Global Research

The Vice Presidency has always gotten a degree of bad press in the US political system. Its ineffectuality is sometimes lost on the occupant, though not on John N. Garner, who considered it “not worth a bucket of warm spit.”  (R. G. Tugwell in The Brains Trust suggests that the measure “quart” was used.)  Two terms as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s second fiddle was something he considered “the worst thing that ever happened to me”, occupying an office that was “a no man’s land somewhere between the legislative and executive branch.”  He regretted giving up the heftier role as Speaker of the House. 

Joe Biden, having himself occupied that spittoon of an office for eight years during the Obama administration, has now found the person he hopes will do the same for him.  That candidate, Kamala Harris, had been an early Democratic contender for main billing, but the electoral law of entropy struck her down early.  In March, when she announced her withdrawal from the race, she was careful to keep her hat in the ring of favour, endorsing Biden as the presumptive nominee with her own lacing of fiction. 

“There is no one better than Joe to steer our nation through these turbulent times, and restore truth, honour and decency to the Oval Office.” 

The announcement propelled pundit land to chorus with bone weary predictions and assessments, some of which might prove, come November, to be merely astrological.  The fortissimo score that is being played through is that of Harris’s moderation and safe bearing.  The America of Donald Trump is dangerous and immoderate; Harris offers a tepid corrective, one that will see a Bourbon restoration rather than inspired reform.  She “can appeal to voters in key swing states like Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania,” suggests Thomas Gift, director of the Centre on US Politics at UCL.  She also measures up in the identity stakes, “the first African-American and Asian-American selected as VP candidate for a major party”.

The commentary on her selection is heavy with the centrist tag, one that seeks to push the stone throwing radicals out while supposedly embracing voters who steered to Trump in 2016.  For the Los Angeles Times, Biden’s choice of Harris “set a marker for how he believes Democrats can win – both in this election and in the future – with a multiracial coalition that can excite voters, but a centre-left brand that steers clear of the most far-reaching progressive demands.” 

Ed Kilgore, writing in New York magazine, noted these points in 2019.  She is “disciplined”; she is the candidate of “moderation – or some would say, lack of courage”.  Where she is seen as radical is through no doing of her own.  As Elizabeth Weil put it, “Harris’s demographic identity has always been radical” while her record in office was marked by avoiding “saying or doing much that could be held against her.” 

These are not exactly promising attributes in populist times.  The Democrats risk doing, as Ted Rall warns, of making the same mistake they did with Hillary Clinton.  Picking Harris is a suggestion to the left base of the Democratic Party to “drop dead”.  Biden’s “centrist establishment handlers view Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016 as historically anomalous rather than evidence of a flawed strategy.”  Identity politics becomes the substitute for policy. 

This suggests that little in the way of change will be forthcoming on a Biden-Harris ticket.  Harris is branded as an institutional figure (thirteen years in public office, spent as District Attorney in San Francisco and Attorney General of California), one who, according to family friend Lateefah Simon, chose to “work within some of the most systematically racist institutions in the country” while her sister, Maya, became the enterprising advocate.   

The institutional moorings of the presumptive VP-nominee is seen as a strength, till you realise that Trump’s victory in 2016, and his appeal to the country’s marked rages, were of an anti-institutional flavour.  What he has done during his tenure has been to trash them, to break the Republic, assisted by his opponents who have done little in the way of addressing the country’s ills. (Coronavirus has, and is doing, the rest.)  A ticket with Harris on it is a promise to Make America the Same Again, a return to political recycling.

Establishment Democrats are certainly happy about “no risk” Harris.  President Obama’s former national security adviser Susan Rice enthusiastically pointed out that any Republican attacks on Biden’s choice was always going to focus on whether they were “left and socialist.  It’s not true.  That is not who Kamala Harris is.  And it’s not who Joe Biden is.” 

Much analysis on the Harris pick soon turns into waffle and tripe.  Former Republican staffer and communications boffin Drew Holden picks up on the “moderate and centrist” theme in the Democrat advertising strategy, but insists that she is “among the most liberal in Congress”.  This conclusion is not reached through teasing out any substantive political philosophy.  Holden is a strategist in political communication, and is happy to bore us with “Ideology-Leadership” charts featuring Harris (spot the “purple triangle”) as scoring as an extreme liberal on “our liberal-conservative ideology score”. More interesting is the view held by the editors of the conservative National Review that Harris “is a moderate autocrat”, a “moderate anti-Catholic bigot” and a “moderate monopolist on health care”.  Moderation is the new extremism.

Stool water and slush continue to mark the issue about what constitutes wings of US politics.  Barack Obama suggested in 2004 that there was no “liberal” or “conservative” America, merely the “United States of America.”  Gore Vidal’s idea of two right wings holding the US political cosmos together remains the most pertinent.  There are other iterations of the theme, which focus on the business element so crucial to the timbre of the election system.  A business civilisation will only tolerate the parties of business.  No divvying-up-the-wealth populist is ever going to be allowed to get by the banking mentality that governs the DNC-RNC duopoly.  He can certainly, as Trump has tried to do, pretend to drain the fetid swamp, with the natural inclination to fill it with his own brand of crony.  The rest is reality television chaos. 

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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 Flickr

“HUGE breakthrough today,” crowed Donald Trump on twitter as he announced the new peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The deal makes the UAE the first Gulf Arab state and the third Arab nation, after Egypt and Jordan, to have diplomatic ties with Israel. But the new Israel-UAE partnership should fool no one. Though it will supposedly stave off Israeli annexation of the West Bank and encourage tourism and trade between both countries, in reality, it is nothing more than a scheme to give an Arab stamp of approval to Israel’s status quo of land theft, home demolitions, arbitrary extrajudicial killings, apartheid laws, and other abuses of Palestinian rights. 

The deal should be seen in the context of over three years of Trump administration policies that have tightened Israel’s grip on the Palestinians: moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, and creating a so-called peace plan with no Palestinian participation or input. While no U.S. administration has successfully brokered a resolution to Israel’s now 53-year-long occupation, the Trump years have been especially detrimental to the Palestinian cause. Palestinian leader Hanan Ashrawi wrote on Twitter that with this deal, “Israel got rewarded for not declaring openly what it’s been doing to Palestine illegally & persistently since the beginning of the occupation.” Indeed, with Donald Trump at the helm and son-in-law Jared Kushner as the primary strategist, even concessions for Palestinians have been done away with. To add insult to injury, while the deal had been couched in terms of a commitment by Israel to suspend annexation of Palestinian territories, in his Israeli press conference announcing the deal, Netanyahu said annexation was “still on the table” and that it was something he is “committed to.”

Among the most brutal aspects of this period for Palestinians have been the loss of support for their cause in neighboring Arab states. The Arab political party in Israel, Balad, said that by signing this pact, “the UAE has officially joined Israel against Palestine, and placed itself in the camp of the enemies of the Palestinian people.”

The UAE has previously held a position consistent with public opinion in Gulf and Middle East countries that the acceptance of formal diplomatic relations with Israel should only take place in exchange for a just peace and in accordance with international law. Back in June, Emirati ambassador to the U.S. Yousef al-Otaiba penned an an op-ed in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper, the Israeli equivalent to U.S.A Today, appealing directly in Hebrew for Israel not to annex the West Bank. However, by working out an agreement with Trump and Netanyahu to normalize relations, the country has now made itself Israel’s partner in cementing de facto annexation and ongoing apartheid.

The UAE’s change from supporting Palestinian dignity and freedom to supporting Israel’s never-ending occupation is a calculated move by UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, a shrewd Middle East dictator who uses his country’s military and financial resources to thwart moves towards democracy and respect for human rights under the guise of fighting Islamic terrorism. His support for Israel cements his relationship with the Trump administration. Trump has already gone out of his way to push billions of dollars in arms sales to the UAE, despite opposition from Congress because of high number of civilian casualties associated with the use of those weapons in Yemen.

Secretary Pompeo has also defended the UAE from credible reports that U.S. weapons sold to the UAE have been transferred in Yemen to groups linked to Al Qaeda, hardline Salafi militias and Yemeni separatists. The UAE was also stung by revelations of secret prisons it had been operating in Yemen where prisoners were subjected to horrific forms of torture, including “the grill,” where victims were “tied to a spit like a roast and spun in a circle of fire.” In Libya, the UAE has been criticized for violating a 2011 UN Security Council arms embargo by supplying combat equipment to the LAAF, the armed group commanded by General Khalifa Haftar with a well-established record of human right abuses. So this deal with Israel gives the UAE a much-needed veneer of respectability.

But it is impossible to understand the impetus for this deal without putting it in the context of the ongoing hostilities between all three countries and Iran. Following the old adage that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” in recent years Israel has been negotiating with various Gulf states, including the UAE, to push back against Iran’s growing influence in the region. As the communique announcing the Israeli-UAE deal asserted, the U.S., Israel and the UAE “share a similar outlook regarding threats in the region.” This dovetails with Trump’s anti-Iran obsession, which includes withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and his “maximum pressure” campaign designed to force Iran back to the negotiating table to make a “better deal.” In announcing the UAE-Israeli pact, Trump declared with ridiculous bravado that if he wins the elections, he’ll have a new deal with Iran within 30 days. Anyone who believes this must be almost as delusional as Trump.

The fact that this agreement between two Middle East countries was first announced thousands of miles away in Washington DC shows how it is more about shoring up Trump’s slumping electoral campaign and improving Netanyahu’s battered image in Israel than bringing peace to the Middle East. It also shows that Netanyahu and bin Zayed have a stake in seeing Trump win a second term in the White House. Instead of pointing out the hollowness of the pact, Joe Biden’s response was unfortunately to congratulate Israel and the UAE and try to take credit for the deal. “I personally spent time with leaders of both Israel and the U.A.E. during our administration, building the case for cooperation and broader engagement,” he said. “I am gratified by today’s announcement.”

The normalization of relations between the UAE and Israel, facilitated by the U.S., serves to prop up three repressive leaders — Trump, Netanyahu, and bin Zayed — and will cause further harm to Palestinians. It is both a shame and a sham.

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This article was originally published on CODEPINK.

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

Ariel Gold is the national co-director and Senior Middle East Policy Analyst with CODEPINK for Peace.

On June 11, 2020, 21 lakes, streams and wetlands in northern Ontario were re-characterized as a mine tailings impoundment for the proposed Magino gold mine. This magical transformation took place through Schedule 2 of the Metal and Diamond Mining Effluent Regulation (MDMER) under the federal Fisheries Act.

Although the Act says it is illegal to “put deleterious substances into waters frequented by fish,” the MDMER creates a number of exemptions for the mining industry. As of July 2020, across Canada there are 64 “water bodies” that are exempt.

Prodigy Gold, the mine owner, now has the key permit to proceed with one of the largest gold mines in northern Ontario.

Prodigy Gold Incorporated, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Argonaut Gold Incorporated, is planning the construction, operation, decommissioning and abandonment of an open pit gold mine and metal mill located 14 kilometres south-east of Dubreuilville, Ontario. Mining would occur over 10 years. The on-site metal mill would have an ore input capacity of 35000 tonnes per day and would operate for approximately 12 to 15 years. During its last years, it will process a low-grade ore stockpile.

The final area disturbed by the mine will be 1,135 hectares. This figure does not include elevated arsenic, copper, manganese and cadmium in Herman, Otto, Spring, and Goudreau lakes, and in McVeigh Creek.

Nor does it include the risk of a catastrophic tailings dam failure of the waste rock dams holding water saturated mine wastes. The Tailings Management Facility will eventually hold 150 million tonnes of thickened tailings (45-65% water), in an area where “the water surplus must be carefully managed.”Another 400-430 million tonnes of waste rock will be generated. Fortunately, less than 5% of this is expected to be acid-generating.

The area where the mine will be is no stranger to mining. Magino is on the site of a former underground mine and is considered a “brownfield site.” Around Wawa, the legacy of arsenic contamination from historic mines and mills continues to be a problem, and in the area near the Magino project there are ten abandoned mines. In addition, the Wawa Plume — “a 24 km trail of environmental destruction,” the legacy of the Algoma Ore iron sintering plant — remains clearly visible from space.

Abutting the east side of the project, Alamos Gold has the producing Island Gold Mine, and to the south, the Eagle River and Mishi Pit gold mines are in production. Not far away, at Hemlo, there is the Williams Mine. But these mines have much lower production rates: Island Gold mills only 900 tonnes per day; Eagle River mills 1500.

The approval process for the Magino Mine illustrates everything that is problematic with mineral strategy in Ontario:

• The mine has obtained the approval of all the First Nations affected and they have signed Impact Benefit Agreements (with the exception of Garden River First Nation). These agreements are confidential. Submissions from First Nations during the environmental assessment process show that the Magino Mine area has been an important one for Indigenous people, providing food, cultural activities and spiritual renewal for centuries. That they have been forced to eliminate these long-term benefits for a gold mine that will last less than fifteen years, is an indication of the desperation created by on-going colonial policies of dispossession and impoverishment. Once the mine is operating, it is unclear how they can enforce the terms of their agreements.
• Prodigy Gold began its environmental assessment (EA) process in September 2013 and got a federal EA decision in January 2019. As a result, the EA was conducted prior to the Impact Assessment Act of 2019 (in force since 28 August 2019), and was under CEAA 2012. The new Act would have required more extensive and earlier public and Indigenous consultation, would have required gender-based analysis of impacts, and more thorough consideration of cumulative effects. It would also have required a “sustainability assessment” and more discussion of the “need and purpose” of the project, but it is not clear if this would have made a difference.
• The federal EA approval had a number of conditions that had to be met before mine construction could take place. Many of these conditions have not yet been met, and the company says a decision to proceed has not yet been taken.
• The federal Fisheries Act requires a fishery compensation plan as part of the Schedule 2 amendment discussed above, as well as a letter of credit for the cost of undertaking this plan. However, at the time Schedule 2 was approved, the plan was still being developed and it was not clear what would be done if the company failed to follow through or if the plan itself failed.
• Ontario did not then and still does not require mines to undergo an EA. Ontario does not require environmental assessment of private projects, unless they are specifically designated by regulation (for example hazardous waste sites). Ontario maintains that the staking of mining claims and leases is “not discretionary” and that it cannot refuse them. As a result, the only MNDM activities that require EA are “discretionary land grants,” reversals of land withdrawals, and the government remediation of mine hazards. Prodigy Gold “volunteered” to have a provincial EA concurrent with the federal one, to ease the permits it might require later for water-taking, road construction, power-lines, etc.

COVID-19, Gold, and the Coming Staking Rush?

Ironically, the coronavirus pandemic has given new life to the gold mining sector, as international investors have scrambled for “safe haven” assets amidst the economic chaos unleashed by the virus. On July 26, the gold spot price hit a record high above US$1920, surpassing its previous 2011 peak in the midst of the Eurozone crisis.

For many analysts, including the US bank Citigroup, gold has nowhere to go but up, as hedge fund managers and other “sophisticated investors” bet on the metal in fears that central bank measures to contain the economic crisis will debase major currencies. For investors, the fear is that governments will either have to raise taxes or print money — leading to inflation — to pay down their coronavirus debts, possibilities that make holding real assets like gold more attractive than currency-denominated assets.

Wall Street, Bloomberg reports, is now “throwing billions” at gold miners: Gold mining companies raised $2.4 billion in secondary equity offerings during the second quarter — seven times more than they raised last year. While big players like Barrick and Newmont have been the main beneficiaries, “juniors” (mining exploration companies) are also starting to get in on the action.

These trends are already having ripple effects in Ontario, where, once marginal projects now appear profitable. Toronto-based IAMGOLD, for instance, announced its plans to move ahead with its “massive” $1.3 billion Cote Gold mine near Gogama in partnership with Japan’s Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. after having previously shelved the mine in January 2019, citing “poor market conditions.”

Argonaut Gold is also benefiting from the COVID-19 gold rush: On July 23, the company announced that it had raised more than $126 million through a public offering of 49 million shares to advance mine construction.

While it’s hard to predict how long the current boom will last, Wall Street’s newfound love affair with gold does not bode well for Ontario’s environment, nor for the province’s or industry’s relationship with communities and Indigenous peoples. Mining investors are notoriously irrational. Though it takes years to get from finding an orebody to turning into a profitable mine, mine financing is driven almost entirely by short-term price considerations.

If the recent past is any guide, Ontario’s junior gold sector can count on a big influx of cash to fund new exploration projects in the short term. Despite “modernizing” its mining legislation a decade ago, Ontario continues to offer mining companies a free hand to scour the province for profitable minerals. As the province’s Guide for Crown Land Use Planningputs it: “The Mining Act establishes a free entry/open access environment where as much land as possible is open for exploration and mine development.” Renewed conflicts like the ones we saw at Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug and near Sharbot Lake a decade ago are all but inevitable, as Ontario continues to allow mining companies to stake claims on culturally and ecologically sensitive lands as well as traditional Indigenous territories without first gaining their consent.

The Magino mine approval in the context of the latest gold staking frenzy underscores the the vital need to reform Ontario’s mineral strategy to put people and the environment ahead of the industry and Wall Street’s short-term profit.

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It has been one of the worst periods in our global history. But for Scottish Nationalists, the pandemic was the crisis needed to escalate the independence cause. In the latest poll on Scottish independence, now 53% support it, with 47% against. It is the highest ever number of people to support leaving the Union. Now Unionists must wake up and smell the coffee.

Of course it isn’t an overwhelming figure of support. But to appreciate the significance of this milestone in the journey that the independence cause has taken, it’s important to remember how we got here. Take for example, the percentage of people in favour of independence in the run-up to the 2014 referendum.  Polls showed at the time it was a mere 32-38%. Then you have to think about the extraordinary rise of the Scottish National Party over the last couple of decades. Earlier in the 20th century the SNP was a radical fringe party, no-one ever thought it could get elected to government. By 2007 it had gained power in Scottish parliament, forming a minority government. Since then it has only gone from strength to strength, in recent years dominating the Scottish political scene.

Foreigners often ask me, why are more Scots not in favour of independence, surely every people has the desire for self-determination? My answer: of course there is a desire. But for centuries the notion of what it is to be Scottish was literally beaten out of people. People were banned from wearing the kilt – the national dress, and forced to speak English instead of Gaelic or Scots. When my grandmother went to school in the 1920s children were beaten for speaking in their native tongue. Then you have the power of the media. Decades of a London-based broadcasting service – the BBC – had huge influence over the Scots’ way of thinking about themselves. The propaganda has been so effective as to persuade many people that Scotland is not capable of governing itself, that it cannot manage without England, that its language and culture is somehow inferior to that of English.

And yet there has always remained a grassroots level of support for independence, the descendents of those who fought the wars of independence of the 13th and 14th centuries and the later Jacobite rebellions; those who have never forgotten how sovereignty was stolen. Or ‘sold’ as some might say. For although there was opposition to the 1707 Union Act right up until its signing, those who did vote the country out of existence, reaped the financial benefits of doing so, receiving titles and land. As Sir Walter Scott said, the men who sold Scotland to the English, were ‘bought and sold’. He described them as ‘false and corrupted’,  writing that ‘the interests of Scotland were considerably neglected in the Treaty of Union; and in consequence the nation, instead of regarding it as an identification of the interests of both kingdoms, considered it as a total surrender of its independence’.

The Union has never been able to address Scotland’s interests effectively; the nations have never been equal partners. Even with a devolved parliament Scotland is not in charge of its own broadcasting, benefits and social policy, defence, foreign policy, immigration policy, or trade and industry. Furthermore, it needs ‘permission’ to hold a referendum on independence; authorization which Boris Johnson is not granting. But such an unequal relationship is proving problematic now for the Union’s future. Just as Margaret Thatcher’s poll tax two decades ago paved the way for the creation of a Scottish parliament, so the UK’s pursuit of Brexit has laid the foundations of another rebellion. Once again the Scottish people are being taken down a path they rejected; we didn’t vote to leave the EU and yet have been left with no choice but to comply with Westminster’s wishes.

The final nail in the Union’s coffin, however, has come of late. Every cloud has a silver lining, and this pandemic has without a doubt boosted Scotland’s desire for independence. Opinion polls prior to Covid-19 showed a majority were still in favour of remaining in the UK, a Panelbase poll on 3rd December 2019 showed 50% to 44% voted against independence. And yet the numerous surveys carried out since the beginning of the pandemic consistently show the opposite.

Undoubtedly, credit for this change goes to Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and her handling of the crisis. A poll on 26th May this year demonstrated just how much better people thought Sturgeon had dealt with the pandemic compared to her Westminster counterpart.  A remarkable 82% praised Sturgeon, with only 30% saying they thought Johnson had handled it well. The First Minister’s daily press briefings, consistent messaging and assurances, together with effective track and trace programmes which have significantly reduced the number of cases of coronavirus, have all demonstrated effective leadership. This has led to Sturgeon gaining advantage in one main area: trust. Johnson simply can’t compete with that, as England struggles to contain the pandemic with the biggest economic recession in history on the horizon.

It’s difficult to see how Johnson can turn things around. Panic is reportedly setting in in Westminster, as officials realize they are on the precipice of losing Scotland once and for all.  It remains to be seen how Scotland can engineer a second referendum if Westminster won’t grant one. But as the old saying goes, ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way’.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

On August 11, Russia registered the first vaccine for use against COVID-19, named Sputnik V. More on this development below.

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Toxins in vaccines make them hazardous to human health.

Time and again, they cause diseases they’re promoted as protection against.

Nothing in medical science indicates that vaccines are safe.

They all contain harmful to health mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, phenoxyethanol (antifreeze), MSG, and squalene adjuvants that weaken and can destroy the human immune system, making it vulnerable to many annoying to life-threatening illnesses.

Annually, the US Vaccine Adverse Reporting System (VAERS) reports thousands of serious adverse vaccine reactions, including many deaths and disabling disabilities.

Virtually none of this is reported by establishment media.

Far too often, vaccines are ineffective or not effective enough. They’re an unreliable way to prevent illness and disease.

Proper health, personal hygiene, and sanitation practices are far more effective than mass-vaxxing.

An earlier WHO report said disease and mortality rates in developing countries were closely related to hygiene and dietary practices, unrelated to immunization programs.

In the West and elsewhere, no evidence links vaccines with declines in infectious diseases.

Although vaccines stimulate antibody production, no evidence suggests that alone assures immunity.

Squalene adjuvants and other toxins in vaccines harm the human immune system, making it susceptible to numerous illnesses and diseases that range from very annoying to life threatening.

The notion of herd immunity from mass-vaxxing is Big Pharma promoted rubbish.

Numerous industry promoted “facts” about vaccines were later proved false.

Childhood disease dangers are greatly exaggerated to scare parents into getting their children vaccinated with unsafe drugs.

Following the introduction of the Salk polio vaccine, large outbreaks of the disease were reported in the US.

Years later, Jonas Salk admitted that mass inoculations caused most polio cases.

Even when no adverse reactions occur days or even weeks after being inoculated, evidence shows longer-term problems developed.

They include the disease vaxxing is supposed to protect against, chronic headaches, rashes, skin lesions, seizures, autism, anemia, multiple sclerosis, ALS, cancer, diabetes, and many other health issues.

US federal, state, and local immunization policy is driven by politics and profit potential, not science or concern for human health and welfare.

According to earlier industry estimates before coronavirus outbreaks occurred this year, the market potential for vaccines was estimated at around $60 billion annually.

If when available, a full COVID-19 vax treatment of all Americans would have a market potential dollar volume of around $150 billion of near-all profit, according to one estimate.

The global market potential is much greater — why the race is on to cash in big.

Noted vaccine expert Dr. Viera Schiebner minced no words, saying the following:

“There is no evidence whatsoever of the ability of vaccines to prevent any diseases.”

“To the contrary, there is a great wealth of evidence that they cause serious side effects.”

Many other scientific experts agree.

Russia’s Sputnik V is the first vaccine available for use against COVID-19 — registered by the Russian Ministry of Health on August 11.

Developed by Russia’s  Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, it followed over 20 years of vaccine research, according to Sechenov University’s Institute for Translational Medicine and Biotechnology director Vadim Tarasov.

Technology used to develop Sputnik V is based upon adenovirus, the common cold.

Tarasov explained that the vaccine may not entirely stop COVID-19 from spreading. He claimed it’ll make symptoms milder, adding:

“We can really talk about a breakthrough as our country has shown itself to be one of the leaders in the global pharmaceutical industry due to the fact that it has retained and developed new competencies in drug development.”

Russia’s sputnikvaccine.com website explained the following:

“In 1957, the successful launch of the first man-made satellite by the Soviet Union activated space research in the entire world,” adding:

“Thanks to this comparison, the vaccine received the name of Sputnik V” to note another “Sputnik moment.”

Information on the website aims to dispel Western media disinformation already begun.

Will Russia’s Sputnik V prove safe and effective in immunizing against COVID-19?

The fullness of time will tell what’s very much unknown now.

A Final Comment

As expected, establishment media mocked Sputnik V.

The NYT accused Russia of  “cutting corners on testing to score political and propaganda points,” citing no evidence backing its claim.

The Washington Post accused Moscow of “jumping dangerously ahead of” larger-scale testing to make a COVID-19 vaccine available ahead of ones being developed in the West.

The Wall Street Journal said Russia registered the “world’s first Covid-19 vaccine despite safety concerns.”

Other establishment media made similar comments — demeaning Russia’s development while promoting undeveloped/yet to be available Big Pharma vaccines.

With billions of dollars of market potential up for grabs, it’s no surprise that establishment media are supporting development of Western vaccines for COVID-19 over alternatives from Russia, China, and other countries.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Since March of this year the United States has been plunged into the worst outbreak of an infectious viral disease since the influenza pandemic of 1918-1920.

The impact of the COVID-19 outbreaks beginning in February and March has resulted in the closure of many production and service facilities throughout the country. Consequently, these events have rendered millions of workers unemployed.

Hospitals and educational institutions are overburdened with the novel virus since it presents profound challenges on how to address the disease through healthcare and the necessity of the resumption of courses whether held in-person or online. Absent of a vaccine and effective treatment, public apprehension related to the resumption of large gatherings whether in the workplace, schools, sports, entertainment and lodging will hamper the ability of millions of working people to earn a living.

Without jobs households will be unable to pay their rents, mortgages and property taxes placing them in foreclosure and evictions statuses. These inevitable consequences of high levels of joblessness are already being witnessed around the U.S.

The Cares Act passed in March by both the House of Representatives and the Senate and later signed by President Donald Trump which was implemented purportedly to assist businesses, institutions and working families, in reality provided the bulk of this public funding to ruling class interests such as multi-national corporations, banks and allied groupings. The one-time payment of $1,200 per person and even lesser amounts for those designated as dependents, was also bolstered by an enhanced payment of $600 per week for the unemployed.

However, the Senate rejected the proposed Heroes Act which would have granted additional assistance over an extended period of time. In addition, a renewal of the Cares Act has not materialized after the collapse of negotiations between the Democratic-dominated House and the Republican majority Senate. Trump’s executive orders related to COVID-19 assistance declared on August 7, raises more questions than answers since the already beleaguered state governments are required to provide a percentage of the resources needed restore only $400 in jobless benefits, a slashing of enhanced benefits by one-third.

As the moratoriums imposed on evictions by various states and the federal government in response to the economic crisis spawned by the pandemic, are being lifted in numerous states, people are being ejected from their homes at a rapidly rising rate. The state governmental structures and the federal housing authorities have not developed programs which can avoid a socially catastrophic situation.

Princeton University has established an Eviction Lab which attempts to track the number of displacements nationwide. Although this research center provides valuable data on the quantitative growth of the evictions, they admit to being limited due to the lack of reporting by numerous municipalities, county and state governments.

Through tracking data from 17 different cities, the Eviction Lab says that since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic some 34,699 notices to vacate have been filed by landlords. The public health situation has exacerbated the existing housing crisis which stems from the structural inequalities inherent within the modern-day capitalist system.

The Eviction Lab says of the present conjuncture:

“Current policy responses to the pandemic may be insufficient to prevent a surge in evictions. CARES Act stimulus payments and unemployment insurance–when accessible–will provide families with some support, but in many cases not enough to make ends meet. Some states have passed temporary eviction moratoria, which the Eviction Lab is tracking in the COVID-19 Housing Policy Scorecard, and localities across the country have introduced additional measures. Once these measures expire, however, millions of renters will owe significant amounts of back rent. For many, a displacement and eviction crisis will follow the public health crisis.”

From California to South Carolina and Michigan Landlords Are Throwing People Out

In the state of California, the most populous in the country, the pandemic has continued to grow particularly in the southern regions. Reports from the state indicate that landlords are locking tenants out of their homes for the failure to pay rent arrears. Even though restrictions on the ability to evict have been enacted, aggressive actions by property owners are forcing many people to move without adequate funds to find new homes. (See this)

Ananya Roy, the Director of the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) told the Guardian newspaper in late July that:

“When talking about the scale of eviction and mass displacement, it’s pretty unimaginable. This will be worse than the Great Depression.”

The state of South Carolina was highlighted during the Democratic primary elections as representing a turning point in the prospects of presumptive nominee former Vice President Joe Biden of Delaware. The African American voters of South Carolina were hailed as providing Biden the necessary victory needed to continue in the race against Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Nevertheless, there is far less focus on South Carolina in recent weeks which is now a focal point for the national eviction crisis. Even prior to the pandemic, the state had the highest eviction rate of any of its counterparts by a two-to-one margin according to data from the Eviction Lab at Princeton.

These rates of evictions are clearly related to the level of poverty in the state, 16.6%, which is moderately higher than the national average, at 14.6. Among African Americans and people of Latin American descent the rates are far higher at 26.7 and 28.6 percentages of the overall population respectively.

A report published by NBC News on August 10 says of the crisis in this Southern state:

“In South Carolina alone, 52 percent of renter households can’t pay their rent and are at risk of eviction, according to an analysis of census data by the consulting firm Stout Risius Ross. About 185,000 evictions could be filed in the state over the next four months.”

Michigan was one of the hardest hit states related to the housing crisis which arose during the Great Recession beginning in 2007. Tens of thousands of foreclosures and evictions occurred while successive administrations failed to impose a moratorium.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer, once considered a possible Vice Presidential candidate pick for Biden, imposed strict measures related to the mitigation of the pandemic. There was a statewide moratorium on evictions along with the mandated closings of schools, universities, restaurants and all non-essential businesses.

Many of these policies served to reduce the rate of infections and deaths in the state up until June. Under pressure by right-wing elements in the State House and Senate along with their constituencies, Whitmer relented by reducing restrictions and allowing the opening of sectors of the economy. By August, the rates of infections were rapidly increasing with thousands of new cases confirmed every week.

Whitmer lifted the moratorium on evictions suggesting that a renter assistance program was adequate to prevent mass evictions and foreclosures. Yet the failure by the state to properly manage the unemployment insurance program sheds must doubt in the public mind about its capacity to provide aid for distressed renters and homeowners.

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition and other anti-eviction organizations are planning actions to demand the re-enactment of the statewide moratorium. The Chief Judge of 36^th District Court imposed a moratorium covering the Detroit area, the largest municipality in Michigan which is set to expire on August 17 with the re-opening of the in-house legal proceedings downtown.

Statewide and Federal Moratoriums Imperative to Avoid Catastrophic Collapse

In the short term the only remedy to the worsening housing crisis is the imposition of a halt to all evictions as well as programs aimed at rent and mortgage forgiveness. Otherwise the large-scale displacement across the U.S. will make any effective plans to control of the spread of COVID-19 impossible.

The establishment of homeless encampments already exists in California and other regions of the U.S. These makeshift settlements are growing while making mitigation efforts such as the wearing of masks, virus testing, contract tracing and social distancing even more difficult.

Under capitalism, the housing crisis has been a by-product of the growth of cities and the impoverishment of working people. These problems developed in England and the European continent in the time of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels during the 19^th century.

In 1872 Engels wrote that:

“Modern natural science has proved that the so-called ‘poor districts’ in which the workers are crowded together are the breeding places of all those epidemics which from time to time afflict our towns. Cholera, typhus, typhoid fever, small-pox and other ravaging diseases spread their germs in the pestilential air and the poisoned water of these working-class quarters. In these districts, the germs hardly ever die out completely, and as soon as circumstances permit it they develop into epidemics and then spread beyond their breeding places also into the more airy and healthy parts of the town inhabited by the capitalists. Capitalist rule cannot allow itself the pleasure of creating epidemic diseases among the working class with impunity; the consequences fall back on it and the angel of death rages in its ranks as ruthlessly as in the ranks of the workers.” (See this)

Even though it is necessary for the ruling class to address the combined crises of housing and public health, the desire for the maximum acquisition of profit from the working class interferes with these imperatives. Only the direct intervention of the masses of working people can the winning of moratoriums and rent forgiveness be secured.

*

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

All images in this article are from the author unless otherwise stated

By George C. Fareed, MD Brawley, California Michael M. Jacobs, MD, MPH Pensacola, Florida Donald C. Pompan, MD Salinas, California

August 12, 2020

Anthony Fauci, MD
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Washington, D.C.

Dear Dr. Fauci:

You were placed into the most high-profile role regarding America’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Americans have relied on your medical expertise concerning the wearing of masks, resuming employment, returning to school, and of course medical treatment.

You are largely unchallenged in terms of your medical opinions. You are the de facto “COVID-19 Czar”. This is unusual in the medical profession in which doctors’ opinions are challenged by other physicians in the form of exchanges between doctors at hospitals, medical conferences, as well as debate in medical journals. You render your opinions unchallenged, without formal public opposition from physicians who passionately disagree with you. It is incontestable that the public is best served when opinions and policy are based on the prevailing evidence and science, and able to withstand the scrutiny of medical professionals.

As experience accrued in treating COVID-19 infections, physicians worldwide discovered that high-risk patients can be treated successfully as an outpatient, within the first 5 to 7 days of the onset of symptoms, with a “cocktail” consisting of hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin (or doxycycline). Multiple scholarly contributions to the literature detail the efficacy of the hydroxychloroquine-based combination treatment.

Dr. Harvey Risch, the renowned Yale epidemiologist, published an article in May 2020 in the American Journal of Epidemiology titled “Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk COVID-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-Up Immediately as Key to Pandemic Crisis”. He further published an article in Newsweek in July 2020 for the general public expressing the same conclusions and opinions. Dr. Risch is an expert at evaluating research data and study designs, publishing over 300 articles. Dr Risch’s assessment is that there is unequivocal evidence for the early and safe use of the “HCQ cocktail.” If there are Q-T interval concerns, doxycycline can be substituted for azithromycin as it has activity against RNA viruses without any cardiac effects.

Yet, you continue to reject the use of hydroxychloroquine, except in a hospital setting in the form of clinical trials, repeatedly emphasizing the lack of evidence supporting its use. Hydroxychloroquine, despite 65 years of use for malaria, and over 40 years for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, with a well-established safety profile, has been deemed by you and the FDA as unsafe for use in the treatment of symptomatic COVID-19 infections. Your opinions have influenced the thinking of physicians and their patients, medical boards, state and federal agencies, pharmacists, hospitals, and just about everyone involved in medical decision making.

Indeed, your opinions impacted the health of Americans, and many aspects of our day-to-day lives including employment and school. Those of us who prescribe hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin/doxycycline believe fervently that early outpatient use would save tens of thousands of lives and enable our country to dramatically alter the response to COVID-19. We advocate for an approach that will reduce fear and allow Americans to get their lives back.

We hope that our questions compel you to reconsider your current approach to COVID-19 infection.

Questions regarding early outpatient treatment

1. There are generally two stages of COVID-19 symptomatic infection; initial flu like symptoms with progression to cytokine storm and respiratory failure, correct?
2. When people are admitted to a hospital, they generally are in worse condition, correct?
3. There are no specific medications currently recommended for early outpatient treatment of symptomatic COVID-19 infection, correct?
4. Remdesivir and Dexamethasone are used for hospitalized patients, correct?
5. There is currently no recommended pharmacologic early outpatient treatment for individuals in the flu stage of the illness, correct?
6. It is true that COVID-19 is much more lethal than the flu for high-risk individuals such as older patients and those with significant comorbidities, correct?
7. Individuals with signs of early COVID-19 infection typically have a runny nose, fever, cough, shortness of breath, loss of smell, etc., and physicians send them home to rest, eat chicken soup etc., but offer no specific, targeted medications, correct?
8. These high-risk individuals are at high risk of death, on the order of 15% or higher, correct?
9. So just so we are clear—the current standard of care now is to send clinically stable symptomatic patients home, “with a wait and see” approach?
10. Are you aware that physicians are successfully using Hydroxychloroquine combined with Zinc and Azithromycin as a “cocktail” for early outpatient treatment of symptomatic, high-risk, individuals?
11. Have you heard of the “Zelenko Protocol,” for treating high-risk patients with COVID 19 as an outpatient?
12. Have you read Dr. Risch’s article in the American Journal of Epidemiology of the early outpatient treatment of COVID-19?
13. Are you aware that physicians using the medication combination or “cocktail” recommend use within the first 5 to 7 days of the onset of symptoms, before the illness impacts the lungs, or cytokine storm evolves?
14. Again, to be clear, your recommendation is no pharmacologic treatment as an outpatient for the flu—like symptoms in patients that are stable, regardless of their risk factors, correct?
15. Would you advocate for early pharmacologic outpatient treatment of symptomatic COVID-19 patients if you were confident that it was beneficial?
16. Are you aware that there are hundreds of physicians in the United States and thousands across the globe who have had dramatic success treating high-risk individuals as outpatients with this “cocktail?”
17. Are you aware that there are at least 10 studies demonstrating the efficacy of early outpatient treatment with the Hydroxychloroquine cocktail for high-risk patients — so this is beyond anecdotal, correct?
18. If one of your loved ones had diabetes or asthma, or any potentially complicating comorbidity, and tested positive for COVID-19, would you recommend “wait and see how they do” and go to the hospital if symptoms progress?
19. Even with multiple studies documenting remarkable outpatient efficacy and safety of the Hydroxychloroquine “cocktail,” you believe the risks of the medication combination outweigh the benefits?
20. Is it true that with regard to Hydroxychloroquine and treatment of COVID-19 infection, you have said repeatedly that “The Overwhelming Evidence of Properly Conducted Randomized Clinical Trials Indicate No Therapeutic Efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ)?”
21. But NONE of the randomized controlled trials to which you refer were done in the first 5 to 7 days after the onset of symptoms- correct?
22. All of the randomized controlled trials to which you refer were done on hospitalized patients, correct?
23. Hospitalized patients are typically sicker that outpatients, correct?
24. None of the randomized controlled trials to which you refer used the full cocktail consisting of Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc, and Azithromycin, correct?
25. While the University of Minnesota study is referred to as disproving the cocktail, the meds were not given within the first 5 to 7 days of illness, the test group was not high risk (death rates were 3%), and no zinc was given, correct?
26. Again, for clarity, the trials upon which you base your opinion regarding the efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine, assessed neither the full cocktail (to include Zinc + Azithromycin or doxycycline) nor administered treatment within the first 5 to 7 days of symptoms, nor focused on the high-risk group, correct?
27. Therefore, you have no basis to conclude that the Hydroxychloroquine cocktail when used early in the outpatient setting, within the first 5 to 7 days of symptoms, in high risk patients, is not effective, correct?
28. It is thus false and misleading to say that the effective and safe use of Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc, and Azithromycin has been “debunked,” correct? How could it be “debunked” if there is not a single study that contradicts its use?
29. Should it not be an absolute priority for the NIH and CDC to look at ways to treat Americans with symptomatic COVID-19 infections early to prevent disease progression?
30. The SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 virus is an RNA virus. It is well-established that Zinc interferes with RNA viral replication, correct?
31. Moreover, is it not true that hydroxychloroquine facilitates the entry of zinc into the cell, is a “ionophore,” correct?
32. Isn’t also it true that Azithromycin has established anti-viral properties?
33. Are you aware of the paper from Baylor by Dr. McCullough et. al. describing established mechanisms by which the components of the “HCQ cocktail” exert anti-viral effects?
34. So- the use of hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin (or doxycycline) and zinc, the “HCQ cocktail,” is based on science, correct?

Questions regarding safety

1. The FDA writes the following: “in light of on-going serious cardiac adverse events and their serious side effects, the known and potential benefits of CQ and HCQ no longer outweigh the known and potential risks for authorized use.”So not only is the FDA saying that Hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work, they are also saying that it is a very dangerous drug. Yet, is it not true the drug has been used as an anti-malarial drug for over 65 years?
2. Isn’t true that the drug has been used for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis for many years at similar doses?
3. Do you know of even a single study prior to COVID -19 that has provided definitive evidence against the use of the drug based on safety concerns?
4. Are you aware that chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine has many approved uses for hydroxychloroquine including steroid-dependent asthma (1988 study), Advanced pulmonary sarcoidosis (1988 study), sensitizing breast cancer cells for chemotherapy (2012 study), the attenuation of renal ischemia (2018 study), lupus nephritis (2006 study), epithelial ovarian cancer (2020 study, just to name a few)? Where are the cardiotoxicity concerns ever mentioned?
5. Risch estimates the risk of cardiac death from hydroxychloroquine to be 9/100,000 using the data provided by the FDA. That does not seem to be a high risk, considering the risk of death in an older patient with co-morbidities can be 15% or more. Do you consider 9/100,000 to be a high risk when weighed against the risk of death in older patient with co-morbidities?
6. To put this in perspective, the drug is used for 65 years, without warnings (aside for the need for periodic retinal checks), but the FDA somehow feels the need to send out an alert on June 15, 2020 that the drug is dangerous. Does that make any logical sense to you Dr. Fauci based on “science”?
7. Moreover, consider that the protocols for usage in early treatment are for 5 to 7 days at relatively low doses of hydroxychloroquine similar to what is being given in other diseases (RA, SLE) over many years- does it make any sense to you logically that a 5 to 7 day dose of hydroxychloroquine when not given in high doses could be considered dangerous?
8. You are also aware that articles published in the New England Journal of Medicine and Lancet, one out of Harvard University, regarding the dangers of hydroxychloroquine had to be retracted based on the fact that the data was fabricated. Are you aware of that?
9. If there was such good data on the risks of hydroxychloroquine, one would not have to use fake data, correct?
10. After all, 65 years is a long-time to determine whether or not a drug is safe, do you agree?
11. In the clinical trials that you have referenced (e.g., the Minnesota and the Brazil studies), there was not a single death attributed directly to hydroxychloroquine, correct?
12. According to Dr. Risch, there is no evidence based on the data to conclude that hydroxychloroquine is a dangerous drug. Are you aware of any published report that rebuts Dr. Risch’s findings?
13. Are you aware that the FDA ruling along with your statements have led to Governors in a number of states to restrict the use of hydroxychloroquine?
14. Are you aware that pharmacies are not filling prescriptions for this medication based on your and the FDA’s restrictions?
15. Are you aware that doctors are being punished by state medical boards for prescribing the medication based on your comments as well as the FDA’s?
16. Are you aware that people who want the medication sometimes need to call physicians in other states pleading for it?
17. And yet you opined in March that while people were dying at the rate of 10,000 patient a week, hydroxychloroquine could only be used in an inpatient setting as part of a clinical trial- correct?
18. So, people who want to be treated in that critical 5-to-7-day period and avoid being hospitalized are basically out of luck in your view, correct?
19. So, again, for clarity, without a shred of evidence that the Hydroxychloroquine/HCQ cocktail is dangerous in the doses currently recommend for early outpatient treatment, you and the FDA have made it very difficult if not impossible in some cases to get this treatment, correct?

Questions regarding methodology

1. In regards to the use of hydroxychloroquine, you have repeatedly made the same statement: “The Overwhelming Evidence from Properly Conducted Randomized Clinical Trials Indicate no Therapeutic Efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine.” Is that correct?
2. In Dr. Risch’s article regarding the early use of hydroxychloroquine, he disputes your opinion. He scientifically evaluated the data from the studies to support his opinions. Have you published any articles to support your opinions?
3. You repeatedly state that randomized clinical trials are needed to make conclusions regarding treatments, correct?
4. The FDA has approved many medications (especially in the area of cancer treatment) without randomized clinical trials, correct?
5. Are you aware that Dr. Thomas Frieden, the previous head of the CDC wrote an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2017 called “Evidence for Health Decision Making – Beyond Randomized Clinical Trials (RCT)”? Have you read that article?
6. In it Dr. Frieden states that “many data sources can provide valid evidence for clinical and public health action, including “analysis of aggregate clinical or epidemiological data”-do you disagree with that?
7. Frieden discusses “practiced-based evidence” as being essential in many discoveries, such SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome)-do you disagree with that?
8. Frieden writes the following: “Current evidence-grading systems are biased toward randomized clinical trials, which may lead to inadequate consideration of non-RCT data.” Dr. Fauci, have you considered all the non-RCT data in coming to your opinions?
9. Risch, who is a leading world authority in the analysis of aggregate clinical data, has done a rigorous analysis that he published regarding the early treatment of COVID 19 with hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin. He cites 5 or 6 studies, and in an updated article there are 5 or 6 more-a total of 10 to 12 clinical studies with formally collected data specifically regarding the early treatment of COVID. Have you analyzed the aggregate data regarding early treatment of high-risk patients with hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin?
10. Is there any document that you can produce for the American people of your analysis of the aggregate data that would rebut Dr. Risch’s analysis?
11. Yet, despite what Dr. Risch believes is overwhelming evidence in support of the early use of hydroxychloroquine, you dismiss the treatment insisting on randomized controlled trials even in the midst of a pandemic?
12. Would you want a loved one with high-risk comorbidities placed in the control group of a randomized clinical trial when a number of studies demonstrate safety and dramatic efficacy of the early use of the Hydroxychloroquine “cocktail?”
13. Are you aware that the FDA approved a number of cancer chemotherapy drugs without randomized control trials based solely on epidemiological evidence. The trials came later as confirmation. Are you aware of that?
14. You are well aware that there were no randomized clinical trials in the case of penicillin that saved thousands of lives in World War II? Was not this in the best interest of our soldiers?
15. You would agree that many lives were saved with the use of cancer drugs and penicillin that were used before any randomized clinical trials–correct?
16. You have referred to evidence for hydroxychloroquine as “anecdotal”- which is defined as “evidence collected in a casual or informal manner and relying heavily or entirely on personal testimony”- correct?
17. But there are many studies supporting the use of hydroxychloroquine in which evidence was collected formally and not on personal testimony, has there not been?
18. So it would be false to conclude that the evidence supporting the early use of hydroxychloroquine is anecdotal, correct?

Comparison between the US and other countries regarding case fatality rate

(It would be very helpful to have the graphs comparing our case fatality rates to other countries)

1. Are you aware that countries like Senegal and Nigeria that use Hydroxychloroquine have much lower case-fatality rates than the United States?
2. Have you pondered the relationship between the use of Hydroxychloroquine by a given country and their case mortality rate and why there is a strong correlation between the use of HCQ and the reduction of the case mortality rate.?
3. Have you considered consulting with a country such as India that has had great success treating COVID-19 prophylactically?
4. Why shouldn’t our first responders and front-line workers who are at high risk at least have an option of HCQ/zinc prophylaxis?
5. We should all agree that countries with far inferior healthcare delivery systems should not have lower case fatality rates. Reducing our case fatality rate from near 5% to 2.5%, in line with many countries who use HCQ early would have cut our total number of deaths in half, correct?
6. Why not consult with countries who have lower case-fatality rates, even without expensive medicines such as remdesivir and far less advanced intensive care capabilities?

Giving Americans the option to use HCQ for COVID-19

1. Harvey Risch, the pre-eminent Epidemiologist from Yale, wrote a Newsweek Article titled: “The key to defeating COVID-19 already exists. We need to start using it.” Did you read the article?
2. Are you aware that the cost of the Hydroxychloroquine “cocktail” including the Z-pack and zinc is about $50?
3. You are aware the cost of Remdesivir is about $3,200?
4. So that’s about 60 doses of HCQ “cocktail,” correct?
5. In fact, President Trump had the foresight to amass 60 million doses of hydroxychloroquine, and yet you continue to stand in the way of doctors who want to use that medication for their infected patients, correct?
6. Those are a lot of doses of medication that potentially could be used to treat our poor, especially our minority populations and people of color that have a difficult time accessing healthcare. They die more frequently of COVID-19, do they not?
7. But because of your obstinance blocking the use of HCQ, this stockpile has remained largely unused, correct?
8. Would you acknowledge that your strategy of telling Americans to restrict their behavior, wear masks, and distance, and put their lives on hold indefinitely until there is a vaccine is not working?
9. So, 160,000 deaths later, an economy in shambles, kids out of school, suicides and drug overdoses at a record high, people neglecting and dying from other medical conditions, and America reacting to every outbreak with another lockdown- is it not time to re-think your strategy that is fully dependent on an effective vaccine?
10. Why not consider a strategy that protects the most vulnerable and allows Americans back to living their lives and not wait for a vaccine panacea that may never come?
11. Why not consider the approach that thousands of doctors around the world are using, supported by a number of studies in the literature, with early outpatient treatment of high-risk patients for typically one week with HCQ + Zinc + Azithromycin?
12. You don’t see a problem with the fact that the government, due to your position, in some cases interferes with the choice of using HCQ. Should not that be a choice between the doctor and the patient?
13. While some doctors may not want to use the drug, should not doctors who believe that it is indicated be able to offer it to their patients?
14. Are you aware that doctors who are publicly advocating for such a strategy with the early use of the HCQ cocktail are being silenced with removal of content on the internet and even censorship in the medical community?
15. You are aware of the 20 or so physicians who came to the Supreme Court steps advocating for the early use of the Hydroxychloroquine cocktail.In fact, you said these were “a bunch of people spouting out something that isn’t true.”Dr. Fauci, these are not just “people”- these are doctors who actually treat patients, unlike you, correct?
16. Do you know that the video they made went viral with 17 million views in just a few hours, and was then removed from the internet?
17. Are you aware that their website, American Frontline Doctors, was taken down the next day?
18. Did you see the way that Nigerian immigrant physician, Dr. Stella Immanuel, was mocked in the media for her religious views and called a “witch doctor”?
19. Are you aware that Dr. Simone Gold, the leader of the group, was fired from her job as an Emergency Room physician the following day?
20. Are you aware that physicians advocating for this treatment that has by now probably saved millions of lives around the globe are harassed by local health departments, state agencies and medical boards, and even at their own hospitals? Are you aware of that?
21. Don’t you think doctors should have the right to speak out on behalf of their patients without the threat of retribution?
22. Are you aware that videos and other educational information are removed off the internet and labeled, in the words of Mark Zuckerberg, as “misinformation.”?
23. Is it not misinformation to characterize Hydroxychloroquine, in the doses used for early outpatient treatment of COVID-19 infections, as a dangerous drug?
24. Is it not misleading for you to repeatedly state to the American public that randomized clinical trials are the sole source of information to confirm the efficacy of a treatment?
25. Was it not misinformation when on CNN you cited the Lancet study based on false data from Surgisphere as evidence of the lack of efficacy of hydroxychloroquine?
26. Is it not misinformation as is repeated in the MSM as a result of your comments that a randomized clinical trial is required by the FDA for a drug approval?
27. Don’t you realize how much damage this falsehood perpetuates?
28. How is it not misinformation for you and the FDA to keep telling the American public that hydroxychloroquine is dangerous when you know that there is nothing more than anecdotal evidence of that?
29. Fauci, if you or a loved one were infected with COVID-19, and had flu-like symptoms, and you knew as you do now that there is a safe and effective cocktail that you could take to prevent worsening and the possibility of hospitalization, can you honestly tell us that you would refuse the medication?
30. Why not give our healthcare workers and first responders, who even with the necessary PPE are contracting the virus at a 3 to 4 times greater rate than the general public, the right to choose along with their doctor if they want use the medicine prophylactically?
31. Why is the government inserting itself in a way that is unprecedented in regard to a historically safe medication and not allowing patients the right to choose along with their doctor?
32. Why not give the American people the right to decide along with their physician whether or not they want outpatient treatment in the first 5 to 7 days of the disease with a cocktail that is safe and costs around $50?

Final questions

1. Fauci, please explain how a randomized clinical trial, to which you repeatedly make reference, for testing the HCQ cocktail (hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and zinc) administered within 5-7 days of the onset of symptoms is even possible now given the declining case numbers in so many states?
2. For example, if the NIH were now to direct a study to begin September 15, where would such a study be done?
3. Please explain how a randomized study on the early treatment (within the first 5 to 7 days of symptoms) of high-risk, symptomatic COVID-19 infections could be done during the influenza season and be valid?
4. Please explain how multiple observational studies arrive at the same outcomes using the same formulation of hydroxychloroquine + Azithromycin + Zinc given in the same time frame for the same study population (high risk patients) is not evidence that the cocktail works?
5. In fact, how is it not significant evidence, during a pandemic, for hundreds of non-academic private practice physicians to achieve the same outcomes with the early use of the HCQ cocktail?
6. What is your recommendation for the medical management of a 75-year-old diabetic with fever, cough, and loss of smell, but not yet hypoxic, who Emergency Room providers do not feel warrants admission? We know that hundreds of U.S. physicians (and thousands more around the world) would manage this case with the HCQ cocktail with predictable success.
7. If you were in charge in 1940, would you have advised the mass production of penicillin based primarily on lab evidence and one case series on 5 patients in England or would you have stated that a randomized clinical trial was needed?
8. Why would any physician put their medical license, professional reputation, and job on the line to recommend the HCQ cocktail (that does not make them any money) unless they knew the treatment could significantly help their patient?
9. Why would a physician take the medication themselves and prescribe it to family members (for treatment or prophylaxis) unless they felt strongly that the medication was beneficial?
10. How is it informed and ethical medical practice to allow a COVID-19 patient to deteriorate in the early stages of the infection when there is inexpensive, safe, and dramatically effective treatment with the HCQ cocktail, which the science indicates interferes with coronavirus replication?
11. How is your approach to “wait and see” in the early stages of COVID-19 infection, especially in high-risk patients, following the science?

While previous questions are related to hydroxychloroquine-based treatment, we have two questions addressing masks.

1. As you recall, you stated on March 8^th, just a few weeks before the devastation in the Northeast, that masks weren’t needed. You later said that you made this statement to prevent a hoarding of masks that would disrupt availability to healthcare workers. Why did you not make a recommendation for people to wear any face covering to protect themselves, as we are doing now?
2. Rather, you issued no such warning and people were riding in subways and visiting their relatives in nursing homes without any face covering. Currently, your position is that face coverings are essential. Please explain whether or not you made a mistake in early March, and how would you go about it differently now.

Conclusion

Since the start of the pandemic, physicians have used hydroxychloroquine to treat symptomatic COVID-19 infections, as well as for prophylaxis. Initial results were mixed as indications and doses were explored to maximize outcomes and minimize risks. What emerged was that hydroxychloroquine appeared to work best when coupled with azithromycin. In fact, it was the President of the United States who recommended to you publicly at the beginning of the pandemic, in early March, that you should consider early treatment with hydroxychloroquine and a “Z-Pack.” Additional studies showed that patients did not seem to benefit when COVID-19 infections were treated with hydroxychloroquine late in the course of the illness, typically in a hospital setting, but treatment was consistently effective, even in high-risk patients, when hydroxychloroquine was given in a “cocktail” with azithromycin and, critically, zinc in the first 5 to 7 days after the onset of symptoms. The outcomes are, in fact, dramatic.

As clearly presented in the McCullough article from Baylor, and described by Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, the efficacy of the HCQ cocktail is based on the pharmacology of the hydroxychloroquine ionophore acting as the “gun” and zinc as the “bullet,” while azithromycin potentiates the anti-viral effect. Undeniably, the hydroxychloroquine combination treatment is supported by science. Yet, you continue to ignore the “science” behind the disease. Viral replication occurs rapidly in the first 5 to 7 days of symptoms and can be treated at that point with the HCQ cocktail. Rather, your actions have denied patients treatment in that early stage. Without such treatment, some patients, especially those at high risk with co-morbidities, deteriorate and require hospitalization for evolving cytokine storm resulting in pneumonia, respiratory failure, and intubation with 50% mortality. Dismissal of the science results in bad medicine, and the outcome is over 160,000 dead Americans. Countries that have followed the science and treated the disease in the early stages have far better results, a fact that has been concealed from the American Public.

Despite mounting evidence and impassioned pleas from hundreds of frontline physicians, your position was and continues to be that randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have not shown there to be benefit. However, not a single randomized control trial has tested what is being recommended: use of the full cocktail (especially zinc), in high-risk patients, initiated within the first 5 to 7 days of the onset of symptoms. Using hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin late in the disease process, with or without zinc, does not produce the same, unequivocally positive results.

Dr. Thomas Frieden, in a 2017 New England Journal of Medicine article regarding randomized clinical trials, emphasized there are situations in which it is entirely appropriate to use other forms of evidence to scientifically validate a treatment. Such is the case during a pandemic that moves like a brushfire jumping to different parts of the country. Insisting on randomized clinical trials in the midst of a pandemic is simply foolish. Dr. Harvey Risch, a world-renowned Yale epidemiologist, analyzed all the data regarding the use of the hydroxychloroquine/HCQ cocktail and concluded that the evidence of its efficacy when used early in COVID-19 infection is unequivocal.

Curiously, despite a 65+ years safety record, the FDA suddenly deemed hydroxychloroquine a dangerous drug, especially with regard to cardiotoxicity. Dr. Risch analyzed data provided by the FDA and concluded that the risk of a significant cardiac event from hydroxychloroquine is extremely low, especially when compared to the mortality rate of COVID-19 patients with high-risk co-morbidities. How do you reconcile that for forty years rheumatoid arthritis and lupus patients have been treated over long periods, often for years, with hydroxychloroquine and now there are suddenly concerns about a 5 to 7-day course of hydroxychloroquine at similar or slightly increased doses? The FDA statement regarding hydroxychloroquine and cardiac risk is patently false and alarmingly misleading to physicians, pharmacists, patients, and other health professionals. The benefits of the early use of hydroxychloroquine to prevent hospitalization in high-risk patients with COVID-19 infection far outweigh the risks. Physicians are not able to obtain the medication for their patients, and in some cases are restricted by their state from prescribing hydroxychloroquine. The government’s obstruction of the early treatment of symptomatic high-risk COVID-19 patients with hydroxychloroquine, a medication used extensively and safely for so long, is unprecedented.

It is essential that you tell the truth to the American public regarding the safety and efficacy of the hydroxychloroquine/HCQ cocktail. The government must protect and facilitate the sacred and revered physician-patient relationship by permitting physicians to treat their patients. Governmental obfuscation and obstruction are as lethal as cytokine storm.

Americans must not continue to die unnecessarily. Adults must resume employment and our youth return to school. Locking down America while awaiting an imperfect vaccine has done far more damage to Americans than the coronavirus. We are confident that thousands of lives would be saved with early treatment of high-risk individuals with a cocktail of hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin. Americans must not live in fear. As Dr. Harvey Risch’s Newsweek article declares, “The key to defeating COVID-19 already exists. We need to start using it.”

Very Respectfully,

George C. Fareed, MD, Brawley, California

Michael M. Jacobs, MD, MPH, Pensacola, Florida

Donald C. Pompan, MD, Salinas, California

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Russia’s Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Chief Executive Officer Kiril Dmitriev announced that Cuba could begin producing the COVID-19 vaccine, the Sputnik V, in November.

“Cuba has a large capacity to produce medicines and vaccines with highly qualified staff. We could coordinate with its government to start the vaccine production in November,” Dmitriev stated.

He also pointed out that the third stage of vaccine trials will begin in Russia on Wednesday. Later the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and the Philippines will continue testing it.

On Tuesday, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko announced the registration of the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine, the Sputnik V, which is named after the first artificial satellite launched into orbit by the USSR in 1957.

Before being tested in 76 volunteers, the Russian COVID-19 vaccine passed all the necessary safety and efficacy tests in several animal species.

On Tuesday morning, outlet Sputnik reported that that the Russian vaccine, which was developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute, can protect a person from the coronavirus for up to two years after injection.

“Such a prolonged period of protection is possible due to the vaccine being based on viral vectors – a harmless human adenovirus delivers a portion of the COVID-19 virus to a human body forcing it to form an immune response to it,” the Russian outlet explained.

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Featured image: BioCubaFarma facilities in Cuba, August, 2020. | Photo: Twitter/ @CubaStandard

As Canadians look back over the 75 years since the mass murders in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we should reflect on how this country has long punched above its weight when fighting to serve and protect imperialism. This is perhaps especially true when it comes to our Peaceable Kingdom’s so-called “defence” and “security” companies which sell more to America’s warfare/surveillance state than any other other nation on earth.

But many Canadians, being sheltered from knowledge of their country’s deep complicity in the US imperium, are content to cozy themselves with self-righteous delusions about mythical “Canadian values.” The prevailing national narratives, propagated by state institutions, corporations (including the mass media) and similarly captive NGOs, still propagate the fiction that Canada is a beacon of light shining human rights, justice and democracy on the world.

In truth, Canada stands unreservedly for the capitalist model of private exploitation which has shackled the peoples of this planet for centuries in varying forms of slavery, and is now driving us recklessly towards environmental destruction, all in the name of increased profitability for corporations.

Canada’s commitment to aiding and abetting America’s role as the “Global Cop,” patrolling the world and busting heads to impose order and the “rule of law,” is well illustrated by the unrestricted flow of billions of dollars worth of Canadian military technologies to the US every year. Over the decades, much of this high-tech Canadian matériel has been assembled into major US killing machines that have been used to wage dozens of wars, invasions and regime-changes, which Canada prefers to phrase as “peacekeeping” or “international policing operations.” But, whatever they’re called, these multifarious US-led military activities have resulted in the deaths of between 20 to 30 million people since WWII.(1) Oftentimes, these military efforts have been carried out to keep business-friendly dictators in power, to undermine progressive political movements, and/or to overthrow governments deemed to be enemies of the American hegemony to which Canadian governments remain ever so loyal.

The Reaper, a Grimm Parable of Canadian Surveillance/Targeting Technology

To shine some light on the ever-blurry jurisdiction between the realms of global warfare and local police enforcement, let’s use an illustrative example through which to view Canada’s longstanding commitment to strengthening America’s highly-militarized way of policing protests. This case study involves one of the world’s most advanced surveillance, weapons-targeting systems which can also be weaponised to carry “Hellfire” missiles. It is, appropriately enough called the “Reaper,” but it is also known as a Predator B or MQ-9. If inspired by the Brothers Grimm, we could also compare this device to a “Magic Mirror.” It is a looking-glass “eye in the sky” through which the West’s powerful global elites can track and attack those who might dare to challenge their self-glorifying authority as “the fairest of them all.”

This seemingly magical, spy technology has been used of late by US “law-enforcement” agencies eager to look down upon the scurrying masses of antiracist protesters in American cities. But, as we’ll see, the centrepiece of this incredible technology — a cutting-edge, Canadian-made “high-magnification, missile-grade multisensor” technology — was used to great effect one decade ago by Canada’s military. They used this same spy technology aboard warplanes to aid Canada’s civilian police authorities in their monitoring of mass protests against the G8-G20 summit. Ironically, these protesters were tried to shine a critical spotlight on the world’s most powerful heads of state who were then gathering in Toronto to structure their control over the global financial system.

The Reaper is an unmanned aerial drone equipped with this Canadian sensor technology that was used to fly circles around Minneapolis during Black-Lives-Matter protests in late May.(2) Press reports have said that the US Customs and Border Protection(3) was also using some of its other Reaper drones around that time to fly missions over San Antonio, Texas and Detroit, Michigan.(4)

Reapers are among numerous aerial platforms that allow the military minions of ruling authorities (akin to Orwell’s “Big Brother” or the Brother Grimm’s “Evil Queen”) to keep tabs on those who dare to threaten the elite’s supremacy.  But besides keeping a watchful eye on adversaries of the establishment, the Reaper can also be used to target and kill them.

Reapers are in fact better known for their weapons-targeting contributions to warfighting than to policing uppity activists who protest in the streets.  These drones have, for instance, been used in various wars including those in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Mali and Yemen. Perhaps most infamously, the US military used one of its weaponized Reapers to fire the “Hellfire” missile that assassinated Iranian General Qassim Suleimani (and Iraqi counterparts) in Baghdad in January of this year.(5).

Although the Reaper bestows near-magical advantages to murderous global elites, this eerie technology is very real. Its practical, day-to-day functioning relies on crucial, indispensable high-tech systems that are manufactured by two of Canada’s many government-subsidized war industries, CAE(6) and WESCAM.(7)

Dr. Strangelove, General Atomics, Canadair and the RCAF’s nuclear payloads

Before examining in more detail the key roles played by CAE and WESCAM technology in the functioning of Reapers, it is worth looking at an instructive history of events that links this weapons system’s prime contractor to the Canadian government. Reapers are built by General Atomics, which was co-founded some 65 years ago by the much-vilified nuclear physicist Dr. Edward Teller. While aptly nicknamed “the father of the hydrogen bomb,” Teller is still heralded by some for his 1950s work at General Atomics. (Although Teller “hated the association,” he is widely-accepted as the real life model for “Dr. Strangelove,” the eponymous mad scientist played by Peter Sellers in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 classic, Cold-War satire.)(8)

Back in 1955, during the height of the Cold War, just a decade after the criminal obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (in which Canada played such a significant role, 9), General Atomics was created as a division of General Dynamics.  It had been formed in 1952, thanks in no small part to the great financial success of what had been Canada’s top warplane manufacturer, Canadair. This Canadian Crown Corporation was created by Mackenzie King’s Liberal government in 1944.  But after sinking tremendous amounts of public money into Canadair, the Canadian government sold it for a bargain-basement sale price in 1947 to a troubled US submarine builder called Electric Boat.(10)

As General Dynamics’ own version of this history explains:

“By the early 1950s, Canadair’s success began overshadowing that of Electric Boat; some business advisers even suggested that Canadair purchase Electric Boat and operate it as a subsidiary. Instead, on February 21, 1952, a new parent company called General Dynamics Corporation was established to manage the operations of Canadair and Electric Boat.”(11)

Thanks to Canadair, General Dynamics went on to become a very highly-profitable manufacturer of thousands of warplanes, including CF-104 “Starfighters.”(12) The Canadian Air Force operated these nuclear-bomb equipped jets in West Germany as part Canada’s faithful commitment to NATO. Dedicated to carrying out NATO’s nuclear warfighting doctrine, Canada had its warplanes optimized to work as a “nuclear strike force.” Nothing could perhaps better illustrate Canada’s grim willingness to reap the souls of the dead than this.

Nuclear weapons, being the most deadly devices ever conceived, can be seen to symbolize the Spectre of Death. Similarly, those who produce or profit from these technologies personify those mythic characters, the psychopomps, who escort the dead away from the land of the living.  As Robert Oppenheimer, “the father of the atomic bomb,” remorsefully said after witnessing the first nuclear detonation on July 16, 1945: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”(13)

Between 1964 and 1971, Canadair “Starfighter” warplanes dutifully carried several kinds of US-made tactical/strategic thermonuclear warheads with variable yields. Between 1965 and 1984, Canada’s CF-101 jets carried American Air-2A “Genie” rockets with 1.5 kiloton nuclear warheads. And, immediately after Liberal Prime Minister Lester Pearson took power, in what amounted to a US-backed coup in 1963, he brought in US W40 fusion-boosted fission nuclear warheads to arm Canada’s CIM-10 “Bomarc” missiles.(14)

As Canadian military historian Dr. John Clearwater has noted:

“From 1963 to 1984, US nuclear warheads armed Canadian weapons systems in both Canada and West Germany. It is likely that during the early part of this period, the Canadian military was putting more effort, money and manpower into the nuclear commitment than any other single activity.”(15)

Having kept its fingers in the production of both warplanes and warships, General Dynamics has since grown to become the world’s fifth largest military industry, with revenues of $36 billion in 2018.(16) It is a behemoth of war, firmly ensconced in the top one percent of global merchants-of-death clubhouse. One of its subsidiaries, General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada, based in London, Ontario, produces the weapons-laden armoured vehicles that Canada has infamously sold to Saudi Arabia. Less infamously, Canada has also sold these same tank-like vehicles to other countries as well including the far-right, US-allied government of Colombia. Even more significantly, Canada has also sold these vehicles to the US military which deployed them on countless missions that “accumulating over 6 million miles” in the Iraq War between 2003 and 2005 alone.(17)

Reaper Canada: Doing our part to serve and protect the US and its ravenous empire

The operation of General Atomics’ pilotless Reaper/Predator drones depends in large part on the complicity of two major Canadian war industries:

(1) CAE (Montreal, QC)

With $995 million in military revenues, is Canada’s top war-profiteering corporation.(18) Among its many contributions to the US war machine, CAE manufactures the Predator Mission Trainer. This “training and mission rehearsal” system uses a “fully-immersive, virtual environment replicating actual operational conditions” to prepare Reaper pilots and crew.18 This CAE flight simulator “delivers an unprecedented level of fidelity and capability in the use of simulation-based training for remotely piloted aircraft pilots and sensor operators,” said Todd Probert, President of CAE’s Defense & Security Group. CAE also notes that its Predator Mission Trainer delivers “initial qualification and aircraft sensor systems training in addition to mission-specific training.” CAE’s mission-training, simulation technology is so realistic that it the allows aircrews to “potentially conduct all training in the simulator without necessarily requiring further training on the actual aircraft.”(19)

(2) WESCAM (Burlington, ON)

This Canadian subsidiary of America’s L3Harris Technologies(20) provides the Reaper drone with the MX-20 Electro-optical/Infrared (EO/IR) imaging system. The MX-20 is WESCAM’s largest, high-magnification, missile-grade multisensor. It sports laser-illuminated, see-in-the-dark surveillance cameras that can identify and engage subjects that are more than 20 kilometres away. As WESCAM notes, the MX-20 is an “advanced targeting solution” that allows Reaper operators to “locate and track targets at long stand-off.” WESCAM puffery goes on to brag that its EO/IR system provides “high-sensitivity multi-spectral sensors for day, low-light and nighttime missions” that “support Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance and Precision Guided Munitions missions.” These deadly qualities allow Reapers, and other aircraft, to “operate with excellent detection and recognition capabilities from extremely high altitudes.”(21)

Wescam’s high-tech sensor systems provide an almost all-seeing eye in the sky not only for General Atomics’ Reapers but for other military aircraft as well, including Canada’s CP-140 “Aurora” spy planes.(22)

The role of CAE and WESCAM in Spying on Canadian Protests

The 2020 use of Reapers to spy on US protesters was not the first time that CAE and WESCAM technology contributed to the aerial surveillance of mass protests in North America. Battle tested over Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan, Canada’s Aurora spy planes used Wescam’s MX-20 imaging sensors to watch over the huge 2010 protests in Vancouver and Toronto. These Auroras, named for the Roman goddess of dawn (who was mother of Lucifer, the mythic “bringer of light,” 23) are Canada’s strategic patrol aircraft. As such, they conduct Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance missions.

The Canadian pilots and crew aboard Canada’s Auroras learned their crafts — like their Reaper colleagues — thanks to the CAE’s advanced training and mission rehearsal simulators. Canada’s surveillance aircraft are but one of many dozens of varieties military aircraft that employ CAE technologies.(24)

Although Aurora crews had run missions to track Russian submarines, to pursue Iraqi leaders fleeing death aboard ships in the Persian Gulf, and to target those fighting the foreign occupation of Afghanistan, protesters in Canada became a new target in the Aurora’s sights in 2010. These spy planes were then used to conduct surveillance during two of the biggest domestic “security” operations in Canadian history.

Operation Podium in Vancouver:

The first of these — Operation Podium — took place during the Olympic/Paralympic games in early 2010. Canada’s Air Force described Operation Podium as “the most complex domestic operation ever undertaken in Canada,” and said it was “the largest [Canadian Forces] CF and Air Force deployment in recent memory.”(25) This was also “the first time in Canada” that “video streaming from CP-140” was “operationalised,” i.e., used in a “real world” operation outside a military exercise. And, the Air Force also described it as a “world first,” in terms of using “integrated data links from the Air Force, Navy and [Canadian NORAD Region] CANR, as well as the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force and U.S. Coast Guard, into one coherent air and maritime picture.”(26)

Cutting through such technical descriptions, the vice president of Canada’s L-3 Wescam summed up the role of their MX-20 sensors against protesters by saying: “They were used at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver this year providing persistent surveillance in an overview capability to keep an eye out for anyone who might want to cause trouble.”(27)

Operation Cadence in Toronto:

A few months later, the CP-140 was at it again, this time over the turbulent down-town streets of Toronto, during protests against the G8-G20 summit. On June 26(28) and June27,(29) an Aurora aircraft was seen continuously circling over Toronto’s downtown core as thousands of citizens assembled to express opposition to government policies, including Canada’s deep involvement in the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. An Aurora was also spotted flying nearby over Burlington and Hamilton, Ontario, on June 23,(30) just as excessive “security” restrictions descended upon citizens of the entire region.

The CP-140 that was on the lookout over Toronto was part of what Canada’s military called Operation Cadence. Col. Eyre, then-Commander of a Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa, described it as “the largest security operation in the history of Canada.”(31) It was also a first, said Maj. Kael Rennie and Capt. Matt Crosbie, in that “a Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) saw its first ever major domestic operation in Canada.” This was unusual, they continued, because “Normal TACP duties included the employment of fixed wing and attack helicopters in the employment of air-to-ground munitions. While that works well in Afghanistan, it was obviously not the desired effect for the G8/G20.”(32)

Canada’s then newly battle-tested technology was referred to as the “Overland Equipment Mission Suite” and the “Tactical Common Data Link.” Using L3Wescam cameras affixed to the CP-140s, these new systems provide “full motion video imagery” for the immediate use of army and/or police units on the ground, whether they are battling the Talibhan or ban-the-bomb protesters. As Major CMR Larsen put it in 2010:

“In plain speak: the Aurora can now use its powerful camera system efficiently, and while airborne can actually transmit video to a supported unit…. What we can see from the air, a tactical commander can see on the ground. It is not hard to imagine how this capability greatly adds to the ‘big picture’ required by operational commanders.”(33)

In an even ‘bigger picture’ view of this ‘technological advancement,’ what this means is that the militarisation of policing in Canada has reached phenomenally new heights. The CP-140 aircraft facilitated the government’s highly-militarised, $1 billion response to G8/G20 protests, was operated out of a Canadian Forces Base (CFB) in Trenton, Ontario. Two RCMP officers very happily took turns working 12-hour shifts doing “air services” aboard the CP-140. As RCMP Cpl. Bob Thomas describes it: “We did flight observation for the security on the ground…. Just before both Summits started I moved to CFB Trenton and did all my flying from there as the Summits were going on.”(34) Thomas was chosen for the job because of his experience with “aerial flight observation and infrared camera training.” He was “one of just two RCMP officers assigned to fly with the … surveillance aircraft, a CP-140 Aurora. It was that opportunity that Thomas found most memorable. ‘It was an awesome experience.’”(35)

Canadian crews operating CP-140 Auroras at the Comox Air Force Base on Vancouver Island, BC, (where some of Canada’s Bomarc missiles were armed with US nuclear warheads beginning in 1965(36) aptly call themselves the “Demon Squadron.” In their “vision” statement, they recognize the changing nature of the CP-140’s role, saying: “The Demons will be leaders in a dynamic environment. In our quest for excellence, we will embrace and pursue technological change.”(37) And, in their “mission” statement, Canada’s “Demon” warriors express their willingness to embrace their future wherever it leads, including “to project air power at home and abroad”:

“The 407 Demon Squadron mission is to provide regional, national and expeditionary commanders with a rapidly deployable, self-sufficient, combat [Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance] ISR and [Anti-Submarine Warfare] ASW attack capability to enable them to project air power at home and abroad.”

The “Demon’s Creed” concludes:

“The Demons are proud warriors….We are the eyes, ears and fists of commanders over the land and sea….We are proud to be recognized as Demons.”(38)

Are Canadian Reapers on the Horizon? More Wars abroad, More Surveillance at Home

The Canadian military may soon be acquiring its very own version of General Atomics’ Reaper drones. In October 2019 Canada’s war department finally narrowed down its search for corporations that could fulfill the military’s demands for a Remotely Piloted Aircraft System. There are now only two competing teams bidding for this lucrative contract to build aerial drones for Canada’s military. These two teams are led by [1] General Atomics, which qualified for the contest with its Reaper drone, and [2] L3 Technologies MAS Inc. which has proposed that Canada purchase Heron TP drones from Israeli Aircraft Industries.(39) This Israeli drone was battle tested in Gaza during the 22-day Israeli offensive there that massacred 1,417 Palestinians in 2008-2009.(40) In June 2009, just a few months after this massacre, the Canadian Forces announced that it had begun leasing Israeli Heron drones from a Canadian military company called Macdonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA).(41) Canada was soon using these Israel-made drones in Afghanistan.(42)

To build its case for Canada’s acquisition of Reapers, General Atomics, which leads Team SkyGuardian Canada, noted that “We have a long-standing global relationship with CAE and L3 WESCAM.”(43) This “long-standing relationship” does not just relate to their participation in making the Reaper a successful US instrument of war and surveillance. These companies began working together during joint efforts on the Reaper’s precursor, the RQ-1 Predator. Used in Bosnia (1995), Yugoslavia (1999), Afghanistan (2001-2003), Yemen (2002) and Iraq (2003), this low-altitude drone was used primarily for photographic, electronic surveillance and target-acquisition missions. The RQ-1 drone was also weaponized by the CIA so that it could fire missiles to assassinate suspects in the War on Terror, as it did in Yemen in 2002.(44)

In pushing its case for the Reaper, General Atomics has also told the Canadian military that it “look[ed] forward to growing our relationship with MDA as a part of this new team in Canada.”(45) MDA has also proven its strong commitment to serving US wars through its production of such surveillance and weapons-targeting systems as Canada’s RADARSAT satellites.(46)

Unrestricted Flow of Weapons vs. Restricted Flow of Information

America has a long history of using Reapers to spy on people, to wage wars, to overthrow foreign governments, to carry out mass murder and, generally, to wreak havoc and destruction around the world. This, of course, has never stopped the Canadian government from allowing the export of CAE and WESCAM technologies to the US so that it can maximize its use of these deadly Reapers.

Neither, for that matter, has Canada’s government ever seen fit to prevent any other Canadian war industry from feeding the voracious appetite of the US military industrial complex. While about half of Canada’s military production is exported, as much as two thirds of those exports go to the US. This huge flow of Canadian military hardware has been deeply entrenched in the world’s closest economic trade relationship since the Canada-US Defence Production Sharing Agreement was signed in 1956.(47)

For many decades, the Canadian government has required domestic military industries to obtain permits for their exports around the world, except, that is, for arms sales to the US. This exemption has served to ensure the free and unrestricted flow of Canadian military exports to the US. Since, over the deaces, the Canadian government has handed out billions in grants and “investments” to support the business prospects of Canada’s hugely profitable military industries, the US has been able to benefit from unfettered access to its northerly neighbour’s generously subsidized military industrial base.

In stark contrast, the flow of publicly accessible information about Canada’s traffic in arms to the US has been severely restricted by our government. Although limited, generalized information about Canadian military exports to other countries is made public in government reports, virtually all data on Canada’s military sales to the US have long been completely excluded from this reporting process. This of course has made it extremely difficult to monitor Canada’s contributions to the US war machine. This lack of transparency is unacceptable not only because America is by far the largest recipient of Canadian military products and services, but because it can still accurately be seen as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world” (as Martin Luther King Jr. put it in 1967).(48)

Regardless of which particular brand of drones is acquired by the Canadian military, activists will soon have to contend with the fact that their government has acquired yet another tool for its deadly arsenal of war. This will not only allow Canada’s military to increase its practical support for US-led foreign invasions and interventions, it will also give even more resources to police forces which have been spying on progressives since this country’s inception.(49)

2020 Vision: Watching the Watchers and Watching Ourselves

By watching the watchers we progressives become more aware of the continuing crimes committed by those powerful institutions which have put us in their surveillance sights. In the process we also build our awareness of how these institutions have been victorious in the battle to fabricate and frame the public’s limited understanding of history.

But besides watching the watchers it is important to be ever more vigilant in watching ourselves and those civil organizations which claim to represent our best interests. For centuries, good honest Canadians have been convinced to support criminally-harmful state policies and to collaborate in turning those policies into reality. The complicity of Canada’s churches in the genocide of First Nations peoples is a case in point. It illustrates how decent, well-meaning Canadians became so enamoured by entrancing mainstream narratives of racism, xenophobia and white superiority, that they went beyond just turning a blind eye to repressive policies, and actively administered the crimes that were committed throughout the entire Residential School process. These crimes were, afterall, conducted in the name of helping those poor so-called “savages” who were wrongly seen to be in great need of a benevolent grace that could best be bestowed by the great uplifting processes of civilization, Christianization and Canadianization.(50)

So, while it is important to watch the watchers who oversee the ongoing international crimes against peace and crimes against humanity, it is — perhaps counterintuitively — even more important to watch ourselves. Although we have little if any real power to influence those who hold sway over global military, political and financial institutions, we do have a fighting chance at influencing our own behaviour. With this in mind it may be useful to engage in thought experiments to imagine ourselves standing at a vantage point 100 years in the future from whence we can look back in hindsight at the present day.

Just as Reaper drones hover above the social fray looking down upon us all from a great distance, we can try to escort our imaginations to a point in time when we as individuals will all be long dead. From that hopefully more advanced point of view we can perhaps more objectively see the current flaws in our society and then ask ourselves what crimes Canadians were unwittingly committing back in the dark days of 2020. By viewing ourselves through this Reaper like “Magic Mirror” hovering on the other side of our own deaths, we may be able to see some way to prevent Canadians from becoming even further complicit in vast crimes that many cannot yet even see.

Defunding the Military and Defusing NATO

Besides calling on Canada to defund the police, many activists are also ramping up demands to defund the military. What better bank of resources is there than Canada’s vast military coffers to find the monetary resources needed to invest in institutions that promote health, education, day care, mass transportation and environmental protection? Instead of continually electing politicians that unquestionably increase financing to feed our military’s unquenchable desire for more and more weapons, Canadians need a government that will instead fund socially-useful and environmentally-sustainable solutions to the world’s collective problems. By doing so, the Canadian could not only create far more jobs at home, it could — for a change — actually have a positive influence on the world. Demilitarizing Canada and the planet would be extremely beneficial in many ways, not least of which because the armed forces burn more fossil fuels, and hence contribute more to catastrophic climate change, than any other force on earth.

No to NATO

Instead of continually aiding and abetting US-led wars, and further promoting the most destructive, exploitative practices of unfettered capitalism, Canada desperately needs to make an abrupt about face. We need, for example, to have a government that will stop dressing itself up behind phoney facades of sensitivity to the evils of racism, and begin to actually take practical steps to eradicate the systemic, institutionalised racism that riddles the Canadian state. This work must begin by recognizing the continuing harm that has been done by the centuries of genocide, slavery and imperial land plunder upon which the whole Canadian nation-building project has long been based.

The struggle to end Canada’s longstanding complicity in war could start by severing our military ties to the US, and by removing ourselves from NATO. This aggressive military alliance is a major threat to world peace and Canada should have no part in it. NATO still maintains its founding doctrine which is based on its willingness to prepare for and wage nuclear war. Canada also needs to sign and ratify the UN treaty to ban nuclear weapons. And, while we’re dreaming in technocolour, Canada should stop mining uranium, stop plans for spreading mini nuclear reactors across the north, and stop creating more nuclear waste because we simply cannot dispose of the vast stores of this deadly material that we have already amassed.

But achieving such utopian visions of an independent, peaceful and just Canada will always remain in the realm of fairy-tales unless Canadians, as a small first step, are able to free themselves from the many powerful myths and deceptive narratives that distort this country’s self awareness. Because these grand national myths constrict Canadians’ understanding of history and obscure our current complicity in international crimes, they form major ideological obstacles which block the work of progressive people struggling for social change. Only by becoming more aware and mindful of our Peaceable Kingdom’s powerful mythologies, can Canadians hope to ever extricate this country from its ongoing collaboration with the American imperium of war and repression.

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Richard Sanders is the editor/producer of Press for Conversion!, magazine of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade.

Notes

1. U.S. Regime Has Killed 20-30 Million People Since World War II
https://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-regime-has-killed-20-30-million-people-since-world-war-ii/5633111

2. Joseph Trevithick, Customs and Border Protection Reaper Drone Appears Over Minneapolis Protests, May 29, 2020.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33756/customs-and-border-protection-predator-b-drone-appears-over-minneapolis-protests

3. Calling itself “one of the world’s largest law enforcement organizations,” the CPB says it “is charged with keeping terrorists and their weapons out of the U.S. while facilitating lawful international travel and trade.”

About CBP
https://www.cbp.gov/about

While the CBP is only allowed to operate within 100 miles of the US border, Minneapolis and San Antonio are beyond that 100-mile zone.

The Constitution in the 100-Mile Border Zone, American Civil Liberties Union
https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone

4. Joseph Cox, “The Government Is Regularly Flying Predator Drones Over American Cities,” Vice Motherboard, June 3, 2020
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7wnzm/government-flying-predator-drones-american-cities

5. Joe Lauria, “Fear of a Major Mideast War,” Consortiumnews, January 2, 2020
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/02/fear-of-a-major-mideast-war/

6. Prime Minister announces new project to create jobs and improve training in Canada’s aerospace and healthcare sectors, August 8, 2018.
https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2018/08/08/prime-minister-announces-new-project-create-jobs-and-improve-training

7. Feds invest $75M in Burlington’s Wescam, The Hamilton Spectator, March 24, 2015.
https://www.thespec.com/business/2015/03/24/feds-invest-75m-in-burlington-s-wescam.html

8. Peter Goodchild, “Meet the real Dr Strangelove,” The Guardian, Apr 1, 2004.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2004/apr/01/science.research1

9. Setsuko Thurlow, An open letter to the Prime Minister of Canada from a survivor of the Hiroshima A-Bombing, August 7, 2020
https://countercurrents.org/2020/08/an-open-letter-to-the-prime-minister-of-canada-from-a-survivor-of-the-hiroshima-a-bombing/

10. General Dynamics Corporation History
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/general-dynamics-corporation-history/

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid.

13. James Temperton, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds’. The story of Oppenheimer’s infamous quote,” Wired, Aug 9. 2017.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/manhattan-project-robert-oppenheimer

14. 1962-1963, Canada: ‘Knocking Over’ “Dief the Chief”

A Plot “Made in the U.S.”
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/issue43/articles/plot_made_in_us.htm

Key Quotations on the events of January 1963
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/issue43/articles/key_quotations_on_the_events.htm

CIA Fingerprints
The Americans behind the Plot to Oust John Diefenbaker
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/issue43/articles/cia_fingerprints.htm

John Diefenbaker’s “Made in Canada” Policies
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/issue43/articles/john_diefenbaker.htm

15. “Books on Nuclear Weapons in Canada,” Press for Conversion! Issue # 39 Dec. 1999. p.32.
http://coat.ncf.ca/P4C/39.pdf

Nuclear Weapons: Preparing for Global Annihilation, Press for Conversion! Issue # 48 July 2002. p.40.
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/issue48/articles/40.pdf

John Clearwater. Canadian Nuclear Weapons: The Untold Story of Canada’s Cold War Arsenal, 1998, pp.91–116.

John Clearwater, US Nuclear Weapons in Canada, 1999.

Canada’s Nuclear Strike Force: 1st Air Division 1964-1972 , 10 August 2015
https://web.archive.org/web/20170728201632/http://www.tailsthroughtime.com/2015/08/canadas-nuclear-strike-force-1st-air.html

16. Top 100 for 2019
https://people.defensenews.com/top-100/

17. “69M to Reset 265 Stryker ICVs Back from Iraq,” Defense Industry Daily, Nov. 8, 2005.
https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/69m-to-reset-265-stryker-icvs-back-from-iraq-01450/

18. CAE Predator Mission Trainer (PMT)0
https://www.cae.com/media/media-center/documents/DM104-PredatorMissionTrainer_ENG_September2019.pdf

19. CAE-built Predator Mission Trainer now in-service at General Atomics Flight Test and Training Center in North Dakota, CAE, Apr 7, 2020.
https://www.asdnews.com/news/defense/2020/04/07/caebuilt-predator-mission-trainer-now-inservice-at-general-atomics-flight-test-training-center-north-dakota

20. L3Harris was formed in 2019 through a merger of L3 Technologies and Harris Corp., America’s 7th and 12th largest war industries.
Top 100 for 2019, op. cit.

The Canada Pension Plan holds $49 million in L3Harris stocks.

Foreign public equity holdings as at March 31, 2020
https://cdn4.cppinvestments.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Foreign-Publicly-Traded-Equity-Holdings-ibfs-06-2020-en-v2.htm

21. EO/IR Targeting System Integrated into MQ-9 Predator UAS, Mar 5, 2020.
https://www.unmannedsystemstechnology.com/2020/03/eo-ir-targeting-system-integrated-into-mq-9-predator-uas/

Technical specifications and performance of WESCAM’s MX-20 used by the Predator can be found here:

WESCAM MX™-20
https://www.wescam.com/products-services/airborne-surveillance-and-reconnaissance/mx-20/

22. AH-1 “Cobra” Attack Helicopter

Richard Sanders, Table: “Canadian War Industries Exporting Parts and/or Services to the USA for the AH-1 ‘Cobra,'” COAT Campaign to Oppose CANSEC, 2009.
http://coat.ncf.ca/ARMX/cansec/AH-1.htm

C-130 “Hercules” Tactical transport

Richard Sanders, “C-130 ‘Hercules,'” Press for Conversion! (Issue # 52) October 2003, p.15
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/52/15.pdf

P-3 “Orion” Maritime Patrol Aircraft
Richard Sanders, Table: “Canadian War Industries Exporting Parts and/or Services to the USA for the P-3 ‘Orion,'” COAT Campaign to Oppose CANSEC, 2009.
http://coat.ncf.ca/ARMX/cansec/P-3.htm

Richard Sanders, P-3C“’Orion,'” Press for Conversion! Issue # 52 October 2003, p.24.0
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/52/24.pdf

British MR2 “Nimrod” Maritime Patrol Aircraft
Richard Sanders, “Lt.Col. Jason Major and Col. Bill Seymourserved with LRP Squads in Iraq, 2003,” Press for Conversion! (Issue # 65), p.44, December 2010.
http://coat.ncf.ca/P4C/65/44-45.pdf

23. William Smith, A Smaller Classical Dictionary of Biography, Mythology, and Geography, 1878.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=fZUOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA235&dq=Smith+Classical+Dictionary+Lucifer&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=
Smith%20Classical%20Dictionary%20Lucifer&f=false

24. CAE has, for example, supplied training systems for at least 47 varieties of military helicopters, eleven varieties of military patrol/transport planes, six varieties of fighter jets, and five varieties of tanks and artillery. CAE also played a crucial role in “Missile Defense” weapons systems.

Helicopter Aircrew Training Solutions, p.3.
https://www.cae.com/media/documents/Helicopter_Aircrew_Training_Solutions.pdf

Portfolio of Experience, Patrol/Transport Program Highlights, CAE website
https://web.archive.org/web/20080309120710/http://www.cae.com/www2004/Products_and_Services/Military_Simulation_and_Training/Portfolio_of_
Experience/ptExperience.shtml

Fighter/Trainer Training Solutions
https://www.cae.com/media/documents/BM034_Fighter_Trainer_Aircraft_Training_Solutions_lowres.pdf

Land Training Systems Program Highlights, CAE website
http://www.cae.com/www2004/Products_and_Services/Military_Simulation_and_Training/Portfolio_of_Experience/ltsExperience.shtml

Richard Sanders, CAE Ltd., “Canada’s Role in so called ‘Missile Defense,'” #56 June 2005, pp.32-37
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/56/Articles/56_32-37.pdf

25. “Op Podium Air Component delivers,” April 21, 2010.
www.airforce.forces.gc.ca/v2/nr-sp/index-eng.asp?id=10457

26. Ibid.

27. Jerry Langton, “L-3 WESCAM and L-3 Communication Systems-West: Joining forces to supply critical systems for the Canadian Forces,” Canadian Defence Review, April 2010.
www.wescam.com/pdf/media/L-3Wescam_and_L-3Systems_West.pdf

28. Military freq for G20
http://forums.radioreference.com/ontario/184053-military-freq-g20-2.html

29. Canadians send message to G20 in re-cent Toronto violence
http://rabble.ca/babble/national-news/canadians-send-message-g20-recent-toronto-violence

30. G20 in Toronto
http://community.the-digital-picture.com/image_presentation1/f/15/p/4127/34973.aspx#34973

31 “Op Cadence,” Petawawa Post, July 8,2010.
www.cg.cfpsa.ca/cg-pc/Petawawa/EN/InformationandFAQ/Newspapers/PetPost/Documents/8July2010.pdf

32. Maj. K.Rennie and Capt. M. Crosbie ,“Tactical Air Control, TACP for Op Cadence,” Petawawa Post, July 8, 2010.

33. Major CMR Larsen, “14 Wing CP-140 Aurora participates on Operation NANOOK,” September 9, 2010.
www.airforce.forces.gc.ca/14w-14e/nr-sp/index-eng.asp?id=10962

34. “Local RCMP officer assists in security efforts at G8 and G20 Summits,” Shaunavon Standard, August 31, 2010.
www.theshaunavonstandard.com/news/lo-cal-news/192.html

35. Ibid

36. Pat Kolaf, “High alert guarding nuclear warheads,” Drumheller Mail, 11 Nov 2015.
https://www.drumhellermail.com/news/27705-high-alert-guarding-nuclear-warheads

37. Vision, Mission, and Creed
www.airforce.forces.gc.ca/19w-19e/sqns-escs/page-eng.asp?id=854

38. Ibid.

39. David Pugliese, “Heron and MQ-9 drones approved for Canadian military program,” Ottawa Citizen, Oct. 17, 2019.
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/heron-and-mq-9-drones-approved-for-canadian-military-program

40. “Confirmed figures reveal the true extent of the destruction inflicted upon the Gaza Strip; Israel’s offensive resulted in 1,417 dead, including 926 civilians, 255 police officers, and 236 fighters”. Archived from the original on 12 June 2009. Retrieved 19 March 2009.. Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 12 March, 2009.

41. Canadian Forces Briefing on UAVs, Flight 8 Meeting, 24 June 2009
https://archive.vn/meNdh
42. David Pugliese, “Would Armed Heron UAVs Make Sense for the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan?” Ottawa Citizen, Nov 25, 2009.
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/would-armed-heron-uavs-make-sense-for-the-canadian-forces-in-afghanistan

43. About Team SkyGuardian Canada
https://www.ga-asi.com/teamskyguardiancanada/about

44. Richard Sanders, “RQ-1 “”Predator,” Press for Conversion! (Issue # 52), October 2003. p.25.
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/52/25.pdf

45. About Team SkyGuardian Canada, op. cit.

46. Canada’s Role in the Militarisation of Space: RADARSAT – The Warfighters’ Eye in the Sky and its links to ‘Missile Defense ‘” Press for Conversion, Issue#58, March 2006.
http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/58/58.html

47. Defence Production Sharing Agreement between Canada and the United States Of America, July 27, 1956.
https://www.ccc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/defence-production-sharing-agreement-en.pdf

48. King, Martin Luther, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam,” April 4, 1967.
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/beyond-vietnam
49. “A Partial List of RCMP Files on Peace Groups,” Press for Conversion! Issue # 39 Dec. 1999. p.28-31.
http://coat.ncf.ca/P4C/39.pdf

50. Richard Sanders, Fictive Canada: Indigenous Slaves and the Captivating Narratives of a Mythic Nation, Issue#69, Fall 2017.
http://coat.ncf.ca/P4C/69/69_2-3.htm

All images in this article are from the author

This article was originally published on Asia Times.

As much as Covid-19 has been instrumentalized by the 0.001% to social engineer a Great Reset, the Beirut tragedy is already being instrumentalized by the usual suspects to keep Lebanon enslaved.

Facing oh so timely color revolution-style “protests”, the current Lebanese government led by Prime Minister Diab has already resigned. Even before the port tragedy, Beirut had requested a $10 billion line of credit from the IMF – denied as long as trademark, neoliberal Washington consensus “reforms” were not implemented: radical slashing of public expenses, mass layoffs, across the board privatization.

Post-tragedy, President Emmanuel Macron – who’s not even capable of establishing a dialogue with the Gilets Jaunes/Yellow Vests in France – has opportunistically jumped in full neocolonial mode to pose as “savior” of Lebanon, as long as the same “reforms”, of course, are implemented.

On Sunday, France and the UN organized a videoconference to coordinate donor response – in conjunction with the European Commission (EC), the IMF and the World Bank. The result was not exactly brilliant: a paltry 252 million euros were pledged – once again conditioned by “institutional reforms”.

France came up with 30 million euros, Kuwait with 40 million, Qatar with 50 million and the EC with 68 million. Crucially, neither Russia nor Iran were among the donors. The US – which is harshly sanctioning Lebanon – and GCC allies Saudi Arabia and UAE pledged nothing. China had just a pro forma presence.

In parallel, Maronite Christians in Brazil – a very powerful community – are sending funds for the color revolution protests. Former President Michel Temer and industrialist tycoon Paulo Skaf even flew to Beirut. Former Lebanese President Amin Gemayel (1982-1988) maintained a lot of businesses in Brazil with funds he skimmed when in power.

All of the above points to neoliberalism taking no prisoners when it comes to keeping its deadly grip on Lebanon.

The Hariri model

Lebanon’s profound economic crisis, now aggravated by the Beirut port blast, has nothing to do with Covid-19 or the US proxy war on Syria – which brought a million refugees to the nation. It’s all about proverbial neoliberal shock and awe, conducted non-stop by the Hariri clan: former Prime Ministers Rafiq, assassinated in 2011, and Saad, chased out of power last January.

The Hariri model was focused on real estate speculation and financialization. The Solidere group, controlled by Arab investors and a few Lebanese, Hariri included, destroyed Beirut’s historical downtown and rebuilt it with luxury real estate. That’s the classical rentier neoliberalism model that always profits a tiny elite.

In parallel, the Bank of Lebanon was attracting funds from the tony Lebanese diaspora and assorted Arab investors by practicing very generous interest rates. Lebanon suddenly had an artificially strong currency.

A small middle class sort of flourished throughout the 2000s, comprising import-export traders, the tourism sector and financial market operators. Yet, overall, inequality was the name of the game. According to the World Inequality Database, half of Lebanon’s population now holds less wealth that the top 0.1%.

The bubble finally burst in September last year, when I happened to be in Beirut. With no US dollars in circulation, the Lebanese pound started to collapse in the black market. The Bank of Lebanon went berserk. When the Hariri racket imposed a “Whatsapp tax” over calls, that led to massive protests in October. Capital embarked on free flight and the currency collapsed for good.

There’s absolutely no evidence the IMF, the World Bank and assorted Western/Arab “donors” will extricate a now devastated Lebanon from the neoliberal logic that plunged it into a systemic crisis in the first place.

The way out would be to focus in productive investments, away from finance and geared towards the practical necessities of an austerity-battered and completely impoverished population.

Yet Macron, the IMF and their “partners” are only interested in keeping monetary “stability”; seduce speculative foreign capital; make sure that the rapacious, Western-connected Lebanese oligarchy will get away with murder; and on top of it buy scores of Lebanese assets for peanuts.

BRI or bust

In stark contrast with the exploitative perpetuation of the Western neoliberal model, China is offering Lebanon the chance to Go East, and be part of the New Silk Roads.

In 2017, Lebanon signed to join the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

In 2018, Lebanon became the 87th member of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

Over the past few years, Lebanon was already taking part in the internationalization of the yuan, offering bank accounts in yuan and increasing bilateral trade in yuan.

Beijing was already engaged in discussions revolving around the upgrading of Lebanese infrastructure – including the expansion of Beirut harbor.

This means that now Beijing may be in the position of offering a renewed, joint rebuilding/security deal for Beirut port – just as it was about to clinch a smaller agreement with Diab’s government, focused only on expansion and renovation.

The bottom line is that China has an actual Plan A to extricate Lebanon from its current financial dead end.

And that’s exactly what was, and remains, total anathema to US, NATO and Israel’s interests.

The Trump administration recently went no holds barred to prevent Israel from having China develop the port of Haifa.

The same “offer you can’t refuse” tactics will be applied with full force on whoever leads the new Lebanese government.

Beirut is an absolutely key node in BRI’s geopolitical/geoeconomic connectivity of the Eastern Mediterranean. With Haifa temporarily out of the picture, Beirut grows in importance as a gateway to the EU, complementing the role of Pireus and Italian ports in the Adriatic.

It’s crucial to note that the port itself was not destroyed. The enormous crater on site replaces only a section quayside – and the rest is on water. The buildings destroyed can be rebuilt in record time. Reconstruction of the port is estimated at $15 billion – pocket money for an experienced company such as China Harbor.

Meanwhile, naval traffic is being redirected to Tripoli port, 80 km north of Beirut and only 30 km away from the Lebanon-Syria border. Its director, Ahmed Tamer, confirms “the port has witnessed during the past years the expansion work by Chinese companies, and it has received the largest ships from China, carrying a big number of containers”.

Add to it the fact that Tripoli port will also be essential in the process of Syria reconstruction – to which China is totally committed.

BRI’s Southwest Asia connectivity network is a maze including Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

China is already planning to invest in highway and railroads, further to be developed into high-speed rail. That will connect BRI’s central China-Iran corridor – fresh from the $400 billion, 25-year strategic partnership deal soon to be signed – with the Eastern Mediterranean.

Add to it the role of the port of Tartus in Syria – bearing a strong Russian naval presence. Beijing will inevitably invest in the expansion of Tartus – which is crucially linked by highway to Lebanon. The Russia-China strategic partnership will be involved in the protection of Tartus with S-300 and S-400 missile systems.

Historically, in a larger axis that went from Samarkand to Cordoba, with strong nodes such as Baghdad and Damascus, what slowly evolved in this part of Eurasia was a syncretic civilization superimposed over an ancestral regional, rural and nomad background. The internal cohesion of the Muslim world was forged from the 7th century to the 11th century: that was the key factor that shaped the lineaments of a coherent Eurasia.

Apart from Islam, Arabic – the language of religion, administration, trade and culture – was an essential unifying factor. This evolving Muslim world was configured as a vast economic and cultural domain whose roots connected to Greek, Semitic, Persian, Indian and Arab thought. It was a marvelous synthesis that formed a unique civilization out of elements of different origin – Persian, Mesopotamian, Byzantine.

The Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean were of course part of it, totally open towards the Indian Ocean, the Caspian routes, Central Asia and China.

Now, centuries later, Lebanon should have everything to gain by ditching the “Paris of the Orient” mythology and looking East – again, thus positioning itself on the right side of History.

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Pepe Escobar is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Syria News

In light of today’s normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) warns that the threat of Israeli annexation remains as urgent as ever. A widely reported statement published today by the United States claims that Israel “will suspend” its annexation plans in exchange for normalization with the UAE. However, an Israeli official told the Times of Israel that Israel remains committed to annexation, and that “The Trump administration asked to temporarily suspend the announcement [of annexation] in order to first implement the historic peace agreement with the UAE.”

“Israel has not abandoned its plans to annex the West Bank, but has only agreed to a temporary pause,” said Michael Bueckert, Vice President of CJPME. “Canada must continue to raise its voice against Israeli annexation plans, which threaten to formalize Israel’s permanent control over Palestinian territory.”

CJPME notes that as the world waits for an official announcement on annexation, Israeli occupation and creeping annexation continue to confine Palestinians to an unacceptable apartheid reality.

“Without any concessions from Israel regarding its control over Palestinian territory, UAE’s agreement with Israel does nothing to advance peace in the Middle East, but only rewards Israel for its ongoing crimes of occupation,” said Bueckert.

CJPME urges Canadian politicians to intensify their opposition to annexation. To date, 68 Members of Parliament have signed a pledge to oppose Israeli annexation, urging the Canadian government to consider all reasonable diplomatic and economic options to stop annexation and prompt Israeli compliance with international law. Signatories include the entire caucuses of the Bloc Québécois and Green Party of Canada, 22 of 24 NDP MPs, and 10 Liberal MPs. The pledge campaign, sponsored by CJPME and Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), has been endorsed by over 60 civil society organizations. CJPME will continue to recruit additional MPs and strengthen Canada’s parliamentary opposition to annexation.

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Assim como os 0,001% instrumentalizaram a Covid-19 para engendrar o Grande Recomeço (Great Reset), os suspeitos de sempre já estão instrumentalizando a tragédia de Beirute para manter o Líbano escravizado.

O atual governo libanês liderado pelo Primeiro Ministro Diab já renunciou, ao encarar os protestos, tão oportunos, típicos de tantas revoluções coloridas. Mesmo antes da tragédia no porto acontecer, Beirute havia solicitado uma linha de crédito de $10 bilhões de dólares ao FMI – negado, já que as “reformas”, marca registrada do consenso neoliberal de Washington, não foram implementadas: cortes radicais à custa da população, desemprego em massa, privatização generalizada.

Depois da tragédia, o presidente Emmanuel Macron – que sequer foi capaz de estabelecer um diálogo com os camisas amarelas/gilets jaunes na França, surgiu sassaricando em modo neocolonial para posar de “salvador” do Líbano, desde que as tais “reformas” fossem impostas, claro.

Sábado, a França e a ONU organizaram uma videoconferência para coordenar uma rodada de doações – junto com a Comissão Europeia (CE), o FMI e o Banco Mundial. O resultado não foi lá tão brilhante – míseros 252 milhões de euros foram oferecidos – e novamente condicionados às “reformas institucionais”.

A França ofereceu 30 milhões de euros, o Qatar 50 e a Comissão Europeia 68 milhões. De maneira crucial, nem a Rússia nem o Irã estavam entre os doadores. Os EUA – que impuseram sanções duras contra o Líbano – e seus aliados do Conselho de Cooperação do Golfo, Arábia Saudita e Emirados Árabes Unidos não doaram. A China esteve presente apenas pro forma.

Paralelamente, uma poderosa comunidade brasileira, os Cristãos Maronitas, estão mandando dinheiro para os manifestantes da revolução colorida. O ex-presidente Michel Temer e o magnata da indústria Paulo Skaf estão voando para Beirute. O antigo presidente do Líbano, Amin Gemayel (1982-1988), tem inúmeros negócios no Brasil a partir de fundos que desviou quando no poder. Tudo indica que o neoliberalismo, quando se trata de manter o poder no Líbano, não faz prisioneiros.

Uma vista aérea mostra o dano maciço nos silos de grãos do porto de Beirute e na área ao redor dele na quarta-feira, um dia depois que uma grande explosão atingiu a área no coração da capital libanesa. Foto: AFP

O modelo Hariri

A explosão no porto agravou a já profunda crise do Líbano, mas nada tem a ver com a Covid-19 ou com a guerra por procuração dos EUA na Síria – que despejou um milhão de refugiados no país. Trata-se da proverbial tática neoliberal de shock and awe (choque e pavor – nt), conduzida em tempo integral pelo clã Hariri: o antigo primeiro ministro Rafiq, assassinado em 2011 e Saad, expulso do poder em janeiro.

O modelo Hariri privilegiava a especulação imobiliária e a financeirização. O grupo Solidere, controlado por investidores árabes junto com alguns libaneses, entre eles Hariri, destruiu o centro histórico de Beirute, substituindo-o por imóveis luxuosos. É o modelo rentista neoliberal clássico que beneficia sempre uma pequena elite.

Ao mesmo tempo, o Banco do Líbano estava atraindo fundos da pequena diáspora libanesa e investidores árabes variados ao praticar taxas de juros bem interessantes. De repente, o Líbano tinha uma moeda artificialmente forte.

Uma espécie de pequena classe média floresceu durante os anos 2000, compreendendo comerciantes de importação e exportação, o setor de turismo e operadores do mercado financeiro. Mas ainda assim, a desigualdade era o nome do jogo. De acordo com os dados da organização World Inequality Database, metade da população Libanesa possuía menos riqueza que os 0,1% no topo.

Finalmente, a bolha estourou em setembro de 2019, quando por acaso eu estava em Beirute. Sem dólares circulando, a libra Libanesa começou a desabar no mercado negro. O Banco do Líbano enlouqueceu. Quando a bagunça administrativa tocada por Hariri impôs a “taxa whatsapp” sobre as chamadas em outubro, desencadeou protestos massivos. O capital fugiu em voo livre e a moeda colapsou de vez.

Quem mergulhou o Líbano em uma crise sistêmica foi em princípio a lógica neoliberal e não há qualquer evidência de que o FMI, o Banco Mundial e “doadores” ocidentais/árabes variados irão liberar o Líbano, agora devastado.

Uma solução possível seria fugir da financeirização e focar em investimentos produtivos, voltados para as necessidades urgentes da população atingida pela austeridade e totalmente empobrecida.

Ocorre que Macron, o FMI e seus “parceiros” só estão interessados em manter a estabilidade monetária; atrair capital especulativo estrangeiro; assegurar que a oligarquia libanesa rapace conectada ao ocidente escape viva e acima de tudo comprar nacos dos ativos libaneses por ninharias.

Ou Iniciativa Cinturão e Estrada ou decadência.

Em flagrante contraste com a perpetuação exploradora do modelo neoliberal ocidental, a China está oferecendo ao Líbano a chance de partir para o Leste, para ser parte da Nova Rota da Seda.

Em 2017, o Líbano assinou compromisso de se juntar à Iniciativa Cintura e Estrada (BRI, na sigla em inglês – nt).

A seguir, em 2018, o Líbano tornou-se o 87º membro do Banco de Investimento em Infraestrutura da Ásia (AIIB).

Ao oferecer contas bancárias em Yuan e fazer crescer o comércio bilateral na moeda chinesa, o Líbano, nos últimos anos, passou a fazer parte da internacionalização do Yuan.

Pequim já discute a modernização da infraestrutura libanesa – incluindo a expansão do aeroporto de Beirute.

Isso significa que no momento, Pequim está em posição de oferecer um acordo conjunto de segurança/reconstrução totalmente novo para o porto de Beirute – na hora em que estava quase fechando um acordo de proporção menor com o governo de Diab, ligado apenas à expansão e renovação.

Resumindo, a China tem um plano “A” real para tirar resgatar o Líbano do atual beco sem saída financeiro.

É exatamente isso o que era, e continua sendo, total anátema para os interesses dos Estados Unidos, OTAN e Israel.

A administração Trump não respeitou barreiras para impedir que Israel tivesse o porto de Haifa desenvolvido pela China.

As mesmas táticas “uma oferta que você não pode recusar” serão aplicadas com força total sobre quem quer que seja que ocupe o novo governo no Líbano.

Beirute é centro absolutamente crucial na conectividade geopolítica/geoeconômica na Inciativa Cinturão e Estrada do Mediterrâneo Oriental. Como Haifa temporariamente está fora de alcance, Beirute cresceu em importância como um portal de entrada para a União Europeia, complementando o papel do Pireu e dos portos italianos no Mar Adriático.

É importante tomar nota que o porto em si não foi destruído. A enorme cratera no local representa apenas uma seção do cais. Os edifícios destruídos podem ser reconstruídos em tempo recorde. A reconstrução do porto foi estimada em $15 bilhões de dólares – dinheiro de trocado para uma companhia experiente como a China Harbour.

Por enquanto, o tráfico naval está sendo redirecionado para o porto de Trípoli, a 80 quilômetros ao norte de Beirute e apenas 30 quilômetros de distância da fronteira entre Síria e Líbano. Seu diretor, Ahmed Tamer, confirma que “o porto testemunhou nos últimos anos o trabalho de expansão das companhias chinesas, e recebeu navios de grande porte da China, levando containers em grande número”.

Acrescente-se que o porto de Trípoli também será essencial para a reconstrução da Síria – à qual a China está totalmente comprometida.

A rede de conectividade da Iniciativa Cinturão e Estrada do Sudoeste Asiático é um labirinto que inclui Irã, Iraque, Síria e Líbano.

A China já planeja investir em rodovias e ferrovias, as últimas desenvolver-se-ão depois em ferrovias de alta velocidade. Será a conexão do corredor central China/Irã da Iniciativa Cinturão e Estrada – que logo receberá o reforço dos $400 bilhões de dólares da parceria estratégica de 25 anos que será em breve assinado pelos dois países – com o Mediterrâneo oriental.

Há que se acrescentar o papel representado pelo porto de Tartus na Síria – com presença naval russa muito forte. Inevitavelmente, Pequim investirá na expansão de Tartus – crucialmente ligado ao Líbano por auto estrada. A parceria estratégica China/Rússia será amparada pela rede protetora de Tartus com os sistemas de mísseis S-300 e S-400.

Em termos históricos, o que se desenvolveu lentamente nesta parte Eurásia, uma faixa larga que ia de Samarqanda a Córdoba, com centros importantes como Bagdá e Damasco, foi uma civilização sincrética superposta sobre contexto regional, rural e nômade. A coesão interna do mundo muçulmano forjou-se a partir do século 7º até o século 11: foram estes os fatores principais que delinearam uma Eurásia coerente.

Um dos fatores essenciais de unificação, abstraindo-se o Islã – foi o árabe, a língua da religião, administração, comércio e cultura. Esse mundo muçulmano em evolução foi configurado como um enorme domínio econômico e cultural, cujas raízes conectaram o pensamento Grego, Semítico, Persa, Indiano e Árabe. Síntese maravilhosa que formou uma civilização única a partir de elementos de origem diferente – Persa, Mesopotâmica e Bizantina.

Dessa síntese, evidentemente faziam parte o Oriente Médio e o Mediterrâneo oriental, francamente abertos para o Oceano Índico, as rotas do Cáspio, Ásia Central e China.

Neste momento, séculos depois, o Líbano só terá a ganhar se abandonar a mitologia da “Paris do Oriente” e olhar verdadeiramente para Leste – mais uma vez, posicionando-se do lado certo da história.

Pepe Escobar

Imagem de destaque : Shutterstock

Artigo original em inglês :

Who Profits from the Beirut Blast?

Asia Times 7 août 2020

Tradução : Roberto Pires Silveira para Mondialisation \ Global Research.

The Deep State represents many wealthy capitalists who influence organizations like Big Pharma, the World Health Organization, the World Economic Forum, Big Oil, Big Agriculture, the military-industrial complex, the CIA, Wall Street, the Bilderbergers, and those that profit from the Federal Reserve instead of supporting a public banking system. But since the outbreak of Covid-19, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has clearly manifested as the braintrust kingpin that is orchestrating current world policy and events.  See links  #1-7 at the end of this article.     

Moreover, Cory Morningstar, a writer at the website www.WrongKindOfGreen.org has been explaining how billionaire capitalists and their organizations are hijacking the environmental movement and the Green New Deal, and they are the financial supporters behind the scenes of Greta Thunberg and the Extinction Rebellion. Read and listen to link #8 and #39.

Billionaire Capitalism and The World Economic Forum (WEF)

In many ways the World Economic Forum is on the cutting edge in describing health and environmental problems, for example, its website features the benefits of mindfulness meditation. Its website states that we are moving into the Fourth Industrial Revolution. However, some individuals have become alarmed by what appears to be a transhumanist agenda that may eventually require everyone to get vaccines and microchips. They fear that ultimately they could be turned into cyborgs as humans, artificial intelligence (AI), and other forms of advanced technology are merged together. See link #9.

To people still enamored with capitalism, who have no guilt aspiring to be millionaires with extravagant lifestyles on a planet with  limited resources, who think the United States needs to expand its military to sabotage and destroy any country advocating a socialist agenda–such people are alarmed when the World Economic Forum (WEF) talks about a wealth tax.

It was the influence of  progressives that brought us the New Deal and things like Social Security. Capitalists would never have offered those things out of the goodness of their hearts. With the current financial crisis, corporate and transnational capitalists and other members of the Deep State will most likely make further concessions in helping people who are now desperate, but they will certainly not relinquish their positions of top-down control, and that is the central problem for the 99.9% of humanity. See links 10-12.

Billionaire capitalists (with their NGOs, TV commercials, and documentaries) can say all the right words about ecological sustainability, but they will never voluntarily eliminate the capitalistic practices that keep them empowered. They will never fully address the ever increasing gap between the rich and the poor nationally and internationally as a major problem.

Billionaire capitalists actually think they can solve  environmental problems while they keep getting wealthier and more powerful at the same time. But social and environmental problems throughout the world will only be solved when the wealthiest One Percent (or the 1% of the 1%)–that is,  all the elements of the Deep State–are dethroned and disempowered.

Social Engineering

Today it would seem that the vast majority of “progressive” and “leftist” websites encourage people to follow the WHO and CDC guidelines about the wearing of face masks, maintaining social distancing, sheltering in place, and just waiting for a magical vaccine–while ignoring the fact that there are relatively inexpensive drugs available that can effectively treat Covid-19.

Censorship of Medical Doctors

Mostly it is the conservative websites that have provided videos and articles of medical doctors and other experts with outstanding credentials that disagree with the official narrative. But Facebook and YouTube are removing their videos–seemingly at warp speed now. See links 13-14.

Concerning the coronavirus, there are a few progressive websites that are posting the articles and videos of those  labeled by the mainstream media as “right-wing conspiracy theorists,” “anti-vaxxers,” and “covidiots.”

It is obvious that mainstream news channels are only allowing their official narrative to be presented–alternative viewpoints are not allowed.

Recently there was a massive protest of more than 1 million people against the restrictive measures related to  the coronavirus in Berlin. A few online newspapers covered it, but I didn’t see it mentioned on the mainstream, TV-news channel (CBS) that I watch. (See image below)

It is more true than ever before now that we no longer live in a free society because the corporate-controlled mainstream media is merely a mouthpiece for the corporate-controlled government. See links #15-39.

Conclusion

We do not need a New World Order autocratically imposed from the top-down by neoliberal, corporate plutocrats, but we do need a Democratic Federal World Government. The Earth Constitution (also click  here) is an excellent model for empowering democratic world law above national sovereignty. Currently we have 195 nations that are all militarized, competing and conniving against one another.

The U.S. is aspiring to become an empire, if it has not already become one. Instead of being controlled by an empire or by the Deep State, we should let the citizens of the world together decide how to create peace, justice, freedom, democracy, and happiness on this planet. See link #40.

The United Nations can never create world peace because it is based on a system of sovereign nations that do not respect any international laws if they do not feel like it.

The United Nations is certainly not  a democratic organization considering that its Security Council has 5 permanent member nation states (with the power of veto). The U.N. is powerless in stopping competing nations from spending astronomical amounts of money on the military. The countries of the world spent  $1917 billion (or almost 2 trillion) dollars  on the military in 2019!

Albert Einstein was a supporter of world government, but he had little faith in the United Nations, considering how it is structured. See link #41.

I want to share two thought-provoking videos (Annex below) about the lockdown and vaccines related to Covid-19 and also about the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the agenda of transhumanism related to the World Economic Forum.

 ANNEX

Below are two videos from socially conservative and capitalist economic perspectives. I have provided summaries of each video. These videos provide an understanding of the crisis we are living.

Video: The Great Reset: Covid-19 and the World Economic Forum Plan to Impose a New World Order by Michael J. Matt–August 11, 2020.

Summary

The H1N1 Swine Flu (2005) killed 500,000. In August of 2020 so far 650,000 people worldwide have died from Covid-19. The Hong Kong Flu (1968) killed 4 million people! The country was not shut down over these other flu outbreaks. There was no quarantine. Why not? It is because Covid-19 is a politicized virus.  People are losing their jobs and mental health over this.  They can’t go to church.  Their kids aren’t going back to school.  There is a war on Hydroxychloroquine.  You mention it on Facebook or YouTube and you get taken down.  It’s been used for 60 years!  They don’t want it because it is not a vaccine that they can make money from.  It might fix the problem.  It is why the Frontline Doctors were banned from social media and are losing their jobs.  The only thing they did wrong was trying to fix the problem now.

If Covid-19 can be cured without 7 billion doses of Bill Gates vaccine, the “Great Reset” talked about in Davos, Switzerland [by the World Economic Forum] will be dead on arrival, and we would go back to life as we once knew it.  The US is in the way of this “Great Reset,” so they are destabilizing our entire country.  The Great Reset wants to implement massive socialist programs dealing with global climate change through the Green New Deal.  No country will be allowed to opt out of this because they would then endanger the whole world community when future pandemics, environmental catastrophes, and population increase.

Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization, and he is threatening to pull out of the World Trade Organization.  Trump is a capitalist, not a globalist.  The video shows economist Jeffrey Sachs who stated that the UN General Assembly routinely votes 185 against the United States on almost everything right now.  In November 2019 at the United Nations (before Covid-19 landed), Trump declared war on globalism. Trump said the future does not belong to globalists.  It belongs to patriots.  Shortly after that, the coronavirus was unleashed on the world, and Trump’s booming US economy went on life support.  Was that an accident?  The Russia hoax, the Impeachment hoax was all about removing Trump.  If Trump brings the economy back again, the Great Reset won’t happen.  Covid-19 is being used as an opportunity to implement the New World Order.

That is why they hate Trump. They hate God, the unborn, the traditional family, they hate you, and they hate Trump.  Trump’s political opponents are knocking down statues of saints to the ground.  They are beating up cops, and they are burning flags.  If you don’t like Trump’s personality, then at least look at the big picture.  The choice is simple.  Stand with America right now or fall with the NWO  [End of Summary].

 The Great Reset Plan Revealed:  How Covid Ushers in The New World Order–by Spiro Skouras from Activist Post.com–June 6, 2020.

Summary

The Hegelian Dialectic discusses the idea of Problem–Reaction–Solution.  If you have a goal of global governance, there may be some resistance to that.  So you engineer a crisis which produces a desired response–a controlled demolition of the whole economy that wipes out the middle class, creating more dependency on the government for stimulus money and bailouts.

The current lockdown is the conclusion of the Rockefeller lockstep document of 2010 on how to mitigate a pandemic crisis.  [According to  James Fetzer. org, the Lock Step scenario is the first of four narratives presented in the Rockefeller Foundation’s summary document, “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development.”  It deals with a zoonotic viral pandemic that wipes out millions across the globe.]

We are also seeing massive unrest under the guise of seeking social justice, ending inequality and systemic racism.  In reality, these riots are nothing more than an organized destabilization operation, much like we have seen the US and the CIA carry out in countless countries before they topple their governments and install puppet regimes.  This is a planned operation.

The Problem–Covid-19.  The Reaction–economic collapse and civil unrest.  Now it is time for the predetermined Solution that is ready to roll out.  The Solution was just announced by the World Economic Forum (WEF), the same group who asked John Hopkins to host   Event 201 In October 2019.   Their solution is the “Great Reset,” an initiative that was just launched this week by the WEF.  Its longstanding global governance agenda ties to the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which seeks to regulate, control, and redefine life as we know it.

And in June 2019, the UN and the WEF formed a strategic partnership to accelerate the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda.  See World Economic Forum and UN Sign Strategic Partnership Framework.

(3:09)  Back in January 2020, the WEF founder and executive chairman, Klaus Schwab, was asked what we can expect to be the focus of the Davos 2020, and he referenced his book written in 1970 which was about a new economic model called Stakeholder Capitalism which is now commonly accepted.  He states the original idea of Davos was to create a place where Stakeholders could meet, and we are now celebrating that Stakeholder Capitalism is becoming mainstream (4:25).  Schwab said (6:11), the Covid-19 crisis has shown us the old system is not fit anymore.  When the economy and the stock market were booming, people thought the old system was working.  Now people realize that the old system is not working with climate change and the loss of biodiversity.  In the past, we didn’t have a sense of urgency to address these issues.  It is hard to have a sense of urgency if the stock market is doing so well.

Spiro Skouras from Activist Post then states in the video, Now we have conditions comparable to the Great Depression due to the fallout from the corona lockdown.  Now we have a justification for the Great Reset and the 50-year plan by the WEF to have a new economic system. Just 3 days ago, the WEF hosted an online virtual summit for the Great Reset, and it included Klaus Schwab, founder and director of WEF, the UN Secretary General, Prince Charles, the head of the International Monetary Fund, a top representative from MasterCard, among many others.  And the general consensus was that we cannot afford to miss this window of opportunity to implement the Great Reset because Covid has shown that our current system is broken (6:06). Schwab states it is not fit anymore for the 21st century.

Now (6:23) is the historic moment of time, Schwab states, to not only fight the coronavirus, but to shape the systems for a post-coronavirus era.  Other prominent individuals in the video of the Summit say similar things.  Prince Charles said, “Climate change is a devastating reality for many people.  We have a golden opportunity to seize something good from this crisis.  It’s unprecedented (7:40) shock waves may well make people more receptive to big visions of change.  A lady from the IMF then said what we see is inevitably a very massive injection of a financial stimulus to help countries deal with this crisis…but it is paramount that the growth leads to a greener, smarter, and more fair world in the future.

In the WEF video clip, Klaus Schwab states, we have  another choice.  We can change our behavior to be in harmony with nature again and make sure that the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution are best utilized.  In short, we need a “Great Reset.”  Spiro Skouras (9:56) from Activist Post then states that according to the WEF website, the Great Reset will have 3 components:  1) To steer the market toward fairer outcomes [copied from the video screen:  “Depending on the country, these may include changes to wealth taxes, the withdrawal of fossil-fuel subsidies, and new rules governing intellectual property, trade, and competition… The second component of the Great Reset agenda would ensure that investments advance shared goals, such as equality and sustainability.]  Spiro Skouras (10:31) then says that the third component will be to harness the innovation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to support the public good by addressing health and social challenges.  This is also known as the transhumanist agenda to merge man with machine and force compliance with global governance initiatives laid out by Agenda 2030.

Skouras then states, now this might be a good time to note that 14 of  17 of the UN’s Sustainability goals include the use of vaccinations (10:53).  Skouras states that the third component which Schwab has written a book about is a longstanding transhumanist agenda which seeks to merge man with machine and artificial intelligence (AI), something that Elon Musk is already working on with his Neura Link Project.

Spiro Skouras then shares video clips from WEF’s website from about 3 years ago (12:14).  A woman in the video clip states, “The very idea of a human being a natural concept is really going to change.  Our bodies will be so high-tech that we won’t be able to really distinguish between what’s natural and what’s artificial.  Skouras states this is the merger of man and machine.  This is the transhumanist agenda from WEF official videos from their own YouTube channel.  Then a man speaks in the video clip, “Inside our heads is the most complex arrangement of matter in the known universe.”  A woman then speaks, “You might ask yourself, can we get to be superhumans?  The original industrial revolution was driven by the discovery that you could use steam engines to do all kinds of interesting things.”  A man speaks, “But that was followed by additional revolutions for electricity, computers, and communications technology.  We are now in the early stages of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (14:02) which is bringing together digital, physical, and biological systems.”

Then Klaus Schwab speaks, “One of the features of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is that it doesn’t change what we are doing, but it changes us.”  A woman speaks, “ With the ability to visualize brain activity, for example, through a simple consumer-based EEG device, it gives us access to ourselves in ways that we have never before thought possible.  It unlocks the black box of the brain and enables us to really truly be able to realize an identity that is aspirational (14:49).”  Then John Kabat-Zinn talks about the amazing benefits of mindfulness meditation on the brain genome and biological aging.  “Then you get the potential for a new renaissance that restructures itself in terms of our relationship to life, the planet, and work.”

A man from the WEF video clip states, “We need a different economic model–not capitalism vs. communism, but a shift in the system along the lines of the two big changes that happened in  the 20th century.  Keynesianism was a much greater focus on health and education and the world of government working with business.  Then the reaction to that in the late 1970s was Neoliberalism where the focus was on free markets and freedom of the individual and getting governments out of the way (15:35).  We then [now] shift to a new system that will allow us to meet the basic needs of every human on the planet.  We will live within our planetary means.  We will be fairer, and the focus will not be on growth per se, but on maximizing human well-being.  And history tells us that a value shift is triggered by a creation of a new story about how we want to live (15:58).

Skouras then interjects, they were talking about how this new model is not based on hard work or being a business owner or creating wealth and success.  They were talking about a new global economic order that will be fairer, they say.  They essentially redistribute wealth, your wealth, as they see fit to lower the standards where you are in your country and raise standards in other countries (16:19).  Are you beginning to see how this covid crisis (16:48) has accelerated between the 2030 Agenda and global governance and how they use public figures (celebrities) to help sell it to the public?  People do not otherwise trust governments as institutions (17:01).  Now the Fourth Industrial Revolution will be sold to humanity as a way to better “mankind,”  a word they don’t want you to use.  The UN doesn’t like that.  They want to use the word “humankind.”  They will make paralyzed people walk again.  They will help the blind to see, and while this is all amazing and great, history shows us time and time again that things that can be used to benefit humanity are often weaponized and turned against humanity.

A man speaks (17:33), “ Humans have always been using tools but because of the recent advances in technology, we are beginning to have machines that can augment us in interesting ways.”  A different man speaks, “I was the first person in the world to be able to voluntarily move my legs while stepping[?] into a robot (17:45) that executed the nervous system using an electrical stimulator to the spine.”  He went on to say we believe a cure for paralysis is possible in time.

A woman then states that “the prediction of 5 million jobs lost to technology is serious, but it is not the main question.  Instruction, manufacturing, services, public health–these industries will still exist, but the main question is what will be the future of work?  How will we define work?  How will we share wealth?”  A different woman speaks, “One of the things I think that is essential is a free and open society of thought, and up until now the conversation we have been having is freedom of speech.  But if we can access people’s thoughts, access their emotions, we have to create a space that enables people to think freely, to think divergent thoughts, to think creative thoughts.  And in a society where people fear having those thoughts, the likelihood of being able to enjoy progress significantly is diminished.”

Skouras think interjects, “Did you just hear that?  She said right now (18:53) the discussion has been around free speech, but basically once we get that out of the way–once we get access to people’s thoughts and emotions, we need to create a framework for people to think, so that people aren’t scared, but feel safe.  This is absolutely terrifying!  Talk about Thought Police!  They are fully intending and telling us right now that they plan to have direct access to your thoughts and emotions and will be able to manipulate them [implying a digitally implanted microchip?], of course, for the greater good (19:22).  This (19:46) is not about saving the planet.  This is about control.  Many of our jobs will be taken over by robots, so they will redefine work–they want to redefine what it means to be human and determine for you your role and your future of being essentially a transhumanist cyborg, integrated into this new control grid.  Now, right now, we are witnessing the control grid, the controlled demolition of our economic system by design in order to usher in this new transhumanist agenda.

Spiro Skouras continues, “This is the new system of global governance.  In this new digitized system of control, we will be unable to distinguish organic life from artificial life.  We won’t have access to our own thoughts.  Or we will have access to them, but we won’t be able to control (20:26) our own thoughts and emotions because they are going to do that for us because we will be tied into their grid system.  Now the current system was never meant to last forever.  It was meant to last only long enough to enslave humanity through debt–until technology caught up with the technocrats’ vision of the future.  And now it’s here.  Do you think the central banks will take responsibility for the collapse of the current system?  Do you think that governments will take responsibility?  No.  The virus is here to take the fall.  The virus will be the excuse to burn down this old system, as we are seeing happen right now, and out of the ashes, this new system will rise.  Do you think it is a coincidence that the central banks just so happen to have their new digitized currencies ready to go? They have  been rebuilding the whole infrastructure (21:13) for years to facilitate this new digital financial system.

Skouras continues, the new digital financial system of control is about to be rolled out on all of us right now at the same time they are rolling out the digital immunity passports.  The UN’s digital identity plan is being rolled out and worked on right now, and it is funded by Bill Gates.  There is so much more.  Global governance is at our doorstep.  It is being rolled out and justified by the Covid-19 crisis.  And at the end of the day, we the people do not have a say in our future according to them.  We don’t even get a vote according to them.  These technocrats are deciding the future of humanity for us right now.  And guess what?  The future of humanity isn’t human at all (end of video).

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

Roger Copple retired as a high school special education and elementary general education teacher in 2010 at age 60.  His website  World Without Empire. com contains  articles he has written about spiritual politics.  The website also shares links to information about yoga philosophy, mindfulness meditation, and Near-Death Experiences.

To further support the claims made above, here are 41 videos and articles that challenge the dominant, official, mainstream-news narrative about Covid-19 and the current financial crisis:

Notes

1. Professor of Economics (Michel Chossudovsky):  Video with Transcription:  The 2020 Economic Crisis. Global Poverty, Unemployment and Despair–18 minutes–June 30, 2020

2. YouTube:  The Global Research Report: The COVID-19 Lockdown:  Economic and Social Impacts:  Interview with Peter Koenig–38 minutes–July 17, 2020

3. Global Research.ca:  The Global Reset–Unplugged.  “The Deep State”–by Peter Koenig–July 9, 2020

4. Global Research.ca:  The World Economic Forum (WEF) Knows Best–The Post-Covid  “Great Global Reset”–  by Peter Koenig–July 28, 2020.

5. Global Research.ca: Facts Vs. Fake:  A Worldwide Lockdown of Everything–by Peter Koenig–June 3, 2020

6. Global Research.ca:  The Davos World Economic Forum (WEF) Is at it Again–Celebrating 50th Anniversary–by Peter Koenig–January 22, 2020.

7. Global Research.ca:  Now Comes the Davos Global Economy “Great Reset.”  What Happens After the Covid-19 Pandemic?–by F. William Engdahl–July 24, 2020

8. Global Research.ca:  “The Non-Profit Industrial Complex”  and the Co-opting of the NGO Environmental Movement by Michael Welch: A Conversation with Cory Morningstar–59 minutes

9. Vaccine Impact. com:  New World Order Continues to be Published:  The “Great Reset”–Transhumanism and the Fourth Industrial Revolution–August 10, 2020. The article also includes a 12-minute video entitled “What is the  Fourth Industrial Revolution?” that is produced by  the World Economic Forum

10. Professor Richard Wolff: The Coming Economic Crash Will Be Worse Than the Great Depression–13 min–July 15, 2020

11. Global Capitalism:  As US Capitalism Shakes, US Socialism Renews–Professor Richard D. Wolff–1 hour, 11 min–July 8, 2020

12. Richard Wolff:  The Crash Is Coming!  What To Watch For–24 minutes–July 15, 2020

13. Global Research.ca:  COVID-19:  We have a Treatment:  Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ).  We do Not Need a Vaccine!  by Dr. Pascal Sacre–August 4, 2020

14. Global Research. ca:  Are Face Masks Effective?  The Evidence–by Swiss Propaganda Research–August 4, 2020

15. Children’s Health Defense.com:  A Timeline–Pandemic and Erosion of Freedoms Have Been Decades in the Making–May 21, 2020.

16. Global Research.ca:  The COVID-19 Vaccine.  The Imposition of a Compulsory Vaccination with a Biometric Health Passport?–by Dr. Pascal Sacre–August 9, 2020

17. Amazing Polly. net:  The Global Health Mafia Protection Racket–May 8, 2020–39 minutes

18. OpEdNews.com:  The Stepford Wives Vaccine–Just Say No–11 pages with 4 minute video–by Lila York–May 22, 2020

19. James Corbett’s 4 videos on Bill Gates:  www.CorbettReport.com/Gates.

20. Breitbart.com:  Watch Live:  Silenced Frontline Doctors Hold Capitol Hill Press Conference to Challenge Big Tech–28 minutes–July 28, 2020

21. Love Productions. org:  Is Covid-19 the Biggest Pseudo Pandemic in Human History? 

22. Strategic-Culture.org:  German Official Leaks Report Denouncing Corona as “A Global False Alarm”:  May 29, 2020

23. The Freedom Articles. com: “Busted: 11 COVID Assumptions Based on Fear not Fact”  by Makia Freeman–July 2, 2020

24. The Healthy Truth with Dr. Andrew Kaufman–April 16, 2020–1 hr. 9 min

25. Where is the evidence for a new virus?  Dr. Andrew Kaufman–May 30, 2020–4 min 31 sec

26. Urgent:  The World’s Greatest Cover Up– interview of Dr. Andrew Kaufman–May 19, 2020–45 minutes

27. Kelly Victory, MD:  Breaking Down Covid-19–18 minutes–July 6, 2020

28. https://vaccine-injury.info/debunking-the-germ-viral-theory-of-disease

29. Podcast: David Parker and Dawn Lester, authors of  “What Really Makes Us Ill”  interviewed by Mark Devlin–1 hr, 30 min  Below is how one reviewer at Amazon described the authors’ book: The authors back up the central claim of this book that what are understood as “pathogens” are analogous to firefighters at the scene of the incident. Just as firemen don’t start fires, bacteria and viruses are the effects. The bottom line is that chemical toxicity in the environment is the cause of oxidative stress which is the cause of disease.

30. Global Freedom Movement: org:  Meet the Teachers:  Kevin Galalae

31. Kevin Galalae:  Part One:  The Pandemic Illusion–4 min, 34 sec

32. Kevin Galalae:  Part Two:  Why a Fake Pandemic?–1 min,  17 sec

33. Kevin Galalae:  Part Three:  The Pandemic Cure for Overconsumption–9 min

34. Kevin Galalae:  Part Four:  The Pandemic Cure for Overpopulation:  11 min 

35. Kevin Galalae:  Part Five:  The Pandemic Front of Decarbonization–20 min

36. Kevin Galalae:  Part Six:  Accomplishments of the Plandemic Strategy:  9 min

37. Kevin Galalae:  Part Seven:  Failures of the Plandemic Strategy:  19 min 

38. Global Research.ca:  A Warning from Dr. Carrie Madej about Covid-19 Vaccine–22 minutes–July 19, 2020

39. OpEdNews. com:  Improve the Green New Deal: Eliminate its Massive Growth and Neoliberalism: An Interview of Green Social Thought.org writers Don Fitz and Stan Cox–with Transcription provided by Roger Copple–May 3, 2019

40. Youtube videos of Professor Glen T. Martin speaking about the Earth Constitution

41. Global Research.ca:  The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals:  Global Schizophrenia–by Dr. Glen T. Martin, the President of the World Constitution and Parliament Association, the organization that created the Earth Constitution–October 6, 2015

Article first published by Gr on June 14, 2020

Abstract and Background

A publishing scandal recently erupted around the use of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to treat Covid 19.  It is also known as quinine and chloroquine, and is on the WHO list of essential medicines.[i] 

The bark of the South American quina-quina tree has been used to treat malaria for 400 years.[ii]  Quinine, a generic drug costing pennies a dose, is available for purchase online.  In rare cases it can cause dizziness and irregular heartbeat.[iii]

In late May, 2020, The Lancet published a four-author study claiming that HCQ used in hospitals to treat Covid-19 had been shown conclusively to be a hazard for heart death. The data allegedly covered 96,000 patients in 671 hospitals on six continents.[iv]

After the article had spent 13 days in the headlines, dogged by scientific objections, three of the authors retracted it on June 5.[v]

Meanwhile, during an expert closed-door meeting leaked May 24 in France, The Lancet and NEJM editors explained how financially powerful pharmaceutical players were “criminally” corrupting medical science to advance their interests.

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On May 22, 2020, the time-honoured Lancet[vi]– one of the world’s two top medical journals – published the stunning claim that 671 hospitals on six continents were reporting life-threatening heart rhythms in patients taking hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) for Covid-19.

The headlines that followed were breath-taking.

Although wider access to the drug had recently been urged in a petition signed by nearly 500,000 French doctors and citizens,[vii] WHO and other agencies responded to the article by immediately suspending the clinical trials that may have cleared it for use.

North American headlines did not mention that HCQ has been on the WHO list of essential drugs since the list began in 1977.  Nor did they mention an investigative report on the bad press that hydroxychloroquine had been getting prior to May 22, and how financial interests had been intersecting with medicine to favour Gilead’s new, more expensive drug, Remdesivir.[viii]

The statistics behind the headlines

As a Canadian health sciences librarian who delivered statistics to a large public health agency for 25 years, I sensed almost immediately that the article had to be flawed.

Why? Because health statistics are developed for different purposes and in different contexts, causing them to exist in isolated data “stovepipes.”[ix] Many health databases, even within a single region or country, are not standardized and are thus virtually useless for comparative research.

How, I wondered, could 671 hospitals worldwide, including Asia and Africa, report comparable treatment outcomes for 96,000 Covid patients? And so quickly?

The Lancet is strong in public health and surely suspected this. Its award-winning editor-in-chief, Dr. Richard Horton, has been in his job since 1995.[x]

So how could the damning HCQ claims have been accepted?  Here is what I discovered.

The honour system in medical publishing

To some extent, authors submitting articles to medical journals are on the honour system, in which cited databases are trusted by the editors, yet are available for inspection if questioned.[xi]

On May 28, an open letter from 200 scientists to the authors and The Lancet requested details of the data and an independent audit. The letter was “signed by clinicians, medical researchers, statisticians, and ethicists from across the world.”[xii]

The authors declined to supply the data, or even the hospital names. Meanwhile, investigative analysis was showing the statistics to be deeply flawed.[xiii][xiv]

If this were not enough, the lead author was found to be in a conflict of interest with HCQ’s rival drug, Remdesivir:

“Dr. Mandeep Mehra, the lead co-author is a director at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, which is credited with funding the study. Dr. Mehra and The Lancet failed to disclose that Brigham Hospital has a partnership with Gilead and is currently conducting two trials testing Remdesivir, the prime competitor of hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of COVID-19, the focus of the study.”[xv]

In view of the foregoing, the article was retracted by three of its authors on June 5.

How did this fraud get past The Lancet reviewers in the first place?

The answer emerges from what has remained an obscure French interview, although it has been quoted in the alternative media.[xvi]

On May 24, a closed-door Chatham House expert meeting about Covid included the editors-in-chief of The Lancet and the NEJM.  Comments regarding the article were leaked to the French press by a well-known health figure, Dr. Philippe Douste-Blazy,[xvii] who felt compelled to blow the whistle.

His resulting BFM TV interview was posted to YouTube with English subtitles on May 31,[xviii] but it was not picked up by the English-speaking media.

These were The Lancet editor Dr. Richard Horton’s words, as reported by Dr. Douste-Blazy:

“If this continues, we are not going to be able to publish any more clinical research data because pharmaceutical companies are so financially powerful today, and are able to use such methodologies as to have us accept papers which are apparently methodologically perfect, but which, in reality, manage to conclude what they want to conclude.” [xix]

Doust-Blazy made his own comments on Horton’s words:

“I never thought the boss of The Lancet could say that. And the boss of the New England Journal of Medicine too. He even said it was ‘criminal’. The word was used by them.”[xx]

The final words in Doust-Blazy’s interview were:

“When there is an outbreak like Covid, in reality, there are people like us – doctors – who see mortality and suffering. And there are people who see dollars. That’s it.”[xxi]

The scientific process of building a trustworthy knowledge base is one of the foundations of our civilization. Violating this process is a crime against both truth and humanity.

Evidently the North American media does not consider this extraordinary crime to be worth reporting.

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Notes

[i] World Health Organization. “World Health Organization Model List of Essential Medicines, 21st ed.”, WHO, 2019, pp. 24, 25, 53 (https://www.who.int/medicines/publications/essentialmedicines/en/).

[ii] Jane Achan, et al., “Quinine, an old anti-malarial drug in a modern world: role in the treatment of malaria,” Malaria Journal,  24 May 2011 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3121651/).

[iii] WebMD, “Quinine Sulfate” (https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-869/quinine-oral/details).

[iv] The Lancet, “RETRACTED: Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis, by Mandeep R. Mehra et al,” Lancet, 5 June 2010 (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31180-6/fulltext).

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Famous weekly British medical journal, founded in 1823.

[vii] Lee Mclaughlan, “Covid-19 France: petition for wider chloroquine access,” 6 April 2020 (https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/Time-wasted-over-use-of-choroquine-coronavirus-drug-says-petition-by-former-French-health-minister).

[viii] Sharyl Attkisson, “Hydroxychloroquine,” Full Measure, 18 May 2020 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB-_SV-y11Y). Attkisson is a five-time Emmy Award winner (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharyl_Attkisson).

[ix] See “Stovepiping,” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stovepiping) (accessed June 12, 2020).

[x] Dr. Horton’s career, professionalism, and awards are shown at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Horton_(editor)(accessed June 12, 2020).

[xi] The Lancet and NEJM editors could not be expected to comb through data from 671 hospitals to verify their accuracy – especially when submitted by four doctors.

[xii] The full-text letter and signatories appear  at https://zenodo.org/record/3862789#.XuQiNmYTGhM

[xiii] Melissa Davey, “Questions raised over hydroxychloroquine study which caused WHO to halt trials for Covid-19,” The Guardian, 28 May 2020 (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/may/28/questions-raised-over-hydroxychloroquine-study-which-caused-who-to-halt-trials-for-covid-19).

[xiv] Melissa Davey et al, “Surgisphere: governments and WHO changed Covid-19 policy based on suspect data from tiny US company,” The Guardian, 3 June 2020 (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/covid-19-surgisphere-who-world-health-organization-hydroxychloroquine).

[xv] 1. Alliance for Human Research Protection, “The Lancet Published a Fraudulent Covid-19 Study,” 2 June 2020 (https://ahrp.org/the-lancet-published-a-fraudulent-study-editor-calls-it-department-of-error/).

2. Brigham Health, “Two Remdesivir Clinical Trials Underway at Brigham and Women’s Hospital,” 30 March 2020 (https://www.brighamhealthonamission.org/2020/03/26/two-remdesivir-clinical-trials-underway-at-brigham-and-womens-hospital/).

[xvi] Vera Sharav, “Editors of The Lancetand the New England Journal of Medicine: Pharmaceutical Companies are so Financially Powerful They Pressure us to Accept Papers,” Health Impact News, 5 June 2020

(https://healthimpactnews.com/2020/editors-of-the-lancet-and-the-new-england-journal-of-medicine-pharmaceutical-companies-are-so-financially-powerful-they-pressure-us-to-accept-papers/).

[xvii] Dr. Philippe Douste-Blazy, MD, is a cardiologist, former French Health Minister; 2017 candidate for Director at WHO; and former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.  See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Douste-Blazy.

[xviii] “(Eng Subs) Hydroxychloroquine Lancet Study: Former France Health Minister blows the whistle,” BFM TV, 31 May 2020 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=ZYgiCALEdpE&feature=emb_logo). 

[xix] Ibid.

[xx] Ibid.

[xxi] Ibid.

Featured image is by Anthony Brown/Alamy Stock Photo

Was Donald Trump’s January 3rd drone assassination of Major General Qasem Soleimani the first step in turning the simmering Cold War between the United States and Iran into a hot war in the weeks before an American presidential election? Of course, there’s no way to know, but behind by double digits in most national polls and flanked by ultra-hawkish Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Trump is a notoriously impetuous and erratic figure. In recent weeks, for instance, he didn’t hesitate to dispatch federal paramilitary forces to American cities run by Democratic mayors and his administration also seems to have launched a series of covert actions against Tehran that look increasingly overt and have Iran watchers concerned about whether an October surprise could be in the cards.

Much of that concern arises from the fact that, across Iran, things have been blowing up or catching fire in ways that have seemed both mysterious and threatening. Early last month, for instance, a suspicious explosion at an Iranian nuclear research facility at Natanz, which is also the site of its centrifuge production, briefly grabbed the headlines. Whether the site was severely damaged by a bomb smuggled into the building or some kind of airstrike remains unknown. “A Middle Eastern intelligence official said Israel planted a bomb in a building where advanced centrifuges were being developed,” reported the New York Times. Similar fiery events have been plaguing the country for weeks. On June 26th, for instance, there was “a huge explosion in the area of a major Iranian military and weapons development base east of Tehran.” On July 15th, seven ships caught fire at an Iranian shipyard. Other mysterious fires and explosions have hit industrial facilities, a power plant, a missile production factory, a medical complex, a petrochemical plant, and other sites as well.

“Some officials say that a joint American-Israeli strategy is evolving — some might argue regressing — to a series of short-of-war clandestine strikes,” concluded another report in the Times.

Some of this sabotage has been conducted against the backdrop of a two-year-old “very aggressive” CIA action plan to engage in offensive cyber attacks against that country. As a Yahoo! News investigative report put it:

“The Central Intelligence Agency has conducted a series of covert cyber operations against Iran and other targets since winning a secret victory in 2018 when President Trump signed what amounts to a sweeping authorization for such activities, according to former U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the matter… The finding has made it easier for the CIA to damage adversaries’ critical infrastructure, such as petrochemical plants.”

Meanwhile, on July 23rd, two U.S. fighter jets buzzed an Iranian civilian airliner in Syrian airspace, causing its pilot to swerve and drop altitude suddenly, injuring a number of the plane’s passengers.

For many in Iran, the drone assassination of Soleimani — and the campaign of sabotage that followed — has amounted to a virtual declaration of war. The equivalent to the Iranian major general’s presidentially ordered murder, according to some analysts, would have been Iran assassinating Secretary of State Pompeo or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, although such analogies actually understate Soleimani’s stature in the Iranian firmament.

In its aftermath, Iran largely held its fire, its only response being a limited, telegraphed strike at a pair of American military bases in Iraq. If Soleimani’s murder was intended to draw Iran into a tit-for-tat military escalation in an election year, it failed. So perhaps the U.S. and Israel designed the drumbeat of attacks against critical Iranian targets this summer as escalating provocations meant to goad Iran into retaliating in ways that might provide an excuse for a far larger U.S. response.

Such a conflict-to-come would be unlikely to involve U.S. ground forces against a nation several times larger and more powerful than Iraq. Instead, it would perhaps involve a sustained campaign of airstrikes against dozens of Iranian air defense installations and other military targets, along with the widespread network of facilities that the United States has identified as being part of that country’s nuclear research program.

The “Art” of the Deal in 2020

In addition to military pressure and fierce sanctions against the Iranian economy, Washington has been cynically trying to take advantage of the fact that Iran, already in a weakened state, has been especially hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. Those American sanctions have, for instance, made it far harder for that country to get the economic support and medical and humanitarian supplies it so desperately needs, given its soaring death count.

According to a report by the European Leadership Network,

“Rather than easing the pressure during the crisis, the U.S. has applied four more rounds of sanctions since February and contributed to the derailing of Iran’s application for an IMF [International Monetary Fund] loan. The three special financial instruments designed to facilitate the transfer of humanitarian aid to Iran in the face of secondary sanctions on international banking transactions… have proven so far to have been one-shot channels, stymied by U.S. regulatory red tape.”

To no avail did Human Rights Watch call on the United States in April to ease its sanctions in order to facilitate Iran’s ability to grapple with the deadly pandemic, which has officially killed nearly 17,000 people since February (or possibly, if a leaked account of the government’s actual death figures is accurate, nearly 42,000).

Iran has every reason to feel aggrieved. At great political risk, President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei agreed in 2015 to a deal with the United States and five other world powers over Iran’s nuclear research program. That accord, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), accomplished exactly what it was supposed to do: it led Iran to make significant concessions, cutting back both on its nuclear research and its uranium enrichment program in exchange for an easing of economic sanctions by the United States and other trade partners.

Though the JCPOA worked well, in 2018 President Trump unilaterally withdrew from it, reimposed far tougher sanctions on Iran, began what the administration called a campaign of “maximum pressure” against Tehran, and since assassinating Soleimani has apparently launched military actions just short of actual war. Inside Iran, Trump’s confrontational stance has helped tilt politics to the right, undermining Rouhani, a relative moderate, and eviscerating the reformist movement there. In elections for parliament in February, ultraconservatives and hardliners swept to a major victory.

But the Iranian leadership can read a calendar, too. Like voters in the United States, they know that the Trump administration is probably going to be voted out of office in three months. And they know that, in the event of war, it’s more likely than not that many Americans — including, sadly, some hawkish Democrats in Congress, and influential analysts at middle-of-the-road Washington think tanks — will rally to the White House. So unless the campaign of covert warfare against targets in Iran were to intensify dramatically, the Iranian leadership isn’t likely to give Trump, Pompeo, and crew the excuse they’re looking for.

As evidence that Iran’s leadership is paying close attention to the president’s electoral difficulties, Khamenei only recently rejected in the most explicit terms possible what most observers believe is yet another cynical ploy by the American president, when he suddenly asked Iran to reengage in direct leader-to-leader talks. In a July 31st speech, the Iranian leader replied that Iran is well aware Trump is seeking only sham talks to help him in November. (In June, Trump tweeted Iran: “Don’t wait until after the U.S. Election to make the Big deal! I’m going to win!”) Indeed, proving that Washington has no intention of negotiating with Iran in good faith, after wrecking the JCPOA and ratcheting up sanctions, the Trump administration announced an onerous list of 12 conditions that would have to precede the start of such talks. In sum, they amounted to a demand for a wholesale, humiliating Iranian surrender. So much for the art of the deal in 2020.

October Surprises, Then and Now

Meanwhile, the United States isn’t getting much support from the rest of the world for its thinly disguised effort to create chaos, a possible uprising, and the conditions to force regime change on Iran before November 3rd. At the United Nations, when Secretary of State Pompeo called on the Security Council to extend an onerous arms embargo on Iran, not only did Russia and China promise to veto any such resolution but America’s European allies opposed it, too. They were particularly offended by Pompeo’s threat to impose “snapback” economic sanctions on Iran as laid out in the JCPOA if the arms embargo wasn’t endorsed by the council. Not lost on the participants was the fact that, in justifying his demand for such new U.N. sanctions, the American secretary of state was invoking the very agreement that Washington had unilaterally abandoned. “Having quit the JCPOA, the U.S. is no longer a participant and has no right to trigger a snapback at the U.N.,” was the way China’s U.N. ambassador put it.

That other emerging great power has, in fact, become a major spoiler and Iranian ally against the Trump administration’s regime-change strategy, even as its own relations with Washington grow grimmer by the week. Last month, the New York Times reported that Iran and China had inked “a sweeping economic and security partnership that would clear the way for billions of dollars of Chinese investments in energy and other sectors, undercutting the Trump administration’s efforts to isolate the Iranian government.” The 18-page document reportedly calls for closer military cooperation and a $400 billion Chinese investment and trade accord that, among other things, takes direct aim at the Trump-Pompeo effort to cripple Iran’s economy and its oil exports.

According to Shireen Hunter, a veteran Middle Eastern analyst at Georgetown University, that accord should be considered a world-changing one, as it potentially gives China “a permanent foothold in Iran” and undermines “U.S. strategic supremacy in the [Persian] Gulf.” It is, she noted with some alarm, a direct result of Trump’s anti-Iranian obsession and Europe’s reluctance to confront Washington’s harsh sanctions policy.

On June 20th, in a scathing editorial, the Washington Post agreed, ridiculing the administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy against Iran. Not only had the president failed to bring down Iran’s government or compelled it to change its behavior in conflicts in places like Syria and Yemen, but now, in a powerful blow to U.S. interests, “an Iranian partnership with China… could rescue Iran’s economy while giving Beijing a powerful new place in the region.”

If, however, the traditional Washington foreign policy establishment believes that Trump’s policy toward Iran is backfiring and so working against U.S. hegemony in the Persian Gulf, his administration seems not to care. As evidence mounts that its approach to Iran isn’t having the intended effect, the White House continues apace: squeezing that country economically, undermining its effort to fight Covid-19, threatening it militarily, appointing an extra-hardliner as its “special envoy” for Iran, and apparently (along with Israel) carrying out a covert campaign of terrorism inside the country.

Over the past four decades, “October surprise” has evolved into a catch-all phrase meaning any unexpected action by a presidential campaign just before an election designed to give one of the candidates a surprise advantage. Ironically, its origins lay in Iran. In 1980, during the contest between President Jimmy Carter and former California Governor Ronald Reagan, rumors surfaced that Carter might stage a raid to rescue scores of American diplomats then held captive in Tehran. (He didn’t.) According to other reports, the Reagan campaign had made clandestine contact with Tehran aimed at persuading that country not to release its American hostages until after the election. (Two books, October Surprise by Gary Sick, a senior national security adviser to Carter, and Trick or Treason by investigative journalist Bob Parry delved into the possibility that candidate Reagan, former CIA Director Bill Casey, and others had engaged in a conspiracy with Iran to win that election.)

Consider it beyond irony if, this October, the latest election “surprise” were to take us back to the very origins of the term in the form of some kind of armed conflict that could only end terribly for everyone involved. It’s a formula for disaster and like so many other things, when it comes to Donald J. Trump, it can’t be ruled out.

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Bob Dreyfuss, an investigative journalist and TomDispatch regular, is a contributing editor at the Nation and has written for Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, the American Prospect, the New Republic, and many other magazines. He is the author of Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam.

Featured image is by Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor

This month, the revolution against COVID-19(84) totalitarianism has been rising up with about a million protestors in Berlin and somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 in Montreal. While these are positive signs, I also am concerned that we are fighting fire with fire. And the tyrants have far more firepower than we can ever muster.

Are we not fighting state collectivism with an anarchistic form of collectivism? Media talk with alternative talk? Even if the majority started denouncing the COVID-19 narrative, such a vocal, unified movement, in itself, would not make what the WHO has done right or wrong. Such activism is focused on social persuasion rather than appealing to reason and conscience.

“Look, it’s been three months, four months, however long it’s been, and I’ve kept quiet,” says Rose Davidson in a viral video. “I’ve been like: You know, we gotta do what we gotta do. Blah, blah, blah…. I kept quiet. I’m not gonna be quiet anymore. Because I don’t want any more months of this. If we all grew some balls and did the right thing this wouldn’t have been happening… I wish I was saying exactly what I’m saying now on March 11.”

I think her words reflect the pent-up frustration many are now expressing. Yet we must be careful how we express it.

“We are a land of talkers;” says Gatto in his book Dumbing Us Down, “we pay talkers the most and admire talkers the most and so our children talk constantly, following the public models of television and schoolteachers.”

Now, if you’ve ever watched a political debate, you know how hard it is to over-talk a politician. And the politicians have the media on their side. Or is it that the media has the politicians on their side? Regardless, is trying to out-talk the mainstream media really going to work?

I think a far better tactic is to get printed reading material in front of eyeballs. This may sound archaic. But that’s the point.

A 2009 study found that reading increases the amount of white matter in the brain, which aids in processing information and decision making. A 2009 study found that students scored 28% better who read their lesson on paper, versus hearing the same lesson on a podcast. An article in Scientific America says that at least a third of our brain is involved in turning letters into meaningful concepts. And the Hechinger Report says “most studies point to better reading comprehension from printed material [instead of on-screen].”

Therefore, instead of giving your masked neighbour a lecture on hypoxia or emailing your uncle a link he probably won’t click, try this instead: Print out on paper an article, flyer or study that cites evidence why masks (por ejemplo) do not reduce primary or secondary infections. You can then hand these black-and-white pages to friends, family and strangers. Simply say: “Can you read this and let me know what you think?”

You could also write a short cover letter and mail printed material to business owners, politicians, celebrities, authors, heads of charities, local hospital administrators, religious leaders, etc. The letter could be short and to the point: “It is no secret that forced masking is hurting retail businesses, society and children. I found this article about how scientists put mask wearing to the test. They conducted seven randomized controlled trials to see if a mask really keeps people safe from infection. Could you read it and let me know what you think?”

The same could be applied to other specific areas of the COVID-19(84) takeover. (Anit-)social-distancing. Fake death rates. The ventilator pandemic. Be specific. It’s a big, confusing mess. Just present one of the poorly fitting puzzle pieces at a time. Keep it focused and to-the-point. You can always send another letter next week.

Remember that scene in The Shawshank Redemption? Andy decides to petition the State Senate for funds to start a library in the prison. “I’ll write a letter a week. They can’t ignore me forever.” Six years and 312 letters later, they finally send him a cheque for $200, boxes of used books and a written request: “Please, stop sending us letters.” To which Andy grins and says: “From now on I’ll write two letters a week, instead of one.”

The fact you took the time to print and post a letter almost ensures the recipient will read it. And even if they trash the first one, will they trash the tenth? Finding anything in our mailbox these days is an event. Ah shucks, since he paid for the ink, paper and postage I can look this over while I eat lunch. Ink and paper are also harder to delete than an email.

Yes, printing out an article and writing a cover letter takes more time than calling someone a “zombie” or Bill Gates “the anit-Christ.” And it’s not as exciting as marching with a crowd down the street with masked police looming over you. But such actions, untempered by constructive appeals to reason and conscience, also risk a civil war.

Written words, on the other hand, calm and focus the mind, preventing people from zoning out or flaring up.

The written word was one of Mahatma Gandhi’s most important weapons of non-violence in the liberation of India. “I started my weekly observance of a day of silence as a means for gaining time to look after my correspondence,” he is quoted as saying in The Autobiography of a Yogi. Each Monday he abstained from talking and devoted the time to writing.

“[Gandhi’s] letters to the editors of South African dailies are a lesson… on how to fight injustice in a country where the laws are loaded against one section of the people, without giving offence to the rulers themselves,” says V.N. Narayanan in Peerless Communicator.

So, yes, I agree with Rose Davidson that we need to speak up. But, we can’t speak louder than the mainstream media. Instead, might we try appealing to people’s humanity through the act of reading on paper?

Reading is one of those acts which separates us from the animal kingdom. Indeed, reading activates the ventrolateral frontal cortex area of the brain, says The University of Oxford, which “is involved in many of the highest aspects of cognition and language, and is only present in humans and other primates.”

Today, we are in dire need of such a peaceful tool that stimulates the “highest aspects of cognition” when confronted with such grave cognitive dissonance.

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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 Daily 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 novella, COVID-27: A Dystopian Love Story. Visit his website at: MuchAdoAboutCorona.ca

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Belarus’ Alexander Lukashenko may have won a solid victory with 80.23% of the vote, according to the election commission, but the ground on which he is standing is not as firm as it once was. The President of Belarus says a hybrid war is being waged against his nation by outside forces; opposition activists claim he has rigged this weekend’s election result.

A night of protests followed the presidential election vote, after which opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, rejected her meagre 9.9% of the vote, stating ‘I will believe my own eyes – the majority was for us’. Tikhanovskaya, the wife of a YouTube blogger who was prevented from running in the election, has no previous political experience, but her message of change for Belarus and dissatisfaction with the current leadership clearly resonated with many.

The fact that a Belarussian housewife managed to pose any threat at all speaks volumes about the fragility of Lukashenko’s position. The President’s words and actions of late have raised eyebrows across the international arena, including surprise and dismay from Russia, after he accused his ally of sending mercenaries to support the opposition in the run-up to the election. Russian journalists from various news outlets were also held by police.

Russia’s President Putin, forever the diplomat, congratulated the Belarussian President with his election win and said that he was counting on the further development of mutually beneficial relations between the two nations. Gently reminding Lukashenko of their joint responsibilities as participants of the Eurasian Economic Union and also their military ties in the Collective Security Treaty Organization, he spoke of Russia and Belarus as ‘brotherly nations’ with mutual goals. Nevertheless, the protests which have dominated the headlines in the last days will perturb the Kremlin. It is neither in Russia’s or Belarus’ interest to see the instability which raged in Ukraine after the Euromaidan protests took hold in 2014, leading to a disastrous power grab by the opposition.  And yet this election campaign in Belarus has unleashed widespread exhibitions of social discontent which are proving difficult to pacify.

Levels of dissatisfaction with the current leadership peaked earlier this year as the coronavirus pandemic took hold in the country.  President Lukashenko initially refused to accept the disease existed, branding the virus back in April as a ‘psychosis which will benefit some people and will harm others’. When questioned on his participation in an ice hockey game in the midst of the pandemic, he responded in an extraordinary way by saying ‘there are no viruses here, have you not seen that there are none flying about?’. As the death toll began to rise, Belarussians began to take matters into their own hands, maintaining social distancing and closing down cafes and restaurants of their own accord.

With no lockdown imposed it is surprising that the number of cases in Belarus has not exceeded the official 68,947 to date. But doubt has been cast on the reliability of official data. Earlier this year, a Russian journalist for Channel One reported on the lack of trust Belarussians had in official information on coronavirus as he showed footage of an abundance of freshly dug graves in the town of Stolbtsy. The incident led to the journalist losing accreditation from Belarussian authorities, in a move condemned by the Russian state broadcaster as ‘completely unfounded’. The matter left a stain on the countries’ relations.

President Lukashenko for his part has said that relations between his nation and Russia will not be ruined by third parties and that ‘if someone is waiting for our relations to sour, they are making a mistake’. Currently the internet is restricted in the country, with people only able to access news via state media TV channels or the Telegram app.  Lukashenko has said that the perpetrators of the internet block are foreign saboteurs, keen to escalate social tensions. Indeed it cannot be denied, that given Washington’s current strategic goals and hostility towards Russia, any attempt to undermine the Belarussian President and sow discord between Russia and Belarus would be in its interest.

Foreign agents or otherwise, Minsk is preparing itself for another wave of social unrest as demonstrators plan to continue anti-government protests. It was reported that 11,000 workers in a metallurgical factory in the town of Zhlobin have gone on strike in response to opposition calls and more such walkouts may be seen in the coming days.  Lukashenko may have won the election, but his biggest fight to retain power it seems, is yet to come. And for that, he’ll want Russia on his side.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

On August 11, 3 Israeli battle tanks crossed a technical fence on the Israeli-Lebanese contact line, the official Lebanese News Agency reported.

According to the Lebanese side, Israeli forces broke through the technical fence in the town of Mays al-Jabal and at least one of the battle tanks fired a phosphorous bomb was fired by one of the tanks.

Later, the battle tanks withdrew from the area. No casualties were reported.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) did not comment on the incident. The technical fence is an Israeli constructed fence along the 79 km contact line between Lebanese and Israeli forces.

In the recent weeks, tensions between Israel and Hezbollah/Iran were especially high on the Lebanese-Israeli contact line and in the Israeli-occupied area of the Syrian Golan Heights. The IDF announced that it had deployed additional forces there and several times threatened Hezbollah with strikes inside Lebanon. An earlier Israeli strike also killed a Hezbollah member in Syria.

The August 4 explosion in Beirut port contributed to even further escalation of tensions in the region. The Beirut explosion, that left more than 200 dead and 6,000 injured, caused a deep political and social crisis in Lebanon. While the official version is still that it was a result of the accident with poorly stored 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate, the version about some ‘attack’ or ‘sabotage act’ in Beirut has been becoming more and more popular. Probably, the most interesting fact is that this version is supported by the United States on the highest level.

US President Donald Trump was among first to say that the Beirut explosion may have been a result of the attack. Trump described the incident as a “terrible attack.”

“It would seem like it based on the explosion,” Trump said. “I’ve met with some of our great generals and they just seem to feel that it was not a — some kind of manufacturing explosion type of event. This was a… seems to be according to them, they would know better than I would, but they seem to think it was an attack. It was a bomb of some kind.”

Later, Defense Secretary Mark Esper also confirmed that the United States is considering this version.

“The bottom line is we still don’t know” what caused the explosion, Esper told Fox News. “On the first day, as President Trump rightly said, we thought it might have been an attack, some of us speculated it could have been, for example, a Hezbollah arms shipment that blew up, maybe a Hezbollah bomb making facility, who knows?”

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This stance of the United States contributed to the speculations with both pro-Iranian/Hezbollah and pro-Israeli sources accusing each others of the tragedy. According to the Israeli version of the events, the explosion may have been caused by some incident at a Hezbollah weapon depot that triggered a larger explosion of ammonium nitrate. In own turn, pro-Iranian sources even accused Israel of conducting a missile or sabotage attack that resulted in the August 4 tragedy.

If one theoretically accepts this hypothesis as true, it would be interesting to look what players may have been interested in such a scenario.

1. Hezbollah and Iran cannot be interested in staging any such situation because the ongoing crisis in Lebanon in fact undermined their positions in the country. There are no doubts that the wide social instability and political crisis will impact negatively the popularity of Hezbollah as one of the main powerbrokers in Lebanon.

3. Hamas and forces affiliated with radical Sunni groups and movements operating across the Middle East also do not look like a real suspect. The blast and the following crisis undermined positions of not only Hezbollah and Iran, but also the Sunni elites in Lebanon.

4. Turkey and Gulf states play own regional games, but they prefer the controlled development of the situation in this part of the region rather than the new point of spreading chaos.

5. In these conditions, the only parties that could be really interested in the destabilization of Lebanon is Israel and the United States.

Tel Aviv is not hiding that the cornerstone of its regional policy is to undermine positions of Hezbollah and Iran, and neutralize this ‘threat’ to the Israeli regional expansion, based on the full-scale and unconditional diplomatic support from Washington and the US military power.

The instability in Lebanon will also allow Israel and the United States to achieve their tactical geopolitical goals more effective because the crisis will draw resources and attention of their main adversaries, and set conditions for additional diplomatic, economic and even limited military actions against them. This will be especially effective after the US-Israeli bloc accuse Hezbollah and Iran of being responsible for the tragedy.

A one more opportunity for Tel Aviv and Washington is to exploit the political crisis to impact the forming of a new Lebanese government (through clandestine measures for example) in order to get a more ‘pro-Western’ variant of it.

The increasing diplomatic and military presence of the US and its European allies in Lebanon under pretext of the humanitarian mission is not even a secret. The UK Royal Navy survey vessel HMS Enterprise is officially deploying to Beirut to supposedly survey the damage to the city’s port.

The @RoyalNavy survey ship @HMSEnterprise has arrived in Beirut this morning having sailed from Cyprus.

Her crew will support the people of #Lebanon by offloading vital supplies of aid and surveying the damage done to the port. @ukinlebanon https://t.co/lYWRkz1Er8 pic.twitter.com/0cywXPyUsx

— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) August 10, 2020

Another known ally of the modern United States, France is deploying the Mistral-class helicopter carrier Tonnerre. The warship with an additional force of about 700 troops on board is set to deploy in Beirut on August 13. More foreign forces are expected to come.

Therefore, if one wants to speculate about the possible attack on Beirut on August 4, it’s easy to find what foreign forces may have been interested in it. Nonetheless, in this scenario, mainstream media outlets and the ‘democratic world’ will likely blame Hezbollah and Iran.

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If elected president in November, Joe Biden will be age-78 when entering office in January.

His political career since 1972 as US senator, vice president, and presidential aspirant elevated him to national prominence with high public name recognition.

He’s only the fourth Catholic-faith  (presumptive Dem) presidential nominee in US history — Jack Kennedy the only US Catholic president.

Biden was the only Catholic vice president. Now an evangelical protestant, Pence was raised Catholic.

Religion in US politics is much less of a factor than long ago, notably in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Thomas Jefferson, the third US president, notably was criticized for lacking religious conviction.

Catholicism was an issue for Jack Kennedy — based on the faulty notion that religion would interfere in the execution of his duties as president.

In 1960 v. Richard Nixon, JFK won the popular vote by a scant 113,000 majority, the Electoral College vote by a 303 to 219 margin.

According to Real Clear Politics, an average of polls in August shows Biden favored over Trump by 7.5 points, slightly down from an earlier 9 point advantage.

Some polls, including by Monmouth, Gu Politics, and YouGov, have Biden ahead by double-digits.

A mid-July Quinnipiac poll had Biden with a 15 point advantage over Trump.

No poll results are available so far since he chose Kamala Harris as a running mate.

Usually after these type announcements, presidential aspirants gain an approval bump, the same true after party conventions.

This year is unique in US political history, Dems and Republicans having virtual conventions.

For Dems, it’s from August 17 – 20, Republicans holding theirs from August 24 – 27.

How this procedure affects polls remains to be seen.

Last May, Professor of Psychology Christopher Ferguson asked:

“What’s the probability that the next president will have dementia?

Trump is the oldest first-term president in US history, currently age-74, showing no visible signs of slowing down physically.

According to Ferguson, there’s “an even chance of the next president experiencing cognitive decline,” adding:

Earlier US presidents had serious health issues.

After suffering a heart attack during his first term in office, Dwight Eisenhower was reelected for a second term.

Jack Kennedy was seriously ill numerous times in his life, three times given last rites.

Some close to him said “from a medical standpoint, (he) was a mess.”

Other US presidents were ill in office, some seriously.

Lincoln was elected to the nation’s highest office despite suffering from lifelong depression.

George Washington had health issues in office. John Adams was diagnosed with manic depression.

Jefferson, Madison, Chester Arthur, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan were ill in office.

Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, James Garfield, William McKinley, and Warren Harding died in office.

Ferguson explained that Reagan was diagnosed with alzheimer’s disease (the most common form of dementia) after leaving office, adding:

Symptoms began during his second term. The disease progresses slowly, most often not diagnosed until “noticeably impairing” daily activities.

Do Biden and Trump show signs of cognitive decline?

“Older adults may take longer to learn new technical things, may have more trouble forming new memories or paying attention to new tasks,” Ferguson explained.

“Speech fluency” may be adversely affected.

“Dementia involves cognitive decline in excess of what is expected for normal aging.”

“(I)t can also influence mood and decision making and cause paranoia and eventual loss of self-care.”

At times, Trump and Biden “mang(le) words,” but that alone doesn’t indicate dementia.

In the US today, dementia is less common than earlier, around “10%” for individuals in their 70s or older.

“Milder cognitive impairments not reaching the level of dementia may be more common” — one study indicating close to “20%” of people in this age category.

Ferguson: “(T)he probability of (Trump or Biden) having dementia is  is about 10%, the probability that choosing between them will result in a presidency under the influence of dementia is about 19%.”

“If we combine that 10% with the approximately 20% likelihood of milder cognitive impairment for an individual in their age category (thus 30% chance of some impairment overall for each man), the probability that one or both candidates has either mild impairment or dementia goes up to about 51%.”

If America’s president has mild or more serious cognitive impairment, history shows that the bureaucracy in place maintains things without missing a beat.

Ferguson calls this reality a “small comfort perhaps against the madness of kings.”

Biden notably had brain surgery twice earlier.

According to Science Daily, “(m)ajor surgery is associated with a small long-term decline in cognitive functioning.”

Today’s Geriatric Medicine explained that “younger healthier patients may be able to bounce back easily (in contrast to) the cognitive impact on older adults.”

Biden’s brain surgery occurred when in his mid-40s, clearly not an old man at the time.

So-called POCD (post-operative cognitive decline) can be short or longer-term.

In 1988, Biden had brain surgery twice to relieve severe neck pain caused by a pinched nerve, a viral infection, an aneurysm in the base of his brain, another aneurysm on the opposite side.

According to Capitol Hill physician Dr. John Eisold, he “recovered fully.”

Over the last dozen years, he reportedly experienced only minor health issues, including sinusitis and allergies.

According to Biden’s brain surgeon Dr. Neal Kassell, he suffered no brain damage from procedures performed.

His mangled and incorrect remarks at times give pause to others as to whether he shows signs of cognitive decline.

Enter Kamala Harris. Did Dem power brokers choose her with two possible scenarios in mind?

That if elected, Biden may be physically and/or cognitively unable to complete his term, or that at most he’d be a one-term president?

In either case or if Biden is elected, reelected and serves two terms in office, will she be party standard bearer ahead?

Note: In December 2019, a joint letter to Congress by 350 psychiatrists and other mental health experts (the number since then more than doubled) warned that Trump exhibited signs of mental health deterioration, saying in part:

He considers “(a)ny slight or criticism a humiliation and degradation.”

“To cope with the resultant hollow and empty feeling, he reacts with what is referred to as narcissistic rage.”

“He is unable to take responsibility for any error, mistake, or failing.”

“His default in that situation is to blame others and to attack the perceived source of his humiliation.”

“These attacks of narcissistic rage can be brutal and destructive.”

“We implore Congress to take these danger signs seriously and to constrain his destructive impulses.”

Trump v. Biden in November is less about them, more about which right wing of the one-party state will control the executive branch for the next four years.

The same holds for Congress.

On issues of war and peace, corporate empowerment, along with other domestic and geopolitical ones mattering most, continuity is certain whenever US elections are held.

Names and faces change. Dirty business as usual always stays the same.

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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.

On July 27, a next “complete and all-encompassing ceasefire” between Kiev troops and self-defense forces of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) started in eastern Ukraine. This is the most recent in a series of attempts to impose a complete ceasefire in the region.

Over two dozen previous ceasefires collapsed due to two main factors:

• First, the inability of Kiev to control its own troops, including neo-Nazi armed groups, that are deployed on the frontline with the LPR and the DPR;
• Second, the unwillingness of Kiev to support a political solution of the conflict with the DPR and LPR because the Ukrainian government uses military tensions in eastern Ukraine to achieve its own political and financial goals, including the justification of selling of the country’s sovereignty to the Euro-Atlantic structures, the mass censorship, and the persecution of opposition parties, media and activists.

The ability of the Ukrainian military to participate in ceasefires was recently demonstrated near the village of Zaitsevo. On July 14, a sabotage and reconnaissance unit of pro-Kiev forces violated the ceasefire regime entering the ‘gray zone’ preparing an attack on positions of DPR forces. However, the operation failed. At least 2 pro-Kiev fighters, including a citizen of Estonia, died and another one received injures. After this, Ukrainian media outlets launched an aggressive media campaign accusing the DPR of violating the ceasefire and Russia of committing one more ‘act of aggression’.

However, the Ukrainian leadership represented by President comedian Volodymyr Zelenski pretends that this time the situation will be different.

On July 26, Zelensky held a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin discussing the prospects of the ceasefire. The sides also discussed the Law on the Special Procedure for Local Self-Government in Certain Districts of the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions, which is being considered by the TCG political subgroup, and the Law on Decentralization, which provides for amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine.

Russia is the main supporter of the DPR and LPR and the only force directly opposing plans of Kiev and its NATO backers to launch a new large-scale advance in eastern Ukraine, which in the event of military success will inevitably lead to the mass killings of civilians there.

An overwhelming majority of the people in eastern Ukraine are ethnic Russians or speak Russian as the main language. All of them self-identify as Russian-speaking people.

Since the very moment, when the current political regime in Kiev came to power in 2014, Russian-speaking people and ethnic Russians were declared enemies of the state and ‘subhumans’ that must be neutralized or even killed in order to allow Ukraine to go forward on its ‘European way’. This policy faced an expected armed resistance leading to a civil war in the region of Donbass. Crimea evaded the bloodbath thanks to the involvement of Russian forces and the secession of the region to Russia.

In 2020, the ideas of ethnic cleansing of Russians and persecutions of the Russian-speaking population in the region of Donbass and Crimea still remained an integral part of the Ukrainian political mainstream and the ideology of various radical groups that receive direct financial, administrative support from the current regime and have access to weapons from the conflict zone.

The political process and constitutional reforms needed to de-escalate the situation in the east and grant autonomy to the DPR and LPR face strong resistance on the all levels of the governance system. Radicals attack independent journalists, bloggers, political activists, politicians and even people that visit the ‘wrong churches’.

On July 23, the house of Vitaly Shabunin, the head of the non-profit Anti-Corruption Action Centre, was set on fire. The Centre said it believed the arson was “an assassination attempt” targeting Shabunin and his family. The incident happened in the village of Gnidyn just outside Kiev.

On July 13, members of the “National Corps” political party (created on the basis of the “Azov Battalion” neo-Nazi armed group) attacked a house of the head of the opposition Shariy Party in Kharkov. According to the head of the party, Anatoly Shariy, the attackers were armed with firearms and injured at least 2 people. Earlier, on June 24, members of the “National Corps” attacked and beat an activist of the Shariy Party in the same city – Nikita Rojenko. After the attack, the man was in critical condition.

On July 26, Ukrainian radicals and supporters of the government-backed ‘independent’ Orthodox Church of Ukraine seized churches of the canonic Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchy) in the villages of Novojivotove, Zabolotsy in Volyn Region. Police and local authorities in fact support the seizure violating the people’s right to freedom of faith.

The aggressive minority of political and religious radicals, including open supporters of neo-Nazy-styled ideology, with help from the government terrorize the peaceful population. This situation is encouraged by Kiev and its Western backers.

During the past months, top Ukrainian officials regularly criticized the Minsk agreements, proposed to withdraw from them or revise them to meet the vision of the situation by the current regime. The core of the contradictions over the Minsk deal is simple. Kiev seeks to gain control over the border with Russia and the entire territory of the DPR and LPR before the implementation of the political part of Minsk. In practice, this will mean the surrender of the DPR and LPR to pro-Kiev forces, the ‘neutralization’ of DPR and LPR resistance by force (likely with direct help from NATO) and mass killings and terrorizing of local populations by pro-Kiev radicals. The DPR, LPR leadership and population are apparently not interested in this scenario. Russia, for which the advance of Kiev forces in eastern Ukraine will mean millions of refugees and a humanitarian catastrophe on its own border, also cannot allow this.

As to European backers of Kiev, they seem to be also not happy with attempts of the Poroshenko and then Zelensky administrations to speculate on the escalation scenario to gain additional funding and political support from the European Union. This is especially clear from actions of leaders of European states like France and Germany. Meanwhile, the European bureaucracy affiliated with the Washington establishment play into the hands of the Ukrainian ‘instigators of war’.

These forces are not interested in the settlement of the conflict in eastern Europe because they use it as a pressure point in their efforts to suppress the resistance of national states, which increased amid the crumbling dominance of globalists. These contradictions, especially taking into account the US dominance over the Ukrainian leadership, raise serious concerns about the real motivation behind the recent political maneuvers of the Zelensky administration. However, most likely, the explanation is even more complex.

Ukraine is experiencing a deepening crisis that came amid the decreasing direct financial support from its foreign backers. During the past years, ‘European partners’ already decreased their support to Kiev, which was fueling fires of war in the interests of its own corrupt system and the Washington establishment. The modern US, led by the Trump administration, is also not interested in any large-scale investments in Kiev adventures against Russia or funding the Ukrainian ‘economic miracle’ for propaganda purposes.

Taking into account the global economic crisis and the expected second wave of the coronavirus outbreak, it is unlikely that foreign support to Kiev will increase anytime soon. It will be a gift if the Ukrainian leadership continues receiving foreign support at least at the current level. Therefore, the Zelensky administration is forced to at least formally search for ways that would allow the country to reduce its economic needs. The de-escalation of the conflict in the east is one of such opportunity.

On the other hand, from the political point of view, the ceasefire is needed for Zelensky to at least temporarily stabilize his approval rating which is falling dramatically. He came to power thanks to peace-making slogans, promises to contain censorship, street violence, and battle corruption. However, none of these things have happened. Instead, Zelensky immediately turned into Poroshenko 2.0 and his administration funds Poroshenko-era paramilitary groups to use them against its opponents.

By supporting the ceasefire initiative, Kiev also tries to please European partners that have been pressuring the regime to finally making at least some actions in the framework of the Minsk format. At the same time, the Zelensky administration understands that any laws or amendments to the Constitution granting the LPR and the DPR real autonomy and defending rights of the local population will not pass the Parliament. Therefore, interests of the Washington establishment, not interested in the de-escalation, will be secured.

The situation in Ukraine will likely remain in a state of a stable instability until the presidential election in the United States. If President Trump keeps his post, the Ukrainian conflict will likely remain frozen with Kiev forced to make at least some steps to de-escalate conflict, overcome the crisis and guarantee its own survival. At the same time, if the Democratic establishment once again comes to power in Washington, the frozen conflict in eastern Ukraine will have increasingly high chances of turning into a hot war zone once again.

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It is necessary to study, how US color-techniques are applied for regime-change in Egypt (Tahrir) – Iran (Green Movement) and now Lebanon (Cedar Revolution + “Day of Rage”).

The US engineering of these all-but-spontaneous undercover “Color Revolutions” in East Europe is well described in this paper.

These US intervention techniques started during the cold war and afterwards in East Europe (Poland, Romania etc).

These US techniques were perfected in Serbia’s Bulldozer Revolution in 2000 (against Milosevic). The US “template” of “Color” regime-change was then transferred from Serbia to Georgia’s Rose Revolution, 2003 (against Shevardnadze) and the Ukraine Orange Revolution 2005 and Euro-Maidan Revolution 2014 (against Yanukovych) – in Ukraine’s case 2014 with aid from local Nazi groups, all while the US silenced Jewish groups (like ADL, the Anti-Defamation League) from criticizing the coalition of the US with local Nazism. That year, the Jewish Anti-Defamation League voicedly pointed out a single cultural person in France, while not mentioning the rise of Nazism in Ukraine with one word.

What is NOT generaly described, is now how the US has spread its subversive “color-techniques” to the rest of the world – incl. the Middle East and probably Africa (Mobuto in Zimbabwe?).

An Al Jazeera program from back then, described in detail how Egyptian Tahrir activists in 2013 (against Mubarak) were daily in video-contact to receive ideas and instructions from (US supported) activists in Serbia, who had learned how to topple a president (Milosevic). When it turned out later, that Egypt’s political winners after the US supported demonstrated toppled Mubarak would not be western supported “liberal” groups, but instead be Muslim politicians, the USA quickly reversed totally “on its support for Arab democracy” and reinstated Egypt’s social model from before.

“Popular” Green Movements in Iran seem to follow the same pattern – Made in the USA.

Epidemiologist Michael Marmot begins his August 10 piece in The Guardian on a sombre note.  It is drawn from The Plague by Albert Camus.  “The pestilence is at once blight and revelation; it brings the hidden truth of a corrupt world to the surface.”  Professor Marmot uses the UK’s inglorious record on combating COVID-19 as a mirror for both blight and revelation. 

“We are doing badly: dramatic social inequalities in COVID-19 deaths; rates in black, Asian and minority ethnic groups; and, now, the highest excess mortality rate in Europe.”

Marmot had already gotten his runs on the board of gloom with a report for the Institute of Health Equity, released before the virus fully bit. Its focus was upon an increasingly sickened England.  Health Equity in England: The Marmot Review 10 Years On, was a collective effort of monumental gloom.  It notes that, since 2010, “widespread and deep cuts in most areas of public spending” have taken place, a result of the austerity regime put in place in response “to perceived financial pressures.” 

As a percentage of GDP, government spending fell an astonishing seven percentage points between 2009-2010 and 2018-2019, from 42 percent to 35 percent.  Particularly stinging were those to local authorities.  Local government allocations declined some 77 percent between 2009-2010 and 2018-2019.  Expenditure on “social protection and education, both vital for health, have declined most – by 1.5 percent of GDP.”

The very fact of the cuts was less significant than their regressive and inequitable nature.  Those areas in need were strafed, harming health and deepening the divide in health inequalities in the short term and “are likely to do so in the longer term.” Public Health England had its budget cut by 40 percent from its founding in 2012 to 2019-2020.

The political picture is also telling.  Health had deteriorated in those constituencies that had voted for Brexit and came out in droves to vote for the Tory government led by Boris Johnson.  Such seats, despite leaving the Labour bosom and going blue, have a life expectancy of 60.9 years in good health, four years less than those in Tory strongholds and a pinch less than current Labour seats (61.4 years). 

When the report was released, a spokesman for Prime Minister Johnson drew heavily on the common book of platitudes.  “Every single person deserves to lead a long and healthy life, no matter where they are, where they live or their social circumstances.”  From his first day in office, he continued, Johnson had expressed a commitment “to levelling up the whole country.  While life expectancy is increasing we know that it isn’t for everyone, and so we must tackle the gaps that exist.”

Rather telling: life expectancy not being for everyone.  And so it showed with devastating effect, the coronavirus cutting its way through the country and making its deadly contribution.  Between March 1 and May 31, 2020, COVID-19 was assigned as the underlying cause of death to 43,763 people.  At one point, it looked like the statisticians of mortality would have had the addition of the prime minister himself, that buffoonish hand shaker of the first order so keen to meet all and sundry.

Now, the already poor record is even more blemished.  On July 30, the Office for National Statistics found that for the period between February 21 to June 21, the excess mortality rate for England was higher than in any European countries, even relative to those within the United Kingdom.

From 2010, the life expectancy in the UK had already started to slow, having been, for almost a century, increasing at a rate of one year in every four.  By 2018, it had stuttered to a halt.  As Marmot reminds us, compared with other states of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, “improvement in life expectancy in the UK from 2010 on was the slowest of all, except for the US and Iceland.”  This occurred in step with increasing inequalities; the narrowing gap in life expectancy between the poorest 20 percent of areas and the rest that had taken place during the 2000s was reversed after 2010.  A clear postulation can therefore be made, the effects of a “social gradient in mortality rates”.  COVID-19 merely served to sharpen it: unequal COVID-19 outcomes can be duly attributed to more general inequalities in health.

The policy of austerity, having weakened the UK and its means of dealing with the pandemic, has itself become a populist measure for the Tories.  In June, Johnson felt a touch of FDR about him, suggesting that a Roosevelt New Deal implemented in United States during the 1930s might be adapted in the UK to fight the effects of the virus.  Capital works were promised; infrastructure projects long ignored would finally be considered.  In doing so, he suggested that returning to a regime of austerity would be a “mistake”.  But ever true to his own knotted logic, Johnson refused to call it “austerity” himself (“it wasn’t actually austerity but people called it austerity”).

That same month, former Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid similarly warned against any temptation to return to such belt-tightening exercises. Unfortunately, his solution has been the usual trickle-down fare: cut taxes, thereby stimulating business, employment and spending.  “Tax employment less, and all other things being equal you will end up with more of it.”  Equality, never a word for the Tory policy book, is precisely the problem there. 

Britain should not be seen as a singular case of exclusive awfulness, though it is worth noting that all suffering societies are singular in their own way in how they have responded to the novel coronavirus.  Social inequalities, poor services and penny pinching dogmatists have been shown up.  The calamities in Brazil and the United States also serve to illustrate the huge problems in how the state delivers (or not) and harms its citizens.  This modern pestilence continues to hold up both mirror and revelation, and has found the idea and practice of austerity wanting.  A corrupt world has been exposed.

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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 TruePublica

Introduction

The rising toll of diseased and deceased from the COVID-19 pandemic has hit Bolivia particularly hard, in a continent that is now in the lead in global contagion rates. As of August 8, more than 100,000 cases were officially confirmed or suspected in that country, with 3,600 deaths among a total population of just over 10 million.

The coup government, installed in November, has mismanaged the crisis from the outset. Hospitals are understaffed and ill-equipped, testing is minimal, and the main response by the de facto authorities is to threaten lengthy jail terms for those who circulate “inaccurate” information about the pandemic – in a country where only a minority of workers are employed, the vast majority eking out a living in the “informal” economy of street markets and self-employment.

Typical of its approach, the interim regime headed by President Jeanine Añez was quick to expel more than 700 Cuban healthcare workers who, under the previous government, had provided needed services in remote areas and helped to train new medical staff.

Aggravating the misery is an unprecedented economic crisis. The coup regime paralyzed state development projects initiated by the previous government, privatized key state enterprises, and brought the IMF back with a $327-million loan. These policies, writes Bolivian journalist Oliver Vargas, have had “dramatic consequences for the ability of the country to weather the economic impact of COVID-19. 38% of the country has lost the entirety of their income, while 52% have lost a part of their income. The deliberate retreat of the state has meant that the 90% who are suffering during quarantine haven’t received any income support, the only gesture has been a one-off universal payment of US$70. In April, to last four months of lockdown.”

Remittances from relatives working abroad – crucially important for many families – have fallen by more than 30% in the first six months of this year, as many of the 3 million Bolivians living abroad in economic exile have lost their jobs.

“Bolivians are again experiencing shortages,” tweets deposed president Evo Morales from his Buenos Aires exile. “Long lines to buy food, drugs and gas amidst uncertainty and pandemic. The people have to struggle not only against the #Coronavirus but to survive as best they can, totally abandoned.”

“In the face of this desperate situation,” says Vargas, “voters were looking forward to ending the eight month coup experiment at the ballot box in September. Polls show that the MAS [the party led by Morales] is on course for a first-round victory, with Añez trailing behind in distant third. It might have been a peaceful end to a violent period. However, determined to cling on to power whatever the cost, the regime is using COVID-19 as an excuse to postpone those elections. Claiming that elections would spread the virus, even as public transport and most of the economy re-opens, they have pushed for further delays.”

When the new elections tribunal, the TSE, arbitrarily postponed the election to October 18, overruling the legislated date of September 6, mass protests broke out throughout the country, initiated by the Bolivian Workers Central (COB) and the Pacto de Unidad, the coalition of organizations allied with the deposed government party, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS). Starting August 3, more than 100 roadblocks were set up, with only vehicles delivering medical supplies being allowed through. Thousands of Bolivians have taken to the streets demanding the national elections be held September 6.

COB leader Juan Carlos Huarachi stated:

“We need a democratically-elected government so as to discuss new policies, not just for social issues, but also for economic issues… in eight months we’ve seen the collapse of our country. Sadly, this is the reality, with recipes from the IMF, by blackmailing the people, by blackmailing the legislature.”

The Añez regime has responded by charging MAS leaders with “terrorism, genocide, sedition” and “offenses against public health.” And it has supported demands that the TSE disqualify the MAS candidates from the election. The TSE has referred the matter to the Supreme Court.

The following article by Cochabamba-based journalist Fernando Molina, published before the most recent events, describes the political climate, the MAS reactions to its overthrow in November, 2019, and the difficult perspectives it faces, whether it wins or loses the elections. I have translated it from the July-August 2020 issue of the magazine Nueva Sociedad, edited by Pablo Stefanoni in Buenos Aires. I have supplemented Molina’s notes with a few of my own, for clarification, –signed R.F.

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What Outcome for Bolivia’s Crisis?

Elections and Political Reconfiguration

by Fernando Molina

Bolivia is heading toward presidential and legislative elections amidst a new political scenario. After the fall of Evo Morales and the blow suffered by his political force, the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) has regained ground and could win again. Will it succeed? If so, can it return to power? Whatever the case, a polarized battle looms between the MAS and its adversaries.

Bolivia’s elections, scheduled at this point for next September 6, will express a huge political and social polarization. It is not unique in this: so will the US election in November. But while this is standard in the bipartisan US electoral system, it is unusual in Bolivia. Several parties will be participating, but the electorate will be divided according to a single alternative: for or against the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS).

We still don’t know which party will manage to represent the anti-MAS voters. Various Center and Right-wing parties are competing, encouraged by Bolivia’s electoral laws, which allow for a second round of voting if no party wins a sufficient plurality. This opens space for the parties to make individual calculations – a practice that many MAS opponents consider outrageous, since it jeopardizes what was achieved with the overthrow of President Evo Morales last November, that is, the abrupt departure from office of the socio-political bloc that had managed the country since the early 20th century.

This is now the main concern of Bolivia’s economic, intellectual, and media elites: to prevent dangerous games between the old opponents of Morales (who resist yielding to each other and are unable to form a united front against “public enemy number one,” as a La Paz daily calls the former president¹) evoking the most terrifying specter for the upper classes: the “return of the MAS.”

Image on the right: Jeanine Anez receiving the presidential sash from a representative of the Bolivian military (photo: EFE).

These parties respond to their critics with claims that each is not only the very opposite of the MAS but has the unique ability to guarantee a definitive and sustainable victory over it.² At the same time, each of them seeks to show that their rivals are not trustworthy because their actions bring water to the mill of the MAS. The common accusation is that they are “functional to the MAS.” This was the tone adopted, for example, by the de facto government, which is running interim President Jeanine Añez as the presidential candidate of the Juntos group, toward opposition candidates Carlos Mesa and Luis Fernando Comacho, when they criticized Añez’s handling of the health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.³

Conversely, the other opposition parties have accused the interim government of promoting the return of the MAS through its mismanagement of the crisis.⁴ The media are playing the same game, as indicated by this headline in El Deber, the main daily in Santa Cruz, when reporting on the former president and current candidate Carlos Mesa: “Mesa shares a forum with the President of Argentina Alberto Fernández, who gave refuge to Evo.”⁵

Hatred of the MAS

Abhorring the MAS is the dominant passion of the country’s traditional elites. The roots are found in a mix of memories of grievances suffered (the loss of spaces of power due to the dissolution of the technocracy of the 1990s and the devaluation of their “genealogical capital” for 14 years), ideological differences (liberal-republicanism versus national-caudillismo), and racism against the Indigenous and mestizo plebeians or “cholos.”

Hatred of the MAS began even before the coming to power of the “first Indigenous president” and the installation in the government of social movements that brought together Indigenous peoples, peasants and workers. This could already be felt in 2002, when the MAS became a serious alternative for office. Between 2006 and 2008, during the first two years of Morales’s government, it came close to unleashing a civil war between the north-western and south-eastern regions of the country. If this did not happen, it was due to the weight of the president’s popularity, although he did not manage to consolidate himself in government without first blunting the more radical edges of his program of state reforms and reducing to the minimum his program of redistribution of agrarian property.

Despite this, the abhorrence of the leftist party and its leader did not disappear. Even during the boom period, 2009-2015, while the country was experiencing the best economic moment of its history – the majority of Bolivians had more income, and social welfare increased – the animosity smoldered like a votive candle on the secret altars of the business organizations, social clubs, lodges, fraternities of the Santa Cruz carnival, the card games of wealthy women, and ultimately, in the multiple settings of private life in which the traditional white elites had not lost their primacy. Even if some bourgeois leaders “went over” to the MAS government or pretended they were fraternizing with it, or if most of the intellectuals and journalists were careful not to “overly criticize” the powerful regime, the class and racial enmity was always there, awaiting a better time in which to express itself.

The same thing occurred with racial prejudice. Although public expressions of this prejudice were tempered by fear that the government would implement the legal and moral sanctions it deserved, the country continued to be weighed down by the vestiges of the estates of the colonial order. The MAS even had to make realpolitik concessions to racism, for example, by appointing figures that were more picturesque than persuasive in the newly created Vice-Ministry of Decolonization intended to direct egalitarian policies, or by allowing the Armed Forces to maintain a rule that discriminated against sergeants and corporals, most of whom are of Indigenous origin.⁶

Those longing for the old powers and the old relations between the classes were gradually strengthened as the MAS government was weakened by the natural wear and tear of its prolonged stay in power, the errors it was making, and the limitations it revealed. Being “anti-MAS” became a sign of social and racial status, and therefore, began to be internalized by the lower middle classes as an “aspirational” element, that is, as a mechanism for social advancement.

What were the mistakes made and the limitations that the MAS government revealed? Its “electoralism,” which ended up reducing the social process to a succession of triumphs at the ballot box and the retention of power at all costs, even with authoritarian methods; its “peasantism,” which must be understood as a relative indifference to the demands of the urban sectors; its cooptation of unconditional “Evistas” as a part of the leadership; its corruption and bureaucratization; its ideological unclarity between extreme pragmatism and “national-Stalinism;”⁷ and above all, its caudillismo.

With his political, economic, and governmental success, Morales became the most important caudillo in a country that had been full of them; a country in which, as its most creative sociologist, René Zavaleta, put it, “the caudillo is the way that the masses organize.”⁸ The centrality of the president and the state cult of his personality attained levels as high as those achieved by other great national leaders, such as Victor Paz Estenssoro or José María Linares. If, at first, the official flattery of Morales corresponded in part to reality, it later became a mirage and a mechanism for ratification and manipulation of the Bolivian president’s narcissism to such an extent that he believed he was even strong enough to turn his back on the source of his power, the electoral majorities, if they were to oppose him.

That was what happened with regard to the constitutional referendum of February 21, 2016, which ruled out his re-election,⁹ and perhaps also with regard to the result of the elections of October 20, 2019, which, as most Bolivians perceived it,¹⁰ he had arranged to alter in order to avoid a second round (a notion, however, that Morales and the MAS deny and that is now a subject of dispute in the election campaign and the courts).¹¹

In any event, to assume that the undeniable strength of his figure was superior to Bolivians’ attachment to the vote – which in this country is key because it serves to resolve the everlasting disputes over the rents derived from natural resources – was a very serious misstep. It ended up confusing and fragmenting the social bloc that had backed the MAS government and which was already weakened by its long incorporation within the ruling party, with all the advantages and temptations that this situation implied.¹²

In the end, in the final hours of his government, the MAS, which had arisen from social struggles, was unable to mobilize its adherents. It had been transformed into an electoral machine that could still get out the vote but which no longer aroused any progressive fervor. Only the ultra-loyal cocaleros of the Chapare, the residents of the most Indigenous neighborhoods of the Aymara metropolis of El Alto, and certain groups of state functionaries, were willing to fight effectively to prevent Morales from falling.

After his overthrow, the burning of buses, factories, and homes of opponents of Morales in La Paz, as well as the “siege of the cities” ordered by the ex-president from exile, aroused the age-old terror of the Bolivian whites of the “Indian thug” and raised the hatred of the MAS to the level of collective hysteria. It was then that there arose the ferociously anti-socialist narrative that still prevails today.

Pablo Stefanoni has singled out “three key words in it: ‘hordes’ (the MAS members are reduced to mere criminal shock troops); ‘waste’ (the widely praised macroeconomic management [of Morales] was simply virtual reality; and ‘tyranny’ (the last 14 years are said to have been pure state despotism).”¹³ This narrative has served, in part, as the motive and, in part, as the cover for the repression of the MAS carried out by the interim government. Groups that mobilized in support of ex-president Morales were dismantled by the combined forces of the Police and the Army, costing the lives of more than 30 people. Almost 1,000 leaders were temporarily detained. Several dozen former officials, among them Morales and his vice-president, Álvaro García Linera, had to leave the country for Mexico and Argentina. Hundreds have been investigated for corruption. Two ex-ministers were arrested and remain in jail. Seven MAS leaders took refuge in the Mexican embassy in La Paz, where they are stranded, having been denied safe conduct to leave the country.

At the same time, the public sphere has been taken over almost completely by the spokespersons – genuine and upstarts – of the “revolution of the pititas,” as the press called the protests that preceded the overthrow of Morales.¹⁴ Even intellectuals who had been linked with, and thrived from, the previous government have begun to practice target shooting against Morales, making him the “punching bag” of anyone who knows how to string together a few phrases to produce an opinion piece. The most important left-wing academics have been careful not to go against this climate of opinion, and have sought to exonerate themselves.¹⁵ From the outset, the Añez interim government has enjoyed hegemony over the mass media,¹⁶ and only recently has this begun to lessen due to the rapid erosion in the government’s management, although it is still unanimous if invoked against the MAS.

In this context, one would have thought that the MAS’s days were numbered, that its future would be that of a secondary political group and exclusively rural. However, early in the new year, notwithstanding the adverse conditions we have described, the MAS appeared to be heading the first surveys of voting intentions, even before it had named any candidates. The acronym attracted “hard-core” support – ideological and sociological – of massive scope. In January, 21% of the electorate was prepared to vote for it regardless of who its candidates were or what they were offering.¹⁷ In March, with its candidates now chosen, 33% of the population supported it.¹⁸

The workers, the plebeian sectors of the population, the Indigenous peoples, and even the cholos, who still are not upwardly socially mobile,, continued to see the MAS – although it had made no consistent self-criticism of its errors – as the only force capable of representing them and defending the statism, nationalism, and racial egalitarianism that the return to power of the traditional elites seemed to have put at risk. In addition, MAS ruleis associated with a period of unusual prosperity and political stability. That is why, among other reasons, the initiative of the most radical “pititas” to use the charge of fraud hanging over the MAS to veto its participation in the election went nowhere. This outcome was counter-intuitive. Despite everything that had occurred, the MAS continued to be at the centre of politics, and the other forces had to position themselves in relation to it. Not even the defeat of historic scope that the party had suffered last November had displaced it from this focal location. It was a surprising example of political resilience that no doubt expressed, as we have said, simultaneous processes of class and racial identification.

The MAS Response Since Its Fall

“Evismo,” or the admiration and loyalty – not always healthy – manifested for Evo Morales, on the one hand, and on the other, the possibility of obtaining an electoral victory in the coming elections are the two forces that have preserved the unity of the MAS after the terrible earthquake that its violent departure from government meant for this party. For those who suppose that its fall was due solely to the action of an external force (the “empire’s conspiracy to appropriate Bolivian lithium,” or the “police and military coup”), the unity of the Masistas may seem an obvious premise. But this is not the case because, as we have seen, the overthrow of the Morales government was the result of both external and internal causes. Furthermore, the MAS has never been an ideological party; it is “sindicalista,” and part of its appeal has been its ability to enable the social ascent of the most awakened and ambitious elements of the unions and the plebeian middle classes. So, the expectation of an early return to power has influenced its unitary behaviour.

Morales has also played a fundamental role in this by becoming the only reference for groups that without him would probably seek to compete with each other to express that 33% or more of the electorate that today leans to the left. This has always been the role of Morales. If the MAS managed to fulfil one of the most cherished hopes of the 20th century progressives, the “unity of the left,” it did this not on the foundations predicted (ideological hegemony, defensive front, etc.) but in the Bolivian style, around a guardian figure.¹⁹ Morales articulates the three main wings of his party, all of which are “Evistas.” This ensures that “they stay in the Political Instrument,” while at the same time avoiding the emergence of dangerous competitors for his charismatic leadership.

The three major factions of the MAS, each of which includes many minor groups, are as follows:

(a) The one formed by the workers and peasants’ organizations of the so-called “Unity Pact.” This is led, on the one hand, by David Choquehuanca, an Indigenous leader in the Altiplano who served as foreign minister between 2006 and 2018 and is now the MAS vice-presidential candidate, and on the other, by the young Andrónico Rodríguez, the effective leader of the cocalero union federations that Morales continues to head.

(b) The one formed by the numerous groups of militants that come from the traditional left; radical and “national-Stalinist” leaders predominate in this wing, although it also contains the more moderate candidate for President, the former Minister of Economy and socialist activist Luis Arce.

(c) The one formed by the neo-Marxist, post-modern, left-wing humanists and progressive democrats who joined the MAS just before and after it came to power and who, given their educational capital, played an important role in government management. A minority part of these middle-class elements have links with Choquehuanca, while another larger part is linked with García Linera (whose future role is uncertain).²⁰

The Indigenous and sindicalista wing read Morales’s departure from power in a purely racial key. In part, this sentiment was turned against the middle-class members of the MAS, whom the two wings considered opportunists who had taken advantage of the “government of the Indians” to build their fame and fortune. This was the context for the resurgence in popularity of Choquehuanca, who had been “in the freezer” for a couple of years after Morales kicked him out of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when he was considered a possible successor for the Presidency just at the time when the Chief of State was seeking the unconditional support of his party for his third re-election. Choquehuanca had actually played an important role, as the coordinator of several rural-based NGOs, in promoting the rapid rise of the young “brother Evo” from peasant syndicalism to national politics.

When the MAS was founded, Choquehuanca was its main operator in the Aymara area of the country (the altiplano that includes La Paz and Oruro), while Morales, despite his Aymara origin, dominated the valleys of Cochabamba where the population was primarily of Quechua origin. Choquehuanca is a cultural Indianista and therefore a moderate, but he tends to gather political strength from the opposition between the Indigenous and the middle class of the MAS. Within the cabinet, he found himself in muted conflict with García Linera. In accordance with his racially-shaded view of the balance of forces within his party, Choquehuanca accused the then vice-president of being guilty of all the government’s failings, including his own departure from power, while absolving Morales, at least in public.

After losing control of Foreign Affairs, Choquehuanca’s supporters were removed from the government, and Choquehuanca himself was sent into “golden exile” in Venezuela as executive secretary of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). After Morales’s ouster, the Unity Pact nominated him and Andrónico Rodríguez as candidates for President and Vice-President, respectively. The party approved this nomination along with the list of candidates determined by the Unity Pact – demonstrating which of its wings was the strongest. However, Morales objected to this formula, and instead, imposed a middle-class figure who was close to him, Luís Arce, shifting Choquehuanca to second position. Unlike Choquehuanca, Arce has no social base of his own, and if elected, would be dependent on Morales. Characteristically, the former foreign affairs minister accepted Morales’s decision in public but was reluctant about it in private and attributed it to an intrigue by García Linera. His compliance, hypocritical or not, prevented a clash between the Unity Pact and the exile in Buenos Aires, which would have been very dangerous for the MAS.

However, the tensions among “workers,” “professionals,” rural “founders,” urban “guests,” “nationalists,” and “communists” continue to exist and will surely be expressed more openly in the future, whether the MAS wins or loses the elections.[…]

Another political figure who has emerged from the social organizations is the President of the Legislative Assembly, Senator Eva Copa, who has upheld the Indigenista claims and has led the MAS parliamentarians with a certain independence from both Arce and Morales. She can not easily be classified among the Choquehuanca supporters. Shortly after the November overthrow of Morales, Copa reached certain agreements with the Añez government that she did not coordinate with her comrades in Bolivia or, in some cases, with those in Buenos Aires. And she has criticized publicly middle-class leaders like Senator Adriana Salvatierra despite the fact that she was in a difficult personal situation.²¹

None of this has been disavowed by Morales. He, like so many other caudillos, maintains relations with all groups and individuals that he can use to achieve his plans. Evo’s attitude – and, on the other hand, the interim government’s lack of interest in or commitment to achieving this – has prevented the defection of the MAS caucus in the legislature. After the most crucial moment of the repression, when this defection seemed imminent, had passed, the parliamentarians regained the initiative and launched what some observers have viewed as a counter-attack by the national-popular bloc.²²

The extreme tolerance and even the ideological neglect of the MAS are due to the fact that this party is profoundly electoralist. At the same time, these characteristics determine that it remains as such: amorphous, and thinking that the solution to all its problems – or, better yet, that its only problem – lies in winning the coming elections. Obviously, this has forestalled any systematic debate on the causes of its political defeat, learning from its mistakes, or improving…. If Morales, very reluctantly, came to accept that he had been wrong in trying to re-elect himself for a third time,²³ he has now changed his mind in view of the slight improvement in his situation in Bolivia, owing to the problems of administration confronting Añez, among them those related to the health crisis. Morales has just said, once again, that he was not mistaken in running once again.

Can the MAS Return to Power? Is This Advisable in the Medium Term?

Can the MAS return to power in September? Technically, yes. It needs to win more than 40% of the votes – not impossible, given that it now polls between 33% and 35% – and hope that Mesa and Añez, running separately, do not rise far above the 20% support they now have. The major obstacle lies in the possibility that the anti-MAS electorate, on the eve of the elections, turns massively in favour of either of those candidates. This is what happened in October 2019, and the polling does not discount it. Should the MAS be forced into a run-off second round with either Mesa or Añez, the intense polarization would probably result in a slim victory for the anti-MAS candidate.

Should the MAS win, could it take office? In Bolivia’s history, there is a period with similarities to the current one. In the late 1940s, the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR), which had co-governed with nationalist military officers between 1943 and 1946, likewise faced the hatred of the elites. In the 1951 elections, Mamerto Urriolagoitia, the outgoing president, did not accept the victory of Paz Estenssoro, and instead, handed over power to a military junta. This maneuver went down in history as the “mamertazo.”

Is there room for a new “mamertazo” in Bolivian history? Today, of course, the international situation is quite different. However, very powerful forces could resist with all the resources at their disposal the return of “Bolivia’s cancer” – as a columnist has called the MAS, among them, a section of the Army.²⁴

At that time, Urriolagoitia argued that the MNR victory could not be recognized because the “communists” could not be allowed to take power. Today some might argue that it should not be given to “narcoterrorists,” or that the rise of a party that tried to cheat the country with a fraudulent election should be prevented, perhaps by banning it before the elections are held. Morales has warned of this possibility, referring to it as their “Plan B.”²⁵

The more democratic section of the Bolivian elites, however, would see a re-edition of a “mamertazo” as the repetition of an error. Bear in mind that a few months after Urriolagoitia’s action, the National Revolution exploded, and Paz Estenssoro returned from his Argentine exile to take office as President. An even more interesting (if naïve) question is whether an immediate return to power is advisable for the MAS. It is conceivable that in such a case it would not have time or space to overhaul itself, recover from its wounds, establish a healthier relationship with its “President Evo,” that is, it could not avoid making the same errors and suffering the same damage as before. On the other hand, it is also true that as a party now hemmed in by the state security services, staying out of government could end up decimating and dividing it. One can be certain that such a thing as the “advantage of losing” is not in the mind of Morales, Arce, and the other MAS leaders, and much less in the minds of the Masistas involved in trials, imprisoned, or exiled.

What would Arce and Choquehuanca do if they came to govern? What would they have to face in 2020-2025? Some forecasts: they would face resistance, at least initially, from the state security agencies; the relentless campaign against them by the economic, social, university and media elites; the constant mobilization of certain sectors of the middle class that would not want to retire to their winter quarters after having tasted again the fruits of power; a divided parliament; a MAS agitated and eroded by the battle between “revanchists” and “conciliators”; and above all by the blows of the pandemic and one of the worst economic crises in the country’s history.

In this context, there is no doubt that Arce would be lucky if he could stop the restoration process that his enemies have begun, and administer the state from the perspective of those below. Assigning him any other objective would be unrealistic. And if he failed in this, it would probably compromise even further the possibilities of mounting a far-reaching leftist project in the future. In any case, as the annals and epics testify, the generals have never heeded the fortune tellers when they have already decided to go into battle.

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Fernando Molina is a Cochabamba-based journalist.

Notes

1. Robert Brockmann, “El enemigo público No 1,” Brújala Digital, June 18, 2020.
2. “[Carlos] Mesa: mi responsabilidad es ganarle al MAS en elecciones para evitar que siga gobernando el país,” ANF, June 24, 2020.
3. “Samuel [Medina Dorado, Junto’s vice-presidential candidate] accusa a ‘Camacho, Mesa y el MAS’ de conformar un bloque contra el Gobierno,” Correa del Sur, May 26, 2020.
4. Erika Segales: “Camacho, Mesa y Tuto pasan a la ‘ofensiva’ contra Añez,” Página Siete, May 26, 2020.
5. Marcelo Tedesqui, “Mesa comparte foro con el presidente de Argentina, Alberto Fernández, qui dio refugio a Evo,” El Deber, June 20, 2020.
6. For example, they were not allowed to eat in the same canteens as the officers. See Fernando Molina, “Patria o muerte. Venceremos. El orden castrense de Evo Morales,” Nueva Sociedad No. 278, November-December 2018.
7. That is, a stereotypical anti-imperialism, inclined to fantastic conspiracy theories, with little attachment to democracy and a tendency to organize internal purges.
8. Zavaleta, “La Revolución Boliviana y la cuestion del poder [1964],” Obras completas Tomo I, (Plural, La Paz), p. 112. [See also Moira Zuazo, “The MAS government in Bolivia: Are the social movements in power?”]
9. After its narrow loss in the effort to overrule the constitutional re-election limitations, the MAS chose not to select other candidates for president and vice-president but instead to devote its energies to finding ways to circumvent the popular verdict. In the end it got the Supreme Court to adopt a dubious international legal precedent ruling out re-election limits for all elected positions in the country. – R.F.
10. Katiuska Vásquez, “El 70% cree que Evo se fue por revuelta y 62% que hay fraude,” Los Tiempos, December 23, 2019.
11. Claims of fraud have been refuted by several studies. See, for example, “New York Times and New Report Confirm CEPR Analysis Refuting OAS Claims of Flawed Bolivian Election Results,” CEPR, June 7, 2020. – R.F.
12. Pablo Stefanoni, “Las lecciones que nos deja Bolivia,” Sin Permiso, March 14, 2020.
13. Pablo Stefanoni, “Bolivia: anatomía de un derrocamiento,” El País, January 21, 2020.
14. An allusion to the strings and thin ropes used to block streets, obviating the need to mobilize many demonstrators – a custom of the Bolivian middle classes ridiculed by Morales in one of his last speeches as President.
15. For example, see Luis Tapia, “Crisis política en Bolivia: la coyuntura de disolución de la domination masista. Fraude y resistencia democrática,” CIDES-UMSA, November 19, 2019.
16. Fernando Molina, “Hegemonía instantánea: la prensa en la crisis boliviana,” Contrahegemonía, on-line, December 3, 2019.
17. Paula Lazarte, “Ciesmori perfila al candidato del MAS como ganador en encuesta,” Página Siete, January 2, 2020.
18. “Arce aumenta ventaja y Mesa afianza el segundo lugar, según encuesta de Ciesmori,” Página Siete,March 15, 2020.
19. Fernando Mayorga, Mandato y contingencia. Estilo de gobierno de Evo Morales, Fundación Friedrich Ebert (La Paz, 2019).
20. The exiled García Linera has accepted an academic position in Argentina. – R.F.
21. Salvatierra, Senate president at the time of the coup, was next in line for President following the resignations of Morales and García Linera. She promptly resigned too, alleging later that she was instructed to do so by her party leader Evo Morales. – R.F.
22. Fernando Mayorga, “‘Elecciones ya’: ¿el MAS recupera la iniciativa?,” Nueva Sociedad, June 2020.
23. Deutsche Welle, Evo Morales: “Fue un error volver a presentarme,” January 17, 2020.
24. Isabel Mercado, “El plan del MAS es «sacar esta ley, maniatarnos y crear milicias»,” Interview with Añez’s Minister of Defense Fernando López, Página Siete, June 29, 2020.
25. Natalio Cosoy, “Evo Morales cree que puede haber un ‘golpe’ si el MAS gana las elecciones en Bolivia,” France 24, March 17, 2020.

Featured image: COB mobilization marches through El Alto. [Photo by La Razón]

Belarus in turmoil, after an election where the incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko – 25 years already in power (in office since 1994) – has won with 80% of the popular vote. That’s what the official stats and media say. True or false? Does it matter? – The margin is large enough that it cannot be contested or questioned by “recounters”. So, people take to the streets. First police reaction against protesters is violent.

Washington reprimands Belarus – to calm the police violence – at the surface protecting the protesters. Overall western reaction towards the election is negative. Unilaterally they say “elections were unfair and rigged”. This may be true – or not.

The west has been critical for years about Lukashenko’s human rights records. Isn’t it kind of ironic, every time the west has a criticism for which they don’t have a real foundation, they claim “human rights abuses”. That flies just about with everybody. Russia, China and all those associated with these two evil countries have horrible human rights records. Hardly a substance the west brings forward, or if it does, because pressed, they invent the “substance”. China is a case in point.

Just on a sideline – did anybody ever question or even criticize western Human Rights records? Let’s just think of all the western initiated wars and ‘sanctions’ in the Middle East – Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Palestine via proxy Israel, Somalia; aggressions against Iran, Lebanon; depriving Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea of vital and essential medication, food – and spare parts that could keep their economy running – let alone the smearing and sanctions and aggressions on China and Russia. No one in the west dares say beep. The Anglo-American controlled media are silent. – Where are the real human rights abusers, in giant proportions more severe than those in Russia, China and the rest of the world combined? – Food for thought.

Let’s stay with Belarus. Belarus is also an ‘ally’ of Russia. Or let’s put it another way: Belarus is a buffer zone between Russia and NATO. So, Belarus’s alliance with Russia is important. It is also important for the west to break it. To get a step closer to the Kremlin’s doorstep.

And that’s precisely what’s happening. The fact is that Pompeo went to visit Lukashenko at the beginning of 2020 shaking hands and smiling and pledging friendship – and “democratic assistance”. Despite the Human Rights critique, most western sanctions have been lifted on Belarus, because Lukashenko has freed some political prisoners. Pompeo’s discourse is that Washington supports Belarus’s independence, while they are aware of Minsk’s close links to Russia.

Pompeo said (a Reuters quote): “There’s a long history with Russia. It’s not about picking us between the two. We want to be here.” How wise. The “picking” will be done by Washington’s arm-twisting, or worse, if necessary.

Just coincidentally, when Russia and Belarus had a disagreement over oil deliveries and contract extension in late 2019 and early 2020, Washington immediately offered alternative supplies. Pompeo again:

“The United States wants to help Belarus build its own sovereign country. Our energy producers stand ready to deliver 100% of the oil you need at competitive prices.” – And, “Your nation should not be forced to be dependent on any one partner for your prosperity or for your security.”

But an oil contract agreement was reached with Moscow, and deliveries resumed on January 4, 2020.

In anticipation of Pompeo’s visit to Minsk earlier this year, the Trump Administration intimated,

“this [Belarus] is an era of great power competition and an opportunity to compete for influence.”

There you have it. Elections are often strategic moments to hit a country when you want to dominate it. Who knows whether the US were behind the election results, directly or by proxy – manipulating them, knowing quite well, that Lukashenko’s popularity has shrunk to a low. Lukashenko has run his country like a police state. Another Lukashenko win could (and should – wished by the west) cause civil unrest – that like in other places of the universe – like Hong Kong, to mention just an ongoing one – can be provoked by Washington and its minions and extended as long as it takes to bring about regime change – which is what Washington dreams of in Belarus.

Belarus without natural resources to speak off, except its strategic location – buffer zone for Russia – depends economically on Russia. Russia has not failed her support to Belarus. It is very unlikely that Russia would interfere in Belarus’s election, despite what Washington says about political and election interference by Russia, it’s not Russia’s style, but it clearly is Washington’s style to interfere in elections around the world. There has been not one “free” election – “free” meaning, without interference, directly or indirectly, of the United Sates, in the last few decades. Not one.

Contrary to the Ukraine, in Belarus there is no visible EU / IMF interference at this point. Just the US at the fringes, by Pompeo’s visit to Minsk on February 1, 2020. But we don’t really know what went on behind closed doors, what agreements were signed “verbally”.

However, whatever secrets the Pompeo visit may have entailed, this looks like a new kind of Color Revolution in the making. One, where the instigators are not visibly Washington and / or their NATO-controlled allies, the European Union. But rather a “third party” close ally of the US, one whose survival depends on the United States, like Ukraine. It is possible that Ukraine, directed by Washington, infiltrated their secret service people and other trouble-makers (possibly with Russian passports) into Belarus, mainly Minsk, before the elections, to orchestrate Lukashenko’s landslide win, as well as the subsequent civil unrest – which as of this day has not abated.

It may not be coincidence that Lukashenko’s only real opponent, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya (who got only 10% of the vote) fled to Lithuania, where she was “safe”, as Lithuanians Foreign Minister said.

Though, the US officially condemns Lukashenko’s police brutality, but in secret, they want Lukashenko to remain in power, until the appropriate moment, when the control is sufficiently advanced, as was the case with Ukraine. In the meantime, they may groom Svetlana to eventually take over from Lukashenko – when the time is ripe for another “Maidan” – Belarus style.

No doubt, President Putin is aware of this – and probably of other likely scenarios. Learning from the Ukraine experience, he may opt to ‘replace’ Lukashenko before it’s too late. Because if Belarus falls – and with Ukraine at the southern doorstep, Moscow would be in real danger.

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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 Global Research; ICH; New Eastern Outlook (NEO); RT; Countercurrents, Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; Greanville Post; Defend Democracy Press; The Saker Blog, the and other internet sites. 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.

Since the May 25 police execution of George Floyd in Minneapolis, hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest racist violence.

Cities across the United States were impacted by the blocking of streets and highways along with the creation of cultural forms of resistance utilizing visual arts such as murals, posters, placards notwithstanding spoken word and music.

Some of these manifestations take on a violent character when people attack private property, police vehicles and law-enforcement personnel. In Chicago on August 2-3, thousands of youth in response to the police shooting of a 20-year-old African American on the South Side, engaged in the widespread liberation of consumer goods, including food and drinks, while fighting off attempts by the police to apprehend them.

These actions in Chicago and other cities throughout the U.S. are condemned by city officials, business interests and the corporate media as criminal conduct unrelated to other forms of resistance which do not deliberately seek to inflict physical harm on the racist-capitalist system and its institutions.

Not only are there ongoing attempts by the state and its ruling class masters to divide the renewed anti-racist movement operating largely under the banner of Black Lives Matter (BLM), oppressed people of color are still being profiled, arrested, imprisoned, beaten and killed by the criminal justice system. African Americans and other sectors of the working class are today subjected to rising unemployment, the threats of eviction and foreclosure as well as the loss of healthcare coverage due to joblessness.

At present the federal government is incapable of reaching agreement on continued assistance to millions of people living in the U.S. who are experiencing financial ruin. The divisions between the two dominant ruling class parties, the Democrats and Republicans, is preventing the adoption and implementation of minimal policy measures which could literally save the lives of more than 50 million people thrown out of work due to the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Arms Displayed in Recent Gatherings

Perhaps one of the most disturbing aspects of the response to the current social crisis in the U.S., as far as the ruling class interests are concerned, is the apparent growth in armed organizations among the Black population. Two high profile events in recent weeks taking place in Stone Mountain, Georgia and Louisville, Kentucky brought to public view hundreds of armed African Americans, staging their own independent action to symbolize the need for self-defense.

On July 4, the proclaimed Independence Day celebrated in the U.S., hundreds of members of NFAC descended on to Stone Mountain, a designated area in Georgia to purportedly honor the people who fought with the Confederate States of America during the years of 1861-1865 in their failed attempt to preserve African enslavement. NFAC is said to mean “Not F-ing Around Coalition”. The organizational spokesperson, Grand Master Jay, has given interviews to express their views on the current situation in the U.S.

In Louisville on July 25, there was another demonstration demanding justice in the police killing of Breonna Taylor, an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), shot to death in her bed while police executed a no-knock warrant at the wrong location. Reports from Louisville officials indicate that one police officer involved in the execution has been terminated while at the same time not one law-enforcement member or official responsible for the death of Taylor has been indicted on criminal charges.

Jay in response to information he received from the Louisville District Attorney was that the investigation into the brutal killing of Taylor would take another four months to conclude. The NFAC leader told 350 armed members in Louisville on July 25 that he warned the authorities saying “you do not have four months.”

Later Jay emphasized in Louisville:

“There was no crime scene. There was no report. There was no ballistics. There was no blood and toxicology. Matter of fact, there wasn’t nothing. So when they gave it to the AG, and he said, ‘Where’s the case?’ The mayor said, ‘I gave you enough. Do your job. And they thought that [EXPLETIVE] was gonna go away. But you mother-[EXPLETIVE]s ain’t stupid.” (See this)

In response to the presence of NFAC at Stone Mountain on July 4, a right-wing group labeled the III% has called for their own action under the guise of defending the Confederate monuments. The Atlanta Journal Constitution noted in an article that:

“Hundreds of members of a Black militia turned heads July 4 as they marched with assault rifles, shotguns and other firearms, on Stone Mountain and its famous Confederate memorial. Now several far-right groups, including militias and white supremacists, are planning an answer rally on Aug. 15, and a broad coalition of leftist anti-racist groups are organizing a counter-demonstration. Local authorities, who have been closely monitoring online chatter about the rally, are bracing for possible conflict.” (See this)

Another organization called the Huey P. Newton Gun Club, named after the co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was formed in 2014. The organization has made several public appearances with firearms during protests aimed at defending the African American community.

Huey P. Newton Gun Club cadre with arms

According to its website:

“The Huey P. Newton Gun Club is a coalition of members from various different groups/organizations coming together in unity to practice our 2nd amendment right ‘To bear Arms’. Our mission is to educate the masses of people on the necessity of self. That includes self-preservation, self-defense, and self-sufficiency through militant culture. Safety, caution, and attention to detail are at the core of our way of life. We desire a world of peace, justice, and equality for all humanity, and specifically people of color.” (See this)

A Historical Legacy of Armed Resistance

There is a centuries-long tradition within the broader Pan-African struggle against slavery, colonialism and imperialism where Black people have taken up arms in defense of their lives and for their freedom. All through the period of enslavement and colonialism in Africa and the Western Hemisphere, there have been revolts to end slavery, colonialism, racism and other forms of injustice.

The Huey P. Newton Gun Club says in its mission statement that:

“At this point in history we realize that Black people in the western hemisphere have always promoted armed self-defense first with rebellions on slave ships and most notably with the Haitian Revolution that began in 1791. In the spirit of the Maroons societies throughout the Americas, that worked towards liberation of our people and the various insurrections that we are aware of and also unaware of, we formed the Huey Percy Newton Gun Club…. Using Huey’s name is logical to us based on this point in history where Black men and women are murdered wholesale by various police agencies around the United States. We strive with you to STOP these atrocities that affect our community, and are elated you desired to work with us to put in place a defense component with eventual offensive capabilities. “

Africans escaping from enslavement during the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries fought alongside the Seminole Indians in the Southeast region of the country, now known as Florida, against the U.S. government for many years. There is the legacy of the rebellions against slavery in Louisiana in 1811, the Nat Turner led insurrection in Virginia during 1831, Africans participated in the raid launched by John Brown at Harper’s Ferry in 1859.

Black Panther members protest gun control at the California State Capitol on May 2, 1967

During the Civil War, enslaved Africans fled the plantations in the multitudes. Nearly 180,000 Black people joined the Union Army to fight for the abolition of the slave system. Many of the African veteran militias in the South were deliberately disarmed during the period after the conclusion of the Civil War. (See this)

Image on the right: Robert and Mabel Williams armed against racism during the 1960s

In the 1950s and 1960s, groups like the one formed by Robert F. Williams, who headed the NAACP in Monroe, North Carolina, formed armed units to protect their communities against violence perpetuated by the Ku Klux Klan. Later the Deacons for the Defense arose in Louisiana and provided security for the historic Mississippi March Against Fear in June 1966 where the Black Power slogan was advanced by Willie Ricks and Stokely Carmichael of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

Carmichael, later known as Kwame Ture, would help found the original Black Panther Party as the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO) in Alabama during 1965-66 where armed militants would guard polling places during elections. Other groupings such as the Republic of New Africa (RNA) founded in Detroit in 1968 and the Black Liberation Army (BLA), which grew out of the Black Panther Party in 1971, engaged police and federal forces in their campaigns for social justice and self-determination.

As the struggle for African American liberation intensifies there will inevitably be a broadening diversity of tactics. The oppressed peoples of the U.S. and indeed the world are destined to reach their own conclusions about the most appropriate and effective means to utilize in their struggle for emancipation.

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

Featured image: Assata Shakur of the Black Liberation Army was granted political asylum in Cuba; all images in this article are from the author

Iraq’s new Prime Minister Mustafa al Khadimi’s, decision to make Saudi Arabia rather than Iran his first destination abroad contradicted with what all his predecessors had done. It was designed to send a clear message indicating that he has not only sympathised with Trump-MBS outrage that Iraq’s previous PM – Adel Abdul Mehdi – has tilted the balance of power in favour of their arch foe Iran, but he is also determined to take practical steps to rein in what they perceive as Iranian perilous influence. In response, Iran dispatched its Foreign Minister Javid Zarif on 19 July, to Baghdad to underline that while Tehran would shield its interests in Iraq, it would nevertheless back Khadimi’s quest to mediate between Tehran and Riyadh.

And while Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) – King Salman’s young son, who is the de facto ruler – cited his father’s sudden illness as an excuse for cancelling Kadhimi’s visit, yet in reality Riyadh has made no secret that it regarded Kadhimi’s steps to curb Iranian influence woefully short of achieving its overarching goal, namely dismantling the Popular Mobilisation Forces PMF, a government controlled grouping of predominantly Shia paramilitary units – formed after Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani fatwa in 2014 – that have spearheaded Iraq’s fight-back against ISIS. And given the unprecedented dire economic challenges facing Riyadh – largely due to MBS’s futile unwinnable war on Yemen and tumbling oil prices precipitated by coronavirus – MBS was keen to avoid financially propping up Khadimi’s government.

With Khadimi’s visit to Tehran on 20 July under the spotlight, he emphasized that Iraq is hell-bent on balancing US-Iranian competing interests, urging both sides to refrain from turning Iraq into a battlefield. His appeal comes amid an escalating confrontation that was triggered on 3 January, by the US assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani head of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps near Baghdad airport. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei fired back reminding Khadimi that the US had not merely assassinated your guest Suleimani on Iraqi soil – the ultimate humiliation according to Arabic tradition –, but also defiantly bragged about it. More significantly, however, he insisted that Iran expects Khadimi to implement Iraq’s Parliament resolution issued on 5 January, demanding the full withdrawal of all foreign troops.

As ever, the latest waves of protest that have been rocking the Shia heartland since 1 October 2019 were sparked by almost non-existent public services, widespread unemployment and endemic corruption, but in the face of a vicious crack down by Abdul Mahdi’s government it spiralled out of control, prompting al Sistani to explicitly instruct  the parliament to replace Abdul Mahdi with an uncontroversial new PM, whose primary task would be preparing the ground for a fair elections.

As part of the increasingly aggressive Trump-inspired and MBS-sponsored strategy Iraq, instead of Syria, became the central battlefield for rolling back Iranian influence. Brett McGurk, who was US Envoy to Iraq, successfully managed – after the last 2018 parliamentary elections –to forge a coalition of Shia political blocs comprised of Muqtada al Sadr, Ammar al Hakim, and Iraq’s ex-PM Haider al Abadi. But, Soliamani’s intervention derailed his attempts to install a US–friendly PM.

Buoyed by Soleimani’s assassination and emboldened by US-Saudi support, Ammar al Hakim – who is increasingly becoming Riyadh’s main Shia point man – scrambled to revive his alliance with al Sadr and Abadi while also  conspiring with Barham Salih – Iraq’s Kurdish President – to promote al Khadimi’s candidacy and simultaneously thwart attempts by Iran-friendly political leaders, namely Hadi al Amiri and Nouri al Maliki, to appoint an Iran-backed PM. Faced with an unparalleled existential threat, the leaders ( God Fathers ) of the Mafia-like family-controlled political blocs concluded that the only conceivable way to shore up the unravelling political system was mollifying Trump by appointing Khadimi on May 9 Prime Minister and striking a deal enabling Washington to keep a fraction of its troops in Iraq. Yet ironically, the strategic dialogue which took place on 11 June, amounted to a declaration of Iraq’s unconditional surrender. The US not only refused committing itself to a withdrawal timetable but far worse demanded Iraqi protection for its troops. As expected, this provoked a dramatic surge in rocket attacks targeting US interests, including its embassy in the Green Zone (GZ) – home of Iraq’s government –, hence calling into question al Khadimi’s legitimacy and credibility. And amid growing US pressure on Khadimi to retaliate, he ordered Iraq’s counter terrorism forces ( ICTF ) on 26 June, to raid Kataib Hezebollah – part of PMF – Headquarter and arrest 14 members. In reprisal the PMF rapidly stormed the GZ, forcing Khadimi to backdown, releasing those detained and thereby exposing the limitations of his powers despite US support. Alarmed by calls for Khadimi to resign after his raid backfired, al Hakim sought to fend off such moves by forming on 29 June, a new parliamentary bloc ( Iraqis ) whose task was securing al Khadimi’s position in parliament.

Against this backdrop the US felt it was necessary to test on 4 July, its C-Ram system above the GZ to demonstrate that it was not relying on al Khadimi for protection, despite being aware that such action would further erode Khadimi’s authority. To fix that, Gen. Kenneth Mackenzie the commander of US CentCom stressed – after meeting Kadimi on 7 July – that the US endorsed al Khadimi’s attempts to take on the PMF and he was confident that Khadimi would ask US troops to stay. But he opened the door for further negotiations by saying a smaller US force could do the job, thus signalling that Kadimi has done enough to secure a meeting with Trump.

Khadimi’s call for early elections on 6 June 2021 was an attempt to placate violent protests – which were inexcusably met with deadly force on 26 July – and also to quash accusations that he was dragging his feet over early elections while also shifting the blame to the leaders of political blocs, who are ultimately responsible for passing the new electoral law in parliament.

Trump’s overriding priority has implacably been winning the 2020 US elections. In his book this means US troops must not pull out of Iraq, as he has consistently scolded Obama for doing so in 2011, regarding it the chief reason behind the resurgence of ISIS. But with the US economy reeling, unemployment soaring, anti-racism protests raging and a spectacular failure in combating coronavirus, all of which are increasingly boosting the prospects of a Joe Biden triumph, therefore it is doubtless that Trump will utilise Khadimi’s trip to Washington on 20 August, to push him to further tighten the screw on Iran’s already faltering economy, hoping it would compel Iran to succumb to US relentless campaign of maximum pressure and sanctions by renegotiating a new nuclear deal. Of course, Trump will press Khadimi to expeditiously end Iraq’s dependency on Iranian electricity by replacing it with Saudi sources. But while Trump will demand tougher concrete steps to strip the PMF of its weapons, he will consider a timetable for reducing US troops if Khadimi can get Iranian assurance that rockets targeting US interests – which reflects Trump’s powerlessness as a commander-in-chief – would cease. Khadimi, in turn, will highlight that no previous PM has ever dared to tackle Iranian influence or challenge armed groups. Surely, he will call for much more tangible support in the economic, commercial, energy and security sectors as well as help in combatting coronavirus. He will also urge Trump to intervene, complaining that Riyadh has not just resisted helping Iraq but also continued stoking sectarian and ethnic divisions.

Khadimi’s meeting with Tump may consolidate his position in the short term, but it would not ease tensions or dampen growing calls for a sweeping overhaul of the political system and an outright ousting of the ruling families who have brought Iraq to its knees.

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‘Startling and confusing’ proclaimed Science magazine. ‘Reckless and foolish’ said US vaccine scientist Peter Hotez. ‘Dangerously rushed’ said the journal Nature.  Western scientists are in denial. The first vaccine against the disease which has dominated all our lives for the last few months – Covid-19 – has been unveiled, not by a western nation, but by Russia.

President Putin announced the registration of the vaccine, named ‘Sputnik V’, on Tuesday, and said that his own daughter had already tried the vaccine on herself, and found it to be safe and effective. Russia plans to begin rolling out the immunisation programme over the next coming weeks, offering it in the first place to medics on the front lines of the coronavirus epidemic, on a voluntary basis.

The vaccine underwent clinical trials in June and July, and is based on an existing formula on which many other contemporary vaccines have been produced. The Russian health ministry has said that experience of other similar vaccines has shown that they can provide immunity for up to two years. The head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Kirill Dmitryev, has said that Russia has already received requests from 20 different countries from Latin American, the Middle East and Asia, for one billion doses of the vaccine.

For many this is obviously a ground-breaking and positive moment in what has been a dark period in our lives. It is a light at the end of the tunnel. And yet, we are living in a time in which almost everything is politicised, including the race to discover a coronavirus vaccine. We already heard earlier this year allegations from the UK that Russia was attempting to ‘steal’ information about its vaccine programme, and yet no evidence was ever produced to support the claims.  It could only be expected that in this competition to create the first vaccine, that any achievement by Russia in this regard would be rejected outright.

Even without having any of the data regarding the Russian vaccine to hand, experts such as Trump’s chief advisor on coronavirus and Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr Antonio Fauci, have dismissed it.

“I hope that the Russians have actually definitively proven that the vaccine is safe and effective,” he said, “I seriously doubt that they’ve done that.”

Why he should doubt it, is not clear. Why would a government risk releasing a vaccine that wasn’t safe and effective? The consequences would be disastrous, and not worth the gamble.  President Vladimir Putin for his part has said

‘I know that it works quite effectively, forms strong immunity, and I repeat, it has passed all the needed checks’.

The urgency with which the vaccine has been created does suggest something of the concern which Russian authorities may have about a resurgence of coronavirus this coming winter. The UK is also deeply worried. So far it has no vaccine ready, and at the same time a steady number of coronavirus cases. The country reached the highest daily number of Covid-19 cases since June of 1148 on Tuesday, although figures now are difficult to obtain as the government no longer publishes the statistics. The number breaches the official government threshold of 1000 cases a day which it said was needed if the country was to contain the epidemic.

In addition it was revealed on Wednesday that the UK is facing its greatest ever economic recession, and the largest to be faced by any European country since the beginning of the pandemic. The pressure will now be on the British government to get a grip on the situation, as years of underfunding the health and social care system has been exposed during this crisis, meaning the nation has suffered considerably. The latest economic figures also do not bode well for paving a way out of the current quagmire, as the government will have to make more cuts at a time when people are struggling the most. Boris Johnson is under more pressure than ever before to find a solution to the current crisis. Never before has good news been needed so badly, whether it’s in the form of a vaccine or otherwise…

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

A new report published in South African newspaper The Mail and Guardian has shed light on the opaque world of the American military presence in Africa. Last year, elite U.S. Special Operations forces were active in 22 African countries. This accounts for 14 percent of all American commandos deployed overseas, the largest number for any region besides the Middle East. American troops had also seen combat in 13 African nations.

The U.S. is not formally at war with an African nation, and the continent is barely discussed in reference to American exploits around the globe. Therefore, when U.S. operatives die in Africa, as happened in Niger, Mali, and Somalia in 2018, the response from the public, and even from the media is often “why are American soldiers there in the first place?”

The presence of the U.S. military, especially commandos, is rarely publicly acknowledged, either by Washington or by African governments. What they are doing remains even more opaque. U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) generally claims that special forces go no further than so-called “AAA” (advise, assist and accompany) missions. Yet in combat, the role between observer and participant can become distinctly blurry.

The United States has roughly 6,000 military personnel scattered throughout the continent, with military attachés outnumbering diplomats in many embassies across Africa. Earlier this year, The Intercept reported that the military operates 29 bases on the continent. One of these is a huge drone hub in Niger, something The Hill called “the largest U.S. Air Force-led construction project of all time.” The construction cost alone was over $100 million, with total operating costs expected to top $280 billion by 2024. Equipped with Reaper drones, the U.S. can now conduct cross border bombing raids all over the North and West of Africa.

Washington claims that the military’s primary role in the region is to combat the rise of extremist forces. In recent years, a number of Jihadist groups have arisen, including Al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, and other al-Qaeda affiliated groups. However, much of the reason for their rise can be traced back to previous American actions, including the destabilization of Yemen, Somalia, and the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya.

Martin Vizcarra, Peru’s president, has announced that “[t]his government has taken up the challenge and has been working on the approval of a new regulation for mining procedures in order to streamline those procedures.” The regulation “aims to provide certainty for investors in order to boost private investment” and will satisfy the demands of mining magnates who “have requested that the procedures be expedited in order to unlock mining projects and allow the sector to contribute to the economic reactivation.”

The current government decision to elevate extractivism as the engine of economic reactivation is a blessing for extractive elites who have been pushing for deregulation, a secure investment climate and a faster economic re-opening. On 20 July 2020, Carlos Gálvez, former president of mining and energy association SNMPE, said, “To recover we have to immediately activate the portfolio of mining projects, as mining will drive the entire economy.” In a similar manner, on 23 June 2020, Víctor Gobitz, the president of Peru’s Institute of Mining Engineers and executive president of local precious metals producer Buenaventura, said that “we must look at the crisis as an opportunity.”

Gobitz went on to add, “A more expeditious licensing and permit system is required,” a demand that the government has diligently fulfilled. Gobitz also made it clear that the political and social climate in Peru needed to be overhauled. While speaking on the problems of mining, he said that many mining projects “confronted social problems and were halted.” He tells the interviewer that the root of this problem is the system “that generates local leaders without a long-term vision or a comprehensive vision of the country.” In order to stall this system, Gobitz suggests, “[i]n the long term we have to work to mature the political system, to have fewer political parties and to be more responsible with the country.”

Aggressive Extractivism

While the state and the power bloc have harmoniously merged to aggressively advance an agenda of extractivism, the working class and indigenous people have been entirely erased from the blueprint of “development.” Through the installment of new regulations aimed at intensifying mining, providing certainty for investors (eliminating resistance) and streamlining procedures (authorizing accelerated ecological damage), the Peruvian state has formally set the seal on a slow exploitation that has already been going on for a long time. Even before the present-day governmental announcements, Peru had been witnessing the onslaught of “economic reactivation.”

This ruthless reactivation started in June when mining companies decided to operate at 80% of production capacity by the end of June. To achieve this production level, mining companies reworked shift patterns and started testing the workers for COVID-19 at the sites. Meanwhile, unions for mine workers opposed this production plan and “voiced concerns that some planned shifts are too long while testing and protective measures need to be strengthened.” Jorge Juárez, leader of Peru’s mining and steel workers’ federation, stated, “Rapid tests [at mining sites] aren’t reliable, so we want molecular tests that give more accurate diagnosis.”

As predicted by Jorge Juarez, mining sites became new hubs of infection as corporations intransigently insisted on maintaining “operational continuity” and reviving the economy. At the Santander mine operated by Canada’s Trevali Mining, 30% of the total workforce tested positive for COVID-19. Hochschild, a London-based corporation, halted its operations at the gold and silver Inmaculata mine after a number of workers tested positive. Despite the obvious endangerment of mine workers that is taking place, the government has chosen to casually coerce the workers into reactivating the economy, and Peru’s Energy and Mines Minister Susana Vilca has said that the country’s mines will resume operating at 100% production capacity by the end of July.

Indigenous Resistance to Mining Operations

The programme of merciless mining has not gone unopposed, and even during the COVID-19 pandemic, resistance is amplifying. Since July 15, the people of Espinar province have been protesting against the Swiss company Glencore, which owns the Antapaccay mine, and recently, protestors torched two vehicles coming from the Las Bambas mine to draw attention to their plight. In Espinar, the residents presented “a proposal that consisted of delivering food vouchers, medicines, and biosecurity equipment against COVID-19 and microcredits at zero percent interest.” Through the Espinar Framework Agreement, Glencore was duty-bound to financially support the Espinar people “under conditions of a humanitarian emergency.” Now, the company is refusing to help the people and on a “technical basis,” has concluded that the demands of the Espinar residents are null and void.

The technical basis on which Glencore is predicating its arguments is starkly inhumane. As per the Espinar Framework Agreement, Glencore is supposed to help in sustainable development, and the contribution of 3% of profit before tax to a community fund is a primary modality for doing so. This 3% contribution, instead of a being a wholehearted attempt at improving people’s livelihoods, is a strategic method of defusing class struggle. The annual revenue of the Antapaccay mine is $1.15-billion, and the net worth of Ivan Glasenberg, the CEO of Glencore, is $5.4-billion. In comparison to these astronomic figures, 3% is next to nothing.

Through a narrow focus on the 3% profit contribution, Glencore is saying that it is “technically” not obliged to help the people of Espinar escape from the coronavirus-caused deaths and misery. The audacity with which Glencore is rebuffing the people’s demands derives from the strong protection the state guarantees to any mining initiative. Companies like Glencore can authoritatively air-brush the oppressed because they know that the state is on their side and will help in obfuscating demands and crushing mutinies.

From the Espinar case, we also observe how corporatist arrangements, being entirely devoted to capital accumulation can’t compromise their “technical integrity” even to save innumerable people from death. Furthermore, the incalculable suffering and damage that the Antapaccay mine has brought to Espinar province morally and legally binds Glencore to pay reparations to the people and end its destructive operations.

According to a report entitled “Diagnosis of Human Environmental Health in the Espinar-Cusco Province,” the people living in the region had detectable levels of the following four toxic materials in their body: arsenic, mercury, lead and cadmium. The presence of lead, in particular, is highly worrying because it has been found that “[e]xposure to lead can seriously harm a child’s health, including damage to the brain and nervous system, slowed growth and development, learning and behavior problems, and hearing and speech problems.” On top of the direct degradation of human health, mining in Espinar has contaminated “surface waters and sediments of the Camacmayo, Tintaya and Collpamayo waterways.”

Mass protests in Espinar against the adverse impacts of mining had begun as early as 2000 when BHP Billiton was operating in the region. Through these protests the people of Espinar were able to establish a Framework Convention, an agreement that later proved to be entirely ineffectual. In 2006, Xstrata took over BHP Billiton’s mining activities and soon started receiving complaints from the locals, who stated that mining activities were resulting in the births of deformed animals. These complaints went unheeded by the company.

Unconcerned about anything, Xstrata continued to ceaselessly pollute the region, and as reports started coming in of the company’s involvement in the degeneration of Espinar’s ecosystem, the people finally chose to stage an indefinite strike. In response to these strikes and protests, the state used its emergency powers to disperse the blockade of Tintaya mine and quell incipient demonstrations. During the emergency, the state deployed 1500 police officers of the Peruvian National Police (PNP) in the region, and these “public security forces were illegally detaining and mistreating 22 civilians in the Tintaya Marquiri mine site, including women, minors, and two human rights workers… Later, the illegal detainees were freed – claims that they suffered torture while under detention were not investigated, however, the government preferring to charge them with terrorist offences.”

At the end, three protestors were killed and 12 were severely wounded. In 2017, villagers from the area adjacent to the mine where violence took place told the UK High Court “that Xstrata gave the PNP logistical assistance, including equipment and vehicles, encouraged the PNP to mistreat the protesters, and that Xstrata failed to take sufficient measures to prevent human rights violations.” At the behest of Xstrata, PNP“used excessive force including the use of live ammunition, beat and kicked protesters, subjected them to racial abuse and made them stand for prolonged periods in stress positions in the freezing cold.”

In 2013, Glencore acquired the mining projects of Xstrata by absorbing the latter through a takeover. While the Tintaya copper mine closed down in 2013, a new Antapaccay mining project, started in 2012, compensated for its closure. Antapaccay mine’s production consists of 80,000 tons of copper per day. Its visible environmental impacts include “Biodiversity loss (wildlife, agro-diversity), Soil contamination, Waste overflow, Groundwater pollution or depletion, Large-scale disturbance of hydro and geological systems.” Protests have occurred against Glencore’s Antapaccay mine, and on “27 March 2015, two thousand affected inhabitants of Espinar peacefully protested against the mining operations. They asked the Peruvian government to establish the cause of the contamination and to address the water pollution.”

Like Xstrata, Glencore has turned a deaf ear toward the community and is continuing to mine copper in an environmentally unsustainable way. In December 2018, Cusco Regional Health Directorate (DIRESA) published a report stating that a high level of metal contamination had been found in potable water. Correspondingly, in February 2019, the Regional and Municipal Councils of Espinar declared a health emergency for 90 days, and the governor of Cusco was asked to cooperate with the Ministry of Health and Environment to redress this problem.

Despite DIRESA’s report that the water sources in Espinar region are contaminated, a “technical table,” comprising various technocratic and non-elected components of the state apparatus, has concluded that the drinking water in the Espinar province is still suitable for human consumption. This shows the extent to which Glencore enjoys state protection and is able to mould governmental departments to create a stable “investment climate” in which the contradictions of class struggle have been explosively contained for a period of time.

Besides state protection, Glencore is also utilizing regularized violence to facilitate its mining operations. In late December 2018, Liderman, the security company hired by Glencore, attacked the Alto Huarca community and specifically targeted women. In April 2018, a number of police officers and 8 officials of the Glencore Antapaccay mine, numbering 40 in total, intimidated and used coercive methods against the Alto Huarca community living in the Yauri district. The aim was to evict the community from their own lands and enable the planned expansion of mining projects.

The Looming Water Crisis

Peru’s government, by choosing to speed up the mining sector, has spurned OHCHR’s (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) key recommendations that asked governments to ensure “indigenous territorial protection and the health of indigenous peoples during the pandemic by considering a moratorium on extractive mining, oil, and logging activities.” Through a mining-led offensive against indigenous people, Peru is slated to provoke an enraged indigenous opposition.

“Without water there is no life let’s take care of it.”

The current deregulation of the mining sector bears an extremely frightening resemblance to what an adviser of a former minister of energy and mines said a few years back: “We have to be practical … you cannot … [conduct] consultations everywhere. That is stupid. It only creates chaos, disorder, lack of governability.” By deregulating the mining sector and expediting procedures, the current government is giving the message that mining can’t be impeded by the unreasonable demands of indigenous people.

Moreover, by normatively linking the weakening of procedures to the positively framed notion of “economic reactivation,” the administration is culturally colonizing the indigenous people through a rationalized-economic ideology. Alan Garcia, the former president of Peru, had once said that “there are millions of hectares of forests that are idle, millions of hectares that communities are not farming … there are many resources that … do not receive investments and not produce jobs.

And all of this is due to the taboo of old ideologies, laziness, intolerance or the law of the dog in the manger: If I do not use it, no one will.” He had later added that “[We] must defeat the absurd pantheistic ideologies that believe that walls are gods, that the air is god, the return to these primitive forms of religion, where they say do not touch that mountain because it is an apu [God] and full of a millenarian spirit… That we are advancing does not mean that all our ancient forms of thought have been overcome.”

While not overtly crude like Alan Garcia, the present government is advancing a similar agenda of anti-indigenous development by ideologically intertwining economic reactivation with the violence of extractive capital. In a manner reminiscent of the National Development Plan “Peru Toward 2021,” Vizcarra’s government has embarked on a neocolonial civilizing mission. The aforementioned plan, developed by the National Centre for Strategic Planning (CEPLAN), stated its objective of “overcoming the culture of ‘limited good’ and ‘equalizing downward’ which are the vestiges of a culture of underdevelopment that hinders productive and inclusive modernization.” The present-day government, too, is attempting to modernize the indigenous people and thus, rob them of their existence.

In addition to indigenous resistance, Peru is likely to witness a general uprising of the oppressed, with water scarcity acting as a catalyzing factor. Through the lethal legalization of intensified mining, the state is exacerbating an already acute water crisis caused by “water extractivism.” Water extractivism is defined as “the practice to singularise and standardise water into the category of ‘resource’ in order to master it and extract as much economic value from it as possible.” With the buttressing of the mining sector, water extractivism and the consequent scarcity is set to aggravate. It is estimated that “every year, mining and metallurgy release over 13 billion cubic meters of effluents into Peru’s water courses.” Due to this water contamination, many Peruvians are suffering from fatal diseases, and in the Central Andes, for instance, the contamination of rivers by arsenic and other heavy metals is causing carcinogenic diseases among Peruvian adults and children. Tragically, “children are most vulnerable to acute and chronic effects of heavy metal and arsenic intake. This is due to the fact that children consume more water per unit of body weight than adults.”

Rondera Bianca, a female activist living in El Tambo, Peru, beautifully expresses the heart-rending existential impacts of mining on children:

Ourchildren tell us
Mamita, I want to live
Throw out the miners
Because I don’t want to die
I tell my children
That’s why I’m going to fight
So that they can have life
And water to drink
To Peru and the whole I want to ask
That they respect our rights

Instead of being spatially confined to the rural regions, mining-induced water scarcity is a phenomenon that also afflicts the urban areas. Lima, for example, is the second driest capital in the world after Cairo, receiving“less than an inch of rain per year and relying on three rivers for potable water.” The three rivers on which Lima relies, the Rimac, Lurin and Chillon, have all been contaminated by mining operations. It has been found that 60% of contamination in the Rimac River is due to mining activities. Similarly, uncontrolled garbage disposal and heavy metal contamination by the extractive sector have polluted the Chillon River where “12 times the maximum permissible levels of pollutants for drinking water” were found. In the Lurin River, water contamination has reached such an extent that the water has to be boiled before consumption. In 2013, Peru’s Ministry of Environment, as a late acknowledgement of the role of mining in contaminating the Lurin River, announced a plan of multi-level governmental coordination to specifically manage mining as a major polluting source.

As Peru’s government stirs the hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic in the authoritarian amalgam of extractivism, a new volatile mixture of resistance is being created. In the current period, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the utterly undisguised rapacity of mining companies and has sharpened the edges of class struggle.

Using Pablo Neruda’s words, one can say that Peruvian workers and indigenous people are realizing that extractivism “crushes them, covers them with malignant spittle, casts them out to the roads, murders them with police,… imprisons them, spits on them, buys a treacherous president who insults and persecutes them, kills them with hunger on the plains of the sandy immensity.” With this realization, a working class-indigenous alliance is being constructed, vowing to revolt against the extractive elites.

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Yanis Iqbal is a student and freelance writer based in Aligarh, India and can be contacted at [email protected]. 

All images in this article are from The Bullet unless otherwise stated

The American constitution does not grant the vice president much power. Other than the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate, the VP’s main responsibility is to assume the presidency in case of a sudden vacancy in the Oval Office.

But being so close to the centre of action, vice presidents can forge substantial roles for themselves. Mike Pence leads the Trump administration’s coronavirus taskforce. Joe Biden oversaw Barack Obama’s plan to withdraw thousands of American troops from Iraq. And Dick Cheney all but ran George W Bush’s White House.

At 77, Biden would become the oldest American president on his inauguration day if elected in November. So his vice president, Kamala Harris, would likely play an active role in the government.

Moreover, serving as vice president would put her in an advantageous position to seek the presidency herself in the future.

The Biden administration is expected to reverse some of Donald Trump’s moves in the Middle East and some foreign policy responsibilities may fall on Harris as vice president.

Who is Kamala Harris?

The daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, Harris was born in Oakland, California. After graduating law school, she started her legal career as a local prosecutor in Alameda County. In 2003, she successfully ran to become San Francisco’s district attorney.

Seven years later, she was elected as California’s attorney general becoming the first Black woman to serve in that position.

Harris, 55, burst to the national scene in 2016 after being elected to the Senate, emerging as an outspoken adversary of President Donald Trump.

In 2019, she announced a presidential run that ended before the first votes were cast in the Iowa primaries as she struggled to amass support in a crowded field of candidates.

In March, she endorsed Biden’s presidential campaign as most Democrats rallied behind the former vice president against left-wing Senator Bernie Sanders who had won the first three primary contests.

Harris brands herself as a progressive, but she has garnered some criticism from the left over her record as a prosecutor and staunch support for Israel. Here’s where she stands on Middle East issues.

On Israel-Palestine: Staunch supporter of Israel

Harris has been a staunch supporter of Israel. Months after being sworn into the Senate in 2017, she delivered a speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) describing the bond between Israel and the US as “unbreakable”.

“Israel should never be a partisan issue. And as long as I’m a United States senator, I will do everything in my power to ensure broad and bipartisan support for Israel’s security and right to self-defence,” she said.

One of her first legislative actions as a senator was to co-sponsor a bill objecting to a UN Security Council resolution that condemned Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The Obama-Biden administration had allowed that resolution to pass, opting against vetoing it, months earlier.

Asked by the New York Times last year whether she thinks Israel meets international human rights standards, Harris said: “Overall, yes.”

Early in 2019, she was one of 23 Democrats to vote against a bill that encouraged states to restrict the right to boycott Israel.

Like most Democrats, she has voiced opposition to Israeli government plans to annex parts of the West Bank, framing the move as a “unilateral” action that harms Israel.

“My support for Israel’s security and the ten-year $38 billion Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is unwavering,” she wrote in a letter to Trump in June.

“In light of this support, I am deeply concerned by the warnings of some of Israel’s most prominent former defense and intelligence leaders regarding annexation, which they believe could result in serious conflict, the further breakdown of security cooperation with Palestinian security forces, and the disruption of peaceful relations between Israel and her neighbors, Jordan and Egypt.”

On Saudi Arabia: Riyadh ‘must be held accountable’

Since Trump fully embraced Saudi royals after entering the White House, most Democrats have grown critical of Washington’s ties with Riyadh. Harris is no exception.

After the murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi government agents in 2018, she joined her Democratic colleagues in denouncing Riyadh and demanding answers from the Trump administration.

“The murder of Jamal Khashoggi was a tragedy and represented an attack on journalists everywhere,” Harris said last year after co-sponsoring legislation demanding a report on the intelligence community’s findings on the murder.

In 2019, she also voted in favour of resolutions to end US support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen and block arms sales to the kingdom. Both measures passed in Congress but were vetoed by Trump.

“What’s happening in Yemen is devastating. Last year, the war killed on average 100 civilians a week, and thousands of children have died of starvation – Congress must take a stand,” she said at the time.

While running for president, Harris told the Council on Foreign Relations that Washington should end its involvement in the Yemen conflict.

“The United States and Saudi Arabia still have mutual areas of interest, such as counterterrorism, where the Saudis have been strong partners. And we should continue to coordinate on that front,” she said.

“But we need to fundamentally reevaluate our relationship with Saudi Arabia, using our leverage to stand up for American values and interests.”

On Iran: Supports nuclear deal

Harris rebuked Trump in 2018 for withdrawing from the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran, which saw Tehran scale back its economic programme in exchange for the lifting of sanctions against its economy.

“Today’s decision to violate the Iran nuclear deal jeopardizes our national security and isolates us from our closest allies,” she said in a statement after Trump withdrew from the accord.

Early in 2020, after a US strike killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, Harris co-sponsored legislation aiming to prevent funds to the Pentagon from being used in military action against Iran in an effort to avert war with the Islamic Republic.

“Make no mistake: Soleimani was an enemy of the United States, but Trump’s actions have further enflamed tensions and destabilized the region,” she said at the time.

“It is essential that Congress take its constitutional responsibility seriously and work to de-escalate the situation.”

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Featured image is from Flickr

Ramping up his incendiary rhetoric towards his 2020 opponent, President Donald Trump claimed on Tuesday that China would be in control of the United States if former Vice President Joe Biden wins this November. Better get ready to speak Chinese, the president told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

“All they’re waiting for, and China too, is that I’m defeated. Because if I’m defeated, China will own the United States,” Trump bellowed. After wondering aloud whether Biden’s team is engaging in “backchannel talks” with China, Trump added: “If I don’t win the election, China will own the United States—you will have to learn to speak Chinese!”

The president’s claim that Biden will hand the United States over to China comes on the heels of Trump accusing the ex-veep—who is a devout Catholic—of being “against God” and wanting to “hurt God.” Elsewhere in the off-the-rails interview, Trump also claimed that he was so popular prior to the coronavirus pandemic that even “George Washington would have had a hard time beating me.”

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One might make the case that Donald Trump was elected president on the antiwar vote. Running against Hillary the Hawk it was, of course, relatively easy to position oneself as a critic of the endless wars started and sustained under the Bush and Obama administrations. Even though we Americans had heard similar noises from those very same gentlemen when they were running for office, many socially conservative voters like myself were nevertheless attracted by yet another a presidential candidate who pledged to bring home the troops and might actually have meant what he said.

Well, the bloom is off the rose after nearly four years of blundering, but it is still surprising to hear an occasional voice raised defending the foreign policy of the president. Their argument starts with some generally legitimate observations, to include the fact that an Obama orchestrated conspiracy led by the intelligence and security agencies were out to delegitimize Trump and his team from the time he became a candidate until after he was actually inaugurated. Combine that with a hostile media and a Democratic Party that has been seeking revenge since the Clinton defeat, up to and including a phony impeachment, and it is easy to understand why Donald Trump has had to play defense since he took office.

And it is also true, and sometimes cited, that there was a significant number of hold-overs in the bureaucracy from the Obama eight years who were resistant to change and, as loyal Democrats, did what they could to sabotage proposals emanating from the White House. But even conceding all those points, that is where those who are making excuses for Trump generally drift off into space, insisting that it has taken the president nearly four years to clean house of his enemies. Given another four years and he will fulfill the promise that got him elected in 2016.

Well, that is a load of nonsense. Apart from anything else, Donald Trump’s demeanor has alienated nearly all of America’s traditional allies while most of the world regards him as a dangerous sociopath who is also something of a joke. The Trump supporters should be looking at his actual record, instances where he could have acted but didn’t and other occasions when he did things that were from the git-go clearly not in the U.S. national interest. I am thinking particularly of the ruined relations with Russia and China, the pandering to Israel and also the inexcusable attacks on Syria. But the biggest mistake of all might have been the abrupt withdrawals from international agreements and bodies, to include the disastrous departure from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). When the Washington Post’s leading Zionist Jennifer Rubin attacks you for leaving the nuclear agreement with Iran, in an op-ed which was published last week, you should know that it was the wrong move.

But Trump’s seemingly aimless foreign and national security policies are only part of the problem. More to the point, the president keeps appointing people to senior level positions where they have a hand in shaping the policies ranging from hardline on civil liberties issues to complete interventionism vis-à-vis America’s role worldwide. The list is long and includes John Bolton, Rick Grenell, Mike Pompeo, Brian Hook, James Jeffrey, Robert O’Brien, John Ratcliffe and Gina Haspel. And one might suggest that the latest move might very well be the worst of all, naming Eliot Abrams as Special Envoy on Iran.

The promotion for Abrams is due to the resignation of the incumbent in the position Brian Hook. Hook’s tenure was particularly undistinguished. Daniel Larison, who describes the appointment of Abrams as “appalling,” observes how “He was responsible for lies about Yemen, cringe-inducing video messages, promoting the administration’s weird fixation with Cyrus the Great, and embarrassing historical revisionism about the 1953 coup. When he wasn’t trying to bribe ships’ captains to steal Iranian cargo, he was insulting our intelligence with phony claims of wanting to normalize relations with Tehran. Last year he came under fire from the State Department’s Inspector General for his role in the mistreatment of Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, who was the target of political retaliation at the department on account of her support for the JCPOA and at least partly because of her Iranian heritage.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed the new assignment last Thursday. Abrams, who is already the Special Envoy for Venezuela and also a noted Iran hawk, will hold both positions. Hook and Abrams had been tasked with executing the administration’s “maximum pressure” policy against the governments in Caracas and Tehran. In Venezuela, the U.S. became involved in a military coup that never got started while completely failing to advance the prospects for its “recognized” president of the country, Juan Guaido. The White House’s objective in Iran was and still continues to be squeezing the economy to bring about an uprising by the long-suffering Iranian people that would force the government to negotiate surrender terms with Washington. That has also failed to materialize.

Current U.S. policy on Iran has come down to threats to use military force if there is any evidence that the Iranians are seeking to develop a nuclear weapon. Both Hook and Abrams were disinterested in engaging in diplomacy within their respective operational areas. In spite of the lack of any results Pompeo praised the departing Hook saying that “Special Representative Hook has been my point person on Iran for over two years and he has achieved historic results countering the Iranian regime… [he has] also served with distinction as the Director of Policy Planning and set into motion a range of new strategies that advanced the national security interests of the United States and our allies.”

Abrams is best known due to having pleaded guilty in 1991 as part of the Iran-Contra affair. He was subsequently pardoned by President George H. W. Bush. While assistant secretary of state for Latin America, Abrams had testified before Congress and lied, saying that the U.S. had not been involved in arming the right-wing Contra rebel group against the socialist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. He later admitted that he had withheld information and entered into a plea agreement for a reduced sentence of two years in probation. His felony did not hurt his political career as he later served in the George W. Bush administration and currently with Trump.

The promotion of Abrams confirms that Donald Trump cares not at all for diplomacy or even for treating foreign countries with respect. This attitude has done serious damage to American interests around the world. It is past time to stop making excuses for the president and instead begin to consider what needs to be done to repair the damage.

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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.

Last week, this column argued that the only constitutional role for armed federal forces in Portland, Oregon, was to assist U.S. marshals in protecting federal property and personnel there — in this case, the federal courthouse and those who come to it. The column also argued that under the U.S. Constitution, the feds have no lawful role in policing streets unless requested to do so by the governor or legislature of any state.

In Portland’s case, the governor of Oregon and the mayor of Portland both asked acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf to bring his forces home. He agreed to do so when Oregon’s governor offered to beef up security at the federal courthouse.

Yet, the federal forces were doing more than just protecting federal property. They were agitating the peaceful demonstrators in Portland’s streets by firing an internationally banned variant of tear gas repeatedly and indiscriminately into crowds for hours at a time every night. The feds were also spying on journalists who were in the crowds of protestors reporting on what they observed.

Here is the backstory.

The Supreme Court has held, for many generations, that the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects the “right to be let alone.” Today, we call this privacy.

Those who wrote the Constitution were acutely aware of the proclivities of government to monitor the communications and behavior of folks it hates and fears. King George III sent British troops and government agents into the homes of colonists under various pretexts, the most notorious of which was to examine letters, papers and pamphlets to ascertain if the king’s tax on them had been paid.

This Stamp Act tax cost more to enforce than it generated in revenue. Was the king dumb or dumb like a fox? Probably the latter; the true purpose of the tax was not to raise money but to remind the colonists that the king could cross the thresholds of their homes — a right he did not have in Great Britain — through the use of his soldiers and agents. And, while inside the home, his agents could discover who was agitating for secession.

With memories of these royal abuses fresh in their minds, the members of the first Congress — led by James Madison — approved and passed the Fourth Amendment. The states ratified it as part of the Bill of Rights. Madison also drafted the Ninth Amendment, which reflects the existence in all people of natural human rights — knowable by the exercise of reason and insulated from government intrusion. Among those rights is privacy.

May the government lawfully invade the right to privacy? Under the Fourth Amendment, it may do so only pursuant to search warrants issued by a judge, and the judge may only issue a search warrant after taking testimony under oath demonstrating that it is more likely than not that the place to be searched will yield evidence of criminal behavior. Plus, the warrant must specify the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized.

The language and requirements in the Fourth Amendment are the most specific in the Constitution. Madison insisted upon this so it would be both an obstacle to the new American government doing to its citizens what the king and his agents had done to the colonists, and an inducement to the government to focus law enforcement on probable causes of crime rather than spying on political enemies.

Now, back to the feds in Portland.

We know from their admissions that the feds compiled dossiers on numerous journalists covering their activities in Portland. We also know that some data in those dossiers came from public sources and some did not. The governmental acquisition of data from nonpublic, nongovernment sources without search warrants constitutes spying.

The government spies routinely on Americans today — so much so that the revelation of it ceases to shock.

Why would the feds do this?

For starters, it is far easier to spy unlawfully than it is to obtain a search warrant. As well, the feds have established a vast network of domestic spies — the 60,000-person strong National Security Agency. It captures all electronic data, voice and text, communicated within the United States — without warrants and with few complaints.

All this directly assaults the right to privacy, but the feds do it anyway. The spying is so normal that a deputy DHS secretary ordered it in Portland without seeking approval up his chain of command.

The government also spies to intimidate — and this brings us back to Portland. When the government discovers personal information that it has no right to acquire without a warrant — information devoid of criminal evidence, information that the Fourth Amendment bars the government from obtaining without a warrant — and then tells you it has this information, it chills your freedom.

Chilling can make you pause before exposing or criticizing the government. The Supreme Court has characterized this as a violation of both the Fourth Amendment and the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.

To Wolf’s credit, he either fired or transferred (it is unclear which) the deputy secretary who ordered DHS agents to spy on journalists in Portland. Yet, when ordered, they readily complied with the order. That’s how commonplace federal spying has become — and how easy.

The folks who did this should all lose their jobs. Why? Because it is unlawful to obey an unlawful order.

Or have our constitutional rights been so emasculated that the government doesn’t know the difference?

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Yesterday marked the 100-year anniversary from when the Treaty of Sèvres was signed. The Treaty of Sèvres saw the Ottoman Empire dismembered, with Greece, Syria and Armenia gaining old lost lands, an independent Kurdistan established, and France, Britain and Italy having zones of influence in former Ottoman territories.

The Turks would effectively have a small rump state in the middle of Anatolia. This is considered one of the biggest humiliations in Turkish history and the Treaty galvanized ultra-nationalists, that not only led to a new phase in the Christian genocide that exterminated around 3 million Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians, but saw Turkish nationalist forces defeat opposing armies stationed in Anatolia, thus ending the Treaty of Sèvres only three years after its signing. The Sèvres Treaty was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne and most of the lands Turkey lost in Anatolia and eastern Thrace was returned to Turkish rule.

The Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 is seen as one of the proudest moments in Turkish history as the founding father of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, was able to drive back European armies from Anatolia. His war is seen by Turks as an “anti-imperialist struggle,” and to this day is a major part of the Turkish mythos, with Turkey’s Foreign Ministry describing Atatürk’s actions as an “anti-imperialist” struggle as recently as today. However, it would be more accurate to describe Turkey’s war against European powers as an inter-imperialist struggle, rather than anti-imperialist, as all the major powers struggled for land and indigenous populations that had no affinity to them.

The impact of the Treaty of Sèvres in the historical memory of Turks and as a guiding force to Turkey’s foreign policy today is so strong that Sèvres Syndrome is an accepted term in international relations and political science studies to describe Ankara’s paranoia that external states are conspiring to dismember or destroy the Turkish state.

A Washington Post article published yesterday and titled “Erdogan’s Turkey battles the ghosts of Sèvres, 100 years later,” cited 20th century Turkey historian, Nicholas Danforth, as saying “Sèvres has been largely forgotten in the West, but it has a potent legacy in Turkey, where it has helped fuel a form of nationalist paranoia some scholars have called the Sèvres syndrome.” The Washington Post then cited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan saying after the illegal Turkey-Libya maritime agreement was made: “Thanks to this military and energy cooperation, we overturned the Treaty of Sèvres.”

It is a far stretch to claim that Turkey’s deal with the Muslim Brotherhood government based in the Libyan capital of Tripoli to steal Greek maritime space is somehow connected to a so-called injustice of the Treaty of Sèvres, but Erdoğan is known for his firebrand of politics and taking all necessary steps to protect his power, especially at a time when his approval rating is plummeting and the economy is weakening day by day. It is documented that polls are manipulated to be in Erdoğan’s favor, but it is much more difficult to hide the economic situation.

The Turkish lira is the world’s second-worst performing currency this month with a drop of over 4% against the dollar, extending its losses for the year to more than 18%, Goldman Sachs reported. The U.S. dollar now buys 7.30 Turkish liras, well above the so-called psychological point of 1 dollar for 7.00 liras. Turkey’s official unemployment rate for May, that was only recently released, records 12.9%, meaning the rate for August is much likely higher, especially considering the massive devaluation of the Turkish lira. However, renowned Turkish economist Mahfi Egilmez claims an unemployment rate of 24.6% is “closest to reality.” Unemployment in 2011 was 9.1% and the 2023 target to commemorate 100 years since the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne is 5%, something that will certainly not be achieved. In fact, since Erdoğan announced the 2023 Vision, unemployment in Turkey has only massively increased.

With an out of control economic situation, Erdoğan symbolically began provocative naval manoeuvres in Greek maritime space yesterday that put the Greek military on high alert and a state of war readiness. By Erdoğan allowing the Oruç Reis research vessel to be escorted by seven warships, he made a significant gesture by starting a great provocation on a day that is seen as a national embarrassment for Turkey. By defying Greece’s maritime space to research and find gas deposits, Erdoğan is attempting to demonstrate that Turkey is not weak like it was a hundred years ago when the Treaty of Sèvres was signed, but rather a powerful country that is capable of enforcing its interests.

This is of course only symbolic gestures, which invokes neo-Ottomanism, as Erdoğan continues to distract the Turkish public with foreign policy issues against the “old Greek enemy.” Yesterday’s actions that are continuing today do not show Turkey as being a powerful country that has shaken the shackles of the Treaty of Sèvres, but rather it shows Erdoğan as weak and desperate to cling onto power.  As Erdoğan converted Hagia Sophia into a mosque before the latest blow to the Turkish lira, he has to up the ante to keep Turks distracted from the spiralling economic situation.

By drilling in Greek maritime space that Turkey claims as its own, devoid of any international law justification including that from the United Nations Charter Law of the Sea, Erdoğan can claim a cheap victory in Greece knowing that the Greek military will not defend its maritime space unless the seismic researching turns into gas drilling, which the Turkish President is unlikely to do. Although the Greek military was put on high alert and all military personnel that were on holidays were called back to their units immediately, it is unlikely that Turkey’s provocation will descend into a conflict, especially since Erdoğan has successfully and masterfully distracted Turks from the dire economic situation yet again by invoking Turkish ultra-nationalism against Greece.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, has been able to dodge legal responsibility in the death of Jamal Khashoggi, while US President Trump has defended and supported him.  It appears Mohammed bin Salman is facing a serious legal threat, and it will take personal interference by Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to save him from facing a judge in the federal court at Washington, DC.  Mohammed bin Salman may be praying for Trump to win in November 2020 to be sure he holds a ‘get out of jail’ card. 

Mohammed bin Salman faces US court summons

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been issued a summons by the US District Court in Washington, DC. on August 7, 2020, after Saad al Jabri filed a lawsuit accusing Prince Mohammed bin Salman of sending a Saudi death squad to Canada to kill him.

Saad al Jabri was a former senior Saudi intelligence official working under the former Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who was then Minister of the Interior.  Al Jabri was well known as the key link between Saudi intelligence services and their counterparts in the US and Europe.

Jabri’s lawyers filed a recent lawsuit in a federal court in Washington, DC. against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, alleging he had sent a Saudi death squad to kill him in Canada on October 15, 2018, less than two weeks after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

Al Jabri owes his life to the Canadian border officials who were suspicious of the Saudi death squad after they were caught lying at the Ontario International Airport while carrying forensic equipment and traveling on tourist visas, which resulted in denied entry to all but one member who carried diplomatic credentials.

The lawsuit reads:

“Dr. Saad was privy to sensitive information about Defendant bin Salman’s covert political scheming within the Royal Court, corrupt business dealings, and creation of a team of personal mercenaries that Defendant bin Salman would later use to carry out the extrajudicial killing of Jamal Khashoggi, among others.”

The FBI became aware of the threats to al Jabri and his family in January 2018, when his son, Khalid al Jabri, was prevented from boarding a flight departing from Boston’s Logan International Airport by FBI agents, who informed the young man his life and that of his family were under threat.

Al Jabri’s legal team maintains that the threat to his life remains, and the Saudi death squad was planning to enter Canada by land, thus avoiding any airport security.

Mohammed bin Salman’s death squad on trial in Istanbul

Last month the trial in Istanbul began against 20 Saudi Arabians accused of killing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate at Istanbul on October 2, 2018, even though none of the accused were present. His body was dismembered while his fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, had waited outside the consulate, and his remains have never been found.

Saudi Arabia’s former deputy intelligence chief Ahmed al-Assiri is accused of planning the murder and assembling a team to carry out the murder of Khashoggi at the behest of their boss, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.  Saud al-Qahtani, a close adviser to Mohammed bin Salman, is similarly charged with having “instigated premeditated murder with monstrous intent.”  Qahtani continues to work closely with the crown prince, and according to a Saudi Arabian activist, who had been in prison, Qahtani told her, “I’ll do whatever I like to you, and then I’ll dissolve you and flush you down the toilet.”

Agnès Callamard said the Turkish trial is an “important judicial process. Here we have a space where the victims are heard in a way they have never been heard before. We have a space where witnesses are asked to speak under oath.”

UN report names Mohammed bin Salman in Khashoggi’s death

In June 2019, Agnes Callamard, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions, published the results of her investigation into the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

The report concluded that Khashoggi’s death “constituted an extrajudicial killing for which the State of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is responsible”. The report also said there is “credible evidence” warranting further investigation of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The full UN report can be read here.

 “The operation involved multiple flights, including two private jets, one under diplomatic clearance. It entailed training, with two Saudi attaches from Istanbul flying to Riyadh for ‘top secret’, ‘urgent’ training and preparation, and it required planning and execution in Istanbul,” wrote Agnes Callamard in the report for the UN.

Callamard concluded that the decision to murder Khashoggi was taken before two of the most important members of the Saudi death squad Maher Mutreb, and Salah Tubaigy, the forensic pathologist who cut the body up, flew from Riyadh to Istanbul.

CIA concluded Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggi murder

In November 2018, the Central Intelligence Agency concluded that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, ordered the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi,

Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and senior adviser have remained close to Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Trump and Kushner have defended and supported the strong relationship with Mohammed bin Salman, despite the various important reports placing the responsibility of the murder of Khashoggi on him.

US arms sales to Saudi Arabia

Democrat and Republican lawmakers in the US Congress had held up a Trump administration request to sell 22 batches of munitions worth $8.1 billion to Saudi Arabia, because the US-made weapons were being used to kill thousands of civilians in Yemen, including the targeting of school buses full of children.

Marik String was acting chief of the US State Department’s political-military affairs bureau in early 2019, and he helped Secretary of State Mike Pompeo bypass a congressional freeze on arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE by using a declared state of emergency in May 2019 to dodge the congressional hold.

The State Department’s inspector general, Steve A. Linick, had opened two investigations; one into the arms sale beginning in June 2019 and one into possible misuse of agency employees for the benefit of Mr. Pompeo and his wife. Pompeo asked Trump to fire Linick in May 2020, who was investigating whether the declared state of emergency was legal. Pompeo promoted String to acting legal advisor the very same day as he had declared the state of emergency.

Congressional officials have been told that the Trump administration plans to sell yet another package of weapons to Saudi Arabia worth $478 million.  With Linick gone, there will be no investigations.

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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.

Having gained its political independence a few decades ago, Guyana is a small South American country with little international relevance. Without major economic or geopolitical projections, the country has agriculture and mining as its main activities, not being a fully industrialized country and having high levels of poverty. However, recent discoveries of large oil reserves are about to change Guyana completely, raising its economic potential and its political and geopolitical projections. Guyana currently has more oil than any other country in the world. At the beginning of 2020, there was an expectation from the International Monetary Fund for a growth of 86% of Guyana’s GDP. The pandemic and the global devaluation of oil caused by the global recession have made expectations drop to 44%, but Guyana is still the country that will show the greatest economic growth in the world this year.

As a multi-ethnic country, influenced by several other former British colonies, Guyana’s national politics is divided between representatives of the different ethnic and religious groups that inhabit the country. In the 2020 Guyanese elections, a serious political crisis hit the country, creating a scenario of uncertainty about who the new president would be. Briefly, former President David Granger – an Afro-Guyanese, Anglican Christian and member of the National People’s Congress – lost the elections to Mohamed Irfaan Ali – an Indo-Guyanese, Hindu and member of the Popular Progressive Party – however, as is commonplace in elections in Guyana, the results were not clear and fast, mainly due to several requests for a recount. The elections took place on March 2, but just 5 months later, on August 2, the name of Irfaan Ali was announced as the winner of the dispute, after great international pressure for the result, mainly from the US, Brazil and the Organization of American States.

The election of Irfaan Ali takes place amid the period of greatest expectation of economic growth in the history of Guyana. The country has never been closer to economic and social development and, obviously, the population hopes that the new president will be successful, leading the nation on a path of prosperity and progress. However, the challenges are many. The first step to be taken by Irfaan Ali must be to ensure that, in fact, the exploration of Guyanese oil serves the national interests of his country. The new president came to power under strong American pressure for Guyana to elect a president. The coercive measures taken by Washington to pressure the choice of a president were many, including the suspension of the visa of Guyanese citizens in American territory – an attitude to which Guyana’s prime minister, Moses Nagamootoo, referred to as “diplomatic terrorism”. The choice of the president was a necessary step towards developing the oil sector, so Washington, the biggest interested in Guyanese oil, acted with all its efforts to get a president elected as soon as possible, despite internal ethnic disputes.

There are several reasons why Washington is interested in Guyanese oil. At the heart of exploration and production is the American transnational Exxon Mobil, which leads production from Stabroek – in a reserve which is estimated to have more than 8 billion barrels of oil. Around the oil issue are the contracts signed between the previous government and Exxon Mobil. According to the NGO Global Witness, the previous production contract signed in 2016 is strongly favorable to the company and will deprive the country of over 55 billion dollars during the term of the agreement. The contract was described as “exceptionally bad” by the NGO.

However, this is not the main problem surrounding the agreement. There is a political issue that is much more dangerous than the economic issue. Before the discovery of Guyana’s oil, the main oil producer in South America was Venezuela, a country that is experiencing a great economic and diplomatic conflict with the US. Washington imposed severe international sanctions on any country or company that has business with Venezuela, leaving Caracas under severe economic blockade. Venezuelan oil was restricted to a small group of countries that refuse to comply with the rules imposed by the US, leaving the country under a major economic and social crisis.

Now, with the US leading the exploration of Guyanese oil, this small South American country seems to be the American bet to “replace” Venezuelan oil. In fact, the American objective is to find a new source of resources for the global market, which is politically subordinate to Washington, and that it can finally overcome Venezuela’s great role in the oil sector.

If the new president takes this path and creates ties of economic and political submission to Washington, Guyana’s natural wealth will not represent any social improvement for the Guyanese people, serving only as an instrument of American geopolitics.

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

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I awoke Monday morning to distressing news, alerted me by pre-dawn email from my residential building’s management.

I and other building residents were told about overnight vandalism and mass looting of retail shops along Chicago’s Magnificent Mile in our neighborhood — a Kristallnacht night of broken glass along the avenue and elsewhere in the city, scattered violence as well.

What happened weeks earlier was repeated post-midnight to pre-dawn Monday morning.

Around midday Monday on my daily walk for exercise, I saw the aftermath firsthand, a surreal scene along the Mag Mile I never saw before in over half a century as a Chicago resident.

The upscale Michigan Ave. shopping area was cordoned off by police, vehicular traffic blocked.

I asked an officer about overnight events and was told about the overnight mass looting and vandalism.

Trucks with workers along the avenue were boarding up shops to protect against further incidents.

As far as the eye could see, large numbers of police and vehicles filled the avenue, likely to remain round-the-clock until city authorities signal an all-clear.

My building’s lobby was placed on lockdown. If broken into, on duty staff are able to shut down elevators to prevent hostile elements from reaching and breaking into apartments.

On Monday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot rejected the notion of calling for national guard forces to protect the city’s Loop business district and near north side Streeterville neighborhood where I and thousands of others live, saying the following:

“(W)e do not need federal troops in Chicago, period, full stop.”

“I’m sure the president will have his way with this incident, but I’m calling upon him to do the things that we do need.”

Don’t bait us…This is a serious situation. People are concerned about their safety. Officers are concerned about their safety.”

“What we’re saying is, as a result of what happened (pre-dawn Monday), there have to be consequences.”

“We’ve got teams of people that are aggressively out there, identifying the people responsible, looking at the plates, and we’re going to bring them to justice.”

The Chicago Tribune described overnight Sunday events as follows:

“(H)undreds…swept through the Magnificent Mile and other parts of downtown Chicago (pre-dawn) Monday, smashing windows, looting stores, confronting police, and at one point exchanging gunfire with officers.”

According to police superintendent David Brown, scores were arrested, 13 officers injured.

“A civilian and private security guard were shot and wounded.”

Preceding what happened, “an officer-involved shooting (occurred) in the (south side) Englewood neighborhood.”

On August 1, the Chicago Sun Times reported a record number of lethal July shootings, more than double the number in the same month last year — “105 murders” compared to 44 in the same 2019 period, according to police data.

On Monday, the Sun Times called my neighborhood, the downtown Loop, and surrounding areas a “key of dynamite.”

“(H)eeps of shattered glass and empty storefronts” followed mass looting and vandalism overnight Sunday.

On Monday afternoon south of my neighborhood, “hundreds of people squared off with police…rocks, bottles and bricks…hurled.”

Looting and vandalism occurred in other parts of the city.

Upscale Mag Mile shops reporting break-ins and looting included Nike, Nordstrom, Burberry, Macy’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Ralph Lauren, Verizon, Omega, Louis Vuitton, Bloomingdale’s, Hermes, Giorgio Armani, Saint Laurent, and many others.

According to the Sun Times, the latest mass looting and vandalism following what happened in May “puts Chicago at a crossroads,” adding:

“Businesses may be reluctant to rebuild, fearing they won’t be protected. Their customers may not feel safe shopping, dining and going to the theater downtown.”

“Empty-nesters and young people drawn to the city may leave because they, too, no longer feel safe.”

Illinois Retail Merchants Association president Rob Karr issued a statement, saying:

“There’s a limit to how many times retailers are willing to be kicked.”

“It will be difficult after retailers who have invested millions in reopening to have to do it again.”

“There has to be a lot of confidence that they can be protected and, so far, that confidence is lacking.”

The solution isn’t turning my neighborhood, others, and the Loop business district into armed camps.

Until further notice, my neighborhood and surrounding areas are restricted from 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM — a curfew imposed as long as necessary according to city authorities.

One area retail shop owner likely spoke for others, saying “I feel like we are under attack.”

I feel like I’m living in a war zone under siege, hopefully not to be long-lasting.

Pre-dawn Monday, bridges along the Chicago River were raised to prevent looters from easily accessing the downtown Loop business district.

The Chicago Transit Authority “temporarily” halted bus and rail service in the downtown area from 8:00 PM to 6:00 AM.

Normally it operates round-the-clock every day.

What’s going on in Chicago and elsewhere in the country relates to frustration over made-in-the-USA mass unemployment and economic collapse.

Events since January are all about engineering an unprecedented transfer of wealth from ordinary Americans to corporate favorites and high-net-worth individuals.

It’s part of a scheme to further transform America and other Western states into ruler-serf societies — militarized, thirdworldized and controlled by police state rule.

It’s also about enabling corporate America to consolidate to greater size and market dominance by eliminating competition in the nation and abroad.

My neighborhood is under siege from lockdown following mass looting, vandalism and violence.

From sea to shinning sea, America is besieged by its dominant political and Big Money ruling class.

Ordinary people are exploited by engineered harder than ever hard times so privileged ones can benefit hugely.

The US is governed by one-party rule with two right wings.

No matter who’s elected president and to key congressional posts in November, what’s going on will likely continue, causing enormous longterm harm to ordinary Americans with no end of it in prospect.

The only solution is popular revolution. Nothing else can work. Elections assure continuity.

People have power to change things. The alternative is mass unemployment and underemployment, mass incarceration, and militarized police state rule.

Things in America are heading toward full-blown tyranny, a society more unsafe and unfit to live in than already unless challenged by mass activism for governance of, by, and for everyone equitably.

It can’t happen any way other than longterm struggle for equity and justice.

If elections could do it, they’d be banned.

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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 Twitter

Whenever US presidential and congressional elections are held, voters get to choose between two pro-war, pro-corporate empowerment, anti-progressive right wings of the one-party state.

Names and faces change, results always the same. Dirty business as usual wins every time — notably since the neoliberal 90s.

On issues mattering most, Dems are indistinguishable from Republicans. One-party rule assures continuity.

On November 3, US voters once again have no candidates for president and key congressional posts who represent their interests because duopoly rule shuts out alternative choices.

From inception, democracy in America was and remains pure fantasy.

US rule of the people, democracy the way it should be, exceptionalism, moral superiority, and the indispensable state don’t exist.

Governance is of, by, and for the privileged few exclusively at the expense of most others.

We the people applies solely to plutocrats, oligarchs, kleptocrats, and other power brokers.

It’s the American way, how the nation’s founders intended things to be.

The US ruling class doesn’t give a hoot about the nation’s poor, unemployed, underemployed, and others most disadvantaged — only about their own interests.

Who is Kamala Harris? 

Topping the GOP ticket in November is billionaire businessman, reality TV incumbent president, notorious dissembler Trump, seeking an encore term in office.

He’s teamed with Mike Pence, an evangelical Christian fascist, neocon hardliner, imperial war cheerleader, supporter of privilege over the public welfare.

They’ll face champion of wealth, power and privilege over progressive politics Joe Biden — an establishment figure who for around half a century has been hostile to peace, equity and justice for all.

On Tuesday, he choose California junior senator, former state attorney general Kamala Harris as running mate.

Calling her a “fearless fighter for the little guy (sic), and one of the country’s finest public servants (sic)” defied reality.

Her disturbing public record is polar opposite to this description, why Dem power brokers chose her as Biden’s running mate.

Her prosecutorial/political history is pockmarked with serving privileged interests and her own exclusively at the expense of due process and equal justice under law.

Her record belies her claim to be a judicial reformer, just the opposite.

As Alameda County CA assistant DA, San Francisco DA, and California state AG, she pursued injustice by blocking exculpatory evidence, defending unconstitutional practices, and preventing prosecution of wealthy individuals.

In May 2010, Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo slammed her for failing “to produce information in her possession regarding” a dubious witness for the prosecution, calling her action “a violation of the defendant’s constitutional rights,” adding:

Repeated court requests to comply with proper procedures were met with “a level of indifference.”

Loyola Law School Project for the Innocent in Los Angeles/Law Professor Lara Bazelon explained what Dem power brokers and supportive media want concealed about Harris, saying the following:

“T)ime after time, when progressives urged (Harris) to embrace criminal justice reforms as a district attorney and then the state’s attorney general, (she) opposed them or stayed silent.”

“Kamala Harris was not a ‘progressive prosecutor. (She) was often on the wrong side of history when she served as California’s attorney general.”

“Most troubling, Ms. Harris fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions that had been secured through official misconduct that included evidence tampering, false testimony and the suppression of crucial information by prosecutors.”

She “also championed state legislation under which parents whose children were found to be habitually truant in elementary school could be prosecuted, despite concerns that it would disproportionately affect low-income people of color.”

In response to a 2014 Orange County, CA judicial ruling against the death penalty, calling it unconstitutional, Harris bizarrely argued that the decision “undermines important protections that our courts provide to defendants.”

In the same year, she opposed voter-approved Proposition 47, reducing certain low-level felonies to misdemeanors — by staying silent on the issue instead of championing it.

In 2015, she opposed legislation requiring her office to investigate shootings by police and declined to support having them wear body-cameras.

Instead of seeking justice, time and again she obstructed it as a way to burnish her prosecutorial record for advancement to higher office.

Progressive Law Professor Marjorie Cohn slammed what she called her “distinguished career of serving injustice,” adding:

“Through her apologia for egregious prosecutorial misconduct, her refusal to allow DNA testing for a probably innocent death row inmate, her opposition to legislation requiring the attorney general’s office to independently investigate police shootings and more, she has made a significant contribution to the sordid history of injustice she decries.”

“The job of the attorney general is not to protect the DA. As chief law enforcement officer of the state, the attorney general’s duty is ‘to see that the laws of the State are uniformly and adequately enforced,’ as mandated by Article V of the California Constitution.”

Time and again, “Harris violated her legal duty,” violating the constitutional rights of defendants.

In the US, equal justice under law is a meaningless figure of speech.

The system is politicized against the poor, people of color, Muslims and others most disadvantaged.

Trump/Pence v. Biden/Harris in November amounts to a choice between death by firing squad or hanging.

That’s how it always is when US presidential and congressional elections are held.

The people’s choice is none at all.

Democracy in America is a meaningless figure of speech.

US voters have no say over how the country is run.

They get the best “democracy” money can buy!

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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.

I have once written a long story based on part of my own life experiences and some other real materials which might have caused some stir among the people who happened to have read it, in which the protagonist is a gentle and kind-hearted lady with good education, however, never made her way out. Fortunately , she is still alive, and gained wisdoms that enable her to see things better than before. 

In her early years, she went abroad to study and work, but didn’t find the right way. Then she went back to her home country to start a new life after the new millennium. It was fine at the beginning, but a few years later, she began to feel that her world of life was falling apart. 

Although the story is far from enough to tell all the unfortunate things she has gone through, it is already enough to make a civilized society shudder. We can’t help but watch the devils boldly marching in daylight, because no one could stop them, and there is no existed law to nail them down. Once again, human civilization is wandering in low spirit . It is tied out by its own high-tech products, with its basic morals and wisdoms lost. People tend to become very self-centered and rely on the external power of high-technology too much which has jeopardized the inner power of themselves. Maybe it’s time to contemplate and bring back our self-control and our lost wisdom. 

Benevolent people are compassionate and helpful. They treat people equally and put themselves in other people’s boats. And proper rite can teach a social person how to act in ways of true benevolence and righteousness.

To decide whether or not we are helping others is not based on what you say or upon your motivation manipulated by others. People carry on things with selfish purpose would also claim that they were helping others, while some people who are obliged to help but were actually not helpful at all, instead making things more difficult for others should listen to the targeted and stop the intervention right away. That is to say, we should follow certain rules. At least, for example, respect others.

As the ancient Chinese sage said, the only maxim that can be used for life is: do not treat others the way that you don’t want them to treat you.

You should put yourself in other people’s shoes at all time.

If you are a determined and mature adult, while others always impose their own will upon you, will you be happy about it? If not, then you should allow others to make their own decisions. As the old saying goes, it’s better to respect and listen than aggress and intervene.

Because everyone has their own different stories in this world, and it’s usually the person himself who knows his own story best. Even if they made wrong judgment call once or twice at beginning, it would only harm one person. Isn’t it said that “He who has broken his arms three times makes a good surgeon.” ? People will learn the lessons from their failures and improve. However, if a society encourages some privileged people to forcefully, or even break the law to interfere with other people’s life, sometimes under the claim to help, it will not cause only one single victim, but lead to a very bad chain of reactions and overall malign social effect. 

Western philosophers, started from the explanation of nature to the study of human society, has experienced many different schools of philosophies, with some schools as rivals against each other. When it came to the modern society, there appeared the concept of “egoism”, the theory of laws that demonstrated the principle of rationalism of the main philosophical schools, and the theory of will etc al, all of which mark the progress of human understanding of the nature, themselves and the human society, and especially revealed the depth of Western analytical culture and the endless effort and high spirit in their study of the universe and human beings. 

Chinese philosophy is originated from Fuxi’s Primordial Eight Diagrams to explain the principles of human society and the nature which emphasizes the unity of man and nature. Then Emperor Wen of Zhou dynasty established the Posterior Eight Diagrams to further the study. Later generations began to establish a theory based on benevolence, righteousness, propriety and music around the same principle which reveals the interaction of “Yin and Yang”.

Chinese scholars continued to improve the theory by making it to adapt to the contemporary dynasties. However, all the new schools were rooted in the original principle. Because almost any self-conscious individual tend to fight for the interest of their own, which the ancient Chinese people had known a long time ago, so they came to realize that wealth can only be produced and accumulate during time of peace. That is to say, only were the society stable could it prosper. In order to maintain social stability, they must establish a set of rules of propriety, which will not only bound its people to obey, but also make them to follow willingly with respect. That is what Chinese people did, and maybe this is the difference between Chinese law and western law.

The ancient Chinese people grew up in this kind of social rules, so even if they didn’t go through formal legal study, it was still not likely that they would cross the boundaries without knowing its consequences. Punishment could come from all sides. That’s the case especially during the peace period. And there is no lawyer as an occupation in Ancient China, as the ancient scholar functioned as the legal clerk. But the western laws are different.

They have been divided into nature law and nation law long time ago. For them, the nature law that everyone should abide by in the same way may be mainly practiced through religion. Humans possess some basic senses of telling good from evil even before they have developed their logic and reasoning, which fact leads to the formation of nature law. The nation law is the law formulated by the state to maintain the operation of the political machinery, and it is the embodiment of rationality. But any thing created by man must have loopholes to poke through, so if religion loses its influence, it would inevitably lead to malfunction of the nation law by fighting against the “sinners” alone. Chinese propriety rules are combination of nature law and nation law.

Therefore, it could be more effective sometimes in maintaining the stability of society. Its purpose is to make the society well function, instead of making up issues. There is a popular saying “If the people do not bring the issues up, the officials will not intervene”. That is to say, in civil cases, as long as the parties feel that they can solve the case by themselves, the officials usually will not take the initiative to intervene. 

Today’s world is at the era of rapid development of science and technology, also the era of knowledge explosion. People’s cognitive and knowledge level have improved unprecedentedly. Although religion still plays an important role in providing comfort to people’s soul and promoting world peace etc al, and even some religions have evolved into multiple branches by incorporating the elements of science, still they are confronting doubts and negation of new generations, because some of their theories conflict with many contents of modern civilization, which leads to the loss of their believers. Even among the believers, religion has lost its superior authority and great influence. Consequently, the commandment of religion lost their power of control. In this kind of society, what people follow are the work morals established under the market economy and capital operation, which is actually a set of game rules by all means to achieve the job goals. Of course, these rules can help them achieve their individual short-term goals and gain profits during a certain period of time, but any behavior against the nature laws will inevitably cause adverse consequences to the whole society, and this consequences will inevitably return to its perpetrators themselves sooner or later. So, in the long run, it will result in multiple losers and eventually lead to the failure of the whole society. Especially in a society of high-speed communication of information, any unreasonable action upon the society will soon come to light, and are very likely to face their consequences shortly after. 

The ancient Chinese rules of propriety which are based on benevolence, righteousness, propriety and music are closely related to everyone’s life, can be directly integrated into the daily function of the society.

The ancient Chinese sage said:

the truth of benevolence is the truth of kinship;

the truth of righteousness is the truth of brotherhood;

the truth of wisdom is the truth of knowing both;

the truth of propriety is to demonstrate the above two in a proper manner;

the truth of music is to praise the above two and reveal the happiness during their practice of the propriety.

That is to say, benevolence is to serve parents, extended to their superiors etc al; righteousness is to listen to brothers and sisters, extended to trustable friends, colleagues and acquaintances who might have more life experience and wisdom; propriety is to practice the benevolence and integrity by applying the social etiquettes, national or family rites, and making them appealing to the common sense of people, thus they should be appropriate, elegant and pleasant.; music is the expression of inner feeling due to such great pleasure produced during the proper practice, that people can’t help singing and playing the instrument to share their praises. Some might say that many religions are practicing in the same way too. Yes, but they mostly do it in churches and temples. And The ancient Chinese propriety was working in daily life of everybody, from the emperor to the peasants. 

If we can sincerely respect and assist our elders, would they not treat you kindly? If we show our admiration and respect to your brothers or other people who are more experienced than you and by chance we know, they will naturally promote you and try their best to help you. The Chinese say: a gentleman dies for someone who truly understands him. If we really know someone, and show sincere admiration to their integrity and respect to their talents and abilities. Of course, they will treat you as their confidants, and wouldn’t mind dying for you, precisely, is dying for the same beliefs and purposes of life. In fact, these two kinds of relationship can simplify all relationships in the world. If we can handle them well, we should have no worries in our life provided that there were not too much external intervention and disturbance. Therefore, as it was mentioned above: the truth of the wisdom, or in another words, a wise person should keep in mind that these two things – benevolence and righteousness cannot be ignored. The question is how to make them work in current world? It will come down to the next question of how to create effective propriety rules for current world by borrowing wisdom from ancient Chinese people and other cultures. 

The four books and five classics, the Analects of Confucius, the Daode Ching of ancient China, and various important literature and documents developed by the followers of neo-Confucianism can provide very valuable information about Chinese propriety. At the same time, the outstanding philosophical theories and relevant literature materials of all other countries in each century are also very important references. In a world of global village, humans have developed unprecedentedly stronger interconnection with and interdependence upon each other . Therefore, the rules of one nation will undoubtedly affect the lives of other nations, and the propriety of other cultural nations must also be reflected in the rules of that nation. It seems that more and more people are beginning to realize that we people on earth need a set of new rules to avoid falling into the fate of lasting worldwide chaos. 

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Sources

1. Analects (ancient books republished), Confucius, China Press [The Spring and Autumn Period] 

2. Tao Te Ching (ancient book republished), Laozi. China Press [The Spring and Autumn Period] 

3. Yi Ching (ancient books republished), Confucius, China Press [The Spring and Autumn Period] 

4. Laozi and Zhuangzi (ancient books republished), Laozi and Zhuangzhou, China Press[The Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Periods] 

5. Mencius (ancient books republished), Mencius, China Press[The Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Periods] 

6. The Stories of Philosophies, Willian Durant, (I only kept the copies of some of the pages from the book, but cann’t remember the name of the press) 

7. www.qixiansong.com/eArtics.html. This is a website hosts some of my articles there with the author name as Junru Tian(Zhouqin Zhu) – All the articles on it were written by me. 

“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government IS the problem.”—Ronald Reagan

There’s a pattern emerging if you pay close enough attention.

Civil discontent leads to civil unrest, which leads to protests and counterprotests.

Without fail, what should be an exercise in how to peacefully disagree turns ugly the moment looting, vandalism, violence, intimidation tactics and rioting are introduced into the equation. Instead of restoring order, local police stand down.

Tensions rise, violence escalates, and federal armies move in.

Coincidence? I think not.

This was the blueprint used three years ago in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, when the city regularly cited as being one of the happiest places in America, became ground zero for a heated war of words—and actions—over racism, “sanitizing history,” extremism (both right and left), political correctness, hate speech, partisan politics, and a growing fear that violent words will end in violent actions.

It was a setup: local police deliberately engineered a situation in which protesters would confront each other, tensions would bubble over, and things would turn just violent enough to call in the bigger guns.

It is the blueprint being used right now.

In Charlottesville, as in so many parts of the country right now, the conflict was over how to reconcile the nation’s checkered past, particularly as it relates to slavery, with the push to sanitize the environment of anything—words and images—that might cause offense, especially if it’s a Confederate flag or monument.

That fear of offense prompted the Charlottesville City Council to get rid of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that had graced one of its public parks for 82 years.

That’s when everything went haywire.

In attempting to pacify one particularly vocal and righteously offended group while railroading over the concerns of those with alternate viewpoints, Charlottesville attracted the unwanted attention of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and the alt-Right, all of whom descended on the little college town with the intention of exercising their First Amendment right to be disagreeable, to assemble, and to protest.

When put to the test, Charlottesville did not handle things well at all.

On August 12, 2017, what should have been an exercise in free speech quickly became a brawl that left one dead and dozens more injured.

As the New York Times reported,

“Protesters began to mace one another, throwing water bottles and urine-filled balloons — some of which hit reporters — and beating each other with flagpoles, clubs and makeshift weapons. Before long, the downtown area was a melee. People were ducking and covering with a constant stream of projectiles whizzing by our faces, and the air was filled with the sounds of fists and sticks against flesh.”

And then there was the police, who were supposed to uphold the law and prevent violence.

They failed to do either.

Indeed, a 220-page post-mortem of the protests and the Charlottesville government’s response by former U.S. attorney Timothy J. Heaphy merely corroborates our worst fears about what drives the government at all levels: power, money, ego, politics and ambition.

When presented with a situation in which the government and its agents were tasked with protecting free speech and safety, Heaphy concluded that “the City of Charlottesville protected neither free expression nor public safety.”

Heaphy continues:

“The City was unable to protect the right of free expression and facilitate the permit holder’s offensive speech. This represents a failure of one of government’s core functions—the protection of fundamental rights. Law enforcement also failed to maintain order and protect citizens from harm, injury, and death. Charlottesville preserved neither of those principles on August 12, which has led to deep distrust of government within this community.”

In other words, the government failed to uphold its constitutional mandates. The police failed to carry out their duties as peace officers. And the citizens found themselves unable to trust either the police or the government to do its job in respecting their rights and ensuring their safety.

Despite the fact that 1,000 first responders (including 300 state police troopers and members of the National Guard)—many of whom had been preparing for the downtown rally for months—had been called on to work the event, despite the fact that police in riot gear surrounded Emancipation Park on three sides, and despite the fact that Charlottesville had had what reporter David Graham referred to as “a dress rehearsal of sorts” a month earlier when 30 members of the Ku Klux Klan were confronted by 1000 counterprotesters, police failed to do their jobs.

In fact, as the Washington Post reports, police “seemed to watch as groups beat each other with sticks and bludgeoned one another with shields… At one point, police appeared to retreat and then watch the beatings before eventually moving in to end the free-for-all, make arrests and tend to the injured.”

“Police Stood By As Mayhem Mounted in Charlottesville,” reported ProPublica.

Instead of establishing clear boundaries—buffer zones—between the warring groups and protecting the First Amendment rights of the protesters, police established two entrances into the permit areas of the park and created barriers “guiding rallygoers single-file into the park” past lines of white nationalists and antifa counterprotesters.

Incredibly, when the first signs of open violence broke out, Heaphy reports that the police chief allegedly instructed his staff to “let them fight, it will make it easier to declare an unlawful assembly.”

This is not much different from what is happening on the present-day national scene.

Commissioned by the City of Charlottesville, this Heaphy report was intended to be an independent investigation of what went right and what went wrong in the government’s handling of the protests.

Heaphy found very little to commend.

What went right on Aug. 12 according to Heaphy: 1) Despite the presence of firearms, including members of the militia, and angry confrontations between protesters and counterprotesters, no person was shot and no significant property damage occurred; 2) Emergency personnel did their jobs effectively and treated a large number of people in a short period of time; and 3) Police intelligence gathering was thorough (that’s the best he had to say about police).

Now for what went wrong, according to the report:

1. Police failed to get input from other law enforcement agencies experienced in handling large protests.

2. Police failed to adequately train their officers in advance of the protest.

3. City officials failed to request assistance from outside agencies.

4. The City Council unduly interfered by ignoring legal advice, attempting to move the protesters elsewhere, and ignoring the concerns of law enforcement.

5. The city government failed to inform the public about their plans.

6. City officials were misguided in allowing weapons at the protest.

7. The police implemented a flawed operational plan that failed to protect public safety.

8. While police were provided with riot gear, they were never trained in how to use it, nor were they provided with any meaningful field training in how to deal with or de-escalate anticipated violence on the part of protesters.

9. Despite the input and advice of outside counsel, including The Rutherford Institute, the police failed to employ de-escalation tactics or establish clear barriers between warring factions of protesters.

10. Government officials and police leadership opted to advance their own agendas at the expense of constitutional rights and public safety.

11. For all intents and purposes, police abided by a stand down order that endangered the community and paved the way for massive civil unrest.

12. In failing to protect public safety, police and government officials undermined public faith in the government.

The Heaphy report focused on the events that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, but it applies to almost every branch of government that fails to serve “we the people.”

As the Pew Research Center revealed, public trust in the government remains near historic lows and with good reason, too.

This isn’t America, land of the free, where the government is “of the people, by the people [and] for the people.”

Rather, this is Amerika, where fascism, totalitarianism and militarism go hand in hand.

What you smell is the stench of a dying republic. Our dying republic.

The American experiment in freedom is failing fast.

Through every fault of our own—our apathy, our ignorance, our intolerance, our disinclination to do the hard work of holding government leaders accountable to the rule of law, our inclination to let politics trump longstanding constitutional principles—we have been reduced to this sorry state in which we are little more than shackled inmates in a prison operated for the profit of a corporate elite.

We have been saddled with the wreckage of a government at all levels that no longer represents the citizenry, serves the citizenry, or is accountable to the citizenry.

“We the people” are not the masters anymore.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about the federal government, state governments, or local governing bodies: at all ends of the spectrum and every point in between, a shift has taken place.

“We the people” are not being seen, heard or valued.

We no longer count for much of anything beyond an occasional electoral vote and as a source of income for the government’s ever-burgeoning financial needs.

Everything happening at the national level is playing out at the local level, as well: the violence, the militarization, the intolerance, the lopsided governance, and an uneasy awareness that the citizenry have no say in how their communities are being governed.

As I have warned repeatedly, the architects of the police state have every intention of manipulating this outrage for their own purposes.

Predictably, the police state is allowing these protests, riots and looting to devolve into a situation where enough of the voting populace is so desperate for a return to law and order that they will gladly relinquish some of their freedoms to achieve it. And that’s how the police state will win, no matter which candidate gets elected to the White House, and “we the people” will continue to lose.

So what’s the answer?

As always, it must start with “we the people.”

I’ve always advised people to think nationally, but act locally.

Yet as Charlottesville made clear, it’s hard to make a difference locally when the local government is as deaf, dumb and blind to the needs of its constituents as the national government.

Charlottesville much like the rest of the nation has had its fair share of government leaders who are tone-deaf, focused on their own aggrandizement, and incapable of prioritizing the needs of their constituents over their own personal and political agendas; law enforcement officials for whom personal safety, heavy-handed militarized tactics, and power plays trump their duty to serve and protect; polarized citizens incapable of finding common ground, respecting each other’s rights, or agreeing to disagree; and a community held hostage by political correctness, divisive rhetoric and a growing intolerance for any views that may be unpopular or at odds with the mainstream.

It was a perfect storm just waiting for the right conditions to wreak havoc, a precursor of the rage, frustration and fear that is erupting all over the country.

No matter what forces are manipulating these present riots and violent uprisings, however—and there are definitely such forces at play here—none of this would be happening without the government having laid the groundwork.

Clearly, it’s time to clean house at all levels of government.

Stop tolerating corruption, graft, intolerance, greed, incompetence, ineptitude, militarism, lawlessness, ignorance, brutality, deceit, collusion, corpulence, bureaucracy, immorality, depravity, censorship, cruelty, violence, mediocrity, and tyranny. These are the hallmarks of an institution that is rotten through and through.

Stop holding your nose in order to block out the stench of a rotting institution.

Stop letting the government and its agents treat you like a servant or a slave.

You’ve got rights. We’ve all got rights. This is our country. This is our government. No one can take it away from us unless we make it easy for them.

You’ve got a better chance of making your displeasure seen and felt and heard within your own community. But it will take perseverance and unity and a commitment to finding common ground with your fellow citizens.

Right now, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we’re making it way too easy for the police state to take over.

Stop being an accessory to the murder of the American republic.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Doctors are human and subject to human mistakes. Even doctors with exceptional “expert” credentials are still human and like all humans fallible. That’s why patients often seek a second or even third opinion from other expert physicians BEFORE implementing a treatment program. That’s especially true if said treatment is potentially life threatening or subject to severe side effects that may be as deadly as the illness itself.

The Mayo Clinic published a study three years ago with the headline, “Three Reasons Why Getting a Second Opinion is Worth it.” It said in part:

The study has found that more than 1 in 5 patients referred for a second opinion-for many different conditions-may have been incorrectly diagnosed by their health providers.

Dr. James Naessens, SC. D. of Mayo Clinic’s campus in Rochester, led the study that looked at medical records for 286 patients whose healthcare provider referred them to Mayo Clinic for a second opinion. Dr. Naessens found that 21% of the time the final diagnosis was completely different from the original diagnosis!

But the Mayo Clinic is not alone in their recommendation of second opinions. Here’s what the Cleveland Clinic has to say about second opinions:

When your health-and perhaps even your life-is at stake, we want to make sure you are making the most informed decision about your diagnosis and treatment plan. . .

Here’s what Johns Hopkins says about second opinions:

An accurate diagnosis is essential to ensure that the correct and most effective treatment is given. Getting a second opinion on a diagnosis can reverse a diagnosis or alter the treatment plan.

So the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins, some of the most highly respected, prestigious medical facilities in the world unanimously recommend second medical opinions.

Medical Malpractice

Somehow, the best medical advice from the nation’s most respected medical institutions recommending a second opinion was completely ignored when Covid-19 showed up. Instead, a handful of alleged government medical “experts” advised the political class to use illegal, unconstitutional powers to lockdown the nation, with the threat that millions would die if we didn’t obey their dictates.

So why did the political class, those elected by the people to represent the people’s interest, not insist on a second opinion? Why were they willing, some even eager, to ignore the peoples guaranteed Constitutional rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Why were they willing to ignore the best medical advice to seek a second opinion BEFORE destroying the livelihoods of millions of hardworking American’s?

It’s not like there were no independent medical experts sounding the alarm about the Covid fraud and the ridiculous mass hysteria being whipped up by the politicians and the media. Literally hundreds of highly credentialed medical experts across the globe are on record as to the absurdity of the actions recommended by government medical “experts”. One of those experts, Dr. John Ioannidis of Stanford University assembled a group of like-minded medical experts this past March to offer a second opinion to President Trump. They wanted him to know their professional assessment of Covid-19 was that yes it was a flu bug but locking down the nation was a ridiculously unnecessary move that could cause more harm than good.

Dr. Ioannidis said it was like an elephant being attacked by a house cat. Apparently President Trump gave in to his political advisors and ignored the second opinion advice of Dr. Ioannidis and his associates.

Instead President Trump should immediately convene a blue ribbon panel of independent medical experts with no ties to direct government funding or pharmaceutical control for a genuine second opinion. Then, act on their recommendations regardless of the hue and cry from the political class and their media enablers.

America needs a second opinion on Covid-19, and we need it acted on now!

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Featured image is from TRPIPP

The group that takes credit for the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011 has a new and even more outrageous plan in mind. They intend to “occupy” the White House.

Adbusters, an online magazine that describes itself as “a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age” issued a post that they called Tactical Briefing #1 to launch their plans to “lay siege” to the President’s home in Washington, DC. (Emphasis theirs)

It’s been nine years since we set off the political earthquake of #OccupyWallStreet, laying siege to NYC’s Zuccotti Park and inspiring thousands of similar protests around the world.

The Occupy anniversary arrives September 17th, 2020. And it may be the perfect day to trigger another global big-bang moment — a massive collective action of the sweetest kind of disobedience.

The why hardly needs recitation. Because, for these nine years, the shadows have only grown longer. Inequality has soared. Not a single Wall Street CEO spent a night in jail for his role in the 2008 financial meltdown. Politicians and corporate criminals continue to savage the public trust with impunity. And all the while, this howling void of a president, his sins too many to name, sits smugly atop a corona death-toll that may surpass two-hundred thousand Americans by Christmas.

It’s time again for dramatic, decisive action. Which is why, on September 17th, in the original and enduring spirit of Occupy, we and tens of thousands of our fellow citizens will stream into Lafayette Square, in Washington. D.C.

We will lay siege to the White House. And we will sustain it for exactly fifty days. This is the #WhiteHouseSiege.

A siege only works if it is sustained. We witnessed this — the multiplying power of a strategic occupation — nine years ago. You dig in, hold your ground, and the tension accumulates, amplifies, goes global.

Fifty days — September 17th to November 3rd.

Let us once again summon the sweet, revolutionary nonviolence that was our calling card in Zuccotti Park.

#WhiteHouseSiege will electrify the U.S. election season — and it doesn’t stop there. Drawing wind from #MeToo, #BLM, #ExtinctionRebellion, and protests against Trump’s lethal bungling of coronavirus, we’ll inspire a global movement of systemic change — a Global Spring — a cultural heave towards a new world order. (source)

It’s difficult to imagine that this will go down as they hope.

The public “briefing” repeatedly uses the word “non-violent,” but if this goes at all like the occupation in downtown Seattle or the protests in Portland (which has seen violent “protests” for 73 days straight now), violence is bound to occur. And it’s important to note that the law enforcement response to the occupation of anything near the President’s abode will be far more severe than the lackluster response in Seattle, where police officers and National Guard members have been basically neutered by the local government.

Twitter is divided

An event with the hashtag #WhiteHouseSiege is unlikely to go smoothly and non-violently. This, of course, will likely result in even more violence and more widespread outrage. Twitter is divided, unsurprisingly, on the questionable wisdom of such a move.

On September 17, 2020 we will lay siege to The @WhiteHouse for exactly fifty days.

We need your wisdom and expertise to pull off a radically democratic toneshift in our politics.

Are you ready for #revolution?

This is the #WhiteHouseSiege
🔥https://t.co/gWw8jDJC05 pic.twitter.com/bTxyLvl7a7

— Adbusters (@Adbusters) July 28, 2020

The Secret Service does not tolerate “protests” in front of the White House. They’re not the Portland Police and they’re not as kind as DHS. Anyone planning a #WhiteHouseSiege will be shot dead as soon as they cross the barricades.

— Jon (@RealJonJackson) August 9, 2020

On September 17, 2020 we will lay siege to The @WhiteHouse for exactly fifty days.

We need your wisdom and expertise to pull off a radically democratic toneshift in our politics.

Are you ready for #revolution?

This is the #WhiteHouseSiege
🔥https://t.co/gWw8jDJC05 pic.twitter.com/bTxyLvl7a7

— Adbusters (@Adbusters) July 28, 2020

Essential reading for the September 21 #WhiteHouseSiege https://t.co/Ro4WmJwEYw

— Adbusters (@Adbusters) August 4, 2020

Voting Method By Vote Intention:

Voting In Person:
Trump: 65%
Biden: 32%

Voting By Mail:
Biden: 76%
Trump: 20%

Emerson College / July 30, 2020 / n=964 / MOE 3.1% / Telephone/Online

— Polling USA (@USA_Polling) July 31, 2020

How do you think this is going to go over?

Activist groups are better funded and better organized than in recent memory. This event is likely to occur. However, I don’t think it will go over the way Adbusters thinks it will go over. I think that the Secret Service and possibly even the military will rapidly be involved to protect the President.

But it does set the tone for the upcoming presidential election, which up until now has seemed to be on a back burner. Biden’s campaign hasn’t even introduced a running mate yet and the election is a mere 3 months away. This is the least campaigned election year I’ve ever seen.

For those who plan to take part in the #WhiteHouseSiege, I hope that they understand this isn’t going to be a thing where they can stand around with their “comrades” and throw the occasional chunk of concrete. Washington DC is not like Seattle. It’s not like Portland. If they think they’re going to be part of something bigger and just defiantly sleep in a tent in front of the White House, I believe they may be in for an unpleasant shock. Any action taken against the White House will be met with a serious response.

For the rest of us, it’s important to note that this protest and the response to it could spark solidarity protests in other parts of the country. Go here to learn more about preparing for civil unrest.

What about you? Do you think this event will take place? What do you think the response will be like?

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Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging, gun-toting blogger who writes about current events, preparedness, frugality, voluntaryism, and the pursuit of liberty on her website, The Organic Prepper.

Featured image is by gary718 / Shutterstock

In Belarus presidential elections were held. According to the Central Election Committee, the turnout was quite high and amounted to about 84% of the population. The results of the exit poll confirm the victory of the current President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko.

The election campaign was marked by unprecedented administrative pressure and a huge number of provocations. Shortly before the elections in Minsk were held large-scale protests in support of the main opponent of A. Lukashenko, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. Also, the results of the elections caused disapproval among the population. Given the scale of mobilization of the opposition electorate, such a high percentage of those who voted for A. Lukashenko is suspicious. Svetlana Tikhonovskaya said that she considers herself the winner of the presidential election in Belarus, and her team demanded the peaceful transfer of power to the elected head of state.

“The government does not hear us, it is completely detached from the people, but I must repeat that we are for peaceful changes. And the authorities should now think about how to transfer this power in a peaceful way, because at the moment they have only one way — violence against peaceful Belarusians, ” Tihanovskaya said.

However, the election day in Belarus was not characterized by calm. After their completion, violent protests began on the streets. There are more and more videos on the Internet showing more and more large-scale confrontations with special police units involved in ensuring public order. Various news channels claim that hundreds of protesters took to the streets. At the same time, after analyzing of some videos, it becomes clear that many of them are staged stories.

For example, one of the first videos appeared on the Internet, which was titled as ” In Minsk, the police started detaining people. The surrounding people rushed to fight them off.»

В Минске ОМОН начал задерживать людей. Окружающие бросились их отбивать. pic.twitter.com/iP09NhID61

— TUT.BY (@tutby) August 9, 2020

The video shows a group of police officers consisting of about 9 people. Initially, they were forced to disperse in order to detain several people, and it was at this moment that allegedly “surrounding people” began to protect the protesters from the riot police.

Suspicions about the authenticity of the events on the video are primarily caused by the content of those “passers-by”, consisting exclusively of strong young men, most likely having no relation to the active electorate. With shouts of “let’s go at them!”, “Jackals!” about 20 people come on stage. As a result, about 20 men attack 9 police officers. The collision itself in the video lasts about 10 seconds, because most likely the attackers immediately ran away, for not to be detained.

Special praise is due to the work of the operator, who also seems to be not just a casual viewer, and has good skills with the camera. It is also heard on the video. that the exclamations of” protestors ” containing obscene language were carefully muted.

The slightest analysis of the video allows to conclude that everything was prepared, from the situation itself to the work of the video operator. Apparently, the police were provoked at a certain time and in the right place, where they were already waiting with cameras and prepared “passers-by”, ready to simulate a collision.

Similar suspicions are aroused by another video that has been widely distributed on social networks.

#Белорусь #Minsk

Лукашенко идиот, ты проиграл!!! Уходи. pic.twitter.com/jOJHvpqKLS

— Odmen Obradovich (@ObradovichOdmen) August 9, 2020

The video shows how provocateurs tear off their t-shirts and, on the orders of their supervisor, jump off and start provoking the police. The supervisor himself at this time, having given the order, tried to move away, so as not to be in the first poisons during the clashes. It can be seen that about 40 people participated in the production, and they were arranged in two rows so that their number visually seemed larger. For this purpose, the desired shooting angle is also selected.

Strangely, the video ends a few seconds after the collision, and another one shows the entrance to a shopping center located nearby. It appears that a group of protesters were ordered to run away and hide in the shopping center, which is an ideal escape route where they can easily get lost in the crowd. The video also shows the few people who the police managed to catch up and detain.

Such orchestrated situations are not uncommon and are conducted by competent social engineers. At the same time, the main task of such companies is to distribute the video as widely as possible on information platforms, in social networks and in the media.

Apparently, the provocative fake videos did their job, and hundreds of people took to the streets of Minsk. Various information sources claimed hundreds of thousands of protesters.

According to the head of the Investigative Committee of Belarus, I. Noskevich, mass unrest was observed both in Minsk and in other regions of the country. As a result of illegal actions, dozens of policemen were injured. There are also victims among the protesters. Participants of the riots used garbage containers, benches, sticks, cobblestones, fragments of paving slabs, glass bottles, as well as flammable liquids, Police officers used stun grenades and tear gas. There was the news about the deaths among the protestors that are still to be officially confirmed.

Most of the videos published on election day arouse suspicion. They have common features: they are quite short and in most cases they do not show the general plan, but only a local image. In almost all the videos, except for the general procession of protesters, we see only young strong men who act in a fairly organized manner.

The events in Minsk are very similar to what happened in Ukraine in 2014. There is manipulation of the position of a minority of the population that is dissatisfied with the results of the elections in order to organize mass riots and destabilize the situation in the country. However, the situations in two countries differ in several ways. In Belarus there are no prerequisites for the formation of an aggressive sub-ethnic group similar to the representatives of Western Ukraine. In contrast to Ukraine, nationalist movements, which could become the main force for the revolution, are comparatively inactive in Belarus. In order to carry out a coup, the assistance of at least of a part of the state’s military forces is required. If the Security Council supported the revolution in Ukraine, at the moment the Security Committee’s support for the protesters in Belarus seems unlikely. Thus, despite the efforts of social engineers who actively feed the revolutionary movement, a repeat of the “Maidan” in Belarus seems unlikely. However, a long term civil confrontation based on the discontent of some voters and fueled from the outside is quite likely.

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The Trudeau government, in concert with the Trump administration and right-wing regional governments throughout Latin America, was instrumental in the 2019 coup against Bolivia’s first Indigenous leader, Evo Morales.

Now-debunked claims of “irregularities” during the October 20 elections were used as a pretext for the crisis after the Washington, DC-based Organization of American States (OAS) conducted an audit showing results from the unofficial, preliminary vote count failed to secure Morales a first-round victory. In response, Canada said it would support the coup administration of Jeanine Añez, a far-right Christian fundamentalist. In 2013, Añez tweeted,

“I dream of a Bolivia without satanic indigenous rituals, the city isn’t made for indians, they need to go back to the countryside!”

On October 22, Canada was among those countries calling on the Permanent Council of the OAS to hold a special meeting on Bolivia. It took place two days later. The meeting provided the US Representative and Ambassador to the OAS, Carlos Trujillo, an opporutunity to repeat the narrative of “fraudulent” elections. At the same meeting, reported CommonDreams, the OAS—which gets 60 percent of its funding from the US government—refused to allow Jake Johnston, an analyst from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), to present the organization’s preliminary response, which accused the OAS audit of making blatant distortions regarding the October election.

On October 29, Prime Minister Trudeau posted a photo of himself with right-wing, Pinochet-era Chilean President Sebastián Piñera. A readout from the meeting indicated that the

“Prime Minister and the President exchanged views on key regional issues, including the importance of addressing people’s concerns around economic opportunity and inequalities. Prime Minister Trudeau also shared his concern about election irregularities in Bolivia. They welcomed the collaboration between Canada and Chile on a range of shared priorities, including efforts to address the crisis in Venezuela.”

That same day, Global Affairs Canada (GAC) issued a statement about “irregularities” during the Bolivian election, building “on the preliminary conclusions of the OAS Electoral Observer Mission which found that the electoral process did not comply with international standards.”

After organized violence by Bolivia’s rightist opposition forced the president and his Movement for Socialism (MAS) out of power, Morales resigned on November 10 and fled the country for Mexico. Subsequently, GAC issued a statement lauding the work of the OAS’s Electoral Observer Mission, concluding that the “will of the Bolivian people and the democratic process were not respected.”

The next day, President Trump joined the chorus, adding that the resignation of Morales represented “a significant moment for democracy in the Western Hemisphere.”

Canada followed suit. On November 14, GAC spokesperson John Babcock confirmed that Canada will work with the new interim administration—as long as it followed up on its commitment to hold new elections as soon as possible.

Following the coup, the situation in Bolivia changed overnight. The minority white, largely Christian elite stormed to power, removing the Indigenous Wiphala flag as the dual symbol of the country, and enabling the repression of MAS supporters in the streets.

In effect, the coup in Bolivia represents a concerted effort by the US-backed right-wing opposition to roll back the advances championed by Morales’s anti-imperialist government, and reinstall the power of the minority white elite. All of this was accomplished through brutal violence. In less than two weeks after the coup, 32 people were killed in protests, with more than 700 wounded.

On November 15, police and military forces opened fire on anti-coup protesters in Cochabamba (one of the nine departments of Bolivia), killing at least nine people and wounding many more. The Hospital México in nearby Sacaba received so many wounded protesters that it was treating victims outside the hospital building, exceeding its capacity. On November 19, eyewitnesses reported a military massacre at the Senkata gas plant in the Indigenous city of El Alto, and the tear-gassing of a peaceful funeral procession on November 21 to commemorate the dead:

In the Vinto municipality, one of the most disturbing attacks took place. An opposition mob, armed with sticks and stones and explosives, attacked the mayor’s office… The attackers set fire to the city hall and assaulted mayor Patricia Arce, of the MAS party. Arce was dragged down the street and forced to walk barefoot several kilometers. The attackers cut her hair and sprayed red paint on her body. They also abused and insulted her and forced her to say that she would leave office.

Meanwhile, the pretext of “fraudulent elections” was being questioned and refuted. The aforementioned CEPR report—co-authored by Guillaume Long—directly challenges the contention that the elections were fraudulent.

In addition, researchers from MIT’s Election Data and Science Lab, John Curiel and Jack Williams, published a fully documented report in the Washington Post indicating clearly that there was no fraud. The New York Times echoed these findings.

However, the OAS, the US and Canada did not acknowledge any of the revelations.

Now, the de facto government led by Áñez has postponed elections three times since March of this year.

Why is the coup government refusing to hold elections? According to polls, the leading MAS candidate, Luis Arce, would obtain 31.6 percent of the vote, followed by 17.1 percent for former president Carlos Mesa. Áñez, on the other hand, is supported by just 16.5 percent of Bolivians.

Despite calls from Canada and the US demanding elections “as soon as possible,” neither country has released any statements condemning the coup government for its inaction. Bolivia’s largest unions and social movements are currently leading a general strike to demand that the original election timetable be respected.

In the words of Bolivian journalist Ollie Vargas, who has been reporting from the country since shortly after the coup, the regime is currently “mobilizing paramilitary groups to attack protesters” in three regions.

Bolivia’s anti-coup uprising has been raging for a week. The regime is mobilizing paramilitary groups to attack protesters in 3 regions. However, the police & military have been almost absent (apart from in one small town). Lots of rumours that police are refusing to be deployed

— Ollie Vargas (@OVargas52) August 9, 2020

More recently, on August 9, Kawsachun News—the English language service of Radio Kawsachun Coca, a Cochabamba-based station of the National System of Original Peoples’ Radio (RPO), which was promoted by former President Morales—reported that Añez’s government is threatening to launch a wave of paramilitary attacks on pro-democracy protests.

Bolivian coup leader Fernando Camacho threatens to launch a wave of paramilitary attacks on pro-democracy protests. He’s ordered the regime to crush the protests immediately. If they fail to, he will mobilize the violent extremist groups that led the protests against Evo Morales. pic.twitter.com/l97w9T9rHG

— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) August 9, 2020

In response to the delay of general elections and the interim government’s failure to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 70 blockades have been organized by social groups and labour unions loyal to Morales.

So far, the Trudeau government has remained silent on the delayed elections, despite taking an active role in supporting the coup government and the OAS report last year. What right does Canada have to intervene in Bolivia’s internal affairs? What can we do here to oppose the Trudeau government’s policies in Latin America?

To address these questions, the Canadian Latin America Alliance and Canadian Foreign Policy Institute are co-organizing a talk for August 12 on Bolivia’s fight to restore democracy and Canada’s role. The event features former foreign minister of Ecuador, Guillaume Long, NDP MP Matthew Green, and Bolivian journalist Ollie Vargas. Register here. The event is sponsored by Canadian Dimension.

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Arnold August is a Montreal-based journalist and the author of three books on Cuba, Latin America, and US foreign policy. His articles have appeared in English, Spanish and French in North America, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East, including occasional contributions to Canadian Dimension where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Protest in Buenos Aries, Argentina against the coup in Bolivia, November 2019. Photo by Santiago Sito/Flickr.

Over the past days, Belarus, an eastern European state bordering with Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, has become a scene of a new regime change attempt on the territory of the former USSR.

On August 9, the country held presidential elections and saw a dramatic increase of activity of opposition forces. The mobilized opposition and the wide-scale pro-opposition campaign in international and local media that took place exploited the existing issues in the economic and social sphere of the country as well as the general dissatisfaction of a part of the population with the corruption and fossilized elites, represented by acting President Alexander Lukashenko.

Despite this, preliminary results showed that Lukashenko received approximately 80% of votes, while the opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya received about 10% of the ballots. Over 4% of voters chose the “against all candidates” option. The election turnout was 84.23%. Even if one imagines mass falsifications during the election process, that may lead to a 15-20% increase of the result of Lukashenko, the election became a major failure for opposition forces.

Nevertheless, the history of various coups around the world demonstrates that a consolidated and well-coordinated aggressive minority can seize power if it faces no proper response to its actions from the government. Such situation happened during the so-called ‘Maidan’ coup in Ukraine in 2014, when an aggressive group of radical nationalists supported by foreign forces exploited the criminal inaction of the Yanukovich government. The overwhelming majority of the population did not support the coup and the further violence that expanded throughout Ukraine. Nonetheless, the silent majority became a victim of the aggressive and vocal minority.

No surprise, the opposition immediately declared the election rigged and did not recognize its results. Violent protests started in Minsk and other large cities of Belarus. On August 9 and August 10, the protests strike force, led by radical Belarusian nationalists and leftist Antifa groups, clashed with police throwing at them rocks, bottles and beating isolated police officers. Well-coordinated mobile groups of protesters tried to block local voting places and allegedly threw at least several petrol bombs at security personnel. However, reports about the usage of so-called Molotov cocktails are yet to be confirmed.

Security forces responded with an increase of security measures across the country, the establishment of additional checkpoints and the usage of tear gas and rubber bullets. According to the country’s Ministry of the Interior, dozens of police officers and protesters were injured in the clashes. Authorities also said that a protester died from wounds received when an explosive device blew up in his hand. He was allegedly planning to throw it at security forces.

A network of social media accounts, many of them operated from places outside Belarus, like Poland and the Baltic states, with support from mainstream media outlets try to paint the picture of the total collapse of the government, releasing instructions for rioters, personal data of police officers, and spreading fake news about Lukashenko supposedly fleeing Belarus. A special topic covered by these media outlets is the use of violence against the allegedly peaceful protesters. How groups of radicals provoking and attacking  police officers could be peaceful remains out of the question. Pro-coup media also promote the idea of national-wide strike starting on August 11.

At the same time, according to local sources and evidence from the site of clashes, the Belarusian law enforcement has demonstrated a high motivation to act decisively in their effort to stop the spread of the chaos. President Lukashenko, regardless the criticism of his economic or political strategies, apparently learnt the lessons of history and is taking active steps to prevent the coup.

The United States and the European Union already declared the elections in Belarus ‘unfair’ and ‘not independent’. As of August 11, the main Belarusian opposition candidate, Tikhanovskaya, and several top members of her campaign fled to Lithuania, from where they are making loud statements calling for what she calls ‘revolution’.

The pro-Western, neo-liberal part of the Russian opposition also held a rally in support of the coup attempt in Belarus in the front of the Belarusian embassy in Moscow.

Just a few weeks ago, Lukashenko was publicly flirting with Washington & Co and making anti-Russian statements. With the start of the election crisis, his new friends immediately betrayed him and in fact support the ongoing coup attempt. This once again demonstrated that arrangements with the Washington establishment and the European bureaucrats are not worth a row of beans.

The dividing line between constructive national forces and the coalition of various neo-liberal, pro-Western factions and radical nationalists financed by the West and trying to seize the power by any means once again became especially evident.

If the so-called ‘supporters of democracy’ achieve a victory, the area of instability currently localized in Ukraine will expand into Belarus and may ignite fires in all over eastern Europe, including the European part of Russia.

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I’m writing this article today because a courageous family needs your help — and their struggle for justice offers what I believe is the best opportunity the 9/11 Truth Movement has ever had to break through on a global scale.

The family of Geoffrey Thomas Campbell — a British man who died at the age of 31 in the North Tower — plans to file a petition on the upcoming anniversary of 9/11 to reopen the inquest into the murder of their loved one. This will be the first step toward having the official cause of death changed to reflect that Geoff was killed in the explosive demolition of one of the Twin Towers.

Geoff’s family, led by his mother Maureen and brother Matt, urgently need your help to raise $100,000 by September 1 so that they can afford to bring this case before the Attorney General and the High Court of England and Wales.

Will you donate now so that the Campbell family can file this petition and take the first giant step toward achieving truth and justice for the entire world?

Your gift today will enable Geoff’s family to hire one of the United Kingdom’s leading barristers in the area of public inquiries and inquests to make the case based on the overwhelming scientific evidence that the Twin Towers were destroyed by explosive demolition.

For a new inquest to be ordered, the Campbells only need to show that the coroner in the first inquest did not have all the material facts and that the new evidence may change the original verdict.

The reopening of Geoff’s inquest provides a uniquely promising opportunity to establish in a court of law that the destruction of the Twin Towers was caused by pre-planted explosives and incendiaries — and not by the impact of the airplanes, as cited in the first inquest.

Remember, you must give by September 1 to ensure that the Campbells can bring this case to court. Please give generously to this most worthy endeavor.

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The political crisis in Belarus is getting worse day after day. As a result of elections in the country, a violent wave of protests began in several cities. The focus of the demonstrations is Minsk, the country’s capital. In the most violent night so far, 40 more policemen and 50 civilians were injured, some seriously. More than 1,000 were arrested, according to data from the Ministry of Interior.

The western media is doing a great coverage of the events, however, the news are always published with a strong ideological rhetoric, in which Aleksandr Lukashenko (elected for a new mandate with 80% of the votes) is appointed as a “terrible dictator”, against who, according to media agencies, there is a major popular uprising. The truth, however, is that the situation is much more complex than that and it is not a mere conflict between dictatorship and democracy, but a real geopolitical clash.

Lukashenko accused Poland, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom of coordinating the protests in Belarus. This Monday at a meeting with the head of the Commonwealth of Independent States observation mission, Sergei Lebedev, Lukashenko said he had found links between the protesters and the authorities in these three countries, saying the groups involved in the protests were controlled by foreign nations. According to the Belarusian leader, these three European countries continue to order people to leave and negotiate with the authorities the voluntary surrender of power. Lukashenko went further and assured that there are also forces in the protests in Russia and Ukraine, giving no details on how he would have access to such information.

For its part, the Polish government has denied the allegations of being behind the protests, saying that these are unfounded and unproven allegations. The country’s foreign minister, Jacek Czaputowicz, said that the European Union is debating the approval of sanctions against Lukashenko, while the prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, demanded an urgent meeting of the European Council, but involvement in the demonstrations was not admitted. The United Kingdom and the Czech Republic have yet to comment on the serious accusations. In line with Poland, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described the violent unrest in Minsk as “cruel reprisals against peaceful demonstrators”, while European Council chief Charles Michel demanded policies from Lukashenko to guarantee freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and fundamental human rights.

In Russia, Vladimir Putin congratulated Lukashenko on his re-election and said he was committed to promoting relations between the two countries – relations that have been overshadowed since the end of July by the arrest of about thirty Russian citizens in Belarus, where they would have arrived to organize riots during the electoral campaign, which prompted Lukashenko’s harsh pronouncements about Russia. However, a recent journalistic investigation revealed that these people were the victims of a covert operation by the Ukrainian intelligence service, whose aim was precisely to destabilize ties between Moscow and Minsk. Belarus’ authorities continue to investigate the case.

One fact that seems to be being ignored by all analysts who have commented on the case so far, however, is the fact that the West has long been interested in carrying out a coup in Belarus. Lukashenko is commonly referred to among Western politicians and academics as “the last dictator in Europe” and his policies are highly disapproved in any western country. Still, the historical ties between Belarus and Russia are very disturbing to the Western powers, mainly the US, which see in the alliance between the two countries a great threat to the western strategy for Europe.

In 2019, RAND Corporation, one of the largest Western think tanks, published a document in which it openly defended Belarus’ political destabilization through a colorful revolution or similar means, with the explicit aim of delivering a strategic blow against Russia. Western strategists – American and European – consider it important to neutralize Minsk in order to move forward with a siege agenda against Russia. In the publication, it is suggested that, before resorting to more aggressive means, such as a color revolution, the US should offer financial support to Belarus and try to encourage a break in ties with Moscow through diplomatic means, considering that Russia could take the maneuver in Belarus as offensive and organize harsh responses.

Little is known so far and it is difficult to predict what the situation in Belarus will look like from then on, however, whether or not there is foreign coordination behind these protests, it is necessary to consider the explicit fact that the West wants to neutralize Belarus as a National State to prevent a closer relationship between Minsk and Russia. It may not be happening now, but most likely a color revolution scenario will be fostered in Belarus in order to transform the country into a “new Ukraine”.

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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

Western media – after claiming recent protests in Thailand were “leaderless” and comprised of “students,” decries arrest of US-funded lawyer leading them – never mentions US funding. 

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The Western media was quick to decry the arrest of 34 year-old lawyer Anon Nampa who has been leading recent anti-government protests in Thailand.

Articles like, “Two protesters arrested, more sought,” noted Anon Nampa faces charges including sedition. The Western media cites an organization – Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) – noting its role in advocating for Anon Nampa’s release, but never notes that Anon Nampa himself works for TLHR or who funds and supports TLHR.

TLHR and the Protests it Leads Are US-Funded – Funding the Media Refuses to Mention 

TLHR was created out of the US Embassy in 2014 just two days after a coup ousted the US-backed client regime of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra – sister of fugitive billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra. TLHR has since protested both the coup and reforms enacted to ensure such a client regime could no longer take power.

Prachatai – a media front also funded by the US State Department via the notorious National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – in an article titled, “Interview with Head of Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, on receiving human rights award from French Embassy,” would reveal the creation of TLHR, quoting TLHR founder Yaowalak Anupan who claimed:

…on 24 May [2014], we gathered and established the Thai Lawyers for Human Rights. All of the lawyers are anti-coup. At first most of us were young lawyers, and the senior lawyers joined later.

As to TLHR’s supporters, Yaowalak Anupan would admit:

We have to thank many organizations which support us, such as iLaw, Cross Cultural Foundation, International Commission of Jurists, United Nations, European Union, British Embassy, Canadian Embassy, among others. 

“Among others” funding and supporting TLHR includes NED itself. Until recently, this funding was openly disclosed on NED’s website but has since been erased. TLHR itself refuses to disclose its funding on its website though it has been admitted in earlier articles about the front.

Bangkok Post in a 2016 article titled, “The lawyer preparing to defend herself,” would admit:

…[TLHR] receives all its funding from international donors including the EU, Germany and US-based human rights organisations and embassies of the UK and Canada.

In addition to the award presented by the French Embassy, the US State Department awarded TLHR member  Sirikan “June” Charoensiri the 2018 “International Women of Courage Award” presented by US First Lady Melania Trump.

The US embassy in Bangkok openly praised TLHR in its own post celebrating the award, exclaiming:

The U.S. Embassy in Bangkok is proud of Sirikan “June” Charoensiri’s work as a lawyer and human rights defender, and for being recognized by the Secretary of State as an International Women of Courage award recipient.

Ms. Sirikan is a co-founder of Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR), a lawyers’ collective set up to provide pro bono legal services for human rights cases and to document human rights violations.

With the US, France, UK, and Canada guilty of the worst human rights abuses of the 21st century including the invasion of Iraq, the destruction of Libya, the proxy war against the nation of Syria, and the arming of nations like Saudi Arabia in its war on Yemen declared by the UN as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world – among others – all done under the thin smokescreen of addressing humanitarian concerns – Washington’s creation and support of TLHR and the street protests they now lead in Thailand serves ulterior motives merely hiding behind “human rights” concerns and “pro-democracy” demands.

What are these motives?

The Protests Aren’t “Pro-Democracy,” They are Anti-Chinese

US-Chinese tensions have seen an uptick in recent years through a series of confrontations including in the South China Sea and through a growing “trade war.” But simmering just out of view is a series of covert regime change operations the US is organizing both inside China’s own territory and against China’s closest allies throughout Asia.

This includes in the Kingdom of Thailand – the second largest economy in Southeast Asia, with a population of nearly 70 million, and who in recent years has expanded ties with China through a series of major arms deals, joint military exercises, increases in trade and investment, as well as through joint infrastructure projects extending Beijing’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative deep into Southeast Asia.

Thailand has begun replacing its aging US military hardware with new Chinese systems including VT4 main battle tanks, armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, naval vessels including Thailand’s first modern submarines as well as joint defense projects like the DTI-1 guided missile launcher.

Thailand has also openly and repeatedly refused to join the US in placing pressure on Beijing regarding the South China Sea. Thailand likewise refused to heed US demands to allow suspected Uyghur terrorists to travel through Thai territory and instead extradited them back to China – a move that resulted in the deadly 2015 bombing in Thailand’s capital aimed at Chinese tourists.

In addition to growing military, economic, and political ties, Thailand is jointly building high-speed rail lines to extend China’s OBOR initiative from China, through Laos in the north, through Thailand, and to Malaysia and Singapore to the south. Once completed passengers and cargo will be able to move overland to and from China at unprecedented rates and volumes – cementing China’s position as the regions central economic power – replacing the US permanently.

Unable to compete on equal terms economically, the US has instead turned to political subversion.

It has backed political opposition parties who have openly pledged to role back Thai-Chinese relations in favor of renewed obedience to Washington.

This includes political parties like Pheu Thai led by fugitive billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra and Move Forward (formally Future Forward) led by nepotist billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit.

Articles like Bloomberg’s “Thailand needs hyperloop, not China-built high-speed rail: Thanathorn,” illustrates clearly the agenda US-backed political parties and leaders like Thanathorn represent. The article would note:

A tycoon turned politician who opposes Thailand’s military government has criticised its US$5.6 billion high-speed rail project with China because hyperloop technology offers a more modern alternative.

It should be noted that not only does the “hyperloop” exist only as crude prototypes versus China’s high-speed rail technology already moving billions of people a year – the Thai-Chinese high-speed rail line is already under construction.

Thus – Thanathorn’s proposed reversal would mean cancelling actual ongoing construction and waiting years if not indefinitely for theoretical “hyperloop” technology to be developed let alone deployed.

Thanathorn – unsurprisingly – is also a critic of Thai military spending since much of it is directed toward Chinese hardware replacing the US as Thailand’s primary arms supplier.

What’s more is that Thanathorn and his “Move Forward” party is merely an extension of Thaksin Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai Party with both parties’ headquarters literally next door to each other on Bangkok’s Phetchaburi Road. Both parties have identical political platforms and demands, and Thaksin Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai even nominated Thanathorn as their candidate for prime minister in 2019.

Both parties support and have even participated in recent anti-government protests.

In addition to backing these political parties, the US has funded a small army of fronts posing as human rights nongovernmental organizations and media platforms through the notorious NED and corporate-funded foundations like Open Society.

As Thailand works to remove US-backed political parties like Pheu Thai and Move Forward further away from the levers of power, US-backed fronts have begun organizing Hong Kong-style anti-government protests in the streets.

The Western media and their partners in Thailand have eagerly depicted these protests as “leaderless,” “organic,” “student” protests.

In reality, the leaders are very visible, appearing at each protest and organized by central fronts including “Free Youth” and the “Student Union of Thailand.”

The “Student Union of Thailand” (SUT) includes notoriously anti-Chinese “activist” Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal who has ignored current, ongoing abuses by Western governments by accepting dinner invitations from Western embassies while protesting in front of the Chinese embassy annually over the Tiananmen Square incident which occured years before he was even born.

Netiwit and others in the SUT are also part of the so-called “Milk Tea Alliance” comprised of online “activists” from Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Thailand who have all “coincidentally” adopted the US State Department’s stance on issues like the South China Sea, allegations made by the West regarding Xinjiang and Tibet in China, and support for US-backed unrest in places like Hong Kong.

Netiwit (right) drinking wine at the British Embassy, Bangkok Thailand in 2017. While Netiwit protests in front of China’s embassy annually over the Tiananmen incident which occured years before he was born, he appears more than willing to look the other way regarding ongoing US-British abuses including wars of aggression carried out on a global scale.  

Netiwit had even invited Hong Kong’s US-backed opposition leader Joshua Wong to Thailand to participate in political activities there.

The South China Morning Post in an article titled, “Thai activist invites Hong Kong’s Joshua Wong to address Bangkok students,” would admit:

Netiwit Chotipatpaisal, a 20-year-old political science student, believes Thailand may see an Occupy-like movement in a few years’ time and has invited Wong to speak in Bangkok.

So while ongoing protests in Thailand pretend to be “leaderless,” made up of “students,” and championing the causes of “human rights” and “democracy” – they are the product of US government funding in the service of a regionally anti-Chinese agenda and part of Washington’s wider bid to continue its primacy both in Asia and globally.

Only by ignoring US funding and the implications of “human rights activists” taking money from currently the worst human rights offender on Earth can Thailand’s protests be depicted as anything other than another chapter in Washington’s long history of backing covert regime change against a nation the US deems has drifted too far from its orbit and too closely to one of its competitors.

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This article was originally published on Land Destroyer Report.

Tony Cartalucci is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from LDR unless otherwise stated

“The mask is just as detrimental to society as vaccinations,” says Rose Davidson in a viral video. “One is more physical and more immediate in its damage. And then the mask is a more slow, creeping, incremental bringing on of the dumbing down of society and ultimate compliance.”

I agree with Davidson that the mask dictate appears to be a clever step towards “ultimate compliance;” but is it really “bringing on the dumbing down of society?” Rather I suspect that blind submission to unscientific masking policies is a product, rather than a cause, of the dumbing down of society.

John Taylor Gatto was a recipient of the New York State Teacher of the Year Award. In his book, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, he apologetically writes:

“Good students wait for a teacher to tell them what to do. This is the most important lesson of them all: we must wait, for other people, better trained than ourselves, to make the meanings of our lives. The expert makes all the important choices; only I, the teacher, can determine what my kids must study, or rather, only the people who pay me can make those decisions, which I then enforce…. Curiosity has no important place in my work, only conformity.”

Bestselling medical writer Dr. Vernon Coleman made a similar argument in a recent article:

“[Mask wearers] have never been properly educated; they are content to believe what they are told or what they read on a lavatory wall… The education process devised by the United Nations over the last few decades has been designed to enforce a belief in collectivism. And that is what has happened.”

I think this is important to keep in mind when dealing with the people who believe mask wearing is saving lives. After all, someone with a stethoscope on the news told them so. Most people (including doctors, I suspect) have never actually read a single study (no less these seven) on the effectiveness of mask wearing.

Next post, I’ll talk about how we might be able to use this mask farce to bring on the smartening up of society.

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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 Daily 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 novella, COVID-27: A Dystopian Love Story. Visit his website at: MuchAdoAboutCorona.ca. 

Featured image: A woman wearing a face mask is seen in the subway in Milan, Italy, March 2, 2020.(Photo by Daniele Mascolo/Xinhua)

It is simply astonishing that the first attempt by the Guardian – the only major British newspaper styling itself as on the liberal-left – to properly examine the contents of a devastating internal Labour party report leaked in April is taking place nearly four months after the 860-page report first came to light.

If you are a Labour party member, the Guardian is the only “serious”, big-circulation paper claiming to represent your values and concerns.

One might therefore have assumed that anything that touches deeply on Labour party affairs – on issues of transparency and probity, on the subversion of the party’s democratic structures, on abuses or fraud by its officials – would be of endless interest to the paper. One might have assumed it would wish both to dedicate significant resources to investigating such matters for itself and to air all sides of the ensuing debate to weigh their respective merits.

My latest: Labour's explosive leaked report, showing how party officials plotted to destroy Corbyn, including by weaponising antisemitism, is being quietly swept under the carpet by the media and Labour's new leader Keir Starmer https://t.co/1m7WfRobhn

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) April 16, 2020

Not a bit of it. For months, the leaked report and its implications have barely registered in the Guardian’s pages. When they have, the coverage has been superficial and largely one-sided – the side that is deeply hostile to its former leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

That very much fits a pattern of coverage of the Corbyn years by the paper, as I have tried to document. It echoes the paper’s treatment of an earlier scandal, back in early 2017, when an undercover Al-Jazeera reporter filmed pro-Israel Labour activists working with the Israeli embassy to damage Corbyn from within. A series of shocking reports by Al-Jazeera merited minimal coverage from the Guardian at the time they were aired and then immediately sank without trace, as though they were of no relevance to later developments – most especially, of course, the claims by these same groups of a supposed “antisemitism crisis” in Labour.

Sadly, the latest reports by the Guardian on the leaked report –presented as an “exclusive” – do not fundamentally change its long-running approach.

Kicked into the long grass 

In fact, what the paper means by an “exclusive” is that it has seen documents responding to the leaked report that were submitted by Corbyn and his team to the Forde inquiry – Labour’s official investigation into that report and the circumstances of its leaking. The deadline for submissions to Martin Forde QC arrived last week. 

Setting up the Forde inquiry was the method by which Corbyn’s successor, Keir Starmer, hoped to kick the leaked report into the long grass till next year. Doubtless Starmer believes that by then the report will be stale news and that he will have had time to purge from the party, or at least intimidate into silence, the most outspoken remnants of Corbyn’s supporters.

Corbyn’s submission on the leaked report is an “exclusive” for the Guardian only because no one in the corporate media bothered till now to cover the debates raging in Labour since the leak four months ago. The arguments made by Corbyn and his supporters, so prominent on social media, have been entirely absent from the so-called “mainstream”.

When Corbyn finally got a chance to air the issues raised by the leaked report in a series of articles on the Middle East Eye website, its coverage went viral, underscoring how much interest there is in this matter among Labour members.

Nonetheless, despite desperately needing clicks and revenue in this especially difficult time for the corporate media, the Guardian is still spurning revelatory accounts of Corbyn’s time in office by his former team.

One published last week – disclosing that, after winning the leadership election, Corbyn arrived to find the leader’s offices gutted, that Labour HQ staff refused to approve the hiring of even basic staff for him, and that disinformation was constantly leaked to the media – was relegated to the OpenDemocracy website.

Corbyn's team arrived to find the leadership's offices gutted, Labour HQ refused to approve the hiring of even basic staff, and disinformation was constantly leaked to the media.

An insider recounts how the Blairites waged war on Corbyn from day one https://t.co/KCROnquXto

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) August 7, 2020

That Joe Ryle, a Corbyn team insider, either could not find a home for his insights in the Guardian or didn’t even try says it all – because much of the disinformation he laments being peddled to the media ended up in the Guardian, which was only too happy to amplify it as long as it was harming Corbyn.

A political coup 

Meanwhile, everything in the Guardian’s latest “exclusive” confirms what has long been in the public realm, via the leaked report.

Through its extensive documentation of WhatsApp messages and emails, the report shows conclusively that senior Labour officials who had dominated the party machine since the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown eras – and were still loyal to the party’s centre-right incarnation as New Labour – worked at every turn to oust Corbyn from the leadership. They even tried to invent ways to bar him from standing in a rerun leadership election a year later, in 2016, after Owen Smith, the Labour right’s preferred candidate, challenged him.

Corbyn and his supporters were viewed as dangerous “Trots” – to use a derisive term that dominates those exchanges. 

The messages show these same officials did their level best to sabotage Labour’s 2017 general election campaign – an election that Corbyn was less than 3,000 votes from winning. Party officials starved marginal seats Corbyn hoped to win of money and instead focused resources on MPs hostile to Corbyn. It seems they preferred a Tory win if it gave momentum to their efforts to rid the party of Corbyn.

Or, as the submission notes:

“It’s not impossible that Jeremy Corbyn might now be in his third year as a Labour prime minister were it not for the unauthorised, unilateral action taken by a handful of senior party officials.”

The exchanges in the report also show that these officials on the party’s right privately gave voice to horrifying racism towards other party members, especially black members of the party loyal to Corbyn.

And the leaked report confirms the long-running claims of Corbyn and his team that the impression of “institutional antisemitism” in Labour – a narrative promoted in the corporate media without any actual evidence beyond the anecdotal – had been stoked by the party’s rightwing, Blairite officials.

They appear to have delayed and obstructed the handling of the small number of antisemitism complaints – usually found by trawling through old social media posts – to embarrass Corbyn and make the “antisemitism crisis” narrative appear more credible.

Corbyn’s team have pointed out that these officials – whose salaries were paid by the membership, which elected Corbyn as party leader – cheated those members of their dues and their rights, as well as, of course, subverting the entire democratic process. The submission rightly asks the inquiry to consider whether the money spent by Labour officials to undermine Corbyn “constituted fraudulent activity”.

One might go even further and argue that what they did amounted to a political coup.

Bogus ‘whistleblower’ narrative 

Even now, as the Guardian reports on Corbyn’s submission to the Forde inquiry, it has downplayed the evidence underpinning his case, especially on the antisemitism issue – which the Guardian played such a key role in weaponising in the first place.

The paper’s latest coverage treats the Corbyn “claims” sceptically, as though the leaked report exists in a political vacuum and there are no other yardsticks by which the truth of its evidence or the plausibility of its claims can be measured.

Let’s start with one illustrative matter. The Guardian, as with the rest of the corporate media, even now avoids drawing the most obvious conclusion from the leaked report.

Racism was endemic in the language and behaviours of Labour’s senior, rightwing officials, as shown time and again in the WhatsApp messages and emails.

And yet it is these very same officials – those who oversaw the complaints procedure as well as the organisation of party headquarters – who, according to the corporate media narrative, were so troubled by one specific kind of racism, antisemitism, that they turned it into the biggest, most enduring crisis facing Corbyn during his five-year tenure as leader.

To accept the corporate media narrative on this supposed “antisemitism crisis”, we must ignore several things:

• The lack of any statistical evidence of a specific antisemitism problem in Labour; 
• the vehement racism expressed by Labour officials, as well as their overt and abiding hostility to Corbyn; 
• moves by party officials forcing Corbyn to accept a new definition of antisemitism that shifted the focus from a hatred of Jews to criticism of Israel; 
• and the fact that the handling of antisemitism complaints dramatically improved once these rightwing officials were removed from their positions. 

And yet in its latest reporting, as with its earlier coverage, the Guardian simply ignores all this confirmatory evidence.

There are several reasons for this, as I have documented before, but one very obvious one is this: the Guardian, like the rest of the British media, had worked hard to present former officials on the right of the party as brave “whistleblowers” long before they were exposed by the leaked report.

Like the BBC’s much-criticised Panorama “investigation” last year into Labour’s alleged “antisemitism crisis”, the Guardian took the claims of these former staff – of their supposed selfless sacrifice to save the party from anti-Jewish bigots – at face value.

My latest: With last night's Panorama programme on supposed 'institutional anti-semitism' in Labour, the BBC demonstrated that it has become a media attack dog in the hands of the ruling Conservative party https://t.co/dSDaaLBY0S

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) July 11, 2019

In fact, it was likely even worse than that. The Guardian and BBC weren’t just passive, neutral recipients of the disinformation offered by these supposed “whistleblowers”. They shared the Labour right’s deep antipathy to Corbyn and everything he stood for, and as a result almost certainly served as willing, even enthusiastic channels for that disinformation.

The Guardian hardly bothers to conceal where its sympathies lie. It continues to laud Blair from beyond the political grave and, while Corbyn was leader, gave him slots in its pages to regularly lambast Corbyn and scaremonger about Labour’s “takeover” by the supposedly “extreme” and “hard” left. The paper did so despite the fact that Blair had grown ever more discredited as evidence amassed that his actions in invading Iraq in 2003 were crimes against humanity.

Were the Guardian to now question the narrative it promoted about Corbyn – a narrative demolished by the leaked report – the paper would have to admit several uncomfortable things:

that for years it was either gulled by, or cooperated with, the Blairites’ campaign of disinformation;

• that it took no serious steps to investigate the Labour right’s claims or to find out for itself what was really going on in Labour HQ; 
• that it avoided cultivating a relationship with Corbyn’s team while he was in office that would have helped it to ascertain more effectively what was happening inside the party; 
• or that, if it did cultivate such a relationship (and, after all, Seumas Milne took up his post as Corbyn’s chief adviser immediately after leaving the Guardian), it consistently and intentionally excluded the Corbyn team’s account of events in its reporting. 

To now question the narrative it invested so much energy in crafting would risk Guardian readers drawing the most plausible conclusion for their paper’s consistent reporting failures: that the Guardian was profoundly opposed to Corbyn becoming prime minister and allowed itself, along with the rest of the corporate media, to be used as channel for the Labour right’s disinformation.

Stabbed in the back 

None of that has changed in the latest coverage of Corbyn’s submission to Forde concerning the leaked report.

The Guardian could not realistically ignore that submission by the party’s former leader and his team. But the paper could – and does – strip out the context on which the submission was based so as not to undermine or discredit its previous reporting against Corbyn.

Its main article on the Corbyn team’s submission becomes a claim and counter-claim story, with an emphasis on an unnamed former official arguing that criticism of him and other former staff at Labour HQ is nothing more than a “mythical ‘stab in the back’ conspiracy theory”.

The problem is that there are acres of evidence in the leaked report that these officials did stab Corbyn and his team in the back – and, helpfully for the rest of us, recorded some of their subversive, anti-democratic activities in private internal correspondence between themselves. Anyone examining those message chains would find it hard not to conclude that these officials were actively plotting against Corbyn.

To discredit the Corbyn team’s submission, the Labour right would need to show that these messages were invented. They don’t try to do that because those messages are very obviously only too real.

Instead they have tried two different, inconsistent strategies. First, they have argued that their messages were presented in a way that was misleading or misrepresented what they said. This claim does not hold water, given that the leaked report includes very lengthy, back-and-forth exchanges between senior staff. The context of those exchanges is included – context the officials themselves provided in their messages to each other.

Second, the self-styled “whistleblowers” now claim that publication of their messages – documenting efforts to undermine Corbyn – violates their right to privacy and breaches data protection laws. They can apparently see no public interest in publishing information that exposes their attempts to subvert the party’s internal democratic processes.

It seems that these “whistleblowers” are more committed to data concealment than exposure – despite the title they have bestowed on themselves. This is a strange breed of whistleblower indeed, one that seeks to prevent transparency and accountability.

In a telling move, despite claiming that their messages have been misrepresented, these former officials want the Forde inquiry to be shut down rather than given the chance to investigate their claims and, assuming they are right, exonerate them.

Further, they are trying to intimidate the party into abandoning the investigation by threatening to bankrupt it through legal actions for breaching their privacy. The last thing they appear to want is openness and a proper accounting of the Corbyn era.

Shrugging its shoulders 

In its latest reporting, the Guardian frames the leaked report as “clearly intended to present a pro-Corbyn narrative for posterity” – as though the antisemitism narrative the Guardian and the rest of the corporate media spent nearly five years crafting and promoting was not clearly intended to do the precise opposite: to present an anti-Corbyn narrative for posterity.

Peter Walker, the paper’s political correspondent, describes the messages of former, rightwing Labour officials as “straying” into “apparent” racism and misogyny, as though the relentless efforts revealed in these exchanges to damage and undermine prominent black MPs like Diane Abbott are open to a different interpretation.

Officials at the very top of @UKLabour said stuff like “Abbott is truly repulsive” “Abbott literally makes me sick” and conspired with media against me. Now claiming remarks taken out of context. So let’s have full publication of all communications #LabourLeaks

— Diane Abbott MP (@HackneyAbbott) August 7, 2020

According to Walker, the report’s evidence of election-scuppering in 2017 is “circumstantial” and “there is seemingly no proof of active obstruction”. Even assuming that were true, such a deficiency could easily be remedied had the Guardian, with all its staff and resources, made even the most cursory effort to investigate the leaked report’s claims since April – or in the years before, when the Corbyn team were trying to counter the disinformation spread by the Labour right.

The Guardian largely shrugs its shoulders, repeatedly insinuating that all this constitutes little more than Labour playground bickering. Starmer is presented as school principal – the one responsible adult in the party – who, we are told, is “no stranger to managing Labour factions”.

The Guardian ignores the enormous stakes in play both for Labour members who expected to be able to shape the party’s future using its supposedly democratic processes and for the very functioning of British democracy itself. Because if the leaked report is right, the British political system looks deeply rigged: there to ensure that only the establishment-loving right and centre-right ever get to hold power.

The Guardian’s approach suggests that the paper has abdicated all responsibility for either doing real journalism on its Westminster doorstep or for acting as a watchdog on the British political system.

Guardian hypocrisy 

Typifying the hypocrisy of the Guardian and its continuing efforts to present itself a hapless bystander rather than active participant in efforts to disrupt the Labour party’s internal democratic processes and sabotage the 2017 and 2019 elections is its lead columnist Jonathan Freedland.

Outside of the Guardian’s editorials, Freedland’s columns represent the closest we have to a window on the ideological soul of the paper. He is a barometer of the political mood there.

Freedland was among the loudest and most hostile opponents of Corbyn throughout his time as leader. Freedland was also one of the chief purveyors and justifiers of the fabled antisemitism narrative against Corbyn.

He, and the rightwing Jewish Chronicle he also writes for, gave these claims an official Jewish seal of approval. They trumpeted the narrow, self-serving perspective of Jewish organisations like the Board of Deputies, whose leaders are nowadays closely allied with the Conservative party.

They amplified the bogus claims of the Jewish Labour Movement, a tiny, pro-Israel organisation inside Labour that was exposed – though the Guardian, of course, never mentions it – as effectively an entryist group, and one working closely with the Israeli embassy, in that detailed undercover investigation filmed by Al-Jazeera.

Freedland and the Chronicle endlessly derided Jewish groups that supported Corbyn, such as Jewish Voice for Labour, Just Jews and Jewdas, with antisemitic insinuations that they were the “wrong kind of Jews”. Freedland argued that strenuous criticism of Israel was antisemitic by definition because Israel lay at the heart of any proper Jew’s identity.

New video from #JustJews: Jews have never spoken with just one voice. #BoardofDeputies #ManyJewishVoices pic.twitter.com/KSpyy8Sqcw

— Just Jews (@JustJewsUK) August 6, 2020

It did not therefore matter whether critics could show that Israel was constitutionally racist – a state similar to apartheid South Africa – as many scholars have done. Freedland argued that Jews and Israel were all but indistinguishable, and to call Israel racist was to malign Jews who identified with it. (Apparently unaware of the Pandora’s box such a conflation opened up, he rightly – if inconsistently – claimed that it was antisemitic for anyone to make the same argument in reverse: blaming Jews for Israel’s actions.)

Freedland pushed hard for Labour to be forced to adopt that new, troubling definition of antisemitism, produced by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, that shifted the focus away from hatred of Jews to criticism of Israel. Under this new definition, claims that Israel was “a racist endeavour” – a view shared by some prominent Israeli scholars – was treated as definitive proof of antisemitism.

One-party politics 

If anyone gave the weaponisation of antisemitism against Corbyn an air of bipartisan respectability it was Freedland and his newspaper, the Guardian. They made sure Corbyn was hounded by the antisemitism claims while he was Labour leader, overshadowing everything else he did. That confected narrative neutralised his lifelong activism as an anti-racist, it polluted his claims to be a principled politician fighting for the underdog.

Freedland and the Guardian not only helped to breathe life into the antisemitism allegations but they made them sound credible to large sections of the Labour membership too.

The rightwing media presented the Corbyn project as a traitorous, hard-left move, in cahoots with Putin’s Russia, to undermine Britain. Meanwhile, Freedland and the Guardian destroyed Corbyn from his liberal-left flank by portraying him and his supporters as a mob of leftwing Nazis-in-waiting.

Corbynism, in Freedland’s telling, became a “sect”, a cult of dangerous leftists divorced from political realities. And then, with astonishing chutzpah, Freedland blamed Corbyn’s failure at the ballot box – a failure Freedland and the Guardian had helped to engineer – as a betrayal of the poor and the vulnerable.

This isn’t just a defeat, it’s a repudiation of Corbynism. Now Labour needs to ditch the politics of the sect. My column https://t.co/cV3LlRMyED

— Jonathan Freedland (@Freedland) December 13, 2019

Remember, Corbyn lost by less than 3,000 votes in a handful of Labour marginals in 2017. Despite all this, Freedland and the Guardian now pretend that they played no role in destroying Corbyn, they behave as if their hands are clean.

But Freedland’s actions, like those of his newspaper, had one inevitable outcome. They ushered in the only alternative to Corbyn: a government of the hard right led by Boris Johnson.

Freedland’s choice to assist Johnson by undermining Corbyn – and, worse, to do so on the basis of a disinformation campaign – makes him culpable, as it does the Guardian, in everything that flowed from his decision. But Freedland, like the Guardian, still pontificates on the horrors of the Johnson government, as if they share no blame for helping Johnson win power.

In his latest column, Freedland writes:

“The guiding principle [of the Johnson government] seems to be brazen cronyism, coupled with the arrogance of those who believe they are untouchable and that rules are for little people.”

Why should the Tories under Johnson be so “arrogant”, so sure they are “untouchable”, that “rules are for little people”, and that there is no political price to be paid for “cronyism”?

Might it not have much to do with seeing Freedland and the Guardian assist so willingly in the corporate media’s efforts to destroy the only political alternative to “rule by the rich” Toryism? Might the Johnson government have grown more confident knowing that the ostensibly liberal-left media were just as determined as the rightwing media to undermine the only politician on offer who stood for precisely the opposite political values the Tories did?

Might it not reflect an understanding by Johnson and his chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, that Freedland and the Guardian have played a hugely significant part in ensuring that Britain effectively has a one-party state – and that when it returns to being a formal two-party state, as it seems to be doing once again now that Starmer is running the Labour party, both those parties will offer the same establishment-worshipping agenda, even if in two mildly different flavours?

The Guardian, like the rest of the corporate media, has derided and vilified as “populism” the emergence of any real political alternative.

The leaked report offered a brief peek behind the curtain at how politics in Britain – and elsewhere – really works. It showed that, during Corbyn’s time as leader, the political battle lines became intensely real. They were no longer the charade of a phoney fight between left and right, between Labour and Conservative.

Instead, the battle shifted to where it mattered, to where it might finally make change possible: for control of the Labour party so that it might really represent the poor and vulnerable against rule by the rich. Labour became the battleground, and the Guardian made all too clear where its true loyalties lie.

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This essay first appeared on Jonathan Cook’s blog.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

On the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, reiterated that “Italy strongly supports the goal of a world free from nuclear weapons.” He was echoed by the President of the House of Representatives Defense Commission, Gianluca Rizzo (M5S): “I make my own the President of the Republic’s words for a policy that aims at a world free from nuclear weapons.” This is maximum institutional commitment therefore, but in what direction?

Let’s talk of facts. Italy ratified the Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1975, which states:

“Each of the militarily non-nuclear States participating in the Treaty undertakes neither to receive nuclear weapons from anyone, nor to exercise directly or indirectly any control over these weapons.”

Violating the NPT, Italy has granted use of its own bases for the deployment of US nuclear weapons: currently B61 bombs, the number of which is estimated to be a few dozen, but this is not verifiable. They are installed in the Aviano base together with US F-16C / D fighters, and in Ghedi-Torre base where Tornado PA-200s of the Italian Air Force are ready for a nuclear attack under US command. Italy – as NATO confirmed – is one of the countries that “supplies the Alliance with airplanes equipped to carry nuclear bombs, over which the United States maintain absolute control, and Italian personnel is trained for this purpose.” The B61 will be replaced shortly by the B61-12: a new nuclear bomb with a selectable power  which targets with precision and has the ability to penetrate underground to destroy command center bunkers.  The Pentagon program foresees the construction of 500 B61-12s at a cost of 10 billion dollars. The program is in the final phase: launch tests of the new bomb (without nuclear warhead) are underway in the Nevada ranges. Among certified aircraft for its use are the Tornado PA-200 and the new F-35A, supplied to the Italian Air Force. It is unknown how many B61-12s will be deployed in Italy and other European countries. They could be more than the previous B-61s and be installed in other bases as well. The refurbished Ghedi base can accommodate up to 30 F-35A fighters with 60 B61-12s. The new bombs are added to the nuclear weapons of the Sixth Fleet stationed in Italy, whose type and number are secret.

Furthermore, as the INF Treaty has been torn up, the US is developing ground-based intermediate-range nuclear missiles, which, like the 1980s Euromissiles, could also be installed in Italian bases. Although Italy is officially a non-nuclear State, thus performs the increasingly dangerous advanced basic function of the US / NATO nuclear strategy against Russia and other countries. As a member of the North Atlantic Council, Italy rejected the UN Treaty on the abolition of nuclear weapons in 2017. In the same year, over 240 Italian parliamentarians – mostly from the Democratic Party and M5S, who are the current governing parties – pledged to promote Italy’s accession to the UN Treaty by signing the Ican Appeal. The current President of the Defense Commission, Gianluca Rizzo, and the current Foreign minister, Luigi Di Maio, were in the front row.

Three years later their solemn commitment turns out to be a demagogic expedient to collect votes, as facts prove. To implement “a policy that points to a world free of nuclear weapons” in Italy, as Gianluca Rizzo declaims, there is only one way: to free Italy from nuclear weapons, as prescribed by the NPT, and to join the UN Treaty, implementing the provisions: “Each State party that has nuclear weapons in its territory, owned or controlled by another State, must ensure the rapid removal of such weapons.” The signatories of the Ican Commitment therefore require the United States to remove any nuclear weapons from Italy. If there is anyone in Parliament who wants a world free from nuclear weapons, they should show it not in words but in deeds.

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This article was originally published on Il Manifesto, translated from Italian to English.

Manlio Dinucci is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

The latest INPE (National Institute for Space Research) deforestation data for the Brazilian Amazon, released last Friday, comes as the result of the policies of President Jair Bolsonaro, say critics. According to DETER, INPE’s real-time forest monitoring system, from August 1, 2019 to July 31, 2020, forest loss in the region totaled 9,205 square kilometers (3.554 square miles), an increase of 34.5% over the previous comparative period (2018/2019), when 6,844 square kilometers (2,642 square miles) were deforested.

DETER detected 1,654 square kilometers of forest cleared in July, 2020 alone, a decline from the 2,255 square kilometers detected the same month a year ago. Still, forest loss in the region makes the 2019/2020 deforestation year the highest since at least 2007.

“Reaching the middle of the year with so many [deforested] open areas means that this year’s official deforestation rate [to be confirmed by the Prodes system, also from INPE, in November] will be higher than last year, which hit double digits, reaching to almost 11,000 square kilometers (4,247 square miles). We can reach a number not seen by Brazil for over a decade,” stated the Institute of Environmental Research of the Amazon (IPAM).

This “season in the Amazon will not be recovered,” added Ane Alencar, IPAM director of Science. “Whoever clears the forest wants to recover their investment, and that involves burning deforested vegetation to clear the land, which will happen sooner or later, with or without a fire moratorium. Curbing fires begins with controlling deforestation.”

Most Amazon fires are set by people, and used as a tool to convert forest to agricultural lands.

Meeting between Vice President Hamilton Mourão and members of the Committee and the Board of Directors of Santander Brasil Bank in Brasília. July 23, 2020. Image by Romério Cunha/VPR (Vice Presidency of the Republic).

Also in July, the Bolsonaro government dismissed INPE researcher Lubia Vinhas, general coordinator of the department responsible for monitoring Amazon deforestation. But when asked about last month’s decrease in deforestation in relation to the firing, experts agreed that they believe the statistics to be accurate and legitimate.

“There is no indication or reason for INPE to publish politically influenced data. We know the technical team very well and if something was happening [within the institute], they would have signaled us some time ago,” said Tasso Azevedo, coordinator of the MapBiomas project, the largest independent biome monitoring program in Brazil.

Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory (OC), a network of 52 non-governmental organizations and social movements, shared that opinion.

“There is no doubt that the federal government wants to intervene in INPE, just as it tries to do in other government bodies. However, there is [also] no doubt that the data that the institute provides is extremely reliable, which reflects the reality of what is happening in the forest. INPE is a global reference in the monitoring of tropical forests.”

In contrast, the Brazilian government itself seemed to sow doubt over the veracity of INPE’s data. On Friday, the same day the DETER data was released, Brazilian Vice President General Hamilton Mourão repeated on television President Jair Bolsonaro’s concerns from a year ago. Mourão criticized the current INPE system, saying that

“We have monitoring systems that are not the best… They lack… quality. The satellites that we have are optical, they don’t see during the rainy season, [and don’t penetrate the] clouds. We need to move forward to have a RADAR technology.”

In the past, the administration has suggested replacing INPE with a private service.

During the same television piece, Carlos Nobre, a renowned Brazilian climate scientist who spent 35 years at INPE, countered Mourão’s statement:

”INPE’s monitoring system is the most advanced in the world. That is not why deforestation does not decrease, [rather it is] the lack of effective enforcement. Environmental criminals [are] feeling very empowered, [certain] that there will be no punishment, and since last year they have greatly increased crime in the Amazon.”

Mourão undermining INPE?

Vice President Mourão upstaged INPE’s deforestation data release by announcing selected statistics the day before via social networks. He used the INPE system — which he would criticize the next day on TV — to boast about the deforestation reduction seen in July. Critics say he cherrypicked the data, only looking at statistics favorable to the government, while falsely crediting the military for positive results.

“The decrease in deforestation in the Amazon biome was characterized by the beginning of the trend reversal as shown in the [July] graphic, revealing positive results from the [Army’s] Green Brazil Operation 2,” says Mourão Tweet.

Critics questioned the positive influence of the Army on the July data, noting that Green Brazil Operation 2, the military maneuver under General Mourão’s command, was in the field on duty during May and June 2020 which saw some of the worst Amazon tree loss ever recorded for those months according to a DETER historical series. In May 2020, INPE alerts identified 833 square kilometers (321 square miles) of deforestation; in June 2020, 1,039 square kilometers (401 square miles), and in July 2020, the aforementioned 1,654 square kilometers (638 square miles). Since the Army entered the rainforest in May of this year, deforestation has increased by 98.5%.

Follow the money

Last month, the vice president complained that the Army’s operation had not received “a penny” to do its fire suppression work. Official data, however, shows that Green Brazil 2 had already received R $8.6 million (US $1.5 million), of which a good portion (R $2.7 million, or US $500,000) was spent on repairing helicopters that belonged to the Ministry of Defense. IBAMA (Brazil’s environmental agency), on the other hand, has recently had to reduce the number of helicopters it rents to monitor Amazon deforestation and fires, from six to four aircraft, due to defunding overseen by the Ministry of the Environment.

Everton Almada Pimentel, IBAMA’s Air Operations Center chief, offered several alerts to the agency’s board over the last two months about the forest damage that the reduction in overflights would bring to Amazon monitoring. He was dismissed on July 23.

Even as Green Brazil Operation 2 suspended work by some Amazon-deployed battalions due to the alleged money shortage, the program managed to spend R $244,000 (US $45,000) on 633 cans of paint slated for a remote Navy base in Mato Grosso do Sul, a state well outside Legal Amazonia jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, the government continues to deflect international pressure to reverse its anti-environmental policies. In his recent media appearances, Mourão defended the administration’s protections of the Amazon and indigenous peoples, and even went on the attack:

“We are under pressure from countries that have not done their work in another period in history.”

A year ago, President Bolsonaro mocked Germany and Norway when they suspended the Amazon Fund and other economic programs. German Chancellor “Angela Merkel, take that money and reforest Germany, Okay?” and “Isn’t [it] Norway who kills whales at the North Pole?”

The online caption reads “Green Brazil Operation — Prevfogo/IBAMA brigade members participate in joint operation to fight fires in the Amazon,” but the photo was taken in August 30, 2019. This year’s Army operation only started in May 2020. Image Vinícius Mendonça / IBAMA.

Civil society responds with emergency letter

In the face of the ongoing Amazon deforestation and fire emergency, more than 60 organizations and collectives delivered an emergency letter last week to the presidents of the House of Deputies and the Senate, to foreign investors, and Brazilian and European parliamentarians, detailing five proposals to contain the deforestation crisis.

The measures proposed include: a moratorium on deforestation in the Amazon for at least five years, with exceptions such as for traditional populations and family farming; toughened penalties for environmental crimes and deforestation, including the creation of a task force to suppress land crimes; immediate resumption of the Action Plan for Prevention and Control of Deforestation in Legal Amazonia (PPCDAm); demarcation of indigenous and quilombola lands (settlements occupied by runaway slave descendants), and the creation, regularization and protection of Conservation Units; and the restructuring of IBAMA, ICMBio (The Chico Mendes Institute) and FUNAI (Brazil’s indigenous agency), which were broken up by the current government.

Among the major signatory organizations of the emergency letter are the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), the Climate Observatory, the National Coordination of Articulation of Black Rural Quilombola Communities (CONAQ), the Institute of Man and the Environment of the Amazon (Imazon), SOS Amazonas, Amazon Watch, Greenpeace Brasil and the Sustainable Amazon Foundation (FAS).

The letter comes as external pressure on the Brazilian government to curb deforestation continues growing, not only among investors but among international companies, who are being urged to review their business partnerships and supply chains. NGO campaigners such as Greenpeace UK and Global Resource Initiative are demanding that British supermarket chains Morrison and Lidl stop buying meat from Brazilian company JBS, the largest meat processing company (by sales) in the world. JBS’s operations have recently and repeatedly been connected with deforestation. Tesco, another major retailer in England, asked the British government to take steps to adjust its Brazilian supply chains to ensure that food sold in the country is not related to deforestation.

Salles meets with illegal miners

Image on the right: Environment Minister Ricardo Salles (left) with President Jair Bolsonaro. Image Antonio Cruz / Agência Brasil.

So far, the Bolsonaro government seems little inclined to listen to critics. It has, however, been meeting with, and initially responding favorably, to some of those responsible for the Amazon’s deforestation.

Last Wednesday, Environment Minister Ricardo Salles traveled to the Munduruku Indigenous Reserve, in western Pará state, and met with miners — some of whom self-declared themselves as being indigenous — men protesting against the military’s operations in their region.

A video shows one miner telling Salles:

“We indigenous people depend on the mining activity.… We are aware that it is illegal, but show us [another] way, a job…”

In another video documenting the same meeting, Salles responded:

“Brazil lives this dilemma, to recognize that indigenous people have the right to choose how they want to live, what economic activity they want to do… among them mining, following the environmental law. For this, it is important that we open that debate. Stop pretending that the indigenous people do not want to mine, that they do not want to produce crops [via industrial agribusiness] or they do not want to have activities related to the timber sector, as if this were an absolute truth. The great role of Brazilian society, which is represented by the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary branches, is to recognize that. And to stop treating the Indian as if he could not choose their own destiny.”

The day after Salles’ visit, the Ministry of Defense announced the suspension of operations to combat illegal mining in that part of Pará state. According to the ministry, the operations were suspended for “reevaluation” to be conducted with a group of “representatives of the region” to be flown to the nation’s capital Brasília by the Air Force for a meeting with authorities. The ministry did not reveal who those “representatives” would be and with whom they would meet.

The Federal Public Ministry of Pará (MPF-PA) criticized the Defense Ministry decision and Salles’ meeting with illegal miners, classifying it as “surreal.” Last Friday, the Ministry of Defense announced the restart of its operations in the area where the miners are working.

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Featured image: Incinerated forest in Juara town, Mato Grosso state, Brazil. July 9, 2020 © Christian Braga / Greenpeace

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” —Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), 16th President of the United States, 1861-65. 

“We must reject any thinking of our cities as a ‘battlespace’ that our uniformed military is called upon to ‘dominate’. …We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.” —James Mattis (1950- ), American Marine general and former U. S. Secretary of Defense (2017-2019), on June 3, 2020.

“I have an Article 2 [in the US Constitution] where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” —Donald Trump (1946- ), statement made during a speech at Turning Point USA’s Teen Action Summit, on July 23, 2019.

An autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon degenerates. For force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels. For this reason I have always been passionately opposed to systems such as we see in Italy and Russia today. —Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born theoretical physicist, (in ‘The World as I se it’, London, U.K., 1935).

Traditionally, Labor Day marks the last stretch in the U.S. presidential campaign leading to the election this year to be held on November 3^rd.

On the democratic side, the die is cast. Vice President Joe Biden (1942 -) will be the Democratic presidential candidate for the 2020 election. We know that Mr. Biden was the target of several intensive lobby campaigns, after announcing that he would choose a woman as his running mate. He finally set his sights on the junior senator from California Kamala Harris as his vice presidential candidate. This is an important strategic decision… for better or for worse. She will be the first black woman and the first Asian American on a major party’s presidential ticket.

Mr. Biden has decided to please his base in choosing a running mate from California, a state already considered to be in the Democratic fold. In so doing, he has bypassed other candidates who had more administrative and government experience.

On the republican side, the incumbent, President Donald Trump, will attempt to stay in power. This will be a challenge considering his low position in the polls.

In the United States, presidential elections are not primarily about winning the popular vote. They are about winning an absolute majority of the archaic Electoral College. Otherwise, there would have been a president Al Gore and a president Hillary Clinton!

Vice President Biden has been involved in American politics for nearly fifty years. He is a pragmatic and cautious politician.

He has served as a U.S. Senator, reelected six times, and for eight years he was vice president of the United States in the Barack Obama administration (2009-2017). Nobody can say that Mr. Biden has no experience in government, or that he is an unknown quantity, for better or for worse.

All will not necessarily be rosy with a Biden administration

First, a Biden administration will be obliged to deal with the massive public debt left behind by the Trump administration. This could put a brake on new public expenses and lead to higher taxes.

Secondly, Mr. Biden has been subjected to a lot of pressure to adopt a left-of-center political platform. This was done primarily to rally Senator Bernie Sanders’ supporters. However, it could also be a point of friction with other groups of voters.

Personally, I see two policy areas that could undermine his popularity and his wish to unite the population.

Indeed, on foreign policy, a Biden presidency could suffer from Mr. Biden’s unconditional support, in the past, for Israel’s government and its mistreatment of Palestinians. This could intensify U.S. involvement in Middle East wars. It may be a sad fact, but both main political parties in the United States are warmongering parties when it comes to US foreign policy.

On the domestic front, Mr. Biden’s ambivalent position on illegal immigration could also produce a backlash, especially among blue-collar workers in a period of slow economic growth.

There are other important issues in his program, which will be outlined in more detail in the coming weeks and which could also raise concern. Especially important for Democrats is the need not to ignore the interests of workers with less or little education.

So far, it is only when candidate Biden’s policies will be fully explained and understood that we should see if they fly with the American electorate. —Mr. Biden’s main advantage is that he is not Donald Trump, that he is a grown-up and that he doesn’t tweet in the middle of the night to let the world know his feelings.

Challenges facing the next president

A president-elect must rely on both experience and character to address the serious economic and social crisis facing the country.

This was not the case, however, with candidate Donald Trump in 2016, even though he had previously been the host of a TV reality show, besides being a hotel and casino owner. Some people knew his name, but most had hardly any idea about his autocratic and despotic character and his lack of qualifications to serve in a public capacity. Now, after nearly four years since his election, most Americans have a general idea who he is and what character he has displayed.

It might be useful to review and summarize the main criticisms levied against the character and behavior of Mr. Trump, and to reflect on the type of president he has been.

Donald Trump has shown himself to be a provocateur and a man who is after power for power’s sake

Ever since his election as U.S. president on Nov. 8, 2016, with fewer votes than his main opponent, Tycoon Donald Trump has shown himself to be a disruptive provocateur and a maker of chaos. He seems to have been on a dangerous ‘power trip’, even though he was appallingly unprepared for the job of being president. He has been a most reckless leader. Ever since his inauguration, Mr. Trump has run a show of successive daily scandals, of blunders, controversies and of scandalous and irresponsible threats.

His political strategy has been to rely on power politics, and to stir up polarization and divisiveness, setting up one group against another, hoping to profit from the political and social chaos thus created. He has even sent federal agents, dressed in army fatigues, to some American cities, over the objections of the mayors and governors.

The anti-science and anti-expertise president

It is undisputable that President Donald Trump has been the most openly anti-science and anti-expertise president ever. He has surrounded himself with the least competent people he could find, providing they were “loyal” to his person and ready to kiss his ring. Competent officials were quickly fired when not meeting his autocratic requirement. —A succession of failures has followed on almost every issue.

Trump’s deadly failure of leadership during the coronavirus crisis

One example among many: As recently as last February 2020, the coronavirus was spreading widely in many countries. Experts were warning against a possible worldwide pandemic that had the potential to affect millions of people and could have severe economic consequences. It was then expected that millions of Americans could be infected and hundreds of thousands could die.

Nevertheless, Mr. Trump was in complete denial that a crisis was looming, and he dismissed the worries raised by experts. He was saying aloud that the coronavirus crisis was a hoax “created by Democrats”, (an insane attack reportedly made on the advice of his son-in-law Jared Kushner). Other initiatives made by Kushner also ended up in failure.

Especially repugnant are Trump’s pathetic attacks against doctors fighting the pandemic, which has accelerated in the United States because of his incompetence and his deception.

One important flaw in Mr. Trump’s character is to shift blame

Donald Trump has often refused to take responsibility in the face of adversity, preferring to shift blame and find scapegoats for his failures and misgivings.

For instance, he was insensitive and undiplomatic enough to call the governor of the state of Washington, Jay Inslee, a “snake” for requesting more federal assistance to fight one of the worst pandemics that his state has ever faced.

Donald Trump’s general character: self–centered, boorish, dangerously delusionary and very un-presidential

Many qualified observers, some having worked closely with Mr. Trump, along with some writers and professionals, have evaluated his special character.

In books and in other writings, here, here , here, here and here again, they have used many words to qualify the Donald Trump phenomenon in U.S. politics, both as an individual and as a politician. Most of them are not very flattering and some are very scary.

Some writers who knew him well were terrified that such a person, known to constantly behave as a ruthless self-promoter, could become president of the United States.

Indeed, they have documented his penchant for shock and brawl, for improvising and for smearing anyone who criticizes him. They have documented case after case of his insanity, his wickedness, his delusion, his self-congratulation and self-praise, his self-centered ambition for absolute power and the fact that his policy choices seem to be dictated mainly, if not entirely, by personal interests and electoral considerations. He is known to have used the power of his office to punish political adversaries.

Donald Trump’s systematic lies and repetitive attacks against the medias

Mr. Trump’s use of lies, fabrications and false claims is well documented and seems to be systematic. Indeed, he has proved again and again that he is a pathological serial liar who cannot help himself from lying. He seems to have an enormous problem with the truth, and he cannot take criticism. That is the sign of an immature person.

His habit of demeaning female journalists in misogynistic rants is a very serious character trait. With such an exploitive character, it is no wonder that Mr. Trump has been accused, in courts, of rape. There have been numerous other instances of sexual aggression on his part. Repetitive attacks against journalists, male or female, also pose a serious threat to press freedom and to free speech, in addition to showing a basic lack of good manners.

Mr. Trump has been a factor of chaos and instability

As a politician, Donald Trump contends that he does not have adversaries or opponents. He has, in his own paranoid way, ‘enemies’. In a democracy, calling political opponents ‘enemies’ is the language of dictators and totalitarians. This and his obsession with anything military should raise concerns.

He has shown himself to be provocative, while displaying a manipulative personality. He has enjoyed destroying reputations to advance his personal interests. Some of Trump’s critics have also said that he is egoistical and has a narcissistic personality, and that he has no moral compass.

An excessively nationalist politician

On many occasions, Donald Trump has literally wrapped himself in the American flag, as if it were his own personal property, and he has said that ‘God is on our side’, a political slogan used in Nazi Germany during the 1930s, with the phrase, “Gott mit uns” (God is with us). As a display of deep hypocrisy on his part, the supposedly ‘good Christian’ Donald Trump, often seen carrying a Bible and pictured in a Bible Photo Op, has constantly mocked, slandered, insulted and disparaged his opponents.

In fact, the number of persons who have been the targets of profanities and insults by Donald Trump is countless.

As a politician, Donald Trump has been said to be ultranationalist. He is also seen as being less than honest and untrustworthy, besides being a loose cannon and acting in constant conflicts of interest.

Trump has done everything to isolate the United States and insult allies

President Donald Trump has attempted to cut the United States off from the rest of the world by unilaterally breaking existing treaties, and by provoking conflicts with other countries and international organizations.

For instance, on June 1, 2017, and without consulting anyone, Mr. Trump announced that the United States would unilaterally withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change.

And, as recently as May 21, 2020, again without consulting with anybody, Donald Trump announced that the U.S. will be withdrawing from the 30-year old Open Skies Arms Control Treaty, which allowed for mutual inspection flights between countries to insure against war preparations.

Donald Trump is also preparing to exit the one major arms treaty remaining with Russia: the New START treaty (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), signed on April 8, 2010, which limits the number of deployed nuclear missiles, thus raising even more the risk of a nuclear war in the coming years, a war that could destroy the world. Donald Trump is an arsonist, not a fireman or a peacemaker. …And the list goes on and on.

Add to that the fact that the Trump administration is engaged in a program to deploy additional nuclear weapons, and the image comes out clearly of a Donald Trump who is an extremely dangerous head of state.

The economic and political tensions between the U.S. and China and against Iran or Venezuela are getting worse

There are increasing frictions between the U.S. and China. They could be the sparks of a hegemonic conflict.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) and the United Nations should play a more active role in solving such conflicts. It must be noted, however, that Mr. Trump has ignored these two international institutions since his election, in order to pursue his ideology of conflict.

British historian Arnold Toynbee observed that the dynamics of international relations have led to disastrous hegemonic wars at the beginning of each of the last six centuries. The last major international war was World War I (1914-1918) at the beginning of the 20^th Century, which in turn led to World War II (1939-1945). History could repeat itself, especially if and when unstable individuals, ignorant of history, are leading heavily armed countries.

An open conflict between the United States and Iran is also a possibility, because of an active campaign by the Israeli government in that direction. Such a war of aggression could destabilize the Middle East even more. And please, do not forget the Trump administration’s meddling in Venezuela’s domestic affairs. All this is not counting the inhuman and abhorrent sanctions against Syria.

It’s almost unanimous: In foreign policy, U.S. President Donald Trump has done a lot of damage, and it will take many years for another administration to fix the mess.

Conclusions

Unless one is completely blinded by ideology or partisanship, it must be concluded that Donald Trump, with his erratic and deeply flawed character, poses a serious threat to American freedom and prosperity, and to world peace.

Having inherited money is no excuse to be vulgar, rude, vile, intolerant and lawless, or to be a malevolent bully. In ordinary times, such behavior should be denounced. —In time of crisis, such shortcomings can be a recipe for disaster.

In four years, Donald Trump has done more to destroy the image of the United States and its reputation around the world than a war would have done. —The country is more isolated internationally than it has been for a century.

In domestic affairs, the American justice system is in tatters. The “rule of law” has more or less been replaced by the arbitrary “rule of the Donald”. —The law, that’s him! In fact, the U.S. constitutional government has dangerously moved toward a de facto dictatorship. Donald Trump has been subverting the justice system like no president before him. This is clearly an abuse of power.

Especially troublesome also, he has fired prosecutors who were investigating people close to him, a clear conflict of interest and a violation of the principle of the division of powers.

The country is more divided than it has been in decades. Income and wealth disparities are more pronounced than they have been in a century. And the American health system is an unregulated industry that charges exorbitant prices, and which is failing large segments of the population.

And to top it all, there are black clouds over the economy. The latter remains dangerously based on a military-industrial complex that yearly siphons off trillions of dollars of tax money for its benefit. Moreover, much of the funds recently used to bailout the economy from the coronavirus crisis have come from newly printed money.

The latter has mostly benefited the very rich, who, in turn, have used it to boost stock prices and to push them up to their pre-crisis top. Down the road, this could translate into a crushing inflation tax, which will badly hurt people such as savers and retirees on a fixed income. However, as this kind of monetary exuberance, financed with the printing press, creates conditions conducive to a financial crash, everyone will ultimately lose out.

Basically, Donald Trump is not an administrator. He had no experience in government. His knowledge of economics is rudimentary. He seems completely ignorant about how the multilateral international trade system works. —Fundamentally, he is a showman who thinks about himself, and only himself. After four years of a freak show in the White House, it would seem that Americans should look for entertainment elsewhere than to their government officials.

Hopefully, most Americans seem to have had enough of his eccentricity and his incompetence. Not surprisingly, polls show that most Americans are anxious and unhappy these days. In fact, Pew Research reported, last June, that a huge majority (87%) of Americans said they were dissatisfied with the way things were going in their country.

One would think that a great country like the United States would deserve better. The United States is at an important political turning point. If Donald Trump is reelected next November, U.S. democratic institutions could be challenged as never before, because you can be sure that he will continue playing politics with the U.S. Constitution. His intentions have always been to “rule by decree”.

That is why this November’s election should logically be a referendum on candidate Donald Trump and his vacuity. However, Mr. Trump would like nothing more than to wage a law-and-order political campaign, not one that would be centered on his persona and on his record.

Question: Will Democratic leaders play his game and side with mob rule? If the answer is yes, and especially if Mr. Biden does not denounce obvious cases of lawlessness, then I suspect that calls for law and order will get louder.

With such a scenario, the results of the November 3^rd election could be closer than what polls indicate currently, although odds still favor the election of Joe Biden. —That is, if there is an election, because Mr. Trump would like nothing more than to discredit and postpone the election… sine die!

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site.

International economist Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay is the author of the book “The Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles”, of the book “The New American Empire”, and the recent book, in French « La régression tranquille du Québec, 1980-2018 ». He holds a Ph.D. in international finance from Stanford University. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Unz Review

Belgrade’s announcement that it may purchase the Chinese FK-3 anti-aircraft missile system was enough for the U.S. to express concern about Serbia’s future, not only with Europe, but with the entire world.

The U.S. Embassy in Belgrade said that

“procuring military and defense equipment is a sovereign decision. However, governments should understand the short- and long-term risks and costs involved in doing business with Chinese companies. Procurement choices should reflect Serbia’s stated policy goal of greater European integration. Alternative vendors which are not beholden to authoritarian regimes offer equipment that is both capable of meeting Serbia’s defense need and comparable in quality and cost.”

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić hit back, saying

“Whenever we decide to buy something, somebody has something against it,” and emphasized that the FK-3 system was not on the U.S. sanctions list against China.

The U.S. Embassy’s statement gives the impression that Washington has a deep concern about Serbia’s future strategic interests and alliances, so much so that it warned Belgrade on its path towards the European Union even though the U.S. has no influence over Brussels in this regard. Of course Washington has no concern for Serbia’s interests after it sustained crippling sanctions on the Balkan country, recognizes Kosovo as an independent state, ensured that the Republika Srpska is attached to Bosnia and Herzegovina without option to reunite with Serbia, and led a deadly bombing campaign that destroyed Serbian infrastructure and killed thousands of civilians in 1999.

Washington is afraid of cheaper and better-quality weapons that Serbia can procure from both China and Russia. The Americans are also frustrated that Serbia has not become a state dependent on U.S. patronage despite decades of aggression and pressure. Effectively, Washington is continuing a campaign to limit Serbia’s independent and strategic interests. It is recalled that Washington threatened Belgrade with sanctions and indirect threats when Serbia purchased the Russian Pantsir missile system and trained with the S-400 missile defense system.

A NATO official who spoke on condition of anonymity, according to Defense News, said that

“defense procurement is a national decision. Serbia has the right to freely choose its political and security arrangements. NATO and Serbia are close partners and we are committed to strengthening our partnership with Serbia, while fully respecting its policy of neutrality.”

Although both NATO and the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade emphasized that they respect Serbia’s sovereign decision, Washington does not truly respect Serbia’s policy of neutrality, which is why it makes continuous threats of sanctions and indirect warnings that Belgrade is becoming too close to Moscow and Beijing. Serbian political scientist Aleksandar Pavić argues that Washington expects Serbia to buy weapons from countries that have recognized Kosovo’s independence, and that this is Belgrade’s fault as they have purchased weapons from France, and even expressed the possibility of buying some American bombers, despite both countries recognizing Kosovo’s independence.

Although Serbia is attempting to maintain a policy of neutrality, so much so that it even considers buying weapons from the U.S., the reality is that such a policy is impossible. The best Belgrade can hope for is to enact a policy of balancing the Great Powers by strengthening relations with those who support Serbia’s sovereignty and independence, and maintaining friendly posture but distance with those who still support an independent Kosovo. By Serbia buying French military equipment, despite its recognition of an independent Kosovo, and entertaining the idea of buying American bombers, Belgrade is sending mixed messages to its international partners that it can overlook the Kosovo issue. By maintaining such a policy, Belgrade is giving Washington enough leeway to comment and attempt to push Serbia away from China and Russia. Having a stronger policy against those who recognize Kosovo’s independence will give Belgrade a much clearer foreign policy and will force Washington to approach Serbia differently.

None-the-less, by discouraging Belgrade from the idea of ​​buying Chinese weapons, Serbia will likely continue to buy Chinese weapons, and with even stronger intensity. Although Serbia will always prioritize its relations with China and Russia over those who weakened it and recognized Kosovo’s independence, Belgrade should now show this more strongly by ending its policy of neutrality as the West is not neutral towards Serbia.

As the Balkans is heating up again as a place of conflict, Serbia cannot be neutral as much as it attempts to do so. This does not mean that it should have openly hostile relations with the U.S. and other Western States, but because Serbia refuses to sever its deep relations with China and Russia, Serbian interests will always be sidelined when it comes to Western ambitions in the Balkans. Under these conditions, Belgrade should take a stronger position and be unafraid to highlight that their interests do not align with those that the West has for the Balkans.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

The embattled manufacturer saw customers abandon plans to buy 43 of its 737 MAX planes in July, where cancelled orders once again outpaced the company’s sales, according to CNBC. 

Boeing has net negative orders of 836 planes this year, inclusive of aircraft it took out of its backlog. The company “routinely removes orders from its running tally when customers are financially strained, among other reasons,” the report says.

The company’s backlog now stands at 4,496 orders.

Most of the cancelled orders have come from aircraft leasing companies. Boeing said last month it was going to cut production targets for some of its aircraft, including both the 737 MAX and the Dreamliner, citing the coronavirus pandemic hurting demand.

It could also have something to do with the constant setbacks, lax quality control and the 346 people who have died as a result of the 737 MAX – but we digress…

Recall, just weeks ago we wrote that Boeing was running out of space to park its Dreamliner aircraft that nobody wanted to buy.

“It’s not just the company’s ill-fated Boeing 737 MAX which may or may not fly again,” we said. “Boeing is now also running out of space to stash newly-built 787 Dreamliners, as unsold jetliners are now crammed onto every available patch of pavement on airfields near its factories in Washington and South Carolina.”

“Dozens of the planes are sitting on the company’s premises,” we reported, with Uresh Sheth, a closely followed blogger who meticulously tracks the Dreamliners rolling through Boeing’s factories, putting the total somewhere above 50.

That’s more than double the number of jets typically awaiting customers along Boeing’s flight lines.

According to Sheth, brand-new widebodies are lined up on a closed off runway at the airport that abuts Boeing’s hulking plant north of Seattle. In North Charleston, 787s are tucked around the delivery center and a paint hangar. The U.S. planemaker has even started sending aircraft to be stored in a desert lot in Victorville, California.

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The explosion in a Beirut portside warehouse containing over 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate on August 4 has done its bit to light more fires under Lebanon’s ruling powers.  With the blast still bloodily fresh and traumatic – the destruction of the city’s port with over two hundred deaths and thousands injured – promises of assistance and messages of solidarity were conveyed.  A donor summit of fifteen government leaders was cobbled together in haste with French President Emmanuel Macron leading the show.  “Assistance should be timely, sufficient and consistent with the needs of the Lebanese people,” went he words of the communique. But it was to be “directly delivered to the Lebanese population, with utmost efficiency and transparency.” 

Aid is very much a tool of politics.  Used to affect change, it often ends up having its own distressing consequences, entrenching a set of other power interests more amenable to the donor and enervating to the recipient.  Governing classes in the recipient state are not so much replaced as redeployed; the canny and guileful adapt, donning new clothes for the institution approved by those providing aid. 

When models of aid are celebrated, the common example is that of the Marshall Plan, advertised by its proponents, US Secretary of State George Marshall, and Secretary of Commerce Averell Harriman, as both noble yet self-interested.  By providing aid to a devastated Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War, the US tax payer would be inoculating the patient against the Communist virus while making the world safe for capitalism.  Marshall put forth the case in an address to Harvard University during the course of receiving an honorary degree, a speech that has come to be associated with the aid and reconstruction plan that bears his name.  “Aside from the demoralizing effect on the world at large and the possibilities of disturbances arising as a result of the desperation of the people concerned, the consequences to the economy of the United States should be apparent to all.”

In its post-colonial context, the donor-aid paradigm has its specific, troubling features.  Former colonies, for instance, tend to receive more from the former colonial power than those lacking those ties.  Sentiment is less important than attractive conveniences. Favours can be attained; deals made.  Studies such as those done by Daina Chiba and Tobias Heinrich come to the unremarkable conclusion that “the colony effect on foreign aid stems from the greater saliency that donors give to policy concessions from former colonies.”

In the case of Lebanon, aid from a power like France comes with historical strings, marked by coatings of nostalgia and condescension.  Memories of the French mandate from the 1920s are so strong in some circles that a petition is throbbing with signatures for a return to some form of control from Paris.  It stresses, first and foremost, the incompetence of local leadership.  “Lebanon’s officials have clearly shown a total inability to secure and manage the country.  With a failing system, corruption, terrorism and militia the country just reached it’s [sic] last breath.”  Then comes the vision: “We believe Lebanon should go back under the French mandate in order to establish clean and durable governance.”  To date, the measure has received 61,433 signatures.

The petitioner’s creator Cyrille claimed to be “under no illusion” of achieving success in pursuing the matter.  He admitted that France had its own lot of problems; he merely wished to “show the extent of the [Lebanese people’s] despair.”  Not even a revolution would dislodge the “hegemony of the political class that has been there for 40 years.”

The donors have accompanied willingness to supply assistance with conditions to implement.  The International Monetary Fund, true to form, promises outlays, provided that institutional reforms are made.  These included the traditional demands: solvency in public finances; proved soundness of the financial system; restrictions on capital outflows.  The IMF, in a sense, has been handed a boon by the blast: prior to the calamity, debt default talks with Beirut had stalled.

Macron, as the leader of the donor pack, was even more forthright.  “The Lebanese authorities,” he told summit attendees on August 9, “must now implement the political and economic reforms demanded by the Lebanese people.”  His laundry list of intrusive measures was extensive: reforms of the energy sector, public procurement and those designed to battle corruption.  “An audit of the central bank and the financial sector should be conducted.”

When a foreign head of state proclaims the sovereign merits of another people, care should be taken.  A catch is around the corner.  “The Lebanese are a free, proud and sovereign people,” Macron went on to explain.  “It is up to the country’s authorities to act so that the country does not go under and to meet the aspirations legitimately expressed by the Lebanese people in the streets of Beirut at this very moment.”

On the French president’s visit to Beirut on August 6, the spirit of the colonial administrator was on full, puffy display.  To those protesting for the release of Lebanese militant George Ibrahim Abdallah, in French prison since 1984, he offered a vague “political pact”.  Macron promised support to local NGOs and 15 million Euros for French-language schools.  But in doing so, he was very clear to stress the loss of confidence between the governed and the governing power.  Lebanon needed “fundamental change”, to be achieved within an international framework. 

As if realising his lecturing mode, he issued a qualification.  “It is not up to me or to France to tell Lebanese leaders what they have to do and how they should do it.”  But in matters of aid, it most certainly seems to be.  He awaits “clear answers” before returning on September 1.  One of those answers has certainly been offered: the wholesale resignation of the Diab government.

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

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]

Repost, first published on February 11, 2020

On Nov 22, 2019, we, a group of more than 60 medical doctors, wrote to the UK Home Secretary to express our serious concerns about the physical and mental health of Julian Assange.1 In our letter,1 we documented a history of denial of access to health care and prolonged psychological torture. It requested that Assange be transferred from Belmarsh prison to a university teaching hospital for medical assessment and treatment. Faced with evidence of untreated and ongoing torture, we also raised the question as to Assange’s fitness to participate in US extradition proceedings.

Having received no substantive response from the UK Government, neither to our first letter¹ nor to our follow-up letter,2 we wrote to the Australian Government, requesting that it intervene to protect the health of its citizen.³ To date, regrettably, no reply has been forthcoming. Meanwhile, many more doctors from around the world have joined us in our call. Our group currently numbers 117 doctors, representing 18 countries.

The case of Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, is multifaceted. It relates to law, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, journalism, publishing, and politics. It also, however, clearly relates to medicine and public health. The case highlights several concerning aspects that warrant the medical profession’s close attention and concerted action.

We were prompted to act following the harrowing eyewitness accounts of former UK diplomat Craig Murray and investigative journalist John Pilger, who described Assange’s deteriorated state at a case management hearing on Oct 21, 2019.^4,5 Assange had appeared at the hearing pale, underweight, aged and limping, and he had visibly struggled to recall basic information, focus his thoughts, and articulate his words. At the end of the hearing, he “told district judge Vanessa Baraitser that he had not understood what had happened in court”.⁶

We drafted a letter to the UK Home Secretary, which quickly gathered more than 60 signatures from medical doctors from Australia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Sri Lanka, Sweden, the UK, and the USA, concluding: “It is our opinion that Mr Assange requires urgent expert medical assessment of both his physical and psychological state of health. Any medical treatment indicated should be administered in a properly equipped and expertly staffed university teaching hospital (tertiary care). Were such urgent assessment and treatment not to take place, we have real concerns, on the evidence currently available, that Mr Assange could die in prison. The medical situation is thereby urgent. There is no time to lose.”

On May 31, 2019, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, reported on his May 9, 2019, visit to Assange in Belmarsh, accompanied by two medical experts: “Mr Assange showed all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma.”⁷

On Nov 1, 2019, Melzer warned, “Mr. Assange’s continued exposure to arbitrariness and abuse may soon end up costing his life”.⁸

Such warnings and Assange’s presentation at the October hearing should not perhaps have come as a surprise. Assange had, after all, prior to his detention in Belmarsh prison in conditions amounting to solitary confinement, spent almost 7 years restricted to a few rooms in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Here, he had been deprived of fresh air, sunlight, the ability to move and exercise freely, and access to adequate medical care. Indeed, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention had held the confinement to amount to “arbitrary detention of liberty”.⁹ The UK Government refused to grant Assange safe passage to a hospital, despite requests from doctors who had been able to visit him in the embassy.¹⁰

There was also a climate of fear surrounding the provision of health care in the Embassy. A medical practitioner who visited Assange at the embassy documented what a colleague of Assange reported: “[T]here had been many difficulties in finding medical practitioners who were willing to examine Mr Assange in the Embassy. The reasons given were uncertainty over whether medical insurance would cover the Equadorian Embassy (a foreign jurisdiction); whether the association with Mr Assange could harm their livelihood or draw unwanted attention to them and their families; and discomfort regarding exposing this association when entering the Embassy. One medical practitioner expressed concern to one of the interviewees after the police took notes of his name and the fact that he was visiting Mr Assange. One medical practitioner wrote that he agreed to produce a medical report only on condition that his name not be made available to the wider public, fearing repercussions.”¹¹

Disturbingly, it seems that this environment of insecurity and intimidation, further compromising the medical care available to Assange, was by design. Assange was the subject of a 24/7 covert surveillance operation inside the embassy, as the emergence of secret video and audio recordings has shown.¹²

He was surveilled in private and with visitors, including family, friends, journalists, lawyers, and doctors. Not only were his rights to privacy, personal life, legal privilege, and freedom of speech violated, but so, too, was his right to doctor–patient confidentiality.

We condemn the torture of Assange. We condemn the denial of his fundamental right to appropriate health care. We condemn the climate of fear surrounding the provision of health care to him. We condemn the violations of his right to doctor–patient confidentiality. Politics cannot be allowed to interfere with the right to health and the practice of medicine. In the experience of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, the scale of state interference is without precedent: “In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution I have never seen a group of democratic states ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law.”^7,12

We invite fellow doctors to join us as signatories to our letters to add further voice to our calls. Since doctors first began assessing Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2015, expert medical opinion and doctors’ urgent recommendations have been consistently ignored. Even as the world’s designated authorities on arbitrary detention, torture, and human rights added their calls to doctors’ warnings, governments have sidelined medical authority, medical ethics, and the human right to health. This politicisation of foundational medical principles is of grave concern to us, as it carries implications beyond the case of Assange. Abuse by politically motivated medical neglect sets a dangerous precedent, whereby the medical profession can be manipulated as a political tool, ultimately undermining our profession’s impartiality, commitment to health for all, and obligation to do no harm.

Should Assange die in a UK prison, as the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has warned, he will have effectively been tortured to death. Much of that torture will have taken place in a prison medical ward, on doctors’ watch. The medical profession cannot afford to stand silently by, on the wrong side of torture and the wrong side of history, while such a travesty unfolds.

In the interests of defending medical ethics, medical authority, and the human right to health, and taking a stand against torture, together we can challenge and raise awareness of the abuses detailed in our letters. Our appeals are simple: we are calling upon governments to end the torture of Assange and ensure his access to the best available health care before it is too late. Our request to others is this: please join us.

*

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

Notes

1. Doctors for Assange
First letter to the UK Government. Concerns of medical doctors about the plight of Mr Julian Assange.
https://medium.com/p/ffb09a5dd588
Date: Nov 25, 2019
Date accessed: February 13, 2020

2. Doctors for Assange
Second letter to the UK Government. Re: medical emergency – Mr Julian Assange.
https://medium.com/p/d5b58bca88
Date: Dec 4, 2019
Date accessed: February 13, 2020

3. Doctors for Assange
First letter to the Australian Government. Re: medical emergency – Mr Julian Assange.
https://medium.com/p/e19a42597e45
Date: Dec 16, 2019
Date accessed: February 13, 2020

4. Murray C
Assange in court.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/10/assange-in-court/
Date: Nov 22, 2019
Date accessed: February 13, 2020

Nel 75° anniversario del bombardamento atomico di Hiroshima e Nagasaki, il presidente della Repubblica Sergio Mattarella ha ribadito che «l’Italia sostiene con forza l’obiettivo di un mondo libero da armi nucleari». Gli ha fatto eco il presidente della Commissione Difesa della Camera, Gianluca Rizzo (M5S): «Faccio mie le parole del presidente della Repubblica per una politica che punti ad un mondo libero da armi nucleari». Massimo impegno istituzionale dunque, ma in quale direzione? Facciamo parlare i fatti.

L’Italia ha ratificato nel 1975 il Trattato di non-proliferazione delle armi nucleari (Tnp), che stabilisce: «Ciascuno degli Stati militarmente non nucleari, parte del Trattato, si impegna a non ricevere da chicchessia armi nucleari, né il controllo su tali armi, direttamente o indirettamente». Violando il Tnp, l’Italia ha concesso proprie basi per lo schieramento di armi nucleari Usa: attualmente bombe B61, il cui numero è stimato in alcune decine ma non è verificabile. Sono installate nelle basi di Aviano, insieme a caccia Usa F-16C/D, e a Ghedi-Torre dove Tornado PA-200 dell’Aeronautica italiana sono pronti all’attacco nucleare sotto comando Usa.

L’Italia – conferma la Nato – fa parte dei paesi che «forniscono all’Alleanza aerei equipaggiati per trasportare bombe nucleari, su cui gli Stati uniti mantengono l’assoluto controllo, e personale addestrato a tale scopo». La B61 sarà sostituita tra non molto dalla B61-12: una nuova bomba nucleare, con una potenza selezionabile al momento del lancio, che si dirige con precisione sull’obiettivo ed ha la capacità di penetrare nel sottosuolo per distruggere i bunker dei centri di comando.

Il programma del Pentagono prevede la costruzione di 500 B61-12, con una spesa di 10 miliardi di dollari. Il programma è nella fase finale: nei poligoni nel Nevada sono in corso test di lancio della nuova bomba (senza testata nucleare). Tra gli aerei che vengono certificati per il suo uso vi sono il Tornado PA-200 e il nuovo F-35A, in dotazione all’Aeronautica italiana. Non si sa quante B61-12 verranno schierate in Italia e altri paesi europei. Esse potrebbero essere più delle precedenti B-61 ed essere installate anche in altre basi. Quella di Ghedi, ristrutturata, può accogliere fino a 30 caccia F-35A con 60 B61-12. Alle nuove bombe si aggiungono le armi nucleari della Sesta Flotta di stanza in Italia, il cui tipo e numero sono segreti. Inoltre, stracciato il Trattato Inf, gli Usa stanno sviluppando missili nucleari a gittata intermedia con base a terra, che, come gli euromissili degli anni Ottanta, potrebbero essere installati anche in basi italiane.

L’Italia, ufficialmente Stato non-nucleare, svolge così la sempre più pericolosa funzione di base avanzata della strategia nucleare Usa/Nato contro la Russia e altri paesi. Quale membro del Consiglio Nord Atlantico, l’Italia ha respinto nel 2017 il Trattato Onu sulla abolizione delle armi nucleari. Nello stesso anno oltre 240 parlamentari italiani – in maggior parte del Pd e M5S, gli attuali partiti di governo – si sono impegnati, firmando l’Appello Ican, a promuovere l’adesione dell’Italia al Trattato Onu. In prima fila l’attuale presidente della Commissione Difesa, Gianluca Rizzo, e l’attuale ministro degli Esteri Luigi Di Maio.

Tre anni dopo, alla prova dei fatti, il loro solenne impegno si rivela un espediente demagogico per raccogliere voti. Per attuare in Italia «una politica che punti ad un mondo libero da armi nucleari», come declama Gianluca Rizzo, non c’è che un modo: liberare l’Italia dalle armi nucleari, come prescrive il Tnp, e aderire al Trattato Onu, attuando quanto stabilisce: «Ciascuno Stato che abbia sul proprio territorio armi nucleari, possedute o controllate da un altro Stato, deve assicurare la rapida rimozione di tali armi». I firmatari dell’Impegno Ican richiedano quindi agli Stati uniti di rimuovere qualsiasi arma nucleare dall’Italia. Se in Parlamento c’è qualcuno che voglia un mondo libero da armi nucleari, lo dimostri non a parole ma con i fatti.

Manlio Dinucci

It would seem a logical step, at least from an existential perspective: to ban something so utterly horrendous to life; to forbid its use in any circumstances, whatever rationale employed to justify its use. But the nuclear weapon has its admirers.  There are those who continue to worship its sovereign properties, and those who leave gifts at the shrine of extended deterrence.  Be wary, they say, of the abolitionists. 

The 75^th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings should have encouraged much reflection on current attitudes to the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.  Passed on July 7, 2017, it has become a focal point for advocates of a nuclear-weapons free world, and a source of irritation for nuclear weapons states who are not only dragging their feet but going in the opposite direction.   

Increased interest in the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty is not accidental.  Jayantha Dhanapala, the second director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, considered the document as arising from an unruly environment.  “In the nuclear field, we are almost back to the years immediately after the Second World War, when rules for the nuclear age had yet to be developed.”  He warned that humanity risked deluding itself into thinking “that war between nuclear-weapon states is a malady of the past, no longer deserving attention.”

Dhanapala sketches the fault line in the nuclear disarmament debate.  Nuclear Weapons States (NWS) and their allies face non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS), both camps supposedly harbouring the same objective of eliminating nuclear weapons.  Both, however, make off from different stations: the NWS group insisting on “first achieving security and then nuclear disarmament”; the NNWS group preferring to reach an agreement to banning nuclear weapons “followed by its gradual implementation.”  The outcome of such different positions is clear: not a single nuclear weapons power has joined the regime, as they remain in love with their nukes, while all 43 ratifying states, to date, lack them. 

The strangest spectacle in this disagreement is provided by those powers lacking nuclear weapons but relieved about those powers in guardianship that do.  The security argument prevails, formally under that fanciful but dangerous notion that an “umbrella of extended nuclear deterrence” exists to provide comfort.  For that reason Japan, despite being a noisy voice regarding the non-use and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons, has refused to endorse the weapons ban.  Hiroshima’s Mayor Kazumi Matsui will have none of it, and took the commemorative occasion to encourage the Japanese government to abandon that position. 

“Hiroshima considers it our duty to build in civil society a consensus that the people of the world must unite to achieve nuclear weapons abolition and lasting world peace.”

At Nagasaki, similar sentiments were expressed by Mayor Tomihisa Taue, who found it “incomprehensible” that Japan’s treaty signature had been withheld.  He noted his concern that the appetite for nuclear disarmament had apparently been lost in recent years. Both the United States and Russia had placed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty on the rubbish tip of history.  “As a result, the threat of nuclear weapons being used is increasingly becoming real.”  Despite the sterling efforts of the atomic bomb survivors (the hibakusha) to make Nagasaki the final place of such a tragedy, “the true horror of nuclear weapons has not yet been adequately conveyed to the world at large”.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has dismissed the treaty as pie in the sky nonsense, showing that the abolition of nuclear weapons remains a dream kept symbolically necessary but practically unrealisable.  This serves ceremonial relevance, the sort of cant that has governed disarmament policies since the race for the nuke got away.  

While essential to the cult of Japanese victimhood as the only country whose citizens suffered such bombings, nuclear weapons remained valuable even as these commemorations took place. 

“The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,” Abe explained dismissively, “was adopted without taking into consideration the reality of the harsh national security environment.” 

Japan continued to face the threats posed to modernised nuclear weapons programmes from “neighbouring countries in the region.”

Foreign Minister Taro Kono, in justifying Japan’s continued refusal to append its signature, emphasised the divisions between the various schools of thought.  There were those testing disagreements between nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear nations.  There were those within non-nuclear states.  Rather deviously, Kono suggested that Japan might play a bridging role, seeking “common ground” between the camps that would lead to nuclear disarmament and abolition. 

Australia, ever willing to deputise for the US in the Asia Pacific, has also shown marked reluctance to stigmatise the nuke.  Few can forget its role as foiled spoiler in the UN working group on nuclear disarmament in 2016.  Australian diplomats made it clear that they had no interest in seeing any document banning nuclear weapons emerge from what they hoped would be a futile talking shop.  The attitudes of Australian officials in the group was exposed in documents obtained under Freedom of Information by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).  “So long as the threat of nuclear attack and coercion exists,” states one document from foreign ministry officials, “US extended deterrence will serve Australia’s fundamental national security interests.”  Wishing to be the vibrant dissenters at the party, they promised “a strong alternative viewpoint, notably against those states who wish to push a near-term ban treaty.” 

During the course of negotiations, Australian officials thought it necessary to remain in “close contact” with Washington “about our shared concerns” on the working group’s disturbing move towards recommending “negotiations on a ‘ban treaty’”.  It was good of them, seeing as the United States had boycotted the talks.  At stages, concerns were noted about the “humanitarianism” being pursued in the discussions – because you would not want that when discussing weapons of extermination. 

In 2017, John Quinn, Australia’s ambassador for Disarmament and Permanent Representative of Australia to the United Nations, delivered a classic display of repudiation and approbation on nuclear weapons.  There was the mandatory mention: Australia shared “the widespread commitment to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.”  But the nuclear weapons prohibition treaty was not the way to go about it.  The humanitarian impulses behind the document had deepened division (that word again), “created damaging ambiguities” and creating a rival forum on disarmament.  The significance of Australia’s rejection of the treaty – and here, the gloves come off – is that it “seeks to delegitimise extended deterrence.  The ban treaty will not advance nuclear disarmament or security.”

This is not a position that shows any sign of altering. “Australia does not support the ‘ban treaty’ which we believe would not eliminate a single nuclear weapon,” states the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.  Sounding much like Abe, it mocks the document for rejecting “the realities of the global security environment”.  The treaty lacks the security assurances found in traditional mechanisms supplied by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and “would be inconsistent with our US alliance obligations.”

It follows that those claiming a normative shift in the ban treaty towards stigmatising the use of such weapons have their work cut out for them.  In some cases, the more vigorous opposition has not even come from the expected quarter.  Nuclear weapons states have simply refused to abandon their crown jewels, leaving the loudest barking against the ban treaty to their faithful, deluded allies who cling, desperately, to the fable of extended nuclear deterrence.

*

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

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 the Union of Concerned Scientists

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Sweden Debunks the Covid Hysteria: No Lockdown, No Masks, No Vaccine

By Jordan Schachtel, August 11, 2020

In Sweden, there’s no masks, no lockdown, no vaccine, and most importantly, no problem.

Life has largely returned to normal in Sweden, and it all happened without the economy-destroying non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) demanded by the “public health expert” class, who guaranteed that chaos would come to every country that disobeyed their commands to hit the self-destruct button for their nations.

America’s Political Crisis: Organized Riots and the Economic Lockdown

By Renee Parsons, August 11, 2020

Rather than hold the line against peaceful protests that morphed into rebellion after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis on May 25th, enfeebled Democratic officials on the front lines appeared to stand docile against the mob rule when, in reality, their impotence was more of a well honed strategy of acquiescence.  In a display of massive hubris threatening disintegration of the country’s sovereignty, those Elected continue to play a ruthless partisan game abstaining on the ultimate destruction of their own country and the municipality for which they are legally responsible.

Horror in Beirut. A Critical Examination. The Catastrophe in A Broader Context

By Philip Giraldi, August 11, 2020

The Establishment explanation for what occurred in Beirut’s port on August 5^th is that the horrific series of explosions that killed hundreds, injured thousands and left hundreds of thousands homeless was a terrible accident that came about due to a multi-faceted failure by Lebanon’s corrupt and incompetent government. Or at least that is the prevalent narrative in the international media, but a more critical examination of what took place is a bit like peeling an onion only to discover that there are layers and layers of alternative possibilities that just might place the catastrophe in a broader context.

Video: The Great Reset: Covid-19 and the WEF Plan to Impose A New World Order

By Michael J. Matt, August 11, 2020

Michael J. Matt takes a look at some good news regarding the Covid recovery rate before exploring what’s really going on with the global pandemic.

Global Destruction, 
The COVID-19 Lockdown: Economic and Social Impacts

By Peter Koenig, August 11, 2020

What we have to realize is that the global, country-by-country destruction – happening simultaneously – is not a coincidence.

It has been planned for decades. Thousands of pages were written alone for the preparation of such documents, like the 2010 Rockefeller Report and the preparation of Event 201 in NYC on October 18, 2019, as well as “studies” for WHO to justify calling the new corona virus (SARS-2-2019 / COVID-19) a pandemic that eventually prompted a worldwide lockdown around mid-March 2020. 

Five Ways “The New Normal” Is Getting Worse and Worse. Curfew, Masks at Home, Immunity Passports, …

By Kit Knightly, August 10, 2020

Dr Amir Khan appeared on ITV’s Good Morning Britain today, suggesting men – who are notionally at increased risk of coronavirus infection – should take a contraceptive pill filled with oestrogen. His theory, which he did not support with research, is that the oestrogen will boost the male immune system.

Hormone treatment is a big deal, potentially dangerous and seriously life-changing. To suggest its use to treat a disease which is harmless in over 95% of cases is borderline insanity, especially with no research to back it up. We tweeted about at the time, but GMB’s twitter account has since deleted the video.

Hiroshima at 75. The Doomsday Clock and the Ongoing Threat of “Atomic Horror”

By Michael Welch, Prof Michel Chossudovsky, and Greg Mitchell, August 07, 2020

The two state of the art weapons released over the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki constituted the most devastating blasts of all time.

According to the best estimates of anti-nuclear weapons scientists, anywhere from 110,000 to 210,000 people died in the twin holocausts. Two thirds of the city of Hiroshima were wiped out in a single attack, the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT.