of which were whom had basically articulated the scientific consensus on the usefulness of masks against respiratory viruses. And all said very publicly that healthy people shouldn’t wear them. Fauci was on 60 minutes saying this, that they may make you feel a sense of security, but they’re not really that effective.

Then they all switched, they all shifted. And governor Abbot shifted, and that was a significant moment in the politicization of this issue because it was reported by The New York Times and others as a kind of come-to-Jesus moment, that Abbott had seen the light and understood that indeed the United States should have been following China’s example all along, and that was kind of the subtext of this because the World Health Organization has always strongly championed China’s draconian approach to this and hailed New Zealand for following China’s example.

So then other southern governors began to fall into line and Sean Hannity of Fox News did a TV spot or PSA urging people to wear masks. It was coming at us from every direction as winning propaganda always does. It uses every available medium, every possible stimulus to move large numbers of people to some thought or action and it was happening here. So that we had Tom Hanks, you know, a kind of reliable, arguably CIA-connected movie star saying, “I don’t trust anybody who doesn’t wear a mask.” You had Banksy, the radical street artist doing works of art about the necessity of masking. It was really everywhere we looked, everything we read, everything we saw, masks along the highway, “Wearing is Caring.”

So I was very struck by the summary published in April by Denis Rancourt, a fellow Canadian. You know, deftly and expertly summarizing the findings of seven randomized controlled tests of mask wearing, in hospital settings, from the past 10 or 15 years and they’re all in agreement, and it’s really very simple, that the variants of these respiratory viruses are simply too small for paper or cloth masks to prevent their transmission. One doctor, Dr Simone Gold, in LA, has used the metaphor that…trying to protect yourself from this virus with a face mask is like trying to use a chain link fence to keep out a mosquito. It’s a very apt analogy. It’s just as ridiculous. And the N.95 masks which are harder to penetrate are somewhat more effective but only as long as they fit your face very, very tightly, and with use the fit loosens and that opens up a pathway for the virus to enter.

Now let me pause and note something that nobody thinks about. What is it that health care workers in covid wards have used to protect themselves from infection? Well, they wear masks and respirators and goggles and face shields, and gloves and a gown and booties. That’s the full regalia. You know I spoke to nurses about this. That’s pretty formidable protection against a highly infectious virus in a hospital setting.

So the idea that, first of all, that that’s in any way comparable to what we have to do out in the streets in the open air when we’re healthy, that’s ridiculous because this is.. life is not a covid ward. And secondly, the idea that one of these masks by itself can offer any protection against the virus theoretically passed along by a passer-by on the sidewalk, which doesn’t happen either – these are completely irrational notions. And the more deeply I dug, the more stuff I found, rigorous studies, there’s one in the British medical journal about cloth masks in particular which warns against their use…I think it’s from 2015, it warns against the use of cloth mask by health care workers because these are basically bacteria traps and are dangerous.

Global Research: There has been a major study published by Texas A&M University highlighting how masks were by and large beneficial in protecting from covid. Professor Miller took a look at this and discovered several prominent voices calling for a retraction.

MCM: The one you mentioned is the one most often cited. It was published I think in June in proceedings of the National Academy of Science by a team in Texas A&M University and it got all kinds of press, you know, the media was headlining this and so on. Well, as I took a close look at this, and let me add Michael, I don’t tend to be a scientist myself I mean, I … my…doctorate is in English, and I’ve become a kind of expert in propaganda study and media ownership and things like that, and I’ve learned how to consult those with the appropriate expertise to judge these things. I went and I consulted the scientific reviews of that article. I went to the scientific media center in Britain, this is a control center and there’s a whole number of a lot…a big number of responses to this article, and it’s very damning. They pointed out the data was unreliable, the methodology was faulty, and researchers at Johns Hopkins did the same thing. The article was a fraud. Well they didn’t retract it.

This then prompts a closer look at Texas A&M University. What’s this say about that? Well it turns out it has extremely lucrative contracts with, I think, Pfizer and another pharmaceutical company, they’re in business with them, okay? So this is not a disinterested institution. This is an institution with an interest in keeping, [inaudible] clear for the vaccine or vaccines that are coming at us, see?

Anyone asks protract the error to maintain the actual lockdown…even things might nominally loosened up.

It is related to the scandalous campaign to discredit hydroxychloroquine, which had been proven overwhelming to be extremely successful in treating this disease. This has been affirmed in numerous studies worldwide and in countless clinical practices [inaudible] in Houston. And the local TV station, where they actually did a report on this hospital success rate in treating covid19. They had not lost a single patient. [inaudible] steroid.. cocktail that they use. There are hospitals in Florida that have used it with a perfect rate of success. And here they are telling us that it’s not effective.

GR: Mainstream media have not been doing the job of reviewing the efficacy of masks, among other problems with the covid story. I asked Miller about the press being held hostage by not only corporations, but conglomerates, and what role big pharma could be playing in this.

MCM: You raised a really good and complicated question. I mean first of all the fact that the media is largely concentrated and in the hands or within the tentacles of I think five multinational corporations is already a dangerous development that I.. I’ve been sounding the alarm about since the nineties, when it was accelerating, and as we approached the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which just made everything much, much worse. So that’s…definitely, that lays the groundwork for propaganda across media that are all owned by the same corporation, and all five of them are very closely involved with each other, and they all are connected to the CIA and the National Security State and their advertisers. Paramount among whom is big pharma.

Then there’s the Gates Foundation. There’s a superb article that was in the Columbia Journalism Review [inaudible] media peace keepers, and it gets into his having so far donated around $250 million to media outlets of all kinds, you know NBC News, The Atlantic, NPR, indirectly The New York Times. So that they are all functioning as part of the Mighty Wurlitzer that serves his and Big Pharma interests. So this is a, you know, the classic example of the kind of corruption that has bedeviled the commercial press from the beginning. What has now become, you know, a major threat to public health and the survival of humanity, I think. Because it’s so concentrated. There is no competition within it and NPR, which is supposed to be public broadcasting, is among the worst and so is PBS.

But Gates has also given to the BBC you know. He’s been very generous with media outlets abroad so that it’s difficult to, you know, find genuinely independent media and this extends to medical journals, you know, for the reasons I alluded to in talking about Texas A&M, that university scientists and medical journals are you know, basically in the pocket of the CDC which is itself.. .the Center for Disease Control is not acting in the public interest, it’s a deeply corrupt organization, as is the World Health Organization. And yet our media, naturally, being complicit and being owned, always piously invokes them as if they were, you know, ordained by God to tell us the truth about matters of public health. The opposite is true. The same is the case with Dr Fauci. He’s an extremely corrupt person with a very destructive record in public health. But with the media running interference for him and those agencies, it’s very hard to get at those truths and it’s especially difficult with the most educated people, I have found.

GR: I’d like to then ask you, I mean you’ve been outspoken in this in a number of different areas and I’m wondering about the backlash about, you know, personally, I mean, could you share with our listeners examples of how you’ve been treated for speaking so forthrightly about masking, a parallel of peril to civil liberties.

MCM: Well you know I.. I.. was…I’ve been written off as a conspiracy theorist since I wrote my book on the theft of the 2004 election. It’s called, Fooled Again. It came out in 2005 from a major publisher, who, like myself, was really kind of staggered by the blackout on the book when it appeared. And I was especially staggered by, not a blackout by, but a slander by the left media, many outlets for which I’d written, pieces by people I was friends with, who actually called the book conspiracy theory, and me a conspiracy theorist and it’s not a work of theory, it’s all documented. That was the… that was the meme that was used to shoot me down from the so called left, okay?

I’ve been tagged as a conspiracy theorist. I had been frequently invited on NPR to speak on various aspects of media. I was now persona non grata. I had written a number of opeds for the New York Times, I think 4 or 5. And now I was a pariah, and you know, so my reputation took a public hit. Lately, as I have been focusing on the covid crisis and the disinformation over it, and the disastrousness on the approach to it, through lockdowns and so on, I’ve been specifically targeted at NYU where I teach. A few months after I started doing these things, my department chair sent me four what do you call…negative student reviews from a course I taught on propaganda the previous fall, this is months later. Four single sentences, very, very damning, claiming that I had harangued them in class, and that I did nothing but flawed conspiracy theory and so on. And he said none of these have come from any student evaluations. And he wouldn’t tell me who had given them to him. And he urged me to, you know, straighten up, clean up my act, change my course descriptions, I guess to say, “You should be forewarned that I’m insane and I will be flogging insane theories in the class,” something like that.

So my response to this was to gather together a couple of dozen glowing emails from students, in that class and others, graduates and undergraduates, thanking me for opening their eyes, expressing gratitude for the opportunity to learn how to study these things critically, right? And I sent them to him, and I said, “This is the real consensus. You know, I don’t know where you got that quartet of put downs, but I’m not even convinced they’re authentic.” So that went away.

Now, just this week what’s happened is that a student in my current propaganda course who had come to the class late, about a week-and-a-half into the class, missed the opening week where we talk about all of these general issues, you know, the difficulty of being truly skeptical, the challenge of being genuinely skeptical, and the necessity to be prepared to move out of your comfort zone when you study propaganda, because often you discover that things you have believed – and this has happened me repeatedly in my life, happened to everyone who.. who’s… thoughtful. You come to see that something you believe to be true is not true. It’s the result of very, very sophisticated propaganda. She missed those classes.

So when she came, we were talking, I mean, in such classes I always focus on ongoing propaganda drives, because this is not an academic subject. This is not something you talk about the Nazis and the Bolsheviks only, or you talk only about World War One when modern propaganda began. If you approach it that way, you’re basically doing propaganda because you’re implying that we don’t do it, you know. The North Koreans do it, the Chinese do it, we don’t do it. Well in fact, the United States and Britain invented it, they invented political propaganda. They invented commercial propaganda as it’s been used ever since.

So, my view is that, you know, that you study its history and then you move directly to propaganda drives that are now on going, you have the students do the investigation, you know. I mean, I tell them things that startle them, always saying pointedly do not believe a single word I say, okay? Don’t take my word for anything! I could be wrong, you know, I could be right, it’s irrelevant. I’m not making proclamations of the truth here. I’m setting an example of a kind of critical investigation you have to carry out yourselves. So if something I say strikes you, you are obliged to look into it, yourself. Okay? So, naturally, since I’m forced to teach online, their lives have been completely upended, their socializing is under, you know, police surveillance, and the university is punishing students for having small gatherings in their own apartments, okay? Since we’re living in… in the heart of an unprecedented propaganda maelstrom, how can we not talk about it in class?

So I brought up the mask thing, I mentioned it. I mentioned the scientific studies. I recommended them. I sent them links. And this one student, I mean, who never said a word about any of this during a class discussion but sat there in what I recall now is a kind of stony silence, just on Tuesday started tweeting really hostile statements about my course and demanding that NYU fire me, okay? That I be fired for putting everybody at risk, for flogging dangerous disinformation. She refers contemptuously to the links I sent because, you know, this is very revealing, because I don’t run across many young people like this, but certainly older people, you know, certainly my peers and younger people in their 30s, 40s, 50s who’ve been steeped in The New York Times and so on. They have a tendency to simply shut down in the face of counter evidence. They sometimes become abusive. You know, there’s something about the fear of death that does this.

GR: In the minutes we had left I asked Mark Crispin Miller to expand on the issue of what informed citizens could do to reverse the direction of a massive fraud carried out at their expense.

MCM: Yeah. Well I’m in New York, which is one of the most dystopian cities around I’m afraid. It is unrecognizable to me as New York City. I am very heartened by resistance movements, particularly in Europe. I thought that the turnout in Germany was extraordinary and very, very inspiring, and that Bobby Kennedy Junior’s remarks were right on target, that we are witnessing the rollout of a totalitarian movement, the likes of which we have never seen anywhere, this is global now. And we’ve got all these liberals and progressives screaming about Trump as a fascist, okay. We can get into that whole subject, but to point to Trump as a fascist threat when we’re being faced with mandatory vaccination, immunity passports, we’re having our temperatures taken remotely, our movements are being tracked on cellphones, our socializing and gathering has been forbidden and is sometimes punished. If people can’t see that that’s totalitarianism, then they have been, they have their eyes wide shut. So what’s the solution?

The solution is for people to… those who’ve looked into this to spread the word, you know, however you can do it. It’s what I try to do in class, it’s what I’m doing with you, it’s what you guys do at Global Research. This means, increasingly, that we have to find alternatives to Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and people are finding them. I mean people have to resist, they have to say no. And not look at this in a politicized way, it has nothing to do with Trump or you know, whatever, I mean that… that’s all irrelevant. What matters is the truth, what matters is free and open discussion. That a student of mine would go on Twitter and demand I be fired for sharing certain kind of information and that the university would apparently back her up! I mean, my chairman sent her a reassuring tweet that they would make this a priority, which I found staggering, okay? The good news is that the reaction on Twitter has been overwhelmingly positive you know in… I’m… I don’t want to say in my favor, but in favor of free and frank discussion without having to fear the threat of unemployment or punishment. It is now astonishingly the left, it is more totalitarian, more pro-war, more pro-censorship, more pro-bio security than any other part –constituency.

We need to tell the truth, as George Orwell said, “In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act,” and that is unfortunately true. That’s the truth today, and therefore we have to heed his advice, because I think his work and the work of other authors who understood the dangers of dystopian surveillance and control, you know, including E.M Forster and Aldous Huxley and others. Their relevance to this crisis is actually far greater than the work of Karl Marx, because this isn’t just about capitalism. This is about a global elite heading in the direction of a kind of neo feudalism where they will own most of the land, control the food supply, where they are actually at work on a eugenics project to lower the population, and this is something that Gates has talked about openly, Ted Turner as well, thinks the population should be reduced by between 80 and 90 percent of the world’s population. This is the biggest landowner in the United States with huge herds of bison, right.

So we’ve got to wake up to this fact, we have to tumble to it, we can’t turn away from it and say it’s all just for short term profits. We follow the money, we follow it beyond the quid pro quos that we talked about before, the Big Pharma profits from this kind of coverage. It’s actually following the money to see that it also involves dividing and conquering the people. Splitting us up in as many ways as possible: red versus blue, black versus white, masked verses unmasked.

And then we follow the money beyond that to see that the eugenics project which began with the twentieth century, funded by the Rockefellers, the Carnegie Foundation and the Harriman family, never went away, it was embarrassed by the Holocaust. Although all those interests backed and supported Hitler before the war, sometimes during the war, and it reemerged a few years later as population control. And that’s now a key part of the Green New Deal and all that stuff. So part of the environmental movement is captive. It is an elite movement, and that’s where the money leads us, and I’m saying to you, Michael, that in order for us to survive this and to defeat it, as I believe it can and will be defeated, because to be perfectly honest, it is evil, and I don’t think evil can ultimately triumph – but God helps those who help themselves. So in order for good to triumph we have to step up, we have to be brave, we have to speak out.

GR: Mark Crispin Miller’s essay is entitled “Masking Ourselves to Death.” It will be released soon. His site is markcrispinmiller.com.

Iran, Russia and electoral interference.  It is all part of the delicious mess that any observer of US politics has come to expect.  Were the US body politic capable of being examined on the clinician’s couch, historical fears, psychic disturbances, and a range of unsettling syndromes would be identified.  The issue of electoral interference would certainly be at the fore; it would also be fitting that a state so indifferent to the electoral sovereignty of others would now find itself constantly fearing large return servings. 

On some level, this standards to reason.  In 1948, the United States, still flushed with victory, made a punchy bid to interfere with the outcome of the Italian elections.  It was the Central Intelligence Agency’s first covert operation, and it was ignominiously undemocratic.  As Walter Dowling, Italian desk officer at the US State Department urged in a memorandum in November 1946, the US had to become increasingly involved with Italian affairs, making itself “so pro-damned Italian that even the dumbest wop would sense the drift.” Being so damnably pro-Italian naturally meant being anti-communist.  US intelligence officials got to work ensuring that the Italian Communist Party (PCI), allied with the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) were kept out of office in favour of Alcide De Gasperi.  Contingency plans were laid for the prospect of US military intervention in the event of civil strife.  After De Gasperi’s victory, covert US aid to Italy’s centrist parties continued into the 1960s.  

Hair splitting in these sorts of things is the order of the day.  Chat in the land of political inference, especially when appraising the US role, focuses on how considerably different the meddling tends to be.  “Unlike Russian electoral interference,” suggests Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “US democracy promotion does not … favour particular candidates, or undercut the technical integrity of elections.  On the whole, it seeks to help citizens exercise their basic political and civil rights.”  Carothers had obviously forgotten Chile in all of this, along with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s infamous remarks about correcting the democratic choice of Chile’s voters.

Post-Cold War history has not been freed from the meddling hand of Washington.  In 1996, President Bill Clinton had to admit to efforts assisting Shimon Peres as the preferred candidate in Israel’s general elections.  Benjamin Netanyahu prevailed, and Clinton conceded on Israel’s Channel 10 news that he “tried to do it in a way that didn’t overtly involve me.”  When Netanyahu visited the White House as Israel’s prime minister, he “wanted me to know that he knew I wasn’t for him and he beat us anyway.”

Such behaviour shows that allies are not exempt from the practice.  The CIA did its bit in the lead-up to the French elections in 2012, though the effort was modest.  Available in the WikiLeaks CIA Vault 7 Series, a number of “tasking orders” were executed in an effort to infiltrate French political parties and conduct surveillance.  As WikiLeaks describes it, “All major French political parties were targeted for infiltration by the CIA’s human (‘HUMINT’) and electronic (‘SIGINT’) spies in the seven months leading up to France’s 2012 presidential election.”  Despite being seen as pro-American, President Nicolas Sarkozy was not exempt from Washington’s prying eyes.

With such a glorious record, it is little wonder that Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, when asked about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, had little time for the fuss.  In an interview with CNN’s Jack Tapper, Paul suggested that the electoral interference game was a buffet of reciprocal options: “they’re going to interfere in our elections. We also do the same … We all do it.   What we need to do is make sure our electoral process is protected.”   The investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into the Trump campaign and Russian interference was a needless “witch hunt”.

With only a brief interval now to the presidential elections next month, it would have been odd not to have another set of allegations of interference.  This latest round of claims has even been a bit neurotic.  It began as accusations of interference from a domestic source: the far-right Proud Boys group.  Emails, supposedly sent from “[email protected],” warned registered Democratic voters in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Florida, and Alaska to “vote for Trump on Election Day or we will come after you.” 

Enrique Tarrio, chairman of the Proud Boys and Florida state director of Latinos for Trump, denied that the group had a hand in the effort.  “We don’t do mass emails,” he told Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications.  “This is definitely, definitely not us.” 

With little care for caution and corroboration, a good stable of mainstream media outlets jumped on the narrative, accepting the premise that the Proud Boys had orchestrated a domestic campaign of electoral intimidation.  It seemed to tally with image and reputation.  Some group members have promised to keep an eye on polling stations across the country in a show of political heft.  The Lincoln Project was furious, claiming that “the Proud Boys are attempting to scare voters away from the polls.”  Such an act was “punishable by up to a year in jail and a blatant attempt to prevent people from voting.  Let’s find them and make them famous.” 

Then came the press conference of October 21, convened by the FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.  FBI director Christopher Wray and the Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe were present.  According to Ratcliffe, Iran and Russia “have taken specific actions to influence public opinion relating to our elections.”  Voter registration information had been obtained by both countries. 

“This data can be used by foreign actors to attempt to communicate false information to registered voters that they hope will cause confusion, sow chaos, and undermine your confidence in American democracy.” 

Reference was made to the intimidating emails, which would not have comforted the anti-Trump camp. 

“We have already seen Iran sending spoofed emails designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest, and damage President Trump,” stated Ratcliffe. 

“You may have seen some reporting on this in the last 24 hours or you have been one of the recipients.”  Iran was also “distributing other content,” including a video implying “that individuals could cast fraudulent votes, even from overseas.  This video – and any claims about such allegedly fraudulent ballots – are not true.”  

Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, never one to be entirely balanced when viewing material on the White House Ogre, questioned the assertions made during the press conference.  Interference in US elections over the last four years had always been taken to be against the Democrats and favourable to Trump.  Could it actually be designed to sabotage the US president?  Good of Ratcliffe, claimed Maddow, to be having the gathering (there was “drama” in holding a “short-notice press conference on election security”). “But when it comes to what he actually communicated, frankly nobody actually knows what he was talking about.” 

It should have been clear from the context, but clarity was not dawning on Maddow.  “We assume what he’s talking about here is these intimidating ‘vote Trump or else’ emails that were sent to Democratic registered voters in Florida and in numerous other states, but maybe that’s not what he’s talking about.” 

For the devotees of Russia gate, any reverse angle was hard to stomach.  Ideology must shape reality.  Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, in an effort to move the focus away from any specific targeting of Trump, claimed to have a different account of the security briefing he had been given.  “From the briefing, I had the strong impression it was much rather to undermine confidence in elections and not aimed at any particular figure”. 

A passable knowledge of recent Iran-US relations would surely make Ratcliffe’s assertions credible, not least Trump’s effort to sink the Iran nuclear deal and the ordered killing of Quds leader Major General Qasem Soleimani.  But partisanship has been the order of the day for four years.  Even in matters of electoral inference, trusted demonologies cannot be disturbed.

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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]

Those who have been waiting for the elusive October Surprise that will upset the apple cart on election day are admittedly running out of time. The media’s unwillingness to even consider that the antics of Hunter Biden just might constitute an embarrassment of major proportions or even something worse has done much to kill that story. And the old tried and true expedient of starting a little war somewhere is also proving to be a false hope as no one appears ready to provoke the righteously wrathful Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by ponying up a casus belli. Maybe there is still time for a false flag operation, but even that would require more prior planning than the White House appears capable of.

There is, however, one area that might just be exploitable to create a crisis, though it much depends on whether a tired public is willing to go one more round over the issue of “foreign election interference.” And yes, the Russians are presumed to be involved, on this occasion, as they always are, joined by the ever-vengeful Iranians.

On Wednesday Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe held a news conference at which he laid out details of the most recent dastardly plot against American democracy. He described how Iran and Russia both obtained American voter registration data, apparently through publicly accessible databases and through purchases of email lists. Though no actual votes have been altered, they are using that information “to influence the presidential election as it enters its final two weeks.” Ratcliffe elaborated how “This data can be used by foreign actors to attempt to communicate false information to registered voters that they hope will cause confusion, sow chaos and undermine…confidence in American democracy.”

Ratcliffe focused mostly on Iran, saying that it had been identified as the source of what he described as a claimed 1,500 “spoofed emails” routed through Estonia that “seek to intimidate voters, incite social unrest, and damage President Trump.” Iran was also blamed for other material, to include a video encouraging the casting of illegal ballots both domestically and overseas. Additional intelligence suggests that Iran is planning to take more steps to influence the election in the coming days, though what those measures could possibly be was not revealed.

Other government sources elaborated, indicating that Iranian intelligence has been credited with the sending of the email messages going out to Democratic voters in four states, including hotly disputed Pennsylvania and Florida. The emails falsely claimed to be from the alleged far-right group Proud Boys which has been much in the news.  Their message was that “we will come after you” if the recipients fail to vote for Donald Trump.

It doesn’t take much to realize that threatening messages relating to voting for Trump allegedly coming from a source described as “racist” would undoubtedly motivate most registered Democratic voters to do the opposite, but that seems to have escaped the analysts of the Directorate of National Intelligence. And one must also ask why Tehran would want the re-election of a president who has been unremittingly hostile, including imposing crippling sanctions, withdrawing from a beneficial nuclear agreement, and assassinating a leading Revolutionary Guards general. Even U.S. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer appears to have figured that one out, saying “It was clear to me that the intent of Iran in this case and Russia in many more cases is to basically undermine confidence in our elections. This action I do not believe was aimed… at discrediting President Trump.”

The anti-Trump New York Times has, of course, another, more sinister interpretation, suggesting that “…it may also play into President Trump’s hands. For weeks, he has argued, without evidence, that the vote on Nov. 3 will be ‘rigged,’ that mail-in ballots will lead to widespread fraud and that the only way he can be defeated is if his opponents cheat. Now, on the eve of the final debate, he has evidence of foreign influence campaigns designed to hurt his re-election chances, even if they did not affect the voting infrastructure.”

The Times also notes a broader conspiracy by the dreadful Persians, explaining how “Iran has tinkered at the edges of American election interference since 2012, but always as a minor actor. Last year, it stepped up its game, private cybersecurity firms have warned. They have caught Iranian operatives occasionally impersonating politicians and journalists around the world, often to spread narratives that are aimed at denigrating Israel or Saudi Arabia, its two major adversaries in the Middle East.” Again, however, the article provides no explanation of what Iran could possibly hope to gain from the minimal “tinkering” it might be able to engage in an American election in which billions of dollars will be spent by Democrats and Republicans who are viciously attacking each other without any outside help.

Ratcliffe had less to say about Russia but U.S. media coverage of the story included a referral to a recent account of how the U.S. military’s Cyber Command helped take down a network developed by Russian hackers called TrickBot that had been used in ransomware attacks directed against companies as well as cities and towns across the United States. It also reported how “In recent days, another Russian hacking group called Energetic Bear, often linked to the F.S.B. — one of the successors to the Soviet Union’s K.G.B. — appears to have focused its attention on gaining access to state and local government networks. That has caught the attention of federal investigators because, until now, the group had largely targeted energy firms, including public utilities.”

There was, however, no evidence that either hacking group was being directed against voter systems, so Russia’s inclusion in the front-page Times story headlined “Iran and Russia Seek to Influence Election in Final Days, U.S. Officials Warn” has to be considered questionable editorial judgment. Perhaps scaremongering would be a better description. In any event, the story itself is much ado about nothing. Iran’s sending out 1,500 emails if that actually occurred, would have zero impact. Likewise, the claimed existence of alleged Russian hacking groups that have done nothing directed against voters or balloting systems with only a few days left until the election would appear to be an electoral tactic rather than exposure of any genuine threat. One might even describe it as a bit of deliberate disinformation.

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This article was originally published on American Herald Tribune.

Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe. Credit: The Hill/ YouTube

During the presidential debate alongside Donald Trump in September, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden uttered the invocative Islamic expression “Inshallah,” meaning “God willing,” to woo the Muslim American voters, which was cheered by Democratic supporters across the Islamic World.

Being misinformed viewers of the Western mainstream media, however, the Democratic Party-leaning Muslims didn’t realize that all the missiles the liberal interventionist Obama-Biden administration deployed to bomb eight Islamic countries during its eight-year tenure were also inscribed with “Inshallah.”

Empty rhetoric, no matter how bombastic and noble-sounding, is never a substitute for tangible benevolent deeds. If nurturing patron-client relationship with autocratic rulers of the Islamic World is the touchstone for being an Islamic sympathizer, then the Trump administration has forged friendlier relationships with absolute monarchs of the Gulf States, the military dictator of Egypt and the populist demagogue of Turkey.

All Joe Biden did for the Islamic World in his over forty-year political career, first as a longtime senator from Delaware and then as Obama’s vice president, was to underwrite the Machiavellian policy of the US national security establishment to train and arm Islamic jihadists and use them as proxies against strategic adversaries in regions as disparate as the Af-Pak, Chechnya in the North Caucasus, Bosnia and Kosovo in the Balkans, Libya in North Africa and Syria in the Near East.

Before being elected as Obama’s vice president in 2008, as a senator and subsequently as the member and then the chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden, alongside inveterate hawk Senator Joe Lieberman, was one of the principal architects of the Bosnia War in the Clinton administration in the nineties.

Naively giving credit to former Senator and Vice President Joe Biden for his supposed “humanitarian interventionism” and for creating a catastrophe in the Balkans in the nineties, Paul Richter and Noam N. Levey, writing for the LA Times [1] in August 2008, observed:

“Biden has frequently favored humanitarian interventions abroad and was an early and influential advocate for the US military action in the Balkans in the 1990s.

“Biden considers his most important foreign policy accomplishment to be his leadership on the Balkans in the mid-1990s. He pushed a reluctant Clinton administration first to arm Serbian Muslims and then to use U.S. air power to suppress conflict in Serbia and Kosovo.”

Biden’s belligerent militarism, however, didn’t stop in the Balkans, as the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden said in 2002 that Saddam Hussein was a threat to national security and there was no option but to eliminate that threat. In October 2002, he voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, approving the US invasion of Iraq.

More significantly, as chair of the committee, he assembled a series of witnesses to testify in favor of the authorization. They gave testimony grossly misrepresenting the intent, history of and status of Saddam and his Baathist government, which was an openly avowed enemy of al-Qaeda, and touting Iraq’s fictional possession of weapons of mass destruction.

Writing for The Guardian’s “Comment is Free” in February, Mark Weisbrot contends [2] that Joe Biden was at the forefront of mustering bipartisan support for the illegal Iraq War and it would come back to haunt him in the forthcoming presidential elections like the criminal complicity of Hillary Clinton in lending legitimacy to the Bush administration’s unilateral invasion of Iraq had thwarted her presidential ambitions, too, in the 2016 presidential elections.

Weisbrot observes:

“When the war was debated and then authorized by the US Congress in 2002, Democrats controlled the Senate and Biden was chair of the Senate committee on foreign relations. Biden himself had enormous influence as chair and argued strongly in favor of the 2002 resolution granting President Bush the authority to invade Iraq.

“‘I do not believe this is a rush to war,’ Biden said a few days before the vote. ‘I believe it is a march to peace and security. I believe that failure to overwhelmingly support this resolution is likely to enhance the prospects that war will occur …’

“But he had a power much greater than his own words. He was able to choose all 18 witnesses in the main Senate hearings on Iraq. And he mainly chose people who supported a pro-war position. They argued in favor of ‘regime change as the stated US policy’ and warned of ‘a nuclear-armed Saddam sometime in this decade.’ That Iraqis would ‘welcome the United States as liberators’ and that Iraq ‘permits known al-Qaida members to live and move freely about in Iraq’ and that ‘they are being supported.’”

When the ill-conceived invasion and occupation of Iraq didn’t go as planned and the entire region slipped into myriad ethnic and sectarian conflicts, including the spillover of militancy across the porous border in neighboring Syria in 2011, Biden sought refuge in “plausible deniability” and blamed Syria’s neighbors Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf States for fueling the conflict.

Addressing a seminar at Harvard in 2014, Joe Biden said [3] that Saudi Arabia and the UAE had transferred hundreds of millions of dollars and large amounts of weaponry to a variety of Islamist militias inside Syria, including at least one with ties to al Qaeda.

“The Turks were great friends, and I’ve a great relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, … the Saudis, the Emiratis, etc. What were they doing? They were so determined to take down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war. What did they do?” Biden asked, according to a recording of the speech posted on the White House’s website.

“They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad, except that the people who were being supplied were al-Nusra, and al Qaeda, and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.”

To his credit, despite being a warmonger masquerading as “a pacifist,” former President Obama was at least smart. Having graduated as one of the poorest student from the law school, then-Vice President Biden didn’t realize the irony of his remarks.

The Gulf States, Turkey and Jordan didn’t funnel money and weapons into Syria’s proxy war without a nod from Washington. In fact, the CIA’s Operation Timber Sycamore to train and arm Syrian militants battling the Bashar al-Assad government from 2012 to 2017 in the border regions of Jordan and Turkey was approved and supervised by the Obama administration of which Biden was the vice president and second-in-command.

Regarding the creation and composition of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, apart from training and arms which were provided to Syrian militants in the training camps located in the Turkish and Jordanian border regions adjacent to Syria by the CIA in collaboration with Turkish, Jordanian and Saudi intelligence agencies, another factor that contributed to the success of the Islamic State when it overran Raqqa in Syria in 2013 and Mosul and Anbar in Iraq in 2014 was that its top cadres were comprised of former Baathist military and intelligence officers from the Saddam era.

Reportedly, hundreds of ex-Baathists constituted the top- and mid-tier command structure of the Islamic State who planned all the operations and directed its military strategy. The only feature that differentiated the Islamic State from all other insurgent groups was that its command structure which was comprised of professional ex-Baathists and its state-of-the-art weaponry that was provided to all militant outfits fighting in Syria by the intelligence agencies of the Western powers, Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf states.

In fact, Washington exercised such an absolute control over Syria’s theater of proxy war that although the US openly provided the American-made antitank (TOW) weapons to Syrian militant groups, it strictly forbade its clients from providing anti-aircraft weapons (MANPADS) to the militants, because Israel frequently flies surveillance aircrafts and drones and occasionally conducts airstrikes in Lebanon and Syria, and had such weapons fallen into the wrong hands, they could have become a long-term security threat to the Israeli Air Force.

Although ostensibly fighting a “war on terror” for the last couple of decades, the American deep state and political establishment have clandestinely nurtured Islamic jihadists and used them as proxies in myriad conflict zones of the Middle East to achieve “strategic objectives.”

If we take a cursory look at the history of the recent US administrations, the Carter and Reagan administrations trained and armed Afghan Mujahideen against the former Soviet Union during the Cold War in the late 1970s and 80s, those same “freedom fighters” later mutated into al-Qaeda and Taliban; the Clinton administration used Islamic jihadists to break up former Yugoslavia in the 1990s; the Bush administration invaded Iraq in 2003 that gave birth to al-Qaeda in Iraq; and the Obama-Biden administration initiated proxy wars in Libya and Syria in 2011 to topple Arab nationalist governments of Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad that gave birth to extremist groups such as Ansar al-Sharia in Libya and Islamic State and al-Nusra Front in Syria.

Karl Marx famously said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce. The only difference between the Soviet-Afghan jihad back in the 1980s, that spawned Islamic jihadists such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda for the first time in history, and the proxy wars in Libya and Syria 2011-onward was that the Afghan jihad was an overt jihad: back then, the Western national security establishments and their mouthpiece, the mainstream media, used to openly brag that the CIA provides all those rocket-propelled grenades and stingers to the Afghan so-called “freedom fighters” to combat the Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

After the 9/11 tragedy, however, the Western deep states and corporate media became a lot more circumspect, therefore this time around, they waged covert jihads against the Arab-nationalist Gaddafi regime in Libya and the anti-Zionist Assad government in Syria, in which Islamic jihadists (aka terrorists) were sold as “moderate rebels” with secular and nationalist ambitions to the Western audience.

Since the regime change objective in those hapless countries went against the mainstream narrative of ostensibly fighting a war against terrorism, therefore the Western national security establishments and the corporate media tried to muddle the reality by offering color-coded schemes to identify myriads of militant and terrorist outfits that operated in Syria: such as the red militants of the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front, which the Western powers wanted to eliminate; the yellow Islamic jihadists, including Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham, with whom the Western powers can collaborate under desperate circumstances; and the green militants of the Free Syria Army (FSA) and a few other inconsequential outfits, which together comprised the elusive “moderate” Syrian opposition that existed only in the mainstream media’s fictional narrative of Syria’s proxy war but was nowhere to be found on the ground.

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes

[1] On foreign policy, he’s willing to go his own way:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-aug-24-na-foreignpol24-story.html

[2] Joe Biden championed the Iraq war. Will that come back to haunt him now?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/17/joe-biden-role-iraq-war

[3] Joe Biden is the only honest man in Washington:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/10/07/joe-biden-is-the-only-honest-man-in-washington/

Since the beginning of the conflict in Syria the issue of Syrian refugees and internally displace has been the subject of countless articles and reports with international humanitarian organizations and countries involved in the Syrian conflict shifting responsibility for the plight of migrants.

The most notorious example of human suffering put against political games is the Rukban refugee camp located in eastern Syria inside the 55-km zone around Al-Tanf base controlled by the U.S. and its proxies.

According to official information, more than 50,000 people, mostly women and children, currently live in the camp. This is a huge number comparable to the population of a small town. The Syrian government, aware of the plight of people in Rukban, has repeatedly urged Washington to open a humanitarian corridor so that everyone can safely return home. However, all such proposals were ignored by the American side. U.S. also refuse to provide the camp with first aid items. Neighbouring Jordan is inactive, too, despite Rukban being the largest of dozens other temporary detention centres in Syria, where people eke out a meager existence.

At the same time, the problem is not only refugee camps. Syria has been at war for a decade. The country’s economy has suffered greatly over this period, and many cities have been practically grazed to the ground. Moreover, the global coronavirus epidemic didn’t spare Syria and drained the already weakened economy even more. However, Damascus’ attempts of post-war reconstruction and economic recovery were undermined by multiple packages of severe sanctions imposed by the U.S. At the same time, U.S.-based human rights monitors and humanitarian organizations continue to weep over the Syrian citizens’ misery.

The situation is the same for those refugees who stay in camps abroad, especially in countries bordering on Syria, particularly Jordan and Turkey. Ankara has been using Syrian citizens as a leverage against the European states in pursuit of political benefits for a long time. No one pays attention to the lives of people who are used as a change coin in big politics. This is equally true for Rukban where refugees are held in inhuman conditions and not allowed to return to their homeland. In those rare exceptions that they are able to leave, refugees have to pay large sums of money that most of those living in camp are not able to come by.

It’s hard to predict how long the Syrian conflict will go on and when – or if – the American military will leave the Al-Tanf base. One thing can be said for sure: the kind of criminal inaction and disregard for humanitarian catastrophe witnessed in refugee camps is a humiliating failure of modern diplomacy and an unforgivable mistake for the international community. People shouldn’t be a tool in the games of politicians.

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Ahmad Salah is a freelance Syrian journalist focused on the Middle East and especially the Levant. 

Featured image is from the author

In Colombia, popular dissatisfaction with President Iván Duque‘s policies is growing day after day. Popular protests started late last year and peaked between September and October this year. During this period, the number of claims increased significantly, mainly due to the advance of the new coronavirus pandemic, which caused a serious economic and social crisis in the country – with which the government has been incompetent to mitigate the effects. Last month, 13 people died during the demonstrations due to the great police violence that has been used to suppress the demonstrations. Now, in October, the scenario is being repeated.

In this context of protests, the 21st of October was marked by an unusual agitation. Thousands political activists, students and indigenous people attended a national strike in Colombia on Wednesday to protest against the economic policies of Iván Duque, the murder of protesters and human rights activists and the police violence. Still, protesters are demanding a variety of government grants, including guaranteed income for those who lost their jobs in the pandemic and more funding for health and education and measures.

The national strike of 21 October was a real mark in the demonstrations, mainly due to the presence of more than 8,000 indigenous people. The indigenous protests are organized through long marches known as “La Minga”. In fact, Colombian native communities have been the biggest victims of the insecurity that is taking over the country. Such communities live in the midst of conflicts between different paramilitary militias and drug trafficking organizations, having their rights constantly violated.

The indigenous people demand a personal meeting with Iván Duque to request their needs. In search of a dialogue with the president, the indigenous people managed to start some negotiations with Duke’s advisers, but the president continues to ignore the requests. Days before the general strike, Commissioner for Peace, Miguel Ceballos, had announced that he would head a presidential delegation that would visit the department of Cauca, western Colombia, where a large part of that community resides. However, “La Minga” was already in Bogotá demanding to speak to Duque in person. Its members had been going to the capital for more than a week through the long marches. Thus, the indigenous people decided to join the protests in the capital.

The Colombian government has always wanted to stigmatize indigenous demonstrations.

Currently, the Colombian government’s main rhetoric to undermine all social unrest is the need to fight the pandemic. With the justification of “avoiding agglomerations” and “protecting the health of the population”, the government has repressed protests with extreme violence, while remaining silent about popular demands. The “Miga” organizers have already spoken out during the general strike stating that the pandemic will not cease the demonstrations. In the same vein, as the government fails to respond to the protesters requests, the turmoil tends to increase.

The most curious thing to note is that even in the face of this scenario, the Colombian government continues trying to make the country a South American NATO satellite and to invest large amounts of money in this project. Colombia is a key point in a strategic siege against Venezuela that is planned by Washington with the assistance of Brazil. Basically, the government’s priorities do not correspond to the basic needs of the population. While indigenous people are murdered by drug traffickers, the armed forces plan to invade a neighboring country; while unemployment and poverty increase exponentially, public spending on defense remains enormous. Colombia is the country that spends the most on defense in the entire South American continent, allocating more than 3% of its GDP to this sector. Obviously, defense spending and military alliances with foreign powers are important. But how can a country prioritize such issues to the detriment of internal public security and the material well-being of its people?

In parallel, the pandemic is indeed advancing in the country. Despite a small drop in the number of cases in the past month, the country is still severely affected by the virus, approaching the 30,000 dead. The protests tend to actually increase the number of cases and to reverse the recent decline. But how can the population remain silent and comply with social isolation standards when there is no income to supply their needs? Without government assistance, it will be impossible to keep the population off the streets and, consequently, the pandemic situation will worsen.

So, what will the Colombian government choose? If it maintains the strategy of simply suppressing protests with police violence, not guaranteeing any improvement for the population, there will be no change, as the demonstrations will continue and the cases of COVID-19 will increase.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Like the US, Turkey’s Erdogan pursues interests at the expense of peace and stability.

He favors war for extending Turkey’s borders to further his neo-Ottoman aims.

He, his family members and regime profited earlier from stolen Syrian oil.

He gave ISIS and other terrorists safe haven in Turkish territory, providing them with weapons, other material support, and a launching pad for attacks on Syrian soldiers and civilians.

Turkey under Erdogan is a fascist police state — speech, media and academic freedoms they way they should be banned.

So is dissent. Anyone publicly criticizing or insulting him risks prosecution for terrorism, espionage or treason, including children.

As long as he doesn’t act against US interests, as a NATO member and in other ways, his tyrannical rule and regional destabilizing actions are tolerated — if only barely.

On Wednesday, his Vice President Fuat Oktay said Ankara is ready to send troops to back Azerbaijan’s war on Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh (NK below).

In response to Turkey’s deployment of armed and directed jihadists to combat Armenian forces in NK, the country’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan called on regional countries to unite against them and their Turkish paymaster.

“Regretably (they) have not responded to this reality seriously enough yet,” Pashinyan added.

“It is beyond doubt that the presence of foreign terrorists will pose a threat to the region in the future.”

“The region’s countries must deal with this issue more seriously.”

The Erdogan regime is also involved militarily in NK by providing Baku with command and control services, training of its military forces, and heavy weapons for warmaking.

He and hardliners surrounding him support war, not resolution in NK.

Pashinyan stressed it, saying “the Karabakh question…cannot have a diplomatic solution.”

“Everything that is diplomatically acceptable to the Armenian side…is not acceptable to Azerbaijan…”

Baku’s ruling authorities intend endless war until Armenian forces are driven from NK — no matter the human toll, according to comments from its leadership.

As Azeri forces advance, civilians in harm’s way are caught in the crossfire.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that they’ve taken control of areas bordering Iran and Armenia’s international border — increasing the risk of conflict spilling into both countries.

Armenia’s Defense Ministry spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan accused Azerbaijan of sending “small…subversive groups…into villages and towns, film(ing) themselves there, spread(ing) those images…to feed their society. But, unfortunately, this also affects us.”

While conflict continues, foreign ministers of both warring sides will meet with Trump regime’s Pompeo for talks in Washington on Friday.

Yet on Tuesday, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said the following:

“We are fighting on our own land, giving martyrs and restoring our territorial integrity. These steps will continue to be taken.”

“Armenia must declare before it is too late that it is withdrawing from the occupied territories. After that the fighting may stop.”

From the above remarks and two failed Russian/Minsk Group arranged ceasefire, Aliyev is unwilling to compromise on his aims in NK.

With support from Turkey, including Erdogan’s willingness to send troops if asked, Aliyev rejects diplomacy while sending his foreign minister to discuss ceasefire with his Russian, French and US counterparts.

According to the Asia Times, Erdogan’s support for Azerbaijan is driven by energy interests in competition with Russia.

An unnamed Erdogan advisor said “Russia is neither an ally, nor an enemy, but we can’t negotiate if we are too dependent on them, especially when it comes to energy.”

“We have vital interests to protect,” including two pipelines from Azerbaijan to Europe, one for oil, the other for gas.

One runs close to NK, the other near northern Armenia, the unnamed advisor close to Erdogan adding:

“We can’t afford losing our sight on what’s going on around our pipelines in the Caucasus, especially in the Tavush region, where there have been several clashes (with Armenia) over the last years.”

The so-called BTC oil pipeline is owned by Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Britain’s BP.

The South Caucasus Pipeline runs from Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea field to Turkey, and Georgia — soon as well to Italy, Greece and Bulgaria.

Earlier in October, Erdogan accused Armenia of endangering supplies of energy to Turkey and other European countries.

Oil and gas pipelines from Azerbaijan to Europe are only endangered by its preemptive war on Armenia in NK.

No danger would exist if conflict resolution ended weeks of fighting.

Russia also supplies gas to Turkey through Turkstream 1.

Turkstream 2 is under construction, completion expected around yearend.

Azerbaijan will compete with Russia for the European natural gas market.

Moscow prioritizes cooperation with other nations, confrontation with none.

Turkey’s Erdogan prioritizes the advancement of his neo-Ottoman interests.

*

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

The US has taken Sudan off the list of state-sponsors of terrorism, and with UAE support to provide several billion dollars of aid, in exchange for normalization with Israel.

US President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter Monday: “GREAT news! New government of Sudan, which is making great progress, agreed to pay $335 MILLION to U.S. terror victims and families. Once deposited, I will lift Sudan from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. At long last, JUSTICE for the American people and BIG step for Sudan!”

Sudan’s de-facto leader, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, welcomed Trump’s tweet: “I would like to express my deep appreciation and that of the Sudanese people to President Trump.”

Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok tweeted: “Thank you so much, President Trump!”

Legitimate Sudanese businesses were handicapped, foreign direct investment was frozen, and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank couldn’t adopt a package to relieve its massive debt of about $72bn as long as Sudan was on the terror list.

The scale of hunger today is monumental, and the UN counts 9.6 million Sudanese as “severely food insecure”. This is made worse by the Covid-19 shutdown and floods. It is a crisis that cannot be overcome by food handouts but requires a massive injection of financial assistance.

Sudan has already agreed with the US to a compensation deal for victims of the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which were orchestrated by Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network while he was living in Sudan.

The elephant in the room

Regardless of the economic benefits, Sudan would receive from normalizing relations with Israel, public hostility toward Israel remains strong, with many who insist on Palestinian rights. Sudan, a Muslim-majority Arab country, has long said there are three rules: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations.

Trump, Netanyahu, the Gulf Arabs, and now Sudan’s leaders are not dealing with the elephant in the room, which is the apartheid condition in Occupied Palestine.

Normalizing relations with Israel

The prize Israel is seeking is to be recognized by a truly democratic nation within the Arab world. The other nations who previously signed the ‘Abraham Accords’ on September 15 at the White House are monarchies, and far from anything considered democratic; however, Sudan is now in the first stages of a transition to democracy, after shedding an authoritarian past. Experts are worried that this fragile new democracy could break apart if the public rises up in defiance of the relationship with Israel, and the country could plunge into chaos.

Burhan’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in Uganda in January was met with shock and dismay not just among Islamists, but among many of the liberal and secular forces that were active in promoting democracy.

The normalization process could begin with a phone call between Trump, al-Burhan, Hamdok, and Netanyahu.

“Now, whether we like it or not, the removal is tied to (normalization) with Israel,” the deputy head of the council, Gen. Mohammed Dagalo, told a local television station on October 16, while adding, “We need Israel … Israel is a developed country and the whole world is working with it,” he said. “We will have benefits from such relations … We hope all look at Sudan’s interests.”

The Israeli government hopes a deal can be wrapped up before the US election on November 3.

The US pressure and the election

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Khartoum on August 25 and a later trip to Abu Dhabi by al-Burhan, on September 20 are the basis for speculation.

While in Khartoum, Pompeo proposed a deal to Hamdok: if Sudan recognized Israel, President Trump would remove Sudan from the terror list, and announce an aid package to include financial aid and wheat, medicine, and oil shipments.  Trump also committed to mobilize private sector investments in Sudan and to organize a Sudan donors conference.

Trump would reap a huge boost to his campaign for normalizing Arab relations with Israel in the days before the election, while Trump would appear in a foreign policy victory. The pressure on Sudan’s leaders is intense, as they fear incentives being offered now could be withdrawn after the US election.

The oil-rich Arab Gulf influence

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain joined Egypt and Jordan in declaring peace with Israel, and when Sudan joins them the US and UAE would provide Sudan with a big aid package, which was offered in Abu Dhabi last month.  Almost $1 billion in cash was being offered, mostly to be paid by the Emirates, but the Sudanese team had asked for $3 billion.

Sudan’s resources

Sudan is rich in natural resources, including natural gas, gold, silver, chromite, asbestos, manganese, gypsum, mica, zinc, iron, lead, uranium, copper, kaolin, cobalt, granite, nickel, tin, and aluminum.

Petroleum is Sudan’s major natural resource, though much of it went to the split with South Sudan; however, nearly 30 tons of gold is produced annually.

Sudan’s main crops include cotton, peanuts, sesame, gum arabic, sorghum, and sugarcane. Agriculture and livestock raising are the main sources of livelihood for most Sudanese.

In late 1999, the Jordanian army found a food-growing paradise in Sudan, with flat, nutrient-rich soil, and plentiful water.

Besides the Jordanians, Pakistanis, Syrians, Emiratis, Lebanese, Yemenis, and others began flocking to Sudan and snapping up huge acreages to farm. In 2016 the Saudi government leased 1 million arable acres in the east of the country, while Bahrain leased 100,000 acres. The Qataris, Saudis, and Emiratis are Sudan’s largest financial benefactors, while all depend heavily on food imports.

The past leader

President Omar al-Bashir was deposed in April 2019 following a 30-year rule. Violent street protests began immediately after al-Bashir returned from a visit to Syria, which resulted in a military coup.

After seizing power in a military coup in 1989, President Bashir turned Khartoum into a global center for militant extremism, and Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network operated freely in Sudan in the 1990s before he moved to Afghanistan.

Sudan will now pay compensation for victims of the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania conducted by al Qaeda. After the first terror attack on New York’s World Trade Center in 1993, the US designated Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism.

In 2016, under pressure from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the Bashir government cut its ties with Iran.

Sudan’s current government

In a deal brokered by the US, UK, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, Sudan agreed to share power with a civilian cabinet. Sudan’s transition to democracy presents an opportunity for the country to chart a path out of autocracy and violence toward stability.

However, one year into the transition, the security and economic crises that were the trigger of the revolution have worsened. Millions remain displaced, while the value of the Sudanese pound has fallen from 45 to a US dollar in August 2019 to nearly 300 this month. More than half of the country is severely food insecure, and despite pledges of support, the international community has failed to mobilize financial aid to support the transition, which has caused the population to distrust the new transitional government.

Sudan is currently ruled by a fragile transitional Sovereignty Council run by the top military official, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, with the cabinet led by a technocratic prime minister in Abdallah Hamdok, along with a legislative assembly.

Sudan’s political landscape was one of the most diverse and vibrant in the Arab world, with organized forces ranging from communists and Baathists to liberal secular forces to a range of Islamist-oriented groups.

Backed by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, the chairman of the transitional council, al-Burhan, and his deputy Lt Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo, known as “Hemeti”, command troops and money. Burhan met Netanyahu in February, without Hamdok knowing.  Burhan and Hemeti want international recognition, without the burden of democracy.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is an award-winning journalist. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from MD

U.S. Democrat Presidential Candidate Joe Biden has been on a whirlwind campaign in an attempt to defeat President Donald Trump in next month’s election. Published policy papers has shown Biden’s strong support for Greece, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Albania and Kosovo as he seeks to win over millions of diaspora votes. The candidate has taken a very strong anti-Turkey position in his bid to win over Armenian and Greek diaspora voters at a time when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan makes daily threats of war against Greece and is directly sponsoring, arming and facilitating the Azerbaijani invasion of Artsakh, or more commonly known as Nagorno-Karabakh.

However, away from Greece and into the heart of the Balkans, Biden is also appealing to the greatest enablers of Turkish expansionism into the region – BiH, Albania and Kosovo.

If Biden wins next month’s presidential elections, there will be no sudden changes in America’s foreign policy, besides perhaps a stronger position against Erdoğan compared to Trump’s “bromance” with the Turkish president. To empower U.S. positioning in the Balkans, Biden wants to resurrect policies from the 1990’s that resulted in poverty, ethnic cleansing and war in the region.

In a letter to the Bosnian Muslim diaspora in the U.S., entitled “Joe Biden’s vision for America’s relationship with Bosnia and Herzegovina,” the Democrat said he is “a proven friend of Bosnia and Herzegovina – from the country’s darkest days of war and genocide to the continued struggle for stability and justice.”

Biden’s letter highlighted that as senator he was a key player “to stop [Serbian leader] Slobodan Milosevic’s brutal campaign of genocide.” It also highlighted that “Biden knows that for Bosnia and Herzegovina to succeed, it will need the steadfast support of the United States” and that as president he will convene “European Union partners and NATO allies to jointly develop a strategy for anchoring the Western Balkans in Euro-Atlantic institutions.”

Most interestingly, in the letter, the presidential candidate notes that “Unfortunately, under President Trump, U.S. influence in the region has faded as the administration has cast the European Union as a strategic adversary and questioned the value of the NATO alliance.” It has been well established that Trump has taken a greater disinterest in Balkan issues compared to his predecessors.

In another letter entitled “Joe Biden’s Vision for U.S. Relations with Albania and Kosova,” the presidential candidate said that he “is a long-time friend of Albania and Kosova and the Albanian-American community. As President, he will continue to support Albania’s security, and democratic and economic development in the region. Biden understands the important role played by NATO and the threats to the region posed by Russia.”

It is clear from his addresses to the Bosnian Muslim and Albanian diaspora communities in the U.S. that a Biden administration will play a more active role in the Balkans to contain Russian influence in the region by pressurizing Serbia.

If Biden defeats Trump, new pressure will be created against the Serbian dominated entity, the Republika Srpska. The Republika Srpska is one of the two entities comprising of BiH, with the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina which comprises mostly of Bosnian Muslims and Croats. Biden’s policies indicate that the Serbs will be pressured into accepting NATO and into accepting Sarajevo as the centralized political center for BiH, thus taking away even more liberties and autonomy from the Republika Srpska. Effectively, if Biden is successful in the upcoming elections, what the Bosnian Muslims want could be achieved – the complete integration of BiH into the Euro-Atlantic agenda by being absorbed into NATO and the EU, thus eliminating most of Russia’s influence in the region.

The fact that nearly 25 years has passed since the signing of the Dayton Agreement, which formulated the two-entity system of BiH, without settling deep seeded problems in the untenable system, is a testament to the failure of the U.S. experiment in the Balkans.

Biden’s strong backing for further integrating the Balkans into NATO and the European Union will certainly affect the Serbian electorate in America, who were not strong supporters of Trump either.  This will likely steer Serbian-Americans into voting for Trump, however, their community is smaller than the Albanian and Bosnian Muslim diaspora in the U.S.

Although such letters may flatter the Albanian and Bosnian Muslim diaspora, two important factors remain – it is more than likely Biden will not be elected, and, will his policy ambitions come to fruition? Although the U.S.-led NATO was highly successful in dismantling Yugoslavia in the 1990’s, the geopolitical situation is vastly different today. Russia in the 1990’s, led by the famously incompetent Boris Yeltsin, was a shadow of the previous Soviet Union.

It is highly unlikely that Russia would be willing to military intervene in any future conflicts in the Balkans, but it will certainly be a lot more proactive diplomatically and materially in the Balkans then what it was after the fall of the Soviet Union.

What Biden also does not acknowledge is that within the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the second entity comprising of BiH, there are strained relations between the co-ruling Bosnian Muslims and Croats. Whereas they were once allied against the Serbs, the Croats are now demanding more autonomy that the Bosnian Muslims are unwilling to give.

Meanwhile, there are greater numbers of countries withdrawing their recognition of Kosovo’s independence. Washington’s second experiment in the Balkans, Kosovo, again finds itself problematic as it has become a European hub for drug trafficking, human trafficking and organ harvesting.

Assuming a Biden victory, his hopes of turning the Balkans completely into a bastion of Euro-Atlantic dominance devoid of Russian influence will unlikely come to fruition. Although the Democrat may give rhetoric on the success of the BiH and Kosovo experiments, both are failed states with little economic, infrastructural or developmental prospects for the future. However, perhaps this is exactly how Biden wants these entities to be – volatile points that could explode at any moment and put Serbia under pressure.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

US billionaires are cashing in big at a time of widespread unemployment, underemployment, and deprivation. More below on reported data.

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A previous article stressed that the disparity between super-wealth and growing poverty in the US is greater than any time since the 19th century gilded age.

For ordinary Americans, the hardest of hard times are indicative of what may prove to be a new normal.

Growing poverty, food insecurity, the threat of widespread evictions, collapsing small businesses, and overall deprivation may persist longterm.

For 31 straight weeks, over one million jobless Americans filed claims for unemployment benefits.

Each week since March, the number was more than double the total of any previous reporting period at a time when annualized inflation in September was 7.69% — not the phony 1.4% CPI figure.

At 26.9% — based on the pre-1990 calculation model — US unemployment is 26.9%.

Because of growing layoffs and extraordinarily high numbers of unemployment insurance filings, US joblessness is likely to rise in the months ahead.

Federal Reserve data show over 100 million working-age Americans without jobs.

In 2021, the number may be much higher because of what’s likely to be protracted Depression conditions.

A massive disconnect exists between bubble-level equity prices and dismal main street economic conditions gone largely unaddressed — Depression conditions exceeding the worst of the 1930s.

According to Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and Institute for Policy Studies, “(t)he collective wealth of America’s billionaires has jumped by $931 billion, or nearly one-third, since mid-March…”

It’s at a time of economic collapse, mass unemployment, “and a collapse in taxes collected” at the federal, state and local levels.

“The total net worth of (America’s) 644 billionaires (rose)  from $2.95 trillion on March 18 to $3.88 trillion on October 13…or 31.6%…”

Despite the hardest of hard times for tens of millions of US households, the White House and Congress failed to agree on extending financial help to needy Americans after earlier aid expired at end of July.

According to the ATF and IPS report, average wages for working Americans declined 3.5% this year.

“Nearly 62 million lost” jobs.

On September 19, “25 million were collecting unemployment” insurance.

Nearly 100,000 (mostly small) businesses shut down “permanently.”

“12 million have lost employer-sponsored health insurance during the pandemic as of August 26, 2020.”

A Northwestern University study reported that food insecurity affects about 30% of US households with children.

According to ATF and IPS, “1 in 6 renters reported being behind on September rent payments.”

While low-wage working-age Americans, people of color, and women suffer disproportionately, the nation’s super-rich never had things better.

ATF executive director Frank Clemente said the following:

“Sadly, the Gilded Age is here again.”

“We have extraordinary gains in wealth by a small sliver of the population while millions suffer, this time from the ravages of the pandemic, much of which could have been avoided.”

“In the short-term we need a robust pandemic relief package that meets the urgency of the moment, not Senator McConnell’s skinny bill that offers political cover.”

“In the long-term, we need major reform that taxes the extraordinary wealth of the billionaires and millionaires and uses that wealth to create an economy that works for all of us.”

Because of the failure of Washington’s ruling class to help Americans in need during a time of economic collapse, “US society is kicking into inequality,” said IPS’ Chuck Collins, adding:

“The juxtaposition between surging billionaire wealth and the imploding livelihoods of ordinary Americans is grotesque and unseemly.”

Without actions by US policymakers to turn things around, millions more lost jobs and greater human deprivation are likely.

Analyst Doug Casey believes that “the US is not going back to things as they once were,” adding:

If Biden/Harris win, “there’s no way out.” The same goes for Trump.

“He wants to print money as much as they do. He’s adamant about keeping interest rates at disastrously and destructively low levels.”

“He’s quite happy to impose all kinds of duties and arbitrarily sign executive orders about anything and everything.”

“The Greater Depression is going to be nasty either way.”

If borderline-dementia Biden wins, it’ll be a Harris-run regime, a figure Casey calls “the most collectivist and statist (US) senator.”

She’ll “become the de facto president…(Things are) going to get violent” no matter who wins.

It’s the wrong time to be growing up in the US and West.

Long ago, new generations had greater opportunities for advancement earlier ones.

Class war changed things. Wealth today is redistributed from ordinary Americans and their Western counterparts to the top 1%.

Economist Richard Wolff explained that 1930s New Deal policies “redistributed (wealth) downward.”

“By the 1970s, that was reversed. The 2020 crash…accelerate(d) upward wealth redistribution sharply.”

“With tens of millions now a ‘reserve army’ of the unemployed, nearly every US employer can cut wages, benefits, etc.”

Dissatisfied workers “are easily replaced.” Food insecurity and inability to pay rent or service mortgages will force the jobless to take whatever employment they can get, no matter how unacceptable.

As the disparity between ordinary Americans and super-rich ones grows wider, living standards will decline significantly for most people.

The only solution is grassroots activism, taking to the streets, striking for better conditions, and paying with blood, sweat and tears until equitable gains are won.

It happened before in the US long ago. It can happen again.

Power yields nothing without demands. They’re vitally needed today in a nation increasingly unsafe and unfit to live in.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Introduction

We were told initially that the premise for lockdown was to ‘flatten the curve’ and therefore protect the NHS from being overwhelmed.

It is clear that at no point was the National Health Service (NHS) in any danger of being overwhelmed, and since May 2020 covid wards have been largely empty; and crucially the death toll from covid has remained extremely low.

We now have hundreds of thousands of so-called ‘cases’, ‘infections’ and ‘positive tests’ but hardly any sick people. Recall that four fifths (80%) of ‘infections’ are asymptomatic (1) Covid wards have been by and large empty throughout June, July, August and September 2020. Most importantly covid deaths are at an all-time low. It is clear that these ‘cases’ are in fact not ‘cases’ but rather they are normal healthy people.

So-called asymptomatic cases have never in the history of respiratory disease been the driver for spread of infection. Rather it is symptomatic people who spread respiratory infections – not asymptomatic people.(2)

It is also abundantly clear that the ‘pandemic’ is basically over and has been since June 2020. (3)

We have very highly likely reached herd immunity and therefore have no need for a vaccine.

We have safe and very effective treatments and preventative treatments for covid, we therefore call for an immediate end to all lockdown measures, social distancing, mask wearing, testing of healthy individuals, track and trace, immunity passports, the vaccination program and so on.

There has been a catalogue of unscientific, non-sensical policies enacted which infringe our inalienable rights, such as – freedom of movement, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. These draconian totalitarian measures must never be repeated.

Lockdown

• Covid has proved less deadly than previous influenza seasons – There were 50,100 flu deaths from December 2017 to March 2018 in England and Wales. There were 80,000 flu deaths in 1969. To date we have circa 42,000 covid related deaths in the UK.
• We have never locked down society for a respiratory virus before.
• The basis for lockdown was a mathematical model by Professor Neil Ferguson. His modelling which predicted half a million deaths in the UK has been roundly condemned as being not fit for purpose. His estimated death figures were clearly wrong by a factor of 10 or 12 times. (1)
• Professor Ferguson’s modelling was not even peer reviewed before being acted upon by several nations. Eminent epidemiologists such as Professor Gupta from Oxford University were ignored, they estimated the death count would be far lower in the UK.
• Professor Ferguson has a long track record of woeful modelling he was entirely wrong about sars, mers, mad cow’s disease (CJD), and swine flu. Why did the world listen to him again? (2)
• Countries which did not lock down Sweden, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Belarus have all done significantly better than us in terms of percentage of population deaths. They also have herd immunity and intact economies.
• Lockdown did not save lives, and this has been published in the Lancet ‘….in our analysis, full lockdowns and wide-spread COVID-19 testing were not associated with reductions in the number of critical cases or overall mortality.’ (3)
• The vast majority of deaths occurred in elderly and very elderly people
• The vast majority of deaths occurred in people with pre-existing serious health issues such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s, diabetes etc
• Covid poses virtually zero risk to the under 45’s who have more chance of being struck by lightning than dying from covid.
• Covid poses a very small risk for healthy under 60 year olds who have a greater chance of accidental drowning than dying from covid.
• The entire nation was essentially placed under house arrest. We have never isolated the healthy before.
• Isolating the sick and those who are immunocompromised makes sense. Isolating the healthy has hampered the establishment of herd immunity and makes no sense.
• To put it into perspective we had 115,000 smoking related deaths in the UK in 2015 compared to the 42,000 deaths from covid.
• We usually have around 600,000 deaths every year in the UK, roughly 1600 deaths per day.

Collateral Damage the Cure Is Worse than the Virus

• Placing the public under virtual house arrest has caused untold damage to both physical and mental health.(1)
• Ventilating patients instead of oxygenating patients proved to be a deadly policy and an unwarranted failure. Ventilation resulted in many unnecessary deaths. (2)
• Sending infected people from hospitals to care homes placed the elderly and frail under unnecessary risk and resulted in many unnecessary deaths. (3)
• Blanket Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders were imposed on thousands of people without their consent nor the consent of their families – this is both unlawful and immoral and lead to unnecessary deaths in care homes. (4)
• Hospitals became essentially ‘covid only’ centres vast numbers of patients were wilfully neglected, resulting in many thousands of unnecessary deaths. (5)
• The government’s own report estimates that some two hundred thousand (200,000) people will die as a direct result of lockdown – not the virus. Hospitals being closed, suicide and poverty will result in more deaths than the virus. (6)
• The cure is worse than the disease!

Death Certificates (1)

• The majority of people who died had significant comorbidities, such as Alzheimer’s, cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
• Counting death certificates with a ‘mention’ of covid as being a death caused by covid is a gross misrepresentation of the facts and has vastly over exaggerated the death toll.
• The rules for the signing of death certificates have been changed solely for covid by the Coronavirus 2020 Act.
• Doctors do not even need to have physically seen the patient in order to sign death certificates.
• The Act has removed the need for a confirmatory medical certificate for cremations.
• Autopsies have virtually been banned, no doubt leading to misdiagnosis of the true cause of deaths; and also reducing our understanding of the disease itself.
• Worse still, care home staff who largely have no medical training are able to give a statement as to the cause of death.
• Covid was put on death certificates merely on the ‘suspicion’ of people having covid. This may well be unlawful, since it is a crime to falsify death certificates.
• People who die within 28 days of a positive pcr test are deemed to have died from covid, even if they die in a car crash or from a heart attack; clearly over inflating the death toll (2)

Economic Ruin

• Reports now estimate that as many as six and a half million (6,500,000) people in the UK will lose their jobs as a result of lockdown. (1)
• It is well known that poverty directly adversely affects health, we can expect to see many people suffering with poor health and resulting in many premature deaths, as a direct result of lockdown.

Censorship

• Government have acted maliciously in censoring doctors, nurses and NHS staff. The people have the perfect right to hear what is going on in hospitals, and the medical profession have a duty to look after the public and to reassure them. (1)
• The medical profession have not been allowed to let the public know that covid wards have been empty for months, nor that covid deaths have reached an all-time low for months, and this has unnecessarily added to the public’s distress and anxiety.
• Doctors and scientists with views that differ from the government narrative have had their videos and articles removed from the internet

Testing – False Positives

• PCR tests cannot be verified for accuracy as there is no ‘gold standard’ against which to check them. The virus has not been purified. (1)
• PCR tests cannot detect viral loads and are prone to false positives. (2)
• A positive PCR test does not mean that an individual is infected nor infective. (3)
• In fact approximately 90% of the PCR positive ‘cases’ are false positives. We therefore have no second wave and no pandemic. (4 , 5)
• The government’s report estimates a false positive rate of between 0.8 to 4.0 % using data from other viral infections – not from covid (6)
• Viral fragments may remain in people’s bodies for several weeks following recovery from infection. (7)
• The crisis will never end if we are waiting for zero positive tests. Everyone has probably had a cold caused by a coronavirus and will likely have a few viral fragments matching those of the cousin SARS-CoV-2 virus (8)
• Testing healthy asymptomatic individuals is non-sensical, unscientific and a colossal waste of money. The governments moon shot daily testing program will cost £100 Billion roughly two thirds of the annual NHS budget.
• Antibody testing is not the gold standard as many people have T-cell immunity, and antibodies may not circulate following recovery from infection.

Hydroxychloroquine

• The controversial drug Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) has been unfairly smeared, by the WHO, CDC, NIH and the media.
• However HCQ has very firm support from, amongst others: Professor Harvey Risch epidemiologist from Yale, The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), American Frontline Doctors, the Henry Ford Health System and Professor Didier Raoult microbiologist and infectious disease specialist – to name but a few. (1)
• The Lancet was even forced to retract a study on HCQ after it was revealed by the Guardian newspaper that they had been completely fabricated and written by a sci-fi writer and a porn star. Even following this astounding revelation HCQ was still banned in most countries. (2)
• HCQ according to AAPS has a ninety per cent (90%) cure rate when given early and alongside zinc (3)
• HCQ is safer than many over the counter drugs such as aspirin, Benadryl and Tylenol.
• The AAPS also point out that there has never been a vaccine as safe as HCQ. (4)
• HCQ has been licensed for over sixty years and has been safely used by billions of people worldwide. There is a very small risk of arrythmia which is easily monitored.
• Why was HCQ banned then? Could it be that there are no huge profits to be made from this out-of-patent drug?
• HCQ was used to great effect in the Sars1 outbreak of 2005 (5)
• In short had HCQ been available then there would not have been a pandemic !

Prevention

• Preventative measures such as hydroxychloroquine or vitamins D, C and zinc should have been recommended for the public. (1)
• Early calcifediol (25-hydroxyvitamin D) treatment to hospitalized COVID-19 patients significantly reduced intensive care unit admissions (2)
• Vit D reduces the severity of covid. (2,3)
• Voluntary isolation of the frail – should they so choose; in combination with preventative measures would have been a far better strategy. The rest of society could and should have continued as normal.

Vaccine

• A rushed vaccine is clearly not in the public’s best interest
• Indemnifying vaccine manufacturers against all liability is also clearly not in the public’s best interest

Conflicts of Interest

• Chief Scientific Officer Sir Patrick Vallance has £600,000 worth of shares in GSK Glaxo Smith Klein. He has in recent years sold £5 million of shares in GSK which he ‘earned’ whilst chief of GSK (1)
• Sir Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer UK, accepted over £30 million in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to study malaria vaccines. (2)
• It has become clear that members of SAGE, Public Health England (PHE), World Health Organisation (WHO), Centre for Disease Control (CDC), National institute for Health (NIH) etc have many conflicts of interests. They all accept very large ‘donations’ from the pharmaceutical and vaccine industry. These conflicts of interests may well have effectively corrupted their integrity. (3)
• It is also clear that governments are heavily lobbied by the pharmaceutical industry and the vaccine industry, again this may have compromised their integrity. (4)

Cui Bono? Who Benefits?

• Vaccine manufacturers will make trillions from this, as will track and trace manufacturers, and the pharmaceutical industry stand to make trillions from covid testing.
• Prime minister Boris Johnson announced the new ‘moon shot’ testing will cost £100 Billion, approximately two thirds of the annual NHS budget.
• Surely these vast sums would be far better spent on treating all of the neglected patients who have been wilfully neglected during lockdown and who now face huge waiting lists.

Conclusions

We have effective and safe treatments and preventative medications for covid, therefore there is no need for any lockdown restrictions and associated measures. The pandemic is essentially over as can be seen by the consistent low death rate and hospital admissions over the past four months.

We demand the immediate and permanent ceasing of all lockdown measures.

Lockdowns do not save lives, that is why they have never been used before. Civil liberties and fundamental freedoms have been unnecessarily removed from the public and this must never happen again.

Preventative measures such as Hydroxychloroquine, vitamin C, Vitamin D and zinc must be made readily available to the public.

Isolation must be voluntary. People are perfectly capable of making their own assessment of the risks and must be free to go about their lives as they so choose. People must have the right to choose whether to isolate or not.

Likewise, businesses must have the right to remain open if they so choose.

We demand that doctors, nurses, scientists and healthcare professionals must be permitted free speech and never be censored again.

Professor Mark Woolhouse epidemiologist and specialist in infectious diseases, Edinburgh University Member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours, that advises the Government stated that –

‘…Lockdown was a monumental disaster on a global scale. The cure was worse than the disease.’

‘I never want to see national lockdown again. It was always a temporary measure that simply delayed the stage of the epidemic we see now. It was never going to change anything fundamentally, however low we drove down the number of cases,’

‘We absolutely should never return to a position where children cannot play or go to school.’

I believe the harm lockdown is doing to our education, health care access, and broader aspects of our economy and society will turn out to be at least as great as the harm done by Covid-19.’(1)

The World Doctors Alliance agree fully with Prof Woolhouse’s assertions, he is right! We must never lockdown again!

NB the term ‘covid’ has been used to represent Sars-CoV-2 and Covid-19

Signed by

1. DR MOHAMMAD ADIL
2. PROFESSOR DOLORES CAHILL
3. DR. R. ZAC COX, BDS
4. DR. HEIKO SCHÖNING
5. DR. ANDREW KAUFMAN, M.D
6. DR. SCOTT JENSEN, M.D

Sign the open letter here.

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Sources

Introduction

1. BMJ
2. CNN and WBUR
3. NHS

Lockdown

1. Telegraph
2. Times
3. The Lancet

Collateral Damage

1. BMJ
2. Time
3. Dr Malcolm Kendrick
4. QNI
5. BBC
6. BBC

Death Certificates

1. Spectator
2. Telegraph

Economic Ruin

1. Independent

Censorship

1. Guardian

Tests

1. BMJ
2. Spectator
3. CEBM
4. Lockdown Sceptics and DOI
5. ANH International
6. Gov.UK
7. Lancet
8. Apps Online

HCQ

1. Newsweek
2. Guardian
3. Lancet
4. Apps Online
5. Apps Online
6. NIH.GOV
7. NIH.GOV

Prevention

1. BMJ
2. DOI.ORG
3. DOI.ORG

Conflict of Interests

1. Telegraph
2. Telegraph
3. Apps Online
4. Statnews

Conclusion

1. Express

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Thursday that the UK would take a ‘middle road’ through the pandemic to avoid the damaging consequences of a nationwide lockdown. The coronavirus situation in Britain is worsening at a rapid rate; a further 21,242 people tested positive for the virus in the last 24 hours, with a further 189 deaths where the person died within 28 days of a positive test.  Chief Scientific Advisor Sir Patrick Vallance said that the R rate was over one, and that it was estimated around 53,000 to 90,000 people were becoming infected with Covid-19 every day in England.

In his address to the nation on Thursday, Johnson said that both the psychological and economic cost of full lockdown simply wasn’t worth it. He said that instead, to combat the virus, Britain would tread a ‘middle course between the Scylla of another national lockdown and the Charybdis of an uncontrolled virus.’ This means continuing with the ‘tier’ system in England, which sees restrictions implemented according to the degree of severity of the virus.

There has been much angst in the north-western cities of Liverpool and Manchester as the government was accused of treating the north ‘with contempt’ by Manchester mayor Andy Burnham.  He was irate over the initial government refusal to provide more financial support to Manchester workers and businesses at a time when further restrictions were being imposed. Burnham wanted 80% of wages to be paid under a further furlough scheme. This would amount to £90 million over 6 months. But Johnson only committed to £60 million, Burnham said the lowest would accept was £65 million.

This resulted in a standoff between the Mayor and government which was only resolved once Westminster offered a more generous support package – incidentally arranged only after London itself was to be affected by the same Tier 2 restrictions. Andy Burnham tweeted on Thursday that he could ‘hardly believe what he was reading’ when informed of government plans to provide more financial assistance to areas affected by partial lockdown. He said: ‘Why on earth was this not put on the table on Tuesday to reach an agreement with us? I said directly to the PM that a deal was there to be done if it took into account the effects on GM businesses of three months in Tier 2.’

The problem with the Tier system , in which regions are dealt with on a case-by-case basis, is that undoubtedly some areas will feel more hard done by than others. The north-west of England has been under restrictions for 12 weeks longer than other parts of the country. London, being the capital, will always be given priority, leaving the northern areas, as Andy Burnham has complained, with a feeling of abandonment. During the first lockdown, there was much more of a sense of national unity and that ‘we’re all in this together’. Now, the regional differences are driving discord and disharmony.

The government, clearly disgruntled with Burnham’s demands, at one point stopped communicating with him, and rather embarrassingly, he began learning of developments through others (in one case in the middle of a media appearance he was updated via someone’s mobile phone). Burham says such behaviour is disrespectful not only to him but to the people of Manchester, as he was elected, after all, by the people. Nevertheless the Manchester mayor stands by his actions, in a BBC interview declaring ‘No-one is going to tell me what to do’, and that if the people of Manchester don’t like it, they can vote him out as mayor in the next election. He questioned whether the job of mayor was only to do the government’s bidding, and explained that he wasn’t always going to agree with the government’s position and sometimes would ‘ruffle feathers’.

A resolution may have been reached but damage has clearly been done. The north-west of England has been left to feel ignored by Westminster and betrayed by a Prime Minister who promised not to take their votes for granted in the last election. ‘Blackmailed and bullied’ was how one Lancashire council leader described the government’s behaviour. The standoff is likely to have a longer-term impact on how people vote in upcoming elections, but also an effect on devolved powers in the UK.  As Andy Burnham says ‘If devolution is to be real, then the UK government cannot impose its will on the north of England any more’. This situation has highlighted the extent to which regional mayors can have significant influence over the lives of their citizens. Moreover however, if Burnham – who has already been crowned ‘King of the North’ -continues to get the support of the people of Manchester, then we could see an increasing appetite in the north of England for more devolved power.

The pandemic is therefore likely to have a profound impact on the future political organization of the United Kingdom…and that’s not even mentioning the question of Scottish Independence…

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

The Crown Resorts Annual General Meeting last year, held inside the company’s now flagging flagship Melbourne casino, was an ill-tempered matter.  Members of the board were in no mood to please shareholders, many of whom have occupied the barricades of activism. 

Crown executive chairman John Alexander had little time for those who had been muddying the good name of Australia’s foremost gambling brand.  “There have been a number of sensationalist and unproven claims made, with many focused on allegations from over five years ago.  Let me be clear – Crown does not tolerate any illegal activity by its employees or its patrons.”

At the same gathering, former government minister and current Crown Resorts chairman Helen Coonan also took issue with those “unsubstantiated and unproven allegations that have been made against Crown,” all of which had “been deeply distressing to all of us.”

The meeting was conducted in conditions hostile to transparency.  It lacked a monitoring webcam.  There were no pictures or recordings.  One shareholder activist, the continuously plucky Stephen Mayne, daringly asked if there would be a transcript.  “No,” fumed Alexander.

Mayne has been a shareholder warrior over the years, and the reply from Alexander would have come as no surprise.  He suggested to those in attendance that a “crisis” was afoot.  “When are you going to address the concerns your own shareholders are expressing here to the tune of AU$1.5 billion worth of stock, or is this just going to be ignored or dismissed like everything else at Crown?”

The organisation is suffering from a surfeit of attention, and for good reason.  Regulators are breathing heavily down neck and body for a range of alleged irregularities from money laundering to old fashioned corruption.  A name long associated with James Packer, who still retains a 36% stake in the company, has truly tarnished. 

In August 2019, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity thought the claims serious enough to launch Operation Angove, an investigation into allegations of corruption between staff at the Department of Home Affairs regarding the provision of visas for Crown VIPs; possible corruption between Australian Border Force (ABF) staff regarding clearing those VIPs at the Australian border; and whether one ABF member “engaged in corrupt conduct while employed by a VIP junket operator.”  

Last month, the findings of Operation Angove were published.  While it promised exposing many smells in the relationship between Crown and Australian government authorities, officials in the ABF and Home Affairs could rest easy. “Our investigation did not find evidence of corrupt conduct by Home Affairs or ABF staff in relation to any of the three corruption issues which we investigated.”  No concrete instances of corruption, perhaps, but certainly some looming ethical questions.  The ACLEI noted that “too much weight” had been given by Home Affairs officials to Crown’s visa applications, effectively granting the organisation a special form of access for their high roller clients.  While “face to passport checks” for the passengers did take place on chartered flights, the inquiry was “provided with insufficient information to comment on baggage checks, other than it appears that they were conducted rarely.”

The New South Wales Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority has also been busying itself receiving evidence into alleged breaches of the company’s Sydney license.  Interest was sparked by the sale of a 19.9% stake in Crown Resorts to Lawrence Ho’s Hong Kong-based casino operation Melco Resorts & Entertainment Limited.  This was problematic, largely because the issuing of a licence to Crown in 2013 by the New South Wales state government had been made on the proviso that the company not involve itself with various companies run by Stanley Ho, Lawrence Ho’s billionaire father long suspected of being linked to organised crime in Macau.  Lawrence might well be furiously clean, but Great Respect Ltd., a company with links to his father, is on the NSW prohibited list and claims a stake in Melco.  Stanley would have seen the fun in this, having been previously frustrated by licensing regulators in Australia, Canada and the United States from expanding his casino imperium.

Coonan, in giving evidence to the inquiry on October 20, was asked about Crown’s relationship with SunCity, a Macau-based outfit notorious for recruiting batteries of heavily cashed gamblers from China.  For doing so, the company had private rooms at various casino operators, including Crown, enabling millions to be frittered away in blissful, unscrutinised seclusion.  The activities piqued the interest of regulators given allegations of SunCity’s links to organised crime made last year by The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and 60 Minutes. 

Senior counsel assisting the inquiry, Naomi Sharp, asked Coonan why the private function room for SunCity had not been shut down despite evidence of money laundering.  “Isn’t it a quintessential example of Crown Resorts turning a blind eye to the prospects of money laundering occurring at its casino?” Coonan’s response was all fudge and qualification.  “It may have been ineptitude or a lack of attention, I don’t think it was deliberately turning a blind eye, I do think it’s a different adjectival conclusion.

The last five years have been a bit too colourful, even by the standards of most casinos.  But it conforms to a pattern, where hubris eventually meets nemesis.  Crown’s Macau operations received a shudder in 2016 when Chinese authorities detained 19 Crown employees. This was precipitated, in no small part, by the company’s “whaling” efforts that eventually caught the attention of the ACLEI: the program of recruiting wealthy Chinese gamblers on Australian trips, largely to cover revenue shortfalls from Beijing’s anti-corruption campaign.  This was a risky circumvention, given that Chinese law criminalises the practice of organising groups of more than 10 to gamble offshore.  Crown’s unconvincing argument was that it did not operate casinos, more “integrated resorts”. 

A warning had already been fired by Chinese authorities in their June 2015 arrest of thirteen South Korean casino managers, accused of “enticing” Chinese nationals to gamble in their casino.  The sweeteners were extensive: gratis tours, free accommodation and sexual services. Convictions for the 19 Crown employees followed.  Packer decided to exit the once lucrative Macau scene.

The latest round of probing to be added to the dishonour board comes from the anti-money laundering government agency AUSTRAC (Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre).  According to a statement from Crown, there were areas of alleged “non-compliance” including “concerns in relation to ongoing customer due diligence, and adopting, maintaining and complying with an anti-money laundering/counter-terrorism financing program.”  The concerns surfaced during a compliance assessment commencing in September 2019, with a focus on “Crown Melbourne’s management of customers identified as high risk and politically exposed persons.”

As with much in the field of gambling and regulations, the regulators themselves can prove, if not inattentive, then unwilling to sink their teeth in.  The onus is left to the corporation to manage and self-regulate, filing reports on suspicious conduct.  AUSTRAC had already warned Crown in June 2017 that SunCity’s Macau-based executive Alvin Chau was a “foreign PEP”, otherwise known as a politically exposed person. “It is not acceptable,” AUSTRAC CEO Nicole Rose explained to an Australian Senate hearing, “for the entities to simply report and not to manage the risks.”  Much, then, to talk about for the shareholders at the October 22 Annual General Meeting.

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

Featured image is from Casino.org

It is the the massive debt. It cannot be serviced. It will collapse the whole system.

The gold, silver and cryptocurrencies charts are showing signs of going parabolic. The US dollar is close to confirming a massive breakdown.

Gold, silver and cryptocurrencies all provide “crisis value” by simply being an acceptable debt-based fiat alternative. It is only later in this crisis that we will see a divergence between cryptocurrency and precious metals.

For now, they are likely to move higher together.

Gold has recently made new all-time highs, and seems ready to go higher after a decent consolidation. The importance of the 2011 all-time high can be seen on these charts:

I have marked two fractals (ABC). Both fractals start from the Dow/Gold ratio peaks (1966 and 1999). For these to continue the similarity, the level ($1920) at A and C needs to be surpassed on the current fractal.

We’ve already seen the breakout, now price has just been consolidating around that level. It is very close to blasting higher.

From a cycle analysis point of view, we are right at a point where a sustained multi-year gold rally is possible:

The top chart is gold from about 1997 to 2020 (current fractal), and the bottom chart is gold from about 1965 to 1980 (70s fractals). If the current fractal continues to follow the 70s fractal, then we could see gold continue to multiples of its current all-time high.

Currently, we are just after, or close to, a major Dow peak in the economic cycle. Again, you can see that the 2011 peak is an important indicator to confirm these fractals as relevant. It could also be considered a marker after which the chart is likely to go parabolic.

Bitcoin has been quiet, but could be ready to move higher at a frightening pace. Here is an updated chart that I shared on my blog previously:

The setup for Bitcoin is very similar to the end of 2013, based on these fractals. Price has completed a successful breakout at the wedge, and the retrace is also done.

We are likely in a move towards the $100 000 level at least.

The outlook for silver is really the same: continue on its parabolic path.

For more on this and this kind of fractal analysis, you are welcome to subscribe to my premium service. I have also recently completed a Silver Fractal Analysis Report as well as a Gold Fractal Analysis Report.

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Hubert Moolman writes on his blog site, Hubert Moolman on Silver and Gold, where this article was originally published. 

Featured image is from Strategic Culture Foundation

On the morning of October 22, Armenian forces launched ballistic missiles at targets inside the territory of Azerbaijan. According to the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry, 3 missiles were fired in the direction of the Siyazan region, two in the direction of the Gabala region, and one in the direction of the Kurdamir region. Baku claimed that the strike was aimed at the civilian population and civilian infrastructure. The report provided no details regarding the type of missiles employed. Nonetheless, Armenian forces have so far only employed R-17 Elbrus and OTR-21 Tochka missiles. The Armenian Armed Forces also have several much more modern 9K720 Iskander shot-range ballistic missile systems, but the complex has not yet been employed because the leadership of Armenia is in no hurry to enter a full-out war with Azerbaijan to protect the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (also known as the Republic of Artsakh).

The Armenian Defense Ministry denounced the reports as fake but it should be noted that Yerevan was also denying a ballistic missile strike on the Azerbaijani city of Ganja on October 16, a strike , which killed or injured several dozens of civilians. Later, Armenian sources spent much time marking military objects located in the city on maps. However, the civilian casualties from that strike are the confirmed fact. In their turn, Azerbaijan claims that it has destroyed at least 3 Armenian tactical ballistic complexes. A few of them were struck on the Armenian border area near Karabakh.

On the evening of October 21 and the morning of October 22 , Azerbaijani forces were developing their offensive operations in the Aghdere-Aghdam, Fizuli-Jabrayil, and Zangilan-Gubadli directions. The Azerbaijani military claimed that it had captured important grounds in Gubadli and destroyed the D-20 battery of the 155th artillery regiment of the Armenian Armed Forces in the Khojavend area. In the Aghdere area, Azerbaijani forces allegedly delivered strikes on the 5th mountain rifle regiment inflicting heavy casualties to the Armenians.

According to Azerbaijani President Ilham Alyiev, in the recent operations Azerbaijani forces captured 22 settlements in the districts of Fuzuli, Jabrayil, and Zangilan. These are Gejagozlu, Ashaghi Seyidahmadli, Zargar, Balyand, Papi, Tulus, Hajili, Tinli, Khurama, Khumarli, Sari Babayli, Ucunju Aghali, Hajalli, Girakh Mushlan, Udgun, Turabad, Ichari Mushlan, Malikli, Jahangirbayli, Baharli and Minjivan. Several Armenian T-72 battle tanks as well as BMP-1 and BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles were also captured by Azerbaijan.

Fierce clashes in the contested region continue as both Armenia and Azerbaijan accuse each other of sabotaging the diplomatic talks on a non-military settlement of their differences. On October 12, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan even said that there is no diplomatic solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict at this stage.

“Azerbaijan no longer agrees with what we agree or will agree, which means that at this stage it is at least pointless to talk about any diplomatic solution,” the Armenian Prime Minister said. Pashinyan also touched on the ongoing battles in Nagorno-Karabakh calling on all Armenians to take arms to repel the Azerbaijani advance. He said that Armenian forces are inflicting heavy losses on the Azerbaijani troops. The PM claimed that more than 10,000 Azerbaijani soldiers have been killed so far. This number exceeds even that claimed by the Armenian Defense Ministry, according to which Azerbaijan has thus far lost 6,459 troops, 584 armoured vehicles and rocket systems, 23 military planes, 16 helicopters and 202 UAVs. Thus, according to the Armenian side, in recent clashes Azerbaijan has lost over 200 personnel.

Even amid the victorious statements about multiple Azerbaijani casualties, the Armenian side admits that clashes have reached the area of the Akari River. Even as Armenia provides few details regarding the current positioning of the sides, this is a de-facto confirmation of the recent Azerbaijani advance.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s Vice President Fuat Oktay repeated an earlier claim of the Turkish leadership that his country is ready to openly send its forces to support Azerbaijan if needed. Therefore, even if Armenia is able to stabilize the current situation in the south of Karabakh, Turkey will continue providing Azerbaijan with the means, measures and specialists needed to continue their operations aimed at recapturing the entire region.

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Watch the video below where Rocco Galati, Constitutional Lawyer, spoke at Toronto Freedom Rally on October 17, 2020.

“What I quickly learned in the past month and a half is that mainstream media and social media are really no different.

The social media has become a corporate splice of the mainstream media. And both have become official mouthpieces, sensor the graduates of the Joseph Goebbels School of Journalism.”

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Our thanks to Mark Taliano for bringing this to our attention. Visit his website at marktaliano.net.

A new NATO command was born in Norfolk (Virginia, USA): the Norfolk Joint Force Command, called “Atlantic Command,” is a clone of the Naples Joint Force Command with headquarters in Lago Patria (Naples). Its constitution was approved by the North Atlantic Council at the Defense Ministers level (for Italy the first Conte Government’s Minister Elisabetta Trenta ), in June 2018.

Just as the NATO command in Naples is under the orders of the Admiral who commands the US naval forces in Europe including the Sixth Fleet, the NATO command in Norfolk is under the orders of the Admiral who commands the US Second Fleet. The Second Fleet’s “area of responsibility” covers the Western half of the Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic, while the other half is covered by the Sixth Fleet. The new “Allied” Norfolk command is, therefore, de facto part of the Pentagon’s chain of command as the command in Naples.

What was the motivation to create the Atlantic Command? To lead the “Fourth Battle of the Atlantic” after the two world wars and cold war battles against “Russian subs that threaten the maritime communication lines between the United States and Europe in the North Atlantic.”

According to this strategy, enunciated in particular by Admiral Foggo who was head of the NATO command in Naples, Russian submarines would be ready to sink the ships connecting the two sides of the Atlantic, so as to isolate Europe before a Russian attack. A Hollywood movie scenario about the Second World War, in which German U-boats sink merchant ships bound for Europe from the United States.

Political fiction scenario: while the Battle of the Atlantic in World War II lasted 5 years, the “Fourth Battle of the Atlantic” would last 5 minutes. If Russian submarines, absurdly, sank United States and their European allies’ ships in the Atlantic, it would be the beginning of a total war with the use of nuclear missiles and bombs by both sides.

What then would be the role of the Atlantic Command? “The North Atlantic is vital for the security of Europe” – declared NATO secretary-general Stoltenberg:

“Our new Atlantic Command will ensure crucial routes for reinforcements and supplies from North America to Europe remain secure.”

In other words: Europe, exposed to what the US and NATO call “Russian aggression,” would need the United States to continuously send its military forces, armaments, and supplies in order to resist. The European allies’ naval forces must therefore support those of the United States and, under orders of the new Atlantic Command, hunt phantom “Russian subs who threaten the maritime communication lines between the United States and Europe in the North Atlantic.”

It is a kind of naval battle game. Very expensive since it involves the addition of other appropriations to the overall military expenditure of NATO countries, which already largely exceeds 1 trillion dollars a year in public money subtracted from the real needs of citizens. Very dangerous because it serves as a staging to feed the idea of the enemy in public opinion, that is Russia that threatens Europe and is preparing to isolate it by cutting its maritime communication lines with the United States.

By fabricating this scenario, the growing deployment in Europe of US forces and weapons, including nuclear arms, flanked by those of the European NATO countries is justified, with the consequence that Russia also increases its own forces, including nuclear weaponery.

Since the first Conte government approved the constitution of the new NATO Atlantic Command two years ago, we would like to know what the second Conte government thinks about it. We would also like to know if anyone in the Italian Parliament was consulted before Italy approved the constitution of the new NATO command, decided by the Pentagon; or at least if there is someone in Parliament aware of the fact that, in addition to the command of Naples under the orders of a US admiral, the Italian navy now also depends on that of Norfolk, also under the orders of a US admiral.

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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.

O Ministro russo de Relações Externas, Sergey Lavrov, é o diplomata mais importante do mundo. Filho de mãe russa e pai armênio, ele simplesmente se encontra em outro nível. Aqui poderemos ver, mais uma vez, por que razão.

Vamos começar com o encontro anual do Valdai Club, principal think tank russo. Poderemos então seguir a apresentação imperdível do relatório anual do Valdai Club sobre “A utopia do mundo diversificado”, com a participação, entre outros, de Lavrov, John Mearsheimer (da Universidade de Chicago), Dominic Lieven (da Universidade de Cambridge) e Yuri Slezkine (da UCLA/Berkeley).

É raro poder compartilhar o que, em termos de debate político sério, equivale a uma montanha do Himalaia. Temos, por exemplo, Lieven – que, meio na brincadeira, definiu o relatório de Valdai como “Tolstoiano e um tanto anárquico” – com foco nos dois principais desafios atuais interligados: mudança climática e o fato de que “350 anos ocidentais e 250 anos de dominação AngloAmericana estão chegando ao seu final”.

No momento em que vemos a “ordem mundial atual desaparecendo em frente a nossos olhos”, Lieven chama a atenção para em tipo de “vingança do Terceiro Mundo”. Mesmo então, infelizmente, o orgulho ocidental recomeça tudo, no instante em que sintetiza a China como “um desafio”.

Ordenadamente, Mearsheimer relembra que temos vivido em um mundo sucessivamente bipolar, unipolar e agora multipolar, com China, Rússia e Estados Unidos, “Grandes Potências Políticas de volta ao cenário”.

Corretamente, ele assevera que depois da difícil experiência do “século de humilhação, os chineses asseguraram-se de que são realmente poderosos”. Isso prepara o palco para que os Estados Unidos implantem uma “política de contenção altamente agressiva”, como fizeram com a União Soviética, a qual pode perfeitamente terminar em conflito aberto”.

“Confio mais no Arnold que na União Europeia”

Nos comentários introdutórios, Lavrov esclareceu que em termos de realpolitik, o mundo “não pode ser dirigido a partir de apenas um centro”. Gastou algum tempo para enfatizar o “trabalho meticuloso, demorado e às vezes ingrato” da diplomacia.

Mais tarde, nas suas intervenções, ele disparou uma realmente bombástica(começando em 1:55:55, em russo, com acréscimo em inglês): “Quando a União Europeia fala como se fosse superior, a Rússia precisa saber: poderemos negociar com a Europa?”

Arteiramente, citou Schwarzenegger “que, nos filmes, sempre diz “confie em mim”. Bem, confio mais em Arnold que na União Europeia”.

Isso leva ao remate final: “Os responsáveis pela política externa ocidental não compreendem a necessidade de respeito de parte a parte nos diálogos. Dessa forma, teremos que temporariamente parar de falar com essas pessoas. “Afinal, a presidente da Comissão Europeia, Ursula von der Leyen declarou oficialmente que no que tenha a ver com a União Europeia “não existe parceria com a Rússia moderna em termos geopolíticos”.

O diplomata se estendeu em uma entrevista abrangente e esplêndida para as rádios russas cuja tradução merece ser lida no total, cuidadosamente.

Mostramos aqui um de seus mais importantes fragmentos:

Segundo Lavrov, “não importa o que façamos, o ocidente sempre tentará nos restringir, minar nossos esforços econômicos, políticos ou tecnológicos. São características de dada atitude.”

Pergunta: “Nossa Estratégia de Segurança Nacional afirma que eles agirão assim.”

Lavrov: “Claro que sim, mas é tudo articulado de maneira que pessoas honestas podem deixar de perceber, porém está sendo implementado de maneira nada menos que ignominiosa.”

Pergunta: “Você também pode associar as coisas de maneira diversa daquela que realmente gostaria de dizer, certo?”

Lavrov: “É o contrário. Claro que posso usar linguagem que normalmente não uso para explicar melhor alguma coisa. No entanto, eles claramente desejam nos perturbar, e não só com ataques diretos contra a Rússia em todas as esferas concebíveis através de competição inescrupulosa, sanções ilegítimas e coisas do tipo, mas também desequilibrando a situação em nossas fronteiras, impedindo assim que possamos nos focar em atividades criativas. Entretanto, apesar dos instintos inerentes ao ser humano e da tentação de responder da mesma forma, estamos convencidos de que temos que nos ater à Lei Internacional.”

Moscou permanece incondicionalmente alinhada à Lei Internacional – em contraste com as proverbiais “regras da ordem liberal internacional” repisadas pela OTAN e seus capangas como o Conselho do Atlântico.

Exsurge mais uma vez um relatório exortando a OTAN a “aumentar a pressão contra a Rússia”, deblaterando a “campanha agressiva de desinformação e propaganda de Moscou contra o ocidente, bem como seu aventureirismo sem controle no Oriente Médio, África e Afeganistão.”

O Conselho do Atlântico insiste novamente que esses russos danados desafiaram mais uma vez “a comunidade internacional ao usar ilegalmente armas químicas para envenenar o líder oposicionista Alexei Navalny. O fracasso da OTAN em impedir o comportamento agressivo russo coloca em risco o futuro da ordem liberal internacional.”

Só idiotas que se deixam levar por cegos que lideram a síndrome da cegueira não sabem que essas tais “regras” da ordem liberal são estabelecidas pela potência hegemônica e que podem ser mudadas de repente, de acordo com os desejos dessa mesma potência.

Não é de se admirar que uma anedota comum em Moscou é que “se você não quer ouvir Lavrov, ouvirá Shoigu”. Sergey Shoigu é o Ministro da Defesa da Rússia, supervisor de todas aquelas armas hipersônicas com as quais o complexo Industrial/Militar dos Estados Unidos só pode sonhar.

O ponto principal é que mesmo com a histeria elaborada aos montes pela OTAN, Moscou está pouco se importando, por causa de sua supremacia militar. Isso assusta ainda mais tanto Washington quanto Bruxelas.

Restaram apenas as erupções da guerra híbrida, como o assédio constante preconizado pela Corporação RAND  para “desequilibrar” a Rússia, em Belarus, no sul do Cáucaso e no Quirguistão – somadas às sanções contra Lukashenko e oficiais do Kremlin pelo “envenenamento” de Navalny.

“Não se negocia com macacos”

O que Lavrov acabou de explicitar já está em andamento há tempos. A “Rússia Moderna” e a União Europeia nasceram quase ao mesmo tempo. Pessoalmente, experimentei os acontecimentos de maneira espetacular. A “Rússia Moderna” nasceu em dezembro de 1991 – quando eu viajava pela Índia, depois Nepal e China. Quando desembarquei em Moscou através da Transiberiana em fevereiro de 1992, não havia mais União Soviética. A seguir, voando de volta a Paris, cheguei à União Europeia, nascida no mesmo mês de fevereiro.

Uma das lideranças do Valdai questiona corretamente que o conceito audacioso da “Europa estendendo-se de Lisboa a Vladivostok”, cunhado por Gorbachev em 1989, logo antes do colapso da União Soviética infelizmente “não teve acordo ou documentação que a apoiasse.”

E sim, “Putin, continuadamente, de 2001 até 2006, procurou insistentemente uma oportunidade para implementar uma parceria e aproximação mais acentuada com a União Europeia.”

Todos nos lembramos quando Putin, em 2010, propôs exatamente o mesmo conceito, um território comum de Lisboa a Vladivostok, e foi completamente desprezado pela União Europeia. É importante lembrar que isso aconteceu quatro anos antes que os chineses concluíssem sua ideia da Nova Rota da Seda.

Depois disso, só se caminhou ladeira abaixo. O último encontro Rússia/União Europeia aconteceu em Bruxelas em janeiro de 2014. Em termos políticos, uma eternidade.

O portentoso poder de fogo intelectual reunido em Valdai está bem consciente que a Cortina de Ferro 2.0 entre Rússia de União Europeia não vai simplesmente desaparecer.

Tudo enquanto o FMI, The Economist e até o defensor da falácia de Tucídidesadmitem que neste momento a China já é, de fato, a maior economia mundial.

A Rússia e a China compartilham uma imensa fronteira. Estão engajados numa “parceria estratégica abrangente” complexa e multifacetada. Esta parceria não se desenvolveu por causa do distanciamento entre Rússia e União Europeia/OTAN, que teria forçado Moscou a se virar para o Oriente, mas principalmente porque uma aliança entre vizinhos que são a maior economia mundial e o maior poder militar mundial faz todo o sentido para a Eurásia – geopolítica e economicamente.

Corrobora-se assim o diagnóstico de Lieven sobre o fim de “250 anos de predominância AlgloAmericana.”

Restou para o inestimável analista militar Andrey Martyanov, cujo último livro resenhei  e considerei como leitura imperdível, fazer a leitura mais deliciosamente desvastadora do momento “tínhamos o suficiente” de Lavrov:

“Qualquer discussão profissional entre Lavrov e um antigo ginecologista (na verdade, epidemiologista) como van der Leyen, e pode incluir aí o Ministro de Relações Exteriores da Alemanha, Maas, advogado e verme partidário da política alemã é perda de tempo. Ocorre que as “elites” e os “intelectuais” ocidentais simplesmente estão situados em nível diverso, bem mais baixo do que Lavrov disse. Não se negocia com macacos. Você os trata bem, assegura que não sejam explorados, mas não negocia, assim como não se negocia com crianças. Eles querem fazer de Navalny seu brinquedo – deixe. Conclamo a Rússia a encerrar suas atividades econômicas com a União Europeia por longo tempo. Eles compram hidrocarbonetos e alta tecnologia, tudo bem. Por outro lado, qualquer outra atividade deve ser dramaticamente reduzida e não se deve mais questionar a necessidade da Cortina de Ferro.”

Da mesma forma que os Estados Unidos são “incapazes de acordo” acontece também com a União Europeia, conforme afirma Lavrov: “Devemos parar de nos orientar para os parceiros europeus e tomar cuidado com suas apreciações.”

Não é só a Rússia que sabe disso: a grande maioria do Sul Global também sabe.

Pepe Escobar

 

Artigo original em inglês : Iron Curtain still separates Russia and the EU ‘When the European Union speaks as a superior, Russia wants to know: Can we do any business with the EU?’ Asia Times, 21 de Outubro de 2020.

Tradutor : Roberto Pires Silveira

At what is arguably the most important time in human history, with Homo Sapiens confronted by an enormous range of violent challenges that threaten our very survival, the only question of any genuine importance is this: Can we craft and implement a strategy to end the violence, particularly in each and all of its extinction-threatening dimensions, to ensure that humanity has a chance to thrive on planet Earth indefinitely into the future? But few are asking that question.

And, unfortunately, if one candidly considers the evidence in several critical domains – notably the threat of nuclear war, the deployment of 5G technology, the collapse of biodiversity and the climate catastrophe – there is little genuine room for optimism. This, of course, is not a reflection on the efforts of those committed to the attempt but it is a measure of the enormity of the task given the almost endless violence perpetrated by so many human inhabitants of Earth.

Moreover, of course, for most of 2020, the ongoing efforts by those committed to working to end violence in one context or another have not only been substantially impeded by the official response – including lockdowns, curfews, social distancing and mask-wearing – to the supposed Covid-19 pandemic, they have also witnessed an explosion of additional violence of many types and in many contexts – see ‘The Elite’s COVID-19 Coup against a Terrified Humanity: Resisting Powerfully’ – that have exacerbated the violence dramatically.

In addition, the combined impacts of the official response have (presumably inadvertently) accelerated the four primary paths to human extinction. See ‘The Elite’s COVID-19 Coup to Destroy Humanity that is also Fast-Tracking Four Paths to Human Extinction’.

Despite the unusual level of impediments, many people have remained steadfast in their efforts to raise awareness of what is at stake, to mobilize an effective response and/or to take action themselves to end the violence in one context or another. This includes individuals and organizations that have committed themselves to this effort by signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’ which has signatories in 105 countries around the world and organizational endorsements in 39 countries.

These committed individuals and organizations include those few briefly discussed below, with some of them particularly focused on averting one of the paths to imminent human extinction.

Jennifer Wood is an architect and writer who developed near fatal toxic shock from the antibiotic Ciprofloxin and over-exposure to 2G wireless radiation when cell tower services were switched from analog to digital technology in 1996-1997. At this time, cell phone sales skyrocketed globally as did radiation and many public health problems according to epidemiologists. Although Jennifer had never used cell phones, she had spent long hours on a computer (surrounded by unnoticed cell towers) writing for the film director, Oliver Stone who had taken an interest in her novel.

She has nearly died at a weight of 77 pounds from microwave radiation poisoning three times since that time. Each torturous period has coincided with exposure to upgrades in wireless technologies. During her third bout with death in 2010-2011, she moved to a radio quiet zone near a radio astronomy observatory that bans cell phone towers. Here Jennifer built by hand, without help, a tiny non-electric cabin without running water in the woods where she lived alone, with minimal suffering, for four years, gaining weight and becoming semi-functional.

Since 2011, she has been reviewing thousands of science studies on the health effects of human-generated electromagnetic radiation (EMR) while doing advocacy work. Prior to her illness, Jennifer lived and worked as an architect in Nepal for many years in the 1980s where she married and had two children. Her condition has forced her to live far away from most of her family much of the time since 1996. You can watch Jennifer in this film

‘Wi-Fi Refugees: Nowhere to run: Electrosensitive people try to escape wireless technology’,

read about her struggle and see a photo of her cabin in ‘Search for a Golden Cage’,

read about a success in having Wifi technology banned in schools in Israel in ‘Israel Wi-Fi Breakthroughs: TV Documentary, School Ban’

and watch videos of a protest rally at the US Supreme Court she co-organized: ‘The Public Has a Right To Know About the Health Risks of 5G Wireless, Cell Phones and the Internet of Things (IoT)’.

Prominent environmental journalist Robert Hunziker, noted for his capacity to track and report truthfully on the ecological health of planet Earth, recently wrote a sobering article highlighting key elements of the recent Living Planet Report 2020 which records ‘an average 68% decrease in population sizes of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish between 1970 and 2016 [with a] 94% decline… for the tropical subregions of the Americas.’ With its ‘eye-popping description of the forces of humanity versus life in nature’, Robert noted ‘the report should really be entitled the Dying Planet Report 2020 because that’s what’s happening in the real world.

Not much remains alive.’ For some of the detail of this disastrous state of affairs, read ‘The Dying Planet Report 2020’. For another of Robert’s reports on planetary ill-health, see ‘Boundless Dying Trees’.

But if you are not horrified already, you should read Robert’s article ‘10C Above Baseline’ to get a clearer sense of where Earth’s climate is headed with extinction for humans at 4C above baseline.

Starting in February 2020, Joana Aboagyewaa of the Splendors of Dawn Poetry Foundation in Ghana reports making valuable contributions to schools in the eastern region through their work as poets and educators under the Foundation’s ‘SUN Project’.

This educational project was undertaken in Abirem, Achiase, St Roses Senior High (Akwatia) and Akim Swedru Secondary Schools where teachers taught poetry and art, ‘that is deeply human to secondary school students’, for positive change.

‘In April, The Splendors Performance Team held their National Poetry Month activities to celebrate the importance of poets and poetry in our society and culture.’ Splendors’ ‘Poetry Exchange Day’, with poems wrapped as gifts and mailed to classmates and friends, was held in basic schools in the Greater Accra Region. In addition, Splendors’ ‘Poets in Schools’ project ‘was a huge success because we enrolled a high number of poets in secondary schools, through the poetry awareness campaign, to encourage students to write and read.’ The Covid-19 pandemic ‘has necessitated our coming up with the Splendors of Dawn online “Poets Read out” series. Splendors of Dawn Poetry Foundation, Ghana believes that we can change the world and contribute our quota for its development through poetry.’

The indefatigable Steve Varatharajan, the Vice President but, more importantly, for many years the heart and driving force behind the International Association of Educators for World Peace (IAEWP), headquartered in Malaysia, has recently announced that, at year’s end, he will ‘be stepping down from all my positions in IAEWP as I am having [serious health] problems… [related to] the aggressive 5G telecommunications network building.’ For those who don’t know Steve, it is unlikely that many people have served any global network with the talent, commitment and productivity that Steve has demonstrated within the IAEWP.

Steve has also recently announced the appointment of Dr. Alfredo Sfeir Younis – the Chilean economist, spiritual leader and healer who had a 29-year career at the World Bank including as its first environmental economist – as Executive Vice President of the IAEWP.  In that capacity, Alfredo has already proposed a visionary program to advance IAEWP aims. Separately from this, Dr. Priyaranjan Trivedi, the IAEWP Senior Vice President for Continental Asia and IAEWP Director General of Education, advises that their continental association has just launched a free online buffet of 31 courses. For details, see ‘Online Peace Education, Reconstruction, Accord, Non-Violence and Disarmament Initiative’. These courses are available online for India and the rest of the world.

Liz McAlister and Martha Hennessy are two of seven Catholic nuclear disarmament activists known as the Kings Bay Plowshares 7. The plowshares activists entered Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in St. Mary’s, Georgia, USA on 4 April 2018, the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Carrying hammers and baby bottles of their own blood, the seven attempted to convert weapons of mass destruction to make real the prophet Isaiah’s command to ‘beat swords into plowshares’. Apart from impeding the ever-heightening threat of nuclear armageddon as the world’s international legal infrastructure against nuclear war rapidly unravels, they also hoped to call attention to the ways in which nuclear weapons kill every day by their mere existence and maintenance.

The nonviolent activists were subsequently ‘found guilty of trespass, conspiracy and destruction of federal property’ in October 2019. After spending time in prison, on 8 June 2020 Liz – the widow of Phil Berrigan – was sentenced to ‘time served, three years supervised release and for a portion of the restitution for the seven of just over $30,000’. Martha – a granddaugher of Dorothy Day – is due to be sentenced in November. You can read a detailed account of their action, an inspiring biography of each activist and follow the court outcome for Martha and the others at the website above. You can also see an evocative interview of Martha at ‘Martha Hennessy Interview’.

Professor Bishnu Pathak in Nepal continues his substantial research output on a variety of subjects, most notably in the past month on subjects related to the fundamental question of whether international law can be used as an instrument to achieve peace. For insightful commentary on two issues in this field, see

‘Can Former Child Soldiers File a Complaint at the International Court against Nepal’s Maoist Leaders?’ and

‘Nuremberg Tribunal: A Precedent for Victor’s Justice’.

What Can You Do?

If you would like to join those individuals and organizations in 105 countries who have made the commitment to work to end human violence, you can do so by signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.

If you understand the critical importance of reducing human consumption as the core element of any strategy to preserve a habitable biosphere – encapsulated in Gandhi’s observation that ‘Earth provides enough to satisfy every person’s need, but not every person’s greed’ – then you might consider participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’which he inspired as well.

If you would like to nurture children to become Self-aware individuals who are capable of responding powerfully to the challenges in life while reducing violence in the process, consider making ‘My Promise to Children’. For a deeper understanding of the cause and pervasiveness of human violence, see ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

And if you wish to use nonviolent strategy, as Gandhi developed and employed it, for your campaign or liberation struggle, you will be given clear guidance on how to do so on these websites that draw heavily on his work: Nonviolent Campaign Strategy and Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy.

Conclusion

While most human inhabitants of Earth remain oblivious to the pervasive violence that is destroying us and our world, including the advanced nature of the four primary threats to human existence, there is nevertheless a worldwide network of people deeply aware of this situation who are acting to address these threats.

‘Doomed to fail’, you might believe. ‘Impossible’ even. And perhaps you are right. In fact, there is considerable evidence to support these beliefs.

But as Gandhi noted: ‘Hesitating to act because the whole vision might not be achieved, or because others do not yet share it, is an attitude that only hinders progress.’

Given that some of us, including the people above, are already working to end human violence, the main question remaining is ‘What about you?’

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is [email protected] and his website is here. He is a frequent contributor to ‘Global Research’.

Featured image: Public domain image from Wiki’s COVID-Protest page.

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Annex

The Earth Pledge

Out of love for the Earth and all of its creatures, and my respect for their needs, from this day onwards I pledge that:

1. I will listen deeply to children. See ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’.
2. I will not travel by plane
3. I will not travel by car
4. I will not eat meat and fish
5. I will only eat organically/biodynamically grown food
6. I will minimize the amount of fresh water I use, including by minimizing my ownership and use of electronic devices
7. I will not own or use a mobile (cell) phone
8. I will not buy rainforest timber
9. I will not buy or use single-use plastic, such as bags, bottles, containers, cups and straws
10. I will not use banks, superannuation (pension) funds or insurance companies that provide any service to corporations involved in fossil fuels, nuclear power and/or weapons
11. I will not accept employment from, or invest in, any organization that supports or participates in the exploitation of fellow human beings or profits from killing and/or destruction of the biosphere
12. I will not get news from the corporate media (mainstream newspapers, television, radio, Google, Facebook, Twitter…)
13. I will make the effort to learn a skill, such as food gardening or sewing, that makes me more self-reliant
14. I will gently encourage my family and friends to consider signing this pledge.

Megan Cassella and Alice Miranda Ollstein reported for the Politico [1] yesterday that Joe Biden’s transition team is vetting renegade Republicans for potential cabinet positions. The report didn’t name the names but identified Biden’s prospective national security team after being elected president as the key area where Republicans who forswear their allegiance to the GOP would be inducted.

The Politico report notes:

“National security is another traditional spot for cross-party appointments. Clinton tapped Republican Bill Cohen to lead the Department of Defense, while Obama had two GOP officials in that role: Robert Gates and Chuck Hagel.

“Gates was a holdover from the Bush administration, whom Obama kept on as a bipartisan gesture. But Gates didn’t always agree with the president’s decisions and offered harsh critiques of Obama and others in the Cabinet in a memoir he released after leaving the administration. Gates reserved some of his harshest criticism for Biden, saying the vice president had been ‘wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.’”

Although buying political loyalties through wheeling and dealing, horse-trading and patronage politics is common in Third World countries, it’s the first time this stratagem has been adopted by the Biden campaign in the US politics. This fact helps explain myriads of renegade Republican groups, masquerading as PACs, that have sprung up in the election year, including the Lincoln Project, 43 Alumni for Biden, Never Trump movement and Republican Voters Against Trump, that have mounted a crusade against the Trump presidency.

Some of these dissident groups, such as 43 Alumni for Biden, are mainly comprised of the Bush-era former national security officials or are ideologically affiliated with late Senator John McCain’s hawkish militarism that regard the Trump administration’s non-interventionism as a perfidy to supposedly “lofty ideals” of American exceptionalism and “benevolent imperialism.”

Although in its eagerness to oust Trump from presidency, neoliberal media is extolling these renegade Republicans for renouncing their loyalty to the GOP, their questionable affiliations and belligerent motives are being overlooked.

The George W. Bush administration is known to be the most hawkish and militarist administration in the history of the United States. Ironically, while three US presidents have been accused of impeaching the Constitution for relatively minor offenses, including Bill Clinton for perjury and Donald Trump for allegedly using political influence to discredit opponents, no US president has ever been charged, let alone convicted, of waging devastating wars of aggression.

Unless impeachment proceedings are initiated against war criminals, including George Bush and Dick Cheney for invading Afghanistan and Iraq and Barack Obama and Joe Biden for waging proxy wars in Libya and Syria, the impeachment provisions in the US Constitution would serve as nothing more than a convenient tool for settling political scores.

As for the late Senator John McCain, though a decorated Vietnam War veteran who died battling cancer in 2018, McCain was a highly divisive and polarizing figure as a senator and was regarded by many Leftists as an inveterate neocon hawk, who vociferously exhorted Western military interventions not only in the Balkans in the nineties but also in Libya and Syria in 2011.

Though Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden would have no problem integrating hawkish Bush- and McCain-era Republican holdovers into his prospective national security team because he himself is no peacenik either, as Bob Gates sarcastically quipped, “The former vice president has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

Before being elected as Obama’s vice president in 2008, as a longtime senator from Delaware and subsequently as the member and then the chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden, alongside inveterate hawk Senator Joe Lieberman, was one of the principal architects of the Bosnia War in the Clinton administration in the nineties.

Reflecting on first black American president Barack Obama’s memorable 2008 presidential campaign, with little-known senator from Delaware, Joe Biden, as his running-mate, Glenn Kessler wrote for the Washington Post [2] in October 2008:

“The moment when Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. looked Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in the eye and called him a ‘damned war criminal’ has become the stuff of campaign legend.

“The Democratic vice presidential nominee brings up the 1993 confrontation on the campaign trial to whoops of delight from supporters. Senator Barack Obama mentioned it when he announced he had chosen Biden as his running mate.

“During vice presidential debate with his counterpart on the Republican ticket, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Biden twice gave himself credit for shifting US policy on Bosnia. The senator from Delaware declared that he ‘was the catalyst to change the circumstance in Bosnia led by President Clinton.’ At another point he noted: ‘My recommendations on Bosnia — I admit I was the first one to recommend it. They saved tens of thousands of lives.’”

Instead of “saving tens of thousands of lives,” the devastating Yugoslav Wars in the nineties in the aftermath of the break-up of the former Soviet Union and then the former Yugoslavia claimed over 130,000 fatalities, created a humanitarian crisis and unleashed a flood of millions of refugees for which nobody is to blame but the Clinton administration’s militarist policy of subjugating and forcibly integrating East European states into the Western capitalist bloc.

Nevertheless, smugly oblivious to the death and destruction caused by Washington’s global domination agenda, national security shill Glenn Kessler further noted in the aforementioned Washington Post article:

“Biden focused on deficiencies in US policy toward Bosnia, he called for NATO expansion before it became fashionable and most recently prodded the Bush administration to back a $1 billion package to rebuild Georgia after the Russian invasion.

“As the incident with Milosevic shows, Biden is hardly shy about emphasizing his own role in world affairs. Biden’s book portrays him frequently confronting Clinton and bucking him up on Bosnia when the president had doubts about his own policy. But the hard legislative work was left to others. Biden did take an early stab at prodding action, writing an amendment in 1992 — opposed by George H.W. Bush’s administration — that authorized spending $50 million to arm the Bosnian Muslims.

“In April 1993, Biden spent a week traveling in the Balkans, meeting with key officials, including a three-hour session with Milosevic. The trip was detailed in 15 pages of the senator’s autobiography.

“By all accounts, the meeting was tense. Milosevic spent a lot of time poring over maps and expressing concerns with peace proposals crafted by a group of international mediators. Milosevic denied he had much influence over the Bosnian Serbs, but then immediately summoned Radovan Karadzic, their leader, with a curt phone call.

“According to Biden’s book, Milosevic asked the senator what he thought of him. ‘I think you’re a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one,’ Biden said he shot back. Milosevic, he said, did not react.

“Upon his return to the United States, Biden issued a 36-page report on the trip, laying out eight policy proposals, including airstrikes on Serb artillery and lifting the arms embargo on Bosnian Muslims.

“Biden continued to make fiery statements on Bosnia, demanding action. Richard C. Holbrooke recalled that when he was nominated as assistant secretary of state for Europe in late 1994, Biden ‘in no uncertain terms made it clear to me that the policy on Bosnia had to change and he would make sure it did. He believed in action, and history proved him right.’

“’When you look back, Senator Biden got Bosnia right earlier than anyone. He understood that a combination of force and diplomacy would revive American leadership and avoid a disaster in Europe,’ said James P. Rubin, a Biden aide at the time who later became spokesman for Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright.”

Naively giving credit to former Senator and Vice President Joe Biden for his supposed “humanitarian interventionism” and for creating a catastrophe in the Balkans in the nineties, Paul Richter and Noam N. Levey, writing for the LA Times [3] in August 2008, further observed:

“Biden has frequently favored humanitarian interventions abroad and was an early and influential advocate for the US military action in the Balkans in the 1990s.

“Biden considers his most important foreign policy accomplishment to be his leadership on the Balkans in the mid-1990s. He pushed a reluctant Clinton administration first to arm Serbian Muslims and then to use U.S. air power to suppress conflict in Serbia and Kosovo.

“In his book, ‘Promises to Keep,’ Biden calls this one of his two ‘proudest moments in public life,’ along with the Violence Against Women Act that he championed.

“In 1998, he worked with McCain on a resolution to push the Clinton administration to use all available force to confront Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, a move designed to force the president to use ground troops if necessary against Serb forces in the former Yugoslavia, which was beset by fighting and ethnic cleansing.

“In addition, Biden, who claims close relationships with many foreign leaders, has demonstrated a readiness to cooperate with Senate Republicans in search of compromise — a trait that meshes with Obama’s pledge to reduce the level of partisan conflict and stalemate in Washington.

“He has called his new adversary, presumed Republican presidential nominee in the 2008 elections, Senator John McCain of Arizona, a ‘personal and close friend.’”

Biden’s belligerent militarism, however, didn’t stop in the Balkans, as the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden said in 2002 that Saddam Hussein was a threat to national security and there was no option but to eliminate that threat. In October 2002, he voted in favor of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, approving the US invasion of Iraq.

More significantly, as chair of the committee, he assembled a series of witnesses to testify in favor of the authorization. They gave testimony grossly misrepresenting the intent, history of and status of Saddam and his Baathist government, which was an openly avowed enemy of al-Qaeda, and touting Iraq’s fictional possession of weapons of mass destruction.

Writing for The Guardian’s “Comment is Free” in February, Mark Weisbrot contends [4] that Joe Biden was at the forefront of mustering bipartisan support for the illegal Iraq War and it would come back to haunt him in the forthcoming presidential elections like the criminal complicity of Hillary Clinton in lending legitimacy to the Bush administration’s unilateral invasion of Iraq had thwarted her presidential ambitions, too, in the 2016 presidential elections.

Weisbrot observes:

“When the war was debated and then authorized by the US Congress in 2002, Democrats controlled the Senate and Biden was chair of the Senate committee on foreign relations. Biden himself had enormous influence as chair and argued strongly in favor of the 2002 resolution granting President Bush the authority to invade Iraq.

“‘I do not believe this is a rush to war,’ Biden said a few days before the vote. ‘I believe it is a march to peace and security. I believe that failure to overwhelmingly support this resolution is likely to enhance the prospects that war will occur …’

“But he had a power much greater than his own words. He was able to choose all 18 witnesses in the main Senate hearings on Iraq. And he mainly chose people who supported a pro-war position. They argued in favor of ‘regime change as the stated US policy’ and warned of ‘a nuclear-armed Saddam sometime in this decade.’ That Iraqis would ‘welcome the United States as liberators’ and that Iraq ‘permits known al-Qaida members to live and move freely about in Iraq’ and that ‘they are being supported.’”

In conclusion, considering his hawkish record in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, supporting the Yugoslav wars during the Clinton presidency in the nineties, voting in favor of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in the Bush tenure and being a vocal proponent of the purported “humanitarian intervention” in Libya and the proxy war in Syria as Obama’s vice president, the Biden presidency would risk plunging the world into many more devastating conflicts.

*

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes

[1] Joe Biden’s transition team is vetting a handful of Republicans for potential Cabinet positions

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/20/biden-transition-republican-cabinet-429972

[2] Biden Played Second Fiddle to Joe Lieberman in Bosnia Legislation:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/06/AR2008100602681.html 

[3] On foreign policy, he’s willing to go his own way:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-aug-24-na-foreignpol24-story.html 

[4] Joe Biden championed the Iraq war. Will that come back to haunt him now?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/17/joe-biden-role-iraq-war

Featured image is from Massoud Nayeri

On the evening of October 20, the Armenian Defense Ministry declared that they had launched a large-scale counter-offensive against the advancing Azerbaijani forces in the Khudaferin Reservoir area, in the southern part of the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Armenian sources claimed that the attack had caused heavy losses for the ‘enemy’ and had pushed Azerbaijani troops into retreat. Pro-Armenian sources also said that the town of Zangilan had become a ‘trap’ for Azerbaijani troops and that a large group of the ‘enemy forces’ was now being eliminated there.

On October 20, the Armenian Defense Ministry also released photos of a Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 combat drone downed in the Nagorno-Karabakh combat zone. This is the second time, that the Armenian side appeared to be able to confirm that the Azerbaijani-Turkish bloc had lost a Bayraktar TB2. On October 19, Armenian sources showed a part of a Bayraktar TB2 optic system claiming that a drone had been downed. These drones are allegedly operated by the Azerbaijani military, but military sources say that drone operations are run with direct help from Turkish specialists.

The claims of Armenian successes in the south were immediately denied by the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry. As of October 21, the situation on the ground demonstrates that the Armenian side has not yet been able to really retake initiative in the area.

Just before the Armenian counter-attack, Azerbaijani forces captured the town of Zangilan, and 25 villages in the districts of Zangilan, Jabrayil, and Fuzuli. The total number of various settlements captured by Azerbaijan since the start of the war on September 27 has reached 75.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev also made an address to the nation de-facto claiming that the Armenian military had been devastated and that his country was on the brink of a military victory in Karabakh. According to him, Azerbaijani forces destroyed 241 battle tanks, 50 armoured vehicles, 215 pieces of artillery, 74 multiple launch rocket systems, 58 mortars, 53 anti-tank weapons, 12 air defense systems, including 4 S-300s and 3 TORs, 8 electronic warfare systems, 3 tactical ballistic missiles and 198 trucks, as well as capturing numerous weapons and equipment from the Armenian side.

Indeed, if Armenian forces prove to be unable to organize an active defense, Azerbaijan has every chance of retaking the entire southern part of the Nagorno-Karabakh region and even reaching the Armenian border there in the nearest future.

An Israeli-made IAI Harop combat drone belonging to the Azerbaijani Armed Forces was shot down near the city of Parsabad in northern Iran on October 20. The Azerbaijani military uses IAI Harops to target the positions and the equipment of Armenian forces. This is not the first cross-border incident with Iran caused by the ongoing military hostilities in Karabakh. Earlier, Iranian forces already shot down several Azerbaijani drones and reported shells falling inside Iranian territory.

On October 21, the Iranian Army and the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) launched large-scale air defense drills, codenamed Modafe’an-e Aseman-e Velayat 99 (Guardians of Velayat Sky 99). The drills involve the Iranian Army’s air defense units and the Air Force along with the IRGC’s Aerospace Force. Just a few days earlier, the Iranian military deployed additional artillery pieces near to the border with Azerbaijan.

Taking into account that the main direction of the current Azerbaijani advance in Karabakh is along the border with Iran, even a limited Iranian military response to regular ‘accidental’ attacks on its territory and violations of its airspace could create difficulties for Azerbaijani forces. For example, the Iranian decision to shoot down combat drones operating too close to the border could undermine Azerbaijani air dominance in this particular chunk of the frontline.

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There are numerous 9/11 COVID similarities to be seen and understood as the world goes ever deeper into Operation Coronavirus.

Many nations around the world, including Canada and Australia, are making moves to roll out the next phase of the operation, which involves digital identities, biometrics and digital vaccine certificates (or immunity passports), just as Bill Gates foretold all those months ago. It is imperative that we all understand that this is a far-reaching operation or live exercise designed to fundamentally transform society in alignment with the goals of the New World Order (NWO).

By comparing the current COVID op to the 9/11 op, we can discern the patterns and become wiser to the agenda, for there is a certain way that evil hijacks good. Below is a list of 16 different 9/11 COVID similaritiesthat I have noticed, however there may well be many more.

1. MSM and Governments Amp Up the Fear with Incessant Coverage and Propaganda

The MSM (Mainstream Media) has barely focused on anything other than COVID since March, with the purpose of almost all the ‘news’ being to scare the living daylights out of people and render them into docile submission. Many of the initial projections turned out to be completely and utterly wrong. The Gates-owned WHO (World Health Organization) predicted the IFR (Infection Fatality Rate) would be 3.4%, when later a Stanford University study and the CDC put it at more like 0.1 – 0.26%; the Gates-funded Imperial College predicted 2 millions American would die when actually only around 225,000 have so far (and those official statistics are embarrassingly fake due to COVID death certificate fraud). Likewise, in the aftermath of 9/11, there was unending propaganda about how freedom itself was under attack by radical Islamic terrorism. People were first traumatized and then besieged with a slew of misinformation which disguised the true conspirators, shifted attention to fictitious enemies and fostered the desire in people to want to be saved (the basis for increased governmental control). One of the interesting 9/11 COVID similarities is the color-coded threat chart.

2. Governmental Reaction Kills Way More People than the Event Itself

In both cases, the governmental reaction is worse than the supposed threat itself, just as in Western Medicine, where frequently the cure is worse than the disease. Chemo, anyone? The official narrative of 9/11 tells us that around 3,000 Americans died from the event, however the 9/11 spawned the War on Terror, under whose auspices the US invaded Iraq, Afghanistan and later many other Middle Eastern nations, killing at least 1 million people in Iraq alone. When Operation Coronavirus began, we were told to lock down for 2 weeks to ‘flatten the curve’ however here we are 7+ months later and people are still walking around wearing masks and not getting too close. Meanwhile, the result of governmental lockdown policies has been increased stress, anxiety, depression, joblessness, poverty, crime and suicide. Many people and organizations (here, here and here) have predicted the lockdown will kill more people than it has supposedly saved.

3. No Investigation of Coincidences

The 9/11 false flag op was characterized by a stunning series of coincidences which were never investigated and which the authorities swept under the rug, such as passports magically surviving office fires and falling to the ground intact, a building crumbling of its own accord 8+ hours after planes had hit nearby buildings (but not it) and fighter jets failing to be scrambled from the nearest base. In the COVID op, it was quite an astonishing coincidence that Fauci via the NIH funded Chinese virology labs in Wuhan to the tune of $7.4 million (2 lots of $3.7 million) for gain of function research, or in plain English, weaponization of virus research. It was also rather coincidental that the US Military, Bill Gates and other NWO organizations and people were planning for this exact scenario years before it happened.

4. Introduction of a Fundamental New Paradigm (War on Terror vs. War on Bioterror)

As I covered in my March 2020 article The New War on Bioterror: Everyone is a Suspected or Asymptomatic Carrier, we are being steadily indoctrinated into a new paradigm of biosecurity, whereby the authorities hope to advance their agenda of control by appealing to the need for public safety against a new enemy. In the post-9/11 world, there was the War on Terror and the concocted enemy was bin Laden and radical Islamic terrorists; in the post-COVID world, there’s the War on Bioterror and the concocted enemy is an invisible virus. In both cases, we were told the enemy could be lurking anywhere and everywhere, and only increased governmental surveillance and control could save us.

5. 9/11 COVID Similarities: False Official Narratives

In both operations, the official narrative has more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese. In the 9/11 op, we were supposed to believe the terrorists managed to fly planes into buildings with such skill using maneuvers that even experienced pilots could not manage, while the laws of physics were suspended that day as jet fuel magically burnt through concrete and steel, despite the fact that jet fuel doesn’t have a high enough burning point to do so. In the COVID op, we are supposed to believe that the virus is literally everywhere, can be transmitted via cash, can live on surfaces of days or weeks and thrives on asymptomatic transmission when no other known virus has ever done so.

Why did BBC report Building 7 had fallen 30 minutes before it actually did? Why did San Francisco mayor Willie Brown and author Salmon Rushdie both get calls beforehand telling them not to board planes going to NYC? Why did the Chinese Government run a drill for a coronavirus outbreak 30 days before the Wuhan Military Games? Why did the US Government run or pass so many simulations, drills and laws that planned for the coronavirus?

7. Event Preceded by Exercises/Drills that “Went Live” or Eerily Mimicked What Later Happened

According to Kevin Ryan, NORAD practiced 28 hijacked events within 2 years of 9/11, 6 of which focused on hijackings within US and 1 which practiced interception of hijacked planes headed for the UN building in New York City. Webster Tarpley researched that there were 46 drills and exercises taking place on the day of 9/11! Meanwhile in Operation Coronavirus, in addition to things such as Dark Winter (2001), Atlantic Storm (2005), Clade X (2018), Crimson Contagion (2019), there was the now infamous Event 201 (October 2019) which simulated an actual coronavirus outbreak that comes from Brazil and enters the US to infect millions (see above link on simulations, drills and laws).

8. Insider Trading

9/11 was marked by massive amounts of insider trading. This study Initiation of the 9-11 Operation, with Evidence of Insider Trading Beforehand does a good job of exposing the details. Meanwhile before COVID struck the US, there were many politicians (especially senators) who bought or sold stock before the US economy crashed.

Isn’t it interesting how the big players seem to benefit the most from these catastrophes and crises? During 9/11, Halliburton, defense contractors, oil and gas companies and others invested in Iraq/Afghanistan to make a killing. During COVID, we learnt that certain billionaires increased their wealth by a whopping 27%. In both cases, the rich and powerful got more rich and powerful.

10. Intel Agency Control of Information

Manufactured crises like 9/11 and COVID open the door for private corporations linked to the MIC (Military Intelligence Complex) to gain a foothold in terms of greater access to our data. 9/11 was good business for surveillance companies; Peter Thiel’s CIA-initiated company Palantir manages the databases used by the CDC (in the US) and the NHS (in the UK) that are the basis of COVID decision-making.

11. 9/11 COVID Similarities: A Fictitious, All-Powerful and Elusive Enemy

Think about it for a minute: Al-Qaeda and SARS-CoV-2 can rarely be seen, can’t be easily stopped (or stopped at all), require great amount of time, money and focus to be defeated (more of the war mentality), and are a completely new kind of enemy (asymmetrical warfare and asymptomatic transmission). We were told that other human coronaviruses behave in a seasonal, highly predictable manner, but not SARS-CoV-2. It was somehow different. The FBI never formally charged bin Laden; meanwhile he looked different in every fake video they released. Bin Laden seemed to have more lives than the proverbial cat but in the end we were told to just believe that they had killed him and thrown his body away at sea; there was never any proof. Several alleged Middle Eastern hijackers turned up alive elsewhere. Compare these fictitious enemies to a virus which has never been isolated and purified.

12. Junk Science

For the most part, science has sadly become a tool for moneyed interests to push their agenda. He who pays the piper calls the tune. There are many intellectual prostitutes in white coats who will find any result they are paid to find. Both operations are marked by junk or fraudulent science. In the case of 9/11, there is all the chicanery around the fall of all 3 buildings in NYC including the coverup by NIST which was well exposed earlier this year in the University of Alaska Fairbanks study, A Structural Reevaluation of the Collapse of World Trade Center 7. Professional architects, engineers and pilots have all declared that the official 9/11 narrative is not scientifically sound and in defiance of the laws of physics. Likewise, the official COVID narrative has thoroughly abused science by exploiting people’s ignorance of the nature of a virus and the nature of contagion and disease. It also used hyped and falsified numbers under the rubric of science to scare people, offered financial incentives for doctors and hospitals to inflate COVID cases/deaths, not to mention used the key deception of with the virus vs. from the virus to obfuscate the real cause of death in millions of people.

13. Censorship of Dissent

Another of the 9/11 COVID similarities is that both were marked by censorship or the suppression of evidence. In the COVID op, Google-owned YouTube has been deleting channels left, right and center, with CEO Susan Wojcicki announcing at one point that she would not allow any content with information contrary to the Gates-owned WHO! In the 9/11 op, the MSM carefully selected whom they wanted to interview, and heroes like William Rodriguez were initially welcomed but brushed aside when they refused to follow the script. Compare George Bush Jr.’s “Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th” with the current propaganda that “You’re killing Grandma” if you step outside without a mask.

14. Denunciation of Deniers

The word denier has become something of a weaponized term in the last decade, been thrown against those who refuse to believe in certain narratives (e.g. climate change denier or climate denier for those who don’t buy the manmade global warming story). At the end of WW2, Hermann Goering admitted the game plan of leaders in any country: “Why of course the people don’t want war! … Naturally the common people don’t want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood … [but] the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace makers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” Another of the great 9/11 COVID similarities is the denunciation of deniers, the denunciation of anyone not following the governmental official narrative. In 9/11, it went something like this (“You’re unpatriotic and un-American if you don’t hate Al Qaeda and bin Laden”) while in COVID, it’s goes something like this (“You’re selfish and you’re endangering the community if you protest, don’t socially distance and don’t wear a mask”).

15. Introduction of a New Layer of Security State Bureaucracy

In both cases, a whole new layer of security state bureaucracy was introduced. In the 9/11 op, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created. In just a few years, this federal department quickly grew into one of the largest federal agencies, taking in tens of billions of taxpayer dollars each year ever since. The term “Homeland” hardly existed in the US before that. The DHS also spawned the infamous TSA, notorious for the 2-pronged option it gives travelers: radiation or molestation. Meanwhile, the COVID op has yet to spawn a new US federal agency, however it is undeniable that the pretext of COVID has given governments massive power to penetrate deeply into our lives.

16. Psychological and Ritualistic Trauma

The 9/11 op was very ritualistic; 2 small examples are the numerology (911 is the number to call in the US when there’s an emergency) and the echoes of Freemasonry (the WTC Twin Towers representing the Twin Pillars of Boaz and Joachim). Likewise, as I covered in the article Exposing the Occult Corona-Initiation Ritual, the entire length and breadth of Operation Coronavirus is steeped in ritual, including phases such as Lockdown and Quarantine (isolation), Rejection (hand-washing), Mask-Wearing (censorship, submission, dehumanization, reinforcing a false idea of danger, alternate persona) and Social Distancing (the New Normal). The 9/11 COVID similarities are striking, since in both cases the idea is to traumatize the public through fear, separate them from customary modes of functioning and break them down so they will accept a new way of being.

Final Thoughts on 9/11 COVID Similarities

To understand these 2 massive psychological operations is to understand the way the NWO Agenda advances in our world. There is a distinctive pattern to the darkness/unconsciousness in the way it deceives, betrays, tricks, distracts, obfuscates and manipulates. Ultimately, we know the endgame is to put people into such states of anxiety, stress and fear that they will accept any level of state security, corporatocratic surveillance, invasion of privacy and violation of their sovereign, unalienable, inherent, god-given rights. My hope is that articles such as these shine a light on the darkness and bring it to the surface to be exposed, so that the deception is no longer effective. The power of these false flag events and psy ops lies in their capacity to manipulate perception; once an awakened populace sees through it, their power evaporates.

Hat tip to Kevin Ryan.

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This article was originally published on The Freedom Articles.

Makia Freeman is the editor of alternative media / independent news site The Freedom Articles, author of the book Cancer: The Lies, the Truth and the Solutions and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com. Makia is on Steemit and Parler.

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*https://thefreedomarticles.com/chinese-government-foreknowledge-coronavirus-drill-30-days-wuhan-games/

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*https://soundcloud.com/guns-and-butter-1/the-46-exercises-and-drills-of-911-webster-griffin-tarpley-237

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*https://www.wqad.com/article/news/nation-world/reports-4-us-senators-dumped-stocks-before-coronavirus-market-crash/526-25ddcfe8-583d-435b-8347-3b1a5b0079c5

*https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54446285

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*https://thefreedomarticles.com/exposing-the-occult-corona-initiation-ritual/

Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi has worked for some of the country’s top publications including la Repubblica, l’Espresso and, now, Il Fatto Quotidiano. In 2009, she started working with Julian Assange and WikiLeaks on secret files concerning the war in Afghanistan, the US diplomacy cables and Guantanamo detainees. She also investigated top-secret files leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden, uncovering serious cases of environmental pollution in Italy and the exploitation of Pakistani workers in a factory operated by an Italian company, among others.

Maurizi was a witness in last month’s Assange extradition hearings. As a London judge ponders over whether to extradite the WikiLeaks founder to the US, we spoke to her about her experience making powerful enemies, what she describes as smear campaigns against WikiLeaks and those working with them – and why Assange should never have left Berlin.

How did you become involved with WikiLeaks?

Stefania Maurizi: In 2008, I was working for a leading Italian news magazine l’Espresso. I had already worked as an investigative journalist and when I looked at WikiLeaks publications like the Guantanamo Standard Operating Procedure document I was really impressed. The document had been requested by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Pentagon had refused access. WikiLeaks was able to obtain the document, not only that but they had told the Pentagon that they would not remove it from their website. For me this was really important, as it made me realise how much courage the people behind WikiLeaks had. This was around the time when the New York Times were publishing lies about the Iraq war. The Washington Post has published the CIA black sites story, but they had not published the names of the Eastern European countries where the sites were based, because the Bush administration had asked that it not be published, and the CIA was continuing to torture people in these black sites.

When I realised that there was a media organisation that was not willing to obey the Pentagon I knew I had to establish contact because I liked their work and their courage. I did, and in 2009 they called me in the middle of the night and said ‘You have an hour. Go to your computer and download the document otherwise we will remove it.’ They asked me to help them verify whether the document was genuine. They said if it was, I could do an investigation into it and work with WikiLeaks. I went to my computer and I saw that the document was about the rubbish crisis in Naples, I verified it was genuine and certainly in the public interest because of the alleged involvement of the Italian secret service. This was the first time I worked in partnership with WikiLeaks and I have done so ever since.

A demo in Berlin at the beginning of Assange’s extradition trial. (Photo: Supplied/Exberliner.com)

What was the verification process like when you worked with WikiLeaks documents?

SM: First of all, you have to realise that it’s a complete lie that WikiLeaks just dump stuff on the internet. I have worked on all of their documents apart from the few that they published without any media partners. In most cases WikiLeaks do their own verification process and the media partners do theirs in parallel. We exchange opinions and concern over the authenticity of a document and we have never got it wrong. Working for a media partner, most of the time you got something like 100,000 documents and maybe five million emails. You search these databases for tiny bits of information and do your own verification process using the classic journalistic techniques. For example when we got emails about Stratfor, we checked whether all the Stratfor employees were the right ones and whether the facts described in the emails were true. If you get these things wrong and your reputation is compromised, it’s very hard to regain it. Reputation is your currency as a journalist.

Most of the time, the company where the documents have come from do not want to cooperate. In the case of the US diplomatic cables leak it wasn’t difficult because we had a team with US colleagues who knew how cables are written and redacted. This work is only possible because we work together. For the Guantanamo files we worked together with The Washington Post, Le Monde and a knowledgeable expert on Guantanamo, Andy Worthington. I think WikiLeaks was good at putting together the right team of people with expertise to verify the documents. Verifying is the most serious problem, as you can imagine it’s very easy to destroy the reputation of the organisation by sending it false documents.

One major accusation against WikiLeaks is that most leaked documents contained classified stuff that’s kept secret for a reason. Do you believe all restricted information is fit to be shared with the public at large, without discrimination?

SM: You see, as journalists we get restricted documents all the time. Without using restricted information, there’s no journalism. Of course we are rational people and we care about the consequences of what we publish. At the same time you have to realise that not all secrets are alike. For example, if you have the security measures for a nuclear power plant, there is a reason for keeping that information secret, namely that it could be used by terrorists. In other cases, you have information that is classified just because it is embarrassing, because someone is trying to cover up war crimes, torture or crimes against humanity – and we absolutely have the right to expose these secrets.

For you personally, what was the most meaningful leak from WikiLeaks?

SM: The Abu Omar case. Italy is the only country in the world which was able to sentence the CIA agents involved in the kidnapping of the Milan cleric. He was captured in the middle of the day in the centre of Milan. Our prosecutors were so good that they managed to identify 26 US nationals, most of them CIA agents. They put them under investigation and convicted all of them. The US put pressure on the Italian politicians and said, ‘There is nothing more dangerous for our bi-lateral relationship.’

Because of this, six justice ministers refused the arrest warrant for the CIA agents. Two Italian presidents, including our current President, Mattarella, issued two presidential pardons for three CIA agents and the head of security at the US base in Aviano. This is where Abu Omar was brought immediately after he was kidnapped. These people were granted impunity and they never spent a single day in prison. In 2016 the European Court of Human Rights condemned Italy for granting impunity. All this was in the public sphere, however, thanks to the cables. I was able to provide evidence of pressure by US diplomats on Italian politicians. Without the cables we would never have had any proof that any of this was happening. There is no other way to access this information and it would have been impossible for the prosecutors to have evidence.

So you are saying that this is in the public interest because Italian people should know about the political corruption of their government.

SM: Yes, but this goes beyond corruption – it’s unlawful to grant impunity to people involved in kidnapping. There is no other way to get evidence about these extremely serious things. We need whistleblowers, but we also need organisations like WikiLeaks to publish information. You might have the best whistleblower, the most explosive, secret documents but if you don’t have the guts to make it public, it’s worthless. People say, ‘Well we like Chelsea Manning, she had the courage but WikiLeaks were just a passive recipient’. That’s completely false. If you’ve ever been a journalist you know what it means to publish something that someone very powerful wants to stop. You know what it means to be afraid for your life and your freedom. You have to have extremely courageous journalists and publishers who will say, ‘I will publish no matter what’. This is what impressed me from the very beginning. I have been a journalist for the last 19 years and I have never heard anyone say “no” to the Pentagon.

What do you think about whistleblowers like Snowden who, instead of using a platform like WikiLeaks, chose to trust two famous journalists and the traditional press instead?

SM: Of course it is up to the whistleblower to decide what they are comfortable with. I can tell you that if a whistleblower goes to WikiLeaks, they will certainly have their documents published. If you choose single journalists, you have to know them well and really trust them and know whether they will take the risk to publish dangerous information. In the case of WikiLeaks, they always deliver, they always publish. They have a long history of publishing risky documents. For the last 14 years, no matter what, they have had the courage to face the serious consequences. Julian Assange hasn’t known freedom since publishing the US secret documents.

I’m not saying Assange and WikiLeaks are perfect. Sometimes they made mistakes, but sometimes you make mistakes when you’re in uncharted territory. It is always challenging, especially when you want to publish original documents, a database of one million documents without revealing personal information. Of course if you don’t publish these documents, you don’t get things wrong. Ten years on, we are still accessing the cables and they are still relevant. On a daily basis I go to the WikiLeaks cables database. I look for a single politician, diplomat or NGO and see if there is any information about them. You don’t have to call Assange and ask for access to the database, you just go to the website and look.

How do you explain that mainstream media are not more supportive of WikiLeaks?

SM: There has been a propaganda war against WikiLeaks since 2010. Of course, after this there is no sympathy and support. The US government began this at the very beginning. From the moment that the Pentagon said ‘they might have blood on their hands’ all the media were reporting the same thing. This propaganda worked in changing the public opinion. It’s the same with Russia – bring me evidence that WikiLeaks was in bed with the Kremlin. We were never shown evidence. I have seen first-hand how this propaganda works. When working on the Podesta emails [the emails from Podesta, a former White House chief of staff and chair of Hillary Clinton‘s 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, whose Gmail account was hacked by then unknown parties and later published by Wikileaks], I was the only media partner, because nobody wanted to touch the emails because of the media campaign saying that it came from Russian spies. It worked.

But it cannot be that journalists are that vulnerable to believing propaganda. It’s the opposite of what you’d expect from a professional journalist.

SM: When you consider that not a single journalist has tried to get the documents for the Julian Assange and WikiLeaks case, it tells you a lot about the level of journalism. They reported on the case without ever asking for factual information or asking for the documents. They were reporting whatever the prosecutors and lawyers were telling them. I have tried to access these documents. After five years, it was so hard to understand the case, in particular the Swedish allegations of rape, because the reporting was so bad.

I told myself I couldn’t deal with such chaos, I started filing my freedom of information request in Sweden, the UK, US and Australia. This case has been going on for 10 years and I have spent the last five years trying to get the documents using the FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] and litigating my FOIA in four jurisdictions: my lawyers and I are still fighting to get the documents, which shows you the unbearable secrecy around this case. I have seven lawyers, four jurisdictions. I’m telling you this to make you realise how superficial the reporting is even though hundreds of journalists were reporting on it. This is an unbelievable failure of journalism.

What do you say to people who would normally support whistleblowing and WikiLeaks, but won’t support Assange because of the Swedish case, i.e. the rape accusations against him?

SM: The Swedish case was one of the important things used to destroy Julian Assange’s reputation. Whenever you have an accusation of sexual assault or pedophilia, people immediately stand in solidarity with alleged victims. I don’t think that the Swedish case was a plot, I don’t believe in conspiracies. What I am saying is that this case was full of mysteries, for example why was this case kept open for so long without either charging him or dropping the case once and for all.

A high-profile Italian prosecutor asked me why the case had been going on since 2010 with no progress at all. I explained that the lack of progress was because Swedish prosecutors didn’t want to travel to London to question Julian Assange and to decide whether to charge him or to drop the case once and for all. When I got access to the documents under FOIA, I discovered it was the UK authorities who had told the Swedish prosecutors not to travel to London to question him. They had also told them that the case was not being dealt with as another extradition request, and they had also discouraged the Swedish prosecutors to drop their case in 2013, when they had considered to do it.

Why would the UK authorities be meddling in an alleged Swedish rape case?

SM: That’s exactly the question I began to ask myself. What kind of special interests would the UK authority have in this case? I asked for more documents and I was told they had been destroyed,which is highly suspicious, because when they destroyed the documents, the case was still ongoing and highly controversial.

Five years later I’m still trying to get an answer about why that happened. This was done by the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) the same agency in charge of extraditing Assange to the US. This makes me very suspicious. This Swedish case has had a huge impact on Assange’s reputation in making him appear as a rapist who escaped justice. Now the investigation has been closed and cannot be reopened because of the statute of limitations.

So what do you think about the way the UK has reacted to this whole case?

SM: You have to realise that London and the UK have a special relationship with the US, not just historically, but also a strong partnership for sharing intelligence. The UK might even be more serious when it comes to intelligence than the US. It’s not a coincidence that they produced the James Bond saga which lionises secret agents: they have a real culture and love for intelligence, secrecy, the secret services. Julian Assange should have never gone to the UK. On September 27 2010, he flew to Berlin to meet me and other journalists. After that meeting, he decided to fly to London to work on the Iraq War Logs and the U.S. diplomacy cables. I tend to believe that he would have never experienced such devastating lawfare, confinement, arrest and now the Belmarsh prison and the risk of extradition to the US, if he hadn’t left Berlin to fly to London.

Do you see British judges as complicit with intelligence services or sharing the political agenda of the US?

SM: What I say is that the UN working group on arbitrary detention confirmed that the UK and Sweden had been detaining him arbitrarily since 2010. This is not my opinion, this is what the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention established. And the UK authorities did absolutely nothing about it. Neither the media, the prosecutors or the judicial did anything about it. When the UN special reporter on torture Nils Melzer openly wrote to them saying that Assange was subjected to psychological torture and they were abusing his rights, again nothing was done.

I know that they have a reputation for fair play and justice, but at the end of the day, if you look at this case closely, their reputation is suffering a lot as they are behaving like an outlaw country. They don’t care about the UN working group decision or Nils Melzer’s reports. They are keeping a publisher in a high-security prison like any other criminal. They have denied him even one hour outdoors at the embassy, a punishment only given to the worst criminals. If you look at this case, the rhetoric about British institutions respecting human rights and freedom of the press, you get a different narrative.

You were a fact witness at Julian Assange’s trial last month. What do you make of the proceedings over those four weeks in October, and what do you expect to happen now?

SM: I think the most crucial aspect about the hearings is the fact that the US authorities were misrepresenting facts: the prosecution kept claiming the US authorities are not prosecuting Julian Assange’s journalism, but rather prosecuting a narrowly limited publication of unredacted documents which, according to them, put US sources and informants at risk. First of all, this is not true: every journalist worth their salt can check the superseding indictment and realise that the US authorities are definitely prosecuting him for purely journalistic activities, like receiving and obtaining classified documents like the cables, the Guantanamo Files and and the Iraq Rules of Engagement.

They are also trying to jail him for life for the unauthorised disclosures of those classified documents. These are purely journalistic activities: if Julian Assange ends up in prison for this, every journalist will be at risk. It will be the end of journalism exposing war crimes, torture and serious human rights violations. Secondly, US authorities keeps putting forward the accusation that Assange would have put lives at risk.

From the very beginning, the Pentagon tried to argue that WikiLeaks might have blood on their hands, and since 2010 they’ve worked really hard trying to assess the potentially harmful impact of these publications. Ten years later, they are still unable to bring a single shred of evidence that anyone was killed or injured or put in prison as a result of the WikiLeaks’ revelations. Even at the Chelsea Manning trial, the head of the task force established by the US authorities to analyse the publications didn’t find a single ‘victim’.

Image on the right: Lawyers for Assange

Meanwhile, we have plenty of evidence of war crimes thanks to the WikiLeaks publications. The fact that the war criminals have never been indicted and never spent a single day in prison, whereas Julian Assange has never known freedom again and now risks spending his life in prison, gives you a measure of how the US democracy lost its way. The Assange case is a wake-up call: US democracy is getting so dystopian that the war criminals enjoy impunity, whereas a journalist exposing war crimes gets life imprisonment. It’s unprecedented.

But still, wouldn’t it be a reasonable argument to say that Assange could have put people’s lives at risk by not being careful enough and publishing unredacted cables.

SM: The reason the unredacted cables documents were published was because two journalists from The Guardian published the password in a book, making the information available for anyone to access, and someone else published the full archive. WikiLeaks never planned to publish unredacted cables. On the contrary, for almost a year there was a careful procedure to redact the cables. If the plan had been to publish the documents unredacted, why would we have done this? This has been an ongoing campaign to depict WikiLeaks as irresponsible criminals putting lives at risk. It is part of the propaganda war against WikiLeaks.

Do you still believe the UK will give in to the US and extradite Julian Assange? It’s illegal to extradite someone for political reasons, isn’t it?

SM: Absolutely. But they don’t care. We have seen how they have been dealing with this case. If people take refuge in an embassy usually you offer them safe passage. They never offered that. The UK authorities were ready to storm the embassy, while they left him there for seven years without medical treatment or outdoor access. At the end of the day they arrested him and took him to a maximum security prison and he isn’t allowed to leave even if he risks getting infected with Covid-19. For these reasons, I cannot trust that they will play by the rules.

What do you think people who care about freedom of the press can do at this stage?

SM: I want people to get the facts right in this case, due to this propaganda war. This is what drives me. I’m getting no money, I’m struggling to get money for my freedom of information litigation and I can tell you that this kind of work doesn’t gain you powerful friends. It’s quite the opposite – you get powerful enemies. Nobody wants to have problems with the US. They are too powerful, their influence is felt all around the world. I am fighting because I want to live in a society where you can reveal war crimes without ending up in prison, as Chelsea Manning did.

I want to live in a world where you have the chance to reveal war crimes without the threat of losing your freedom as is happening to Julian Assange. Unless we build such societies, nobody will do it for us, we have to struggle for it to be like this. I can struggle in the only way I know, with journalism. I want to use my journalism to get the facts right about this case and to have people understand how wild it is that you expose war crimes and you loose your freedom.

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Featured image: Investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi told us about exposing secret information, working with WikiLeaks and the guts it takes to stand against powerful enemies. (Photo: Supplied/Exberliner.com)

The second day of Justice Rising brought the 9/11 Truth Movement back to its roots in a powerful way.

The day, dubbed “Science Saturday,” began with “Lights, Camera, Building 7,” a panel discussion on the historic documentary SEVEN, which AE911Truth is just weeks away from releasing. On hand to discuss the film were director Dylan Avery, creator of the seminal 9/11 film Loose Change; producer Kelly David, who is the chief operating officer of AE911Truth; and Dr. Leroy Hulsey from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, whose study on World Trade Center Building 7 is the primary focus of SEVEN.

Dr. Hulsey explained how this groundbreaking study came together, while Avery and David shared how the story of the study is told in SEVEN.

The discussion also took us back to how Avery became inspired to work on Loose Change in the early years after 9/11.

“It was a slow process of discovery,” he recounted, “and it all started with the military’s response, or lack thereof, to the attacks themselves, and it just kind of spider-webbed out from there.”

Both Richard Gage, who moderated the discussion, and David had strong praise for the profound impact of that early film.

“Loose Change had an enormous effect in helping to create the 9/11 Truth Movement,” David said. “When I ask the people what it was about the 9/11 evidence that woke them up, more than anything else I always hear, ‘Oh, I watched Loose Change.’ I feel that most of us wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for that powerful film that a young aspiring filmmaker made on his laptop.”

This panel was followed by “Global Failure: Evidence Engineers Can No Longer Ignore,” a technical presentation of the findings from Dr. Hulsey’s study, which AE911Truth is now disseminating to tens of thousands of engineers across the U.S. (along, of course, with informing them about the evidence for the controlled demolition of the Twin Towers).

 

On hand to address this subject were Gage and fellow board member Roland Angle.

Angle pointed out that for the east penthouse of the building to fall as it did, you would have to remove the columns supporting it high in the building, rather than low in the building, which is where NIST claims these columns buckled. However, Angle noted, there were no fires on the upper floors to cause the cause the columns just below the penthouse to fail.

Citing Dr. Hulsey’s report, published earlier this year, Angle ended his presentation with this definitive conclusion: Building 7 was a “global failure involving the near simultaneous failure of all columns in the building over eight stories, not a progressive collapse involving the sequential failure of columns throughout the building.”

Notwithstanding the excellence of the first two presentations, the highlight of the day was clearly “Reflections from Three Pioneers of 9/11 Truth Movement,” featuring David Ray Griffin, Niels Harrit, and Steven Jones. While they’ve continued to contribute to the 9/11 Truth effort in different ways, it has been years since we’ve seen Griffin or Jones speak at a conference. And having the three of them join Gage was unforgettable, particularly for those who were active in the earlier days of the 9/11 Truth Movement.

A visibly emotional Gage described how important each of these three pioneers was to his awakening and how important they continue to be to the hopes for a real breakthrough that will convince the world that the official account of 9/11 is false.

The three speakers told of their history in the movement along with their contributions in the forms of books and papers. Jones mentioned his 2018 book 9-11 Research as a Full Professor of Physics and recounted the story of how he lost his position as a professor at Brigham Young University following his publication of a research paper in 2006.

Jones, ever the professor, also gave “homework” to the audience: He assigned them to read the article he co-authored for Europhysics News, titled “15 Years Later: On the Physics of High-Rise Building Collapses,” which now has more than one million downloads, and the “request for correction” submitted to the National Institute of Standards and Technology earlier this year regarding its 2008 report on Building 7.

Griffin, in reviewing his time as a 9/11 scholar, mentioned three of his 9/11 books as particularly standing out for him, both for their popularity and their strength in covering the evidence: The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions; The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé; and Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory. He later added that The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 was actually his best book of all.

Harrit focused on the research papers he has authored. He remarked on the clear-cut evidence for the use of nano-thermite in bringing down the Twin Towers and spoke of the ability of nanotechnology to propel the debris from the buildings both upward and outward for hundreds of yards, as was observed.

Using nanotechnology, he explained, allows for the “tuning” of the materials so that they have the properties desired.

“I believe it’s the nano-thermite acting here, not exactly as an explosive, more in between something you would call an explosive or a propellant, because these are one of the virtues or the options of nano-technology . . .,” Harrit said.

Gage brought the conversation around to the subject of American exceptionalism and the unwillingness of Americans to acknowledge deeply troubling truths about their country. Griffin commented that he had been working on a book on that very subject when he turned to 9/11 for the first time to write The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11 in 2004. Finally, in 2018, the book he had set earlier aside was published under the title The American Trajectory: Divine or Demonic?

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Featured image is from ae911truth.org

Around the time Twitter purged New York Post’s bombshell stories about Hunter Biden from its platform, late last week, Amazon was busy censoring any criticism against the “official” COVID-19 narrative, with the banning of at least one book from its Amazon Books store. 

Political writer James Perloff’s latest book, “Covid-19 and the Agendas to Come: Red-Pilled,” was removed from Amazon on Thursday, he tweeted.

“BAD NEWS. After selling over 3,500 copies for Amazon since publication on August 20, Amazon has banned my book “COVID-19 and the Agendas to Come, Red-Pilled.” Individual orders can still be placed at…” Perloff tweeted.

Perloff spoke with RT News about the incident, which he outlined how Amazon’s act of censorship validates his book’s findings, expressing concern that “the censorship on Covid has been getting progressively stronger, even as the death rate from Covid has been getting progressively lower.”

“We are in a truly Orwellian culture,” he warned.

Perloff said Amazon contacted him on Thursday, asking him to “clarify [his] rights to the book” – something he said was already completed in August when the book went up for sale on the e-commerce platform. As RT explains:

“But before he could finish gathering the material required to prove once again that he owned the global rights to his own work, he received another email from Amazon, this time claiming they had removed his book “during a quality assurance review of [his] catalog” because it “violated content guidelines.””

Amazon’s Response To Perloff

He then “asked them [Amazon] to specify what guidelines [he] had violated,” they responded that the book violated “our content guidelines.”

“We reserve the right to determine whether content provides a poor customer experience and remove the content from the sale,” Amazon said.

After that, Amazon deleted the book from its platform. Using an embedded link on Perloff’s website, directing people to purchase the book on Amazon, one can see below by clicking on the link, that the Amazon page selling the book no longer exists.

According to RT, and perhaps why Amazon removed the book, is that it “traces how the Covid-19 pandemic has been used by governments around the world to force draconian social control measures upon a terrified populace, evaluates several theories regarding the virus’ origin, and offers some projections about what might lie ahead for humanity – including how populations might work together to avoid some of the most totalitarian outcomes.”

Perloff said the book is sourced, with hundreds of references via scholarly journals and other top sources:

“There is nothing I say in the book that isn’t documented,” he said, pointing out that several other coronavirus dissenters are selling their books on the platform without incident.

RT’s Helen Buyniski, who wrote the story on Perloff’s book ban, tweeted that “Bezos nuking his new book exposing the COVID19 New Normal as a global Police State- forewarned is fore-armed, as they say.”

From social media to e-commerce sites, banning alternative views or maybe even the truth, in some cases, if it goes against the official narrative, has become the new normal as America descends deeper into an Orwellian state.

If readers want to hear more about the book, Perloff was recently on a podcast, uploaded to YouTube, discussing how “COVID is threatening to destroy America.”

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One of Shinzo Abe’s legacies inherited by Suga Yoshihide is the Korea bashing. Korea bashing is essentially a by-product of Abe’s racism; it is closely related to Abe’s refusal to admit wartime crimes committed by Japan against Koreans. Korea bashing has taken the form of trade war in which Abe has paid a high price. Ironically, Abe’s Korea bashing has allowed Korea to confront Japan as a sovereign nation and liberate itself from Japan’s new form of colonialism realized in close collaboration with the pro-Japan Korean conservatives

It is hoped that the new prime minister of Japan, Yoshihide Suga revises Japan’s traditional perception of Korea, accepts Korea as equal partner, gives up the misleading myth of the Japanese people’s racial superiority and works hand in hand with Korea for the creation of peaceful, prosperous and just Asia.

Japan’s Korea policy has evolved by two phases, namely, the phase of “Korea controlling” which had lasted 64 years (1948-2012), and the phase of “Korea bashing” which begun in 2012, the year when Abe Shinzo took power. (2012-).

Korea Controlling 

The first phase was actually the continuation of 35-year Japanese colonial period (1910-1945). Japan could control Korea largely owing to the dedicated collaboration of Koreans who had served the Japanese interests; they were the pro-Japan intellectuals, civil servants, policemen, business men and military personnel including Park Chung-hee who was a Japanese army officer in Manchuria. They participated proactively in confiscating land and factories, capturing Korean patriots who resisted Japanese army, conscripting teen age girls for sex slavery and Korean workers for labour slavery.

The irony of Korea’s post-WWII history was the continuation of the Japanese colonialism which may be called Japan’s neo-colonialism imposed on South Korea. It began in 1945 when the U.S. army ruled South Korea through a military government. Having no knowledge of Korea, the American military government hired pro-Japan Koreans who had served the Japanese colonial government. Sygnman Rhee established the first Korean government in 1948 and inherited the same pro-Japan Koreans to run the government. The Korean people protested for hiring these people who were traitors as far as they were concerned. They formed a committee to single out the traitors, but the pro-Japan police destroyed the documents containing the list of traitors and pro-Japan Koreans were able to create a solid foundation to rule Korea.

In 1962, General Park Chung-hee became president after a coup d’état. He was a faithful admirer of Japan; he signed with his own blood the declaration of his dedication to the glory of Japan. He was also very close to Nobusuke Kishi, grandfather of Abe Shinzo.

In 1965, Park Chung-hee signed the Korea-Japan Basic Treaty of normalization for which Korea received $US300 million as grants and US$ 200 million as loans. These funds were provided as Japan’s economic aid. In fact, almost the totality of this money was spent for the construction of social infrastructure, the Pohang Iron and Steel Company and the acquisition of raw materials. It is true that these funds have contributed to the take-off of the Korean economy. But, at the same time, it made Korea’s economy subservient to the Japanese economy.

There was another episode which demonstrated further the subservient status of Korea. In 1963, Park Chung-hee received US$ 66 million from Nobusuke Kishi to establish the first Japan-funded Korean political party, the Democratic Republican Party of Korea (DRPK).

Image on the right is from Money and Markets

From thereon, Japan could dictate the Korea’s public policies. The economic development model was that of the Meiji era based on the collusion between large corporations and the government. Japan provided technologies; Japan invested in Korea taking advantage of cheap labour; Japan created value chain for the benefit of Japanese enterprises. Thus, Japan has played important role in the process of Korea’s economic development, trade and technological development. However, in rerun, Korea was made subservient to Japan. After decades-old trade with Japan, Korea has never had trade surplus with Japan. In other words, Korea has been the object of Japan’s neo-colonialism.

Japan’s neo-colonialism in Korea was possible owing to the collaboration and complicity of pro-Japan Korean conservative force composed of former Korean collaborators, their descendents and a large number of Japanese who adopted Korean names. There were several tens of thousands of Japanese who stayed in Korea for good after the end of WWII. It appears that some of the founders of large corporations are Japanese and their descendents who did not return to Japan.

The pro-Japan conservative force is the linear descendents of the DRPK created by Park Chung-hee in 1963 with the money given by Nobuske Kishi. Since then, the conservative force formed political parties of different names and ruled Korea for 58 years through variety of authoritarian regimes including police dictatorship, military dictatorship, CIA dictatorship made possible by complete control of corrupted courts and media.

The complicity between Japan and the pro-Japan conservatives has resulted in the development of a corruption community and the fruits of economic development have been concentrated in the hand of the conservative vested interest groups depriving the Korean people of their right to share the fruits of economic development.

As long as the conservative force kept power, the Korea-Japan relations have been relatively calm and the subservient status of Korea vis-a-vis Japan has been stable. It is true that there have been occasional frictions in the Korea-Japan relations, but these frictions have been solved by Korea’s conceding to Japanese claims. The typical case was the inter-foreign minister agreement on the issue of the comfort women in 2015. Even President Park Geun-hye, daughter of General Park Chung-hee wanted to receive Japan’s government’s admission and apology for the sex slavery. But under Japan’s pressure, she gave in and produced a document which any right minded Koreans could not accept.

However, when progressive Moon Jae-in took power in 2017, the Korea-Japan relations had to go through radical change, because the pro-Japan conservatives who had been subservient political partner of Japan were no longer there to support Japan’s Korea controlling. Hereon, Japan’s Korea policy changed from “Korea Controlling” to “Korea Bashing”.

Korea Bashing

When Moon Jae-in took over the power in 2017, Abe Shinzo found himself in a rather difficult position for the simple reason that his faithful Korean supporter were out of power. Abe was concerned with two principal sources of Japan-Korea frictions: the North-South peace dialogue and the dispute related to Japan’s war crimes.

To understand the Japan-Korea friction surrounding the North-South peace dialogue, it is useful to point out that, in South Korea, there are, in fact, two Koreas, the pro-Japan conservative Korea (PJK) and pro-Korea Korea (PKK). The core of PJK may be composed of about 1% of the population, that is, about fifty thousand powerful individuals. However, for last 58 years, it has been ruling Korea through dictatorship, fear politics and, at time, rigged elections.

Now, when PKK deals with Japan, it is dealing with Japan (J) plus the PJK. The PJK acts as if it were a part of Japan. This is particularly so, when the issues of the peace dialogue and the colonial history are concerned.

The alliance J-PJK resists the North-South peace dialogue with such force that one wonders why. Here is why. Abe’s Japan prefers permanent tension in the Korean peninsula, because it has facilitated the electoral wins of the far-right conservative party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), led by Abe. Shinzo. Moreover, the peace on the Korean peninsula and the possible unification of Koreas may be a security threat for Japan.

Now, as for the pro-Japan Korea conservative, PJK, the North-South tension has been one of the best electoral allies. Besides, the tension brings a lot of bribe money deriving from the transactions of weapons. Unfortunately for PJK and Abe, the North-South peace dialogue meant the end of political and financial advantages.

There was another reason for Abe’s decision to punish the progressive government of Moon Je-in. This reason was more important than the North-South peace dialogue. It was the issue of the interpretation of Japan’s colonial past. Japan wanted to forget the wartime crimes of imperial Japan. The devoted pro-Japan Koreans also wanted to forget the past because they did all the dirty works for these crimes.

That is, Japan and PJK were co-offenders of these war time crimes.

The pro-Japan governments of Lee Myong-bak (2007-2012) and Park Geun-hye (2013-2017) wanted to forget the past because of their guilty feeling or the fear of revenge by the former patriots and their descendents. As for Abe, he does not want to admit Japan’s war crimes, because, in his mindset, the Japanese being the Yamato-race (race of the divine emperor) could not and did not commit such crimes.

The wish of Japan and PJK to forget their war time wrong doings has resulted in the rewriting of school history text- books. In fact, both in Japan and Korea under PJK, the story of the crimes of sex slavery and other horror stories were taken out from the school history text-books. Moreover, the Japanese invasion is reported to be motivated for the development of poor Korea.

It is interesting to add that Japan has been funding generously “scholarly works” in Korea conducted by the “New Right” pro-Japan assembly of far-right intellectuals and even some of the misled Christians in order to hide Japan’s war crimes and at the same time to justify and glorify Japan’s Korea invasion. Another function of the New Right movement has been that of making Koreans feel inferior to Japanese.

As it is shown above, the Japan-Korea relations had been relatively stable for the simple reason that the PJK was acting as colonized servants and doing what Japan had asked to do. This has suddenly changed. The government of Moon Jae-in took power and spoiled the whole thing for the alliance J-PJK. Korea has begun to behave as an independent country, not a country subservient to Japan. This has profoundly annoyed mighty Abe Shinzo and the whip of Korea bashing begun to hit hard the country of morning cal, which has come less calm.

Abe Shinzo decided to bash Korea because Moon Jae-in asked Abe to admit one of Japan’s wrong doings in the past, namely, the labour slavery of armies of Korean workers. During WWII, Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, conscripted 670,000 Korans and forced them to work as slaves in Japanese mines and factories. There was no pay for the workers; they had to live under living conditions so bad that every year 25,000 workers had to be replaced because of deaths and diseases. After the war, some of the victims claimed compensation for their work and suffering. But, the Japanese government refused, because, by paying the compensation, Japan had to admit its crimes, which Abe would not accept.

The victims went to the Japanese court with no results. Then, they appealed to the Korea courts. And, on October 30, 2018, the Supreme Court of Korea ordered the Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal and the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to pay the victims. These companies were the principal Japanese companies which enslaved Korean workers during WWII. It was reported that these companies were ready to pay, but Abe ordered them not to do so. This was the starting line of the trade war between the two countries.

The Japan-Korea negotiation for the payment of compensation lasted a year with no results. Then, on July 1, 2019, Abe shot the first salve of the trade war. He restricted the exports of three chemicals – fluorinated polyimide, resists and hydrogen fluoride – essential for the production of semiconductors. The Korean producers of semiconductors and mobile phones including the Samsung Group and the LG as well as SK depended heavily on the imports of Japanese chemicals.

Abe’s declaration of the trade war was undoubtedly the retaliation to the Korean Supreme Court ruling. But, Abe wanted to ignore the ruling, because, if he accepted the ruling, he was admitting the labour slavery. Abe needed some other reasons for the justification of his trade war. He thought that he found the reason; this was provided by no other person than Suga Yoshihide, the new prime minister of Japan who was then the Chief Cabinet Secretary came up with unbelievable story; he said that the trade war was needed in order to prevent South Korea from sending some strategic technologies to North Korea. But, it turned out that it was rather Japan that had been smuggling such technologies into North Korea for money.

Seeing that Korea was insisting on honouring the Supreme Court ruling, Ave shot the second salve of the trade war. On August 2, 2019, Abe put South Korea off the “White List” which is the list of countries which enjoy the privileged trade treatment. Korea reacted promptly. On August 12, 2019, Korea eliminated Japan from Korea’s White List. Such action of Korea would have been just impossible under the government of pro-Japan conservatives, for the conservatives think that the only way to keep power and perpetuate all sorts of privileges is to please Japan.

Abe seemed to think that Korea would give up its claims. He was right in part, for the pro-Japan conservative media led by thr Chosun Ilbo, the Joong-ang Ilbo and the Dong-ah Ilbo (the Cho-Joong-Dong) were advising the progressive government of Moon Jae-in to give in. On its part, the pro-Japan conservative party, the Unified Future Part (now Party of People’s Strength) was arguing that, if Korea does not give in, the Korean economy would be ruined.

But, in the Korea-Japan trade war, Japan lost for two reasons: the proactive reaction of Korean enterprises and people’s united movement of “Boycotting of Japanese Goods!” (BJG).

At first, Korean producers of semiconductors and other telecommunication producers were much worried, but they could overcome the difficulties through the development of their own technology of the three chemicals on the one hand, and on the other, the diversification of the sources of product imports. The results are surprising. Korea has become almost self sufficient in the production of the three chemicals.

Thus, Korea became free, at last, from economic and political dependence on Japan.

Many Koreans are saying that Korea is finally liberated from Japan’s neo-colonialism.

The Japanese producers of these chemicals relied much on Samsung and other Korean companies for their exports. The exports of the chemicals has decreased so much that they were having serious problem of decreasing product sales. One solution was to relocate their plants to Korea. In fact, a number of Japanese firms moved to Korea.

Image below is from Oriental Review

Abe’s trade war does not seem to hurt Korean firms. In fact, 84% of Korean firms doing business with Japanese firms say that they are not affected; 91% say that their competitiveness is not weakened.

The more serious negative impact of Abe’s trade war with Korea was Korean people’s spontaneous movement of BJG. The Korean conservative media, the Cho-Joong-Dong, was stating that the BJG would last only a few weeks. But it lasted more than one year, it is still going on.

By August, 2019, the sale of Japanese cars in Korea dropped by 57%; the sale of Japanese beer fell by 97%; the sale of Japanese cosmetics was cut down y more than 60%. Above all, Korean tourists who account for more than 25% of Japanese tourism fell by 90%. In some Japanese regions, Korean tourists account for as much as 80% of total tourism of the regions. Thus, the adverse impact of Abe’s ill conceived trade war with Korea has imposed very high cost on Japan.

There is another cost of Abe’s trade war, namely, Japan’s loss of the bilateral cooperation for the exchange of confidential military information. In 2016, Korea – under the conservative government of Park Geun-hye – and Japan signed the Global Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA). By virtue of this agreement, each country should share military information.

What Japan wanted was the information on the movement of North Korea’s armed forces, especially the handling of ICBM which can threaten Japan. Given its geographical situation, South Korea knows the state of North Korea’s missile launching before Japan. Therefore, the GSOMIA is very precious to Japan. On the other hand, the military information provided by Japan to Korea has little usefulness. In short, the agreement is much more important to Japan than it is to Korea. But, because of Abe’s trade war against Korea, on August 23, 2019 Korea said it could withdraw from GSOMIA. If this happens, Japan would lose precious military information on North Korea. Nonetheless, Korea was generous enough to renew the agreement for one more year.

To sum up, the post-WWII Korea-Japan relations have evolved so far from Korea-controlling to Korea-bashing.

But the post-Abe Korea-Japan relations should be one of mutual respect and mutual cooperation. The pro-Japan (PJK) conservative force in Korea is still there but it is not strong enough to exert any significant influences on the bilateral relations between the country of morning calm and the country of rising sun.

With Suga, it may be possible to open a new era of Korea-Japan relations of peace and cooperation. But, such relations require some preconditions.

First, Suga should change Japan’s perception of Korea. Up to now, as indicated above, Japan has treated Korea subservient inferior country. Japan should accept it as a sovereign country and treat it as equal. Korea has become a global middle power; it is 12th global economic power; it is one of the leading military powers in Asia, it is highly respected for its contribution to global trade and security; it is envied for its success in the antivirus war.

Above all, owing to the leadership of Moon Jae-in, Korea has become one of the few people- friendly democracies.

Second, Suga should refrain from trying to intervene in Korea’s internal policy and international relations through the pro-Japan conservatives. It is true that the PJK has been uncontested force; it has been effective collaborator for the continuation of Japan’s neo-colonialism. But, in all probability, it will have difficulty in helping Japan. It is advisable for Japan to keep distance from the PJK. In this way, the Korea-Japan relations can be mutually beneficial.

Third, Suga should accept the Kono statement. In August 1993, Kono Yohei who was the Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan made a statement in which he explicitly admitted and apologised for the sex slavery against Korean teen-age girls. Abe does not recognize the Kono statement and the truth of the crime is omitted in the school textbooks. It is advisable to make school history textbooks faithful to the history. This allows a fresh start of the Korea-Japan relations. Some people argue that one can separate the issue of war-time crimes and economic relations. Such argument may look attractive, but unless the issue of the war-time crimes are cleared up, it is difficult to develop bilateral relations based on trust.

Fourth, Japan should not hinder the North-South peace dialogue. It is about the time to stop relying on the North-South tension for electoral wins and financial gains.

Fifth, Suga should recognize the heavy price Japan had to pay for the ill conceived trade war with Korea. It is hoped that Japan and Korea declare the end of the trade war and promote mutually beneficial trade.

To close, we are all behind the new Prime Minister, Suga Yoshihide for his task of restoring peaceful, stable, prosperous and especially racism-free Japan.

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Professor Joseph H. Chung is professor of economics and co-director of the East Asia Observatory (OAE) of the Study Center for Integration and Globalization (CEIM), Quebec University in Montreal (UQAM). He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

The sudden outbreak of multisided violence in Nigeria’s largest city is pushing Africa’s most populous country towards the nightmare scenario of full-fledged destabilization which could have tremendous humanitarian and geopolitical consequences if it isn’t stopped before the situation spirals even further out of control.

Although Guyana’s newly discovered oil reserves and US interests in the region have been the focus of attention, not many analysts have been noticing neighboring Suriname, one of Latin America’s poorest countries.

Guyana’s prospects have certainly changed tremendously – its economy was forecasted by the IMF to grow 85% percent this year. We should expect similar things in Suriname with the discovery of new oil fields offshore that are estimated to have  1.4 billion barrels, according to Rystad Energy. This has already attracted interest from foreign investors.

The wider Guyana-Suriname Basin is being described as the world’s number one offshore exploration. ExxonMobil has already discovered the equivalent of more than 8 billion barrels worth of oil in the region and has announced its 18th oil discovery in the Stabroek block in Guyana. Oil experts believe that what Exxon is doing in Guyana can be reproduced in Suriname.

Last month, after three discoveries, oil company Apache announced a fourth offshore well, all in Suriname’s Block 58. Recently, Shell bought a package of Kosmos Energy’s exploration assets, including a 33% stake in Suriname’s Block 42. Malaysian oil company Petronashas already spudded its first well in Suriname on October 12.

In fact, this makes Suriname a potentially future wealthy petro-state. This in itself is sure to place the country on the international radar soon, and this is happening at a time of crisis.

This region is indeed rich in national resources. In fact, there is also a new gold rush going on – gold prices have gone up 25% this year – with conflicts in the Brazilian-Suriname border region between local indigenous tribes and artisanal miners from Suriname and elsewhere. Such problems could be used in the narrative wars depending on how leaders in the Suriname capital of Paramaribo position themselves on the Venezuela issue. The issue of drug trafficking and gold smuggling is one of the main rhetorical weapons employed by the US against Venezuela.

Furthermore, Chinese aspirations in the Caribbean region and the Northeastern Atlantic coast of South America have been increasing friction between Beijing and Washington. Suriname has seen a recent wave of Chinese companies and Chinese migrants arrive. Also, Beijing and Paramaribo have held a strategic cooperative partnership since November 2019 – in areas such as communication, energy and infrastructure construction but also medicine, law enforcement and coordination on global issues.  Moreover, Suriname and Venezuela reaffirmed on August 10 their commitment to further expand ties, including in energy, food, and cultural agreements.

Mike Pompeo’s September 17 visit to Suriname and Guyana made him the first US Secretary of State to do so. Pompeo did ask Suriname and Guyana to favor US businesses over China. The latter has invited both South American countries into its Belt and Road Initiative.

In the near future, we can expect a lot of competition between oil giants such as Chevron, ExxonMobil and the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) over Surinamese oil in international bidding. And, as we have seen with the dispute over  5G and Chinese company Huawei (involving Brazil as well), there is a global US-Chinese trade war going on. So, it is not just “the attraction of oil”, as some analysts have described it. Trade disputes often are an aspect of geopolitical competition and closer economic relations may accompany cooperation in other areas and narratives of “shared values”.

Another hot issue is Venezuela. It is surrounded by nations that do not recognize the current government. It borders to the west with Colombia; to south with Brazil; and, finally with Guyana (to the East). In fact, there would be, in terms of physical continuity, a straight line towards the Atlantic Ocean in the Guyana Shield Region of small countries aligned with the US over hostilities against Caracas, further isolating and encircling Venezuela.

After Pompeo’s trip, some analysts are concerned the US could be planning another intervention against Venezuela. Pompeo’s visit to Suriname was certainly also aimed at exerting some influence on Suriname ‘s new president Chan Santokhi. Last week, Washington sent Homeland, Treasury, USAID, State Department, and high level teams from three other Departments to Suriname. It is the first time that six American government agencies were simultaneously in a mission in Suriname.

To counter Chinese influence, the US can certainly offer plenty of investment opportunities and also help Suriname with its engagement with the IMF, as well as with USAID. Should Washington and Paramaribo relations further develop, Suriname shall be expected to distance itself from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Venezuela is the one hot issue the Caricom bloc, of which Suriname is a member, currently faces. So far, Caricom has maintained a non-interference position.

The northeast coast of South America remains quite tense, with migration crises, smuggling as well as narcotics-related conflicts and border disputes involving Venezuela and Guyana. The US and Guyana conduct joint maritime patrols near the Venezuela-Guyana border and the latter supports “democratic change” for Venezuela. Should Venezuela-Guyana tensions escalate, Suriname too will be pressed to take a side.

On Monday, Suriname and Guyana issued a joint statement reaffirming their commitment for cooperation in transportation infrastructure and other areas. However, competition between the two countries for the development of their deepwater resources may also ensue and Suriname’s close ties with Venezuela are certainly a concern to Guyana.

We should be hearing a lot about Suriname in the near future on the back of these developments. The discovery of oil fields is not the only thing that is new for Suriname. The geopolitical scenario too has changed, with a so-called “new cold war” going on in South America and the Caribbean between Russia, China and Venezuela on one side, and the US, Colombia, and Brazil on the other.

For Suriname, therefore, the current scenario may present an almost existential problem. Considering US history of interference abroad and the tense situation around Venezuela, Suriname could very well find out that being in the spotlight might also be a curse. In 2017 when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Suriname, Moscow and Paramaribo were close to signing a military cooperation agreement – but the conversation stalled. Suriname would perhaps benefit greatly from restarting such a conversation. Due to its size and its limitations, Suriname cannot afford to be “neutral”: it will need to take a side in the current “new cold war”.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.

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It was just a matter of time before another claim of Russian US election meddling officially surfaced.

On Wednesday, it included Iran — despite no credible evidence ever showing foreign interference in the US electoral process. 

What could a foreign nation hope to achieve by meddling in so-called US elections.

Farcical when held, their outcomes assure dirty business as usual continuity every time.

It’s how the US one-party state with two right wings operates.

Ordinary Americans have no say over how they’re governed or by whom in high places.

Fantasy democracy defines the US system — how it’s been from inception, powerful interests running things, assuring governance of, by, and for them exclusively at the expense of ordinary people.

Election meddling abroad is a longstanding US specialty — dozens of countries targeted throughout the post-WW II period, including Russia and Iran.

Key to understand is when no credible evidence corroborates accusations, they’re baseless.

No legitimate tribunal would pronounce a defendant guilty if charges aren’t backed by hard facts proving them.

In US pre-trial judicial proceedings, all parties are supposed to be afforded the right to full disclosure of alleged evidence backing charges or other claims — nothing allowed to be secret.

Defendants notably have the right to relevant documents, witness depositions, questions and answers from interrogations, crime scene and other forensic evidence including toxicology results, police reports, “raw evidence,” arrest and search warrants, grand jury testimony, and other relevant data.

It’s to assure fairness in judicial proceedings — or at least a greater amount than would otherwise be the case.

Unlike Hollywood or made-for-television crime dramas, surprise evidence during proceedings rarely surfaces.

The Big Lie about Russian US 2016 election meddling refuses to die.

Repeating the claim ahead of the US November 3 presidential election — Russia and Iran accused — lacks credibility because once again, no supportive evidence was presented, showing none exists.

On Wednesday, DNI John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Chris Wray accused Russia and Iran of taking “specific actions” to influence and interfere in US November 3 elections.

Ratcliffe: “(W)e have confirmed (sic) that some voter registration information has been obtained by Iran, and separately by Russia (sic),” adding:

“This data can be used by (these countries) to attempt to communicate false information to registered voters that they hope will cause confusion (sic), so chaos and undermine your confidence in American democracy (sic).”

Ratcliffe claimed that “Iran (is) sending spoofed emails…to intimidate voters (sic),” adding:

“…Iran is distributing other content to include a video that implies that individuals could cast fraudulent ballots, even from overseas (sic).”

“Although we have not seen the same actions from Russia, we are aware that they have obtained some voter information just as they did in 2016 (sic).”

FBI Director Wray made similar remarks about what he called “malign foreign influence operations and election related crimes, like voter fraud and voter suppression or intimidation (sic).”

Neither Ratcliffe or Wray presented evidence backing their claims because there is none.

A similar pattern repeats with disturbing regularity against nations unwilling to subordinate their sovereign rights to US interests — notably against Russia, China and Iran.

In response to Monday US charges of “disruptive actions on cyberspace (by six alleged) Russian military intelligence officers” — including against Ukraine, Georgia, “the 2017 French elections and the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the following:

“As usual, no evidence has been presented, except for the hackneyed phrases about Russia’s ‘implication’ in a wide range of destructive activities in the information landscape,” adding:

“We categorically reject this kind of speculation.”

“Russian state agencies have nothing to do with any malicious activity on the internet, as Washington is trying to portray.”

“It is obvious that there are opportunistic political considerations behind this move, the US Russophobic forces’ interest in keeping the ‘Russian threat’ theme afloat in the midst of the US presidential election campaign.”

In response to charges by Britain’s Foreign Office, falsely accusing “Russia’s military intelligence service (of) conduct(ing) cyber reconnaissance against officials and organizations at the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games due to take place in Tokyo this summer before they were postponed (sic),” Moscow’s envoy to the UK Andrey Kelin said the following:

“I have a feeling that this is a coordinated (US/UK) campaign that will unfold in several waves.”

“It is a support act Washington now needs, a social put-up job ahead of the upcoming elections to keep on placing all the blame on Russia in a bid to (blame Russia for) whatever happens in America.”

“So it is quite expectable that Russia will be held to blame in case the Republicans lose the race.”

“Likewise, it will be blamed by the (Dems) if they lose.”

With US elections less than two weeks away, Iranian President Rouhani’s chief of staff Mahmoud Vaezi said the following:

“It will make no difference to us which party wins the (US) election, as our policy is clear and definite,” adding:

The US is shifting “its attention to foreign issues” to divert from the dismal domestic state of things in the country.

On Thursday, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh debunked the phony DNI/FBI charges, saying:

“In addition to rejecting the repeated claims as well as fabricated, clumsy and fraudulent reports of US regime officials, the Islamic Republic of Iran reiterates that it makes no difference for Tehran which of the two current (US) candidates will enter the White House.”

“It is not far-fetched that the designers of such childish scenarios seek to divert public attention and make suspicious provocations before the (November presidential election) vote.”

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Pixabay

Dr. Gary Magdar, a dentist in Ontario, and founder of Gold tent TA Paradise, created the following graph to show how helpful masks have been in slowing the second wave in the United States:

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Yep, masks are truly the pinnacle of modern medicine: Fending off evil corona spirits with all the effectiveness of a lucky rabbit’s foot and a pinch of salt over the left shoulder.

Studies show that wearing a mask damp with “enemy droplets” increases bacterial infection rates; but does a mask increase viral infection rates? The above chart suggests it might. At best, it shows masks have helped stop infection rates as much as Twitter has helped illiteracy rates.

More importantly, however, the above chart suggests that the second wave has more to do with increased testing rather than an increased infection rate. The first, flatter curve could easily be labelled “1st wave without PCR tests.” As Drs. Karina Reiss, PhD and Sucharit Bakdi, MD confirm in Corona: False Alarm?:

“The more tests are performed, the more COVID-19 cases are found during the epidemic. This is the essence of a laboratory-created pandemic.”

And, of course, the number of positive test results will increase with the number of amplification cycles used in PCR testing. As The New York Times wrote: “In three sets of testing data that include cycle thresholds, compiled by officials in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada, up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus…”

In my own province of Ontario “COVID cases” are “surging.” Yet, we are using a very high cycle threshold. In this video, you can see Randy Hillier, a member of Ontario parliament, posing the following question to the Premier at a legislative assembly in September:

Image on the right: Randy Hillier, a brave soldier of truth, questioning the Premier about his faulty COVID tests at Ontario’s provincial parliament.

“We know high false positive rates are due to high [cycle thresholds] and Canadian and world experts agree it should not be more than 25 cycles. Yet, according to the Journal of [Clinical] Virology, Ontario labs are testing samples at 38-45 cycles… When did the Premier become aware of these faulty tests and practices? And why have you done nothing to fix them since at least July?”

The Premier, however, was absent; while the Health Minister dodged the question with all the grace of a newborn giraffe.

In September, The Westphalian Times queried provincial health authorities across the country asking for the cycle thresholds. Here’s what they got back: “Ontario, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and Saskatchewan refused to share their PCR testing information. British Columbia said they did not have the ‘capacity’ to retrieve this information… Alberta and New Brunswick failed to respond to our requests at all.”

Quebec health authorities, however, reported using a 45 PCR cycle threshold. Interesting, isn’t it, that they also have so many “cases”?

Whether masks produce more supposed “COVID cases” is yet to be proven. Yet it seems obvious that hyper-sensitive, unapproved and rampant testing for a common-cold virus does produce more cases.

Of course, most are not really cases. Even the positive ones. A COVID-19 case refers to someone with severe respiratory problems who tests positive for SARS-COV-2. People who aren’t even aware they are infected, don’t count. At least, not in reality. However, on TV, in newspapers and in big government, anything seems possible.

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John C. A. Manley has spent over a decade ghostwriting for medical doctors, as well as naturopaths, chiropractors and Ayurvedic physicians. He publishes the COVID-19(84) Red Pill Briefs – an email-based newsletter dedicated to preventing the governments of the world from using an exaggerated pandemic as an excuse to violate our freedom, health, privacy, livelihood and humanity. He is also writing a novel, Brave New Normal: A Dystopian Love Story. Visit his website at: MuchAdoAboutCorona.ca. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Nearly everyone has heard the comment attributed for former Clinton consigliere Rahm Emanuel that one should never let a good crisis go to waste. The implication of the comment is that if there is a major crisis going on the cover it provides permits one to do all sorts of things under the radar that would otherwise be unacceptable. That aphorism is particularly true in the current context as there are multiple crises taking place simultaneously, all of which are being exploited to various degrees by interested parties.

One of the more interesting stories carefully hidden by the smoke being generate by civil unrest, plague and personal scandals is the continued march of American militarism. The story is particularly compelling as neither main party candidate is bothering to talk about it and there is no discussion of foreign policy even planned for the final presidential debate. Last week eccentric multi billionaire Elon Musk announced that he and the Pentagon are developing a new 7,500 m.p.h. missile capable of delivering 80 tons of military cargo nearly anywhere in the world in under an hour. It would undoubtedly be a major advanced capability catering to those military planners who envision continued U.S. intervention worldwide for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, agreement on a new START treaty that would limit the proliferation of some hypersonic weapon systems is stalled because the White House wants to include China in any deal. Beijing is not interested, particularly as Donald Trump is also claiming that Beijing will pay for the multi-trillion dollar stimulus packages that the United States will ultimately require to combat the coronavirus “… because this was not caused by our workers and our people, this was caused by China and China will pay us back in one form or another. We’re gonna take it from China. I tell you now, it’s coming out of China. They’re the ones that caused this problem.”

Indeed, China and Russia continue to be the boogeymen trotted out regularly to scare Americans. Last week Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s State Department issued a statement warning that “some foreign governments, such as those of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Russian Federation, seek to exert influence over U.S. foreign policy through lobbyists, external experts, and think tanks.” Why the statement was issued at this time, so close to elections is unclear, though it is possibly an attempt to line up possible scapegoats if the electoral process does not produce results acceptable to whomever loses. In fact, Russia and China hardly find a place on the list of those who fund lobbyists and think tanks.

Also of interest is another story about how Washington has chosen to interact with the world, one involving both enemy du jour Iran and Venezuela. Readers will undoubtedly recall how the United States seized in international waters four Greek owned but Liberian flagged tankers loaded with gasoline that were bound for Venezuela. The tankers were transporting more than a million gallons of fuel to economic basket case Venezuela, a country which is in its sad condition due to sanctions and other “maximum pressure” imposed by Washington, which has also sanctioned Venezuela’s own oil industry. The fuel was seized based on unilaterally imposed U.S. sanctions on Iranian sale or export of its own petroleum products, a move intended to strangle the Iranian economy and bring about an uprising of the Iranian people. As the sanctions imposed by Washington are not supported by the United Nations or by any other legal authority, the seizure is little more than exercise of a bit of force majeure that used to be called piracy.

Even though foreign and national security policy has not really been discussed in either the Biden or Trump campaign, there is general agreement in both parties that Venezuela is a rogue regime that must be replaced while Iran is an actual, tangible threat due to its alleged misbehavior in the Middle East. It has been dubbed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo the “number one state sponsor of terrorism in the world.” Saner voices have observed that neither Venezuela nor Iran threaten the United States in any way and that the U.S. and Israel continue to kill many more civilians than Iran ever has, but they have been drowned out by the media talking heads who constantly spout the established narrative.

Well, the alleged Iranian fuel has arrived in New Jersey and a legal battle for custody of it has begun.  The fuel had been removed from the Greek tankers and transferred to other tankers for removal to the United States but the complication is that the Trump administration must now prove its case for forfeiture before the oil can be sold. The U.S. justification for seizing the cargoes is the claim that the fuel was an asset of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which the Treasury, Justice and State Departments have conveniently designated a foreign terrorist organization. But that contention is disputed by the cargoes’ owners, who claim to have nothing to do with the IRGC. They include other energy exporters and shippers in the Middle East, namely Mobin International Limited, Oman Fuel Trading Ltd and Sohar Fuel Trading LLC FZ. They have filed a motion for dismissal and are seeking return of the fuel plus additional compensation for the losses they have suffered. One has to hope they win as it is the United States that is in the wrong in this case.

The entire saga of the tankers and the fuel is symptomatic of the undeclared economic warfare that the United States now prefers to use when dealing with adversaries. And there is considerable evidence to suggest that Washington is trying to goad Iran into responding with force, providing the U.S. government with a plausible rationale for responding in kind. President Trump has directly threatened Iran in an October 9th public statement in which he promised the Iranians that “If you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are gonna do things to you that have never been done before.”

So, Washington’s aggression directed against much of the world continues with a national election less than two weeks away but no one is talking about it. That would seem odd in and of itself, but the sad part is that it is deliberate collusion on the part of government and media to make sure the voting public remains unaware the extent to which the United States has in reality become a pariah, a full-time bully in its foreign relations.

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

Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany will be completed and become operational in early 2021.

On Wednesday, Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak announced the following:

“Nord Stream 2 will go operational by the end of 2020.”

“One of the ships that can be used to finalize it is now in the Far East. Some time will be required for extra preparations.”

Earlier after the Swiss-based pipe-laying firm Allseas pulled out of the project in response to threatened US sanctions, Novak said Russia is able to complete pipeline construction on its own — without help from foreign contractors.

When operational, it’ll deliver 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually to Germany and other European countries annually.

Underhanded Trump regime efforts to halt the project failed — yet its hardliners haven’t ceased trying.

In July, the Trump regime threatened sanctions on companies involved in Nord Stream 2’s construction.

At the time, Pompeo falsely claimed the project and Turkstream gas pipeline “strengthen Russia’s ability to use its energy resources to coerce our European partners and allies (sic),” adding:

“The projects would hinder the process of European energy diversification (sic).”

“These projects could also severely limit gas transit through Ukraine, depriving the Ukrainian government of significant transit revenues and reducing a large deterrent against further Russian aggression against Ukraine (sic).”

The US National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2020 included sanctions on enterprises involved in Nord Stream 2.

Unlawful US actions slowed but failed to halt work on the project.

On Tuesday, citing section 7503(d) of the US FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) titled “Protecting Europe’s Energy Security Act (PEESA) of 2019 (sic), the State Department defied reality, saying:

“Russia uses its energy export pipelines to create national and regional dependencies on Russian energy supplies, leveraging these dependencies to expand its political, economic, and military influence, weaken European security, and undermine US national security and foreign policy interests (sic).”

“These pipelines also reduce European energy diversification, and hence weaken European energy security (sic).”

The above and related remarks are code language for pressuring Europe to buy high-cost US NLG over 30% cheaper and readily available Russian gas via Nord Stream 1 and 2.

PEESA calls for vessels involved in Nord Stream 2 to “immediately cease construction-related activity…wind(ing) down” their operations.

The US diktat applies to “involved parties that have knowingly sold, leased, or provided vessels that are engaged in pipe laying at depths of 100 feet or more below sea level for the construction of Nord Stream 2.”

Parties not complying with the US diktat face sanctions as explained in PEESA.

On Tuesday, the State Department expanded threatened sanctions on firms involved in Nord Stream 2 construction.

It targeted enterprises that “provid(e) services or facilities for upgrades or installation of equipment for” vessels involved in the project.

They also target companies that provide “funding for upgrades or installation of equipment for those vessels.”

In response to the above announcement, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the following:

“(T)his is…an unfriendly and destructive policy of constant introduction of different restrictions against us, our economic operators and our economy.”

“(T)his this has already become an integrant part of of the unfair competition, Washington’s overt raider competition policy.”

Along with countless other hostile US actions, many in flagrant breach of international law, US hardliners “have been pursuing this destructive policy (against Nord Stream 2) for over a year, and it certainly damages our bilateral relations.”

Last month, Pompeo said the Trump regime is “working (on) build(ing) a coalition (of European countries) that prevents” Nord Stream 2’s completion.

The August Navalny novichok poisoning hoax was either part of the diabolical plot to undermine Nord Stream 2’s completion or the Trump regime is using his illness for this purpose.

Construction on the project continues. Germany’s support for its completion is key.

Angela Merkel’s government values low-cost Russian natural gas.

Days earlier, German Foreign Minister Heiko Mass said Nord Stream 2 will be completed.

It’s not it but “when this will happen. We make decisions about our energy policy and energy supply here — in Europe.”

As things now stand, the project will be completed and begin delivering Russian gas to Germany and other European countries early in the new year.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Asia Times

Washington could be organizing a color revolution and mass protests in Moldova like the ones that have already gripped Belarus and Kyrgyzstan. The Moldovan elections are scheduled for November 1 and have eight presidential candidates participating. The main rivals however are current President Igor Dodon, considered “pro-Russian,” and former Prime Minister Maia Sandu, considered “pro-European.”

There is a combination of internal and external factors at play in Moldova, something that has come to typically define the post-Soviet space. There is constant internal instability when considering the breakaway region of Transnistria, weak statehood, many conflicting ideological interest groups, and active attempts to get Moldova into the NATO and EU sphere of influence. This is what makes Moldova at high risk of experiencing a color revolution after the upcoming presidential elections if Dodon is re-elected.

According to polls and local experts, the first round of the presidential election may not determine the winner. Dodon, who aims to bring Moldova closer to Russia via the Eurasian Economic Union, and Sandu, who is considered the country’s main pro-Western politician, will likely compete against each other in the second round of voting. Polls show that Dodon has greater support from citizens, but not enough to win in the first round.

The director of the Russian Intelligence Service, Sergei Naryshkin, warned that the U.S. was preparing a color revolution in Moldova and highlighted that Washington would continue to interfere in the internal affairs of states friendly to Moscow, especially those along Russia’s borders. According to him, a color revolution could occur after the Moldovan presidential elections. The reason is Washington’s dissatisfaction with Dodon as he supports constructive relations with members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, particularly Russia.

The U.S. State Department ordered its embassy in the Moldovan capital of Chisinau to encourage the opposition to organize mass protests to demand an annulment if Dodon is re-elected. According to Russian secret services, U.S. diplomats are also trying to persuade Moldovan security forces not to interfere in possible street protests and to immediately “side with the people.”

Many Moldovan experts also warn of a possible coup attempt. Sandu, who sees the country as part of the EU family and supports the idea of ​​uniting Moldova with Romania, has already accused local authorities of preparing to falsify the election results and called on her supporters to prepare for protests. However, if Dodon is re-elected, it is likely his supporters will not allow the opposition to question the election results. As recently as last week, Dodon talked about preparing for a potential color revolution attempt.

The destabilization of the post-Soviet space has all the signs of a planned and coordinated campaign to pressurize Russia by creating hotspots on or near its borders. The U.S. is the only country in the world that has enough resources and motivation to organize persistent and constant campaigns and has been actively indifferent or encouraging destabilization in countries on or near Russia’s frontiers, whether it be Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia-Azerbaijan or elsewhere.

This has been a consistent policy since the collapse of the Soviet Union when we consider how the 1990’s was dominated by manufactured coups, rebellions and revolutions in many former Soviet Republics, including Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Armenia and other neighbors or near neighbors of Russia.

Now that the U.S. is on the verge of a presidential election, the State Department and U.S. special services are attempting to weaken Russia and other geopolitical opponents. In other words, destabilization along Russia’s borders is part of a campaign to curb and undermine the country’s economic, political and technological capabilities. Because of Russia’s independent foreign and economic policies, size and resources, the Eurasian country poses a threat to U.S. global domination. It is for this reason that tensions, wars, riots and revolutions are constantly erupting near Russia’s borders, but at the same time Washington persistently points out that its national interest is to ensure peace, democracy and stability in countries that border Russia.

Although Moldova does not directly border Russia, it is a former Soviet Republic that still maintains cordial relations with Moscow. Moldova is a gateway that connects Eastern Europe to the Balkans. A potential Dodon re-election will once again prohibit any EU and NATO advancement towards the border of Russia.

This makes a color revolution against his re-election all the more necessary so that Moldova can potentially be the next country that borders Ukraine to become an EU and/or NATO member state. With another neighbor of Ukraine becoming an EU and/or NATO member, the eventual path of Kiev’s accession into those two organizations will become easier to navigate. This means the largest European country to border Russia, Ukraine, will be even more integrated into a system to pressurize Moscow.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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Understanding the world we live in seems more confusing than ever, and, advanced technology is part of the problem, presenting information not always reliable and bringing to the front real and fake conspiracies. Our attention, often hostage of social media, can easily become addicted to noises and flashes losing us in pursuing nonsense. It becomes difficult to listen to our thoughts, or develop them, reflect and grow. To get to the reality of things, normally difficult, seems next to impossible in a world with so much “noise.” And yet, critical thinking can find in the net a tool that puts valuable information at our fingertips. Among the chaos we can find valuable pieces, bring them forth and learn to understand a pattern often hidden to us by our managers. Can we overcome this fog? Can we find our way despite the confusion and survive as a species?

A visible aerosol of tiny water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air, a low-lying cloud, fog limits visibility. A state of mental confusion affecting the brain, fog limits capacity to focus, access memory, concentrate, use logic and problem solving. Associated with mental fatigue, brain fog, can result from stress, lack of sleep, hormonal changes, diet deficiencies, medications, and a number of medical conditions. (1)

Distracted…

In her book, “Distracted,” Maggie Jackson argues that our inability to think clearly can result from the erosion of our attention and be connected to advanced communication technologies. Many think these technologies promote well informed people and close-knit communities, she says, but they are causing the opposite. Modern societies are more ignorant and fragmented; an increased number of competing calls for our attention erodes it and can lead to the erosion of society itself. (2)

Caroline Beaton, also concerned with shrinking average attention span, believes we face a competition between our evolution -who we evolved to be, and the demands of civilization. The Microsoft Canada (2015) study she mentions showed that average attention span (the amount of concentrated time on a task without becoming distracted) is shorter than before. It was 12 seconds in 2008 but only 8 seconds 5 years later -a second less than that of a goldfish. In productivity per day terms, she points, distractions and recovery time from email, the web, instant messaging and interruptions, made the average knowledge worker lose 2.2 hours a day costing the US $588 billion per year. (3)

Modern humans and society changed Beaton argues, what was instinctively right for our ancestors in the savannah -a focus on new information on safety, weather, food and movement, is no longer right for us. The internet and advanced technology surround us with informotion –a melt of information and movement. Our higher conscious mind might realize that checking email, browsing social media and running down the YouTube rabbit hole isn’t fulfilling, productive or important, (but) our instincts tell us that’s exactly what we should be doing.”  We are competing with what we evolved to do while civilization rewards ignoring these things to focus instead on “staying still and single minded long enough to concentrate and produce something valuable.”  It is a challenge that, as technology produces faster informotion, it becomes increasingly difficult to overcome and have the self control needed to succeed. (3)

Deep life: Beyond “elite of thinkers” and “mass of followers”

Whether our attention is eroded or we are simply incapable of overcoming evolution to focus on deep work and produce value, is important to Cal Newport, a science professor at Georgetown University, who argues that to enjoy a good life (defined by him as deep life) we need to manage distractions. Yes, we are vulnerable to become addicted to our phones and, yes, this addiction can block our ability to achieve a healthy level of solitude that liberates us from input from other minds, so that alone with our thoughts we flourish and thrive. Deprivation of solitude increases our anxiety and limits our personal and professional growth. The author of “Deep Work” asked initially for digital minimization,questioning our constant downloading of new apps without need and out of fear of losing out on something. Newport asks now for more; we do not need social media he says. (4)

Checking constantly our phones led us to see them as a constant companion. Ongoing disruptions, however, create attention residues that reduce cognitive performance. Inability to focus impedes us from attaining our potential and achieve fulfilling and meaningful lives. Most deep workers, Newport explains, develop rituals to relax and increase their focus for deep work. Charles Darwin had a ritual while writing the Origin of the Species: he walked his favorite path (the sand path) a fixed number of times not allowing his mind to wonder even to count the loops completed. Instead, he used stones, kicking them one by one to keep account. (4)

Yes, we can sense we are at a crossroads and need increased abilities to think deeper, and not only to achieve a good life but a better world and to stop the merry-go-around of increased consumerism, destruction, poverty and exploitation. We need to think critically if we are to understand and address the challenges ahead; we need to stop the lies, distortions and manipulations, the false divisions created by an elite of thinkers of a mass of followers. We all have capacity for critical thinking: we need everybody’s potential to succeed. The net and social media changed the nature of manipulation, reaching younger, more vulnerable subjects, making it more difficult to spot lies and more attractive and addictive to follow them and yet manipulation of information has been with us long before these technologies emerged and have been part and parcel of a Media managed by and for the rich and powerful. Whoever has power to decide what information is to be shared, it also has power to shape reality for the rest.

The emergence of social media, however, affected readership so much that most papers can no longer live from ads and news. Alternative models focused on recruiting members emerged and most are still in the hands of the very rich. In the UK Tortoise Media focus is on younger recruits, their target group pays membership fees lower than the rest, and on slow news –not less manipulated. Still, Tortoise could not exist without financial support from Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. The billionaires’ media promotes their agenda and improves their public image: Laurene Powell Jobs (Steve Jobs’ widow) owns the Atlantic, Mark Benioff (Salesforce) Time magazine, Jeff Bezos (Amazon) the Washington Post; and, in Canada the richest family (Thomson) owns the Globe and Mail. (5)

Lies, distortions and manipulation worked well with interventions from outside disguised as native born. The head of the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), Srdja Popovic, headed as a student the movement Otpor! He was responsible for the toppling of Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic. Popovic’s links to Stratfor, Muneer Satter (ex-Goldman Sachs banker) and proof that he was being paid by the US (through then Ambassador Anthony McFaul) was made public only thanks to Wikileaks and Julian Assange and emails hacked from Stratfor. CANVAS has been accused of exporting revolutions to target countries and considered a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates. Its work effective at bringing down dictators disliked by the US –in former Yugoslavia, Ukraine (2003) and Egypt (2011) and it is currently involved in Belarus and Venezuela. Milosevic, who always denied being guilty of war crimes, died in jail in 2006 from a heart attack –denied of preventive surgery. A few people even think of him today without labeling him a war criminal. Still, in 2017, the UN War Crime Tribunal in The Hague, found him not guilty of war crimes. Assange, in jail at Belmarsh, is being judged for making public the truth. He faces life if sent to the US. Lives and countries destroyed while the culprits of crimes make money and careers from their bad deeds -teaching at Harvard, John Hopkins, Columbia, Georgetown and publishing books. (6, 7) 

Awakening: Not all is bad about the Net…

Commenting on the documentary “Social Dilemma,” Jonathan Cook raises points embedded in it, not always explicit. Yes, we are increasingly aware of how social media affects the lives of our children made to feel bad enough to resort to suicide and self-harming. Yes, the creators of these platforms (Google, Facebook, Twitter plus), participants in this documentary, are aware they created evil and publicly repent of making children addicted and pliable to corporations –they have children too. Yes, things are not going to get better, to maximize predictions and make more money out of us, these giants must gradually grind down our individuality turning us into archetypes and making it easier to have us exploited and plundered by advertisers. These corporations are the richest in the history of humanity because they trade in human futures. Eventually, governments and politicians increasingly closer to them will be better positioned to manipulate our thinking, control what we do and dictate the political discourse faster and better than before (8).

And yet, Cook argues, if the applications in our phones can satisfy our craving for material comfort and security they can also contribute to our understanding of the world and our place in it: “Phones have made it possible for ordinary people to film and share scenes once witnessed by only a handful of disbelieved passers-by. We can all see for ourselves a white police officer dispassionately kneeling on the neck of a black man for nine minutes, while the victim cries out he cannot breathe, until he expires. And we can then judge the values and priorities of our leaders when they decide to do as little as possible to prevent such incidents occurring again.” The net has a platform that allows disillusioned former Silicon Valley execs to blow the whistle on what the Mark Zuckerbergs are up to, he says, but it also allowed US army private Chelsea Manning to expose war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and national security tech insider Edward Snowden to reveal the way we are being secretly espied by our governments. He adds: These new social media corporations are not less billionaire-owned, no less power-hungry, not less manipulative than the old media corporations. The AI algorithms they are rapidly refining are being used – under the rubric of “fake news” – to drive out this new marketplace in whistleblowing, in citizen journalism, in dissident ideas. (8)

The seeds of neo-liberalism were planted early, when the civilized, industrialized west decided, he explains, its mission was to conquer and subdue the natural world, and embraced an ideology obsessed about money, turning people into objects to be exploited. What I see is a bunch of people trapped in a business model, an economic incentive, shareholder pressure that makes it almost impossible to do something else, a Social Dilemma participant tells us. We live in a world in which a tree or a whale are worth more dead that alive, he adds, as our economy works this way and corporations go unregulated, they continue to destroy trees and whales and to mine the earth and pull oil even though it means destroying the planet. Such short-term thinking, he adds, is based on this religion of profit no matter what. Eventually, he thinks, we will wake up and see that now we are it, we are the tree, the whale and our attention is being mined: we are more profitable when staring at an ad than when living our life in a rich way. (8)

Social Dilemma focus is social media corporations, and yet, as Cook argues, all corporations (Amazon, Exxon, Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, Goldman Sachs and thousands more) follow this religion of profit at any cost. Social media hides, distorts, manipulates information but it could also be a platform for truth, he says. Social Dilemma presents us concerns about these platforms from inside, from the people who developed them providing us with an opportunity to see the psychopathic face behind the benign, pleasant mask. Indirectly, it helps us see the pathology of the system behind them, the system forcing these creepy corporations on us. (8)

We have become overtaxed by trying to decipher reality from the lies, distortions and manipulations coming from all the Media. We phase increasing inequality –in the developed and developing world, which makes our meeting basic needs requiring an increasing greater effort. Not so for billionaires:  Jeff Bezos saw its fortune increase to $ 200 billion this year (less than 1% of this amount equals the whole health budget of Ethiopia with 10.5 million people).  After 2008’s economic meltdown most people suffered and yet for billionaires their wealth increased, it doubled between 2008-2018, increasing by $900 billion. (9)  Are we able to bring down this system, a system promoting and sustaining antisocial corporations and their lies, manipulations, distortions? And what about the psychopathic elite controlling our world, obsessed with money? We face challenging times of pandemic, and environmental, economic and financial collapse and resource depletion. Our only option is to build a more humane society, a system capable of dealing with the crises ahead, of ending abuse and exploitation of both -humans and nature. We need to create a new society and to do so we need to lift the fog that blocks our understanding of what needs to change and how to do it so we are all able to live a good life, a deep life, a more humane life: a life in sync with nature.

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Notes

1. https://www.healthline.com/health/brain-fog#causes
2. C. Whybrow, MD (2008) Unable to focus? Welcome to our distracted Society’s attention deficit. Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, UCLA (https://medicalxpress.com/news/2008-06-unable-focus-distracted-society-attention.html)
3. Beaton (2016) The underlying reason you can’t focus, Forbes (2016) (https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinebeaton/2016/12/19/the-underlying-reason-you-cant-focus/#453acdb169bd)
4. How to quit social media and master your focus, Cal Newport on Impact Theory with T. Bilyeu, June 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROKQHRfh2mA&feature=emb_logo
5. Billionaires Media: the Smearing of Robert F Kennedy Jr, Joyce Nelson, Global Research https://www.globalresearch.ca/billionaire-media-smearing-robert-f-kennedy-jr/5725810
6. Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies, https://canvasopedia.org/about-us/;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sr%C4%91a_Popovi%C4%87_(activist) https://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html

7. Hague tribunal exonerates Slobodan Milosevic again. http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg_aw113017.htm

8. Why is the world going to hell? Netflix’s The Social Dilemma tells only half the story, October 2, 2020, Jonathan Cook, Counterpunch https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/02/why-is-the-world-going-to-hell/
9. Public good or private wealth? January 2019, Oxfam https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/620599/bp-public-good-or-private-wealth-210119-summ-en.pdf?utm_source=indepth

On Sunday, the UN arms embargo on Iran its ruling authorities voluntarily accepted ended.

Iran is now once again free to buy and sell conventional arms — what many other countries do unrestrained.

Key to understand is that the Islamic Republic wants weapons for defense, not offense.

Its ruling authorities are at war with no one. They threaten no one.

They prioritize world peace, stability, and cooperative relations with other countries.

Their agenda is polar opposite how the US, NATO, and Israel operate — belligerents threatening everyone everywhere.

On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif tweeted the following:

“A momentous day for the international community, which— in defiance of malign US efforts—has protected UNSC Res. 2231 and JCPOA.”

“Today’s normalization of Iran’s defense cooperation with the world is a win for the cause of multilateralism and peace and security in our region.”

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf described the embargo’s end as follows:

“This is undoubtedly a significant failure for…weak-minded (Trump regime hardliners) and (their) powerless and isolated president, who, despite the illegal attempt to activate the snapback mechanism, was ridiculed by the international community…”

“To turn this US defeat into a strategic achievement for the Iranian nation, important steps must be taken in a proportionate and deterrent reaction to further US pressure, as well as the sale and purchase of weapons.”

Iran’s envoy to the Vienna-based international organizations Kazem Gharibabadi said the following:

Henceforth, “governments cannot refer to bans or binding international restrictions in that regard when it comes to arms deals or even the existence of weapons of Iranian origin in other countries,” adding:

The Trump regime tried to extend the arms embargo on Iran indefinitely “but failed and suffered a major defeat.”

Tehran “will closely monitor US behavior and measures… and will take the necessary action in accordance with the existing mechanisms if the lifting of the arms ban faces any obstacles in practice.”

Trump regime “maximum pressure” on Iran has been a colossal failure — succeeding only in harming its people, along with contributing to Washington’s status as an international outlaw.

Its actions against Iran and its population are crimes against humanity under international law.

According to the Nuremberg Tribunal, the Geneva Conventions, and Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, they include all forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.

The US Constitution prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments.”

US “maximum pressure” is state terrorism by another name.

Under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, terrorism constitutes a “threat to international peace and security.”

Under the Rome Statute, crimes against humanity include actions resulting in “severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law.”

They also include “inhumane acts…intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.”

US sanctions prioritize infliction of maximum pain and suffering to force nations and populations to subordinate their sovereign rights to US interests.

Despite nearly always failing and their illegality when imposed, they’re Washington’s favored weapon of war by other means on targeted nations — along with color revolution attempts, old-fashioned coups, and targeted assassinations.

On Sunday in response to the arms embargo on Iran’s end, Pompeo reinvented reality, saying the following:

“On September 19, virtually all UN sanctions on Iran returned, including re-imposition of the UN arms embargo (sic).”

Fact: The US unilaterally and illegally abandoned the landmark JCPOA in May 2018.

No longer part of the unanimously affirmed agreement by Security Council members — including the US — Washington has no say regarding so-called snapback sanctions and the arms embargo on Iran.

Whatever actions the Trump regime takes regarding these issues — or anything else relating to the JCPOA — are null and void under international law.

On this issue, the US is isolated internationally. Even close EU allies — including E3 JCPOA signatories Britain, France and Germany — oppose the Trump regime’s abandonment of the landmark agreement.

They oppose reimposition of snapback sanctions and extending the now expired arms embargo on Iran.

Pompeo falsely accused Iran of violating Security Council resolutions pertaining to procurement of arms and related items.

He threatened the world community of nations, saying the following:

The Trump regime “is prepared to use its domestic authorities to sanction any individual or entity that materially contributes to the supply, sale, or transfer of conventional arms to or from Iran, as well as those who provide technical training, financial support and services, and other assistance related to these arms.”

He falsely accused Iran of “aggravat(ing) tensions in the region, put(ting) more dangerous weapons into the hands of terrorist groups and proxies, and risk(ing) increasing threats to” the Middle East.

All of the above apply to the US, NATO, Israel, and their imperial partners — clearly not to nonbelligerent Iran.

Pompeo also defied reality by claiming the US “desires peace with Iran…”

Both right wings of its war party target all nations not subservient to US interests for regime change — by whatever it takes to achieve their objectives, including forever wars by hot and other means.

For over 40 years, Iran withstood hostile US actions that violate the letter and spirit of international law.

Everything Washington threw at Iran failed, nor is it likely to succeed ahead.

The same goes for US sanctions war on China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Syria, and other countries.

On Sunday, Iranian Defense Minister Mohammad Amir Khatami said the following:

“Since last year, many countries have contacted us, and we, in turn, have also held a series of negotiations with a number of countries” on the purchase and sale of conventional arms.

“Of course, we will sell much more than we buy.”

Russia and China have cooperative relations with Iran.

They oppose US war on the country by other means, including imposition of illegal sanctions.

They’ll likely be willing suppliers of conventional weapons to Iran that its leadership seeks solely to defend the nation against possible aggression by hostile foreign countries.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Silent Crow News

The Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) will become operational in November and will deliver Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian fields to countries in southern Europe. This gives Russia a new competitor in the European energy market. This would have raised questions in Moscow – is TAP a competitor to the TurkStream and can it really challenge Russia’s Gazprom market share in southern Europe?

The construction of TAP is practically completed and the pipeline is already filled with Azerbaijani gas. There are only some technical formalities that remain to be done in order for Azerbaijani gas to flow into Greece, Bulgaria and Italy. The gas pipeline is a competitor to Russian gas and the TurkStream. The TurkStream begins from the town of Anapa in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai to Kıyıköy in northwest Turkey, and continues into Greece.

Turkey is trying to become an energy hub so that it can control flows from Russia and Azerbaijan to Europe, but also from the East Mediterranean and other Middle Eastern countries. However, with a Turkish-sponsored war raging in Artsakh, or more commonly known as Nagorno-Karabakh, regular gas deliveries from Azerbaijan is already under threat as Armenian forces could target an Azerbaijani pipeline at any moment.

Despite Turkey attempting to become a transit country, it has evidently shown it is not interested in stability as it continues to foster and support hostilities and conflicts in key energy producing regions such the East Mediterranean, Iraq and Libya, while supporting extremist militants in Syria, another potential transit country. Turkey controls the gas flows from Azerbaijan and Russia to southern Europe, but at the same time, Greece, to the same extent, controls the gas flows that pass through Turkey and onwards to other parts of Europe.

TAP is part of the “Southern Gas Corridor.” On the Greek-Turkish border, TAP connects to TANAP (Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline), which already delivers gas from Azerbaijan via Turkey and Georgia, purposefully bypassing Armenia. Gas from the Azerbaijani Caspian field, Shah Deniz, will reach its final destination, a receiving terminal in southern Italy. The TAP gas pipeline is 878 kilometers long and will be able to deliver 10 billion cubic meters of gas annually to Greece, Bulgaria and most of Italy. The cost of the project is around €4.5 billion.

This year, the European gas market has brought many surprises. The COVID-19 quarantine, together with the economic crisis, the warm winter, and record gas reserves in underground storage facilities after winter, have contributed to the fact that gas consumption in Europe has dropped considerably. Most importantly, prices on the European spot market have dropped drastically. There was also a unique situation when LNG became extremely cheap, even cheaper than gas from pipelines.

Gas prices fell the most when consumption dropped this year. At the moment, such oscillations are happening so much so that the price is falling and rising significantly in such a short period of time. When the winter is harsh, it turns out that there is little gas in the warehouses, and when it is warm, the quantities are excessive. Now the oscillations are in force, which makes it too early to talk about prices. However, the situation with prices is currently improving, so it is expected that the beginning of the winter season will cause a further increase in prices.

Along with the South Caucasus gas pipeline, the TAP and TANAP gas pipelines are part of the “Southern Gas Corridor” project, which was announced as a key strategy for lessening Europe’s reliance on Russian gas.

The question here is what southern Europe will do. If there is no crisis then suppliers will be able to increase the volume of gas. If there is a serious crisis, then the question of savings will arise and they will procure cheap gas. Southern Europe will buy gas from anyone who sells it cheaper. For example, Russian gas can be transported as far as Spain and Portugal.

With Turkey increasingly in the spotlight due to its multiple hostilities and military interventions in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Cyprus, Artsakh and the East Mediterranean with Greece, it has become an unreliable transit state for gas deliveries. Although the TurkStream must pass through Turkey to reach European markets, it arrives in the country via the Black Sea, a much less hostile zone compared to Azerbaijan at the moment. With the Azerbaijani pipeline passing just a few kilometers from Armenian-controlled territories, it makes it vulnerable to attacks. Although the Armenians have not yet targeted the pipeline, its vulnerability in the context of a Turkish-sponsored war, makes it a significant risk, meaning southern Europeans are no less reliant on Russian gas despite hopes in many countries that it could wean itself off Russian gas.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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This article was originally published on Asia Times.

Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, is the world’s foremost diplomat. The son of an Armenian father and a Russian mother, he’s just on another level altogether. Here, once again, we may be able to see why.

Let’s start with the annual meeting of the Valdai Club, Russia’s premier think tank. Here we may follow the must-watch presentation  of the Valdai annual report on “The Utopia of a Diverse World”, featuring, among others, Lavrov, John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, Dominic Lieven of the University of Cambridge and Yuri Slezkine of UCLA/Berkeley.

It’s a rarity to be able to share what amounts to a Himalayan peak in terms of serious political debate. We have, for instance, Lieven – who, half in jest, defined the Valdai report as “Tolstoyian, a little anarchical” – focusing on the current top two, great interlocking challenges: climate change and the fact that “350 years of Western and 250 years of Anglo-American predominance are coming to an end.”

As we see the “present world order fading in front of our eyes”, Lieven notes a sort of “revenge of the Third World”. But then, alas,  Western prejudice sets in all over again, as he defines China reductively as a “challenge”.

Mearsheimer neatly remembers we have lived, successively, under a bipolar, unipolar and now multipolar world: with China, Russia and the US, “Great Power Politics is back on the table.”

He correctly assesses that after the dire experience of the “century of humiliation, the Chinese will make sure they are really powerful.” And that will set the stage for the US to deploy a “highly-aggressive containment policy”, just like it did against the USSR, that “may well end up in a shooting match”.

“I trust Arnold more than the EU”

Lavrov, in his introductory remarks, had explained that in realpolitik terms, the world “cannot be run from one center alone.” He took time to stress the “meticulous, lengthy and sometimes ungrateful” work of diplomacy.

It was later, in one of his interventions, that he unleashed the real bombshell  (starting at 1:15:55; in Russian, overdubbed in English): “When the European Union is speaking as a superior, Russia wants to know, can we do any business with Europe?”

He mischievously quotes Schwarzenegger, “who in his movies always said ‘Trust me’. So I trust Arnold more than the European Union”.

And that leads to the definitive punch line: “The people who are responsible for foreign policy in the West do not understand the necessity of mutual respect in dialogue. And then probably for some time we have to stop talking to them.” After all, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen had stated, on the record, that for the EU, “there is no geopolitical partnership with modern Russia”.

Lavrov went even further in a stunning, wide-ranging interview with Russian radio stations whose translation deserves to be carefully read in full.

Here is just one of the most crucial snippets:

Lavrov: “No matter what we do, the West will try to hobble and restrain us, and undermine our efforts in the economy, politics, and technology. These are all elements of one approach.”

Question: “Their national security strategy states that they will do so.”

Lavrov: “Of course it does, but it is articulated in a way that decent people can still let go unnoticed, but it is being implemented in a manner that is nothing short of outrageous.”

Question: You, too, can articulate things in a way that is different from what you would really like to say, correct?”

Lavrov: “It’s the other way round. I can use the language I’m not usually using to get the point across. However, they clearly want to throw us off balance, and not only by direct attacks on Russia in all possible and conceivable spheres by way of unscrupulous competition, illegitimate sanctions and the like, but also by unbalancing the situation near our borders, thus preventing us from focusing on creative activities. Nevertheless, regardless of the human instincts and the temptations to respond in the same vein, I’m convinced that we must abide by international law.”

Moscow stands unconditionally by international law – in contrast with the proverbial “rules of the liberal international order” jargon parroted by NATO and its minions such as the Atlantic Council.

And here it is all over again, a report extolling NATO to “Ramp Up on Russia”, blasting Moscow’s “aggressive disinformation and propaganda campaigns against the West, and unchecked adventurism in the Middle East, Africa, and Afghanistan.”

The Atlantic Council insists on how those pesky Russians have once again defied “the international community by using an illegal chemical weapon to poison opposition leader Alexei Navalny. NATO’s failure to halt Russia’s aggressive behavior puts the future of the liberal international order at risk.”

Only fools falling for the blind leading the blind syndrome don’t know that these liberal order “rules” are set by the Hegemon alone, and can be changed in a flash according to the Hegemon’s whims.

So it’s no wonder a running joke in Moscow is “if you don’t listen to Lavrov, you will listen to Shoigu.” Sergey Shoigu is Russia’s Minister of Defense, supervising all those hypersonic weapons the US industrial-military complex can only dream about.

The crucial point is even with so much NATO-engendered hysteria, Moscow could not give a damn because of its de facto military supremacy. And that freaks Washington and Brussels out even more.

What’s left is Hybrid War eruptions following the RAND corporation-prescribed non-stop harassment and “unbalancing” of Russia, in Belarus, the southern Caucasus and Kyrgyzstan – complete with sanctions on Lukashenko and on Kremlin officials for the Navalny “poisoning”.

“You do not negotiate with monkeys”

What Lavrov just made it quite explicit was a long time in the making. “Modern Russia” and the EU were born almost at the same time. On a personal note, I experienced it in an extraordinary fashion. “Modern Russia” was born in December 1991 – when I was on the road in India, then Nepal and China. When I arrived in Moscow via the Trans-Siberian in February 1992, the USSR was no more. And then, flying back to Paris, I arrived at a European Union born in that same February.

One of Valdai’s leaders correctly argues that the daring concept of a “Europe stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok” coined by Gorbachev in 1989, right before the collapse of the USSR, unfortunately “had no document or agreement to back it up.”

And yes, “Putin searched diligently for an opportunity to implement the partnership with the EU and to further rapprochement. This continued from 2001 until as late as 2006.”

We all remember when Putin, in 2010, proposed exactly the same concept, a common house from Lisbon to Vladivostok, and was flatly rebuffed by the EU. It’s very important to remember  this was four years before the Chinese would finalize their own concept of the New Silk Roads.

Afterwards, the only way was down. The final Russia-EU summit took place in Brussels in January 2014 – an eternity in politics.

The fabulous intellectual firepower gathered at the Valdai is very much aware that the Iron Curtain 2.0 between Russia and the EU simply won’t disappear.

And all this while the IMF, The Economist and even that Thucydides fallacy proponent admit that China is already, in fact, the world’s top economy.

Russia and China share an enormously long border. They are engaged in a complex, multi-vector “comprehensive strategic partnership”. That did not develop because the estrangement between Russia and the EU/NATO forced Moscow to pivot East, but mostly because the alliance between the world’s neighboring top economy and top military power makes total Eurasian sense – geopolitically and geoeconomically.

And that totally corroborates Lieven’s diagnosis of the end of “250 years of Anglo-American predominance.”

It was up to inestimable military analyst Andrey Martyanov, whose latest book I reviewed as a must read, to come up with the utmost deliciously devastating assessment of Lavrov’s “We had enough” moment:

“Any professional discussion between Lavrov and former gynecologist [actually epidemiologist] such as von der Leyen, including Germany’s Foreign Minister Maas, who is a lawyer and a party worm of German politics is a waste of time. Western “elites” and “intellectuals” are simply on a different, much lower level, than said Lavrov. You do not negotiate with monkeys, you treat them nicely, you make sure that they are not abused, but you don’t negotiate with them, same as you don’t negotiate with toddlers. They want to have their Navalny as their toy – let them. I call on Russia to start wrapping economic activity up with EU for a long time. They buy Russia’s hydrocarbons and hi-tech, fine. Other than that, any other activity should be dramatically reduced and necessity of the Iron Curtain must not be doubted anymore.”

As much as Washington is not “agreement-capable”, in the words of President Putin, so is the EU, says Lavrov: “We should stop to orient ourselves toward European partners and care about their assessments.”

Not only Russia knows it: the overwhelming majority of the Global South also knows it.

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Pepe Escobar is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Efforts aimed at thwarting the fundamental bourgeois democratic rights of the majority of people in the United States are well underway.

President Donald J. Trump has said repeatedly that mail-in voting and early opportunities to cast ballots are inherently fraudulent and designed to deny him a second term in office.

Trump and his allies are encouraging their supporters to prevent others from voting in large numbers prior to election day and on November 3. Incidents have been reported of right-wing militia groups and zealots engaging in attempts to intimidate voters.

The current administration has flooded the airwaves with campaign commercials which largely ignore the existence of the worst public health crisis in more than a century. These political ads focus on what are considered wedge issues which have almost nothing to do with the COVID-19 pandemic, the worsening economic downturn and the burgeoning racial unrest which has swept the U.S. since the police execution of African Americans Ahmed Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, along with many others.

These expensive advertisements are designed to sway people to either vote for the Trump-Pence ticket or to stay away from the polls all together. Within the African American community, the Republican presidential candidate and others from the same party running for congressional and senatorial seats, are emphasizing issues related to opposing gender equality, the rights of women in regard to reproductive health and purported threats to religious freedom.

Georgia lines up in early voting during Oct. 2020 (AJC photo)

None of these talking points from the right-wing say anything about guaranteeing health insurance for all residents of the U.S. Absent from their narrative is any reference to the need to end police brutality, racism, national oppression, gender discrimination and to guarantee jobs at a living wage, quality education, environmental justice, affordable housing and safe running water for people across the country.

In the South, North, West and East of the country voter suppression tactics utilizing numerous methods are creating an atmosphere of political uncertainty. Earlier in the year, administration attacks on the U.S. Postal Service were designed to hamper the capacity of the system to deliver ballots in a timely fashion.

Voter Suppression and the Legacy of the Jim Crow South

Of course, a major concentration of voter suppression is in the South due to history of African enslavement and the resurgence of African American voters in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Over the last four decades or more, it has been nearly impossible for Democratic presidential candidates to win a majority of votes in these states.

African American tenant farmers evicted after registering to vote in Fayette County, Tennessee, Winter 1960

Repeatedly Republican candidates work in conjunction with local business interests and political officials to ensure the maintenance of the status-quo. Obstacles to voter registration such as previous criminal convictions has disenfranchised hundreds of thousands in Florida.

Georgia has been notorious along with Florida for purging thousands from voter registration lists on spurious allegations of criminal records and failure to prove residency in the states. Two major gubernatorial elections in 2018 for Georgia and Florida were marred by concerted and well-organized voter suppression techniques.

A report published recently by the group Public Integrity said of the situation in a major Southern state that:

“Georgia was infamous in the last century for its Jim Crow-era poll taxes and other intimidation tactics used to suppress Black citizens’ right to vote. This century, the state is known as an epicenter for battles over restrictive policies that civil-rights activists denounce as modern-day voter suppression.”

The State of Georgia through cooperation with local officials disenfranchised 54,000 people during 2018 when then Secretary of State Brian Kemp ran for governor against former Democratic legislative leader Stacey Abrams. Although the Abrams campaign held out for several weeks without conceding, the state government bureaucrats and politicians prevailed placing Kemp in the governor’s seat. Since his assumption of office, Kemp has been a major obstacle to the mitigation efforts aimed at controlling the pandemic in the state, which has disproportionally impacted African Americans in both rural and urban areas.

Voter registration among African Americans, people of Latin American ancestry, Asians and other people of color communities accelerated during the first decade of the 21^st century. This was in part due to the candidacy of former President Barack Obama.

This same above-mentioned article from Public Integrity also says:

“Controversy over purging and other practices hangs over the Nov. 3 general election as a record number of Georgia residents are lining up for in-person early voting, which started Oct. 12 and ends Oct. 30. With its fast-growing population, Georgia voter registration has surged. And the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a record number of voters requesting mail-in ballots.”

Building Resistance to the Escalating Threats to Democratic Rights

Electoral suppression efforts have been bolstered by the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court decision that eviscerated the enforcement provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act was a concession granted by the administration of former President Lyndon B. Johnson in the aftermath of mass demonstrations in Alabama and other Southern states.

Yet despite these setbacks, many African Americans and other oppressed peoples are determined to drive Trump from the White House and the Republican majority from the Senate. Events of the last seven months have provided impetus for not only electoral initiatives notwithstanding mass actions requiring independent organization aimed at mobilizing millions to end police brutality and other forms of racist state violence.

Although the Democratic Party is attempting to ride the tide of discontent and the yearning for fundamental change, it will take the workers and oppressed utilizing their own organizational capacity to deliver a decisive defeat to the right-wing. Beyond the elections on November 3, the threat of neo-fascist violence directed at the oppressed and others designated as potential threats to the Trump administration, could very well result in mass arrests, serious injuries and loss of life.

Several organizations from various regions of the U.S. issued an appeal during September calling for the formation of People’s Committees to Defend Democratic Rights. This campaign launched by the Moratorium NOW! Coalition in Michigan, the Wisconsin Bailout the People Movement (BOPM) and the Bay Area People’s Alliance in California represents a growing trend among the working class and oppressed.

An article published in Fighting Words in late September emphasized:

“The aim of People’s Committees should be very clear. They must prepare to shut the entire country down if Trump tries to steal or ignore the election. They must popularize the idea of, and prepare for, a General Strike. Some will argue that such an action is illegal. But it is the only serious answer to the outrageously illegal actions of the president. We will be told that general strikes are not done in the United States. Perhaps not recently, but there are a host of examples of general strikes going back into the 1800’s to contradict that claim.”

These mass organizations are not alone in their quest to prepare for the potential of post-election confrontations involving millions. Statements have been issued by various AFL-CIO metropolitan councils including their national leadership. Groups of various progressive, liberal, socialist and community-based groups are meeting and making plans for mounting a formidable resistance to the threat of a political coup by the Trump regime and its allies.

Even beyond the possible resolution of the election crisis, such formations as People’s Committees will be needed to ensure that the interests of the masses be upheld. The Democratic Party leadership represents the powerful corporate forces on Wall Street and at the Pentagon. Working people and the oppressed need independent organizations in order to speak and act in their own names.

There can be no solution to the crisis of governance in the U.S without a total transformation of the racist-capitalist system. Socialism provides the only solution for the survival and well-being of working people in the U.S. and around the world.

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

Featured image: Georgia voters stand for hours to vote during Oct. 2020 (ABC News photo)

On October 10, 2020, ACU2020.org announced the world doctors’ alliance in Berlin, Germany.

It is an alliance of medical doctors, scientists and peace activists who together claim that this COVID-19 affair is just not true.

And as medical doctors, it is their duty to speak out the truth.

Watch the video below.

.

 

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The 2020 Great Recession 2.0: The ‘On Again, Off Again’ U.S. Fiscal Stimulus Negotiations

By Dr. Jack Rasmus, October 21 2020

MAS Returns to Power in Bolivia One Year after US-backed Coup

By Arnold August, October 21 2020

Trump Administration Is Paying Big Pharma Billions in Rush for Vaccine

By Prof. Marjorie Cohn, October 21 2020

All Power to the Imagination: Remembering John Lennon

By Megan Sherman, October 21 2020

The great victory of the Movement to Socialism (MAS) – Evo Morales’ party – in Bolivia opens the way for a new era of change in the South American country. The positions on the Bolivian national political scene are currently so polarized that the socialist victory brings with it a series of uncertainties and arouses fears of a possible return to violence, which could reverse what was achieved at the polls.

The difference Arce has achieved so far does not allow him to wait any longer to announce that he is the new president of Bolivia. According to the count, he got 53% of the votes, while Mesa got 30%; the third, rightist Luis Fernando Camacho, won in the region to which he belongs, Santa Cruz, but obtained only 14% of the national votes. According to calculations, the difference between the official results and the data that was already released will be only 1% to 2%, so Arce is truly the new President.

Interestingly, the victory has been reasonably well accepted and recognized among opposition leaders. Jeanine Áñez acknowledged on the same night of the elections, through a tweet, that Arce is the new president of Bolivia. Hours later, the secretary of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro (who opposed Morales and supported the coup), published his own congratulatory tweet. Finally, it was Mesa’s turn to congratulate the new president also through social media.

Apparently, the Bolivian opposition “accepted” the defeat – that is, the result of the elections and the democratic process. But one candidate does not seem to be satisfied with the popular choice: Luis Fernando Camacho, the biggest agitator of the Bolivian right. Camacho has gained prominence since the maneuvers that led to Morales’ resignation last year and has since become the main name of the Bolivian right. In South America, Camacho is commonly referred to as “Bolivian Bolsonaro”, due to some similarities with the Brazilian president: radical far-right speech, automatic alignment with the US and religious fundamentalism. Camacho did not congratulate Arce nor was satisfied with the third place and the insufficient 14% of the national votes. While Añez and Mesa, who represent a more moderate wing of the opposition, have shown themselves willing to accept the victory of the MAS’ candidate, Camacho has not yet made clear which will be his attitude.

It is with this backdrop that we can analyze the current Bolivian political conjuncture and make some predictions for the country’s near future. Opposition to MAS no longer exists as it did while Evo Morales was in power. At that time, various sectors of the Bolivian political scenario came together in a coalition to overthrow Morales. This coalition was certainly financed and coordinated by foreign agents who were also interested in the end of the Morales government, which was characterized by a strong anti-American socialist policy. Now, with Morales out of Bolivia, the scenario is different: the opposition’s common enemy has already been defeated, so there is no reason for coalitions.

There is yet another factor that cannot be ignored: the current lack of strategic coordination by the opposition. The capacity for foreign interference in Bolivian national politics has decreased significantly in recent months, mainly due to the social chaos in which the US is inserted. The turmoil in the presidential elections undermines any form of strategy for American foreign policy: the priority of the Trump administration is to be re-elected; that of Democrats is to come to power; in any case, none of them are really concerned about the next Bolivian president – as long as Morales remains barred from running for president.

In this sense, the Bolivian opposition was left to its own devices and, having to face the popular will, saw the inevitable result: the victory of the party preferred by the Bolivian people. But this is far from representing a return to Morales’ national project. Arce’s victory represents a party’s victory in the elections, not Morales’s personal victory, despite the support received from the former president. The party previously recognized the “legitimacy” of the coup that overthrew Maduro, accepting the democratic pact to continue disputing power in institutional structures. In other words, in one way or another, the coup has been legalized and Morales will not return to power – precisely because of that, American concern is minimal.

However, a president’s journey only begins with elections. The future is absolutely uncertain. And that is why Camacho’s refusal to accept the result can be worrying for Arce. The American elections will soon be consummated, and someone will again be outlining clearer and more specific strategies for foreign policy. When that happens, what will Washington do with Arce? If it is in the American plans to make Bolivia even more subordinate to its interests, something like a new colorful revolution, judicial maneuver or institutional coup will be done to remove Arce quickly. And, certainly, Camacho and his supporters will again be a central figure if that happens.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics. 

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

It’s been more than three months since the March-April economic rescue package, called the Cares Act, expired at the end of July. Since then both political parties, Republican and Democrat, have played a ‘hot potato’ bargaining game: i.e. “here’s my offer, the ball’s in your court…Here’s mine, now it’s your turn”. This week the game continues, showing no indication of ending.

Last March’s ‘CARES ACT’ was not a fiscal stimulus. It was instead about ‘mitigation’–meaning the various measures contained in that $2.3 trillion package (actually nearly $3T when the additional $650 billion in business-investor tax cuts are added to the Act) were designed only to put a floor under the collapsing US economy–not to generate a sustained economic recovery. Even the politicians voting for it publicly acknowledged at the time that it was not a stimulus bill, but rather a set of measures designed to buy time–no more than 10-12 weeks at most–until a more serious economic recovery Act could be implemented.

The real fiscal stimulus bill was to follow, designed to pick the economy up off the floor and generate a sustained recovery as the economy reopened. The reopening began in May and gained a little momentum over the summer. But not enough to generate a sustained recovery by itself that was expected by late summer.

In a typical Great Recession trajectory, the reopening over the summer resulted in a roughly two-thirds recovery of lost economic activity by end of July. It was thought by politicians and mainstream economists that, when the reopening crested at two-thirds in July, a subsequent real stimulus bill would follow. The two forces–reopening and fiscal stimulus–would together generate a sustained recovery.

But it just didn’t happen that way. Nor is it to date.

The Democrats in the US House of Representatives presented their version of a fiscal stimulus bill–called the HEROES ACT-in late May. But the Trump administration and the McConnell led Republican majority in the US Senate balked at joining in passing a stimulus bill.

McConnell & friends looked around and it appeared big business and corporations and banks were doing just fine by June–even if small business and working households were not. A few exceptions to big business doing well were the airlines, hotels and some leisure and hospitality industries. But banks and other big corporations were fat with cash. The Federal Reserve had already pumped nearly $3 trillion in virtually free money into the banks. And big corporations had raised trillions of dollars more by selling corporate bonds at record historical levels, at cheapest rates, also made possible by the Federal Reserve. Trillions more were hoarded by borrowing down their credit lines with banks, saving on facilities operations, and temporarily suspending dividends and stock buybacks.

McConnell, Trump and their business constituencies didn’t need more stimulus. Indeed, they didn’t even need the Cares Act even. That Act, passed in March, included among its provisions no less than $1.1 trillion in loans for medium and large businesses, along with $650B in tax cuts for the same. But as of this past August, less than $150 billion of that $1.1 trillion had actually been borrowed by big businesses and spent into the economy, and it appears little of the tax cuts resulted in production increases or hiring as well.

So in June, McConnell and the Republican Senate simply dug in their heels for two months and simply ignored the Democrat House stimulus proposal in the form of their late May passed $3.4 trillion HEROES ACT bill.

In July McConnell eventually put forth his proposal, called the ‘HEALS Act’. It totaled $1.5 trillion, but was loaded withambiguous and onerous language like exempting all businesses from any and all legal claims for negligence for failing to provide safety and health conditions for their workers.

By end of July the only real provisions of the Cares Act that provided any semblance of economic stimulus ran out. That was the $500 billion in extra unemployment assistance to workers, the $1200 checks, and the $670 billion in grants and loans (mostly grants) to small businesses. The unemployment, checks and grants amounted to government spending of only $1.2 trillion of the Cares Act’s $3 or so trillion. That $1.2 trillion was, and remains, the only actual spending to hit the economy, since the $1.1 trillion in loans to large-medium corporations has never been actually ‘taken up’ and spent into the economy by business. Ditto for the $650 billion in business tax cuts in the Cares Act. So only a little more than a third of the Cares Act resulted in any economic spending.

That $1.2 trillion, moreover, amounts to barely 5.5% of US GDP. In GDP percentage terms, that’s roughly the size of the 2009 stimulus of $787 billion spent during the previous Great Recession of 2008-09. That $787 billion proved insufficient at the time to generate a prompt recovery from that recession. It took six years just to get back to the level of jobs in 2007 before that recession, for example. But today’s 2020 Great Recession 2.0 is four times deeper in terms of economic contraction compared to 2008-09. And it’s still only an effective 5.5% spending package as contained in the March Cares Act.

A much more aggressive stimulus bill was desperately needed as a follow up as the Cares Act spending ran out at the end of July. The May HEROES ACT was an attempt to provide that follow up actual stimulus but, as noted, McConnell, Trump and Republicans weren’t interested. Their banker and big business constituencies were doing quite well by early-summer. No doubt Trump-McConnell further believed the reopening of the economy, as Covid 19 disappeared, would prove sufficient to lead to a sustained economic recovery.

Of course, history has already proven them wrong

By late July many sectors of the US economy began to weaken again. And a second, worse wave of Covid 19 hit the economy in July-August, just as the weak Cares Act spending ran out at the end of July. Unemployment claims began to slowly rise again through August and into September. Small businesses began to closure, many permanently now, in greater numbers. Large corporations began to announce mass layoffs, more permanent than just furloughs now. Evictions of renters by the millions began to occur. Low income homeowners began to miss mortgage payments. And the much predicted V-shape recovery began to look increasingly like a ‘W-shape’.

But instead of seeing the trend, Trump and McConnell doubled down and refused to negotiate seriously with the Democrat House on its HEROES Act proposal. In early August, House Speaker Pelosi, thinking the Trump administration might bargain in good faith, reduced her proposal from the HEROES Act $3.4 trillion cost to $1.2 trillion. Instead of following up, however, the Trump negotiators, led by Trump’s Staff Secretary, Mark Meadows, abruptly broke off all negotiations–without making a counter offer. What he did leave though was a bad taste in the mouths of Pelosi and Shumer, who now could not trust the Trump team should further negotiations resume. Nor could they trust McConnell and his Republican Senate, who followed Trump and withdrew their prior HEALS ACT $1.5T and refused to consider anything more than $650 billion if brought to the Senate by the Trump-Pelosi negotiators in the future.

Trump had set up Pelosi and then ‘sandbagged’ her, in bargaining parlance. Within 24 hours Trump publicly announced four executive orders as his personal fiscal stimulus offer. But the EOs were no stimulus in fact. Just a diversion of already existing government funds and payroll tax cuts that would have to be repaid in 2021.

Both sides maneuvered in the press thereafter, as the US economy weakened further throughout September and into October–and as the Covid 19 infection rates surged once again. The Virus was not cooperating with economic recovery. And there was no stimulus to assist in that either. Meanwhile, millions more were becoming unemployed–at least 30 to 35 million remained jobless as of mid October. Food deprivation worsened and food lines began emerging again. Rent evictions were now escalating as well. Hundreds of thousands more small businesses were closing their doors, with predictions by the National Federation of Independent Business that millions would fail in coming months–even as bankers, big corporations, and stock and financial markets attained record levels.

Trump then shot himself in the foot by declaring there would be no further negotiations on a stimulus until after the November 3 election. McConnell said that was fine since 20% of his Republicans were against any further stimulus out of concern of its negative impact on the US deficit, which by October hit a record $3.1 trillion for the 2020 fiscal year–the largest in modern history.

Trump’s walking away from any further negotiations hurt his political chances, since not only were workers, renters, and small businesses being ‘thrown under the bus’, but the announcement had serious negative effects on stock market values. Now big corporations were worried too. So Trump back-tracked and made another bargaining offer.

Which brings us to events of the last 10 days. Trump offered Pelosi-Shumer an $!.8 trillion counter offer–complete with loophole language permitting him to renege on items of his choice. But it was an offer he couldn’t deliver, since McConnell in the Senate quickly added he wouldn’t even bring the $1.8T up for a Senate vote because he couldn’t get it passed within his own Republican ranks.

What the $1.8T did achieve was to get the corporate wing of the Democrat party, including its mainstream media arms–MSNBC, CNN, etc.–to raise the pressure on Pelosi to accept Trump’s phony $1.8T offer that he couldn’t deliver. What Trump wanted, and still wants, is just an announcement of a ‘deal’ that he can take credit for as he campaigns across the country before the election. What big business wants is the same, an announcement, not necessarily a deal. Stock prices and especially tech sector stocks have begun seriously wavering on news of no stimulus negotiations. An announcement would quell that issue and ensure stock prices remain strong through the election. Even some ‘left’ Democrats like Rho Khanna and Andrew Yang–both from silicon valley–chimed in and demanded Pelosi accept the Trump offer.

So what happens next, this week? Trump’s negotiator, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and Pelosi have begun to talk yet again. Trump wants to announce a deal before the next presidential debate with Joe Biden this thursday, only 72 hrs away. So it’s likely he’ll instruct Mnuchin to increase his offer to $2T or even to Pelosi’s $2.2T. He’s got nothing to lose, and he knows McConnell’s ‘hard cop’ is there backing him up to stop (or at least change the terms of any tentative deal) for him. Trump gains a campaign message. McConnell blocks any deal. And Pelosi and the Democrats get nothing once again except more negotiations, now with McConnell. It’s a clever ‘double-teaming’ of the Democrats by the Republicans, once again!

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Dr. Jack Rasmus writes on his blog site where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

In November, US orchestrated fascism replaced freedom in Bolivia.

President Evo Morales’ legitimate reelection was overturned by a cadre of US recruited traitors. 

Generals and others were bribed to betray their country for the right price.

Fascism tied to US interests usurped power.

Militarized rule, inequality, and harsh crackdowns on supporters of equity and justice became official coup d’etat regime policy — aided and abetted by hardliners in Washington.

Months after the coup from exile in Argentina, illegally ousted President Evo Morales explained the following:

“…Bolivia is…paralyzed (and) going backwards…”

The country was “return(ed) to neoliberal times with more unemployment, poverty, hunger, corruption, nepotism, criminalization of the protests, persecutions and violation of the freedom of expression.”

“Fascism and racism have been reborn.”

The US-installed coup d’etat regime is responsible for “massacres, persecutions, imprisonments, dismantling of public companies and inability to deal with the pandemic.”

“Only (ordinary) people can save the people, and we will regain democracy.”

A coup d’etat “transitional” regime is making “illegal decisions that compromise our future, such as GMOs for human consumption, debts with the International Monetary Fund, changes in economic model, reversal of land (distribution), and mining concessions in favor of big entrepreneurs.”

The coup regime is also involved in drugs trafficking, Morales explained.

Since illegally replaced as president, state terror against the Bolivian people has been official coup regime policy.

In August, PeoplesDispatch.org (PD below) said the coup d’etat regime “criminaliz(ed) national mobilizations” and right of assembly.

“Despite…increased repression, the people of Bolivia remain on the streets.”

The day before Sunday’s presidential election, PD asked:

“Will free and fair elections be held in Bolivia?”

Tyrannical regimes don’t relinquish power easily. The answer to the above question remains to be determined.

After polls closed Sunday, PD cited a Unitel-Ciesmori estimate of results.

It showed that Movement for Socialism (MAS) candidates for president and vice president, Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca respectively won overwhelmingly by a 52.4 to 31.5% margin over former right-wing president Carlos Mesa.

A separate exit poll conducted by group of universities and Catholic institutions showed similar results — Arce defeating runner-up Mesa by a 53 – 30.8% margin.

To win a first round triumph, Arce and Choquehuanca needed over 40% support with at least a 10% margin over the closest runner-up challenger — or over 50% of the vote for a clear majority.

PD reported that shortly after this estimate was publicly known, coup d’etat interim president Jenine Anez acknowledged MAS’ triumph, tweeting:

“We still do not have an official count, but from the data we have, Mr. Arce and Mr. Choquehuanca have won the election,” adding:

“I congratulate the winners, and I ask that they govern thinking of Bolivia and of democracy (sic).”

Last November, fascist dark forces usurped power, replacing democratic governance.

In the days and weeks ahead, it remains to be seen if governance of the people returned to Bolivia.

Before estimated election results were released, Evo Morales explained that tabulations by MAS showed its candidates won.

The party now controls the executive and legislative branches, the coup d’etat regime soundly defeated — if it sticks.

Separately, Morales tweeted:

“We are going to return dignity and freedom to the people.”

“Very soon our country will begin a new stage of great challenges.”

“We must put aside differences and sectoral and regional interests to achieve a great national agreement.”

Late Sunday, head of the coup regime’s electoral council failed to say when official results would be released.

“We need to be certain about the results,” he said.

PD explained that voting on Sunday “was largely peaceful and was marked by a high turnout,” adding:

In the run-up to the election, “there was a huge amount of uncertainty about whether a free and fair election would be permitted and if its results would be recognized.”

Uncertainty persists despite Anez’s acceptance of the outcome.

Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro tweeted the following in response to the result:

“Great victory! The united and conscious Bolivian people defeated with votes the coup that (ousted) our brother Evo.”

“Congratulations to President-elect Luis Arce, Vice President David Choquehuanca and our South Indian Chief @evoespueblo. Jallalla Bolivia!”

Ousted by an Obama regime coup in 2009, former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya tweeted:

“They overthrew @evoespueblo and from exile I WON them. @LuchoXBolivia is the President! The Bolivian people defeated GOLPISM and fraud.”

On Monday, Reuters reported that MAS’ candidate “is set to win the country’s presidential election without the need for a run-off, an unofficial rapid count of the vote indicated.”

The CIA-linked Washington Post said

“(e)xit polls (on) Monday showed Bolivia’s Socialists taking a seemingly insurmountable lead in the country’s bitterly fought presidential election, a result that, if confirmed by the official tally, would amount to a massive popular rebuke of the right-wing forces that drove the left from power a year ago.”

Arce served as MAS finance minister under Morales. He ran against two hard-right opponents — former president Carlos Mesa and Luis Camacho.

Mesa is linked to right wing elements in the US, Big Oil, and other regional corporate interests.

The Camacho is connected to a Christian fascist paramilitary group called the Union Juvenil Crucenista, based in Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s largest city.

Before last year’s coup, he expressed support for Colombia’s narco terrorist regime, US-designated Venezuelan puppet-in-waiting Guaido, and Brazil’s right-wing government under Jair Bolsonaro.

In La Paz at his campaign headquarters, Arce said “(w)e have recuperated democracy and, more than anything, the Bolivians have recovered hope,” adding:

“We promise to respond to our pledge to work and bring our program to fruition.”

“We are going to govern for all Bolivians, and construct a government of national unity.”

Following establishment of a US republic in 1776, Benjamin Franklin warned the nation’s founders that creating it depends on “if you can keep it.”

The warning applies to MAS leadership in Bolivia.

The same goes for ruling authorities of all nations on the US target list for regime change.

If Arce’s election is officially confirmed, it remains to be seen how he’ll govern.

Will pledges to ordinary Bolivians be fulfilled or will he and MAS bend to a higher power in Washington and internal monied interests?

It’ll take a while to find out.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from OneWorld

Recently, US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden released a statement on his promise to end his country’s support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen saying that “under Biden-Harris Administration, we will reassess our relationship with the [Saudi Arabia] Kingdom, end US support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil.”

It’s an absurd statement coming from a former vice-President to Barack Obama who supported Saudi Arabia’s brutal war on Yemen in the first place.

Saudi Arabia’s intervention was to regain its once influential hegemonic power over Yemen since the Houthis gained power by ousting President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi who fled to Saudi Arabia soon after. The Saudi-led coalition and its air force began using American and British made weaponry targeting mostly civilians and helped create al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Earlier this month, the prime minister of Yemen’s National Salvation government, Abdulaziz bin Habtoor issued a powerful statement that condemned Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for murdering the Yemeni people with Western and Israeli support. They are “commemorating the death of thousands of Jews during Germany’s “Nazi era” he said. Abdulaziz bin Habtoor was referring to the recent peace agreements sponsored by the Trump administration between the UAE, Bahrain and Israel that was signed in Washington on September 15th. He said that “the Houses of Saud and Nahyan must first and foremost remember that they are killing their (Arab) brethren in Yemen, than to commemorate Jews killed by Nazi forces” and that “the neo-Nazis are Al Saud and Al Nahyan families as well as all those who stand with them against Yemeni people, and support their unjustified killing of civilians” according to AhlolBayt News Agency (ABNA) based in Iran.

Yemen is in a never-ending war.

The Yemeni people are facing a catastrophe with more than 91,000 people dead, an economy that has basically collapsed, diseases, famine with an increase of refugees who left the war torn country. Since the start of the war, the Yemeni people experience death and destruction on a daily basis due to their opposition to the Saudi-backed President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) recently said that 20% of the Yemeni population is currently suffering from mental health disorders because of the ongoing war. Hadi was part of a long-list of political puppets of the US and Saudi Arabia who were responsible for the continued economic and political policies that favored his foreign backers for decades. The Yemeni people’s only crime was their resistance to Western hegemonic powers and its Saudi lap-dogs in their own country, and they pay the ultimate price.

The civil war in Yemen began in September 2014 when the Houthis, a shia-led movement and other elements including Sunni and Shia factions who were disenfranchised began a popular revolt to overthrow the Hadi government. The Houthi-led movement and military forces that are made up of both Shia and Sunni loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh began an offensive by advancing to the southern provinces defeating Hadi loyalists as time went on. Since then, the Saudi Coalition whose warplanes, attack helicopters, bombs, missiles, naval fleets and mid-air refueling planes which are all supplied by Western arms dealers allowed them to wage a bombing campaign on the Yemeni population targeting their schools, hospitals, mosques, funerals, family homes, farms, power utilities with reports of even graveyards being hit. Military personnel from the US and the UK has played a major role in the destruction of Yemen by providing intelligence, mid-flight aerial refueling assistance to both the Saudi and UAE Air Forces while targeting Houthi positions that has killed numerous civilians in the process.

As the Houthis gained territorial control, Saudi Arabia began Operation Decisive Storm and launched military operations with airstrikes attacking positions held by the Houthi militia and loyalists of the former President of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh who the West and Israel claim is backed by Iran. Saudi Arabia’s coalition included the Gulf State puppets of the West including the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain who was joined by Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan and long-standing US ally since its Frankenstein creation, Israel. The coalition was allowed to operate from military bases in Africa that included Djibouti, Eritrea, and Somalia. The US and the UK in many cases supported the coalition with intelligence and logistical support and to add insult to injury, saw an economic opportunity for its arms industry that sold weapons to the coalition.

Washington’s long-standing relationship with one of the coalition’s members is with the UAE. The US and the UK currently has thousands of military personnel in the UAE along with its fighter jets and an array of drones. The UAE is probably one of the most loyal subjects to Western Imperial powers next to Saudi Arabia that has “expeditionary forces” in a number of countries including Afghanistan and Yemen. The UAE also has overseas bases even in Africa. The UAE is a former British protectorate became a country in 1971 with its national military force made up of a federation of several ‘sheikhdoms’ that entered the US-led 1991 Gulf War that pushed Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. In 1999, the UAE joined NATO-led forces into Kosovo in what was called a peace mission. After the September 11 false flag attacks, the UAE sent special forces to Afghanistan alongside its Western allies against the Taliban. It is well-known that the UAE hosts US and other Western forces at its military bases. Since the start of the war on Yemen, the UAE has joined Saudi-led forces in attacks against rebel strongholds. In other words, the UAE is a complete puppet regime.

The Mainstream Media’s Silence on US Involvement in Yemen

The Western powers with help from its mainstream-media (MSM) all repeat the same narrative and that it is Iran who is sponsoring the Houthis thus allowing Saudi Arabia and the UAE to justify the bombing of Yemen into oblivion. The MSM including CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, NBC, ABC, CBS, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Sky News and the BBC to name a few, all repeat the same propaganda that the Houthi movement is “Iran-Backed.” A perfect example of propaganda is from a recent article published last month by The Washington Post who headlined with ‘U.S. launches new terrorism review of Iran-backed rebels in Yemen’ claiming that “The Trump administration is considering new steps to intensify pressure on Yemen’s Houthi rebels, including a potential foreign terrorist organization designation, according to several officials, in a bid to further isolate the group’s patron, Iran.” To be clear, Iran and the Houthis do have a common faith, but not a military alliance, it can be best described more or less as a political and diplomatic relationship.

To this day, the MSM is involved in a cover-up of the US and its allies involvement in Yemen’s genocide. In March of 2018, MSM watchdog, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (Fair.org) published a story by Adam Johnson based on MSNBC’s reporting on the war in Yemen who he compared to Breitbart ‘In Run-Up to Vote to End Yemen War, MSNBC Remains Totally Silent: MSNBC outflanked from the left by Breitbart’:

MSNBC’s three major stars—Hayes, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell—haven’t used their sizable social media followings to highlight the issue either. None of the well-paid pundits has tweeted about the topic of Yemen in 2018. While Hayes has handwrung about the topic on Twitter in the past, he hasn’t covered it on his show since summer 2016. O’Donnell has tweeted about Yemen once in 20,000 tweets since joining the social media platform in June 2010; Maddow has mentioned it in four out of 7,000 tweets, two of those mentions in 2010. Even as frequent MSNBC guests Bernie Sanders and Chris Murphy, as well as celebrities like Mark Ruffalo and Susan Sarandon, lobby directly for the bill, MSNBC has not dedicated a single segment to the war, or to the recent high-profile efforts to end it

An article by Johnson from 2017 ‘Ignoring Washington’s Role in Yemen Carnage, 60 Minutes Paints US as Savior’criticized one of the MSM’s longest running news programs ’60 Minutes’ on their coverage of Yemen’s humanitarian crisis without mentioning the role the U.S. has played in the genocide:

In one of the most glaring, power-serving omissions in some time, CBS News’ 60 Minutes (11/19/17) took a deep dive into the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, and did not once mention the direct role the United States played in creating, perpetuating and prolonging a crisis that’s left over 10,000 civilians dead, 2 million displaced, and an estimated 1 million with cholera. Correspondent Scott Pelley’s segment, “When Food Is Used as a Weapon,” employed excellent on-the-ground reporting to highlight the famine and bombing victims of Saudi Arabia’s brutal two-and-a-half year siege of Yemen. But its editors betrayed this reporting—and their viewers—by stripping the conflict of any geopolitical context, and letting one of its largest backers, the United States government, entirely off the hook 

Once a Salesman, Always a Salesman: Trump Sells Weapons to the House of Saud

In March 2018 and with the war in full-force, the Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) decided to meet Trump for a business meeting with the intentions of buying weapons from US arms manufacturers. Bloomberg Newsreported what was the purpose of the visit by the prince of Saudi Arabia:

The 32-year-old prince will meet Donald Trump on March 20, his first trip to the U.S. since taking over as de facto leader of the world’s largest oil exporter. The aim is to strengthen their bond after he rolled out the red carpet for the U.S. president last May in Riyadh. On that visit, both sides played up their mutual interests in containing Iran, tackling Islamic extremists and enhancing business ties

And of course, the Bloomberg report also mentioned that MBS and the former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster who was replaced with neocon warmonger John Bolton spoke about Iran as a threat and “the humanitarian crisis in Yemen” they helped create:

Since then, things have changed. Prince Mohammed locked up dozens of the Saudi business elite in November for about three months in a declared crackdown on corruption. The kingdom is also likely to delay the sale of a stake in oil giant Aramco until next year. Cuts to government subsidies are proving trickier and there’s uncertainty about how the country’s ultra-conservatives are reacting to social changes.

Prince Mohammed “will try to convince the U.S. business community that the anti-corruption campaign is not a threat to commercial operations in Saudi Arabia,” said Hani Sabra, founder of New York-based Alef Advisory. “He will play up his social reform agenda to try to repair the image of Saudi Arabia in the U.S. He will advance the narrative that he’s the steward that will take the country in a more liberal direction.”

The White House said the visit will strengthen ties between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Prince Mohammed will also dine with National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster to discuss $35 billion of business deals, Iran’s threat to their interests and the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, according to a National Security Council spokesperson

Since the meeting between Trump and MBS, the Saudi coalition has increased its bombing campaign in Yemen. In August 2018, the Arab coalition conducted an airstrike in Yemen that targeted a busload of children and the surrounding area that killed more than 100 people. Now a Yemeni court has sentenced high-ranking members from Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and members from Hadi’s government. The incident took place in the Sa’ada province where a missile strike hit a school bus killing more than 40 children with ages that ranged from 10 to 13 years old and wounding more than 79 other people close to the bombing. Mehr News Agency which is based in Iran said that “According to Saba news agency, the Specialized First Instance Criminal Court in Saada province has ruled to execute ten of the defendants in killing Dhahyan’s students by the aggression coalition’s warplanes. The verdict sentenced ten of the defendants to death for targeting and killing the students in Dhahyan in Saada.” Those convicted are high-ranking officials from the Houthis enemy list:

According to the ruling issued in the session presided over by the court Chief Judge Riyadh al-Ruzami, the court sentenced to death ten of the convicted for targeting and killing students in Dhahyan in the airstrikes, they are as follows: 

1) Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, 2)Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, 3)Turki bin Bandar bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, 4)Donald John Trump, 5)James Norman Mattis, 6) Giselle Norton Allen Schwartz, 7) Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, 8)Ali Mohsen Saleh al-Ahmar, 9) Ahmed Obaid Bin Dagher, 10) Mohammad Ali Ahmad al-Maqdashi

The report mentioned the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) which produced an analysis in 2019 that paints a clear picture of the Saudi Arabia’s war crimes that has claimed the lives of more than 91,600 Yemenis since 2015. “The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The United Nations has already said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in dire need of food, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger. According to the world body, Yemen is suffering from the most severe famine in more than 100 years.” The report on casualties is grim and there is no end in sight:

ACLED records over 91,600 total reported fatalities1 from the start of 2015 to the present

Approximately 17,100 were reported in 2015; 15,100 in 2016; 16,800 in 2017; 30,800 in 2018; and 11,900 in 2019 thus far

More than 39,700 conflict events have been reported since the start of 2015

Approximately 7,700 in 2015; 8,700 in 2016; 7,900 in 2017; 10,200 in 2018; and 4,900 in 2019 thus far

Overall, 2018 is the war’s deadliest and most violent year on record

Yemen’s war continues unabated. The world is witnessing one of the worst catastrophes in modern human history with the majority of Yemen’s population including more than 12 million children caught in the crosshairs in a brutal civil war since 2015. The Saudi Coalition with help from its Western allies including the US and the UK has carried out numerous deadly airstrikes on Yemen. Despite what’s going on in Yemen, the drumbeats of war grows louder by the day as the US and Israel increase tensions with Iran, Syria and Lebanon (Hezbollah). Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East will continue to suffer a humanitarian crisis. The MSM remains silent on the issue while Washington, London, Tel Aviv and Riyadh continue their quest for dominance in the region which confirms that Yemen is just another victim of Western Imperialists, Israel and their puppet Monarchs from the Gulf states. As long as the Western powers continue their support of the Saudi coalition and their war on the Houthi-led resistance, more bloodshed is only guaranteed. This war needs to end now before it becomes the most catastrophic period in Yemen’s history.

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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.

All images in this article are from SCN

In 1971, early one morning on a Steinway piano on his resplendent Berkshire estate, John Lennon reflected on the seismic uprising of a peaceful counterculture, of united students and workers, which could have scared a thousand kings by reviving the egalitarian ideals of the 1871 Paris commune.

Against this raw new zeitgeist, and against the backdrop of uprising in America, he sung, famously, to the times: “imagine all the people… living life in peace.” Of all the memorable, piquant and mordant comments he made, that one is the one which has most transcended time; everybody is touched by those words with their beauty time can not erase with the bludgeon of her years. They are words worthy of being spelled across the stars.

Moreover, as a form of acknowledgement of the critical influence of the radicals on the febrile atmosphere of protest worldwide, he hailed, in the song’s middle eighth, with an equally breathtaking lyricism: “you may say I’m a dreamer… but I’m not the only one,” paying heed to a fresh generation of activists who had proclaimed an era of permanent struggle, a species of rebellion in which intellectual renegades like John and themselves saw possibilities for the collapse of the system of domination today.

Within John’s diligently – yet spontaneously – developed philosophy of personal and social liberation – evident not only in his literature but his lyrics, letters and interviews – which came to become a highly regarded and influential source of guidance to the oppositional movements of the New Left, the goal of every serious writer and musician became to enlist their progressive arsenal to help establish a non-repressive society based on fundamentally different existential relations to the oppressive ones incarnate in contemporary society.

It was imagined that meditation on revolutionary art could help to manifest this utopia, and so Lennon invested serious time and attention in his development as a writer and musician who could bring his power to bear on peaceful revolution. According to Lennon’s view, nascent protest movements brought utopia closer to fruition because they mobilised against all manifestations of oppression perpetuated by the dominant institutions of civilisation, namely money and war and organised religion.

Lennon’s meditations on the backlash against imperialism, the craven society it beget, the vast misery it engineered, made in the zenith of the New Left’s activity, reveal his thoughts on liberation in their broader cultural and historical context. It was a time of transition, a seismic era: imperialism was increasingly assailed by protest and revolt organised diligently by those no longer invested in the rigged game of society. They worked together towards laying the foundations of a qualitatively different and unique society, one which transvaluated – transformed the values of – the corrupt civic order they lived in.

The 60’s counterculture, and the tide of protest movements which succeeded it, were passionately abloom with a protest against imperialism, a movement to: transcend its conditions of alienation which cuts to the roots of its existence, which argued vehemently against its henchmen in the third world, and despised, mocked its culture, its morality of nihilism and wastefulness.

By this point it had become clear to Lennon that the growth and success of the imperial state was an expression of a project at the centre of which is the experience, transformation and organisation of life and people as the mere subjects of domination. Civilisation entrenched tyranny, subjugation, exploitation and alienation of the masses and nature. But Lennon, like the counterculture, was incandescent for bubbling with optimism about change. There was a world to win.

The culmination of Lennon’s later lyrics, letters, loves, and learning experiences represented an attempt to realise the revolutionary potential of radical philosophical experimentation that marked Lennon as truly a man of the 60’s counterculture. Whilst the historical trend had been towards the continuation of war and aggression as a policy of the dominant powers on the world stage, Lennon nevertheless remained committed to the project of global peace and peaceful enlightenment, in which he saw the potential to manifest a rational and moral utopia banished of social ills and wants such as war, pollution and greed.

He believed in this project because the conquest of the war machine over the natural instincts of love and peace – symbolised most negatively by the atomic bomb – and the exponential development of the productive forces of the war machine in the advanced industrial states signified to him that the utopian designation for revolutionary ideas had ceased to be an operative truth, because the means really existed to rationally and creatively plan society in such a way as to create solidarity, abundance, happiness, and peace.

If that social vision was to be dismissed as utopian, then realism can be called into disrepute. That is to say ideology had concealed the reality of domination and alienation inherent in imperialism. Lennon’s message implicitly implored people to think about the terrifying truth of the world we currently live in by imagining one that was better.

The life, lyrics, loves and literature of Lennon place him as the crux of an opposition of youth and intellectuals and persecuted minorities against a corrupt authoritarian state which engaged in military warfare against its own citizens, insofar as it coldly perceived how powerfully they could subvert the continuum of repression perpetuated by the hegemonic and hawkish military-industrial complex.

What made Lennon and his disciples so dangerous to the status quo was the way they acted beyond the continuum of repression, conscientious about liberating themselves from its demanding repressive imperatives, those of a society which they could see was constrained by a carefully managed ideological conformism. Lennon’s anger at social injustice and organised repression developed through the sixties and seventies to focus on the ways in which war-makers and the political classes were tightening control of their societies not only through the rule of the iron fist, but also through new technologies like telly, the new religion, which integrated the working classes into regulated modes of thought and behaviour.

Moreover, the doom cloud of the Cold War loomed large on Lennon’s mind, in his mind the battle being, like in the mind of the militants, as two systems equal in degrees of totalitarianism, transcending the Cold War demonology which cast communism as the oppressor against the liberal democratic state. Lennon saw that, save for the nascent counterculture movement, liberal democracies were static societies in which there was a dearth of opposition to the status quo, in which people were integrated in to regulated systems of thought and behaviour.

Imagine aimed to surprise and stimulate, and it helped give inspiration and joy to the parties and groupings that constituted the international solidarity movement of the sixties, making stone hearts bleed and people united. In the spirit of a genuinely radical critique of society Lennon bequeathed a vision rare in its passion, a seminal song of the liberation era which distinguished the new vision and ideas of the anti authoritarian left. It pays well to flash our eyes on Lennon’s lyrics, for their insight in to the terrifying truth of a culture that alienates the essence of our humanity.

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Those who have watched the police state grow over decades have known that as the UK goes, so does the rest of the Western world.

Unfortunately, the UK population the testing grounds for intrusive and totalitarian policies that will be implemented in the rest of Western Europe and, after that, the United States.

Many researchers warned about early on (when the COVID hysteria was reaching fever pitch) that the threat of a pandemic would be used to usher in methods of control the world has scarcely seen. Contact tracing, lockdowns, mandatory masks, and now COVID passports..

Everyone who warned us of what was coming was labeled “conspiracy theorists” by media, government “officials,” and hysterical citizens. Now contact tracing is in full effect, lockdowns have been ongoing for months, mandatory masks, and now COVID passports. 

The UN Security Council arms embargo on Iran from 2007 has expired Sunday, which will allow the nation to buy weapons.  While Iran has repeatedly stated it has no intention of buying weapons of mass destruction, and WMD had no place in their defense.

The Foreign Ministry of the Islamic Republic of Iran said Iran may now buy any necessary arms and equipment from any source without any legal restrictions and solely based on its defensive needs while adding that Iran could export defensive armaments based on its policies.

In August, the Trump administration began a process aimed at restoring all the UN sanctions against Iran unilaterally, after the UN Security Council rejected a US bid to extend the conventional arms embargo on the country.

The Iran nuclear deal

In July 2015, Iran and six countries reached a historic agreement called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal.

The UN Security Council’s five permanent members: the US, France, the UK, China, and Russia, plus Germany formed the six major powers involved in the deal with Iran.

The deal took two years of difficult negotiations and was aimed to restrict Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons in exchange for lifting economic sanctions against Tehran.

Iran agreed to reduce its number of by two-thirds, agreed to reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium by 98%, and limit uranium enrichment to 3.67%, which would allow it to have enough enriched uranium to maintain the country’s energy needs, without having the ability to build a nuclear bomb.

Iran agreed to give access to inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency, to its nuclear facilities, among other facilities, and the IAEA has repeatedly found Iran to be complying with the terms of the pact.

January 2016 saw the IAEA declaring Iran was living up to the deal, and all nuclear-related international sanctions against Iran were lifted, which coincided with Donald Trump taking office as President of the United States.

The Iran deal was one of the crowning diplomatic achievements of former President Barack Obama’s tenure, which made it an immediate target of Trump, who wanted to dismantle everything which might be seen as part of the Obama legacy.

US President Donald Trump reneged on the deal on May 8, 2018, and returned sanctions and imposed new harsh ones, though opinion polls show a majority of Americans are in favor of staying with the deal, in what has become one of the biggest foreign policy decisions he’s made since entering the White House.

Why Trump broke the deal

Israel’s concerns about Iran’s long-range ballistic missile program caused Trump to leave the Iran nuclear deal, along with the concerns of Republicans who felt the Iran nuclear deal didn’t go far enough to limit the country’s ability to develop nuclear weapons. During the 2016 election campaign, Trump was sharply criticized by Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio for not taking Israel’s side in any future dealings with Arab nations. After the criticism, Trump immediately changed his tactics when he told an audience at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual conference that his “number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran”, which he based upon evidence provided by Benjamin Netanyahu, of Iran’s development of ballistic missiles, not addressed by the JCPOA.

Besides Trump bending to Tel Aviv, the secondary reason for leaving the JCPOA was strictly personal: Trump has attacked all of Obama’s legacy achievements, attempting to undo every success, which includes health insurance known as the Affordable Care Act, which is currently in his sights.

What has happened since breaking the deal

Since Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA, his administration has pummeled Iran with crippling economic sanctions, while Iran has accused the US of waging “economic war” and has rejected proposals from Trump to hold talks unless the US lifts sanctions and returns to the JCPOA.

Trump’s presidency in the US has led to an escalation of tensions between Washington and Tehran, which reached a boiling point over the summer of 2019, and again in the early days of 2020.

Oil tanker attacks in the Gulf of Oman and an attack on two major oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, as both sides continued to issue threats, raising concerns of a regional war in the Middle East.

Trump assassinated Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in early 2020, which the Iranian’s labeled an act of “international terrorism.” Just days later, Iran announced it would no longer comply with the JCPOA, effectively abandoning the deal altogether. Iran retaliated with a missile attack aimed at US and coalition forces in Iraq; however, there were no US casualties.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Russia and China not to disregard the imposition of all UN sanctions on Iran which Washington has demanded, and when asked whether the US would target Russia and China with sanctions if they refuse, Pompeo said: “Absolutely.”

Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian nuclear negotiator, former ambassador to Germany, now a researcher at Princeton University has said Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA has dealt a major blow to world peace and security. “The JCPOA is the most comprehensive and complete document in the history of nuclear non-proliferation. By destroying the JCPOA, Trump has dealt a major blow to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and global peace and security,” Mousavian said while adding, “I believe America’s security has diminished. The non-proliferation of nuclear weapons is an integral part of global security.”

“It is true that Trump has caused billions of dollars in economic damage to Iran by imposing the most extensive sanctions, but with his withdrawal from the JCPOA, Iran expanded its range of nuclear activities and enrichment, which the Americans themselves consider it as contrary to the U.S. security,” he added.

On May 8, 2019, exactly one year after Trump abandoned the deal, Tehran said its “strategic patience” is over and began to partially reduce its commitments to the agreement at bi-monthly intervals, and on January 5 of this year, Iran issued a statement announcing the suspension of all limits under the JCPOA.

European position

Trump’s unilateral decision to withdraw the US from the JCPOA in May 2018 was promptly condemned by US allies: the UK, France, and Germany.

“We do not accept the argument that Iran is entitled to reduce compliance with the JCPOA,” the three countries said in a joint statement.

“We do this in good faith with the overarching objective of preserving the JCPOA and in the sincere hope of finding a way forward to resolve the impasse through constructive diplomatic dialogue while preserving the agreement and remaining within its framework,” they said.

The three European countries added: “In doing so, our three countries are not joining a campaign to implement maximum pressure against Iran. Our hope is to bring Iran back into full compliance with its commitments under the JCPOA.”

US Presidential election possible outcomes

Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy on Iran has failed to achieve its goals and whoever wins the November 3 presidential election in America will have to reconsider the failed policy.

Foad Izadi said any US presidential candidate should change the policy because as a result of the maximum pressure, the Islamic Republic of Iran did not collapse or give up. He feels that Iran may benefit from either a Trump or Biden win.

“If Trump will be re-elected as president of the United States, he would accelerate the decline of the US, which is in favor of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and if Joe Biden will be elected as US president, the sanctions that Trump had imposed on Iran would be decreased, which would also benefit the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Izadi commented.

The Iranian position

Iran has developed a large domestic arms industry in the face of international sanctions and embargoes that have barred it from importing many weapons and is self-reliant in its defense capabilities.

“Iran’s defense doctrine is premised on a strong reliance on its people and indigenous capabilities … Unconventional arms, weapons of mass destruction and a buying spree of conventional arms have no place in Iran’s defense doctrine,” said a Foreign Ministry statement carried by state media.

“Iran is an important regional power, and the United States is a global power, and until the cooperation of these two powers is realized, there will be no hope of resolving the regional crises,” stressed Mousavian.

America’s diminished security 

With Trump at the wheel, the US has inched closer to war and sparked a global crisis after tearing up the JCPOA.

“There is a direct line you can draw from Trump’s violation of the Iran deal and the risk of conflict today,” said Jon Wolfsthal, who served as the nuclear expert for the National Security Council under Obama.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is an award-winning journalist. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Tasnim News Agency

 

I’m afraid I’m going to be the fact-checking party, again. I must call foul on those claiming that a recent CDC study shows mask wearers are more likely to get COVID-19 than non-mask wearers.

I hate face masks, but I love truth. And, while there is other evidence that does support the proposition that face masks would increase infection rates, this new study, in my estimation, is not one of them.

Here’s exactly what the study is saying:

The numbers in brackets are percentages of the total of 154 patients diagnosed with SARS-COV-2 in the sample group. What’s immediately apparent is an inverse relation between face mask use and the number of patients infected. At first glance, this makes it look like wearing a face mask will increase your chances of being infected with SARS-COV-2 by 17-fold; with 70% of patients always wearing their mask in public, compared to the 4% who never don the muzzle.

That’s a 1700% increase in viral infection from wearing face masks. That’s way too high! We’d have masked corpses all over the place. While wearing a damp cloth over your nose may certainly increase infection rates, is it not far-fetched to suggest such a dramatic increase? For example, the best study I’ve seen only showed a 50% increase in bacterial infections.

There are other ways the correlation demonstrated in this study could be explained.

For example, the reason why the majority of the infected patients were frequent face mask users may simply be because the majority of the general population wears masks. The same study found the vast majority of their COVID patient samples were white, non-hispanics. Does that mean white people are more prone to COVID-19? No, it probably just reflects that more white people live in the United States.

“People who are more inclined to wear face masks also may be more inclined to seek out PCR testing and receive positive results,” pointed out Dr. Ron Brown PhD in an email. “In other words, a limitation of this study, not mentioned by the authors, is selection bias among the sample of ‘314 symptomatic patients who actively sought testing during July 1-29, 2020 at 11 healthcare facilities.’

“Also, a person who is NOT inclined to wear a face mask may be more likely to be a ‘person who did not respond, or refused to participate’ in the study. They are more likely to crawl up in bed and sleep it off.”

I can vouch that if I have a sore throat the last place I’m going is a healthcare facility for a COVID test.

Furthermore, how much can we trust the patients? Imagine your average person in a hospital with a COVID-19 diagnosis: Their doctor asks them if they’ve been wearing their face mask like a good boy or girl. Many who weren’t might lie and say they were.

Amusingly, the study says the researchers used the PCR test to determine whether this sample group had SARS-CoV-2 or not. With all we know of the PCR test’s shortcomings, we might as well say they had the Easter Bunny flip a coin. Why do we fault the PCR test when exposing the corona scandal, but then rely on its junk data to argue that masks are bunk?

In an email, Prof. Denis Rancourt, PhD offered another perspective on this wonky CDC report:

“The study shows the same proportions [of mask wearing] for the comparison group that did not develop an illness. Therefore, there is no evidence presented in the article that masks increase likelihood of being infected by the presumed virus.”

Thus, we need to be careful about making hasty judgements simply to confirm our position on the ineffectiveness of masking. As Prof. Rancourt’s arch-enemy, David Kyle Johnson PhD, reminds us in a much-flawed pro-masking article: “…once you realize that a few pieces of proposed evidence for something is pseudoscience, you are justified in concluding that all such evidence will be similarly flawed.”

In the end, this new study is just another example of pointless CDC data; probably intended to trigger false claims and confusion. Or maybe it’s just to make it look like the researchers are researching.

What we really need are large randomly selected samples of people who wear face masks religiously like a crucifix and those who disdain the mask like a dirty diaper. Let’s see what percentage of each group gets ill with flu-like symptoms.

Oh, wait. Of course, we already have those randomized controlled trial studies. And they all say the same thing: Masks make no difference in whether people get sick or not. What more proof do we need that mandatory masking is a baseless violation of personal rights and freedoms?

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John C. A. Manley has spent over a decade ghostwriting for medical doctors, as well as naturopaths, chiropractors and Ayurvedic physicians. He publishes the COVID-19(84) Red Pill Briefs – an email-based newsletter dedicated to preventing the governments of the world from using an exaggerated pandemic as an excuse to violate our freedom, health, privacy, livelihood and humanity. He is also writing a novel, Brave New Normal: A Dystopian Love Story. Visit his website at: MuchAdoAboutCorona.ca He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The debt-to-GDP ratio has emerged as a vital metric for determining economic prospects for a given country. Most countries usually strive to put in place measures to keep their ratio as low as possible.

Data presented by Buy Shares indicates that among the top ten countries with the highest National-to-GDP ratio, the European Union accounts for six. Japan has the highest ratio at 268.21%. Greece and Italy hold the second and third slots at 214.29%, and 156.92% respectively.

The research indicates that the US has the fifth-highest debt-to-GDP ratio at 136.69%. The United Kingdom lies in the tenth slot with a ratio of 100.87%.

Our research also highlights countries with the highest GDP and also the highest national debt. The United States has the highest GDP $19.54 trillion as of September 3rd. China has the second-highest GDP at $14.57 trillion. Japan stands a distant third with its GDP almost five times less compared to the US at $4.53 trillion.

Elsewhere, the United States has the highest national debt of $26.71 trillion which is at least double compared to second-placed Japan with a debt of $12.15 trillion. China has the third highest national debt globally at $7.32 trillion.

Importance of debt-to-GDP ratio

The National Debt-to-GDP ratio metric compares a country’s debt to its gross domestic product (GDP). The ratio reliably indicates the ability of a particular country to pay back its debts. The ratio can also be interpreted as the number of years needed to pay back the debt. When a country defaults on its debt, it often triggers financial panic in domestic and international markets alike.

The higher a country’s debt-to-GDP ratio climbs, the higher its risk of default on debts becomes. Although governments strive to lower their debt-to-GDP ratios, it can be challenging especially during periods of economic recession like the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. In such situations, governments usually increase borrowing in an effort to stimulate growth and boost aggregate demand.

Notably, Japan’s high debt can be managed since it is majorly owed to its citizens. Countries like Greece, owe their debt mostly to foreign creditors. In this case, Japan has the lowest risk of default compared to Greece. Japan is still well-off because it can adjust interest rates at low levels so that repayment values stay low relative to the overall debt level.

The US national debt on the verge of surpassing the economy

On the other hand, the United States has seen it’s national debt spike into crisis levels even surpassing the GDP. The massive spending in stimulus packages to mitigate the coronavirus pandemic is projected to push the national debt beyond the size of the economy. Interestingly, despite the US debt hitting historical highs, the stock market in August saw the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average recover from March losses.

In contrast, the US’s closest economic rival China enjoys low national debt. For China, the economic output is enough to make payments for debts owed. China, whose economy has been growing rapidly in recent years relies heavily on credit financing to spur rapid growth. However, the country might see an increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio due to the stimulus plan to invest in its ambitious infrastructure projects.

Despite the US debts skyrocketing, there is less effort to reduce it. From time immemorial the US economy has outpaced its debt. For years, Congress has held the view that current debt will be dwarfed by tomorrow’s economic growth. However, with the pandemic, the tables have been turned. Additionally, political factors have come to play where if the federal government cuts spending on essentials like social security, it will impact reelection plans for the sitting government.

In cutting the national debt, some governments resort to practices like issuing debts with bonds. This enables the treasury to avoid raising taxes and offer funds to pay expenditures, while also stimulating economic growth. Additionally, through maintaining low-interest rates, governments are able to spur economic growth, generate tax revenue, and reduce the national debt. Lower interest rates make it easier for individuals and businesses to borrow money.

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Justin is an editor, writer, and a downhill fan. He spent many years writing about banking, finances, blockchain, and digital assets-related news. He strives to serve the untold stories for the readers.

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The novel coronavirus pandemic both revealed and accelerated the irreversible crisis of the global capitalist system and, consequently, the domestic conditions shaping the 2020 U.S. presidential election and every level of U.S. governance.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) asserts the deepening structural crisis is causing unprecedented forms of capitalist structural violence that can be measured in unnecessary deaths, sickness, hospitalizations, mass hunger, homelessness and collective trauma. This crisis, along with climate change and the interlocking issues related to imperialist war, militarism and domestic repression, are the main challenges facing the public.

Yet, the diversionary psychodrama passing itself off as politics in the United States has consigned these issues outside of the pre-approved range of items for public discussion.

However, BAP took on the task to raise the issues that others have avoided during this election season to suggest the people must demand from public officials a minimum program that opposes war, repression and imperialism.

We launched the Candidate Accountability Pledge as part of our broader campaign, No Compromise, No Retreat: Defeat the War Against African/Black People in the U.S. and Abroad, to say public officials coming to our people for support must embrace an agenda that in the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., addresses the ongoing issues of “racism, materialism and militarism” that characterize the politics of the United States as the “greatest purveyor of violence on the planet.”

In these last few weeks of this effort, we highlight our demands. They go beyond the election because we know the state is increasingly relying on the use of violence domestically and abroad, and that both Democrats and Republicans are committed to this strategy to maintain the power of the capitalist dictatorship. So, we suggest the people demand their elected officials and candidates:

• Oppose the militarization of U.S. police through the Department of Defense’s 1033 program
• Oppose Israeli training of U.S. police forces
• Call for and work for the closure of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)
• Advocate for the closure of 800+ U.S. foreign military bases
• Oppose Trump’s “Operation Relentless Pursuit”
• Commit to opposing all military, economic (including sanctions and blockades) and political interventions
• Advocate for an end to U.S. participation in NATO
• Support efforts to cut the U.S. military budget by 50%
• Demand the U.S. Department of Justice document and investigate the use of lethal force by domestic police officers
• Commit to passing resolutions that commit the U.S. to uphold international law and the U.N. Charter
• Sponsor legislation and/or resolutions to support the U.N. resolution on the complete global abolition of nuclear weapons

Over the last few weeks, we have attempted to raise the visibility of these demands.

For example, our September 24 webinar, “Full Spectrum Dominance: From AFRICOM to Indo-Pacific Command”, focused on our ongoing work to shut down AFRICOM, but we also drew attention to another U.S. command structure, the Indo-Pacific Command, which is being used to strengthen U.S. offensive capabilities against China.

Then on October 1, over 300 organizations from global civil society joined us by endorsing and taking action in support of the International Day of Action on AFRICOM. For that day, we asked organizations and individuals to call on the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to investigate the impact of AFRICOM on the African continent. The effort to sign onto that letter continues.

We are disseminating an especially important conversation BAP members hosted and presented on October 7 on Black Women and Anti-Imperialism.

On October 14, BAP co-sponsored and National Organizer Ajamu Baraka participated in a discussion on policing in Nicaragua and the Caribbean that is receiving international attention.

BAP member organization Friends of the Congo yesterday launched “Congo Week in Harlem”, an annual 7-day event that draws attention to the ongoing struggles in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and to its rich history and culture. Many believe the DRC would be one of the richest countries if it was allowed to exercise real national sovereignty, free from predatory U.S. and Western companies.

BAP is a member of the Black is Back Coalition (BIB), which is organizing the “Black People’s March on the White House” on November 7-8. For BIB, the election’s outcome will not change that Black and Brown colonized workers in the United States and abroad have no choice but to resist the U.S. state’s criminal activity as it desperately attempts to shore up the capitalist order.

And we are still moving toward our fundraising goal of $30,000, so we can continue to work for peace and People(s)-Centered Human Rights. Help us.

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“Politicians are more likely than people in the general population to be sociopaths. I think you would find no expert in the field of sociopathy/psychopathy/antisocial personality disorder who would dispute this… That a small minority of human beings literally have no conscience was and is a bitter pill for our society to swallow — but it does explain a great many things, shamelessly deceitful political behavior being one.”—Dr. Martha Stout, clinical psychologist and former instructor at Harvard Medical School

Twenty years ago, a newspaper headline asked the question: “What’s the difference between a politician and a psychopath?”

The answer, then and now, remains the same: None.

There is no difference between psychopaths and politicians.

Nor is there much of a difference between the havoc wreaked on innocent lives by uncaring, unfeeling, selfish, irresponsible, parasitic criminals and elected officials who lie to their constituents, trade political favors for campaign contributions, turn a blind eye to the wishes of the electorate, cheat taxpayers out of hard-earned dollars, favor the corporate elite, entrench the military industrial complex, and spare little thought for the impact their thoughtless actions and hastily passed legislation might have on defenseless citizens.

Psychopaths and politicians both have a tendency to be selfish, callous, remorseless users of others, irresponsible, pathological liars, glib, con artists, lacking in remorse and shallow.

Charismatic politicians, like criminal psychopaths, exhibit a failure to accept responsibility for their actions, have a high sense of self-worth, are chronically unstable, have socially deviant lifestyles, need constant stimulation, have parasitic lifestyles and possess unrealistic goals.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about Democrats or Republicans.

Political psychopaths are all largely cut from the same pathological cloth, brimming with seemingly easy charm and boasting calculating minds. Such leaders eventually create pathocracies: totalitarian societies bent on power, control, and destruction of both freedom in general and those who exercise their freedoms.

Once psychopaths gain power, the result is usually some form of totalitarian government or a pathocracy. “At that point, the government operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups,” author James G. Long notes. “We are currently witnessing deliberate polarizations of American citizens, illegal actions, and massive and needless acquisition of debt. This is typical of psychopathic systems, and very similar things happened in the Soviet Union as it overextended and collapsed.”

In other words, electing a psychopath to public office is tantamount to national hara-kiri, the ritualized act of self-annihilation, self-destruction and suicide. It signals the demise of democratic government and lays the groundwork for a totalitarian regime that is legalistic, militaristic, inflexible, intolerant and inhuman.

Incredibly, despite clear evidence of the damage that has already been inflicted on our nation and its citizens by a psychopathic government, voters continue to elect psychopaths to positions of power and influence.

Indeed, a study from Southern Methodist University found that Washington, DC—our nation’s capital and the seat of power for our so-called representatives—ranks highest on the list of regions that are populated by psychopaths.

According to investigative journalist Zack Beauchamp,

“In 2012, a group of psychologists evaluated every President from Washington to Bush II using ‘psychopathy trait estimates derived from personality data completed by historical experts on each president.’ They found that presidents tended to have the psychopath’s characteristic fearlessness and low anxiety levels — traits that appear to help Presidents, but also might cause them to make reckless decisions that hurt other people’s lives.”

The willingness to prioritize power above all else, including the welfare of their fellow human beings, ruthlessness, callousness and an utter lack of conscience are among the defining traits of the sociopath.

When our own government no longer sees us as human beings with dignity and worth but as things to be manipulated, maneuvered, mined for data, manhandled by police, conned into believing it has our best interests at heart, mistreated, jailed if we dare step out of line, and then punished unjustly without remorse—all the while refusing to own up to its failings—we are no longer operating under a constitutional republic.

Instead, what we are experiencing is a pathocracy: tyranny at the hands of a psychopathic government, which “operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups.”

Worse, psychopathology is not confined to those in high positions of government. It can spread like a virusamong the populace. As an academic study into pathocracy concluded,

“[T]yranny does not flourish because perpetuators are helpless and ignorant of their actions. It flourishes because they actively identify with those who promote vicious acts as virtuous.”

People don’t simply line up and salute. It is through one’s own personal identification with a given leader, party or social order that they become agents of good or evil.

Much depends on how leaders “cultivate a sense of identification with their followers,” says Professor Alex Haslam. “I mean one pretty obvious thing is that leaders talk about ‘we’ rather than ‘I,’ and actually what leadership is about is cultivating this sense of shared identity about ‘we-ness’ and then getting people to want to act in terms of that ‘we-ness,’ to promote our collective interests. . . . [We] is the single word that has increased in the inaugural addresses over the last century . . . and the other one is ‘America.’”

The goal of the modern corporate state is obvious: to promote, cultivate, and embed a sense of shared identification among its citizens. To this end, “we the people” have become “we the police state.”

We are fast becoming slaves in thrall to a faceless, nameless, bureaucratic totalitarian government machine that relentlessly erodes our freedoms through countless laws, statutes, and prohibitions.

Any resistance to such regimes depends on the strength of opinions in the minds of those who choose to fight back. What this means is that we the citizenry must be very careful that we are not manipulated into marching in lockstep with an oppressive regime.

Writing for ThinkProgress, Beauchamp suggests that “one of the best cures to bad leaders may very well be political democracy.”

But what does this really mean in practical terms?

It means holding politicians accountable for their actions and the actions of their staff using every available means at our disposal: through investigative journalism (what used to be referred to as the Fourth Estate) that enlightens and informs, through whistleblower complaints that expose corruption, through lawsuits that challenge misconduct, and through protests and mass political action that remind the powers-that-be that “we the people” are the ones that call the shots.

Remember, education precedes action. Citizens need to the do the hard work of educating themselves about what the government is doing and how to hold it accountable. Don’t allow yourselves to exist exclusively in an echo chamber that is restricted to views with which you agree. Expose yourself to multiple media sources, independent and mainstream, and think for yourself.

For that matter, no matter what your political leanings might be, don’t allow your partisan bias to trump the principles that serve as the basis for our constitutional republic. As Beauchamp notes, “A system that actually holds people accountable to the broader conscience of society may be one of the best ways to keep conscienceless people in check.”

That said, if we allow the ballot box to become our only means of pushing back against the police state, the battle is already lost.

Resistance will require a citizenry willing to be active at the local level.

Yet as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, if you wait to act until the SWAT team is crashing through your door, until your name is placed on a terror watch list, until you are reported for such outlawed activities as collecting rainwater or letting your children play outside unsupervised, then it will be too late.

This much I know: we are not faceless numbers.

We are not cogs in the machine.

We are not slaves.

We are human beings, and for the moment, we have the opportunity to remain free—that is, if we tirelessly advocate for our rights and resist at every turn attempts by the government to place us in chains.

The Founders understood that our freedoms do not flow from the government. They were not given to us only to be taken away by the will of the State. They are inherently ours. In the same way, the government’s appointed purpose is not to threaten or undermine our freedoms, but to safeguard them.

Until we can get back to this way of thinking, until we can remind our fellow Americans what it really means to be free, and until we can stand firm in the face of threats to our freedoms, we will continue to be treated like slaves in thrall to a bureaucratic police state run by political psychopaths.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Despite a year of unbridled state repression, including massacres committed against supporters of former Bolivian President Evo Morales, who was deposed just weeks after being declared the victor in the country’s October 2019 election, the left-wing Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) secured a resounding victory on October 18 for candidate Luis Arce, Morales’s former finance minister.

MAS won by such a wide margin that it even surprised many of its supporters in Bolivia and around the world. According to official exit polls, Arce and his vice-presidential candidate David Choquehuanca won 52.4 percent of the vote compared to centre-right candidate Carlos Mesa, who garnered only 31.5 percent.

In order to win in the first round, a candidate must secure more than 40 percent and a margin of at least 10 percent over the nearest rival to avoid a second round runoff. Arce won by an astonishing 20 percent.

Bolivian President-elect Luis Arce (centre) shortly after the announcement of the election results, October 18, 2020. Photo courtesy of Luis Arce/Twitter.

Winning the presidential election under the shadow of a US-backed right-wing coup (supported by Canada), was made all the more remarkable by MAS winning a majority in both houses of the Bolivian parliament, This was a veritable left-wing landslide. The majority Indigenous and poor defeated the white, upper-class candidates all down the line. It was one of the most courageous chapters in recent Latin American history.

Even de facto coup president Jeanine Añez conceded defeat through her Twitter account at about midnight.

“We do not yet have an official count, but from the data we have, Mr. Arce and Mr. Choquehuanca have won the election,” she said. “I congratulate the winners and ask them to govern with Bolivia and democracy in mind.”

Significantly, it was Morales who broadcast the first official victory speech from exile in Argentina.

“Brothers of Bolivia in the world, Lucho [Arce] will be our president,” he proclaimed. “For our country, for the path of economic, political and social development and especially it will contribute to economic growth. From a distance I want to send my brothers Lucho and David my sincerest congratulations.”

This was followed by a speech from president-elect Arce. “We want to thank the Bolivian people […] we thank all for their militancy. We have taken important steps, we have recovered democracy and hope,” he said. Arce also reiterated his commitment to fulfill MAS’s campaign promises. “Our commitment is to work, to carry out our program. We are going to govern for all Bolivians. We are going to build the unity of our country,” he added. “We are going to recover the country’s economy. We have the obligation to redirect our process of change without hatred, learning and overcoming our mistakes.”

Challenges

This victory was a proverbial slap in the face to the United States and its allies, including Canada, who backed the coup in 2019.

Morales’s initial electoral victory in 2005 was a game-changer of historic proportions for Latin America. For the first time in its history, the Indigenous majority had one of their own as president. What’s more, he was a socialist committed to wealth redistribution, helping the country’s poor majority, and nationalizing key industries to take back the nation’s wealth from unaccountable multinational corporations.

This October 18 victory has reaffirmed the strength, political consciousness and courage of the majority poor and Indigenous population of Bolivia, even more than Morales’s initial rise to power more than 15 years ago. The election of December 2005 was fought in a relatively calm environment, while the October 2020 vote took place against a backdrop of ongoing unrest after the chaos unleashed by the year-long interim government.

The objective of the coup was to suppress the majority and cleanse it of Indigenous values and pride, with violence when necessary. However, Bolivians resisted for a full year, strengthening their resolve, as well as their social and political organizations. The October 18 elections proved to be a de facto year-long electoral campaign for the MAS party.

Nevertheless, the conciliatory tone expressed by Arce and Morales was strategic. MAS won the elections, but there are challenges ahead. One is likely to come from the racist, militarized state that organized the coup and tried to intimidate voters during the latest trip to the polls. This military apparatus is still very much in place.

In addition to the challenge of maintaining political power, but linked to it, is the question of control over Bolivia’s lithium resources to which many observers say the coup was linked in the first place. Who can forget the infamous tweet by billionaire Elon Musk, whose Tesla firm relies on lithium, “We will coup whoever we want!”

The process of privatizing the substantial Bolivian lithium reserves, which were nationalized by Morales, is already in motion. How will the multinationals react to the socialist victory in Bolivia? What will the new MAS government do to reverse the measures enacted by the interim regime of Añez?

Bolivian president-elect, Luis Arce, speaks after hearing the results from the polls giving MAS 52.4 percent of the vote. Photo courtesy of TeleSUR/Twitter.

Geopolitical considerations

The post-election geopolitical considerations for entire hemisphere are immense. Bolivia’s re-entry into the socialist camp may inspire Venezuelans in the upcoming December 6 National Assembly election. Elsewhere, Ecuadorians are set to go to the polls on February 7, 2021, where Lenín Moreno’s increasingly unpopular government has barred former president Rafael Correa from running.

What’s more, Venezuela’s self-declared interim president and opposition leader Juan Guaidó is seeing his international support deteriorate. As I reported for Canadian Dimension in August, a recent press statement issued by the US State Department and Global Affairs Canada featured a dwindling number of ally countries that are now “committed to the restoration of democracy in Venezuela.” This is a far cry from the formerly extensive coalition of dozens of states that have heretofore unequivocally recognized and supported Guaidó. The State Department could not even get sign-on from all of the members of the Lima Group—the multilateral body consisting of 14 countries, including Canada, that is dedicated to a “peaceful exit to the ongoing crisis in Venezuela.”

The story does not end there. Bolivia became a member of the Lima Group after the coup last year. Now the tables have turned and it seems safe to say that Bolivia will withdraw from the multilateral body once the new president is sworn in. Argentina is also caught up in a controversy over its role in supporting regime change in Venezuela. Earlier this month, its centre-left government ordered its representative at the United Nations Human Rights Council to vote against Venezuela. In an act of protest, the Argentinian ambassador to Russia resigned. Will the Bolivian election result move Argentina to withdraw from the Lima Group?

At the time of writing, the Trudeau government has not issued a statement on the Bolivian election results. Neither has the Trump administration. Irrespective of when an official statement is issued, the response (or lack thereof) is already far slower than the rapid recognition of the coup perpetrators last fall, when Trudeau fell in lockstep with Trump. It will be the second major humiliating defeat for the Trudeau government on international policy this year. On June 17, the activism of thousands of Canadian citizens and hundreds of global intellectuals contributed to Canada’s failed bid for a UN Security Council seat. This was in part because of the Trudeau government’s regrettable position on Latin America.

With the partial reshaping of the geopolitical landscape in the region, would this not be an opportunity for Trudeau to withdraw from the Lima Group and recognize the rightful leaders of both Venezuela and Bolivia?

The need for a reassessment of Canada’s foreign policy—which the UN vote and now the MAS victory illustrates—may very well earn some support in parliament. For example, as soon as the Bolivia election results were made public, NDP MP Niki Ashton tweeted:

Felicidades @LuchoXBolivia! Moving to see the Movement for Socialism win the presidency in Bolivia! The people of Bolivia resisted fascists in their own country and imperialists including Canada – and voted for a movement that they built. El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido! https://t.co/wJoOWxwX0V

— Niki Ashton (@nikiashton) October 19, 2020

Canadian parliamentarians would be wise to follow her lead.

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This article was originally published on Canadian Dimension.

Arnold August is a Montreal-based journalist and the author of three books on Cuba, Latin America, and US foreign policy. His articles have appeared in English, Spanish and French in North America, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East, including occasional contributions to Canadian Dimension.

Desperate to distract the national discourse from his criminal mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, Donald Trump is promising that a vaccine will be available before Election Day. His vaccine campaign is named “Operation Warp Speed” and there is a real danger that its speed will warp the results. Ironically, the Trump administration is comparing this effort to the Manhattan Project, the highly secret government program to develop the first atomic bomb. “This isn’t a secret government weapon we’re trying to keep from an enemy,” said David Mitchell, founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs. “The enemy is the virus. This is actually a rescue mission to save Americans and humanity from the virus.”

Vaccines generally take 10 years to develop, test and distribute. The shortest time it has taken to develop a vaccine is four years. Yet four pharmaceutical companies are in late stages of clinical trials. Pfizer, apparently the front-runner in the vaccine race, says it won’t have results before mid-November. Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson say they hope to have results by the end of the year.

“Trying to produce a vaccine at ‘Warp Speed’ is a terrible gamble with public health,” Clifford Conner, a science historian and author of the new book, The Tragedy of American Science: From Truman to Trump, said in an interview with Jeff Mackler of Socialist Action USA. “If none of the inadequately tested trial vaccines kill anybody — and if one of them should actually prove therapeutically worthwhile — it will be a matter of dumb luck, and dumb luck is never a good plan in a deadly crisis.”

In July, AstraZeneca halted its clinical trials because a participant became seriously ill. Although AstraZeneca refused to identify the malady, citing privacy concerns, the patient’s symptoms were consistent with transverse myelitis, or inflammation of the spinal cord. Several researchers decried AstraZeneca’s lack of transparency.

Last week, Johnson & Johnson announced it had paused its clinical trial due to an unexplained illness in one of its volunteers. The company refused to provide details, claiming the need to protect the patient’s privacy.

Robert R. Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a Senate panel on September 16 that a vaccine wouldn’t be readily available until mid-2021. A few hours later, Trump declared, without evidence, that Redfield “made a mistake” and a vaccine would be widely available in weeks.

Shortly before Trump contradicted Redfield, four senior physicians directing the national coronavirus response team endorsed the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) new stricter safety rules. Those requirements mandate the approval of outside experts before the FDA will pronounce a vaccine safe and effective.

The new FDA emergency rules also require that participants in clinical trials be followed for two months after administration of the immunizations before final authorization, in order to identify possible side effects.

But desperate to win an electoral advantage in the face of Trump’s falling poll numbers, the administration stalled its approval of the FDA’s new policies for two weeks. Trump accused the FDA of preventing authorization of a vaccine before Election Day, calling it a “political hit job.” The day after The New York Times reported that White House officials were blocking the FDA’s new guidelines, the administration did an about-face and approved them.

“I have tremendous trust in these massive companies that are so brilliantly organized in terms of what they’ve been doing with the tests,” Trump said at a press briefing. “I don’t know that a government as big as we are could do tests like this.”

In the race to develop a vaccine as quickly as possible, Operation Warp Speed is “paying out billions of dollars to Big Pharma corporations in advance of any results whatsoever,” Conner told Truthout. They are not complying with regulatory oversight and traditional federal contracting mechanisms that create transparency, he noted. “Before any of the companies had done any research or developed any products, they were already reaping windfall profits from their association with Operation Warp Speed.” What that demonstrates, Conner adds, is that, “Warp Speed is not so much a scientific ‘race for a vaccine’ among competing research laboratories as it is a speculative frenzy among competing hedge funds.”

Three of the pharmaceutical companies that have contracted with Warp Speed to develop a vaccine have never successfully brought any vaccine to market, Conner said. Novavax has a Warp Speed contract for $1.6 billion, Moderna has a $1.5 billion Warp Speed contract, and Vaxart’s stock prices have soared, its owners realizing huge profits. Pfizer also has a Warp Speed contract worth $1.95 billion.

The Trump administration is pressuring the FDA to rebrand its emergency authorization of a vaccine as a “pre-licensure.” But, concerned it would appear to be politicizing scientific determinations, the FDA is pushing back. An FDA spokesperson cited “important substantive differences” between the emergency use authorization and the more rigorous process to license a vaccine. “There is no such thing as ‘pre-licensure’ or ‘pre-approval’ under the laws FDA administers,” the spokesperson said.

A data and safety monitoring board has been established to review information about the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. The board has the authority to fast-track or halt a clinical trial. This small panel of 10 to 15 outside scientists and statistical experts works in secret, ostensibly to shield them from company pressure. The secrecy, however, may also lead to undue influence by drug companies. “We want to know they’re truly independent,” Eric Topol, a clinical trial expert at San Diego’s Scripps Research, said. “The lack of transparency is exasperating.” The safety board is overseeing trials by Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. But Pfizer, which is funding its clinical trials, has its own five-member safety panel.

Topol criticized Moderna and Pfizer for including in their data people who had fairly mild cases of COVID-19. Topol said evidence of the effectiveness of a vaccine would be more solid if only moderate and severe cases were included. In addition, Topol faulted Pfizer and Moderna for their willingness to halt their clinical trials early, which could prove detrimental later when the vaccine is administered to millions of people.

“Take the time, the extra weeks. No shortcuts. Nobody will regret it,” Topol cautioned. “I’ve been doing clinical trials for decades. I don’t know if there’s ever been a more important one than this one. I’d like to see it done right, and not stopped early.”

Congress members, advocacy organizations and a former administration official are calling for Operation Warp Speed to release its vaccine contracts with the pharmaceutical companies. “The administration really just seems to be playing a game of hide-and-seek,” Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) told NPR.

The Trump administration has ignored requests by the House of Representatives for information on COVID-19 spending.

“[R]ight now, the entire process is riddled with political interference and a lack of transparency,” Sen. Patty Murray, (D-Washington), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, wrote in a statement to NPR. “These contracts need to be made public so Congress and the American people are not left in the dark — there is too much at stake.”

Rick Bright, who was fired as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, filed a whistleblower complaint, charging that some federal COVID-19 contracts were awarded based on “political connections and cronyism” instead of scientific evidence. Bright said there’s no reason to hide the contracts, which causes him to suspect “that there’s something interesting in there they don’t want discovered.”

Trump’s stubborn insistence on having a vaccine by Election Day does not comport with reality. Neither do Big Pharma’s predictions. The shortcuts they threaten to take for political gain and mega-profits endanger the public safety. That should frighten us all.

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Copyright Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and a member of the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent book is Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Cooperation between China and the Philippines could easily be hindered by U.S. interference in territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Washington wants to exploit Chinese-Filipino contentions in their demarcation claims over the South China Sea in an attempt to pressurize and contain China’s growing influence in Southeast Asia. However, despite Washington’s desire to steer the Philippines away from China, the two countries are currently negotiating joint oil and gas exploitation in the South China Sea and the Philippines’ energy urgency could be a powerful driver for the two sides to finally reach an agreement.

Forum Ltd., a subsidiary of one of the leading energy groups in the Philippines – PXP Energy Group, is negotiating with the China Offshore Oil and Gas Corporation (CNOOC). According to Reuters, PXP said that the parties have not reached an agreement yet. Although an agreement has not yet been made, to date CNOOC is the only foreign company asked by the Filipinos to become a potential participant in joint oil and gas exploitation in the South China Sea. This occurred after Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte approved on October 15 the lifting of the suspension on oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea that has banned since 2014 by decision of former President Benigno Aquino.

Filipino Energy Minister Alfonso Cusi stated that the decision to lift the ban was made by taking into account the outcome of negotiations between the Philippines and China on the demarcation of the South China Sea, as well as between Forum Ltd and CNOOC. Cusi did not give details on the bilateral negotiations but on October 10 there were talks between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Filipino counterpart Teodoro Locsin in Dang Chong City in China’s Yunnan Province. It is likely that the two ministers have given approval for energy cooperation. According to the official announcement, Yi confirmed China’s interest in developing cooperation within the framework of large-scale bilateral projects. For his part, the Filipino Foreign Minister declared his readiness to cooperate with China to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea.

Therefore, despite U.S. attempts to push Southeast Asian states away from China, the Philippines have a good opportunity to develop energy cooperation and joint exploitation of oil and gas in the South China Sea. The Philippines is currently looking for new sources of oil and gas. They cannot satisfy their domestic needs with already available resources. Manila has to import energy, which is a major burden on their budget.

Negotiations first began in 2016 after Duterte took office, but no agreement has been reached. The COVID-19 pandemic has heavily affected the Filipino economy, just like most other countries around the world. Resources are always necessary, especially in times of crisis. Under these conditions, the parties can be willing to make real concessions and real compromises to exploit the common oil and gas on the continental shelf.

China is aware that the Philippines urgently needs oil and gas, and there are about 30 drilling projects in the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Southeast Asian country. Philippine Star newspaper reported that in addition to PXP Energy Corp., there are also other well-known companies such as the Philippine National Petroleum Corporation and Udenna Group, who are also looking forward to oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea after Duterte lifted the ban.

The Manila Bulletin notes that 99% of the country’s crude oil needs are met by imports. In addition, the Malapaya gas field, one of the very few functioning resource fields currently being exploited by the Philippines, will be depleted within a few years. As early as 2024, gas production from this offshore field will begin to decline. With this decline, Manila will be more desperate to finalize agreements for the exploitation of oil and gas.

It is with this that Washington will likely become more assertive against the strengthening ties between the Philippines and China.

Duterte has already built a reputation for his outbursts against both the U.S. and China, especially as he mostly pursues an independent foreign policy. At the same time, Washington is directly interfering in regional affairs by condemning Chinese claims in the South China Sea and arming Taiwan. The Duterte administration is ready to take steps to facilitate the negotiation process between China and the Philippines on energy cooperation in the South China Sea. In spite of U.S. threats an agreement of strengthening cooperation with China will be a testament to the independent foreign policy of the Duterte administration, and Beijing will certainly welcome this stance.

Last month, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Biegun said that Washington wants the defence relations with India, Japan and Australia – known as “the QUAD” – to serve as something resembling an Asian NATO. Although for now the QUAD comprises of the U.S. and the three countries it considers its closest allies in the Indo-Pacific region – India, Japan and Australia – the US Department of Defense hopes that some Southeast Asian countries, mainly those that have territorial disputes with China, particularly the Philippines and Vietnam, will join the QUAD, and contribute financially and materially to the overall military structure.

Though China and the Philippines still have outstanding maritime demarcation issues, especially since Beijing refuses to accept the verdict of the Permanent Court of Arbitration which ruled in favour of Manila and determined that Beijing has “no historical rights” based on the “nine-dash line” map, they both acknowledge the gravity of greater U.S. intervention in the region. The Chinese and Filipinos are still able to cooperate and create mutually beneficial agreements despite differences over the demarcation of the South China Sea, demonstrating that Washington has not been able to exploit this vulnerability in Beijing-Manila relations.

The US under the previous administration of Barack Obama condemned the Philippines for its heavy handedness approach in dealing with narcotic issues, which severely hampered bilateral relations. This was seen by Duterte as a direct interference into the domestic affairs of his country and soured relations. Although relations have been more cordial with President Donald Trump, the reality is that new administrations always come and go in Washington, meaning there is an inconsistent policy towards the Philippines.

From Manila’s perspective, the Chinese Communist Party leadership in Beijing is consistent, and with this it is easier for ties to be built upon and be maintained despite some issues needing to be resolved. Duterte would not be interested in joining U.S.-led efforts to contain the growing influence of China as Beijing does not interfere in the internal affairs of his country. China also offers tangible initiatives to help develop Filipino infrastructure and grow the economy. By joining an alliance aimed against China, such as the QUAD, the Philippines has more to lose by risking economic relations with China rather than what it supposedly gains security wise by aligning with Washington.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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After months of controversy and discussions, Brazil has chosen to prioritize the US as a partner in 5G technology. The decision contradicts the opinion of the greatest experts on the subject, who see the choice as Brazil’s alignment to Washington in the trade war against China, which would be a disaster for the Brazilian economy, considering that Beijing is the largest allied trading partner of Brazil.

The Brazilian choice does not come by chance: once again, Brasilia makes an important decision after talks between government officials and the American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In a virtual meeting organized on Monday (October 19) by the United States Chamber of Commerce, Pompeo said that both Brazil and the United States needed to reduce their dependence on imports from China. According to him, the Chinese participation in the economies of the two countries brings “enormous risks”. During the meeting, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro announced three trade agreements with Washington, which were signed hours later. Pompeo called for strengthening trade between Brazil and the US.

The risks mentioned by Pompeo refer to an old discourse propagated by Washington that Beijing would be using its technology exported to other countries in order to spy and steal data from the nations that consume its products and services. This has been the main American argument for trying to persuade other countries to ban China from participating in their respective technology markets. In most parts of the world, this rhetoric has been rejected, but in Brazil, which adopts a foreign policy of automatic alignment with the US, the government adhered to the speech.

It is important to note that for many months the Bolsonaro government’s automatic alignment was hampered by a more pragmatic trend that persisted in some sectors of the Brazilian political scenario. The Brazilian vice president General Hamilton Mourão himself was the first member of the government to pronounce in favor of Chinese participation. Mourão is the main name of the government’s military wing and the military are the most interested in Chinese activity because they see Beijing as an important strategic ally. In general, we can divide the Brazilian government between those who are ideologically committed to American supremacy – in this wing are Jair Bolsonaro, his family and Chancellor Ernesto Araújo – and, on the other hand, those who defend an alliance with the US for merely strategic reasons, without ideological commitments – this is the case with the military. Without ideological commitment, military are more open to possible alliances with China, as they analyze scenarios based on purely strategic and pragmatic assumptions – so if China is offering something more advantageous than the US, the military will support China.

In this sense, the “victory” of the ideological wing of the government is truly surprising, mainly due to the way it happened: in a few hours, the Brazilian government signed agreements with the US, without any satisfaction to the military, businessmen or the media and contradicting the recommendations of the military and all the experts. The most affected by this decision will be the Brazilian government itself since Brazil is in a position of absolute disadvantage in the dispute between the US and China. The neutral position in the trade war between Beijing and Washington would be the best for Brazil. If there was a national strategy truly concerned with the country’s development, the government would allow the participation of as many countries and companies in the Brazilian 5G market as possible, not damaging the image of the country by joining either side in a trade war between two powers with a level of economic and technological development much higher than that of Brazil.

Now, with the decision taken this week, Brazil is officially in favor of Washington in a dispute that does not concern it, and this can have serious consequences for one simple reason: Brazil depends on China. China is the largest importer of Brazilian products, mainly from Brazilian agribusiness. It was the partnership with China that prevented the complete economic catastrophe in Brazil during this pandemic period, precisely through the consumption of agribusiness products, mainly the purchase of meat and soybeans – which increased 51% and 22%, respectively, compared to last year. China will certainly impose sanctions on Brazil from now on, which will seriously affect the Brazilian economy. In fact, Chinese 5G will be spread around the world, regardless of whether Brazil accepts it or not. Beijing does not depend on the Brazilian market – but Brazil does depend on China.

With possible sanctions by China on trade with Brazil, the Brazilian agribusiness sector – the biggest beneficiary in negotiations with China – will be harmed and will certainly stop supporting the Bolsonaro government – which has major agribusiness entrepreneurs as one of its main bases of support . Without the support of the military and farmers, what will be the future of the government? The ideological wing is insufficient to keep Bolsonaro in power. Bolsonaro has only one option left: to go back and guarantee a neutral position in the trade war.

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Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

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This video was first published in April 2019.

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It was all a fitting reminder of Bertolt Brecht’s remark that bank robbery lies in the province of amateurs.  The real professionals of plunder establish banks.  Last month, the labours of Buzzfeed and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists revealed just that.  Centre stage: international banking misbehaviour. And my, was there much to go on. 

The journalists had been combing through leaks comprising 2,121 suspicious activity reports (SARs) filed with the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) between 2000 and 2017.  The relevant amount in terms of transactions: somewhere in the order of $2 trillion.  It was awfully good of the banks themselves to be filing such reports with the US Treasury.  But such matters are mere formalities; there is no incentive for the bank in question to stop trading with a shady client, despite what is suspected in the report.  The point is to merely keep an account of it. 

The criteria for an SAR are not sharply defined.  Matthew Collin of the Brookings Institute suggests a few: unclear sources and ill-defined beneficiaries; a nexus with a jurisdiction historically noted for financial crime and irregularity.  Another “common sign of suspicion is one in which a client attempts to avoid attention from the authorities by making several deposits below $10,000, which is the automatic reporting threshold.” 

The FinCEN Files highlight five stellar performers in the movement of illicit cash: JP Morgan Chase, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon.  A few instances are worth mentioning.  Despite being fined $1.9 billion in the US for money laundering, HSBC moved money through its US operations to accounts in Hong Kong in 2013 and 2014.  Central to this was a Ponzi investment scam known as WCM777. 

The brainchild of Chinese national Phil Ming Xu, self-styled “Dr Phil,” the World Capital Market scheme promised returns of 100 percent profit in 100 days.  Xu vigorously promoted this version of monetary paradise through social media, webinars and seminars.  Gullible investors obliged, seduced by a rather grotesque combination of God and Mammon.  (Xu was courting the evangelical market.)  $80 million was raised and, for the unsuspecting investors, lost. 

In the aftermath of the losses, direct physical harm resulted.  Santa Rosa investor Reynaldo Pacheco extolled the virtues of WCM777 to family and friends.  One acquaintance Pacheco had recruited to the scheme took umbrage at having lost $3,000.  Taking matters rather seriously, she enlisted the services of three men in April 2014.  They kidnapped the doomed Pacheco and bludgeoned him to death with rocks, leaving his remains in a creek bed in Napa, California. 

Despite such events, and the knowledge that WCM was the subject of investigative interest in three countries, HSBC continued moving money for the investment fund.  As the ICIJ describes it, over “$30 million tied to WCM flowed through the bank in 2013 and 2014 – at a time when HSBC was under probation as part of its deferred prosecution deal with America authorities.”

Not to be outdone, JP Morgan is also revealed to be more than the obliging middleman in dirt-caked transactions.  An SAR filed by the bank in 2015 reveals that its London office might have assisted moving some of an amount totalling $1.02 billion. JP Morgan had provided services to ABSI Enterprises, a shady offshore company, between 2002 and 2013, despite being unclear of the firm’s provenance and ownership.  The filed SAR disclosed how the parent company of ABSI “might be associated with Semion Mogilevich – an individual who was on the FBI’s top 10 most wanted list”.  Such relationships demonstrate that capitalism lacks nationalist allegiances: Mogilevich is, after all, the emperor of Russia’s organised crime network.

JP Morgan’s reaction to such unmasking was an excuse all the banks have used at some point.  “We follow all laws and regulations in support of the government’s work to combat financial crimes.  We devote thousands of people and hundreds of millions of dollars to this important work.”

The amounts involved boggle, but they really ought to boggle more.  Minds have been tasked with trying to comprehend the deep sea of money laundering, and they have been left baffled in the drowning.  The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has an estimate: each year, between 2-5 percent of global GDP, or $800 billion to $2 trillion – is laundered.  In all this we see the tarnished, and, in banking circles, the acceptable fruits, of globalisation.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime puts it down to various vectors: the development in financial information, the innovation of technology, the advance of communications.  All “allow money to move anywhere in the world with speed and ease.  This makes the task of combating money-laundering more urgent than ever.”  Using the image of depth, “dirty money” becomes more difficult to identify as it plunges into the system, being rinsed and laundered.

The root of the problem is a deeply conventional one.  Money is to be made.  Banks make money handling money.  Rinsing and washing, they still earn fees for the service.  They are also encouraged by their staying power as indispensable international citizens.  Politicians of various shades come and go.  They occasionally spout demagogic promises about reforming and regulating the banking sector, but these voices will eventually pass.

Mechanisms are also in place that serve as damp slaps on the wrist than genuine incentives for reform.  The deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) is a central part of the US government’s approach to induce change within a bank’s transaction practices.  The reporting system is also feeble.  Banks often filed SARs months after the suspicious transaction, often several with the same client.  No action would be taken.  A corollary of such filings is the value of such SARs.  In the hope of preventing regulatory consequences, banks may issue an avalanche of them for regulators at FinCEN to investigate.  Since 2003, the number of SARs from banks has quadrupled.  FinCEN’s staffing has not kept the pace 178 in 2001; 300 in 2020.

This is not to say that kid gloves have always been the order of the day.  Penalties have resulted.  Since 2008, $36 billion worth in financial institution fines have been issued, with the bloc of North America taking about $27.9 billion. But such punishments have done little to chasten the sinners.  Like thorny flagellation for the pious, the expectation of such treatment is built into the belief system. The sin is permitted to continue. 

This is the institutional understanding that permeates the regulators and the regulated.  Little wonder that FinCEN was unimpressed by the leaks.  “As FinCen has stated previously,” the body asserted in a statement, “the unauthorized disclosure of SARs is a crime and can impact the national security of the United States, compromise law enforcement investigations, and threaten the safety and security of the institutions and individuals who file such reports.” 

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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]