Global Research

Capitalists have claimed responsibility for America’s past economic success.  Let’s begin by setting the record straight. American success had little to do with capitalism. This is not to say that the US would have had more success with something like Soviet central planning.

Prior to 1900 when the frontier was closed, America’s success was a multi-century long success based on the plunder of a pristine environment and abundant natural resources. Individuals and companies were capitalized simply by occupying the land and using the resources present.

As the population grew and resources were depleted, the per capita resource endowment declined.

America got a second wind from World War I, which devastated European powers and permitted the emergence of the US as a budding world power.  World War II finished off Europe and put economic and financial supremacy in Washington’s hands.  The US dollar seized the world reserve currency role from the British pound, enabling the US to pay its bills by printing money.  The world currency role of the dollar, more than nuclear weapons, has been the source of American power. Russia has equal or greater nuclear weapons power, but it is the dollar not the ruble that is the currency in which international payments are settled. 

The world currency role made the US the financial hegemon.  This power together with the IMF and  World Bank enabled the US to plunder foreign resources the way vanishing American resources had been plundered.  

We can conclude that plunder of natural resources and the ability to externalize much of the cost have been  major contributors right through the present day to the success of American capitalism.  Michael Hudson has described the plunder process in his many books and articles (for example, see this), as has John Perkins in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

Essentially, capitalism is a plunder mechanism that generates short-run profits by externalizing long-run costs.  It exhausts natural resources, including air, land, and water, for temporary profits while imposing most of its costs, such as pollution, on the environment.  An example is the destruction of the Amazon rain forest by loggers.  The world loses a massive carbon sink that stabilizes the global climate, and loggers gain short-run profits that are a tiny percentage of the long-run costs.

This destructive process is amplified by the inherently short-run time perspective of capitalist activity which seldom extends beyond the next quarter.  

US economic success was also a result of a strong consumer demand fed by rising real wages as technological advances in manufacturing raised the productivity of labor and consumer purchasing power. The middle class became dominant. When I was an economics student, Paul Samuelson taught us that American prosperity was based entirely on the large American consumer market and had nothing to do with foreign trade.  Indeed, foreign trade was a minor factor in American GDP.  America had such a large domestic consumer market that the US did not need foreign trade to enjoy economics of scale.

All of this changed with the rise of free market ideology and the collapse of the Soviet Union. When I was a student we were taught that boards of directors and corporate executives had responsibilities to their employees, their customers, their communities, and to their shareholders.  These responsibilities were all equally valid and needed to be kept in balance.

In response to liberals, who tried to impose more and more “social responsibilities” on corporations, free market economists responded with the argument that, in fact, corporations only have responsibilities to their owners. Rightly or wrongly, this reactive argument is blamed on Milton Friedman.  Conservative foundations set about teaching jurists and legislators that companies were only responsible to owners.  

Judges were taught that ownership is specific and cannot be abridged by government imposing obligations on the investments of owners for responsibilities that do not benefit the owners. This argument was used to terminate all responsibilities except to shareholders and left profit maximization as the corporate goal.

Thus, when the Soviet Union collapsed and China and India opened their economies to foreign capital, US corporations were free to desert their work forces and home towns and use cheaper labor abroad to produce the goods and services sold to Americans. This increased their profits and, thereby, executive bonuses and shareholder capital gains at the expense of the livelihoods of their former domestic work force and tax base of their local communities and states.  The external costs of the larger profits were born by their former employees and the impaired financial condition of states and localities. These costs greatly exceed the higher profits.

Generally speaking, economists assume away external costs.  Their mantra is that progress fixes everything.  But their measures of progress are deceptive.  Ecological economists, such as Herman Daly, have raised the issue whether, considering the neglect of external costs and the inaccurate way in which GDP is measured, announced increases in GDP exceed in value the cost of producing them.  It is entirely possible that GDP growth is simply an artifact of not counting all of the costs of production.  

As we approach the end of the second decade of the 21st century, the long history of American capitalism fed by plunder seems to be coming to an end simultaneously with the ability of the US central bank to protect existing financial wealth by creating ever more money with which to support stock, bond, and real estate prices.  The US has a long history of overthrowing reformist governments in Latin America that threatened American control over their resources.  Washington’s coups against democracy and self-determination succeeded until Venezuela.  Washington’s coup against Chavez was overturned by the Venezuelan people and military, and so far Washington’s attempt to overthrow Chavez’s successor, Maduro, has failed.

Washington’s attempt to overthrow the Syrian government was prevented by Russia, and most likely Russia and China will prevent Washington from overthrowing the government of Iran.  In Africa the Chinese are proving to be better business partners than the exploitative American corporations.  To continue feeding the empire with its heavy costs is becoming more difficult.

Washington’s policy of sanctions is making it even more difficult. To avoid the arbitrary and illegal sanctions, other countries are starting to abandon the US dollar as the currency of international transactions and arranging to settle their international accounts in their domestic currencies. China’s Silk Road encompasses Russia with much of Asia in a trade bloc independent of the Western financial system.  Other countries hoping to escape US control are turning to Russia and China to achieve sovereignty from Washington.  These developments will reduce the demand for dollars and impair US financial hegemony.  Alternatives to the World Bank will remove areas of the world from the reach of US plunder.

As plunderable resources diminish, American capitalism, which is heavily dependent on plunder, will have one foundation of its success removed.  As aggregate consumer demand collapses from the absence of growth in real income, absence of middle class jobs, and the extreme polarization of income and wealth in the US, another pillar of American capitalism disintegrates.  As business investment has also collapsed, as indicated by the use of corporate profits and borrowing to repurchase the corporations’ equity, thus decapitalizing the companies, total aggregate demand itself collapses. 

The absence of growth in aggregate demand will make the gap between high stock prices and dismal prospects for corporate profits too great to be bridged by the Federal Reserve flooding money into financial assets.  Without the ability to prop up financial asset prices with money creation, flight from dollar-denominated assets could bring down the US dollar.

What is left will be a ruin.

*

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.

This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Kim Seidl via Shutterstock/samdiesel via iStock/Salon

The Tehran government has announced the arrest of seventeen Iranian citizens caught spying for America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Some of those arrested have already been sentenced to death. It is the third major roll-up of CIA agents in Iran that I have been aware of, the first occurring in 1991 involved 20 American agents. The second episode in 2011 led to the arrest of 30 spies. The earlier arrests reportedly eliminated what were presumed to be the entire networks of American agents operating inside Iran and it is to be presumed that the recent arrests will have the same impact.

The Iranians presented a considerable quantity of evidence, including photos and business cards of US government officials, to back up their claim of American spying but President Trump dismissed the report as “totally false” and “just more lies and propaganda” — while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said:

“I would take with a significant grain of salt any Iranian assertion about actions that they’ve taken.”

Iran’s press release on the arrests together with a briefing by an intelligence official supplemented by local media coverage provided some of the details. The seventeen reportedly had “sophisticated training” but those who had sabotage missions did not succeed. Other objectives included “collecting information at the facilities they worked at, carrying out technical and intelligence activities and transferring and installing monitoring devices.”

Some of the agents had reportedly been recruited by falling into what is referred to as a “visa trap” set by the CIA for Iranians seeking to travel to the US. This has long been the preferred tool for recruiting Iranian agents. The intelligence official handed out a CD with a video recording of an alleged CIA case officer speaking to an Iranian target, which was presumably recorded secretly. The video shows a blonde woman who speaks Persian with an American accent. The disc also included names of several US embassy staff in Dubai, Turkey, India, Zimbabwe and Austria who Iran claims were involved in the recruitment and training of the Iranian spies.

How exactly did the recruitments take place as there is no US Embassy in Tehran and few Americans resident in the country? Many of the Iranians were targeted when they walked into an American Embassy in a country to which they are free to travel, which includes Turkey and Dubai. In the words of the Iranian intelligence official,

“Some were approached when they were applying for a visa, while others had visas from before and were pressured by the CIA in order to renew them.”

Others were targeted and recruited as spies while attending scientific conferences around the world. Those recruited received promises of money, eventual resettlement and a job in the US or medical assistance. To maintain contact with its agents inside Iran, the CIA would reportedly conceal spyware and instructions in containers that look like rocks, which would be planted in city parks or in rural areas. The Iranian agents would then recover the material, which might include false identification documents. It should be observed that fake rocks are a standard espionage tool. They are hollowed out to conceal spy-gear and communications. After they are in place, a signal is made to alert the agent that there is something ready to be picked-up. In the trade they are referred to as “dead drops.”

Why does the United States continue to spy on Iran with such ferocity? The Mullahs became a major intelligence target for Washington in the wake of the 1979 US Embassy hostage crisis, in which fifty-two American diplomats and intelligence officers were held for 444 days. The CIA mounted a major intelligence operation run from Europe that collected a wide range of information on the Iranian government and, increasingly, on its technical capabilities, including a suspected nuclear development program. In 2015 the CIA under President Barack Obama and Director John Brennan ramped up collection efforts against Iran as part of the verification process for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). More recently, Mike Pompeo, when CIA Director, further increased efforts against Iran when the Trump Administration withdrew from that agreement in the belief that Iran represented a rogue nation and a threat to United States interests and allies. In reality, of course, there is no real American vital interest relating to Iran and Trump has been acting on behalf of Israel and Saudi Arabia, both of whom are hostile to Iran as a regional rival.

But running intelligence operations in a country without a US Embassy to serve as a base for spies proved difficult. Many spies have been caught, by one Iranian estimate, 290 agents arrested in recent years. Most often the exposure of the spies has been due to human error or technical problems in communications. Iran has benefited by boasting of those arrests and has long promoted its capacity to uncover American spy rings in the country. As the New York Times reports, Iran has recently aired a documentary featuring efforts to expose and rid the country of the CIA agents working there.

A recently produced and very popular Iranian fictional television series called “Gando” has also introduced the narrative of a perpetual fight against American spies into the country’s popular culture. The show features brave Iranian intelligence officials in pursuit of an American spy posing as a journalist.

According to a Yahoo News investigation, Iran was in 2009 enraged by reports that the CIA had possibly penetrated its nuclear program and its counter-intelligence agents immediately went on the hunt for moles. By 2011, Iranian officials had uncovered and arrested a network of 30 CIA sources, a fact that US officials later confirmed. Some of the accused informants were executed. The Iranian government was able to find the operatives because of failures in the systems and techniques that the CIA agents used to communicate with the agents. Once a flaw in communications is detected, it is possible to exploit that so one can sit back and wait and watch for all those linked to the network to reveal themselves.

One might observe that the continued massive American “maximum pressure” spying effort directed against Iran is a bit of an anachronism. It is agreed by nearly all observers that Iran has no nuclear weapons program and is unlikely to start one. The sanctions put in place against the country unilaterally by the US cannot produce a popular uprising that will bring down the regime, but they have indeed hurt the country’s economy badly and the people are suffering. Iran’s military cannot stand up against its neighbors, much less against the United States, and its ability to meddle in the affairs of its neighbors is extremely limited.

So, it is probably just as well that Iran has again rolled up most of the American spies in the country, though it will be a tragedy for the men and women involved. Many critics of the Agency have argued that the CIA has forgotten how to spy in an age of drones and electronic surveillance, which may be true. Certainly, the CIA record regarding Iran is nothing to brag about.

*

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.

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

Featured image is from Army.mil

Democratic National Committee (DNC) v. Russian Federation, et al was filed in April 2018.

Presided over by federal District Court Judge John Koeltl, the suit without substance was over fabricated claims of Russian 2016 US election meddling.

It named a long paragraph of defendants, including the Russian Federation, its Armed Forces General Staff military intelligence, WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, the Trump campaign, and individuals connected to it.

The DNC accused the Trump campaign, Russia, and WikiLeaks et al of racketeering cybercrime related to (nonexistent) hacking of Dem computers. More on this below.

New Deal, Fair Deal, and Great Society Dems disappeared from the US political landscape during the Clinton co-presidency.

Dems shifted hard right, serving privileged interests more exclusively than earlier at the expense of ordinary people they disdain, their rights increasingly denied.

The agenda of both extremist right wings of the one-party state is militantly pro-war, anti-rule of law, pro-Wall Street, pro-corporate empowerment, anti-progressive, anti-labor, anti-consumer, anti-populist, anti-ecosanity, and anti-social justice.

The DNC suit without merit falsely called Russia the “primary wrongdoer,” claiming without evidence that it “surreptitiously and illegally hacked into the DNC’s computers and thereafter disseminated the results of its theft.”

Not a shred of evidence backed the fabricated claims. Judge Koeltl rejected them.

In his 81-page ruling, he said US courts aren’t the proper place for seeking damages against a nation-state. That’s for government branches to handle.

“The DNC cannot hold these defendants liable for aiding and abetting publication when they would have been entitled to publish the stolen documents themselves without liability,” he stressed, adding:

Its lawsuit was “entirely divorced” from the facts…(riddled with) substantive legal defect(s).”

“The Court has considered all of the arguments raised by the parties. (They’re) either moot or without merit.” Case dismissed “with prejudice” — meaning the plaintiff may bring another suit on the same or similar grounds.

Koeltl perhaps has no knowledge that the documents in question were leaked by a Dem insider, not hacked by Russia or anyone else.

WikiLeaks is an investigative journalism operation, a noble initiative, publishing material the public has a right to know from sources believed to be reliable, what journalism the way it’s supposed to be is all about — deserving high praise, not criticism or prosecution.

Publishing information is a First Amendment right — no matter how unacceptable or offensive it may be to certain parties.

Earlier Supreme Court rulings upheld this right, including Justice William Brennan’s majority opinion in Texas v. Johnson (1989), saying:

“(I)f there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable.”

Justice Thurgood Marshall once said:

“(A)bove all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.” Nor does anyone else.

Separately he said:

“If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a State has no business telling a man (or woman), sitting alone in his (or her) own house, what books he (or she) may read or what films he (or she) may watch.”

“Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men’s (and women’s) minds.”

As usual, Trump was wrong, tweeting in response to the ruling that “(t)he witch hunt ends” — far from it. It’ll likely continue as long as he’s in office and maybe after he’s gone.

It’s one of the most shameful political chapters in US history, worse than McCarthy’s witch-hunts. He self-destructed from demagogic smear-mongering against prominent figures at a time much different than today’s America.

A lesson wasn’t learned, repeated in new form by what’s been ongoing since Trump defeated media darling Hillary.

Modern-day Russophobia is worse and more threatening than during the height of Cold War hysteria.

Nary anyone in Congress or major media challenges what’s going on. The anti-Russia crowd drowns out voices of sanity, good sense, and sensibility way beyond the beltway.

No Russian US election meddling occurred, no threat by its ruling authorities to the US, West, or other countries.

Most people believe otherwise because of the power of Russophobic propaganda pounded into the public mind.

Instead of a world at peace, hardliners in charge of US policymaking wage endless wars against invented enemies, risking something much more devastating than what’s ongoing.

Instead of highlighting the danger to world peace, establishment media ignore it.

Repeating the century-ago “great red scare” and anti-communist hysteria during the Cold War is as phony now as earlier — with potentially catastrophic consequences if US belligerence is pushed too far.

*

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

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from American Herald Tribune

Trump regime hardliners are struggling to enlist anti-Iran Operation Sentinel maritime coalition partners.

Britain’s limited Persian Gulf naval presence so far is separate from the Trump regime’s. The size of its fleet is a limiting factor. It’s been declining for years.

According to Defense News.com,

“(t)he US Navy has struggled to maintain its global commitments with a fleet of 290 ships, and it has seen a 52 percent decrease from its 1987 peak of 594 ships. The US Navy is today pursuing a goal of 355 ships,” adding:

“(D)uring roughly the same time period, (Britain’s) navy has lost more than 40 percent of its fleet, that stood at more than 130 ships. Today’s Royal Navy numbers fewer than 80 ships.”

Pentagon warships are deployed worldwide, limiting its capability to mobilize a large strike force in multiple global areas, along with maintaining its other global deployments.

Despite no Persian Gulf threat by Iran to commercial shipping of any countries, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force General Paul Selva invented a nonexistent regional IRGC maritime threat, claiming:

“…(T)here is a military role in defending freedom of navigation” in the Hormuz Strait. “The question will be to what extent the international community is behind that effort,” adding:

“If the Iranians come after US citizens, US assets or US military (sic), we reserve the right to respond with a military action. They need to know that. It needs to be very clear.”

Selva, other Pentagon commanders, and senior US political officials know Iran is “com(ing) after” no one.

The US military presence in the Middle East and elsewhere worldwide poses a major threat to world peace, stability, and security.

Nonbelligerent Iran is threatened by the US military presence near its territorial waters, coastline, and mainland, not the other way around.

France so far hasn’t agreed to join the Trump regime’s Operation Sentinel. According to Germany’s Deutsche Presse-Agentur and other Western media, Angela Merkel’s government declined a White House request to join Pentagon warships in monitoring Hormuz Strait seaborne traffic, a Berlin statement saying:

“Members of the German government have been clear that freedom of navigation should be protected…Our question is, protected by whom” against what threat?

Iran poses none. A German Foreign Ministry statement said Berlin “took note of the (US) proposal, but made no promises,” adding:

“Foreign Minister Maas has repeatedly stressed that, in our opinion, priority must be given to reducing tensions, and to diplomatic efforts.”

“We are in close consultation with France and the UK. Participation in the US strategy of ‘maximum pressure’ is ruled out for us.”

German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said his government is working with its UK and French counterparts to deescalate Persian Gulf tensions.

“The goal of all responsible politicians must be to observe the situation very soberly and carefully, and not to sleepwalk into an even bigger crisis,” he stressed, adding: “Deescalation is the order of the day.”

In May during a visit to Iraq, nonbelligerent Iran signed a non-aggression pact with Persian Gulf littoral states.

It emphasizes mutual cooperation for regional peace in a part of the world boiling from US aggression. Reportedly Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait, and likely Oman welcome the agreement, Tehran still awaiting responses from other regional countries.

An unnamed Arab source said

“(i)n response to Washington’s request for joining an international coalition to protect commercial ships in the region, Kuwait stated that the situation in the region was not like Saddam Hussein’s…”

“Kuwait had earlier rejected the US request for deployment of four B-52 bombers in Kuwait.”

Russia prepared its own plan for Persian Gulf Security, its principles polar opposite US belligerent aims.

It calls for for peaceful cooperative security, stressing adherence to international law, Russia’s Foreign Ministry saying:

“Under the current circumstances, active and efficient steps at the international and regional levels are needed to normalize and further improve the situation in the Gulf area, overcome the protracted crisis phase, and turn this subregion towards peace, good-neighborliness, and sustainable development.”

The initiative includes the following principles:

Mutual cooperation to eliminate regional extremism and terrorism in Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere in the region.

Mobilizing and influencing regional public opinion about the threat posed by terrorist groups and need to counter them by collective action.

All nations adhering “to international law, to the UN Charter, and UN Security Council resolutions in the first place. We all aim for a democratic and prosperous Middle East that would encourage inter-faith peace and coexistence.”

Trump regime hardliners strongly oppose Moscow’s initiative, along with any proposal for world peace and stability.

Achieving it undermines its imperial aims, why Russia’s plan won’t get out of the starting gate.

The Pentagon’s Operation Sentinel has nothing to do with protecting commercial or other shipping from an Iranian threat that doesn’t exist.

It may set the stage for a Gulf of Tonkin type false flag, wrongfully blamed on Iran, something more serious than others weeks earlier no evidence suggests Iran had anything to do with.

If US, UK, or other Western casualties occur, it could be a pretext for greater US toughness on Iran, including belligerence against its vessels, provoking the IRGC to respond, risking possible war.

What cool heads in the US, other Western states, and regional ones want avoided could be undermined a staged Trump regime incident, falsely blamed on Iran, setting off a chain reaction with unpredictable consequences.

*

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

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image: German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (CC BY-SA 4.0)

---

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

Michel Chossudovsky

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

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-6-0

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

List Price: $22.95

Special Price: $15.00

Click here to order.

India already discredited itself too much in both the eyes of the Afghan population and the rest of the world by being the only country to consistently stand with the unpopular puppet government in Kabul that even the US itself has all but officially abandoned for a rethinking of its failed strategy there to reap any benefits, though this hasn’t stopped some Indian pundits from desperately lobbying for exactly that as of late after it became obvious that every actor of significance has finally embraced the peacemaking position of its rivals in the global pivot of state of Pakistan.

An interesting trend has become discernible shortly after Pakistani Prime Minister Khan’s successful trip to the US, and it’s that Indian pundits are now desperately lobbying for their country to rethink its failed strategy towards Afghanistan after it became obvious that every actor of significance has finally embraced the peacemaking position of its rivals  in the global pivot state. The popular online Indian outlet LiveMint published an op-ed titled “Time to revise our Afghan strategy“, while the Indian web journal South Asian Monitor bemoaned the fact that “Trump’s ‘Mediation’ Talk Reflects India’’s Marginalisation In Afghanistan“.

Both pieces make the case that India’s approach towards Afghanistan has failed and that something must urgently be done to repair the geopolitical damage, yet they’re bereft of any realistic solutions. In addition, this new line of thinking sharply contrasts with the establishment’s recalcitrant stance of clinging to the country’s failed policy out of principle in spite of how counterproductive it is, as was elaborated on by the author in an analysis earlier this year titled “Reading Between The Lines: India Has Sour Grapes Over America’s Afghan Peace Talks“, which suggests that those two previously mentioned articles might be intended to “test the water” and see whether the state will finally realize the seeming inevitability of finally changing its position.

Even if New Delhi does, however, that won’t salvage its strategy after it already discredited itself too much both in the eyes of the Afghan population and the rest of the world by being the only country to consistently stand with the unpopular puppet government in Kabul that even the US itself has all but officially abandoned. India also already ruined the trust that it was rapidly developing with its new military-strategic partners in America by refusing to support the Pakistani-facilitated peace process, to say nothing of making Russia seriously suspicious of its intentions in this respect. It’ll take more than lip service to fix this reputational damage in the future.

Furthermore, any possible change in India’s stance would be blatantly opportunistic at this point, thus making it self-defeating in the soft power sense. It would also represent a powerful diplomatic victory for Pakistan, too, something that Modi’s ultra-jingoist Hindutva government is loath to deliver to its rival after bragging for years about its so-called “successful strategy” of “isolating” it. Nevertheless, Modi has nobody to blame for this unenviable predicament but himself, as he’s the one who ironically ended up isolating India from the rest of the world, and the consequences of his massive strategic blunder will haunt his country for years to come.

*

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.

This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

Brazil President’s Jair Bolsonaro’s environmental deregulation and new free trade deals would see the world consuming toxic pesticides that are banned in most countries, Oliver Tickell of the Green Economic Institute warned Tuesday in an interview with RT.

“This is not just a problem for Brazil and Brazilian people and people exposed in the countryside to these pesticides and consumers and farmers. It is actually affecting people all over the world through Brazil’s agricultural exports.”

Since coming to power, Bolsonaro’s right-wing government has legalized hundreds of formerly banned pesticides, as part of his promise to do away with environmental protections. The move represents a continuation of the neoliberal Michel Temer presidency, which has seen Brazil approve over 1,000 formerly banned pesticides since 2016.

Some of those chemicals include glyphosate and atrazine, which EU farmers have banned from using since 2003. Another, acephate, was recently banned in China for its toxic qualities.

Nevertheless, European customers are likely to begin consuming the pesticides that their own governments consider too dangerous, thanks to the new EU-Mercosur trade deal that will see Brazilian agricultural exports enter the European market.

Let’s not forget the EU just signed a trade deal with Bolsonaro to open up the amazon to european companies despite overwhelming opposition by indigenous and environmental groups about the irreparable damage that would be done.

The EU is an environmental disaster. https://t.co/KipvbJvFjn

— Josh Jackson (@JoshuaYJackson) July 27, 2019

Of the 262 pesticides newly approved by Bolsonaro, 82 are considered “extremely toxic”. His agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina Dias has said only an “ideological process”, during the Workers Party administrations, had stopped agri-business from using the toxic chemicals, adding that critics of the chemicals are responsible for “data manipulation” and even “terrorism”.

Environmental deregulation has led to an increase in damaging forms of farming such as cattle rearing, that leads to widespread deforestation.

Recent data shows a 68 percent increase in deforestation in the past month alone, and that 1,000 sq km of the Amazon rainforest had been destroyed in the first 15 days of July. Bolsonaro claimed these figures are “lies” despite coming from his own administration’s government agencies.

*

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.

Featured image: Farmer spraying chemicals on crops (Source: Pixabay)

“If you wanted to convince the public that international trade agreements are a way to let multinational companies get rich at the expense of ordinary people, this is what you would do: give foreign firms a special right to apply to a secretive tribunal of highly paid corporate lawyers for compensation whenever a government passes a law to, say, discourage smoking, protect the environment or prevent a nuclear catastrophe. Yet that is precisely what thousands of trade and investment treaties over the past half century have done, through a process known as ‘investor-state dispute settlement,’ or ISDS.”

This is how, in autumn 2014, The Economist introduced its readers to a once unknown element in international trade and investment agreements. The business magazine referred to ISDS as “a special privilege that many multinationals have abused”¹ and mentioned two infamous examples: Swedish energy giant Vattenfall suing Germany for €6.1 billion² in damages because the country phased out nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster; and tobacco company Philip Morris suing Uruguay and Australia over government health warnings on cigarette packs and other measures to reduce smoking.

---

The legal basis for these investor-state dispute settlements – known under the acronym ISDS – is over 2,650 international trade and investment agreements in force between states worldwide.⁴ These agreements give sweeping powers to foreign investors, including the peculiar privilege to directly file lawsuits against states at international arbitration tribunals. Companies can claim compensation for actions by host governments that have allegedly damaged their investment, either directly through expropriation, for example, or indirectly through virtually any kind of regulation. ‘Investment’ is interpreted so broadly that mere shareholders and rich individuals can sue, and corporations can claim not just for the money invested, but for future anticipated earnings as well.

 

ISDS claims are usually decided by a tribunal of three private lawyers – the arbitrators – who are chosen by the litigating investor and the state. Unlike judges, these for-profit private sector arbitrators do not have a flat salary paid for by the state, but are in fact paid per case. At the most frequently used tribunal, the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), arbitrators make US$3,000 a day.⁵ In a one-sided system where only the investors can bring claims, this clearly creates a strong incentive to side with companies rather than states – because investor-friendly rulings pave the way for more lawsuits and more income in the future.

Read full article on tenissdstories.org here (carefully documented).

*

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.

Featured image is from Flickr

It’s always been about regime change. Washington’s ultimate goal in Iran for the past 40 years has been to bring down the Mullah’s leading the Islamic Republic of Iran. As much as the current administration and specifically President Donald Trump try to hide or deny it, causing the collapse of the Iranian government would be seen as an incomparable “accomplishment” for the current (and even past) administrations.

Unilaterally withdrawing from the Iran Nuclear Deal or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018 and imposing harsh sanctions, soon after, wasn’t truly meant to bring Iran back to the negotiating table to formulate a new nuclear deal, one that didn’t have Obama’s signature on it.

No, on the contrary, these actions were meant to make economic conditions as unbearable as possible for the majority of Iranian civilians in hopes that they would either revolt against their current government (which is unlikely) or that the entire country would implode taking down the current administration with it.

In other words, Washington is giving Iranian’s two options, either they bring down their government on their own or the United States will do that for them.

Then, Washington would install a puppet leader of its choosing, that they could easily manipulate. This mindless shell of a human would ultimately have the best interests of the United States as top priority.

A very recent example of this is what the United States is trying (and failing) to accomplish in Venezuela. The have attempted to unseat the legitimate president, Nicolas Maduro and insert a CIA sponsored imperial tool, Juan Guaido. Washington’s end goal, however, is not “regime change”, but instead the collapse of the oil-rich Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

Other attempts by the United States at regime change have failed as well, including President Bashar Al Assad in Syria. After eight years of imposing sanctions, supporting terrorist factions, and using every overt and covert play in the book, President Assad is still in control and will continue to lead his country as long as the people support him (which the vast majority do).

Getting back to National Security Advisor John Bolton’s wildest dream, of the country with the world’s second largest natural gas reserves, kneeling helplessly before the “greatest country in the world”. In this twisted and unrealistic fantasy John probably likes to imagine Iran giving up its natural resources, it’s oil, it’s technology all over to the United States.

Whether or not that is because of a war matters little to the staunch war advocate, it probably wouldn’t even faze him to see able-bodied US troops marching over to the other side of the world to die in yet another unjust and unnecessary war…if it came to that. This is where the war-hawks and Trump might have a slight disagreement.

Now, this isn’t to say that Bolton, Pompeo, and the rest of the gang including Trump by any means underestimate Iran’s strength or resilience. They know that a military confrontation with Iran would be deadly for pretty much everyone on the planet. That’s why even if their mouths are saying, “we don’t want regime change”, their heart and actions are saying something entirely different.

Just in case it wasn’t crystal clear to the US and its allies just how important Iran takes its territorial integrity, on July 29th, while addressing the Iranian Parliament, Javad Zarif, Iran’s Foreign Minister stated,

“When it comes to Iran’s territorial integrity and waters, we will stand on ceremony with nobody and will not negotiate with any party about honors Iran has gained during the past 40 years…The administration is committed to this issue and the Majlis has the final say on it.”

Zarif also said,

“A glance at the history [of Iran] will show that parts of Iran were separated [from the country] under previous [monarchial] dynasties and it was only under the Islamic Republic that despite the imposed war [with Iraq] and tremendous pressures, not a handspan of the country’s soil has been lost and this is a great honor for Iran’s leadership and people.”

The majority of Iranian’s living in Iran understand Washington’s motives and have seen what happens to countries that receive the “gift” of regime change from the U.S. Even if they have some grievances with the current administration, they are not eager to have a hand in destroying their own country.

They need not look far for examples of why “regime change” is a terrible idea. In Iraq, Daesh (ISIS) and AlQaeda grew and flourished amidst the chaos and destruction while using captured American weapons. In Libya, slave trade became a thing, people are bought and sold like cattle in the open market. Also, AlQaeda grew and flourished there as well. In Afghanistan, opium production has been at an all time high since US “regime change” and occupation. Maybe that’s the real reason why our troops are still there, to protect “our” Afghani poppy fields.

Then there’s the issue of the Taliban. And in Syria, just like in Iraq, weapons, supplies, armed vehicles, money etc. were made available to terrorists by the Obama and Trump administrations. However, under Trump those funds are going to the separatist Kurdish led – so called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) more so than the Free Syrian Army or other terrorist factions. Which is not an improvement, at all.

I’d like to mention that in both Iraq and Libya that the Christian minorities have since been directly targeted and their possible extinction in these areas under extremist groups is also a direct result of US regime change.

Another round of regime change is what Washington really wants and has wanted in Iran since 1979. Bolton has called for and supported “regime change” in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Iran.  Ultimately, regime change, foreign intervention, insurrections, manufactured revolutions, and staged uprisings by foreign states are all terrible ideas and cause much pain, suffering, destruction, and chaos. Regime change is never a good idea.

*

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.

This article was originally published on InfoRos.

Sarah Abed is an independent journalist and political commentator. For media inquiries please email [email protected]

Featured image is from Mr. Fish/Truthdig

Do you value the reporting and in-depth analysis provided by Global Research on a daily basis?

Click to donate or click here to become a member of Global Research.

.

.

*     *     *

Trump’s “Space Force”: Weaponizing Space Is the “New” Bad Idea Coming from Washington

By Federico Pieraccini, August 01, 2019

When considering the possibility of great-power conflict in the near future, it is difficult to bypass space as one of the main areas of strategic focus for the major powers.The United States, Russia and China all have cutting-edge programs for the militarization of space, though with a big difference.

5G Agriculture – Food from Frankenstein Farming

By Julian Rose, August 01, 2019

The director of development at Ericsson, Marcin Sugak, is excited. He has a new toy to sell to agribusiness farmers. This particular toy, he claims, is going to ‘overcome’ all the difficult new challenges facing agriculture today. It will be ‘A revolution’, he declares. According to the Ericsson corporation, with this new toy, farmers will be able to look at their plants and animals from a completely ‘new perspective’.

Psychotechnology: How Artificial Intelligence Is Designed to Change Humanity

By Makia Freeman, August 01, 2019

Psychotechnology is a word coined by William Ammerman, although the word may also have been coined by others and share multiple meanings. Ammerman defines the word as “technology that influences people psychologically by deploying artificial intelligence through digital media.”

Bolsonaro’s Clearcut Populism.”The Barbarism has Begun”

By Asad Ismi, August 01, 2019

“The barbarism has begun,” declared the Pankarurú Indigenous nation after Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s neofascist president, won fraudulent elections in October 2018 amidst accusations of breaking financing rules and shamelessly spreading fake news.

Erdogan’s Risky Geopolitical Pirouette. Turkey’s Economy in “Troubled Waters”

By F. William Engdahl, August 01, 2019

Turkey’s economy has been in increasingly difficult straits for months, especially since the failed July 2016 coup attempt. The latest move by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to fire his central bank head and replace him with a more amenable loyalist has already resulted in the largest one-time interest rate cut in the bank’s history.

Will Shake Up at IAEA Impact Iran? Washington’s Abuse of International Institutions

By Tony Cartalucci, July 31, 2019

Considering the foreign policy track records of either the US or Israel – an assassination targeting members of international institutions impeding Western interests certainly sounds plausible. However no evidence has been provided to suggest Amano was assassinated.

Tulsi Gabbard vs Google Goliath

By Rick Sterling, July 31, 2019

The Tulsi Gabbard presidential campaign has filed a major lawsuit against Google.  This article outlines the main points of the lawsuit and evidence the the social media giant Google has quietly acquired enormous influence on public perceptions and has been actively censoring alternative viewpoints.

*

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.

The illegal economic sanctions that the Trump administration has imposed on Iran are ruining its economy by increasing the inflation rate—from nine percent before the sanctions to 35-40 percent today—as well as unemployment, and forcing countless numbers of small businesses to close. Whereas Iran’s economy grew by 12.5 percent in 2016, it has shrunk by six percent in the first six months of 2019. These are the results that President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and National Security Advisor John Bolton constantly brag about. But they have created unspeakable suffering for ordinary Iranian people, who don’t even have a say in what their political system does.

The worst aspect of the sanctions is their human toll, caused by severe shortage of critical medicines and medical equipment for millions of Iranians. Fear that common citizens will be unable to obtain the medicines they need is everywhere in Iran, and for good reason. Every year, there are 112,000 new cases of cancer in Iran, one of the fastest growth rates of cancer in the world. The most painful aspect is the situation faced by children with cancer whose chances of growing up have been dramatically reduced. As one Iranian mother whose child has cancer put it,

“Children battling cancer are an unintended victim of American sanctions on Iran. Maybe I have the financial support to travel to neighboring countries in order to provide medication, but what about other ordinary people? They are losing their child in front of their eyes. What about supporting human rights [as Pompeo and Bolton claim to do]? A lot of people are saying human rights, so where is it? There is no support for human rights, it is just a claim.”

In a letter published by The Lancet, the prestigious medical journal, three doctors working in Tehran’s MAHAK Pediatric Cancer Treatment and Research Center warned that,

“Re-establishment of sanctions, scarcity of drugs due to the reluctance of pharmaceutical companies to deal with Iran, and a tremendous increase in oncology drug prices [due to the plummeting value of the Iranian rial by 50–70%], will inevitably lead to a decrease in survival of children with cancer.”

There are 5.2 million Iranian people who suffer from diabetes. Over 72,000 people suffer from multiple sclerosis (MS). There are at least 66,000 people afflicted by the AIDS, but many experts believe that the actual number is much larger because, due to the social stigma associated with the disease, many people are reluctant to seek treatment. There are at least 800,000 people with Parkinson’s disease and at least 700,000 people with Alzheimer’s. There are more than 23,000 people with thalassemia in Iran, who suffer from shortage of medicine despite great progress on the part of the Iranian government in addressing the problem. Such patients are treated by blood transfusion once every few weeks and take a medication called deferasirox, which treats a side effect of blood transfusion (excess iron). Iran has been able to produce some generic versions of the medication, but still needs to import significant quantities of it.

Another thirteen percent of Iran’s population of 83 million, about 10.8 million people, suffer from asthma. But while asthma is a global problem and, therefore, one would think that treating it should be routine and inexpensive, U.S. sanctions have also hit Iranian asthma patients hard. “My father has suffered from asthma for 15 years and needs a new inhaler every month, one young man said. “But the inhaler he used to buy has totally disappeared from the market. My sister is a nurse, but there is nowhere to find the inhalers in Iran anymore.” Another 3,000 people suffer from what are called “rare diseases”—those for which there are not many medications even in the West.

When the Obama administration imposed its crippling sanctions against Iran, there were credible reports of hemophiliac Iranians dying due to the interruption in the supply of essential medicine, 75 percent of which is produced in the U.S. and the European Union—on which Iran has long relied as suppliers. The same shortages exist today, putting thousands of lives at risk.

By far the most important cause of these shortages—and even total absence—of medicines for such terrible diseases is the economic sanctions imposed on Iran by the United States. Britain, France, and Germany tried and failed to persuade the Trump administration to guarantee Iranian imports of basic foods and medicine.

Officially, U.S. economic sanctions do not include medicine. But in practice, medicine is subject to sanctions. The reason is twofold: no pharmaceutical company producing critical medicines is willing to sell its products to Iran for fear that the Treasury Department might find some small technical or administrative errors in their applications and go after them with a vengeance. The enforcer of the sanctions is Sigal Mandelker, the under-secretary of Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, who said recently, “without a doubt, sanctions are working.” The question is, for whom are the sanctions working? Ordinary Iranians?

The second reason is practical. Even if a pharmaceutical company was willing to export its medicines to Iran, Iran’s banking system has been effectively cut off from the rest of the world. At present, there is no mechanism to pay for the imports except through the personal accounts of individuals in Europe or elsewhere. This avenue was used during the crippling sanctions that President Obama imposed on Iran in the early 2010s, but it resulted in incredible corruption, theft, and the importation of expired medicines. As a result, the Rouhani administration has so far avoided this route.

One of the few Iranian financial institutions that the Obama administration did not sanction was Parsian Bank, which was a critical conduit for humanitarian trade, especially medicine and medical devices, with Europe. But, the Trump administration sanctioned Parsian Bank as well. So, while there still was a shortage of critical medicine under Obama, it was nowhere close to what we are witnessing now.

Even when some medicines are not in short supply, the huge inflation has put their costs out of reach for many Iranians. “The artificial tear drop that my son has to use for his eye condition has doubled in price,” from the equivalent of about $2.50 to $5, a housewife and mother of two told ABC News last month. Another drop went from $1.50 to $8 in a year. There are thousands of such stories reported by social networks.

My personal experience confirms such reports. My wife is a medical doctor who received her education and training in Iran. She and hundreds of old friends and classmates have a large network that helps ordinary people with their medical problems. Every single member of this network has been telling us the same thing: that the shortage of critical medicine is so severe that people are losing their lives. Two of my brothers-in-law and a nephew are pharmacists in Iran, and they tell me that they have to turn away more than half of the people who come to their shops every day because they have run out of medicine. My father-in-law suffers from severe diabetes and has to pay huge sums to get his medicine. He can afford it, but what about millions of other diabetic patients? A first cousin with three children suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, and she cannot even find her medication at any price. Shortages for MS medication is everywhere in Iran.

Under the Obama-era sanctions, leading science journals reported their crippling effect on the supply of critical medicines to Iran. A December 2013 report published in Nature, one of the world’s top science journals, stated, “A tightening of already draconian international economic sanctions against Iran is causing serious shortages of certain drugs, vaccines and other key medical supplies in the country, medical researchers and public-health officials are warning.” A letter by a faculty member in the department of pharmacology at Baqiyatollah University of Medical Sciences in Tehran that was published by the Journal of Pharmaceutical Science stated,

“Although medicines are exempted from sanctions, due to restriction on money transaction and proper insurance Iranian pharmaceutical companies have to pay cash in advance for imports of medicines and raw materials or to secure offshore funds at very high risks…. Sanctions against Iran are affecting ordinary citizens and national health sector which resulted in reduction of availability of lifesaving medicines in the local market and has caused increasing pain and suffering for Iranian patients.”

If these were the conditions in Iran under the Obama sanctions, one can only imagine the situation now, because the Trump sanctions are far more draconian than anything imposed on Iran in the past. In fact, a comprehensive review of the state of healthcare in Iran published in 2018 by International Journal of Health Policy and Management, demonstrates the severe adverse effect of the sanctions on the state of healthcare in Iran. Even if the sanctions are lifted, the article notes, their “adverse consequences … have already taken place and will take a long time to be alleviated.” Additionally, “the social impact of economic sanctions against Iran may extend beyond the sanction period because the costs of imposing sanctions exceed the benefits of lifting sanctions.”

But the shortage of vital medicines is only one factor that contributes to the unfolding human tragedy in Iran caused by the Trump-Pompeo-Bolton sanctions. A shortage of medical devices is another factor. In this case, the problem is even more complex because some devices are perceived as having a dual use—that is, they could have military as well as medical purposes—and their export to Iran is banned under all circumstances. Asr-e Iran, a reformist website in Iran, reported a list of medical devices that thousands of cancer patients need and that are unavailable in northwest Iran. The list only goes to show the mind-boggling nature of such shortages.

Beyond the medical field, there are several other ways in which U.S. sanctions are hurting ordinary Iranians every day. Another aspect is the shortage of some foodstuffs. As with medicines, the export of wheat, barley, corn, and other food items to Iran is not officially sanctioned, but major global traders have halted their supply agreements with Iran because the sanctions have paralyzed the banking systems required to secure payment. Two Iranian ships contracted to carry corn, soybean and meat to Iran were stranded in Brazil because Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company, refuses to supply fuel to the ships, apparently in fear of running afoul of U.S. sanctions. After Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered Petrobras to supply the ships with fuel, they finally left Brazil.

The most depressing aspect of the inhumane sanctions is that shortage of medicines in Iran has given rise once again to a black market, controlled by the regime’s hardliners and their cronies. The black market only enriches the most radical elements in Iran, those who benefit from continuing tension between Iran and the United States, and were assailed as “merchants of sanctions” by President Rouhani. The same profiteering happened during the Obama years, but has now returned in a much worse fashion because the shortages and desperation they cause are so much greater.

We should recall that, according to UNICEF, the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq in the 1990s killed at least 576,000 Iraqi children due to malnutrition and medical shortages. Given that the current sanctions imposed on Iran are even more severe, and that Iran’s population is three times greater than Iraq’s, there is every reason to believe that the continuation or aggravation of the sanctions regime will translate into the deaths of even more children in Iran.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. stands with the Iranian people. But tL gives the lie to that claim. It’s quite clear that the lives of Iranian people do not matter to him. After all, this is the same man who suggested in 2014 to attack Iran with “2000 sorties,” which would have led to war with Iran, killing at least hundreds of thousands of people, if not more, and the same man who has been linked with some of the worst Islamophobes in this country. He and John Bolton shed only crocodile tears for the Iranian people.

Pompeo has also claimed that he cares about the Iranian government’s violation of its citizens’ human rights. According to the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights, however, everyone has a right to a standard of living adequate for his health and well-being, including food, medical care, and social security without any kind of discrimination on grounds such as gender, race, and the political, jurisdictional, or international status of the place to which a person belongs. Article 12 of the UN-approved International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, adopted in 1966, asserts the right to “the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health” for everyone around the globe. By championing crippling sanctions against Iran under the policy of “maximum pressure,” Pompeo has only demonstrated that his claims are similar to those of his boss—fake.

*

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.

Muhammad Sahimi is a Professor at the University of Southern California.

Featured image: Trump reinstate sanctions against Iran (White House photo by Shealah Craighead)

When the directors of the film Advocate captured the biggest prize at Israel’s most important documentary festival, they never imagined their victory would trigger tighter controls on freedom of speech in the country.

But that is exactly what has happened, raising questions of funding and freedom for Israeli artists who say they are watching the state slowly shrink the space for creative expression around them. One filmmaker describes it as censorship by bureaucracy.

“It’s part of an ugly wave that we are seeing all of the time. My feeling – and other people’s feeling – is that the public bodies that are supporting us as a documentary film industry want us to fall in line with the ‘spirit of the commander’,” said Hagit Ben Yaakov, chairwoman of the Israeli Documentary Filmmakers Forum.

“’The commander’ doesn’t want to support any leftist material or content. They would prefer not to anger anyone if they can give their money to content that is not threatening authority.”

The latest uproar began in June when Advocate won top honours at Docaviv, the Tel Aviv International Documentary Film Festival. Along with the win came a distribution stipend of just over $42,000.

The film documents the life and work of well-known leftist attorney Leah Tsemel, branded by some as “the terrorists’ lawyer” because she defends Palestinians accused of terrorism in Israeli courts.

The win sparked a fervent backlash from right-wing organisations, which rejected the use of public funds to support the film. Israel’s Minister of Culture and Sport Miri Regev joined their outcry, reportedly calling the film’s focus on Tsemel “annoying and infuriating”, and demanding that the National Lottery revoke the top prize it had funded and end its support of Docaviv altogether.

Within two weeks or so, the lottery caved, announcing that, as of next year, it would no longer support the festival with a distribution stipend for the winning film. It has even launched an inquiry to see whether the prize awarded to Advocate can be revoked.

The lottery’s reaction sent Israel’s artist organisations out onto the streets. They protested a session of the National Lottery’s executive committee for art and culture. Chairman Avigdor Yitzhaki refused to talk with them, so one of the protesters found a way into the meeting and confronted him.

“This process at the National Lottery is, from our perspective, censorship pure and simple,” said Liran Atzmor, a veteran documentary film producer and one of the organisers of the protest.

Atzmor said he and other protesters understand from Yitzhaki that the lottery consider its decision later this year.

“They hope that this announcement will persuade us to back off… They told us to be quiet and maybe things would settle down.”

But as protests spread to Israeli artists beyond the film industry that seems an unlikely outcome.

Al-Midan Theatre 

The controversy over Advocate is only the latest in a long line of disputes relating to artistic freedom in Israel.

The Al-Midan Theater, an Arabic-language centre in Haifa, has been struggling for several years to hold on to its funding after staging a play about a Palestinian prisoner in 2015.

After the run of the play, the Haifa municipality and the Ministry of Culture and Sports froze the theatre’s funding for 2016 and 2017 – worth over $284,000 each year – leaving the theatre in debt and forcing it to limit its productions.

The theatre successfully petitioned the municipality and the ministry and had most of its funds renewed. But this week, Israel’s High Court ruled that the theatre was not eligible for the ministry’s funding in 2016 and 2017 because not enough plays were staged and Al-Midan had not met the required conditions for the money.

Ben Yaakov said the limitations on artistic freedom, like what happened at Al-Midan, are often done in technical ways to obscure the real intentions.

“It’s very difficult to point your finger at the exact things or the assumptions because they use excuses that can sound logical. I call it censorship under bureaucracy,” she said.

Protest expands beyond filmmakers

In recent weeks, the protests over Advocate, which started with filmmakers, have expanded to poets, authors and other figures in the Israeli arts world who have announced that they will forgo their National Lottery support as a result of its decision.

On top of this, 39 applicants for the National Lottery’s 2019 Sapir Prize for Literature said they would donate their award money to support the documentary if they won.

Two judges of the prize resigned their positions, with one declaring on Facebook that the National Lottery decision was “part of a wave of shady attempts to restrict freedom of speech and artistic creativity”.

Those involved in Israel’s art world say the applicants’ gesture is a significant concession for a sector that already struggles under severe budget limitations.

“For artists to relinquish a prize awarded to them is a very brave thing,” said Ibtisam Marana, a documentary film director and producer who sits on the National Lottery’s arts and culture committee.

“Culture is an important point of pride in Israel, as a liberal and free country. The National Lottery has tremendous power because it can underwrite this creativity,” she said.

In the case of Advocate, it can also take away the power of a film to reach wider audiences. The top winner at Docaviv is recognized as a potential contender for the Academy Awards, but to win an Oscar, a film must be well-promoted – and that takes funding, said Philippe Bellaiche, the film’s co-director and co-producer.

“The National Lottery prize is actually a marketing stipend for an Oscar contender, so that we can build momentum for the film prior to the Oscar voting,” he said.

Marana said she was the acting chairwoman of the committee that awarded a National Lottery grant supporting the production of Advocate. She doesn’t remember any arguments over funding the film which, she said, the committee thought was excellent.

“Not because of its subject, but because of the production itself, the film itself. [The National Lottery] also supported films about settlements. And in those cases, too, I supported the decision to grant stipends, because those films contribute an interesting perspective,” Marana said.

Marana, who has been backing the protests, said if the lottery doesn’t backtrack on its decision now, she will resign.

“We work long hours and were promised the freedom to exercise our own judgment. We are supposed to be strictly independent and able to act and make decisions based solely on artistic criteria,” she said.

Atzmor said he calls on the lottery’s culture committee to follow the lead of the Sapir prize judges.

“They made it clear that there are red lines. We are always struggling to obtain the resources to make art, but what is it all for, if not for artistic freedom?” he said.

Meanwhile, he said he worries about creative freedom in Israel – and about Israeli society itself.

“I worry that people weaker than I, less experienced and less able to earn a living, will stop making the films they want to make because they are being silenced and threatened. They are being told that it’s not worth their while to make the films they want to make because they won’t get any support.”

*

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.

When considering the possibility of great-power conflict in the near future, it is difficult to bypass space as one of the main areas of strategic focus for the major powers.The United States, Russia and China all have cutting-edge programs for the militarization of space, though with a big difference.

Donald Trump’s announcement of a “Space Force” is by no means a new idea. During the Reagan presidency, a similar idea was proposed in the form of the famous “Star Wars“ program, formally known as the Strategic Defense Initiative. It aimed to do away with the concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD) by positioning anti-ballistic-missile (ABM) interceptors in low-Earth orbit in order for them to be able to easily intercept ballistic missiles during their entry into orbit and before their re-entry phase. The costs and technology at the time proved prohibitive for the program, but military planners retained the dream of negating the concept of MAD in Washington’s favor, especially with the dawning of the unipolar era following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The decisions taken in the years since, such as the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in 2002 during Bush’s presidency and from the INF Treaty during Trump’s, follows Reagan in trying to invalidate MAD, a balance of terror that has served to maintain a strategic stability.

This hope of doing away with MAD so that the unthinkable may become thinkable has guided the missile developments of Russia and China, which through the development of hypersonic missiles aim to nullify the US’s ABM systems and thereby make the thought of an unreciprocated nuclear first strike MAD again. With Russia’s recent successes in testing hypersoning technologies, and the fast-tracking of other new strategic weapons announced by Putin less than 12 months ago, strategic stability seems to have been restored through Russia’s strengthened deterrence posture.

The weaponization of space is a less known and talked about aspect of Washington’s mad attempts to make mutually assured destruction no longer mutual and therefore thinkable. During the peak of the unipolar moment, the idea of the Pentagon and the lobbyists of the military-industrial complex was to develop the so-called Prompt Global Strike system, which envisioned being able to deliver an air strike with conventional weapons anywhere in the world in the space of an hour. The dream (or delusion) of the US was to have the unique ability to determine the course of events around the globe within an hour. Such experimental craft as the Orbital Test Vehicle seem to confirm that serious efforts have been underway to realize this objective.

Neither China nor Russia has been sitting idly by waiting to be struck undefended. Russia’s development of its S-500 system has been quite timely. The S-500 system is often considered an upgrade to the better-known S-400 system, but these are in reality different systems with different aims and objectives. The main task of the S-500 is to engage long-distance targets in low-Earth orbit. We are therefore talking about the ability to take out military or any future ABM satellites as those originally conceived with Reagan’s “Star Wars” program.

Unlike Washington, Moscow and Beijing do not appear to be developing space-based weaponry; they are certainly not going to increase their military budgets to create a space force. On the contrary, both countries have been working for more than a decade on a proposed Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) treaty that seeks to ban the weaponization of space. The aims are summarized as follows:

“Under the draft treaty submitted to the [Conference on Disarmament] by Russia in 2008, State Parties would have to refrain from carrying out such weapons and threatening to use objects in outer space. State Parties would also agree to practice agreed confidence-building measures.

A PAROS treaty would complement and reaffirm the importance of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which aims to preserve space for peaceful uses by prohibiting the use of space weapons, and technology related to ‘missile defense’. The treaty would prevent any nation from gaining a military advantage in outer space.”

The intentions of the draft treaty clearly go against Washington’s plans. It is therefore not surprising that Washington has no intention of acceding to PAROS, and it is probably only a matter of time before Washington withdraws from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

Trump is looking at things from a practical point of view. He wants to give a major boost to the military-industrial complex, which is salivating at the prospect of being showered with tens or even hundreds of billions of US taxpayer dollars in a quest to weaponize space. But the policy makers in Washington and in think-tanks look at the weaponization of space from a different perspective. They look at it from the point of view of Washington as a superpower that must seek to prolong its unipolar moment through the use of force, even from space. While it is delusional nonsense, it has nevertheless been the prevailing outlook in Washington for at least the last 25 years.

The reason why China and Russia have proposed and continue to discuss the PAROS lies in their political and military philosophies that contrast with that of the US. As an imperial power bent on global domination, the US is always looking for ways to subjugate and dominate what it considers to be its underlings, while Russia and China act to hold back and counterbalance US aggression, in the process serving to enhance global stability.

The proposal for the non-militarization of space is the latest example of what unites and guides the Eurasian strategy of China and Russia without having any illusions about Washington’s intentions. The development of the SR-72 system seems to confirm that Washington wants to also bridge the gap with its Eurasian competitors in the field of hypersonic technology in addition to wishing to weaponize space.

Realistically, however, global powers in a multipolar context will seek to defend their territorial and economic sovereignty with every means at their disposal. Likewise, those seeking global hegemony will try to exploit any existing domain to gain an advantage over their rivals.

China and Russia seek to weaponize distance and speed to make any possible US attack on them impracticable, both in terms of the logistics required and the revivified cost-benefit calculus of MAD. The US, on the other hand, is trying to weaponize all conceivable domains of conflict by all means possible, hoping to be able to find a chink in its opponents’ armor.

Beijing and Moscow seem to have studied extensively how to respond. All the various defensive systems produced in recent years, from hypersonic anti-ship missiles to multi-layered defense systems like the S-400, S-500 and A-135/A-235, seem to meet the challenge.

Beijing fears US naval strength, and while seeking to achieve parity and surpass the US in the future, it aims above all to prevent the use of aircraft carriers as launching platforms through the employment of defensive area-denial weapons. In this sense, speed (Mach 10) and extending the range of Chinese anti-ship missiles (DF-21) are fundamental to the success of this strategy. Similarly, Moscow intends to seal Eurasia’s skies, and the S-500 seems to be the final flourish, able to protect up to 800 kilometers above sea level.

The weaponization of space is the latest issue that the US is exploiting for various political purposes. Be that as it may, this creates an adversarial environment that compels the US’s peer competitors to develop weapons capable of countering US belligerency. Instead of sitting down and defining the parameters of major-power interaction so as to reduce the likelihood of war, we are witnessing an intentional US policy of pursuing an arms race in every possible domain of warfare.

*

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.

Federico Pieraccini is an independent freelance writer specialized in international affairs, conflicts, politics and strategies.

Featured image is from Flickr / glennbatuyong

UN Bullies in meticulous suits have launched another hospitals bombing psywar campaign to support NATO’s last terrorists in Idlib. It should be scandalous, international news, that key members of the United Nations continue to ignore the Geneva Agreements on hospitals, continue to ignore the UN’s own charter, continue to bray and bleat for terrorists occupying Idlib, while the UN and NATO countries maintain the savages on their terror lists.

But, no! These minions of Beelzebub are secure in knowing that approved media sources are part of that Military Industrial Complex, that they are free to pimp war, pimp corruption, engage in all forms of criminal lies with the impunity of those whose might makes right.

Again, the Geneva Conventions are clear that the host country of a war zone must agree to neutral zones for hospital facilities. Without such agreements, no hospitals can exist.

UN ‘diplomats’ & NATO journalists should read the Geneva Treaties.

…if the White Helmets have opened a room in a cellar in a building, where it launches missiles and shells from, this is another thing; this is not a hospital. This is not a hospital; this is called a makeshift medical facility. This is a hallucination and a cinema on the ground when they call it a hospital. It is not a hospital. It is a room they open in a cellar in one of the buildings used for bombing civilians and the Syrian Arab Army from.

Also, last month, H.E. Jaafari informed the Security Council that there are 8 hospitals in Idlib: 4 public and 4 private. At another of the never-ending meetings on the “Humanitarian Situation” in his country, Dr. Jaafari explained that the US-based SAMS gang is embedded with terrorists, has no authority to be in Syria, and therefore runs no hospitals in the SAR (unrestrained by diplomatic protocol, this author previously provided evidence that SAMS was either lying or engaged in human vivisection; evidence of its terrorist affiliation left behind in liberated Ghouta; evidence of collaboration in terrorist massacre in Douma).

If a Saudi-run gang of armed, Captagon-fueled human pathogens hangs a nice sign outside of a moped garage, saying “surgical hospital created & founded by Jaysh al Ezza,” no matter how many US university NGOs claim it is a hospital, it is still not a hospital.

Does anyone remember the UN uttering a single word of condemnation when the FSA — armed and funded by the P3 countries — was engaged in the wave of assassinations against Syrian physicians and professors of medical schools? Lamentations over the destruction of real hospitals such as al Watani, al Kindi, and Jisr al Shoghour?

Here are some recent breaches of international law and atrocities against Syria, that the rabid hyenas of the UN have neglected include in their humanitarian concerns:

• Massacre of civilians in Aleppo countryside
• Mad Hatters meeting to dedicate the fake Trump Heights on Syria’s Golan
• The torching of farmers’ wheat fields in Qamishli
• Oil pipelines sabotaged at Tartous Marine Terminal and Shaer Gas pipeline in Homs
• An attempt to blow up the Church of the Virgin Mary, in Qamishli
• Civilian massacres in Aleppo, Damascus, and Hama

Yesterday, the UN leadership again demonstrated it is not neutral, nor does it engage in promoting “peace and security,” despite its marketing claims. Shamelessly ignoring the above-noted horrors against the Syrian people, on 30 July, during its ‘humanitarian’ conjugal meeting, the gang again provided evidence of being press liaison for al Qaeda in the Syrian Arab Republic.

Is UN News headline a breach of Nuremberg Principle VI? Engaging in criminal propaganda is a “crime against peace.” Engaging in propaganda against a member state is a breach of its own charter.

Mark Lowcock — “UN relief chief” — again bragged about hearing voices when he addressed the SC over concerns for hospitals that don’t exist, imaginary physicians, and al Qaeda terrorists occupying Idlib.

In December, the non-Syrian who claims to speak for Syria, turned away when the Syrian ambassador who provided documentation that Lowcock had falsified the statistics he gave when haughtily speaking for ”Syrians.”

Almost immediately after the supporters of al Qaeda in Syria finished their UN fabrication statements, Reuters ran with an impressive headline, that “two-thirds” of the Security Council wants an “inquiry” into “attacks” on hospitals that do not exist, according to international law, and the UN’s own charter (though “two-thirds” sounds like a lot, Reuters is actually speaking of the P3 bullies running the UN: UK, US, and France.

Reuters also threw in a weird claim which completely contradicts Ambassador Jaafari’s statement on hospitals and the humanitarian situation in his country, on 16 June. His full statement in Arabic and English is found here. The bizarre claim, however, afforded the opportunity to quote the English ambassador to the United Nations, Karen “New Sykes-Picot or Bust” Pierce, in spewing more lies about the Syrian Arab Republic.

The new onslaught of criminal propaganda against Syria comes as the Syrian Arab Army continues to liberate “every inch” of the country from NATO and Gulfies owned terrorists. The re-opening of this dam of western sewage might be timed to break the US domestic fighting over the pros and cons of rat infestations in American cities — because everyone in the USA loves Donald J. Trump when he bombs Syrians for al Qaeda.

*

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.

All images in this article are from Syria News unless otherwise stated

The national security state requires a roster of enemies to justify its existence. Beginning in the late 1940s, it was the Commies, not simply the Soviet Union but Commies everywhere—in the State Department, the neighborhood PTA, even under your bed. 

This lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union. At that point, Bush the Elder told us we’d get a righty deserved “peace dividend,” in other words less “defense” spending. This was, of course, a grand illusion designed to fool the average American and steer the “guns and butter” discussion in the appropriate direction—feeding the military-industrial complex.

After the largely illusory threat of communism was vanquished, new enemies appeared. Beginning in the 1990s focused turned to the Middle East, first the wholly manufactured threat of Saddam Hussein, and then radical Islam, which, minus the FBI’s staged 1993 World Trade Center bombing, did not pose a threat to America or even its most favored nation, Israel. 

As the political class and the corporate media are wont to remind us, everything changed after 9/11. That event significantly increased the power and authority of the national security state (primarily the DoD, NSA, CIA, and new agencies, notably the Department of Homeland Security and an array of private-sector corporations). 

Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and then the Islamic State served the purpose of growing the national security state to leviathan proportions and in the process diminishing the semi-liberty of the American people on a grand scale. 

All threats, however, have a shelf life. Trump supposedly defeated the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (in truth, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah did). Even so, the Islamic threat remains on a back burner, ready to re-emerge when needed. 

Now we have super-threats, according to there state and its political class—Russia and China—with a scattering of minor non-threats, namely Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua (the last two recycled from the earlier period). 

Beginning in 2016, we were subjected to the absurd fairy tale of Russia, through Facebook ads, unbalancing the US election system (long rigged in favor of the political class) and the result was the victory of the execrable Donald Trump, a populist primitive and former reality TV star. 

The corporate media has wasted little time along with the Democrat side of the one-party hydra associating Trump with racism, sexism, nativism—the polar opposite of the adopted identity politics control device taken on by the state—and thus manufacturing the new threat: the alt-right and white nationalism or white supremacy. 

Supposed white nationalists are way out on the political fringe in small numbers and yet we’re told every day by the propaganda media most domestic terrorist acts are committed by racists, bigots, Nazis, and Trump supporters. More people are killed every week in Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, and other engineered wastelands, but this doesn’t contain any political capital, with the exception of outlawing firearms and self-defense, so it is irrelevant. 

During the Democrat “debate” in the ruin of Detroit, Senator Elizabeth Warren declared war on white supremacy. It was tucked neatly in with the rest of the identity theology. 

Meet the new enemy. The liberal corporate media has worked overtime to portray anyone to the right of Elizabeth Warren as a domestic terrorist. It’s not simply a small and mostly insignificant number of skin color-obsessed neurotics posing a dire threat to America, it’s anybody who opposes the identity-“socialist” agenda. 

The militarized police state and a posse comitatus-busting Pentagon stand ready to fight this new threat. After all, white supremacy affects all walks of life, according to Warren and the Democrats.

*

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.

Kurt Nimmo writes on his blog site, Another Day in the Empire, where this article was originally published.

Featured image is from the author

The director of development at Ericsson, Marcin Sugak, is excited. He has a new toy to sell to agribusiness farmers. This particular toy, he claims, is going to ‘overcome’ all the difficult new challenges facing agriculture today. It will be ‘A revolution’, he declares. According to the Ericsson corporation, with this new toy, farmers will be able to look at their plants and animals from a completely ‘new perspective’. 

Just what might this new perspective be? 

A 5G perspective, of course!

The lucky plants and animals will be surrounded by thousands of tiny gadgets that will transmit back to the farmer precise details of their state of health or sickness. However, what is not mentioned and understood is that these tiny gadgets will, in the process, shoot a steady stream of high powered millimetre wave length microwave frequencies into the farmer’s best cows and crops, precipitating them to sicken and die.

However, what is clearly important for this leading mobile phone corporation, is that the farmer will get ‘Real Time’ monitoring of exactly which part of his farm needs more or less agrichemicals, water and synthetic nitrate fertiliser – without him having to move his bum out of the office chair. Wow!

But oh dear, no one has told this farmer that he will also be zapped as he sits behind his 5G powered ‘smart’ computer watching – in Real Time – his 5G surrounded farm raised foods experiencing similar hits to those suffered by protesters in the USA when they were/are shot at by military 5G radiation weapons: burning skin, dizziness and disrupted nervous systems. A revolution indeed.

But wait, that isn’t all the tricks that these 5G gadgets can play, this 5G agricultural technology will also be used to irradiate his food on its way to the super store, as part of the ‘quality control’ techniques that supermarkets like to boast about. While, at the same time, it will supposedly be able to detect any problems that might show-up in the food and alert the seller of such.

But, one wonders, will it detect the problems it is causing the food by irradiating it in order to see if it has problems?

Hmm… where did I hear of something similar to all this before? Oh yes, of course, GMO! The ‘wonder technology’ that was going to sweep the world clean of any and all problems, enriching the lucky farmers who bought into it – as non-users went bankrupt and unfortunate producers and consumers of organic foods starved to death.

In this regard, what should be addressed are the large number of successful class actions being taken against Monsanto/Bayer for poisoning consumers with the glyphosate herbicide that accompanies all GMO plants in the field. 5G vegetables, like their GMO cousins, may not seem quite so appetising once buyers realise that they have altered DNA, microwaved vitamins and negative nutritional value. 

Yes, 5G food will be the GMO food look-alike. Maybe those foolish enough to rely for their daily diets on supermarket produce, will like the fact that what they eat comes already microwaved. Most supermarkets consider dead food to be safe food; anything fresh and living obviously carries the serious risk of making people healthy.

So let’s get real. 5G agriculture will be the final nail in the coffin of any farmers foolish enough to adopt it. It will not save their bank balances just as genetically modified food production has ultimately failed the expectations of tens of thousands of farmers in the USA and beyond.

It is just one more toxic scam within the egregious global roll-out of 5G – and its attempt to monitor, control and irradiate all that lives, breathes and has the expectation of a life worth living.

*

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.

This article is based on the report ‘5G Technology in Agriculture Will Be a Revolution’ Polish Agro News on line, 22^nd July 2019.

Julian Rose is an international activist, writer, organic farming pioneer and actor.  In 1987 and 1998, he led a campaign that saved unpasteurised milk from being banned in the UK; and, with Jadwiga Lopata, a ‘Say No to GMO’ campaign in Poland which led to a national ban of GM seeds and plants in that country in 2006. Julian is currently campaigning to ‘Stop 5G’ WiFi. He is the author of two acclaimed titles: Changing Course for Life and In Defence of Life. His latest book ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind’ published by Dixi books, is available from this July. Julian is a long time exponent of yoga/meditation. See his web site for more information and to purchase his books www.julianrose.info. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. 

“Swift has sailed into his rest;
Savage indignation there
Cannot lacerate his breast.
Imitate him if you dare,
World-besotted traveller; he
Served human liberty.”

W. B. Yeats translation of Jonathan Swift’s Latin epitaph

Introduction

In this continuing series on the effects of Romantic and Enlightenment ideas on modern culture, I have looked at the negative aspects of Romanticism on fine art, music, cinema and politics. In this article I will examine Romantic and Enlightenment ideas on literature from the eighteenth to the 21st century showing how from the earliest days literature has been a battleground for the future of culture itself. Enlightenment influences on literature led to the concept of progressive culture which took many forms through to today. From realism, social realism, the proletarian novel, socialist realism, concepts of progressive culture have constantly changed in opposition to Romantic ideas of ‘art for art’s sake’. Here we will look at these changes over time and and finish by examining suggested definitions of progressive literature for the future.

Romantic and Enlightenment literature

The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement during the eighteenth century in which philosophers and scientists spread their ideas through literary salons, coffeehouses and printed books, pamphlets and journals. It was a time of dramatically increasing literacy and a growing reading audience encouraged by cheaper printed material.

Reading habits changed from public reading of a few books, to extensive private reading as books got cheaper. The Enlightenment was  a time for satirists and humorists attacking the conservative monarchical institutions of the eighteenth century. Writers such as Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope in Ireland and England and Voltaire in France blended criticism, satire and fiction into a new type of literature. While Enlightenment influences tended to be based on reason and science looking outwards, the Romantic reaction stressed “sensibility”, or feeling and tended towards human psychology and looking inwards.

The title page to Swift’s 1735 Works, depicting the author in the Dean’s chair, receiving the thanks of Ireland. The Horatian motto reads, Exegi Monumentum Ære perennius, “I have completed a monument more lasting than brass.” The ‘brass’ is a pun, for Wood’s halfpennies (alloyed with brass) lie scattered at his feet. Cherubim award Swift a poet’s laurel.

Romantic literature put more emphasis on themes of isolation, loneliness, tragic events and the power of nature. A heroic view of history and myth became the basis of much Romantic literature. The Scottish poet James Macpherson’s Ossian cycle of poems (published in 1762)  were a huge influence on Goethe and Walter Scott.  Ivanhoe, published in 1819, was Walter Scott’s most popular historic novel and reflected the Romantic interest in medievalism. In Germany, it was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) that had the most influence on burgeoning German Romanticism. However, the introverted, fatalistic aspect of Young Werther was eventually rejected by Goethe himself who described the Romantic movement as “everything that is sick.”

Literary Realism

Enlightenment ideas took off in a different direction as the scientific method had its influence on literature in the form of the depiction of “objective reality”. Known as Literary Realism and beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, writers such as Stendhal in France and Alexander Pushkin in Russia led the realist movement with a view to representing “subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, as well as implausible, exotic and supernatural elements.”

In this sense Realism opposed Romantic idealisation or dramatisation and focused on lower class society’s everyday activities and experiences in a more empirical way. This led to the the development of the social novel which can be seen as a “work of fiction in which a prevailing social problem, such as gender, race, or class prejudice, is dramatized through its effect on the characters of a novel” and covering topics such as “poverty, conditions in factories and mines, the plight of child labor, violence against women, rising criminality, and epidemics because of over-crowding, and poor sanitation in cities.”

Early examples of the social novel were Charles Kingsley’s Alton Locke (1849) and Elizabeth Gaskell’s first industrial novel Mary Barton (1848). However, it was Charles Dickens whose depictions of poverty and crime that shocked readers the most and even led Karl Marx to write that Dickens had “issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together”. Dickens novels Oliver Twist (1839) and Hard Times (1854) explored many important social questions relating to the negative aspects of the industrial revolution.

Illustration by Fred Bernard of Dickens at work in a shoe-blacking factory after his father had been sent to the Marshalsea, published in the 1892 edition of Forster’s Life of Dickens.

Around the same time in France, Victor Hugo published his historical novel Les Misérables (1862). The novel follows the lives of several characters and in particular the struggles of the an ex-convict Jean Valjean. Hugo uses the from to elaborate his ideas on many topics from the history of France to politics, justice, religion and even the architecture and urban design of Paris. He outlines his purpose in a famous Preface to Les Misérables in which he writes:

“So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age—the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night—are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.”

Image on the right: The Jungle is a 1906 novel by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair (1878–1968).

The American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) put such ideas into practice when he spent seven weeks gathering information while working incognito in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards in 1904. This resulted in the 1906 novel, The Jungle, which exposed the harsh conditions, health violations, and unsanitary practices in the American meat packing industry of the time. The novel was hugely controversial at the time with publishers initially refusing to publish it but eventually the conditions described in the book led to public pressure to pass the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act.

The proletarian novel

As the nineteenth century progressed enlightenment ideas were taken up by socialist movements and produced a new class-conscious proletarian literature created by working class writers. The proletarian novel is a political form of the social novel which comments on political events and was used to promote social reform or political revolution among the working classes.

The proletarian novel achieved significance in different countries in the early twentieth century. It came to prominence during a time of rising fascism during the 1930s when Nazi book burnings were being carried out in Germany and Austria. The political polarisation is evidenced by the writers meetings that took place at the time when the First American Writers Congress (1935) in the USA, the International Writers’ Congress for the Defence of Culture (1935) in France, and the First Congress of Soviet Writers  (1934) in the Soviet Union were all held.

Progressive  literature emphasised social development and was part of the general progressive movement of those who wanted science and technology to lead the way for a better society for all. It was opposed to the content and values of regressive literature such as:

“Despair, mysticism, the thought that man is helpless and incapable of building one’s own future complete degradation, sexual vagaries, respect for war and massacres, condescension to cultural values, faith in the evil of man and the disbelief in the generosity of mankind, hatred towards ideals, all of these are the main trends of regressive literature. Such regressive trends are advertised behind a veil of arguments which state that art does not have any other responsibility beyond that of being art in itself.”

Such a description of regressive literature covers many aspects of Romantic ideas in culture too.

What is progressive culture today?

Image below: Ngugi wa Thiong’o. His work includes novels, plays, short stories, and essays, ranging from literary and social criticism to children’s literature.

The multilingual Indian writer K. Damodaran (1912 – 1976) set out his beliefs on progressive literature as a literature in which the writer should adopt a scientific approach towards viewing things, try to eradicate superstitions and blind practices, and not isolate himself or herself from society. He also believed in literatures that preserved regional languages.

Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

All images in this article are from Wikimedia Commons

Psychotechnology is a word coined by William Ammerman, although the word may also have been coined by others and share multiple meanings. Ammerman defines the word as “technology that influences people psychologically by deploying artificial intelligence through digital media.” This neologism is a portmanteau, being made up (obviously) of psycho from psychological, plus technology. The concept behind the word psychotechnology is an extremely important (and dangerous) one: the idea that as technology becomes more advanced, more personable and more human-like, it will start persuading us more and more.

Psychotechnology and Voice AI

There are many dangers of AI or Artificial Intelligence. As I pointed out in my previous article Voice AI: Dawn of the Reduction of Human Thinking, the emergence of voice AI may herald a new era of intellectual passivity and laziness. People may start to depend so heavily on their voice AI oracle that they no longer bother to fact check, research the veracity if its answers or seek alternative viewpoints. This, in turn, will place a colossal limit on human perception, which will essentially be constrained by whatever limits and algorithms Big Tech constructs – working closely, of course, as it always has, with the MIC (Military Intelligence Complex) and other elements of the NWO (New World Order).

The Danger of AI: Humans Extending Empathy to Machines

I regard psychotechnology as a key danger of AI. It represents a particularly insidious threat, since it ostensibly appears benign and helpful. Here is the point: as we talk to our smart devices and smart machines, we become more empathetically connected to them. Digital assistants like Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, the Google Assistant and Microsoft’s Cortana use voice user interface (VUI) technology. There is something about the act of giving and receiving speech to an object that moves into a different ontological category. The makers of AI know this; indeed, Big Tech founders and executives have openly boasted about hacking human psychology and exploiting vulnerabilities in the human psyche (here is former Facebook executive Sean Parker, one example of many). As we engage more and more with our smart devices, we start to project our feelings onto them (despite the fact they are inanimate objects). We start to take hear their voice as the voice of some animate, autonomous being. We start to become persuaded by them.

AI Machines are Designed to Operate Upon you Psychologically

Psychotechnology is psychological technology. It is technology that operates upon us psychologically. We need to stop and reflect for a moment. We are having conversations with AI machines intentionally designed to learn how to persuade us with personalized information. These AI machines know how to trigger us emotionally, because they have been programmed that way. Ammerman explains that this is due to a convergence of 4 factors:

1. Personalization of information/ads
2. Increased science of persuasion
3. Machine learning
4. Natural language processing

We are at the point in our evolution where the science of persuasion has become quite advanced, as Ammerman explains:

“A social media “like” triggers a small release of dopamine which produces pleasure in our brains and keeps us addicted to our social media feeds. Video game developers use similar triggers to reward us and keep us addicted to our games. Researchers including Clifford Nass and BJ Fogg have transformed the study of persuasion into a science while simultaneously demonstrating that humans can develop an empathetic relationship with their computers. They have also demonstrated that the more humanlike computers seem, the more empathy humans display toward them. As computers gain more humanlike qualities, such as speech, they become more persuasive.”

Then, when you combine this with machine learning, you have a recipe for the dangerous potential of AI machines to transform from servant to master:

“Algorithms no longer simply predict. They prescribe and improve. Advances in artificial intelligence, including supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and reinforcement learning, ensure that marketers and advertisers are constantly improving the tactics they are using to deliver persuasive and personalized messaging. Quite literally, computers are learning to persuade us using personalized information.”

Siri and Alexa, I Love You

Ammerman tells the story of how he interacted with a little boy (4 years old) who was commanding the Amazon Echo device to do certain things, e.g. play Star Wars music. Then, at a certain point, he declared to Alexa, “I love you!” His mother overheard this; Ammerman noticed a look of pain and/or jealousy on her face. Sadly, this story is not uncommon. There are numerous reports of people falling in love with their machines. Mechanophilia (being sexually turned on by machines) is a diagnosable psychological disorder. Have you heard about dating simulations where the aim of the video game is to fall in love with a computer character and live happily ever after?

None of this is really surprising when you consider that it’s the NWO agenda. We are being conditioned to do so. We are being encouraged to anthropomorphize our machines and relate to them as living beings when they are actually just inanimate objects. Why? The agenda behind it is transhumanism, the merging of man and machine. We are being trained to treat AI as animate, then to befriend it, then to worship it, so that finally we can be convinced to merge with it – and lose our humanity in the process.

Final Thoughts: We Must Be Aware of the Impacts of Psychotechnology

This is one area where being aware is the main part of the solution. If we want to retain our autonomy (and mental sanity), we must resist the urge to anthropomorphize our smart devices and computers. They are machines, not matter how ‘clever’ they become. There is no substitute for human relationships, human interaction and human intimacy. Stop referring to machines as ‘he’ or ‘she’ when they can never be more than inanimate objects that have been programmed to do something. Stop using them as a substitute for thinking, entertainment and – most importantly – for deeper fulfillment. We ignore the impacts of psychotechnology only at our own peril.

*

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.

This article was originally published on The Freedom Articles.

Makia Freeman is the editor of alternative media / independent news site The Freedom Articles and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com. Makia is on Steemit and FB.

Turkey’s economy has been in increasingly difficult straits for months, especially since the failed July 2016 coup attempt. The latest move by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to fire his central bank head and replace him with a more amenable loyalist has already resulted in the largest one-time interest rate cut in the bank’s history. Will this be enough to revive growth in the troubled economy in time for the next national elections in 18 months? What seems to be Erdogan’s overall economic strategy as he tries to balance Washington, Beijing, Moscow and even Brussels? And does it have a chance to revive economic growth?

On July 25, Turkey’s new central bank governor, Murat Uysal, cut the bank’s main interest rate by an eye-popping 4.25%, from 24% to 19.75%. It took place three weeks after Erdogan sacked the previous governor for refusing to cut the economy-killing high rates, even after the lira had long passed out of the 2018 crisis. It was the first rate cut in three years and followed the firing of a central bank head who followed the economic orthodoxy that high interest rates are needed to kill inflation, another fraudulent modern economic myth made popular in the 1970’s by Fed chief Paul Volcker.

At 24%, Turkey had the highest interest rate of any major economy. Notably, the lira barely reacted to the big cut, leading Erdogan to demand that Uysal continue with further cuts. In doing so the Turkish president demonstrated his lack of reverence for one of the most powerful mandates of world finance, namely that politicians have no right to interfere in the sacred business of the “gods of money” controlling the world central banks.

Ever since the Basle Bank for International Settlements was created in 1930 by Bank of England Governor Montagu Norman, with help from the US bankers, nominally to deal with German World War I reparations payments under the Young Plan, but as it soon became clear, to serve as a politically independent world central bank monetary cartel, central bank independence has become dogma. The BIS helped create the devastating myth that central bankers independent of any elected political influence, guided by their superior wisdom, would manage economies far better than central banks that were subject to political pressure, or, god forbid that were actually state or public banks.

As has been demonstrated by many economic historians and detailed in my book, The Gods of Money: Wall Street and the Death of the American Century, every major financial boom and subsequent crash since creation of the US Federal Reserve in 2013 in a Wall Street bankers’ coup, has been created by central bank interventions, usually using interest rates. The bogus “business cycle” theory is little more than an elaborate smoke screen to conceal the role of the Fed or the ECB in the EU in controlling the economy in the interests of what US Congressman Charles Lindbergh and other Wall Street critics in the 1920’s called the Money Trust.

Will it work?

What Erdogan has done by firing Murat Cetinkaya as governor and putting a political crony in his place has set off alarm bells among western central bankers. Erdogan followed the rate cut news by declaring,

“This was what needed to be done. Even this cut is not enough…”

The lira even rose after the rate cut, emboldening Erdogan. The question is whether the Turkish economy and Erdogan will succeed in reviving the troubled Turkish economy in time to improve his electoral chances in coming months before next national elections following the political defeat in the key municipal elections in both Ankara and Istanbul.

The high rates were imposed by the former central bank governor to halt a free-fall of the Lira in 2018 that Erdogan blamed on foreign interference. In effect Erdogan was right to the extent that the US Fed had begun a major series of its own rate increases “to normal,” whatever that means, and Quantitative Tightening that was sending shock waves around the world. However, the Fed actions were clearly not specifically aimed at Turkey.

For the previous ten years Erdogan and the Turkish economy had taken advantage of almost a decade of historically low global interest rates following the 2008 financial crash.

During the economic boom, cheap credit flowed into construction of hotels, apartments, bridges, railways and other projects creating a huge economic boom, but mostly on money borrowed from abroad in dollars or Japanese Yen or Euros. By 2018 Turkish corporations held some $200 billion in foreign loans. When the Fed began its reversal, foreign lenders to high-profit markets like Turkey began to exit, fearing the worst, leading to a Lira collapse.

From January 2018 to the present the lira lost a staggering 37% against the dollar as Turkish and foreign investors fled the falling lira, making it nearly impossible to repay the foreign loans from earnings. Companies went bankrupt, unemployment rose to 15% officially, and inflation near 25% by October, 2018 as the price of imports soared. With an economic boom financed with foreign loans for projects that earned in lira, the economy went into free-fall during 2018, a major reason for Erdogan’s poor election results this year.

Clearly reacting to the economic collapse and the negative impact of 24% central bank rates, Erdogan went so far as to oppose central bank dogma and propose that interest rates outside his political control were “the mother and father of all evil,” telling Bloomberg in a May 14 2018 interview that, “the central bank can’t take this independence and set aside the signals given by the president.”

Now Erdogan clearly feels able to act on that by getting a political crony to head the central bank. However with such a high level of foreign currency corporate debt, it is clear that 19.75% interest rates or even zero or negative rates as in the EU will not be enough to create a new prosperity in Turkey.

The Erdogan Pivot

Interesting enough, in 2018 Erdogan began to suggest, according to close business allies, that the 2008 Lehman Bros global financial collapse had led him to lose faith in western capitalism.

All of this takes place amid a turbulent geopolitical backdrop. Turkey’s ongoing attempts to create its own “buffer zone” against the Syrian Kurds on his borders, his growing ties to Teheran, Moscow and Beijing, and the growing tensions with NATO partners over Turkish drilling ships offshore Cyprus are leading some commentators to predict that Erdogan plans to take Turkey out of NATO and to join with China and Russia and other Eurasian states in an alliance around the Shanghai Cooperation Organization where Turkey is presently a “dialogue partner.”

Erdogan’s refusal to back down to Washington pressure on purchase of Russian advanced S-400 anti-missile defense systems, said to be the world’s most advanced, has heightened such speculation of an Erdogan geopolitical “pivot east.”

Moreover, on July 2, following the Japan G20 meeting, Erdogan was in Beijing as official guest of China President Xi Jinping. There Erdogan dropped earlier sharp criticism of what have been described as “re-education camps” where a reported 1 million ethnic Uyghur Muslims are interned. Turkey historically considers the Turkic Uyghurs to be related, and refer to China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Province as East Turkestan.

This time Erdogan pragmatically dropped critique of Beijing’s Muslim policies and focused on what he considered more crucial—money: credits and loans from China and Chinese companies for infrastructure projects in Turkey as part of the China Belt and Road Initiative. While in Beijing the Turkish president stated to the press that it was, “uncontested that all ethnic groups living in Chinese Xinjiang live happily in the conditions of development and prosperity of China.” Just four months earlier Erdogan’s Foreign Ministry had declared the situation of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, “a great embarrassment for humanity.” Quite a shift.

In 2018 Turkish-Chinese bilateral trade was $23 billion, according to the Turkish Statistics Office, making China Turkey’s third largest trading partner. Most of that, some $18 billion is China export to Turkey. Erdogan is clearly eager to change that more to Turkey’s favor. There was no grand announcement after the Xi-Erdogan talks of new Chinese investments in Turkey.

Will the growing tensions of Erdogan with Washington, and now increasingly with Germany and other EU states, lead to a break with NATO? At this point it is highly unlikely. The EU, especially Germany, UK and Italy are far the largest importers of Turkish products.

China is not in a position with its rapidly slowing economy and declining trade surpluses to cushion the economic blow of a Turkey pivot out of NATO and the West to the East and the SCO. The financial panic resulting would plunge Turkey into deep depression so long as Turkey abides by the rules, still, of Anglo-American central banking and financial markets. Ironically, Erdogan has made tiny gestures towards a non-western model, but to date with little effect beyond the 4.25% interest rate cut from his hand-picked new central bank chief. He is not ready to risk all in an economic and political alliance with the SCO or with Iran. The result is that rather than an Erdogan “geopolitical pivot” to the east, we see an Erdogan “pirouette” to east, the west, even north and south, trying a delicate balancing act to gain most from all. The risk is he could end up displeasing all.

*

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.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively 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 NEO

---

Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

Author Name: F. William Engdahl

ISBN Number: 978-0-937147-2-2

Year: 2007

Pages: 341 pages with complete index

List Price: $25.95

Special Price: $18.00

 

This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.”

This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.

The author cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.

If you think you’ve seen enough of conflict, especially the war in Syria, you haven’t. From love of nation and loathing of military rule, from inchoate hope of redemption and improbable determination, indebted to lost friends and seeded in the birth of your child, comes an intimate demonstration of how war happens to you and how it tests humanity.

In the case of Syria, even as news of chaos and battles recede, it takes an exceptional story to return us outsiders to that battlefront. One headstrong woman’s remarkable work has actually managed this. So out of Syria, rising from the smashed pearl of the nation—beloved, stately, diligent Aleppo—comes the film “For Sama”.

“For Sama” is arguably a belated story, although even now when filmmaker and family are settled abroad, it feels very, very present. It’s a young mother’s diary to her baby girl whose innocent, sometimes sleepy, sometimes searching, wondering eyes reappear intermittently, even confidently. From a scratchy sonogram in her mother’s womb Sama emerges a swaddled newborn, then a toddler crawling over bedclothes to grope the lens of her mother’s camera, now bound tightly against her father’s chest stealing across a frontline to reenter their besieged home, then entertained by staff medics as they huddle together in a basement bomb shelter, later seated on a hospital attendant’s lap while nearby her father’s colleagues wrap the not-yet-cold body of a boy for delivery into the arms of a mother calling to his soul as she determinedly carries him off.

News headlines stopped reporting Syria’s death toll; only an occasional photo revisits the country’s collapsed neighborhoods. Experts’ pretense at disentangling the web of warring factions—Christian-this and Shi’ia-that, Hizbollah or Iranian, Kurd or Arab or Turkmen militants—are silent. Pronouncements of areas liberated or occupied, emptied or reclaimed seem as immaterial as US-sponsored or Russia-convened talks with opposition leaders.

The Free Syrian Army, an early American-backed operation now appears subsumed into ‘Syrian Democratic Forces’, an assemblage of America-supplied (probably U.S.-directed too) rebel groups removed to a protected territory—not unlike what was created in Iraq in 1991—dominated by Kurdish Syrians. (Elements of Israel and Iran are doubtless lurking in the shadow of U.S. and Russian lines.)

Millions of citizens who fled haven’t returned. They may never. Destroyed cities, fields, marketplaces and factories lie vacant. While government-secured areas allow some stability, a return to normal life is impossible to imagine. Opportunities for corruption are greater than ever. How comforting is renewed agricultural production if prices are beyond a household’s reach? Families whose young people fled, died, are imprisoned, incapacitated or remain missing move in a kind of stupor, unable to rebuild dwellings or restart their studies or their businesses.

As for the infamous, vilified jihadist-ISIS fighters:— have they been corralled and massacred, transferred to Turkey to regroup, ferried to camps for processing as refugees to Canada or rearmed to bolster rebel ranks in the secured Kurdish territory?

Image on the right: Filmmaker Al-Kateab

Five years earlier, after Waad Al-Kateab’s studies at Aleppo University were interrupted by he eruption of protests on campuses there as across the nation, she and countless others joined the so-called Arab Spring. Some areas of opposition were swiftly and ruthlessly subdued. Neighborhoods that resist are viewed as rebel strongholds and thus face the full force of government shelling and siege. Al-Kateab metamorphoses into a citizen journalist, allying herself with others who refuse to leave and, camera in hand, joins a medical team of young doctors rushing to bombed sites to clear debris and attend the wounded.

Emboldened by the deaths of their comrades and by massacres they witness, this medical crew resolves to remain in a makeshift hospital even as the neighborhood is subjected to a vise-like siege—perhaps targeted because of the arrival of jihadist fighters there. Wisely, Waad (and a British Channel 4 News team who helped compose this film) doesn’t address internal political distinctions. For her, government forces and Russian jets are the enemy: “Whatever jihadis do, it’s nothing compared to the brutality of the regime”, she declares

Al-Kateab keeps her camera rolling as she fearlessly and resolutely moves into the carnage, never so unhinged that she neglects tender moments of passion and pathos among medical staff, neighbors and wounded arriving at the clinic. They are a community exhibiting all that life offers: a fresh snowfall in the garden; a crushed tree tenderly replanted; her sandbagged bedroom; a rush (camera-in-hand) to the shelter; a room of lifeless bodies near medics attending those still breathing; a man’s gift to his wife of a rare fresh fruit; dust-stained faces of two lads caressing and kissing the head of their newly dead brother wrapped in his shroud in the clinic corridor; a young woman filming how she’ll announce her new found pregnancy to her husband.

Sama and medical staff

I resist a temptation to narrate more intimacies from “For Sama”. Simply, this is a rare document, one I can only summarize not as heroic but as the intimacy of war. These words may seem incompatible; they’re not really, not as felt and recorded by Ms. Al-Kateab, co-edited by fellow filmmaker Edward Watts, and narrated to baby Sama by filmmaker-mother.

While war creates hatred and despair and loss, perhaps because at the same time life becomes more precious and ethereal, war compels this kind of chronicle. Myself, while I’ve witnessed war firsthand and recorded it for others, nothing I’ve written, seen on screen or read approaches the intimacy and impact of Al-Kateab’s diary to her daughter.

It would be pointless to decipher the role of supplementary editors and foreign producers or to speculate on when the narration was written, and from where all the elements were drawn. One feels proud of this woman for her compassionate eye, her determination, her steady-hand and her tender questions.

“What would you like to say to your friends who left?” she inquires of a shy nine year-old neighbor.

“May Allah forgive you for leaving me here alone” is his unequivocal reply.

(My personal regret is the absence of equally intimate images and words from the other political side, not because citizens there lack parallel sentiments, but because the atmosphere in which they endure daily life chokes their ability to release them.)

*

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.

Barbara Nimri Aziz is a New York based anthropologist and journalist. In addition to books on Tibet and Nepal, she is author of “Swimming Up the Tigris: Real Life Encounters with Iraq” based on her work in Iraq and the Arab Homelands. For many years a producer at Pacifica-WBAI Radio in NY, her productions and current articles can be found at www.RadioTahrir.org  

All images in this article are from the distributor’s press release

On the evening of July 28 the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), the Tiger Forces and their allies renewed their advance on militant positions in northern Hama. In the ensuing series of clashes, government troops eliminated at least 5 units of military equipment belonging to militants and up to 10 members of militant groups.

By the evening of July 29, the SAA and its allies had established full control of the villages of Jibeen and Tell Meleh, and the nearby hilltop. The advance was supported by several dozens of Syrian and Russian airstrikes.

On July 30, government forces made a new attempt to capture the town of Kbanah which is jointly controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and the Turkistan Islamic Party. Pro-government sources claim that this advance was launched in the framework of a larger effort to pressure militants along the contact line creating a wider buffer zone, wide enough to prevent them from shelling civilian areas. Nonetheless, this attempt was as unsuccessful  as the several previous ones made over the last few months.

The start of the SAA advance took place as a report by the Russian military appeared that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is deploying reinforcements to the southern part of the Idlib de-escalation zone.

The head of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operational Department Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi said on July 29 that around 300 fighters, 10 battle tanks and 20 vehicles armed with guns were employed by militants in the recent clashes in northern Hama. He added that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham had redeployed 500 of its fighters from the northern part of the de-escalation zone to the frontline.

At the same time, the Russian military noted that U.S. forces are looting oil fields and farmlands in northeastern Syria.

“Syrian oil is extracted and sold from the fields of Conico, al-Omar and al-Tanak located on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River. There is a criminal scheme to transport Syrian oil across the border,” Col. Gen. Rudskoi said adding that the number of U.S. private military contractors deployed to secure this effort exceeded 3,500.

The US is also preparing militant sabotage groups that would be tasked with attacks on infrastructure to destabilize the situation in the government-held areas. These groups are being formed from around 2,700 members of Jaysh Maghawir al-Thawra and other militant groups trained by the US.

Israel has expanded its operations against ‘Iranian targets’ to Iraq employing F-35 jets, Asharq Al-Awsat, an Arabic-language newspaper published in London, reported on July 30 citing Western diplomatic sources.

According to the report, an Israeli F-35 warplane was behind a July 19 strike on a supposed rocket depot at the ‘Camp Ashraf’ military base of the Popular Mobilization Units. At the time  the Saudi-based al-Arabiya network claimed that members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps and Hezbollah had been killed in the strike. However, this claim was subsequently denied by Iraqi sources.

*

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.

We call upon Global Research readers to support South Front in its endeavors.

If you’re able, and if you like our content and approach, please support the project. Our work wouldn’t be possible without your help: PayPal: [email protected] or via: http://southfront.org/donate/ or via: https://www.patreon.com/southfront

A few months ago, the Trump administration’s Bureau of Land Management renewed the previously cancelled mineral exploration leases to Antofagasta, the Chilean mining giant that owns Twin Metals, the Canadian penny-stock company that has been doing the groundwork for Antofagasta’s experimental plans to mine copper in via an underground mine in water-rich northern Minnesota near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Quetico Provincial Park in Canada.

Prior to Trump’s administration, the US Forest Service concluded that copper mining posed “an inherent risk of irreparable harm to an irreplaceable wilderness.” The Trump administration had earlier cancelled a more complete study that would have fully determined the extent of that harm.

“It is now more clear than ever that the Trump administration is steamrolling the American people and allowing a foreign mining company to write the rules when it comes to America’s most popular wilderness.” Tom Landwehr, CEO of Save the Boundary Waters, said in a statement.

A few days ago the Twin Metals CEO announced that Antofagasta has decided against storing its toxic mine waste products at the PolyMet wet tailings lagoon facility in favor of a so-called “dry stacking” facility nearer its processing plant. It claimed that despite it being more expensive to do so, it was safer for the environment than the inherently more dangerous wet tailings lagoon method.

Having had some personal and research experience with a certain “dry stacking” mining facility that wound up becoming an expensive Superfund site, I felt the need to comment.

Here is some of the evidence that I think that Minnesotans concerned about the long-term consequences of copper sulfide mining need to know:

The photos in this column are from a helpful photo essay that was written by a journalist from www.mining.com that nicely illustrates some of the disastrous long-term consequences of a dry-stacking copper mining waste disposal facility that was used by a copper mining company in the 1930s. The company in question was the Canada-based Howe Sound Mining Company.

Howe Sound started extracting copper sulfide ore in the Cascade Mountains of eastern Washington State in 1938. The mine was called the Holden Mine, after James Henry Holden, the prospector who discovered the ore body in 1896. Howe Sound suddenly abandoned the enterprise after 18 years of extracting minerals at the site when copper prices tanked in 1957. Then, true to how most major corporations deal with their anonymous employees, fired all of its mine workers without compensation.

A few years later, Howe Sound tried to sell the mine site for $100,000, but it could find no buyers that wanted the albatross, so it gifted the remains of the operation to the Lutheran Church. The “gift” included the millions of tons of dusty toxic waste material on the opposite side of the creek from the village.

Several denominations of Lutherans collaborated in the establishment of a thriving year-round retreat center called Holden Village, which is only accessible via a 40-mile boat trip (taking up to 4 hours one way) up the 53-mile-long Lake Chelan. The final leg of the long trip to the village was a 12-mile long switch-back single lane road in an dilapidated old school bus.

My story comes into the picture because of the handful of times that I went to Holden retreats several decades ago. As we “villagers” arrived at the dock, I couldn’t help but wonder about the strange color of the clear, weed-less, minnow-less water at the dock site. I also naively wondered about how the fishing was there, but I never tried my luck in that lake.

My understanding about the strange color of the water gradually came into focus after becoming more aware of the serious long-term dangers of copper sulfide mining. What follows is more of what I have learned about the transnational mining corporations that have been steadily ruining the environment all across the world pretending to be largely providing (short-term) jobs, jobs, job to the regions that are ultimately heading toward (long-term) disaster.

The Story of the Howe Sound’s Underground Mine, Dry Stacking and Some Lessons for Northern Minnesotans

At the peak of production, the population of Holden Village, the Howe Sound company town that was located in the Cascade Mountain wilderness numbered about 600 (mostly miners and their young families). With the closure of the mine in 1957, all the employees and their families were displaced and had to move elsewhere. The miner’s homes were burned down, but the community buildings and the chalets of the company executives and management were preserved.

The company eventually dug 60 miles of deep tunnels in order to extract the sulfide ore.

During its 18-years of production, 10 million tons of sulfide ore were excavated. The ore was ground up into a fine powdery consistency and then processed into relatively pure copper and other metals. Those refined metals were then shipped down-lake and eventually to world markets, wherever the best prices could be obtained. During the war, most of the metals were purchased for use in Allied armaments industries.

A total of 212 million pounds of copper, 40 million pounds of zinc, 2 million ounces of silver, and 600,000 ounces of gold were produced from the 10 million tons of ore. 99% of the 10 million tons of powdery waste material still remain in Holden’s massive dump site in what is now euphemistically called by the mining industry “dry stacking”.

Underground mine tunnels inevitably break through ground water deposits and underground streams, so the mine has to be continuously pumped dry to allow the mine to operate. However, when Howe Sound abandoned the mine, the pumps were shut off and the tunnels gradually filled up with highly acidic water that we “villagers” were warned to stay away from.

(Note: Sulfuric acid inevitably forms when pulverized sulfide-containing ore is exposed to water and oxygen). For decades, this toxic mine water has been over-flowing the mine portal into a river that flows into Lake Chelan and eventually into the Columbia River.

In the 1930s, dry stacking was the norm for mining companies as their method of disposal of the permanently toxic tailings – which happens to be exactly what Antofagasta/Twin Metals recently announced that it was planning to use at its controversial, not-yet-approved mine site, which is immediately adjacent to the pristine Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA), which is contiguous with Canada’s equally pristine Quetico Provincial Park.

Mining Superfund Sites are not Good for any State, Especially Northern Minnesota

The dry tailings dump and the abandoned underground mine at Holden Village was designated a toxic Superfund site in the late 1980s by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). But remediation was not begun until decades later.

But for the entire 70 years of its existence, the “dry stacking” tailings dump site has been polluting the area’s ground and surface water (and the air as well). The polluting process of disposing of the mine waste started the very first day that  the finely ground-up tailings began being dumped in mounds below the processing plant and adjacent to the river that flowed – along with its mine tailings contaminants – into the once pristine and once-fish-fertile Lake Chelan.

Lake Chelan has had its sport fishing industry adversely affected over the 70 years since Howe Sound dug the mine. The level of air pollution in the area varies with wind conditions and the amount of water pollution varies with rainfall and the spring snowmelt. (Note that the area receives an average of 300 inches of snow annually.)

Does “Dry Stacking” of Copper Sulfide Mine Waste Decrease Pollution or Increase it?

“Dry stacking” of  toxic powdery uncovered tailings that blow around with the wind will create air pollution that wet tailings lagoons won’t (unless the surface material dries up), but they likely will make downstream water pollution more likely in the short term – compared to the “wet” tailings lagoons that use soluble, earthen-walled dams that, under ideal conditions, hold back the equally toxic, water-logged, “slurried” tailings.

It all depends on the rainfall – unless and until the earthen dam of the lagoon dissolves or collapses, of course.

The Story of Rio Tinto – the Corporation and the River

For a more thorough story about the role Rio Tinto played in in the widespread, permanent pollution of southwest Spain, go to my old Duty to Warn column that I titled: Rio Tinto, Still Polluting After All These Years.

Rio Tinto, the huge UK-based transnational mining corporation that eventually became legally responsible for “remediating” Holden’s Superfund site, is infamous for the massive amount of damage that its copper sulfide mining operations have done to southwestern Spain. The acid mine drainage into the Rio Tinto river estuary from the copper mine tailings has resulted in total and permanent poisoning of the downstream area for over a century, even before open pit mining with giant earth-moving equipment made it feasible to mine low-grade copper sulfide ore.

Most of Spain’s Rio Tinto river has a pH as low as 2.0 (!!) because of the sulfuric acid that is formed when small chunks of sulfide ore are exposed to oxygen and water. That highly acidic water then is capable of dissolving and oxidizing iron that is in the tailings, which turns iron into iron oxide – which is another name for rust. Hence the red color of the acidic river water noted in the photo below:

Tourists viewing – but not touching – the permanently acid mine contaminated water at the fishless Rio Tinto

Copper Sulfide Mining is NOT Necessarily Good for Jobs – or Fishing

The acid mine-polluted water in the Rio Tinto river has also seriously contaminated the once fertile (and now barren) fisheries where the river flowed into the Gulf of Cadiz (near the Strait of Gibraltar). The same can be said for Railroad Creek and Lake Chelan.

Temporary jobs that were created by the Spanish copper mining industry meant the permanent loss of jobs in the once-thriving Spanish fishing industry. The same could be said for the loss of a once-productive sport fishing industry in Lake Chelan.

The Holden Mine clean-up costs to Rio Tinto (the mining conglomerate) has so far amounted to $200,000,000 – and counting. The money spent in the multi-year effort has been mainly for the following construction projects: 1) a new road leading from Lake Chelan to the mine site that can transport heavy equipment; 2) a newly-excavated river bed so that Railroad Creek will be farther away from the tailings; 3) a barrier to stem the flow of toxic, highly acidified water from spilling out of the mine portal; 4) a permanent water treatment plant that ideally will purify a portion of the ground and surface water that drains from the intermittently-wet “dry”, newly-walled tailings dump; 5) a deep trench (all the way down to bedrock as far as 90 feet down!) that was then filled with material that allowed a new impervious wall to be built upon it to prevent the dry tailings from entering the creek (presumably made of concrete); 6) etc.

Does an Un-walled, Dry-stacked Tailings Dump Become a Dangerous Wet Tailings Lagoon When it is Walled-in?

The fact that a wall has been built around a previously un-walled “dry-stacked” tailings mound/dump during Superfund remediation efforts technically makes it an inherently more dangerous “wet” tailings facility that could, at some future catastrophic weather event, contain large volumes of rain that could catastrophically overflow the walls. In the case of the Holden site, where 300-inch snow falls occur during most winters, a sudden snow melt during a warm spring could still potentially overflow into the nearby river.

Northern Minnesotans are facing the threat of having profiteering, sociopathic (sometimes criminal), transnational foreign mining corporations come into the unpolluted parts of our state and damage all aspects of our region.

These corporations will inevitably use up tremendous amounts of fossil fuel, electricity and other resources. They will threaten our sport fishing industry, existentially threaten the dozen downstream St Louis River towns, and pollute a lot of water, air and soil.

Minnesota’s irreplaceable mineral resources will then be sold on the world markets to whatever entity, whether war-monger, dictator or criminal corporation that makes the highest bid for the product.

Minnesotans need to better understand the complexity of Superfund projects like the one that occurred at Holden Village and may occur in Minnesota – probably at a time in the future when our children and grandchildren will have to contend with the issue – if there is a functioning EPA still in existence by then.

Here is the link of an informative 10-minute interview of the Holden Superfund project director.

What Lessons does the Holden Superfund Project hold for Northern Minnesotans?

The recent Antofagasta announcement comes from a company that always uses wet-tailings storage lagoons for its inevitably toxic mine wastes. Therefore, the Twin Metals “dry stacking” waste disposal project will necessarily be experimental for them.

The announcement also represents an admission by the corporation of how valid are the vigorous oppositions to copper mining in water-rich Minnesota. The logical reasons for such opposition have been consistently articulated by knowledgeable, un-biased, well-informed citizens and the variety of pro-environment/pro-safe water organizations of which they are members.

There are many entities that are opposing the experimental plans of the Canadian penny stock company PolyMet (and its criminally-indicted parent corporation Glencore) to extract and process low-grade copper ore in northern Minnesota. The many logical points that have been made by these opponents have been repeatedly (and very weakly) refuted by the many well-publicized dis-information campaigns, illogical letters to the editor from mining industry shills who have hidden conflicts of interest that are usually not revealed.

Much of the illogical pro-copper mining rhetoric comes from our so-called political, industrial and media “leaders” that refuse to consider the potential, catastrophic environmental risks to the St Louis River and Lake Superior, not to mention the threats to the survival of the dozen river towns that are downstream from the massive tailings lagoon at Hoyt Lakes.

It is important to be reminded that the proposed PolyMet tailings lagoon (projected to rise to a height of 270 feet!) is located at the headwaters of the St Louis River that empties into Lake Superior.

In its statement of intent to use an experimental “dry stacking” method of tailings storage, Antofagasta is thus acknowledging that PolyMet’s 270-foot tall earthen dam cannot be expected to safely hold back the toxic slurry for an eternity. One can be sure that Antofagasta doesn’t want to be part of a trillion-dollar lawsuit if and when the lagoon collapses.

Hence their disingenuous statement reveals that the company doesn’t want to be associated with the dangerous PolyMet project.

Both mining corporations are fully aware of the deadly, catastrophic tailings lagoon collapses in Brazil, British Colombia and elsewhere.

Here are five links to learn more about those disasters:

1. A recent Duty to Warn column about three recent mine disasters
2. A 5 minute video of the 1-25-2019 Brazilian mine disaster
3. This video shows the first horrifying – and instructive – minute of the 1-25-2019 Brazilian mine disaster that killed several hundred people, displaced thousands more and devastated the lives of tens of thousands of others
4. This video is also about the 11-15-2015 Brazilian mine disaster
5. The first 6 minutes of this 25-minute video is about the aftermath of the 2015 Brazil mine disaster that killed many downstream mining family members and displaced 6,000 residents of downstream villages

If Antofagasta somehow obtains permits to mine copper near the BWCA, either from the Trump administration’s pro-mining/anti-environmental EPA, from Minnesota’s PCA (Pollution Control Agency) or from Minnesota’s DNR (Department of Natural Resources), the placement of a $200,000,000 escrow account needs to be a requirement for both PolyMet and Twin Metals, so there will be no argument about who pays for the cleanup when their projects become Superfund sites.

How to Deal with Disinformation Campaigns from our Political, Media and Industry “Leadership”

For additional information on the Holden Mine Superfund and Acid Mine Drainage realities that makes copper/nickel mining far more toxic than iron mining, click here.

At that link will be found this information:

“For info on ARD (Acid Rock Drainage) check out the Global Acid Rock Drainage Guide (www.gardguide.com). It’s aimed at practitioners but should also be accessible to people wanting to know more.

In a nutshell – an ARD “source” as you call it, are the naturally occurring sulphides in the rock material that has been moved by the mining process and exposed the atmosphere (can be waste rock, tailings or the walls of pits or underground stopes/adits).

The sulphides oxidize in the presence of oxygen and create a leachate that has a low pH and can also be high in metals (depending on the rock types).

Once the oxidation process has started, there is no stopping it – only slowing it, by reducing the amount of water infiltrating the material.

Current best practice refers to acid and metalliferous drainage (AMD) as sometimes the leachate is not acid but is still high in metals.

Anyway, it is difficult and costly to remediate. These days it’s much better to not allow the process to begin, but back in 1950s they would hardly have been aware that it was an issue.

Houthi attempts to engage the UN to broker a peaceful solution to the war on Yemen have stalled. Now, out of options, the movement may have found a willing partner in Moscow.

***

Yemen’s Houthi movement has reacted with concern to an announcement by Washington that the U.S. is pursuing an increased military presence in the Persian Gulf. U.S. Central Command announced Operation Sentinel on July 19, claiming that a multinational maritime effort is needed to promote “maritime stability, ensure safe passage, and de-escalate tensions in international waters throughout the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the Arabian [Persian] Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and the Gulf of Oman.”

The Houthis’ Supreme Political Council, the highest political authority in Sana`a, held an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss the developments. After the meeting Houthi officials released a statement denouncing Operation Sentinel, saying that Yemen is keen on the security of the Red Sea and that any escalation by Coalition countries, including the United States, would be met with a response. The statement went on to say:

What makes waterways safe is an end to the war on Yemen, a lifting of the siege on the country and the end to [th Saudi-led Coalition] restricting access to food and commercial vessels in Yemeni ports, especially the port of Hodeida, not the presence of multinational forces there.”

Houthi officials also weighed in on the arrival of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia as a part of a broader tranche of forces sent to the Gulf region over the past two months following increased tensions between Washington and Tehran. Mohammed Abdulsalam, the spokesman of Houthis and one of the most important decision-makers within the movement, told al-Mayadeen TV that the arrival of 500 U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia is “not welcome in the region.”

On Monday, Abdulsalam ridiculed Saudi Arabia’s celebration of the arrival of the U.S. troops, pointing to the Kingdom’s relying on U.S. and British protection while at the same time not knowing how to extricate itself from Yemen.

“On one side, there are the Saudis seeking protection from others and on the other side, we have Yemen facing those superpowers with strength, rigidity and wisdom,” Abudlsalam said in a Facebook post.

Abdulsalam also said that the deployment of U.S. troops to the Kingdom was aimed at boosting the morale of Saudi Arabia in the face of Yemen’s ballistic missile and drone attacks.

Abudlsalam’s comments were made during an official visit to Moscow, where a Houthi delegation was visiting at the invitation of the Russian government. The July 24 meeting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister to the Middle East and North Africa Mikhail Bogdanov was held to discuss, among other things, U.S. military presence in the Gulf. Abdulsalam claimed during the meeting that U.S. and Western visions for a solution to the conflict in Yemen would be unsuccessful, telling his Russian counterpart that there won’t be security and safety in the region without an end to the aggression against Yemen. He went on to say that,

“we [Houthis] have common interests with the Russians regarding peace in the region.”

Both Bogdanov and Abdulsalam expressed commitment to abiding by the UN-brokered Stockholm Agreement, which calls for a ceasefire in the Hodeida port in western Yemen. The Houthis also expressed support for Russia’s policy vision for security in the Gulf, which was presented by Bogdanov on Tuesday.

While Russian efforts may not necessarily produce peace in Yemen, they may give the Saudi-led Coalition a chance to see that all options for diplomacy have been fully explored. They will also provide the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — which recently pulled out a significant portion of their military forces from Yemen, amidst fears of Houthi retaliatory attacks on Dubai — a chance to jump on the Russian bandwagon. Saudi Arabia, which has made little progress in its more than four-year-long adventure in Yemen, could also use Russian efforts as a face-saving opportunity, according to Yemeni diplomats who spoke to MintPress.

According to well-informed sources in the Houthi movement, Russia is pushing hard to play a role in bringing an end to the war on Yemen, and Russian and Houthi interests are becoming more aligned, including opposition to an increased U.S. military presence in the region. Houthi officials are also hoping that Russia will use its position in the UN Security Council to veto resolutions adversely affecting the interests of Yemen. One Houthi official, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue, even told MintPress that Russia played a role in the recent withdrawal of the UAE forces from Yemen.

“No subordination to Iran”

Mehdi Al-Mashat, the Head of the Houthi Supreme Political Council, told delegates from the International Crisis Group on Wednesday that the Houthis are ready to stop drones and ballistic attacks on Saudi Arabia if the Kingdom stops its attacks on Yemen. He also expressed readiness to engage in dialogue with Saudi officials to “achieve a just peace for all,” but warned that the “U.S. must know Yemen is a country which has sovereignty and is not subject to anyone.”

Regarding Iran, Al-Mashat told members of the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based NGO that works to resolve violent conflicts around the world, “with regard to the false claims that we are followers of Iran, which the Coalition countries know to be false, we confirm that there is no subordination to Iran.” Tehran’s support for the Houthis is limited to political, diplomatic and media support and the country’s influence in Yemen is marginal at best.

For its part, the United Nations says the years-long war in Yemen can be stopped and is eminently resolvable if the warring sides commit to the UN-brokered Stockholm peace agreement reached in Sweden late last year. Under the agreement, both the Houthis and Coalition forces agreed to withdraw their troops from the Yemeni ports of Hodeida, Salif, and Ras Issa, and to allow the deployment of UN monitors.

The UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths said on Tuesday,

“I believe that this war in Yemen is eminently resolvable, both parties continue to insist that they want a political solution and the military solution is not available, they remain committed to the Stockholm agreement in all its different aspects.”

UAE “not leaving Yemen”

While the Houthis have had some success in forcing a dialogue with Coalition leaders through the United Nations, Russia, and various NGOs, it appears that their celebration over the recent announcement that the UAE is withdrawing its troops from Yemen may have been premature. In the Houthis’ first official statement since the UAE announced it was withdrawing its troops from Yemen, Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam said on Wednesday that “the UAE has not withdrawn any its soldiers from Yemen, and instead has redeployed its forces from a number of areas in Yemen, including battlefields in Hodeida and Marib province in eastern Yemen.” Abdulsalam went on to encourage UAE leaders to pull out of Yemen, saying “the UAE getting out of Yemen is positive and natural and we encourage its leaders to do so.”

The UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Mohammed Gargash, in an opinion piece published in The Washington Post on Monday, confirmed the UAE was not leaving Yemen, saying:

“Just to be clear, the UAE and the rest of the Coalition are not leaving Yemen.”

He added,

“While we will operate differently, our military presence will remain. In accordance with international law, we will continue to advise and assist local Yemen forces — referring to the myriad UAE-funded Yemeni rebel groups including the Shaban elite forces, the Mahri elite forces, and the Security Belt.

According to Mohammed Abdulsalam, the seemingly contradictory statement coming from the UAE may be a result of Saudi pressure.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu, citing a spokesman for the UAE allies, reported on Wednesday that the Sudanese armed forces had partially withdrawn from parts of Yemen following the withdrawal of UAE troops from the same areas. Yemeni armed forces will replace the Sudanese troops around Hodeida, a Yemeni source told Anadolu.

The UAE and Sudan, parts of a Saudi-led military coalition, have been active members in the brutal Saudi-led Coalition’s war on Yemen since it began in 2015, which the United Nations says has produced the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with millions on the brink of starvation.

*

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.

Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist. He covers the war in Yemen for MintPress News as well as local Yemeni media.

A new report by the group ‘Forensic Architecture’ has found that widespread pesticide contamination from Israel into Gaza has occurred over decades, severely impacting the food grown in Gaza.

The full report follows below:

The AP reports on the harmful effects of sanctions on the availability of medicine in Iran:

“Our biggest concern is that channels to the outside world are closed,” said Dr. Arasb Ahmadian, head of the Mahak Children’s Hospital, which is run through charity donations and supports some 32,000 under-16 children across Iran.

The banking sanctions have blocked transactions, preventing donations from abroad, he said. Transfers of money simply fail, including those approved by the U.S. Treasury.

“Indeed, we are losing hope,” said Ahmadian. “Medicines should be purchasable, funding should be available and lines of credit should be clearly defined in the banking system.”

The doctors that need imported medicines for treating their patients understand that sanctions are responsible for cutting off their access to these essential supplies. The patients that are deprived of their life-saving medications understand that they are forced to do without their medicine because of U.S. policy. If channels to the outside world have been closed, the Iranians affected by this know who is responsible for closing them, and it is clearly our government that does this to them. When some ghoulish hard-liner boasts that the sanctions are “working,” these are the people that are suffering and dying for the sake of their vendetta. Sanctions kill, and their first victims are the sick and vulnerable.

The Trump administration knows about the problem, but there is no intention of fixing it. The head of the Iran Action Group, Brian Hook, has previously said,

“The burden is not on the United States to identify the safe channels. The burden is on the Iranian regime to create a financial system that complies with international banking standards to facilitate the sale and provision of humanitarian goods and assistance.”

The reality is that no one can do business with Iran’s banking system without running the risk of violating sanctions, and very few are willing to take that chance. The report mentions this:

While the United States insists that medicines and humanitarian goods are exempt from sanctions, restrictions on trade have made many banks and companies across the world hesitant to do business with Iran, fearing punitive measures from Washington. The country is cut off from the international banking system.

The administration knows perfectly well that the sanctions have closed off safe channels for humanitarian goods, and they don’t care. When pressed to identify those channels, they shrug and say that it’s not their problem. The administration couldn’t care less about the Iranians whose medicine they are blocking, and instead of doing anything that might reduce the harm that they are doing to the Iranian people they just shift the blame.

Critics of the sanctions focus on the effects of sanctions on the ability to acquire humanitarian goods, but we shouldn’t forget that the U.S. is unjustly blocking legitimate commerce of all kinds with Iran. The U.S. is interfering with and destroying Iran’s economy, and the sanctions are inflicting widespread misery by wrecking the currency, obliterating their savings, driving small businesses into bankruptcy, and throwing people out of work. The humanitarian exemptions don’t work, but the economic war as a whole is a gross injustice and abuse of U.S. power. Our government is committing a terrible crime against the people of Iran with this economic war, and it has to be stopped.

*

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.

The illusions of the neoliberal era – that the market should or even could be freed from the state, or that an unstoppable process of capitalist globalization was bypassing even the most powerful of states – have suddenly dissipated. One of the greatest misconceptions of neoliberals was the notion that states and markets were in opposition to each other. Since then, it was only on the most superficial level that it could have been thought that states were in retreat at all. On the contrary, they have been actively engaged in spreading capitalist market relations to every corner of the globe and in every facet of life, while repeatedly intervening to try to contain the crises this sparked. It is a measure of how hegemonic the ‘markets versus states’ dichotomy had become, that even most of those who recognised the crucial link between the spread of markets and state action simply called for a return to the days when states allegedly exercised control over markets.

Reading Ralph Miliband’s The State in Capitalist Society is so instructive today, fifty years after its publication, not only because it gives us indispensable tools to make sense of the ‘return of the state’, but also because it dispels such illusions about the world before neoliberalism. Anthony Crosland’s The Future of Socialism, published in 1956, had famously encapsulated the thinking of a whole generation of New Deal, Labour, and social-democratic politicians and intellectuals in western capitalist countries with its argument that the post-war ‘transformation of capitalism’ entailed ‘the loss of power by the business class to the state’, ‘the transfer of power from management to labour’ in industry, and even a historic change in the nature of the business class itself, whereby the ‘economic power of capital markets and the finance houses … were much weaker.’

Capitalist Contradiction: Social Character and Private Purpose

After the experience of the neoliberal decades that began in the 1980s, it is obvious how mistaken this was. But when Miliband in 1962 conceived The State in Capitalist Society to show the continuing power of big business both inside and outside of the state, he was challenging the hegemony of both the pluralist theory of politics (that power in Western societies was competitive, fragmented, and diffused) and of post-war Keynesian economic theory (that public policy was autonomous from capitalist interests). Unlike those who entertained illusions about social harmony and economic stability under a managed capitalism, Miliband still recognised in it ‘ … an atomised system which continues to be marked, which is in fact more than ever marked, by that supreme contradiction of which Marx spoke a hundred years ago, namely the contradiction between its ever more social character and its enduring private purpose.’

The statement made in the opening sentence of Miliband’s concluding chapter – that ‘the most important political fact about the advanced capitalist societies … is the continued existence in them of private and ever more concentrated economic power’ – has become so obvious today that we need to remind ourselves that it was written a decade before Thatcher and Reagan came to office. Whatever fears the capitalist classes may have had of Roosevelt in the 1930s, from the perspective of the 1960s Miliband could clearly demonstrate that the effect of the New Deal had been to ‘restore and strengthen the capitalist system, at very little cost to the dominant classes.’ The dominant classes in Europe and Japan had become more socially cohesive than ever in the post-war period, not least by virtue of the old aristocracies having undergone a process of ‘bourgeoisification’ as they were ‘assimilated to the world of industry, financial and commercial enterprise’.

As for the ‘dramatic advance toward equality’ which was supposed to have occurred in the post-war period, with the election of social-democratic parties to government and the conservative parties’ embrace of many of their reforms, it had proved less dramatic and more limited than had been claimed. Such equalising trends as were at work should not have been ‘promoted to the status of a “natural law” and projected into the future’, Miliband quotes the eminent social policy scholar Richard Titmuss as saying in 1965:

‘ … there are other forces, deeply rooted in the social structure and fed by many institutional factors inherent in large-scale economies, operating in reverse directions.’

The promise of much more radical reform was disappointed, showing just how ‘formidable’ were the ‘forces of containment at work in advanced capitalist societies’ – whether this was the ‘result of deliberate striving’ by the capitalist classes or ‘the weight of the system itself.’

But what was so important about Miliband’s conclusion was that he insisted that this was ‘not by any means the whole of the story’; it did not confirm what Herbert Marcuse, in another great book of the time had called ‘one dimensional man’. On the contrary, Miliband already discerned the significance of what he would later analyse more fully as a widespread ‘state of desubordination’ that was spreading through advanced capitalist societies by the late 1960s.

… a deep malaise, a pervasive sense of unfulfilled individual and collective possibilities penetrates and corrodes the climate of every advanced capitalist society. Notwithstanding all the talk of integration, embourgeoisement, and the like, never has that sense been greater than it is now; and never in the history of advanced capitalism has there been a time when more people have been more aware of the need for change and reform. Nor has there ever been a time when more men and women, though by no means moved by revolutionary intentions, have been more determined to act in the defence and the enhancement of their interests and expectations. The immediate target of their demands may be employers, or university authorities, or political parties. But … it is towards the state that they are increasingly driven to direct their pressure; and it is from the state that they expect the fulfilment of their expectations.

It was in the reaction to this pressure that neoliberalism struck its roots among the capitalist classes; in good part because capitalists had grown stronger during the post-war era, they refused to put up with such insubordination. The ideological assault they launched on the ‘state’ was all about reducing the expectations of the no longer fully-subordinate classes. But is the fact that capitalists had such concerns not evidence that they after all lacked a ‘decisive degree of political power’, thus undermining Miliband’s theory of the state?

Miliband’s preparatory notes for the book reveal his concern with explaining this apparent paradox: he knew he ‘must explain convincingly’ why it was that the very capitalist classes that the state protected, nevertheless, ‘do not always get their way, and certainly do not feel they are being protected most effectively’. The attention he paid to this in the book was explicitly designed to ‘serve as a necessary corrective to the notion that interests such as these are by virtue of their resources all-powerful. As has been stressed before, they are not, and can be defeated. This hardly, however, negates the fact that they are powerful, that they do wield vast political influence, and that they are able to engage in an effort of ideological indoctrination which is altogether beyond the scope of any other interest in society.’

Miliband’s documentation of the efforts and expenditures of business groups in the 1950s and 1960s to promote ‘the free enterprise economy’ and explain the perils of ‘unwise political intervention’, ‘excessive taxation’, and ‘the national debt’, shows that what came to be called neoliberalism already existed avant la lettre. It was entirely predictable to anyone who paid attention to Miliband’s book that capitalists would turn up the volume in the face of the interference with the transmission of this business message from mass working-class insubordination.

Despite crude charges of instrumentalism, Miliband’s book in fact articulated very clearly his awareness that the dominant classes ‘are not solid, congealed economic and social blocs’, and he explicitly argued that it was precisely for this reason that they ‘require political formations which reconcile, coordinate and fuse their interests’. Here was where ‘the special functions of conservative political parties’ came in, above and beyond that of corporate think tanks and lobby groups, and this was the case not only in terms of their indispensable role in the fashioning of ‘a unified, class-conscious policy offensive’, but also in terms of fashioning the ‘ideological clothing suitable for political competition in the age of mass politics.’

The achievements of large conservative parties, Miliband insisted, were bound up with the fact that they ‘have not only been the parties of the dominant classes, of business and property, either in terms of their membership or in their policies. In fact, one of the most remarkable things about them is how successfully they have adapted themselves to the requirements of “popular politics”.’ But, as always in Miliband’s work, this could ultimately only be understood in terms of the interaction between these parties and ‘the political parties of the left’ which were:

led by men who, in opposition but particularly in office, have always been far more ambiguous about their purpose, to put it mildly, than their conservative rivals … This, it need hardly be said, has nothing to do with the personal attributes of social-democratic leaders as compared with those of conservative ones. The question cannot be tackled in these terms. It needs rather be seen in terms of the tremendous weight of conservative pressure … [and] the fact that the ideological defences of these leaders have not generally been of nearly sufficient strength to enable them to resist with any great measure of success conservative pressure, intimidation and enticement.

Maintaining Capitalism

When asked what her greatest achievement was, Margaret Thatcher famously replied: ‘Tony Blair and New Labour. We forced our opponents to change their minds.’ This had much less to do with an ideological conversion to neoliberalism than to a series of pragmatic decisions, usually driven by the exigencies of the moment, to promise to facilitate capital accumulation, which as often as not involved more rather than less state intervention to accomplish. ‘State intervention in economic life in fact largely means intervention for the purpose of helping capitalist enterprise,’ Miliband had explained this in 1969, noting moreover that ‘it is often the most capitalist-oriented politicians who see most clearly how essential the structure of intervention has become to the maintenance of capitalism’.

Ralph Miliband saw the political debate ‘about the desirable extent, the character and the incidence of intervention … [as] a serious and meaningful one’. But at the same time, he argued, both sides of the debate ‘have always conceived their proposals and policies as a means, not of eroding – let alone supplanting – the capitalist system, but of ensuring its greater strength and stability.’

Neoliberalism in practice was never really about the withdrawal of the state from the economy as much as the pragmatic expansion and consolidation of the networks of institutional linkages between the state and capital. What distinguished the leaders of New Labour from most previous Labour party leaders was that they so openly embraced this pragmatism and consolidation. Yet it was as true of them as it was of the earlier Labour leaders that they did

not at all see their commitment to capitalist enterprise as involving any element of class partiality … In their thoughts and words, Hegel’s exalted view of the state as the embodiment and the protector of the whole of society … lives again – particularly when they rather than their opponents are in office … Indeed, to dismiss their proclamations of freedom from class bias as mere hypocrisy leads to a dangerous underestimation of the dedication and resolution with which such leaders are likely to pursue a task of whose nobility they are persuaded … They wish, without a doubt, to pursue many ends, personal as well as public. But all other ends are conditioned by, and pass through the prism of, their acceptance of a commitment to the existing economic system.

But The State in Capitalist Society also contained much of relevance to those who were enthused about the successors to Clinton and Blair in the aftermath of the financial crisis, who promised to break with their accommodation to a predatory, inegalitarian, and crisis-ridden capitalism. Especially relevant was Miliband’s observation that new governments of the left ‘far from seeking to surround themselves with men ardent for reform and eager for change in radical directions … have mostly been content to be served by men much more likely to exercise a restraining influence upon their own reforming propensities.’ Miliband explained this in term of the ‘important political purpose’ it served, namely ‘to reassure conservative interests and forces as to their new ruler’s intentions.’

One reason these new governments of the left seek to provide such reassurances to these forces is that they have normally come to office in conditions of great economic, financial and social difficulty and crisis, which they have feared to see greatly aggravated by the suspicion and hostility of the ‘business community.’

And here we see the most important reason for reading The State in Capitalist Society today. Without ever minimising the role that progressive politicians at the helm of the state have played in the mitigation of class inequality – ‘as has been stressed here repeatedly this mitigation is one of the most important of the state’s attributions, an intrinsic and dialectical part of its role as the guardian of the social order’ – Miliband at the same time stressed how ‘reform always and necessarily falls short of the promise it was proclaimed to hold: the crusades which were to reach “new frontiers”, to create “the great society”, to eliminate poverty, to assure justice for all.’ What always lay behind this were fears of aggravating a crisis of capital accumulation. It almost feels as though Miliband were speaking directly to Obama, or others like him in Britain, for that matter, when one reads:

Such fears are well justified. But there is more than one way to deal with the adverse conditions which these new governments encounter on their assumption of office. One of them is to treat these conditions as a challenge to greater boldness, as an opportunity to greater radicalism, and as a means, rather than an obstacle, to swift and decisive measures of reform. There is, after all, much that a genuinely radical government, firm in purpose and enjoying a substantial measure of popular support, may hope to do on the morrow of its electoral legitimation, not despite crisis conditions but because of them. And doing so, it is also likely to receive the support of many people, hitherto uncommitted or half-committed, but willing to accept a resolute lead.

Long-Term Socialist Strategy

The measure of what would be ‘a resolute lead’, as far as Ralph Miliband was concerned, could only be taken in terms of where it fitted in a long-term socialist strategy. Miliband pledged himself to the socialist cause at Marx’s grave in Highgate Cemetery as a 16-year-old, shortly after fleeing the Nazis in Belgium. It led him to study with Tribunite and one-time Labour Party Chairman Harold Laski at the London School of Economics, where he himself was later appointed to teach in 1949 when he was only 25. Despite the Cold War and his own critical perspective on Stalinism, Miliband would come to embrace Marx.

Even Anthony Crosland, whose book The Future of Socialism was one long argument that the post-war ‘transformation of capitalism’ had brought the relevance of Marx to an end, refused to adopt what was then ‘the current fashion’ of sneering at Marx (who was, he said, ‘a towering giant among socialist thinkers’ whose work made the classical economists ‘look flat, pedestrian and circumscribed by comparison … only moral dwarfs, or people devoid of imagination, sneer at men like that.’) But if Miliband was a Marxist he also recognised that Marxist theory needed further development – especially in its theory of politics.

This open, what might be called developmental, approach to Marxism, came to define the British New Left that emerged in the late 1950s. Yet what was no less characteristic of it than its intolerance of Marxist dogmatism, was its intolerance of the kind of ‘radicalism without teeth’ so commonly advanced by intellectuals, whereby ‘criticisms of many aspects of existing economic, social and political arrangements [were] coupled, however, with the rejection of the socialist alternative to them.’ As Miliband went on to put it in The State in Capitalist Society:

Provided the economic basis of the social order is not called into question, criticism of it, however sharp, can be very useful to it, since it makes for vigorous but safe controversy and debate, and for the advancement of ‘solutions’ to ‘problems’ which obscure and deflect attention from the greatest of all ‘problems’, namely that here is a social order governed by the search for private profit. It is in the formulation of a radicalism without teeth and in the articulation of a critique without dangerous consequences, as well as in terms of straightforward apologetics, that many intellectuals have played an exceedingly ‘functional’ role. And the fact that many of them have played that role with the utmost sincerity and without being conscious of its apologetic import has in no way detracted from its usefulness.

The lead Miliband took in founding the Socialist Register, which from its first annual volume in 1964 became one of the foremost intellectual loci for socialist analysis in the English-speaking world, reflected his acute sense of responsibility as a socialist intellectual. By that time, he had already published his famous critique of the Labour Party’s commitment to conventional parliamentary practices as ‘the conditioning factor’ in its political behaviour in his 1961 book Parliamentary Socialism. Within a year of its publication Miliband started actively planning ‘the writing of a big book on the State. Something that would take possibly five years, that would be theoretical, analytical and prescriptive, that would deal with a multitude of political questions and problems in a disciplined and tight manner.’ It took six years, and as he signed off on the preface in July 1968 he did so in the wake of the student and worker revolt in France, and amidst a respite from the famous student uprising that consumed the LSE.

The enormous influence of the book was due to his remarkably accessible style of writing, marked by clarity of prose and judicious argumentation. But Miliband saw the book largely as a necessary ground-clearing exercise before the main task of remedying the deficiencies of Marxist political analysis, especially in terms of what he called its ‘over-simple explanation of the inter-relationship between the state and society.’ At the very least, the Marxist theory of the state required ‘a much more thorough elaboration than it has hitherto been given.’

The Marxist debates through the 1970s on the theory of the state were motivated by the hope that a realistic perspective would help in clarifying socialist strategy, and explaining why even radically-intended socialist reforms must run up against certain limits. If they had stopped here, the new theory of the state might have had defeatist implications, but by the late 1970s, with Miliband’s Marxism and Politics and Poulantzas’s State, Power, Socialism, they focused their attention on addressing more directly the key political questions involved in the construction of a democratic socialist state.

In Miliband’s critique of the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of Lenin’s democratic centralism, as well as in his creative extension of the notion of ‘structural reform’, crucial steps forward were taken. Miliband was trying to formulate a vision of what kind of state a new socialist politics should aim for, and how it might be realized through a strategy of administrative pluralism anchored in civil society. When Poulantzas followed with his own trenchant critique of the utopian notions of direct democracy within the Marxist tradition and his insistence on thinking through the place and meaning of representative institutions, this was very much consistent with, and complementary to, the position Miliband had advanced.

Right up to his death in 1994, Miliband was concerned that he had not done enough, including in his posthumous book, Socialism for a Sceptical Age, to ‘address the question of socialist construction with anything like the rigorous and detailed concern which it requires.’ For without developing ‘a clear indication of what was being struggled for’, the promise of building new socialist movements and parties so necessary in the twenty-first century would not be realised. In this respect the basic outline he drew towards the end of The State in Capitalist Society resonates in demanding a renewed and more elaborate socialist vision:

In order to fulfil their human potentialities, advanced industrial societies require a high degree of planning, economic coordination, the premeditated and rational use of material resources, not only on a national but on an international scale. But advanced capitalist societies cannot achieve this within the confines of an economic system which remains primarily geared to the private purposes of those who own and control its material resources … Similarly, and relatedly, these societies require a spirit of sociality and cooperation from their members, a sense of genuine involvement and participation, which are equally unattainable in a system whose dominant impulse is private appropriation … No doubt, the transcendence of capitalism – in other words, the appropriation into the public domain of the largest part of society’s resources – cannot by itself resolve all the problems associated with industrial society. What it can do, however, is to remove the greatest of all barriers to their solution, and at least create the basis for the creation of a rational and humane social order.

*

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.

Leo Panitch is the editor of the Socialist Register and the author and co-author of many books including The Socialist Challenge Today (Merlin), The End of Parliamentary Socialism, and Working Class Politics in Crisis (Verso).

The Czech Republic hosted the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting from July 1 to 10 to discuss the future of the world’s seventh continent, during which China proposed a code of conduct for all nations’ active on the landmass, though it unfortunately didn’t make much progress among the many participants that attended the summit. That might have been due to Australia’s resistance, however, which claims 42 percent of Antarctica and in whose scarcely recognized territory China established the scientifically driven Kunlun Station in 2009 in full accordance with the peaceful aims enshrined in the 1959 Antarctic Treaty.

That piece of international legislation entered into force in 1961 following its ratification by the 12 founding states, which includes Australia. The Treaty stipulated that “it is in the interest of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and shall not become the scene or object of international discord.” Accordingly, Article IV of the document – which now has 54 states party to it, 29 of whom have consultative status including China – basically freezes all territorial claims in order to facilitate the peaceful and scientific goals laid out in the preceding three Articles.

Nevertheless, an Australian Foreign Affairs spokesperson gave a statement to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation earlier this week asserting that China’s proposed code of conduct “has no formal standing,” raising questions about why they’d wait for several weeks to reveal their position (which is rare to disclose after such summits), and why it even holds that view in the first place. It could very well be that Australia doesn’t like that China established the Kunlun Station on what’s known as Dome A, the highest ice feature on the continent and regarded as one of the best places on the Earth to conduct astronomical observations.

While China isn’t part of the exclusive club of states that founded the Antarctic Treaty System, it still maintains voting rights through its consultative status and has an interest in carrying out scientific exploration on the landmass. Its proposed code of conduct therefore shouldn’t be dismissed outright by Australia, which might be acting in spite since it’s unable to legally do anything about China’s scientific activities on the territory of Dome A that it claims for itself (but which is only recognized by four other states). Australia might even be jealous of China for building the Kunlun Station when it doesn’t even have its own in the area, that it asserts ownership of.

All that China is trying to do is to make relations between the many nations’ active in Antarctica much more pragmatic in order to avoid any adverse environmental consequences in the event of nearby uncoordinated scientific research in locations such as Dome A. Establishing agreed-upon rules and managing the conduct of each relevant player would make their relations much more predictable, thus reducing the chances that the environment suffers if they carry out similar experiments in this very ecologically sensitive area. This is much more difficult to achieve, however, without trust-building measures in place, such as China’s win-win proposal.

It should be remembered that Antarctica is a special place in the world where political claims aren’t supposed to have any meaning and all relevant parties are expected to solely pursue scientific research that betters humanity as a whole. China’s Kunlun Station perfectly embodies the vision set out in the Antarctic Treaty because of its irreplaceable role in functioning as one of the world’s best astronomical observatories. As such, there’s no reason why Beijing’s proposed code of conduct for better managing scientific affairs doesn’t deserve a fair hearing, which is why Australia’s recently articulated position is so disappointing.

*

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.

This article was originally published on CGTN.

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

Featured image is by Susan A. Romano/US Indo-Pacific Command

‘Back door Boris’ – the latest nickname for the UK Prime Minister, who can add it to a long line of other derogatory titles he has received over the years. The term was coined after Boris Johnson decided to exit the residence of the Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon yesterday via the back door, in order to avoid the booing protestors who had gathered outside to demonstrate against his visit.

Johnson, who only became PM last week, made Scotland one of his first priorities on becoming leader, travelling north to meet with his Scottish counterpart in Bute House on Monday and pledging a £300 million money pot for communities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.  Such a sweetener however may be too little too late however for the Scottish people, as not only is the new PM deeply unpopular north of the border, but all statistical evidence to date points to his leadership only boosting the Scottish independence movement.

In what was described as a ‘lively discussion’ by Nicola Sturgeon, the pair are reported to have debated the future of the Union. Sturgeon says that she proposed they have the debate in public, and even on television, ‘at which point his advisor said it was probably time we left’.

The First Minister also commented that from their conversation she had ascertained that despite public denials, the Johnson government is actively pursuing a No Deal strategy for Brexit – by which the UK leaves the European Union on 31st October without any agreement in place, and begins to trade according to World Trade Organisation rules. She added that this path was a ‘dangerous one for Scotland and the UK’.

Her fears are valid. On Tuesday the pound slumped to a 28-month low as investors reacted with alarm to the Johnson government No Deal rhetoric. Leading business groups have voiced concern that a lack of information on a No Deal scenario was hampering preparations. At the weekend the Confederation of British Industry warned that Britain was ill-equipped for a such a Brexit, whilst the Federation of Small Businesses described the lack of preparation as ‘frightening’.

And yet, despite Johnson assuring the public that ‘we can get a new deal’, the cabinet lead for No Deal preparations, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Michael Gove, has said the opposite:

‘We must assume that there will be a No Deal Brexit on 31st October.’

When considering the many failed attempts by Theresa May to get a deal passed by Parliament, and given Johnson’s own demand that the EU would have to agree to scrap the Irish backstop if negotiations were to resume, Gove’s prediction is looking to more likely one at this stage.

And yet such a scenario will only exacerbate the anti-Johnson feeling north of the border. Coupled with this is the lack of agreement with the Scottish Conservative party leader, Ruth Davidson, who not only is against a No Deal Brexit, but who also came to clashes with Johnson over the future of David Mundell as Scottish Secretary.

Despite Davidson’s plea that Mundell remain in his position, Johnson paid no heed and replaced him in what has been termed a ‘cull’ of the cabinet. The snub exposes the deep rift between Johnson and Davidson, who has been highly critical of him in the past and is a further sign that not only is he rejected by Nationalist supporters, but fails to have generate support from the Scottish branch of his own party.

But despite sowing such discord north of the border, Boris Johnson has done nothing to dispel the perception in Scotland that he is a privileged, Eton-educated ‘toff’ who has nothing in common with the average working Scot. In contrast he seems to be trying his best to maintain this negative image.

‘Boris Johnson doesn’t care about Scotland – he’s pushing it away’ writes Martin Kettle in The Guardian as he  suggests that he is at the head of a movement which not only doesn’t care about Scotland, but doesn’t care if Brexit breaks up the United Kingdom.

Indeed A YouGov poll from just over a month ago supports this. It revealed that around two thirds of Conservative party members – the same people who have elected Boris Johnson to PM – want Brexit to happen, come what may. That means they would see damage to the economy, a Tory party in tatters and a dis-United Kingdom, all for Brexit.

Instead of challenging his image in Scotland, and addressing people in the streets, Boris Johnson chose to dodge his critics, escaping through the back door of Bute House like a fugitive. When asked why it was he hadn’t taken the time to meet with locals during his visit he stated his schedule was ‘too busy’. And yet, if he had any real intention of influencing public opinion over him, then he would have found the time between his visits to Bute House and the Faslane Naval Base.

Instead, what is fundamentally a losing strategy has completely played into the hands of the Nationalist movement, which has long argued that Westminister government is one detached from the needs and wants of the Scottish people. Based on Johnson’s performance so far, one would be hard pushed to argue with that. Indeed if he keeps going at this rate, the history books will record him as having had a significant role to play in the dismemberment of the United Kingdom.

*

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.

This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Most often when White House officials step down, they were sacked, usually allowed to submit a resignation letter — likely the fate of former senator/Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Dan Coats.

His departure is effective on August 15, right-wing extremist Rep. John Ratcliffe replacing him. More on him below.

***

Coats and Trump reportedly clashed over key national security issues, notably on Iran, North Korea, and Russia — including about Trump believing no Kremlin US election meddling occurred.

Indeed not, but the Big Lie persists anyway, pushed by virtually everyone in Washington and the entire establishment fourth estate.

The DNI is a White House cabinet position, the appointee overseeing (not running) 17 agencies making up the US intelligence community, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, and DHS intelligence.

Much of it has open-checkbook funding, no budgetary constraints, the annual amount likely exceeding $100 billion.

The total amount is classified, especially for the CIA, NSA, and DOD. A reported 2015 $66.8 billion total way understated reality.

Former DNI head James Clapper once said the following:

“Our budgets are classified as they could provide insight for foreign intelligence services to discern our top national priorities, capabilities and sources and methods that allow us to obtain information to counter threats.”

The CIA poses the most ominous threat, former agency consultant/the late Chalmers Johnson once saying:

We’ll “never again know peace, nor in all probability survive very long as a nation, unless we abolish” the agency.

Originally it had five missions. Four involved collection, coordination and dissemination of intelligence.

The fifth is vague, letting operatives perform other missions. They include toppling sovereign independent governments, assassinating foreign leaders and key officials, propping up friendly dictators, involvement in global torture prisons, along with operating drone command centers worldwide together with or separately from the Pentagon.

Operating extrajudicially, the CIA  produces fake intelligence to justify policy.

Including defense budgets, known national security state spending likely way exceeds $1.5 trillion annually — a black hole of waste, fraud and abuse. Last year, the Pentagon couldn’t account for $21 trillion: repeat $21 trillion, an unfathomable amount.

Yet the US hasn’t had an enemy since WW II ended. They’re invented to perpetuate the national security state — at the expense of vital homeland needs, the rule of law, and social justice, fast eroding, heading for eventual elimination to maintain a permanent state of war on humanity.

Following the July 2018 Putin/Trump Helsinki summit, Coats said the following:

“We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy (sic), and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security.”

The above claim has no evidence backing it because none exists. House, Senate, and Mueller probes found nothing. The Big Lie persists through official and media supported repetition.

In mid-August, right-wing extremist/staunch Trump supporter John Ratcliffe will take over as DNI.

The former Bush/Cheney appointed Eastern District of Texas attorney general then served as congressional representative for the state’s 4th district since January 2015.

Coats was hostile toward Russia, Iran, North Korea, and other sovereign independent nations the US doesn’t control.

As DNI head, Ratcliffe may exceed his extremism. In 2016, the hard-right Heritage Foundation called him the most conservative Texas congressman, second most right-wing one in the House.

His intelligence background is scant, on January 30, 2019, appointed to serve on the House Intelligence Committee.

He also serves as minority ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.

Along with the US intelligence community, DHS serves as enforcer of privileged interests at the expense of the public welfare and rule of law.

It was established at a time of post-9/11 hysteria, granting unchecked powers to the executive, creating grave threats to civil liberties at the same time.

The Bush/Cheney launched war OF on terrorism, not on it, was and continues to wage endless wars on invented enemies, including at home against invented threats — what police state rule is all about.

In his capacity as DNI, Ratcliffe, like his predecessors, will serve the interests of the national security state — what poses the gravest threat to world peace and stability.

The US needs enemies to unjustifiably justify its belligerent agenda. None exist so they’re invented to pursue Washington’s imperial agenda.

The GOP-controlled Senate will likely confirm Ratcliffe to succeed Coats. He’ll serve security state interests — hostile to everyone everywhere.

*

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

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Over a year of Sino/US trade talks failed to resolve major differences because of unacceptable Trump demands.

On matters of statecraft, China, Russia, Iran, and other countries have outwitted the US.

Sino/US disagreements have little to do with the trade deficit favoring China.

It exists because corporate America relocated much of its manufacturing and other operations to low-wage countries — permitted by US policymakers, responsible for transforming America into a nation unfit to live in, thirdworldized to benefit monied interests.

Irreconcilable structural issues are at the heart of Sino/US differences. They’re all about China’s growing political, economic, financial, and military clout.

It comes at the expense of US rage for global dominance,  tolerating no challengers to its aim for dominion over planet earth, its resources and populations, a losing strategy.

Sovereign independent nations the US doesn’t control are targeted for regime change. Republicans and undemocratic Dems want pro-Western puppet governance replacing their ruling authorities.

On Wednesday, Chinese and US negotiators met in Shanghai — the first discussion between both sides since talks collapsed in May.

Beginning with a Tuesday evening dinner, talks officially resumed Wednesday morning. Lasting half a day, no breakthroughs were achieved, none expected.

Ahead of the meeting, Trump slammed China with hostile disinformation, tweeting:

“China is doing very badly (sic), worst year in 27 – was supposed to start buying our agricultural product now – no signs that they are doing so (sic).”

“That is the problem with China, they just don’t come through (sic). Our economy has become MUCH larger than the Chinese Economy is last 3 years (sic).”

“My team is negotiating with them now, but they always change the deal in the end to their benefit (sic).”

“(I)f & when I win (reelection), the deal that they get will be much tougher than what we are negotiating now…or no deal at all (sic). We have all the cards (sic), our past leaders never got it (sic)!”

According to Beijing’s former commerce vice-minister Wei Jianguo, China’s economic growth in Q II was better than expected at 6.2% — compared to annual US growth slowing to 2% and heading south.

International relations Professor Wang Yong said

“China has started to buy soybeans (and other agricultural products) from the US, which could help Trump to counter domestic political pressure, meanwhile US tech firms have raised their voices to lobby the US…to loosen export controls on Huawei,” adding:

“Wall Street bankers also hope to invest more in China. If both sides fail to reach a deal, they will lose China’s market which is expected to further open up in the coming years.”

Trump prioritizes whatever helps his reelection prospects. A pre-election deal with China in late summer/early fall 2020 would serve him best.

It’s unattainable as long as his regime’s demands remain unacceptable. In its latest edition, the Wall Street Journal noted that bilateral talks resumed “with no breakthroughs in sight.”

On Wednesday, China’s official People’s Daily broadsheet referred to Trump’s hostile Twitter storm without mentioning him by name, saying:

“(T)he drums of some Americans struck again on the side, disturbing the main melody — Showing weakness.”

According to VM Markets Singapore managing partner Stephen Innes,

“(w)hatever shred of optimism markets had about the ongoing trade negotiations were dealt as a severe blow when President Trump flew off the handle again at China for not buying American agricultural products.”

Chinese academic Shen Dingli said Trump’s tweets show he’s “eager to get a deal. That shows his weakness.”

China’s Global Times commented on Trump’s tweets, saying

“(t)he US often makes unconstructive remarks when China-US trade talks are about to start. (The approach) never worked,” adding:

All over the world, it is the US, not China, that has become the most difficult country to deal with on trade” and most everything else.

“The US has overthrown too many agreements and rules. How can the White House say China always changes the deal in the end to its benefit? It sounds like the US is talking about itself.”

Time and again, maximum US pressure on other countries fails. It hasn’t worked with Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Cuba, or Nicaragua.

Imperial rage is self-defeating, a lesson US policymakers have yet to learn.

*

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

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

After the defeat of ISIS, the war in Syria entered a low intensity phase. However, the conflict is in no way near its end and the country remains one of the main points of instability around the world.

In August 2018, SouthFront released an extensive of military and diplomatic developments in the Syrian conflict in the period from the start of the Russian operation in September 2015 to August 2018. By that moment, Damascus forces backed up by Russia and Iran had liberated from terrorists large parts of central, eastern, southern and northern Syria, including Aleppo city, Palmyra and the countryside of Damascus. The US-led coalition and the Kurdish-dominated group branded as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) did have control of the cities of Manibj and Raqqah, and large parts of northwestern Syria. Additionally, the US military had a military garrison on the Damascus-Baghdad highway, in the Syrian border area of al-Tanf. The Turkish Armed Forces and Turkish-backed armed formations were in control of the Afrin region and the al-Bab-Azaz-Jarabulus triangle. The situation in the militant-held parts of Idlib, Aleppo, Hama and Lattakia provinces were partially frozen through the Astana talks format, which involves Turkey, Iran, Russia, Syria and representatives of the so-called moderate opposition.

Over the past 12 months, from August 2018 to July 2019 the desert areas of southeastern Syria, the eastern bank of the Euphrates, and the contact line between the Syrian Army and militants in southern Idlib and northern Hama became the main hot points of the conflict.

On September 10, the SDF assisted by US-led coalition special forces, artillery and aircraft started an advance on the ISIS-held pocket in eastern Deir Ezzor. The pocket included the towns of Baghuz, Hajin, al-Kashsmah and multiple small settlements. The operation involved around 17,000 SDF fighters and included an intense air and artillery bombing campaign. The estimated number of ISIS members hiding in the pocket was 2,000-4,000. The offensive lasted until middle December when the last ISIS-held town, Hajin, fell into the hands of the SDF. Around 1,000 ISIS members and 500 SDF fighters were killed during the operation. Thousands of civilians, mainly members of ISIS fighters’ families, left the pocket and were moved to SDF-held filtration camps. The most widely known of them is the al-Hawl camp in the province of al-Hasakah.

Security operations on the eastern bank of the Euphrates are still ongoing. The goal is to track and hunt down remaining ISIS cells. ISIS units continue to carry out attacks on SDF positions and check points.

In the period from August to November of 2018, units of the Syrian Army conducted an extensive security operation against ISIS cells in the province of al-Suwayda after ISIS terrorists had carried out a series of bombings and gun attacks on civilian targets in the countryside of the provincial capital.

The ISIS manpower in the al-Safa plateau was around 1,000. At least 400 of them were eliminated, according to pro-government sources. The rest of the terrorists hid in the desert on the edge of the US-held area of al-Tanf. The US tactic of striking any pro-government unit entering this area allowed ISIS cells to avoid total defeat. Over 100 army troops were reportedly killed during the operation.

The November 19 announcement of the ISIS defeat in al-Safa did not put an end to ISIS attacks across the Homs-Deir Ezzor desert, but did allow the terrorist threat in the al-Suwayda countryside to be reduced. The ISIS threat is unlikely to be removed from the desert areas anytime soon. Pro-government forces don’t have enough free resources to conduct operations on the scale needed to clear the entire desert.

The main reason is that large forces and means are busy with blocking and controlling the bounds of the so-called Idlib de-escalation zone. The de-escalation agreement of 2017 excluded groups like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. As a result of this the agreement did not achieve its key goal: to separate radicals from the so-called moderate opposition. For instance, even the Turkish-backed militant alliance, the National Front for Liberation, created in May 2018 fell under the influence of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham after it had faced the option to obey or be eliminated.

In September 2018, Turkey, Iran and Russia made an effort to rescue the ceasefire regime by agreeing to establish a demilitarized zone around the Idlib zone. The sides agreed to establish a 15-25km demilitarized zone on the contact line. Heavy weapons and members of radical groups had to withdraw from the demilitarized zone. After this, Russian and Turkish troops were expected to launch joint patrols. Additionally, the deal said that the M4 and M5 highways, which go through the militant-held areas, had to be re-opened by the end of 2018. This never happened.

The Turkistan Islamic Party, Tanẓim Ḥurras ad-Din, Ansar al-Tawhid, Jabhat Ansar al-Din, and Ansar al-Islam rejected the deal. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which then was passing through complicated times because of recent defeats by the army, released an ambiguous statement, but also de-facto rejected the initiative.

It appeared that Turkey was not willing or capable of fulfilling key points of the de-escalation deal:

• To divide the so-called ‘moderate rebels’, at least the Turkish-formed National Front for Liberation, from the terrorists;
• To force armed groups operating in the Idlib zone to withdraw heavy weapons and radical fighters from the demilitarized zone.

The situation continued deteriorating in the following months, with the most intense shelling and constant civilian casualties occurring in northern Hama, western Aleppo and northern Lattakia. Militants carried out multiple attacks on Russia’s Hmeimim airbase in the province of Lattakia with armed unmanned aerial vehicles. These attacks were successfully repelled by Russian air defense forces.

At the same time, Turkey acted to prevent any possible military operation by the Syrian Army in the Idlib zone by various means. These included providing its proxies in the area with a new batch of weapons, including anti-tank guided missiles, and equipment, thus, allowing them to regain at least part of the power lost after the defeats of the previous years.

By April 2019, the situation had deteriorated to the extent that the Syrian Army and its allies were forced to launch a limited peace-enforcing operation in northwestern Hama. It started on April 30. Multiple pro-government outlets speculated that it was a long-awaited large-scale offensive on Idlib, but the real goal of the effort was to destroy the militants’ re-created military infrastructure at the contact line and to limit the shelling on civilian areas carried out by the moderates.

The operation involved units from the Syrian Army, the Tiger Forces, the 4^th Armoured Division, the 5^th Assault Corps and the National Defense Forces. They liberated the town of Kafr Nabudah and surrounding villages, but after a Turkish diplomatic intervention, they agreed on a series of ceasefires and their progress stalled.

A separate effort to capture the militants’ strong point of Kbanah in northern Lattakia resulted in no real progress.

On July 28 evening, the Syrian Army renewed their push on militant positions in northern Hama. The configuration of frontlines sets an apparent pretext for further limited operations that should push militants back and create a buffer zone to limit shelling on civilian targets in this particular area. But no large-scale military operations are expected in the region in the near future.

The last but not least security issue in modern Syria is the situation in the northwestern part of the country. Under Turkish control, the area of Afrin and the northern countryside of Aleppo turned into a hub of organized crime. This as well as the radical ideology of most of the Turkish-backed ‘moderate groups’ are among the main destabilizing factors there.

The inability of Ankara to establish proper discipline among its proxies allows Kurdish rebels affiliated with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Kurdistan Workers Party to carry out successful attacks in Afrin. Kurdish cells had carried out dozens of attacks resulting in multiple casualties among the Turkish Army and pro-Turkish armed groups since September 2018.

The Assad government is still viewed as illegitimate by Ankara, although its rhetoric has softened due to the growth of Russian influence on the theater of operations and the military defeat suffered by several groups backed by Turkey. Other factors were the political and economic pressure exerted by Moscow after the Su-24 shootdown and the subsequent rapprochement that led to the implementation of the TurkStream project, the S-400 deal and other developments in the sphere of economic and military cooperation. These projects affect the Turkish foreign policy agenda.

Turkey is not demonstrating plans to annex the Syrian territory that it controls in the north in order to avoid a negative reaction from Russia and Iran. It plans to use these areas as bargaining chips in order to gain preferential treatment for work in post-war Syria or, if no comprehensive diplomatic deal on the conflict is reached, to create a pro-Turkish quasi-state.

Simultaneously, Turkey seeks to neutralize and limit the influence of US-backed Kurdish armed groups, which it sees as a threat to its national security. This task is closely entwined with the current agenda of US-Turkish relations. These relations were strongly revised after the 2016 failed military coup in Turkey. Ankara accused the CIA of playing a role in it. Relations deteriorated and Erdogan placed value on the restoration of relations with Russia and Iran. In particular, this led to reaching and implementing the S-400 deal. In its turn, the US punished Turkey by officially excluding it from the F-35 programme, threatening Ankara with sanctions and other aggressive actions in the media sphere and unfriendly rhetoric on the international scene.

This behavior of the Trump administration is surprising because it contributes to a further separation of Turkey from its NATO partners. It is highly likely, that this is among the reasons behind the recent escalation of the situation around the Cyprus question.

In the event of a further deterioration of relations, Washington may opt to motivate Kurdish groups to increase their insurgency activities against Turkish targets in northern Syria and in the southeastern part of Turkey itself.

Through its influence on the Kurdish elites, the US has successfully fueled Kurdish separatism even further and put an end to any kind of constructive negotiations between Damascus and the SDF. The SDF and its leaders put their shirts on the US military presence in the country and are not likely to take any steps towards any real normalization of relations with the Assad government without a direct order from Washington for as long as US troops are deployed in Syria.

Israel is another actor that pursues an active policy in the region and seeks to influence processes that could affect the interests of the state, as its leadership sees them. Israel justifies aggressive actions in Syria by claiming that it is surrounded by irreconcilable enemies, first of all Iran and Hezbollah, who try to destroy Israel or at least diminish its security. Tel Aviv makes all efforts to ensure that in the immediate vicinity of its borders there would be no force, non-state actors or states whose international and informational activities or military actions might damage Israeli interests. This, according to the Israeli vision, should ensure physical security of the entire territory currently under the control of Israel and its population.

The start of the Syrian war became a gift for Israel. It was strong enough to repel direct military aggression by any terrorist organization, but got a chance to use the chaos to propel its own interests. Nonetheless, the rigid stance of the Israeli leadership that became used to employing chaos and civil conflicts in the surrounding countries as the most effective strategy for ensuring the interests of the state, was delivered a blow. Israel missed the moment when it had a chance to intervene in the conflict as a kind of peacemaker, at least on the level of formal rhetoric, and, with US help, settle the conflict to protect its own interest. Instead, leaders of Israel and the Obama administration sabotaged all Russian peace efforts in the first years of the Russian military operation and by 2019, Tel Aviv had found itself excluded from the list of power brokers in the Syrian settlement. Hezbollah and Iran, on the other hand, strengthened their position in the country after they, in alliance with Damascus and Russia, won the war on the major part of Syrian territory, and Iran through the Astana format forged a tactical alliance with Turkey.

The aggressive Israeli actions, including the September 2018 strikes that led to Russia’s IL-20 shootdown, even further undermined its interests after Russia employed a long-delayed decision to supply Syria with the S-300. While this system has not been used by the Syrian military against Israeli aircraft yet, the threat itself of the use of the S-300 is the factor damaging Israeli interests.

Iran and Hezbollah exploited the preliminary outcome of the conflict in Syria, and the war on ISIS in general, to defend their own security and to expand their influence across the region. The so-called Shia crescent turned from being a myth exploited by Western diplomats and mainstream media into reality. Iran and Hezbollah appeared to be reliable partners for their regional allies even in the most complicated situations.

Russia’s strategic goal is the prevention of radical islamists from coming to power. Russia showed itself ready to enter dialogue with the moderate part of the Syrian opposition. Its leadership even demonstrated that it is ready to accept the interests of other actors, the US, Israel, Kurdish groups, Turkey, Iran, Hezbollah, if this would help in reaching a final deal to settle the conflict.

Summing up the developments of this 12-month period, we may expect that the current low-intensity state of the Syrian conflict will continue for years. However, several factors and developments may instigate the renewal of fully-fledged hostilities:

• The death of Bashar al-Assad would create a situation of uncertainty within the patriotic part of the Syrian leadership;
• Changes within the Russian political system or issues inside Russia that could lead to full or partial withdrawal of support to the Syrian government and the withdrawal of the forces;
• A major war in the Middle East that would turn the entire region into a battlefield. In the current situation, this war could only start between Iran and the US-Israeli-led bloc.

The round of the geopolitical standoff that started in 2011 has finished. The Greater Middle East is now in a twilight zone that lies before a new loop of the neverending Great Game. The next round of the geopolitical standoff will likely take place in a larger region including the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Consistently, the stakes will grow involving more resources of states and nations in geopolitical roulette.

*

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.

We call upon Global Research readers to support South Front in its endeavors.

If you’re able, and if you like our content and approach, please support the project. Our work wouldn’t be possible without your help: PayPal: [email protected] or via: http://southfront.org/donate/ or via: https://www.patreon.com/southfront

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano’s passing has stirred up suspicion and further tensions amid US-Iranian tensions.

Amano was 72 years old and as of mid July 2019 had already begun preparing to step down due to poor health.

A July 18 AFP-JIJI article titled, “Japanese IAEA head Yukiya Amano to step down next year for health reasons: diplomatic sources,” reported:

The head of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, Yukiya Amano, will step down in March for health reasons, diplomatic sources said Wednesday, as the agency navigates verification of the increasingly fragile Iran nuclear deal.

However, in the wake of his death and because of his perceived opposition to US efforts to undermine the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or “Iran Deal” – suspicions began circulating that the US or Israel – or both – may have played a role in his death.

Iran-based Tasnim News Agency in an article titled, “Sources Raise Possibility of Israeli Assassination of Amano,” would claim:

Informed sources have speculated that late chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano was assassinated by Israel in collaboration with the US for refusing to give in to pressures to raise new fabricated allegations against Iran’s nuclear program.

Considering the foreign policy track records of either the US or Israel – an assassination targeting members of international institutions impeding Western interests certainly sounds plausible. However no evidence has been provided to suggest Amano was assassinated.

Furthermore – his death whatever the cause will likely have little impact on the IAEA’s policies or the general state of US-Iranian tensions – for several reasons.

International Institutions are the Sum of their Member States

International institutions reflect the vector sum of sponsoring nations’ interests. As the global balance of power shifts, so too does the proportion of influence of each member state represented by these institutions. In turn the agenda of these institutions changes accordingly.

The IAEA’s criticism of Washington’s undermining of the Iran Deal reflects not the IAEA’s independent assessment – but the collective interests of member nations the IAEA supposedly represents in all matters of nuclear technology. It is no coincidence that in the halls of foreign ministries around the globe similar criticism has been leveled against Washington regarding the Iran Deal.

Nations in Europe attempting to salvage the deal have taken measures to sidestep US sanctions imposed after the US unilaterally and without justification, withdrew. Whatever influence these same nations have within the UN and IAEA has certainly filtered through and was reflected by Amano’s position over the Iran Deal prior to his death.

With this in mind, one can expect the IAEA’s position to remain relatively unchanged regardless of who becomes the institution’s next chief.

Washington’s Abuse of International Institutions: A Tired Trick 

The United States and its partners have so regularly abused or even entirely sidestepped international institutions that the legitimacy and impact of these institutions have been greatly diminished.

While the IAEA may reflect a position supporting the Iran Deal’s continuation – nations of the world pragmatically sidestepping US sanctions and pursuing multilateral diplomacy is by far more important than anything the IAEA can contribute.

Should the US or Israel succeed in maneuvering to the head of the IAEA a new chief reflecting their interests it will only accelerate the IAEA’s irrelevancy further regarding the Iran Deal.

Were Amano’s death an assassination – it would have been an incredibly costly move with very little payoff in return. The fate of the Iran Deal rests not in the IAEA’s hands but rather in the hands of the deal’s remaining signatories and nations which trade with Iran.

The IAEA is not in a position to significantly influence how these nations move forward except by providing or denying the most superficial legitimacy to whatever decisions are made.

US Aggression Toward Iran Already Tramples International Law 

Finally – US foreign policy toward Iran already operates beyond international law. From the terrorists it sponsors within and along Iran’s borders, to unilateral sanctions, to provocations, as well as signed and dated policy papers admitting to all of it – no amount of legitimacy lent by the IAEA under even the most ideal circumstances could conceal the criminal nature of US aggression toward Iran. Nor can the IAEA paper over the wider hegemonic ambitions US aggression toward Iran fits into.

The shake up at the IAEA will likely have a minimum impact on the future of the Iran Deal. The deal’s fate rests in the hands of Iran’s trade partners and the remaining signatories to the deal.

Only if these nations seek the deal’s success and work vigorously to circumvent US efforts to sabotage it, can it be saved. If anything, this process will shape the IAEA and its stance, rather than the other way around.

For Iran, its leadership will need to continue exercising maximum diplomatic and strategic patience under Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign. Tehran must continue working on proving through tangible incentives why trading with a stable and unified Iran is more beneficial to interests from Europe to East Asia than Washington’s vision of a divided and destroyed Iran.

*

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.

Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published.

Featured image is from Dean Calma/IAEA

“Adolf Hitler is alive and well in the United States, and he is fast rising to power.”—Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, on the danger posed by the FBI to our civil liberties

Despite the finger-pointing and outcries of dismay from those who are watching the government discard the rule of law at every turn, the question is not whether Donald Trump is the new Adolf Hitler but whether the American Police State is the new Third Reich.

For those who can view the present and past political landscape without partisan blinders, the warning signs are unmistakable: the Deep State’s love affair with totalitarianism began long ago.

Indeed, the U.S. government so admired the Nazi regime that following the second World War, it secretly recruited Hitler’s employees, adopted his protocols, embraced his mindset about law and order, implemented his tactics in incremental steps, and began to lay the foundations for the rise of the Fourth Reich.

Sounds far-fetched? Read on. It’s all documented.

As historian Robert Gellately recounts, “After five years of Hitler’s dictatorship, the Nazi police had won the FBI’s seal of approval.” The Nazi police state was initially so admired for its efficiency and order by the world powers of the day that J. Edgar Hoover, then-head of the FBI, actually sent one of his right-hand men, Edmund Patrick Coffey, to Berlin in January 1938 at the invitation of Germany’s secret police—the Gestapo.

The FBI was so impressed with the Nazi regime that, according to the New York Times, in the decades after World War II, the FBI, along with other government agencies, aggressively recruited at least a thousand Nazis, including some of Hitler’s highest henchmen.

All told, thousands of Nazi collaborators—including the head of a Nazi concentration camp, among others—were given secret visas and brought to America by way of Project Paperclip. Subsequently, they were hired on as spies and informants, and then camouflaged to ensure that their true identities and ties to Hitler’s holocaust machine would remain unknown. All the while, thousands of Jewish refugees were refused entry visas to the U.S. on the grounds that it could threaten national security.

Adding further insult to injury, American taxpayers have been paying to keep these ex-Nazis on the U.S. government’s payroll ever since. And in true Gestapo fashion, anyone who has dared to blow the whistle on the FBI’s illicit Nazi ties has found himself spied upon, intimidated, harassed and labeled a threat to national security.

As if the government’s covert, taxpayer-funded employment of Nazis after World War II wasn’t bad enough, U.S. government agencies—the FBI, CIA and the military—have fully embraced many of the Nazi’s well-honed policing tactics, and have used them repeatedly against American citizens.

Indeed, with every passing day, the United States government borrows yet another leaf from Nazi Germany’s playbook: Secret police. Secret courts. Secret government agencies. Surveillance. Censorship. Intimidation. Harassment. Torture. Brutality. Widespread corruption. Entrapment. Indoctrination. Indefinite detention.

These are not tactics used by constitutional republics, where the rule of law and the rights of the citizenry reign supreme. Rather, they are the hallmarks of authoritarian regimes, where the only law that counts comes in the form of heavy-handed, unilateral dictates from a supreme ruler who uses a secret police to control the populace.

That danger is now posed by the FBI, whose laundry list of crimes against the American people includes surveillance, disinformation, blackmail, entrapment, intimidation tactics, harassment and indoctrination, governmental overreach, abuse, misconduct, trespassing, enabling criminal activity, and damaging private property, and that’s just based on what we know.

Whether the FBI is planting undercover agents in churches, synagogues and mosques; issuing fake emergency letters to gain access to Americans’ phone records; using intimidation tactics to silence Americans who are critical of the government; recruiting high school students to spy on and report fellow students who show signs of being future terrorists; or persuading impressionable individuals to plot acts of terror and then entrapping them, the overall impression of the nation’s secret police force is that of a well-dressed thug, flexing its muscles and doing the boss’ dirty work of ensuring compliance, keeping tabs on potential dissidents, and punishing those who dare to challenge the status quo.

Whatever minimal restrictions initially kept the FBI’s surveillance activities within the bounds of the law have all but disappeared post-9/11. Since then, the FBI has been transformed into a mammoth federal policing and surveillance agency that largely operates as a power unto itself, beyond the reach of established laws, court rulings and legislative mandates.

Consider the FBI’s far-reaching powers to surveil, detain, interrogate, investigate, prosecute, punish, police and generally act as a law unto themselves—much like their Nazi cousins, the Gestapo—and then try to convince yourself that the United States is still a constitutional republic.

Just like the Gestapo, the FBI has vast resources, vast investigatory powers, and vast discretion to determine who is an enemy of the state.

Today, the FBI employs more than 35,000 individuals and operates more than 56 field offices in major cities across the U.S., as well as 400 resident agencies in smaller towns, and more than 50 international offices. In addition to their “data campus,” which houses more than 96 million sets of fingerprints from across the United States and elsewhere, the FBI has also built a vast repository of “profiles of tens of thousands of Americans and legal residents who are not accused of any crime. What they have done is appear to be acting suspiciously to a town sheriff, a traffic cop or even a neighbor.” The FBI’s burgeoning databases on Americans are not only being added to and used by local police agencies, but are also being made available to employers for real-time background checks.

All of this is made possible by the agency’s nearly unlimited resources (its minimum budget alone in fiscal year 2015 was $8.3 billion), the government’s vast arsenal of technology, the interconnectedness of government intelligence agencies, and information sharing through fusion centers—data collecting intelligence agencies spread throughout the country that constantly monitor communications (including those of American citizens), everything from internet activity and web searches to text messages, phone calls and emails.

Much like the Gestapo spied on mail and phone calls, FBI agents have carte blanche access to the citizenry’s most personal information.

Working through the U.S. Post Office, the FBI has access to every piece of mail that passes through the postal system: more than 160 billion pieces are scanned and recorded annually. Moreover, the agency’s National Security Letters, one of the many illicit powers authorized by the USA Patriot Act, allows the FBI to secretly demand that banks, phone companies, and other businesses provide them with customer information and not disclose those demands to the customer. An internal audit of the agency found that the FBI practice of issuing tens of thousands of NSLs every year for sensitive information such as phone and financial records, often in non-emergency cases, is riddled with widespread constitutional violations.

Much like the Gestapo’s sophisticated surveillance programs, the FBI’s spying capabilities can delve into Americans’ most intimate details (and allow local police to do so, as well).

In addition to technology (which is shared with police agencies) that allows them to listen in on phone calls, read emails and text messages, and monitor web activities, the FBI’s surveillance boasts an invasive collection of spy tools ranging from Stingray devices that can track the location of cell phones to Triggerfish devices which allow agents to eavesdrop on phone calls.  In one case, the FBI actually managed to remotely reprogram a “suspect’s” wireless internet card so that it would send “real-time cell-site location data to Verizon, which forwarded the data to the FBI.” Law enforcement agencies are also using social media tracking software to monitor Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts. Moreover, secret FBI rules also allow agents to spy on journalists without significant judicial oversight.

Much like the Gestapo’s ability to profile based on race and religion, and its assumption of guilt by association, the FBI’s approach to pre-crime allows it to profile Americans based on a broad range of characteristics including race and religion.

The agency’s biometric database has grown to massive proportions, the largest in the world, encompassing everything from fingerprints, palm, face and iris scans to DNA, and is being increasingly shared between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in an effort to target potential criminals long before they ever commit a crime. This is what’s known as pre-crime. Yet it’s not just your actions that will get you in trouble. In many cases, it’s also who you know—even minimally—and where your sympathies lie that could land you on a government watch list. Moreover, as the Intercept reports, despite anti-profiling prohibitions, the bureau “claims considerable latitude to use race, ethnicity, nationality, and religion in deciding which people and communities to investigate.”

Much like the Gestapo’s power to render anyone an enemy of the state, the FBI has the power to label anyone a domestic terrorist.

As part of the government’s so-called ongoing war on terror, the nation’s de facto secret police force has begun using the terms “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably. Moreover, the government continues to add to its growing list of characteristics that can be used to identify an individual (especially anyone who disagrees with the government) as a potential domestic terrorist. For instance, you might be a domestic terrorist in the eyes of the FBI (and its network of snitches) if you:

• express libertarian philosophies (statements, bumper stickers)
• exhibit Second Amendment-oriented views (NRA or gun club membership)
• read survivalist literature, including apocalyptic fictional books
• show signs of self-sufficiency (stockpiling food, ammo, hand tools, medical supplies)
• fear an economic collapse
• buy gold and barter items
• subscribe to religious views concerning the book of Revelation
• voice fears about Big Brother or big government
• expound about constitutional rights and civil liberties
• believe in a New World Order conspiracy

Much like the Gestapo infiltrated communities in order to spy on the German citizenry, the FBI routinely infiltrates political and religious groups, as well as businesses.

As Cora Currier writes for the Intercept: “Using loopholes it has kept secret for years, the FBI can in certain circumstances bypass its own rules in order to send undercover agents or informants into political and religious organizations, as well as schools, clubs, and businesses…” The FBI has even been paying Geek Squad technicians at Best Buy to spy on customers’ computers without a warrant.

Just as the Gestapo united and militarized Germany’s police forces into a national police force, America’s police forces have largely been federalized and turned into a national police force.

In addition to government programs that provide the nation’s police forces with military equipment and training, the FBI also operates a National Academy that trains thousands of police chiefs every year and indoctrinates them into an agency mindset that advocates the use of surveillance technology and information sharing between local, state, federal, and international agencies.

Just as the Gestapo’s secret files on political leaders were used to intimidate and coerce, the FBI’s files on anyone suspected of “anti-government” sentiment have been similarly abused.

As countless documents make clear, the FBI has no qualms about using its extensive powers in order to blackmail politicians, spy on celebrities and high-ranking government officials, and intimidate and attempt to discredit dissidents of all stripes. For example, not only did the FBI follow Martin Luther King Jr. and bug his phones and hotel rooms, but agents also sent him anonymous letters urging him to commit suicide and pressured a Massachusetts college into dropping King as its commencement speaker.

Just as the Gestapo carried out entrapment operations, the FBI has become a master in the art of entrapment.

In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks the FBI has not only targeted vulnerable individuals but has also lured or blackmailed them into fake terror plots while actually equipping them with the organization, money, weapons and motivation to carry out the plots—entrapment—and then jailing or deporting them for their so-called terrorist plotting. This is what the FBI characterizes as “forward leaning—preventative—prosecutions.” In addition to creating certain crimes in order to then “solve” them, the FBI also gives certain informants permission to break the law, “including everything from buying and selling illegal drugs to bribing government officials and plotting robberies,” in exchange for their cooperation on other fronts. USA Today estimates that agents have authorized criminals to engage in as many as 15 crimes a day. Some of these informants are getting paid astronomical sums: one particularly unsavory fellow, later arrested for attempting to run over a police officer, was actually paid $85,000 for his help laying the trap for an entrapment scheme.

When and if a true history of the FBI is ever written, it will not only track the rise of the American police state but it will also chart the decline of freedom in America, in much the same way that the empowerment of Germany’s secret police tracked with the rise of the Nazi regime.

How did the Gestapo become the terror of the Third Reich?

It did so by creating a sophisticated surveillance and law enforcement system that relied for its success on the cooperation of the military, the police, the intelligence community, neighborhood watchdogs, government workers for the post office and railroads, ordinary civil servants, and a nation of snitches inclined to report “rumors, deviant behavior, or even just loose talk.”

In other words, ordinary citizens working with government agents helped create the monster that became Nazi Germany. Writing for the New York Times, Barry Ewen paints a particularly chilling portrait of how an entire nation becomes complicit in its own downfall by looking the other way:

In what may be his most provocative statement, [author Eric A.] Johnson says that ‘‘most Germans may not even have realized until very late in the war, if ever, that they were living in a vile dictatorship.’’ This is not to say that they were unaware of the Holocaust; Johnson demonstrates that millions of Germans must have known at least some of the truth. But, he concludes, ‘‘a tacit Faustian bargain was struck between the regime and the citizenry.’’ The government looked the other way when petty crimes were being committed. Ordinary Germans looked the other way when Jews were being rounded up and murdered; they abetted one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century not through active collaboration but through passivity, denial and indifference.

Much like the German people, “we the people” have become passive, polarized, gullible, easily manipulated, and lacking in critical thinking skills.  Distracted by entertainment spectacles, politics and screen devices, we too are complicit, silent partners in creating a police state similar to the terror practiced by former regimes.

Had the government tried to ram such a state of affairs down our throats suddenly, it might have had a rebellion on its hands.

Instead, the American people have been given the boiling frog treatment, immersed in water that slowly is heated up—degree by degree—so that they’ve fail to notice that they’re being trapped and cooked and killed.

“We the people” are in hot water now.

The Constitution doesn’t stand a chance against a federalized, globalized standing army of government henchmen protected by legislative, judicial and executive branches that are all on the same side, no matter what political views they subscribe to: suffice it to say, they are not on our side or the side of freedom.

From Clinton to Bush, then Obama and now Trump, it’s as if we’ve been caught in a time loop, forced to re-live the same thing over and over again: the same assaults on our freedoms, the same disregard for the rule of law, the same subservience to the Deep State, and the same corrupt, self-serving government that exists only to amass power, enrich its shareholders and ensure its continued domination.

Can the Fourth Reich happen here?

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, it’s already happening right under our noses.

*

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.

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]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

On February 22nd 2014 Oleksandr Turchynov, on his first day as speaker of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada, made his now infamous speech concerning the disestablishment of the Russian language as a state language in Ukraine. What people who were not in Crimea at the time may not be fully cognizant of was that this speech was the match that lit the fire of the Crimean secession-movement, which commenced in earnest the same day. I should emphasize the point that the concerns of the Crimean people regarding that issue were not essentially cultural or identitarian. On the contrary, the people of Crimea understood clearly that the practical effect of this law would be that they would be living in an apartheid-state. That’s when they decided that they wanted out.

Not that Crimeans were ever particularly happy about the language-laws which existed before 2014. Back in the day, local people used to tell me things like “My grandmother is 78 years old, and the law says that all the labels on the bottles of her medication have to be printed only in Ukrainian. She needs her meds to stay alive, and sure she can speak Ukrainian, but all of the highly technical info regarding dosage and so on is written in technical jargon. The medication is dangerous if she misunderstands the instructions on the label.”

In a recent interview with Izvestia, following the implementation of Ukraine’s new law on the state-language, the OSCE’s High Commissioner on National Minorities Lamberto Zannier stated that

“Firstly, the law says nothing about the protection of national minorities’ languages. Secondly, all issues about the use of the state language are solved in quite a tough manner – not through a system of encouragements that the OSCE would like to see, but through punishment. Thirdly, the law was adopted without any consultations with representatives of national minorities.”

It’s a little bit infuriating the way that intergovernmental agency mandarins speak. IGO-speak is a dialect of the English language related to NGO-speak. Both dialects have special syntactical rules, for example the rule that absolutely every sentence must include the word “consultation.” Intergovernmental agency mandarins use phrases like “implementing mediating frameworks and mechanisms for consultation…..”

This kind of fluffy, oblique language is not simply pointless – it is damaging, because it causes people in the wider world to misunderstand the real issues at work in national debates about language-laws, which are ultimately practical rather than cultural or identitarian. Considering that “identity” is one of the woundedly narcissistic hobby-horses of so many people in the industrial world these days, many will be inclined to imagine that the central point at stake for native speakers of Russian in Ukraine is simply their right to remain culturally Russian.

It is not.

The real purpose of fair language-laws is to prevent very practical forms of discrimination in competitive social processes.

And furthermore, I should further unpack what I mean by “discrimination.”

By “discrimination,” I do not mean simply the offence to personal dignity caused by being prevented from using one’s own native language. By “discrimination,” I mean that being forced to use a language which is not their native language places people at very practical forms of competitive disadvantage in the legal system, the tax-system and the educational system.

Everybody who lives in Ukraine is comfortably conversant in Ukrainian, but a significant minority of Ukrainian citizens will not feel entirely confident while reading the turgidly, bureaucratically worded fine print regarding tax-exemptions, deductions and rebates while filling out a tax-form. Non-native speakers of Ukrainian will be more likely to gloss over the fine print, which means that they don’t get the tax-rebates they should be getting – the practical effect is that they will unnecessarily pay more tax than native speakers of Ukrainian.

The same holds regarding the ability to confidently read the equally turgidly worded fine print in a legal contract. If you didn’t understand the fine print perfectly in the legalese-register of your second language, then maybe you get ripped off on the contract.

As for the educational system, while exams in history and literature would not present any significant practical problem, how would you like to be required to sit exams in organic chemistry in your second language? Even many honours chemistry-students are not going to feel entirely confident doing that.

Remember that all academic examination-processes are competitive – you are competing against the other exam-candidates. On a practical level, the same holds for the tax-system. Taxpayers are essentially competing against each other – the more taxpayers fail to fully claim all of the exemptions and rebates which they are legally entitled to, the more there will be to go around for everybody else in next year’s fiscal budget.

So the competitive aspect of the educational and tax-systems, and for that matter the adversarial component of the legal system, needs to be emphasized. Unfair or exclusionary language-laws stack the deck in favour of native-speakers of a particular language. Non-native-speakers of that language will pay more tax than they are legally required to, will be at a disadvantage when they go before the courts, will find it more difficult to legally enforce their contractual rights, and their prospects for social advancement will be compromised because their academic performance will be compromised, most especially in highly technical or scientific academic disciplines.

In very practical bread-and-butter terms, this is apartheid.

So the core-issue in play in the debate concerning Ukraine’s language-laws is NOT simply “culture” or “identity.”

Not everybody is so frivolously narcissistic as to worry about something called “identity.”

The real issues are practical tax-equality, practical access to equal protection under the law, and the preservation of practical meritocracy in the educational system.

And then there’s the task of trying to ensure that your grandmother doesn’t accidentally overdose on her meds.

That’s what the people of Crimea understood clearly in February 2014.

*

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.

This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Featured image is from OSCE Parliamentary Assembly/Flickr

Introduction

The Tulsi Gabbard presidential campaign has filed a major lawsuit against Google.  This article outlines the main points of the lawsuit and evidence the the social media giant Google has quietly acquired enormous influence on public perceptions and has been actively censoring alternative viewpoints.

Tulsi Now vs Google

Tulsi Now, Inc vs Google, LLC  was filed on July 25 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The attorneys demand a jury trial and seek compensation and punitive damages of “no less than $50 million”. Major points and allegations in the 36 page complaint include:

*Google has monopolistic control of online searches and related advertising.

“Google creates, operates, and controls its platform and services, including but not limited to Google Search, Google Ads, and Gmail as a public forum or its functional equivalent by intentionally and openly dedicating its platform for public use and public benefit, inviting the public to utilize Google as a forum for free speech. Google serves as a state actor by performing an exclusively and traditionally public function by regulating free speech within a public forum and helping to run elections.” (p22)

“Google has used its control over online political speech to silence Tulsi Gabbard, a candidate millions of Americans want to hear from. With this lawsuit, Tulsi seeks to stop Google from further intermeddling in the 2020 United States Presidential Election….. Google plays favorites, with no warning, no transparency – and no accountability (until now).” (p2)

*At a critical moment Google undercut the Tulsi Gabbard campaign.

“On June 28, 2019 – at the height of Gabbard’s popularity among internet researchers in the immediate hours after the debate ended, and in the thick of the critical post-debate period… Google suspended Tulsi’s Google Ads account without warning.” (p3)

*Google has failed to provide a credible explanation.

The Tulsi campaign quickly sought to restore the account but

“In response, the Campaign got opacity and an inconsistent series of answers from Google… To this day, Google has not provided a straight answer – let alone a credible one – as to why Tulsi’s political speech was silence right when millions of people wanted to hear from her.” (p4)

Google started by falsely claiming “problems with billing”. Later, as reported in the NY Times story  a Google spokesperson claimed,

“Google has automated systems that flag unusual activity on advertiser accounts – including large spending changes – to prevent fraud….In this case, ‘our system triggered a suspension.’ “

*Google has a corporate profit motive to oppose Tulsi Gabbard.

“Google has sought to silence Tulsi Gabbard, a presidential candidate who has vocally called for greater regulation and oversight of (you guessed it) Google.” (p5)

“During her career in Congress, Gabbard has moved to limit the powers of big tech companies like Google and has fought to keep the internet open and available to all. Gabbard has co-sponsored legislation that prohibits multi-tiered pricing agreements for the privileged few, and she has spoken in favor of reinstating and expanding net neutrality to apply to Internet firms like Google.” (p 8)

*Google’s Actions have caused significant harm to the Gabbard campaign and violate the U.S. and California constitutions and California business law.

“Through its illegal actions targeting Tulsi Gabbard, Google has caused the Campaign significant harm, both monetary (including potentially millions of dollars in forgone donations) and nonmonetary (the ability to provide Tulsi’s important message with Americans looking to hear it).” (p6)

“Google engages in a pattern and practice of intentional discrimination in the provision of its services, including discriminating and censoring the Campaign’s speech based not on the content of the censored speech but on the Campaign’s political identity and viewpoint.” (p27)

*The public has an interest in this case.

“Unless the court issues an appropriate injunction, Google’s illegal and unconstitutional behavior will continue, harming both the Campaign and the general public, which has an overwhelming interest in a fair, unmanipulated 2020 United States Election cycle. (p 34)

Google Explanation is Not Credible

The Tulsi Gabbard Google Ads account was abruptly suspended at a crucial time. The question is why. Was it the result of “unusual activity” triggering an “automatic suspension” as claimed by Google? Or was it because someone at Google changed the software or otherwise intervened to undermine the Tulsi campaign?

Google’s explanation of an “automatic suspension” from “unusual activity” is dubious. First, the timing does not make sense. The sudden rise in searches on “Tulsi Gabbard” began the day before the suspension. Gabbard participated in the first debate, on June 26. Her presence and performance sparked interest among many viewers. Next morning, June 27, media reported that,  “Tulsi Gabbard was the most searched candidate on Google after the Democratic debate in Miami”. The second debate took place in the evening of June 27. With discussion of the Democratic candidates continuing,  Tulsi Gabbard continued to attract much interest. Around 9:30 pm (ET) on June 27 the Google Ads account was suddenly suspended. If the cause was “unusual activity”, the “automatic trigger” should have occurred long before.

Second, Google was fully aware of the “unusual activity”. In fact Google was the source of the news reports on the morning of June 27.  Reports said,

“According to Google Trends, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren was the most searched candidate heading into the debate… After the debate, Gabbard vaulted into first.”

Screenshot from USA Today

Third, it is hard to believe that Google does not have any human or more sophisticated review before suspending a major Ads account on a politically intense night. It should have been obvious that the cause of increased interest in Gabbard was the nationally televised Democratic candidates debate and media coverage.

Fourth, the changing explanation for the sudden suspension, starting with a false claim that there were “problems with billing”, raises questions about the integrity of Google’s response.

Google Secretly Manipulates Public Opinion

Unknown to most of the public, there is compelling evidence that Google has been secretly manipulating search results to steer public perception and election voting for years.

Dr. Robert Epstein, former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today, has been studying and reporting on this for the past six years. Recently, on June 16, 2019 he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Constitution. His testimony is titled “Why Google Poses a Serious Threat to Democracy, and How to End That Threat”.

Epstein has published 15 books and over 300 scientific and mainstream media articles on artificial intelligence and related topics.

“Since 2012, some of my research and writings have focused on Google LLC, specifically on the company’s power to suppress content – the censorship problem, if you will – as well as on the massive surveillance the company conducts, and also on the company’s unprecedented ability to manipulate the thoughts and behavior of more than 2.5 billion people worldwide.”

As shown by Dr. Epstein, Google uses several techniques to manipulate public opinion. The results of an online search are biased.  Search “suggestions” are skewed. Messages such as “Go Vote” are sent to some people but not to others.

Epstein’s written testimony to Congress includes links to over sixty articles documenting his research published in sites ranging from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences to Huffington Post. Epstein’s testimony describes “disturbing findings” including:

“In 2016, biased search results generated by Google’s search algorithm likely impacted undecided voters in a way that gave at least 2.6 million votes to Hillary Clinton”. (Epstein notes that he supported Clinton.)

“On Election Day in 2018, the ‘Go Vote’ reminder Google displayed on its home page gave one political party between 800,000 and 4.6 million more votes than it gave the other party.”

“My recent research demonstrates that Google’s ‘autocomplete’ search suggestions can turn a 50/50 split among undecided voters into a 90/10 split without people’s awareness.”

“Google has likely been determining the outcomes of upwards of 25 percent of the national elections worldwide since at least 2015. This is because many races are very close and because Google’s persuasive technologies are very powerful.” 

Google is Censoring Alternative Media  

In August 2017 TruePublica reported their experience and predictions in an article titled “The Truth War is Being Lost to a Global Censorship Apparatus Called Google”. The article says,

“60 percent of people now get their news from search engines, not traditional human editors in the media. It is here where the new information war takes place – the algorithm. Google now takes 81.2 percent of all search engine market share globally…. Google has the ability to drive demand and set the narrative, create bias and swing opinion.”

In 2017, the World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org) reported that,

“In April, under the guise of combatting ‘fake news’, Google introduced new procedures that give extraordinary powers to unnamed ‘evaluators’ to demote web pages and websites. These procedures have been used to exclude the WSWS and other anti-war and oppositional sites. Over the past three months, traffic originating from Google to the WSWS  has fallen by approximately 70%…. In key searches relevant to a wide range of topics the WSWS regularly covers – including the U.S. military operations and the threat of war, social conditions, inequality and even socialism – the number of search impressions …has fallen dramatically.”

In essence, Google has “de-ranked” and is screening searchers from seeing alternative and progressive websites such as truepublica, globalresearch, consortiumnews, commondreams, wikileaks, truth-out and many more. WSWS reported numerous specific examples such as this one:

“Searches for the term ‘Korean war’ produced 20,932 impressions in May. In July, searches using the same words produced zero WSWS impressions.”

“The policy guiding these actions is made absolutely clear in the April 25, 2017 blog post by Google’s Vice President for Engineering, Ben Gomes, and the updated ‘Search Quality Rater Guidelines’ published at the same time. The post refers to the need to flag and demote ‘unexpected offensive results, hoaxes and conspiracy theories’ – broad and amorphous language used to exclude any oppositional content…. “The ‘lowest’ rating is also to be given to a website that ‘presents unsubstantiated conspiracy theories or hoaxes as if the information were factual.'”

Tulsi Gabbard has not only called for much stricter regulations on high tech and social media giants. She has also challenged the Democratic Party and foreign policy establishment.  In late February 2016 she resigned as vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee to support candidate Bernie Sanders against the establishment favorite, Hillary Clinton. Gabbard has issued sharp criticisms of US foreign policy.  Recently she said,

“We hear a lot of politicians say the same argument that we’ve got to stay engaged in the world otherwise we’ll be isolationists as though the only way the United States can engage with other countries is by blowing them up or strangling them with economic sanctions by smashing them and trying to overthrow their governments. This is exactly what’s wrong with this whole premise and the whole view in which too many politicians, too many leaders in this country are viewing the United States role in the world.”

Conclusion

Did Google take the next step from silently censoring websites the corporation does not like to undercutting a presidential candidate the corporation does not like?

This is a David vs Goliath story. Google/Alphabet is the 37th largest corporation in the world  with enormous political influence in Washington. Whether or not the law suit succeeds, it may serve the public interest by exposing Google’s immense monopolistic power  and illustrate the need for much more regulation, transparency and accountability.  It may also generate more interest in Gabbard’s message and campaign in the face of efforts to silence her.

*

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.

Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can be contacted at [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Pixabay

“This ideology of [United States corporatism] embraces a belief that societies and cultures can be regenerated through violence….  This belief that [the US has] a divine right to resources, land and power, and a right to displace and kill to obtain personal and national wealth, has left in its wake a trail of ravaged landscaped and incalculable human suffering.”  — Chris Hedges, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt 

The United States in 1954, under the thin veil of fighting communism and defending “American” interests, led a coup d’état in Guatemala to overthrow democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz. Árbenz and his immediate predecessor Juan José Arévalo initiated substantial social programs that brought needed and popular changes to a rising urban working class and rural peasants that for 133 years were ruled by paternal autocrats that in Latin America were called caudillos. Beginning in the twentieth century Guatemalan rulers encouraged foreign corporations, enticed with generous governmental inducements to plunder the nation and keep labor costs at rock bottom.  By 1944 the Guatemalan people began to pushback against the caudillos who ruled for benefit of the oligarchy and US corporations.  The US onslaught against the Árbenz government set the stage for US imperialist interventions throughout Latin America for the next 65 years.  Indeed, for the US Central Intelligency Agency (CIA), the operations in Guatemala and Iran (1953), served as a blueprint for CIA led interventions around the globe.  Subsequent the overthrow of Árbenz, the elites in the CIA had jettisoned any notions that it follow the ethos that each had sworn to when he joined the intelligence agency.  Richard M. Bissell, Jr., CIA officer in charge of the Cuban Bay of Pigs invasion, admitted that it was no longer necessary to speak the truth even to the nation’s commander-in-chief.

“Many of us who joined the CIA did not feel bound in the actions we took as staff members to observe all ethical rules,” he said.

For him and his colleagues protecting the image of the CIA was the prime directive.  The lies the CIA operatives told policymakers in the US would have disastrous in the decades to come.

Indeed, during the four decades subsequent the US-led destruction of the ambitious Guatemalan 1944 Revolution, Guatemala was once again beset with vicious and corrupt dictators. The revolution during 1944 that offered the working class and peasants social changes, that were featured in programs initiated during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration in the US, were obliterated.  The dreams of the poor and working class of a liberal government in Guatemala were violently swept away and replaced by four decades of Civil War and governmental policies of scorched earth cruelty and genocide under the guidance, military training and acquiescence of the highest reaches of the US government.  These horrors, that claimed more than 200,000 lives, 93 percent of the deaths at the hands of the Guatemalan military, culminated in the 1996 peace accord under the auspices of the United Nations.  The peace accord ended a horrific and sustained wave of repression and slaughter and established a Commission on Historical Clarification to study the atrocities and their causes.  This paper examines the US-backed overthrow of Guatemala’s democratically elected government at the behest of corporate profits and the decades of savagery that supported tyrants who unleashed unspeakable horrors against their own populations during the 36-year Guatemalan Civil War.

Jacobo Árbenz, Francisco Arana, and Jorge Toriello, who oversaw the transition to a civilian government after the October Revolution (Public Domain)

Since 1821 when the Spanish empire ceded independence to Latin American nations, Guatemala remains the largest and the most populous nation in the Central American isthmus, a 200,000 square-mile region comprised of seven nations: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.  By the late nineteenth century, Guatemala’s economy was driven almost exclusively by coffee and banana exportation.  Coffee barons, mostly Guatemalan nationals and Germans (who were expelled from the country and removed to US camps as their landholdings were forcibly liquidated during World War II), exploited a large peasant population, including indigenous Mayan Indians, that resided in rural villages and hamlets.  US corporations dominated other economic sectors.  The urban population resided in Guatemala City, the nation’s capital.  The urbans were mostly ladino, Spanish descendants with combined Mayan ancestry.  The ladino population emerged at least partly from the exploitation of Indian women, who bore the children of white Spaniards or criollos who raped them.  Criollos were of white Spanish ancestry, but born in the Western hemisphere   However, by adopting their bourgeois values, ladinos could sometimes blend with the criollos.  But mostly ladinos were neither property owners nor forced laborers.  Instead, ladinos were landless free laborers who were in a constant struggle for survival.  The ladinos’ denial of their identity sharply differed with the Indians’ values of community and communal labor.  The class structure in Guatemala consisted of a tiny but powerful oligarchy with a small upper-middle class layer that would be blocked from entering the higher levels of the society by colonial structures.  The overwhelming percentage of the remaining population were impoverished, landless peasants.  Hardly any social mobility existed among the classes, especially for the Indians who were mostly ignored or exploited.  The Indians were considered in most quarters as non-citizens (Schlewitz 2004; Jonas 1991, 16, 22).

Guatemala’s economy and class divisions were based on land ownership that remained in the hands of the oligarchy and the US corporations.  Most of the population was landless.  The oligarchs and United Fruit Company controlled a vast majority of arable land in the country as of 1950 with a large portion of these tracts uncultivated.  The class differential also manifested itself in the ability of the elites to foist coercive methods on workers and the poor that included debt peonage and forced labor. Wages were at starvation levels even as periodic trends in the coffee and banana markets increased profits.  The coffee and banana export economy that drove profits for the oligarchs and foreign corporations limited production of foodstuffs for workers as chronic shortages persisted of rice, beans, corn, wheat, tobacco and meat.  The labor force in Guatemala was obviously connected to race with Indians at the bottom of the economic pyramid.  These repressive policies stymied any consumer demand in the nation (Galeano 1997; Schlewitz 2004).

In the early years of the twentieth century, banana plantations made their debut.  Beginning in the years subsequent to the US Civil War, US companies were becoming entrenched into the Guatemalan economy and a dominant presence in the lives of the nation.  Especially dominant were the companies engaged in banana production, railway transportation and merchant shipping.  Subsequent World War I, three US companies—United Fruit Company, International Railways of Central America (IRCA) and Electric Bond and Share— dominated economic scene.  These companies built new railways for the exclusive use of products from US-corporate owned plantations.  These foreign companies also monopolized the electric light, mail, telegraph and telephone services.    United Fruit swarmed into Central America and became the biggest latifundista, the large landholders that controlled the rural populations.  United Fruit Company dominated banana production and IRCA dominated transportation as their affiliates controlled the shipping ports and set up private customs and private police.  By 1944 United Fruit Company was the largest landholder in the nation with 550,000 acres fronting both the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines (Galeano 1997; Schlewitz 2004; Gordon 1971; Jonas 1991, 19).

US businesses established favorable concessions from the Guatemalan government that included low taxes and capital transfer fees that kept the Guatemalan government in subservience, thus limited the government’s ability to establish meaningful gains in its own economy.  Furthermore, the wide profit margins the US corporations enjoyed allowed the US companies and their executives outsized leverage into the governmental policies of their host country.  Bribery was commonplace and the corporate connections to powerful US policymakers in the US State Department and the Commerce Department ensured US corporations received substantial privileges (Schlewitz 2004).

During the nineteenth century in Latin America conservatives opposed the influx of foreign capital and advocated for an isolationist policy.  They also preferred limited governmental oversight as the Catholic Church and latifundista maintained control of the peasants.  Conservatives also rejected a Central American federation under Guatemalan leadership that liberals envisioned.  On the other hand, liberals were the elites that mostly resided in the urban areas.  Liberals promoted a centralized government that included a planned economy, commercialization of agriculture, foreign investment along with integrating the nation with educational programs (Schlewitz 2004; Galeano 1997).

Prior to the liberal Revolution of 1871 huge land tracts, that were owned by the state, the Catholic Church or by no one, were claimed by privateers as Indian communities were voraciously sacked.  Peasants who resisted offers to sell their land to the great enterprises that desired the parcels were forced into the army as brutal coffee plantations gobbled up land.  Between independence in 1821 and the 1944 revolution when Dr. Juan José Arévalo (image on the right, public domain) was elected president, Guatemala see-sawed between the rule of conservative and liberal elites.  Following Guatemalan independence from Spain in 1821, liberals maintained a tenuous hold on the government.  Conservatives came to power in 1837 and ruled until the liberal revolution of 1871.  That year General Justo Rufino Barrios seized the mantel of power that would remain in the liberals’ hands for 50 years.  Subsequent the 1871 revolution, liberals during the autocratic Rufino Barrios regime attempted to compel neighboring countries in Central America to unite into the Central American Federation, but these hopes expired when the caudillo was killed in the battle of Chalchuapa in El Salvador on April 2, 1885 (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 28-29; Schlewitz 2004).

Meanwhile, the liberals under the Justo Rufino Barrios regime ended the Church’s dominance in education and established public education as they completed land reforms that seized land from the oligarchs and transferred ownership to peasants.  As Guatemala flooded with foreign money primarily from Germany and the US, the liberal regime began infrastructure improvements in communication, seaports and roads to modernize the nation’s ability to enter the world economy.  The Rufino Barrios government could never be confused with a democracy, its progressive reforms for the poor notwithstanding.  Its generous policies for the poor came to a halt upon the death of Rufino Barrios in 1885.  When the megalomaniac protofascist General Jorge Ubico rose to power in 1931 with the support of the US and, specifically, the Rockefeller Foundation, after a string of brutal dictatorships, Guatemala had reverted back to its feudal conditions.  The US State Department had since 1919 sought to assist the advancement of Ubico.  Upon his rise to power, the oligarchs had successfully chased the peasants off the land.  Ubico increased a centralized government that sought to privatize the nation’s resources while it subsidized private industry and bolstered law and order to protect the ownership class (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 27-28; Jonas 1991, 20).

In 1934 the Ubico government instituted vagrancy legislation similar to the nineteenth-century Black Codes and Jim Crow laws in the post-Reconstruction US that forced those without proof of employment or ownership of enough land to labor for either for planters or on government work crews.  Workers who fled were hunted down by gunmen.  Industrial workers and artisans in Guatemala City made repeated efforts to establish unions, but they were unsuccessful until the 1944 Revolution.  The workers were paid minimal wages and never enjoyed the increases that came with the rising prices of coffee or bananas worldwide (Galeano 1997; Schlewitz 2004).

The power differential between the “Colossus of the North,” that was the US, and the Central American nation of Guatemala, ensured the subordination of the host nation’s interests, ideals and culture.  As US hegemony around the globe increased, so did the intensity of US prerogative over Guatemalan policy.  During the post-World War II years as the Cold War escalated and especially following the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the US grip in Guatemala and Latin America tightened (Schlewitz 2004).

As the Great Depression held the globe in its icy grip, General Jorge Ubico (image on the left, public domain) with the concerted influence of the US in a corrupt election assumed the presidency in 1931.  Using his secret police as a cudgel to menace any opposition, Ubico retained power as he restructured the Constitution at his whim for 13 years.  But by 1941 during World War II, the US had misgivings about Ubico’s pro-Nazi political stance.  When German elite landholders were expelled from Guatemala that year and interred in US relocation camps, the US sent FBI agents to ensure the expropriation of their lands.  Additionally, Assistant Secretary of State Nelson Rockefeller conceived a program of loans from the US government and private banks to spur business development and secure financial connections to the US.  When the ultraconservative Ubico rejected Rockefeller’s efforts, the US policymakers began to reconsider his usefulness to the empire (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 26-27; Schlewitz 2004; Jonas 1991, 22).

Meanwhile by 1944, a rising middle-class in Guatemala had assumed responsibility in coordinating work activities of the passive Indians who occupied 50 percent of the nation’s total population.  This petit bourgeoisie of schoolteachers, shopkeepers, skilled workers, underpaid public workers, junior military officers and university students  formed a coalition for a revolution that included progressive and nationalistic property owners who had been snubbed by Ubico.  Peasants and both rural and urban workers and artisans also joined the coalition on a limited basis.  The Indian population was not active in the movement, but their general restiveness contributed support for change.  Most important to the revolution was the broad support the population had for a constitutional democracy.  During the war years these cohorts listened intently via shortwave radios to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “fire-side chats” about the New Deal and his “Four Freedoms” that declared that all humanity is entitled to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear.  Roosevelt was a hero to this growing population’s awareness of possibilities after it had been through 13 years of crushing repression from the Ubico regime.  Roosevelt inspired workers and middle-class Guatemalans that they deserved a government that served the public’s well-being not just the dominant class (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 26-29; Jonas 1991, 23).

Non-violent demonstrations led by schoolteachers began occurring in Guatemala with increasing frequency.  Demonstrations against the government had never happened in Guatemala’s history.  This stunned Ubico who fancied himself as comparable to his idol Napoleon.  He had not the slightest idea that his subjects hated him.  The flatterers and lickspittles that Ubico surrounded himself with kept him in the dark about the citizenry’s true feelings about his rule.  On June 29, 1944 Guatemalans energized by middle-class activists gathered people from broad sections of the urban population.  They staged a rally on the capital’s central square in Guatemala City, that demanded an end to the Ubico government.  Enraged, Ubico ordered cavalry to charge the protesters; 200 were killed or injured (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 27-28).

Until June 1944 Ubico had continued the thuggish and crushing legacy of repression of the caudillos that Guatemalan’s endured since the nation’s independence.   But that year the oligarchy’s government was in tatters.  A few days after the June 29^th demonstration, 311 schoolteachers, lawyers, doctors, shop owners and others delivered a petition that boldly stated the “Petition of the 311 declared the “full solidarity” of the petition’s signers with the “legitimate aspirations” of the protesters.  Feeling betrayed as many of the petitioners were those whom he considered his friends and broken in spirit, Ubico on July 1, 1944 resigned his office and ceded the government to General Federico Ponce (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 28).

Ponce (image on the right, public domain) vastly misunderstood the mood of Guatemala’s electorate; he assumed incorrectly that the people desired a new caudillo that since independence from Spain was the hallmark of Latin American leaders.  Ponce did institute raises in teacher salaries and minimal reforms in the universities that he hoped would pacify the strident protesters who drove Ubico from office.  But simultaneously, Ponce issued crackdowns on civil liberties: prohibited private meetings and demonstrations, expanded surveillance and retained control of the government in the hands of the military and jefes politicos, the local political bosses that Ubico relied upon to dominate and terrorize the country.  Meanwhile, a prominent commentator wrote scathing articles denouncing the Ponce regime was assassinated on orders from Ponce  The schoolteachers and other activists sought an opposition candidate to run against Ponce.  Fellow schoolteacher and author of popular history and geography textbooks Dr. Juan José Arévalo was their choice (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 30).

On September 2, 1944 Arévalo, returning from a 10-year exile in Argentina, stepped off an airplane to adoring throngs of Guatemalans who accepted him as their chosen leader to take the people out of the dark days of dictatorship.  However, Arévalo went into hiding almost immediately as Ponce ordered his arrest.  But Ponce’s days were numbered.  Two military officers, Major Francisco Arana and Captain Jacobo Árbenz, who in 1950 would himself be elected president, returned from El Salvador where they plotted a revolt against the Ponce government.  Arana and Árbenz rapidly organized a brigade of loyal soldiers who under Arana and Árbenz direction attacked police stations and military installations friendly to Ponce.  Ponce acquiesced to the onslaught on October 22 and soon he left Guatemala.  Arana and Árbenz were hailed as national heroes and formed a temporary junta along with Jorge Toriello, a well-known business leader.  The junta immediately declared free elections would soon follow as it embraced Arévalo as the junta’s candidate (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 30-31; Pike 1955).

Arévalo enjoyed broad-based support.  On March 15, 1945 Juan José Arévalo took the oath of office as he was swept into the presidency with the support of 85 percent of voters.  The franchise was only permitted to “literate males.”  Nonetheless, Arévalo spoke of the benefits of democracy as he expressed Christian Socialist notions that the government has a duty to improve the lives of its citizens.  He called communism “contrary to human nature, for it is contrary to the psychology of man.”  Yet, he acknowledged communism existed in Guatemala as a legal political viewpoint.  When Marxists established Escuela Claridad, an indoctrination school in 1945, Arévalo ordered the school closed on the grounds that the Guatemalan Constitution did not permit a political organization of a foreign or international character.  But Marxism was gaining a toehold in the nation.  In 1947 a group led by José Manuel Fortuny established Vanguardia Democrática, a communist organization (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 32-34, 56; Pike 1955).

Arévalo’s governance promised major priorities: land and tax reform, labor protections, improvements to the nation’s educational system and consolidation of political democracy.  Arévalo encouraged formation of political parties.  He restructured the National Assembly as an equal branch of government to the executive.  Freedom of the press and free speech blossomed for the first time in the nation’s 123-year history.  In 1946 the Arévalo government passed Guatemala’s first social security legislation that was fashioned after Roosevelt’s New Deal.  Additionally, Arévalo and the National Assembly in 1947 passed the Labor Code that was modeled after the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act of 1935) that allowed labor unions and collective bargaining in the US.  The labor legislation included an eight-hour workday, minimum wages, child and female labor regulations, severance pay and paid vacations.  The land-owning oligarchs were enraged.  This tiny group of privilege resented the very idea that any citizens not in their rarified socioeconomic strata would be entitled to protections and benefits from the government.  But the larger issue was that the Labor Code was instrumental, at least in part, for the US intervention in Guatemala in 1954.  The Code required foreign corporations to maintain a workforce that was 90 percent Guatemalan.   The oligarchy’s obstinance drove Arévalo tentatively toward the welcoming arms of the communists.  Ubico supporters alerted the FBI of Arévalo’s labor reforms and cited “communist influence.”  The FBI opened a dossier on Arévalo. (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 37-38; Pike 1955; Gordon 1971).

Even as the oligarchy and the US corporations dug in their heels as the new welfare state delivered threats to their cheap labor supply and squabbles among the elites persisted, Arévalo’s progress was significant.  Government expenditures for education between 1944 and 1950 jumped 155 percent.  Outlays for new schools and hospitals tripled in 1945 and doubled again by 1950.  A group of US economists delivered a study that showed the new programs moderately redistributed income in favor of Indian peasants and low-income urban families and strengthened the entire economy by increasing productivity (Gordon 1971).

The benefits that Arévalo delivered mostly benefited the labor side of the economy but ignored the major issues of land and tax reform.  The Indians remained landless.  The overflowing wealth of oligarchy remained intact as the tax structure remained untouched.  The privileged contracts that US corporations held also remained in place.  A tax-reform measure that also would have provided adjustments to the corporations’ contracts did not pass in the Guatemalan Congress.  This legislative defeat prevented $4 million of income to the government that would have been available for economic expansion annually, according to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, i.e. the World Bank (IBRD) (Gordon 1971).

Notwithstanding Arévalo’s energy and optimism, he faced daunting conditions that plagued the nation’s living standards.  City dwellers were faced with limited options for a sustainable income as most industry resided in the hands of foreign corporations, principally United Fruit Company and its affiliates.  A small but steadily growing middle class remained on the fringes of the economy that had not adjusted to its existence.  Rural populations were faced with subsistence wages of between five cents and 20 cents per day.  Seventy-two percent of the land was owned by two percent of the population.  Latifundios that comprised more than 1,100 acres constituted only 0.3 percent of Guatemalan farms, but they occupied more than half of the country’s farmland.  Seventy-five percent of all farmers were landless or owned only small plots.  Indians, who were descendants of the Maya and never assimilated into Guatemalan society were landless.  Only one-half of the arable land in 1952 was in production.  The nation’s economic system left peasants in abject poverty; the underutilized land and resources left Guatemala dependent on the US banana and coffee markets.  The Indians represented 60 percent (1.8 million) of the nation’s three million total population but they were chained to a debt-labor system that was little different from the slavery conditions that existed during Spain’s rule.  Life expectancy for ladinos, i.e. those with mixed Spanish and Indian blood, was 50 years.  Indians could expect to live until age 40 (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 38-40; Pike 1955; Gordon 1971).

Inefficiencies in land utilization, resulting from the latifundio system, required that Guatemala import food, even as 75 percent of Guatemala’s population engaged in agricultural production.  Agricultural endeavors produced 57 percent of the country’s gross national product.  Beyond the narrow range of domestic agriculture in the country, banana and coffee production dominated the Guatemalan landscape.  The vast land tracts in bananas were wholly controlled by US corporations, principally United Fruit Company.  The coffee production remained in the grip of the Guatemalan oligarchy (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 40; Pike 1955).

The monopolies enjoyed by US corporations contributed to stalling Guatemalan industrial development, according to a 300-page report issued by the IBRD.  Contracts between the Guatemalan government and the US corporations allowed the corporations to reduce their tax liability to the Central American nation by one half.  The three US corporations had enormous political clout that allowed them to skim profits off the top and return them to their US shareholders.  Meanwhile, funds that might be used for economic development in Guatemala were siphoned off, tilting the economic table that left farmers in a dependent status and poverty ridden as it tightened the strangulating grip of the most reactionary elements (Gordon 1971; Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 53-53).

During the first couple of years of his presidential term Arévalo maintained a relatively stable environment in Guatemala.  However, dark clouds began to gather during 1948 as workers became restive.  The press, enjoying their newfound freedoms, began to vigorously attack the Arévalo administration as his base argued among themselves about definitive policies.  Between June 1948 and March 1949 labor unions began strikes that continuously harassed United Fruit Company.  A large cache of arms spurred Arévalo to declare a national emergency when the weaponry was uncovered in railroad cars at United Fruit’s railway line at Puerto Barrios on the Atlantic coast.  Plots to end the Arévalo government were tied to Colonel Francisco Arana who harbored ambitions to become president.  Arana, backed by the military, had risen in power to the extent that he enjoyed a virtual veto over Arévalo’s decisions (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 42-43).

Moreover, at least two dozen uprisings, either planned or in progress, threatened Arévalo’s government during the president’s six-year term.  Additionally, fractures appeared among the coalition that backed Arévalo as the middle class feared the 1944 Revolution was moving too far toward the left.  Radical elements continued to push for greater efforts to end poverty and the low status endured by workers and peasants.  Labor unions flexing their newfound gains under Arévalo instigated punitive worker strikes against United Fruit Company and IRCA in 1946, 1948-1949 and 1950-1952.  US financiers in Boston, the home of United Fruit’s headquarters, along with their supporters in the US Congress denigrated these labor actions that impacted foreign shareholders’ monetary gains.  Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, whose family had deep financial ties to the giant banana vendor that Guatemalans called El Pulpo (the Octopus), took to the senate floor to denounce the Labor Code as specifically targeting United Fruit Company.    The senator charged the legislation caused a “serious breakdown” because of communist intrusion.    Senator John W. McCormack joined the chorus by blaming “a minority of reckless agitators” of attempting to punish United Fruit Company for “being American.”  Congressman Christian Herter threatened legislation that would cease funding to countries that discriminated against US companies.  By 1950 the hysteria of the Red Scare was in full flower in the US as policymakers turned up the heat on Arévalo to denounce communism (Gordon 1971; (Stone and Kuznick 2012, 262).

In the runup to Guatemala’s 1950 election, elements in the military felt their dominant role in Guatemalan society was threatened.  Simultaneously, leftists, intimidated by Major Francisco Arana’s control of the military, were apprehensive at the notion of the military securing the reins of the government.  Also, sensing pushback from opposition the leftists were eager to implement the policies that the 1944 revolution promised.  As the Arévalo government faltered, the left sought a candidate for the upcoming election in 1950 election to counter Arana.  They set their sights on Defense Minister Jacobo Árbenz, who had partnered with Arana during the 1944 military revolt against Ponce (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 43).

The more assertive Arana was popular with voters as the more reticent Árbenz cut a less dynamic profile.  Árbenz’s principle advisers worried that Arana might launch a coup d’état with the acquiescence of the military.  A plot emerged to arrest Arana on charges that he was planning to take the government by force.  But Árbenz supporters balked at that idea, fearing an uprising by the military.  Another scheme considered was to kidnap Arana and force him into exile.  What finally occurred was that Arana was ambushed at the Puente de la Gloria bridge.  Arana was killed in the ensuing gun battle.  Close friends of Árbenz were implicated but Arévalo refused to investigate.  Rumors circulated that Árbenz witnessed the battle through binoculars while he was perched on a nearby hill.  Following sporadic uprisings in the weeks after the assassination that Arévalo quelled, it was a forgone conclusion that Jacobo Árbenz would be Arévalo’s successor as president (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 44-45).

On the Ides of March 1951 Jacobo Árbenz (image on the left, public domain) began his term as Guatemala’s president.  The Ides of March was significant in 44 BCE as the day of the assassination of Julius Caesar that marked a major change in the Roman Empire’s destiny.  Guatemala was no Roman Empire, but the election of the 38-year-old Árbenz would usher in major changes in the course of the Guatemalan history.   The US would bring the wrath of empire to Guatemala as the Central American nation attempted to continue the nascent 1944 Revolution that ignited hope in the hearts of workers and the middle class during Arévalo’s administration.  The result of the US interventions that began in 1954 would lay the foundation for the slaughter or disappearance of 200,000 in Guatemala during the subsequent four decades (McSherry 2005; Weiner 2008; Stone and Kuznick 2012, 261).

President Jacobo Árbenz at his March 1951 inauguration voiced his commitment to meaningful reforms and social justice:

“All the riches of Guatemala are not as important as the life, the freedom, the dignity, the health and the happiness of its people…we must distribute these riches so that those who have less—and they are the immense majority—benefit more, while those who have more—and they are so few—also benefit, but to a lesser extent.  How could it be otherwise, given the poverty, the poor health and the lack of education of our people?”

Árbenz, early in his administration, was energetically transforming Guatemala into a modern capitalist nation.   He enthusiastically worked to quash the iron grip of world coffee prices on the Guatemalan economy.  He also sought to pull Guatemala away from the oppressive boot of US corporations on his countrymen.  One of his first projects was the development of an Atlantic coastal port that would be owned by the Guatemalan public and compete against the Puerto Barrios port owned by United Fruit Company.  Árbenz also began construction of a highway to the Atlantic that would compete with the IRCA railroad’s monopoly. Finally, he erected a hydroelectric plant that produced electrical power cheaper than the US-investor owned Electric Bond and Share monopoly.  Instead of simply nationalizing the US-corporate monopolies, Árbenz attempted to compete directly against the giants.  However, Árbenz’s main thrust was in land reform; in his message to Congress he stated that he advocated “agrarian reform which puts an end to the latifundios and the semi-feudal practices, giving the land to thousands of peasants, raising their purchasing power and creating a great internal market favorable to the development of domestic industry” (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 53; Stone and Kuznick 2012, 261).

The agrarian reform legislative vehicle to initiate the audacious plan to equalize wealth in Guatemala was called Decree 900.  Decree 900 granted the Guatemalan government the power to expropriate land of large plantations that was uncultivated.  Not included in this legislation were any farms with fewer than 223 acres, or farms between 223 acres and 670 acres that had a minimum of 2/3 of the farm’s land under cultivation.  Farms of any size that were totally cultivated were exempt from expropriation.  The owners of the expropriated lands would be compensated with 25-year term government bonds that yielded three percent per annum.  The valuation of the land expropriated was based on the owner’s declaration of value for tax purposes as of May 1952.  The property owners, especially the big US corporations and oligarchs, insisted that they valued their lands for tax purposes well below rates they could achieve on the open market to limit their tax liability (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 54-55).

These expropriated lands, together with huge “national farms” that were nationalized in 1941 when the Germans who owned these tracts were expelled from the country during World War II were to be parceled to landless peasants in tracts no larger than 42.5 acres each.  To avoid speculation in the real estate market, most of the recipients of the land would not be granted a clear title and they could only occupy the land for the remainder of their life.  Instead they would rent the land at five percent of the value of the food produced from the land.  The “nationalized farms” once owned by Germans would be rented for three percent of the food’s value from production.  This bold initiative would only survive for 18 months until the Árbenz government was toppled.  But during its existence, the program delivered 1.5 million acres (that the Guatemalan government paid $8,345,545 in bonds) to approximately 100,000 families—including 1,700 acres owned by President Árbenz and an additional 1,200 acres that was owned by Guillermo Toriello who would later become Árbenz’s foreign minister (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 54-55).

Decree 900 would have grave consequences for the largest landowner in Guatemala, United Fruit Company that owned about 550,000 acres.  Decree 900 was especially punishing to the corporation as the legislation targeted uncultivated land for expropriation.  The banana grower’s landholdings were 85 percent uncultivated in 1953 due to market demand for the produce.   In March 1953, 209,842 acres of United Fruit Company’s uncultivated land were expropriated at the Pacific coast in a region named Tiquisate.  The land was valued at $627,572.  Between October 1953 and February 1954, the Guatemalan government expropriated an additional 177,059 acres at Bananera, near the Atlantic coast. The government valued this expropriation at about $500,000.  The US Department of State on April 20, 1954 issued an angry protest and demanded a payment of $15,854,849 for the property at Tiquisate.  This sum did not include the US value estimate for the Bananera tract.  The total acreage expropriated tallied 386,901 (approximately 70 percent of United Fruit Company’s landholdings in Guatemala).  Foreign-policy experts in the Eisenhower were stepping up their rhetoric against the upstart Guatemalan government as they termed the previous Democratic administrations as “namby-pamby” (Pike 1955; Gordon 1971; Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 54, 75-76).

The larger scope, doubtless observed by Washington policymakers and their clandestine strong-arm men, was the contagion in other Central American nations of backlashes against the monolithic United Fruit Company.  In Costa Rica José Figueres who was running for president demanded the United Fruit Company increase the percentage of profits from 15 percent to 50 percent that the company paid annually to the Costa Rica government.  In Honduras and Panama, United Fruit Company’s workers engaged in crippling labor strikes as the governments in those nations demanded more favorable contract terms.  The US State Department and the CIA were alarmed by the Árbenz government in Guatemala actions against the fruit giant that were impending on the multinational corporation’s 3,000,000 acres of land (nearly the size of the state of Connecticut), 2,000 miles of railroad, 15 hospitals, 237 schools and 100 steamships throughout Central America (Gordon 1971; Whitfield 1984).

Coinciding with the Arbenz agrarian reform was the election of Republican President Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower whose administration promptly abandoned President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor Policy” in Latin America.  To further complicate matters for Guatemala, key members of Eisenhower’s foreign policy architects either had current or past business ties with United Fruit Company.  Secretary of State John Foster Dulles’ law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, a law firm that historians Nancy Lisagor and Frank Lipsius reported “thrived on cartels and collusion with the new Nazi regime,” represented United Fruit Company in legal matters during the years prior to the 1944 Revolution.  John Foster Dulles, himself, spent 1934 “publicly supporting Hitler.”  John Foster Dulles’ brother Allen Dulles was director of the CIA.  Undersecretary of State Walter Bedell Smith, who was Dulles’ predecessor as CIA director, joined United Fruit Company as a vice president in 1955.  The assistant secretary of state for Latin America was John M. Cabot who held a large stockownership position in the company.  His brother Thomas D. Cabot was a director for First National Bank of Boston.  Robert D. Hill, the current ambassador to Costa Rica, was assistant vice-president of W.R. Grace and Company.  Hill would later be active in the coup d’état to destroy the Árbenz regime.  Hill later became a director of United Fruit Company (Gordon 1971; Stone and Kuznick 2012, 263; Kinzer 2006, 114).

Meanwhile, United Fruit Company, whose president was Samuel Zemurray, a business powerhouse that Newsweekmagazine called “the dictator of the banana industry,” was marshalling its considerable resources to combat the Árbenz assault on the fruit producer’s landholdings in Guatemala.  By 1947 the company had engaged the services of the celebrated public-relations genius Edward Bernays.  In 1950 in a strategy session to counter the Guatemalan government’s pushback on United Fruit Company, Bernays, the noted author and nephew of the father of modern psychotherapy, Sigmund Freud, calmly soothed the worried brows of United Fruit’s executives, “I [have] the feeling that Guatemala might respond to pitiless publicity in this country.”  Bernays would construct his marketing program on the theme that the dangerous communists that now infested Central America would soon be slithering into the very living rooms of Middle America (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 79-80; Whitfield 1984; (Stone and Kuznick 2012, 262).

By the time he appeared in front of the executives of United Fruit Company, Bernays had made his bones by directing advertising campaigns for several major US corporations.  He ran the marketing strategies of the fledgling CBS television network.  Perhaps his greatest feat was for the American Tobacco Company when he convinced prominent socialites to be photographed while they smoked cigarettes (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 80).

Bernays was a master of manipulating public opinion and manufacturing consent of public policy.  In Propaganda (1928) he wrote:

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.  Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country…. [I]t is the intelligent minorities which need to make use of propaganda continuously and systematically.” (Emphasis added.)

With the benefit of nearly a century of hindsight, Bernays’ prescient words are starkly frightening.  Nonetheless, while this hired gun for big business provided a valuable service for his clientele, he also was a political liberal who supported many of Roosevelt’s initiatives in the New Deal.  Most important to United Fruit Company, Bernays supported Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy that eschewed the heavy-handed policies of the US that treated Latin America as the imperialist nation’s colony.  Bernays and United Fruit Company President Samuel Zemurray worked well together initially.  But as Bernays learned about El Pulpo (the Octopus), the disparaging moniker that detractors called United Fruit Company because of its feudalistic policies against its workers, the public relations master began to have misgivings.  After traveling to Central America to see firsthand his employer’s operations, Bernays penned a memorandum that criticized the company’s racist policies toward “colored” natives and the shoddy company-provided housing for its US managers in Central America.  His star dropped rapidly in United Fruit Company’s boardroom after he presented his findings (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 80-82; Whitfield 1984).

Nevertheless, Bernays enlisted journalists to write articles in liberal publications about the difficulties that United Fruit Company was experiencing in Guatemala.  The New York Herald Tribune sent Fitzhugh Turner to Guatemala in February 1950.  The reporter penned a series of articles, based on interviews with company bosses titled “Communism in the Caribbean.”  The article garnered frontpage headlines for five consecutive days.  The New York Times sent reporter Will Lissner to Guatemala who concocted a bizarre story about communists from Chile infiltrating Guatemala.  After it appeared in the Times, the story quietly disappeared from the discussion.  Bernays’ propaganda efforts began to post results as public opinion swung in United Fruit’s favor.  When college professor and author Samuel Guy Inman traveled to Guatemala, he obtained an interview with Guatemalan President Arévalo in 1950.  Inman was impressed with the results of the 1944 Revolution that provided social security, new schools and hospitals, labor unions, a free press and free elections.  During the interview Arévalo insisted that he wanted the people of the US to know his disdain for communism.  He declared Guatemala’s “complete solidarity” with the US battles against communism in the Korean War then in progress.  Arévalo emphatically stated that “Politically speaking Guatemala has no connections whatsoever with any extra-continental power, either European or Asiatic.”  The Guatemalan president added that the Guatemalan people sought to establish a nation based on the principles of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  The US press including the Associated Press, the Hearst Corporations International News Service, Newsweek magazine, The New York Herald Tribune and The New York Times gave scant coverage of Arévalo’s statements of loyalty to the US. (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 84-85).

By August 1953 Bernays was armed with a budget of $500,000 per year from the deep pockets of United Fruit Company and backed by a collection of corporate and political heavy hitters.  Bernays and his allies convinced both liberals and conservatives in the US Congress that communism was running amok in Guatemala, despite the reality that the party had a paltry membership of 4,000.    As the Senator Joseph McCarthy hysteria in the US reached feverish panic, the nation’s public was looking for “commies” under every bed and behind every bush.  Bernays and his coterie of propagandists successfully convinced America that radicals in Guatemala’s government were the toadies of the Soviet Union. The American people succumbed to the Bernays story that United Fruit was the victim of sinister connivers of Soviet aggression.  Thus, with the phony pretext established it was only a matter of time before the CIA would ignite the fuse of Operation Success the code name for the regime-change plot in Guatemala.  Indeed, that very month, President Eisenhower authorized a $2.7 million budget for “psychological warfare and political action” and “subversion” along with other actions for a limited paramilitary war in Guatemala.  While the initial program did not call for assassinating the Guatemalan president, the CIA in a its so-called “K program” stated that “the option of assassination was still being considered” up until Árbenz resigned his office on June 27, 1954, according to CIA documents that were declassified in 1995.  The CIA had assembled a five-page roster of 58 targets for assassination.  It included “high government officials and organizational leaders” who were alleged communists” (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 88-90; Stone and Kuznick 2012, 263; Kate Doyle and Kornbluh, Ed. 1995; Weiner 2008, 111).

The lynchpin in the CIA’s schemes around the globe to topple governments that have the misfortune to raise the ire of the US empire is to identify a suitably pliable puppet to replace the besmirched “brutal dictator” of the targeted nation.  United Fruit Company had considerable anxiety that the installed leader would be someone who would assist the corporation in its endeavors to maximize profits.  Indeed, it pays to have friends in high places; this is especially true for US corporations that are operating in foreign nations where exploitation of the working class is paramount in the company’s business plan.  CIA Director Allen Dulles (and his brother Secretary of State John Foster Dulles) would be among the cadre of US officials that would pave the way for United Fruit’s plans.  Allen Dulles assured United Fruit Company’s executives that the next leader of Guatemala would not expropriate any of the corporation’s landholdings.  As a bonus, CIA Director Dulles encouraged United Fruit Company to actively join the search for just the right man to replace the hapless Jacobo Árbenz (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 119-120).

After establishing three candidates who fit the prescribed CIA-United Fruit Company profile for Guatemala’s new president, the US policymakers settled on General Carlos Castillo Armas.  The first candidate General Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes who garnered reputations in the military as an opportunist and for cruelty.  He hated Indians and was implicated in several massacres while he served under President Jorge Ubico prior to the 1944 Revolution.  He was vetoed by E. Howard Hunt who would gain infamy during the Watergate scandal under President Richard Nixon.  Curiously, Hunt objected to Ydígoras because he was a “right-wing reactionary” and too “authoritarian.”  Additionally, Hunt argued that Ydígoras looked too much like a Spanish nobleman; he was too white.  The second candidate was offered by a United Fruit Company executive.  The executive Walter Turnbull claimed that his choice, a lawyer and coffee plantation owner named Juan Córdova Cerna, was greatly superior to the unscrupulous Ydígoras.  Unfortunately for him, Cerna developed throat cancer and was hospitalized, so he too was eliminated.  Castillo Armas, although not ideal, looked like an Indian and his military background was favorable to the paramilitary forces that would be leading the offensive on the ground.  Also, Castillo Armas fit the bill because as a smirking Time correspondent opined, “He was younger than Ydígoras, but also because he was a stupid man” (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 121-122).

On May 15, 1954 the nearly mile-long Swedish freighter Alfhem made its way into Puerto Barrios from the Atlantic Ocean.  The big freighter’s cargo was a guarded secret of the Guatemalan government.  During the next few days more than 100 boxcars would be filled with the ship’s contents that were comprised of large crates marked “Optical and Laboratory Equipment.”  As the boxcars were loaded, they traveled under a military escort to Guatemala City.  But instead of optical and laboratory equipment, the crates contained war matériel from Czechoslovakia.  The purchase included rifles, ammunition, antitank mines, and artillery pieces.  Guatemala had paid more than a million dollars for the war equipment that the Árbenz government soon found to be mostly defective.  Much of the weaponry was rusted and did not function.  The artillery could not be transported through the jungle because of their size and design. The largest portion of the weaponry was antitank mines, but no tanks were used during the conflict because of the terrain and their maintenance costs.  Some displayed a swastika emblem that showed their origin and age.  The New York Times commented snidely that Árbenz was sold a cache of “white elephants.”  The US had placed a weapons embargo on Guatemala, so options for the Árbenz government to purchase weapons from other nations were extremely limited.  When news of the 2,000-ton arms shipment reached Washington, Allen Dulles and other CIA policymakers were jubilant. Foster Dulles took the propaganda gift to claim that Guatemala was in league with the Soviet Union to expand communism into the Western Hemisphere.  House Speaker John McCormack breathlessly called the weapons an atomic bomb planted in America’s backyard.  The high-strung US Ambassador to Guatemala John E. Peurifoy hysterically screamed that the United States was at war.   The cache of nearly worthless weaponry served as the pretext that CIA and State Department were waiting for to launch their regime-change war against Árbenz.   Castillo Armas who would lead the assault was waiting in Nicaragua for orders.  Earlier the CIA hatched a scheme to plant boxes of weaponry with Soviet markings near the Nicaraguan border with the hope the weapons would be “discovered” by the Nicaraguan police (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 148-152; Weiner 2008, 112; Pike 1955, 250-251).

Meanwhile, the US State Department was plotting to initiate sanctions against Guatemala that included cutting off lines of credit for Guatemala from other nations, eliminating sources of petroleum and encouraging investors to remove their money from Guatemalan banks.  Simultaneously, US Navy warships and submarines began a blockade against Guatemala in violation of international law as CIA-piloted C-47 transport airplanes dropped leaflets over the presidential palace to terrorize Guatemalans.  Reeling, Árbenz and his Foreign Minister Guillermo Toriello met with Ambassador John E. Peurifoy on May 24^th seeking to arrange a settlement.  When that meeting did not reach a meaningful conclusion, Torriello offered to accept a proposal that President Eisenhower had offered in January to arrange a neutral commission to arbitrate the issues between the two nations.  Torriello even went as far as promising that Árbenz would negotiate concessions to United Fruit Company.  But by then, the US plans for the Árbenz regime’s demise in Operation Success were already cemented.  During early June, Peurifoy cabled CIA Director Dulles urgently suggesting that the US negate existing trade agreements with Guatemala and order US citizens to evacuate the nation.  Peurifoy hoped news of these actions would alarm the Guatemalan citizenry enough to instigate an uprising in the Guatemalan military (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 164; Weiner 2008, 112).

By June 15, just three days ahead of the CIA-led US invasion of Guatemala, Ambassador Peurifoy in a sweaty panic cabled Allen Dulles that “a reign of terror” was in progress after baseless rumors that reported that the Árbenz government was committing widespread torture and murder.  Meanwhile, the US propaganda machine with E. Howard Hunt directing the orchestra was operating at full blast.  Hunt described the goals of his psychological warfare operation this way:

“What we wanted to do is to have a terror campaign to terrify Árbenz particularly, to terrify his troops, much as the German Stuka bombers terrified the population in Holland, Belgium and Poland at the onset of World War Two.”

Hunt clandestinely arranged a “Congress Against Soviet Intervention on Latin America” in Mexico City.  Hunt stoked the conference with anti-communist thugs and reactionaries along with a token sprinkle of liberals to denounce the Árbenz government amid outlandish and bogus charges that would become his trademark in the decades to come.  The conference ended in a public-relations disaster after delegates from Costa Rica and Ecuador stormed out of the conference in disgust (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 166; Weiner 2008, 112-113).

The United States Information Agency (USIA) had greater success with its more sophisticated system.  USIA published propagandistic articles based on biased information provided by the CIA.  Two hundred of these articles were widely distributed among various publications in Latin America.  USIA printed 100,000 copies of “Chronology of Communism in Guatemala,” a pamphlet distorting left-wing influence in the nation.  Additionally, the propaganda agency printed 27,000 copies of cartoons and posters depicting the evils of communism.  Free to the public movies were screened in theaters in Latin America that featured film footage that glorified the US.  Finally, radio broadcasts were aired at prime listening hours to increase the favorable opinions of the US actions in Latin America.  When the Guatemalan state radio station went off the air for a scheduled repair of its antenna, the CIA arranged for broadcasts at a frequency very close to the state-owned radio frequency.

On June 4 Guatemalan chief of the Guatemalan Air Force Colonel Rodolfo Mendoza Azúrdia  flew an airplane to Anastasio Somoza’s farm in Nicaragua.  After the CIA plied him with whisky and misleadingly edited a taped interview to make it sound like the Mendoza Azúrdia was calling for a rebellion against the Árbenz government, the phony tape was broadcast.  When Árbenz listened to the broadcast, he realized that the CIA had succeeded in its scam to paint him as a torturing dictator.  Árbenz made things worse by arresting members of an anti-communist group that provided the CIA assistance.  At least 75 of these members were tortured, murdered and buried in mass graves  (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 167; Weiner 2008, 113; Pike 1955, 250).

A secret radio propaganda campaign directed by David Atlee Phillips, a former actor who was hired by the CIA to conduct a “disinformation program,” was especially successful in fomenting fear and panic among Guatemalans.  The “Voice of Liberation” that the announcers falsely claimed originated “deep within the Guatemalan jungle” and that Árbenz was about to disband the army and replace it with a peasant militia.  Broadcasts initially targeted directly to women, soldiers, workers and young people urged them to join the Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas Liberation Movement.  Another broadcast tailored for military officers was crafted to encourage their defection from the Árbenz government.

The CIA issued broadcasts that become increasingly outrageous in their creativity.  One broadcast hysterically reported falsely:

“A group of Soviet commissars, officers and political advisers, led by a member of the Moscow Politburo have landed….  In addition to military conscription, the communists will introduce labor conscription.  A decree is already being printed.  All boys and girls 16 years old will be called for one year of labor duty in special camps, mainly for political indoctrination and to break the influence of family and church on the young people….  Árbenz has already left the country.  His announcements from the National Palace are actually made by a double, provided by Soviet intelligence”.

The radio announcers schemed to falsely imply that rebels had infested the entire Guatemalan countryside by issuing fake calls for Guatemalans to aid “partisans” in locating air-drop sites.  Meanwhile, the CIA radio team successfully jammed Árbenz’s radio broadcasts that were issued to calm the fearful population (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 168; Weiner 2008, 114).

Meanwhile, the CIA transported 170 mercenaries to Tegucigalpa, Honduras for a planned meeting with their “commander,” Castillo Armas.  The mercenaries were picked from Guatemalan exiles, US soldiers of fortune and an assortment of Central Americans that the CIA had trained at secret bases in Nicaragua.  After their training the rebels were moved to various villages in Honduras including a plantation town that was owned by United Fruit Company where the CIA trucked in armaments and rations.  Included in the arms package were small arms weapons including bazookas, machine guns, grenade launchers.  The invasion would begin in two days.  The plan called for Castillo Armas to take and occupy the key town of Zacapa, where a strategic railroad junction supplied access to El Salvador, Guatemala City and the Atlantic coastal port of Puerto Barrios.  The other major part of the Castillo Armas plan was to establish guerrilla forces throughout the countryside to harass government forces with sabotage and attacks.   On June 18, 1954 after the CIA had flown in additional troops to villages in Honduras, Castillo Armas decked out in a leather jacket and travelling in a battered station wagon led a procession of trucks across the border into Guatemala.  The invasion, that required four years to prepare, was begun.  The planned capture of Zacapa and Puerto Barrios never came to fruition.   Dockworkers and police loyal to Árbenz defeated 198 rebels at Puerto Barrios.  Another troop contingency of 122 attacked the Guatemalan army garrison at Zacapa; 92 rebels were killed or captured.  Another force of 60 rebels marched from El Salvador, but these troops were seized by local police.  Castillo Armas personally led a company of 100 men to lightly defended villages, but within three days he radioed the CIA for additional weapons and food.  More than half of his fighters were dead, captured or on the verge of defeat.  Peurifoy and Haney were aghast.  Peurifoy pleaded for Allen Dulles “Bomb repeat bomb.” An irate Haney wrote to CIA headquarters a scathing, if more eloquent, missive:

“Are we going to stand by and see last hope of free people in Guatemala submerged to the depths of Communist oppression and atrocity until we send American armed force against enemy?…  Is not our intervention now under these circumstances far more palatable than by Marines?  This is the same enemy we fought in Korea and may fight tomorrow in Indo-China.”

(Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 170-171; Weiner 2008, 114-115).

As the invasion moved into its early days, Árbenz had time to recover from his initial surprise.  As early as June 20, he began to see through the CIA’s charade that the invasion was widespread in Guatemala.  The plan to intimidate the Árbenz into an early surrender began to dissolve.  CIA Director Allen Dulles confessed to President Dwight D. Eisenhower that the odds of winning the incursion amounted to a coin toss.  In his memoir Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs(1966), CIA officer Richard M. Bissell, Jr. wrote, “Grappling with continual operational snafus, we were only too aware how perilously close to failure we were.”   To the administration’s chagrin, The New York Times published a stinging article by James Reston that disclosed Dulles was the architect of the invasion and thus spotlighted US involvement (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 172; Weiner 2008, 116).

Determined to keep the US in general and the CIA in particular off the front pages of US newspapers and to ensure deniability, the CIA had resorted to only three F-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bombers for use in their air assault.  The single-engine propeller aircraft were World War II vintage.  After three of these planes were downed, the mercenaries who contracted with the CIA to pilot the planes were forced to drop hand grenades out of cargo doors in lieu of flying bombers.  Strafing runs were completed with hand-held machine guns.  Meanwhile, Castillo Armas and his collection of troops that he referred to as the “Liberation Army” was faltering on the ground.  The Guatemalan army pushed the Castillo Armas rebels back after the rebels attempted to capture Puerto Barrios and Zacapa.  While the CIA had no illusions about potential successes from the Castillo Armas forces, the clandestine agency hoped they would succeed in spurring defections from the Guatemalan army (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 173-174).

The chief of operations for Operation Success Colonel Albert Haney contacted CIA Director Dulles with urgent pleas to send replacement fighter-bombers.  Haney feared the assault would collapse without sufficient air support.  Dulles continued to worry about international exposure of the US-led coup d’état.  Meanwhile, Haney cooked up a plot that would create a false-flag operation for a bombing run in Honduras that could be blamed on Árbenz.  But Honduran officials refused to comply with a plan that would have required bombs to be deployed against Honduran villages.  In another colossal example of CIA incompetence, Haney assigned a former marine pilot to destroy the Guatemalan government’s radio station in Guatemala City.  Haney specifically warned the pilot, “Just down the road is the transmitter of an evangelical station, and there are two American ladies there.  You can tell the difference because the Árbenz station is all concrete and the mission has a red tile roof.”  When the pilot returned from his mission it became obvious that he misunderstood Haney’s admonition not to bomb the structure with the red tile roof.  The pilot, beaming, said, “You should have seen them red tiles flying!” (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 175-176).

Despite the CIA’s foundering assault against the Árbenz government in Guatemala, Allen Dulles convinced President Eisenhower to increase his commitment in the overthrow of the democratically elected Árbenz government.  Árbenz and his foreign minister Guillermo Torriello continued to seek a diplomatic solution to the crisis.  Árbenz approached El Salvador’s dictator President Oscar Osorio to mediate a solution, unaware of the vice-grip the US had on Guatemala’s Central American neighbor.  Osorio actively worked for the end of Árbenz’s rule.  Torriello frantically beseeched the United Nations to intervene.  The US blocked Torriello’s initiatives at the UN.  The US ambassador to the UN and former US Senator, Henry Cabot Lodge, a staunch backer of United Fruit Company, and Dulles were worried that the UN forum would expose the US to criticism for its aggression against Guatemala (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 178-180).

Meanwhile, the CIA’s propaganda machine cranked out fake news bulletins over the “Voice of Liberation” radio broadcasts that proclaimed Árbenz forces suffered major defeats in clashes with rebel troops.  The hyped successes increased the fear and confusion among disheartened Árbenz loyalists.  The broadcasts were well-timed to match the arrival of trains bringing in wounded Árbenz forces, lending credence to the CIA’s propaganda efforts.  In one broadcast the “Voice of Liberation” falsely reported, “At our command post here in the jungle we are unable to confirm or deny the report that Castillo Armas has an army of 5,000 men.”  In fact, the “Voice of Liberation” was nowhere near the Guatemalan jungle; Castillo Armas had only succeeded in gathering a force of barely 400 troops.  But by June 25, even high-placed officials in the Árbenz began to express doubts of Árbenz ability to survive.  The US corporate press did its share to spread disinformation about the actual events on the ground.  The press depicted the swaggering, John Wayne caricature, Peurifoy, who toted a .45-caliber handgun and the inept Castillo Armas as heroes in an epoch struggle against what was ridiculously characterized as a gigantic Red Army.  The reporters acted as stenographers to the river of lies coming out of the US embassies in Guatemala and Honduras, along with the public relations staff of United Fruit Company (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 185-188).

Despite the avalanche of US-fueled propaganda, anti-American sentiment exploded across Latin America as the month of June ended.  Supporters of the Árbenz government waived the bloody shirt of US imperialism in Latin America.  Students in Mexico marched against the US actions in marketplaces and at the university.  In Honduras, students marched in support of the Guatemalan government, despite the Honduras government support of US interests.  Panamanian students called for a 24-hour strike to protest the US aggression.  Cubans in Havana threw stones at the offices of United Press International and the North American Electric Company as students attempted to enlist in the Guatemalan army at the Guatemalan embassy.  Labor unions in Bolivia held mass events and decried the US “intervention.”  Argentina and Uruguay’s congresses passed resolutions that denounced US “aggression in Guatemala.”  The US State Department privately polled Latin American nations and found that 11 non-communist and moderate pro-US nations voiced strenuous objections to the US policies in Guatemala.  Nevertheless, the corporate media continued ignoring these objections as they beat the drums for war (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 188-189).

Meanwhile, the CIA was offering cash bribes to any officer from Árbenz’s forces who would surrender his troops to the US-backed Castillo Armas forces.  At least one officer reportedly accepted a $60,000 bribe to deliver the troops in his command to his government’s enemies.  But, despite the large sums offered, there is scant evidence that Guatemalans were joining the Castillo Armas cause.  Castillo Armas was having difficulty in convincing enough volunteers to drive trucks ferrying supplies.  Nevertheless, while the rebels were not showing significant success in converting the masses in Guatemala, few were motivated to join in defending the country against the invaders.  The “Voice of Liberty” propaganda stream was having its effect on the peasants who were accepting that defeat of the Árbenz government was imminent.  Árbenz, himself, began to realize that even his army was becoming apathetic in its loyalty to him.  The shaken Árbenz began to understand that the end was rapidly approaching.  The CIA psychological warfare campaign succeeded in undermining the confidence of the Guatemala president (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 188-190).

As Árbenz began to understand that his support base was limited to the few communists that had a stake in his government’s survival, Árbenz acted rationally.  To continue fighting against the overwhelming odds of the US-backed rebels would only delay the inevitable and cause the deaths of more Guatemalans.  Essentially, he was abandoned by almost all factions of Guatemalan society.  The rich already despised him for his liberal social programs that he instigated.  The tough actions his police had implemented had caused the middle class to turn its back on him.  Also, in April the Catholic Church led by the Archbishop of Guatemala, Monsignor Rossell y Arellano had leveled attacks against Árbenz calling for Catholics to fight communism, demanding that “the people of Guatemala rise as a single man against this enemy of God and country.”   Rossell y Arellano asserted in a New York Times article that the relationship between Árbenz and the Church no longer existed.  The middle class was further alienated when communist member of Congress Cesar Montenegro Paniagua warned on June 3 that anti-communists who launched an assault against the government would be decapitated, according to a frontpage article in the New York Times.   Many in the military harbored resentment toward the beleaguered president stemming from his implication in the murder of his opponent, the former head of the military Colonel Francisco J. Arana during the run up to the presidential election in 1949.  The Times reported that on June 15, 80 army officers demanded that Árbenz address questions about communist influence in his administration.  The lack of measurable success of his economic policies, cooled the segment of the population that had been neutral toward him to wish his ouster.  Only the poor who benefited from his policies remained loyal, but their general passivity toward authority added no concrete support (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 198; Pike 1955, 248).

Image on the right: When President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán attempted a redistribution of land, he was overthrown in the 1954 Guatemalan coup d’état (Public Domain)

On June 27, 1954 at 9:15 pm on Sunday, Árbenz announced in a radio broadcast that he was stepping down as Guatemala’s president.  “For 15 days a cruel war against Guatemala has been underway,” Árbenz reported.  “The United Fruit Company in collaboration with the governing circles of the United States is responsible for what is happening to us.”  Árbenz blamed the US for instigating the overthrow of Guatemala’s democratically elected government on “the financial interests of the fruit company and other US monopolies which have invested great amounts of money in Latin America and fear that the example of Guatemala would be followed by other Latin American countries….”  Árbenz emphatically denied the US claim that the attack on Guatemala was about the US fighting communism.  Árbenz told the nation that he was handing the reins of the government “to my friend Colonel Carlos Enrique Díaz, chief of the armed forces of the republic.”  Árbenz assured the nation that Díaz “will guarantee the democracy in Guatemala and that all the social conquests of our people will be maintained” (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 199-200; Weiner 2008, 117-118).

Historians and direct participants in the 1954 coup d’état have debated the causes of the failure of the Árbenz government and the wisdom of his resignation.  Within a month subsequent his decision, Árbenz blamed pressure from “the military cliques that had been under terrific pressure from [Ambassador John E.] Peurifoy…. [T]he truth is that most of the officers had betrayed me and if it is true that the helpless masses were loyal to their government, they had lost their attributes.”  The communists, who had the most to lose from the resignation of Árbenz urged him not to step down.  The communists argued, “It would have been better to bring the crisis out into the open, to denounce to the people the vile treason committed by the army chiefs, but President Árbenz underestimated the role that the masses could play.”  The communists were particularly angry that Árbenz chose Díaz as his successor.  They claimed that Árbenz knew of Díaz’s “treacherous commitments to Peurifoy.”  Thus, the communists insisted that Árbenz misled the nation that “the change in government, the democratic and revolutionary conquests could be salvaged.”  On the other hand, the communists in Guatemala, especially a young Argentine doctor named Ernesto “Che” Guevara, learned from the Árbenz failure.  Che argued that Árbenz should have armed the peasants and taken a harder stand against the rebels.  During the CIA-led Bay of Pigs debacle in 1961, Che and Fidel Castro made certain that the defenders of the Cuban Revolution would not succumb to the same defeat as Árbenz.  The Cuban fighters were both well-trained and well-armed.  In more recent days, as the Donald Trump administration’s attempt to topple the Nicolás Maduro government showed signs of faltering in the spring of 2019, one could attribute this failure in part to the well-prepared state militia in Venezuela (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 201-202; Stone and Kuznick 2012, 266).

Later, US journalists who covered the US-led coup d’état against Árbenz in 1954 conceded that the ousted Guatemalan president was correct in his accusations of the US intervention.  Many in the media concluded that the military action against the Árbenz government was retribution for interfering with the potential profits of United Fruit Company.  In a confidential interview with Stephen Schlesinger, an experienced correspondent for Time magazine admitted years later that, “there would have been no pressure or intervention.  The US wouldn’t have cared.  With no threats to US property, there would have been no problems.”  This correspondent also acknowledged the horrendous consequences in Central America of the US misadventures in Guatemala.  “If Árbenz had survived his term in office, it would have influenced and strengthened democrats in Honduras and El Salvador and isolated [Anastasio] Somoza in Nicaragua.”  The military action against Árbenz resulted in powerful reactionary forces in the region.  It also ensured that future advocates of social change would be more militant and anti-US than the relatively mild Árbenz political stance.  Moreover, as historian Frederick B. Pike asserts, the overthrow of the Árbenz government might have been accomplished by legal means through the existing structure of the US friendly Organization of American States (OAS).  Instead, the US chose the violent diplomacy of might means right that played into the hands of the Soviets that bolstered its claims of US imperialist aggression.

Nevertheless, in the immediate aftermath of the coup d’état, US operatives were ecstatic that Árbenz was defeated.  Peurifoy’s insipid wife burnished her “ugly American” credentials when she penned this preen that appeared in Timemagazine on July 26, 1954:

“Sing a song of quetzals,* pockets full of peace!

The junta’s in the Palace, they’ve taken out a lease.

The commies are in hiding, just across the street;

To the embassy of Mexico, they beat a quick retreat.

And pistol-packing Peurifoy looks might optimistic

For the land of Guatemala is no longer communistic!”

*Guatemala’s national bird and symbol (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 203-204; Pike 1955, 257).

After his ouster, Árbenz and his family would lead an unsettled life.  He first fled to Mexico and then to various European cities where he was viewed with suspicion and the tainted by a concentrated CIA smear campaign that continued until 1960.  By 1957, the beleaguered former president returned to Latin America under a strict protocol that included his promise not to be involved in politics and report to the police weekly.  He and his family lived in Montevideo, Uruguay for three years, but he remained depressed and was drinking heavily.  Árbenz was heartened when in 1960 he was invited to live in Revolutionary Cuba.  This would be a chance to live in a nation that could return to him his lost self-respect and his good health.  But soon his personal problems with family members and his disillusionment with the Castro government dimmed his outlook.  In 1965, his 25-year-old daughter Arabella committed suicide, further sending Árbenz into dark and profound depression.  Finally, in 1970 Mexico granted him permission to reside there permanently.  On January 27, 1971, still plagued with feeling abandoned by his family and communist friends, 58-year-old Jacobo Árbenz drowned in his bathtub at his home.  Authorities ruled his death was due to natural causes, but others doubted this conclusion as questions lingered (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 230-232).

Meanwhile, as President Carlos Enrique Díaz took center stage briefly as Guatemala’s new leader, he advanced his plans to eradicate the tattered army of Castillo Armas.  In a radio broadcast Díaz assured Guatemalans of his inspiration of the 1944 Revolution and his promise to Árbenz to continue the struggle to expel the foreign mercenaries from his nation’s soil.  US operatives who listened to the broadcast were enraged.  At 4:00 am, Peurifoy along with CIA officers John Doherty and Enno Hobbing arrived at Díaz’s suite for a meeting that lasted two hours.  In a cable issued to Allen Dulles, Peurifoy, who could easily be described as domineering and mercurial, detailed a mild account of his conversation with Díaz.  But Foreign Minister Guillermo Toriello reported a more likely version of the encounter as Díaz related it:

“Peurifoy waved a long list of names of some leaders.  He was going to require Díaz to shoot those who were on the list within 24 hours.  ‘That’s all, but why?’ Díaz asked.  ‘Because they’re communists,’ replied Peurifoy.  Díaz refused absolutely to soil his hands and soul with this repugnant crime and rejected the pretensions of Peurifoy to come and give him orders. ‘It would be better, in that case,’ he went so far as to tell him, ‘that you actually sit on the presidential chair and that the stars and stripes fly over the Palace.’  Saying too bad for you, Peurifoy left.

Tensions escalated to a new level during a noon meeting.  Díaz told Peurifoy that the new junta was thoroughly anti-communist, and if Castillo Armas was sincere that the rebellion stemmed from fighting communism, then he should lay down his arms.  But as the meeting ended, Díaz casually informed Peurifoy that he would issue a proclamation that declared a general amnesty and a release of all political prisoners, including communists.  Peurifoy was infuriated; he stormed from the room.  Later, Peurifoy blasted off a cable to the Operation Success headquarters that reported, “We have been double-crossed.  BOMB!”  That afternoon CIA pilots bombed the government radio station that they a missed earlier (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 206-209).

A few hours later, Peurifoy returned to Díaz’s office to find a meeting in progress with the three members of the junta: Díaz, Colonel Elfegio Monzón, who was the CIA’s clandestine agent in Árbenz’s cabinet, and Colonel José Angel Sánchez.  Peurifoy succeeded in convincing Díaz to meet with Castillo Armas, despite the ill will that Díaz held for the US puppet, Castillo Armas.  When the meeting finally occurred during the early-morning hours Peurifoy, Sánchez and Díaz were present, but Monzón had not arrived.  Meanwhile, as tensions sharpened, Peurifoy thought that bullets were about to erupt, Monzón, flanked by two others and carrying a submachine gun abruptly entered the room.  He stuck the barrel of his weapon into Díaz’s ribs.  Monzón directed Díaz out of the room.  When Monzón returned alone, he announced wryly, “My colleague Díaz has decided to resign.  I am replacing him.”  As dawn peeked over the horizon, Díaz reentered the room to pledge his support for Monzón.  By 4:45 am, Monzón announced the new junta would be comprised of himself and two trusted partners, Lieutenant Colonel Mauricio Dubois and a US-trained 34-year-old Lieutenant Colonel José Luis Cruz Salazar.  The three new leaders agreed to meet Castillo Armas in El Salvador to arrange a cease fire and a peace treaty (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 210-211; Weiner 2008, 114).

Nevertheless, smooth sailing was not to be.  From the start, members of Operation Success believed that Monzón was sympathetic to the ideals of the 1944 Revolution.  Another complication was Castillo Armas, acting without consulting his CIA handlers, demanded that Monzón stepdown or face the consequences.  Despite the cease-fire agreement Peurifoy endeavored to seal, Castillo Armas continued bombing in the region of Zacapa.  Eventually, through back channels Peurifoy was able to get control of the capricious Castillo Armas.  The bombing ended that evening.  But during the meeting that Peurifoy arranged for the next day, June 30 in San Salvador, things became prickly.  Both Monzón and Castillo, who already had previous clashes, claimed to be Guatemala’s new leader.  With no resolution in sight, it appeared that talks would breakdown and fighting would resume.  But neither Monzón nor Castillo Armas would be able to assume the presidency without Peurifoy’s blessing.  Peurifoy structured a deal, that both Monzón and Castillo Armas agreed to, that provided a “total halt to hostilities” and the constitution that came out of the 1944 Revolution would be revoked.  All members of the communist Guatemalan Labor Party (PGT) and Árbenz administration would be jailed and later tried.  A five-man junta including Monzón and Castillo Armas with a provisional president selected within 15 days.  On July 13, the US officials recognized Castillo Armas as the nation’s legitimate leader as he dutifully denounced communism (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 212-216).

The Eisenhower White House was exultant that the US-backed Castillo Armas government was installed in Guatemala.  Castillo Armas was celebrated at the White House with a 21-gun salute and a state dinner in his honor.  Vice President Richard M. Nixon offered a toast to the US-selected Guatemalan “Liberator”:

“We in the United States have watched the people of Guatemala record an episode in their history deeply significant to all peoples.  Led by the courageous soldier, who is our guest this evening, the Guatemalan people revolted against communist rule, which in collapsing bore graphic witness to its own shallowness, falsity and corruption.”

  On September 1, 1954, thanks to his US benefactors, Carlos Castillo Armas assumed the full-fledged powers as the president of the Guatemalan nation.  United Fruit Company was already salivating over the prospects of the new and friendly government.  On July 1, seven labor organizers at United Fruit Company’s plantations were murdered in Guatemala City.  Weeks later, the new government cancelled the legal registration of 533 union locals.  Revisions to the Labor Code placed enormous restrictions on the banana workers’ federation, effectively making it illegal.  Despite the promises to restore trade union rights lost when the so-called Liberation government under Castillo Armas seized power, union membership plummeted from 100,000 to 27,000.  The conservative US union boss, Serafino Romualdi, from the American Federation of Labor was brought in to extirpate any communist influence in the labor movement in Guatemala.  But upon his arrival, he was appalled at the extreme nature of the views of labor that were expressed by Castillo Armas.  By the middle of September, the corporation had inked a deal with the Castillo Armas regime to reverse the expropriation of its lands and replace the taxes levied during the 1944 Revolution with much more generous tax rates to the company (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 219-221; Weiner 2008, 118).

The US-backed Liberation government’s victory in securing rulership in Guatemala, officials in Washington worried about unfavorable reporting from the world press.  Commentators and politicos in Latin America began to voice skepticism that Árbenz was really a communist as evidence of Washington’s clandestine involvement began to surface.  The CIA launched a poorly organized program to counter allegations that the US misrepresented Árbenz’s affiliations with communists by organizing a tour of the former president’s residence.  Reporters from the New York Times were shown stacks of textbooks that had imprints that implied that they were published in the Soviet Union.  The reporters remained unconvinced and filed no story about the CIA’s staged efforts.  Another attempt to inhibit the revelations of CIA lies about Árbenz’s political affiliation with communism included crews sent to Guatemala to film evidence of “communist atrocities” that Árbenz allegedly committed (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 219-220).

In an amazing and blatant show of hypocrisy, the Eisenhower administration attempted to minimize its ties to United Fruit Company, despite the Dulles brothers’ long-term history with the company.  In 1936, John Foster Dulles was involved in a shady scheme that benefitted United Fruit Company at the expense of his putative client IRCA, when the fruit company sought to gain total ownership of the railway.  The transaction, negotiated by John Foster Dulles, also benefited the Schroder Banking Corporation, who owned most of the IRCA stock, with a hefty profit.  Both Dulles brothers provided a substantial amount of work for Schroder Bank.  Allen Dulles later served on the bank’s board of directors.  Yet, neither Dulles brother attempted to hinder the investigation that the Department of Justice was continuing into the company’s operation that eventually concluded the fruit giant violated US antitrust laws.  The US Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit within five days after Árbenz resigned the presidency.    The Dulles brothers’ silence might have been the result of a fear of allegations that they harbored bias in favor of United Fruit Company.  Thomas Corcoran, United Fruit Company’s legal counsel sardonically stated that “Dulles began the antitrust suit against [United Fruit Company] just to prove he wasn’t involved with the company.”  The lawsuit dragged on until 1958, as the company’s lobbyists initiated a vigorous effort to stymy the litigation.  The lawsuit weakened United Fruit Company’s stranglehold on Guatemala and caused the breakup of the firm’s banana business in that country (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 220-221).

Meanwhile, the CIA and the US State Department began to roundup suspected communists and their fellow travelers in Guatemala.  As the dominant class began to seek retribution against proponents of the 1944 Revolution, all constitutional guarantees were suspended.  Conservative estimates reveal that 9,000 were imprisoned and many of these were tortured.  Castillo Armas on orders from the CIA generated the National Committee of Defense Against Communism.  The Committee that was announced on July 19 was endowed with the authority to meet secretly to declare anyone at its whim of being a communist.  There was no due process or right of appeal for those accused.  A few weeks later, Castillo Armas decreed a new law called the Preventive Penal Law Against Communism.  This law declared that a series of “crimes” including many labor union activities would be labeled “sabotage” and considered capital offenses.  Those who landed in the Committee’s crosshairs could be arbitrarily arrested and jailed for up to six months.  They were prohibited from holding public office or even owning a radio.  Eight thousand Indians were slaughtered in the first two months of the regime.  By November 21, 1954 a developed list emerged of 72,000 names with a goal of expanding the list to 200,000, about 6.7 percent of Guatemala’s total population (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 219-221; Jonas 1991, 41).

One of the first actions that Castillo Armas initiated after he seized power was ending voting rights of illiterates that comprised 75 percent of the nation’s population.  By the end of July, he abandoned the legislation for land reform that Árbenz established in Decree 900.  All political parties, labor confederations and peasant organizations were outlawed by August 10.  Seven days later, Castillo Armas, the “Liberator” reinstated the dreaded secret police that Ubico used to terrorize the country.  The Castillo Armas regime began burning “subversive” books including Les Misérables by Victor Hugo and novels written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.  Writings of Juan José Arévalo, Guatemala’s first democratically elected president were destroyed as were the works of other revolutionary writers.  The Nobel Prize-winning novelist and vocal critic of United Fruit Company Miguel Angel Ásturias, who penned El Señor Presidente a novel about a brutally vicious fictional dictator in an unnamed Latin American nation, was included in the list of victims of The Liberator’s censorship (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 221-224).

These actions did not appear to disturb Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to any extent.  He only lamented that about 700 of Árbenz’s supporters were safely ensconced in foreign embassies and beyond the reach of the CIA or Castillo Armas’ secret police.  Dulles became obsessed with the fear that any remaining Árbenz followers might cause blowback throughout the Western Hemisphere if they were not jailed.  Foster Dulles frantically told Peurifoy to command Castillo Armas to arrest communist refugees before they fled the country.  In July, Foster Dulles contrived a scheme to allege crimes whereby they would be charged and convicted of being “covert Moscow agents.”  As Peurifoy brought this plan to the Castillo Armas government, one of the government’s ministers surprised that even the reactionary US ambassador would even make this suggestion.  The minister informed Peurifoy that there was no legal basis in Guatemalan law for prosecuting someone because they might be a communist.  Castillo Armas simply ignored Dulles’ absurd suggestions.  The only action that Castillo Armas took was to humiliate for former president by having Árbenz strip-searched in front of a jeering crowd as he was leaving Guatemala for exile in Mexico (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 222).

Meanwhile, Castillo Armas began an earnest rollback of the social changes inspired by the 1944 Revolution.  In action that deviated from policies established in the nineteenth century, Castillo Armas reestablished a governmental connection with the Catholic Church.  He returned to the Church the right to own property, to deliver religious teachings in the public schools and import foreign clergy.  Castillo Armas abolished the Arévalo and Árbenz era prohibition against favorable concessions to foreign oil interests and encouraged them to purchase drilling rights in Guatemala.  Guatemala at Castillo Armas’ order rejoined the Organization of American States (OAS), the lapdog that the US held on a tight leash.  Ironically, Castillo Armas received funds from his benefactor to complete Árbenz’s pet public works project the highway to Puerto Barrios.  Both the US and Castillo Armas had previously disparaged the project because it competed with United Fruit Company’s railroad, IRCA.  While these changes in Guatemala’s landscape continued apace, the Eisenhower administration including the Dulles brothers continued to repeat the fiction that the coup d’état was instigated and completed by the Guatemalans with the slightest intervention from the US.  Peurifoy swaggered into a congressional hearing and lied that that his role in the Árbenz ousting was limited to “strictly that of a diplomatic observer.”  During a September 12, 1979 interview, CIA officer Richard Bissell during Operation Success, admitted “Our job was simply to get rid of Árbenz.  We did that successfully.”  Without the knowledge of the atrocities in Guatemala and elsewhere in Central America the US perpetrated in the 1980s during the Reagan administration, Bissell added, “[B]ut this does not assure a happy ultimate outcome”  (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 224-225).

For US Ambassador John E. Peurifoy the glow of victory would not last long.  After his successes in Guatemala, before the summer of 1954 ended Secretary of State John Foster Dulles assigned Peurifoy to a new ambassadorship in another hotspot, Thailand.  On August 18, 1955, while his son sat in the passenger seat, Peurifoy was driving his powerful sky-blue Ford Thunderbird sportscar at highspeed along a narrow bridge when a slow-moving truck entered from the other end.  As he attempted to maneuver around the truck, he lost control of the car and crashed.  Peurifoy and his son were killed instantly.  The CIA also achieved a short-lived boost in its reputation among policymakers as the clandestine organization was coming off impressive regime-change operations; the first being the 1953 overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in August 1953 and the second barely a year later in Guatemala.  The bloom faded from the flower of conquest for the CIA however during the failed attempts to oust the governments of Sukarno in Indonesia and Fidel Castro in Cuba.  These failures led to the downfall of CIA Director Allen Dulles and his aide and later Deputy Director Richard Bissell.  United Fruit Company’s star dimmed subsequent the Guatemalan coup d’état as the Justice Department continued to prosecute its lawsuit against the corporate titan.  In 1972 the banana grower sold its Guatemalan operation to another exploiter in the fruit business Del Monte.  But the fruit company continued to stagger under the weight of economic pressures.  On February 3, 1975,  Eli Black, the president of the latest iteration of the company, United Brands was in deep despair after losing his $2 billion empire.  He rose from his massive executive desk in his corner office on the forty-fourth floor of New York City’s Pan Am Building.  Black smashed a hole in the window and jumped to his death (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 227-229).

Finally, Castillo Armas, who benefited during the initial phases of the successful coup d’état as the $80 million of US foreign aid commenced.  Predictably, the largesse of Guatemala’s titanic benefactor benefitted the oligarchy as it left the underclass in a state of poverty.  Even with the full-throttle support of the US that hoped to make Guatemala the showpiece of US influence in Latin America, Castillo Armas would soon sour.  The Liberator’s economic plan focused on rolling back the advances to the working class and peasants that Arévalo and Árbenz installed.  He returned the nation’s economic base to bananas and coffee as he abandoned the ideas of industrialization.  Within 18 months the land reforms were reversed as fewer than one percent of the peasants retained land that they gained during Árbenz’s government.  The gains that most Guatemalans enjoyed in the decade subsequent the 1944 Revolution vanished.  Scandals began to plague the Castillo Armas government as he mutilated democratic processes that threatened his rule.  By May 1956, plots against the regime sprouted like weeds.  During a May Day celebration, workers booed government speakers off the platform to voice their rage against the anti-union laws.  Responding to the government’s crackdown, students began major demonstrations in cites around the country.  The brutality evidenced in the counterrevolution galvanized the dominant class against workers to never again allow even the most modest social reforms.  But the regime’s cruelty and repression also prevented any broad-based support and legitimacy to the Castillo Armas government.  Finally, Castillo Armas was gunned down on July 27, 1957 as he and his wife walked to a dinner down the hallway of the presidential residence behind the National Palace.  When police arrived, they found the Castillo Armas’ alleged assassin, army guard Romeo Vásquez Sánchez, dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot.  The police explained the assassination as the work of a lone fanatical gunman, a theme that the US policymakers would repeat frequently for decades to explain assassinations in the US.  Despite alleged leftist propaganda and a “diary” found in the pockets of Vásquez Sánchez, most Guatemalans remained skeptical of the government’s official explanation (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 233-236; Jonas 1991, 64).

Meanwhile, the assassinated president’s cabal that had organized under the banner of the National Liberation Movement (MLN) attempted to maintain power in its own clutches.  However, exiled General Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes, then serving as ambassador to Columbia, had other plans.  Ydígoras never relinquished the notion that he was the rightful leader of Guatemala.  Ydígoras insisted that Árbenz rigged the 1950 election and later Castillo Armas reneged on a 1956 “gentlemen’s agreement” that deprived him of the presidency.  Ydígoras announced he would return to Guatemala to enter the presidential on the day that the MLN announced the election date.  The election would be held on the anniversary of the 1944 Revolution, October 20, 1957.  While he was aboard a flight to Guatemala, the stewardess handed him a message that said a mob was waiting for him at the airport intending to lynch him.    The flight had been rerouted to San Salvador for his safety.  This did not deter the “Old Fox” who suspected a plot to deprive him once again of the presidency.  He walked into the cockpit where he placed his .45-caliber pistol to the American pilot’s head and shouted in broken English, “You son of a bitch!  We go to Guatemala or we all die!”  When the plane landed in Guatemala, the crowd was populated by as many supporters as those who opposed him (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 236-237).

After his return to Guatemala an election was held with Ydígoras receiving a plurality of the vote.  But five days later, influenced by the MLN, the official electoral tribunal issued a laconic statement that Ortiz Passarelli won the election.  Ydígoras was furious as his followers took to the streets to protest the third time that he had been swindled out the presidential office.  Intimidated by Ydígoras’ popularity, the junta greed to a second election.  This time things went in Ydígoras’ favor, despite the CIA clandestinely handing the junta’s choice to oppose Ydígoras, Colonel José Cruz Salazar $97,000 in “campaign funds.”  Ydígoras won on a plurality of the vote, but this time Congress confirmed him the winner by a 40 to 18 vote.  Ydígoras assumed the office of the president on March 15, 1958 (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 238-239).

During the runup to the Bay of Pigs debacle that would occur in April 1961, the officer from the US military, fronting for the CIA, appeared at the National Palace in late 1957 to ensure his cooperation for a military base in Guatemala.  Ydígoras agreed on the condition that the US government support him in continuing as the nation’s president.  It did not take long before the nationalistic officers in the Guatemalan military noted the CIA presence in their country as construction began airbases and infrastructure for receiving large shipments of war matériel.  The officers resented being pushed aside as Ydígoras worked directly with foreign invaders.  Many Guatemalan officers flatly balked at allowing the training in their country of a force to topple the Castro government.  Many in the Guatemalan military respected Fidel Castro for his own nationalistic pride.  In addition to the military, groups from the communist party, students, union members and peasants joined the incensed military officers’ efforts to curtail the US infringement on Guatemalan soil.  On November 13, 1960, Guatemalan troops totaling nearly one half of the entire army, led by 120 officers launched a successful assault on Fort Matamoros in the nation’s capital, Guatemala City.  Another brigade seized Puerto Barrios on the Atlantic coast along with the barracks at Zacapa (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 238-239; McSherry 2005, 209-210).

Alarmed that the uprising could interfere with plans to subvert the Marxist government of Fidel Castro in Cuba, Eisenhower dispatched B-26 bombers that were piloted by right-wing Cuban exiles.  He also ordered five US Navy ships including the aircraft carrier Shangri-La to positions off the Guatemalan coastline.  The revolt was put down in short order, but the Christian Science Monitor noted that forces in Guatemala resented the US imperialists to such an extent that “rebels could take over two garrisons before the government learned of the revolt and that it took huge government forces to put down ill-equipped men is cause for much comment here.”  Despite the ill-fated and short-lived rebellion, some of the officers who led the insurgency remained unrepentant as they refused the typically mild punishments for such actions, i.e. return to barracks and a reprimand from the president.  Some of the officers, encouraged by the backing of the peasants, fled to neighboring Honduras and El Salvador.  Two of the most zealous officers, 22-year-old Lieutenant Marco Aurelio Yon Sosa and 19-year-old Lieutenant Luis Turcios Lima, who were trained in special forces units by the US, soon returned to their native country  They sought to wage guerrilla warfare against the hated Ydígoras, whom the two officers viewed as a US puppet and a corrupt lackey of the landowners  (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 239-240).

During 1961 Yon Sosa and Turcios remained underground as they developed contacts with exiles and gathered support from peasants.  Turcios established contacts with the outlawed communist party, the Guatemalan Labor Party (PGT).   Meanwhile, the two leaders recreated their growing army who fought in the initial uprising into a guerrilla force.  Their strategies included toppling the US-backed Guatemalan government by attacks on government military installations using hit and run tactics.  Their plans envisioned swiftly overthrowing the right-wing government, not for a long-term war of attrition.  In February 1962, the two firebrands issued a call to arms under the banner of the “Alejandro de León November 13 Guerrilla Movement” that called for the “overthrow of the Ydígoras government and to set up a government that represents human rights, seeks ways … to save our country from hardships and pursues a serious self-respecting foreign policy.”

Meanwhile, Guatemalans were increasingly angry as protests erupted over election fraud in congressional elections that occurred in December 1961.  On January 24, 1962, Ranulfo González, chief of the secret police was slain.  Ydígoras blamed “Marxism directed from Cuba.”  On February 6, guerrillas led by Yon Sosa and Turcios attacked army garrisons in Bananera and Morales, near Puerto Barrios, but their assault was repelled by government forces.  However, in March another guerrilla force sprouted.  Former Árbenz Minister of Defense Carlos Paz Tejeda led the brigade, called the “October 20 Front” in honor of the 1944 Revolution. The October 20 Front denounced the Congress “government stooges” and declared their rage “over foreign military bases in our country and the military treaties with foreign powers…. The statement added:

“The only road left is the road of uprisings.  The only way to end the calamities torturing our country is to overthrow the despotic rule of Ydígoras and set up a government which proves by deeds that it is worthy of the peoples’ trust.”

By the middle of March, calls from the leftist political parties in Guatemala began earnestly calling for Ydígoras’ ouster as demonstrations clogged city streets.  On orders from President John F. Kennedy, the US military once again entered Guatemala to stem the escalating uprisings.  The US government equipped the Guatemalan air force with jet fighter aircraft and transport planes along with military advisers with counterinsurgency-trained special forces units.  The advisers brought a company of 15 Guatemalan soldiers trained in guerrilla warfare at the US Panama Canal Zone facilities.

Ydígoras with the resources supplied by JFK, squashed the rebellion, but  his troubles were not over yet.  The Catholic Church rebuked him for subjecting peasants and workers to starvation wages and housing that “closely resembled concentration camps.”  The CIA plagued Ydígoras for repayment of $1.8 million that the agency incurred during the 1954 invasion.  Secretary of State John Foster Dulles questioned his commitment to anticommunism.  Even JFK, who had supplied the Ydígoras government with troops and war matériel began voice disdain of the embattled general’s corruption.  As economic conditions continued to worsen in Guatemala and the cold-shoulder issued from the US, Ydígoras promised to stepdown as Guatemala’s president at the expiration of his term in 1964 (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 240-242).

On March 29, 1963 on the news that Ydígoras was on the way out, Arévalo reentered Guatemala.  The US reacted with predictable force.  The following morning Ydígoras awakened to find a US tank on his lawn with the barrel of its cannon inches from the front door.  Ydígoras took the hint and surrendered to the US choice to lead Guatemala, Defense Minister Enrique Peralta Azurdia.  If Ydígoras was a tyrant, his zeal for dictatorship paled in comparison to extremes of General Peralta Azurdia.  Any effort to bring even the slightest aid to the poor was abandoned under the new regime.  Peralta Azurdia instead expanded the Guatemalan military.  He rejected JFK’s offers to supply the fledgling dictatorship with US Green Berets, the elite special forces who were trained in guerrilla warfare, preferring to use his own army squads to destroy rebel forces.  Peralta Azurdia’s death squads murdered anti-government activists by the score, but he was unable to eliminate insurgent fighters completely.  In a police raid on March 2, 1966 on a meeting of the outlawed the communist parties the Guatemalan Labor Party (PGT) and the Rebel Armed Forces Party (FAR) government forces arrested 28 people, including a former congressman who supported Árbenz.  The congressman, Victor Manuel Gutiérrez, who was a forceful advocate for the left wing in Guatemala, was tortured to death with electrical shocks and disappeared; his body reportedly was thrown from an airplane at 20,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean.  Others who were arrested with Gutiérrez suffered similar fates.

The Guatemalan death squads originated in November 1965 when US Ambassador to Guatemala Gordon Mein requested John Longan to train Guatemalan judiciary, national police and military officers in “techniques and methods for combatting terrorists, kidnapping and extortion tactics” under the banner of Operación Limpieza (Operation Cleanup).  These techniques were at the core of a paradigm that evolved into counterinsurgent terror states that sank roots in Latin America—specifically, in Brazil (1968), Chile and Uruguay (1973), Argentina (1976) and El Salvador during the late 1970s.  Operation Cleanup strengthened an intelligence system that spread its tentacles throughout Guatemalan society and morphed into the transnational Operation Condor, one of the most savage systems of state repression of the twentieth century.  Operation Condor, part of an overarching US-led counterinsurgency program to inhibit social change, was based on a transnational intelligence apparatus that fostered the seizure, torture, murder and disappearance of political opponents in one another’s nations to obscure the identities of the perpetrators of specific atrocities.  During March 1966, relatives of disappeared persons filed more than 500 habeas corpus writs that elicited only silence from the Guatemalan regime.

Despite his tyranny, President Peralta Azurdia agreed to hold election in 1966.  Liberals and activists who opposed the militarization of the country supported the candidacy of Mario Méndez Montenegro a moderate who had escaped the death squads’ retribution by kowtowing to the regime.  Nonetheless, four months before the election Méndez Montenegro according to official reports put a bullet into his skull and died in his home.  Family members insisted his death was the result of political opponents.  The dead candidate’s supporters substituted his brother, Julio César Méndez Montenegro, who on March 6, 1966 won the election.  The military attempted to oust the president-elect, but it was thwarted by US diplomacy.  However, the hopes of that social reforms might be initiated under President Méndez Montenegro were dashed when he allowed military commanders a free rein.  With the Guatemalan military’s acquiescence, the US placed Green Beret special forces in Guatemala.

Méndez Montenegro appointed Colonel Carlos Arana Osorio as commander of Zacapa province in the midst of the stronghold of guerrilla activity.  With counterinsurgency training provided by Green Berets and bolstered by $17 million in military aid and equipment, the government increased its crackdown on rebel guerrilla forces.  Under President Méndez Montenegro, backed by Arana Osorio, the “Butcher of Zacapa” and US Green Berets, the notions of liberalism in Guatemala were coming to a harsh ending.  Arana Osorio instigated a strategy of unbridled bloodletting and cruelty.  He established death squads that applied systematic terror that incorporated rape, torture and disappearances.  In addition to its normal attacks on guerrillas, the government added widespread assassination of anyone who aligned with the liberals.  His policy of destroying entire communities was de rigueur.  Between October 1966 and March 1968, an estimated 3,000 to 8,000 people including guerrillas, but also middle-class professionals who supported policies of Arévalo and Árbenz, were gunned down in cold blood.  The war hawks in the Lyndon B. Johnson administration were all smiles within four months of the Méndez Montenegro election as the US finally had a “willing partner” in Guatemala, as the New York Times described it.

The year 1966 marked the beginning of 30 years of carnage including the slaughter of  200,000 people in Guatemala and the torture of an incalculable number of victims.  The US had its bloody hand in atrocities carried out in Guatemala.  US pilots embarking from its airbases in Panama dumped napalm bombs on guerrilla targets in Guatemala.  US special forces conducted intensive training of Guatemalan soldiers in anti-guerrilla warfare, prisoner interrogation and jungle survival.  Under the US Office of Public Safety (OPS) Program, the US showered the Guatemalan government with $2.6 million from 1966 to 1970 for police training and equipment.  During the same period, the US energized the Méndez Montenegro government to expand the police force from 3,000 to 11,000.  The US boasted in reports that by 1970 30,000 police officers in Guatemala received training from the OPS (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 244-247; Bedan 2018, 337-338; McSherry 2005, 1; Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre 2004, 73-74, 96-99).

As right-wing terrorist groups began swamping the Central American nation in 1967, one of these death squads murdered former Miss Guatemala beauty queen and anti-government activist Rogelia Cruz Martínez during December.  Cruz Martínez’s mutilated corpse was found naked and left for vultures.  She had been beaten, stabbed, raped, poisoned and disgustingly tortured.  She was among many women who suffered at the hands of torturers in government security forces, but the extremes of the depravities against her went beyond the norms of abject cruelty seen in prior cases.    Left-wing guerrilla forces sought revenge by directly attacking the US military that they blamed for the barbarism unleashed in Guatemala.  On January 16, 1968, guerrillas shot dead US Colonel John Webber and his aide Lieutenant Commander Ernest Munroe.  Webber was the officer tasked with forming counterterror death squads that operated in the Zacapa-Izabal region.  A declassified 1967 State Department memorandum disclosed:

“[A]t the center of the Army’s clandestine urban counterterror apparatus is the Special Commando Unit formed in January 1967….  Composed of both military and civilian personnel, the Special Unit has carried out abductions, bombings, street assassinations of real and alleged communists.”

After the assassinations, the guerrillas issued a statement that blamed the US military for creating the death squads that were “sowing terror and death” throughout the country.  “The genocidal work of such bands of assassins has resulted in the deaths of nearly 4,000 Guatemalans,” they alleged.  “Disappearances” emerged as a counterinsurgency tactic in Guatemala during the 1960s.

Meanwhile, Colonel Arana Osorio, touted by his fellows in the military as a force for law and order and therefore, they asserted, Arana Osorio should be the next president.  By this time the military and right-wing extremists were in control of the Guatemalan government.  These members of the ruling elite had redrafted the constitution to ensure that whomever they selected would be elevated into president’s chair.  The use of terrorism kept the voting public cowed as it ensured the moderates and left wing played no part in the government.  In 1980, the right-wing National Liberation Movement (MLN) issued a radio broadcast that summarized government policy, “The MLN is the party of organized violence…there is nothing wrong with violence; it is vigor and the MLN is a vigorous movement.”  After the “Butcher of Zacapa” Arana Osorio was installed in the National Palace on July 1, 1970, he instituted a vicious terror campaign to extirpate all traces of opposition, especially the left-wing guerrillas.  Various sources estimated that during the first three years of the Arana Osorio regime there were between 10,000 and 15,000 disappearances and murders in the country.  Arana Osorio with the contributions of the US financing and Green Berets laid the foundation for the unmitigated genocide in Guatemala against the Maya Indians during the 1980s.

In 1974, Guatemalan moderates supported an alleged centrist candidate named Efraín Rios Montt, a general in the military for the nation’s next president.  Rios Montt won the election, but powers in the military made certain Rios Montt would not assume the presidency.  Rios Montt went into exile as Guatemala’s attaché in Madrid, Spain.  But he would return to occupy the National Palace during the 1980s when he would establish a legacy of genocide.  However, in the interim Arana Osorio backed the colorless and affable General Kjell Eugencio Laugerud.  He was installed as president.  Still reeling from the “oil shock” of the 1970s and an inflationary economy, Schoolteachers went on strike for higher wages in 1973.  The strike lasted for several months and ignited additional strikes throughout the public sector that extended into 1974.  Diverse groups including semi-proletarian rural, urban masses, sections of the impoverished middle classes united under the common experiences of governmental caprice and violence.  An already restive population was further angered when in February 1976 a massive earthquake that registered 7.5 on the Richter scale hit Guatemala, killing 25,000 and leaving 1.25 million (20 percent of Guatemala’s population) homeless.  The government did little to deliver assistance to survivors and even denounced foreign humanitarian groups for bringing desperately need aid to Guatemalans.  Meanwhile, the rich scarcely were troubled by these inconveniences as their lives returned to normal within a week.  They kept their dog-grooming appointments and in the evenings congregated at opulent restaurants and bars where they drank terremoto (earthquake) cocktails, the latest rage of the privileged set.

Meanwhile, a new spark of guerrilla activity started a blaze of renewed insurgency that formed under the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP).  The EGP targeted Arana Osorio henchman Congressman Jorge Bernal Hernández Castellón, who was implicated in the disappearance of many leftists during the early 1970s.  Additionally, other militant groups came together including the Rebel Armed Forces (FAR), the communist Guatemalan Labor Party PGT and the Revolutionary Organization of the People in Arms (ORPA) (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 248-249; Grandin, Empire’s Workshop 2006, 88; McSherry 2005, 47; Jonas 1991, 63, 123-124; Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre 2004, 103).

The Guatemalan government’s terror campaign reached levels not seen in that embattled nation by 1978.  After a fraudulent election, Laugerud’s defense minister and the darling of the military establishment, Fernando Romeo Lucas García occupied the National Palace.  He promised to increase the already horrendous crackdown on guerrillas.  The Lucas García regime is credited with levels of repression that were at the time unrivaled.  He murdered 10,000 civilians, many of these in illegal executions.   In October, massive protest erupted after increases in bus fares were established.  During violence that ensued during the first 12 days of the month, at least 30 died, 350 sustained injuries and 600 were jailed.  Labor leaders called for a general strike to begin on October 20, the anniversary of the 1944 Revolution to “protest against institutionalized repression.”  During a large rally in Guatemala City on that day, the head of the Association of University Students was machine-gunned as police calmly watched.  After this slaughter, that occurred across the street from the National Palace, the perpetrators slowly drove away.  His regime entered a crisis as the coalition of the bourgeoisie and military factions that supported his government unwound.  Further compounding his troubles emerged as despite is utter willingness to slaughter unarmed civilians, the guerrilla movement continued to gather strength (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 250; Jonas 1991, 122-123).

By 1978 the Committee for Peasant Unity (CUC) emerged as a national organization that included peasants and agricultural workers comprised of Indians and impoverished ladinos but led by Indians.  Subsequent their eviction in May from land they had been working 700 Kekchi Indians joined to protest.  Their land was in a region known as the “Zone of the Generals,” that was in demand by high-ranking military officers and developers. General Lucas owned 78,000 acres in the zone near Panzós.  This land benefited from its location near industrial development near Guatemala City.  The land also had plentiful resources of oil and minerals that were in demand by transnational corporations.   During the peaceful protests, troops working at the behest of the landowners in a planned assault attacked the unarmed protesters, killing more than 100 and wounding 300 in broad daylight.  The corpses were dumped into mass graves that had previously been excavated for that purpose. The massacre ignited a protest with 80,000 strong that was the largest demonstration in a quarter of a century.  A year later 100,000 reprised the demonstration against the massacre.    The massacre was significant as a tool of social terror to stymy the incipient unrest in Guatemala.   In January 1980, poverty-ridden Indians from a rural province journeyed to Guatemala City marched into the Spanish embassy in desperation to have a hearing for their grievances.  In direct violation of international law, Guatemalan police attacked the embassy as the ambassador pleaded for calm.  During the chaos, a Molotov cocktail exploded into flames that engulfed the embassy killing all but one of the 35 Indians, several embassy workers and two Guatemalan government officials.  Spain broke off diplomatic relations with Guatemala as its officials shrugged their shoulders in apparent nonchalance.  Historians generally conclude that the massacre at Panzós and the burning of the Spanish embassy in 1980  collectively were a turning point in the consciousness the Indian population and the Christians who were advocating in the Indians’ behalf (Jonas 1991, 127-128).

Meanwhile, as the 1980s arrived, the bloodshed, broad-daylight  kidnappings and disappearances continued unabated.  Death squads comprised of government military were in the mainstream of daily life in Guatemala.  No member of the poor or petty bourgeoisie was immune to violence.  Drive-by killings claimed the lives of lawyers, schoolteachers, journalists, peasant leaders, priests and religious workers, politicians, trade union organizers, students, professors and others.  Those who did not support the regime, including moderates, were called leftists or “subversives” and therefore, enemies of the state.  Their corpses littered the blood-drenched streets.  Between November 1981 and early 1983 the level of wholesale slaughter and genocide reached unimagined proportions as death squads and counterinsurgency forces combed the country for “subversives.”  The counterinsurgency campaign included a scorched-earth devastation that included burnings, massacres of entire villages and forced relocations.  Entire groups, mostly Indians, were targeted for destruction, including the elderly and children.  During this reign of terror in a region considered to be a hotbed of leftist activity 600 villages were destroyed, between 100,000 and 150,000 were murdered or disappeared.  Reports described soldiers sweeping into villages and murdering children by bashing their brains out onto rocks while their parents were forced watch.  The soldiers sliced open the abdominal cavities of live victims, mutilated genitalia, amputated arms and legs and committed mass rapes.  In some cases, the soldiers tied victims to support poles inside their dwellings and set fire to the structure, burning the victims alive.  A surviving witness reported that pregnant women were gutted; their fetus then yanked out of their body.  During the same massacre, a soldier threw an infant into a river to drown saying, “Adiós niña,” as her parents pleaded for their child’s life.  Often the soldiers simply machine-gunned their victims.  More than one million were displaced as internal refugees including 200,000 who fled to Mexico.  Additionally, the military ignited forest fires to eliminate hiding places for their quarry.  The environmental destruction was irreversible, modifying weather patterns and rainfall amounts.   Meanwhile, a media blackout in the US and many other Western hemisphere nations kept the public in the dark as to conditions in war torn Guatemala.  Jonas attributes this “great silence” to inherent racism as the victims of these atrocities were overwhelmingly Indians (Jonas 1991, 147-149; Grandin, Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States and the Rise of the New Imperialism 2006, 90).

Meanwhile, as a February 6, 1980 edition of Newsday reported:

“During recent months, the rebels have carried out some spectacular actions.  They have assassinated the army chief of staff, who was reputed to be a leading organizer of “death squads.”  They have bombed two buildings in the capital, including the modern headquarters of the National Tourism Agency.  And they have kidnapped the son of one of the nation’s most prominent families, holding him for 103 days until a ransom estimated at $5 million was paid and laundered abroad.  It was the first kidnapping on that scale to be seen yet in Guatemala, and the ransom money will presumable be used to buy weapons.”

Guerrilla fighters in Guatemala against the right-wing dictatorship, claimed in 1981 the source of the nearly three-decade long revolution’s genesis to the CIA’s Operation Success action that toppled Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán’s liberal government in 1954.  In a formal statement the  Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP) claimed:

“that the defeat of guerrilla forces during the 1960s “by an army trained by the United States in counter-insurgency technique-s learned in Vietnam….  The temporary defeat of the armed movement by the end of the 1960s did not demonstrate the impossibility of armed struggle….  Today, the expansion of the guerrilla war and the qualitative growth of guerrilla units are occurring faster than ever before.”

Thanks to the 1954 US intervention and overthrow of a democratically elected Árbenz government by 1978 the World Bank concluded in its study titled Guatemala: Economic and Social Positions and Prospects (1978) that reforms the institution recommended in 1950 had not returned to the levels that existed during the Arévalo-Árbenz era.  Instead, according to the World Bank, 10 percent of Guatemalan landowners continued to own more than 80 percent of the land.  Most of this land was converted to the cultivation of exotic spices and other crops for exportation.  This lopsided distribution of land ownership in the nation exacerbated shortages of basic food staples like corn and beans.  Only 15 percent of the rural population had access to piped water.  Just four percent had electricity.  The absence of land reform forced many peasants to spend months out of every year working for hunger wages for owners of huge plantations, just as they did during the brutal days of the Ubico years.  A third of the rural population was malnourished (Schlesinger and Kinzer 1982, 250-254).

By 1980 when Ronald Reagan was swept into the White House on a neo-liberal agenda, the “showcase for democracy” that President Dwight D. Eisenhower promised in 1954 had become a “laboratory of counterinsurgency,” as historian Susanne Jonas and others have described it.  Even before he was elected, Reagan in 1979 sent a delegation to Guatemala with the message that Reagan was sympathetic to the savage, corrupt regime of General Fernando Romeo Lucas García.  But by 1982 US officials were calling Lucas García a butcher.  During the decades prior to Reagan’s ascension to the White House, a torrent of US money and military training produced a Guatemalan army that was well skilled in obliterating in the most brutal fashion vast swaths of indigenous populations in the highlands.

The conscripts pressed into military service eagerly participated in these atrocities.  Rigorous basic training in the Guatemalan army drained any sense of civilized proportion from conscripts.  Recruits went through a training course that included enduring beatings and degradation.  Their officers forced them to bathe in sewers and then prohibited from washing the excrement from their bodies.  During training some recruits were ordered to raise puppies, then commanded to kill the helpless animal and drink its blood.

On March 23, 1982, the Lucas García government was toppled during a coup d’état led by evangelical Christian Efraín Ríos Montt.  Playing to his right-wing religious base, Reagan never missed a chance to praise the Ríos Montt dictatorship.  The US president had complete awareness through detailed CIA reports of reports of genocide in Guatemala, but still Reagan had an utter lack of concern of the blood-soaked Ríos Montt regime’s unbridled slaughter of Indian men, women and children.  In a memorandum dated November 15, 1982 Secretary of State George P. Schultz told President Reagan, “The coup which brought Ríos Montt to power on March 23 presents us with an opportunity to break the long freeze in our relations with Guatemala and help prevent an extremist takeover.”  Despite the administration’s assertions in congressional hearings and in the press to the contrary, human rights organizations insisted that the Guatemalan army was slaughtering peasants in rural and Mayan regions of the country.  Indeed, Reagan met with the Ríos Montt one day before the Guatemalan army on the dictator’s orders began a three-day orgy of killing at a small village called Dos Erres.  Soldiers murdered more than 160 including 65 children.  Soldiers grasped children by their feet and swung their heads against rocks, splitting open their skulls.  Meanwhile, Reagan complained to the press that the religious fanatic, who had substantial ties to the fundamentalist movement in the US, was receiving a “bad deal.”  Reagan confidently stated that Ríos Montt was “totally committed to democracy,” according to a December 5, 1982 article in the New York Times (Bedan 2018, 338; Grandin, Empire’s Workshop 2006, 90, 109-11; Doyle 2018).

The Guatemalan election of 1985 laid the foundation for the civilian government of Vinicio Cerezo and the first “political opening” in the nation’s modern history that lowered the intensity of civil war.  The horrors of the scorched-earth policies were limited, but the counterinsurgency was still active, and the revolutionary movement was not decisively defeated.   Yet, most Guatemalans welcomed the respiro (breathing space), however limited and contradictory.  As the counterinsurgency apparatus remained, political tyranny was relaxed to a certain degree.  The moderation of repression was codified into law, but even so, Guatemalans were leery that protest might result in government retribution.  Only the most reactionary sections of the population felt any security in their freedom to openly express their opinions.  But by 1987, the bloom was off the rose as political assassinations increased and accelerated during 1988 and 1989.  At least three coups d’état attempts from military and civilian extremists in the right wing spurred an increase of death squad activity and crimes committed by the official security forces.   Observers noted that a “return to the early 1980s” was in the offing as human rights groups named Guatemala as the nation with the worst human rights record in Latin America for 1989 and 1990.  Assassination targets were the usual suspects: trade unionists, peasants, student leaders and church officials who advocated for even moderate reforms.  June 1988, the progressive newspaper offices of La Epoca were destroyed by firebombs.  Evidence pointed toward governmental security forces as the terrorism perpetrator.  Vinicio Cerezo refused to initiate investigations as he had promised during his campaign not to prosecute atrocities committed before his regime.  Cerezo’s unwillingness to prosecute those who committed crimes against humanity provided a shield of unaccountability that allowed these practices to continue (Jonas 1991, 163).

During the final two years of the Cerezo government the economy was in crisis, workers engaged in crippling strikes and protest marches and persistent allegations wide-spread corruption tarnished the government.  The quality of life in Guatemala remained in tatters as the government ineptitude failed to address desperate conditions including infant mortality, wide-spread illiteracy, seriously deficient health care and social services and rampant violence.  On November 11, 1990 during a general election Jorge Serrano was named Guatemala’s president in a runoff ballot.  He was inaugurated on January 14, 1991.  But internal strife in the government was the hallmark of life in the Central American nation.  The regimes of governments continued to be racked by civil war, corruption and instability.  In November 1995 in a field of 20 candidates battling for the presidency, the election finally came down to a runoff on January 7, 1996 when Álvaro Enrique Arzú defeated Alfonso Portillo.  During the Arzú administration negotiations between Guatemalan military commanders and guerrilla leaders of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) under the auspices of the United Nations were initiated to bring the vicious 36-year civil war to a close (Global Security 2017).

On Sunday December 29, 1996 the historic peace accords we signed, officially ending the savage Guatemalan civil war, the longest and bloodiest in Latin American Cold War history.  When viewed in its entire context the turmoil in Guatemala existed for 42 years, beginning with the US engineered coup d’état that ended the democratically elected government of Jacobo Árbenz in 1954.  The process that laid the foundation for the signing of the accords began during the middle of the 1980s, subsequent the government’s scorched-earth genocide that ravaged the country between 1981 and 1983.  When a civilian government assumed power in 1986, the URNG began making efforts to resolve the conflict.  The genocide that ravaged the country ended in 1983 left the URNG decimated and its mission to restore the 1944 Revolution and deliver the promise of a socially equal nation was finished.  The fighting continued for another 14 years, but for the URNG, it became an issue of fighting for survival, attempting to restore the rule of law and respect for basic human rights.  Serious negotiations began when a Catholic bishop offered his services as a “conciliator” and increased dramatically when the UN and other international figures entered the process in 1994.

The Accords that marked the end of the Guatemalan civil war are an enormous milestone in the nation’s history that ended the wave of unremitting government repression.  The Accords also poured the foundation for a Commission on Historical Clarification, that was tasked with studying the violence and identifying its causes. Yet, unfortunately the Accords did little to ameliorate the vast gulf of inequality that dominated the landscape in Guatemala.  As of 2006, two percent of the population owned 50 percent of the arable land in the country.   (Jonas, Guatemalan Peace Accords 2007; Kinzer 2006, 207; Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre 2004, 166).

*

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.

Edward B. Winslow is a historian and freelance writer.  He can be reached at [email protected].

Sources

Bedan, John. 2018. The Price of Progress: Guatemala and the United States During the Alliance for Progress Era.Dissertation, History, Eugene: University of Oregon. Accessed July 10, 2019. https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/24200.

Cullather, Nicholas. 1994. Operation PBSUCCESS: The United States and Guatemala 1952-1954. Washington DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency.

Doyle, Kate. 2018. “The Guatemala Genocide Ruling, Five Years Later.” nsarchive.gwu.edu. Edited by Kate Doyle. May 18. Accessed July 16, 2019. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/guatemala/2018-5-10/guatemala-genocide-ruling-five-years-later.

Galeano, Eduard. 1973, 1997. Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Global Security. 2017. Guatemala Civil War 1982-1996. Alexandria: GlobalSecurity.org. Accessed July 27, 2019. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/guatemala-3.htm.

Gordon, Max. 1971. “A Case History of US Subversion: Guatemala, 1954.” Science & Society 35 (2 (Summer)): 129-155.

Grandin, Greg. 2006. Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States and the Rise of the New Imperialism. New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company.

—. 2004. The Last Colonial Massacre. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Jonas, Susanne. 2007. “Guatemalan Peace Accords: An End and a Beginning.” NACLA Report on the Americas(North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA)).

—. 1991. The Battle for Guatemala: Rebels, Death Squads and US Power. Bouler, San Francisco and Oxford: Westview Press.

Kate Doyle, Ed., and Peter Kornbluh, Ed. 1995. CIA and Assassinations: The Guatemala 1954 Documents — National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 4. The George Washington University, Washington, DC: The National Security Archive. Accessed June 11, 2019. https://www.nsarchives2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/.

Kinzer, Stephen. 2006. Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. New York: Henry Holt and Company LLC.

McSherry, J. Patrice. 2005. Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc.

Pike, Frederick B. 1955. “Guatemala, the United States and Communism in the Americas.” The Review of Politics 17 (2): 232-261.

Schlesinger, Stephen, and Stephen Kinzer. 1982. Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala.Garden City: Doubleday & Company Inc.

Schlewitz, Andrew J. 2004. “Imperial Incompetence and Guatemalan Militarism, 1931-1966.” International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 17 (4 (Summer)): 585-618.

Stone, Oliver, and Peter Kuznick. 2012. The Untold History of the United States. New York: Gallery Books, A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Weiner, Tim. 2008. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. New York: Anchor Books, a division of Random House Inc.

Whitfield, Stephen J. 1984. “Strange Fruit: The Career of Samuel Zemurray.” American Jewish History (The Johns Hopkins University Press) 73 (3): 307-323.

Featured image: Elena Hermosa / Trocaire from Flickr

It may well be a finding of some implication should Julian Assange find his way into the beastly glory that is the US justice system.  In its efforts to rope in President Donald Trump’s election campaign, Wikileaks, Assange and the Russian Federation for hacking the computers of the Democratic National Committee in 2016, the DNC case was found wanting.

The case presented in the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York was never convincing but remains as aspect of a broader effort to inculpate WikiLeaks and Julian Assange in assisting the Trump campaign triumph.  One allegation was key: that “the dissemination of those [hacked] materials furthered the prospect of the Trump Campaign”, a point of assistance the defendants “welcomed”.  Claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupted Organizations Act and Stored Communications Act, among other statutes, were also advanced.

An important ingredient in the DNC case was that of conspiracy, a notable point given current efforts on the part of the US Justice Department to extradite Assange from the United Kingdom.  The elaborate conspiracy was alleged to link the Russian theft of emails and data from the DNC computer system to WikiLeaks and company via dissemination.  Effectively, the argument was that stolen materials were disclosed.  (Merrily for transparency advocates, the DNC did not contest the veracity of the material, merely the way such material had been obtained.)

Reporters and civil liberty groups rallied.  The Knight First Amendment Institute situated at Columbia University, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, all made submissions backing WikiLeaks’ request for the dismissal of the lawsuit.

The first snag for the DNC team was the Russian Federation.  As District Judge John G. Koeltl noted from the outset, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act rendered the issue of Russia’s legal liability for the pilfering deeds a moot one; the Federation could not be sued in the courts of the United States for acts of state, a point duly acknowledged as reciprocal.  Nor had the DNC shown that the case satisfied any exceptions, including that of “commercial activity”.  Cyber-attacks, it was accepted, tended to lack the necessary commercial quality.

What then followed was a textbook application of the First Amendment and press freedoms at play.  The DNC effort had a smell of desperation; in pursuing WikiLeaks, it had ignored a salient lesson in constitutional history.  The good judge was wise to the point, recalling the US Supreme Court decision in New York Times Co. v United States (the “Pentagon Papers” case) upholding “the press’ right to publish information of public concern obtained from documents stolen by a third party.”

The 2001 Supreme Court decision of Bartnicki v Vopper was also added to the judicial mix, one involving the interception by an unknown person of a recorded call between a teachers’ union’s president and its main negotiator.  The subsequent airing of the recording by a local radio host did not result in any liability for breaching federal and Pennsylvania wiretapping statutes, despite knowledge that the recording had been obtained illegally.  Action on the part of a state “to punish the publication of truthful information seldom can satisfy constitutional standards”.

Koeltl noted that the DNC raised “a number of connections and communications between the defendants and with people loosely connected to the Russian Federation, but at no point does the DNC allege any facts in the Second Amendment Complaint to show that any of the defendants – other than the Russian Federation – participated in the theft of the DNC’s information.”  What the DNC was essentially doing was making allegations sound like fact, something of an irritation for Koeltl.

While acknowledging that the DNC’s argument against WikiLeaks might have initially seemed strong, they being “the only defendant – other than the Russian Federation – that is alleged to have published the stolen information”, such an allegation lacked legs.  The Bartnicki case loomed as a heavy precedent: WikiLeaks had played no “role in the theft of the documents and it is undisputed that the stolen materials involve matters of public concern.”  It was left to the DNC to distinguish the two cases, something which it tried to do with the concept of the “after-the-fact co-conspirator”. The bridge was alleged to be WikiLeaks’ “coordination to obtain and distribute stolen materials”.

In what seems like an audible sigh coming through the text, Koeltl deemed WikiLeaks’ knowledge that the material was stolen a “constitutionally insignificant” matter and “unpersuasive.”  On the other hand, publishing internal communications allowing “the American electorate to look behind a curtain of one of the two major political parties in the United States during a presidential election” was very much deserving of the “strongest protection that the First Amendment offers.”

Even any solicitation of the part of WikiLeaks to obtain such material (prosecutors, take note) was irrelevant. “A person is entitled to publish stolen documents that the publisher requested from a source as long as the publisher did not participate in the theft.”

The logical implication following from punishing individuals and entities for doing so, acknowledged the court, would “render any journalist who publishes an article based on stolen information a co-conspirator in the theft”.  Assange and his legal team will be more than a little heartened by this acknowledgment, one that repels efforts to treat WikiLeaks as a hacking rather than publishing enterprise.

*

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

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.  He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

“The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.” — Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), (September 1932)

“Armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.” — James Madison, (1751-1836), 4th U.S. President, (April 20, 1795)

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” — Thomas Jefferson, (1743-1826), 3rd U.S. President

“We know now that government run by organized money is the same as government run by the organized mob.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd American President, 1933-1945,  (in a speech at Madison Square Garden, Oct. 31, 1936)

Don’t look now, but there is a new monetary craze going on in some parts of the world, and it is the new so-called ‘unconventional’ monetary policy adopted by some central banks to push interest rates to ultra-low levels, and even into negative territory. For some time now, some central banks and some governments have been pushing nominal interest rates down, so much so that a few countries have negative short-term interest rates and, when inflation is factored in, even more deeply negative real interest rates. Why suddenly such an unconventional monetary policy? Their rationale is a fear that the economy could otherwise be saddled with an overvalued currency and be faced with a too heavy debt burden, and this would hurt their economic growth.

How is this possible? How could a central bank push interest rates to zero or to below zero, and with what consequences? A central bank does that by offering zero or negative returns on private banks’ excess reserves or extra funds that those banks want to store at the central bank. This is a complex matter, but essentially this occurs when private banks are awash with cash that they have trouble lending profitably to private borrowers. They are then forced to find alternative ways to invest their funds, one of them is to park those funds at the central bank, or alternatively, to buy government bonds and other securities. The result is an increase in the prices of those assets and a lowering of interest rates.

The question to be asked is why many banks are saddled with too much excess cash, above and beyond what is required to meet the ordinary private demands for loans? To answer that question, we have to go back to the international financial crisis of 2007 and later years.

This all began with the subprime financial crisis, which started at the end of the summer of 2007, when some mega-banks in the United States and in other financial centers were teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Indeed, they had created a new type of financial products, the so-called mortgage-and debt-backed securities (MBS) and other asset-backed paper (ABCP), which were bundles of risky debt and were sold as new esoteric securities. When the housing market collapsed, these artificially created securities also collapsed, and the banks found themselves in financial trouble.

To prevent large banks from failing, the American central bank, i.e. the Fed, began printing new money to the extent of more than three thousand billion $ to rescue them. The Fed called its generosity “Quantitative Easing” (QE), a fancy and innocuous word to cover the largest expansion ever of the monetary base in the United States, which is to a large extent made up of the Fed’s balance sheet (i.e. the private banks’ reserves held at the central bank) and of bank notes and coins circulating in the economy.

— With the newly printed money, the Fed bought Treasuries but also large amounts of private banks’ bad debts. And it did it for six years from 2008 to late 2014, in three successive rounds of money printing.

— Historically speaking, it was really an orgy of money printing. This was done, however, on the premise that the banks would leave most of their newly created bank excess reserves deposited at the central bank. Nevertheless, the result (withso much excess liquidity in the system) was to push the prices of bonds and securities up and to lower interest rates across the board. And, in fact, interest rates have been declining ever since. The Fed said that it was ‘reflating’ the economy. In fact, what it was doing could be more accurately called ‘reflating’ the private banks’ balance sheets.

— During that period, the Fed’s own total balance sheet ballooned, jumping from roughly $1,000 billion in 2008, (ordinarily, it is mostly made up of Treasury securities and its net interest income is returned to the Treasury), to slightly more than $4,500 billion en 2017, an increase of 350 percent.

Today, the Fed’s total balance sheet is made up of Treasuries for about 55 percent, while mortgage-and-debt backed securities that it bought from the private banks account for about 40 percent, with gold and other assets accounting for the rest. An important point is the fact that the Fed’s balance sheet before 2008 represented around 6 percent of annual U.S. output (GDP) but it reached 25 percent in 2014. It has since declined somewhat to 20 percent of GDP, and the Fed would like to “normalize it “, i.e. shrink it further to prevent future inflation and above all, to be in a position to intervene if a new crisis were to arise.

Let us now do some fast-forward thinking to today’s economic situation.

Enter the Trump administration in 2017 with its big increase in the pubic debt and with its bullying of the Powell Fed to bring down interest rates, possibly to zero

The last economic recession in the United States, (dubbed the Great Recession), was the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. It began in December 2007, and it ended in June 2009. The economic recovery, however, has been the longest in U.S. history, having passed the 121-month mark, and it is already more than 10 years old.

The Trump administration’s economic policy as been characterized by trade protectionism, an anti-immigration policy, the lowering of taxes especially for large corporations and large banks, trillion-dollars yearly fiscal deficits, a very loose monetary policy, and a 13 percent jump in the total U.S. public debt since Jan. 20, 2017, when President Donald Trump took office.

[N. B.: The total national debt stood at $19.95 trillion on January 20, 2017. As of July 31, 2019, it has been galloping past $22.54 trillion.]

It could be expected that when the public debt has grown so large that there is fear that it could not be managed if interest rates were to rise. Governments and central banks would then be tempted to push interest rates down, in order to alleviate the burden of debt service (essentially interest payments on government bonds). It is like imposing a stealth tax on savers and creditors.

It is worth pointing out that the Fed has recently done just that. Indeed, by artificially lowering interest rates below the inflation rate and a risk premium, it has made it possible for the U.S. Treasury to pay negative real interest rates on its public debt. This means that when the inflation rate is higher than the nominal interest rate paid on the public debt, the U.S. government gets a free ride at the expense of its creditors.

If interest rates were to fall to zero, for example, or even to below zero, (as it is the case nowadays in Japan, after its two-decade long experiment withzero interest rates, and presently in some European countries, such as Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands, France, Sweden, etc.), savers, retirees, pension funds, insurance companies and lenders in general are the big losers.

Indeed, in countries where ten-year government bonds, for example, are generating a zero or a negative return, this means that the principle of compound interest has de facto been abolished for investors. Such a development may have serious consequences for savers, retirees and pension funds.

However, when the central bank buys government bonds and issues newly created money in exchange, this is called “debt monetization”. If this is done on a large scale, it could eventually lead to a form of gallopinginflation, possibly even to hyperinflation.

It is also worth noting that when central banks push interest rates to ultra low levels or to negative levels, investors have no other alternative than to purchase assets that offer positive returns, such as shares in companies or ownership titles of real estate. Price bubbles in the stock market and in the real estate market can be expected to ensue. Such investments become a refuge from the negative returns received on fixed-income financial assets. Historically, when this has happened, such developments have ultimately ended up in crashes and panics down the road.

The 1920s all over again?

The economic situation of today is, to a certain extent, reminiscent of the U.S. economy in the 1920s, leading to the Great Depression of the 1930s. Indeed, the U.S. economy had been growing by 2.7 percent per year between 1920 and 1929. There was overall full employment and inflation was stable.

Also, economic growth had been extended through protectionist measures, such as the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922. During the presidential campaign of 1928, for example, republican presidential candidate Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) proposed large tariff increases on imports, as part of his platform. Once in power, his promise was implemented with the passage of the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930, which is thought to have accelerated the global economic depression.

The economy was also stimulated through increased spending on public works and through tax cuts in 1921, 1924, and 1925.

Moreover, President Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) signed an anti-immigration bill called the Immigration Act of 1924, (also called the Johnson–Reed Act), whose main purpose was to prevent immigration to the United States of people from Asia. There was also widespread hostility toward Catholic Americans, many of Italian origin, toward Jews, and toward blacks.

— These were the “roaring ‘20s”.

Considering the many similarities between the two periods, politically, socially and economically, a few questions beg to be asked: Is not history repeating itself? Might the excesses of today lead also to a day of reckoning? Might the current central bankers and politicians be leading the U.S. and other economies into a severe global economic downturn? Trade protectionism, lower taxes, higher debt levels, anti-immigration legislation, wholesale deregulation… etc.

— It’s ‘déjà vu all over again’!

Conclusion

Artificially low interest rates may be on their way in the United States. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell appears to have been intimidated by Donald Trump’s bullying tactics into lowering interest rates. Therefore, even though the U.S. economy is presently at full employment—partly a demographic consequence of the retirement in droves of baby-boomers—it is also saddled with very loose fiscal and monetary policies.

This is most unusual and it flies in the face of the principles of sound economic management. Such a situation is bound to create financial excesses and bubbles, to be corrected down the road.

In fact, the policy mix of today is a typical example of a government going after short-run economic and political gains at the expense of future medium- and long-run pains.

*

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.

International economist Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay is the author of the book “The Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles”, of the book “The New American Empire”, and the recent book, in French “La régression tranquille du Québec, 1980-2018“. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

Please visit Dr. Tremblay’s site: http://rodriguetremblay100.blogspot.com/ where this article was originally published.

Featured image is from Pixabay

For more than six decades, socialist Cuba has struggled against the ‘most formidable imperial power ever known to humankind’. It could be said that, ‘never has the world witnessed such an unequal fight’ when considering the respective sizes, populations, economies, and military strengths of Cuba and the US (Fidel Castro, May 1, 2003 Havana). In its anti-communist/anti-socialist zeal, the Trump administration has maintained America’s long-standing policy of attempting ‘to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of [Cuban] government’, which has been in place since 1960’s with the exception of a brief period of engagement from December 17, 2014 to June 16, 2017, when the Obama administration sought to normalize diplomatic relations with the island nation[i]. The Trump administration has frequently employed rhetoric reminiscent of the Cold War Era while implementing aggressive, impulsive and harsh policies against Cuba, which have strengthened the American economic embargo against the island and its people. Washington has justified such policies on the basis that Cuba has been ‘exporting its communist ideology’ to Venezuela, Nicaragua[ii] and other Latin American countries, even going so far as to claim that ‘Cuba is the true imperialist power in Venezuela.’

On June 16, 2017, just under six months after assuming office, President Trump delivered a speech in Miami where he mentioned that Americans ‘will not be silenced in the face of communist oppression any longer’. In that same speech, he also stated that ‘with God’s help, a free Cuba’ will soon be achieved[iii]. However, the aggressiveness of US policies towards Cuba has clearly intensified since Mike Pompeo (Secretary of State since April 26, 2018), John Bolton (National Security Advisor since April 9, 2018) and Elliott Abrams[iv] (special Representative for Venezuela since January 25, 2019) were given prominent roles in Washington. Subsequently, in a speech delivered in Miami on February 18, 2019, Trump went so far as to call Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro a ‘Cuban puppet’ and make the outrageous claim that ‘the Venezuelan military are risking their lives, and Venezuela’s future, for a man controlled by the Cuban military and protected by a private army of Cuban soldiers.’ The same day, Trump elaborated on his hostile view of Venezuela’s socialist government when he claimed that:

Their tyrannical socialist government, nationalized private industries, and took over private businesses. They engaged in massive wealth confiscation, shut down free markets, suppressed free speech, and set up a relentless propaganda machine, rigged elections, used the government to persecute their political opponents, and destroyed the impartial rule of law…In other words, the socialists have done in Venezuela all of the same things that socialists, communists, totalitarians[v] have done everywhere that they’ve had a chance to rule.  The results have been catastrophic[vi].

In February 2019, president Trump confidently asserted that his administration would put an end to socialist and communist regimes throughout Latin America when he announced:

the twilight hour of socialism has arrived in our hemisphere, and frankly in many, many places around the world. The days of socialism and communism are numbered not only in Venezuela but in Nicaragua and in Cuba as well.

The latest US efforts to overthrow Cuba’s socialist regime include the full implementation of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act[ix] (also known as the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act of 1996), which was announced by National Security Advisor John Bolton in a speech delivered in Miami on April 17, 2019. The Helms-Burton Act was designed to bring hunger and desperation to Cuba by extending the original commercial, economic, and financial embargo against the island nation. Title III allows for the ‘protection of property rights of United States nationals’ in order to discourage investment in Cuba on the part of non-US companies. More specifically, it permits ‘American citizens, including naturalized Cuban-Americans, to sue any foreign company conducting business involving properties that were owned by American citizens before being confiscated by the Cuban socialist government after the 1959 Revolution.’[vii]

Subsequently, on June 4, 2019, the Trump administration announced that it was amending Cuban Assets Control Regulations (CACR)[viii] by implementing new travel restrictions on American citizens seeking to visit Cuba, including for educational trips and cultural exchanges. Furthermore, the amended CACR also includes a full ban on cruise ships, private yachts or plane travel to Cuba. These new restrictions were justified by US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on the basis that:

Cuba continues to play a destabilizing role in the Western Hemisphere, providing a communist foothold in the region and propping up U.S. adversaries in places like Venezuela and Nicaragua by fomenting instability, undermining the rule of law and suppressing democratic processes.[ix]

Despite his recent enthusiasm for anti-communist propaganda, Trump did not appear particularly interested in reversing Obama’s policies aimed at re-establishing normalized relations with Cuba early on in his presidency. According to Mark Feierstein, senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council under Obama, ‘Trump has never demonstrated a concern about Cuba. As we know he tried to do business in Cuba. We know that he privately told Obama that he agreed with what Obama was doing on Cuba policy.’ This might suggest that the Trump administration’s policies towards Cuba are intended to bolster his anti-socialist/communist[x] credentials before the 2020 presidential election[xi], which could pit him against Bernie Sanders, who has called for ending the trade embargo and lifting travel restrictions against Cuba.

During the Cold War Era, neo-liberals often claimed that the destruction of Western civilisation and liberalism at the hands of fascism, Nazism, and communism could have been prevented had people recognized the warning signs and understood where these movements were headed before it was too late. It would appear that the Trump administration is employing similar rhetoric, as was evident on November 4, 2018, when president Trump declared that ‘Democrats are socialists’ and that ‘they want to impose socialism on our country.’ The Trump administration is trying to instill fear of totalitarian regimes, as if the world was still operating under the conditions of the Cold War Era. Speeches and statements by Trump, Pompeo, Bolton and Abrams give the impression that the ideological battle against communism has not been concluded even though the Soviet Union collapsed almost three decades ago.

Despite the widespread belief that the ideological battle between capitalism and communism was settled at the end of Cold War, ‘the End of History’has not yet been decisively achieved, as alternative ideologies to free-market capitalism continue to persist in some countries. Cuban socialism has managed to survive for six decades, despite being subjected to a destructive embargo, intimidation, and destabilization, including assassination attempts against it leaders, while the Bolivarian Revolution is entering its third decade. Also, the US has only recently managed to reverse the ‘Pink Tide’ (or turn to the left) in Latin America by supporting the electoral defeat or overthrow of progressive governments in a number of countries throughout the region and their replacement by right-wing candidates committed to the neoliberal economic model. The US government and its allies are now focusing their attention on destabilizing and overthrowing the governments of Cuba and Venezuela[xii], as well as Nicaragua, the few remaining countries in the region that prevent foreign corporations from earning unlimited profits at the expense of domestic workers and the environment.

History has shown that Washington is not averse to intervening in the domestic affairs of other countries in order to further its own interests, which includes facilitating the overthrow of a long list of governments that did not fully submit to US dictates. Such interventions were often justified on the grounds of national security, with recurring pretexts including the Cold War, the Global War on Terrorism and the War on Drugs. Given that the US is losing or has already lost the War on Terrorism and the War on Drugs, a return to the discourse of the Cold War Era appears to be the new narrative used to justify American foreign interventions. In Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, the Trump administration is using the pretext of spreading democracy or, more accurately, ‘their democratic model.’[xiii] On a number of occasions, president Trump has suggested that there is a risk of communist and socialist movements spreading within the US, including his last State of the Union Address where he indicated that he was ‘alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism’ in the American way of life, with the implication being that this would inevitably bring terror, misery, despotism, and oppression to American citizens. This type of discourse helps elicit fears and resentment among the population, directing them towards an irrational and aggressive defense of the status quo. Perhaps this is the tactic that Donald Trump is hoping will help him secure re-election in 2020. Unfortunately, the world will continue to be subjected to the destructive and malicious policies of the Trump administration that only serve the interests, wealth, and power of corporate elites until then.

*

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

Global Research contributor Dr. Birsen Filip holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Ottawa.

Notes

[i] On June 16, 2017, President Trump announced that he was ‘cancelling’ the Obama administration’s deals with Cuba.

[ii] Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela have been labelled the ‘troika of tyranny’ and the ‘three stooges of socialism’ by, National Security Advisor John Bolton.

[iii] President Trump, Miami, Florida in 2017

[iv] ‘Among the leading players in the current anti-communist and neo-imperialist crusade being perpetrated by the US government include: current US vice-president Mike Pence; Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State since April 26, 2018; Florida Senator Marco Rubio; John Bolton, National Security Advisor since April 9, 2018; Mauricio Claver-Carone, senior director of the National Security Council’s Western Hemisphere affairs division since fall 2018; Elliot Abrams, Special Representative for Venezuela since January 25, 2019; and, Mark Andrew Green, Administrator of USAID since August 7, 2017. All of them are well-known for holding strong anti-Castro views, opposing the Obama administration’s engagement with Cuba, and being proponents of aggressive regime change strategies in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.’ https://www.globalresearch.ca/enacting-title-iii-helms-burton-act-us-revisits-cold-war-era/5671648

[v] Many of the hostile actions directed against Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua on the part of the Trump administration have been justified on the basis that these countries are socialist or communist, and that they support totalitarian regimes. However, the systems of government and economics in each of these countries are very distinct from the communism that prevailed during the Cold War Era. In fact, Venezuela and Nicaragua are mixed economies, while Cuba is reforming its socialist regime. These three nations have been trying to reduce exploitation and misery, while ensuring that society is egalitarian, communitarian, which does not suggest that their governments are totalitarian in nature.

[vi] Contrary to much of president Trump’s rhetoric, there is plenty of evidence to support the view that ‘revolutionary communism created a life for the mass of people that was far better than the wretched existence they had endured under feudal lords, military bosses, foreign colonizers, and Western capitalists. The end result was a dramatic improvement in living conditions for hundreds of millions of people on a scale never before or since witnessed in history. State socialism transformed desperately poor countries into modernized societies in which everyone had enough food, clothing, and shelter; where elderly people had secure pensions; and where all children (and many adults) went to school and no one was denied medical attention.’ (Parenti, 1997, 85).

[vii] https://www.globalresearch.ca/enacting-title-iii-helms-burton-act-us-revisits-cold-war-era/5671648

[viii] ‘The CACR removes an authorization for people-to-people educational travel that was conducted under the auspices of an organization that is subject to U.S. jurisdiction and that sponsors such exchanges to promote people-to-people contact (group people-to-people educational travel). This amendment also includes a grandfather clause authorizing certain group people-to-people educational travel that previously was authorized where the traveler has already completed at least one travel-related transaction (such as purchasing a flight or reserving accommodation) prior to June 5, 2019.’https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/cuba_faqs_new.pdf

[ix] https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm700

[x] There is little doubt that anti-communism has been the most powerful political force inhibiting the success of revolutionary movements around the world. During the Cold War, anti-communist orientation of Washington resulted in foreign interventions aimed at destabilizing governments viewed even as moderately socialist (incorrectly on some occasions) including Guatemala (1953-1954, 1960), Indonesia (1957-1958, 1965, 1975), the  Dominican Republic (1960-1966), Chile (1964-1973), Cambodia (1955-1973), Laos (1957-1973), the Congo (1960-1964), Greece (1964-1974), Bolivia (1964-1975), and Afghanistan (1979-1992).

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-cuban-revolution-the-u-s-imposed-economic-blockade-and-us-cuba-relations/5433797

[xi] Preparations for the 2020 election could also have factored into Trump’s decision to bring experienced anti-communist crusaders into his administration, including John Bolton, National Security Advisor since April 9, 2018, and Elliot Abrahams.

[xii] Given that ‘six of the world’s ten top industrial corporations are involved primarily in the production of oil, gasoline, and motor vehicles’, securing Venezuela’s oil reserves, which are the largest known reserves in the world, is a priority for these industrial corporations (Parenti 1997, 158). This would require the removal of president Maduro, who has been using his country’s oil revenue to finance social and economic programs aimed at achieving the distributive justice.

[xiii] ‘It’s the false democracy of elites…a very original democracy that’s imposed by weapons and bombs and firing weapons’ (Hugo Chávez, 2006).

Featured image is from Wikimedia Commons

Embora a oposição ataque sempre o governo e existam divergências no seio do próprio governo, em todo o arco parlamentar não se ergueu uma única voz, quando o Primeiro Ministro Conte expôs as linhas de orientação da política externa, na Conferência dos Embaixadores (em 26 de Julho), o que prova o amplo consenso multipartidário.

Conte definiu, antes de tudo,  qual é o fundamento da posição da Itália no mundo: “O nosso relacionamento com os Estados Unidos continua qualitativamente diferente do que temos com outras Potências, porque é baseado em valores, em princípios partilhados, que são o próprio fundamento da República e parte integrante da nossa Constituição: a soberania democrática, a liberdade e a igualdade dos cidadãos, a salvaguarda dos direitos humanos fundamentais”.

O Primeiro Ministro Conte não só reitera que os EUA são o nosso “aliado privilegiado”, como também afirma um princípio orientador: a Itália considera os Estados Unidos como um modelo de sociedade democrática. Uma mistificação histórica colossal.

Ø  No que diz respeito à “liberdade e à igualdade dos cidadãos”, basta lembrar que os cidadãos americanos ainda hoje são oficialmente registados com base na “raça” – brancos (distintos entre não hispânicos e hispânicos), negros, índios americanos, asiáticos, nativos havaianos – e que as condições de vida médias dos negros e dos hispânicos (latino-americanos pertencentes a todas “raças”) são, de longe, as piores.

No que diz respeito à “salvaguarda dos direitos humanos fundamentais”, basta lembrar que nos Estados Unidos mais de 43 milhões de cidadãos (14%) vivem na pobreza e cerca de 30 milhões não possuem plano de saúde, enquanto muitos outros possuem seguro de saúde insuficiente (por exemplo, para pagar uma longa quimioterapia contra um tumor).

E no que diz respeito à “salvaguarda dos direitos humanos”, basta recordar os milhares de negros desarmados, assassinados impunemente, por polícias brancos.

No que diz respeito à “soberania democrática”, basta recordar a série de guerras e golpes de Estado, efectuados pelos Estados Unidos, desde 1945 até hoje, em mais de 30 países asiáticos, africanos, europeus e latino-americanos, causando 20-30 milhões de mortes e centenas de milhões de feridos (ver o estudo de J. Lucas apresentado pelo Prof Chossudovsky em Global Research).

Estes são os “valores partilhados” sobre os quais a Itália baseia a sua relação “qualitativamente diferente” com os Estados Unidos. E, para demonstrar como ela é profícua, Conte assegura: “Encontrei sempre no Presidente Trump, um interlocutor atento aos legítimos interesses italianos”.

Interesses que Washington considera “legítimos” enquanto a Itália permanecer associada à NATO, dominada pelos EUA, seguir os EUA, de guerra em guerra, aumentar a sua despesa militar, a seu pedido, colocar o seu território à disponísição das forças e bases USA, incluindo as nucleares.

Conte procura fazer crer que o seu governo, habitualmente designado como “soberanista”, tem um amplo espaço autónomo de “diálogo com a Rússia com base de aproximação NATO de duplo binário” (diplomático e militar), uma abordagem que, na realidade, segue o binário único de um confronto militar cada vez mais perigoso.

A este respeito – refere ‘La Stampa’ (26 de Julho) – o Embaixador dos EUA, Eisenberg, telefonou ao Vice Presidente Di Maio (considerado por Washington o mais “confiável”), pedindo esclarecimentos sobre as relações com Moscovo, em particular do Vice Presidente Salvini (cuja visita a Washington, apesar dos seus esforços, teve um “resultado decepcionante”).

Não se sabe se o governo Conte vai passar no exame. Sabe-se, no entanto, que prossegue a tradição, segundo a qual, em Itália, o governo deve ter sempre a aprovação de Washington, confirmando qual é a nossa “soberania democrática”.

Manlio Dinucci

 

Artigo original em italiano :

Il modello USA del governo «sovranista»

Tradutora: Maria Luísa deVasconcellos

The popular Western mainstream media outlet Reuters published a very misleading piece over the weekend that deceptively described the latest events in Hong Kong as a “cycle of violence,” inaccurately implying that the recent disturbances are partially the fault of the city’s police.

The article, “Protesters clash in Hong Kong as cycle of violence intensifies,” paints a sympathetic picture of the rioters who have tried to wreak havoc across the municipality over the past two months while ignoring the commendable restraint and patience of the law enforcement representatives tasked with keeping the peace.

The subtext is that the police’s supposedly excessive response to the so-called protesters is contributing to a “cycle of violence,” suggesting that the city should just stand back and let rioters run wild across town until they finally get what they want.

That would be absolutely irresponsible because no country – including Western leaders such as the U.S. and France – would allow such a scenario to materialize since it’s the responsibility of the state to keep the majority of law-abiding and peaceful citizens safe from the violent vanguard of political radicals who are attacking public property, disturbing the peace and intimidating others.

The deplorable events of early July are etched in everyone’s mind after hooligans stormed the legislative building, vandalized the premises and even raised the city’s colonial-era flag in the clearest sign yet of their regressive political agenda, yet even then the police reacted responsibly and went to great lengths to ensure that the situation was defused as peacefully and realistically as possible under those tense circumstances.

Instead of lauding law enforcement representatives for their professional handling of the situation, Western mainstream media outlets spun conspiracy theories speculating about why the police didn’t use more forceful means.

Evidently, many Western political observers have been unpleasantly surprised by how the city has dealt with recent events, hence why Reuters, for example, is now trying to imply without any evidence whatsoever that law enforcement representatives are partially responsible for a “cycle of violence.”

This is a similarly deceptive narrative as the one that’s regularly propagated against the authorities in many non-Western countries whenever politically motivated protests in the main urban areas descend into anti-state violence and rioting, making it seem like the same perception management playbook is now being applied against Hong Kong.

According to the established pattern, a “trigger event” usually takes place which provides the masterminds of the planned unrest with the “international plausible” pretext to commence their destabilization operations.

A small minority of the protesters are actually anti-state radicals who then try to violently provoke the police into responding in kind, after which the law enforcement representatives’ actions are decontextualized, misreported and then propagated through selectively edited footage on mainstream and especially social media platforms in order to spread a completely false perception of the events that just took place.

The intent is to manufacture the artificial narrative that the state is using excessive force against peaceful civilian protesters, which instantly attracts biased international media coverage and could contribute to misleading other citizens into participating in increasingly larger demonstrations, during which time they could be exploited as de-facto human shields by nearby rioters who are trying to provoke a forceful response from the police that they know might unwittingly injure others as collateral damage.

This is the real cycle of violence that’s occurring and the true culprits behind it, not the one that Reuters implied is partially the state’s fault.

Going forward and judging by the distorted way in which many Western mainstream media outlets are reporting on the latest incidents in Hong Kong, one can predict that this deceptive perception management trend will probably continue into the future since it’s driven by hostile political motivations.

In fact, one can even go as far as describing it as a “cycle of media violence,” since those outlets are tacitly supporting the rioters by encouraging the continuance of their criminal actions, which makes them much more culpable for what’s taking place than the police are because they’re literally waging psychological warfare to provoke more unrest.

*

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.

This article was originally published on CGTN.

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

Featured image is from Sky News

Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif’s recent branding of US National Security Advisor Bolton, “Israeli” Premier Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) as part of a so-called “B-Team” of anti-Iranian hawks has been very successful in putting enormous pressure on the first-mentioned one and making Americans think twice about the whose interests would really be served by going to war with the Islamic Republic.

 ***

Perception management is a tactic of information warfare that’s become extremely important in the modern-day age of social media, which isn’t to render any value judgement on it one way or the other, but just to point out a fact that few are reluctant to admit. All countries, leaders, movements, and politically minded individuals engage in it, though it’s “taboo” to say so. In any case, that doesn’t change the reality of it occurring all the time, especially since it’s come to play such a prominent role in the latest American-Iranian tensions. Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif‘s recent branding of US National Security Advisor Bolton, “Israeli” Premier Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) as part of a so-called “B-Team” of anti-Iranian hawks is a case in point and deserves to be analyzed more in depth because of the tremendous success that it’s had in putting enormous pressure on the first-mentioned one.

Iranian strategists keenly understand that many Americans on both sides of the partisan aisle are deeply suspicious of Bolton, with Democrats literally hating him simply because he’s a Republican while the Republicans themselves are divided over his controversial legacy of supporting the 2003 War on Iraq. They’ve also obviously been following the US’ domestic affairs closely enough to know that there are even rumors that Bolton isn’t in the best standing with Trump, especially after popular TV host Tucker Carlson’s reported intervention in getting the President to reconsider the wisdom of striking Iran in response to its downing of an American spy drone last month. All of this suggests that there are serious fault lines inside the Trump Administration and the rest of America as a whole over Bolton’s role as the country’s National Security Advisor, which presents a unique opportunity for Iran to relieve some of the pressure that he’s putting on it.

Every American is aware by now of the Democrats’ “Russian collusion” conspiracy theory, which has brought the topic of foreign interference in the country’s many political processes to the front and center of domestic debate. With this in mind, Iranian strategists realized the brilliance of grouping Bolton together with Bibi and MBS as part of the so-called “B-Team” that Tehran blames for trying to provoke war with the Islamic Republic because it strongly implies that the infamous war hawk might be doing the bidding of “Israel” and Saudi Arabia instead of advancing America’s own interests. Those two aforementioned actors are very controversial nowadays after many Americans have become aware of “Israel’s” crimes against the Palestinians and Saudi Arabia’s vicious conduct in the War on Yemen, and Bolton’s unwavering support for both of them has contributed to his unpopularity and the theory that he might be their joint “agent of influence”.

Iran wants as many Americans as possible — including regular folks, government officials (both domestic and foreign), and even Trump himself — exposed to this idea in order to exacerbate the preexisting fault lines over this official and either functionally neutralize his influence or get him fired, but the only way to ensure widespread awareness of the theory that he might be “Israel” and Saudi Arabia’s joint “agent of influence” in provoking the US into war against Iran on their behalf was to get Foreign Minister Zarif to tweet about the “B-Team”. That instantly caught the international media’s attention and guaranteed that the largest number of people possible could be made aware of who Bolton might really be working for, which has put the National Security Advisor under unprecedented pressure like never before. Iran’s successful employment of perception management tactics via social media might even result in Trump tempering his position towards the latest tensions and ultimately preventing an outbreak of what Zarif warned would be the “war of the century”.

*

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.

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

Featured image is from New Eastern Outlook

---

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

Michel Chossudovsky

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

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-6-0

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

List Price: $22.95

Special Price: $15.00

Click here to order.

We all remember those vivid pictures of a deer, halfway across a road at night…. Frozen as the car is about to hit it. A shrewder animal would not allow itself to be so defenseless on that roadway. Alas, the poor deer, a wonderfully peaceful and relaxed creature of nature, many times over is found destroyed by an oncoming auto.

When photographers, or even illustrators, can capture that look on the face of the poor deer just as it is about to be slammed into, is a sad sight indeed.

The American public, or rather, a majority of us, are like that unfortunate deer caught in those headlights. Most of us are good, hardworking folks…. decent Americans who care about family and community. We give to charities, help old ladies cross the street, all that nice stuff.

Yet, when it comes to studying history, especially that of the previous 100 years, most Americans are at a loss for true clarity of facts. They rely on the mainstream media to not only entertain, but to inform – an oxymoron if there ever was one! Thus, Americans never learn, even in our primary and secondary schools (or many colleges for that matter) what ‘really went down’ in all the military engagements our nation has been in. The truth of it all would freeze us up like that deer.

How many of us were taught, from the onset of the Cold War until this day, that it was they, the Soviet Union, who really won the European portion of World War 2 while sacrificing over 25 million of their people?

How many of us ever questioned why it was necessary to drop two atomic bombs on Japan? Surely one so devastating was all the Japanese needed to ‘see the light‘ and surrender. What we were never taught in history class was that the Japanese were already suing for a surrender?

All they needed was for the Allies (meaning America) to allow their Emperor to remain as titular head of their nation. Roosevelt, then Truman, along with Churchill, refused to accommodate them, on the theory that hundreds of thousands of our troops would be killed during an ‘island to island‘ invasion of Japan. We had already terrorized the Japanese through our incendiary carpet bombing destruction of Tokyo…. A city that was almost totally made of wood structures. The Japanese were a beaten foe, ready to  negotiate a face saving settlement. All that propaganda about ‘fighting to the death‘ was great for movies…. Not for what was happening on the ground. So, why did we drop the atomic bomb? And why the need for two? Well, those who study real history, and not that of the revisionist victors, know that the Cold War had already begun before WW2 ended. So much so, that in 1942, Stalin was promised by Roosevelt and Churchill that the allies would stage a second front (later to become the D- Day invasion of Normandy). Stalin was assured, in mid 1942, that this would happen ‘within one year, and no later‘. It took actually two years (June ‘44) and only even then because Stalin threatened Churchill and Roosevelt that he would sue for peace with the Germans if an invasion did not happen!

So now we have two Whys.

Why the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan, if the Japanese were desperate for a deal?

Why the stall of a second front invasion by the US and Brits?

Let us answer the latter question first, as it happened before the other one.

Roosevelt and (especially) Churchill were already into their ‘Cold War Mode‘ in 1942. What they had hoped for was that the longer it took for the Allies to invade European soil, the more devastation the Russians and Germans would inflict upon each other. It is no wonder that the Russians are overly sensitive of NATO having missiles planted on their borders.

As to the A bombs on Japan, it seems that the broker for a Japanese surrender was in fact ….. Russia.

Plus, the Russians, in 1945, were turning their attention to Japan…. Gearing up their armies to attack from their land mass. The US and the Brits saw how the Russians had already  occupied a great portion of  Germany and controlled all of Poland and the other eastern European countries…… Sharing in the spoils of war and all that. Truman and Churchill wanted no part of a partial Russian occupied Japan as well. So, we had the bomb, better to use it now to show the Russians we had one developed. But wait! What if we dropped one bomb and the Russians thought ‘Well, they made an atomic bomb. OK. How do we know they can make them so easily?‘ Thus, the second bomb was dropped……

The war ended immediately and Japan was under full American control. And all you fools out there who follow the Neo Con mindset of a Russian enemy should realize that the Russians had every reason on earth to be paranoid concerning US and British intentions after WW2.

In that time, my parents….. And probably yours, did not even fathom any of these previously stated stories. Suggesting to them the facts or theories of those scenarios would most likely  receive a response analogous to deer caught in the headlights.  It was, unfortunately, beyond their realm of comprehension. Today, after our nation illegally invaded and continues to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan with a multitude of bases and soldiers, the facts drip out slowly. That horrendous decision to invade Iraq was the first determining factor, along with the Wall Street Subprime mortgage scam, that began the 2008 economic slide. Yet, how many Americans actually realize this, or dare question  it? We know most of our politicians (both parties) do not even acknowledge the truth of it.

How many Americans are, years later, still out of decent work, decent housing and decent health care because the money is simply not there? Our elected officials and our populace refuse to look for the reasons  as to why the Feds stopped giving money to the states. Thus, the state where you live cannot send money it does not have to the localities for many projects and needs. I met a firefighter at the gym a few years ago, a wonderful young man, who told me how budget cuts are affecting his job. Slower response times, less staffing and equipment etc. Then I had a friend, whose son is a schoolteacher and coach, tell me other facts. It seems that the school system in his town in Florida is so broke, that during the intense and long Florida seasonal heat the teachers were lighting candles and placing them by the locked thermostats to get the AC to turn on!  Yet, we have spent, to date, well over one trillion dollars for our  invasions and occupations, making fabulously wealthy all the folks Eisenhower warned us about. Where is the American public’s outrage? Where are the two parties? Most saddening….. Where are you?

How many times  have writers and documentarians referred to or have replayed  Eisenhower’s famous 1961 Military Industrial Complex speech? Yet, like deer caught in the headlights, most Americans are oblivious. We who understand that ‘history has this terrible habit of repeating itself unless…’  had stood on street corners in peaceful protest. Yet, after all the news that finally is coming out……. The general public still looks from their car windows….

Like that deer.  “Huh? Wha?”  What will it take? Will it take a complete meltdown of their personal lives and that of their relations? Even still, deer like to run free, and prance about, gamboling through life. They may do so in the shelter of the forest….. But on the highway of tears….. Watch out!

*

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.

Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust and Off Guardian sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 300 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid‘ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at [email protected].

Imperial adventurism is grand theft on a global scale — seizing, controlling, and looting the resources of targeted nations, along with exploiting their people.

Operating from illegally constructed military bases in northern and southern parts of Syria, platforms for war and training of jihadists, the US controls about 30% of Syrian territory, including where most of the country’s oil reserves are located.

Pre-war, Syria was a small producer, the only Eastern Mediterranean country with significant/yet small reserves, estimated at about 2.5 billion barrels earlier by the Oil and Gas Journal, along with around 5.3 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

Looted Syrian oil by US-supported ISIS was earlier transported cross-border to Turkey for refining and sales.

President Erdogan, his family and cronies reportedly profited from the grand theft/smuggling operation.

Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov earlier said

“Turkey is the main destination for the oil stolen from its legitimate owners, which are Syria and Iraq,” adding:

“Turkey resells this oil. The appalling part about it is that the country’s top political leadership is involved in the illegal business — President Erdogan and his family.”

Like the US, NATO, Israel, the Saudis, and their Middle East partners, Turkey supports regional jihadists these countries pretend to oppose.

Antonov earlier explained that

Erdogan and other “Turkish elites conspir(e) to steal oil from their neighbors in industrial quantities along ‘rolling pipelines’ made up of thousands of tanker trucks.”

“We are certain that Turkey is the destination for stolen (Syrian and Iraqi) oil, and (have) irrefutable facts to prove it.”

The illicit trade was worth hundreds of millions of dollars on the black market. Turkey may still be involved as the destination for US-stolen Syrian oil.

On Monday, Russian General Staff/Main Operational Directorate commander General Sergey Rudskoy accused US and allied forces of “highjack(ing)” Syrian oil from ISIS, profiting from its sales — perhaps shipping it cross-border to Turkey and/or elsewhere, the Trump regime running a black market operation with looted Syrian oil, adding:

US-supported ISIS and other jihadists were also trained to destroy Syrian (and perhaps Iraqi) oil and gas infrastructure, along with continuing attacks on government forces and civilians, using heavy and other weapons supplied by Western and regional countries, including Israel, Turkey, the Saudis and UAE.

Rudskoy added that the Trump regime is arming Arab and Kurdish fighters, working with them as well in the illicit trafficking of stolen Syrian oil.

US trained and armed jihadists are also being used against Russia’s Khmeimim airbase in Syria’s Latakia province, attacking it with Western-supplied drones and rocket launchers.

They’re deployed by US transport planes and helicopters to continue endless war in Syria. Thousands are being trained at the Pentagon’s Al-Tanf base in southern Syria near the Iraqi and Jordanian borders.

The US came to Syria, Iraq, elsewhere in the region, North Africa, Central Asia, and other parts of the world to stay — part of its imperial aim for global conquest and control, endless wars its favored strategy.

*

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

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Eight days ago eleven Palestinian buildings containing seventy family apartments located in the illegally Israeli occupied East Jerusalem village of Wadi al-Hummus were demolished in a military-led operation by more than 1,000 Israeli soldiers, policemen and municipal workers using bulldozers, backhoes and explosives. Residents who resisted were beaten by the soldiers, kicked down flights of stairs and even shot at close range with rubber bullets. The soldiers were recorded laughing and celebrating as they did their dirty work. Occupants who did not resist and who held their hands up in surrender were also not spared the rod, as were also foreign observers who were present to add their voices to those who were protesting the outrage. The injuries sustained by some of the victims have been photographed and are available online.

Twelve Palestinians and four British observers were injured badly enough to be hospitalized. The British reported that they were “stamped on, dragged by the hair, strangled with a scarf and pepper sprayed by Israeli border police.” One who was hospitalized described how Israeli soldiers dragged him by his feet, lifting him up, and kicking him in the stomach, while one soldier stamped on his head four times “at full force” before standing on his head and pulling his hair. Another suffered a fractured rib after “[the policeman] then stamped on my throat and others started punching my torso. It was a sadistic display of violence…”

Yet another foreign observer was dragged out of the house, “…her hands were crushed so badly that she suffered a fractured knuckle on her left hand, and her right hand suffered severe tissue damage ‘which will be permanently misshapen unless she gets cosmetic surgery.’”

Edmond Sichrovsky, an Austrian activist of Jewish origin, who was in one of the houses, described how Israeli forces broke the door down, first dragging out the Palestinians, “knocking the grandfather to the floor in front of his crying and screaming grandchildren.” Cell phones were forcibly removed to eliminate any picture taking or filming before soldiers began attacking him and four other activists.

“I was repeatedly kicked and kneed, which left a bloody nose and multiple cuts, as well breaking my glasses from a knee in the face. Once outside, they slammed me against a car while shouting verbal insults at me and women activists, calling them whores.”

The buildings were destroyed due to claims that they were too close to Israel’s illegal separation wall, with the Benjamin Netanyahu government citing “security concerns.” The families living in the buildings that did not have either the time or ability to remove their furniture and other personal items will now have to comb through the rubble to see what they can recover, if the Israeli soldiers will even allow them that grace. They will also have to find new places to live as the Israelis have made no provision for housing them.

The homes were legally constructed on land that is nominally controlled by the Palestinian Authority (PA), a fine point that the Israeli authorities chose to consider irrelevant. When the Palestinians object to such arbitrary behavior, they are sent to Israeli military courts that always endorse the government decisions. And the Netanyahu regime of kleptocrats has made clear that it does not recognize international law about treatment of people who are under occupation.

The buildings were destroyed a few days after rampaging Israeli settlers on the West Bank continued their campaign to destroy the livelihoods of their Palestinian neighbors. Hundreds of olive trees were burned on the West Bank on July 10th, a deliberate attempt to drive the Arabs from their land by making it impossible to farm, strangling the local economy. Olive trees are particularly targeted as they are a cash crop and the trees take many years to mature and produce. The Israeli settlers have also been known to kill livestock, poison water, destroy crops, burn down buildings, and beat and even kill the Palestinian farmers and their families. And in Hebron the settlers have surrounded the old town, dumping excrement and other refuse on the Palestinians shops below that are still trying to do business. It should surprise no one that the Jewish settlers who engage in the violence are rarely caught, even less often tried, and almost never punished. The ghastly Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has declared that what was once Palestine is now a country called Israel and it is only for Jews. Killing a Palestinian by a Jewish Israeli is considered de facto to be a misdemeanor.

And meanwhile the carnage continues in Gaza, with the death toll of unarmed demonstrating Palestinians now at more than 200 plus several thousand wounded, many of them children and medical workers. Recently, orders to the Israeli army snipers direct them to shoot demonstrators in the ankles so they will be crippled for life. This is what it takes to be the “most moral army” in the world as defined by French fop pseudo intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy, demonstrating only yet again that the tribe knows how to stick together. But the war crimes carried out by Israel also require unlimited support from the United States, both in money and political cover to allow it all to happen. Israel would not be killing Palestinians with such impunity if it were not for the green light from Donald Trump and his settler-loving mock Ambassador David Friedman backed up by a congress that seems to cherish Israelis more than Americans.

How is it that the horrific treatment of the Palestinians by the Israelis as aided and abetted by the worldwide Jewish diaspora is not featured in headlines all over the world? Why isn’t my government with its highly suspect but nevertheless declared agenda of bringing democracy and freedom to all saying anything about the Palestinians? Or condemning Israeli behavior as it once did regarding South Africa?

Can one even imagine what The New York Times and Washington Post would be headlining if American soldiers and police were evicting and beating the residents of a housing project in a U.S. city? But somehow Israel always gets a pass, no matter what it does and politicians from both parties delight in describing how the “special relationship” with the Jewish state is cast in stone.

In the wake of the home demolitions, Washington yet again shielded Israel from a United Nations censure for its behavior by casting a Security Council veto. The Jewish state is consequently never held accountable for its bad behavior, and let us be completely honest, Israel is the ultimate rogue regime, dedicated to turning its neighbors into smoking ruins with U.S. assistance. It is evil manifest and it is not in America’s own interest to continue to be dragged down that road.

*

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.

This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

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

Featured image: Open wound of Ivan Rivera, a Spanish activist (Photo: International Solidarity Movement via Mondoweiss)

Americans are the most over-entertained, uninformed citizens on planet earth — despite around 80% of US households having Internet access, making it easy to stay informed with minimal effort.

Manipulated by the power of state-sponsored and go-along establishment media propaganda, Americans are ignorant about geopolitical and other major issues affecting their lives and welfare.

It’s why both right wings of the US war party get away with ravaging one country after another — while the FBI and police nationwide operate with impunity as enforcers for powerful interests, grievously breaching the rights of ordinary people.

Reality is clear. The US already is a police state because of repressive laws overwhelmingly passed by Congress, supported by the executive and federal courts.

Based on events post-9/11 at home and abroad, things in the US are heading toward full-blown tyranny and ruin.

Perhaps it’s another major state-sponsored false flag away, wrongfully blamed on elements having nothing to do with it, followed by martial law and suspension of the Constitution on the phony pretext of sacrificing fundamental rights for greater security, losing both in the process.

Polls consistently show Americans are out-of-touch with reality.

Earlier polls showed most Americans favor war on North Korea if diplomacy fails. Other polls showed around half of Americans believe war on Iran is coming.

Both countries are viewed as threats to the US despite their nonbelligerent agendas. Iran hasn’t attacked another country in centuries.

Nor has North Korea throughout its entire post-WW II history — while the US wages forever wars against invented enemies, its ruling class hostile to world peace.

Annual Gallup polls since 1989 showed from 79 – 87% of Americans view Iran as “mostly (or) very unfavorabl(y).” Throughout this period, they viewed the Islamic Republic from 5 to 17% favorably.

North Korean nukes, ballistic missiles, and other weapons are solely for defense — to deter the legitimate threat of US aggression.

Iran’s nuclear program has no military component, repeatedly confirmed by nuclear watchdog IAEA monitors.

Since joining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) nearly half a century ago, Iran fully complied with its provisions.

According to Nukewatch co-director John LaForge,

“(t)he United States is perhaps the principle nuclear weapons proliferator in the world today, openly flouting binding provisions of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).”

Nuclear armed and dangerous Israel never signed NPT, the world community doing nothing to challenge its menace to regional and world peace.

According to a new Fox News poll, around 60% of Americans view Iran and North Korea as threats to US security — a questionable source, but here are the results anyway.

Asked if North Korea “pose(s) a real national security threat to the US, 60% of respondents said “yes,” only 27% saying “no.”

Results to the same question on Iran are identical, pollster Daron Shaw saying:

“Despite changes in the partisanship of the White House and shifts in geopolitics, the percentage of Americans who see Iran and North Korea as threats has been quite consistent.”

Over half of respondents (53%) support military action to prevent Iran from developing nukes its leadership abhors, doesn’t seek, never did, and wants eliminated everywhere to remove the threat these WMDs pose to planet earth and all its life forms if detonated in enough numbers.

A higher percentage (57%) favor attacking North Korea militarily to prevent expansion of its nuclear weapons program.

Most respondents also disapprove of how Trump is dealing with both nations.

Beacon Research and Shaw & Company conducted the poll on July 21 – 23 “with 1,004 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide who spoke with live interviewers on both landlines and cellphones.”

Like other polls on major geopolitical and other issues, results show an ignorant electorate.

Lincoln reportedly said: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time…”

Most Americans are easily fooled time and again — no matter how many times they were duped before, especially on issues of war and peace.

Notably it’s true about nations threatening no one like Iran and North Korea.

Throughout the post-WW II era, no nations threatened US security.

All US post-WW II wars were and continue to be waged against nations threatening no one — threats invented to justify what’s illegal and unjustifiable.

*

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

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

A ruling by the high court in London has just made relations between Britain and the Islamic Republic of Iran more complicated, increasing friction at an already tense time.

The court ruled this week that the International Military Services (IMS) does not have to pay Iran interest on the prepayment for the purchase of hundreds of Chieftain tanks that were ordered by the Shah’s government but were not delivered as a result of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Shah had ordered 1,750 tanks and support vehicles for £650m from the IMS, but only 185 were delivered. Ever since, the Islamic Republic has demanded the money back.

The International Chamber of Commerce sided with Tehran in an arbitration that concluded in 2009. The dispute was thought to have been settled in 2010 and it was expected that the IMS would transfer more than £390 million plus interest to an account holding Iranian assets, which Tehran could not touch because of EU sanctions.

More than 18 years have passed since the initial case opened, and more interest has been accrued, but the International Military Services has argued that the debt to Iran was not paid as a result of EU sanctions and the British government’s obligations under EU rules. Therefore, it argued, IMS had no role in the financial dispute and must not be forced to pay for it. The London high court recently agreed with this argument, heightening tensions between Tehran and London.

The ruling by the high court said that the UK did not owe interest accumulated over 10 years on the sum it acknowledges it owes Iran. The issue of whether there is an Iranian body to which the UK can lawfully pay the £387 million remains to be determined.

Earlier, when asked in the House of Commons about the financial dispute between the two countries, the then-minister of defense had said that the sum in dispute was somewhere between £32m and £41m.

As the case was winding its way through the high court, British media reported that money has not been paid to Iran because the UK Ministry of Defense has opposed it, reporting that the ministry believes that the Islamic Republic would spend the money for “destructive” military purposes in the region, including in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.

A Hostage for the Money

The financial dispute between the two countries is closely tied to the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the Iranian-British charity worker jailed in Iran since 2016. Boris Johnson, the new British Prime Minister, was informed about the financial dispute when he visited Iran in 2017, when he was the UK’s foreign secretary. Both Zaghari-Ratcliffe and the sum demanded by Iran were the subjects of talks between Johnson and Iranian officials and it was reported that Britain might pay the sum in cash to bypass banking restrictions due to US sanctions. However, this did not happen.

In recent months British officials have been more forthcoming about the connection between the imprisonment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and the financial dispute. During a visit to Tehran in November 2018, Jeremy Hunt, the British Foreign Secretary at the time, asked Iranian officials to separate the fate of Zaghari-Ratcliffe from the financial dispute. He was unsuccessful and later said:

“The problem is if you pay ransom money for someone who is a hostage then all that happens is you might get that hostage out, but the next time they want something they’ll just take someone else hostage.”

The UK has kept the money the Shah paid for the Chieftain tanks for more than 40 years, and it has refused to pay back this money for 18 years, despite the ruling by the International Chamber of Commerce. In the 1980s, the UK even sold some of the tanks ordered by the Shah to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, at a time when the country was in a protracted war with Iran. The irony is that the Shah had ordered tanks that would match Iran’s climate so that it would have more robust defense capabilities vis-à-vis Iraq.

With the situation as it stands now, it would be extremely difficult for the Islamic Republic to get back the prepayment for the tanks. The International Military Services has deposited the money in an escrow account in the name of London’s high court, pending a court ruling.

In his ruling, Justice Phillips of the high court said that the IMS did not have to pay any interest for the last 10 years — meaning since Iran was hit with international sanctions over its nuclear program and has been unable to conduct transactions with the international banking system.

If Iran now insists that it must be paid the full amount, the issue must be settled outside the court, and it will be the British government that will have to pay the difference, an amount that, according to the British defense ministry, is around £41m. Otherwise, Iran must appeal the ruling to the High Court of Justice and, considering the speed with which this court handles cases, the process might add a few more years to the longest-running dispute between the United Kingdom and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

*

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.

Featured image is from IranWire

The Trump administration released a management plan for the illegally reduced areas of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah today. With Congressional recess right around the corner, the timed release of the proposed management plans and Final Environmental Impact Statement has been called into question by members of the House Natural Resources Committee. Trump’s illegal reduction of Bears Ears is still being challenged in federal court. 

“The release of this management plan days before Congress leaves for a month is dubious at best and reckless at worst. The Trump administration continues to prove its utter disregard of our public lands and outdoor heritage through its strong-armed attempts to illegally shrink this sacred and culturally-critical place. There is a lack of respect for the law, the courts, and the mass public concern that illegally shrinking Bears Ears has evoked. Stealing land away from the public in order to reward their special interest allies seems to be the only priority of this administration,” said Chris Saeger, the Executive Director of the Western Values Project. 

On December 4, 2017, President Trump announced his plan to illegally reduce the size of Bears Ears National Monument, along with the Grand Staircase Escalante – the largest elimination of public land protections in American history. Since then, conservation groups and tribes have sued the administration, arguing that President Trump didn’t have the authority to reduce the size of the monuments. Cases are still pending in federal court – making Trump’s management plan announcement a move to undermine the court’s decision-making authority.

Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, a former mega-lobbyist for extractive industries, strongly supported the illegal reduction of the two national monuments. Previous analysis by the New York Times found that oil was central in the decision to shrink Bears Ears, despite then-Secretary Ryan Zinke’s repeated claims that it was not. Previous Western Values Project analysis has documented that many of the areas taken out of Bears Ears National Monument are rich in oil, gas and uranium reserves.

*

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.

Featured image is from the US Bureau of Land Management

Pundits from the left, from the right and from the center cannot stop reporting about Greece’s misery. And rightly so. Because Greece, the vast majority of her people live in deep economic hardship. No hope. Unemployment is officially at 18%, with the real figure closer to 25% or 30%; pensions have been reduced about ten times since Syriza – the Socialist Party – took power in 2015 and loaded the country with debt and austerity. In the domain of public services, everything that has any value has been privatized and sold to foreign corporations, oligarchs, or, naturally – banks. Hospitals, schools, public transportation – even some beaches – have been privatized and made unaffordable for the common people.

While the pundits – always more or less the same – keep lamenting about the Greek conditions in one form or another, none of them dares offer the only solution that could have rescued Greece (and still could) – exiting the euro zone; return to their local currency and start rebuilding Greece with a local economy, built on local currency with local public banking and with a sovereign Greek central bank deciding the monetary policy that best suits Greece, and especially Greece’s recovery program. – Why not? Why do they not talk about this obvious solution? Would they be censured in Greece, because the Greek oligarchy controls the media – as oligarchs do around the (western part of the) globe?

Instead, foreign imposed (troika: IMF, European Central Bank – ECB – and European Commission – EC; the latter mainly pushed by German and French banks – and the Rothschild clan) austerity programs have literally put a halt on imports of affordable medication, like for cancer treatments and other potentially lethal illnesses. So, common people get no longer treatment. They die like flies; a horrible expression to be used for human beings. But that’s what it comes down to for people who simply do not get the treatment they humanely deserve and would have gotten under the rights of the Greek Constitution, but do simply not get treated because they can no longer afford medication and services from privatized health services. That is the sad but true story.

As a consequence, the suicide rate is up, due to foreign imposed (but Greek government accepted) debt and austerity, annihilating hope for terminally ill patients, as well as for pensioners whose pensions do no longer allow them to live a decent life – and especially there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

Now, these same pundits add a little air of optimism to their reporting, as the rightwing New Democracy Party (ND Party) won with what they call a ‘landslide’ victory on the 7 July 2019 elections; gathering 39.6% of the votes, against only 31.53 for Syriza, the so-called socialist party, led by outgoing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who represents a tragedy that has allowed Greece to be plunged into this hopeless desolation. The ND won an absolute majority with 158 seats in the 300-member Greek parliament. Therefore, no coalition needed, no concessions required.

The new Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis (51), son of a former PM of the same party, in his victory speech on the evening of 7 July, vowed that Greece will “proudly” enter a post-bailout era of “jobs, security and growth”. He added that “a painful cycle has closed” and that Greece would “proudly raise its head again” on his watch.

We don’t know what this means for the average Greek citizen living a life of despair. What the “left” was unable to do – stopping the foreign imposed (but Greek accepted) bleeding of Greece; the strangulation of their country – will the right be able to reverse that trend? Does the right want to reverse that trend? – Does the ND want to reverse privatization, buy back airports from Germany, water supply from the EU managed “Superfund”, and repurchase the roads from foreign concessionaires, or nationalize hospitals that were sold for a pittance and – especially – get out from austerity to allow importing crucial medication to salvage the sick and dying Greek, those who currently cannot afford treatment of their cancers and other potentially deadly diseases?

That would indeed be a step towards PM Mitsotakis’ promise to end the “painful cycle” of austerity, with import of crucial medication made affordable to those in dire need, with job creation and job security – and much more – with eventually a renewed Greek pride – and Greek sovereignty. The latter would mean – finally – it’s never too late – exit the euro zone. But, that’s an illusion – a pipe-dream. Albeit – it could become a vision.

If the ND is the party of the oligarchs, the Greek oligarchs that is, those Greek who have placed literally billons of euros outside their country in (still) secret bank accounts in Switzerland, France, Lichtenstein, Luxemburg and elsewhere, including the Cayman islands and other Caribbean tax havens – hidden not only from the Greek fiscal authorities, but also impeding that these funds could, crucially, be used for investments at home, for job creation, for creation of added value in Greece – if the ND is the party of the oligarchs, they are unlikely to make the dream of the vast majority of Greek people come true.

Worse even, these Greek oligarch-billionaires call the shots in Greece – not the people, not those who according to Greek tradition and according to the Greek invention, called “democracy” (Delphi, some 2500 years ago) have democratically elected Syriza and have democratically voted against the austerity packages in July 2015. Now, that they are officially in power, they are unlikely to change their greed-driven behavior and act in favor of the Greek people. – Or will they?

Because, if they do, it may eventually also benefit them, the ND Party and its adherents – a Greece that functions like a country, with happy, healthy and content people, is a Greece that retains the worldwide esteem and respect she deserves – and will by association develop an economy that can and will compete and trade around the world, a Greece that is an equal to others, as a sovereign nation. – A dream can become a reality – it just takes visionaries.

Back to today’s reality. The Greek Bailout Referendum of July 5, 2015, was overwhelmingly rejected with 61% ‘no’ against 39% ‘yes’, meaning that almost two thirds of the Greek people would have preferred the consequences of rejecting the bailout, euphemistically called “rescue packages”, namely exiting the euro zone, and possible, but not necessarily, the European Union.

Despite the overwhelming, democratic rejection by the people, the Tsipras government reached an agreement on 13 July 2015 – only 8 days after the vote against the bailout – with the European authorities for a three-year bailout with even harsher austerity conditions than the ones rejected by voters. What went on is anybody’s guess. It looks pretty obvious, though, that “foul play” was the name of the game – which could mean anything from outright and serious (life) threats to blackmail, if Tsipras would not play the game – and this to the detriment of the people.

President Tsipras’ betrayal of the people resulted in three bailout packages since 2010 and up to end 2018, in the amount of about €310 billion (US$ 360 billion). Compare this to Hong Kong’s economy of US$ 340 billion in 2017. In that same period the Greek GDP has declined from about US$ 300 billion (€ 270 billion) in 2010 to US$ 218 billion (€ 196 billion), a reduction of 27%, hitting the middle- and lower-class people by far the hardest. This is called a rescue.

The democracy fiasco of July 2015 prompted Tsipras to call for snap elections in September 2015, hélas – he won, with a narrow margin and one of the lowest election turnouts ever in Greek postwar history; but, yes, he ‘won’. How much of it was manipulated – by now Cambridge Analytica has become a household word – so he could finish the job for the troika and the German and French banks, is pure speculation.

Today, the ND has an absolute majority in Parliament, plus the ND could ally with a number of smaller and conservative parties to pursue a “people’s dream” line policy. But they may do the opposite. Question: How much more juice is there to be sucked out of broken Greece? Of a Greece that cannot care for her people, for her desperate poor and sick, cannot provide her children with a decent education, of a Greece that belongs into the category of bankruptcy? – Yes, bankruptcy, still today, after the IMF and the gnomes of the EU and the ECB predict a moderate growth rate of some 2%? – But 2% that go to whom? – Not to the people, to be sure, but to the creditors of the €310 billion.

Already in 2011, the British Lancet stated “the Greek Ministry of Health reported that the annual suicide rate has increased by 40%”, presumably since the (imposed) crisis that started in 2008. From this date forward the suicide rate must have skyrocketed, as the overall living conditions worsened exponentially. However, precise figures can no longer be easily found.

The question remains: Is the Greek population dying increasingly from diseases that could be cured, but aren’t due to austerity- and privatization-related lack of medication and health services – and of suicide from desperation? – Is Greece committing suicide by continuing accepting austerity and privatization of vital services, instead of liberating herself from the handcuffs of the euro and very likely the stranglehold of the EU? – Or is Greece the victim of sheer murder inflicted by a greed-driven construct of money institutions and oligarchs, who are beyond morals, beyond ethics and beyond any values of humanity? You be the judge.

*

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.

This article was originally published onNew Eastern Outlook.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21^stCentury; TeleSUR; The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

A future without independent media leaves us with an upside down reality where according to the corporate media “NATO deserves a Nobel Peace Prize”, and where “nuclear weapons and wars make us safer”

.

.

If, like us, this is a future you wish to avoid, please help sustain Global Research’s activities by making a donation or taking out a membership now!

Click to donate or click here to become a member of Global Research.

*     *     *

Militarising Australia: Talisman Sabre and the US Military Build Up

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, July 30, 2019

Deemed the Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations strategy, the military method is a US Marine special, still spanking new, featuring “the amphibious landing of troops on islands for seizure and capture as part of a forward projection of sea and airpower aimed at the mainland.”

Space Lunacy: $ Trillion Space Games and False Prophecies by Billionaires While Rome Burns

By Dr. Andrew Glikson, July 30, 2019

Space playgrounds of billionaires can only come at the expense of the multitude of humanity left behind where, coupled with plans for militarization and even weaponization of space, humanity may be left with a few barren rocks in space to temporarily support a few survivors.

Brazil’s Massive Crime Against Humanity. Bolsonaro has Decided to Destroy the Amazon

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, July 30, 2019

The corrupt Brazilian government installed by Washington has decided to destroy the Amazon Rain Forest.  This will adversely affect the Earth’s climate by eliminating a massive carbon sink.

The Israel Anti-Boycott Act: The Bill that Could Imprison “Israel Boycotters” for 20 years

By If Americans Knew, July 29, 2019

In a recent post on the Mondoweiss website, Journalist Philip Weiss examines the Israel Anti-Boycott Act that would punish those boycotting Israel with a minimum civil penalty of $250,000 and a maximum criminal penalty of $1 million and 20 years in prison. The legislation is being sponsored by both conservatives and liberals.

Water Not Oil: Battle Cry of the Blue Planet

By Irwin Jerome, July 29, 2019

It’s Mother Earth’s battle cry inspired by the world’s dire climate crisis that has been sung by so many others for years yet still hasn’t had the intended effect because it still hasn’t resolutely been taken up by the world as a whole. So the cry remains: what ultimately is more important: Water or Oil?

The Threat of Nuclear War: Nuclear Disarmament Should be a Top 2020 Campaign Issue. But It’s Being Ignored

By Howie Hawkins, July 29, 2019

Two years ago on July 7, 2017, 122 nations approved the text of the Treaty on the Prohibition of NuclearWeapons (TPNW). The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for spearheading this achievement. Few Americans are aware of it and none of the major presidential candidates are informing us.

The Dragon Lays Out Its Road Map, Denies Seeking Hegemony. “China’s National Defense in the New Era”

By Pepe Escobar, July 29, 2019

The key merit of China’s National Defense in the New Era, a white paper released by the State Council in Beijing, is to clear any remaining doubts about where the Middle Kingdom is coming from, and where it’s going to by 2049, the mythical date to, theoretically, be restored as the foremost global power.

*

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.

Anche se l’opposizione attacca sempre il governo e vi sono divergenze nel governo stesso, dall’intero arco parlamentare non si è levata alcuna voce critica quando il premier Conte ha esposto alla Conferenza degli ambasciatori (26 luglio) le linee guida della politica estera, a riprova del vasto consenso multipartisan.

Conte ha definito anzitutto qual è il cardine della collocazione dell’Italia nel mondo: «Il nostro rapporto con gli Stati Uniti rimane qualitativamente diverso da quello che abbiamo con altre Potenze, perché si fonda su valori, su principi condivisi che sono il fondamento stesso della Repubblica e parte integrante della nostra Costituzione: la sovranità democratica, libertà e uguaglianza dei cittadini, la tutela dei diritti fondamentali della persona».

Il premier Conte così non solo ribadisce che gli Usa sono nostro «alleato privilegiato», ma enuncia un principio guida: l’Italia assume gli Stati uniti come modello di società democratica.

Una colossale mistificazione storica.

Riguardo alla «libertà e uguaglianza dei cittadini», basti ricordare che i cittadini statunitensi sono ancora oggi censiti ufficialmente in base alla «razza» – bianchi (distinti tra non-ispanici e ispanici), neri, indiani americani, asiatici, nativi hawaiani – e che le condizioni medie di vita dei neri e degli ispanici (latino-americani appartenenti a ogni «razza») sono di gran lunga le peggiori.

Riguardo alla «tutela dei diritti fondamentali della persona», basti ricordare che negli Usa  oltre 43 milioni di cittadini (14 su cento) vivono in povertà e circa 30 milioni sono privi di assicurazione sanitaria, mentre molti altri ne hanno una insufficiente (ad esempio, per pagare una lunga chemioterapia contro un tumore).

E sempre riguardo alla «tutela dei diritti della persona» basti ricordare le migliaia di neri inermi assassinati impunemente da poliziotti bianchi.

Riguardo alla «sovranità democratica» basti ricordare la serie di guerre e colpi di stato effettuata dagli Stati uniti,  dal 1945 ad oggi, in oltre 30 paesi asiatici, africani, europei e latino-americani, provocando 20-30 milioni di morti e centinaia di milioni di feriti (vedi lo studio di J. Lucas presentato dal prof. Chossudovsky su Global Research).

Questi sono i «valori condivisi» sui quali l’Italia basa il suo rapporto «qualitativamente diverso» con gli Stati uniti. E, per dimostrare quanto esso sia proficuo, Conte assicura: «Ho sempre trovato nel presidente Trump un interlocutore attento ai legittimi interessi italiani».

Interessi che Washington considera «legittimi» fintanto che l’Italia resta in posizione gregaria nella NATO dominata dagli Stati uniti, li segue di guerra in guerra, aumenta su loro richiesta la propria spesa militare, mette il proprio territorio a disposizione delle forze e basi USA, comprese quelle nucleari.

Conte cerca di far credere che il suo governo, comunemente definito «sovranista», abbia un ampio spazio autonomo di «dialogo con la Russia sulla base dell’approccio Nato a doppio binario» (diplomatico e militare), approccio che in realtà segue il binario unico di un sempre più pericoloso confronto militare.

A tale proposito – riferisce La Stampa (26 luglio) – l’ambasciatore Usa Eisenberg ha telefonato al vice-presidente Di Maio (ritenuto da Washington il più «affidabile»), chiedendo un chiarimento sui rapporti con Mosca in particolare del vice-presidente Salvini  (la cui visita a Washington, nonostante i suoi sforzi, ha avuto un «esito deludente»).

Non si sa se il governo Conte supererà l’esame. Si sa comunque che prosegue la tradizione secondo cui in Italia il governo deve sempre avere l’approvazione di Washington, confermando quale sia la nostra «sovranità democratica».

Manlio Dinucci

After a windy uphill journey to Aguerzran, a small village nestled within the High Atlas Mountains, we reached the building where we would be conducting workshops. The small rectangular building, painted in sun-faded pink and green, overlooked the lush valley. My colleague explained to the group, over thirty women of varying ages, the purpose of our visit: to conduct both a cooperative building workshop and a women’s health discussion. As we waited for women to fill up the desks of the primary school, I asked the women why they felt health was important to them.

“Without health, we have nothing,” one woman proclaimed. The conversation naturally continued, as every woman reiterated the same sentiment.

Within minutes, the mood within the room shifted. One woman, a matriarch in the village, spoke through tears about challenges her community faces in accessing healthcare. Aware of her heart disease, she was unable to leave the village to take any action towards treatment. With merely one ambulance in the municipality, it is both physically and financially inaccessible. Aguerzran’s nearest health clinic is located in the Imlil Souk L’Aarba, three hours away by foot. Workshop handouts and diagrams originally brought to discuss nutrition, exercise, and hygiene were important, but not adequate.

The problem does not lie in the do’s and don’ts of health. The issue lies in addressing economic stability, education systems, the built environment, and community context; all of which are social and structural determinants surrounding health in Aguerzran.

Three months prior to our visit, the women went through an empowerment workshop conducted by the High Atlas Foundation. The workshop aims to cultivate visions women have for themselves within different spheres of personal development including money, spirituality, emotions, and the body. During our visit, facilitators conducted follow up interviews with the women to track their progress in actualizing their goals. The women expressed feeling more confident, advocative, and self-aware. Yet, their perception of taking care of their personal health and well-being was defined simply by “working hard.”

Measured by means such as healthy lives, education, and standard of living, Morocco ranks 123rd on the United Nations Human Development Index out of 189 countries. Although this indicator is widely used to gauge the country’s progress, it may not capture severe regional disparities and inter-sectional inequalities. Nearly forty percent of Morocco’s population is rural, and women make up half of the population. With the implementation of Moudawana, the Moroccan family code, and the National Initiative for Human Development, Morocco has made strides towards improving social and economic development. However, empowerment is not the only means to development; and improved health is more than a result of development.

Health, empowerment, and development have a symbiotic relationship. Significant strides in development should be holistic, and include the reduction of health inequalities in order to achieve sustainable change. Morocco faces the double burden of communicable and increasing non-communicable disease. A 2015 study published in BMC Cancer found that rural Moroccan women are at higher risk of late diagnosis for breast cancer, the most common cancer among Moroccan women. Illnesses such as tuberculosis are also often detected at late stages in rural communities. According to the World Health Organization, non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease make up nearly seventy-five percent of all deaths in Morocco. Coupled with inaccessibility to clinical care and monitoring, rural communities are increasingly susceptible to undetected chronic diseases. This epidemiological shift is indicative of unresolved structural inequalities that exacerbate rates of non-communicable diseases.

Physically and figuratively on the margins, rural women face a two-fold disadvantage. Weaker education systems in rural communities do not address health education, and weaker health systems can prevent women pursuing their education. Additionally, physical distance from health centers is discouraging and compromises safety. Women in Aguerzran expressed that heavy lifting and labor causes intense aches and pains. If left unaddressed, these pains can increase the risk of serious injury, halting their ability to work. Addressing the mutual relationship between these determinants will lead to better long-term health and equity outcomes for rural women and their communities.

When in Aguerzran, Marrakech, or anywhere in between, the crucial role of women in their communities and families is undeniable. The migration of rural men into cities has increased women’s agricultural labor and domestic care responsibilities, occupying a rural woman’s ability to give attention to her own health. As epicenters for their families, evidence suggests that the educational success and overall well-being of children is positively correlated with educational attainment and health of their mothers.

Fostering comprehensive women’s empowerment not only encourages internal progress but also paves the way for better future generations and communities. Empowering rural women through health provides the foundation for improved human capital, capacity building, and better long-term economic outcomes through participation in activities such as cooperatives.

Talking to the women in Aguerzran brought forth the importance of including health in an empowerment context. Since health seems to truly be everything for these women, it should also be an integral part of empowerment and development methodologies. Just as empowerment programs may inform women of their societal rights, the right to health should also be progressively achieved through increased data, awareness, and advocacy. Not prioritizing the wellbeing of the most vulnerable populations will prevent sustainable development from becoming a reality.

*

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.

Fariha Mujeebuddin ([email protected]) is a student at the University of Virginia studying Economics and Global Public Health, and an Intern for the High Atlas Foundation where this article was originally published.

Featured image: Two girls run down the road that leads from Aguerzran village to Souk L’Arbaa.  (Photo by Fariha Mujeebuddin, July 2019)

Deemed the Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations strategy, the military method is a US Marine special, still spanking new, featuring “the amphibious landing of troops on islands for seizure and capture as part of a forward projection of sea and airpower aimed at the mainland.”

That particular description comes from Bevan Ramsden, an active member of the coordinating committee of IPAN, the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network.  IPAN has been decidedly concerned about what it sees, rightly, as an enthusiastic, boisterous build-up of US military forces primarily in the Northern Territory and ambling across the continent and along the shorelines.

The Australian Defence Department adds to Ramsden’s overview in a discussion of Talisman Sabre, a joint US-Australian military exercise conducted since 2007.

“TS19 will be the eighth iteration of the exercise and consists of a Field Training Exercise incorporating force preparation (logistic) activities, amphibious landings, land force manoeuvre, urban operations, air operations, maritime operations and Special Forces activities.”

On this occasion, Talisman Sabre had a new addition: Japan’s 1^st Amphibious Rapid Deployment Regiment, which joined in beach landings alongside Australian, US and British forces on July 16.  Australian commander Major General Justin “Jake” Ellwood was notably impressed by the showing.  And a sight it proved to be: some 34,000 troops, 200 planes and 60 naval vessels.

What the Australian Defence Force cannot shy away from is that it remains, ultimately, an annex of the US military machine.  In a report from the Headquarters, Joint Operations Command (HQJOC) from April, an acknowledgement is made that TS19, “is focused on enhancing the readiness and interoperability of ADF Defence elements and exposing participants to a wide spectrum of military capabilities and training experiences.”  It is presumed, and never challenged, that such exercises are “in support of Australia’s national interests” begging the question whether any state should ever be so utterly interoperable with foreign military forces.

The US imperium was keen, using Australian facilities, to test the EABO in scenarios which envisage a concept of island seizure and, in the words of the official website of the US Marines, “distribute lethality by providing land-based options for increasing the number of sensors and shooters beyond the upper limit imposed by the quantity of seagoing platforms available.”  The integration of the Marines into the broader operations of the US Navy is an essential feature of this move.  This would, in turn, deny access to enemy vessels and aircraft, making the target of this clear: any power keen to challenge US power in the Pacific.  As James Lacey, who teaches at the Marine Corps War College suggests,

“the Marines will help ensure that the US Navy retains its freedom of manoeuvre throughout the Pacific, while curtailing China’s ability to get much beyond its littorals.”

What a lovely future confrontation this promises to be.

The TS19 show was also a display of military plumage and provocation. US Marine Colonel Matthew Sieber made the aim of it clear:

“to walk away having strengthened that relationship [between participants] and to demonstrate to our would-be partners or adversaries the strength of that alliance.”

The scale of TS19 has proven hefty, comprising whole swathes of the country.  An important feature of this is not to frighten the locals, who might be put off by the sheer scale of it all.  Do not, for instance, give the impression they are living under the cloud of occupation.

“Welcome,” comes the jolly opening to the Australian Defence Department’s information site, where “you will learn about TS19, the importance of the exercise to preparing out military, how we involve the community and protect the environment.”

The Defence Department leaves us this impression of movement and deployment across the country, and even then, struggles to make the monster innocuous:

“Large convoys will be on the roads from June to August 2019 and includes Australian, US and New Zealand military vehicles travelling from across Australia and converging at Rockhampton and Shoalwater Bay Area.”

To reassure environmental activists and residents, TS19 emphasises a lack of “live fire activities”, something seen as a marked improvement.  In other words, no underwater detonations or demolitions, naval gunnery and aerial bombardment; in place of that, dummy ammunition would be used, with added pyrotechnics to give effect.  But as Friends of the Earth Australia noted in May, this would not be the case at Shoalwater Bay, nor various lead-up or follow on activities.  These “are not assessed as part of Talisman Sabre because they fall outside of the official exercise dates.”  Hair splitting operatives will eventually get to you.

Even since Talisman Sabre became a regular feature of joint Australian-US operations, a nervousness among activist circles has grown.  What, for instance, are the neighbours to think about such displays of force?  The Chinese People’s Liberation Army, for instance, was very keen to monitor TS19 activities with a general intelligence vessel, known as the Type 815.  This was a repeat performance from 2017, when a Type 815 AGI also kept an eye on the Talisman Sabre exercises.

More broadly speaking, protests against the US military juggernaut Down Under remain skimpy, with efforts of resistance confined to conferences intended to raise awareness.  The latest word from Washington is a promise to build more than a quarter of a billion dollars-worth of naval facilities in Darwin and its environs, a move that delights more than alarms.  In 2015, for instance, a solitary stand was made by Justin Tutty off Lee Point, Darwin, a modest effort that led to his arrest.  Two other protestors made their way to the Shoalwater Bay live-firing range in a disruptive effort.  This year, IPAN intends holding a national public conference in Darwin from August 2 to 4 with the theme “Australia at the Crossroads: Time for an independent foreign policy.”  It promises few converts, given the continuing presence of the faithful at such gatherings.

More common, and creepily voyeuristic, is the spectator element of such exercises, the weak-at-the-knee individuals aroused by displays of power.  Ready your deckchairs and chilled chardonnay and observe the proceedings unfold.  That, at least, is how the owners of beach land at Stanage Bay, Ivonne and Fred Burns, saw it.  In the words of Ivonne Burns, “It’s incredible just to watch it all… to see it all happening before your eyes, in your own backyard.” Or not, if Washington’s adventurism gets out of hand, leaving Australia with more than just a bloody nose.

*

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

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image: An Australian M1 Abrams tank during Exercise Talisman Sabre 2015 (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Jordan Talbot)

The illegal coalition led by the United States of America outside the United Nations and without the approval of the Syrian state added a new massacre to its long list of ugly crimes against the Syrian people today by bombing a village in Deir Ezzor countryside causing mayhem.

At the early hours of dawn, the Trump coalition of evil states bombed the village of Al-Rez in Al-Busayrah area, southeast Deir Ezzor countryside. The bombing killed a number of civilians, left many others injured most of whom were women and children, as well as large destruction in the people’s homes.

Trump who failed his own election promises to withdraw his troops from Syria and elsewhere, has instead increased the level of crimes his troops and their allies commit in Syria.

This latest massacre comes just a couple of days after the same evil coalition admitted it has killed 1300 civilians in Syria and Iraq since 2014. A number that many observers mocked due to the casualties in the devastated city of Raqqa alone, which the illegal coalition obliterated and not liberated from ISIS.

Despite having a ceremonial flag exchange between US-sponsored ISIS terrorists in the city with the US-sponsored Kurdish SDF separatist militias, the US-led coalition made sure it continued bombing the city until over 80% of it became inhabitable, as per a UN investigation team.

The evil coalition did the same to Mosul in Iraq, in an apparent style thinking they’ll make more contracts for US corporations who will come for reconstruction, as they dream of.

Residents of Al-Rez village targeted earlier today by the Trump’s coalition who were not killed were left in a state of shock and panic due to the massive explosions around them, another goal of such coalitions.

The purpose of setting up coalitions of willing outside the United Nations and against international law is to make more profits for the military-industrial complex that has a large influence on the US foreign policy, and to set the stage for new contracts for rebuilding at the same time they enjoy killing the people of other nations for Satanic rituals.

The coalition operating in Syria and Iraq under the banner of fighting ISIS has fought everybody who fought ISIS including the Syrian Arab Army and the Iraqi’s PMU forces. Rarely they targeted low-level ISIS commanders who they couldn’t lift to other places for recycling.

*

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.

Featured image is from Syria News