The whistleblower complaint has opened a window into the politicization of the intelligence community, and the corresponding weaponization of the national security establishment, argues Scott Ritter.

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The whistleblower. A figure of great controversy, whose actions, manifested in an 11-page report submitted to the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) on August 12 alleging wrongdoing on the part of the president of the United States, jump-started an ongoing impeachment process targeting Donald Trump that has divided the American body politic as no other issue in contemporary time.

His identity has been cloaked in a shroud of anonymity which has proven farcical, given that his name is common knowledge throughout the Washington-based national security establishment in whose ranks he continues to serve. While Trump publicly calls for the identity of the whistleblower to be revealed, the mainstream media has played along with the charade of confidentiality, and Congress continues to pretend his persona is a legitimate national security secret, even as several on-line publications have printed it, along with an extensive document trail sufficient to corroborate that the named man is, in fact, the elusive whistleblower.

There is no legitimate reason for the whistleblower’s identity to remain a secret. The Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff, (D-CA) has cited statutory protections that simply do not exist while using his authority as chairman to prohibit any probe by his Republican colleagues designed to elicit information about the whistleblower’s identity. “The whistleblower has a right, a statutory right, to anonymity,” Schiff recently opined during recent impeachment-related testimony. And yet The Washington Post, no friend of Trump, was compelled to assign Schiff’s statement three “Pinocchios”, out of a scale of four, in rejecting the claim as baseless.

The myth of statutory protection for the whistleblower’s identity has been aggressively pursued by his legal counsel, Andrew Bakaj, the managing partner of the Compass Rose Legal Group, which has taken on the whistleblower’s case pro bono. In a letter to the president’s legal counsel, Pat Cippolone, Bakaj demanded that Trump “cease and desist in calling for my client’s identity”, claiming that the president’s actions, undertaken via Twitter and in press briefings, constituted violations of federal statutes prohibiting, among other things, tampering with a witness, obstruction of proceedings, and retaliating against as witness.

All of Bakaj’s claims are contingent upon the viability of the whistleblower’s status as a legitimate witness whose testimony can, therefore, be tampered, obstructed or retaliated against. The legal foundation of the whistleblower’s claims are based upon the so-called Intelligence Community whistleblower statute, 50 USC § 3033(k)(5), which stipulates the processes required to report and sustain an allegation of so-called “urgent concern” to the U.S. intelligence community. An “urgent concern” is defined, in relevant part, as: “A serious or flagrant problem, abuse, violation of the law or Executive order, or deficiency relating to the funding, administration, or operation of an intelligence activity within the responsibility and authority of the Director of National Intelligence involving classified information, but does not include differences of opinions concerning public policy matters.”

The Call

At issue was a telephone call made between President Trump and the newly elected President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, on July 25 of this year. According to the whistleblower’s report to the ICIG, “Multiple White House officials with direct knowledge of the call informed me that, after an initial exchange of pleasantries, the President used the remainder of the call to advance his personal interests.” President Trump, the whistleblower alleged, “sought to pressure the Ukrainian leader to take actions to help the President’s 2020 reelection bid,” an act which the whistleblower claimed presidential abuse of his office “for personal gain.”

Upon review of the whistleblower’s report, which consisted of a nine-page unclassified letter and a separate two-page classified annex, Michael K. Atkinson, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, initiated an investigation of the complaint as required by the whistleblower statute. This investigation must be completed within a 14-day period mandated by the statute, during which time the ICIG “shall determine whether the complaint or information appears credible.”

While the statute is silent on the methodology to be used by the ICIG in making this determination, Atkinson had testified during his Senate confirmation hearing that, when it came to any investigation of a whistleblower complaint,

“I will work to ensure that ICIG personnel conduct investigations, inspections, audits, and reviews in accordance with Quality Standards promulgated by CIGIE (Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency) to keep those activities free from personal, external, and organizational impairments.”

The CIGIE standard in question requires that, “Evidence must be gathered and reported in an unbiased and independent manner in an effort to determine the validity of an allegation or to resolve an issue.”

In a letter transmitting the whistleblower complaint to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Atkinson stated that he had “determined that the Complainant (i.e., whistleblower) had official and authorized access to the information and sources referenced in the Complainant’s Letter and Classified Appendix, including direct knowledge of certain alleged conduct, and that the Complainant has subject matter expertise related to much of the material information provided in the Complainant’s Letter and Classified Appendix.”

However, when it came to assessing whether or not the whistleblower, in reporting the second-hand information provided to him by White House persons familiar with the July 25 Trump-Zelensky phone call, had done so accurately, Atkinson did not review the actual records of the telephone call, noting that he “decided that access to records of the telephone call was not necessary to make my determination that the complaint relating to the urgent concern ‘appears credible.’”

Zelensky and Trump at UN in September. (Wikimedia Commons)

Atkinson declared that “it would be highly unlikely for the ICIG to obtain those records within the limited remaining time allowed by statute,” and opted to perform an investigation in violation of the very CIGIE standard he had promise to adhere to in his Senate testimony. In short, no evidence was gathered by the ICIG to determine the validity of the whistleblower’s allegation, and yet Atkinson decided to forward the complaint to the DNI, certifying it as “credible.”

The whistleblower statute allows the DNI seven days to review the complaint before forwarding it to the House Committee on Intelligence, with comments if deemed appropriate. However, in reviewing the actual complaint, Joseph McGuire, the acting DNI who took over from Dan Coats, who was fired by President Trump in early August, had questions about whether or not the matters it alleged fell within the remit of the whistleblower statute, and rather than forwarding it to the House Intelligence Committee, instead sent it to the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel for legal review.

The Office of Legal Council, on September 3, issued a legal opinion rejecting the ICIG’s certification of the whistleblower complaint as constituting an “urgent concern” under the law. “The complaint,” the opinion read,

“does not arise in connection with the operation of any U.S. government intelligence activity, and the alleged misconduct does not involve any member of the intelligence community. Rather, the complaint arises out of a confidential diplomatic communication between the President and a foreign leader that the intelligence-community complainant received secondhand. The question is whether such a complaint falls within the statutory definition of ‘urgent concern’ that the law requires the DNI to forward to the intelligence committees. We conclude that it does not. The alleged misconduct is not an ‘urgent concern’ within the meaning of the statute.”

DOJ Rejected Complaint as Urgent

As related in the Office of Legal Counsel’s opinion, the Justice Department did, however, refer the matter to the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice for appropriate review. After considering the whistleblower’s complaint and classified annex, the Criminal Division opted not to pursue charges, in effect determining that no crime had been committed.

Under normal circumstances, this would have concluded the matter of Trump’s phone call with Zelensky, and the second-hand concerns unnamed White House officials had reported to the whistleblower. But this was not a normal circumstance. Far from diffusing an improperly predicated complaint, the failure of the acting DNI to forward the whistleblower complaint to the House Intelligence Committee, and the concurrent legal opinion of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel rejecting the “urgent concern” certification of the ICIG, opened the door for the whistleblower, through legal counsel, to reach out to the House Intelligence Committee directly.

The whistleblower followed procedures set forth in the whistleblower statute detailing procedures for a complaint, which had not been certified as an “urgent concern,” to be forwarded to Congress. The issue is that the matter was being treated by the ICIG, Congress and the whistleblower’s attorney’s as an “urgent concern”, a status that it did not legally qualify for.

On September 24, Bakaj sent a “Notice of Intent to Contact Congressional Intelligence Committees” to acting DNI McGuire providing “formal notice of our intent to contact the congressional intelligence committees directly” on behalf of the whistleblower, identified only as “a member of the Intelligence Community.” Almost immediately, Schiff announced via Twitter that

“We have been informed by the whistleblower’s counsel that their client would like to speak to our committee and has requested guidance from the Acting DNI as to how to do so. We‘re in touch with counsel and look forward to the whistleblower’s testimony as soon as this week.”

Thus was set in motion events which would culminate in impeachment proceedings against President Trump. On the surface, the events described represent a prima facia case for the efficacy of statutory procedures concerning the processing of a whistleblower complaint. But there were warning signs that all was not right regarding both the whistleblower himself, and the processes involved leading to the whistleblower’s complaint being presented to Congress.

Political Bias?

Far from an exemplar in bureaucratic efficiency, the whistleblower complaint has opened a window into the politicization of the intelligence community, and the corresponding weaponization of the national security establishment, against a sitting president.

As I shall show, such actions are treasonous on their face, and the extent to which this conduct has permeated the intelligence community and its peripheral functions of government, including the National Security Council and Congress itself, will only be known if and when an investigation is conducted into what, in retrospect, is nothing less than a grand conspiracy by those ostensibly tasked with securing the nation to instead reverse the will of the American people regarding who serves as the nation’s chief executive.

The key to this narrative is the whistleblower himself. Understanding who he is, and what role he has played in the events surrounding the fateful July 25 telephone conversation, are essential to unravelling the various threads of this conspiracy.

Much has been made about the political affiliation of the whistleblower, namely the fact that he is a registered Democrat who supports Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate for the 2020 presidential election. On the surface this information is not dispositive—the intelligence community is populated by thousands of professionals of diverse political leanings and affiliations, all of whom have been trained to check their personal politics at the door when it comes to implementing the policies promulgated by the duly elected national leadership.

Indeed, Inspector General Atkinson, while acknowledging in his assessment of the whistleblower’s complaint an indication of possible political bias on the part of the whistleblower in favor of a rival political candidate, noted that “such evidence did not change my determination that the complaint relating to the urgent concern ‘appears credible’”. But when one reverse engineers the whistleblower’s career, it becomes clear that there in fact existed a nexus between the whistleblower’s political advocacy and professional actions that both influenced and motivated his decision to file the complaint against the president.

A Rising Star

Like most CIA analysts, the whistleblower possessed a keen intellect born of stringent academic preparation, which in the whistleblower’s case included graduating from Yale University in 2008 with a degree in Russian and East European studies, post-graduate study at Harvard, and work experience with the World Bank.

Andrea Kendall-Taylor (image on the right by Center for a New American Security), a contemporary colleague of the whistleblower, has provided an apt account for what is expected of a CIA analyst.

“The CIA is an intensely apolitical organization,” Kendall-Taylor wrote. “As intelligence analysts, we are trained to check our politics at the door. Our job is to produce objective analysis that the country’s leaders can use to make difficult decisions. We undergo rigorous training on how to analyze our own assumptions and overcome biases that might cloud our judgement.”

The training program Kendall-Taylor referred to is known as the Career Analyst Program (CAP), a four-month basic training program run out of the CIA’s in-house University, the Sherman Kent School, which “introduces all new employees to the basic thinking, writing, and briefing skills needed for a successful career. Segments include analytic tools, counterintelligence issues, denial and deception analysis, and warning skills.”

The standards to which aspiring analysts such as the whistleblower were trained to meet were exacting, and included a requirement to be “independent of political considerations,” meaning the product produced should consist of objective assessments “informed by available information that are not distorted or altered with the intent of supporting or advocating a particular policy, political viewpoint, or audience.” As an analyst, the whistleblower would have chosen a specific specialization, which in his case was as a “Political Analyst”, charged with examining “political, social, cultural, and historical information to provide assessments about foreign political systems and developments.”

By the time the whistleblower completed his application process with the CIA, which requires a detailed background check, several rounds of interviews, and final security and psychological evaluation before an actual offer of employment can be made, and by the time he finished his basic analytical training, the U.S. had undergone a political and social revolution of sorts with the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States.

The whistleblower was assigned to the Office of Russian and Eurasian Analysis (OREA), within the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence, at a time when U.S.-Russian policy was undergoing a radical transformation.

Under the guidance of Michael McFaul, President Obama’s special advisor on Russia and the senior director of Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council, the Obama administration was seeking to take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the election of Dmitri Medvedev as Russia’s president in 2008. Medvedev had succeeded Vladimir Putin, who went on to serve as prime minister. Medvedev was a more liberal alternative to Putin’s autocratic conservatism, and McFaul envisioned a policy “reset” designed to move relations between the U.S. and Russia in a more positive trajectory.

As a junior analyst, the whistleblower worked alongside colleagues such as Andrea Kendall-Taylor, who joined OREA about the same time after graduating from UCLA in 2008 with a PhD is Slavic and Eurasian studies. A prolific writer, Kendall-Taylor wrote extensively on autocratic leaders and Putin in particular. Her work was in high demand at both the CIA and NSC, which under the Obama administration had undergone a massive expansion intended to better facilitate policy coordination among the various departments that comprised the NSC.

The whistleblower had a front-row seat on the rollercoaster ride that was U.S.-Russian policy during this time, witnessing the collapse of McFaul’s Russian “reset,” Putin’s return to power in 2012, and the U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine that led to the annexation of Crimea and Russian support for rebels in the Donbas region.

During his tenure at OREA, the whistleblower obviously impressed his superiors, receiving several promotions and, in July 2015, he detailed to the NSC staff at the Obama White House as the Director for Ukrainian Affairs. According to a former CIA officer, any high-performing analyst who aspires to be promoted into the ranks of the Senior Intelligence Service must, prior to that time, do a rotation as part of the overall policy community, which includes the NSC or another department, such as Defense or State, as well as a tour within another directorate of the CIA.

NSC positions were originally intended for senior CIA analysts, at the GS-15 level, but waivers could be made for qualified GS-14 or “very strong” GS-13’s (the whistleblower was a GS-13 at the time of his assignment at the NSC, a reflection of both his qualification and the regard to which he was held by the CIA.) NSC assignments do not coincide with the political calendar—detailees (as career civil servants who are detailed to the NSC are referred) are expected to serve in their position regardless of what political party controls the White House. When an opening becomes available (usually when another detailee’s assignment has finished), prospective candidates apply, and are interviewed by their senior management, who forward qualified candidates to another board for a final decision.

Image below: Brennan briefing Obama May 3, 2010. He approved whistleblower. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Assignments to the NSC are considered highly sought after, and while the process for application must be followed, the selection process is highly political, with decisions being signed off by the director of the CIA. In the case of the whistleblower, his candidacy would have been approved by both Peter Clement, the director of OREA, and John Brennan, the CIA director.

Into the Lion’s Den

By the time the whistleblower arrived at the NSC, the NSC staff had grown into a well-oiled policy machine managing the entire spectrum of Obama administration national security policy-making and implementation. The NSC staff operated in accordance with Presidential Policy Memorandum (PPM) 1, “Organization of the National Security Council System”, which outlined the procedures governing the management of the development and implementation of national security policies by multiple agencies of the United States Government.

The vehicle for accomplishing this mission was the NSC Interagency Policy Committee (NSC/IPC). The NSC/IPCs were the main day-to-day fora for interagency coordination of national security policy. They provided policy analysis for consideration by the more senior committees of the NSC system and ensured timely responses to decisions made by the president. NSC/IPCs were established at the direction of the NSC Deputies Committee and were chaired by the relevant division chief within the NSC staff.

The whistleblowers job was to develop, coordinate and execute plans and policies to manage the full range of diplomatic, informational, military and economic national security issues for the countries in his portfolio, which included Ukraine. The whistleblower coordinated with his interagency partners to produce internal memoranda, talking points and other materials for the National Security Advisor and senior staff.

The whistleblower reported directly to Charles Kupchan, the Senior Director for European Affairs on the NSC. Kupchan, a State Department veteran who had previously served on the NSC staff of President Bill Clinton before turning to academia, in turn reported directly to Susan Rice, President Obama’s national security adviser.

When the whistleblower first arrived at the NSC, he volunteered for the Ukraine portfolio. Kupchan was impressed by the whistleblower’s work ethic and performance, and soon expanded his portfolio to include the fight against the Islamic State. The whistleblower was aided by another organizational connection—his colleague and mentor at OREA, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, had been selected to serve in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as the deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia. Among Kendall-Taylor’s responsibilities was to closely coordinate with the NSC staff on critical issues pertaining to Russia and Ukraine.

The whistleblower’s arrival at the NSC staff also coincided with the start of Trump’s improbable candidacy for the presidency of the United States. As 2015 transitioned into 2016, and it became apparent that Trump was the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party, allegations about the Trump campaign colluding with Russia began to circulate within the interagency. Trump’s electoral victory in November 2016 , the shocked the whistleblower, like everyone else on the NSC staff.

Alarmed By Trump on Russia

The line between policy and politics began to blur, and then disappeared altogether. National Security Advisor Rice was becoming increasingly alarmed by the activities of the Trump transition team, especially when it came to issues pertaining to Russia. According to The Washington Post, “Rice apparently was closely monitoring the high-profile investigation into Russian interference.”

The President-elect had, during the campaign, openly advocated for better relations between the U.S. and Russia and had even suggested that the Russian annexation of Crimea could eventually be accepted by the U.S. This stance was anathema to the policies that had been massaged into place by the NSC in general, and the whistleblower in particular. According to multiple sources familiar with the whistleblower during this time, his animus against Trump was palpable.

In December 2016, Rice was involved in the unmasking of the identities of several members of the Trump transition team. Various sensitive intelligence reports were circulating within the NSC regarding the interaction of unnamed U.S. citizens with foreign targets of intelligence interest. In order to better understand the significance of such a report, Rice has acknowledged that, on several occasions, she requested that the identity of the U.S. persons involved be “unmasked.”

The U.S. intelligence community is prohibited by law from collecting information about U.S. citizens. As such, when a conversation undertaken by a foreign national of intelligence interest was captured, and it turned out the person or persons whom the target was speaking to was a U.S. citizen, the analysts preparing the report for wider dissemination would “mask”, or hide, the identities of the U.S. citizens involved. Under relevant laws governing the collection of intelligence, up to 20 officials within the Obama administration had the authority to unmask the identities of U.S. citizens. One of those was Rice.

In late December 2016, the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, arrived in New York for a meeting with several top Trump transition officials, including Michael Flynn, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the President-elect’s top strategist Steve Bannon. Intelligence reports had been circulating about the UAE coordinating a backchannel for the Trump transition team and Russia.

Zayed’s arrival, which was unannounced and had not been coordinated with the U.S. government, caused great concern among the NSC staff especially given the context of allegations of collusion between Trump and Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.

The principle NSC staffers who would logically been advising Rice on this matter were Kupchan, the whistleblower, and Sean Misko, a State Department detailee who served as the director for the Gulf Arab States (According the NSC staffers who worked in the White House at the time, Misko and the whistleblower were said to be close friends, frequently socializing with one another after hours, and possessing a common dislike for Trump.) Rice requested that the intelligence reports pertaining to Zayed’s visit be subjected to unmasking procedures.

While the subsequent reporting about the three-hour meeting between Zayed and the Trump transition team failed to uncover any evidence of a secret communications channel with Russia, Rice (who would logically have been assisted by Kupchan and the whistleblower) facilitated the near continuous unmasking of intelligence reports involving Flynn, who was in contact with Russian officials, including Sergei Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S.

The Greatest Sin

Susan Rice, center, with Obama, March 10, 2009. (White House photo)

As a professional intelligence analyst detailed to the NSC, the whistleblower was committed to a two-year assignment, extendable to three years upon the agreement of all parties. President Obama’s departure from the White House did not change this commitment. According to NSC staffers who served in the White House at the time, the whistleblower, like many of his fellow detailees, had grown attached to the policies of the Obama administration which they had fought hard to formulate, coordinate and implement. They viewed these policies to be sacrosanct, regardless of who followed in the White House.

In doing so, they had committed the greatest sin that an intelligence professional could commit short of espionage—they had become political.

In December 2016, the whistleblower was, based upon his role as a leading Russian analysts advising Rice directly, more than likely helping unmask Flynn’s communications with Russians; a month later, he was working for Flynn, someone he  had likely actively helped conspire against, using the unfettered power of the intelligence community.

The Trump administration had inherited a national security decision-making apparatus that was bloated, and which fostered White House micromanagement via the NSC. While the Obama NSC had proven able to generate a prolificate amount of “policy”, it did so by relying on a staff that had expanded to the largest in the history of the NSC, and at the expense of the various departments of government that were supposed to be the originators of policy.

As the new national security adviser, Flynn let it be known from day one that there would be changes. One of his first actions was to hire four new deputies who centralized much of the responsibilities normally tasked to regional directors such as the whistleblower. Flynn was putting in place a new level of bureaucracy that shielded professional detailees from top level decision makers.

Moreover, it recognized that the NSC, while staffed with professionals who are supposed to be apolitical, was viewed by the White House as a partisan policy body whose work not only furthered the interests of the United States, but also the political interests of the president. When Trump included his top political advisor, Bannon, on the list of people who would comprise the National Security Council (normally limited to cabinet-level officials), it sent shockwaves through the national security establishment, which accused Trump of politicizing what they claimed was an apolitical process.

But the reality was that the NSC had always functioned as a partisan decision-making body. Its previous occupants may have tried to temper the level to which domestic politics intruded on national security decision-making, but its presence was an unspoken reality. All Trump did by seeking to insert Bannon into the mix was to be open about it.

Like the other professional detailees who comprised 90 percent of the NSC staff and were expected to remain at their posts as part of a Trump administration, the whistleblower was dismayed by the changes. Some accounts of the early days of the Trump NSC indicate that the whistleblower was defensive of the Ukraine policies he had helped craft during his tenure at the NSC.

When his immediate superior, Kupchan (a political appointee) departed the NSC, the whistleblower was temporarily elevated to the position of senior director for Russia and Eurasia until a new replacement could be found. (Flynn had reached out to Fiona Hill, a former national intelligence officer for Russia under the administration of George W. Bush, to take this job; Hill had accepted, but would not be available until April.)

The whistleblower was a known quantity within the NSC, as were his decidedly pro-Obama political leanings. As such, he was not trusted by the incoming Trump officials, and his access to the decision-making process was limited.

According to persons familiar with his work at the NSC during the Trump administration, the whistleblower’s frustration and anger soon led to acts of resistance designed to expose, and undermine public confidence in President Trump.

Cut Out of Call to Putin

In late January 2017 Trump made several introductory telephone calls to world leaders, including President Putin. Normally the NSC director responsible for Russia would help prepare the president for such a call by drafting talking points and supporting memoranda, and then monitor the call directly, either from within the Oval Office or from the White House situation room.

According to sources familiar with the incident, Flynn did not coordinate Trump’s call with NSC staff, and as such the whistleblower, who was acting as the director for Russia and European Affairs at the time, would have been cut out of the process altogether. When the whistleblower tried to access the read out of the phone call afterwards, he found that no verbatim record existed, only a short summary released by the White House, presumably prepared by Flynn.

More frustrating was the fact that the official readout of the call released by the Kremlin contained much more information, putting Russia in the driver’s seat in terms of defining U.S.-Russian policy priorities—the very policy blunder the NSC was supposed to prevent from happening. While searching for the non-existent records of the Putin-Trump conversation, however, the whistleblower came across detailed verbatim transcripts of two other calls made by Trump that day—one with Mexico, and one with Australia.

Within days the details of these calls were leaked to the media, resulting in a series of unflattering articles being published by the mainstream media. While no direct evidence has emerged about who was responsible for leaking these calls, NSC staffers who worked in the White House at the time suspected the whistleblower. (One of the byproducts of this incident was the decision by NSC lawyers to move the records of Presidential phone calls to a more secure server, significantly limiting access by NSC staff.)

On February 13, 2017, Flynn resigned from his position as President Trump’s national security adviser. The reason given was Flynn’s having misrepresented his conversations with Russian Ambassador Kislyak when questioned by Vice President Mike Pence. For the whistleblower, whose previous work in the Obama NSC appeared to help Rice’s efforts to unmask the very conversations Flynn was being held accountable for, this had to have been a satisfying moment. He had to have been even more pleased by Trump’s choice to replace Flynn —Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster, a decorated combat veteran known for his intelligence and willingness to challenge the establishment.

In the little more than a month that transpired between McMaster coming on board and the arrival of Hill as the new director for Russia and Europe, the whistleblower would have had the opportunity to meet his new boss and work with him on repairing what they both viewed as the flawed changes undertaken by Flynn at the NSC.

McMaster rewrote the presidential guidance regarding the functioning of the NSC, replacing the original Presidential Policy Memorandum 1 with a new version, PPM 4, which removed Bannon from the NSC and restored much of the policy coordinating functions that characterized the NSC under Obama.

Moreover, McMaster stuck up for the professional detailees, such as the whistleblower. When Hill arrived in April 2017 to assume her responsibilities as the NSC director for Russia and Europe, the whistleblower found himself without a job.

But instead of being returned to the CIA, McMaster, who had come to know the whistleblower during his first month as national security adviser, appointed him to serve as his personal assistant. The whistleblower moved from his desk next door in the Executive Office Building, where most NSC staffer work, to the West Wing of the White House, a move which gave him direct access to every issue that crossed McMaster’s desk.

Oval Office Leak

The new job, however, did nothing to diminish the disdain the whistleblower had for Trump. Indeed, the proximity to the seat of power may have served to increase the concern the whistleblower had about Trump’s stewardship. On May 10, President Trump played host to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Kislyak. During the now-infamous meeting, Trump spoke about the firing of former FBI Director Jim Comey; a sensitive Israeli intelligence source related to the ongoing fight against ISIS in Syria; and alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

As McMasters’ assistant, the whistleblower was privy to the readout of the meeting, and was so alarmed by what he had seen that he sent an email to John Kelly, who at that time was serving as director of the Department of Homeland Security, detailing the president’s actions and words. All materials relating to this meeting were collected and secured in the NSC’s top secret codeword server;the only unsecured data was that contained in the whistleblower’s email. When the media subsequently reported on the details of Trump’s meeting with the Russians, the White House condemned the “leaking of private and highly classified information” which undermined “our national security.”

Trump meets with Lavrov on May 10, 2017. (TASS/Wikipedia)

According to a NSC staffer who worked in the White House at the time, an internal investigation pointed to the whistleblower’s email as the likely source of the leak, and while the whistleblower was not directly implicated in actually transmitting classified information to the press, he was criticized for what amounted to unauthorized communication with an outside agency, in this case the Department of Homeland Security. When his initial two-year assignment terminated in July 2017, the White House refused to authorize a one-year extension (a courtesy offered to the vast majority of detailees).

The whistleblower had become a liability, publicly smeared by right-wing bloggers and subjected to death threats. He was released from the NSC and returned to the CIA, where he resumed his role as a Eurasian analyst. Shortly after the whistleblower left the NSC, the full transcripts of President Trump’s January 28, 2017 conversations with the leaders of Mexico and Australia were leaked to the press. While several colleagues in the NSC believed that the whistleblower was behind the leaks, McMaster refused to authorize a formal investigation which, if evidence had been found that implicated the whistleblower, would have effectively terminated his career at the CIA.

It is at this juncture the saga of the whistleblower should have ended, avoiding the turn of events which ended up labeling him with the now famous (or infamous) appellation. However, in June 2018 the whistleblower’s colleague, Kendall-Taylor, ended her assignment as the deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia. An announcement was made to fill the vacancy, and the whistleblower applied.

Despite having left the NSC under a cloud of suspicion regarding the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information, and even though his anti-Trump sentiment was common knowledge among his colleagues and superiors, the whistleblower was picked for a position that would put him at the center of policy formulation regarding Russia and Ukraine, and the sensitive intelligence that influenced such. His appointment would have been approved by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coates.

Enter Vindman

The whistleblower was well versed in the collaborative functions of the deputy national intelligence officer position, having worked with Kendall-Taylor during his time at the NSC. He began to develop professional relationships with a number of individuals, including the new director of Ukraine at the NSC, Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman. Vindman had extensive experience regarding Ukraine and had been detailed to the NSC from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The two soon appeared to share a mutual concern over President Trump’s worldview of both Russia and Ukraine, which deviated from the formal policy formulations promulgated by the interagency processes that both Vindman and the whistleblower were involved in.

The whistleblower’s concerns about President Trump and Ukraine predated the July 25, 2019 telephone call, and mirrored those expressed by Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, both in chronology and content, provided during his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. While Vindman was critical of President Trump’s deviation and/or failure to conform with policy that had been vetted through proper channels (i.e., in conformity with PDD 4), he noted that, as president, “It’s his prerogative to handle the call whichever way he wants.”

Vindman took umbrage at the non-national security topics brought up by the president, such as investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, regarding their relationship with a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma Holdings, and other references to the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

According to Vindman, it was this aspect of the telephone call Vindman believed to be alarming, and which he subsequently related to an authorized contact within the intelligence community. While Vindman remained circumspect about the identity of the intelligence community official he communicated with about his concerns over Trump’s Ukraine policy, the fact that the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee refused to allow any discussion of this person’s identity strongly suggests that it was the whistleblower who, as the deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Ukraine, would be a logical, and fully legitimate, interlocuter.

According to an account published in The Washington Post, sometime after being informed by Vindman of the July 25 Trump-Zelensky telephone call, the whistleblower began preparing notes and assembling information related to what he believed was untoward activity vis-à-vis Ukraine on the part of President Trump and associates who were not part of the formal Ukraine policy making process. He made numerous telephone calls to U.S. government officials whom he knew from his official work as the deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia. Because much of the information he was using was derived from classified sources, or was itself classified in nature, the whistleblower worked from his office, using a computer system approved for handling classified data.

Off Limits

From the perspective of security, the whistleblower’s work was flawless. There was one problem, however; investigating the actions of the president of the United States and officials outside the intelligence community who were carrying out the instructions of the president was not part of the whistleblower’s official responsibilities.

Indeed, anything that whiffed of interference in domestic American politics was, in and of itself, off limits to members of the intelligence community.

Robert Gates, a long-time CIA analyst and former CIA director, had warned about this possibility in a speech he delivered to the CIA in March 1992 on the issue of the politicization of intelligence. “National intelligence officers”, Gates noted, “are engaged in analysis and—given their frequent contact with high-level policymakers—their work is also vulnerable to distortion.”

There was no greater example of politicized distortion than the rabbit hole the whistleblower had allowed himself to fall into.  From Gates’ perspective, the whistleblower had committed the ultimate sin of any intelligence analyst—he had allowed his expertise to become tarnished by political considerations.

Worse, the whistleblower had crossed the threshold from advocating a politicized point of view to becoming political—that is, to intervene in the domestic political affairs of the United States in a manner which influenced the political future of a sitting president of the United States.

Once he had assembled his notes, he sought out staffers on the House Intelligence Committee for guidance on how to proceed. Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, had hired two former members of the Trump NSC staff who had served at the same time as the whistleblower.

One, Abigail Grace, had worked at the NSC from 2016-2018, covering U.S.-Chinese relations. Grace was hired by Schiff in February 2019 for the express purpose of investigating the Trump White House. A second NSC veteran was hired in August 2019, around the same time that the whistleblower was preparing his complaint. That staffer was none other than Sean Misko, the whistleblowers friend and fellow anti-Trump collaborator.

Both Misko and the whistleblower departed the NSC in 2017 under a cloud. Misko went on to work for the Center for New American Security, a self-described bipartisan think tank set up by two former Obama administration officials, Michèle Flournoy and Kurt M. Campbell, before being recruited by Schiff. It is not known if Misko was one of the House Intelligence staffers the whistleblower approached, or if there had been any collaboration between the whistleblower and Misko about the nature of the complaint prior to Misko being recruited by Schiff.

After conferencing with the House Intelligence Committee staffers, the whistleblower sought legal counsel. He reached out to a lawyer affiliated with Whistleblower Aid, a group of national security lawyers who came together in September 2017—eight months after the inauguration of President Trump—to encourage whistleblowers within the U.S. government to come out agains Trump, and provide legal and financial assistance to anyone that chose to do so. One of Whistleblower Aid’s founding members was a lawyer named Mark Zaid.

In the days following Trump’s swearing in as president, Zaid turned to Twitter to send out messages supportive of a “coup” against Trump that would lead to the president’s eventual impeachment. The identity of the lawyer who met with the whistleblower is not known. However, this lawyer referred the whistleblower to Bakaj, a fellow member of Whistleblower Aid, who took on the case and provided procedural guidance regarding the preparation of the complaint. Bakaj later brought on Zaid and another lawyer, Charles McCullough, with close ties to Senator Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, to assist in the case.

On August 12, the whistleblower completed his complaint, and forwarded it to the intelligence community inspector general, thereby setting in motion events that produced weeks of hearings before the House Intelligence Committee that will very likely result in Trump’s impeachment.

Shielded from Questions

While the whistleblower, through counsel, had expressed a desire to testify before the House Intelligence Committee about the issues set forth in his complaint, he was never called to do so, even in closed-door session. The ostensible reason behind this failure to testify was the need to protect his anonymity, a protection that is not contained within the relevant statutes governing whistleblower activities within the intelligence community.

Later, as witnesses were identified from the content of the whistleblower’s complaint and subpoenaed to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, both Schiff and Bakaj indicated that the whistleblower’s testimony was no longer needed, since the specific issues and events covered in his complaint had been more than adequately covered by the testimony of others.

But the apparent reason Schiff and Bakaj refused to allow the whistleblower to testify, or to be identified, was to avoid legitimate questions likely to be asked by Republican committee members.

Namely, what was a deputy national intelligence officer of the U.S. intelligence community doing investigating activities of a sitting president? Who, if anyone, authorized this intervention in U.S. domestic political affairs by a CIA official? How did the whistleblower, who had a history of documented animosity with the Trump administration that included credible allegations of leaking sensitive material to the press for the express purpose of undermining the credibility of the president, get selected to serve as a deputy national intelligence officer? Who signed off on this assignment? What was the precise role played by the whistleblower in unmasking the identities of U.S. citizens in 2016, during the Trump transition?

Did the whistleblower maintain his friendship with Misko after leaving the NSC in July 2017? Did the whistleblower collaborate with Misko to get the House Intelligence Committee to investigate the issues of concern to the whistleblower before his complaint was transmitted to the ICIG? Who did the whistleblower meet on the House Intelligence staff? What did they discuss? Who was the lawyer the whistleblower first met regarding his intent to file a complaint? Did the whistleblower have any contact with Whistleblower Aid prior to this meeting?

Answers to these questions, and more, would have been useful in understanding not only the motives of the whistleblower in filing his complaint—was he simply a concerned citizen and patriot, or was he part of a larger conspiracy to undermine the political viability of a sitting president? There is no doubt that Congress has a constitutional right and obligation to conduct proper oversight of the operations of the executive branch, and to hold the president of the United States accountable if his conduct and actions are deemed unworthy of his office. Whether or not the facts surrounding the July 25, 2019 telephone call between Trump and Zelensky constitute grounds for impeachment is a political question for Congress to decide.

Intervening in Domestic Affairs

There is, however, the major issue looming in the background of this impeachment frenzy: the intervention by elements of the intelligence community in the domestic political affairs of the United States. There is no question that the whistleblower’s complaint served as the genesis of the ongoing impeachment proceedings.

The American people should be deeply concerned that an inquiry which could result in the removal of a duly elected president from office was initiated in secrecy by a member of the intelligence community acting outside the four corners of his legal responsibilities. The legitimacy of the underlying issues being investigated by the House Intelligence Committee is not at issue here; the legitimacy of the process by which these proceedings were initiated is.

To find out what happened, the whistleblower should not only be identified, called before the House Intelligence Committee, and other relevant Congressional committees, and be compelled to answer for his actions.

Impeachment is a constitutional remedy afforded to the U.S. Congress to deal with the political issues surrounding the conduct of a sitting president. If this constitutional remedy can be triggered by the intelligence community in a manner which obviates laws prohibiting the intrusion of intelligence agencies into the domestic political affairs of the United States, and done so in a manner where the identities of the persons and organizations involved, along with their possible motives, are shielded from both American people and those whom they elect to represent them in Congress, then a precedent will have been set for future interventions of this nature which undermine the very foundation of American democracy.

The political weaponization of intelligence represents a significant threat to the viability of the American constitutional republic that cannot be ignored.

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Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.

Featured image is from Flickr

Whistleblowing: A Draft Law to Silence Whistleblowers

December 20th, 2019 by Yasmine Motarjemi

On 16th December 2019, the Swiss “Conseil des Etats” the upper house of the Swiss Parliament, approved the draft law on whistleblowing, in pipeline since 2003. The proposed law on whistleblowing and related labour laws in Switzerland are not only important for the Swiss population, but also for the entire world.

Switzerland is home to many international organisations and multinational companies in important areas, including pharmaceuticals and foods as well as banking. It is from their headquarter in Switzerland that many of these organisations and companies govern worldwide activities. The role of Switzerland, as cockpit for world’s economy, is demonstrated by global events, such as the Davos Forum, where political, business and cultural leaders get together to shape world policies. The World Economic Forum, the international organisation for public-private cooperation, which hosts this event, is located in Geneva (Switzerland).

Thus, employees of these organisations and businesses are well placed to have an overview of global activities and signal any misdoings of global importance. Yet, their rights and protection fall under Swiss labour laws and they are prohibited from reporting their observations, irrespective of how critical they may be for society. Thus, there is conflict of interests, where a national government is asked to take a stand and judge cases of global importance.

Whistleblowing is essentially intended to protect society from corruption, illegal acts or situations endangering people. The Swiss “Responsible Business Initiative” was created in recognition of the need to protect the world’s population from misdoings by Swiss multinational companies. Given the intent of whistleblowing, why should the Swiss people and wider society not benefit from effective laws that not only allow reporting of wrong-doing, but actively encourages and protects employees doing so? Are these not good reasons for Switzerland to adopt the best possible laws as other countries, such as the Republic of Serbia, have done?

The European Commission has just adopted Directives to protect whistleblowers. However, the European Union Directives were strongly inspired by the experiences of whistleblowers in the financial sector. As a result, some of the provisions are difficult to apply to sanitary and health risks, such as the safety of food and pharmaceutical products or medical devices. The EU Directives allow companies a period of three months to react to an alert followed by a further three months for the authorities overseeing their activities. Such a timeframe is too long where inaction could impact on population-wide health. Also, the EU Directives restrict definition of a whistleblower to employees, where any citizen who reports irregularities should benefit from judicial protection.

The Swiss draft law has the advantage of clarifying the situation, which until now has been ambiguous. However, it is a law that regulates the alert process rather than protecting whistleblowers. In fact, it offers no protection. In the framework of the Swiss labour law, a law, obliging whistleblowers to report internally, would result in their professional and social death. Indeed, according to recent court decisions, under certain conditions, psychological harassment or mobbing is not illegal in Switzerland. In addition, sanctions against unfair dismissal are trivial: compensation is generally few months salary (maximum six months), which is insignificant for someone who is at high risk of being socially and professionally excluded as a consequence of their actions to protect others.

For example, in a lawsuit related to a food safety alert, the Court of the Canton of Vaud acknowledged the harassment of a manager, without condemning the employer or compensating the victim. It stated that law had not been violated. The Court also disregarded the context, specifically that the employer did not take any action to deal with the lapses in food safety, which led to serious incidents across the world. In another case in the Canton of Fribourg, judges held that the whistleblowers received a good salary and should have endured and accepted the abuse. Under such circumstances, we cannot expect managers, the most knowledgeable people in an organisation or a company, to report irregularities to senior staff, especially if they are part of the problem.

For whistleblowing to be effective, the issue must be considered in the broader context of labour laws, specifically laws governing harassment and bullying, unfair dismissal, criminal prosecution for failure to follow up alerts internally and potential obstacles in the course of justice. Developing functional and effective laws requires that the experiences of whistleblowers are examined closely, since no one knows better the difficulties in navigating the system.

Finally, in the light of the global importance of information provided by whistleblowers of multinational companies or international organisations, these courageous individuals must be protected by international laws and their cases directly heard in international courts of justice.

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Yasmine Motarjemi is co-winner of the GUE/NGL Award for ‘Journalists, Whistleblowers and Defenders of the Right to Information.

Kate Raworth calls herself ‘a renegade economist’. She was born in 1970 and earned a bachelor’s degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics and then followed it with a master’s degree in Economics for Development, both from Oxford University where she is now employed.

She has worked for the United Nations where she coauthored a report for its Development Program, that’s a program promoting projects that are sustainable. She also spent a decade as a Senior Researcher for Oxfam. That position especially interests me because I was a delegate at the Oxfam International meeting in 1974 when the decision to focus on the causes of poverty was reinforced.

She has been named by The Guardian as one of the top ten tweeters on economic transformation, how is that for a modern accolade!

Early in her studies, she noticed a simplistic graphic which was used in the most popular textbook at that time to explain how economics worked, it’s pictured below. She learned to see is as flawed. It showed what appeared to be the neutral, simple and apparently fair system shifting value from the public to business and back again. The world she knew was not that simple.

The model didn’t account for money taking routine trips outside this circle, nor did it account for the free labor that is given to parenting, or elder care, or volunteering, time spent on the arts or social campaigns, all of which enrich our lives and are  outside the model. Her biggest worry was about how this simplified model distorted thinking and insulated economics from the real world.

She learned to see is as flawed. It showed what appeared to be the neutral, simple and apparently fair system shifting value from the public to business and back again.

The world she knew was not that simple. The model didn’t account for money taking routine trips outside this circle, nor did it account for the free labor that is given to parenting, or elder care, or volunteering, time spent on the arts or social campaigns, all of which enrich our lives and are  outside the model. Her biggest worry was about how this simplified model distorted thinking and insulated economics from the real world.

This chart was in Paul Samuelson’s immensely influential 1948 book ‘Economics’. You can read more about it and him here; http://www.aninsidersmemoir.com/economics-by-paul-samuelson-a-retrospective-book-review/

So, she took it on herself to create a model that she thought more accurately reflected the real world.

The doughnut was the result, the circle with a hole in the middle which she explains is a ‘playfully serious approach to framing the challenge we face’.

The doughnut places life’s essentials in the centre; food, water, income and health care for example, and just to state the obvious, none of these are seen as critical in traditional economics. In the outer ring are our challenges; pollution of water and air, climate change, the loss of biodiversity and the limits to farmland. For us to survive we need to live within the constraints we’ve been given.

Raworth has written an extensively documented book explaining why we require a whole new paradigm of thinking and this she has condensed into her seven ways to think like a 21’st Century Economist.

They require us to change our priorities from those we’ve been taught, to new goals that are designed to sustain us. We need to give up exploiting the planet for short term riches. We need to give up the goal of ever increasing growth. That will take effort because we are so programmed to seeing growth of the GDP as fundamental and essential. The fact is, it’s just not sustainable.

We also need to focus economics on our true nature. If it wasn’t for our caring nature, our children would never survive. For their first many years they totally depend on parental care. That’s our nature. What is not our nature, is the neocon explanation that we are driven solely by greed, the greed is good philosophy that has been dumped on us.

Her seven goals include adopting a system that fairly distributes what we produce. No longer should we accept that inequality is an unavoidable rule of economics. Similarly, and probably her biggest change, is that we no longer accept the myth that economic growth is essential. What is essential is our ability to survive! We need a system that will sustain us for our next generations. We need to, as she writes,  become agnostic about growth.

And possibly the most interesting lesson from Raworth’s book is her view that “we are all economists now.” No longer does the church or public morality dominate our world, those now obsolete forces have been usurped by markets. Now, it’s all about money and wealth and the assumptions the fans of markets bring with it. These factors are reinforced by minute to minute stock marked reports as if they are what life is all about.

She sees herself as a glass half full person, as she says ‘ours is the first generation to deeply understand the damage we have been doing to our planetary household, and probably the last generation with the chance to do something transformative about it.’

She has provided us with a guide book to  help insure our survival. It is well worth reading.

The path we are currently on is leading to our demise.

Economic analyst and author Bryant Brown is a frequent contributor to Global Research

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A devastating investigative report was published in the Washington Post on December 9th. Dubbed the “Afghanistan Papers” in a nod to the Vietnam War’s famous “Pentagon Papers,” the report relied on thousands of documents to similarly expose how the US government at the presidential level across three administrations, acting in collaboration with the military brass and civilian bureaucracy, deliberately and systematically lied repeatedly to the public and media about the situation in Afghanistan.

Officials from the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations have all surged additional troops into Afghanistan while also regularly overstating the “success” that the United States was attaining in stabilizing and democratizing the country. While they were lying, the senior officers and government officials understood clearly that the war was, in fact, unwinnable.

The story should have been featured all across the US as Afghanistan continues to kill Americans and much larger numbers of Afghans while also draining billions of dollars from the United States Treasury, but the mainstream media was largely unresponsive, preferring to cover the impeachment saga.

Rather more responsive were the families of Army Chief Warrant Officer Second Class David C. Knadle, 33, of Tarrant, Texas, and Chief Warrant Officer Second Class Kirk T. Fuchigami Jr., 25, of Keaau, Hawaii. Both were killed in a helicopter crash on November 20th in Afghanistan’s Logar province while assisting troops on the ground, according to a Pentagon press release. They were participating in what was characteristically dubbed Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. Both men were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division in Fort Hood, Texas. The Taliban took credit for the downing of the chopper, but the Army is still investigating the cause.

Knadle and Fuchigami are only the most recent of the more than 2,400 American service members who have been killed in Afghanistan since October 2001, together with 20,589 wounded and an estimated 110,000 Afghan dead. In the wake of the Post’s report, Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1974, told a CNN reporter that the Pentagon and Afghanistan Papers exposed the same governmental dysfunction: “The presidents and the generals had a pretty realistic view of what they were up against, which they did not want to admit to the American people.”

The New Republic observes how

“The documents are an indictment not only of one aspect of American foreign policy, but also of the US’s entire policymaking apparatus. They reveal a bipartisan consensus to lie about what was actually happening in Afghanistan: chronic waste and chronic corruption, one ill-conceived development scheme after another, resulting in a near-unmitigated failure to bring peace and prosperity to the country. Both parties had reason to engage in the cover-up. For the Bush administration, Afghanistan was a key component in the war on terror. For the Obama administration, Afghanistan was the ‘good war’ that stood in contrast to the nightmare in Iraq.”

The Afghan War’s true costs have never been precisely calculated, though they certainly exceed $1 trillion and counting. The documents relied upon for the Postreport include more than 2,000 pages of confidential interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, including soldiers and diplomats, as well as civilian aid workers and Afghan officials. Many of the interviews were initially carried out by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). The Post divided the interviews and supporting documentation into subject categories that demonstrate how the situation in Afghanistan began to deteriorate as soon as the United States followed up on its rapid invasion with a plan for nation building. Resorting to the usual American expedient, the occupiers flooded the country with money, which meant that the only thing blooming on the thin soil was corruption, apart from the poppies that have made Afghanistan the world’s leading supplier of opium.

One contractor who was involved in nation building described how he was required to spend $3 million daily for projects in an Afghan district roughly the size of a US county. He asked a visiting congressman if he could be authorized to spend that much money in the US “[The lawmaker] said hell no. ‘Well, sir, that’s what you just obligated us to spend and I’m doing it for communities that live in mud huts with no windows.’ ”

In another interview the report cites Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, the White House Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, who told the interviewers in 2015. “We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn’t know what we were doing,” later adding “What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”

Army Colonel Bob Crowley, who served in Kabul in 2013-4, described how at headquarters “Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible,” adding also how “Surveys, for instance, were totally unreliable but reinforced that everything we were doing was right and we became a self-licking ice cream cone.”

Part of the problem with Afghanistan was the rotation of American soldiers in and then out after one year or less, just as they were learning about the country and the problems they faced. It has led to the joke that the United States has not fought an eighteen-year war in Afghanistan: it has fought a one-year war eighteen times.

The Post investigative report coincides with an interesting deconstruction of the US military and how it operates. David Swanson of World BEYOND War provides a lengthy review of West Point Professor Tim Bakken’s new book The Cost of Loyalty: Dishonesty, Hubris, and Failure in the US Military. Per Swanson, the book “traces a path of corruption, barbarism, violence, and unaccountability that makes its way from the United States’ military academies (West Point, Annapolis, Colorado Springs) to the top ranks of the US military and US governmental policy, and from there into a broader US culture that, in turn, supports the subculture of the military and its leaders. The US Congress and presidents have ceded tremendous power to generals. The State Department and even the US Institute of Peace are subservient to the military. The corporate media and the public help maintain this arrangement with their eagerness to denounce anyone who opposes the generals. Even opposing giving free weapons to Ukraine is now quasi-treasonous.”

Bakken even disputes the widely held view that the military academies have high academic standards. He describes how the “system” pays to get potential athletes and accepts students nominated by congressmen commensurate with donations made to fund re-election campaigns. Swanson sums it up by observing how the academies offer “a community college-level education only with more hazing, violence, and tamping down of curiosity. West Point takes soldiers and declares them to be professors, which works roughly as well as declaring them to be relief workers or nation builders or peace keepers. The school parks ambulances nearby in preparation for violent rituals. Boxing is a required subject. Women are five times more likely to be sexually assaulted at the three military academies than at other US universities.”

Bakken concludes that appreciating the fundamental structural flaws in the US armed forces “leads to a clearer understanding of the deficiencies in the military and how America can lose wars.” In fact, he does not even seek to identify a war that the United States has won since World War 2 in spite of the country being nearly constantly engaged in conflict.

Together the Bakken book and the Afghanistan Papers reveal just how much the American people have been brainwashed by their leaders into believing a perpetual warfare national narrative that is more fiction than fact. Donald Trump may have actually appreciated that the voters were tired of the wars and was elected on that basis, but he has completely failed to deliver on his promise to retrench. It suggests that America will remain in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future and the inevitable next war, wherever it might be, will be another failure, no matter who is elected in 2020.

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

Major food companies like General Mills continue to sell popular children’s breakfast cereals and other foods contaminated with troubling levels of glyphosate, the cancer-causing ingredient in the herbicide Roundup.

The weedkiller, produced by Bayer-Monsanto, was detected in all 21 oat-based cereal and snack products sampled in a new round of testing commissioned by the Environmental Working Group. All but four products contained levels of glyphosate higher than what EWG scientists consider protective for children’s health with a sufficient margin of safety.

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The new tests confirm and amplify EWG’s findings from tests in July and October of last year, with levels of glyphosate consistently above EWG’s children’s health benchmark. The two highest levels of glyphosate were found in Honey Nut Cheerios Medley Crunch, with 833 parts per billion, or ppb, and Cheerios, with 729 ppb. The EWG children’s health benchmark is 160 ppb.

EWG purchased products via online retail sites. Approximately 300 grams of each product were packed in our Washington, D.C., office and shipped to Anresco Laboratories in San Francisco. Glyphosate levels were analyzed by a liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry method described here.

Since 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a part of the World Health Organization, has classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” In 2017, glyphosate was classified as a known carcinogen by California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.

Since last August, three California juries have awarded more than $2.2 billion total in three separate verdicts against Bayer-Monsanto over claims that Roundup caused cancer and that Monsanto knew about the risks for decades and went to extraordinary lengths to cover it up.

Glyphosate is used mostly as a weedkiller on genetically modified corn and soybeans. But it is also sprayed on oats just before harvest as a drying agent, or desiccant. It kills the crop, drying it out so it can be harvested sooner, which increases the likelihood that glyphosate ends up in foods children love to eat.

EWG and 19 food companies recently delivered more than 80,000 names on a petition urging the Environmental Protection Agency to sharply limit glyphosate residues allowed on oats and prohibit its use as a preharvest drying agent.

All but one of the tested products contained glyphosate at levels higher than what EPA previously allowed on oats, in 1993. EWG’s petition, currently under consideration by EPA, calls on the agency to return to its health-protective 1993 standard. But it could take years for EPA to act, and the agency has been caught colluding with Monsanto to promote the claim that the chemical is safe.

The only way to quickly remove this cancer-causing weedkiller from foods marketed to children is for companies like General Mills and Quaker to use oats from farmers who do not use glyphosate as a desiccant.

More than 236,000 people have signed a petition directed at these food companies, calling on them to take action to protect consumers’ health.

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Featured image is from EWG

The Big Reveal for the Washington Post this week is the release of the Afghanistan Papers. A series of interviews and documents “compiled in secret” and then the subject of a “legal challenge” from the US government.

The WaPo baldly calls it: “A secret history of the war”

But there’s nothing here that’s really secret, and very little actual history.

What do they tell us? Absolutely nothing, except what we’re supposed to believe.

An awful lot of modern “leaks” are no such thing. They are Orwellian exercises in controlling the conversation.

And this is no exception, carefully making sure the “establishment” and the “alternative” are joined in the middle, controlled from the same source.

It presents apologism, simplifications and outright fabrication as if they are classified information.

Telling us about “bad intelligence” and a “lack of coherent strategy”, as if THOSE are the biggest crimes of NATO in Afghanistan.

The Guardian articles on the release reinforce the official version of 9/11, The WaPo itself drops nods to the mythologised death of Osama Bin Laden.

It’s all about enforcing the establishment line, disguised as criticism. Real crimes are ignored, whilst smaller, simpler “well-intentioned mistakes” are reluctantly acknowledged.

Nowhere is the illegality of the invasion addressed.

Not once is anyone accused of war crimes.

The Guardian reports don’t mention the word opium, which is bad enough. The Washington Post goes even further – daring to relate the US Army’s struggle to “curb” the spread of the opium trade.

This is an outright lie. Before the 2001 invasion, the opium trade had been all but destroyed by the Taliban.

The Taliban banned the production of heroin in 2001 (just before the invasion). It dropped to almost nothing by the end of the year.

Since the US took control the heroin production of the region has increased almost every year. Today, Afghanistan produces 90% of global heroin.

All this, we are told, while the most powerful military force on the planet desperately tries to stop them. The Taliban did in 6 months what the US army has been unable to do in 18 years.

They say it, and they expect us to believe it. It is nonsense.

It’s all just so pathetic. A weak attempt to clean up a mess twenty-years in the making.

Feeble efforts establish a narrative of false “controversy” by presenting us with a fully-formed, ready-meal “alternative opinion”, so all those people who fancy themselves anti-establishment can gorge on outrage, whilst never having to do the difficult job of cancelling their newspaper subscriptions or doing their own research.

Here’s the real “secret history” of the Afganistan war: It wasn’t a failure, it was a success.

In every facet, on every front, Afghanistan is exactly what America needed it to be.

They dripfeed in the blood of young Americans, they destroy 100,000s of Afghan lives, and they reap the rewards they always intended to reap:

  1. The permanent slow-simmer conflict gives them an excuse to keep thousands of US military personnel in a country which borders Iran, Pakistan AND China. (Not to mention a host of ex-Soviet states).
  2. It keeps military expenditure nice and high, so Congressman, ex-generals and everyone else on the boards of Boeing or Lockheed Martin get great big bonuses every year.
  3. They have sole access to the rare-Earth elementsand other vital metals in the Afghan mountains. Lithium, most importantly of all.
  4. They have control of the world’s opium industry. A vital cog in the relations of the US intelligence agencies, and organised crime. It’s essentially reverse money-laundering – turning tax-payer funds into dark money that can be spent hiring mercenaries, organising assassinations, arranging coups…or simply be stolen.
  5. They have access to all the “radicalised” young men they could ever want. A little Jihadi farm, where “terrorists” can be named, trained and sent off to fight proxy wars in Syria, or spread fear and chaos in the West.

Afghanistan is a great asset to the Empire. The US Deep State has spent a fortune making it so. They could at least be honest about it.

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Featured image is from New Eastern Outlook

The Politics of Trump’s Impeachment

December 20th, 2019 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

Several features stand out in the impeachment quest against President Donald J. Trump.  There is constitutional discourse as mythology and fetish.  There is outrage that the executive office could have been used to actually investigate political opponents through foreign agents.  There is cattiness over whether the conduct of the president veered into the territory of criminality, or fell somewhat short in his incessant obstruction.

One theme stands out:  The sheer divisiveness of this effort, which tore at the Democratic camp even as it encouraged Trump.  As Democrats reflected over the House vote (230 to 197) to give Trump the constitutional heave-ho to the Senate, no sores have been healed, or divisions patched across the country.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was also careful not to give an explicit show of delight.  Trump the symptom remains, his voting base not necessarily convinced or persuaded.

This is something Trump is reaping with manic persistence.  In a letter to Pelosi, he blustered that, “More due process was afforded those accused in the Salem Witch Trials.”  He had been “denied the most fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution, including the right to present evidence.”  The Democrats had been, he charged, obsessed by a “partisan impeachment crusade”.

He also reiterated the basis of murky political strategy, something that resists the parameters of legal fettering.  “You know full well that Vice President Biden used his office and $1 billion dollars of US aid money to coerce Ukraine into firing the prosecutor who was digging into the company paying his son millions of dollars.”  This is a less than noble reminder that US politics remains, at its heart, darkened, a condition that refuses to heal.

The position taken by moderate Democrats is that voting for the measure might not have been a politically sound thing from a self-interested point of view, but was inevitable.

“If I lose my seat, so be it,” reflected New York Democratic Rep. Anthony Brindisi.  “At the end of the day, I had to do what I felt was right for our country and the rule of law.”

What the impeachment process cannot escape from is politics.  As Gerald Ford stated while a House Rep., an impeachable offence might be best described as “whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers to be at a given moment in history.”  The very idea of what consists of “high crimes and misdemeanours” outlined in Article II, Section 4 encourages sufficient vagueness and manipulation.  That particular edition was George Mason’s contribution nine days before the Framers signed the Constitution, one made out of concern that “treason” failed to appropriately net other attempts “to subvert the Constitution”.  But in Law’s empire, there is no agreement as to whether such words suggest a criminal threshold.

Even then, terms such as “bribery” are up for debate.  Philip Bobbitt of Columbia University suggests that President Trump did sail close to it in his dinner with then-FBI director James Comey.  The occasion saw Trump inquiring of Comey as to whether he wanted to keep his job, suggesting that he terminate the Russia investigation. But even Comey was reluctant to suggest that there had been such an explicit point.

The relevant part of the Constitution highlighting the powers of the Senate vis-à-vis impeachment can be found in Article I, section 3, clause 6:  “The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.  When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation.  When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.”  The requirement for the Chief Justice’s presence furnishes a legal gloss, but nothing more.

However framed, be it legal or judicial, the senators will not be required to have legal training or awareness of the finer points of law to deal with the matter.  The Senate now assumes the position of judge and jury, a problematic state of affairs that involves, as Charles L. Black Jr. wrote in 1974, “the conscience of each senator, who ought to realize the danger and try as far as possible to divest himself of all prejudice.  I see no reason why this cannot produce a satisfactory result.”

Black’s confidence in senatorial capacity is charming and misplaced.  It challenges the senators to shed partiality and examine the evidence with sobriety and confidence.  Perhaps it is for that reason that his words, as Akhil Amar suggests in a foreword to a second edition of Black’s Impeachment: A Handbook, “are cool, not hot.”  Be mindful of haste and impulse; “shrink from this most drastic of measures”, he cautions.  Only when “the rightness of diagnosis and treatment is sure” should such a process be deployed.

Already, we know what Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell has promised. “I’m not an impartial juror.  This is a political process.  There’s not anything judicial about it.”  For Senator McConnell, the entire episode regarding Trump has been a matter of highest and most venomous partisanship.  “The House made a partisan political decision to impeach.  I would anticipate we will have a largely partisan outcome in the Senate.”

The Republicans have trained their weapons upon the Democrats, expecting a vengeful US electorate to be suitably punitive come 2020.  They, like the Democrats, have also made a gamble on Trump, albeit from the opposite side of the chamber.  “Today, December 18, 2019,” posed Representative Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, “is another date that will live in infamy.”  How that infamy translates in Trumpland promises to be decidedly toxic and volatile.

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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 Gage Skidmore

The Syrian Army has finalized military preparations and is awaiting orders to launch a large-scale ground operation in Greater Idlib, according to reports by Syrian media. The operation will allegedly be aimed at liberating the militant-held part of the M5 highway.

Together with the separation of terrorists from the so-called “moderate opposition”, the reopening of the highway is one the key terms of the Idlib de-escalation agreement. Nonetheless, diplomatic efforts and peaceful measures did not achieve enough progress and Greater Idlib remained the hotbed of the terrorism in the country.

If the Syrian Army wants to reopen the M5 highway, it will need to liberate Maarat al-Numan and Saraqib, two the biggest urban centers, in southern Idlib and several dozens of villages along the highway. Another obstacle is Turkish observation posts that were established in Greater Idlib in the framework of the de-escalation agreement. It was supposed that these observation posts would be used to observe the established ceasefire. However, Ankara also used them as a measure to limit the Syrian Army offensive into southern Idlib.

Reports on the new upcoming Syrian Army advance in southern Idlib came, when artillery units and warplanes of the Syrian military were carrying out intense airstrikes on militants’ positions along the M5 highway.

If this advance does not start by some reason, the area of Idlib will continue remaining one of the main sources of the terrorist threat in Syria.

In the interview with Asharq al-Awsat released on December 17, the Commander-in-Chief of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Mazloum Abdi said that the SDF should be a part of the Syrian national defense system. The SDF leader claimed that the SDF includes 80,000 fighters as well as 30,000 security personnel. He claimed that the SDF should remain in northeastern Syria and keep its command. Nonetheless, Abdi noted that the SDF could carry out its duty as a part of Syria’s armed forces.

When the SDF leader was asked about a possible political agreement with Damascus, Abdi said that such an agreement would require “more time and longer talks.”

In October, the SDF and the Damascus government reached a breakthrough agreement that allowed the deployment of the Syrian Army in the SDF-held area. However, the Kurdish group accepted the deal as a tactical measure only in order to rescue itself rom the Turkish-led attack on the region. So, it still sees itself as a kind of powerbroker in the region despite the fact that it lost most of its influence after the US-led coalition had de-facto abandoned the group.

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The trove of U.S. “Lessons Learned” documents on Afghanistan published by the Washington Post portrays, in excruciating detail, the anatomy of a failed policy, scandalously hidden from the public for 18 years. The “Lessons Learned” papers, however, are based on the premise that the U.S. and its allies will keep intervening militarily in other countries, and that they must therefore learn the lessons of Afghanistan to avoid making the same mistakes in future military occupations. 

This premise misses the obvious lesson that Washington insiders refuse to learn: the underlying fault is not in how the U.S. tries and fails to reconstruct societies destroyed by its “regime changes,” but in the fundamental illegitimacy of regime change itself. As former Nuremberg prosecutor Ben Ferencz told NPR just eight days after 9/11, “It is never a legitimate response to punish people who are not responsible for the wrong done. If you simply retaliate en masse by bombing Afghanistan, let us say, or the Taliban, you will kill many people who don’t approve of what has happened.”

The “Lessons Learned” documents reveal the persistent efforts of three administrations to hide their colossal failures behind a wall of propaganda in order to avoid admitting defeat and to keep “muddling along,” as General McChrystal has described it. In Afghanistan, muddling along has meant dropping over 80,000 bombs and missiles, nearly all on people who had nothing to do with the crimes of September 11th, exactly as Ben Ferencz predicted.

How many people have been killed in Afghanistan is contested and essentially unknown. The UN has published minimum confirmed numbers of civilians killed since 2007, but as Fiona Frazer, the UN human rights chief in Kabul, admitted to the BBC in August 2019, “more civilians are killed or injured in Afghanistan due to armed conflict than anywhere else on Earth…(but) due to rigorous methods of verification, the published figures almost certainly do not reflect the true scale of harm.” The UN only counts civilian deaths in incidents where it has completed human rights investigations, and it has little or no access to the remote Taliban-held areas where most U.S. air strikes and “kill or capture” raids take place. So, as Fiona Frazer suggested, the UN’s published figures can be only a fraction of the true numbers of people killed.

It shouldn’t take 18 years for U.S. officials to publicly admit that there is no military solution to a murderous and unwinnable war for which the U.S. is politically and legally responsible. But the debacle in Afghanistan is only one case in a fundamentally flawed U.S. policy with worldwide consequences. New quasi-governments installed by U.S. “regime changes” in country after country have proven more corrupt, less legitimate and less able to control their nation’s territory than the ones the U.S. has destroyed, leaving their people mired in endless violence and chaos that no form of continued U.S. occupation can repair.

“Regime change” is a process of coercion designed to impose the political will of the U.S. government on countries around the world, violating their sovereignty and self-determination with an arsenal of military, economic and political weapons:

  1. Delegitimization. The first step in targeting a country for regime change is to delegitimize its existing government in the eyes of U.S. and allied publics, with targeted propaganda or “information warfare” to demonize its president or prime minister. Painting foreign leaders as villains in a personalized Manichean drama psychologically prepares the American public for U.S. coercion to remove them from power. One lesson for those of us opposed to regime change operations is that we must challenge these campaigns at this first stage if we want to prevent their escalation. For example, Russia and China today both have strong defenses, including nuclear weapons, making a U.S. war with either of them predictably catastrophic, or even suicidal. So why is the U.S. stoking a new Cold War against them? Is the military-industrial complex threatening us with extinction only to justify record military budgets? Why is serious diplomacy to negotiate peaceful coexistence and disarmament “off the table,” when it should be an existential priority?
  2. Sanctions. Using economic sanctions as a tool to force political change in other countries is deadly and illegal. Sanctions kill people by denying them food, medicine and other basic necessities. UN sanctions killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in the 1990s. Today, unilateral U.S. sanctions are killing tens of thousands in Iran and Venezuela. This is illegal under international law, and has been vigorously condemned by UN special rapporteurs. Professor Robert Pape’s research shows that economic sanctions have only achieved political change in 4% of cases. So their main purpose in U.S. policy is to fuel deadly economic and humanitarian crises that can then serve as pretexts for other forms of U.S. intervention.
  3. Coups and proxy wars. Coups and proxy wars have long been the weapons of choice when U.S. officials want to overthrow foreign governments. Recent U.S.-backed coups in Honduras, Ukraine and now Bolivia have removed elected governments and installed right-wing U.S.-backed regimes. The U.S. has relied more heavily on coups and proxy wars in the wake of its military disasters in Korea, Vietnam, and now Afghanistan and Iraq, to attempt regime change without the political liability of heavy U.S. military casualties. Under Obama’s doctrine of covert and proxy war, the U.S. worked with Qatari ground forces in Libya, Al Qaeda-linked groups in Syria and military leaders in Honduras. But outsourcing regime change to local coup leaders and proxy forces adds even more uncertainty to the outcome, making proxy wars like the one in Syria predictably bloody, chaotic and intractable.
  4. Bombing campaigns. U.S. bombing campaigns minimize U.S. casualties but wreak untold and uncounted death and destruction on both enemies and innocents. Like “regime change”, “precision weapons” is a euphemism designed to obscure the horror of war. Rob Hewson, the editor of the arms trade journal Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, told the AP during the “Shock and Awe” bombing of Iraq in 2003 that the accuracy of U.S. precision weapons was only 75-80%, meaning that thousands of bombs and missiles predictably missed their targets and killed random civilians. As Rob Hewson said. “… you can’t drop bombs and not kill people. There’s a real dichotomy in all of this.” After Mosul and Raqqa were destroyed in the U.S.-led anti-IS campaign that has dropped over 100,000 bombs and missiles on Iraq and Syria since 2014, journalist Patrick Cockburn described Raqqa as “bombed to oblivion,” and revealed that Iraqi Kurdish intelligence reports had counted at least 40,000 civilians killed in Mosul.
  5. Invasion and hostile military occupation. The infamous “last resort” of full-scale war is predicated on the idea that, if nothing else works, the U.S.’s trillion-dollar military can surely get the job done. This dangerous presumption led the U.S. into military quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan despite its previous “lessons learned” in Vietnam, underlining the central unlearned lesson that war itself is a catastrophe. In Iraq, journalist Nir Rosen described the U.S. occupation force as “lost in Iraq…unable to wield any power except on the immediate street corner where it’s located.” Today, about 6,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, confined to their bases, under frequent missile attack, while a new generation of Iraqis rises up to reclaim their country from the corrupt former exiles the U.S. flew in with its invasion forces 17 years ago.

Any responsible government Americans elect in 2020 must learn from the well-documented failure and catastrophic human cost of U.S. regime change efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, Somalia, Honduras, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, Venezuela, Iran and now Bolivia.

These “lessons learned” should lead to U.S. withdrawal from the countries we have wrecked, opening the way for the UN and other legitimate mediators to come in and help their people to form sovereign, independent governments and to resolve the intractable secondary conflicts that U.S. wars and covert operations have unleashed.

Secondly, the U.S. must conduct global diplomatic outreach to make peace with our enemies, end our illegal sanctions and threats, and reassure the people of the world that they need no longer fear and arm themselves against the threat of U.S. aggression. The most potent signals that we have really turned over a new leaf would be serious cuts in the U.S. military budget – we currently outspend the next seven or eight militaries combined, despite our endless military failures; a reduction in U.S. conventional forces and weapons to the level needed to meet our country’s legitimate defense needs; and the closure of most of the hundreds of U.S. military bases on the territories of other nations, which amount to a global military occupation.

Maybe most vitally, the U.S. should reduce the threat of the most catastrophic of all wars, nuclear war, by finally complying with its obligations under the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires the U.S. and other nuclear-armed countries to move towards “full and complete nuclear disarmament.”

In 2019, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists kept the hands of its Doomsday clock at two minutes to midnight, symbolizing that we are as close to self-destruction as we have ever been. Its 2019 statement cited the double danger of climate change and nuclear war: “Humanity now faces two simultaneous existential threats, either of which would be cause for extreme concern and immediate attention.” So it is a matter of survival for the U.S. to cooperate with the rest of the world to achieve major breakthroughs on both these fronts.

If this seems far-fetched or overly ambitious, that is a measure of how far we have strayed from the sanity, humanity and peaceful cooperation we will need to survive this century. A world in which war is normal and peace is out of reach is no more survivable or sustainable than a world where the atmosphere gets hotter every year. Permanently ending this entire U.S. policy of coercive regime change is therefore a political, moral and existential imperative.

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Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK for Peace, is the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iranand Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection.

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

Featured image is from Rare Historical Photos


150115 Long War Cover hi-res finalv2 copy3.jpg

The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity

Michel Chossudovsky

The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-6-0
Year: 2015
Pages: 240 Pages

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“Who have given the Americans the right to do this? And, at whose invitation is the US protecting Syria’s oil fields?” Xie Xiaoyan said at a press conference in Moscow on Wednesday.

“Let’s think the other way around: will the US allow Syria to send troops to US territory to protect oil fields there?” he said.

In late October, Washington reversed an earlier decision to pull out all of its troops from northeastern Syria, announcing the deployment of about 500 soldiers to the oil fields controlled by Kurdish forces in the Arab country.

The US claimed that the move was aimed at protecting the fields and facilities from possible attacks by the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group. That claim came even as US President Donald Trump had earlier suggested that Washington sought economic interests in controlling the oilfields.

Pentagon chief Mark Esper then threatened that the US forces deployed to the oil fields would use “military force” against any party that might seek to challenge control of the sites, even if it were Syrian government forces or their Russian allies.

Syria, which has not authorized American military presence in its territory, has said the US is “plundering” the country’s oil.

Xie, the Chinese envoy for Syria, said he was in Moscow for a second time this year to continue consultations with the Russian side on the Syrian issue.

He said a political settlement was the sole way to resolve the Syrian crisis, calling on all parties involved to unite their efforts to this end.

“We hope that all parties and players involved in the Syrian crisis will join hands and put their efforts together, try to maintain the momentum of the political settlement,” he said.

“The sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Syria must be respected and upheld. The future of Syria must be left in the hands of the Syrian people. Let them independently decide their own future,” he said.

The Chinese envoy said, however, that there were still uncertainties in north Syria and the threat of terrorism remained, calling for “immediate attention” by the international community as displaced Syrians gradually return to their homes and the issue of Syria’s reconstruction is back on the agenda.

He said China and Russia could play a role together in swiftly finding a lasting solution to the Syrian crisis.

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Trump Not Officially Impeached So Far?

December 20th, 2019 by Stephen Lendman

Will or won’t House Speaker Pelosi select Dem impeachment managers (prosecutors) and transmit articles of impeachment against Trump to the Senate for trial?

Knowing the GOP controlled body will reject House charges against Trump and acquit him, will Pelosi and relevant House committee chairmen decide against a Senate trial?

Impeaching Trump by House Dems was and remains all about wanting him weakened and delegitimized ahead of November 2020 elections, not removing him from office — what majority Senate Republicans reject.

Ahead of Wednesday’s impeachment vote, Pelosi said the following:

“(I)f we impeach the president immediately, everybody moves on to the next thing.”

“The next thing for us will be when we see the process that is set forth in the Senate.”

“Then we’ll know the number of managers that we may have to go forward, and who we would choose.”

“When we see what they have, we’ll know who and how many we will send over. That’s all I’m going to say about that now.”

“(W)e would like to see a fair process (sic), but we’ll see what they have, and we’ll be ready for whatever it is.”

“I heard some of what (Senate Majority Leader) Mitch McConnell said today (about not being impartial). (W)e…have a rogue president and a rogue leader in the Senate at the same time.”

“I’m not going to answer any more questions on this.”

“Clearly, do you understand, when we see what their process is, we will know who and how many we want to send over. Not until then. I’m not going to go there anymore.”

Selecting impeachment managers is the next step to make House case, along with transmitting articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial. If these steps aren’t taken, there’s no formal impeachment,  no trial.

The House is in recess for the holiday period until January 7. According to Roll Call, the Senate’s 2020 calendar includes no scheduled January impeachment trial, an unnamed Senate aide saying:

“Unfortunately due to uncertainty on the floor schedule for start of the year, the Senate is unable to establish a schedule for January at this time. When we have clarity on a date to convene and what January will look like we will get that information out as soon as possible.”

On Thursday, McConnell said the following:

“(F)ollowing (House Dems) rush to impeachment…the prosecutors appear to have developed cold feet,” adding:

“(A)s of today, we remain at an impasse because (Dem Minority Leader Schumer) demand(s) a new and different set of rules for President Trump.”

“He wants us to break from…unanimous bipartisan precedent and force an all-or-nothing approach.”

‘He wants a special pre-trial guarantee of certain witnesses whom (House Dems) did not even bother to pursue themselves as they assembled their case…or he wants to proceed without any organizing resolution whatsoever.”

“So as I said…we remain at an impasse on these logistics.”

As for House articles of impeachment, Speaker Pelosi “continues to hem and haw about whether and when she intends to take the normal next step and transmit the House’s accusations to the Senate…for some kind of ‘leverage’ so they can dictate the Senate process…”

“I am not sure what leverage there is in refraining from sending us something we do not want.”

Other House Dems “seem to be suggesting they’d prefer never to transmit the articles. Fine with me.”

“(T)he Speaker of the House herself has been unclear on this. Her message has been somewhat muddled.”

House Dems seem “unsure whether they even want to proceed to a trial.”

“So we’ll continue to see how this develops, and whether the House Democrats ever work up the courage to take their accusations to trial.”

According to hostile to Trump Law Professor Noah Feldman “impeachment is a process, not a vote.”

“If the House does not communicate its impeachment to the Senate, it hasn’t actually impeached the president.”

“If the articles are not transmitted, Trump could legitimately say that he wasn’t truly impeached at all.”

“The Constitution doesn’t say how fast the articles must go to the Senate. Some modest delay is not inconsistent with the Constitution, or how both chambers usually work.”

“But an indefinite delay would pose a serious problem.”

“Impeachment as contemplated by the Constitution does not consist merely of the vote by the House, but of the process of sending the articles to the Senate for trial.”

“Both parts are necessary to make an impeachment under the Constitution.”

“The House must actually send the articles and send managers to the Senate to prosecute the impeachment. And the Senate must actually hold a trial.”

If both parties remain at impasse going forward, perhaps they’ll be no Senate trial, no de jure impeachment —  what Dems may prefer as part of their electoral campaign strategy, not Trump, tweeting:

The Senate “can set a date (on its own) and put this whole SCAM into default if (Dems) refuse to show up!”

He wants Senate proceedings to formally absolve him of charges.

According to attorney/impeachment expert Ross Garber, the “Constitution doesn’t mention transmission. And (the) Supreme Court has said (the) Senate has sole power to set trial rules.”

The “Senate could set a deadline for trial regardless. Or not. (The) Senate and Trump probably don’t care. Either way, not a good look for the House Ds.”

McConnell said he’s “not anxious to have (a) trial.” He wants proceedings to acquit Trump quickly if it’s held. Neither he or Trump appear willing to make concessions to Dems, especially regarding witnesses and trial procedure if held.

For now, things are in limbo for until January. Knowing acquittal is certain if a Senate trial is held, hostile to Trump Law Professor Laurence Tribe argued against holding one, saying it’ll “fail to render a meaningful verdict.”

This drama will likely drag on in the new year, both parties manipulating things for political advantage in the run-up to November 2020 elections.

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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.

Leaked Information on Trump’s No-Peace/Deal of the Century

December 20th, 2019 by Stephen Lendman

Information on what may be in Trump’s no-peace/peace plan was leaked before — its accuracy unknown unless and until a plan is released.

It hardly matters. It was dead before arrival. Trump’s one-sided support for Israel is more extreme than any of his predecessors.

He cut off vitally needed humanitarian aid for Palestinian refugees, suspended other US aid to the PA other than for security to serve as Israel’s enforcer, and closed the PLO mission in Washington.

He illegally recognized Jerusalem (a UN-established international city) as Israel’s exclusive capital, moved the US embassy there, abandoned a legitimate two-state solution, recognized Israel’s unlawful Golan annexation, and no longer considers illegal settlements occupied territory.

His so-called $50 billion investment fund for Palestinians and neighboring Arab states that’s part of his no-peace/peace plan is all about enriching Western and Israeli monied interests, unrelated to aiding long-suffering Palestinians.

He’s no friend of ordinary people anywhere, not at home or abroad, especially ones most disadvantaged, waging war on social justice domestically to pay for the great GOP tax cut heist benefitting corporate America and high net-worth households, along with supporting record spending for militarism and endless wars.

On Monday, Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen television reported what it called information on what’s in Trump’s so-called deal of the century.

From what’s reported, it establishes the illusion of a “New Palestine” state in parts of the West Bank and Gaza, short of the real thing Israel and the US reject, both areas connected by an elevated highway.

It excludes 70% or more of West Bank land controlled by Israel, including the Jordan Valley, closed military zones, exclusive Jewish commercial areas, tourist sites, no-go areas, and illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land, Jerusalem to remain undivided, the city “shared between Israel and New Palestine.”

On July 30, 1980, the Knesset Jerusalem Law officially annexed the city as Israel’s exclusive capital.

On March 1, 1980, UN Security Council Resolution 465 declared that “all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof, have no legal validity and that Israel’s policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant (Fourth Geneva) violation…”

Its actions relating to the city also “constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”

On July 4, 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that “Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territory, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and an obstacle to peace and to economic and social development (and) have been established in breach of international law.”

What Security Council resolutions and other international laws established cannot be legally changed by nations for any reasons.

Trump’s deal of the century does nothing to alter absolute Israeli control of the Occupied Territories, including Gaza, attacking the Strip at its discretion, maintaining a suffocating medieval blockade for political reasons.

Other reported deal of the century provisions include establishing a Palestinian industrial zone from land bought from Egypt, Palestinians not allowed to live there.

Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem would becoming New Palestine citizens. Al Aqsa mosque stewardship would shift from Jordan to Saudi Arabia.

Except for education, Israel would sell electricity, water, and other services to Palestinians, maintaining a chokehold on them like now.

The so-called new state would be prohibited from forming a military force or acquiring heavy weapons, Hamas to be disarmed, clearly what it won’t agree to.

A Trump regime statement denied the accuracy of the above information, saying:

“Rumors about the content of (Trump’s) peace plan are false. We are confident that the so-called source has not seen the plan.”

On Tuesday, Haaretz reported that Congress rejected a Trump regime request for $175 million to support his deal of the century — a so-called “Diplomatic Progress Fund.”

Haaretz quoted an unnamed congressional source, saying “(o)ne argument against (the budget request is that) no one thinks (Trump’s) peace plan is coming out any time soon, so why devote money to it,” adding:

“If it becomes serious, (they’ll be congressional) support. No one in Congress will stand in the way of a peace plan if it seems like it has a chance to succeed.”

Since 2017, the PA rejected Trump’s no-peace/peace plan. On Wednesday, Mahmoud Abbas repeated that “(f)rom day one, we said no to the deal of the century…”

Whatever is in the one-sided deal clearly favors Israel. Palestinian rejection leaves it unclear if it’ll ever be released.

An earlier Financial Times report called Trump’s plan “a fraud…a smokescreen for the burial of the two-state solution,” adding:

It’s been delayed so many times PLO secretary general Saeb Erekat called it “the deal of the next century.”

“The truth is that it was never really alive or likely ever to arrive,” said the FT.

It’s a scheme to let Israel officially annex all valued West Bank land and East Jerusalem.

So-called “New Palestine” won’t likely be more than isolated cantons on worthless scrubland, a state in name only surrounded by hostile settlers, supported by Israeli security forces.

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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: President Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York on Sept. 18, 2017. (Screenshot from Whitehouse.gov)

Propaganda in the War on Yugoslavia

December 19th, 2019 by Swiss Propaganda Research

Updated on December 31, 2019.

From a geopolitical perspective, the war on Yugoslavia in the 1990s was about restructuring South east Europe after the end of the Cold War. To this end, the US even deployed the combatants with which it had previously fought the USSR in Afghanistan and which it would later call “Al Qaeda”.

The political and media propaganda regarding the war on Yugoslavia has been well researched by now. Interestingly, however, many media outlets and commentators are still trying to uphold the official narrative of the time, in contrast to the later war in Iraq, for example.

There may be various reasons for this. On the one hand, the propaganda in question dates back to the early days of the Internet and is therefore generally less well known to the public. On the other hand, the implications, notably for Europe, are particularly far-reaching in this case.

From today’s perspective, it is a rather trivial statement that most Western media outlets supported NATO’s war on Yugoslavia, but at the time even critics believed in a media “failure”, especially because the influence of foreign policy groups on media reporting was not yet broadly known.

The following sections provide an overview of propaganda in the war on Yugoslavia as well as references to further literature and documentation. Please note that the analysis does not call into question regional aspects of the conflict or any actual war crimes on any side of the conflict.

1. The Serbian “Death Camp” (1992)

One of the most notorious cases of propaganda concerns the alleged Serbian “death camp” of Trnopolje in Bosnia. The story began in August 1992, when three British journalists visited a refugee camp whose inmates stressed that they were being treated very well (see video below).

The journalists, however, went inside a fenced-in storage area right next to the refugee camp and filmed the men on the outside through a barbed wire fence, making it appear as if the men were imprisoned, which in fact they were not (see site map below). The journalists then asked a man emaciated from illness or war-related malnutrition to take off his T-shirt.

The resulting photograph – carefully cut to size – landed on the front pages of most Western media as “proof” of Serbian “death camps”, which in turn served as justification for NATO’s subsequent intervention in Bosnia, starting with a no-fly zone.

The Trnopolje death camp deception was exposed by a German journalist in 1997. A British magazine that republished his article got sued by the three British journalists for libel and eventually lost the case because it couldn’t prove their intent.

The head of an American PR agency that had spread the false death camp reports later explained: “We are professionals. We had a job to do and we did it. We are not paid to be moral.”

Full documentary: Yugoslavia: The Pictures that Fooled the World (2000)
The German captions explain how the men being filmed were standing outside of the barbed wire fence and what type of questions the British journalists were asking them.

TV screenshot, press headlines and site map of the Trnopolje refugee camp

2. The Sarajevo Marketplace Massacres (1992-1995)

Another well-known case of propaganda concerns the so-called marketplace massacres during the four-year siege of Sarajevo, in particular the so-called bread line massacre of May 1992 and the two so-called Markale massacres of February 1994 and August 1995.

These incidents allegedly took place by mortar fire from outside of the city and often happened shortly before important political consultations at the UN or EU. They ultimately led to a direct military intervention by NATO – the first in its history – and thus to a turnaround in the Bosnian war.

In the cases mentioned above as well as some others, investigations by officers of the UN protection mission came to the conclusion that these incidents may have been carried out by the Bosnian side itself, perhaps to influence Western public opinion (so-called false flag attacks).

The relevant UN reports, however, were kept secret. Instead, American media — notably CNN — and the US government usually claimed without delay that the respective attack had probably been carried out by the Serbian side (see video below).

Canadian General Lewis MacKenzie, commander of the UN forces in Sarajevo, wrote about the 1992 incident: “Our people told us there were a number of things that didn’t fit. The street had been blocked off just before the incident. Once the crowd was let in and had lined up, the media appeared but kept their distance. The attack took place, and the media were immediately on the scene.”

About the 1994 incident, a BBC journalist noted with surprise how “television crews were on the scene, filming within seconds of the blast”, while UN officers and even doctors were prevented from entering the site, and all of the alleged 197 victims were carried away within 25 minutes. Others pointed out that the market was in fact closed at the time of the incident (see video below).

Regarding the 1995 incident, the London Sunday Times later revealed that British and French UN ammunition experts had concluded the Serbian side was “not guilty”, but they were then “overruled by a senior American officer”, and NATO air strikes began within less than 48 hours.

US professor Yossef Bodansky, the longtime director of the US Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, later described these incidents as “expertly-staged spectacle of gore” that included the use of “corpses of Bosnian troops recently killed in action”.

In the following you will find the most important articles from that time by journalists who were able to study the unpublished UN reports or talk to officials involved in writing them.

Twenty years later, the Bosnian Markale massacres of 1994/95 were recalled when poison gas attacks during the Syrian war turned out to be questionable and the results of UN and OPCW investigations were again suppressed to justify military strikes by NATO countries.

The 1994 Markale massacre (Source: BBC, The Death of Yugoslavia, 1995)

3. The “Genocide of Srebrenica” (1995)

The “Genocide of Srebrenica” in July 1995 is regarded as the sad climax of the Bosnian war. According to Western accounts originally based on a report by the US government, more than 8000 Bosnian civilians may have been killed.

But according to Phillip Corwin, the highest-ranking UN civilian official in Bosnia during the war, the actual evidence points to a more complex situation and a somewhat different context. Corwin calledthe official Western account of events in Srebrenica a “distortion”.

The late political scientist Edward S. Herman and the former CIA officer Robert Baer, who was operating in Yugoslavia during the war, even spoke of a “fraud” in this regard.

For further details, please refer to the following articles and documentaries:

In general, even events with very high reported victim numbers must sometimes be critically examined. This was shown, for example, by the “Timisoara Massacre” of 1989 with allegedly 4630 dead, which later turned out to be a psychological operation to launch the Romanian revolution.

Srebrenica: A Town Betrayed (Norwegian documentary, 60m, 2010, Wikipedia)

4. Kosovo: “Operation Horseshoe”, Račak and Rogovo, and more (1999)

After the separation of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia from Yugoslavia, the US and NATO started another war in 1999 against the remainder of Yugoslavia to additionally separate the province of Kosovo from Serbia. This war again had to be justified by propaganda and disinformation.

In particular, politicians and the media discussed alleged expulsion plans, concentration camps and massacres, which later turned out to be fabricated or questionable. Examples include the alleged “Operation Horseshoe” (to expulse Albanians) and the alleged “Račak massacre”.

In the case of Račak, for instance, Finnish forensic experts concluded that the bodies of KLA fighters killed in action had been moved, redressed, and presented as civilian victims of an execution.

After the war, the head of an American public relations agency that had spread such dubious stories about the situation in Kosovo stated in an interview: “To be honest, when NATO finally attacked in 1999, we opened a bottle of champagne.”

For further details, the German documentary “It Began with a Lie” from 2001 will be shown below (English subtitles available). The documentary shows how Western governments deliberately published false information in order to legitimize the war.

 

Kosovo War: It Began with a Lie (German documentary, 2001)

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Rania  “if death will come in 5 years or 7 or 10 I would urge it to come now because they have ripped us up of all hopes for any foreseen future… they have killed us while we are still breathing, they have taken any shred of dignity pushing us to strive for our daily bread … I wonder what else they may ask for if we keep compromising ….”

[the full identity of the testimonies is not available]

1. Ayham   I wonder what does the American Government have  against the Syrian people and for what reason we are being punished?!

We’ve never been a threat to anyone, never hated anyone and certainly never been against Americans.

Now about the petrol crisis, we had a harsh winter, but we managed to overcome the cold. Now we face lack of Gasoline and most cars stay in queues for about two days on Gas stations to get about 20 liters a week.

2. I do not understand this American intransigence … Why do they want to kill us? We love our country and we do not want to leave it. My young son lost this 20 year old damned war Why does America support terrorism to earn money at the expense of people? The killing of my son I accused him is the one who helped the terrorists and killed our children and today we are counting on the top of our lives Yes, gasoline is the main source of movement Mechanisms, factories and cars … Also heating Thousands of children have been hurt because of the cold and the children of their sons … The livelihoods of people working on cars and engines Small and electricity …. why not talk The American people as long as they sleep in democracy … Hands for living in dignity in our country We have not attacked you … Let us live in peace … …

Thank you janice…

3. Aiham   The US government imposed economic sanctions on our government to force it to accept the entry of Muslim Brotherhood extremists into our government.

We, as a Syrian people, have’t found fuel for heating for two days during the snowfall on Easter night.. not enough fuel for cars …

Is not it enough that the US government create ISIS terrorist in our country as Hillary Clinton said?

Aiham , Damascus

4. Soumaya :  yes it is a real torture, in Aleppo everybody want to get out of the country.. it s a humanitarian shame.. and everything is more expensive.. they want Syria to die.. pray for the people.. I stay strong like you and we will do our best to help..

5. Adnan  : Economic sanctions are enforced by US, WHY NOW ? The prohibition of oil supplies to enter Syria indicates an economic war after 8 years of fierce and bloody war waged by US and its allies by deploying hundreds of thousands of terrorists and mercenaries. It is a punishment to the Syrian people especially the poor, who are cleary are badly affected and suffer the rarity and high prices of most necessities to their lives. I think it’s for imposing agendas, opposition names and constitution change. Take it from a Syrian from Aleppo, THOSE WHO WITHSTOOD THE MOST VICIOUS AND BLOODY WAR WILL NEVER GIVE UP TO SANCTIONS

6. Mohammad  : US government claiming that America it’s the country of freedom and it’s the greatest country… Etc
What are you doing for God sake???

You have created ISIS and pretending that you’re fighting them? But in fact you are training and arming and supporting them by all ways possible, for what? For power or oil or helping your child so-called Israel?? Israel are fake country that’s why they named it (is real ) the real country is Palestine…

I lost my young brother in this horrible war that you started in my country, he was fighting YOUR ISIS and me as a soldier i spent 8 years of my life fighting them ,my best 8 years of youth, i can’t get married or making a family because i scarified of my whole life for my country, for my people, and I WILL KEEP FIGHTING.

Leave us alone we can handle our business, i have a lot of Americans friends, they are good people, but you as a government ARE SHIT.

I have a lot to say, i don’t know where can i start,  We lost a lot because they faking the truth about my country especially in media… I’m not done but i think this enough because they know the truth, they know what exactly happened to my country because they did it.

P.S : I’ve learned English during this war to send this kind of messages to the world, we as Syrians we don’t know what give up means, country who loves all kind of education.. Just take a look of the difference between us and Saudi Arabia, your beloved friend that has a bloody hands in Yemen with your blessings.

I’m not done……

7. Salma  : I already have financial difficulties so imagine now with even higher food prices.. Every end of every month I stay without food for days because I have enough money to either feed myself or my dogs and I choose to feed my dog.. Who is a vegan dog most days of the month BTW.. I am vegan everyday of the year.. And I still can’t make it..

8. Nourhanne :  Well, I will be clear … I am 25 years old. I live in Damascus, the old neighborhoods of Bab Touma. Sanctions significantly affected the car’s long queues on gas stations for long hours Public conductors were weak for staff and students go to work It took a lot of time Export to other areas was also difficult.

These sanctions are certainly a mistake to be decided by the United States which considers itself with human rights

9.  I live in tartus and i have an advice to these sick minds in washington D.C

By punishing us the people of syria , You are not turning us against our government ..despite the hell we live in everyday we know who is doing this and this made us more united . The only hate is happening here is against you . Why you hate us why….

10. I spent 4 hours to fill my car with only 20 litters and these are my share for 5 days

My father 85 years old in drykish near safita 35 km away from tartus i must go there every day to stay with him because he is sick .

My work in tartus i have no oil to visit him daily i dont know what to do.

11. Ali  I remember watching western movies when i was a kid with my siblings… “Once upon a time in the west” exactly… I remember the fly scene at the beginning… At that moment i fell in love with the American lifestyle and mentality. Later i watched more movies and read as many books as i could after learning English just to know more about America… I have always admired and trusted the American people… But i never saw a wider gap between poeple and their politicians. The sanctions you impose are not harming anyone but people like me, people who can never teach their kids to love America as we did… What am i supposed to tell my 4 years old kid?! America is good but you are not!!! He wouldn’t understand…

Sometimes i really wonder.. Is there really an “American people”?! can they change things like we see on tv?! Or is the “American people” as real as the “Avengers”..?!

I know these words wont change a thing… I wish you arrange a trip for us to meet Americans there and hold meetings to tell them what is really happening here… What has been happening since WW2…

But again… That’s rather impossible… Aliens like me cannot enter the heavens of America… A green card is needed!!! Right?!! Yet your soldiers can come oceans away.. No questions asked…

Democracy might not be at it’s best here in my country… But the world you created can only produce such an ugly truth

12. Hanan :  It’s Unbearable , I’m a college student and I need to get out early because of the difficulty of transportation ، I need to stand an hour under the sun after finishing classes to find a means of transport or bus to go home . Most of the time I go and back home on foot. I can’t wait.. Whether it is America’s or others this sanctions are absolute evil. We were talking today about they cut off everything, leaving only oxygen and Pepsi because it made in Damascus

13. Youssef   The economic siege on Syria increases my love for the Syrian national leadership. On the other hand there is great hatred of the United States of America.

14. Labib Syrian people in USA and elsewhere pose no threat to anyone and specially American. Syria has provided the best doctors, engineers etc to the world and it is not fair to treat Syria and Syrians with such barbaric sanctions

15. Heba 

I don’t care what exact reason is behind the economic sanctions, I care about my siblings’ future and mine.

Our parents used to narrate stories of them studying on the lights of candles, back to the days when there was no electricity.

Nowadays, we’re doing exactly the same! Studying on low-lit LEDs until our eyes start to hurt and get foggy. We had to save some money to get my sister a pair of glasses.

My previous job, as an online freelancer, was ALWAYS delayed because my laptop’s battery would die and there’s no way to charge it. I got fired because of this!

My brother has asthma and last week he had an attack by night, yet we had no gas nor did our neighbors, so we couldn’t go search for a pharmacy to bring him an inhaler.

Not to mention that our fridge is empty, like literally empty, most of the days. Only thing we can afford is pasta, rice, and bread, which is affecting our diet and now my sister and I are anemic. Vegetables and meats are things we should save some money for, in order to buy them like once or twice a month. Despite the fact that 3 out of 6 members of my family are working. So you may imagine how expensive everything is.

These may sound like silly things to a basic human being, but to us, these are things we live with and struggle with daily. No one deserves to live such a stressful life that affects their lifestyle, health, future, oh and their cortisol levels! Sounds like unimportant ‘third-world’ issues? Well, you can make it better with just a single statement of yours.

– G, Tartous

16. Lilly :  I live in Syria: my family’s business stopped 8 years ago when the war started. We have been living on savings since then, and a few sales we made to survive. He used to buy machines made abroad and import them for sale in Syria. Because of sanctions imposed by US and EU he can not wire transfer money to buy machines from Syria to the company abroad. Additionally, because of US and EU sanctions he can not buy machines from Europe, which is so close to Syria, or from any other country, because any country found selling to anyone in Syria will face fines and sanctions. You might think that he could just buy from China, for example, since it is a friendly country, but they will not accept any wire transfer on money from any person or bank in Syria either, due to the same problem: EU and US sanctions. The goal is to prevent anyone living in Syria from ordering any materials needed for reconstruction of homes in Syria. The US and EU goal is to prevent Syria from recovery, or peace

17. Ammar : Before the war, we used to dream how to develop and be better persons. How to get more degrees and move to a higher level.

Now the best achievement is to make enough money to mantain a decent life.

And the hero of his time who has his car full of gaz.

It’s not only about gaz or money, it’s about settlement and this has been lost long ago.

18. The economic blockade imposed by the United States on Syria is primarily aimed at the Syrian people, which is mainly suffering because of terrorism and the siege to exhaust the remaining elements of his life.

Damn the US government

Damn the Western Alliance

I do not mean the American people. The people have nothing to do with what the government does. I respect and love the American people.

19. From a Syrian American: Asker 

The American people need to understand that Syria has provided the world cultures many positive things, and Syria as an original Christian country doesn’t pose any threats to the world, the sanctions are effecting many innocent people specially children and it will not work because the purpose of it to turn the Syrian people against the government that will not work ,they love their president Bashar Assad.as Syrian born American citizen I can tell you that we come to America and we achieve the American dream, we don’t use or abuse the system ,some of us pay more income taxes than many politicians, we respect the American constitution, we love you Mr trump but please get out of Syria and let them rebuild their lives and have peace, I live in the commonwealth of Kentucky near Lexington, originally from California, love this country coast to coast.

20. Adadshams : انقلي هذا الكلام الى السناتور الامريكي والممثلين لايوجد اختلاف عندنا اذا كان حصارن وعقوبات لقد قتلنا ودمرت منازلنا وهجرنا وفقدنا الاخوه والاحبه باسم الحريه فلن نتراجع عن التضحيه للوطن والحب السيد الرئيس بشار الاسد…قولي لهم هم الامريكان وال سعود .هذه خيبة املكم واحلامكم …امه قائدها اسد لن تركع

Translation of statement # 20 by YK:

Please send the following to the American senators and congress: In the name of freedom we suffered death of family and love ones, destruction of our homes, forced to immigrate. Sanctions and blockades on top all that will not discourage us from sacrificing for our homeland, our love for president  Bashar Assad…tell them, the Americans, the Saudis that their hopes (schemes) and dreams will fail… A nation led by Assad will not kneel.

21. Faihaa : We Syrians have experienced awful things no one could imagine.. we faced the threat of death and killing thousand times throughout these 8 years. We face the difficulties of everyday lives and needs with hopeful hearts that tomorrow we are going to have our peace back. All neighboring countries have sancted us Syrians of entering their lands with no specific reason. Oils, water, electricity, wheat flour has been limited and we are and everyone knows that we are one of the leading countries to export these materials.

And what do you expect when the war ends? A better future right? For you and your family and friends and all your fellow citizens but what happened was the exact opposite! US have imposed sanctions and embargo on us and guess what who is the most affected one? It is the humble Syrian citizen. Don’t you have any humanity in your blood?

Don’t you see that we are the ones who suffer..

By doing this you put us in a new war; the war of survival…

22. Ghenwa  : As a Syrian, it’s so hard to adapt to life here, it’s like accepting to live in hell for the rest of your life and the sad part is that you can’t do anything about it. I wake up everyday feeling impressed that i survived another day in this place, and i try my hardest to make a difference or to do something that would make me feel good about this place. We’re living under a massive threat.

We face killers, kidnappers, thieves and all kinds of devils.

I’m a 23 year old college girl that needs to work 24/7 while studying to provide food and rent and to pay her duties, my family had to travel to Germany as refugees but i was stuck here because I’m older than 18 so the german refugee law can’t except me there.

You can’t imagine how awful it is living in Syria, and the worst part is that we’re not even allowed or welcomed in other countries

23. Malak  : The economic siege on Syria increases my love for the Syrian national leadership. On the other hand there is great hatred of the United States of America

24.

أنت يا صديقي تتحدث هنا عن متطلبات حياة و بقاء ، إن تناسينا التعليم و الجامعات و الذهاب إلى الوظائف أيضاً.
نتحدث عن شعب يضيّق عليه الخناق عسكرياً بحرب شعواء منذ ثمانية أعوام لا تزال مواكب الشهداء بالآلاف ، آلاف المفقودين و المختطفين ، آلاف المشردين و المهجرين ، الحصار يعني إيقاف لقمة عيش المزارع و العامل و المدني و العسكري ، وإيقاف أي تقدم لأي حلول يمكن لها أن تساهم في معالجة مفرزات الحرب على الأقل .
لا يمكن لنا إلقاء اللوم على الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية وحدها ، كل الأطراف الغربية و العربية مشاركة بكل الوسائل لتضييق الخناق على الشعب السوري ..
الشعب هنا ، لا يمكن لنا أن نخبركم عن قوته ، إنه جبار صامد .
يمتلك القدرة على الصمود من حيث لا يدري أحد .
إنها حرب قذرة حطمت حياة الكثيرين و الحصار اليوم يقضي على ما تبقى من النور… حتى لدى هؤلاء الذين تظنهم كالأطفال بابتساماتهم ، إنهم يتألمون حقاً يا صديقي.
عاشت سوريا و عاش الشعب السوري الصامد .

Translation of statement # 24 by YK:

(Janice, this is a long statement, allow me to simply re-order the sentences in it so that it has more clarity and impact. All I am doing is to start with the last paragraph which has most of the punch. If you like to put it in the original order, just move the first sentence and put it at the end).

This is a dirty war that destroyed the lives of many, the blockade today is extinguishing whatever light is left…even those smiling children are really suffering my friend. You my friend speak of survival and livelihood, you forget education, universities, and going to work. We speak about strangling a nation with a war now in its eighth year, still killing martyrs by the thousands, thousands of missing and kidnapped, thousands of displaced and exiled, the blockade means starving the peasants, the workers, the civilian and the soldier, it stops any progress towards any solution to the root cause of the war. We cannot only blame the USA, western and arab forces are complicit in many ways in tightening the noose on the Syrian people. The people here, you cannot imagine their strength, their resilience, their resistance will be beyond anyone’s imagination. 

25.

ان الولايات المتحدة الامريكية والدول الغربية، ومعها بعض الدول العربية والكيان الصهيوني، هم من اسسوا جميع الحركات الراديكالية الارهابية، وهم من دربوهم ومولوهم ودعموهم على كافة الاصعدة، وجميعنا نعرف أن كل ما مر به الشعب السوري منذ عام 2011 ولا زال، هم من يتحملون مسؤليته، وعندما فشلت تلك الدول باسقاط الدولة السورية عسكريا-وذلك طبعا بفضل صمود الشعب السوري وتضحياته ووقوفه مع قيادته – لجؤوا الى الحرب الاقتصادية التي يدفع ثمنها الشعب السوري بكل أطيافه، لانها تؤثر سلبا على مختلف سبل الحياة، وهي تستهدف لقمة عيش المواطنين الأبرياء، حيث انها تمنع وصول المحروقات التي تعد عصب حياة المواطنين، حيث لايقدر الموظفين الوصول الى اماكن عملهم، ولا الطلاب الوصول الى جامعاتهم ومدارسهم، حتى أن المرضى يجدون صعوبة بالغة بالوصول الى المستشفيات لتلقي علاجهم، وهناك بعض الحالات فمثلا، يعاني الكثير من المرضى خصوصا المصابين بالسرطان،،، يعانون مشقة الوصول الى العاصمة ومراكز المدن لأهذ جرعاتهم العلاجية، فهل ياسيد ترامب تيتطيع ان تشرح لنا ماهو الخطر الاستراتيجي الذي يشكله مريض السرطان على السلم العالمي؟! وماهو التهديد الذي يشكله الطالب الذي يريد الوصول الى جامعته؟! وليس ذلك فحسب بل ان منع وصول الوقود يشل الحركة الاقتصاديةة ويؤدي الى غلاء الاسعار وانعدام سلع رئيسة وبالتالي فأن تلك العقوبات تستهدف المواطن البريئ الفقير وليس اي جهة اخرى، وليت الامر يتوقف عند الوقود فحسب، بل ان السيد ترامب ينوي اتهاذ المزيد من الاجراءات العقابية ضمن قانون قيصر، لكن من صمد امام كل تلك الدول وارهابها وظلمها وعدوانها كل تلك السنين، لن يهزم الآن ابدا، ويبدو ان اعداءنا نسوا اننا طائر الفينيق السوري الذي سيبعث من تحت رماد حقدهم ليعود اقوى مما كان….

Translation of statement # 25 by YK: (this can be a headline from this message: “Mr Trump would you please explain to us how a cancer patient can be a threat to world peace?! What is the threat caused by a student who wants to reach is university?)

The USA, western nations, some Arab nations, Israel, are the ones who created all radical terrorist groups, provided funding, training and supported them in all aspects, we know that these countries are responsible for all the suffering of the Syrian people since 2011. After their failure with the military regime change war, they resorted to economic  warfare where all segments of the syrian population are victims are paying the price in every aspect of their lives, it targets the livelihood of innocent people,  with oil sanctions, it limits employees ability to go to work,  students to go to schools and universities, patients from getting to get to hospitals to receive care, for example and especially cancer patients who need to be treated in specialised centres in the cities, so Mr Trump would you explain to us how a cancer patient can be a threat to world peace?! What is the threat caused by a student who wants to reach is university? Economic sanctions only impact innocent citizens, causes huge inflation and deprivation. Those (Syrian people) who resisted the injustice, aggression and terror from all these countries over all these years, will never be defeated, it seems that our enemies have forgotten that we are the syrian phoenix that will rise from the ashes of their plot to become stronger than it was. 

26. Mark  : Personally, I’m happy with the less pollution in Aleppo. It’s hard for students to teach the university as they live far away from it. But I go there walking. It takes me 30 minutes to reach it walking, and less than 15 minutes in a microbus. I dont use microbuses unless it’s urgent or tired. I’m an athlete so I’m not affected. On the other side, there are thousands of cars waiting on the line in oil stations. I can take a picture of you want. So people are wasting their time (lives) waiting. Someone in my area died from a clot because of the long hours waiting on the line.

In Aleppo there are many many cars and lot of pollution caused by cars and the huge generators that generate electricity for homes instead of government electricity. Thanks that in these last 2 weeks, the government electricity has been very very good.

Janice  it has no effects to me personally. But it will affect us as people after few months .. there will be no food and the dollar price will raise up to 1700 s.p . That’s a crime.

I’m a mentally tough young person who can handle all kinds ofbad situations. That’s why it doesn’t affect me Personally, because I find solutions and don’t give up in front of small or huge problems. I hope this oil situation wont last too long because it will beat us all sooner or later

27.

سوسن سليمان حويجي بالرغم من الحرب الجائره على..صمدنا 8 سنوات..ذقنا بها الويلات..لم يبق منزل الا وقدم شهيد. او اثنان.دمرو حياتنا فقدنا مؤساساتنا.الحكوميه شردونا سرقو سكينتا…قتلو احلامنا ولكن صمدنا واعتلينا المجد.بانتصارات جيشنا وقائدنا ولكن لكي..نبقى في الظلام والتخلف وبعد ان حققنا انتصارات كبيره على الارض حولو حربهم الى..الى حرب اقتصاديه حاربونا بلقمة عيشنا..ضيقو علينا الخناق..انهارت عملتنا .منعو عنا كل مقومات الحياة..منعو استيراد الادويه والاجهزه الطبيه. منعو استيراد المحروقات.. سيطرو على ابار النفط والغاز..سيطرو على حقول القمح والقطن. والزيتون..ولكن ما زلنا نقاوم والى اخر رمق فينا سنحارب ارهابهم وندحرهم هم المارقون ونحنا الباقون متمسكين بحب الوطن.ومتمسكين بثوابتنا الوطنيه..ووحدة الشعب السوري ووحدة ارضنا. ونقول لهم برا جئتم بحرا جئتم..جوا جئتم ستهزمون ستهزمون..
انت ومشغليكم الامريكان ودول الخليج. سندحركم الى غير رجعه..
اننا مازلنا نعيش على الكفاف ولكن ما زلنا صامدين.. صامدين…. سنعلم اولادنا في مناهجهم بانكم انتم من قتل البراءه انتم من قتل علمائنا وقاماتنا…. وحرمونا الحياة الكريمه
انتم من ارسلكم الصهاينه لتحقيق حلمهم ولكن هيهات منا الذله..

Translation of statement # 27 by YK

(it seems to be a reply to sawsan sliman) Despite an 8 year war that didn’t leave a household without a martyr, a war that destroyed our lives, our government institutions, displaced us, stole our peace killed our dreams, despite all that we resisted and were glorioulsy victorious thanks to our army and our leader (Assad), so in order to keep us in the dark and backwardness they transformed their war into an economic war targeting our daily bread, strangling us, destroying our currency forbidding us from importing all life necessities,  medicines and medical equipment, fuel, they took control of (Syrian) oil and gas fields, they occupied our wheat, cotton and olive fields. We are still resisting and we will fight to our last breath against their terror, with our love of our homeland, our patriotic principles, we will fight for the unity of our land and our people, we will win against the Americans and their gulf allies, we are surviving, resisting and we will teach pour children that you killed innocents, killed our best and brightest minds, deprived us of an honourable life, all in the service of zionist dreams.  

28. Hade 

إن ماتمارسة الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية من حصار أقتصادي جائر يستهدف الشعب العربي السوري بكل اطيافة لا يستثني منهم أحد . ويهدف إلى أضعافه وتقوية المجموعات الأرهابية التي تعمل تحت سيطرتها .
فبما نفسر أحتلالها لشرقي الفرات ودخولها الأراضي السورية بدون إذن من القيادة السورية الممثل الوحيد للشعب السوري . ولما تسمح ببيع النفط والقمح الواقع تحت سيطرتها لتركيا . وكيف لها أن تدمر الصهاريج المحملة بالنفط وقوافل الشاحنات المحملة بالمواد الغذائية المتجهة للشعب السوري بالطيران الامريكي المسمى طيران التحالف … بينما صهاريج النفط السوري والغاز السوري المسروق من قبل قسد والمجموعات الارهابية الاخرى لاتراها وتغط الطرف عنها لا بل تساندها وتدعمها . فالإدارة الامريكية تدعم الأرهاب بكل انواعه في سورية وهي التي تمده بالعتاد وتؤمن له الحماية الغطاء .

Translation of statement # 28 by YK

The economic blockade imposed by the USA is targeting every Syrian citizen without exception. Its aim is to strengthen terrorist groups that operate under its (USA) control. How do you explain the occupation of the eastern Euphrates region without permission from the Syrian government, the sole representative of the Syrian people. It is selling oil and wheat under its control to Turkey. The (US and its allies) are bombing Syrian government convoys transporting fuel and food stuffs, while supporting terrorist groups continued theft of Syrian oil and gas. The American administration supports, protects and provides cover for terrorism in Syria. 

29.

نحن لا نريد الموت لاحد بل ندفع الموت عن أنفسنا و ندافع عن حقوقنا و ثرواتنا كما كرامتنا إن كان لدى الدول المتسلطة و المنظمات الأممية أدنى شك بالرضوخ للعقوبات المفروضة على الشعب السوري و قيادته فإنكم واهمون نحن كشعب سوري مؤمن بقضيته صامدون و سائرون على خطى قائدنا بشار حافظ الأسد و الجيش السوري الاسطوري . نحن أبناء هذه الأرض و نحن الباقون

Translation of statement # 29 by YK

We don’t wish death to anyone, but we are fighting for our lives, our rights, our treasures. If the (regime change cabal) are deluded believing that the sanctions will drive the Syrian people and its leadership into submission. We the syrian people are steadfast in our resistance and our trust in our leader Bashar Hafez alAssad and in our legendary Syrian army, we the children of this land, we are the remainers. 

30. Samuel :  I’m American, with Syrian heritage living in Syria since the illegal invasion of Syria, and can tell you that the US government has done nothing but lie against Syria.

31. Qusay

أنا طبيب أسنانوأتابع حاليا دراستي للحصول على شهادة الدكتوراه، لقد تأثرت شخصيا بشكل كبير بالعقوبات الأمريكية أحادية الجانب، فمثلا عندما كنت أقوم بدراسة الماجستير كانت المعاناة كبير في العثور على سبل لنشر بحثي العلمي في المجاَلات العلمية بشكل أساسي بسبب حظر كافة وسائط الدفع الالكتروني مثل باي بال وماستر كارد، كما أنه من شبه المستحيل أن أستطيع الارتقاء ببحثي العلمي الذي أجريه حاليا للحصول على شهادة الدكتور حيث يتعذر علي التعامل مع المختبرات العلمية و الاستفادة من التقنيات الحديثة المتوفرة لديها للوصول الى نتائج طبية أفضل تنعكس بشكل أساسي على الارتقاء بالقطاع الطبي السوري وانوه إلى عزمنا وتصميمنا كسوريين على المضي قدما وتأدية دورنا الحضاري فقد قمت بإجراد قسم من بحثي في دولة لبنان لتوفر جهاز أمكنني الإستفادة منه…
أما بالنسبة لعملي كطبيب أسنان فهو لم ينج أيضا من هذه العقوبات الظالمة، حيث أصبح من الصعب الحصول على المواد الطبية اللازمة لاتمام عملي وإن توفرت تكون بأسعار عالية ولا تتناسب مع مقدرة مرضاي على تحمل تكلفتها…
وقد اضررت مرارا في الفترة السابقة إلى تأجيل مواعيد المرضى بسبب عدم تمكني من العودة من دمشق إلى العيادة بسبب انقطاع مادة البانزين التي فرضت عليها مؤخرا الولايات المتحدة عقوبات اقتصادية..
في ظل هذه العقوبات الجائرة سوف نصمد كما صمدنا ضد داعش و سننتصر و كلما ازداد صغط الولايات المتحدة علينا كلما ازداد تضامننا والتفافنا حول السيد الرئيس لننتصر معا…
شكرا لك صديقي وسام ولصديقتك لنشركم الصورة الحقيقية لمعاناتنا

Translation of statement # 31 by YK

I am a dentist currently pursuing a ph.d. The sanctions are severely impacting me and my patients. For example the inability to make simple credit card transactions, impacts my ability to do my research and to collaborate with the global scientific medical community. I was forced to do some of my work in Lebanon. The sanctions are making it very difficult and extremely expensive for me to obtain the medical supplies needed for me to do my job as a dentist in Damascus. The combination of this and fuel sanctions have forced me to cancel and delay many patients’ appointments. In the shadow of these sanctions we will resist, as we resisted against Daesh (Islamic State) and we will be victorious. The more the USA increases its pressure on us the more we will be united around our president. Thanks to my friend Wissam and your (lady) friend (probably you Janice) for publishing the real picture of our struggle.

41. Kamal: My name is Kamal, I have seen another side of the sanctions which have been going on for more than 30 years.

I used to work for a European Airline in Damascus airport, was shocked by the amount of defective Syrian aircrafts sitting in the airport while the Syrian airline was operating with only two aircrafts at that time, they were using those grounded aircrafts for spare parts for the remaining two. when I asked the technicians why can’t we repair and use those aircrafts, they told me that America is not giving us spare parts as part of the sanctions!

USA also doesn’t allow Europe to give parts to Syria.

The sad part is that on one occasion, our aircraft (the European airline I was working for) was grounded in Syria and needed a part, the Syrians gave them that without hesitation, I saw that with my own eyes.

What America is doing is actually putting innocent civilian lives in danger.

Sorry for the long draft

42. Ali 

امريكا تتركنا بحالنا ونحنا بالف خير من الله امريكا هي الشيطان الاكبر والسعوديه بلد الكفر والعهر (اطهر ارض وانجس شعب)

43. From a Syrian American. Samira  : I’m a pharmacist who saw many people suffering from gland disease because of sanction on Syrians there was no any possibility to diagnose it it was not allowed for Syrians to buy the radioactive tablets used for diagnosis .

Now as American from Syrian  origin I’ll not vote for any official in the USA government .

Congress senate or president who will impose or support sanctions on Syrians .

Not only me many of my friends Syrians and Americans too

44. Vicken  We have been effected by this embargo so badly and still we are ..

Every thing is running by oil and gas and when they desapere from your daily life , you have that feeling Life Stops ..

45. Maggy   It is so unhuman act to deal with people of any country or city or area as you are dealing with the Syrian people …I am from Aleppo and I live this dishumility every day while you all, are sitting in your homes ,driving your vehicles, living your ordinary life….your brothets or sisters in humanity, the Syrian people the Aleppo’s people are not living, they are dying step by step because of your cruality because of your enmity, because of your selfishness because of your greediness….its enough how much you tried to ruin Syria to ruin Aleppo you can ruin whatever you want you who are sitting in the top ….but be sure you will never be able to ruin the strong will of the Syrian people …the will to live to survive to struggle to kill the will of the Satan

46. Robert  Aleppo is dying…and Trump is happy.

Aleppo was the industrial capital of Syria, Turkey and allies tried to destroy it and stole all the heavy industry there…the western minded terrorists destroy many of the city’s buildings and the infrastructure, they destroy the old Aleppo’s civilization….All that couldn’t break the people’s will…and now the american sanctions try it again….I’m sure that no one can bend this people’s will who did endure an 8 years random war.

Sanctions on Syria means to make its people suffer…not more

47. From a Syrian American: Stepan: It is so unhuman act to deal with people of any country or city or area as you are dealing with the Syrian people …I am from Aleppo and I live this humility every day while you all ,are sitting in your homes ,driving your vehicles, living your ordinary life….your brothers or sisters in humanity ,the Syrian people the Aleppo’s people are not living ,they are dying step by step because of your cruelty because of your enmity, because of your selfishness because of your greediness….it’s enough how much you tried to ruin Syria to ruin Aleppo you can ruin whatever you want you who are sitting in the top ….but be sure you will never be able to ruin the strong will of the Syrian people …the will to live to survive to struggle to kill the will of the Satan

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During the past week, the situation significantly escalated in Libya, with Turkey expanding its military involvement in the conflict.

In late November, Turkey signed with the Government of National Accord (GNA), which controls only a small part of northern Libya, deals on security cooperation and maritime jurisdiction. By this move Ankara, the main backer of the GNA and pro-GNA militants, tried to legalize its economic zone claims in the eastern Mediterranean and thus legalize its controversial drilling activities in the region. At the same time, Turkey sees its involvement in the Libyan conflict as a tool of expansion of its own influence in the entire region.

The Turkish military already deployed Bayraktar TB2 combat drones to the self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and is reportedly preparing to deploy troops in Libya. Turkish intelligence and advisers already operate in the war-torn country. So, the security deal with the GNA is just a formal move to legalize and expand the military presence.

The Turkish actions caused a strong negative reaction from its regional competitors like Greece, Egypt and the UAE.

On December 12, the Libyan National Army (LNA), backed by the UAE, Egypt and to some extent by Russia, resumed its advance on the GNA-held city of Tripoli. The LNA led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar controls most of Libya and so far has demonstrated itself as the only force that can restore the Libyan territorial integrity and statehood. It describes the Tripoli advance as an anti-terrorism operation because of the GNA’s open links with radical militant groups, including those affiliated with al-Qaeda.

Currently, LNA forces are storming the southern suburbs of Tripoli. If Ankara sends troops to support the existence of the GNA and secure its recent legal gains, the situation in Libya will escalate rapidly. Therefore, Turkey, Egypt and the UAE will find themselves in a state of the indirect military conflict in Northern Africa.

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You Don’t Own Me?

December 19th, 2019 by Philip A Farruggio

Leslie Gore’s 1963 hit song ‘You Don’t Own Me’ started off with the line “You don’t own me, I’m not just one of your toys”. So it is with the overwhelming number of our population who, despite NOT knowing it, are owned by this Amerikan empire. Sadly, they have always been owned and manipulated by the  many tentacles that make up this Octopus. Prolific journalist Ed Curtin recently did a piece on the history of 20th Century US propaganda beginning with the wizard of it all, a man who actually influenced Nazi Germany’s (believe it or not) ‘Propaganda Minister’ Joseph Goebbels. That would be none other than Edward Bernays, who the predatory corporate world labeled as the ‘Creator of modern advertising’. Bernays sold wars as easily as he could sell soap!

So, there you have it. First off, we have an economic system predicated on not only ‘Dog eat dog’ but ‘Dog DEVOUR dog’. With governments, local, state and federal, who provide the sharks in this (so called) ‘Free Market’ with plenty of legal leeway, the sky is truly the limit! When the empire instituted the Taft Hartley Act in 1947, they made sure that massive strikes would have to wait until the 80 day ‘Cooling off period’ issued by the president was over. Plus, the act also outlawed what was known as ‘The Closed Shop’ whereupon anyone then  hired as an employee had to join the union that represented that company’s workers. In essence, the ending of this Closed Shop requirement made it more difficult for unions to have the ‘bargaining power’ of a mass of members. This is not the time for me to elaborate how polarized this economic system has become. Anyone who works for someone else must realize that the Boss makes out better each and every day over his or her worker. Feudalism, folks, is right around the corner.

There is an epidemic nationwide of people who many refer to as ‘Car poor’. This means that they are driving new vehicles that cost them, going by 2018 researched numbers, an average of $ 523 a month. With used car loans for people with low credit scores at well over three times the prime rate of 4.75%, one can imagine how much their monthly charges are. Factoring out certain car buyers who do so out of ‘super egos’, most of us need that car to get us to work, to shop and to get our kids wherever they need to be. Not all of us live in cities like NYC, Boston and Chicago that have rail mass transit. Suburban and rural Amerikans rely on their car and truck daily.

Home ownership and rentals have seen what happens when home prices go up. For a prospective buyer, the higher prices can just squeeze out many who just cannot afford either the down payment or the monthly mortgage costs. For those who have no choice but to rent  there is either a bigger problem. When  home prices rise, the landlords (oh how I despise that term) just raise the rents. When the home prices fall, well, the prices stay the same. So, the owner has the edge over the tenant. Why? Well, usually ‘Demand’ always is much more than the  ‘Supply’. On top of that this writer has already, in previous  columns, told my story of the many Land Lords I have had. Not once did I ever have a Land Lord who kept the residence in tip top condition and did the needed repairs… on time! Once upon a time there was this thing called ‘Rent Control’  AKA ‘Rent Stabilization’ where the tenants had some protection from predatory Land Lords. No more gang. Only those situations where the apartments have been ‘Grandfathered’ does such rent control still exist.

Driving in my neighborhood the other day I was behind a car that had a ‘Retired Navy Veteran’ on the license plate. The driver looked to be my age, that of a baby boomer. So, he was referring to having served perhaps during the Vietnam (so called) War era. Well, the truth is that the only time a person should be proud to carry such a label is if he or she served during the ONLY time in modern history that we were at war: WW2. In all the other instances no one should be proud to say they served in our military. Instead, the veteran should speak up and say that they served in one of our phony wars that served no purpose except for the liars and hypocrites that created them! To see the myriad of such license plates and baseball caps that advertise being in those phony wars serves no purpose but to give legitimacy to those actions by our government. When I see a man or woman wearing something that states that they are part of ‘Veterans for Peace’ I can admire that effort. All this hogwash of people carrying license plates such as ‘Proud Parent of a Marine’ only gives fuel for this obscene militarism we have to endure as citizens. It is bad enough that you cannot tune into a sporting event without the giant flag draped across the field or arena, and the honor guard and the solemn crowd with hands over hearts during the National Anthem. Are we back in totalitarian Nazi Germany or Stalin’s Soviet Union?

A friend told me last night that figures came out that around 40% of Amerikan workers earn less than the poverty level of $ 19,000 a year. How many of those people most likely have to reach that figure by working more than one job as well? Forget about having good benefits with jobs that pay that little. Yet, the embedded mainstream media portrays our economy as being vibrant, with the Stock Market setting new records. For whom? Not I… and you? Yes folks, this empire does own us, and the Two Party/One Party scammers make sure we stay that way!

Have a merry Christmas… Bah Humbug!!

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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]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Victimhood and the Nigerian Civil War

December 19th, 2019 by Adeyinka Makinde

The concatenation of violence in Nigeria from 1966 to 1970, a train of events which involved communal fighting, army mutinies and a civil war, is correctly viewed as a period during which the ethnic Igbos of the country’s south east bore the overwhelming brunt of the suffering. They died at the hands of rampaging mobs of their fellow citizens, as well as through the munitions employed by the Federal armed forces. They were also the victims of mass starvation. This suffering was of course a focus of Western news reporting of the conflict and of the machinery of propaganda employed by the secessionist state of Biafra.

Today, their plight is still referred to by pro-secessionist Igbo activists, as well as by the wider community of Igbos through the commemoration of events such as the Asaba Massacre of October 1967. But there is another often neglected side to the story, that is, of those Nigerian civilians, including non-Igbo minority communities, who were co-opted into the Biafran project and who suffered at the hands of Biafran troops and paramilitary organisations. The reasons for this neglect is multifaceted, but it is one which is documented and in need of acknowledgement if Nigeria is to come to terms with the terrible human rights abuses of that dark chapter in its history.

The enduring image of the Nigerian Civil War for many around the world was perhaps the sight of naked Kwashiorkor-ridden children wracked by the pain of starvation. They were Igbo children caught up in a war in which the secessionist state of Biafra had been quickly encircled and an air and sea blockade instituted by the Federal Military Government. The brutality of the conflict was encapsulated by the filming of a British television company of the execution of a captured Biafran man by an officer of the Federal army who had promised to spare his life. That incident provided a living, breathing image to go along with the reports of atrocities which had preceded the civil war and which were apparently continuing.

But the story of innocents suffering was not a totally one-sided one. A forgotten aspect of the civil war concerns the human rights abuses perpetrated by the Igbo-dominated Biafran side against minority groups within what had been the former Eastern Region of Nigeria, as well as against other Nigerian ethnic groups in the Mid-Western State when it was temporarily occupied by Biafran forces.

A missing aspect of the narrative concerns the ill-treatment meted out to minority groups within secessionist Biafra such as the Efik, Ijaw, Ogoja and Ibibio. It would be remiss not to remind that these groups were targeted along with Igbos in the northern part of the country during the explosions of communal violence in May 1966, as well as between September and October of that year. But they would later suffer persecution and human rights abuses at the hands of the largely Igbo Biafran Army.

Much of this stemmed from real and imagined sympathy on the part of members of these communities for the Federal cause. The minority communities of the old Eastern Region had after all campaigned for the creation of more states; something which the Nigerian Head of State, Lt. Colonel Yakubu Gowon had done in May 1967.  And while some non-Igbo officers such as Lt. Colonel Phillip Effiong, an Ibibio, served in the Biafran armed forces, others such as Colonel George Kurobo had defected to the Federal side.

An example of abuses against Biafran minorities concerns that of the Ikun people, who were suspected of collaboration. This led to detentions, looting and raping by Biafran troops in Ikunland. Many males were rounded up and ‘disappeared’, while others were shot to death.

Map produced in the Friday February 16th 1968 edition of the Canadian newspaper, the Windsor Star 

The Ikun are minuscule in numbers and the Biafran felt particularly threatened by the larger ethnic groups from Calabar, Ogoja and Rivers provinces where the pre-war agitation for states of their own to be carved out of the Eastern Region had been particularly strong. Many communities within these areas received the attention of the Biafran security apparatus. They were subjected to constant surveillance and some were imprisoned and subjected to torture. They were also frequently subjected to accusations of being ‘saboteurs’. And when the Federal armies encroached further into Biafran-held territory, the fear of minority fifth-columnists led to the wholesale eviction of communities such as the Kalabaris from their homelands. They were relocated to Igbo towns and cities to live in refugee camps.

Another example of this anti-minority sentiment was reflected by the activities of the Biafran Organisation of Freedom Fighters (BOFF), a paramilitary organisation created to protect Biafran communities, but which used operations to turn on minority groups.

One of the most publicised war crimes committed by the Biafrans occurred when Federal troops landed in Calabar in October 1967. About 167 civilians in detention were lined up and executed by Biafran soldiers. The Nigerian Consulate in New York published details of this atrocity as an informational advertisement in the New York Times as part of the propaganda war with the Biafrans, whose own propaganda machinery at home, and operating internationally under the auspices of the Geneva-based Markpress public relations firm, always had the edge over the Federal side.

The propaganda war also included several false claims made by the Biafran side about massacres said to have been perpetrated by the Federal army including one in Urua Inyang. This was noted in the December 6th 1968 edition of the Ottawa Citizen. That same article, one syndicated by the Toronto Star, also recorded the direct testimony of a Red Cross worker in the Calabar sector of the war in which he stated that Biafran soldiers shot civilians when retreating. This was an often repeated modus operandi.

Biafran Army atrocities in another theatre of war, namely that of the Mid-Western part of the country, also needs recounting. For it was here that the infamous massacre by Federal troops of civilians in the Igbo-town of Asaba took place. The Asaba Massacre, which occurred between October 5 and 7 in 1967, is seen as a continuum of the anti-Igbo pogroms of 1966. Other opinion contextualises it in relation to the ill-treatment meted out to non-Igbo communities in the Mid-West State during its occupation by Biafran forces.

During the Biafran invasion in August of 1967, some soldiers had paused to kill northerners who lived in the Hausa Quarter of Asaba; this in apparent revenge for the aforementioned anti-Igbo attacks in the Northern Region. And in other parts of the temporarily conquered Mid-West, non-Igbos were subjected to torture, imprisonment and death on suspicion of having sympathy for the Federal cause. Rape, extortion and seizure of property were common. The conduct of Biafran troops, who were styled as a liberation army, was marked by acts of indiscipline particularly in the urban centres of Benin, Sapele and Warri. In Warri, the men of the 18th Battalion went on looting sprees, searching for anything that they could convert into cash.

The Biafran side had taken the Mid-West’s neutral position, or at least, its refusal to support the Eastern Region’s secession as an effectively anti-Igbo stance. The relationship between the Igbo military administrators and the non-Igbo Mid-West populace was from the outset an antagonistic one. For instance, one E.K. Iseru, a lawyer of Rivers origin who was based in Warri would testify at a tribunal hearing that he was once stripped naked and detained for three days without food because he was on record as having agitated for the creation of Rivers State. When he protested about his hunger, one of his captors retorted that “there is no food for Hausa friends.”

When the Biafran occupiers began to lose ground, their paranoia increased. Each set back on the battlefield was blamed on saboteurs, and in the desperate circumstances of continual retreat, the policies of the Biafrans turned to draconian, inhumane solutions. The murder of non-Igbos intensified. In Abudu, over 300 bodies were found in the Ossiomo River and on 20 September 1967, many non-Igbos were slaughtered at Boji-Boji Agbor. And at Asaba, Ibusa and Agbor non-Igbos were taken into custody by Biafran soldiers and transported in two lorries to a rubber plantation along the Uromi-Agbor Road where they were put to death.

In the tit-for-tat atmosphere of war, it is perhaps no surprise that an estimated 200 Igbos lost their lives when the Federal takeover of Benin City began on September 21st. Later, mobs in places such as Warri and Sapele would turn on the Igbos. Many Igbos, including the erstwhile administrator, Major Albert Okonkwo who had declared the Mid-West to be the “autonomous independent sovereign republic of Benin”, fled eastwards for their lives.

That the suffering of non-Igbo minorities became something of a forgotten history is not in question. It is also not unique. Most people are likely more familiar with the Jewish Shoah of the mid-20th century than they are with the Armenian genocide earlier on in that century. Fewer still are aware that the first genocide of the 20th century took place in South West Africa (present day Namibia) where Kaiser-era German colonists sought the extermination of the Herero and the Nama peoples.

Nigeria is of course not the only nation to have lingering wounds over a civil war as recent events in both the United States and Spain remind. Much of the discourse remains venomous and resolutely uncomprehending of an understanding of the position of both sides in the war. Many prefer to take a particularistic view with a tendency on the part of Biafran diehards to deny the occurrence of these events and insist on the primacy of Igbo victimhood.

It is an extremely unsatisfactory state of affairs that is part and parcel of an often banal, yet poisonous, tribally-motivated discourse. This only serves to polarise attitudes and perpetuate enmities from one generation to the other.

When referring to the toxic exercise of apportioning ethnic responsibility for the murderous revolution in the Russian empire in 1917 and the ensuing bloody civil war, the Russian Nobel Laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once spoke of the need to avoid “scorekeeping” and comparisons of moral responsibility. He said, “Every people must answer morally for all of its past – including that past that is shameful. Answer by what means? Where in all this did we go wrong? And could it happen again?” These words speak to the spirit in which Nigerians ought to engage in when examining their past. The fact that minorities of the former Eastern region suffered brutal ill-treatment at the hands of both Federal and secessionist forces gives their plight an added poignancy. History owes it to them that their suffering also be acknowledged.

Anything else would be an abrogation of our basic humanity.

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Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England. This article was originally published on his blog, Adeyinka Makinde.

India’s participation in “Israel’s” Trans-Arabian Corridor for connecting the Eastern Mediterranean and Afro-Asian (“Indian”) Ocean will render New Delhi’s North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) with Iran, Azerbaijan, and Russia economically redundant, consequently pushing Russia closer to Pakistan as Moscow seeks to ensure the viability of its southern connectivity vision through N-CPEC+ instead.

India Slaps Iran Yet Again

Sputnik reported earlier this month that “Israel” and India shared documents pertaining to the former’s Trans-Arabian Corridor for connecting the Eastern Mediterranean and Afro-Asian (“Indian”) Ocean during the meeting between the former’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Katz (who’s also interestingly the Minister of Intelligence) and the latter’s External Affairs Minister Jaishankar during the Mediterranean Dialogues forum. This development is strategically significant because the success of India’s participation in that “Israeli”-led initiative will render New Delhi’s North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) with Iran, Azerbaijan, and Russia economically redundant since there wouldn’t be much of a reason for the South Asian state to utilize it for exporting goods to Europe if it can reach its destination much quicker through the Trans-Arabian Corridor while transiting through territories much wealthier than Iran such as the GCC and “Israel” which are more capable of buying some of its wares en route.

NSTC Is Dead, Long Live N-CPEC+!

Nobody should be surprised this turn of events since India had already agreed to comply with the US’ unilateral anti-Iranian sanctions regime and cut off the Islamic Republic from what had at one time been among its largest energy customers, further exacerbating its ongoing economic crisis as a result. Moreover, India slashed its budget for the NSTC’s terminal port of Chabahar earlier this summer and even deployed its warships to the Gulf following the Ansaraullah’s attack on Saudi Arabia’s Aramco that the West incredulously blamed on Iran. India isn’t a formal member of the US’ so-called “coalition” but it de-facto behaves as such through these means. Adding some more context to its decision to strengthen its integration with the GCC and “Israel” is the fact that India recently rejected joining the Chinese-led “Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership” (RCEP) last month, which the author analyzed at the time undermined Russia’s “Greater Eurasian Partnership” (GEP) too.

It’s therefore perfectly understandable why India is intensifying its alliance with “Israel”, especially since Prime Minister Modi praised the self-professed “Jewish State” last month for supposedly “sharing and valuing the same principles of democracy”, in spite of this move being aimed against Iranian and even Russian interests. The Islamic Republic is left in the lurch after having naively trusted India to fulfill its NSTC commitments and therefore relieve the country’s increasing US-imposed “isolation”, though Russia is much more strategically resilient because it’s not only interested in constructing the railway portion of the Trans-Arabian Corridor which the author analyzed in two analyses last year on this topic, but is also preparing itself to pioneer what his earlier cited RCEP-GEP analysis described as N-CPEC+. That neologism refers to the expansion of CPEC through post-war Afghanistan for connecting Russia with the Afro-Asian Ocean via the global pivot state of Pakistan.

The Fast-Moving Russian-Pakistani Rapprochement

This isn’t the author’s “wishful thinking” like some critics have alleged, but a serious project that’s proceeding apace after two extremely important developments in Russian-Pakistani relations in just as many months and possibly even a third one that might manifest itself next week. The Russian Trade Representative in Pakistan publicly announced his country’s intent to establish a “reliable and mutually acceptable” banking system following the resolution of their Soviet-era dispute last month, which the author analyzed represents the prerequisite towards making tangible progress on N-CPEC+. Earlier this month, a massive trade delegation from Russia visited Pakistan and committed to at least several billion dollars’ worth of investments, proving that progress on improving the economic dimension of Russian-Pakistani relations is proceeding faster than even the most optimistic observers expected.

As for the third instance, Iran invited Pakistan to participate in the joint naval drills that it’s hosting next week with Russia and China, which would build upon the growing closeness of the Russian and Pakistani navies in recent years which the author analyzed in his piece late last year about “Russia’s Naval Strategy In The Afro-Asian Ocean” should Islamabad take Tehran up on it. So concerned is India about this possible development that the Observer Research Foundation’s Head of the Maritime Policy Initiative Abhijit Singh wrote in his recent piece for Russia’s top think tank, the Valdai Club, that “many in New Delhi are worried over the prospect of Russia’s involvement in a naval exercise with both Pakistan and China in a sensitive Indian Ocean littoral region” and that “Russia’s engagement in the Indian Ocean has indeed grown but not quite in the way India’s maritime watchers had imagined”, which is exactly what the author predicted in his previously cited analysis a year ago.

Concluding Thoughts

Considering that India has all but officially bowed out of the NSTC by slashing its funding for Chabahar earlier this year and is now exploring the possibility of replacing that trade route with the “Israeli”-led Trans-Arabian Corridor instead (a trend that was obvious enough for any objective observer to discern), it makes perfect sense that Russia would take the necessary steps to ensure the viability its southern connectivity vision through N-CPEC+ in response. After all, its GEP is dependent on pioneering new axes of supercontinental connectivity, and with the NSTC no longer as promising as before, the only realistic recourse for Russia is N-CPEC+, which could also complement NSTC in the unlikely event that it’s revived by serving to diversify Moscow’s access to the Afro-Asian Ocean. India isn’t expected to be too happy about this development, but it was none other than its own decision to join the Trans-Arabian Corridor at the NSTC’s expense that inspired Russia’s N-CPEC+ outreaches to Pakistan.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from OneWorld

Brexit Could See the Return of the Falkland Islands to Argentina

December 19th, 2019 by Paul Antonopoulos

The Islas Malvinas, or more commonly known as the Falkland Islands, archipelago was invaded by the United Kingdom in 1833 and its occupation has continued to date. Argentina’s claim for sovereignty through diplomatic means has been a state policy since the failed liberation attempt through military means in 1982. Although it lost intensity during the Mauricio Macri government, President Alberto Fernández of the leftist Justicialist Party, reinforced in October his commitment to “renew the claim of sovereignty” of the 750 islands of the archipelago. In a patriotic tone, the then presidential candidate criticized the relations Macri had with the United Kingdom during a debate that took place on October 13.

“In these years the government has been very busy doing business with the United Kingdom and has forgotten sovereignty [over] the Falklands. Over 700 soldiers have died there. In memory of them all I will make things different,” Fernández said during the first Argentine presidential debate.

Fernández will re-establish a Secretariat for the ​​Malvinas, demonstrating that he is taking the issue against the British very seriously. During his swearing in speech before the National Congress on December 10, the new president informed that he will create a Secretariat, with the participation of “all political forces,” the southern province of Tierra del Fuego that is closest to the Malvinas, representatives of the academic world and former fighters of the 1982 war, to concentrate on the reclamation of the occupied archipelago.

Fernández included the claim by the Falkland Islands in his speech when he assumed the presidency and said “there is no more place for colonialism in the 21st century.”

“We know that for this task it does not reach the mandate of a Government, but a medium and long-term State policy, so I will convene a Congress where all political forces participate,” he announced.

Fernández decision to re-establish the Malvinas Secretariat and to convene a Council on the subject restores confidence and firmness in Argentina’s demand against the British after complete servitude by Macri. The importance the new president has given to Argentina’s demand for sovereignty over the islands is a good sign and it is the first time a new president has spoken with such depth to the Malvinas issue when they first take office.

Fernández’s stance demonstrates that the Malvinas do not belong to any president, they are a state matter in which it is necessary to work as a state policy for not only the present, but also looking to the future. The establishment of the Secretariat is aimed to positively re-establish consensus on the basic of and essential demand for sovereignty, leaving the differing approaches in Argentina to the cause and the 1982 war conflict in the past with the aim of looking only towards the future.

It must be remembered that a new Sao Paulo-Malvinas flight opened on Argentine National Sovereignty Day on November 20, a massive slap in the face to the Argentinian veterans from the 1982 war, who did not hesitate to go out protest. LATAM inaugurated the flight which has a stop in the Argentine city of Córdoba. War veterans protested in front of the Foreign Ministry in Buenos Aires against what they described as treachery by Macri. Fernández has an opportunity to gain even more popular support by forcing the cancellation of flights by LATAM to the Malvinas and by ensuring the islands have no lifeline except with their colonial masters in London approximately 13,000 kilometers away.

Conservative Boris Johnson won the British election on December 12, which put the South American islanders on alert. The possibility of the definitive implementation of Brexit will harm the local economy, whose production has the European Union as one of its main markets. Brexit is a favorable situation for Argentina because in the view of the European Union, the Malvinas are an extracontinental territory, something that will complicate the local economy, just as what will happen with British-occupied Gibraltar on the Iberian Peninsula and areas in Cyprus.

In this context Argentina must start seeking new alliances with European countries and condemn the maintenance of a British colony on the complete opposite side of the Atlantic and with total impunity. With Spain wanting the return of Gibraltar and Cyprus wanting the return of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, Argentina can very easily find new allies in the European Union willing to cooperate efforts to reclaim sovereignty over territory occupied by the British. Brexit therefore not only threatens the breakup of the United Kingdom with a push for Scottish independence and Irish unification, but it could potentially see the return of the Malvinas to Argentina.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies.

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Boeing’s Perilous Bungling Requires New Leadership

December 19th, 2019 by Ralph Nader

The Boeing executives and marketeers responsible for over-ruling Boeing engineers on the 737 MAX are still in charge of this very troubled aerospace company. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg and the rubber-stamp Board of Directors, with two trophy ambassadors, are still running Boeing – thirteen months after the deadly 737 MAX crash in Indonesia and nine months after the deadly 737 MAX crash in Ethiopia that together took 346 lives. Boeing said in October that it would appoint a board member with deep air safety experience, but it has not happened yet. (Muilenburg is the only board member with an aeronautical engineering background)

Boeing has displayed an egregious pattern of mismanagement. The company is in trouble from contractors, the Department of Defense, and NASA. California Representative John Garamendi said Boeing had “serious quality issues” with the KC-46 aerial tanker used by the military and accused the company of “pushing profits over quality and safety.” According to NASA’s Inspector General Paul Martin, NASA “essentially paid Boeing higher prices to address a schedule slippage caused by Boeing’s 13-month delay.”

First-rate former Boeing engineers, including John Barnett and Ed Pierson, are exposing the reckless conditions at the Boeing 737 and 787 Dreamliner plants in Washington state and South Carolina.

Boeing managers and directors are still on the job and paying themselves handsomely. These reckless marketeers are able to get away with this because Congress and the White House have disabled the FAA and turned it from a safety watchdog into an industry lapdog, leaving Boeing free to self-certify its planes.

With intensifying investigation by the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure, under the chairmanship of Congressman Peter DeFazio, a stunning internal FAA risk assessment turned up. After the October 29, 2018 Lion Air Flight 610 was hijacked by powerful MCAS software which took control of the aircraft from its pilots. A December 2018 FAA memo concluded that there would be 15 catastrophic crashes globally over the life of the 737 MAX fleet – ranging 30 to 45 years. That would mean the deaths of at least 2900 human beings.

Dr. Alan Diehl, an aerospace engineer with extensive experience at the FAA, at the Department of Defense, and in private business, told the Wall Street Journal that this prediction “would be an unacceptable number in the modern aviation-safety world.” The FAA analysis, surfacing very late in the wake of the two planes going down due to Boeing’s criminal negligence, was conditioned on the 737 MAX not flying until there are design and software corrections.

Chairman DeFazio noted other design problems with the Boeing 737 MAX, including rudder vulnerabilities.  Boeing leadership has displayed all sorts of derelictions,  including refusing to adequately inform pilots about the problems with the 737 MAX, producing faulty training manuals, and refusing to insist on full simulator training. Not only that, but the 787 Dreamliner has been found to have inadequate protection in case of lightning strikes (another Boeing bosses over-ruling of their own engineer’s warnings). Boeing also laid off hundreds of quality control inspectors in its factories, preferring to rely on machines.

The FAA’s new chief, Stephen Dickson, recently warned Boeing to stop announcing ungrounding times for the approximately 400 737 MAX already in the hands of the airlines. He indicated that the FAA is stiffening its backbone a little by saying that the ungrounding schedule will be decided by the FAA. Boeing has just announced it was suspending production of the 737 MAX for the time being.

The next step for Dickson would be to ask FAA Deputy Administrator Daniel Elwell and Associate Administrator for Safety Ali Bahrami to resign. Elwell and Bahrami turned their backs on airline passenger safety, let Boeing dictate its own safety decisions, and kept the public and Congress in the dark. There is no way the FAA can recover its responsibilities so long as Elwell and Ali Bahrami are still in positions of any responsibility.

Bahrami admitted he wasn’t even aware of his own agency’s risk assessment of the Boeing 737 MAX, noted above.

Meanwhile, the families of the deceased continue to advocate that the Boeing 737 MAX be required to undergo full certification with full pilot simulator training. In their grief, these wonderful family members are fighting daily for the future safety of tens of millions of airline passengers.

Please see flyersrights.org for updates and your participation. You can find their comprehensive report here.

And see a Democracy Now! Interview on Boeing’s misdeeds.

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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Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His latest books include: To the Ramparts: How Bush and Obama Paved the Way for the Trump Presidency, and Why It Isn’t Too Late to Reverse CourseHow the Rats Re-Formed the Congress, Breaking Through Power: It’s easier than we think, and Animal Envy: A Fable

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Some 18,000 homes in Jerusalem are under the threat of demolition by the Israeli occupation authorities, the city’s deputy governor announced yesterday.

Abdullah Siam told The Voice of Palestine that the Israeli demolition activities were being carried under the pretext of the homes’ “illegal construction.”

“The demolition of the Palestinian homes in occupied Jerusalem comes in the context of Israel’s punitive measures, forced displacement, ethnic cleansing, and the Judaization of the occupied Jerusalem,” Siam pointed out.

The Israeli occupation has been demolishing Palestinian homes and structures in the occupied Jerusalem in an effort to expand settlements and force Palestinians from their homes and lands.

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Dem Controlled House Impeaches Trump

December 19th, 2019 by Stephen Lendman

On Wednesday, House members impeached Trump on two counts as expected, politicized voting almost entirely along party lines — 230 – 197 for alleged abuse of power, 229 – 198 for alleged obstruction of Congress.

No Republicans supported the scam, choreographed for political reasons, seeking to delegitimize and weaken Trump ahead of November 2020 elections, a scheme more likely to fail than succeed.

Four Dems broke ranks. Tulsi Gabbard voted “present” on both articles of impeachment, calling proceedings a “partisan endeavor,” adding:

“I could not in good conscience vote against impeachment because I believe President Trump is guilty of wrongdoing.”

“I could also not in good conscience vote for impeachment because removal of a sitting President must not be the culmination of a partisan process, fueled by tribal animosities that have so gravely divided our countries.”

Three other Dem House members did not vote. They represent districts Trump carried in 2016.

Notably, 20 GOP House members not running for re-election next year voted against the sham impeachment. Some broke with Trump and party leaders on other issues.

Two articles of impeachment introduced last week were approved by majority vote along party lines:

Article I: Abuse of power, falsely claiming Trump sought foreign interference from Ukraine in the US 2020 presidential election.

Ukrainian President Zelensky debunked the accusation, publicly saying there was no Trump blackmail threat, no quid pro quo, no conspiracy, nothing discussed about withholding US aid for political reasons.

Article II: Obstruction of Congress, falsely claimed he “directed the unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives pursuant to its sole Power of Impeachment,” adding:

“(W)ithout lawful cause or excuse, President Trump directed Executive Branch agencies, offices, and officials not to comply with those subpoenas. President Trump thus interposed the powers of the Presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the House…”

Trump’s unwillingness to participate in the sham process did not rise to the level of obstructing Congress.

Nor did urging current and former regime members not to cooperate with Dems because proceedings lacked legitimacy.

Some did anyway, showing no official presidential order barred their participation.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the impeachment process was unfair, saying:

Dems “refused GOP witness requests in the Intelligence Committee, denied the GOP a hearing day in the Judiciary Committee, and rushed the impeachment debate and vote.”

“They claim impeachment is a serious, solemn moment but then sprinted to judgment to meet the political needs of swing-district members who want(ed) (proceedings) over fast.”

Impeachment charges excluded mention of specific criminal behavior.

Ahead of the Wednesday vote, Law Professor Jonathan Turley said: “You could impeach every living president” by the standards Dems used to impeach Trump.

Asked how this will affect future presidents, he said it’s “going to have a significant impact (because) this sets the standard quite low for impeachment.”

A new Gallop poll released Wednesday, conducted from Dec. 2 – 15, showed Trump’s approval rating at 45%, up from 39% when the impeachment inquiry began — one point below his highest 46% number since taking office.

The poll also found that 51% of respondents oppose impeachment, 46% supporting it.

Only 5% of Republican respondents support impeachment compared to 85% of Dems.

The latest Quinnipiac University, PBS/NPR/Marist, and USA Today/Suffolk University polls also show a slim anti-impeachment majority.

Polls by Fox News and CNN show independents evenly divided on the issue.

Dems pinned false hopes on Robert Mueller’s Russiagate witch-hunt probe. Its failure led to Act II — Ukrainegate, proving no more successful.

Everything thrown at Trump for political reasons so far backfired. Even hugely one-sided anti-Trump media reports failed to  weaken and make him vulnerable to removal from office by impeachment.

No legal justification exists to impeach Trump — no “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” in two articles of impeachment as required under the Constitution’s Article II, Section 4.

No evidence proves he colluded improperly or illegally with Ukraine, as Dems falsely claim — wanting him removed from office for illegitimate reasons.

Articles of impeachment against him ignored his high crimes of war and against humanity, along with grievously breaching the public trust — because the vast majority of congressional members share guilt.

On Wednesday, Politico reported that Pelosi “threatens to delay a Senate impeachment trial,” adding:

“Some legal scholars have suggested she could consider refusing to transmit articles of impeachment to the Senate” because the GOP-controlled body will reject weak charges against Trump.

Pelosi so far said nothing about sending articles of impeachment to the Senate. According to senior Dems, she’ll likely delay transmittal at least until early January.

Dems must next adopt a second resolution, naming impeachment managers to send the process to the Senate.

The body’s Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sides with Trump, saying he won’t “leap into the breach and search desperately for ways to get to ‘guilty,’ ” separately saying: “I’m not an impartial juror. This is a political process.”

“The House made a partisan political decision to impeach. I would anticipate we will have a largely partisan outcome in the Senate.”

According to two GOP senators, whip John Cornyn and another speaking anonymously, McConnell will move to acquit Trump instead of mobilizing Republicans to dismiss articles of impeachment alone.

A super-majority of 67 votes is needed to convict. No GOP House support for impeachment indicates at least overwhelming Senate opposition by Republican members.

In November 2020, voters will have final say. Both parties, Trump, and his Dem opponent, will try using the impeachment issue to their advantage.

Based on where things stand now, neither side has an advantage.

A slight majority against impeachment and Trump’s higher approval rating than when the inquiry began may aid his chance for reelection if he retains this edge.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Palácio do Planalto, Flick

Mass incarceration in the US is a national disgrace, a crime against humanity, including countless numbers of political prisoners — pesecuted behind bars for their beliefs and activism, for resisting the dirty system, judged guilty by accusation.

Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning are best known, Assange imprisoned by Britain at the Trump regime’s request, extradition to the US to follow for truth-telling journalism.

Or perhaps he’ll perish behind bars because of appalling mistreatment, slowly killing him, including by denying him essential treatment for health issues, letting him deteriorate instead.

Numerous human rights workers, activists for justice, academics, and medical professionals called for upholding his rights — including Doctors For Assange on Monday.

By open letter to Australian authorities, they highlighted a “medical emergency” affecting him gravely, saying:

He “risk(s) death due to (appalling) conditions of his detention in a UK prison.”

Their November 22 open letter to Britain’s home secretary got worldwide attention.

“(H)aving received no response from the UK Government, we call upon you to intervene as a matter of urgency. As Australian (officials), you have an undeniable legal obligation to protect your citizen against the abuse of his fundamental human rights, stemming from US efforts to extradite Mr Assange for journalism and publishing that exposed US war crimes.”

He requires urgent medical treatment in “an appropriate hospital setting,” what’s unavailable to him under virtual gulag prison conditions.

Without proper care needed immediately, he may “die in a UK prison.”

“(T)he United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (earlier) concluded” that conditions under which he’s held “constitute(s) torture.”

“Medical experts have repeatedly advised the UK Government of potentially catastrophic consequences should it fail to facilitate adequate medical care for Mr Assange.”

After interviewing Assange in London’s Belmarsh prison, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Professor Nils Melzer condemned his “collective persecution,” adding:

Besides his deteriorating physical condition, he shows “symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma.”

Britain in cahoots with the Trump regime is killing him slowly. US hardliners likely want him dead to avoid a public trial that’ll highlight fraudulent charges against him.

“Should Mr Assange die in a British prison, people will want to know” why Australian authorities didn’t intervene for the rights of one of their citizens, the letter said.

“(A)s doctors, (we) feel ethically compelled to hold governments to account on medical grounds speaks volumes about the gravity of the medical, ethical and human rights travesties that are taking place.”

“It is an extremely serious matter for an Australian citizen’s survival to be endangered by a foreign government obstructing his human right to health.”

“It is an even more serious matter for that citizen’s own government to refuse to intervene, against historical precedent and numerous converging lines of medical advice.”

“We urge you to negotiate Julian Assange’s safe passage from Belmarsh Prison to an appropriate hospital setting in Australia before it is too late.”

Worldwide pleas like the above for Assange fell on deaf ears in Britain, Australia, and the West overall, this letter likely to be no more effective than earlier efforts on Assange’s behalf.

Chelsea Manning was indefinitely detained for invoking her constitutional right to remain silent.

She courageously refuses to give grand jury testimony, potentially harmful to Assange. She won’t aid the Trump regime’s intent to crucify him for doing the right thing.

Earlier, dozens of US, UK, Australian and Canadian academics, human rights activists and lawyers signed an open letter on behalf of Assange and Manning, saying:

“Over the past decade, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have revealed human rights abuses and a string of instances of corporate, government and intelligence agency corruption.”

“As scholars and citizens concerned with the protection of whistleblowers and a free press, with the ability to hold government to account for such abuses, we call for the immediate release of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning from prison.”

“We reiterate the concerns of the United Nations special rapporteurs regarding the ongoing mistreatment of Mr Assange and Ms Manning by the US and UK authorities, and affirm the statement of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that ‘the right of Mr Assange to personal liberty should be restored.’ ”

Slow-torture is killing Assange in Britain. From prison on December 17, Manning tweeted:

“celebrating yet another birthday in jail 🎂 thanks to all of you for your wonderful letters (and dank memes) ✉️ always thinking of y’all”

Perhaps the above was tweeted for her, along with her opposition to the unconstitutional grand jury process, remarks published on November 20, saying:

“I am not alone in objecting to the grand jury as a dangerous relic that has evolved in ways that increase its power without increasing its protections,” adding:

“I refuse to participate in a process that has clearly transformed into something that violates the spirit, if not the letter of the law.”

Independent jurists know that the grand jury system is “an unbridled arm of the police and prosecution” — intended to get indictments by fair or foul means.

“Today’s grand juries do not safeguard…fundamental (constitutional) rights and are easily subject to abuse,” Manning correctly explained.

“The grand jury subpoena, combined with compulsory immunity, gives unrestrained powers to US prosecutors to oppress activists and their communities.”

“Although, generally, people have no obligation to cooperate with law enforcement investigations, in the context of a grand jury subpoena, people who refuse to talk about their first amendment beliefs and associations can be locked away, or fined, as sanctions for their principled refusal.”

The US grand jury system is a modern-day version of centuries earlier UK Star Chamber court proceedings, convened to convict, not acquit.

The US national security state enforces judicial unfairness, grand juries a tool that facilitates it.

A former New York Court of Appeals chief judge earlier said prosectors control the grand jury process. Their manipulative practices can “indict a ham sandwich.”

The Supreme Court earlier ruled that federal grand jury prosecutors need not adhere to customary trial rules and procedures. Nor must they reveal exculpatory evidence.

Instead of protecting the public from oppressive government, they function as a “sword” against fundamental constitutional rights, doing whatever it takes to get indictments.

Rife with abusive practices, the grand jury process is an unconstitutional system that should have been restructured or abolished long ago.

It’s a secret tribunal, individuals forced to answer questions without counsel protecting their rights.

No judge is present during proceedings to assure fairness. Prosecutors alone decide what evidence grand jurors see, concealing what they wish at their discretion.

Witnesses risk unwitting self-incrimination, even when guilty of no crimes. They’re denied their constitutional right to remain silent.

Earlier Manning said she’d rather “starve to death” than give testimony potentially able to be used against Assange.

She’s fined $1,000 a day each day she remains silent, amassing an unrepayable debt, facing further incarceration for what the ACLU calls the “debt to prison pipeline” if she’s released for what she’s detained for now.

Manning, Assange, and countless other US political prisoners face what police state viciousness is all about — the rule of law abandoned in pursuit of its interests.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Massoud Nayeri

When is a war crime not a war crime? When, according to British officials, that war crime has been given a makeover as a “charitable act”. 

The British state is being asked to account for its financial and moral support for a UK organisation accused of complicity in the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland. So far, it appears determined to evade answering those questions.

The target of the campaign is the Jewish National Fund UK (JNF UK), which describes itself as “Britain’s oldest Israel charity”. Noting its role in “building Israel for over a century”, the organisation boasts: “Every penny raised by JNF UK is sent to a project in Israel.”

In fact, donations to JNF UK were used to buy some of the 250 million trees planted across Israel since 1948, the year when 750,000 Palestinians were forced out at gunpoint from their homes by the new Israeli army. Those expulsions were an event Palestinians call their Nakba, or “catastrophe”.

Afterwards, the Israeli army laid waste to many hundreds of Palestinian villages, turning them into rubble. Forests planted over the villages were then promoted as efforts to “make the desert bloom”.

Subsidised by taxpayers

In fact, the trees were intended primarily to block Palestinian refugees from ever being able to return to their villages and rebuild their homes. As a result, millions of Palestinians today languish in refugee camps across the Middle East, evicted from their homeland with the help of the forests.

JNF UK raised the funds for a parent organisation in Israel, the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF), which enforced the expulsions by using the donations to plant the forests. The Israeli state’s ethnic cleansing of the native Palestinian population was effectively disguised as a form of environmentalism.

Britain and other Western states appear to have accepted that barely concealed deception. They have long treated their local JNF fundraising arms as charities. JNF UK received charitable status in 1939, nearly a decade before Israel was created as a Jewish state on the ruins of Palestinians’ homeland.

Campaigners with Stop the JNF protest outside the offices of the UK attorney-general on 29 November (Courtesy of Stop the JNF)

The forests are still managed with money raised through tax-deductible donations in Britain and elsewhere. Since 1990, donations to JNF UK have been eligible for Gift Aid, meaning that the British government tops up donations by adding its own 25 percent contribution.

In effect, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian villages has been subsidised by the British public.

Backing from MPs

Britain’s continuing sanction of these crimes – and others – is being belatedly given scrutiny by human rights activists in Britain.

A campaign launched in 2010 called Stop the JNF – backed by various Palestinian solidarity organisations – has aimed to shame British officials into ending JNF UK’s charitable status.

The campaign gained parliamentary support a year later, when 68 MPs signed an early-day motion condemning the JNF’s activities and calling for its charitable status to be revoked. The motion was sponsored by Jeremy Corbyn, then a backbencher but now leader of the Labour Party, and attracted cross-party support, though no Conservative MPs backed it.

Nonetheless, the campaign has faced institutional resistance every step of the way. Over the past six years, appeals to the Charity Commission, a department of the British government, to intervene and remove JNF UK from its list of registered charities have been repeatedly rebuffed.

Rather than seeking explanations from JNF UK, British officials have largely ignored the evidence they have been presented with.

Trees ‘a weapon of war’

The campaign has highlighted one specific and egregious example of JNF UK’s work. The organisation raised donations to create a large recreation area west of Jerusalem called British Park, which includes forests, over three Palestinian villages that were destroyed by the Israeli army after 1948. A sign at the entrance reads: “Gift of the Jewish National Fund in Great Britain.”

Many of those who donated to the project, often British Jews encouraged to drop pennies into the JNF’s iconic fundraising “blue boxes”, had no idea how their money was being used.

The Stop the JNF campaign included testimony from Kholoud al-Ajarma, whose family was expelled from the village of Ajjur during the Nakba. Today, the family lives in the overcrowded Aida refugee camp, next to Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.

KKL-JNF planted trees at British Park on land to which Ajarma’s family, and many others, still have the title deeds. In doing so, the group violated the protected status of such lands in international law.

In her submission, Ajarma wrote: “It was British pounds that helped destroy my village. The Jewish National Fund is not merely planting trees. These trees have been used as a weapon of war, a weapon of colonisation.”

Israeli scholar Uri Davis has observed that the establishment of British Park “ought to be classified as an act, and as a policy, of complicity with war crimes”.

4,000 protest letters

The Charity Commission’s barrister, Iain Steele, conceded in a submission that it was possible the JNF had violated the Ajarma family’s rights by creating British Park on their land. Nonetheless, the Charity Commission has on two occasions refused to consider revoking JNF UK’s charitable status. Rather than addressing the merits of Stop the JNF’s arguments, the Charity Commission has evasively claimed that the campaigners, even the Ajarma family, are not affected by whether the JNF is registered as a charity.

In June, a commission official even wrote to the campaign with an astounding defence that appears to strip the term “charitable” of all meaning. He wrote: “In simple terms the test for charitable status is a test of what an organisation was set up to do, not what it does in practice.”

The commission’s apparent reasoning is that, so long as the JNF includes fine-sounding words in its mission statement, what it does in practice as a “charity” does not matter.

In April, Stop the JNF appealed the commission’s decision not to revoke JNF UK’s charitable status to the First-tier Tribunal. The judge, however, told them that neither Ajarma nor the campaign itself had a legal right to be heard. He concluded instead that only the attorney-general could overrule the Charity Commission’s decision. In October, the attorney-general rejected the campaigners’ claims without investigating them.

In an attempt to revive the case, Stop the JNF has submitted more than 4,000 letters of protest to the attorney-general, calling on him to reassess the organisation’s continuing charitable status.

A parallel call was made to the advocate-general of Scotland, which has a separate legal system.

‘Intense political controversy’

The JNF did not respond to questions sent by Middle East Eye about its role in planting the forests, its charitable status and other criticisms of its involvement with Israel.

The establishment’s apparent unwillingness to confront JNF UK’s historical record is perhaps not surprising. The JNF was one of the key organisations that helped to realise a British government promise made in the 1917 Balfour Declaration to help create a “Jewish home” in what was then Palestine.

Two years later, Lord Balfour declared that the colonisation of Palestine by Zionist Jews from Europe was “of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 [Palestinian] Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land”. Little, it seems, has changed in official British attitudes since.

Steele, the Charity Commission’s barrister, successfully urged the First-tier Tribunal not to get involved, arguing that it would be “drawn into matters of intense political controversy, for no obvious benefit to anyone”.

Surely, Ajarma and many millions more Palestinians would strenuously dispute that assessment. They would have much to gain should Britain finally demonstrate a willingness to confront its continuing role in aiding and comforting groups such as the JNF, accused of complicity in crimes against international law in historic Palestine.

As Stop the JNF organisers wrote in their own letter to the attorney-general: “These people [Palestinian refugees such as the Ajarma family] are not defined by the JNF as recipients of their charity, but they have human and legal rights which the actions of this charity unacceptably violate.”

Reminiscent of dark regimes

The campaign has not only focused on JNF UK’s historic role in dispossessing Palestinians. It points out that the JNF is still actively contributing to Israel’s own grossly discriminatory and racist policies – another reason it should be barred from being considered a charity.

JNF UK’s accounts from 2016 show that it has funded the OR Movement, an Israeli organisation that assists in the development of Jewish-only communities in Israel and the occupied territories.

One such Jewish community, Hiran, is being established on the ruins of homes that belonged to Bedouin familes. They were recently forced out of their village of Umm al-Hiran – a move the legal rights group Adalah has described as “reminiscent of the darkest of regimes such as apartheid-era South Africa”.

On its website, JNF-KKL congratulates “Friends of JNF UK” for supporting the establishment of nearby Hiran Forest. The JNF claims the forest will “help mitigate climate change” – once again disguising ethnic cleansing of Palestinians as a form of environmentalism.

Funding the Israeli army

JNF UK’s annual accounts in 2015 also revealed that it contributed money to the Israeli army under the title “Tzuk Eitan 9 Gaza war effort” – a reference to Israel’s attack on Gaza in late 2014, whose death toll included some 550 Palestinian children.

A United Nations commission of inquiry found evidence that Israel had committed war crimes by indiscriminately targeting civilians – a conclusion confirmed by the testimonies of Israeli soldiers to Breaking the Silence, an Israeli whistle-blowing group.

Equally troubling, an investigation last month by Haaretz reported that, under Israeli government pressure, the KKL-JNF has been secretly directing vast sums of money into buying and developing land in the occupied West Bank to aid Jewish settlers, again in violation of international law.

The funds were allegedly channeled to Himnuta Jerusalem, effectively the JNF’s subsidiary in the occupied territories, disguised as funds for projects in Jerusalem.

Veteran Israeli journalist Raviv Drucker observed that KKL-JNF was rapidly converting itself into a banking fund for the settlers. He added that its “coffers are bursting with billions of shekels [and] the settlers’ appetite for land is at a peak”.

Given the lack of transparency in KKL-JNF’s accounts, it is difficult to know precisely where the funds have come from. But as more than $70m has been spent by KKL-JNF over the past two years in the occupied West Bank, according to Haaretz, the funds likely include money raised by JNF UK.

In any case, research by Stop the JNF suggests JNF UK has no objections to making “charitable” donations to settlements in the West Bank. Its accounts record contributions to Sansana, a community of religious settlers close to Hebron.

Settlements are considered a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

No ‘duty’ towards equality

KKL-JNF is a major landowner in Israel. Under a special arrangement with the Israeli government, it owns 13 percent of Israel’s territory – often lands seized from Palestinian refugees. The arrangement includes a provision from 1961 that the primary aim of the JNF in Israel is to acquire property “for the purpose of settling Jews on such lands and properties”.

In 2004, KKL-JNF explained its role. It was “not a public body that works for the benefit of all citizens of the state. The loyalty of the JNF is given to the Jewish people and only to them is the JNF obligated. The JNF, as the owner of the JNF land, does not have a duty to practice equality towards all citizens of the state.”

In marketing and allocating lands only to Jews, the legal group Adalah has noted, the JNF in Israel intentionally rides roughshod over the rights of a fifth of the country’s population who are Palestinian by heritage.

In other words, the JNF is integral to an Israeli system that enforces an apartheid-style regime that prevents Israel’s Palestinian minority from accessing and benefiting from a substantial part of Israel’s territory.

Violating British law

This institutionalised discrimination has been made even more explicit since Israel last year passed the nation-state law, which declares: “The State views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value, and shall act to encourage and promote its establishment and strengthening.”

As the Stop the JNF campaign notes, British charities should abide by legal responsibilities enshrined in UK legislation, such as the 2010 Equality Act, which makes it illegal to discriminate based on “colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin”.

The JNF UK is clearly failing to abide by this core legal principle. It is operating in a foreign state where it has helped, over many decades, to fund activities that grossly violate both British law and international law. The evidence compiled by Stop the JNF indicates that JNF UK has itself been complicit in aiding the commission of war crimes, both in Israel and the occupied territories.

It has also given financial and moral succour to its parent organisation, which has crafted a system of apartheid that confers superior land rights on Jews over Israel’s Palestinian minority.

British taxpayers should not be subsidising institutionalised discrimination and crimes abroad – even more so when they are being dressed up as “charitable acts”.

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Jonathan Cook, a British journalist based in Nazareth since 2001, is the the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is a past winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His website and blog can be found at: www.jonathan-cook.net. 

Featured image: Campaigners with Stop the JNF protest outside the offices of the UK attorney-general on 29 November (Courtesy of Stop the JNF)

Since the planting of limpet mines on oil tankers off the coast of the UAE in May, the subsequent downing of the US surveillance drone in the Persian Gulf and the brazen attack on the Abqaiq petroleum facility and the Khurais oil field in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia on September 14, choreographed protests have erupted in Lebanon and Iraq since October.

Lebanese American journalist Rania Khalek has documented for The Gray Zone [1] the US-backed political forces are spearheading the “color revolution” in Lebanon, where Iran-backed resistance group Hezbollah is part of the coalition government.

Similarly, Iraq has been through the US occupation from 2003 to 2011 and is known to have US sympathizers in the Kurdish-held north and the Shi’ite-majority south of the country, where the US oil majors operate and dispense largesse among local chieftains of myriad clans and fraternities.

Unlike Lebanon and Iraq, though, Iran itself is not entirely immune to foreign-backed political demonstrations despite the fact that it does not have any imperialist collaborators on the ground, besides the fringe militant group Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) funded by the US, France and Israel.

The proximate cause of the November 15 protests in Iran was steep rise in petrol prices by the Rouhani government, dubbed as “sabotage” by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The worst-hit region was Khuzestan province in southwest Iran which is home to large Sunni Arab minority known to have grievances against Tehran and susceptible to infiltration by imperialist stooges.

Regarding the recent escalation in the Persian Gulf, although the Houthi rebels based in Yemen claimed the responsibility for the September 14 complex attack involving drones and cruise missiles on the Abqaiq petroleum facility and the Khurais oil field in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, and they have UAV-X drones having a range of 1,500 kilometers, Washington dismissed the possibility.

Instead, the United States accused Tehran of mounting the attack from Iran’s territory, which is unlikely because Iran would never leave behind smoking gun evidence implicating Tehran, as the strategically vital Persian Gulf is monitored round the clock by American satellites and surveillance aircraft. The most likely suspects were Iran-backed militias in Iraq because the complex attack involving drones and cruise missiles was staged from the north.

Quoting Iraqi intelligence officials, David Hearst reported [2] for the Middle East Eye a day after the September 14 attack that drones and missiles were launched by the Hashed al-Shabi militia from its bases in southern Iraq.

Although Washington concocted “credible intelligence” the attack was mounted directly from southwest Iran, what lends credence to the report the attack was staged from southern Iraq is the fact that several eye witnesses reported seeing drones traversing the Kuwaiti airspace, entering from north and hitting targets south in eastern Saudi Arabia.

Moreover, in the weeks preceding the attack, Washington had accused the Hashed al-Shabi militia of mounting another attack in eastern Saudi Arabia claimed by the Houthi rebels because the oil-rich Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia is nearer the Iraq border than it is to the Houthi stronghold in Saada, Yemen.

Furthermore, in the weeks before the attack, the Iran-backed militias blamed [3] the US and Israel in August for mounting airstrikes on their bases in Iraq targeting the missile storage facilities. The missiles were recently provided to the militias by Iran. It’s worth noting that 5,000 American troops and numerous aircraft are still deployed in Iraq, therefore the likely culprit targeting the Iran-backed militias in Iraq was the United States, not Israel.

Taking cover of the Israeli airstrikes, Washington has conducted several airstrikes of its own on targets in Syria and Iraq and blamed them on Israel, which frequently mounts air and missile strikes against Iranian operatives and Hezbollah militia in Syria and Lebanon, though Israel has never conducted an airstrike in Iraq because for that Israeli aircraft would have to violate Jordanian airspace.

Besides the airstrikes on the missile storage facilities of Iran-backed militias in Iraq, it is suspected that the US air force was also behind a recent airstrike at the newly built Imam Ali military base in eastern Syria at al-Bukamal-Qaim border crossing alleged to be hosting the Iranian Quds Force operatives.

In addition to planting limpet mines on the UAE’s oil tankers and shooting down the American Global Hawk surveillance drone, the September 14 attack on the Abqaiq petroleum facility and the Khurais oil field was the third major attack in the Persian Gulf against the interests of Washington and its regional clients.

That the UAE had forewarning about imminent attacks is proved by the fact that weeks before the attacks, it recalled forces from Yemen battling the Houthi rebels and redeployed them to man the UAE’s territorial borders.

Nevertheless, a puerile prank like planting limpet mines on oil tankers can be overlooked but major provocations like downing a $200-million surveillance aircraft and mounting a drone and missile attack on the Abqaiq petroleum facility that crippled its oil-processing functions for weeks can have serious repercussions.

The September 14 attack on the Abqaiq petroleum facility in eastern Saudi Arabia was an apocalypse for the global oil industry because it processes five million barrels crude oil per day, more than half of Saudi Arabia’s total oil production.

The subversive attack sent jitters across the global markets and the oil price surged 20%, the biggest spike witnessed in three decades since the First Gulf War when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, though the oil price was eased within days after industrialized nations released their strategic oil reserves.

In order to bring home the significance of the Persian Gulf’s oil in the energy-starved industrialized world, here are a few stats from the OPEC data: Saudi Arabia has the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves of 265 billion barrels and its daily oil production is 10 million barrels; Iran and Iraq each has 150 billion barrels reserves and has the capacity to produce 5 million barrels per day each; while UAE and Kuwait each has 100 billion barrels reserves and produces 3 million barrels per day each; thus, all the littoral states of the Persian Gulf, together, hold 788 billion barrels, more than half of world’s 1477 billion barrels proven oil reserves.

Not surprisingly, 35,000 American troops have currently been deployed in the military bases and aircraft carriers in the oil-rich Persian Gulf in accordance with the Carter Doctrine of 1980, which states: “Let our position be absolutely clear: an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”

It bears mentioning that alongside deploying several thousand American troops, additional aircraft squadrons and Patriot missile batteries in Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of the Abqaiq attack, several interventionist hawks in Washington invoked the Carter Doctrine as a ground for mounting retaliatory strikes against Iran.

The only saving grace of Iran is its military strength, geostrategic location in the Persian Gulf and the rhetoric of resistance against American imperialism appealing to the grassroots sentiments of the Middle East’s masses, who stand firmly united behind the revolutionary government, nevertheless Tehran has prudently avoided further escalating the conflict with Washington’s client regimes in the region following the choreographed demonstrations in Lebanon and Iraq since October.

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

Notes

[1] US-backed parties have infiltrated Lebanon’s protests

[2] Iranian drones launched from Iraq carried out attacks on Saudi oil plants

[3] Iranian-backed militia blames US and Israel for attacks on bases in Iraq

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The US-led coalition is selling oil looted at oilfields in southern Deir Ezzor to Turkey, Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview with China’s Phoenix Television. Assad said that “the Turkish regime plays a direct part in selling the oil, previously with Jabhat al-Nusra, later with ISIS and today with the Americans.” The President said that there are no prospects for the US presence in the country and if US troops remain, they will face a popular resistance and “pay the price”.

Despite Assad remarks, by now US forces had faced little difficulties with their presence in the oil-rich part of eastern Syria. No attacks on US troops by some local resistance or major security incidents of this kind took place during the last few months. However, this may change if the situation in the region escalates.

Over the past week, the Syrian Army has expanded its military presence in northeastern Syria, especially along the M4 highway. The only security incident between Syrian and US troops happened near the al-Qamishli airport, where a Syrian Army unit blocked a US military convoy and forced it to turn around. After this, the US military send reinforcements to the countryside of the city.

On December 15, Turkish President Recep Erdogan repeated his claims that Russia and the United States have not facilitated the complete withdrawal of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, the core of the Syrian Democratic Forces, from the agreed safe zone area. He claimed that there are still “terrorists” in Manbij and “Turkey is full of resolve on fighting against terrorism”. Mimicking Assad, Erdogan said that the “terrorists”, the term used in Turkey to describe Kurdish armed groups, sell oil to the Assad government.

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On December 12, 2019, the British parliamentary election gave conservative Boris Johnson a big victory, and leveled an historic defeat on the British Labour Party not witnessed since 1935.  Johnson now has an absolute majority in Parliament and his quick march to a hard Brexit is now very likely.

Once the leading global capitalist economic world power, Britain is now doomed eventually to decline economically to a force in the global economy more or less equal to that of northern Italy in terms of GDP.  Its last major role in the global economy, as a world financial center, will now atrophy as well, as finance capital exits Britain the aftermath of the election and Brexit to points elsewhere: to Frankfurt, Paris, Singapore, and New York.

It is important to understand why Boris won big, why Brexit is now on the fast track once again, and what are the likely consequences. One immediate consequence is Jeremy Corbyn has already announced he will not lead the party further after its crushing defeat. That means the ‘moderate’ interests will now ascend to control of the Labour party again and purge the progressives that were behind Corbyn. It also means the Scottish Nationalist Party will demand a second vote on leaving the UK. Its leaders have already so declared. The British Constitutional crisis is again on the agenda.

It is important not only to assess the short term failures or success of the Conservative vs. Labour parties’ respective election strategies, but to understand the longer term historical forces at work that have been undermining Social Democracy and social democratic politics (and thus the Labour Party) in the advanced economies in recent decades.  Those long term historical forces have been building and accumulating for decades. They have played at least as great a role as election strategy and tactics in Labour’s now historic defeat.

There are no doubt several reasons why British voters handed Labour its defeat and opened the door again, now even wider, to Boris Johnson to leave the European Union.  The election shows that a large number of voters still wanted to leave the EU, despite three and a half years of British Parliamentary maneuvering and delay. Another voter block that weren’t so sure of leaving the EU perhaps probably voted conservative because they just wanted to ‘get the damn thing over with’. Three and half years of debate and parliamentary maneuvers since the original 2016 Brexit vote have left many disgusted with the political efforts of the British elite to block the 2016 democratic vote of the will of the majority in the country.  Another short term factor in the election outcome no doubt is that Johnson cleverly manipulated voter sentiment with promises he would protect–and even expand–social programs, add more government spending, end austerity, save the health service, etc.  That’s a cynical tactic directly out of the Trump playbook.  Another factor probably was the slanderous business-media campaign to depict Corbyn and the Labour party as anti-semitic.  As in the US with Trump, manipulating the ‘jewish vote’ and painting Corbyn-Labour as discriminating, or even racist, played a role in Boris’ victory. Corbyn and Labour fell for the ploy and spent too much time defending against it, instead of pushing their own proposals more forcefully. They were caught off guard and didn’t know how to respond, and did so only after losing valuable time. Of course, having the capitalist media and press running interference on the issue on behalf of Boris and the Conservatives didn’t help either. As in France in support of Macron, British capitalists rallied and united together against Corbyn, terrified that if he and Labour won it would mean the re-nationalization of industries long privatized under British Neoliberalism since the 1980s. Finally, Labour’s strategy was itself equivocating at times and on a number of fronts insufficiently differentiating from the Conservatives.  In many voters minds, especially youth, Labour was viewed as still the junior partner in pro-business Neoliberal policies and not to be fully trusted. The legacies of Blair and Gordon continue to haunt the part (just as Clinton and Obama do in the USA for the Democrats).

But there’s more than just electoral strategies and tactics that explain yesterday’s vote outcome and Labour’s historic defeat in the British Parliamentary election.

In Britain, as well as in the USA and Europe and elsewhere, the capitalist system has clearly entered an era of ‘nationalist reaction’ to the declining growth prospects of global capitalism. Nationalism is the ideological reaction to that decline. More prescient and clever members of capitalists, and political class that represents them, have grabbed on to nationalist appeals and policies and are riding that horse into office on the backs of growing economic discontent.  Brexit thus represents a nationalist response to Britain’s economic decline. “Its the fault of those Europeans and the EU. If only we can leave the EU, Britain will return to its glory days of economic power”. So goes the political refrain–in the UK and elsewhere.

Overlaid on this ideological appeal in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is the curious counter ideological ‘nationalist’ appeal of the Scots, who employ Scottish nationalism as the justification for staying in the EU instead of leaving it. So we have two nationalisms–one countering the other–in the case of the UK and Brexit.  Scotland will no doubt soon vote somehow again to leave the UK–becoming a kind of ‘Catalonia Writ Large’. Unlike the latter, however, it is unlikely that members of the Scottish Nationalist party will be successfully charged with treason and jailed.  Watch for Boris and his conservatives to try to cleverly structure some solution similar to the so-called Northern Ireland ‘backstop’ for Scotland in relation to the EU. Boris and buddies will try to keep Scotland politically in the UK by allowing it to economically remain in the EU.  Or allow Scotland to keep all the North Sea oil and US trade revenue for itself, which is also what Scotland staying in the EU is mostly about.

Nationalism is undermining national unity in the UK–just as it is doing so in the USA…and in Spain, Italy, and elsewhere in Europe, and let’s not forget India and Kashmir, and other locales in Asia.  Capitalism in crisis always turns to nationalism as a shield to divert blame for its economic and social troubles on ‘the others’. The extreme version of this nationalist ‘blame it on the outsiders game’ is called Fascism.

There’s another longer term historic force also at play here in the Brexit phenomenon–apart from Nationalism and the short term electoral strategy and tactic failures. That’s the decline and collapse of traditional Social Democracy and social democratic parties.  That decline is partly due to decades of mis-leadership by the social democratic parties’ leadership who have aligned themselves with the Neoliberal policies of the business parties in their countries. By partnering with business interests, in the hope of obtaining some minor concessions, they have painted themselves with the consequences of those Neoliberal pro-business, pro-investor policies. Those policies for their social democratic constutuencies have meant: declining job opportunities, stagnant wages, privatization and loss oof social insurance and benefits, loss of retirement and pension guarantees, and destruction of their unions that once protected those war time and post-1945 gains of the early 20th century.  Of course, social democracy party leaders personally gained by securing a junior role at the political table with business and their capitalist parties. The Tony Blairs and Bill Clintons are today multi-millionaires serving on corporate boards and as business consultants being nicely rewarded for their past services. But they traded that role and personal gain for the the living standards of their working class members.

At its extreme, and in the worst case, the collaboration of the social democratic parties over the last 40 years with their business party ‘opponents’ has meant allowing the mass reverse immigration–i.e. deportation–of tens of millions of industrial working class jobs from the UK, the USA, Europe, and Japan to emerging market economies. (Where their respective corporations also migrated for cheap labor, open markets, and indigenous local politicians on the make). Ultimately, that reverse immigration of jobs and deportation of living standards is explains in large part the collapse of electoral support for the social democratic parties in the ‘West’.

Entire generations of workers in the UK, USA, and Europe–who are today condemned to part time, temp, gig, and precarious work, to small service company employment, and with no experience of belonging to unions–no longer see any affinity to the traditional social democratic parties. This development is not only relevant to the UK and the collapse of British Labour as an electoral force. It is true of that even weaker and lesser ‘social democratic’ party organization called the Democrat Party in the USA. As it is true for the Socialist Party in France that was recently defeated and has all but disappeared from the electoral scene. And as it is becoming as well for the SPD party in Germany, as it continues its partnership and collaboration with business parties and interests in that country. The Social Democratic parties in the west have been hollowed out by the deportation of their industrial jobs (aka offshoring or sometimes euphemistically called by the business media as ‘supply chain relocation’). And parallel structural changes in western economy labor markets have chipped away at the margins of what working class support that remained for those parties by throwing many not deported into precarious and contingent work that fragments and de-politicizes the class.

The core industrial working class backbone of those parties has thus been shipped offshore in the Neoliberal era and otherwise captured by nationalist appeals or who see nothing in it for them to vote for anyone. Social Democratic party leaders in recent decades have thus participated in, and presided over, the destruction of their own organizations and their own erstwhile political-electoral base.  And as they allowed the decimation of their own industrial working class, the atrophy and disappearance of the unions as an organized electoral support force followed.

Today neither the class nor the unions existed to deliver the vote for Labour (or for the Democrats, or the Socialist Party, or the SPD, etc.) in strategic contests like the recent British election and Brexit votes.

Corbyn in the UK represented a last futile effort to re-transform the British Labour party, trying to turn the clock back into what it was once. But the core and base for that reconstitution no longer exists. And that’s also, at least in part, why Labour suffered the historic defeat yesterday. And why Nationalism is on the ascend once again.

And why, after the next crisis, even ascendant Nationalism as we see it today may not be sufficient for the continuation of late Neoliberal rule for global capitalism.

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

Dr. Jack Rasmus is author of the just published book, ‘The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy from Reagan to Trump’, Clarity Press, January 2020, which is available from his blog, jackrasmus.com, and his website, http://kyklosproductions.com, and publicly everywhere after December 20.

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The most stunning rebuke to the Trump Administration’s unilateral effort to legitimise Israeli settlements did not come from Arab and European leaders. Over the years, their statements of condemnation have become so predictable that both Israel and the US routinely shrug them off.

Instead, the most significant response came in the form of a letter sent by Members of Congress to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Drafted by freshman Congressman Andy Levin of Michigan, the letter was co-signed by 106 other Representatives. While it is true that the Levin letter is not a law and, therefore, will have no real impact on policy, there are several reasons why it is worthy of note.

Most important is the fact that the letter strongly endorses the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands. The third and final paragraph of the letter to Secretary Pompeo reads:

“This State Department decision blatantly disregards Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which affirms that any occupying power shall not ‘deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies’… If the US unilaterally abandons international and human rights law, we can expect a more chaotic and brutal 21st century for America and our allies…”

This is the first time that a substantial number of Members of Congress have embraced the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. In fact, in 1999 and 2009 Congress passed resolutions denouncing international efforts to hold Israel accountable for its violations of the Conventions.

The principle reason for this Congressional refusal to embrace the Conventions has been in deference to Israel’s insistence that its seizure of Palestinian lands in 1967 was not an occupation. Instead they refer to the territories as “disputed areas”. That being the case, Israel has long refused to accept that the Conventions apply to Palestinian lands, since if they were to apply, then Israel would be guilty of: “Annexing” occupied lands, demolishing Palestinian properties and homes, building settlements for their own citizens on this land, stealing resources from this land, the expulsion of and denial of repatriation of Palestinians who inhabited this land, and whole range of human rights abuses committed against the captive Palestinian population including torture, collective punishment and illegal detention.

Israel has also used pressure from their Washington lobbyists to insure that not only would Congress refrain from taking any measure against Israel, they would also avoid using the term “occupied” in reference to Palestinian lands. In 2016, I served as one of Bernie Sanders’ representatives on the Democratic Party’s platform drafting committee. Our efforts to insert the words “occupation” and “settlements” were met with stiff resistance. We ultimately failed in our efforts.

In recent years we have witnessed some evolution in the policy debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Three of the leading Democratic candidates for the presidency have criticised Israeli settlements, denounced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declared intention to annex parts of the West Bank. These Democrats also link future US aid to Israel to Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. And last week, the House of Representatives passed a bill, that among other things, did support Palestinian statehood and strongly opposed Israeli annexation of any part of the West Bank.

But none of these efforts have gone as far as the Levin letter, which in an unprecedented manner holds Israel accountable to international law.

While Democrats have been emboldened on Israeli-Palestinian issues as a result of their disgust with the Trump/Netanyahu marriage, what is impressive about the Levin letter is that it is not tied to or focused on Democrats revulsion with both men. Rather, the letter focuses on the importance of the US upholding international human rights law and demands that Israel adhere to its requirements, whoever is in office in Israel or the United States.

A final point about the importance of Levin letter was the fact that it was signed 107 Members of Congress. There have been strong principled letters on Israeli-Palestinian issues in the past, but never one that drew the support of so many. While they were all Democrats, the diversity they represented was impressive. There were senior leaders in the party, as well as freshman and there were African American, Latino, Arab Americans and American Jews.

What was troubling was the fact that the Levin letter was largely ignored by the US media. Because it was a letter and not a law, some may have failed to grasp the important shift it represents in the political landscape. These changes have been percolating under surface for years. Now they are breaking out into the open. This story is still being written.

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James J. Zogby is president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute.

Trump Creates a New Nation

December 18th, 2019 by Philip Giraldi

The pandering by Donald Trump and those around him to Israel and to some conservative American Jews is apparently endless. Last Wednesday the president signed an executive order that is intended to address alleged anti-Semitism on college campuses by cutting off funds to those universities that do not prevent criticism of Israel. To provide a legal basis to defund, the administration is relying on title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits any discrimination based on race, color or national origin. Since the Act does not include religion, Trump’s order is declaring ipso facto that henceforth “Jewishness” is a nationality.

The executive order does not mention Israel by name, but it does state that its assumptions are based on “the non-legally binding working definition of anti-Semitism adopted on May 26, 2016, by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which states, ‘Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities’; and (ii) the ‘Contemporary Examples of Anti-Semitism’ identified by the IHRA, to the extent that any examples might be useful as evidence of discriminatory intent.”

The IHRA “contemporary examples” supplementing the basic description are important. They considerably broaden the definition of anti-Semitism, to include “Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations” and “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.” The examples also included holding Israel to a higher standard than other nations when criticizing it, and IHRA offers no possible mitigation even if the accusations are, in the case of the behavior of some Jews and of Israel, accurate.

Those who are confused because in the past expressions like “Italian” or “Irish” or “British” meant actual countries should recognize that Trump-speak never respects any connection with reality when there is political advantage just sitting out there waiting to be snatched and exploited. And that imperative is considerably multiplied when one is referring to either the state of Israel or of Jews in general, particularly as seen by the Trump White House, which clearly and repeatedly sends the message that it reveres both. Trump’s order will in effect constitute a government-promoted argument that Jews are a people or a race with a collective national origin, like Italian or Polish Americans, an assertion that clearly is untrue.

In fact, suppressing criticism of Israel on college campuses using a “weaponized” claim of anti-Semitism has long been a major foreign policy objective of the Israeli government even though nonviolent assembly and free speech are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Congress has several times considered a comprehensive Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, though it has not passed due to legitimate free speech concerns. The nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (B.D.S.), which is very active on American campuses, has been particularly targeted and criticism of it is frequent in the media and from Congress while also emanating from the White House. As most accredited colleges receive federal funding, which can be considerable at a major research university, the executive order will create a major dilemma over how to respond, particularly for those schools that have Middle East study programs.

Work on the presidential executive order was initiated in the summer inside the White House by a team led by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, together with his close aide special assistant to the president Avi Berkowitz. They sought to develop a formula whereby government policy would equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, and Donald Trump both agreed with that assessment and followed through on it. On December 8th he promised to take action against B.D.S. and other critics in a speech delivered before the Israeli-American Council. The speech is worth reading in full by anyone who is concerned that the United States now has a government that favors one already privileged, wealthy and powerful constituency in particular and is not committed to upholding the civil liberties of all Americans.

Israel is an apartheid state. Covering up for its crimes against humanity as well as its war crimes is something of a growth industry in the United States, with Zionist billionaire oligarchs launching new foundations on a regular basis. Jewish power in the U.S. means that Israel always has been given a pass, even when it deliberately attacked and sought to sink the U.S.S. Liberty, an American Naval vessel in international waters in 1967. Thirty-four crewman died in the assault. The subsequent investigation of the attack was whitewashed by the president, secretary of state and the Navy department while the survivors were threatened with imprisonment if they revealed what had occurred. That is how a powerful and ruthless Israel acting through its traitorous domestic proxies operates and it illustrates how feeble the Establishment is in standing up to it.

This latest outrage, in which free speech and association will be denied to benefit one group on the basis of its claimed perpetual victimhood, had its genesis earlier this year when the federal government’s Education Department ordered Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to reorganize the Consortium for Middle East Studies program run jointly by the two colleges in part based on their failure to include enough “positive” content relating to Judaism. The demand came with a threat to suspend federal funding of Title VI Higher Education Act international studies and foreign language grants to the two schools if the curriculum were not changed.

The Education Department was particularly irate over a conference in March called “Conflict Over Gaza: People, Politics and Possibilities.” A Republican congressman was outraged by the development and asked Secretary DeVos to investigate because the gathering was full of “radical anti-Israel bias.”

Coverage of the story revealed that “Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, has become increasingly aggressive in going after perceived anti-Israel bias in higher education.” Her deputy who has served as a focal point for the effort to root out anti-Israel sentiment is Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights Kenneth L. Marcus, who might reasonably be described as “a career pro-Israel advocate,” the founder and president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which he has used to exclusively defend the rights of Jewish groups and individuals against BDS and other manifestations of Palestinian pushback against the Israeli occupation of their country. He has not hesitated to call opponents anti-Semites and has worked with Jewish students to file civil rights complaints against college administrations, including schools in Wisconsin and California. In an op-ed that appeared, not surprisingly, in The Jerusalem Post, he observed that even when student complaints were rejected, they created major problems for the institutions involved. “If a university shows a failure to treat initial complaints seriously, it hurts them with donors, faculty, political leaders and prospective students.”

Last year Kenneth Marcus reopened an investigation into alleged anti-Jewish bias at Rutgers University that the Obama Administration had closed after finding that the charges were baseless. Marcus indicated that the re-examination was called for as his office in the Education Department would henceforth be using the IHRA-derived State Department definition of anti-Semitism that also includes “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination,” making virtually all criticism of Israel a civil rights violation or even a hate crime.

Critics of the Trump move, many of whom are themselves Jewish, are uncomfortable with being placed by government into one category, noting inter aliathat ALL students are de facto already protected by Title VI, which has been interpreted as making all forms of discrimination illegal. And they also note that the law was never intended to protect individuals whose feelings were hurt or who claim to be unwelcome or even threatened by someone saying something that they disapprove of. Since such protection is clearly the intention of the executive order, it is undeniable that the Trump’s latest ploy is little more than a mechanism to pressure colleges into effectively banning B.D.S. and other groups critical of Israel.

And the order itself raises at least one unpleasant thought: if “Jewishness” is a nation even though it is demonstrably not one, what is the alleged Jewish nationality all about? Is this just one more example of the politics of Jewish identity or is it really some form of dual loyalty, with American Jews divided between those who are loyal to the U.S. and those who are loyal to some supra-nationality or allegiance? The fact is, that Donald Trump himself has several times expressed the view that American Jews, particularly those who are politically liberal, should be more loyal to Israel.

Trump’s maneuver is unfortunately part of a well-funded and highly coordinated federal and state campaign to pass laws to criminalize critics of Israel. And the issue has also surfaced within the Democratic Party among those campaigning for the presidential nomination. Speaker Nancy Pelosi forced Representative Ilhan Omar to apologize after she criticized proposed anti-boycott legislation. More recently Bernie Sanders is being smeared as an anti-Semite even though he is Jewish because he associates with critics of Israel and has spoken out in favor of defending free speech while also supporting Palestinian rights.

There is a certain irony in all of this political theater, that the wealthiest and most powerful identifiable group in the United States should yet again be playing the victim is in itself astonishing. And making it a crime to deny Israel legitimacy while at the same time denying the same thing to Palestinians should give anyone pause.

And there is also considerable hypocrisy in that pro-Israel groups on campus have been if anything better funded and more aggressive in promoting their point of view than B.D.S. has been without any consequences. Canary Mission, for example, claims to “document people and groups that promote hatred of the U.S.A., Israel and Jews on North American college campuses” by posting their names, photos and personal information on its website. Israeli-American real estate investor and billionaire Adam Milstein is reported to be its principal funder while the site’s listings have been allegedly used by the Israeli border security officials to deny entry to pro-B.D.S. American citizens and also with potential employers to deny applicants jobs.

The Lawfare Project’s Campus Civil Rights Project meanwhile helps aggrieved Zionist students to “take legal action to ensure that schools live up to their legal obligations to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic harassment, intimidation, and discrimination.”

So here we are again. Special privileges for the perpetual victims. And no one in the media is willing to tell it like it is, while the handful of meek voices in congress have been effectively silenced. So sad, particularly as an election year is coming up and there will undoubtedly be much more of this. When the Israelis occupy nearly all of the West Bank with Donald Trump’s approval and start “relocating” the existing population, who will be around to speak up? No one, as by that time saying nay to Israel will be a full-fledged hate crime and you can go to jail for doing so.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

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

Featured image is from The Unz Review

Video: Russia Deploys its Uran-9 Combat Robots in Syria

December 18th, 2019 by South Front

In late 2019, photos and footage showing Russia’s Uran-9 combat robot deployed in Syria appeared online. They became a rare visual evidence of the Uran-9 combat deployment in the war-torn country, which, according to official sources, took place in 2018.

The Uran-9 multipurpose unmanned ground combat vehicle was officially unveiled by Russian military equipment manufacturer JSC 766 UPTK during the Army-2016 International Military-Technical Forum in Russia in September 2016. The vehicle is designed to provide remote reconnaissance and fire support to a variety of tasks conducted by the counter-terrorism, reconnaissance and military units in urban environments.

The Uran-9 can be used fully autonomously on a predefined road or manually operated by one man from a truck control station or via a small backpack control station.

Back in 2016, the Uran-9 was armed with a 30mm Shipunov 2A72 automatic cannon, four ready-to-launch 9M120-1 Ataka (NATO reporting name: Spiral-2) anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM), six ready-to-launch Shmel-M reactive flamethrowers. and a 7.62mm Kalashnikov PKT/PKTM coaxial machine gun mounted to the left side of the main armament. The Uran-9 can be also armed with four Igla surface-to-air missiles.

There are two Ataka missile launchers and three Shmel-M on each side of the turret. The Ataka missile has an operational range from 400 m to 6 km, and is capable of penetrating armour to a depth of 800mm behind explosive reactive armour (ERA).

The Uran-9 unmanned ground combat vehicle has the ability to resist firing of small arms ammunition and shell splinters. The steel armour plates of the hull offer protection for the vehicle suspension.

The robotic system is equipped with various remote-controlled sensor modules such as laser warning system, and electro-optic and thermal imaging cameras. It has an onboard fire control system, comprised of automatic target detection, identification and tracking devices, as well as a ballistic computer. The systems are able to detect and track targets at a distance of up to 6 km during the day and 3 km during the night.

The Uran-9 has two operation modes – autonomous and manual. In autonomous it can automatically identify, detect, track and defeat enemy targets based on the pre-programmed path set by the operator. The Uran-9 robot is manually controlled by a single operator from a mobile command and control station mounted on a 6×6 tactical truck from a safe distance of 3km.

The Uran-9 is powered by a diesel-electric power source, which provides a maximum speed of 35 km/h on a highway, and a max speed of 25 km/h cross-country. In off-road conditions it moves slow, at only 10 km/h. The robot’s tracked chassis offers increased cross-country mobility. The average specific ground pressure is 0.6kg/sq.

The Uran-9 was commissioned in the Russian Armed Forces in January 2019, whereas it was tested in Syria in 2018. It furthermore was used during the Vostok-2018 military exercise.

In June 2018, RIA Novosti reported that some shortcomings in the combat capability of the Uran-9 were established, while it was being used in Syria.

Military experts discovered flaws in the control, mobility, firepower, intelligence and surveillance functions of the robot. In addition, with the independent movement of Uran-9, a low reliability of the running gear – track rollers and guide rollers, as well as suspension springs were discovered.

The robot also showed the unstable operation of a 30-mm automatic gun, untimely triggering of the start circuits, and the failure of the thermal imaging channel of the optical sighting station.

In April 2019, Interfax cited the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces, Chairman of the Military Scientific Committee of the Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Igor Makushev who said that the deficiencies in the robot were all removed by the development team.

In 2019, there were more issues with the Uran-9, it allegedly had problems with losing connection to the command post. Unlike flying drones, the control signal of a radio-controlled machine can be lost when passing through mountains, buildings and other objects. During tests in Syria, this led to a loss of the signal approximately 17 times for 1 minute, and twice the connection with the combat robot was lost for an hour and a half.

Reportedly, problems with rollers and suspension springs may occur in the Uran-9’s undercarriage, which is why the robot needs frequent repairs and cannot be used for a long time. But the biggest problem remains that the remote-control system reportedly works at a distance of no more than 300-400 meters instead of the promised 3 kilometers.

Upwards of 20 units of the Uran-9 have been constructed as of December 2019, and the deployment in Syria was generally regarded as positive and successful. Even if the reports of the issues were true, they could be rectified in short-term development.

There is no breakthrough in the development and deployment of unmanned systems. Nonetheless, the approach demonstrated by the Russian Armed Forces is interesting because the Russian side works on the development and deployment of not separate robotic systems, but rather groups of robotic systems controlled by a unified control system within a single intelligent network. The composition of these groups can be adapted depending on tasks that they had to achieve on the battlefield. Furthermore, significant efforts were and some successes was already achieved in the task of allowing these robotic systems to operate autonomously within the group to fulfill the assigned task. This is the first step on a long road of creating a swarm of fully autonomous robotic systems that can perform assigned tasks without a direct involvement of operators. The Kungas robotic complex and the Okhotnik heavy unmanned aerial vehicle are the most vocal examples of this approach.

Another point is the functionalism of the Russian projects. Instead of pushing ahead military robot dogs or tiny combat drones (all these directions have apparent issues taking into account the current technological progress), the Russian military chose straightforward and effective decisions employing relatively large tracked platforms that do not require non-existing engineering solutions. This allowed Moscow to focus on what really matters: the employment of robotic systems in combat conditions and the development of their fully autonomous solutions.

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AMLO Is Bringing New Hope to Mexico

December 18th, 2019 by Rick Sterling

Jeremy Corbyn lost the election but one of his political friends, the progressive Mexican leader named Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has been in power for one year. He is carrying out the plans and priorities described in his 2018 book “New Hope for Mexico”.

With 129 million people, Mexico is the 10th most populous country in the world. It has the largest population of any Spanish speaking country and is twice the size of the United Kingdom.

Mexico is in a period of profound change. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) and the Morena Party are charting a dramatically new path for the country.

From 2000 to 2005 Lopez Obrador was head of government for Mexico City. He left office with an 84% approval rating according to one study, having implemented 80% of his campaign pledges. In 2006 he ran for the presidency as candidate of the PRD (Party of Democratic Revolution). The election was extremely controversial, with 49% of the population believing it was rigged against Lopez Obrador. Felipe Calderón was declared the winner.

In 2012 AMLO ran for president again. And again there were widespread “irregularities” and Enrique Peña Nieto declared the winner. Following the election, AMLO founded a new party called the Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (MORENA).

Finally, in the 2018 election, AMLO decisively defeated the other candidates and his party, MORENA, won a majority in both the Chamber of Deputies and Senate. He assumed office on December 1st, 2018.

New Hope for Mexico

López Obrador analyzed Mexico’s problems and his solutions in the 2018 book “A New Hope for Mexico”. He describes how corruption and neoliberal politics have led to “rampant inequality, shocking poverty, frustration, resentment, hate, and violence.”

AMLO says, “In Mexico the governing class constitutes a gang of plunderers…the astounding dishonesty of the neoliberal period (from 1983 to the present) is wholly unprecedented.” He names the officials and oligarchs who have profited from privatizing public institutions. He describes how changes implemented under Salinas’ rule even took away the right of children to free education.

López Obrador explains,

The first thing we must do is to democratize the state and retool it as an engine of political, economic and social growth. We must rid ourselves of the myth that development requires blind acquiescence to market forces… Mexico will not grow strong if our public institutions remain at the service of the wealthy elites.”

AMLO describes the decline of Mexico’s industrial infrastructure in the neoliberal period. Banks were bailed out while “neoliberal technocracy has led to partiality with respect to hiring, and always at the expense of unions. There have been massive waves of firings.”

AMLO describes ambitious plans: building sources of renewable energy and refineries to make the country energy self-sufficient; building a transportation corridor to move containers between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans; having guaranteed crop prices to enable food self-sufficiency; expanding tourism in the Caribbean, Mayan and Olmec regions; planting large areas with timber and fruit trees; giving loans to hundreds of thousands of small farmers; providing training and internships for youth.

He says that development is possible by cutting wasteful spending,

“by cutting back on purchases of ships, planes and helicopters…[we will] sell those used by high ranking officials including the president; we will keep only those used for medical emergencies, security and public safety… The first priority must be serving the poor. Only through the creation of a just society will we achieve the revitalization of Mexico.”

He contrasts his goals for Mexico with those of the US, where the Trump administration has increased military spending while slashing spending on housing, transportation and education.

López Obrador believes neoliberal economic policies have been especially detrimental in villages and rural areas of Mexico. As a result of these policies, small farmers have lost their livelihoods and food imports have risen dramatically.  He writes,

“The abandonment of our rural areas has taken a heavy toll on production, has increased migration, and fostered societal breakdown and violence.”

López Obrador says,

“The crisis of public safety and violence that we face today is the product of a poorly conceived war on drugs that relies solely on coercive means. The security crisis that plagues Mexico is a result of a confluence of factors: poverty, injustice, and exclusion, aggravated by the inefficiency of the authorities and corruption within the police and the judiciary.”

He proposes to combat police and judicial corruption, to use the army and navy to protect public safety, to develop and utilize a National Guard, and to change laws regarding drug use. Above all, he emphasizes, it is necessary to provide positive alternatives for youth:

“The belief that the deterioration of our social fabric can be combated only through use of force is profoundly wrong and highly dangerous, as Mexican history amply confirms.”

During his 2018 presidential campaign, López Obrador visited several US cities to address Mexican Americans. His words are relevant for all Americans:

“We must convince and persuade those who were brainwashed by Trump’s campaign rhetoric… We must reach out to lower and middle class American workers, explaining that their problems are rooted in the poor distribution of income… We must raise awareness among Americans of good faith who have been tricked by the propaganda campaign against Mexicans and foreigners….”

One Year as President

After one year in office, the AMLO government has significant accomplishments: the minimum salary was dramatically increased while top government salaries and outlandish pensions were cut, small loans and grants are going directly to farmers, five key agricultural crops have a guaranteed price, the billion dollar gas thieving cartel has been exposed and attacked, a 44 billion dollar infrastructure plan has been launched, and programs to benefit youth, the disabled and elderly have begun.

AMLO sets an example of hard work and transparency. Each day begins with a 7 AM press conference broadcast on his twitter feed.  The Presidential jet is up for sale and he flies on commercial air planes. During this first year in office, he has not left the country but travels constantly within Mexico seeing the conditions hospitals, schools, factories and the small cities and towns that make up so much of the country. The presidential palace has been opened to the public.

While AMLO has a 67% approval rating, and is steadily implementing his campaign pledges, there are challenges and opposition. The Mexican economy has been near recession throughout the year. The bond rating for the state owned oil company (Pemex) has been downgraded so that investment loans will be more expensive. Some major development plans have significant opposition. For example, indigenous organizations have opposed the proposed Maya Train. In response, AMLO says the project will only go ahead if the people want it.

Violence is still a major problem. As one analyst has written,

The Mexican right is cynically using a crisis of its own making in an attempt to destabilize AMLO, taking Mexico’s people as hostages.”

The MORENA majority in Congress plans to legalize marijuana and create a federal agency to regulate its sale. But as the analyst says,

“Legalization and the targeting of cartel finances must go hand in hand with the slow but necessary work of reestablishing the presence of a social state that decades of savage capitalism have allowed to wither: education, health care, housing, arts and culture, dignified alternatives to cartel employment, and an urgent redistribution of wealth…”

These goals are precisely what is outlined in AMLO’s book and seemingly where he wants to go.

The changes in Mexico are also important on the international stage. Through most of the 20th century Mexico had a foreign policy of non-intervention and independence from Washington. They maintained relations with Cuba, supported the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and broke relations with the Pinochet coup government in Chile. But in recent decades Mexican foreign policy has been subordinate to Washington. With AMLO and the Morena Party in power, Mexico is returning to a foreign policy based on independence, self-determination and non-interference.

The difference was important early this year when the US and Canada tried to impose a new government on Venezuela. The subordinate Latin American countries went along with Washington. Mexico did not.

As the recent coup in Bolivia unfolded, President Evo Morales’ life was threatened. Mexico sent a plane for his escape and granted him asylum. AMLO said to a huge crowd,

“Evo was the victim of a coup d’etat! And from Mexico, we tell the world, ‘Yes to democracy, no to militarism!'”

As the Trump administration escalates its economic and political attacks on Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, Mexico’s independent stance is especially important. AMLO’s administration has stood up against the US at the Organization of American States and theanti-Venezuela Lima Group. Recently AMLO welcomed Ecuador’s former socialist leader Rafael Correa, followed by Cuba’s President Díaz-Canel. Argentina’s newly elected progressive president, Alberto Fernández, made his first foreign trip to meet AMLO.

Both internally and internationally, a new and hopeful process is happening in Mexico.

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Rick Sterling is board president of Task Force on the Americas, a 35 year old anti-imperialist human rights organization focused on Latin America and the Caribbean. The original version of this article was published in TFA Report.

Featured image: Jeremy Corbyn took a Christmas holiday trip to Mexico and visited AMLO in his home state, Tabasco, in 2016. | Photo: Facebook

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I Never Saw a World So Fragmented!

December 18th, 2019 by Andre Vltchek

It is amazing how easily, without resistance, the Western empire is managing to destroy “rebellious” countries that are standing in its way.

I work in all corners of the planet, wherever Kafkaesque “conflicts” get ignited by Washington, London or Paris.

What I see and describe are not only those horrors which are taking place all around me; horrors that are ruining human lives, destroying villages, cities and entire countries. What I try to grasp is that on the television screens and on the pages of newspapers and the internet, the monstrous crimes against humanity somehow get covered (described), but the information becomes twisted and manipulated to such an extent, that readers and viewers in all parts of the world end up knowing close to nothing about their own suffering, and/or of the suffering of the other.

For instance, in 2015 and in 2019, I tried to sit down and reason with the Hong Kong rioters. It was a truly revealing experience! They knew nothing, absolutely zero about the crimes the West has been committing in places such as Afghanistan, Syria or Libya. When I tried to explain to them, how many Latin American democracies Washington had overthrown, they thought I was a lunatic. How could the good, tender, ‘democratic’ West murder millions, and bathe entire continents in blood? That is not what they were taught at their universities. That is not what the BBC, CNN or even the China Morning Post said and wrote.

Look, I am serious. I showed them photos from Afghanistan and Syria; photos stored in my phone. They must have understood that this was original, first hand stuff. Still, they looked, but their brains were not capable of processing what they were being shown. Images and words; these people were conditioned not to comprehend certain types of information.

But this is not only happening in Hong Kong, a former British colony.

You will maybe find it hard to believe, but even in a Communist country like Vietnam; a proud country, a country which suffered enormously from both French colonialism and the U.S. mad and brutal imperialism, people that I associated with (and I lived in Hanoi for 2 years) knew close to nothing about the horrendous crimes committed against the poor and defenseless neighboring Laos, by the U.S. and its allies during the so-called “Secret War”; crimes that included the bombing of peasants and water buffalos, day and night, by strategic B-52 bombers. And in Laos, where I covered de-mining efforts, people knew nothing about the same monstrosities that the West had committed in Cambodia; murdering hundreds of thousands of people by carpet bombing, displacing millions of peasants from their homes, triggering famine and opening the doors to the Khmer Rouge takeover.

When I am talking about this shocking lack of knowledge in Vietnam, regarding the region and what it was forced to go through, I am not speaking just about the shop-keepers or garment workers. It applies to Vietnamese intellectuals, artists, teachers. It is total amnesia, and it came with the so-called ‘opening up’ to the world, meaning with the consumption of Western mass media and later by the infiltration of social media.

At least Vietnam shares borders as well as a turbulent history with both Laos and Cambodia.

But imagine two huge countries with only maritime borders, like the Philippines and Indonesia. Some Manila dwellers I met thought that Indonesia was in Europe.

Now guess, how many Indonesians know about the massacres that the United States committed in the Philippines a century ago, or how the people in the Philippines were indoctrinated by Western propaganda about the entire South East Asia? Or, how many Filipinos know about the U.S.-triggered 1965 military coup, which deposed the internationalist President Sukarno, killing between 2-3 million intellectuals, teachers, Communists and unionists in “neighboring” Indonesia?

Look at the foreign sections of the Indonesian or Filipino newspapers, and what will you see; the same news from Reuters, AP, AFP. In fact, you will also see the same reports in the news outlets of Kenya, India, Uganda, Bangladesh, United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Guatemala, and the list goes on and on. It is designed to produce one and only one result: absolute fragmentation!

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The fragmentation of the world is amazing, and it is increasing with time. Those who hoped that the internet would improve the situation, grossly miscalculated.

With a lack of knowledge, solidarity has disappeared, too.

Right now, all over the world, there are riots and revolutions. I am covering the most significant ones; in the Middle East, in Latin America, and in Hong Kong.

Let me be frank: there is absolutely no understanding in Lebanon about what is going on in Hong Kong, or in Bolivia, Chile and Colombia.

Western propaganda throws everything into one sack.

In Hong Kong, rioters indoctrinated by the West are portrayed as “pro-democracy protesters”. They kill, burn, beat up people, but they are still the West’s favorites. Because they are antagonizing the People’s Republic of China, now the greatest enemy of Washington. And because they were created and sustained by the West.

In Bolivia, the anti-imperialist President was overthrown in a Washington orchestrated coup, but the mostly indigenous people who are demanding his return are portrayed as rioters.

In Lebanon, as well as Iraq, protesters are treated kindly by both Europe and the United States, mainly because the West hopes that pro-Iranian Hezbollah and other Shi’a groups and parties could be weakened by the protests.

The clearly anti-capitalist and anti-neo-liberal revolution in Chile, as well as the legitimate protests in Colombia, are reported as some sort of combination of explosion of genuine grievances, and hooliganism and looting. Mike Pompeo recently warned that the United States will support right-wing South American governments, in their attempt to maintain order.

All this coverage is nonsense. In fact, it has one and only one goal: to confuse viewers and readers. To make sure that they know nothing or very little. And that, at the end of the day, they collapse on their couches with deep sighs: “Oh, the world is in turmoil!”

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It also leads to the tremendous fragmentation of countries on each continent, and of the entire global south.

Asian countries know very little about each other. The same goes for Africa and the Middle East. In Latin America, it is Russia, China and Iran who are literally saving the life of Venezuela. Fellow Latin American nations, with the one shiny exception of Cuba, do zero to help. All Latin American revolutions are fragmented. All U.S. produced coups basically go unopposed.

The same situation is occurring all over the Middle East and Asia. There are no internationalist brigades defending countries destroyed by the West. The big predator comes and attacks its prey. It is a horrible sight, as a country dies in front of the world, in terrible agony. No one interferes. Everybody just watches.

One after another, countries are falling.

This is not how states in the 21st Century should behave. This is the law of attraction the jungle. When I used to live in Africa, making documentary films in Kenya, Rwanda, Congo, driving through the wilderness; this is how animals were behaving, not people. Big cats finding their victim. A zebra, or a gazelle. And the hunt would begin: a terrible occurrence. Then the slow killing; eating the victim alive.

Quite similar to the so-called Monroe doctrine.

The Empire has to kill. Periodically. With predictable regularity.

And no one does anything. The world is watching. Pretending that nothing extraordinary is taking place.

One wonders: can legitimate revolution succeed under such conditions? Can any democratically elected socialist government survive? Or does everything decent, hopeful, and optimistic always ends up as the prey to a degenerate, brutal and vulgar empire?

If that is the case, what’s the point of playing by the rules? Obviously, the rules are rotten. They exist only in order to uphold the status quo. They protect the colonizers, and castigate the rebellions victims.

But that’s not what I wanted to discuss here, today.

My point is: the victims are divided. They know very little about each other. The struggles for true freedom, are fragmented. Those who fight, and bleed, but fight nevertheless, are often antagonized by their less daring fellow victims.

I have never seen the world so divided. Is the Empire succeeding, after all?

Yes and no.

Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela – they have already woken up. They stood up. They are learning about each other, from each other.

Without solidarity, there can be no victory. Without knowledge, there can be no solidarity.

Intellectual courage is now clearly coming from Asia, from the “East”. In order to change the world, Western mass media has to be marginalized, confronted. All Western concepts, including “democracy”, “peace”, and “human rights” have to be questioned, and redefined.

And definitely, knowledge.

We need a new world, not an improved one.

The world does not need London, New York and Paris to teach it about itself.

Fragmentation has to end. Nations have to learn about each other, directly. If they do, true revolutions would soon succeed, while subversions and fake color revolutions like those in Hong Kong, Bolivia and all over the Middle East, will be regionally confronted, and prevented from ruining millions of human lives.

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This article was originally published on New Eastern Outlook.

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: Connecting Countries, Saving Millions of Lives”, “China and Ecological Cavillation” 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 the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter. His Patreon. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from New Eastern Outlook

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Trump Has Given Israel Immunity to International Law

December 18th, 2019 by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

In Israel’s treatment of Occupied Palestine, Israel has been violating international law for decades. Under international law, an occupying power is not permitted to incorporate the occupied land into its own domain. However, Israel has persistently done so, evicting Palestinians from their homes, villages, and farm lands in order to build apartments for Jewish immigrants.

As people learned of the fate suffered by Palestinians at Israel’s hands, criticism of Israel’s policy toward Palestinians by human rights activists grew, and boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movements arose.

These developments are inconvenient for Israel. Israeli media have indicated that the Israeli government is ready to complete the annexation of Palestine by evicting the remaining Palestinians and incorporating the remaining Palestinian land into Israel. Prior to taking this step, Israel wants to silence critics and prevent BDS action.

In the US the Israel Lobby has attempted to have the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, and the Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act passed. However these acts clearly violate Constitutionally-protected free speech and protest, and Congress, although happy to please the Israel Lobby, doesn’t want to pass acts that the Supreme Court will obviously overturn. The ACLU opposes these acts on First Amendment grounds.

So the Israel Lobby has turned to Donald Trump to achieve by executive order what they have not achieved by legislation.

As the Israel Lobby has succeeded in equating criticism of Israeli government policies with anti-semitism or hatred of Jews, Trump’s executive order against anti-semitism permits the US government to cut off money to universities and organizations in which criticism of Israel is expressed in lectures, colloquiums, or debates.

Trump’s executive order has initiated a debate whether Trump has in effect declared Jews to be a nationality. See this and this.

This is the wrong debate. The issue is why should Israel be the only country among the approximately 200 on earth whose policies cannot be criticized? Why should Israel be the only country that cannot be sanctioned and boycotted? Why should this special protection be given to Israel at the expense of the US Constitution.

Trump’s executive order silences the Palestinians and those sympathetic to their dispossession. Why in an allegedly free country has President Trump imposed censorship that protects Israel from accountability?

It would seem that this is a far more serious offense by Trump against the US Constitution than the allegations behind the impeachment inquiry.

Allegedly Trump represents the little people against the Establishment, but how are powerless people protected by overturning their First Amendment rights? They hardly have a voice as it is.

As Stephen Lendman reports, Israel being all powerful, is pushing also the British government to protect Israel from accountability to international law.

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

Why has Sweden been very tight-lipped about and shied away from publically talking about its aid to what it prefers to call Syrian ‘opposition’ during the 8-year terror war on Syria? And has Swedish tax money benefited terrorists?

This topic, i.e. Sweden’s aid to the Syrian opposition was tackled by Patrik Paulov, freelance journalist and Author of the book Syria’s silenced voices, in his opinion article which was published in Svenska Dagbladet newspaper on October, 9, 2019.

The journalist asked in his article about the reason behind the silence of Swedish media and politicians on how aid has benefited terrorist in Syria while several other European countries have broken the silence over this issue after the broadcast of some documentaries disclosing that money intended for the so-called the ‘Free Syrian Army” was handed to armed extremist terrorists.

He pointed out that Sweden has started to support the so-called ‘democratic opposition in Syria’ since August 2012 when then-Foreign Minister Carl Bildt invited Syrian ‘opposition’ figures to hold a meeting at Hässelby Castle in Stockholm.

“Sweden’s support for the opposition-led aid project Syria Recovery Trust Fund (SRTF) is an example. Financiers of the SRTF are 10 Western countries plus e royal dictatorships- United Arab Emirates and Kuwait,” Paulov said, indicating that Sweden only contributed twice to SRTF, last time in 2015. The total amount was 56,5 million kronor.

Foreign Ministry’s evaluation of SRTF, signed on October 23, 2018, mentioned no words about the influence of terrorist groups in the “opposition areas” where the project was implemented.

The evaluation also said nothing about the collaboration between the Syrian ‘opposition’, which chairs the SRTF, and al-Nusra Front [ Jabhat al-Nusra] and other armed extremist groups.

In April 2015, the head of the so-called the ‘Syrian Opposition Coalition’, Khalid Khoja admitted that his organizations has a tactical alliance with al-Qaeda. The coalition’s formed head, Ahmad Jarba, was chairman of the assistance fund that received 40 million SEK. In April 2014, he visited the town of Kassab from which 2000 Syrian Christians were displaced by the foreign-backed ‘opposition’.

“When Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven read the Declaration of Government on September 10, he stated that “it will be a criminal act to have contact with a terrorist organization”. The obvious consequence is: How then should we see the fact that Swedish aid has been given to Syrian opposition who have been in working together with terrorists?,” Paulov argued.

As a writer and journalist, he has sought to know the Swedish government’s view on this issue and other issues related to Sweden’s aid to Syria. But the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has refused his request for an interview. And when he sent written questions, the ministry chose to skip answering the questions.

Most politicians and journalists in Sweden do not know what has really happened in Syria

“My take is that the Foreign Ministry of Sweden does not want to highlight or discuss the role of Sweden in this regime shift-war. It is much easier to be quiet. And as most politicians and journalists in Sweden do not know what has really happened in Syria, the government gets away with being quiet,” Paulov  told Syria Times e-newspaper.

He asserted that no one from the his country’s government or any other politician bothered to answer his opinion article in Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet in October where he wrote about how aid from European countries had fallen into the hands of terrorist groups.

The journalist made it clear that Netherlands stopped its aid for the Syrian ‘opposition’ groups shortly after the Dutch Foreign Ministry presented the report “Review of the monitoring system of three projects in Syria”, which unveiled that ‘opposition’ groups, such as the ‘Free Syrian Army’ and the White Helmets, are likely to have contacts with terrorists.

The report also pointed out that there was no independent documentation of how more than € 40 million given by the Netherlands 2015-2018 was spent. Aid may therefore have fallen into the wrong hands.

“There is a difference between Sweden and the above-mentioned country. For example, none of the major media has examined the opposition-related projects that Sweden has supported with hundreds of millions of kronor. Another difference is that the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs seems to lack the critical approach that exists in the Netherlands. It is clear from the official documents on the Syrian assistance from the Swedish Foreign Ministry that I requested and read,” Paulov, added.

He believes that not everything Sweden does in Syria is wrong.

“Syria needs humanitarian assistance after almost nine years of destructive war and Sweden has contributed a lot. But what I want to highlight and discuss with my investigative articles and my book is that Sweden at the same time, is involved in the regime change project together with NATO countries and the Gulf states.”

“On the one hand, Sweden provides emergency relief, while on the other, Sweden is complicit in the disaster that created so much suffering and forced so many Syrians to flee their country. The Syrian opposition that Sweden supported with money is now fighting together with the Turkish army in the northeast of Syria and they are causing a lot of suffering. This is something the Swedish government or Swedish media do not want to discuss. Instead they talk about giving 100 million crones extra to the victims,” Paulov  affirmed.

He concluded by saying: “It is high time to seriously consider Sweden’s support for the Syrian ‘opposition’, and the consequences have been for the war and terror-stricken Syrian people.”

Paulov has been speaking about his book and Syria in many cities this autumn. He has been to Sthlm, Göteborg, Jönköping, Uppsala, Helsingborg, Växjö, Nybro and Linköping. In Göteborg he has been speaking at a public meeting with 100 people, at the Göteborg book fair and also at a sport event called the Peace race.

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Researchers from Queen’s University Belfast have discovered that bacteria often found in the lungs became more harmful and caused increased inflammation when they were exposed to e-cigarette vape.

The results of the three-year study, published today (Wednesday 18 December) in Respiratory Research, show that  this increase in lung inflammation is due to  bacteria made more virulent by exposure to e-cigarette vapour.

Dr Deirdre Gilpin, researcher and lecturer from the School of Pharmacy at Queen’s University and lead author of the research explains:

“There is currently a knowledge gap about whether vaping is harmful, or less harmful than smoking tobacco.

“Bacteria have long been associated with the development of lung diseases such as bronchitis and pneumonia where smoking plays a role.  Our study is the first of its kind which aimed to compare the effect of cigarette smoke and e-cigarette vapour on key lung bacteria.”

Vaping has been suggested as a safer alternative to smoking but there is limited evidence to support this and there are major concerns around its safety.

As rates of tobacco smoking have decreased the number of people vaping has increased. Vapers are not always ex-smokers, and there has been an increase of vaping among young people who have never smoked before. According to the World Health Organization, there has been a small but steady decrease in the estimated number of smokers globally, to just over one billion. Whereas the number of vapers has been increasing rapidly – from about seven million in 2011 to 41 million in 2018.

The study compared the effect of exposure to cigarette smoke extract and e-cigarette vapour on levels of inflammation and the virulence of bacteria commonly associated with lung disease.

The research team found that exposure to both cigarette smoke extract and e-cigarette vapour caused an increase in the potential of bacteria to cause harm in the lungs, in a way which could lead to diseases such as COPD and asthma.

The researchers also found that changes in bacteria exposed to e-cigarette vapour were similar, and in some cases exceeded those observed following bacterial exposure to cigarette smoke, suggesting that there is little difference between cigarette smoke and e-cigarette vapour.

Dr Gilpin added:

“This study shows us that vaping may carry the same risk as cigarette smoke in increasing the susceptibility to bacterial infection.”

Professor Jose Bengoechea, Director of the Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine and co-author of the study said:

“This is a study with phenomenal public health implications. Worryingly, e-cigarette vapour as well as cigarette smoke increase the harmful potential of already dangerous infections, in addition to the well-known detrimental effect on lung function. At the very least this work should open a frank debate on vaping safety.”

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A broad coalition of scientists, doctors and advocates sent a National 5G Resolution letter to President Trump demanding a moratorium on 5G until potential hazards for human health and the environment have been fully investigated by scientists independent from the telecom industry. The 5G Resolution was developed during the first three-day US medical conference fully dedicated to this topic, Electromagnetic Fields Conference on Diagnosis and Treatment, which convened in Scotts Valley, California in September. (Watch videos from the conference here.) 

The letter references the published scientific studies demonstrating harm to human health, bees trees and the environment from current wireless technology and posits that 5G will both increase exposure and add in new technology never safety tested for long-term exposure.

“We join with the thousands of doctors, scientists and health care providers worldwide who have recently issued appeals for urgent action on 5G to protect public health and call for a moratorium on 5G and any further wireless antenna densification until potential hazards for human health and the environment have been fully investigated by scientists independent from the wireless industry.”

“The children are our future. The scientific evidence has been clear for decades and now America has an opportunity to lead the way,” said Toril H. Jelter, MD, a pediatrician who presented at the EMF Conference with case studies on children she has treated who have dramatically improved after reducing wireless exposures. “It is my impression that health effects of wireless radiation go misdiagnosed and underdiagnosed for years. Parents, teachers and physicians need to know that hardwiring internet, phone and tv is a healthier option for our children.”

According to the 5G Resolution:

  • The FCC has ​stated ​that 800,000 antenna sites will be required to fully deploy 5G in the United States, with global deployments ​expected ​to reach almost 5 million by 2021.
  • New wireless antennas are rapidly being installed on streetlights and utility poles directly in front of homes and schools.
  • 5G will dramatically increase the general public’s daily exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF), in addition to the emissions from 2G, 3G, 4G wireless infrastructure already in place.
  • 5G was not premarket safety tested.
  • Research shows biological effects from levels of wireless exposures presently allowed.
  • Research on 5G emissions shows serious impacts to humans, bees, trees and wildlife.

The Electromagnetic Safety Alliance and Environmental Health Trust coordinated gathering signatories for the 5G Resolution, and both organizations also presented at the 2019 EMF Conference. Full Text of the Letter is Below.

United States of America National 5G Resolution

An Urgent Call for a Moratorium on 5th Generation Wireless  Technologies Pending Safety Testing

To:  Donald Trump, President of the United States of America

December 11, 2019

We, the undersigned, are medical doctors, health professionals, scientists, engineers and public advocates who are deeply concerned about the potential health risks associated with 5G and the proliferation of electromagnetic radiation sources from wireless telecommunications technologies.

The FCC has stated that 800,000 antenna sites will be required to fully deploy 5G in the United States. Global deployments are expected to reach almost 5 million by 2021. Industry projects 22 billion wirelessly connected devices worldwide as part of the Internet of Things. New wireless antennas are rapidly being attached to streetlights and utility poles directly in front of homes and schools. 5G will dramatically increase our daily exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) in addition to the 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, etc. RF-EMF from wireless infrastructure already in place that will continue to emit. The 5G antenna densification plan will lead to a significant increase of involuntary exposure to wireless radiation everywhere.

Cell phone and wireless were never premarket safety tested for long-term exposure to humans when they first came on the market decades ago. Now the harmful effects of non-ionizing electromagnetic exposure to humans and the environment are proven. In 2015, more than 250 scientists from more than 40 countries expressed their “serious concerns” in an EMF Appealregarding the ubiquitous and increasing exposure to EMF generated by electric and wireless devices even before the additional 5G Internet of Things rollout. The scientists refer to the fact that “numerous recent scientific publications have shown that EMF affects living organisms at levels well below most international and national guidelines”. Since then, hundreds of doctors have signed onto new appeals specifically calling to halt 5G.

A large number of peer-reviewed scientific reports demonstrate harm to human health from EMFs. Effects include increased cancer risk, increased cellular stress, increased harmful free radicals,genetic damages, structural and functional changes of the reproductive system,  learning and memory deficits, behavioral problems, neurological disorders, headaches, and negative impacts on general well-being in humans. Damage goes well beyond the human race, as there is growing evidence of harmful effects to trees, bees, plants, animals, and bacteria.

After the EMF scientists’ appeal was initiated in 2015, additional research has associated serious adverse biological effects of RF-EMF emissions from wireless technologies. The U.S. National Institutes of Health National Toxicology Program (NTP) published its large-scale, $30 million animal study showing DNA damage and statistically significant increases in the incidence of brain cancer and heart cancer in animals exposed daily to wireless radiation. These findings support the results from human epidemiological studies finding associations between wireless radiation and brain tumor risk.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the cancer agency of the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2011 concluded that EMFs at frequencies 30 KHz to 300 GHz are possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B). However, since that date, new studies, including the NTP study mentioned above and several epidemiological and experimental investigations, have increased the evidence indicating that wireless is carcinogenic. Now in 2019, the IARC announced plans to re-evaluate RF-EMF for carcinogenicity as soon as 2022.

As the U.S. Department of the Interior stated, “the electromagnetic radiation standards used by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) continue to be based on thermal heating, a criterion now nearly 30 years out of date and inapplicable today.” FCC guidelines only protect against heating effects (EPA 2002) and ignore the effects of pulse-modulated signals. Scientists have repeatedly found adverse biological effects that are caused without heating (”non-thermal effect”) at radiation levels far below the limits in FCC guidelines. Replicated research finds memory damage, behavioral problems and tumor promotion from “low” legally allowed levels of wireless.

As the EPA was defunded in the mid ‘90s, there are no federally developed safety limits and there is no health and safety agency in the United States with authority to review the research and ensure protections regarding the human health and environmental effects from wireless antennas. Internationally, the organizations that issue exposure standards have failed to develop sufficient guidelines. Published reviews and studies on the new higher frequencies to be used in 5G call for caution and warn of future impacts that will not only impact humans but also wildlife and especially bees.

We are concerned about the health and well-being of those who are most vulnerable: children, pregnant women, and persons sensitive to electromagnetic fields and who have chronic health problems.

We join with the thousands of doctors, scientists and health care providers worldwide who have recently issued appeals for urgent action on 5G to protect public health. The rapidly growing list includes the International EMF Scientist Appeal,  Appeal to the European Union, Belgium Doctors Appeal, Canadian Doctors, Cyprus Medical Association, Physicians of Turin, Italy, the German Doctors Appeal, International Appeal to Stop 5G on Earth and Space and the International Society of Doctors for the Environment. 

We call for a moratorium on 5G and any further wireless antenna densification until potential hazards for human health and the environment have been fully investigated by scientists independent from the wireless industry.

Doctors or health practitioners who want to sign onto  this letter please email EHT at [email protected]

News https://www.valuewalk.com/2019/12/human-health-danger-5g/

List of Signatories 

Note: To sign please send your name, title and location to [email protected]

Signatories to the National 5G Resolution collected at the EMF Conference, September 2019 

The resolution was attended the first U.S. medical conference fully dedicated to this topic,Electromagnetic Fields Conference on Diagnosis and Treatment”  convened in Scott’s Valley, California, from September 6-8, 2019.

As the conference was concluding, several participants agreed to initiate a National 5G Resolution, recommending a moratorium on the roll-out of fifth generation wireless, 5G, until potential hazards for human health and the environment have been fully investigated by scientists independent from the industry.

Miguel Aguilera, MD, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Robin Anderson, PhD , Santa Rosa, California

Wayne Anderson, ND,  Santa Rosa, California

Randy Baker, MD, Soquel, California

Stephanie Belseth, NP, Edina, Minnesota

Matthew Bernstein, MD, Chicago, Illinois

Andrea Berrin, MA, Aptos, California

Tara Boyd, ND, Seattle, Washington

Robert Brown, MD Export, Pennsylvania

Sarah Carnes, ND Woodinville, Washington

Margaret Christensen, MD  Dallas, Texas

Rowena Chua, MD,  Glenview, Illinois

Tracey Cook, ND,  Orrville, Ohio

Deborah L. Dykema, DO,  Phoenix, Arizona

Eric Gordon, MD,   San Rafael, California

Cheryl Grey, MD, Boulder, Colorado

Devra Davis PhD, MPH, Jackson Hole Wyoming

Trudy Heil, NP, Portland, Oregon

Anne Hill, ND, Portland, Oregon

Lynn Hinkle, PA, ND,   Mill Valley, California

Tori Jelter, MD, Walnut Creek, California

Elizabeth Kelley, MA, Tucson, Arizona

Jennifer Kessman MD, IFMEP, ABFM,FAAFP, Dallas, Texas

Kim Lear, MA,  Lyons, Colorado,

Kaiser Permanente, Northern California,

Ronald Lynch, MD, Orlando, Florida

Karl Maret, MD, MA, Corralitos, California

Dorota Matusewicz, MD,  Clearwater, Florida

Kelly McCann, MD, Costa Mesa, California

Lisa Nagy, MD, Martha’s Vineyard, MA

Bonnie Nedrow, ND,  President, National Association of Environmental Medicine

Kalpana D. Patel, MD, Buffalo, New York

Victoria Nee, MD, Chicago, Illinois

Daniel Rieders, MD, Palo Alto, California

Stephanie Riley, ND, Truckee, California

Sandra Ross, PhD., Mill Valley, California

Marly Sachsman, ND, Ellsworth, Maine

Natalie Sadler, MD, Black Mountain, North Carolina

Glayol Sahba, MD,  Sacrament, California

Christine Salter, MD, St. Louis, Missouri

Lindsay Samuelson, ND, Toledo, Ohio

Lisa Saslove, MS, RD, Sebastopol, California

Elizabeth H. Sims-Day, ND, Lake Forest Park, Washington

Therese Stokan, DO, Port Angeles, Washington

Irina Strelyuk, ND, San Rafael, California

Wallace Taylor, MD, Austin, Texas

Veronica Tilden, DO, Nevada City, California

Diana Vandegriff, NMD, Tempe, Arizona

Elizabeth Vaughn, MD, High Point, North

Jennifer Coleman RN, MAc  Easton, Maryland

Carolina Kathy Veon, DOM, AP, CCN, Orlando, Florida

Kevin Wand, DO,  Bloomington,Minnesota

Melody Wong, ND, Burlingame, California

Mina Yoon, ND, LAC, San Francisco, California

Sarah Aminoff, Union City, California

Laura Bobzien, Dallas, Texas

August Brice, Founder, Tech Wellness California

Susan Busen, Palos Heights, Illinois

Nancy Costa, Heartfelt Spaces, San Rafael, California

Teresa Demarie, MBA, Long Beach, California

Jennifer Crumpton,  Austin, Texas

Shilpa Dashpute, MA,  Glendora, California

Cecelia Doucette, MTPW, Ashland, Massachusetts

Michael Garabedian, Attorney, Lincoln, California

David Getoff, CNN, CTN, FAAIM   Vice President, Price Pottenger Nutrition Foundation

William Holland,  Topanga, California

Mieke Jacobs,  Lake Zurich, Illinois

Monika Karajewski, Santa Barbara, California

Miriam Lindbeck,    Santa Barbara, California

Rola Masri,  Los Angeles, California

Cheryl Matthews, Los Altos Hills, California

Lloyd Morgan, EE,  Berkeley, California

Kevin Mottus. LCSW,  Los Angeles, California

Reilley Mullin, FNP, Trinidad, California

Ajna Orion,  Felton, California

Cynthia Quattro, PA, LAc, Soquel, California

Theresa Ricker,  San Antonio, Texas

Theodora Scarato MSW, Environmental Health Trust

Stephen Scott,  Novato, California

Taryn Slauson,   Santa Fe, New Mexico

Leslie Stalder, LC,  Arcata, California

Amber Stokes, Med,  Santa Monica, California

Sam Wieder, MBA,  Greenville, Pennsylvania

Eric Windheim, BBEC, EMRS, Sacramento, California

Nasha Winters, ND, LAc, FABND,  Durango, Colorado

Glenn Kikel, ACN, Lyons, Colorado

Mary Anne Tierney, RN, MPH,   Ashville, North Carolina

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Media’s War on Labour Under the Spotlight

December 18th, 2019 by Lamiat Sabin

The media’s role in last week’s Tory election victory was under the spotlight today — even as the new government threatened the BBC licence fee.

Shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald accused the BBC today of “playing a part” in Labour’s heavy defeat.

He said on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the public service broadcaster has been “consciously” biased against the Labour Party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Mr McDonald said:

“We got this [election] wrong, but if the BBC are going to hold themselves out as somehow having conducted themselves in an impartial manner, I think they’ve really got to have a look in the mirror. We’ve got a lot to say about this.”

He referred to a BBC presenter standing in front of a TV camera talking about the election victory that Boris Johnson “so richly deserves.”

Radio host Justin Webb described the statement as “a slip of the tongue.”

Mr McDonald replied:

“How many slips of the tongue until you accept it?”

Huw Edwards – who led the BBC’s coverage on election night –admitted that BBC staff “sometimes make mistakes, which we deeply regret.” He hit back against claims of deliberate bias that are “carefully planned to undermine one party and boost another.”

The 10 o’Clock News presenter said BBC journalists had to resist “relentlessly vitriolic attacks” and “the sometimes appalling levels of pressure from political parties and their puppets in parts of the press and elsewhere.”

It comes after Labour’s co-national campaign coordinator Andrew Gwynne wrote to BBC director-general Tony Hall earlier this month to accuse the broadcaster of a catalogue of bias, including allowing Boris Johnson to avoid being interviewed by Andrew Neil. Labour has accused the BBC of informing it that an interview with Mr Johnson had been agreed when the party consented to Mr Corbyn doing the interview.

In response a BBC spokesman said: “The BBC will continue to make its own independent editorial decisions and is committed to reporting the election campaign fairly, impartially and without fear or favour.”

Journalist and media critic Jonathan Cook said: “There is little hope of radical change in society if public awareness of state-corporate media bias is weak or non-existent.

“As state broadcaster the BBC is naturally loyal to the Establishment because it is the Establishment. Johnson’s new threats against the licence fee are designed to ensure it moves even more firmly into the Tory camp than it already is.”

Now re-elected with an 80-seat majority, Mr Johnson is reported to be considering the decriminalisation of non-payment of the £154.50 per year licence fee for watching the BBC on TV or its iPlayer online catch-up service.

The National Union of Journalists warned government not to undermine public-service broadcasting.

General secretary Michelle Stanistreet said today: “Knee-jerk changes to the licence fee would massively damage BBC programmes and news. The corporation is already facing serious cuts in the coming year, with potentially more on the horizon.

“It needs greater resources, not an attempt to destabilise its very existence.”

ITV was also criticised for censorship by freelance filmmaker John Pilger. He said on Sunday that publicity for the ITV broadcast of his film The Dirty War on the NHS was embargoed at the very time that the sell-off of the NHS was “at the forefront of British politics.”

ITV was obliged by the rules of government-approved TV regulator Ofcom to embargo all basic publicity for the film during the election campaign period.

Mr Pilger’s website asked: “The question arises: What exactly is the impartial role of the regulator Ofcom?”

Mr Johnson indicated that a report into alleged foreign interference in politics would now be published — with the election safely out of the way.

Corporate media bias watchdog Media Lens said: “The whole media ‘regulation’ system in the UK is a disgrace and a sham.”

The Dirty War on the NHS, which will be broadcast tonight at 10.45pm, was shown in some cinemas across the country and was also screened online.

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More than 400,000 people and dozens of local tribal, government, business and national recreation groups have flooded the U.S. Forest Service with comments opposing its plan to undo safeguards that prevent clearcutting and road building in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. The comment period ends Tuesday.

The Trump administration wants to gut longstanding protections for the nation’s largest national forest. This old-growth, temperate rainforest in Southeast Alaska is the homeland of the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people.Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians and the National Congress of American Indians, along with numerous Southeast Alaska tribes and villages including the Organized Village of Kake, have passed resolutions supporting the Roadless Rule.

The cities of Sitka and Skagway have also passed resolutions condemning the Forest Service plan to roll back the Roadless Rule, which protects more than 9 million acres of the Tongass from development. The broad-based opposition also includes the Outdoor Alliance and Conservation Alliance, representing outdoor recreationists and some of the country’s largest outdoor retail and recreation businesses. Here is a list of tribal and city governments, business and recreation groups, and elected officials that support the Roadless Rule.

“The push for a full exemption to the Roadless Rule for Alaska has always been just pretext for continuing to subsidize Southeast Alaska’s dwindling old-growth timber industry,” said Andy Moderow, Alaska director at Alaska Wilderness League. “Instead of asking taxpayers to foot the bill for more hefty logging subsidies, the Forest Service should be addressing maintenance backlogs and permitting issues that will benefit tourism and recreation, or stream restoration that will boost Southeast’s billion-dollar fishing industry and support the region’s wildlife.”

The Tongass serves as a buffer against climate change and as a refuge for salmon, birds and other wildlife. Much like the trees of the Amazon rainforest, the Tongass’s stands of ancient trees are champions at absorbing greenhouse gas emissions. The Tongass stores approximately 8% of the total carbon stored in all national forests.

“For decades, industrial-scale logging has been destroying this precious ecosystem and disrupting the life-ways of the region’s indigenous peoples and local communities. At this critical time of the world plunging into a climate crisis, we must stand with indigenous peoples and Southeast Alaskans who have spoken out clearly and ceaselessly to maintain the Roadless Rule,” said Osprey Orielle Lake, executive director of Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network. “Our national forests are essential lungs of the Earth.”

More than 1.5 million Americans voiced support for the roadless rule during the original rulemaking process, which followed decades of clearcutting that had a destructive and lasting impact on the Tongass and other national forests. The rule continues to receive overwhelming support in Alaska and across the nation.

“Alaska’s top politicians are subverting the interests of their constituents and the rest of the country to prop up a few logging mills,” said Randi Spivak, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The public is demanding that this spectacular national forest remain protected for their children and grandchildren. We’ve seen the devastation that comes from clearcutting old-growth forests and we must safeguard this forest’s crucial role in slowing the rate of climate change.”

Logging the Tongass would threaten the health of Alaskan salmon by polluting rivers and streams, as well as by removing trees that help regulate water temperature. Current roadless-rule protections also extend to cultural and sacred sites of great importance to Alaska Native people, who rely upon the Tongass for spiritual and subsistence practices.

“The Tongass and its century-old trees represent more than a national forest. It’s a way to combat a warming planet, nourishes an economy that relies on these trees standing, and is one of the last intact rainforests in the world,” said Josh Hicks, roadless defense campaign manager at The Wilderness Society. “The superlatives to describe the Tongass are endless. It’s mind-boggling that anyone would propose to cut these old-growth trees down.”

The landmark 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule protects more than 58 million acres of roadless national forest lands across the country. Weakening this policy in Alaska will harm local and indigenous communities, Southeast Alaska’s economy, salmon fisheries and wildlife.

“Hundreds of thousands of Americans have spoken out against the Trump administration’s dangerous effort to slash protections for the Tongass National Forest because it would have dangerous, far-reaching effects for our climate and forests nationwide,” said Kirin Kennedy, deputy legislative director for lands and wildlife at Sierra Club. “We will not let the Trump administration log away our future.”

The Tongass, America’s largest and wildest national forest, draws outdoor adventurers, boaters, birders, hunters and anglers. An intact Tongass supports a robust Southeast Alaskan economy through tourism, commercial and sport fishing, and small businesses. Its old-growth trees provide irreplaceable wildlife habitat for myriad species, including wild Pacific salmon, Alexander Archipelago wolves and Sitka black-tailed deer.

“The people of Southeast Alaska have spoken: The national Roadless Rule works for Alaskans,” said Meredith Trainor, executive director of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, where the Tongass National Forest is located. “If this process has shown anything, it’s that the Alaska delegation is not speaking on behalf of the best interests of Southeast Alaskans, nor the main drivers of our regional economy, which are fishing and tourism. We call on Secretary Perdue to prioritize the voices of Southeast Alaskans over those of the Alaska delegation and the timber lobbyists who have their ear, as he weighs the future of the Roadless Rule in Alaska.”

Recent polling shows that 61% of voters nationwide oppose exempting large parts of the Tongass from the roadless rule’s protections. A near-unanimous 96% believe it is important for the federal government to protect and conserve national forests, including 75% who say it is very important.

“Alaskans and Americans overwhelmingly want to see roadless areas within the Tongass National Forest protected,” said Patrick Lavin, Alaska policy advisor for Defenders of Wildlife. “Instead, the Trump administration has moved to open our remaining wild lands to logging to benefit private industry. Clearcutting ancient forests is bad for fish and wildlife, bad for the region’s tourism and fishing industries, expensive for taxpayers and makes no economic sense. This proposal would bring great destruction and no benefit.”

“The millions of ancient trees across this temperate rainforest serve as the greatest carbon sanctuary in the U.S. national forest system, helping us all as a counterweight against the climate crisis,” said Blaine Miller-Mcfeeley, senior legislative representative for policy and legislation at Earthjustice. “This ecologically rich landscape and critical wildlife habitat will be lost forever if industry is allowed to clearcut our national forest.”

“The Roadless Rule works, and we need it to save the Tongass. It’s a national disgrace that the Trump administration is proposing to use taxpayer dollars to subsidize clearcuts and logging roads in publicly-owned old growth rainforest,” said Niel Lawrence, Alaska director and senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “As this outpouring of opposition shows, the American people don’t support this move. And at a time when the climate crisis dictates we do everything in our power to smartly manage and preserve our carbon-absorbing forests, we should focus on saving–and not trashing–the Roadless Rule.”

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What Everyone Is Missing About the Afghanistan Papers

December 18th, 2019 by Darius Shahtahmasebi

If you need more proof that lawmakers in the U.S. couldn’t care less about America’s woeful commitment to human rights abroad—or even care about the public who vote them into office—look no further than the recent Afghanistan papers and the reaction to the publications from Congress.

According to the Washington Post, the outlet had obtained 2,000 pages of notes from interviews with more than 400 generals, diplomats, and other officials directly involved in the war. The documents showed that U.S. officials were lying about the progress being made in Afghanistan, lacked a basic understanding of Afghanistan, were hiding unmistakable evidence that the war had become unwinnable, and wasted close to $1 trillion in the process.

Barely a few hours following the Post’s publication, Congress rewarded the Pentagon for its stellar efforts with a $22 billion budget increase. How can we as a society justify this?

One stand-out statistic—among the many concerning ones—is the fact that before the U.S. invasion the Taliban had almost completely put to bed Afghanistan’s illicit opium trade. Since the U.S. invasion, combined with $9 billion in U.S. funding for anti-opium programs, the Taliban is not only stronger than it ever was but sits cemented in a country that now supplies 80 percent of the world’s opium.

I can’t help but think this was done on purpose.

Still, it would be worth re-thinking our outrage over the Afghanistan papers and determining what exactly it is we are outraged about. Are we simply angry because top U.S. officials lied to us about the fact they weren’t winning the war, making it a less worthwhile venture? If the U.S. were winning the war, spending $1 trillion in the process, killing record numbers of civilians, ramping up night raids to terrorize local populations, committing war crimes left right and center, would that suddenly make it all okay? As long as the war is being won, right?

The truth is, like most wars the U.S. finds itself prosecuting; this was yet another war based entirely on lies and misconceptions—right from the outset. As Marjorie Cohn, professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and president of the National Lawyers Guild famously said:

“The UN Charter is a treaty ratified by the United States and thus part of U.S. law. Under the charter, a country can use armed force against another country only in self-defense or when the Security Council approves. Neither of those conditions was met before the United States invaded Afghanistan. The Taliban did not attack us on 9/11. Nineteen men—15 from Saudi Arabia—did, and there was no imminent threat that Afghanistan would attack the U.S. or another UN member country. The council did not authorize the United States or any other country to use military force against Afghanistan. The U.S. war in Afghanistan is illegal.”

If that was the case in 2001, how this war has continued for close to another two decades begins to beggar belief. In that time, the consequences for the Afghan civilian population has been catastrophic.

In February of 2010, a NATO night raid conducted in a village in the Paktia province of Afghanistan left seven civilians dead, including two pregnant women. NATO tried to spin the raid as an attack on a compound festering with “militant activity,” but this quickly fell apart thanks to a British reporter, Jerome Starkey, who had already reported that this was a false narrative.

The compound actually belonged to an anti-Taliban policeman trained by the United States. At the time, the family had gathered to celebrate the naming of a newborn son. In order to cover the tracks of their reckless decision to execute unarmed civilians, the American troops used knives to dig out the bullets from the bodies of the pregnant women killed.

This is the kind of activity that trillions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money has been paying for on a regular basis. More than 775,000 troops have served in Afghanistan, with 2,300 U.S. personnel deaths. Not to mention that the U.S. has not been fighting there alone, and has had assistance not just from NATO, but from so-called peaceful states like New Zealand as well (who have been accused of committing war crimes, too).

Yes, we should be outraged that officials lied about the prospects of success. But we should primarily be disturbed that they first and foremost lie in order to push our countries into these wars in the first place, killing countless innocent civilians over and over again.

We can’t let this recent publication obscure itself into nothingness. The recent reaction from Congress is a giant middle finger designed to tell you that (a) there will never be anything you can do about it and (b) they simply don’t care how you feel. Democracy at its finest from the world’s leading propagator of democratic values.

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Julian Assange has been forcibly removed from political asylum and has been arrested. He is no longer in the Ecuadorian Embassy and instead is in British police custody. Julian Assange now faces the prospect of extradition to the USA to face 175 years imprisonment for publishing facts delivered to him as a journalist and those facts revealed systemic government corruption and war crimes. These were the exact issues he required protection from and why he accepted Ecuadorian political asylum.

Julian Assange is an Australian Citizen who had been “arbitrarily” detained for over 8 years and more recently had endured over 1 year of torture in the form of continuous solitary confinement. Deprived of sunlight, contact with the outside world and proper healthcare. The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner on Feb. 5, 2016 determined that Julian Assange’s arbitrary detention “should be brought to an end”.

Julian Assange is an awarded and respected international journalist who has never incorrectly published any news.

We respectfully request the Prime Minister and/or the Foreign Minister of the Australian Government intervene and ensure Julian Assange’s freedom of safe passage and return to his home Australia or any other location that Julian Assange requests to travel to. We further respectfully request that the Australian Government where influence can be made with friendly nations, that the Australian Government ensure that no extradition order is effected on Julian Assange from the USA that may otherwise impinge on his ongoing freedom of passage and existence.

Please click here to sign and share this petition. Thank you.

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The Scottish independence movement has come a long way since I was a child. A few decades ago the Scottish National Party was on the fringes of politics and even when the Scottish parliament was founded, it was a Labour government at the helm. Independence was a distant dream, untouchable. It was even more intangible a prospect when my parents were young – back in the 1950s the SNP was as ostracised as the BNP currently is, with its members considered to be rather unhinged!

Gradually, over the decades, this has changed, with Alex Salmond presiding over the first ever SNP government and Nicola Sturgeon winning the largest number of seats ever for her party. Scotland’s party of independence has now been ruling the country for 12 years, and continues to dominate the political scene. On Thursday’s general election it won 47 out of 59 seats on a mandate of stopping Brexit and calling a second referendum on Scottish independence.  Nicola Sturgeon has been labelled the UK’s second most powerful politician.  Her party has never been as popular, and independence has never been so close. Now it seems the question is not if, but when.

Boris Johnson, having slaughtered Jeremy Corbyn in the election, is jubilant. He is currently coasting along on cloud nine, feeling vindicated after months of accusations hurled at himself and his ‘untrustworthy’ leadership. The man who just a short time ago, it was said, could face jail for deceiving the Queen and illegally proroguing parliament, took a gamble which paid off. He defiantly won the general election and now has a parliament behind him to pass his beloved Brexit bill.

And yet it’s not clear that he fully understands the implications of Thursday’s vote for the future of the Union. In fact it seems he is in denial. In a phone call with Nicola Sturgeon on Friday night Johnson reportedly emphasised that ‘he remained opposed to a second independence referendum’. But his words are not accepting the reality of the situation: that the majority of Scots have just voted decisively for the party which stands on an independence platform. And Sturgeon is not going to back down. In an interview on Sunday she said:  “If he thinks – and I said this to him on Friday night on the telephone – that saying no is the end of the matter, he is going to find himself completely and utterly wrong.”

Sturgeon, usually mild mannered and reserved in her rhetoric on independence, has unequivocally turned up the volume in the debate, declaring that Scotland could not be “imprisoned” in the UK against its will. She accused the Tories of ignoring the will of the Scottish people and that they will have to ‘face up to and confront reality’ about what the election result means. In an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Marr on Sunday the Scottish First Minister expressed frustration that she was being forced to explain her position: “It really is such a subversion of democracy that you’re talking to the leader of the party that overwhelmingly won the election, and I’m under pressure to say what I’m doing because the mandate that I won is not going to be honoured by the party that got roundly defeated in Scotland”.

The independence campaign of course, narrowly lost in the 2014 referendum 45% to 55%. But so much has changed since then. At that time, the campaign for remaining in the Union was even using EU membership as an argument against independence, saying that Scotland would be jeopardising its future in the EU by leaving the United Kingdom. A few years later, the sad irony of this cannot be missed. Brexit has completely altered the political landscape in Britain, stirring up nationalism both north and south of the border. England has put Brexit before the United Kingdom, and Scotland has equally decided that its future remains with Europe, but not with England.

The Johnson government has a policy on Brexit, but its strategy on Scotland is less certain. Since the Prime Minister took office, his presence north of the border has been lacking, as has his interaction with Scottish politicians. Even his relationship with Scottish Tory leader, Ruth Davidson, was poor, as they had opposite views on Brexit. Johnson has deepened the hatred for the Conservative party in Scotland, estranging apathetic voters even further. By denying a second referendum he will only foster more bad feeling towards him and the Westminster government and boost the Nationalists’ campaign. If he doesn’t turn his attention to Scotland soon, he’ll have a Catalonia situation on his doorstep before he knows it…

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Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Featured image is from Jane Barlow/PA Wire

Trump Letter to Pelosi Slams Impeachment Scam

December 18th, 2019 by Stephen Lendman

Despite disinformation in the White House letter written for him he signed, it correctly slams the ongoing politicized “crusade,” calling it “an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by” Dems.

The letter was published on the eve of the expected House impeachment vote, largely to be along party lines.

Instead of wanting Trump held accountable for legitimate reasons, targeting him is all about winning an election he was supposed to lose, wanting improved relations with Russia, perhaps as well for being the first sitting US president to meet with a North Korean leader — even though summit talks accomplished nothing.

His high crimes of war and against humanity are ignored. The same goes for betraying the public trust by serving monied interests exclusively at the expense of ordinary people — the vast majority of congressional members supporting these policies.

There’s no just cause for charging Trump with abuse of power over his dealings with Ukraine, its president refuting false claims made by Dems.

Nor did DJT’s actions obstruct Congress for refusing to participate in the sham impeachment process that’s one of the most shameful political spectacles in US history.

Trump’s letter correctly said that articles of impeachment against him include “no (real) crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses whatsoever.”

He was over-the-top claiming Dems “declar(ed) open war on American democracy” — US one-party rule with two right wings a fantasy version, the real thing nonexistent from inception.

The Constitution’s Article II on executive powers states:

“The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States…”

The Executive “shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties (and) appoint ambassadors…”

The Constitution includes nothing about conducting foreign affairs, though traditionally presidents conduct the nation’s foreign policy, including relations with their counterparts abroad.

Often it’s done without congressional involvement or approval. Usually Congress doesn’t object.

Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson (1941 – 1954) once said “presidential powers are not fixed but fluctuate depending upon their disjunction or conjunction with those of Congress,” adding:

In the absence of congressional involvement, the executive “can only rely upon his own independent powers,” calling these times a “zone of twilight” — neither authorized or prohibited by the Constitution.

Ideally, the president and Congress should work cooperatively in conducting the nation’s domestic and foreign affairs — clearly not what’s going on now with Dems hellbent to weaken and delegitimize Trump for the wrong reasons, ignoring the right ones.

In the letter written for him that he clearly approved, Trump said Dems “turn(ed) a policy disagreement between two branches of government into an impeachable offense.”

“(I)t is no more legitimate than the Executive Branch charging members of Congress with crimes for the lawful exercise of legislative power.”

He highlighted the fact that Biden as vice president “used his office and $1 billion dollars of US aid money to coerce Ukraine into firing the prosecutor who was digging into the company paying his son millions of dollars.”

At the Council on Foreign Relations, he bragged about it, saying:

“I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars…I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.” Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”

Trump correctly said Ukrainian President Zelensky “declared (he) did nothing wrong…”

In congressional testimony, Law Professor Jonathan Turley accused Dems of “doing precisely what (they’re) criticizing (Trump) for doing” — their articles of impeachment an “abuse of power.”

Straightaway after Trump was sworn in as president, the Washington Post headlined: “The Campaign to Impeach President Has Begun.”

Last week, Pelosi said the impeachment process has been ongoing for “two and a half years” — beginning long before Trump and Zelensky spoke by phone.

Trump’s letter stressed the above, adding:

Rep. Adam Schiff “cheated and lied all the way up to the present day, even going so far as to fraudulently make up, out of thin air, my conversation with President Zelensky of Ukraine and read this fantasy language to Congress…”

Robert Mueller’s Russiagate witch-hunt laid an egg, discovering nothing connected to the mandate of what was probed, the Ukrainegate spinoff faring no better.

There’s plenty to hold Trump accountable for, major wrongdoing left unaddressed in the articles of impeachment against him.

No US president was ever impeached for foreign policies congressional members disapproved of.

Targeting Trump for the wrong reasons persists — the cross he’ll likely bare for the rest of his time in office, including if reelected next year.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image: President-elect Donald J. Trump and U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi smile for a photo during the 58th Presidential Inauguration in Washington, D.C., Jan. 20, 2017. More than 5,000 military members from across all branches of the armed forces of the United States, including reserve and National Guard components, provided ceremonial support and Defense Support of Civil Authorities during the inaugural period. (DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Marianique Santos)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has dropped a bombshell by announcing that he could shut down the NATO-controlled Incirlik airbase that hosts U.S. nuclear bombs and the U.S. missile warning radar at Kurecik military base, in response to Washington’s threats of sanctions against Turkey. These nuclear bombs are of course placed purposefully close to Russia. The Incirlik air base in the southern Turkish province of Adana is used by the U.S. Air Force while the U.S. military also maintains a missile warning radar in the Kurecik district in Turkey’s southeastern Malatya province, which is part of NATO’s missile defense system in Europe.

“If it is necessary for us to take such a step, of course, we have the authority… We will close down Incirlik if necessary,” Erdoğan said on A Haber TV on Sunday.

Last week, the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Senate of the United States Congress approved the “Promoting American National Security and Preventing the Resurgence of ISIS Act” bill that directly targets Turkey’s military and economic apparatus. According to the draft bill, the Turkish acquisition of the powerful Russian S-400 missile defense system gives grounds to impose sanctions against this country, under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), including against the Minister of National Defense of Turkey, the Chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, the Commander of the 2nd Army of the Turkish Armed Forces, the Minister of Treasury and Finance of Turkey, the Halkbank and a whole host of other senior officials.

This action could further isolate Turkey from NATO, especially after the latest blow against the Eurasian country came last Thursday when the U.S. Senate finally passed S.Res.150 that recognizes the Turkish perpetrated genocide(1915-1923) against Turkey’s Christian minority that saw millions of Greeks, Armenians, and Assyrians exterminated. There is no doubt the long-awaited U.S. recognition of the genocide is politically motivated, and Erdoğan understands this, threatening to recognize the U.S. genocide against Native Americans.

However, there are key differences between a potential Turkish recognition of the U.S. genocide against the Native Americans and the Turkish genocide against the Christians of Anatolia. There are hundreds of thousands, if not over a million, Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians living in the U.S. who have direct ancestry to genocide survivors who lost their entire lives including houses, farms, shops and other associated wealth. These descendants could pressure Washington to seek compensation from Ankara and could intensify sanctions against Turkey if they refuse too. Although the likelihood of compensation is extremely low, it could be used as a justification to strengthen sanctions against Turkey, which in turn will only push Turkey further away from the U.S./NATO and potentially closer to Russia.

On the other side, although Turkey may acknowledge the genocide against Native Americans, I would imagine there are no Native Americans, or maybe just a few, living in Turkey. Ankara could reciprocate sanctions against the U.S., but they would be virtually ineffectual as the world’s monetary system is still overwhelmingly dominated by the U.S. Dollar, despite efforts by Russia and China to de-Dollarize the international economy.

Turkey’s potential closure of the Incirlik and Kurecik bases from the U.S. military would effectively mean freezing relations with NATO. Even a Turkish reclamation of its military bases poses problems however – the obvious being political, but also the military and budgetary costs. However, discussions of Turkey closing the bases are not new. Ankara believes the Incirlik base was a staging point for the 2016 coup attempt against Erdoğan and has already contemplated kicking NATO out of there.

Despite the threat from Erdoğan, Washington will likely not be phased by the threat for a number of reasons:

1) Washington has already turned Greece into its Plan B option in case Turkey leaves NATO.

2) Turkey leaving NATO could mean the U.S. backing a number of issues that have been frozen because of Washington’s policy of appeasing Turkey for geostrategic reasons, such as the unresolved status of Cyprus.

3) The Incirlik base is also used by other NATO states at times such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy, and a Turkish reclamation of the base could see Turkey further souring its relations with the European Union.

Although removing the U.S. military from the Incirlik Airbase would be a huge blow to NATO, Erdoğan is unlikely to do this despite Ankara’s strengthening relations with Moscow. Even if this were the case, the most important question still remains, would U.S. President Donald Trump accept this? It is highly unlikely that Trump will want to surrender the base that is critical for U.S. interests and aggression in the Middle East. Although Greece is a Plan B, it is a Plan B for a reason – it is not as strategically placed as Turkey towards the Middle East, and therefore the U.S. will not surrender such a great advantage it has so easily.

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Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies.

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So-called annual US National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAAs) are all about enriching the nation’s military, industrial, security complex by prioritizing militarism and endless wars of aggression against invented enemies to advance the nation’s imperium.

NDAA measures are hostile to peace, stability and security. They fund the best war machine money can buy.

This year’s NDAA, passed overwhelmingly by House and Senate members, will be signed into law straightaway by Trump, last week tweeting:

“Wow! All of our priorities have made it into the final NDAA: Pay raise for our troops, rebuilding our military (sic), paid parental leave, border security, and space force! Congress – don’t delay this anymore!”

The measure includes the so-called “Protecting Europe’s Energy Security Act of 2019.” It imposes illegal sanctions on companies involved in constructing Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to supply European countries with energy around 30% cheaper than US liquified natural gas (LNG).

Congress retaliated against Russia for putting US LNG producers at a competitive disadvantage.

Economic powerhouse Germany strongly supports nearly completed construction. On November 13, the Bundestag passed legislation, granting the pipeline an exemption from the EU Gas Directive.

It bars the same entity from owning an offshore pipeline and supplying natural gas through it.

The legislation permits Nord Stream 2 to operate from Russia to Germany, eliminating or reducing Ukraine as a transit route to European markets.

Berlin wants unrestricted access to plentiful, cheap Russian natural gas. It’s essential for Europe’s energy needs.

Hostile US legislation is highly unlikely to stop completion of the project or prevent it from becoming operational.

Russia’s Sergey Lavrov said US sanctions won’t hinder completion of construction. It may delay its completion.

Lavrov’s German counterpart Heiko Maas slammed US sanctions, saying:

“Decisions on European energy policy are taken in Europe. We reject foreign interference and, as matter of principle, extraterritorial sanctions.”

The NDAA also targets Turkey, prohibiting sale of F-35 warplanes and parts to the country over its purchase of Russian S-400s air defense missiles.

It calls for Trump to sanction the country for its action under the so-called Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).

The hostile legislation targets Russia, Iran and North Korea for not subordinating their sovereignty to US interests.

In response to removing Ankara from the F-35 program, its Foreign Ministry said “(w)e remind once more that the language of threats and sanctions will never dissuade Turkey from resolutely taking steps to ensure its national security.”

The NDAA includes the so-called Caesar Syrian Civilian Protection Act, imposing further sanctions on President Bashar al-Assad, members of his government, and individuals supporting it.

The measure unacceptably calls for use of “diplomatic and coercive means…to compel the government of Bashar al-Assad to halt its murderous attacks on the Syrian people (sic) and to support a transition to a government in Syria that respects the rule of law, human rights and peaceful co-existence with its neighbors (sic).”

The measure is all about supporting regime change, largely by coercion, while falsely blaming Damascus for US-orchestrated aggression against the nation and its people — including use of jihadists as imperial foot soldiers, supported by Pentagon-led terror-bombing.

It bars foreign violators of US sanctions on Syria from entering America.

It calls for continued US efforts to replace Assad with pro-Western puppet rule, falsely labeling Assad’s government a “criminal regime (sic)” — what applies to Washington, not Damascus.

The measure reflects frustration over the inability to transform Syria into a US vassal state.

Russia’s intervention in September 2015 turned the tide of battle, Syrian forces regaining control over most of the country.

Terrorist-infested Idlib province, along with illegal US and Turkish occupation of parts of the nation remain to be liberated.

The struggle for Syria’s soul continues to free its people from the scourge of US imperial war.

With all categories included, including huge black budgets, the US spends more on militarism, so-called homeland security, war-making, and the Pentagon’s global empire of bases than the rest of the world combined.

Post-9/11 alone, countless trillions of dollars were poured down a black hole of waste, fraud and abuse — at a time when the nation’s only enemies are invented. No real ones existed since WW II ended.

Instead of devoting the nation’s resources to world peace, equity and justice, discretionary US spending prioritizes endless wars for control over planet earth, its resources and populations.

If not challenged and stopped, its hegemonic rage may kill us all.

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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.

Trump is expected to sign into law the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 2020 which mandates the imposition of sanctions on companies involved in Nord Stream II’s construction, but while this crafty move isn’t expected to seriously impede the project since it’s already in its final stages, its importance derives in the fact that it signals extremely strong support for the interests of the US-backed “Three Seas Initiative” whose Polish leader has objected to this game-changing pipeline on geopolitical grounds.

The US Senate’s approval of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 2020 means that Trump will likely sign it into law very soon, which is troublesome for Trans-Atlantic relations because it mandates among its many sometimes unrelated provisions the imposition of sanctions on companies involved in Nord Stream II’s construction. This crafty move isn’t expected to seriously impede the project since it’s already in its final stages after Russia secured Denmark’s permission back in October to construct a crucial segment of this pipeline through its maritime territory, which will facilitate the project’s completion and thus strengthen Russia’s strategic partnership with EU-leader Germany. That outcome will likely accelerate the ongoing rapprochement between Russia and the bloc’s Western European members that became obvious to all after Macron’s successful visit to Moscow in late August, but which is in turn compelling the US to double down on its commitment to the Polish-led “Three Seas Initiative” (TSI) that it envisages functioning as its wedge for retaining influence in the strategic Central European space between those two.

The impending NDAA 2020-connected sanctions should therefore be seen as an extremely strong signal of support for this trans-regional integration structure because they satisfy the demands of its Polish leader for the US to impose costs upon Germany for its reinvigorated strategic partnership with Russia. Barely reported on at the time, it’s significant to mention that a bipartisan resolution was submitted to the House of Representatives at the end of October shortly after Russia secured Denmark’s support for Nord Stream II mandating that Congress prioritize its support for the TSI in the aftermath of that development, with a specific focus on energy and physical connectivity projects. The grand strategic goal that the US is aiming to achieve is to create a so-called “cordon sanitaire” that would serve to divide Russia from Western Europe by exploiting the preexisting animosity that the many states between them have towards Moscow, and it will likely end up being one of the main drivers of American foreign policy towards the continent for the foreseeable future.

In pursuit of that objective, the US is also making strategic outreaches to Belarus, knowing very well that its wily leader Lukashenko is more than willing to “balance” between the West and Russia in a risky attempt to extract more (mostly economic) “concessions” from each of them. It goes without saying that this policy will probably ramp up now that Nord Stream II is a fait accompli and the “cordon sanitaire” is more significant than ever in the current context. That former Soviet Republic, however, is unlikely to engage in a decisive “pivot” against Russia, though from a zero-sum standpoint, the gradual moves that it’s making towards the West can indeed be interpreted as being “mildly” against Russia’s long-term interests. Still, there isn’t much that Russia can do since it must avoid the perception that it’s putting overwhelming pressure on Belarus or even plausibly considering doing so since that notion would only accelerate the very same trend that Moscow wants to reverse. Minsk, it must be said, recognizes how geostrategic its position is for both the Russian-led Eurasian Union (EAU) and the Polish-led TSI, so it’ll try to play them off against the other, all with the US’ passive support.

The US isn’t the only Great Power spreading its influence through the TSI, as China is also rapidly on the ascent there too. The Balkans are becoming more important of a destination for Chinese foreign direct investment than ever through the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI), most visibly manifesting itself in Beijing’s plans to construct a high-speed railway from the Hungarian capital of Budapest to the Greek port of Pireaus (the “Balkan Silk Road”). It also holds yearly meetings with the leaders of the TSI countries and others in this region through the 17+1 format that was recently expanded to include Greece (having been the 16+1 previously). In addition, Belarus is a key node on the Eurasian Land Bridge, with China investing in the “Great Stone” industrial park that it envisages becoming a major export center along that route. None of this is to imply whatsoever that China is “teaming up” with the US to “contain” Russia in Central & Eastern Europe, but just to point out that China’s infrastructure investments will greatly help to connect the region along the north-south axis, after which the US will likely exploit these apolitical and purely economic projects for its strategic ends vis-a-vis Russia.

Even so, while the TSI space is certainly geostrategic, its economic importance pales in comparison to Western Europe’s. The German economy alone is larger than all of those states’ combined, so Russia isn’t exactly losing out in the economic sense as a result of the US’ TSI plans. It is, however, at risk of this “cordon sanitaire” being used as its rival’s trans-regional platform for putting military pressure upon it, which has already been happening ever since most of its states joined NATO and then doubled down on their commitment to it after the onset of the New Cold War in 2014 following Crimea’s reunification with Russia in response to the US-backed coup in Ukraine. Poland and increasingly Greece bookend this pro-American military structure, while Ukraine and possibly soon even Belarus could ultimately become its eastern-most appendages by proxy. Russia still has instruments of influence that it can leverage in an attempt to keep this trend under control, though it’s seemingly on the defensive in recent years and appears unable to gain any successes on this front, instead choosing to concentrate on Western Europe through Nord Stream II and other measures.

Looking forward, the rise of the TSI as the US’ preferred continental proxy is all but assured, though it’s unclear whether or not it’ll succeed with its fundamental purpose of keeping Russia and Western Europe apart. Classical geopolitical thought suggesting that it would doesn’t take into consideration the much more complex nature of contemporary International Relations whereby a conventional military clash between the TSI states and Russia is unlikely for reasons of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) stemming from many of the former’s memberships in NATO, and their other memberships in the EU mean that a successful EU-Russian detente would force them to facilitate trade between Western Europe and Russia if even a single state vetoes the continuation of sanctions in the future. Altogether, it can therefore be said that Russia’s successful completion of Nord Stream II would flip the strategic dynamics by once again returning Moscow to a position of strength whereas Washington would then be the Great Power on the defensive instead. Still, the TSI’s potential shouldn’t be underestimated either since it might lead to some surprises for both Western Europe and Russia if its American patron has a few tricks up its sleeve that it’s wiling to teach its regional partners.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Boris Johnson’s Britain

December 18th, 2019 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

Britain is looking drenched at the moment; colours blue and yellow seem to be streaking through the country. The Scottish Nationalists have re-asserted control lost to the Conservatives in 2016.  In the rest of the country, seats never touched by Tory Blue have are now occupied by the party of Boris Johnson.  Yet again, British politics shows that the posh boys, when it comes to moments of crisis, can pull in the deluded, and denuded working class.  This must count as the political version of Stockholm syndrome, the working class playing hostages finding affection for their Tory tormenters.

Overall, though, the picture is one of various influences, teasing away in the background.  Johnson has returned to Downing Street in another feat to baffle the pollsters but other factors were at play.  Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, despite not winning seats, loomed large.  Ventriloquising on the issue of Brexit, his strategy to field fewer candidates, and certainly none against Conservatives, avoided a splitting of the conservative vote.   

The Tory battering ram was taken to the Brexit seats held by Labour members, those in the midlands and the north.  The aim: to cause breaches in the “Red Wall”.  With Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn dithering and umming about Europe and the sense that Johnson might be the one to seal the pact and deliver the deal, a Faustian arrangement was struck. Go for the blue devil; he, at least, might be able to take Britannia out of this mess, consecrate the fears of Europe.   

Claims of anti-Semitism within Labour’s ranks had a pecking influence, though history will probably show this to be a noisy sideshow.  The issue of Corbyn the man will remain.  As former Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson claimed, “Every door I knocked on, and my team and I spoke to 11,000 people, mentioned Corbyn.  Not Brexit but Corbyn.”   

What the Johnson Brexit focus did was banish and shroud any conversation and discussion about a generous anti-austerity policy outlined in Labour’s manifesto.  It involved a promise of more funding to the National Health Service, the recruitment of more nurses and police.  Momentum was the socialist cleanser, the panacea to New Labour.  Corbyn now finds himself out on his ear.  The Labour movement finds itself wrangling.  The question as to whether Corbynism survives the man is a genuine one.   

The strategy from Labour HQ had evidently been to not mention Brexit, a dangerous gamble.  The Conservative strategy was to howl, scream and badger everybody along the electoral road from south to north about how they were the only ones capable of “getting it done”.  Johnson himself seemed to be doing political panto, pretending to be baker, milkman, fisherman, digger driver, amongst others.    

When things got complicated on policy, Johnson was found fleeing to a fridge to avoid journalists or suppressing potentially compromising reports, which was the case with the findings of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security on claimed Russian influence in Britain. 

The result was subsequently deemed a second Brexit Referendum, with the Conservatives able to unify the Leave vote.  The Remain vote, on the other hand, shattered.  Defectors and the middle ground types such as the Liberal Democrats, were spanked.  Law making moderates were ditched. “As a result,” opined Yasmeen Serhan, “those who traditionally inhabit the middle ground, or who otherwise differed with their party’s position on Brexit, were effectively left with two options: put up or shut up.”  Labour yielded its worse result since 1935.  “In the past hundred years, rued former Labour adviser Torsten Bell, “no opposition has lost seats after 9 years in opposition.”     

A form of resounding approval for an authoritarian figure was given, one who had mocked every stable British institution from the courts to Parliament itself.  As The Observer noted in October, democracy under Johnson had atrophied.  “Our political honour code is breaking down, unleashing a race to the bottom that the good men and women who sit in parliament can only watch unfold with horror.”

Long-time conservative scribe Peter Oborne, in explaining why he could never vote for Johnson, saw the challenge as not merely one against institutions, but against authentic, sensible conservatism.  Genuine conservatives had been driven out of the fold by votaries of a near revolutionary sect.  “Johnson,” he insisted, “has become the leader of a project – his adviser Dominic Cummings is an important part of this – to destroy conservatism.” 

The salutary lesson, one that Johnson managed to master, is that voters often vote against, not for, their interests.  Britain will be getting much more than Brexit.  Far from being “oven ready”, as Johnson was so keen to promote, the country will find itself in a transition period, one where the EU will retain its influence.  Single market membership will remain, financial contributions will continue as will the contentious notion of free movement.  But Britain will have lost both a vote and a voice and be poorer for it. 

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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]

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The self-proclaimed president of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez, said on Saturday that an arrest warrant could be issued for the democratically elected President, Evo Morales, in the coming days.

“If he has to come to Bolivia, he knows that he has pending accounts with the courts and that will have to be kept. Surely, in the next few days that arrest warrant will be issued because we have already made the pertinent complaints,” Añez said.

The interim president also accused Morales of being “irresponsible”, underlining that he “has to understand that Bolivia needs a change” and that his government should exist “to defend democracy and freedom.”

Currently, the Bolivian president is in Argentina where he applied for political refugee status after being removed from power by a coup d’etat, despite legitimately winning the first round of the presidential elections .

After Morales left Bolivia in mid-November, the de-facto government claimed fraud and ordered the repression of the demonstrations against the social and labor sectors that demanded the return of the democratically elected president in the last general elections on October 20.

The massacres in Sacaba and Senkata, which left at least 20 dead, and hundreds injured, are being investigated by the United Nations as possible crimes against humanity.

In this sense, Morales revealed the existence of three studies that dismantle the myth of fraud during the elections and reveal the plot of a coup, which was sponsored by the Organization of American States (OAS).

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Afghanistan War – The Crime of the Century

December 18th, 2019 by Rep. Ron Paul

“We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan. We didn’t know what we were doing.” So said Gen. Douglas Lute, who oversaw the US war on Afghanistan under Presidents Bush and Obama. Eighteen years into the longest war in US history, we are finally finding out, thanks to thousands of pages of classified interviews on the war published by the Washington Post last week, that General Lute’s cluelessness was shared by virtually everyone involved in the war.

What we learned in what is rightly being called the “Pentagon Papers” of our time, is that hundreds of US Administration officials – including three US Presidents – knowingly lied to the American people about the Afghanistan war for years. This wasn’t just a matter of omitting some unflattering facts. This was about bald-faced lying about a war they knew was a disaster from almost day one.

Remember President Bush’s Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld? Remember how supremely confident he was at those press conferences, acting like the master of the universe? Here’s what he told the Pentagon’s special inspector general who compiled these thousands of interviews on Afghanistan: “I have no visibility into who the bad guys are.”

It is not only members of the Bush, Obama, and Trump Administrations who are guilty of this massive fraud. Falsely selling the Afghanistan war as a great success was a bipartisan activity on Capitol Hill. In the dozens of hearings I attended in the House International Relations Committee, I do not recall a single “expert” witness called who told us the truth. Instead, both Republican and Democrat-controlled Congresses called a steady stream of neocon war cheerleaders to lie to us about how wonderfully the war was going. Victory was just around the corner, they all promised. Just a few more massive appropriations and we’d be celebrating the end of the war.

Congress and especially Congressional leadership of both parties are all as guilty as the three lying Administrations. They were part of the big lie, falsely presenting to the American people as “expert” witnesses only those bought-and-paid-for Beltway neocon think tankers.

What is even more shocking than the release of this “smoking gun” evidence that the US government wasted two trillion dollars and killed more than three thousand Americans and more than 150,000 Afghans while lying through its teeth about the war is that you could hear a pin drop in the mainstream media about it. Aside from the initial publication in the Washington Post, which has itself been a major cheerleader for the war in Afghanistan, the mainstream media has shown literally no interest in what should be the story of the century.

We’ve wasted at least half a year on the Donald Trump impeachment charade – a conviction desperately in search of a crime. Meanwhile one of the greatest crimes in US history will go unpunished. Not one of the liars in the “Afghanistan Papers” will ever be brought to justice for their crimes. None of the three presidents involved will be brought to trial for these actual high crimes. Rumsfeld and Lute and the others will never have to fear justice. Because both parties are in on it. There is no justice.

Just days after the “Afghanistan Papers” were published, only 48 Members of Congress voted against the massive military spending of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. They continue as if nothing happened. They will continue lying to us and ripping us off if we let them.

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The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity

Michel Chossudovsky

The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-6-0
Year: 2015
Pages: 240 Pages

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The Sino-American hegemonic conflict has several dimensions including political and economic issues. But we cannot overlook the cultural aspect of the conflict, for the cultural factors affect the nature of socio-economic relations as well as the unfolding New Global Order. 

This is particularly so, for it is the first time that the Western super power meets the Asian giant on the hegemonic battle ground.

In a way, we are seeing the clash between Western Values and Asian values. 

It is true that the sustained interaction and the globalization of values would have narrowed the value gap between the two systems of thoughts.

Nevertheless, the Chinese way of thinking can be different from the American way of thinking. After all, the ways of thinking have been built up for thousands of years.

We are interested in examining the roles played by values in the dynamics of the Sino-American (Foreign Policy “Thucydides Trap”.

This paper has three parts.

First, I will discuss the origin of values and how the values affect human ways of thinking.

Second, I will see how the values affect the choice of a political-economic regime.

Third, I will discuss the impact of values on the formation of the New Global Order.

1. The Values

I argue that values are reflected in a set of human relations. I have selected the following relations: man-God, man-society, man-man, man-universe and man-history

1.1 Man-God

In China and East Asia, Buddhism, Confucianism and Shamanism deal with the man-God relation in a rather rudimentary fashion.

In Buddhism, the notion of Nirvana plays a central role. It is state of beatitude, or eternal happiness. But there is no god who manages the Nirvana.

For Buddhism, human life is itself suffering. To be free from suffering, one has to find four noble truths: truth of suffering (human life), truth of the origin of suffering (attachment to ephemeral things), the truth of the cessation of suffering (will power to be free) and the truth of eight ways.

The eight ways of freeing from suffering are: right vision, right thought, right words, right actions, right living, right efforts, right conscience and right meditation.

Facing the death, man has two choices. One may go to the state of Nirvana for eternal happiness. One may have to come back to the suffering earth in various forms. All depend on Karma (the way one has lived on the earth). What is important is that there is no god who governs the Nirvana. God is unknown, if there is one.

In Confucianism, one relates the “heaven” to the emperor who is regarded as “son of heaven”. Here, the heaven seems to refer to some unknown god.

Now, in Shamanism, every major object on the earth can be god. The sun, the moon, the wind, the mountains, the trees and anything which are considered as being beyond human control can be god. They are not known, however.

In short, in the Asian system of thought, the god is not known, if there is any.

The powerful religion in the West is Christianity. In this religion, God has created man (human) in the image of God. (Genesis 1.26-27) This passage in the Bible has a very important meaning.

Man being created in the image of God, he is sovereign, he is dignified, he is free and he has the right to be himself. Here is the philosophical and theological root of the notion of individual human right.

There is another crucial West-Asia difference in man-God relations. In Asia, it is not sure if there is a god. Even if there is god, no one knows who the god is. That is, the god is not revealed.

Hence, the god has little influence on man. Now, in Christianity, God is identified. God is revealed in two ways: directly through the Bible and indirectly through the nature.

Thus, there is a big difference between Asia and the West as far as the man-God relations are concerned. In the West, there is only one God; so there is only one absolute truth determined by God. Thus, Christianity is a powerful doctrine.

On the other hand, in Asia, there is no unique God. So there is no absolute truth; the truth is relative. Here, we see the philosophical and religious root of pragmatism in Asia.

1.2 Man-Society Relations

The most dominant system of thought in Asia in relation to the man-society relations is Confucianism.

In Confucianism, man is defined in function of his position within a given collective entity of which he is a part. We should remember that Confucianism was formulated by Confucius in order to show the best governance of the king (government).

For Confucius, what counts in society should be the stability and the order in a hierarchical society.

There are basically four hierarchical relations: king-subject, parents-children, husband and wife, elder children-younger children. These relations consist of rights and duties.

The subject must respect and obey the king; the latter must provide stability, security and welfare to the former.

The parents must provide the moral and physical needs and the education of children; the latter should respect, obey and look after the former at their old age.

The husband should be responsible for the welfare of his wife; the latter must obey and serve the former.

The elder children must guide and help the younger children; the latter must respect and follow the guidance of the former.

The Confucian human relationship can be summarized in terms of “Hyo” (孝)and “In” (仁).

“Hyo” means the attitude of a person of inferior social status toward the person of superior social status. It means filial piety, respect and obedience.

“In” means the attitude of a person of superior social status toward a person of inferior social status. It includes magnanimity, generosity, compassion and other forms of paternalistic attitude.

When Asian man meets a person for the first time, he often asks the age of the person just met. This may put uneasy a westerner; it is understandable. The reason for doing it is to determine his “good manner” required, when he meets the person of older age. In the absence of other known criteria, the social status is often determined by the age of the person.

The Confucian notion of man-society relationship has important implication on human rights. The whole human relationship being hierarchically integrated, man is not autonomous and man belongs to a collective entity.

In other words, human relations make sense only in the context of collectivism. Collectivism comes before individualism. It means that individual rights can be less important than the right of the collective entity. It is the opposite in the West.

In Asia, individuals are to serve the collective entity; in the West, the collective entity is to serve the individuals.

In Asia, the collective entity may give to itself the right of deciding the priority of public policies.

In the West, in a true democracy, the individual has the right to select the priority policy such as the individual freedom of speech.

In Asia, the public entity may pick the solution of hunger as the priority right. This is so called “social right” or “collective right”. In this context, the individual human right may be implemented later.

The experience of South Korea is a good example of the sequencing of rights. Under the military dictatorship and the conservative governments, in the name of economic development (social right), the individual right of freedom of speech was cruelly violated. Now, under the liberal government, the situation of individual right is much improved.

I think that a similar sequencing of human rights has taken place in the West. Even in the United State and in many other parts of the world under the domination of the West, the implementation of individual human rights took a long time before its realization.

1.3 Man-man Relations 

In the Asian system of thought, there is no real ideology related to man-man relations.

If there is one, it is the Confucian Hyo-In relations As for Buddhism, what counts is the compassion for all living beings including humans. Daoism mentions even less about such relations.

It is in the West that man-man relation is most developed and refined.  It is the Commandment of Love ordered by Jesus (Matthew 22. 37-39). The great virtue a man can have is the love of neighbour; the shortest way to salvation is the love of neighbours. This is perhaps the greatest contribution of Christianity to mankind.

The love of neighbours is the source of inspiration for human decency, social justice, the respect for the human right and true democracy.

1.4 Man-Universe Relations

In the West, the man-universe relation is also one of the key concerns of Christianity. The universe is governed by the “good” and the “bad”. Now, the relation good-bad is in eternal conflict and dichotomous.

The universe goes forward by destroying the bad and preserving the good. Thus, in Christianity, the ideology of man-man relation is very strong and dogmatic. It is the duty of man to join the battle for the victory of the good over the bad. In this way, the humanity goes forward toward a better world. In short, man must intervene in the life of the universe.

There is another important side in Christianity. It has something to do with man’s exploitation of the nature. The Bible says that man is authorized by God to look after the nature (Genesis 1.28). In fact, man has been so faithful to this part of the Bible that the nature is suffering from over exploitation by man.

In Asia, the heart of Buddhism is the love for the preservation of all kinds of living beings. Thus, in Asia, the preservation of the nature is highly valued.

In Asia, Daoism says that the universe is governed by “Chi”(energy) (氣)There is the positive chi (Yang) (陽)and the negative chi (Eum)(陰). The positive chi and the negative chi do not fight; they co-exist in harmony. Therefore, man does not need to intervene in the life of the universe; the universe is doing fine without human intervention. Here is the Asian doctrine of non-intervention in the life of the universe.

To sum up, in the West, man is encouraged to intervene in the fight for the victory of the good over the bad on the one hand and, on the other, he is allowed to dominate the nature.

In contrast, in Asia, non-intervention of man in the affairs of the universe is valued; the preservation of the nature is encouraged. 

1.5 Man-History Relations

In the West, there are two views on history. One is the deterministic view and the other, non-deterministic view. The deterministic view is represented by the Christian doctrine, the Hegelian doctrine and the Marxist doctrine. The non-deterministic view is represented by the Toynbee doctrine.

The Christian doctrine says that there is an end of history of mankind, as there was a beginning. The history ends when the whole world will be evangelized.

The Hegelian doctrine pretends that the history should march toward the world of greater freedom.

Now according to the Marxist doctrine, history moves by stages towards Communist society.

In the Toynbee doctrine, history of a society evolves through the challenge-response-change sequence with no fixed direction.

At each critical period in history, enlightened intellectuals challenge the established structure of the society; the conservative elite groups meet the challenge; the enlightened and the conservatives fight and may come up with a consensus for a change; the change occurs without any pre-fixed direction.

It must be pointed out that, in each of these doctrines, man intervenes in the evolution process of history. In other words, in the West, man is the master of the history.

In Asia, Daoism tells us that the history is governed by “Chi”. There is the positive chi (Yang)and there is negative chi (Eum). These two opposite “chis” coexist in harmony. There is no need for man to intervene. The history will go its own way.

One of the keywords of Daoism is “wu wei” meaning “act by not acting”. What these keywords are trying to tell us is that man should let the universe and the history to go their own ways.

2. Impact of Values on the Choice of the Political-Economic Regime

What has impacted the most the Chinese political and economic regime is surely the pragmatism which has allowed China to combine socialism with Confucianism.

The government provides a stable and secure living environment and decent welfare for the people. In return, the people respect the authority of the government and obey government decisions.

The head of the state is the father of the people who are the members of the big family called the nation. The government-people relation here is the Hyo-In relation.

Buddhism has a role to play here. Under the influence of Buddhism, the people do not ask much and contend with little. This could contribute to the stability of the society

Furthermore, pragmatism allows China to adopt a hybrid economic system combining planned economy with a “free market system” without major difficulties.

It must be noted that, in China, the choice of the political or economic system does not seem to be an ideological choice but rather a pragmatic selection. This suggests that China is ideologically neutral in the choice of a regime.

Capitalism or socialism is simply a pragmatic tool needed for the realization of political or economic objectives.

Pragmatism has the advantage of assuring the flexibility of the regime, but it has also the inconvenience of coordinating various parts which make up the regime.

The American political-economic regime is rigid and dogmatic. It is inspired by Christianity.

Christianity has given the socio-economic regime of liberal democracy and the capitalism of free market system. As for the origin of capitalism and free market in Christianity, we find, in several books in the Old Testament (Genesis, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Proverbs and others), such basic notions of capitalism and free market as property right, investment, profit, wage, interest rate and free competition. Moreover, in the book of Amos, we find how the unjust competition can be punished

Christianity makes it clear that each individual is sovereign, autonomous and free, which requires a regime in which individuals are the master of society.

Now, in order that the people can be the master of society, the regime should be for the people, by the people and of the people. This is how Abraham Lincoln saw liberal democracy.

In order that the people behave as the master of the regime, they must have economic means to exercise their rights and duties. But, the survival of such a democracy in the U.S. is becoming increasingly difficult.

Unfortunately, family income distribution in the U.S. is one of worst in the developed countries. The Gini coefficient is as high as 45.0 in 2019. In the same year, the Gini in China was 46.5.

But, we must remember that, in 2019, the per capita GDP (nominal) is $65,000 in the U.S. as against $10,000 in China. Thus, in terms of per capita GDP, the U.S. is 6.5 times richer than China. But, the inequality of income distribution is as bad as in China.

The Gini coefficient is a routine procedure used by economists to measure income inequality. It varies from zero to 100. The higher the Gini, the higher the inequality of the income distribution in favour of the rich. A lower Gini points to greater equality in income distribution i.e. in favour of the poor.

The United States is no longer the liberal democracy as defined by Lincoln. The American people are no longer the master of the country. Christianity once inspired the free, liberal and just democracy. But, now, it is no more.

The regime based on the love of neighbours is now replaced by the love of money. The love of God is replaced by the love of money.

3. Impact of Values on the New Global Order

The basic issue we have to deal with here is the question of knowing what kind of global order will come out of the Sino-U.S. Thucydides Trap.

Will it be a mono-polar order dominated by the U.S. or China?

Will it be a duo-polar order dominated both by the U.S. and China? Will it be a multi-polar order dominated by several major powers?

The United States had, once, a noble vision of a global order in which all countries can enjoy peace, prosperity and security.

The famous speech of John F. Kennedy made in 1963 at the American University of Washington, we could read such vision:

“What kind of peace I mean? What kind of peace we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind of peace that enables men and nations grow and to build hope and build a better life for their children-not only peace for Americans but peace for all men and women-not merely peace in our time but peace for all time(John F. Kennedy, 10 June 1963)

Kennedy gave us the glimpse of the kind of world mankind would have hoped for; it was a noble dream.

But, this dream was ultimately shattered.

Moreover, in 1997, a group of 25 neoconservative intellectuals signed a document called “The Project for the New American Century-PNAC’ which indelibly destroyed Kennedy’s vision.

Key members of the PNAC included Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney who later inspired George W. Bush to conduct the illegal Iraq war (2003). John Bolton, one of key figures of the war-loving Washington oligarchy was a part of the PNAC; he was the one who tried to impose the Libyan model for North Korea denuclearization. (see image below)

The strategy of the PNAC consisted in the outright destruction of countries which were not obedient to Washington’ demands. the PNAC was also a strategy of “regime change”.

The strategy of regime change consists of the following:

  • First, diplomacy is used to persuade the target country to change their political regime, i.e into a pro-U.S. proxy government.
  • Second, if diplomacy does not work, various means are taken to divide or fragment the country in favour of  U.S. interests.
  • Third, if all these tactics fail, brutal military force is used.

Many countries have been the targets of US regime change. Many countries  in Latin America have been the targets. In more recent years, Libya, Iraq, Syria and Iran have been included in the long list of regime change targets.

North Korea has been the target for the last 70 years, but it is maintaining its “Juche” regime.

The Unites States was, once, considered as the place where the Commandment of Love was flourishing. But, now, it is not easy to find what might be described as “living Christianity” in the United States.

How long will the Pax Americana last? No doubt, the U.S. will remain one of the most powerful countries. But the possibility of the United States remaining as the sole global power in the World is becoming increasingly doubtful. There are several reasons for this:

First, I wonder how long the U.S. can finance Pax Americana. It is true that, in nominal terms, the US GDP in 2018 was $ 22 trillion as against $14 trillion in China. But in terms of PPP (purchasing power parity) the Chinese GDP in 2018 was $27 trillion. In other words the Chinese economy has 24% more purchasing power than the U.S. economy.

The U.S. is financing about 24% of UN, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, NATO and many other international organizations. Washington has to finance the operation of 130 US military bases in the world

The defence budget of the U.S. in 2019 is $716 billion as against $177 billion in China. This means that the U.S. spends 4.0 times more money on defence than China, while its GDP has 24% less purchasing power compared to the Chinese GDP.

How long can Washington support such a heavy financial burden?

There is another problem. Given the worsening income distribution in favour of the rich (and against the middle class and the poor), the demand for goods and services in the domestic market might shrink. This might provoke decades- long deflation as has happened in Japan.

The experience of various FTAs (Free Trade Agreements) shows that international trade alone cannot guarantee the sustained growth of the US economy. The domestic market should also develop. To do that, we need more equal income distribution and a lower Gini coefficient.

Second, the political influence of Washington among developing countries is weakening, because these countries depend less on Washington’s aid.

Third, the harsh conditions of the structural adjustment programe (SAP) imposed by IMF on debtor countries is another reason for the declining influence of Washington.

Fourth, the power of the dollar which has been the loyal servant of Pax Americana is falling because of the increasing use of non-dollar currencies for central banks’ reserves and international trade. Until not long ago, the US dollars accounted for 90 % of central banks’ reserves, but now they represent only 60%.

Besides, increasing number of countries including China, Russia and several other countries are using, for international trade, non-dollar currencies. This trend is likely to continue.

Fifth, the American ordinary people do no longer want war. Since 1945, rare have been days without wars somewhere in the world. Americans don’t want war.

Americans have been paying a lot for the war. The sacrifice of human lives, the underdevelopment of welfare, especially, the medical care which is one of the most expensive systems in the world, social insecurity due to crimes and rifle violence, worsening state of social infrastructure, increasing burden of education of the poor are some of the costs of never-ending wars imposed on the American people.

For all these reasons, it will become more and more difficult for Washington to continue to dominate the world (alone).

Now, as for China, its international relations has been guided by the principles of pragmatism, the philosophy of non-interference and the preference for decision making based on consensus rather than the unilateral imposition of ideas.

Let us see how this Chinese way of thinking affects its vision in the area of international relations.

First, in accordance with the philosophy of non-interference, China is not interested to change the regime of foreign countries. China has no evangelical ideology to conquer the world under one value system. Moreover, being pragmatic, China might consider that the cost of regime change is too exorbitant.

Second, the pragmatism has led China to respect and apply the rules and norms set out by the WTO system, not because it likes them, but because they don’t hamper China’s role in the international trade system.

Third, China wants the security and the prosperity of other countries, because they are useful for China’s security and prosperity. Here again, we see China’s pragmatism.

The project One Belt-One Road, so called the BRI, is perhaps the model of Pax Sinica (China Peace). In this model, 68 countries collaborate for the common security and prosperity; it is not motivated by any dogmatic ideology; it is motivated for common objective to live better.

The primary objective of the BRI is the development of social and industrial infrastructure. One of the main reasons for the un-development and the underdevelopment of the economies of so many countries in Africa and Asia has been precisely the lack of infrastructural facilities.

Furthermore, the development of infrastructure will facilitate the integration of the whole Eurasian economic block accounting for 40 % of global GDP and 60% of the world population.

In all probabilities, China could become the most powerful country in the world, which will surely impact the destiny of mankind.

But, China will not impose Pax Sinica; it will not try to change the political regimes of other countries.

It is most likely that China will seek for peaceful cooperation with the United States geared towards global security and prosperity.

The kind of global order which China will foster could be a “duo-polar order” in which Washington and Beijing could potentially lead the world toward a “better place to live” for all humanity. This is what I wish with all my heart.

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

The Estonian Interior Minister was correct in calling out the new Finnish government’s extreme Europhilia which he fears is destined to turn the country into a so-called “euro-province” at the expense of its national sovereignty, but his invocation of Lenin and the Finnish Civil War-era Reds was a wink at the Russophobic tendencies that pervade his society, as well strongly hinting at the role of what right-wing forces such as him controversially describe as “Cultural Marxism” is supposedly playing in bringing about the aforementioned scenario.

The EU has been fairly criticized in recent years for its ultra-liberal universalism and the trend towards a so-called “federation of regions” that would ultimately do away with the nation-state, so it wasn’t surprising in principle that a “Euro-Realist” (the neologism that the author believes is more accurate euphemism for “Euroskeptic”) politician in an EU-member state publicly touched upon this topic, though the controversy this time around is that it was the Estonian Interior Minister addressing his words towards the new government in socio-historically similar Finland in a way that some felt went against the spirit of their people’s friendship. Mart Helme, a former Estonian Ambassador to Russia who’s also the chairman of the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia which forms one of the members of the ruling coalition, had the following to say about new Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin and her entirely female-led coalition:

“What has happened in Finland now still makes the hair stand on end. I would still recall [Soviet leader] Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin’s saying that every cook could become a minister, or words to that effect. Now we can see that a saleswoman has become a prime minister and some other street activist and uneducated person has also become a member of the government. Now we can actually see to some extent how the historical revenge of the reds on the whites, that is to say, the reds who wanted to liquidate the Finnish state already in the [Finnish Civil War of 1918], have now come to power and are now desperately trying to liquidate Finland, making it a euro-province which could be called either Suomi or Finland, but which, in fact, completely drags it down in the ideological philosophy at the end of the so-called Fukuyama history.”

The point that this populist politician was trying to convey is that the EU is just as much of an ideologically radical supranationalist entity as the USSR was (for better or for worse), one which also endeavors to swallow up whole countries in pursuit of its geopolitical objective of taking over the world. According to him, Lenin’s quip about how even the most formally unqualified person could become a government minister has been presently proven in the Finnish case, which he also regards as representing the victory of the Finnish Civil War-era Reds over the Whites due to his fears that the new government will essentially dismantle the state to facilitate its more efficient incorporation into the EU just as Soviet-backed communists did with some of the formerly independent republics like interwar Estonia that eventually acceded to the union.

On one hand, Helme is correct in drawing attention to the EU’s totalitarianism and even invoking Fukuyama’s provocative “End of History” thesis to raise alarm about the new Finnish government’s unstated acceptance of this ultra-liberal worldview, which he fears is a threat not only to socio-historically similar Estonia, but to every single other country in the bloc too. On the other, however, he’s clearly winking at the Russophobic tendencies within his own society by talking about Lenin, the Reds, and the Soviet Union’s liquidation of some of the formerly independent republics’ national sovereignty seeing as how this language naturally triggers those in the Baltics to react at the very least in an extremely unfriendly way towards Russia. It can be argued that no other relevant historical example exists to illustrate the point that he’s making, though the case can also be made that he should have still tried to use different language instead.

This clarification isn’t only being made for reasons of Russians’ sensitivity towards his words, but also because Helme is clearly hinting that the new Finnish government is comprised of what many of the right have recently taken to describing as “Cultural Marxists”, which is a term of debatable accuracy. It’s true that the ultra-liberal ideology that Marin’s new government represents has attempted to incorporate Marx’s teachings on economic equality into the socio-cultural (identity) sphere, which is the basis on which the comparison is made, but it’s extremely deceptive in the sense that Marxism itself never traditionally dealt with that topic in such a way. Marx did touch upon socio-cultural issues in his works, but that’s only because he believed that they were shaped by economic conditions, not in order to bring about a socio-cultural transformation of society without first undertaking what he believed were the revolutionary economic prerequisites.

Marin’s ultra-liberals (or “Cultural Marxists” as many on the right call them), however, are much more focused on implementing their views of socio-cultural equality without paying much attention to the economic side of the coin other than perhaps a few socialist tweakings to the already generous welfare system. This therefore makes the “Cultural Marxist” label misleading since it has no direct connection to actual Marxism itself unless that word is being used as a euphemism for “revolutionary change towards equality”. One might say that no other word better encapsulates that idea than “Marxism”, which is a plausible claim to make but still doesn’t take away from the ideological inaccuracy of the term’s inclusion in that concept. Nevertheless, if one looks beyond the Russophobic dog whistles that Helme was blowing to his countrymen and his controversial hinting of “Cultural Marxism”, then his warning about the new Finnish government actually makes a lot of sense.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Huge Climate Victory! Denmark Mandates Global Warming Cure…By Law!

December 17th, 2019 by Brett Redmayne-Titley

Friday, Dec 6, 2019, saw the most important victory to date in the battle against Global Warming. Denmark’s “Climate Act” will entirely revamp Denmark’s climate policy – by law- and thrust it onto the world’s centre stage by showcasing the only effective political solution: Changing the “system itself.”

Eight out of the ten parties in the Danish Parliament agreed on the new national Climate Act that mandates binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70 per cent (compared to the 1990 level).

2030, not the belayed 2050, is the target date for tangible reductions.  In a world-first, Danish law requires consideration of methane gas, consumption, and imported emissions along with CO2.Denmark has also eliminated the trickery of Carbon credits while a new expert body of climate scientists will be placed with the newly formed Climate Council. They and the Climate Minister must annually submit to a parliamentary progress review. The first of two five year plans of action are now being developed for approval. Also, a new Committee for the Green Transformation will ensure that climate considerations are taken into account in every major political decision and include 13 climate partnerships with Denmark’s leading private sector organizations. The aim of this historic legislation is a path to sustainable solutions of the future.

Better, the Danish law requires it to take a leadership role in international climate engagement. Every year it will present to the world its “Climate Action Programmes” that showcase concrete political initiatives to decarbonize every Danish civic sector.

This is a victory for Denmark and also climate activists. No longer can other world leaders mitigate and marginalize Global Warming by using the tricks of denial and delay. Nor can they cast aside factual science as a mere conspiracy. One small nation, Denmark, has now vindicated-forever- climate activism and in turn, vilified the mercenary deniers of the obvious. Denmark has thus become the world’s first nation to legitimize the rebellion against Global Warming.

Said Minister for Climate, Dan Jørgensen, “We hope Denmark can inspire other countries to follow suit.”

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Brett Redmayne-Titley has published over 180 in-depth articles over the past ten years for news agencies worldwide. Many have been translated and republished. On-scene reporting from important current events has led to his many multi-part exposes on such topics as the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, NATO summit, Keystone XL Pipeline, Porter Ranch Methane blow-out, Hizbullah in Lebanon, Erdogan’s Turkey and many more. He can be reached at: live-on-scene ((at)) gmx.com. Prior articles can be viewed at his archive: www.watchingromeburn.uk

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On Friday, December 12th, Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept reported and documented that the mainstream U.S. press has lied through its teeth about “Russiagate,” and Zero Hedge reported and documented that not only had the U.S., UK, and France, committed an international war-crime when they invaded Syria on 14 April 2018 firing 105 missiles against Damascus, but the U.N.-authorized agency OPCW that was supposed to investigate the U.S.-&-allied allegation which had been the alleged ‘justification’ for that invasion was instead lying through its teeth about what the evidence actually showed about it: that this invasion had been based upon U.S.-&-allied lies.

These lies by the U.S.-and-allied ’news’-media are not exceptions to the rule; they are the rule whenever anything happens that is contrary to the self-justificatory ‘journalism’, or actually propaganda-line, of the U.S., and of its allied governments.

The lying that got these countries into invading Iraq on 20 March 2003, and into invading Libya in 2011, and into invading and occupying Syria in 2012 until now, are not simply ‘errors’, but are instead systematic and intentional on the part of the news-managements of all of the major U.S.-&-allied ’news’-organizations, none of which will ‘rat’ on any others of them, because they all are in the same boat of liars, and for any one of them to expose the ‘journalistic’ fraudulence of any other of them would be to expose also themselves, because they’re all in the same racket: destroying democracy — making democracy in their own country an impossibility.

Why are there not consumer boycotts against each one of them? Could it be because they all are very successful in hiding from their respective publics their own criminality, their PR-gangland fascist operation?

Glenn Greenwald’s report was titled “The Inspector General’s Report on 2016 FBI Spying Reveals a Scandal of Historic Magnitude: Not Only for the FBI but Also the U.S. Media”

Zero Hedge’s report was titled “New WikiLeaks Bombshell: 20 Inspectors Dissent From Syria Chemical Attack Narrative”.

Things like this don’t routinely happen in a democracy. They do happen routinely in the U.S.-&-allied countries.

Incidentally, Greenwald previously did a blockbuster news-report that’s closely related to the one he did on December 14th, and it was titled “The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing U.S. Media Failures on the Trump-Russia Story”. So: he has made this beat a particular specialty of his.

Anyone who subscribes to a major ‘news’-medium in the U.S.-and-allied countries is paying to be deceived.

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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.

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According to official US government economic data, the US economy has been growing for 10.5 years since June of 2009. The reason that the US government can produce this false conclusion is that costs that are subtrahends from GDP are not included in the measure. Instead, many costs are counted not as subtractions from growth but as additions to growth. For example, the penalty interest on a person’s credit card balance that results when a person falls behind his payments is counted as an increase in “financial services” and as an increase in Gross Domestic Product. The economic world is stood on its head.

It is aggregate demand that drives the economy. Payments made on a rise in interest rates on credit card balances from 19% to a 29% penalty rate reduce consumers’ ability to contribute to aggregate demand by purchasing goods and the services of doctors, lawyers, plumbers, electricians, and carpenters. Contrary to logic, the fee is magically counted in the “financial services” category as a contributor to GDP growth. The extortion of a fee that reduces aggregate demand lowers GDP, but builds paper wealth in the financial services sector.

GDP growth is also artificially inflated by counting as GDP abstract concepts that do not produce income streams. For example, for homeowners the US Department of Commerce estimates the rental values of owner-occupied housing, that is, the amount owners would be paying if they rented instead of owned their homes, and counts this imputed rent as GDP.

These and other absurdities have caused economist Michael Hudson to conclude correctly that the “financial reality of how the U.S. economy works is no longer captured in GDP statistics.”

Today we have two economies. One is the real economy of production and consumption. The other is the financialized economy of paper wealth. The former is doing poorly, and the latter is doing well. The financialized economy is growing much faster than the real economy. Indeed, the real economy might not be growing at all.

Michael Hudson describes the difference. The stock market is at all time highs that have created massive wealth in financial assets for stock and bond owners. In the real economy the situation is totally different:

“The Federal Reserve’s Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2018 reports that 39% of Americans do not have $400 cash available for a medical or other emergency, and that a quarter of adults skipped medical care in 2018 because they could not afford it (see this). The latest estimates by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that nearly half (48 percent) of households headed by someone 55 and older lack any retirement savings or pension benefits (see this). Even in what the press calls an economic boom, most Americans feel stressed and many are chronically angry and worried. According to a 2015 survey by the American Psychological Association, financial worry is the “number one cause of stress in America today” (see this).

The data is completely clear. The rich are becoming much richer, and the rest are becoming poorer. Michael Hudson explains:

“The creation and trading of property and financial assets at rising prices has been fueled by rising debt levels owed to the financial sector. This sector’s returns therefore are best seen not as real wealth on the asset side of the balance sheet, but as overhead on the liabilities side. And the process is multi-layered: income accruing to the financial wealth owned by the top 10 Percent is paid mainly by the bottom 90 percent in the form of rising debt service and other returns to financial and other property.

“In the textbook models of industrial capitalism’s mass production and consumption, an asset’s price is determined by its cost of production. If the price rises above this level, competitors will offer it cheaper. But in the financialized economy an asset’s price is determined by how much credit buyers can borrow to buy it, not by its cost of production. A home is worth as much as a bank will lend to a bidder.

“The engine of industrial capitalism and its consumer society is a positive feedback loop in which widely shared income growth, expanding consumption and markets generated yet more investment and growth. By contrast, the feedback loop of financial capitalism is an exponential growth of credit-driven debt, driving up asset prices and hence requiring yet more borrowing to buy homes, retirement income and other assets. Corporate management and investment today is mainly about obtaining capital gains for real estate, stocks and bonds than about earning income.

“We illustrate this by charting the flow of income and capital gains in the real estate sector to show the dominance of asset-price gains over net rental income – and how rental income is used up paying interest in our financialized economy. Likewise, corporate income is spent (and new debt taken on) largely for stock buybacks to raise share prices. The resulting dynamic is exponential and destabilizing.”

This dynamic is destabilizing, because as more of consumers’ discretionary income is drawn off to service mortgage, credit card, automobile and student debt and for compulsory health insurance, less is left to purchase the goods and services in the real economy. Consequently, credit-driven debt grows faster than the income that services it, and this impoverishes the 90%. However, for the 10%, money creation by the Federal Reserve in order to protect the balance sheets of the “banks too big to fail or jail” drives up the values of financial assets. As a result the distribution of income and wealth becomes hightly polarized.

Think about the many Americans who meet their living expenses by making only the minimum payment on their credit card balance. At 19% interest their debt grows monthly. Eventually they hit a credit card debt cap and can no longer use the card to cover their living expenses. But they have the burden of a large debt balance to service without an income stream capable of servicing it.

Think about the corporation that decapitalizes itself in order to produce short to intermediate term capital gains for shareholders and executives by indebting the firm in order to buy back the firm’s shares. The end result is that all income goes for debt service.

In a financialized economy, the only possible outcomes are debt forgiveness or collapse.

As Michael Hudson makes clear, the combination of nonsensical categories in the National Income and Product Accounts and a financialized economy means we have no accurate picture of the economy’s condition. Michael Hudson has a proposal for correcting these problems and making GDP accounting more accurate, but as ecological economists such as Herman Daly have made clear, GDP measurement also omits the external costs of production. This means that we do not know whether GDP is growing or declining. It is entirely possible that the ecological and social costs of an increase in GDP (as currently measured) are greater than the value of the increased output. (See Paul Craig Roberts, The Failure of Laissez-Faire Capitalism, see this)

Perhaps the major way in which GDP is overstated is the exclusion of external or social costs. External or social costs are costs of producing a product that the producer does not incur but imposes on third parties or on the environment. For example, untreated sewage dumped into a stream imposes costs on people downstream. Runoff of chemical fertilizers from commercial farming produces dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and toxic algal blooms such as Red Tide that result in massive fish kills, make seafood unsafe, cause human ailments and adversely impact the tourist trade of beach areas. The result is lost incomes, ruined vacations, health expenses, and none of these costs are born by the commercial farmers.

Real estate development produces massive external costs. Scenic views from existing properties are blocked, thus reducing their values. Construction noise and congestion impose costs on existing residents and reduces the quality of their lives. Water runoff problems are often created. Infrastructure has to be provided, such as larger highways to provide evacuation from hurricane-impacted areas, usually financed by taxpayers. If the global warming case is correct, the external cost of human economic activity can be the life of the planet.

Lakshmi Sarah in the May/June, 2019, issue of the Sierra Club magazine provides an excellent detailed account of the external costs of coal-fired power plants being built in India by the Indian conglomerate Tata with a loan from the International Finance Corporation, a branch of the World Bank. The ground water in the area has been ruined and is no longer drinkable. Farmers are no longer able to grow crops on half of the area farmland. Heated wastewater that is dumped into the Gulf of Kutch is destroying fishing. The ecology and the livelihoods of the population are essentially destroyed. None of these costs are born by the private power companies.

Tired of being doormats for capitalists and the World Bank, the residents of the affected provinces rebelled. They have succeeded in getting their case before the US Supreme Court. It seems that the International Finance Corporation is so accustomed to financing projects that produce large external costs that it overlooked its obligation to examine the environmental impact of the projects it finances. This oversight resulted in Indian farmers and fishermen getting their case before the US Supreme Court. The International Finance Corporation’s lawyers argued that the World Bank lending agency had “absolute immunity.” The Supreme Court said no and remanded the case to the circuit court to rule on the damages.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about this apparent victory for ordinary faraway little people in an American court against the World Bank, a principle instrument of American imperialism, is that the Trump administration appeared in court as a friend of the Indian farmers and fishermen. The US Solicitor General, represented by Jonathan Ellis, rejected the notion that international orgnizations have absolute immunity. The Establishment exists on its immunity. Here we see the ultimate reason that the ruling Establishment wants rid of Trump.

Already the senior staff of the International Finance Corporation have come to the realization that they have other responsibilities than just to shuffle money out the lending shute. If the Indian farmers and fishermen succeed in protecting themselves from ruination by external costs, perhaps Americans who suffer external costs will follow their lead.

Perhaps economists will also come to the realization that they owe us accurate GDP accounting and not fanciful accounts that serve elite wealth in the financialized economy.

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

One country, two systems. Britain is leaving the European Union. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is not leaving on the same terms.

In the UK election, more Irish nationalists than Unionists were elected in Northern Ireland for the first time since Ireland was partitioned in 1921. Not surprisingly, it led to Sinn Fein renewing its calls for a vote to leave the UK and unite with the Irish Republic. This is not going to happen for reasons steeped in history. But also crucially there is not a groundswell of opinion, on either side of the border, for it. But Northern Ireland feels a lesser part of the UK today than at any time since Lloyd George was prime minister.

Hold the front page, as they used to say in pre-internet and website days. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is talking nonsense. There was, he said adamantly, no question of checks being needed on trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom under his European Union withdrawal agreement.

“There will not be checks on goods going from Northern Ireland to Great Britain,” Johnson said in November.

Not so fast. His own Brexit secretary, Steve Barclay, had to contradict him. Goods going from Northern Ireland will have to be accompanied by exit declarations and “targeted interventions” from customs officers, he said.

Johnson, according to his own allies, is a non-starter regarding trust. Let us not forget, he is actually the leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party. The Democratic Unionist Party feel they have been abandoned by him. On this, they are right. The DUP were convenient bedfellows when it suited him and when their usefulness was up, they were ruthlessly pushed out. This is no reason for non-Unionists to gloat. If the prime minister can dispatch his allies, then for those of a different political persuasion the occupant of No 10 Downing Street poses, at the very least, a troubling dilemma. Can he be taken at his word or trusted? The evidence suggests not.

Johnson is reneging on his absolute commitment to his allies in the DUP that a “border in the Irish Sea” is something “no British government could or should” ever accept.

DUP leader Arlene Foster was in no doubt. She said the British prime minister betrayed Unionist voters in Northern Ireland when he sealed a deal with the European Union that would introduce a trade barrier down the Irish Sea, jettisoning Northern Ireland from British customs procedures. He reneged on a promise he made when he spoke at their annual conference.

Foster said the party could no longer take Johnson at his word and would have to check if what he said “was actually factually correct”.

“Once bitten, twice shy, we will certainly be looking for the detail of what this [Brexit] is going to look like,” Foster said.

In his victory speech on Friday morning, Johnson said the UK is “leaving the EU as one United Kingdom”. Even if we ignore the Scottish question, this is utterly fraudulent. It is a matter of fact that Northern Ireland is not about to leave the EU on the same terms as Britain.

Crown subjects in Northern Ireland have a right to be told by their prime minister the truth about their status. Johnson displays a reluctance to tell the obvious truth that on the border, borders, literally, on the schizophrenic.

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Tom Clifford is an Irish journalist based in China. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The powers that be in the US are now viewing China as a deadly rival in a duel for global supremacy. Their aim at the summit was to draw their European allies into their China containment strategy.  This was made clear at a recent meeting of NATO ministers of foreign affairs in Brussels in November, when US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, called on the alliance to address ‘the current and potential long-term threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party,’ and to stand together in ‘the cause of freedom and democracy,’ to make the world safe against threats of authoritarianism. (1)

Pompeo’s demand came in response to deepening doubts among the European allies about US commitment to their defence following the failure by Washington to consult NATO before pulling forces out of northern Syria.  Calling up NATO’s original ideological Cold War mission to once again stiffen its purpose, Pompeo seemed to be suggesting that there was a trade off to be made: if Europe wants commitment from the US, they should themselves commit to the US and forge a united front against China.

But to what extent did the Europeans buy into this call for a NATO anti-China pivot? Whilst the US has cemented a Cold War view of China, Europe has struggled to find a common position on the emergence of the new major power, and besides their own preoccupations over security remain focussed on Russia and the Middle East.

Trump’s Cold War on China

Over the last four years, the Trump administration has single-mindedly sought to turn US China policy right around from engagement to containment, at the same time bringing China’s rise to the centre of the foreign policy agenda.  The 2017 National Security Strategy shifted the focus from the ‘war on terror’ to ‘great power competition’ identifying Russia and China as ‘revisionist powers’. The Indo Pacific was seen as ‘the centre of the most fundamental geopolitical change since the end of WW2,’ with China seeking to displace the US, expanding the reaches of its state-driven economic model to reorder the region in its favour.  Against this, a Quadrilateral Security Dialogue was planned to draw Australia, Japan and India closer to the US; and a massive defence budget was agreed to pay for nuclear weapons modernisation and the establishment of a Space Command.

In October 2018, Vice President Mike Pence proceeded to launch an offensive on China across multiple fronts  – trade, technology, ideological, diplomatic and military. (2) Then earlier this year, following the US withdrawal from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, and with the trade war escalating, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper hinted that the first deployments of US intermediate-range missiles would be in the Asia-Pacific region to counter Chinese missiles.(3) China was being lined up as a much more formidable long term strategic rival than Russia.  As the world’s second largest economy, it has far greater influence around the world than Soviet Union ever had.  In the words a former Senior Director of Strategic Planning in the Trump administration, China poses ‘the most consequential existential threat since the Nazi Party in World War 2’.(4)

What direction Europe? 

No doubt with Trump’s earlier remark on NATO’s obsolescence in mind, European members have begun to bend to US pressure on increasing defence spending to prove their relevance: by taking a greater share of the costs of containing Russia, the Allies will help to free the US to focus on  Asia and China.

However NATO’s European members are rather more equivocal about the so-called China threat. Earlier this year, the European Commission, in its EU-China: a Strategic Outlook Report, characterised China as a ‘systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance’.  Nevertheless, the EU has sought to distance itself from the US tactics of trade war with China.  Business and economic relations between Europe and China have been growing and, earlier in the year, EU-China negotiations made advances towards an investment agreement to be sealed in 2020.  At the same time, Italy, despite warnings from other European leaders, went ahead in signing up to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, becoming the 14th EU member state – and the first G7 state – to join in the Chinese project,

For the US now it is imperative to stop this Eurasian drift, resorting then to a Cold War militarism through the heavy hand of the alliance to rein the Europeans in.

Shifting NATO’s focus towards Asia  

In light of the European Commission’s view, the Trump administration’s question to the EU has been: if China is a systemic rival, then how should this be managed?

To prepare for the London Summit, NATO began a review of the security implications of China’s rise to the EuroAtlantic. This was set as part of a wider overhaul of NATO defence planning and doctrine in the post-INF context. The collapse of the INF treaty has left Europe exposed to Russia missiles, but the US now insists that China’s intermediate-range and new missile capabilities must also be included in arms control proposals and that Europe needs to recognise that safety can only be found together in NATO. (5)

Warning of China’s rapidly expanding military might, Stoltenberg argued: “…we have to address the fact that China is getting closer to us… We see them in Africa; we see them in the Arctic; we see them in cyberspace and China now has the second largest defense budget in the world.’ (6) Chinese hypersonic weaponry and missiles, he argues, are capable of reaching Europe, a de facto ‘operational alliance’ with Russia is in evidence in recent military exercises in the Pacific, Central Asia and the Baltic, and, with China getting more involved in Europe through its Belt and Road Initiative, it has become necessary to question the strategic intentions of China’s Eurasian project. (7)

These effort to link EuroAtlantic security to the Indo-Pacific strategy raise the prospects of a global NATO.  The idea of a military alliance, spanning both the Atlantic and Pacific, has long been an aspiration on the part of the US.  A South East Asian Treaty Organisation (SEATO) was set up in 1954 as a counterpart to NATO, however it never really established itself, and, with regional states asserting their newly gained independence, was eventually dissolved in 1977.  More recently, since 2012, through its ‘partners across the globe’ programme, NATO has forged new links with US allies in the Asia Pacific region including Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea.

In 2016, NATO began to align with US Indo-Pacific priorities, agreeing to extend its operations to cover maritime security in parallel with US freedom of navigation exercises (FONOPs) which were stoking the militarisation of the South China Sea. In 2018, the UK and France announced their intentions to join the US FONOPs, subsequently sending warships into the vicinity. (8)

At this time also, the Five Eyes security intelligence network began to share classified information with Germany, Japan and France.(9)  This Cold War instrument, comprising the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, has gained a new importance with the rapid development of the new technologies and is the main instrument of surveillance of China’s foreign activities, such as cyberattacks.  Although such information is so far being shared with the other US allies on a bilateral basis, it points the way towards closer links between NATO and the Five Eyes with the potential to upgrade of NATO’s East Asian partnerships towards more extensive intelligence sharing, joint planning and military exercises.

Securing technology

This then comes to the heart of the matter: the issue of securing NATO’s communications technologies from the so-called Huawei ‘threat’.  It is China’s challenge in the digital world that concerns the US above all else. China’s emergence as a global leader in the development of new technologies, and its growing capacity to gather vast amounts of global data, is seen to have brought the world to a turning point.

With NATO and the Five Eyes partners reliant on 5G networks, the hype is of China leveraging Huawei’s commercial networks for military purposes to access highly classified information flowing among allies or even to block services in the event of conflict. (10)  But Europe has its doubts: GCHQ in the UK has found Huawei involvement to be manageable; and Merkel, rejecting the Cold War logic, has been reluctant to discriminate against a single company or a single country. (11) It is no doubt to enforce the Huawei ban, that Pompeo is turning on the ideological pressure.  The rhetoric is all about protecting freedom and democracy and securing the unfettered flow of information across the globe; the real fear is of the US losing the technological edge.

Is China a threat?

China has been upgrading its military forces, including its naval and missile capabilities, on a considerable scale.  Its military budget  however, despite its increase remains dwarfed by the US military spending and is just a fraction of the budgets of US and its Asian allies combined.  US military power is still far superior to that of China however, with China’s efforts concentrated on its own defence, it is its strengths in A2AD – anti-access and area denial – that particularly frustrate the US military.

China argues that having capability is not the same as intention to use.  It adheres to a no first use nuclear policy.  A similar commitment from the other nuclear powers should be at least one of the conditions of China signing up to any new arms control treaty; the inclusion of sea- and air-based as well as the land-based missiles covered by the INF, being another. China can also point to its years-long efforts together with Russia to gain agreement on a convention on the prevention of an arms race in outer space (PAROS).  A Xi-Obama agreement on cyber-security had a degree of success. (12)

With Obama’s Asian pivot upgraded by Trump into the Indo-Pacific strategy, together with a deepening of the Cold War mindset, China has drawn closer to Russia to safeguard security and promote safety and stability through multipolarity.  Recent Sino-Russian joint military exercises with India, Pakistan and Central Asian states in September and with South Africa in November are a demonstration of this.

China then is not seeking to engage in an arms race with the US; it does not intend to follow the Soviet Union and risk its own downfall. In challenging US hegemony, its chosen battleground is the digital world; its race of choice is to the technological frontiers – a pre-arms race over innovation upon which the US military ‘full spectrum dominance’ relies for advantage.

An anti-China NATO?

To contain European wavering, Stoltenberg was careful with his words at the summit, recognising China’s rise as ‘presenting opportunities as well as challenges’ to avoid any overt suggestion that China was NATO’s next adversary.  Macron, in particular, concerned that NATO maintain its focus on the Middle East, had cautioned against China being classified as an enemy in a military way as is ISIS.  Nevertheless, there was broad agreement that China was a ‘part of our strategic environment’ and that NATO needed to coordinate its response to the challenges posed by China’s growing influence.

The commitment to a NATO space force was a particular mark of willingness on the part of the Allies to deter China’s rise as a rival military power. There was agreement to increase tools to respond to cyber attacks, and whilst a NATO maritime task force in the South China Sea is still a long shot, the organisation’s maritime posture is to be bolstered.

With the new US Cold Warriors looking to increase NATO cooperation with Japan and Australia in order to counter the Russian and Chinese multipolar moves, the call to further strengthen NATO’s political coordination is of particular significance in opening the door to wider consultation with these Indo Pacific partners.  The summit agreement on coordination on arms control may provide such a forum to build the case for the expansion of the INF to include China, in effect a means of containment, as a preliminary step towards a broader international front against Chinese influence.

Conclusion

What lies behind the disagreements among NATO members that have surfaced this year about its future is then the question of how to respond to the rise of China.  The US was looking for NATO summit to present a United Front in sending a clear message of deterrent to China.  However, European states see China not simply as a ‘systemic rival’ but also as an economic opportunity.  It is not just Greece and Italy which seek dialogue over ideological confrontation – even Macron, who warned Italy earlier this year against naivety in engaging with China, appeared recently at a major import-expo fair in Shanghai, coming away with a host of trade deals.

Around the world, Huawei offers a cheap upgrade to 5G networks. Around half of the 65 commercial deals that have been signed have been with European customers.  The US is demanding that its allies to put security first, a security set on its own terms but how much, the Europeans might ask themselves, does the US ambition to monopolise new technologies matter to them? European states have in the past resisted the US when it acted against their interests, for example over the Iraq war. What was perhaps most notable about the NATO summit communique was that, whilst there was a commitment on the part of all the leaders to ensuring their countries had secure 5G communications, there was no mention of Huawei.  In this, then, the United anti-China Front fell short.

However, caught between the old TransAtlanticism and a longer term rebalancing towards Eurasia, the Europeans seem incapable of rising to the challenge of repositioning and the kind of radical rethink of the very meaning security that this entails. Instead Merkel appeals to Macron that Europe must still rely on NATO for its defence.   An openly anti-China NATO is unlikely – this would divide Europe.  The danger nevertheless is that further small shifts towards the US Indo Pacific strategy might embolden the US in its ideological attacks on China and in moves to foment demands for independence in Taiwan with increased military backing. In that case, the outcome of the NATO summit may turbo-charge the already escalating US-China tensions. Indeed the US Secretary of Defence Mark Esper has now designated China the top US military priority ahead of Russia (13).  2020 may prove a momentous year with an EU-China investment deal on the cards but at the same time with a new US-led military build up against Russia and China with two huge exercises, Defender 2020 in Europe, and Defender 2020 in the Pacific. The level of coordination between the two and the extent of participation by European allies in the latter remains to be seen.

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Dr. Jenny Clegg writes and researches on China’s development and international role.  She has published numbers of articles in academic and other journals.  Her book, ‘China’s Global Strategy: towards a multipolar world’ was published by Pluto Press in 2010.

Notes

  1. https://www.state.gov/secretary-michael-r-pompeo-at-a-press-availability-2/
  2. https://www.hudson.org/events/1610-vice-president-mike-pence-s-remarks-on-the-administration-s-policy-towards-china102018.
  3. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/world/asia/inf-missile-treaty.html?action=click&module=RelatedCoverage&pgtype=Article&region=Footer
  4. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000bkxy/rivals-americas-endgame
  5. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/07/nato-stoltenberg-shoots-back-france-emmanuel-macron-calls-brain-death-dead/
  6. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/03/china-should-be-natos-main-focus-at-summit-experts-say.html
  7. https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/08/its-time-nato-china-council/159326/
  8. https://www.iiss.org/blogs/analysis/2019/09/nato-respond-china-power
  9. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2149062/france-britain-sail-warships-contested-south-china-sea
  10. https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190204/p2a/00m/0na/001000c
  11. https://gallagher.house.gov/media/columns/five-eyes-must-lead-5g
  12. https://www.politico.eu/article/merkel-pushes-back-on-calls-for-huawei-ban-in-germany/
  13. https://thediplomat.com/2018/08/did-the-obama-xi-cyber-agreement-work/
  14. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3042083/pentagon-head-says-china-has-become-top-us-military-priority?utm_medium=email&utm_source=mailchimp&utm_campaign=enlz-scmp_today&utm_content=20191214&MCUID=80088feeea&MCCampaignID=7575aef910&MCAccountID=3775521f5f542047246d9c827&tc=26
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Selected Articles: How Would Jesus Fare in the American Police State?

December 17th, 2019 by Global Research News

Global Research strives to shine light on the under-reported, less known injustices ignored or buried.

Governments know it too, which is why there is an unprecedented threat to the independent media and the Internet. Fight-back was never more needed.

Please, during this season of giving, consider donating something, however large or small, to Global Research’s continuation.

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Cruising Pamir Highway, the Heart of the Heartland. The New Silk Roads and Greater Eurasia

By Pepe Escobar, December 17, 2019

Traveling the Pamir Highway, we’re not only facing a geological marvel and a magic trip into ancient history and customs. It’s also a privileged window on a trade revival that will be at the heart of the expansion of the New Silk Roads.

Khorog is the only town in the Pamirs – its cultural, economic and educational center, the site of the multi-campus University of Central Asia, financed by the Agha Khan foundation. Ismailis place tremendous importance on education.

The Child that Christmas Forgot: How Would Jesus Fare in the American Police State?

By John W. Whitehead, December 17, 2019

The Roman Empire, a police state in its own right, had ordered that a census be conducted. Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary traveled to the little town of Bethlehem so that they could be counted. There being no room for the couple at any of the inns, they stayed in a stable (a barn), where Mary gave birth to a baby boy, Jesus. Warned that the government planned to kill the baby, Jesus’ family fled with him to Egypt until it was safe to return to their native land.

Yet what if Jesus had been born 2,000 years later?

Our Vanishing World: Birds

By Robert J. Burrowes, December 17, 2019

Birds evolved from small carnivorous dinosaurs of the Late Jurassic and in the 65 million years since the extinction of the rest of the dinosaurs, this ancestral lineage diversified into the major groups of birds alive today. See ‘The origin of birds’.

Because they did not exist during the first five mass extinction events on Earth, birds have been spared the widespread extinctions suffered by those species that did exist in earlier eras.

Bulgaria’s Willingness to Host NATO Naval Center Is Aimed at Containing Russia in the Black Sea

By Paul Antonopoulos, December 17, 2019

In a joint statement between NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, the latter announced last Thursday that the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Varna is a willing new home of NATO’s Naval Force Coordination Center. NATO’s Maritime Headquarters is currently located in the United Kingdom, but Stoltenberg thanked his Bulgarian counterpart for its “strong commitment” and “strong focus” on so-called “Black Sea security.” By Black Sea security, it was of course meant that they want to contain Russia.

Video: President Assad Discusses Syria’s Reconstruction, China’s “Belt and Road” and US Aggression

By Bashar al Assad, Phoenix Television, and Miri Wood, December 17, 2019

In the third of recent international interviews, Syria’s President Bashar al Assad met with Phoenix Television, to discuss Belt and Road development projects with China’s Phoenix Television.

Given that Syria and China are both part of the original Silk Road that created a beautiful explosion of the development and trade that uplifted humanity, this interview has greater importance than the recent one with France’s Paris Match and that with Rai News 24, subsequently banned in Italy. Transcript courtesy of SANA.

Video: Douma ‘Chemical Attack’ Narrative Collapses, Russia Trains New Militia in Hasakah

By South Front, December 17, 2019

Russia has started creating a local force that will operate in northeastern Syria areas abandoned by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, several Syrian media outlets claim.

According to reports, the Russian military will train and equip a new pro-government militia in the province of al-Hasakah. This militia will be deployed at former positions of the SDF, which have not been taken by the Syrian Army.

The Real Interest of the U.S. in Latin America and the Caribbean. Preserve Imperialism

By Enrique Moreno Gimeranez, December 17, 2019

Our America is again suffering escalating aggression by U.S. imperialism and local oligarchies. The region is experiencing a sad reality involving dangerous turmoil and socio-political instability, promoted by Washington. The hemisphere’s most reactionary forces are attacking sovereign governments with coups, methods of unconventional war, brutal police repression, militarization, unilateral coercive measures, rigged judicial persecution of progressive leaders, while proclaiming the validity of the Monroe Doctrine and McCarthyism.

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Três Triliões de Dólares no Poço Sem Fundo Afegão

December 17th, 2019 by Manlio Dinucci

Na Declaração de Londres (3 de Dezembro de 2019), os 29 países da NATO reafirmaram “o empenho na segurança e na estabilidade, a longo prazo, do Afeganistão”. Uma semana depois, de acordo com a “Lei da Liberdade de Informação” (usada para esvaziar, depois de vários anos,  alguns esqueletos dos armários, de acordo com a conveniência política), o Washington Post tornou públicas 2.000 páginas de documentos que “revelam que as autoridades americanas enganaram o público sobre a guerra do Afeganistão”. Essencialmente, ocultaram os efeitos desastrosos e também as implicações económicas, de uma guerra em curso há 18 anos.

Os dados mais interessantes que surgem são os dos custos económicos:

Ø  Para as operações militares, foram desembolsados 1.5 triliões de dólares, cifra que “permanece opaca” – por outras palavras, subestimada – ninguém sabe quanto despenderam na guerra os serviços secretos ou quanto custaram, realmente, as empresas militares privadas, os mercenários recrutados para a guerra (actualmente, cerca de 6 mil).

Ø  Visto que “a guerra foi financiada com dinheiro tomado de empréstimo”, os juros atingiram 500 biliões, o que eleva a despesa para 2 triliões de dólares.

Ø  Acrescentam-se a esta verba, outros custos: 87 biliões para treinar as Forças afegãs e 54 biliões para a “reconstrução”, grande parte dos quais “foram perdidos devido à corrupção e aos projectos fracassados”.

Ø  Pelo menos, outros 10 biliões foram gastos na “luta contra o tráfico de drogas”, com o bom resultado de que a produção de ópio aumentou fortemente: hoje o Afeganistão fornece 80% da heroína aos traficantes de drogas do mundo.

Ø  Com os juros que continuam a acumular-se (em 2023, chegarão a 600 biliões) e o custo das operações em curso, a despesa supera, amplamente, os 2 triliões.

Ø  Também é preciso considerar o custo da assistência médica aos veteranos, saídos da guerra com ferimentos graves ou inválidos. Até agora, para os que combateram no Afeganistão e no Iraque, foram despendidos 350 biliões que, nos próximos 40 anos, subirão para 1.4 triliões de dólares.

Visto que mais da metade dessa verba, é gasta com os veteranos do Afeganistão, o custo da guerra, para os EUA, sobe para cerca de 3 triliões de dólares.

Após 18 anos de guerra e um número não quantificável de vítimas entre os civis, ao nível militar, o resultado é que “os Taliban controlam grande parte do país e o Afeganistão permanece uma das principais áreas de proveniência de refugiados e migrantes”.

Portanto, o Washington Post conclui que, dos documentos vindos a público, surge “a dura realidade dos passos falsos e dos fracassos do esforço americano em pacificar e reconstruir o Afeganistão”. Desta maneira, o prestigioso jornal, que demonstra como as autoridades americanas “enganaram o público”, por sua vez engana o público, ao apresentar a guerra como “um esforço americano para pacificar e reconstruir o Afeganistão”.

O verdadeiro objectivo da guerra conduzida pelos EUA no Afeganistão, na qual a NATO participa, desde 2003, é o controlo dessa área de importância estratégica fundamental na encruzilhada entre o Médio Oriente, a Ásia Central, Meridional e Oriental, sobretudo, na periferia da Rússia e da China.

Nesta guerra participa a Itália, sob o comando USA, desde que o Parlamento autorizou, em Outubro de 2002, o envio do primeiro contingente militar, a partir de Março de 2003. A despesa italiana, subtraída ao erário público, tal como a dos EUA, é estimada em cerca de 8 biliões de euros, à qual se junta vários custos indirectos.

Para convencer os cidadãos, atingidos pelos cortes nas despesas sociais, de que são necessários outros fundos para o Afeganistão, diz-se que eles servem para trazer melhores condições de vida ao povo afegão. E os Frades do Sagrado Convento de Assis deram ao Presidente Mattarella, a “Lâmpada da Paz, de São Francisco”, reconhecendo assim, que “a Itália, com as missões dos seus militares, colabora activamente para promover a paz em todas as partes do mundo.”

Manlio Dinucci

Artigo original em italiano :

3000 miliardi $ nel pozzo afghano senza fondo

il manifesto

Tradutora: Maria Luísa de Vasconcellos

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Read part 1 here.

Traveling the Pamir Highway, we’re not only facing a geological marvel and a magic trip into ancient history and customs. It’s also a privileged window on a trade revival that will be at the heart of the expansion of the New Silk Roads.

Khorog is the only town in the Pamirs – its cultural, economic and educational center, the site of the multi-campus University of Central Asia, financed by the Agha Khan foundation. Ismailis place tremendous importance on education.

Badakhshan was always world-famous for lapis lazuli and rubies. The Kuh-i-Lal ruby mine, south of Khorog, was legendary. Marco Polo wrote that in “Syghinan” (he was referring to the historical district of Shughnan) “the stones are dug on the king’s account, and no one else dares dig in that mountain on pain of forfeiture of life”.

Shughnan worshipped the sun, building circular structures with the corresponding solar symbolism. This is what we see in Saka graves in the Eastern Pamir. As we keep moving east, the settled Pamiri culture, with its profusion of orchards of apricots, apples and mulberries, gives way to semi-nomadic Kyrgyz life and irrigated villages are replaced by seasonal yurt camps (not at this time of the year though, because of the bitter cold.)

At Langar, the last village of the Wakhan, rock paintings depict mountain goats, caravans, horse riders with banners, and the Ismaili symbol of a palm with five fingers. Archeologist A. Zelenski, in fascination, called the historical monuments of the Wakhan “the Great Pamir Route.” Aurel Stein stressed this was the main connection between Europe and Asia, thus between the whole classical world and East Asia, with Central Asia in between. We are at the heart of the Heartland.

Last stop before Xinjiang

Following the Wakhan all the way would lead us to Tashkurgan, in Xinjiang. The Pakistani border, close to the Karakoram Highway, is only 15 km to 65 km away, across forbidding Afghan territory.

It’s the Koyzetek pass (4,271 meters) that finally leads to the Eastern Pamir plateau, which the Chinese called Tsunlin and Ptolomy called Iamus, shaped like a giant shallow dish with mountain ranges at the edges and lakes at record altitudes. Marco Polo wrote, “The land is called Pamier, and you ride across it for twelve days together, finding nothing but a desert without habitations or any green thing, so that travelers are obliged to carry with them whatever they need. The region is so lofty and cold that you don’t even see any birds flying. And I must notice also that because of this great cold, fire does not burn so brightly and give out so much heat as usual, not does it cook effectually.”

Murghab, peopled by Kyrgyz – whose summers are spent in very remote herding camps – revolves around a mini-bazaar in containers. If we follow the Aksu river – once considered the source of both the water and the name of the Oxus – we reach the ultimate, remote corner of Central Asia: Shaymak – only 80 km from the tri-border of Afghanistan, Pakistan and China.

The Little Pamirs are to the south. As I reported for Asia Times way back in 2001, it was in this area, crammed with the most important Silk Roads passes of both China and Pakistan, that Osama bin Laden might have been hiding, before he moved to Tora Bora.

From Murghab, I had to inspect the Kulma pass (4,362 meters high), a New Silk Road border. The road – made by China – is impeccable. I found lonely Chinese container truck drivers and businessmen from Kashgar driving made-in-China minivans across the Pamirs to be sold in Dushanbe.

The deep blue waters of Lake Karakul, not far from Xinjiang. Photo: Pepe Escobar / Asia Times

On the High Pamirs we find around 800 ancient lakes created by earthquakes, tectonic activity and glaciers. Yashilkul lake (“Blue Water”), at 3,734 meters frozen this time of the year, sits in a plateau scouted by Stone Age hunters. Tajik archeologist V. Ranov found rock paintings of horses and carts, attributes of Mitra, the Persian god of the Sun. During the 10th to 3rd centuries B.C, the plateau was inhabited by nomadic tribes of the Persian-speaking Sakas.

From Shughnan to Ishkoshim, here we are in what the ancients called “The country of the Sakas.”

From Scythians to containers

The vast Scythian steppes that range from the Danube all the way to China were inhabited by a vast confederation of tribes. Then, in the 2nd to 1st centuries B.C., the tribes started moving to the east of the Greco-Bactrian state. Some of them settled in the Pamirs and became the ethno-genetic component of the Pamiri ethnicity. Alex, my driver, is a true Pamiri from Khorog. He’s also the real Pamir Highway Star with his badass black Land Cruiser. (“It’s a killing machine/ it’s got everything,” as Deep Purple immortalized it.)

Alex, Pamiri from Khorog, the Highway Star. Photo: Pepe Escobar / Asia Times

The highlight of the Eastern Pamirs is the spectacular blue inland, saltwater Karakul Lake, formed 10 million years ago by a meteor. Under the sun, it’s a radiant turquoise; this time of the year, I saw it deep, deep blue, not really the “Black Lake” that its name implies. Karakul because of its slight salinity was not frozen. This is chong (big) Karakul, the older brother of the kichi (small) Karakul across the border in Xinjiang, which I had the pleasure of visiting in my Karakoram Highway travels.

The High Pamirs are right behind Karakul, concealing the 77-km-long Fedchenko glacier. East of the lake, if you could survive a trek in Arctic conditions, is Xinjiang. The early Tang dynasty wandering monk Xuanzang was here in 642 (he thought the lake was people by dragons). Marco Polo was here in 1274.

It’s a tough life at Bulungkul, with the atmosphere of an Arctic station. Temperatures can drop as low as -63C in winter. Photo: Pepe Escobar / Asia Times

Our base to explore Yashilkul and later Karakul was Bulungkul – this time of the year a sort of Arctic station, with only 40 houses served by solar panels in the middle of nowhere, and temperatures hovering around minus 22 Celsius. It’s the toughest of lives. They told me that in winter the temperature drops to -63C.

Farther down the road, I took a diversion east to observe the Kulma pass, at 4,363 meters the official Tajik border with China, reached by a – what else? – made-by-China road, opened in 2004 following the ancient Silk Road.

The Tajik-Kyrgyz border at the Kyzyl-Art pass looked like a scene from Tarkovsky’s Stalker, utterly Soviet-style desolate except for a shared taxi loaded with Kyrgyz going to Khorog. From there, it’s a spectacular drive all the way to the crossroads of Sary Tash, and through the head-spinning, 3,615 meter-high Taldyk pass, towards Osh, the gateway to the Ferghana valley.

The Taldyk pass in southern Kyrgyzstan, all the way to Osh. Photo: Pepe Escobar / Asia Times

All across this mesmerizing Central Asia/Heartland journey, especially in the bazaars, we see in detail the crossroads of pastoral nomadism and irrigation culture, fertilized century after century by cross-cultural Silk Road trade involving herders, farmers, merchants, all of them part of commodity trading and provisioning for the caravans.

We delve into the vortex of immensely rich social, religious, scientific, aesthetic and ideological influences – especially from Persia, India, China and Iran. The shift from overland to sea trade in the 16th century – the start of European world domination – in fact never erased the traditional routes to India via Afghanistan, China via Xinjiang and Europe via Iran. Trade remains the top factor in Central Asian life.

Today the Pamir Highway is a privileged microcosm of what is slowly but surely evolving as the intersection between the New Silk Roads and Greater Eurasia – with its main hubs configured by Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan and – it may be hoped – India.

The ultimate crossroads of civilizations, the Heartland, is back – once again at the heart of history.

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This article was originally published on Asia Times.

Pepe Escobar is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Chinese container cargo trucks after crossing the Kulma pass at the Tajik-China border. Photo: Pepe Escobar / Asia Times

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Russia has started creating a local force that will operate in northeastern Syria areas abandoned by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, several Syrian media outlets claim.

According to reports, the Russian military will train and equip a new pro-government militia in the province of al-Hasakah. This militia will be deployed at former positions of the SDF, which have not been taken by the Syrian Army.

Since the start of the Russian military operation in Syria, Moscow has trained and equipped several pro-government factions that successfully operate in the provinces of Aleppo, Homs, Daraa and near Damascus. The Russian military also helped to create the 5th Assault Corps of the Syrian Army. The al-Hasakah-based militia will likely be used as a part of the wider plan to de-escalate the situation on the border with Turkey.

A team of experts from Saudi Arabia’s oil giant Aramco has reportedly visited and inspected the al-Omar oil fields in southeastern Deir Ezzor. Local sources suggest that the US-led coalition is going to involve experts and entities linked to the Saudi company in an attempt to expand the scale of its oil smuggling business.

In November, the Syrian military carried out a series of strikes on oil smuggling facilities near the Turkish-occupied city of Jarabulus in northern Aleppo. Back then, sources in Damascus warned that these strikes were only a first step in a campaign to put end to the smuggling of the Syrian oil by foreign forces.

More and more data contradicting the mainstream narrative blaming the Assad government for the April 7, 2018 Douma incident become available to the public. On December 14, WikiLeaks released another batch of documents that reveal mass dissent within the OPCW’s experts over the formal decision to lay blame for the supposed chemical attack on Assad. The leaked data includes a memo stating 20 inspectors think that the officially released version of the OPCW’s report on Douma “did not reflect the views of the team members that deployed to [Syria]”. Another revelation is that the OPCW possessed scientifically credible evidence showing the victims of the alleged attack had symptoms not consistent with chemical gas exposure.

These documents became the latest in a series dissent memos and documents destroying the “Assad chemical weapons” narrative. The previously released evidence revealed that the OPCW had doctored the Douma report and manipulated the collected evidence. It should be recalled that the United States, the United Kingdom and France carried out a joint missile strike on Syria in 2018 justifying the move by claims that it was a needed response to the supposed “Assad chemical weapon attack” in Douma.

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In the third of recent international interviews, Syria’s President Bashar al Assad met with Phoenix Television, to discuss Belt and Road development projects with China’s Phoenix Television.

Given that Syria and China are both part of the original Silk Road that created a beautiful explosion of the development and trade that uplifted humanity, this interview has greater importance than the recent one with France’s Paris Match and that with Rai News 24, subsequently banned in Italy. Transcript courtesy of SANA.

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Journalist:  Mr. President, on behalf of the Chinese television channel, Phoenix, I would like to thank you for giving us this interview.

President Assad:  You are welcome.

Question 1:  Mr. President, allow me to start straight away…  Syria has been able to make great achievements in fighting terrorism and large areas of Syrian territories have been restored.  Now, where will you begin the reconstruction of Syria?

President Assad:  In fact, we are not waiting for the end of a particular stage of the war in order to start reconstruction; reconstruction starts immediately after the liberation of any area, whether it is big or small, a village or a city.  Reconstruction has stages, the first of which is rebuilding the infrastructure, particularly in the areas of water and electricity.  Later, the state shifts its focus to schools, health centers and hospitals.

However, the most important stage in reconstruction, which comes later and constitutes the most serious challenge for us, is restoring daily activity especially economic livelihood.  This requires a great deal of effort and is affected by internal factors and the external environment – namely the embargo imposed by Western countries on Syria, which has a negative affect and slows the process down.  So, reconstruction has already started, but we need more investments from within and outside the country in order to scale it up.

Question 2:  And here we ask, Mr. President, what are the most important areas in which Syria needs the help of friendly countries, including China?

President Assad:  China specifically provides assistance in reconstruction particularly in the humanitarian domain.  As I mentioned earlier, life’s necessities are water and electricity and China is providing support in these areas through humanitarian grants which we apply to the areas most in need.

In the past, we did not engage in discussions with our friends – and at the forefront China, on reconstruction because the security situation did not allow us to initiate this process on a large scale.  Now, with the liberation of most areas, we have started discussions with a number of Chinese companies experienced in reconstruction.  As I mentioned, the most important stage and the greatest challenge is the full restoration of the economic cycle.  We would hope that Chinese companies start looking and studying the Syrian market which is improving quickly and constantly in terms of security.

It is essential that we start discussing investment opportunities, because it is well-known that rebuilding countries destroyed partially or totally by war is very profitable and has high returns-on-investment.  The process is not limited to loans or providing aid without any returns, it is a profitable investment in every sense of the word.

We have started talking to a number of Chinese companies on finding ways to evade sanctions and have access to the Syrian market.  They have shown an interest because the process is profitable, but investors and investment companies still have concerns about the way sanctions could impact them.  We have found certain formulas, which will not be disclosed of course, for them to enter the Syrian market safely and consequently contribute to the reconstruction process in Syria.

I would like to emphasize that this support is not limited to the economy; reconstruction ultimately means contributing to Syria’s stability for two reasons.  First, in the past two years, millions of Syrians have returned from abroad without finding sufficient job opportunities, which in itself is a factor that can be used by terrorists and outside powers.  Second, the reconciliation we have achieved in Syria, was in part with those who worked with the militants or the terrorists at a certain period.  They agreed to lay down their weapons and return to their normal lives – this return requires job opportunities.  So, the support from China and other friendly countries in Syria’s reconstruction, is as important as the military efforts to restoring stability in Syria, and striking and fighting terrorism.crimes-against-peace

Question 3:  So, can we ask about the concrete measures that are being taken by the Syrian government in order to attract investors coming from China and other friendly countries?

President Assad:  The first thing an investor needs is security.  When we talk about a country coming out of war: we have achieved great milestones in this respect, but we are not completely finished.  The first question an investor asks is about security, this is what we are doing on a daily basis – fighting terrorists and liberating areas one by one.

As to the investment environment, there are requirements any investor would need, regardless of whether there is a war or not.  In this regard, we are focusing on two things:  the urgent, which is improving this investment environment by addressing necessary measures, like transparency, clarity on investors’ rights and obligations in the country and the legal or judicial aspects of their investments.  With all these issues, we are currently drawing up clear guidelines for investors.

However, the more important and comprehensive step is the investment law.  We have achieved significant progress in developing our investment law in-line with similar laws in many other countries around the world, thus ensuring it is based on international investment standards.

This law clearly identifies the guarantees given to investors concerning their investment in Syria:  legal guarantees, financial guarantees, exemptions clearly laid out, the tax situation for their investments – and any other aspects which constitute a guarantee to ensure that this investment is completely safe and profitable.  We are now in the final stages of this law and it will be passed soon.

Question 4:  Well, Mr. President, are there specific measures taken to ensure the existence of a safe investment environment which assure Chinese investors to come and not face any security problems?  Chinese investors are very concerned about this.

President Assad:  That’s right, this is a serious challenge.  In fact, there are two challenges.  First, is the current lack of sufficient or effective financial channels between Syria and China for the transfer of money.  This is a real problem caused mainly by the sanctions.  A solution must be found if we want investors to come to Syria; a solution needs the engagement of relevant financial institutions from both countries, which requires discussion at a state level.  This is a major obstacle that needs to be overcome.

The second issue is the fear that many Chinese companies still have.  Today, there are companies which are willing to send experts to Syria.  This is important because many Syrian industries have started to show interest in the Chinese market, for example Syrian factories which buy their equipment from China.  Previously, Chinese experts had concerns about coming to Syria; this has recently started to improve, which is a new step.

However, when we talk about Chinese investment with Chinese capital, this needs more assurances; we must exert greater effort in this regard as a Syrian state and we hope the Chinese state with its relevant institutions – like the China Export and Credit Insurance Corporation, to encourage investors to come to Syria or at least to the areas which have become completely safe.  In this interview I confirm this and since you are in Syria, you are able to convey the true, unexaggerated picture about the extent of security achieved recently.

Intervention: So, the Syrian government guarantees security to all Chinese companies which might come to Syria, and that there is no problem in terms of safety?

President Assad:  Certainly.

Question 5:  Mr. President, I would like to ask you about the Belt and Road Initiative.  How do you see this initiative in general?

President Assad:  From a strategic perspective, it constitutes a worldwide transformation, a transformation in the nature of international relations.  If we look at the current situation in the world, we see that it is governed by Western attempts of domination, particularly on the part of the United States.  In the past during the Cold War, there was a period of conflict among states.  This conflict was based on the degree of dominance of each pole, particularly the Western pole over a group of states, in order to achieve its interests against the other pole.

Before that, World War II and the preceding period of full colonialization; states occupied other nations and wherever they did so, they defined the interests of those peoples under their domination.  In most cases there were no mutual interests; those peoples were enslaved by the more powerful states.

Today, we see that there is a superpower – China, trying to strengthen its influence in the world. But what kind of influence?  It is not the negative influence we have become accustomed to, but rather an influence in the sense of relying on friends and an influence based on mutual interests.  When we in Syria think about being part of the Silk Road and Syria is a small country – by international, geographic, demographic, economic and military standards…

Intervention: But historically, it is on the Silk Road.

President Assad:  It is exactly on the Silk Road, but what is more important is that this new approach is derived from history but is suitable for the 21st century; it is an approach built on parity.  When we are part of this Road, China treats us as equals and not as a superpower dealing with a small country.  There are mutual interests: it is beneficial to China, Syria and all the countries on this Road.

Another aspect, is that it is not limited to China’s bilateral relations with these countries but rather it is a relationship among all the countries on this axis.  So, it is a relationship of culture and civilization which ultimately leads to greater prosperity and investment, and the improvement of the social, economic and security conditions in these countries.  This means more stability in the world, which is contrary to what we have known in our modern and recent history.  This is what we see in the Silk Road (Belt and Road Initiative): stability and prosperity.

Question 6:  Syria, for its part, expressed its desire to take part in the Belt and Road Initiative.  Are there any developments in this regard?

President Assad:  During the previous period, and especially in the early years of the war due to the instability, it wasn’t our priority.  Perhaps because it didn’t make sense to talk about infrastructure when you are in a state of life or death, not as individuals but as a homeland, as a nation – Syria.

Now that we have overcome this stage and with the increased stability and the improvement of the economic cycle in Syria, we have started this year a serious dialogue with the Chinese government on how Syria can become part of the Silk Road (Belt and Road Initiative).  At present Syria is not on the route; there are different routes and Syria is not on them.  However, part of the initiative includes cultural, educational and scientific domains, and through the direct relationship between us and China, there has been a large number – which has increased in recent years – of scholarships offered to Syria that we are benefitting from.  The discussions have recently started concerning infrastructure, which is one of the most important elements and could make Syria a part of the Silk Road (Belt and Road Initiative) in the future.  We have proposed a number of projects only a few months ago.

Intervention:  In specific areas.

President Assad:  Of course.  In areas related to infrastructure, we have proposed around six projects to the Chinese government in line with the Belt and Road methodology and we are waiting for the Chinese government to determine which project, or projects, is in line with their thinking.  I think when this infrastructure is developed, with time, the Silk Road (Belt and Road Initiative) passing through Syria becomes a foregone conclusion, because it is not a road you only draw on a map.  Whilst it is true that historically the Silk Road passed through Syria, Iraq and this region, today however, this initiative takes into account the available infrastructure required for these routes.  Therefore, by establishing, strengthening, and developing this infrastructure, the Silk Road (Belt and Road Initiative) will pass through Syria in the future.

Question 7:  Do you think that Syria has now become ready, security-wise, to be part of this initiative?

President Assad:  Precisely, because we are ready security-wise, we have started discussions with our Chinese friends.  Before that, it wasn’t logically or practically possible to initiate such a dialogue.

Question 8:  Mr. President, I would like to ask you about the situation in America.  The United States holds presidential elections next year.  If Trump is not reelected for a new presidential term, would that failure, in your opinion, be useful to Syria or not?

President Assad:  In one of my interviews, I referred to Trump as being the best because he is the most transparent.  Of course, being the best doesn’t mean that he is good; but transparency is a good thing especially that when it comes to Western politics because we have become accustomed to masks which hide real Western intentions regarding the world.

However at the same time, we need to realise that the American political system is not a state system in the sense that we understand.  It is a system comprised of lobbies.  The rulers of America are the money lobbies, whether in the form of oil, weapons, banks, or others. These lobbies control all parts of American politics.

When Trump tried to be independent, albeit in a very limited degree, the attack against him started.  We are now witnessing the impeachment process aimed at bringing the President back into line with the lobbies.  All the presidents we have dealt with in Syria, from Nixon in 1974 – when relations with America were restored, up to Trump today are controlled by these lobbies.   No matter how much good will any president has, he cannot act outside the policies of these lobbies.  Therefore, betting on the change of presidents is misplaced and unrealistic and I don’t think that this American policy will change in the next few years.  That’s why during the election campaign, they say one thing and once they are elected, they do the complete opposite.  For those reasons in Syria we never consider which American president comes and which one leaves.

Intervention:  In this context, I pose the question: after the American president announced his intention to withdraw American forces from Syria, he suddenly backtracked and said that he will leave American troops in Syria in order to protect oil wells in the area east of the Euphrates.  So, he suddenly takes a decision, and then goes back on it.

President Assad:  Exactly, what you are saying confirms my point that the lobbies are the ones in charge of the policies.  It also confirms that this state is not governed by principles, but rather by the interests of those companies; if they have an interest in occupying the oil wells, stealing and selling them one way or another, then this state and this regime will act in favor of these companies, regardless of international law and regardless of American law.  They violate American laws for the sake of these companies because if they don’t make them happy, the president might be impeached.

Question 9:  Mr. President, what is the number of the remaining American troops on Syrian territories now?

President Assad:  The funny thing in American politics is that they announce the number between thousands and hundreds.  When they say thousands: it is to make the the pro-war lobby – particularly the arms companies, happy that they are in a state of war.  When they say hundreds: they are addressing the people who oppose the war by saying that they are only “a few hundred.”  In actual fact, both figures are incorrect for a simple reason; even if these figures were correct, they are based on the number of American soldiers and not the number of individuals fighting with the American army.  The American regime relies significantly in its wars on private firms like Blackwater in Iraq and others.  So even if they had a few hundred American soldiers in Syria, they still also have thousands – maybe tens of thousands, of civilians working for such companies and fighting in Syria.  That’s why it is difficult to know the real number, but it is certainly in the thousands.

Question 10:  The Americans say that they will protect oil wells in the east of Euphrates area in Syria; but in the end, what are they going to do with the oil produced from those wells?

President Assad:  Before the Americans, in the early days Jabhat al-Nusra used these wells; after ISIScame and drove out al-Nusra – or rather when ISIS merged with al-Nusra and they all became ISIS, it also stole and sold oil.  Where? It used to sell it through Turkey.  Now America is the one stealing oil and selling it to Turkey.  Turkey is an accomplice, with all these groups, in selling oil; it doesn’t have a problem – Turkey is ready.  The Turkish regime plays a direct part in selling the oil, previously with al-Nusra, later with ISIS and today with the Americans.

Question 11:  In this situation, what is the impact on Syrian oil returns?

President Assad:  At a certain point at the beginning of the war, oil returns dropped to almost zero.  Today – after restoring a small number of wells during the past two years – we have a little amount of oil.  However, there is still limited positive impact on the Syrian economy from oil because most of the wells are either under the control of terrorist groups or groups acting outside the law and under American command.  So, the situation with the oil has not changed much.

Question 12:  Yes. So, how is the Syrian government going to face the question of American presence in the oil fields area east of the Euphrates?

President Assad:  First, the Americans rely on terrorists.   The terrorists must be attacked, this is a priority for us in Syria.  Striking the terrorists weakens the American presence one way or another.  At a later stage: there are Syrian groups acting under American command and these groups must be persuaded, one way or another and particularly through dialogue, that it is in all our interests in Syria that they embrace the homeland and join the Syrian state’s efforts to liberate all its territories.  At that point, it’s only natural that there will be no prospect for an American presence.  However, if they remained, they have their experience in Iraq to consider; there will be a popular resistance and they will pay the price.  Ultimately, the Americans will leave.

Question 13:  Mr. President, we have witnessed recently popular protests and riots in some neighboring countries, including Iraq, Lebanon, and even Iran.  In fact, these countries are considered, to a certain extent, Syria’s allies.  How do you view what happened and is happening in these countries?

President Assad:  Of course, neighboring countries have a direct impact on us because there are direct family and economic relations, as well as other types of relations that exist between any two neighboring countries.  At the same time, the Middle East as a whole is one area; the social fabric is similar, beliefs are similar and interests are intertwined even when these countries are not direct neighbors.

If we assume that the movements taking place aim to address the problems faced by the population and that they would lead to improving economic, political and other conditions in these countries, then I can say that the impact will be positive.

However, if we think logically, would the Western countries and in particular the United States, leave these countries to continue spontaneously?!  They would definitely interfere and would certainly exploit every movement in order to create chaos, because American policy – at least since 2000 and since the Iraq war – is to create chaos. This is what they called ‘constructive chaos;’ that is how George Bush and Condoleezza Rice referred to it.  This ‘constructive chaos’ which they are looking for, is a type of chaos that achieves their interests.  That’s why when this chaos takes place in our region, or in any other region, it will have a negative impact on us.  Chaos is contagious, it’s like a disease, it spreads; so, we can only hope that these events remain in the internal, spontaneous, popular framework.

Question 14:  Would it be possible to say that one should look for an American role wherever there is chaos?

President Assad:  This is self-evident and has become well-known throughout the world.  What is the difference between the policies of superpowers: America, and those who stand with it – like France and Britain, believe or think – which we see as wrong but they see as right – that the interests of these countries or this axis, lies in creating chaos; whereas Russia, China and most other countries believe that stability and international law are in the best interest of the world and its states, big or small.

Journalist:  Mr. President, thank you very much for availing us this opportunity and we wish you continued success and progress.

President Assad:  Thank you and I also thank Phoenix Television for this interview.

Journalist:  Thank you very much.

President Assad:  You are welcome.

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