Global Research

The commander of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt has sent a four-page letter to his superiors appealing for the Navy to move nearly his entire crew into quarantine on the US Pacific island territory of Guam, where the vessel has docked since coronavirus infections were detected on board.

All 4,000 sailors are being tested for coronavirus—after several days of delay when only those showing symptoms were tested—and at least 100 positives were reportedly found. Sailors began reporting sick about two weeks after the aircraft carrier made a port call at Da Nang, Vietnam. At the time, there were about 100 cases of coronavirus reported in Vietnam, most of them in the Hanoi area, well north of Da Nang.

Captain Brett Crozier (image on the right) made an unusually emotional appeal to save the lives of his sailors, according to the text made public by the San Francisco Chronicle.

“Decisive action is required. Removing the majority of personnel from a deployed U.S. nuclear aircraft carrier and isolating them for two weeks may seem like an extraordinary measure,” he told the Navy command. “We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset—our sailors.”

The March 30 letter proposed that 90 percent of the ship’s crew be moved into isolation on Guam, with only a few hundred left on board to monitor the carrier’s nuclear power plant, safeguard its weapons systems and perform other core functions, while the giant aircraft carrier was given a thorough and professional cleaning.

Crozier pointed out that it was impossible to practice social distancing and isolation on board the carrier. “Due to a warship’s inherent limitations of space, we are not doing this. The spread of the disease is ongoing and accelerating,” he wrote. Among these limitations were shared sleeping quarters, meal areas and bathrooms, constant movement up and down ladders and through narrow passageways, and complex work operations that require close cooperation.

He also noted that about 20 percent of those now diagnosed with the virus had initially tested negative, only to become infected and show symptoms later.

Pentagon officials confirmed that Crozier’s letter was under review and that they agreed that sailors needed to leave the ship. Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly told the press,

“The problem is that Guam doesn’t have enough beds right now, and so we’re having to talk to the government there to see if we can get some hotel space or create some tentlike facilities there.”

Defense Secretary Mark Esper told CBS News Tuesday night that he had not yet read Crozier’s letter—which was dated Monday—but claimed “I don’t think we’re at that point” in terms of actually evacuating the ship.

The uniformed officer in overall charge, Admiral John C. Aquilino, commander of the US Pacific Fleet, said on a conference call with reporters that his top priority was the health of the sailors, but he added that no sailor had yet required hospitalization, and most were suffering only mild symptoms.

Major General Jeff Taliaferro, the vice director for operations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared, amazingly, that the Roosevelt could perform its missions even with a raging pandemic aboard. If asked to sail immediately because of a national security crisis, he told the press, the ship was “ready to sail.”

The crisis on the Roosevelt is only the most acute indication of the serious impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the operations of the American military machine. While the admirals and generals have a cavalier attitude to the lives of the rank-and-file—arguing that because they are mostly young and physically fit, they are in less danger—the virus thrives on the close quarters and constant interaction of military life on land and sea.

As of Friday, March 27, the Pentagon had tallied 613 coronavirus cases among US military personnel and stopped giving any details of the locations of outbreaks, on the grounds that this would give vital information to potential adversaries about weak spots.

“Numbers of people in isolation, quarantine, or possibly infected will not be released,” read a Department of Defense memo seen by CNN.

Several urgent orders were issued, including a halt to all overseas port calls by US Navy ships, confining the 28,000 US soldiers stationed in South Korea to their barracks or homes, and halting most troop movements worldwide for 60 days, except for planned rotation of soldiers out of Afghanistan.

The US role in NATO military exercises on the Russian border of the Baltic states and Poland was scaled back to include only the 6,000 troops already dispatched to Europe, leaving 19,000 soldiers at their bases in the US.

The Department of Defense also ordered many of the 25,000 who work at the Pentagon to work from home instead. The headquarters of the Northern Command in Colorado Springs, which controls troop deployments within the United States itself, was engaged in “distributed operations,” in which command units are strictly separated and key command personnel isolated. The same regimen was being observed in NORAD, which controls the airspace over the United States and Canada.

CNN reported Monday,

“Some of the most critical US senior military commanders and nuclear and special operations forces are now operating under extraordinary protection measures to ensure that in the event of a sudden security crisis, including any potential nuclear mission, there will be enough healthy troops and leaders to carry out orders as the coronavirus pandemic grows.”

The report cited specifically intercontinental ballistic missile crews, the crews of submarines carrying nuclear missiles, and the crews of B-52 bombers, the soldiers who operate the three components of the so-called nuclear triad.

Meanwhile, with none of the fanfare that accompanied the dispatch of the USNS Comfort to New York harbor, Trump on March 28 signed an order authorizing the Pentagon to activate as many as one million former service members, now enrolled in the ready reserves, for up to two years, to be called up as necessary in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Featured image is from Wikimedia Commons

The Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club filed a lawsuit today challenging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to allow 72 grizzly bears to be killed to accommodate livestock grazing in Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest, near Yellowstone National Park.

The grazing program area, approved by the U.S. Forest Service late last year, encompasses the headwaters of the Green and Gros Ventre rivers and two designated wilderness areas. The area provides important habitat for Yellowstone grizzly bears — listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act — and other imperiled fish and wildlife species.

The challenged decision authorizes the killing of up to 72 grizzly bears over the 10-year life of the reauthorized grazing program. The decision places no limits on killing female bears or cubs, even though females with cubs live where the proposed killing would be permitted.

“It’s outrageous that the feds are caving to the livestock industry by allowing dozens of grizzly bears to be killed in their crucial habitats on public lands,” said Andrea Santarsiere, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Yellowstone’s grizzly bears are a national treasure that should be protected, not slaughtered.”

The Endangered Species Act requires that the Fish and Wildlife Service and Forest Service analyze the grazing program’s risk to grizzly bears. In its 2019 “biological opinion,” the Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that killing 72 grizzly bears will not cause “jeopardy” to the grizzly bear population.

This analysis, however, hinges on the Forest Service’s commitment to implement conservation measures that are inadequate, largely unenforceable, and will not protect grizzly bears or livestock.

For example, Fish and Wildlife does not require ranchers to haul off livestock carcasses when cattle die from other causes. Instead they need only move them half a mile from the nearest road, where the carcasses may attract grizzly bears that then can be killed. Consistent use of range riders, guard dogs, close herding of cattle or other effective conflict measures are not required.

“Time and time again, the Fish and Wildlife Service has upped the number of grizzly bears that can be killed as a direct result of livestock grazing on public lands in the Upper Green,” said Bonnie Rice, senior representative with Sierra Club’s Our Wild America campaign. “There are proven, effective ways to prevent conflicts between bears and livestock to keep both safe. Allowing another 72 grizzlies to be killed without first requiring conflict prevention practices by livestock producers is unconscionable.”

On Jan. 21, 2020, the Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club notified the Fish and Wildlife Service and Forest Service of their intention to file a lawsuit. Today’s lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C.

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On Monday, the Pentagon admitted that over 1,000 US military personnel are infected with COVID-19 — how much over not explained.

On the same day, it ordered commanders on all US bases worldwide to stop revealing numbers of infected personnel on their installations, including ships at sea and in ports.

If the secretive Pentagon admitted to a thousand COVID-19 cases, the number is likely much higher, growing exponentially for military personnel living and operating in close quarters.

At the height of Spanish Flu infections in 1918 during WW I’s final year, up to 40% of US army and navy personnel were ill from influenza and pneumonia — causing more deaths than trench warfare and other combat.

Thousands of troops aboard transport ships to and from France died.

During battlefield operations, commanders prioritize their assigned mission. The health and welfare of military personnel can get short shrift.

If numbers of troops become sick from a contagious disease, it can spread like wildfire to others because they’re in close proximity to comrades in arms.

Texas is home to 15 US military bases, mostly around Corpus Christi and San Antonio.

The latter’s Mayor Ron Nirenberg criticized non-reporting of COVID-19 outbreaks, saying “the public has a right to know,” adding:

“The lack of information is complicating a coordinated pandemic response at the state and federal level.”

“One of the biggest battles that we have is helping people understand the seriousness of the situation.”

According to the NYT, Navy Times, and other media reports, over 100 US military personnel aboard the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt are infected with COVID-19.

The warship’s crew numbers over  4,000, most members working, eating, and sleeping in close proximity to each other, leaving them vulnerable to contagion.

The San Francisco Chronicle broke the story on Tuesday after obtaining a copy of Crozier’s letter, saying:

Capt. Brett Crozier wrote to Pentagon directly because of the threat of rapidly spreading infections.

He explained that outbreaks occurred in less than a week, urgently asking for help because the ship has limited quarantine capacity, adding:

“This will require a political solution…We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors.”

“Due to a warship’s inherent limitations of space,” quarantining is limited. “The spread of the disease is ongoing and accelerating.”

“Removing the majority of personnel from a deployed US nuclear aircraft carrier and isolating them for two weeks may seem like an extraordinary measure.”

“Keeping over 4,000 young men and women on board the TR is an unnecessary risk and breaks faith with those Sailors entrusted to our care.”

“Due to the close quarters required on a warship and the current number of positive cases, every single Sailor, regardless of rank, on board the TR must be considered ‘close contact.’ ”

“Decisive action is required now in order to…prevent tragic outcomes. (O)ur focus now must be on quarantine and isolation.”

The Trump regime war department sent mixed messages in response to Captain Crozier’s plea.

Asked about the issue on Tuesday, Trump dismissively said “let the military make that decision.”

War secretary Esper’s response was similar, saying he didn’t read Crozier’s letter, but doesn’t think evacuating the ship is necessary.

I don’t think we’re at that point,” he said, adding:

“We’re moving a lot of supplies and assistance, medical assistance, out to the carrier in Guam. We’re providing additional medical personnel as they need it.”

In other words, most crew members are likely inadequately treated or getting none at all.

According to chief of naval operations Admiral Mike Gilday, the navy is taking “this threat very seriously,” adding:

“We are confident that our aggressive response will keep USS Theodore Roosevelt able to respond to any crisis in the region.”

None occurred since WW II ended other than US invented ones.

Acting navy secretary Thomas Modly said

“I know that our command organization has been aware of this for about 24 hours, and we have been working actually the last seven days to move those sailors off the ship and get them into accommodations in Guam.”

“The problem is that Guam doesn’t have enough beds right now and we’re having to talk to the government there to see if we can get some hotel space, create tent-type facilities.”

According to former former NATO supreme allied commander Europe, retired Admiral James Stavridis,

“we should expect more such incidents because warships are a perfect breeding ground for coronavirus.”

If most or all crew members remain onboard, they’re all vulnerable to infection, rendering the vessel non-battle ready.

On Friday, Fox News reported two COVID-19 cases aboard the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan.

Given the contagiousness of the virus, the number of infected crew members is likely much higher by now.

The same is likely the case on most or all US bases and ships where large numbers of military personnel are in close contact with each other, social distancing not possible.

The same likelihood applies to military forces of other countries.

A Final Comment

Most worrisome is how fast outbreaks are spreading among members of the US general public and medical staff on the front lines of treating infected and other patients.

Even more worrisome is the failure of the Trump regime and Congress to act responsibly straightaway when outbreaks began and epidemiologists and other medical experts sounded the alarm about the risk of them spreading rapidly.

Containment, testing, and treating the sick should be prioritized above all else at the federal, state and local levels.

The US is the only developed country without some form of universal healthcare.

Millions of laid off workers without pay or company health insurance when provided will be hard-pressed to put food on the table and pay rent or service mortgages if the current crisis continues for months.

If become ill, they may skip treatment because of affordability and try to tough it out on their own.

Communities with large numbers of infected individuals are breeding grounds for spreading disease to others — even if individuals hunker down and only go out to buy food and essentials.

If the Trump regime responded to outbreaks like China’s imposition of draconian measures in Wuhan, rapidly rising outbreaks in the US might not be happening.

Instead, contagion is spreading through many communities nationwide at an alarming rate.

The more infected people in a nation with a large population like the US and no universal healthcare, the greater the likelihood that millions could be affected and hundreds of thousands could die needlessly.

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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.

Instead of rushing to the rescue of peoples around the globe from the coronavirus, the Trump administration is shunning friendly governments and stepping up punishment of unfriendly ones. As Iran reported 38,900 infections and more than 2,600 deaths from the virus, President Hassan Rouhani dismissed criticisms of the government’s tardy response to the outbreak in the Shia holy city of Qom in early February. He said Tehran had to consider the negative impact of mass quarantine on the country’s sanctions-wrecked economy. Although criticism is justified as Iran delayed tackling the virus, Rouhani rightly condemned the Trump administration for waging “political war” against Iran.

This is a very short-sighted policy because if the virus is not contained and, eventually, conquered in Iran, that country will continue to threaten with contagion this region and the wider world. Aware of this danger, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said “solidarity not exclusion” is needed. Europe, humanitarian agencies and US Democratic party lawmakers have called for easing sanctions on Iran.

Urgent medical supplies have been sent to Iran by the World Health Organisation and other UN specialised agencies as well as China, Turkey, the Emirates, Kuwait, Japan and several European countries which are sharing scarce personal protection equipment for medics and other items with Iran because they understand the danger Iran will pose if the virus remains active and spreading.

Nevertheless, the State Department dismissed media reports that due to the coronavirus the US could grant waivers permitting some governments to release frozen Iranian funds in their countries’ banks. Instead of responding positively to calls for relaxation, an unidentified State Department official claimed that Iran has the money to provide for the humanitarian needs of its population but chooses to spend on “terrorism and proxy groups.” Adding injury to insult, the US Treasury imposed new sanctions on individuals and companies said to be trading with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, which has been deployed to fight the virus and this week has opened a 2,000-bed field hospital at an exhibition centre in Tehran to serve recovering coronavirus victims.

Little wonder that the State Department has taken this line. Its chief Mike Pompeo has cheer-leaded Donald Trump‘s policy of exerting “maximum pressure” on Iran by waging sanctions war on the country’s economy after withdrawing from the 2015 agreement for dismantling Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for lifting sanctions. Pompeo has made it clear the US should exploit the virus to boost pressure on Iran to meet his demands.

Facing international disapproval over the US stand, Pompeo stated,

“The whole world should know that humanitarian assistance into Iran is wide open. It’s not sanctioned, we’re doing everything we can to facilitate both the humanitarian assistance moving in and to make sure the financial transactions connected to that can take place as well.”

He lied! US sanctions apply to all stages of trade and prevent Iran from accessing international banking so it can make payments for goods it purchases.

As infections in Iran rose last week, Pompeo called on the Pentagon to take military action on Kataeb Hizbollah, a pro-Iranian Iraqi Shia militia accused of firing rockets into Iraqi military bases hosting US troops. So far, the generals have demurred, arguing that there is no evidence that Iran is behind these attacks. The top US military commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Robert White warned that additional US troops would be required and an offensive would be deadly and counterproductive. He reminded Pompeo and other administration hawks that the US role in Iraq was training the country’s army and battling Daesh.

But White did not mention that, like other factions of the Popular Mobilisation Units deployed against Daesh, Kataeb Hizbollah has been formally merged with the Iraqi army. Therefore, a campaign against this group would force the army and other Shia armed factions to defend the Kataeb, while the government would demand instant withdrawal of all US and foreign forces from Iraq.

Pompeo also used a teleconference of the Group of Seven foreign ministers to call on colleagues to ramp up sanctions on Iran. Pompeo was always unlikely to achieve this end. While Canada and Britain have followed the US sanctions lead, France, Germany, Italy have tried to retain ties with Iran by working out means to evade sanctions. This split between the US and Europe could stoke tensions when the International Monetary Fund takes up the Iranian request for $5 billion in aid to help battle the virus.

Writing in The Washington Post on March 29, Jackson Diehl put Pompeo among the “worst US secretaries of state ever” due to his performance during the pandemic. After describing Pompeo’s destructive behaviour, Diehl accused him of pursuing “pet causes as if nothing else was happening,” mentioning, in particular, “the ‘maximum pressure’ campaign against Iran, which he, more than any other official, has promoted.” His goal: regime change. This policy, wrote Diehl, could produce the “wholesale death of innocent people, and the further discrediting of America’s claim to humanitarianism.” Which has always been false.

Diehl pointed out that Pompeo is not only determined to both blame China for the pandemic but also to rubbish Beijing’s aid to countries like Italy and Spain, which have been massively affected by the scourge. Diehl is not alone in making such a harsh assessment of Pompeo, other commentators had done so as early as last October. Nevertheless, Trump kept him on in the post. A man who sheds taking responsibility for his words and actions, Trump is to blame for the appointments he makes.

Many of Trump’s appointees have been disastrous, like Pompeo, who is an evangelical Christian whose attitude toward Iran is determined by his commitment to Israel. Late last year, Pompeo became a central figure in the US-Israeli relationship as, according to Israeli reports, Trump appeared to be cooling toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, perhaps because he is under indictment for bribery and breach of trust, failed to form a government after two elections, and, at that time, appeared to be on his way out of office. Trump hates “loosers.”

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According to a Nation magazine report, Trump deceived the public by falsely claiming the emergence and spread of COVID-19 was “unforeseen,” that it “came out of nowhere.”

The Nation obtained a 2017 Pentagon draft report that refutes his Big Lie.

Saying “(t)he most likely and significant threat is a novel respiratory disease, particularly a novel influenza disease” should have alerted Trump regime policymakers to prepare for outbreaks to be ready to respond as needed when they occurred.

They slept instead, leaving the nation and its people unprepared to deal with what’s happening and worsening daily. More on this below.

There are six known coronavirus strains that can infect humans. Most people contract one or more strains in their lifetimes.

They cause mild to moderate to more serious upper-respiratory tract illnesses. COVID-19 is a novel/highly contagious strain.

According to the National Foundation of Infectious Diseases, coronaviruses were first identified in the mid-1960s.

They’re “closely monitored by public health officials” because strains can exist anywhere.

Novel COVID-19 isn’t new. It infected animals for some time. The virus is able to spread to humans or the other way around.

Viruses can mutate into new forms. According to Science Magazine, the US leads in COVID-19 cases but trails many other nations in its response.

“America is first, and not in a good way,” it reported, adding:

The Trump regime’s response is “fragmented, chaotic, and plagued by con­tradictory messaging from political lead­ers.”

Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm lamented that “(w)e don’t have a national plan. We are going from press conference to press conference and crisis to crisis…trying to understand our response.”

Citing 12 mathematical models produced by infectious diseases scientists, Science Magazine said they concluded that the US could have “millions of (COVID-19) infected people” without a large-scale national program to contain outbreaks.

Instead of conflicting messages from Trump and others around him, political scientist Scott Greer stressed that “(r)ule one of communication (at a time like now is to) have a message and stick to it.”

Instead Trump, state, and local officials are sending mixed messages, ranging from “indifference to alarm.”

Biologist Carl Bergstrom gave an example, saying: “Yesterday, I was supposed to be in church on Easter, and now all of a sudden New York’s under quarantine.”

Lack of clarity, focus, and maximum effort on the problem is “hemorrhaging” public trust.

Lack of national leadership and coordination has states and communities going their own way.

The Trump regime “signaled it will let governors make their own decisions” instead of directing a national effort to combat the virus, said Science Magazine.

According to epidemiologist William Hanage, “(t)he closest comparison here, in terms of national mobilization, is a war. And there is no way the United States would fight a war as 50 separate states.”

Nation magazine explained that the Pentagon plan about foreknowledge of a serious coronavirus outbreak was dated January 6, 2017, days before Trump took office. It’s titled:

“USNORTHCOM Branch Plan 3560: Pandemic Influenza and Infectious Disease Response”

The Nation got the plan from a Pentagon official who remains anonymous to avoid possible punitive action for releasing it.

Former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Infectious Diseases and Countermeasures Division Denis Kaufman said the following:

“The Intelligence Community has warned about the threat from highly pathogenic influenza viruses for two decades at least. They have warned about coronaviruses for at least five years,” adding:

“There have been recent pronouncements that the coronavirus pandemic represents an intelligence failure…It’s letting people who ignored intelligence warnings off the hook.”

The Pentagon predicted large-scale outbreaks and shortages of critical personal protective equipment (PPE) for medical staff and the public.

The Pentagon report states the following:

“Competition for, and scarcity of resources will include…non-pharmaceutical MCM (Medical Countermeasures) (e.g., ventilators, devices, personal protective equipment such as face masks and gloves), medical equipment, and logistical support. This will have a significant impact on the availability of the global workforce.”

It explains how outbreaks of infectious disease can rapidly spread.

It warned that supplies of ventilators, face masks, gloves, and other protective equipment are nearly depleted.

It explained that US medical facilities will be unable to handle the volume of coronavirus patients needing treatment.

They lack enough hospital beds, equipment, drugs, and related supplies if outbreaks reach epidemic levels.

Scarcity worldwide will cause competition among nations to get as much of what they need as possible.

The Nation said the “Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”

Its report includes the full draft Pentagon report, labelled “Unclassified/For Official Use Only.”

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

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.

As U.S. COVID-19 cases double every few days and the death toll mounts, the U.S. seems to be caught in a “worst of both worlds” predicament: daily life and much of the U.S. economy is shut down, but no real progress has been achieved in its efforts to contain or eradicate the virus.

Meanwhile, the 11 million people of Wuhan in China, where the pandemic began, are starting to return to a more normal life, with the city’s subway system running again and businesses reopening. In the province of Hubei (Wuhan is the capital), 4.6 million people returned to work last week, while another 2.8 million returned from quarantine in Hubei to jobs in other parts of China, a mass migration that seemed unthinkable a month ago.

But international trade and travel will be severely depressed until the world as a whole recovers from COVID-19, so no country can fully recover as long as others are still in the grip of the pandemic. Different countries are trying different approaches to the problem based on their own economic, political and healthcare systems. We can all learn from each other and we will have to help each other get through this. COVID-19 has mainly hit the people of wealthier countries first, because they travel more and carry it with them from country to country. But unless and until it is eradicated globally, no country will be immune.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has stressed timely and systematic contact tracing and testing as the key to fighting COVID-19. This means quickly tracing the contacts of each infected patient and testing them, whether they show symptoms or not. 

The results of testing in Iceland, which has tested more of its population than any other country, have shown that about half of all COVID-19 carriers show no symptoms at all, so testing only people with symptoms without efficient and comprehensive contact tracing will not stop the spread of the disease. Increasingly oppressive lockdowns are only a stop-gap measure, and are no substitute for systematic contact tracing and testing.

China eradicated the virus from Hubei province by deploying 40,000 medical staff and doing comprehensive contact tracing and testing, and this is the model other wealthy countries that have had limited success against COVID-19 have tried to follow. Germany has done better than other large countries in Europe, with over 66,000 cases but only 645 deaths. The other countries that have tested at least 0.5% of their populations have kept deaths even lower. As of March 30, the numbers were: Australia (17 deaths as of March 30th); Austria (108); Bahrain (4); Canada (65); Estonia (3); Iceland (2); Latvia (0); Malta (0); Norway (32); Singapore (3); Slovenia (11); South Korea (158); Switzerland (359) and the UAE (5).  After a very late start, the U.S. has still only tested 0.3% of Americans, and is still testing people based mainly on symptoms, not contact tracing. 

Wealthy countries that failed to respond to COVID-19 in its early stages don’t have enough protective gear, test kits or ventilators to treat large numbers of patients and stop the spread of the virus. How will poorer countries manage once they, too, are battling infections that are out of control? High-tech equipment will be in even greater shortage in low-tech countries. But fortunately, some poorer countries are already finding strategies that work.

Vietnam, with limited resources and without access to large numbers of test kits, seems to have avoided widespread infection, despite a long border with China. By March 30, Vietnam had 203 confirmed COVID-19 cases, but no deaths. So what has it done?

Vietnam’s public health system provides comprehensive healthcare to 89% of its people, and it has doctors, nurses and other health workers in every community. Anyone arriving in Vietnam is checked for a fever and quarantined if they have one. Even those who don’t are under a strict stay-at-home order for 14 days. This is so strict that their names are published in local newspapers and the public are asked to tell the local health authorities if they see them outside. If a stranger appears in a community, a healthcare worker visits to check them out. 

If there is a suspected COVID-19 case in a building, the whole building is quarantined for two weeks, but quarantine Vietnam-style includes three meals a day, delivered for a small charge. All large buildings have whole-body sanitizing stations, not just hand sanitizer, at every entrance. Vietnam is using empty hotels as quarantine sites, with house-calls from a doctor as part of the service. Everybody in Vietnam wears a mask, and there have been no reports of price gouging, panic buying or hoarding.

Another of China’s neighbors, Taiwan, has developed a different approach to COVID-19, but it, too, has the benefit of a comprehensive public health system, with an emphasis on preventive care. With a huge number of daily flights between Taiwan and China, Taiwan began restricting flights into the country on December 31, 2019, nearly three months before the U.S. Like South Korea, Taiwan began COVID-19 testing on January 20, with contact tracing and testing and isolation of confirmed cases.  But Taiwan has avoided a national lockdown and has not even closed its schools. Instead, it has installed dividers between students’ desks, so that all students have their own cubicles. It also rations its limited supply of masks, distributing a fixed number to each family. By March 30, Taiwan only had 306 confirmed cases, and only 5 people had died.

Japan and Thailand both have low published figures for COVID-19 cases and deaths, but these figures may conceal unreported cases. Japan has the oldest population in the world, and already has a high incidence of pneumonia and respiratory diseases among its elderly.  It is treating COVID-19 as a strictly medical problem, trying various experimental treatments, restricting COVID-19 testing and maintaining normal life as much as possible. Thailand has adopted a more conventional approach, and may also have many undetected cases. As of March 30, Japan had 1,866 cases and 54 deaths, while Thailand had 1,524 cases and only 9 deaths.     

Another country that is worth looking at is Venezuela, which was already in  a very difficult situation. As many as 100,000 people are believed to have already died since 2017 as a result of brutal U.S. sanctions that prevent the import of medicines, food and other necessities. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is calling for the lifting of sanctions, and many Americans support his call. The coming of COVID-19 to a country already in such dire straits is hard to imagine. 

But in fact, as of March 30 Venezuela had confirmed only 129 cases and 3 deaths. China has sent 320,000 test kits, a team of health experts and tons of supplies. Cuba has sent 130 doctors and 10,000 doses of Interferon, a Cuban drug that China has used with some success to treat COVID-19, and Russia has also sent medical equipment and supplies.

Like Vietnam, Taiwan and other countries, Venezuela has benefited from already having a comprehensive national healthcare system. When the first COVID-19 case was confirmed on March 13, the government closed schools, dine-in restaurants and theaters. Within 10 days, 12.2 million people completed questionnaires about their health and 20,000 who reported symptoms received house-calls from medical teams. Community groups made masks and 12,000 medical students were drafted to make house-calls. Rent payments were suspended and the government guaranteed salaries and wages.

So Venezuela has responded to this dual crisis with free food, free healthcare, free housing and free COVID-19 testing, and has so far weathered the storm.

Cuba is another example of a small, poor country that is fighting internal outbreaks, mostly brought to the island by foreign tourists, through door-to-door visits by medical personnel. They had 170 cases as of March 30, with three deaths. The country’s borders have been closed to all nonresidents, bringing the tourism-driven economy to a standstill. On top of this, Cuba, like Venezuela, is suffering from brutal U.S. sanctions that hamper its ability to both earn foreign currency and import critical goods, from food to medical supplies. 

Despite these severe obstacles, Cuba is not only controlling the spread internally, but sending brigades of doctors and nurses to Italy, as well as Venezuela, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Suriname and Grenada. It provides a heroic example for the world, but unfortunately, Cuba is too small and poor to make a major dent in the global pandemic. 

A world in search of new leadership

This look at the COVID-19 pandemic in a few countries around the world is only a snapshot of what are facing now. The numbers of cases and deaths are higher every day, and no country except China has the virus contained. But, as a greater number of poorer countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America become infected, few have the healthcare infrastructure of Vietnam or Cuba. So where are countries going to turn for help when large numbers of their people start falling sick and dying?

The United States is struggling to address its own problems with COVID-19. For many months to come, it will be grappling with the dilemma of how to find enough ventilators, protective equipment, tests and medical staff. The U.S. will be scrambling to find or make more of these desperately needed resources, not sending them to other countries.

The United States is also failing miserably to provide a good example of how to successfully combat COVID-19. By March 31, the U.S. already had more coronavirus deaths than China, a country with four times the U.S. population, and the future for Americans is terrifying, with the Trump administration talking about the death of 100,000 Americans as a “good scenario.” The terribly botched U.S. response to the pandemic is undermining already weak global confidence in U.S. leadership.

China, on the other hand, has largely eliminated the virus from its own population and is already lending its expertise and resources to others. Many of the goods the world depends on to fight this virus, from masks to medicines, were already produced in China and the government has mobilized local companies to significantly crank up production and sell directly to the government to help fulfill global demand. 

China is also sharing information about the pandemic and lessons from its own experience with countries around the world. Western views of China’s role in this crisis have shifted from blaming China for its initial denial of the outbreak and criticizing its restrictions of personal freedom in Wuhan to accepting its help and expertise as other countries and governments confront the same difficult choices. 

With the U.S. failing and China taking a leadership role in the international response to this crisis, could this mark a turning point in the transition to a multipolar world in which China will be just as important as a world leader as the United States? And could this become an effective check on the destructive aspects and dangers of U.S. imperial power? 

For several decades, China has defined its place in the world according to Deng Xiaoping’s “24-character” strategy, which has served it very well until now: “Observe calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capacities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership.”

Since Xi Jinping came to power in China in 2012, he has implicitly been entrusted with guiding China into a new phase in its history, moving beyond the 24-character strategy into a position in which China will be the economic and diplomatic equal of the United States.

As many analysts have noted, and as the 24-character strategy implied, China has to walk a fine line to assert its influence in the world without militarily provoking the United States or taking actions that other countries will see as aggressive or threatening. That’s why it has tried to exercise extreme caution in disputes over islands in the South China Sea and other potential military flash-points. China’s One Belt One Road initiative, a massive economic development project aimed at strengthening China’s connectivity with the world, has so far been the centerpiece of its gradually shifting strategy.

But the crisis the world will face over the next six months or a year is one that cries out for competent leadership. The WHO is already playing a critical role, but it is dependent on major economic powers to provide the resources to fill its prescriptions. If China takes the lead in providing the equipment, the therapies and the expertise the world needs right now, it can do so in a context of respect and deference to the UN and the WHO. After decades of U.S. unilateralism, aggression and disdain for international law and institutions, most of the world would welcome this kind of internationalist leadership.    

Unless China overplays its hand or makes serious mistakes, nobody but Donald Trump and the imperial hawks in Washington will begrudge China its role in helping to resolve the worst public health threat the world has faced in recent history. This is China’s chance to provide constructive international leadership in a way that will save many lives. And in the reshuffling of world power that this represents, we can only hope that the United States will also find a more constructive and legitimate place for itself in a multipolar world that is more peaceful, just and sustainable.

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Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace, is the author of Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Her previous books include: Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection; Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control; Don’t Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart, and (with Jodie Evans) Stop the Next War Now (Inner Ocean Action Guide). Follow her on Twitter: @medeabenjamin

Nicolas J.S. Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. He also wrote the chapter on “Obama at War” in Grading the 44th President: a Report Card on Barack Obama’s First Term as a Progressive Leader. Nicolas is a freelance writer and a researcher for CODEPINK.

Featured image is from CODEPINK

We hear a lot these days about providing benefits and income for the tens of millions of workers who are being laid off, required to ‘stay in place’ by government orders, or out of necessity have to stay home with young children now that schools have shut down. The recent passed CARES ACT provides some minimal and basic income and unemployment benefits for those without work.

But what about the working class that is still at work? Why are they being asked to sacrifice and get nothing in return but words of praise from politicians and media talking heads?

I’m talking about those workers who are required to continue essential work just in order to keep what’s left of the economy going. Those whose work keeps our increasing tenuous social system from flying apart.

I’m talking about workers who are making sure essential utility services aren’t cut off. Who are ensuring that food is available and delivered to stores and homes. Who continue to pick up our garbage in order to prevent a further health crisis. Who keep the pharmacies open so those who need essential medicines can still get them. I’m talking about all those warehouse workers at Amazon and elsewhere filling orders for food and other essentials. The firefighters who still call when emergencies happen. The workers still processing health insurance claims. The subway workers, bus drivers and railroad workers. The truck drivers, local and long haul. Postal workers who keep processing and delivering the mail. The assembly line workers still working their machines that produce the desperately needed PPE. And of course the nurses, technicians, doctors and administrative hospital staff. And let’s not forget the volunteers of all kind, who keep delivering meals to grandma and grandpa, and checking in on them to help with basic physical needs. Forget them at your peril because there are limits to what they can be asked to do.

They are the combat troops at the front line. The rest of us are on leave behind the line and not facing imminent danger.

Politicians keep telling us they are heroes. Yeah, we know that. They’re working in dangerous and hazardous and even life threatening conditions. But simply saying they’re heroes doesn’t cut it. It’s not enough. Words are cheap.

My point is this: Why aren’t we compensating and rewarding these folks too, just as we’re protecting those losing their jobs with expanded unemployment benefits? Why isn’t the ‘still working working class’ being properly rewarded for the hazardous jobs they’re doing, the long hours, the unhealthy working conditions?

We’re giving corporations and businesses trillions of dollars in grants, loans, and free money from the Federal Reserve bank. Why are we short-changing those workers who are the real source of keeping the entire system from collapsing during this crisis, who are keeping the economy—or what’s left of it—still running?

They are holding the entire economy and social system together in this crisis. Why isn’t that properly recognized? And rewarded?

Here’s what the politicians should be doing. Here’s what should be included in Congress’s next spending bill for those occupations who are now keeping the system itself from crashing during this crisis:

• Hazard pay at time and one-half base pay
• Time and one-half for all hours worked beyond 7 hours; double time beyond 10 hours
• Full health care coverage provided under an emergency new ‘Part E’ of Medicare
• 90 day moratorium on apartment rent or home mortgage payment
• Government reimbursement for minimum credit card interest charges for six months
• Government reimbursement for auto loan monthly payments
• Clothing allowance tax credit for costs of cleaning & PPE equipment purchases

There’s an analogy here that’s relevant. It’s a strike. When workers go on strike, any decent union strike fund will pick up their mortgage or rent when it comes due. The strike fund covers the monthly auto payment. It provides for food on the table. Everyone in the union pays into the strike fund during good times, so that those in need during a strike can continue.

Isn’t the country supposed to be a union? Don’t we all pay taxes into the ‘national strike fund’ that is the government budget? Well it’s time to use that budget to cover those in need. And that includes not just the unemployed but the employed as well—i.e. those who are keeping it all together during the crisis.
It’s not just the unemployed who are in need. We should recognize all those still working who are risking their lives for the rest. Who are out there on the front lines, risking their health, working extended hours, often under terrible conditions, worried about their families at home. Managers, professionals, and other occupations may be able to work from home. Or telecommute. Or use videoconferencing to keep their companies afloat as the economy shuts down. But workers who are essential must continue to go out into the world and work, or else the entire economic edifice will come down around all our ears.

So why aren’t we properly rewarding and compensating these folks who are keeping an even greater crisis and social collapse at bay?

Let’s not forget the working class still at work.

Forget them at your peril. Forget them and there’ll come a time, and maybe not too far off, when they just decide ‘the hell with this, it’s not worth it’, and just walk off the job in protest or disgust or just decide to take care of their own instead of all of us. And no nice words by politicians about being ‘heroes’ will bring them back.

Then you’ll see how important workers are to the economy and even to what we call civilization itself!

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Jack Rasmus.

Dr. Rasmus is author of the just published book, ‘The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy from Reagan to Trump’, Clarity Press, January 2020. He blogs at jackrasmus.com and hosts the weekly radio show, Alternative Visions on the Progressive Radio Network. Join Dr. Rasmus for daily commentary on developments in the US economy and politics on Twitter at @drjackrasmus. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

While China appeals for international cooperation in the fight against the COVID-19, Washington is slandering Beijing with an aim to divert attention from its own problematic response to the pandemic, said a former Serbian diplomat.

The United States, instead of combating the disease at home where they have tens of thousands of cases, has stigmatized China and spread prejudices about the new virus, said Zivadin Jovanovic, who served as minister of foreign affairs of Yugoslavia, in a recent interview with Xinhua.

Those baseless and irresponsible accusations are aimed at damaging China’s global standing, said Jovanovic, who currently presides over two think-tanks — the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals and the Silk Road Connectivity Research Center.

It seems safe and comfortable for Washington to put the blame on China and divert public attention from its own responsibilities, he added.

At present, COVID-19 has spread in many countries around the world. China has provided assistance to other countries including offering medical supplies, sharing experience through video conferences and dispatching medical expert teams.

Jovanovic said that at this time of unparalleled global danger, China is demonstrating in practice a policy of solidarity, openness and shared future of humanity.

“After consolidating the COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control at home, China is now helping more than 80 countries around the globe … unselfishly providing experience, medical equipment, urgent medicines and materials,” Jovanovic noted.

He reiterated that global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic demand a joint approach through a common platform or plan of measures under “the UN umbrella.”

Jovanovic said the dialogue initiated within the Group of 20 is an important step to provide common, coordinated, inclusive planning and actions for both the control of the COVID-19 pandemic and the revival of global economic growth afterwards.

“Consensus should be reached on the efficient exchange of information, and coordination of actions. Artificial obstacles to the flow of medical supplies, such as sanctions, geopolitical calculations and alike, should be removed. In this fight, nobody can succeed acting alone, behaving egoistically. There are no isolated, no privileged ones,” he said.

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In December 2019, Donald Trump offered to intervene in Mexico, i.e. “to go after the Drug Cartels”. The Mexican president turned down Trump’s generous offer.

And then President Trump confirmed that his administration was considering categorizing “drug cartels” as “terrorists”,  akin to Al Qaeda (with the exception that they are “Catholic terrorists”).

They would henceforth be designated by Washington as “foreign terrorist organizations”.

What is the intent? 

Create a justification for US-led “counterterrorism” (military) operations directed against Latin America countries?

Extend the “War on Terrorism” to Latin America?  “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P). Go after the “Narco-terrorists”. 

And now, US federal prosecutors are accusing Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro of  participating (according to the NYT) “in a narco-terrorism conspiracy, in a major escalation of the Trump administration’s efforts to pressure him to leave office”. 

The unspoken truth is (which the NYT fails to mention):

1. Al Qaeda and its related terrorist organizations (including ISIS) in the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia are creations of the CIA.

2. The CIA protects the multibillion dollar global drug trade as well as the Mexican and Colombian drug cartels. Moreover, it is estimated that 300 billion dollars (annually) worth of drug money is routinely laundered in casinos across America including Las Vegas and Atlantic City… as well as in Macau and Singapore. Guess who are the World’s richest casino owners.

4. Both American and Latin American politicians are known to have ties to the drug trade.

Flash back to the 1990s: George H. W. Bush, the dad of  Bush Junior had developed close personal ties with Carlos Salinas de Gortari (former president of Mexico) and his dad Raul Salinas Lozano who, according to the Dallas Morning News (February 27, 1997) was “a leading figure in narcotics dealings that also involved his son, Raul Salinas de Gortari…  And Raul was an intimo amigo of  Jeb Bush, (former Governor of Florida) and the brother of  George W, Bush.  

The Bush family has ties to the Bin Laden Family as well as ties to the Salinas de Gortiari family. Is it relevant?

The following text was published in May 2015 under the title  Jeb Bush, the Mexican Drug Cartel and “Free Trade”. The Bush Family and Organized Crime. It also documents the signing of the North american Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by a Mexican head state with links to the Drug Cartels.  

Michel Chossudovsky, April 2, 2020

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Jeb Bush is a presidential candidate.  [was in 2015]

But Jeb is not only the brother of George W. and the son of George H. W. Bush.

Jeb Bush also had close personal ties to Raul Salinas de Gortari, brother of Mexico’s former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari. In the 1990s, Raul the “drug kingpin”, according to Switzerland’s  federal prosecutor Carla del Ponte, was one of the main figures of the Mexican Drug Cartel.  

Jeb Bush  –before becoming Governor of the Sunshine State– was a close friend of Raul Salinas de Gortiari (image right):

“There has also been a great deal of speculation in Mexico about the exact nature of Raul Salinas’ close friendship with former President George Bush’s son, Jeb. It is well known here that for many years the two families spent vacations together — the Salinases at Jeb Bush’s home in Miami, the Bushes at Raul’s ranch, Las Mendocinas, under the volcano in Puebla.

There are many in Mexico who believe that the relationship became a back channel for delicate and crucial negotiations between the two governments, leading up to President Bush’s sponsorship of NAFTA.” (Prominent intellectual and former foreign Minister of Mexico Jorge G. Castañeda, The Los Angeles Times. and Houston Chronicle, 9 March 1995, emphasis added)

The personal relationship between the Bush and Salinas families was a matter of public record. Former President George H. W. Bush  had developed close personal ties with Carlos Salinas and his father, Raul Salinas Lozano. (left)

Raul Salinas Lozano was the family patriarch, father of Carlos and Raul Junior. According to the former private secretary to Raul Salinas Lozano (in as statement to US authorities):

“… Mr. Salinas Lozano was a leading figure in narcotics dealings that also involved his son, Raul Salinas de Gortari, his son-in-law, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the No. 2 official in the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and other leading politicians, according to the documents. Mr. Ruiz Massieu was assassinated in 1994.” (Dallas Morning News, 26 February 1997, emphasis added).

Former president George H. W. Bush and Raul Salinas Lozano were “intimo amigos”.

According to former DEA official Michael Levine, the Mexican drug Cartel was a “family affair”. Both Carlos and Raul were prominent members of the Cartel. And this was known to then US Attorney General Edward Meese in 1987 one year prior to Carlos Salinas’ inauguration as the country’s president.

When Carlos Salinas was inaugurated as President, the entire Mexican State apparatus became criminalised with key government positions occupied by members of the Cartel. The Minister of Commerce in charge of trade negotiations leading up to the signing of NAFTA was Raul Salinas Lozano, father of Raul Junior the Drug kingpin and of Carlos the president.

And it is precisely during this period that the Salinas government launched a sweeping privatisation program under advice from the IMF.

The privatisation program subsequently evolved into a multibillion dollar money laundering operation. Narco-dollars were channelled towards the acquisition of State property and public utilities.

Richard Barnet of the Institute for Policy Studies, testified to the US Congress (April 14, 1994) that

“billions of dollars in state assets have gone to supporters and cronies” (Dallas Morning News, 11 August 1994).

These included the sale of Telefonos de Mexico, valued at $ 3.9 billion and purchased by a Salinas crony for $ 400 million.(Ibid).

Raul Salinas was behind the privatisation programme. He was known as ”El Señor 10 por Ciento” [Mr. 10 Percent] “for the slice of bid money he allegedly demanded in exchange for helping acquaintances acquire companies, concessions and contracts [under the IMF sponsored privatisation program]”(The News, InfoLatina, .Mexico, October 10, 1997).

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

Raul Salinas de Gortari is the brother of  former president Carlos Salinas de Gortiari, who signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in December 1992 alongside US President George H. W. Bush and Canada’s Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.(image left)

In a bitter irony, it was only after this historical event, that Carlos Salinas’ family links to the drug trade through his brother Raul were revealed.

The George H. W. Bush Senior administration was fully aware of the links of the Salinas presidency to organized crime. Public opinion in the US and Canada was never informed so as not to jeopardize the signing of NAFTA:

“Other former officials say they were pressured to keep mum because Washington was obsessed with approving NAFTA”.

“The intelligence on corruption, especially by drug traffickers, has always been there,” said Phil Jordan, who headed DEA’s Dallas office from 1984 to 1994. But “we were under instructions not to say anything negative about Mexico. It was a no-no since NAFTA was a hot political football.” (Dallas Morning News, 26 February 1997)

In other words, at the time the NAFTA Agreement was signed, both Bush Senior and Mulroney were aware that one of the signatories of NAFTA, namely president Salinas de Gortiari  had links to the Mexican Drug Cartel.

In 1995 in the wake of the scandal and the arrest of his brother Raul for murder, Carlos Salinas left Mexico to take up residence in Dublin. His alleged links to the Drug Cartel did not prevent him from being appointed to the Board of the Dow Jones Company on Wall Street, a position which he held until 1997:

Salinas, who left Mexico in March 1995 after his brother, Raul, was charged with masterminding the murder of a political opponent, has served on the company’s board for two years. He was questioned last year in Dublin by a Mexican prosecutor investigating the murder in March 1994 of Luis Donaldo Colosio, who wanted to succeed Salinas as president. A Dow Jones spokesman last week denied that Salinas had been forced out of an election for the new board, which will take place at the company’s annual meeting on April 16… Salinas, who negotiated Mexico’s entry into the free trade agreement with the United States and Canada, was appointed to the board because of his international experience. He was unavailable for comment at his Dublin home last week.” (Sunday Times, London, 30 March 1997).

Washington has consistently denied Carlos Salinas’ involvement. “it was his brother Raul”, Carlos Salinas “did not know”, the American media continued to uphold Salinas as a model statesman, architect of free trade in the Americas and a friend of the Bush family.

In October 1998, The Swiss government confirmed that the brother of the former Mexican president had deposited some 100 million dollars in drug money in Swiss banks:

“They [Swiss authorities] are confiscating the money, which they believe was part of a much larger amount paid to Raul Salinas for helping Mexican and Colombian drugs cartels during his brother’s six-year term ending in 1994. Mr Salinas’ lawyers have maintained he was legally heading an investment fund for Mexican businessmen but the Swiss federal prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, described Salinas’ business dealings as unsound, incomprehensible and contrary to customary business usage. (BBC Report)

 A few months later in January 1999, after a four-year trial, Raúl Salinas de Gortari (left) was convicted of ordering the murder of his brother-in-law, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu:

“After [Carlos] Salinas left office in 1994, the Salinas family fell from grace in a swirl of drug-related corruption and crime scandals. Raúl was jailed and convicted on charges of money laundering and of masterminding the assassination of his brother-in-law; after spending 10 years in jail, Raúl was acquitted of both crimes.  …

With the scandal unraveling, Jeb’s friendship with Raúl did not go unnoticed. Jeb has never denied his friendship with Raúl, who [now] keeps a low profile in Mexico.

Kristy Campbell, spokesperson for Bush, did not respond a request for comment. The Salinas family’s demise caught the Bushes by surprise. “I have been very disappointed by the allegations about him and his family. I never had the slightest hint of information that President Salinas was anything but totally honest,” Bush senior  told me in the 1997 interview. (Dolia Estevez, Jeb Bush’s Mexican Connections, Forbes, April 7, 2015, emphasis added)

“The Salinas family’s demise caught the Bushes by surprise”? (Forbes, April 2015) The Bushes knew who they were all along.

Former DEA official Michael Levine confirmed that Carlos Salinas’ role in the Mexican drug cartel was known to US officials.

US President George H. W. Bush was  regularly briefed by officials from the Department of Justice, the CIA and the DEA.

Did Jeb Bush –who is now [2015] a candidate for the White House under a Republican ticket– know about Raul’s links to the Drug Cartel?.

Was the Bush family in any way complicit?

These are issues which must be addressed and debated by the American public across the land prior to the 2016 presidential primary elections.

According to Andres Openheimer writing in the Miami Herald (February 17 1997):

“witnesses say former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, his imprisoned brother Raul and other members of country’s ruling elite met with drug lord Juan Garcia Abrego at a Salinas family ranch; Jeb Bush admits he met with Raul Salinas several times but has never done any business with him.”

US authorities waited until after Carlos Salinas finished his presidential term to arrest Mexican drug lord Juan Garcia Abrego, who was a close collaborator of the president’s brother Raul. In turn, Raul Salinas was an “intimo amigo” of Jeb Bush :

Juan Garcia Abrego, a fugitive on the FBI’s most-wanted list, was flown to Houston late Monday, following his arrest by Mexican police …  Garcia Abrego, the reputed head of Mexico’s second most powerful drug cartel, had eluded authorities on both sides of the border for years. His arrest is an enormous victory for the U.S. and Mexican governments. CNN, January 16, 2015

But there is more than meets the eye: while the Bushes and the Salinas have longstanding ties, Wall Street was also involved in the laundering of drug money:

A U.S. official said the Justice Department has made significant advances in its money-laundering investigation against Raul Salinas de Gortari and has identified several people who can testify that the former first brother received protection money from a major narcotics cartel.

The End Game

Raul Salinas de Gortiari was set free  in 2005. All charges were dropped.

The matter involving the Bushes and the Salinas has largely been forgotten.

Meanwhile, American political history has been rewritten…

Not to mention the 1992 “Free Trade” Agreement (NAFTA),  which was signed by a head of State with links to organized crime. Does that make it an illegal agreement? The legitimacy of NAFTA has so far not been the object of a legal procedure of judicial inquiry.

An “illegal NAFTA” sets the stage for the TPP and TTIP “agreements” negotiated behind closed doors.

All is well in the American Republic.

At least until the forthcoming 2016 presidential elections.

This article was first published on September 19, 2008.

The text published below does not include text and endnote numerals. To consult Peter Dale Scott’s article entitled Deep Events and the CIA’s Global Drug Connection, with numbered references and endnotes in word document format click here

Introduction

Recently I published two articles pointing to suggestive similarities between the recurring deep events in recent American history – those events which, because of their intelligence aspects, are ignored, misrepresented, or covered up in the American media. The first article pointed to overall similarities in many deep events since World War II. The second pointed to surprising points of comparison in the two deep events which were followed shortly by major U.S. wars: the John F. Kennedy assassination and 9/11. In the background of all these events, I suggested, was recurring evidence of the milieu “combining intelligence officials with elements from the drug-trafficking underworld.”

In this essay I shall first attempt to lay out the complex geography or network of that milieu, which I call the global drug connection, and its connections to what has been called an “alternative” or “shadow” CIA. I shall then show how this network, of banks, financial agents of influence, and the alternative CIA, contributed to the infrastructure of the Kennedy assassination and a series of other, superficially unrelated, major deep events.

In this narrative, the names of individuals, their institutions, and their connections are relatively unimportant. What matters is to see that such a milieu existed; that it was on-going, well-connected, and protected; and that, with increasing independence from governmental restraint, it played a role in major deep events in the last half century.

This of course strengthens the important hypothesis to be investigated, that this on-going milieu may also have contributed to the disaster of 9/11.

Paul Helliwell, OPC, and the CIA

In areas where Communist forces have appeared strong, the United States, at least since 1945, has resorted repeatedly to supportive counterviolence from mobsters involved in the drug traffic. At first, as in post-war Italy, these arrangements were temporary and ad hoc, as when Vito Genovese, a New York mafia leader, was installed as interpreter in the Allied Military Government office of Col. Charles Poletti, a former New York Tammany politician. Then in 1947 William Donovan, now a corporate lawyer and no longer the head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), reportedly financed a May Day massacre of leftists in Sicily, organized by the recently deported Detroit mafia figure Frank Coppola.

Such arrangements became more centralized in 1948, after the newly created National Security Council created an Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) to carry out “subversion against hostile states” – i.e., conduct law-breaking as national policy. Thanks to OPC, the U.S. began giving significant covert support to organized drug-traffickers around the world, in the Far East, Europe, and eventually the Middle East and Latin America.

These world-wide activities became more and more inter-related. Since at least 1950 there has been a global CIA-drug connection operating more or less continuously. Especially with the passage of time, this connection has contributed to unexplained deep events and the consolidation of the global dominance mentality, at home as well as abroad. More specifically, the global drug connection is a factor underlying such unexplained deep events as the JFK assassination, the second Tonkin Gulf incident of 1964, and Iran-Contra.

The global drug connection is not just a lateral connection between CIA field operatives and their drug-trafficking contacts. It is more significantly a global financial complex of hot money uniting prominent business, financial and government as well as underworld figures. It maintains its own political influence by the systematic supply of illicit finances, favors and even sex to politicians around the world, including leaders of both parties in the United States. The result is a system that might be called indirect empire, one that, in its search for foreign markets and resources, is satisfied to subvert existing governance without imposing a progressive alternative.

One significant organizer of the post-war global drug connection — between CIA, organized crime, and their mutual interest in drug-trafficking — was former OSS officer Paul L.E. Helliwell. Helliwell, who was head of the Special Intelligence branch of OSS in Kunming, and later an officer of OPC and the CIA, was simultaneously the owner of the Bank of Perrine in Key West, Florida, “a two-time laundromat for the Lansky mob and the CIA,” and its sister Bank of Cutler Ridge. Here we shall see a number of interrelated mob-CIA money-laundering banks in the global drug connection, of which the greatest was undoubtedly the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).

Most people have never heard of Paul Helliwell. Mainstream books about CIA wrongdoings, like Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes, make no mention of him, of his important CIA-related bank, Castle Bank in the Bahamas, or for that matter of an even more important successor bank to Castle, BCCI. In the flood of CIA documents released since 1992, one does not find the name of Helliwell in the archival indices of the National Archive, the National Security Archive, or the Federation of American Scientists. In the million declassified pages stored and indexed on the website of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, Helliwell’s name appears exactly once – and that is on a list of documents that were withheld from review during the CIA’s search in 1974 for records concerning, of all things, Watergate! This silence, even in internal CIA files, about the principal architect of the post-war CIA-drug connection, is eloquent.

Most of what we know about Helliwell derives from the press reaction to the successful CIA effort to block an IRS investigation in the 1970s, known as Operation Tradewinds, of his money-laundering banks. This struggle with Helliwell and the CIA began in 1972, when IRS investigator Richard Jaffe, tracing the funds of arrested marijuana and LSD dealer Allan George Palmer, learned that Palmer “had personally brought some of his money south to the Perrine-Cutler Ridge Bank for deposit.”

Jaffe learned also that the funds had been deposited in the account of a Bahamian entity called Castle Bank. According to Jim Drinkhall in the Wall Street Journal, this bank was “set up and principally controlled” by Helliwell, who “was instrumental in helping to direct a network of CIA undercover operations and ‘proprietaries.’” Drinkhall wrote that the CIA shut down Jaffe’s investigation of the Castle Bank because Castle

was the conduit for millions of dollars earmarked by the CIA for the funding of clandestine operations against Cuba and for other covert intelligence operations directed at countries in Latin America and the Far East.

Drinkhall further noted what Helliwell is probably most famous for (and what I have written about in The War Conspiracy):

In 1951, Mr. Helliwell helped set up and run Sea Supply Corp., a concern controlled by the CIA as a front. For almost 10 years, Sea Supply was used to supply huge amounts of weapons and equipment to 10,000 Nationalist Chinese [KMT] troops in Burma as well as to Thailand’s police.

But Drinkhall did not point out what is now not disputed, that both the KMT troops in Burma and the Thai Police were the two main arms of the CIA-KMT-Burma-Thai drug connection, and were involved together in the growth and trafficking of opium for the world market, including the United States.

Helliwell’s favors for the CIA were not restricted to the Far East. Along with two old associates from the KMT-Burma drug connection, Frank Wisner of the CIA and General Claire Chennault of the CIA’s airline CAT, Helliwell “also worked CIA operations in Central America as early as 1953-54. In those days, the target was Guatemala and its government.”

Like Chennault and his old associates from his days in China, Whiting Willauer and William Pawley, Helliwell then assisted the CIA in operations against Guatemala in 1954, and after 1960 against Castro. According to Drinkhall,

One former federal official who helped scrutinize Castle says, “Castle was one of the CIA’s finance channels for operations against Cuba.” Mr. Helliwell reputedly was one of the paymasters for the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, as well as for other “extensive” CIA operations throughout Latin America.

As for ex-convict Wallace Groves’ connection to the CIA, a number of CIA documents have since been released that confirm this relationship. According to one of them,

The Wallace GROVES, mentioned in the attachments as being connected with Meyer LANSKY and the Mary Carter Paint Co./Resorts International, Inc., is identical with the Wallace GROVES who is the subject of OS file #473 865. This file reflects that from April 1966 to April 1972, GROVES was of interest to the [CIA] Office of General Counsel for the utilization of GROVES as an advisor or possible officer of one of the Project ████ entities. Additional information in this file would suggest that GROVES was connected with Meyer LANSKY.

I suspect that these “Project ████ entities” involved the use of off-the-books funds not included in the authorized CIA budget.

Helliwell’s Connection to Off-the-Books Operations

Since the publication of Drinkhall’s article, almost every reference to Helliwell has described him as a paymaster for the Bay of Pigs, a claim which I am about to question. But a sense of the scale of Helliwell’s financial involvement with the CIA can be gathered from the CIA’s sequestering of almost $5 million from another Helliwell-related entity, Intercontinental Diversified (I.D.C.). Drinkhall again:

“Although there is no reference to the CIA in the SEC proceeding concerning Intercontinental, a former CIA official in a recent interview made an astonishing statement. He said that between 1970 and 1976, almost $5 million of Intercontinental funds was siphoned out for the agency’s use “because we had friends there.” Indeed the CIA apparently had a better arrangement than mere friendship. CIA documents show that Wallace Groves, the founder of Intercontinental and holder of 46% of its shares until he sold his interest for $33.1 million in 1978, was secretly working for the CIA from 1965 to 1972.”

Assuredly bankers do not transfer millions of dollars out of friendship. A more credible speculation is that Helliwell was the paymaster, not for officially authorized operations such as the Bay of Pigs, but for dispensing some of the funds from off-the-books operations such as the KMT drug traffic out of Burma supported by his own creations, the CIA proprietaries Sea Supply and Cat Inc. (later Air America).

Jonathan Marshall once wrote categorically that “Helliwell laundered CIA funds through the Bahamas-based Castle Bank.” But this claim may require clarification. I.D.C. was a spinoff from an Asian company, Benguet Mining, that was represented by Helliwell’s firm and partly owned by the Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Thus payments from Asia reached I.D.C., and it is my speculation that it was these off-the-books funds, rather than funds from the congressionally authorized CIA budget, that were used by Helliwell to finance off-the-books operations.

One of these may have been political payoffs, starting in the Bahamas itself.

In the early 1970s, IRS agents reported evidence, gleaned from taped conversations, that Intercontinental, operating through Castle Bank, had paid Bahamas Prime Minister Lyndon O. Pindling $100,000 to grant the holding company a two-year extension of its [Grand Bahama] casino gambling license.

But the CIA as well as the casino had a penchant for corruption, and Castle was only one part of a network of banks and agents corrupting governments worldwide. Thus Castle

also did mysterious transactions with a Cayman Islands firm, ID Corp. ID’s sole owner, the American Shig Katayama, became know as one of the key facilitators of Lockheed Corp.’s huge payoffs to Japanese politicians in return for airplane contracts. Of Katayama one Japanese journalist charged, “his real job (in the early 1950s) was to handle narcotics for the U.S. intelligence work.”

By the 1960s if not earlier, the CIA was using its global connection to distribute non-governmental funds through agents of influence like Adnan Khashoggi and Yoshio Kodama, in the form, for example, of payoffs added into international Lockheed sales contracts. In May 1965, five months before the anti-Sukarno coup of September 1965, Lockheed payoffs in Indonesia were redirected from a supporter of President Sukarno to a new middleman who was backing the anti-Sukarno General Suharto.

This was at a time when “Congress had agreed to treat U.S. funding of the Indonesian military (unlike aid to any other country) as a covert matter, restricting congressional review of the president’s determinations on Indonesian aid to two Senate committees, and the House Speaker, who were concurrently involved in oversight of the CIA.” Thus, Lockheed payments passed through middlemen were used to frustrate the expressed will of the U.S. Senate, which passed a resolution to cut off military aid to Indonesia altogether.

Helliwell’s Connections to the Mob

But if Helliwell’s CIA connections were big-time, his connections to the mob, and particularly Meyer Lansky, were no less so. The Bank of Perrine was the preferred depository of Lansky funds reaching America from the Bank of World Commerce in the Bahamas, established by Lansky’s point man John Pullman in 1961. One of the bank’s directors was Alvin Malnik, Lansky’s heir in Miami Beach, and a stockholder was Ed Levinson, a business partner of Lyndon Johnson’s Senate aide Bobby Baker, whose title, before he was arrested and convicted for tax evasion, was the Secretary of the Democratic Majority in the U.S. Senate. Helliwell had a second Lansky connection as legal counsel for the small Miami National Bank, used by Meyer Lansky to launder his foreign profits and skim from the Las Vegas casinos.

Though usually described as a mob bank controlled by Lansky, the Bank of World Commerce opened on to an international scene in which the CIA had an interest. Funds reached it from the International Credit Bank in Switzerland, which had been founded by the Israeli gunrunner Tibor Rosenbaum, and acted

as banker to joint business ventures of European Jews and the state of Israel. But it also financed the acquisition and movement of weapons to Israel and its allies, particularly in Africa and central America, and reputedly acted as paymaster for Mossad, the Israeli secret service, in Europe.

According to Alan Block, Pullman’s bank had another subsidiary in the Bahamas, “united in some shadowy way with Intra Bank in Beirut, Lebanon.” Intra owned the Casino de Liban, “whose gambling concession was controlled by Marcel Paul Francisi, France’s top heroin dealer. Some investigators were convinced that Lansky and Francisi were partners in heroin racketeering, and that Lansky and his associates had a piece of the casino as well.” Francisi in turn teamed with a local Lebanese exporter of morphine base, Sami El Khoury, who in turn had “a long-term business relationship” with Lucky Luciano in Sicily, Lansky’s pre-war ally in New York City and now a major European trafficker.

Sami El Khoury had protection from the Lebanese police, and possibly the CIA as well. Alfred McCoy saw official correspondence of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) discussing, in August 1963, “whether to use Sami El Khoury as an informant now that he had been released from prison.” One of the two FBN correspondents, Dennis Dayle, later told James Mills that El Khoury, “among the top international traffickers of all time,” did become an informant. And in the 1990s Dennis Dayle, having retired as a top DEA investigator in the Middle East, told an anti-drug conference that “in my 30-year history in the Drug Enforcement Administration and related agencies, the major targets of my investigations almost invariably turned out to be working for the CIA.”

The Castle Bank was yet another “dual purpose laundromat” serving both the CIA and the mob. The mob’s interest in Castle was seriously understated in Jim Drinkhall’s Wall Street Journal article, which mentioned only that among a lengthy list of account holders at Castle were “three men – Morris Dalitz, Morris Kleinman, and Samuel A. Tucker – who have been described in Justice Department documents as organized crime figures.” (Kleinman and Helliwell had numerous real estate investments in common with Burton Kanter, the Chicago lawyer who with Helliwell organized Castle Bank.)

Alan Block suggests that in fact Castle became an active bank when it was necessary rapidly to transfer funds from Mercantile Bank and Trust in the Bahamas, another Helliwell bank that, “like Castle…was a conduit for CIA money,” and was about to go under. The funds were moved “at the vigorous urging” of Kanter,

because among the accounts in peril was one held by Morris Kleinman, a notorious organized crime figure since the days of Prohibition. On this matter, Castle’s president, Sam Pierson…stated it had to be done or “Kanter will end up face down in the Chicago River.”

Kanter seems to have specialized in handling the tax aspects of legitimating mob wealth. In addition to founding Castle Bank with Helliwell, he was “energetically at work in California” on the La Costa real estate development, which also involved former Cleveland syndicate member Moe Dalitz, “a part owner of several gambling casinos, including the Desert Inn and the Stardust Hotel.” Block links Kanter to La Costa’s ability to receive major funding from the corrupt Teamsters Central States Pension Fund: “Kanter’s access to the Pension Fund likely came from Allen Dorfman, a friend and business associate. Murdered in 1985 to prevent him from talking about mob investments, Dorfman was an important Fund official and racketeer.”

The CIA, the Mob, and Off-the-Books Operations

Helliwell was not the only CIA connection to the mafia, nor the most highly placed. Plots to assassinate Castro in 1960 were initiated from the CIA’s Office of Security through a go-between, Robert Maheu, whose independent business had been launched with the help of an Office of Security retainer. It was Maheu who transmitted the CIA assassination proposal to John Roselli.

A more on-going relationship to the mob was maintained by the CIA’s Counterintelligence (CI) Staff Chief, James Angleton. He too used a go-between–the New York lawyer Mario Brod–who, according to a CIA memo, was a CI Staff agent in New York City from 1952 to 1971. One of the sensitive CI Staff agents handled by Brod in New York was Jay Lovestone, the AFL-CIO International Affairs Chief who transmitted funds to strong-arm gangs in Marseille allied with Corsican drug traffickers who were part of the Lansky-Luciano global drug connection.

According to Doug Valentine, Lovestone’s assistant Irving Brown was implicated in drug smuggling activities in Europe, at the same time that he used CIA money to establish

a “compatible left” labor union in Marseilles with Pierre Ferri-Pisani. On behalf of Brown and the CIA, Ferri-Pisani (a drug smuggler connected with Marseilles crime lord Antoine Guerini), hired goons to shellack striking Communist dock workers.

Lovestone, a former Communist turned militant anti-Communist, together with his mentor David Dubinsky of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, had also fought the creation of the more militant CIO union movement in the 1930s, and the United Auto Workers of Walter and Victor Reuther in particular. The rival UAW-AFL, which Lovestone favored, turned to mobsters for muscle, and hired as its New York regional director John Dioguardi, a member of the Lucchese mafia family. Dioguardi was later blamed by U.S. Attorney Paul Williams for the blinding of labor journalist Victor Riesel and the subsequent murder of the man who threw acid in Riesel’s face.

Another sensitive agent handled by CI Staff agent Brod, Angleton’s go-between with the mob, was the Russian defector Anatoliy Golitsyn, whom Angleton segregated from the regular CIA bureaucracy in his unending search for a high-level mole inside the CIA. Angleton (according to his biographer Tom Mangold) was “quietly building an alternative CIA,” with its own communication system, archive, and vault, using very dubious information from Lovestone and Golitsyn. The heart of this alternative CIA was CI’s “inner sanctum: the super-secret Special Investigation Group” (CI/SIG), where were assembled files to show that Henry Kissinger and Averell Harriman were possible KGB moles.

A third sensitive agent handled by Brod was Herbert Itkin, a controversial double agent working with the mob on the one hand, and CIA and FBI on the other. But like Itkin, Brod himself “had contacts with the Mafia.” A CIA flap occurred in 1970 when Itkin was being used by the Justice Department and FBI to prosecute a number of mob figures with one-time connections to Havana, such as James Plumeri, Ed Lanzieri, and Sam Mannarino, for illegal kickback arrangements with the Teamsters. The U.S. Attorney telephoned the CIA’s Legal Counsel to advise that Mario Brod had entered the courtroom in order to work with the defense.

According to Court records, “The defense sought to call Mario Brod, who was described as Itkin’s contact with the Central Intelligence Agency. It was stated that Brod would testify that he would not believe Itkin under oath and that Itkin’s reputation for truthfulness was bad.” The CIA’s Legal Counsel concurred with the U.S. Attorney’s steps to block Brod from testifying. His office noted Brod’s explanation of his behavior for the record: “One of the defendants by the name of Lenzieri [(sic), i.e., Edward the Buff Lanzieri] was Brod’s only contact inside the Mafia who would alert Brod if he was in personal danger.”

But Brod may have been acting out of more than self-interest, for it has been suggested that some of the mafia defendants in the kickback trials also had a deeper CIA connection, even if off the books. According to Dan Moldea, two of the defendants, John La Rocca and Gabriel Mannarino, had been involved in Cuban gunrunning operations with Hoffa; and he suggests that Hoffa persuaded La Rocca and Mannarino, along with two other kickback defendants (Salvatore Granello and James “Jimmy Doyle” Plumeri), “to cooperate with the agency.” Moreover, all of the defendants in the kickback trials where Itkin testified, and Brod tried to intervene for the defense, were members of so-called “paper locals” in the Teamsters (and earlier the UAW-AFL), controlled by Plumeri’s nephew, John Dioguardi.

In June 1975, six months after the leak about Angleton and Operation CHAOS that led to Angleton’s ouster, Time magazine alleged that the CIA had used Brod’s mafia contacts, Plumeri and Granello, “to do some spying in Cuba in preparation for the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.” (I have found no corroboration for Time’s claim in released CIA documents.)

Like Brod, Angleton himself allegedly had mafia contacts, and on at least one occasion intervened to prevent another part of the CIA from investigating the banking of illegal Lansky skim from Las Vegas. A senior official in Robert Kennedy’s Justice Department asked John Whitten, the CIA’s one time chief of the Mexico/Panama desk in Western Hemisphere Division, to investigate numbered bank accounts in Panama because Las Vegas gamblers were using them to smuggle cash, “which they skimmed off the top of their daily take.” Using his CIA pseudonym “John Scelso,” Whitten testified to the Church Committee about Angleton’s actions.

At that time we were in an excellent position to do this…. I thought it was a great idea. And promptly this came to Mr. Angleton’s attention, and we had to brief him on it, and he said, well, we’re not going to have anything to do with this. This is the Bureau’s [FBI’s] business. And whammo, end of conversation. We were called off. I went to Colonel J.C. King, who was at that time the Chief of the WH Division, and told him this, and J.C. King said….well, you know, Angleton has these ties to the Mafia, and he is not going to do anything to jeopardize them. And then I said, I didn’t know that. And he said, yeah, it had to do with Cuba.

Angleton’s defense of Lansky’s skim cannot be separated from his second function in the CIA, as handler of the Israel desk. Angleton’s connections with Mossad dated back to World War II, when he had coordinated OSS operations in Italy with the Jewish underground headed locally by Teddy Kollek (later Israel’s Mayor of Jerusalem).

Angleton’s “Alternative CIA” and Its Legacy

Moreover CI/SIG, the “inner sanctum” of Angleton’s “alternative CIA,” affected U.S. history significantly in 1963. Its so-called 201 or “personality” file on “Lee Henry Oswald” (the man known to the world as Lee Harvey Oswald), had been filled with false and falsified information since it was opened in December 1960. And two messages in the 201 file were falsified again in October 1963, in such a way as to allow Oswald to be a credible “designated suspect” in the assassination of John F. Kennedy one month later.

The falsification of Oswald’s 201 file may have originated as a legitimate counterintelligence operation. I have argued that the uniquely falsified messages were part of a so-called “marked card” or “barium meal” test to determine if and where leaks of sensitive information were occurring. This was a familiar technique, and was the responsibility of the CI/SIG, which was responsible for the 201 file.

But by October 1963 we see signs that CIA cables on Oswald were also being manipulated, in order to enable him to become a designated suspect in the November 22 assassination of President Kennedy. A CIA teletype to the FBI in October 1963 (drafted by a CI/SIG officer) withheld the obviously significant information that Oswald had reportedly met in Mexico City with a Soviet Vice-Consul, Valeriy Kostikov, believed by CIA officers to be an officer of the KGB. This withholding helped ensure that Oswald would not be subjected to surveillance by the FBI after the alleged encounter, surveillance which presumably could have limited his ability to become a designated suspect by his presence at a particularly sensitive corner in Kennedy’s Dallas parade route. I have argued that similar CIA withholding from the FBI of information about two alleged 9/11 hijackers, Nawaz al-Hamzi and Khalid al-Mihdar, likewise made it possible for them to play the role of designated suspects by preventing FBI surveillance, as well.

CIA Director William Colby forced Angleton to resign from the CIA in the post-Watergate climate of December 1974, following public revelations about Angleton’s involvement in the CIA’s possibly illegal Operation CHAOS (the surveillance of Americans in the United States). This spelled the end of Angleton’s “alternative CIA” in the Counterintelligence Staff. For about another year leaks like the one we saw about CIA links to Brod’s mobsters continued to expose (and in this way help terminate) the morass of CIA links to Cuban exile terrorists and other members of the global drug connection.

But in 1976 the climate changed dramatically, after Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney in the so-called “Halloween massacre” (managed from President Ford’s White House) replaced CIA Director Colby with George H.W. Bush, and sent Rumsfeld from the White House to be Secretary of Defense. If 1975 was the post-Watergate year of dramatic disclosures about CIA involvement with Cuban exiles and mobsters in assassination efforts, 1976 was the year in which mob-connected Cuban exiles and the Chilean intelligence agency DINA, both involved in drug trafficking, indulged in a wave of terrorist killings. These included the blowing up of a civilian Air Cubana airliner and the assassination in Washington of former Chilean foreign minister Orlando Letelier.

However, the CIA was now no longer the sole or perhaps even the chief point of U.S. contact with the DINA-sponsored international Operation CONDOR, which carried out multiple killings. U.S. Ambassador to Paraguay Robert White, a career State Department official whose antipathy to these murders cost him his job after Reagan was elected, heard from the Paraguayan Armed Forces Commander that “intelligence chiefs from Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay used ’an encrypted system within the U.S. [military] telecommunications net[work],’ which covered all of Latin America, to ‘coordinate intelligence information.’”

Henry Kissinger, who in 1976 was in his last year as Secretary of State, played at best an equivocal role vis-à-vis this wave of right-wing violence. Before lecturing Chile publicly in Santiago for its human rights violations (“The condition of human rights…has impaired our relationship with Chile and will continue to do so.”), Kissinger privately assured Pinochet that he was compelled by U.S. politics to say this, and that in fact his main concern was the move in the U.S. Congress to cut off aid to Chile.

U.S. protection and even support for the terrorists of 1976 has continued to the present day. Luis Posada Carriles, the principal architect of the Air Cubana bombing, “served prison time in Venezuela for the Cubana bombing;” and “later, in the 1980s, he worked again on behalf of the CIA in Central America, helping to coordinate the Contra supply network.” Posada was arrested and convicted again in Panama in 2000 for an assassination attempt on Fidel Castro, this time with Guillermo Novo, one of Letelier’s murderers. Both men were promptly pardoned by Panama’s outgoing president. In May 2008, Posada was honored by 500 fellow Cuban Americans at a sold-out gala in Miami, after charges against him for illegal entry into the United States were thrown out by a federal judge in Texas.

CIA Director Bush also promoted Theodore Shackley, who for years had handled the CIA’s maverick Cuban exiles in Miami. According to Kevin Phillips,

In late 1976, Bush had also protected wayward or hot-triggered Agency operatives – veterans of everything from Chilean assassinations to Vietnam’s Phoenix Program and improper domestic surveillance – from indictment by President Ford’s Justice Department.

But the spirit of post-Watergate restraint returned to the CIA under President Carter and his CIA Director, Admiral Stansfield Turner. Thanks largely to a series of leaks about his friend, Edwin Wilson, Shackley’s standing in the CIA diminished until he left in 1978.

However, it is the argument of William Corson and Joseph Trento that the spirit of an alternative and more activist CIA survived under Shackley in exile. Trento writes that Shackley was supported by the Shah of Iran’s Safari Club (see below), and by Richard Helms, U.S. Ambassador to Iran. The regular CIA Station Chief in Iran “repeatedly complained that Helms seemed to be running his own intelligence operations out of the embassy,” and that CIA veterans who had worked under CIA officer Theodore Shackley, “formed the cadre of a private, shadow spy organization within America’s official intelligence service.”

Helliwell, Castle, and the Overworld

We have not yet dealt with the overworld connections of Castle Bank. The most affluent depositors there “were members of the fabulously rich Pritzker family from Chicago, clients of the Kanter firm.” Block observes that the Pritzkers, whose vast holdings include the Hyatt hotel chain, also obtained a loan from the Teamsters Pension Fund for a hotel-casino investment in Nevada, and that “Jimmy Hoffa and Allen Dorfman worked personally on Pritzker loans.”

Kanter and Castle Bank also planned developments with other members of the overworld, such as Henry Ford II and his wife, Christina. Mercantile, the predecessor bank to Castle, represented investments from two shipping magnates: the billionaire Daniel K. Ludwig, and the extremely wealthy Norwegian shipbuilder Inge Gordon Mosvold, who was perhaps fronting for Ludwig.

Mercantile and Castle interlocked closely with another Helliwell Bahamas bank, eventually called Underwriters Bank, Limited. Here the majority holder with 95 percent was the American insurance conglomerate American International Underwriters Corp. [AIUC], which began as part of the insurance empire headed by former OSS agent C.V. Starr, and is today part of the giant multinational AIG. Block correctly reports that AIUC “was an insurance conglomerate with suspected ties to the C.I.A. in Southeast Asia.”

I have written elsewhere how the C.V. Starr group was represented in Washington by Thomas (“Tommy the Cork”) Corcoran, and headed after World War II by Corcoran’s former law partner, William S. Youngman. It thus interlocked with the so-called Chennault circle (or Chennault’s “Washington squadron”), the powerful cabal put together with Roosevelt’s blessing in 1940 to enable the equipment, staffing, and financial support of General Claire Chennault’s Flying Tigers in China.

Corcoran had been a key figure in Washington since the 1930s, when he headed “FDR’s informal intelligence service and international spy operations long before there was an OSS.” By the 1950s, when he was said by Fortune to maintain “the finest intelligence service in Washington,” his lobbying activities had become intimately involved with influencing CIA covert operations:

Most of [his clients] are companies with international interests and he has a choice clientele in this field. It includes United Fruit Co., American International Underwriters Corp. (part of the C. V. Starr interests in Asia and elsewhere) and General Claire Chennault’s Civil Air Transport, Inc. In late 1951 Corcoran, for

one example, was working his intelligence service overtime keeping up with American policy on Iran—what the State Department did in this affair would be a guide to what it might or might not do to keep his client, United Fruit, from being thrown out of Guatemala.

Helliwell and Corcoran played a crucial role together in the prolongation of Chennault’s Asian influence, when the two men persuaded Frank Wisner of OPC to purchase and refinance Chennault’s post-war airline CAT (later the CIA proprietary Air America). Also figuring in this important decision was William Pawley, a key figure in Chennault’s so-called “Washington squadron” during World War II. Together with Sea Supply Inc., Helliwell’s other creation, CAT became the chief logistic infrastructure for the KMT drug-trafficking troops in Burma.

Helliwell and the Politics of Influence

Helliwell and Corcoran’s law firm, Corcoran and Rowe, also cooperated with William Donovan in using Thai money to influence Congress. Helliwell himself was a key organizer for the Republican Party in Florida, helping to win the state for Eisenhower in 1952 and thus launching the Republican ascendancy in the South. (Helliwell later became close to Nixon’s companion, Bebe Rebozo.)

Corcoran and Rowe, meanwhile, were Democrats, the latter close to the upcoming Texas senator Lyndon Baines Johnson. Corcoran in the 1940s had managed the accounts and political business of Chiang Kai-shek’s brother-in-law, T.V. Soong, who by diverting millions in Chinese gold to his California accounts had become one of the richest men in the world.

Together with Soong, Corcoran lobbied successfully for a lend-lease program to Nationalist (KMT) China, and to a private American Volunteer Group recruiting pilots from the armed forces for a private company headed by Corcoran’s friend, William Pawley. In fact, the pilots were being recruited to fight in China as part of Chennault’s irregular Air Force, for Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT:

In effect, Corcoran was running an off-the-books private war in which a private company, China Defense Supplies, was diverting some of the war materiel destined for China to a private army, the American Volunteer Group.

After the war, Soong, Corcoran, and Pawley became strong backers of the pro-KMT China Lobby. The State Department officers unfortunate enough to be entered in T.V. Soong’s “black book” became targets of the purges conducted by J. Edgar Hoover and later Joseph McCarthy.

The Soong-backed China Lobby’s fortunes declined dramatically with those of McCarthy in 1954. At this point Corcoran and Donovan, who had previously collaborated on Chennault’s preemptive purchase via CAT of China’s commercial air fleet in 1949, collaborated again to maintain the flow of funds from Asia to influence Congress. The new source was the Thai dictator, Phao Sriyanon, a major beneficiary of the KMT drug network established by Helliwell, Sea Supply, and CAT. (At the time of his death as an exile in Switzerland, Phao was said to be “one of the richest men in the world.”)

After scandals and exposés had forced the revamping of the China Lobby in Washington,

the private arm of the Thai Lobby had mustered its own resources…. Through Donovan, [OSS veteran Willis] Bird [Sea Supply’s purchasing agent in Bangkok], or his other CIA connections, Phao had, by that time, hired lawyer Paul Helliwell…as a lobbyist in addition to Donovan. Donovan [who received a reported $100,000 from the Thai government] and Helliwell divided the Congress between them, with Donovan assuming responsibility for the Republicans and Helliwell taking the Democrats.

How did Helliwell, an influential Republican lawyer working full-time in Miami, “take” the Democrats? By acting in his role as Thai Consul in Miami: his annual reports as a foreign lobbyist reveal that he passed tens of thousands of dollars a year to James Rowe, of Corcoran and Rowe.

Helliwell, Resorts International, and the Politics of Corruption

Helliwell and his banks also handled real investments for the Lansky crowd:

Among the Florida real estate companies that benefited from Helliwell’s sleight of hand was General Development Corporation, controlled by Louis Chesler, a Florida real estate developer and associate of Lansky, and “trigger Mike” Coppola, a Lansky crony. Chesler was the partner of Wallace Groves….Chesler and Groves were partners in a gambling venture with Resorts International, through a Grand Bahamian company whose counsel was the law firm of Helliwell, Melrose, and DeWolf.

Resorts International, formerly the Mary Carter Paint Company controlled by James Crosby, was the majority owner of a Bahamas resort, Paradise Island, which was unable to obtain a license until Wallace Groves was brought in as a partner in 1966. The well-known reaction of a U.S. Justice Department official to this change of ownership was, “The atmosphere seems right for a Lansky skim.” Years later, “lawyers for New Jersey’s Gaming Enforcement Division would oppose the granting of a gambling license to Crosby and his company [Resorts International], citing ‘links with disreputable persons and organizations,’ and specifically their record on Paradise Island.”

Like Helliwell and Groves, so Resorts International was part of the global CIA-mob connection. According to a 1976 CIA memorandum included in its Meyer Lansky Security file,

Resorts International, Inc., is the Subject of OS [Office of Security] file #591 722. This file reflects that Resorts International, Inc. was of interest to Cover and Commercial Staff, DDO [Operations Directorate], in 1972 and 1973.

As the same CIA memo makes clear, this was after a 1969 book, The Grim Reapers by Ed Reid, had exposed the company’s connections to Wallace Groves and, through its casino manager Eddie Cellini, to what the CIA memo called “the gambling activities of the organized crime boss Meyer LANSKY.” Resorts International, in other words, occupied a “cut-out” intermediary role between the CIA and Eddie Cellini, just as (we shall see in a moment) a similar cut-out role was performed in 1960 by the CIA’s Bay of Pigs leader, Tony Varona.

1972, the year in which Resorts became “of interest” to the CIA, was also the year in which Meyer Lansky was indicted in Miami, along with Dino Cellini (Eddie’s brother). One of the charges in the indictment was that “in 1968 Lansky maintained at least some control over running junkets (a profitable part of a casino operation) to the Paradise Island Casino.” I shall argue later that both Resorts and the Lansky indictment may have been “of interest” to the CIA in these two years because of the showdown at that time between Nixon and the CIA in the wake of the Watergate break-in.

The CIA may have been aware of the allegations, which surfaced in 1972, that funds from the Paradise Island casino were being secretly carried to Nixon and his friend Bebe Rebozo, by a casino employee. This was Seymour (Sy) Alter, an associate on the one hand of Lansky and his man Eddie Cellini, and on the other hand “a friend of Nixon and Rebozo since 1962.” The funds came from the Paradise Island Bridge Company, a company partly owned by an officer of Benguet International, a firm represented by Paul Helliwell. It is likely that Nixon himself had a hidden interest in the Bridge Company, which might explain the revelation through Operation Tradewinds that a “Richard M. Nixon” (not otherwise identified) had an account at Helliwell’s Castle Bank.

The CIA, Eddie Cellini, Edward K. Moss, and the CIA-Mafia Plots

But there was more to the CIA-Resorts connection. Back in 1967 Resorts casino (at that time, Paradise Island) had hired as its casino manager Eddie Cellini, who had formerly managed Lansky’s casino in Havana’s Hotel Internacional. 1967 was the year that the CIA’s Inspector-General, in his Report on CIA Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro, had written that Eddie Cellini and his more famous brother Dino

were believed to be in touch with [Tony] Varona [member of the CIA’s front group for the Bay of Pigs Operation]… and were reported to have offered Varona large sums of money for his operations against Castro, with the understanding that they would receive privileged treatment ‘in the Cuba of the future.’

The Inspector-General’s Report was written to deal with the political flap raised by Jack Anderson’s spectacular charge in 1967 that John F. Kennedy might have possibly been killed as the result of an assassination plot against Castro “which then possibly backfired” against Kennedy himself. Jack Anderson’s ultimate source for the story was John Roselli, a mob member disgruntled that his cooperation with the CIA on the assassination plots had not protected him from conviction and possible deportation.

Researcher Alan A. Block notes that it was strangely imprudent of Paradise Island to have hired Eddie Cellini in 1967, when it had just weathered an organized crime scandal of its own. But the CIA was facing the even bigger organized crime scandal raised by Jack Anderson’s column, and the I-G Report had just told CIA Director Helms that Cellini was possibly a go-between in the assassination plots between the two plot principals Varona and Santos Trafficante. One possibility is that Resorts hired Cellini to ensure that he would not join Roselli in going public.

There is an important FBI report reproduced without demurrer in a CIA document contained in its Lansky Security file, which is almost devoid of references to Lansky but could very well be called a file on the CIA-mafia plots. According to this FBI report, the contact between Varona and the Cellini brothers, representing the mob, was through a Washington public relations agent named Edward K. Moss:

Verona [sic] has taken on Edward K. Moss as his assistant for raising funds to finance operations against Castro….Julia Cellini is alleged to be Moss’ mistress and operates a secretarial service [that] is really a front for Edward K. Moss’ activities….Julia Cellini’s brother, Dino Cellini and his brother (first name unknown), are active fronts for two of the largest casinos that operated in Cuba until the Batista regime….It is alleged that the Cellini brothers are in close contact with Tony Verona [sic] through Edward K. Moss and have offered to contribute considerable sums of money (reported as high as two million dollars) through Edward K. Moss to Tony Verona to finance operations against the Castro regime with an understanding that they would have the major slice “in the Cuba of the future.”

According to the same CIA memo, Moss was a past president of the Public Relations Society of America. At the same time, according to a verbal report from Dun and Bradstreet to then-CIA agent Edwin P. Wilson, “Moss’ operation seems to be government contracts for the underworld and possibly surfaces Mafia money in legitimate business activities.”

All this supplies some context to the decision of the CIA Office of Security, on November 7, 1962, to secure a Covert Security Approval (CSAS) for the use of Moss by the Political Action Group of the CIA’s Covert Action (CA) staff. This of course was more than a year after the FBI had advised the CIA that reportedly “the Cellini brothers are in contact with Varona through Moss and have offered to contribute as high as two million dollars to finance anti-Castro operations.” Furthermore, FBI information sent to the CIA indicated that Moss’s mistress Julia Cellini and her brother Dino Cellini were alleged to be procurers, while “the Cellini brothers have long been associated with the narcotics and white slavery rackets in Cuba.” The CIA itself had notified the FBI on December 16, 1960, that Julia “Cellino” had advised that her brothers “have long been associated in the narcotics and white slavery rackets in Cuba.”

Still further FBI information indicated that Dino Cellini “was formerly associated with Joseph Francis Nesline WFO [i.e., Washington] top hoodlum, in a gambling operation.” I have written elsewhere how Meyer Lansky and Joe Nesline “systematically used sexual blackmail [i.e., through white slavery] to compromise a number of people in Washington who were politically influential.”

The CIA remembered that Moss was a questionable character; a memo of November 28, 1962 referred to his “‘unscrupulous and unethical’ business practices.” According to the I-G Report and other memos, “A memorandum prepared by CA [Covert Action] staff in 1965 states that records do not show any use made of Moss;” but this carefully worded language would not of course rule out use made of Moss off the books. In fact, the Moss folder’s documents confirm the CIA’s interest in him, and many documents concern Julia, Eddie, Dino, and Goffredo Cellini.

The documents concerning Moss, the Cellinis, and Varona are very revealing. The FBI alerted the CIA to their relationship and the offer of two million dollars to Varona, “in view of the serious implications of [mob] infiltration of this CIA-supported activity [against Castro].” On January 23, 1961, the FBI communicated their concerns to the new Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, then in office for less than a week.

The response of the CIA was the opposite of what decorum might expect: instead of distancing itself from Moss and his associates, the CIA warmed to them. The CIA arranged for poison pills to be supplied via the mafia to Varona, who in February 1961 became the point man in the CIA-mafia plot to kill Castro. In 1962 Varona was selected again to participate, as ZRRIFLE-2, in William Harvey’s renewed assassination plots against Castro. And in the same year, as we have seen, the CIA took steps to use Moss himself.

More on the CIA, Moss, and the Politics of Corruption: Adnan Khashoggi

The indirect relationship of the CIA to Moss through a cut-out (Varona) appears to have survived into the 1970s. By this time the cut-out was Adnan Khashoggi, who for a while (like T.V. Soong and Phao Sriyanon before him) was known as “the richest man in the world.” Khashoggi was also listed in the Kerry-Brown BCCI Report as one of the “principal foreign agents of the U.S,” and at some point in the 1970s he engaged Edward K. Moss as his public relations agent.

Khashoggi replicated the politics of corrupt influence through money and sex which we have already encountered. His contributions to Nixon’s election campaigns – some legal, some illicit – were investigated by the Senate Watergate Committee. Khashoggi is said by some to have given $1 million to Nixon covertly in 1972, allegedly in a briefcase which he “mistakenly” left behind in Nixon’s San Clemente residence.

In addition, Khashoggi is known to have deposited several million dollars (some say $200 million) in the bank of Nixon’s friend, Bebe Rebozo. He then “withdrew all but $200,000 of it in the form of checks written to ‘cash’ and signed over to the Sands Hotel” in Las Vegas. It was as if Khashoggi was using the Sands as his personal laundromat. Known as “the biggest high roller ever to hit Las Vegas,” Khashoggi would lose as much as $250,000 in one fling.

The Sands was one of the Las Vegas casinos originally part-owned by Meyer Lansky, and from which proceeds were skimmed to be deposited (as we saw) in the Miami National Bank. In the 1970s the Sands was now owned by Howard Hughes; but two veterans of the Lansky era, Carl Cohen and Jack Entratter, continued to work in the casino. Khashoggi meanwhile involved in his business deals the manager of Hughes’ Vegas properties, F. William Gay; and eventually, when Hughes was spirited secretly out of Vegas to Wallace Groves’ resort in Freeport, Bahamas, it was in Khashoggi’s plane.

Even in the Hughes era, Las Vegas casinos continued to be preferred sites for the laundering of money (disguised as gambling losses). This practice was so well established that eventually, in Operation Casablanca, U.S. Customs actually created a fake casino near Las Vegas at which top-level Mexican bank officials congregated and “avidly discussed how to handle the latest half-billion dollars in drug proceeds already on hand.” In one important case, thousands of dollars in money wrappers from the Stardust casino (mentioned above) were found on a suspected drug-smuggling plane in Florida.

There are also reports that in addition to money, Khashoggi “used sex to win over U.S. executives.” The bill for the madam who supplied girls en masse to his yacht in the Mediterranean ran to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The CIA’s interest in Khashoggi and Moss was not limited to the funds the two men had accessible. By the 1970s, Moss was Chairman of the elite Safari Club in Kenya, where he invited Khashoggi in as majority owner. And as former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal once revealed publicly, the intelligence chiefs of a group of countries (France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Iran under the Shah) met regularly at the Safari Club to conduct covert operations which the CIA was unable to carry out in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

CIA officers such as Miles Copeland and James Critchfield became part of Khashoggi’s milieu. They advised Khashoggi on diplomatic initiatives, such as a proposed Mideast Peace Fund that would reward both Israel and Palestine for recognizing each other. Khashoggi had the ability to negotiate with the Israelis; he is said to have been introduced to the Israelis by former gunrunner Hank Greenspun, the politically influential editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

In general, Khashoggi represented the post-war emigration offshore of immense wealth and the power it conveyed. He served as a “cut-out,” or representative, in a number of operations forbidden to those he represented. Lockheed, for one, was conspicuously absent from the list of military contractors who contributed illicitly to Nixon’s 1972 election campaign. But there was no law prohibiting their official representative, Khashoggi, from cycling $200 million through the bank of Nixon’s friend, Bebe Rebozo.

All this suggests that the CIA’s interest in Moss – as later in Khashoggi, in Wallace Groves, in Operation ███, and in Eddie Cellini’s employers at Resorts International – had to do with irregular funding for off-the-books covert operations. And if any such funds were passed, the context suggests that the man fingered to handle them would have been Paul Helliwell, the man the Wall Street Journal reported was “‘deeply involved’ in financing a series of covert forays between 1964 and 1975 against Cuba.”

Helliwell, Castle Bank, Bruce Rappaport, and BCCI

Through this rapid survey of Helliwell’s banks we have seen that he was central to a connection between the worlds of intelligence, organized crime, global drug trafficking, political influence, and speculative investment, often in hotel-casinos, with overworld figures. But the connection was not one engineered by Helliwell himself; there were other powerful people in the background, some of whom would maintain the connection after Helliwell died in 1976 (just as Castle Bank was beginning to attract the attention of journals like Newsweek).

One of the most important may have been former OSS Chief William Donovan (about whom we shall have more to say). According to Pete Brewton,

One of the attorneys in the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest case made the statement that Kanter was introduced to Helliwell by General William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan, the famous leader of the OSS during World War II, and Helliwell’s OSS boss. Kanter denied that. “I personally never met Bill Donovan. I believe I may have spoken to him once by phone at Paul Helliwell’s request…”

Another OSS figure, more directly involved, was Helliwell’s partner in the Florida bank holding company (called HMT and later Florida Shares) that owned the Bank of Perrine and the Bank of Cutler Ridge. This was

E.P. Barry, who had been a U.S. military intelligence officer in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II. By the end of the war, he was the head of U.S. Counterintelligence (X-2) in Vienna…. Barry … was a longtime associate of [CIA Director] William Casey, according to a Castle Bank officer.

Barry was simultaneously a key shareholder in Florida Shares and in the Inter Maritime Bank of Bruce Rappaport, a close friend and business associate of William Casey. Rappaport, an oilman and oil tanker broker “thought to have ties to U.S. and Israeli intelligence,” had numerous connections to the world’s largest-ever intelligence-drug laundromat – the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). The Gokal shipping family of Pakistan, leading BCCI investors who later contributed to BCCI’s bankruptcy, was also shareholders with Rappaport and Barry in the Inter Maritime Bank. Alfred Hartmann, a board member of BCCI, was both vice-chairman of Rappaport’s Swiss bank, Bank of New York-Intermaritime, and also head of BCCI’s Swiss subsidiary, the Banque de Commerce et de Placements (BCP).

And according to Block and Weaver, “Rappaport worked the National Bank of Oman (a BCCI/Bank of America joint venture), helping funnel millions of CIA and Saudi dollars to Pakistan for the Afghan rebels during its 1980s war with the Soviets.” Rappaport’s key man in Oman was Jerry Townsend, an alleged former CIA operative who now ran Colonial Shipping Co. in Atlanta, where he knew BCCI associate Bert Lance.

BCCI and an Israeli intelligence agent were also involved in Medellin arms sales, via a “melon farm” in Antigua partly financed by William Casey’s friend, Bruce Rappaport.

Bruce Rappaport … owned the land on which Maurice Sarfati, a former Israeli military officer, set up his melon farm. And one of Rappaport’s banks in Antigua made a large loan to Sarfati—which was never repaid. Sarfati (who also walked away from a loan guaranteed by OPIC, the U.S. government insurance agency) took it from there, first cultivating government officials and then providing entree to their offices to his compatriot Yair Klein.

Klein’s work [was] in Colombia, where his Israeli-licensed “security” company, Spearhead Ltd… trained the hit squads of the Medellin cocaine cartel in assassination and bombing techniques, was beginning to attract unwelcome attention. …. In 1988, Klein was in Antigua, looking for a new way to provide arms to his Medellin client, Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha.

Rappaport’s apparent links to Mossad raise the question whether Helliwell’s connections to Lansky’s Bank of World Commerce and Tibor Rosenbaum did not also constitute a connection to Mossad. The same question is raised by Helliwell’s legal representation (according to the Martindale-Hubbell Legal Register) of the Eastern Development Company: a firm of this name cooperated with Lansky, Hank Greenspun, and others in the supply of arms to the nascent state of Israel.

It is clear that Jews were, like many other minorities, a constituent in the global drug connection. More importantly, they were an important part of the financial infrastructure of that connection – but even at this level they did not operate alone. The global drug connection combined Jewish banks in Florida and Switzerland with those of Teochew, Fujian, and Hokkien Chinese in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, the Muslims of Bank Intra and later BCCI in the Middle East, and furthermore Italian banks like those of Michele Sindona and Roberto Calvi, both members of the intelligence-linked Masonic Lodge P-2, and both murdered after their banks failed from mafia involvement. It is my impression that none of these ethnic minority elements ever surpassed in power the dominant role of figures from the mainstream, like Donovan and Helliwell.

(As a person deeply committed to nonviolence, I also have to acknowledge that the violence of the ethnic groups in the global drug connection, although later powerful and indeed intelligence-related, had its origins in redressive violence, against a system dominated above all by European and American interests.)

One of these mainstream figures was the mysterious E.P. Barry, an investor with both Helliwell and Rappaport. One of the very few things known about Barry is that he was in OSS during World War II, and that towards the end of the war Donovan appointed him head of OSS Counterintelligence (X-2) in Vienna.

OSS X-2, or Counterintelligence, was the most secretive and highly classified of the OSS branches, and the one whose precise mission was to penetrate the German Sicherheitsdienst [SD]. According to a 1946 OSS Report, “an equally interesting X-2 activity was the investigation of RSHA [SD] financial transactions” (Operation Safehaven). In the course of these investigations, the U.S. Third Army took an SD major “on several trips to Italy and Austria, and, as a result of these preliminary trips, over $500,000 in gold, as well as jewels, were recovered.” Some of the Nazi gold recovered under Barry’s supervision was subsequently used to finance U.S. intelligence operations in Germany in the immediate post-war years.

Barry, with this intriguing background, represents the continuity between the Helliwell intelligence-drug connection which flourished until 1972 (the year the IRS’s Operation Tradewinds began to investigate the Bank of Perrine) and the BCCI intelligence-drug connection which flourished after 1972 (the year BCCI was founded).

Like Khashoggi before it, BCCI had the ability to broker Arab-Israeli-China arms deals, as well as its contacts to western intelligence and politicians. Indeed, the bank seems to have largely inherited Khashoggi’s function as an agent of influence in the Middle East and elsewhere after the United States, by the Corrupt Federal Practices Act of 1978, outlawed direct payments by U.S. corporations to foreign individuals.

BCCI also inherited and vastly expanded Khashoggi’s use of money to influence and corrupt American politicians. BCCI’s Pakistani president, Agha Hasan Abedi, rescued Jimmy Carter’s Treasury Secretary Bert Lance from bankruptcy, and thereby developed a relationship with Carter himself.

A Senate report on BCCI concluded that

BCCI’s systematically relied on relationships with, and as necessary, payments to, prominent political figures in most of the 73 countries in which BCCI operated. …The result was that BCCI had relationships that ranged from the questionable, to the improper, to the fully corrupt with officials from countries all over the world, including Argentina, Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Cameroon, China, Colombia, the Congo, Ghana, Guatemala, the Ivory Coast, India, Jamaica, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

And from two well-researched books by journalists from Time and the Wall Street Journal, we learn that among later highly-placed recipients of largesse from BCCI, its owners, and its affiliates, were

Ronald Reagan’s Treasury Secretary James Baker, who declined to investigate BCCI; and

Democratic Senator Joseph Biden and Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, the ranking members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which declined to investigate BCCI.

The CIA, BCCI, and a “Long Tradition of Shady Banks”

But Barry is not the only link between the drug banks of Helliwell and BCCI. A more central figure is General George Olmsted, the head of the Washington bank holding company known as the International Bank. In March 1973 Olmsted had the International Bank (which “had a reputation as a CIA bank”) buy 66 percent of the capital stock of the failing Mercantile Bank in the Bahamas (Castle’s predecessor), even though “International’s officers knew the actual state of Mercantile’s financial health.” Starting in 1977, International started to sell its stock in Financial General Bankshares (later known as First American), a major American bank holding company, to BCCI front men, who later took over First American for BCCI.

The most common explanation is that the CIA not only used the bank, but had helped develop it. Journalists Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin, the authors of the definitive book on BCCI, speculated that the CIA’s relationship with its founder, Agha Hasan Abedi, might have gone back to before BCCI’s founding in 1972. They observed also that BCCI was only the latest in an overlapping series of money-laundering banks that did services for the CIA – Deak & Company, Castle Bank & Trust, and Nugan Hand.

The Global Connection and Narcotics

One of these interlocking banks, the World Finance Corporation in Florida, became the target of “perhaps the largest narcotics investigation of the decade.” But the investigation, “involving scores of federal and state agents, had to be scrapped after a year because the CIA complained to the Justice Department that a dozen top criminals were ‘of interest’ to it.”

Another drug-linked bank was the Australian Nugan Hand Bank, which chose as auditor Price Waterhouse in the Bahamas in 1976, the year that both Castle and Mercantile were collapsing. After its spectacular collapse in 1980, Australian investigators concluded that Nugan Hand had been involved in the financing of major drug deals, as well as the laundering of profits: two official investigations “placed Nugan Hand in the critical role of surreptitiously transferring drug income overseas, where it obviously could be reinvested in more illegal drugs.”

Nugan Hand collected an impressive number of former CIA officers, including its “mysterious puppetmaster” Bernie Houghton, who back in the 1950s allegedly took the place of Helliwell in Bangkok, and former CIA Director William Colby. Of particular interest is the involvement with Nugan Hand of Thomas Clines, a CIA officer in Laos under Theodore Shackley who later resigned to work in the outsourced intelligence network of Edwin Wilson. When the Nugan Hand Bank collapsed spectacularly in 1980 (with the suicide or murder of Frank Nugan), it was Thomas Clines who helped spirit Houghton quietly out of Australia, The two men, along with Edwin Wilson and Theodore Shackley and BCCI, then participated in off-the-books covert operations against the Soviets in Afghanistan, working not for the CIA but for the Safari Club.

The CIA office in Chiang Mai, when the main business of the city was opium trafficking, was on the same floor as the local office of the DEA. According to Jonathan Kwitny, “The DEA receptionist answered Nugan Hand’s phone and took messages when the bank’s representatives were out.” Nugan Hand’s representative there, Neil Evans

has said he was present when Michael Hand and Ron Pulger-Frame – the former Deak & Company courier who went to work at Nugan Hand – discussed the shipment of CIA money to the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, and Panama. Evans has said Nugan Hand moved $50 to $60 million at a time for the CIA, and also that Nugan Hand was involved in Third World arms deals.

Evans also told Australian television that the millions he handled were “garnered from the drugs transiting the area. The bank, he put it starkly, was a ‘laundry’ for Meo [Hmong] tribesmen and other poppy growers.”

In The Road to 9/11 I describe how Casey’s reliance on BCCI to distribute U.S. assistance to the Afghan mujahideen fighting the Russians led to most aid reaching the faction of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leading drug trafficker in Afghanistan who soon (thanks to aid from the U.S. and Pakistan) became perhaps the leading heroin trafficker in the world.

This pattern of a drug connection repeated itself in the 1990s, after the USSR withdrew from Afghanistan and BCCI collapsed soon thereafter. In Azerbaijan (under oil company cover), veterans of CIA operations under Shackley and Clines in Laos, like Richard Secord, Heinie Aderholt, and Ed Dearborn, set up an airline on the model of Air America which soon was “picking up hundreds of mujahideen mercenaries from Afghanistan.” The Arab Afghans’Azeri operations were also financed with Afghan heroin.

Loretta Napoleoni has argued that there is an Islamist drug route of al Qaeda allies across North Central Asia, reaching from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan through Azerbaijan and Chechnya to Kosovo. This leads us to the paradoxical fact that in 1998 Clinton came to the support of the al Qaeda-backed Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). He did so even though “[i]n 1998, the U.S. State Department listed the KLA … as an international terrorist organization, saying it had bankrolled its operations with proceeds from the international heroin trade and from loans from known terrorists like Osama bin Laden.”

Finally, if former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds is to be believed, this same flow of heroin has been financing the corruption of Congress under George W. Bush. Edmonds was fired from the FBI in 2002, after accusing a colleague of being a security threat. She has since contested her firing in a whistleblower suit which the government has blocked by invoking the State Secrets privilege. She has also been prohibited from speaking publicly about her case.

According to Daniel Ellsberg, Edmonds’ concern is the al Qaeda connection described by Napoleoni:

Al Qaeda, she’s been saying to Congress, according to these interviews, is financed 95% by drug money – drug traffic to which the U.S. government shows a blind eye, has been ignoring, because it very heavily involves allies and assets of ours – such as Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan – all the ‘Stans – in a drug traffic where the opium originates in Afghanistan, is processed

in Turkey, and delivered to Europe where it furnishes 96% of Europe’s heroin, by Albanians, either in Albania or Kosovo – Albanian Muslims in Kosovo – basically the KLA, the Kosovo Liberation Army which we backed heavily in that episode at the end of the century….Sibel says that suitcases of cash have been delivered to the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, at his home, near Chicago, from Turkish sources, knowing that a lot of that is drug money.

In 2005 Sibel Edmonds’ charges were partly aired in Vanity Fair. There it was revealed that she had had access to FBI wiretaps of conversations among members of the American-Turkish Council (ATC), about bribing elected U.S. officials, and about “what sounded like references to large-scale drug shipments and other crimes.”

Conclusion: A Continuous Succession of Drug-Related Deep Events

Mafias and empires have certain elements in common. Both can be seen as the systematic violent imposition of governance in areas of undergovernance. Both use atrocities to achieve their ends; but both tend to be tolerated to the extent that the result of their controlled violence is a diminution of uncontrolled violence. (I would tentatively suggest an important difference between mafias and empires: that, with the passage of time, mafias tend to become more and more part of the civil society whose rules they once broke, while empires tend to become more and more irreconcilably at odds with the societies they once controlled.)

In this book we have seen an overlap between the infrastructures of the American mafia and the indirect American empire. And in this chapter I have attempted to describe the epicenter of this overlap in a milieu, expanding at its outer limits into a global nexus that I have called the global drug connections, with intimate links to both the U.S underworld and U.S. overworld. The nexus links U.S. intelligence to the intelligence services of many other countries, including Taiwan, Israel, Italy, and Chile. It also oversees financial contributions to the leading politicians of many countries, including both parties of the United States.

All of the major deep events in recent American history, and all of the major expansions of the U.S. indirect empire since World War II, can be linked to this global drug connection:

— The first U.S. postwar presence in East Asia was established in conjunction with the drug-financed KMT in Taiwan.

— The U.S. presence in Southeast Asia began with Sea Supply’s support for KMT drug traffickers in East Burma, then expanded in the mid-fifties with the drug-financed PARU force into Laos, while the CIA secured Saigon by controlling drug distribution there.

— The interlocking finance company Deak & Company, founded by OSS veteran Nicholas Deak, “was reportedly used by the CIA to finance covert operations, including the 1953 overthrow of democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq.”

— The 1954 overthrow of democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz was partly achieved with the support of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, a major figure in Lansky’s arms pipeline to Israel in the 1940s, and whose Guardia Nacional was deeply involved in Caribbean drug trafficking thereafter.

— The introduction of CIA covert forces in Laos in 1960, which eventually grew into a drug-financed irregular army of tens of thousands, was achieved with a force that grew out of the Sea Supply operation in Thailand. The CIA’s private war in Laos, which President Kennedy sought vainly to contain, was the true starting point of the U.S. war in Vietnam.

— Angleton’s “alternative CIA,” CI/SIG, manipulated and falsified its “intelligence” about Lee Harvey Oswald in such a way as to prepare him to be the designated suspect in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

— The overthrow of democratically elected Indonesian President Sukarno in 1965 was achieved in part by covert assistance through Lockheed Corporation payoffs, and in part by the intervention of Sasakawa Ryoichi, a CIA agent of influence, along with his friend Kodama Yoshio, with the yakuza in Japan. Sasakawa and Kodama were also recipients of Lockheed payoffs facilitated partly by Deak & Company, and partly on the scene by Shig Katayama, whose ID Corp. in the Cayman Islands conducted mysterious business transactions with Helliwell’s Castle Bank.

— BCCI provided the initial infrastructure for the CIA intervention in Afghanistan in 1979, and the ensuing alliance with the major drug trafficker Gulbeddin Hekmatyar. Pakistan’s President Zia arranged for Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s National Security Adviser, to work with Lt.-Gen. Fazle Haq; while a BCCI informant told U.S. authorities that Fazle Haq was “heavily engaged in narcotics trafficking and moving the heroin money through the [BCCI] bank.” Hekmatyar in the next decade received more CIA aid than any other CIA asset before or since.

— In 1970, a CIA officer with the pseudonym Henry J. Sloman, who was also “a high-risk smuggler directly linked to the Mafia,” was dispatched to Chile, where he became involved with the right-wing plotting to assassinate General René Schneider, commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army.

— Orlando Letelier was murdered in Washington in September 1976 by a team including Cuban exile drug-traffickers, working for the dug-financed Chilean intelligence agency DINA. Though the US Government was already aware of DINA’s Operation CONDOR for such foreign-based murders, CIA Director Bush chose publicly to deflect suspicion away from DINA.

— According to Robert Parry, Alexandre de Marenches of the Safari Club arranged for William Casey (a fellow Knight of Malta) to meet with Iranian and Israeli representatives in Paris in July and October 1980, where Casey promised delivery to Iran of needed U.S. armaments in exchange for a delay in the return of the U.S. hostages in Iran. (This was the so-called Republican “October Counter-surprise.”) Parry suspects a role of BCCI in both the funding of payoffs for the secret deal, and also the subsequent flow of Israeli armaments to Iran.

— In 1981 Mehmet Ali Agça, a member of the Turkish drug-trafficking Grey Wolves, attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II. Le Monde diplomatique later reported that the assassination attempt was organized, at the request of Turkish mafia chief Bekir Celenk, by Abdullah Çatli, a drug-trafficking Grey Wolf leader of death squads for Turkish intelligence. Le Monde diplomatique added that one year later Çatli visited Miami with the notorious Operation CONDOR killer, Stefano delle Chiaie.

— Shackley, Khashoggi, and BCCI were instrumental in inaugurating the illegal Iran-Contra Connection of 1985-86, which diverted funds from arms sales to Iran to support of the Contras in Honduras and Costa Rica.

— The looting of Russia during the Yeltsin era in the 1990s saw funds channeled through Rappaport’s Inter Maritime Bank into the Bank of New York, where Rappaport also had an important if not controlling interest.

— In 1991, Shackley’s colleague Richard Secord created an airline in Azerbaijan which arranged to fly in hundreds of mujahideen from Afghanistan recruited by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

— U.S. support for the Kosovo Liberation Army in 1998, a group backed by al-Qaeda and financed in part by drugs, led to revelations that for years at least one of the KLA leaders had a longtime relationship with the U.S. private military company MPRI. (As late as 1997 the KLA had been recognized by the United States as a terrorist group supported in part by the heroin traffic.)

(The list could be indefinitely expanded. For example, the conversion of Australia into a dependable U.S. ally can be dated to the fall of democratically elected Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in 1975, in which Penny Lernoux and others have seen the hidden hand of the Nugan Hand Bank.)

This deep continuity underlying U.S. expansion since World War II helps make credible the startling phenomenon described in our last chapter – namely, that deep events such as the Kennedy assassination and 9/11 are not unrelated, or the product of forces attacking America from outside. Rather, at least in part, they surface into public awareness out of the deep connection described in this chapter, a connection whose presence is ongoing but almost completely unacknowledged.

Further Conclusion: The Increasing Threat to Stable Democracy

But when this list of covert interventions and deep events is viewed synoptically, a pattern can be seen of increasing deviation from the policies of the public state. The assistance of the global connection for the CIA’s interventions in Iran (1953) and Guatemala (1954) was in support of operations previously sanctioned by the National Security Council (and before that the Council on Foreign Relations).

But the drug-financed evolution of a CIA-trained force in Thailand into an offensive force invading Laos was an operation explicitly not authorized by the National Security Council. As Daniel Fineman has noted,

JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] preference for direct aid to French forces forced the NSC [National Security Council] in September [1953] to authorize implementation of only phase one [“strengthening Thailand’s will and ability to resist”], postponing indefinitely execution of the provisions in phase two taking the psychological war to neighboring countries.

And the falsification of Oswald’s file by Angleton’s CI/SIG, although it may have been initially authorized as a legitimate tool in the search for an alleged mole in the CIA, eventually facilitated the successful assassination of John F. Kennedy and the ensuing cover-up. At this point, the global connection was no longer simply a force acting in support of the public American state; it had developed relations with forces attacking the public state.

This pattern of increasing deviation can be used to refine our notion of the American deep state. Initially the deep state can be identified with the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), the creation (invisible at the time) of the National Security Council that facilitated the original Helliwell-CIA-mob connection. With the absorption of OPC into the CIA in 1953, the American deep state ceased for many years to exhibit the relatively coherent and disciplined concentration of authority that one sees in the deep states of Turkey or Italy or Colombia, or at one time in Chile and Argentina. At this stage the American deep state was unified by the economy of drugs but not much else. Its nebulous connection to legitimate power had shrunk to Angleton’s “alternative CIA,” and even this ceased when Angleton was fired in December 1974.

But according to Joseph Trento, the connection was indirectly restored by a “shadow CIA” working for the Safari Club and Saudi intelligence; and by the 1980s this shadow CIA “was not only working for the Israelis but also was involved in covert operations from Central America to Iran.” It is certain that, with the blessing of Casey, – who had his own direct contacts with Rappaport, BCCI, and the global drug connection – Shackley, Khashoggi, and their contacts led to Iran-Contra. At least one member of Shackley’s group, Richard Secord, then created an airline which brought Islamist mujahideen to Afghanistan. Another, neocon Michael Ledeen, contributed not only to Iran-Contra but also, with Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, to the creation of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

Indeed, the decision of William Casey to work with the global connection, and more specifically BCCI and Theodore Shackley’s contacts in Iran-Contra, cannot be fully understood by focusing on the history of the global drug connection alone. Casey’s actions must be seen in the context of what Irving Kristol has called the intellectual counterrevolution of the 1970s, the successful reversal of Kissinger’s and Carter’s moves towards détente with the Soviet Union, and of the post-Watergate reforms introduced by Senator Frank Church and others. As I have written elsewhere, a key moment was the so-called Halloween massacre in 1975, which saw among other things the firing of Angleton’s nemesis, William Colby, the appointment of Rumsfeld to Secretary of Defense, and the end of Kissinger’s long tenure as National Security Adviser.

By 1976 the intellectual counterrevolution had consolidated a new anti-Kissinger coalition consisting of a) Cheney and Rumsfeld inside the Ford Administration, b) the Committee on the Present Danger lobbying for a vastly increased defense budget, and c) neocons like Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, who came together to work against Kissinger’s SALT agreements and (with the help of the CIA’s new director, George H.W. Bush) to radically escalate the CIA’s estimate of the Soviet threat. Casey played an important role in this anti-Soviet coalition, and in 1976 he joined the CPD along with long-time members of the global connection like Ray Cline (Helliwell’s old OSS associate from Kunming), Jay Lovestone, and George Olmsted.

The anti-government bias of the new neocon right has extended to increased dislike for the CIA, now seen as an enemy rather than an ally. But even the new outsourced forces of violence in private security companies (PSCs) like Blackwater have recruited from the violent resources of the old global drug connection – specifically, in Blackwater’s case, from the paramilitary forces in countries like Colombia.

In short, the recourse to the illicit violence of the global drug traffic, which began in the panicked early years of the Cold War, has continued ever since to increase and metastasize, until it is now an increasing threat to constitutional democracy. It is not easy for most people to understand this. In the short run, illicit violence breeds the redressively violent opposition which justifies its existence – so that today the PSCs in Iraq and Afghanistan earn multimillion dollar contracts to fight the resistance they themselves have provoked.

But the new system of indirect empire does not appear to be a stable one: if there is a momentary respite in Iraq, it is because opposing cadres have found it more fruitful to fight in Afghanistan. Rather, indirect empire is a violent substitute for politics, to deal with situations which only politics can ameliorate.

If this country were serious in wishing to deal with the problem of terrorism, it would seek to reduce, rather than increase, the oppression which is producing redressive violence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, Kashmir, Lebanon, and Palestine. The present course is more likely to aggravate the deteriorating status quo, and also to accelerate the waning of American resources, influence, and good will, even among our allies.

Is it utopian to think that the present course can be corrected? Probably yes, as long as most Americans believe that 9/11 was an attack engineered solely by a group of malevolent Arabs. But a saner policy might ensue if it were shown that 9/11, as Sibel Edmonds has intimated, was a deep event involving elements from America’s global drug connection.

What I have called America’s global drug connection has been responsible in the past for global terrorist activities like Operation Condor, and also for strengthening drug networks as so-called parallel governments in countries like Laos, Pakistan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Colombia. For decades this country has been largely in denial about U.S. complicity in this state of affairs, projecting responsibility for terrorism instead on the Soviet Union (“the Evil Empire”) and more recently Iraq and Iran (“the Axis of Evil”).

To overcome these decades of denial will not be easy. But it will be a necessary step towards diminishing terrorism, and restoring a saner world.

Peter Dale Scott, a former Canadian diplomat and professor at the University of California , Berkeley , is the author of The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War (August 2008). This essay draws on the concluding section of the new book, which can be ordered from the Mary Ferrell Foundation Press by clicking here at http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/MFF_Store. His website is http://www.peterdalescott.net.

NOTE: [The text of this article does not include text and endnote numerals. To consult Peter Dale Scott’s article entitled Deep Events and the CIA’s Global Drug Connection, with numbered references and endnotes in word document format click here]

ENDNOTES

“9/11, Deep State Violence and the Hope of Internet Politics,” Global Research; cf. Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007), 4-7, 14-17, etc.

Alan A. Block, East Side-West Side: Organizing Crime in New York, 1930-1950 (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1983), 109.

Gaia Servadio, Mafioso (New York: Dell, 1976), 125-28.

R.T. Naylor, Hot Money and the Politics of Debt (New York: Linden/Simon and Schuster, 1987), 295 (“laundromat”). For Helliwell’s ownership, see Alan A. Block, Masters of Paradise (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1991), 165-66.

CIA Memo dated 24 April 1974, “RYBAT/JMSPUR/PLVWCADET Traffic Removed from C/WHD Personal Files during Watergate File Search. Traffic can be found in sealed sensitive envelope in safe No. 1322 located in WH/COG, Room 3D46,” NARA # 104-10095-10326. C/WHD (Chief of Western Hemisphere Division) in 1974 was Theodore Shackley, discussed below. All of the CIA and FBI documents discussed in this essay can be seen on the Mary Ferrell website, http://www.maryferrell.org/.

Block, Masters of Paradise, 161-62, 166.

Alan Block subsequently learned that it was the bank’s co-founder, Chicago lawyer “Burt Kanter, more so than Helliwell, who was instrumental in Castle’s formation.” He cites speculation that it was originally set up on behalf of the former Cleveland mob racketeer, Morris Kleinman (Block, Masters of Paradise, 172).

Jim Drinkhall, “IRS vs. CIA: Big Tax Investigation Was Quietly Scuttled By Intelligence Agency,” Wall Street Journal, April 18, 1980.

Wall Street Journal, April 18, 1980.

Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books/ Chicago Review Press, 2001), 168-74; Block, Masters of Paradise, 169 (Thai police).

Alan A. Block and Constance A. Weaver, All Is Clouded by Desire: Global Banking, Money Laundering, and International Organized Crime (Westport, CN.: Praeger, 2004), 38; citing Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer, Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1983), 119. Cf. Peter Dale Scott, The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War (Ipswich, MA: Mary Ferrell Foundation Press, 2008), 47, 67.

Wall Street Journal, April 18, 1980.

CIA Memo of 18 August 1976 for Chief, Security Analysis Group, NARA #104-10059-10013. The margin of the memo carries the following handwritten reference to Sam Giancana, the major figure in the CIA-mafia assassination plots against Fidel Castro: “for file/ Sam GIANCANA/ not mentioned.”

Jonathan Marshall, Drug Wars: Corruption, Counterinsurgency and Covert Operations in the Third World (Forestville, CA: Cohan and Cohen, 1991), 54; citing Drinkhall, Wall Street Journal, April 18, 1980.

Block notes that the spinoff of I.D.C. from Benguet was accompanied by a “payment of $329,439 to a Hong Kong Bank” (possibly into a Marcos account) (Block, Masters of Paradise, 98).

Profits from the Philippine gold mine, and possibly gold itself, reached I.D.C. from Asia. But I have not seen corroboration for the claim of Sterling and Peggy Seagraves that Groves and Helliwell were actually moving parts of the Japanese wartime gold hoard to the Bahamas “out of the Philippines, masquerading as gold from Benguet Mines” (Sterling and Peggy Seagrave, Gold Warriors: America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold [London: Verso, 2003], 147). It is, however, of interest that the Marcos family also entered into business dealings with the CIA-related Nugan Hand Bank (see below), which some say included negotiations for the surreptitious shipment of Marcos’ gold (Jonathan Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots [New York: Norton, 1987], 182, 186-87, 190).

Lernoux, In Banks We Trust, 83.

Marshall, Drug Wars, 54-55. Cf. U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Government Operations, Oversight Hearings into the Operations of the IRS (Operation Tradewinds, Project Haven, and Narcotics Traffickers Tax Program), Hearings (Washington: GPO, 1975, 909; Peter Dale Scott, Coming to Jakarta: A Poem about Terror (New York: New Directions, 1989), 99-103. It is not known if ID Corp. and I.D.C. were related.

For the CIA’s close involvement in Lockheed payoffs, see Anthony Sampson, The Arms Bazaar (New York: Viking, 1977), pp. 137, 227-8, 238. The U.S. Air Force was also involved. San Francisco Chronicle, October 24, 1983, p. 22, describes one such USAF-Lockheed operation in Southeast Asia, “code-named ‘Operation Buttercup’ that operated out of Norton Air Force Base in California from 1965 to 1972.”

“The United States and the Overthrow of Sukarno, 1965-1967,” Pacific Affairs, LVIII, 2 (Summer 1985), 239-64: “A 1976 Senate investigation into these [Lockheed] payoffs revealed, almost inadvertently, that in May 1965, over the legal objections of Lockheed’s counsel, Lockheed commissions in Indonesia had been redirected to a new contract and company set up by the firm’s long-time local agent or middleman. Its internal memos at the time show no reasons for the change, but in a later memo the economic counselor of the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta is reported as saying that there were “some political considerations behind it.” If this is true, it would suggest that in May 1965, five months before the coup, Lockheed had redirected its payoffs to a new political eminence, at the risk (as its assistant chief counsel pointed out) of being sued for default on its former contractual obligations. The Indonesian middleman, August Munir Dasaad, was `known to have assisted Sukarno financially since the 1930’s.’ In 1965, however, Dasaad was building connections with the Suharto forces, via a family relative, General Alamsjah, who had served briefly under Suharto in 1960, after Suharto completed his term at SESKOAD. Via the new contract, Lockheed, Dasaad and Alamsjah were apparently hitching their wagons to Suharto’s rising star: ‘When the coup was made during which Suharto replaced Sukarno, Alamsjah, who controlled certain considerable funds, at once made these available to Suharto, which obviously earned him the gratitude of the new President. In due course he was appointed to a position of trust and confidence and today Alamsjah is, one might say, the second important man after the President.’”

A Senate amendment in 1964 to cut off all aid to Indonesia unconditionally was quietly killed in conference committee, on the misleading ground that the Foreign Assistance Act “requires the President to report fully and concurrently to both Houses of the Congress on any assistance furnished to Indonesia” (U.S. Cong., Senate, Report No. 88-1925, Foreign Assistance Act of 1964, p. 11). In fact the act’s requirement that the president report “to Congress” applied to eighteen other countries, but in the case of Indonesia he was to report to two Senate Committees and the Speaker of the House: Foreign Assistance Act, Section 620(j).

Tom J. Farer, Transnational Crime in the Americas: An Inter-American Dialogue Book (New York: Routledge, 1999), 65.

Ed Reid and Ovid Demaris, The Green Felt Jungle (New York: Pocket Books, 1964), 217-20. Levinson had fronted for Lansky at the Sands casino in Las Vegas.

Peter Dale Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 7, 60-61, 198, 207; citing Penny Lernoux, In Banks We Trust (Garden City, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1984), 42-44, 84.

Naylor, Hot Money and the Politics of Debt, 22.

Block, Masters of Paradise, 51. Intra Bank also had a Bahamian branch, Intra Bahamas Trust Ltd.

Newsday, staff and editors of, The Heroin Trail (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974), 137 (Francisi); McCoy, The Politics of Heroin, 39 (Luciano). El-Khoury “used Luciano’s money to buy off Lebanese police and customs agents” (Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs, and the Press [London: Verso, 1998], 131).

McCoy, Politics of Heroin, 541.

James Mills, The Underground Empire: Where Crime and Government Embrace (New York: Dell, 1978), 70.

Scott and Marshall. Cocaine Politics (paperback edition), x-xi. Dayle made this statement during a videotaped teleconference, in the presence of Marshall and myself.

Wall Street Journal, April 18, 1980. Dalitz, Kleinman, and Tucker, all veterans of the gambling scene in Cleveland, later had a controlling interest in the Desert Inn casino in Las Vegas (Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce: Hearings before the [Kefauver] Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, U.S. Senate, 81st Cong., 2nd Sess. and 82nd Congress, 1st Sess., Part 10, US Government Printing Office, [Washington DC: 1950], pp. 907-926). Block’s and Weaver’s later and more detailed study claims that Dalitz did not have an account at Castle, but adds former Lansky associate Lou Rothkopf to the list of mob figures who did (Block and Weaver, All Is Clouded by Desire, 45).

Block, Masters of Paradise, 189.

Penny Lernoux, In Banks We Trust (Garden City, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1984; citing Wall Street Journal, May 23, 1977, February 17, 1981; also, Parapolitics, Spring 1981), 88: “Like Castle, Mercantile was a conduit for CIA money, and Price Waterhouse accountants were `under orders’ to make sure `outsiders’ did not have access to the books. If they probed around, said a CIA source, they ‘could unravel a trail to the intelligence community.’”

Block and Weaver, All Is Clouded by Desire, 40; cf. Block, Masters of Paradise, 188-91, where Kleinman is called “perhaps a hidden owner” of Castle.

Block, Masters of Paradise, 163; New York Times, September 1, 1989 (“part owner”).

Block, Masters of Paradise, 164.

CIA Inspector General’s Report of 1967 on CIA-Mafia Plots to Assassinate Castro, pp. 15-16, NARA #151993.08.11.16:44:08:750007, pp. 3-4.

Memo of 5 September 1975 to DDO from CI Staff Chief George Kalaris, NARA #104-1010-10003, p. 2.

Tom Mangold, Cold Warrior: James Jesus Angleton: The CIA’s Master Spy Hunter (New York: Touchstone/ Simon & Schuster, 1991), 314-15.

Douglas Valentine, “The French Connection Revisited: The CIA, Irving Brown, and Drug Smuggling as Political Warfare,” Covert Action, http://www.covertaction.org/content/view/99/75/.

Paul Buhle, “Lovestone’s Thin Red Line,” Nation, May 6, 1999, http://www.thenation.com/doc/19990524/buhle.

House Select Committee on Assassinations, Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Appendix to Hearings, Volume IX (March 1978), 47.

Ed Reid, The Grim Reapers: The Anatomy of Organized Crime in America (New York: Bantam, 1969), 174.

Mangold, Cold Warrior, 329-30; cf. 305, 337. Other authors have written that Dulles and Angleton maintained a “second agency,” or “agency-within-the Agency;” see e.g. Mark Aarons and John Loftus, Unholy Trinity (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), 260.

Mangold, Cold Warrior, 105.

Memo of 4 November 1970 from John K. Greaney, Assistant General Counsel, CIA, NARA #104-10106-10374.

“United States of America, Appellee, v. Leonard Russo, et al., Defendants-Appellants”

Memo of 4 November 1970 from John K. Greaney, Assistant General Counsel, CIA, NARA #104-10106-10374. Robert Sam Anson once claimed that two of the defendants in these kickback trials, John Larocca and Gabriel Mannarino, were acquitted in 1971 when “one of the star witnesses turned out to be the local head of the CIA” (Robert Sam Anson, “They’ve Killed the President,” [New York: Bantam, 1975], 296). Anson told me that this witness was Brod, but I have found no court record that Brod’s testimony was accepted into the court record.

Dan E. Moldea, The Hoffa Wars: Teamsters, Rebels, Politicians, and the Mob (New York: Paddington Press, 1978), 130-31.

Time, June 9, 1975, 14.

Church Committee, Testimony of John Scelso, 7 May 1976, 41-42, NARA #157-10014-10083, 45-46. Angleton’s response suggests that he may have believed what Hank Messick and others later charged: that Lansky had somehow obtained protection from the Bureau [Hank Messick, John Edgar Hoover (New York: David McKay Co., 1972], 229-31, etc).

William R. Corson, Susan B. Trento, Joseph J. Trento, Widows (New York: Crown, 1979), 71.

For details see Scott, War Conspiracy, 387; Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics II: The New Revelations in U.S. Government Files, 1994-1995 (Ipswich, MA: Mary Ferrell Foundation Press, 2007), 30-33.

See Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics II: The New Revelations in U.S. Government Files,

1994-1999(Ipswich, MA: Mary Ferrell Foundation Press, 2007), 17-18, 92; also

Peter Dale Scott, “Oswald and the Hunt for Popov’s Mole,” The Fourth Decade, III,

3 (March 1996), 3; www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=519798.

Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics II, 30-33.

See discussion in Peter Dale Scott, “The JFK Assassination and 9/11: the Designated Suspects in Both Cases,” Global Research, July 5, 2008, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9511.

J. Patrice McSherry, Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), 139-75; John Dinges, The Condor Years: How Pinochet and His Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents (New York: New Press, 2004), 190-98, 248-50; Peter Kornbluh, The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability.

McSherry, Predatory States, 95; citing White cable of October 13, 1978, foia.state.gov/documents/State/Chile3/000058FD.pdf (a URL inactive in 2008); also Diana Jean Schemo, “New Files Tie U.S. to Deaths of Latin Leftists in 1970s,” New York Times, March 6, 2001.

“I can do no less, without producing a reaction in the U.S. which would lead to legislative restrictions. The speech is not aimed at Chile…My evaluation is that you are a victim of all left-wing groups around the world, and that your greatest sin was that you overthrew a government which was going communist” (Dinges, The Condor Years, 159-62); citing Department of State Bulletin 75 (July 5, 1976), 4 (public speech).

McSherry, Predatory States, 159.

McSherry, Predatory States, 161.

Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2008, http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/07/nation/na-posada7.

Kevin Phillips, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush (New York: Viking, 2004), 280.

Joseph J. Trento, The Secret History of the CIA (New York: Forum/Prima/Random House, 2001), 436-37. In 1978 Trento himself was the recipient of a leak linking Wilson to Shackley.

Trento, The Secret History of the CIA, 395 (Helms), 344 (cadre).

Block, Masters of Paradise, 191.

Block, Masters of Paradise, 192: “The major Pritzker link to the Teamsters was crafted by Stanford Clinton, ” a lawyer “who represented some of Chicago’s leading hoodlums” and also had a Castle account.

Block, Masters of Paradise, 195.

Block, Masters of Paradise, 171; cf. 32-33.

Block, Masters of Paradise, 172-73, 182.

Scott, The War Conspiracy, 46-47, 60, 64-68, 263, 278-79.

OSS officer and Corcoran friend Ernest Cuneo, quoted in David McKean, Peddling Influence: Thomas “Tommy the Cork” Corcoran and the Birth of Modern Lobbying (Hanover, NH: Steerforth, 2004), 286.

“Lawyers and Lobbyists.” Fortune, February 1952, p. 142; quoted in Scott, The War Conspiracy, 47.

Joseph J. Trento, Prelude to Terror: The Rogue CIA and the Legacy of America’s Private Intelligence Network (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2005), 9.

Scott, The War Conspiracy, 278-79

Block, Masters of Paradise, 170.

McKean, Peddling Influence, 140-43; Scott, War Conspiracy, 64-65.

McKean, Peddling Influence, 149-50.

Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, Vol II (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1990), 107, 153; Trento, Prelude to Terror, 9.

Oral History Interview with Arthur R. Ringwalt, June 5, 1974, Truman Library, http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/ringwalt.htm.

Bertil Lintner, Burma in Revolt: Opium and Insurgency Since 1948 (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1999), 192; Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War, 51, 187, 192-93, etc.

Daniel Fineman, A Special Relationship: The United States and Military Government in Thailand, 1947-1958 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997), 214-15; cf. 206.

Penny Lernoux, In Banks We Trust (Garden City, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1984), 82-83.

Anthony Summers with Robbyn Swann, The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon (New York: Viking, 2000), 242.

Memo of 18 August 1976 to Chief, Security Analysis Group, NARA #104-10059-10013; also partially released as p. 6 of Meyer Lansky Security File, 1993.08.13.17:42:12:560059.

Memo of 18 August 1976 to Chief, Security Analysis Group, NARA #104-10059-10013; Reid, The Grim Reapers, 119-23.

Jeff Gerth, in Sid Blumenthal and Harvey Yazijian (eds.), Government by Gunplay: Assassination Conspiracy Theories from Dallas to Today (New York : New American Library, 1976), 138.

Summers with Swan, The Arrogance of Power, 242, 252; Jim Hougan, Spooks, 398. Cf. Denny Walsh, New York Times, January 21, 1974; Gerth, in.Government by Gunplay, 137-39.

Block, Masters of Paradise, 94-96; Summers with Swan, The Arrogance of Power, 244-45.

Summers with Swan, The Arrogance of Power, 244-45, 253-54.

Block, Masters of Paradise, 46, 101.

Inspector-General’s report on CIA Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro, 29-30; quoted in Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics II: The New Revelations in U.S. Government Files, 1994-1995 (Ipswich, MA: Mary Ferrell Foundation Press, 2007), 60.

San Francisco Chronicle, March 3, 1967, 41; quoted in Scott, Deep Politics II, 67.

Block, Masters of Paradise, 100-01.

Inspector-General’s report on CIA Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro, 29-30; quoted in Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics II, 59

Some of the documents in this file, including the FBI Report quoted in this paragraph, are incorporated into the Inspector-General’s report on CIA Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro, 29-30; quoted in Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics II, 59. In addition, the CIA’s report on its interest in Resorts International, quoted above, carries the handwritten notation “for file/ Sam GIANCANA/ not mentioned.” The allusion to Giancana makes sense in the context of the CIA-mafia plots, but as far as I know not otherwise.

“MOSS, Edward K. #172 646,” CIA Memo of 14 May 1973, in Meyer Lansky Security File, p. 9, NARA #1993.08.13.17:42:12:560059. The CIA used the misspelling “Verona” which occurred just once in the FBI source document, and ignored the correct spelling “Varona” which was abundantly used as well. Note below their use of “Cellino” (rather than “Cellini”) and “Lenzieri” (for Lanzieri) in related CIA documents. By this device both the FBI and CIA could avoid responding to document searches for the correct name. For example in the 1940s the CIA told the French that they had no documents on the SS war criminal Klaus Barbie, whom they were harboring. The American documents referred to him systematically as “Barbier.”

“MOSS, Edward K. #172 646,” CIA Memo of 14 May 1973 from Jerry G. Brown for Deputy Chief, Security Research Staff, NARA #1993.08.13,17:42:12:560059.

“Moss, Edward K. #172 646,” CIA Memo of 19 April 1967 [at the time of the I-G Report mentioning Moss], NARA #104-10122-10006; Inspector General’ Report on CIA-Mafia Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro (henceforth I-G Report), NARA # 104-10213-10101, p. 38. Cf. memo of 7 November 1962 in CIA’s Edward K. Moss folder, p. 26, NARA #1994.05.03.10:54:53:780005.

“Manuel Antonio Varona,” FBI Memorandum of January 16, 1961 to A. H. Belmont, 105-76826-20; NARA #124-90055-10139.

“Manuel Antonio Varona,” FBI Memorandum of January 16, 1961 to A. H. Belmont, p. 2, 105-76826-20; NARA #124-90055-10139. Cf. “Moss, Edward K. #172 646,” CIA Memo of 14 May 1973, in Meyer Lansky Security File, p. 9, NARA #1993.08.13.17:42:12:560059; CIA letter of 16 December 1960 to FBI, FBI file 105-76826-18; NARA #124-90055-10133.

CIA letter of 16 December 1960 to Director, FBI, FBI File 105-76826-18; NARA #124-90055-10133. Apparently no copy of this letter has been released from CIA files.

“Manuel Antonio Varona,” FBI Memorandum of January 16, 1961 to A. H. Belmont, p. 2, 105-76826-20; NARA #124-90055-10139.

Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 145; cf. 238-40.

“Moss, Edward K. #172646,” CIA Memo of 28 November 1962, NARA #1994.05.03.10:54:53:780005.

I-G Report, p. 38.

“Manuel Antonio Varona,” FBI Memorandum of January 16, 1961 to A. H. Belmont,” p. 2, 105-76826-20; NARA #124-90055-10139.

FBI Memorandum to Attorney General, January 23, 1961, NARA # 124-90055-10140.

Anthony Summers with Robbyn Swann, The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon (New York: Viking, 2000), 194; citing I-G Report.

Don Bohning, The Castro Obsession: U.S. Covert Operations Against Cuba (Washington: Potomac Books, 2005), 181.

Summers with Swann, Arrogance of Power, 283 ($1 million); Robert Baer, Sleeping with the Devil (New York: Crown, 2003), 43 (briefcase); Kessler, The Richest Man in the World, 170 (“several million”); Renata Adler, “Searching for the Real Nixon Scandal,” Atlantic (December 1976), 76–84 ($200 million). Khashoggi admitted publicly to a gift of $43,000 to the Nixon campaign in 1972.

Kessler, Richest Man in the World, 170.

Kessler, Richest Man in the World, 142, 181.

It has been alleged that at the Sands in 1960 the FBI saw the casino’s courtesy prostitutes “running in and out of” Senator Jack Kennedy’s suite, and a million dollars was allegedly given to Kennedy in a brown leather satchel by the hotel’s owners (John William Tuohy, “The Sands,”AmericanMafia, August 2001, http://www.americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_155.html).

Omar Garrison, Howard Hughes in Las Vegas (New York: Dell, 1970), 48-49, 56, 58; Peter Dale Scott, Crime and Cover-Up: The CIA, the Mafia, and the Dallas-Watergate Connection (Palo Alto, CA: Ramparts Press, 1977), 29.

Kessler, Richest Man in the World, 149-50.

Sally Denton and Roger Morris, The Money and the Power: The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America, 1947-2000 (New York: Knopf, 2001), Prologue. Sally Denton later enlarged on the details: “When it became clear 70 United States, American, banks were involved, had the complicity, knew about every single one of the wire-transfers and transactions — banks including Chemical Bank, Bank of New York, CitiBank, American Express –… President Clinton and Madeline Albright stepped in and intervened and stopped the entire investigation and closed all of the cases” (Discussion at Taos Community Auditorium on October 12, 2002; http://www.taosplaza.com/taosplaza/2003/pages/tmff_drugs.php).

Gigi Mahon, The Company That Bought the Boardwalk (New York: Random House, 1980), 136.

Kessler, Richest Man in the World, 275–78. A friend of Khashoggi’s, Larry Kolb, reports that Khashoggi himself essentially corroborated the story that Khashoggi and John Kennedy had a friendship in the 1950s that “evolved primarily out of whoring together” (Larry J. Kolb, Overworld: The Life and Times of a Reluctant Spy [New York: Riverhead/Penguin, 2004], 236). The woman who destroyed the presidential aspirations of Senator Gary Hart in 1987 was one of Khashoggi’s many girls.

Kessler, The Richest Man, 238, 240.

Prince Turki bin Faisal gave Georgetown University alumni a frank account of the Safari Club’s formation in response to post-Watergate restrictions: “In 1976, after the Watergate matters took place here, your intelligence community was literally tied up by Congress. It could not do anything. It could not send spies, it could not write reports, and it could not pay money. In order to compensate for that, a group of countries got together in the hope of fighting Communism and established what was called the Safari Club. The Safari Club included France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Iran.”

Kolb, Overworld, 238, 242–43.

Sally Denton and Roger Morris, The Money and the Power: The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America, 1947-2000 (New York: Knopf, 2001), 72; citing laudatory article on Greenspun in the Jerusalem Post, July 1993.

Investigative reporter Jim Hougan reports the incredulity of congressional investigators that Lockheed was the only large corporation not to have made a contribution to Nixon’s 1972 election campaign (Hougan, Spooks: The Haunting of America—The Private Use of Secret Agents [New York: William Morrow, 1978], 457–58).

Drinkhall, Wall Street Journal, April 18, 1980. Drinkhall also reported that “Helliwell reputedly was one of the paymasters for the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961,” a claim repeated in virtually every book dealing with Helliwell since that time (except my own). I have looked at dozens if not hundreds of CIA Bay of Pigs documents, many of them concerning financial payments to anti-Castro individuals and groups, and I have never seen any document involving either Helliwell or an unidentified cryptonym.

Pete Brewton, The Mafia, CIA and George Bush (1992), 296-97

Block and Weaver, All Is Clouded by Desire, 36-37; citing Robin Winks, Cloak & Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939-1961 (New York: William Morrow, 1987), 377-78 (X-2 in Vienna).

Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin, False Profits: The Inside Story of BCCI, the World’s Most Corrupt Financial Empire (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992), 384 (“ties”).

Block and Weaver, All Is Clouded by Desire, 86. Abbas Kassimali Gokal, whom British prosecutors accused of stealing $1.3 billion from BCCI, was a board member of the Inter Maritime Bank from 1978 through 1982. In 1997 Gokal was sentenced to 13 years by a UK court for his role in the BCCI fraud.

Truell and Gurwin, False Profits, 384. Truell and Gurwin claim that Hartmann went from Intermaritime to BCCI; the Kerry-Brown BCCI Report claims that Rappaport recruited Hartmann from BCCI/BCP for his own bank.

Block and Weaver, All Is Clouded by Desire, 85.

U.S. Congress. Senate, 102nd Cong., 2nd Sess. The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from Senator John Kerry, Chairman, and from Senator Hank Brown, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations,… September 30, 1992, 1-2. Cited henceforth as the Kerry-Brown Report, 69.

Jane Hunter “Covert Operations: The Human Factor,” The Link , August 1992, Volume 25, Issue 3, 8, http://www.ameu.org/page.asp?iid=139&aid=183&pg=8.

Leonard Slater, The Pledge (New York: Pocket Books, 1971), 175.

Sindona had links to the Italian intelligence service SISMI, to drug traffickers like Rosario Gambino, and to the Nixon Administration. See Jonathan Marshall, Peter Dale Scott, and Jane Hunter, The Iran-Contra Connection: Secret Teams and Covert Operations in the Reagan Era (Boston: South End Press, 1987), 71, 73; Lernoux, In Banks We Trust, 178-79, 193-95, etc.

Block and Weaver, All Is Clouded by Desire, 36; citing Robin W. Winks, Cloak & Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939-1961 (New York: William Morrow, 1987), 377-78.

Smith, OSS, 165.

Operation Safehaven began as a U.S. Treasury effort to trace the movements of stolen Nazi gold, and possibly implicate Nazi collaborators in America. Taken over by OSS X-2, it recuperated SS assets that were used instead to support former SS agents.

Anthony Cave Brown, The Secret War Report of the OSS / edited by Anthony Cave Brown (New York: Berkeley, 1976), 565-66.

Ronald Kessler, The Richest Man in the World (New York: Warner Books, 1986), 162, 300; Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynne, The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of BCCI (New York: Random House, 1993), 54, 80, 263-64.

Truell and Gurwin, False Profits, 83-87.

Kerry-Brown Report.

Beaty and Gwynn, 357.

Truell and Gurwin, False Profits, 373-77.

Olmsted’s intelligence connections dated back to wartime service on the staff of General Albert Wedemeyer in China, where he was in charge of clandestine operations and in that capacity worked with OSS. He was thus a senior figure in what I am tempted to call the OSS China connection, which united so many of the people who were prominent in Helliwell’s post-war global drug connection. We have already mentioned Helliwell himself, who was head of the Special Intelligence branch of OSS in Kunming before he created Sea Supply Corp in Bangkok. Willis Bird was the deputy chief of OSS China and then became the most important figure in Sea Supply after Helliwell’s return in 1951 from Bangkok to America. C.V Starr, later represented by Corcoran, opened his insurance empire in China to the creation of an OSS network outside the OSS-KMT cooperation agreement. See Richard Harris Smith, OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 267 (Starr), 273 (Bird), 326 (Helliwell). But this is not the whole picture. Elsewhere I have dealt with the post-war activities of other members of the small OSS Detachment 202 under Paul Helliwell in Kunming: E. Howard Hunt, Ray Cline, Lou Conein, John Singlaub, and Mitchell WerBell. All of these men went on to develop post-war connections for the CIA with drug-traffickers: Hunt in Mexico, Cline in Taiwan, Conein in Vietnam, WerBell in Laos, and Singlaub with the World Anti-Communist League which Hunt and Cline had helped to create (Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War, 20, 207).

Block and Weaver, All Is Clouded by Desire, 41; cf. Block, Masters of Paradise, 191.

Block and Weaver, All Is Clouded by Desire, 41-42; Truell and Gurwin, False Profits, 40-43, etc.

Truell and Gurwin, False Profits, 123-24; cf. 128-29: Expanding over seven pages on these and many other intelligence connections, they asked whether the bank’s illegal acquisition of an American bank holding company, First American Bankshares, was not in fact serving the purposes of U.S. intelligence:

“No one can deny that virtually every major character in the takeover was connected in one way or another to U.S. intelligence: Olmsted who controlled the company [First American] for years; Middendorf, who headed the group that acquired it from him; Abedi, who arranged for clients of BCCI to buy the company from Middendorf’s group; [Mohammed Rahim Motaghi] Irvani,, the chairman of one of the dummy companies set up to carry out the acquisition; [his partner Richard] Helms, who advised Irvani; [former Saudi intelligence chief Kamal] Adham, the lead investor in Abedi’s group; [Clark] Clifford, who steered the deal through the regulatory maze and then became the chairman of the company….Can all this be a coincidence? Or is it possible that First American was affiliated with U.S. intelligence all along and that it was simply passed from one group of CIA associates to another, and then another? No proof has emerged that this is what happened, but it is certainly not a far-fetched theory.”

Jonathan Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots (New York: Norton, 1987), 96.

Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots, 162. BCCI also used Price Waterhouse as its auditor. In addition, BCCI and Nugan Hand used the same law firm and registered agent (Bruce Campbell & Company) in the Cayman Islands (Truell and Gurwin, False Profits, 125).

Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots, 243.

Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots, 334-35.

Trento, Prelude to Terror, 313-14.

Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots, 207, 208.

James A. Nathan, “Dateline Australia: America’s Foreign Watergate?” Foreign Policy (Winter 1982-83), 183; quoted in Jonathan Marshall, Peter Dale Scott, and Jane Hunter, The Iran-Contra Connection: Secret Teams and Covert Operations in the Reagan Era (Boston: South End Press, 1987), 38.

Scott, The Road to 9/11, 126-27.

Thomas Goltz, Azerbaijan Diary: A Rogue Reporter’s Adventures in an Oil-Rich, War-Torn, Post-Soviet Republic (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1999), 272-75. Richard Secord was allegedly attempting also to sell Israeli arms, with the assistance of Israeli agent David Kimche, another associate of Oliver North. The mujahideen were recruited in Afghanistan by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leading recipient of CIA assistance in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and most recently a leader of the al Qaeda-Taliban resistance to the U.S. and its client there, Hamid Karzai. See Scott, Drugs, Oil, and War, 7, 8, 20.

Loretta Napoleoni, Terror Incorporated: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2005), 90-97: “[IMU leader] Namangiani’s networks in Tajikistan and in Central Asia were used to smuggle opium from Afghanistan. It was partly thanks to Namangiani’s contacts in Chechnya that heroin reached Europe” (91)…. “It was thanks to the mediation of Chechen criminal groups that the KLA and the Albanian mafia managed to gain control of the transit of heroin in the Balkans” (96). Napoleoni does not mention Azerbaijan, which however lies between Uzbekistan and Chechnya.

“KLA Funding Tied To Heroin Profits,” Washington Times, 5/3/99.

Daniel Ellsberg with Kris Welch, KPFA, 8/26/06, http://wotisitgood4.blogspot.com/2006/10/ellsberg-hastert-got-suitcases-of-al.html .

Vanity Fair, September 2005. According to the ATC web site, “As one of the leading business associations in the United States, the American-Turkish Council (ATC) is dedicated to effectively strengthening U.S.-Turkish relations through the promotion of commercial, defense, technology, and cultural relations. Its diverse membership includes Fortune 500, U.S. and Turkish companies, multinationals, nonprofit organizations, and individuals with an interest in U.S.-Turkish relations.” It is thus comparable to the American Security Council, whose activities in 1963 are discussed in Scott, Deep Politics, e.g. 292.

Edmonds has been partially corroborated by Huseyin Baybasin, another Turkish heroin kingpin now in jail in Holland, in his book Trial by Fire: “I handled the drugs which came through the channel of the Turkish Consulate in England.” But as he adds: “I was with the Mafia but I was carrying this out with the same Mafia group in which the rulers of Turkey were part.” Baybasin claimed he was assisted by Turkish officers working for NATO in Belgium (“The Susurluk Legacy,” By Adrian Gatton, Druglink Magazine, Nov/Dec 2006, http://adriangatton.com/archive/1990_01_01_archive.html).

Marshall, Drug Wars, 55; citing Tad Szulc, “The Money Changer,” New Republic, April 10, 1976, 10-11.

See Scott, The War Conspiracy.

Peter Dale Scott, “The United States and the Overthrow of Sukarno, 1965-1967” Pacific Affairs (Vancouver, B.C.) 58.2 (Summer 1985), pp. 239-64.

AMPO (Japan), January 1974, 44 (Indonesia); David E. Kaplan and Alec Dubro, Yakuza [New York: Macmillan, 1986], 90 (Deak); Marshall, Drug Wars, 54-55 (Katayama, Kodama). Kodama and Sasakawa were both arrested by the U.S. for war crimes but not prosecuted. In 1941 Kodama had plotted the assassination of Japan’s Prime Minister Konoye by dynamite, to block his attempted peace negotiations with the U.S. Kodama then made a fortune in Shanghai during World War II, allegedly in part through his control of the drug traffic in conjunction with the kempeitai. Kodama and Sasakawa both became staunch supporters of the Asian People’s Anti-Communist League,that as we have seen has had persistent connections to the post-war Asian drug traffic.

Beaty and Gwynn, The Outlaw Bank, 48.

Seymour Hersh, The Price of Power: Kissinger in the White House (New York: Summit, 1983), 279, 290.

Dinges, The Condor Years,, 190-98.

Robert Parry, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq (Arlington, VA: Media Consortium, 2004), 112-38, etc.; Scott, Road to 9/11, 99-107. According to Parry, Michael Ledeen was also part of this effort.

“Turkey’s pivotal role in the international drug trade,” Le Monde diplomatique (July 1998), http://mondediplo.com/1998/07/05turkey. Author Claire Sterling attempted to blame the KGB for the assassination attempt, and her view that the KGB was the heart of what she called a global “terror network” was forced on CIA analysts by William Casey and Robert Gates (see final footnote below).

Iran-Contra Affair, Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, 100th Congress. 1st Session, H. Rept No 100-433, S. Rept No. 100-216, pp. 164, 166, 228, etc.

Block and Weaver, All Is Clouded by Desire, 95-116, etc. Burt Kanter, the co-founder of Castle Bank, was recurringly involved in Rappaport’s IMB-BONY dealings (Block and Weaver, 100, 102, 193, 105, 113).

Scott, Road to 9/11, 163-65, 351; Thomas Goltz, Azerbaijan Diary, 272-75.

Scott, Road to 9/11, 167-68, citing Michel Chossudovsky, “Macedonia: Washington’s Military-Intelligence Ploy,” Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, http://www

.transnational.org/SAJT/forum/meet/2001/Chossudov_WashingtPloy.html.

Lernoux, In Banks We Trust, 72; cf. Mother Jones, March 1984.

Daniel Fineman, A Special Relationship: The United States and Military Government in Thailand, 1947-1958 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997), 179-80; cf. FRUS, 1952-1954, 12, 1, 689-90.

Trento, The Secret History of the CIA, 410.

Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, 100th Congress. 1st Session, H. Rept No 100-433, S. Rept No. 100-216, p. 164.

Trento, Prelude to Terror, 283-84.

Scott, Road to 9/11, 52-53.

See Rowan Scarborough, Sabotage: America’s Enemies Within the CIA (Washington: Regnery, 2007); Kenneth R. Timmerman, Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender (New York: Crown/ Random House, 2007),

“It works like this: Blackwater, for example, will win a U.S. government contract; it will then subcontract with itself–that is, with Greystone–to do the job. From there, Greystone looks to its network of international affiliates, firms like Pizarro’s Grupo Tactico in Chile or ID Systems in Colombia, which maintain informal relationships with what are known in the trade as “briefcase recruiters”–individuals with connections to the local paramilitary scene” (Bruce Falconer and Daniel Schulman, “Blackwater’s world of warcraft,” Mother Jones, March-April 2008). Cf. Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army (New York: Nation Books, 2008).

This false ideology was enforced even inside the CIA. Author Claire Sterling wrote a book called The Terror Network, claiming “that all major terrorist groups were controlled by the Soviet Union.” The book, with little credibility today, was warmly endorsed by then Secretary of State Alexander Haig, who passed it to William Casey, who presented its thesis to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Casey also assigned top CIA terrorist analysts and Soviet experts to prepare a special national intelligence estimate, or SNIE, based on Sterling’s book. When the experts reported there was no merit to Sterling’s claims, Casey’s Deputy Director of Intelligence, Robert Gates, had their negative assessment rewritten and reversed by new low-level personnel who had just arrived in the Agency. See Mark Perry, Eclipse: The Last Days of the CIA (New York: William Morrow, 1992), 47-49, 319-320. Today Robert Gates is America’s Secretary of Defense.

The United States has deployed Patriot anti-air batteries to the bases hosting US troops in Iraq, AFP reported on March 30 citing US and Iraqi sources. The first Patriot battery was delivered to Ain al-Asad last week, while the second one was being set up at a base in Erbil. There are at least two more batteries earmarked for deployment in Iraq. However, they are yet to reach their destinations. For now, they are located in Kuwait.

It remains unclear whether Baghdad actually gave its nod of approval to the deployment. However, the US plans to bring Patriot systems to Iraq have not been a secret. Moreover, Washington strictly rejected the demand of the Iraqi government to withdraw forces from the country. The deployment of Patriot systems is a part of the larger US effort to regroup its forces in the country in response to the growing tensions.

On January 3, a US strike on Baghdad International Airport assassinated several prominent Iraqi and Iranian officers, including the head of Iran’s Qods Forces, Qassem Soleimani, and the deputy commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Iran answered to this attack with a retaliatory strike on the US military bases of Ebril and Ain al-Asad. The aggressive behavior by the US also caused a growth of tensions with the Iraqis and led to an increase of rocket attacks on its forces and facilities across the country. Since then, the Pentagon has been working to secure US forces and reduce negative consequences of the January 3 venture. Despite these efforts, the US influence in this part of the Middle East continues to decrease.

In Syria, US forces are deployed in the oil-rich areas on the eastern bank of the Euphrates and near the city of al-Hasakah. According to statements by the Syrian and Russian foreign ministries, US special services and private military companies are exploiting the seized oil fields to fund their operations across the region.

The security situation in eastern Syria also remains tense. On March 29 and 30, ISIS prisoners rioted in the Ghuweiran Prison controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces. The Kurdish-led group lost control over a large part of the facility for more than 24 hours before it was able to take it back. Several ISIS members fled. A security operation to hunt them down is ongoing.

The situation on the frontline in southern Idlib, western Aleppo and northern Lattakia is relatively calm. Both pro-government forces and Idlib militants are resupplying and regrouping their forces using the current ceasefire regime.

The conflict between Saudi Arabia and Yemeni forces led by the Houthis is heating up. On March 28, the Yemenis launched a new wave of strikes on targets inside Saudi Arabia. According to the Houthis’ spokesman, they employed Badir-1 artillery rockets, Zulfiqar missiles, and Qasef-2K and Samad-3 suicide drones against vital economic and military targets in the provinces of Jizan, Najran and Asir, as well as the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

In its own turn, Saudi Arabia claimed that its forces intercepted two missiles over Riyadh and launched an intense bombing campaign against the supposed missile infrastructure of the Houthis in Yemen.

Over the past months, Saudi-backed forces have suffered a series of setbacks in the battle against the Houthis in northern Yemen and the Yemeni movement seized control over a larger chunk of the Saudi-Yemeni border.

Therefore, taking into account the current complex geopolitical situation in the Middle East, the shift of the military hostilities to Saudi soil was widely expected.

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‘Fanatical Cruelty’: As Pandemic Rages, Trump Refuses to Reopen Affordable Care Act Enrollment to Help Uninsured

By Jake Johnson, April 01, 2020

As millions of people across the United States lose their jobs—and their employer-provided health insurance—amid the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump has reportedly decided against reopening Affordable Care Act enrollment to ease the economic pain of the uninsured and help protect them from devastating medical costs.

The Post-Coronavirus World Will be Far Worse Than the Pre-Coronavirus World

By Eric Zuesse, April 01, 2020

Signs, especially in the United States, are that the post-coronavirus-plagued world will have even more inequality of wealth, within each nation, than existed prior to the plague. Billionaires are demanding to be included in the bailouts by their governments; and, because billionaires financed the careers of the successful politicians who won seats in their country’s legislature, those demands are almost certain to be complied with. Only the least-corrupt nations will be able to recover fully from the current plague.

Trump Asks Putin for Help in Oil War

By Mike Whitney, April 01, 2020

For the last month, Saudi Arabia has been flooding the market with crude oil to force Russia to agree to deep production cuts. To his credit, Putin has stubbornly resisted Saudi coercion and maintained current output levels. As a result, prices have plummeted to an 18-year low of $20.09 per barrel which is well below the break-even rate that American frackers need to survive. In less than a month, the capital-intensive US shale oil industry has gone into a steep nosedive that has set off alarms on Wall Street where analysts expect that a wave of defaults will deliver a knockout blow to the big investment banks. That’s why Trump decided to call Putin. He wants to see if he can persuade the Russian president into slashing production.

Former Venezuelan General Hands Himself Over to US Authorities

By Ricardo Vaz, April 01, 2020

Responding to the DoJ allegations, Alcala denied the charges, stating that he had held several meetings with US officials and that he would await authorities’ inquiries at his residence in Barranquilla, Colombia.

He also confessed to orchestrating a coup plot against President Maduro. After Colombian authorities seized an arms shipment, the retired general stated publicly that the weapons were part of an operation to “liberate” Venezuela. He added that the operation was coordinated with self-proclaimed “Interim President” Juan Guaido and “US advisors.”

First, Do No Harm: If Primary Healthcare Remains Shut Down, Toll on Elderly Will be Worse Than COVID-19

By Dr. Gabriela Segura, April 01, 2020

They have set up “contaminated” respiratory divisions at clinics and hospitals, which are separated from the rest of the outpatients and health staff. Anybody coming in with a cough, or who is sneezing, or showing any sign of respiratory distress, is directed to this division and kept separated from those coming in with wounds or any other non-respiratory-related illness. That way, contagion is not propagated to the entire building, but is kept isolated within the respiratory division, which has its own doctors and staff handling cases there. Again, all incomers with respiratory symptoms – which in reality can be anything from the common cold to the typical seasonal flu, even a cough due to seasonal allergies – are sent to this respiratory division.

On “Market Solutions” to the Covid-19 Crisis

By Dr. Jack Rasmus, April 01, 2020

As others have pointed out, before the Neoliberal market system implanted itself in the USA decades ago with Ronald Reagan (deepening and expanding ever since), there were 1.5 million hospital beds in the country and an extensive non-profit public hospital system.  Before 1980 there were 100 million fewer US citizens for those 1.5 million beds. Today there are 100 million more Americans, but only 925,000 hospital beds. We’ve added 100 million but reduced beds by 500,000. The reduction, of course, was all done in the name of ‘market efficiency’ by the for profit hospital chains who bought up and then shut down much of the non-profit public hospital system. Now, as the current health crisis deepens, we’re left setting up cots in auditoriums and college dorms and call them hospitals.

Coronavirus – No Vaccine Is Needed to Cure It

By Peter Koenig, April 01, 2020

A multibillion dollar vaccine is not necessary.

The NIAD and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are collaborating with a view to developing a COVID-19 Vaccine.

China has proven that COVID-19 could be brought under control at rather low-cost and with strict discipline and conventional medication. The same medicines and measures have been used for centuries to prevent and cure successfully all kinds of viral diseases.

Can you help us keep up the work we do? Namely, bring you the important news overlooked or censored by the mainstream media and fight the corporate and government propaganda, the purpose of which is, more than ever, to “fabricate consent” and advocate war for profit.

We thank all the readers who have contributed to our work by making donations or becoming members.

If you have the means to make a small or substantial donation to contribute to our fight for truth, peace and justice around the world, your gesture would be much appreciated.

As millions of people across the United States lose their jobs—and their employer-provided health insurance—amid the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump has reportedly decided against reopening Affordable Care Act enrollment to ease the economic pain of the uninsured and help protect them from devastating medical costs.

An anonymous White House official told Politico Tuesday night that the Trump administration will not reopen HealthCare.gov for a special enrollment period as the U.S. battles the COVID-19 outbreak, disregarding urgent pleas from a diverse array of advocacy groups (pdf) and more than 100 members of Congress (pdf). The White House is “exploring other options,” the official said without elaborating.

Biden and Trump and two sides of the same coin under different labels of the US war party — aka its anti-democratic money or property party.

Biden’s senior foreign policy adviser Thomas Wright “sees (US) war and conflict with Beijing and Moscow as close to inevitable,” Gareth Icke reported — a potential death wish if the US attacks either country able to hit back against aggressors as hard as they’re struck.

US Cold War 2.0 has been ongoing against both countries for years. If turns hot, planet earth and all its life forms would be threatened like never before.

Like the vast majority of others in Washington, Biden one-sidedly supports Israel no matter how egregious its high crimes of war and against humanity, and why not.

As US senator and vice president, he fully supported all US wars of aggression against nations threatening no one.

As vice president when he met with close Netanyahu advisor Uzi Arad, he embraced him smiling and said:

“Just remember that I am your best f..king friend here.” He once told Netanyahu:

“Bibi, I don’t agree with a damn thing you say, but I love you.”

As vice president, he was directly involved in withholding aid to the Palestinians.

He pressured PA officials not to pursue statehood through the UN or bring charges against Israel or its officials in the International Court of Justice or International Criminal Court respectively.

Biden reportedly once said “(n)ever crucify your self on a small cross,” his message clear.

Powerless Palestinians aren’t worth devoting time and effort to helping, polar opposite true about Israel.

He once told Netanyahu  that “progress occurs in the Middle East when everyone knows there is simply no space between the United States and Israel.”

He opposes virtually everything that could compromise the special relationship.

Despite publicly expressing opposition to Israeli settlement construction, privately it’s another matter entirely.

He earlier green-lighted Israeli settlement construction on privately owned Palestinian land in East Jerusalem that required displacing them.

If elected president in November, Biden will be as one-sided for Israel as Trump, based on his record.

Despite UN officials, world leaders in Russia, China, Venezuelan and Pakistan, along with US House and Senate members, calling for sanctions relief on Iran so its government can import medicines, related supplies and equipment to deal effectively with curbing COVID-19 outbreaks, and treat infected Iranians, Biden opposes the idea.

Asked by NBC News Meet the Press host Chuck Todd if as president he’d lift US sanctions on Iran under these conditions, he expressed opposition with the following remarks:

“I don’t have enough information about the situation in Iran right now.”

“There’s a lot of speculation from my foreign policy team that they’re in real trouble and they’re lying.”

“I would need more information to make that judgment. I don’t have the national security information available.”

There’s no ambiguity about where Biden stands on Iran or the scale of COVID-19 outbreaks in the country, around 45,000 people infected through Monday, about 2,900 deaths.

Illegal US sanctions prevent Iran from handling the crisis with maximum effectiveness.

They’re imposed in deference to Israel and because the US tolerates no governments in nations it doesn’t control.

Iran and Venezuela are especially important for the US to dominate because of their enormous hydrocarbon resources.

Controlling them would give the US considerable leverage over which nations are allowed to buy them.

Biden supports the Trump regime’s hardline anti-Iran policies. As president he’d likely not restore the JCPOA he may not have supported as vice president.

On Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif said the following:

“The illegal blockade of Iran’s financial resources by the sweeping US sanctions makes access to drugs and medical equipment impossible.”

“This is leading to a humanitarian catastrophe. The American policy of maximum pressure hampers Iranian exports, while Iran has fewer and fewer sources of investment.”

“Anti-Iranian sanctions also prohibit procurement of drugs and medical equipment by the Iranian government.”

“Restrictions in banking and financial sectors, imposed against Iran, harm humanitarian imports.”

“Due to American threats, European medical equipment makers do not trade with Iran and do not sell us medical goods.”

“This is the time when the global community must play its real role to make its loud voice be heard.”

“The global community must come to its senses and help Iran in order to stop the economic, medical and drug terrorism” by the Trump regime.

“Although Iran is a country that has rich fossil reserves, including oil and gas, it does not have, thanks to the US-imposed sanctions, funding sources necessary to provide aid to the people who suffered from the coronavirus.”

“From a legal point of view, such actions are not only terrorism against Iran, but also are a crime against humanity and the global community.”

Nations refusing to help Iran and its people in this time of need are complicit with Trump regime crimes against humanity.

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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.

Signs, especially in the United States, are that the post-coronavirus-plagued world will have even more inequality of wealth, within each nation, than existed prior to the plague. Billionaires are demanding to be included in the bailouts by their governments; and, because billionaires financed the careers of the successful politicians who won seats in their country’s legislature, those demands are almost certain to be complied with. Only the least-corrupt nations will be able to recover fully from the current plague.

In the United States, one Party, the Republicans, doesn’t even pretend to be concerned about the growth of wealth-inequality after 1980; but the other Party, the Democrats, do make that pretense; and so a deal is being worked out in the U.S. Congress that both Parties will tout as being a ‘balanced’ bailout bill, because it will bail out both the megacorporations that the billionaires own and control, and the public — their workers (especially the ones that those billionaires are now laying off). Because of the enormous give-aways to the billionaires, deficit-spending by the government will be soaring out of control, and ultimately paper money will plunge in value, which will bring on a global depression that will be even worse than 1929. Some governments will find ways to nationalize the wealth of billionaires and perhaps also of centi-millionaires in order to fund the continuing needs of the public, and there will be a scramble by many of those super-rich to relocate to countries where they still will be able to bribe enough government officials so as to provide safe haven for their accumulated wealth. Graduated exit-taxes will be instituted by any of the industrialized countries that aren’t totally corrupt, but the most extremely corrupt industrialized countries will experience massive capital-flight and a future as a “third world” nation, under extended martial law.

On March 22nd, Zero Hedge headlined “‘Stop The Coronavirus Corporate Coup’: Here Is A List Of Everyone Demanding A Bail Out” and Matt Stoller listed the many different categories of mega-corporate lobbyists who were urging the Senators and Representatives, whose campaigns they fund, to bail out their respective industries. The few other news-sites that republished or linked to that list were other alternative-news sites, not any of the mainstream ones. This was a major news-report, which deserved to become a top topic of public conversation, but that didn’t happen; and here is an example of what it said (and which the rest of the press were hiding):

Mitch McConnell wants big business to rule, so he’s playing a trick. He is refusing aid to workers. Democrats are negotiating with him to try to get unemployment assistance and social welfare. McConnell knows Dems won’t pay attention to corporate bailouts if he takes the public hostage, and Democrats know that they can hand out favors to big business if they just talk about how they got larger checks for workers.

So McConnell will put a bill down in front of Nancy Pelosi, with some good stuff like unemployment insurance, but also the really ugly stuff to hand over America to big business. The corporatists in the Democratic Party will tell her “Pass the corporate coup bill, after all we have to do something right now!” And because she doesn’t have the votes from within her own caucus because of these corporatists, and because she doesn’t particularly care if America is sold off to big business, she will do that.

It’s a song-and-dance routine, performed by the two “good cop, bad cop” political Parties, in order to satisfy not only the audience (the voters) but the producers (the billionaires).

On March 21st, I headlined “Triage Starts in Government Bailouts: Who will get the money?” at Strategic Culture, and submitted that news-report to all U.S. major news-media and most of the minor ones. 24 hours later, it was picked-up by only a few minor, very courageous, ones: The 21st Century, The Duran, Free World Economic Report, The Russophile, and Verity Weekly. The corruption is so pervasive that all of the news-media that 99.99% of the public rely upon for their ‘news’ were filtering out the news of the impending massive public subsidies to America’s billionaires by America’s ‘public representatives’ — shoveling the public’s money to the billionaires as bailouts.

Stoller was obviously correct that the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell, “is refusing aid to workers” and (though Stoller — being himself a Democrat — didn’t use nearly such direct language to say) the Democratic Party’s leader in the House was trying to wrangle enough of the desperately needed funds for the American public (all sorts of workers, and, here, especially the most important ones, such as nurses, police, etc.) so that congressional Democrats will be able to give the billionaires what they demand, while still getting enough aid out to everybody else in order for congressional Democrats to be able to hold their congressional seats after November 3rd. (In America, keeping the poor away from the voting-booths, and undercounting the votes that they do cast, are usually insufficient in themselves so as to prevent a Republican landslide, and so as to supply the bumper-sticker benefits to non-billionaires that will be needed if Congress isn’t to become 100% Republican.)

In a profoundly corrupt country, over 99% of the press will filter-out such basic details of the true extent of the corruption, because, otherwise, the revolution that results will be against the aristocracy, instead of against the public itself (and producing martial law), and a revolution like that could produce actual democracy, which the few people who fund politicians’ careers fear the most. They much prefer, if a revolution is coming, that it be clearly against the public (and result in martial law, which will protect only themselves), not against themselves. In fact, such a country has a government almost solely in order to protect the aristocrats from the public, and almost not at all in order to protect the public from the aristocracy.

Interestingly, the very next day, on March 22nd, my headlined news-report was “Coronavirus Cases Soaring Much Faster in U.S. Than in Other Countries” and even that report had no takers in America’s major ‘news’ media, despite its being merely a presentation of the statistical data, which discredited the U.S. Government in comparison with almost all of the other governments in the world. (Only Turkey and Luxembourg had even worse figures at that time, but they were just beginning to count their coronavirus cases.)

On March 25th, I headlined “Coronavirus: Why Russians Are Lucky to Be Led by Putin”, and wrote that “within just three more days, America will have the world’s largest total number of cases, if Italy won’t. And after yet another day, the U.S. will almost certainly have the world’s largest total number of cases.” Both statements came to pass. On March 26th, America’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation published their projection of the rise and subsiding of the coronavirus-19 in the U.S., and predicted that this country would end up with 460,000 cases and 81,114 deaths from the disease, and that America’s epidemic would virtually end by July 1st. I headlined about that, on March 28th, “Projection: U.S. Coronavirus Deaths to = China’s Total Coronavirus Cases”.

Though all of these news-reports are major, and deal with the news-event that is currently obsessing all of the world’s news-media — which is the coronavirus plague — the news-media that are owned or otherwise controlled by America’s billionaires rejected them all and are doing everything else that they possibly can to delay, if not to block entirely, the crucial information from reaching America’s voters, and this is happening during an election year. The Jeff-Bezos-owned liberal neoconservative Washington Post reliably reported on March 28th that “in private discussions, the president has been driven much more by economic concerns, according to people involved in internal debates or briefed on them. Trump has long viewed the stock market as a barometer for his own reelection hopes.” Safety of the American people is a secondary concern for him. That was being reported by a Democratic Party billionaire against Republican Party billionaires, but what it actually indicates is America’s being controlled by its billionares, of both Parties. The public, here, actually don’t count.

Under conditions such as this, one can easily understand — with this type of information, which is being hidden from the public — only politicians who satisfy the wants of the nation’s billionaires stand even so much as a chance to win seats in Congress or other high elective office. The public are so misinformed that they are like horses with blinders on and which are being driven by a master to whom they are expendable and replaceable, not objects of authentic and caring concern for their welfare. Everything has a price to such a master, who will grab at any chance to replace any of the public by a cheaper alternative, so long as “the job gets done” — to satisfy their own unlimited greed. The deception of the public is so extreme that America’s Establishment are so brazen as to blame China and Russia for the “disinformation” about the cornoavirus-19 pandemic. The U.S. regime is utterly shameless.

These bailouts of billionaires will destroy what little was left of a democratic future for America — and for any other nation that happens to be nearly as corrupt.

Is this to be the long-term impact of coronavirus-19? Is there an alternative likely scenario? Perhaps the coronavirus plague won’t spread as uncontrollably as is feared, but even if that is the case, what justification exists for bailing out any of the super-rich, in response to an emergency that is causing widespread suffering? And yet, America is doing that.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

Philip interviewed Ellen Brown about Universal Basic Income and how the latest Covid-19 bailout program differs from her vision.

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Millions of elderly and vulnerable people suffering from chronic loneliness are now facing further isolation due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This will cause and exacerbate a different set of problems such as mental health issues.

Donald Trump called Russian president Vladimir Putin on Monday to discuss plunging oil prices that are wreaking havoc on America’s shale oil industry. The two leaders talked briefly about the coronavirus pandemic but quickly switched to Trump’s real concern which is oil production.

For the last month, Saudi Arabia has been flooding the market with crude oil to force Russia to agree to deep production cuts. To his credit, Putin has stubbornly resisted Saudi coercion and maintained current output levels. As a result, prices have plummeted to an 18-year low of $20.09 per barrel which is well below the break-even rate that American frackers need to survive. In less than a month, the capital-intensive US shale oil industry has gone into a steep nosedive that has set off alarms on Wall Street where analysts expect that a wave of defaults will deliver a knockout blow to the big investment banks. That’s why Trump decided to call Putin. He wants to see if he can persuade the Russian president into slashing production.

It’s worth noting, that Putin remained stoically silent when the Trump administration imposed economic sanctions on Russia for its alleged activities in Ukraine. Nor did the Russian president complain about Washington’s meddling in Syria or its attempts to block Russia’s pipelines to Germany and Bulgaria. (Nordstream and Southstream) But now that the shoe is on the other foot and US business interests are being hurt, Trump thinks nothing of calling Moscow for help. As one critic said, “It looks like the Trump team can dish it out, but it can’t take it.”

The phone call has gotten almost no coverage in the American media, which is to be expected since there’s no way to spin an incident in which an American president is clearly pleading to “evil” Putin for a favor. The Russian state media, Tass, summarized the phone call in a terse 3-sentence statement that excluded any useful background. Here’s an excerpt:

“The leaders discussed also the current status of the world’s oil market. “An arrangement was made on Russian-US consultations in this regard through energy department heads,” the Kremlin said. “Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump agreed to continue personal contacts.” (Tass)

Notice how the report in Tass forgoes the baseless allegations and recriminations that typically appear in the western media. Given the deluge of “Russian meddling” disinformation that has dominated the headlines for the last 3 years, you’d think the editors at Tass might be more critical of Trump’s gesture, after all, Trump’s phone call strongly suggests that Washington is ready to cave in to its “mortal enemy” provided it gets the production cuts it wants. It seems like Tass might want to offer an opinion about that, especially since the MSM has taken such a hostile approach to all-things-Russian. Apparently, not everyone uses their media to push their own narrow political agenda.

Some readers might recall how Trump scolded Putin in Helsinki in 2018 for pushing oil prices higher ($85 per barrel) which Trump claimed was hurting growth in the US. Not surprisingly, Trump had his facts wrong. The reason prices rose in 2018 was because the Trump administration clapped harsh economic sanctions on both Iran and Venezuela which caused an immediate decline in production followed by a sharp rise in prices. The US also supported the attack on Libya also contributed to the spike in prices. Bottom line: Russia was no more responsible for the high prices in 2018 than it is for the low prices today. In 2018 the problem was US sanctions that choked off supply, while in 2020 the problem is the Saudis. It’s the Saudis that increased production not Russia. That doesn’t mean that Putin can’t help to ease the situation, but it does mean that the two leaders will have to air their differences candidly and find a constructive way to move forward. That means there needs to be a summit which, to this point, has been strenuously opposed by the U.S. foreign policy establishment.

In any event, it’s extremely unlikely that Putin will agree to reduce oil production in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. That’s not what he wants at all. What Putin wants from Washington is far more comprehensive. He wants the US to rejoin the community of nations so they can deal collaboratively on critical issues like war, pandemic, nuclear proliferation and global security. He wants a reliable partner that will play by the rules, comply with international law, stop the bloody regime change wars, respect the sovereignty of other nations, and lend a hand with global crises.

That’s what he wants. He wants an ally that will respect the interests of others, cooperate on issues of mutual importance, and work to create a more equitable and prosperous global economy.

If Trump shows he is willing to change, then Putin will undoubtedly make every effort to help out. But if Trump continues with America’s go-it-alone approach, there’s not going to be a deal.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The initial, alarming estimates of deaths from the virus COVID-19 were that as many as 2.2 million people would die in the United States. This number is comparable to the annual U.S. death rate of around 3 million. Fortunately, correction of some simple errors in overestimation has begun to dramatically reduce the virus mortality claims. The most recent estimate from “the leading U.S. authority on the COVID-19 pandemic” suggests that the U.S. may see between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths from COVID-19, with the final tally likely to be somewhere in the middle.” This means that we are expecting around 150,000 U.S. deaths caused by the virus, if the latest estimates hold up.

How does that compare to the effects of the measures taken in response? By all accounts, the impact of the response will be great, far-reaching, and long-lasting. To better assess the difference we might ask, how many people will die as a result of the response to COVID-19? Although a comprehensive analysis is needed from those experienced with modeling mortality rates, we can begin to estimate by examining existing research and comparative statistics. Let’s start by looking at three critical areas of impact: suicide and drug abuse, lack of medical treatment or coverage, and poverty and food access.

Suicides and Drug Abuse

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, over 48,000 suicides occurred in the U.S. in 2018. This equates to an annual rate of about 14 suicides per 100,000 people. As expected, suicides increase substantially during times of economic depression. For example, as a result of the 2008 recession there was an approximate 25% increase. Similarly, during a peak year of the Great Depression, in 1932, the rate rose to 17 suicides per 100,000 people.

Recent research ties high suicide rates “to the unraveling of the social fabric” that happens when societal breakdowns occur. People become despondent over economic hardship, the loss of social structures, loneliness, and related factors. There is probably no greater example of these kinds of losses than what we are experiencing today with the extreme response to COVID-19 and the effects will be felt for many years. The social structures might return in a few months but the economy will not. Some think that the economy will recover in three years and others think it will never recover in terms of impact to low-income households, as was the case for the 2008 recession. However, if we estimate a full recovery in six years, the effects will contribute around 3 suicides per 100,000 people every year during that time for a total of over 59,000 deaths in the United States.

Related to suicides are drug abuse deaths. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, over 67,000 deaths from overdose of illicit or prescription drugs occurred in 2018. This does not include alcohol abuse. Only 7% were suicides and 87% were known to be unintentional deaths largely due to drug abuse caused by depression or other mental conditions. Such conditions can be expected to rise during times of economic collapse and if we estimate the impact due to COVID-19 over six years as being a 25% increase (as with suicides) that projects about 87,000 additional deaths due to drug abuse.

Lack of Medical Coverage or Treatment

Unemployment is expected to rise dramatically as a result of the COVID-19 response and the effect is already being seen in jobless claims. One of the major impacts of unemployment, apart from depression and poverty, is a lack of medical coverage. A Harvard study found nearly 45,000 excess deaths annually linked to lack of health coverage. That was at the pre-COVID-19 unemployment rate of 4%.

As reported recently, millions of Americans are losing their jobs in the COVID-19 recession/depression. For every 2% increase in unemployment, there are about 3.5 million lost jobs. The U.S. Secretary of Treasury has predicted a 20% unemployment level, which translates to 12 million lost jobs. If the 45,000 excess deaths due to lack of medical coverage increases uniformly by unemployment rate, we can expect about 225,000 deaths annually due to lack of medical coverage in the U.S. at 20% unemployment. Extrapolating this over a 6-year period would mean 1.35 million deaths. This assumes that funding for important health-related programs are not further cut or ignored, a bad assumption that means the estimate is probably low.

Beyond lack of coverage, medical services are being reprioritized to respond preferentially to COVID-19, causing less resources to be available for treatment of other medical conditions. The capacity of medical service providers has already been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 response in some areas. Additionally, clinical trials and drug development are expected to be severely impacted. This means that important new medicines will not reach the market and people will die who otherwise would have lived. There is not yet enough information on the overall impact to medical service provision therefore we will not include an estimate.

Poverty and Food Access

The Columbia University School of Public Health studied the effects of poverty on death rates. The investigators found that 4.5% of U.S. deaths were attributable to poverty. That’s about 130,000 deaths annually. How will this be affected by COVID-19? One way to begin estimating is to consider how the number of people living in poverty will increase.

Before the COVID-19 response, approximately 12% of Americans lived below the officially defined poverty line. That percentage will undoubtedly rise significantly due to the expected increase in unemployment. If unemployment rises to 20% (from 4%) as predicted, the number of people living in poverty could easily double. If that is the extent of the effect, we will see another 130,000 deaths per year from general poverty.

Although deaths due to poverty are not entirely about food access, it is a significant factor in that category. In times of economic hardship many people can’t afford good food, causing malnutrition and, in some cases, starvation. People also can’t access food causing the same outcomes. Limited access to nutritious food is a root cause of diet-related diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and infant mortality issues. A recent estimate suggests 20% of all deaths worldwide are linked to poor diets.

Food access issues will be further exacerbated with the COVID-19 problem due to the anticipated issues with food production and prices. If the COVID-19 response lasts for years as expected, our estimate will need to be a multiple of the 130,000 annual figure. Using the 6-year estimate, we get 780,000 deaths.

Conclusion

The total deaths attributable to the COVID-19 response, from just this limited examination, are estimated to be:

• Suicides 59,000
• Drug abuse 87,000
• Lack of medical coverage or treatment 1,350,000
• Poverty and food access 780,000

These estimates, totaling more than two million deaths above the estimated 150,000 expected from the virus itself, do not include other predictable issues with the COVID-19 response. An example is the lack of medical services as stated above. Other examples include the EPA’s suspension of environmental regulations. It has been estimated that the EPA’s Clean Air Act alone has saved 230,000 lives each year. Moreover, the anticipated failure of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) will lead to more illness and death. The USPS “delivers about 1 million lifesaving medications each year and serves as the only delivery link to Americans living in rural areas.”

Even using these low estimates, however, we can see that the response will be much worse than the virus. The social devastation and economic scarring could last more than six years, with one expert predicting that it will be “long-lasting and calamitous.” That expert has noted that he is not overly concerned with the virus itself because “as much as 99 percent of active cases [of COVID-19] in the general population are ‘mild’ and do not require specific medical treatment.” Yet he is deeply concerned about the “the social, economic and public health consequences of this near total meltdown of normal life.” He suggests a better alternative is to focus only on those most susceptible to the virus. Others have reasonably suggested that only those who are known to be infected should self-quarantine.

Some public health professionals have been pleading with authorities to consider the implications of the unreasonable response. Many experts have spoken out publicly, criticizing the overreaction to COVID-19. A professor of medical microbiology, for example, has written an open letter to German Chancellor Merkel in an attempt to draw attention to the concerns.

The real problem we face today is not a virus. The greater problem is that people have failed to engage in critical thinking due to the fear promoted by some media and government officials. Fear is the mind killer, as author Frank Herbert once wrote. Ultimately, the fear of COVID-19 and the lack of critical thinking that has arisen from it are likely to cause far more deaths than the virus itself.

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This article was originally published on Dig Within.

Human rights defenders on Tuesday demanded that the Trump administration reverse its decision to designate gun stores as “essential businesses” during the coronavirus pandemic and warned that increased gun violence during the national public health crisis will only add to the strain on overwhelmed health systems.

Following aggressive lobbying by the firearms industry, the administration over the weekend added gun stores to its list of essential services which should remain open to the public during the crisis—suggesting firearms rank alongside food, medicine, and medical supplies as crucial products Americans need during the pandemic.

The decision came weeks into the coronavirus pandemic, during which, Amnesty International noted, accidental shootings have continued to kill Americans, including a three-year-old boy in Kentucky.

“Instead of taking aggressive measures to curb gun violence, the federal government has again prioritized gun ownership over the basic right to live in safety and listed firearms as essential and critical to pandemic infrastructure,” said Ernest Coverson, campaign manager for the End Gun Violence Campaign at Amnesty International USA. “Gun retailers are not essential businesses and should not remain open during this pandemic.”

Gun sales have gone up since the disease began spreading across the country earlier this month, with AFP reporting an 800% increase in sales at one store in Oklahoma. One store owner told the outlet the sales seemed partially driven by fears of theft, as Americans stock up on large amounts of household goods.

Trump critics and gun safety groups slammed the administration on social media and raised concern that firearms could become even more prevalent in American homes following the “essential business” designation.

The Trump administration has buckled to the NRA and deemed gun dealers and manufacturers as essential as hospital workers, first responders and others who are risking everything to save lives.

Tell Trump's DHS that gun shops are not essential businesses: https://t.co/mwBnVNR60B pic.twitter.com/C94tRZc9vO

— Moms Demand Action (@MomsDemand) March 31, 2020

Guns are not essential.
Guns are not essential.
Guns are not essential.
Guns are not essential.
Guns are not essential.
Guns are not essential.
Guns are not essential.
Guns are not essential.
Guns are not essential.
Guns are not essential.
Guns are not essential. https://t.co/u2YyG1dZrc

— @csgv (@CSGV) March 30, 2020

As a spokesperson for Brady, a gun control group, told ABC News Monday, the NRA, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, and other pro-gun groups have tried to exploit the crisis for their own ends.

“The gun lobby is not willing to stand for a few days or a few weeks of less profit in order to protect public health, and it’s outrageous and definitely not required by the Second Amendment,” Brady chief counsel Jonathan Lowy told ABC. “It’s a public health issue, not a Second Amendment issue.”

Keeping gun stores open as Americans across the country do their part to slow the spread of the coronavirus will put consumers in preventable danger, he added—not only from gun violence, but also from the spread of the virus.

“The fact is that guns, the nature of guns, require that they be sold with a lot of close interaction,” Lowy said. “They can’t be sold from vending machines, can’t be sold with curbside pickup.”

The gun industry’s insistence on maintaining its bottom line during a public health crisis, said Amnesty, is likely to put even more strain on healthcare workers who are facing storages of ventilators, face masks, gloves, and other medical equipment as the virus spreads.

“With hospitals at critically low capacity due to the pandemic, we cannot afford more injuries or deaths from gun violence,” said Coverson. “The federal government has made a mistake that will only lead to more lives lost because of senseless gun violence.”

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.

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Featured image: The foundation of the United States is embedded in gun violence. (Photo: Joe Loong)

It was made with little thought but a good deal of high-minded urgency: Evacuate your office, take what you can, and prepare for the virtual world.  Fill in a form, tell us if you actually pinched the office computer.  This was the message that was sent to academic staff across Australia in the second half of March.  Australian universities were effectively going into a lockdown as a response to directives by the federal and state governments. The objective: to plan for the Virtual University. 

For the most part, the execution was typically shabby.  In one university’s case, a mere 24-hour notice was given to all staff, a feeble account that meant that much material remains in offices, inaccessible except through lengthy pleas to security staff.  In this hurried exercise, no allowances were provided to assist the move of necessary equipment and supplies.  In other cases, there were delays in implementing the “shutdown”.  Campuses remained opened in some instances, though various parts were sealed.  Libraries at the University of Melbourne, by way of example, were open even as staff were discouraged from coming onto campus.

The university lockdowns have given a push along to the cost cutting iconoclasts of higher education.  Imagine a world where the wings of a teacher are clipped, making that misnomer called student-centred learning an absolute?  Forget the fogey in the front, musing on the Socratic method of instruction, the peripatetic walk. Welcome the person before the screen, with domestic backdrop.  What a cosy world.

Often ignored in online teaching is not the method but the implication, that grand vision which envisages the elimination of the in-class pedagogue who needs space and podium.  The same goes for students who are told that they will have a particular experience in class, their physical presence being necessary along the way.  With universities looking at every chance to minimise costs while pretending to deliver a certain quality of course, the policy here is clear: coronavirus is an opportunity to clear the decks and thin the ranks. 

The courses of a virtual university are cheaper to deliver and a blessing to the tyrants of the property services wing of the university.  Higher education institutions, certainly in Australia, have shown a legendary indifference to students.  Far better to have a bloated Human Resources department that serve as bullying dragoons for University management.  Best listen to what they say in Property Services, because they know all about the learning and research environment. (An example of such deep learning from the drones in PS is the dogmatic, and continued embrace, of open planning as a suitable environment for teaching and research staff.)

Those backing the Virtual University have suddenly found themselves in clover.  Psychologists Annie Ditta and Liz Davis at the University of California, Riverside, have made a splash by creating online tutorials using the video conferencing service Zoom.  They insist – and here’s the rub –on “bite-size pieces” in how to use Zoom and cognate facilities.  Fittingly enough, online tutorials on how to use an online instruction or communication service are themselves trimmed of fat and length.  “It would be easy to go on for 25 or 30 minutes in one lecture,” suggests Davis, “and that’s too much.  People will tune out.” And, perhaps, drop out.

Then come the words of wisdom from those who speak, not from the summitry of teaching but from the low point of management speak.  Pauline Taylor-Guy of the Australian Council for Educational Research and Annie-Marie Chase of the Australian Council for Educational Research have fighting words in The Conversation.  They are convinced: “When done right, online learning can actually be as effective as face-to-face education.”  There you have it; conviction, writ large, no debates accepted, especially the contrary view that some courses should never be taught online. 

These wise heads, who may well have lost connection with what an actual classroom looks or feels like, with the tart smell of the whiteboard or the worn appearance of chairs and desks, take a shot at the Australian university system for not having “upskilled their staff to deliver this kind of quality online education.”  Many university instructors merely upload material to online learning platforms, rather than engaging them.  And, silly creatures, they have no experience of “online course design and pedagogy.”   

But Taylor-Guy and Chase are quick to reveal their angle.  Not giving “intensive upskilling to lectures to deliver online classes and support effectively, they might see students disengaging and dropping out early.”  Ways of keeping interest are available: the use of online discussion boards, chat rooms and the replication of “small group work in tutorials.”

A far better appraisal would be to suggest blended environments and the good eggs, few as they are in higher education, will consider this in post-ravaged landscape of COVID-19.  Till then, it is worth reflecting that the online platform has become an often brain-deadening pre-requisite for any course.  What’s not on it, does not exist. I platform, therefore I exist.  To use a white board and expect students to actually take notes is now considered something of a mild heresy, if not an anachronism deserving of the rack.  The decline of note taking as an art is lamentable, and to be mourned alongside the introduction of such terms as “workshopping” and “lectorial”.

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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]

Governments and bosses claim to be at war with coronavirus. In reality, it is a war against our social class that they are waging. A war against us for their profits!

The global health crisis is largely a consequence of the capitalist system

Of course, we do not mean by this that the virus was created by capitalism; but the human disaster we are experiencing is due to capitalism. Governments around the world make the same choices, even if it is to a slightly different degree: they started by diminishing the extent of the epidemic, not because of ignorance but because management, the shareholders, the capitalists had as priority the safeguarding of their profits. The profits of a minority, against the health of billions of humans!

Once the crisis is in place, the damage of capitalism comes back to us

• Lack of infrastructure, staff, resources in all areas of health: this is the result of the destruction of public services in one part of the world, of their almost non-existence in the other part.
• Lack of protective equipment: masks, hydro-alcoholic gel, screening tests, respirators, etc. But factories continue to produce weapons. Capitalists see only their profits, not the collective interest.
• In several countries, researchers testify that their scientific work on the virus has been abandoned in recent years for budgetary reasons. Capitalists prefer to invest in multinational pharmaceutical companies that dictate their drug laws.

During the crisis, business continues!

With regard to the world of work, the capitalists are fierce:

• They allow a multitude of companies which are not essential to the life of the population to continue operating despite the health risks such as the current one. To continue to earn money, capitalists are putting the health and lives of millions of workers in the world at great risk.
• In the really essential sectors (which should be limited to what is directly related to health, food and access to gas, electricity, water…), the employers put forward «barrier gestures», transferring the responsibility to individuals. But on the one hand, in many companies, nothing is being done to make these «barrier gestures» applicable; on the other hand, they are not enough. It is the whole organization of work that must be reviewed, in terms of the health of each and every one. And this, it is not the capitalists who do not work who are best placed to define it: it is up to us to do it, in every department, establishment, enterprise, in activity because it is really indispensable.
• Capitalists are using this health crisis to further restrict our rights, our social conquests. In each country, a large part of «emergency measures» is to address working time, leave, wages, the right to strike, etc.
• The situation is even worse in the regions of the world that are the direct victims of colonialism: people know beyond misery; the health crisis can only have terrible consequences.

Resistance has been organized

They are complicated to implement in the context we know. The member organizations of the International Trade Union Network of Solidarity and Struggles do not want to line up slogans, for the sole pleasure of appearing «radical». What we want, from the places of work and life and by freely federating ourselves, by coordinating ourselves, including internationally, is to build a massive popular movement of resistance and conquest.

• Let us support and make known the struggles of all the regions of the world.
• Let us gather by professional sectors, but also to defend specific rights and achieve social equality (women, migrants, populations oppressed for «racial» reasons, …)
• Let us not allow the poorest, the most precarious, to pay for the health crisis.
• All workers, regardless of their status (wage earners, self-employed, unemployed, temporary workers, seasonal workers, etc.) must have a guaranteed income of 100%, with a guaranteed minimum for all based on the cost of living in the country.
• Let us take our affairs into our own hands, in the workplace and in our own lives! Governments, public authorities and states are instruments at the service of capitalism.
• Requisition of companies, services, shops, public places, necessary to respond to the health emergency!

Let us no longer allow the capitalists to organize planetary catastrophes!

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Retired Venezuelan Major General Cliver Alcala surrendered to Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) officials on Friday, vowing to cooperate with a US anti-narcotics probe.

Alcala was indicted by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) Thursday, alongside a series of high-ranking Venezuelan officials, including President Nicolas Maduro and National Constituent Assembly President Diosdado Cabello.

Washington alleged that the Venezuelan government had conspired with Colombian FARC rebels to “flood” the US with cocaine.

Critics, however, have pointed to the dearth of concrete evidence implicating top Venezuelan leaders. Data released by US agencies show that only a small percentage of drug routes pass through Venezuelan territory, with the majority of cocaine entering the US via Central America and Mexico.

Responding to the DoJ allegations, Alcala denied the charges, stating that he had held several meetings with US officials and that he would await authorities’ inquiries at his residence in Barranquilla, Colombia.

He also confessed to orchestrating a coup plot against President Maduro. After Colombian authorities seized an arms shipment, the retired general stated publicly that the weapons were part of an operation to “liberate” Venezuela. He added that the operation was coordinated with self-proclaimed “Interim President” Juan Guaido and “US advisors.”

The retired general has previously plotted military incursions into Venezuela. According to Bloomberg, in the context of the Venezuelan opposition’s effort to force “humanitarian aid” across the Colombian border on February 23, there was a plan for Alcala to lead an armed force of 200 men into Venezuela. Bogota reportedly vetoed the plan out of fear of spiraling violence.

Alcala later handed himself over to Colombian intelligence officers and was reportedly flown o to New York, on Friday afternoon, aboard a DEA plane. He pledged to cooperate with US investigations and defend “the truth.”

The Colombian Attorney General’s Office has since published a statement revealing that while Alcala was being investigated in connection to the seized weapons, there were no charges against him nor any extradition request.

Meanwhile, Reuters has reported that another former Venezuelan general is currently negotiating the terms of his extradition to the United States via an intermediary.

Ex-military intelligence chief Hugo Carvajal was also indicted by the DoJ on Thursday. Carvajal broke with the Maduro government in 2017, going on to endorse Guaido following his January 2019 self-proclamation.

Carvajal had previously vowed to provide US authorities with information about the Venezuelan government after his arrestin Spain last year. However, he went missing in November after the Spanish High Court approved his extradition to the US. The Spanish government agreed to the extradition in early March.

According to Reuters, there is a “50/50 chance” that Carvajal will surrender to US authorities, which appear poised to offer the ex-intelligence official a favorable plea bargain deal on the condition that he testifies against his former colleagues.

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Featured image: Retired General Cliver Alcala surrendered to US authorities and pledged to cooperate (El Universal)

Washington is not willing to delay its plans to eternalize its hegemonic power, even in the face of an unprecedented global crisis. Currently, one of the main American targets is Iran, which, in the midst of the devastating crisis of COVID-19, will now have to face the fury of the US, which do not intend to retreat in the imposition of international sanctions against Tehran.

The Persian country is one of the most affected by the catastrophe. With more than 2,700 dead, Iran is trying to survive the pandemic. Despite the huge number of victims, the country is already beginning to show signs of stability. President Hassan Rouhani assured the world that the country has a strong health system and is able to cope with the rapid progression of the disease. State health insurance would cover 90% of coronavirus-related patient costs, including donations and low-interest loans to those affected by COVID-19. Altogether, 20% of the national budget is being directed towards controlling the pandemic.

However, this priority given to fighting the pandemic is not universal, with some countries more concerned with continuing their geopolitical ambitions to the detriment of human well-being. The United States has repeatedly announced that international sanctions against Iran will not end, regardless of the state of crisis caused by the global pandemic. In the past three months, US sanctions against Iran’s oil and industry have increased exponentially, due to escalating tensions between the two countries. US State Secretary Mike Pompeo has publicly stated that Washington intends to recover global restrictions on Tehran because of the alleged “violation of its nuclear commitments”.

Previously, American sanctions had been imposed in 2018, following the unilateral withdrawal of the US from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Reasonably claiming that Tehran had violated the terms of the agreement, Washington initiated a series of coercive measures that, over the past few two years, cost Iran about $200 billion, according to official Tehran data, directly damaging the country’s economy and weakening strategic sectors.

In a situation of humanitarian catastrophe, secondary tensions are expected to be minimized in favor of international cooperation against a common problem. Taking into account that the US has an even greater number of cases than Iran and that everything indicates that it will surpass the number of deaths, it would be reasonable that the Trump administration was less concerned with punishing another country and more interested in acting against the virus, be it helping other countries or just increasing their efforts to control internal chaos. However, the White House and the Pentagon do the exactly opposite. Sanctions against Iran not only continued but increased, with the US on March 26 adding a list of 5 organizations and 15 individual people to the list of those sanctioned for “collaboration with Iran”. Clearly, the United States is interested in increasing and aggravating the crisis, not in reducing it.

Despite this, Iran has shown itself to be increasingly strong. Foreign sanctions, although cruel to the country’s economy, have forced Iran to develop previously weaker sectors, strengthening the country as a whole. The Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, spoke in this regard, stating that “Iran has benefited from US sanctions. This made us self-sufficient in all areas”. Looking at it comparatively, the US, being the largest economy in the world, demonstrates a much greater strategic fragility, since the pandemic grows exponentially in its territory, even under conditions much more economically favorable than Iran.

Indeed, economic sanctions play a unique strategic role on the international scenario: generating instability and damaging the lives of the people affected by the measures. However, this seems to be a weak and inefficient formula when applied to strong and organically structured nations, with millennia of tradition and nurtured by great popular support for their governments, as is the case with the Islamic Republic of Iran. As Jeffrey Sachs, professor of sustainable development at Columbia University, wrote to Chinese media:

“The US should immediately suspend all economic sanctions on countries that are struggling to deal with the disease (…) US economic sanctions have caused millions of people to suffer, and soon they could kill tens of thousands, if not far more. Exacerbating civilians’ suffering to try to change their government’s conduct is ethically wrong and prohibited by international law. Pursuing this strategy during the worst health crisis the world has faced in modern times demonstrates reckless disregard for human life and contempt for the norms of civilized behavior. ”

Finally, we must wait to see what will be the next steps of the US in its desperate search for the preservation of the global hegemony. If the American government is more interested in taking care of its own people and fighting the virus than punishing foreign nations, the most correct measure is an immediate end to sanctions.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

I’m a doctor ‘on the front-line’ in the ‘war against COVID-19’. Yes, we have a huge problem, but it is not necessarily the virus itself. The real problem is hidden in plain sight. Let’s see if we can begin to discern it.

Lockdown Time

This is how doctors, nurses and other medical staff and administrators are handling this crisis.

They have set up “contaminated” respiratory divisions at clinics and hospitals, which are separated from the rest of the outpatients and health staff. Anybody coming in with a cough, or who is sneezing, or showing any sign of respiratory distress, is directed to this division and kept separated from those coming in with wounds or any other non-respiratory-related illness. That way, contagion is not propagated to the entire building, but is kept isolated within the respiratory division, which has its own doctors and staff handling cases there. Again, all incomers with respiratory symptoms – which in reality can be anything from the common cold to the typical seasonal flu, even a cough due to seasonal allergies – are sent to this respiratory division.

Every time a doctor has to record anything related to a patient’s consultation, he or she must type a note in a file (most of which are electronic) under a certain category. Because a pandemic has been declared, and in view of the global lockdown effort, that category is specified by international codes that have been designated for this particular coronavirus. After all, people require sick leave letters or isolation labels from doctors, who determine which to issue to whom depending on their likelihood of being infected or in close contact with infected people.

Here are the international codes that have been designated for this lockdown. The 10th revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10) for COVID-19 are as follows:

• B34.2 for both COVID-19 confirmed cases and PROBABLE cases
• Z20.828 for possible cases and contacts of those who were confirmed and/or are probable cases.

Detailed instructions and updates as to how to use these codes in the clinical setting are arriving at medical facilities every day. In my country, a ‘definitive’ version was sent out in the last few days. At the beginning of this, many people were being labelled B34.2 [‘confirmed’/’probable’] when they should really have received the other code [Z20.828 – ‘possible’]. Additionally, those whose tests were inconclusive (probable cases), were nevertheless grouped together with ‘confirmed’ cases. While these codes of distinction make sense for managing a crisis situation, they unfortunately also leave much room for subjective interpretation.

Testing, Testing, 1-2-3?

Tests for the presence of this “novel” coronavirus are done through RT-PCR (real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) testing, which detects antigens of the virus or proteins or nucleic acids, which is the RNA genetic information of the virus. These genetic tests, even though there are limitations to what they can reveal, are the official and optimal way to test people.

Another way to test is by determining the presence of an immune response against the virus. These have been called “rapid tests” because they take much less time to do than the genetic tests. In this case, IgM antibodies are produced earlier and IgG antibodies later. Both can be detected in the rapid test. However, according to a published study on such tests for COVID-19:

“The seroconversion sequentially appeared for Ab [antibodies], IgM and then IgG, with a median time of 11, 12 and 14 days, respectively. The presence of antibodies was < 40% among patients in the first 7 days of illness.”

Therefore, rapid tests to measure the presence of IgM or IgG antibodies against COVID-19 are not useful for the detection of acute cases.

One problem brought to the fore by the lockdown is that they’re not testing the general population because the entire population is considered suspect anyway. It is, after all, an emergency. Those being tested are, for the most part, hospitalized patients. This creates numbers from samples that don’t reflect the overall picture of COVID-19 in the general population. Hospital populations are one thing, but the general population at home is an entirely different thing.

As this paper published on 26 March 2020 in the New England Journal of Medicine explains,

“If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.”

How can we know? One country is testing its entire population. According to numbers published by the government of Iceland on 25 March, Iceland has the highest proportion of tests performed by any single country in the entire world. Iceland’s chief epidemiologist, Thorolfur Guðnason, is quoted as saying,

“Early results from deCode Genetics indicate that a low proportion of the general population has contracted the virus and that about half of those who tested positive are non-symptomatic,” said Guðnason. “The other half displays very moderate cold-like symptoms.”

Nevertheless, private practices everywhere have been shut down, leaving many people who were relying on them to manage their health having to wait until further notice. Anything non-essential to the coronavirus emergency is postponed. This means that the very important role of primary healthcare carried out by family doctors and general practitioners (GPs) has effectively shut down. And I’m decidedly more worried about patients whose scheduled consultations were cancelled, for reasons I explain below.

From the Health Trenches

One of my correspondents is a medical doctor who works in one of Italy’s most afflicted hospitals. At first glance, his testimony supported what has been repeatedly highlighted: ‘above-normal’ numbers of people, including young people, in respiratory distress or with extensive pneumonias, etc.

However, something else he said caught my attention: he reported seeing many patients – both hospitalized and non-hospitalized – who present with mild clinical symptoms, and he further clarified that they comprised “most” of his patients.

This bears repeating: MOST hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients present with mild clinical symptoms. No matter how much of a ‘warzone’ doctors in certain hotspots may subjectively feel they are currently in, the numbers they are dealing with are nevertheless going to – with hindsight or contextual data – prove consistent with such data as that coming from Iceland.

People lying on the floor somewhere in a Spanish hospital because there aren’t enough beds. Believe it or not, this happens from time to time…

Photos and videos circulating online from one hospital show people lying on the floor. As a colleague related in one of the multiple WhatsApp groups created for medics of late:

“I think that this video is very sensationalist… [It’s my hospital] where, unfortunately, the patients in the ER could not sleep on a sofa, and they asked to lay down in the floor, so they could sleep. It was lamentable, but with 120 people pending hospitalization, it was impossible to give them all beds. Nevertheless, the situation got better, and we have doubled the number of beds available, and even though we don’t an excess of material, we aren’t short-staffed…”

What seems to be compounding this largely administrative crisis is that a lot of people who would otherwise be at home with primary healthcare follow-ups are unnecessarily remaining in the hospital. That is a luxury you simply cannot take in countries with a very elderly population, who can go into respiratory failure even with a banal bug. There are also a lot of comorbidities in the general population today.

It’s true that the COVID-19 virus is playing a role in atypical pneumonias seen in younger people who can go into respiratory distress. But according to a paper published in JAMA on 17 March, almost 87 per cent of deaths in Italy have been in patients over 70 years old – as happens during ANY flu season. The chief of Italy’s Superior Institute of Health reported midway through this month that:

“From the medical records examined so far (not much more than 100), the majority of deaths from Covid-19 in Italy have been among the very old. The average age is 80.3 years. The majority of deaths had 3 or more associated serious health issues. Two patients who died did not have any of the most common serious health issues, although other issues may become apparent as further investigation takes place. Just two people under 40 years old have died, both 39 years old – one had cancer and the other one had diabetes, obesity and other health problems prior to the infection.”

The panic combined with the administrative and medical directives are sending ALL emotionally and physically distressed patients to the hospitals. The fact remains, however, that MOST people in the general population will not go into respiratory distress. Perspective should be kept so as to not break the hospital system.

To get an idea of the characteristic issues facing elderly patients, let’s review a fictional but typical case:

Say an 86-year-old patient has a fever. He has been coughing for days previously. A doctor might find he’s approaching respiratory failure. In his medical history you find that he has chronic kidney failure (as most elderly do), heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes, high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation and hypothyroidism. Such a cluster is not unusual in someone his age, which is why a patient like this could be taking up to 12 medications, including potent blood thinners. A person like this might be labelled ‘COPD – exacerbation’. If he’s hospitalized, they will test for microbes including bacteria and viruses. If he’s not making progress, his organs might start to fail. Or the patient might get better. Some don’t, and – brace yourselves… they die.

European hospitals and clinics are overburdened with such cases because there are many elderly patients with comorbidities. Nevertheless, assistance and pretty good health care is always provided – until the very end. In the past, I was often pleasantly surprised by just how much Europeans care about their elderly. Now I have gotten used to it. In other countries, they just don’t bother.

Intensive Care Units (ICU) might consider running a ‘common sense filter’. An old patient with an infection, with multiple diseases, and with multiple organ failure might signal to them that it’s time for this person to pass away peacefully, with care taken to minimize their suffering. It is often the case that an elderly patient has expressed officially that when the time comes, he or she will just want to pass away and not be reanimated. It can happen that health staff get so fixated on treating older patients, that a younger person doesn’t have an ICU bed when it’s needed, i.e. in cases of respiratory distress.

In the example I outlined above, each disease and infection found in the patient will have its own international code for labelling purposes. As explained earlier, the coronavirus label has its own codes for statistical purposes. It does NOT mean COVID-19 killed the person. Some people have so many diseases that any banal bug could take them out. The difference between dying WITH coronavirus or DUE to coronavirus is a subtle but important one.

The Shutdown of Regular Medical Visits

Those with diabetes, heart failure, COPD, etc. have to wait out at home, isolated, until they get the green light to recommence their regular medical visits and follow-ups. Too bad if they catch a cold or anything else from the stress this pandemic is engendering. If they end up in the hospital, they will be tested for coronavirus. In the meantime, they are waiting patiently at home and are very understanding of the system that told them to wait at home because it ‘has to deal with more important issues right now’.

I know of a number of hospitalized COVID-19 confirmed cases that could be at home. Most people at home with respiratory symptoms these days have no breathing problems. Nevertheless, as per protocol, and because COVID-19 patients are recovering and then, a week later, it can strike them again, follow-ups are being done after one week.

Before all of this began, up to 60 patients with either the flu or the common cold were showing up at my health center in just ONE morning. It was one patient after the other with respiratory symptoms. But due to the lockdown directives, these patients are either staying at home or they’re all going to the ER and/or to the hospital. For the most, it’s just phone calls to see how they’re doing. Primary healthcare has effectively been shut down. This worries me because GPs do a very important job in avoiding decompensations in people with multiple comorbidities who would otherwise end up in the hospital. Patients with issues like heart failure, cancer, COPD, diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety, severe depression, etc. need constant follow-ups and reassurance.

If hospitals don’t let go of the MILD cases, they will soon be in very big trouble. I can easily think of 100-300 people in any single doctor’s post covering around 1,500 patients (or 1,900 in some regions, if you count those in elderly residencies) who are at risk of going into respiratory failure or some other emergency if their check-ups are withheld for longer and/or if they catch a cold. Yes, this COVID-19 is highly contagious and it has its peculiarities. But the fact remains that people have multiple comorbidities and life has to continue. COVID-19 is not the only healthcare issue in the world right now:

And, again, MOST people, especially those without comorbidities, will only experience a mild form of it. The rest, which is a large majority of the population, will remain without symptoms.

Most of the medical workforce is located in Primary Healthcare, not in hospitals. Now, anything that happens to anybody has to be dealt with by the emergency services in the hospitals because they can’t come to primary healthcare doctors, nor can they continue with their regular specialized visits at the hospital. People have complex medical histories and tragic lives. Other than medical work, primary healthcare workers are often the substitute for what in the past was the counseling work of the local priests and parishioners. Surely someone should have thought about this? Some hospital doctors often look down on Primary Healthcare providers with disdain, and that is because they don’t have the patience to do that kind of job, in which it’s important to get to know entire families and their tragic suffering.

Media Heroes Now And Then

The work of Primary Healthcare is always important, but you don’t ever see that in the news. The media currently needs hospital heroes and stories of how ER staff don’t have time to eat and how an ICU nurse committed suicide after testing positive for COVID-19. But primary healthcare workers are appreciated by their regular patients, especially now that consultations are limited to phone calls because patient-doctor meetings are discouraged. Unlike before, when they didn’t have time to eat or take bathroom breaks, or were spending up to four consecutive days working non-stop with very little sleep and dealing with four significant emergencies at the same time, few cared much for healthcare providers because they never heard about their hectic ‘wars’ against diseases in the news. Such is life.

I leave you with the considered perspective of Dr. John Ioannidis, professor of medicine, of epidemiology and population health, of biomedical data science, and of statistics at Stanford University. He is perhaps THE most “evidence-based” medical scientist in the world today, and he says of this emergency:

“The current coronavirus disease, Covid-19, has been called a once-in-a-century pandemic. But it may also be a once-in-a-century evidence FIASCO.”

He later added in a separate publication:

“If COVID-19 is not as grave as it is depicted, high evidence standards are equally relevant. Exaggeration and over-reaction may seriously damage the reputation of science, public health, media, and policy-makers. It may foster disbelief that will jeopardize the prospects of an appropriately strong response if and when a more major pandemic strikes in the future.”

Or, as the prime directive of medical ethics goes:

First, Do No Harm.

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Our thanks to Dr. Gary G. Kohls for bringing this to our attention.

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Dr. Gaby was born into a mixed Eastern-Western family in Costa Rica, and she is a countryside family medicine doctor and former heart surgeon. Her research in the medical field, the true nature of our world and all things related to healing have taken her to Italy, Canada, France and Spain. Her writings can be found at The Health Matrix.

All images in this article are from Sott.net

A visibly sick and exhausted medic continued to see patients in her small hospital cubicle, writing medical prescriptions with her right hand and receiving intravenous infusion on the left hand. She was a doctor and patient both and had a perfectly acceptable excuse to skip work but she didn’t.

Even with weary body and sunken eyes, Shirin Rouhani-Rad spent more than 16 hours a day in hospital seeing patients suspected of Covid19 that were coming in droves. On Thursday night, when people in Iran were preparing for an uncharacteristically quiet and somber Nowruz – New Year – the doctor, now hailed as a ‘hero’ on social media – lost her own, silent battle to the cataclysmic disease.

Over the past four weeks, since the outbreak of Covid19 in Iran, there have been numerous stories of pain, struggle, loss, courage, resilience, patience, and sacrifice. The eerie silence on the streets is in sharp contrast to the buzz in hospitals, which have become frontlines in this war with doctors and nurses on the forefront, valiantly spearheading the fight.

Narges Khanalizadeh, a 25-year old nurse from northern Iran’s Gilan province, was the first healthcare worker in Iran to die of coronavirus in the line of duty. The young nurse could be seen wearing an infectious smile while attending to patients infected by the virus in the early days of its outbreak in Gilan.

The coastal province of Gilan, on the banks of Caspian Sea, has been hit hard by the pandemic, putting heavy burden on hospitals and healthcare workers. As fate would have it, within a gap of few days, Khanalizadeh was seen lying in the same intensive care unit where she took care of patients. The whirlwind journey from a busy nurse to a frozen patient is testimony to the no-holds-barred battle being fought in Iran’s hospitals these days.

In an audio clip shared widely on social media, her father speaks to Iran’s judiciary chief Ebrahim Raeesi. In between tears and tears, his painfully cracking voice illustrated how devastating it is for a father to shoulder the coffin of his brave, young daughter. The father proudly spoke about his girl, her education, her nursing training and her dreams, which were tragically cut short.

Some stories are painful and some inspiring. One nurse at a prominent hospital in Tehran canceled her wedding to be able to take care of patients. Another nurse spoke of how her mother, who had volunteered as a nurse in Iran-Iraq War, urged her to be in the hospital, the ‘frontline’ in this ‘war’. A doctor filmed himself saying he was “feeling better”, hours before he succumbed to the disease.

There are also stories that lift the spirits up in these testing times. A 103-year lady in the city of Semnan, 180 km east of Tehran, recovered from the disease after days of hospitalization. In a viral picture, she displays a paper that reads: “Thank God, I defeated corona”. In a few months, the “super granny” would be celebrating her 104th birthday, thanks to the heroic efforts of healthcare workers.

It has been a difficult fight under extremely challenging conditions. Doctors and nurses in Iran have been pulling out all the stops, despite lack of resources, to help patients recover. Their efforts to fight the pandemic have been stymied by the acute shortage of medicine and equipment, as Iran isn’t able to import them due to US sanctions. With severe shortage of equipment and medicine largely due to the cruel US sanctions on Iran, they are facing an uphill task to contain the outbreak and save precious lives.

Recently, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted a list of items required to contain the outbreak, which included ventilators, electroshock devices, nebulizer devices, infusion pumps, CT Scan 16 Slice machines, eco-sonography devices, digital x-ray machines, diagnostic test kits, protective masks, disposable gloves etc. In normal circumstances, it shouldn’t be problematic to import these items, but the US sanctions have made it difficult for Iran.

According to the health ministry, 50 new cases of the virus and 6 deaths are reported every day. The death toll has seen an alarming surge over the past one week, while new cases have also seen steady rise. The epicenter has lately shifted to Tehran from Qom, which is evident from the rush in city hospitals where people are making beelines to get tested. Iran’s elite revolutionary guards are also running hospitals to lessen the burden on main healthcare centers, but clearly the crisis is massive.

The worst affected are the survivors of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s chemical attacks during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, estimated to be around 100,000 in Iran. Many of them have chronic respiratory conditions caused by exposure to nerve gas and Covid19 affects them the most. There are reports that a large number of war veterans have died of the disease in recent weeks across Iran, those with lung and heart related problems.

Although medicine is exempted from the draconian embargo Trump administration has imposed on Iran, foreign companies have been under enormous pressure from anti-Iran hawks in Washington, who have made no secret of their desire to see Iranians choked to death. It was clear this week as the US government announced fresh sanctions on Iran’s petrochemical industry, in the middle of the pandemic.

Despite the global outcry and letters written by Iran’s president and foreign minister in recent days to world leaders, seeking their help and cooperation in fighting this pandemic, and reminding them of the unilateral and illegal US sanctions on Iran, the international community hasn’t broken its silence yet. What is especially revealing is the behavior of some Muslim Arab countries that prevented the Non-Aligned Movement from issuing a joint statement in condemnation of the US sanctions on Iran.

The statement that sought to urge the US to ease its sanctions on Iran as they are impeding Iran’s efforts to fight the pandemic was met with opposition from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Morocco and Yemen. These countries are complicit in America’s crimes against humanity. The world needs to speak up, not just against the US, but all its accomplices. Silence at this moment amounts to complicity or cowardice or both.

Hard times don’t last but they reveal the true character of people. Hard times also unmask friends and foes. History will remember how the international community, barring a few nations, contributed to the catastrophic situation in Iran in the wake of this pandemic by siding with the oppressors. Those who stood on the wrong side of history might face a similar situation sometime in future. America never had any permanent friends, and the likes of Saddam and Qaddafi would vouch for it from their graves.

There should be absolutely no confusion over this. The unilateral sanctions reimposed on Iran by the US administration in 2018 and the embargo of humanitarian and medical supplies is illegal and inhumane, and that’s what the International Court of Justice also found. It is not just illegal but a blatant crime against humanity when lack of access to medicine and equipment is causing hundreds of deaths in Iran every day. Every life counts and every death is a coldblooded murder by the US and its allies.

It is pretty simple and clear that these sanctions are an attempt to let the pandemic spread in Iran and allow the situation to crush Iran’s health care system. Having failed to crush the resolve of brave Iranians in the battlefield, where just a few missiles forced Trump and his lackeys into hibernation few months ago, the hawks in Washington, egged on by their friends in Tel Aviv and Riyadh, have found a cowardly way to attack Iranians. They will fail here too.

The people of Iran are determined to see through this dark phase too and life will be normal again. But they will remember who stood by them and who stood against them. This spring may not have brought glad tidings for Iranians but the next spring will. Iran is here to stay, prosper and progress.

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Featured image is from MEHR Agency

Currently, the world is in the midst of a global health pandemic, or so we are told. We have been covering all of the events which have preceded the coronavirus outbreak that suggest we are not being told the entire story.

This list includes Event 201, the coronavirus pandemic simulation which preceded the first reports of the outbreak by six weeks.

The World Military Games held its opening ceremonies in Wuhan China, aka ground zero of the outbreak, on the same day as Event 201. Nearly 10k military athletes from 110 nations were all in Wuhan, just before the outbreak.

We have also looked at how the CDC shut down Ft. Detrick, the epicenter of the US Biowarfare program just before the outbreak due to violations concerning leaks and contamination. Plus multiple connections to other existing programs related to the United Nations, Bill Gates and many others.

Not to mention our extensive coverage exposing the plan to roll out a new digital financial system out of the ashes of this global emergency, which will likely be considered the biggest economic collapse in human history.

In this exclusive interview, Spiro is joined by journalist Helen Buyniski to break down and discuss the Rockefeller Foundation sanctioned report which appears to be the script for not only Event 201, but everything we are seeing unfold right now concerning the outbreak itself, and the police state response.

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Listening to Trump’s daily press conference, one gets injected with a healthy dose of how market based solutions are already saving us from the virus.

On  a daily basis, Trump tells us what a fantastic job he’s doing, then trots out corporate CEOs before the camera, one after another, each telling us what they’re doing: US auto execs tell us of their plans to convert their idled factories and produce millions of ventilators (while states in desperate need are actually buying them from abroad, mostly China).  Big Pharma companies are developing the new vaccine or interim medical treatments like hydrocholoroquinine (which Cuba has already produced and is giving free to Italy); silicon valley tech companies announce  contributions of hundreds of thousands of N95 masks (from their offshore inventories purchased from Asia and elsewhere no doubt).

But the reality is that the free market and so-called free enterprise system is largely responsible for much of today’s health crisis.  It is the ‘market’ that has given us the massive shortages in hospital beds, ventilators, critical personal protection equipment (PPE), and the long lag in developing interim medical treatments—let alone a vaccine.

Here’s just a few notable cases how the market has failed and continues to do so:

Hospital Beds 

As others have pointed out, before the Neoliberal market system implanted itself in the USA decades ago with Ronald Reagan (deepening and expanding ever since), there were 1.5 million hospital beds in the country and an extensive non-profit public hospital system.  Before 1980 there were 100 million fewer US citizens for those 1.5 million beds. Today there are 100 million more Americans, but only 925,000 hospital beds. We’ve added 100 million but reduced beds by 500,000. The reduction, of course, was all done in the name of ‘market efficiency’ by the for profit hospital chains who bought up and then shut down much of the non-profit public hospital system. Now, as the current health crisis deepens, we’re left setting up cots in auditoriums and college dorms and call them hospitals.

The crisis in hospital beds for virus patients can be traced largely to the program of Bill Clinton in 1994 called ‘managed health care’. That program permitted and incentivized the acquisition of the public hospital system by the for-profit chains who sought to reduce competition so they could raise prices. Under Clinton’s program, the for-profit chains were even exempted from US anti-trust laws that might have prevented the loss of half million hospital beds. Hospitals are one of the few industries totally exempt from anti-trust still today.

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

Why is the USA so short on ventilators, masks, safety clothing, even disinfectants? It’s because the market solution was to offshore the production of these critical items to Asia, Latin America, and especially China years ago.  It was cheaper to move production offshore (experts call this today relocating the supply chains!). It was cheaper to import back these products to the US economy.  Expanding free trade (again under Clinton) then made the cost of importing back to the US even cheaper and thus more profitable still.  Offshoring and free trade are but two sides of the same coin. Add a third leg to the economic stool: tax laws were changed to provide tax breaks to corporations that actually offshored the production of PPE.

Image on the right: Staff load medical materials bound for Italy at Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital in Hangzhou, east China’s Zhejiang Province, March 17, 2020. Photo: Xinhua/Zheng Mengyu via Getty Images

Fast forward and today we have China producing 115 million N95 and surgical masks A DAY! China’s surplus is so great it is giving ventilators and masks to Italy for free. But is the US saying anything about this in Trump’s press conferences?  Has Trump ever admitted the availability of these critical PPE materials, ready for import to the US right now! No.  Instead, health care providers, doctors, nurses, technicians, are told to re-use their masks and other equipment since there aren’t enough of them to go around.  And we’re told by corporate representatives in Trump’s press conferences the materials are coming. Just be patient.

And then there’s the Hydrochloroquinine interim treatment for those sick with Covid-19. Trump mentioned that. But did he say where it was being already used? Some reports are now appearing that the treatment was successfully developed in Cuba, whose doctors have been sent to Italy to administer it there to the most ill patients. But no mention, however, that that treatment is taking place right now in Italy. You won’t hear that ‘non-market’ solution from market unfriendly Cuba from Trump.

Unemployment Benefits

The USA has one of the most miserly unemployment benefit payment systems among all the advanced economies. It provides barely a third of what’s needed to live on. And in many states not even that.  In California, one of the more generous in relative terms, the top benefit is $450/wk. That’s about $1,800 a month. But the median rent in urban areas of California alone is $3,000 or more!  In New York and other big cities, even more.  And the insufficient benefits are paid for only six months.

But if you’re one of the tens of millions of temp, contract, gig workers you’re not considered an employee for the company you’re working for. You therefore are not eligible for even the insufficient unemployment benefits paid in the US.

That has temporarily changed as the US Congress CARE Act just passed. It now provides unemployment benefits for ‘gig’ and other contract workers, albeit for just four months. But the point is this: It’s not the ‘market’ that is helping the millions of gig and other contract workers with at least some benefits. It’s the government.  With the CARES Act the government and taxpayer will now pick up the tab for the unemployment benefits for the millions of contract and gig workers that the ‘market’ has failed to cover. The market has allowed companies to avoid paying any unemployment benefits tax that would otherwise cover contract and gig workers. The taxpayer and government now will ‘pick up the tab’. The market  failed and the government-taxpayer must clean up its mess and provide the benefits companies like Uber, Lyft, AirBnB and others have avoided and pocketed for themselves.

Health Insurance

In the free market Nirvana that is the USA today, millions of companies are permitted to forego providing their employees health insurance coverage.  37 million have no insurance at all. And 87 million are under insured.  Millions with some insurance have deductibles of thousands of dollars per person a year.

Now the Cares Act once again, i.e. the government and taxpayer, is stepping in and ensure these millions—employed and unemployed—have some kind of health insurance coverage. The government is called upon to clean up the mess the market has left.

Paid Medical-Sick Leave

The richest country in the world, the USA, where the Fortune 500 largest companies have managed to distribute more than $1 trillion a year for the past nine years to their shareholders in stock buybacks and dividend payouts, only provides on average 6 paid sick leave days a year to employees. And that’s typically only where a union contract exists. Most get unpaid sick leave or none at all. Get sick, go find another job. That’s the ‘market solution’. In Europe and elsewhere, combined paid leave is typically 30 days or more a year. But not in Trump’s market solution America.

Once again, the consequence is that the government-taxpayer in the CARES Act will have to pick up the tab for paid medical leave for the millions who must stay home due to their Employer’s order, or government ‘stay in place’ guidelines, or school districts shutdowns.

Market Solutions for Worker Retraining 

It used to be that companies trained their own workers to become more skilled and productive. There was once a very widespread on the job training culture in the USA. That disappeared as well with the deepening of Neoliberalism and globalization (aka free trade, offshoring, and foreign direct investment by US multinational corps). Under Bill Clinton, corporations were allowed to bring hundreds of thousands of skilled workers from their foreign operations back to the US to take some of the best US jobs. It still continues. Free market efficiency meant it was cheaper (and more profitable) just to transfer workers on H1-B and L-1/2 visas to the US. No need to train American citizens. Cheaper simply to import skilled labor. That was the ‘market solution’ to job training.

The CARES ACT: $500 Billion ‘Socialism for Corporations’

The CARES Act allocates $500 billion just to large corporations. (Another $367 billion to smaller businesses). But do the large corporations really need the $500 billion? And who will oversee the distribution of that largesse?

Take the Airlines. Do they need it for the next 60 days? Do they deserve it?

The airlines are getting $58 billion under the just passed Cares Act. Half of that in outright grants. No strings attached.  Another half in loans. Reportedly, they’re now quickly taking the grants but not the loans. Why? They’re probably waiting for Congress to agree to convert the loans to outright grants later in the year.

But no one is asking how much cash on hand the airline companies have as they’re handed these tens of billions of $! And no one is mentioning that the same airline companies in recent years gave their shareholders and CEOs no less than $45 billion in stock buybacks and dividend payouts. So now they’re getting $58B to back fill the hole of $45 billion they gave away to themselves and their big investors (who together owned most of the $45B stock bought back).

Here’s another question unanswered:  In recent years big corporations (Fortune 500) earned record profits and paid out more than $1T a year in buybacks and dividends. Under Trump, they’ve paid out a total of more than $3 trillion in buybacks+dividends.  In addition to that, in the months immediately leading up to the March 2020 virus crisis, the same big corporations were drawing down hundreds of billions of dollars from their credit lines with banks.  At the same time in recent months they have been issuing new bonds and raising billions more in cash. No less than $73 billion was raised from issuing new bonds in February, a record.  Flush with mountains of cash from Trump 2018 tax cuts, from their bank credit lines, and from record corporate bond issuance, they now are being given $500 billion more by Congress in the CARES ACT. Do they really need it? Let’s open their books and see before they get even $1.

Not least, there’s the question of who will oversee who gets the $500 billion.  The Democrats in Congress say the special board created must oversee. Trump in turn has said, no way. I’m personally going to oversee. Want to guess who’ll win that one?

The point is Big Corporations are loaded with cash. And they didn’t earn most of it from the ‘market’. They got it from Trump tax cuts, from bank credit lines, and from low interest corporate bond issuance made possible by convenient near zero interest loans from the Federal Reserve.  Nevertheless, now the non-market sugar daddy, the US government, is giving them $500 more whether they need it or not!

Super-Socialism for Bankers & Investors

The $500 billion going to big business pales in comparison, however, to the multi-trillions that the central bank, the Federal Reserve, is now pouring into the bankers, shadow bankers (i.e. hedge funds, equity firms, investment banks, mutual funds, etc.), and even now into non-bank corporations for the first time as well.

In 2008 the Federal Reserve provided more than $4 trillion to bail out the banks. Now it is providing more than $6 trillion (thus far)—and this time the banks haven’t even failed yet!

The Fed has opened a free money spigot to investors, bankers, and to big business of all types, and has simply declared ‘come on in and take it’. And if the $6 trillion to date isn’t enough, we’ll provide more.

For the first time ever the Fed is now providing free money not only to bankers, but to credit card companies, mortgage companies, corporate bond holders, and even to investors in derivatives like Exchange Traded Funds, or ETFs. Next it will start buying stocks to prop up those markets. Its cousin central bank, the Bank of Japan, has been doing that for years now.

Subsidizing Capital Incomes by Government Not the Market

Both tax policy and central bank monetary policy are supposed to function as general economy stabilization tools, according to mainstream economists. But today that’s a fiction perpetrated by the corporate media. In recent decades, tax and central bank policy ‘tools’ have become virtual conduits for the subsidization of capital incomes.

They have become the vehicles of Corporate Socialism. The Capitalist State and its government takes care of its own. The rest of us will be taken care of by ‘the market’, according to Trump.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Jack Rasmus.

Dr. Rasmus is author of the just published book, ‘The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy from Reagan to Trump’, Clarity Press, January 2020. He blogs at jackrasmus.com and hosts the weekly radio show, Alternative Visions on the Progressive Radio Network. Join Dr. Rasmus for daily commentary on developments in the US economy and politics on Twitter at @drjackrasmus.

Featured image is from Morning Star

A story that is not presented in mainstream media is that of the suffering and punishment of the people of Gaza at the whim of the Israeli military in the open air prison that is their home.  In “Gaza Fights For Freedom” Abby Martin of The Empire Files has created a documentary that vividly portrays life in all aspects for the people of Gaza.

The documentary uses videos of ‘live’ action in Gaza, mainly from the current events concerning the Great March of Return.  It has interviews with the people of Gaza and their concerns, hopes, and ambitions, in spite of 14 years of lockdown and destruction, and shows how they manage to survive in conditions which currently are deemed uninhabitable.

The topics covered are varied but all are centered on the imprisonment and deprivation caused by the Israelis blockading the small territory (about 40 km by 10 km).  The Israelis have created a situation where most of the water is toxic, where electricity on a good day maybe lasts eight hours, but often only four and frequently never.  Imports of food are limited, as put officially by the Israelis themselves to put them on starvation rations.  Movement is restricted by the Israeli military on all sides, and no construction materials are allowed through to repair the severely damaged infrastructure from recent Israeli attacks.

After a brief historical run through, the main focus of the story is the Great March of Return and the impact it has had on Gaza and the manner in which it highlights the Israeli (and U.S.) military and political leaders’ complete disregard of many international humanitarian and war crimes treaties.  Even though the Great March of Return is non violent Israeli and western media always present it as a violent attack against Israeli citizens by the Hamas leaders in Gaza, yet the demonstrators themselves say that Hamas has no hand in organizing it.

All Palestinians are terrorists by Israeli definitions even as Israel ignores and abrogates all international law.  The UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions are referenced and the video clearly presents Israel as breaking these laws in their actions against women, children, journalists, medical workers, disabled people, and unarmed citizens.

In the purely military aspect the video explains the Israeli use of illegal exploding bullets that cut into flesh before exploding creating catastrophic injuries – which then can not be treated properly due to the deprivation of medical materials and medicines.  Another purely military feature is the Israeli use of what is called “tear” gas, but is a new gas that causes suffocation, hallucinations, and death.  The gas is described as a “toxic gas much more intensive” than tear gas, it is “battle tested”, and “experimental gas”, it is “not what normal tear gas does.”

Exploding bullets are banned under weapons conventions and international treaties prohibit the use of chemical weapons such as the gas used by the IDF.  It is more than ironic, it is overwhelmingly disgusting, that a people whose main reason for their existence as Israel stems from the mass gassing of their own people, a method they are now experimenting with themselves on another people.

All the great information aside, and all the great journalistic photography aside, “Gaza Fights For Freedom” allows the Palestinians to speak for themselves.  Abby Martin serves as an occasional commentator not so much to offer an ideology but so as to introduce a topic or provide a larger perspective on what has already been said.  The comments are simple yet powerful:

“The Palestinian people are buried alive”

“Isn’t it time to prosecute the Israeli army”

“We must endure.”

“My ambitions are work, school…joy”

Watch the trailer below.

Source: https://gazafightsforfreedom.com

I watched the video on a webinar presented by Canada Boat to Gaza, and the Social Justice Collective of London, Ontario.  After the video Abby Martin was on the webinar live and offered in her clear, concise, and accurate manner to add more comments to the situation.  She explained how the video showed the “average day to day life of Gazans” and how the corporate media was “cynical, dehumanizing, atrocious” in its presentation of Palestinians and Gaza.

She says the hero of the film is Razan’s mother, Razan being a young medic murdered by Israeli sniper fire while she was trying to help other injured marchers.  On war crimes she says Israel flaunts them “flagrantly, brazenly” with full U.S. support.  As for the U.S. she discusses the situation with Israel against the new definitions of antisemitism and the actions by various states to limit the BDS movement.  For the latter her comment is simply, “…foreign interference, much?”

When describing Razan’s actions near the Gaza prison border she said that “courage is being scared but doing it anyway” in reference to Razan’s last day helping others.  An item that stood out in reference to western viewers was her statement that you are not antiwar, progressive, or on the left if you support Israeli occupation and the U.S. empire.

Following Abby Martin, a Gaza journalist, Raed Shakshak discussed his situation.  Online at 11:00 pm Gaza time, he was using battery power for his computer link. His references were mainly to his work as a journalist and activities with wearenotnumbers.org as outreach coordinator.

The video documentary is available through gazafightsforfreedom.com and a trailer is available for viewing on Vimeo.  I highly recommend viewing the video, preferably with a group like a webinar group, or at a local theater – where Abby Martin says it has received large audiences in the U.S. when it has been shown.

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Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Razan al-Najjar, the 21 year old Gaza medic killed by an Israeli sniper on June 1, treating an injured man, undated photo from Palestine Live on twitter.

In the midst of the coronavirus crisis, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the head of United Arab Emirates (UAE), spoke by phone on Friday in the first such communication since the Syrian War began in 2011. This shows a metamorphosis of alliances and geopolitics in the Middle East and the wider region considering the UAE was one of the main backers of terrorist organizations who fought to remove Assad from power. However, for more than a year, the UAE has been sending signals showing a change in policy towards Syria. The phone call was after a long series of rapprochement that began in late 2018 with the reopening of the Emirati embassy in Damascus.

“I have discussed with the Syrian president… updates on the coronavirus. I assured him of the support of the UAE and its willingness to help the Syrian people,” Prince Mohammed said on Twitter. “Humanitarian solidarity during trying times supersedes all matters, and Syria and her people will not stand alone.”

A diplomatic source close to the case was quoted by the Lebanese daily L’Orient-Le Jour as saying the “Westerners, the Americans and French particularly, were against” a Syrian-Emirati rapprochement. According to the diplomatic source, the UAE is trying to gain favours from Moscow and has already won dozens of contracts, including in armaments, gas and infrastructure, but also with space cooperation. This is part of a broader geostrategic context and the stakes go far beyond Syria and the UAE. Rather, the UAE has acknowledged that Russia has taken a greater interest in the region, in particular in Syria and Libya.

Relations between the Gulf monarchies and the United States, traditional allies, have greatly deteriorated in recent years. The gradual disengagement of American forces from the region, but especially the lack of support from Washington against Turkey, made the monarchies with the exception of Qatar, lose the confidence they once had in the United States. According to the diplomatic source quoted by L’Orient-Le Jour, the UAE is trying to get closer to Beijing and Moscow, and the Crown Prince’s phone call to Assad is evidence of that. The call also comes as relations with Iran softened, especially seen with the many Emirati delegations who visited Iran last year, however this has not softened the UAE’s brutal Yemeni policy. None-the-less, this suggests a change in foreign policy that appeals to Moscow.

It appears then that the UAE’s turn around in its Syria policy serves two purposes: first – to strengthen relations with Russia, second – to form an anti-Turkish bloc.

As Turkey actively pursues for the establishment of a neo-Ottoman Empire, the UAE is aggressively undermining the project as it opposes the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has openly supported and backed in Syria, Libya and Egypt. The UAE recognized the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization in 2014 after the fundamentalist group made plans to infiltrate and destabilize the Gulf country to take control – the main reason for the ever-increasing deterioration in relations between the UAE and Turkey.

Since then, the UAE has been actively pursuing to counter Turkish influence across the region. As part of its efforts to create an anti-Turkish block, the UAE have strengthened their relations with Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Both Saudi Arabia and Egypt fear being taken over by Muslim Brotherhood rule. However, the UAE’s pursuit of countering Turkey has not been reduced to only the Islamic world.

Greece, considered the “Old Enemy” by the Turks, received 11 tons of medical aid from the UAE on Thursday, with a Greek government press release stating that relations “began as economic cooperation, but thanks to the trust that was developed, it evolved into a strong bond.” This came as a working meeting of the Greece-UAE Broader Strategic Cooperation Forum was held in Athens on February 19 following the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ visit to UAE. In 2019 and 2020, the UAE and Greece has conducted joint military drills and military heads have been meeting each other often in a clear directive against Turkey.

In Libya, the UAE has not held back in supporting the Libyan National Army in their struggle against the Muslim Brotherhood government in Tripoli, headed by the ethnic Turk Fayez al-Sarraj who has the full backing of Erdoğan. The UAE’s material assistance has been crucial in the success of the Libyan National Army’s battle against Muslim Brotherhood forces, a clear demonstration that the UAE are willing to directly check Turkey’s ambitions to exert its influence and power across the region.

By securing close relations with Greece and directly countering Turkey in Libya, the UAE’s rapprochement with Syria is another step in formulating an anti-Turkish bloc, with itself at the head. While Turkey has acted to strangulate countries who oppose its hegemony in the region, it now appears that it is the UAE who is pressurizing Turkey and isolating it. There is every chance that the UAE will begin sending material aid to Syria that will be crucial in its future battles to expel the Turkish military and their jihadist proxies from Syrian territory. This will once again undermine Turkey’s efforts to dominate Syria and be the main power in the region, a move that Erdoğan would not have expected.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies. 

It is true to say that the coronavirus Covid-19 is quite frightening, more so because its modus operandi is covert. It is indiscriminate and likes to pick on the more vulnerable but isn’t fussy about its victims. It creates a perfect panic button. And just as the story of a mass serial killer on the loose is stoked by a media frenzy with the political opportunism that follows – the whole event is turned into a circus of mass hysteria. This article is not designed to mock or belittle the incredible effort being put in to combat Covid-19, but question why, as a country, we have reacted the way we have.

On the 16th of July 2009, the Guardian published its headline, as many others did, quoting a predicted 65,000 deaths from the H1N1 pandemic as a result of the chief medical officer, Professor Sir Liam Donaldson’s warning. Health Protection Agency modelling forecast two peaks, the first to reach a weekly contagion rate of 115,000 and the second at 80,000 twelve weeks later. UK epidemiologists at Imperial College London considered that H1N1 swine flu was spreading fast enough to justify the preparations for a pandemic.

Coughing and sneezing was thought to be the transfer cause and washing hands and cleaning surfaces that were potentially infected was the advice given. Anyone suspected of having H1N1 was advised to stay at home and self-isolate.

Weekly Cobra meetings were called with Tony Blair, the hero of the day, managing the tiller of the ship. In the heart of Downing Street, Cherie Blair caught it and had to cancel public engagements.

Professor Steve Field, the chairman of the Royal College, said:

“Swine flu is spreading rapidly across the whole of the country now. GPs are saying that they are coming under a lot of pressure from patients who have it and many GPs say that the publicity surrounding the death of six-year-old London schoolgirl Chloe Buckley has increased demand and made people more anxious.” (Headline 15th July: Swine Flue cases soar sixfold)

Research was later carried by the NHS out into the actual mortality rate and from 540,000 known infections in the UK, 138 died by the time the outbreak had fallen to very low infections in December, not the tens of thousands reported in the newspapers. In 2010, The Telegraph reported that from start to finish the ‘pandemic’ had killed 457 people and cost the country £1.2billion.

Further research from the BMJ found that reporting of the 2009 ‘pandemic’ was more measured and by the second wave (and lower rate) of infections, the mainstream media had lost interest and moved on. In other words, the majority of people in Britain knew about ‘swine flu’ but weren’t frightened by it as they are with Covid-19 today.

Like a decade ago, everything is the same, except today the story is amplified and then magnified in tiny detail. Forecasts from scientists suggested that 250,000 could die this year if the government used its ‘mitigation’ strategy, whereas a ‘suppression’ strategy will half that number to a very worrying 125,000 victims. A government U-turn from the former to the latter strategy has led to a partial lockdown. The expectation is of more control measures quite soon. The economy is rapidly contracting.

Speculation, misleading stories, fake news and propaganda are the main characteristics inside the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic story of 2020. This is partially because we know little about how to combat Covid-19 and for the click-baiters it is fair game. Fear has been stoked by the mainstream media to levels not seen in Western countries since the financial crash of 2008 and even that didn’t dominate as this story has. In Britain, that sordid episode in our history saw a massive transfer of wealth that has seen public national debt explode by £1trillion.

The reality is that Covid-19 is nothing like the existential threat to us all that the mainstream media, scientists and the politicians who have knelt to their pressure would have us believe.

We should not forget that each year around 500,000 people die in England, and it is predicted that this will rise to 590,000 within the next 20 years. Heart failure and stroke are the biggest killers. With an increasingly ageing population, the majority of older people will be living with a number of conditions. For example, around 30% of people over the age of 85 with cancer will also have dementia. One in four people in the UK will die of cancer. Covid-19 has four main health targets, the same that most previous modern-day pandemics have had.

We should also not forget that the 21st century, just 20 years in the making, the world has officially recorded 67 ‘epidemics’ – almost double that recorded for the whole of late 19th and all of the 20th century. The four that we are aware of were worldwide but also affected the West. Little known in the UK is that in 2015, the H5N2 epidemic broke out in the USA and fear caused by the media ended with 43 million poultry birds (mostly turkey’s) being slaughtered but not one human fatality. The birds were culled by pumping an expanding water-based foam into the barn houses, which suffocated them.

But there is another statistic that is rarely reported. Public Health England updated their annual findings on 11th March last year – “Air pollution is the biggest environmental threat to health in the UK, with between 28,000 and 36,000 deaths a year attributed to its long-term exposure. There is strong evidence that air pollution causes the development of coronary heart disease, stroke, respiratory disease and lung cancer, and exacerbates asthma.” All of these health conditions happen to be targets of Covid-19 as well.

In Italy, the Centre of International Studies at the University Institute of Lisbon has published research in newspaper ‘publico’ that shows that nearly 25,000 Italians died in the winter of 2016/17 of flu and that in 2015, 38,000 people died of just one toxic emission – diesel fume (NOx) inhalation throughout Europe. Neither caused the media mania of today. At the time of writing, Italy is in a tight lockdown, its economy has been utterly crushed, looting and public unrest is emerging as many households have run out of money and food. So far, half the number have died of C19 to that of the Italian winter flu outbreak of 2016.

Over the last decade, well over a quarter of a million people living in England have died of air pollution alone. Like Covid-19, these unfortunate people became victims of a silent serial killer, breathed in its toxic cocktail and succumbed to the effects of it. The government, the health services, think tanks and experts have known this fact for years but for Covid-19, the country is about to allow its economy to completely implode.

Economic toll

Isabel Stockton, a research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said on March 26th:

“The response to the covid-19 pandemic has led to a sharp downturn in economic activity. It has also, rightly, prompted a substantial fiscal policy response, the cost of which will add directly to government borrowing. The outlook is uncertain to say the least. Only taking account of measures announced so far, and even if the economy “only” shrinks by 5% per cent this year, we might expect borrowing in the coming financial year to exceed £175 billion, or more than 8% of national income. This would be more than triple the amount forecast in the Budget just two weeks ago. About 40% of that increase would result from new fiscal measures, and the rest from the economic downturn depressing revenues and adding to government spending. The deficit could easily swell by much more than that if the economy shrinks by more, if take up of the employment retention scheme is high, or if further substantial fiscal measures are unveiled. A deficit of over £200 billion in the coming financial year is well within the bounds of possibility. Yesterday’s announcement in parliament to increase the contingency fund for the coming financial year from £10.6 billion to £266 billion suggests the government may be prepared to go even further than that.”

The current Bank of England interest rate has been slashed to 0.1 per cent. An additional £200 billion in quantitative easing will ensure the banks are protected against loan defaults and already Stockton’s forecast has been obliterated less than a week later.

The OECD has now calculated that Britain’s GDP could contract by something like 25 per cent during the Covid-19 lockdown. In 2019, the UK’s GDP was £2.091 trillion (source ONS). This expected contraction will, therefore (adjusting for Q1 and Q4 being as normal), cost over £250bn in lost revenue and business activity. Bankruptcies, insolvencies and debt defaults will skyrocket for both businesses and individuals irrespective of government support.

The Guardian July 16th 2009: 138 deaths were officially recorded by December 2009, 458 in total six months later

Annual seasonal flu

Covid-19 acts a lot like seasonal flu in the UK in many respects. Annual deaths reported by Public Health England from flu have been: 2014/15 = 28,330, 2015/16 = 11,875, 2016/17 = 18,009, 2017/18 = 26,408 and 2018/19 = 1,692. Over five years the total number of deaths has been 60,314, averaging  12,062 per annum.  Most cases of seasonal flu are reported by week 50 (mid-Dec) through to week 8 (end Feb) and continue to decline through to Week 15 (mid-April). The bad years go into the summer, fall and then spike early winter. Most winters the country is also dealing with at least three if not four different strains of flu (see Fig.27 Page 33). There is no knowing yet, but in all likelihood, there will be no seasonal flu deaths recorded this year, all will relate to C19 or underlying conditions.

If Covid-19 kills people in line with seasonal flu numbers of around 20,000 this year and then disappears like SARS and MERS did, which it is expected to do, a question will need to be asked. Why did the media and government not be so outraged when worse happens year in year out with air pollution? Why was the economy crashed for the annual pilgrimage of an ever-evolving virus that we always knew was coming? And we knew it was definitely coming a few years ago after ‘Exercise Cygnus.‘

Economic post mortem

When the Covid crisis has been brought to heel and the economic post mortem reveals the true scale of damage, the people paying the price for the mainstream media’s hysteria will be measured in shattered businesses, banks picking over their corpses, bailouts for corporate hustlers and decimated high streets. Then their focus will shine a light on the terrible plight of the millions queuing at job centres- when all along, this self-inflicted economic catastrophe was created by the Guardian, Daily Mail, Express, Telegraph, Mirror and the Sun – who indiscriminately cashed in on their click-baiting strategies.

Britain was barely recovering from the financial implosion created by the banks that is known to have killed at least 120,000 by rabid government policy that looked more like social engineering and eugenics aimed at the poorest in society. Where was the outrage for them over the last decade? Where was the outrage for the 300,000 or so Britons who have lost their lives to the fossil fuel industry in the last decade? Why were their lives so expendable? Is it perhaps that the poor have no power but that Covid-19 might just touch the lives of those actually in power? The country was just about to have about 5 per cent of its GDP ripped out for another decade over Brexit but this media scrum to publish the most outrageous fear-mongering headlines will completely overshadow any worries about Brexit.

By now, it should be sinking in that the 250,000 mass death prediction was complete nonsense. The National Medical Director, Professor Stephen Powis has now said the national effort of self-isolation can work if everyone plays their part – and if they do, Covid-19 deaths will be more like 20,000. There is no attempt here to state the Covid-19 is not dangerous or that we should divert from government advice. But that number is less than two of the last five years who have died from seasonal flu and more for three of the last five years.

All the numbers point towards the fact that we’ve willingly crashed the entire economy to balance that one statistic. And without questioning the realities of Covid-19, the only people who really benefit was a click-baiting media, the banks, politicians and some zombie corporates already on their knees like Richard Branson’s failed Virgin Atlantic empire that no-one wants to buy. For the rest of us – another decade of austerity beckons. As that decade unfolds, statistically speaking, another Covid will visit us – what then?

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Featured image is from TP

Law firm Stoke White has filed evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity said to have been committed in Yemen. The firm made the submissions in three jurisdictions — Britain, the US and Turkey — on behalf of its clients.

In a press release issued today, Stoke White explained that the applications have been made using UN mechanisms, requesting the authorities to investigate further the notorious Sanaa Funeral Hall bombing in 2016, the UAE’s use of mercenaries and allegations of torture in secret prisons in the country. The submissions are said to include evidence that officials and even authorities higher up in the coalition partners — notably the UAE and Saudi Arabia — as well as mercenaries were all involved directly in war crimes in Yemen.

In September last year, the same law firm held a press conference in which it announced its intention to file a complaint on behalf of three clients whose relatives were among the victims of the funeral bombing in which 137 civilians were killed. The principle of universal jurisdiction was cited, under which anyone accused of committing serious international crimes may be brought to justice in, for example, British and US courts, “irrespective of where they took place, who the perpetrator is and what their nationality is”.

Last week, Stoke White also submitted evidence to the UN Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries, and requested an investigation into all mercenaries operating in Yemen, in particular the executives of America’s Spear Operations Group.

Today it was announced that separate applications were filed with the UN Human Rights Council and the Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen regarding violations of international human rights and war crimes.

The applications include allegations such as targeted killings, enforced disappearances, sexual assault, illegal detention and torture in secret prisons, as well as the use of American and other foreign mercenaries in Yemen. They point out that responsibility is shared by the internationally-recognised government of Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

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Featured image is from Al-Masdar News

Angesichts des Coronavirus „ist es unser oberstes Anliegen, die Gesundheit unserer Streitkräfte und unserer Verbündeten zu schützen“ – erklärte das US-Europa-Kommando. Es kündigte daher an, dass es die Anzahl der Soldaten bei Defender Europe 20 reduziert hat. Aber es wird trotzdem weitergehen.

„Seit Januar hat die US-Armee 6.000 Soldaten aus den Vereinigten Staaten nach Europa entsandt“, mit 12.000 Ausrüstungsgegenständen (von personengebundenen Waffen bis hin zu Panzern), und „der Transport von Soldaten und Ausrüstung von verschiedenen Häfen zu den Übungsplätzen in Deutschland und Polen ist abgeschlossen“, erklärte das Kommando am 16. März. Darüber hinaus werden auch 9.000 in Europa stationierte US-Dienstangehörige an der Übung teilnehmen. Seit Januar hat die Armee etwa 6.000 Soldaten aus den Vereinigten Staaten nach Europa entsandt. Sie hat etwa 9.000 Fahrzeuge und Ausrüstungsgegenstände aus den vorpositionierten Beständen des Heeres und etwa 3.000 Ausrüstungsgegenstände auf dem Seeweg aus den Vereinigten Staaten verlegt. Außerdem schloss sie  die Verlegung von Soldaten und Ausrüstung von mehreren Häfen zu Übungsplätzen in Deutschland und Polen ab.

Der von den USA angestrebte Zweck ist „die Aufstellung einer glaubwürdigen Kampftruppe in Europa zur Unterstützung der NATO“, offensichtlich gegen eine „russische Aggression“. Der eigentliche Zweck – wir haben vor zweieinhalb Monaten in il Manifesto geschrieben (die einzige Tageszeitung, die damals über Defender Europe 20 berichtete) – ist es, Spannung zu säen und die Idee des Feinbildes zu nähren.

Das voraussichtliche Übungsszenario könnte niemals eintreten, denn ein bewaffneter Zusammenstoß zwischen der NATO und Russland wäre auch unweigerlich nuklear. Dies ist das reale Szenario, für das die US-Streitkräfte in Europa trainieren. Es wurde von General Tod D. Wolters, dem Chef des Europäischen Kommandos der Vereinigten Staaten und als solcher Kommandant des Europäischen Kommandos der Vereinigten Staaten und Oberster Alliierter Befehlshaber in Europa, bestätigt.

Am 25. Februar 2020 erklärte der Befehlshaber der US-Luftwaffe – US European Command, General Tod D. Wolters, während einer Anhörung im Senatsausschuss für Streitkräfte der Vereinigten Staaten: „Die Nuklearstreitkräfte sind die oberste Garantie für die Sicherheit der Bündnispartner und garantieren jede militärische Operation der Vereinigten Staaten in Europa.“ Dies bedeutet, dass Defender Europe 20 nicht nur eine Übung der konventionellen (nicht nuklearen) Streitkräfte, sondern auch der nuklearen Streiträfte ist.

Am 18. März wurde berichtet, dass zwei US-amerikanische Nuklearangriffsbomber B-2 Spirit, Teil der am 9. März aus den USA eingetroffenen Task Force, diese Woche über Island und den Nordatlantik geflogen sind. Sie wurden von drei norwegischen F-35-Kampfflugzeugen eskortiert.

Diese beiden Flugzeugtypen sind für den Einsatz der neuen Atombomben vom Typ B61-12 vorgesehen, die die USA in Kürze in Italien und anderen europäischen Ländern stationieren werden und die derzeitigen B-61 ersetzen sollen.

In der Senatsanhörung machte General Wolters deutlich, welche Rolle die US-Atomstreitkräfte in Europa spielen. Als Senator Fischer ihn fragte, was er vom Verzicht auf Ersteinsatz von Atomwaffen halte, antwortete der General: „Frau Senator, ich bin ein Fan einer flexiblen Ersteinsatzpolitik.“ Er, der für die US/NATO-Atomwaffen in Europa verantwortlich ist, erklärte offiziell, dass er ein Befürworter ihres ersten Einsatzes für den Erstschlag, den nuklearen Überraschungsangriff auf „flexibler“ Basis, ist.

Angesichts einer derart schwerwiegenden Erklärung, die die russischen Generäle dazu drängt, den Finger auf den nuklearen Auslöser zu legen, herrscht völliges Schweigen von Regierungen, Parlamenten und wichtigen europäischen Medien.

In der gleichen Anhörung sagte General Wolters: „Seit 2015 hat das Bündnis die Rolle der nuklearen Ressourcen stärker betont“ und „das Europäische Kommando der Vereinigten Staaten unterstützt voll und ganz die Empfehlungen der Nuclear Posture Review 2018, die ballistische Niedrigleistungsrakete W76-2 zu stationieren.“

Der nukleare Niedrigleistungssprengkopf W76-2, der bereits auf von U-Booten gestarteten Raketen installiert ist (vom Pentagon am 4. Februar angekündigt), kann auch auf bodengestützten ballistischen Raketen in der Nähe des feindlichen Territoriums installiert werden. Die US-Marine hat den W76-2-Nuklearsprengkopf mit geringer Sprengkraft eingesetzt, der auf der von U-Booten gestarteten Trident II-Rakete verwendet wird.

Es ist besonders gefährlich. Weniger starke Atomwaffen – warnen selbst maßgebliche US-Experten – erhöhen die Versuchung, sie zuerst einzusetzen, sie können die Kommandeure zu einem Vorstoß veranlassen, weil bei einem Angriff die Atombombe in dem Wissen eingesetzt wird, dass der radioaktive Fallout begrenzt wäre. Stattdessen scheint es, als würde man ein brennendes Streichholz in ein Pulverfass werfen.

Alla nostra salute ci pensa il dottor Stranamore. «Senatrice, io sono sostenitore di una flessibile politica del primo uso» de la arma nucleare

(il manifesto, 24. März 2020)

Übersetzung: K.R.

Over the weekend, CDC director Anthony Fauci said he expects “millions of (US COVID-19) cases…between 100 and 200,000” deaths.

Comments like the above when most people already are scared to death by a daily drumbeat of COVID-19 fear-mongering facilitate the imposition and maintenance of draconian policies intended to erode human and civil rights.

Temporary shelter in place, social distancing, and lockdown orders will end when the coast is clear.

Other lost rights may not be restored to their previous state. US and other ruling authorities seek control over their populations, notably wanting dissent suppressed.

Fauci didn’t explain what’s on the CDC website about seasonal flu/influenza.

During the 2018-19 flu season, running from October to May, there were more than 35.5 million flu illnesses, over 16.5 million medical visits, about 490,600 hospitalizations, and around 34,200 deaths — with no fear-mongering headlines about a real epidemic.

It repeats annually with numbers similar to what’s above — with no shelter in place, social distancing, or lockdowns ordered, no mass closure of retail establishments or cancellations of public events.

Life proceeds normally in spite of a large-scale epidemic that occurs like clockwork annually in the US and other countries.

For weeks, Trump denied that COVID-19 threatened Americans. On January 21, he said “(w)e have it totally under control…It’s going to be just fine (sic).”

Time and again, he falsely blamed China for US outbreaks, on February 2 saying “(w)e pretty much shut it down coming in from China (sic).”

On February 10, he claimed outbreaks would “miraculously (go) away…by April (sic).”

Two weeks later he falsely said “(w)e’re very close to a vaccine” that requires many months to develop, likely won’t be available until around yearend, and will be hazardous to human health when obtainable.

Around the same time, he falsely said there’s only “15” cases in the US that “within a couple of days (will be) close to zero (sic).”

He lied claiming “(w)hatever happens, we’re totally prepared (sic).”

Five weeks later, the US has about 164,000 cases through Monday, numbers rising sharply each day — US outbreaks exceeding other countries, including over 3,200 deaths.

Throughout his tenure in office, Trump repeatedly and consistently showed and continues to show indifference toward human health and welfare.

According to him, 100 to 200,000 US deaths will show he’s “done a very good job (sic).”

Critics slammed his insensitivity. National Nurses United’s Charles Idelson said “(a) serial killer would be jealous.”

On Sunday, Trump claimed mid-April will be the “highest point” of outbreaks. They’ll start coming down from there (sic)” — citing no evidence to back his claim because there is none.

Extending social distancing guidelines to end of April, he claimed “(t)hat will be a day of celebration (sic).”

The vast majority of Americans have nothing to look forward to but permanent unemployment or underemployment earning poverty wages with few no benefits, along with steady erosion of their fundamental human and civil rights.

That’s the disturbing reality today in the United States of I Don’t Care for its ordinary people.

The nation under both right wings of the one-party state serves its privileged class exclusively — at the expense of most others.

A Final Comment

By executive order Friday, Trump authorized the war department and DHS to activate up to around one million reservists and National Guard forces for up to 24 months on the pretext of combatting COVID-19.

Borrowing language from the US Declaration of Independence, never before “in the course of human events (was it) necessary” to activate up to a million military personal to combat the flu or any other disease.

Does Trump have something else in mind — more foreign wars or perhaps protecting privilege from angry masses if protracted hard times get too hard to bear?

These are no ordinary times. Business, large investors, and other high-net worth households are benefitting hugely from what’s going on at the expense of the vast majority of Americans getting screwed.

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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.

In a recent article I reported existing evidence on the way in which COVID-19 is being used to implement, but also divert attention from, initiatives being taken by the global elite to consolidate and expand its power in significant ways, and perhaps to make the final drive to take total control of global society. See ‘Observing Elites Manipulate Our Fear: COVID-19, Propaganda and Knowledge’.

Moreover, while global attention is focused on COVID-19, attention has been distracted from the many other ongoing crises – particularly including the vast range of threats that constitute an imminent danger to human existence: see ‘Human Extinction Now Imminent and Inevitable? A Report on the State of Planet Earth’– and no doubt other undesirable initiatives being carried out by the global elite outside our view. In addition, activism has been stymied as activists are either themselves distracted by COVID-19 or hindered by the measures (such as ‘social distancing’ and bans on public gatherings) introduced to supposedly deal with it.

Before and since writing ‘Observing Elites Manipulate Our Fear’, more evidence has been published pointing at an elite coup with governments around the world introducing draconian measures severely curtailing human rights and freedoms (including those involving the internet) and destroying national economies.

As Helen Buyniski notes, using the example of the US Patriot Act, passed by Congress a short time after the 9/11 false flag event that destroyed World Trade Center buildings 1, 2 and 7 in New York: ‘They always declare a state of emergency, they never undeclare the state of emergency or repeal any of the emergency measures.’ See ‘Rockefeller Blueprint For Police State Triggered By Pandemic Exposed’. In any case, with the corporate media endlessly promoting panic, most people prefer to be ‘saved’ by having even more severe restrictions placed on their freedom. See ‘As Trump Eyes Restarting Economy, Nearly 3 in 4 Voters Support National Quarantine’.

In this article I would like to outline a strategic response to prevent this takeover before we find ourselves moving from a version of the dystopian society described in the novel Brave New World to that outlined in the novel 1984 that many of us read as students. We might have been happy with the drugs but Big Brother is now poised with the sword held high above our necks.

‘It won’t happen’, you might say. And perhaps you are right.

But my own long and extensive study of the global elite revealing the progressive manner in which it is endlessly consolidating and expanding its power is also matched by others who share my interest in this subject. So I invite you to consider the evidence presented above with the hope that we can mobilize a sufficient response from the wider population to avoid this being the final move in the elite’s strategy to take total control of our lives.

If you would like to better understand the origin, identity and behaviour of the global elite and why it is insane, see the section headed ‘How the World Works’ in ‘Why Activists Fail’ and the articles ‘Exposing the Giants: The Global Power Elite’ and ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’ and the many references cited in these documents. For a deeper understanding of why elite and other human violence is so pervasive, see ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

Moreover, to highlight brief excerpts from three of the scholars cited above, the distinguished and award-winning author and geopolitical analyst Professor Michel Chossudovsky states:

‘The tendency is towards a Worldwide lockdown spearheaded by fear and media disinformation. Currently, hundreds of millions of people Worldwide are under lockdown…. This is an act of “economic warfare” against humanity.’ See ‘After the Lockdown: A Global Coronavirus Vaccination Program…’.

In the view of economist and geopolitical analyst Peter Koenig, who spent more than 30 years working for the World Bank and the World Health Organization:

‘We are moving towards a totalitarian state of the world…. [which includes ID2020]. What is the infamous ID2020? It is an alliance of public-private partners, including UN agencies and civil society. It’s an electronic ID program that uses generalized vaccination as a platform for digital identity.The program harnesses existing birth registration and vaccination operations to provide newborns with a portable and persistent biometrically-linked digital identity…. Population reduction is among the goals of the elite within the WEF, the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Morgans – and a few more. The objective: fewer people (a small elite) can live longer and better with the reduced and limited resources Mother Earth is generously offering.’ See ‘The Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic: The Real Danger is “Agenda ID2020”’.

And here is the assessment of what COVID-19 means to John W. Whitehead, US Constitutional attorney and author of Battlefield America: The War On the American People:

This coronavirus epidemic, which has brought China’s Orwellian surveillance out of the shadows and caused Italy to declare a nationwide lockdown, threatens to bring the American Police State out into the open on a scale we’ve not seen before.

If and when a nationwide lockdown finally hits – if and when we are forced to shelter in place – if and when militarized police are patrolling the streets – if and when security checkpoints have been established – if and when the media’s ability to broadcast the news has been curtailed by government censors – if and when public systems of communication (phone lines, internet, text messaging, etc.) have been restricted – if and when those FEMA camps the government has been surreptitiously building finally get used as quarantine detention centers for American citizens – if and when military “snatch and grab” teams are deployed on local, state, and federal levels as part of the activated Continuity of Government plans to isolate anyone suspected of being infected with COVID-19 – and if and when martial law is enacted with little real outcry or resistance from the public – then we will truly understand the extent to which the government has fully succeeded in recalibrating our general distaste for anything that smacks too overtly of tyranny. See ‘This Is a Test: How Will the Constitution Fare During a Nationwide Lockdown?’

But envisaging such a dystopian future would not be complete without the Pentagon’s take on how it might turn out, with this graphic video describing a future in which citizens, with rights, no longer exist. See ‘Pentagon Video Warns of “Unavoidable” Dystopian Future for World’s Biggest Cities’.

The path on which we are traveling ends with our confinement in ghettos, locked down in one area of the elite’s totalitarian police state, or death.

I am one of those who intends to fight to the end to get us off this pathto tyranny.

Fighting for our Humanity

And that is why the primary purpose of this article is to identify the components of a comprehensive nonviolent strategy to defeat a coup attempt conducted by the global elite against humanity.

What does a nonviolent strategy entail? In essence, it works by strategically altering the will or undermining the power of the global elite to repress, exploit or kill us. While the global elite is our ultimate target, we can more immediately impact this elite by targeting its agents including governments, the corporate media, the medical and pharmaceutical industries, retail corporations, the banking industry as well as its military and police forces. Hence, from a strategic perspective, it is imperative that we noncooperate with these institutions and corporations in ways that have strategic (not simply tokenistic) impact. This means that our nonviolent actions – which will involve some risk but without requiring effort that overwhelms us – will both consolidate and build our capacity to resist, while also functionally altering the will or undermining the power of key institutions and corporations to control us.

Here are five examples:

First, if we seek out news from progressive news sources – such as the site on which you are reading this article – that are committed to giving us accurate information about what is taking place, while boycotting corporate media outlets (television, radio, newspapers, Facebook, Twitter…) which are essentially peddling a combination of propaganda and fear in order to scare us into submitting to (or even asking for) greater government control (lockdowns, martial law), then we will reallocate power in society away from a key elite instrument that is being used to manipulate and control us.

Second, given the power of the medical and pharmaceutical industries, which are peddling fear and profit-making drugs, it is important to seek out advice and remedies offered by natural health practitioners who will prescribe dietary measures and nutritional supplements to prevent and/or treat any infection. Given the push for compulsory vaccination which has serious social control implications and entails a high risk of adverse health consequences – see, for example, ‘COVID-19 – The Fight for a Cure: One Gigantic Western Pharma Rip-Off’, ‘The National Plan to Vaccinate Every American’ and ‘A Serious Warning about the Toxicity of Aluminum-Adjuvanted Vaccines – Especially for Infants and the Elderly’– it is particularly important that we resist this.

Third, the propaganda campaign is destroying small and family businesses which will consolidate the power of large corporate chainstores. We need to support the smaller and family businesses wherever we can and boycott the elite’s corporate stores.

Fourth, the major banks are participating in this coup, particularly by supporting efforts to force all monetary exchange to occur via electronic means rather than cash. Under the guise of helping to halt the spread of the infection, cash is being refused as a means of payment in an increasing number of outlets and contexts. As soon as possible, we need to transfer all of our banking to small, community-owned banks and credit unions that act in the interests of their members and not the corporations and the elite.

Fifth, the elite must use the police, military forces and security personnel to enforce its laws in relation to lockdown, martial law and whatever else unfolds as this crisis deepens. These individuals live in our communities; they are part of us even if the elite controls their behaviour during their employment hours. Engaging with these people, listening to them carefully, will open space for them to reconsider their own involvement in what is taking place. In the end they are on our side; they just don’t know it yet.

So you are probably starting to get the idea: Collectively, we have enormous power if we deploy it to defend what we want to preserve while undermining the power of those who wish to exploit us. There are 7.8 billion of us and few of them. Their power is an outcome of institutions they control; we can change that, as I explain more fully below.

One other point worth mentioning first, however, is this: So that we can identify those who choose to be part of the resistance, it will be useful to have a symbol that represents our human solidarity: we are all in this together. My own suggestion is that any image that shows several people of different genders/races/religions/abilities/classes holding hands or just being close together represents this solidarity. Of course, the elite might start using this symbol in an attempt to co-opt it. This doesn’t matter.

The point, of course, is that it is our behaviour that defines our allegiance, not the symbol itself. While the  elite is encouraging our separation (‘social distancing’) it has always been physical closeness that is the essence of human solidarity. Let our symbol represent that.

The Strategy in More Detail

I have outlined this nonviolent strategy, identifying its political purpose – obviously ‘To defend humanity against a political/military coup conducted by the global elite’– and I have set out a basic list of 26 strategic goals, of which eleven are as follows:

(1) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by wearing a global symbol of human solidarity, such as an image of several people of different genders/races/religions/abilities/classes holding hands.

(2) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by boycotting all corporate media outlets (television, radio, newspapers, Facebook, Twitter…) and by seeking news from progressive news outlets committed to telling the truth.

(3) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by withdrawing all funds from the corporate banks that are supporting the coup and to deposit their money in local community banks or credit unions.

(4) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by boycotting the medical and pharmaceutical industries – including by conscientiously refusing to submit to vaccination – and by seeking health advice and treatment from natural therapists.

(5) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by boycotting corporate supermarkets and by supporting small and family businesses, and local markets.

(6) To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in other locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For this item and many subsequent, see the list of possible nonviolent actions in the document ‘198 Tactics of Nonviolent Action’.

(7) To cause the workers [in trade unions or labor organizations T1, T2, T…] all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For example, this might include withdrawing labor from an elite-controlled bank, media, pharmaceutical or other corporation operating in your country.

(8) To cause the small farmers and farmworkers [in organizations F1, F2, F…] all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For example, this might include distributing farm produce through (existing or created) grassroots networks to small and family businesses as well as local markets rather than through corporate supply chains.

(9) To cause the indigenous peoples [in organizations IP1,IP2, IP…] all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For example, this might include utilizing indigenous knowledge to improve local self-reliance in food production and in other ways.

(10) To cause the soldiers and military police [in army units AU1, AU2, AU… and MP1, MP2, MP…], wherever stationed around the world, to refuse to obey orders from the global elite and its agents to arrest, assault, torture and shoot nonviolent activists and the other citizens of [your country].

(11) To cause the police [in police units P1, P2, P…], wherever stationed around the world, to refuse to obey orders from the global elite and its agents to arrest, assault, torture and shoot nonviolent activists and the other citizens of [your country].

Rather than detail all 26 strategic goals here, you can read the ‘Strategic goals for defeating a political/military coup conducted by the global elite against humanity’ by scrolling down the page at ‘Strategic Aims’.

Remaining pages on the website fully explain the twelve components of the strategy, as illustrated by the Nonviolent Strategy Wheel. These include the need to provide leadership and mutual aid at local levels, which are already happening in many places, as part of the overall effort.

The website also has articles and videos explaining all of the vital points of strategy and tactics, including articles to help you understand ‘Nonviolent Action: Why and How it Works’, the difference between ‘The Political Objective and Strategic Goal of Nonviolent Actions’and how to prepare, frame and conduct any nonviolent action to minimize the risk of violent repression. See ‘Nonviolent Action: Minimizing the Risk of Violent Repression’.

It is worth emphasizing that, in some contexts, there is a place for large public nonviolent actions for those who are inclined to plan and conduct them. And the article just referenced will assist you to conduct it with minimal risk of violent repression. However, because the bans on public gatherings are being implemented widely, I have concentrated on providing tactical options in the examples above that do not depend on gathering in one place.

Equally importantly to any of the points above, particularly given the pressing threat of human extinction – see ‘Human Extinction Now Imminent and Inevitable? A Report on the State of Planet Earth’– but also because becoming more self-reliant is vital to our ongoing capacity to resist elite encroachments on our rights and freedom, consider joining those participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’. This project also explains how to take full advantage of non-monetary forms of community where goods and services are exchanged directly, without money as a medium of exchange. Money only has value in certain types of economy and this economy must definitely be superseded if humans are to survive.

And given the enormous pressure on children at the moment, as their lives are upended, it would be useful to spend time listening to them. Of course, if you know an adult who is having trouble coping, it will help them enormously if you listen while giving them the opportunity to talk about, and focus on feeling, their own emotional reactions to what is happening. See ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’.

If you have suggestions that you believe might improve this strategy, please let me know. My email address is in my biodata below.

And while I have a full backup copy of the strategy website, given the obvious vulnerability of websites to removal from the internet by the elite, if people are interested in creating mirror sites of this website, I would be pleased to hear from them. In addition, people are welcome to print copies of this article and pages from the website. The home page of the website is here: Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy. It is extracted/adapted from the book The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach.

If, at any point, the internet is taken down and/or we are prevented from communicating using the electronic means to which we have become accustomed, printed copies of key documents should still be able to be easily copied to share by one means or another. In the worst case scenario: if everyone is confined to their house permanently and receives a routine allocation of food that is delivered to their door, the delivery person might be willing to transfer messages. And so might other service people who will inevitably be necessary. Obviously, until such extreme measures are taken, while we have any freedom to move, even to go shopping, there will be opportunities to communicate and to arrange further opportunities to communicate.

As I mentioned above, however, apart from the ongoing elite coup, the Earth is under siege from our assaults on a vast range of fronts. If we are serious about tackling this crisis too, we must be willing to consider committing to:

Conclusion

Humanity is at a crossroads it has never before faced.

The global elite has engineered this latest crisis after many years of planning so that it can take control of the Earth and everything on it. While some ‘sweeteners’ in the short term, such as minimal income support for individuals and businesses in some countries, are being offered to make it look as if governments are responding to the crisis with our best interests in mind, whatever palliative measures are being taken are simply designed to ensure that we remain submissive as we are led to our fate. In any case, of course, the vast bulk of government handouts are going to wealthy corporations. See ‘The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, CARES Act Is Business Giveaway, “Handout” to Monied Interests’.

If you lack the inclination or courage to do the research to understand the nature and depth of this crisis and/or to join the struggle to resist the elite takeover of our world, you are encouraged to support those who do have the inclination and courage. If you simply believe that the ‘COVID-19 crisis’ will pass and everything will revert to how it was, it might be worth reading some political history (focusing on life in those countries that suffered or still suffer under dictatorship or occupation) or simply checking out what Israel is doing now. See ‘Americans Beware: Trump Could Emulate Netanyahu’s Coronavirus Coup’. We are already so far beyond the possibility of ‘areturn to how it was’ that the only realistic question worth asking now is ‘How bad will it be?’

In short, this struggle to restore our rights, economic well-being and freedoms will not be won easily. And it will come at significant cost. But it is only if enough people are willing to risk paying that cost, and apply their energy strategically, that this struggle for our humanity can actually be won.

I intend to do everything I can to ensure that we succeed. I hope that you will too.

The Earth Pledge

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

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

References:

For just a taste of this literature and these videos, see

‘The “Lock Step” Simulation Scenario: “A Coronavirus-like Pandemic that Becomes Trigger for Police State Controls”’, ‘

The EARN IT Bill is the Government’s Plan to Scan Every Message Online’,

‘What more could he do? A look at Trump’s extreme powers’,

‘Police in California Plan to Use Drones to Enforce Quarantine Lockdown’,

‘DOJ seeks new emergency powers amid coronavirus pandemic’,

‘Does the Coronavirus Pandemic Serve a Global Agenda?’,

‘Two Hundred and Thirty Years of Rights and Liberties Shredded: Why I Oppose The Lockdown’,

‘Martial Law is Coming to the USA?’,

‘After the Lockdown: A Global Coronavirus Vaccination Program…’,

‘Planetary Hysteria: Manufactured COVID-19 “Health Crisis” Pushes Humanity,

Global Society to Total Shutdown’, ‘

COVID-19 – The Fight for a Cure: One Gigantic Western Pharma Rip-Off’,

‘Police State Uses Crises to Expand Its Lockdown Powers: Suspending the Constitution’,

‘Whither Coronavirus? When Will It End and What Will Happen Along the Way’,

‘Covid-19: The Panic Is Worse Than the Pathogen’ and

‘Rockefeller Blueprint For Police State Triggered By Pandemic Exposed’ which cites the Rockefeller Foundation’s 2010 document ‘Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development’ with its prescient description of what is taking place now: ‘LOCK STEP – A world of tighter top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership, with limited innovation and growing citizen pushback.’

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

The COVID-19 pandemic has closed school districts across the United States, introducing a new conversation about what schools and teachers actually do and, frankly, whether or not they are necessary at all.

On the Internet and in real life, teachers, parents, writers, and entrepreneurs have been forced to grapple with this new reality. Students from preschool to college are also now having to separate learning from the physical, in-person, brick-and-mortar concept of school.

“Parents are struggling to cope as coronavirus worries shut schools down,” a recent Business Insider article warned. Children, too, are feeling upset and alone, with the sudden loss of structure and community—not to mention the confusion that’s washed over students who just days ago were busily planning for college, graduation, playoffs, or prom.

The closures are occurring alongside the collective realization that public schools have become absolutely essential safety nets for students and families who, without them, can’t access enough food, childcare, or educational technology.

Schools in Minnesota, like many other states, were shuttered last week, seemingly overnight. My own children attend the Minneapolis Public Schools, and it wasn’t long before a phone call went out to families, letting them know that meals, school supplies, learning packets, and pantry staples will be available at school sites across the city.

But here’s another concern: What if this sudden disruption is actually a golden opportunity for those invested in market-based education reform?

Could this be the moment many well-heeled investors and politicians, from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, have hoped for, when public education becomes less democratic and more individualized?

After Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in 2004, the city’s school system received a makeover, courtesy of market-based education reform entities such as Teach for America and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Today, there are no traditional public schools left in New Orleans. Instead, the city is a patchwork of privately run charter schools, along with the swath of private schools that have long drawn the city’s wealthiest, and whitest, students.

Many observers, including parents of color who did not appreciate the overhauling of their city’s schools, have documented the way a crisis—Hurricane Katrina—was used to usher in a new era of disaster capitalism for New Orleans.

The push to privatize education in New Orleans, post-Katrina, can also be tiedto similar efforts in Puerto Rico, following the destruction of Hurricane Maria.

Now, some observers are predicting that the COVID-19 crisis will provide yet another disaster capitalism-style intervention in America’s public schools. Audrey Watters, a critic of the influence of capitalism and technology in education, tackled this subject in a March 8 blog post.

Watters lives in Seattle, the epicenter of both tech-based innovation and the spread of the coronavirus in the United States. When Washington Governor Jay Inslee closed schools, Watters noted that many “ed-tech” enthusiasts were likely “giddily sharing lists of their favorite digital learning tools,” with little thought given to “questions of accessibility, privacy, or security.”

Something akin to a gold rush could be upon us. Suddenly, a crisis has caused schools to close. But learning must go on. But how? Ed-tech financiers and product manufacturers have the answers!

The educational technology industry already rakes in billions of dollars each year. Even before the pandemic, ed-tech was quickly becoming a “global phenomenon,” with the potential for expansion seen in any software or app that would, allegedly, make teachers’ lives easier.

It is extreme, of course, to imagine that the end goal of ed-tech is to replace all teachers with computers. However, one of the key arguments made by industry insiders is that technology can help educators handle larger class sizes.

Struggling with teacher shortages or overcrowded classrooms? Consider giving kids Chromebooks, advises EdTech magazine.

Want to cut costs? Put one teacher—or an assistant—in charge of fifty or so students, seated in front of their own screens, moving through pre-packaged curriculum one personalized step at a time.

Better yet, just keep kids at home. Let them attend virtual schools or plow through lessons without a teacher on hand.

For ed-tech’s innovators, COVID-19 is an opportunity to experiment with tech-driven, less labor-intensive schooling options. But, as Watters points out, education is much more than the simple delivery of instruction or the mastery of certain skills.

Instead, schools serve as community hubs and nutrition centers, as well as safe spaces for students and families left reeling by inequality, housing instability, and the general insecurity that many live with today.

“To close the doors to a school,” Watters writes, “shifts the burden of all these services onto individual families.” And, it may allow entrepreneurs another Katrina-like window of opportunity to reconfigure schools to their liking.

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Sarah Lahm is a Minneapolis-based writer and researcher. Her work has appeared in outlets such as The Progressive, where she writes the Midwest Dispatch column and contributes pieces to the Public School Shakedown site.

Featured image is from BAZA Productions, courtesy of ShutterStock

Some wars are fought with bombs and bullets. These are the wars in Syria and Iraq, in Afghanistan and Yemen. Then there are quieter wars executed by drone. These cowardly wars also kill people, but not our people. These quieter wars accomplish what the more cacophonous wars accomplish without the public outcry and condemnation.

Medical Warfare

But there are wars that are even quieter still. There are wars so quiet that they aren’t even heard beyond the borders of the countries in which they are happening. In Iran, the U.S. is waging medical warfare: what foreign minister Javad Zarif has called medical terrorism.

Iran is being crushed by the COVID-19 virus, and the weight of the pandemic is being intensified by US sanctions that prevent Iran from adequately testing and treating the virus and from preventing it. Iran’s strangled economy is too emaciated to come to a temporary stop or to support people if they are prevented from going to work to earn their living. And sanctions on Iranian banks choke the acquisition of drugs and medical equipment.

But, like the efficient and deadly warrior it is, the US doesn’t ease up as its enemy staggers, but presses at the enemy’s exposed weakness. Despite pleas from both U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and UN Human Rights Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, Iran and the international community, America has not provided momentary respite from the sanctions but intensified them.

The crime is compounded by an ugly and little discussed piling of crime upon war crime. People with respiratory illnesses are at greater risk of dying from COVID-19, and approximately 100,000 Iranians are made vulnerable by that risk because of respiratory illnesses still lingering from the effects of an Iraqi chemical war rained on Iran with US approval and partnership.

Adding the word “medical” to the word “war” doesn’t make it any less of a war.

Economic Warfare

And there have been other forms of quiet wars. The re-imposition of sanctions on Iran has been a modern version of a medieval siege.

The US was legally bound to honor its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear agreement, including ending sanctions, as long as Iran was honoring all of its commitments. So, since Iran was verifiably honoring all of its commitments, the US acted illegally when it pulled out of the treaty and re-imposed sanctions.

America has pressed Iranians down under the weight of unprecedented unilateral sanctions that may well constitute an internationally prohibited act of aggression. Iran’s economy is suffering, and its people are being killed.

The US didn’t only sanction Iran by itself but forced extraterritorial sanctions on every other nation. Those sanctions barred any economic trade that could contribute to Iran’s nuclear program or that dealt with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. But since the US claimed that any contribution to the economy could contributed to the nuclear program or to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the US, as Gareth Porter and John Kiriakou explain in their book The CIA Insider’s Guide to the Iran Crisis, essentially criminalizes the entire Iranian economy. The sentence, according to the IMF, was “severe distress” for Iran’s economy and people.

As the American economic siege strangled the Iranian economy, the Iranian people gasped for breath. The economy has collapsed into severe recession; GDP has shriveled; oil production has fallen; Iran’s currency, the rial, has lost 50% of its value; inflation has soared and the cost of living, including buying food, has become prohibitive.

A siege is the oldest form of collective punishment and war. Adding the word “economic” to the word “war” doesn’t make it any less of a war.

Cyber Warfare

But medical warfare and economic warfare did not exhaust the variety of quiet wars. The U.S. has admitted direct responsibility for a barrage of cyberattacks against Iran.

The New York Times has revealed that the US ordered sophisticated attacks on the computers that run Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. A massive virus known as Flame attacked Iranian computers. This virus maps and monitors the system of Iranian computers and sends back intelligence that is used to prepare for cyber war campaigns against Iran. Officials have now confirmed that Flame is one part of a joint project of America’s CIA and NSA and Israel’s secret military unit 8200.

One such cyber war campaign was Stuxnet, the computer virus that infected Iran’s centrifuges and sent them spinning wildly out of control before playing back previously recorded tapes of normal operations that plant operators watched unsuspectingly while the centrifuges spun faster and faster until they literally tore themselves apart. Stuxnet seems to have wiped out about 20% of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges.

Adding the word “cyber” to the word “war” doesn’t make it any less of a war. The United States attacked Iran. That crucial Iranian infrastructure was destroyed by a computer virus rather than a bomb does not change the destruction. A NATO study has admitted that Stuxnet qualified as an “illegal act of force.” According to Russia scholar Stephen Cohen, after the US accused Russia of hacking computers, NATO issued a statement saying that “hacking a member state might now be regarded as war against the entire military alliance, requiring military retaliation.” That is, cyber attacks are an act of war, not only justifying, but requiring military retaliation.

America has dropped no bombs on Iran. There are no explosions to be heard. But the quiet of the war doesn’t make it any less of a war. Wars don’t stop being wars because you place the words “medical,” “economic,” or “cyber” before the word “war.”

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Ted Snider writes on analyzing patterns in US foreign policy and history.

During the 2008-09 financial crisis, banks got trillions of dollars of free bailout money. Ordinary Americans got sold out.

A protracted main street Depression remains ongoing since that time, greatly deepening for millions of US households with real unemployment already at Great Depression levels and rising exponentially in what’s shaping up perhaps to be the Greatest Depression, what economist Nouriel Roubini envisions.

History is repeating. Americans in need are getting crumbs alone from the great congressional corporate bailout Trump signed into law days earlier.

It’ll likely to be greater than what was doled out in 2008-09 when the dust settles, including from massive Fed money printing madness — free money handouts to business and large investors at a time when growing millions of US households are broke, unemployed, and food insecure, along with growing thousands ill from COVID-19.

Congressional Dems and Republicans colluded with the Trump regime in arranging an unprecedented wealth transfer from ordinary Americans to privileged ones.

According to WaPo’s White House economics reporter Jeff Stein, the prospect for further main street aid is “zero,” citing an unnamed White House source, saying:

“No more spending. We did all the spending” — when much more is needed for millions of US households in need.

House speaker Pelosi and Dem Senate minority leader Schumer falsely claimed more aid is coming for ordinary Americans.

The time to get it was in the now enacted great giveaway to business, large investors, and other high-net worth households.

Republicans and undemocratic Dems don’t give a damn about the rights, needs, and welfare of ordinary Americans, just privileged ones.

It notably shows in legislation now the law of the land since the neoliberal 90s — a bonanza for the nation’s privileged class, hard times getting much harder for the vast majority of Americans.

When needed in Washington to serve them during deepening hard times, Congress is recessed until April 20.

It’s at a time when unemployment is likely to surge, along with sharply rising COVID-19 outbreaks, making it hard for the nation’s healthcare system to cope.

There aren’t enough hospital beds in US cities with large-scale COVID-19 outbreaks to handle numbers of patients needing hospitalization.

New York’s Central Park was transformed into a makeshift hospital — supplemented by a US Navy hospital ship with 1,000 beds.

Chicago’s McCormick place is being transformed into a makeshift 3,000-bed hospital by end of April — 500 beds expected to be ready in a week.

Similar efforts are likely elsewhere in the US as numbers of COVID-19 outbreaks keep growing exponentially — through Monday numbering about 165,000.

It’s guesswork as to when numbers will peak, but they’re certain to be much greater than now — taxing healthcare facilities and medical staff more greatly than any time in modern memory.

US prisons are breeding grounds for widespread coronavirus outbreaks.

Last week, the New Yorker said they’re spreading “like wildfire (in) New York’s prisons.”

As of Monday, at least 134 Cook County, IL detainees in the greater Chicago area were diagnosed with COVID-19.

Federal, state, and local authorities need to empty prisons of nonviolent inmates who pose no threat to society to prevent a potential tsunami of outbreaks behind bars.

There’s no time to delay. Trump should use his bully pulpit to urge mass releases nationwide and order it for federal prisons.

Many hundreds of inmates were already diagnosed with COVID-19. In crowded prisons, they could spread it like wildfire to countless others.

These are very stressful times for most people everywhere.

On top of hardships they face in normal times, increasing numbers of highly contagious COVID-19 outbreaks, rising unemployment, and suspension of social interactions, makes it increasingly hard for most people to cope.

Most concerning is there’s little clarity on how long the current status quo will last.

Now is the time when all-out government help is most needed. It’s large-scale for privileged Americans, crumbs alone for the vast majority with little prospect for improvement.

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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.

In the face of the COVID-19 tsunami, our lives are changing in ways that were inconceivable just a few short weeks ago. Not since the 2008-2009 economic collapse has the world collectively shared an experience of this kind: a single, rapidly-mutating, global crisis, structuring the rhythm of our daily lives within a complex calculus of risk and competing probabilities.

In response, numerous social movements have put forward demands that take seriously the potentially disastrous consequences of the virus, while also tackling the incapacity of capitalist governments to adequately address the crisis itself.

These demands include questions of worker safety, the necessity of neighbourhood level organising, income and social security, the rights of those on zero-hour contracts or in precarious employment, and the need to protect renters and those living in poverty. In this sense, the COVID-19 crisis has sharply underscored the irrational nature of health care systems structured around corporate profit – the almost universal cutbacks to public hospital staffing and infrastructure (including critical care beds and ventilators), the lack of public health provision and prohibitive cost of access to medical services in many countries, and the ways in which the property rights of pharmaceutical companies serve to restrict widespread access to potential therapeutic treatments and the development of vaccines.

However, the global dimensions of COVID-19 have figured less prominently in much of the left discussion. Mike Davis has rightly observed that “the danger to the global poor has been almost totally ignored by journalists and Western governments” and left debates have been similarly circumscribed, with attention largely focused on the severe health care crises unfolding in Europe and the US.

Even inside Europe there is extreme unevenness in the capacity of states to deal with this crisis – as the juxtaposition of Germany and Greece illustrates – but a much greater disaster is about to envelop the rest of the world. In response, our perspective on this pandemic must become truly global, based on an understanding of how the public health aspects of this virus intersect with larger questions of political economy (including the likelihood of a prolonged and severe global economic downturn). This is not the time to pull up the (national) hatches and speak simply of the fight against the virus inside our own borders.

Public Health in the South

As with all so-called ‘humanitarian’ crises, it is essential to remember that the social conditions found across most of the countries of the South are the direct product of how these states are inserted into the hierarchies of the world market. Historically, this included a long encounter with Western colonialism, which has continued, into contemporary times, with the subordination of poorer countries to the interests of the world’s wealthiest states and largest transnational corporations. Since the mid-1980s, repeated bouts of structural adjustment – often accompanied by Western military action, debilitating sanctions regimes, or support for authoritarian rulers – have systematically destroyed the social and economic capacities of poorer states, leaving them ill-equipped to deal with major crises such as COVID-19.

Foregrounding these historical and global dimensions helps make clear that the enormous scale of the current crisis is not simply a question of viral epidemiology and a lack of biological resistance to a novel pathogen. The ways that most people across Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia will experience the coming pandemic is a direct consequence of a global economy systemically structured around the exploitation of the resources and peoples of the South. In this sense, the pandemic is very much a social and human-made disaster – not simply a calamity arising from natural or biological causes.

One clear example of how this disaster is human-made is the poor state of public health systems across most countries in the South, which tend to be underfunded and lacking in adequate medicines, equipment, and staff. This is particularly significant for understanding the threat presented by COVID-19 due to the rapid and very large surge in serious and critical cases that typically require hospital admission as a result of the virus (currently estimated at around 15%-20% of confirmed cases). This fact is now widely discussed in the context of Europe and the US, and lies behind the strategy of ‘flattening the curve’ in order to alleviate the pressure on hospital critical care capacity.

Yet, while we rightly point to the lack of ICU beds, ventilators, and trained medical staff across many Western states, we must recognise that the situation in most of the rest of the world is immeasurably worse. Malawi, for example, has about 25 ICU beds for a population of 17 million people. There are less than 2.8 critical care beds/100,000 people on average across South Asia, with Bangladesh possessing around 1100 such beds for a population of over 157 million (0.7 critical care beds/100,000 people). In comparison, the shocking pictures coming out of Italy are occurring in an advanced health care system with an average 12.5 ICU beds/100,000 (and the ability to bring more online). The situation is so serious that many poorer countries do not even have information on ICU availability, with one 2015 academic paper estimating that “more than 50% of [low income] countries lack any published data on ICU capacity.” Without such information it is difficult to imagine how these countries could possibly plan to meet the inevitable demand for critical care arising from COVID-19.

Of course, the question of ICU and hospital capacity is one part of a much larger set of issues including a widespread lack of basic resources (e.g. clean water, food, and electricity), adequate access to primary medical care, and the presence of other comorbidities (such as high rates of HIV and tuberculosis). Taken as a whole, all of these factors will undoubtedly mean a vastly higher prevalence of critically ill patients (and hence overall fatalities) across poorer countries as a result of COVID-19.

Labour and Housing are Public Health Issues

Debates around how best to respond to COVID-19 in Europe and the US have illustrated the mutually-reinforcing relationship between effective public health measures and conditions of labour, precarity, and poverty. Calls for people to self-isolate when sick – or the enforcement of longer periods of mandatory lockdowns – are economically impossible for the many people who cannot easily shift their work online or those in the service sector who work in zero-hour contracts or other kinds of temporary employment. Recognising the fundamental consequences of these work patterns for public health, many European governments have announced sweeping promises around compensation for those made unemployed or forced to stay at home during this crisis.

It remains to be seen how effective these schemes will be and to what degree they will actually meet the needs of the very large numbers of people who will lose their jobs as a result of the crisis. Nonetheless, we must recognise that such schemes will simply not exist for most of the world’s population. In countries where the majority of the labour force is engaged in informal work or depends upon unpredictable daily wages – much of the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Asia – there is no feasible way that people can choose to stay home or self-isolate. This must be viewed alongside the fact that there will almost certainly be very large increases in the ‘working poor’ as a direct result of the crisis. Indeed, the ILO has estimated for its worst-case scenario (24.7 million job losses globally) that the number of people in low and low-middle income countries earning less than $US 3.20/day at PPP will grow by nearly 20 million people.

Once again, these figures are important not solely because of day-to-day economic survival. Without the mitigation effects offered through quarantine and isolation, the actual progress of the disease in the rest of the world will certainly be much more devastating than the harrowing scenes witnessed to date in China, Europe, and the US.

Moreover, workers involved in informal and precarious labour often live in slums and overcrowded housing – ideal conditions for the explosive spread of the virus. As an interviewee with the Washington Post recently noted in relation to Brazil: “More than 1.4 million people — nearly a quarter of Rio’s population — live in one of the city’s favelas. Many can’t afford to miss a single day of work, let alone weeks. People will continue leaving their houses …. The storm’s about to hit.”

Similarly disastrous scenarios face the many millions of people currently displaced through war and conflict. The Middle East, for example, is the site of the largest forced displacement since the Second World War, with massive numbers of refugees and internally-displaced people as a result of the on-going wars in countries such as Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Iraq. Most of these people live in refugee camps or overcrowded urban spaces, and often lack the rudimentary rights to health care typically associated with citizenship. The widespread prevalence of malnutrition and other diseases (such as the reappearance of cholera in Yemen) make these displaced communities particularly susceptible to the virus itself.

One microcosm of this can be seen in the Gaza Strip, where over 70% of the population are refugees living in one of the most densely packed areas in the world. The first two cases of COVID-19 were identified in Gaza on 20 March (a lack of testing equipment, however, has meant that only 92 people out of the 2-million strong population have been tested for the virus). Reeling from 13-years of Israeli siege and the systematic destruction of essential infrastructure, living conditions in the Strip are marked by extreme poverty, poor sanitation, and a chronic lack of drugs and medical equipment (there are, for example, only 62 ventilators in Gaza, and just 15 of these are currently available for use). Under blockade and closure for most of the past decade, Gaza has been shut to the world long before the current pandemic. The region could be the proverbial canary in the COVID-19 coalmine – foreshadowing the future path of the infection among refugee communities across the Middle East and elsewhere.

Intersecting Crises

The imminent public health crisis facing poorer countries as a consequence of COVID-19 will be further deepened by an associated global economic downturn that is almost certain to exceed the scale of 2008. It is too early to predict the depth of this slump, but many leading financial institutions are expecting this to be the worst recession in living memory. One of the reasons for this is the near simultaneous shutdown of manufacturing, transport, and service sectors across the US, Europe, and China – an event without historical precedent since the Second World War. With one-fifth of the world’s population currently under some form of lockdown, supply chains and global trade have collapsed and stock market prices have plunged – with most major exchanges losing between 30-40% of their value between 17 February and 17 March.

Yet, as Eric Touissant has emphasised, the economic collapse we are now fast approaching was not caused by COVID-19 – rather, the virus presented “the spark or trigger” of a deeper crisis that has been in the making for several years. Closely connected to this are the measures put in place by governments and central banks since 2008, most notably the policies of quantitative easing and repeated interest-rate cuts. These policies aimed at propping up share prices through massively increasing the supply of ultra-cheap money to financial markets. They meant a very significant growth in all forms of debt – corporate, government, and household. In the U.S, for example, the nonfinancial corporate debt of large companies reached $10 trillion dollars in mid-2019 (around 48% of GDP), a significant rise from its previous peak in 2008 (when it stood at about 44%). Typically, this debt was not used for productive investment, but rather for financial activities (such as funding dividends, share buybacks, and merger and acquisitions). We thus have the well-observed phenomena of booming stock markets on one hand, and stagnating investment and declining profit levels on the other.

Significant to the coming crisis, however, is the fact that the growth in corporate debt has been largely concentrated in below investment grade bonds (so-called junk bonds), or bonds that are rated BBB, just one grade above junk status. Indeed, according to Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, BBB debt made up a remarkable 50% of the global bond market in 2019, compared to only 17% in 2001. What this means is that the synchronised collapse of worldwide production, demand, and financial asset prices presents a massive problem for corporations needing to refinance their debt. As economic activity grinds to a halt in key sectors, companies whose debt is due to be rolled over now face a credit market that has essentially shuttered – no one is willing to lend in these conditions and many overleveraged companies (especially those involved in sectors such as airlines, retail, energy, tourism, automobiles, and leisure) could be earning almost no revenue over the coming period. The prospect of a wave of high profile corporate bankruptcies, defaults, and credit downgrades is therefore extremely likely. This is not just a US problem – financial analysts have recently warned of a ‘cash crunch’ and a ‘wave of bankruptcies’ across the Asia Pacific region, where corporate debt levels have doubled to $32 trillion over the last decade.

All of this poses a very grave danger to the rest of the world, where a variety of transmission routes will metastasise the downturn across poorer countries and populations. As with 2008, these include a likely plunge in exports, a sharp pull back in foreign direct investment flows and tourism revenues, and a drop in worker remittances. The latter factor is often forgotten in the discussion of the current crisis, but it is essential to remember that one of the key features of neoliberal globalisation has been the integration of large parts of the world’s population into global capitalism through remittance flows from family members working overseas. In 1999, only eleven countries worldwide had remittances greater than 10 per cent of GDP; by 2016, this figure had risen to thirty countries. In 2016, just over 30 per cent of all 179 countries for which data was available recorded remittance levels greater than 5 per cent of GDP – a proportion that has doubled since 2000. Astonishingly, around one billion people – one out of seven people globally – are directly involved in remittance flows as either senders or recipients. The closing down of borders because of COVID-19 – coupled with the halt to economic activities in key sectors where migrants tend to predominate – means we could be facing a precipitous drop in worker remittances globally. This is an outcome that would have very severe ramifications for countries in the South.

Another key mechanism by which the rapidly evolving economic crisis may hit countries in the South is the large build up of debt held by poorer countries in recent years. This includes both the least developed countries in the world as well as so-called ‘emerging markets’. In late 2019, the Institute for International Finance estimated that emerging market debt stood at $72 trillion, a figure that had doubled since 2010. Much of this debt is denominated in US dollars, which exposes its holders to fluctuations in the value of the US currency. In recent weeks the US dollar has strengthened significantly as investors sought a safe-haven in response to the crisis; as a result, other national currencies have fallen, and the burden of interest and principal repayments on $US-denominated debt has been increasing. Already in 2018, 46 countries were spending more on public debt service than on their health care systems as a share of GDP. Today, we are entering an alarming situation where many poorer countries will face increasingly burdensome debt repayments while simultaneously attempting to manage an unprecedented public health crisis – all in the context of a very deep global recession.

And let us not harbour any illusions that these intersecting crises might bring an end to structural adjustment or the emergence of some kind of ‘global social democracy’. As we have repeatedly seen over the last decade, capital frequently seizes moments of crisis as a moment of opportunity – a chance to implement radical change that was previously blocked or appeared impossible. Indeed, World Bank President David Malpass implied as much when he noted at the (virtual) G20 meeting of Finance Ministers a few days ago: “Countries will need to implement structural reforms to help shorten the time to recovery …  For those countries that have excessive regulations, subsidies, licensing regimes, trade protection or litigiousness as obstacles, we will work with them to foster markets, choice and faster growth prospects during the recovery.”

It is essential to bring all these international dimensions to the centre of the left debate around COVID-19, linking the fight against the virus to questions such as the abolition of ‘Third World’ debt, an end to IMF/World Bank neoliberal structural adjustment packages, reparations for colonialism, a halt to the global arms trade, an end to sanctions regimes, and so forth. All of these campaigns are, in effect, global public health issues – they bear directly on the ability of poorer countries to mitigate the effects of the virus and the associated economic downturn.

It is not enough to speak of solidarity and mutual self-help in our own neighbourhoods, communities, and within our national borders – without raising the much greater threat that this virus presents to the rest of the world. Of course high levels of poverty, precarious conditions of labour and housing, and a lack of adequate health infrastructure also threaten the ability of populations across Europe and the US to mitigate this infection. But grassroots campaigns in the South are building coalitions that tackle these issues in interesting and internationalist ways. Without a global orientation, we risk reinforcing the ways that the virus has seamlessly fed into the discursive political rhetoric of nativist and xenophobic movements – a politics deeply seeped in authoritarianism, an obsession with border controls, and a ‘my-country first’ national patriotism.

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Featured image is from Verso

If large numbers of doctors, nurses, and other medical staff become ill from COVID-19, who’ll be there to treat patients infected with the virus and all other medical conditions.

A shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) exists in US hospitals nationwide. Nor are there enough isolation rooms to prevent COVID-19 patients from spreading their disease to others.

According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), N95 respirator face masks provide at least 95% filtration effectiveness against non-oil based particles.

National Nurses United calls them “the minimum personal protective equipment necessary for health care workers to remain safe.”

Yet the CDC told US hospitals that doctors, nurses, and other medical staff don’t need protection that N95 respirators provide when treating patients.

National Nurses United executive director Bonnie Castillo RN called this action “outrageous,” stressing:

“(I)t is imperative for Congress to act immediately to include” proper protective gear for medical staff in further COVID-19 related legislation.

“When nurses and doctors get sick from this virus, who is going to be left to take care of the public,” she asked?

“If they don’t want the entire health care system to collapse, Congress must act immediately to protect the frontline healthcare providers.”

On Monday, Castillo expressed outrage over mistreatment of nurses by hospital administrators, saying:

They’re being “disciplined for just trying to protect patients from COVID-19.”

They’re enduring “interrogations, harassment, hostility, accusations of insubordination — even threats of termination (for) dar(ing) to question…backwards personal protective equipment (PPE) and infection control policies” of US hospital administrators.

Castillo slammed the American Hospital Association (AHA) for failing to mandate PPE for all medical staff at a time of spreading COVID-19 outbreaks.

Hospital medical staff are on the front lines of dealing with this crisis. They above all others require maximum protection from infection.

On Sunday, Medicine Net.com reported that “upper management patrolled the halls at one hospital in California, telling staff they could be fired on the spot for wearing N95 masks brought from home.”

A nurse remaining anonymous for self-protection said one of her “biggest concerns is the nontransparent way management is addressing these issues,” adding:

“If we don’t start treating healthcare workers as adults, providing us with honest information, adequate protection, and supplies, I am terrified that this current situation will quickly escalate, not just with viral spread, but with staffing shortages through contagion and/or the ‘rats off a sinking ship’ scenario.”

Many medical professionals believe their safety is being jeopardized, clearly an untenable situation.

Facebook, Twitter, and other social media have countless numbers of accounts by medical professionals, explaining an unacceptable situation likely to worsen ahead without swift remedial action.

Dr. Ali Haider tweeted the following:

“I’m tired of hearing stories of docs and nurses getting reprimanded by the ‘suits’ for wearing a freakin surg mask when they are on the unit because it looks bad.’ ”

“Do you know how many HCP (health care providers) are admitted in the US? Are you on the wards? I say F that. Protect yourselves. #COVID19.”

In Chicago, a medical worker wearing a P100 mask from home was told by a hospital staff member that it’s not permitted in hallways because it “scare(s)” patients.

A Maryland ER physician was told he was “not setting a good example for other staff members” by wearing PPE gear.

“I’m angry just talking about this and almost want to disclose the hospital (but naming it) would be certain termination for me,” he said.

A nurse at an Oklahoma hospital was fired for wearing a surgical mask while inserting an IV line in a patient.

He removed the mask as ordered but after complaining to human resources, he was dismissed on the spot.

National Nurses United and the California Nurses Association said Kaiser Permanente staff were told they’d be immediately fired for wearing their own N95 masks for protection.

Ascension Health in Michigan issued a memo to medical staff, saying:

“All associates and clinicians in care settings outside (designated ones) should not be using scarce PPE resources, such as standard surgical masks, N95 masks, gowns, goggles and face shields.”

Claiming this practice scares patients or other phony excuses is the last refuse of hospital administrators who fail to uphold the Hippocratic Oath of doing no harm.

The Phoenix New Times reported that Arizona-based Banner Health medical staff had masks pulled off their faces. They were reprimanded for wearing them and told only to use hospital supplied PPE as instructed.

A statement by the American Academy of Emergency Medicine said it supports ER doctors who are threatened or fired for wearing their own PPE, adding:

“(A)assistance (will be provided to) file an OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Administration) complaint and pursuit of litigation for wrongful termination.”

The Boston Globe reported that city-based Partners HealthCare requires medical staff to wear protective face masks at all times on duty, an exception to the rule policy that should be standard practice in medical facilities eveywhere, along with use of other PPE.

Yet shortages of everything needed to protect medical staff aren’t being adequately addressed.

An unnamed Los Angeles ER physician said PPE is in short supply, including face masks, goggles, face shields, gloves, and disinfectant wipes.

“We’re using diluted bleach and a spray can instead (that’s) not as effective,” the unnamed doctor added.

Epidemiologist Saskia Popescu stressed that large-scale outbreaks in “New York (are) a warning for” all medical professionals.

Through Monday, the state has 66,497 of 164,610 US infections, including 1,218 of 3,165 deaths nationwide.

Weeks earlier, Bloomberg News reported that a “top coronavirus (intensive care) doctor in Wuhan, China” warned that “(p)atients with hypertension appear to be at a higher risk of dying from” COVID-19.

According to the American Heart Association, about 100 million Americans have high blood pressure, making them more vulnerable to contracting the virus if the above assessment is right.

Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations’ Dr. Richard Hatchett said COVID-19 “is the most frightening disease I’ve ever encountered in my career, and that includes Ebola… MERS (and) SARS.”

“(I)t’s frightening because of the combination of infectiousness and a lethality that appears to be manyfold higher than flu.”

Clearly extra precautions are warranted for protection against contracting the disease.

Despite dire predictions by some experts, it’s unknown to what extent and for how long outbreaks may occur and spread.

At all times it’s far better to be safe than sorry, especially at times like now.

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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: Bonnie Castillo from National Nurses United 

Warnings of Economic Depression

By Stephen Lendman, March 31, 2020

According to a March 20 – 26 online survey of over 250 companies of varying sizes and business sectors, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that nearly half the number surveyed are likely to lay off workers over the next three months.

Over one-third (37%) of companies instituted a hiring freeze. The St. Louis Fed projects unemployment potentially reaching 32% of the US workforce, a loss of 47 million jobs if things get this bad.

Coronavirus Shutdown and the Worldwide Corporate Debt Crisis

By Christian Parenti and Dante Dallavalle, March 30, 2020

The coronavirus shutdown is hammering supply and demand across the globe. That has forced the real economy into a sharp recession and triggered a rolling financial crisis. Below is a primer on one key piece of this mess: the crisis in corporate debt markets. This branch of finance is vitally important because even healthy companies often need access to credit. If they do not get it, they go under.In 2008, the vector of crisis ran from mortgage-backed securities to the rest of the financial sector and then to the real economy. This time, the real economy is being hit directly, and the damage is reverberating back into financial markets.  The failing markets, in feedback-loop fashion, further threaten the real economy as corporations find it harder to borrow. As the corporate debt markets sour, major companies will go bankrupt. Unemployment is skyrocketing. Some analysts expect the economy to contract by an annualized rate of 30 percent during the second quarter of 2020.

What Happens In the Wake of the COVID-19 Lockdown? Economic Destruction, Global Poverty, Bankruptcies, Mass Unemployment. Neoliberalism to the Rescue

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, March 28, 2020

In the wake of the lockdown: Bankruptcies and mass unemployment, the economic destabilization of entire countries.

Millions of people have lost their jobs, and their lifelong savings. They are unable to pay their home mortgages.

In developing countries, poverty and despair prevail.

The political implications are far-reaching. The lockdown undermines real democracy.

COVID-19 Puts Capitalism on a Ventilator. No More Bank and Corporate Bailouts!

By Prof. Anthony A. Gabb, March 27, 2020

The modern-day Robber Barons of industry and Wall Street, along with the government are frantically designing a ventilator to distribute taxpayer’s money to all organs of the economy–domestic and foreign banks and corporations and consumers. The corporate media is firing on all cylinders hoping to convince you to support the efforts of the “job creators”. While the Congress is preparing a stream of trillion dollar bailout programs, last Friday the Federal Reserve Bank handed the banks a massive $1T handout at zero interest rate.

A Brady Bond Solution for America’s Economic Crisis and Unpayable Corporate Debt

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts and Prof Michael Hudson, March 26, 2020

Even before the Covid-19 crisis had slashed stock prices nearly in half since it erupted in January, financial markets were in an inherently unstable condition. Years of quantitative easing had loaded so much money into stock and bond prices that stock price/earnings multiples and bond prices were far too high by any normal and reasonable historical standards. Risk premiums have disappeared, with only a few basis points separating U.S. Treasury bills and corporate bonds.

The 2020 Great Recession 2.0 –Or Worse!

By Dr. Jack Rasmus, March 24, 2020

The US will lose 2 million jobs just in March (Bloomberg News). US GDP will fall by -24% to -30% in second quarter (Goldman-Sachs & Morgan-Stanley Banks). Jobless rate could rise to 30% (Fed St. Louis Governor, Bullard). Federal Reserve promises $4T more to pre-bailout banks (Marketwatch). Financial markets imploding and credit system on verge of freeze up. Trump and US politicians considering sending people back to work despite higher cost in infections and deaths from the virus!

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À medida que a crise do Coronavírus paralisa sociedades inteiras, forças poderosas movem-se para tirar a máxima vantagem da situação. Em 27 de Março, a NATO sob comando USA, expandiu-se de 29 para 30 membros, incorporando a Macedónia do Norte. No dia seguinte – enquanto o exercício USA “Defensor da Europa 2020” prosseguia, com menos soldados, mas com mais bombardeiros nucleares – iniciou na Escócia, o exercício aeronaval NATO Joint Warrior com forças USA, britânicas, alemãs e outras, que durará até 10 de Abril, também com operações terrestres.

Entretanto, os países europeus da NATO são advertidos por Washington de que, apesar das perdas económicas provocadas pelo Coronavírus, devem continuar a aumentar os seus orçamentos militares para “manter a capacidade de se defender”, obviamente, da “agressão russa”.

Na conferência de Munique, em 15 de Fevereiro, o Secretário de Estado, Mike Pompeo, anunciou que os Estados Unidos solicitaram aos aliados para reservar outros 400 biliões de dólares para aumentar as despesas militares da NATO, que já ultrapassam bem mais de 1 trilião de dólares, anualmente.

A Itália deve, portanto, aumentar as suas despesas militares, que já subiram para mais de 26 biliões de euros por ano, ou mais do que o que o Parlamento autorizou destinar, precisamente, para a emergência Coronavírus (25 biliões). Assim, a NATO ganha terreno numa Europa largamente paralisada pelo vírus, onde os USA, hoje mais do que nunca, podem fazer o que querem.

Na conferência de Munique, Mike Pompeo, atacou violentamente não só a Rússia, mas também a China, acusando-a de usar a Huawei e outras empresas como “cavalo de Tróia dos serviços secretos”, ou seja, como ferramentas de espionagem. Deste modo, os Estados Unidos aumentam a sua pressão sobre os países europeus para que também quebrem os acordos económicos com a Rússia e com a China e fortaleçam as sanções contra a Rússia.

O que é que a Itália deveria fazer, se tivesse um governo que quisesse defender os nossos verdadeiros interesses nacionais? Antes de tudo, deveria recusar-se a aumentar a nossa despesa militar, avolumada artificialmente com a fake news da “agressão russa”, e submetê-la a uma revisão radical para reduzir o desperdício de dinheiro público em sistemas de armas como o caça americano F-35. Deveria suspender imediatamente as sanções contra a Rússia, desenvolvendo o intercâmbio ao máximo. Deveria aderir ao pedido – apresentado em 26 de Março à ONU, pela China, Rússia, Irão, Síria, Venezuela, Nicarágua, Cuba e Coreia do Norte – que as Nações Unidas pressionem Washington para abolir todas as sanções, particularmente prejudiciais no momento em que os países que sofrem com elas, estão afectados pelo coronavírus.

Da abolição das sanções ao Irão também resultariam vantagens económicas para a Itália, cuja troca com este país foi praticamente bloqueada pelas sanções USA. Estas e outras medidas dariam oxigénio, sobretudo, às pequenas e médias empresas sufocadas pelo encerramento forçado, disponibilizariam fundos para a emergência, especialmente, a favor das camadas mais desfavorecidas, sem, por isso, se endividarem.

O maior risco é sair da crise com o nó corrediço no pescoço de uma dívida externa, que poderia reduzir a Itália às condições da Grécia.

Mais poderosas do que as forças militares, aquelas que mantêm as alavancas das tomadas de decisão, mesmo no complexo industrial-militar, são as forças da grande finança internacional, que estão a usar a crise do Coronavírus para uma ofensiva global, com as armas de especulação mais sofisticadas. São elas que podem arruinar milhões de pequenos poupadores e que podem usar a dívida para se apoderarem de sectores económicos inteiros.

Decisivo nesta situação, é o exercício da soberania nacional, não a da retórica política, mas a que está consagrada na nossa Constituição, a verdadeira soberania que pertence ao povo.

Manlio Dinucci

A rtigo original em italiano :

Manovre strategiche dietro la crisi del Coronavirus

il manifesto, 31 de Março de 2020

Tradutora: Maria Luísa de Vasconcellos

Mentre la crisi del Coronavirus paralizza intere società, potenti forze si muovono per trarre il massimo vantaggio dalla situazione. Il 27 marzo la Nato sotto comando Usa si è allargata da 29 a 30 membri, inglobando la Macedonia del Nord. Il giorno dopo – mentre proseguiva l’esercitazione Usa «Difensore dell’Europa 2020», con meno soldati ma più bombardieri nucleari – è iniziata in Scozia l’esercitazione aeronavale Nato Joint Warrior con forze Usa, britanniche, tedesche e altre, che durerà fino al 10 aprile anche con operazioni terrestri.

Intanto i paesi europei della Nato vengono avvertiti da Washington che, nonostante le perdite economiche provocate dal Coronavirus, devono continuare ad aumentare i loro bilanci militari per «mantenere la capacità di difendersi», ovviamente dalla «aggressione russa».

Alla Conferenza di Monaco, il 15 febbraio, il segretario di stato Mike Pompeo ha annunciato che gli Stati uniti hanno sollecitato gli alleati a stanziare altri 400 miliardi di dollari per accrescere la spesa militare  della Nato, che già supera ampiamente i 1.000 miliardi annui.

L’Italia deve quindi aumentare la propria spesa militare, già salita a oltre 26 miliardi di euro all’anno, ossia più di quanto il Parlamento abbia autorizzato a stanziare una tantum per l’emergenza Coronavirus (25 miliardi). La Nato guadagna così terreno in una Europa largamente paralizzata dal virus, dove gli Usa, oggi più che mai, possono fare ciò che vogliono.

Alla Conferenza di Monaco, Mike Pompeo ha attaccato violentemente non solo la Russia ma anche la Cina, accusandola di usare  la Huawei e altre sue compagnie quale «cavallo di Troia dell’intelligence», ossia quali strumenti di spionaggio. In tal modo gli Stati uniti accrescono la loro pressione sui paesi europei perché rompano anche gli accordi economici con Russia e Cina e rafforzino le sanzioni contro la Russia.

Che cosa dovrebbe fare l’Italia, se avesse un governo che volesse difendere  i nostri reali interessi nazionali?

• Dovrebbe anzitutto rifiutare di accrescere la nostra spesa militare, artificiosamente gonfiata con la fake news della «aggressione russa», e sottoporla a una radicale revisione per ridurre lo spreco di denaro pubblico in sistemi d’arma come il caccia Usa F-35.
• Dovrebbe togliere immediatamente le sanzioni alla Russia, sviluppando al massimo l’interscambio.
• Dovrebbe aderire alla  richiesta – presentata il 26 marzo all’Onu da Cina, Russia, Iran, Siria, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba e Nord Corea – che le Nazioni Unite premano su Washington perché abolisca tutte le sanzioni, particolarmente dannose nel momento in cui i paesi che le subiscono sono colpiti dal Coronavirus.

Dall’abolizione delle sanzioni all’Iran ne deriverebbero anche vantaggi economici per l’Italia, il cui interscambio con questo paese è stato praticamente bloccato dalle sanzioni Usa. Queste e altre misure darebbero ossigeno soprattutto alle piccole e medie imprese soffocate dalla forzata chiusura, renderebbero disponibili fondi da stanziare per l’emergenza, a favore soprattutto degli strati più disagiati, senza per questo indebitarsi.

Il maggiore rischio è quello di uscire dalla crisi con al collo il nodo scorsoio di un debito estero che potrebbe ridurre l’Italia alle condizioni della Grecia.

Più potenti delle forze militari, quelle che hanno in mano le leve decisionali anche nel complesso militare-industriale, sono le forze della grande finanza internazionale, che stanno usando la crisi del Coronavirus per una offensiva su scala globale con le più sofisticate armi della speculazione. Sono loro che possono portare alla rovina milioni di piccoli risparmiatori, che possono usare il debito per impadronirsi di interi settori economici.

Decisivo in tale situazione è l’esercizio della sovranità nazionale, non quella della retorica politica ma quella reale che, sancisce la nostra Costituzione, appartiene al popolo.

Manlio Dinucci

il manifesto, 31 marzo 2020

Diana Johnstone’s just published book, Circle in the Darkness: Memoir of a World Watcher, is the best book I have ever read, the most revealing, the most accurate, the most truthful, the most moral and humane, the most sincere and heartfelt, and the best written.  Her book is far more than a memoir.  It is a history that has not previously been written.  If you want the truth of the last 60 years in place of the contrived reality constructed for us by controlled explanations, it is in this book.

This book is so extraordinary in its truthfulness and conciseness that it is difficult for a less gifted writer to do it justice.  It is a book without a superfluous sentence.

Herein I will provide some of the books message.  In future columns I hope to present some of the  history in the book.  

In the Western World the legitimate national interest of people has become identified with racism and fascism.  Corporate globalism requires open borders, and the left has aligned with globalism and has become the most zealous enforcer of open borders, which has come to mean the right of refugees with victim status to other peoples’ countries.  The leftwing has abandoned the working class and anti-war activity.  Today the leftwing is pro-war in order to enforce “human rights” on alleged dictators by bombing their peoples into oblivion, thus producing refugees and tag along opportunistic immigrants that flock to the Western aggressor nations.  

Self-styled moral censors, such as Antifa, denounce hate while violently hating those they denounce. Everything is settled by controlled explanations that cannot be questioned or examined in debate.  Those who engage in critical free thinking are censored, shouted down, beaten up, fired, and cancelled.  The cancel culture permits no debate, only enthusiastic acquiesce to explanations that have been settled in advance. 

Antifa by shutting down open debate actually serves to protect the authoritarian center consisting of “the Clintonian Democratic Party, mainstream media, the military industrial complex and globalized neoliberal finance capital.”  Antifa turns the left into a support group for the authoritarian center.

In the European Union’s so-called constitution, private corporate interests take precedence over—indeed do not permit—the socialized elements of European mixed economies that made the societies livable communities. Today people are sacrificed to the greed of the global elite as social services are curtailed and privatized. 

In the “Western democracies,” democracy–that is, rule by the people and a rule of law– has been extinguished. European peoples were forced into the European Union at the expense of their national sovereignty despite having voted down EU membership.  The French people voted 54.7% against EU membership and 45.3% for.  The Dutch people voted 61% against the EU and 39% for.  Faced with an unacceptable democratic outcome, the ruling elites removed the question from the people by turning EU membership into a “treaty” that could be signed by governments without input from the peoples.  When the French Constitutional Court ruled that the “treaty” was contrary to the French Constitution, the French Constitution was changed to accommodate the “treaty.”  Only the Irish government gave the people a choice by putting the “treaty” to a referendum, and the people rejected it. Chastised for allowing the people to decide their own fate, the Irish government collapsed under elite pressure and after a period of intense propaganda in favor of the “treaty” forced it through on a second referendum.  The Western “democratic” media were principal agents of the elite in stripping European peoples of any control over how they are governed.

In the West lies and orchestrated deceit have replaced truth in government and media. Instead of spreading facts and mutual understanding, media have deceived the public in order to gain support for unjustifiable wars.  Deceit “reached an extravagant new peak of danger with the campaign of calumny against Russia” culminating in the preposterous charge investigated by a “special prosecutor” that Hillary Clinton’s defeat was caused by a Putin/Trump plot involving Russian interference in the US presidential election.  

“Western values” are constantly invoked, but what are these values?  They are not the values that made the West what it is, or rather was.  These values are rejected.  Free speech is out if it challenges official explanations whether the government’s or the left’s or uses any words that can be misrepresented as “hate speech.”  Democracy is out as demonstrated by the anti-democratic formation of the European Union. Truth is out as it is “offensive.”  Rational inquiry is regarded as denial of emotion-based proclamations.  It goes on and on.  Diana Johnstone notes that government repression is most significant not against violent acts of rebellion but against Julian Assange for exercising press freedom to convey information to the public.  

Where does this leave us?  We have the West against the world, the West against itself, and the people against themselves.  Washington is unable “to view the world other than as a field for exercising US ‘leadership,’ and all who balk are considered deadly enemies.”  The diplomacy of the US and its NATO vassals consists of dropping sanctions and bombs on those who refuse to submit to Washington’s will, while the West itself dissolves into “diversity” and the mutual hatred of Identity Politics, which has progressed to the point that the transgendered are busy at work hating feminists. Diana Johnstone puts it best:

“When individuals are bunched into groups assigned intrinsic qualities—from victimhood to racism—normal human ties of mutual concern, shared purpose, comprehension and compassion are severed. In a grotesque development, new gender identities are invented, whose ‘cause’ overshadows the real problems of genuinely disadvantaged people. Economic issues are forgotten as groups mobilize solely to police attitudes.  Billionaires prosper more than ever before, while down below people bicker over safe spaces and toilet use.”

Hubris has destroyed humanity:

“The countries of the Western world are in a state of schizophrenic overconfidence and self-doubt. Their leaders persist in proclaiming ‘our values’ as the model for the rest of humanity, while their own people are increasingly divided and disillusioned. 

“The 18th century was the century of the liberated mind. The 19th century was the century of Great Men. The 20th century was the century of the common man. And the 21st century’s looks like it may become a negation of all of them. The century of nobody at all.

“Irrationality and censorship restore chains to thought. Great Men are only statues to be demolished. The common man, once hailed as the hero of a radiant future, has been degraded to a superfluous nuisance, probably racist and homophobic. Ordinary folks have been reassigned from the glorious concept of ‘the people’ to their derogatory redefinition under the rubric of populism’ [and Trump deplorables].

People are reduced to ‘consumers,’ while being told that by consuming, they are destroying the planet. Identity Politics has not only turned people against each other by group, but its late manifestation, Vegan speciesism, even turns people against people altogether, for being an overprivileged life form.”

What will our future be? Currently we live in a dystopia of deceit.  But the failure of our leaders to deal adequately with a health crisis and their hostility to an economic system that serves people rather than the wealth of elites are marking the Western world as a massive failure. Will realization of this failure cause the people at revolt as the Yellow Vests have, or will it break the people and further diminish them?

As we are confined at home in an effort to avoid infection and to limit the spread of infection, now is a good time to read a clear explanation of what has happened to us in our time, assess the failures that have undermined our existence as a united and free people, and prepare for reconstructing a livable and humane society.

Diana Johnstone’s book is available from Clarity Press.

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

CLICK IMAGE TO ORDER DIANA JOHNSTONE’S BOOK Directly from Clarity Press

Over three million US workers filed claims for unemployment benefits last week, millions more likely coming in the weeks ahead.

Never before in US history did this happen so swiftly in such large numbers as now.

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll found that around one-fourth of US adults were either laid off or furloughed because of COVID-19 outbreaks.

For weeks, Trump remained in denial about the potential human and business cost of growing virus numbers — as late as February saying it’ll disappear “like a miracle.”

Now he believes if 100,000 Americans die from COVID-19, it’ll show he did a “good job.”

What’s ongoing today is the greatest challenge to business and workers since the Great Depression, along with a threat to human health.

According to a March 20 – 26 online survey of over 250 companies of varying sizes and business sectors, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that nearly half the number surveyed are likely to lay off workers over the next three months.

Over one-third (37%) of companies instituted a hiring freeze. The St. Louis Fed projects unemployment potentially reaching 32% of the US workforce, a loss of 47 million jobs if things get this bad.

Trump regime social distancing guidelines were extended through April 30. It’s highly unlikely that conditions will ease by then.

Virginia Governor Northam issued a statewide shelter in place order through June 10, unless amended or rescinded ahead.

If current COVID-19 outbreaks abate, there’s no assurance that a second wave won’t follow or that new widespread outbreaks won’t happen during the 2020/21 flu season.

Is what’s beginning to unfold “a greater depression,” as economist Nouriel Roubini believes?

He anticipates “a far worse outcome” than most economists see unfolding, adding:

“Even mainstream financial firms such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley expect US GDP to fall by an annualized rate of 6% in the first quarter, and by 24% to 30% in the second.”

“(E)very component of aggregate demand – consumption, capital spending, exports – is in unprecedented free fall.”

“While most self-serving commentators have been anticipating a V-shaped downturn – with output falling sharply for one quarter and then rapidly recovering the next – it should now be clear that the COVID-19 crisis is something else entirely.”

“Not even during the Great Depression…did the bulk of economic activity literally shut down” so fast.

Economist David Rosenberg said

“(i)t’s time for investors to start saying the D-word. This economic damage could be double 2008,” adding:

“(B)ears will help you preserve your capital. Bulls will…destroy” it by advising investors to stay the course at a time when extreme caution is necessary.

Rosenberg projects a global GDP contraction of 5% this year, what hasn’t happened throughout the post-WW II period.

A deep recession like 2008-09 would likely cause financial markets to decline at least 50%, he said, stressing:

“We have a big problem on our hands. There is no economic visibility so everything’s a crapshoot.”

“This turbocharged debt cycle will end miserably. It’s just a matter of when” and how severe.

Even a one-month US national lockdown will see a “wave of defaults and bankruptcies with no jobs for people to go back to.”

“If nothing is done to make people whole, call (congressional action) ‘transfer payments,’ (not) ‘stimulus,’ because the amounts (for ordinary Americans) will put food on the table and a roof over heads” for a few months at most, “but that is about it.”

Rosenberg believes Republicans and Dems don’t realize the seriousness of what’s going on.

Workers need jobs and normality to their lives. There’s only fear, duress, stress, and uncertainty ahead.

While recession has been priced into markets, it’s not enough, said Rosenberg, adding:

“Households and businesses will be coping with how their lives have permanently changed once the crisis ends.”

“(N)othing is going back to the way it was. There will be a new normal, but it won’t be the old normal.”

“But for the here and now, we are dealing with a health shock, a self-imposed economic shock, and a financial shock all at once” — an unprecedented situation with no clarity on when or how it will end.

Markets usually bottom about three months before a GDP trough, Rosenberg explained.

He doesn’t see one until at least September, meaning “another three months of pain” most likely, maybe more.

Will the “new normal” Rosenberg envisions when economic and public health conditions end include loss of what remains of the US middle class?

Its privileged class seeks a ruler/serf society, a longstanding aim for greater wealth and power.

Along with an unprecedented wealth transfer from ordinary Americans to monied interests and likely increased loss of human and civil rights, perhaps destruction of the US middle class entirely is a key objective of the current crisis.

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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.

September 17, 2019 was a significant day in American economic history. On that day, the New York Federal Reserve began emergency cash infusions into the repurchasing (repo) market. This is the market banks use to make short-term loans to each other. The New York Fed acted after interest rates in the repo market rose to almost 10 percent, well above the Fed’s target rate.

The New York Fed claimed its intervention was a temporary measure, but it has not stopped pumping money into the repo market since September. Also, the Federal Reserve has been expanding its balance sheet since September. Investment advisor Michael Pento called the balance sheet expansion quantitative easing (QE) “on steroids.”

I mention these interventions to show that the Fed was taking extraordinary measures to prop up the economy months before anyone in China showed the first symptoms of coronavirus.

Now the Fed is using the historic stock market downturn and the (hopefully) temporary closure of businesses in the coronavirus panic to dramatically increase its interventions in the economy. Not only has the Fed increased the amount it is pumping into the repo market, it is purchasing unlimited amounts of Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities. This was welcome news to Congress and the president, as it came as they were working on setting up trillions of dollars in spending in coronavirus aid/economic stimulus bills.

This month the Fed announced it would start purchasing municipal bonds, thus ensuring the state and local government debt bubble will keep growing for a few more months.

The Fed has also created three new loan facilities to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in credit to businesses. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has stated that the Fed will lend out as much as it takes to revive the economy.

The Fed is also reducing interest rates to zero. We likely already have negative real interest rates because of inflation. Negative real interest rates are a tax on savings and thus lead to a lack of private funds available for investment, giving the Fed another excuse to expand its lending activities.

The Fed’s actions may appear to mitigate some of the damage of the coronavirus panic. However, by flooding the economy with new money, expanding asset purchases, and facilitating Congress and the president’s spending sprees, the Fed is exacerbating America’s long-term economic problems.

The Federal Reserve is unlikely to end these emergency measures after the government declares it is safe to resume normal life. Consumers, businesses, and (especially) the federal government are so addicted to low interest rates, quantitative easing, and other Federal Reserve interventions that any effort by the Fed to allow rates to rise or to stop creating new money will cause a severe recession.

Eventually the Federal Reserve-created consumer, business, and government debt bubbles will explode, leading to a major crisis that will dwarf the current coronavirus shutdown. The silver lining is that this next crisis could finally demolish the Keynesian welfare-warfare state and the fiat money system.

The Federal Reserve’s unprecedented interventions in the marketplace make it more urgent than ever that Congress pass, and President Trump sign, the Audit the Fed bill. This would finally allow the American people to learn the truth about the Fed’s conduct of monetary policy. Audit the Fed is a step toward restoring health to our economic system by ending the fiat money pandemic that facilitates the welfare-warfare state and the unstable, debt-based economy.

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The US Justice Department unsealed an indictment on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and other government officials last week, accusing them of “narco-terrorism.” The move is reminiscent of the 1988 indictment of former CIA asset and Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega. The Noriega indictment resulted in a US invasion of Panama that left hundreds – possibly thousands – of dead civilians in its wake. Attorney General William Barr took to the podium to announce Maduro’s indictment. Barr happens to be the same person who gave the first Bush administration the legal justification to invade Panama just over 30 years ago.

Barr first worked in the DOJ in 1989 when George H. W. Bush appointed him as head of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). Bush and Barr had some history together. The two first crossed paths in 1976 when Bush was head of the CIA, and Barr served as a congressional liaison for the agency. At the time, Manuel Noriega was also on the CIA’s payroll.

Noriega served as a useful tool for the CIA for decades, most notably known for helping the US send money and weapons to the Contras in Nicaragua. But after Noriega became more of a liability than an asset, the US turned on him. Noriega’s connection to drug trafficking became the pretext for his disposal, something the US government was undoubtedly aware of long before the indictment.

In 1988, the Senate subcommittee on terrorism, narcotics, and international operations said,

“It is clear that each US government agency which had a relationship with Noriega turned a blind eye to his corruption and drug dealing, even as he was emerging as a key player on behalf of the Medellin Cartel (Pablo Escobar’s infamous Colombian cartel).”

In February 1988, under the Reagan administration, the US indicted Noriega on charges of Drug trafficking and racketeering, and he was taken off the CIA’s payroll. Over the next year, the US placed economic sanctions on Panama in an effort to pressure Noriega to step down. When Bush came into the White House in January 1989, he continued adding sanctions, and tensions between Noriega’s military and US troops stationed in Panama increased. The US controlled the Panama Canal at the time, so there was a strong US military presence in the country, and tens of thousands of US citizens were living there.

It was around the time of ever-growing tensions between Noriega and the US that William Barr was asked by then-Attorney General Dick Thornburgh to author a legal opinion memo. The purpose of Barr’s opinion memo was to overrule an opinion written in 1980 by President Carter’s head of the OLC that ruled the FBI does not have international authority to arrest a person in another nation if that nation does not consent. The opinion written under Carter said,

“US agents have no law enforcement authority in another nation unless it is the product of that nation’s consent.”

Barr’s opinion said that the FBI could carry out arrests in other nations, even if it violates international law. The document, dated June 21^st 1989, reads,

“At the direction of the President or the Attorney General, the FBI may use its statutory authority to investigate and arrest individuals for violating United States law, even if the FBI’s actions contravene customary international law.”

Barr wrote,

“The 1980 Opinion was clearly wrong in asserting that the United States is legally powerless to carry out actions that violate international law by impinging on the sovereignty of other countries. It is well established that both political branches — the Congress and the Executive — have, within their respective spheres, the authority to override customary international law.”

In November 1989, after the document’s existence became known, Barr testified before Congress on its contents. Barr refused to make the document itself public and did not disclose all of its contents, which caused some controversy, but that seemed to be a distraction from the real issue – the belief that the president is above international law. Writing in the Los Angeles Times in October 1989, journalist Ron Astrow said his sources in the White House dubbed Barr’s ruling “the president’s snatch authority.” Astrow speculated that this new authority could be used to arrest Noriega.

On December 20^th 1989, President Bush launched Operation Just Cause. Over 27,000 troops invaded Panama to arrest Noriega, the largest US military action since the Vietnam war. The campaign was especially brutal for civilians. The neighborhood of El Chorillo in Panama City saw the worst destruction. US forces indiscriminately bombed El Chorillo without giving the residents any notice, resulting in civilian deaths and the destruction of about 4,000 homes. Horrific stories of US tanks running over and crushing civilians surfaced after the invasion, and witnesses described a total disregard for civilian life by the US forces.

The civilian death toll given by the US government is around 200, but that number is widely disputed. Some human rights groups say the number is in the thousands. Either number is horrific considering Noriega was captured on January 3^rd 1990, and the campaign only lasted two weeks. Victims claim many bodies were buried in mass graves and never counted, and to this day, families of the dead are still searching for the bodies of their loved ones. In 2019, Panama made December 20^th an official day of mourning.

Bush did not get Congressional approval for the invasion, violating the War Powers Act that was passed in 1973 after President Nixon’s bombings of Cambodia and Laos. Bush publicly justified the invasion on the grounds of self-defense. A US marine was killed in Panama a few days before the invasion, part of an escalating series of confrontations between US troops and the Panamanian military. Some reports say US troops were purposely provoking members of Panama’s armed forces. The indictment of Noriega and the harsh economic sanctions were probably enough provocation to cause incidents between the two countries’ armed forces.

The invasion violated at least two international treaties: The United Nations Charter and the Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS). Shortly after the invasion began, the OAS voted 20 to 1 in favor of an immediate US withdrawal. The UN General Assembly denounced the invasion in a vote of 75 to 20. Barr’s opinion memo made it clear that the Bush administration was not concerned with violating international law.

Barr believed in a strong Executive branch and later advised Bush that he did not need Congressional approval for the war against Iraq. In 1991, Barr’s support for Bush’s leadership was rewarded, and he was nominated to be the 77^th Attorney General of the United States. Fast forward about 30 years later, and William Barr is back in that office.

With the indictment of Maduro, the DOJ placed a $15 million bounty on his head, offering that money for any information that leads to his arrest. Indicting a head of state is an incredible provocation, but by US logic, Maduro is no longer Venezuela’s president. Since opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself president of Venezuela in January 2019, the US and its allies have not recognized the Maduro government, even though he still holds power in Caracas. As Barr put it, “We do not recognize Maduro as the president of Venezuela. Obviously, we indicted Noriega under similar circumstances, we did not recognize Noriega as the president of Panama.”

Maduro has always been in the crosshairs of the Trump administration, and this indictment is just another transparent effort of US regime change in the South American country. The allegation against Maduro is that he works with Colombia’s rebel FARC group to smuggle cocaine through Venezuela that eventually reaches the US. According to Barr, the route the cocaine takes is either on boats through the Caribbean, or on airplanes through Honduras.

A closer look at where the cocaine in the US comes from shows the vast majority does not pass through Venezuela. A report released by the Washington Office for Latin America (WOLA) earlier in March debunked the myth spread by Washington that Venezuela is a top narco-state. Using the US government’s own numbers, the WOLA report found that in 2017 only 7 percent of the cocaine that came to the US moved through Venezuela’s Eastern Caribbean waters. The vast majority, 84 percent, moved through the Eastern Pacific.

Barr estimates around 200 to 250 metric tons of cocaine transits through Venezuela per year. According to the numbers in the WOLA report, 210 metric tons passed through Venezuela in 2018. By comparison, Guatemala had over 1,400 metric tons pass through it that same year. Both Venezuela and Guatemala are known as “transit countries,” meaning they do not produce cocaine, it only transits through. Colombia, the world’s top producer of cocaine, had about 2,400 metric tons moved through the country in 2018.

The numbers show that if the concern was drug trafficking and not regime change, the US has much bigger fish to fry than Nicolas Maduro if the allegations against him are even true. Economic sanctions placed on Venezuela by the Trump administration make it near impossible for the country to sell its oil, Venezuela’s greatest natural resource. If Maduro really was the corrupt “narco-terrorist” the US claims he is, wouldn’t sanctioning the oil sector make him more reliant on drug money and increase the flow of cocaine? Since the oil sanctions started in 2017, the flow of cocaine through Venezuela has actually decreased.

The Center for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR) released a report in April 2019 that found US sanctions on Venezuela were responsible for 40,000 deaths in the country. Experts believe the updated number is now around 100,000 since the crippling sanctions are still in effect. The CEPR report explains how sanctions impact Venezuela’s medical supplies, and with the country now facing a possible coronavirus outbreak, those sanctions will only exacerbate the epidemic. The indictment of Maduro in the midst of a global pandemic shows the world that US imperialism never shows mercy.

Realistically, a US invasion of Venezuela to arrest Maduro is unlikely. The task would prove much more difficult than the invasion of Panama. Venezuela is much bigger and is lacking the US military presence Panama had in the 80s. The military has stayed loyal to Maduro, and Venezuela’s civilian militia has over three million members. Maduro has called for the creation of an “Anti-Imperialist School” to train his militia members as “professionals.” Anti-imperialism is a key tenant of Maduro’s rhetoric, and Hugo Chavez’s before him, the Trump administration’s Venezuela policy has done nothing but play into this narrative.

But the fact is, there is a president in the White House who has not taken the military option to remove Maduro off the table. And the Attorney General believes the president has the right to invade a sovereign nation to arrest its leader without Congressional approval, even if it is in direct violation of international law.

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The Department of Defense is quietly asking Congress to rescind the requirement to produce an unclassified version of the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) database.

Preparation of the unclassified FYDP, which provides estimates of defense spending for the next five years, has been required by law since 1989 (10 USC 221) and has become an integral part of the defense budget process.

But the Pentagon said that it should no longer have to offer such information in an unclassified format, according to a DoD legislative proposal for the pending FY 2021 national defense authorization act.

“The Department is concerned that attempting publication of unclassified FYDP data might inadvertently reveal sensitive information,” the Pentagon said in its March 6, 2020 proposal.

“With the ready availability of data mining tools and techniques, and the large volume of data on the Department’s operations and resources already available in the public domain, additional unclassified FYDP data, if it were released, potentially allows adversaries to derive sensitive information by compilation about the Department’s weapons development, force structure, and strategic plans.”

Therefore, DoD said,

“This proposal would remove the statutory requirement to submit an Unclassified Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) to the Congress, the Congressional Budget Office, the Comptroller General of the United States, and the Congressional Research Service.”

It follows that FYDP data would also not be included in the published DoD budget request, as it typically has been in the past.

The DoD proposal would preserve a classified FYDP for Congress but it would repeal the requirement that DoD officials “certify that the data used to construct the FYDP is accurate.” DoD said that “This requirement is unnecessary as information from these systems is already used to provide the President’s Budget.”

The unclassified FYDP helps inform budget analysis

At a time when it is clear to everyone that US national security spending is poorly aligned with actual threats to the nation, the DoD proposal would make it even harder for Congress and the public to refocus and reconstruct the defense budget.

Without an unclassified FYDP, Congress and the public would be deprived of unclassified analyses like “Long-Term Implications of the 2020 Future Years Defense Program” produced last year by the Congressional Budget Office. Other public reporting by GAO, CRS, the news media and independent analysts concerning the FYDP and future defense spending would also be undermined.

Some information in the FYDP — such as projected intelligence spending — has always been deemed sensitive enough that it can be classified.

But most information in the FYDP is unclassified and is properly the subject of public oversight. So, for example, the recent FY2021 defense budget request for military construction includes an “FY21 FYDP Project List” identifying numerous proposed construction projects across the country and around the world that are anticipated through 2025.

DoD no longer publishes its legislative proposals

Until two years ago, DoD published its legislative proposals to Congress on the website of the DoD General Counsel. (The proposals for FY 2019 are still online.) But that is no longer the case. As part of a broader retreat from public oversight and accountability, the Pentagon today does not make its legislative proposals easily accessible to the public.

A copy of the current package of DoD legislative proposals through March 6, 2020 was obtained by Secrecy News. A complete tabulation of the dozens of specific proposals is available here. A section-by-section description of all of the proposals is here.

Among the current batch is a proposed exemption from the Freedom of Information Act for certain unclassified documents concerning military tactics, techniques, or procedures.

That very same proposed FOIA exemption has previously been rejected by Congress on at least four prior occasions. So legislative approval of such requests is not necessarily a foregone conclusion.

Late last week, the House Armed Services Committee filed a preliminary version of the FY21 defense authorization act (HR 6395) based on the DoD legislative proposals. “When the Committee meets to consider the FY21 NDAA, the content of H.R. 6395 will be struck and replaced with subcommittee and full committee proposals,” according to a March 27 news release.

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Featured image is from NationofChange

China sent an expert team and a large shipment of medical equipment to the United Kingdom on Saturday to help in the fight against COVID-19.

The team, sent from East China’ Shandong province, comprises 15 experts and doctors who are specialists in disease control, traditional Chinese and Western medicine, psychology, nursing, and other fields.

In addition to conducting epidemiological investigation and epidemic prevention education in the UK, they will also participate in disease prevention and treatment work.

They brought with them up to 17.5 tons of medical supplies, including traditional Chinese medicine, personal protective equipment, epidemic prevention educational materials, and other equipment.

Liu Jiayi, Party chief of Shandong, went to the airport to see the team off and expressed thanks on behalf the provincial Party committee and the provincial government.

He said the team will introduce epidemic prevention and control knowledge and experience to people in the UK, especially Chinese overseas students, workers at Chinese-funded institutions and enterprises, and other overseas Chinese people.

He said the team also aims to “guide (people) to do scientific personal protection, ease tension and anxiety, and let them feel the warmth of their motherland and the care of the people in their motherland”.

During an online conversation with the British Chamber of Commerce in China on Tuesday, Liu Xiaoming, China’s ambassador to the UK, said China encourages collaboration between business, research institutions, and colleges from both nations on vaccine and drug development to fight against the disease.

“China and the UK are standing together,” he said. “I firmly believe that the relationship between our two countries will emerge even stronger, and the friendship between our peoples will emerge deeper after we win this battle against the virus.”

According to the latest UK government figures on Saturday, the number of people who died in the nation after being infected with the virus reached 1,019.

There are now 17,089 confirmed cases in the UK.

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Featured image: China sends an expert team and a large shipment of medical equipment to the United Kingdom on Saturday to help in the fight against COVID-19. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The Indian government so terribly mishandled its 21-day lockdown demand that Prime Minister Modi was compelled to unprecedentedly ask for forgiveness from the nation’s poor after his policy was responsible for suddenly uprooting millions of migrants across the country who fled their cities of temporary residence to return back home to their villages where they feel more confident of their chances for surviving World War C, but the credible threat remains that some of them might already be infected with COVID-19 and could therefore end up carrying this deadly virus all throughout the country.

Shame on YOU. Ok, one need not be a financial genius or economist to know that in 2008-09 Uncle Sam gave away the store to the failing Wall Street banks and investment corporations. We paid for it, you and me working stiff taxpayers, to the tune of well over one trillion US dollars. What did the so called ‘bailout’ do for we who punch in the hours at work?

What was that original stimulus given to each of us? Perhaps what, a $ 1000 check in the mail?

Meanwhile, the ‘Too big to fail’ devious banks got taken off life support to the tune of billions for each of them. A must see film about the aftereffects of the Sub Prime scandal is Marc Levin’s 2012 documentary ‘Lost on Long Island’. He follows a group of laid off employees from different segments of the Wall Street financial community… with shocking results. That is how many working stiffs suffered by that bubble burst and the ensuing Bush/Cheney and then Obama gift to those sharks. What many in the media like to label as ‘The Middle Class’ revealed itself to be just working stiffs getting continually disappointed and screwed by the two headed monster: Predatory Corporate Capitalism and Good Old Embedded Uncle Sam.

This current pandemic, a worldwide phenomenon, is destroying both people’s lives and the economies throughout the world.

Companies cannot operate, working stiffs get laid off, and once again Uncle comes to the rescue of who? Of course, the super rich who run this corporate capitalism on steroids US empire. The FED recently decided what it did 12 years ago and created money electronically, funneling it right to those Wall Street behemoths and other Big Business. We are talking trillions this time! Oh, the new carrot fed to the mule to make him compliant is of course that $ 1200 one time only check to each citizen… and of course a four month extension of unemployment insurance.

Let’s see, the white collar and even blue collar working stiff who earns, let us say, $ 30k a year, will get much less than the $ 600 a week he or she was used to getting. The higher up you go on that payroll scale the more the gap between one’s actual pay and the unemployment insurance check. Translated: How in the hell can folks make it through this pandemic, which could last more than a few months? Public banking advocate attorney Ellen Brown has been touting what former candidate Andrew Yang was on board with: A Universal Basic Income plan to give each citizen $ 1000 (minimum) per month… not just a ‘one time only’. This UBI as they call it would be over and above one’s current earnings and would have nothing to do with unemployment insurance. Ellen says Uncle Sam has now bailed out the banks… now bail out working stiffs!

This writer leaves it to the slew of progressive economists like someone as knowledgeable as Dr. Jack Rasmus to go over the minute details of this current bailout AKA Stimulus. My concern is to point the finger at the Army of Predatory Capitalists who made out like kings in 2008-09, and are now going to have a repeat performance…on we working stiff’s dime. Go and read Aaron Glantz’s great book Homewreckers to see how those sharks made out from the Bush/Cheney and Obama bailouts. Just one for instance, already mentioned in a previous column of mine (and through my recent interview with Aaron Glantz), is that of our current Treasury Sec. Steven Mnuchin. Glantz reveals how Mnuchin, an alumnus of the giant shark Goldman Sachs, watched how mortgage giant Indy Mac was ready to fold up. He and his fellow investors bought Indy Mac for peanuts, changed the name to One West, and were holding well over 100,000 toxic mortgages… well over! The FDIC, supposed to be our savior, became an indirect co-conspirator with Mnuchin’s company. Why? Well, here is how Glantz said it worked. When his One West company was holding a mortgaged home originally assessed at $ 300K, and now worth only $ 100K, the FDIC allowed One West to sell it for that $ 100k and then gave One West an additional $ 200k. No kidding! When my partners and I owned a failing cafe business in 2008, we had to sell it for 50% less than we put into it. Where was Uncle Sam then to help us?

So, what is the answer to this dilemma? Is it simply going out and voting in November, for whom, Twiddle Dum and Twiddle Dee politicians? Well, getting rid of the Trump crew is always a great motivation, but that is where it ends for we working stiffs. Currently, we cannot even rally in public, due to this pandemic. Yet, once the smoke finally clears a bit, we who labor for this empire need to get out and demand from our elected officials that they are supposed to represent us and not the 1/4 of 1 percent. Education of our young is priority one, along with education of the majority of working stiffs who most likely would not even see through the scam of this financial moment. Sad. Fool me twice, shame on ME!

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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, World News Trust 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 300 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].

The violence of this disease was such that the sick communicated it to the healthy who came near them, just as a fire catches anything dry or oily near it. And it even went further. To speak to or go near the sick brought infection and a common death to the living; and moreover, to touch the clothes or anything else the sick had touched or worn gave the disease to the person touching.  —from Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio‘s The Decameron, an account of the plague, or Black Death, that ravaged the city of Florence and killed between 25% and 50% of Europe’s population.

The Virus Hits Home 

Wednesday, March 25, 2020. I’m sitting in the waiting room of Duke Medical Center’s orthopedic unit in Durham, North Carolina. My wife has fractured her ankle and needs to see a specialist. Otherwise, both of us are in relatively good health given our advanced age (early 70s) and the various ailments we’ve collected over the years. As we entered the facility, we had to answer a series of questions regarding our exposure, or lack thereof, to the novel coronavirus—COVID-19. Thankfully, neither of us are experiencing symptoms (though one can be asymptomatic and still be infected) and, as far as we know, have not been near anyone who has the disease. In the waiting room, the chairs are roughly 5 feet apart in keeping with the latest set of precautions issued by the Center for Disease Control.

Friends and family members have been in contact with us to see how we’re coping with this pandemic and if we need any kind of help. (So far, we don’t.) The airwaves are delivering a nonstop flow of stories about the spread of the disease, the latest fatalities, the danger of social isolation as a result of sheltering at home, and of course the latest pronouncements from our incompetent president concerning his administration’s efforts to catch up to the rest of the world in containing the virus. A recurrent theme in these newscasts is the shortage of ventilators, testing kits, and hospital beds in this country, thanks in large part to a for-profit healthcare system and the federal government’s appalling lack of preparedness—to say nothing of the administration’s cruel disregard for the well-being of our most vulnerable people.

A few days ago, I had a ride with a Lyft driver. Instead of the weather, we talked about the pandemic and the state of panic he observed when food shopping at a local Walmart. People, he said, were afraid of not having enough to eat in the event of a complete breakdown of the economy. He described the carriages overflowing with canned goods, paper products, and foods with a long shelf life. Like millions of others, I’ve done my share of “stocking up” should a national quarantine come to pass but have avoided hoarding supplies. Today, searching for a coffeehouse where I could hunker down and get some writing done, I had to reckon with the fact that most public venues in the state are shuttered until further notice.

Of course, the most tragic part of this pandemic is the growing number of deaths from COVID-19. Surprisingly, 20% of US deaths from the virus have occurred among young adults. As of this writing, the death toll in Italy has surpassed China’s death toll, and the global advance of the virus shows no sign of slowing down. As senior citizens, my wife and I are naturally worried about becoming infected. Would our immune systems rise to the occasion and beat back the rapidly escalating number of pathogens invading our cells, or would we succumb to its malignant spread and end up dying from multi-organ failure in an understaffed hospital with no ventilator to open our airways?

Maximum Pressure

Shortages of life-saving drugs and essential equipment, medical facilities overwhelmed with critical cases, an increasing number of deaths from what should have been preventable causes—these are some of the indications of a healthcare system in crisis. They are also the direct consequences of the sanctions imposed by the US on countries around the world. While we hurry off to grocery stores to stock up on provisions and fear, quite rationally, that our hospitals and clinics might run out of what we would need to stay alive in the event of infection, it bears remembering the thousands of men, women and children who have already died as a result of sanctions and the countless others whose lives are in jeopardy due to the “maximum pressure” policy of economic sanctions.

Currently, the US has levied sanctions against a dozen plus countries, including Venezuela, Iran, Russia, Syria, Lebanon, Nicaragua, North Korea, China, Cuba, Libya, and Yemen. The sanctions are either comprehensive or selective, depending on foreign policy and national security goals. They are anything but a benign alternative to military force. With the possible exception of selective sanctions targeting “terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, [and] those engaged in activities related to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” comprehensive sanctions against sovereign governments are, I would argue, calculated to bring about regime change.

Countries most likely to fall victim to unilateral US sanctions are those whose governments refuse to conform to the dictates of the US hegemon. According to Vijay Prashad, Indian historian and journalist, “The objectives of these [comprehensive] sanctions are broadly all the same—that the United States will suffocate a country’s ability to trade and access finance as long as it does not do what the United States of America asks it to do.” Iran and Venezuela are two contemporary examples in which comprehensive, unilateral sanctions, imposed by the US, are having a devastating impact on those countries’ civilian populations.

The case of Iraq under UN/US sanctions for 13 years may seem like ancient history to some or deemed not germane to contemporary issues of war and peace, and great power rivalry. But it appears the US has learned nothing from the failure of the economic embargo to change Iraq’s government, which was eventually accomplished through direct military intervention. The pervasive suffering of ordinary Iraqis during the embargo was rarely covered by US media. UN reports and anecdotal evidence from eyewitnesses documenting the effects of sanctions among Iraq’s most vulnerable populations—children, the poor, the elderly—were either ignored or downplayed. If Iraq was experiencing unprecedented levels of child and maternal mortality, and a frightening increase in deaths from severe malnutrition and normally preventable water-borne diseases, then surely these were the results of Saddam Hussein’s hoarding of available resources and his government’s incompetence and corruption.

Granted, the collapse of Iraq’s healthcare system can be attributed to a variety of causes, including harmful policies of the regime. But the most destructive cause and the “force multiplier” of sickness, death and poverty was the UN-imposed and US-enforced economic sanctions. While they were in place, hardly a word was spoken in the mainstream media about this humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Iraq. Joy Gordon, Professor of Social Ethics at Chicago’s Loyola University, undertook an exhaustive study of Iraq sanctions and published her results in a book: Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions. She writes:

What I want to explore now is the question of how a human catastrophe of this magnitude came about: what the policies and practices were that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths; decimated the health of several million children; destroyed a whole economy; made a shambles of a nation’s education and health care systems; reduced a sophisticated country, in which much of the population lives as the middle class in a First World country, to the status of Fourth World countries. . . . [These] are the result of measures that compromised the economy as a whole by broadly restricting imports in a society that was heavily dependent on imports; by restricting or undermining oil sales in an economy that was heavily dependent on oil sales for its gross domestic product (GDP); and by undermining the infrastructure—electricity production, telecommunications, transport, and water and sewage treatment—in an advanced industrialized society that was highly dependent on modern infrastructure. (Joy Gordon, Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 87.)

Much the same is happening to Iran and Venezuela, where US sanctions, intended to effect regime change, are exacerbating each country’s economic problems and ongoing humanitarian crisis. In 2017, the Trump administration imposed a new round of financial sanctions on the government of President Nicolas Maduro and PDVSA, Venezuela’s state oil company. A statement issued on August 25, 2017 by the White House press secretary characterized the government as a “dictatorship” and blamed the “regime” for creating a humanitarian crisis:

The Maduro dictatorship continues to deprive the Venezuelan people of food and medicine, imprison the democratically elected opposition, and violently suppress freedom of speech. The regime’s decision to create an illegitimate Constituent Assembly — and most recently to have that body usurp the powers of the democratically elected National Assembly –represents a fundamental break in Venezuela’s legitimate constitutional order.

Venezuela’s economic woes pre-date the imposition of US sanctions and are likely the result of the government’s monetary policies and its dependence on the sale of oil, its major export. According to analysts writing in 2016 for The Atlantic:

Oil exports have been responsible for 95 percent of Venezuela’s exports earnings and nearly half of its government’s income. And in 2015 alone, the revenue from oil exports and of Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA)—the state-owned oil-and-natural-gas company—plummeted by more than 40 percent.

While other countries that depend heavily on oil exports have managed to keep their economies afloat even when the price of oil drops precipitously, President Maduro insisted on paying back foreign creditors despite the country’s limited financial resources and failing to diversify the country’s exports. Before the latest round of US sanctions (in 2017 and again in 2019), the Venezuelan people were already experiencing extreme hardship as inflation rose to 180%, food shortages became widespread, and the economy went into a tailspin. Since 2014, the US has implemented 43 unilateral sanctions against the government of Venezuela even as that country’s economic crisis worsened. These sanctions prevent Venezuela from selling its oil on the global market, in addition to freezing the government’s financial assets in the US and shutting down its access to international banking systems. John Bolton, former US national security adviser, referring to the sanctions imposed on Venezuela in August 2019, clarified the scope of these latest coercive measures:

I want to be clear that this sweeping executive order authorizes the US government to identify, target and impose sanctions on any persons who continue to provide support to the illegitimate regime of Nicolas Maduro.

In response, Michelle Bachelet, the UN human rights chief, feared this new set of unilateral sanctions could have a “severe impact on the human rights of the people of Venezuela” and lacked “sufficient measures to mitigate their impact on the most vulnerable sectors of the population.” Analysts writing in The Lancet, a highly respected, peer-reviewed medical journal, went much further in their condemnation of US sanctions.

The impact of the US sanctions on the Venezuelan population cannot be overstated. More than 300,000 Venezuelans are at risk due to a lack of life-saving medications and treatment. An estimated 80,000 HIV-positive patients have had no anti-retroviral therapy since 2017. Access to medication such as insulin has been curtailed because US banks refuse to handle Venezuelan payments for this. Thousands to millions of people have been without access to dialysis, cancer treatment, or therapy for hypertension and diabetes.

Particular to children has been the delay of vaccination campaigns or lack of access to antirejection medications after solid organ transplants in Argentina. Children with leukemia awaiting bone marrow transplants abroad are now dying. Funds for such health-assistance programs come from the PDVSA state oil company. Those funds are now frozen.

Food imports dropped by 78% in 2018 compared to 2013. The very serious threat to health and harm to human life caused by these US sanctions are thought to have contributed to an excess of 40,000 deaths in 2017–18 alone.

The pursuit of regime change by way of comprehensive economic sanctions amounts to collective punishment of the civilian population, which is unequivocally prohibited under Article 33 of the Geneva Convention: “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.” In addition to violating both international and federal US law, the sanctions “fit the definition of genocide” in so far as they are intended to “destroy a people, in part or in whole.”

One of the thousands of victims of US sanctions in Venezuela was a seven-year-old boy awaiting a bone marrow transplant to treat his chronic lymphoblastic leukemia. The cost of this expensive procedure was to be handled through a financial agreement between Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, and an Argentinian-Italian network of hospitals. But the agreement was rendered null and void as a result of the sanctions, which block any kind of financial transactions with the government of Venezuela. As a witness to the effects of sanctions on the people of Iraq, I visited a number of pediatric oncology wards in public hospitals in several major cities, including Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra. The children in these wards, for the most part, were receiving palliative care. The doctors were not able to administer a complete chemotherapy regimen since many of the necessary drugs were not available. And they were not available because the US- and British-dominated UN Sanctions Committee in New York placed holds on a range of humanitarian supplies including chemotherapy drugs. I remember all too clearly one Iraqi doctor looking around the room at the children under his care and saying to me, “Mr. George, all of them are going to die.”

The “Most Severe” Economic Sanctions

On May 8, 2018, during a White House address, President Trump announced that the US would pull out of the long-term deal the Obama administration had successfully negotiated with Iran in 2015 to curb its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. The deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), involved Iran and a consortium of world powers: the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany, collectively known as the P5+1. During his address, Trump accused Iran of being the leading state sponsor of terror and of fueling conflicts throughout the Middle East by supporting so-called “terrorist proxies,” including Hezbollah and Hamas. The he attacked the nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1:

At the heart of the Iran deal was a giant fiction that a murderous regime desired only a peaceful nuclear energy program. . . . The fact is this was a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made. It didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will. . . . The agreement was so poorly negotiated that even if Iran fully complies, the regime can still be on the verge of a nuclear breakout in just a short period of time. The deal’s sunset provisions are totally unacceptable. If I allowed this deal to stand, there would soon be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Everyone would want their weapons ready by the time Iran had theirs. . . . it is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement. The Iran deal is defective at its core.  If we do nothing, we know exactly what will happen. . . the world’s leading state sponsor of terror will be on the cusp of acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapons.

Trump also announced that he would shortly authorize the re-imposition of sanctions on Iran: “We will be instituting the highest level of economic sanctions. Any nation that helps Iran in its quest for nuclear weapons could also be strongly sanctioned by the United States.” Trump has referred to the sanctions on Iran as “the most severe ever imposed on a country.” They are certainly the most severe ever imposed on Iran. The decade-long sanctions on Iraq were, arguably, far more devastating and left hundreds of thousands of deaths in their wake. Nevertheless, the sanctions on Iran have provoked a humanitarian crisis comparable to what the people of Venezuela are enduring. In both cases, the US government bears the lion’s share of responsibility for this shared suffering.

It’s worth noting that Trump’s decision to trash the agreement with Iran has been widely criticized. The day after Trump’s announcement, Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco, had this to say:

The Iran pact is supported by virtually every country in the world. The vast majority of those in the U.S. national security establishment, current and retired, have supported it, as have the vast majority of nuclear scientists and policy experts. Even within Israel, there is strong support among intelligence and defense officials.

Responding to the arguments Trump put forth for pulling out of the deal, Zunes noted that there is no evidence that Iran was “cheating” by not living up to the terms of the agreement. Moreover, to ensure compliance, Iran had been subjected to “one of the most rigorous inspection regimes in history.” The slightest violation on Iran’s part would have triggered a return of the sanctions the deal had relaxed. Trump was right about one thing. It was a one-sided deal with the US holding all the cards. The sanctions returned, not because of Iran’s failure to abide by the terms of the pact but in deference to Washington hardliners, including Donald Trump, who are determined to prevent any challenge to US hegemony in the Middle East. Iran, a strong, regional power, is perceived as a threat mainly because it challenges US geostrategic ambitions in that part of the world. It follows that this “threat” must be neutralized, and coercive, comprehensive economic sanctions is the preferred instrument, or weapon, for getting the job done. The cost to the Iranian people is simply not factored into Washington’s power politics. Discounting ethical or moral considerations, much less simple humanity, the US will do whatever it takes to keep the world in its back pocket, even if this means destroying a country’s economy and impoverishing its people in the process.

Earlier this year, during a visit to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed his approval for the sanctions and praised them for “draining [Iran’s] capacity to conduct strategic activity in the region and destabilize the Middle East. They’re having to make harder choices today. It will take time . . . . There remains work to do.” It appears that the sanctions have already accomplished a great deal. All social and economic indicators paint a uniformly grim picture of a society on the verge of total collapse. As in Venezuela, the US “maximum pressure” sanctions regime is eating up the life savings of people; causing businesses to close their doors; driving up the rate of inflation for foodstuffs to 74%; increasing housing costs by more than 95% in the country’s largest cities; and decimating the entire healthcare system. Because of the perilous gap between wages and the escalating cost of living, there has been a “catastrophic drop in living standards” with a 30% increase in the number of people who fallen into the category of “absolute poverty.” These are people surviving on $1.08 or less per day.

In addition to the rising cost of living, rates of unemployment, divorce, suicide, crime, and substance abuse are also rising as the society implodes under the unrelenting pressure of sanctions and the impoverishment they cause. According to a statement issued by Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC):

The grievous harm sanctions cause the Iranian people cannot be overstated. As the economy and unemployment levels make daily life unbearable for millions of Iranians, families are choked off from life-saving medicines and starved of critical infrastructure.

The sanctions that have hit Iran the hardest are those impacting the energy, shipping, and financialindustries. In response, oil exports have plummeted, leading to a dearth of petrodollars for re-investing in the country’s infrastructure. At the same time, foreign investment is practically non-existent. To make matters worse, the sanctions prevent US companies from trading with Iran and penalize foreign companies or countries that conduct financial transactions with Iran. Trump’s stated goal is to reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero.

Under the terms of the sanctions, medicine, medical supplies, and other humanitarian supplies are exempted. However, since financial transactions with Iran are in principal banned, the country is unable to pay for imported supplies. In addition, its major source of revenue, oil exports, has dried up. As a result, medicine and medical supplies are in effect sanctioned and increasingly unavailable, and this has led to a predictable healthcare crisis. Ahmad Jalalpour, an Iranian journalist writing for The Nation, interviewed doctors about their daily struggle to cope with dwindling supplies of equipment and drugs:

Doctors in Iran’s hospitals tell countless horror stories about making do with fewer drugs, fewer spare parts for their medical equipment, and a much larger pool of people with serious medical conditions. ‘It really seems like I’m in a field hospital in a war zone at times,’ said a surgeon working in a midsize town in southwestern Iran. ‘We have daily quotas of how much anesthesia we can administer each day. At the same time, there are days when you just can’t turn away many patients. So what do you do? You become creative and do a lot of praying.’ According to this surgeon, it is not unusual at his hospital for an ob-gyn to perform a C-section delivery with localized anesthesia.

Year of the Plagues

The COVID-19 pandemic has compounded the healthcare crisis in Iran where the number of deaths from the virus continues to rise. US sanctions, which have already crippled Iran’s healthcare system, have made it all but impossible for medical professionals in Iran to treat the growing number of confirmed cases. Sarah Lazare, web editor of In These Times, reported on the impact of sanctions on Iran’s ability to deal with the pandemic. In her article for Jacobin online magazine, she writes:

On March 12, Iran’s Health Ministry reported dire shortages of key supplies, including syringe and infusion pumps. . . . several companies were reluctant to sell testing kits to Iran over concerns about violating a complex web of sanctions, until the World Health Organization (WHO) stepped in and instructed them to. . . .Relief International, one of the few humanitarian organizations that has been bringing medical supplies into Iran, issued a stark warning nearly three weeks ago: ‘There is an extreme shortage of these supplies in-country, where stock is often low due to the steep price of medicines and medical equipment—a consequence of US sanctions.’

The doctors, nurses, and pharmacists on the front lines of the crisis have been sounding the alarm about the dire circumstances for days. ‘Medical professionals in Iran are seeing the early signs of shortages,’ warned Esfandyar Batmanghelidj and Abbas Kebriaeezadeh (the latter is a pharmacology professor at Tehran University of Medical Sciences) in a March 3 article. ‘They are calling the Iranian vendors of respiratory masks, surgical gowns, and ventilators only to hear that the goods are out of stock. They are struggling to get antiviral medication even to those patients exhibiting the most acute symptoms.’

Last year, in response to a question from Roxana Saberi of CBS about the effects of the sanctions, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo answered: “Things are much worse for the Iranian people, and we’re convinced that will lead the Iranian people to rise up and change the behavior of the regime.” Despite the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Iran, the Trump administration has warned the European Union not to violate the sanctions by establishing an alternative way for Iran to pay for medical supplies.

If ever there were an opportunity for people to recognize each other’s humanity and cast aside their mutual fears and antagonisms, now is that opportunity when everyone is facing the same life-threatening disease. We share one fate, one Earth, one life in one unimaginably intricate web of needs and aspirations. The Buddhists call this mutuality and interdependence Indra’s net—a metaphor for all that is. (In ancient Vedic scripture, Indra was considered the greatest of deities.) The ends of this metaphorical net stretch to infinity in every direction, and at the intersection of each strand, there rests a perfect jewel in whose many facets every other jewel is reflected. To flatten the curve of the coronavirus’s spread, in my view, a coordinated, global effort is necessary in which everyone’s life is seen as precious and worthy of the highest standards of healthcare. Like the jewels in Indra’s net, when one of us falls ill and needs emergency care, we all suffer when there is no testing kit available or when ventilators and respirators are not in stock. The deadly effects of US sanctions, like the coronavirus, are capable of infecting entire societies, causing otherwise preventable deaths, spreading disease, eroding vital civilian infrastructure, and showing the world once more that one of this country’s principal exports is massive human suffering, most notably among defenseless populations.

To flatten this curve means identifying with the victims of US sanctions, specifically, and US foreign policy more generally. It means raising our voices, waking up our compatriots to the impact of sanctions on people in Iran and Venezuela (two of the many countries currently under sanctions), and working in solidarity with organizations opposed to collective punishment for the purpose of regime change. It also means taking a principled stand against the Administration and members of Congress who support the imposition of sanctions, while supporting representatives opposed to them.

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George Capaccio is a writer and activist who has recently relocated to Durham, North Carolina. During the years of US- and UK-enforced sanctions against Iraq, he traveled there numerous times, bringing in banned items, befriending families in Baghdad, and deepening his understanding of how the sanctions were impacting civilians. His email is [email protected] He welcomes comments and invites readers to visit his website: www.georgecapaccio.com

The Western mass media is extremely busy frightening its own citizens and the entire world with statements like:

“A leaked government document has suggested up to 500,000 people could die from coronavirus if the disease is able to infect up to 80 per cent of the country.”

That’s what The Independent wrote on 26 February 2020. And that horrifying number of the fatalities ‘could occur’ according to the ‘documents’ in the United Kingdom.

It all feels bizarre. As if the Western regime were preparing its citizens and the world ‘for the most awful scenario.’

As if there were no solution to this dire global crisis.

“Chinese Virus”, says the U.S. President Donald Trump. He pronounces it with spite, and naturally, China feels deeply insulted. Some citizens and the government officials had enough of the continuous, racist abuses, and they are openly protesting.

Well, first of all, do we even really know where the virus has originated from? In Wuhan? But how did it get to Wuhan, and what triggered the epidemy? We don’t know. Nobody really knows.

Without pointing fingers or drawing conclusions, what we do know is that the U.S. has been engaged in various chemical and biological warfare, in several parts of the world, including Latin America. It also does all it can to provoke and to even damage the People’s Republic of China: psychologically, politically, economically and, perhaps, physically.

These are facts. No need to draw conclusions, yet.

In the meantime, China is helping more than 80 countries worldwide to combat the epidemy.

The White House obviously does not like what China is doing. It is petrified that the most obvious facts would be detected by the people in the United States, in Europe and the rest of the Planet: that the North America failed, that the European Union failed, and that most of the allies of the West failed, squarely and patently.

And the more China is doing to save the humanity, the more punches it is receiving. And not only China, but also Cuba, and several other socialist nations, which are defending their people instead of business interests.

On 21 March 2020, The Daily Beast wrote in its report ‘White House Pushes U.S. Officials to Criticize China For Coronavirus ‘Cover-Up’:

“As the number of coronavirus cases continues to grow at a rapid pace in the U.S., the White House is launching a communications plan across multiple federal agencies that focuses on accusing Beijing of orchestrating a “cover-up” and creating a global pandemic, according to two U.S. officials and a government cable obtained by The Daily Beast.”

And that’s not all. The report continued:

“The cable was disseminated to officials at a time when the administration is engrossed in a communications battle around how to disseminate the flow of crucial health information to the American public while at the same time deflecting criticism that the White House was unprepared for the pandemic and that President Trump is at odds with members of his coronavirus task force.”

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On 20 March 2020, RT wrote:

‘Washington has passed off blame to Beijing for its own failures in addressing the Covid-19 outbreak, China’s Foreign Ministry said, hitting back at the ‘Chinese virus’ rhetoric with the ironic term ‘Trumpandemic.’

“Some people in the United States attempt to stigmatize China’s fight against the epidemic and shirk its responsibility to China,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang told reporters on Friday, referring to the finger-pointing adopted by President Trump and other top officials (after weeks of US media outlets calling it the ‘Chinese’ and ‘Wuhan’ virus).

This practice ignores the huge sacrifices made by the Chinese people to safeguard human health and safety, and denigrates China’s major public health security contributions.”

The bottom-line is clear: China defeated the coronavirus in an incredibly short time. It shared its experience, then began helping many countries, including those in the West.

Chinese airplanes and even trains packed with equipment and medical staff are helping to save lives on all continents, in some 80+ countries. Russia is doing its best, too, and so is Cuba.

What is difficult to comprehend is why the Western countries refused to follow Chinese example? Approach of London, Washington and Rome is sporadic, schizophrenic, deadly.

Compared to what the West is doing now to its people, China, even at the height of the virus outbreak, was using a relatively mild approach. Most of the major Chinese cities were never fully locked-down. While the battle of COVID-19 was raging, China continued to function. Every step of Beijing was logical and determined. Millions of lives were spared as a result.

So, why, despite of extreme measures applied, are hundreds of Italians dying every day, as well as hundreds of other Europeans and North Americans?

Italy is one of the richest countries on Earth.

Is it just a sloppiness of the Western medical system? Is it simply a bad planning? Or is it something much, much more sinister?

We will investigate, analyze, and find out soon.

But whatever it is, it is damaging the world, already ruining, directly and indirectly, millions of lives, perhaps irreversibly.

President Trump may be insulting those brave countries which are defending their citizens, as well as the countries that are fighting for the survival of men, women and children, regardless of their age, race and nationality. But it is China, Russia and Cuba, which are now clearing the mess created by Washington, Rome, Paris and London. The world is finally paying attention! And it is Beijing, Moscow and other capitals, which are now asking questions!

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A shorter version of this article was first published by China Daily Hong Kong.

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Five of his latest books are “China Belt and Road Initiative”,“China and Ecological Civilization”with John B. Cobb, Jr., “Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism”, a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and Latin America, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website, his Twitter and his Patreon. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Morning Star

“For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ.”   – Hamlet

On May 1, 1962, President John Kennedy was meeting in the Oval Office with a group of Quakers who were urging him to do more for peace and disarmament.  As he kept explaining the great political opposition he was facing within his own government, they kept urging him to do more.  He listened very closely to their words and finally said, “You believe in redemption don’t you.”  By the next spring he had turned decisively toward the peacemaking the Quakers had urged upon him, resulting in his murder in the fall by treacherous government forces, led by the CIA, that opposed him all along.

Now that Dylan has burst forth from behind his many masks and gifted the world with his incandescent new song about the assassination, with a title taken from Hamlet, from the mouth of the ghost of the dead King of Denmark –“ Murder Most Foul “– we have entered a new day in an odd way.  For those who have wondered over the years if Dylan had “sold out,” here is their answer. For those who have wondered if he would go to his grave reciting the words of T.S. Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock – “I am no Prince Hamlet nor was meant to be” – here is Hamlet’s booming response. Not only does this song lay bare the truth of the most foundational event in modern American history, but it does so in such a powerfully poetic way and at such an opportune time that it should redeem Dylan in the eyes of those who ever doubted him.

I say “should,” but while the song’s release has garnered massive publicity from the mainstream media, it hasn’t taken long for that media to bury the truth of his words about the assassination under a spectacle of verbiage meant to damn with faint praise.  As the media in a celebrity culture of the spectacle tend to do, the emphasis on the song’s pop cultural references is their focus, with platitudes about the assassination and “conspiracy theories,” as well as various shameful and gratuitous digs at Dylan for being weird, obsessed, or old.  As the song says, “they killed him once and they killed him twice,” so now they can kill him a third time, and then a fourth ad infinitum.  And now the messenger of the very bad news must be dispatched along with the dead president.

The media like their Hamlets impotent and enervated, but Dylan has come out roaring like a bull intent on avenging his dead president.

He has the poet’s touch, of course, a hyperbolic sense of the fantastic that draws you into his magical web in the pursuit of deeper truth.  In many ways he’s like the Latin American magical realist writers who move from fact to dream to the fantastic in a puff of wind.

Dylan is our Emerson.  His artistic philosophy has always been about movement in space and time through song.  Always moving, always restless, always seeking a way back home through song, even when, or perhaps because, there are no directions.  “An artist has got to be careful never to arrive at a place where he thinks he’s at somewhere,” he’s said.  “You always have to realize that you are constantly in a state of becoming and as long as you can stay in that realm, you’ll be alright.”

Sounds like living, right.

Sounds like Emerson, also.  “Life only avails, not the having lived.  Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim.  Thus one fact the world hates, that the soul becomes.”

“Murder Most Foul” is Dylan’s soul becoming. 

“A song is like a dream, and you try to make it come true.  They’re like strange countries that you have to enter.  You can write a song anywhere …. It helps to be moving.  Sometimes people who have the greatest talent for writing songs never write any because they are not moving,” he wrote in Chronicles. 

“Murder Most Foul” is a moving song in every sense of the word – a trip to truth.

Dylan has long been accused of abandoning his youthful idealism and protest music.  I think this is a bum rap.  He was never a protester, though his songs became anthems of the civil rights and anti-war movements.  There is no doubt that those songs were inspirational and gave people hope to carry on the good fight.  But in turning in a more oblique and circumspect musical direction, following his need to change as the spirit of inspiration moved him, Dylan’s songs came to inspire in a new way. You could always tell his sympathies lay with the oppressed and downtrodden, but for decades he didn’t shout it, with perhaps the one exception being the powerful, hard-hitting, and mesmeric Hurricane in 1975.  With that one he stepped into the ring to brawl.

But for the most part over the years, a listener has had to catch his drift. If you go to the music, and dip into his various stylistic changes over the decades, however, you will find a consistency of themes.  He deals with essentials like all great poets.  Nothing is excluded.  His work is paradoxical.  Yes, he’s been singing about death since twelve, but it has always been countered by life and rebirth.  There is joy and sadness; faith and doubt; happiness and suffering; injustice and justice; romance and its discontents; despair and hope.  His music possesses a bit of a Taoist quality mixed with a Biblical sensibility conveyed by a hopelessly romantic American.  He has fused his themes into an incantatory delivery that casts a moving spell of hope upon the listener.  He is nothing if not a spiritual spell-binder; similar in many ways to that other quintessential American – the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, whose best work was a poetic quest for an inspired salvific poetry.

While speaking the unspeakable truth about President John Kennedy’s murder might seem hopeless, it is actually a sign of great hope.  For our only hope is in telling the truth, which Bob has done.

This is art, not theory, and art of a special kind since Dylan is an artist at war with his art.  His songs demand that the listener’s mind and spirit be moving as the spirit of creative inspiration moved Dylan.  A close listening will force one to jump from line to line, verse to verse – to shoot the gulf – since there are no bridges to cross, no connecting links.  The sound carries you over and keeps you moving forward. If you’re not moving, you’ll miss the meaning.

I have no wish to explicate the poet’s brilliant work.  It speaks for itself.  It says far more than it actually says about a system rotten to the core, a country where everything went wrong since “The day the killers blew out the brains of the king/Thousands were watching, no one saw a thing.”

If you listen to Dylan’s piercing voice and follow the lyrics closely, you might be startled to be told, not from someone who can be dismissed as some sort of disgruntled “conspiracy nut,” but by the most famous musician in the world, that there was a government conspiracy to kill JFK, that Oswald didn’t do it, and that the killers then went for the president’s brothers.

Your brothers are comin’, there’ll be hell to pay

Brothers? What brothers? What’s this about hell?

Tell them, “We’re waiting, keep coming,” we’ll get them as well

This is an in-your-face tale, set to music with a barely tinkling piano, a violin, and a soupçon of percussion, whose lightest words, as Hamlet’s father’s ghost said to him:

Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,

Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,

Thy knotty and combinèd locks to part,

And each particular hair to stand on end

Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.

“Murder Most Foul” truly startles.  It is a redemptive song.  Dylan holds the mirror up for us. He unlocks the door to the painful and sickening truth.  He shoves the listener in, and, as he writes in Chronicles, “your head has to go into a different place.  Sometimes it takes a certain somebody to make you realize it.”

Bob is our certain somebody. In these dark times he has offered us his voice.

You believe in redemption, don’t you?

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Behind the Curtain.

Distinguished author and sociologist Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. Visit the author’s website here.

Featured image is from OffGuardian

As draconian lockdowns, punitive regimes and surveillance become the norm of the coronavirus world, Sweden has treaded more softly in the field.  This is certainly in contrast to its Scandinavian cousins, Denmark and Norway.  The rudiments of a life uninterrupted generally remain in place. Cafes, restaurants and shops, for the most part, remain open and stocked.  As do gyms and cinemas.  Vibrant after-ski parties persist, much to the bemused horror of those across the border. 

Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, embracing the principle of voluntariness over coercion, has issued warnings to citizens to keep travel down to a minimum, avoiding anything non-essential.  The traditional age group – those over 70 – have been told to mind their movements and stay at home.  In the prime minister’s words during a televised speech,

“Us adults need to be exactly that: adults.  Not spread panic or rumours.  No one is alone in this crisis, but each person carries a heavy responsibility.”

Despite all of this, Sweden’s authorities show that they do have a foot on the brake, albeit one applied with slow motion caution.  Gatherings used to be limited to 500 – that confidently embraced number has now been reduced to 50, a measure that will be policed.  Bars can only provide table service.  Colleges and universities have moved to a virtual format in line with recommendations issued on March 18. 

But the Public Health Agency exerts a powerful influence, insisting that a lockdown is simply unwarranted.  Local sports tournaments and matches required no cancellations – exercise and sports were healthy initiatives.  Organisers of events and seminars were responsible for conducting a risk assessment and providing information “about good hand hygiene, and access to hand washing facilities for all participants.”

The focus, rather, is on individual initiative, minimising instances of transmission while herd immunity builds up, or a vaccine is found.  If over 70, avoid using public transport, shopping in supermarkets, visiting areas of congregation. 

“Instead, ask friends, family or neighbours to do your shopping etc.” Work from home, if you can.  “This is to decrease the speed of transmission and the number of people needing hospital care.”

Central to such recommendations is a modelling game.  As with all such games, risks abound.  The go-easy approach has certainly caused little alarm in the country; if anything, it has given the Social Democrats a hearty boost.  The wisdom of authorities is generally taken for granted, suggesting the customary, even awesome power of the Swedish civil service.  The eggheads remain in charge. 

The Swedish example shows a differing approach to measurement, which invariably involves looking at a crystal ball of sorts.  Paul Franks and Peter Nilsson, both epidemiologists based at Lund University, suggest that the government is gambling on simulations made by the public health authorities on “surge requirements”. “From these simulations, it is clear that the Swedish government anticipates far few hospitalisations per 100,000 of the population than predicted in other countries, including Norway, Denmark and the UK.”

The observations by Franks and Nilsson are filled with characteristic scientific caution.  Which modelling do you go for?  Using British variants suggests a higher death toll for Sweden, though the authorities seem to be holding to the point that most infected people will have no symptoms, leaving one in five requiring a stint in hospital.  And Britain is not Sweden. 

We are left with the treacherous nature of public health modelling.  COVID-19 prediction models, for instance, tend to rely on the examples in China and Italy, furthering upon data gathered from previous Ebola outbreaks, SARS and MERS.  This brings the old question of demography into play, and the need to gather evidence of community transmission (so far, material on this is sketchy in Sweden).  An inescapable fact is that Sweden has one major metropolitan area, so any accurate modelling would require material specific to that.  Ways of interaction between generations would also have to be considered.  In Sweden, less intergenerational conduct would lessen the risk to the elderly.  More than half of Sweden’s households consist of one person, another telling factor.

The data does not tend to focus on hospital admissions and fatalities, a point stressed by Franks and Nilsson.  “This latter can be used to be a ‘poor man’s estimate’ of community transmission, providing approximately how many fatalities occur among those infected.”  The accuracy of this is somewhat compromised by the two-week period between diagnosis and the mortality, a “very blunt instrument” indeed. 

The numbers of COVID-19 cases in Sweden have not been negligible.  From the first recorded case on February 4, 2020, the total, as of March 30, 2020, stands at 4,028.  Deaths come in at 146, though a disproportionate number come from a Somali community located in less commodious quarters with extended families. 

Despite the highest death toll of the Nordic countries, state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell is supremely confident that the “strategy” has worked well, with Sweden showing a relatively flat curve of infection relative to Italy and Spain.  “We want to slow down the epidemic until Sweden experiences a sort of peak, and if the peak is not too dramatic we can continue.”    

A large number of citizens, bearing their heavy responsibility, have chosen to avoid public transport – Storstockholms Lokaltrafik claims a fall of 50 percent in the number of commuters.  Schools might be open, but many parents are keeping their children at home.  Remote and work-from-home options have been embraced by companies with gusto. 

The warning calls, while not shrill, are in evidence.  An epidemiological battle is taking shape, though it remains one dominated by parrying disagreements of expertise.  Britain’s chief scientific advisor Sir Patrick Vallance has much praise for the approach, having made similar suggestions to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the “herd immunity” phase of discussions.  In contrast, a petition featuring over 2,000 doctors, scientists and academics, which boast among its numbers the chairman of the Nobel Foundation, Prof Carl-Henrik Heldin, has called for more aggressive measures. 

“It is risky to leave it to people to decide what to do without any restrictions,” opines a paternalistic Joacim Rocklöv, an epidemiologist based at Umeå University.  “As can be seen from other countries this is a serious disease, and Sweden is no different than other countries.” 

Virologist Cecilia Söderberg-Nauclér, based at the Karolinska Institute, has not held back in her views, claiming with some punchiness that the government has committed all the big no-nos in responding to a pandemic.  “We’re not testing enough, we’re not tracking, we’re not isolating enough – we have let the virus loose.”  In so doing, Sweden had been placed on the path to catastrophe.  To avoid a lockdown, a mass-testing approach as adopted by South Korea would have to be adopted.  Time will tell which one stacks 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 from caglecartoons.com

South Korea has accomplished a remarkable success in its fight against fearful virus COVID-19 and it is now the object of global curiosity, envy and even admiration.

More than 100 countries faced with rapid waves of virus attack are seeking for Korea’s help and cooperation. Even the mighty president of the U.S. Donald Trump has phoned on March 24 asking President Moon Jae-in‘s help.

South Korea’s president gladly agreed to send medical equipments needed for the fight against the virus in the country of Uncle Sam.

This paper has four sections. In the first section, I examine the nature of the Korean model’s success, while, in the second section, I discuss the principal factors responsible for its success. In the third section, I try to see if there is any basic philosophy in the model.  Finally, in the fourth section, I am asking myself if we have learned anything from the crisis.

How Successful? 

The results of the anti-virus war can be measured in terms of tracking, the number of tests, the ratio of healing, the number of infected and the rate of mortality.

One of the most difficult parts of the whole process of war against the virus is the tracking. Once one finds the infected person through the test, one has to find all the persons who had first round contact with the original person.

There are, let us say 10 persons. Now, some of these 10 persons may have had the contact with some other people. Here, we have the second round contact and the chain of contact goes on and the virus spreads further.

Korea has done a superb job of tracking owing to the use of cell phones and the collaboration of the general public. This process may involve human right issues, but the government requires the target person’s consent. Furthermore, the government guarantees the confidentiality of personal information.

Korea has so far conducted 330,000 tests, 15,000 per day. Through these tests, as of March 26, about 9,000 have been identified as being infected. Of this number, about 50%, that is, 4,500 persons have been cured.

Of 9,000 infected, 158 lost lives as of March 26 yielding the mortality rate of 1.8%. It is rather low compared to other countries’ mortality rates. But, it is more than possible that Korea’s mortality could increase.

These impressive results were possible because of the Korea’s ability to rapidly stabilize the virus propagation.

On February 19, the daily number of the infected was 39 and it rose rapidly to 610 on March 2nd to fall to 47 on March 26.

So, 12 days were needed to reach the peak of the infection curve and 24 days to hit the near bottom of the curve.

In short, Korea was able to stabilize the virus outbreak in 36 days.

However, now, Korea has to deal with the infected persons coming from the U.S. and other foreign countries.

There is another problem. Many protestant churches are holding Sunday services despite the government’s warning; this increases the danger of community transmission of the virus.

The amazing thing is that Korea has done it without a general lockdown of the society. Only the Taegu City area had partial lockdown for a few weeks.  Even here, the government did not order the lockdown; it was decided by the citizens themselves.

The rest of the country was allowed to lead a normal life, although the streets and shops were less crowded than usual as the result of people’s voluntary isolating to avoid infection.

It is interesting to point out that Korea has done it despite   politically motivated obstruction by the conservative party (the Liberty Korea Party: LKP) in collaboration with the cult sect, Shincheonji.

They tried to discredit Moon Jae-in government’s anti-virus war efforts in order to increase their chance of winning the general election of April 15.

The Shincheonji has been the primary factor of the exponential explosion of the infected. At times, almost 70 % of the total number of the infected persons was composed of Shincheonji members. And, the cult sect did not fully cooperate with the government in identifying and locating the possible infected.

Another amazing thing about the Korean model is that despite such difficulties, Korea has achieved to stop the wave of the virus without panic or hoarding of toilet papers, foods and other goods of necessity. The super markets have been relatively well stocked throughout the trial time.

Why Successful? 

The success of the Korean model may be attributable to the following factors: preparedness, apolitical approach, reliance on science and technology, use of masks, quality of leadership and citizens’ voluntary participation.

• Preparedness

During the crisis of SARS of 2002-2003, Korea was not well prepared to fight the virus. Fortunately, as soon as the progressive government of Rho Moo-hyun came along in 2003, the government prepared a complete manual of fighting virus.

However, when the conservative government took over the power in 2008 by Lee Myong-bak and Park Geun-hye in 2013, the manual was thrown away, simply because it had been prepared by a progressive government.

Fortunately, as soon as the progressive government of Moon Jae-in took over the power in 2017, the manual was restored and much improved. This has made Korea well prepared for its fight against the COVID-19.

• Apolitical Approach

In general, one of the difficulties often encountered during the public health crisis is the collusion between business and politics. The collusion invites not only the misallocation of resources needed for the fight against the virus but also it delays the progression of the fight.

It is more than possible that this difficulty is being experienced by many countries, even developed countries.

The collusion hampers the anti-virus fight. For example, if the government decides to give the contract of mask production to an incompetent producer who is close to politicians in power, the supplied masks could be of poor quality or the supply of masks could be delayed.

The infected people need hospital care. If the government designates, for the care of the infected, one particular hospital because of bribes, the propagation of the virus could be accelerated.

In many cases, the government does not take anti-virus measures in time- and loses the golden time- because of the pressure coming from large corporations which are important source of political funding and bribes; these corporations are afraid of losing sales and profit which could result from the government’s anti-virus measures.

Thus, politically motivated government decisions, in time of virus crisis, may surely aggravate the crisis and delay the solution.

Right from the beginning of the virus crisis, Moon Jae-in’s government took apolitical approach to the crisis. This approach was an interesting contrast to the behaviour of the conservative party, LKP.

The solution of the MERS (2015) crisis was delayed because of the   government-Chaebols collusion.

There were many victims of the MERS virus; they had to be hospitalized. Samsung Hospital was and is one of the major hospitals in Korea. Unfortunately, because of this hospital’s poor virus control, as many as 91 individuals were infected in the hospital.

But, the government did not announce this fact, because of the hospital’s possible demand not to report it. If the government announced this fact, Samsung Hospital would have lost a large number of usual patients and profit.

Because of this political and financial collusion of the conservative government with the Samsung Group, the MERS crisis lasted longer and its impact was devastating more than necessary.

The conservative party, currently the chief opposition party, exploits, once again, the virus crisis for its political purpose.

It has spread all sorts of fabricated facts and lies to discredit, in collaboration of the cult, Shincheonji, the government efforts to stop the invasion of the virus.

Fortunately, the government of Moon Jae-in was above politics; it was concerned only with saving the lives of the people.

• Reliance on Science and Technology

The apolitical approach to the fight against the virus allowed Korea to appeal to science and technology.

A reputed Korean expert in the area of virus-related diseases insisted on the importance of humility in front of science, because the virus listens only to science; there is no place for anti-virus measures which are for political gains or business profit.

Korea has been humble in front of the science and technology. The sustained scientific and technological research activities by universities, government-run laboratories and private technology firms have made a major contribution to the fight against the COVID-19.

In particular, Segene Inc.,Gencurix, GeneMatrix, SolGent Co. and iLamp have discovered the composition of the virus by identifying the genes. The products of these firms have made it possible to produce massively and rapidly efficient test kits. In particular, iLamp’s product “Novel COV19 Detection kit” is popular and it allowed a complete test in 20 minutes.

Moreover, further research has produced “the drive-through test system” and “the booth-based test device.” As a result, Korea could test, in safety, as many as 15,000 individuals a day; up to now, Korea has tested 330,000 individuals.

There is another role played by technology. Korea is one of the most advanced digitalized countries. The digitalization of commerce has allowed the rapid distribution of necessity goods and services through e-commerce. This is one of the factors of the relative absence of hoarding of goods and the prevention of the panic.

• Use of Masks

In the West including Canada and the U.S. the general public is discouraged – even forced – not to wear masks. The government insists that only the people working for the public health should wear them.

This policy of the government can be explained by two possible reasons. One is the belief that the masks cannot protect us from being infected. The other is the shortage of the supply of masks.

According to experts in Asia, the masks are good devices of protection not only from the air born virus but also the virus coming from human touch.

There are those who seem to believe that the Asians wear masks because of the “culture.” It is hard to believe that there can be a culture in which people love to suffer by wearing the mask. This is sheer nonsense to relate mask wearing to culture.

The plausible reason for asking Canadian not to wear masks should be the shortage of its supply. Here again, it is not convincing, for Canada’s industrial capacity can solve the problem.

Do not forget, the medical team wear masks, because the masks do protect them. If so, they protect the general public, too.

Incidentally, it may be added that the popular use of masks in Korea allowed the continuous operation of factories, restaurants, shopping centers and a host of other businesses.

• Leadership

The most important determinant factor of the success of the Korean model is, perhaps, the leadership of the government and strong public faith in Moon Jae-in. This leadership has been demonstrated in various collective activities.

First of all, the quality of human resources of the government is pretty high and they are well motivated. Most of the key positions in the government are filled with people who have two characteristics.

Most of them are the anti-corruption generation who fought against the corrupted conservative policies and at the same time, they are highly qualified professionally and motivated for their functions.

In other words, under Moon’s government, we rarely see those who are nominated for bribes or connections.

Second, the present government is free from political debt to the corrupted establishment. This has allowed the government to focus on the job of saving lives without being forced to protect vested interests.

Third, President Moon is not only respected but also loved by the great majority of the people. His entire career has been devoted to the fight for the poor and the weak. This has led the people to have confidence in the information provided by the government policy makers. Such confidence has made people to follow faithfully the government instructions.

Fourth, the confidence in the leadership has facilitated the communication between the government and the people.

In Korea, there is a system in which, if more than 200,000 persons request something to the government, the Blue House (Korean White House) must react.

For instance, more than 2,000,000 people have requested the abolition of the cult Shincheonji. This has allowed Seoul City to take harsh punitive measures against the cult sect. On the 25th of March, the cult  did lose its legal status.

• Character of Ordinary Koreans

One of the most important reasons for the success of the Korean model is the character of the ordinary Koreans.

For centuries, they have been exploited and mistreated by the ruling class, called “Yang-ban.” This has created a situation where the ordinary people had to find the problem solutions themselves without relying on the ruling class.

They organized the “Dong-hak:東學” (Eastern Studies) and revolted against the corrupted officials during the latter half of the 19th century and succeeded in abolishing the feudal “Yang-ban” system; they rose against the Japanese colonial government in 1919; they fought against the corruption of the conservative governments’ police and military dictatorship.

Finally, 17,000,000 people carried out the Candle-Light Revolution of 2016-2017 and impeached Park Geun-hye.

This tradition has made the ordinary Koreans to unite and find solution themselves even without the help of the government; this tradition has led to the culture of “Jeong-情” which can be translated into caring each other and the collective will to solve the problems all together. There is no doubt that this culture has been one of the key factors of the Korean model’s success.

Philosophy of the Korean Model?

There is another interesting feature of the Korean model; it is its inclusiveness. Korea believes that the COVID-19 crisis is not a simple national crisis of Korea; Korea believes that it is a global crisis and, hence, Korea must participate actively in the global anti-corona-virus fight.

Recently, a delegation of WHO came to Korea in order to organize a global team of scientific research hoping to produce a global manual of anti-corona-virus fight. The Foreign Minister of Korea, Kang Kyung-hwa said this:

“We are taking this approach of openness and transparency not just domestically but to the international community that is highly interdependent with rest of the world.” (Interview with abs-cbn, March 3, 2020)

On March 26, President Moon Jae-in took the initiative of an online conference with the heads of G20 in order to share the experience of Korea’s anti-virus fight.

Learn Anything from the Current Crisis? 

I may allow myself to say a few words on the current global corona-virus crisis.

First, for last half century, the world has been blindly devoted to GDP growth, as if it were the only reason for man to exist.

Under the banner of neo-liberalism, the humanity has been chasing after more and more advanced technology and bigger and bigger GDP.

But what we got? We got wider income disparity, increasing jobless, increasing depletion of natural resources, worsening natural environment. Only a few got richer.

What is upsetting is that with all that money, knowledge and technology, man has not been able to prepare for the corona-virus invasion.

There are thousands more viruses in the nature; some of which could be more deadly than corona-virus. Can’t we take some money from the billionaires and produce more masks, tests kits and medical gowns?

Second, the COVID-19 has shown us that it does not care about the race, income or geography. The COVID-19 is telling us that we need a global preparedness for other virus that will surely attack us.

So we need international cooperation. China has been generous in sharing its experiences and sending needed medical equipment to needy countries. Korea is doing the same.

Third, Washington’s attitude toward the current crisis is quite disappointing, to say the least.

Mike Pompeo, the State Secretary of the U.S. seems to like to use the word,”Wuhan Virus” and Donald Trump looks happy when he picks the expression “Chinese Virus.”

It is true that the first location of massive breakout of the virus was the city of Wuhan, but this does not mean that the city was the location of virus origination; we do not know who the ground zero infected person was. The virus could have come from outside China and planted in Wuhan.

Owing to excellent papers of the Center for Research on Globalization by Professor Michel Chossudovsky, Peter Koenig, Stepĥen Lendman and many others, we have meaningful information on the origination location of the corona-virus. These papers make it clear that the virus could have originated in the U.S. and transmitted to China.

Even if the virus originated in China, it has been the tradition of not mentioning the place of the origination in order to avoid harmful stigma and promote international cooperation.

The U.S. has the largest economy and the most powerful army in the world. Therefore, it is natural to expect some generosity and mature behaviour as the world leader. But I am asking if it is a real leader.

Fourth, the world, especially the developed countries, should repent for not having prepared for such a global crisis like the COVID-19 crisis; it is about the time to mobilize resources to create a world in which the public health security is as important as economic growth.

To conclude, I offer my sincere compliments to the Quebec Premier, François Legault, and his team for their devotion to the fight against the corona-virus.

If Korea’s experience means anything at all, it is the importance of the united participation of the people. The Quebec people can be united as they were united during the Quiet Revolution.

As the premier said, the Quebec people should become “a singly army unit” and march forward to kill the enemy, the COVID-19.

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Professor Joseph H. Chung is professor of economics and co-director of the Observatoire de l’Asie de l’Est (OAE) of the Centre de Recherches sur l’Intégration et la Mondialisation (CEIM), Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) He is Research Associate of the Center for Globalization (CGR)