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“More than a thousand people responded to the call for a rally in front of the National Assembly on Sunday to protest against the mandatory wearing of masks in Quebec and more broadly for the preservation of their rights and freedoms. (Rémi Rémillard, “Plus d’un millier de personnes manifestent à Québec à Québec contre le port du masque,” Radio-Canada, July 26, 2020).

In Quebec the wearing of masks is mandatory in all public places closed since Saturday, July 18. Quebec has also invested in an advertising campaign to encourage citizens to wear face coverings.

The Legault government is contradicting itself. In March, the Quebec Ministry of Health formally opposed the wearing of masks in a message to all citizens.

The Director of Public Health, Horacio Arruda, had demonstrated at a press conference the uselessness of covering one’s face.

Truth or Lie? Political opportunism? Today he refutes what he said, even though his statements were based on scientific studies approved by the Quebec National Health Centre.

Dr. Horacio Arruda has been the National Director of Public Health of Quebec since 2012. This is the same individual who has just ordered the mask to be worn throughout Quebec in enclosed spaces, businesses, libraries, medical clinics, restaurants, grocery stores, shopping malls, hardware stores, etc., even in areas where no case of Covid infection has ever been reported. The question arises. Why do they make you wear the mask? (…)

See the video of July 16, 2020 where Dr Arruda defends the wearing of the compulsory mask by clicking HERE

Press conference by Quebec Premier François Legault on the obligation to wear a mask

The video (duration 13 seconds) starts. A woman’s voice says, “Sophie”. Then, making the gesture of putting his mask back on for the photo shoot, PM Legault said to the journalists and cameramen, “THANK THE EVERYBODY … GOOD, WE’RE GETTING IT ON“. AND… JULIE, DO YOU HAVE ENOUGH PICTURES WITH MY MASK ON? »

“Coup against the people” of Quebec?

Several demonstrators denounced the journalists who help spread lies and government propaganda.

Radio-Canada broadcasts only one version of the facts on the so-called Covid-19 pandemic. Journalists never question specialists who have a different version of the virus epidemic (tests, masks, statistics on the so-called Covid-19 mortality, etc.). For example, Radio-Canada will only interview lawyer Julius Grey (a specialist in rights and freedoms) who supports government measures and denies the restriction of freedoms while advocating the right to security (Radio-Canada, July 26, 2020).

“Alexis Cossette-Trudel, named by several demonstrators as the movement’s spokesperson, denounced the mandatory wearing of the mask, calling it a “coup d’état against the people” (…)

“Some organizers and several demonstrators stress the fear of a dictatorship. Among the slogans drawn on the placards are “COVID-19: Preparation for a police state”, “No to dictatorship” and “What rights do we want to retain in 2021”. According to the demonstrators, the compulsory wearing of the mask is an infringement of fundamental rights and freedoms. “(See article by Léa Harvey, Demonstration against the wearing of masks in Quebec City, Le Soleil (via Le Droit), July 26, 2020).

Source: Erick Labbé, Le Soleil

See other photos of the event: ledroit.com

“This is the second event of its kind to be held in Quebec City in a few weeks. At the end of May, citizens had chanted their dissatisfaction with the various containment and distancing measures. “(More than a thousand protesters chanted in unison “liberté! liberté! liberté! liberté!” in the pouring rain on Sunday afternoon in front of the National Assembly, in a demonstration essentially against the mandatory wearing of masks in closed public places).

In addition, it is important to note that there is a lawsuit in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government for their actions in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This lawsuit confronts the decision of Canadian authorities to impose the wearing of masks, social distancing and policies of closure on the Canadian economy. According to lawyer Rocco Galati:

We have the testimony of 43 experts from Canada and around the world who argue that these measures are not supported by any scientific fact, that they have not been the subject of any prior clinical trial that could have proven their effectiveness, and that they are extreme in the circumstances.

The lawsuit, which began on July 6, is also directed at CBC-Radio-Canada, the federal government entity responsible for misinformation about the “Covid-19 pandemic”. The government of Ontario Premier Doug Ford is also being sued.

Lies and corruption.

After the mandatory mask, the mandatory vaccine?

Micheline Ladouceur

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Translated from French by Maya, Global Research

The original source of this article is Mondialisation.ca, 2020

This informative article focusses on the China-US confrontation regarding 5G. it does not address the impacts of 5G on health.

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First-generation mobile technology offered only analogue calls and no browsing, data transfer or SMS. Even though today’s 4G long-term evolution (LTE) networks, which started to roll out a decade before, featured all these key services and represented both evolution and revolution, 5G will be a real sensation.

Newer series of cellular network technology introduces driverless cars and healthcare systems built on top of it and brings faster downloads and uploads, reduced lag time, smarter devices and rapider streaming for Netflix or YouTube with predicted speeds of up to 100x compared to 4G, round-trip transmission of data taking less than five milliseconds and increased bandwidth.

As of early 2020, US-disseminated security concerns had bungled to stem the rise of Chinese telco Huawei that led global market with 91 commercial contracts and shipped 600,000 5G Massive MIMO Active Antenna Units (AAUs) while Swedish Ericsson and Finish Nokia trailed behind with 81 and 63 deals across world.

Washington has two major concerns with the world’s largest telecoms firm, Huawei. One, there is no company in American trillion-dollar Silicon Valley that can compete with low-cost, niche quality services provided by Shenzhen-based tech goliath. Two and indeed most excruciating for the US, it’s a whale from a strategic competitor that is supercharged and cruising along.

The underlying forebodings in an era of 5G infrastructure development last year pushed the US Commerce Department to add Huawei and its affiliates to the entity list for advancement of America’s national security and foreign policy objectives and promotion of its strategic technology leadership.

But by granting and continuously extending 90-day reprieve to Huawei through Temporary General License (TGL) as late as May 2020, allowing domestic consumers and companies to working with it, US admitted that it had no better replacement for Chinese telco giant and whatever there were, they lacked mettle to really challenge most valuable brand and innovative enterprise in world.

The US confronts another critical issue. Owing to low population and high infrastructure installation cost, major 5G infrastructure vendors are often shy to work in US rural areas. Huawei not only has invested and provided services in remote locations globally, in fact most of its customers in the US are rural Americans.

In February, US Senate unanimously passed bill to pay rural telecom carriers $1 billion to “rip and replace” any gear in their networks from Huawei and ZTE. While the amount was only half of what FCC head Geoffery Starks estimated, users might resist plans to revise or eliminate TGL after August 13.

Additionally As 5G is a more integrated and intelligent network than 3G or 4G that will technically sit on existing infrastructure so removing Huawei completely, from core of any network or even phasing it out won’t be an easy task over huge costs and massive delays and eventually, same set of security threats will occur when companies other than Huawei would be contracted.

Of Five Eyes nations, the US has so far swayed Australia, New Zealand and lately the UK to ban telecoms equipment purchases from Huawei whereas Canada is yet to decide. As Washington presses Europe to drop it from building their 5G networks, the sanctions – like Britain set to suffer $3.6 billion losses and delay 5G rollout by three years – could cost the region to endure $62 billion and defer deployment by 18 months.

Experts warn efforts to coerce and damage Huawei would reciprocate in at least equal costs, if not greater, to the US. They believe that due to the global system – characterized by complex and deep interdependence in economic, security and political relationships – current US policy against Huawei has a very little chance to succeed.

Whole structure being constructed around Huawei is thus internally hollow, plagiarized and brimmed with illusionary and perfidious ruses. In reality, the US anti-Huawei campaign is driven by fear of Chinese technological dominance, the cost of which would result in only delayed global access to 5G technology.

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Azhar Azam works in a private organization as “Market & Business Analyst” and writes on geopolitical issues and regional conflicts.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

My birthday is August 7, sandwiched between the anniversary dates for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (on August 6 and August 9, 1945, respectively). I was six years old when the first bomb fell. My course in life was predetermined.

On September 2, 1945, when the local fire siren suddenly blared, my teacher asked, “What is that?” and I knew: The war was over.

It had been a really scary time in Melbourne, Australia, as the Japanese had threatened to invade us. Dad dug an air-raid shelter in our back garden, and the windows were blacked out while the city’s searchlights scanned the skies at night.

Elated, I walked home on that lovely sunny afternoon picking flowers along the way. It would be years later before I learned the awful truth about how the war ended.

What rained down on those two Japanese cities seventy-five years ago was destruction on a scale never seen before or since. People exposed within half a mile of the atomic fireball were seared to piles of smoking char in a fraction of a second as their internal organs boiled away. The small black bundles stuck to the streets and bridges and sidewalks of Hiroshima numbered in the thousands.

A little boy was reaching up to catch a red dragonfly with his hand against the blue sky when there was a blinding flash and he disappeared. He turned into gas and left his shadow behind on the pavement, a haunting relic later moved to the Hiroshima Museum. A woman was running while holding her baby; she and the baby were turned into a charcoal statue.

In all, about 120,000 people were killed immediately by the two bombs, and tens of thousands more died later due to radiation exposure.

In 1957, when I was eighteen, I read a book by Nevil Shute, an English novelist who ended up in Australia. On the Beach described how the city of Melbourne awaited a deadly cloud of radiation from a nuclear war that was triggered by an accident in the northern hemisphere, killing everything. Men drank their last gin and tonics in the Melbourne Club while the government dispensed cyanide capsules so parents could kill their children quickly to avoid the agonizing symptoms of radiation poisoning.

At the time, I was in medical school, where I learned about radiation biology—the classic experiments of Hermann J. Muller, who in the 1920s irradiated Drosophila fruit flies inducing genetic mutations and morphological abnormalities. Concurrently, the United States and the Soviet Union were testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, bombarding huge populations with radioactive fallout.

In my naiveté, I couldn’t understand what these men thought they were doing because the mutagenic and carcinogenic effects of ionizing radiation were well known in scientific circles. Madame Curie had died of aplastic anemia secondary to radium, an alpha emitter polluting her bones; her daughter died of leukemia, and many of the early radiologists who exposed themselves randomly to X-rays died from malignancies.

Einstein wrote: “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” Robert Oppenheimer, watching the world’s first nuclear explosion in Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 1945, muttered to himself, “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds” from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita.

The scientists knew that they had discovered the seeds of human destruction.

So, in full awareness of its newfound ability to destroy the human race, what did the world do next?

The United States and the Soviet Union decided to outdo each other by conducting a nuclear arms race, building tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. Between 1945 and 1998, the United States conducted more than 1,000 nuclear tests, producing cancer in tens of thousands of people. It has built more than 70,000 atomic and hydrogen bombs; the Soviets and later the Russian Federation had tried to keep up, building at least 55,000 of their own.

Image on the right is from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Arms control agreements over the years have managed to reduce stockpiles to about 14,000 nuclear weapons today, in the possession of nine nations: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. The United States and Russia still lead the pack, each with more than 6,000 total weapons, including about 1,600 each that are actively deployed.

A nuclear “exchange” between these two superpowers would take little over one hour to complete. A twenty-megaton bomb (the equivalent of twenty million tons of TNT) would excavate a hole three-quarters of a mile wide and 800 feet deep, converting all buildings and people into radioactive fallout that would be shot up in the mushroom cloud. Within six miles in all directions every living thing would be vaporized. Twenty miles from the epicenter, huge fires would erupt, as winds of up to 500 miles per hour would suck people out of buildings and turn them into missiles traveling at 100 miles per hour. The fires would coalesce, incinerating much of the United States and causing most nuclear power plants to melt down, greatly exacerbating radioactive fallout.

Potentially billions of people would die hideously from acute radiation sickness, vomiting, and bleeding to death. As thick black radioactive smoke engulfed the stratosphere, the Earth would, over time, be plunged into another ice age—a “nuclear winter,” annihilating almost all living organisms.

Seventy-five years after the dawn of the nuclear age, we are as ready as ever to extinguish ourselves. The human race is clearly an evolutionary aberrant on a suicidal mission. Our planet is in the intensive care unit, approaching several terminal events.

Will we gradually burn and shrivel life on our wondrous Earth by emitting the ancient carbon stored over billions of years to drive our cars and power our industries, or will we end it suddenly by creating a global gas oven?

The International Energy Agency said recently that we only have six months left to avert the effects of global warming before it is too late. Earlier this year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds to midnight, the closest it’s ever been.

In truth, the U.S. Department of Defense is a misnomer; it is actually the Department of War, Death, and Suicide. Hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money are spent annually by corporations such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, BAE Systems, and Raytheon Technologies Corporation to create and build the most hideous weapons of destruction.

Brilliant people employed by these massive corporations, mostly men, are deploying their brainpower to devise better and more hideous ways of killing.

President Donald Trump is right when he says we need to make friends with the Russians, for it is Russian bombs that might well annihilate the United States. Indeed, we need to foster friendship with all nations and reinvest the trillions of dollars spent on war, killing, and death, saving the ecosphere by powering the world with renewable energy including solar, wind, and geothermal, and planting trillions of trees.

Such a move would also free up billions of dollars that could be reallocated to such purposes as providing free medical care for all U.S. citizens, along with free education, housing for the homeless, and care for those with mental illness.

The United States needs to rise to its full moral and spiritual height and lead the world to sanity and survival. I know this is possible because, in the 1980s, millions of wonderful people rose up, nationally and internationally, in opposition to the arms race and the Cold War.

But what is the present reality in the United States?

There are 450 Minuteman III missiles operational on the Great Plains—in Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming. In each missile silo are two missileers, who control and launch the missiles which contain one or two hydrogen bombs. Planes armed with hydrogen bombs stand ready to take off at any moment, and nuclear submarines silently plow the oceans ready to launch.

Both the United States and Russia have nuclear weapons targeted at military facilities and population centers. Nuclear war could happen at any time, by accident or design. The late Stephen Hawking warned in 2014 that artificial intelligence, now being deployed by the military, could become so autonomous that it could start a nuclear war by itself.

This threat is largely ignored by politicians and the mainstream media, who continue to practice psychic numbing as we stumble blindly toward our demise.

How come the physicists, engineers, and military personnel who have laced the world with nuclear weapons ready to launch never factored into their equations the probability that an immature, petulant man-baby could hold the trigger for our destruction in his hands?

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Helen Caldicott is a pediatrician and founder of the 1978 iteration of Physicians for Social Responsibility, which won the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize as part of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

Featured image is from The Progressive

“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
Print Edition: $10.25 (+ shipping and handling)
PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute   

Arthur Cecil Pigou (1877-1959), a British economist, is well known for his contributions to welfare economics. One of the most prolific writers of his time, Pigou wrote over a dozen books and more than 100 articles and pamphlets dealing with both theoretical and practical aspects of welfare economics. His writings cover a wide range of human welfare issues from unemployment to housing to taxation.

Some of his most famous books include Wealth and Welfare (1912), The Economics of Welfare (1920), A Capital Levy and a Levy on War Wealth (1920), The Political Economy of War (1921), and The Theory of Unemployment (1933).

The Pigouvian Taxes

In the 1920s, Pigou gave an analytical solution to the concept of externalities that occur when external costs and benefits spill over to third parties. He advocated a tax on any market activity that creates negative externality (spillover costs to third parties). A typical example of a negative externality is pollution. A variety of Pigouvian taxes are prevalent today to address negative externalities. Carbon taxes on fossil fuels are an excellent example of a Pigovian tax. Similarly, taxes on tobacco, sugary drinks, and plastic bags are imposed to reduce consumption and to create a more socially optimal outcome.

On the other hand, a positive externality occurs when benefits spill over to third parties. Pigou advocated that governments should encourage positive externalities by subsidizing goods and services (such as education and health) that generate spillover benefits. In sum, the Pigouvian taxes and subsidies are aimed at maximizing economic welfare.

A Levy on Capital

The four years of the First World War (1914-18) left Britain mired in debt. By the end of the war, Britain’s national debt stood at £7.1 billion, and the interest payments alone were equal to nearly one-third of government revenue. In 1920, Britain’s debt-to-GDP ratio was five times as large as it was in 1914. The key reason behind deteriorating public finance was heavy reliance by the British government on borrowings (rather than taxation) to finance wartime expenditure. The bulk of borrowings were in the form of floating debt and long-term loans. Taxes only contributed to just one-fourth of total wartime expenditure.

Right from the beginning of World War I, Pigou extensively contributed to domestic policy discussions on managing the fiscal burden of war finances. One of Pigou’s key recommendations was a one-time capital levy of 25 percent on the owners of capital or other wealth to reduce Britain’s fiscal burden. He elaborated on this idea at great length in several publications, including his two books (A Capital Levy and a Levy on War Wealth and The Political Economy of War).

The idea of a one-time capital levy to settle the war debt received broad political support in Britain after the end of the war. The proposal was endorsed by the Labour Party, Trade Union Congress, and others. The Labour Party fought the 1924 election on the platform of the capital levy.

Pigou’s capital levy proposal was severely criticized over the concerns related to administrative costs, disincentives for savings, and an exodus of capital from Britain. In response to such concerns, Pigou gave a point-by-point rebuttal and forcefully argued that a one-time capital levy would not affect the total amount of capital but would only transfer income and wealth from rich individuals to others via taxation. In his opinion, a one-time capital levy is a much better option than facing the prospect of at least five decades of heavy taxation. However, the Treasury rejected the levy proposal on the grounds that it would depress asset prices.

Taxing the Rich

Pigou called for a more progressive tax system in Britain. He was unequivocally in favor of imposing higher tax rates on the rich, albeit temporarily. In his view, higher taxes on the rich were the best way to raise financial resources and should be “levied on an exceptional occasion for the purpose of financing an unprecedented war.” He contended that just like stronger men are needed to fight the battle, the economically stronger should also bear the extra tax burden.

He firmly believed that the British government had “committed a serious mistake in taxing so little and borrowing so much” to finance wartime expenditure. He was against indiscriminate government borrowing as it would necessitate higher taxes on the shoulders of poor people. Pigou wanted to shift the tax burden to those with the broadest shoulders. He explained that taxing the wealthy individuals would be the best option to reduce the war debt at once as the government cannot generate substantial additional revenue by taxing the poor.

In the words of Pigou: “In the present cataclysmic and exceptional war, the very rich and the rich ought to bear a proportion of the objective burden very much larger than that [in peacetime]. There is one way, and one way only, in which this result can be brought about. The ratio in which the war is financed with money borrowed from people with large incomes should be much diminished: and the ratio in which it is financed with money collected from them under some form of progressive taxation should be much increased.”

Pigou’s proposals for a capital levy and higher taxes on the wealthy individuals need to be revisited in the light of triple crises of coronavirus: a health crisis, an economic crisis, and a financial crisis.

Covid-19: An Existential Threat

Many world leaders have described the Covid-19 pandemic as the greatest threat faced by their countries since World War II. The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently warned that the Covid-19 pandemic is “the most challenging crisis we have faced since World War II” and “it has an economic impact that will bring a recession that probably has no parallel in the recent past.” In India, some state governments (including Delhi and Karnataka) have set up dedicated ‘Covid-19 War Rooms’ to closely monitor and manage the Covid-19 pandemic.

Pundits have often used the war metaphor to explain the gravity of the health pandemic and its associated economic challenges. Even though the comparisons of coronavirus pandemic to war have inherent limitations, it is not hard to imagine that the economic damage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic worldwide could be far greater than the damage caused by World War II.

If not a war, Covid-19 is undoubtedly a public health emergency that has brought the global economy to a standstill and pushed the world into a recession that would be much worse than the 2008 global financial crisis.

Bigger Economic Challenges Lie Ahead

In many important ways, the Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically exposed the existing fault lines in societies and economies around the world. Presently, we are witnessing only the beginning of social and economic impacts. More significant social and economic challenges lie ahead, especially for the poor and developing countries.

There are growing fears that the Covid-19-induced recession may last longer than initially anticipated – potentially into 2021 and even beyond. Although it is difficult to predict the shape of economic recovery, most economists foresee a ‘U’ or ‘W’ shaped economic recovery, rather than a ‘V’ shaped.

While it is too early to comprehend the full impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the global poverty levels, the World Bank has recently estimated that the crisis could potentially push 71 million to 100 million into extreme poverty. In particular, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa regions would witness a substantial increase in the number of poor people.

The International Labour Organization has estimated that nearly 400 million full-time jobs (based on a 48-hour working week) were lost in the second quarter of 2020, and the labor market recovery will remain uncertain and incomplete during the second half of 2020. Needless to add, the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set out by the UN are under threat from the coronavirus pandemic.

The governments around the globe are struggling with a “scissors effect” of decreasing tax revenues due to sudden stop in economic activity and rising expenditure due to a higher demand for health and social protection in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Apart from strengthening public health infrastructure, there have been renewed demands across countries for ensuring basic minimum income for the poor and most vulnerable households.

To mitigate the economic catastrophe, governments need plenty of money. Now the moot question is: Where will the money come from? A country may choose to borrow money from official or private lenders, but it would entail a higher debt burden on future generations. Another option is to print money and spend it, albeit with some constraints. Another option is to introduce a wealth tax or impose higher taxes on the rich. As discussed in Briefing Paper # 37, governments could raise substantial revenues in a fair and efficient manner by introducing wealth taxes on wealthy individuals to meet Covid-19-related costs, without placing additional burdens on future generations.

Covid-19 Crisis: An Opportune Time for a Wealth Tax

Contrary to popular perception, wealth taxes are not new. Many countries (from India to South Africa to Canada) levied a variety of wealth taxes in the past. With the advent of neoliberal economic policies in the 1990s, wealth taxes went out of fashion. Some European countries (Norway, Spain, Switzerland, and Belgium) still enforce a wealth tax.

Wealth taxes could be applied to a variety of assets, including cash, bank deposits, stocks, real estate, personal cars, etc. Wealth taxes could be levied sporadically (in the form of a capital levy) or an annual or regular basis. They could be levied on an individual’s wealth as well as on a transfer of wealth.

The imposition of a wealth tax on wealthy individuals becomes even more critical in the present time as the wealth of global billionaires is rapidly increasing since the onset of Covid-19. Amid the pandemic, the net worth of the world’s leading billionaires spiked while millions of poor people across the globe lost their jobs and livelihoods.

According to a recent report by the Institute of Policy Studies, US billionaires saw their total wealth surged by over $755 billion between March 18 and July 23, 2020, while over 52.4 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits during the same period. Somewhat similar trends could also be seen across countries. In India, for instance, Mukesh Ambani added $15.5 billion (Rs 1.16 lakh crore) to his fortune in July alone following a series of capital raising deals with global investment and technology firms. As per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Ambani is the fifth-wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of $78.9 billion as of July 30, 2020. In contrast, the pandemic could push 260 million Indians into poverty, according to the estimates by the United Nations and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative.

The Revenue Potential

So what could be the revenue-generating potential of a capital levy in the US? Ian Kumekawa has estimated in a back-of-the-envelope exercise that a 5 percent levy on the US’s richest 1 percent could raise $1tn and an additional 5 percent levy on the wealthiest 0.1 percent could furnish half a trillion more, thereby covering half of the US’s pandemic fiscal stimulus. If carefully designed and implemented, a one-time levy or a continued wealth tax could mobilize a portion of funds needed to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic in other countries too.

Although Pigou had proposed the wealth tax as a one-time levy to pay off the national debt, the idea of a continued wealth tax on super-wealthy is gaining traction in Latin America. In April 2020, Peru announced a solidarity tax on wealthy Peruvians with an objective that they should shoulder a larger share of the economic burden of the Covid-19 pandemic. Similar wealth taxes have also been endorsed by opposition candidates and parties in Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, and Ecuador to fill the massive fiscal holes created by the pandemic.

In the US, even before Covid-19, the Democratic presidential candidate hopeful Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders advocated wealth taxes to increase tax revenues and to reduce inequality.

The unprecedented nature of the Covid-19 pandemic offers a new window of opportunity to governments to introduce wealth taxes on wealthy sections of society. Specifically targeted only at wealthy individuals, wealth taxes (in myriad forms) need immediate consideration by policymakers to mobilize the resources required to mitigate the social and economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Kavaljit Singh is Director of Madhyam, a policy research think-tank, based in New Delhi.

A secretive agreement has been struck between a US oil company, Delta Crescent Energy, and the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in North Eastern Syria in order to develop and export the region’s oil.

Months after US president Donald Trump contradicted officials by suggesting that US forces were there “only for the oil” and vowing that it would “secure the oil”, the controversial deal lays bare the American strategy in the region.

The pact has been approved directly by the US government.

America backs the SDF militia in Syria which is dominated by the PYD/YPG. The YPG is the Syrian offshoot of the PKK, a group recognised by Turkey, as well as the US and the EU, as a terrorist organisation.

Who is Delta Crescent Energy? 

The little known company at the heart of this agreement is led by former US government officials and includes James Reese, an ex officer in the Army’s elite Delta Force; former US ambassador to Denmark James Cainand and John P. Dorrier Jr., a former executive at GulfSands Petroleum, a UK based company that had previously worked in northeastern Syria.

Reese, one of the partners of Delta Crescent Energy, has been a strong advocate of US military presence in Syria. In 2018, he declared on Fox News“We own the whole eastern part of Syria…That’s ours. We can’t give that up.”

This deal also exposes how, under the Trump administration, the US has blurred the lines between private and public sectors, raising questions about ethics and business dealings.

The former political insiders now leading Delta Crescent Energy were helped in sealing the deal by the US State Department, which, in turn, helped to broker it.

During a committee hearing in Washington, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo whether the Trump administration was in favour of the deal or not.

“We are,” Pompeo responded during the hearing. “The deal took a little longer … than we had hoped, and now we’re in implementation.”

Pompeo’s comments suggest that the government has been fully aware, and further to that, encouraged the deal for more than a year.

Where will the oil go?

The oil agreement has been condemned by the Assad regime which does not recognise the American occupation of northeastern Syria, nor the legitimacy of its local proxies, the SDF.

Syria’s foreign ministry called the deal illegal and that it was aimed at “stealing” Syria’s crude oil.

The statement went on to add that the Damascus government “condemns in the strongest terms the agreement signed between al-Qasd militia (SDF) and an American oil company to steal Syria’s oil under the sponsorship and support of the American administration”, it went on to conclude that “This agreement is null and void and has no legal basis.”

The Trump administration is unlikely to approve oil sales to the Damascus regime.

Equally, Turkey has condemned the deal that has been struck by the US based oil company.

“We deeply regret the US support to this step, disregarding international law, violating territorial integrity, unity and sovereignty of Syria, as well as being considered within the scope of financing terrorism,” Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday in a statement.

“This act, which cannot be justified by any legitimate motive, is utterly unacceptable,” the ministry added.

Turkey therefore is an unlikely buyer of Syrian crude oil, especially if it directly supports an organisation designated as a terrorist one.

The most likely outlet for the oil in northeastern Syria, is likely to be through Northern Iraq, in particular the Kurdish Regional Government. Since 2014, a murky yet highly lucrative trade has developed providing a crucial lifeline for the isolated SDF militia.

US meeting with PKK leadership? 

The current oil deal comes amid a backdrop of meetings between a US delegation and the PKK leadership in the Qandil mountains of Northern Iraq, one the strongholds of the terror group.

According to reports, the delegation asked the PKK leadership to step back from northeastern Syria, as well as its financing and support of the SDF, and in return the US will take over as the main sponsor of the militia.

America is already known to enjoy close ties with the SDF leader, Mazloum Kobani, who is also a member of the PKK.

Kobani, whose real name is Ferhat Abdi Sahin, is one of Turkey’s most wanted terrorists.

The US support for the YPG in Syria has become one of the stumbling blocks in bilateral ties between the two NATO allies.

The Turkish military has launched three incursions into Syria to fight Daesh and the PKK/YPG.

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On the evening of August 4th, a massive explosion rocked the port of the Lebanese capital of Beirut, causing devastating damage and leaving thousands of casualties. The explosion sent a shockwave across the city and blew out windows up to 10 kilometers away. It was felt as far away as Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea.

As of the morning of August 5th, the number of reported fatalities exceeded 100, with at least 4,000 people reported  injured. At least 48 staff members of the United Nations and 27 members of their families were among the injured. 10 rescuers involved in the operation to contain the damage and to help people have been reported killed.

Initial reports suggested that the explosion may have been caused by an incident in the firework storage area. However, later, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hassan Diab said that 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate, which is typically used as an agricultural fertilizer, had been stored for six years at a port warehouse without proper safety measures, “endangering the safety of citizens.”

This statement was backed by General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim, who said a “highly explosive material” had been confiscated years earlier and stored in the warehouse, just minutes’ walk from Beirut’s shopping and nightlife districts.

It is still unclear what caused the explosion itself thus laying the ground for various speculations in mainstream media outlets and on social media platforms. In particular, reports suggested that a number of Hezbollah members were in the port area at the moment of the explosion. This immediately caused reports that this may have been a result of some Israeli attack, for example sabotage actions or a somehow unnoticed missile strike, and that the site of the explosion was in fact a part of the Hezbollah military infrastructure.

The Israeli Defense Forces did not officially comment on these speculations. Israeli media, which are often eager to promote supposed Israeli military victories, claimed that Israeli forces did not attack Beirut. In their turn, Hezbollah denounced reports that the explosion happened on one of their sites saying that there was no Israeli attack on August 4.

Nonetheless, it seems that the US leadership has a quite different point of view. Commenting on the situation after a meeting with military officials, President Donald Trump claimed that the incident was an attack.

“They seem to think it was an attack. It was a bomb of some kind,” Trump said.

Whatever the real cause of the tragedy turns out to be, the Beirut explosions have already fueled tensions in the region. And despite comments by Hezbollah and Israeli media that it was not a military incident, the warring sides are actively accusing each other. Comments by the US President about a supposed attack on the Beirut port do not make the situation any easier.

Taking into account the recent series of military incidents on the Israeli-Lebanese contact line, and in the Israeli-occupied area of the Golan Heights, any new border provocation may easily lead to a larger escalation. The years of war propaganda and military confrontations together with increased tension within Israeli and Lebanese society respectively have already created conditions in which a further, even small, military incident may appear to be enough to provoke a larger war in the region. This large war is in no interest of Tel Aviv or Hezbollah because it will obviously have a devastating impact on both Israel and Lebanon. In this light, it is especially interesting that the Trump administration is making statements that would contribute to this scenario. There is a chance that in a time of a deepening social and political crisis in the US on top of a complicated economic situation in the runup to the next US Presidential election, some hotheads may believe that a new, theoretically ‘victorious’ war in the Middle East, could help them to remain in power.

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Ann Garrison spoke to Bart Naylor, financial policy advocate with Public Citizen, about the stimulus bill passed on March 25th and the one now pending.

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Ann Garrison: Most of us have heard that the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act is full of handouts to huge corporations, but I heard you say, in an interview on WNHN-New Hampshire, that most of that money hasn’t yet gone out the door. If so, why not?

Bart Naylor: It’s not clear. The Federal Reserve and the Treasury decide where the $500 billion under Title IV of the CARES Act goes. They’ve put some conditions on it, such as no buybacks. Buybacks are where the company buys its own stock. Doing that is a complete declaration of failure that the CEO can’t find use for the firm’s cash to further employ people and stimulate the economy. But it raises the stock price, and since CEOs are paid in stock options, that raises CEO pay. The perversion of taxpayer-funded buybacks is one thing we have to be vigilant to prevent.

Image is from the author

AG: How else might CEOs misuse stimulus funds?

BN: The list of what management can do wrong is as long as the daily newspaper: Boeing crashes, mine disasters, monopolistic practices, drug price gouging. Some of this is illegal. Who pays the fine? Shareholders. When these companies misbehave going forward, it is literally going to be the taxpayers paying the fines, since it’s their/our money funding the firms—and their inevitable misconduct.

AG: Are funds allocated in the CARES Act going to more prosperous and therefore whiter neighborhoods?

BN: Absolutely. One study found that a Black Congressional district in Missouri got one-eighth the amount of Paycheck Protection Program funding that a white district in Idaho did. Same number of people, one eighth the help.

AG: Is this because stabilization, not change, is the goal of the Paycheck Protection Program? Because it therefore aids districts with higher rates of employment and pay?

BN: It’s a black box. It’s not clear why banks approved PPP funds for white businesses over black businesses. But they did.

AG: What do you think is most needed in the next stimulus bill? 

BN: There’s desperate need for more aid for the unemployed. Even the Republicans agree. Hopefully more conditions will be established in this next iteration of a trillion dollar package, including limits on CEO pay, so they can’t siphon it off.

AG: What’s in the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act?

BN: As of now, there will be no HEROES Act. That’s a House bill. The Senate bill is the Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection and Schools (HEALS) Act. All the negotiations are about the Senate. Once again, to get anything, the House will have to pass what the Senate agrees to. 

AG: Will the HEALS Act be another huge cash payout to the already rich with crumbs for the rest of us? 

BN: Yes. Maybe not crumbs, but too much will go to the 1 percent. 

AG: Shouldn’t the money go more directly to the people in the form of cash grants, a universal basic income, and much needed infrastructural projects like those undertaken during the New Deal?

BN: Yes. We need a national industrial commission, a permanent one, so that the next time this happens, we don’t pass a multi-trillion-dollar law in 11 days, written by sleep-deprived staff and inattentive lawmakers who are making this all up on the fly.

AG: Before the CARES Act passed, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and probably a few others wailed that they were being forced to vote for the giveaway just to get the crumbs for the rest of us? Do you think, as many angry leftists said, that they shouldn’t have voted for it? And do you think they should refuse if the HEALS Act does the same?

BN: I’ve never run for political office and I would be paralyzed by such a Sophie’s Choice, but in the end, I would not vote for either.

AG: On July 10, the CNBC reported that 28 million Americans are facing eviction and foreclosure due to the depression caused by the coronavirus. Twenty days later, on July 30, they reported that 40 million are. What can be done to stop this?

BN: Very tough situation. That’s one reason that more aid for the unemployed is desperately needed. Also, landlords need revenue to maintain rental property, so Congress must pass landlord help, but only on the condition that evictions are halted.

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Featured image is by Matt Kenyon/Financial Times

Videos of the devastating explosion at the port of Beirut that left over 70 people dead and thousands wounded continue to emerge, painting a comprehensive picture of the destruction – though shedding no light on its cause.

Two luminaries in the African American struggle which emerged during the 1950s and 1960s, Rev. C.T. Vivian and Congressman John Lewis, passed away on July 17.

Both figures played a prominent role in the efforts to destroy legalized segregation, commonly referred to as Jim Crow, through nonviolent direct action, mass mobilizations and electoral politics.

Nonetheless, since the 1960s, the corporate media and other elements within the capitalist ruling class including the leaderships of the Democratic and Republican parties have never been able to come to grips with the rapid social changes brought about by the political intervention of oppressed peoples. Many contend that the victories surrounding the desegregation of retail outlets, educational institutions, residential areas and access to the franchise would have never occurred if not for the benevolent and perhaps enlightened support of liberals within the Democratic Party.

Former United States Senator and two-time unsuccessful presidential candidate in 2008 and 2016, Hillary Clinton, said as much during her first race to win the nomination when the-then Democratic Senator Barack Obama decisively won the primaries to go on to be elected for two terms. Clinton asserted that if former President Lyndon B. Johnson had not been in office, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would not have passed in the Congress.

Advancing such notions is tantamount to robbing the masses of their own history. It was the African American people themselves who initiated the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56, representing a turning point in the quest for equality and self-determination since the conclusion of the Civil War.

Image on the right: Rosa Parks being booked after arrest for violating the segregation laws of Alabama on Dec. 1, 1955

The Montgomery Women’s Political Council under the leadership of organizers such as Mary Fair Burks, Jo Ann Robinson, Irene West, Thelma Glass, and Uretta Adair, printed flyers and made telephone calls leading up to the beginning of the boycott on December 1955. The boycott was prompted by the arrest of Mrs. Rosa L. Parks, a seamstress and veteran activist in various struggles involving civil rights and labor organizing. Parks was arrested on December 1 after refusing to give up her seat in the segregated section of a city bus to a white man. Parks was charged with violating the segregation laws of Alabama. (See this)

In a matter of days, a young minister recently out of graduate school in Boston, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was catapulted into national and international prominence after the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) unanimously selected him as the spokesperson for the Black community during the boycott. The homes of King and a neighbor of Parks, Lutheran Minister Rev. Robert Graetz (a white pastor sympathetic to civil rights), were bombed by racists during the boycott, signaling the intransigent resistance to the advancement of African Americans which has continued well into the 21^st century. (See this)

From Freedom Now to Black Power

Yet the attempts to revise the actual history of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements are ongoing as exemplified by the remarks made by former President Bill Clinton at a memorial service for Congressman Lewis. Clinton, known for his signing of the 1994 Crime Bill which resulted in the incarceration of millions of African Americans and other oppressed peoples, suggested the replacement of John Lewis as Chairman by Stokely Carmichael and his supporters in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) at its May 1966 annual conference was a mistake.

Clinton said at the memorial that:

“It must have been painful to lose, but he showed as a young man there’s some things that you just cannot do to hang on to a position because if you do, then, you won’t be who you are anymore. And I say there were two or three years there, where the movement went a little too far towards Stokely, but in the end, John Lewis prevailed.”

Carmichael, later known as Kwame Ture, a graduate of Howard University, had been a member of SNCC since 1960 while studying for his degree. He had been active in various Southern struggles including being sentenced to serve time at the notorious Parchman Prison as a Freedom Rider in 1961, the SNCC campaign in Greenwood, Mississippi, and most famously his organizational work in Lowndes County, Alabama during 1965-66, when the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO) was formed as the original Black Panther Party.

After the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) was betrayed by the Johnson administration at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City along with the ratification of the Voting Rights Act the following year, the Watts Rebellion erupted in Los Angeles in August 1965. Both the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) founded by Dr. King as well as SNCC headed during 1966-1967 by Carmichael, shifted resources to northern and western urban areas to address the emerging struggles in Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, etc. The urban rebellions and the widespread registration of African Americans as voters were pivotal factors in increasing the numbers of Black people holding elective offices on a local, statewide and national level.

A leading online publication serving the African American community, Grio.com, quoted several social media responses to Clinton where the former president was condemned for his inappropriate comments. The article said:

“It didn’t take long for Black Twitter to drag the so-called ‘first Black president’ for his remarks. Many felt he had no right to even offer his opinion, much less at the services for Lewis.”

Two Lives Well Lived

Cordy Tindell Vivian was born in Boonville, Missouri in 1924 and later migrated with his family to Macomb, Illinois where he attended elementary and high school. He later matriculated Western Illinois University (WIU) where he worked as a sports editor for the campus newspaper.

C.T. Vivian became involved in the resistance to segregation as early as 1947 when he participated in sit-ins against segregation in Illinois. Vivian later studied for the ministry at the Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville where he met Rev. James Lawson, a key figure in the crafting of nonviolent direct action tactics. Lawson, who had visited India, was influenced by Ghandi.

Lawson was instrumental in recruiting Vivian, John Lewis, Diane Nash, Bernard Lafayette, among others into the Civil Rights Movement whose student sector would emerge fully in early 1960 in Nashville and other areas of the South. Vivian helped to establish the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference, an affiliate of the SCLC headed by Dr. King.

Alabama state troopers and Dallas County police attack marchers in Selma on March 7, 1965

Vivian was brutally beaten at the aegis of Sheriff Jim Clark in Selma during the early 1965 struggles which led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. In later years, Vivian served in numerous capacities as a public speaker, co-founder of the National Anti-Klan Network, later known as the Center for Democratic Renewal, along with being a board member of a Black-owned bank based in Atlanta where he eventually settled.

At the time of their deaths, Vivian was 96 and Lewis, 80. Lewis was born as the son of sharecroppers in Troy, Alabama. Lewis was inspired by news of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the ministry of Dr. King. Lewis also attended the Theological Seminary in Nashville and joined with other youth in initiating the student movement of the 1960s.

Rosa Parks being booked after arrest for violating the segregation laws of Alabama on Dec. 1, 1955

It is important that these historical personalities be placed with the social and political context under which they emerged. The African American struggle for liberation has utilized numerous tactics and strategies since the era of enslavement through the Civil War, Reconstruction and the more modern day efforts to eradicate racism, national oppression and economic exploitation.

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

Featured image: Nashville Mayor West with C.T. Vivian and Diane Nash in 1960; all images in this article are from the author

Two decades after a political earthquake, a powerful aftershock that should be rocking Brazil apart is being met with thunderous silence.  

What is now termed “the Banestado leaks” and “CC5gate” is straight out of vintage WikiLeaks: a list, published for the first time in full, naming names and detailing one of the biggest corruption and money laundering cases in the world in the past three decades.

This scandal allows for the healthy practice of what Michel Foucault characterized as the archeology of knowledge. Without understanding these leaks, it’s impossible to place in proper context events ranging from the sophisticated assault by Washington on Brazil – initially via NSA spying on President Dilma Roussef’s first term (2010-2014) – all the way to the “Car Wash” corruption investigation that jailed Luis Inácio Lula da Silva and opened the way for the election of neofascist patsy Jair Bolsonaro as president.

Credit for the scoop on this George Orwell-does-hybrid-war plotline is due, once again, to independent media. The small website Duplo Expresso, led by young, daring, Bern-based international lawyer Romulus Maya, first published the list.

An epic five-hour podcast assembled the three key protagonists who denounced the scandal in the first place, back in the late 1990s, and now are able to re-analyze it: then-governor of Parana state Roberto Requiao, federal prosecutor Celso Tres and now retired police superintendent Jose Castilho Neto.

Previously, in another podcast, Maya and anthropologist Piero Leirner, Brazil’s foremost analyst of hybrid war, briefed me on the myriad political intricacies of the leaks while we discussed geopolitics in the Global South.

The CC5 lists are here, here , and here . Let’s see what makes them so special.

The mechanism 

Way back in 1969, the Brazilian Central Bank created what was described as a “CC5 account” to facilitate foreign companies and executives to legally wire assets overseas. For many years the cash flow in these accounts was not significant. Then everything changed in the 1990s – with the emergence of a massive, complex criminal racket centered on money laundering.

The original Banestado investigation started in 1997. Federal prosecutor Celso Tres was stunned to find that from 1991 to 1996 Brazilian currency worth no less than US$124 billion had been wired overseas. Eventually the total for the whole life of the racket (1991-2002) ballooned to a whopping $219 billion – placing Banestado as one of the largest money laundering schemes in history.

Tres’s report led to a federal investigation focused in Foz do Iguacu in southern Brazil, strategically situated right at the Tri-Border of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, where local banks were laundering vast amounts of funds through their CC5 accounts.

Here is how it worked. US dollar dealers in the black market, linked to bank and government employees, used a vast network of bank accounts under the names of unsuspecting smurfs and phantom companies to launder illegal funds from public corruption, tax fraud and organized crime, mainly through the Banco do Estado do Parana branch in Foz do Iguacu. Thus “the Banestado case.”

The federal investigation was going nowhere until 2001, when then-police superintendent Castilho ascertained that most of the funds were actually landing in accounts at the Banestado branch in New York. Castilho arrived in New York in January 2002 to turbo-charge the necessary international money tracking.

Through a court order, Castilho and his team reviewed 137 accounts at Banestado New York, tracking $14.9 billion. In quite a few cases, the beneficiaries’ names were the same as those of Brazilian politicians then serving in Congress, cabinet ministers and even former presidents.

After a month in New York, Castilho was back in Brazil carrying a hefty 400-page report. Yet, despite the overwhelming evidence he was removed from the investigation, which was then put on hold for at least a year. When the new Lula government took power in early 2003, Castilho was back in business.

In April 2003, Castilho identified a particularly interesting Chase Manhattan account named “Tucano” – the nickname of the PSDB party led by former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who had been in power before Lula and who always kept very close ties to the Clinton and Blair political machines.

Castilho was instrumental in the setup of a parliamentary inquiry commission over the Banestado case. But, once again, this commission led nowhere – there was not even a vote on a final report. Most companies involved negotiated deals with the Brazilian Internal Revenue Service and thus ended any possibility of legal action in regard to tax evasion.

Banestado meets Car Wash 

In a nutshell, the two largest political parties – Cardoso’s neoliberal PSDB and Lula’s Workers’ Party, neither of which ever really faced down imperial machinations and the Brazilian rentier class – actively buried an in-depth investigation.

Moreover Lula, coming right after Cardoso, and mindful or preserving a minimum of governability, made a strategic decision not to investigate “Tucano” corruption, including a slew of dodgy privatizations.

New York prosecutors went so far as to prepare a special Banestado list for Castilho with what really mattered for criminal prosecution to go through: the full circle of the money laundering scheme, with funds first illegally remitted out of Brazil using the CC5 accounts, next passing through the New York branches of the Brazilian banks involved, then reaching offshore bank accounts and trusts in tax havens (e.g., Cayman, Jersey, Switzerland) and finally going back to Brazil as – fully laundered – “foreign investment,” for the actual use and enjoyment of the final beneficiaries who had first removed the not-accounted-for money from the country using the CC5 accounts.

But then Brazilian Justice Minister Marcio Thomaz Bastos, appointed by Lula, nixed it. As superintendent Castilho metaphorically puts it, “This deliberately prevented me from going back to Brazil with the murdered body.”

While Castilho never got hold of this critical document, at least two Brazilian congressmen, two senators and two federal prosecutors who would later on rise to fame as Car Wash investigation “stars” – Vladimir Aras and Carlos Fernando dos Santos Lima – did get it. Why and how the document – call it the “body bag” – never found its way into the criminal proceedings back in Brazil is an extra mystery wrapped up inside the whole enigma.

Meanwhile, there are “unconfirmed” reports (several sources would not go on record on this) that the document might have been used for outright extortion of the individuals, mostly billionaires, featured on the list.

Extra sauce in the judicial sphere comes from the fact that the provincial judge in charge of burying the Banestado case was none other than Sergio Moro, the self-serving Elliot Ness figure who in the next decade would rise to superstar status as the capo di tutti i capi of the massive Car Wash investigation and subsequent justice minister under Bolsonaro.

Moro ended up resigning and is now de facto already campaigning to be elected president in 2022.

And here we hit the toxic Banestado-Car Wash connection. Considering what is already public domain about Moro’s modus operandi on Car Wash, as he altered names in documents with the single-minded objective of sending Lula to jail, the challenge now would be to prove how Moro “sold” non-convictions related to Banestado. He had a very convenient legal excuse: With no “body” brought back to criminal proceedings in Brazil, no one could be found guilty.

As we plunge into excruciating details, Banestado increasingly looks and feels like the Ariadne’s thread that may reveal the beginning of the destruction of Brazil’s sovereignty. A tale full of lessons to be learned by the whole Global South.

Black market dollar king 

Castilho, in that epic podcast, did ring alarm bells when he referred to  $17 million that had transited in the Banestado branch in New York and then was sent to, of all places, Pakistan. He and his team found that out only a few months after 9/11. I’ve sent him some questions about it, and his answered, through Maya, is that his investigators will dig it all up again, as a report did indicate the origin of these funds.

This is the first time such information has surfaced – and the ramifications may be explosive. We’re talking about dodgy funds, arguably from drugs and weapons operations, leaving the Triple Border, which happens historically to be a top site for CIA and Mossad black ops.

Financing may have been provided by the so-called king of the black market dollars, Dario Messer, via CC5 accounts. It’s no secret that black market operators at the Tri-Border are all connected to cocaine trafficking via Paraguay – and also to evangelicals. That is the basis of what Maya, Leirner and I have already described as Cocaine Evangelistan.

Messer is an indispensable cog in the recycling mechanism built into drug trafficking. Money travels to fiscal paradises under imperial protection, is duly laundered, and is gloriously resurrected on Wall Street and in the City of London, with the extra bonus of the US easing some of its current account deficit. Cue to Wall Street’s “irrational exuberance.”

What really matters is free circulation of cocaine. Why not, hidden in the odd soya cargo, something that comes with the extra benefit of securing the well being of agro-business. That’s a mirror image of the CIA heroin ratline in Afghanistan that I detailed here.

Most of all, politically, Messer is the notorious missing link to Moro. Even mainstream O Globo newspaper was forced to admit, last November, that Messer’s shadowy businesses were “monitored” nonstop for two decades by different US agencies out of Asuncion and Ciudad del Este in Paraguay. Moro for his part is an asset for two different US agencies – FBI and CIA – plus the Department of Justice.

Messer may be the joker in this convoluted plot. But then there’s the Maltese Falcon: There’s only one Maltese Falcon, as the John Huston classic immortalized it.  And it’s currently lying in a safe in Switzerland.

I’m referring to the original, official documents submitted by construction giant Odebrecht to the Car Wash investigation which have been undisputedly “manipulated,”“allegedly” by the company itself. And “maybe”, in collusion with then-judge Moro and the prosecution team led by Deltan Dallagnol.

Not only, possibly, for the purpose of incriminating Lula and persons close to him, but also – crucially – deleting any mentions of individuals who should never be brought to light. Or to justice. And, yes, you guessed it right if you thought about the (US-backed) black market dollar king.

The first serious political impact after the release of the Banestado leaks is that Lula’s lawyers Cristiano and Valeska Zanin have finally, officially requested Swiss authorities to hand over the originals.

Governor Requiao, by the way, was the only Brazilian politician to publicly ask Lula, back in February, to go for the documents in Switzerland. It is no surprise that Requiao is the first public figure in Brazil to now ask Lula to make all this content public once the former President gets hold of it.

The real, not adulterated Odebrecht list of people involved in corruption is crammed with big names – including the judiciary elite.

Confronting the two versions, Lula’s lawyers may finally be able to demonstrate the falsification of “evidence” that led to the jailing of Lula and also, among other developments, to the exile of Ecuador’s former president Rafael Correa, the imprisonment of his former vice-president, Jorge Glas, the imprisonment of Peru’s former president Ollanta Humala and wife and, most dramatically, the suicide of Peru’s former two time president Alan Garcia.

Brazilian Patriot Act

The big political question now is not to uncover the master manipulator who buried the Banestado scandal two decades ago.

As anthropologist Leirner detailed it, what matters is that the leaking of the CC5 accounts focuses on the mechanism of the corrupted Brazilian bourgeoisie, with the help of their political and judicial partners – national and foreign – to solidify itself as a rentier class, but still always submissive to and kept in check by “secret,” imperial files.

Banestado leaks and the CC5 accounts should be seen as a political opening for Lula to go for broke. This is all-out (hybrid) war – and blinking is not an option. The geopolitical and geoeconomic project of destroying Brazil’s sovereignty and turning it into an imperial sub-colony is winning – hands down.

A measure of the explosiveness of Banestado leaks and CC5gate has been the reaction by assorted limited hangouts: thundering silence, and that encompasses leftist parties and alternative, supposedly progressive media. Mainstream media, for which former judge Moro is a sacred cow, at best spin it as “old story,” “fake news” and even a “hoax.”

Lula is facing a fateful decision. With access to names so far shadowed by Car Wash, he may be able to unleash a neutron bomb and pull off a reset of the whole game – exposing a rash of Car Wash-linked Supreme Court judges, prosecutors, district attorneys, journalists and even generals who received funds from Odebrecht  overseas.

Not to mention bring black market dollar king Messer – who controls the fate of Moro – to the frontline. This means directly pointing a finger at the US deep state. Not an easy decision to make.

It’s now clear that creditors of the Brazilian state were, originally, debtors. Confronting different accounts it’s possible to square the circle on Brazil’s legendary “fiscal imbalance” – exactly as this plague is brought up, once again, with the intent of decimating the assets of the ailing Brazilian state. Finance Minister Paulo Guedes, a neo-Pinochetist and Milton Friedman cheerleader, has already warned he’ll keep selling state companies like there’s no tomorrow.

Lula’s plan B would be to clinch some sort of deal that would bury the whole dossier – just the way the original Banestado investigation was buried two decades ago – to preserve the leadership of the Workers’ Party as domesticated opposition, and without touching on the absolutely essential issue: how Guedes is selling out Brazil.

That would be the line favored by Fernando Haddad, who lost the presidential election to Bolsonaro in 2018 and is a sort of Brazilian version of Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s former President. He’s an ashamed neoliberal sacrificing everything to have yet another shot at power possibly in 2026.

Were Plan B to happen it would galvanize the wrath of trade unions and social movements – the flesh and blood Brazilian working classes, which are on the verge of being totally decimated by neoliberalism on steroids and the toxic collusion of the US-inspired Brazilian version of the Patriot Act with military schemes to profit from Cocaine Evangelistan.

And all that after Washington – successfully – nearly destroyed national champion Petrobras, an initial objective of NSA spying. Zanin, Lula’s lawyer, also adds – maybe too late – that the “informal cooperation” between Washington and the Car Wash op was in fact illegal, according to decree number 3.810/02.

What will Lula do? 

As it stands, as a development of the Banestado leaks, a first Banestado “VIP list” was gathered. It includes the current President of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, who also serves as a Supreme Court justice, Luis Roberto Barroso, bankers, media tycoons and industrialists. Car Wash prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol happens to be very close to the neoliberal Supreme Court justice in question.

The VIP list should be read as the road map for the money laundering practices of the Brazilian 0.01% – roughly estimated to be 20,000 families who own the close to one trillion dollar Brazilian internal debt. A large part of those funds had been recycled back to Brazil as “foreign investment” through the CC5 scheme back in the 1990s. And that’s exactly how Brazil’s internal debt exploded.

Still no one knows where the Banestado-enabled torrent of dodgy money actually landed, in detail. The “body bag” was never formally acknowledged to have been brought back from New York and never made its way into the criminal proceedings. Yet money laundering is almost definitely still in progress – and thus the limitation period does not apply – so somebody, anybody, would have to be thrown in the slammer. It doesn’t seem that will be the case anytime soon, though.

Meanwhile, enabled by the US deep state, transnational finance and local comprador elites – some in uniform, some in robes – the slow-motion hybrid war coup against Brazil keeps rambling on, day by day inching closer to full spectrum dominance.

Which bring us to the key, final question: what will Lula do about it?

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The Southeast Asian nation of Thailand has in recent years “tilted” too far toward China for Washington’s liking.

Now, the familiar signs of US-backed covert regime change are evident in Thailand’s streets. Protests are openly targeting Thailand’s current government as well as its military and constitutional monarchy. Protests are similar to US-backed unrest seen recently in Hong Kong and are becoming more frequent despite their poor attendance and an overall protest-weary public.

Despite the superficial and deliberately ambiguous stated goals of protesters – the real goal of US-backed unrest in Thailand is similar to its motivations for sowing chaos in Hong Kong – to pressure Beijing by attacking China’s stability directly and the stability of its most important trading partners and military allies which currently includes Thailand.

Thailand – with the second largest economy in ASEAN – has boosted ties with China significantly in recent years – China being Thailand’s primary export and import partner, providing Thailand the majority of its foreign direct investment, tourism, the majority of its arms purchases in a recent bid to modernize it military, and in the construction of major infrastructure projects including a high-speed railway system that will extend China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative deep into Southeast Asia.

Thailand has also openly and repeatedly refused to join US efforts to pressure Beijing regarding issues like the South China Sea.

It is obvious why the US would want to pursue regime change in Thailand – and failing that – what lies behind its desire to plunge the nation into disastrous chaos denying it and China any prospect of stability or prosperity.

Western Media Seeks Secrecy for Protest Leaders, Sponsors

The Western media was all too happy to report on a “Harry Potter” themed protest at Democracy Monument in Bangkok on August 3. Protest leader Anon Nampa openly criticized Thailand’s key independent institutions including the military and the monarchy.

US government-funded front – Prachatai – extensively covered the small protest in its article, “The revolution will be magical: Harry Potter-themed protest calls for monarchy reform” despite the protest clearly drawing less than 100 people.

What the Western media and US-funded fronts didn’t mention was who Anon Nampa is, his role in leading protests, who funds his activities, or why. More specifically, nothing is mentioned about the real motivations people like Anon Nampa have for targeting Thailand’s military and monarchy specifically.

Obviously the US would prefer a client regime completely dependent on Washington financially and politically – something much more preferable to strong Thai institutions like the military and monarchy which do not answer to Washington and have the resources and ability to act independently.

Despite occasionally mentioning Anon Nampa and other leaders by name, the Western media and their local partners have insisted the protests are “organic” and “leaderless” and aimed at achieving superficial and deliberately ambiguous goals like “democracy” and “human rights.”

The Protests are not “Leaderless”

Anon Nampa is a lawyer and member of Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR). The front has been funded since it was created in 2014 by the US State Department via the notorious National Endowment for Democracy (NED) long-since exposed as an arm of US-backed regime change efforts around the globe.

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.

One of TLHR’s founding members – Sirikan “June” Charoensiri – was later awarded the US State Department’s “2018 International Women of Courage Award,” presented to her by US First Lady Melania Trump.

The US embassy in Bangkok also 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.

TLHR staff are also regularly accompanied by US and European embassy staff when hearing charges regarding their overt foreign-funded sedition.

It is clear that the US government and its European partners have invested heavily in TLHR and groups like it in Thailand.

It is also clear that TLHR and other US government-funded fronts in Thailand are leading current protests and that the Western media is deliberately attempting to nonetheless portray the protests as “leaderless,” never asking obvious questions regarding money trails and political motivations.

Why?

Secrecy an Obvious Prerequisite for Covert Regime Change 

The Diplomat is an explicitly pro-Western policy journal partnered with other journals and organizations openly funded by and/or affiliated with various governments in the West including the United States government itself.

In its article, “As US-China Competition Grows, Will Covert Regime Change Make a Return?,” academics admitted that growing US-Chinese tensions provide ample motivations for Washington to pursue Cold War-style covert regime change operations against “regimes that tilt too close to China.”

The article would admit (emphasis added):

As the rivalry between the United States and China intensifies against the backdrop of a pandemic and (dis)information wars about culpability, some have wondered whether covert regime change might make a comeback. During the Cold War, the the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), almost always at the direction of the president, quietly engineered the overthrow of numerous regimes who drifted — or were perceived to be drifting — too close to the Soviet Union. It is not hard to imagine how competition with China for the allegiances of other countries might create similar incentives.

The article notes that while the Cold War saw the height of such operations carried out by the US government, such operations have most certainly continued until present day – citing US-led regime change efforts in Syria as a specific example.

Under an entire section of the article titled, “The Appeal of Secrecy,” the authors would note (emphasis added):

The ongoing battle over the rules of international order also means that U.S. policymakers may be especially keen on hiding violations of existing laws governing intervention — laws that they helped create. Given China’s own embrace of the principles of non-intervention and non-interference, brazen violations could cede the moral high ground and result in greater support for the Chinese model. It is conceivable that these dynamics could play out in regions like Africa where the United States and China continue to compete for economic and military influence.

Finally, any consideration of using the quiet option to topple regimes that tilt too close to China must include a full accounting of the inherent risks. These include the prospect that a covert operation will become public knowledge prematurely and the possibility that it could destabilize the target state and create longstanding ill-will in the process.

Thus – by the West’s own admission – pretending obviously US-funded subversion in Thailand aimed at a Thai government that “tilts too close to China” is “organic” and “leaderless” is all part of the “covert regime change” playbook.

TLHR – brought into existence by the US embassy in Bangkok in 2014 and funded by the US government ever since – has openly led anti-government protests in Thailand alongside other similarly US-backed fronts with Anon Nampa taking on a more visible role physically leading protests in recent weeks.

Without the millions of dollars provided to Anon Nampa, TLHR, and other fronts like it by the US government their ongoing activities would be impossible and these protests would never have materialized.

Eliminating Thailand’s military and monarchy – two institutions with independent means to fund themselves and with full agency over their own decisions – and replacing them with opposition groups entirely dependent on US and European funding and political support is the surest means to rectify Thailand’s “tilt to China.”

An opposition installed into power by the US would lack any means to make its own decisions and would represent its sponsors in Washington rather than the Thai people it claims to champion for.

Obviously keeping Washington’s role in current Thai protests as quiet as possible for as long as possible is meant to protect the illusion of legitimacy the protests have been given by the Western media. It helps prevent any revelations or public outcry that “could cede the moral high ground and result in greater support for the Chinese model.”

It is neo-colonialism dressed up as a pro-democracy movement meant to end Thailand’s ability to decide for itself its own foreign policy, economic partners, and military allies. It couldn’t be any less “pro-democracy” – which is precisely why maintaining “secrecy” regarding the protest’s real sponsors and agenda is so important.

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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

On Friday, July 31, in a column ostensibly dealing with health care “misinformation,” Washington Post media critic Margaret Sullivan opened by lambasting “fringe doctors spouting dangerous falsehoods about hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 wonder cure.”

Actually, it was Sullivan who was spouting dangerous falsehoods about this drug, something the Washington Post and much of the rest of the media have been doing for months. On May 15, the Post offered a stark warning to any Americans who may have taken hope in a possible therapy for COVID-19. In the newspaper’s telling, there was nothing unambiguous about the science — or the politics — of hydroxychloroquine: “Drug promoted by Trump as coronavirus game-changer increasingly linked to deaths,” blared the headline. Written by three Post staff writers, the story asserted that the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating COVID-19 is scant and that the drug is inherently unsafe. This claim is nonsense.

Biased against the use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 — and the Washington Post is hardly alone — the paper described an April 21, 2020, drug study on U.S. Veterans Affairs patients hospitalized with the illness. It found a high death rate in patients taking the drug hydroxychloroquine. But this was a flawed study with a small sample, the main flaw being that the drug was given to the sickest patients who were already dying because of their age and severe pre-existing conditions. This study was quickly debunked. It had been posted on a non-peer-reviewed medical archive that specifically warns that studies posted on its website should not be reported in the media as established information.

Yet, the Post and countless other news outlets did just the opposite, making repeated claims that hydroxychloroquine was ineffective and caused serious cardiac problems. Nowhere was there any mention of the fact that COVID-19 damages the heart during infection, sometimes causing irregular and sometimes fatal heart rhythms in patients not taking the drug.

To a media unrelentingly hostile to Donald Trump, this meant that the president could be portrayed as recklessly promoting the use of a “dangerous” drug. Ignoring the refutation of the VA study in its May 15 article, the Washington Post cited a Brazil study published on April 24 in which a COVID trial using chloroquine (a related but different drug from hydroxychloroquine) was stopped because 11 patients treated with it died. The reporters never mentioned another problem with that study: The Brazilian doctors were giving their patients lethal cumulative doses of the drug.

On and on it has gone since then, in a circle of self-reinforcing commentary. Following the news that Trump was taking the drug himself, opinion hosts on cable news channels launched continual attacks on both hydroxychloroquine and the president. “This will kill you!” Fox News Channel’s Neil Cavuto exclaimed. “The president of the United States just acknowledged that he is taking hydroxychloroquine, a drug that [was] meant really to treat malaria and lupus.”

Washington Post reporters Ariana Cha and Laurie McGinley were back again on May 22, with a new article shouting out the new supposed news: “Antimalarial drug touted by President Trump is linked to increased risk of death in coronavirus patients, study says.” The media uproar this time was based on a large study just published in the Lancet. There was just one problem. The Lancet paper was fraudulent and it was quickly retracted.

However, the damage from the biased media storm was done and it was long-lasting. Continuing patient enrollment needed for early-use clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine dried up within a week. Patients were afraid to take the drug, doctors became afraid to prescribe it, pharmacies refused to fill prescriptions, and in a rush of incompetent analysis and non-existent senior leadership, the FDA revoked its Emergency Use Authorization for the drug.

So what is the real story on hydroxychloroquine? Here, briefly, is what we know

Following a careful regimen developed by doctors in France, some knowledgeable practicing U.S. physicians began prescribing hydroxychloroquine to patients still in the early phase of COVID infection. Its effects seemed dramatic. Patients still became sick, but for the most part they avoided hospitalization. In contrast — and in error — the NIH-funded studies somehow became focused on giving hydroxychloroquine to late-presenting hospitalized patients. This was in spite of the fact that unlike the drug’s early use in ambulatory patients, there was no real data to support the drug’s use in more severe hospitalized patients.

By April, it was clear that roughly seven days from the time of the first onset of symptoms, a COVID-19 infection could sometimes progress into a more radical late phase of severe disease with inflammation of the blood vessels in the body and immune system over-reactions. Many patients developed blood clots in their lungs and needed mechanical ventilation. Some needed kidney dialysis. In light of this pathological carnage, no antiviral drug could be expected to show much of an effect during this severe second stage of COVID.

On April 6, 2020, an international team of medical experts published an extensive study of hydroxychloroquine in more than 130,000 patients with connective tissue disorders. They reaffirmed that hydroxychloroquine was a safe drug with no serious side effects. The drug could safely be given to pregnant women and breast-feeding mothers. Consequently, countries such as China, Turkey, South Korea, India, Morocco, Algeria, and others began to use hydroxychloroquine widely and early in their national pandemic response. Doctors overseas were safely prescribing the drug based on clinical signs and symptoms because widespread testing was not available.

However, the NIH promoted a much different strategy for the United States. The “Fauci Strategy” was to keep early infected patients quarantined at home without treatment until they developed a shortness of breath and had to be admitted to a hospital. Then they would they be given hydroxychloroquine. The Food and Drug Administration cluelessly agreed to this doctrine and it stated in its hydroxychloroquine Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) that “hospitalized patients were likely to have a greater prospect of benefit (compared to ambulatory patients with mild illness).”

In reality just the opposite was true. This was a tragic mistake by Fauci and FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn and it was a mistake that would cost the lives of thousands of Americans in the days to come.

At the same time, accumulating data showed remarkable results if hydroxychloroquine were given to patients early, during a seven-day window from the time of first symptom onset. If given during this window, most infections did not progress into the severe, lethal second stage of the disease. Patients still got sick, but they avoided hospitalization or the later transfer to an intensive care unit. In mid-April a high-level memo was sent to the FDA alerting them to the fact that the best use for hydroxychloroquine was for its early use in still ambulatory COVID patients. These patients were quarantined at home but were not short of breath and did not yet require supplemental oxygen and hospitalization.

Failing to understand that COVID-19 could be a two-stage disease process, the FDA ignored the memo and, as previously mentioned, it withdrew its EUA for hydroxychloroquine based on flawed studies and clinical trials that were applicable only to late-stage COVID patients.

By now, however, some countries had already implemented early, aggressive, outpatient community treatment with hydroxychloroquine and within weeks were able to minimize their COVID deaths and bring their national pandemic under some degree of control.

In countries such as Great Britain and the United States, where the “Fauci-Hahn Strategy” was followed, there was a much higher death rate and an ever-increasing number of cases. COVID patients in the U.S. would continue to be quarantined at home and left untreated until they developed shortness of breath. Then they would be admitted to the hospital and given hydroxychloroquine outside the narrow window for the drug’s maximum effectiveness.

In further contrast, countries that started out with the “Fauci-Hahn Doctrine” and then later shifted their policy towards aggressive outpatient hydroxychloroquine use, after a brief lag period also saw a stunning rapid reduction in COVID mortality and hospital admissions.

Finally, several nations that had started using an aggressive early-use outpatient policy for hydroxychloroquine, including France and Switzerland, stopped this practice when the WHO temporarily withdrew its support for the drug. Five days after the publication of the fake Lancet study and the resulting media onslaught, Swiss politicians banned hydroxychloroquine use in the country from May  27 until June 11, when it was quickly reinstated.

The consequences of suddenly stopping hydroxychloroquine can be seen by examining a graph of the Case Fatality Ratio Index (nrCFR) for Switzerland. This is derived by dividing the number of daily new COVID fatalities by the new cases resolved over a period with a seven-day moving average. Looking at the evolution curve of the CFR it can be seen that during the weeks preceding the ban on hydroxychloroquine, the nrCFR index fluctuated between 3% and 5%.

Following a lag of 13 days after stopping outpatient hydroxychloroquine use, the country’s COVID-19 deaths increased four-fold and the nrCFR index stayed elevated at the highest level it had been since early in the COVID pandemic, oscillating at over 10%-15%. Early outpatient hydroxychloroquine was restarted June 11 but the four-fold “wave of excess lethality” lasted until June 22, after which the nrCFR rapidly returned to its background value.

Here in our country, Fauci continued to ignore the ever accumulating and remarkable early-use data on hydroxychloroquine and he became focused on a new antiviral compound named remdesivir. This was an experimental drug that had to be given intravenously every day for five days. It was never suitable for major widespread outpatient or at-home use as part of a national pandemic plan. We now know now that remdesivir has no effect on overall COVID patient mortality and it costs thousands of dollars per patient.

Hydroxychloroquine, by contrast, costs 60 cents a tablet, it can be taken at home, it fits in with the national pandemic plan for respiratory viruses, and a course of therapy simply requires swallowing three tablets in the first 24 hours followed by one tablet every 12 hours for five days.

There are now 53 studies that show positive results of hydroxychloroquine in COVID infections. There are 14 global studies that show neutral or negative results — and 10 of them were of patients in very late stages of COVID-19, where no antiviral drug can be expected to have much effect. Of the remaining four studies, two come from the same University of Minnesota author. The other two are from the faulty Brazil paper, which should be retracted, and the fake Lancet paper, which was.

Millions of people are taking or have taken hydroxychloroquine in nations that have managed to get their national pandemic under some degree of control. Two recent, large, early-use clinical trials have been conducted by the Henry Ford Health System and at Mount Sinai showing a 51% and 47% lower mortality, respectively, in hospitalized patients given hydroxychloroquine. A recent study from Spain published on July 29, two days before Margaret Sullivan’s strafing of “fringe doctors,” shows a 66% reduction in COVID mortality in patients taking hydroxychloroquine. No serious side effects were reported in these studies and no epidemic of heartbeat abnormalities.

This is ground-shaking news. Why is it not being widely reported? Why is the American media trying to run the U.S. pandemic response with its own misinformation?

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Breaking: Israel Bombed Beirut?

By Richard Silverstein, August 05, 2020

This report is yet to be confirmed. It is not corroborated by other press reports.

Israel targeted a Hezbollah weapons depot at the port and planned to destroy it with an explosive device.  Tragically, Israeli intelligence did not perform due diligence on their target.  Thus they did not know (or if they did know, they didn’t care) that there were 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in a next door warehouse.  The explosion at the arms depot ignited the next door warehouse, causing the catastrophe that resulted.

Kashmir, India and Human Rights

By Robert Fantina, August 05, 2020

Kashmir is now the most militarized zone in the world, with approximately 700,000 soldiers to patrol and enforce repression on a population of 13,000,000.  That means that each soldier is monitoring the activities of less than 20 people. This, of course, prevents the Kashmiris of ever putting from their minds even for a moment the terrible, repressive conditions under which they are forced to live.

P Is for Predator State: The Building Blocks of Tyranny from A to Z

By John W. Whitehead, August 05, 2020

The American people, the permanent underclass in America, have allowed themselves to be so distracted and divided that they have failed to notice the building blocks of tyranny being laid down right under their noses by the architects of the Deep State.

Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton: they have all been complicit in carrying out the Deep State’s agenda. Unless something changes to restore the balance of power, the next president—the new boss—will be the same as the old boss.

“Wipe the Soviet Union Off the Map”, 204 Atomic Bombs against 66 Major Cities, US Nuclear Attack against USSR Planned During World War II

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, August 04, 2020

US nuclear threats directed against Russia predate the Cold War. They were first formulated  at the height of World War II under the Manhattan Project when the US and the Soviet Union were allies.

The plan to bomb 66 Soviet cities was “officially” formulated in mid-September 1945, two weeks after the formal surrender of Japan.

COVID-19: We have a Treatment: Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). We do Not Need a Vaccine!

By Dr. Pascal Sacré, August 04, 2020

Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is effective in treating COVID-19.

It is effective in halting the progression of the disease, provided it is given early enough and provided it is given in accordance with “contraindications” and safety of use (cardiac).

It costs nothing and the powerful pharmaceutical industry does not want to hear about it.

Were the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a War Crime and a Crime Against Humanity?

By Rossen Vassilev Jr., August 04, 2020

Dr. Anscombe openly called President Truman a “war criminal” for his decision to have the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki leveled by atomic bombs in August 1945 (Rachels & Rachels 127). According to another academic critic, the late American historian Howard Zinn, at least 140,000 Japanese civilians were “turned into powder and ash” in Hiroshima. Over 70,000 civilians were incinerated in Nagasaki, and another 130,000 residents of the two cities died of radiation sickness in the next five years.

Can Israelis Broaden Their Protests Beyond Netanyahu?

By Jonathan Cook, August 04, 2020

Israel is roiling with angry street protests that local observers have warned could erupt into open civil strife – a development Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be encouraging.

For weeks, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have been the scene of large, noisy demonstrations outside the official residences of Mr Netanyahu and his public security minister, Amir Ohana.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun called for an emergency cabinet meeting on Wednesday and said a two-week state of emergency should be declared following a massive explosion in Beirut that killed at least 100 people and injured 4,000 others.

The explosion on Tuesday sent shockwaves across the city, causing widespread damage as far as the outskirts of the capital.

Officials said they expect the death toll to rise further as emergency workers dig through the rubble to search for survivors.

Beirut’s city governor Marwan Abboud said up to 300,000 people have lost their homes and authorities are working on providing them with food, water and shelter.

The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear. Officials linked the blast to some 2,750 tonnes of confiscated ammonium nitrate that were being stored in a warehouse at the port for six years.

Aoun assembled the country’s High Defence Council following the explosion.

Prime Minister Hassan Diab called for a day of mourning on Wednesday.

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Most observers at the time regarded India’s de-facto annexation of Jammu & Kashmir on 5 August 2019 as being a defining moment for either India’s internal affairs or Indian-Pakistani relations, but in reality it was a defining one for Indo-Sino relations since it directly led to the recent Galwan Incident, the geopolitical reverberations of which are poised to spread all throughout Eurasia and greatly influence the course of the New Cold War.

While the Trump administration sells the decision to withdraw US troops from Germany as a strengthening of NATO force alignment, the reality is it’s merely the latest manifestation of a relationship on the decline for decades.

Photo: Massive mushroom cloud from Hezbollah warehouse bombing and its aftermath

A note to our readers

We bring to the attention of our readers an important Tikun Olan תיקון עולם article by author Richard Silverstein pointing to the role of Israel. This report  is unconfirmed. It is not corroborated by other press reports.

According to The Times of Israel, “Israel offered humanitarian aid to Lebanon, … in a rare show of support for the enemy country. Why would Israel come to the rescue of Lebanon “with medical and humanitarian aid”?

According to Forbes, …  “an ominous question hangs in the air, Was Israel responsible? The answer is, probably not”

Israel denies any involvement. Lebanon’s government and Hezbollah militants – never shy about blaming their arch-enemy Israel for any misfortune – say [acknowledge] the disaster was an accident caused by volatile explosive material in a warehouse.” (Forbes, emphasis added)

It is worth noting the intensity of the explosion, “equivalent to an earthquake with the magnitude of 4.5 on the Richter Scale”.

The Forbes report  acknowledges that:

There is no question that Israel had the capability to destroy that warehouse. … Or, Israel’s Mossad intelligence could have arranged a bomb or other sabotage. In recent weeks, there have been numerous explosions at nuclear sites, ballistic missile factories and power plants in Iran… The Mossad is a top suspect. … The problem with blaming Israel for the Beirut explosion is motive”  (emphasis added)

According to Richard Silverstein, Israel had targeted a Hezbollah’s weapons depot, without realizing that there were explosive materials (ammonium nitrate) in a neighbouring warehouse.

And now Hezbollah is being blamed “for storing its weapons next to a building filled with explosive material”.  In the words of Bloomberg: “Hezbollah Will Not Escape Blame For Beirut.” And this in turn will create political turmoil in Lebanon.

Update: (August 8, 2020)

Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun confirmed that the government would investigate causes of the explosion. “The possibility that there was external interference,” would also be addressed.

Reports suggest that Hezbollah weapons had not been stored at the airport.

Is it relevant? The tragic event took place three days prior to the legal procedure regarding the 2005 Hariri bombing in The Hague directed against four members of Hezbollah.

Judges at The Special Tribunal for Lebanon are due to give their verdict on Friday [August 7] in the trial of four men accused over the 2005 Beirut bombing that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and 21 others.

The bombing of Beirut has contributed to triggering political divisions within Lebanon.

Lebanon as a country is in crisis. Whatever the cause of the explosion, our thoughts today are with the people of Beirut.

GR, August 5, 2020

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Israel Bombed Beirut?

by Richard Silverstein

August 4, 2020

A confidential highly-informed Israeli source has told me that Israel caused the massive explosion at the Beirut port earlier today which killed over 100 and injured thousands.  The bombing also virtually leveled the port itself and caused massive damage throughout the city.

Israel targeted a Hezbollah weapons depot at the port and planned to destroy it with an explosive device.  Tragically, Israeli intelligence did not perform due diligence on their target.  Thus they did not know (or if they did know, they didn’t care) that there were 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in a next door warehouse.  The explosion at the arms depot ignited the next door warehouse, causing the catastrophe that resulted.

It is, of course, unconscionable that Israeli agents did not determine everything about their target including what was in its immediate vicinity. The tragedy Israel has wreaked is a war crime of immense magnitude.

The ICC has already been investigating Israel for war crimes in Gaza since the 2014 Operation Protective Edge.  Now, I imagine it will expand the scope to incorporate today’s criminally negligent massacre.

Though Israel has regularly attacked Hezbollah and Iranian weapons depots and convoys in Syria, it rarely undertakes such brazen attacks inside Lebanon.  This attack in the country’s capital marks an even greater escalation. The sheer recklessness of this operation is astonishing.

Not surprising though. An operation of this sort can only happen amidst internal political dysfunction. Bibi is on the ropes and desperate to change the subject.  When his intelligence officers brought the plan to him he probably rubbed his hands with glee and said: “Go to it!” Israeli intelligence was naturally out to please the boss and probably cut corners in order to make the attack happen. When no one is at the wheel saying “Stop!” the boat hits an iceberg and sinks.  That’s possibly what happened here.

The Israeli bombing brings to mind similar bombings orchestrated by its agents in Beirut in the period before and after its 1982 invasion. Ronen Bergman’s book on Mossad assassinations and Remy Brulin have documented multiple Israeli bombings during this period which wreaked widespread death and destruction on the city’s civilian population.

In this case, the damage done was accidental.  But that will be little comfort to the thousands of Beirutis whose lives have become a living hell as a result of this Israeli crime.

As an aside, former Likud MK Moshe Feiglin tweeted a quotation from the Bible about the disaster:

“There never have been such great days in Israel as the 15th of Av [the day of the bombing] and Yom Kippur.”

Of course, it pains me to admit that Pres. Trump was correct in his earlier statement that the explosion was a “terrible attack,” and that the information was conveyed to him by “his generals.” In this case, he and they were right.

There could (and should) be domestic political repercussions for this disaster. As Netanyahu approved the attack, he is responsible for the consequences. In 1982, a commission of inquiry found Ariel Sharon culpable for the invasion of Lebanon and the massacre at Sabra and Shatilla.  He was sent into political exile for a decade. At the very least, this should disqualify Bibi from leading the country. This would be the outcome in any democratic nation in which the leader was held accountable for his failures.

But alas, Israel is not such a nation, and Bibi always seems to weasel out of responsibility for his blunders. The difference here is that the Israeli leader is already under pressure due to his government’s disastrous response to Covid19 and the looming corruption trial on three counts of bribery.  This could be the tipping point.

Normally, Israelis would not bat an eye at such a massacre. They have become inured to the suffering they inflict on their Arab neighbors.  But given Netanyahu’s collapsing popularity, this could hasten his end.

Israel couldn’t have picked a worse time to inflict such suffering on Lebanon.  The country is in deep economic crisis. Businesses are going bankrupt, people have nothing to eat, politicians quarrel and blame while doing nothing. Lebanon is a basket case. Suffering is everywhere.  There is little appetite from its Arab brethren like Saudi Arabia to come to its aid. If any country did not need this added tragedy it is Lebanon.  But there  you go–Israel doesn’t seem to have any sense of shame or restraint when it comes to inflicting pain on its neighbors.

Of course there will be doubters. Those who disbelieve my source. But to them I point out two pieces of circumstantial evidence which are telling. Normally, if Israel has undertaken a successful terror attack (such as those against Iran) it will either refuse to comment or a senior military or political figure will saying something like: While we refuse to comment, whoever did it  did the world a favor.

In this case, Israel immediately denied responsibility. Even Hezbollah supposedly said Israel hadn’t caused the damage (likely protecting itself from the inevitable blame that will fall upon it for storing its weapons next to a building filled with explosive material).

The second tell-tale sign is that Israel never offers humanitarian aid to its Arab neighbors.  During the Syrian Civil War the only group to whom Israel offered humanitarian assistance was its Islamist anti-Assad allies. Israel has never offered such aid to Lebanon, until today.  Instead, it has rained down death and destruction for decades.  For it to do so now is the height of chutzpah.

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Featured image is from Tikun Olam

US war on China’s rising prominence on the world stage is a bipartisan affair.

It won’t likely miss a beat if Biden succeeds Trump in January.

US hostility toward China by Republicans and Dems differs only or largely in style and public rhetoric.

Washington considers China a strategic threat because of its growing political, economic, industrial, technological and military prominence — challenging US dominance and hegemonic aims.

They’re all about wanting control of planet earth, its resources and populations, co-opting other nations as client states to serve its interests, even at the expense of their own sovereign rights.

China is heading toward overtaking the US as the world’s leading economy.

Its growing prominence comes at a time when the US is declining.

Its endless post-9/11 wars on invented enemies to maintain its global dominance have been counterproductive.

From unchallenged preeminence on the world stage following the defeat of Nazi Germany, imperial Japan, and fascist Italy in WW II, US war on humanity transformed itself into a pariah state, an unparalleled global menace to be feared, not respected.

Its war on China by other means is doomed to fail.

Does its growing hostility toward Beijing risk direct confrontation?

What’s unthinkable is possible. Two global wars taught the US nothing.

A belligerent state throughout its history from inception, it remains militantly unchanged in the nuclear age.

A key part of its war on China by other means are actions to give corporate America a leg up on its enterprises, its tactics featuring dirty tricks.

What’s going on makes reconciling major bilateral differences all the harder, likely impossible as long as US hegemonic aims remain unchanged.

According to the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), over 150 tech-related Chinese enterprises have been blacklisted from the US market, including 11 last month added to its so-called “Entity List.”

On July 20, a BIS statement falsely accused the newly blacklisted firms of “human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of the People’s Republic of China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, forced labor, involuntary collection of biometric data, and genetic analyses targeted at Muslim minority groups from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (sic).”

No evidence was cited to corroborate the accusation because none exists.

China’s TikTop video-sharing platform and its WeChat mobile text and voice messaging communication service are the Trump regime’s latest targets.

According to China Daily, what’s going on against TikTok is a US “smash and grab” operation.

After blacklisting the firm, Pompeo on Sunday said the Trump regime “will take action in the coming days with respect to a broad array of national security risks that are presented by software connected to the Chinese Communist Party (sic).”

China Daily slammed hostile Trump regime actions against the firm and other Chinese companies, saying they’re being misrepresented as a “Red threat” to the US.

Inviting Microsoft or another US firm to negotiate with TikTok’s management on buying the company amounts to the Trump regime’s “sanctioned (theft) of Chinese technology,” adding:

Beijing “will by no means accept the ‘theft’ of a Chinese technology company, and it has plenty of ways to respond if the (Trump regime) carries out its planned smash and grab.”

Separately, China Daily called what’s going on against TikTok an attempt to arrange a “mafia” deal, making an offer its parent company ByteDance can’t refuse.

Trump gave Microsoft (or another US corporate buyer) until September 15 to make a deal or TikTok will be banned from operating in the US.

Cato Institute senior fellow Julian Sanchez slammed what’s going on, calling Trump’s action an “extortion threat” based on a “mafia business model,” adding:

It’s worsened by wanting the US Treasury to get a cut of the purchase price, making the transaction, if consummated, “even more grotesque and shameless…”

“As with his (unacceptable) tariff policy, there doesn’t seem to be any consideration of whether this sets a dangerous precedent for other countries to engage in similar pretextual protectionism against us, or how whimsically compelling divestment might affect international investment.”

Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center senior fellow Samm Sacks warned that what’s going on with TikTok will set “a dangerous precedent in which the US government can blacklist companies based on country of origin using blanket national security as justification.”

Claiming the company shares user data with China’s government is unsupported by evidence.

It’s part of US war on China by other means.

With hundreds of millions of users worldwide, about 100 million in the US, TikTok is a major Facebook (FB) competitor.

Marginalizing or banning TikTok in the US would benefit FB greatly.

Its CEO Mark Zuckerberg echoed Trump regime disinformation about TikTok, falsely claiming it’s connected to China’s government.

According to Samm Sacks, “TikTok is one of the most important competitors in the US to Facebook, and more competition is a good thing at a moment when the concentration of power in the hands of US tech platforms is under scrutiny.”

Separately on Monday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Beijing strongly opposes US actions against Chinese software or other tech firms over invented national security concerns, adding:

“The US generalizes the concept of national security and, without any evidence, makes presumptions of guilt and threats against relevant companies.”

“This violates the principles of market economy and exposes the hypocrisy and typical double standards of the US in maintaining fairness and freedom. It also violates the World Trade Organization’s principles of openness, transparency and non-discrimination.”

China’s UK envoy Liu Xiaoming accused the US of “politiciz(ing) economic issues and abus(ing)  the concept of national security to pursue discriminatory and exclusive policies.”

US war on targeted Chinese tech companies endangers them all.

If the Trump regime gets away with forcing the sale of TikTok’s US operations to Microsoft or another US firm, who’s next on Washington’s target list!

It’s gone all-out to blacklist Huawei in the West and elsewhere.

Is that a future US shoe to drop against all of China’s most successful tech companies?

A Final Comment

On Tuesday, China’s Xinhua said intense China bashing by Pompeo and other Trump regime Chinaphobes comes at a time of DJT’s troubled reelection campaign.

Given his own presidential ambitions, “Pompeo also sees an opportunity to promote his (aims) by attacking China with outright lies” — using tough talk in hopes of boosting his popularity among other US Chinaphobes.

He’s using “his (State Department) office (as a) launchpad for” a 2024 presidential campaign.

The Sino/US relationship is the world’s most important one, why engagement is how to manage it.

Note: On Monday, TikTok’s parent company ByteDance said it may shift the subsidiary firm’s headquarters outside the US.

Its president Zhang Yiming indicated that “preliminary discussions” began with an unnamed US firm to continue operating in the country.

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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 Flickr

It is one year since the Indian government revoked article 370 of their constitution, thus rendering Kashmir an oppressed colony of India. This is not to imply that Kashmiris enjoyed any semblance of independence prior to August 5 of 2019, but the new order reduces them to a colonized people with no rights, and extreme oppression.

This writer interviewed a human-rights activist in Kashmir for this article. In order to protect him, his name will not be revealed here. But the information he provided is shocking, and must be heard.

Kashmir is now the most militarized zone in the world, with approximately 700,000 soldiers to patrol and enforce repression on a population of 13,000,000.  That means that each soldier is monitoring the activities of less than 20 people. This, of course, prevents the Kashmiris of ever putting from their minds even for a moment the terrible, repressive conditions under which they are forced to live.

Covid-19 is taking a tragic toll in Kashmir as it is in many parts of the world. But the lockdown caused by the pandemic is only an extension of that enforced after August 5 of 2019. Students have now lost a full year of education, a basic human right, the violation of which is generally ignored by the world community.

The deprivation of their right to education is only one of the many human-rights violations Kashmiris are experiencing on a daily basis. The following violations are commonplace in Kashmir; this list is not exhaustive, but demonstrates some of the more egregious violations:

• Extra-judicial killings. Indian soldiers kill unarmed and defenseless Kashmiris with complete impunity. In the last year, at least 200 Kashmiris have been killed by Indian soldiers without benefit of charges or trial.
• Journalist and others experience torture at the hands of Indian officials. Muslims, in this predominately Muslim nation, are especially vulnerable.  “IOK (Indian-Occupied Kashmir) is now known as the ‘biggest jail’ for Muslims where bloodshed and torture is common.”
• Excessive force: “The United Nations’ Special Rapporteurs have expressed “grave concern” over the “alleged excessive use of force, torture and other forms of ill-treatment reportedly committed” during arrests and detentions in Jammu and Kashmirsince August 2019.”
• Illegal and arbitrary detention.“A report was sent to the Indian government on May 4 over “the continued deterioration of human rights conditions” in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, documenting several cases of “arbitrary detentions, violations to the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment and rights of persons belonging to minorities.”

These and other shocking and brutal violations are every-day occurrences for Kashmiris; they are extensively documented but, somehow, the international community turns a blind eye toward them.

People throughout the world have family and friends in Kashmir; for several months they were unable to contact them due to the Indian-imposed Internet blockade, one of the longest such blockades ever imposed anywhere in the world. Although that has been lifted, the high-speed internet services blocked by India have not been restored, making communication via internet extremely difficult.

In addition to leaving people unable to communicate regularly with loved ones, this low-speed internet has wider implications. It has negatively impacted the economy, since many businesses rely on internet usage to communicate with their customers and suppliers. Students who are unable to attend school cannot rely on online classes, an alternative that much of the world is experiencing due to the pandemic. Healthcare services are negatively affected, because people can’t get the information they need to prevent infection, or deal with it if they have it.

Although Kashmir has been a colony of India for seventy years, during which time the Kashmiris were deprived of basic human rights, what the people are seeing now is a threat to the very existence of their country. As the journalist said: “A situation akin to what is happening in West Bank in Palestine is slowly emerging in Kashmir and this has meant Kashmiris will be at the receiving end of violence.” Indeed, at least one Indian official said that the government will use the ‘Israel’ model, to destroy Kashmir. Sandeep Chakravorty, who is India’s consul general in New York, said the following, in relation to Kashmir Hindus who left the country after a rebellion against Indian rule in 1989:

“I believe the security situation will improve, it will allow the refugees to go back, and in your lifetime, you will be able to go back … and you will be able to find security, because we already have a model in the world. I don’t know why we don’t follow it. It has happened in the Middle East. If the Israeli people can do it, we can also do it.”

Yes, if the Israelis can violate international law and basic human rights with impunity, why not India? The government of India has already demonstrated through decades of oppression that it holds human rights and international law in contempt, and the world community has tacitly, by not speaking out forcefully against such atrocities, condoned these unspeakable violations.

Much of the world is understandably preoccupied with the coronavirus pandemic, but world leaders should be able to address more than once crisis at a time. One can forget any assistance from the United States, where the increasingly erratic president Donald Trump sees no value to himself personally in addressing the ongoing Indian atrocities against Kashmir, and if any action won’t directly shine a light on him, he isn’t interested. But what of other powerful nations? What of China and Russia? What of the European Union and its member nations? The example of one powerful nation being able to impose its colonial will on another must be stopped. Those governments who ignore what is happening in Kashmir and in Palestine may find their nations, at some future date, threatened by a more powerful country, and perhaps then, no one will come to their aid.

It is long past time for the nations of the world, and the United Nations as a world body, to stop paying lip service to the concepts of self-determination, equal rights and international law. The time to act is now.

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In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic.

This is not the first time. The WHO, in the recent past, had announced H1N1 – also known as swine flu – in June 2009, a pandemic as well.

Between the two pandemics, many facts have been overlooked and do need to be re-visited and re-examined.

After the outbreak of H5N1 (bird flu), and at the beginning of the H1N1 outbreak, transnational pharmaceutical corporations went into a fierce competition to provide treatment, in the absence of vaccines.

Between the years 2005 and 2009, the antiviral medicine oseltamivir, marketed under the trade name Tamiflu by Roche, succeeded in becoming the drug of choice for prevention and treatment by several international agencies such as the WHO, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the United States of America, and the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

At the time, and to prepare for a “possible rapid-containment operation”, the WHO received from Roche a donation of three million courses of oseltamivir to use as a stockpile, according to the Report of the Review Committee on the Functioning of the International Health Regulations (2005) in relation to Pandemic (H1N1) 2009, issued by the WHO.

The WHO encouraged countries to integrate rapid containment planning into their national pandemic influenza preparedness plans, according to the same report. In addition to that, the WHO developed a “rapid containment protocol” for the same purpose, primarily depending on oseltamivir.

As expected, because of widespread global panic, purchase orders were placed with Roche from countries around the world, including Egypt. Subsequent research and literature indicate that purchase decisions were based on clinical trials mostly funded by Roche, whose results, according to experts, were limited and incomplete, particularly in relation to Tamiflu’s efficacy and side effects, some of which were later revealed to be dangerous.

Besides, there was supporting false information that suggested an uncontrollable outbreak of the infection. A Cochrane review revealed that the benefits of oseltamivir were little in terms of reducing symptoms, since the drug reduced the duration of symptoms by an average of half a day only.

Cochrane researchers, who managed to obtain the complete reports of the original clinical studies, could also more clearly report on the side effects of oseltamivir. In the end, the Cochrane research raises the question of whether stockpiling of oseltamivir was justified.

There is another angle to the above.

Pharmaceutical companies usually put pressure on governments during such crises. During the H1N1 pandemic, the methodology adopted by Roche was based on persuading governments to sign purchase agreements for Tamiflu because, at the time, the drug was delivered on a first-come, first-served basis.

It should be noted here that these negotiations were taking place against a background of global tension and unspoken competition among countries to procure treatment the soonest from a same single source.

Such a situation demonstrates the gravity of monopolistic practices in the global pharmaceutical market. The likelihood of this scenario being repeated is playing out as countries continue to negotiate access to medicines supplied in a monopolistic market, as seen from the USA purchase of the existing supply of remdesivir from Gilead Sciences and the advance purchase agreements for potential vaccines by several European countries.

Oseltamivir sales at the time exceeded USD 18 billion, half of which were by governments. For instance, the USA had spent more than USD 1.5 billion on stockpiling oseltamivir, based on CDC recommendations, while the United Kingdom spent USD 770 million on the same drug between 2006 and 2014.

No official data is available on the total amount Egypt spent on oseltamivir. There were, however, a few news reports about the Ministry of Health’s agreement with Roche to supply 2,500 kilograms of the raw active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) of the drug, to be manufactured by a subsidiary of the Holding Company for Pharmaceuticals, whose chairman estimated the API value to have been approximately 100 million Egyptian pounds.

The WHO is an intergovernmental organisation and is, accordingly, held accountable by its Member States. In 2010, Member States evaluated the performance of the WHO during the H1N1 outbreak in declaring a pandemic. Even the H1N1 declaration of a pandemic was a decision that international scientific and political circles had reservations about, being perceived to have been taken hastily, causing a state of global confusion and costing countries’ budgets millions of dollars.

There is an important fact that should not be overlooked amidst the response to COVID-19: there are no “new” medicines that are being tested against the virus. The medicines under investigation are known or have been on the market; they are being tested to prove they are specifically effective against SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19.

This re-purposing or re-positioning of existing medicines is a common research practice in the case of a sudden disease outbreak. Besides, and more importantly, pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) no longer produces absolutely “new” pharmaceutical compounds, and therefore, a substantive part of pharmaceutical R&D involves developing existing products or expanding their scope of indications.

Clinical trials led by the WHO have started with four treatment options, most of which are of cost. Three months after the pandemic had been declared, the global competition narrowed down to two products: remdesivir, produced by Gilead Sciences, and favipiravir, produced by FUJIFILM Toyama Chemical, under the trade name Avigan, later reported to have failed to show clear efficacy in some coronavirus trials, delaying its approval until the trials are completed.

Last March, with the outbreak of COVID-19, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved to assign remdesivir “orphan drug status”, which normally grants the producing company a wider range of exclusive rights in addition to intellectual property rights.

This decision was met with surprise and skepticism by specialised circles all over the world because of its content and timing.

According to the definitions of both the WHO and the USA Law, orphan diseases are those which affect such a small number of individuals in a way that does not adequately incentivise the development of drugs for their treatment, and also justifying the potentially high prices of their treatment.

COVID-19, declared as a pandemic, is but the contrary to orphan diseases, and the “orphan drug” designation revealed the intentions of the company to maximise its sales and profits of remdesivir once FDA approved it.

With the increasing numbers diagnosed with COVID-19 in the USA, rising pressures led Gilead Sciences to withdraw their orphan drug designation. A few weeks later, remdesivir was approved by the FDA for emergency use in COVID-19 patients, following which the company donated 1.5 million courses of treatment to the USA government.

In mid-April, media reported that the Egyptian government had agreed with FUJIFILM Toyama Chemical to use favipiravir (Avigan) for COVID-19 treatment in Egypt. This agreement never materialised, because a few weeks later, the Ministry of Health announced that Egypt would participate in the remdesivir clinical trial, coordinated by the WHO.

In the meantime, the Egyptian company Eva Pharma signed a non-exclusive voluntary licence agreement with Gilead to manufacture remdesivir for distribution in 127 countries. Supply in Egypt is currently restricted to support patients in quarantine hospitals.

There have been rising global concerns about the haste to rely on remdesivir before its efficacy is proven, particularly that the results of published trials show that it has no therapeutic benefits of statistical significance.

Remdesivir has patent applications in many countries, and some have already granted it patent protection. The Egyptian Patent Office rejected the remdesivir patent application in 2017 on technical grounds; however, the final decision remains pending because it has been appealed by the applicant.

Gilead recently priced one treatment course of remdesivir (6 vials) at $3,120 for private use and $2,340 for government insurance schemes in the USA. The medicine is exorbitantly priced; this cannot be justified by research and development expenditure because the medicine is not a novel compound, hence, did not stand patent examination in several countries.

Besides, research demonstrated that the production cost of remdesivir could be as low as $5.58 per treatment course. In fact, the Indian pharmaceutical company Cipla announced that it will produce a generic version of remdesivir at approximately $400.

In light of the high incidence and mortality rates of COVID-19, and pressures on governments to take protective measurements for their people, we are faced with competition among pharmaceutical companies to protect their shares in a lucrative global market.

This competition is manifested in seeking to enroll large numbers of patients in hastily conducted clinical trials to demonstrate results in favour of, or against, a particular drug; signing advance purchase agreements with governments, which is the case now between Gilead and the US government; and filing for patent protection in as many countries as possible in order to obtain exclusive rights, including the possibility of selling the medicine at the highest price possible.

In the midst of this crisis, which has had unprecedented economic and social repercussions worldwide, it is concerning to witness a recurrence of the H1N1 scenario. Governments are again undergoing “panic buying” and irrational stockpiling of medicines, none of which has been yet proven to be an effective treatment against COVID-19. Are there not lessons learnt from the recent past?

Translated from Arabic by TWN

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On Tuesday, a massive explosion rocked Beirut, Lebanon’s port area.

Scores were killed, thousands wounded, dozens of people missing, along with widespread destruction and damage.

According to Lebanese authorities, around 2,700 tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate were stored in a port area warehouse for six years without proper safety precautions — an unacceptable ticking time bomb.

The material is used in agricultural fertilizers and dynamite. Its detonation is believed to have caused what happened, perhaps by a negligent spark.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun convened the country’s High Defense Council to discuss how to deal with the disaster.

Lebanon’s Daily Star reported that rescue workers dug through rubble overnight searching for bodies and survivors, adding:

The high death and injury toll is expected to rise. A two-week state of emergency was declared.

The port of Lebanon and surrounding areas resembled the aftermath of a powerful bomb blast.

At least three Beirut hospitals were destroyed, two others damaged, a devastating blow to the city’s hard-pressed healthcare system when thousands injured from the blast need treatment, including surgery.

According to the Red Cross, dozens of wounded people are in critical condition. The organization is providing treatment for non-critical injuries.

President of Beirut’s Order of Nurses Mirna Doumit said what happened was a “catastrophe” to Lebanon’s “already bleeding” healthcare system, adding:

“I don’t find words to describe what happened. It’s like we are in a horror film.”

American University of Beirut’s Nasser Yassin said Lebanon needs international help to cope with what happened, adding:

“Like many issues for the last few months, we’ve seen the Lebanese government not taking the right decisions when it comes to the economy, or finances or social issues.”

“And I can imagine that this disaster, this catastrophe, will be dealt by the way Lebanese people do – relying on themselves and the support of their communities.”

According to Germany’s GFZ geosciences center, Tuesday’s blast was the equivalent of a 3.5 magnitude earthquake.

A personal note: I experienced an earthquake of this magnitude over half a century ago in San Diego, CA.

I was in my 10th floor’s office at the time. Everything shook violently for what seemed like an eternity.

It was only around a minute or two. On the phone at the time, my initial reaction was to get under my desk to avoid falling ceiling debris that didn’t happen.

Damage reported in the city was minor. I, others in my office, and family feared something serious was happening, fortunately not so.

Major destruction and damage in Beirut affected around a four-square-mile area. It was heard and felt scores of miles distant from the port of Beirut.

An investigation was initiated to determine the cause and who bears responsibility.

Import traffic was diverted to the port of Tripoli. Most likely what happened was caused by negligence, not terrorism or another form of attack. The fullness of time will tell more.

Ammonium nitrate was responsible for deadly explosions in Tianjin, China (2015), North Korea’s Ryongchon rail station (2004) Toulouse, France (2001), Galveston Bay in the port of Texas City (1947), Oppau, Germany (1921), and Faversham, UK (1916).

The port of Lebanon is the country’s import/export hub. Vitally needed wheat supplies stored there were destroyed.

Massive destruction and damage,  along with the loss of essential food supplies dealt a major blow to already dire economic conditions in the country.

While negligence most likely was responsible for what happened, possible sabotage or something as sinister can’t be ruled out.

Lebanon has the misfortune of bordering Israel. According to the Netanyahu regime, Hezbollah controls the port of Beirut.

While no obvious Israeli fingerprints are on what happened, Tuesday’s blast was reminiscent on February 14, 2005.

At the time, a powerful car bomb blast killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 20 others, scores injured.

The blast left a 30-foot-wide/six-foot-deep crater. Syria, then Hezbollah, were falsely blamed for what happened, four Hezbollah members wrongfully indicted by a Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) in the Netherlands.

Israel was responsible for what happened, targeted killings one of its specialties.

At the time, Hezbollah-intercepted Israeli aerial surveillance footage and audio evidence showed Hariri’s route on the day of his assassination.

Criminal law expert Hasan Jouni called its evidence compelling.

North Lebanon Bar Association head Antoine Airout said “revelations by Hezbollah (were) very serious and objective.”

Syria and Hezbollah had nothing to gain from what happened. Israel clearly benefitted, including by false accusations against its enemies.

At the time, Middle East journalist Patrick Seale said “(i)f Syria (or Hezbollah) killed (Hariri), it must be judged an act of political suicide…hand(ing) (their) enemies a weapon with which to deliver (a destabilizing) blow.”

Israel’s fingerprints were all over what happened, Hezbollah falsely blamed.

While vast destruction and damage in Beirut on Tuesday most likely was caused by negligence, possible Israeli (or US) involvement can’t be ruled out.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Syria News

“When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; a culture-death is a clear possibility.” — Professor Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Discourse in the Age of Show Business

While America continues to fixate on the drama-filled reality show scripted by the powers-that-be, directed from the nation’s capital, and played out in high definition across the country, the American Police State has moved steadily forward.

Nothing has changed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a convenient, traumatic, devastating distraction.

The American people, the permanent underclass in America, have allowed themselves to be so distracted and divided that they have failed to notice the building blocks of tyranny being laid down right under their noses by the architects of the Deep State.

Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton: they have all been complicit in carrying out the Deep State’s agenda. Unless something changes to restore the balance of power, the next president—the new boss—will be the same as the old boss.

Frankly, it really doesn’t matter what you call the old/new boss—the Deep State, the Controllers, the masterminds, the shadow government, the corporate elite, the police state, the surveillance state, the military industrial complex—so long as you understand that no matter who occupies the White House, it is a profit-driven, an unelected bureaucracy that is actually calling the shots.

If our losses are mounting with every passing day—and they are—it is a calculated siege intended to ensure our defeat at the hands of a totalitarian regime.

Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, media, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more are casualties in the government’s war on the American people.

Set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized federal police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, and the like—all of which have been sanctioned by Congress, the White House and the courts—our constitutional freedoms are being steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded.

As a result, the American people have been treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, and denied due process.

None of these dangers have dissipated in any way.

They have merely disappeared from our televised news streams.

It’s time to get educated on what’s really going on. Thus, in the interest of liberty and truth, here’s an A-to-Z primer that spells out the grim realities of life in the American Police State that no one seems to be talking about anymore.

A is for the AMERICAN POLICE STATE. A police state “is characterized by bureaucracy, secrecy, perpetual wars, a nation of suspects, militarization, surveillance, widespread police presence, and a citizenry with little recourse against police actions.”

B is for our battered BILL OF RIGHTS. In the militarized police culture that is America today, where you can be kicked, punched, tasered, shot, intimidated, harassed, stripped, searched, brutalized, terrorized, wrongfully arrested, and even killed by a police officer, and that officer is rarely held accountable for violating your rights, the Bill of Rights doesn’t amount to much.

C is for CIVIL ASSET FORFEITURE. This governmental scheme to deprive Americans of their liberties—namely, the right to property—is being carried out under the guise of civil asset forfeiture, a government practice wherein government agents (usually the police and now TSA agents) seize private property they “suspect” may be connected to criminal activity. Then, whether or not any crime is actually proven to have taken place, the government keeps the citizen’s property and it’s virtually impossible to get it back.

D is for DRONES. It was estimated that at least 30,000 drones would be airborne in American airspace by 2020, part of an $80 billion industry. Although some drones will be used for benevolent purposes, many will also be equipped with lasers, tasers and scanning devices, among other weapons—all aimed at “we the people.”

E is for EMERGENCY STATE. From 9/11 to COVID-19, we have been the subjected to an “emergency state” that justifies all manner of government tyranny and power grabs in the so-called name of national security. The government’s ongoing attempts to declare so-called national emergencies in order to circumvent the Constitution’s system of checks and balances constitutes yet another expansion of presidential power that exposes the nation to further constitutional peril.

F is for FASCISM. A study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups. In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism—a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere economic units or databits.

G is for GRENADE LAUNCHERS and GLOBAL POLICE. The federal government has distributed more than $18 billion worth of battlefield-appropriate military weapons, vehicles and equipment such as drones, tanks, and grenade launchers to domestic police departments across the country. As a result, most small-town police forces now have enough firepower to render any citizen resistance futile. Now take those small-town police forces, train them to look and act like the military, and then enlist them to be part of the United Nations’ Strong Cities Network program, and you not only have a standing army that operates beyond the reach of the Constitution but one that is part of a global police force.

H is for HOLLOW-POINT BULLETS. The government’s efforts to militarize and weaponize its agencies and employees is reaching epic proportions, with federal agencies as varied as the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration stockpiling millions of lethal hollow-point bullets, which violate international law. Ironically, while the government continues to push for stricter gun laws for the general populace, the U.S. military’s arsenal of weapons makes the average American’s handgun look like a Tinker Toy.

I is for the INTERNET OF THINGS, in which internet-connected “things” monitor your home, your health and your habits in order to keep your pantry stocked, your utilities regulated and your life under control and relatively worry-free. The key word here, however, is control. This “connected” industry propels us closer to a future where police agencies apprehend virtually anyone if the government “thinks” they may commit a crime, driverless cars populate the highways, and a person’s biometrics are constantly scanned and used to track their movements, target them for advertising, and keep them under perpetual surveillance.

J is for JAILING FOR PROFIT. Having outsourced their inmate population to private prisons run by private corporations, this profit-driven form of mass punishment has given rise to a $70 billion private prison industry that relies on the complicity of state governments to keep their privately run prisons full by jailing large numbers of Americans for petty crimes.

K is for KENTUCKY V. KING. In an 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that police officers can break into homes, without a warrant, even if it’s the wrong home as long as they think they may have a reason to do so. Despite the fact that the police in question ended up pursuing the wrong suspect, invaded the wrong apartment and violated just about every tenet that stands between the citizenry and a police state, the Court sanctioned the warrantless raid, leaving Americans with little real protection in the face of all manner of abuses by law enforcement officials.

L is for LICENSE PLATE READERS, which enable law enforcement and private agencies to track the whereabouts of vehicles, and their occupants, all across the country. This data collected on tens of thousands of innocent people is also being shared between police agencies, as well as with government fusion centers and private companies. This puts Big Brother in the driver’s seat.

M is for MAIN CORE. Since the 1980s, the U.S. government has acquired and maintained, without warrant or court order, a database of names and information on Americans considered to be threats to the nation. As Salon reports, this database, reportedly dubbed “Main Core,” is to be used by the Army and FEMA in times of national emergency or under martial law to locate and round up Americans seen as threats to national security. There are at least 8 million Americans in the Main Core database.

N is for NO-KNOCK RAIDS. Owing to the militarization of the nation’s police forces, SWAT teams are now increasingly being deployed for routine police matters. In fact, more than 80,000 of these paramilitary raids are carried out every year. That translates to more than 200 SWAT team raids every day in which police crash through doors, damage private property, terrorize adults and children alike, kill family pets, assault or shoot anyone that is perceived as threatening—and all in the pursuit of someone merely suspected of a crime, usually possession of some small amount of drugs.

O is for OVERCRIMINALIZATION and OVERREGULATION. Thanks to an overabundance of 4500-plus federal crimes and 400,000 plus rules and regulations, it’s estimated that the average American actually commits three felonies a day without knowing it. As a result of this overcriminalization, we’re seeing an uptick in Americans being arrested and jailed for such absurd “violations” as letting their kids play at a park unsupervised, collecting rainwater and snow runoff on their own property, growing vegetables in their yard, and holding Bible studies in their living room.

P is for PATHOCRACY and PRECRIME. When our own government treats us as things to be manipulated, maneuvered, mined for data, manhandled by police and other government agents, mistreated, and then jailed in profit-driven private prisons if we dare step out of line, we are no longer operating under a constitutional republic. Instead, what we are experiencing is a pathocracy: tyranny at the hands of a psychopathic government, which “operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups.” Couple that with the government’s burgeoning precrime programs, which will use fusion centers, data collection agencies, behavioral scientists, corporations, social media, and community organizers and by relying on cutting-edge technology for surveillance, facial recognition, predictive policing, biometrics, and behavioral epigenetics in order to identify and deter so-called potential “extremists,” dissidents or rabble-rousers. Bear in mind that anyone seen as opposing the government—whether they’re Left, Right or somewhere in between—is now viewed as an extremist.

Q is for QUALIFIED IMMUNITY. Qualified immunity allows police officers to walk away without paying a dime for their wrongdoing. Conveniently, those deciding whether a cop should be immune from having to personally pay for misbehavior on the job all belong to the same system, all cronies with a vested interest in protecting the police and their infamous code of silence: city and county attorneys, police commissioners, city councils and judges.

R is for ROADSIDE STRIP SEARCHES and BLOOD DRAWS. The courts have increasingly erred on the side of giving government officials—especially the police—vast discretion in carrying out strip searches, blood draws and even anal and vaginal probes for a broad range of violations, no matter how minor the offense. In the past, strip searches were resorted to only in exceptional circumstances where police were confident that a serious crime was in progress. In recent years, however, strip searches have become routine operating procedures in which everyone is rendered a suspect and, as such, is subjected to treatment once reserved for only the most serious of criminals.

S is for the SURVEILLANCE STATE. On any given day, the average American going about his daily business will be monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears. A byproduct of the electronic concentration camp in which we live, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the corporate trackers that monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere.

T is for TASERS. Nonlethal weapons such as tasers, stun guns, rubber pellets and the like have been used by police as weapons of compliance more often and with less restraint—even against women and children—and in some instances, even causing death. These “nonlethal” weapons also enable police to aggress with the push of a button, making the potential for overblown confrontations over minor incidents that much more likely. A Taser Shockwave, for instance, can electrocute a crowd of people at the touch of a button

U is for UNARMED CITIZENS SHOT BY POLICE. No longer is it unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later, often attributed to a fear for their safety. Yet the fatality rate of on-duty patrol officers is reportedly far lower than many other professions, including construction, logging, fishing, truck driving, and even trash collection.

V is for VIRUSES AND FORCED VACCINATIONS. What started out as an apparent effort to prevent a novel coronavirus from sickening the nation (and the world) has become yet another means by which world governments (including the U.S.) can expand their powers, abuse their authority, and further oppress their constituents. With millions of dollars in stimulus funds being directed towards policing agencies across the country, the federal government plans to fight this COVID-19 virus with riot gear, gas masks, ballistic helmets, drones, and hi-tech surveillance technology. The road we are traveling is paved with lockdowns, SWAT team raids, mass surveillance and forced vaccinations. Now there’s talk of mobilizing the military to deliver forced vaccinations, mass surveillance in order to carry out contact tracing, and heavy fines and jail time for those who dare to venture out without a mask, congregate in worship without the government’s blessing, or re-open their  businesses without the government’s say-so.

W is for WHOLE-BODY SCANNERS. Using either x-ray radiation or radio waves, scanning devices and government mobile units are being used not only to “see” through your clothes but to spy on you within the privacy of your home. While these mobile scanners are being sold to the American public as necessary security and safety measures, we can ill afford to forget that such systems are rife with the potential for abuse, not only by government bureaucrats but by the technicians employed to operate them.

X is for X-KEYSCORE, one of the many spying programs carried out by the National Security Agency that targets every person in the United States who uses a computer or phone. This top-secret program “allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals.”

Y is for YOU-NESS. Using your face, mannerisms, social media and “you-ness” against you, you are now be tracked based on what you buy, where you go, what you do in public, and how you do what you do. Facial recognition software promises to create a society in which every individual who steps out into public is tracked and recorded as they go about their daily business. The goal is for government agents to be able to scan a crowd of people and instantaneously identify all of the individuals present. Facial recognition programs are being rolled out in states all across the country.

Z is for ZERO TOLERANCE. We have moved into a new paradigm in which young people are increasingly viewed as suspects and treated as criminals by school officials and law enforcement alike, often for engaging in little more than childish behavior or for saying the “wrong” word. In some jurisdictions, students have also been penalized under school zero tolerance policies for such inane “crimes” as carrying cough drops, wearing black lipstick, bringing nail clippers to school, using Listerine or Scope, and carrying fold-out combs that resemble switchblades. The lesson being taught to our youngest—and most impressionable—citizens is this: in the American police state, you’re either a prisoner (shackled, controlled, monitored, ordered about, limited in what you can do and say, your life not your own) or a prison bureaucrat (politician, police officer, judge, jailer, spy, profiteer, etc.).

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the reality we must come to terms with is that in the post-9/11 America we live in today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.

We have moved beyond the era of representative government and entered a new age.

You can call it the age of authoritarianism. Or fascism. Or oligarchy. Or the American police state.

Whatever label you want to put on it, the end result is the same: tyranny.

*

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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].

A massive explosion rocked the Lebanese capital Beirut this afternoon Tuesday 04 August 2020, the center of the explosion was in the Beirut harbor.

The Lebanese people who lived through a lengthy civil war and several confrontations with Israel and terrorists loyal to it including ISIS have never witnessed something like this.

Initial reports stated that a fire started in the warehouses of Wharf 12 of the Beirut Harbor in the afternoon, it was storing firework materials, workers nearby called the fire brigade which dispatched a unit, and during their initial work, the fire spread fast to nearby hazardous chemicals that caused a massive explosion.

The General Director of the Beirut stated that tons of Ammonium Nitrate exploded in the harbor, this was confiscated years ago and stored in warehouses in the wharf.

The explosion was so powerful that residents at the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh some 80 kilometers away have heard the explosion, and so did people at the borders with Syria. People in Cyprus also heard the sound of the explosion.

Multiple semi-official sources confirmed at least 10 dead in the first count, some other sources said that hundreds were killed and hundreds more injured throughout the Beirut waterfront and surrounding neighborhoods.

The material damage is devastating, it reached the Beirut International Airport as well. Many cars destroyed, the facade of many buildings destroyed, especially near the center of the explosion. An entire wharf destroyed and sunk in the sea, wheat silos destroyed completely and the wheat spilled in the sea as well.

Massive explosion rocks #Beirut, #Lebanon pic.twitter.com/xKe3TTqm35

— Arabi Souriعربي سوري (@3arabiSouri) August 4, 2020

Firefighters from all nearby regions rushed to the site for hours trying to extinguish the fire that torched a number of ships docking at the harbor with many injured onboard, with many people still trapped under the rubble. Beirut’s main hospitals called for blood donation of all types.

Lebanon is already facing a multi-layer crisis including facing COVID-19, an economic disastrous situation due to US direct and indirect sanctions, topped with an unprecedented level of corruption preventing the country from solving any of its issues.

Lebanese President called on the Higher Defense Council for an urgent meeting this evening and the Lebanese Prime Minister declared tomorrow as a day of grievance in the country.

*

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Featured image is from Syria News

We have a treatment in COVID-19 and it doesn’t have the support of Big Pharma and their experts!

Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is effective in treating COVID-19.

It is effective in halting the progression of the disease, provided it is given early enough and provided it is given in accordance with “contraindications” and safety of use (cardiac).

It costs nothing and the powerful pharmaceutical industry does not want to hear about it.

Big Parma has done everything to outlaw and demonize it, including the publication in the most prestigious medical journal (Lancet) of a fraudulent article withdrawn 12 days later.

Let’s stop saying that there is no treatment for COVID-19 or that only a vaccine will save us!

There is a treatment for this disease, not in intensive care, where it is too late, but to prevent it from going to intensive care, so to be given early enough, by general practitioners or emergency doctors.

The key to defeat COVID-19 already exists. We need to start using it

Harvey Risch, MD, PhD, is Professor of Epidemiology at the renowned Yale University School of Public Health.

“As Professor of Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, I have authored more than 300 peer-reviewed publications and currently hold leadership positions on the editorial boards of several leading journals. I’m used to advocating positions within the medical establishment, so I was disconcerted to find that in the midst of a crisis, I had to fight for a treatment that was fully supported by the data, but for reasons unrelated to a proper understanding of the science, was sidelined. As a result, tens of thousands of COVID-19 patients are dying needlessly. Fortunately, the situation can be reversed easily and quickly.

I’m talking, of course, about the drug hydroxychloroquine.”

Effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine confirmed in the University of Minnesota (Boulware) clinical trial data study

These results show that the time elapsed between infection and the start of treatment is crucial for the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19 .

“There is strong statistical evidence that treatment with hydroxychloroquine reduces the proportion of symptomatic patients when used prophylactically immediately after exposure, especially if treatment is started within 2 days. “

Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) [1] has been prescribed in malaria (malaria) and autoimmune diseases (lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis) [2] for a very long time.

The antiviral efficacy of HCQ has been demonstrated in vitro for a long time, but also in the case of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) [3].

Azithromycin, an antibiotic associated with HCQ in the Marseille protocol developed by Professor D Raoult’s team [4] is also antiviral.

Studies confirm the antiviral role of zinc [5-6] and its ability to inhibit a virus such as SARS-CoV-2 [7].

Thus, HCQ, azithromycin and zinc are three antivirals. They support each other: studies have shown that zinc facilitates intracellular penetration of HCQ and increases its antiviral action [8].

HCQ is an inexpensive drug.

Its side effects are known to doctors; they are easy to control.

The antiviral efficacy of HCQ is based on solid experimental data, the experience of a team of experts in these fields (infectiology, virology) and on convincing clinical results [9]: reduction of the contagious period, reduction of the duration of symptoms, blocking the evolution towards a severe form.

These benefits have been verified by French doctors [10-11-12] and by doctors from other countries, Morocco, Algeria, South Korea and China [13-14-15].

Cardiac safety is easy to optimize, especially under medical supervision [16].

By showing only the studies or scientific opinions on hydroxychloroquine, focusing on its ineffectiveness and/or its dangers, without mentioning the exculpatory studies and opinions that prove its effectiveness, the biased media have sowed a biased, misleading vision in the public mind.

When the incriminating studies in question proved to be false or falsified, such as this study published in The Lancet on May 22, 2020 [17], a scandal forcing the journal to retract the study on June 4, 2020, the media did not mention it!

When studies confirm the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in COVID-19 [18], the media do not report on it!

“The body of evidence now makes a strong case for the effectiveness of this treatment (HCQ), but doctors and the public are convinced otherwise as a result of this selection.” [19]

Conversely, despite their real danger and ineffectiveness, antivirals (Remdesivir) are praised by these media!

So what action should be taken: 

• Facilitate HCQ treatment which is currently being blocked in favor of Big Pharma antivirals (such as Remdesivir-Gilead). The latter are much more profitable for the pharmaceutical industry than HCQ?
• To negate the value of an urgent (and also very profitable for the same pharmaceutical industry) vaccine?
  In the wake of such hypotheses, some naïve or complicit journalists will cry conspiracy. Yet it is documented, proven!

The corruption of science and medicine by the industry concerned has been developed, documented, demonstrated and explained for many years.

Authors, researchers and whistleblowers have proven these malpractices.

Among them are journalists, doctors, professors, university deans, lecturers at universities and colleges, members of parliament, pharmacists, veterinarians, repentant CEOs of pharmaceutical companies, international experts and repentant editors of major scientific journals [20 to 32].

What more is needed?

The pharmaceutical industry, the most powerful lobby of all [33-34], has infiltrated and infiltrated all official decision-making bodies in most countries.

This pandemic corruption has ramifications at all levels of society [35-36-37] including, even more importantly, within governments and public institutions [38] which have a mandate to protect people’s health.

No one is spared.

Billions (dollars, euros) are at stake [39].

1000 billion euros of profit in 20 years! No ethics is big enough to fight against that, in a world like ours.

Do you think this overpowering industry would overlook the profits generated by antivirals (formerly Roche’s Tamiflu°, now Gilead’s Remdesivir) or vaccines?

And miss out on a treatment that no longer makes them any money: HCQ?

As soon as the crisis began, Belgium set up a “COVID-19 scientific committee”.

This committee is not transparent! At most, we know a few personalities on this committee, some of whom were already manoeuvring in 2009 to get the government to buy millions of doses of H1N1 vaccine, this time for the benefit of GSK (Glaxo SmithKline).

In 2020, in the COVID-19 crisis, we find the same people, the same scenarios:

Promote testing [40-41], antivirals that are expensive for companies, and above all, vaccination, as in 2009:

“Invited on a Radio 1 programme, virologist Marc van Ranst (one of the heads of the COVID-19 safety committee in Belgium) recalled that the development of a vaccine was the only way to get rid of the new coronavirus in the long term.” [42].

While the pharmaceutical companies and their lobbies must be very pleased with this statement, and while no journalist in the mainstream media questions this kind of assertion, the public deserves information that is closer to the truth.

No, the development of a vaccine is not the only way to get rid of the new coronavirus in the long term!

Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is cheaper, less dangerous and we already have it!

Dr Pascal Sacré

Translation from French by Maya on behalf of GlobalResearch.ca

Featured image: pixnio.com

Part one: 

COVID-19: au plus près de la vérité. Confinement

Part two:

COVID-19: au plus près de la vérité. Masques

Part four:

 

COVID-19: au plus près de la vérité – Tests et Immunité 

Part five:

COVID-19: au plus près de la vérité. Vaccins.

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Notes :

[1] PLAQUENIL 200 mg, comprimé pelliculé Sulfate d’hydroxychloroquine

[2] The prescribing of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine by consultant rheumatologists in the UK, Br J Rheumatol. 26 octobre 1987 

[3] In Vitro Antiviral Activity and Projection of Optimized Dosing Design of Hydroxychloroquine for the Treatment of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), Clin Infect Dis 9 mars 2020. Hydroxychloroquine was found to be more potent than chloroquine to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 in vitro.

[4] Coronavirus : Protocole, risques, 20minutes.fr, 25 mars 2020

[5] Correspondance du Dr Vladimir Zelenko sur le traitement du COVID-19 à New York, hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin + zinc, in summary, my urgent recommendation is to begin outpatient treatment as soon as possible in accordance with the above. In my direct experience, this treatment prevents Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), avoids the need for hospitalization and saves lives.

[6] Zinc as a Gatekeeper of Immune Function, Nutrients. 2017 Dec ; 9(12) : 1286.

[7] Zn (2+) inhibits coronavirus, PLoS Pathog. 2010 Nov 4;6(11):e1001176.

[8] Improving the efficacy of Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine against SARS-CoV-2 may require Zinc additives – A better synergy for future COVID-19 clinical trials, 1 juin 2020, free article

[9] Christian Perronne : “À Garches, nous avons de bons résultats avec l’hydroxychloroquine”, 15 avril 2020, A fervent advocate of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin treatment, for Pr Christian Perronne the question of its effectiveness no longer arises. Head of the Infectious Diseases Department at the Raymond-Poincaré Hospital in Garches, he has seen it every day since the beginning of the epidemic: Professor Raoult’s treatment cures and considerably reduces the need for intensive care. 

[10] Riposte à la covid-19 : la saine colère du Dr BELLATON, Source : page Facebook de Silviane Le Menn, 20 avril 2020.

[11] Coronavirus : le bilan très positif d’un praticien lorrain qui prescrit l’hydroxychloroquine, the Lorrain Republican, Philippe Marque, April 6, 2020. The results are more than positive: “I have used this protocol on a dozen hospitalized patients, who therefore have a Covid-19 that is already relatively worrying, and I have had neither death nor any evolution towards a serious stage requiring resuscitation.”

[12] Un médecin mosellan constate l’efficacité d’un protocole à base d’azithromycine, the Lorrain Republican, Thierry Fedrigo, April 11, 2020. Two Moselle doctors and one of their Belgian colleagues seem to have developed a drug combination effective against coronavirus. Relying on azithromycin without resorting to the hydroxychloroquine advocated by the infectiologist Didier Raoult, they have noted a clear drop in hospitalizations of their treated patients.

[13] Un médecin néerlandais soigne les patients atteints de coronavirus, mais le gouvernement néerlandais n’est pas content, Amari Roos, 10 avril 2020

[14] Des médecins algériens attestent de l’«efficacité quasi totale» de l’hydroxychloroquine contre le Covid-19, April 27, 2020. The heads of the infectious disease departments of a hospital in Blida and another in Algiers say that the hydroxychloroquine protocol followed in the treatment of patients with coronavirus gives a positive result “almost total”.

[15] Après l’Algérie, le Maroc encense l’efficacité de l’hydroxychloroquine contre le Covid-19, May 1, 2020. The therapeutic protocol based on hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin used against Covid-19 “has given positive results” in Morocco, the Health Minister said, adding that “side effects are minimal”.

[16] PROCÉDURE DE SÉCURISATION DE LA PRESCRIPTION DU TRAITEMENT HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE/AZITHROMYCINE, Service de cardiologie, Pr Deharo, Hôpital La Timone, AP-HM, Marseille, France, 1 avril 2020

[17] La corruption de la science. Le scandale de l’étude sur l’hydroxychloroquine. Qui était derrière tout cela ? L’intention d’Anthony Fauci de bloquer l’HCQ au nom des grandes entreprises pharmaceutiques, Michel Chossudovsky, mondialisation.ca, 12 juin 2020

[18] Treatment with Hydroxychloroquine Cut Death Rate Significantly in COVID-19 Patients

[19] «Nous sommes en train de dériver vers un totalitarisme qui ne dit pas son nom», 19 juillet 2020

[20] La vérité sur les compagnies pharmaceutiques, comment elles nous trompent, comment les contrecarrer, Marcia Angell, MD, ancienne rédactrice en chef du New England Journal of Medicine, traduction en français, les éditions le mieux-être, 2005.

[21] Un député et son collab’ chez Big Pharma, Cyril Pocréaux et François Ruffin, Fakir éditions, 2018

[22] Sanofi Big Pharma, l’urgence de la maîtrise sociale, Danielle Montel, Daniel Vergnaud, Danielle Sanchez, Thierry Bodin, Editions Syllepse, 2014

[23] Le grand secret de l’industrie pharmaceutique, Philippe Pignarre, La découverte/Poche 2004

[24] Les inventeurs de maladies, manœuvres et manipulations de l’industrie pharmaceutique, Jörg Blech, Actes Sud, 2005

[25] La Guerre des Médicaments, pourquoi sont-ils si chers ? Dirk Van Duppen, Aden éditions, collection epo, 2005

[26] La fabrique de malades, ces maladies qu’on nous invente, Dr Sauveur Boukris, le cherche midi éditions, 2013

[27] Impostures pharmaceutiques, médicaments illicites et luttes pour l’accès à la santé, Mathieu Quet, les empêcheurs de penser en rond / La découverte, 2018

[28] Big Pharma, une industrie toute-puissante qui joue avec notre santé, coordonné par Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, Les Arènes, 2013

[29] Médicaments effets secondaires : la mort, les laboratoires nous trompent. John Virapen, le cherche midi éditions, 2014

[30] Santé-business ou la santé bafouée, Henri Van den Eynde, Editions EPO, 1995

[31] Corruptions et crédulité en médecine, Pr Philippe Even, Le cherche midi, 2015

[32] les médicamenteurs, labos, médecins, pouvoirs publics : enquête sur des liaisons dangereuses, Stéphane Horel, éditions du moment, 2010

[33] Lobbying à Paris, Bruxelles et Washington : l’énorme puissance de feu des labos, Olivier Petitjean, 13 novembre 2018. 

[34] À Paris, l’influence écrasante des labos face aux associations de patients, Olivier Petitjean, 13 novembre 2018.

[35] Immersion dans un congrès de formation de médecins sponsorisé par Big Pharma, Rozenn Le Saint, 14 décembre 2018.

[36] Comment les labos se cachent derrière des campagnes de sensibilisation apparemment « neutres », Rozenn Le Saint, 30 novembre 2018.

[37] Médecine : la presse spécialisée sous la coupe de l’industrie pharmaceutique, Rozenn Le Saint, 30 novembre 2018

[38] Derrière les profits des labos, un soutien financier multiforme des pouvoirs publics, Olivier Petitjean, 16 janvier 2019.

[39] 1000 milliards d’euros de profits en vingt ans : comment les labos sont devenus des monstres financiers, Olivier Petitjean, 16 janvier 2019.

[40] Coronavirus : GSK prochainement en mesure de réaliser au moins 6000 tests de dépistage par jour

[41] Coronavirus: les laboratoires de biologie clinique agréés, « écartés » au profit de firmes industrielles, n’ont plus confiance dans le gouvernement

[42] Et les conflits d’intérêts, on en parle ?, 5 mai 2020

The original source for this article Mondialisation.ca, 2020

New scandalous information about the 2014 Maidan coup d’état in Ukraine has emerged that implicates Lithuania’s important role in instigating the violent events. David Zhvania, a former Member of the Ukrainian Parliament, revealed on his YouTube channel that the seizure of power in Ukraine was financed in “several ways.”

“One of the external sources was the Lithuanian embassy, ​​through which money and weapons were transferred, and the internal channel was Diamantbank. I have documented evidence to support my words,” said the former ally of Petro Poroshenko, the previous president of Ukraine.

Zhvania called on Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova to initiate criminal proceedings and to summon him for questioning. According to the former MP, “Ukrainians should finally find out the truth” on who funded Maidan and who was bribed. He then admitted he was a member of a “criminal group that carried out a coup.”

“To help the conspirators, I used my political influence and my position as head of the State-Building Committee,” he said, adding that he would testify against himself, “but with one condition.”

“Please guarantee my security because I know who the people of Poroshenko are. They can easily order me to be removed,” he stressed.

Mass protests in Kiev began in November 2013 after preparations for the signing of an association agreement between Ukraine and the European Union were suspended. This set off mass anti-Russian hysteria and by the end of February 2014, a coup d’état took place in Ukraine, ousting President Viktor Yanukovych from power. This led to Petro Poroshenko becoming president and ultra-nationalists, including neo-Nazis, gained significant power in Ukraine and instigated a war with the Russian-speaking minority of Eastern Ukraine.

Although U.S. and Western European involvement in Maidan are well documented and known, Zhvania’s admissions is the first admittance of how a small Baltic country of under 3 million people played a key role in destabilizing Ukraine. Lithuania’s role was not only with financial support, but also with arms transfers. Although some may be sceptical that Lithuania played such a role, Zhvania is confident enough in his allegations that he announced he is willing to submit “documented evidence” to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine.

The question arises whether the Prosecutor’s Office will accept Zhvania’s testimony and evidence. Such a testimony and submission of evidence would further question the legitimacy of the Maidan events as a fight for freedom and democracy in Ukraine. If the legitimacy of Maidan is questioned, ultra-nationalists in Ukraine could become hysterical and instigate political destabilization to maintain and protect the powers they attained when Yanukovych was ousted. This is something the Prosecutor’s Office would be considering.

Lithuania was an active supporter of the 2004-2005 Orange Revolution that brought pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko to power in Ukraine. Although Yushchenko was unconstitutionally brought to power, for Lithuania this was not a problem so long as Kiev had a pro-Western orientation. It is therefore not surprising that in 2014 it again supported reactionary forces in Ukraine. From the beginning of the conflict in Donbass, the eastern region of Ukraine where the majority of the Russian-speaking minority are, Lithuania started to provide official military support to Ukraine with armaments and advisers, and informally by recruiting and sending mercenaries.

As Lithuania has taken a pro-American position since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the country’s leadership has aggressively served Washington’s ambitions of limiting Russian influence and expanding American interests in the post-Soviet space. It is for this reason that Lithuania, Ukraine and Poland created the “Lublin Triangle,” a trilateral platform for these three countries to counter supposed “ongoing Russian aggression” and show their “firm support” for Western institutions. In their joint declaration published online, the Foreign Affairs Ministers of the three countries condemned Russia’s “ongoing aggression” and its “attempted annexation” of Crimea, while welcoming Ukraine’s “European choice.” Effectively the trilateral platform is a pillar for the three countries to enact Washington’s main foreign policy priorities in the region, that they call “Central Europe” instead of Eastern Europe. Claiming that Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine are in Central Europe instead of the geographical reality that they are in Eastern Europe, is in an awkward attempt by these countries to disassociate themselves from Western orientalization that the East is primitive and/or backwards.

If Zhvania’s statements that Lithuania’s role in Maidan are confirmed to be true, it would certainly not come as a surprise, but as mentioned, delegitimizes the initial claims that the movement was a struggle for democracy and Western European values in Ukraine. It would also confirm that Lithuania interfered in the internal affairs of another state and participated in an unconstitutional coup. Effectively, if proven true, the supposed values of Western Europe that Maidan struggled for would prove to be a sham as it was not achieved through the will of the people, but rather through foreign funds and weapons, including those from seemingly insignificant states like Lithuania.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Sociologist  C. Wright Mills wrote a book in 1956 that (sadly) still resonates today. In his book ‘The Power Elite’ Mills focused on groups and individuals who help to control this Republic for countless generations:

• the “Metropolitan 400”: members of historically notable local families in the principal American cities, generally represented on the Social Register
• “Celebrities”: prominent entertainers and media personalities
• the “Chief Executives”: presidents and CEOs of the most important companies within each industrial sector
• the “Corporate Rich”: major landowners and corporate shareholders
• the “Warlords”: senior military officers, most importantly the Joint Chiefs of Staff
• the “Political Directorate”: “fifty-odd men of the executive branch” of the U.S. federal government, including the senior leadership in the Executive Office of the President, sometimes variously drawn from elected officials of the Democratic and Republican parties but usually professional government bureaucrats

Mills formulated a very short summary of his book:

“Who, after all, runs America? No one runs it altogether, but in so far as any group does, the power elite.”

Now, this was in 1956, but look how what this man indicated is still part of our problem. The Super Rich are  bundled into what many have referred to as ‘The Deep State’. Well, contrary to what Trump has ascertained, and what actually helped him win the election in 2016, is  this ‘ he Deep State’.  Most of our presidents since FDR, excluding the one they knocked off, were either owned, run or influenced by such a grouping of people and organizations. Trump was able to use the actual and honest fears of the ‘Deep State’ to his advantage. Many working stiffs (usually white) saw this phony populist demagogue as the answer to their prayers: A release from that tight grip on their quality of life that this empire has successfully achieved for generations. Of course, this ‘Long Con’ as I call it has been used by the Two Party/One Party system forever it seems. Trump was just the latest, and most lethal I might add, of these devices. He, along with his minions and hidden handlers, is on the verge of finally destroying any memory of a vibrant republican democracy…. a democracy that has been a joke for decades. Getting this gang out of power will perhaps stop the bleeding a bit, but…. the Power Elite march on!

Here’s the kicker: Without an army of lackeys no empire can continue to rule so unfairly.

The Power Elite, categorized by the late C. Wright Mills, are but a few thousand people at most. They always need the ‘boots on the ground’ to maintain control. We see this occurring every day. Those who own the electronic media need a myriad of field reporters, producers, editors, writers, newscasters, hosts and their guests to keep churning out the spin. The corporate world needs top and lower level executives and managers to continue to ‘Sell their shit’ to the public.

Schools of higher learning need compliant school administrators, department heads and teachers to toe the company line of this empire. A few years ago this writer was part of a grass roots movement, The 25% Solution, advocating an immediate 25% cut in military spending, with the savings going back to the states and their localities. I was asked by a sympathetic college professor to give a presentation to a group of three sociology classes. The presentation went very well, and the three teachers were so glad that I came by. I wanted to make this a regular thing, speaking with new classes each semester. They never called or returned my calls! Somebody upstairs got to them, yes? A dear friend of mine, a NYC talk radio host, about 15 years ago had requested to his producer that they get a representative of ‘Physicians for National Health Care’ (forerunner to ‘ Medicare for All’) as a guest. He got the guest on air, and was conducting a comprehensive interview. They were covering things that Senator Sanders was, years later, passionately advocating. At the first commercial break, his producer told him, ear to ear, that he did not want the interview to run any longer. My friend argued for keeping the guest on as the phone lines were lit up with callers wishing to speak to the doctor. No dice! Over!

How powerful is this ‘Power Elite’? Ask yourself this: If you still believe that

A) Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK with that single rifle;

B) The North Vietnamese attacked the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin, giving LBJ  license for increasing our presence in South Vietnam;

C) James Earl Ray killed MLK and then conveniently escaped to Canada on his own;

D) Sirhan Sirhan killed RFK, though never standing close enough to him, as the autopsy revealed the bullet had to come from inches away;

E) Reagan achieved the release of hostages held by Iran right after being elected in 1980, though Carter could not negotiate it before the election;

F) Saddam Hussein was NOT suckered into his 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Bush Sr. when US ambassador April Glaspie assured him “We do not get involved in territorial  disputes between two nations” (check out two facts: Kuwait was ‘Angle drilling’ oil from Iraqi waters even though Kuwait had supported Iraq’s 10 year war with Iran, their enemy as well, and then wouldn’t erase Iraqi loans owed to Kuwait);

G) We did NOT know in advance of Al Qaeda’s attack on us on 9/11, and it was NOT a false flag operation (seek out the many researched books on 9/11, showing how the government synopsis of it is hogwash);

H) Iraq did have WMDs and was planning on using them on us (despite the actual UN weapons inspections proving the opposite) and our attack, invasion and subsequent occupation was legal and moral;

I) This pandemic is a hoax and a scam, perpetrated to make sure Trump loses the election (despite a mountain of evidence revealing just how contagious and deadly this virus is)….need I go on?

It is simply just not all about politics, as the Two Party/One Party hucksters will allege. No, as much as we working stiffs and the poor and indigent need Trump and his crew to go, that is but the ‘Tip of the Iceberg’. As alluded to earlier in this column, it is urgent that working stiffs being **** by this empire  stand up and say ‘Enough is enough!’

We should stop asking that the Super Rich give back more to us, and that Land Lords do the right thing by their tenants. No, we need to demand that the Mega Millionaires be taxed a Flat 50% on anything they earn over one million dollars each year, with NO deductions!

We need to demand that our local governments take over absentee landlord rental properties through legal eminent domain (at market prices) and then run them nonprofit, with the tenant having an opportunity to one day own the dwelling. With even 20% of each month’s rent going into escrow towards a future down payment, this can be accomplished. Strike Three of demands should be that this obscene military budget, accounting for 50% of our federal taxes, be cut drastically (as explained above), and the majority of our 1000+ foreign military bases be shut down, sending our military personnel home. Why not? The last time I looked it was the politicians who were our ‘Public Servants’, not the Power Elite’s.

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Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, Countercurrents.org, and Off Guardian sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 400 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid‘ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at [email protected].

75 Years Ago, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945

Was President Harry Truman “a murderer,” as the renowned British analytic philosopher Gertrude Elizabeth Anscombe once charged? Were the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki indeed a war crime and a crime against humanity, as she and other academic luminaries have publicly claimed? A Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Ethics at Oxford and Cambridge, who was one of the 20th century’s most gifted philosophers and recognizably the greatest woman philosopher in history, Dr. Anscombe openly called President Truman a “war criminal” for his decision to have the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki leveled by atomic bombs in August 1945 (Rachels & Rachels 127). According to another academic critic, the late American historian Howard Zinn, at least 140,000 Japanese civilians were “turned into powder and ash” in Hiroshima. Over 70,000 civilians were incinerated in Nagasaki, and another 130,000 residents of the two cities died of radiation sickness in the next five years (Zinn 23).

The two most often cited reasons for President Truman’s controversial decision were to shorten the war and to save the lives of “between 250,000 and 500,000” American soldiers who could have possibly died in battle had the U.S. military had to invade the home islands of Imperial Japan. Truman reportedly claimed that

“I could not bear this thought and it led to the decision to use the atomic bomb” (Dallek 26).

But Dr. Gertrude Anscombe, who along with her husband, Dr. Peter Geach, Professor of Philosophical Logic and Ethics, were the 20th century’s foremost philosophical champions of the doctrine that moral rules are absolute, did not buy this morally callous argument:

“Come now: if you had to choose between boiling one baby and letting some frightful disaster befall a thousand people—or a million people, if a thousand is not enough—what would you do? For men to choose to kill the innocent as a means to their ends is always murder” (Rachels & Rachels 128-129).

In 1956, Professor Anscombe and other prominent faculty members of Oxford University openly protested the decision of university administrators to grant Truman an honorary degree in gratitude for America’s wartime help. She even wrote a pamphlet, explaining that the former U.S. President was “a murderer” and “a war criminal” (Rachels & Rachels 128).

In the eyes of many contemporaries of Elizabeth Anscombe, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki violated famous philosophical-ethical norms such as the “Sanctity of Human Life,” the “Wrongfulness of Killing,” and also that “it is wrong to use people as means to other people’s ends.” Former President Herbert Hoover (image on the right) was another early critic, openly declaring that

“The use of the atom bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts me” (Alperovitz The Decision 635).

Even President Truman’s own Chief of Staff, the five-star Admiral William D. Leahy (the most senior U.S. military officer during the war) made no secret of his strong disapprobation of the atomic bombings:

“It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons…. My own feeling is that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages…. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children” (Claypool 86-87, emphasis added).

The apologists for President Truman, on the other hand, seem to be using the quasi-Utilitarian “Benefits Argument” to justify the barbaric use of a devastating weapon of mass destruction, which killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in the two targeted Japanese cities even though (contrary to Truman’s many public pronouncements at that time) there had been no military troops, no heavy weaponry, or even any major war-related industries in either city. Because nearly the entire adult male population of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been drafted by the Japanese military, it was mostly women, children, and old men who fell victims to fiery death from the sky. The excuse that Truman himself repeatedly offered was:

“The dropping of the bombs stopped the war, saved millions of lives” (Alperovitz Atomic Diplomacy 10).

He even boasted that he had “slept like a baby” the night after signing the final order to use the atomic bombs against Japan (Rachels & Rachels 127). But what Truman was saying in self-justification was far from being the truth—let alone the whole truth.

Unleashing a nuclear Frankenstein

Albert Einstein with Leo Szilard

At the urging of a fellow nuclear physicist—the anti-Nazi Hungarian émigré Leo Szilard—Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 2, 1939, recommending that the U.S. government should start work on a powerful atomic device as a defensive deterrent to Nazi Germany’s possible acquisition and use of nuclear weaponry (Ham 103-104). But when the top-secret Manhattan Project finally got off the ground in early 1942, the U.S. military obviously had other, much more offensive plans regarding the future targets of America’s A-bombs. While at least 67 other Japanese cities, including the capital Tokyo, were reduced to rubble by daily conventional firebombing, including the use of napalm and other incendiaries, Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been deliberately spared for the sole purpose of testing the destructiveness of the new atomic device (Claypool 11).

An even more important reason for employing the bomb was to scare Stalin, who had turned quickly from “Old Uncle Joe” at the time of the FDR presidency into “the Red Menace” in the eyes of Truman and his top advisers. President Truman had quickly abandoned FDR’s policy of cooperation with Moscow, replacing it with a new policy of hostile confrontation with Stalin, in which America’s newly-acquired monopoly over nuclear armaments would be exploited as an aggressive tool of Washington’s anti-Soviet diplomacy (Truman’s so-called “atomic diplomacy”). Fully two months before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the same Leo Szilard had met privately with Truman’s Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes, and had tried unsuccessfully to persuade him that the nuclear weapon should not be used to destroy helpless civilian targets such as Japan’s cities. According to Dr. Szilard,

“Mr. Byrnes did not argue that it was necessary to use the bomb against the cities of Japan in order to win the war…. Mr. Byrnes’s view [was] that our possessing and demonstrating the bomb would make Russia more manageable in Europe” (Alperovitz Atomic Diplomacy 1, 290).

The Truman Administration had, in fact, postponed the Potsdam meeting of the Big Three until July 17, 1945—one day after the successful Trinity test of the first A-bomb at the Alamogordo testing range in New Mexico—to give Truman extra diplomatic leverage in negotiating with Stalin (Alperovitz Atomic Diplomacy 6). In Truman’s own words, the atom bomb “would keep the Russians straight” and “put us in a position to dictate our own terms at the end of the war” (Alperovitz Atomic Diplomacy 54, 63).

At this point, the Truman Administration was no longer interested in having Moscow’s Red Army liberate Northern China (Manchuria) from Japanese military occupation (as FDR, Churchill, and Stalin had jointly agreed at the Yalta Conference in February 1945)—let alone invade or capture Imperial Japan itself. Quite to the contrary. Publicly deploring the “political-diplomatic rather than military motives” behind Truman’s decision to nuke Japan, Albert Einstein complained that “a great majority of scientists were opposed to the sudden employment of the atom bomb. I suspect that the affair was precipitated by a desire to end the war in the Pacific by any means before Russia’s participation” (Alperovitz The Decision 444). Winston Churchill privately told his Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, at the Potsdam Conference that

“It is quite clear that the United States do not at the present time desire Russian participation in the war against Japan” (Claypool 78).

Not even Tokyo’s last-minute desperate offer (made during and after the Potsdam Conference) to surrender if the Allies promised not to prosecute Japan’s god-like emperor or remove him from office—could prevent this deadly decision, even though Truman “had indicated a willingness to maintain the emperor on the throne” (Dallek 25).

Therefore, sparing the lives of American GIs was hardly one of Truman’s more convincing arguments. In early 1945, FDR and Army General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, had together decided to leave the capture of Berlin to Soviet Marshal Georgi Zhukov‘s battle-hardened troops in order to avoid heavy American casualties. After officially declaring war on Tokyo on August 8, 1945, and having destroyed the Japanese military forces in Manchuria, Stalin’s Red Army prepared to invade and occupy Japan’s home islands—which certainly would have saved the lives of thousands of U.S. servicemen about whom Truman seemed so vocally concerned. But following Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender in May 1945, Truman had come to share Winston Churchill’s famous revisionist assessment that “We have slain the wrong swine.”

It is not even clear whether Tokyo finally surrendered on August 14 due to the two U.S. nuclear attacks carried out on August 6 and August 9, respectively (after which there were practically no more Japanese cities left to destroy nor any more U.S. A-bombs to drop)—or because of the threat of Soviet invasion and occupation after Moscow had entered the war against the Empire of Japan. Just days before the Soviet declaration of war, the Japanese ambassador to Moscow had cabled Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo in Tokyo that Moscow’s entry into the war would spell a total disaster for Japan:

“If Russia…should suddenly decide to take advantage of our weakness and intervene against us with force of arms, we would be in a completely hopeless situation. It is clear as day that the Imperial Army in Manchukuo [Manchuria] would be completely unable to oppose the Red Army which has just won a great victory and is superior to us on all points” (Barnes).

To nuke or not to nuke

General Eisenhower was later quoted as stating his conviction that it had not been “necessary” militarily to use the bomb to force Japanese surrender:

“Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of ‘face’…it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing” (Alperovitz Atomic Diplomacy 14).

In private, Eisenhower repeated his objections to his direct boss, Truman’s Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson:

“I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my strong misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives” (Alperovitz Atomic Diplomacy 14).

Admiral William F. Halsey, commander of the U.S. Third Fleet (which conducted the bulk of naval operations against the Japanese in the Pacific during the entire war), agreed that there was “no military need” to employ the new weapon, which was used only because the Truman Administration had a “toy and they wanted to try it out…. The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment…. It was a mistake to ever drop it” (Alperovitz The Decision 445). Indeed, it was quite “certain” at the time that a totally devastated Japan, which was on the verge of internal collapse, would have surrendered within weeks, if not days, without the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki or even without the Soviet declaration of war against Tokyo. As the official U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey concluded at the end of the war, “certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated” (Alperovitz Atomic Diplomacy 10-11).

Major General Curtis E. Lemay, commander of the U.S. Twenty-first Bomber Command which had conducted the massive conventional bombing campaign against wartime Japan and dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, stated publicly: “I felt there was no need to use them [atomic weapons]. We were doing the job with incendiaries. We were hurting Japan badly…. We went ahead and dropped the bombs because President Truman told me to do it…. All the atomic bomb did was, in all probability, save a few days” (Alperovitz The Decision 340).

The fateful decision to drop the two atomic bombs code-named “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” on Japan may have been made a little bit more morally acceptable for Truman by the daily carpet bombing of German and Japanese cities throughout the war, including the firebombings of Hamburg, Dresden, and Tokyo, which had nearly wiped out their civilian populations. The declared goal of these relentless city-busting air raids was to destroy the morale and the will to fight of the German and Japanese people and thus shorten the war. But many years after the war Dr. Howard Zinn (himself a B-17 co-pilot and bombardier who had flown dozens of bombing missions against Nazi Germany) sadly mused: “No one seemed conscious of the irony—that one of the reasons for the general indignation against the fascist powers was their history of indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations” (Zinn 37). But, in fact, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, Admiral William Leahy, and Army General Douglas MacArthur were no less disturbed by what they saw as the barbarity of the “terror” air campaign, with Stimson privately fearing that the U.S. would “get the reputation for outdoing Hitler in atrocities” (Ham 63).

Clearly, Japan was defeated and was preparing to surrender before the bomb was used, whose main—if not the only—purpose was to intimidate the Soviet Union. But there had been several viable alternatives, some of which were discussed prior to the atomic bombings. The Under Secretary of the Navy, Ralph Bard, had become convinced that “the Japanese war was really won” and was so disturbed by the prospect of using atom bombs against defenseless civilians that he secured a meeting with President Truman, at which he unsuccessfully pressed his case “for warning the Japanese of the nature of the new weapon” (Alperovitz Atomic Diplomacy 19). Admiral Lewis L. Strauss, Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy, who replaced Bard after the latter’s angry resignation, also believed that “the war was very nearly over. The Japanese were nearly ready to capitulate.” That is why Admiral Strauss insisted that the atom bomb should be demonstrated in a way that would not kill large numbers of civilians, proposing that “…a satisfactory place for such a demonstration would be a large forest of cryptomeria trees not far from Tokyo” (Alperovitz Atomic Diplomacy 19). General George C. Marshall, U.S. Army Chief of Staff, was equally opposed to the bomb being used on civilian areas, arguing instead that

“…these weapons might be used against straight military objectives such as a large naval installation and then if no complete result was derived from the effect of that…we ought to designate a number of large manufacturing areas from which people would be warned to leave —telling the Japanese that we intend to destroy such centers…. Every effort should be made to keep our record of warning clear…. We must offset by such warning methods the opprobrium which might follow from an ill-considered employment of such force” (Alperovitz Atomic Diplomacy 20).

General Marshall also insisted that instead of surprising the Russians with the first use of the atom bomb, Moscow should be invited to send observers to the Alamogordo nuclear test. Many of the scientists working for the Manhattan Project likewise urged that a demonstration be arranged first, including a possible nuclear explosion at sea in close proximity to Japan’s coast, so that the bomb’s destructive power would be made clear to the Japanese before it was used against them. But, like the U.S. military’s dissenting views, the nuclear scientists’ opposition was never considered seriously by the Truman Administration (Alperovitz Atomic Diplomacy 20-21).

Conclusion

As a result of Truman’s immoral decision to use nuclear explosives against the “Japs” (a derogatory name for the Japanese commonly used in public in wartime America, including by President Truman himself), well over 200,000 civilians were instantly cremated and many thousands died later of radiation sickness. J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the Manhattan Project and “father” of the U.S. atom bomb, declared that Truman’s decision was “a grievous error,” because now “we have blood on our hands” (Claypool 17). Howard Zinn agreed with Dr. Oppenheimer’s judgment, remarking that “much of the argument defending the atomic bombings has been based on a mood of retaliation, as if the children of Hiroshima had bombed Pearl Harbor…. Did American children deserve to die because of the U.S. massacre of Vietnamese children at My Lai?” (Zinn 59).

The controversial General Curtis Lemay, who had opposed the two atomic blasts, later confided to former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (who had worked for Lemay during the war, helping select Japanese targets for the American firebombing raids): “If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals” (Schanberg). Given the unjustifiable and unnecessary use of such an inhumane and indiscriminate weapon of mass destruction as the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Professor Elizabeth Anscombe called President Truman a murderer and a war criminal. Until the day she died, Dr. Anscombe believed that Truman should have been put on trial for having committed some of the worst war crimes and crimes against humanity during WWII.

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Rossen Vassilev Jr. is a journalism senior at the Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

Sources

Alperovitz, Gar. Atomic Diplomacy: Hisroshima and Potsdam. The Use of the Atomic Bomb and the American Confrontation with Soviet Power. London and Boulder, CO: Pluto Press. 1994. Print.

—-. The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb. New York: Vintage Books. 1996. Print.

Barnes, Michael. “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb: Arguments Against.” Web. 14 Apr. 2019.
Claypool, Jane. Hisroshima and Nagasaki. New York and London: Franklin Watts, 1984. Print.

Dallek, Robert. Harry S. Truman. New York: Times Books, 2008. Print.

Ham, Paul. Hiroshima Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath. New York: St. Martin’s Press. 2011. Print.

Rachels, James, and Stuart Rachels. The Elements of Moral Philosophy (8th edition). McGraw-Hill Education, 2015. Print.

Schanberg, Sydney. “Soul on Ice.” The American Prospect, October 27, 2003. Web. 14 Apr. 2019.

Zinn, Howard. The Bomb. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books, 2010. Print.

The dramatic escalation in America’s aggressive posturing was not to be unexpected. On the question of relations with Beijing, there certainly have been intra-elite battles on whether to treat China as an essential trading partner massively bolstering the US economy itself, or, on the other hand, as a potent enemy to be contained and weakened.

Trump’s theatrics in his absurd trade wars with Beijing throughout his term merely seemed like the extension of his reckless idiocy on display at home and abroad. However, the Trumpian madness has now converged with what the dominant factions of the American Deep State have determined is indeed the real threat: rising geo-economic, and increasingly geopolitical, competition from the world’s largest economy judged by purchasing power parity. Hence, the permanent bureaucracy of the American military-intelligence apparatus has set into motion all forms of hybrid warfare, psyops operations, etc. against China.

To add to the existing dangerous bellicosity toward Beijing coming from Washington, we now see an even further factor at play: Trump’s sinister use of the Coronavirus pandemic to deflect attention away from his horrible handling of the situation, cataclysmically affecting both the health and well-being of Americans, as well as the US economy.

In a normal situation in which a sitting American president in an election year is performing so abysmally – it would be next to obvious that s/he will be leaving the White House soon after the presidential election in November.

However, Trump’s reliance one last time of his mastery of being the quintessential con-artist makes him believe that he still has a good shot of being re-elected – as long he can heighten the xenophobic anti-China rhetoric everyday until Election Day. In his own narcissistic ambitions, he has now authorized the Pentagon and the CIA to do whatever they want in subversion programs against Beijing.

The difference this time, however, is that limits have been crossed in testing China’s sober and restrained patience in the face of such overt American belligerence. Recent defensive steps undertaken by Beijing demonstrate clearly now that not only can China effectively ward off the insidious geo-economics of the US’s global power plays, but China can also effectively restrain – and more – the American imperium geopolitically as well.

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Dr. Junaid S. Ahmad teaches Religion and Global Politics in Lahore, Pakistan.

Melbourne.

Being in control of a sinking ship is not enviable.  Regulations previously passed have a museum feel to them, distinctly obsolete.  Directions, once dictated with confidence, lack timbre.  Coronavirus is serving as that most wily and cheeky of agents, with the most appropriate of accomplices: Homo sapiens.  Human beings are fed up, munching on conspiracy tales, wondering when a vaccine will arrive, and generally fatigued.

Globally, people are exhausted, disgusted, deluded and dying.  Somewhere in that cocktail of ill-taste are those who think they are doing their best and abide by regulations with understanding obedience.  They are told about a science that is altering. They are told that they must stay home and avoid going to work.  If they are infected, they must undertake measures of self-quarantine, irrespective of whether they have support or income.  Stiff fines and penalties follow in cases of transgression, including the shaming howls of social media junkies.

The language of political authorities in a state of desperation is ominous, paternal, judgmental.  For Daniel Andrews, premier of the Australian state of Victoria, this is starting to seem natural.  “Where you slept last night is where you’ll need to stay for the next six weeks,” he revealed in his statement on Sunday.  Modest dispensation is permitted for those “partners who live apart and for work”.  A curfew operating from 8 in the evening to 5 in the morning is now in place for six weeks.  “The only reasons to leave home during these hours will be work, medical care and caregiving.”  Exercise is confined to an hour a day within five kilometres.  People, at most, can move about as couples.

Like locusts, purchasers have been swarming the aisles, trolleys heavy, and emptying them of meat, vegetables and fruit.  The obsession with lavatory paper does not seem as pronounced this time (purchase limits have been maintained), but people are stocking up on certain food items knowing that their access is stifled by both time and geography.

What is in place is similar to the elimination regime used in New Zealand, though it is not articulated as such.  It might best be described as suppression with an eliminating spirit, a somewhat more brutal approach.  The Melbourne model is even more onerous: no curfew was imposed in New Zealand, or the compulsory wearing of face masks between March 26 and April 27, or a time limit on exercise.  But the view from across the Tasman is that merely applying such a regime to Melbourne is not sufficient.  Valuable time, suggests University of Auckland academic Siouxsie Wiles, has been lost.  The less restrictive Stage 3 level that came into force on July 8, applying only to Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire “provided too many opportunities for the virus to spread.”  From this less oppressive environment bloomed 7,000 active cases of coronavirus, 2,000 of whom are still a mystery to contact tracers.  Wiles’ suggestion?  Imposing Stage 4 restrictions across the entire state, thereby giving “Victoria the best chance of success, rather than setting it up to play an endless game of COVID-19 whack-a-mole.”

Pandemic politics is also proving to be a nasty business. On the state opposition benches, Victorian Liberal MP Tim Smith continues to hyperventilate and fantasise about the ultimate demise of the Labor premier. 

“These ministers and Daniel Andrews have blood on their hands,” he spluttered on Sydney radio station 2GB.  “They have so monumentally failed the people of Victoria.”  Smith sees the crisis as an opportunity for political harvesting. “We are so sick of this man… we’re so utterly sick of him.  In the name of God, would he just go!”  On Radio 3AW, he was truculent.  “We can’t suspend democracy, accountability and the basics of a free society just because we’re dealing with a global pandemic.”

Smith’s demagogy is proving rather rich fare, even for those on his side of politics. The federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg preferred giving his party colleague a wide berth.

“They’re not words that I would use,” he admitted to radio host Neil Mitchell.  “Daniel Andrews is obviously operating in a very difficult environment.”  For the moment, grievance and disagreement had to be put aside.  “My message would be, to Tim and to everybody else, let’s work together towards that one single objective, namely to reduce the number of cases and to get the virus under control.”

Frydenberg might well think so, but other party members do not.  Craig Kelly, a federal Liberal MP who can always be counted upon to dynamite the waters of moderate contentment, has mounted his own quixotic crusade against the Victorian premier.  His particular pet project of late is praising the merits of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine, and sniping at those who disapprove and ban its use in treating coronavirus cases.  Should that disposition, he asked over the weekend, mean that Andrews face 25 years in jail?  This drew criticism from shadow health minister Chris Bowen as being positively Trumpian, but a clumsy sidestep from Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who refused to “get into what people talk about on Facebook on a day like this”.  This, from a leader keen to take Facebook to task for content extreme and extremist in nature.

The clock has been reset; the gains of the last three weeks regarding the coronavirus annulled.  Many businesses were already on the road to ruin during the previous phase of lockdowns. Many more will now assuredly perish.  Mental health will atrophy.  The death toll will continue to rise.  Other states are monitoring and adjusting their responses.  The measure of grief and concern just went up.

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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 by AP

1967年我第一次去广岛时，台阶上的影子还在。那是一个几乎完美的印象，是一个自在的人：双腿叉开，背部弯曲，一只手放在身边，她坐在那里等待银行开门。

1945年8月6日早上八点一刻，她和她的影子被刻在了花岗岩上。

我盯着那个影子看了一个多小时，然后我走到河边，那里的幸存者还住在棚屋里。

我遇到了一个叫幸雄的人，他的胸口刻着原子弹投下时他所穿的衬衫的图案。

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你可以点击下面的链接阅读整篇文章的英文版，也可以用手机翻译

Another Hiroshima Is Coming — Unless We Stop It Now                                                                     

By John Pilger, August 03, 2020

In the middle of a raging Covid-19 pandemic, Argentina has decided to accelerate the lithium mining sector. This intensification is occurring as a part of the larger expansion of Argentinean extractivism wherein the country has decided to triple its mining exports to over US$10.7bn per year in the next decade.

For this, apart from copper, the government also mapped 15 new lithium projects. Preparations for managing and augmenting the developing lithium sector have commenced with the establishment of an association named Calbafina, tasked with organizationally buttressing the lithium sector.

The current economic expansion of the Argentinean lithium sector is occurring for two reasons. Firstly, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the demand for lithium is set to increase and while “There has been a slowdown in capital commitments…the outlook for growth in lithium demand suggests it has merely been delayed but not derailed, and Argentina will play a key role in supplying global requirements.” EV sales are forecasted to grow from 2 million in 2019 to 26 million by 2030 and Orocobre, an Australian company operating in Salar de Olaroz, Argentina, says that the European demand for EVs will increase markedly and the lithium-ion battery manufacturing capacity will grow five-fold by 2029.

Secondly, Argentina is the most attractive destination for lithium investors and presents a suitable investment climate for mining projects. For the lithium bourgeoisie, the main outlet for surplus-seeking investible capital is the “Lithium Triangle” which has 70% of the world’s lithium brine deposits. This region is constituted by northern Chile, northern Argentina and Southern Bolivia. Chile and Bolivia are, therefore, the main competitors for Argentina. In comparison to Argentina, both these countries are either afflicted by the under-dose of free market fundamentalism or are experiencing cataclysmic political events.

In Chile, the deficiency of proper trade liberalization is the major impediment preventing the country from becoming the leading lithium destination. Through Decree Law 2,886 of 1979 and Organic Law of Mining Concessions of 1983, Chile instituted several regulatory reforms in the lithium sector:  lithium was declared as a strategic resource because of its use in nuclear fission; the prior authorization of the Chilean Nuclear Energy Commission was made a vital component of lithium mining procedures and private miners were required to either partner with the state or obtain a special permit called Special Lithium Operation Contracts (CEOL) to mine on their own.

In contrast to Chile, Argentina has a non-interventionist regulatory regime extremely favorable towards the extractive capitalists. In the 1990s, for example, amendments were made to the Mining Code which financially supported the rampage of extractive capital through the granting of import duty benefits for mining equipments, total tax burden stability for 30 years and income tax benefits for mining companies. These mining reforms were further sweetened by the former president Mauricio Macri who “signed a new mining deal to harmonize taxes and regulations in 20 provinces with the aim of attracting mining investment…Macri removed currency and capital controls and reversed taxes that were introduced by the former presidents. After signing the new mining deal, approximately 40 foreign companies showed interest in Argentina’s mining industry. More than half of those companies are interested in lithium”. In addition to actively implemented policies, Argentina’s mining governance structure imperceptibly supports extractive capital through unaccountably amorphous laws. The National Argentinean environment law, for instance, states that any activity capable of modifying the environment “in a significant form” must be subject to an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). A large legal lacuna present in the text pertains to the absence of any clear-cut definition of what constitutes as a “significant modification”, thus allowing mining operations to unrestrainedly exploit a resource-rich region.

Bolivia’s lithium scenario is worse than Chile since here political instability and resource nationalism have combined to produce a highly unsteady situation of socio-cultural dissonance. Before the 2019 coup, Evo Morales governed Bolivia as a socialist president and used the resource revenue of the country to domestically redistribute wealth and reduce inequality. As a part of this redistributive project, Morales did not expose the large lithium reserves of Bolivia to predatory transnational corporations and instead, opted to utilize lithium as a modality for industrializing the country. In response to the socialist-protectionist policies of Evo Morales, a “Lithium Coup” occurred in 2019 whose aim was the radical re-configuration of lithium as a mere physical input for transnational corporations. Ever since the coup took place, Bolivia is experiencing increased political instability as pro-Morales protestors are being violently repressed and killed by the right-wing genocidal government of Jeanine Anez. Due to the current combination of political perilousness and strong sentiments of resource nationalism, Bolivia is a country least likely to attract lithium investors in the near future.

Political stability in Argentina is guaranteed by the present-day government of Alberto Fernandez which, like the administration of Nestor Kirchner, “envisions a new political party of the center-left based on a return to the national-popular politics of the earlier Peronist era, but with less corruption and repression.” Through left-leaning changes in foreign policy, a redistributive agenda comprising of wealth tax and subsidization of basic necessities such as food, Alberto Fernandez is likely to temporarily stabilize the Argentinean political territory. With this stabilization, lithium mining in the country will encounter de-intensified socio-ecological conflicts as the Fernandez government carefully pursues redistributive policies, de-radicalizes incipient anti-neoliberal protests through economic sops and uses the state apparatus to defuse class struggle. While the people affected by lithium operations are inevitably going to protest, they won’t be able to establish intra-subaltern solidarity as a generalized atmosphere of class collaborationism is installed and the multi-faceted section of the oppressed people is unable to institute macro-unity.

As the opening of the Argentinean lithium largesse to transnational corporations takes place, it is imperative that we recognize the unprecedented ecological damage, cultural loss and economic uncertainty which lithium mining brings to the indigenous people living in various resource-rich regions. In Argentina, lithium resources are found in numerous salt lakes located in three northern provinces: Catamarca, Salta and Jujuy. Within these provinces, Salar del Hombre Muerto, Cauchari, Olaroz and Salar del Rincon are the major producers of lithium. In the last few years, lithium production has been steadily increasing and from 2.5 thousand tons in 2013, Argentine lithium production has increased to 6,400 metric tons in 2019 and according to the Ministry of Mining, “investments in lithium extraction grew by 928% between 2015 and 2018.” The breakneck speed of lithium extraction in Argentina is indicated by the fact that “Between the mid-2000s and 2011, Salta’s government issued permits to 15 companies to extract lithium from brines in 13 salt flats. Salta’s fast and easy permitting process enabled a brine grab as officials prioritized attracting foreign investment”.

While Argentinean lithium output is increasing contemporaneously with the expansion of electric mobility in the Global North, deliberately obscured indigenous communities living in that country are being dispossessed and defrauded of their entire existence. The Olaroz lithium mining project, for example, operated  by Sales de Jujuy, a joint venture of the Australian mining company Orocobre, the Japanese Toyota Tsusho Corporation, and Jujuy’s state-owned mining enterprise Jujuy Energía y Minería Sociedad del Estado (JEMSE), was marred by myriad informational irregularities: there were serious delays in the availability of information prior to indigenous assemblies; the mining companies used a highly technical jargon to communicate with the indigenous people and those who asked any questions about the presented reports were answered in a similarly incomprehensible manner; all the reports used by the indigenous people, from environmental issues to economic benefits, were wholly provided by the mining corporations, suggesting a serious lack of informational independence. As a result of this complete absence of informational independence, an individual affected by the mining operations of the company said that “I don’t know if what we get is what corresponds to us according to our rights over the land, how could one know that?” In another instance, a person said that “Regarding the water issue we only have the version from the company and nothing else…So, lately we have been looking for some professionals that could help us that are not related to the companies nor to the government – it is difficult, but well, we are looking”.

In the consultation process involving Minera Exar, another company which has been commercially mining the Olaroz-Cauchari salt flat, “The provincial government did not supervise dialogue between international companies and local communities. Nor did it comply with the requirement to provide basic information to help understand the environmental impacts of lithium mining in the area. This has negatively affected the communities’ ability to evaluate the project in question and/or to control their activities”.

Through the use of fraudulent procedural tactics, mining companies not only illegally steal indigenous land but also subvert a whole way of living. The environmental damage generated due to lithium mining causes traditional indigenous lives to get culturally cracked and economically destabilized. The depletion of water in the Argentinean salt deserts is one such example of lithium-caused environmental damage existentially eroding the indigenous people.

Marcelo Sticco, a hydrologist working for the University of Buenos Aires, while talking about the region where Kolla (a general name for Quechua and Aymara people) live, says  (translated from Spanish) that

“The problem is that salt water and fresh water are in a fragile natural balance in this region. Due to the lithium production, the natural water level drops. And this causes the salt water to mix with the fresh water. This contamination is irreversible and the region is irrevocably losing its drinking water reserves.”

As per data provided by Provincial and National Mining Offices in Argentina, “no less than 5 and up to 50 m³ of fresh water are needed per ton of final battery grade Li₂CO₃ that is produced.” Furthermore, for the production of 17,500 tons of lithium carbonate per year, 240l/sec of salt brine is extracted.

With the large-scale disturbance of regional hydrological dynamics due to lithium mining, wetlands and lagoons, which rely mainly on subterranean waters, slowly disappear. These wetlands and lagoons are indispensable for the existence of flora and fauna and therefore, contribute to the sustenance of locally rooted agro-pastoral practices. But when lithium mining seriously subverts the fragile water balance of Argentina’s salt deserts, indigenous people lose their ability to engage in their traditional occupations. Apart from water scarcity, lithium mining in Argentina is also producing chemical wastes and “most of this waste is merely accumulated at the verge of the salar [salt flat], except for the Mg-Ca residues which are sometimes used to consolidate precarious roads within the mining facility. Briefly, total dissolved solids in brine are very high. When brine is evaporated, all salts other than lithium carbonate end up as waste.” According to a report produced by the Friends of the Earth Europe, “toxic chemicals are needed to process lithium. The release of such chemicals through leaching, spills or air emissions can harm communities, ecosystems and food production. Moreover, lithium extraction inevitably harms the soil and also causes air contamination.” Due to this chemical pollution, cattle are dying and since the initiation of lithium mining in Kolla regions, there have been the rapid deaths and deformed births of Llamas.

Lithium mines in Argentina

Despite the environmental catastrophe brought about by lithium mining, Carlos Oehler, president of the Jujuy Energy and Mining State Society, says that lithium is “an opportunity for development. And the people who only emphasise the environmental impact do so out of ignorance,”. Contrary to the Oehler’s disingenuous claims, Verónica Chávez, a member of a local cooperative engaged in traditional salt harvesting, asserts that “Lithium is food for today and hunger for tomorrow,”. This statement pithily encapsulates the fleeting economic benefits of mining and expresses the long-term ecological damage which lithium mining inflicts on the indigenous people. Like any other extractive activities, lithium mining too “is a temporary activity that tends to generate an economy that is mainly dependent on the sector. This dependence is a danger for the development of the regions attached to the mining operations because, although during the production of the mine they may experience an economic boom, they will not be able to replicate this when the mining activity concludes.” Moreover, the massive environmental vandalism done by lithium extraction does not in any justify the meager “development” which indigenous people receive.

Lithium projects in Argentina have not been completely frictionless and unantagonistic and various indigenous communities have been resisting the onslaught of the “global green economy”. In the town of Susques (located in the Jujuy province), which is situated within the area of influence of the Olaroz-Cauchari salt flat, the approximately 2500 people living there have been protesting for many years.  In Susques, local communities and a peasant organization called Apacheta Collective claimthat Sales de Jujuy and Minera Exar (the companies operating in the Olaroz-Cauchari salt plains) coerced them into accepting the mining projects, consulted less than 20 people and thus, failed to meet the requirement of getting approval from more than 50% of the population. The Apacheta Collective, in particular, has been militant in its opposition to transnational extractive capital and has been combatively organizing to resist mining operations. As a natural result of its class combativeness, the Apacheta Collective has been facing threats and harassments and in 2012, one of its members had to be hospitalized after being brutally beaten for political activism.

The etymology of the word “Apacheta” beautifully illustrates that an alternative world to capitalism is possible. According to Carlos Guzman, representative of Apacheta collective, “An Apacheta is a pile of stones, placed on strategic locations, for example at the beginning of a road. An Apacheta grows, very slowly, but with a lot of meaning. When I start a journey and I see an Apacheta next to the road, I stop, place a stone on it, and wish that I will arrive safely at my destination. Everyone who will pass by will do the same. That is the same idea as our group. That is the meaning of our name. We start with just a couple of people, but we will grow. Very slowly, but with a lot of meaning.”

The Apacheta Collective, throughout its existence as a counter-hegemonic force, has maintained that the lithium mining companies recklessly ransack the environment and according to the head of Apacheta Collective, “we are suffering a drought”. True to the statements of Apacheta Collective, it is estimated that in the Olaroz-Cauchari extraction site, “more water was being lost through water evaporation ponds than was naturally replenishing into the system.”

Along with a strong anti-imperialist position, the Apacheta Collective also possesses an alternative imagination of world that is radically different from the “development” which lithium companies provide indigenous people with. Gonzalo, a member of Apacheta Collective, argues that “They [the companies] always say that we don’t want progress, that we don’t want development. For them, development is building roads, destructing nature, making money. For us, that is not development. It is not sustainable. Our grandparents, their grandparents and so on, have always taken care of Pachamama [mother earth], of nature, their lama’s, their sheep. We want to do the same. We use their wool to make our own clothes, we use their meat for our own consumption and what is left, we sell, or we trade. I want to transmit my animals to my children, so they can do the same. That is sustainable. But what will happen to us when there is no water left?”

The Salinas Grandes salt plain, the fourth biggest in the world, in the Jujuy and Salta province, is another region where indigenous communities have carved a bottom-up politics of mobilization. In 2010, “Salinas Grandes and Guayatayoc communities filed a collective injunction against the states of Jujuy and Salta and against the national government demanding respect for their right to consent to lithium exploitation.” In Kachi Yupi (Footprints in the Salt), the consultation protocol made by the indigenous communities affected by the lithium mining operations and one of the first of its kind, the indigenous people write  that “nobody told us anything about how this new exploitation might affect our communities and our territory, the salt flats, the watersheds, the pastures, our livestock…our customs and beliefs. In synthesis: our whole life.”

The indigenous people affected by lithium operations in Salinas Grandes, formed by 33 indigenous communities such as Tres Pozos, Pozo Colorado, San Miguel del Colorado and Inti Killa de Tres Morros, soon established the Table of Original Peoples of the Salinas Grandes Basin and Guayatayoc Lagoon (La Mesa de Pueblos Originarios de la Cuenca de Salinas Grandes y Laguna de Guayatayoc). After filing a lawsuit before the Argentine Supreme Court of Justice in 2010 against the granting of extraction permits without prior consultation, La Mesa’s case was taken forward by the NGO Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales) in the form of Amicus Curiae briefs. When the case was dismissed in 2012, La Mesa, with the help of lawyers, took the case to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission.

Like the Olaroz-Cauchari salt plain, Salinas Grandes too is being destroyed by lithium extractivism and these socio-ecological problems have also been emphasized by the former Special Rapporteur to the Secretary General of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples James Anaya who said that “it is feared that the proposed extraction of lithium will reduce the water level in this arid region, where water is needed to raise sheep, goats and llamas and is also essential to salt production and harvesting, an important activity within the traditional economy in the area.” A lawyer, while talking about prospecting companies in Salinas Grandes, said that “They [the companies] drilled the aquifer. And they committed a double wrong. They contaminated the aquifer from where [the communities] obtain water for animal husbandry and orchards. And, worse, the fresh water that rose to that part of the salt bank ruined the salt, so it cannot be cut and sold anymore.” In this way, ancestral occupational arrangements are being slowly undermined and in their place, an unsustainable model of development is being installed.

As the process of lithium intensification progresses in Argentina, the indigenous communities are slated to get embroiled in the subhuman suppression of transnational extractive capital. Even before the economic expansion of lithium mining, M. Mutuma Ruteree, UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, had said that indigenous people in Argentina are “largely invisible in society and are excluded from the country’s senate, congress and judiciary”. Now, when the tentacles of lithium mining are being extended into the far-flung regions of Argentina, it is inevitable that indigenous people will be further dehumanized and existentially eviscerated. In order to present a creative counter-offensive against the “Lithium Leviathan”, we need to stop what has been labeled the “imperial mode of living”. Markus Wissen and Ulrich Brand, in their book “The Limits to Capitalist Nature”, write that the “Exclusive access to resources, guaranteed by contract or through open violence, and the externalization of the socio-ecological costs that using these resources entails, are the conditio sine qua non of the global North’s mode of living, which we therefore call ‘imperial’.” In the current conjuncture, we need to stop the engine of this “imperial mode of living” which is celebrating “electric freedom” in the Global North at the cost of the subjugation of indigenous communities in Argentina.

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Yanis Iqbal is a student and freelance writer based in Aligarh, India and can be contacted at [email protected]. His articles have been published by numerous magazines and websites such as Monthly Review Online, ZNet, Institute of Latin American Studies, Green Social Thought, Weekly Worker, People’s World, LA Progressive, News and Letters Weekly, Economic and Political Weekly, Arena, Eurasia Review, Coventry University Press, Culture Matters, Dissident Voice, Countercurrents, Counterview, Hampton Institute, Ecuador Today, People’s Review, Eleventh Column, Karvaan India, Clarion India, OpEd News, The Iraq File and Portside.

As the cries of United States’ ‘exceptionalism’ are heard from the hallowed halls of Congress, one of the alleged hallmarks is freedom of the press. No nation, the breathless masses are told, protects press freedom like the United States. This belief is similar to Santa Claus: pleasant, comforting, but having no basis in truth.

The government only allows news to be reported that is favorable to the U.S.

Censorship has accompanied all its major wars, with the government actually writing articles for news outlets. Historian William Clayton Mullendore, in commenting on censorship during World War I, said: “…the idea of a ‘free’ press publishing government-authored articles is bound to raise red flags and illustrates how coordinated war propaganda was.”[1]

Three days after the U.S. joined World War II, the Office of Censorship was established, although it was six months before the so-called ‘Office of War Information’ came into being. President Franklin D. Roosevelt stated that

“All Americans abhor censorship, just as they abhor war. But the experience of this and of all other nations has demonstrated that some degree of censorship is essential in wartime….”[2]

There was little, if any, opposition to this by the press. “As in World War I, nearly every media outlet in the country stood squarely behind, or in fact became a partner with, the government in promoting its wartime requirements.”[3]

During the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman said, “that a propaganda agency was a creature of total war.”[4] Yet he issued a ‘gag order, prohibiting all government officials from making any public statements about ‘controversial’ foreign policy issues.[5]

These are just three examples among many that indicate the lack of free press in the United States.

In the twenty-first century, worse instances of censorship have been uncovered, including the murder of journalists by U.S. military members. At the World Economic Forum of 2005, CNN news chief Eason Jordan allegedly “…told the audience that U.S. forces had deliberately targeted journalists in Iraq. This charge is nothing new; journalists in other countries, especially colleagues of journalists killed by U.S. troops, have said this repeatedly. But in the United States corporate media, it is the job of people like Jordan to ignore such allegations.

To hear them instead echoed by a CNN official meant the rules of the game had been broken.”[6] While this was not the first time Jordan had made this accusation (he had done so in 2002 and 2004, and had also accused Israel of the same thing as early as 2002), this statement garnered more publicity. Jordan almost immediately tried to backtrack, saying his words were taken out of context, he had the utmost respect for the military (he had been embedded with them during the Iraq War), and basically said he never actually said the words attributed to him. The World Economic Forum refused to release a transcript of the conversation, which was videotaped, although several people present when Jordan spoke corroborated his statements. But all Jordan’s groveling was in vain, and he was forced to resign. The rules of U.S. censorship and propaganda must not be violated.

In 2004, the secretary of state at the time, Colin Powell visited Iraq on the first anniversary of the U.S. invasion of that country. As he entered the large dining hall to greet soldiers, many Arab journalists walked out in protest of the murder of two other Arab journalists by U.S. soldiers.

“Mr. Powell said he regretted the loss of life, but added he was certain the Americans did not kill the journalists on purpose.”[7]

The evidence that they did so is, at best, incriminating, if not overwhelming. “Al Arabiya employees say U.S. soldiers fired on a car carrying the TV crew, after another car ran through a checkpoint. Cameraman Ali Abdelaziz was killed immediately….”[8] News correspondent Ali al-Khatib died a short time later in the hospital. One wonders what the relevance of one car running a checkpoint had to do with the attack on a press vehicle in the same general area.

Yasser Salihee was an Iraqi journalist working for Knight Ridder, who covered a story about extra-judicial killings by U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Within a week of beginning their research, he and another journalist uncovered thirty cases of such killing by U.S.-supported and U.S.-trained Iraqi death squads.

“On June 24, while Salihee’s article was in press, a U.S. military sniper killed him…”[9] in the same manner that many of the thirty victims he’d uncovered had died: a single shot to the head.

A statement from Knight-Ridder following this assassination said this:

“’There’s no reason to think that the shooting had anything to do with his reporting work.’ Such disclaimers seem to be a de facto mandate these days. When an investigative report is shot dead by a member of an organization he or she is investigating, there’s a clear rationale for suspicion.”[10]

How many such murders occur? Journalist Michael I. Niman said the following:

“Eason’s comment cost him his job – and no genuflecting to the god of disclaimers and apologies could save it. He resigned. The problem was that he was right. I also looked at the Reporters Without Borders investigation into the deaths of two journalists killed by U.S. troops in Baghdad, and at other subsequently confirmed killings of journalists by U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and Serbia – showing how U.S. military documentation offers evidence that many of these dead journalist were in fact deliberately targeted by U.S. forces.”[11]

Freedom of the press, like many other alleged freedoms within the United States, is a myth; corporate-owned media outlets report what the government tells them to report since government officials and corporate executives all benefit financially by repeating government lies. And when journalists get too close to the truth, eliminating them is not too extreme a measure to take. Rather then let the populace know that U.S. soldiers are torturing and executing innocent, defenseless people, kill those who report such atrocities. This eliminates the current problem and serves as a warning to other journalists.

Freedoms in the U.S. are as illusionary as its exceptionalism. Like a magician distracting the audience from one thing while he does something else to indicate ‘magic’, U.S. government spokespeople repress real news, and proclaim that the U.S. is the greatest country in the world. Nothing could be further from the truth.

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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.

Robert Fantina is an activist and journalist, working for peace and social justice. A U.S. citizen, he moved to Canada shortly after the 2004 presidential election, and now holds dual citizenship. He serves on the boards of Canadians for Palestinian Rights, and Canadians for Justice in Kashmir, and is the former Canadian Coordinator of World Beyond War. He has written the books Propaganda, Lies, and False Flags: How the U.S. Justifies its Wars.; Empire, Racism and Genocide: A  History of U.S. Foreign Policy and Occupied Palestine: Israel, the U.S. and International Law. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes

[1] Celia Malone Kingsbury, For Home and Country: World War I Propaganda on the Home Front (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2010), 35. 

[2] Ross F. Collins and Patrick S. Washburn, The Greenwood Library of American War Reporting, Volume 5: World War I and World War II (Westport, CT., Greenwood Press, 2005) 250 (referenced in Children, War and Propaganda’, page 32).

[3] Ross F. Collins, Children, War and Propaganda. (Peter Lange, Inc., 2011). 

[4] Steven Case, Selling the Korean War: Propaganda, Politics, and Public Opinion in the Untied states, 1950 – 1953  (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008),

[5] Ibid, 218 – 219.

[6]  Michael I. Niman, “Truth, Death, and Journalism: We Kill Journalists, Don’t We?” The Humanist, May-June 2005.

[7]  “Powell Surprise Visit Greeted by Hostile Reporters; Journalists Protest Deaths of Two Colleagues,” The Washington Times (Washington, DC), March 20, 2004.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Michael I. Niman, “We Kill Journalists: Part Two in an Unfortunately Continuing Series,” The Humanist, September-October 2005.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

Featured image is by duncan c / CC BY-NC 2.0

Israel is roiling with angry street protests that local observers have warned could erupt into open civil strife – a development Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be encouraging.

For weeks, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have been the scene of large, noisy demonstrations outside the official residences of Mr Netanyahu and his public security minister, Amir Ohana.

On Saturday night around 13,000 marched through Jerusalem shouting “Anyone but Bibi”, Netanyahu’s nickname. Their calls were echoed by tens of thousands more at locations across the country.

Turnout has been steadily growing, despite attacks on demonstrators from both the police and Netanyahu’s loyalists. The first protests abroad by Israeli expats have also been reported.

The protests, in defiance of physical distancing rules, are unprecedented by Israeli standards. They have bridged the gaping political divide between a small constituency of anti-occupation activists – disparagingly called “leftists” in Israel – and the much larger Israeli Jewish public that identifies politically as on the centre and the right.

For the first time, a section of Netanyahu’s natural supporters is out on the streets against him.

In contrast to earlier protests, such as a large social justice movement that occupied the streets in 2011 to oppose rising living costs, these demonstrations have not entirely eschewed political issues.

The target of the anger and frustration is decidedly personal at this stage – focused on the figure of Netanyahu, who is now Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. Protesters have renamed him Israel’s “crime minister”.

But also fuelling the protests is a larger mood of disenchantment as doubts grow about the state’s competence to deal with multiple crises unfolding in Israel. The virus has caused untold social and economic misery for many, with as much as one fifth of the labour force out of work. Netanyahu’s supporters in the lower middle-classes have been hit hardest.

Now well into a second wave, Israel has a per capita rate of infection that outstrips even the US. The shadow of a renewed lockdown amid government mishandling of the virus has undermined Netanyahu’s claim to be “Mr Security”.

There are concerns too about police brutality – starkly highlighted by the killing in May of an autistic Palestinian, Eyad Hallaq, in Jerusalem.

Police crackdowns on the protests, using riot squads, undercover agents, mounted police and water cannon, have underlined not just Netanyahu’s growing authoritarianism. There is a sense too that the police may be ready to use violence on dissenting Israelis that was once reserved for Palestinians.

After manipulating his right-wing rival, the former military general Benny Gantz, into joining him in a unity government in April, Netanyahu has effectively crushed any meaningful political opposition.

The agreement shattered Gantz’s Blue and White party, with many of his legislators refusing to enter the government, and has widely discredited the ex-general.

Netanyahu is reportedly preparing for a winter election – the fourth in two years – both to cash in on his opponents’ disarray and to avoid honouring a rotation agreement in which Gantz is due to replace him late next year.

According to the Israeli media, Netanyahu may find a pretext for forcing new elections by further delaying approval of the national budget, despite Israel facing its worst financial crisis in decades.

And, of course, overshadowing all this is the matter of the corruption charges against Netanyahu. Not only is he the first sitting prime minister in Israel to stand trial, but he has been using his role and the pandemic to his advantage, including by delaying court hearings.

In a time of profound crisis and uncertainty, many Israelis are wondering which policies are being pursued for the national good and which for Netanyahu’s personal benefit.

The government’s months-long focus on the annexation of swaths of Palestinian territory in the West Bank has looked like pandering to his settler constituency, creating a dangerous distraction from dealing with the pandemic.

Similarly, a one-off handout this week to every Israeli – over the strenuous objections of finance officials – looks suspiciously like an electoral bribe. As a result, Netanyahu is facing a rapid decline in support. A recent survey shows trust in him has fallen by half – from 57 per cent in March and April, when the Covid-19 pandemic began, to 29 per cent today.

Many Israelis increasingly see Netanyahu less as a father figure and more as a parasite draining resources from the body politic. Capturing the popular mood is a new art work called the “Last Supper” that was covertly installed in central Tel Aviv. It shows Netanyahu alone, gorging on a vast banquet by stuffing his hand into an enormous cake decorated with the Israeli flag.

In another move designed to highlight Netanyahu’s corrupt politics, better-off Israelis have been publicly organising to donate this week’s state handout to those in need.

Netanyahu’s repeated incitement against the protesters – disparaging them as “leftists” and “anarchists”, and suggesting they are spreading disease – appears to have backfired. It has only rallied more people to the street.

But the incitement and Netanyahu’s claims that he is the true victim – and that in the current climate he faces assassination – have been interpreted as a call to arms by some on the right. Last week five protesters were injured when his loyalists used clubs and broken bottles on them, with police appearing to turn a blind eye. Further attacks were reported at the weekend. Protest organisers said they had begun arranging defence units to protect demonstrators.

Ohana, the public security minister, has called for a ban on the protests and urged a heavy hand from the police. He has delayed appointing a new police chief – a move seen as incentivising local commanders to crack down on the protests to win favour. Large numbers of protesters have been forcefully arrested, with reports that police have questioned some on their political views.

Observers have wondered whether the protests can transcend party political tribalism and develop into a grassroots movement demanding real change. That might widen their appeal to even more disadvantaged groups, not least the one fifth of Israel’s citizens who belong to its Palestinian minority.

But it would also require more of the protesters to start drawing a direct connection between Netanyahu’s personal abuses of office and the wider, systemic corruption of Israeli politics, with the occupation its beating heart.

That may yet prove a tall order, especially when Israel faces no significant external pressure for change, either from the US or from Europe.

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A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.

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.

Featured image is from The Unz Review

Last Wednesday, the Dutch government decided not to impose any “national obligation” on its people to wear masks, reports Reuters.

The reason for opting out of the global masquerade? Minister for Medical Care, Tamara van Ark, asserted that “from a medical perspective there is no proven effectiveness of masks” after a review by the Netherland’s National Institute for Health.

The chief of the institute even went as far as to say that improper use of masks “could increase the risk of transmitting the disease.”

Forbes reports that:

“With the exception of required usage of face coverings in public transportation, the Dutch do not have to wear masks in any indoor establishment, including restaurants, bars, stores, supermarkets, cinemas, museums, libraries, schools, and even hairdressers and nail salons.”

I Am Expat went a little deeper with a very long sentence (with some questionable commas):

“Andreas Voss, member of the World Health Organization expert team and head of microbiology at a hospital in Nijmegen, said he didn’t personally believe masks should be made mandatory, stating that because in many of the countries where a face mask rule has been implemented, there are several other measures also in place, so it is impossible to determine the impact of masks specifically.”

Voss also told I Am Expat that the WHO advised masking “not because of scientific evidence, but because of political pressure and public opinion.”

In other words, public opinion is masquerading as scientific evidence. As I quoted yesterday:

“There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.”

Fortunately, the Dutch have held onto reason and common sense when it comes to mask wearing.

Not only is there little evidence (if any) to support masking; there are at least seven gold-standard randomized controlled trials showing that muzzling yourself won’t stop the spread of infection.

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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

A key factor behind Trump regime hostility toward China is election year politics.

But what’s going on largely relates to China’s growing political, economic, industrial, technological, and military prominence on the world stage.

The US dominated the 20th century — notably post-WW II.

Yet for years, perhaps decades, especially post-9/11, it’s been a nation in decline because of its imperial arrogance, unipolar mentality in a multipolar world, endless wars by hot and other means against invented enemies, ruinous military spending at the expense of vital homeland needs, and unwillingness to change.

In contrast, other nations are rising, notably China, heading toward becoming the world’s leading economy in the years ahead.

Last century belonged to America, this one to China, why both right wings of the US one-party state are hellbent to marginalize, weaken, contain and isolate Beijing on the world stage.

US actions toward China and other nations on its target list for regime change show weakness and desperation — symptomatic of its decline, incrementally going the way of earlier empires.

It’s heading toward history’s dustbin because of its unacceptable actions against allies and adversaries alike — pressuring and bullying them for asserting their sovereign independent rights.

The US 116th Congress (January 2019 — January 2021) introduced numerous hostile to China measures, some passed, others pending, including the following:

• The Chinese Government COVID-19 Accountability Act
• Ensuring Chinese Debt Transparency Act of 2020
• Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2019, a similar act introduced in 2020
• No CHINA Act
• Holding the Chinese Communist Party Accountable for Infecting Americans Act of 2020
• Hong Kong Autonomy Act
• Our Money in China Transparency Act
• End Chinese Communist Citizenship Act
• Preventing China from Exploiting COVID-19 Act
• Holding China Accountable Act
• Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States One-China Policy does not commit it to the…People’s Republic of China’s One-China Principle, and for other purposes
• Protecting Our Pharmaceutical Supply Chain from China Act of 2020
• Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019

A concurrent resolution recognizing that Chinese telecommunications companies such as Huawei and ZTE pose…serious threats to the national security of the United States and its allies.

Recognizing Hong Kong’s bilateral relationship with the United States, condemning the People’s Republic of China…for violating their obligations to the people of Hong Kong, and supporting the people of Hong Kong’s right to freedom of assembly and peaceful protest.

(P)lac(ing) temporary restrictions on acquisitions by the People’s Republic of China, and for other purposes.

Protecting Our Pharmaceutical Supply Chain from China Act of 2020

Holding the Chinese Communist Party Accountable for Infecting Americans Act of 2020

Indo-Pacific Cooperation Act of 2019

Our Money in China Transparency Act

Along with the above measures, many others hostile to China were introduced in Congress, damaging bilateral relations, pushing them toward possible rupture by accident or design.

These actions are symptomatic of US hegemonic decline.

Time and again, US accusations against China are groundless.

Notably they include falsely blaming Beijing for made-in-the-US COVID-19, a likely bioweapon unleashed to try advancing Washington’s flagging hegemonic agenda.

It’s also about giving its corporate favorites a greater leg up on competition, along with continuing an unprecedented transfer of wealth from ordinary people to privileged interests.

US actions against China and other nations it doesn’t control unlawfully interfere in their internal affairs, an unacceptable UN Charter breach.

At the same time, they’re counterproductive over time, weakening the US, a key factor in its decline.

China is too important for the world community to go along with Washington’s hostile agenda.

Its leadership seeks cooperative relations with other nations, dominance over none — polar opposite how the US operates.

Last spring, an internal Chinese report warned that increasing US anti-China sentiment risks confrontation.

It called for Beijing to prepare for a possible worst-case scenario because of hardline US policies.

Beijing takes the threat seriously at a time when relations with the US are more fractious than any time over the past half century.

Bilateral differences are unrelated to trade. They’re all about China’s rising prominence at a time of US decline.

On Tuesday, China’s official People’s Daily broadsheet slammed Washington’s bipartisan Cold War mentality for “wielding (a) big stick…trying to obstruct (its) development,” adding:

Hegemonic USA “shamelessly” accused China of its own hegemonic aims and “power politics.”

The People’s Daily quoted US publication Vanity Fair, saying hostile to China remarks by Pompeo “diminished (his) credibility.”

Former US diplomat Daniel Russel called his unrelenting China bashing an “angry lament (and) extended ideological rant.”

Singapore scholar Kishore Mahbubani said China’s global prominence is growing because it doesn’t push to dominate other nations.

Earlier remarks by President Xi Jinping said “(n)o matter how much progress China has made in development, China will not threaten anyone else, attempt to overturn the existing international system, or seek spheres of influence.”

Trump’s “America first” mindset reflects hegemonic US aims.

Pressuring other countries to ally with its anti-China agenda, at the expense of their own interests, is self-defeating over time.

British scholar Martin Jacques described US actions as “hegemonic panic.”

The Trump regime’s aim to create an anti-China alliance is all about wanting to advance its own hegemonic aims at the expense of world peace, stability, and win-win mutual cooperation among nations.

So-called US-led Western values are all about trampling on the rights of other nations to control them.

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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 Global Village Space

Reports of Israeli support for the Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar are nothing new, but as the apartheid state gains ground among Arab nations, the need to hide Mossad’s role in the destabilizing of oil-rich Libya may be disappearing.

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The stench of the CIA and its covert operations in oil-rich Libya has long followed General Khalifa Haftar. But now another intelligence organization is being tied to the controversial military officer as accusations of extensive dealings with the Mossad are being levied against him by an Israeli journalist, who claims that Haftar met with members of the Israeli outfit in Cairo from 2017 to 2019.

It is not the first time Haftar has been linked to the apartheid state. In 2017, the General reportedly coordinated with the Israeli Defense Forces IDF to bomb military positions of the so-called Islamic State inside Libya. Two years earlier, in 2015, the Jerusalem Post published an account from an unnamed Arab newspaper asserting that Haftar planned to meet Israeli officials during a visit to the capital of Jordan and struck a deal with them to exchange oil and arms for help in his push for power.

The latest claims of Haftar’s Israeli links also involve the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is said to have mediated the meetings between the commander of the Libyan National Army and two Israeli assets named by the anonymous source as Ackerman and Mizrachi. The source, in fact, dates Haftar’s connections to the Jewish state as far back as 2011 when the Israeli Air Force ostensibly coordinated with the Libyan strongman to target jihadist groups who had flooded the country in the wake of Gaddafi’s U.S.-sponsored murder.

Adding to the intrigue are parallel claims that Iran – Israel’s sworn enemy in the region – has also been providing Haftar with military aid in his campaign to topple the UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli, running counter to official reports coming out of Iran declaring its support for the GNA. These accusations are coming from none other than the Israeli envoy to the UN, who accused Tehran of supplying advanced weapons systems to Haftar, calling it a “grave violation of Security Council resolution 2231 (2015),” which attempts to halt the “supply, sale or transfer of arms” from Iran.

Allies in the desert

Iran, for its part, denies these allegations. In a joint press conference held by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu last month, Zarif stated that Iran wanted to “have a political solution to the Libyan crisis to end the civil war” and both reiterated their support for the GNA. Iran contends that Haftar’s main allies, such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, are Iran’s enemies and it would, therefore, make no sense for them to support him in any way, as this would only increase the influence of the Gulf states in the region.

But the turmoil in Libya coupled with its immense deposits of oil and strategic geopolitical significance make Haftar a magnet for a plethora of interests vying for some measure of influence over whichever faction ends up assuming control of the country. Indeed, there is practically no country with any precedent in Libya that has not been caught trying to gain Haftar’s favor or better.

At the top of the list is the United States. When Haftar betrayed the man he had helped put in power back in 1969, it was in Langley, Virginia – a stone’s throw away from CIA headquarters – where Haftar resided for two decades, plotting the overthrow of the “Brother Leader.” So it is perhaps not too surprising that a man known to be an asset of the only superpower operating in the region would attract the favor of more than one suitor, in spite of any differences between them.

Israel’s interest

What is undeniable, however, is Israel’s burgeoning intention to build stronger alliances with Sunni states like the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt – all of whom are strong supporters of General Haftar. In addition, Israel has historically cultivated relationships with African despots and helped execute coups throughout the continent. Both during the conflicts that bring them to power and once installed, these authoritarian regimes help to put Israel among the top ten arms dealers in the world.

The more successful Israel is in currying favor with the Gulf states and its Arab partners, the less need there will be for any pretense to hide its role in the ongoing reconfiguration of the Middle East and Africa. In June, the deputy prime minister of the eastern Libya-based government, Abdul Salam al-Badri, was reported to have sought the support of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that Libya has “never and will never be enemies of Tel Aviv.” For the moment, such open gestures of friendship with the apartheid state are still too distasteful to be uttered in public, and al-Badri was forced to deny the report after his remarks caused an uproar in Libya.

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Raul Diego is a MintPress News Staff Writer, independent photojournalist, researcher, writer and documentary filmmaker.

A number of high-profile reports last week cited data released on 26 July by China’s General Administration of Customs (GAC) as clear evidence that China did not import any crude oil from Iran in June ‘for the first time since January 2007’. This is absolute nonsense. Not only is China continuing to import many millions of barrels of crude oil from Iran every single month but also it will continue to do so in line with the now firmly in-play 25-year deal between the two countries. Specifically, from 1 June to 21 July (51 days), China imported at least 8.1 million barrels of crude oil – 158,823 barrels per day (bpd) – from Iran in a number of relatively direct ways, a senior oil and gas industry source who works closely with Iran’s Petroleum Ministry exclusively told OilPrice.com. The vast majority of these 8.1 million barrels were delivered by crude oil container ship, beginning with the cargo of the ‘Giessel’. 

“The Giessel likely loaded Iranian crude oil via ship-to-ship transfer just off the Strait of Hormuz at the Gulf of Oman and this likely occurred between the 26 April and 5 May,” sources at global energy markets intelligence company, Kpler, told OilPrice.com last week. “The Giessel then discharged about 2.1 million barrels of Iranian crude oil to [China’s state-owned] Sinopec at the Qingdao Huangdao port on 13 June,” added the Kpler sources.

Shortly thereafter, according to the Iran source, the crude oil tankers ‘Stream’ and ‘Snow’ left Iranian ports for China and later offloaded their respective 1.6 million barrels and 2.1 million barrels of Iranian crude oil at Chinese ports.

In addition to the near-159,000 bpd being exported directly, another 6.8 million barrels or so was exported over the same 51 day period (another 133,333 bpd) from Iran to China indirectly via Malaysia (and to a much lesser extent, Indonesia), according to highly-placed sources in Iran. This process involves shipping Iranian oil to somewhere within Malaysian (or Indonesian) maritime boundaries, changing the vessel registration documents relating to its origin and ownership, and to the provenance of the crude oil cargo, and then continuing the voyage on to China.

A sign that this has been going on for many months, at least, appears in the official Chinese GAC crude oil import figures that show that for the January-June period of this year there was an 81.2 percent increase in China’s imports of crude oil from Malaysia, compared to the same period last year. Apparently attempting to obfuscate matters further, for the 13 June Giessel cargo to the Qingdao Huangdao port, internal Chinese Customs documents only refer to ‘a crude oil blend coming from Indonesia’ (not Malaysia).  The near-15 million barrels of crude oil exports from Iran to China over the 1 June to 21 July period (292,157 bpd) accounts for just over 58 per cent of all of Iran’s 500,000 bpd or so total current crude oil exports, out of a total current production of 2.2 million bpd, according to the Iran source.

The fact that none of these have shown up in official GAC figures is entirely unsurprising, given the basic technical factor that any and all crude oil imports to China from Iran can be held in ‘bonded storage’. Put simply: crude oil that goes into ‘bonded storage’ is not put through Chinese Customs at all – and is not even recorded as having been ‘paid for’ – and consequently does not appear on any GAC documentation. This means that China can import as much Iranian oil as it wants without the oil appearing in any import figures and without, as far as the letter of the law is concerned, China breaking any U.S. sanctions. “Even if that wasn’t the standard procedure there, why would China record these deliveries anyway?” said the Iran source.

Another method of Iran delivering its oil to China is now being worked on by Tehran, together with Russia and China itself. “This is to build-out the oil collection, storage, and delivery elements from Iran’s Caspian Sea allocation into the Russian feed-in structures used in the ESPO [Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean] pipeline, and then to move the Iranian crude through Kazakhstan and then into China,” the Iran source said. Iran now has an 11.875 per cent in the Caspian resource, with the onshore and offshore Caspian fields conservatively estimated to have around 48 billion barrels of oil in proved and probable reserves.

Russia already has experience of using Iranian oil in the ESPO crude oil blend. In 2018 it was facing numerous complaints from European buyers of its oil when its efforts to meet increased oil demand from China simply by boosting crude oil output in East Siberia failed. In order to redress the quality issue for Europe, Russia utilised the relevant light, sweet, Iran crude grade into its own ESPO deliveries, juggling it between Europe and China.

For China there are distinct advantages to holding millions of Iranian crude in storage, aside from the sanctions-busting element. To start with, it means that it can secure the oil at extremely discounted prices, in keeping with the secret element of the 25-year deal agreed between the two countries. In the case of the crude oil delivered by the Giessel, Stream, and Snow tankers – 5.8 million barrels in total – each barrel was discounted by US$10.95 to the headline Iranian grade price, according to the Iran source. “In addition to this discount, Iran offered China CIF [cost, insurance, and freight] cargoes at FOB [free-on-board] pricing, and Iran continues to offer Chinese buyers protection and indemnity [P&I] insurance, through the ‘Kish P&I Club’, among other such entities,” he added.

Additionally positive for China is that this stored oil can be sold at any time should the need arise or at a time when oil prices rise significantly (effectively also functioning as a hedge). It can also be used for geopolitical advantage, as it allows China to trade the oil in deals with energy-poor countries that nonetheless have things (port facilities, for example) that China wants, especially in pursuit of its ‘One Belt, One Road’ programme. Finally, stored Iranian crude oil gives China a wider energy security safety net in the event that the U.S. imposes further sanctions against more of China’s traditional oil suppliers.

On the other side of the equation, Iran benefits in part from the fact that it does not have to halt production at its core fields because it is running out of storage space, which could damage the wells. Nor does it have to commit all of its tanker fleet to storage, which is costly and would prohibit revenue-raising crude oil exports to other countries. The major benefit for Iran, though, is funding. Before Iran signed the secret part of the 25-year deal with China it was short of the approximately US$150 billion that it needed to complete all of its major oil and gas developments, plus another US$250 billion that it needed to build out the rest of its key business sectors to internationally functioning levels.

Whilst China has vouched for this US$400 billion, Iran is still relatively cash poor, so the discounted oil exports are a means of allowing it to pay China for its part of the infrastructure development costs. According to various sources, the discounted price of oil on the Giessel, Stream, and Snow oil tankers, was part of the payment for Sinopec’s ongoing work on Phase 2 of Iran’s supergiant Yadavaran oil field. Sinopec is apparently working on this field on multiple contract-only operations through seven front companies that have been registered variously in Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, and Pakistan, OilPrice.com understands from the Iran source.

In addition to the direct Iran to China tank crude oil shipments identified and the indirect Iran-Malaysia (occasional Indonesia)-China crude oil shipments from 1 June to 21 July, according to the Iran source: “Chinese shell companies took delivery of another 1.2 million barrels [23,529 bpd] of Iranian oil – re-labelled Iraqi crude – in June destined for China, and sold at a US$12 per barrel discount to the Basra blend price, and Pakistan commercial agents took an additional 1.1 million barrels [21,568 bpd] of crude oil purchased on behalf of China.”

This re-labelling of Iranian oil to Iraqi oil is as simple as it is undetectable by the U.S. Not only does Iraq share an extremely long and extremely porous border with Iran but the two countries share many oilfields, with the oil on the Iraqi side of the border being drilled from exactly the same reservoirs as the oil being drilled on the Iranian side. “Even if the Americans actually stationed people at every single rig in every single shared field in Iraq they wouldn’t be able to tell if the oil coming out it was from the Iraq side or the Iranian side,” said the Iran source.

In sum, these methods – direct shipping from Iran to China (around 159,000 bpd), indirect shipping from Iran to China via Malaysia or other countries’ waters (another 133,000 bpd), re-labelling for China export (24,000 bpd), and Pakistan commercial agents (22,000 bpd) – mean that over the 1 June to 21 July period alone, China imported at least 338,000 bpd of Iranian crude oil. This equates to just over 67 per cent of Iran’s total 500,000 bpd of exports at the moment. This leaves around 162,000 bpd being exported to Iran’s other major traditional buyers right now, including Syria and various former Eastern Bloc states, among others.

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Simon Watkins is a former senior FX trader and salesman, financial journalist, and best-selling author. He was Head of Forex Institutional Sales and Trading for Credit Lyonnais, and later Director of Forex at Bank of Montreal. He was then Head of Weekly Publications and Chief Writer for Business Monitor International, Head of Fuel Oil Products for Platts, and Global Managing Editor of Research for Renaissance Capital in Moscow.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Heiliger Strohsack! CNN sure seems to have trouble with its estimates. First, they confuse a regular cold and flu season with the bubonic plague. Then they confuse a massive protest as being merely a “large crowd of far-right groups gathered for a ‘sit-in’ at Berlin’s iconic Brandenburg Gate on Saturday to protest against the German government’s coronavirus restrictions.”

The protestors referred to themselves as “The Second Wave.” And, you need only take a look at the following photo to see it was a tidal wave. For comparison purposes, the upper photo is from a 2001 “love parade” held in the same location (which The Guardian reports averages 1.5 million people). The lower photo is of the corona protest on Saturday. I was never good at guessing how many jelly beans were in the jar, so please decide for yourself:

Sure looks like more than the 17,000 the CNN estimates, wouldn’t you agree?

Called the “Day of Freedom: The End of the Pandemic,” clearly this protest was more than just a large gathering consisting of “anti-vaccine groups and some far-right and neo-Nazi organizations.”

“Organizers said up to 1.3 million people took part,” says the Guardian, “a figure that police denied.”

A friend in Germany, however, tells me that “police were reporting around 800,000.”

The Guardian was a little more generous than the CNN, estimating 20,000 protesters. Both media sources must have trouble counting, so busy filling their articles with admonishments about the “participants’ failure to wear face coverings or keep a 1.5-metre distance from each other.” They are sure missing the point. That’s exactly what they are protesting against: using unproven methods to stop an unproven pandemic.

Scanning the news, it seems most German politicians decried the protestors for spreading COVID-19 by congregating (in a group certainly larger than five) to protest their own government. However, Tino Chrupalla, a co-chair of the Alternative for German party, told The Guardian: “I followed the demonstration, which was peaceful. The people went on to the streets to defend their basic rights and their civil liberties, and that’s something one can only welcome.”

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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

Tens of thousands of Germans marched through Berlin on Saturday, proclaiming a “Day of Freedom” and demanding an end to government-mandated face masks and “social distancing.” The UK and Netherlands also saw large protests against their governments’ tyrannical actions in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

According to media accounts, the Berlin protesters held signs reading “We are being forced to wear a muzzle,” “Natural defense instead of vaccination,” and “We are making noise because you are stealing our freedom!”

Good for them!

The New York Times Tweeted that the masses of Berlin demonstrators were all “Nazis” and “conspiracy theorists.” Does the “paper of record” really want us to believe there were perhaps a million Nazis active in the streets of Berlin? Wouldn’t that be alarming?

The fact is, Europeans are realizing that their government-mandated lockdowns did little or nothing to protect them from the virus, while causing economic catastrophe and untold human suffering.

They likely looked around and noticed that Sweden, which never locked down its economy, rejected face masks, and kept its restaurants and other places of business open, did not fare any worse than the countries that have been turned into open air prisons for much of the year. In fact, Sweden had a lower death rate from the virus than strict lockdown states like the UK and France. No wonder people are starting to get angry.

Unfortunately, while the Europeans are waking up, Americans are still asleep as our freedoms continue to be trampled. While Europeans demand an end to government tyranny, here we see states with minuscule new deaths returning to lockdown. It is as if all the wannabe tyrants from mayors to governors are finally realizing their secret dreams of ruling by decree. Their dreams are our nightmares!

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy put citizens “on notice” that he will lock the state back down if people dare to go outside without a face mask or even to have guests inside their own homes! What kind of politician puts his own constituents “on notice”?

It is not as if the “experts” are even looking into treatments for the viral infection. Doctors who report their own successful experience treating Covid patients with hydroxychloroquine, for example, are ridiculed, censored, and even fired from their jobs. The rush to silence “America’s Frontline Doctors” last week and to disappear their video down the memory hole should terrify anybody who still believes in free speech.

No, they say, we must keep locked down and masked until we have a vaccine. The US government is dumping billions into a vaccine that may be less than 60 percent effective to prevent a virus that has something like a 99.8 percent survival rate. What kind of math is that?

How many may be harmed more by the vaccine than helped? We’ll probably never know because the US government has just granted big pharma immunity from liability claims if the vaccine produces damaging side effects.

They keep moving the goal posts to keep us terrified and isolated. First it was body counts and then “cases.” The numbers have been so wildly off that it’s hard to trust any reporting. People are getting angry. They are confused. They are facing an economic depression of historic proportions. But worst of all, they are watching as Leviathan government snatches every last bit of freedom.

Three cheers for the Europeans! Let’s hope America wakes up soon!

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The biggest factor that has led the U.S. government to initiate a hostile relationship against China involves the concept of empire. An empire wants to be the only empire or at least the dominant empire. That is, it wants to control everyone and everybody within its realm, which ideally encompasses the entire world.

That was the way it is with the U.S. Empire, whose core is the U.S. national-security state, which encompasses the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA.

As the Soviet Union was dismantling with its unilateral decision to end the Cold War in 1989, the U.S. empire found itself to be the only empire standing in the world. Given the scope, range, and money of the U.S. national-security state, that meant putting countries all over the world under U.S. control and dominion.

Throughout history, empires have hated the rise of other empires because they pose a threat to the control and dominion of the already-existing empire. Rising empires have long been considered by existing empires to be “rivals,” “opponents,” “competitors,” “adversaries,” and even “enemies.”

In a free market, when an existing business is confronted by a competitor, rival, opponent, or adversary, or enemy, to maintain is market share the business must continue offering a product or service that customers want more than the product or service being offered by competitors.

That’s not the way it works with empires. They will inevitably resort to force against rising competitors in order to keep their dominate position in world affairs.

Since 1990, the U.S. Empire has been embroiled in wars, conflicts, and hostilities in various parts of the world as part of its imperial mission to maintain “order” and “stability” in the world. Most of the violence has centered around the Middle East and Afghanistan, but the Empire also has been wreaking death and destruction in other parts of the world with such policies as sanctions, which target the citizens of foreign countries as a way to induce their regimes to comply with the edicts of the Empire.

Meanwhile, China was doing things completely differently. A couple of decades ago,  the Chinese communist regime began loosening its economic restrictions on the economic activity of the Chinese people. Consequently, there was tremendous amount of wealth accruing in society and also growing standards of living. That, in turn, increased tax revenues for the Chinese government.

Thus, while the U.S. government was making friends around the world through force of arms and hostility, the Chinese government and Chinese citizens were making friends around the world through investments, grants, and loans. This included countries in Latin America, where the U.S. Empire has left a dark legacy of military intervention.

Moreover, war weakens a nation from within. As the U.S. Empire was now engaged in a policy of perpetual war, it knew that China, although still weighed down with a large amount of socialism, was gaining strength.

That’s when U.S. officials knew that they had a problem on their hands — an empire problem. That’s when they, and their supporters in the mainstream press, began referring to China as a “rival,” an “opponent,” an “adversary,” a “competitor,” aand even an “enemy.”

At that point, the objective became to strike at China before it grew any stronger and threatened the worldwide dominion and hegemony of the U.S. Empire.

That’s what President Trump’s trade war was all about — to bring China down a peg, even if it hurt American producers and consumers in the process. That’s also what U.S. sanctions on China and Chinese enterprises, such as Huawei are all about. It’s what the criminal prosecution of Hua Wei executive Meng Wanzhou is all about. It’s why Trump is considering a banning the Chinese social network TikTok from the United States.

Of course, the Covid-19 crisis did U.S. officials a big favor by adding significantly to China’s economic woes.

If none of this works to the satisfaction of U.S. officials, then another possibility is war, which is a most effective way to bring a rival or adversary or competitor down. After all, as Iraqis and Afghans have learned, what better way to destroy the productive capability of a nation than with bombs dropped on factories, businesses, and people?

When it comes to empire, U.S. officials will stop at nothing to ensure that the U.S. Empire maintains its sole dominion and power around the world.

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Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. Send him email.

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The economic pain that we are witnessing right now is far greater than anything that we witnessed during the last recession.  U.S. GDP declined by 32.9 percent on an annualized basis last quarter, more than 100,000 businesses have permanently shut down since the COVID-19 pandemic first hit the United States, and more than 54 million Americans have filed new claims for unemployment benefits over the last 19 weeks.  Up until just recently, a $600 weekly unemployment “supplement” and a federal moratorium that prevented many evictions had helped to ease the suffering for millions of American families, but both of those measures have now expired.  As a result, a tremendous amount of economic pain which had previously been deferred will now come rushing back with a vengeance.  Millions of American families are no longer going to be able to pay their bills, and experts are warning that we could soon see an “eviction crisis” that is absolutely unprecedented in American history.

48-year-old Thomas Darnell of West Point, Mississippi never thought that he would be in this position. He had been a factory worker for over 20 years until he lost his job in May, and since then he hasn’t been able to find another. And then on top of everything else, everyone in his house caught COVID-19…

First, he was furloughed for three weeks in April and then laid off in May. Then things got worse: His entire household of seven, including himself, his wife, three kids and daughter-in-law, along with his baby grandson, contracted coronavirus after they saw their immediate family over the Independence Day weekend.

“I’m tired and shaky. Even after a few weeks, I’m still trying to recover,” Darnell says, who has since been cleared of the virus but still has lingering symptoms.

He is concerned that employers will be scared away by his recent illness, and he is becoming desperate because he is running out of money.

With no health insurance and no paychecks coming in, Darnell and his wife have gotten to the point where they have to make a choice between buying insulin or buying groceries…

He can’t afford health insurance, which has added to his anxiety because he and his wife are both diabetic, he says. Like Bolei, Darnell and his wife have been forced to make a grueling decision between either paying for their medications or keeping food on the table.

“Do we buy insulin or groceries? It’s a hard juggle,” Darnell says. “I’m willing to make less money and start working again to get health insurance, but no one is hiring.”

The weekly $600 unemployment supplements from the federal government had helped to keep them going for a while, but now those payments have ended, and the immediate future is looking quite bleak.

In Richmond, Virginia, a mother of eight named Shamika Rollins wasn’t sure how she was going to make it when her hours as a home health aid were reduced.  Unpaid bills started piling up, and then she got an eviction notice a few weeks ago.  The following comes from CBS News…

Shamika Rollins’ eight children share two bedrooms in Richmond, Virginia. But she’s worried about losing their home after she says she received an eviction notice in June.

“First thing, I panic, and then next thing, I look, and I’m like, I got my kids. And it’s like, okay, now you gotta figure this out,” she told CBS News correspondent Adriana Diaz.

If a miracle does not happen, Rollins and her eight children will soon be out in the street, and this is causing her to have “a lot of sleepless nights”…

“I have a lot of sleepless nights,” Rollins said. “My mind is constantly racing, you know, what’s your next move?”

Sadly, there are millions of other Americans in the exact same position.

In fact, experts are projecting that up to 40 million Americans could be evicted from their homes during this pandemic.

Many small business owners are also facing heartbreaking choices during this downturn.  A restaurant owner in Delaware named Alex Heidenberger “hasn’t paid the mortgage on his home the past four months” as he desperately tries to keep his once profitable restaurants alive…

Heidenberger, who typically draws about $20,000 a month in profit from the restaurant, now receives nothing. He says he hasn’t paid the mortgage on his home the past four months. He served lifeguard duty for a couple of weeks, mostly to help a beach crew depleted by COVID-19 quarantines but also to make some cash.

“I’m working harder than I have ever worked in my life,” he says, adding that he puts in about 80 hours a week at the two restaurants. Yet, “I have no money… This is all I think about. I don’t sleep.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the restaurant industry particularly hard.  Americans are not eating out as regularly as they once did because of the virus, and it is probably going to remain that way for the foreseeable future.

In Massachusetts, a restaurant owner named John Pepper once had eight thriving locations, but at this point only two of them remain open…

John Pepper used a PPP loan to pay employees and reopen four of his eight Boloco restaurants when Massachusetts lifted its shutdown order in early May. But with the money spent and business at the restaurants down as much as 70%, Pepper had to again close two locations. The staff of 125 he had before the virus outbreak is down to 50.

“A lot of this is out of our hands at this point,” Pepper says. “At this moment, I don’t see getting my full payroll back.”

Overall, we are facing a “restaurant apocalypse” in the U.S. that is unprecedented in size and scope.

According to one estimate, we could lose more than a third of all of our restaurants by the end of this calendar year…

As many as 231,000 of the nation’s roughly 660,000 eateries will likely shut down this year, according to an estimate from restaurant consultancy Aaron Allen & Associates provided to Bloomberg News. This will bring the industry’s steady growth to a halt and mark the first time in two decades that U.S. restaurant counts don’t climb. Restaurants have already shed millions of jobs this year, economic data show.

What we are watching is truly horrifying.  So many hopes and dreams went into each one of those restaurants that are shutting down, and countless restaurant owners are going to be completely financially ruined by all of this.

For other Americans, this economic downturn has put their very lives at risk.  In Colorado, 70-year-old Catherine Azar was already dealing with heart problems and diabetes, and now she is in danger of being thrown out into the street…

“It’s hard for me to conceive of someone being willing to put another person out in the street in the middle of a deadly pandemic, and I’m high risk. I’m 70. I have heart issues and I’m diabetic,” Azar said.

Rollins and Azar are just two of the 43 million Americans at risk of eviction in the coming months. For context, about 1 million Americans were evicted in 2010, the year after the Great Recession.

How long do you think that a 70-year-old woman with heart problems and diabetes would last on the street or in a shelter?

And as millions upon millions of Americans get evicted during the months ahead, the shelters are all going to fill up really fast.

America simply was not prepared for an economic downturn of this nature, and the truth is that much bigger challenges are still ahead.

So please do not look down on anyone that needs help right now, because soon you may find yourself in the exact same position.

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Michael Snyder’s brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  He published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, which are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.

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This past week US economy collapsed in the 2nd quarter by 32.9% at annual rate and nearly 10% just for the April-June period. Never before in modern US history—not even in the worse quarters of the 1930s great depression—has the US economy contracted so quickly and so deeply!

All the major private sectors of the US economy—Consumption, Business Investment, Exports & Imports—collapsed in ranges from -30% to -40% in the April-June period. That followed first quarter prior declines in single digits as well. More than $2 trillion in real economic activity was wiped from the economy. Consumption collapsed by more than -1.5 trillion. Business investment by nearly -$600 billion. Ditto net trade and even state & local government spending.

Even more foreboding is that the April-June collapse came as the economy opened up in June virtually everywhere and in many states even before in May. So the 2nd quarter collapse—as deep as unprecedented as it was—reflects a rebound of economic activity during the last six weeks of the quarter.

More worrisome still, even the weak May-June rebound has begun showing signs of stalling out as of mid-July, according to latest economic indicators.

Fading 3rd Quarter US Economy

Here’s some emerging evidence of that stall-out now beginning:

Jobs Deteriorating Once Again

Weekly initial unemployment claims began to rise after mid-July. The numbers of new jobless claims are now consistently in the 2.2m-2.4m per week range as the economy enters August. Officially more than 32m are now collecting benefits. Millions more are still trying, or running out of them. Add to that the more than 5 million more workers who simply dropped out of the labor force since February. They’re not even calculated in the unemployment rate, according to official US government practices. So there’s easily 40m jobless out there in America—a number that’s remained pretty constant for months now. 40m unemployed is roughly a 25% unemployment rate, same as that during the worst of the 1930s great depression.

On Friday, August 7 the US Labor Dept. will report jobs and unemployment numbers for July. The reported consensus among economists is that it will likely show only 1.6m new jobs created, according to a survey reported by Reuters—a sharp slowdown after June’s numbers showed 4.8m. But 3 million of June’s new jobs represented workers returning to restaurants, hospitality, and retail work as the economy was reopened (prematurely) in May-June. Now, as the Covid virus has surged again in July, many of those 3 million who returned to work in May-June are being re-laid off in July or returning to sheltering as 30 states have again re-initiated partial shutdowns.

In addition to the Covid surge effect on jobs, scores of large companies have, independently of the virus effect, begun announcing mass layoffs by the thousands and tens of thousands. They have determined the economy’s situation is far worse than reported by the media or Trump administration and are planning for a long recession. Their layoffs will be mostly permanent due to long term restructuring.

If the 32m now collecting jobless benefits, plus those waiting to still get them, plus those who gave up and dropped out of work altogether equal 25% unemployment, how is it then that the US government keeps saying unemployment is only 11.1%?

It’s because that 11.1% is a cherry-picked low ball number for public consumption that conveniently represents only full time workers unemployment. If part timers laid off were included, even per the government’s own figures that’s 18%. Those numbers also don’t accurately count those who left the labor force or reflect the number of ‘gig’ jobs that are picked up as part of the 25% unemployed in the unemployment benefits numbers.

Another indicator of the renewed deterioration of the labor markets is the number of job openings reported by the government. That too has begun to trend down once again after mid- July just as the unemployment benefits claims began to rise in tandem.

US Manufacturing & Construction Stagnant At Best

Manufacturing and construction account for roughly 20% of the US economy and GDP. The spin since the US economic reopening began late May has been all sectors of the economy have been bouncing back—services, manufacturing, construction. Facts show otherwise.

In Manufacturing jobs have continued to decline every month, according to Purchasing Managers Indexes (PMI) More companies continued to lay off workers in manufacturing than hire them during May-June. Manufacturing output continued to contract through June, with a reading of 49.8 (less than 50 indicates contraction). That rose to 51.3 in first half of July, but contracted again at the close of July finishing the month of July essentially stagnant at 50.9, according to the business research firm, HIS Markit.

The condition was roughly the same for construction. Per the US Commerce Dept., construction activity continued to decline by -1.7% in May and another -0.7% in June during the period of the economy’s reopening.

So with services’ industries and occupations re-shutting down in July once again, and with Manufacturing and Construction, stagnating at best—by end of July 2020 the US is teetering on the edge of faltering and ending the brief, weak and tentative economic rebound of late May to early July.

Household Income & Consumption in Trouble

Consumption spending by households represents 70% of the US economy and GDP. The main determinant of household spending for the more than 100 million US working/middle class households is their wage income or, for working class retiree households, their pensions, social security benefits, & other income. Household income for tens of millions is now in a precarious state and is being reflected in reduced spending already.

According to a US Census Bureau report in July, 22% of households report that they now, as of July, can’t make their rent or mortgage payments. There are roughly 70 million renting households in the US. That’s more than 15 million US households and more than 30 million Americans!

According to Urban Institute research, it will cost $7.3B a month to keep renters and homeowners in their homes. That’s a little more than $50B for the next six months. But Republicans—Mnuchin, McConnell & Trump—all adamantly refuse to provide any of the $7.3B assistance. On the other hand, they quickly approved roughly $20B in the March Cares Act for Defense corps making billions in profits, passed the $760B in new money for the Pentagon in one day last week, and now propose another $30B for their Pentagon-Defense Corp. friends in their HEALsAct stimulus proposal announced in July.

Apart from the $760B new record Pentagon budget just passed in the blink of a political eye, that’s roughly $50B in new money for the Pentagon instead of $50B to keep tens of millions of working class households in their homes for another six months!

Already evictions of renters and foreclosures of homeowners are rising fast. It’s something of a myth that even the Cares Act of last March introduced a moratorium on rent evictions. First of all, that addressed only one third of the available rents—i.e. those backed by US government financing. Two-thirds have always been exempt. Even the one-third was not enforceable, moreover. Many areas of the US have continued with evictions throughout the pandemic period.

And now evictions are accelerating even faster in July, now that the Cares Act measure expired on July 25. No fewer than 12.3 million renters covered by the Cares Act lost their moratorium late July. That evictions acceleration, now underway, has resulted in reduced spending and consumption since mid-July and will no doubt depress spending even more into August and beyond.

In addition to the Housing crisis depressing income and consumer spending, there’s the parallel crisis of more than 15 million newly unemployed having no medical insurance. Studies show clearly those without insurance tend to spend less to save for medical expenses. A Commonwealth Health Care Fund survey in late June found that 21% of workers laid off lost all health insurance coverage from their employer and all sources during layoff since March. That means at least 8 million additional US households without health insurance since March. 8 million more—and rising as new unemployment claims also rise—who will spend less and compress consumption further and therefore US GDP in 3rd quarter.

Yet another major factor portends a slowing of household spending and consumption, further dampening any economic rebound: Congress’s reduction of unemployment benefits.

Debate is now intensifying in Congress on the scope and magnitude of a so-called ‘5th stimulus’ legislative package. At the heart of the debate is whether to continue the $600/week federal supplemental unemployment benefits instituted last March under the Cares Act. The cost of the $600/wk. benefit was estimated in March at $340 billion, for a period of four months. Were the $600 eliminated altogether, it would thus take roughly $85B a month out of the US economy.

Republicans in the Senate have proposed an immediate reduction of the $600 benefit to $200. Hidden in the proposal is a further reduction after two months at $200, by integrating the federal benefit with state unemployment benefits and capping both at $500. So at least 3/4s of the $600 would end, taking nearly $65B a month in spending out of the economy starting in August and for however long the benefit continue.

It is not surprising given the rising unemployment claims, pending evictions, growing ranks of health uninsured, and prospects of ending significant unemployment benefits—not to mention the resurge of the virus and growing partial re-shutdowns across dozens of states—that household consumer confidence shows evidence of fading in July as well. University of Michigan’s survey—considered the gold standard of the confidence research—recently reported that consumers’ expectations for the US economy over the next six months continue to slip further. In March 2020 the overall index fell to only 72.5, a historic low (>100 means positive; <100 means failing confidence). That remained at 73.2 in June despite the economy reopening. The next six months expectations index in June was 72.3 but by mid-July had deeply contracted further to only 65.9. Clearly, consumers are not optimistic where the economy is about to go and, to the extent their expectations affect their spending, the latter is not likely to recover soon.

In short, escalating housing evictions, more loss of health insurance coverage, and reduction of weekly unemployment benefits for tens of millions of Americans and households can only further significantly depress household consumption—70% of the economy—and thus undermine the already weak and fading May-June economic rebound.

Fading US Economic Rebound in Historical Perspective

During the depths of the crash in March-April, Trump, his administration spokespersons, much of the mainstream media, and many economists were predicting the crash would soon produce a just as rapid snap back of the economy beginning in June. That was called the ‘V-Shape’ recovery.

But recoveries are sustained, whereas ‘rebounds’ are not. This writer was publicly predicting last March the V-shape prediction was a fiction. At best, the trajectory of the US economy would prove to be ‘W-Shape’—as have all great recessions of which the current contraction has proven to be among the more severe. (Other ‘great recessions’ have occurred the last century in 1908-13, 1929-30, and 2008-11. None were V-shape. All were to some degree ‘W-shape’. And in one case, the ‘W’ transformed into an extended ‘U’ and the great depression of the 1930s.

W-shape trajectories are typical of great recessions. W-shape means a deep initial contraction of the economy is followed by a weak rebound, which then dissipates and produces a subsequent economic relapse in terms of growth and GDP. The relapse may take the form of a dramatic slowdown in the rebound or in the economic growth rate totally stalling out and economic stagnation occur next quarter. Or, yet a third possibility is that the relapse may prove even more severe and result in a renewed contraction once again—i.e. a double dip recession. In a W-shape typical great recession trajectory, the stagnation or double dip is in turn followed by another brief and weak ‘rebound’. And that rebound followed by yet another relapse. Triple dips are not impossible. That’s what happened to Japan after 2008 and almost to Europe as well after 2014.

This ‘bouncing along the bottom’ trajectory following the deep initial crash may go on for months and years—as was the case in the US after 1908 and again after 2009 as well.

Or, alternatively, the stagnation or further economic contractions may lead to a subsequent financial and banking crash that drives the economy even deeper, ratchet-like, to become a de facto economic depression. That was the case after 1930.

What’s happened to date in the US, from early March through July 2020, shows the US economy has clearly fallen into a great recession again–and this time three times deeper than in 2008-09 and in one third less the time!

It is unprecedented. And it represents totally new territory that mainstream economists have no analog experience from which to speculate as to its medium and longer term trajectory into 2021. Indeed, the mainstream economics community has no clue. They are content, as they typically are won’t to be, with predicting the present instead of the future—although very few now bother to say it’s a V-shape recovery. Only the polyannas in the Trump administration still adhere to that nonsense and that fiction.

The first phase of the 2020 Great Recession has passed. That was the deep and rapid contraction of 10% (32.9% annualized). The second phase began with the weak June rebound that continued into early July. The question now is whether that weak rebound will transform into a relapse in the form of a rapid slowing of the economy once again—i.e. a third phase. Or perhaps just a second phase, with the weak rebound of May-June representing a juncture or transition between phases.

Beyond the coming 3rd quarter the central question is whether the US economy will experience yet another weak, short and shallow economic rebound? If so, the W-shape trajectory of the current Great Recession 2.0 will be further confirmed. Another possibility is the contraction will even out and settle into a longer term stagnation. Yet a third outcome is further shocks to the economy will drive it into yet another sharp and deep contraction.

There are three possible ‘drivers’ that would result in the latter outcome: a failure of Congress and policy makers to introduce a sufficient fiscal stimulus directed at household consumption stimulus; a major political and constitutional crisis occurring surrounding the November 3 national presidential elections; or a chain reaction contagion in financial markets provoked by spreading business defaults and bankruptcies—either in the US or abroad.

The nation should know fairly shortly whether Congress—driven by Republican and conservative-radical ideologues—fails to pass sufficient fiscal stimulus as the economy fades in the 3rd quarter.

The second outcome is becoming increasingly likely by the day. Trump clearly has no intention of leaving office by normal processes. A close electoral college vote will further ensure a political crisis in the US of dimensions never before experienced. The economic consequences will prove severe. Those possible scenarios will be described shortly in another article.

Third, although a major financial instability event is not yet imminent, the longer the W-shape great recession trajectory continues, the more likely such an instability event becomes. Moreover, when it does, it will appear swiftly, unexpectedly, and no less severely in terms of its impact on the real economy of households, workers, and even businesses in general.

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Dr. Jack Rasmus is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The Satrap Chronicles of the US imperium will have, near the top of their various ingratiating themes, such Australian politicians as Senators Linda Reynolds and Marise Payne.  They resemble Siamese consuls, hard to tell apart (robust build, similar of voice and manner).  For another, their views form the putty of derivative policy that has characterised a power more interested in being an annex to heft rather than modestly credible as an individual broker.  

The visit to Washington for the Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) saw Reynolds, the defence minister, and foreign minister Payne play the appropriate second fiddle to their US hosts.  But do not tell them that. Reynolds was adamant that this was all about friendship, which Australians irritatingly call “mateship”.  The term is sociologically questionable, a meretricious one that provides the covering of hollow fellowship.  “Mateship means standing side-by-side with your friends with a shared commitment to peace and prosperity,” she tweeted. 

Mateship means standing side-by-side with your friends with a shared commitment to peace and prosperity. It was wonderful to meet again with congressional representatives (albeit socially distanced), including members of the Friends of Australia caucus while in Washington DC. pic.twitter.com/8r2g37eq5P

— Linda Reynolds (@lindareynoldswa) July 31, 2020

An odd thing to say in the context of power interests, but such language is always to be found at these gatherings.  “It was wonderful to meet again the congressional representatives (albeit socially distanced), including members of the Friends of Australia caucus while in Washington DC.”  Payne also took care to mention the talks with the Friends of Australia caucus.  “Thank you for your continued support & taking time out from a busy legislative agenda in these challenging times.”

Important discussions on Capitol Hill this afternoon with members of the Friends of Australia caucus. Thank you for your continued support & taking time out from a busy legislative agenda in these challenging times. pic.twitter.com/hCbmERXYas

— Marise Payne (@MarisePayne) July 29, 2020

The caucus in question was established in 2017 as a polite acknowledgment of Australia’s unquestioning, not to mention uncritical role, in the projection of US interests.  “The Caucus,” explained a release from the Australian embassy in Washington, “is a natural extension of the relationship between our two countries and will further strengthen our enduring bond for years to come.” 

The AUSMIN gathering was not lacking in irony.  That clumsy and awkward term – the “rules-based order” – was used on several occasions during discussions.  Given that US President Donald Trump finds such rules chafing, preferring to reorder them as much as possible in his image, comments such as the following by Payne were mildly entertaining. Australia and the United States, she asserted in a tweet, “were united in our efforts to address the international challenges associated with COVID-19. #AUSMIN2020 reaffirms our strong alliance & need to maintain a secure, prosperous, inclusive & rules-based #IndoPacific region now and into the future.” 

🇦🇺 & 🇺🇸 are united in our efforts to address the challenges associated with COVID-19. #AUSMIN2020 reaffirms our strong alliance & the need to maintain a secure, prosperous, inclusive & rules-based #IndoPacific region now & into the future. #USwithAUS https://t.co/WWPmcdNZ8A pic.twitter.com/xn6eftp2Fo

— Marise Payne (@MarisePayne) July 28, 2020

The fallacies of such a pronouncement are viciously glaring, not least in the field of fighting a pandemic which has done little to spur international unity.  It has taken a virus to colour in the global fault lines, the divisions of bad faith and acrimony.  Canberra, in boisterously calling for an “independent investigation” into the outbreak of the coronavirus while casting dirt upon the World Health Organization, showed its true and not so independent colours from the Trump administration.

Payne also seemed to confuse her position.  No longer was she merely the foreign minister of a state in mateship (read client); she had somehow become a voice for a regional collective, ventriloquised through the US State Department.  “I am looking forward to a productive discussion in the interests of our Indo-Pacific region.”

The importance of #AUSMIN has never been greater, amid a global pandemic & health, economic & security challenges. I am looking forward to a productive discussion in the interests of our #IndoPacific region. 🇺🇸🇦🇺 pic.twitter.com/RgAxplrNQi

— Marise Payne (@MarisePayne) July 28, 2020

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s account lacked the dissembling quality of the Australian effort. It was unadorned, blunt.  “We started this morning by talking at length about the Chinese Communist Party’s malign activity in the Indo-Pacific region and indeed all around the world.”  He praised Australia “for standing up for democratic values and the rule of law, despite intense, continued and coercive pressure from the Chinese Community Party to bow to Beijing’s wishes.”

Pompeo mentioned China nine times; Payne, once.  This seemed to impress the ABC, which spent its time keeping a tally on the China beating drum.  It also impressed the Fairfax Press.  Matthew Knott called Payne “a natural diplomat: calm, conflict-averse and doggedly on message”, confusing a reluctance to commit with profundity.  Payne was praised for not appearing “a hapless pawn in America’s increasingly tense stand-off with China.”

Think-tankers such as Natasha Kassam from the Lowy Institute were also taken in by the show of faux independence.  China was picking up the qualified signals from Australia, though her evidence was unconvincing and anecdotal.  “The condemnation from both China’s ministry of foreign affairs and the Chinese embassy in Canberra was formulaic: boilerplate language that is more of a reflex in the Chinese system rather than anything noteworthy.”

Payne did her superficial best, stiffening at Pompeo’s inflexible belligerence. “The secretary’s positions are his own.  Australia’s position is our own.”  The “relationship with China is important and we have no intention of injuring it.”  Australia and the US had an enduring military alliance, “But most importantly from our perspective, we make our own decisions, our own judgments in the Australian national interests.”  This would have come as news to the US State Department.

On the issue of whether Australia would conduct more demonstrative freedom-of-navigation exercises in the South China Sea, the ministers were unforthcoming on detail, though committed to the principle.  “Our approach,” suggested Senator Reynolds, “remains consistent, we will continue to transit through the region in accordance with international law.”  Would this involve defiant chest beating?  Reynolds would not say, though Australia’s objections are there for all to see in the submission to the United Nations from last month, which is one of pointed rejection of Chinese claims inconsistent with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS); of the assertion of “historic rights” or “maritime rights and interests” drawn from the “long course of historical practice” in the South China Sea; of China’s drawing of straight base lines linking “the outermost points of maritime features or ‘island groups’ in the South China Sea”. 

While signs of difference between Washington and Canberra were being strained by analysts, the ministers and secretaries were comfortable in expressing “serious concerns over recent coercive and destabilising actions across the Indo-Pacific”, agreeing that Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea had no validity “under international law”.  A closer look at the joint-statement shows little variance between the two countries.  “The Secretaries and Ministers discussed practical ways to strengthen our ability to address a range of challenges in a more contested Indo-Pacific, from countering malign grey-zone tactics to deterring aggression in the region.” There is also concern expressed about Hong Kong’s autonomy, the repression of the Uighurs and a nod for Taiwan’s integrity.  The satrap did not disappoint.

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

The new grocery store, which features over 2,000 products from Iran, was made possible after the Islamic Republic sent half a dozen cargo ships carrying fuel, food, medical supplies and spare parts for Venezuela’s oil industry to the South American nation last month, in defiance of US pressure.

US acting assistant secretary for the US State Department’s bureau for Western Hemisphere affairs Michael Kozak expressed irritation over the opening of the first Iranian supermarket in Venezuela.

“I would be surely surprised if Venezuela is able to obtain much benefit from Iran,” Kozak said, speaking to reporters on Thursday. “Iran is willing to play around, is willing to sell stuff to Venezuela when Venezuela really does not have the money to be buying very much,” he added.

Calling the supermarket’s opening a sign of an “alliance of pariah states,” Kozak suggested that “Iran is not going to save Venezuela from the situation it has put itself in,” and warned that “it does put itself in a more dangerous situation by playing these games.”

#Megasis: new brand Iranian supermarket opens its doors to locals in Venezuelan capital, Caracas. The supermarket which offers Venezuelan goods and Iranian products (including Halal produce) is the first of its kind opened by #Iran's private sector investment in #Venezuela. pic.twitter.com/BUOktV2IMa

— Fereshteh Sadeghi فرشته صادقی (@fresh_sadegh) July 30, 2020

Earlier, Bloomberg reported that the new Megasis supermarket, which opened Wednesday in eastern Caracas, features a high-tech form of anti-coronavirus defence which even companies in wealthier Western nations might envy – an airport scanner-style booth which instantly measures temperature and sprays customers with a disinfectant mist.

Megasis was inaugurated on Wednesday by Iranian diplomatic staff and senior Venezuelan government officials, including Vice President Delcy Rodriguez. The grocery store is operated by Issa Rezaei, an Iranian businessman who runs a chain of over 700 supermarkets in Iran.

🇻🇪🇮🇷 | #31Julio | En Caracas se inaguró el primer supermercado iraní llamado Megasis. La vicepresidente de la nación Delcy Rodríguez, dijo: "No hay bloqueo que valga cuando la voluntad está concentrada, decidida, determinada, a la defensa de la soberanía". Relaciones firmes. pic.twitter.com/yGl0hw8PAA

— Entre Guerras (@EntreGuerras1) July 31, 2020

Inside the #Iran|ian supermarket in #Venezuela. pic.twitter.com/heYbK21V7u

— Hossein Ghazanfari (@TehranDC) July 31, 2020

While running the store in Venezuela, Rezaei is also buying Venezuelan food products such as mangos and pineapples, as well as wood, to ship back to Iran.

Iranian Ambassador to Venezuela Hojjatollah Soltani praised the supermarket’s opening and growing Iranian-Venezuelan cooperation, saying that “despite the sanctions, despite the threats, we are two sister nations.”

Venezuelan-Iranian ties are presently characterized as a strategic alliance. Relations improved significantly between 2005 and 2012, when then President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and then President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela established a personal rapport, which led to the signing of over two hundred bilateral agreements on everything from defence cooperation to trade, investment and regional and global ‘anti-imperialist’ initiatives. Relations enjoyed another boost over the past two years, amid the tightening of sanctions pressure on both countries by the Trump administration.

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Featured image is a screenshot from Ruptly

This respirator does not protect against the risk of contracting disease or infection. —Warning with a box of N-95 respirators.

You have no right not to be vaccinated. You have no right not to wear a mask. You have no right to open up your business …. If you refuse to be vaccinated, the state has the power to literally take you to a doctor’s office and plunge a needle into your arm. — Alan Dershowitz 

The lockdown, along with the fear campaign with its daily doses of death statistics and warnings of impending spikes, is a full assault being advanced stepwise toward a dystopia of globalist design. The masks that now dominate on faces everywhere place wearers and non wearers into one or the other of two sharply defined categories, each category carrying a list of traits in the minds of those in the opposite category. What a perfect, visible way to split The People into competing teams. Wearers are sheep!; the maskless are public hazards!

Corporate media is pushing the division with all of its corporate gusto, and if one is looking for a stark example of MSM divisiveness, it would be hard to beat this from Politico: “Wearing a mask is for smug liberals. Refusing to is for reckless Republicans”. Simple, no? In such an either-or world, fine distinctions within complex issues are not to be entertained, with the result that life-long leftists, if contending against the mask, are assumed to be solidly in the hardcore, rightwing Trump camp, fit for a MAGA hat.

There are different motives for wearing a “respirator”. It is no secret that some people are so terrified of death that they fear the remotest risk. What a helluva a way to live! Others, despite history’s countless lessons, blindly trust any governmental claim. A huge fraction, though, perhaps a majority, wear them simply to avoid the public shaming program and so opt to go along. As Lewis Lapham wrote in Gag Rule, “The willingness to go along to get along is as American as the Salem witch trials and apple pie.” But when “everybody does it”, the spectacle psychologically reinforces the perception of legitimacy of even the fraudulent. In the current environment, just going along — which is not unrelated to apathy — lends support to an unelected global elite now attending to details of an impending Great Reset that will form the basis of the New Normal.

One commentator states, “The only way to survive in Gates’s ‘new normal’ will be to develop a network of service providers who work off the surveillance grid of Big Brother. These will be small mom and pops and sole proprietors.” Alas, small businesses that might serve an underground economy are, as an objective of the lockdown, failing by the tens of thousands monthly. And now, as authorities with endless financial resources can persuade the upper managements of surviving chains and big box stores, what began as a guideline is hardening into an ironclad policy of “no mask, no entry, no exception” that is enforced throughout a company, all the way down to the minimum-wage guards who see that you get masked, or you are barred from buying food. Checkmate!

The screws tighten every week now as Orwell’s vision plays out in plain sight in workplaces and neighborhoods and on TV. Given the impact of masking on those with respiratory diseases, the “no exception” mandate seems a clear violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and regulations of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), but during the Covid-19 offensive neither agency is enforcing directives. Besides, how many citizens concern themselves with such details when the specter of impending death dominates daily news cycles? And how many will see conformity to governmental demands as the only logical option when the coming global digital currency makes “off the surveillance grid” a quaint concept of a past era?

The thesis of mask versus the antithesis of anti-mask will be settled, one way or another. If the public obediently accepts, as a resolution of the conflict, that we must be masked or be hit with fines and imprisonment, the self-appointed global elite will see that the masses yielded, conclude that they will yield again, and understand that the road is clear to their world of mandated vaccinations. Refusal to wear a mask is now being framed as making oneself a danger to others. That deception appears to have been a success, and it indicates that those in the future who take a militant stand against mass vaccination will be depicted by the Alan Dershowitz’s of the New World as walking bioweapons.

In the the final analysis, the choice to be vaccinated or not, like the choice to be masked or not, will be based less on one’s political or social views than on the understanding and trust one has gained in a powerful government, and by extension, on a willingness to face down a government grown tyrannical. Benjamin Franklyn, when asked what kind of government we were going to get, answered “A republic, if you can keep it”. Given his response, one suspects that he had doubts. If so, it appears his doubts were justified.

Postscript: Catherine Austin Fitts, former bank president, Wall Street investor, and Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, has the history, the connections and the fine eye to make observations worth one’s serious attention. Having “left the establishment” (her words), she explains the history of vaccines vis-à-vis the law, the freedom from liability that is gained for anything that can be labeled a “vaccine”, and the prospect of what might be incorporated into injectables. If you read anything today, make sure it’s this!

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Bill Willers is an emeritus professor of biology, University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh. He is founder of the Superior Wilderness Action Network and editor of Learning to Listen to the Land, and Unmanaged Landscapes, both from Island Press. He can be contacted at [email protected].

The movie V for Vendetta  is set in an alternative reality where a neo-fascist totalitarian regime has subjugated the United Kingdom under the guise of protecting the people from war, terror and disease. Yes, disease. Indeed, the following clip from this 15-year-old dystopian film looks awfully like the world we now live in today, does it not?

At the film’s catalyst, a freedom fighter (codenamed “V”) hijacks the feed for a major TV network in London and broadcasts a “sermon” to the nation wearing a Guy Fawkes mask. See how his words apply to the governments’ reaction to COVID-19:

“And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression,” says V as his masked face appears across television sets around the nation.

“And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission.

“How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well, certainly, there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable. But again, truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.”

“I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease.”

Are we not seeing this today? Where several billion people have been scared into voluntarily handing over their freedoms so that they can be kept safe from a virus.

“They were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. “

I pray this not be a sermon we will deserve to hear in the years to come.

Please listen to Hugo Weaving’s incredible recital of this speech and heed its words while it’s still relatively easy to do so. Already they have “conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.” Let us remember that being “silent” is the same as giving our “obedient consent” to such totalitarian trickery.

As V says:

“Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth.”

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“Masks are considered by governments as a “protection against the transmission of Covid-19”. It is better to wear a mask (any mask) than nothing. People are instructed to obey the guidelines of the Ministry of Health. These guidelines are erroneous.”, says Dr. Pascal Sacré

“They are imposed on population groups which have been traumatized by the fear campaign”. Apart from overestimating the benefit of masks, the authorities underestimate its deleterious effects on people’s health.”

COVID-19: Continuous Wearing of Mask Aggravates Risk of Infection. “Psychological Terrorism”?

Dr. Pascal Sacré, July 30 , 2020

“By wearing a mask, the exhaled viruses will not be able to escape and will concentrate in the nasal passages, enter the olfactory nerves and travel into the brain.” — Dr.Russell Blaylock, MD

“Researchers found that about a third of the workers developed headaches with use of the mask, most had preexisting headaches that were worsened by the mask wearing, and 60% required pain medications for relief. As to the cause of the headaches, while straps and pressure from the mask could be causative, the bulk of the evidence points toward hypoxia and/or hypercapnia as the cause. That is, a reduction in blood oxygenation (hypoxia) or an elevation in blood C02 (hypercapnia).

Face Masks Pose Serious Risks to the Healthy

By Dr. Russell Blaylock, July 24, 2020

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Important report on “Wearing a Mask”, entitled “What they’re not telling you.

FOX News’s Laura Ingraham‘s report Reveals the Truth.

What the latest science tells us.  What about the actual data.

To View Click Here or Click the Video

VIDEO

House and Senate leaders are discussing whether to include this exemption for COVID-19 vaccines under development in new legislation likely to be passed and signed into law in the coming days.

Most likely, tort liability protection for Big Pharma will be approved.

All vaccines contain harmful to human health toxins — including mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, and phenoxyethanol (antifreeze).

Vaccines can be more hazardous than diseases they’re designed to protect against, most people unaware of the risks, establishment media concealing them.

Toxins in vaccines weaken the human immune system, making vaxxed individuals vulnerable to potentially life-threatening illnesses — young children and the elderly most at risk.

In developing vaccines, most clinical trials fail. Years of development precede the production and marketing of new ones.

Despite years of research, no successful coronavirus vaccines were ever developed.

Yet a race is on by drug and biotech companies to develop, produce, and mass-vax millions of people in the coming months against COVID-19.

Last week, Thailand Medical News reported that to date,

“more than 13,782 scientific studies have been published with regards to the COVID-19 disease and the SAR-CoV-2” virus that causes it.

“There are more than 2,472 clinical trials either planned or in progress with regards to COVID-19 disease in terms of repurposed drugs, new pharmaceuticals, supplements, herbal and traditional medicine, antibodies, vaccines, medical devices etc.”

“There are about 126 completed clinical trials to date.”

“There are more than 372 existing drugs being studied for repurposing to treat various aspects of the COVID-19 disease along with 17 new pharmaceutical preparations, 64 phytochemicals from plants and herbs and 38 proteomes.”

“There are more than 148 vaccine candidates in development stages.”

“There are at least…127,000 scientific researchers from around the world from various specialties and fields working on various aspects to find solutions for the COVID-19 disease.”

Rushed development of vaccines amounts to playing Russian roulette with human health.

Instead of protecting the public from health hazards, US ruling authorities, in cahoots with Big Pharma, are promoting use of potentially dangerous vaccines ahead — in lieu of proved effective, widely available, inexpensive hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) when used with either azithromycin or doxycycline and zinc. More on this below.

In 2005, the US Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREPA) became the law of the land.

It “authorizes the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to issue a declaration that provides immunity from liability (except for willful misconduct) for claims of loss caused, arising out of, relating to, or resulting from administration or use of countermeasures to diseases, threats and conditions determined by the Secretary to constitute a present, or credible risk of a future public health emergency to entities and individuals.”

It granted Big Pharma tort liability protection for avian influenza vaccines, including from vaccine safety laws enacted by states — at the discretion of HHS.

In 2011, the US Supreme Court in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth ruled in favor of protecting Big Pharma from state tort liability lawsuits that seek damages for injuries or death attributed to use of a vaccine.

Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Scalia argued that the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act preempts all vaccine design defect claims against vaccine manufacturers brought by plaintiffs seeking compensation for injury or death.

The majority 6 – 2 ruling held that “a vaccine side effect could always have been avoidable by use of a different vaccine not containing the harmful element.”

Ignored was that ALL vaccines contain harmful to human health substances.

Perhaps one day vaccines will be largely or entirely safe to use as directed, clearly not so now, why Big Phama should be held liable for injury or death from use of their vaccines and other drugs that cause physical harm when used as directed.

The same goes for all products and services sold by companies to consumers or other firms.

COVID-19 vaccine developers want liability protection from products they’ll market in the months ahead.

Note: The highly touted Moderna COVID-19 vaccine induced adverse reactions in over half of clinical trial participants, some cases severe — what’s been unreported by major media.

Other COVID-19 vaccines in development may face similar issues, notably because they’re being rushed to market in the coming months. Consumers beware.

Last week, James Todaro MD quoted former New England Journal of Medicine editor-in-chief Marcia Angel, saying the following:

“Now primarily a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit, (the pharmaceutical) industry uses its wealth and power to co-opt every institution that might stand in its way, including the US Congress, the Food and Drug Administration, academic medical centers, and the medical profession itself.”

Dr. Todaro stressed the following:

“In the history of medicine, no single drug has been so singularly attacked by the media, World Health Organization, government officials and institutional health experts as hydroxychloroquine (HCQ),” adding:

“Approved as a ‘safe and cost-effective’ essential medicine by the WHO, CDC and regulatory authorities across Europe, hydroxychloroquine has been prescribed to millions of patients over the past 65 years.”

“Despite decades of known safety, hydroxychloroquine was labelled ‘dangerous’ and a ‘poisonous substance’ after showing promise as a therapeutic for COVID-19.”

Full-court press negative publicity by the NYT, WaPo, CNN, and other establishment media demeans HCQ, ignoring its effectiveness in treating COVID-19 when properly administered during the disease’s early stage.

Epidemiologist Harvey Risch MD stressed that HCQ was shown to be “highly effective (when) given (to patients) very early in the course of treating” COVID-19 — especially when given in combination with the antibiotics azithromycin or doxycycline and the nutritional supplement zinc.”

Why is this information being suppressed? Why isn’t the public fully informed?

It’s because of the hugely profitable market potential Big Pharma hopes to cash in on by convincing millions of people to be mass-vaxxed against COVID-19.

Most people are unaware of possible harmful to health side effects they could experience early or much later, including major illnesses.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s Children’s Health Defense.org website (CHD) explained that

“severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS – 2003 was) was a dress rehearsal…for Covid-19 in 2020,” adding:

Research showed that Chloroquine (CQ) and HCQ are prophylactically and therapeutically effective in treating the coronavirus.

“In early April, a survey of US physicians found that two-thirds (65%) would prescribe CQ or HCQ ‘to treat or prevent COVID-19 in a family member,’ and roughly the same percentage (67%) would take it themselves.”

“In May, the White House doctor confirmed HCQ’s excellent benefit-to-risk ratio.”

“For the biopharma companies poised to profit from new drugs and Covid-19 vaccines…it is not an attractive option to keep older drugs that have outlived their patent” protection.”

Instead of advocating for HCQ’s widespread use, the Big Pharma controlled FDA revoked authorization for its use in treating COVID-19.

The nation’s top-ranked Mayo Clinic medical facility falsely claims no effective COVID-19 medications or cures exist.

CHD explained that nations using HCQ have “only one-tenth the mortality rate in countries where there is interference with this medication, such as the United States.”

As the saying goes, follow the money. A potential bonanza of revenues and profits awaits drug and biotech companies whose COVID-19 vaccines are approved for sale by the FDA in the months ahead.

CQ has been around since 1934, HCQ since the mid-1940s, the latter drug approved by the FDA in 1955 to treat autoimmune-inflammatory conditions.

HCQ especially was shown to be effective prophylactically and therapeutically in treating COVID-19 as explained above.

The CHD reported that through late July,

“65 studies around the world indicated that 100% of the studies that assessed HCQ for Covid-19 pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) or early use showed ‘high effectiveness,’ as did 61% of the studies examining HCQ use in later stages of illness.”

When properly used, HCQ can prevent or cure COVID-19 most often.

The alternative is going along with mass-vaxxing, risking potentially hazardous to human health side effects that may include contracting coronavirus disease and/or something more serious.

Note: If HCQ was widely promoted and used by the public, no lockdowns, social distancing, face masks, or other self-protective actions would be needed.

Economic and social life could resume normally without fear of contracting COVID-19.

Responsible government would promote the above, prioritizing public health, safety and welfare.

Not the US, acting in cahoots with Big Pharma’s aim to cash in big from hazardous to human health vaccines when available.

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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 Natural News

One noisy theme in the Donald Trump Disruption Show in an otherwise chaotic assemblage of messages has remained fairly constant: winding back US troop commitments.  The US has fought its complement of wars, bloodied and bloodying.  Time to up stakes and head home.  It was a message that sold in 2016 across the aisles of politics, and it is one that continues to resonate.  But the practice of it has proven murkier.  Nothing this president does can be otherwise.  The US military complex remains sprawling, overweight and defiant.  As a result, the military footprint has been not so much dissipated as readjusted. 

President Trump’s recent decision to move troops out of Germany is a case in point.  Those wishing for a trimmer, less militarist imperium will be disappointed.  The shifting of 11,900 US personnel out of the country is seemingly a matter of rearrangement and fitting. The imperium is merely adjusting the furniture. 

US Secretary of Defence Mark Esper gave the decision a tactical dress.  The redeployment would, contrary to critics, strengthen NATO, deter Russia and ready the US military for “a new era of great power competition.”  This realignment of “our forces in Europe” would “support our partners and stand up to military adversary behaviour.” 

Of the designated number, 6,400 will return to the US.  These are intended for future redeployment in Eastern Europe and elsewhere while 5,600 are destined for Belgium, Italy and other NATO countries. Instead of coating the decision in the carefully chosen doublespeak of strategy, Trump was reliably cranky in justification.  As he explained, the

troops “are there to protect Germany, right?  Germany’s not paying for it.  We don’t want to be suckers any more.  The United States has been taken advantage of for 25 years, both on trade and on the military.  So we’re reducing the force because they are not paying their bills.”

This was something of a stretch – and a very elastic one at that.  The gripe Trump and his circle have had since coming to office is that powers such as Germany simply do not spend enough on defence, while happy-go-lucky chauvinist states like Poland, do.  In June last year, Trump suggested the possibility of moving US troops to Poland from Germany, while the Polish President Andrzej Duda felt “deeply justified to ensure that the US troops are left in Europe.”  US ambassador to Poland Georgette Mosbacher, forgetting her diplomatic posting, added a dash of one-upmanship. 

“Poland meets its 2% of GDP spending obligation towards NATO. Germany does not.  We would welcome American troops to in Germany to come to Poland.” 

In August 2019, then US ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, very much the fly in the ointment of US-German relations, warned that some form of withdrawal, either total or partial, would take place unless an increase in defence spending took place.  As he is reported to have told the DPA news agency,

“It is actually offensive to assume that the US taxpayer must continue to pay to have 50,000 plus Americans in Germany, but the Germans get to spend their surplus on domestic programs.”

The current percentage of German military spending as a share of GDP is 1.5%.  Washington continues to press for the threshold of 2%.  Ironically enough, US troop redeployments will take place largely to countries with levels of expenditure even lower than Germany.  Italy comes in at 1.2%; Belgium, a pinch under 1%.  The military spenders in Poland will be disappointed.

Whatever the substance of the decision, such reorientations struck the security establishment on both sides of the Atlantic as something nearing treachery.  When the president floated the idea of reducing the troop numbers last month, there were protesting squeals and calls of warning.  The Big Bully parent was abandoning its adoptees and advertising that fact. 

“President Donald J. Trump’s order to withdraw nearly ten thousand troops from Germany betrays a close ally, undermines confidence in Washington, and makes Europe and the United States less safe,” suggested Philip Gordon of the Council of Foreign Relations.  “By questioning the sanctity of the US defence guarantee in Europe, treating NATO as a protection racket, and unilaterally diminishing America’s ability to uphold that guarantee,” Gordon continues to fuss that, “Trump is effectively signalling that an attack on a NATO ally would not necessarily be met with a US response.” 

An imaginative reading, if ever there was one.

Various German politicians, weaned on the narrative that a Germany with a US garrison is far better than a Germany without, were also shaken.  Norbert Röttgen of the Bundestag and chair of the German parliament’s foreign policy committee expressed his views through the Funke Media Group.  He could see no “factual reason for the withdrawal” and doing so was “very regrettable”.  Johann Wadephul, deputy chairman of the parliamentary caucus of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right Union bloc, was similarly unimpressed.  The decision to remove such numbers of US troops from Germany without consulting NATO allies “shows once again that the Trump administration is neglecting basic leadership tasks.”  Merkel’s transatlantic coordinator Peter Beyer was similarly aggrieved.

“This is completely unacceptable, especially since nobody in Washington thought about informing its NATO ally Germany in advance.”   

Their shock suggested the sinking of an idea: that the hegemon, the superpower, is obligated to consult those whose territory it chooses to use, whose grounds it decided to occupy or leave for vague reasons of security.  Daddy should listen. 

Emily Haber, Germany’s ambassador to Washington, is keen that should happen, sending out messages of sweet reassurance that US troops had “become neighbours, friends, partners and friends while protecting transatlantic security and projecting American power and interests globally”.

Notwithstanding the inconsistencies in the move, the logic of garrisoning such a large number of troops in Germany has not struck some pundits as particularly sound.  Being of the Cato Institute, which does, from time to time, evoke a sensible sentiment with regards imperial overstretch, Ted Galen Carpenter assured opponents of Trump’s decision that they “look at the calendar.  It reads 2020, not 1950 or even 1989.  There is no totalitarian threat, and the Red Army is not poised to pour through the Fulda Gap in Germany and try to sweep the Atlantic.”   

Exaggerating the Russian threat, however, is a long standing tradition that has made funding military budgets and keeping US troops in place over the globe a fundamental, if fictional necessity. Not even Trump has succeeded in dousing that paranoid passion.

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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: Consul General Meghan Gregonis, U.S. Consulate Munich welcomes Col. Patrick Disney, 1st Cavalry Division as he arrives at the Nuremberg Airport, Germany, March 5, 2020. Disney and his fellow Soldiers are the first to arrive to Germany for exercise DEFENDER-Europe 20. Exercise DEFENDER-Europe 20 is the deployment of a division-size combat-credible force from the United States to Europe, the drawing of equipment and the movement of personnel and equipment across the theater to various training areas. (U.S. Army photo by Capt. Ellen C. Brabo, 7th Army Training Command)(U.S. Army photo by Capt. Ellen C. Brabo, 7th Army Training Command)

Poland’s ambitions to restore its long-lost Great Power status in Europe received a fresh impetus following the establishment of the so-called “Lublin Triangle” between itself, Lithuania, and Ukraine that de-facto aims to revive the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as the core of the Warsaw-led Three Seas Initiative, which is poised to create lots of trouble for Russia in Eastern Europe, especially in terms of its strategic partnership with wayward ally Belarus that used to be part of the Polish realm for centuries.

In her weekly media briefing July 23, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova criticized United States support for educational programs, media and NGOs in Africa. In addition, Zakharova said

“the allocation of grants fits into the White House’s efforts to promote the idea that there is no alternative to Western concepts regarding state governance and the imposition of alien values on sovereign states, and this represents another manifestation of neo-colonialism and an element of covertly formalizing inequality in the overall system of international ties.”

Russia’s position as contained in her briefing is available on the official website, and part of which is further quoted here:

“We have no choice but to comment and explain why we perceive this as Washington’s striving to eliminate the favorable regional socio-political background with regard to Russia that became particularly obvious following the Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi in October 2019.

It appears that the United States is deliberately encouraging anti-Russia publications in some African media outlets and is trying to portray Russia as a destabilizing force. We are confident that such methods of unfair competition and misinformation show that there is no hard evidence confirming the so-called Russian policy of propaganda and misinformation, and this is also the consequence of weak US approaches in the field of public diplomacy.”

That well-said of the United States, it is equally important to note that since the Soviet collapse in 1991, the question of media representation both ways, in Russia and in Africa, has attracted unprecedented concern and discussions. Over the years, nearly 30 years after the Soviet era, Russia has not encouraged African media, especially those from south of Sahara, to operate in the Russian Federation.

On the other hand, Russian media resources are largely far from eminent in Africa, and these include the media conglomerate popularly referred to as Rossiya Sevogdnya (RIA Novosti, Voice of Russia and Russia Today), TASS News Agency and Interfax Information Service. These are powerful and reputable Russian brands, compared to most well-known Western and European media organizations that cooperate with Africa.

Even not quite long, that was in November 2018, the State Duma, the lower house of parliamentarians, called for an increased Russian media presence in African countries, while Russia has closed its doors in offering opportunities for Africa media representation in the Russian Federation.

During the meeting that was scheduled to brainstorm for fresh views and ideas on the current Russia-African relations, State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin told Ambassadors from African countries:

“it is necessary to take certain steps together for the Russian media to work on the African continent.”

“You know that the Russian media provide broadcasting in various languages, they work in many countries, although it is certainly impossible to compare this presence with the presence of the media of the United States, United Kingdom and Germany,” Volodin said, and promised that the State Duma would create the necessary legal basis for this long-term media cooperation.

Experts say that neither Russia has an African media face nor Africa has a Russian media face. Thus, in the absence of suitable alternative sources, African political leaders and corporate business directors depend on western media reports about developments in Russia and from the developed world.

Interestingly, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Information and Press Department has accredited media from Latin America, the United States, Europe and Asian countries, and only two African media came from the Maghreb region (Morocco and Egypt) in North Africa.

The official information presented during the first Russia-Africa Summit, held in October 2019, explicitly showsed the degree of priority given to African media. Some 300 media bureaus from 60 countries are currently operating in Russia, including 800 foreign correspondents while there are only two African news bureaus from Egypt and Morocco, according to Artem Kozhin, who represented the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Information and Press Department, at the panel discussion on media.

According to his interpretation, this extremely low representation of African media hardly meets the level of current dynamically developing relations between Russia and Africa.

“We invite all interested parties to open news bureaus and expand media cooperation with Russia,” Kozhin said at the gathering, inviting Africa media to Moscow.

Nearly all the panelists noted precisely that western media dominates in Africa.

“Often times, unique news offerings created by the Russian media simply do not make to the users and viewers in many regions, including Africa. Evidently, this vacuum gets filled with one-sided information from other players in the media market. This information can be biased, or outright hostile towards Russia and residents of other countries,” said Mikhail Bogdanov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and Special Presidential Representative for the Middle East and Africa.

During the Russia-Africa Summit, Professor Alexey Vasiliev, the first appointed Special Representative of Russian President for Relations with Africa (2006-2011) and currently the Head of the Center for African and Arab Studies at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (2013-2020), told the audience there in Sochi:

“Africa is largely unaware of Russia, since African media mainly consumes information the Western media sources and then replicates them. And all the fake news, the Rusophobia and anti-Russian propaganda, spread by the western media, are repeated in the African media.”

“Measures are needed to enable us to better understand each other,” suggested Professor Vasiliev, who regularly advises the Presidential Administration, the Government of the Russian Federation, both chambers of the Federal Assembly, and the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Some experts have consistently argued that Russia has discriminated against sub-Saharan Africa. That trend remains unchanged even after the first Russia-Africa Summit, in Sochi with the primary aim of helping identify new areas and forms of cooperation, put forward promising initiatives that would bring collaboration between Russia and Africa to a qualitatively new level and contribute to strengthening multifaceted cooperation between the two regions.

Let that be the acceptable case, but both Russia and Africa have basic questions that still need quick answers. The questions raised at the panel discussion on media in Russia-Africa gathering: What issues are currently encountered in the formation of the modern media landscape? What role does the media play in Russian-African relations? What are the prospects for collaboration in the information sphere? What needs to be done to develop a Russian media agenda in Africa? What is the role and place of Russia in the information space of Africa today? What role can African media play in promoting further Russia’s image in Africa?

In practical terms, the highly successful spade-work was the first Russia-Africa Summit. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has to layout some new mechanisms and adopt a more favorable approach that could readily attract African media to operate in the Russian Federation.

Russia and Africa need to examine every sphere based on shared partnership interests and redefine practical approach to realizing whatever plans on media cooperation. Media and NGOs, as instruments for improving adequately public knowledge, especially on developments and emerging opportunities, have not been persuaded to match the desired future objectives and policy goals.

The stark reality is that Russia needs Africa media and Africa needs Russian media, in order for them to enlighten ties in the economic spheres, to promote a better understanding among African elites and the middle class through media reports.

Professor Vladimir Shubin, the former Deputy Director of the Institute for African Studies, explained in an interview with me that political relations between Russia and Africa as well as the economic cooperation would attract more and more academic discussions, and such scholarly contributions, in essence, would help deepen understanding of the problems that impede building solid relationship or partnership with Russia.

In order to maintain this relationship, both Russia and Africa have to pay high attention to and take significant steps in promoting their achievements and highlighting the most development needs in a comprehensive way for mutual benefits using appropriately the media, according to Professor Shubin.

“African leaders do their best in developing bilateral relations,” he added. “Truly and passionately, they come to Russia more often than ten years ago, but a lot still has to be done; both Russian and African media, in this case, have a huge role to play.”

Perhaps, one of the reasons why some African leaders appear to have “written off” Russia has been lack of adequate information about Russia, or rather plenty of distorted information they have received from the Western media coverage of Russia, Professor Shubin concluded.

“Russian media write very little about Africa, what is going on there, what are the social and political dynamics in different parts of the continent. Media and NGOs should make big efforts to increase the level of mutual knowledge, which can stimulate interest for each other and lead to increased economic interaction as well,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal ‘Russia in Global Affairs‘ and also the Chairman of the State Council on Foreign and Defense Policy.

“To a certain extent,” Lukyanov said, “the intensification of non-political contacts may contribute to increased interest. But in Russia’s case, the main drivers of any cooperation are more traditional rather than political interests of the state and economic interests of big companies. Soft power has never been a strong side of Russian policy in the post-Soviet era.”

Similarly, Bunn Nagara, a Senior Fellow of the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, member of the Valdai Discussion Club, has observed that “Russian businesses face a number of challenges. First, there is little information available internationally about the opportunities and possibilities for partnerships between Russian and foreign businesses.”

“Russia is a large country spanning both Europe and Asia. So, it can do much to bring Asian and European business linkages together and build on them. Better public relations and improved information dissemination are very important. To do this, it needs to do more in spreading more and better information about its achievements, the progress so far, its future plans, and the opportunities available,” Bunn Nagara said.

Early October 2019, the Valdai Discussion Club released an ebook titled “Russia’s Return to Africa: Strategy and Prospects” jointly or collectively authored by Vadim Balytnikov, Oleg Barabanov, Andrei Yemelyanov, Dmitry Poletaev, Igor Sid and Natalia Zaiser.

The Valdai Discussion Club was established in 2004, with a goal is to promote dialogue between Russian and international intellectual elite, and to make an independent, unbiased scientific analysis of political, economic and social events in Russia and the rest of the world.

The authors explicitly suggested the need to take steps in countering Western anti-Russia clichés that are spreading in Africa and shaping a narrative whereby only dictators and outcast partner with Russians. Therefore, efforts to improve Russia’s image must target not only the continent’s elite, but also a broader public opinion. It would be advisable to create and develop appropriate media tools to this effect.

Media and NGOs, working with the civil society, have to support official efforts in pushing for building a positive image and in strengthening diplomacy. Displaying an attentive and caring attitude towards the African diaspora in Russia, the key objective is to overcome racist stereotypes that persist in marginal segments of Russian society. Helping highly qualified educated migrants to integrate through employment. This will, in addition, showcase and shape public opinion about Africa in the Russian Federation.

According to the authors, building a more and consistent positive public opinion within Russia and Africa should be considered extremely important at this stage of relations between Russia and Africa. Should Russia assist other countries for political purposes only? Will the recipient countries be willing to lend Russia their political support, and can they be trusted? Should Russia build its partnerships exclusively based on the principle of economic expediency?

The authors wrote:

“Russia will have to answer these questions as it moves towards implementing its African strategy. Its experience in working with public opinion and governments across Eurasia to shape public perceptions will come in handy in Africa.”

In the context of these existing challenges, leaders on both sides have to draw a roadmap. Inside Africa, Africans have had enough of all these public debates. The time has come to make progressive changes to the current approach, create a new outlook or simply call it “media facelift” instead of maintaining the old status quo. It means taking concrete practical steps toward media cooperation, this will substantially not only broaden but deepen two-way understanding of current developments in Russia and in Africa.

The irreversible fact is that there is the need to have an informed African society, and this has to be done largely, systematically and necessarily through the media. Africa has the largest number of young people, who look at the world with open eyes and are ready for cooperation with partner countries. This is a good opportunity to inform the young generation, bring them together through knowledge from Russia, Eurasia, and Africa. According to UN forecasts, the Africa’s middle class, which constitutes a very huge vibrant information-consuming market, will exceed 350 million by 2025.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah is a passionate contributor to Global Research. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports. Most of his well-resourced articles are reprinted elsewhere in a number of reputable foreign media.

Tensions between the United States and China are rising as the U.S. election nears, with tit-for-tat consulate closures, new U.S. sanctions and no less than three U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups prowling the seas around China. But it is the United States that has initiated each new escalation in U.S.-China relations. China’s responses have been careful and proportionate, with Chinese officials such as Foreign Minister Wang Yi publicly asking the U.S. to step back from its brinkmanship to find common ground for diplomacy.

Most of the U.S. complaints about China are long-standing, from the treatment of the Uighur minority and disputes over islands and maritime borders in the South China Sea to accusations of unfair trade practices and support for protests in Hong Kong. But the answer to the “Why now?” question seems obvious: the approaching U.S. election.

Danny Russel, who was Obama’s top East Asia expert in the National Security Council and then at the State Department, told the BBC that the new tensions with China are partly an effort to divert attention from Trump’s bungled response to the Covid-19 pandemic and his tanking poll numbers, and that this “has a wag the dog feel to it.”

Meanwhile, Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden has been going toe-to-toe with Trump and Secretary Pompeo in a potentially dangerous “tough on China” contest, which could prove difficult for the winner to walk back after the election.

Elections aside, there are two underlying forces at play in the current escalation of tensions, one economic and the other military. China’s economic miracle has lifted hundreds of millions of its people out of poverty, and, until recently, Western corporations were glad to make the most of its huge pool of cheap labor, weak workplace and environmental protections, and growing consumer market. Western leaders welcomed China into their club of wealthy, powerful countries with little fuss about human and civil rights or China’s domestic politics.

So what has changed? U.S.high-tech companies like Apple, which were once only too glad to outsource American jobs and train Chinese contractors and engineers to manufacture their products, are finally confronting the reality that they have not just outsourced jobs, but also skills and technology. Chinese companies and highly skilled workers are now leading some of the world’s latest technological advances.

The global rollout of 5G cellular technology has become a flashpoint, not because the increase and higher frequency of EMF radiation it involves may be dangerous to human health, which is a real concern, but because Chinese firms like Huawei and ZTE have developed and patented much of the critical infrastructure involved, leaving Silicon Valley in the unfamiliar position of having to play catch-up.

Also, if the U.S.’s 5G infrastructure is built by Huawei and ZTE instead of AT&T and Verizon, the U.S. government will no longer be able to require “back doors” that the NSA can use to spy on us all, so it is instead stoking fears that China could insert its own back doors in Chinese equipment to spy on us instead. Left out of the discussion is the real solution: repeal the Patriot Act and make sure that all the technology we use in our daily lives is secure from the prying eyes of both the U.S. and foreign governments.

China is investing in infrastructure all over the world. As of March 2020, a staggering 138 countries have joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a massive plan to connect Asia with Africa and Europe via land and maritime networks. China’s international influence will only be enhanced by its success, and the U.S.’s failure, in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic.

On the military front, the Obama and Trump administrations have both tried to “pivot to Asia” to confront China, even as the U.S. military remains bogged down in the Middle East.  With a war-weary public demanding an end to the endless wars that have served to justify record military spending for nearly 20 years, the U.S. military-industrial complex has to find more substantial enemies to justify its continued existence and budget-busting costs. Lockheed Martin is not ready to switch from building billion-dollar warplanes on cost-plus contracts to making wind turbines and solar panels.

The only targets the U.S. can find to justify a $740-billion military budget and 800 overseas military bases are its familiar old Cold War enemies: Russia and China. They both expanded their modest military budgets after 2011, when the U.S. and its allies hi-jacked the Arab Spring to launch covert and proxy wars in Libya, where China had substantial oil interests, and Syria, a long-term Russian ally. But their increases in military spending were only relative. In 2019, China’s military budget was only $261 billion compared to the U.S.’s $732 billion, according to SIPRI. The U.S. still spends more on its military than the ten next largest military powers combined, including Russia and China.

Russian and Chinese military forces are almost entirely defensive, with an emphasis on advanced and effective anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems. Neither Russia nor China has invested in carrier strike groups to sail the seven seas or U.S.-style expeditionary forces to attack or invade countries on the other side of the planet. But they do have the forces and weapons they need to defend themselves and their people from any U.S. attack and both are nuclear powers, making a major war against either of them a more serious prospect than the U.S. military has faced anywhere since the Second World War.

China and Russia are both deadly serious about defending themselves, but we should not misinterpret that as enthusiasm for a new arms race or a sign of aggressive intentions on their part. It is U.S. imperialism and militarism that are driving the escalating tensions. The sad truth is that 30 years after the supposed end of the Cold War, the U.S. military-industrial complex has failed to reimagine itself in anything but Cold War terms, and its “New” Cold War is just a revival of the old Cold War that it spent the last three decades telling us it already won.

“China Is Not an Enemy”

The U.S. and China do not have to be enemies. Just a year ago, a hundred U.S. business, political and military leaders signed a public letter to President Trump in the Washington Post entitled “China Is Not an Enemy.” They wrote that China is not “an economic enemy or an existential national security threat,” and U.S opposition “will not prevent the continued expansion of the Chinese economy, a greater global market share for Chinese companies and an increase in China’s role in world affairs.”

They concluded that, “U.S. efforts to treat China as an enemy and decouple it from the global economy will damage the United States’ international role and reputation and undermine the economic interests of all nations,” and that the U.S. “could end up isolating itself rather than Beijing.”

That is precisely what is happening. Governments all over the world are collaborating with China to stop the spread of coronavirus and share the solutions with all who need them. The U.S. must stop pursuing its counterproductive effort to undermine China, and instead work with all our neighbors on this small planet. Only by cooperating with other nations and international organizations can we stop the pandemic—and address the coronavirus-sparked economic meltdown gripping the world economy and the many challenges we must all face together if we are to survive and thrive in the 21st century.

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

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

Featured image is from CODEPINK

COVID-19 and the Reification of the US-China “Cold War”

By Dr. Giulio Pugliese, August 03, 2020

The implications of the pandemic for US-China relations are relevant for global peace and prosperity, well beyond the Asia-Pacific. Rather than joining forces against the pandemic, COVID-19 is among the factors that have widened the rift between the United States and China, bringing bilateral relations to their lowest level since Nixon and Kissinger’s overtures in 1971. In fact, US-China zero-sum interactions across the geopolitical, economic, technological and political domains have spiralled towards a dangerous race to the bottom. While it is too early to declare a US-China “Cold War”, China’s assertiveness and the US maximalist pushback are working in lockstep to reify the Cold War trope past the 2020 US presidential elections.

Another Hiroshima Is Coming — Unless We Stop It Now

By John Pilger, August 03, 2020

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an act of premeditated mass murder that unleashed a weapon of intrinsic criminality. It was justified by lies that form the bedrock of America’s war propaganda in the 21st century, casting a new enemy, and target – China.

During the 75 years since Hiroshima, the most enduring lie is that the atomic bomb was dropped to end the war in the Pacific and to save lives.

Escalating Trump Regime Cold War on China

By Stephen Lendman, August 03, 2020

Focusing heavily on China bashing, the nonexistent “yellow peril” was reinvented, scapegoating Beijing, demonizing its ruling authorities, escalating US war on the country by other means.

Loose cannon Pompeo has been waging a steady war of words on China, pushing the envelope toward rupturing relations or something worse — possible direct confrontation.

What We Are Told and Not Told About the South China Sea

By James ONeill, August 03, 2020

If war breaks out between China and the United States, there is a high probability that the precipitating factor will be the South China Sea. The United States is currently running another of its so-called “freedom of navigation” exercises in the region, employing no less than two aircraft carriers, together with their supporting armada of warships. The western media regularly report these naval exercises but rarely if ever is the historical situation put into any kind of context.

China Calls to Confront US Bullying and Uphold Multilateralism

By Telesur, July 31, 2020

China seeks the support of the European Union (EU) countries to counter the hegemonic behavior of the United States, which could generate a new cold war, an interruption of globalization, and situations of risk for all humanity.

The U.S. is “violating the most basic principles of international relations,” Chinese Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi said during a phone call with his French colleague Jean Yves Le Drian.

Revisions on China: Abandoning the Nixon Legacy, Pompeo the Puffed-up Hawk

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, July 26, 2020

The largest authoritarian target for the Trump administration remains China.  China is convenient; China is destiny.  The US imperium has always needed, on some level, handy demons to justify vast military budgets and its sprawling network of military bases.  Lacking enemies would naturally lessen the case and show up the jingoes as men and women of straw.  When the Soviet Union vanished, ending the most expensive, phoniest confrontation in modern history, the rogues’ gallery suddenly seemed empty, largely because many of those rogues were sponsored or backed by the US imperium.  This was a time ludicrously called the “end of history” by that most fatuous of political observers, Francis Fukuyama.  But candidates of wickedness were eventually found: President George W. Bush’s “axis of evil”, born in the embers of New York’s World Trade Centre; the shop-for-terror al-Qaeda network; a miscellany of terrorists.

Washington’s Anti-Chinese “Pan-Asian Alliance”

By Tony Cartalucci, July 22, 2020

One of Washington’s reoccuring dreams is creating a “pan-Asian alliance” to encircle and contain China’s economic and political rise. Unable to do this through regime change, economic incentives, military alliances, or even coercion and terrorism, it has drawn deeper and deeper from its “soft power” toolkit.

The US is also increasingly lumping its various regional assets together to fight in its growing rift with China.

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Abstract

The implications of the pandemic for US-China relations are relevant for global peace and prosperity, well beyond the Asia-Pacific. Rather than joining forces against the pandemic, COVID-19 is among the factors that have widened the rift between the United States and China, bringing bilateral relations to their lowest level since Nixon and Kissinger’s overtures in 1971. In fact, US-China zero-sum interactions across the geopolitical, economic, technological and political domains have spiralled towards a dangerous race to the bottom. While it is too early to declare a US-China “Cold War”, China’s assertiveness and the US maximalist pushback are working in lockstep to reify the Cold War trope past the 2020 US presidential elections. 

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The fight against COVID-19 and its aftermath poses one of the most pressing challenges confronting the international community since the end of the Cold War. At the same time, the coronavirus crisis coincides with momentous changes in world politics and seems to accelerate the decline of the so-called liberal international order, a misnomer for an era loosely defined by multilateral diplomacy, an open world economy and a degree of international stability buttressed by US military preponderance and a US-China entente that extended from geopolitics to economics, trade, technology and finance. Yet, China’s new-found assertiveness, global political involution, the fecklessness of international organizations, the growing allure of dirigisme, and the advent of a more isolationist, if not outright disruptive and protectionist United States posture, have dealt repeated blows − both exogenous and endogenous – to international stability.

The pandemic has accelerated these political and economic trends. For instance, international organizations, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations, have been powerless in the face of COVID-19 because they’ve been playing second-fiddle to great power politics. China’s misreporting to and influence over the WHO contributed to an initial underestimation of the health risks and infectiousness associated with the novel coronavirus. Still, Washington’s populist decision to withdraw its funding and membership from the WHO – adding to growing frustrations of its European and Pacific allies – only exacerbated the problem of multilateral coordination during a pandemic. The emergency has allowed states to further centralize control over economic and social affairs – arguably also for good reasons – and has lent legitimacy to a recrudescence of nationalist and protectionist instincts, effectively empowering many of the world’s strongmen. Still, the ripple effects of a potential post-pandemic depression are hard to discern. As popular discontent mounts, populist strongmen and democratic leaders alike may exhaust the charisma acquired through COVID-19 crisis-responses, ushering the way to two broad scenarios. A pessimistic outlook suggests further political decay and deepening geopolitical tensions as national interests more easily clash, and leadership seeks to divert attention from socio-economic grievances. Alternatively, contemporary history has demonstrated that genuine political evolution, new social compacts, redistributive political economies and multilateral systems of governance may acquire a new shine following a major crisis (Both scenarios assessed by Fukuyama 2020).

This essay focuses on the geopolitical impact of the pandemic in the Asia-Pacific with an accent on US-China dynamics. I argue in favour of the first, pessimistic scenario because COVID-19 is cementing Sino-American strategic rivalry and crystallizing Washington’s maximalist pushback against Beijing, with implications that go well beyond the region. High-stake geopolitical manoeuvrings between the US and China are impacting economic, political and security dynamics globally. More importantly, the ongoing political warfare between the two – one that has been exacerbated by the pandemic – is cementing US-China enmity and reifying the new “Cold War”. Understanding the drivers of US-China strategic competition will help third parties better navigate the stormier geopolitical seas ahead. As the discussion below will demonstrate, US allies are well-advised to prepare for the challenges posed by a rising and aggressive China, but there is a concomitant need to manage and ameliorate the risks associated with a disruptive, and declining, hegemonic power – the United States of America. Given space limitations, this essay places special emphasis on the US pushback; the author recognizes China’s composite assertiveness, if not aggressiveness, that has fed into US behaviour (Small et alia 2020), but the radical pushback is arguably feeding the monster it has tried to tame.

US-China Power Politics During the Pandemic: Minds, Money and Might

Ever since the unveiling of the December 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS) and 2018 National Defense Strategy, the Trump administration has embarked on a steady crescendo of initiatives, both domestic and international in scope, aimed at curbing China’s influence. Following the demise of voices of moderation, such as former director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn, security and economic hawks within the Trump administration have steered the American ship of state towards a maximalist pushback against Chinese assertiveness. For instance, the National Security Council has worked in tandem with Mike Pompeo’s State Department, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and other relevant government agencies to craft a “whole-of-government” response that mobilized US leverage – from trade embargoes and military power to strategic communications and counterintelligence (Sutter 2019) – to contain China’s rise. The foreign policy pendulum had shifted substantially from the Obama presidency – an administration that was keener on transnational threats and diplomatic inducements over big-stick diplomacy – to usher in Trump’s highly transactional diplomacy, and contempt for global challenges – such as climate change –, multilateral cooperation, and international organizations. Thus, the US muscled up for an age of “great power competition” to pursue peace through strength and aimed at rectifying supposed security and economic imbalances with friends and foes alike, through an “America First” agenda.

Specific to the China challenge, the recent overhaul of the United States’ foreign and security policy is premised on a Manichean diagnosis of the nature of its main strategic competitor. Fieldwork in Washington DC in 2019 and 2020 suggested that key national security decisionmakers acted on the belief that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its influence are essentially malign. Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, the CCP engaged in cultural and (through forced sterilization) effective genocide in Xinjiang, heavy-handed political repression as in Hong Kong, and a dystopic use of new technologies for surveillance purposes. While much of this assessment rings true, the US government translated the CCP’s pursuit of regime security and its regional assertiveness into a conspiratorial assessment of China’s global intentions, capabilities, and modus operandi (Johnston 2019, Barboza 2020, Spalding 2019, McMaster 2020). US decisionmakers believe that the CCP seeks to export its autocratic system of governance, ensnares developing countries into neo-colonial “debt trap” diplomacy under the banner of the Belt and Road Initiative, infiltrates liberal democracies to meddle into their domestic politics, and leverages “whole-of-society” intelligence efforts to steal its competitors’ technological, military and economic secrets (White House 2020). In short, key US policymakers equated China with the Soviet Union and Xi Jinping with Joseph Stalin, to conclude that a capitalist, democratic United States was fundamentally incompatible and couldn’t co-exist with a Marxist-Leninist regime, that poses a long-term existential threat (Pompeo 2020, O’ Brien 2020).

Alas, the COVID-19 black swan has accelerated the international and domestic push factors towards a downward spiral in US-China relations. To be sure, the US-China Cold War trope already contained the seeds of a self-fulfilling prophecy (Wolf 2019), but the administration’s Cold Warriors did not have a free hand. For instance, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer were more interested in reaching a trade deal with Chinese counterparts rather than pursuing negotiations into an endless economic race to the bottom. More importantly, they were empowered by a US President, who prioritized his own re-election and, as long as the US economy roared and Trump could have spun the US-China phase-one trade deal as a “victory”, he was conspicuously uninterested in criticizing China’s gross human rights violations. In fact, the US president was enthralled by and envious of Xi Jinping’s autocratic powers and methods (Bolton 2020). Finally, while the US legislative branch pointed at a bipartisan consensus aimed at curbing Chinese influence the spirit remained largely reactive not least because US public opinion prioritized Islamic terrorism and Russia as international threats. On the contrary, the pandemic has empowered the US administration’s radical hawks, convinced Trump of the merits of demonizing China as key to a second term, thus abandoning his earlier restraint to make up for a failing economy and falling popularity. In turn, this informed a degree of reactive aggressiveness on China’s part and fed into spiralling US-China security dilemmas during an election year.

The pandemic has widened the international rift between the two great powers and accelerated the trend towards international instability. In the author’s view, the pandemic fed into mutual mistrust, deepening geopolitical tensions and mounting insecurity that were independent of each state’s strategic intent. The logic has been distinctively zero-sum. In fact, the US government explicitly aimed to prove that Beijing was more dependent on America than vice-versa (Pompeo 2020), while policymakers on both sides understood defensive or internally motivated initiatives as offensive ones. As a result, the US and China moved along a mix of reactive and assertive postures that betrayed a series of dangerous security dilemmas governing bilateral relations and the two governments have not shied from tapping all dimensions of power during the pandemic: military, economic and communication power. In fact, the Trump administration recalibrated its maximalist pushback on all of these dimensions in light of the security and economic hawks’ fixation with China’s “unrestricted warfare” (Barboza 2020, Spalding 2019). The pandemic presents a good window on the escalation of US-China power politics in the three-dimensional chessboard. The mutually reinforcing dangerous spirals in propaganda, techno-economic competition and military rivalry underpins the author’s pessimistic outlook.

Minds: An All-Out Information War

First and foremost, the US and China have been embroiled in an all-out communication war during the pandemic, replete with propaganda and disinformation. Domestic factors have been particularly salient in facilitating the vicious circle of US-China retaliatory tit-for-tat during the pandemic. Thomas Christensen has identified Trump’s and Xi’s preoccupation with the preservation of their own political legitimacy in the face of a major crisis as the driver of the US-China clash (Christensen 2020). Thus, China and the United States’ blame game on the origins of the pandemic, according to which government laboratories of either country were implicated in the creation of the virus, was aimed at diminishing the responsibilities of their own leaders. As the US economy entered into a recession, Trump and the Republican Party beat the “China/Wuhan virus” drums to: 1) demonize China for causing the pandemic and the economic crash, and 2) indict Joe Biden for being soft on China, for instance, because he did not support the administration’s early China travel ban and because he was traditionally in favour of a policy of engagement towards Beijing. These accusations would reach their nadir through heavy-handed ad campaigns, according to which Biden was complicit with China, a country responsible for “stealing our jobs” and “killing our people”.¹ In the process, the government-backed narratives of victimhood at the hands of a malevolent China have led public opinion to prioritize the China threat, and cornered Biden and the Democratic Party into an equally resolute stance against Beijing.

International factors in the zero-sum logic of power politics have also been at play. The US government’s preoccupation with building a “coalition of the willing” to investigate the origins of the virus, and its denial of WHO analyses of its origins and progression, certainly aimed at facile scapegoating to account for its home-bred failures, but also stemmed from the ideological belief that the CCP was responsible, even if unwittingly, for the creation and spread of the virus (Rogin 2020). The Trump administration aimed at cornering the CCP for its negligence in allowing the virus to spread in order to score points in the US-China global battle for “hearts-and-minds” that has gathered momentum over the past few years. Along with an overhaul of the State Department that prioritized the China challenge, and the rallying of the CIA, Homeland Security and other branches, the Trump administration defunded traditional public diplomacy programs to refurbish and substantially empower the Global Engagement Center (GEC) – an interagency office aimed at coordinating, integrating, and synchronizing government-wide communications initiatives directed at foreign audiences with an original focus on ISIS and, eventually, Russian disinformation. Under the Trump administration, GEC would engage in data-driven and audience-focused strategic communications that countered especially China’s narratives, propaganda, and public diplomacy-writ large. By 2020 GEC’s base budget had ballooned to $ 138 million dollars from $ 20.2 million dollars in fiscal year 2016 (Department of State 2020). The zero-sum quality to US-China public diplomacy initiatives triggered action/reaction dynamics, no matter the intended audiences and effectiveness of such messaging. For instance, GEC had prioritized China’s “medical aid diplomacy” in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis, especially its heavy-use of state-sponsored disinformation and coordinated inauthentic behaviour on social media (Gabrielle 2020).

GEC has grossly overestimated China’s efforts to subvert the US, hinting at an improbable coordination between Russia and China in the global propaganda wars and exaggerating the magnitude of China’s disinformation network on social media (CNN 2020). Alas, the US government apparently understood China’s propaganda efforts solely in terms of an offensive strategy that weaponized its public diplomacy to mimic Russian disinformation malpractice. According to this logic, China would spin its medical diplomacy and assistance for political advantage, thereby discrediting European and US governments’ actions, magnifying social tensions and driving a wedge between targeted states and their traditional allies.

In fact, China’s “wolf-warrior” diplomacy and manipulative social media engagement was essentially domestic-focused. The propaganda and retaliatory measures threatened against countries that criticized Beijing’s handling of the crisis, such as Australia, successfully alienated China’s counterparts. Similar to the Wolf Warrior movie franchise, China’s heavy-handed diplomacy and more active use of government-backed disinformation campaigns on Western social media were successful with the intended audiences: Chinese citizens – who vicariously participated in the Twitter battles through echoes in their own state-sanctioned media – Chinese expats and overseas Chinese. Authoritative China-watchers recognize that Beijing acted out of a feeling of deep insecurity over regime stability – in fact, real unemployment had already sky-rocketed ahead of the COVID-19 crisis (Interview 2019) – and preliminary evidence suggests that China’s overseas information operations were aimed at mobilizing and cementing a united front already by late 2019 (Etō 2020). The US government’s all-out communication offensive on the virus origins, on China’s mishandling of the coronavirus, and high-profile calls for political change (Pottinger 2020; Pompeo 2020) certainly hit a raw nerve in Zhongnanhai, because overseas Chinese communities, which have fuller access to information through Western media and social media platforms, are an important pressure group on regime stability in the mainland.

Above all, US efforts to demonize China across a wide range of issues from Covid to economic exploitation and technological espionage directed against the US were above all meant for domestic audiences to raise awareness of the long-term “existential threat” posed by China, in the words of Attorney General William Barr. The US counter-intelligence pushback under the banner of the DOJ’s “China Initiative” picked up momentum with high-profile indictments targeting Chinese espionage activities in the US climaxing during the pandemic. In July FBI director William Wray reported more than 2000 active counterintelligence investigations tied to China, and a new China-related counterintelligence investigation opened by the FBI every 10 hours (Wray 2020). Growing oversight and limitations on the activities of US-based Chinese diplomats and state-sanctioned media outlets, visa caps and bans on Chinese reporters, advanced STEM researchers and Chinese nationals with previous ties to the military apparatus, and threats of a visa freeze against the hundreds of thousands of foreign, especially Chinese, students in US high schools and universities were a prelude to the July 2020 closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston. These activities illustrate the US government’s maximalist agenda. The Chinese tit-for-tat response was closure of the US consulate in Chengdu, with little comparable fanfare and popular mobilization. The Chinese government walked a fine line between communicating resolve, while not escalating the situation.

Ahead of the pandemic, US officials suggested that prosecutors were going to come up with a flurry of indictments on China-related espionage matters (CSIS 2020), but the surprising escalation of events testified to the hawks’ growing shadow within the US administration. And in February 2020, for instance, the DOJ indicted Huawei on charges under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) that it stole intellectual property rights from six US companies; this unusual indictment, usually reserved for criminal organizations, is part of an effort to prevent Huawei from using the US financial system, including US dollars-based transactions, and discrediting it with other countries such as Britain which has succumbed to US pressures to cancel Huawei operations in that country.

Money: Techno-Economic Decoupling Accelerates

The above initiatives were closely linked with US economic competition with China, especially Beijing’s quest for a technological edge at the dawn of the fourth industrial revolution. Following the advent of Trump, the US redoubled its efforts at economic statecraft. That is, the use of economic and tech policy to advance security and diplomatic goals. China’s dirigisme, its distorted market practices and its notorious intellectual property right infringements have prompted a series of defensive countermeasures – including the aforementioned DOJ’s China Initiative – to protect the US defense industrial base and its sensitive technologies, also through tighter screening of foreign direct investments, and export controls. This initiative prioritized foundational technologies, that could provide a military and economic edge to US firms. After all, the deployment of new technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, quantum computing, robotics and advanced information and communication components presented dual-use risks. These were especially evident under China’s “military-civil fusion” path to technological innovation.

Yet, Washington also embarked on a more offensive set of measures to slow down China’s transformation into a global powerhouse able to compete with the US. Import tariffs, blanket bans and threats against the rollout of Chinese 5G networks at home and abroad, and the imposition of export controls on US technology to major competitors, such as Huawei, would have led to a US-China technological and economic decoupling, with major ruptures to global supply chains. By the time China and the US had agreed on a “phase one” trade deal, overall tariffs on Chinese imports into the US market had sky-rocketed to 19.3%. China also agreed to buy $ 200 billion-worth of US exports to freeze the trade war and deter Trump from more restrictive executive orders against its national champions, but the pandemic broke the US-China economic truce. As the coronavirus hit China, implementation of the US-China trade deal became unlikely; and as the coronavirus hit the United States and the global economy, the prospects of a Trump’s re-election dimmed.

For these reasons, Trump jumped embraced the China hawks’ maximalist agenda to engage in markedly more destructive economic statecraft. In May 2020 Trump renewed an earlier executive order concerned with embargoing exports of US technology and components to Chinese powerhouses, including Huawei. More importantly, he agreed – following earlier vacillations – to block US semiconductors and foreign chips with US tech component from reaching Huawei. The US government did explore inducements and alternatives to China’s 5G dominance; at different points, government officials suggested buying up or providing export credits to Nokia and Ericsson, Huawei’s largest competitors on 5G components, or providing export credits to cloud-based alternatives hailing from Japan. But the government was now clearly acting in ways to slow Huawei down, through heavy-handed US high-tech embargoes and restricting market access (FitzGerald et al 2020).

Finally, OECD countries’ — indeed much of the world — heavy reliance on China for the supply of medical products and active ingredients of most generic drugs has translated into cool-headed calls to (partly) readjust their economies’ supply chains. Yet US tariffs and its technological offensive aimed at slowing down China’s catch-up, also included negative inducements for US and multinational enterprises to more fully decouple from China’s market and tech-providers. Essentially, these countermeasures heighten the risk of doing business with China’s multinational enterprise, and will drive away customers from suboptimal Chinese products, especially in high income economies. The US government certainly demonized the risks associated with Chinese technology, from 5G components to social media platforms, to convince allies and third countries from shunning these products. The bad press China received during the pandemic –also due to Beijing’s own heavy-handed tactics and self-serving behaviour – facilitated this process and became hostage to political grandstanding. After all, European public opinion polls registered a marked worsening of perceptions towards China (Oertel 2020). Finally, what direct US pressure on allied governments couldn’t achieve, was effectively reached through US tech embargoes. The UK’s surprising backtracking and ban on Huawei owes much to heavy-handed pressure from Washington. (Helm 2020).

Conclusion

The military and harder-security component of the Trump administration’s China pushback deserve an essay of its own. But suffice to say that under Trump the US government increased the number of freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs), while more actively enlisting the participation of likeminded partners in the deterrence mix towards China. In recent years the US government deployed its military and Coast Guard vessels and has mulled introducing tactical nuclear weapons in Northeast Asia. The scrapping of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces agreement in 2019 also points to a US-China missile race. The pandemic has accelerated these dynamics as evidenced by the increased tempos of military exercises in waters surrounding China, from the Indian Ocean to the South and East China Seas. This military signalling was a response to China’s growing assertiveness in its neighbourhood during the pandemic, as evidenced by the India-China standoff and its mounting pressure in and around the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. This signalling culminated in two recent major exercises led by US aircraft carrier battlegroups with, respectively, the Indian navy off the Andaman Coast and with Australia and Japan in the Philippines Sea. The US government’s decision to take a sterner stance on China’s illegal maritime claims in the South China Sea has also been a notable development during the pandemic. But US salami-slicing tactics across the Taiwan Straits, while certainly reacting to earlier Chinese encroachment and maximalism, seriously risk propelling the world’s two largest economies into a hot confrontation.

This essay has made clear that the power political offensive waged by the United States has a distinctively zero-sum nature that encompasses the information and economic domains. But, to date, these initiatives have hardly exacted meaningful change in Chinese behaviour, not least because the end goal of the government’s “strategic approach” is unclear and its modus operandi is wholly premised on negative inducements. In fact, Washington’s propaganda, economic coercion and strategic narratives that suggest support for regime change may be understood as political warfare. Arguably, the US government’s own brand of “unrestricted warfare” may get under the skin of the Chinese leadership and open rifts between the CCP and wider society, or open rifts within the CCP elite. In the author’s view, however, Xi Jinping is benefitting from anti-US nationalism and a rally round the flag effect that, in return, feeds US intransigence. The pandemic is one factor that has exacerbated the maximalist diagnosis of China’s malign intentions (and growing capabilities) feeding into an exaggerated pushback that, in turn, kindles the insecurity of the counterpart. The downward spiral in US-China economic, strategic and propaganda interaction risks crystallizing enmity, as public opinion in both countries becomes convinced by the facile demonization.

Recently, Pompeo made a speech at the Nixon Presidential Library that marks the official end of US engagement of China. The Manichean tones and the stark choices between Freedom and Tyranny betray a resemblance with one of the speeches that marked the beginning of the Cold War, the Truman Doctrine. Still, most US allies will not buy into Pompeo’s most radical prescriptions and the pandemic has demonstrated just as much, as evidenced by the EU and major European players’ careful stance (Pugliese 2020), not least because China is not the Soviet Union nor is Xi Joseph Stalin. Moreover, US multinational enterprises and the rest of the world will likely continue doing business with China.

As Pompeo observes, Nixon’s feared that the United States might create a “Frankenstein” (monster) by opening the world to the CCP (Pompeo 2020). The very opposite logic – a Manichean China policy premised entirely on sticks and with no carrots to allow the counterpart to de-escalate – may actually be closer to the truth. As mutual antagonism, mistrust and suspicion deepen in the public opinion of both states, a potential Biden presidency or Democratic-led Congress will become warier of undoing some of the anti-China legacy of the Trump administration. While it is too early to declare a US-China “Cold War”, China’s assertiveness and the US maximalist pushback are working in lockstep to reify the Cold War trope past the 2020 US presidential elections.

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Giulio Pugliese is a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow and Departmental Lecturer at Oxford University’s Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA). He is affiliated with St. Antony’s College.

Sources

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Bolton, J. 2020. The Room Where it Happened, New York: Simon & Schuster.

Christensen, T. 2020. A modern tragedy? COVID-19 and US-China relations, Washington DC: Brookings Institution, May.

CNN, 2020. “Twitter disputes State Department claims China coordinated coronavirus disinformation accounts”, 8 May.

CSIS, 2020. China Initiative Conference, 6 February.

Department of State, 2020. Congressional Budget Justification Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, February.

Etō, N. 2020. “新型コロナウイルスをめぐる中国の対外宣伝――人類運命共同体を促進する統一戦線工作” (China’s External Propaganda on the Novel Coronavirus: United Front operations push for a Community of Common Destiny)、SPF China Observer N. 31, 20 May.

FitzGerald, D. & Krouse, S. 2020. “White House Considers Broad Federal Intervention to Secure 5G Future”, Wall Street Journal, 25 June.

Fukuyama, F.2020. “The Pandemic and Political Order: It Takes a State”, Foreign Affairs, July/August.

Gabrielle, L. 2020. Briefing With Special Envoy Lea Gabrielle, Global Engagement Center Update on PRC Efforts to Push Disinformation and Propaganda around COVID, 8 May.

Helm, T. 2020. “Pressure from Trump led to 5G ban, Britain tells Huawei”, The Guardian, 18 July.

Interview, 2019. Japanese academic and government official. 27 December, Tokyo.

Johnston, A. I., 2019. “Shaky Foundations: The ‘Intellectual Architecture’ of Trump’s China Policy”, Survival, Vol. 61 (2): 189-202.

McMaster, H.R. 2020. “How China Sees the World”, The Atlantic, May.

O’ Brien, R. C. 2020. The Chinese Communist Party’s Ideology and Global Ambitions, 24 June.

Oertel, J. 2020. “China, Europe, and covid-19 headwinds”, ECFR Commentary, 20 July.

Pompeo. M. 2020. Communist China and the Free World’s Future, 23 July.

Pottinger, M. 2020. Remarks by Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger to the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, 4 May.

Pugliese, G. 2020. “新型コロナウイルス危機で米中摩擦の狭間に立つEU：中国の挑戦と米中情報戦を中心とした分析”(The EU Amid US-China Confrontation During the Novel Coronavirus Crisis: An Analysis Focused on the China Challenge and the US-China Information War), 東亜 (Tōa), Vol. 8 (August): 18-27.

Rogin, J. 2020. “State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses”, The Washington Post, 14 April.

Small, A. and Jaishankar, D. 2020. “‘For our enemies, we have shotguns’: Explaining China’s new assertiveness”, War on the Rocks, 20 July.

Spalding, R. 2019. Stealth War: How China Took Over While America’s Elite Slept, New York: Portfolio.

Sutter, R. 2019. “Washington’s «Whole-of-government» Pushback Against Chinese Challenges—Implications and Outlook”, PacNet, No. 26, Honolulu: CSIS Pacific Forum, 23 April.

Wadhams, N. and Martin, P., 2020. “China Consulate Fight Shows Trump’s Hardliners Are in Charge”, Bloomberg, 22 July.

White House, 2020. United States Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China, 26 May.

Wolf, M. 2019. “The looming 100-year US-China conflict”, Financial Times, 4 June.

Wray, C. 2020. The Threat Posed by the Chinese Government and the Chinese Communist Party to the Economic and National Security of the United States, 7 July.

Note

¹ For evidence, please refer to Beijing Biden, a website and ad campaign pushed by the richest pro-Trump Super PAC, co-founded by Vice-President Mike Pence’s Former Chief of Staff.

All images in this article are from APJJF

Last week we warned readers to be cautious about new COVID-19 vaccines, highlighting how key parts of the clinical trials are being skipped as big pharma will not be held accountable for adverse side effects for administering the experimental drugs.

A senior executive from AstraZeneca, Britain’s second-largest drugmaker, told Reuters that his company was just granted protection from all legal action if the company’s vaccine led to damaging side effects.

“This is a unique situation where we as a company simply cannot take the risk if in … four years the vaccine is showing side effects,” said Ruud Dobber, a top exec at AstraZeneca.

“In the contracts we have in place, we are asking for indemnification. For most countries, it is acceptable to take that risk on their shoulders because it is in their national interest,” said Dobber, adding that Astra and regulators were making safety and tolerability a top priority.

AstraZeneca is one of the 25 pharmaceutical companies across the world, testing experimental drugs that could be used to combat the deadly virus. And, of course, if testing yields positive results, AstraZeneca could manufacture hundreds of millions of doses, with no legal recourse if side effects are seen.

European officials told Reuters that product liability was a significant discussion to secure new vaccine drugs from Pfizer, Sanofi, and Johnson & Johnson.

As for the US, well, when it comes to the legal framework around vaccines, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) already has a law called the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, which provides immunity to vaccine companies if something goes wrong.

With AstraZeneca, and many US big pharma companies rushing COVID-19 vaccines to market with governments granting them immunity if the vaccine has side effects, all suggest corporate elites and government regulators have very little faith in these drugs.

For more color on leading vaccines in development that produce “severe” side effects, read our latest piece titled “Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine Induced Adverse Reactions In “More Than Half” Of Trial Participants.” 

Maybe these rushed vaccines are more for optics, get consumers back into airplanes, hotels, resorts, and malls.

The major red flag is how governments are allowing big pharma to rush experimental vaccines, with no legal recourse if something goes terribly wrong.

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On June 11, President Donald Trump issued an executive order (E.O.) authorizing the imposition of sanctions in the form of visa/travel restrictions and asset freezes targeting International Criminal Court (ICC) officials as well as other persons that contribute to the Court’s investigations against the United States and its allies. During the announcement of the sanctions regime, Attorney General William Barr indicated that the U.S. Department of Justice initiated domestic investigations into officials at the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor for corruption and malfeasance.

This is the Trump administration’s latest salvo in its war against the ICC, which can be traced back to a September 2018 speech given by then-National Security Advisor John Bolton in response to the ICC Prosecutor’s request to initiate an investigation into U.S. conduct in Afghanistan. In his speech, Bolton outlined a number of measures aimed at shielding U.S. nationals as well as the nationals of U.S. allies (presumably Israelis), from investigation or prosecution by the ICC. These measures included prohibiting ICC officials from entering the United States, sanctioning their property located within the United States, and prosecuting them in the U.S. criminal system. This plan’s rollout was initiated in March 2019, when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States would restrict visas for ICC staff members, including the Prosecutor herself, who were involved in the Court’s investigation into the nationals of the United States or its allies. The newly announced sanctions regime represents the second step in the implementation of this plan, reacting to the ICC Appeals Chamber’s March 2020 authorization of an investigation into the situation in Afghanistan.

Screenshot from the ICC website

This article assesses the possible effects of the U.S. sanctions regime on the ICC investigations in Afghanistan and Palestine with a view to ascertain whether the Trump administration officials who are responsible for its instatement could be prosecuted for contempt before the ICC. In doing so, the article builds upon the analysis of Sergey Vasiliev, which was published on Just Security in September 2018 following Bolton’s speech.

Offenses Against Court Officials

In his article, Vasiliev argued that Bolton’s threats against the ICC constitute contempt of court under article 70(1)(d) of the Rome Statute since they “could impede, intimidate, or corruptly influence ICC judges in relation to their determination of whether to authorize the Prosecutor to investigate in Afghanistan … [or] dissuade the ICC Prosecutor from making progress in the investigation against U.S. service members.” Additionally, Vasiliev warned that if the Trump administration actually adopts the measures outlined in Bolton’s speech, it would “amount to retaliation against ICC officials on account of performance of their duties in relation to the situation in Afghanistan” and constitute an offense under Article 70(1)(e) of the Statute.

This concern appears to have now materialized with the issuance of Trump’s E.O. Section 1(a)(i)(A)-(B) of the order allows the imposition of sanctions on any foreign person who has “directly engaged in any effort by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute United States personnel … [or] any personnel of a country that is an ally of the United States without the consent of that country’s government.” The latter part of the provision presumably refers to Israel.

There is no doubt that the primary target of this provision is the Court officials, including judges, who play a role in advancing the ICC investigations and prosecutions carried out against U.S. and Israeli personnel in the Afghanistan and Palestine situations. The opening text of the E.O. itself refers to the situation in Afghanistan, and complaints from U.S. officials about the work of the Court often refer to both situations.

The E.O. also extends the sanctions to anyone who “materially assist[s], sponsor[s], or provide[s] financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of” those whose property is blocked (see Section 1(a)(i)(C)). Accordingly, U.S. officials may target any non-U.S. individual or entity who enters into any sort of commercial transaction with the ICC officials who are placed on the U.S. sanctions list. In order to not face sanctions themselves, individuals or other entities may avoid engaging in any commercial transactions with the sanctioned Court officials, which may have serious implications on their personal and professional lives. Additionally, the announced initiation of criminal investigations against the Court officials for the simple reason that they are carrying out their functions under the Statute may cause serious risks to their liberty and personal security considering the global reach and influence of the U.S. authorities.

These measures have clearly been designed to impede, intimidate, or influence ICC officials involved in the Afghanistan and Palestine investigations with a view to stop them from performing their duties or to retaliate against them in the event they do perform those duties. The Court itself appears to be convinced of this since it characterized the U.S. sanctions as “an escalation and an unacceptable attempt to interfere with the rule of law and the Court’s judicial proceedings … with the declared aim of influencing the actions of ICC officials in the context of the Court’s independent and objective investigations and impartial judicial proceedings,” (emphasis added). The Prosecutor reiterated these remarks by characterizing the U.S. measures as “naked attempts to interfere with the court’s judicial and prosecutorial independence to meet political objectives.”

Such conduct is criminalized under Article 70(1)(d) and (e) of the Statute. These offenses could be proven without a need to demonstrate the targeted Court officials were in fact affected by the acts of the perpetrator. As the Commentary on the Law of the International Criminal Court lays out, carrying out the prohibited conduct in itself is sufficient, meaning that the U.S. officials who are implicated in instating the sanctions regime have already incurred liability under these provisions.

Interference with the Witnesses and Evidence Collection Process

The potential targets of the sanctions regime is not limited to the Court officials. As noted above, Section 1(a)(i)(A) allows sanctioning of anyone who “directly engages” with the ICC investigation into Afghanistan and Israel. What constitutes “direct engagement,” however, is not clarified within the order.

The use of such wide an imprecise language allows U.S. authorities to sanction anyone who provides any support to the ICC Prosecutor’s investigations into U.S. and Israeli nationals. This, arguably, includes witnesses providing information to the Court on the alleged crimes committed by U.S. or Israeli personnel in Afghanistan and Palestine respectively. As a result, fearing possible U.S. sanctions, potential witnesses may be unwilling to come forward and give testimony to the Court. Those who have already done so, on the other hand, may face sanctions for their engagement with the Court.

These acts by the United States may incur liability under Article 70(1)(c) of the Statute, which criminalizes “obstructing or interfering with the attendance or testimony of a witness, [and] retaliating against a witness for giving testimony.” The Court’s decisions in the case against Jean-Pierre Bemba, in which the politician and former warlord was convicted with others of corruptly influencing witnesses, confirm this. The Trial Court’s judgment verified that it is prohibited to directly or indirectly threaten, pressure, or intimidate the physical wellbeing or property of witnesses in order to deter them from providing full and truthful information to the Court or punishing them for doing so ex post facto (para. 45; see also the confirmation of charges decision, para. 30). That judgment also found that there is no need to prove that the witness actually felt intimidated or was deterred by the perpetrator’s conduct (para. 48). (As the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has indicated, however, the relevant conduct must be of sufficient gravity to likely intimidate or deter the witness from giving evidence (para. 18).) Finally, the Appeal Chamber elaborated that the term “witness” in this context includes not only actual witnesses but also potential witnesses and, more generally, anyone who knows, or is believed to know, something of relevance to the investigations or judicial proceedings before the ICC (para. 720).

The E.O.’s provision for sanctioning non-U.S. individuals and entities who materially support those involved in ICC investigations into U.S. and Israeli personnel may constitute further criminal interference with the Prosecutor’s collection of evidence in the Afghanistan and Palestine investigations under article 70(1)(c). The wide range of actors who may be implicated under the E.O.’s section 1(a)(i)(C) includes States Parties to the Rome Statute, NGOs or international organizations that provide information or assistance to the Prosecutor, and any company or individual whose services are procured by the Court in relation these investigations may be implicated under this provision. The possibility of finding themselves on the crosshairs of a superpower with vast capabilities, influence, and reach may very well intimidate and dissuade such actors from interacting with the Court.

Could the ICC Initiate Contempt Proceedings Against U.S. Authorities?

There do not appear to be any jurisdictional impediments to the ICC initiating contempt proceedings against the U.S. officials implicated in the creation and implementation of the sanctions regime. As discussed above, the conduct of the U.S. authorities appears to constitute at least three of the types of conduct criminalized under Article 70 — that is, conduct described in 70(1)(c), (d), and (e). Further, Article 70 of the Statute provides the ICC with jurisdiction over offenses against its administration of justice irrespective of the nationality of the perpetrator or the territory in which the act was committed (see ICC Rules of Procedures and Evidence, Rule 163).

The main impediment that the Court will likely face in carrying out contempt proceedings against U.S. authorities is related to enforcement. While a number of States Parties have voiced serious concerns regarding the U.S. sanctions towards the ICC — for example, France, the U.K., the Netherlands, and the European Union, which is comprised of many States Parties — it is unlikely that any of them would be willing or able to enforce an arrest warrant issued by the Court against U.S. officials. This is for the simple reason that doing so would amount to political suicide under current circumstances, and indeed could put these individuals and entities at risk of physical harm.

Furthermore, as Vasiliev has rightly pointed out, Part IX of the Statute, which otherwise requires States Parties to cooperate with ICC investigations and prosecutions, does not apply to the Court’s exercise of jurisdiction in offenses against the administration of justice. Rather, pursuant to Article 70(2) of the Statute, these cooperation issues are governed by the domestic laws of the State whose cooperation is requested. States Parties may rely on this provision in justifying their refusal to cooperate with the Court in bringing the indicted U.S. officials before the Court.

It should be remembered, however, that the ICC has not shied away from investigating situations and indicting suspects where the prospects for arrest were very low in the past — for instance, the situations in Sudan and Myanmar. As the ex-Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir’s recent ousting from power and possible transfer to the ICC has shown us, the political context may change, and with it the prospects for arrest and surrender. Considering Trump’s unprecedented lack of popularity worldwide and rapidly diminishing chances of being re-elected, it is not inconceivable that a similar situation may materialize for some U.S. officials at some point in the future.

One concern Vasiliev raises in connection to this point seems to have been resolved by the ICC Appeals Chamber since the publication of his article. It is now settled that that the heads of states and other high-ranking officials of non-State Parties do not enjoy immunity from arrest and surrender to the ICC before the domestic courts of the States Parties to the Statute where the Court is properly exercising its jurisdiction (paras. 1-5). This is a valuable piece of jurisprudence for national authorities of certain States Parties who may be willing to take a stand and enforce the ICC’s decisions against any U.S. officials indicted for contempt. While this finding was made in the context of a prosecution involving Article 5 crimes (war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity), there is no reason why the Court’s reasoning should not equally apply to its exercise of jurisdiction over offenses under Article 70. There would be no basis for the Court to adopt different standards on immunities in relation to various crimes under the Statute. Indeed, if this were the case, the high-ranking officials of non-States Parties pursued by the Court could freely commit any of the offenses listed under article 70 to impede the proceedings against them with impunity.

Conclusion

There is a plausible case to be made for the Court to initiate contempt proceedings against the officials of the Trump administration. As discussed, the jurisdictional requirements are met. What ICC officials need now is to muster the judicial courage to stand up to an administration that time and again has demonstrated it does not consider itself bound by the rule of law, internationally or domestically, and to strike back with the powers that are vested in them by the Statute.

This surely is a perilous step to take since it will further escalate the tension between the United States and the ICC. Taking on a global superpower is not an easy task for an international tribunal. The only alternatives to fighting back, however, are either inaction or appeasement — that is, halting investigations against U.S. and Israeli personnel. Some may say that the ICC should take this path for self-preservation. Others realize that neither of these options are any good in the long run.

Inaction will allow the U.S. attacks against the ICC to further escalate as the Afghanistan and Palestine investigations move forward. Appeasement, on the other hand, will only damage the Court’s reputation and credibility, and open it up to further accusations of pro-Western bias. The Court must fight back. Not only this will send a strong message to those who believe that they can bully the ICC into submission but it will also bolster the Court’s status in the eyes of the international community.

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When I first went to Hiroshima in 1967, the shadow on the steps was still there. It was an almost perfect impression of a human being at ease: legs splayed, back bent, one hand by her side as she sat waiting for a bank to open.

At a quarter past eight on the morning of August 6, 1945, she and her silhouette were burned into the granite.

I stared at the shadow for an hour or more, then I walked down to the river where the survivors still lived in shanties.

I met a man called Yukio, whose chest was etched with the pattern of the shirt he was wearing when the atomic bomb was dropped.

He described a huge flash over the city, “a bluish light, something like an electrical short”, after which wind blew like a tornado and black rain fell.

“I was thrown on the ground and noticed only the stalks of my flowers were left. Everything was still and quiet, and when I got up, there were people naked, not saying anything. Some of them had no skin or hair. I was certain I was dead.”

Nine years later, I returned to look for him and he was dead from leukaemia.

“No radioactivity in Hiroshima ruin” said The New York Times front page on 13 September, 1945, a classic of planted disinformation. “General Farrell,” reported William H. Lawrence, “denied categorically that [the atomic bomb] produced a dangerous, lingering radioactivity.”

Only one reporter, Wilfred Burchett, an Australian, had braved the perilous journey to Hiroshima in the immediate aftermath of the atomic bombing, in defiance of the Allied occupation authorities, which controlled the “press pack”.

“I write this as a warning to the world,” reported Burchett in the London Daily Express  of September 5,1945. Sitting in the rubble with his Baby Hermes typewriter, he described hospital wards filled with people with no visible injuries who were dying from what he called “an atomic plague”.

For this, his press accreditation was withdrawn, he was pilloried and smeared. His witness to the truth was never forgiven.

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an act of premeditated mass murder that unleashed a weapon of intrinsic criminality. It was justified by lies that form the bedrock of America’s war propaganda in the 21st century, casting a new enemy, and target – China.

During the 75 years since Hiroshima, the most enduring lie is that the atomic bomb was dropped to end the war in the Pacific and to save lives.

“Even without the atomic bombing attacks,” concluded the United States Strategic Bombing Survey of 1946, “air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion. “Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that … Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war [against Japan] and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”

The National Archives in Washington contains documented Japanese peace overtures as early as 1943. None was pursued. A cable sent on May 5, 1945 by the German ambassador in Tokyo and intercepted by the US made clear the Japanese were desperate to sue for peace, including “capitulation even if the terms were hard”. Nothing was done.

The US Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, told President Truman he was “fearful” that the US Air Force would have Japan so “bombed out” that the new weapon would not be able “to show its strength”. Stimson later admitted that “no effort was made, and none was seriously considered, to achieve surrender merely in order not to have to use the [atomic] bomb”.

Stimson’s foreign policy colleagues — looking ahead to the post-war era they were then shaping “in our image”, as Cold War planner George Kennan famously put it — made clear they were eager “to browbeat the Russians with the [atomic] bomb held rather ostentatiously on our hip”. General Leslie Groves (image on the right), director of the Manhattan Project that made the atomic bomb, testified:

“There was never any illusion on my part that Russia was our enemy, and that the project was conducted on that basis.”

The day after Hiroshima was obliterated, President Harry Truman voiced his satisfaction with the “overwhelming success” of “the experiment”.

The “experiment” continued long after the war was over. Between 1946 and 1958, the United States exploded 67 nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific: the equivalent of more than one Hiroshima every day for 12 years.

The human and environmental consequences were catastrophic. During the filming of my documentary, The Coming War on China, I chartered a small aircraft and flew to Bikini Atoll in the Marshalls. It was here that the United States exploded the world’s first Hydrogen Bomb. It remains poisoned earth. My shoes registered “unsafe” on my Geiger counter. Palm trees stood in unworldly formations. There were no birds.

I trekked through the jungle to the concrete bunker where, at 6.45 on the morning of March 1, 1954, the button was pushed. The sun, which had risen, rose again and vaporised an entire island in the lagoon, leaving a vast black hole, which from the air is a menacing spectacle: a deathly void in a place of beauty.

The radioactive fall-out spread quickly and “unexpectedly”. The official history claims “the wind changed suddenly”. It was the first of many lies, as declassified documents and the victims’ testimony reveal.

Gene Curbow, a meteorologist assigned to monitor the test site, said,

“They knew where the radioactive fall-out was going to go. Even on the day of the shot, they still had an opportunity to evacuate people, but [people] were not evacuated; I was not evacuated… The United States needed some guinea pigs to study what the effects of radiation would do.”

Like Hiroshima, the secret of the Marshall Islands was a calculated experiment on the lives of large numbers of people. This was Project 4.1, which began as a scientific study of mice and became an experiment on “human beings exposed to the radiation of a nuclear weapon”.

The Marshall Islanders I met in 2015 — like the survivors of Hiroshima I interviewed in the 1960s and 70s — suffered from a range of cancers, commonly thyroid cancer; thousands had already died. Miscarriages and stillbirths were common; those babies who lived were often deformed horribly.

Unlike Bikini, nearby Rongelap atoll had not been evacuated during the H-Bomb test. Directly downwind of Bikini, Rongelap’s skies darkened and it rained what first appeared to be snowflakes.  Food and water were contaminated; and the population fell victim to cancers. That is still true today.

The Wilson cloud from test Baker, situated just offshore from Bikini Island at top of the picture. (Source: U.S. Army Photographic Signal Corps/Public Domain)

I met Nerje Joseph, who showed me a photograph of herself as a child on Rongelap. She had terrible facial burns and much of her was hair missing.

“We were bathing at the well on the day the bomb exploded,” she said. “White dust started falling from the sky. I reached to catch the powder. We used it as soap to wash our hair. A few days later, my hair started falling out.”

Lemoyo Abon said,

“Some of us were in agony. Others had diarrhoea. We were terrified. We thought it must be the end of the world.”

US official archive film I included in my film refers to the islanders as “amenable savages”. In the wake of the explosion, a US Atomic Energy Agency official is seen boasting that Rongelap “is by far the most contaminated place on earth”, adding, “it will be interesting to get a measure of human uptake when people live in a contaminated environment.”

American scientists, including medical doctors, built distinguished careers studying the “human uptake’. There they are in flickering film, in their white coats, attentive with their clipboards. When an islander died in his teens, his family received a sympathy card from the scientist who studied him.

I have reported from five nuclear “ground zeros” throughout the world — in Japan, the Marshall Islands, Nevada, Polynesia and Maralinga in Australia. Even more than my experience as a war correspondent, this has taught me about the ruthlessness and immorality of great power: that is, imperial power, whose cynicism is the true enemy of humanity.

This struck me forcibly when I filmed at Taranaki Ground Zero at Maralinga in the Australian desert. In a dish-like crater was an obelisk on which was inscribed: “A British atomic weapon was test exploded here on 9 October 1957”. On the rim of the crater was this sign:

WARNING: RADIATION HAZARD

Radiation levels for a few hundred metres

around this point may be above those considered

safe for permanent occupation.

For as far as the eye could see, and beyond, the ground was irradiated. Raw plutonium lay about, scattered like talcum powder: plutonium is so dangerous to humans that a third of a milligram gives a 50 per cent chance of cancer.

The only people who might have seen the sign were Indigenous Australians, for whom there was no warning. According to an official account, if they were lucky “they were shooed off like rabbits”.

Today, an unprecedented campaign of propaganda is shooing us all off like rabbits. We are not meant to question the daily torrent of anti-Chinese rhetoric, which is rapidly overtaking the torrent of anti-Russia rhetoric. Anything Chinese is bad, anathema, a threat: Wuhan …. Huawei. How confusing it is when “our” most reviled leader says so.

The current phase of this campaign began not with Trump but with Barack Obama, who in 2011 flew to Australia to declare the greatest build-up of US naval forces in the Asia-Pacific region since World War Two. Suddenly, China was a “threat”. This was nonsense, of course. What was threatened was America’s unchallenged psychopathic view of itself as the richest, the most successful, the most “indispensable” nation.

What was never in dispute was its prowess as a bully — with more than 30 members of the United Nations suffering American sanctions of some kind and a trail of the blood running through defenceless countries bombed, their governments overthrown, their  elections interfered with, their resources plundered.

Obama’s declaration became known as the “pivot to Asia”. One of its principal advocates was his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who, as WikiLeaks revealed, wanted to rename the Pacific Ocean “the American Sea”.

Whereas Clinton never concealed her warmongering, Obama was a maestro of marketing.

“I state clearly and with conviction,” said the new president in 2009, “that America’s commitment is to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

Obama increased spending on nuclear warheads faster than any president since the end of the Cold War. A “usable” nuclear weapon was developed. Known as the B61 Model 12, it means, according to General James Cartwright, former vice-chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that “going smaller [makes its use] more thinkable”.

The target is China. Today, more than 400 American military bases almost encircle China with missiles, bombers, warships and nuclear weapons. From Australia north through the Pacific to South-East Asia, Japan and Korea and across Eurasia to Afghanistan and India, the bases form, as one US strategist told me, “the perfect noose”.

A study by the RAND Corporation – which, since Vietnam, has planned America’s wars – is entitled War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable. Commissioned by the US Army, the authors evoke the infamous catch cry of its chief Cold War strategist, Herman Kahn – “thinking the unthinkable”. Kahn’s book, On Thermonuclear War, elaborated a plan for a “winnable” nuclear war.

Kahn’s apocalyptic view is shared by Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, an evangelical fanatic who believes in the “rapture of the End”. He is perhaps the most dangerous man alive. “I was CIA director,” he boasted, “We lied, we cheated, we stole. It was like we had entire training courses.”  Pompeo’s obsession is China.

The endgame of Pompeo’s extremism is rarely if ever discussed in the Anglo-American media, where the myths and fabrications about China are standard fare, as were the lies about Iraq. A virulent racism is the sub-text of this propaganda. Classified “yellow” even though they were white, the Chinese are the only ethnic group to have been banned by an “exclusion act” from entering the United States, because they were Chinese. Popular culture declared them sinister, untrustworthy, “sneaky”, depraved, diseased, immoral.

An Australian magazine, The Bulletin, was devoted to promoting fear of the “yellow peril” as if all of Asia was about to fall down on the whites-only colony by the force of gravity.

As the historian Martin Powers writes, acknowledging China’s  modernism, its secular morality and “contributions to liberal thought threatened European face, so it became necessary to suppress China’s role in the Enlightenment debate …. For centuries, China’s threat to the myth of Western superiority has made it an easy target for race-baiting.”

In the Sydney Morning Herald, tireless China-basher Peter Hartcher described those who spread Chinese influence in Australia as “rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows”. Hartcher, who favourably quotes the American demagogue Steve Bannon, likes to interpret the “dreams” of the current Chinese elite, to which he is apparently privy. These are inspired by yearnings for the “Mandate of Heaven” of 2,000 years ago. Ad nausea.

To combat this “mandate”, the Australian government of Scott Morrison has committed one of the most secure countries on earth, whose major trading partner is China, to hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American missiles that can be fired at China.

The trickledown is already evident. In a country historically scarred by violent racism towards Asians, Australians of Chinese descent have formed a vigilante group to protect delivery riders. Phone videos show a delivery rider punched in the face and a Chinese couple racially abused in a supermarket. Between April and June, there were almost 400 racist attacks on Asian-Australians.  

“We are not your enemy,” a high-ranking strategist in China told me, “but if you [in the West] decide we are, we must prepare without delay.”

China’s arsenal is small compared with America’s, but it is growing fast, especially the development of maritime missiles designed to destroy fleets of ships.

“For the first time,” wrote Gregory Kulacki of the Union of Concerned Scientists, “China is discussing putting its nuclear missiles on high alert so that they can be launched quickly on warning of an attack… This would be a significant and dangerous change in Chinese policy…”

In Washington, I met Amitai Etzioni, distinguished professor of international affairs at George Washington University, who wrote that a “blinding attack on China” was planned, “with strikes that could be mistakenly perceived [by the Chinese] as pre-emptive attempts to take out its nuclear weapons, thus cornering them into a terrible use-it-or-lose-it dilemma [that would] lead to nuclear war.”

In 2019, the US staged its biggest single military exercise since the Cold War, much of it in high secrecy. An armada of ships and long-range bombers rehearsed an “Air-Sea Battle Concept for China” – ASB – blocking sea lanes in the Straits of Malacca and cutting off China’s access to oil, gas and other raw materials from the Middle East and Africa.

It is fear of such a blockade that has seen China develop its Belt and Road Initiative along the old Silk Road to Europe and urgently build strategic airstrips on disputed reefs and islets in the Spratly Islands.

In Shanghai, I met Lijia Zhang, a Beijing journalist and novelist, typical of a new class of outspoken mavericks. Her best-selling book has the ironic title Socialism Is Great! Having grown up in the chaotic, brutal Cultural Revolution, she has travelled and lived in the US and Europe.

“Many Americans imagine,” she said, “that Chinese people live a miserable, repressed life with no freedom whatsoever. The [idea of] the yellow peril has never left them… They have no idea there are some 500 million people being lifted out of poverty, and some would say it’s 600 million.”

Modern China’s epic achievements, its defeat of mass poverty, and the pride and contentment of its people (measured forensically by American pollsters such as Pew) are wilfully unknown or misunderstood in the West. This alone is a commentary on the lamentable state of Western journalism and the abandonment of honest reporting.

China’s repressive dark side and what we like to call its “authoritarianism” are the facade we are allowed to see almost exclusively. It is as if we are fed unending tales of the evil super-villain Dr. Fu Manchu. And it is time we asked why: before it is too late to stop the next Hiroshima.

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“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
Print Edition: $10.25 (+ shipping and handling)
PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute   

Until unparalleled US economic collapse occurred this year, Trump’s reelection campaign likely planned to focus on the twin pillars of economic growth and rising equity market valuations.

Since January, the latter disconnected from collapse of the former.

Since early 2020, the state of the nation’s economy became dire for ordinary Americans.

Unemployment reached unprecedented levels, real pain and suffering experienced by most US households.

What’s going on is likely to continue for some time, maybe for years if the White House and Congress fail to take bold jobs creation steps to put money in people’s pockets and stimulate economic growth.

So far, none of the above is in prospect. US policymakers and the Wall Street-controlled Fed are focused on benefitting corporate favorites and high-net-worth investors, throwing crumbs alone at main street while the hardest of hard times festers with no end of it in prospect.

Commenting on the above, David Stockman said “six years of economic growth (were) vaporized (in) the last 90 days,” adding:

“(R)eal damage is far deeper (with) millions of small businesses permanently destroyed, tens of millions of households wiped-out financially, and the vicious daisy chain of delinquencies, deferrals and defaults just beginning to rip through” hugely over-indebted US public and private sectors.

An unparalleled “economic catastrophe” is occurring that’s unlike anything seen before in US history.

In Q II, the US economy contracted more than during the Great Depression 1929 peak to the 1933 trough.

What seemed unimaginable not long ago actually happened with no end of hard times in prospect.

Given what’s going on, Trump’s reelection strategy changed at a time when dire economic conditions gave presumptive Dem nominee Biden a commanding lead in national polls, some giving him a double-digit advantage.

In an attempt to reinvigorate his flagging campaign, Trump and others surrounding him changed the subject.

Focusing heavily on China bashing, the nonexistent “yellow peril” was reinvented, scapegoating Beijing, demonizing its ruling authorities, escalating US war on the country by other means.

Loose cannon Pompeo has been waging a steady war of words on China, pushing the envelope toward rupturing relations or something worse — possible direct confrontation.

If happens, a US tradition since the mid-19th century could precede it — a staged false flag wrongfully blamed on Beijing, perhaps in the South China Sea, a potential flashpoint area.

Sunday on Fox News, Pompeo falsely accused China of committing “the greatest human rights violation(s) of this century” in Xingjiang (sic).

Like many times before, he and other Trump regime officials ignored US war on humanity that’s raging at home and abroad — “the (actual) greatest human rights violation(s) of this century.”

Pompeo vowed to step up US sanctions war on Chinese enterprises, video-sharing TikTok a key target.

White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy director Peter Navarro falsely claimed the following:

“(A)ll the data that goes into (TikTok’s) mobile apps that kids have so much fun with and seem so convenient, it goes right to servers in China, right to the Chinese military, the Chinese Communist Party, and the agencies which want to steal our intellectual property (sic),” adding:

“Those apps can be used to steal personal and financial information, for blackmail and extortion (sic).”

“They can used to steal business intellectual property and proprietary secrets (sic).”

Navarro cited no evidence backing his claims because none exists.

Pompeo repeated his disinformation, targeting TikTok and WeChat.

The latter is China’s mobile text and voice messaging communication service.

Since introduced in 2011, it became one of the world’s most popular video and voice social apps with over 300 million active users and over 700 million downloads.

According to Pompeo, TikTok and WeChat are accumulating data for Beijing that’s related to facial recognition, user residences, their phone numbers, and other personal information.

Like earlier hostile to China accusations, he cited no corroborating evidence. Without it, claims are groundless.

On Sunday, Pompeo said the Trump regime will act against TikTok, WeChat, and other Chinese enterprises he claimed without proof are feeding personal data about users to Beijing.

Trump intends to “fix” this, he told Fox News, actions coming in the days ahead to address “a broad array of national security risks (sic).”

They’re invented, not real. US China bashing continues to escalate dangerously.

Trump said he’ll ban TikTok, perhaps WeChat and other Chinese enterprises ahead.

Reportedly, he gave Tiktok’s parent company ByteDance 45 days to divest the company.

Talks are ongoing with Microsoft to buy the firm.

According to the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Microsoft aims to buy TikTok’s operations in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

“The transaction could reshape the global tech landscape and further strain already tense US-China relations,” the broadsheet reported.

On Saturday, TikTok’s general manager of US operations Vanessa Pappas said the firm is working on giving users “the safest app,” adding:

“We’re not planning on going anywhere.” Talks with Microsoft to buy the firm continue.

According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP),

“ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming and investors (are) reluctant to sell to the US company.”

On Saturday, SCMP reported that

“TikTok could become totally independent from its Chinese owner ByteDance to continue operating overseas (by) spin(ning)-off” the firm from its parent company, citing an unnamed source.

Banning the firm from operating in the US would affect over 14 million adult users in the country, likely upsetting them ahead of November elections that could cost Trump votes.

It’s also a First Amendment issue — though it’s unclear how the majority right-wing Supreme Court would rule on the issue if a White House ban is ordered, if it’s challenged in court, and if High Court justices have final say.

What’s clear is that US war on China by other means continues to escalate.

Things are unlikely to ease regardless of which right wing of the one-party state controls US policy next year.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Pikist

If war breaks out between China and the United States, there is a high probability that the precipitating factor will be the South China Sea. The United States is currently running another of its so-called “freedom of navigation” exercises in the region, employing no less than two aircraft carriers, together with their supporting armada of warships. The western media regularly report these naval exercises but rarely if ever is the historical situation put into any kind of context.

There are in fact a number of important features of this confrontation between China and the United States that are seldom if ever discussed. A complaint by the Philippines to the Permanent Court of Arbitration received a judgement on 12 July 2016. The court ruled that there was no evidence of China having exercised exclusive control over the sea or its resources at any time. Therefore, the court ruled, there was no legal basis to the so-called “9 Dash Line” that China claimed to be within its exclusive jurisdiction.

China rejected the court’s findings. This was hardly surprising from a purely historical point of view as China is able to demonstrate extensive control over the region going back hundreds of years, as Jianming Shen detailed in a lengthy scholarly analysis back in 2002.

But historical situations are often of dubious relevance in the world of modern geopolitics. They are certainly not relevant in helping to understand the attitude and behaviour of the contemporary government in Beijing. But that is only part of the story. Historical precedents are certainly of no interest to the United States and Australia in their pursuit of what they are pleased to call “freedom of navigation” exercises in waters thousands of kilometres distant from their respective borders.

This however, is simply empty verbiage. Neither country is able to point to a single incident of such free passage of civilian ships being in any way hindered. Given that at least 80% of China’s seaborne exports traverse the South China Sea, China of all nations has the greatest interest in unimpeded freedom of passageway.

It would be both illogical and counter-productive for China to engage in any exercise that jeopardised the freedom of passage of civilian ships. Apart from its own vested interest, the South China Sea is the world’s second busiest sea route, with ships from multiple nations taking advantage of its location in proximity to the world’s most important economic region.

There is also the irony, never noted by the western media, of the United States purporting to uphold an important legal principle by an organisation, the International Court on the Rule of the Sea, (UNCLOS) that it itself does not belong to or accept the jurisdiction of over issues the United States regards as vital to its national interests. In short, the purported upholding of the “International rules based legal order” is so much empty verbiage.

As noted, the Chinese have a vested interest in the free movement of civilian ships in the South China Sea. They are not alone in that. Also notably missing from western accounts of the disputes in the South China Sea is the fact that the Chinese claim to sovereignty over a large portion of the region predates the revolution that brought the Chinese Communist Party to power in 1949. The claims were in fact first lodged by the then Nationalist government of China. Equally importantly, and again totally missing from western political and media accounts of the dispute, is the fact that the government of modern-day Taiwan makes exactly the same claims as to its territorial rights over the South China Sea as does the government in Beijing.

An acknowledgement of this fact would of course undermine the “it’s all a Communist plot to bully its neighbours” that the western media is so fond of parroting. One of the islands that Taiwan claims, for example, is located more than 1000 km from the island of Taiwan. It is difficult to perceive a defence-based argument in such a claim.

Without in any way diminishing the historical or strategic interests that the PRC has in the South China Sea there is at least one other reason why the South China Sea is of such immense importance and that is its huge resources of oil and natural gas. It is impossible to believe that the United States is unaware of this resource as a few minutes of research readily reveals the basic facts. It is equally impossible to believe that the United States government does not covet those resources with a firm eye as to its own enrichment and/or that of US dominated companies.

The official estimate of oil reserves was declared in 2013 to be approximately 28 billion barrels of oil which would make it one of the world’s largest, and as yet largely untapped, reserves.

In addition to the oil however, there is also an estimated 266 trillion feet of natural gas also available. These are phenomenal quantities of resources that are very much in demand and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. The interesting point is that the western media refers to tiresomely regurgitate “freedom of navigation” mantra and completely avoid any mention of these vast resources as a possible motive for western interest.

Yet another international treaty that the United States has declined to ratify is the International Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that provides an internationally recognised mechanism for dealing with any disputes over the utilisation and exploitation of sea-based resources. It is not too difficult to infer a reason for such United States non-participation: they intend to use their economic and military power to bully other nations into acceding to their wishes. One has to wonder, yet again, at the silence of the western media on the obvious self-interest of the United States in attempting to exert control over the South China Sea.

The message does not appear to have penetrated the United States mindset that their days of exerting territorial dominance and plundering the resources of others is over. A symptom of this continuing blindness to modern military reality is manifested in the aforementioned dispatch of two United States aircraft carriers and their associated fleet of support vehicles to the South China Sea. The Chinese are clearly not intimidated by this US show of force.

Again, the message seems not to have penetrated the American mindset. Aircraft carriers are nowadays simply very large seaborne targets. The Chinese defence system, operating as it is from domestic territory, has at its disposal the Dong Feng 21D and Dong Feng 26 missile defence systems, to which United States aircraft carriers are simply a very large and very vulnerable target. They, together with other Chinese defence systems make the United States military presence in the South China Sea a suicide mission.

The 21^st century world is a very different place from even two decades ago. China is the world’s dominant economic power, and together with its Russian ally, effectively an unbeatable military power. It is not however, using that military and economic strength to impose its will. Together with its ASEAN colleagues it has been working to resolve disputes such as those arising from competing claims in the South China Sea. There is a very good prospect that disputes over the exploitation of the South China Sea’s immense resources will be resolved sooner rather than later.

What the interested parties don’t need is the unwelcome and self-interested meddling and trouble making of the United States and its “partners” such as Australia.

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James O’Neill is an Australian-based Barrister at Law, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Featured image is from NEO

Forty five years ago, Cold Warriors in the Pentagon and CIA shook their fists angrily at the stars- and for good reason.

On July 17, 1975 the first international handshake was occurring in space between Russian Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov and American astronaut Thomas Stafford as the first official act kicking off the historic Apollo-Soyuz cooperative mission. Taking place during age of nuclear terror on Earth, the Apollo-Soyuz represented a great hope for humankind and was the first ever international space mission leading the way to the MIR-USA cooperation and later International Space Station. Starting on July 15 as both Russian and American capsules launched simultaneously and continuing until July 24^th, the Apollo-Soyuz cooperation saw astronauts and cosmonauts conducting joint experiments, exchanged gifts, and tree seeds later planted in each others’ nations.

As hope for a bright future of cooperation and co-discovery continued for the coming decades with mankind’s slow emergence as a space faring species, affairs on earth devolved in disturbing ways. A new era of regime change operations, Islamic terrorism and oil geopolitics took on new life in the 1980s and as globalization stripped formerly productive nations of their industrial/scientific potential, the Soviet Union collapsed by 1991. During this dark time, the consolidation of a corporatocracy under NAFTA and the European Maastricht Treaty occurred and transatlantic globalists gloated over the collapse of Russia and the rise of a utopian end-of-history, unipolar order.

In some ways, today’s world of 2020 is different from that of 1975 and in other ways it is disturbingly similar.

Today, a new generations of Cold Warriors has come to power in the Trans Atlantic Deep State who are willing to burn the earth under nuclear fire in defense of their utopian visions for world government which they see fast slipping away to the Multipolar alliance led by Russia and China. The clash of open vs closed system paradigms represented by the NATO/City of London cage on the one hand and the New Silk Road win-win paradigm of constant growth on the other has created a tension which is visceral and pregnant with potential for both good and evil.

This schism has also split American space policy between two opposing paradigms:

On the one hand a Deep State space vision for full spectrum dominance is defining Space Force (America’s newest branch of the military created in December 2019). Run out of the Pentagon and the most regressive neocon ideologues, this program calls for weaponizing space against the Russian Chinese alliance (and the rest of the world). Another, more sane vision for space is represented by leading NASA officials like Jim Bridenstine who have created NASA’s Artemis Accords calling for a framework for peaceful international cooperation in space. Bridenstine and other NASA officials have worked tirelessly to bring Russia and the USA into cooperative alliances on matters of space mining, asteroid defense and deep space exploration ever since President Trump’s 2017 directive to put mankind back on the moon for the first time since 1972 with plans to go to Mars following soon thereafter.

While U.S.-Russia space collaboration has moved at a snails pace even losing ground won in 1975, the Apollo-Soyuz spirit has expressed itself in another part of the world brilliantly, with the Russian-Chinese pact to jointly build a lunar base announced on July 23 by Roscosmos chief Dimitry Rogozin saying: “Recently, we have agreed that we will probably research the Moon and build a lunar research base together – Russia and China.”

This pact follows hot off the heals of the September 2019 agreement between both nations to jointly collaborate on Lunar activities over the coming decade which would begin with the Chang’e 7 lander and Luna 26 orbiter searching for lunar water in 2022. The Russia-China agreement also announced “creating and operating a joint Data Center for Lunar and Deep Space Research.”

On the same day that Rogozin announced the lunar research base, China’s Tianwen-1 (“Quest for Heavenly Truth”) launched on a Long March-5 carrier rocket from Hainan carrying an orbiter and rover scheduled to arrive in Mars’ orbit in February 2021. Once the rover lands on the surface of the red planet on May 2021, China will become the second nation to complete a successful soft landing after America (which has made 8 such landings since 1976, two of which are still operational). China’s orbiter will join the three American, two European and one Indian orbiters currently circling Mars.

Due to the fact that the Earth-Mars proximity is at it’s closest phase, several other important Mars launches have also occurred, with the United Arab Emirates launching the Arab world’s first interplanetary mission in history from Japan on Monday. This will be followed in short order by America’s Perseverance Mars Rover which will be launched from Cape Canaveral and will join the Curiosity rover that landed in 2012.

NASA has stated that Perseverance’s mission will involve seeking signs of microbial life, ancient life and subsurface water as well as “testing a method for producing oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, identifying other resources (such as subsurface water), improving landing techniques, and characterizing weather, dust, and other potential environmental conditions that could affect future astronauts living and working on Mars.”

What makes this Russia-China pact space pact additionally important is that it creates a potential flank in the anti-China space cooperation ban signed into law with the 2011 Wolf Act. By integrating into China’s advanced space program, Russia (which currently suffers from no similar bans to cooperation from western powers) may provide a lateral pathway for cooperation with China needed to bypass the ban. Russian-USA plans to cooperate on such programs as the Lunar Gateway station orbiting the moon still exists as well as other Soyuz-U.S. collaborative launches that have been planned through 2021 so hope on this level is not without foundation. Even though America has regained the capability to launch manned space craft with the Crew Dragon launch of this year, Bridenstine has said:

“We see a day when Russian cosmonauts can launch on American rockets, and American astronauts can launch on Russian rockets. Remember, half of the International Space Station is Russian, and if we’re going to make sure that we have continual access to it, and that they have continual access to it, then we’re going to need to be willing to launch on each other’s vehicles.”

Putin’s Strategic Open System Vision

We also know that since President Trump’s April 6, 2020 executive order making lunar and mars mining a priority of American space policy, he and President Putin have held four discussions in which space cooperation has arisen. While neocon war haws in the Pentagon and British military intelligence scream of Russian/Chinese aggression and accuse Russia of testing anti-satellite ballistic weapons, the first bilateral U.S.-Russia space security talks have restarted since 2013.

Four days after Trump’s executive order, Putin addressed American and Russian astronauts on board the ISS and said:

“We are pleased that our specialists are successfully working under the ISS program with their colleagues from the United States of America, one of the leading space powers. This is a clear example of an effective partnership between our countries in the interests of all mankind.”

Putin went on to say:

“I believe that even now, when the world is confronted with challenges, space activities will continue, including our cooperation with foreign partners, because mankind cannot stand still but will always try to move forward and join forces to advance the boundaries of knowledge… despite difficulties, people sought to make their dream of space travel come true, fearlessly entered the unknown and achieved success.”

The impending economic collapse has forced certain uncomfortable truths to the surface: 1) we will get a new global economic and security system soon, 2) that system will be of a closed system/unipolar nature or it will be an open system/multipolar character. If it is an open system then humanity will have learned that in order to successfully exist within a creative, evolving universe, we must tie our fates to becoming a self-consciously creative, evolving species locking our economic, cultural and political realities into this discoverable character of reality.

If the new system is of a closed/entropic order as certain advocates of the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset are proclaiming, then a much unhappier fate awaits our children and grandchildren which would make World War II look like a cake walk.

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Matthew J.L. Ehret is a journalist, lecturer and founder of the Canadian Patriot Review. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Wikimedia Commons