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Recently, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed the “Abraham Accord” with Israel.  More Arab countries are rumored to be willing to also sign an alliance with Israel.  Analysts agree that the common perceived threat they share is Iran. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” is the glue which cements the once unthinkable alliances.  In an effort to better understand the various issues between Iran, the US, Israel and the region, Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse reached out to Dr. Javad Heirannia, a Middle East expert and director of international relations at Tahlil Bazaar News Agency. 

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Steven Sahiounie (SS):  The Obama administration signed a nuclear deal with Iran, but President Trump pulled out of the deal, and now he is saying that if he is re-elected he will make a new deal. In your opinion, will the Iranians be willing to sign a new deal with Washington, and will they ask for new conditions?

Javad Heirannia (JH):  The reason for Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA was that he wanted to negotiate a new agreement with Iran. In fact, he wanted to link Iran’s missile issues and regional policy to Iran’s nuclear issue. Note that the JCPOA is only about the Iranian nuclear issue, and the other sides in 5+1 knew that linking other issues to the nuclear issue would complicate the negotiations and would not work out.

Accordingly, linking issues such as the Iranian missile issue and regional issues to the Iranian nuclear issue is not desirable and makes it difficult to reach an agreement. Iran is not particularly willing to talk about missiles.

SS:  The US has started a new package of sanctions against Iran.  Why would Trump do that if he is promising to negotiate with Tehran?

JH:  At the same time, Trump is pursuing a carrot-and-stick policy toward Iran. On the one hand, by raising the issue of negotiations with Iran, he intends to present himself to the public as a peace-loving person who believes in diplomacy. Especially in the months leading up to the US presidential election, in order to convince American public opinion that he believes more in diplomacy than his rival, Joe Biden. So Trump has talked to Iran and reached an agreement within a week. In fact, this is his trick to win the votes of some people in America.

But on the other hand, by imposing the sanctions against Iran, Trump is trying to tell his supporters (voters) that the campaign of maximum pressure on Iran has not come short. This is also to the liking of the lobby of AIPAC and Israel and countries like Saudi Arabia to show that they will not fall short in any way against Iran.

SS:   Since the assassination of General Soleimani, the tension between Tehran and Washington has been on the highest level and sometimes close to war. Do you see a possible war between the two, or just a cold war?

JH:  In recent months, the United States has sought to provoke Iran into launching a limited war against Iran. But Iran consciously thwarted the US conspiracy. Iran has declared that the beginning of any war means the mother of all wars. In other words, if the United States wants to start a limited war, but Iran will not limit it and will pull the war toward all the positions of the United States and its allies in the region. Therefore, this issue is not in Trump’s favor, especially in the run-up to the elections. Iran is also reluctant to go to war because of the economic situation in the country.

Therefore, at present, the possibility of war and conflict is low.

SS:  The Israeli occupation, supported by the US, is building up a coalition against Iran, and several Arab countries are included.  Do you think that the resistance path from Gaza to South Lebanon to Syria to Iraq and to Tehran is ready for the next stage of this conflict that the Israeli occupation is preparing for?

JH:  The normalization of Israel’s relations with Arab countries is a kind of coalition against Iran and draws Israel to the borders of Iran. This will be a dangerous move by countries such as the UAE and possibly in the future by Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Because the presence of foreign agents in the Persian Gulf region leads to more insecurity and security dilemma. Especially the presence of Israel in the region, which has a problem with Iran and is Iran’s main enemy. Therefore, Iran takes this presence seriously. Iran has stated that it has exposed itself to the resistance front with the presence of Israel in the region and near the borders of Iran. Given the actions of Lebanese Hezbollah, the Hamas movement, and the resistance forces in Syria, Israel’s presence near the Iranian border would also put them in direct confrontation with Iran and groups such as Yemen’s “Ansar Allah,” (Huthis) or perhaps the Iraqi Al-Hashd al-Shaabi.

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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: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech on Iran’s nuclear programme at the defence ministry in Tel Aviv on 30 April 2018 (Source: MEE)

“Federalist” co-founder Sean Davis reports that CIA Director Gina Haspel is personally blocking the release of documents that will show “what actually happened” with Russiagate.

“This isn’t just a scandal about Democrat projection, this is a scandal about what was a coup planned against the incoming administration at the highest levels and I can report here tonight that these declassifications that have come out,” Davis told FOX News host Tucker Carlson on Wednesday. “Those weren’t easy to get out and there are far more waiting to get out.”

“Unfortunately those releases and declassifications according to multiple sources I’ve talked to are being blocked by CIA director Gina Haspel who herself was the main link between Washington and London,” Davis said. “As the London station chief from John Brennan’s CIA during the 2016 election. Recall, it was London where Christopher Steele was doing all this work. And I’m told that it was Gina Haspel personally who is blocking a continued declassification of these documents that will show the American people the truth of what actually happened.” (Fox News)

Click the photo to watch the video.

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Featured image is from Strategic Culture Foundation

The US has much to gain from Navalny’s illness.

Most obvious is its aim to block Nord Stream 2’s completion.

If Russia’s gas pipeline to Germany becomes operational next year, it will double what Gazprom can supply Germany and other Western countries.

If the project is suspended or halted altogether, it will advantage US LNG producers — despite the much higher cost of this energy supply.

Republicans and Dems have greater aims.

They want Russia harmed economically, geopolitically and strategically.

They want the country marginalized, weakened, and isolated.

The above objectives have been US policy throughout the Cold War and after its aftermath to the present day — no matter which right wing of its one-party state runs things.

Post-WW II, containing Russia became official US policy.

US diplomat/envoy to Soviet Russia/presidential advisor George Kennan (1904 – 2005) was “the father of containment.”

He was a core member of so-called foreign policy “wise men” in Washington.

His 1946 “Long Telegram” from Moscow and 1947 “Sources of Soviet Conduct” claimed its government was inherently expansionist.

In February 1948, his “Memo PPS23” said the following:

“(W)e have 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population. (It makes us) the object of envy and resentment.

“Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships (to let us) maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national society.”

“We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction…”

“We should dispense with the aspiration to ‘be liked’ or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism.”

“We should (stop talking about) unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization.”

“The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts.”

“The less we are hampered by idealistic slogans (ideas and practices), the better.”

In July 1947, his so-called “X” article on the “Sources of Soviet Conduct urged countering it “effectively.”

The US “can never be on Moscow’s side,” he stressed.

In March 1948, NSC 7 detailed “The Position of the United States with Respect to Soviet-Directed World Communism,” saying:

“(A) defensive policy cannot be considered an effective means of checking the momentum of Soviet expansion.”

“Defeat(ing)” communism was considered “vital to the security of the United States.”

NSC 68 (April 1950 — issued weeks before Harry Truman’s preemptive war on nonbelligerent North Korea) officially inaugurated anti-Soviet Russia containment.

It called the country an enemy “unlike previous aspirants to hegemony…animated by a new fanatic faith, antithetical to our own (wishing to) impose its absolute authority over the rest of the world.”

Ignored was the scourge of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan — or that WW II devastated Soviet Russia, requiring years of rebuilding.

Its government posed no threat to the US — not then, notably not now.

After Soviet Russia’s dissolution in December 1991, capitalism replaced its communist system.

It remains Russian Federation policy today.

Because Moscow is independent of US control, made-in-the-USA adversarial relations continue.

No Russian threat to US/Western interests exists so it was invented, notably since Vladimir Putin became president.

Bipartisan hostility toward Russia in Washington is all about wanting the country transformed into a US vassal state.

It’s about gaining control over its vast resources and population, along with eliminating a strategic rival — whose overtures for normalized relations are consistently spurned.

The Trump regime is using the Navalny incident to further its strategic interests.

It’s pressuring Germany and the EU to punish Russia for an incident no evidence suggests it had anything to do with.

Last week, German Foreign Minister Heiko Mass said that if the chemical watchdog OPCW — an imperial lapdog serving Western interests — says Navalny was poisoned by novichok exposure, “I am convinced that (EU) sanctions will be unavoidable” on Russia, adding:

“(S)uch a grave violation of the International Chemical Weapons Convention cannot go unanswered.”

Earlier, a German military lab and facilities in France and Sweden claimed that the deadly nerve agent caused his illness.

Unmentioned by these countries was that exposure to novichok — the deadliest known toxin — causes death in minutes.

Navalny is very much alive over a month after falling ill.

Discharged from hospitalization in Berlin, German doctors expect him to recovery fully or near-fully.

If poisoned by novichok, he’d have died before boarding a flight from Tomsk, Russia to Moscow.

What’s obvious is suppressed in the West by hostile-to-Moscow political officials and media.

Heroic efforts by Russian doctors in Omsk that saved Navalny’s life was erased from the EU’s historical record.

So was their biological analysis — finding no toxins in his blood, urine, liver, or elsewhere in his system.

According to former German diplomat Frank Elbe, Europe is “making a giant step backwards – back to the Cold War” by allying with US hostility toward Russia instead of normalizing relations, adding:

US policymakers are furious about an alliance by Germany and other EU countries with Russia to construct Nord Stream 2, “pursu(ing) their own independent policy.”

Elbe urged Europe to break from the US when their interests diverge — to uphold their sovereign independence.

Most often, European countries bend to Washington’s will — even  when harming their interests.

So far, opposing the Trump regime’s pressure to abandon the landmark JCPOA nuclear deal is an exception to the rule — if it sticks.

Will Nord Stream 2 be another?

Will Germany support its completion or shoot itself in the foot by allying with US interests against its own?

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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 Wikimedia Commons

In remarks to the UN Security Council, The Grayzone’s Aaron Maté details the OPCW’s Douma cover-up scandal and urges UN members to support the chemical watchdog’s inspectors whose evidence was suppressed.

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At an Arria-Formula Meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Aaron Maté of The Grayzone delivers remarks on the OPCW’s ongoing Syria scandal.

Veteran OPCW inspectors who investigated an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria in April 2018 say that their probe was censored and manipulated. Under direct US government pressure, the OPCW concealed evidence that pointed to the incident being staged on the ground, and instead released a report that suggested Syrian government culpability. The allegation against Syria led to the bombing of Syria by the US, France, and UK just days after the alleged Douma incident. In his remarks, Aaron calls this “one of the most important, and overlooked, global stories in recent memory” and urges the UN and OPCW to let the OPCW inspectors air their concerns, and present the evidence that was suppressed.

Other briefers participating in the UN session were former OPCW inspector Ian Henderson, a member of the Douma team; and award-winning physicist Ted Postol, MIT professor emeritus and former Pentagon adviser.

The full video of the UN session can be viewed here.

Full transcript follows.

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Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

My name is Aaron Maté. I am a journalist with The Grayzone, based in the United States. It’s an honor to speak to you today about what I think is one of the most important, and overlooked, global stories in recent memory.

The OPCW — the world’s top chemical weapons watchdog — is facing a serious scandal. Leaks from inside strongly suggest the OPCW has been severely compromised. The implications of this are grave.

It would mean that the OPCW was exploited to accuse the Syrian government of a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. It would also mean that the OPCW was used to retroactively justify the bombing of Syria by several member states, just days after the alleged Douma incident. In short, it appears the OPCW was compromised to justify military strikes.

There are also indications that the OPCW has retaliated against two veteran officials who were part of the Douma investigation and challenged the censorship of the Douma evidence.

These two OPCW officials are highly regarded scientists with more than 25 years of combined experience at the organization. Yet instead of being protected, and given the chance to air their concerns, these two scientists have seen their reputations impugned by the OPCW leadership.

There is substantial evidence to back all of this up. I will summarize the key details.

The OPCW’s Fact-Finding Mission, or FFM, deployed to Syria and what is known as Country X to investigate the Douma incident in April 2018. They interviewed scores of witnesses and visited several key sites. They examined gas cylinders found at the scene, took chemical samples and hundreds of photos, and conducted detailed measurements.

Upon their return from Syria, the FFM team drafted an extensive and detailed report of their findings. But what the investigators found in Douma is not what the OPCW released to the world. And that is because the investigators who were on the ground in Syria were overruled, and had their findings censored.

The key facts about this censorship are, to my knowledge, undisputed:

1) The investigators’ initial report, which was due for imminent publication, was secretively re-edited to produce a version that sharply deviated from the original. Both versions – the original and the altered report – have been published by Wikileaks.

Comparing both reports we see that key facts were removed or mis-represented. Conclusions were also rewritten to support the allegation that a chlorine gas attack had occurred in Douma.

Yet the team’s initial, original report did not conclude that a chemical attack occurred. In fact, their report had presented the possibility that victims in Douma were killed in an incident that was “non-chemical related.” Though unstated, the reader could easily infer from this that the militants who controlled Douma at the time had staged the scene to make it falsely appear that a chemical attack had occurred.

2) Then there is the toxicology assessment. Four experts from an OPCW and NATO-member state conducted a toxicology review.

They concluded that observed symptoms of the victims in Douma, “were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine, and no other obvious candidate chemical causing the symptoms could be identified.”

This finding was kept secret, and are inconsistent with the conclusions of the final report.

3) There were also chemical tests of the samples collected in Douma. These samples showed that chlorinated compounds were detected at what amounted to trace quantities in the parts-per-billion range.

Yet this finding was also not disclosed. Furthermore, it later emerged that the chemicals themselves did not stand out as unique: most, if not all, could have resulted from contact with household products such as bleach — or come from chlorinated water or wood preservatives.

Crucially, the control samples collected by the inspectors to give context to the analysis results were never analyzed.

4) Because of other leaks, we now know that this censorship was protested from the inside. The chief author of the initial report, identified by the OPCW as Inspector B, was among those who deployed to Syria for the entire Douma mission. Records show he was also, at the time, the OPCW’s top expert in chemical weapons chemistry.

On June 22nd, 2018 Inspector B protested the secretive redaction in an e-mail expressing his “gravest concern.” I will quote him:

“After reading this modified report, which incidentally no other team member who deployed into Douma has had the opportunity to do, I was struck by how much it misrepresents the facts.”

5) After that e-mail of protest, and just days before a substitute, stop-gap interim report was published on July 6, something very unusual occurred. A U-S government delegation met with members of the investigation team to try to influence them. The US officials encouraged the Douma team to conclude that the Syrian government had committed a chemical attack with chlorine. It is worth noting here that the US delegation promoted this chlorine theory despite the fact that it was still not publicly known that no nerve agents had been found in Douma.

The Douma investigators reportedly saw the meeting as unacceptable pressure and a violation of the OPCW’s declared principles of independence and impartiality. Under the Chemical Weapons Convention, State Parties are explicitly prohibited from seeking to influence the inspectors in the discharge of their responsibilities.

6) Inspector B’s intervention thwarted the imminent release of the doctored report.

But at that point, the OPCW officials began to manage the issuance of a new negotiated report, namely, the so-called interim report that was released on July 6 2018.

Although this interim report no longer contained some of the unsupported claims that senior OPCW officials had tried to insert, it still omitted key facts found in the original, uncensored report.

7) Around that time, the investigation saw a drastic change. The protesting Inspector B – who had written the original report — was sidelined from the investigation. OPCW executives then decreed that the probe, from that point forward, would be handled by a so-called “core team.”

This new “core” team made formal the exclusion of all of the inspectors who had conducted the investigation in Syria, except for one paramedic. It was this so-called core team—and not the inspectors who had signed off on the original report—that generated the OPCW final’s report of March 2019.

8) That final report sharply differed from what the OPCW inspectors reported in the suppressed initial report. The final report concluded that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that a chemical weapons attack occurred in Douma and that “the toxic chemical was likely molecular chlorine.” Many crucial facts and evidence redacted from the original report continued to be omitted.

9) The final report also saw a major discrepancy when it comes to witness testimony. The witnesses interviewed offered sharply contrasting narratives – yet only those witnesses whose testimony supported the use of chemical weapons, were used to inform the report’s conclusions.

It is also worth noting the imbalance in witness locations: although the alleged chemical incident took place in Syria, twice as many witnesses were interviewed in Country X.

10) One inference drawn from the OPCW’s final report was that gas cylinders found in Douma likely came from military aircraft. But a leaked engineering assessment assigned to a sub-team of the FFM found otherwise.

The OPCW leadership has yet to offer a substantive explanation for why such critical evidence was excluded and why the original report was radically altered.

The OPCW Director General Fernando Arias justified the conclusions of the final report and excused alleged fraudulent scientific behavior by incorrectly stating that “the FFM undertook the bulk of its analytical work” during the last seven months of the investigation – or after the interim report that was published in July 2018.

A close review of the final report demonstrates that this is far from the case. As the dissenting inspectors have noted, by the time the interim report was released, 31 of the 44 samples were analyzed, 34 of the 39 interviews had been conducted and analyzed, and the toxicological study was already done but the conclusions excluded.

In the nearly eight months after the Interim Report was released, only 13 new samples were analyzed along with 5 additional interviews.

Comparing the text of the final report to the original report is also instructive. The final report copy and pastes much of the text of the original report – the one difference is that inconvenient evidence was removed, and un-supported conclusions were added.

But even if it were true that the bulk of the analysis was done after the interim report, the fact the OPCW would have conducted the bulk of its work after July 2018 would not in any way explain or justify the alleged scientific fraud committed before it. In fact, it would only raise the possibility that more fraud occurred.

Instead of addressing the discrepancies and cherry-picked facts, the OPCW Director General Fernando Arias has also denigrated the two members of the Douma fact-finding mission team who challenged the manipulation of facts and evidence.

The Director General has falsely portrayed them as rogue actors, with only minor roles in the investigation and incomplete information.

Yet these two inspectors are unlikely candidates to suddenly go so rogue. Inspector A has been identified as Ian Henderson – he is here today. The second inspector is known only as Inspector B. They served with the OPCW for 12 and 16 years, respectively.

Internal OPCW appraisals of their job performance offer effusive praise. In 2005, a senior OPCW official wrote that Henderson has consistently received “the highest rating possible.… I consider [him] one of the best of our Inspection Team Leaders.”

In 2018, an OPCW superior wrote that Inspector B, “has contributed the most to the knowledge and understanding of Chemical Weapons chemistry applied to inspections.” Another manager described B as “one of the most well regarded” team leaders, whose “experience of the organisation, its verification regime, and judgment are unmatched.”

It is important to also stress that the internal concerns go beyond Douma team members. Earlier this year, I heard from an OPCW official who voiced outrage at the treatment of Henderson and Inspector B. I quote this person now:

“It is quite unbelievable that valid scientific concerns are being brazenly ignored in favour of a predetermined narrative. The lack of transparency in an investigative process with such enormous ramifications is frightful. The allegations of the two gentlemen urgently need to be thoroughly investigated, and the functionality of the organisation restored.”

Now fortunately, the two inspectors involved in this Douma controversy have offered a path to transparency and to resolving this scandal. Earlier this year, they each wrote letters to the OPCW Director General asking for their concerns to be heard.

The inspectors have received support from several prominent figures, including the OPCW’s First Director General, Jose Bustani. In October 2019, Bustani took part in a panel that heard an extensive presentation from one of the Douma investigators.

Mr. Bustani wrote:

“The convincing evidence of irregular behaviour in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts and suspicions I already had. I have always expected the OPCW to be a true paradigm of multilateralism. My hope is that the concerns expressed publicly by the Panel, in its joint consensus statement, will catalyse a process by which the Organisation can be resurrected to become the independent and non-discriminatory body it used to be.”

I hope that Mr. Bustani’s words will be heeded. As a first step, the OPCW can simply do what it has refused to do so far: meet with the entire Douma team, and let them present the evidence that was censored. It is very concerning that despite the allegations here, the OPCW Director General has never met with members of the Douma team – not just the two dissenting inspectors that are known, but the entire team. If the OPCW is confident in its conclusions, then it should have no issue with at least hearing a dissenting point of view.

The importance of addressing this issue extends far beyond repairing the OPCW’s reputation. Syria is a country that is now trying to rebuild from a devastating, nearly decade-long proxy war that caused massive suffering, destruction and death. But as Syria is trying to rebuild, it now faces a new kind of warfare in the form of crippling economic sanctions. In justifying the sanctions, the US government has cited, among other things, allegations of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government. The US government also says that the Syrian government is the target of these sanctions. But it is the Syrian people who feel the pain. The UN rapporteur on sanctions says that, “unilateral sanctions applied to Syria have visited untold sufferings on ordinary people.” The World Food Program warns that Syrians living under economic blockade now face “mass starvation or another mass exodus.”

The use of the OPCW to justify warfare on Syria – whether in the form of military strikes in 2018 or economic strangulation today in 2020 – is additionally tragic in light of the OPCW’s own history. It was just seven years ago that the OPCW was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its work eliminating chemical weapons, including in Syria. That was a towering achievement, and a hopeful moment for those who seek a world at peace. How unfortunate then, to see the world’s top chemical weapons watchdog now potentially being comprised to lodge unproven allegations against Syria and justify warfare against it.

The OPCW inspectors who have been silenced and maligned are trying to defend their organization’s noble legacy from political exploitation. It is my hope that they will be heard. Thank you.

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Aaron Maté is a journalist and producer. He hosts Pushback with Aaron Maté on The Grayzone. He is also is contributor to The Nation magazine and former host/producer for The Real News and Democracy Now!. Aaron has also presented and produced for Vice, AJ+, and Al Jazeera.

The discussion about mining the Moon resembles that of previous conquests: the division of territory; the grabbing of resources; language of theft and plunder.  All of this is given the gloss of manifest destiny and human experiment.  Such language is also self-perpetuating: the plunderer is only as good as the amount taken; success is dependent on constant replenishment and expansion.

A presentation from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory sports the message that would sit comfortably with any empire builder in history.  “Across history, human development has relied upon the finite resources of the Earth.”  An unfortunate state of affairs, but never fear: “the moon – a seemingly barren rock – may actually be a treasure trove of rare resources vital to Earth’s future.  And now, nations are looking upwards to a potential lunar gold rush.”

Such NASA promotions tend to be tinselled with confidence and brio.  They anticipate the Cassandras and naysayers who fear that humans are merely going to deplete the next resource, causing yet another catastrophe of incalculable proportions.  “The moon has a mass of 73q tons,” claims the colourful JPL presentation.  After a few “back-of-the-envelope calculations” (always reassuring), taking one metric ton from the moon each day would take a mere “220m years to deplete 1% of the moon’s mass.”  There would be no change of orbit, or to the gravitational force that affects the Earth’s tides.  Gradual predation never hurt anybody.

The Moon had been spared such proposed rushes at least till 2008, when the Chandrayaan-1 probe from the Indian Space Research Organisation crashed into the Shackleton Crater in the lunar south pole.  It seemed to have discovered water-ice, a point confirmed by NASA in a 2018 publication that can barely conceal the delight of its authors.  “These ice deposits might be utilized as an in situ resource in future exploration of the moon.”

This has caused a rash of interest. The European Space Agency could only be encouraged, having already mentioned the idea of a Moon Village in 2015.  “A Moon Village shouldn’t just mean some houses, a church, and a town hall,” explained the newly appointed Director General of ESA, Johann-Dietrich Wörner.  “This Moon Village should mean partners from all over the world contributing to this community with robotic and astronaut missions and support communication satellites.”  Manifest destiny can also be collaborative.

With this has come the lure of private capital.  Space agencies are hungry for sources other than the tax payer.  Bidders are being sought for commercial payload deliveries; lunar bases are being touted as staging grounds for lucrative business, including mining asteroid belts.  On the Moon itself, there is the promise of such metals indispensable in electronics: yttrium, samarium and lanthanum.  Helium-3, a gas for nuclear fusion, tantalises investors. 

The incitement to aggressive competition and conflict, reminiscent of the wars fought between European powers over colonies and trade routes, seems inevitable.  The US Space Command’s “Vision for 2020”, released in 1997 but still troublingly pertinent, notes that the rise of sea commerce saw nations building “navies to protect and enhance their commercial interests.”  The brutal conquest of the American interior (described with benign reflection as “the westward expansion of the continental United States”), saw the use of military outposts and cavalry to protect wagon trains, settlements and railroads.  “Likewise, space forces will emerge to protect military and commercial national interests and investment in the space medium due to their increasing importance.” 

Last month, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine announced that collecting moon material would form part of the agency’s Artemis lunar exploration program established in 2019.  The intention of that program is to land US astronauts on the moon by 2024 and enable them to “live off” it, as it were, a prelude to bigger and better things.  Bridenstine insisted with testosterone fuelled confidence that NASA was “working aggressively to meet our near-end goal of landing the first woman and next man on the moon by 2024” with the aim of establishing “a safe and sustainable lunar exploration architecture.”

These are the weasel words of this new exploration. Artemis will be “sustainable”, while also being “innovative”. It will also keep the budget watchers happy, as it will be “affordable”.  Specialists of space law will also be satisfied.  The dream, then, is one of facilitating space capitalism.  “We know a supportive policy regarding the recovery and use of space resources is important to the creation of a stable and predictable investment environment for commercial space innovators and entrepreneurs.”

Companies, according to Bridenstine, are being solicited “to provide proposals for the collection of space resources.”  A nod to space law is made: that actions regarding these proposals will comply “with the Registration Convention, Article II and other provisions of the Outer Space Treaty, and all our international obligations.”  Companies will collect Moon “dirt” from any part of the lunar surface, furnish “imagery” to NASA of the collection process and the material, along with data on where the material was collected and “conduct an ‘in-place’ transfer of ownership of the lunar regolith or rocks to NASA.”  That material will become the property of NASA.  But the agency promises to fork out for the “lunar regolith”, with awardees receiving 10 percent at award, 10 percent upon launch and remaining 80 percent on completing the mission.

Such remarks have an express purpose: to douse the nagging suspicions of space entrepreneurs and devotees of commercial space endeavours.  National space agencies have historically been seen as unwarranted shackles to boisterous space capitalism.  The editor and publisher of The Space Review, Jeff Foust, puts it down to a stubborn “libertarian streak”.  Historically, such space advocates eschewed government influence over their space programs “often as part of broader political beliefs”.  Others feared a competitor in the form of the space agency, a threat to “private ventures, particularly in launch.”  Modern exponents of such thinking can be found in Peter Lothian Nelson and Walter E. Block’s Space Capitalism, a libertarian work of such cranky polemic it even questions the space ventures of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson as unduly compromised by state involvement.

On Earth, capitalism as a system is being given a pasting by exponents of sustainability who argue that it is doomed and dooming.  The age of the Anthropocene, the outgrowth of human dependence upon fossil fuels, has proven to be, and is proving to be an experiment of calamitous consequence.  But whatever the terrestrial changes to be made – be they to renewable infrastructure, adjustments in growth, or the development of ecological wisdom – the predatory streak of conquest and colonisation is obstinate.  The lure of lunar mining, messy lunar conquest and lunar battles, is a very real one.

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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]

The Eisenhower government had been greatly disturbed by the 1954 Geneva Agreements, in which it was agreed ultimately that Vietnam would be unified, on the basis of elections planned for July 1956. President Dwight Eisenhower was worried, in such an event, that communist or nationalist influence would spread throughout Vietnam and the rest of Indochina, thereafter infecting an array Asian states, most seriously of all Japan.

The 63-year-old Eisenhower stated candidly at a news conference, on 7 April 1954, that a communist victory in Indochina could cause the “beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences”. He believed there was a possibility of independent countries falling to communism like “a row of dominoes”, from Indonesia and Thailand to Burma, with the end result being “incalculable to the free world”.

Among the US president’s concerns was the decline of American hegemony in the world’s largest continent: Asia. Eisenhower elaborated further relating to accessibility of mineral resources like “tin and tungsten” which he stated “are very important” along with “the rubber plantations, and so on”. Eisenhower rued the fact that Asia “has already lost 450 million of its peoples to the Communist dictatorship” in China “and we simply can’t afford greater losses”. (1)

To help prevent this perceived nightmare scenario from unfolding, and to erode the Geneva Agreements, the Eisenhower administration quickly established a client dictatorship in the newly-founded state of South Vietnam, in 1955. As easily the world’s most powerful country, America took over in Vietnam from the terminally declining imperial power, France, with the demise of French Indochina set in stone. From February 1955, Eisenhower started dispatching small numbers of American soldiers to the southern half of Vietnam. During his presidency, lasting until January 1961, the role of US troops in South Vietnam was “strictly advisory”, as recognised by the Pentagon Papers, in that they would not actually participate in attacks against guerrillas or unarmed peasants.

Shortly after ratification of the Geneva Agreements in July 1954, the US National Security Council (NSC) chaired by president Eisenhower outlined, in August 1954, that even in the eventuality of “local Communist subversion or rebellion not constituting armed attack” in south-east Asia, the White House would consider the use of military force in response. This wording, which was referred to repeatedly in Washington planning documents during the 1950s, stressed in stark terms the US right to violate the UN Charter’s very foundations.

The same NSC document stated furthermore the consideration of a military attack against Mao Zedong’s China, if that country is “determined to be the source” of the “subversion”. So as to restore “The loss of prestige in Asia suffered by the US”, its policy planners called for the rearming of Japan and the Philippines – coupled with efforts to “Intensify covert and psychological actions to strengthen the orientation of these countries toward the free world” and to “improve the effectiveness of existing military strength of the Republic of Korea and of Formosa [Taiwan]”.

Washington must also “maintain the security and increase the strength of the Pacific off-shore island chain” including the “retention of Japan” to US power, along with Australia and New Zealand, countries which are “an essential element to US security” (2). The eminent scholar and political activist Noam Chomsky wrote that, “This critically important document is grossly falsified by the Pentagon Papers historians, and has largely disappeared from history”. (3)

Meanwhile, in South Vietnam, Diem’s regime was sorely lacking in popular support from the outset. As early as 1950, US Army planners estimated that 80% of Vietnam’s people supported Ho Chi Minh (image on the right), the experienced communist revolutionary; and that four-fifths of his followers were not communists at all, a realistic evaluation by Washington which would remain consistent in coming years. With Diem not having the sympathy of the masses, and propped up by hundreds of millions of dollars in US military aid from the mid-1950s, he resorted to widespread terror to subdue the anti-imperial resistance.

In response to Diem’s assaults, though the Communist Party was “reeling” through to 1959, the American historian Eric Bergerud revealed that the communists in Vietnam “adhered to the policy of political rather than violent resistance” and “by and large honoured the Geneva Accords” having “dismantled the bulk of its military apparatus”. The communists finally chose to react with limited armed actions to 1960, which “elicited hysterical outrage in the United States over Communist perdify”, as Chomsky noted. (4)

Over the first two years until 1957, the Diem dictatorship killed more than 10,000 people in South Vietnam. Between 1957 and 1961 the anti-communist war correspondent Bernard Fall, who was present in the country, estimated that around another 66,000 people had lost their lives at the hands of Diem’s forces. Therefore, prior to president John F. Kennedy in late 1961 escalating the conflict in Vietnam, between 75,000 to 80,000 people had already been killed there.

Over the next four years until April 1965, a further 89,000 people were liquidated. Almost all of them were South Vietnamese victims of state terror and aggression, as they succumbed to “the crushing weight of American armour, napalm, jet bombers and finally vomiting gases” (5). US government studies from 1965, focusing on Viet Cong deserters and prisoners, found that “few of them considered themselves Communists or could give a definition of Communism”.

Eisenhower’s policy in South Vietnam had not extended to aggression. It can be noted that Eisenhower, a Republican Party member and hardly a soft touch, was not an extremist or aggressive leader. His domestic policies for example were moderate. Eisenhower said that anyone who does not accept Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs “doesn’t belong in the American political system” (6). This viewpoint would be considered radical by today’s standards, such has been the decline and rightward lurch on the political spectrum.

Some valid charges can be levelled at Eisenhower regarding the foreign policy record, his administration’s support of terror tactics in South Vietnam, and the execution of coups in Iran (1953) and Guatemala (1954). With some trepidation, Eisenhower ordered a US military intervention in the Middle East state of Lebanon during mid-July 1958, in order to stem the threat of Arab nationalism in the world’s most important region. US-led forces inflicted about 4,000 casualties on the leftist Lebanese opposition; and after three months, a relieved Eisenhower promptly ordered the withdrawal of American soldiers from Lebanon in October 1958. (7)

Just one year into the JFK presidency, US Air Force members were centrally involved in hundreds of air raids over South Vietnam. At the end of 1962, the German-American author Guenter Lewy calculated that, by then, US helicopter and aircraft units carried out 2,048 attack sorties (8). In the autumn of 1961, president Kennedy had authorised herbicide spraying in South Vietnam, so as to “kill Viet Cong food crops and defoliate selected border and jungle areas”. Napalm usage was also sanctioned by the Kennedy administration around this period.

The character of Kennedy’s war was openly documented at the time, and known within the US military and civilian command. Malcolm Browne, chief Indochina correspondent for the New York-based Associated Press (AP), reported from the ground that the results of US napalm and heavy bombing raids “are revolting… huts are flattened, and civilian loss of life is generally high. In some, the charred bodies of children and babies have made pathetic piles in the middle of the remains of market places”. (9)

To provide a brief example from 21 January 1962, very early in the war, US B-26 aircraft assaulted a village in South Vietnam with 500 pounds bombs, along with T-28 rocket attacks. The village huts were targeted for 45 minutes, wounding 11 civilians and killing five others. Among the dead were children aged 2, 5 and 7. A few minutes before, the air strikes had begun with a mistaken attack on another village, that happened to be just across the border in Cambodia (10). It resulted in the “killing and wounding” of “a number of villagers”, as described by Roger Hilsman, a dovish planner within the Kennedy administration.

Western media, with the New York Times “expressing the conventional line”, consistently backed the US war in Vietnam. Chomsky revealed, “The press supported state violence throughout, though JFK regarded it as an enemy because of tactical criticism and grumbling. Much fantasy has been spun in later years about crusading journalists exposing government lies: what they exposed was the failure of tactics to achieve ends they fully endorsed”. (11)

On 16 December 1961 US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, JFK’s right-hand man, authorised direct US soldier participation in South Vietnam regarding “combat operations against southerners resisting the violence of the US-imposed terror state, or living in villages out of government control” (12). By March 1962, Washington officials admitted publicly that US pilots were partaking in combat missions in South Vietnam, such as bombing and strafing.

It may be worth focusing on the opinions of Robert F. Kennedy regarding the Vietnam War, to provide a crucial insight into Kennedy administration foreign policy. Six months after his brother’s assassination RFK, still in his position as Attorney General, dispatched a note to president Lyndon B. Johnson on 11 June 1964 stating that Vietnam “is obviously the most important problem facing the United States, and if you felt I could help I am at your service” (13). In a show of support for the US war effort, which was going badly through 1964, Robert Kennedy proposed taking over the position of US Ambassador to South Vietnam.

Almost a year later in May 1965, three months after Johnson’s significant escalation of the war in Vietnam, RFK said the withdrawal of US forces would involve “a repudiation of commitments undertaken and confirmed by three administrations”. The removal of American troops from Vietnamese soil, RFK believed, would “gravely – perhaps irreparably – weaken the democratic position in Asia”. As late as December 1965, with much of South Vietnam at that point lying in ruins, JFK’s former Special Assistant Arthur Schlesinger Jr. recalled how Robert Kennedy said privately that month, “I don’t believe in pulling out the troops. We’ve got to show China we mean to stop them. If we can hold them for about 20 years, maybe they will change the way Russia has”. (14)

Contrary to a separate enduring myth, the evidence is abundant that RFK continued to champion US military involvement in Vietnam at least four years after JFK had launched the war, towards the end of 1961. This constitutes a time period equivalent to the length of World War One. RFK’s backing of the conflict simply mirrored that of his brother who, right up to the end of his presidency, was hoping for “an increased effort in the war” and to “intensify the struggle” so that “we can bring Americans out of there” (15). JFK made these remarks on 14 November 1963, eight days before his assassination. Withdrawal from Vietnam without victory was unthinkable.

Kennedy disregarded the recent public statement of veteran French president, Charles de Gaulle, who on 29 August 1963 expounded on his desire that the Vietnamese “could go ahead with their activities independently of the outside, in internal peace and unity and in harmony with their neighbours. Today more than ever, this is what France wishes for Vietnam as a whole”. (16)

The US National Security Adviser, McGeorge Bundy, drew JFK’s attention to the De Gaulle comments and advised him to “ignore Nosey Charlie”. Bundy warned against the “specter of neutralist solution” in Vietnam, and felt that France should “share in the work of resisting Communist aggression”. In a television interview with the US president on 2 September 1963, Walter Cronkite specifically raised De Gaulle’s comments of four days before, and JFK responded by saying, “we are going to meet our responsibility anyway. It doesn’t do us any good to say, ‘Well, why don’t we all just go home and leave the world to those who are our enemies’.” (17)

Near the conclusion of Eisenhower’s presidency in late December 1960, there were still only about 900 American soldiers in South Vietnam. At the end of December 1961, as the first year of Kennedy’s tenure was drawing to a close, US troop levels in South Vietnam had jumped almost fourfold, to 3,205.

Almost two years later, the number of American soldiers in South Vietnam climbed further to 16,732, just prior to Kennedy’s assassination on 22 November 1963 (18). JFK supporters commonly point to the 1,000 US troops the president, in late 1963, had sanctioned to pull out of South Vietnam as evidence that he was in the process of withdrawing from the country. In actual fact the 1,000 US personnel in question were, as the American historian James T. Patterson outlined, “mostly part of a construction battalion that had finished its work. They were being brought home for Christmas and were scheduled to be replaced by others”. (19)

Patterson continued, “Most of Kennedy’s major advisers concerning Vietnam then and later were certain that Kennedy never intended to ‘withdraw’ American advisers and military aid, before he could be certain that the South Vietnamese could safely defend themselves”. (20)

As 1963 advanced, a big obstacle to the Kennedy administration’s desire to escalate the war into 1964, was the wavering attitude of the Diem regime. On 22 April 1963 the CIA reported that Diem, along with his younger brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, “were concerned over recent ‘infringements’ of Vietnamese sovereignty” by the Americans. The CIA, which by then was conducting clandestine operations in both South and North Vietnam, relayed information that Diem “after building up a strong case” is planning to confront the US Ambassador to South Vietnam, Frederick Nolting, and General Paul Harkins “with irrefutable evidence of US responsibility, demanding a reduction in the number of US personnel in South Vietnam on the basis that the force is too large and unmanageable”.

The next month, on 12 May 1963 the Washington Post published a front-page interview with Nhu, who was considered a highly influential figure in South Vietnam, even more so than Diem. In the interview Nhu said, “South Vietnam would like to see half of the 12,000 to 13,000 American military stationed here leave the country”.

Statements like this were regarded with much disquiet in the White House. Chomsky observed how the Kennedy administration “feared that the GVN [South Vietnamese regime] pressures for withdrawal of US forces would become difficult to resist, a danger enhanced by exploratory GVN efforts to reach a diplomatic settlement with the North. The skimpy political base for Kennedy’s war would then erode, and the US would be compelled to withdraw without victory. That option being unacceptable to JFK and his advisers, the Saigon regime had to get on board, or be dismissed”. (21)

Diem and Nhu did not get on board. They ignored Washington’s demands to “get everyone back to work and get them to focus on winning the war”. From the summer of 1963, the Diem regime was reportedly moving towards “a secret deal with the North” and Nhu once more complained “there were too many US troops in Vietnam”. Therefore, JFK and his advisers decided unequivocally, by the late summer of 1963, that Diem and Nhu would have to go. On 28 August 1963, JFK “asked the Defense Department to come up with ways of building up the anti-Diem forces in Saigon”; and the US president requested moves “which would maximise the chances of the rebel generals” while saying further, “We should ask Ambassador Lodge and General Harkins how we can build up military forces which would carry out a coup”. (22)

By October 1963, Nhu was calling for all American troops to leave South Vietnam. It came as no great surprise, early the following month, when a US-engineered putsch was instituted. Diem and Nhu were summarily executed on 2 November 1963. Averell Harriman, JFK’s new Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, had told the president that without a coup “we cannot win the war”, and failing that the US “must withdraw” from Vietnam.

Robert Kennedy likewise supported the coup, and he called for bolstering the rebel generals who would replace Diem. RFK said the US government needed “somebody that can win the war” and Diem was no longer the man for the job. Chomsky wrote, “Accordingly it is no surprise that RFK fully supported Johnson’s continuation of what he understood to be his brother’s policies, through the 1965 escalation”. (23)

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

Notes

1 Mount Holyoke College, “President Eisenhower’s News Conference, April 7, 1954, Public Papers of the Presidents, 1954, p. 382”

2 Office of the Historian, “Foreign Relations Of The United States, 1952-1954, East Asia and the Pacific, Volume XII, Part 1, NSC 5429/2, August 20, 1954”

3 Noam Chomsky, Rethinking Camelot (London, Verso Books, 1 April 1993) p. 41

4 Ibid., p. 50

5 Ibid., p. 49

6 Noam Chomsky, “Bernie Sanders Supporters are a ‘Mobilized Force That Could Change The Country’”, MintPress News, 29 April 2016

7 Alasdair Soussi, “Legacy of US’ 1958 Lebanon invasion”, Al Jazeera, 15 July 2013

8 Guenter Lewy, America in Vietnam (Oxford University Press, 1st edition, 1 Oct. 1978) p. 24

9 Chomsky, Rethinking Camelot, pp. 52-53

10 Ibid., pp. 53-54

11 Ibid., p. 2

12 Ibid., p. 23

13 Ibid., p. 48

14 Arthur M. Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times (Mariner Books, 40th anniversary ed., 8 May 2018) Chapter 27, Stranger in a Strange Land

15 JFK Library, “News Conference 64, November 14, 1963”

16 American Foreign Policy Current Documents, 1967, p. 869

17 Office of the Historian, “Foreign Relations Of The United States, 1961–1963, Volume IV, Vietnam, August–December 1963, 50. Interview With The President, September 2, 1963”

18 Mount Holyoke College, “The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Volume 2”

19 James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 (OUP USA; New Ed Edition, 12 Feb. 1998) p. 516

20 Ibid.

21 Chomsky, Rethinking Camelot, p. 73

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid., p. 108

A group of people in solidarity with Nicaragua’s Sandinista Revolution have recorded, transcribed and translated the testimonies of over 30 people of different backgrounds about their experience of the violent failed coup attempt in Nicaragua between April and July of 2018.

No human rights organization and practically no journalists, writers or academics out of all those who have written so glibly about the crisis of 2018 in Nicaragua have taken the trouble to talk to any of the thousands of victims of violent opposition attacks during that crisis.

This fact makes nonsense of any pretense on their part to be reporting truthfully on the events in Nicaragua of 2018.

Among well known writers, the only exceptions of which we are aware are the Italian journalist Giorgio Trucchi, Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton of the Grayzone, the writer and human rights lawyer Dan Kovalik, the independent journalists Dick y Miriam Emanuelsson, John Perry, Steve Sweeney of Morning Star and the Redfish documentary company video team.

The very simple reason for this reality is that the mainstream account of the violent failed 2018 coup attempt in Nicaragua, repeated also by many so-called alternative media, portrayed the very opposite of what really happened.

International human rights institutions like the Inter American Commission for Human Rights and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights completely ignored opposition violence so as to be able to claim with the utmost falsehood that the government crushed peaceful protests with disproportionate, brutal violence.

That is a shameless lie. These institutions appear to have promoted that lie under pressure from the governments of the United States and the European Union

The testimonies gathered here demonstrate the undeniable false witness of these international institutions, of human rights NGOs and international news media, who comprehensively failed to report facts they found inconvenient.

A recurrent theme in gathering these testimonies is the total lack of interest in the experiences and suffering of the people concerned on the part of representatives and researchers of the Western human rights industry.

Some important points

Three things are important to understand in order to make sense of these interviews.

Firstly, the testimonies refer almost exclusively to incidents that took place while Nicaragua’s police were confined to their stations.

On April 22nd President Ortega publicly asked the Catholic Bishop’s Conference to serve as mediators of a national dialogue between the government and the opposition.

The bishop’s took two weeks to reply and, when they did, they set various conditions one of which was that the police be removed from the streets.

The Nicaraguan government agreed to this condition prior to the talks starting on May 16th and this explains why the general population was exposed over so many weeks to violent attacks and intimidation by opposition activists as described in these testimonies.

A second important point to understand is the operation of the so called “tranques” or roadblocks set up by the opposition activists at strategic points both in Nicaragua’s national highway system and within urban centers.

These roadblocks served as bases for the opposition to carry out their crimes and as control points to intimidate, monitor, rob and extort anyone passing through them, as these testimonies vividly describe.

The roadblocks were operated by opposition activists and paid delinquents who often ended up fighting among themselves over what they stole from all the people they extorted before letting them pass.

A third recurrent theme in these interviews is the issue of the 2019 amnesty setting free all the opposition activists and their delinquent accomplices charged, tried, convicted and imprisoned for criminal offenses committed during the 2018 crisis.

For bereaved families and for people who suffered directly from opposition violence in 2018, it took a huge act of faith on the part of Nicaragua’s people in the wisdom of President Daniel Ortega, Vice President Rosario Murillo and their government for that measure to be as successful as it has been..

That is why for people in Nicaragua all the victims and relatives of victims of opposition violence during the failed coup attempt are regarded as Heroes of Peace because they put the need for their country to heal and reconcile above their own personal suffering and grief.

But that is something far beyond the pitiful moral understanding, wholesale intellectual abdication and sly cynicism of practically all North American and European media journalists and editors, university academics, functionaries of the OAS and the Office of the UN Human Rights Commissioner or any of the leading international human rights NGOs.

The “Rural Workers Movement”

These testimonies focus on victims of the so-called Rural Workers Movement, a small organization whose aggressive leaders, like Francisca Ramirez and Medardo Mairena, deliberately project a false image that they represent a large number of rural workers in Nicaragua.

In fact, local people calculate the core membership of the Rural Workers Movement at no more than around 2000, although by means of payment, intimidation and disinformation their protest marches occasionally mobilize many more.

By comparison the long established Association of Rural Workers (ATC) is a genuinely national organization with over 47000 members. Nationally, there are over 5300 registered cooperatives, mostly in the agricultural and livestock sector, with more than 350,000 members. Not one of those cooperatives is of the Rural Workers Movement.

This movement initially began supposedly in protest against Nicaragua’s proposed interoceanic canal. To promote herself as an important rural workers leader Ramirez boasts of having organized over 80 protests involving many thousands of people. At the same time she makes the contradictory claim that she is the victim of a dictatorship that denies freedom of speech.In any case, she has never developed her movement’s base significantly. The main area in which Ramirez and Mairena have mobilized support is the stretch of land between the area around El Tule on Lake Nicaragua’s eastern shore and the area south of Bluefields where the canal is planned to enter the Caribbean Sea.

This area covers the central and eastern parts of the municipality of Nueva Guinea and the adjacent territory of the municipality of Bluefields. The area’s settlement, especially in Nueva Guinea, developed in the 1970s.

This resulted partly from a mis-named land reform by the Somoza dictatorship which cleared landless rural families from areas on the Pacific Coast where the ruling Somoza clique wanted to grow cotton during the boom in cotton prices of that time. But many families made homeless following the 1972 earthquake were also effectively dumped in Nueva Guinea..

Many hundreds of families were moved to Nueva Guinea at different times during that period. They were settled on land with practically no support or amenities, resulting in an extremely impoverished population with no access to adequate health care or education.

Geographically, the area is still difficult of access, with poor road communications, especially around the municipal boundary between Nueva Guinea and Bluefields. This makes effective security provision for the local population by the police extremely difficult.

These geographical characteristics combine with a socio-economic profile very favorable for an organization like the Rural Workers Movement, enabling its leaders to cloak their criminal activities with a right wing political discourse.

Historically, the region has been a bastion of the right wing Liberal Constitutional Party (PLC). During the 1980s the US backed Contra fighters contested control of the area with the Sandinista army. The patterns of that history prevail to this day.

Medardo Mairena was elected as a councilor to the Regional authority of the Southern Caribbean Autonomous Region. A leading accomplice of Mairena, Pedro Mena, has been a PLC municipal councilor. Francisca Ramirez Torrez and her partner Migdonio López Chamorro have also both been long standing activists of the PLC.

During the 1980s, López Chamorro was a comandante in the ARDE branch of the Contra based in Costa Rica, with the nickname “Brasita”.

While Medardo Mairena and Francisca Ramirez project themselves overseas as noble fighters on behalf of impoverished rural families and as victims of unjust repression, their image locally is very different.

Mairena lost his Costa Rican residency and was expelled by the Costa Rican authorities accused of people trafficking.

Ramirez and her family, far from being impoverished peasants, are registered by the local police in Nueva Guinea as owning two large cattle trucks and a very expensive Toyota Land Cruiser SUV. Local people say she and her family own between 500 and 700 acres of land.

As of September 2020, Ramirez and her family are involved in litigation in Costa Rica over property she is alleged to have usurped from a local landowner there, as well as accusations of corrupt use of funding to help alleged “refugees” from Nicaragua.

Thanks largely to coaching and support from, among others, Monica Baltodano and her daughter Monica López via the Baltodano family’s now closed down NGO Popol Na, Ramirez and Mairena have also accessed substantial funding totaling certainly many hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of dollars.

Funding has come both directly from discretionary USAID funds managed by the US embassy in Managua and from foreign human rights NGOs like Ireland’s Frontline Defenders, among others. Ramirez and Mairena are totally opaque about how much money they have received and its use.

Monica López (left) with Francisca Ramirez at her side, meeting with right wing Liberal leader Fabio Gadea in the offices of the far right media outlet Radio Corporación which he owns and which has been funded by USAID

Clockwise from top left: Francisca Ramírez with Carlos Fernando Chamorro; with Fabio Gadea; with CENIDH’s Vilma Nuñez; Ramírez with reactionary Catholic bishop Silvio Baez. Both CENIDH and Chamorro have been funded by USAID.

The witness testimonies collected here demonstrate that in practice the Rural Workers Movement operates effectively as an organized crime operation.

Ramirez and Mairena and their accomplices use extortion, menaces and outright murderous violence to intimidate local rural families into supporting them and keeping quiet about their crimes.

Medaro Mairena was tried and sentenced to long prison terms as the intellectual author of teh massacre in El Morrito of July 12th 2018 in which thugs organized by himself and Francisca Ramirez murdered four police officers and a primary school teacher. He was set free in 2019 under the terms of one of the the controversial government amnesties of that year.

These witness testimonies from a wide variety of ordinary people victimized by Rural Workers Movement activists and their accomplices confirm that ever since the first big anti-canal protests of 2014, the Rural Workers Movement has been relentlessly violent, essentially adapting the terrorist practices of the 1980s US-trained wartime Contra to further their contemporary political agenda.

That criminal violence reached a crescendo in 2018 when Ramirez and Mairena operated systematic roadblocks extorting huge amounts of money from local people seeking to go to work, study, do business or seek health care.

Police sources in the area calculate that the amount extorted daily by Mairena and Ramirez at the roadblocks they controlled and from other illicit activities may have averaged as much as US$50,000 over around 80 days from the end of April to early July 2018, implying a possible total amount extorted of around US$4 million.

Even so international human rights organizations and North American and European information media still portray Francisca Ramirez and Medardo Mairena as selfless heroes striving to serve impoverished rural families in Nicaragua.

To the contrary, the testimonies gathered here confirm President Daniel’s Ortega’s contention made repeatedly to foreign news media during interviews in 2018, that armed opposition gangs in very remote rural areas are violently targeting vulnerable rural families and especially sandinistas in order to instil terror, destabilizing the country’s rural economy and destroying social peace

The testimonies gathered together here present the bitter truth about the activities of Francisca Ramirez, Medardo Mairena and their accomplices in the Rural Workers Movement.

Click here to read Nicaragua 18: Uncensoring the truth.

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Featured image: A woman stands near a burning barricade holding Nicaraguan flag, April 2018

On November 13, 1966 – at the height of the resistance war in Vietnam – Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre convened a people’s tribunal to hold the US government accountable for its escalating war crimes.

“The tribunal has no clear historical precedent”, Russell said. It represented no state power; it had no capacity to sentence the accused. “I believe that these apparent limitations are, in fact, virtues. We are free to conduct a solemn and historic investigation”, said Russell, “presented to the conscience of mankind.”

One half-century later, the Progressive International (PI) is once again calling on the conscience of mankind against the crimes of US imperialism.

Today, Friday October 2nd, marks the first day of the Belmarsh Tribunal, named for the prison where Julian Assange has been kept in permanent confinement for daring to publish documents that detail torture, violence, and illegal spying by the US government.

From Belmarsh, Assange now faces extradition to the United States – the first time in history that a publisher has been indicted under the Espionage Act. Today’s tribunal takes its name from this site of complicity in the crimes that have been revealed by Assange, and the crimes that have been committed against him, in turn.

In a recent statement signed by many members of its Council (including Noam Chomsky and Arundhati Roy), the PI warned that the prosecution of an Australian citizen for his journalistic activities done in sovereign countries in Europe is a gross violation of human rights and international law. “More dangerously, it sets a legal precedent that means that any dissident from the foreign policy of the United States may be shipped to the United States to face life imprisonment or even a death penalty.”

But statements will not suffice. That is why the PI is establishing the Belmarsh Tribunal: to put the United States government on trial for its crimes of the twenty first century – from atrocities in Iraq to torture at Guantánamo Bay to the CIA‘s illegal surveillance program – and draw attention to the extradition case of Julian Assange for revealing them.

“Our position is strong because we do not seek to send a few individuals to prison”, Sartre said of the 1966 tribunal, “but to reawaken in public opinion, at an ominous moment of our history, the idea that there can be policies which are objectively and legally criminal.”

We are again at that ominous moment of our history – asking, as Bertrand Russell did then, for “the peoples of the world, the masses, to take action to stop the crimes.”

The Tribunal will bring together a planetary cast of activists, artists, thinkers, and political representatives to investigate and evaluate the Wikileaks revelations. The former president of Brazil Lula will remind us that Brazilians owe an additional debt for the WikiLeaks revelations, while former Greece’s finance minister Yanis Varoufakis will reiterate why Assange has to be released immediately.

The Tribunal will be joined by the original member of the Russell-Sartre Tribunal, Tariq Ali, who went to Vietnam to investigate US war crimes; Assange’s lawyer Jennifer Robinson; activists and musicians Roger Waters and M.I.A.; former president of Ecuador Rafael Correa; philosopher Slavoj Žižek; actress and activist Pamela Anderson; and many others.

Today’s events mark only the first day of the Tribunal. As long as Julian Assange is in prison, the Belmarsh Tribunal will continue its fight for justice. Our goal is not only freedom for Assange, but also justice for the crimes revealed by WikiLeaks – and the protection of our freedoms to speak, express, assemble, and demand truth from the powers arrayed against us.

If we do not stand now – with all the evidence in our hands – we stand little chance against a machine of war and surveillance that becomes more sophisticated and more secretive by the day.

It is time to take action. And it is time to demand justice. Because if they charge against the publisher who revealed their crimes, we must charge against the criminals themselves. Join us.

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Today’s headlines announced Donald and Melania Trump “tested positive” for covid-19. Another claims nineteen thousand Amazon workers “got” covid-19 on the job. Both of these pseudostories are sure to ignite another absurd media frenzy. 

As always, the story keeps changing: Remember ventilators, flatten the curve, the next two weeks are crucial, etc.? Remember Nancy Pelosi in Chinatown back in February, urging everyone to visit? Remember Fauci dismissing masks as useless? Why should we believe anything the political/media complex tells us now?

So what do these headlines really mean? What exactly is a covid “case”?

Since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, most US media outlets have been exceedingly credulous and complicit in their reporting. Journalists almost uniformly promote what we can call the “prolockdown” narrative, which is to wildly exaggerate the risks from covid-19 to serve a political agenda. They may be motivated to hurt Trump politically, to promote a more socialist “new normal,” or simply to drive more clicks and views. Bad news sells. But the bias is clear and undeniable.

This explains why media outlets use the terms “case” and “infection” so loosely, to the point of actively misinforming the public. All of the endless talk about testing, testing, testing served to obscure two important facts. First, the tests themselves are almost laughably unreliable in producing both false positives and negatives. And what is the point? Are we going to test people again and again, every time they go out to the grocery or bump into a neighbor? Second, detecting virus particles or droplets in a human’s respiratory tract tells us very little. It certainly does not tell us they are sick, or transmitting sickness to anyone.

Take a perfectly healthy person with no particular symptoms and swab the inside of their nose. If the culture shows the presence of staphylococcus aureus, do we insist they have a staph infection? When someone drives to work without incident or accident, do we create statistics about their exposure to traffic?

—A virus is not a disease. Only a very small percentage of those exposed to the virus itself—SARS-CoV-2—show any kind of acute respiratory symptoms, or what we can call “coronavirus disease.”

The only meaningful statistics show the incidence of serious illness, hospitalizations, and deaths. The single most important statistic among these is the infection fatality rate (IFR). Data collected through July shows that the IFR for those under age forty-five is actually lower than that of the common flu. The covid-19 IFR rises for those over fifty, but it is hardly a death sentence. And the data does not segregate those with preexisting health issues caused by obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. If we could see data only for reasonably healthy people under fifty, the numbers would be even more reassuring.

Mild or asymptomatic covid cases are effectively meaningless. The world is full of bacteria and viruses, and sometimes they make us a bit sick for a few days. There are millions of them in the world all around us, on our skin, in our nose and respiratory tract, in our organs. We are meant to live with them, which is why we all have immune systems designed to help us coexist and adapt to ever-changing organisms. We develop antibodies naturally, or we attempt to stimulate them through vaccines, but ultimately our own immune systems have to deal with covid-19. The virus will always be out there waiting, on the other side of any lockdown or mask—so we might as well get on with it.

From day one the focus should have been on boosting immunity through exercise, fresh air, sunlight, proper dietary supplementation, and the promotion of general well-being. Instead our politicians, bureaucrats, and media insisted on business lockdowns, school closures, distancing, isolation, masks, and the mirage of a fast, effective vaccine. As with almost everything in life, state intervention made the situation worse. We can only hope many governors are removed from office, either by impeachment or at the next election. Several, including Andrew Cuomo in New York and Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, should face criminal charges for their lawless edicts. There is no due process exception for “public health.”

Lockdowns were never justified, either in terms of the covid-19 risk or the staggering economic tradeoffs, which will be felt for decades. They certainly are not justified now, given seven months of additional data showing that the transmission and lethality of covid-19 are not particularly worse than previous SARS, swine flu, or Ebola pandemics. We still don’t know how many of the reported two hundred thousand US covid-19 deaths were actually caused by the SARS-CoV-2 respiratory disease, or simply reflect people who died of other causes after exposure to covid-19. We do know that the harms caused by the lockdowns far outweigh the harms posed by the covid-19 virus.

We have had nearly eight months of life and liberty stolen from us by politicians and their hysteria-promoting accomplices in media. How much more will we accept?

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Jeff Deist is president of the Mises Institute. He previously worked as chief of staff to Congressman Ron Paul, and as an attorney for private equity clients. Contact: email; Twitter.

Featured image is from MW

“I believe that opposing what is wrong and furthering what is right is a moral imperative; and that it is my responsibility to do so in direct proportion to the power I posses at the time,” painter Jordan Henderson told me in a recent interview.

“So when the current contrived crisis and all the medical fraud and social engineering began to unfold, I knew that I should oppose it. I wanted to oppose it. But, I cannot abandon my art. In other words, I do not have time to be an activist.”

Whether we are a painter, a musician or a plumber I think we can all relate to this dilemma: Doing what we love versus fighting for our freedom to continue doing what we love.

John Adams once wrote a letter to his wife saying that he “must study politics and war” so that their grandchildren would have the freedom to “study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.”

However, as Henderson has discovered, we still possess enough freedom that the two need not be in conflict. Instead of abandoning his art, he made his art an instrument of change:

“For some reason at least two months passed before I conceptualized the painting Sanity, Her Son, and the Credulous,” said Henderson. “This sort of painting means that I can continue my pursuit of artistic exploration while speaking out against this tyranny through an especially interesting medium. As obvious as this direction seems, it was an epiphany, almost unreal, because effectively it means having your cake and eating it too.”

Some people are meant to be full-blown activists: Journalists like James Corbett or Dan Dicks; or even a few good politicians like Randy Hillier, Sara Cunial or Herbert Kickl.

Yet others, like Henderson, are full-blown artists, who can change the world not with journalism and politics, but with creativity and metaphor — much like Mark Childress said that To Kill a Mockingbird impacted the civil rights movement “in the way that any number of treatises could never do, because it was popular art…” (I hope to do the same with my novel, The Brave New Normal: A Dsytopian Love Story.)

But such innovations are not limited to artists. Look at what a country health food store did to fight their masking bylaws. Or what my wife is doing to stop forced masking at our local hospital. As I explain in my article, The ONE Thing You Can Do to Stop the Nutty New Normal you need not become a Mahatma Gandhi to be the change you want to see in the (new normal) world. No contribution is too small.

“If you think you are too small to make a difference,” says the Dalai Lama, “try sleeping in a room with a mosquito.”

One simple way to be a pesky a mosquito on the neck of the Corona World Order is to purchase prints of Jordan Henderson’s anti-masking painting. Give copies to friends and family for Christmas. Order a stack of the greeting cards, write a friendly note, stuff them with an anti-masking article or study, and send them to your government representatives, your mayor, police chief and leaders in your community. You’ll be supporting Henderson’s artivism while using a moving visual image to awaken people to the tyrannical and dehumanizing agenda being force upon us.

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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.

All images in this article are from the author; featured image: Artists Jordan Henderson establishing a composition in his studio in Dayton, Washington.

On October 2, the Armenian-Azerbaijani war entered its 5^th day. Forces of the Azerbaijani military, supported by Turkey, continued their attempts to capture the contested Nagorno-Karabakh Region and to dismantle the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which is overwhelmingly populated by Armenians.

Intense artillery duels and Azerbaijani airstrikes are being reported across the entire frontline in Karabakh, and even near some parts of the Azerbaijani-Armenian border. Nonetheless, the main clashes still take place in the districts of Fizuli and Jabrayil, where Azerbaijan have achieved their main gains capturing several positions from the Armenians. The Azerbaijani artillery together with Turkish-made and Israeli-made combat drones played a key role in the tactical successes of Azerbaijan on the battlefield.

On October 1, the Armenian military even claimed that 4 Azerbeijani combat drones entered Armenian airspace and 3 of them were shot down, allegedly by the S-300 system. Additionally, the Armenian Defense Ministry claimed that its forces had shot down three Azerbaijani fighter jets and two helicopters. The Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan dismissed the Armenian claims, calling them “complete nonsense and fake news.”

It insists that the Armenian side uses claims about attacks on its territory in an attempt to trigger the Collective Security Treaty Organization pact and obtain direct military support from Russia in the conflict in Karabakh, which formally is not its territory. What is even more strange, despite the 5 days of open war, the Armenian leadership has still not started the process for the recognition of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic or the official integration of the region into Armenia. Therefore, it has no even theoretical legal grounds to request CSTO help in a conflict on its territory.

Meanwhile, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, known for its anti-Assad and pro-militant stance in the Syrian conflict, reported that dozens of Turkish-backed Syrian militants had been killed, injured or went missing while fighting against Armenian forces in Karabakh. According to the SOHR, 28 of them were killed and 62 others were injured or went missing. The report alleges that at least 850 Turkish-backed Syrian militants were deployed there. It should be noted that, according to Armenian estimates, their number is about 4,000. France and Russia also expressed their concern regarding the moving of militants to the region. In turn, Azerbaijani and Turkish media and officials insist that Armenia deploys members of Kurdish armed groups, considered to be terrorists by Ankara, to the combat zone. Nonetheless, these claims have not so far been supported by any evidence.

The self-styled Neo-Ottoman Empire of President Recent Tayyip Erdogan is on a full-scale propaganda offensive to instigate an Armenian-Azerbaijani war.

On October 1, the United States, Russia and France released a joint statement condemning the violence in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, calling on the sides to accept a ceasefire and return to the negotiating table. In response, President Erdogan made a fierce statement slamming the OSCE and claiming that Azerbaijan should continue its military push to capture the Nagorno-Karabakh region and thus the war with Armenia.

“I would like to declare that we are together with our brothers in Azerbaijan in their struggle for the liberation of their occupied land. The path to lasting peace in this region lies through the withdrawal of Armenia from all the spans of the Azerbaijani lands occupied by them,” Erdogan said addressing the Turkish Parliament. “Especially the so-called Minsk trio America, Russia, France and their seeking of a ceasefire in the face of this negative situation, which has been reflected these days because they have neglected this problem for nearly 30 years, is above all not acceptable,” he added.

In the best traditions of Turkish public diplomacy, Erdogan simultaneously accused Armenia of triggering the military escalation. Meanwhile, Turkish state media reported that during the recent phone call Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov that Turkey sees no reason for a ceasefire in Karabakh for as long as the region remains in the hands of Armenian forces.

Earlier, the Turkish leadership at the highest level declared that it is ready to provide any help, including military, to Baku. The Armenian side claims that Turkey is in fact participating in the war on the side of Azerbaijan.

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These days of the COVID-19 global crisis, I’m sure you’ve often felt being lied to.

Tens of millions of Filipinos know the feeling. Fudged updates on COVID-19 stats, denials of corruption and treason in high places, trolls actively spreading outright deceits on social media, even a blackout on the true state of President Duterte’s health—this utterly bad state of the flow of information was even compounded by the closure of ABS-CBN, a major Philippine broadcast network that’s one of Southeast Asia’s biggest media outfits, highlighting the Philippine government’s ongoing attack on press freedom.

Lies and deceits pervade across the globe, in fact. Social media has been riding roughshod with most active gatekeeping across the board in all the major platforms under the current W.H.O.-declared global pandemic. In the guise of stamping out misinformation and disinformation, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube rightfully took down what may be deemed alt-right and fascistic accounts and posts. But these digital behemoths sadly went far beyond that. Hand in hand with prime search engines like Google, they manipulated search and feed algorithms to extremely marginalize accounts and posts of alternative media outfits dutifully reporting on anomalies and trends that do not go along with the establishment narrative and agenda. Victims include independent media as Truthout.org, Mint Press News, Global Research, Information Clearing House, Whatreallyhappened.com, Popular Resistance, Telesur, and RT (Russia Today); authors like Mark Crispin Miller, Mark Taliano, Dr V.A. Shiva Ayyudarai and Pepe Escobar; and numerous alternative health websites.

The result? Humanity is bamboozled with far more Sturm und Drang signifying nothing; to paraphrase the American rock musician Jackson Browne, the more you watch, read and listen, the less you know.

But history doesn’t provide problems without the solutions. Notwithstanding unprecedented establishment efforts to hijack the flow of information, forces are surely emerging and persevering to rise above the din of deceptions. When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Eonomic Crisis, a newly-released compendium of COVID-19-related essays from Clarity Press and edited by feisty former U.S. congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, is one major effort from what can be called a broad global COVID-19 Truth, Freedom and Health Movement.

Book’s editor a truthseeking veteran

The book’s editor is no stranger to truthseeking. As a Democrat member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia in 2002, McKinney dared call early for a complete investigation into the terrorist attacks of 9/11 of 2001 on U.S. soil, including whether then President George W. Bush and other U.S. officials got advance warnings of the terrorist acts and failed to prevent them. Hers was a solitary voice in the U.S. Congress calling for the inquiry. She raised the call just less than 7 months after 9/11 when the American and global publics were still held in thrall by the government’s official conspiracy theory that Osama bin Laden and 19 Muslim hijackers of al-Qaeda were solely behind the attacks. For being a forthright truthseeker, McKinney was widely pilloried and ridiculed in mainstream U.S. media by government apologists. She would later be a victim of bipartisan fraud to steal her 6^th successive term in office.

That obviously has not stopped her from her activist advocacy for human rights, racial equality, and global peace. She would be the Green Party Candidate for U.S. President in 2008, and be editor of three hard-hitting books, including When China Sneezes.

Eerie parallels between COVID-19 and 9/11

Likewise, the 9/11 truth movement she advocated then has since surpassed much ridicule, with groups like the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth credibly exposing the anomalous demolition of WTC7, the third New York tower that fell on 9/11 in similar fashion as the Twin Towers but was not hit by any of the hijacked planes.

To be honest about it, the emergence of COVID-19 this year has compelling, if eerie parallels to 9/11 of 2001. Both were unprecedented events that have impacted the entire world and caught the global public by surprise. Both have produced an unexpectedly large number of casualties. Both ushered in global economic downturns. Both events served as pretexts to impose repressive measures attacking broadly-accepted civil liberties. Both became opportunities for well-entrenched global economic interests to make superprofit bonanzas. And both watershed events have raised serious questions pointing to likely outstanding anomalies and—yes—real conspiracies that humanity deserves to know the answers to.

Image below: Cynthia McKinney (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

At the book’s outset, McKinney warns the reader “to buckle your seatbelt, because by the time you’ve completed these pages, your outlook on health, wealth, and global governance won’t be the same.”

And on this, the book does not disappoint. McKinney has successfully culled contributions from resource persons delving deeply into various dimensions of the current global health and politico-economic crisis.

SARS-CoV-2’s biodefense lab origins?

Part 1 immediately takes us to the jugular as Jeff J. Brown, curator of the Bioweapon Truth Commission Global Online Library, examines the COVID-19 disease itself and the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes it, in an easy-to-understand approach. He makes a solid contribution to a long-overdue comprehensive inquiry into the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus by sharing fiercely-suppressed scientific studies that reveal the virus has curious features that could not have been the result of natural “evolution”. Yes, the virus is far more likely to have originated in a “biodefense” (the establishment’s Orwellian term for biowarfare) lab.

Notwithstanding the emerging fact-based conclusion that the virus causing COVID-19 was a likely result of a “gain-of-function” biolab op, Brown notes however that this new coronavirus disease doesn’t deserve the pandemic hype, observing the long-trending COVID-19 mortality rate is much lower than that of, say, pneumonia. This trend holds until now in fact: out of a total of 34,656,000 COVID-19 cases all over the world as of October 3, deaths from the disease number 1,028,800. That’s a 2.97% mortality rate, lower than pneumonia’s 5% to 10%, and a far cry from the 10% mortality rate from the (misnamed) Spanish flu of World War I vintage, to which COVID-19 has been curiously but most unfittingly compared at the get-go of the current health crisis.

The hidden story of China’s defeat of COVID-19

Part 2 begins with China-based professor and retired businessman Larry Romanoff explaining the overwhelming victorious Chinese response to the COVID-19 outbreak in detail not widely shared with the rest of the world. The unique social setup of the country lends surprising muscle to how China licked COVID-19, from a public health system given primacy by government to overwhelming national solidarity shown by the Chinese people to lift each other up in times of adversity. Romanoff doesn’t hide the fact mistakes were made in the process, but we all see now the incontrovertible proof of the pudding. Despite being dubbed the epicenter of COVID-19 and pilloried in kneejerk fashion by no less than Donald Trump and his allies in and out of the U.S. that SARS-CoV-2 is a “China virus”, China now stands tall when we’re talking COVID-19. It’s one of a select number of countries certified to have successfully overcome the disease, along with Cuba, Vietnam, Thailand and, yes, that part of China called Taiwan. No new cases have been reported in China for weeks now. Contrast that with Trumpland USA, now the eminent leader in COVID-19 infections, no thanks to a health system that surprisingly unraveled in prompt fashion as deeply broken.

After Romanoff, well-detailed on-the-ground honest accounts on what happened in China at the height of the COVID-19 outbreak are shared by a Chinese citizen and a Nigerian expat, who both chose to be anonymous.

COVID-19’s dark economic side

Part 3 proceeds to the economic dimension of the COVID-19 crisis. Economist Jack Rasmus lays down a bleak prognosis for the U.S. economy ravaged by the coronavirus. The simultaneous crises in health, employment, rent and real estate, childcare, and education spell “an extended, weak and unstable economic recovery—not to be confused with a temporary ‘rebound’ over the summer—that will take years to unfold”, as he describes it.

Economist Michael Hudson shares Rasmus’ take on things getting really bad for the U.S. economy—or more exactly, for the American people, as Hudson reveals that once again, as in 2008, the plutocrat and bankster cronies of the political class will be “saved” by multibillion-dollar bonanza giveaways, to the horrific detriment of Main Street. Hudson argues that a fundamental root of the economic woes plaguing the U.S. is its abandonment of the Levitical model of periodic debt forgiveness and cancellation—the Jubilee tradition found in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.

Geopolitical analyst Peter Koenig dares shine a bright light on a likely nefarious side to the current crisis. He cites the 2010 Rockefeller Report uncannily spelling out

a program that starts in 2020 with a corona pandemic. It would start in China and in no time, it would engulf the entire globe. That initial phase is called ‘The Lockstep Scenario.’

He estimates the “purported” pandemic will devastate vast swathes of the global economy to give rise to a monstrous “New or One World Order” featuring fully-digitized human lives. This not-too-far digitalized future was fortuitously foreseen by Agenda ID2020, a pet project of vaccine “philanthropist” and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. A quite similar scenario was the central theme of the Event 201 simulation held October 2019 in New York, sponsored by Gates’ foundation, the Johns Hopkins Institute for Health, and the World Economic Forum plutocrats’ club. W.H.O., World Bank, UNICEF, the U.S. and the Chinese CDCs (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) were among Event 201’s stellar participants.

And just a month after Event 201, voila!, the widely-known first reports of a new coronavirus disease struck Wuhan in China.

Koenig would proceed to highlight the positive things going for rising world power China, like its putting unique primacy to public banking, and “the Chinese philosophy of nonaggression, of diplomacy to resolve conflicts and of promoting peaceful economic coexistence and development around the globe” as he touts China’s project to develop an “Economy of Peace”. One wonders though how long-running Chinese efforts to ape the U.S. in building a global network of its own military bases—many located far beyond China’s borders—chimes in with these announced intentions.

COVID-19 and the Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC)

Professor William Robinson takes a step further than both Rasmus and Koenig in the bleak part of their prognoses for the future. He writes on how the transnational capitalist class (TCC) ruling the world is fully aware that the global economy “is a ticking time bomb” that just needed “something to light the fuse (and t)hat came in the form of the coronavirus.” This same ruling class is now making use of the current world crisis to push a plan to further “consolidate a global police state” leveling up the repressive measures taken by countries in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 of 2001, explaining thus:

Global police state refers to three interrelated developments: 1) militarized accumulation, as a means of accumulating capital in the face of stagnation; 2) systems of mass social control and repression to contain the oppressed; and 3) the increasing move towards political systems that can be characterized as twenty-first century fascism and even as totalitarian.

Robinson issues a rallying cry at the end of his piece:

The COVID-19 pandemic marks a before-and-after turning point. We have entered into a period of mounting chaos in the world capitalist system. Short of revolution, we must struggle now to prevent our rulers from turning the crisis and its aftermath into an opportunity for them to resuscitate and deepen the neoliberal order once the dust settles. Our struggle is to push for something along the lines of a global Green New Deal as an interim program while seeking an accumulation of forces for more radical system change. Left and progressive forces must position themselves now to beat back the threat of war and the global police state and to push the coming upheavals in a direction that empowers the global working and popular classes.

Wicked worldwide web of biowarfare

Part 4 of the book finds journalist Whitney Webb rightfully focusing on a fiercely-hidden dimension of the current COVID-19 crisis: the diabolical global biowarfare industry and its horrific history. And then some.

Webb tracked down a vital trail of early disinformation which oh-so-quickly pointed to the Chinese government as being behind COVID-19. That disinfo trail leads to the C.I.A.-trusted Radio Free Asia as well as the Washington Times, among others. She then unveils a wicked worldwide web of bioweaponry overtly and covertly funded by the U.S. Pentagon under various programs prominently featuring U.S.-funded high-security “biodefense” labs at the border of China and Russia, the ubiquitous USAMRIID facility at Fort Detrick in Maryland, U.S. universities, the infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, all the way to Big Pharma companies in the thick of the race to produce the first COVID-19 vaccine.

Webb connects these dots to the notorious “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” September 2000 manifesto of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) signed by prominent neoconservatives which openly promoted advanced forms of biowarfare “targeting” specific genotypes to take this abhorrent field of science “from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.”

Bridgewater and COVID-19 as economic warfare

Engineer Claudio Peretti bridges the link between biowarfare and economic warfare. He echoes other contributors’ assertions on the urgency to conduct a deep inquiry on how COVID-19 came about and the disease’s likely entanglement with existing biodefense projects.

Peretti’s piece is vital in the COVID-19 investigation for sharing how Bridgewater, a top global hedge fund, may have had most intimate foreknowledge of COVID-19. You see, it was reported in November 2019 that Bridgewater made an unprecedented $1.5-billion options bet that the global economy would suffer a spectacular crash on March 2020.

I don’t know about you, but making a billion-dollar bet in November 2019 on a world crash in four months is certifiably crazy. But Bridgewater’s gamble proved prescient. Too uncomfortably prescient in fact, as virtually no one had an inkling COVID-19 would so drastically disrupt the world economy at that exact month early this year. Drawing on this most anomalous economic act, Peretti points to a far more sinister and malevolent virus than SARS-CoV-2, what he calls the “Finanz-virus”.

Eugenics and hybrid warfare at the heart of COVID-19

The book’s editor, Cynthia McKinney, explores in her own contribution the likely place of eugenics—defined here as “the belief in and the practice of selectively breeding (and sterilizing) human beings for the purpose of creating a ‘Master Race’”—as well as of hybrid warfare—which encompasses employing all overt and covert war technologies short of conventional and nuclear warfare—at the center of the COVID-19 global maelstrom. She lists instructive flashpoints in biowarfare’s long sordid history and cites its use by world powers even when international conventions have explicitly banned it. As one of so many material contributions she raised towards a serious inquiry into COVID-19, McKinney points to a mysterious August 2019 shutdown by the U.S. CDC of the supposedly ultra-safe USAMRIID biolab at Fort Detrick for failing to keep an up-to-date log of all toxins on hand and to ‘implement and maintain containment procedures sufficient to contain select (read: highly dangerous) agents or toxins’. Ominously, Fort Detrick has quietly reopened since.

Biowarfare vs humanity

Part 5 begins with writer Gary D. Barnett focusing on the U.S. as far and away the country with the largest resources deployed for illegal biological and chemical warfare until now. These biowarfare operations have not only targeted foreign countries and their wide swathes of innocent civilian populations. Barnett lists historical incidents of reprehensible biowarfare experimentation victimizing not only U.S. soldiers and employees of the military-industrial complex but even ordinary American civilians.

(We don’t need to plumb too deep in history, in fact. Amid the current COVID-19 crisis last August, U.S. authorities unleashed 750 million genetically modified mosquitoes in Florida without Floridians’ consent.)

Barnett ends with a stirring conclusion:

The insanity of bioweapon research, development, and use largely driven by the U.S., threatens not only every American, but puts everyone on earth at risk of sickness, suffering, and death. Due to these risks all of us are also subject to the prospect of abject slavery. The ongoing agenda of the ruling class is power and control of the entire planet, and bio-warfare against humanity is the tool envisaged to accomplish it.

Fascist dystopia post-COVID-19

Political commentator Helen Buyniski presses on with an encyclopedic citation of measures and events across the globe that point to a clear fascist and corporatist agenda by those at the commanding heights of power justifying lockdown impositions a la medical and economic martial law. Indeed, a real-life dystopian future inimical to humanity firms up the whole picture. She cites the key role of Blackrock, history’s biggest trillion-dollar asset manager, as appointed overseer of what will be the biggest-ever consolidation of wealth of history’s obscenely richest plutocrats amid unparalleled economic devastation across the continents.

Buyniski warns in the end:

Those who lived through 9/11 [of 2001] and saw the destruction it wrought upon the U.S.’ national character can see it happening again on an international scale. It is our duty to warn the world and avert that outcome. One country falling under the thrall of a totalitarian technocratic police state is a tragedy; the entire world falling under an authoritarian global government is a nightmare from which humanity might never wake up.

Rethinking human rights after COVID-19

Amid all the gloom and doom, retired U.N. official Alfred de Zayas rounds out the book with optimism. He boldly recommends a “World Conference on Post-Covid Recovery”. This proposed conference would have as one prime agenda discarding the current “obsolete and artificial division of human rights” that has long perpetuated “a world order that much too often appears to allow injustice” and replacing it with a

functional paradigm that would consider rights in the light of their function within a coherent system—not of competing rights and aspirations, but of interrelated, mutually reinforcing rights which should be applied in their interdependence and understood in the context of a coordinated strategy to serve the ultimate goal of achieving human dignity in all of its manifestations.

Throughout the book, an urgency permeates impelling the reader to do something about what’s happening under the current COVID-19 global crisis. As it should be: Nowhere after World War 2 has humanity been witness to a truly global offensive against truth, health, well-being and freedom for humankind as now.

The further consolidation of 21^st-century Global Fascism depicted throughout this collection of thought-provoking essays is a serious matter all denizens of the earth ought to reckon. For presenting us a veritable antidote to widespread misinformation and disinformation, this must-read of a book, its publisher, its editor and contributors deserve its readers’ bountiful gratitude.

“The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast,” rock poet laureate Bob Dylan once sung. We all have a lot of unmasking, unraveling, unlearning, undoing and unshackling ahead.

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JOEL P. GARDUCE is a Filipino political and cultural researcher and activist. His previous articles have been published in the online sites of Bulatlat, Ibon Foundation, and Global Research, and have been translated in a number of languages. He previously wrote a column for a newspaper in central Philippines. He was a president of the alumni association of the Philippines’ premier high school, the Philippine Science High School (PSHS), had spoken at international conferences, was a director for the Concerned Artists of the Philippines (CAP), and was a national officer in the early 1980s of the League of Filipino Students (LFS). He sings bass for the People’s Chorale time and again.

In an interview with John Anderson, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Professor of Medicine and Professor (by Courtesy) of Economics at Stanford University, had this to say about who is paying the cost of the new normal:

“We’re asking our youth to pay the costs…. that’s who pays the costs of these lockdowns. You have delayed schooling. Essentially schooling online instead of in person. Young people are meant to be in company with one another; they’re not meant to be alone. It’s extremely costly from a social development point of view to have that. And it’s those young people that are paying those costs…

“I think that the unequal distribution of this is absolutely devastating. It’s poor people and young people that are paying the cost of the lockdown and they’re not the ones that are benefiting. They experienced the damage of COVID at much lower rates…

“The United States, I think we’re at 27 trillion dollars in debt and counting. And now’s there’s a debate over how big the next stimulus pack is going to be…. Where does that money come from?… It’s going to come from my kids. It’s going to come from the younger generation who will have that debt hanging over them for the rest of their lives.

“Is it worth it? I mean that’s the thing. It’s like we have almost haven’t asked that question. We just said, okay, we have this COVID disaster. Let’s pay any cost whatsoever to get out.”

Below the interview a viewer posted this comment:

“My father is 80-years-old and he is furious with the [lockdowns]. He says, ‘I would rather take my chances with the damn virus, than see a single family lose their livelihoods.’ He goes on to say that it is a crime to have policies that harm and kill healthy young people in order to protect others from disease. It is one thing to die from disease but another to die from the policies of wealthy politicians.“

As Thomas Sowell said: “There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs.” You can watch the full interview with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya on John Anderson’s YouTube channel or directly below.

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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, Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story. Visit his website at: MuchAdoAboutCorona.ca

Featured image is from a screenshot from the youtube video

There’s nothing unusual about Trump falling ill from exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid disease — notably because of his close contact to numerous people daily.

Millions of Americans and countless others worldwide contract seasonal flu/influenza.

It happens annually with no fear-mongering mass hysteria, no mandated or voluntary house arrest, no mass shutdowns of businesses — no economic collapse that’s happening in the US and elsewhere.

According to Trump’s physician Dr. Sean Conley, he experienced a mild cough, nasal congestion, fatigue, and a low-grade fever that came down, adding:

He’s “cautiously optimistic” about his condition, saying as well that he’s “not yet out of the woods.”

According to medical experts, Covid disease can worsen days after contracting it.

Initial mild symptoms can become more serious.

According to reports by Trump’s doctors, he’s being treated with two experimental drugs — remdesivir and a neutralizing antibody cocktail.

If true, he’s playing Russian roulette with his health, notably because a proved effective Covid disease treatment exists.

When used as directed, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) combined with either azithromycin or doxycycline and zinc is highly effective in treating Covid-infected individuals when administered within around 10 days of being diagnosed with the disease.

Everyone infected with Covid disease should be treated with this protocol.

No one should use potentially toxic experimental drugs. No responsible medical providers should prescribe them.

If reports are accurate, both drugs administered to Trump received emergency FDA authorization for his use.

Neither one cures Covid disease.

Earlier, Thailand Medical News (TMN) said “Americans are getting their lives placed (at) risk (because) the US FDA…rapidly approved remdesivir as a drug to treat COVID-19 despite conflicting study results, and the fact that the drug does not clearly demonstrate any specific efficacy against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus,” adding:

Use of the drug in trials “show(ed) hepatoxicity effects coupled with even slight indications of nephrotoxicity and even cardiotoxicity, and there are insufficient studies to demonstrate its safety on humans.”

Claims by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases that use of the drug shortens hospitalizations for Covid-infected individuals are dubious at best.

The conclusion was based on use of the drug by small numbers of patients with the disease, far too few to be meaningful.

According to the WHO, remdesivir used in the study failed to improve patients’ health or reduce pathogens in their blood.

The FDA endorsed “an unproven but toxic drug,” TMN stressed — defying medical ethics and patient safety.

If widely marketed following its use by Trump, it’ll be a potentially large-scale experiment that may be harmful to countless numbers of Covid-infected patients.

The same may be true for Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’ experimental neutralizing antibody cocktail administered to Trump — if reports are accurate.

These drugs may potentially be more harmful by administering them in combination.

Big Pharma-controlled FDA has a history of approving inadequately tested drugs.

In her book titled “The Truth About the Drug Companies,” former New England Journal of Medicine editor Dr. Marcia Angell said the following:

Big Pharma is “primarily a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefits, using its wealth and power to co-opt every institution that might stand in its way, including the US Congress, the (FDA), academic medical centers, and the medical profession itself.”

Maximizing profits is prioritized over human health.

Despite US federal law requiring that FDA approved drugs must be “safe and effective,” Public Citizen’s Health Research Group revealed otherwise, explaining:

Meds that “don’t work” get approved. Virtually all drugs have labels that warn of potential hazardous to human health side effects.

Enough drugs in combination with each other increase the risk more greatly.

An estimated 100,000 American die annually from the toxic side effects of prescription drugs.

On October 3, TMN warned that remdesivir “causes kidney problems,” adding:

“An urgent immediate safety review of…remdesivir (was) called by the European Medicines Agency after numerous COVID-19 patients taking the drug developed serious kidney problems.”

The EU regulator said the drug appears to cause “acute kidney disease.”

Medical authorities in some EU countries are halting remdesivir’s use until more safety studies are conducted.

So far, no longterm safety studies on the drug were conducted in the US or elsewhere.

According to TMN, profiteers in the US called “Scientists to Stop COVID-19” were behind remdesivir’s rapid approval.

Last week, Trump’s physician Dr. Sean Conley said he received a single dose of Regeneron’s antibody cocktail (REGN-COV2 – perhaps more at Walter Reed) along with remdesivir.

If Trump is being treated with these drugs in lieu of the HCQ combination explained above, he may or may not recover fully from Covid infection.

He’ll be vulnerable to other serious health issues that at his age (74) and obesity (around 240 lbs.) may be life-threatening over the short or longer-term.

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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 waters off Lebanon are the scene of a gathering Armada of French and American naval ships. What appeared at first to be a humanitarian response to the devastating Beirut Port explosion on August 4, is now feared to be the prelude of the next US-NATO humanitarian war.

French President Emmanuel Macron blamed Hezbollah and all of the Lebanese politicians Sunday and warned of a new civil war. “I’m ashamed of the Lebanese political leaders. Ashamed,” Macron repeated.

He accused them of “collective betrayal” while putting their parties and personal greed above the needs of the Lebanese people.

Some political observers now believe that Lebanon may well be going the way of Somalia, as evidenced by the characteristics of a failing state, such as lack of governance, corruption and incompetence, chronic humanitarian problems, and persistent social tensions.

Prime minister-designate Moustapha Adib stepped down September 26, and Lebanon’s Central Bank reserves may soon dry up and the government would no longer be able to subsidize basic goods such as fuel, medicine, and wheat.

Macron has been pressing Lebanese politicians to form a Cabinet made up of technocrats that can work on urgent reforms, and Macron has traveled twice to Beirut since August 4, while making it a personal mission to try to repair the devastated country, which some see as a neo-colonial farce.

Macron criticized the Lebanese system of sectarian politics, “as if competence was linked to religious confession.”

He lambasted Hezbollah demanding to know its characteristics and identity, and he criticized Lebanese political leaders from all parties and dynasties. Each Lebanese faction has found a foreign godfather and has ended up as a pawn in a regional and international chess game. Tens of billions of dollars have reportedly been looted by politicians and deposited in European and American banks.

US-NATO Humanitarian wars

In 1999 NATO updated its ‘Strategic Concept’ to allow members to defend not only other members but also conduct ‘non-Article 5 Response Operations’. It would be under this mechanism that a US-NATO military operation, along with an Arab Gulf coalition, would be used to attack, invade and defeat Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Since 2002, it was agreed that NATO forces could be sent “wherever they are needed,” regardless of the location, and in 2006 the NATO Response Force (NRF) of 25,000 troops has been fully operational.

US President Bill Clinton and NATO waged the humanitarian war on the former Yugoslavia, which broke a larger nation into ‘bite-sized’ pieces.

Critics of the US-NATO bombing of Yugoslavia have argued that certain attacks forming part of the campaign violated international humanitarian law. Noam Chomsky argued that the main objective of the US-NATO war was to force Yugoslavia into the Western economic system since it was the only country in the region that stood alone in defiance of the US world domination.

Hezbollah targeted by US-NATO war machine

Hezbollah’s prominence in the Lebanese government caused foreign donors and investors to stay away, because of US sanctions targeted on anyone with ties to the group, based on their designation as a terrorist group.

Hezbollah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said on Tuesday,

“We welcomed President Macron when he visited Lebanon and we welcomed the French initiative, but not for him to be judge, jury and executioner, and ruler of Lebanon.”

Nasrallah has headed the group since 1992 as Secretary-General; however, its military wing is considered as a terrorist organization in 21 countries, as well as by the Arab League and the European Union.

Hezbollah’s 1985 manifesto listed its objectives as the expulsion of “the Americans, the French and their allies definitely from Lebanon, putting an end to any colonialist entity on our land”.

In 2008, the Lebanese government unanimously recognized Hezbollah’s existence as an armed organization and guarantees its right to “liberate or recover occupied lands”.

Hezbollah is an armed resistance group, as well as a political party that has seats in Parliament through free and fair elections.  Their ally in Parliament is the ‘Amal Movement’, and together they hold the majority of Parliamentary seats. In a democracy, the majority rules and this is why recently Hezbollah and Amal insisted on choosing the Finance minister, which became a conflict point in the view of Macron.

Hezbollah is resisting the Israeli occupation of Shebaa Farms, an area in the far south of Lebanon. Moreover, Hezbollah also is resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestine.  At one time, all of the Arab world demanded the rights for the Palestinian people, who have lived under brutal military occupation since 1948, and the UN has ratified resolutions calling for a 2-state solution, where Palestine would be given the land of the 1967 borders, and both Israel and Palestine would live side by side in peace.

In 2017, Ron Prosor, former Israeli ambassador to the UN said Hezbollah was then “10 times as strong now as it was in 2006, and its military infrastructure permeates Lebanon.” He added that Lebanese President Michel Aoun has also “embraced” Hezbollah’s arsenal as “a principal element of Lebanon’s defense.”

Many critics tried to blame Hezbollah for the Beirut Port blast on August 4, but the Lebanese officials and locals admitted that Hezbollah had no access to the Port, or authority over it.  Even officials known to be antagonistic of Hezbollah admitted that the blame would not plausibly stick on Hezbollah. The exact cause is not known, but it may have been an accident borne of corruption and ineptitude, or it could be sabotage, according to President Michel Aoun. MP Machnouck, member of the Sunni-led ‘Future Party’ stated he was convinced Israel was responsible.

The elimination of Hezbollah is Israel’s top priority

A former director of Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau, Brig. Gen. Nitzan Nuriel, said that another war between Israel and Hezbollah was “only a question of time.”

Hezbollah is the only force that Israel has faced that has caused the Israeli Defense Forces to retreat without success. Defeating Hezbollah is a top Israeli priority.

Under the Obama Administration’s Middle Eastern policy, Iran became a negotiations partner, while pressuring Israel to conclude a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu recently gave a virtual speech to the UN Security Council, in which he displayed a detailed map of Beirut, and he predicted the location of where a future explosion would occur, and he blamed Hezbollah for having a weapons factory and warehouse at the location, which was a residential area.  During the Netanyahu speech, Nasrallah was also giving a live televised speech in Lebanon and was told what Netanyahu had claimed.  He immediately invited all media to go to the location that Netanyahu portrayed in his map, and inspect for themselves if there were any weapons or warehouse present.  Later, the media arrived, and live local TV coverage showed that in fact, the location was a cooking gas canister factory. This confirmed the Israeli accusation was false and led experts to assume a direct connection between the Port blast, and the Israeli proposed blast in Netanyahu’s map.

The Israeli occupation of Lebanon 

Israel occupied the south of Lebanon for 23 years, during which men, women, and children were imprisoned in Khiam Prison, where they were routinely tortured, abused and many died. Hezbollah aligned with many other Lebanese resistance groups, who resisted the occupation vociferously until Israel gave up and left in 2000. The south of Lebanon is populated by both Shite Muslims and Christians. The steadfastness of Hezbollah is remembered by those Lebanese citizens.  However, the North of Lebanon was never occupied and lived free of fear, oppression, and intimidation which may have influenced many Lebanese citizens either support or reject Hezbollah. As they say, “Your view depends on where your seat is.”

Using ISIS as ground troops by US-NATO

Recently, the Lebanese Army fought fierce battles against Radical Islamic terrorists near Tripoli in the north, in the area of Wadi Khalid.

In 2016, Efraim Inbar, an Israeli scholar, and the director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies wrote, “The continuing existence of ISIS serves a strategic purpose,” and added that ISIS “can be a useful tool in undermining” Iran, Hezbollah, Syria, and Russia and should not be defeated. He wrote, “Stability is not a value in and of itself. It is desirable only if it serves our interests,” and stressed that the West’s “main enemy” is not ISIS; it is Iran.

Saudi Arabia part of the Coalition against Hezbollah

The King of Saudi Arabia rarely gives speeches; however, he made a televised speech in which he accused Hezbollah of the Beirut Port blast, apparently unaware that that accusation has been debunked. This is the same King who summoned Prime Minister Saad Hariri from Lebanon to be kidnapped and forced to resign in Saudi Arabia. It was President Macron who personally negotiated Hariri’s freedom.

It appears that Saudi Arabia will be among the first Arab countries to send support for a US-NATO attack on Lebanon to eliminate Hezbollah.

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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

“Now that dentists have reopened their doors, they’re having patients show up with a nasty set of symptoms, which the doctors have dubbed ‘mask mouth,’” reports FOX News. “The new oral hygiene issue — caused by, you guessed it, wearing a mask all the time to prevent the spread of the coronavirus — is leading to all kinds of dental disasters like decaying teeth, receding gum lines and seriously sour breath.”

“We’re seeing inflammation in people’s gums that have been healthy forever, and cavities in people who have never had them before,” Dr. Rob Ramondi, a dentist and co-founder of One Manhattan Dental, told FOX News.

Beyond embarrassing and painful, dental infections are life-threatening confirms a study by the American Stroke Association:

“Patients with gum disease were twice as likely to have a stroke caused by hardening of large arteries within the brain than those without gum disease.”

One Manhattan Dental told FOX News that they estimate 50% of their patients are suffering from mask-induced dental problems.

The dentists theorize that the oral infections are largely caused by people’s tendency to mouth breathe while wearing a mask. Mouth breathing has many more side-effects other than dental infections. Bypassing the nasal cavity denies the body of nitric oxide (a critical blood vessel dilator). The nasal cavity also warms and purifies air before hitting the lungs.

Of course, other studies have shown masks increase infection rates in other ways, so why not in the mouth? Possibly these dental problems are a result of “bacterial growth on a used and loaded mask” as Prof. Denis Rancourt speculates in his paper Masks Don’t Work. Masks create a moist environment in front of the mouth for bacteria to fester, while being unhindered by the body’s immune system.

Call me simple, but I can’t see how stressing one’s immune system with dental infections would help one fight SARS-COV-2. And, when we consider that randomized control trials show masks can’t even stop flu-like-illnesses, these oral objections are yet just another reason not to wear a mask.

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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, Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story. Visit his website at: MuchAdoAboutCorona.ca. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Wikimedia Commons

This article was originally published in May 2020.

Hundreds of millions of people worldwide have lost their jobs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. But what about the 1.6 billion workers in the “informal sector” – half the global workforce – who didn’t have a steady job to start with?

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Even amid the torrent of statistics surrounding the COVID-19 crisis, it stands out. And while it’s received only scant media attention, it matters. A lot. Because it highlights a critical and truly global challenge almost sure to outlast the pandemic itself.

That 1.6 billion is the number of people on the margins of the world economy, from migrant workers to those employed in the gig economy, who are in immediate danger of losing their livelihoods. They make up half the world’s workforce and it is far from certain that their jobs will reappear even when the crisis is over.

Hundreds of millions of jobs have been put on hold by coronavirus shutdowns around the world. That’s been especially true in countries already hit by the pandemic. But other areas, like Africa and much of South America, are suffering from the international economic fallout and are likely to face heightened job losses if the pandemic strikes harder there.

In the United States, more than 30 million people, over 15% of the workforce, have applied for unemployment benefits in recent weeks. In Western Europe, joblessness is also increasing. Only government wage-support subsidies have staved off a U.S.-scale spike, by keeping idle or furloughed workers notionally employed. In China, official statistics have reported only a slight uptick in unemployment. But that figure excludes a migrant workforce of nearly 300 million people.

That’s where the 1.6 billion figure comes in. Released last week by the International Labor Organization, it covers the so-called informal economy – whether migrant, agricultural, or shift workers in the developing world, or the gig workers and service-industry staff increasingly predominant in wealthier economies. The ILO found that COVID-19 had left almost all 2 billion of them finding it precariously hard to make ends meet.

The immediate challenge for governments essentially involves budgeting, or printing, more money: for multitrillion-dollar stimulus programs like those in the U.S., or salary-support schemes favored in Europe and elsewhere. And there is every likelihood that the sums needed for such schemes will grow further.

But that may turn out to be the easy part. An even tougher challenge lies ahead.

The best-case scenario envisages a fairly early exit from COVID-19, through a combination of treatment or inoculation advances and a staged reboot of the world economy. It’s a hope shared on all continents, by governments democratic and authoritarian. A number of U.S. states, as well as COVID-affected countries in Europe and Asia, are now tentatively beginning to reopen for business.

But there’s a key question, even in a best-case scenario: How many of the jobs lost to COVID-19 will be lost for good, or at least for a long time after the economic reopenings? That question is particularly acute in the service economy – restaurants, leisure businesses, small retail shops – and for the ILO’s 1.6 billion strugglers in the informal economy worldwide.

Much will depend on the longer-term effects of the blow COVID-19 has dealt to the world economy, through major slowdowns in the world’s two leading economies, the U.S. and China, and huge disruptions to international trade.

Two very different examples: Across Asia, millions work in garment and other factories that have thrived largely on exports to Europe. Many were suddenly made jobless by COVID-19 shutdowns. The question now will be whether, or how quickly, demand for their products will rebound in a post-pandemic world economy.

In Europe itself, Greece has so far confounded predictions by avoiding the kind of mass outbreaks that have claimed tens of thousands of lives in Italy, France, and Britain. But the tourism sector is critical to Greece’s economy, employing a fifth of the workforce. The country can only hope not just that airlines and airports reopen, but that the tourists recover a pre-pandemic appetite for air travel.

Yet beyond the economic imponderables, long-term mass joblessness – possibly on the scale of the Great Depression in the 1930s – could pose major social and political challenges.

Work, especially for those living payday to payday, is essential to economic survival. But it’s also central to people’s identity, their sense of self-definition, even self-worth. The human cost of the Great Depression – a period that, like many of great suffering, also produced great insights and works of art – is perhaps chronicled nowhere as searingly as in the pages of John Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath.”

While work can form a core part of a person’s identity, worklessness can depress and embitter. A more recent example – the political fallout from the 2008 world financial crisis – is a reminder that one result can be a growth in the kind of anger and resentment on which populist strongmen often feed.

The good news, or so organizations like the ILO are emphasizing, is that the employment crisis caused by COVID-19 is not limited to one country or region. Their hope is that, rather than focus only on the domestic imperative of getting each national economy back on its feet, governments will take shared, international action to address the needs of the “1.6 billion” in a post-pandemic world.

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Germany is again in the forefront in fighting the devastating, unjustified, illegal, economy-destructive, people debilitating and outright genocidal – Corona Measures. The German COVID-19 Extra-Parliamentary Inquiry Committee – in German – ACU – German acronym for Ausserparlamentarischer Corona Untersuchungsausschuss – (see diagram from ACU2020.org website, on the left) is planning to launch a Class Action Suit against not only governments and government officials, but specifically against the manufacturers of the infamous PCR test (PCR – Polymerase Chain Reaction – is a technique used to “amplify” small segments of DNA) which, according to honest virologists all over the world, is absolutely unsuitable for covid-19 testing. It has actually not even been licensed to carry out such tests.

Nevertheless, the PCR test has been and is being touted and promoted by WHO – and by other leading health institutions in the western world, such as the US NIAID / NIH and CDC, as well as by researchers from the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) at Charité, Hospital, Berlin.  It was Dr. Christian Drosten, Director of the Institute of Virology at “Charité”, who propagated this test which eventually was taken over by the German respective Government and health authorities, who made it a mandatory panacea to test and count “cases”, mostly to manipulate statistics – which the media then uses to implant fear in the population.

Other countries followed similar instructions from their highest health authorities and used the test results for the same purpose – planting fear in the clueless population. The media never tell us, for example that the error rate of these tests, the so-called “positive negatives”, can be as high 50%. However, all “positives” are automatically absorbed into the “case” statistics. People get often tested several times and may also be reported several times.

That’s how the “case” rates can be manufactured and manipulated. FEAR is the Name of the Game. So that the governments are justified in closing their iron fists even stronger around your personal neck; and by cutting the countries’ economic lifeline – causing countless bankruptcies and unemployment in proportions never seen in modern history – and often deadly misery, famine and suicide.

The iron fist around the peoples’ throats include face mask, social distancing, work from home, semi- or full lockdowns, i.e. keeping people purposefully apart (the separate-to-conquer principle), discrimination against the elderly, who in their loneliness get depressed, sick and may die earlier. Yes, elderly people, especially with co-morbidities are in a higher risk group, but in the same as with the common flu every year, which has never been a reason to discriminate them.

The result we are seeing already today. And the worst is yet to come. This fall and winter in the Global North the merging with flu and “covid” may spell even more disaster in data manipulative mastery, and consequential measures that may, wittingly or unwittlingly be copied in the Global South, although the coming warmer summer climate would suggest the contrary. It’s a nasty and criminal Game that, if we don’t stop it, will not end soon.

Enough introduction. Listen for yourself what Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, lawyer of ACU, has to say (8-min video below) about the Class Action Suit, and how it might bring these destructive measures to a halt and reverse them, by compensating the damaged people and small and medium size enterprises that had no choice but to declare bankruptcy and lay off their employees.

As Dr. Füllmich explains, this could happen with what he calls a BANG, if millions around the world join in the Class Action Law Suit. Since in Germany and other European countries, Class Action Suits are not well known, especially because they are complicated, lacking a similar legal basis they have in the US, this Class Action Suit would be filed in the US, representing the world population.

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Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals such as Global Research; ICH; New Eastern Outlook (NEO) and more. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

On NPR yesterday afternoon (Oct. 2) a former Obama regime official argued for a 90% lockdown of the economy for 6 weeks and mandatory masks.  He said this was the only way we can save ourselves from mass deaths that will wreck the economy worse than the 90% lockdown would.

Keep in mind that the masks people are wearing are not N95 masks and do not prevent inhalation and exhalation of the virus.  

Keep in mind that the rise in cases is the result of more testing with a test that produces false positives.  

Authorities know both of these facts.

The question is:  Why are authorities and presstitutes spreading this bogus information?  Why do they want to close down the economy?  Why do they want to force people to wear masks that do not protect?

Are the answers that they want to defeat Trump by crashing the economy, want to make us more fearful so that we accept a vaccine, and want to train the public to follow orders?

Why is the public so uninformed that they are so easily subject to manipulation?

Sometimes humor is the best defense.

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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog, PCR Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Times of India

New START is the last remaining Russia/US arms control agreement.

Expiring on February 5, 2021 if not renewed, the Trump regime rejected Vladimir Putin’s offer to extend the agreement for another five years with no pre-conditions.

On September 28, Politico reported that Trump officials “asked the military to assess how quickly it could pull nuclear weapons out of storage and load them onto bombers and submarines if an arms control treaty with Russia” expires in February, citing three unnamed sources, adding:

The Trump regime “wants to underscore that it is serious about letting the treaty lapse if Russia fails to meet (its) demands.”

Claiming Trump’s arms control negotiator Marshall Billingslea “is leery that Russia is dragging out the talks in the hope that Joe Biden” succeeds him in January is absurd on its face.

In many respects, DJT has been more onboard for improving US relations with Russia than any of his predecessors since Jack Kennedy — who favored nuclear disarmament and rapprochement with Soviet Russia.

Near the end of the Cold War, the landmark 1987 Reagan/Gorbachev Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty stepped back from the brink of possible nuclear confrontation.

Abandoning it by the Trump regime increased the risk of greater conflicts and chaos by escalating tensions instead of reducing them.

It was unjustifiably justified by  falsely accusing Russia of INF breaches.

Obama did the same thing after his 2014 coup in Ukraine, replacing democratic governance with Nazi-infested fascist tyranny.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Russia’s chief arms control negotiator Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov called the US demand for China to be part of extending New START “clearly a nonstarter for us,” adding:

Moscow will respond appropriately if the US side lets New START expire.

If Washington expands its nuclear arsenal, Russia “would be ready to counter this.”

Weeks earlier, China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the following:

“We made clear our position on multiple occasions.”

“China has no intention to take part in so-called China-US-Russia trilateral arms control negotiations. This position is clear and consistent,” adding:

“China’s nuclear power is not on the same order of magnitude as that of the US and Russia.”

“It is not yet the right timing for China to participate in nuclear disarmament talks.”

“The US time and again drags China into the New START extension issue between the US and Russia.”

“It is the same old trick whenever it seeks to shift responsibility to others.”

“It is the US who has been obstructing (arms control) efforts and walking further down the wrong path of being a quitter.”

On October 1, the Arms Control Association said Trump “and his team have dithered and delayed on nuclear arms control matters,” adding:

“Now, at the 11th hour, they are pursuing an ill-advised strategy that has little chance of success and is probably designed to run out the clock on the last remaining treaty limiting the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals.”

“Unless Trump…overrules his hardline advisors and adjusts course or Joe Biden wins the presidential election and makes good on his pledge to extend New START, the treaty very likely will disappear.”

“That would open the door to an ever-more dangerous and costly global nuclear arms race.”

In July, Biden said if elected in November:

“I’ll pursue an extension of the New START Treaty – an anchor of strategic stability between the United States and Russia, and use that as a foundation for new arms control agreements.”

All politicians lie. Nothing they say can be taken on its face.

Time and again, campaign pledges by US and other politicians are breached if elected.

Biden is militantly hostile toward Russia.

In early September he called Russia, not China, most aggressive in sowing discord in US politics, adding:

“There are a lot of countries around the world I think would be happy to see our elections destabilized (sic).”

“But the one who has worked the hardest, most consistently, and never has let up is Russia (sic).”

The Big Lie refuses to die. Time and again, US officials accuse Russia, China, Iran, and other countries of things they had nothing to do with.

When false accusations are repeated enough, including by establishment media, most people believe almost anything no matter how untrue.

In August, the US National Counter-Intelligence and Security Center falsely accused Russia of trying to “denigrate” Biden.

It also falsely claimed that Iran is trying to sow division in the US to undermine Trump’s chance for reelection.

In modern memory, no evidence suggests that any foreign nation interfered in the US political process — what its intelligence community does repeatedly against other countries worldwide.

In response to unacceptable Trump regime demands for extending New START, Russia’s UN envoy Anatoly Antonov said the following:

The US side “created the time pressure situation in the issue of extending the New START, despite our numerous calls and proposals to extend the agreement…in the past years,” adding:

“Washington decided to ‘wake up’ only in the run-up to the (November 3) presidential election.”

“At the same time, the possibility of extending the treaty is conditioned by requirements which are obviously unacceptable for Russia and do not take into account our concerns in the strategic stability domain.”

In August, Sergey Lavrov stressed “the unfeasibility of Washington’s demands.”

In June 2019, Vladimir Putin said if New START expires, “there would be no instrument in the world to curtail the arms race.”

In his UN General Assembly address last month, he called the landmark agreement an “issue of primary importance that should and must be promptly dealt with.”

With Russia/US arms control talks largely stalemated because of the latter’s unacceptable demands, New START will expire in a few months unless Trump intervenes directly to save the landmark agreement.

At this time, it appears unlikely whether he’s reelected or loses to Biden in November.

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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.

Karabakh. The Azerbaijani and Turkish mass media and social networks persistently report about succesful actions of the Azerbaijani army and enormous losses among Armenian forces. However in fact the situation is different – the army of Azerbaijan has lost about 200 people since the start of operation, more than 350 were wounded, over 70 vehicles were destroyed, including tanks, MLRS, helicopters and UAVs.

Despite the ostentatious courage and significant military support from Turkey, Azerbaijani army faces persistent resistance of armed defence units of Karabakh consisting mainly of militia units. Even Syrian mercenaries transported by Turkish Air Force in a conflict zone are unable to achieve any advantage. The failure was due to the lack of readiness and inability of the regular army of Azerbaijan to resist the popular defensive movement that protects its lands from external aggression. In addition, the morale of the rebels far exceeds the motivation of the Azeris who participate in this risky undertaking. Realizing senseless nature of war and violence, number of the Azerbaijani military leaders refuse to carry out orders of the High Command.

It’s noteworthy that from the very beginning of the operation Turkish journalists were in the front line and covered news in a favorable light. Preparations for the attack were hidden from the international community, and movements of military convoys were masked by maneuvers.

It conveys the suggestion that this conflict has been well planned in advance and operated by using Baku. Highly likely it is possible to suppose that Aliyev was given the green light to launch military operation directly from Ankara.

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Azerbaijan has given Turkey control over the air segment of its military campaign to capture the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the Armenian Defense Ministry reported on September 30. According to Artsrun Hovhannisyan, Turkish and Azerbaijani aviation is being coordinated by the E7-T aircraft of the Turkish Air Force, which is an air command post. The military plane was spotted near the Turkish cities of Erzurum and Kars.

“It is possible that the leadership of the Turkish Air Force is on board this plane,” Hovhannisyan added.

As an example of such actions, the Armenian side claimed that two Turkish F-16 fighters, an Azerbaijani Su-25 attack aircraft, as well as a Turkish combat drone “Bayraktar”, which took off from the city of Kurdamir, had inflicted a missile and bomb attack on the Karabakh towns of Hadrut and Martakert.

Further a command and control post for Turkish combat drones is located near the city of Hadrut. It is reportedly coordinating the strikes of Azerbaijani warplanes.

Pro-Armenian sources insist that the Chief of General Staff of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces Najmaddin Sadigov was in fact removed from his command of the Karabakh operation at the behest of Turkish military advisers and specialists. Sadigov was allegedly an opponent of the dramatically increased influence of Turkey in the Azerbaijani military.

Armenia also showed photos of its Su-25 attack aircraft, which, according to it, was downed by a Turkish F-16 on September 29. The pilot of the Su-25, Major Valery Danelin, died. In their turn, Turkey and Azerbaijan insist that the Turkish Air Force and other branches of Turkish military are not involved in the conflict. According to Fahrettin Altun, the head of the communications department of the Turkish presidential administration, Armenian claims are “another fantasy of the Armenian military propaganda machine.” The Azerbaijani side, in turn, said that two Armenian Su-25 warplanes crashed into the mountain and exploded, the rest is absurd and disinformation.

Since September 30, the situation on the frontline between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces has not changed significantly. Despite this, intense firefights, artillery duels and air strikes are being reported along the entire contact line. Armenian sources accuse Azerbaijan and Turkey of intentional bombing of civilian areas of the Nagorno-Karabakh republic, including its capital, and even inside Armenia itself.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan, which ceased to name areas allegedly seized from the Armenians, insists that its forces have captured several key positions on the frontline. According to Baku, since the morning of September 27, its forces have destroyed up to 200 battle tanks and other armored vehicles, 228 artillery pieces, rocket launchers, mortars, 30 air defense systems, 6 command-control and observation posts, 5 ammunition depots, more than 110 vehicles and an S-300 anti-aircraft missile system. The number of killed or injured Armenian fighters was not provided but if one checks previous Azerbaijani reports, it has supposedly already exceeded 1,000.

On the other hand, the Armenian side said that during the last 24 hours only 130 Azerbaijani service members were killed, 260 others were injured, 32 military equipment pieces were destroyed and 13 UAVs were downed.

Both sides regularly release videos showing the destruction of enemy positions and equipment. Nevertheless it seems that without more active participation from the Turkish side, Azerbaijan is unable to deliver a rapid and devastating military blow to Armenia and thus capture the contested region. However, if the regional situation remains same, the Azerbaijani military is likely to have the upper hand in any developing war just because it has more manpower, weapons, military equipment and ammunition.

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“Sanctions must be treated as a form of warfare. . . . Let us regard the imposition of sanctions with the same gravity as we would regard the act of going to war.” – Mehran Nakhjavani[^1]

There is widespread concern among human rights monitoring bodies and experts, including the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, regarding sanctions imposed by the U.S. and some other countries on Venezuela. As noted by a UN Special Rapporteur charged with monitoring sanctions, “The use of sanctions by outside powers to overthrow an elected government is in violation of all norms of international law.” The Special Rapporteur urged all countries to avoid applying sanctions against Venezuela “unless approved by the United Nations Security Council, as required by the UN Charter.”^[2]

While the U.S. has taken the lead in instigating unilateral sanctions against Venezuela, with an explicit condition that sanctions will only be lifted in response to regime change, Canada too has operated outside of its historic commitment to the UN and multilateralism by imposing a number of sanctions to replicate some of the U.S. sanctions. This article submits that certain sanctions imposed by Canada against Venezuela are illegal under Canadian law because Parliament has not authorized the government to make the regulation through which they were imposed.

On September 22, 2017, on the recommendation of then Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, the federal Cabinet, which is the executive branch of the Canadian government, made a regulation (the “Special Economic Measures (Venezuela) Regulations”, or the “Venezuela Regulations” for short) requiring all Canadians to boycott 40 named individuals in Venezuela (since then extended to the current total of 96 individuals including its Ombudsperson and Attorney General).

The government purported to act under the Special Economic Measures Act, SC 1992, c 17 (“SEMA”) which gives it authority to make such regulations. At the time, that act gave only two grounds for the government to do so.

The first one is easily understood: when there is a serious international crisis as a result of a grave breach of international peace and security. Canada has passed such regulations regarding various countries: Burma, 2007; Zimbabwe, 2008; Iran, 2010; Syria and North Korea, 2011; and South Sudan, Russia, and the Ukraine, 2014.

Whether or not all Canadians would have agreed with each of these regulations, it is fair to assume that all would have understood why they were made.

The second ground is more difficult to understand. It is the one that was used against the Venezuelan individuals because there is no obvious evidence that the domestic violence in Venezuela would lead to a serious international crisis.

Under this second ground, it is still possible to make such a regulation when Canada’s government wants to act in solidarity with an international organization of states or association of states of which Canada is a member.

If the association of nation states feels that the principles of law by which a nation state ought to abide have been torn apart, it can call on its members to take economic measures against that foreign state.

What is most peculiar is that in the case of the Organization of American States, a major organization of which Canada is a member, there was no such consensus against Venezuela. This created a difficulty as, for Canada’s government to pursue its goal, the OAS was the most obvious and relevant association of nations through which to do so. 

So, in order to rely on the second ground, the Canadian government had to find another association of nation states. Side-stepping Canada’s Parliament, it declared that Canada and the U.S.A. constituted an appropriate association, under the name “Association Concerning the Situation in Venezuela”.

This raises a number of questions, most significantly whether Canada, through its federal government, is acting as a country that adheres to the rule of law or subjugates itself to the wishes of the United States.

Specifically, is the making of the Venezuela Regulations by the Trudeau government validly authorized by Canada’s Parliament under the SEMA? Or are the Venezuela Regulations, in legal terms, ultra vires, meaning that Parliament has not given the government the authority or legal power to make them and therefore the regulation and the sanctions it imposes are of no force and effect.

The SEMA provision

The circumstance that must have occurred in order for the government to be authorized to make a regulation under the second ground is that:

“an international organization of states or association of states, of which Canada is a member, has made a decision or a recommendation or adopted a resolution calling on its members to take economic measures against a foreign state”

Is the “Association Concerning the Situation in Venezuela”, which Canada purports to have formed with the United States and of which only it and the United States are “members”, such an “association of states, of which Canada is a member”?

Events in 2017

Since 1990 Canada has been a member of the Organization of American States, currently composed of 33 states which include the United States and most other countries of the Americas. The OAS was formed in 1948 and has a charter. In May 2017 foreign ministers of the OAS met concerning political and economic events in Venezuela but were unable to agree on a consensus statement concerning that country. Nor were they able to do so at a subsequent meeting in June 2017.

Some time on or before July 26, 2017 thirteen OAS countries, including the US and Canada issued a “Declaration on the Situation in Venezuela” calling for respect for human rights and constitutional order. It did not call for economic measures to be taken against Venezuela.

In July 2017 the US Treasury Board unilaterally imposed economic sanctions on fourteen Venezuelan individuals.

Whether Canada could follow suit was a live question as early as the beginning of August 2017. An unidentified Canadian official is reported as stating that Canada could more easily sanction Venezuelan officials if Bill S-226, the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law), which was still before Parliament, had been passed into law. While there was commentary that Canada could have relied on the ground in the SEMA that a “grave breach of international peace and security has occurred that has resulted or is likely to result in a serious international crisis”, no one talked about implementing a decision of an international organization of states or association of states.

On August 8, 2017 the Foreign Ministers and Representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay and Peru, gathered in Lima, Peru and issued a declaration concerning Venezuela. While that declaration, among other things, called for a stop to the transfer of weapons to Venezuela in accordance with articles 6 and 7 of the Arms Trade Treaty, it did not call for the taking of economic measures against Venezuela or Venezuelans.

The following day, August 9, 2017, a counselor in the Canadian Embassy in Washington D.C. sent an e-mail to two individuals, at least one of whom was with the Legal Affairs Bureau of Canada’s foreign affairs department [the department goes by the name “Global Affairs Canada”], and copied it to two other persons in the Canadian embassy in Washington. The e-mail is the earliest document to which Global Affairs Canada gave access in response to a request under Canada’s Access to Information Act for records relating to “The Association Concerning the Situation in Venezuela”. The contents of the e-mail are redacted, or covered up, as is the identity of a third person to whom it was copied.

Less than a month later on September 5, 2017 a 20 minute meeting took place in the office of Global Affairs Canada in Ottawa that is referred to in the record of the meeting as “The inaugural meeting of the Association [Concerning the Situation in Venezuela].”

The meeting was called to order by David Morrison, then the Assistant Deputy Minister Americas and Chief Development Officer at Global Affairs Canada. Under the heading “Members Present”, Mr. Morrison is described as “Representing Canada” together with three others, his advisor, a legal officer with Global Affairs Canada, and the Venezuela Desk Officer, South American Division of Global Affairs Canada.

The persons described as representing the United States are four persons from the US Embassy, the Charge d’Affaires, the Acting deputy Chief of Mission, a Minister Counselor for Political Affairs, and an Economic Counselor.

Tracking in part the language of the SEMA (as italicized below), the record of the meeting states:

“The Association recommends that its members take measures to respond to the situation in Venezuela. The Association therefore calls upon its members to take economic measures against Venezuela and persons responsible for the current situation in Venezuela.”

There actually was no need to call on the U.S. to take economic measures against Venezuela. It had already done so. In addition to above-mentioned U.S. Treasury Board sanctions imposed against the 14 Venezuelan individuals in July 2017 pursuant to presidential executive order 13692 made in March 2015, the president of the United States had issued Executive Order 13808 in August 2017 prohibiting, with certain exceptions, access to U.S. financial markets by the Venezuelan government and the state-owned oil company PdVSA.

Twelve of the 14 Venezuelans sanctioned by the US in July 2017 were subsequently sanctioned under the Venezuela Regulations made under the SEMA, and the other two were sanctioned by Canada under the regulation made on November 3, 2017 under the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law).

No charter, constitution, by-laws or other constating document for the so-called “Association”, or any document bearing any signature by anyone on behalf of either Canada or the U.S. has been produced by Global Affairs Canada in response to the Access to Information Act request.

No public record of any agreement between Canada and the United States to create the “Association Concerning the Situation in Venezuela” exists. In the U.S., while the president can enter into executive agreements under the presidential authority over foreign policy contained in the U.S. constitution, such agreements must be reported to the Senate under the Case-Zablocki Act of 1972 and would be expected to be disclosed in the U.S. State Department’s listing of U.S. Treaties and Other International Agreements. There is no mention of any agreement with Canada or any other state with respect to Venezuela in that listing.

Nor is there any executive order made by the U.S. president in 2017 or thereafter which refers to any agreement with Canada regarding Venezuela.

As for Canadian records, there is no reference to any such agreement in Global Affairs Canada’s published database of Canadian treaties and non-treaty international agreements, arrangements, or understandings.

Parliament’s intent

Did Parliament in the SEMA intend to authorize the federal government in these circumstances to make the regulation it did imposing sanctions on these Venezuelan individuals? The answer depends on the interpretation of the phrase “association of states, of which Canada is a member” in section 4(1.1) (a) of the SEMA. To help determine what Parliament meant by that phrase one can look at the proceedings in 1992 before the Parliamentary committee composed of members of Parliament who studied in detail Bill C-53, the bill which Parliament eventually enacted as the SEMA in that year.

Those proceedings suggest that Parliament intended that the association of states be a multilateral one, and that it actually exist and not merely be created ad hoc for the purpose of allowing the federal government to make a regulation that it wanted to, but could not, make on its own absent a “grave breach of international peace and security”.

The first witness before the Parliamentary committee was Barry Mawhinney (Legal Advisor in the Office of Secretary of State for External Affairs, as Canada’s foreign affairs minister was then called). He was asked by Committee member Axworthy the following question about the meaning of “international organization or association of states”. Mr. Axworthy’s question assumed that the organizations in question were multilateral, and that such organizations had some structure by way of “by-laws” or “obligations”.

“It is a complex question, and I really need your help on it. Clause 4.(1)—“international organization or association of states, of which Canada is a member, that calls on its members to take economic measures”—is a pretty loose definition. You just pointed out that we have OAS obligations, UN obligations. But we are also a member of a number of other multilateral organizations. To what extent do these organizations, in their own laws or obligations, set out mandatory or required steps by their member states? Does this not kind of put us into a position where our freedom of choice is being somewhat limited at this stage?

I guess what I am trying to get at, Mr. Mawhinney, is that we are saying that the more we get into a world of international multilateralorganizations there are all kinds of by-laws in those organizations that could be triggering us into a whole series of economic sanctions. We could end up putting sanctions on almost everybody, at some point or other, depending on how many clubs we want to belong to.”

In responding Mr. Mawhinney implied that the organization or association would be one already in existence and stated that the purpose of the legislation was to allow Canada, if it so chose, to take “collective action” pursuant to a “collective decision” thereof. He told the Committee:

I can think of only one club, and it is the mother of all clubs, where we have very clear mandatory sanctions under the United Nations. The concern here, Mr. Axworthy, was to ensure that where an international organization to which we belong has taken certain decisions which call for collective action—do not impose collective action, but call for collective action—we should be able to act pursuant to that collective decision. But it is, again, enabling legislation. This in no way requires Canada, if it decides otherwise, to carry through on any particular decision taken by an international organization. But what it does do is give us that option and that ability to take action if we so decide that it is in Canada’s best interest.

What we didn’t want to have was a situation where an international organization had taken a decision and we wanted to share in the implementation of that decision but we were unable to do that because this kind of threshold wasn’t available.

Throughout his testimony, as italicized in the passages quoted below, Mr. Mawhinney referred to a “broad coalition” or “broad international consensus” in a “multilateral context”. At the outset of his presentation to the Committee he stated that:

“Historically, Canadian governments have been guided by three basic principles in the application of economic sanctions. First, they have sought broad international agreement on the necessity and usefulness of sanctions.”

Mr. Mawhinney further stated:

“When we apply sanctions, and this has been consistently the practice of Canadian governments, we do so based on a broad international consensus to do so, and within a multilateral context.”

He then again stated:

“The situation set out here in the two thresholds makes it very clear that we are dealing with rare occasions; the grave breach of international peace and security that Mr. Axworthy was questioning me about, or the implementation of a decision by an international organization of which Canada is a member. So these things are not done frequently and they are not done lightly. They are done within the context of a very broad international consensus, dealing with very serious situations.”

Later Mr. Mawhinney repeated his reference to a broad coalition and that Canada would not be acting on its own when he stated:

“We would have to ensure that in applying those measures we had, as I mentioned earlier, a broad coalition of support internationally, that we were sharing the burden and, perhaps most important, that we were not, through our own measures, putting at a disadvantage either Canadian business or Canadian workers in relation to our competitors.”

In the testimony of Jeffrey Grenville-Woods (United Nations Association in Canada) before the Committee he too made clear his understanding that the purpose of the bill was to enable Canada to implement decisions of a separate body and not its own decision, when he stated:

 “The breach mechanism has to be as a result, I would submit, of a finding by this group of states because the purpose of the bill is to implement somebody else’s decision. It’s not a Canadian measure of its own accord.”

. . . . .

“The purpose of the bill is to implement somebody else’s decision in Canada. That seems to be the key element of clause 4: The Governor in Council may, for the purpose of implementing a decision, resolution or recommendation do the following things. If we’re implementing someone’s decision, recommendation or resolution, who is it? If that’s the only measure for the trigger, we need to know what the source of that process is. It could be the only argument you need in the House to justify the action taken, that an organization said there is this action to be taken and this is why we’re taking it.”

Mr. Grenville-Woods also pointed out the need to be “circumspect” in defining the meaning of “association of states” in his answer to the following question from Committee member Leblanc:

“I would like to direct my questions to comments you made earlier, which have to do with the definitions of an international organization of states, and what constitutes a serious breach or a crisis meriting the imposition of sanctions. Is there any recognized mechanism through the United Nations for classifying international organizations of states or associations of states or a body of international law that we could appeal to to introduce the kinds of precisions you were suggesting we make to bring us into line with the actions of other countries.”

Mr. Grenville-Woods responded:

“I think the quick answer to that is that there is no hard and fast definition of an international organization, nor is there a hard and fast definition of an association of states. That, I think, is the problem. If there was, then these words would have an international legal meaning that could easily be referred to. There is a very broad definition of international organizations, and that creates some difficulty. It’s useful to have a broad definition in the context of other purposes, such as trying to grant privileges and immunities to representatives of these organizations in your country or in the international community, but when you are talking about these organizations being the trigger for some action, then I think you have to be more circumspect in your definition.”

Committee member Robinson went so far as to propose an amendment to the bill to provide that the organizations or associations be specified by regulation. He withdrew the amendment after Serge April (Director General, Bureau of Legal Affairs, Department of External Affairs and International Trade) agreed to provide a list of the organizations most likely to be the subject of this particular clause. However, no such list is referred to in the Committee proceedings.

The above-quoted passages indicate that the Committee members and several witnesses, including from the government itself, understood the reference to “international organization or association of states of which Canada is a member” to mean more than Canada associating itself with one other state for the sole purpose of enabling Canada to impose sanctions under this ground in the SEMA. The purpose of the Act was to allow Canada to implement a “collective” decision of states of which it was a member, based on a “broad international consensus” in a “multilateral” context. The record also indicates that the Committee was unable to rely on a precise definition because there wasn’t one. Therefore it is up to the court to determine if something is a legitimate association in relation to the purposes of this statute, and to be ‘circumspect’ in making that determination.

The same phrase used in another statute

It is also a principle of statutory interpretation to presume there are harmony, coherence, and consistency between statutes dealing with the same subject matter.

Parliament used the phrase “an international organization of states or association of states, of which Canada is a member” in section 35 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, SC 2001, c 27. That section makes it clear that Parliament meant a multilateral association of states.  Section 35 provides that:

 “A permanent resident or a foreign national is inadmissible on grounds of violating human or international rights for

. . . . .

(c) being a person, other than a permanent resident, whose entry into or stay in Canada is restricted pursuant to a decision, resolution or measure of an international organization of states or association of states, of which Canada is a member, that imposes sanctions on a country against which Canada has imposed or has agreed to impose sanctions in concert with that organization or association.” (my emphasis)

In order for Canada to act “in concert” with such association of states of which it is a member, the association must have more than just one member besides Canada. Otherwise, Canada would be acting in concert with only that one other state, and not an association of states.

Conclusion           

Even though “association” is not defined with precision, all the above quotes suggest two things: SEMA is talking about membership in existing associations which might have these kinds of regulation as an available ground for common action, and it does not envisage the idea that such an association be formed for the particular purpose of engaging in economic sanctions. While the latter is a possible permissible vision of “association”, it is not likely to be one of which the SEMA framers thought: it cannot have been their intention that Canada could engage in such a foreign affairs’ decision ad hoc, without any reference to Parliament.

None of the quotations about the meaning to be given to “association” suggest this as a possibility. In the case of existing institutions it is plausible to argue that, when becoming a member, Parliament approved of Canada acting according to that association’s known goals; not so when there is no existing one; not so when an association is formed without stated goals or formalities or Parliamentary oversight of any kind. This is boosted by the fact that the U.S. did not need this association to do what it did, that there was no common goal to associate, as the U.S. was merely helping Canada to help it, although Canada had no legal ground to assist the U.S.

There is no reason for Canada to “create” this association but for its desire to help the U.S. out, having failed to persuade the one obvious organization which it had democratically joined to, among other things, act in such a way. The Canadian government’s maneuvering smacks of tax avoidance practices’ techniques: act within the letter but not the spirit of the law. This points to the willingness to do U.S. bidding and to the anti-democratic nature of engaging in sanctions of this personal kind, questions which go to the very validity of the Venezuela Regulations.

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Andrew Dekany is a Barrister and Solicitor licensed by the Law Society of Ontario, Canada.

Featured image is from Yves Engler

Politicians have destroyed more than 13 million jobs this year in a deluge of edicts aimed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 200,000 Americans still died from the coronavirus, but the anti-COVID government crackdowns probably did far more damage than the virus. The COVID crisis has also shown how easy it is for politicians to fan fears to seize nearly absolute power.

In March, Donald Trump proclaimed that “we are at war with an invisible enemy.” He also declared, “I’m a wartime president…. This is a different kind of war than we’ve ever had.” Maryland’s governor, Larry Hogan, asserted that “every Marylander can be a hero, just by staying home” after he dictated a “shelter-at-home” order threatening a $5,000 fine and a year in prison for any Marylander who went outside in violation of his edict.

Almost 40 percent of households earning less than $40,000 per year have someone who lost his job in recent months, according to the Federal Reserve. The Disaster Distress Helpline, a federal crisis hotline, received almost 900 percent more phone calls in March compared with a year ago. A recent JAMA Psychiatry analysis warned that stay-at-home orders and rising unemployment are a “perfect storm” for higher suicide rates. A California health organization recently estimated that 75,000 Americans could die from “despair” as a result of the pandemic, unemployment, and government restrictions.

In the name of saving lives, politicians have entitled themselves to destroy an unlimited number of livelihoods. Politicians in many states responded to COVID-19 by dropping the equivalent of a Reverse Neutron Bomb — something which destroys the economy while supposedly leaving human beings unharmed. But the only way to assume people were uninjured is to believe their existence is totally detached from their jobs, bank accounts, and mortgage and rent payments.

COVID policymakers have written themselves the letter that Cardinal Richelieu gave to one of his agents in the novel The Three Musketeers: “The bearer of this letter has acted under my orders and for the good of the state.” This carte blanche was sufficient to place murders and other crimes above the law and beyond reproach in France. In contemporary America, the same exoneration is achieved by invoking “science” and “data.”

Gubernatorial tyranny

Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown, banned residents from leaving their homes except for essential work, buying food, and other narrow exemptions, and also banned all recreational travel. Six Oregon counties have only one confirmed COVID case, and most of the state has minimal infections. But schools, businesses, and other activities were slammed shut by government command.

Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, imposed some of the most severe restrictions, prohibiting anyone from leaving his home to visit family or friends. Whitmer also severely restricted what stores could sell; she prohibited purchasing seeds for spring planting after she decreed that a “nonessential” activity. (Purchasing state lottery tickets was still an “essential” activity though.) COVID infections were concentrated in the Detroit metropolitan area, but Whitmer shut down the entire state — including northern counties with near-zero infections and zero fatalities, boosting unemployment to 24 percent statewide. Her repression provoked fierce protests, and Whitmer responded by claiming that her dictates saved 3,500 lives. She exonerated herself with a statistical formula that was painfully ethereal compared with the stark physical devastation in Michigan.

The shutdown order of Kentucky’s governor, Andy Beshear, resulted in the highest rate of unemployment in the nation — 33 percent. But according to Sen. Rand Paul, COVID’s impact in Kentucky “has not been worse than an average flu season.” But that did not stop Beshear from forbidding people to attend church services and sending Kentucky State Police to attach notices to car windshields ordering church attendees to self-quarantine for 14 days and reporting them to local health departments.

In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo imposed a state lockdown and justified his edict: “If everything we do saves just one life, I’ll be happy.” So the governor is entitled to freeze the lives and movement of 20 million people, subverting their efforts to provide for themselves and their families to save one person? Most counties in New York state had five people or fewer who tested positive for coronavirus at the time of his decree, and most of the state has avoided the stratospheric casualty rate of the New York City area. Cuomo’s ludicrous formula exemplifies how politicians reap media applause for dramatic actions that have little or nothing to do with public safety.

Maryland politicians have destroyed more than 400,000 jobs in dictatorial responses claiming to thwart the coronavirus pandemic. “Nearly one in five Maryland workers have filed for unemployment” compensation, the Baltimore Sun reported. The situation is so bad that even the Washington Postrecognized that Maryland’s COVID “restrictions have crippled the economy and paralyzed daily life since mid-March.” But the shutdowns failed to prevent COVID cases from increasing by fiftyfold or the death rate from rising a hundredfold. That dictate never made any sense for much of the state. Garrett County, for instance, has had only ten COVID cases and no fatalities, but its schools and businesses were shuttered at the command of Annapolis.

Killing the elderly

Secrecy and hypocrisy have permeated COVID policies across the nation. Maryland is busy hiring a thousand “contact tracers” to track down anyone who might have interacted with anyone who tested positive for COVID. Privacy will be no excuse for failing to disclose personal contacts. However, at the same time, the Maryland Department of Health ordered local county health departments to cease disclosing which nursing homes have been ravaged by COVID outbreaks, claiming that such information “‘serves no public health purpose’ and violates privacy laws,” as WJLA-TV reported. Most COVID fatalities statewide have occurred in nursing homes. One might think that children would have a legitimate interest in knowing where their parents faced the greatest risk of dying, but no such luck in the Free State.

Why the secrecy? Reopen Maryland requested and was denied “information on whether … the state forced nursing homes to accept COVID-19 positive patients discharged from hospitals, as suggested by the Governor’s April 5 executive order and corresponding directives from the Maryland Department of Health.”

Similar policies in other states helped send the COVID death rate into the stratosphere. Governor Cuomo, who callously compelled nursing homes to accept COVID patients, will have no legal culpability for a policy that contributed to more than 5,000 nursing-home deaths in his state. Pennsylvania’s health czar, Rachel Levine, issued a similar order, contributing to thousands of nursing-home deaths, and then removed her own 95-year-old mother from a nursing home to keep her safe.

The pandemic also revealed the lust by some politicians to perpetuate their power as long as possible on any shabby pretext. On May 15, Governor Hogan rescinded Maryland’s statewide stay-at-home order but permitted counties to extend it with their own decrees. Hogan’s announcement ending the state shutdown sparked a political pity party by Democratic officials in the Washington suburbs and Baltimore area. “All of us were taken aback by his announcement. We were hung out to dry,” whined Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich, who faced the burden of justifying perpetuating the lockdown for the million residents of his county. Elrich lamented that Hogan’s decision “makes it sound like it’s an arbitrary decision…. [Hogan] kind of ignited this rebellion against what we were doing.”

The Washington Post summarized Elrich’s response: “Montgomery County rushed to create its own data dashboard last week, so elected leaders could justify to constituents why they remain stuck in a coronavirus shutdown.” But county officials are apparently being slippery, relying on arbitrary selection and manipulation of data to justify perpetuating arbitrary power. Maryland daily COVID fatalities had fallen by more than 50 percent but politicians did not want to loosen their grip. Anne Arundel County struck bureaucratic gold when it declared that its pandemic emergency would continue until “health equity” was achieved — whatever that means.

Federal diktats

While much of the media has responded to the pandemic by painting pro-lockdown politicians as saviors, COVID carnage was multiplied by incompetent federal agencies. Incompetent scientists at the Centers for Disease Control contaminated key samples for creating a test in February.

Long after foreign nations had been ravaged and many cases had been detected in America, the Food and Drug Administration continued blocking innovative private testing. The FDA forced the nation’s most innovative firms to submit
to its command-and-control approach regardless of the feds’ having little or nothing to offer. FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn shrugged off his agency’s disastrous policies: “There are always opportunities to learn from situations like this one.” Trump made bushels of false or inaccurate statements on the availability of testing early on that contributed to confusion and fear during the pandemic. Instead of speedy access to life-saving medical results, Americans were obliged to settle for Trump’s ludicrous assertion that “anybody that needs a test gets a test.” While Trump condemned people who purchased more food and supplies than they needed short-term, administration officials also floated a proposal for a presidential diktat to cancel all flights nationwide and lock everyone at home for two weeks or longer.

While that bizarre proposal was rejected, the pandemic spurred other “trial balloons” to see how much additional power government could seize. In March, media reports indicated that Trump’s Justice Department was considering asking Congress to approve suspending habeas corpus for the duration of the pandemic — which some experts say could last 18 months. But Norman L. Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, warned, the proposed policy “says ‘affecting pre-arrest.’ So that means you could be arrested and never brought before a judge until they decide that the emergency or the civil disobedience is over.” The same type of pre-arrest power could be exercised to detain anyone suspected of being infected or failing to obey lockdown orders. Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee, one of the most principled members of the Senate, tweeted in response to the news of the power grab, “OVER MY DEAD BODY.”

Because politicians have no liability for the economic damage they inflict, they have no incentive to minimize the disruptions they decree. Trillions of dollars of new deficit spending will be vexing American workers for many years. As Reason’s Matt Welch noted, “The estimated $3 trillion price tag on the first four batches of COVID-19 stimulus, divided by 330 million increasingly underemployed U.S. residents, equals $9,000 per capita, which has ended up where government payouts usually go: to entities with better connections than you.”

Permitting governments to seize boundless power on the basis of shaky extrapolations of infection rates will destroy our nation. Trump’s boast of being a “wartime president” should recoil on him after the government launched a preemptive attack on American prosperity. It will be years until we know how much permanent damage was inflicted by politicians’ panicky responses to the pandemic.

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James Bovard is a policy adviser to The Future of Freedom Foundation. He is a USA Today columnist and has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, New Republic, Reader’s Digest, Playboy, American Spectator, Investors Business Daily, and many other publications.

Drug maker GlaxoSmithKline may need to slaughter half a million sharks to harvest squalene, an oil made in shark livers, to make a new line of COVID jabs. Glaxo mixes squalene with a witches’ brew of proprietary surfactants to produce its controversial AS03 vaccine adjuvant. Adjuvants are compounds that amplify immune response to hyperstimulate the immune system. They are associated with a variety of autoimmune diseases.

Scientific studies have linked squalene adjuvants to Gulf War syndrome and to a wave of debilitating neurological disorders including epidemics of narcolepsy caused by Glaxo’s H1N1 Pandemrix vaccine during the 2009 swine flu “pandemic.” One study showed a 13-fold increased risk of narcolepsy in children who received Pandemrix.

The devastating cascade of brain injuries to children and health care workers forced the termination of that Glaxo vaccine after European governments used only a small fraction of the jabs they had purchased from Glaxo. A recent study links squalene to carcinomas. In a bizarre and reckless twist, Glaxo has revived the dangerous adjuvant as its hall pass to the COVID-19 money orgy.

The company said it would manufacture a billion doses of this adjuvant for potential use in coronavirus vaccines. Around 3,000 sharks are needed to extract one ton of squalene.

Shark Allies, a California-based group, said Glaxo will kill around 250,000 sharks to make enough AS03 for the world’s population to receive one dose of its COVID-19 vaccine. If, as expected, two doses are needed, half a million sharks must die.

Glaxo declared that it would be producing 1 billion doses of AS03 “to support the development of multiple adjuvanted COVID-19 vaccine candidates.”

Glaxo has developed partnerships with multiple companies, including its behemoth rival Sanofi, China’s Clover Biopharmaceuticals and Innovax Biotech in the city of Xiamen. Glaxo has also agreed to make the technology available to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations for COVID vaccines in Australia and elsewhere. Glaxo said it is focusing on what it considers a “proven technology” that will give the company “several shots on goal.”

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Dire US economic condition exceed the worst of earlier times.

Current conditions are unprecedented in US history with no signs of turning things around any time soon. More on this below.

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According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), “(a)nother 1.5 million (Americans) applied for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits last week.”

The number includes 837,000 filing for state UI, along with 650,000 applying for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA).

PUA is the federal program for workers not eligible for regular UI.

Nothing on this scale ever occurred in the US for a duration this long since record-keeping began.

Unless congressional legislation signed into law extends PUA, it’ll expire at yearend.

State UI benefits expired at end of July. Politicized congressional wrangling failed to extend them.

The current status is likely to continue unresolved at least until post-November 3 elections.

On Thursday, Dem-controlled House members passed a $2.2 trillion stimulus package by a narrow 214 – 207 margin — 18 Dems breaking ranks to oppose the measure.

It’s virtually certain to be rejected by Senate-controlled Republicans. Majority Leader McConnell opposes the bill.

On Thursday, Dem Speaker Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin failed to resolve differences on aid to states and local governments, as well as on other issues.

The House bill calls for the following:

• Reinstatement of $600 in weekly unemployment benefits through January.
• Another $1,200 direct payment to qualified Americans.
• $436 billion to states and local governments for one year.
• Funding for another round of Payroll Protection Program loans to hardest hit businesses.
• Another $25 billion for airlines to cover payroll costs.
• $75 billion for COVID-19 testing and contact tracing.
• $225 billion for education and $57 billion for child care.
• Billions of dollars for rental and mortgage assistance.
• On Wednesday, NBC News reported that a $1.6 trillion Mnuchin GOP counter-proposal includes:
• $250 billion for state and local governments.
• $400 weekly in unemployment benefits.
• $150 billion for education.
• $75 billion for COVID-19 testing and contact tracing, and $60 billion for rental and mortgage assistance.

According to economists Carmen and Vincent Reinhart:

The current “situation is so dire that it deserves to be called a ‘depression.’ ”

“It seems disrespectful to the many losing their jobs and shutting their businesses to use a lesser term to describe this affliction.”

In recent economic declines, the Reinharts explained that some  growth engines remained intact, including during the 2008-09 financial crisis.

“Not this time,” they stressed, adding:

“The last time all engines failed was in the Great Depression.”

“The collapse this time will be similarly abrupt and steep. ”

It’s already worse than the 1930s, perhaps much harder times ahead with unprecedented numbers of businesses going bankrupt, countless others operating far below capacity. See below.

In Q II, the US economy contracted at an annualized 32.9% because of widespread sector shutdowns.

In US economic crises since the mid-19th century, it took on average eight years for GDP to return to the pre-crisis level, the Reinharts explained.

“(A) long journey out of a deep hole” lies ahead, they stressed.

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the US economy peaked in February — marking the end of expansion that began in June 2009.

Dire economic conditions are most greatly harming women, non-white and lower-wage workers, those least educated, low-income families with children, and small businesses.

According to Feeding America in 2020, food insecurity in the US ranges from 8.6% in Loudoun County, VA (with the highest median per capita income) to 34.2% in Jefferson County, MS — with one of the nation’s lowest per capita income.

By population size, LA County, Harris County, TX (including Houston), and Cook County, IL (including Chicago) have the highest number of food insecure people in that order.

Around one in four US households experienced food insecurity this year — over 27% of households with children.

A Northwestern University Institute for Policy Research study estimates the number of food insecure households with children at nearly 30%.

Black families are twice as food insecure as their white counterparts. Latino households are also disproportionately affected.

According to the UN World Food Program, acute food insecurity worldwide may double this year over 2019.

Days earlier, the Economic Collapse blog discussed an “explosion of bankruptcies and layoffs in the US unlike anything…ever seen before.”

The Wall Street Journal reported that “(r)etail store closings in the US reached a record in the first half of 2020 and the year is on pace for record bankruptcies and liquidations (because of) the downturn’s severity.”

Bankruptcy attorney Al Togut expects “an avalanche” of firms going out of business through end of 2020.

Bloomberg News reported a 40% increase in New York City bankruptcies.

As more businesses become insolvent and job losses grow, the hardest of hard times may lie ahead — ordinary Americans hit hardest.

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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 Brookings.edu

China is radically changing its economic strategy. Faced with an international scenario that only tends to worsen with an unprecedented economic crisis approaching in the midst of a devastating pandemic, Beijing decided to adopt an economic internalization plan, seeking to create measures to prioritize the domestic consumer market and strengthen its economy from inside. Chinese experts and strategists call this strategy a “double inversion” and believe that it will be the key to transform the Chinese consumer market in the most important part of national GDP in the coming years.

The Chinese have seen the need for bolder reform measures to cultivate a more efficient domestic market and unlock the country’s potential. The new coronavirus pandemic has revealed the extreme fragility of global market structures and the accelerated decline of financial capitalism, highlighting the need for radical changes and the development of alternative economic models. The Chinese bet in the face of this world of rapid changes is to invest in the transition from an export-oriented economy to an economy focused on the domestic market. In a recent statement, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that China needs to create a new model of development in which domestic economic circulation is the mainstay so that domestic and foreign markets can complement each other.

Although the strategy was officially launched recently, some measures were already being taken previously and contributed to the Chinese choice for this change. For example, in 2020, the share of exports in Chinese GDP fell to 17%. On the other hand, domestic consumption had a significant increase and last year reached 58% of the national GDP.

However, this does not mean that exports will no longer be important in the Chinese economy. The country will continue to invest in its competitive advantages to further expand the supply of low-cost goods. The greatest proof of this is that investments in the “Belt and Road Initiative” will be maintained. Beijing will simply adopt a posture more focused on the national market – increasing Chinese income, so that domestic consumption becomes the central point of the national economy – without, however, falling into economic isolationism.

Indeed, the new Chinese economic policy will impact the entire world. It is impossible for such a radical reform to be carried out by the largest emerging power in the world without major collateral changes taking place in several countries. In the West, in particular, fears about the impacts of this initiative can already be seen. One of Germany’s largest banks, Commerzbank, for example, predicts that China has embarked on the path to autarchy. Europeans fear that the Chinese change will harm the EU due to the importance of relations with China for the bloc’s economy. Other Chinese trading partners, such as Japan and South Korea, also suspect that the new strategy poses a threat to them.

In the near future, China will consolidate itself as the major producer of most of the high-value goods and services that it now imports from Europe, Japan and Korea. The road to complete economic sovereignty is paved and it concerns the countries that offer such products and services to Beijing. With this change, it is likely that the trade war with the United States will intensify even more. Germany will be one of the most affected countries, as it has become China’s main supplier, mainly of vehicles, auto parts, aircraft, machines and industrial equipment – and this is what bothers Commerzbank economists so much.

What can be expected, however, in response to the new Chinese strategy is just a generalization of this practice. The only way for the other powers to compete with China is to follow its example and adopt more protectionist and isolationist measures aimed at consolidating stable domestic markets, creating a shield against the – possibly devastating –  effects of the coming economic crisis. China did not create its strategy suddenly, but empirically realized that the most appropriate thing at the moment would be to create this market inversion. Soon, Europe and the US will have to take similar measures to deal with the same problems that China faces now.

China came up from the 2008 crisis as the great emerging global power and its rising economic strenth saved the global economy with the purchase of industrialized products from the countries of the geopolitical North. Now, such northern markets realize that their possibilities for expansion are few and that they may no longer be able to count on China. What will they have, then, to overcome the present crisis if not to strengthen their own markets?

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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

“October surprises” are a common occurrence in the electoral politics of the US when elections are only weeks away in November and canvassing of electorate by political contenders reaches a crescendo. But never in the entire political history of the US an “October surprise” has downright incapacitated a presidential contender running for re-election from electioneering for make-or-break two weeks.

President Trump announced the shocking news of having contracted COVID-19 infection on Friday at his official Twitter timeline:

“Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!”

Half an hour later, First Lady Melania Trump confirmed the news and said they will be quarantining for two weeks at the White House:

“As too many Americans have done this year, @potus & I are quarantining at home after testing positive for COVID-19. We are feeling good & I have postponed all upcoming engagements. Please be sure you are staying safe & we will all get through this together.”

Couple of hours before the momentous announcement, Trump had named the suspect who had likely transmitted the virus to the president and the first lady:

“Hope Hicks, who has been working so hard without even taking a small break, has just tested positive for Covid 19. Terrible! The First Lady and I are waiting for our test results. In the meantime, we will begin our quarantine process!”

30-year-old femme fatale, Hope Hicks, is a political advisor serving as a senior counselor to President Trump since March. Hicks previously served as White House communications director from August 2017 until March 29, 2018. From January to September 2017, she was White House director of strategic communications.

But her official designations don’t do justice to her immense clout in the White House and the Trump family. Maggie Haberman wrote an informative biographical account [1] of Hope Hicks in a February 2018 article for the New York Times:

“Ms. Hicks, 29, a former model who joined Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign without any experience in politics, became known as one of the few aides who understood Mr. Trump’s personality and style and could challenge the president to change his views.

“Her title belied the extent of her power within the West Wing — after John F. Kelly was appointed White House chief of staff, she had more access to the Oval Office than almost any other staff member. Her own office, which she inherited after the departure of another Trump confidant, Keith Schiller, was just next door.

“Most significantly, Mr. Trump felt a more personal comfort with Ms. Hicks than he has established with almost any of his other, newer advisers since coming to Washington. And for a politician who relies so heavily on what is familiar to him, her absence could be jarring …”

What Haberman was insinuating to was the fact that Hope Hicks relationship with President Trump had not entirely been professional. She had occupied a special place in Trump’s heart with her attractive looks, professional charisma and an intimate understanding of Trump’s psychological attitudes and mindset.

This fact also elucidates visibly tense moments Trump and Melania have had in their matrimonial life when Hope Hicks served as White House communications director until March 2018 when she had to quit the Trump administration because she spilled the beans on Trump’s 2016 election campaign when she was summoned by the House Intelligence Committee in February 2018.

Haberman adds in the report:

“Ms. Hicks resignation came a day after she testified for eight hours before the House Intelligence Committee, telling the panel that in her job, she had occasionally been required to tell white lies but had never lied about anything connected to the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election …

“Ms. Hicks’s first association with the Trump family was working with Mr. Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka, on her personal apparel and licensing brand about six years ago. When Mr. Trump was planning his campaign in spring 2015, he told Ms. Hicks he was pulling her from Ms. Trump’s team to put her on his small political staff despite her lack of experience.

“In recent weeks, her personal life drew unwanted attention when it was reported that she had dated Rob Porter, the White House staff secretary who resigned under pressure over allegations that he had abused his two former wives.”

It’s pertinent to mention that Hope Hicks broke up with Rob Porter in December 2018. For two years between her resignation from the Trump administration in March 2018 to March 2020, she worked for Fox Corporation as its chief communications officer and executive vice president, drawing a million-dollar salary.

She was reappointed senior counselor to President Trump in March, but it’s quite likely that she turned rogue and her loyalty to the Trump family was compromised during the intervening two years, and she colluded with Trump’s adversaries in the deep state and the rival political organization to thwart Trump’s re-election bid.

In fact, the family of Hope Hicks has a political background. Her mother, Caye Ann (Cavender) Hicks, was an administrative aide to Ed Jones, a Democratic congressman from Tennessee.

Here, allow me to clarify that COVID-19 is a pandemic that could randomly infect anybody, but more than 90% fatalities in the US have occurred in people who are more than 55 years old. Younger people typically have robust natural immunity against the contagion, whereas Trump is 74 years old and is at high risk both because of his age and because he is considered overweight.

Maggie Haberman further notes in the New York Times article: “Ms. Hicks also had the ability to stop Mr. Trump from focusing on an issue he was angry about, and sometimes shield other members of the staff from Mr. Trump’s anger.

“While Ms. Hicks and Mr. John Kelly developed a functional, respectful relationship, he considered her access to the president to be a challenge to the command-and-control system he tried to enforce, according to several White House aides.

“Even those in the West Wing who did not like her approach feared her power, and worried about crossing her. Before leaving the White House in March 2018, she told colleagues that she had accomplished what she felt she could with a job that made her one of the most powerful people in Washington.”

Finally, though the mainstream media is cheering it as poetic justice that befell Trump for flouting safety precautions against the outbreak, it’s not simply about health risks posed to Trump and Melania due to contracting the infection. Hopefully, they would recover within weeks. But the diagnosis has disrupted the entire electoral campaign of the Republican Party at a critical juncture weeks before the presidential elections.

Rumors are already swirling if Trump would be able to perform his functions as the president or whether he would delegate official duties to Vice President Mike Pence. Even if re-elected, if his health condition deteriorates and he is incapacitated from running the office of the president, then who would be appointed president?

All such perplexing and dispiriting speculations would obviously have a demoralizing effect on the electorate and the Republican voter turnout is expected to be low, and undecided voters might even vote for definitive choice, Joe Biden, instead of doubtful option, Donald Trump, in the upcoming presidential elections slated for November 3.

Citations:

[1] Hope Hicks to Leave Post as White House Communications Director:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/us/politics/hope-hicks-resign-communications-director.html

About the author:

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 frequent contributor to Global Research.

Eyewitness to the Agony of Julian Assange

By John Pilger and Timothy Erik Ström, October 02 2020

How would you react upon knowing that Chuck, whom you have sat and engaged with, is a janitor at a bio lab making mutant viruses? 

This is a satire in The Cheers 1980s TV Series which bears a canny resemblance to today’s realities in response to COVID-19. 

Let us laugh, relax and reflect,… Don’t depress…

M.Ch. GR Editor

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click to enlarge

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Credits to the producers of Cheers

Gold is trading really close to its 2011 all-time high. This is obviously a critical level for the future of gold prices.

Historically gold in US dollars often clears significant all-time highs only some time after significant currencies like the Euro and British pound.

This is mainly due to US dollar behaviour during times of significant risk aversion, like we’ve had this year and 2008, for example.

The following charts comparing gold in USD, in GBP and in Euro shows just that:

Gold in USD only surpassed its significant March 2008 high about a year after gold in GBP and Euro did it. We have a similar setup where gold in GBP and Euro already hit their 2012 high around August 2019.

Both GBP gold and Euro gold are sitting comfortably above their 2012 high. History strongly suggests that USD gold will follow and get comfortably above the 2012 high real soon.

The US dollar cycle has turned and is likely to be under severe pressure over the coming months. This will significantly support USD gold prices.

The following chart (with analysis here) shows the US Dollar Index from a long-term point of view:

This suggest that we are in a part of the US dollar cycle between points 4 and 5, which is similar to the late 70s. Gold is likely to emulate the late 70s performance where it went from about $100 to $850 on the back of US dollar decline.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Hubert Moolman on GOLD and SILVER.

Featured image is from South Front

In the early hours of September 26, President Trump sent out the announcement on Twitter that a gigantic continental project long through dead and buried will be revived: The 2570 km Alaska Canada Rail connection which will move freight, oil, grains and other goods from Anchorage to the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Northern Alberta.

In his tweet Trump stated:

For those who are not aware, anyone wishing to take rail from the USA north, will only make it as far as British Columbia as a 1000 km gap separates any rail from Alaska. When looking at the post-WWII battles for continental development, it is somewhat incredible that this gap has remained in place for decades with the northernmost rail line extending as far as Dease Lake BC, built over 50 years ago by the great pro-development Premier W.A.C. Bennett. For decades the Dease Lake line was called “the railway to nowhere” and featured a price tag of only one dollar which in fact is today only a relic of a sabotaged northern vision which was always designed to connect Canada and the USA while opening up the north for development. That full story was told in Forgotten Battles Against the Deep State: W.A.C. Bennett vs the Malthusians.

When compared to the robust development of Russia’s Arctic and the new emerging Polar Silk Road paradigm which have united China and Russia ever closer into a long term Arctic growth program, the North American Arctic remains an underdeveloped barren tundra. Despite the bountiful resources in the Arctic, no roads, rail or other development have been permitted to extend northward for decades. Up until Trump’s announcement of Federal support for this new project, the only North American Arctic discussions of note in recent decades have centered on anti-Russian militarization and Anti-ballistic missiles.

Instead of that hoped-for era of prosperity and win-win development envisioned by Bennett, Kennedy or Diefenbaker, what arose in the wake of the 1971 floating of the U.S. dollar, was a 45 year slide into consumerism, speculation, and zero-technological growth at home and abroad which saw all of the frontier projects led by great statesmen during the post-WW2 decades increasingly grind to a halt.

While the Albertan and Alaskan governments have made several small efforts to encourage the plan over the years- very little headway occurred due to the monetarist-rules underpinning Globalization which place supposedly “free markets” on the throne, and nation states in the dungeon of economics. Ignoring the fact that top down national planning has driven all of the greatest bursts of prosperity in history including the periods of rail expansion in the 19th century and post-war period, Globalization’s architects have ensured that nations are to play no role whatsover, while “live in the moment” hedonism runs amok.

In the year 2000 the Alaskan government spent $6 million on a feasibility study followed in 2015 by a similar study funded by the Province of Alberta, desperately sitting upon the edge of total economic despair under the weight of decarbonization initiatives being pushed into law by Ottawa technocrats. It was here in 2015 that A2A was created as a private initiative to advance the plan which the federal government had committed to blocking for far too long. Standing for the Alaska-Alberta Railway Development Corporation, A2A’s CEO Sean McCoshen has stated:

“This is a world-class infrastructure project that will generate more than 18,000 jobs for Canadian workers at a time when they are most needed, provide a new, more efficient route for trans-Pacific shipping and thereby link Alberta to world markets.”

This last concept of linking North America into the Pacific now being increasingly shaped by the Belt and Road Initiative and Multipolar Alliance is vital. Any chance the west has to avoid a total meltdown under an emerging total economic blowout of the system and civil war is premised upon tying our economic destiny to the pro-growth win-win model of the east. The opportunities for war-avoidance both in the Arctic and in the Pacific should be obvious to all.

Although Trump’s announcement is a great first step towards the realization of the long-overdue project, there remains many obstacles that could yet derail it.

For one thing, the project must be vetted by Environmental Impact Assessments in both the USA and Canada. These organizations have developed a well-earned reputations as destroyers of all large scale infrastructure projects since the post-industrial paradigm shift occurred 4 decades ago. These nominally “environmental” organizations have operated since the early 1970s under the philosophical view that “natural ecosystems are fixed and static” while human activity is constantly changing. To the degree that human economic activity impacts the supposedly “natural static equilibriums of nature”, then that activity is “bad” and must be halted. “Good” infrastructure which is permitted to get approval by the Environmental Impact studies involve only such things as our found in things like the “Green New Deal” (ie: windmills, solar panels, and food-burning biofuel programs), or the Asian Green New Deal known as OSOWOG. The sorts of real infrastructure the west used to build during its pro-industrial growth paradigm or which China currently builds under the Belt and Road Initiative are verboten under this logic.

It must also be recalled that Canada’s federal government now dominated by Green New Dealers such as Mark Carney and Chrystia Freeland must still approve the project to the degree that it moves through the Northwest and Yukon territories (Provinces are endowed with vast sovereign powers to determine their own use of resources in the Canadian Constitution which does give Alberta the flexibility to evade SOME aspects of federal sabotage which one might expect to see unfold under a renewed pro-growth paradigm.

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Matthew J.L. Ehret is a journalist, lecturer and founder of the Canadian Patriot Review. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi and Dr. Heiko Schöning in conversation about Covid-19 and the genome-modifying vaccine, i.e. the real risks of new mRNA- or DNA-vaccine and the deadly danger it presents for us and the following generations.

Watch the video below.

 John Pilger has watched Julian Assange’s extradition trial from the public gallery at London’s Old Bailey. He spoke with Timothy Erik Ström of Arena magazine, Australia.

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Timothy Erik Ström: Having watched Julian Assange’s trial firsthand, can you describe the prevailing atmosphere in the court?

John Pilger: The prevailing atmosphere has been shocking. I say that without hesitation; I have sat in many courts and seldom known such a corruption of due process; this is due revenge. Putting aside the ritual associated with ‘British justice’, at times it has been evocative of a Stalinist show trial. One difference is that in the show trials, the defendant stood in the court proper. In the Assange trial, the defendant was caged behind thick glass, and had to crawl on his knees to a slit in the glass, overseen by his guard, to make contact with his lawyers. His message, whispered barely audibly through face masks, WAS then passed by post-it the length of the court to where his barristers were arguing the case against his extradition to an American hellhole.

Consider this daily routine of Julian Assange, an Australian on trial for truth-telling journalism. He was woken at five o’clock in his cell at Belmarsh prison in the bleak southern sprawl of London. The first time I saw Julian in Belmarsh, having passed through half an hour of ‘security’ checks, including a dog’s snout in my rear, I found a painfully thin figure sitting alone wearing a yellow armband. He had lost more than 10 kilos in a matter of months; his arms had no muscle. His first words were: ‘I think I am losing my mind’.

I tried to assure him he wasn’t. His resilience and courage are formidable, but there is a limit. That was more than a year ago. In the past three weeks, in the pre-dawn, he was strip-searched, shackled, and prepared for transport to the Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey, in a truck that his partner, Stella Moris, described as an upended coffin. It  had one small window; he had to stand precariously to look out. The truck and its guards were operated by Serco, one of many politically connected companies that run much of Boris Johnson’s Britain.

The journey to the Old Bailey took at least an hour and a half. That’s a minimum of three hours being jolted through snail-like traffic every day. He was led into his narrow cage at the back of the court, then look up, blinking, trying to make out faces in the public gallery through the reflection of the glass. He saw the courtly figure of his dad, John Shipton, and me, and our fists went up. Through the glass, he reached out to touch fingers with Stella, who is a lawyer and seated in the body of the court.

We were here for the ultimate of what the philosopher Guy Debord called The Society of the Spectacle: a man fighting for his life. Yet his crime is to have performed an epic public service: revealing that which we have a right to know: the lies of our governments and the crimes they commit in our name. His creation of WikiLeaks and its failsafe protection of sources revolutionised journalism, restoring it to the vision of its idealists. Edmund Burke’s notion of free journalism as a fourth estate is now a fifth estate that shines a light on those who diminish the very meaning of democracy with their criminal secrecy. That’s why his punishment is so extreme.

The sheer bias in the courts I have sat in this year and last year, with Julian in the dock, blight any notion of British justice. When thuggish police dragged him from his asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy—look closely at the photo and you’ll see he is clutching a Gore Vidal book; Assange has a political humour similar to Vidal’s—a judge gave him an outrageous 50-week sentence in a maximum-security prison for mere bail infringement.

For months, he was denied exercise and held in solitary confinement disguised as ‘heath care’. He once told me he strode the length of his cell, back and forth, back and forth, for his own half-marathon. In the next cell, the occupant screamed through the night. At first he was denied his reading glasses, left behind in the embassy brutality. He was denied the legal documents with which to prepare his case, and access to the prison library and the use of a basic laptop. Books sent to him by a friend, the journalist Charles Glass, himself a survivor of hostage-taking in Beirut, were returned. He could not call his American lawyers. He has been constantly medicated by the prison authorities. When I asked him what they were giving him, he couldn’t say. The governor of Belmarsh has been awarded the Order of the British Empire.

At the Old Bailey, one of the expert medical witnesses, Dr Kate Humphrey, a clinical neuropsychologist at Imperial College, London, described the damage: Julian’s intellect had gone from ‘in the superior, or more likely very superior range’ to ‘significantly below’ this optimal level, to the point where he was struggling to absorb information and ‘perform in the low average range’.

This is what the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Professor Nils Melzer, calls ‘psychological torture’, the result of a gang-like ‘mobbing’ by governments and their media shills. Some of the expert medical evidence is so shocking I have no intention of repeating it here. Suffice to say that Assange is diagnosed with autism and Asperger’s syndrome and, according to Professor Michael Kopelman, one of the world’s leading neuropsychiatrists, he suffers from ‘suicidal preoccupations’ and is likely to find a way to take his life if he is extradited to America.

James Lewis QC, America’s British prosecutor, spent the best part of his cross-examination of Professor Kopelman dismissing mental illness and its dangers as ‘malingering’. I have never heard in a modern setting such a primitive view of human frailty and vulnerability.

My own view is that if Assange is freed, he is likely to recover a substantial part of his life. He has a loving partner, devoted friends and allies and the innate strength of a principled political prisoner. He also has a wicked sense of humour.

But that is a long way off. The moments of collusion between the judge— a Gothic-looking magistrate called Vanessa Baraitser, about whom little is known—and the prosecution acting for the Trump regime have been brazen. Until the last few days, defence arguments have been routinely dismissed. The lead prosecutor, James Lewis QC, ex SAS and currently Chief Justice of the Falklands, by and large gets what he wants, notably up to four hours to denigrate expert witnesses, while the defence’s examination is guillotined at half an hour. I have no doubt, had there been a jury, his freedom would be assured.

The dissident artist Ai Weiwei came to join us one morning in the public gallery. He noted that in China the judge’s decision would already have been made. This caused some dark ironic amusement. My companion in the gallery, the astute diarist and former British ambassador Craig Murray wrote:

I fear that all over London a very hard rain is now falling on those who for a lifetime have worked within institutions of liberal democracy that at least broadly and usually used to operate within the governance of their own professed principles. It has been clear to me from Day 1 that I am watching a charade unfold. It is not in the least a shock to me that Baraitser does not think anything beyond the written opening arguments has any effect. I have again and again reported to you that, where rulings have to be made, she has brought them into court pre-written, before hearing the arguments before her.

I strongly expect the final decision was made in this case even before opening arguments were received.

The plan of the US Government throughout has been to limit the information available to the public and limit the effective access to a wider public of what information is available. Thus we have seen the extreme restrictions on both physical and video access. A complicit mainstream media has ensured those of us who know what is happening are very few in the wider population.

There are few records of the proceedings. They are: Craig Murray’s personal blog, Joe Lauria’s live reporting on Consortium News and the World Socialist Website. American journalist Kevin Gosztola’s blog, Shadowproof, funded mostly by himself, has reported more of the trial than the major US press and TV, including CNN, combined.

In Australia, Assange’s homeland, the ‘coverage’ follows a familiar formula set overseas. The London correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald, Latika Bourke, wrote this recently:

The court heard Assange became depressed during the seven years he spent in the Ecuadorian embassy where he sought political asylum to escape extradition to Sweden to answer rape and sexual assault charges.

There were no ‘rape and sexual assault charges’ in Sweden. Bourke’s lazy falsehood is not uncommon. If the Assange trial is the political trial of the century, as I believe it is, its outcome will not only seal the fate of a journalist for doing his job but intimidate the very principles of free journalism and free speech. The absence of serious mainstream reporting of the proceedings is, at the very least, self-destructive. Journalists should ask: who is next?

How shaming it all is. A decade ago, the Guardian exploited Assange’s work, claimed its profit and prizes as well as a lucrative Hollywood deal, then turned on him with venom. Throughout the Old Bailey trial, two names have been cited by the prosecution, the Guardian’s David Leigh, now retired as ‘investigations editor’ and Luke Harding, the Russiaphobe and author of a fictional Guardian ‘scoop’ that claimed Trump adviser Paul Manafort and a group of Russians visited Assange in the Ecuadorean embassy. This never happened, and the Guardian has yet to apologise. The Harding and Leigh book on Assange—written behind their subject’s back—disclosed a secret password to a WikiLeaks file that Assange had entrusted to Leigh during the Guardian’s ‘partnership’. Why the defence has not called this pair is difficult to understand.

Assange is quoted in their book declaring during a dinner at a London restaurant that he didn’t care if informants named in the leaks were harmed. Neither Harding nor Leigh was at the dinner. John Goetz, an investigations reporter with Der Spiegel, was at the dinner and testified that Assange said nothing of the kind. Incredibly, Judge Baraitser stopped Goetz actually saying this in court.

However, the defence has succeeded in demonstrating the extent to which Assange sought to protect and redact names in the files released by WikiLeaks and that no credible evidence existed of individuals harmed by the leaks. The great whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg said that Assange had personally redacted 15,000 files. The renowned New Zealand investigative journalist Nicky Hager, who worked with Assange on the Afghanistan and Iraq war leaks, described how Assange took ‘extraordinary precautions in redacting names of informants’.

TES: What are the implications of this trial’s verdict for journalism more broadly—is it an omen of things to come?

JP: The ‘Assange effect’ is already being felt across the world. If they displease the regime in Washington, investigative journalists are liable to prosecution under the 1917 US Espionage Act; the precedent is stark. It doesn’t matter where you are. For Washington, other people’s nationality and sovereignty rarely mattered; now it does not exist. Britain has effectively surrendered its jurisdiction to Trump’s corrupt Department of Justice. In Australia, a National Security Information Act promises Kafkaesque trials for transgressors. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has been raided by police and journalists’ computers taken away. The government has given unprecedented powers to intelligence officials, making journalistic whistle-blowing almost impossible. Prime Minister Scott Morrison says Assange ‘must face the music’. The perfidious cruelty of his statement is reinforced by its banality.

‘Evil’, wrote Hannah Arendt, ‘comes from a failure to think. It defies thought for as soon as thought tries to engage itself with evil and examine the premises and principles from which it originates, it is frustrated because it finds nothing there. That is the banality of evil’.

TES: Having followed the story of WikiLeaks closely for a decade, how has this eyewitness experience shifted your understanding of what’s at stake with Assange’s trial?

JP: I have long been a critic of journalism as an echo of unaccountable power and a champion of those who are beacons. So, for me, the arrival of WikiLeaks was exciting; I admired the way Assange regarded the public with respect, that he was prepared to share his work with the ‘mainstream’ but not join their collusive club. This, and naked jealousy, made him enemies among the overpaid and undertalented, insecure in their pretensions of independence and impartiality.

I admired the moral dimension to WikiLeaks. Assange was rarely asked about this, yet much of his remarkable energy comes from a powerful moral sense that governments and other vested interests should not operate behind walls of secrecy. He is a democrat. He explained this in one of our first interviews at my home in 2010.

What is at stake for the rest of us has long been at stake: freedom to call authority to account, freedom to challenge, to call out hypocrisy, to dissent. The difference today is that the world’s imperial power, the United States, has never been as unsure of its metastatic authority as it is today. Like a flailing rogue, it is spinning us towards a world war if we allow it. Little of this menace is reflected in the media.

WikiLeaks, on the other hand, has allowed us to glimpse a rampant imperial march through whole societies—think of the carnage in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, to name a few, the dispossession of 37 million people and the deaths of 12 million men, women and children in the ‘war on terror’—most of it behind a façade of deception.

Julian Assange is a threat to these recurring horrors—that’s why he is being persecuted, why a court of law has become an instrument of oppression, why he ought to be our collective conscience: why we all should be the threat.

The judge’s decision will be known on the 4^th of January.

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John Pilger, journalist, author and film director, has won many distinctions for his work, including Britain’s highest award for journalism twice, an American ‘Emmy’ and a British Academy Award. His complete archive is held at the British Library. He lives in London and Sydney. Visit his website at www.johnpilger.com

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In 2018, ABC news acknowledged that this was a US backed bombing by Saudi Arabia led coalition.

Below is the ABC News Report. 

This was not an accident. It was a targeted assassination of Yemeni children. 

These bombings of civilians were supported by the Pentagon. 

M. Ch, GR Editor

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A Yemeni court has issued death sentences against ten defendants in the case of the Arab coalition’s bombing of the Dahyan student bus, including the Saudi monarch and his crown prince, as well as the US and Yemeni presidents.

The Houthi-owned Yemen News Agency (SABA) reported on Wednesday that the Specialised Criminal Court in Saada held a session headed by Judge Riyad Al-Razami, to deliberate on the case of the Saudi-led coalition’s attack on a bus full of young boys in Dahyan in the Majz district.

SABA confirmed that ten defendants have been convicted and sentenced to death, namely:

Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, Mohammed Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, Turki Bin Bandar Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, Donald Trump, James Norman Mattis, Norton Schwartz, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, Ali Mohsen Saleh Al-Ahmar, Ahmed Obeid Bin Daghr and Mohammed Ali Ahmed Al-Maqdashi.

The news agency indicated that the defendants are also required to pay a $10 billion fine to the victims’ families.

The news agency reported that:

“The prosecution has registered its partial appeal to the fifth paragraph of the verdict, regarding the right of those included in the indictment. Thus, the court has not decided on it yet. Private prosecution attorney, Hamdan Shani, joined his appeal to the prosecution’s appeal, while the defence attorney, Abdel Wahab Al-Fadhli, reserved the right to appeal on behalf of the defendants.”

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Yesterday, it was agreed upon at the European Council special meeting that Belarus will be sanctioned. However, the scope of the sanctions and the long path to agree on them, demonstrates that the European Union is in a crisis and cannot project its power as it wishes. German Chancellor Angela Merkel described the bilateral agreement on Belarus and the strategic approach to Turkey as a step forward. The chancellor stated that “we had many discussions today on the issues of Belarus and Turkey, Cyprus and Greece. In short, I can say that they were completely successful.”

This comes in the aftermath of the Greek and Cypriot Prime Minister’s continually vetoing any sanctions against Belarus unless the European Council agreed to a strong joint statement against Turkey and for sanctions to be implemented by December if Ankara continues to violate the maritime space of Greece and Cyprus. Diplomatic sources in Athens revealed that despite the insistence of the majority of the European Council to pass a strong statement against Turkey and a pathway towards sanctions, Germany became isolated and had to eventually give up its resistance to stop an appeasement policy towards Turkey.

None-the-less, with Athens and Nicosia satisfied with the European Council’s statement and plan for sanctions against Turkey, the path was now open for Belarusian officials to be sanctioned without veto objections. This is despite Belarus not being a European Union member or candidate state, or threatening military action against EU member states like Turkey does.

“It was a long and difficult debate, because of course Greece and Cyprus demanded their rights as our member states. But we also had a very frank discussion about the need to look at all of our relations with Turkey,” Merkel said with seeming disappointment. “We can say today that there are sanctions against actors in Belarus, which means that the European Union is now taking action against those who oppose the democratic movements. I think this sends a very important signal.”

Minsk announced today the imposition of sanctions against European officials in response to those imposed by the European Union on Belarusian officials. The European Union claims that the officials who have been sanctioned are involved in the alleged suppression of anti-government protests and/or falsifying the August 9 elections in which President Alexander Lukashenko won 80.10% of the vote. Belarus’ foreign ministry said it had drawn up a list of European officials barred from entering the country, but added that the list would not be made public.

The European Union agreed to impose sanctions on some 40 Belarussian officials, however, Lukashenko is not among them. This in itself is a sign of weakness and desperation from the European Union as it strangely does not sanction Lukashenko, who won the election, but only those associated with him.

Lukashenko in recent years has been trying to court the European Union while also resisting further integration with Russia, even clashing with Moscow over gas and oil prices. Although protests against the election result had the appearance of a Ukraine-like colour revolution, the European Union immediately expressed solidarity, burning all bridges that had been built between Minsk and Brussels. This has only pushed Belarus firmly back into Russia’s sphere. The Belarusian President and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin held a meeting for over four hours in Sochi last month, which Russian spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said was “constructive, lengthy and substantive in content.” The meeting also resulted in a $1.5 billion loan for Belarus.

It is evident that the attempted colour revolution failed to materialize, Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has not amounted much domestic influence and Lukashenko will not be removed from power soon. Rather than attempting to quickly repair relations to bring Belarus back closer to Brussels, the sanctions demonstrates that the European Union is moving forward with its foreign policy blindly and against their own interests.

The problem the European Union has is that if it repairs its relations with Lukashenko, it will mean an acknowledgment of weakness as they were not able to achieve what they wanted in Belarus. This is in the midst of the European Union already being deeply divided between a small German-led bloc and the rest of the Union in policies towards Turkey.

Another conundrum for Brussels is that from Lukashenko’s perspective, the European Union is now untrustworthy. Successive provocations, like having diplomats lay flowers where rioters died and saying Lukashenko is an illegitimate president, has likely created a permanent rift between Minsk and Brussels. Therefore, coupled with newly passed sanctions, the European Union has lost all influence they once might have had on Minsk, and therefore weakened their own interests while strengthening Russia’s by forcing the deepening of Belarus’ ties with Moscow.

With the European Union’s divorce with the United Kingdom becoming uglier, having tense relations with Turkey, and the endless rift it has with Russia – all completely different issues to each other – European policymakers have demonstrated that they are incapable of self-reflection and identifying weaknesses and failures in their foreign policy. For what the European Union wanted to achieve in Belarus, it has been a serious failure. By not sanctioning Lukashenko, Brussels has left a door open to normalize relations. However, from Lukashenko’s perspective, he will likely end his years-long flirtation with Brussels and move to more deeply integrate Belarus with Russia.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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Spain currently faces one of the greatest crises in its recent history. The second wave of COVID-19 is approaching extremely quickly, with the world record for deaths by number of inhabitants. The situation is strongly aggravated by a lack of coordination of health policies, leading the country to chaos. Still, an unprecedented economic crisis is beginning to have its first effects, in addition to a scandalous political and institutional scenario.

Spain is currently marked by a strong tension between the central government and the regional governments. For example, the government of Pedro Sánchez is considering an intervention in Madrid due to the serious health situation in the Spanish capital. Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of Madrid, is accused of negligence in fighting the virus and is losing more and more allies, even within her own party. On July 5, the central government had announced a national victory against the coronavirus, assuming that the country could already return to normality with proper precautions, which greatly strengthened the image of Sanchez and his socialist party. Since then, the responsibility for controlling the pandemic was passed on to each autonomous community in Spain, leaving the regional governments to protect their own territory. Above all, the early declaration of victory over the pandemic only served to improve Sanchez’s image and transfer the responsibility to regional governments, taking the blame from the central government.

Apparently, the terrible wave that once again threatens the health of Spanish citizens and their economic and social situation is not a sufficient reason for political forces from different wings to unite to fight the pandemic. On the contrary, the virus is used as a political weapon and rhetorical instrument during the endless debates and public confrontations of the conflicting sectors, while citizens helplessly watch over 30,000 deaths due to the new coronavirus (according to official data from the government, which differs from the National Statistics Institute’s data – which points to a total of 50,000 deaths).

In parallel to the virus, relations between the King and the government have become increasingly worse. The crisis peaked in late September, when the Spanish government vetoed the King’s participation in the inauguration ceremony for new judges in Barcelona, ​​which is traditionally celebrated by the monarch. As a justification for preventing the king’s participation, the government said the measure was necessary for the “institutional security”, without providing further details. However, the most plausible thing is that the government has simply tried to prevent an increase in tensions with the Catalan separatists due to the presence of the monarch, which would be interpreted as an insult by the separatist movements. In any case, the absence of Felipe VI profoundly irritated the Judiciary Branch, which severely repudiated the government’s attitude. Subsequently, members of the Judiciary met with the king in a virtual meeting, in which the monarch endorsed the repudiation against the government. This was interpreted by the vice president of the central government, Pablo Iglesias, as a break of neutrality – which is a posture unconstitutional for the king according to Spanish law.

While the political sectors are fighting each other, the national economy is ignored, which further contributes to aggravate the approaching social crisis. Spain counts on European support to face the disaster caused by the policies of social confinement, but such aid becomes truly impotent when the country occupies the second position in the unemployment ranking in the European continent, with a figure that exceeds 16%, only surpassed by Greece.

According to the Bank of Spain, in 2021, the Gross Domestic Product could grow between 4 and 7%, a figure well below that estimate in the last summer. Unemployment, on the other hand, may exceed the 22% mark. The debt, which had already reached the historical maximum of 110% of GDP in July, growing by 89.5 billion euros, would rise to 128% in 2022. In fact, there is no way of economic recovery for Spain in the near future.

With the anticipated growth of the second wave of the pandemic, everything is only going to get worse in Spain. The main metropolises in the country continue with their stores closed, activities suspended and people off the streets. After a brief period of attempt to break the isolation through a “new normal” with mild precautionary measures, the failure of the “victory over the virus” announced in July proved to be insurmountable, bringing not only an exponential increase in the number of deaths, but making Spain once again the epicenter of the pandemic in Europe.

In fact, the solution to all of Spain’s problems goes through a central point: internal political pacification. A country that is politically fragmented, with tensions between the government head and the head of state, and the central and regional governments will not be able to carry out adequate economic and social recovery planning to overcome a crisis such as the new coronavirus pandemic. If the structures of the European Union are still in operation, the aid provided by the bloc will not be limited to economic assistance but will include a mediation of the political crisis. However, it remains to be seen whether the EU really still has such an influence on its members.

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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.

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Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered on October 2, 2018 by agents of Saudi Arabia’s despotic government, and the CIA concluded they killed him on direct orders from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). Eight Saudi men have been convicted of Khashoggi’s murder by a Saudi court in what the Washington Post characterized as sham trials with no transparency. The higher ups who ordered the murder, including MBS, continue to escape responsibility.

Khashoggi’s assassination and dismemberment was so horrific and cold-blooded that it sparked worldwide public outrage. President Trump, however, stood by MBS, bragging to  journalist Bob Woodward that he saved the prince’s “ass” and got “Congress to leave him alone.”

MBS’s ascent to dictatorial power, soon after his elderly father King Salman became king in January 2015, was sold to the world as ushering in a new era of reform, but has in reality been characterized by violent, ruthless repression. The number of executions has doubled, from 423 executions between 2009 and 2014 to more than 800 since January 2015.

They include the mass execution of 37 people on April 23, 2019, mostly for taking part in peaceful Arab Spring protests in 2011-12. These protests took place in Shiite areas where people face systemic discrimination in the majority Sunni kingdom. At least three of those executed were minors when they were sentenced, and one was a student arrested at the airport on his way to attend Western Michigan University. Many of the victims’ families have said that they were convicted based on forced confessions extracted by torture, and two victims’ beheaded corpses were put on public display.

Under MBS, all dissent has been crushed. In the last two years, all of Saudi Arabia’s independent human rights defenders have been imprisoned, threatened into silence, or have fled the country. This includes women’s rights activists such as Loujain al-Hathoul, who opposed the ban on women drivers. Despite some openings for women under MBS, including the right to drive, Saudi women remain subject to discrimination in law and practice, with laws that ensure they are subordinate citizens to men, particularly in relation to family matters such as marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance.

The Trump administration has never challenged Saudi Arabia’s internal repression, and worse yet, it has played a vital role in the brutal Saudi-led war on neighboring Yemen. After Yemeni president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi failed to leave office at the end of his two-year term as the head of a transitional government, or to fulfill his mandate to draw up a new constitution and hold a new election, the Houthi rebel movement invaded the capital, Sana’a, in 2014, placed him under house arrest and demanded that he do his job.

Hadi instead resigned, fled to Saudi Arabia and conspired with MBS and the Saudis to launch a war to try to restore him to power. The United States has provided in-air refueling, intelligence and planning for Saudi and Emirati air strikes and has raked in over 100 billion dollars in arms sales. While U.S. support for the Saudi war began under President Obama, Trump has provided unconditional support as the horrors of this war have shocked the entire world.

The blue backpacks stand for each one of the children killed in the Saudi bombing attack on a school bus. They used a 500 pound bomb manufactured by Lockheed-Martin.

According to the Yemen Data Project, at least 30% of US-supported airstrikes on Yemen have hit civilian targets, including hospitals, health clinics, schools, marketplaces, civilian infrastructure, and a particularly horrific airstrike on a school bus that killed 40 children and 11 adults.

After five years, this brutal war has succeeded only in wreaking mass devastation and chaos, with dozens of children dying every day from starvation, malnutrition and preventable diseases, all now compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Belated Congressional efforts to end U.S. support for the war, including the passage of a War Powers bill in March 2019 and a bill to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia in July 2019, have been vetoed when they reached President Trump’s desk.

The U.S. alliance with the Saudis certainly predates Trump, going back to the discovery of oil in the 1930s. While it’s traditional role as an oil supplier is no longer vital to the U.S. economy, Saudi Arabia has become one of the largest purchasers of U.S. weapons, a major investor in U.S. businesses and an ally against Iran. After the failed U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. began grooming Saudi Arabia to play a leading geopolitical and military role, alongside Israel, in a new U.S.-led alliance to counter the growing influence of Iran, Russia and China in the Middle East.

The war on Yemen was the first test of Saudi Arabia’s role as a leading U.S. military ally, and it exposed both the practical and moral bankruptcy of this policy, unleashing another endless war and the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in one of the poorest countries on Earth. MBS’s assassination of Jamal Khashoggi came at a critical moment in the unraveling of this doomed strategy, laying bare the sheer insanity of basing America’s Middle East policy for the 21st century on an alliance with a neo-feudal monarchy sustained by murder and repression.

President Obama tried to change tack towards the end of his administration, putting a hold on the sale of munitions to Saudi Arabia and signing a nuclear deal with Iran. Trump reversed both these policies, and continued to treat Saudi Arabia as a critical ally, even as the world recoiled in horror at Khashoggi’s assassination.

While Saudi abuses have not diminished the Trump administration’s unconditional support, they have ignited global opposition. In an exciting new development, exiled Saudi activists have formed a political party, the National Assembly Party or NAAS, calling for democracy and respect for human rights in the kingdom. In its inaugural statement, the party laid out a vision for Saudi Arabia in which all citizens are equal under the law and a fully elected parliament has legislative and oversight powers over the state’s executive institutions. The founding document was signed by several prominent Saudi activists in exile, including London-based professor Madawi al-Rasheed; Abdullah Alaoudh, a Saudi academic who is also the son of jailed Islamic scholar Salman al-Awda; and Shia activist Ahmed al-Mshikhs.

Another new initiative, timed for the second anniversary of Khashoggi’s murder, is the launch of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), an organization conceived by Jamal Khashoggi several months before his murder. DAWN will promote democracy and support political exiles across the Middle East, in keeping with the vision of its martyred founder.

Progressive groups in the United States continue to oppose U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s Yemen war and to push USAID to restore direct humanitarian aid that has been slashed to Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen in 2020 in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. European activists have launched successful campaigns to stop weapons sales to Saudi Arabia in several countries.

These past two years have also seen activists organizing boycotts of Saudi events. Pre-COVID, when the kingdom opened up to musical extravaganzas, groups such as CODEPINK and Human Rights Foundation pressured entertainers like Nicki Minaj to cancel appearances. Minaj put out a statement saying, “It is important for me to make clear my support for the rights of women, the LGBTQ community and freedom of expression.” Meghan MacLaren, the U.K.’s top woman golfer, withdrew from a lucrative new golf tournament in Saudi Arabia, citing reports by Amnesty International and saying she cannot take part in “sportwashing” Saudi human rights abuses.

A new group called Freedom Forward, which seeks to sever the US-Saudi alliance, has focused on the upcoming G20 in Riyadh, which is taking place virtually in November, urging invitees to refuse to participate. The campaign has successfully lobbied the mayors of several major cities, including New York City, Los Angeles, Paris and London, to boycott the event, along with notables invited to side events for women and global thinkers.

As we mark two years since Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, we may also soon be marking the end of the Trump administration. While it is hard to take Vice President Biden on his word that he would not sell more weapons to the Saudis and would make them “pay the price” for killing Khashoggi, it is good to hear a presidential candidate admit that there is “very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia” and call it a “pariah state.” Perhaps with enough pressure from below, a new administration could start the process of disentangling the U.S. from the deadly embrace of the Saudi dictatorship.

But as long as U.S. leaders continue to coddle the Saudis, it’s difficult not to ask who is more evil—the maniacal Saudi crown prince responsible for Khashoggi’s murder and the slaughter of more than a hundred thousand Yemenis, or the mendacious Western governments and businesspeople who continue to support and profit from his crimes?

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Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and author of several books, including Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection.

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

Last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee grilled Michael Pack, who President Trump recently appointed to head the US government’s state propaganda arm, the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM).

Pack was appointed in June and started a big shakeup at the US state media outlets run by the USAGM, like Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. Pack fired senior staffers, pushed out management, and froze funding.

During last week’s hearing, Democrats and Republicans on the committee teamed up to attack Pack for his purges. But what seemed more important to Congress and former USAGM officials was Pack’s move to freeze funds to the Open Technology Fund (OTF). The OTF was formed in 2012 and operated as part of Radio Free Asia for seven years. In 2019, the OTF became an independent non-profit, although it is financed by US taxpayer dollars through the USAGM.

According to former USAGM officials and OTF board members, the OTF supports protesters in other nations across the world.

“In many places around the globe, OTF quietly is providing support to protesters,” said Grant Turner, the former USAGM chief financial officer, who Pack removed in August. “So the Hong Kong protesters are protecting their identities from surveillance by OTF tools; protesters in Iran; we’ve seen it in Beirut,” Turner said.

Ambassador Karen Kornbluh, who sits on the board of the OTF, also testified and spoke of how the OTF helps protest movements.

“OTF has a long history of supporting internet freedom efforts, and was poised to expand its efforts in Hong Kong,” Kornbluh said. “It was going to serve support for circumvention tools and expand support for digital training.”

Kornbluh explained that the USAGM froze OTF funds before China’s national security law for Hong Kong came into effect.

“And then USAGM froze, and continues to withhold, its funding – and did that just weeks before the new security laws came into effect,” Kornbluh said. “So OTF hasn’t been able to support any of these efforts.”

The frozen Hong Kong funds were first reported by Time magazine in June. According to Time, Pack froze $2 million that would have “directly benefited the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.” One project the OTF was working on in Hong Kong was a “cybersecurity incident response team” that would have analyzed Chinese surveillance techniques in Hong Kong. The team would have shared information with developers who would design apps for protesters to use. The freeze in funding made this project impossible to go through with.

Another OTF project hampered by the freeze was a $500,000 “rapid response fund, designed to provide fast relief for civil society groups, protesters, journalists, and human rights defenders.” According to Time, this initiative has already made several payouts to groups in Hong Kong since the civil unrest began in June 2019.

The cut in funding inadvertently revealed the US government’s covert role in the Hong Kong protest movement. The US government-funded National Endowment for Democracy also provides funding for “pro-democracy” movements in Hong Kong.

Besides the US government supporting Hong Kong protesters through cutout organizations like the OTF and NED, there has been more overt interference in the city. Throughout the demonstrations, protesters were seen waving US flags and calling for Congress to pass legislation. Leaders of the movement even traveled to Washington and testified before Congress, pleading for US intervention.

President Trump signed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act into law in November 2019. The administration has since sanctioned Hong Kong officials and changed the city’s special trade status. This US interference gave Beijing the foreign boogeyman it needed to pass the controversial national security law.

Pack was appointed to head the USAGM after the White House accused Voice of America of repeating Chinese state propaganda in its coronavirus coverage. Considering this, the damage Pack’s overhaul did to the OTF’s support for protesters in Hong Kong was likely an unintended consequence.

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Dave DeCamp is the assistant news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.

“Mendacity is a system we live in.” – Paul Newman, playing Brick in Tennessee Williams’, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

A profusion of philosophical, psychological, and political ink has been spent on the subject of lying and liars.  The toll in loves lost and relationships destroyed from lying is incalculable. All the war dead are victims of government lies; what Marine Major General Smedley Butler called a “racket.” Lies are poison, slow or quick working, and they kill both body and soul.

We are living in a country of lies.  A country where propaganda is disseminated around the clock and lies are the air we breathe.  Is it any wonder that most people are confused as to what to believe and whom to trust?  But it goes much deeper.

I have recently read a number of perceptive, truthful articles that have gotten me thinking further about this subject, although I must add that I have been preoccupied with the issue since I was very young and my father took me to see Pinocchio in the movie theater and subsequently told me improvised Pinocchio stories before bedtime.  Whether he knew it or not – and I think he knew – he set me on a lifetime’s quest to try to distinguish truth from lies and embrace the former.  Then as a teenager, I appeared on a very popular television show, To Tell the Truth.  I was recruited to lie, to play the part of an impostor, which I did quite well. I lied for the money and probably would have made a good lying politician if fate hadn’t interceded. It was only later that my actions and the show’s title kept reverberating through my mind, echoing down my days to the present and my interest in truth, lies, and propaganda.  From my father came a love for the redeeming nature of stories.

***

“More and more often there is embarrassment all around,” wrote Walter Benjamin in The Storyteller, “when the wish to hear a story is expressed.  It is as if something that seemed inalienable to us, the securest among our possessions, were taken from us: the ability to exchange experiences.”

***

It was getting dark on the street as the young man emerged from his high school on New York’s Upper East Side after basketball practice.  He had lost track of time as he dreamed his basketball dreams and headed to the subway for the long ride home.  It was December, 1961. A man, dressed in a cashmere overcoat and carrying a silver bowl, was walking his dog on the street.  The boy asked him for the time.  The man told him, adding with a grin that his watch always ran fast.  The boy recognized the grin from what seemed like a dream.  He pet the man’s dog, and the man asked him about the imposing school next to them.  He asked the boy his name and the boy said “Eddie.”  While the dog did its business in the street, they chatted for a few minutes.  The man wished him luck with his basketball and said his name was Paul. As the boy hustled toward the subway, Paul Newman shouted after him, “See you later, Fast Eddie.”

The next week the boy went to see Paul Newman playing Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler. He always remembered Paul’s words about mendacity and his words from The Hustler:

Fast Eddie: How should I play that one, Bert? Play it safe? That’s the way you always told me to play it: safe… play the percentage. Well, here we go: fast and loose. One ball, corner pocket. Yeah, percentage players die broke, too, don’t they, Bert?

Lies are a common way of playing it safe.  Except they kill the liar.

***

In an article by Mike Whitney, “Betrayal, Infuriating Betrayal,” in which he writes about the Democrats’ ongoing efforts – Russia-gate, etc. – to remove Trump from the presidency, efforts based on a string of lies they know to be lies [ my emphasis] and have been proven to be so, he wonders thus toward the end:

It’s surprising that this doesn’t piss-off more Democrats, after all, it’s the ultimate expression of contempt and condescension. When someone lies to your face relentlessly, repeatedly and shamelessly, they are expressing their loathing for you. Can’t they see that?

Of course, that’s a very good question.

I read Jonathan’s Cook’s piece, “The Guardian’s deceit-riddled new statement betrays both Julian Assange and journalism.”  Cook rightly excoriates The Guardian  for lying about Assange and betraying him to the British and American governments, long-standing lies [my emphasis] that continue to today as Julian sits in a British kangaroo court where injustice is being served to extradite him to the USA.  Here is one point he makes;

Nauseatingly, however, the Guardian not only seeks to blame Assange for its own mistake but tells a glaring lie about the circumstances. Its statement says: ‘No concerns were expressed by Assange or WikiLeaks about security being compromised when the book was published in February 2011. WikiLeaks published the unredacted files in September 2011.’

Then I read another fine article at Asia Times, by MK Bhadrakumar, “Permafrost descends on US-Russia ties,”  about a bipartisan Senate bill aimed at demonizing Russia.  The bill is led by Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware.  Bhadrakumar writes:

The fallout of all this is going to be profound for the Sino-Russian alliance. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hit out last week: ‘It is time to stop applying Western metrics to our actions and stop trying to be liked by the West at any cost … the West is wittingly or unwittingly pushing us towards this analysis.

‘It is likely to be done unwittingly [my emphasis]. However, it is a big mistake to think that Russia will play by Western rules in any case, just like thinking this in terms of China.’

I was struck by Lavrov’s word “wittingly or unwittingly” – diplomatic speech – since he knows the Senator’s bill is filled with lies but suggests otherwise – “It is likely to be done unwittingly.”

Finally, I read an article by Philip Roddis, “Julian, Guardian, and the Law of Volitionality.”  As a lead-in to his announced topic, he tells a little tale about his step-mother that struck me.  It is worth quoting in full:

Indulge me a moment, will you? At fifteen I acquired a stepmother. We never got on. Her and dad’s insistence that she be called “mum” didn’t help. For the two years we spent in the same house – I left home weeks before turning seventeen – I never addressed her by name or title.

She had dad round her little finger. One ploy was to badger him into making a ruling against me. Once she’d done so, she’d beg him to relent. “Oh it’s alright, Frank. Let him … ” [do/have whatever it was she’d got him to forbid]. But no way was he going to u-turn at this point. A matter of pride, you see. I saw this little comedy for what it was but dad fell for it every time.

And here’s the thing. Maybe she did too. She got her way, but I don’t rule out her motives for that post victory appeal being hidden to – and by – her. My flawed but brilliant teacher said that everybody knows what they’re doing. Indeed, it was so fundamental a tenet he gave it a name: The Law of Volitionality. Yes, he took it to absurd and at times cruel lengths but for all that he was onto something. To manage cognitive dissonance – to maintain a sense of being fundamentally good – we play games with ourselves. Stepmother was likely fooling herself almost as much as dad with her tiresome shenanigans.

It’s not that she wasn’t being manipulative. Just that an essential ingredient of the manipulation, vital to maintaining self-esteem, was a decision – volitionally squirrelled away, out of sight from everyday awareness – to hoodwink herself. [my emphasis]

You can find such examples every day.  Articles about lies tossed about by all sides of the political spectrum are commonplace.

I think it fair to say that everyone has lied at some point, but only the most manipulative are proud of it.  “The essence of the lie implies in fact that the liar actually is in complete possession of the truth which he is hiding,” wrote Jean-Paul Sartre.  This cynical consciousness that knows the truth but denies it to others is a perfect description of  politicians, propagandists, intelligence services, and their media mouthpieces. They know they are lying and are proud of it, but of course they will never admit it.

Most people are not that manipulative.  Sartre says there is another type of liar who suffers from bad faith.  While they lie to others, they also try to lie to themselves and hide the truth from themselves.  People often say that this person and that one really believe their own lies, that they are deluded, but this is not possible.  For “the one to whom the lie is told and the one who lies are one and the same person, which means that I must know in my capacity as a deceiver the truth which is hidden from me in my capacity as the one deceived.”

I have recently been thinking that many people who are adamantly insistent on the efficacy of mask-wearing against SARS-CoV-2, the virus associated with COVID-19, and  those who are always quoting the official statistics, are of this sort.  They either know there is good evidence against mask-wearing and the official statistical game, but try to convince themselves this isn’t so, or they avoid reading about the possibility to save face and live with themselves  – both acts of bad faith.  Such people are like Philip Roddis’s step-mother.  But in this case, the bad faith is about a Big Lie, just as the fake fight between Trump and Biden has induced many people to take bad faith sides in a scene from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass:

“Tweedledum and Tweedledee

Agreed to have a battle;

For Tweedledum said Tweedledee

Had spoiled his nice new rattle”

So Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Had their scrum

All about the rattle.

When it was done

Only the dumb

Gave a shit about their battle

***

Last year, I was at a large library book sale and came upon an odd box of typed manuscripts of stories that lacked the author’s name.  They were free and so I took a few.  There was one very short story, entitled “Fear,” that struck me for its haunting connection to the issue of lies. “Death is the sanction of everything the storyteller can tell,” wrote Benjamin, which seems so true with this anonymous story. Here it is:

Listen, that’s what I want to say to them.  Listen, this is one of those stories hard to believe.  When I first heard it, I doubted it completely.  Of course I was telling it and that might have been a factor.  It’s hard, once you hear your own voice, to believe it’s you.  After a while, however, I became convinced it had to be true.  I couldn’t make up anything so odd, so sick if you prefer.  At first the voice sounded strange, but once I realized it was really mine, I understood I was revealing this pathetic tale under great duress and it was understandable that my voice sounded foreign.

You should take that into account.  I am a very sick man.  I realize that now.  In the beginning, I thought I was surely dying, until, that is, I saw that I was already dead.  Dying was beside the point.  I was dead.  Naturally this came as a great surprise to me.  Now you might reasonably ask, how did this absurd situation come about, and how can a dead man write words?  Let me tell you.

It began when I was born while the world was engaged in one of its periodic slaughters. No, periodic is not true.  Those slaughters are constant.

So you wonder what my astrological sign is?  The mushroom cloud of course.  A cancer born under the sign of the mushroom.

Anyway, I have been living for decades now and you’d think I would have seen the obvious.  I didn’t, or that’s what I told myself.  Not for the life of me.  I kept going on as if I were alive when I was dead.  It’s obvious now: the dead never know they’re dead until… But I didn’t know it, and you can imagine, I hope, how this caused me many problems.

Don’t laugh.

That was the year I disappeared.

She asked me: “But are you content?”

– No, I wouldn’t say that.

– So you’re not?  It’s hard to tell?  Tell me.

– No, not really.

– Not really what?

– Not really content.

– What would give you contentment?

– I’m not sure.

– You mean to say you have no idea?

– No, not that.  I guess if I thought about it …

– Do that, that’s what I’m asking you.  You must have thought about it before.

– Sure I have but…

– Why the but?  You’re so hesitant about everything.  You don’t know, you doubt, maybe, but, perhaps.  Why are you so unsure?

I had no satisfactory answer.  I could only stumble over my words.  I was afraid they would trip me up, especially if I spoke without premeditation. I was used to hesitating so I could control things.  That’s not exactly true.  When I realized I was dead, I also realized it was because I had always been a liar, to myself and others.

It was then I disappeared.

Since coming here, I have been resolved to change.  Yes, the outside world was making me sick with all its lies and deceptions.  Mendacity, mendacity, mendacity – I heard someone in a play scream that out once. I never forgot it, and I felt I was going mad because of it.  But I too was a liar, so I resolved to change.

No more bullshit.  That was my number one resolution.  It sounded crude but was true. Next to it, I listed euphemisms for bullshit: exaggeration, manners, civility, tolerance, modesty , mental reservations, kindness, and of course lies.  Bullshit was lies and self-deception.  Simple as that. I couldn’t admit that I was dead; that was bullshit, and I was dead because I was a bullshit artist and just wanted to be an artist and write stories that were true.  I have always lied so much because, like everyone else, I was afraid of the truth. Saying it, hearing it, or seeing it.  I much preferred ideas of what should be true rather than what was true, or what I really thought was true.  I was afraid if I gave up lying I would feel lonelier than I did before.  Where did it get me anyway?  Where does it get anyone?  I have always hated myself for it.  This all seemed so weird to me; how everyone nodded at truth, just as they nodded to each other, and then went on lying their ways through life.  And if you asked them if they were lying, they would invariably deny it.  Oh, it’s so twisted.  I am sick. I don’t know where I’m going with this story.  It seems to have a life of its own, unlike me.

I didn’t really disappear.  They took me here.  I am so afraid.

That was it.  Short and eerie.   It reminded me of Kafka, who wrote in his diary: “The strange, mysterious, perhaps dangerous, perhaps redeeming comfort that there is in writing.”

***

“And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

That’s what the CIA has inscribed on the wall of its headquarters: The George Bush Center for Intelligence.

More appropriately, as a description of not only the CIA but American society as a whole, are Ken Kesey’s words from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: “You seem to forget, Miss Flinn, that this is an institution for the insane.”

That’s not a lie.

Yes, “Mendacity is the system we live in.”

And the odor here is really loathsome.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site.

Distinguished author and sociologist Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He is the author of the new book: https://www.claritypress.com/product/seeking-truth-in-a-country-of-lies/

Featured image is by Julie Maas

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Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies

Author: Edward Curtin

ISBN: 9781949762266

Published: 2020

Options: EBOOK – Epub and Kindle, paper, PDF

Click here to order.

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Watching the network news on television or reading about current events in the newspapers seemingly transports one to an alternate universe where nothing seems to make sense. The profit driven news cycle in the United States is admittedly a poor mechanism for actually gaining an understanding of what is going on, but seven days of Ruth Bader Ginsburg worship hardly addresses what is ailing the country, particularly as questions about how she earned many millions of dollars while serving as a judge as well as some unsavory aspects of her career have been carefully buried.

A friend who is a retired U.S. Army general made an interesting comment several days ago, observing that when it comes to politics and voting patterns the so-called “silent majority” is indeed silent. What he meant was that many Americans who hold currently unpopular conservative views will not respond honestly to a call from an unknown pollster regarding voting intentions. This is particularly true of the current campaign in which Donald Trump is being reviled by the media and depicted by the Democrats as no less than a threat to American democracy. Biden by way of comparison pretty much gets a free pass, to include forgiveness for his frequent faux pas and mental lapses. In other words, Trump is being framed as someone poised to mount a totalitarian takeover of the United States, which in and of itself would disincline many voters to indicate openly that they would support him over Biden.

My friend was suggesting that the polls on the upcoming election just might be more than usually wrong. I would add to that the general vapidity of what one might expect from the presidential debates, which are similarly being framed in such a fashion as to avoid any topics that might really matter. But the polls do reveal two things. First, that there is a lack of any confidence in the integrity of politicians at all levels, and second, that jobs and healthcare are the principal concerns of nearly all voter demographics as they directly impact on quality of life.

Healthcare is admittedly a complicated issue given the fact that the entire system in the United States would have to be reformed, with considerable government intervention. The respected British medical journal The Lancet recently published “Measuring universal health coverage based on an index of effective coverage of health services in 204 countries and territories”. The study revealed, to no one’s surprise, that the United States has by far the world’s most expensive medical care, at around $9,000 per person per year while at the same time delivering poorer results than virtually any other industrialized nation. Medical expenses are in fact a leading cause of personal bankruptcy by Americans.

So, what are the two parties saying about health care? The Republicans want to overturn so-called Obamacare and replace it with something else which they cannot describe while the Democrats insist that they want to keep Obamacare in place while also blaming the president for the response to the coronavirus. That’s it. There is plenty of blame to go around on Covid-19 and Obamacare is in fact a bad program. It is good if the government is footing the bill for you, but anyone who is paying for his or her own insurance has seen the rates treble and even quadruple since the program became active. It has become a gold mine for the health care industry, which now assumes that it can charge whatever it wants and the suffering customer will be obliged to pay for it. That there is no effective regulation of health care is due to the fact that Big Pharma and other providers have completely corrupted Congress through political donations to make sure that the highly profitable status quo remains untouched.

And when it comes to the other great concern, “The Economy,” which means jobs, the two major parties have even less to say since they know deep down that they have both conspired in the gutting of America’s industrial and manufacturing infrastructure.

But another area dear to my own heart which the parties have been silent about is Foreign Policy, which also subsumes National Security, a related issue that the opinion polls do not specifically address. Both parties are strong on issuing position papers that refer to supporting allies, meaning Israel followed by everyone else, confronting threats from Russia and China, and maintaining the world’s number one military. Beyond that it gets a bit vague. We have recently learned from a possibly unreliable source named Bob Woodward that President Trump sought to assassinate Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad but was talked out of. Trump did order the assassination of senior Iranian General Qassim Soleimani, whom he and Secretary of State have recently described as the “world’s leading terrorist,” which is manifestly untrue. Is assassinating foreign leaders something that the United States wants to engage in? Why is no one talking about it?

And then there are the “hot wars” being fought in Syria, Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan. None of those wars benefit from a constitutionally mandated declaration of war by Congress and they have cost the U.S. taxpayer trillions of dollars. Shouldn’t that be under discussion? Or the “maximum pressure” economic wars being waged against Venezuela, Cuba, Syria and Iran? Those “wars” have collectively killed tens of thousands of civilians and have done nothing to enhance the security of the United States. Shouldn’t Trump and Biden be talking about that?

Instead, we will see much finger pointing and hear a lot about how dangerous a win by either presidential candidate will be, all couched in general terms based on a lot of “what-ifs.” But what the American public needs, particularly the silent majority, is a viable plan for decent and affordable healthcare similar to what most of the rest of the world enjoys. And a new government also must act decisively to challenge corporate offshoring interests to bring manufacturing jobs back home. But most of all, the United States needs peace after nineteen years of spreading chaos all over the globe. End the wars and bring the troops home. Do it now.

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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.

“Looking back, I can see that we have a situation which I compare with the Third Reich…Joseph Goebbels, he was the Minister of Propaganda, and he said “if you repeat a message long enough, loud enough, hard enough, at the end everybody believes it.” And I think the crux of the problem is in the media.” – Doctor quoted in this interview.

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With the weather getting colder, people in Canada and all around the globe are witnessing a rising incidence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Prime Minister Trudeau was quoted as saying during a speech to the people of Canada the following:

“The second wave isn’t just starting, it’s already underway.”

Children are going to school in masks, just as everyone is forced to wear masks anywhere that’s indoors in some places. As the struggle worsens, people fear the return of spring-time lock downs and all the hardship springing from it.

Provoked by daily reports by politicians, chief public health officers, and the mainstream media, people might be understandably terrified. On the other hand, there are rational voices singing from the hymn book of sober second thoughts.

These voices belong to people called doctors.

As we reported in our last show, Doctor Sucharit Bhakdi in his book, Corona, False Alarm, laid out how the evidence of the panic was unreliable, how the COVID 19 was in fact no worse than a typical flu virus, and how the lockdowns cause more difficulties than the disease itself.

There are many, many more doctors also raising their voices calling for their nations and the world to rethink their COVID strategy. They are particularly effective in Europe. These include a petition signed by 2662 doctors and medical practitioners in the Netherlands, a public conference made up of 400 doctors in Spain, a Corona Extra-Parliamentary Inquiry Committee  made up of about 500 Doctors and scientists in Germany, and a public letter from Belgium signed by over 1500 people in the medical and scientific community.

Sadly, these people cannot get their voices in regular media.

This week, on the Global Research News Hour, we work to give these experts some space, and possibly assuage the out if control panic sweeping our society.

Our guests for the hour are two doctors with the group: Docs 4 Open Debate. For most of the program they speak about the unreliable test numbers, unreliable masks, the WHO’s role in this, and the determination to not just ignore but punish those in the profession who speak out.

Docs 4 Open Debate is a group in Belgium doctors and health professionals intent on demanding more critical analysis of the pandemic fight, relaxation of the extreme emergency measures, and freedom to express their positions on mainstream media. They crafted an open letter to this end which has so far been signed by 515 physicians and 1767 medically trained health professionals. Their site is docs4opendebate.be

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

As the pandemic continues to claim lives across the country, new information keeps coming out about how the Trump administration has made it harder for Americans to protect themselves.

We now know, for example, that early in the pandemic the U.S. Postal Service had planned to deliver five face masks to every U.S. household. It could have made mask-wearing a lot more common a lot earlier — and maybe saved a lot of lives. But the White House scrapped the idea.

Now we also know that the Trump administration took $1 billion in stimulus funds that were supposed to go towards making masks and other protective equipment for the pandemic — and gave most of it to weapons manufacturers.

Those funds were part of $10.6 billion in CARES Act money allocated to the Pentagon — a staggering sum, especially since the bloated military budget already claims 53 cents of every discretionary federal dollar available to Congress.

The Pentagon’s CARES money was supposed to help military employees and military families survive the pandemic.

The $1 billion in question was granted under a special law that lets the Pentagon require companies to manufacture urgently needed goods in case of a national emergency. This time, it was to make sure companies producing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), like N-95 masks, ventilators, and more, were making all they could.

But most of that money didn’t go to making PPE at all. Trump’s defense department gave it to corporations that make jet engines, drone flight controllers, and dress uniforms for the military. Two-thirds of it was distributed in big contracts worth more than $5 million each.

The military says that the “health” of the defense industry is crucial to national security. But the CARES Act money was specifically allocated to protect the health of the people of this country — not the companies that build weapons.

This comes at a moment when U.S. military spending is already near all-time highs — and when military contractors are doing better than lots of other companies.

“Major defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman,” the Washington Post reports, “have remained financially healthy despite some pandemic-related disruption, and have continued to pay stock dividends to investors.”

Indeed, the CEOs of those companies rank among the highest paid corporate executives in the country. Last year General Dynamics’s CEO raked in $18 million, Northrup Grumman’s made $20 million, and Lockheed-Martin’s pulled in a whopping $31 million.

Still, many of those same military corporations paid out of the $1 billion Pentagon slush fund also applied for — and received — funds from the federal Paycheck Protection Program that Congress designated specifically to prevent COVID-related lay-offs. These extra Pentagon grants came on top of that, except without any requirements to protect jobs. Those companies could take the money and still fire as many employees as they want.

An additional $1 billion would have made a huge difference in the fight against COVID-19. My colleagues created a federal budget calculator. It shows that $1 billion could have funded nearly 28 million COVID-19 tests or purchased over 294 million N-95 respirator masks.

What makes us safer in the pandemic — access to more testing and a lot more face masks, or helping military corporations and their CEOs make a killing on our tax money?

Add that to the canceled Postal Service plan to distribute hundreds of millions more masks, and the record keeps getting more appalling. Make no mistake: The Trump administration’s heartlessness and militarism are costing lives.

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Phyllis Bennis directs the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org

Featured image is from Shutterstock

On September 23, María Eugenia Russián, president of Fundalatin, Venezuela’s oldest human rights organization, testified to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and decried an attempt by a UNHRC fact-finding mission to erase people who were “lynched, burned alive, decapitated and murdered by extremist sectors of the Venezuelan opposition.” This fact-finding mission had published a report a week earlier that generated sensationalist headlines of “crimes against humanity” and painted a bleak picture of the situation in Venezuela.

However, the 400+ page report has been found to contain serious flaws and omissions, leading to charges that it politicizes human rights – a position backed by the Venezuelan government. But it’s not just Venezuela that has taken issue with the report: Argentina’s ambassador to the Organization of American States denounced it as “biased” and noted that “human rights are not an instrument for taking political positions.”

A parallel mission and attack on multilateralism

Moreover, even the formation of the fact-finding mission is suspect. Since 2017, Venezuela has been working with a different UN institution, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), to strengthen its capacity to guarantee human rights. This cooperation has led to technical agreements and to visits by the OHCHR to Venezuela.

Yet despite – or perhaps because – of this cooperation, the Lima Group, an ad hoc group of nations dedicated to regime change in Venezuela, maneuvered in the UN Human Rights Council to establish a parallel mission outside of the purview of the OHCHR. In the September 2019 debate prior to the founding of this mission, Russián said that it “seeks to thwart the advances between the Office of the High Commissioner and the Venezuelan state, hindering and duplicating its efforts.” She also made a prescient comment: “[the mission] will generate major headlines but will not contribute to resolving the situation.”

Several Venezuelan human rights organizations, including the Venezuelan Association of Jurists (AVJ), denounced the formation of the mission and the subsequent report as an attack on multilateralism. The AVJ notes that according to UN General Assembly Resolution 60/251, “the promotion and protection of human rights should be based on the principles of cooperation and genuine dialogue and aimed at strengthening the capacity of Member States.”

Neither of these principles were adhered to in the report, which means that the fact-finding mission violated the United Nation’s own guidelines. This contrasts severely with the latest update on Venezuela from the OHCHR, which notes that technical cooperation between Venezuela and the UN has led to progress in investigating 93 alleged cases of extrajudicial killings or excessive use of force, as well as the pardoning of 110 prisoners.

Flawed methodology, biased sources and egregious omissions

The first thing to note about the report is that the authors are all from countries that support Guaidó. One of them, Francisco Cox, has close ties to the Chilean Foreign Minister (Chile is one of the Latin American countries leading the charge against Venezuela). In an interview with journalist Anya Parampil, Chilean analyst Esteban Silva noted that Cox “is part of an operation against the government of Venezuela.”

Venezuelan human rights organization Sures considers that the report “lacks academic rigor” as the mission did not step foot in Venezuela “and as such never had direct access to the sources it consulted, including the victims, government officials and official records.” Lending credence to the claim of a lack of rigor is the fact that more than 50% of the report’s sources were links to social and digital media, while just 5% were NGOs.

Misión Verdad, an independent group of Venezuelan investigative journalists and analysts, wrote an exposé of the sources used in the report and found that one of these NGOs, COFAVIC (Committee of Relatives of Victims of the Caracazo), receives USAID funds and has ties to Human Rights Watch, which supports regime change and the brutal US sanctions. None of the NGOs the fact-finding mission contacted even mentioned the case of Orlando Figuera, a young Black man burned alive by anti-government protestors, which has arguably been the most infamous violation of human rights in Venezuela in recent years.

If the report were interested in balance, it would have cited or contacted Venezuelan human rights groups that document right-wing violence at protests and the devastating effects of U.S. sanctions. Five such organizations were contacted for this article: Fundalatin, AJV, Sures, Género con Clase (Gender with Class), and the Committee of Victims of the Guarimba and Ongoing Coup (guarimba is the term used for violent opposition protests in 2013, 2014 and 2017). None of them ever heard from the “independent” mission.

While victims like Figuera are ignored, another detailed critique by Misión Verdad documents the repeated “whitewashing” of political actors linked to violence by presenting them as victims. As analyst Joe Emersberger notes, the report’s treatment of opposition figure Leopoldo López ignores the leading role he has played in destabilizing Venezuela since 2002. López’s regime change strategy in 2014, ‘La Salida’, sparked opposition violence that resulted in the decapitation of Elvis Durán; he was riding a motorcycle down a street booby trapped by protestors with barbed wire. López’s name appears 61 times in the report; Durán’s does not appear at all.

As tragic as it is that a UN mission would engage in the erasure of victims of human rights violations perpetrated by government opponents, these are not even the most glaring omissions in the report. There are two ongoing mass violations of the human rights of all Venezuelans: the violent destabilization of the country by foreign and domestic actors, and the brutal U.S. sanctions. For Gisela Jiménez of Género con Clase, an organization that focuses on the rights of women and sexual diversity, currently the biggest challenge to the rights of Venezuelans is “the threat to the right to live in peace.” Russián of Fundalatin dates the biggest violation of human rights to March 2015, when then-President Obama characterized Venezuela as an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the United States. Since then, she notes, ”the Venezuelan people have been subjected to violations of their right to health and even the right to life, due to the embargo and the obstruction of imports of medicine, food and supplies.”

The report in the context of a hybrid war

Beyond the bias and politicization of the report, what perhaps damns it most is how it is being used. The omissions on the impact of coups and sanctions enable regime change operatives such as Elliott Abrams, U.S. special representative for Iran and Venezuela, to cite the report as evidence of crimes against humanity while, in the same breath, threatening to cut off Venezuela’s diesel supplies, which has drawn widespread condemnation from NGOs across the political spectrum for the devastating effect it would have on the Venezuelan people.

The report was similarly used by Senators Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin, who referenced it in a letter to the European Union in which they expressed “deep concern” over EU talks with the Maduro government and urged the EU to not monitor Venezuela’s parliamentary elections. This blatant attempt at interfering in and attempting to delegitimize Venezuela’s elections went uncovered by mainstream media, which focused all of their attention on the UNHCR report.

Furthermore, the timing of the report was also suspect, coming just a week before the 2020 UN General Assembly. Its purpose in this regard is clear: to add fuel to the fire in Venezuela and to shift the spotlight from U.S. allies with their own human rights issues. The timely release allowed Colombian president Duque and Chilean president Piñera to cite it and Venezuela in their general assembly speeches. In Colombia, 64 massacres have taken place this year alone, while the Piñera government in Chile was almost brought down by his government’s excessive use of force against peaceful protestors. Yet it was Venezuelan opposition figure Juan Guaidó who made the headlines, invoking the report while calling on the international community to exercise its “responsibility to protect” in a YouTube webinar on the sidelines of the General Assembly. The responsibility to protect is a doctrine used as the justification for military aggressions against Libya and Syria, among others.

The fact-finding mission has produced a document that is currently being employed in the furtherance of sanctions, electoral interference and threats of war. To put it another way, the UNHCR report on the human rights of Venezuelans will likely lead to even more suffering for Venezuelans. In the words of Fundalatin President Russián, the threat to the human rights of Venezuelans “becomes graver because of the behavior by powerful states, who in the name of human rights, seek a foreign military intervention in Venezuela.”

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Leonardo Flores is a Latin American policy analyst and campaigner with CODEPINK.

Featured image: Fundalatin President María Eugenia Russián outside of the United Nations

The Old Bailey has been the venue for a trial that should never have taken place. But during the course of these extradition proceedings against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder accused by the US Department of Justice for violating the US Espionage Act (17 charges) and one under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, an impressive battalion of defence witnesses has been called upon.  They have assisted Assange’s legal team to build a picture of obscene politicisation, imperial overreach and wanton callousness. 

A picture of the detention facilities awaiting the publisher was painted with fine strokes: the alienating brutality of solitary confinement; likely special administrative measures restraining the detainee’s access to legal representation and family; inadequate health facilities both physical and mental for those at risk of self-harm.  Then came the chilling realisation, made clear on the seventeenth day: that the US intelligence services, through the Spanish security firm UC Global SL, had conducted surveillance of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, and proposed kidnapping or poisoning a political asylee.

Peirce and violations of attorney-client privilege 

In the court on Thursday, attention turned to written submissions from human rights activist Gareth Peirce, Assange’s solicitor, who described brazen breaches of attorney-client privilege.  Trial observers noted how “extraordinarily difficult” it had been to follow Peirce’s statements, largely because of Judge Vanessa Baraitser’s penchant for preventing a full reading in the court.

Despite such stints of constipation, the point of Peirce’s submissions was clear enough.  Legally privileged documents were seized from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.  The Ecuadorean intelligence service was complicit.  Two diplomatic pouches with USB sticks were placed in a diplomatic bag, sent to Ecuador, then onwards to the United States.

Peirce claimed that, between 2017 and 2018, three legally privileged meetings were subjected to surveillance without her knowledge.  Assange’s Spanish lawyer Aitor Martínez was also the subject of such intrusion, his legal file photographed when absent in a meeting with his client.  The legal team representing Assange had a nagging sense that their gatherings might be monitored.  While not knowing the full extent of such intrusions, “an exceptionally high level of anxiety” was present during those meetings.

Martínez also furnished the court with an update on the criminal investigation against UC Global SL director David Morales, being conducted by Spain’s High Court, the Audiencia Nacional.  Morales’s part in this sordid matter was much in evidence the day before, when his role in facilitating surveillance of Assange and his embassy meetings, at the behest of his “American friends”, was given a generous airing by former employees of his company.  The outcome of that case may well shed light upon an already troubling bridge linking UC Global with the Central Intelligence Agency and Las Vegas Sands, owned by Trump supporter and Republican donor, Sheldon Adelson.

Tigar’s testimony and abuse of power 

Testimony from Professor Michael Tigar of Duke Law School was read, drawing parallels between the abuses of power perpetrated by the Nixon administration in 1971 and those of the Trump administration vis-à-vis Assange. 

The first case centred on the outcome of President Richard Nixon’s attempts to prosecute the Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.  After the publication of the papers, Nixon’s staffers formed a covert unit known as the “White House Plumbers,” a blunt outfit that proceeded to commit crimes with abandon for the unforgettable Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CREEP).  Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office was burgled by the Plumbers in an effort to pilfer his medical files; Nixon ordered the illegal wiretapping of Ellsberg; the government then claimed to have mislaid those wiretaps when asked to produce them at trial.  And just to spice things further, US District Court Judge William M. Byrne, Jr., presiding over Ellsberg’s trial, was also approached by Nixon and his assistant for domestic affairs, John D. Ehrlichman, about the possibility of becoming the FBI’s next director.  Judge Byrne could only conclude that the government’s actions had “offended a sense of justice,” leading him to declare “a mistrial and grant the motion for dismissal.”

The US intelligence effort against Assange in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, perpetrated through UC Global’s installation of surveillance facilities, threw up richly disturbing similarities.  Confidential files had been accessed; privileged conversations with lawyers had been recorded; over eager proposals for kidnapping or poisoning Assange expressed.  For Ellsberg, this was certainly damning.  “That’s essentially the same information that ended my case and confronted Nixon with impeachment, leading to his resignation.”

Baraitser’s exclusions 

Patience on the bench, and among the prosecution team, began to wear thin.  The prosecution, led by James Lewis QC, argued that the defence had run out of time.  Objections mounted, temperatures rose.  Material was excluded.  Judge Baraitser decided to exclude one of Peirce’s witness statements addressing the new allegations made in the second superseding indictment served in July.  The statement, argued the defence, was only appropriate to address “fresh and different” allegations the prosecution only saw fit to include at a later date. 

She also batted away the defence’s effort to submit a statement made by US Attorney General William Barr on September 15, outlining his belief that the executive branch had “virtually unchecked discretion” in deciding whether or not to initiate prosecutions. “The power to execute and enforce the law is an executive function altogether,” Barr stated.  “That means discretion is invested in the executive to determine when to exercise prosecutorial power.”

Readying the ground 

The ground, then, is being readied for closing arguments by the defence.  Three areas promise to feature.  The first is the heavy air of political motivation in the prosecution of Assange.  Outlets that had published the unredacted cables prior to WikiLeaks doing so on September 2, 2011, and left unmolested by the DOJ and law enforcement, suggest distinct targeting.  To this can be added the manoeuvrings in the Trump administration, noted in the testimony of Cassandra Fairbanks, about the decision to arrest Assange.  A clear change of heart had manifested in the matter, given the loss of interest shown by the Obama administration in pursuing the publisher.  Coupled with the theory of executive power endorsed by the Attorney General Barr – that such an officer should defer to the views of the presidential office in determining prosecutions – add to claims that this is a politically driven endeavour.

The second focuses on an abuse of power, sharply drawn in the testimony of two anonymous former employees of UC Global.  The third: that Assange, should he be extradited, will face cruel and inhumane treatment.  Frail health and appalling prison conditions at both the pre-trial Alexandria Detention Center, and the post-trial ADX Florence supermax in Colorado, promise to be a debilitating, even lethal mix.

With the evidence now in her possession, Baraitser will have much to get through.  Unfortunately, we are none the wiser about what items of evidence her judicial mind will accept or reject.  The jaw dropping accounts of embassy espionage, suggested poisoning and proposed kidnapping of Assange may be deemed, as the prosecutors insist, irrelevant to the charges at hand. 

A date for judgment was also set.  “Unless any further application for bail is made, and between now and the 4^th of January, you will remain in custody for the same reasons as you have been before,” Baraister explained to Assange.

After the adjournment, Assange’s fiancée Stella Moris spoke of the highest of stakes, of this being not merely a fight for life but press freedom and truth.  “This case is already chilling press freedom. It is a frontal assault on journalism, on the public’s right to know and our ability to hold governments, domestic and foreign, to account.”

Moris noted, with pertinence, the prosecution’s admission, under oath “that it has no evidence that a single person has ever come to any physical harm because of these publications.  Let me repeat that: there is no evidence that a single person has ever come to any physical harm because of these publications.”  Assange was in prison for informing “you of actual crimes and atrocities being committed by a foreign power.  That foreign power has ripped away his freedom and torn our family apart.”  It was a power determined “to put him in incommunicado detention in the deepest darkest hole of its prison system for the rest of his life.”

Assange will continue spending time at Belmarsh Prison, one of Britain’s most notorious facilities reserved for only the most hardened species of criminal.   He will put in court appearances every 28 days via videolink.  The defence will submit closing arguments on November 16; the prosecution will then make its final pitch to convince the court two weeks later.  The legions of press members, writers and scribblers should now ruminate, along with Judge Baraitser, about the consequences of this entire process.  Moris is clear about one of them.  “The US administration won’t stop with him.  The US says that it can put any journalist, anywhere in the world, on trial in the US if it doesn’t like what they are publishing.” 

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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 Silent Crow News

I really do not know how to report Wednesday’s events. Stunning evidence, of extreme quality and interest, was banged out in precis by the lawyers as unnoticed as bags of frozen chips coming off a production line.

The court that had listened to Clair Dobbin spend four hours cross-examining Carey Shenkman on individual phrases of first instance court decisions in tangentially relevant cases, spent four minutes as Noam Chomsky’s brilliant exegesis of the political import of this extradition case was rapidly fired into the court record, without examination, question or placing into the context of the legal arguments about political extradition.

Twenty minutes sufficed for the reading of the “gist” of the astonishing testimony of two witnesses, their identity protected as their lives may be in danger, who stated that the CIA, operating through Sheldon Adelson, planned to kidnap or poison Assange, bugged not only him but his lawyers, and burgled the offices of his Spanish lawyers Baltazar Garzon. This evidence went unchallenged and untested.

The rich and detailed evidence of Patrick Cockburn on Iraq and of Andy Worthington on Afghanistan was, in each case, well worthy of a full day of exposition. I should love at least to have seen both of them in the witness box explaining what to them were the salient points, and adding their personal insights. Instead we got perhaps a sixth of their words read rapidly into the court record. There was much more.

I have noted before, and I hope you have marked my disapproval, that some of the evidence is being edited to remove elements which the US government wish to challenge, and then entered into the court record as uncontested, with just a “gist” read out in court. The witness then does not appear in person. This reduces the process from one of evidence testing in public view to something very different. Wednesday confirmed the acceptance that this “Hearing” is now devolved to an entirely paper exercise. It is in fact no longer a “hearing” at all. You cannot hear a judge reading. Perhaps in future it should be termed not a hearing but an “occasional rustling”, or a “keyboard tapping”. It is an acknowledged, indeed embraced, legal trend in the UK that courts are increasingly paper exercises, as noted by the Supreme Court.

In the past, the general practice was that all the argument and evidence was placed before the court orally, and documents were read out, Lady Hale said.

She added: “The modern practice is quite different. Much more of the argument and evidence is reduced into writing before the hearing takes place. Often, documents are not read out.

“It is difficult, if not impossible, in many cases, especially complicated civil cases, to know what is going on unless you have access to the written material.”

At least twice in the current case, Judge Baraitser has mentioned that the defence gave her three hundred pages of opening argument, and has done so in the context of doubting the need for all this evidence, or at least for lengthy closing arguments which take account of the evidence. She was highly resistant to any exposition by witnesses of their evidence before cross-examination, arguing that their evidence was already in their statements so they did not need to say it. She eventually agreed on a strict limit of just half an hour for witness “orientation”.

However much Lady Hale thinks she is helping by setting down a principle that the documentation must be available, having Patrick Cockburn’s statement online somewhere will never have the impact of him standing in the witness box and expounding on it. What happened on Wednesday was that the whole hearing was collapsed, with both defence and prosecution lawyers hurling hundreds of pages of witness statement at Baraitser’s head, saying: “You look at this. We can get finished tomorrow morning and all have a long weekend to prepare our next cases.”

I was so disappointed by the way the case petered out before my eyes, that the adrenaline which has carried me through must have dried up. Returning to my room at lunchtime for a brief doze, when I tried to get up for the afternoon session I was overcome with dizziness. I eventually managed to walk to the court, despite the world having decided to present itself at a variety of sharp and unusual angles, and everything appearing to be under glaring orange sodium light. The Old Bailey staff – who I should say have been really friendly and helpful to me throughout – very kindly took me up in a lift and through the advocate’s robing room to the public gallery.

I am happy to say that after court two pints of Guinness and a cheese and ham toastie had a substantial restorative effect. Those who have followed these reports will understand how frustrating it was to be deprived of James Lewis asking Noam Chomsky how he can venture an opinion on whether this extradition is politically motivated when he is only a Professor of Linguistics, or whether he has ever published any peer-reviewed articles. To attempt to encapsulate the wealth of information skipped through yesterday is not the work of an evening.

What I shall do for now is give you the eloquent and brief statement by Noam Chomsky on the political nature of Julian Assange’s actions:

I will also give you the breathtaking testimony of “Witness 2”:

A friend last night gave me the cold comfort that I should not worry about the hurried close of these proceedings reducing the public gaze on the evidence and the arguments (and I think there were altogether nine witness statements yesterday), because that public gaze had been extremely limited, as indeed I have been continually explaining. In other words, it makes no difference. I follow that argument, but it goes against some fundamental beliefs and motivations I have about bearing witness, which I shall need to develop further in my own mind.

In the next few days I will try to bring you a synthesis and analysis of all that passed on Wednesday. Now I need to go to court and see the last few dribbles of this case, and exchange last glances of friendship with Julian for some months.

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Boeing’s decades-long ties to Washington state could soon be numbered. 

In a massive blow to Seattle, labor unions and the liberal run state of Washington, Boeing is moving its 787 Dreamliner production to South Carolina in an effort to cut costs, Bloomberg revealed on Thursday. 

It is a move that is raising questions about how long Boeing may remain at its massive plant in Everett, where it has produced planes since the 1960s.

Dreamliner production is being consolidated as demand for Boeing’s planes has dropped amidst the 737 MAX controversy and the ongoing pandemic which has decimated the travel industry. The easiest way for Boeing to cut costs is to move to non-union labor in South Carolina and trim its operations. 

It’s also the latest move in Boeing bolstering operations in Republican-governed South Carolina. Aerospace analyst Richard Aboulafi noted that 747 production would end by 2022 and that “the overhead costs will be increasingly borne by the surviving planes, the 767 and 777X, which don’t have a lot of pricing power right now.”

Washington Governor Jay Inslee stopped figuring out new ways to raise taxes and defund the police long enough to issue a statement critical of Boeing, stating that the state would need to take a “hard look” at Boeing’s tax treatment. He estimated 1,000 jobs could be at risk.

Meanwhile, Boeing has been in the midst of scrambling to shore up its financials after two fatal 737 MAX crashes and the subsequent grounding of its 737 MAX planes in the interim. Melius Research estimates Boeing could see $23.3 billion in cash burn this year as a result of those groundings, coupled with the Covid-19 pandemic.

Boeing CFO Greg Smith said in July: “The goal is to improve cash-flow profile, restore our balance-sheet strength as quickly as possible. And these actions will help get us there.”

Governor Inslee said: “We have asked the Boeing Company multiple times what it needs to keep 787 production in Washington”. Inslee also claimed the move would “signal an allegiance to short-term profits and Wall Street…”

Yeah, comrade. Also known as “capitalism”.

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Featured image is from ZH

A status conference on seismic litigation revealed today the industry will not pursue efforts to employ seismic blasting to search the Atlantic Ocean for offshore petroleum deposits this year, and possibly for several years.

The hearing marked a victory for dozens of organizations and thousands of coastal communities and businesses in a years-long legal and public battle challenging the government’s issuance of Incidental Harassment Authorizations, or IHAs. Those authorizations were needed because the airgun bombardment of the seafloor would have hurt ocean animals, including the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.

The developments included:

• Recognition by government attorneys that the IHAs would expire on Nov. 30, and there was no mechanism to extend them;
• Acknowledgment that seeking new permits would move the lengthy process back to square one;
• A concession from lawyers representing the seismic industry that it is not feasible to launch boats this year.

“This is a huge victory not just for us but for every coastal community that loudly and persistently protested the possibility of seismic blasting,” said Catherine Wannamaker, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “There will be no boats in the water this year, and because this resets the clock, there will be no boats in the water for a long time. And we’ll continue fighting to keep it that way.”

Quotes from participating organizations:

“Seismic blasting harms whales in the search for offshore oil that we should leave in the ground. We can’t allow the oil industry’s greed to threaten endangered North Atlantic right whales and other vulnerable species,” said Kristen Monsell, ocean legal director with the Center for Biological Diversity. “We’re happy these animals will have a reprieve from this unjustified acoustic attack on our oceans. We’ll keep fighting to ensure the oil industry stays out of the Atlantic.”

“We are at a crucial time for the last remaining 400 North Atlantic right whales on the planet,” said Alice M. Keyes, vice president of coastal conservation for One Hundred Miles. “Seismic blasting in the Atlantic would sound the death knell for this magnificent species. We are proud to stand alongside hundreds of thousands of Georgians and East Coast residents who have fought against seismic blasting for the protection of our marine mammals, fisheries and ocean-dependent economies.”

“The end of Atlantic seismic testing for the foreseeable future is a much-needed reprieve for marine life, including the critically-endangered North Atlantic right whale,” said Jane Davenport, senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife. “However, until there is an outright ban on offshore oil and gas drilling along the East Coast, we will continue to fight against this disruptive and dangerous practice.”

“Seismic surveys are the precursor to offshore drilling, but these waters are far too important to sacrifice to Big Oil. There’s no need to risk irreplaceable marine wildlife just for potential information about oil deposits that should never be drilled in the first place,” said Earthjustice Managing Attorney Steve Mashuda. “We’re grateful there will be no airgun blasting in the near future and will keep up the fight to make sure it stays that way.”

“We are relieved that the threat of seismic testing and its damage to marine wildlife is at least temporarily lifted,” said Laura Cantral, executive director of the Coastal Conservation League. “It’s vital that we use this pause to secure a permanent ban on offshore energy exploration activities and drilling in South Carolina and adjoining waters, and finally put an end to the unacceptable risk it poses to our economy and environment.”

“There will be no seismic blasting this year, and none of the senseless harm that would bring to our whales and fish and coastal communities, but the administration has left the door open to new proposals from industry,” said Michael Jasny, director of the Marine Mammal Protection Project at NRDC. “The only way to end the threat is to prohibit offshore oil and gas exploration for good.”

“Communities can breathe a little easier knowing the Atlantic is now safe from seismic airgun blasting in 2020. Today’s much needed news is a bright spot and in line with the court of public opinion,” said Diane Hoskins, Oceana campaign director. “Over 90% of coastal municipalities in the proposed blast zone are opposed to opening our coast to offshore drilling and its dangerous precursor, seismic airgun blasting. The expiration of these unlawful permits will finally protect coastal communities and our marine life. Oceana has been campaigning for more than a decade to protect our coast from dirty and dangerous offshore-drilling activities. We are going to do everything in our power to permanently protect our coasts and ensure dynamite-like blasting never starts.”

Trailing Biden by an average of 6.8 points — according to Real Clear Politics as of late September — do Trump strategists intend an October surprise to improve his reelection prospects?

On Monday in response to phony US Middle East anti-terrorism operations, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif said the following:

“You claim you eliminated Daesh. You killed Daesh’s number one enemy in a wretched act and with utmost bestiality.”

Zarif referred to the Pentagon’s murder of redoubtable terrorist fighter Iranian Quds Force commander General Qassem Soleimani in January.

Tehran-backed Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was killed at the same time — prompting retaliatory rocket attacks against the US presence in the country that continue.

On Sunday, two US convoys were attacked with explosive devices. Iraqis want their country back, Pentagon occupation ended.

In early September, US CENTCOM commander General Kenneth Mckenzie said Pentagon troop strength in Iraq would be reduced to about 3,000.

Is the Middle East the most likely location if an October surprise is coming? Will Iraq be targeted with Iran in mind?

Are more US preemptive hostilities in the region possible ahead of November elections?

Along with China and Russia, Iran is a key US target for regime change.

According to Bloomberg News, citing unnamed sources, the Trump regime intends new sanctions on over a dozen Iranian banks, along with remittance processors, and the informal hawala transfer system.

The action aims to try isolating the country’s financial sector from the world community and make it harder for Biden to rejoin the JCPOA if he’s elected president in November.

Despite everything thrown at Iran by the US for over 40 years, including all-out sanctions war, especially by the Trump regime, the Islamic Republic remains resilient.

Along with more sanctions that have no legal validity under international law, will Trump regime hardliners provoke confrontation with Iran in the coming weeks?

On the phony pretext of combatting ISIS the US created and supports, using its jihadists as proxy forces in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, the Pentagon terror-bombed Iraq on September 23.

According to Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet spokeswoman Commander Rebecca Rebarich, two F/A-18F Super Hornets from the USS Nimitz conducted the strikes.

The US Navy tweeted:

“Locked and Loaded #NavyReadiness”

“#USSNimitz (CVN 68) conducts flight operations in support of #OperationInherentResolve.”

“Nimitz is deployed to the @US5thFleet to ensure maritime stability and security in the Central Region (sic).”

Ahead of the strike, a Fifth Fleet news release said CVW 17 will “provid(e) close air support and defensive counter-air missions to the coalition fight” against Daesh forces — the terror group supported by the US and its imperial partners left unexplained.

Separately according to US media reports on Sunday, the Trump regime threatened to close its Baghdad embassy and evacuate its staff unless Iraqi authorities act to end rocket attacks on the heavily-fortified Green Zone where it’s based.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Pompeo informed Iraqi President Barham Salih and Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi of a possible diplomatic pullout from the city — not from its Erbil consulate.

Iraqi MP head of parliament’s Security and Defense Committee Mohammad Reza believes the Trump regime is bluffing.

In his latest press conference, Trump “did not address this issue,” he said, adding:

“I do not expect that the US embassy will be closed.”

“It is used as a kind of pressure on the Iraqi government, (related to the upcoming November presidential) election that the US cares about…No more, no less.”

Whether or not the Trump regime follows through on its threat, will it escalate strikes on Iraqi Shia militias with close ties to Iran?

With US November elections drawing near, will Trump strategists provoke confrontation with Iran to try increasing support for DJT?

In an attempt to revive his lagging behind reelection campaign, will he initiate a false flag incident against Iran as a pretext for confrontation.

False flags are a longstanding US tradition since the mid-19th century.

Post-9/11, the mother of all US false flags, GW Bush’s approval rating rose from around 50 to 85% in a few days, peaking at 90% on September 21?

Do Trump strategists have a similar scheme in mind, hoping he’ll get an approval boost to defeat Biden and gain a second term?

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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.

Hayat Tahir Sham (HTS), formerly known as Jibhat al Nusra, the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, began demanding the evacuation of civilians in Agrabat in the Idlib province recently, or they would be moved by force.  HTS is supported by President Erdogan of Turkey and has come under increased pressure to remove civilians from areas of armed conflict under an agreement between Turkey and Russia. Idlib is the last terrorist occupied area in Syria. The Syrian government has regained about 70% of the nation’s territory and has allied with the Russian military in the fight against terrorism, which is an obligation of all UN members.

The skies over northwest Syria witnessed flights by Turkish and Russian warplanes amid the almost continuous mutual bombardment of southern Idlib. Civilians have said they fear a massive military operation is coming.

Turkish F16 aircraft flew along the border strip between Syria and Turkey, while Russian reconnaissance aircraft flew over Zawiya Mountain, and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) shelled HTS in intense strikes on areas within Zawiya Mountain in Idlib, unleashing a heavy barrage on the terrorist positions.

The heaviest fighting in six months continues to intensify in Idlib between Harras al-din (HaD) and the Turkish backed HTS, and the SAA.

Idlib is in a de-escalation zone agreed upon between Turkey and Russia in March. Erdogan of Turkey has poured thousands of troops in an invasion of Idlib, later President Putin of Russia forged an agreement to defuse a military confrontation. Turkey has more than ten thousand troops stationed in dozens of bases in Idlib province, and Russian pressure and diplomacy have sought to contain them.

The recent upsurge in fighting has seen the SAA amassing troops on the front lines in a looming confrontation, with the SAA increasing attacks on the numerous Turkish occupation outposts and the Turkish countered by sending in 15 armored vehicles over the border from Turkey.

Hayat Tahir al-Sham

HTS is the Al Qaeda affiliate in Idlib and is the strongest of the Radical Islamic terrorist groups who occupy Idlib. Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani is the leader of HTS, which is loathed by the civilian population because of their extremism and fascist political ideology which keeps women in subjugation and servitude.

The civilians are not the original inhabitants of Idlib, who left years ago, but the thousands of militants and their families who left on the green buses from various areas around Syria under a voluntary relocation program.

Ansar Abu Bakr Brigade

Ansar Abu Bakr Brigade is a hardcore terrorist group that is opposed to Turkey, HTS, Russia, and SAA. They have warned of more attacks on Turkish soldiers stationed in Idlib province after they claimed an attack on a Turkish military base in western Idlib province last week, close to the M4 highway.

Recently, a pick-up truck packed with explosives targeted a Turkish base in western Idlib, injuring several Turkish troops and HTS terrorists guarding the outpost.

Hurras al-Din (HaD) is a hardcore Al-Qaeda group that broke away from HTS, and the Ansar Abu Bakr Brigade is formed from them, while all have a history of ideological and leadership ties to Al-Qaeda, and view Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri as their “defining authority”. Almost all of the members are non-Syrian foreign terrorists who were initially brought to Idlib by the CIA program supported by Turkey which President Trump disavowed in 2017.

Russian-Turkey agreement and joint patrols

Russia and Turkey entered an agreement in September 2018 to demilitarize the Idlib province. On March 3 Turkey and Russia agreed on a ceasefire to establish security for the M4 highway connecting the Port of Latakia to the industrial city of Aleppo, with joint patrols to begin on March 15.

Turkish and Russian soldiers were trained to communicate in case of emergencies; however, the terrorists have launched attacks on both Turkish and Russian patrols at various times, which resulted in a break-down in the patrols due to security concerns. Russia has recently stepped up its attacks on the headquarters of HTS, HaD, and Ansar Abu Bakr Brigade.

Turkey has failed to implement its obligations under the agreements with Russia in Idlib, which was to separate the terrorists from the civilians. Turkey wants to maintain the chaos in Idlib, including the Al Qaeda linked groups who Turkey supports as their foot-soldiers in Syria.

M4 Highway

Turkish and Russian troops have come under attack from terrorist groups on the M4 highway, with roadside bombs and rockets frequently targeting the patrols which stopped at the end of March but resumed on July 22.

On August 18 the joint patrol was attacked, and again on August 25 when a Russian convoy was damaged and left two Russian servicemen injured.

Chemical attack in the planning stages

On February 1 about 15 ‘White Helmets’ members arrived and began working on a planned chemical attack, according to two residents who warned authorities of the plot in the border city of Sarmada, north of Idlib, after terrorists and a convoy of three trucks loaded with different chemical containers arrived.

“The provocation involving a crowd of about 200 people is planned to be staged in the settlement of Maaret al-Artik. These people, including children, are mostly family members of militants who were previously evacuated from southern governorates and have arrived in the Idlib de-escalation zone. About 400 liters of a chemical solution has been delivered by White Helmets activists in two pickup cars to the location from an underground storage facility,” the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Parties said.

According to the Russian center, the group was led by HTS terrorist Mahi al-Din al-Am, who took part in filming the fake chemical attack in Idlib’s Khan Shaykhoun on April 4, 2017.

The video of the staged chemical attack would be posted on ‘White Helmets’ accounts in social networks and would be picked up by Western and Arab media.

The Russian center has called on Turkey to exert pressure to prevent the use of poisonous agents in Idlib; however, HTS is supported by Turkey, and the movement of the chemicals was facilitated by Turkish intelligence agents.

“The Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Opposing Sides received information about the preparation of a provocation using poisonous substances in the southern part of the Idlib de-escalation zone by the terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham,” Russian Admiral Alexander Grinkevich recently said, to accuse the Syrian government forces of using chemical weapons against civilians.

HTS terrorists have two tons of toxic agents warehoused in a civilian inhabited area in Southwest Idlib according to local sources, who believes is the reason for the recent demands by HTS for civilians to leave the area, or be forced to leave.

Syria surrendered its stockpile of chemical weapons in 2014 to a joint mission led by the United States and the OPCW, which oversaw the destruction of the weaponry. However, on April 14, 2018, the US, Britain, and France carried out a string of airstrikes against Syria over a suspected chemical weapons attack on the city of Douma. Trump and his allies blamed Damascus for the Douma attack, even though Trump’s Secretary of Defense James Mattis stated that the US has no evidence that Syria has used chemicals on civilians.

Turkey uses the Syrian refugees and displaced persons

Turkey has been accused of using Syrian refugees and displaced persons to leverage EU support for its invasion and military action in Idlib.

“Refugees are not a bargaining chip to be played with at the whims of political leaders. Europeans cannot look away from what might become one of the worst humanitarian disasters the war in Syria has brought on its people. Respecting international humanitarian law as well as the human right to protection and refuge remains the sole possible answer in front of such indiscriminate violence,” said Wadih Al-Asmar, President of EuroMed Rights.

European leaders have been threatened by Erdogan that he may unleash a huge wave of refugees towards Europe if he is not allowed to remain in Syria.

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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

On March 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. When I think of this scary word it conjures up heartbreaking images of vast numbers of people suffering, precipitated into abysmal poverty. The WHO used to agree with me.

For years the WHO on its “Pandemic Preparedness” homepage defined a pandemic as “several simultaneous epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness.” In 2009, however, the part about “enormous numbers of death and illness” was removed. Since 2010, the WHO’s “Emergencies preparedness, response” page now has the following definition: “A pandemic is the worldwide spread of a new disease.”

In a May 4, 2009 article, David Ozonoff, professor of environmental health at the Boston University School of Public Health told CNN: “The word pandemic refers to how widely dispersed a disease is, not to how severe the disease is…you can have a pandemic without a large number of deaths.” This is exactly what we have in the case of the flu.

According to the WHO:

“Influenza remains one of the world’s greatest public health challenges. Every year across the globe, there are an estimated 1 billion cases, of which 3 to 5 million are severe cases, resulting in 290,000 to 650,000 influenza-related respiratory deaths.”

In the case of COVID-19, officially, worldwide, there are 33,916,696 cases and 1,013,879 deaths. Out of a global population of 7,815,358,156, this amounts to a death count of almost 1/100th of one percent. In the U.S., the tally is 7,407,201 cases and 210,814 deaths out of a population of 334,742,314 which amounts to a death count of around 2/3 of 1/10th of 1 percent.

Since on average 56 million people worldwide die every year from all causes and on average 2,830,688 in the U.S., the number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 and the flu are  small. Certainly no reason to lock down the global economy and force people to wear masks. However, there is one very important difference between COVID-19 and the flu. So, detach from the COVID-19 fear narrative, fasten your seat belts, and look at the hard facts.

All COVID-19 tests are faulty.

May 26 CNN article: “Antibody tests used to determine if people have been infected in the past with COVID-19 might be wrong up to half the time…” They got this from the CDC’s own website which also states that antibody tests are not accurate enough to determine who should go back to work. Yet, the EEOC (Equal Employment opportunity commission) is allowing employers to force employees to be tested for COVID-19.

May 22 Science Magazine article: “Coronavirus antigen tests: quick and cheap, but too often wrong?” reported:

“Antigen tests don’t amplify their protein signal, so they are inherently less sensitive. To make matters worse, that signal gets diluted when samples are mixed with the liquid needed to enable the material to flow across test strips. As a result, most antigen tests have a sensitivity of anywhere between 50% and 90%…Last month, Spanish health authorities returned thousands of SARS-CoV-2 antigen tests to the Chinese firm Shengzhen Bioeasy Biotechnology after finding the tests correctly identified infected people only 30% of the time…”

FDA website on PCR tests, Page 38:

“Detection of viral RNA may not indicate the presence of infectious virus or that 2019-nCoV is the causative agent for clinical symptoms…The performance of this test has not been established for monitoring treatment of 2019-nCoV infection…This test cannot rule out diseases caused by other bacterial or viral pathogens.”

Bottom line: none of these tests can determine how much, if any, active infectious virus is in a person’s body because they don’t look for a virus. Instead, the virus is assumed to be present based on the detection of antibodies, antigens and fragments of nucleic acid. These tests aren’t discovering new COVID-19 cases—they are creating them.

COVID-19 case and death numbers are grossly inflated. There is no reason to believe any of the statistics provided by any government anywhere.

Example: Virginia, May 1, NBC 12 report:

“During a COVID-19 briefing, the State Department of Health announced it will now count the number of positive virus tests instead of the number of people who test positive. That means if one person is tested three times, and all three tests come back positive, it counts as three instead of how the numbers were being counted before which would only have been one because it was a single patient…Other states, including North Carolina, have been reporting testing numbers that way for quite some time.”

Example: Texas, May 18, Collin County Government meeting, 15 min. 28 sec. mark – 1hr 5 min mark, a Health Department representative explains to the Council that a new definition of COVID-19 cases is being introduced whereby a single confirmed case (someone who tested positive) can be counted up to seventeen times by including members of their household (not tested with no symptoms) friends, neighbors, and coworkers with symptoms (not tested), and a coworker’s family with no symptoms (not tested). The charts used at the meeting are available here. At the 58 min. mark they admit that they always knew that the lockdowns and social distancing would never stop COVID-19 from spreading.The County Council Judge called the lockdowns “irresponsible” and “irrational.”

Example: ABC News, July 21, Florida report:

“Governor DeSantis says he’s concerned about the accuracy of COVID-19 test results…People have said they submitted their contact information at a COVID-19 testing site, but after seeing how long the line was, they decided not to wait an hour or more to get the test. Nevertheless, a few days later, they got an email or a phone call telling them that they tested positive.”

Example: on September 1, ABC7 News reported that 94% of all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. had other chronic diseases according to a new CDC report (see Comorbidities): “For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.”Among those additional conditions listed on the CDC website are: “Influenza and pneumonia,” “Respiratory failure,” “Hypertensive disease,” “Diabetes,” “Heart failure,” “Renal failure,” “Cardiac arrest,” “Obesity,” “Sepsis,” “Alzheimer disease,” “Intentional and unintentional injury, poisoning and other adverse events.”

Example: USA News, July 19, article: “Florida officials admit counting MOTORCYCLE death as COVID-19 fatality, remove it from list after media scrutiny.” It was Fox35, a subsidiary of Fox News, that initially broke the story. The article includes the following idiotic statement from Orange County Health Officer Dr Raul Pino: “But you could actually argue that it could have been COVID-19 that caused him to crash.”

Doesn’t this just fill you with confidence in public health authorities? So much for the Florida Health Department’s official policy that accidents don’t count as COVID-19 deaths. And this young guy in his 20s would have remained a COVID-19 fatality if Fox35 had not caught them. How many more cases like this are there?

It’s time to face the truth:

COVID-19 isn’t a disease just as sporting goods isn’t a hunting rifle. COVID-19 is a new category that a percentage of sick people, along with a percentage of healthy people, are herded into.

COVID-19 is a label, a classification, a designation, a figment of the imagination—a complete and utter fraud. There is no reason to wear a mask. There is no reason to do any kind of social distancing. There was never any reason to lock down the economy. There is no deadly virus—only inaccurate tests and corrupt politicians controlled by global elitists who want to rob and exploit us. Face it folks, you’ve been had, hoodwinked, bamboozled, lied to, conned, duped. The world is the same this year as it was last year and every year before. There is nothing to be afraid of.

Selling a Story

All of this COVID-19 propaganda that we are constantly being bombarded with is a sales pitch. I ought to know. I’ve been in sales for over 40 years. As a sales professional, I was taught to sell the sizzle, not the steak. I was taught that what we are really doing is selling a story. It doesn’t matter what the product or service is. The bosses give us a script to memorize and regurgitate. We don’t have to know what we’re talking about or even if it’s true. All we have to do is mouth the words and go through the motions. Don’t worry about truth—just follow the script, we were told, and you will make lots of money. Just follow the yellow brick road and it will lead to Emerald City in the merry old land of Oz. Just wear masks, constantly wash your hands, socially distance, stay home, and wait for the magic vaccine to arrive and you will be saved. Hallelujah! Praise Jesus! Enough already!

Want to get rid of COVID-19 and go back to a normal life? Then stop testing for it and it will go away. It’s that simple. And while you’re at it, stop thinking about it and stop worrying about it—pay it no mind.

Hold on a second. That’s stupid! Will pregnancy go away if we stop testing for it? Answer: of course not! That’s absurd because pregnancy is real. Pregnant women are real. You can deny reality, you can ignore it, but you can’t make it go away because reality is real. You can deny there is a brick wall in front of you, but try walking through it and reality will bash you in the face every time. But COVID-19 isn’t real so if you don’t test for it and ignore it, it will go away. Think of it as waking up from a bad dream. COVID-19 will go away when you wake up.

While dreaming, we get so caught up in an illusion that we don’t realize that what we are experiencing isn’t real so we play by the rules of the false reality. We might even be living a different life, think we know people we never met, and forget about our true life and who we really are.

With COVID-19, too many of us have accepted a false reality in the real world.

If this artificial existence goes on long enough we may never be able to face reality ever again.

Fear will keep us trapped: afraid of germs, afraid of human contact, afraid to take off the mask and breathe the air of the planet on which we were born. The late spiritual teacher Carlos Castaneda said that a sign of enlightenment, or being able to see clearly and truthfully, is to be able to realize you’re dreaming while you’re dreaming and to alter its reality. The only way to alter this COVID-19 nightmare is to wake up to what’s really going on.

The fact that all governments around the world with few exceptions adopted the same oppressive policies in response to COVID-19 at the same time clearly shows that their strings are being pulled by some outside cabal. This cabal consists of multinational pharmaceutical companies, and billionaire philanthropists along with their foundations. These entities have become an unelected shadow government that has corrupted medical science, public health institutions, and politicians. And their plans for us peons are devastating.

On April 21, 2020, the Rockefeller Foundation put out a report entitled: “National Covid-19 Testing Action Plan” “Pragmatic steps to reopen our workplaces and our communities” It talks about carrying out “the largest public health testing program in American history” and refers to treating it “as a wartime effort.” It calls for hiring 100,000 to 300,000 people nationwide to test 20 to 30 million people per day in order to allow just about everyone to return to work. This would result in not only testing and contact tracing in every community, but also a “public health workforce” that could sanitize public spaces, spray sanitizers on people’s hands, and enforce social distancing rules.

Feeling nauseous yet? Wait, it gets better.

On pages 17-18, the report decrees that “privacy concerns must be set aside” in order to access people’s “infection status.” It further sates: “The loss of privacy engendered by such a system would come at too high a price if the arrival of a vaccine early next year was a certainty. But vaccine development and manufacture could take years.”

In other words, this crap is never going to end. Now, pay attention because here it comes:

A depiction of our future vaccine I.D. card can be found on page 18 of the report. It will provide everyone with

“a unique patient identification number that would link to a patient’s viral antibody and eventual vaccine status under a system that could easily handshake with other systems to speed the return to normal societal functions.”

This could potentially stop unvacinated and supposedly infected people from getting a job, traveling, or from going to sports events, concerts, etc. The report even talks about installing tracking apps on our smart phones. Naturally, the public should be “nudged” into using these apps. But forcing people to use them isn’t out of the question.

The Rockefeller Foundation report states that they are working with the governments in Maryland and California to implement these diabolical medical gestapos that will eventually include the entire nation. We must oppose this brand of tyranny. We cannot allow state, federal, and local governments to take us down a path that will lead to economic devastation, despotism, shattered lives, despair, and death.

Shame on all of us if we stand by and do nothing.

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Michael J. Talmo has been a professional writer for over 40 years and is strongly committed to the protection of civil liberties. He can be reached at [email protected].

While browsing the History/Politics section of a local bookstore the number of works devoted to the many aspects of Donald Trump was quite amazing, but considering his impact on current events domestically and globally probably not truly surprising.  Unable to decide which might provide the best overall view, the title Hatemonger by Jean Guerrero carried an obvious bias, not about Trump per se, but about one of the most influential characters in his coterie of admirers, Stephen Miller.  While many have come and gone, Stephen Miller remains attached to the Trump cause, and Trump is equally attracted to his hate monger.

The prologue effectively outlines the relationship between Miller and Trump – the similarities in their thoughts and actions.  Guerrero states clearly, “It is impossible to understand the Trump era, with its unparalleled polarization, without tracing Miller’s journey to the White House.”  Reading even just the first line of each introductory paragraph before the details are delivered provides a good overview of the relationship:

“In a White House where people are frequently forced out, Miller has survived….He grasps Trump’s grudges and goals….The demonization of migrants is to Miller what the border wall is to Trump: a tool with which to mobilized the base,” the base being white male supremacists.

As for the title, Guerrero writes,

“Trump knew how to hatemonger before he met Miller….but when their paths collided, there was an alchemy.  Trump’s riches, marketing instinct and emotional racism emerged with Miller’s fanatical ideology, work ethic and strategic thinking.”

After the prologue begins the Miller’s tale.

It tells of someone strongly racist, xenophobic, and someone ready and willing to manipulate in whatever manner was required for the success of their ideology.  One of the facets was adopting Horowitz’s assertion that between hope and fear, “fear is a much stronger and more compelling emotion.”  He knew that whatever ire they could raise would simply harvest the media attention and focus it entirely on Trump, “The more upset the media was at his boss – or pretended to be – the better.  They’d fixate on him, elevate him.”

Inside the government, Miller applied himself, establishing himself as one of the principal movers of his and Trump’s agenda.  From Guerrero’s descriptions, the agenda is mostly Miller’s playing with Trump’s ideas however ill conceived or considered.  But it wasn’t just about Trump, “Miller observed early that to survive in Trump’s orbit, he would have to ally himself with Trump’s beloved daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner.  It wasn’t hard.”  Miller is Jewish and pro-Zionist.  Very quickly “Miller was expanding his control across the government.  He dispatched ideological allies to key positions within the bureaucracy.”

Miller’s tale makes interesting reading about how one person with the ability to focus and the drive to dominate can steer the course of history.  Certainly there are other characters within the Trump pantheon, but Miller is a survivor, and wields much power with Trump.  It becomes a bit thin towards the most recent events, but that is a problem all writers have with the pace of events and deadlines for publishing.

The underlying message, while not actually stated, could be summed up even as the polls indicate a Trump election defeat:  do not count Trump out, his messaging may be racist, xenophobic, misogynist, narcissistic, and all the other negative adjectives one can find to describe him but, his base is solid, he is willing to deal with fear, and willing to pull out whatever tricks the Republicans can use in order to keep him – and them – in power.

Jean Guerroro’s Hatemonger is a timely publication before the election.  It will lose its punch if Trump is defeated and goes, but will become even more important if Trump wins – a good look at the two personalities leading a declining nation.

Footnotes:

After watching the ‘Presidential’ debate last night, Trump’s manner/methodology is straight out of Miller’s playbook: be aggressive, change the subject, attack the person, continually harp on one main topic, lie, dissimulate, and deceive.

It will be interesting to see if Biden goes through with the second debate.  If not, that might just reinforce Trump’s base, labelling him a loser.  If yes, then he has to suffer through another hour and a half of the same style of argument while trying to stay focused and calm.

Biden will not change the course of the imperial trajectory, but at least we will not have to listen toTrump’s narcissistic xenophobic misogynist rambling comments.

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Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Since brutally dragged from Ecuador’s London embassy in April last year, confined to maximum security imprisonment, and subjected to guilt by accusation extradition hearings, establishment media have been largely silent about his state-sponsored crucifixion for the “crime” of truth-telling journalism.

Britain in cahoots with Trump regime hardliners want his life force slowly extinguished as a message to other truth-telling journalists of a similar fate awaiting them if dare expose US high crimes of war and against humanity.

According to testimony by US defense attorney Yancey Ellis and prisoner advocate Joel Sickler at London’s Old Bailey, Assange faces a “worse than death” fate if extradited to America — what’s likely from kangaroo court proceedings, presided over by Judge Vanessa Baraitser.

In the US, unconstitutional solitary confinement awaits him — a flagrant breach of prohibited 8th Amendment cruel and unusual punishment.

Isolated US prisoners are confined for 23 hours or longer daily in cells around 7 x 7 feet.

Societies are best judged by how they treat children, the elderly, the infirm, their most disadvantaged and prisoners. The US fails on all counts.

Social psychologist Hans Toch coined the term “isolation panic” – describing symptoms including hysteria, rage, total loss of control, emotional breakdown, regressive behavior, and self-mutilation.

Alcatraz was the prototype US super-max prison until closed in 1963.

Isolation behind bars crushes the human spirit, mind and body.

Longterm it causes panic attacks, lethargy, insomnia, nightmares, dizziness, irrational anger, memory loss, delusions and hallucinations, profound despair, paranoia, and suicidal thoughts to relieve unbearable emotional pain.

Caged like animals is like being buried alive. Even the strongest-willed break under unbearable strain.

Isolated in London’s Belmarsh prison, Assange endured the worst solitary confinement.

Denied human contact, it’ll continue or worsen if extradited to the US — slow brutalizing torture by any standard.

Along with nearly 200 international lawyers, judges, professors of law, and lawyers’ associations, over 100 notable current and former politicians and diplomats from 27 countries — including present and past heads of state — called for Assange’s unconditional release from politicized extrajudicial imprisonment.

On trial in London’s Old Bailey are speech, media and academic freedoms.

Extraditing him to death by slow-torture in the US will be a body blow to these fundamental freedoms.

Commenting on Assange and press freedom, ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project director Ben Wizner earlier said the following:

“Any prosecution of Mr. Assange…would be unprecedented and unconstitutional, and would open the door to criminal investigations of other news organizations.”

“(P)rosecuting a foreign publisher for violating US secrecy laws would set an especially dangerous precedent for US journalists, who routinely violate foreign secrecy laws to deliver information vital to the public’s interest.”

Star Chamber-like proceedings against Assange exclude due process and judicial fairness — assuring guilt by accusation with no right of appeal — followed by extradition to the US.

Instead of rallying to his support in defense of truth-telling journalism the way it’s supposed to be, establishment media support his crucifixion by a conspiracy of near silence — ignoring show trial injustice.

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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.

Randy Hillier, (Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston) questioned the Premier on concerns being raised all over the world about the reliability of PCR tests for COVID.

“We know high false positive rates are due to high CTs (cycle thresholds) and Canadian and world experts agree it should not be more than 25 cycles. Yet according to the Journal of Virology, Ontario labs are testing samples at 38-45 cycles. Is our testing creating both a false understanding of risk as well as false positives?” Hillier asked the Premier.

Responding for the Premier, Minister of Health Christine Elliott seemed to acknowledge the problem, and simply implied that faulty testing was better than no testing.

“Since May, The Public Health Agency of Canada as well as virologists and other doctors around the world have been warning of problems with PCR testing procedures,” Hillier explained.

Amplification cycles are used to amplify a sample to make it easier to find the RNA that identifies COVID in a person; the threshold, or maximum amplification cycle, known as ‘CT’, should not exceed 25, yet Ontario labs are testing at between 38 and 45 cycles. This causes false positives because of improper manipulation of the sample.

Minister Elliott would not say when the government became aware of this problem and why nothing has yet been done to address it. Instead of committing to fixing the problem with PCR testing procedures, the Health Minister instead deflected by talking about other testing possibilities, many of which are not yet approved by Health Canada, or not widely available yet.

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The Unfinished People’s Revolution: From Philadelphia to Havana, and Back Again

By Prof. Charles McKelvey, October 01, 2020

The Western European democratic revolutions of the late eighteenth century sought to establish more just societies through replacement of monarchies with republics and the elimination of hereditary class distinctions between nobles and commoners.

The 2020 Election: Nothing Will Change

By Robert Fantina, October 01, 2020

There are some people who believe a Biden presidency will usher in change. Has hell frozen over? He has a long record in government of ‘business as usual’, so looking for change from him and the Democratic Party is an exercise in futility.

“The Vaccine Should be Tested on Politicians First. If They Survive, the Vaccine Is Safe. If They Don’t, Then the Country Is Safe.”

By Peter Koenig, October 01, 2020

One may want to add to this very sensible proposal that the very first to be vaccinated with his own Moderna human genome-altering vaccine, should imperatively be the czar of vaccines, Bill Gates.

Letter from London: The Surreal US Case Against Assange

By Alexander Mercouris, October 01, 2020

The fox is guarding the henhouse and Washington is prosecuting a publisher for exposing its own war crimes. Alexander Mercouris diagnoses the incoherence of the U.S. case for extradition.

Why Is the World Going to Hell? Netflix’s “The Social Dilemma” Documentary Tells Only Half the Story

By Jonathan Cook, October 01, 2020

According to “The Social Dilemma”, we are fast reaching a kind of human “event horizon”, with our societies standing on the brink of collapse. We face what several interviewees term an “existential threat” from the way the internet, and particularly social media, are rapidly developing. 

The 1st Presidential Debate: Worse Is Yet to Come

By Dr. Jack Rasmus, October 01, 2020

Biden raised the New York Times’ story released over the weekend in which Trump’s tax returns showed Trump paid only $750 in total federal income taxes over two years, 2016-2017. Trump of course denied it as ‘fake news’.

UK Government Probing Cyber-attack over Syria Propaganda Leaks

By Ian Cobain, September 30, 2020

Hackers have penetrated the computer systems of the UK’s foreign ministry and taken hundreds of files detailing the country’s controversial propaganda programmes in war-torn Syria.

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After the first U.S. Presidential nominees’ debate, which occurred on September 29th, it is clear that America’s two mainstream political Parties failed disastrously to provide the nation’s voters with adequate options for the U.S. Presidency. Trump is a proven failure in every key respect, and Biden showed himself not even qualified for the office — maybe even less competent than his opponent is, and having no sense or awareness of how dire the nation’s condition has become (not only since January 20th of 2017, but ever since January 20th of 2001). We’re clearly in deep trouble, and the signs now are for even worse yet to come, regardless of whether the next President would be Biden, or Trump. If it will be Trump, he would likely be even more indebted to the far right than he has been. If it would be Biden, then he would be merely a face fronting for his biggest campaign donors, such as, perhaps, the top owners of Lockheed Martin.

Biden knows that his mental faculties are failing fast; and, so, even as early as 11 December 2019, Ryan Lizza headlined at Politico, “Biden signals to aides that he would serve only a single term”, and he reported that:

While the option of making a public pledge [to serve only one term] remains available, Biden has for now settled on an alternative strategy: quietly indicating that he will almost certainly not run for a second term while declining to make a promise that he and his advisers fear could turn him into a lame duck and sap him of his political capital.

According to four people who regularly talk to Biden, all of whom asked for anonymity to discuss internal campaign matters, it is virtually inconceivable that he will run for reelection in 2024.

Apparently, Kamala Harris is now running for President — not only  for Vice President — against the incumbent Trump;  and her ‘boss’, Biden, isn’t discouraging her extraordinary behavior in this regard; he is instead assisting it. Here are some recent signs of this remarkable fact:

A Biden-Harris campaign video was recently recorded, on September 12th, and published on the 15th, in which Kamala Harris says:

“A Harris Administration together with Joe Biden as the President of the United States, the Biden-Harris Administration, will have access, provide access, to one hundred billion dollars in loans and investments for minority business-owners.”

This statement was widely interpreted, among the surprisingly few news-media that reported it, to have been merely a flub by her, nothing that’s really remarkable. However, a campaign video which was published later the same day, had Joe Biden himself, reading from a teleprompter, and saying:

“A Harris-Biden administration is going to relaunch that effort and keep pushing further to make it easier for military spouses and veterans to find meaningful careers to ensure teachers know how to support military children in their classrooms and to improve support for caregivers and survivors so much more than we do now.”

The indications seem fairly clear that if Americans vote for Joe Biden to become the President, then not only will he not serve a second term, but he might not even serve much (or perhaps even any) of his first term. Why would this be so? Why is not Biden himself publicly disowning what Harris had said on September 12th, instead of himself saying essentially the same thing (as he immediately did)?

Furthermore: did his debate-performance on September 29th give him encouragement to be anything other than  a stand-in for his choice of Kamala Harris to be the next U.S. President? As he looks at a video of that performance, what would he think of it? If he wouldn’t be extremely depressed to look at it, then would his mental powers be even worse than one might otherwise consider them to be — simply oblivious to reality? He didn’t do even as well as Trump (which was also poor).

Harris had quit the Democratic Party Presidential primaries back on 3 December 2019, well before the first primary, in Iowa. CNBC bannered “Kamala Harris drops out of presidential race after plummeting from top tier of Democratic candidates”. Although she  had received campaign donations from 17 billionaires, while Biden had received them from only 13, she scored poorly in the polls, and knew, even before the end of 2019, that there was no way she’d be able to win the 2020 nomination. She now stands a very good likelihood of becoming the next U.S. President, despite that fact.

The only contender in the Democratic Party Presidential primaries who was a serious possibility to win the nomination, other than Biden, was Bernie Sanders, who received campaign donations from zero billionaires, none of them at all, but was nonetheless able to become the leading candidate after the contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, until the South Carolina primary on 29 February 2020, and Biden’s subsequent sweeps of all of the Old Dixie states on Super Tuesday, 3 March 2020. Sanders quit on April 8th.

No third-party U.S. Presidential nominee stands any chance, at all, of getting even as much as 3% of the votes by Election Day; even Ralph Nader, in the year 2000, didn’t — he received only 2.74%, and came nowhere near to winning even a single state.

Sanders has the biggest U.S. national political following of any candidate who failed to win a major-Party’s Presidential nomination, and he is the only individual in the United States whose name is — in and of itself — a big enough political brand to stand a chance of winning the U.S. Presidency as a merely write-in candidate if a national movement will organize itself (even without any authorization from him) to encourage American voters to write his name in on a write-in line of their Presidential ballot.

If the numbers of voters, who write his name in, exceed the numbers of voters who vote for either of the two major-Party nominees, then, he could become the U.S. President. If not, then at least a message could be sent out, thereby, to the existing two Parties, making clear that, finally, a substantial proportion of the American electorate are rejecting them and believe that the U.S. has become so severely on the wrong track as to require now a very radical change of direction.

Ron Paul was another “movement” U.S. Presidential candidate who never received a major-Party Presidential nomination, but he never had scored in the pre-election polling as being a serious contender to win his Party’s nomination. Sanders did.

The DNC (Democratic National Committee) knew, even back in May 2016, that Sanders would actually be stronger than Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump, but they nonetheless rigged the results for Hillary against Sanders (and sometimes even blatantly) because their billionaires are more important to them than their voters are. And the same happened with Biden against Sanders in 2020. Sanders is now committed to endorsing Biden, probably as part of a deal which would make him a major cabinet secretary if Biden wins. But that is beside the point here. A write-in is a decision by the individual voter, not by anyone else.

Americans have now seen what the U.S. Presidential debates are, and will be like: a contest between two individuals, both of whom are disastrously incapable of serving the nation adequately in that office.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran for President as a cripple and became elected largely because the public didn’t know it. He is considered by most historians to have been the 2nd-greatest of all American Presidents. The problems are very different with regard to both Trump and Biden. Both men are manifestly incompetent to serve in that office. Would Kamala Harris be any better? The wrong man won the 2020 Democratic nomination, because the DNC is corrupt. Now is the time for each individual voter to make his or her own U.S. Presidential decision, on his or her own, and without any Party-guidance (because that’s so profoundly corrupt, in each of the two Parties).

I shall write-in the name “Bernie Sanders” on the Presidential line of my ballot, and I hereby invite as many American voters as possible to do the same thing — not only as a protest of conscience, but because I recognize — especially after the September 29th debate — that my country has gone so far off onto the wrong path as to require now only such drastic action by each individual U.S. voter, including me. I am no longer part of a Party — I am only an American, now.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

The Western European democratic revolutions of the late eighteenth century sought to establish more just societies through replacement of monarchies with republics and the elimination of hereditary class distinctions between nobles and commoners.  This dynamic reflected the interests of the emerging merchant class as well as the popular classes of workers and peasants, in the context of an emerging capitalist world-economy.

The Jeffersonian-Jacksonian Revolution: An historically advanced expression

The American Republic was the expression of this phenomenon in North America.  Its constitution reflected a compromise between the big merchants and landholders, on the one hand; and the farmers, artisans, and workers, on the other.  The American ideology stressed individual liberty and equality of opportunity.

Material conditions favored the development of the American vision.  In the first place, there was the lucrative trading relation of the New England and Mid-Atlantic farmers with the slaveholders in the West Indies.  Secondly, there was territorial expansion of the nation through the conquest of the indigenous nations.  And thirdly, there was the core-peripheral economic relation between emerging Northern manufacturers and Southern slaveholders, which provided raw materials and markets for Northern industry.  These dynamics were the foundation of the spectacular economic ascent of the nation.

During the period 1789 to 1840, the American Republic remained politically divided between the Federalists and neo-Federalists, who successfully were creating a financial aristocracy; and the popular Jeffersonian-Jacksonian revolution, which maintained that liberty cannot truly exist for the people without a wide distribution of agricultural and manufacturing property, accompanied by popular control of the state and state control of the banking and credit system.

Social philosophy is formulated in the context of lived experiences.  The Jeffersonian-Jacksonian popular revolution did not have the experiential basis for seeing the role of the unfolding European global conquest as the foundation of the nation’s spectacular ascent.  They were aware of the importance of the territorial expansion of the nation, but in accordance with their ethnocentric notions of civilization and barbarity, they viewed the land as freely available.  They recognized the contradiction between slavery and the ideal of liberty and opportunity for all, but they understood the importance of slavery to the economy of the nation, and they could fathom no strategy for its abolition without destroying the national economy, so they deferred its abolition.  They took for granted the lucrative trading relation with the West Indies; they could not see its connection to an emerging system of global domination that contradicted their professed revolutionary values.

In spite of their limited understanding, the Jeffersonian-Jacksonian revolutionaries were a progressive force in the context of their time.  Politically, they defended small farmers and workers against the pretentions of the financial aristocracy and the banks.  Economically, their ideology contributed to an economic ascent that was raising the standard of living of the nation.  They took concrete and practical steps toward the construction of a more just world, in the context of the world that they had inherited and of their lived experiences.

Following the age of Jackson, slavery became a central issue of public debate, as a consequence of the conflict of interests between the Northern industrial elite and the Southern slaveholding class.  For many abolitionists, it was a moral debate, not well integrated into unfolding political processes.  From the beginnings of the debate, the difficulties inherent in changing a structure of labor that was central to the nation’s economy led some to propose the gradual and compensated abolition of slavery.  As the debate intensified, many of the Jeffersonian-Jacksonian revolutionaries seized the opportunity to propose the inclusion of blacks in their vision of liberty and opportunity, on the basis of the distribution of land or wage employment in manufacturing.  The proposal, however, did not have the consistent support of the Northern industrial elite, who merely feigned service to the vision of liberty and opportunity even with respect to whites.  The racial reconstruction project, lacking the necessary balance of political support, collapsed; the majority of freed slaves became impoverished tenant farmers and sharecroppers, lacking the most fundamental of human rights.

By 1890, the material context that provided the foundation for the spectacular U.S. economic ascent had come to an end.  In the first place, territorial expansion was no longer possible, as the nation reached its geographical frontiers.  The escape valve of Western opportunities for urban workers and the unemployed disappeared.

Secondly, industry, commerce, and banking became concentrated.  Concentration was to some extent a natural phenomenon, as the more efficient companies arrived to dominate the market.  But it also was driven by “unfair competition,” involving the use by the “Robber Barons” of illegal, unethical, and violent strategies to destroy competitors.  Small entrepreneurs found opportunities limited, if not blocked.

In this context, there emerged in the last decades of the nineteenth century a popular movement to break-up or regulate the trusts.  But this proposal was not going to be easy to implement.  The big corporations were central to the nation’s economy.  How does the government regulate or control them, without causing havoc to the economy?  A complicated problem, even assuming the government is trying to defend the liberties of the people and not the interests of the corporations and the banks.  During the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, important antitrust legislation was enacted, designed to accomplish this delicate task.  However, before it could be known in practice if Wilson’s project would be effective, the entire effort was cast aside by World War I.

In the battle between the people and the corporations, war functions to the advantage of the corporations.  Inasmuch as the rapid production of arms and military equipment is needed for the war mobilization, the delicate balance between promoting the economic growth of the nation and protecting liberties of the people is upset.  The corporations are given free hand.

As a result of this law of corporate rule through war, World War I and World War II not only drove further the spectacular economic ascent of the nation; they also facilitated the consolidation of the corporate dominance.  By the 1950s, a “power elite” and a “military-industrial complex” had emerged, and the nation arrived to operate on the basis of a permanent war economy, with the political process controlled by the corporations.  The standard of living rose, but the political power of the people diminished.

The incapacity of the people to stop the national turn to war during the course of the twentieth century is rooted in the ideological limitations of the Jeffersonian-Jacksonian revolution, particularly its incapacity to understand the factors driving U.S. ascent and to discern that these factors would soon reach their limit and the end of their time.  The revolutionaries possessed a social philosophy that had been advanced for its time, heralding a new world of individual liberty and opportunity and reinforcing new productive capacities and a spectacular economic ascent.  But they could not discern that the nation was on the road to empire, undermining the republic and its proclaimed democratic values.  They therefore were unprepared to see the coming twentieth century un-proclaimed U.S. imperialism and to delegitimate its pretexts for wars; they were unprepared to stop imperialist wars, in order to defend themselves.

And so, the Jeffersonian-Jacksonian revolution came to an end, unable to reframe the meaning of individual liberty in a world of large corporations; and unable to see that the imperialist domination of other lands was the foundation of the powerlessness of the people of the United States.  Its important legacy, in spite of its limitations, is all but erased from the memory of the people.

The Cuban Revolution: The people’s revolution reaches a more advanced stage

The American Revolution, however, would attain a more advanced expression, appropriate for twentieth century reality, in a nearby island nation, that of Cuba, where the experience of the people was of a different order.  The Cuban Revolution was born in the nineteenth century in the context of Spanish colonialism, and as such, it has been an anti-colonial revolution, which learned early the political necessity of uniting the popular sectors of workers, peasants, and blacks in a struggle against colonial interests and their native allies, the Cuban landed estate bourgeoisie.  Beginning with the U.S. intervention of 1898, Cuba passed to be a neocolonial Republic under U.S. tutelage.  Defined by this neocolonial situation, the Revolution arrived to be an anti-imperialist revolution, uniting popular sectors of workers, students, peasants, blacks, and women; standing against U.S. control and against the Cuban figurehead bourgeoisie and political class that were totally subordinate U.S. interests.  Unlike the American Revolution in the North, the Cuban Revolution not only discerned the role of imperialism in the shaping economic development and underdevelopment, but it also conceived itself as fundamentally an anti-imperialist revolution.

When the Cuban Revolution took political control in 1959, with the overwhelming support of the various popular sectors, it confronted the same problem that the U.S. popular revolution and antitrust movement had confronted in the progressive era in the United States, namely, the problem of how to change the structures of the economy in defense of popular liberties without undermining the productive capacity of the economy.  The Cuban Revolution attacked the problem step-by-step, without a previous ideology beyond that of the right of the nation to sovereignty and the right of the people to social justice.  First, it took possession of large agricultural estates, distributing the land to peasants in the form of cooperatives, state managed farms, and small-scale private property.  Secondly, it nationalized U.S. companies in Cuba, with the intention of cooperating with the United States in the payment of compensation.  Specifically, the Cuban Revolution proposed to establish a fund that would be fed by the USA-Cuba sugar trade in excess of the established sugar quota.  In response to the absence of U.S. cooperation, Cuba proceeded to the nationalization of all foreign companies.  Thirdly, the Revolution nationalized Cuban big industry, placing the companies under state management.  Its initial hope was that Cuban industrialists would cooperate with the Revolution in the economic development of the nation, but the Cuban figurehead bourgeoisie not have sufficient economic and ideological independence from U.S. capital to participate in an autonomous nationalist project of economic development.  The Cuban national bourgeoisie abandoned the country to participate in the U.S. directed Cuban counterrevolution.

The Cuban Revolution, therefore, proceeded on a model in which the state formulates a development plan, seeking to sever its peripheral role in the world-economy and its dependency on the U.S. economy; and taking ownership of private companies, foreign and domestic, not in response to a previously formulated plan, but in accordance with the practical demands of the situation.  The Revolution accepted small-scale private ownership of economic enterprises, insofar as it was practical and necessary for supplying the needs of the people.  With respect to the economy, Cuban socialism has been pragmatic.

The Cuban Revolution dealt with the universal problem of elite control of the political process by abolishing electoral parties and eliminating electoral campaigns.  Candidates for delegates to municipal assemblies are nominated in neighborhood assemblies, and they are elected in small voting districts on the basis of publicly displayed one-page biographies, without the necessity of conducting electoral campaigns.  The elected delegates of the municipal assemblies in turn elect the deputies of the national assembly, on the basis of suggestions submitted by the mass organizations.  Thus constituted, the National Assembly of People’s Power is the highest authority in the nation, which elects the executive and judicial branches of government to five-year terms, and to which the executive and judicial branches must render accounts.

In the first decades of the American Republic, Federalists and conservatives sought to prevent control of the government by the majority, for fear that the interests of the large merchants and landholders and the financial aristocracy would be swept aside.  In contrast, the Cuban Revolution developed a political structure designed to ensure that the interests of the people would be the highest priority of the government.

In the United States, the Federalists and neo-Federalists had feared democracy, which they considered to be systemic mob rule, shaped by unenlightened prejudices disseminated by demagogic politicians.  Accordingly, they favored the establishment of a relatively permanent senate and/or judiciary, constituted by members of the hereditary aristocracy, which would have the authority to check the actions of the mob.  The Cuban Revolution did not naively fail to recognize the possibilities for control of the political process by an unruly mass.  But they dealt with the threat in a different way.  Cuba’s systemic check on the people has been in the form of a vanguard political party, the Communist Party of Cuba.  Unlike the Federalists’ senates and judiciaries, the Cuban vanguard party was not initially formed from a hereditary minority, but from a minority of revolutionaries, who had distinguished themselves as leaders in revolutionary struggle.  Once established, this moral minority that has been self-perpetuating, itself selecting its new members.  Such a minority, based on revolutionary merit rather than status at birth, speaks to the people with moral authority.  Moreover, unlike the Federalists’ senates and judiciaries, the vanguard revolutionary party does not have political or legal authority or veto power.  Its role is to educate the people, guiding them in the formation of revolutionary consciousness and in providing the foundation for seeing through the factual and ideological distortions of the global elite.  The vanguard party leads but does not decide; the people decide, through its delegates and deputies.

The Cuban revolution was forged as an integrated project of students, peasants, workers, professionals, blacks, and women, just as the Jeffersonian-Jacksonian revolution of 1789 to 1840 was an integrated project of the middle class, farmers, and workers.  In the United States, the marginality of issues of race, and the even greater marginality of gender, were a reflection of the political conditions and assumptions of the time.  In contrast, the Cuban Revolution accomplished the integration of race and gender in the people’s struggle in a natural form.  The integration of blacks in the struggle was defined by the 1890s, reflecting the political necessities of the anti-colonial revolution.  During the neocolonial Republic, women assumed revolutionary tasks, and they were accepted because of the utility of their contributions.  In the period of 1959 to 1962, the triumphant revolution consistently made explicit the full participation of blacks and women in the revolutionary project and in Cuban society.

Cuban revolutionary ideology has been shaped by the lived experiences of the Cuban people, responding to the neocolonial situation of rule by an imperialist power and its large corporations.  As a result, it has been able to break new ground, to arrive to a more advanced understanding than that of the Jeffersonian-Jacksonian revolutionaries of the period 1763 to 1840.  It has arrived to new insights and human experiences in regard to the control and regulation of the economy in defense of the interests of the people; and it has arrived to new structures for putting political power in the hands of the people and for popular political education, enabling the people to overcome confusion and division.

The absolute necessity of returning to Philadelphia

The people’s revolution now has to return to the United States.  The Cuban Revolution has reached its limit, in that it has attained the maximum of what it can attain in the context of the capitalist world-economy.  The capitalist world-economy itself has to be transformed, setting aside neocolonialism and imperialism, respecting the true sovereignty of nations, and facilitating cooperation among nations in mutually beneficial trade and in addressing the common problems that humanity confronts.  Such a transformation can only occur through the coming to political power of the popular sectors in key nations, especially the United States, still the largest economy in the world, and the still world’s reigning imperialist power.

What is presently occurring in the United States is not revolution but rebellion.  The current U.S. rebellions lacks an adequate intellectual base; it has a limited and distorted understanding of the popular revolution of the United States, and it is characterized by a profound ignorance of the Cuban Revolution and other anti-neocolonial revolutions and movements of the Third World.  In the context of a capitalist world-economy that has reached and overextended its territorial limits, such ignorance has to be overcome.  Intellectuals have to play an important role in this regard, appropriating insights that emerge from the experiences of popular struggles in other lands, adapting them to conditions in their particular nations.  They should follow the examples of the American revolutionary leaders and intellectuals of the period 1763 to 1840, who wrote pamphlets that were designed to explain to the people.  Their example shows that slogans, placards, and tweets alone will not get it done; sustained popular political education is the key, and the organization of the people developing its consciousness.

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Charles McKelvey is Professor Emeritus, Presbyterian College, Clinton, South Carolina.  He has published three books: Beyond Ethnocentrism: A Reconstruction of Marx’s Concept of Science (Greenwood Press, 1991); The African-American Movement: From Pan-Africanism to the Rainbow Coalition (General Hall, 1994); and The Evolution and Significance of the Cuban Revolution: The Light in the Darkness (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

American democracy would best be served by focusing more on domestically relevant facts than rhetorical attacks against foreign countries like China.

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