Global Research

For a generation, American political reformers have been obsessed with the idea of ‘money in politics.’ According to reformers, political organizations that bundle money and donate it to campaigns are corrupting politicians. So, the theories go, campaign finance reform would ‘get the money’ out of politics so politicians wouldn’t be bound to special interest groups and be free to vote their conscience. In this case, politicians voting their conscience coincides with the wish list of campaign finance reformers who are almost universally on the political left.

For all the talk of campaign finance reform, perhaps the biggest flaw in American politics today is the primary system by which the two parties select their candidates. The party primary campaigns unofficially begin after the midterm elections, more than a year before the New Hampshire Primary and Iowa Caucus. The system is easily manipulated by a candidate with money and organization. Such a candidate can portray themselves as the frontrunner and the inevitable nominee. George W. Bush, the GOP establishment’s pick in 2000, did this.

Hillary Clinton did so as well, though Obama beat her anyway in 2008 and Sanders would have won the nomination if the Democratic National Committee hadn’t rigged the system in Clinton’s favor.

But this year, after nearly a year of campaigning, there is no obvious Democrat frontrunner. According to the latest Morning Consult Poll, taken the first week of November, former Vice President Joe Biden leads the race at 31%. Composed of African American voters and what moderates remain among the Democrat party base, Biden’s support is broad but not deep. Trailing Biden are Socialist Bernie Sanders (20%), Senator Elizabeth Warren (18%), Mayor Pete Buttigieg (8%), and Senator Kamala Harris (6%). None of these candidates has appeal wide enough to lock up the Democrat Party nomination. Were they operating in the Westminster system, the Democrats would have a hung parliament.

Which brings us to Hillary Clinton. Since her husband announced his candidacy in 1991, Hillary has plotted her own path to the White House. Hillary took her first step in 2000 with her successful senate bid. She easily won reelection in 2006.  In 2008, Hillary was the Democrat frontrunner. No one could stop her, except for the junior senator from Illinois, Barrack Obama. Hillary had no answer for Obama’s youth, charisma, and biography, and she lost the close and bitterly contested nomination. At least Hillary was able to pad her resume by serving as Obama’s Secretary of State. In 2016, no serious potential candidate dared enter the race, the field was cleared and the process rigged by DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Even so, insurgent candidate Bernie Sanders almost beat Hillary. Then came Donald Trump and Hillary went home at the end of another bruising campaign.

Usually when losing an election, the nominee returns to his old political job, like Senator John Kerry in 2004 or John McCain in 2008, or retire from politics altogether, as Jimmy Carter did after 1980 and Walter Mondale after 1984. Not Hillary. Since 2016, Hillary Clinton has remained very much in the public eye. She published What Happened, her self-serving and whiney account of the 2016 campaign in which she blames everyone for her loss but herself. Hillary’s long list of grievances includes the press, the FBI, even the Russians. She has since toured the United States and the west slamming President Trump and repeating her conspiracy theories about Russian collusion, refusing to move on or let go.

In fact, even at this late date, Hillary refuses to rule out a third presidential run. In an interview with the BBC this week, Clinton claimed that ‘a lot of people are pushing hard’ for her to run again. She also said, “I, as I say never, never, never say never. I will certainly tell you. I’m under enormous pressure from many, many, many people to think about it.’ Given her two failed presidential bids, this is unlikely. But, it is very likely that Hillary wants to run for president a third time.

And why not? Hillary won the popular vote in 2016. In the eyes of the Democrat party faithful Trump is an illegitimate president and Hillary should sit in the Oval Office. Besides, the Democrat Party field is weak. Elizabeth Warren is a product of the elite, a college professor with a lot of ideas that appeal to affluent, coastal liberals. Bernie Sanders is an elderly socialist. Joe Biden is a relic. None of these candidates appeal to Midwestern working class voters that voted for Trump and gave him the election.

Hillary has been part of American political life longer than Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Everything she’s touched from the beginning of her political career to the end she has mess up, Arkansas land development, healthcare reform, Benghazi and Libya.

Yet still she refuses to retire quietly and enjoy her fortune. We’ll never be rid of her.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

William Stroock is an author of military fiction.

Former British military officer James Le Mesurier suspected of ties to MI6 and the co-founder of the so-called “White Helmets” front was found dead this month in Turkey from an apparent fall from his residence.

The Western media wasted no time linking it to claims Russia had recently made that he was an intelligence asset involved in sowing instability worldwide – attempting to portray Russia as somehow likely responsible for Le Mesurier’s death.

Not a Rescue Org 

In actuality, the “White Helmets” were an extension of Western armed and funded terrorist organizations operating in Syria with the “White Helmets” specifically serving the purpose of war propagandists thinly disguised as “rescue workers” or local “civil defense.”

They found themselves repeatedly at the center of alleged chemical attacks the US accused the Syrian government of – indicating their likely involvement in carrying out false flag operations – many of which may have actually killed real people.

The deceptive manner in which the “White Helmets” operated has already been extensively exposed and their credibility rendered moot – not least because the terrorist organizations they augment are nearing extinction – surrounded in Syria’s northern governorate of Idlib.

Cui Bono? 

Le Mesurier’s continued existence as the co-founder of a now irrelevant propaganda arm to a defeated proxy army makes no difference to Syria and its Russian allies.

Le Mesurier’s continued existence – however – did pose the perpetual threat of the knowledge he had of covert US operations in Syria including the use of the “White Helmets” in staging chemical attacks and other atrocities and their role in manipulating international organizations like the OPCW eventually becoming public.

It is obvious that his death – whatever the cause – benefited the US and UK which backed him and his faux humanitarian relief organization – meaning that whatever secrets he harbored are now taken to the grave with him.

Work for Horrible People, Meet a Horrible End

Finally, let Le Mesurier’s end serve as a warning for those serving the agenda of global aggressors particularly in the targeting and destruction of a sovereign nation like Syria.

Even upon death, the establishment that bank rolled him and propped him up used his corpse as a prop in their public relations campaigns. The truth of his death may never emerge. With the possibility that he was terminated by his own employers – pause for thought will hopefully reverberate across the peripheral operations created to prop up and promote the “White Helmets.”

Anyone who finds themselves in possession of facts and willfully distorts them for profit in the employ of nations willing to lie to promote death and destruction on a global scale cannot possibly believe they are ever safe or will perpetually be more useful alive than dead.

Regardless of the actual cause of Le Mesurier’s death, he was  certainly useful to the system that created him and whom he served. We must also acknowledge that he had accumulated 8 years of top secrets which were liable to spill out.

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Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer. He writes on his blog site, Land Destroyer Report, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Time and again, Russia stressed that it supports the sovereign independence and territorial integrity of other countries.

On Monday, its Foreign Ministry denounced the toppling of Bolivia’s Evo Morales, a statement saying:

“We are alarmed by the dramatic developments in Bolivia, where a wave of violence, unleashed by the opposition, has prevented President Evo Morales from completing his tenure of office,” adding:

“We are deeply concerned that the government’s readiness to search for constructive dialogue-based solutions, voiced during the domestic political crisis in the country, was wiped out by developments typical of a well-orchestrated coup d’etat.”

Russia clearly knows it was made in the USA, Trump regime hardliners OKing it, CIA dirty hands all over events leading up to Bolivia’s October presidential election and its violent aftermath, toppling democratically elected Evo Morales, forcing him to resign and seek refuge in Mexico to avoid assassination.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it supports “guaranteeing the rights of all (Bolivian) citizens and ensuring the socioeconomic development of that country.”

Time and again, Moscow voiced strong opposition to interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states by foreign powers — clearly what happened in Bolivia.

CIA dirty hands orchestrated the coup, co-opting key military and police officials to abandon support for Morales, conspiring with Bolivian fascists to force democratically reelected Evo Morales from office, replacing him with a self-declared, unelected, political nobody, coup d’etat president.

Bolivia’s usurpation regime has no legitimacy, unconstitutionally installed by brute force.

There was no constitutionally required legislative quorum in session when Jeanine Anez swore herself into power — illegally usurping it.

She got scant support in Bolivian legislative elections. Most people in the country knew nothing about her. Morales’ Movement for Socialism MPs were warned not to show up for the parliamentary usurpation, unconstitutionally anointing her president.

Her power grab with support from the US, Bolivia’s military, and fascist politicians is what despotism is all about.

Despite calling what happened in the country a coup d’etat, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said the following on Thursday:

“(I)t is clear that (Anez) will be perceived as the head of Bolivia until a new president is elected, and this is the internal affair of Bolivia.”

Moscow has commercial interests in the country. In March 2016, it signed an agreement with Morales’ government to build a $300 million nuclear center in El Alto, a city near La Paz, Bolivia’s political capital.

Reportedly it’ll include a research reactor, a cyclotron for radio-pharmaceuticals, and a multi-purpose gamma irradiation plant, along with facilities for research in energy, medicine, and agriculture.

At the time, Morales said

“(o)ur brother President Vladimir Putin has promised me the transfer of Russian know-how and technology.”

Russian energy giant Gazprom invested around $500 million in Bolivian oil and gas projects.

In February, Bolivian firm YLB signed a lithium industrialization agreement with China’s Xinjiang Tbea Group, a joint “financing and implementation venture.”

Uyuni, Bolivia salt flats reportedly have one of the world’s largest lithium reserves, an estimated nine millions tons.

According to mining.com, Bolivia has “around 25% of the known (lithium) reserves, but so far it has done nothing with it.” Other estimates indicate a greater percentage of world reserves in the country, an invaluable resource if developed.

The mineral has numerous industrial applications (including batteries), along with its use in producing a mood-stabilizing drug in treating bipolar disorders.

The coup toppling Morales came days after he cancelled a lithium joint agreement with Germany’s ACI Systems Alemania (ACISA)  to develop electric batteries — reportedly because of unfairly low royalities.

At the time, his government said it “invested huge amounts to ensure that lithium is processed within the country to export it only in value-added form, such as in batteries.”

With Trump regime-supported anti-Morales hardliners in charge, Bolivian agreements with Russia and China could be scrapped in favor of US business 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.

Commanders of Bolivia’s military and police helped plot the coup and guaranteed its success. They were previously educated for insurrection in the US government’s notorious School of the Americas and FBI training programs.

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The United States played a key role in the military coup in Bolivia, and in a direct way that has scarcely been acknowledged in accounts of the events that forced the country’s elected president, Evo Morales, to resign on November 10.

Just prior to Morales’ resignation, the commander of Bolivia’s armed forces Williams Kaliman “suggested” that the president step down. A day earlier, sectors of the country’s police force had rebelled.

Though Kaliman appears to have feigned loyalty to Morales over the years, his true colors showed as soon as the moment of opportunity arrived. He was not only an actor in the coup, he had his own history in Washington, where he had briefly served as the military attaché of Bolivia’s embassy in the US capital.

Kaliman sat at the top of a military and police command structure that has been substantially cultivated by the US through WHINSEC, the military training school in Fort Benning, Georgia known in the past as the School of the Americas. Kaliman himself attended a course called “Comando y Estado Mayor” at the SOA in 2003.

At least six of the key coup plotters are alumni of the infamous School of the Americas, while Kaliman and another figure served in the past as Bolivia’s military and police attachés in Washington.

Within the Bolivian police, top commanders who helped launch the coup have passed through the APALA police exchange program. Working out of Washington DC, APALA functions to build relations between U.S. authorities and police officials from Latin American states. Despite its influence, or perhaps because of it, the program maintains little public presence. Its staff was impossible for this researcher to reach by phone.

It is common for governments to assign a small number of individuals to work at their country’s embassies abroad as military or police attachés. The late Philip Agee, a one-time CIA case officer who became the agency’s first whistleblower, explained in his 1975 tell-all book how US intelligence traditionally relied on the recruitment of foreign military and police officers, including embassy attachés, as critical assets in regime change and counter-insurgency operations.

As I found from the more than 11,000 FOIA documents I obtained while writing my book on the paramilitary campaign waged in the lead up to the February 2004 ouster of Haiti’s elected government and the post-coup repression, U.S. officials worked for years to ingratiate themselves and establish connections with Haitian police, army, and ex-army officials. These connections as well as the recruitment and information gathering efforts eventually paid off.

In Bolivia, too, the role of military and police officials trained by the US was pivotal in forcing regime change. U.S. government agencies such as USAID have openly financed anti-Morales groups in the country for many years. But the way that the country’s security forces were used as a Trojan Horse by US intelligence services is less understood. With Morales’s forced departure, however, it became impossible to deny how critical a factor this was.

As this investigation will establish, the coup plot could not have succeeded without the enthusiastic approval of the country’s military and police commanders. And their consent was influenced heavily by the US, where so many were groomed and educated for insurrection.

Leaked audio exposes School of the Americas grads plotting a coup

Leaked audio reported on Bolivian news website La Época, and by elperiodicocr.com and a range of national media outlets, reveals that covert coordination took place between current and former Bolivian police, military, and opposition leaders in bringing about the coup.

Los audios de la conspiración del #GolpeDeEstadoEnBolivia. Por @elperiodicocr https://t.co/lw2qjpqsmm pic.twitter.com/P4M4dbIw2W

— Rompeviento TV (@RompevientoTV) November 10, 2019

The leaked audio recordings show that former Cochabamba mayor and former presidential candidate Manfred Reyes Villa played a central role in the plot. Reyes happens to be an alumnusof WHINSEC (formerly known as the School of the Americas), who currently resides in the United States.

The other four who are introduced or introduce themselves by name in the leaked audio are General Remberto Siles Vasquez (audio 12); Colonel Julio César Maldonado Leoni (audio 8 and 9); Colonel Oscar Pacello Aguirre (audio 14), and Colonel Teobaldo Cardozo Guevara (audio 10). All four of these ex-military officials attended the SOA.

Cardozo Guevara, in particular, boasts about his connections amongst active officers.

The identities of these individuals are confirmed by cross-checking the data of the School of Americas Watch lists of alumni with Facebook and local Bolivian news articles and the leaked audio recordings.

The School of the Americas is a notorious site of education for Latin American coup plotters dating back to the height of the Cold War. Brutal regime change and reprisal operations from Haiti to Honduras have been carried out by SOA graduates, and some of the most bloodstained juntas in the region’s history have been run by the school’s alumni.

For many years, anti-war protesters have staged a protest vigil outside the SOA’s headquarters at the Fort Benning military base near Columbus, Georgia.

A protest vigil outside the School of the Americas at Fort Benning

The leader of those protests, Father Roy Bourgeois, has described the SOA as “a combat school. ” He continued:

“Most of the courses revolve around what they call counter insurgency warfare. Who are the insurgents? We have to ask that question. They are the poor. They are the people in Latin America who call for reform. They are the landless peasants who are hungry. They are health care workers, human rights advocates, labor organizers, they become the insurgents, they’re seen as ‘el enemigo’ — the enemy. And they are those who become the targets of those who learn their lessons at the School of the Americas.”

Bourgeois was deported from Bolivia in 1977 when he spoke out against the human rights abuses of Gen. Hugo Banzer, a right-wing dictator who rose to power through a US-backed coup that toppled a leftist government. History repeats itself today as Banzer’s ideological heirs drive another socialist leader from power through time-tested destabilization tactics.

In the recently leaked audio recordings, coup plotters discuss plans to set ablaze government buildings, get pro-business unions in the country to carry out strikes, as well as other tactics – all straight out of the CIA playbook.

Also alluded to in the leaked audio is that the coup attempt would be supported by various evangelical groups as well as by Colombian President Iván Duque, ex-Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, and most notably Brazil’s neo-fascist President Jair Bolsonaro.

The plotters also mention the strong support of ultra-right U.S. senators Ted Cruz, Bob Menéndez, and Marco Rubio, who is said to have the ear of President Donald Trump when it comes to U.S. foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere.

Military and Police Attachées in DC: A breeding ground for U.S. intelligence networking

As tensions built over recent weeks, it was the commanding general of the Bolivian Police, Vladimir Yuri Calderón Mariscal, who broke the stalemate by leading large parts of the police force to revolt on November 9th, just a day prior to the resignation of Morales.

Then-Col. Vladimir Yuri Calderón Mariscal (third on the left) with other APALA officials in 2018.

In 2018 Calderón Mariscal served as President of Police Attachés of Latin America in the United States of America (APALA), which is based in Washington, DC.

APALA has been described as a “multidimensional security” program that works to build relations and connections between U.S. authorities and police officials from many of the Organization of American States members.

At APALA’s founding in 2012, then-OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza (center in photo below) met with the group’s leadership.

Today APALA hosts police attachés from 10 countries: Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, Peru, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

According to its Facebook page, the group “was created, with the objective of generating, promoting, and strengthening ties of solidarity, friendship, cooperation and support between the members of the group and their families through social, cultural activities, which allow to generate integral development.”

It claims to be facilitating the “integration and exchange of the police institutions that comprise it, in addition to promoting the exchange of successful experiences developed by the different police forces of Latin America.”

Photo of Calderón Mariscal (center-right) at the FBI training academy that is 36 miles outside of Washington, DC

A mysterious organization, APALA has shut down its website ApalaUSA.com and does not answer phone calls. It functions in some capacity as an arm of U.S. federal agencies as its social media platform and now defunct website showcase numerous meetings and photos of APALA officials and participants alongside FBI, DEA, ICE, and other U.S. officials.

As Philip Agee explained in his book Inside the Company, the CIA often uses other U.S. government agencies such as the FBI and USAID, as well as various front-organizations, to carry out its clandestine activities without leaving fingerprints.

Below: APALA participants at the FBI headquarters in Washington DC

Visita de trabajo de @apalausa a @FBI En las instalaciones del J. Edgar Hoover, en Washington, D.C. pic.twitter.com/gaDZrjHaHB

— APALA (@apalausa) November 16, 2017

One of APALA’s key local members is Alex Zunca, a police officer in Baltimore who is the director of international affairs for the Hispanic National Law Enforcement Association, which is based in Washington, DC.

APALA’s street address listed on its now defunct website is the same address as the embassy of Mexico in Washington, DC. The group was apparently run out of the Mexican Embassy, at least between 2017 and 2018 when its website was active during the administration of the US friendly former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.

Interestingly, a colleague of Calderón Mariscal’s and also a former President of APALA is an associate minister of the Federal Police of Mexico named Nicolás González Perrin.

Below, he can be seen seated beside a Mexican national flag and an FBI hat.

In a 2017 interview with the Washington Hispanic, a DC-based Spanish language newspaper, González Perrin declared

“that APALA holds meetings, permanently, with the most significant federal agencies in the United States, ‘from INTERPOL to DEA, ICE and the FBI, who work with us, based on mutual needs.’”

Another important APALA participant is Hector Ivan Mejia Velasquez, the former General Commissioner of Honduras’s National Police, who has led brutal operations against protesters in his own country, and regularly posts anti-leftist screeds on social media.

En la @EmbamexEUA primera reunión anual de @apalausa contamos con la presencia de @FBI @ICEgov @CustomsBorder @DEAHQ @ATFHQ. Juntos construimos un mundo más seguro 👍👮🏻‍♂️🌍. pic.twitter.com/S3CZCMnJXt

— APALA (@apalausa) January 12, 2018

Calls to APALA’s public contact, whose name appears to be Alvaro Andrade, went unanswered. My calls to his number, which is listed as being located in Rockville, Maryland, went straight to a voicemail stating that it was restricted. The webmaster of APALA’s former website is Mario Ruiz Madrigal, a system’s engineer in Mexico.

APALA, whose Facebook page Andrade appears to operate, has worked with other Bolivian police officials as well, such as Bolivian police attaché Heroldina Henao.

#apala Reconocimiento a la Agregada Policial Bolivia Heroldina Henao por parte del Presidente NICOLÁS G. PERRIN. pic.twitter.com/DvUbRNTtA1

— APALA (@apalausa) November 30, 2016

The other key official that helped to bring about the November 10th coup is General Williams Kaliman (image below), the current head of Bolivia’s military. He served as a military attaché for his country’s embassy in Washington, D.C. in 2013. A decade prior, he had taken part in training at the SOA.  Little is known about his time in the United States.

At different times both Kaliman and Calderón Mariscal appear to have either been loyal to or feigned loyalty to the constitutional government, but ultimately split from it or were convinced over time to carry out a military putsch.

For his part, deposed President Morales has claimed that a member of his own security team was offered $50,000 to betray him.

The November 10 coup d’état did not materialize out of thin air. Events that have transpired inside Bolivia are intimately connected to U.S. efforts to influence military and police forces abroad through programs like SOA and APALA.

While U.S. President Donald Trump cheers on a “a significant moment for democracy in the Western Hemisphere,” Bolivians are suddenly under the control of a de facto military regime.

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Jeb Sprague is a Research Associate at the University of California, Riverside and previously taught at UVA and UCSB. He is the author of “Globalizing the Caribbean: Political economy, social change, and the transnational capitalist class” (Temple University Press, 2019), “Paramilitarism and the assault on democracy in Haiti” (Monthly Review Press, 2012), and is the editor of “Globalization and transnational capitalism in Asia and Oceania”(Routledge, 2016). He is a co-founder of the Network for the Critical Studies of Global Capitalism. Visit his blog at: http://jebsprague.blogspot.com

All images in this article are from The Grayzone unless otherwise stated

Bolivia’s legitimate President, Evo Morales now in exile in Mexico said that the “The OAS is in the service of the North American empire” and that he “could not understand” how his military leaders betrayed Bolivia. “That confirms that my great crime is to be indigenous. It’s a class problem” rt.com reported.

Regardless, Morales still has the support of the majority of the Bolivian people. Morales’ made history as Bolivia’s first indigenous president who was a poor farmer and without a college education.

“The exiled president said that after freeing itself from the International Monetary Fund, the Bolivian economy was doing better” the report said.

Historically speaking, many Bolivian presidents before Morales were aligned with Washington’s interests and were oppressive against the poor and indigenous peoples. They had murdered workers who were on strike and they even sold off Bolivia’s mineral wealth to U.S. and European corporations. The Bolivian people remained poor for decades under right-wing dictatorships who joined forces with the U.S. and even militarized coca producing regions where Morales experienced firsthand tyranny according to an Al Jazeera story from 2014 on Evo Morales’s rise to power titled ‘Bolivia: Has Evo Morales Proven His Critics Wrong? “One event vividly stuck out for Morales after moving to the coca-growing region: In Chipiriri, a cocalero (coca farmer) was killed by the military for refusing to plead guilty to trafficking drugs.

“Without any contemplation, [the military] covered his body in gasoline and, in front of many people, burned him alive” Morales said.

However, the story also mentioned Morales’s success

“The GDP has steadily grown from 2009 to 2013, and the UN reports that Bolivia has the highest rate of poverty reduction in Latin America, with a 32.2 percent drop from 2000 to 2012. Employment rates and wages have also gone up, with a notable 20 percent minimum wage raise last year.” Morales’s economic plan turned out to be successful as stated by Al Jazeera “Morales approach of putting various industries under state control, from mines to telecommunications companies, has generated enormous funds for the government, which it is using for infrastructure – only 10 percent of the country’s roads are paved – and social programmes to lift children, mothers and the elderly out of poverty. Thanks to a successful literacy programme, UNESCO has declared the country free of illiteracy.”

When Morales was declared the winner in the October 20th elections, violent right-wing protests soon followed. The leaders of the opposition led by mostly fascist elements of Bolivian society including Luis Fernando Camacho who Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton of The Grayzone described him as “a powerful multi-millionaire named in the Panama Papers, and an ultra-conservative Christian fundamentalist groomed by a fascist paramilitary notorious for its racist violence, with a base in Bolivia’s wealthy separatist region of Santa Cruz.”

No surprise that Camacho has the support of the right-wing governments of Colombia and Brazil along with the Venezuelan opposition leaders who are still trying to overthrow Nicolas Maduro after their recent failures to do so. The violent protests that has erupted against the Morales government has led to extreme violence resulting in deaths, beatings of politicians which forced the resignation of Morales and his vice president García Lineran and others in his administration on the advice of army officials and police chiefs who were bought and paid for by Washington.

The Morales government called it a coup by U.S. backed opposition forces. Morales did propose dialogue with the opposition parties, but was flatly rejected. It was reported that Morales even accepted Washington’s lackey, the ‘Organization of American States’(OAS) advice to set up new elections, but was ignored.

The violent protests were directed at leaders of the Movement To Socialism (MAS) which is Morales’s political party and journalists who were beaten by right-wing mobs.

The BBC reported that the mayor of a small town in Bolivia was dragged from her home and then they covered her in red paint and cut her hair.

“Patricia Arce of the governing Mas party was handed over to police in Vinto after several hours. It is the latest in a series of violent clashes between government supporters and opponents in the wake of controversial presidential elections” the report said. In wake of the chaos, Evo Morales and others in his administration decided to resign to end further bloodshed. On Friday Morales said that “I would like to tell you, brothers and sisters, as well as entire Bolivia and the whole world. I will not give up (the presidency). We have been elected by the people, and we respect the constitution.”

Trump Claims That Latin America Is On Its Way to Democracy, Prosperity and Freedom 

On Monday, President Trump praised the coup as a “significant moment for democracy.” Trump said that

“after nearly 14 years and his recent attempt to override the Bolivian constitution and the will of the people, Morales’s departure preserves democracy and paves the way for the Bolivian people to have their voices heard.”

Trump also threatened Venezuela and Nicaragua because it will “send a strong signal to the illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua that democracy and the will of the people will always prevail. We are now one step closer to a completely democratic, prosperous, and free Western Hemisphere.” Washington supports its current right-wing puppets in Ecuador with Lenin Moreno and Chile’s own billionaire President, Sebastián Piñera. Perhaps, Trump should ask the Ecuadorian and Chilean people about democracy and economic prosperity under those two fascist governments. Do you remember what Trump said when he was a presidential candidate and then, president-elect in December 2016? He said that

“We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn’t be involved with.”

Trump’s attitude was obviously going to change given the fact that the Pentagon and Washington’s deep state insiders are in charge of Trump’s foreign policy. Recently, The Trump regime tried to topple Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, but failed. Now Trump is on board with the deep state and the right-wing opposition in Latin America to re-establish U.S. dominance by carrying out the same strategy of regime change in Venezuela, Nicaragua and others despite the rising pink tide with Lula Da Silva of Brazil who was just released from prison. Lula was sent to prison after a July 2017 conviction for allegedly accepting $1.2 million bribe from a Brazilian construction company called OAS for helping them obtain lucrative government contracts. Lula Da Silva has always denied the false allegations. However, Washington’s influence along the wealthy right-wing oligarchs played a role in Lula’s imprisonment. One of Lula’s attorneys at the time, Valeska Texeira Zanin Martin said that

“This politically motivated judgement attacks Brazil’s rule of law, democracy and Lula’s basic human rights. It is of immense concern to the Brazilian people and to the international community.”

Lula along with leaders from Argentina, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela have condemned the coup in support of Morales.

Why Washington Wanted Evo Morales Out of Power

Morales was targeted for a number of reasons. Back in 2013, Morales kicked out one of Washington’s main tool for regime change operations ‘USAID’. on May 1st, 2013 Reuters’ reported that

“Morales said he was kicking out the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as a “protest” after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry recently referred to Latin America as Washington’s “backyard.” Morales had said that “today we’re only going to nationalize … the dignity of the Bolivian people,” Morales said. “USAID is leaving Bolivia.”

That was a blow to Washington’s agenda in its “backyard.” However, the CIA influenced National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which it has funded Right-wing causes with millions of dollars of grants since Morales was elected.

Morales is also a critic of U.S. foreign policy in general no matter who is the President of the United States. Although Washington and its military-industrial complex including the CIA had planned to remove Morales from power before Trump was in office, however, Trump was criticized at the U.N. security meeting in 2018 when Morales said that

“I would like to say to you, frankly and openly here, that in no way is the United States interested in upholding democracy’’ and that the U.S. under the Trump regime “could not care less about human rights or justice.” Morales added that “If this were the case, it would have signed the international conventions and treaties that have protected human rights,” he said. “It would not have threatened the investigation mechanism of the International Criminal Court, nor would it promote the use of torture, nor would it have walked away from the Human Rights Council. And nor would it have separated migrant children from their families, nor put them in cages.’’

Sensitive Trump did not like that, his alter-ego was crushed at the U.N. security council meeting and that’s why he praised the coup.

As For Bolivia’s Natural Resources, The American Establishment Wants It All

It’s well known that Bolivia has the largest reserves of lithium in the world. As reported by Bloomberg News last year in ‘Bolivia’s Almost Impossible Lithium Dream’ based on Bolivia’s lithium reserves:

Demand for lithium is expected to more than double in 2025. The soft, light mineral is mined mainly in Austria, Chile and Argentina. Bolivia has plenty-9 million tons that have never been mined commercially, the second-largest amount in the world-but until now, there’s no practical way to mine and sell it

One major economic development for the Bolivian government is when they chose Xinjiang TBEA Group Co Ltd,  a Chinese consortium for its lithium production projects which is also a threat to U.S. economic interests and its waning dominance in Latin America. As reported by Reuters earlier this year “China’s Xinjiang TBEA Group Co Ltd will hold a 49 percent stake in a planned joint venture with Bolivia’s state lithium company YLB, the Bolivian firm said.” As for China and Bolivia working together to produce lithium in America’s Backyard? Both Democrats and the Republicans including the neocons who are in both parties in Washington will not tolerate such a joint venture especially when China is involved.  The report said that

“Bolivia estimates that development of the projects will cost at least $2.3 billion. The Chinese firm will provide initial investment and YLB will pay its share with future lithium production, YLB’s executive manager Juan Carlos Montenegro said by phone.” Morales was quoted as saying “Why China? he continued “There’s a guaranteed market in China for battery production,” Bolivian President Evo Morales said in broadcast comments at a signing ceremony in the highland city of Oruro. China, the biggest global consumer of lithium, will need 800,000 tonnes of the metal per year by 2025 to support its booming electric car industry, China’s Ambassador to Bolivia Liang Yu said at the same event, hailing the deal as “historic.” Lithium is a key component in batteries that will power the next generation of new electric cars.

From the time that Evo Morales was elected, Washington had plans to oust him especially when Morales joined forces with the late Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and other anti-US left-wing governments that were rising throughout Latin America. The Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported that Morales had tweeted “It pains me to leave the country for political reasons, but I will always be watching. I will be back soon with more strength and energy.” With Lula coming back to politics and with Venezuela, Mexico, Nicaragua, Cuba and now Argentina with the President-elect Alberto Fernández who was the Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers during Néstor Kirchner’s presidency and for a short time for Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s presidency. It’s starting to look like the fight for Latin America to free itself from the claws of the American Empire, has just begun.

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The Bolivian tragedy teaches us various lessons that our people and the peoples social and political forces must learn from and record in our consciences forever. Here is a brief list, jotted down quickly, and as a prelude to a more detailed analysis in the future.

First: despite the exemplary economic administration of the Government of Evo which guaranteed growth, redistribution, flow of investments and improvements in the macro and micro economic indicators, the right-wing and imperialist forces will never accept a government that does not lend itself to the services of its interests.

Second: it is necessary to study the manuals published by diverse agencies of the US and it’s spokespersons disguised as academics and journalists in order to perceive, in time, the warning signs of the offensive.

These texts invariably highlight the necessity of destroying the reputation of the popular leader, what in specialized slang they call “character assassination”, classifying him as a thief, corrupt, dictator and ignorant.

This is the task entrusted to social communicators, self-proclaimed “independent journalists,” that in favor of their almost monopoly control of the media, hammer this defamation into the mind of the population, accompanied by, in the case we are dealing with, messages of hate directed against the Indigenous people and the poor in general.

Third: once the prior is completed, the time comes for the political leadership and the economic elite to demand “a change,” to put an end to “the dictatorship” of Evo that, as the disgraceful Vargas Llosa wrote a few days ago is “a demagogue that wants to eternalize his power”.

I bet he was toasting and drinking champagne in Madrid when he saw the images of the hoards of fascists looting, burning, chaining up journalists to a post, shaving the head of a female mayor and painting her red, and destroying the ballots of the last election, to carry out the mandate of Don Mario and to liberate Bolivia of an evil demagogue.

I mention him as an example because it is the immoral flag bearer of this vile attack, of this limitless felony that crucifies people’s leaders, destroys democracy and installs a reign of terror led by bands of hit men hired to punish a dignified people that had the audacity of wanting to be free.

Fourth: the “security forces” enter the scene. In this case we are talking about the institutions controlled by numerous agencies, military and civic, of the government of the United States.

They train them, arm them, do joint exercises and they educate them politically. I had the opportunity to witness this when, at the invitation of Evo, I inaugurated a course “Anti-imperialism” for officers of the three armed forces.

In this opportunity I was astonished by the degree of penetration of the most reactionary North American slogans inherited from the era of the Cold War and due to the undisguised irritation caused by the fact that an indigenous person would be president of the country.

What these “security forces” did was withdraw themselves from the scene and give free range for the uncontrolled actions of the fascist hoards -as they acted in Ukraine, in Libya, in Iraq, in Syria to overthrow, or try to do so in this last case, leaders that bother the empire- and as such intimidate the population, the militant sectors, and the figures of the government themselves.

So it’s a new socio-political concept: military coups “by omission”, allowing the reactionary groups, recruited and financed by the right, to impose their law. Once terror reigns and with the defenselessness of the government, the outcome was inevitable.

Fifth: The security and public order should never have been entrusted in Bolivia to institutions like the police and the army, colonized by imperialism and it’s lackeys of the local right-wing.

When the offensive was launched against Evo, he opted for a policy of appeasement and of not responding to the fascist provocations.

This served to embolden them and allow them to increase their bets: first, demand a second round run-off election; then, fraud and new elections; shortly after, elections but without Evo (like in Brazil without Lula).

Then, they demanded the resignation of Evo; finally, due to his reluctance to accept blackmail, they instilled terror with the complicity of police and military and to force Evo to resign. Straight from the manual, everything. Will we learn from these lessons?

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This article was first published in Spanish at Atilio Boron.com.ar.

South Korea has historically paid an unusually large percentage of the cost of keeping US forces there, and under pressure from President Trump, agreed earlier this year to a substantial increase, with South Korea agreeing to pay $924 million annually.

Since then, Trump had suggested a few times that he wanted more, and that South Korea could easily afford it. His new demand, however, shocked everyone on both sides as he is demanding over five times what South Korea is paying, $4.7 billion annually.

This is raising a lot of questions in South Korea about the viability of keeping the US around, but the bigger task is for US officials, who are trying to somehow justify a $4.7 billion price tag that seemingly came out of nowhere.

South Korea, after all, was paying a lot of the cost of US forces already, then agreed to pay more. It is going to take massive amounts of creative math to even argue that the US presence costs what Trump is now demanding. Early indications are that officials will try to argue that South Korea’s relative economic prosperity is because of the US presence and that the US deserves to take a cut.

But some officials are also worrying that this isn’t an isolated matter, and that what Trump is doing now in South Korea could be a bellwether for upcoming demands in Germany and Japan, other nations Trump has long been keen to get more money out of.

Though Trump seems to believe these nations have no choice but to pay up, they may ultimately decide the US troop presence simply isn’t affordable, and that other arrangements make more sense.

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Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com.

Featured image is from Antiwar.com

Evo Morales’ fourth term was over before it began. After winning the latest presidential election by over 600,000 votes, a flurry of violence on the part of the U.S.-backed opposition in Bolivia pressured Evo to step down. Evo’s home was vandalized and several party members of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) threatened with violence. The coup in Bolivia, which was solidified by recommendation from the military, is the latest of dozens of military coups spearheaded by the United States over the last century and a half. U.S. imperialism has viewed Latin America as its backyard since 1823 when it declared the “right to protect” the region in the Monroe Doctrine. It was at this time that the American Empire replaced the Spanish Empire as the foreign power responsible for keeping Latin America in a state of oppression, dependency, and poverty.

After over a century of U.S. imperial aggression, Evo Morales arose as one of the most revolutionary leaders of the movement for socialism in the 21^st century in Latin America—a movement that gained significant traction after the election of former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in 1998. MAS has been in power since 2006. The MAS has acted as a vehicle for workers and peasants to assert their dignity and self-determination. Trade union, indigenous, and women’s organizations have all played a major role in the implementation of social policy under Evo’s leadership. Economic growth in Bolivia has increased by an average of five percent per year, with many of the gains distributed to the indigenous populations formally dispossessed by centuries of colonial and neocolonial rule. Extreme poverty has been cut in half over the same period.

U.S. imperialism sought to dispose of Evo Morales and his indigenous-led movement even before it came to power. A FOIA request found that in 2002, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had earmarked 97 million dollars to assist “regional autonomy” projects and right-wing opposition political parties in Bolivia. These funds helped develop a U.S.-aligned political infrastructure in Bolivia responsible for the coup. The USAID has acted as the political arm of the IMF, World Bank, CIA, and the Bolivian elites who do their bidding. One of the “protest leaders” of the right-wing opposition, Luis Fernando Camacho, is the son of the founder of Sergas, a gas corporation which owes over two million USD to the Bolivian state for tax evasion and fraud. Under U.S. leadership, petty capitalists such as the Camacho family have used NGOs funded by USAID to overthrow Evo and his nationalization decree that placed petroleum, electricity, telecommunications, and mining sectors under the direction of the state.

The coup being waged by the right-wing opposition has been labeled a “protest movement” by the U.S. corporate media. Coup plotters such as oligarch and former Bolivian President Carlos Mesa have alleged that their protests have come in response to election fraud. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, no evidence of irregularities or fraudulent activities were found in the election results. The baseless claim was used by the imperialist corporate media to provide cover for the violent military coup. MAS politicians have been forced to flee their homes, government buildings have been burned, and the Bolivian economy has been ground to a halt. The oligarchy in Bolivia is out for blood and it has the police and military on its side.

This is not the first time that the American Empire has waged a violent coup in Bolivia. The CIA provided military and technical support to right-wing military dictator René Barrientos. Barrientos took power by way of military coup in 1964. His brutal suppression of the peasant uprising to his rule led to the assassination of Che Guevara. In 1971, the U.S. backed right-wing general Hugo Bánzer Suárez with the help of the U.S. Air Force. Hundreds of leftists and political activists would be murdered by his regime.

The coup of Evo Morales comes as the left in Latin America was making a resurgence amid countless attempts by the American empire to destroy their social democratic project. In late October, Argentina elected Alberto Fernandez and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as president and vice president, effectively ending the right-wing and neoliberal rule of Mauricio Macri. Tens of thousands took to the streets in Ecuador and forced Lenin Moreno to back away from an IMF deal which would have imposed harsh austerity measures on workers, students, and peasants. Lula Da Silva was released from prison to begin November. Lula’s freedom represented a concrete victory for a Brazilian left currently facing enormous challenges under the rule of former officer of the fascist military dictatorship, Jair Bolsonaro.

The American Empire has struck back against the left in Latin America with a devastating blow in Bolivia. There are many lessons to learn from the U.S.-backed coup. For one, too few in the belly of the U.S. empire are prepared to come to the defense of the peoples’ struggle in Latin America or anywhere else. The corporate media has placed a national blinder on the host of coups staged by the American empire in the last ten years alone, whether we are talking about the Clinton-Obama coup in Honduras in 2009 or the ouster of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in 2016.  Awash in white supremacist ideology and confined to the most unrestrained form of capitalism on the planet, workers and poor people in the U.S. have few avenues from which to express concrete solidarity with the Bolivian masses.

Another lesson of the U.S.-backed coup in Bolivia is that the so-called “end of history” proclaimed by the American empire after the fall of the Soviet Union was a complete and utter lie. The American empire is “capitalist to the bones” and its rulers believed the world would remain under its thumb indefinitely. Evo Morales and the rest of the socialist left in Latin America, while unable to completely expropriate the property and power of the oligarchs, were able to lead a mass movement toward the dignity and self-determination of the oppressed. This path required that the seeds of socialism were sewn into the fabric of governance throughout Latin America. Whether it’s called “Chavismo,” “21^st century socialism,” or the “pink tide,” this movement has empowered workers and peasants to unify across borders to alleviate poverty, underdevelopment, and imperial dependency.

Evo Morales was at the forefront of Latin America’s burgeoning internationalism. He was a huge supporter of Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA).  Furthermore, Evo challenged the American empire on the military front by advocating for the development of a continental military united in defending the sovereignty of Latin America. The so-called “end of history” was thus nothing more than an arrogant display of American imperial hubris that only clouded its true interests abroad. Socialism has remained the American empire’s public enemy number one even after the end of the so-called Cold War. The American Empire does not respect democracy or elections, just the profits of the few. Evo’s Bolivia is paying the price for placing the needs of poor Bolivians ahead of the riches of the elite.

Perhaps the most important lesson from the coup in Bolivia is that the struggle for socialism and self-determination is far from over. The oligarchs seeking to wrestle control of Bolivia and the entire continent back from the workers and peasants will stop at nothing to lynch Evo Morales. A warrant is out for his arrest even though he has committed no crime. The oligarchs want to bring the working class back into a state of total misery. While the ouster of Evo Morales is indeed a significant defeat, the socialist movement in Latin America will no doubt fight back. The people of Bolivia will fight back. Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and other allied nations will do everything they can to support the MAS through a difficult transition. It is important that the left living in the belly of the American empire find a way to do the same.

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Danny Haiphong is the co-author of the book American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People’s History of Fake News-From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror.

Featured image is from RT/Youtube

¡Chile despertó!
¡Piñera, renuncia!
¡Piñera ya fue!
¡Que se vayan los milicos! 

Chile Has Woken Up!
Piñera Resign!
Piñera Has Gone!
Let the “Milicos” leave! (“Milicos” is a derogatory word for police and military personnel)

These are some the powerful chants that have echoed throughout the streets of cities small and large in Chile during mass protests that began in October 2019. Poor, working and oppressed people and students have united to demand dignity and human rights – in one word, an end to neo-liberalism in Chile.

This movement began following the October 6 announcement by the government of Chile that there would be a 30-peso transit system fare hike. This increase, which amounts to about $0.04 USD, was enough added pressure to an already tight household budget for many Chileans to bring millions of people out into the streets.

“It’s not about the 30 pesos. It’s about 30 years” 

For the first two weeks, protests were organized by high school students who called on people to refuse to pay transit fares. By October 18 the President of Chile, Sebastián Piñera had not responded to the students’ demands – and instead declared a State of Emergency and deployed the military and riot police to attack the students.

Despite the extreme repression and curfew, people in Chile continued to demonstrate. Then, on October 21, President Piñera, extended the State of Emergency, declaring,

“We are at war against a powerful enemy, who is willing to use violence without any limits.”

With these words, Piñera displayed outright contempt for the people of Chile, and his true colours as an ally of the U.S. and staunch supporter of neo-liberalism in Chile at the same time. By then, protests which had largely been contained to the capital city of Santiago, spread to other cities. At least 10,500 police and soldiers had been deployed by October 21 (BBC).

Protests against the government and neoliberalism have continued to grow and spread throughout the country and into the most oppressed sectors of society. The Indigenous Mapuche people of Chile, who make up about 10% of the population, have also organized and led protests demanding their self-determination and land rights.

Despite the severe repression, on October 25, 2019, 1.2 million people marched in Santiago, representing diverse sectors of Chilean society including social movements, Indigenous people, women, retired people, unions, students and more. The protests have continued since then, and the repression and cruelty of the Piñera government and his military and police goons has reached a severity not seen in Chile since the bloody Pinochet dictatorship ended over 30 years ago.

As reported by the National Institute of Human Rights (Instituto Nacional de Derechos Humanos – INDH), a nongovernmental organization in Chile, at least 177 people have faced severe eye injuries or lost their vision after being deliberately hit in the face by tear-gas canisters and rubber bullets. The same organization has also investigated possible torture sites, and documented cases of un-uniformed police or military throwing people into car trunks and vans. As of October 30, 2019, at least 19 people have been killed and over 1,200 people have been wounded. INDH has also filed 18 cases of sexual violence, including rape, and 92 cases of torture, against police and soldiers.

Why are People in Chile Protesting?

So, how is it that in the face of so much violence, people in Chile have continued their mass protests? What started with a transit fare increase has led to a revolt against Chile’s neoliberal government and institutions – and even demands to change the constitution. As Alan Vicencio, a 25-year-old call-center worker told Time Magazine, “The whole constitution makes me angry, the constitution allowed the privatization of every aspect of our lives and it’s being doing it for more than 30 years.”

Often hailed as “business friendly” and the prime example of the “success” of a free market system, Chile is the most unequal of the 36 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In 2017, the United Nations released a report “Unequal. Origins, changes and challenges in Chile’s social divide,” which explained how the richest 0.1% of the people in Chile control 19.5% of the wealth.

Privatization runs rampant in Chile through all sectors of life including water, roads, energy, healthcare and the pension system. Although some education is public, there is a great divide between the public and private school systems.

The minimum wage in Chile is not enough for a dignified life – especially as everything is privatized, making everyday life in Chile very expensive. For example, if someone in Chile made minimum wage the cost of transit to and from work would eat up 21% of their paycheque (NACLA.org).

Protestors in Chile are fighting for their dignity. They are fighting against inequality. They are fighting against police and military brutality. These are all symptoms of neoliberalism, which is the economic policy expression of the agenda of imperialism around the world.

One only must look towards to the United States’ relationship with the government of Chile to understand just how Chile has become such a good ally to the U.S. With regard to the violence against protestors, the White House stated that,

”The United States stands with Chile, an important ally, as it works to peacefully restore national order,” and “President Trump denounced foreign efforts to undermine Chilean institutions, democracy, or society.”

More broadly, as President Trump put it in a press conference a year ago,

“There are so many issues that we have to discuss because Chile and the United States are likeminded countries. We share the most important things, which are values — democracy, human rights, freedom. But Chile is really something special. If you look at what they’ve done, how far they’ve come. You look at how well run the country is.”

This is what is sounds like when a government in Latin America is following the orders of the U.S. government and their financial institutions.

Clearly, behind the repression in Chile is the support of the United States, but also the support of many of their imperialist allies, including the government of Canada. In fact, Prime Minister Trudeau had a phone call with Piñera in the midst of severe police and military repression and didn’t say one word to him – as reported by CTV News,

“A summary from the Prime Minister’s Office of Trudeau’s phone call with Pinera made no direct mention of the ongoing turmoil in Chile, a thriving country with which Canada has negotiated a free trade agreement.”

This is no surprise given that, as reported by the government of Canada, 14% of Canada’s mining assets are in Chile including copper, gold and silver mines. This includes Barrick Gold, which had to shut down a $429 million gold mine earlier this year due to severe human rights and environmental violations.

Both the governments of the U.S. and Canada also want to hold up the repressive Piñera government because having a neo-liberal “success story” and a staunch ally in Chile serves them well in their drive to re-establish imperialist hegemony in Latin America. Having a U.S.-supported government in Chile puts imperialists in a better position for their continued attacks against the sovereign and independent countries of Cuba and Venezuela.

Chile – Target of Imperialist Aggression and Exploitation 

The modern history of Chile is a history of colonization, imperialist domination and exploitation. Although Chile won independence from Spain in 1818, it wasn’t until 150 years later that the people of Chile had the opportunity to be truly independent from colonial and imperialist rule. In 1970, the people of Chile chose to reverse their history of colonization and exploitation, and elected Salvador Allende, who had a progressive and popular agenda to improve the life and oppose imperialist exploitation of Chile.

However, only three years after his election, in 1973, the United States and their imperialist allies orchestrated a bloody coup d’état, murdering Allende and installing a bloody military dictatorship. In just the first 5 years of his brutal rule, the U.S-backed dictatorship of General Agosto Pinochet imprisoned and tortured at least 30,000 people and disappeared 3,000 people. A constitution written under the dictatorship, which is the same one that enshrines privatization, is still in place in Chile today.

Reviewing the modern history of Chile also helps to explain the continued determination of the people of Chile to continuing protesting in mass in the streets until their demands are met. Despite some concessions that Piñera has been forced to give, such as the increases to monthly pensions or the minimum wage, a cabinet shuffle, or agreeing not to raise the transit fare, people are not leaving the streets.

As, Vilma Alvarez, a leader of the Jumbo Union (Jumbo is a chain of grocery stores in Chile) explained in an interview with the Argentinian news agency Pagina 12, the concessions that Pinera has offered to the protesters are not enough. They are, “another way to continue transferring money to the financial sectors and not giving any relief to the population,” and “The demand is for Piñera to resign and for a Constituent Assembly to be held.” The people of Chile have had enough.

Building Solidarity with the People of Chile 

Why should working and oppressed people in Canada support the struggle of people in Chile? For one, the people of Chile are facing a criminal and violent repression of their basic human rights. They are being arrested, tortured, raped and killed because they have taken to the streets in the millions to oppose inequality and austerity and to struggle for their basic dignity.

As Isabel Sanchez stated to Aljazeera news on October 26,

“We are of the generation that began our lives in the dictatorship, and we had no youth. We lost friends; we saw people slaughtered. We lived with fear, but now the young people have blossomed, they have lost that fear.”

It is time also for us, as poor, working and oppressed people in Canada and the United States to recognize the courage and struggle of the people of Chile, stand with them, and echo their voices.

Also, as people living in the United States and Canada, we have the added responsibility to stand in solidarity with the people of Chile because the governments of Canada and the U.S. are supporting the brutality and repression of the Piñera government.

Chile Diaspora Supports the Struggle

In the U.S. and Canada, members of the Chilean community and their allies have also taken to the streets to call for human rights for people in Chile and denounce the indiscriminate violence waged against protestors by the Piñera government. There have been solidarity protests organized in major cities across the United States, and in Canada, including in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Vancouver and Victoria. These solidarity actions have not only brought together people from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences, but also many generations of Chileans – from those that fled during the Pinochet dictatorship, to young people from Chile who are in the Canada and the U.S. to study.

In Vancouver, the Chilean diaspora has come together with others living in Canada in a new group named Van4Chile. Van4Chile has organized protests and public demonstrations in solidarity with the people of Chile, including an energetic protest in front of the CBC in downtown Vancouver on November 2, 2019. At this action, more than 200 people, from all walks of life, came together to demand that the CBC cover the protests in Chile. They also called out the government of Canada’s complicity in the repression of people’s human and democratic rights in Chile. To get involved and follow the work of Van4Chile find them on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @Van4Chile.

Don’t Boycott Chile

It is also important to say that within the movement in solidarity with the people of Chile, there has been calls for a boycott against Chilean wine or other products produced in Chile. While this call for boycott may have been made with good intentions, the most important action that we, as peace-loving people in Canada and the U.S. can take for the courageous people of Chile is not to boycott them, but to support them. Perhaps, we must think more critically about what boycotting Chilean wine will do for people in Chile.

Today in Chile the working class and oppressed people are under brutal attack, economically, politically and socially, by the Sebastian Piñera government and imperialist exploitation. So, it is possible that a boycott that targets Chile’s economy has the potential to damage their movement and to reinforce the austerity which they are already living under. Any damage to the economy of Chile will surely be passed on from Chile’s richest families and capitalist class (they have billion dollars to survive) to poor and working people in Chile, increasing the austerity, pressure and inequality that they face. And Chile is not only a wine producer! Do we want also to boycott the mining, metal, mineral companies whose products amount to 60%, or $40 billion, of all of Chile’s exports, making up 20 percent of Chile’s GDP? The wine industry exports only $2 billion of the $70-77 billion of total exports from Chile.

That being said, do we really want the wine industry in Chile go bankrupt? Who is benefiting from that? Working people? Of course not. Do we want workers and people who work in wine industry to lose their jobs, or do we want to help the capitalist class to find excuses to lay-off workers and impose downsizing and overtime? Aren’t these the very policies of neoliberalism that Chilean people, and we, are opposing? Isn’t this shooting ourselves in the foot?

Furthermore, it is also important to consider the alternative – if people around the world are asked to boycott Chilean wine because the government of Chile is reactionary – is drinking wine from the U.S., Canada, France, Spain, England, Australia, Italy, or Germany, who are responsible for the slaughter of tens of millions of people around the world (including Chile’s coup September 11,1973), really any better? The difference is that Chile is an oppressed country, a third-world country. Chile is not an imperialist country with vast finances and industrial resources. Chile as a country struggles within the world market which is overwhelmingly dominated by imperialist countries and their corporations (including wine companies).

Applying any given tactic to any struggle could be very damaging to the struggle itself if it is not well thought out. In the history of the struggle for a better world, a boycott movement has never been the most effective way to build solidarity. The only effective boycott movement was one that was demanded by the people within the country being boycotted, and this was the successful boycott movement against apartheid South Africa.

If we can take all the energy that could go into a boycott, and instead use it to raise sympathy and solidarity with Chilean people in Canada and the U.S. through street actions, petitioning, educational events, and more, our impact will be much greater.

As poor, working and oppressed people in Canada/U.S., and around the world we must raise the question of human rights, torture, rape, execution, repression and yes, neoliberalism and austerity measures in Chile. We need to expose the atrocities of Piñera, and the complicity of governments like the U.S. and Canada in this brutality.

Sebastian Piñera must go!

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This article was originally published as Volume 13, Issue 11 of Fire This Time newspaper.

Alison Bodine is a social justice activist, author and researcher in Vancouver, Canada. She is the Chair of Vancouver’s antiwar coalition, Mobilization Against War and Occupation (MAWO). Alison is also on the Editorial Board of the Fire This Time and is the author of “Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Venezuela” (Battle of Ideas Press, 2018). @alisoncolette

A Canadian political commentator and author of “Voices from Syria” said if a new constitution is approved by the Syrian Constitutional Committee, the foreign-backed “unelected” opposition cannot guarantee to adhere to it.

“Unelected opposing parties cannot guarantee anything,” Mark Taliano said in an interview with Tasnim.

“Their (opposing parties’) masters are not Syrian,” he said, adding, “Ultimately they will have no say in substantive matters.”

The following is the full text of the interview.

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Tasnim: The United Nation’s envoy for Syria said recently that first talks in the Swiss city of Geneva on the country’s constitution involving Syrian opposition, government and civil society representatives have “gone much better” than many would have expected. Geir Pedersen said the two co-chairs of the constitutional committee from President Bashar al-Assad’s government and the leading opposition have agreed to meet again on November 25, and that delegations would in coming weeks “hopefully come up with a work plan”. Representatives of both sides met to discuss a future constitution, part of plans for a political settlement to end eight and a half years of war. Expectations for the talks have been low, with Damascus and its allies having made gains on the battlefield that left them few reasons to grant concessions. What do you think about the developments? How possible is it for the Constitutional Committee to reach an agreement given the deep differences and lack of trust between its members?

Taliano: “Opposition” members may become more pliant as time passes and Syrian victories become more entrenched. “Opposition” members will likely be given an opportunity to “save face”. In substantive matters, the Syrian state will remain ascendant as the spectacle continues.

Tasnim: The Syrian Constitutional Committee was established with the aim of paving the way for a political settlement in Syria. If a new constitution is approved by the committee, how practical will it be?  How can the opposing parties guarantee to adhere to the new constitution?

Taliano: Unelected opposing parties cannot guarantee anything. Their masters are not Syrian. Ultimately they will have no say in substantive matters.

Tasnim: Given Turkey’s military operation against Kurds in northern Syria and the presence of Ankara-backed extremist groups in the area, what do you think about the negative impacts of foreign intervention on the political settlement of the Syrian crisis?

Taliano: Turkey and its NATO (terrorists) will be reined in, but on-going imperial war crimes and occupations will slow negotiations and continue to be enemies to Peace. Terrorism will be a challenge for as long as Empire illegally occupies Syrian territory.  The head of the Opposition’s “Syrian Negotiation Commission (SNC)”, Nasr al-Hariri, will find that on-going terrorism will hinder rather than advance his foreign-influenced agenda.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. Visit the author’s website at https://www.marktaliano.net where this article was originally published.

Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.

Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

Voices from Syria 

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-1-6

Author: Mark Taliano

Year: 2017

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As the military coup continues to entrench itself in Bolivia, the first goal of the perpetrators is to appear to be following the constitutional process. But the façade is not enough to hide the real disaster of yet another self-proclaimed president in Latin America. When you thought that the Juan Guaido experiment in Venezuela was a total failure in every respect, Bolivia repeats the same pathetic tragedy.

The main character is Jeanine Añez, the second vice-president of the Bolivian Senate who proclaimed herself to be the “president” of Bolivia supposedly according to the constitution. She declared, “I immediately take the presidency of the State.” She is a senator for the rightwing party Democratic Unity and has been an adamant opponent of Evo Morales who was forced into exile in Mexico by the Bolivian armed forces top brass, who now have enthusiastically recognised the new “president”.

A couple of farcical moments maybe first, when Añez stood in the middle of an almost empty Senate hall. At least Juan Guaido had a small crowd when he self-proclaimed in January 23. The second moment may have been when she walked into the presidential palace barely able to carry up high an oversized bible and declaring,

“The bible returns to the [presidential] palace”. Later she added, “our power is God, the power is God.”

Her religiosity is apparently very prominent.

But more seriously, what makes this a tragedy is that she appointed herself  “president” in an almost empty Senate because the majority of senators are members of the government party, Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS), and they were not present. Consequently there was no required quorum for the “vote” to take place. Prior to that, she quickly had to appoint herself president of the Senate because the MAS president and first vice-president were not present. So she skipped quite a few steps of the hierarchy breaking the constitution in order to appear to be entitled to the presidency…according to the constitution.

Evo Morales from Mexico twitted:

“This self-proclamation is against articles 161, 169 and 410 of the State Political Constitution [Constitución Política del Estado– CPE] that determine the approval or rejection of a presidential resignation, the constitutional succession from the Senate or Deputy [Assembly] presidents and the higher authority of the CPE. Bolivia suffers an assault to the power of the people.”

In fact, Article 161 has two functions relevant in this case, one is “accept or deny the resignation of the President and of the Vice President of the State.” This has not been done. And secondly, “receive the oath of the President and the Vice President of the State.” We have not heard if the new “president” has done so, but regardless, all has to take place when “The [Senate and Deputy] Chambers will meet in Plurinational Legislative Assembly.” As we know, no such assembly is functioning.

Article 169 is crucial: “In case of impediment or definitive absence of the President of the State, the Vice President will replace him/her, and in case of his/her absence [in turn] the President of the Senate will replace him/her, and in case of his/her absence, the President of the Chamber of Deputies will replace him/her. In the latter case, new elections will be called within the maximum deadline of ninety days.” We have just indicated that this process has not been followed because the presidents of the two Chambers were not even present.

Article 410 states who will have to abide by the constitution. “All people, natural and legal, as well as public bodies, public functionaries and institutions, are all subject to this Constitution.” This clearly applies to all the coup perpetrators without exception. But they have not.

To invalidate even more this absurd unconstitutional scenario is that when the legitimate president of the Senate, Adriana Salvatierra, representing the MAS government Party, attempted to enter into the Senate to claim to be elected president of Bolivia according to the constitution she was not even allowed to enter. Admittedly she had resigned but her resignation was never formally accepted.

To conclude, we have to note that constitutions are written to lay down basic fundamental rights, guarantees and rules of the State. Everything else, including clarifications of any constitutional matter, is the attribution, in the case of Bolivia, of the Plurinational Constitutional Court. But this court in turn is composed of elected members who are now literally dysfunctional or disbanded, or nor legitimate.

But what is really important to note is that constitutions are written assuming normal circumstances in the country and that those normal circumstances will continue indefinitely. The reality is that there is nothing normal following a coup. All standard basic definitions and notions of democracy, independence, sovereignty and foreign intervention break down creating a vacuum that is immediately filled with ideology and interests. What really makes the whole event in Bolivia tragic is that it is triggered by a foreign induced Hybrid War not for the benefit of Bolivians.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

Nino Pagliccia is an activist and freelance writer based in Vancouver. He is a retired researcher from the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is a Venezuelan-Canadian who follows and writes about international relations with a focus on the Americas. He is the editor of the book “Cuba Solidarity in Canada – Five Decades of People-to-People Foreign Relations” (2014). He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Deputy Senate speaker Jeanine Anez speaks from the balcony of the government Quemado Palace in La Paz after proclaiming herself the country’s interim president (Source: AFP / Aizar RALDES)

The fake “whistleblower’s name— Eric Ciamerella—has been known for a long time, but not officially. Now it is official. Senator Rand Paul has officially released his name. Funny, isn’t it, that only the Republicans want Ciamerella to testify. The Democrats won’t hear of it. See this.

If the American people are paying attention, the Democrats are in trouble. When Russiagate fizzled out on them, Adam Schiff (D,CA) orchestrated a fake “whistleblower” whom the Democrats cannot risk putting on the stand to testify. The Democrats’ focus shifted to sleazy State Department types who could offer nothing but second or third hand hearsay followed by a hearsay second telephone call that cannot be confirmed.

Why are the Democrats out on a limb like this? They can rely on the presstitutes to cover up for them in every respect and to continue to repeat endlessly without any verification their charges against Trump, but after going through the hoax of Russiagate are the American people stupid enough to fall for the replacement hoax?

Some analysts believe that the House Democrats are using the so-called impeachment not to produce any evidence, as they have none, but to gin up hatred of Trump especially among the youth who are known to want to be included in whatever is cool. The Democrats’ project is to make hating Trump cool and to convince young people to base their vote on being cool and hating Trump.

I recently asked where are Attorney General Barr’s indictments of Obama regime officials for the attempted Russiagate coup against Trump. Some Republicans explained that Barr is waiting until closer to the election in order to get maximum impact on the voting public. If so, this is a mistake. The longer Barr waits, the longer the presstitutes and Democrats have to discredit the indictments in advance as Trump’s effort to produce a countervailing news story. The longer Barr waits, the more of Trump’s presidency is given up to the impeachment circus. The longer Barr waits, the longer Republicans have to become demoralized by the complete absence of integrity among the American media and House Democrats. It is really very disgusting for anyone not caught up in the emotion of hating Trump at all costs. Honest people with integrity don’t want to be associated with such dirty business.

There actually are a lot of Americans who have been conditioned to hate Trump so completely that they would accept his removal by a coup.

They are so emotional that they are unable to think about the consequences for democracy of a coup. This is the slippery slope the Romans went down. Once an emperor was removed by a coup, every emperor could be, and often was, removed by a coup. The subsequent internal disorder contributed greatly to the fall of Rome.

There are many issues on which Democrats could legitimately challenge Trump in the forthcoming presidential election that would resonate with many honest Americans.

Democrats could challenge Trump for the coup against Bolivian President Morales.

They could challenge Trump for dismantaling environmental protections and for permitting mining and energy companies to loot national monuments and wildlife refuges.

They could challenge Trump for persecuting Julian Assange for practicing traditional journalism.

They could challenge Trump for serving Israeli instead of American foreign policy interests.

These and other issues would make a real campaign, one worthy of a democracy. Instead, we get hoax scandals.

What this tells us is that there is not enough integrity in the Democratic Party and American media for democracy to survive. When the political process consists of nothing but lies and hatred, democracy is not possible. Why are the House Democrats and the American media destroying democracy?

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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.

Featured image is from Shutterstock/cunaplus

On October 20, celebrations in honor of the 192nd anniversary of the Battle of Navarino (1827) (against the Ottoman Empire) with the participation of President P. Pavlopoulos were held in Greece. The President, in particular, addressed his speech on the importance of unity in protecting international law to the EU and Turkey. In addition, during the celebrations, he met with the Russian Ambassador to Greece Andrey Maslov.

It is worth noting that Russia, not being an EU member, has the greatest opportunities to influence Turkey’s policy towards Greece and Cyprus while the negotiations on Turkey’s accession to the Union were frozen on February 20, 2019.

As it is known, the first independent Greek state in modern history – the Septinsular Republic, was established with the participation of the Russian Admiral Fyodor Ushakov (image below), later venerated as a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church.

The trust that existed between the Russians and the Greeks at that time is evidenced, for example, by the long-term friendship of Admiral Ushakov and the Greek captains Sarandinakis and Alexianos who were the best in his squadron. Thanks to his skill, captain Stamatis Sarandinakis (“Yevstafiy Pavlovich”, as he was called by the Russians), a son of an archon from Monemvasia who died for the freedom of Greece, took charge of Ushakov’s flagship, and aboard this ship he bravely fought against Turkey and France. At the same time, their relationship was not limited to service and joint combat operations: Ushakov’s respect and trust in his Greek friend was so great that he entrusted him with the education of his nephew Ivan, whom Stamatis personally taught the art of navigation. In 1803, the hero of the Greek Liberation War, captain Sarandinakis retired and settled in the Crimea: he grew grapes, headed the provincial court of conscience (which used to perform the same functions as ombudsmen and human rights activists nowadays), but he certainly did not forget his homeland – he bequeathed most of his fortune to charity in Greece.

It is not surprising that later it was Ushakov’s figure, his role in the liberation of the Ionian Islands and the openness of the Russians to the co-religionist Greek people, as seen in the example of Stamatios Sarandinakis, that led Ioannis Kapodistrias, the future Secretary of State of the Republic, to the conviction that without reliance on Russia as the only Orthodox Empire, Greece would not be able to gain real independence from the Ottomans.

Russia definitely wanted to liberate the Orthodox Greeks from the Ottoman rule by creating an independent state. For some time Russia had neither opportunities nor resources to directly support the heroic efforts of the Pontic Greek Alexander Ypsilantis, but sympathized with him and made every effort to stop the violence against the Greek people. Thus, when the Ottoman Porte restricted the vital freedom of navigation for the Greeks and began cruel repressions, the Russian Ambassador Grigory Stroganov, with the consent of the Tsar, repeatedly met with the Grand Vizier, issued an ultimatum against the violent treatment of Orthodox Christians, and then left the country in protest and in sign of the rupture of relations.

The Russian Emperor Nicholas I, who succeeded Alexander I, was aware of the various opinions of the advisers inherited from his predecessor, and generally held the same position. Taking into account its then military capabilities, he considered impossible Russia’s unilateral participation in the war with the Ottoman Empire, because it would have to fight both with the Turkish and Egyptian fleets. And the Greek people, in view of the fierce and uncompromising reaction of the Porte to the rising liberation movement, needed only victory.

To stop the atrocities against the Greek population by the Porte, in the spring of 1826, Russia and Great Britain signed the Protocol of St. Petersburg on joint actions for the settlement of the Greek War of Independence. According to this document, it was supposed to work together to the autonomy of Greece under the supreme authority of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1827, taking the St. Petersburg Protocol as a basis, representatives of Russia, Great Britain, and France concluded the Treaty of London to assist Greece and to outline its future structure. As it is known, Britain and France sought to weaken the influence of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. Therefore, assuming Russia had the same goals, they also feared that Russian influence will increase as a result of the country’s participation in the war on the side of Greece. However, Russia was so willing to help the co-religionist Greece that in order to attract the necessary allies, it defiantly refused commercial benefits, which was recorded in the Treaty.

In the end, the capitulation of the Porte and the subsequent establishment of a completely independent Greek state (not autonomy) were the result of the Russo-Turkish war of 1828-1829: in September, 1829, the Russian army stood 40 km from the Sultan’s Palace.

Meanwhile, in the fight between the different parties (“Russian”, subsequently “National” and constitutionalist “English” or “French” parties supported by the Phanariots) in the years of liberation war, the only respected figure who could lead the young state was Ioannis Kapodistrias, a former Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, brilliant diplomat and humanist, one of the genius creators of the Swiss Constitution, honorary citizen of Lausanne, and a close friend of the greatest Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.

Ioannis Kapodistrias did not fear for his position and was perhaps the only one who truly cared for the welfare of the nation, while his opponents were only capable of imprisoning the heroes of the Greek Revolution. It was Kapodistrias who insisted, though unsuccessfully, that the Greek people should choose their own king at people’s assemblies. He fought international corruption that had infiltrated Greece along with the influence of other European powers. He refused his salary and gave his estate to the needs of the young Greek state. To him the British Admiral Edward Codrington, who had also taken part in the Battle of Navarino, said that England intended to look after its own interests only in Greece; but Ioannis continued to defend what mattered to the Greek people.

The case of the Ioannis Kapodistrias’ murder is still classified in the British Foreign Office. However, it is clear that when the Western liberating powers sought to force their influence upon the young independent Greece, such a faithful son as he could hardly expect any other future than to give his life for his Homeland.

No wonder the German diplomats said that Kapodistrias could not be bribed, and that elimination of him was the only way to stop him. Today, anyone can come to the place where he was murdered – the Church of Agios Spyridon in Nafplio– and make sure of it. At the same time, it’s a chance to think whether nowadays we have got politicians about whom we could say the same. And can we, looking at the figures of Kapodistrias and Ushakov, doubt the sincere love and sympathy for Greece from the Russian people?

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Christos Athanasiou is currently pursuing his Bachelor’s degree in History and Politics at the University of York. His main area of interest is Regionalism In World Politics.

On July 17, 2014, a Malaysian Boeing 777-200ER aircraft was conducting a scheduled passenger flight (MH17) from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. During a transit flight over the territory of Ukraine, the Ukrainian air traffic control charted the plane directly over the conflict zone between government forces and units of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.

At 13:20 UTC, the aircraft was shot down as a result of a fire damage from unidentified forces.

The Ukrainian side, with Western support, immediately blamed Russia for the incident. In turn, Malaysia, expresses deep concerns over the accusations against Russia and the course of the investigation.

On June 27, 2019, Ukrainian special services detained the ex-commander of one of the air defense units of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic Vladimir Tsemakh in Snejnoe, on the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic. Ukraine’s State Security Service claimed that he was involved in the MH17 incident. Later, his status was changed to the “witness”. On September 7, 2019, Tsemakh was transferred to the Russian side as a part of the 35 for 35 exchange of the detained persons.

We present to your attention an exclusive interview with Vladimir Tsemakh (original in Russian) (English Transcript below) that reveals many interesting details.

Watch the video here.

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Kirill Vyshinsky: Greetings. This is the second interview in the People of Donbass series. This man is not used to speaking on camera. He‘s giving the first interview in his life. In 2014, Vladimir Tsemakh was defending his home in Snejnoe in the region of Donbass. After 3 years, he returned to a peaceful life. In the summer of this year, he appeared in Kiev under strange circumstances, where he was arrested under even stranger circumstances. In September, thanks to the exchange of detained persons, Vladimir Tsemakh returned home.

Kirill Vyshinsky (KV): Vladimir Borisovich, good day!

Vladimir Tsemach (VT): Good day.

KV: We flew in the same plane in September, I saw you very briefly. We didn’t have time to say a word, but you were one of the most famous passengers and I really wanted to know your story, because you were made almost the main witness in the case of the downed Boeing.

KV: But this is not the beginning. Let’s start with your background. Tell us a few words about yourself.

VT: I was born in 1961. In 1978, I entered the Poltava Higher Anti-Aircraft Missile Command Red Banner College named after Army General Nikolai Fedorovich Vatutin. In 1982 I graduated. After that, I got to serve in the 40th Army, meaning in Afghanistan. I was there for three and a half months, after which I was sent to the Far East under an experience share (program), where I served until 1992 and went into reserve in 1992 on Victory Day.

KV: And after?

VT: After that, I returned to my hometown. Until 2019, I lived safely, with the exception of 2014, of course.  I had quite a few different jobs. I didn’t sit in any one place very long.

KV: But nothing related to the army?

VT: No, absolutely not.

KV: You were made almost the main witness in the Boeing case only because you had headed Snezhnoy’s air defense since 2014. Tell us how you got there, what it was; what the weaponry was.

VT: I asked the city commandant, ”Am I needed?“ “Yes.” he said, “The anti-aircraft guns are gathering dust.

KV: When did this take place?

VT: It was June 26th, 2014. When I realized that this circus in Kramatorsk and Slavyansk would not easily end. Semenovka… I realized that they would not calm down.

KV: The authorities?

VT: The Ukrainian authorities didn’t want to talk with the people. They decided to talk from a position of strength. If you think that my grandchildren will not think in my language, that they could be forced to think in Ukrainian, this is wrong, I think. So, I had to go to the militia and after Ukrainian aviation attacked the city center, I got people together immediately. On that same day, I had a lot of people there. The armaments we had consisted of two anti-aircraft guns and two man-portable air defense systems.

KV: Tell me. What did you know then -about this downed Boeing?

VT: I knew as much as the general population knew. I found out either in the evening or the next morning about what happened.

KV: And tell me. In 2019, were you still serving in the army, in the People’s Militia?

VT: No. I finished my service in 2017. I had a compression fracture of the spine. So, my health didn’t allow me to serve.

KV: You were detained on June 27^th. Right?

VT: Yes.

KV: On the 28th you were in Kiev. That’s actually the next day. You were detained in Snezhnoye which is around 60 kilometers from the separation line. Right?

VT: It’s further away by road. Turns out the city is only 78 kilometers to Donetsk.

KV: They detained you on the 27^th. On the 28th you were already in Kiev, and on the 29th you were in court, where a preventive measure of restraint was chosen. How, under what circumstances, did you end up on the territory of Ukraine in such a short time?

VT: They took me straight away to the separation line. There he constantly kept in touch with the other side.

KV: He? Who’s “he”?

VT: The driver. He participated in the abduction. There were two people. Mortars were fired from the other side. They said they would shell five times for cover fire. They started pushing the wheelchair, and then a sixth shell was fired. I said, “Hey! If you want me dead, why don’t you just get on with it and bury me right here? Why drag this on?” That sixth shell almost hit us. I was even covered with dirt. It seems that it was before the shelling. Was it our people responding so quickly? You can understand the condition I was in. Under tranquilizers, I couldn’t perceive what was happening around me very well. We sat around and waited for the shelling to end, then they put a bag over my head. They kept me in a basement for about 20 minutes.

KV: Did this happen on the other side or here?

VT: On the other side, literally across the Creek. Their position was just 20 meters away -not far away it turns out. With a bag on my head, we ran for about half a kilometer to a minivan. They measured my blood pressure as 190 to 110. They said, “Ok,” the insect is healthy, normal. My head was bandaged and I was immediately sent in a minivan to Kiev.

KV: Were you transported through the separation line in a wheelchair?

KV: So, you were in such a condition that you couldn’t walk?

VT: My legs buckled. Even when I was put in the wheelchair, I couldn’t put my feet on the step.

KV: But why?

VT: I couldn’t. They had to lift my legs, no more than 5 centimeters.

KV: Why did you feel like that? What happened?

VT: They injected two tranquilizers in me at home and a third, in front of Donetsk.

KV: What condition were you in when they brought you to Kiev?

VT: I began feeling normal about a week later. I’m not used to drugs like that.

KV: Was it something strong?

VT: Well, yes. I feel most rested when I sleep 7-8 hours. But I usually only sleep 6 or 7. When I was detained, I was always woken up at 6 AM; then I kept dozing off until around 10 AM.

KV: You said they took every document you had in your house and on your person?

VT: Yes.

KV: They attached them to the case file. Were they classified as secret?

VT: Yes.

KV: They fell under the stamp of secrecy with the consequence, in theory, of improving the case.

VT: That’s what happened.

KV: Nevertheless, in mid-July, your military ID appeared on some kind of investigative web site, it seems, Bellingcat. How can you explain this?

VT: It turns out the Security Service of Ukraine provided this information.

KV: Did it turn out to be a “classified” investigation?

VT: There was no secret. Collaboration was happening as if it was normal. There were no secrets.

KV: Where were you detained in Kiev, in what conditions? What was it like?

VT: At Askold’s detention center. The cell was two by five meters, with two bunks. I was alone there, literally. Just before being freed, a man was put in the cell with me. So, I was constantly alone. For the first two weeks I didn’t even have a bar of soap. I asked, “Give me at least a little piece of soap.“ But, “No”. They didn’t give me anything. For such a serious structure, you would think they could spend some money, at least for a bar of soap. It didn’t happen. As far as nutrition goes -you’ll live. You won’t die of hunger. For hours, it was lights out at 10 PM and rise at 6 AM.

KV: Were the lights turned off?

VT: No. The lights were on all the time. It was dim, but one light was always on. I was allowed to walk in the courtyard between 2 PM and 5 PM, always alone.

KV: Were you always under surveillance?

VT: Yes. The toilet was in the cell.

KV: How were the interrogations?

VT: If the Australians and the Dutch came, then this took place on the premises of the pre-trial detention center and if the SBU investigators conducted it, then I was brought to them.

KV: Were you subjected to polygraph testing?

VT: No. There weren’t any. The representative of the Prosecutor General’s office for some reason really “loved” me -constantly threatened me with a life sentence. But then, it was interesting. When the second interrogation was taking place, with alleged Australian or Dutch representatives, it was very obvious that they were brought up in Slavic families. The representative of Holland Ara Khataryan (I don’t remember the last name. It was like Armenian.) But she spoke the language exclusively. She spoke without an accent. She knew the language perfectly.

With the representative from Australia, Sergey, it was apparent that he was either an immigrant or that he was brought up in a Slavic family. He also spoke Russian well. But at that time, before the second interrogation, Ara was the only one present. The representative of the Prosecutor General’s Office told me, “Look. You’re not being exchanged. You’re going to get a life sentence, but a lot will depend on what answers you give to these comrades.” The camera is immediately turned on. Standard procedure. They asked, “Were there any threats?“ I answered, “If life imprisonment is not a threat, then everything is fine, good.“

KV: Do you treat this in a humorous light? Although, naturally, there was no way to have fun at that moment.

VT: I am a military man, after all.

KV: Can you tell us, in more detail, about these people, these foreigners?

VT: Representatives of the Australian police and the Netherlands police.

KV: Just them? Were there any Americans, or British, somebody else?

VT: No. No. Constantly, if the English-speaking comrade is sitting on the Dutch side, then the Russian-speaking one is Australian. And during the last interrogation -Ara and Sergey were both Russian speakers.

KV: Did they coerce you?

VT: They offered me to go into witness protection. They offered citizenship and a home in the Netherlands. I wondered why there and not in Australia, but I didn’t try to bargain. laughs

KV: Maybe you could have lived in the Netherlands?

VT: No. I’m used to living where I was born. If I came back to Khabarovsk I would still be closer to my native places. Nevertheless, they didn’t offer native places. In 2014, I was told that, for my Afghanistan service, a Moscow communal apartment is paid for and that I should live in it. How could I be cruel by leaving the elderly and the kids behind? Running away is always easy.

KV: Was there any “physical means of interrogation”?

VT: When they put me on the minivan, they struck my kidneys “a little bit.”

KV: Why did you talk to them at all, and not refer to the 63rd article of the Constitution, which allows you to not testify against yourself and relatives? This is a standard procedure. By the way, they should have introduced you to it.

VT: I know of the article. But why should I be afraid? I don’t consider myself a terrorist. I protected my home. Who am I afraid of? I believe that these comrades and I don’t deserve judgments. This is how I feel on the inside.

KV: The case against you, as I understand correctly, is the 258th, second part. Meaning the creation of a terrorist organization or group. Has the case not been closed yet?

14:04 VT: Yes. It turns out I’ve been released on bail.

KV: What do you think awaits you in Ukraine?

VT: Nothing good is waiting for me, especially if such comrades are in the Prosecutor General’s office. They start slobbering -probably over the thought of putting me away for life.

KV: Are you ready to talk in court about what happened to you, about the abduction, tranquilizers, forced detention, and interrogations? Are you going to appeal to international courts?

VT: I’m considering such a possibility.

KV: What’s your assessment of everything that has happened to you?

VT: I consider it an act of terrorism against me on the part of the Ukrainian state -trying to hang me. Well, I was the head of air defense. I explained to them that, for the most part, I did scare off their aircraft. Once the planes flew over and then didn’t fly any more in the area of Snezhnoye, I told my people, “Guys, bring me empty pipes.“ We filled them with sand, made triggers out of tin, painted them, and I had eight groups of “actors” which showed that we really did have MANPADS -and a lot of them too. Although we actually only had two Zu-23 guns and two MANPADS. And with just that we held the defense of such a territory! It’s just a title I had, “the head of air defense”. You could hardly even call it a platoon -by any stretch.

KV: Do you consider yourself a victim of terrorism?

VT: Of course. But this is a bigger mess because they really have nothing on me now or in the future. Maybe, because I didn’t like the events, he was trying to use me, the bigger man, for some sort of scape-goat absolution. It will be interesting to see how they try to hold their ridiculous stories together.

KV: Obviously, your attitude towards Ukraine has changed after what happened to you.

VT: For me it’s still my homeland. It’s bitter and insulting to look at everything happening there. For some reason, people religiously believe in help from the West. But I say it‘s probably necessary to read Taras Bulba. Everything is clearly explained there.

KV: Lyakhi (Poles/Polish) did not help?

VT: Right. They didn’t help. Such ideas are somehow new to this faith. It’s time to live, listening to your own head.

KV: Tell me, please, what is the nature of Donetsk character?

VT: During service in the Soviet army, if people from Donetsk came to serve, some of the gentlemen officers would clutch their heads. It’s a separate caste of people. We have a multinational side. More than two hundred nationalities live in the Donbass. The whole world built it in due time. So there you find friendship and camaraderie and cuisine -something like a special symbiosis.

KV: Did this help in 2014?

VT: Of course, it helped. There was no time to mobilize any forces. People were taught how to fight in literally three to four days. As subsequent events show, some can’t even learn this in two years -let alone three to four days.

KV: Thank you very much.

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The Strategic Battle for Lithium. Huge Reserves in Bolivia, Argentina, Chile

By Enzo Pellegrin, November 14, 2019

On March 15, 2018, Maurizio Stefanini, reporter of an italian right think-tank, complained that the huge reserve of Lithium present in Bolivia was in the hands of the State“” and of the bad example“” of Evo Morales. (1) In the same article it was pointed out that, on the contrary, Chile and Argentina, the other two Saudi Arabian”of Lithium, had generated a real race for lithium”, as in romantic Yukon era.

In Chile, according to 2016 data, 68,874 metric tons ™ of lithium carbonate equivalent (cle) were extracted by private companies Albemarle and Sociedad Química de Minerales de Chile (SGM). The latter is owned 29 percent by billionaire Julio Ponce Lerou, who ranked 422 on the Forbes chart of the rich planetary planets, thanks to the Lithium boom. At that time, Chile had a 33% share of the Lithium world market.

The Boom in US Shale Oil? The US is the Largest Oil Producer in the World

By Nick Cunningham, November 14, 2019

Forecasts from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), along with those from its Paris-based counterpart, the International Energy Agency (IEA), are often cited as the gold standard for energy outlooks. Businesses and governments often refer to these forecasts for long-term investments and policy planning.

In that context, it is important to know if the figures are accurate, to the extent that anyone can accurately forecast precise figures decades into the future. A new report from the Post Carbon Institute asserts that the EIA’s reference case for production forecasts through 2050 “are extremely optimistic for the most part, and therefore highly unlikely to be realized.”

The Rights of Undocumented Immigrants: DACA Arguments in US Supreme Court Leave Outcome in Doubt

By Prof. Marjorie Cohn, November 14, 2019

After the arguments before the Supreme Court in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) case, it is difficult to predict the outcome. Justices often play devil’s advocate when questioning the lawyers, so reading the tea leaves about how a case will ultimately be decided can be a dicey proposition. But the justices’ questions appeared to indicate that right-wing Justices Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh favor affirming Donald Trump’s termination of DACA, and liberal Justices Kagan, Ginsburg and Sotomayor want to uphold DACA. Justice Thomas, who almost never asks a question during arguments, invariably sides with the right-wingers. Chief Justice Roberts, who generally takes the conservative position, and Justice Breyer, who more often votes with the liberals, were harder to read. Roberts, who appeared to lean toward the government’s position, will likely cast the deciding vote.

Western Terrorists Are Coming Home to Roost

By Steven Sahiounie, November 14, 2019

Turkey has criticized Western countries for refusing to take back their citizens who were members of ISIS, also known as Daesh, and stripping them of their citizenship, although the 1961 New York Convention made it illegal to leave people stateless. Since 2010, the UK has stripped more than 100 people of British citizenship. One of the first deported terrorists was an American, unnamed, who was deported to the USA via Greece.  However, he refused to go into Greece, and returned to Turkey, upon which the Turks refused him re-entry and pushed him back to Greece.  Finally, when he asked to enter Greece, they refused which has left him in ‘limbo’ in a buffer space between Turkey and Greece.  The US State Department acknowledges they are aware of the situation but offer no further details about the man who has been photographed and was shown on Turkish TV.

The Costs of Post 9/11 Wars: $6.4 Trillion

By Prof. Neta C. Crawford, November 14, 2019

One of the major purposes of the Costs of War Project has been to clarify the types of budgetary costs of the US post -9/11 wars, how that spending is funded, and the long-term implications of past and current spending. This estimate of the US budgetary costs of the post-9/11 wars is a comprehensive accounting intended to provide a sense of the consequences of the wars for the federal budget. Since the 9/11 attacks, the Department of Defense appropriations related to the Global War on Terror have been treated as emergency appropriations, now called Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO).[3] When accounting for total war costs, the Department of Defense and other entities often present only Overseas Contingency Operation appropriations.

Can the EU’s New Sanctions Against Turkey Force the Cyprus Issue to Finally be Resolved?

By Paul Antonopoulos, November 14, 2019

The Eastern Mediterranean remains a strategic point for trade due to its proximity to the Suez Canal, transportation and more recently, natural resources. It is this very drive for exploiting the natural resources that in January, the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum was convened as a means for Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Jordan, Israel, Italy and the Palestinian Authority to develop a regional natural gas market. Notably, Turkey was missing from this Forum, which would have agitated Ankara as only a month later ExxonMobil announced a new gas discovery in offshore Cyprus that has more than doubled Cyprus’s estimated offshore resources. This is why Turkey has been in a desperate rush to exploit oil belonging to another internationally recognized sovereign country.

‘They Choked Me. They Threw Me Down.’: CodePink’s Medea Benjamin Assaulted by Right-Wing Venezuelan Opposition and Threatened with Arrest

By Jake Johnson, November 14, 2019

Benjamin and other members of CodePink protested the event while backers of the effort to overthrow Venezuela’s elected President Nicolás Maduro rallied in support of the new pro-regime change caucus, which was launched by Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.), and other lawmakers.

During the press conference, Benjamin shouted for an end to punishing U.S. sanctions in Venezuela and held a sign that read “No Coups in Venezuela or Bolivia.”

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

Nicolas J. S. Davies is a freelance writer, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of “Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.”

Featured image is from The Bullet

What does an Israeli peace activist do when the rockets are flying and the bombs are falling?

I have been going to demonstrations since I was 12 years old – that was 51 years ago. I can easily say that I have participated in hundreds of demonstrations. But I hate demonstrations. They frustrate me. I think in all of these years, there was only one demonstration that I recall that left me feeling empowered – that was after the Sabra and Shatilla massacres in 1982.

I have demonstrated for peace and human rights. I have demonstrated against war and military adventurism. I have demonstrated for social justice and I have demonstrated for a better environment. At demonstrations, I meet a lot of people that I know and it is often nice to catch up with old friends and colleagues, but when it is over, I usually feel that nothing has changed and the demonstration had no impact. More often than not, I go because if it is an important cause, then it is essential that the number of demonstrators be significant. But to feel empowered and to have political and social efficacy, I need to do something more concrete.

During recent years, in the absence of any peace process and any chance of helping to create a peace process, I have focused on building successful, cross-boundary Israeli-Palestinian partnerships. That, too, has become increasingly difficult with the passing of time and the constant deterioration in the state of affairs between the two peoples. Nonetheless, I push on and do what I believe in.

I suppose I live in a kind of schizophrenic reality. Just yesterday I met one of my Palestinian partners in Halhoul, just north of Hebron. I parked my car in front of the Halhoul city hall and joined him in his car. The streets were filled with young kids getting out of school early after ceremonies were held in the schools to commemorate their founding father Yasser Arafat. Many of the kids had the famous black and white keffiyeh draped around their shoulders.

We continued from there to the new industrial area in the city of Tarkumiya where we visited eight large factories to spark their interest in integrating solar energy into their enterprises. Most of these factories spend a fortune on electricity. They pay the Tarkumiya municipality, which buys the electricity from the Israel Electricity Company. We can sell them clean energy that will save them a lot of money, helping the Palestinian economy and increasing Palestinian independence. This work is built on partnership, trust and improving the lives of real people.

From Tarkumiya, after about five hours of visiting the factories, we went for a late lunch in Hebron. On the way from Hebron back to Halhoul, I bought some freshly made flat bread. My car was waiting for me in the now empty Halhoul city hall parking lot. We stopped at a bicycle shop on the way out of Halhoul that I visited last week, because my youngest son is shopping for a new mountain bike and the shop owner said that he expected to have some new models by the end of this week. He didn’t get them yet.

THIS IS ALL so normal – except that nothing about it here is normal. Israelis don’t go wandering about Hebron and Halhoul, or eating lunch in a new shwarma place in the middle of the Hebron business district, or visiting factories in Tarkumiya. The abnormality of it all was driven home while driving home to Jerusalem. As I passed the Al Aroub refugee camp, I saw the deployment of a large number of Israeli soldiers gearing up to enter the camp. Before I reached Jerusalem, I heard that the soldiers killed a young, unarmed Palestinian man in the camp. I saw the video footage later and heard both sides of the story of what happened, and how the young Palestinian man was killed. Tragedy in a tragic reality.

This morning, I drove to Givat Haviva in the North, where I was invited to lecture to a group of high schools students at the Givat Haviva International School. This school is made up of 11th and 12th graders – 25% from Israel, 25% from Palestine and 50% from about 20 other countries. Truly a remarkable group of young people. This week, they are engaging in a several day intensive seminar about the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Today’s panel, in which I participated, was organized by an Israeli and a Palestinian student together. The panel included four Israeli experts – two from the Right and two from the Left (you can guess which side I was on).

On my way to Givat Haviva, as soon as I got in my car leaving Jerusalem, I heard the news of the Israeli assassination of the Islamic Jihad commander and his wife in Gaza, the attempted assassination of the Islamic Jihad commander in Damascus (not succeeding in killing the target, but killing his son) and the barrage of rockets from Islamic Jihad once again falling on Israel. I heard about all of the schools and places of work in Israel from Tel Aviv southward being closed as a precautionary measure taken by the Israeli army and government. And I had to go to speak to high school students about peace.

A COUPLE of nights before, I spoke at the annual Rabin memorial event at the Beit Yisrael pre-army academy in Gilo, Jerusalem, composed of a large group of pre-army religious and secular Jews. There I spoke on a panel with the head of the academy, an Orthodox rabbi who served as a combat officer in the army for decades, and a well-known right-wing political activist who has lived his whole life in the settlement of Kiryat Arba next to the Palestinian city, Hebron. It was a very challenging task to speak about peace with our Palestinian neighbors in that context with that group of young Israelis.

This evening, I concluded by speaking to a group of American Jews from Vermont on an Israel Experience trip with their synagogue. Tonight was their last night after a 10-day intensive trip all around the country. Today, they were supposed to visit the communities around Gaza, but that was canceled because of the “security situation.” As I am writing this column, the Red Alert keeps flashing on my phone as rockets are being shot at Israel from Gaza, and I see on my Facebook and Twitter feed that my friends in Gaza are being bombed by Israel.

A close friend in Gaza just chatted with me that she is scared – she lives on the eighth floor of a 10-story building in Gaza City. The noise of the exploding Israeli bombs is frightening and she said that she doesn’t know what she will do if she has to run – there is no safe place to run to in Gaza. Without any ability to allay her fears, I said that I wished she could stay with me in Jerusalem where she would be safe. She replied “some day!” I said “inshallah.”

This is the definition of insanity. Someone from the Vermont group asked me as the final question to give a one-sentence line – the most important thing they should take back with them from my talk. I thought for a moment and said – we are all not going anywhere. Millions of Israelis and millions of Palestinians are not picking up and leaving. We will also continue to live here, and eventually we will get back to the table and talk. When we do that, I hope that we will have learned the lessons from all of the mistakes we have all made that got us to this situation. Until then, I will continue to work to build partnerships across these conflict lines in the interests of all of us – on both sides of the lines.

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Gershon Baskin is a political and social entrepreneur who has dedicated his life to the State of Israel and to peace between Israel and her neighbors. His latest book In Pursuit of Peace in Israel and Palestine was published by Vanderbilt University Press and is now available in Israel and Palestine.

Featured image is from Mondoweiss

A 2018 Pew Survey found that 89% of Greeks found their culture to be superior to others, by far the highest amount of people in Europe where it reached as low as 26% in Sweden, 23% in Estonia and Belgium, and 20% in Spain. The Greeks are by far the oldest civilization on the European continent, giving them the moniker as the founders of Western civilization, and a slight arrogance at times over other Europeans.

However, it was this very ancient civilizational pride that Chinese President Xi Jinping capitalized on during his extremely productive visit to Greece this week where 16 agreements were made that firmly puts the Mediterranean country into the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Xi’s final day in Greece on Tuesday was spent at the Acropolis Museum where the Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos asked whether Greece can rely on China to help pressure the British Museum in London to return the Parthenon Marbles they hold. Not only did Xi enthusiastically pledge that China would help Greece’s position against the United Kingdom, but he also empathized that China too has many of its ancient treasures outside of its borders against its will.

As Greece occupies a strategic space in the Eastern Mediterranean and has one of the largest merchant navies in the world, it was always going to be in the interests of Beijing to maintain close ties with Athens, even with issues over ancient artefacts. Over two thousand years of contact between the Greeks and Chinese, and the famous Silk Road connecting Xi’an with Constantinople, has ensured there are long and deep connections between the two countries today.

During the visit, 16 agreements were signed. Many of these are not so significant, but there were certainly some important ones.

The Port of Pireus

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told Xi on Monday during their visit to Piraeus Port that Greece has come to a deep understanding on the meaning of “friends” through the cooperation with China at the port. China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) acquired a majority stake in the port in 2016, creating direct and indirect employment for over 10,000 locals, and making it the largest port in the Mediterranean region and one of the fastest growing container terminals in the world.

This port has been a keynote feature for the BRI in Europe and Xi’s visit to Athens ensures Greece’s goal of turning Piraeus Port into the biggest commercial harbor in Europe can become a reality. Piraeus Port is strategically located in the Eastern Mediterranean, putting it at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa, which will be of significant interest to China as it continues to channel goods to the region.  Effectively, the upgraded port helps Chinese products enter European markets more easily and at cheaper prices

“We want to strengthen Piraeus’ transhipment role and further boost the throughput capacity of China’s fast sea-land link with Europe,” Xi said after meeting Mitsotakis, recognizing that access in the Mediterranean is best done through Greece because of its thousands of years of seafaring history, its strategic location and its large mercantile navy.

Chinese investment banks to open in Greece

Directly connected to the investment of Piraeus Port, lenders’ Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) will open branches in Athens to not only develop the maritime industry further, but also at a time when Chinese investors have become increasingly interested in Greek real estate.

The Chinese banks will not only create business opportunities in Greece and help develop the maritime industry, but it will also help finance renewable energy projects. This comes as for the past 10 years Western countries have done little to alleviate Greece’s economic crisis. It is expected that the Bank of China, the world’s fourth largest lender, and ICBC will invest in renewable energy to help develop Greece’s clean energy infrastructure and bring cheaper energy prices to Greeks.

Energy

Although Greece opened its domestic projects, such as wind farms, to Chinese investors, China has expressed no immediate interest in Greece’s heavily indebted Public Power Corporation despite speculation that the Asian country is interested in investing in Greece’s electricity distribution networks.

However, the State Grid Corporation of China, the world’s biggest utility, agreed to invest in a new electricity interconnector between mainland Greece and the island of Crete. It is hoped that Crete can become an even bigger solar energy hub as Greece aims to stop using coal energy by 2028.

Conclusion

By taking a soft power approach with Athens and not embroiling itself in regional issues, China has every advantage to deepen the BRI in the Balkans, Middle East, North Africa and Mediterranean Europe via Greece. There is little doubt that China sees Greece, specifically through the 2,500-year-old Piraeus Port, as a hub for its BRI expansion in the region.

The agreements between Greece and China come at a time when only in September the Mediterranean country allowed the U.S. to open three new military bases and Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow last week where “a new chapter” in Greek-Russian relations was announced. It is beginning to appear that perhaps Athens is not so much the U.S.-puppet as first suspected, but perhaps is masterfully balancing its relations with Washington, Moscow and Beijing in the Age of Multipolarity as its highly successful recent meetings with the Great Powers demonstrates.

At the minimum, whether Greece successfully balances its relations with the Great Powers or not, the Great Powers have certainly identified the importance of the Aegean country in the 21st Century and are all aiming to gain a foothold in it. It remains to be seen where Greece will show allegiance when push comes to shove, but it is likely to be a balance on its economic reliance on China against its military reliance on the U.S. With China having a strong foothold in the Eastern Mediterranean, it remains to be seen whether the Asian country will want to expand its military presence into the region too.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

Featured image is from InfoBrics

On March 15, 2018, Maurizio Stefanini, reporter of an italian right think-tank, complained that the huge reserve of Lithium present in Bolivia was in the hands of the State“” and of the bad example“” of Evo Morales. (1) In the same article it was pointed out that, on the contrary, Chile and Argentina, the other two Saudi Arabian”of Lithium, had generated a real race for lithium”, as in romantic Yukon era.

In Chile, according to 2016 data, 68,874 metric tons ™ of lithium carbonate equivalent (cle) were extracted by private companies Albemarle and Sociedad Química de Minerales de Chile (SGM). The latter is owned 29 percent by billionaire Julio Ponce Lerou, who ranked 422 on the Forbes chart of the rich planetary planets, thanks to the Lithium boom. At that time, Chile had a 33% share of the Lithium world market.

In 2016, the Argentinean companies FMC Corporation and Orocobre produced 30,340 tm of cle, reaching a 16 percent share of the world market.

The article reported the opinion of an alleged expert in the field, named Joe Lowry, nicknamed in the branch as “Mr. lithium”. According to Lowry, the mineral mining industry would require large and adequate investments to achieve discrete extractive values.

The subordinate position of the Argentinean companies was precisely due to the absence of investment, due to the “conflicts with the Kirchner”, contrasts which would evidently have ceased with the establishment of the neoliberal government of Macri.

The global capital wants to put its hands on lithium, a strategic element for the production of batteries, not only for the mobile phone market, but especially for the new business of electric car industry.

Price indexes of Lithium Carbonate, Lithium Oxide and Cobalt (Source: Pricepedia)

In recent years, the “lithium rush” has generated a significant increase in prices of mineral, and, consequently, in the profits of mining companies. The price of lithium, in the form of carbonate, in 2015 was around 5 euro/kg, while in 2018 it reached 12 euro/kg (+140%). Lithium oxide increased from 7.5 to 12 euro/kg (+61%).  “Currently the Li-Ion accumulators are the most used and according to a report of the Chilean Chemical and Mining Society (SQM), one of the largest lithium producers in the world, The demand for key components for the production of this type of accumulator will also increase significantly in the coming years (2).

The important question we should ask ourselves is this: has this Lithium Rush brought wealth to popular classes of Argentina and Chile, as well as to the pockets of speculators?

The answer is obviously negative. This is demonstrated by the history of recent events in Chile and Argentina.

In the first of the two countries, a great popular riot has broken out against the neoliberal Pinera government, which has given rise to a bloody repression of demonstrators, on which there has been the complete disregard of the Western world.

Likewise in Argentina, a large popular opposition has decreed the end of the neoliberal government and the election of a government once again close to Kirchnerian popular politics.

Underlying both popular protests are extreme poverty, the indecent level of wages, privatisations, the high cost of living and services – largely owned by private companies – the subtraction of the nation’s wealth by monopolistic enterprises, in comparison with the high salaries of police soldiers and all government officials and bureaucrats who help to maintain the order of neoliberal autocracy.

In short, the money of the Lithium Rush has filled the pockets of monopolists.

From these pockets – now absolutely hermetic – despite neoliberal fables, no wealth poured in favour of popular classes.

Otherwise, what happened in Bolivia?

The government of Evo Morales had placed its attention on Lithium. In the Salar of Uyumni, the country boasts the most important reserve of lithium in the world. In 2018, its production amounted to around 120 tons of cle per year: a small share for the interests of speculators. The government of Evo Morales recalled that projects developed in Bolivia have tried to take account of environment. More importantly, the government had chosen a social route for the development of this mining industry. The aim of the projects was not only to export, but to manufacture the finished product (batteries) in Bolivia, reserving the monopoly of extraction and subsequent production to industries wholly owned by the State, such as the mining industry, entrusted exclusively to the Yacimientos de Litio Bolivia.

Evo Morales applied the recipe of reserving to community the means of production, in order to decide what, how, where to produce, in accordance with the conservation needs of the environment.

The goals achieved in recent years by the Bolivian State, the elections always won by its President, including the last, show that there has been a fair distribution of wealth in favor of the popular classes of the country.

Against this socialist path, in recent years almost all mainstream and all think-thanks of neoliberalism have been hurled.

The production sector of electric cars is also at the heart of great financial manoeuvres that are taking place in the green economy sector. There has been an undoubted massive investment of resources in the promotion of cultural hegemony within the Western mainstream, towards the need for massive investments in“technologies considered green”, even if these are not so “green” such as the production of battery-powered cars, which become impacting hazardous waste after a few years of operation.

These great manoeuvres were well explained by F. William Engdahl, in an article recently appeared in Global Research (3).

Engdahl notes that the mega-corporations and mega-billionaires behind the globalisation of world economy, whose pursuit for shareholder value and cost reduction has caused so much damage to our environment both in the industrial world and in the underdeveloped economies of Africa, Asia and Latin America, are the main supporters of the decarbonisation movement.

Engdahl also affirms:

“In 2013 after years of careful preparation, a Swedish real estate company, Vasakronan, issued the first corporate “Green Bond.” They were followed by others including Apple, SNCF and the major French bank Credit Agricole. In November 2013 Elon Musk’s problem-riddled Tesla Energy issued the first solar asset-backed security. Today according to something called the Climate Bonds Initiative, more than $500 billion in such Green Bonds are outstanding. The creators of the bond idea state their aim is to win over a major share of the $45 trillion of assets under management globally which have made nominal commitment to invest in “climate friendly” projects.” […] “In 2016 the TCFD along with the City of London Corporation and the UK Government initiated the Green Finance Initiative, aiming to channel trillions of dollars to “green” investments. The central bankers of the FSB nominated 31 people to form the TCFD. Chaired by billionaire Michael Bloomberg of the financial wire, it includes key people from JP MorganChase; from BlackRock–one of the world’s biggest asset managers with almost $7 trillion; Barclays Bank; HSBC, the London-Hong Kong bank repeatedly fined for laundering drug and other black funds; Swiss Re, the world’s second largest reinsurance; China’s ICBC bank; Tata Steel, ENI oil, Dow Chemical, mining giant BHP Billington and David Blood of Al Gore’s Generation Investment LLC. In effect it seems the foxes are writing the rules for the new Green Hen House.

Bank of England’s Carney was also a key actor in efforts to make the City of London into the financial center of global Green Finance. The outgoing UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, in July 2019 released a White Paper, “Green Finance Strategy: Transforming Finance for a Greener Future.” The paper states, “One of the most influential initiatives to emerge is the Financial Stability Board’s private sector Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), supported by Mark Carney and chaired by Michael Bloomberg. This has been endorsed by institutions representing $118 trillion of assets globally.” There seems to be a plan here. The plan is the financialization of the entire world economy using fear of an end of world scenario to reach arbitrary aims such as “net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.” (3).

This important concentration of financial forces, as also demonstrated by Cory Morningstar, author and environmental activist, have strongly supported that investment in cultural hegemony represented by the apparitions of Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Climate. Both this phenomena has been reproduced and amplified by the mainstream media, just as the size of these economic interests is great.

Follow the money trail, people say in USA about politics and media.

This economic path is now quite clear: the crisis of over-production needs new financial outlets: raising money from funds to invest in prospects that become credible and also necessitated, such as the decrease of CO2 in the atmosphere, presented as the last opportunity before the Apocalypse.

To give a concrete dimension to these investments, however, they also need neoliberal domination of raw materials needed: lithium is among them.

From the neo-liberal point of view, their management must be taken away from the bad examples of “nationalization”. Thinking about extracting and producing lithium for the needs of the people and in respect for the environment, outside of speculative ambitions, is an attack at heart of globalized capitalist economy.

This is the reason why a freely elected President who enjoys the granite consensus of the popular masses of Bolivia should be ousted and forced to resign and flee the Country.

It becomes also clear which is the main enemy of the self-determination of peoples: in Bolivia there is not a song much different from the one played by the United States, NATO and the European Union in Syria, trying to break up an oil-producing country in order to throw it into easy hands to run.

Italian main press agency, ANSA, reported a few days ago that an order of capture was allegedly issued against Evo Morales. The source were statements of Mr. Camacho, who is none other than the leader of that opposition which challenged without substantiated reason the President’s legitimate election. No official charge was held by Mr Camacho at the time of that statement.

This says a lot about how West Governments and European Union are aligned with the NATO imperialistic agenda, and with the interests of finance and globalized industry.

The enemy is naked, we have just to refuse to cover him up and start fighting.

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Notes

(1) M. Stefanini, Chi ha il litio non ha i denti, Il Foglio, 15.3.2018

(2) C. Ranocchia, I prezzi del litio su livelli da record, Pricepedia, 29.5.2019

(3) F William Engdahl, Climate and The Money Trail, Globalresearch, 25.9.2019

The prevailing wisdom that sees explosive and long-term potential for U.S. shale may rest on some faulty and overly-optimistic assumptions, according to a new report.

Forecasts from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), along with those from its Paris-based counterpart, the International Energy Agency (IEA), are often cited as the gold standard for energy outlooks. Businesses and governments often refer to these forecasts for long-term investments and policy planning.

In that context, it is important to know if the figures are accurate, to the extent that anyone can accurately forecast precise figures decades into the future. A new report from the Post Carbon Institute asserts that the EIA’s reference case for production forecasts through 2050 “are extremely optimistic for the most part, and therefore highly unlikely to be realized.”

The U.S. has more than doubled oil production over the past decade, and at roughly 12.5 million barrels per day (mb/d), the U.S is the largest producer in the world. That is largely the result of a massive scaling-up of output in places like the Bakken, the Permian and the Eagle Ford. Conventional wisdom suggests the output will steadily rise for years to come.

It is worth reiterating that after an initial burst of production, shale wells decline rapidly, often 75 to 90 percent within just a few years. Growing output requires constant drilling. Also, the quality of shale reserves vary widely, with the “sweet spots” typically comprising only 20 percent or less of an overall shale play, J. David Hughes writes in the Post Carbon Institute report.

After oil prices collapsed in 2014, shale companies rushed to take advantage of the sweet spots. That allowed the industry to focus on the most profitable wells first, cut costs and scale up production. But it also pushed off a problem for another day. “Sweet spots will inevitably become saturated with wells, and drilling outside of sweet spots will require higher rates of drilling and capital investment to maintain production, along with higher commodity prices to justify them,” Hughes says in his PCI report.

In addition, this form of “high-grading” does allow for rapid extraction, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that more oil is ultimately going to be recovered when all is said and done.

The same might be true for all of the highly-touted productivity gains, Hughes says. The industry has boosted productivity by drilling longer laterals, intensifying the use of water and frac sand, as well as increasing the number of fracking stages. These productivity improvements are “undeniable,” Hughes writes.

However, the “limits of technology and exploiting sweet spots are becoming evident, however, as in some plays new wells are exhibiting lower productivities,” Hughes says. “More aggressive technology, coupled with longer horizontal laterals, allows each well to drain more reservoir area, but reduces the number of drilling locations and therefore does not necessarily increase the total recovery from a play—it just allows the resource to be recovered more quickly.”

Already, some shale plays have seen production plateau while others are in decline.

In short, Hughes says that of the 13 major shale plays analyzed in the PCI report, the EIA has “extremely optimistic” outlooks for nine of them. Of the remaining four, three of them are “highly optimistic,” and only one – the Woodford Play in Oklahoma – is ranked as “moderately optimistic.”

He notes that in some instances, the EIA’s forecasts are so optimistic that the production volumes exceed the agency’s own estimates for proven reserves plus unproven reserves. The EIA also assumes that every last drop of proven reserves is produced, along with a high percentage of unproven reserves by 2050.

“Although the ‘shale revolution’ has provided a reprieve from what just 15 years ago was thought to be a terminal decline in oil and gas production in the U.S.,” Hughes writes, “this reprieve is temporary, and the U.S. would be well advised to plan for much-reduced shale oil and gas production in the long term.”

Regardless of the geology, climate policy and waning investor interest will likely result in a lot of oil being left in the ground. Hughes says that the EIA’s figures are optimistic, even without considering any mandates to cut greenhouse gas emissions. “If U.S. energy policy actually reflected the need to mitigate climate change…the EIA’s forecasts for tight oil and shale gas production through 2050 make even less sense.”

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Nick Cunningham is an independent journalist, covering oil and gas, energy and environmental policy, and international politics. He is based in Portland, Oregon. 

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After the arguments before the Supreme Court in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) case, it is difficult to predict the outcome. Justices often play devil’s advocate when questioning the lawyers, so reading the tea leaves about how a case will ultimately be decided can be a dicey proposition. But the justices’ questions appeared to indicate that right-wing Justices Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh favor affirming Donald Trump’s termination of DACA, and liberal Justices Kagan, Ginsburg and Sotomayor want to uphold DACA. Justice Thomas, who almost never asks a question during arguments, invariably sides with the right-wingers. Chief Justice Roberts, who generally takes the conservative position, and Justice Breyer, who more often votes with the liberals, were harder to read. Roberts, who appeared to lean toward the government’s position, will likely cast the deciding vote.

On November 12, the justices heard arguments in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California, a case that is testing whether Trump’s rescission of DACA was lawful.

DACA was created by Barack Obama in 2012 to encourage undocumented people who arrived in the U.S. as children to come out of the shadows and register for temporary protection from deportation. They are called “Dreamers,” inspired by the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which Congress has failed to pass. Nearly 800,000 Dreamers have work permits and other benefits. Many are lawyers, doctors, engineers and military officers. According to one study, over 90 percent of them are employed and 45 percent are enrolled in school.

To qualify for DACA, a person must be a current student, a high school graduate, have a GED or an honorable discharge from the military. Applicants cannot have prior convictions of serious crimes or be considered a national security threat. The program provides a renewable two-year period of deferred immigration action for people who came to the U.S. as children and continuously lived in the U.S. for at least five years before June 15, 2012.

In September 2017, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Trump administration would rescind DACA, saying, “Such an open-ended circumvention of immigration laws was an unconstitutional exercise of authority by the Executive Branch.”

Several states, DACA recipients and organizations challenged the termination of DACA in the federal courts, successfully arguing it was unlawful. The repeal of DACA was put on hold pending the Supreme Court’s decision.

The two issues facing the Supreme Court are: (1) whether the courts have jurisdiction to review the decision to end DACA; and (2) whether the rescission of DACA was legal.

Do Courts Have Authority to Review Legality of DACA Rescission?

The government is arguing that the decision of whether to enforce the immigration laws is solely within agency discretion of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and not subject to judicial review. Ginsburg pointed out the contradiction in that position: On the one hand, the government says the decision is not subject to judicial review because DHS has sole discretion to end DACA, but on the other hand, it claims that DHS had no discretion because it was illegally established.

Kagan cited another contradiction in the government’s argument, in which it “suggest[s] that the original DACA is reviewable, but the rescission of DACA is not.” She called that “an asymmetry in what’s reviewable.”

Gorsuch said, “I hear a lot of facts, sympathetic facts,” and “they speak to all of us,” but like Alito, he did not seem to think the case was reviewable.

Breyer appeared to be on the fence. “I’m saying honestly I am struggling,” he said. But Breyer also challenged the government’s argument that it has prosecutorial discretion to decide whether to enforce the immigration laws. Breyer distinguished a prosecutor’s decision whether to charge an individual from the policies of an agency.

Is Trump’s Rescission of DACA Lawful?

If the Supreme Court finds it has authority to review the government’s decision to rescind DACA, it must then decide whether the rescission was lawful.

Those challenging the DACA rescission argued that DHS did not sufficiently consider the Dreamers’ reliance interests when it decided to terminate DACA. People outed themselves as undocumented to apply for DACA in reliance on its promise of protection from deportation. Theodore Olson, the lawyer for the individual challengers, said, “Those reliance interests were engendered by the decision of the government that caused people to come forward.”

Breyer cited a Justice Scalia opinion saying that when an agency’s “prior policy has engendered serious reliance interests, it must be taken into account.” Breyer added, “That’s this case, I think.” He mentioned 66 health care organizations, three labor unions, 210 educational institutions, six military organizations, three home builders, five states, 108 municipalities and cities, 129 religious organizations and 145 businesses, most of which, Breyer said, listed reliance interests. In other words, these groups are relying on the Dreamers whose study and work they depend upon.

There was also discussion of the Dreamers’ reliance on Trump’s statements that they would be protected. Trump praised the Dreamers in February 2017, calling most of them “absolutely incredible kids.” He promised, “We are gonna deal with DACA with heart.”

Last fall, Trump tweeted, “Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military? Really!”

When Sessions announced that DACA would be repealed, Trump delayed enforcement for six months, giving Congress time to act to protect the Dreamers. But immigration reform has eluded Congress for years.

“There’s a whole lot of reliance interests that weren’t looked at, including … the current president telling DACA-eligible people that they were safe under him and that he would find a way to keep them here,” Sotomayor noted. But the administration’s position is tantamount to “I’ll give you six months to destroy your lives,” Sotomayor said.

Roberts told Olson, however,

“the whole thing was about work authorization and these other benefits. Both administrations have said they’re not going to deport the people. So, the deferred prosecution or deferred deportation, that’s not what the focus of the policy was.”

When questioning Michael Mongan, an attorney for the state challengers, Roberts mentioned the 2016 case in which he voted with right-wing justices to block another Obama order, Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA). Since Scalia had just died, the case deadlocked 4 to 4, leaving in place a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision ending DAPA.

“Look,” Roberts said, “I’ve got a decision from the Fifth Circuit that tells me this is illegal, it’s been affirmed by the Supreme Court by an equally divided vote.”

In 2017, Elaine Duke, acting director of the DHS, issued a cursory memo announcing the end of DACA. It included no policy reasons. The following year, Kirstjen Nielsen, the new DHS director, issued another memo affirming the Duke memo and stating policy reasons.

Breyer cited “a foundational principle of administrative law that a court may uphold agency action only on the grounds that the agency invoked when it took the action,” concluding therefore that the court should only consider the Duke memo. By contrast, Kavanaugh invoked the Nielsen memo, which he said contains “sound reasons of enforcement policy to rescind the DACA policy.”

Ginsburg called the Nielsen memo “infected” by the view that the program was illegal, arguing that Nielsen would not necessarily have come to the same conclusion if there had been “a clear recognition that there was nothing illegal about DACA.”

Roberts Will Likely Be the Swing Vote

Roberts, who cast conflicting votes in two recent immigration cases, is the wild card here. Together with the four other right-wing justices, he provided the fifth vote to uphold Trump’s Muslim Ban. But he sided with the four liberals to halt Trump’s use of the citizenship question on the 2020 census, writing for the majority that the government’s stated reason for including it was “contrived.”

Roberts wrote, “Altogether, the evidence tells a story that does not match the explanation the [Commerce] Secretary gave for his decision.” He could adopt the same reasoning in the DACA case and agree with Olson and Mongan that the case should be sent back to DHS to determine the actual cost of ending DACA and provide a reasoned legal analysis.

The chief justice must be mindful of the legacy of his court, which would include stripping DACA protection from nearly a million members of society if he votes with the right-wing justices.

The Supreme Court will announce its decision by the end of June 2020.

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Turkey is deporting terrorists to their country of origin. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Tuesday,

“Some countries have started panicking after we began the repatriation process of foreign Daesh terrorists. Turkey has been worrying about this issue for years, let others worry now,” He added, “The American Daesh terrorists stranded in the buffer zone on Greece border is none of Turkey’s concern, deportations will continue regardless.”

The Turkish Interior Minister, Süleyman Soylu, said last week that Ankara would start sending ISIS terrorists back to their country of origin even if they had been stripped of their citizenship, adding that Turkey was not a ‘hotel’ for foreign jihadists.

“There is no need to try to escape from it; we will send them back to you. Deal with them how you want,” said Soylu.

Turkey has criticized Western countries for refusing to take back their citizens who were members of ISIS, also known as Daesh, and stripping them of their citizenship, although the 1961 New York Convention made it illegal to leave people stateless. Since 2010, the UK has stripped more than 100 people of British citizenship. One of the first deported terrorists was an American, unnamed, who was deported to the USA via Greece.  However, he refused to go into Greece, and returned to Turkey, upon which the Turks refused him re-entry and pushed him back to Greece.  Finally, when he asked to enter Greece, they refused which has left him in ‘limbo’ in a buffer space between Turkey and Greece.  The US State Department acknowledges they are aware of the situation but offer no further details about the man who has been photographed and was shown on Turkish TV.

Plans to deport eleven French citizens and seven Germans, along with three from Denmark and two from Ireland, were forming, according to Turkish Interior Ministry spokesman Ismail Catakli. A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry, Christofer Burger, announced in Berlin that ten people were to be deported to Germany suspected of ISIS involvement, including women and children.  The Germans were due to be flown home on November 14^th.

Turkey has deported 7,500 ISIS members, with another 1,149 ISIS terrorists in Turkish prisons. Turkish state media reported Turkey planned to repatriate about 2,500 militants, most going home to European Union nations.

Erdogan will meet with Trump today at the White House.  Erdogan will present documentation that Ferhat Abdi Sahin, who is known to the US military as ‘General’ Mazloum Kobani, is a PKK terrorist.  Recently, Trump spoke with Mazloum, who is the military leader of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and spoke highly of Mazloum and had invited him to the White House.  Trump ordered the withdrawal of US troops from northeastern Turkey, which paved the road for Erdogan to order an invasion on October 9^th, to remove the SDF. The US military partnered with the SDF in the fight to defeat ISIS in Syria.  However, the fight was over and Trump had promised his citizens to ‘bring the troops home’.  Many felt this was a betrayal of the SDF, who had fought and died in the fight to stop ISIS, alongside US troops.  However, Erdogan views the SDF, and Mazloum, as part of the internationally recognized terrorist group, PKK, who has waged a terror campaign against Turkey for more than 30 years, resulting in the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants.

Not every terrorist is being deported from Turkey, only the ones they don’t want.  The mercenary militia Free Syrian Army (FSA) is on the Turkish government payroll and fighting inside Syria today on behalf of Erdogan.

The ground troops used in ‘Operation Spring Peace’ are Syrian terrorists who are now mercenary soldiers employed by Turkey.  We first heard of the FSA in 2011 when Obama and Sen. John McCain called them ‘freedom fighters’ and funded them through covert CIA programs, as well as through Congressional funding, lobbied by McCain and others.  McCain made a personal trip to meet with the FSA near Idlib and the photos his office posted online were controversial. The FSA ended up a failure in Syria, while their ‘brother’s in arms’, Al Qaeda, arrived and were successful, with the FSA either switching uniforms to Al Qaeda or their ‘brother’ ISIS.  Erdogan continued to support them as the remnants of the FSA re-grouped in Turkey, and he rebranded them as the “Syrian National Army”; however, the new name never stuck and they are still called FSA.

Since the FSA have invaded northeast Syria, about 200,000 people have been displaced, according to the UN. Families are scattered across the area, and it is the FSA who are blamed for beatings, rapes, looting, kidnappings, and executions.

The FSA invokes the name of God in every action they take.  If they kill innocent civilians or armed SDF soldiers, they do so by invoking the name of God.  Their shouts of “Allahu Akbar” are remembered from their first appearance in 2011 in Homs, when the carried banners which read, “Christians to Beirut, Alowis to the grave.”  They were followers of the Muslim Brotherhood ideology which gave them the Islamic authority to slaughter in the name of God and to judge who is a ‘heathen’ or not.

“Those people are filled with hatred and a lust for blood,” said Fateh, a barber from Ras al-Ayn.  “They do not distinguish between Arab and Kurdish, Muslim and non-Muslim. They contacted me before the offensive and said that as an Arab Muslim, it is my duty to rise up against the Kurds and help Turkey invade my city.”

He refused and left the area.

“Someone called me and simply said ‘we want your head’ as if stealing my home and driving me out of my city merely for being Kurdish was not enough.” said Mohammad Aref, a radiologist from Tal Abyad.

He said he was reminded of how ISIS acted when they invaded his town in 2013.  The FSA terrorists “destroyed a lion stonework at the entrance of our building, thinking it was idolatry”, he said. “They took our carpets and threw them on the street to prostrate themselves on them during public prayers that they were holding.”

“Let’s be clear, Tal Abyad is not under the control of Turkey. It’s under the control of Turkey’s mercenaries.  They have taken over the houses of us Kurds and made them their own.  Each one of those mercenaries acts as if he was in charge of the town.  They walk into houses and proclaim them theirs. They kidnap and execute people for being ‘atheists’ or ‘blasphemers’. And they are looting people’s properties in broad daylight.” said Mikael Mohammad, the Kurdish owner of a clothing shop in Tal Abyad.

The FSA terrorists “believe that taking your life is doing God’s work and that stealing your property is their reward for it,” said a Kurdish aid worker from Ras al-Ayn, now displaced in Qamishli.

Graphic videos uploaded by the FSA showed them executing captives along a highway near Tal Abyad.  On October 12^th the Syrian Kurdish politician, Hevrin Khalaf, was tortured, murdered and dismembered after the FSA ambushed her car.  The videos of her body and the mutilations of the corpse went viral online.  Her mother said after receiving the body for burial, the only thing she could recognize was a portion of her chin.

Speaking to journalists recently, Erdogan defended his Syrian allies, saying they were not “terrorists” but Islamic holy warriors who were “defending their land there, hand in hand, arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder with my soldiers”.

In 2012, Daniel Wagner, the author of “Virtual Terror”, wrote about the FSA, at a time when the Obama administration and the US media were supporting the FSA regardless of the war crimes and atrocities they were committing. He wrote, “The West should not be surprised if an Islamic state results from an FSA victory.”  That was written seven years ago, while Turkey today, a US ally and NATO member, is using the same terrorists to murder in northeast Syria, and there is no international outcry, as they had all supported them before. Interestingly, the only international outcry is that their terrorists are coming home to roost.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a political commentator. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Mideast Discourse

BDS SA, COSATU, SACP, SSN, FOCUS-SA and others join South Africa’s ruling party, the ANC, in pledging solidarity with the Nelson Mandela of Latin America, President Evo Morales of Bolivia.

Over the weekend, in a shock to all peace loving people, Morales was removed from his position following a coup supported by the local oligarchy with ties in US-interest. This sentiment has been expressed by several Latin American leaders including the president and presidents-elect of Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Argentina and several others from across the globe.

We welcome the protection provided to Morales by the Government of Mexico and concur with their Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard who has explained that “Military coups never bring anything positive and that is why we are worried.”

We as South Africans are concerned by the interference by the USA and their allies as well as related structures in Latin America and other parts of the world.

We fondly recall Morales’ visit to our country in 2006 where he met our former President Thabo Mbeki, his successor President Kgalema Mothlante, our current President Cyril Ramaphosa as well as other senior South Africa leaders including the leadership of the ANC, SACP and COSATU.

Morales was one of the first indiengous people to be elected as President in Bolivia (where the indigenous people account for over 63% of the population. Having been born into a poor Aymarayan family from the township of El Alto (one of seven children, only three of whom survived beyond the age of one) Morales never betrayed his roots, having actively insured that racial discrimination against indigenous people and other injustices were confronted head on.

The leadership of Morales also saw greater economic prosperity for all people of Bolivia. According to the Washington Post:

“it’s indisputable that Bolivians are healthier, wealthier, better educated, living longer and more equal than at any time in this South American nation’s history…under Morales, data shows, Bolivia’s economy is closing the gap with the rest of the continent, growing faster than most neighbors over the past 13 years.”

An internationalist, Morales has also come under pressure from the USA for his support of the Palestinian struggle against Israeli Apartheid. In 2008 Evo Morales recalled Bolivia’s ambassador from Israel stating that “what is happening in Palestine is genocide”. In 2014 Morales, together with the late Cuban President Fidel Castro and others issued a statement in support of BDS. They wrote:

“We encourage you to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against the terrorist state of Israel, as it is time for active and creative solidarity that goes beyond statements of condemnation.”

We will urgently be consulting with our partner organizations involved in international solidarity efforts to arrange urgent protests and others actions against the US-backed coup in Bolivia and to support the Bolivian people’s democratically elected president, Comrade Evo Morales. We call for an end to the hybrid wars waged on progressive states in Latin America which are undermining democracy and the will of the people.

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“You must know a great fighter, he is a personality in his country” – the French worker of North African origin who introduced him to me told me. It was rigorously true. For many years Mamadou Mansaré has embodied the voice of the Guinean workers’ movement in the National Confederation of Guinean Workers (CNTG). We are at an obligatory stop in French trade unionism: a mansion in the middle of a natural habitat given to the Nazi occupants to be used as a brothel, and that the first resisters who entered Paris with their rifles took away from their former owners, and then converted it into a training centre for class struggle.

Because internationalism is acts and not words, Mansaré was being gratuitously hosted by the CGT, “the union whose comrades were by my side in my country, during the gun battles”. He was undergoing medical treatment. His pleasant voice did not allow us to guess that long trajectory in the front line of battle. Despite his fragile state of health, we agreed to an interview that finally lasted more than two hours. We barely noticed.

Mansaré had recently returned to Guinea. And only a few days ago he left us, on October 6. He was 64 years old and fought until the last moment for the humble of that plundered continent. His return is a message for the new generations: a whole life dedicated to social combat is worth living. Chapeau bas, monsieur !

We leave you with this interview published as a tribute. In it, Mansaré breaks into a thousand pieces the story of national history based on the work of a few individuals, restores the true history of African Independence and points out without cover those responsible for this deadly capitalist machinery.

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Alex Anfruns: How did Guinea’s independence come about?

Mamadou Mansaré: Guinea gained its independence on 2 October 1958. It was the first country of the French colonial empire to say “No” and to obtain independence in a referendum. That “No” of September 28 was perceived by De Gaulle and the whole West as a snub. My country had to pay a high price for having made this choice, for having said that “we prefer freedom in poverty to opulence in slavery”.

AA: How important is Guinea in the region?

MM: Guinea is the third largest bauxite producer after Australia, but it is the largest reserve in the world. And they are also quality reserves. We have the best iron, with extraordinary deposits. We have uranium, gold, diamonds, large expanses of arable land, our waters are abundant with fish… It is said that Guinea is the “Water Tower” of Africa, because all the great rivers of West Africa have their origin in Guinea. We have the Senegal River, the Niger River and the Gambia River, which originate in Guinea. It is as if we were talking about the importance of the Nile for Egypt.

AA: Guinea was on the right path to development. What happened then?

MM: What happened is that France withdrew all its teachers, destroyed all the documentation of the colonial administration, including our birth certificates that were burned. They left us nothing. Those who came to replace them to teach us in Guinea were Russian, Bulgarian, Haitian and Dahomey teachers – at that time already called Beninese. So I was educated by Russian professors throughout my cycle, until I graduated from university. Our first president, Sékou Touré, came from the union that made the country independent. He was also a deep Pan-Africanist.

AA: In the context of the “wave of independence”, what were the relations between the different liberation movements in West Africa?

MM: The company in which I worked, the SBK (Société de Bauxite de Kindia), was created especially to reimburse the Russians for the weapons that the Russians and other Soviet bloc countries sent to us for use in the various national liberation movements.

Our first contribution was to the FLN in Algeria. The weapons that arrived in Guinea passed through Bamako and then through the desert to finally deliver them to Boumédienne.

Then there was the liberation movement of the Portuguese-speaking countries, with Guinea Bissau very close to us. It was our own troops who fought there.

AA: What kind of cooperation was there?

MM: It was Guinea that provided the aid to Guinea Bissau. The weapons were bought from the Soviet bloc, landed in the port of Conakry, and then transported by road. The PAIGC, which had been formed by Amilcar Cabral, was based in Guinea. PAIGC combatants were trained in Guinea by the Guinean army and Cuban teachers, because in the 1960s there was military and health cooperation between Guinea and Cuba. The first combined intervention of both was in the Congo, where Guinean and Cuban troops were found. Che Guevara had gone to the Congo to help the Lumumbista movement in April 1965. But it was too late. That failure still explains today the current destabilization of the Congo.

PAIGC fighters were not only trained in Conakry, they were also given accommodation. Amilcar Cabral, Nino Vieira and the entire staff were there. And our troops also disguised themselves as PAIGC fighters to fight alongside them.

AA: In that unequal balance of power with the colonial powers, Pan-African unity was necessary…

MM: Yes, the Portuguese first attacked Guinea and then assassinated Cabral on January 20, 1973. On November 22, 1970, ships arrived in Guinea that landed mercenaries to carry out a coup d’état, but it failed. All the people participated in its defeat because everyone was obliged to have a militia formation. By the time we graduated from university, we had all completed a year of military training. We joined the company, but in case we were needed, if a war was declared we had to be prepared.

Fortunately, the war never happened. There were attacks, such as the incursion of mercenaries from Sierra Leone who came to attack us in 2000. But it only took us a month, we threw them out!

Then we had Angola. The first Angolan president was Agustinho Neto. He was very popular, he did his military training in Guinea. Weapons were also transported in the same way from Guinea to Angola.

AA: How do you explain this important welcome to Pan-African leaders in Guinea?

MM: Let us remember the coup d’état against the President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah. When that coup took place, we welcomed Nkrumah to Guinea. He was even appointed co-president of Guinea! Since independence, Guinea has been a country that has really wanted this unity. First we started by bringing together Guinea, Mali and Ghana. But it didn’t work in Mali, because of the coup against Modibo Keita. Then unity was also impeded by the dismissal of Nkrumah. In fact, Guinea is the only one of the three countries that was able to take on the Pan-African task.

The South African leader of the African National Congress (ANC) Thabo Mbeki, as well as President Nelson Mandela, completed their training in our country. Mandela’s first passport was Guinean! It was thanks to his Guinean diplomatic passports that all these leaders mentioned were able to travel, whether from Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe as Robert Mugabe or Mozambique as their first president Samora Machel from 1975 to 1986. Machel led his country to independence after a war of liberation against the Portuguese. After his death, his wife Graça Machel became the First Lady of South Africa at the second marriage to Nelson Mandela in 1998.

All these countries received aid from the Guinean Government through bauxite mining companies. We sent our bauxite via Russian ships to Ukraine. There was a factory that was built especially for our bauxite. The Nikolaev company was the base on which today’s Russal group was founded. It is a large mining group, but during the period of the Soviet empire, Nikolaev belonged to the state. Nikolaev was built especially to transform bauxite into alumina and pay off the debt to the Soviet bloc: the weapons, the teachers, the doctors who sent us, as well as the infrastructure we were building.

AA: Those efforts of pan-African unity were subjected to containment by the colonial powers. It is hard to imagine that Guinea, the heart of the resistance, could be saved from the storm. How did they proceed?

MM: As I said, Guinea has made a significant contribution to the liberation of the other West African countries. That is why it has been the victim of many coups d’état. In some writings, we can read that Sékou Touré was a dictator, a bloodthirsty man, who killed this and that… As always, it is very easy to distort reality by those who have the power of communication.

Let’s see how Françafrique was under De Gaulle, with the businesses of the Foccart network. They themselves have recognized all the coups d’état they organized in Guinea. They admitted to being behind so many coup attempts… but they did not succeed. Never. Until the natural death of President Sékou Touré, no coup d’état succeeded… because his people were with him!

AA: How did you get involved in the union?

MM: At that time everyone was organized. When a young man finished his studies, he didn’t have to look for three feet for the cat, but simply started to work. Automatically and whatever his level was. You could choose between three companies. When I graduated from college, I chose SBK. I said to myself, “Well, if this company is paying our debt, I’d rather work there than at CBG, which serves the American imperialists of Alcan (Alcoa and Rio Tinto). I made my own decision.

The union played a very important role, at least for me, in raising awareness among the black African population. It was the first to begin to explain the injustices we were suffering. The West has never acknowledged the black genocide! One can hardly imagine what the triangular traffic between Africa and Europe is like. America alone, the “slave trade”, represents more than 200 million deaths. In Nantes there is a memorial with all the names of the captains of the ships that took part in that “slave trade”. Blacks used to be put on ships in Africa… And from then on, they were distributed and sold like wild animals. Women were separated…

Under that system alone, 200 million people died. Isn’t that genocide, not to mention the blacks who died in America! Not to mention those who died in the raids! And how many Africans died just because of the rubber harvest, Michelin companies…? Isn’t it colonization, isn’t it genocide?

If Europe has developed, it is thanks to the richness of Africa. Today we are told that we are immigrants. The colonialists came and imposed their law on us. They have taken the wealth of our continent. They don’t need a visa, they continue to loot us!

AA: You say that companies from imperialist countries were also present to exploit Guinea’s resources. Can you go deeper into that?

MM: Yes, at the time of Sékou Touré there was the CBG, the Compagnie de Bauxite de Guinée, of which 45% belonged to the Guinean state and 55% to the Alcan group. There was Pechiney, a French group in Fria. It is the first alumina plant in Africa, built by the French. After the death of Sékou Touré at the time of Lassana Conté, it was sold to the Americans. Today, this factory belongs to the Russal group.

Let’s compare the price of bauxite, for example, with the price of aluminum, which is the final element of bauxite…It’s with aluminum that we make cans, flasks, etc. When you compare the price of a ton of aluminum and a ton of bauxite, it’s the difference between a stream and an ocean! The maximum they’ll give you is maybe $28 or $30 for a ton of bauxite. While aluminum reaches up to $2,000 or $3,000 per ton.

AA: In the 1960s, groups of countries in the South came together to defend their economic rights, their sovereignty over the price of raw materials…

MM: Yes, the case of bauxite in Guinea is an example of this. At the time of the First Republic, it was a Guinean who held that position. But everything stopped after the death of the President. They wanted to follow the example of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), do the same to regulate the price of bauxite. But the mining multinationals are very powerful and it was not possible. Today, those multinationals are Alcan (Alcoa and Rio Tinto), Vale, Russal, the Chinese… They come and take control of the concessions. There is no difference between them, but they copy each other.

AA: How does concessions work?

MM: To attract multinationals to your country, a country is forced to make many concessions. For example, let’s say that a country offers a concession of 20,000 dollars and the multinational answers “it’s too much, I can’t pay more than 10,000”. Then the government says: “Do you want me to exempt you from port taxes for ten years? You will not pay income taxes. Your expatriates will not contribute to social security”… Well, that’s a lot of taxes! In the meantime, the multinational uses the roads, the rivers, it pollutes with its various products! People and communities are deprived of the lands they occupied since their ancestors. And as compensation, they are not given any other working tool.

Let’s say that two countries have the same mineral, for example. Well, one country considers that it should give all those facilities to attract a multinational, because the neighboring country would also like it to come. Everyone wants him to come. So the multinational decides according to who has the best ore and the best advantages they offer. So Africa is fighting itself!

AA: How can one escape this vicious circle?

MM: Former South African President Thabo Mbeki’s report on illicit financial flows shows that the exemptions that countries granted multinational mining companies from various taxes were 10 times greater than the bilateral aid provided by Western countries.

Instead of providing us with this “aid”, our different countries could agree on a single, identical mining code, imposing the same requirements on the multinationals. In that case, there would no longer be competition between African countries.

AA: Today countries like the United States or France are very present in Africa. For example, with cooperation programmes in the “fight against corruption”. Are these their real objectives?

MM: Ridiculesness doesn’t kill! Instead of sending NGOs… may they help us recover our funds through mining tax havens! New Jersey is a mining tax haven. Toronto, in Canada, is a hub! The stock exchanges in England and Singapore are also centres of operations!

In Europe they have brought out a whole arsenal to fight against these tax havens from the financial point of view. But they never talk about mining tax havens. What are mining companies doing? They are all recovering their money in the places I have just mentioned. Even Chinese companies are trading in New Jersey. Everything they steal, they take there to launder, to make it clean money. We don’t even know how much real tonnage of ore is mined in our countries!

If you look at the map of Guinea, you can find Boké, next to the port and Guinea Bissau. The border near Boké was precisely where the main battlefields were located during the fight against the Portuguese army… The whole area of Boké is very rich in bauxite. Today, there are more than fifty multinationals of all nationalities in that small area of Boké-Boffa. Whether they are Chinese, Australian, Russian or American multinationals… Imagine the pressure that exists in my country! And if you look at the population, it’s very poor! So when I hear about NGOs… Why don’t they investigate where wealth goes?

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

Without establishment media support, US planned aggression, color revolutions, old-fashioned coups, and other hostile to peace, equity and justice actions wouldn’t get out of the starting gate.

Propaganda support is crucial, manipulating the public mind. Media operate as gatekeepers, proliferating the official narrative, suppressing vital hard truths essential for everyone to know.

Orwell called it “reality control,” substituting managed news misinformation and disinformation for truth-telling.

Discussing the coup in Bolivia, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) said the following:

Bolivian “(a)rmy generals appearing on television to demand the resignation and arrest of an elected civilian head of state seems like a textbook example of a coup,” adding:

“And yet that is certainly not how corporate media are presenting the weekend’s events in Bolivia. No establishment outlet framed the action as a coup,” concealing reality, exclusively reporting state-approved propaganda, saying the following:

NYT: An “infuriated population” was angry about “election fraud” — ignoring Bolivia’s free, fair and open process, Evo Morales elected and reelected four times.

Fox News falsely called his government a “full-blown dictatorship” — ignoring Bolivian democratic rule under his leadership.

When establishment media refer to a “coup,” Morales and his government are falsely accused of the made-in-the-USA plot to topple him.

FAIR: “The New York Times did not hide its approval at events, presenting Morales as a power-hungry despot who had finally ‘lost his grip on power,’ ” adding:

Removing him from office marked “the end of tyranny.”

CNN highlighted the Big Lie of “election fraud,” proving again why it’s the most distrusted name in so-called television news.

Across the board, establishment media suppressed how Morales was “forced (from office) at gunpoint by the military,” FAIR stressed.

CBS News falsely said Morales resigned over “election fraud and protests.”

FAIR: “Delegitimizing foreign elections where the ‘wrong’ person wins, of course, is a favorite pastime of corporate media.”

FAIR: “No mainstream outlet warned its readers (or viewers) that the OAS is a Cold War organization, explicitly set up to halt the spread of leftist governments.”

USAID earlier said the organization “promotes US interests in the Western hemisphere, countering the influence of” sovereign independent governments in Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Bolivia under Morales.

The same script followed the US 2016 presidential election, establishment media furious about Trump’s triumph over Hillary.

Russiagate and Ukrainegate scams are all about wanting him delegitimized and weakened for winning an election he was supposed to lose.

Over-entertained, uninformed Americans are so out of touch with reality they’re easy to fool no matter how many times they were duped before.

Famed imperial state critic Gore Vidal once said:

“We are the United States of Amnesia, which is encouraged by a media that has no desire to tell us the truth about anything, serving their corporate masters who have other plans to dominate us.”

Noted oral historian Studs Terkel responded to Vidal, saying:

“Gore, it’s not the United States of Amnesia. It’s the United States of Alzheimer’s.”

Information passes through the public mind like water through a sieve — understanding something today, erased from memory when new or dissimilar information replaces it.

Vidal railed against establishment media, calling them “bandits,” adding “(t)he infantilizing of the republic is one of the triumphs of American television.”

“Everybody with an IQ above room temperature is onto the con act of our media. They are obeying bigger, richer interests than informing the public—which is the last thing that corporate America has ever been interested in doing.”

Commenting on the nation’s ruling class, Vidal said he was “around (its members) all (his) life,” stressing his awareness of “their total contempt for the people of the country” — serving their own interests exclusively, supported by dominant media.

In its latest edition, the NYT falsely claimed self-declared, unelected, coup d’etat president in Bolivia Anez aims “to reconstruct democracy.”

Like other establishment media, it failed to explain that toppling Morales was all about eliminating democratic rule under his leadership, wanting pro-Western puppet rule replacing him.

The Times and likeminded media support what demands denunciation. No election “fraud” occurred as falsely reported.

General Carlos Orellana Centellas replaced Williams Kaliman as Bolivian military chief, both officials and other key ones in their chain of command trained at the infamous School of the Americas at Fort Benning, GA.

According to Bolivia’s Ombudsman’s Office, street violence since October 20 resulted in eight deaths, over 500 injuries, and hundreds arrested.

On Wednesday, Telesur reported that “legitimate” Senate President Adriana Salvatierra “was violently assaulted by the police as she was trying to enter the Senate on Wednesday in order to comply with the constitutional rule that automatically proclaims the head of the upper chamber the Interim President when the President steps down, after Evo Morales was forced to resign on Sunday.”

During a Wednesday press conference, she said that she’s ready to convene parliament and assume the presidency as constitutionally mandated, adding:

“After the attack, we can observe that we have no guarantee for us to fulfill our legislative mandate.” Separately, she tweeted:

“#Bolivia | Senate President Adriana Salvatierra was assaulted and her entrance to the senate was blocked by police officials and coup supporters.”

Telesur tweeted:

“After a violent attack by coup supporters and police, Bolivian President of the Senate suffered minor injuries, but she was not able to go back to work and fulfill her mission at congress.”

On Wednesday, Pompeo issued a statement, expressing support for Bolivia’s coup d’etat president Anez, saying:

The Trump regime “applauds (her) for stepping up…to lead her nation through this democratic transition” — what the CIA orchestrated coup went all out to eliminate.

In response to events in Bolivia, the anti-imperial Black Alliance for Peace expressed solidarity with its population, urging that “people of conscience in the West join us to defeat the US/EU/NATO Axis of domination for the good of humanity,” adding:

“People of Bolivia, you are not alone.”

Note: On November 16, anti-imperial demonstrations are planned in Washington, New York, and other US cities against the CIA orchestrated coup in Bolivia — in coordination with similar actions abroad.

They’re all about wanting legitimate Bolivian President Evo Morales restored to the office he democratically won.

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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 OneWorld

Since late 2001, the United States has appropriated and is obligated to spend an estimated $6.4 Trillion through Fiscal Year 2020 in budgetary costs related to and caused by the post-9/11 wars—an estimated $5.4 Trillion in appropriations in current dollars and an additional minimum of $1 Trillion for US obligations to care for the veterans of these wars through the next several decades.[2]

The mission of the post-9/11 wars, as originally defined, was to defend the United States against future terrorist threats from al Qaeda and affiliated organizations. Since 2001, the wars have expanded from the fighting in Afghanistan, to wars and smaller operations elsewhere, in more than 80 countries — becoming a truly “global war on terror.” Further, the Department of Homeland Security was created in part to coordinate the defense of the homeland against terrorist attacks.

These wars, and the domestic counterterror mobilization, have entailed significant expenses, paid for by deficit spending. Thus, even if the United States withdraws completely from the major war zones by the end of FY2020 and halts its other Global War on Terror operations, in the Philippines and Africa for example, the total budgetary burden of the post- 9/11 wars will continue to rise as the US pays the on -going costs of veterans’ care and for interest on borrowing to pay for the wars. Moreover, the increases in the Pentagon base budget associated with the wars are likely to remain, inflating the military budget over the long run.

Overview

One of the major purposes of the Costs of War Project has been to clarify the types of budgetary costs of the US post -9/11 wars, how that spending is funded, and the long-term implications of past and current spending. This estimate of the US budgetary costs of the post-9/11 wars is a comprehensive accounting intended to provide a sense of the consequences of the wars for the federal budget. Since the 9/11 attacks, the Department of Defense appropriations related to the Global War on Terror have been treated as emergency appropriations, now called Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO).[3] When accounting for total war costs, the Department of Defense and other entities often present only Overseas Contingency Operation appropriations.

The Costs of War Project takes a broader view of war expenses because budgetary costs of the post -9/11 wars are not confined to military spending. Table 1 summarizes post-9/11 war-related costs and the categories of spending. Numbers and occasionally categories are revised in the Costs of War estimates when better information becomes available. For example, this year’s report uses newer interest rate data in calculating the estimated interest on borrowing for OCO spending. Additionally, this report revises the estimate of increases to the Pentagon base budget given new information, described below, on patterns of military spending and the relations between the OCO budget and base military spending. Further, the Department of Defense budget for FY2020 included new categories, denoting OCO spending intended for the base military budget, reflected in a separate line in Table 1.

Table 1. Summary of War Related Spending, in Billions of Current Dollars, FY2001–FY2020 Rounded to the nearest $billion.

Full Report: Click here to read the carefully documented report by Professor Neta C. Crawford of Boston University.

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Every year, on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, references are made with the Cypriot capital of Nicosia, the last divided capital city of Europe. In Berlin, the wall fell under the weight of a political cosmogony and pressure from citizens, who dismantled the wall with their hands, hammers and other tools until Berlin was once again united.

However, the partition of Germany and the division of Cyprus did not have the same starting point. Germany was divided between a communist east and a capitalist west after the Nazis were defeated by Soviet forces after the Battle of Berlin, while Cyprus was occupied in 1974 after Turkey invaded the northern portion of the island, established a de facto state only recognized by Ankara, and displaced the entirety of the native Greek population while replacing them with colonizers from Turkey.

Regarding the handling of the occupation, the status quo in Cyprus is controlled. Unfortunately, adapting to Turkish aspirations also goes through the deterioration of Ankara’s actions. The choice is between accepting the perpetrators or preventing them from overturn.

Ankara has relentlessly advanced into waters controlled by the Republic of Cyprus, the internationally recognized country.

Why? Oil and gas of course. Billions and billions of dollars’ worth.

The Eastern Mediterranean remains a strategic point for trade due to its proximity to the Suez Canal, transportation and more recently, natural resources. It is this very drive for exploiting the natural resources that in January, the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum was convened as a means for Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Jordan, Israel, Italy and the Palestinian Authority to develop a regional natural gas market. Notably, Turkey was missing from this Forum, which would have agitated Ankara as only a month later ExxonMobil announced a new gas discovery in offshore Cyprus that has more than doubled Cyprus’s estimated offshore resources. This is why Turkey has been in a desperate rush to exploit oil belonging to another internationally recognized sovereign country.

It is for this reason that on Monday, on Nicosia’s request last month, the EU Council of Foreign Affairs adopted sanctions, including travel bans and freezing assets of individuals and entities involved in Turkey’s illegal drilling Cypriot natural resources.  The sanctions also prohibit persons and entities from the European Union from making funds available to those on the list of sanctions.

The sanctions come as last week, Turkish Energy Minister Fatih Dönmez boldly announced that his country had started illegal oil-drilling with Yavuz ship off Cyprus, noting that the Fatih vessel was also preparing for a new drilling.

In response to the sanctions, the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu claimed that

“We will not give up our rights under international law, despite European steps,” adding that the EU “cannot grasp the reality and make the right decisions based on international law and justice.”

This is a strange position for Turkey to adopt when considering there is absolutely no international law that validates its illegal drilling of oil and gas that belongs to Cyprus. In actual international law, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea stipulates that a state’s territorial waters can only extend 12 nautical miles out to sea. However, Cyprus has its own internationally recognized Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), meaning Nicosia can claim fishing, mining, and drilling rights a further 200 miles unless the distance between two countries is less than 424 miles, they must determine an agreed dividing line between their EEZ’s.

Source: InfoBrics

Although Turkey claims it is upholding international law, without citing which international law exactly, it is unsurprising that Turkey is one of only 15 UN members, out of 193, that has not signed up to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, demonstrating it has no interest in international law.

Simon Henderson, an energy specialist at the Washington Institute, explains that “Turkey has not signed up to the convention because the document grants significant rights to island territories” and that “Ankara instead claims rights based on its continental shelf, a perspective that severely limits Cypriot rights.”

However, what Turkey wants, and what Turkey gets are two different things.

Although Ankara continues to send colonizers to Northern Cyprus, the rest of the world recognises Cyprus as one country, with the government in Nicosia having sovereignty. The refusal of international states, including traditional allies like Albania and Azerbaijan, to recognize the illegal “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” infuriates Ankara. Only last month, EU Member States had reiterated their full support for Cyprus, demanding that the European Commission submit proposals for restrictive measures against Turkey.

The sanctions will be a major blow to Turkey as it does not have the technology or knowhow to exploit the significant gas and oil deposits in the EEZ, and it is highly unlikely that multinationals will be willing to extract Cyprus’ natural resources on behalf of Turkey and risk sanctions and punishment.

Although Çavuşoğlu continually insists that Turkey operates under the tenants of international law, this strange ‘adherence’ to international law sees Turkey violating Greek air space on a daily basis, continues to violate Cypriot territory on a near daily basis outside of the areas they already occupy, threats to invade the rest of Cyprus, and illegally invade northern Syria and Iraq. Turkey on a daily basis illegally operates in Greece, Cyprus, Syria and Iraq without permission or jurisdiction, yet continually claims it wants peace and operates under international law.

Therefore, Turkey certainly does not appear ready to participate in a five-day meeting on the Cyprus Issue in December. The initial goal was to pursue an informal five-day meeting with the UN Secretary-General following an informal three-day meeting, in search of unifying the island again.

At the same time UN Special Envoy Jane Hol Lut is expected to arrive in Cyprus for preparations for the informal trialogue meeting in Berlin on November 25 and Cypriot President Anastasiadis will also meet with Lut on November 16. However, President Anastasiadis goes to Paris on Monday to participate in the international Forum on Peace organized by the French Presidency. Before Berlin, President Anastasiadis will also travel to Zagreb to attend a conference of the European People’s Party hosted in the Croatian capital on November 20 and 21.

It certainly appears that Cyprus is making every diplomatic effort to force the issue of the divided island to be resolved. Although Turkey continues to act in a defiant manner, it is yet to realize that its efforts to become the regional hegemon has only weakened its position. It’s reversal of its responsible “Policy of Zero Problems with our Neighbors,” that was completed destroyed with Turkey’s support of jihadists against Syria in 2011 despite Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan once describing his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad as “his brother”, has only seen the country experience more problems with increased terrorist attacks, the re-emergence of the PKK in Syria and a destroyed economy.

And now in Cyprus, with its continued efforts to ‘legitimize’ the invasion of the rest of the country or illegally extract its natural resources, Turkey will now be put in an even weaker position as it risks its economy further. With the U.S. already applying pressures and sanctions on Turkey for acquiring the Russian S-400 and invading northern Syria, the EU will now likely go on the offensive against Ankara as it continues to occupy a part of an EU member.

Although the EU has taken a more-or-less balanced and patient approach to resolving Cyprus, it appears it is now becoming increasingly impatient with Turkey’s aggression towards neighboring EU members. With the EU and Nicosia attempting to push ahead negotiations in resolving the Cyprus issue but Turkey illegally extracting natural resources, occupying a part of an EU member and indirectly threatening to invade the rest of the island along with Greece’s eastern Aegean islands, the EU is beginning to realize that time is being wasted in negotiations and patience and that a more aggressive approaches like sanctions needs to be taken.

Severe sanctions against Turkey would be devastating to its already fragile economy. Will this be enough to force Turkey to the negotiating table remains to be seen, but it is highly unlikely as Erdoğan has already demonstrated he is willing to sacrifice the wellbeing of his people and the economy by prioritizing military operations in Syria and Iraq, and pressuring the Greek and Cypriot militaries on a daily basis with the constant war games, costing the Turkish economy billions upon billions of dollars.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

“This intimidation shows how the U.S. security forces work hand-in-glove with the right-wing forces in Latin America who are trying to stop progressive movements that empower the poor.”

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Medea Benjamin, co-founder of anti-war group CodePink, said she was assaulted Wednesday by supporters of the right-wing Venezuelan opposition during a Capitol Hill press conference announcing the creation of the bipartisan Congressional Venezuela Democracy Caucus.

Medea Benjamin is a frequent contributor to Global Research

Benjamin and other members of CodePink protested the event while backers of the effort to overthrow Venezuela’s elected President Nicolás Maduro rallied in support of the new pro-regime change caucus, which was launched by Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.), and other lawmakers.

During the press conference, Benjamin shouted for an end to punishing U.S. sanctions in Venezuela and held a sign that read “No Coups in Venezuela or Bolivia.”

At one point, Benjamin was standing just outside the circle of lawmakers when she was grabbed and choked from behind by an unidentified individual CodePink said was a supporter of the Venezuelan opposition.

“When Debbie Wasserman Schultz was speaking, I was standing right next to her, and every once in a while I would say something like, ‘Lift the Sanctions!’ ‘This is all about the votes, Debbie, isn’t it? In Florida!’,” Benjamin told journalist Ford Fischer following the event.

“I was pulled by people behind me,” she added. “They grabbed me. They choked me. They threw me down, and I was very upset and shaken.”

CodePink posted a clip of part of the incident on Twitter:

We managed to get a clip of the altercation between @MedeaBenjamin and the supporters of the Venezuelan opposition.

Decide for yourself who assaulted who. pic.twitter.com/oai4m33O7p

— CODEPINK (@codepink) November 14, 2019

Hours after the event, Capitol police—with five vehicles—arrived at Benjamin’s home and threatened to arrest her on accusations of assaulting Wasserman Schultz, which Benjamin adamantly denied.

In one clip, it appears that Benjamin grabbed the Florida congresswoman in an effort to maintain balance as she was pulled from behind.

“Debbie Wasserman Schultz was there. I was standing by the side of her, and the right-wing Venezuelans were dragging me down,” Benjamin told a Capitol police officer outside of her home. “I grabbed on to whatever I could find, and now they’re saying that I assaulted a congresswoman. I didn’t assault anybody.”

At :30, watch a member of Juan Guaido’s US-funded DC mafia choke @medeabenjamin for protesting a press conference of fake ambassador Carlos Vecchio & his tool, DWS.

Medea was then falsely accused of assault, visited by cops and almost arrested. pic.twitter.com/ncf9GSINep

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) November 14, 2019

Shortly after Benjamin demanded that the Capitol police produce a warrant for her arrest, the officers told her she was “free to go” following a review of the video footage.

“Apparently, the Capitol Police had an allegation, did not know if they could substantiate the allegation, but because it involved a congresswoman, it did not matter,” reported ShadowProof‘s Kevin Gosztola. “They sought to quickly coerce a political activist into submitting to their authority, even if there was no basis for that activist to do so before the allegation was corroborated by police.”

In a statement following the incident, Benjamin said “this intimidation shows how the U.S. security forces work hand-in-glove with the right-wing forces in Latin America who are trying to stop progressive movements that empower the poor.”

CodePink Latin America coordinator Leonardo Flores, who attended the press conference with Benjamin, said the event “was almost like a microcosm of U.S. policy towards Venezuela.”

“We saw U.S. government representatives, flanked by Venezuelan elites, deciding on policy for Venezuela as police silenced the voices of people  speaking out about the coup and sanctions,” said Flores. “I saw Medea Benjamin get assaulted and shoved to the ground, while I was threatened with physical violence.”

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Featured image: “I saw Medea Benjamin get assaulted and shoved to the ground, while I was threatened with physical violence,” said CodePink Latin America coordinator Leonardo Flores. (Photo: Screengrab via Common Dreams)

The successful regime change operation that was just carried out in Bolivia throughout the course of the country’s ongoing US-backed Hybrid War could have some game-changing geostrategic consequences if the coup “authorities” renege on the previous agreements that President Morales signed with Russia and China, especially in the lithium industry, as well as if they enable their new American patron to use their centrally positioned state in the continental heartland as a platform for spreading its divide-and-rule influence all throughout the rest of South America.

Boris Johnson has declared that Britain can have a “super Canada-plus” free trade agreement with the EU and achieve that by the end of 2020 and that “there is no need” for political alignment. That’s wrong – it’s not realistically possible.

Not too many hurdles to achieve this are there eh? Leaving aside winning an election – and winning it with a good majority first, and having done so, throw in a bit of parliamentary scrutiny (and that’s gone well so far), Boris would need to convince everyone he has the ability to bend time itself.

Negotiations with countries outside of the EU are not supposed to be started until Britain has formally left the EU. And only then, can negotiations formally start. It should be noted that it took the Canadians seven years of intense meetings to get their deal done – and importantly, it is emphatically worse than the deal we currently have under the umbrella of the EU.

So, if Canada is the benchmark deal to be looked up to, which Boris says it should be – it’s only a small inconvenience to know that it is worse than our current arrangement – by a long, long way. To make it sound a bit better a few months ago, the swashbuckling Brexiteers took it from the ‘Canada deal’ to – ‘Canada Plus’ but that idea was trashed by economic experts and so now its called ‘Super Canada Plus.’ In a few months, Boris will be referring to it as the Super-Duper-Spiffngly-Excellent-Canada-Plus-Plus’ deal – but the reality is that this is little more than an economic cul-de-sac going towards the dead-end of nowhere in particular.

Let’s take a small point. The current Canada deal with the EU has almost no provision for the financial and services industries – the largest industry Britain has to offer. Another small problem – there are the customs checks Boris keeps promising will never happen – but will.

There is another issue that the arch Brexiteers keep brushing under the carpet. Regulatory alignment. It’s all boring and complicated I know but it is important to understand that if Britain is to do a deal with the EU it must adhere to their regulations – not the other way around. The only way to agree a deal with Canada and the EU is to restrict the goods we currently send to the EU as our own standards will have fallen to meet that of Canada’s or America’s and so on.

The political declaration defines the type of future relationship with the EU and is designed to make it unambiguous. It says:

Given the Union and the United Kingdom’s geographic proximity and economic interdependence, the future relationship must ensure open and fair competition, encompassing robust commitments to ensure a level playing field. The precise nature of commitments should be commensurate with the scope and depth of the future relationship and the economic connectedness of the Parties. These commitments should prevent distortions of trade and unfair competitive advantages. (Paragraph 77).

What this means, in essence, is that Britain needs to toe-the-line with the EU on regulatory alignment – and if Boris doesn’t then the only free trade agreement he can get will be disadvantageous to Britain. Of course.

And here is another important small detail. Boris Johnson knows all of this because he is laying claim to the fact that the current deal that has been negotiated has his signature on it. He owns it. And yet, he is saying something different to the deal that has been done. Either he’s lying (again) or doesn’t understand the deal he’s done – in which case, he should be in charge of it.

This is the problem with Brexit. It’s not just a dichotomy – it’s a political Catch22. We can’t win. Throw the dice as many times as you like – the numbers don’t fall in Britain’s favour.

Look at the words highlighted in that paragraph again. He can’t get the same deal that Canada has – because of what was built into the deal, the “geographic proximity and economic interdependence”. In other words, we’re next door, not 4,000 miles away and we have ties to each other that if broken would cause immense economic damage.

Talking of Canada – these are the opening words of Boris Johnson’s new stable mate Nigel Farage in a document published January 2016 on the EU –  “Leaving the EU will have significant geopolitical and economic consequences. But we believe it is unrealistic to expect a clean break, immediately unravelling forty years of integration in a single step.” At the time, Farage was promoting a separation project from the EU taking two decades and then a second referendum to approve his recommendation of a Norway plus deal. How the wind blows!

It was Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, in 1538 who wrote to Thomas Cromwell, and coined the term “a man can not have his cake and eat his cake.” Ironically, Cromwell was an English lawyer and statesman who served as chief minister an advisor to King Henry VIII of England from 1532 to 1540. It was he who advised on new powers for the king, referred to today as “Henry VIII Powers’. These are the same executive powers Boris Johnson has given himself in the current Withdrawal Agreement Bill.

As a side note and not particularly relevant right now – the advisor was beheaded.

Britain cannot simultaneously have the benefits of the EU cake as it does right now and eat it without being one of its bakers. If that were possible, what would be the point of the EU as a union of trading countries? There is no such thing as a ‘super Canada Plus’ deal because it’s not super, nor will it ever be. It’s a bit like producing a packet of crisps and telling everyone it’s as nutritious as a tuna, avocado and quinoa salad. It just isn’t.

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Featured image is from the author

First posted on July 21, 2016

So far, lithium has been the hottest metal of 2016, beating out gold, with exponential demand expected over the coming years. Although the price trajectory of the metal has been subdued in recent months, the fundamentals behind the long-term trajectory suggest strong potential for long-term growth. Price doubling from 2014/2015 was first seen in China and is now being felt worldwide, with lithium hydroxide prices from $16-20 and carbonate prices from $12-14 thousand USD per ton. 

[Both Bolivia and Afghanistan have very large deposits of lithium which in the current context constitutes a strategic mineral. M. Ch. GR Editor]

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

Automotive Thrust

There is no doubt as to the push that Tesla has given the current automotive transition to electric vehicles (EVs). As the company’s mission statement outlines, it hopes “to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass market electric cars to market as soon as possible.”

However, since 2014, when Tesla first announced the Gigafactory with Panasonic, other manufacturers have begun to take notice and take action. Volkswagen AG announced last week that it was considering LG Chem Ltd. or Panasonic Corp. as partners for several US$2-billion factories, according toBloomberg, with confirmation expected later in the year.

Previous announcements of billion-dollar investments in battery factories by Volkswagen were largely brushed off by investors as deflections from their ‘Dieselgate’ scandal. But with LG and Panasonic in the picture, concrete plans appear to be crystalizing.

Combined with Daimler putting US$550 million into tripling its battery production capacity in Germany, Nissan’s planned investments in the UK for its third generation Leaf, and GM’s joint venture with LG Chem to produce batteries in Holland, Michigan, for its Volt and Bolt, it is clear that auto manufactures are beginning to shift to electric—and in a very big way.

Serbian Scientist Nicolas Tesla

Given this new investment, plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) sales are expected to experience 62 Percent Year-over-Year Growth in 2016, 60% in 2017, and likely 100% in 2018. This translates into over 600,000 in PEV sales expected in 2018, creating a new level of demand for which the market will need two new lithium mines in operation to even begin to satiate.

“Looking at the full picture here, the future demand for lithium is truly staggering,” says Michael Kobler, CEO and director ofAmerican Lithium Corp., one of the ambitious new explorers shaking up the lithium mining scene in Nevada.

Electrical Grid Connections

While future demand from the automotive industry is significant, the real game changer for the lithium industry may be electrical grid storage. Grid storage is designed on a variety of scales, each with a different price point. Already price-competitive with diesel fuel for stand-alone renewables and remote locations, home storage applications with devices like Tesla’s powerwall, and grid frequency modulation applications are now making major inroads in the grid storage market.

In some locations, grid-scale peaking applications have already been implemented, often in old coal power plants, re-using the building and grid connections.

Grid-scale storage battery demand can easily eclipse the need for automotive batteries. Battery experts note that although different battery chemistries exist, the energy density of lithium is far superior to other chemistries.

No new battery chemistry will supplant lithium in battery cathodes for decades, and lithium cathodes are the centerpiece of several leading chemistries which are already available.

IMG URL: http://cdn.oilprice.com/images/tinymce/2016/Copy%20of%20Amlit1807A.gif

Lithium mines are divided into two main types, with most resources currently coming from lithium brines.

Although commercial production of lithium from brine started after mineral production, it has proved to be more important economically; brine contribution to world production is twice that of minerals.

The concentration of lithium in most brines range 200 to 700 ppm. To compete with brines, mineral deposits have had many advanced technologies applied to reduce costs. However, brines can also benefit from technologies such as electro-dialysis, adsorption, and reverse osmosis to enrich or extract lithium in less time. Although lithium brine is often cheaper to develop than hard rock deposits, with the application of new technologies, brine processing can be sped up, and costs can be further reduced.

Demand Response: A Wild Ride

IMG URL: http://cdn.oilprice.com/images/tinymce/2016/Copy%20of%20Amlit1807B.png

Up until two years ago, the so-called “big three – Albermarle (NYSE:ALB) in Chile and Nevada; SQM (NYSE:SQM) in Chile; FMC (NYSE:FMC) in Argentina – controlled 89% of the world’s lithium production. This group of lithium players has recently evolved into the “big five,” as Sichuan Tianqi and Ganfeng in China have become significant players.

At the start of this year, the de facto big five was still a reality, with FMC repeatedly stating that supply and demand are in line–an assessment akin to sticking its head in the sand, as lithium prices rise exponentially.

This also ignores fundamental production challenges within the “big five” itself.

Albermarle has had significant difficulties with its brine expansion that will most likely contribute to decreased production in 2016. In fact, SQM is the only “big 3” producer with a clear strategy for future growth, with partnerships such as its recent 50% acquisition of an Argentinian Lithium Americas Corporation property (TSX:LAC), which could prove to be successful years for down the road.

New Entrants: Where It Gets Really Interesting

In January 2016, the big five controlled 90% of the market, with no significant producers outside these sources. However, 2016 can be considered the year the lithium oligopoly came to an end.

Orocobre Limited is commissioning their Olaroz project in Argentina, and is currently at 68% of its 17,500 TPA full capacity. It aims to be at capacity in September. Though it has been shipping slightly sub-bar product, demand is so high that it has nonetheless been highly successful. General Mining and Galaxy Resources announced the commencement of production from the Mt Cattlin mine and processing operations and Galaxy are targeting nameplate production rates of 15,000 TPA of lithium carbonate by the end of 2016.

Apart from these two mines, no new developments are expected in 2016, though 2017 may bring further new entrants. A previously defunct mine, Quebec Lithium, has recently seen interest from a Chinese operator. Although uneconomical at 2014 prices, the current price doubling has made this an interesting property to be further developed. Another mine in Quebec, Nemaska Lithium (TSX:NMX), is being developed, though only 500 TPA are expected next year.

Where it gets the most interesting is with the new explorers, and this is where the lithium tide will turn.

The timing of the Orocobre and Galaxy developments have eased the price increases in the near term. This combined with the old adage “sell in May and walk away” for prospective companies have sent many juniors sideways or downwards since May. With the consistent long-term demand trajectory, two mines coming into operation provide a significant buying opportunity for those looking to enter the lithium market.

Lithium Explorers in the Spotlight

Although markets have been satiated by Orocobre and Galaxy for the summer, investors will be looking again in the early fall and now is the perfect time to enter before the next wave.

“Battery demand is rising at the rate of 1-2 new lithium mines per year, growing to 2-3 mines per year by 2020, and current demand will not only absorb all new mine developments in the pipeline, but will require fresh high quality deposits to be investigated for development,” says American Lithium’s Kobler. American Lithium raised capital in early May 2016 and bought prospective brine land in Nevada USA on a previously operating Boron mine in late May 2016.

Juniors such as American Lithium (TSXV:LI), Pure Energy Minerals (TSXV:PE), Nevada Sunrise Gold (TSXV:NEV), Alix Resources (TSXV:AIX), Nevada Energy Metals (TSXV:BFF), Lithium X (TSXV:LIX), Ashburton Ventures (TSXV:ABR), Cypress Development (TSXV:CYP), Sienna Resources (TSXV:SIE), Noka Resources (TSXV:NX), Matica Enterprises (CSE:MMJ) all have claims in the Clayton valley. Other companies that have projects in the state are Dajin Resources (TSXV:DJI), Eureka Resources (TSXV:EUK), and Ultra Lithium (TSXV:ULI).

Since the start of the year, the lithium industry has gained access to over $330 million in funding, whether from private placements, government grants, stock options, or other investment vehicles. The summer drilling season is upon us, and any lithium junior that doesn’t have a drilling program in place by this time is simply not worth looking at. Buying land in highly prospective areas is easy; completing a successful drill program with results takes more expertise.

The best strategy for exploration stage companies coming into this field is to:

– Raise capital for land purchases and drilling. The key for sustained growth during a capital raise is to limit share dilution.
– Seek out land that is highly prospective, either adjacent to operating mines, on previously operating mines, or in land that is analogous to existing development land.
– Prove to the markets that the management team is worthwhile through flawless execution of good land acquisitions, execution of drilling campaigns, with strategic drilling done to move forward into economic assessments

IMG URL: http://cdn.oilprice.com/images/tinymce/2016/Copy%20of%20Amlit1807C.gif

Nevada at the Epicentre of New Lithium Development

With Albermarle’s new mine in Nevada and Tesla’s forecast 2018 demand of between 25,000 and 35,000 TPA, the U.S. Southwest is becoming a new hotbed for the lithium industry.

Hoping to capitalize on the new lithium rush, juniors in Nevada alone have raised over US$60 million for exploration and delineation in 2016.

With two mines recently coming online and investors leaving the markets for the summer, a slight cooling off has been seen in the lithium realm. However, a keen investor will note that prices will start to move again with demand constantly increasing, and investors looking to enter the markets again in the fall.

Our thanks to James Stafford for this incisive article

Link to original article: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Why-Lithium-Will-See-Another-Price-Spike-This-Fall.html

Several South American nations have been rocked by the sudden explosion of intense street protests over the past month aimed at removing their internationally recognized governments from power, and while these developments are split between being genuine people-driven protests and externally supported Color Revolutions, the question on everyone’s mind is whether they’ll eventually spread to Brazil and pose a threat to Bolsonaro’s rule.

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Lula Free, Bolsonaro in Rage

By Danica Jorden, November 13, 2019

Last Friday, November 8, 2019, former President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva walked out of a prison in Curitiba and was greeted by throngs of supporters, many of whom had camped out since he was sent to jail more than a year and a half ago. The next day, hoarse from the ordeal and past throat cancer surgery, Lula spoke for 45 minutes before thousands gathered in São Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo, Brazil’s automotive capital and the heart of labor activity in the country. It was a sea of red, as many wore the crimson t-shirts of the Metal Workers Union, whose offices provided the backdrop to the speech.

Demands from the Workers of Chile

By Trade Union Block of Social Unit, November 13, 2019

The uprisings that continue in Chile began as a student protest against a proposed fare increase for public transport. It quickly evolved into a general wave of protest against the government of Sebastián Piñeraand all the mounting grievances of neoliberalism – horrible working conditions, social inequalities, privatizations, a negligible welfare state, and more. The government declared a state of emergency and curfew, deployed the military and unleashed a wave of fierce violence against the protests, killing many and detaining thousands. The Chilean national trade union movement, Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Chile (CUT-Chile), has been part of broad fronts of groups aligned against the government. Its so-called Union Bloc has produced the following set of demands. For further information see “The Awakening of Chile” and on Facebook and Twitter.

Cuba Was Never a Threat to “National Security”

By Jacob G. Hornberger, November 13, 2019

Of all the ludicrous aspects of the Cold War, among the most ridiculous was the notion that Cuba posed a threat to U.S. “national security.” For some 30 years, the U.S. deep state (i.e., the Pentagon, CIA, and NSA) maintained that Cuba was a communist “dagger” pointed at America’s neck and, therefore, was a grave threat to “national security.”

Through it all, hardly anyone ever asked a very simple but important question: What did they mean when they said that Cuba was a threat to “national security”?

Bolivia Coup Led by Christian Fascist Paramilitary Leader and Millionaire – with Foreign Support

By Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton, November 13, 2019

When Luis Fernando Camacho stormed into Bolivia’s abandoned presidential palace in the hours afterPresident Evo Morales’s sudden November 10 resignation, he revealed to the world a side of the country that stood at stark odds with the plurinational spirit its deposed socialist and Indigenous leader had put forward.

With a Bible in one hand and a national flag in the other, Camacho bowed his head in prayer above the presidential seal, fulfilling his vow to purge his country’s Native heritage from government and “return God to the burned palace.”

Bolivia: The OAS and US Help Overthrow Another Latin American Government

By Leonardo Flores, November 13, 2019

The United States and the Organization of American States can add another coup to their scorecards, even if U.S. media refuses to recognize it as such. This time it was in Bolivia, where President Evo Morales was forced to step down on November 10, following weeks of pressure and extremist violence. Morales resigned under duress in order to avoid bloodshed, and emphasized that his “responsibility as an indigenous president of all Bolivians is to prevent the coup-mongers from persecuting my trade unionist brothers and sisters, abusing and kidnapping their families, burning the homes of governors, of legislators, of city councilors… to prevent them from continuing to harass and persecute my indigenous brothers and sisters and the leaders and authorities” of the MAS (Movement towards Socialism, Morales’ political party).

Lula’s Release Will Only Reinvigorate the Pink Tide Against U.S. Hegemony in Latin America

By Paul Antonopoulos, November 12, 2019

The Workers Party (PT) ruled Brazil, mostly under the leadership of the charismatic Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or simply known as Lula, from 2003 until his successor’s impeachment in 2016. This period saw Brazil undergo major changes and advancements with an emphasis on educating the poor, providing access to healthcare for all Brazilians, poverty reduction and Latin American integration. Although the PT did not challenge the capitalist system entirely, there was an emphasis on reducing the neoliberal model that has exploited South America since Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet allowed his country to be economically ruled by this U.S.-endorsed system since the 1970’s.

Released Lula in for Greatest Fight of His Life

By Pepe Escobar, November 12, 2019

Only two days after his release from a federal prison in Curitiba, southern Brazil, following a narrow 6×5 decision by the Supreme Court, former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva delivered a fiery, 45-minute long speech in front of the Metal Workers Union in Sao Bernardo, outside of Sao Paulo, and drawing on his unparalleled political capital, called all Brazilians to stage nothing short of a social revolution.

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James Le Mesurier, the founder of the Al-Qaeda affiliated White Helmets, known as an “aid organization” in the West but known everywhere else for fabricating chemical weapon provocations in Syria, was found dead in Istanbul on Monday under dubious and confusing circumstances, and many question marks are being raised about his own death. 

Journalist Ramazan Bursa claims that the suspicious death clearly demonstrates the White Helmet’s connection with intelligence organizations, particularly Britain’s MI6.

The connection between the M16 and the White Helmets is often overlooked by the Western media, but on Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry made a startling revelation. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova revealed that

“The White Helmets co-founder, James Le Mesurier, is a former agent of Britain’s MI6, who has been spotted all around the world, including in the Balkans and the Middle East. His connections to terrorist groups were reported back during his mission in Kosovo.”

A few days later he was found dead…

Of course, Karen Pierce, the UK Permanent Representative to the UN, denied the Russian allegation, claiming that they were “categorically untrue. He was a British soldier,” before describing the mercenary as a “true hero.” The claim he is a “true hero” is a curious choice of words considering he has a long history of working alongside terrorists, as Zakharova correctly highlighted.

He served in the NATO war against Serbia to defend the ethnic-Albanian terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 2000, who have now turned Kosovo into a heroin ‘smugglers paradise,’ and a hub for human trafficking, organ harvesting and arms trafficking in the attempt to create an anti-Russian “Greater Albania.” However, it was not in Kosovo where he achieved his fame, but rather his dubious work in Syria.

Not only did he establish and develop the White Helmets, but he secured significant funding from the UK, U.S., Turkish, German, Qatari, Dutch, Danish and Japanese governments, and helped raise money on Indiegogo. His deep connections to the British military and his expansive experience as a mercenary serving Gulf dictatorships made him the perfect figure to establish a “rescue group” aimed at legitimizing terrorists operating in Syria and to push for a regime-change intervention.

Along with the White Helmet’s ties to terrorist organizations and faking chemical weapon incidences, the group also has a role in the execution of civilians and using children in their propaganda campaigns. Mesurier was without a doubt a man with deep connections and deep pockets, with every resource available to him from international intelligence agencies and significant experience in supporting terrorists in conflict zones.

The argument that the White Helmets are not a civil defense team, especially as they never operated in government-held areas despite claiming to be neutral in the war, can easily be made. Despite the constant colonial media claims that the White Helmets are a true civilian rescue organization without terrorist links, Syrian film producer Kareem Abeed was not allowed to attend the Academy Awards to support his movie about the White Helmets, “Last Men in Aleppo,” as his visa application was officially denied by the U.S. government as he was “found ineligible for a visa under Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.” The very fact that the U.S. found White Helmets members nominated for the Academy Awards to be a risk in the country shows that the White Helmets are just another classic example of Washington weaponizing terrorists to advance their own agendas, just as the KLA were used against Serbia or the mujahideen that morphed into Al-Qaeda were used against the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.

Although the White Helmets played a pivotal role in the propaganda campaign against Syria from 2013 onwards, they now have nothing to defend or any purpose to serve as they only operate in areas that are undeniably controlled by Al-Qaeda affiliated groups and other radical elements, in a very, very small area of Syria. They can no longer portray themselves as an innocent organization that only helps civilians, as there is now endless evidence of their ties to terrorism, foreign intelligence agencies and doctoring of footage.

If we consider that the founder of the White Helmets and the deceased in Istanbul is a former British Intelligence officer, we can clearly see that it is a network of civil defense organizations, in which British Intelligence is involved, and supported by other intelligence agencies. The dubious death of a former British intelligence member living in Istanbul with his family is thought provoking and must raise serious questions.

It is also thought-provoking that this person is based in Istanbul. The death of Mesurier could have been reported as the death of a British citizen or the death of a former member of the British intelligence, however, Turkish media reported it as the death of the founder of the White Helmets. In other words, the Turkish media seems to have tacitly admitted that White Helmets are not an innocent non-governmental organization. Of course, after Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria, there were some changes in the Damascus-Ankara relationship. The West’s approach to the Turkish invasion of northern Syria may have also played a role in changing the attitude towards the White Helmets.

A security source claimed that Mesurier had fallen from the balcony of his home office with his death being treated as a suspected suicide, with a third person – a diplomat – claiming the circumstances around his death were unclear, according to The Sun. This also comes as BBC journalist Mark Urban said in a series of now-deleted tweets that it would not “have been possible” to fall from Le Mesurier’s balcony, with him also Tweeting that “there’s a good deal of suspicion it may be murder by a state actor, but others suggest he may have taken his own life.”

Essentially, no one knows just yet whether it was murder, suicide or an accident. This has not stopped the British media from alluding that there may be a connection to the “Russian smear campaign” made on Friday and his death on Monday. However, when we look at the way the incident took place, there is every suggestion that this incident was murder, given that there were cuts on his face, fractures on his feet and that he was found dead on the street, according to Turkish media. The probability of murder becomes stronger.

The question then shifts to who might have done? It is too early to say who did it, and anything forth said can only be considered speculation, but the West does have a rich history of making their assets disappear when they are no longer needed.

The White Helmets no longer have a purpose to serve in Syria with the inevitable victory of government forces over the Western-backed terrorists. Rather, the danger the White Helmets pose is a full-scale revelation on how deep their ties with Western and Gulf intelligence agencies and terrorist organizations go. Although revelations are slowly beginning to emerge, Mesurier no doubt had a wealth of knowledge on many dirty secrets related to Syria and the imperialist war against it.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

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

Featured image is from AP

On Tuesday, right-wing extremist senator Jeanine Anez Chavez illegitimately self-declared herself Bolivia’s leader, saying:

“I assume the presidency immediately and will do everything necessary to pacify the country” — by brute force, she failed to explain.

Leadership is earned, not seized. Evo Morales is Bolivia’s four-time democratically elected and reelected president.

He stepped down to avoid blood in the streets and possible assassination after the country’s military and police sold their souls to US imperial interests for whatever financial and/or other benefits gotten from the CIA.

He denounced Anez’s usurpation as illegitimate, saying she acted “without legislative quorum, surrounded by a group of accomplices and supported by the armed forces and the police, which repress the people.”

She’s Bolivia’s US-designated puppet/usurper, similar to Venezuela’s Guaido, figures contemptuous of democracy, the rule of law, equity and justice, pseudo-leaders with no legitimacy, traitors to their nations.

Under Bolivia’s constitutional line of succession, lower parliamentary house president Victor Borda, upper house president Adriana Salvatierra, and her deputy Ruben Medinaceli were in line to succeed Morales.

They stepped down, likely forced out by internal and external dark forces to avoid assassination, clearing the way for political nobody Anez to seize power — announced before a legislative assembly session boycotted by pro-Morales lawmakers.

A senator since 2010, she’s allied with hard-right Bolivian fascist elements. She’s notoriously pro-business, anti-populist, anti-Morales, shamefully calling him a “tyrant.”

She, her co-conspirators, and the OAS falsely claimed Morales’ reelection was marred by vote-rigging.

Independent analysis proved the process was open, free and fair, Morales defeating lead challenger Carlos Mesa by a double-digit margin.

Bolivia’s supreme court backed her usurpation as the highest ranking politician in the line of succession left standing.

No one supporting the coup resulting in his resignation has legitimacy, the popular will sabotaged by what happened.

Anez is unlikely to calm Morales’ supporters. After her usurpation, members of Morales’ Movement for Socialism (MAS) said they intend convening legislatively on Wednesday to nullify her illegitimate self-designation as president.

Following his forced resignation and departure for Mexico, thousands of his supporters took to the streets of the political capital La Paz and other Bolivian cities.

Reportedly they confronted military and police/pro-coup security forces, blocked highways, erected barricades, and set police stations ablaze — even though attacked by live fire and other hostile actions.

Ahead of Morales’ resignation, CIA rent-a-mobs took to Bolivian streets against democratic rule, committing violence and vandalism, notably against Morales supporters, including MAS politicians and indigenous people.

On Tuesday, he urged supporters to challenge Anez’s illegitimate usurpation of power.

Bolivia remains in turmoil. The struggle against the CIA-orchestrated fascist power grab continues.

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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.

Chile faces the deepest social and political crisis since the return to democracy. All who celebrated the end of the Dictatorship in the streets, celebrated not only the exit of the dictator, but the hope of moving toward a full democracy with more rights and social justice. However, after more than 30 years of waiting for this process, they have ended up transforming hope into rage, with the obvious distance that has gone generating between the so-called ‘citizenship’ and the ‘politicians’, with electoral processes less and less participatory and with massive mobilizations that have not implied changes in the lives of Chileans.

The demonstrations lived in 2006 (Penguin Revolution) and 2011 for the right to education, managed to mobilize millions; mobilizations that were replicated, years later, in the massive marches for the end of the AFPs (Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones). However, today we continue to fight to ensure the right to free and quality education, and is being discussed in Parliament a bill that, instead of ending the current pension system, deepens and strengthens it. In addition to this is discontent in the face of abuse, corruption and inequalities, not only of income, but also of privileges and of treatment millions of workers live every day.

The crisis in Chile is not about ‘public order’, it is a crisis of social fracture, expectations and unkept promises. It is a crisis before a deeply unequal economic system. The State’s response cannot only be social control and security, there are required political responses that defeat the logic of Neoliberalism and commodification in order to recover trust.

The trade union organizations, grouped in Social Unit, urge political parties and parliamentarians to gather approaches of the social movement and face in an effective way the social and political crisis in progress.

Chile is not at war, Chile wants peace, but a true and lasting peace can only be with social justice and defending the democracy that cost us so much to recover.

We also call on the National Congress not to continue with the processing of the Law projects promoted by the Government. You cannot say that there is a will to dialogue and force parliament to legislate, without debate, the bills that have been permanently rejected by trade union and social organizations, included therein, our call not to ratify by the Senate the TPP 11.

Today is the minute for the opposition, which has a majority in parliament, to act accordingly to the institutional crisis we are facing.

Before authorities that do not measure the serious crisis we face, as a union bloc of social unity we summon them to pronounce them over a fundamental rights agenda that really represent the people of Chile. This is not about asking apologies for years of deafness, nor for assuming payment of fair wages. Years of abuse and collusion, are not resolved only with good intentions. It is about advancing in effective social justice.

1. Immediate discussion of a national minimum wage of $500,000 liquid funds for public and private workers.

For years we have demanded the designing of a Salary Policy for Chile that effectively allow each family to live on their salary. In addition to setting a cap to high incomes and to end the wage gaps between men and women.

This is a complementary mechanism to advance in the reduction of inequality of income for our country, but cannot replace the full and effective right to negotiate by branch, which is the mechanism par excellence to contain and overcome the economic inequality. Regarding the public sector, this demand does not replace the negotiation of the public sector table that year after year negotiates with the authority.

The minimum wage must be enough to get workers and their families out of poverty. According to Casen 2017, poorest households in the country are characterized by families where one person works and lives on average 6 people, in the first decile and 4 people in the second decile. If we want to get this population out of poverty through work, it is appropriate to use 5 lines of poverty, which is equivalent to $510,000 liquid funds.

2. Full Recognition of Freedom of Association: Collective Bargaining by branch and Respect for the Right to Strike as a fundamental right.

If we assume as the great conflict in Chile the social fracture, product of the contribution that we make the workers to the development of Chile versus the remuneration to this contribution in terms of salaries and social protection, it is clear that we are very far. We do not intend for everything to be resolved by the State. Therefore, to advance in mechanisms of effective redistribution of wealth, we must strengthen the Collective Bargaining at all levels, being the counterparts of the world of work the ones called to build effective social dialogue. End of all limitations to the effective exercise of the right to strike (strategic companies, minimum services and necessary adjustments).

Terminate outsourcing as a form of precarious employment.

3. Minimum pension equivalent to the minimum wage we propose

The decent pension debate cannot be limited only to the increase in Basic Pension Solidarity (financed by the State). The true Security System that is required today is represented in the proposal of the Coordinator No + AFP, which immediately ensures – through a bill – a minimum pension that is not less than the minimum wage of $500,000 we propose.

4. Basket of protected basic services (water, electricity, gas, telephone, cable, internet)

Facing inequalities and abuses does not only mean paying off the debt you have with workers in income matters. It is necessary to set a cap for tariffs of essential services. This must assure that no expenses in paying services, must be greater than 15% of the minimum wage. Whereas companies are the main water consumers (95%), the cost of that consumption must be higher in order to finance, with that difference, part of domestic consumption. This, as an immediate measure, while discussing a new constitution that resolves whether essential services such as those mentioned in this basic basket can continue in private hands or must be controlled by the State.

5. Transportation

We need a unique transportation system, which considers all means: roads, highways, buses, subway and trains. We are near the end of the concession contracts of highways and roads, with the possibility that your administration returns to the State and, therefore, the social benefit is imposed over profits. In addition, we need an integrated transport system, which ensures quality, reliability, mobility and tariff to all Chileans.

Public transport must be considered a right, within the framework of territorially unequal cities. In front of the millionaire subsidies that the State gives, it is necessary that these resources have an impact on the reduction of the transport rate.

• Fair Social Rate that allows users easy access to public transport.
• Free tickets for seniors.
• Gratuity in the TNE and in student passage.
• Elimination of the TAG, return of the roads to the hands of the State.

6. Reduction of the Working Day

In relation to working hours, we believe that Chile is in a position to reduce the working day to 40 hours or less, because the social and labour effects are widely beneficial for our country.

International experience and widely known studies support the fact that the working hours are too long in our country and that developed countries tend to work 36 hours.

However, the reduction of the working day cannot be a way for flexible labour (precariousness) proposed by the Government, so the National Congress should approve such reduction without any element of flexibility.

7. Health, Education, Housing: Social rights

The full right and access to health, education and housing for the entire population must be the first priority of the State. This must be done through the prioritization of public systems with adequate financing and allowing free access. Immediately, you must end the profit and business with these social rights and must establish real spaces for participation in their management. A similar logic must be established for all fundamental social rights.

8. Human Rights

Permanent demilitarization of the national territory. Investigation, trial and punishment of human rights violations that have been exercised during the so-called ‘State of exception’, a state of emergency widely transgressed at the time with the twenty deaths that we have reported, the more than 3,000 arrests, and the more than one hundred compatriots and migrants with eye injuries and loss of vision, from the excessive use of force. Chile can no longer afford to transform the violation of human rights into the mechanism to inhibit the difference and impose policies, as occurred in the dictatorship.

9. Fiscal Budget 2020

The year 2020 is foreseen as one of the most difficult years since the great crisis of 2008; the commercial war unleashed internationally will lower world growth expectations by 1 per cent and that of Chile by 0.5 per cent, but we must also add to this the nation’s budget that does little and nothing to revive the economy. Thus, we call for the 2020 public budget to be discussed with an eye on the protection of social rights of Chileans. We need a budget with social and economic priorities, to reduce the country’s inequality.

The budget presented this year has the least growth since 2003, it is necessary to at least double the growth to 6 per cent, and concentrate this increase, in public investment with high impact on the creation of employment and public goods.

10. New Political Constitution via Constituent Assembly

Chile’s debt to the workers is not just a debt over rights, it is also of minimum democratic guarantees. We are invited to participate in the electoral processes such as the great space to exercise our voice and sovereignty, but over the most relevant projects for the future of our lives – such as education, health, housing, pensions, salaries – we have no direct participatory space. Today it is necessary to deepen democracy with more rights, but also with mechanisms of effective participation, that enhances citizenship with politics.

To build a New Social Pact, it is not enough to achieve ‘agreements’. Discussing a New Social Pact is to build a new Constitution among all, considering the most wide participation. And the only mechanism that allows us to open the doors to all feeling called and challenged is through a Constituent Assembly.

We are aware that no actor, social or political, can and should not attribute the representativeness or spokesperson of the mobilized social majorities, but with that same clarity we point out that we will not allow agreements between four walls to be imposed, shielded in which there are no clear ‘proposals’ after social mobilization.

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The original Spanish version “Pliego delos Trabajadores y Trabajadores de Chile.”

Featured image is from The Bullet

A federal judge blocked the 2,000-acre expansion of a coal mine in the wildlands of Colorado’s Gunnison National Forest today, ordering the Trump administration to consider limiting methane emissions and address potential harm to water and fish.

In today’s ruling U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson said the Interior Department violated federal law by failing to consider an alternative that would require flaring methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and by ignoring new information about the potential effects to perennial streams in the project area. The mining plan approved 8.4 miles of new roads and 43 new methane venting wells, anticipated to release almost 12 million tons of methane into the atmosphere.

“Only a remedy that prevents new mining in the expansion area will avoid subjecting conservation groups’ valid objections to the ‘bureaucratic steamroller,’ ” Jackson wrote.

In July five conservation groups sued the Trump administration and asked the court to block approval of Arch Coal’s West Elk mine expansion, which would invade roadless areas of western Colorado’s Gunnison National Forest.

“This ruling is a major victory for Colorado’s climate, clean energy, and public lands, said Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director at WildEarth Guardians. “More importantly, it’s a resounding rebuke of the Trump administration’s attempts to sidestep our environmental laws to appease the coal industry.”

The previous environmental analysis for the coal leases said flaring would be considered at a later stage and, the judge said, lacked rigorous evaluation of the alternative and was rather a “mere kicking the can down the road,” requiring the Interior Department to undertake this analysis at the mine-planning stage.

“Today’s decision validates over a decade’s worth of advocacy on behalf of the Sunset Roadless Area’s irreplaceable wildlife and habitat,” said Matt Reed, public lands director at High Country Conservation Advocates. “It also validates the decision to challenge climate change pollution head-on. As the largest source of industrial methane pollution in Colorado, the West Elk coal mine has long treated our public lands and air with impunity. The court’s decision halts the mine expansion, including further road-building and well-drilling in pristine roadless forest in Gunnison County, and High Country Conservation Advocates will continue to battle this expansion every step of the way.”

Located in the iconic West Elk Mountains just east of the town of Paonia, the West Elk mine is one of the largest coal mines in Colorado. It covers more than 20 square miles of the Gunnison National Forest next to the West Elk Wilderness Area.

“Methane pollution is a climate-killer, and we hope this decision will spell the end of unlimited emissions from this coal mine,” said Allison Melton, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The West Elk expansion threatens to derail Colorado’s transition to clean, renewable energy. We’ll continue to fight the Trump administration’s destructive policies and projects.”

The West Elk mine is the single-largest industrial source of methane pollution in Colorado. In 2017 it released more than 440,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, equal to the annual emissions from more than 98,000 cars.

“It is ridiculous for agencies to rubber stamp this damaging fossil fuel development in a spectacular roadless area, especially without considering impacts to streams or alternative plans that would reduce climate pollution,” said Peter Hart at Wilderness Workshop. “The case highlights how damaging our fossil fuel addiction is to public lands and to our shared climate. The court was right to demand that the agency take a harder look at protecting such important public resources.”

In March the Interior Department approved the 2,000-acre expansion, allowing Arch Coal to mine nearly 18 million tons of new coal over three years in the Sunset Roadless Area, an undeveloped tract of the Gunnison National Forest.

“Today’s decision to protect our public lands is a victory for all Colorado communities who are struggling with the harmful impacts of a changing climate,” said Jim Alexeee, director of the Colorado Sierra Club. “Our lands belong to all of us — not billionaire coal executives. Sierra Club will continue to fight for our lands and our climate, and to keep fossil fuels where they belong: in the ground.”

“We’re pleased that the federal government’s practice of rubber-stamping new coal development regardless of its impacts on special places like the Sunset Roadless area has been stopped in its tracks,” said Daniel Timmons, WildEarth Guardians’ staff attorney who represented Guardians in the case. “This decision is a victory for everyone who values public lands and a healthy climate.”

The conservation groups are also challenging the federal coal leases before the U.S. Court of Appeals.

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Featured image is from CBD

It has stood in this spot near Bethlehem longer than Christianity and Islam, since before the time of the prophets of the Holy Land.

Circling slowly round this ancient olive tree, Salah Abu Ali carefully inspects every inch of it, before settling back on his chair in its shade.

Beside him, balanced on a log, is a plate of fruit he has freshly picked from his farm. Also within arms reach is a large bottle of water and the pot of hot coffee he prepares every day to offer visitors to the spot that has become his sanctuary.

Every morning at 6.30am, the 46-year-old walks to the site where the tree is located on his family’s plot of land. For the past ten years, he has been tasked with a grave responsibility: guarding the oldest and largest olive tree in Palestine.

The tree, which belongs to the Abu Ali family, lies in the Wadi Jwaiza neighbourhood of Al-Walaja village in Bethlehem, southwest of occupied Jerusalem.

Despite spending most of his time by the olive tree, Abu Ali says he is still awed by it.

“The beauty and size of this tree are really special, it captivates the mind – it is the most beautiful tree in Palestine,” he tells Middle East Eye.

‘The beauty and size of this tree are really special, it captivates the mind – it is the most beautiful tree in Palestine,’ Abu Ali says (MEE/Abdulrahman Yunis)

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture, the tree is estimated to be around 5,000 years old. It extends over 250 sq m, stretches to around 13 metres in height, and its roots extend some 25 meters into the earth.

Over the years, the tree has been given a variety of nicknames; Abu Ali calls it “the fortress,” though it has also been dubbed “the old woman,” “the mother of olives,” and “Palestine’s bride.”

From their experience of farming, Palestinians know that the older the tree, the better the quality and taste of the olives – and the olive oil they produce. The head of the governmental Palestinian Olive Oil Council, Fayyad Fayyad, tells MEE that, while the olives of the oldest tree are no different to those of other trees, research shows that the larger and older the tree, the richer the olive oil.

“The age of the tree factors greatly into the taste and quality. The Al-Walaja tree produces very high-quality oil,” he says, adding that an investigation is ongoing into whether it could in fact be the oldest olive tree in the world.

The tree used to produce half a tonne of olives each year, out of which 600 kilograms of olive oil could be made (MEE/Abdulrahman Yunis)

According to Abu Ali, droughts over the years and climate variability as a whole have had a negative impact on the tree, leading to a reduction in its produce, which has become more volatile. “In the past, about 10 to 15 years ago, the tree would produce half a tonne of olives, from which we would extract some 600 kilograms of olive oil.

“Last year, however, the olives only came up to 250 kilograms of oil. There have even been times when the tree did not produce anything.”

Another problem, Abu Ali says, is water:

“The tree is thirsty. It is in need of large amounts of water due to its size, but these amounts are not available. The water spring is insufficient.”

He has taken it upon himself to quench the tree’s thirst by extending a hose from the water spring nearby. But the supply there is dependent on rainfall and is particularly dry in summer. Over the past few years, he says the water has been decreasing.

“I try to sustain it by adding manure to the ground and tending to its surroundings. It hurts me to see it like this.”

Israeli expansionist policies

The tree stands just 20 meters from the Israeli separation and annexation wall, which was built over several phases starting from 2007.

Al-Walaja village is historically part of Jerusalem, and residents would regularly travel back and forth for their shopping, and for work. When Israel occupied east Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1967, it annexed large parts of Al-Walaja’s fields and lands.

A view of Israel’s separation wall which was built just 20 metres from the olive tree, sparking protests (MEE/Abdulrahman Yunis)

In 2010, the village became the site of weekly protests against the construction of the Israeli separation and annexation wall that was to run through it.

“[When the wall was erected], the Israeli occupation forces used a large number of explosives, without caution to the tree. We were very afraid that it would be effected, but it persisted, as it has for thousands of years – an occupation that has been around for tens of years will not uproot it,” says Abu Ali.

In October , the Israeli army’s wing responsible for civilian life in the occupied West Bank posted a message on Facebook about the tree, calling it the “oldest olive tree in Judea and Samaria”. The post angered activists, who saw it as an attempt to appropriate Palestinian history and heritage.

Fayyad says that the Israeli authorities, including both civil and military personnel, have visited the tree in the past, and that they took samples and measurements, which stirred fear among the families of Al-Walaja. The families then requested the PA’s agricultural ministry to intervene by securing someone to guard the tree at all times.

While Abu Ali was already spending much of his week guarding it, the PA now pays him a monthly salary of around $410 to guard the tree every day.

‘Part of our identity’

Olive trees have long been at the forefront of Israel’s expansionist policies through its military occupation and settler-colonial project. The Al-Walaja olive tree is one of around 11 million olive trees in Palestine, according to the PA’s official information website.

The trees face a double threat to their existence, with the Israeli army systematically cutting down trees and Jewish settlers regularly carrying out acts of violence, including vandalism, against Palestinian towns and fields.

In the first six months of 2019, the UN recorded the uprooting, burning or vandalising of more than 4,100 trees by Israeli settlers (MEE/Abdulrahman Yunis)

In the first six months of 2019, the UN recorded the uprooting, burning or vandalising of more than 4,100 trees by Israeli settlers – a marked 126 percent increase on a monthly average compared with 2018.

Such attacks increase during the olive harvest season between the months of October and November. In June 2019, the UN documented the cutting down of close to 400 Palestinian-owned trees in the same area during one incident of property demolition by the Israeli army.

“The occupation and Israel’s policies are built on fear,” says Abu Ali, explaining that such acts by Israel and its settlers are intended to drive Palestinians from their lands in fear of attacks. “We either defend our lands or we give up. This tree is a trust.”

Inheriting love for the tree

The families of al-Walajah call it the “al-Badawi tree” – a reference to the Egyptian Sufi spiritual guide, Sheikh Ahmad al-Badawi, who was said to have visited the tree and to have tended to it for some years.

Abu Ali too considers the tree to hold spiritual significance. “If we do not preserve this tree,” he says, “we will be held accountable. This tree is no less important than the al-Aqsa or Ibrahimi mosques.”

The residents of Al-Walaja also consider the tree to be a source of good luck and blessings. According to Abu Ali, women would collect its fallen leaves to protect them from the evil eye. Every year, families sacrifice their sheep during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha in the shade of the tree.

Abu Ali is paid $410 a month by the PA to guard the tree, which has been visited by Israeli officials in recent years (MEE/Abdulrahman Yunis)

“I wish I could turn this tree and the area surrounding it into a flourishing heaven,” Abu Ali says. “But the economic situation here is difficult – I’m doing what I can, but it’s not enough.”

And despite the fact that he says his salary is barely enough to make ends meet, Abu Ali insists on guarding the tree, which he regards as symbolic of Palestinian perseverance.

“If this tree remains, then we will remain. This tree is part of our identity, and part of the conflict over which we fight the [Israeli] occupation.”

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Featured image: The ancient tree belongs to Salah Abu Ali’s family, and lies in Al-Walaja village in Bethlehem, southwest of occupied Jerusalem (MEE/Abdulrahman Yunis)

A ruling by the Constitutional Court provisionally released Lula. An important part of the Brazilian people welcomed the news with joy and hope. But Bolsonaro reacted with rage and called him “guilty scum”.

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Last Friday, November 8, 2019, former President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva walked out of a prison in Curitiba and was greeted by throngs of supporters, many of whom had camped out since he was sent to jail more than a year and a half ago. The next day, hoarse from the ordeal and past throat cancer surgery, Lula spoke for 45 minutes before thousands gathered in São Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo, Brazil’s automotive capital and the heart of labor activity in the country. It was a sea of red, as many wore the crimson t-shirts of the Metal Workers Union, whose offices provided the backdrop to the speech.

The Supreme Court of Brazil was finally compelled to admit that Lula had been wrongly imprisoned before his appeal had been heard, in conflict with the country’s constitution. The former president had been accused of accepting a beachfront penthouse apartment as a bribe, just as he announced his candidacy for a return to the presidency. He was swiftly convicted and sentenced to twelve years for corruption, with ultra-conservative Jair Bolsonaro becoming president.

But the penthouse had not even been built and Lula had bought a simpler apartment in a building behind it, away from the beach. Nevertheless, Judge Sérgio Moro found Lula guilty. Moro was subsequently appointed Justice Minister by President Bolsonaro. In June 2019, Glenn Greenwald and David Miranda of Intercept Brasil released“an enormous trove of secret documents” showing “improper and unethical plotting” between chief prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol and Moro.

Lula said that he felt energized about continuing to fight. On Friday night, he said on social media,

“I am free to help liberate Brazil from the insanity that is happening in this country.”

On Saturday, he displayed the congeniality that endears him to his supporters and also, he said, helped him “make friends” in prison and “spiritually prepare” himself for his return.

Switching between two failing microphones with a hand that lost a finger in a work accident, he described his humble roots in Brazil’s impoverished Northeast and the opportunities the union and worker solidarity afforded him.

“I was born in the city of Garanhuns. I left there and came to Sao Paulo when I was seven years old. I was raised by a mother and father who were born and died illiterate. I have always said, since 1979, that my political evolution was the product of the political evolution of the working men and women of this country…. I owe everything to my mother, who died illiterate, and to this union,” pointing to the Metalworkers Union headquarters, where he was offered courses in political science and economics.

“For 580 days in solitary confinement, I prepared myself spiritually” to free himself from hate and the need for vengeance. “I doubt that Moro can sleep with as clear a conscience as I do. I doubt that Bolsonaro can sleep with as clear a conscience as I do. I doubt that the minister in charge of demolishing dreams, destroying jobs and destroyer of the Brazilian people’s corporations, whose name is Guedes, can sleep with as clear a conscience as I do. And I want to tell them that I’m back!”

University of Chicago-educated Minister of the Economy Paulo Guedes has been under investigation for fraud since 2018 concerning his investment and loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in state pension funds.

Lula also called for a proper investigation into the assassination of Rio councillor Marielle Franco and clarified that

“Bolsonaro needs to understand that he was elected to govern for the Brazilian people, not for the military men in Rio de Janeiro. We must not allow these military men to wreck our country.”

Current President Bolsonaro reminded his supporters that Lula has yet to be exonerated, admonishing them to not “give ammunition to this momentarily free but still guilty scum.”

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Featured image is from teleSUR

Of all the ludicrous aspects of the Cold War, among the most ridiculous was the notion that Cuba posed a threat to U.S. “national security.” For some 30 years, the U.S. deep state (i.e., the Pentagon, CIA, and NSA) maintained that Cuba was a communist “dagger” pointed at America’s neck and, therefore, was a grave threat to “national security.”

Through it all, hardly anyone ever asked a very simple but important question: What did they mean when they said that Cuba was a threat to “national security”?

Did they mean that the Cuban army was about to invade Florida, conquer the state, move up the Eastern Seaboard, and end up forcibly taking over the reins of the federal government, thereby enabling it to control the IRS and HUD?

If so, that’s absolutely ridiculous. Cuba has always been an impoverished Third World country, one with a very small military force. Even if it could have scrounged up a few transport boats to get a few dozen troops to Miami, they would have been quickly smashed by well-armed private American citizens. Anyone who really thinks that Cuba could have invaded and conquered the United States needs a serious dose of reality.

So, then what did they mean when they repeatedly told us that Cuba was a threat to “national security”?

Maybe they meant that Cuban leader Fidel Castro would export socialist ideas to the United States, where they would then infect the minds of the American people.

If so, that’s ridiculous because socialism was already taking over the minds of the American people, and long before Fidel Castro took power in Cuba. That’s what President Franklin Roosevelt’s Social Security scheme was all about — bringing socialism to America. That was some 25 years before Castro came to power!

Let’s not forget, after all, that Social Security did not originate with James Madison or Patrick Henry. It originated among German socialists near the end of the 1800s and then came to the United States in the 1930s. That’s why the Social Security administration has a bust of Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor of Germany, prominently displayed on its website. Bismarck introduced Social Security to Germany. He got the idea from German socialists.

When President Lyndon Johnson enacted Medicare and Medicaid into law in the 1960s, it would be safe to say that he hadn’t gotten the idea from Fidel Castro. Socialism was gripping the minds of Americans independently of what was happening in Cuba. The fact is that the entire world was moving toward socialism. 

What about the Cuban Missile Crisis, when Castro invited the Soviet Union to install nuclear missiles in Cuba aimed at the United States? They were defensive in nature. The Pentagon and the CIA were pressuring President Kennedy to wage a war of aggression against Cuba, with the aim of installing another pro-U.S. dictator into power, such as Fulgencio Batista, the brutal and corrupt Cuban dictator who preceded Castro. A prime example was Operation Northwoods, the false and fraudulent scheme that the Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously presented to Kennedy after the CIA’s Bay of Pigs disaster, with the aim of securing regime change in Cuba. (To Kennedy’s everlasting credit, he rejected it.)

To deter another U.S. attack or to defend against such an attack, Castro sought assistance from the Soviets. If the Pentagon and the CIA had not been pressuring Kennedy to attack Cuba, Castro would never have invited the Soviets to install those missiles. This was confirmed by the fact that once Kennedy promised that he would not permit the deep state to attack Cuba again, the Soviets took their missiles home.

Today, 30 years after the end of the Cold War, the U.S. deep state steadfastly maintains that Cuba continues to pose a threat to U.S. “national security.” That’s what the decades-old economic embargo that targets the Cuban populace with impoverishment and death is all about. 

But the fact is that Cuba has never posed a threat to U.S. “national security,” whatever definition one puts on that nebulous, meaningless term. The truth is that it has always been the U.S. government that has posed a threat to Cuban “national security,” as manifested by such illegal and wrongful actions as the CIA invasion at the Bay of Pigs, the decades-long cruel and brutal economic embargo against the Cuban people, the false and fraudulent Operation Northwoods, state-sponsored assassinations attempts against Castro, and acts of terrorism and sabotage within Cuba.

The truth is that the entire decades-long anti-Cuba campaign has always been nothing more than a fear-mongering racket by the U.S. deep state, one designed to assure ever-increasing budgets and power for the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA.

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Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch.

Theresa May decided against allowing the UK to crash out of the EU without a deal after being warned about the potential for terrorism in Northern Ireland, her de facto deputy has said.

Former Cabinet minister Sir David Lidington, who is standing down as an MP, revealed that the ex-prime minister effectively ruled out a no-deal Brexit after a meeting with police chiefs and community groups in Belfast in February.

He told the Sunday Times:

“What really struck her was how the prospect of no-deal was driving them towards actively supporting a united Ireland, rather than being content to let sleeping dogs lie.”

“Anything on the border itself – even cameras – was certain to produce an increase in tension. I sat in meetings in Londonderry and in Newry and County Fermanagh, and I was told that in no uncertain terms.”

Britain was due to leave the EU on March 29, but Mrs May twice requested an extension to Article 50 – resulting in her being offered a “flexible extension” to Brexit until October 31.

Last August – the assistant chief constable Barbara Gray, who heads up the counter-terrorism response unit for the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), warned Brexit could become a motivating factor for extremists in the event of a disorderly exit. “We will be prepared and we will be very ready for any potential upsurge in violence that may happen after Brexit,” she told the PA news agency. “We predict that a six- to 12-month period, if there’s a no-deal Brexit, that there could be an upsurge in violence.”

Two months later – appearing in front of the House of Commons’ exiting the European Union committee, Chief Constable of Police Service Northern Ireland Greg Clarke said the agency would “go back into suboptimal” operations if the U.K. loses access to the European Arrest Warrant and is unable to share criminal data with the EU in a crashout exit scenario.

“There is a potential for opportunities to exist for them to carry terrorist crimes and activities, depending on what [border checks] infrastructure, for example, would look like,” Clarke told MPs.

“It is really important for us to emphasize that we are currently operating within a severe threat.”

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Bolivian coup leader Luis Fernando Camacho is a far-right multi-millionaire who arose from fascist movements in the Santa Cruz region, where the US has encouraged separatism. He has courted support from Colombia, Brazil, and the Venezuelan opposition.

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When Luis Fernando Camacho stormed into Bolivia’s abandoned presidential palace in the hours after President Evo Morales’s sudden November 10 resignation, he revealed to the world a side of the country that stood at stark odds with the plurinational spirit its deposed socialist and Indigenous leader had put forward.

With a Bible in one hand and a national flag in the other, Camacho bowed his head in prayer above the presidential seal, fulfilling his vow to purge his country’s Native heritage from government and “return God to the burned palace.”

“Pachamama will never return to the palace,” he said, referring to the Andean Mother Earth spirit. “Bolivia belongs to Christ.”

Far-right Bolivian opposition leader Luis Fernando Camacho in Bolivia’s presidential palace with a Bible, after the coup

Bolivia’s extreme right-wing opposition had overthrown leftist President Evo Morales that day, following demands by the country’s military leadership that he step down.

Virtually unknown outside his country, where he had never won a democratic election, Camacho stepped into the void. He is a powerful multi-millionaire named in the Panama Papers, and an ultra-conservative Christian fundamentalist groomed by a fascist paramilitary notorious for its racist violence, with a base in Bolivia’s wealthy separatist region of Santa Cruz.

Camacho hails from a family of corporate elites who have long profited from Bolivia’s plentiful natural gas reserves. And his family lost part of its wealth when Morales nationalized the country’s resources, in order to fund his vast social programs — which cut poverty by 42 percent and extreme poverty by 60 percent.

In the lead-up to the coup, Camacho met with leaders from right-wing governments in the region to discuss their plans to destabilize Morales. Two months before the putsch, he tweeted gratitude: “Thank you Colombia! Thank you Venezuela!” he exclaimed, tipping his hat to Juan Guaido’s coup operation. He also recognized the far-right government of Jair Bolsonaro, declaring, “Thank you Brazil!”

Camacho had spent years leading an overtly fascist separatist organization called the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista. The Grayzone edited the following clips from a promotional historical documentary that the group posted on its own social media accounts:

The rich oligarch leader of Bolivia's right-wing coup, Luis Fernando Camacho, was the leader of an explicitly fascist paramilitary group.

Here are some clips from a promotional historical documentary it published:https://t.co/gFMyfjsi2p pic.twitter.com/XXNQfhD7ii

— The Grayzone (@GrayzoneProject) November 12, 2019

While Camacho and his far-right forces served as the muscle behind the coup, their political allies waited to reap the benefits.

The presidential candidate Bolivia’s opposition had fielded in the October election, Carlos Mesa, is a “pro-business” privatizer with extensive ties to Washington. US government cables published by WikiLeaks reveal that he regularly corresponded with American officials in their efforts to destabilize Morales.

Mesa is currently listed as an expert at the Inter-American Dialogue, a DC-based think tank funded by the US government’s soft-power arm USAID, various oil giants, and a host of multi-national corporations active in Latin America.

Evo Morales, a former farmer who rose to prominence in social movements before becoming the leader of the powerful grassroots political party Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), was Bolivia’s first Indigenous leader. Wildly popular in the country’s substantial Native and peasant communities, he won numerous elections and democratic referenda over a 13-year period, often in landslides.

On October 20, Morales won re-election by more than 600,000 votes, giving him just above the 10 percent margin needed to defeat opposition presidential candidate Mesa in the first round.

Experts who did a statistical analysis of Bolivia’s publicly available voting data found no evidence of irregularities or fraud. But the opposition claimed otherwise, and took to the streets in weeks of protests and riots.

The events that precipitated the resignation of Morales were indisputably violent. Right-wing opposition gangs attacked numerous elected politicians from the ruling leftist MAS party. They then ransacked the home of President Morales, while burning down the houses of several other top officials. The family members of some politicians were kidnapped and held hostage until they resigned. A female socialist mayor was publicly tortured by a mob.

The squalid US-backed fanatics of the Bolivian right ransack the house of the country’s elected president, Evo Morales. And the havoc is just beginning. Let no one call them “pro-democracy.” pic.twitter.com/rwwvOSAEaA

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) November 11, 2019

Following the forced departure of Morales, coup leaders arrested the president and vice president of the government’s electoral body, and forced the organization’s other officials to resign. Camacho’s followers proceeded to burn Wiphala flags that symbolized the country’s Indigenous population and the plurinational vision of Morales.

The Organization of American States, a pro-US organization founded by Washington during the Cold War as an alliance of right-wing anti-communist countries in Latin America, helped rubber stamp the Bolivian coup. It called for new elections, claiming there were numerous irregularities in the October 20 vote, without citing any evidence. Then the OAS remained silent as Morales was overthrown by his military and his party’s officials were attacked and violently forced to resign.

The day after, the Donald Trump White House enthusiastically praised the coup, trumpeting it as a “significant moment for democracy,” and a “strong signal to the illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua.”

Emerging from the shadows to lead a violent far-right putsch

While Carlos Mesa timidly condemned the opposition’s violence, Camacho egged it on, ignoring calls for an international audit of the election and emphasizing his maximalist demand to purge all supporters of Morales from government. He was the true face of the opposition, concealed for months behind the moderate figure of Mesa.

A 40-year-old multi-millionaire businessman from the separatist stronghold of Santa Cruz, Camacho has never run for office. Like Venezuelan coup leader Juan Guaidó, whom more than 80 percent of Venezuelans had never heard of until the US government anointed him as supposed “president,” Camacho was an obscure figure until the coup attempt in Bolivia hit its stride.

He first created his Twitter account on May 27, 2019. For months, his tweets went ignored, generating no more than three or four retweets and likes. Before the election, Camacho did not have a Wikipedia article, and there were few media profiles on him in Spanish- or English-language media.

Camacho issued a call for a strike on July 9, posting videos on Twitter that got just over 20 views. The goal of the strike was to try to force the resignation of Bolivian government’s electoral organ the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE). In other words, Camacho was pressuring the government’s electoral authorities to step down more than three months before the presidential election.

It was not until after the election that Camacho was thrust into the limelight and transformed into a celebrity by corporate media conglomerates like the local right-wing network Unitel,Telemundo, and CNN en Español.

All of a sudden, Camacho’s tweets calling for Morales to resign were lighting up with thousands of retweets. The coup machinery had been activated.

Mainstream outlets like the New York Times and Reuters followed by anointing the unelected Camacho as the “leader” of Bolivia’s opposition. But even as he lapped up international attention, key portions of the far-right activist’s background were omitted.

Left unmentioned were Camacho’s deep and well-established connections to Christian extremist paramilitaries notorious for racist violence and local business cartels, as well as the right-wing governments across the region.

It was in the fascist paramilitaries and separatist atmosphere of Santa Cruz where Camacho’s politics were formed, and where the ideological contours of the coup had been defined.

Cadres from the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista (UJC), the Bolivian fascist youth group that Luis Fernando Camacho got his start in

Cadre of a Francoist-style fascist paramilitary

Luis Fernando Camacho was groomed by the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista, or Santa Cruz Youth Union (UJC), a fascist paramilitary organization that has been linked to assassination plots against Morales. The group is notorious for assaulting leftists, Indigenous peasants, and journalists, all while espousing a deeply racist, homophobic ideology.

Since Morales entered office in 2006, the UJC has campaigned to separate from a country its members believed had been overtaken by a Satanic Indigenous mass.

The UJC is the Bolivian equivalent of Spain’s Falange, India’s Hindu supremacist RSS, and Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov battalion. Its symbol is a green cross that bears strong similarities to logos of fascist movements across the West.

And its members are known to launch into Nazi-style sieg heil salutes.

Here is another video posted by Bolivia's fascist opposition Santa Cruz Youth Union.

Coup leader Luis Fernando Camacho @LuisFerCamachoV previously helped lead this sieg-heiling group.

These are the people who overthrew elected President Evo Morales. https://t.co/gFMyfjsi2p pic.twitter.com/GvvMfL21UZ

— The Grayzone (@GrayzoneProject) November 12, 2019

Even the US embassy in Bolivia has described UJC members as “racist” and “militant,” noting that they “have frequently attacked pro-MAS/government people and installations.”

After journalist Benjamin Dangl visited with UJC members in 2007, he described them as the “brass knuckles” of the Santa Cruz separatist movement. “The Unión Juvenil has been known to beat and whip campesinos marching for gas nationalization, throw rocks at students organizing against autonomy, toss molotov cocktails at the state television station, and brutally assault members of the landless movement struggling against land monopolies,” Dangl wrote.

“When we have to defend our culture by force, we will,” a UJC leader told Dangl. “The defense of liberty is more important than life.”

Armed members of the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista

Camacho was elected as vice president of the UJC in 2002, when he was just 23 years old. He left the organization two years later to build his family’s business empire and rise through the ranks of the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee. It was in that organization that he was taken under the wing of one of the separatist movement’s most powerful figures, a Bolivian-Croatian oligarch named Branko Marinkovic.

In August, Camacho tweeted a photo with his “great friend,” Marinkovic. This friendship was crucial to establishing the rightist activist’s credentials and forging the basis of the coup that would take form three months later.

Hoy cumple años un gran líder cruceño y expresidente del Comité pro Santa Cruz pero todo un gran amigo, Branko Marinkovic, quien entregó todo, su libertad y su vida, por su pueblo. pic.twitter.com/uVzNrgH2pI

— Luis Fernando Camacho (@LuisFerCamachoV) August 21, 2019

Camacho’s Croatian godfather and separatist powerbroker

Branko Marinkovic is a major landowner who ramped up his support for the right-wing opposition after some of his land was nationalized by the Evo Morales government. As chairman of the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee, he oversaw the operations of the main engine of separatism in Bolivia.

In a 2008 letter to Marinkovic, the International Federation for Human Rights denounced the committee as an “actor and promoter of racism and violence in Bolivia.”

The human rights group added that it “condemn[ed] the attitude and secessionist, unionist and racist discourses as well as the calls for military disobedience of which the Pro-Santa Cruz Civic Committee for is one of the main promoters.”

In 2013, journalist Matt Kennard reported that the US government was working closely with the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee to encourage the balkanization of Bolivia and to undermine Morales. “What they [the US] put across was how they could strengthen channels of communication,” the vice president of the committee told Kennard. “The embassy said that they would help us in our communication work and they have a series of publications where they were putting forward their ideas.”

In a 2008 profile on Marinkovic, the New York Timesacknowledged the extremist undercurrents of the Santa Cruz separatist movement the oligarch presided over. It described the area as “a bastion of openly xenophobic groups like the Bolivian Socialist Falange, whose hand-in-air salute draws inspiration from the fascist Falange of the former Spanish dictator Franco.”

The Bolivian Socialist Falange was a fascist group that provided safe haven to Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie during the Cold War. A former Gestapo torture expert, Barbie was repurposed by the CIA through its Operation Condor program to help exterminate communism across the continent. (Despite its antiquated name, like the German National Socialists, this far-right extremist group was violently anti-leftist, committed to killing socialists.)

The Bolivian Falange came into power in 1971 when its leader, Gen. Hugo Banzer Suarez, ousted the leftist government of Gen. Juan Jose Torres Gonzales. The government of Gonzales had infuriated business leaders by nationalizing industries and antagonized Washington by ousting the Peace Corps, which it viewed as an instrument of CIA penetration. The Nixon administration immediately welcomed Banzer with open arms and courted him as a key bulwark against the spread of socialism in the region. (An especially ironic 1973 dispatch appears on Wikileaks showing Secretary of State Henry Kissinger thanking Banzer for congratulating him on his Nobel Peace Prize).

The movement’s putschist legacy persevered during the Morales era through organizations like the UJC and figures such as Marinkovic and Camacho.

The Times noted that Marinkovic also supported the activities of the UJC, describing the fascist group as “a quasi-independent arm of the committee led by Mr. Marinkovic.” A member of the UJC board told the US newspaper of record in an interview, “We will protect Branko with our own lives.”

Marinkovic has espoused the kind of Christian nationalist rhetoric familiar to the far-right organizations of Santa Cruz, calling, for instance, for a “crusade for the truth” and insisting that God is on his side.

The oligarch’s family hails from Croatia, where he has dual citizenship. Marinkovic has long been dogged by rumors that his family members were involved in the country’s powerful fascist Ustashe movement.

The Ustashe collaborated openly with Nazi German occupiers during World War Two. Their successors returned to power after Croatia declared independence from the former Yugoslavia – a former socialist country that was intentionally balkanized in a NATO war, much in the same way that Marinkovic hoped Bolivia would be.

German Fuhrer Adolph Hitler meets Ustashe founder Ante Pavelić in 1941

Marinkovic denies that his family was part of the Ustashe. He claimed in an interview with the New York Times that his father fought against the Nazis.

But even some of his sympathizers are skeptical. A Balkan analyst from the private intelligence firm Stratfor, which works closely with the US government and is popularly known as the “shadow CIA,” produced a rough background profile on Marinkovic, speculating, “Still don’t know his full story, but I would bet a lot of $$$ that this dude’s parents are 1st gen (his name is too Slavic) and that they were Ustashe (read: Nazi) sympathizers fleeing Tito’s Communists after WWI.”

The Stratfor analyst excerpted a 2006 article by journalist Christian Parenti, who had visited Marinkovic at his ranch in Santa Cruz. Evo Morales’ “land reform could lead to civil war,” Marinkovic warned Parenti in the Texas-accented English he picked up while studying at the University of Texas.

Today, Marinkovic is an ardent supporter of Brazil’s far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, whose only complaint about Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was that he “didn’t kill enough.”

Marinkovic is also a public admirer of Venezuela’s far-right opposition. “Todos somos Leopoldo” — “we are all Leopoldo,” he tweeted in support of Leopoldo López, who has been involved in numerous coup attempts against Venezuela’s elected leftist government.

While Marinkovic denied any role in armed militant activity in his interview with Parenti, he was accused in 2008 of playing a central role in an attempt to assassinate Morales and his Movement Toward Socialism party allies.

He told the New York Times less than two years before the plot developed, “If there is no legitimate international mediation in our crisis, there is going to be confrontation. And unfortunately, it is going to be bloody and painful for all Bolivians.”

An assassination plot links Bolivia’s right to international fascists

In April 2009, a special unit of the Bolivian security services barged into a luxury hotel room and cut down three men who were said to be involved in a plot to kill Evo Morales. Two others remained on the loose. Four of the alleged conspirators had Hungarian or Croatian roots and ties to rightist politics in eastern Europe, while another was a right-wing Irishman, Michael Dwyer, who had only arrived in Santa Cruz six months before.

Image on the right: Alleged assassination plotter Michael Dwyer with his weapons

The ringleader of the group was said to be a former leftist journalist named Eduardo Rosza-Flores who had turned to fascism and belonged to Opus Dei, the traditionalist Catholic cult that emerged under the dictatorship of Spain’s Francisco Franco. In fact, the codename Rosza-Flores assumed in the assassination plot was “Franco,” after the late Generalissimo.

During the 1990s, Rosza fought on behalf of the Croatian First International Platoon, or the PIV, in the war to separate from Yugoslavia. A Croatian journalist told Time that the “PIV was a notorious group: 95% of them had criminal histories, many were part of Nazi and fascist groups, from Germany to Ireland.”

By 2009, Rosza returned home to Bolivia to crusade on behalf of another separatist movement in Santa Cruz. And it was there that he was killed in a luxury hotel with no apparent source of income and a massive stockpile of guns.

The government later released photos of Rosza and a co-conspirator posing with their weapons. Publication of emails between the ringleader and Istvan Belovai, a former Hungarian military intelligence officer who served as a double agent for the CIA, cemented the perception that Washington had a hand in the operation.

Marinkovic was subsequently charged with providing $200,000 to the plotters. The Bolivian-Croatian oligarch initially fled to the United States, where he was given asylum, then relocated to Brazil, where he lives today. He denied any involvement in the plan to kill Morales.

Image below: Rosza and Dwyer with their arms cache in Bolivia

As journalist Matt Kennard reported, there was another thread that tied the plot to the US: the alleged participation of an NGO leader named Hugo Achá Melgar.

“Rozsa didn’t come here by himself, they brought him,” the Bolivian government’s lead investigator told Kennard. “Hugo Achá Melgar brought him.”

The Human Rights Foundation destabilizes Bolivia

Achá was not just the head of any run-of-the-mill NGO. He had founded the Bolivian subsidiary of the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), an international right-wing outfit that is known for hosting a “school for revolution” for activists seeking regime change in states targeted by the US government.

HRF is run by Thor Halvorssen Jr., the son of the late Venezuelan oligarch and CIA asset Thor Halvorssen Hellum. The first cousin of the veteran Venezuelan coup plotter Leopoldo Lopez, Halvorssen was a former college Republican activist who crusaded against political correctness and other familiar right-wing hobgoblins.

After a brief career as a firebrand right-wing film producer, in which he oversaw a scandalous “anti-environmentalist” documentary financed by a mining corporation, Halvorssen rebranded as a promoter of liberalism and the enemy of global authoritarianism. He launched the HRF with grants from right-wing billionaires like Peter Thiel, conservative foundations, and NGOs including Amnesty International. The group has since been at the forefront of training activists for insurrectionary activity from Hong Kong to the Middle East to Latin America.

Though Achá was granted asylum in the US, the HRF has continued pushing regime change in Bolivia. As Wyatt Reed reported for The Grayzone, HRF “freedom fellow” Jhanisse Vaca Daza helped trigger the initial stage of the coup by blaming Morales for the Amazon fires that consumed parts of Bolivia in August, mobilizing international protests against him.

At the time, Daza posed as an “environmental activist” and student of non-violence who articulated her concerns in moderate-seeming calls for more international aid to Bolivia. Through her NGO, Rios de Pie, she helped launch the #SOSBolivia hashtag, which signaled the imminent foreign-backed regime-change operation.

Courting the regional right, prepping the coup 

While HRF’s Daza rallied protests outside Bolivian embassies in Europe and the US, Fernando Camacho remained behind the scenes, lobbying right-wing governments in the region to bless the coming coup.

In May, Camacho met with Colombia’s far-right President Ivan Duque. Camacho was helping to spearhead regional efforts at undermining the legitimacy of Evo Morales’ presidency at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, seeking to block his candidacy in the October election.

Camacho with Colombian President Ivan Duque in May

That same month, the rightist Bolivian agitator also met with Ernesto Araújo, the chancellor of Jair Bolsonaro’s ultra-conservative administration in Brazil. Through the meeting, Camacho successfully secured Bolsonaro’s backing for regime change in Bolivia.

This November 10, Araújo enthusiastically endorsed the ouster of Morales, declaring that “Brazil will support the democratic and constitutional transition” in the country.

Then in August, two months before Bolivia’s presidential election, Camacho held court with officials from Venezuela’s US-appointed coup regime. These included Gustavo Tarre, Guaido’s faux Venezuelan OAS ambassador, who formerly worked at the right-wing Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank in Washington.

After the meeting, Camacho tweeted gratitude to the Venezuelan coup-mongers, as well as to Colombia and Brazil.

No vamos a parar hasta tener una democracia real! Seguimos avanzando!

Vamos sumando apoyo… ahora lo hace Venezuela…Gracias a Dios.. hay esperanza!

Gracias Colombia!
Gracias Venezuela!
Gracias Brasil! pic.twitter.com/v9TQ2Fi2Sa

— Luis Fernando Camacho (@LuisFerCamachoV) August 27, 2019

Mesa and Camacho: a marriage of capitalist convenience

Back in Bolivia, Carlos Mesa occupied the spotlight as the opposition’s presidential candidate.

His erudite image and centrist policy proposals put him in a seemingly alternate political universe from fire-breathing rightists like Camacho and Marinkovic. For them, he was a convenient front man and acceptable candidate who promised to defend their economic interests.

“It might be that he is not my favorite, but I’m going to vote for him, because I don’t want Evo,” Marinkovic told a right-wing Argentine newspaper five days before the election.

Indeed, it was Camacho’s practical financial interests that appeared to have necessitated his support for Mesa.

The Camacho family has formed a natural gas cartel in Santa Cruz. As the Bolivian outlet Primera Linea reported, Luis Fernando Camacho’s father, Jose Luis, was the owner of a company called Sergas that distributed gas in the city; his uncle, Enrique, controlled Socre, the company that ran the local gas production facilities; and his cousin, Cristian, controls another local gas distributor called Controgas.

According to Primera Linea, the Camacho family was using the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee as a political weapon to install Carlos Mesa into power and ensure the restoration of their business empire.

Mesa has a well-documented history of advancing the goals of transnational companies at the expense of his own country’s population. The neoliberal politician and media personality served as vice president when the US-backed President Gonzalo “Goni” Sanchez de Lozada provoked mass protests with his 2003 plan to allow a consortium of multinational corporations to export the country’s natural gas to the US through a Chilean port.

Bolivia’s US-trained security forces met the ferocious protests with brutal repression. After presiding over the killing of 70 unarmed protesters, Sanchez de Lozada fled to Miami and was succeeded by Mesa.

By 2005, Mesa was also ousted by huge demonstrations spurred by his protection of privatized natural gas companies. With his demise, the election of Morales and the rise of the socialist and rural Indigenous movements behind him were just beyond the horizon.

US government cables released by WikiLeaks show that, after his ouster, Mesa continued regular correspondence with American officials. A 2008 memo from the US embassy in Bolivia revealed that Washington was conspiring with opposition politicians in the lead-up to the 2009 presidential election, hoping to undermine and ultimately unseat Morales.

The memo noted that Mesa had met with the chargé d’affaires of the US embassy, and had privately told them he planned to run for president. The cable recalled: “Mesa told us his party will be ideologically similar to a social democratic party and that he hoped to strengthen ties with the Democratic party. ‘We have nothing against the Republican party, and have in fact gotten support from IRI (International Republican Institute) in the past, but we think we share more ideology with the Democrats,’ he added.”

Today, Mesa serves as an in-house “expert” at the Inter-American Dialogue, a neoliberal Washington-based think tank focused on Latin America. One of the Dialogue’s top donors is the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the State Department subsidiary that was exposed in classified diplomatic cables published on Wikileaks for strategically directing millions of dollars to opposition groups including those “opposed to Evo Morales’ vision for indigenous communities.”

Other top funders of the Dialogue include oil titans like Chevron and ExxonMobil; Bechtel, which inspired the initial protests against the administration in which Mesa served; the Inter-American Development Bank, which has forcefully opposed Morales’ socialist-oriented policies; and the Organization of American States (OAS), which helped delegitimize the Morales’s re-election victory with dubious claims of irregular vote counts.

Finishing the job

When Carlos Mesa touched off nationwide protests in October by accusing the Evo Morales government of committing electoral fraud, the right-wing firebrand hailed by his followers as “Macho Camacho” emerged from the shadows. Behind him was the hardcore separatist shock force that he led in Santa Cruz.

Mesa faded into the distance as Camacho emerged as the authentic face of the coup, rallying his forces with the uncompromising rhetoric and fascist symbology that defined the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista paramilitary.

As he declared victory over Morales, Camacho exhorted his followers to “finish the job, let’s get the elections going, let’s start judging the government criminals, let’s put them in jail.”

Back in Washington, meanwhile, the Trump administration released an official statement celebrating Bolivia’s coup, declaring that “Morales’s departure preserves democracy.”

*

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

Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and author, and the founder and editor of The Grayzone.

Ben Norton is a journalist, writer, and filmmaker, and the assistant editor of The Grayzone.

All images in this article are from The Grayzone

Come you masters of war / You that build the big guns

You that build the death planes / You that build all the bombs

You that hide behind walls / You that hide behind desks

I just want you to know / I can see through your masks….

You fasten all the triggers / For the others to fire

Then you sit back and watch / When the death count gets higher

You hide in your mansion / While the young people’s blood

Flows out of their bodies / And is buried in the mud.

— Bob Dylan, “Masters of War”

War drives the American police state.

The military-industrial complex is the world’s largest employer.

War sustains our way of life while killing us at the same time. As Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent and author Chris Hedges observes:

War is like a poison. And just as a cancer patient must at times ingest a poison to fight off a disease, so there are times in a society when we must ingest the poison of war to survive. But what we must understand is that just as the disease can kill us, so can the poison. If we don’t understand what war is, how it perverts us, how it corrupts us, how it dehumanizes us, how it ultimately invites us to our own self-annihilation, then we can become the victim of war itself.

War also entertains us with its carnage, its killing fields, its thrills and chills and bloodied battles set to music and memorialized in books, on television, in video games, and in superhero films and blockbuster Hollywood movies financed in part by the military.

Americans are fed a steady diet of pro-war propaganda that keeps them content to wave flags with patriotic fervor and less inclined to look too closely at the mounting body counts, the ruined lives, the ravaged countries, the blowback arising from ill-advised targeted-drone killings and bombing campaigns in foreign lands, or the transformation of our own homeland into a warzone.

Nowhere is this double-edged irony more apparent than during military holidays, when we get treated to a generous serving of praise and grandstanding by politicians, corporations and others with similarly self-serving motives eager to go on record as being pro-military.

Yet war is a grisly business, a horror of epic proportions.

In terms of human carnage alone, war’s devastation is staggering. For example, it is estimated that approximately 231 million people died worldwide during the wars of the 20th century. This figure does not take into account the walking wounded—both physically and psychologically—who “survive” war.

Many of those who have served in the military are among America’s walking wounded.

Despite the fact that the U.S. boasts more than 20 million veterans who have served in World War II through the present day, the plight of veterans today has become America’s badge of shame, with large numbers of veterans impoverished, unemployed, traumatized mentally and physically, struggling with depression, suicide, and marital stress, homeless, subjected to sub-par treatment at clinics and hospitals, and left to molder while their paperwork piles up within Veterans Administration offices.

According to a recent report by the Department of Veterans Affairs, at least 60,000 veterans died by suicidebetween 2008 and 2017.

On average, 6,000 veterans kill themselves every year, and the numbers are on the rise.

As Brené Brown, research professor at the University of Houston, observed, “For soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, coming home is more lethal than being in combat.”

Unfortunately, it’s the U.S. government that poses the greater threat to America’s military veterans, especially if they are among that portion of the population that exercises their First Amendment right to speak out against government wrongdoing.

Consider: we raise our young people on a steady diet of militarism and war, sell them on the idea that defending freedom abroad by serving in the military is their patriotic duty, then when they return home, bruised and battle-scarred and committed to defending their freedoms at home, we often treat them like criminals merely for exercising those rights they risked their lives to defend.

The government even has a name for its war on America’s veterans: Operation Vigilant Eagle.

As first reported by the Wall Street Journal, this Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program tracks military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and characterizes them as extremists and potential domestic terrorist threats because they may be “disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war.”

Coupled with the DHS’ dual reports on Rightwing and Leftwing “Extremism,” which broadly define extremists as individuals, military veterans and groups “that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely,” these tactics bode ill for anyone seen as opposing the government.

Yet the government is not merely targeting individuals who are voicing their discontent so much as it is taking aim at individuals trained in military warfare.

Don’t be fooled by the fact that the DHS has gone extremely quiet about Operation Vigilant Eagle.

Where there’s smoke, there’s bound to be fire.

And the government’s efforts to target military veterans whose views may be perceived as “anti-government” make clear that something is afoot.

In recent years, military servicemen and women have found themselves increasingly targeted for surveillance, censorship, threatened with incarceration or involuntary commitment, labeled as extremists and/or mentally ill, and stripped of their Second Amendment rights.

An important point to consider, however, is that under the guise of mental health treatment and with the complicity of government psychiatrists and law enforcement officials, these veterans are increasingly being portrayed as threats to national security.

In light of the government’s efforts to lay the groundwork to weaponize the public’s biomedical data and predict who might pose a threat to public safety based on mental health sensor data (a convenient means by which to penalize certain “unacceptable” social behaviors), encounters with the police could get even more deadly, especially if those involved have a mental illness or disability coupled with a military background.

Incredibly, as part of a proposal being considered by the Trump Administration, a new government agency HARPA (a healthcare counterpart to the Pentagon’s research and development arm DARPA) will take the lead in identifying and targeting “signs” of mental illness or violent inclinations among the populace by using artificial intelligence to collect data from Apple Watches, Fitbits, Amazon Echo and Google Home.

These tactics are not really new.

Many times throughout history in totalitarian regimes, such governments have declared dissidents mentally ill and unfit for society as a means of disempowering them.

As Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum observes in Gulag: A History: “The exile of prisoners to a distant place, where they can ‘pay their debt to society,’ make themselves useful, and not contaminate others with their ideas or their criminal acts, is a practice as old as civilization itself. The rulers of ancient Rome and Greece sent their dissidents off to distant colonies. Socrates chose death over the torment of exile from Athens. The poet Ovid was exiled to a fetid port on the Black Sea.”

For example, government officials in the Cold War-era Soviet Union often used psychiatric hospitals as prisons in order to isolate political prisoners from the rest of society, discredit their ideas, and break them physically and mentally through the use of electric shocks, drugs and various medical procedures.

Insisting that “ideas about a struggle for truth and justice are formed by personalities with a paranoid structure,” the psychiatric community actually went so far as to provide the government with a diagnosis suitable for locking up such freedom-oriented activists.

In addition to declaring political dissidents mentally unsound, Russian officials also made use of an administrative process for dealing with individuals who were considered a bad influence on others or troublemakers.

Author George Kennan describes a process in which:

The obnoxious person may not be guilty of any crime . . . but if, in the opinion of the local authorities, his presence in a particular place is “prejudicial to public order” or “incompatible with public tranquility,” he may be arrested without warrant, may be held from two weeks to two years in prison, and may then be removed by force to any other place within the limits of the empire and there be put under police surveillance for a period of from one to ten years. Administrative exile–which required no trial and no sentencing procedure–was an ideal punishment not only for troublemakers as such, but also for political opponents of the regime.

Sound familiar?

This age-old practice by which despotic regimes eliminate their critics or potential adversaries by declaring them mentally ill and locking them up in psychiatric wards for extended periods of time is a common practice in present-day China.

What is particularly unnerving, however, is how this practice of eliminating or undermining potential critics, including military veterans, is happening with increasing frequency in the United States.

Remember, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) opened the door for the government to detain as a threat to national security anyone viewed as a troublemaker. According to government guidelines for identifying domestic extremists—a word used interchangeably with terrorists—technically, anyone exercising their First Amendment rights in order to criticize the government qualifies.

It doesn’t take much anymore to be flagged as potentially anti-government in a government database somewhere—Main Core, for example—that identifies and tracks individuals who aren’t inclined to march in lockstep to the government’s dictates.

In fact, as the Washington Post reports, communities are being mapped and residents assigned a color-coded threat score—green, yellow or red—so police are forewarned about a person’s potential inclination to be a troublemaker depending on whether they’ve had a career in the military, posted a comment perceived as threatening on Facebook, suffer from a particular medical condition, or know someone who knows someone who might have committed a crime.

The case of Brandon Raub is a prime example of Operation Vigilant Eagle in action.

Raub, a 26-year-old decorated Marine, actually found himself interrogated by government agents about his views on government corruption, arrested with no warning, labeled mentally ill for subscribing to so-called “conspiratorial” views about the government, detained against his will in a psych ward for standing by his views, and isolated from his family, friends and attorneys.

On August 16, 2012, a swarm of local police, Secret Service and FBI agents arrived at Raub’s Virginia home, asking to speak with him about posts he had made on his Facebook page made up of song lyrics, political opinions and dialogue used in a political thriller virtual card game.

Among the posts cited as troublesome were lyrics to a song by a rap group and Raub’s views, shared increasingly by a number of Americans, that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an inside job.

After a brief conversation and without providing any explanation, levying any charges against Raub or reading him his rights, Raub was then handcuffed and transported to police headquarters, then to a medical center, where he was held against his will due to alleged concerns that his Facebook posts were “terrorist in nature.”

Outraged onlookers filmed the arrest and posted the footage to YouTube, where it quickly went viral. Meanwhile, in a kangaroo court hearing that turned a deaf ear to Raub’s explanations about the fact that his Facebook posts were being read out of context, Raub was sentenced to up to 30 days’ further confinement in a psychiatric ward.

Thankfully, The Rutherford Institute came to Raub’s assistance, which combined with heightened media attention, brought about his release and may have helped prevent Raub from being successfully “disappeared” by the government.

Even so, within days of Raub being seized and forcibly held in a VA psych ward, news reports started surfacing of other veterans having similar experiences.

“Oppositional defiance disorder” (ODD) is another diagnosis being used against veterans who challenge the status quo. As journalist Anthony Martin explains, an ODD diagnosis

“denotes that the person exhibits ‘symptoms’ such as the questioning of authority, the refusal to follow directions, stubbornness, the unwillingness to go along with the crowd, and the practice of disobeying or ignoring orders. Persons may also receive such a label if they are considered free thinkers, nonconformists, or individuals who are suspicious of large, centralized government… At one time the accepted protocol among mental health professionals was to reserve the diagnosis of oppositional defiance disorder for children or adolescents who exhibited uncontrollable defiance toward their parents and teachers.”

Frankly, based on how well my personality and my military service in the U.S. Armed Forces fit with this description of “oppositional defiance disorder,” I’m sure there’s a file somewhere with my name on it.

That the government is using the charge of mental illness as the means by which to immobilize (and disarm) these veterans is diabolical. With one stroke of a magistrate’s pen, these veterans are being declared mentally ill, locked away against their will, and stripped of their constitutional rights.

If it were just being classified as “anti-government,” that would be one thing.

Unfortunately, anyone with a military background and training is also now being viewed as a heightened security threat by police who are trained to shoot first and ask questions later.

Feeding this perception of veterans as ticking time bombs in need of intervention, the Justice Department launched a pilot program in 2012 aimed at training SWAT teams to deal with confrontations involving highly trained and often heavily armed combat veterans.

The result?

Police encounters with military veterans often escalate very quickly into an explosive and deadly situation, especially when SWAT teams are involved.

For example, Jose Guerena, a Marine who served in two tours in Iraq, was killed after an Arizona SWAT team kicked open the door of his home during a mistaken drug raid and opened fire. Thinking his home was being invaded by criminals, Guerena told his wife and child to hide in a closet, grabbed a gun and waited in the hallway to confront the intruders. He never fired his weapon. In fact, the safety was still on his gun when he was killed. The SWAT officers, however, not as restrained, fired 70 rounds of ammunition at Guerena—23 of those bullets made contact. Apart from his military background, Guerena had had no prior criminal record, and the police found nothing illegal in his home.

John Edward Chesney, a 62-year-old Vietnam veteran, was killed by a SWAT team allegedly responding to a call that the Army veteran was standing in his San Diego apartment window waving what looked like a semi-automatic rifle. SWAT officers locked down Chesney’s street, took up positions around his home, and fired 12 rounds into Chesney’s apartment window. It turned out that the gun Chesney reportedly pointed at police from three stories up was a “realistic-looking mock assault rifle.”

Ramon Hooks’ encounter with a Houston SWAT team did not end as tragically, but it very easily could have. Hooks, a 25-year-old Iraq war veteran, was using an air rifle gun for target practice outside when a Homeland Security Agent, allegedly house shopping in the area, reported him as an active shooter. It wasn’t long before the quiet neighborhood was transformed into a war zone, with dozens of cop cars, an armored vehicle and heavily armed police. Hooks was arrested, his air rifle pellets and toy gun confiscated, and charges filed against him for “criminal mischief.”

Given the government’s increasing view of veterans as potential domestic terrorists, it makes one think twice about government programs encouraging veterans to include a veterans designation on their drivers’ licenses and ID cards.

Hailed by politicians as a way to “make it easier for military veterans to access discounts from retailers, restaurants, hotels and vendors across the state,” it will also make it that much easier for the government to identify and target veterans who dare to challenge the status quo.

After all, no one is spared in a police state.

Eventually, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we all suffer the same fate.

It stands to reason that if the government can’t be bothered to abide by its constitutional mandate to respect the citizenry’s rights—whether it’s the right to be free from government surveillance and censorship, the right to due process and fair hearings, the right to be free from roadside strip searches and militarized police, or the right to peacefully assemble and protest and exercise our right to free speech—then why should anyone expect the government to treat our nation’s veterans with respect and dignity?

Here’s a suggestion: if you really want to do something to show your respect and appreciation for the nation’s veterans, why not skip the parades and the flag-waving and instead go exercise your rights—the freedoms that those veterans swore to protect—by pushing back against the government’s tyranny.

It’s time the rest of the nation did its part to safeguard the freedoms we too often take for granted.

Freedom is not free.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

I just interviewed former World Bank staff member and  geopolitical analyst Peter Koenig via telephone at his home in Geneva. Koenig had just returned from South America, a place where he has travelled to many times. One of the issues that he is very passionate about is the agenda by (so called) world health and finance organizations to privatize water… especially drinking water!  He understands how dangerous it is to allow private for profit companies to control our drinking water, whereupon the old saying of ‘Profit over People’ rings so true.

This all made this writer think of when I turned  on C-Span a few short years ago and caught the congressional hearing on the Flint water crisis.

It made me so angry that I  wanted to scream out loud!: ‘You morons! Why is there no one there who will connect the dots!?’ ‘You had the former Mayor of Flint, the former EPA regional exec and the former ‘Emergency City Mgr. all under the gun from those diligent bulldog congress people. The blame game was in full swing, and to some extent it was and is justified. The  mayor and the other band of bureaucrats did get early on information as to the harm the river water and lead filled pipes was doing to the citizens of Flint. Yet, there is a much more diabolical aspect of this story, and it filters out to many other municipalities throughout America. Part A of this aspect was shared by Mr. Early, the former Emergency Mgr. of Flint when he told anyone who would listen that “We did not have the $ 18 million it would cost”. He was referring to the charges made by almost everyone at that hearing as to why he did not heed the complaints he was receiving and switch back to the much safer Detroit Water Systems’ water for Flint. Early was no saint, not at all. He, like the EPA exec and the Mayor, ignored the mountain of resident complaints and fears (and the whistleblower’s warnings) as to the lack of safety in the river water (and of course the lead in the pipes). Part B of this is why the Governor did nothing to help out the city of Flint from this horror. When push comes to shove, though, it was really about Da Money or lack of it. Why?

My Florida congressman, John Mica, really took the mantle and lashed into the group of bureaucrats for ignoring the warnings etc. Yet, as with I am sure most and most likely all of those others on the committee (and in the whole damn Congress) Mica had continued to support any military spending proposal that came his way. It matters not, and it mattered not, whether it be under the Republican Bush Jr. or the Democrat Obama, Mica and the rest of those hypocrites allowed over 50% of your federal tax money to go towards military spending! They supported the illegal invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq and the illegal U.S. led NATO carpet bombing and regime change in Libya. Of course, they voted to support most, if not all, of the Pentagon’s new weapons systems, nuclear subs and attack aircraft which are, in plain English, Overkill on steroids! These hypocrites and phony patriots voted to support our 1000 + bases worldwide and finance to the tune of over $ one million dollars yearly to keep one soldier in Afghanistan (of course the cost of private mercenaries.. oh sorry .. private contractors is another add on to that cost). Imagine, if you would, that keeping 18 U.S. service people in Afghanistan for one year equals the $ 18 million Flint needed to stay with the clean water in the first place!

We have many more cities like Flint all over our great nation. We have bridges and roads that are in disrepair. Our train system pales in comparison to any other one in any other of the industrialized nations. This is just for starters. This writer belongs to a non partisan nationwide group that demands that 25% of our current military spending be cut and sent back to our states and cities for use on infrastructure and other local emergency needs. One would speculate that having safe and secure drinking water should be on top of any such list. Apparently,  John Mica and his fellow hypocritical  Two Party colleagues did not agree with that. No, they continued and still continue to allow this Military Industrial Empire to chug along over the worn out and wounded majority of us. Sad.

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Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is a frequent contributor to 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].

Featured image is from The Ecologist

It should be obvious by now what the plan is for Julian Assange—psychological torture resulting in either a total breakdown or an untimely death, the latter supported by the psychopaths who claim they are our leaders. This psychological torture was noted, with standard corporate media disinterest, by Nils Melzer, an internationally recognized expert on torture treatment.

“Unless the UK urgently changes course and alleviates his inhumane situation, Mr. Assange’s continued exposure to arbitrariness and abuse may soon end up costing his life,” Melzer, UN special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, said in a statement last week. 

Melzer demanded “that London immediately take measures to protect Assange’s health and dignity… However, what we have seen from the UK Government is outright contempt for Mr. Assange’s rights and integrity… Despite the medical urgency of my appeal, and the seriousness of the alleged violations, the UK has not undertaken any measures of investigation, prevention and redress required under international law.”

In America, the UK, and much of Europe, the financial elite and its political class consider truth-telling a cardinal sin, a crime punishable by death—not by lethal injection, but slowly and sadistically under a torture system tweaked by the CIA and put into action in rendition dungeons scattered around the world. 

An article at Strategic Culture Foundation summarizes:

Assange has provided vital information to the international public which demonstrates systematic corruption by Washington and its allies. For telling the truth, he is now being persecuted, just as his whistleblowing colleagues, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden are. Manning has been repeatedly imprisoned in the US, while Snowden has had to seek asylum in Russia for fear of being summarily incarcerated as a “traitor” if he returns to the US.

In fact, all of us, those who look beyond the headlines and ferret out the truth, are half a dozen steps away from suffering Julian Assange’s fate. 

The national security state and its political class plan to kill Assange, keep Chelsea Manning in prison and find a way to return Snowden to the US for a show trial and life behind bars (or execution). 

It must, however, first salt the earth where truth is harvested. Thousands of blogs, similar to this one, and websites contradicting and disassembling approved narratives, will be targeted for extinction. 

The Mueller investigation did not result in dethroning Donald Trump. The Clinton-DNC attack on a duly elected president, however, resulted in millions of easily duped Americans believing Russia somehow meddled in the 2016 election and will do it again in 2020. 

According to corporate entities in “partnership” with the state (the true nature of fascism), Russia is not alone in its supposed hatred of democracy and the self-proclaimed exceptional nation-state. 

“There is an undeclared war that Russia and China are waging against the United States and the West,” Jim Sciutto,  CNN’s chief national security correspondent and co-anchor of CNN Newsroom, told the Poynter Fellowship in Journalism Speaker Series in October. “China and Russia, over the last 10 years, have done a remarkably good job at this.” 

This alleged manipulation of American voters, according to the state and its corporate propaganda media, is assisted by Russian agents and a countless number of mindless dupes unaware of Vladimir Putin’s desire to destroy America. 

In 2016, Max Blumenthal wrote:

A shady website that claims “Russia is Manipulating US Opinion Through Online Propaganda” has compiled a blacklist of websites its anonymous authors accuse of pushing fake news and Russian propaganda. The blacklist includes over 200 outlets, from the right-wing Drudge Report and Russian government-funded Russia Today, to Wikileaks and an array of marginal conspiracy and far-right sites. The blacklist also includes some of the flagship publications of the progressive left, including Truthdig, Counterpunch, Truthout, Naked Capitalism, and the Black Agenda Report, a leftist African-American opinion hub that is critical of the liberal black political establishment.

“You can see in the current atmosphere, where anti-Russia hysteria has spread like typhoid, how readily-accepted such a notion would be by many. The reds are under our beds and the Russkies have taken over our airwaves,” wrote Daniel McAdams of The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity wrote in 2017. 

The Washington Post, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, rolled out the red carpet for the shadowy group, PropOrNot, and its baseless fact-devoid accusations of alternative media treason and complicity with Russia. 

Bezos is working closely with the CIA on a $600 million internet-cloud deal to get the NSA, DoD, the National Reconnaissance Office, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and other government snoop-and-subvert operations interconnected. 

The Alliance for Securing Democracy’s Hamilton 68 effort to destroy alternative media also has roots in the 2016 election loss of Hillary Clinton. Hamilton 68 is a project supported by the US State Department, the German Marshall Fund, and NATO. Neocon William Kristol and DNC operative John Podesta sit on its advisory board. The organization leans heavily on the Russian collusion fairy tale, thus lending to the conclusion alternative media is a Trojan horse that will help the “New Hitler” Putin destroy democracy. 

I certainly don’t have a crystal ball to gaze into and read the future. However, it seems rather obvious what the outcome of all this feverish work to demonize truth-tellers and install gatekeepers on the internet will be. 

First, high visibility “fake news” websites will feel the heat. This is already well underway with the persecution of Alex Jones for the crime of questioning Sandy Hook and promoting the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Lawsuits aimed at Jones are intended to drive his operation into bankruptcy and hold him criminally responsible for questioning official narratives. 

The takeaway here—questioning official narratives and positing counter-narratives is a risky business and you are advised not to engage in treasonous behavior with Russian agents if you value your freedom, ability to earn a living, and want to stay off a government terror list. 

Second, the concerted effort to sanitize social media of heretical political expression is moving along at a fairly robust clip. Numerous activists and alternative websites and individuals—including the above mentioned McAdams—have been scrubbed since Hillary Clinton declared war on freedom of political expression, which she fallaciously and absurdly chalked up to malfeasance by Russia and the misbehavior of Deplorables. 

Third, there will be “meddling by Russia” in the 2020 election regardless of the winner of the presidential teleprompter reader sweepstakes. This will be considered a national emergency and the floodgates will fly open to suffuse the population with scary stories of democracy lost to the autocrat Putin. Radical measures to stem the tide of subversion will be put forward and turned into law by the political class. 

I have no idea what the outcome of this will be except to say many of us will be prevented from posting counter-narratives and unearthing hidden truths—historical, political, and economic. Earlier this year the FBI designated alternative media commentary as domestic terrorism. 

“The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts,” the document states. It also goes on to say the FBI believes conspiracy theory-driven extremists are likely to increase during the 2020 presidential election cycle.

The FBI’s not talking about flat-earthers and UFOologists. It is targeting alternative media. The historical record—ignored by the propaganda media—of the FBI’s COINTELPRO operation to destroy political movements in the 1960s and 70s should be revisited. It is paradigmatic of the state and its subversion of opposition. For the FBI, terror is truth unshackled. 

Again, I have no idea what will happen, but considering the emphasis placed on the destruction of the First Amendment—along with the Second and Fifth—and the manufactured hysteria of insidious Russian (and Chinese) subversion, and the credulity (or indifference) of the American people, it now appears the alternative media is in danger of extinction, at least on the internet. 

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Kurt Nimmo writes on his blog, Another Day in the Empire, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

It is impossible to be against the disappearance of walls that segregate people, and it is therefore impossible not to applaud the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, or, for that matter, not to look forward to the fall of other walls that today, thirty years later, still stand or are being built.

But it is legitimate to inquire if the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, inaugurated by the fall of the Berlin Wall, has been a triumph for democracy.

In doing so, it should be kept in mind that democracy has not only a political but also a social face: it is a system in which the demos, the great mass of ordinary people, not only may provide some input, e.g. via elections, but also receives some benefits, typically in the shape of social services. Let’s ask the crucial question, cui bono?, “who profited from this?” The answer may surprise you.

Beneficiaries of the so-called revolutions in Eastern Europe were certainly the landowning nobility, the former ruling class, and its close ally, the Church, Catholic in most of Eastern Europe but Orthodox in Russia, formerly also a major landowner. On account of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and revolutionary changes introduced by the Soviets in Eastern Europe in 1944/45, the nobility and the church had lost their vast landed properties (and castles, palaces, etc.) together with their previously preponderant political power.

In the years following the fall of the Berlin Wall, however, not only the noble families of the former German and Austro-Hungarian Empires, but also, and especially, the Catholic Church, were able to recuperate in Eastern Europe their landed property that had been socialized in 1945. The result is that the Catholic Church is once again the biggest landowner in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, etc. To this landlord, the Eastern European plebeians — e.g., Polish tenant farmers and Slovenian stall-keepers on the little market square behind the Cathedral of Ljubljana — now have to pay much higher rents than in the supposedly “bad old days” before 1990. Many former aristocratic landowners, such as the dynasty of the Schwarzenbergs, are back in possession of chateaux and large domains in Eastern Europe and enjoy once again great influence and political power, just like in the supposedly “good old days” before 1914 and/or 1945.

Image on the right is from the US Embassy in Holy See

Not a word was ever said or written about these things in our mainstream media, however; to the contrary, we were persuaded to believe that Karol Józef Wojtyla, Pope John-Paul II, collaborated with the archconservative American President Ronald Reagan and the CIA against the Soviets only in order to restore democracy in Eastern Europe. That the head of the Catholic Church, an eminently undemocratic institution in which the Pope has everything to say, and millions of ordinary priests and believers nothing at all, might be an apostle of the democratic gospel, is an absurd notion.

If the Pope really wanted to go to bat for democracy, he could have started with the Catholic Church itself. That John-Paul II really wanted nothing to do with genuine democracy appears all too clearly from the fact that he condemned “liberation theology” and fought tooth and nail against the courageous champions of this theology — generally ordinary priests and nuns — who promoted democratic change in Latin America, democratic change that was much more needed there than in Eastern Europe. Indeed, in most of Latin America the population has never benefited from inexpensive housing, free education, medical care, or the many other social services that were taken for granted in communist Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Of course, in Latin America the Catholic Church had always been a large landowner, whose privileges and wealth — fruits of the bloody conquest of the land by the Spanish conquistadors — might have been erased by a genuine democratization to the advantage of peasants and other proletarians. It is undoubtedly for this reason that the Pope worked hard for change in Eastern Europe but opposed it in Latin America.

In any event, in the predominantly Catholic countries of Eastern Europe, and especially in Poland, the Catholic Church was able to recuperate much of its former wealth and influence. But does this amount to a triumph for democracy? Consider this: democracy means equal rights for all citizens, but in Poland the separation of Church and state, one of the great achievements of the French Revolution, providing equal rights to all citizens regardless of their faith, which was a reality under communism, now exists only on paper, but not in practice; Poles who do not happen to be Catholic, as well as homosexuals and feminists, cannot feel at home there. Poland has in some ways returned to the very undemocratic era before the French Revolution when, in just about every country, a specific ‘state religion’ was imposed on all citizens and there was no question of religious freedom or tolerance.

In Russia, the Orthodox Church had lost virtually all of its former wealth and influence as a result of the 1917 revolution. Conversely, it managed to recuperate a great deal of riches and influence after the likes of Gorbachev and Yeltsin dismantled the communist system, fruit of an October Revolution that had also separated church and state. In the Russian heartland of the former Soviet Union, the Orthodox Church has made a comeback almost as spectacular as the one achieved by the Catholic Church in Poland. It has repossessed virtually the entire gigantic portfolio of land and buildings it owned before 1917, and the state has generously financed the restoration of old (and the construction of new) churches at the expense of all taxpayers, Christian or not.

The Orthodox Church is once again big, rich, and powerful, and closely associated with the state, exactly as in the pre-revolutionary, quasi-medieval czarist era. With respect to religion, Russia, like Poland, has made a great leap backward to the Ancien Régime.

As for ordinary people, the situation is not nearly as bright. In Russia, the revolutionary changes inaugurated in 1917 had brought enormous improvements in the lives of the bulk of a formerly extremely poor and backward population — not immediately, but certainly in the long run.

By the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall,, the Soviet population had achieved a rather decent level of general prosperity, and the majority of Soviet citizens did not long for the demise of the Soviet Union.

To the contrary: in a 1991 referendum, no less than three quarters of them voted to preserve the Soviet state, and they did so for the simple reason that this was to their advantage. Conversely, the demise of the Soviet Union, prepared by Gorbachev and achieved by Yeltsin, turned out to be a catastrophe for the majority of the Soviet population.

The kind of widespread, desperate poverty that was so typical of Russia before the October Revolution was able to make a comeback there in the 1990s, that is, at the time when capitalism was restored under Yeltsin’s auspices. The latter orchestrated what may well have been the biggest swindle in world history: the privatization of the enormous collective wealth, built up between 1917 and 1990, via superhuman efforts and untold sacrifices, by the labor of millions of ordinary Soviet citizens, by what used to be called the “proletariat.” That crime benefited a “profitariat,” that is, small group of profiteers, who became super-wealthy, a kind of mafia whose bosses are known as “oligarchs.” Balzac once wrote that “a crime hides behind every great fortune”; the great crime that hides behind the fortunes of the Russian (and other Eastern European) oligarchs was the privatization of the wealth of the Soviet Union under the auspices of Yeltsin, and ordinary Soviet citizens were the victims of that crime.

It is thus not surprising that even now, a majority of Russians regrets the disappearance of the Soviet Union, and that in former East Bloc countries such as Romania and East Germany, many if not most people are nostalgic about the not-so-bad times before the fall of the Berlin Wall, as is consistently demonstrated by opinion polls. A major determinant of this sentiment is the fact that vital social services such as medical care and education, including higher education, are no longer free of charge or very inexpensive, as they used to be. Women also lost many of the considerable gains they had achieved under communism, for example, with respect to employment opportunities, economic independence, and affordable childcare.

A majority of the denizens of former Eastern-European “satellites” of the Soviet Union likewise experienced hard times after the fall of the Berlin Wall. These countries were de-industrialized as privatization caused western corporations and banks to move in and apply “shock therapy,” which involved massive layoffs of workers in the name of efficiency and competitiveness. A previously unknown curse, unemployment, appeared on the scene precisely when social services, previously taken for granted, were discarded because they do not fit into the neoliberal mould. Today, there is no future in Eastern Europe for young people, so they leave their homeland to try their luck in Germany, Britain, and elsewhere in the west. These Eastern Europeans vote against the new system “with their feet,” as the western media used to crow triumphantly whenever dissidents defected from communist countries at the time of the Cold War.

While the communist countries offered their citizens elaborate social services and full employment, in other words, a fairly high level of social democracy, there was certainly no political democracy, at least not in the conventional western sense of the term, that is, with free elections, free media, etc. In Russia and Eastern Europe, there is now admittedly much more freedom but, as a denizen of Germany’s eastern reaches has sarcastically quipped, this freedom amounts mostly to “a being free of employment, of safe streets, of free health care, of social security.”

In other words, political democracy has arrived at the cost of the liquidation of social democracy; and as this comment implies, to many if not most people, benefits such as full employment, free education, health care, etc., are more precious than the freedom, enjoyed by Americans, for example, to choose a president between the candidates of two parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, that have not without reason been described as  “two right wings of one single party.” (Not surprisingly, a great percentage of Americans does not bother to vote.)

Eastern Europeans may now be freer than before the fall of the Berlin Wall, but do they now live in truly democratic political systems? Far from it. Russia never experienced the dawn of genuine political democracy; not under Yeltsin, and not under Putin. As for the former Soviet “satellites,” increasing numbers of people there are traumatized by the loss of social benefits and other services that they took for granted under communism and had not expected to lose upon the arrival of capitalism.

Persuaded by politicians and media pundits to blame their troubles on scapegoats such as refugees, they have increasingly supported extreme-right parties that advocate authoritarian, jingoist, xenophobic, racist, and sometimes openly neo-fascist or even neo-Nazi policies. All too many of the leaders of parties and even governments in the post-communist states are no champions of democracy at all, but glorify the undemocratic and sometimes openly fascist elements that ruled their countries in the 1930s and/or collaborated with the Nazis during the war and committed monstrous crimes in the process. In Ukraine, for example, the neo-Nazis now proudly trek through the streets with torch parades, swastika flags, and SS symbols. In much of Eastern Europe, democracy is not flourishing at all; it is obviously under threat.

We have seen that the nobility and above all the clergy, the former ruling classes, have done very well in Eastern Europe and, at least as far as the church is concerned, in Russia as well, thanks to the fall of communism. But the greatest beneficiaries of the changes inaugurated by the fall of the Berlin Wall have been the international elites of business, the big banks and corporations. These are generally American, West-European, or Japanese multinationals, and being a multinational means doing business in all countries and paying taxes in none. (Except in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands, where the tax rate is minimal).

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the multinationals triumphantly entered Eastern Europe in order to sell their hamburgers, cola, weapons, and other merchandise; to take over state enterprises for a song; to grab raw materials; to hire highly qualified workers and staff, educated at state expense, at low wages; etc. (In Russia this looked possible under Yeltsin, darling of the West, but Putin subsequently blocked the West’s planned economic conquest of Russia in favour of homegrown capitalists, and for this he has never been forgiven.)

The financial and industrial elite of Western Europe and much of western world in general has managed to profit in yet another way from the fall of communism. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, even in Western Europe the Soviet Union was still rightly regarded as the vanquisher of Nazi Germany, and its social-economic model enjoyed an immense prestige. In this context, the Western elite hurriedly introduced political and social reforms – collectively known as the “welfare state” – to avoid more radical, even revolutionary changes for which a potential certainly existed, most obviously in countries such as France and Italy.

And during the Cold War it was deemed necessary to maintain a system of ‘welfarism’ and high employment to retain the loyalty of workers in the face of competition from the communist countries with their policies of full employment and elaborate systems of social services. But the welfare state restricted, not drastically but certainly to some extent, the possibilities for profit maximization, and “neoliberal” intellectuals and politicians condemned the scheme from the very start as a nefarious state intervention in the presumably spontaneous and beneficial operation of the “free market.” The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, then, offered the elite a golden opportunity to dismantle the welfare state and social security schemes in general. As there was no longer a Soviet Union to compete with, the elite was free to roll back the social services associated with the welfare state all over Western Europe with impunity. In the years after 1945, writes the Belgian historian Jan Dumolyn,

the elite had made major concessions to the working population out of fear of communism, . . . in order to keep people quiet, and to counter the appeal of socialism behind the Iron Curtain. It is therefore not a coincidence that the social services began to be rolled back after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The threat was gone. It was no longer necessary to appease the working population.

In Western Europe and elsewhere in the Western world, the elite is still very much focused on this task, clearly in the hope that soon nothing at all will be left of the welfare state. The fall of the Berlin Wall made it possible that we are now witnessing a return to the unbridled, ruthless capitalism of the nineteenth century – a catastrophe for ordinary people, for the demos, and therefore a major setback for the cause of democracy.

The losers in the drama of the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe thus also include workers and employees in Western countries, that is, the majority of the population, which erroneously considers itself to be “middle-class”: their relatively high wages, favourable working conditions, and social services, introduced after 1945, were proclaimed to be “unaffordable.” The wage-earners were told to settle for less, but even when they do agree to have their wages lowered and their benefits “clawed back” in the framework of “austerity” measures, they often see their jobs disappear in the direction of the low-wage countries of Eastern Europe and the even lower-wage Third World. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the big West German corporations, which had collaborated very profitably with the Nazis between 1933 and 1945, were allowed to plunder East Germany economically.

On the other hand, the West German workers have seen their wages — lowered by the Nazis but increased immediately after 1945 — decline rapidly, as job opportunities migrated to areas further east and keen competition for the remaining jobs has been arriving in the form of migrants from Eastern Europe as well as refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, etc. These newcomers are blamed by many journalists and politicians for all the problems; this serves to divert attention from the real causes of the problems and simultaneously provides grist for the mill of all sorts of neo-fascist and other extreme-right political movements.

The fall of communism turned out to be very advantageous for a minority but highly disadvantageous for the majority of the population on both sides of the former Berlin Wall. It also had extremely nasty consequences for millions of people in the Third World. In the years after 1945, the cause of democracy achieved significant progress there, because the denizens of countless colonies could realize their dream of independence.

That was possible thanks to the support of the anti-imperialist Soviet Union and despite stubborn resistance put up by the western powers that happened to be the colonial masters. The latter inflicted murderous wars on the freedom fighters. France and the US, for example, tried (in vain) to smash revolutionary movements in Algeria and Vietnam, massacring millions of people in the process. In many colonies that gained their independence, the western powers made use of assassination (e.g. Lumumba), bribery, embargoes, destabilization, coups d’état, etc. They also engineered fake revolutions (“colour revolutions”) to ensure that socialist experiments were avoided or caused to fail and that regimes came to power that served the interests of the former colonial masters.

But it was not easy to pursue neo-colonialist projects as long as the Soviet Union existed, because Moscow provided considerable support, first to revolutionary forces that fought for independence in the colonies and afterwards to independent former colonies, especially —  but not exclusively —  when they opted for a Soviet model of development. After the fall of the wall and the implosion of the Soviet Union, however, the western powers, and above all their leader, the US, found it much easier to impose their will on the ex-colonies.

This not only meant that the former colonies were no longer permitted to imitate the Soviet example and follow the socialist path to development, which quite a few of them had originally intended to do: henceforth it was also verbotento steer an independent economic course, for example by closing their doors to western export products and investment capital and/or use their own raw materials such as petroleum for the benefit of their own people instead of the profit of American and other foreign investors. The latter was/is the great sin committed by the likes of Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad, Nicolás Maduro, and, just recently, Evo Morales. Neo-colonial objectives could now be achieved via bombings, invasion, and other brutal forms of open warfare, as happened in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria, or economic warfare, for instance against Cuba and Venezuela.

These wars have had an extremely undemocratic character, as they have cost the lives of millions, mostly poor people, including countless women and children.  And the regimes installed by the victors have all turned out to be hopelessly undemocratic, unpopular, corrupt, and sometimes incapable of governing a country.

While these wars have been a catastrophe for millions, they have been wonderful for the (mostly American) western producers of sophisticated and super-expensive weaponry. The high costs of these wars are socialized, they are the responsibility of the state and therefore of the ordinary citizens who are saddled with an increasingly important share of the taxes, while the profits are privatized, that is, end up in the wallets of shareholders of (mostly multinational) corporations and banks whose taxation rate has consistently dwindled to ridiculously low levels. The neocolonial wars, made possible, or at least facilitated, by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, thus not only ruin the lives of millions of denizens of poor Third World countries, but also contribute to make the few rich even richer, and the poor, even poorer, in the western heartland.

These wars consolidate not only the riches, but also the power, of the rich and powerful: they constitute a pretext for limiting the freedom of ordinary people in the name of national security and patriotism. President George W. Bush achieved that with his repressive Patriot Act; and the internet and especially the social media are used increasingly spy on (and thus intimidate) the oi polloi. Thanks to the fall of the Berlin wall, then, the “one percent” is now richer and more powerful than ever before, and the “99 percent” are poorer and more powerless than ever before.

If you belong to the “one percent”, go ahead and celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall, thirty years ago. But please do not ask the rest of us to celebrate with you.

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Jacques R. Pauwels is the author of The Great Class War: 1914-1918. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

On Sunday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said a new oil field was discovered in the country’s Khuzestan province, containing over 50 billion barrels of crude. More on this below.

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World oil reserves are defined as follows:

Proved reserves include amounts that are 90% or more recoverable.

Probable reserves are 50% or more recoverable amounts.

Possible reserves include amounts that are at most 50% recoverable.

In 2018, there were an estimated 1.73 trillion barrels of proved oil reserves worldwide, around 95 million barrels consumed daily, about 35 billion barrels annually.

Nations with the largest proved oil reserves include Venezuela (over 300 billion barrels), Saudi Arabia (slightly below 300 billion barrels), Iran (over 180 billion barrels with its new find) Canada (168 billion), and Iraq (147 billion).

Other nations with the largest reserves include Russia, Kuwait, the UAE, the US, Libya, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, China, Qatar, and Brazil.

Twelve OPEC member-states hold around 80% of proved oil reserves. According to the US Energy Information Administration in 2018, the nation has 39 billion proved oil reserves.

Numerous other countries have significant amounts of proved oil reserves, including Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Mexico, Azerbaijan, Norway, Oman, and Guyana, among others.

As technology improves, greater amounts of crude become recoverable, along with new deposits found.

The ability to extract oil sands cost effectively increased the amount of proved reserves from this source, most of it located in Canada.

The US has about three trillion barrels of shale oil, costing about $120 a barrel for extraction and production, more than double the current price of crude.

If technology makes its recovery cost-effective, it would represent the greatest material prize in world history unless other energy sources replace oil one day.

The US Energy Department once estimated Venezuela’s heavy and extra-heavy oil reserves at up to 1.36 trillion barrels — a prize Washington long coveted, why Trump regime hardliners are going all out to topple Maduro.

On Sunday, Iran’s Rouhani said a newly discovered major oil field “extends from Bostan to the vicinity of Omidiyeh, spanning an area of 2,400 square kilometers with a depth of 80 meters,” adding:

“Today we are announcing to the US that we are a rich country and despite your enmity and tyrannical sanctions, the Iranian oil industry’s workers and engineers have succeeded (in) discover(ing) this vast oil field.”

“(W)e have withstood the pressure exerted by foreigners over the past year, during which our people had to go through difficult times” — because of Trump regime economic terrorism supported by Europe and other nations.

Its maximum pressure failed. Iranian “resilience and unity and their ceaseless efforts have brought us to the point where the United States, in my opinion, has become disappointed.”

“There is (weakening support for Trump regime hardliners) on the international stage, except among right wing authoritarian and neo-fascist groups,” partnered with Washington’s imperial agenda.

Trump and hardliners dictating his geopolitical agenda “are running out of options on Iran. There is not much left to sanction in Iran, and short of military conflict, there is not a lot more pressure that can be applied.”

The Islamic Republic had 40 years of experience in dealing with ruthless US policies.

It’s a founding OPEC member with the world’s third largest proved reserves and second largest natural gas reserves.

The major new oil discovery increased Iranian crude resources to around 180 billion barrels.

The new discovery added 22 billion barrels to Iranian reserves. Earlier, 31 billion were discovered in the region.

Iran today ranks third worldwide behind Venezuela and Saudi Arabia in proved oil reserves, new deposits likely to be found in the years ahead.

Iranian oil is some of the world’s most accessible and easily refined, why it’s highly valued by China and other countries.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Iranian Presidency/Anadolu Agency

Peter Oborne deserves credit. He is the former chief political commentator of The Daily Telegraph, author of The Rise of Political Lying and The Triumph of the Political Class. He used to write a political column for the Daily Mail until two weeks ago when he turned on them and the Boris Johnson government to reveal  them as the political chancers that they are.

He sat as a Commissioner for the Citizens Commission on Islam, Participation and Public Life and won the Press Awards Columnist of the Year in 2012 and again in 2016.

His recent exposé of the unquestioning mainstream media swallowing and spewing out government propaganda was telling and made such an impact that broadcast anchors and the headline making journalists have realised their reputations have been sullied by their slavish behaviour. The BBC and Sky News did not escape.

Now Peter Oborne goes one step further and publishes a lengthy file of Boris Johnson’s lies with a searchable database, providing facts and the verdict of Johnson’s deceptions. This is an election where more than anything – this Conservative government is characterised by two things – Brexit and the the lies surrounding it.

The mission statement of Peter Oborne and his colleagues – Richard Assheton, Adam Bychawski, Charlie Peters, Michael Prodger, Dai Richards and William Wickstead reads as follows:

TRUTH is important in politics. Never more so than today, when huge issues are at stake affecting the lives of every voter and the future of the nation and the world. 

Political deceit is a form of theft. When people or businesses get money by deceit they face criminal charges. When politicians win power by deceit they can do vastly more harm, but face no penalty at all.

Our rulers expect us to comply with their laws and decrees, to pay the taxes they devise, to make the sacrifices they exhort on us, even sometimes to die in war.

In a democratic society, such obedience has to be earned. When our rulers use lies and misrepresentation they fray the bonds of loyalty we owe to the state.

Our rulers also ask us constantly to resist extremism from any part of the political or social spectrum. But when our rulers themselves peddle falsehood and fantasy they are no better than the extremists. They make any kind of extremism more plausible.

That is why it is vital to expose lying politicians. 

It is astounding to have to say that on day one of this website going live – it is already out of date!

Go to: The lies, falsehoods and misrepresentations of Boris Johnson and his government or boris-johnson-lies.com.

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Featured image is from TP

Today, Cyberscoop reported a major security vulnerability in Amazon’s Ring doorbell app. Amazon’s Ring doorbells, which have already raised significant privacy and civil liberties concerns, have now been shown to be deeply insecure, exposing users Wi-Fi passwords to hackers. 

With this Wi-Fi information, hackers can access customers’ personal home networks. It only gets scarier from there as hackers could use customer’s webcams to spy on them and their children, gain access to their bank accounts, and retrieve personal information necessary for identity theft.

“This is a classic example of how more surveillance does not mean more safety,” said Evan Greer, Deputy Director of Fight for the Future. “Amazon has consistently shown reckless disregard for privacy and civil liberties, but this is terrifying on a whole other level. Putting insecure cameras and listening devices around your home puts your family in danger. Congress should immediately investigate the threat posed by Amazon’s rapidly spreading, for-profit surveillance dragnet.”

Amazon’s surveillance network doesn’t only threaten our privacy and civil liberties, but our security as well. Meanwhile, millions of Americans continue to buy Ring products unaware of the dangers the technology and surveillance partnerships with police pose.

With over 550 partnerships across the country and millions of Americans potentially impacted, we need Congress to intervene. More than 10,000 people have already written their lawmakers calling on them to investigate Amazon’s surveillance empire and their troubling partnerships with law enforcement.

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Claudia von Werlhof and discussion group of the “Planetary Movement for Mother Earth” – Alexandra Danzl, Wolfgang Fischer, Maria Heibel, Thomas A. Mann, Gudrun Sahlender-Wulf, Dietmar Salamon, Thomas Schramm et al.

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Dear Greta Thunberg,

You have not answered a 1st open letter at the beginning of your steep “career”, which has just culminated in the recognition of the Right Livelihood Award. I nevertheless write a 2nd one. I approached you with sympathy for your awakening and activism, looking at you like a kind of grandmother who would like to give you some advice – to a kind of granddaughter.

It was to give you better information about the real state of Mother Earth, because I noticed that you did not have this knowledge. This time I would rather address you in my quality as a scientist, which I am as well, as I hear that you seek the advice of science, for you seem to trust in your mind. This is good and it is really necessary. However, there are always two kinds of science: one that is responsible for nothing less than the endangered state of Mother Earth herself, and one that is opposing it. I belong to the latter kind. That’s why I used to be an enthusiastic demonstrator and demonstration speaker and at first I was just happy how the youth everywhere reacted to your protest in masses. Finally, a movement emerged and even for Mother Earth! Something more beautiful could not happen to me, especially because I was the founder of the “Planetary Movement for Mother Earth”.

But in the meantime, as a scientist, I see how many aberrations and confusions you and the “Fridays for Future” still have, and I cannot see that they are being recognized by you or the people in the protest movement you inspired. Yes, the real dangers for us and Mother Earth are being suppressed and covered up, namely the ones that really threaten us. But one needs the knowledge about them if one acts the way you do, and in addition shares a certain responsibility for an increasing number of followers. So, you and the “Fridays for Future” movement care about the state of the earth and its causes, but you don’t seem to know very much about it!

On the contrary, you have joined the assertion of international organizations, certain scientists of the first kind at the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as well as corporations, financial institutions, and people of the financial sector. They say that CO2 is the main, indeed the only problem of the planet, and its very low share of O.04% in the atmosphere (of which only a small part is manmade) is even the reason for a planetary “climate change” as a result. This would ruin the living conditions on earth and would soon take on life-threatening proportions in the form of global warming. Therefore, as decided at the UN Conference in Paris in 2015, action must be taken against it by massively reducing CO2 emissions. In the name of an allegedly “green” New Deal, a “system change” against this “climate change” and its capitalist causes is now to be initiated. This system change would consist of introducing a “sustainable lifestyle” in society, in which the consumption and use of particularly CO2-intensive products would be sharply reduced, or higher taxes would have to be paid. This should allegedly end “climate change” and “save” the earth.

So much for the “logic” of the arguments from above, which you have adopted seamlessly and in a surprisingly well-behaved manner without any contradiction.

What is wrong with that? Quite a lot:

1. Paradoxically, the planned system change by reducing energy consumption is undermined today by the plans for a massive development of the most energy-intensive high-tech dimensions in everyday life, which should lead to the digitization of all areas of life, the project of the corresponding “Smart Cities” and the installation of the necessary electromagnetic radiation at 5G level.  This way of dismantling, but at the same time also reconstructing and rebuilding industrial society, has already become a huge business in which trillions of dollars are at stake (1) and certainly not something “green” which is saving the earth! Indeed, the 5G frequency requires the felling many trees in the cities. So far the 5G-frequency has only been used in the military sector as it is a weapon that will even destroy life on Earth to an unknown extent, starting with insects, birds and babies in the womb and then going on with the elderly, where those in the middle will have to expect severe damages to their health (2).

So, the plans for what the “system change” that you want means, have been developed for some time already. They have nothing to do with the abolition of capitalism and are already being pushed through with full force from above. Consequently, there are several simple questions that have to be answered: What is “sustainable” about this change? Where should the energy for it come from? For whom should it be reserved? Because this energy level cannot be achieved without fossil fuels and with renewable energies only, whereas the fossil fuels are coming to an end anyway, and the renewable ones can only be increased through the additional conversion of agriculture into an energy sector and of forests into palm oil plantations – in other words through massive destruction and hunger production worldwide – not to mention the damages caused by wind turbines, for example, or even by dams for an “alternative” water supply. Is it then a question of expanding nuclear energy in which the military is particularly interested? So, what kind of system change is this, what does it change about the “climate” which is a huge large-scale planetary system, and who gets pushed out?: The 5G victims, large regions of the South, the victims of radioactive contamination and…and and?

Why don’t you say anything about this “system change”, Greta?

But it’s much worse. Because even the CO2 thesis which everything is based on is not correct at all!

2. It is just NOT true that CO2 threatens the earth. Yes, the earth would need at present even more CO2 for its plants and the life in general, because CO2 is an invisible plant gas and no dirt, which comes from chimneys, as is constantly suggested (3), about which however one does not talk at all. CO2 is also not a greenhouse gas insofar as the earth is open to the sky and therefore not a greenhouse. The greenhouse effect cannot occur on a planet. Yes, CO2 ensures that we have oxygen to breathe, because plants convert it into oxygen. So, if CO2 disappears as much as possible from the atmosphere, as you advocate, then we would end up going down by suffocating along with all life on the planet! Thus, there is something fundamentally wrong with the whole argumentation. It stands on feet of clay!

If you believe in science, as you always say, then you should not believe in the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, because it is not a scientific, but a political organization. Thousands of scientists in the world have meanwhile spoken out against it (4), precisely because the IPCC claims that CO2 is to blame for this “climate change”. The scientists who are not committed to the IPCC and its policies defend CO2, as I have just done. Others say that climate change can only result from a change in solar activity. But they cannot determine this for the times in question. The warming of the global average temperature claimed by the IPCC has not even occurred in the last 20 years, says the US space agency NASA. Apart from that, an average temperature for the entire planet is of course an unsuitable, even nonsensical measure, because it depends on the respective measuring stations, which have also been changed, and because it merely levels out huge differences, so that in the end it has no significance at all.

3. What most scientists, however, don’t say is how to interpret the noticeable weather changes that we are all observing. These changes are beyond question but should not be confused with the global climate system, which is long term and comprehensive. The deliberate manipulation of the global climate would be a highly complex undertaking, is probably not possible at all, and certainly not through the use or reduction of a single plant gas like CO2. The global climate is simply of another dimension, incomparable to the local weather. So the question is, where do these weather changes come from, be it in the form of droughts, floods, regional heat or cold waves, storms and severe weather systems that remain in place for a long time, the warming of the Arctic that is significantly above all other temperature changes (at least until 2012), the alleged “forest” fires in California, Australia and Portugal, which destroyed houses to their foundations and melted cars, but left the trees around them mostly intact (5), not to mention the catastrophic jungle fires in the Amazon, Africa and South Asia that are clearly caused by human intervention. Also the massive extinction of animals and plants, e.g. insects, birds, corals and trees as well as the otherwise rapidly increasing loss of species can in no way be explained by CO2! That is completely impossible and simply nonsense. The same applies to the pollution of the air, the soil and the water with not only fine dust, but a nano fine dust of aluminum, strontium, barium, lithium, polymers, coal ash, genetically modified substances, bacteria and many other substances penetrating all organs up to the brain, which have been proven for two and more decades now, among other things by the application of aerosols in the atmosphere, above all in the northern hemisphere. The method of spraying aerosols has a scientific name, it is called SRM, Solar Radiation Management, and is recommended for allegedly blocking solar radiation in favor of lower temperatures on Earth – but in reality it has long been used for quite different purposes, in any case for those that harm all life on Earth up to its extinction and cause many diseases of epidemic proportions (6). And finally, contrary to forecasts, in recent years the ozone layer in the atmosphere has been increasingly destroyed, which has led to harmful UV radiation now reaching the earth unfiltered everywhere in the northern hemisphere and threatening microorganisms in particular. The food chain on land and in the oceans has already been attacked and corals are “starving” (7). So if something doesn’t happen soon to strengthen the ozone layer permanently, i.e. over the next decades, which includes knowing and admitting what it really suffers from – and this is certainly not only the civilian CFC that is supposedly responsible for it, and CO2 has nothing to do with it at all – then we could  soon be threatened ourselves, because agriculture can suddenly break down by being permanently exposed to toxic UV-B- and C- radiation. However, the ozone layer cannot be strengthened by artificially introducing ozone into the stratosphere, but only by ceasing to affect this thin, but absolutely vital layer – as it is, in reality, affected by radioactivity, the heating of the ionosphere, microwaves, air traffic, rocket fuels and supersonic flights, for instance.

The many wars in the world and the irreversible consequences of the widespread use of depleted uranium, a waste material from nuclear plants, for example, are not even mentioned here (8).

You see, you have been denied crucial information about the real situation of the planet, its dangers and their causes, explaining everything with CO2, no matter what it was, and you have simply believed it. To this day, however, you are on your way claiming to have understood the core of the matter and having to present what seems to follow from it. I also understand that at 16 you can’t know everything. But what you and the others need to know if you really want to be a movement conscious of your responsibility for Mother Earth and not against her, that knowledge exists! So get it if you are serious about your movement. Otherwise your credibility will soon be inevitably gone (9). Thus, one will also find out relatively soon whether CO2 reductions have any effects on the “climate” and/or the weather, which of course will not be the case at all, since it is not the cause of the problems.

4. The knowledge unknown to you came about above all because Dr. Rosalie Bertell, whom I recommended to you in my first letter already and who also received the RLA, the Right Livelihood Award, 33 years ago. She worked as a biometrician and environmental scientist for the UN on the history of military technologies in the East and the West since the Second World War. These technologies are the key to answering the question of what is happening or can be done today to make it happen. She mentions especially the damage caused by nuclear interventions, for example the explosion of more than two thousand atomic and hydrogen bombs (!) in the atmosphere and on Earth, which occurred during half a century. She goes on with explaining postnuclear technologies. These are those used for “weather wars, plasma weapons and military geoengineering”, invented during the last 70 years based on the discovery of how to use electromagnetic waves. This technology was developed by the physicist Nikola Tesla and is now increasingly practiced everywhere on the planet, for example by a growing number of installations of the so-called “ionosphere heaters”. However, all this is not publicly admitted! But it is happening, as can be read in the so-called ENMOD Convention of the UN, 1977, the Environmental Modification Convention, or in the report “Weather as a Force Multiplier – Owning the Weather in 2025” of the US Air Force, published in 1996. These technologies have already been discussed twice in the European Parliament, in 1999 and 2013, until the EU Commission banned the EP from dealing with them further in 2016, because they are military questions (!). The military activities that were and are concealed from the public, explain everything we observe in reality and what is generally referred to as “climate change”. This is the result of decades of war against the earth and its transformation into a literal “weapon of war” of the military in the East and the West.

Rosalie Bertell, who came to Germany from the USA in 2010, not long before her death, assisting the 30th anniversary of the Right Livelihood Award, therefore called for a discussion on the topic among her colleagues, who were also award-winners, shouting:

“It is not CO2! It is the military!”

And she hung out a petition, which was signed by all those present. It reads:

 “It is morally reprehensible and a declaration of war on mankind and the earth to intervene in the normal functioning of the planetary order by causing or intensifying storms, hurricanes, tsunamis, monsoons, landslides, droughts, floods, earthquakes or volcanic eruptions!”

So, if you and your movement want to get out of your confusion about the real problems of our planet and the unreflected adoption of the slogans from above, and if you want to approach the truth and do what Mother Earth needs now, namely our solidarity because of what is done to her all the time, then take care that you know what it is all about and fight against it. For that is what determines our future, and not CO2, which belongs to nature and which you instead portray as its enemy!

Why all this is so twisted, why you are denied the true knowledge and what the CO2 propaganda is about, all this you will have to find out for and by yourself. Because there are those interests behind, against which you supposedly compete with your movement. These interests are the ones that finance and organize everything worldwide on a large scale: Your weekly Fridays for Future-Demos, the “doomsday parties” as I call them, together with the “Die-ins”, an anticipated dying practice – don’t you realize what a perversion this is? They are the ones who produce and provide your regional offices worldwide, who organize the big spectacles, for example with famous pianists, the movies, videos, media work, propaganda material and all that – do they do it, because they like you so much?

5. These interests need you and need you to draw the youth and especially the women to their side! For women have always addressed the subject of nature and ecology more than men, simply because they are historically and physically more connected to them. This is now being exploited by you being the ones to represent the new plans and interests of big Capital, to promote them and to ensure the implementation of their goals. It is you who are supposed to propagate a kind of “cultural revolution” so that the current growth- and energy-crisis of capitalism can be overcome, an additional business model can be built up, and the new start of the system can take place profitably and on a technologically more modern, more efficient, but also narrower (!) basis – of course leaving behind a pile of shattered remains in the form of the “old” society, which must first be smashed and destroyed! How else could that work, namely without you, and thus without provoking the uprising – and this time one for a truly anti-capitalist society for all? So, your role is to spare them such a true upheaval!

Why are you helping them?

It is wonderful that the young people are enthusiastic about Mother Earth. I have waited a long time for this to occur. But strangely enough, what you are doing now is not a blessing for Mother Earth, but her mockery! What you have done so far is the reverse of what is needed. It is indeed its reversal.

Don’t you notice at all, Greta and the people inspired by her, what you have gotten yourself into?

You will be very disappointed to see which interests you are really serving, namely those who are responsible for the state of the earth you are complaining about while believing to be a power for the good. Don’t let yourself be incited against the generation that raised you and against the generation that you yourself could raise, because they allegedly leave a “carbon footprint” that should be avoided at all costs. This would mean to accuse life itself instead of accusing those who destroy it!

But now you can perhaps also explain to yourselves the discomfort which you may already feel because of these confusions. Your face, Greta, shows it anyway.

So, don´t let yourself be abused any longer for the opposite of what you want to stand up for, by people who have everything but the good of Mother Earth in mind, and even work on her destruction! It would have been a gigantic mistake, a futile effort and a loss of time that we all desperately need to really stand up for our planet. The clock is ticking, but not for the reduction of CO2!

Conclusion:

You, Greta, and all those who are moving on with you, have missed the point and unwittingly told the world a lie. You want to enforce a policy that benefits neither the earth nor its weather or climate, but the future and the profits of certain investors and corporations, as well as the demolition of social structures and existences that no longer bring any profits. Finally, you have distracted attention from the destructions that have been increasingly perpetrated on the earth for decades and that are being added to those already known, being the ones committed by the military – on the ground, in the water and in the air, and more recently also from space. This way you are preventing the accompanying, now increasingly massive dangers for life on earth and the earth herself from finally being seen, recognized and answered at all.

You’re doing Earth a disservice. But there is still time to turn around and understand and address the real problems instead of the fake ones!

I fear, however, that “they” will not allow it.

Prof. Dr. Claudia von Werlhof, Planetary Movement for Mother Earth, Austria

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This article was originally published on PBME.

Featured image is from Another Day in the Empire

The International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) was appalled to learn of the resolution adopted by the European Parliament on September 19, 2019, titled “Importance of European Remembrance Day for the Future of Europe.“

This resolution reinforces the declaration of September 23, 2008, in which the European Parliament asserted that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were equally responsible for the crimes of the Second World War.

When the European Parliament adopted the 2008 resolution, there was strong criticism of its false equivalence between the Soviet defense against the invasion by the Nazi Army and the crimes of the Nazis. That became a false equivalence between communism and fascism.

As the European Parliament now declares that signing the Soviet-German nonaggression pact of August 23, 1939, “ which paved the way for the outbreak of the Second World War“ and “as a direct consequence“ of “the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact,“ the distortion continues.

The new resolution ignores the fact that the war had long been planned by Hitler and it also omits the fact that Soviet Foreign Minister Litvinov had strongly endeavored to build a defensive alliance with Western powers against the feared attack of German fascism. The resolution omits any mention of the Munich Agreement, in which, on September 30, 1938, Great Britain, France and Italy, despite their mutual assistance pacts with Czechoslovakia, permitted Hitler to annex Czechoslovakia, thus confirming the danger of the fascist threat.

The resolution is replete with false assertions and insinuations. For example, it claims that “Russian authorities are currently promoting that Poland, the Baltic States and the West are the true instigators of WWII.“ Its critique of the Soviet historiography of Poland, the Baltic States and the Western powers refusing to contribute to an antifascist security system is justified. But nowhere does the resolution say that these states were also responsible for the outbreak of the war. This distortion of history ironically relieves only the fascist aggressors.

The resolution’s reference to the Nuremberg trials, “to conduct legal inquiries into the crimes of Stalinism and other dictatorships,“ is a false description of the military tribunals that held Nazi leaders accountable for most atrocious crimes. Indeed, the Soviet Union – as the state most victimized by this war of extermination – actively contributed to the development of the Nuremberg Principles.

If the European Parliament now advocates convening trials to prosecute the alleged crimes of the Soviet Union, it would be an insult to the greatest achievements of international law in the immediate post-war period. It would deny the extraordinary contribution and the greatest sacrifice of the Soviet Union to free the world from German fascism. It is an inadequate attempt to revise history, and would compound the anti-Russia objective of this resolution.

The resolution uses the observance of Remembrance Day to attack Russia directly, as it “maintains that Russia is the greatest victim of communist totalitarianism and development into a democratic state will be impeded as long as the government, the political elite and the political propaganda continue to whitewash communist crimes and glorify the Soviet totalitarian regime.“

The European Parliament “is deeply concerned about the efforts of the current Russian leadership to distort historical facts and whitewash crimes committed by the Soviet totalitarian regime.“ But the falsification of historical facts was accomplished by the authors of this resolution. When the European Parliament declares at the same time that it advocates “building European resilience against to modern external threats,“ it harkens back to the rhetoric of the Cold War.

The resolution contradicts its stated purpose to form the basis for reconciliation through truth and memory.  On the contrary, it creates division by re-writing history. It must be noted that fascism, despite the varying forms it takes in different locations and times, reflects corporate control of the state, while communism aims at worker control; this fundamental opposition is further obscured by this resolution.

The resolution is particularly dangerous because the Parliament “calls on the Commission to provide effective support for projects of historic memory and remembrance“ and “support commemoration and remembrance of the victims of totalitarianism“ and “including the history and analysis of the consequences of totalitarian regimes in the curricula and textbooks of all schools in the EU.“ Thus, it advocates rewriting the history of World War II and makes historic revisionism the basis of its memory politics.

IADL is dismayed that this declaration has garnered so much approval and so few opposition votes in the Parliament. The task of the European Parliament is to fight the growing forces of right-wing extremism, neofascism, antisemitism and anticommunism everywhere, and to support democratic and social movements instead of widening the gap between the European Union and the rest of Europe.

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Despite the Internet, connectivity, and linking technologies, distance has not shrunk the Australian sense of self, an often provincial appraisal of the world seen in slow motion and stills.  Whether it’s the “flower revolution” or Michel Foucault, trends and ideas are often delayed, and seem almost cutely anachronistic by the time they make landfall down under.  Wedded to the insatiable urge to reap, rent and remove from the earth, and you have the ultimate myopic: Australia, the exceptional country, outside the stream of history and, dare it be said, the inconveniences of science.

With some 11,000 scientists warning that planet Earth “clearly and unequivocally faces a climate emergency”, some sense of it was registered on the Australian political scene, if only barely.  The “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency” published in BioScience does not shy away from the language of catastrophe and emergency.  “Despite 40 years of global climate negotiations… we have generally conducted business as usual and have largely failed to address this predicament.”  Climate change had not merely arrived but bulldozed itself into recognition, “accelerating faster than many scientists expected.”

The authors and signatories suggest that, “An immense increase of scale in endeavours to conserve our biosphere is needed to avoid untold suffering due to the climate crisis.”  Public debates on the subject of climate change had mostly focused on global surface temperature, a clearly inadequate approach that avoids “the breath of human activities and the real dangers stemming from a warming planet.”

Areas of urgent redress were also suggested.  Energy efficiency and a reduction in the use of fossil fuels are high on the list.  “We need a carbon-free economy that explicitly addresses human dependence on the biosphere and policies that guide economic decisions accordingly.”  The call for a change of language is encouraged: rhetoric of GDP growth and affluence needs to be replaced by sustainability “and improving human well-being by prioritizing basic needs and reducing inequality.”  Not exactly music for the muscular fossil fuel lobby.

Another song sheet that would not have impressed the fossil fuel industries was an event that barely disturbed the press releases.  This month, the National Electricity Market in Australia received a contribution from wind, solar and hydro energy amounting to half of the total energy production.  Rooftop solar contributions came in at 23.7 percent, with wind (15.7 percent), large-scale solar (8.8 percent) and hydro (1.9 percent) bringing up the rear.

With the release of the report, Australia braced itself for the incinerating fury of bush fires that have arrived earlier this season.  The state of New South Wales is anticipating what the Rural Fire Services Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons describes as “the most dangerous bushfire week this nation has ever seen”.

The warnings were already pressing through the policy pipeline in the last decade.  The National Inquiry on Bushfire Mitigation and Management’s 2004 report to the Council of Australian Government warned that, “Fires’ frequency, intensity and size are expected to increase under climate change as temperatures rise, rainfall variability increases, droughts become more severe and ecosystem dynamics alter, resulting in changed biomass fuel loads and types.”

The authors of the report go on to suggest that “projected hotter, drier and windier conditions associated with climate change caused by greenhouse warming would extend the period of fuel drying and increase rates of fire spread.”

Earlier this year, former NSW Fires Chief Greg Mullins and 22 other emergency honchos warned Prime Minister Morrison of the dangers that would face Australia this summer, suggesting that the government meet to discuss some form of action against risks of conflagration.  The meeting has yet to take place, leaving such politicians as Adam Bandt, the Greens MP for Melbourne, certain that Morrison “bears some responsibility and must apologise to the communities impacted”.

Various Australian politicians, as then, were having none of it.  Charged with the task of keeping a plunderer’s lifestyle in perpetuity, the well-fed pigs in clover, the following words of the BioScience report sit uncomfortably with members of the Morrison government.  “The climate crisis is closely linked to excessive consumption of the wealthy lifestyle.  The most affluent countries are mainly responsible for the historical GHG emissions and generally have the greatest per capita emissions.”

The Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack preferred some tea and sympathy in responding to the victims of the fires, not policy and prognosis.  “They don’t need the ravings of some pure enlightened and woke capital city greenies at this time when they are trying to save their homes.”

McCormack’s primary target was the Green party itself, which he accused of fiddling politically while Australia burned.  “That’s what Adam Bandt, and the Greens, and Richard Di Natale, and all those other inner-city raving lunatics – and quite frankly, that’s how he was carrying on yesterday – that’s what they want, we’re not going to go down that path.”

Other politicians have adopted a similar approach: the now is what matters, and never mind previous failings and future disasters.  NSW Premier Gladys Berejikilian provided the stellar example.  “For any of us on the ground, speaking to people traumatised, speaking to people fighting fires for weeks… know exactly what the priorities should be, and that is saving life and property”.  Climate change, in other words, was something for another day, another slot in the packed meeting schedule.

Morrison reiterated the position.  He was “focused on the needs of the people”.  He spoke of having “firefighters out there saving someone else’s house while their own house is burning down, and when we are in that sort of situation, that is where attention must be.”

Mayors from the areas most affected by the recent conflagration have been crankily unimpressed by the platitudes.  Climate change literature, they surmise, is being assiduously avoided by the government.  The unfortunately named Carol Sparks, Mayor of Glen Innes, site of two deaths over the weekend, suggested that McCormack needed “to read the science, and that is what I am going by, is the science.” Forget, suggested the mayor, the politics here.  Science had imposed its cold, objective hand on the matter.  Mid Coast Mayor Claire Pontin was similarly riled, notably by suggestions that fires were the staple of Australian life and landscape.  “We’ve not had situations like that. Fifty years ago, this would never happen.”

There are few incentives for humanity to adapt than through the infliction of catastrophic conditions.  Pandemics, world wars and existential risk have done their bit in propelling change.  But luxury produces complacency; well fed bellies induce sloth.  Come the writing of humanity’s extensive biography of preying on the planet, Australia and its political classes will have much to answer for.

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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]

After the supposed US “withdrawal” from Syria – Western media outlets have causally reported on US troops now preparing to occupy Syria’s oilfields east of the Euphrates River.

Articles include carefully selected “experts” who avoid any mention of how illegal or indefensible the presence of US forces in Syria is to begin with, let alone any mention of “why” US troops are preparing to “claim” Syria’s natural resources.

The Guardian in its piece, “US plans to send tanks to Syria oil fields, reversing Trump troop withdrawal – reports,” illustrates a voluntary dereliction of due diligence in investigating or questioning Western actions in Syria.

One is left to assume what the US would claim as its excuse for remaining in Syria – likely based on a narrative of denying terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda or the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) and their affiliates access to resources to “fund” their return to the region.

The most obvious and sustainable solution would be to transfer control of Syria’s oilfields to Syria itself. Syria has overcome terrorist organizations in all areas Damascus has now restored order to, and with the restoration of its oilfields and related industries, would be in an even better position to both rebuild the nation and defend against the very elements who destroyed it in the first place.

But this assumes that the US is interested in preventing the resurgence of terrorist organizations in the region – ignoring the fact that the US deliberately created them in the first place and deliberately used them to both trigger, then fuel the Syrian war from its very beginning in 2011.

The US is the Source of Syria’s War 

As early as 2007, real journalists warned of US plans to bolster opposition groups linked to terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda in a bid to undermine Iran and its ally Syria.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 2007 New Yorker article, “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?,” would provide an ominous, but crystal-clear warning of what awaited both Syria and the wider region.

Hersh would warn:

The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

The article would mention the Muslim Brotherhood by name and described specific US support under what was then the Bush administration already being funnelled to the group in Syria.

The Brotherhood is an extremist front with direct ties to Al Qaeda and who were at the epicenter of the supposed “Arab Spring” in 2011. From 2011 onward – then under the Obama administration – US support continued in the form of both financial and military aid.

Articles like the New York Time’s, “Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With Aid From C.I.A.,” would admit to billions of dollars worth of arms from the US flowing into Syria to fuel the destructive war.

Despite Western media claims that the Syrian conflict was being fought between the government and “moderate rebels,” the US State Department itself admitted that within the first year of fighting, Al Qaeda had already established a dominate position on the battlefield.

In an official statement on the State Department’s own website designating Al Qaeda affiliate – al-Nusra – a foreign terrorist organization, it was admitted:

Since November 2011, al-Nusrah Front has claimed nearly 600 attacks – ranging from more than 40 suicide attacks to small arms and improvised explosive device operations – in major city centers including Damascus, Aleppo, Hamah, Dara, Homs, Idlib, and Dayr al-Zawr. During these attacks numerous innocent Syrians have been killed.

If the US and its allies were providing billions of dollars worth of weapons and equipment to “moderate rebels,” who provided al-Nusra with even more weapons and equipment enabling it to dominate the battlefield?

The US – as it has done in virtually all other wars of aggression abroad – simply lied about the nature of those it was arming – having from the beginning and just as journalists like Seymour Hersh warned – deliberately armed and aided extremists to wage a proxy war of regime change against Syria.

Arsonists, Not Firefighters 

Nothing the US has done in regards to Syria has amounted to genuine efforts to end the conflict. Throughout the conflict the US continued to adjust its war propaganda to justify first its invasion and occupation of eastern Syria to “fight ISIS” – then to incrementally move toward justifying a direct US military intervention against the Syrian government itself with troops “serendipitously” already staged inside Syrian territory.

From 2015 onward in the wake of Russia’s intervention – direct US military intervention was taken off the table and the US occupation confined to eastern Syria where its unsustainable narrative regarding a Syrian “Kurdistan” withered.

Today – we find a US still attempting to justify its illegal and indefensible occupation of Syrian territory. Syria and its allies have attempted to provide Washington with a host of face-saving opportunities to withdraw and allow the conflict to finally end – returning peace and stability to the nation of Syria and its people.

The US continues to pose as part of a “solution” to the very Syrian crisis journalists like Seymour Hersh as early as 2007 revealed the US had deliberately engineered.

Just as an unrepentant arsonist would not be involved in efforts to extinguish the fire they started – the US cannot be involved in efforts to resolve a conflict it itself started – nor is the US at this point demonstrating any genuine desire to end the conflict.

Squatting on Syrian oilfields is yet another intentional tactic being used to draw the Syrian war out even longer – impeding the Syrian state’s access to its own resources needed to fuel the country and fund reconstruction.

Far from firefighters, the US is an unrepentant arsonist blocking firefighters from doing their job. US foreign policy has become so overtly malign that the Western media is unable to even address basic questions such as “why” the US is remaining in Syria – and doing so amid Syria’s oilfields.

Just as has been the case throughout the Syrian war, US machinations will be defeated by Syria and its allies patiently creating conditions on the ground in which current US policies are no longer tenable forcing Washington to fall back further still.

In the meantime, continued efforts to expose the truth of this war’s genesis and to prevent those who were responsible for it from attempting to prolong it further by posing as “peacemakers” and “protectors” is essential. If the US wants to pose as “peacemakers” and “protectors,” Syria and its allies may allow them to do so only to save face amid their total and otherwise unconditional departure from Syria.

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Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from InfoRos

When the New York Federal Reserve began pumping billions of dollars a day into the repurchasing (repo) markets (the market banks use to make short-term loans to each other) in September, they said this would only be necessary for a few weeks. Yet, last Wednesday, almost two months after the Fed’s initial intervention, the New York Federal Reserve pumped 62.5 billion dollars into the repo market.

The New York Fed continues these emergency interventions to ensure “cash shortages” among banks don’t ever again cause interest rates for overnight loans to rise to over 10 percent, well above the Fed’s target rate.

The Federal Reserve’s bailout operations have increased its balance sheet by over 200 billion dollars since September. Investment advisor Michael Pento describes the Fed’s recent actions as Quantitative Easing (QE) “on steroids.”

One cause of the repo market’s sudden cash shortage was the large amount of debt instruments issued by the Treasury Department in late summer and early fall. Banks used resources they would normally devote to private sector lending and overnight loans to purchase these Treasury securities. This scenario will likely keep recurring as the Treasury Department will have to continue issuing new debt instruments to finance continuing increases in in government spending.

Even though the federal deficit is already over one trillion dollars (and growing), President Trump and Congress have no interest in cutting spending, especially in an election year. Should he win reelection, President Trump is unlikely to reverse course and champion fiscal restraint. Instead, he will likely take his victory as a sign that the people support big federal budgets and huge deficits. None of the leading Democratic candidates are even pretending to care about the deficit. Instead they are proposing increasing spending by trillions on new government programs.

Joseph Zidle, a strategist with the Blackstone investment firm, has called the government — or “sovereign” — debt bubble the “mother of all bubbles.” When the sovereign debt bubble inevitably busts, it will cause a meltdown bigger than the 2008 crash.

US consumer debt — which includes credit cards, student loans, auto loans, and mortgages — now totals over 14 trillion dollars. This massive government and private debts put tremendous pressure on the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates low or even to “experiment” with negative rates. But, the Fed can only keep interest rates, which are the price of money, artificially low for so long without serious economic consequences.

According to Michael Pento, the Fed is panicking in an effort to prevent economic trouble much worse than occurred in 2008. “It’s not just QE,” says Pento, “it’s QE on steroids because everybody knows that this QE is permanent just like any banana republic would do, or has done in the past.”

Congress will not cut spending until either a critical mass of Americans demand they do so, or there is a major economic crisis. In the event of a crisis, Congress will try to avoid directly cutting spending, instead letting the Federal Reserve do its dirty work via currency depreciation. This will deepen the crisis and increase support for authoritarian demagogues. The only way to avoid this is for those of us who know the truth to spread the message of, and grow the movement for, peace, free markets, limited government, and sound money.

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‘The most important election of our lifetimes’ said Scotland’s leader Nicola Sturgeon about the upcoming UK general election as she launched the Scottish National Party’s campaign last Friday. The message from Sturgeon was to vote SNP to avoid Brexit, saying that her party alone would protect Scottish interests and work to ensure that the country is not taken out of the EU against its will.

She warned that the withdrawal agreement secured by Boris Johnson last month was in fact inadequate as it only covers the terms of leaving the EU but says nothing about Britain’s future relationship with Europe. Forecasting ‘many years of wrangling ahead’ she said Johnson was still intent on a No Deal Brexit which was still a likely outcome of negotiations in a year’s time.

The importance of this election is also being reflected in the rhetoric of politicians at present, with Nicola Sturgeon not hesitating to brand Conservative politicians as ‘hard-line Brexit ultras’, evoking images of far-right thugs. She also attacked Labour and the Liberal Democrats by suggesting that Scotland would never be a priority for either party. The Liberal Democrats for their part do pose a threat to the Nationalists with their Remain platform and Nicola Sturgeon was out canvassing in leader Jo Swinson’s constituency at the weekend in a bid to try to unseat her. Jo Swinson, whose party supports the Union, has continued to hit back at the SNP for their ‘obsession with independence.’

The most important take-away from Sturgeon’s speech was however her proposition that the SNP could feasibly do a deal with Labour to ‘lock Boris Johnson out of parliament’ if December’s election resulted in a hung parliament. But in return for this she would expect Jeremy Corbyn to agree to another referendum on Scottish independence in 2020. And there’s no indication yet that he would do so. Labour is a Unionist party, and Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard asserted on Sunday:

‘There will be no independence referendum in Scotland for years. Scotland won’t want one if we win an election.’

Indeed not everyone is convinced that the SNP will take Scotland on the right path. Brian Wilson, a former Labour politician argues that Sturgeon will be ‘demonising a million Scots’ who voted to Leave the EU in the Brexit referendum if she continues to oppose Brexit. Arguably, 38 percent of Scots did vote to Leave in 2016, amongst whom there were undoubtedly SNP voters. However Sturgeon will continue to insist that she has the mandate of the Scottish people in pursuing her agenda to keep Scotland in the European Union.

The SNP are a force to be reckoned with in Scotland. They have been in government since 2007 and although they are currently ruling as a minority government in the Scottish parliament, they now hold 35 MPs at Westminster, more than a third of the overall number representing Scotland. Even voters not supportive of independence continue to vote SNP for their policies. In many ways their proposals of greater equality, ending austerity and creating a national living wage somewhat overlap with Labour policies in a country which traditionally has socialist leanings. This together with a popular anti-Brexit stance and talk of ending Scotland’s nuclear capability by shutting down the Trident nuclear base all makes them popular with voters who may otherwise have voted Labour, Liberal Democrat or Green.

Ironically Sturgeon has not had to make much effort to paint the Conservatives in a negative light; they have accomplished this themselves in the last few years. Boris Johnson himself is extremely unpopular north of the border – as a former Etonian he is seen to represent an arrogant elite detached from the concerns of the ordinary Scottish working population. He only confirmed this view when up visiting Scotland in the summer – when he avoided locals by exiting the First Minister’s residence via the back door, thereby earning the name of ‘backdoor Boris’. But even prior to his time in office, under May’s government it was clear that the concerns of Scotland were not to be reflected in any EU withdrawal agreement. As Sturgeon emphasised in her speech on Friday: England voted to leave and will leave, Wales voted to leave and will leave, Northern Ireland will get a special deal, but there is nothing for Scotland, the one country that didn’t want to leave the EU.

Polls have indicated that support for Scottish independence is greater than ever – now at 50 percent. Brexit has played a crucial role in this and will continue to do so. But Scottish independence will throw up its own set of problems, and it’s not clear yet whether, in the midst of all this Brexit uncertainty, Scotland is ready to take on its own set of challenges which becoming independent would undoubtedly create…

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Johanna Ross is a journalist.

The coup in Bolivia does not come out of the blue and bears the fingerprints of the US. It is the revenge of the upper class with a strong racist undertone. There is a real possibility that the country is heading for a bloodbath.

“Why has there never been a coup d’état in the United States? Because there is no American embassy there”. – Classic joke in Latin America

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On Sunday 10 November, there was a coup d’état in Bolivia. The army forced the newly elected President Evo Morales to resign. At this moment violence is escalating in the streets. Armed opposition gangs attack militants and leaders of Evo Morales’ Socialism Movement (MAS). They are intimidating journalists, burning homes of MAS members, including Evo’s sister. In some places, anyone who looks indigenous is physically attacked. Indigenous women are stripped and molested. Several people have already got killed.

Revenge on the pink tide

This coup is not entirely unexpected. It is the umpteenth coup or attempted coup in Latin America since the beginning of this century: Venezuela in 2002, Haiti in 2004, Bolivia in 2008, Honduras in 2009, Ecuador in 2010, Paraguay in 2012, again Venezuela from 2013, Brazil in 2016 and Nicaragua in 2018.

Those coups were and are a reaction to the so-called ‘pink tide’ in Latin America. In the 1980s and 1990s, neoliberal policies caused an actual bloodbath in the region. The number of poor people had risen by a third. The population did not accept this and chose left-wing presidents in one country after another.

Those left-wing presidents set up poverty programmes and curbed and scaled back neoliberal policies. They also formed a front to reduce the US hold on the continent.

Of course, the elite in those countries and the US Government didn’t appreciate the pink tide. Every effort was made to get rid of these left-wing presidents. At first by means of elections. For the elite, bourgeois elections are normally a ‘home game’: they call the tune of the traditional parties, they are able to invest a lot of financial resources for influencing the outcome, they control the media or manipulate the social media, and they threaten chaos or economic disaster if the people would vote for the left.

Color revolutions and ‘civil’ coups …

That electoral recipe worked for a long time until Hugo Chávez was elected president in Venezuela in 1998. Since then, the electoral struggle in many countries has no longer been favourable to the elite and to the interests of the US. That is why different strategies were adopted: a colour revolution, another form of ‘civil’ or ‘constitutional’ coup d’état, or a combination of both. Of course, for the sole purpose of putting an end to the left-wing president. With the support of the media they control, these camouflaged coups are framed as spontaneous popular uprisings or legitimate constitutional interventions.

This tactic is not really new, although nowadays military force is not so easily and openly resorted to anymore. From the 1950s until the 1980s, the continent was still ravaged by military coups. The most notorious is that of Chile in 1973. Pinochet’s neofascist coup put an end to Salvador Allende’s progressive government and created the ideal conditions for a neoliberal policy: the elimination of all social resistance. Neofascism indeed rhymes with neoliberalism. Chile’s military dictatorship became the first testing ground for the neoliberal crusaders. Bolivia, which until the early 1980s was a military dictatorship, became the second laboratory, with all the known social consequences.

… with the support of the USA

Latin America has been the backyard of the US for two hundred years. The North Americans have big economic interests there, and to protect those they keep about eighty military bases in the region.

The US diplomatic staff in Bolivia has a reputation of stirring up trouble and interfering in the country’s internal affairs. Shortly after a meeting between the then highest diplomat of the US and a ‘journalist’, who had been the head of the intelligence service in a former life, a real scandal broke out about president Morales. Everything turned out to be based on fake news, but it did lead to the narrow defeat of Evo Morales in the 2016 referendum.

Carlos Mesa, Evo Morales’ right-wing opposing candidate in the last elections, has had contact in the recent past with several senior US officials and parliamentarians. At the end of July 2018, he already announced that a re-election of Evo Morales would lead “to a situation we do not want: violence”. This indicates that the current coup was well prepared.

The Organisation of American States (OAS) also played a decisive role in this coup d’état. The OAS was set up by the US in 1948 in order to bring the countries of Latin America into line with Washington. It refused to recognise the Bolivian election results. In this way, it has exerted strong pressure on the government and given an excuse to the army to demand the resignation of President Morales.

Economic interests

Bolivia perfectly fits in the list of countries mentioned above. In all these countries the social situation usually improved spectacularly. Also in Bolivia. Under the government of Evo Morales, real wages increased by 60 percent and extreme poverty decreased by 60 percent. This social policy was only made possible by nationalising a number of key sectors of the economy. For the elite, this was unforgivable.

Important in this respect is the plan of Evo Morales not only to mine lithium but also to process it into batteries. Lithium is a very important raw material for the new economy and is used in the production of electric cars, airplanes, batteries, mobile phones and even medicines. Bolivia may have the largest lithium reserves in the world. The global elite does not accept that this strategic raw material is in left-wing hands.

The indigenous factor

But in Bolivia there is another factor: the indigenous question. Although the indigenous population makes up the majority of the country, Evo Morales was the first indigenous president. What’s more, he has granted important rights to the indigenous population, who until then had been treated as second-class citizens. Morales has greatly improved their social situation. The mostly white and often outspoken racist elite has never been able to swallow this. With this coup d’état, they are now retaliating. It is no coincidence that actual violence is explicitly aimed at the indigenous population.

The elite wants to use this coup d’état to turn back the clock. The elected representatives and supporters of MAS are terrorized. President Evo Morales, who dared to touch their privileges and possessions, must be politically or physically eliminated. There is a real possibility that the country is heading for a bloodbath.

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