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Trump’s 2020 budget proposal reflects another significant increase in military spending along with corresponding cuts in spending by Federal agencies tasked with the responsibility for providing critical services and income support policies for working class and poor people. Trump’s call for budget cuts by Federal agencies is mirrored by the statutorily imposed austerity policies in most states and many municipalities. Those cuts represent the continuing imposition of neoliberal policies in the U.S. even though the “A” word for austerity is almost never used to describe those policies.

Yet, austerity has been a central component of state policy at every level of government in the U.S. and in Europe for the last four decades. In Europe, as the consequences of neoliberal policies imposed on workers began to be felt and understood, the result was intense opposition.  However, in the U.S. the unevenness of how austerity policies were being applied, in particular the elimination or reduction in social services that were perceived to be primarily directed at racialized workers, political opposition was slow to materialize.

Today, however, relatively privileged workers who were silent as the neoliberal “Washington consensus” was imposed on the laboring classes in the global South — through draconian structural adjustment policies that result in severe cutbacks in state expenditures for education, healthcare, state employment and other vital needs — have now come to understand that the neoliberal program of labor discipline and intensified extraction of value from workers, did not spare them.

The deregulation of capital, privatization of state functions — from road construction to prisons, the dramatic reduction in state spending that results in cuts in state supported social services and goods like housing and access to reproductive services for the poor — represent the politics of austerity and the role of the neoliberal state.

This materialist analysis is vitally important for understanding the dialectical relationship between the general plight of workers in the U.S. and the bipartisan collaboration to raid the Federal budget and to reduce social spending in order to increase spending on the military. This perspective is also important for understanding the imposition of those policies as a violation of the fundamental human rights of workers, the poor and the oppressed.

For the neoliberal state, the concept of human rights does not exist.

As I have called to attention before, a monumental rip-off is about to take place once again. Both the Democrats and Republicans are united in their commitment to continue to feed the U.S. war machine with dollars extracted — to the tune of 750 billion dollars — from the working class and transferred to the pockets of the military/industrial complex.

The only point of debate is now whether or not the Pentagon will get the full 750 billion or around 733 billion. But whether it is 750 billion or 733 billion, the one sector that is not part of this debate is the public. The attention of the public has been adroitly diverted by the absurd reality show that is Russiagate. But this week, even though the budget debate has been disappeared by corporate media, Congress is set to begin debate on aspects of the budget and specifically on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Raising the alarm on this issue is especially critical at this moment. As tensions escalate in the Persian Gulf, the corporate media is once again abdicating its public responsibility to bring unbiased, objective information to the public and instead is helping to generate support for war with Iran.

The Democrats, who have led the way with anti-Iran policies over the last few decades, will be under enormous pressure not to appear to be against enhancing military preparedness and are likely to find a way to give Trump and the Pentagon everything they want.

Support for Human Rights and Support for Empire is an Irreconcilable Contradiction

The assumption of post-war capitalist order was that the state would be an instrument to blunt the more contradictory aspects of capitalism. It would regulate the private sector, provide social welfare support to the most marginal elements of working class, and create conditions for full employment. This was the Keynesian logic and approach that informed liberal state policies beginning in the 1930s.

The idea of reforming human rights fits neatly into that paradigm.

As seen, a state’s legitimacy was based on the extent to which it recognized, protected and fulfilled the human rights of all its citizens and residents. Those rights included not only the right to information, assembly, speech and to participation in the national political life of the nation but also the right to food, water, healthcare, education, employment, substantial social security throughout life, and not just as a senior citizen.

The counterrevolutionary program of the late 60s and 70s, especially the turn to neoliberalism which began in the 70s, would reject this paradigm and redefine the role of the state. The obligation of the state to recognize, protect and fulfill human rights was eliminated from the role of the state under neoliberalism.

Today the consequences of four decades of neoliberalism in the global South and now in the cosmopolitan North have created a crisis of legitimacy that has made state policies more dependent on force and militarism than in any other time, including the civil war and the turmoil of the 1930s.

The ideological glue provided by the ability of capitalism to deliver the goods to enough of the population which guaranteed loyalty and support has been severely weakened by four decades of stagnant wages, increasing debt, a shrinking middle-class, obscene economic inequality and never-ending wars that have been disproportionately shouldered by the working class.

Today, contrary to the claims of capitalism to guarantee the human right to a living wage ensuring “an existence worthy of human dignity,” the average worker is making, adjusted for inflation, less than in 1973; i.e., some 46 years-ago. 140 million are either poor or have low-income; 80% living paycheck to paycheck; 34 million are still without health insurance; 40 million live in “official poverty;” and more in unofficial poverty as measured by alternative supplemental poverty (SPM).  And more than half of those over 55 years-old have no retirement funds other than Social Security.

In a report, Philp Alston, the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, points out that: the US is one of the world’s wealthiest countries. It spends more on national defense than China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United Kingdom, India, France and Japan combined.

Source: The Guardian

However, that choice in public expenditures must be seen in comparison to the other factors he lays out:

• US infant mortality rates in 2013 were the highest in the developed world.
• Americans can expect to live shorter and sicker lives, compared to people living in any other rich democracy, and the “health gap” between the US and its peer countries continues to grow.
• US inequality levels are far higher than those in most European countries
• In terms of access to water and sanitation the US ranks 36th in the world.
• The youth poverty rate in the United States is the highest across the OECD with one quarter of youth living in poverty compared to less than 14% across the OECD.

For African Americans in particular, neoliberalism has meant, jobs lost, hollowed out communities as industries relocated first to the South and then to Mexico and China, the disappearance of affordable housing, schools and hospital closings, infant and maternal mortality at global South levels, and mass incarceration as the unskilled, low-wage Black labor has become economically redundant.

This is the backdrop and context for the budget “debate” and Trump’s call to cut spendings to Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Education, Labor, Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, and even the State Department.

The U.S. could find 6 trillion dollars for war since 2003 and 16 trillion to bail out the banks after the financial sector crashed the economy, but it can’t find money to secure the human rights of the people.

This is the one-sided class war that we find ourselves in; a war with real deaths and slower, systematic structural violence. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans can be depended on to secure our rights or protect the world from the U.S. atrocities. That responsibility falls on the people who reside at the center of the Empire to not only struggle for ourselves but to put a brake on the Empire’s ability to spread death and destruction across the planet.

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Resistance to 5G is rapidly increasing, especially in Europe where many are unwilling to roll over for a 5G rollout. Fifth generation wireless threatens to massively increase electromagnetic radiation, affecting people and the planet.

On March 31, Brussels (Belgium) became the first major city to stop a 5G pilot project because of health concerns. Refusing to increase allowable radiation limits, Celine Fremault, Environment Minister for the Brussels-Capital Region, told the press:

“I cannot welcome such technology if the radiation standards, which must protect the citizen[s], are not respected, 5G or not. The people of Brussels are not guinea pigs whose health I can sell at a profit.”

A scientific NGO called the Planetary Association for Clean Energy (PACE) – which has “special consultative status” at the United Nations Economic and Social Council – submitted a statement to the UN in February, revealing that allowable international “radiation limits will have to be increased by 30 to 40%” in order to make 5G deployment technologically feasible.

This move by Brussels was one of a number of steps taken in Europe to stop 5G during a recent three-week period.

Other actions include:

• Florence, Italy applies the precautionary principle, refusing permissions for 5G
• A district in Rome votes against 5G trials
• The Russian Ministry of Defence refuses to transfer spectrum frequencies for 5G use
• The Belgian Environment Minister announces that Brussels is halting its 5G rollout plans.
• Germans sign a petition en masse to force the Bundestag to debate 5G.
• Dutch Members of Parliament insist that radiation research must be carried out before approval of 5G
• Four Swiss cantons adopt resolutions calling for a pause on 5G, pending an environmental report

These events may have been influenced by major petitions that have received attention in Europe since 2015.

But in an extraordinary move, telecom giant Swisscom defied local Swiss ordinances and on April 17 began activating 5G antennas in 102 locations. PACE’s Main UN Representative in Geneva, Olivier Vuillemin, told me by email that Swisscom’s action has caused “a huge backlash against 5G” across the country.

Guinea pigs?

In February 2019, US Senator Richard Blumenthal grilled wireless industry representatives during a Senate hearing. Industry spokesmen admitted that the industry “has done no health and safety studies on 5G.” Senator Blumenthal memorably concluded: “We’re kind of flying blind here, as far as health and safety is concerned.”

In January the FCC removed the public notice requirement – 5G would be installed “without public notice, hearings or appeals”

PACE considers this “an experiment on humanity that constitutes cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” in violation of more than 15 international treaties and agreements.

In the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has taken extraordinary steps to ram through 5G over the past year. First, its unelected officials amended FCC rules in March 2018 so that deployment decisions regarding 5G infrastructure would no longer require public participation and environmental review.

Then in September 2018, the FCC voted to grant itself more power to

1) overrule all local and state governments in terms of siting 5G infrastructure,
2) enforce strict time limits on municipal approval, and
3) determine the (very low) fees that municipalities can collect from the telecom industry for the use of public infrastructure (streetlights, bus stops, sidewalks, buildings, utility poles).

These moves unleashed widespread resistance from the National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the US Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, and the Government Finance Officers Association.

Then in January 2019, the FCC removed the public notice requirement – meaning that 5G infrastructure would be installed “without public notice, hearings or appeals.” But on April 5, the California Supreme Court unanimously upheld a 2011 San Francisco ordinance requiring the telecom companies to get municipal permits before placing antennas on city-owned infrastructure.

Popular resistance in the US has likely been fueled by the fact that President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and his billionaire Palm Beach, Florida neighbours have obtained a key exemption from 5G rollout plans. Palm Beach Daily News (May 3, 2017) reported that Palm Beach obtained an exemption “from legislation that would limit local control on the installation of 5G transmission equipment … welcome news in Palm Beach, where [Town Manager Tom] Bradford and Mayor Gail Coniglio have warned the new law would be an aesthetic disaster.”

In Canada, such local decision-making has already been ruled out by the Supreme Court.

Rogers vs. Chateauguay

In 2007, Rogers Communications Inc. wanted to erect a cell phone tower within a residential area of the City of Chateauguay, Quebec. Because the tower was to be taller than 15 ft., by law Rogers had to hold a public meeting. Some 100 residents expressed health concerns about electromagnetic fields (EMF) and radiation, so Chateauguay City Council established a land reserve on the site, while offering to buy a different property for use by Rogers.

But Rogers insisted on its original site. Backed by a powerful legal team of Torys (Toronto) and Fasken Martineau DuMoulin (Montreal), Rogers took the issue all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled on June 16, 2016 that since the telecom industry comes under the jurisdiction of the federal government – specifically, the Canada Radio-television & Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) as regulator – municipalities have no say in the placement of cell phone towers or antennas.

A US expert on wireless radiation and health effects, has called 5G “the stupidest idea in the history of the world”

Charles O’Brien, a lawyer familiar with Rogers vs. Chateauguay court history, told me by email that federal jurisdiction over telecommunications “is certainly not unbounded. Its exercise should respect the ‘Public Trust Doctrine’ as well as the Canadian and Quebec Charters,” which “guarantee the right to life, security of person, privacy, and the rights of the handicapped. The Quebec Charter further protects flora and fauna. The telecommunications power may not justify radiation poisoning of humans and the environment. That would also breach the Radiation Emitting Devices Act, and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.”

But for Canadians, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and constitutional right to privacy may be most pertinent in challenging 5G.

Spying on Canadians

5G will expand “smart cities” and the Internet of Things (IoT). But a recent expose by CBC’s Marketplace revealed how easily “smart” home devices can be hacked to spy on residents.

In Toronto, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has recently filed a court application to stop (Alphabet/Google subsidiary) Sidewalk Labs’ “smart city” project as “unconstitutional” because it would allow “historically unprecedented, non-consensual, inappropriate mass-capture surveillance and commoditization of personal data.”

Sidewalk Labs’ proposed development of the eastern Toronto waterfront includes self-driving cars, robotic deliveries and garbage collection, snow-melting digital streets and sidewalks, and multiple sensors throughout the region to hoover up personal data from residents and pedestrians. In December 2018, Ontario’s Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk said the project “raises concerns in areas such as consumer protection, data collection, security, privacy, governance, anti-trust and ownership of intellectual privacy.”

Complicating the issues is the wireless industry’s insistence on the use of satellites for 5G.

New Space Race

The 5G network will blanket the earth via 20,000 low and high-orbit satellites. Elon Musk’s SpaceX project “Starlink” has received federal approval to launch 12,000 satellites. Other companies involved in the new space race for 5G include OneWeb (4,560 satellites), Boeing (2,956 satellites) Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Project Kuiper (3,000 satellites), and Telesat Canada (512 satellites).

The Economist (Dec. 8, 2018) has stated: “With a network of [5G] satellites encircling the planet, humans will soon never be off-line. High-quality Internet connections will become more widespread than basic sanitation and running water.” As Wendell Berry observed in his 1996 book The Unsettling of America (i.e. before even 4G wireless was introduced), the human body is becoming “marginal.” 5G takes us the next step.

Dr. Martin Pall, a US expert on wireless radiation and health effects, has called 5G “the stupidest idea in the history of the world.”

The Watershed Sentinel (April/May 2019) reports that many communities in North America (800+) are eschewing wireless (and the big telecoms) and building and operating their own “fiber-to-the-premises” wired networks, or “municipal broadband.”

This may be the best way to gain local control, unless you’re a Palm Beach billionaire.

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Featured image is from Watershed Sentinel

Nuclear treaties (mainly between the USA and Russia) have formed the cornerstone of world peace, stability and safety for decades. They have been an essential mechanism in the international security architecture. Nuclear treaties gave assurance to the world that the human race would cease to be drawn into a never-ending and extremely dangerous arms race – a nuclear arms race at that. However, recent developments threaten this stability. For years, the US has been steadily provoking many nations, especially Russia, with a variety of tactics, including false flag operations, sanctions, coups and importantly by pulling out of key nuclear treaties. Now, there is only one nuclear treaty left (the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, known in Russian as START III) that the US has not withdrawn from … and this is set to expire in 2021, with no signs of US interest in renewing it.

US History of Withdrawal from Nuclear Treaties

In 2002, the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972. On February 2nd, 2018, in the document Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the Trump Administration revealed that the US was changing its nuclear policy. It was specifically retaining the right of nuclear first use (NFU)(meaning pre-emptive strikes) as well as embracing the development of low-yield nuclear warhead for submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Later in 2018, Trump announced the US intention to withdraw in 6 months from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987, which he made official in a written statement on February 1st, 2019. Some reports state that National Security Advisor and notorious warhawk John Bolton was the force behind the INF withdrawal – the same Zionist neocon warmonger itching for war with Iran, Venezuela, North Korea and any other nation not already under the heel of the US-led NWO.

A study of the NPR by Seyom Brown explains:

“Blurring the distinction between non-nuclear and nuclear war, the 2018 NPR reverses the commitment in the Obama administration’s 2010 NPR to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in US grand strategy … [the] NPR fails to show why modernized nuclear capabilities are better able to deter and defend against potential enemy aggression than technologically advanced non-nuclear capabilities. Its presumption of controllable nuclear exchanges will reduce the calculations of risk and increase the likelihood of conflicts escalating to nuclear war.”

How the US Tricked Russia into Dissolving the Soviet Union

In the above linked White House statement, the US tries to claim Russia is the one violating the INF, when actually it is the US itself. This kind of mendacity is typical of US behavior. History repeats itself. It is reminiscent of how then President George H. W. Bush lied to then Soviet Chairman Gorbachev, promising him that NATO would not extend “one inch eastwards” and goading him into dissolving the Soviet Union. That turned out to be a giant whopper, as NATO has constantly expanded eastwards, gobbling up Baltic, Slavic and former Soviet states. For a deeper background to all this, read How America Double-Crossed Russia and Shamed the West by Eric Zuesse:

“The conditionality of the Soviet Union’s agreement to allow East Germany to be taken by West Germany and for the Cold War to end, was that NATO would not expand “one inch to the east.” This was the agreement that was approved by the Russian President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev … He trusted American President George Herbert Walker Bush, whose friend and Secretary of State James Baker made this promise to Gorbachev … Russia kept its part of the bargain. It ended the Berlin Wall, allowed East Germany to join with West Germany; ended the Warsaw Pact; and ended communism. Russia ended its entire Cold War against the U.S., not just the ideology but the Soviet Union and its alliances. But, in contravention of the promise that had been made to Gorbachev, the U.S. and its allies did not end their war against a now free and democratic Russia. Instead, over the years, the NATO alliance absorbed, one by one, the former member-nations of the Warsaw Pact — and yet refused to allow membership to Russia.”

Who’s Violating the INF?

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently warned journalists of the US-withdrawal trend that has been happening – and the dire and urgent situation humanity subsequently now faces, given that there are less and less treaties to prevent another nuclear arms race. Putin said:

“When in reality, it was the first step taken to the dismantling of the entire ‘carcass’ of the system of international security … It was a very serious step to have been taken … Now, the US is wanting to withdraw from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty [1987], also in a unilateral manner. At least in the first instance, they were honest about it. They just withdrew, in a one-sided manner. This time, recognising full well that someone will have to be held responsible, they’re attempting to blame Russia [for alleged violations of the INF Treaty] … why don’t you … go and open the INF Treaty text? Go and read it.

It says in clear text you cannot install land-based missile launchers for missiles of short and medium range. It says so in plain sight. But no – they have placed missile launchers in Romania, and soon in Poland. It’s a direct violation. Go and look at the definition of short and medium range missiles – and then compare them to the capabilities of [missile carrying] drones. It’s the same thing.”

– Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation

Putin goes on to say that Russia is looking to extend the New START / START III Treaty (which ends on February 5th, 2021) but they don’t ‘have’ to. The US has neither initiated renewal talks, nor shown any interest in conducting them:

“Our defense capability is such that it will absolutely guarantee the safety of Russia [against nuclear attack] for quite some time in the future. I have to be direct and say that we have overtaken our opponents in the creation of [defensive] hypersonic weapons. If no one is interested in extending the START-3, ok then we won’t. We have said 100 times already that we are ready to begin the work. No one is talking to us. There are no formal talks being had … And in 2021 – everything will end. Let me focus your attention – there will not be a single instrument that can regulate a [nuclear] arms race. No tool to curtail the imposition of weapons in outer space.”

Putin went on to dramatically spell out the implications:

“It means that we will have [the] constant presence of nuclear weapons above our heads. It will always be up there, constantly. Is this not where we are headed, and very quickly at that? Is anyone going to think or talk about this at all? Does anyone care? No – it’s just radio silence. What about the creation of low-power nuclear weapons? Or regulating strategic missiles without a nuclear warhead [which can be quickly refitted with nuclear ones] … Do you seriousness of the issue and how dangerous it can be?”

Indeed. The situation is very dangerous. If nuclear proliferation continues, combined with the new technological military advances of drones and space-based weapons, it is conceivable that we will have the metaphorical Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads at every living moment, only one millions of times more destructive.

Putin went on to make an appeal to have an open, transparent, professional dialogue with all people of the world, especially including all nuclear countries, declared or not. This is an obvious allusion to the rogue nation of Israel, which harbors some 100-400 nuclear weapons, but adheres to a policy of nuclear ambiguity and refuses to state the obvious about its nukes. He ended with a note of optimism, that both Trump and US Secretary of State Pompeo have expressed concern about US defense war spending, and so perhaps the US and Russia could work together.

Nuclear Treaties: Going Forwards … Or Backwards?

All this very much reminds me of the situation in 1962-63, when JFK and Khrushchev were at the helm of their respective nations. After the tense Cuban Missile Crisis nearly ended in nuclear catastrophe, JFK came to the realization that we must choose cooperation and peace, and stop stockpiling and engaging in an arms race out of fear. He spoke about this in an inspirational speech in July 1963. Sadly, with all the Russophobia, we seem to have broken trust and gone back to the fear-filled days at the height of the Cold War. That is only good for the Military Industrial Complex, the warmongers and the NWO manipulators … and horrible for everyone else.

It’s the media – whether mainstream, alternative or independent – focused on this highly important issue. The future of humanity is at stake.

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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, writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the worldwide conspiracy to suggesting solutions for how humanity can create a new system of peace and abundance. Makia is on Steemit and FB.

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“Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries.” ― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

How do you persuade a populace to embrace totalitarianism, that goose-stepping form of tyranny in which the government has all of the power and “we the people” have none?

You persuade the people that the menace they face (imaginary or not) is so sinister, so overwhelming, so fearsome that the only way to surmount the danger is by empowering the government to take all necessary steps to quash it, even if that means allowing government jackboots to trample all over the Constitution.

This is how you use the politics of fear to persuade a freedom-loving people to shackle themselves to a dictatorship.

It works the same way every time.

The government’s overblown, extended wars on terrorism, drugs, violence and illegal immigration have been convenient ruses used to terrorized the populace into relinquishing more of their freedoms in exchange for elusive promises of security.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Case in point: on June 17, the same day President Trump announced that the government would be making mass arrests in order to round up and forcibly remove millions of illegal immigrants—including families and children—from the country, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a ruling in Gamble v. United States that placed the sovereignty (i.e., the supreme power or authority) of federal and state governments over that of the citizenry, specifically as it relates to the government’s ability to disregard the Constitution’s Double Jeopardy Clause.

Source: The Washington Post

At first glance, the two incidents—one relating to illegal immigration and the other to the government’s prosecutorial powers—don’t have much to do with each other, and yet there is a common thread that binds them together.

That common thread speaks to the nature of the government beast we have been saddled with and how it views the rights and sovereignty of “we the people.”

Now you don’t hear a lot about sovereignty anymore.

Sovereignty is a dusty, antiquated term that harkens back to an age when kings and emperors ruled with absolute power over a populace that had no rights. Americans turned the idea of sovereignty on its head when they declared their independence from Great Britain and rejected the absolute authority of King George III. In doing so, Americans claimed for themselves the right to self-government and established themselves as the ultimate authority and power.

In other words, in America, “we the people”— sovereign citizens—call the shots.

So when the government acts, it is supposed to do so at our bidding and on our behalf, because we are the rulers.

That’s not exactly how it turned out, though, is it?

In the 200-plus years since we boldly embarked on this experiment in self-government, we have been steadily losing ground to the government’s brazen power grabs, foisted upon us in the so-called name of national security.

The government has knocked us off our rightful throne. It has usurped our rightful authority. It has staged the ultimate coup. Its agents no longer even pretend that they answer to “we the people.”

So you see, the two incidents on June 17 were not hugely significant in and of themselves.

Trump’s plan to carry out mass arrests of anyone the government suspects might be an illegal immigrant, and the Supreme Court’s recognition that the government can sidestep the Constitution for the sake of expediency are merely more of the same abuses that have been heaped upon us in recent years.

Yet these incidents speak volumes about how far our republic has fallen and how desensitized “we the people” have become to this constant undermining of our freedoms.

How do we reconcile the Founders’ vision of our government as an entity whose only purpose is to serve the people with the police state’s insistence that the government is the supreme authority, that its power trumps that of the people themselves, and that it may exercise that power in any way it sees fit (that includes government agents crashing through doors, mass arrests, ethnic cleansing, racial profiling, indefinite detentions without due process, and internment camps)?

They cannot be reconciled. They are polar opposites.

We are fast approaching a moment of reckoning where we will be forced to choose between the vision of what America was intended to be (a model for self-governance where power is vested in the people) and the reality of what she has become (a police state where power is vested in the government).

This slide into totalitarianism—helped along by overcriminalization, government surveillance, militarized police, neighbors turning in neighbors, privatized prisons, and forced labor camps, to name just a few similarities—is tracking very closely with what happened in Germany in the years leading up to Hitler’s rise to power.

We are walking a dangerous path right now.

The horrors of the Nazi concentration camps weren’t kept secret from the German people. They were well-publicized. As The Guardian reports:

The mass of ordinary Germans did know about the evolving terror of Hitler’s Holocaust… They knew concentration camps were full of Jewish people who were stigmatised as sub-human and race-defilers. They knew that these, like other groups and minorities, were being killed out of hand. They knew that Adolf Hitler had repeatedly forecast the extermination of every Jew on German soil. They knew these details because they had read about them. They knew because the camps and the measures which led up to them had been prominently and proudly reported step by step in thousands of officially-inspired German media articles and posters… The reports, in newspapers and magazines all over the country were phases in a public process of “desensitisation” which worked all too well, culminating in the killing of 6m Jews….

Source: The Guardian

Likewise, the mass of ordinary Americans are fully aware of the Trump Administration’s efforts to stigmatize and dehumanize any and all who do not fit with the government’s plans for this country.

These mass arrests of anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant may well be the shot across the bow.

You see, it’s a short hop, skip and a jump from allowing government agents to lock large swaths of the population up in detention centers unless or until they can prove that they are not only legally in the country to empowering government agents to subject anyone—citizen and noncitizen alike—to similar treatment unless or until they can prove that they are in compliance with every statute and regulation on the books, and not guilty of having committed some crime or other.

It’s no longer a matter of if, but when.

You may be innocent of wrongdoing now, but when the standard for innocence is set by the government, no one is safe. Everyone is a suspect, and anyone can be a criminal when it’s the government determining what is a crime.

Remember, the police state does not discriminate.

At some point, once the government has been given the power to do whatever it wants—the Constitution be damned—it will not matter whether you’re an illegal immigrant or a citizen by birth, a law-breaker or someone who marches in lockstep with the government’s dictates. Government jails will detain you just as easily whether you’ve obeyed every law or broken a dozen. And government agents will treat you like a suspect, whether or not you’ve done anything wrong, simply because they have been trained to view and treat everyone like potential criminals.

Eventually, all that will matter is whether some government agent—poorly trained, utterly ignorant of the Constitution, way too hyped up on the power of their badges, and authorized to detain, search, interrogate, threaten and generally harass anyone they see fit—chooses to single you out for special treatment.

We’ve been having this same debate about the perils of government overreach for the past 50-plus years, and still we don’t seem to learn, or if we learn, we learn too late.

All of the excessive, abusive tactics employed by the government today—warrantless surveillance, stop and frisk searches, SWAT team raids, roadside strip searches, asset forfeiture schemes, private prisons, indefinite detention, militarized police, etc.—started out as a seemingly well-meaning plan to address some problem in society that needed a little extra help.

Be careful what you wish for: you will get more than you bargained for, especially when the government’s involved.

Remember, nothing is ever as simple as the government claims it is.

The war on drugs turned out to be a war on the American people, waged with SWAT teams and militarized police.

The war on terror turned out to be a war on the American people, waged with warrantless surveillance and indefinite detention.

The war on immigration is turning out to be yet another war on the American people, waged with roving government agents demanding “papers, please.”

Whatever dangerous practices you allow the government to carry out now—whether it’s in the name of national security or protecting America’s borders or making America great again—rest assured, these same practices can and will be used against you when the government decides to set its sights on you.

If you’re inclined to advance this double standard because you believe you have done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide, beware: there’s always a boomerang effect.

As commentator Shaun Kenney observed:

What civil liberties are you willing to surrender in the apprehension of 12 million people? Knock and drags? Detention centers? Checkpoints? House-to-house searches? Papers, please? Will we be racially profiling folks to look for or are we talking about people of Chinese… Indian… Irish… Polish… Italian… people-who-might-look-like-you descent as well? If the federal government makes a 1% rounding error and accidentally deports an American citizen, that’s 120,000 Americans… what means will be used to restore their rights? Who will remunerate them for their financial loss? Restore their lost homes? Personal property? Families? … What happens when these means are turned against some other group of undesirables in America by a president who does not share your political persuasion, but can now justify the act based on previous justifications?

We are all at risk.

The law of reciprocity applies here. The flip side of that Golden Rule, which calls for us to treat others as we would have them treat us, is that we shouldn’t inflict on others what we wouldn’t want to suffer ourselves.

In other words, if you don’t want to be locked up in a prison cell or a detention camp—if you don’t want to be discriminated against because of the color of your race, religion, politics or anything else that sets you apart from the rest—if you don’t want your loved ones shot at, strip searched, tasered, beaten and treated like slaves—if you don’t want to have to be constantly on guard against government eyes watching what you do, where you go and what you say—if you don’t want to be tortured, waterboarded or forced to perform degrading acts—if you don’t want your children to be forcibly separated from you, caged and lost—then don’t allow these evils to be inflicted on anyone else, no matter how compelling a case the government makes for it or how fervently you believe in the cause.

You can’t have it both ways.

You can’t live in a constitutional republic if you allow the government to act like a police state.

You can’t claim to value freedom if you allow the government to operate like a dictatorship.

You can’t expect to have your rights respected if you allow the government to treat whomever it pleases with disrespect and an utter disregard for the rule of law.

Indeed, when the government is allowed to operate as a law unto itself, the rule of law itself becomes illegitimate. As Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail,

“everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’ and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was ‘illegal.’ It was ‘illegal’ to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.”

In other words, there comes a time when law and order are in direct opposition to justice.

Isn’t that what the American Revolution was all about?

Finally, if anyone suggests that the government’s mass immigration roundups and arrests are just the government doing its job to fight illegal immigration, don’t buy it.

This is not about illegal immigration. It’s about power and control.

It’s about testing the waters to see how far the American people will allow the government to go in re-shaping the country in the image of a totalitarian police state.

It’s about the rise of an “emergency state” that justifies all manner of government misconduct and power grabs in the so-called name of national security.

It’s about how much tyranny “we the people” will tolerate before we find our conscience and our voice.

It’s about how far we will allow the government to go in its efforts to distract and divide us and turn us into a fearful, easily controlled populace.

Ultimately, it’s about whether we believe—as the Founders did—that our freedoms are inherently ours and that the government is only as powerful as we allow it to be. Freedom does not flow from the government. It was not given to us, to be taken away at the will of the State. In the same way, the government’s appointed purpose is not to threaten or undermine our freedoms, but to safeguard them.

We must get back to this way of thinking if we are to ever stand our ground in the face of threats to those freedoms.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, it’s time to draw that line in the sand.

The treatment being meted out to anyone that looks like an illegal immigrant is only the beginning. Eventually we will all be in the government’s crosshairs for one reason or another.

This is the start of the slippery slope.

Martin Niemöller understood this. A Lutheran minister who was imprisoned and executed for opposing Hitler’s regime, Niemoller warned:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Exposure to electromagnetic field (EMF) and radiofrequency (RF) radiation is an ever-growing health risk in the modern world. The Cellular Phone Task Force website¹ has a long list of governments and organizations that have issued warnings or banned wireless technologies of various kinds and under various circumstances, starting in 1993.

A long list of organizations representing doctors and scientists are also among them, including an appeal for protection from nonionizing EMF exposure by more than 230 international EMF scientists to the United Nations in 2015, which notes that:²

“Numerous recent scientific publications have shown that EMF affects living organisms at levels well below most international and national guidelines.

Effects include increased cancer risk, cellular stress, increase in harmful free radicals, genetic damages, structural and functional changes of the reproductive system,^3,4,5 learning and memory deficits, neurological disorders, and negative impacts on general well-being in humans. Damage goes well beyond the human race, as there is growing evidence of harmful effects to both plant and animal life.”

A call for a moratorium on 5G specifically was issued in September 2017 by more than 180 scientists and doctors from 35 countries,^6,7 “until potential hazards for human health and the environment have been fully investigated by scientists independent from industry,” noting that “RF-EMF has been proven to be harmful for humans and the environment,” and that “5G will substantially increase exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) on top of the 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi, etc. for telecommunications already in place.”

In an article⁸ on the Environmental Health Trust’s website, Ronald Powell, Ph.D., a retired Harvard scientist of applied physics, notes “there is NO SAFE WAY to implement 5G in our communities; rather there are only ‘bad ways’ and ‘worse ways,'” and rather than argue about who should have control over its deployment, we should focus on preventing its employment altogether.

Health Concerns Over 5G Abound

Wall Street analyst Sunil Rajgopal recently warned mounting health concerns may delay the implementation of 5G, Fortune magazine reports.⁹ Some countries have already taken steps to slow 5G deployment due to health risks, Rajgopal notes. The question is, can it be stopped?

5G testing was recently halted in Brussels, Belgium,¹⁰ and Switzerland is delaying its 5G rollout in order to create a system to monitor radiation.¹¹ Syracuse, New York, is also attempting to set up some safeguards and has “negotiated the right to conduct on-demand safety inspections of 5G antennas,” to allay public concerns.¹² According to Forbes:¹³

“In New Hampshire, lawmakers are considering establishing a commission to study the health impacts of 5G networks. And Mill Valley, Calif., near San Francisco, last year banned new 5G wireless cells.”

Many other areas, however, have chosen to trust the Federal Communications Commission and the wireless industry trade association, CTIA, which has created a “Cellphone Health Facts” website citing research showing no risk. However, if you believe the FCC is assessing health risks, you’d be wrong.

At a recent senate commerce hearing (above), the FCC admitted that no 5G safety studies have been conducted or funded by the agency or the telecom industry, and that none are planned.^14,15 In a speech given at the National Press Club in June 2016, Tom Wheeler, former FCC chairman and prior head of the wireless industry lobbying group, made the agency’s stance clear when he said:¹⁶

“Stay out of the way of technological development. Unlike some countries, we do not believe we should spend the next couple of years studying … Turning innovators loose is far preferable to letting committees and regulators define the future. We won’t wait for the standards … “

In light of the more than 2,000 studies showing a wide range of biological harm from EMFs, assurances from the FCC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that wireless radiation exposures, including 5G, is safe, seem disingenuous at best. As noted in a recent Counterpunch article:¹⁷

“Telecom lobbyists assure us that guidelines already in place are adequate to protect the public. Those safety guidelines, however, are based on a 1996 study of how much a cell phone heated the head of an adult-sized plastic mannequin. This is problematic, for at least three reasons:

• living organisms consist of highly complex and interdependent cells and tissue, not plastic.
• those being exposed to radiofrequency radiation include fetuses, children, plants, and wildlife – not just adult male humans.
• the frequencies used in the mannequin study were far lower than the exposures associated with 5G.”

What Level of EMF Can Humans Withstand? 

EMF exposure at many biological impacting frequencies, such as those that run cellphones and Wi-Fi, has increased about 1 quintillion times over the past 100 years.^18,19 Unfortunately, EMF exposure is so widespread these days, it’s virtually impossible to conduct controlled population studies anymore, as no population is truly unexposed or unaffected. This lack of a control group makes it very difficult to determine what the real-world effects are.

That said, one controlled exposure study has been done, revealing it’s nowhere near as harmless as people think. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were two populations in the United States — rural and urban. Urban areas were by and large electrified, while rural areas were not electrified until around 1950.

Dr. Sam Milham, an epidemiologist, painstakingly analyzed mortality statistics between these two populations over time, clearly showing there was a wide difference in mortality from heart disease, cancer and diabetes between these two groups. Then, as rural areas became electrified, the two curves merged.

Today, we not only live and work in electrified surroundings, we’re also surrounded by microwaves from wireless technologies. Soon, 5G may be added to the mix, making exposures all the more complex and potentially harmful. As noted by Counterpunch:²⁰

“5G radiofrequency (RF) radiation uses a ‘cocktail’ of three types of radiation, ranging from relatively low-energy radio waves, microwave radiation with far more energy, and millimeter waves with vastly more energy …

The extremely high frequencies in 5G are where the biggest danger lies. While 4G frequencies go as high as 6 GHz, 5G exposes biological life to pulsed signals in the 30 GHz to 100 GHz range. The general public has never before been exposed to such high frequencies for long periods of time.”

Health Concerns Linked to 5G Exposure

The added concern 5G brings is the addition of the millimeter wave (MMW). This bandwidth, which runs from 30 gigahertz (GHz) to 300GHz,²¹ is known to penetrate up to 2 millimeters into human skin tissue,^22,23 causing a burning sensation.

This is precisely why MMW was chosen for use in crowd control weapons (Active Denial Systems) by the U.S. Department of Defense.²⁴ MMW is also used in so-called “naked body scanners” at airports.²⁵

Research has shown sweat ducts in human skin act as receptors or antennae for 5G radiation, drawing the radiation into the body,^{26,27,28,29,30} thereby causing a rise in temperature. This in part helps explain the painful effect. As noted by Dr. Yael Stein — who has studied 5G MMW technology and its interaction with the human body — in a 2016 letter to the Federal Communications Commission:³¹

“Computer simulations have demonstrated that sweat glands concentrate sub-terahertz waves in human skin. Humans could sense these waves as heat. The use of sub-terahertz (millimeter wave) communications technology (cellphones, Wi-Fi, antennas) could cause humans to percept physical pain via nociceptors.

Potentially, if 5G Wi-Fi is spread in the public domain we may expect more of the health effects currently seen with RF/ microwave frequencies including many more cases of hypersensitivity (EHS), as well as many new complaints of physical pain and a yet unknown variety of neurologic disturbances.

It will be possible to show a causal relationship between G5 technology and these specific health effects. The affected individuals may be eligible for compensation.”

MMW has also been linked to:^{32,33,34,35,36}

• Eye problems such as lens opacity in rats, which is linked to the production of cataracts,³⁷ and eye damage in rabbits^38,39
• Impacted heart rate variability, an indicator of stress, in rats^40,41,42 and heart rate changes (arrhythmias) in frogs^43,44
• Pain⁴⁵
• Suppressed immune function⁴⁶
• Depressed growth and increased antibiotic resistance in bacteria⁴⁷

As noted in a recent Gaia.com article:⁴⁸

“Many scientists understand that the electromagnetic radiation leaking through the doors of our microwave ovens are carcinogenic, and therefore, can cause cancer. Most of these scientists also believe that these waves are mutagenic, meaning they change the DNA structure of living beings.⁴⁹

The launch of 5G will be similar to turning on your microwave, opening its door, and leaving it on for the rest of your life. There’s good reason why hundreds of scientists are taking action against the wireless industry.”

Understanding EMFs’ Mechanisms of Harm

As explained in my 2017 interview with Martin Pall, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of biochemistry and basic medical sciences at Washington State University, the primary danger of EMFs in general is that it causes excess oxidative stress that results in mitochondrial dysfunction.

According to Pall’s research,^50,51,52,53 radiofrequency microwave radiation such as that from your cellphone and wireless router activates the voltage-gated calcium channels (VGCCs) located in the outer membrane of your cells.

According to Pall, VGCCs are 7.2 million times more sensitive to microwave radiation than the charged particles inside and outside our cells, which means the safety standards for this exposure are off by a factor of 7.2 million.

Low-frequency microwave radiation opens your VGCCs, thereby allowing an abnormal influx of calcium ions into the cell, which in turn activates nitric oxide (NO) and superoxide which react nearly instantaneously to form peroxynitrite⁵⁴ that then causes carbonate free radicals, which are one of the most damaging reactive nitrogen species known and thought to be a root cause for many of today’s chronic diseases.

For an in-depth understanding of peroxynitrites and the harm they inflict, see “Nitric Oxide and Peroxynitrite in Health and Disease”⁵⁵ — a 140-page free access paper with 1,500 references written by Dr. Pal Pacher, Joseph Beckman and Dr. Lucas Liaudet.

One of its most significant hazards of peroxynitrite is that it damages DNA. The European REFLEX study published in 2004 revealed the nonthermal effects of 2G and 3G radiation are actually very similar to the effects of X-rays in terms of the genetic damage they cause.⁵⁶

Your body has the capacity to repair that damage through a family of 17 different enzymes collectively called poly ADP ribose polymerases (PARP). However, while PARP work well, they require NAD+ for fuel and when they run out of NAD+ they stop repairing your DNA.

This in turn can lead to premature cell death, since 100 to 150 NAD+ molecules are needed to repair a single DNA strand break. NAD+ is central to maintaining cellular and mitochondrial health, so the fact that PARP consumes NAD+ to counteract EMF damage is an important concern.

Cancer Is Not the Primary Health Risk of EMF

The voltage in your body appears to play a significant role in health and disease. Your body’s production of electricity allows your cells to communicate and perform basic biological functions necessary for your survival. However, your body is designed to operate at very specific levels and frequencies.

It seems logical that being surrounded by man-made EMFs that are 1 quintillion times higher than the natural EMF environment of the Earth may interfere with your DNA’s ability to receive and transmit biological signals.

While the controversy over EMF damage has centered around whether or not it can cause cancer, especially brain tumors, this actually isn’t your greatest concern. Since the damage is strongly linked to activation of your VGCCs, it stands to reason that areas where VGCCs are the densest would be most vulnerable to damage.

As it happens, the highest density of VGCCs are found in your nervous system, your brain, the pacemaker in your heart and in male testes. As a result, EMFs are likely to contribute to neurological and neuropsychiatric⁵⁷ problems, heart and reproductive problems.

This includes but is not limited to cardiac arrhythmias, anxiety, depression, autism, Alzheimer’s and infertility. Indeed, this is what researchers keep finding, and all of these health problems are far more prevalent and kill more people than brain cancer.

What’s more, seeing how many are already struggling with electromagnetic hypersensitivity, saturating cities and suburban areas with MMW radiation will undoubtedly make the problem more widespread, and make life unbearable for those already feeling the effects of wireless radiation.

Most Recent Media Ploy to Detract From 5G Concerns: Blame the Russians

In a recent Medium article,⁵⁸ Devra Davis, Ph.D. — a well-respected and credentialed researcher on the dangers of cellphone radiation — highlights a recent media trend: Write off scientists warning about 5G dangers as “untethered alarmists … linked to Russian propaganda.”

“Could it be a coincidence that following on the heels of the NY Times story, the Wall Street Journal and the UK Telegraph have echoed the same smear of guilt by association,” she writes,⁵⁹ adding:

“These otherwise credible media sources ignore the substantial body of science pinpointing hazards of wireless radiation and 5G detailed in independent journalistic investigations that have appeared extensively in media throughout Europe and been covered by major networks …

Could the failure to report these critical 5G issues and correct misleading information regarding health effects of wireless and 5G in the New York Times have anything to do with the their new joint venture with Verizon in 5G journalism, or the fact that the Times board of directors includes officials from Facebook, Verizon, Media Lab, and other stalwarts of the telecom industry, while Carlos Slim, head of some of the largest telecom firms in the world, has downsized and now owns just 15 percent of its stock?”

Davis also points out a clear difference between American and Russian scientific expertise with regard to EMF:

“The history of research on the environmental and public health impacts of radio frequency microwave radiation (‘wireless radiation’) reveals some uneasy parallels with that of tobacco.

In the 1950s and 1960s, scientists who showed the harmful impacts of tobacco found themselves struggling for serious attention and financial support. The validity of their views was only accepted after the toll of sickness and death had become undeniable.

For health impacts from wireless radiation, a similar pattern is emerging. Each time a U.S. government agency produced positive findings, research on health impacts was defunded.

The Office of Naval Research, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and the Environmental Protection Agency all once had vibrant research programs documenting dangers of wireless radiation. All found their programs scrapped, reflecting pressure from those who sought to suppress this work.

Russian’s 50 years of research on electromagnetic radiation since the Cold War has led to their clear understanding that this exposure does have biological effects. The Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection issued a 2011 Resolution⁶⁰recommending persons under 18 not use a cell phone.”

Brain Cancer Risk Is Likely Real

While heart disease, dementia and infertility overshadow the risk of brain cancer, the possibility of cancer still remains, and may be a far more significant concern for young children who are growing up surrounded by wireless technologies than we realize.

The fact is, we won’t know for sure whether in utero and early cellphone use will increase brain cancer rates until a decade or two from now when today’s youths have grown up. Mounting research suggests cellphone radiation certainly influences your risk, and there are a number of compelling anecdotal reports that are hard to ignore.

In her article,⁶¹ Davis mentions Robert C. Kane, a senior telecom engineer “had willingly served as a guinea pig for Motorola and other companies developing new wireless technologies in the 1980s.”

He developed a type of malignant brain cancer the National Toxicology Program later confirmed was a side effect of cellphone radiation exposure (see video above). The NTPs results were published in 2018. Before his death in 2002, Kane published the book, “Cellphone Radiation — Russian Roulette,”⁶² in which he stated that:⁶³

“Never in human history has there been such a practice as we now encounter with the marketing and distributing of products hostile to the human biological system by an industry with foreknowledge of those effects.”

FCC Is a Captured Agency That Cannot Be Trusted

Davis also highlights another crucial problem, namely the fact that the FCC has been captured by the telecom industry, which in turn has perfected the disinformation strategies employed by the tobacco industry before it. She writes:⁶⁴

“… [I]n 2015 a Harvard expose tracked the revolving door between the FCC and the telecom industry and concluded that the FCC is a captured agency and that ‘Consumer safety, health, and privacy, along with consumer wallets, have all been overlooked, sacrificed, or raided due to unchecked industry influence.'”

The book in question is “Captured Agency: How the Federal Communications Commission Is Dominated by the Industries It Presumably Regulates,” written by investigative journalist Norm Alster.⁶⁵

As just one example, before his role as FCC chairman, Wheeler headed up the CTIA, which is the lobbying group for the wireless industry, which explains his commentary on 5G and why the FCC doesn’t believe in studying its health risks and “won’t wait for the standards.”

The book also shows how the telecom industry is manipulating public opinion by undermining the credibility of scientists that speak of dangers, cutting funds for research, publishing manipulated studies showing no harm and claiming “scientific consensus” of no harm when no such consensus actually exists. Naturally, the telecom industry also spends millions of dollars lobbying the FCC on issues that might impact its bottom line.⁶⁶

5G Threatens Weather Prediction

Interestingly, aside from potential health ramifications, a global 5G network will also threaten our ability to predict weather which, in addition to putting civilians at risk will also jeopardize the Navy.⁶⁷According to a recent paper⁶⁸ in the journal Nature, widespread 5G coverage will prevent satellites from detecting changes in water vapor, which is how meteorologists predict weather changes and storms.

Davis quotes⁶⁹ Stephen English, meteorologist at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts: “This is the first time we’ve seen a threat to what I’d call the crown jewels of our frequencies  — the ones that we absolutely must defend come what may.”

Alas, the FCC ignores such concerns and, according to Davis, “weather experts within the U.S. government are being muzzled.” In a recent letter to the FCC, Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., urge the agency to rein in the expansion of wireless communications in the 24 GHz band for this reason.⁷⁰

*

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Notes

¹ The Cellular Phone Task Force, Governments and Organizations that Ban or Warn Against Wireless Technology

² EMFScientist.org International Appeal to the UN May 11, 2015, updated January 1, 2019

³ Environ Int. 2014 Sep; 70C:106-112

⁴ Central European Journal of Urology 2014; 67(1): 65–71

⁵ Fertility and Sterility January 2012; 97(1): 39-45.e2

⁶ Scientists Warn of Potential Serious Health Effects of 5G, September 13, 2017 (PDF)

^7, 29, 48 Gaia.com May 14, 2019

⁸ EHtrust.org, 5G and Its Small Cell Towers Threaten Public Health

^9, 13 Fortune May 22, 2019

¹⁰ The Inquirer April 15, 2019

¹¹ Reuters April 17, 2019

¹² Government Technology May 10, 2019

¹⁴ US Senate, Richard Blumenthal February 7, 2019

^15, 17, 20 Counterpunch May 3, 2019

¹⁶ Prepared Remarks of FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler June 20, 2016 (PDF)

¹⁸ Electromagnetic Health January 11, 2014

¹⁹ Nourish Balance Thrive July 29, 2018

^21, 32 Electric Sense May 12, 2017

^{22, 27, 31, 45} Environmental Health Trust, Letter to the FCC From Dr. Yael Stein MD in Opposition to 5G Spectrum Frontiers

²³ Telecom Power Grab, 5G Fact Sheet

²⁴ Environmental Health Trust 20 Facts About 5G Wireless

²⁵ Science.howstuffworks.com, Difference Between Backscatter Machines and MMW Scanners

²⁶ Phys Med Biol. 2011 Mar 7;56(5):1329-39

²⁸ Principia-scientific.org April 2, 2019

³⁰ Endoftheamericandream.com May 19, 2019

³³ Eluxemagazine, Frightening Frequencies

³⁴ ElectricSense, The Dangers of 5G, May 30, 2018 (PDF)

^35, 41, 43 A 5G Wireless Future by Dr. Cindy Russell (PDF)

^36, 42, 44 References List to A 5G Wireless Future by Dr. Cindy Russell (PDF)

³⁷ Klin Oczna. 1994 Aug-Sep;96(8-9):257-9

³⁸ Health Phys. 2009 Sep;97(3):212-8

³⁹ Zhonghua Lao Dong Wei Sheng Zhi Ye Bing Za Zhi. 2003 Oct;21(5):346-9

⁴⁰ Fiziol Zh SSSR Im I M Sechenova. 1992 Jan;78(1):35-41

⁴⁶ Biofizika. 2002 Jan-Feb;47(1):71-7

⁴⁷ Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology June 2016; 100(11): 4761-4771

⁴⁹ Gaia.com December 3, 2018

⁵⁰ Rev Environ Health. 2015;30(2):99-116

⁵¹ International Journal of Innovative Research in Engineering and Management, September 2015; 2(5)

⁵² J Cell Mol Med. 2013 Aug;17(8):958-65

⁵³ Current Chemical Biology 2016; 10(1): 74-82

⁵⁴ American Journal of Physiology 1996 Nov;271(5 Pt 1):C1424-37

⁵⁵ Physiol Rev. 2007 Jan; 87(1): 315–424

⁵⁶ JRS.BV EU Reflex Study Shows DNA Damage

⁵⁷ Journal of Chemical Neuroanatomy September 2016; 75 Part B: 43-51

^{58, 59, 61, 63, 64, 69} Medium May 18, 2019

⁶⁰ Resolution of Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (PDF)

⁶² Cell Phone Radiation — Russian Roulette (PDF)

⁶⁵ Ehtrust.org, Harvard Press Book on Telecom Industry Influence to the US FCC — Captured Agency by Norm Alster

⁶⁶ Opensecrets.org January 23, 2018

^67, 70 ZDnet.com May 14, 2019

⁶⁸ Nature April 26, 2019

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“I don’t think we’re well prepared at all. And I don’t think the public is aware of what’s coming,” said the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He was discussing the rapid advance of synthesis technology. This new artificial intelligence capability allows competent programmers to create audio and video of anyone, saying absolutely anything.

The creations are called “deepfakes” and however outrageous they may be, they’re virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.

No sooner had we adjusted to a world where our reality seemed fake, then things that are fake became our reality.

“We’re outgunned,” said a UC Berkeley digital-forensics expert, “The number of people now working on video-synthesis outnumber those working on detecting deepfakes by 100-1.”

Twitter suspended 4,779 accounts it believed are associated with Iran’s theocratic leaders. It republished every tweet sent by these accounts to help researchers analyze and spot behavioral patterns.  Already two-thirds of Americans say altered images and videos have become a major problem for understanding the basic facts of current events.

Misinformation researchers warn of growing “reality apathy” whereby it takes so much effort to distinguish between what’s real and fake that we simply give up and rely on our base instincts, tribal biases, impulses. Immersed in our leader’s deceits, we come to believe in nothing. Two oil tankers burst into flames, billowing smoke.

On cue, a suspicious Iranian Revolutionary Guard boat appeared on grainy video. Viral images flooded earth’s nine billion screens. Each side told a different story. No one quite knew who to trust. Conspiracy theories filled the void, as we each clung to what we most want to believe. And as truth slowly slipped away, we turned to market prices as our proxy for reality; oil prices fell, stocks rallied, volatility declined.

But of course, it is precisely because market prices still retain some reflection of reality that our policy makers and politicians work so desperately to manipulate them.

*

 

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In 2015, the United States, several other nations and the European Union signed an agreement with the government of Iran that limited Iran’s nuclear development program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions against Iran. During the final years of the Obama presidency, and the first year of the bizarre and erratic administration of Donald Trump, all parties were in compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This was attested to by the United Nation International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which inspected Iran’s nuclear sites regularly, and the fact that many nations were now freely and profitably trading with Iran.

But as Trump attempted to undo everything his popular predecessor had accomplished, he violated the JCPOA by withdrawing from it completely. He reissued sanctions, and threatened the other signatories, including some of the U.S.’s oldest and closest allies, with sanctions if they continued trading with Iran. The deal collapsed, with all the parties except Iran in violation of it.

The U.S. violation was condemned around the world, by nearly every nation on the planet except apartheid Israel, whose racist prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had addressed the U.S. Congress before that body voted, urging its members to defeat the agreement; despite his efforts, Congress agreed to support the JCPOA.

Wanting out of the deal, Trump sought some rationale that he felt would pass muster with the public, to enable him to violate both domestic and international law. His minions located an article by one Heshmat Alavi, saying that the deal allowed Iran to increase its military budget, something to which the U.S. objected.

There are a few things worth exploring a bit more deeply in this. First, since the United States has a bloated military budget that is equal to the military budgets of the next eight countries with the largest such budgets, it is a bit disingenuous for the U.S. to criticize any other country’s military budget. And since Iran is surrounded by U.S. military bases, it is completely understandable for that nation to want to be sure it has what it needs to protect its people from U.S. aggression.

Next, let us look at the ‘journalist’ who wrote the article Trump cited, one Heshmat Alavi. His purported work has appeared in a wide variety of journals over the years. However, on closer scrutiny, we learn that Mr. Alavi simply doesn’t exist! He is a creation of the political wing of the terrorist organization known as Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), which exists for the sole purpose of overthrowing the government of Iran. From 1997 to 2012, the MEK was officially designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States.

Despite that fact that many articles have appeared under the name Heshmat Alavi, and there are active Faceook and Twitter accounts under that name, a Google search of that name today exposes the fact that there is no such person. Yet the MEK has successfully fooled many journals; for example, at least sixty-one articles under that name appear in Forbes magazine from April of 2017 to April of 2018.

This raises even more questions: why does the U.S. need invented ‘journalists’ to sell its anti-Iran story? Could it be, possibly, because the truth is nothing like the U.S. says, and so relying on a made-up writer for made-up stories is the best it can do?

And what about journalistic integrity? One can imagine Forbes falling for one, or even two articles by a bogus, non-existent journalist, but sixty-one in one year? Does no one question this?

Most journalists (this writer included), don’t hide from the public. In addition to writing, they speak at public forums, and their faces may be almost as well-known as their names. Where has the illusive Mr. Alavi been? Was he too busy writing all those articles for Forbes to crawl out of whatever hole he lived in to speak publicly about issues important to him? No, that is not the case; he was unable to speak at any conference, symposium, rally, etc., because he doesn’t exist.

This is the ‘writer’ whose ‘work’ Donald Trump cited to justify violating international law, and to bring the threat of a devastating war to an area of the world that his predecessor had made significant progress in calming. This is the ‘writer’ that not only Forbes, but The Hill, the Daily Caller, the Diplomat and other so-called responsible news outlets gave a platform to.

And what is MEK? It is a well-organized terrorist group, which gets support from the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorism, the United States, and seeks the overthrow of the Iranian government. It is described as “widely loathed”[1] among Iranians, yet one article ascribed to Alavi says it’s the “main Iranian opposition group”[2]. How ‘he’ purports to speak for Iranians, when ‘he’ heads a group hated by most of them, is beyond rational comprehension.

The MEK has gained influence in U.S. government circles and has paid prominent politicians to speak on its behalf.  The Intercept, on June 9 of this year, further reported that “…the MEK’s messaging has emphasized regime change – and attempted to present the MEK as a viable alternative to the Islamic Republic’s leadership….”[3] Articles under the name Alavi support these positions, and often put forward the name of Maryam Rajavi, MEK’s leader, as the future leader of Iran.

This indicates the level of credibility that the U.S. has. How can anyone take seriously the pronouncements of a government that uses a non-existent journalist to establish policy? How can the U.S. news media be seen as credible, when it publishes numerous articles under the name of a non-existent person?

This is, of course, hardly the first time that the U.S. has increased and justified its aggression and belligerency based on lies, lies that the media heartily endorses. Prior to the Gulf War (1990 – 1991), President George H. W. Bush cited the moving testimony given to the Congressional Human Rights Caucus by a young woman named Nariyah, who claimed to be a teenage volunteer at a Kuwaiti hospital. ‘Nariyah’ said this:

“While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators and left the children to die on the cold floor. It was horrifying.”[4]

Bush and members of Congress cited this testimony repeatedly to gain support for the war. News outlets readily parroted these words. Yet it was all a lie. ‘Nariyah’ was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador. She eventually admitted that she had once briefly visited the hospital in question. Her testimony was arranged by the Hill and Knowlton (H&K) public relations firm, hired by an organization called ‘Citizens for a Free Kuwait’, which was financed mainly by the Kuwaiti government.[5]

Will the MEK have the same success as ‘Citizens for a Free Kuwait’ had nearly thirty years ago? Will it be instrumental in starting yet another unjust war in which countless innocent men, women and children will die by the mighty U.S. war machine? One hopes that cooler heads prevail, but in the Trump White House, there don’t seem to be any. An invasion of Iran by the U.S. or Israel would have disastrous consequences throughout the world. Leaders of all other governments should be doing everything in their power to prevent it.

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Notes

[1] https://iran-interlink.org/wordpress/mek-cult-operatives-undermining-american-democracy/. Accessed on June 17, 2019

[2] https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/heshmat-alavi-fake-iran-mek/. Accessed on June 17.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Michael Kunczik, Images of Nations and International Public Relations (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997), 280.

[5] Ted Rowse, “Kuwaitgate,” The Washington Monthly, September 1992.

Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations Dr. Bashar Jaafari delivered yet another speech at the UNSC focussing on the  unfolding situation in Idlib,

The English transcript of his presentation is indicated below. 

The video includes the full statement in Arabic with English translation subtitles

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English translation transcript of the Dr. Jaafari’s statement:

Thank you, Mr. President,

This meeting comes in a timely manner, in order to allow us and a number of other countries to put the Security Council in the picture of terrorist attacks by armed terrorist groups from Idlib against the neighboring towns and villages of Aleppo, Northern Hama, and the northern Latakia countrysides.

When I talk about the attacks, I would like to point out that the last of these attacks was the massacre carried out by these groups two days ago in the village of al-Wadihi in the southern countryside of Aleppo, a crime that resulted in the killing of 12 civilians and injuring more than 16 others while participating in a wedding in the village.

The lives of the inhabitants of this village, which was safe and lead a normal life, were transformed into a state of terror that can hardly be described by the fall of missiles launched by the terrorists of Nusra Front, who are supported by Erdogan’s Turkish regime… The bodies of the martyrs and the wounded, mostly women and children, were scattered in the alleys of the village. They also caused extensive damage to homes, private and public property, including the health center and the village mosque.

This barbaric crime comes as part of a series of crimes committed by these terrorist groups led by the HTS terrorist organization, which is Nusra Front organization, which is on the Security Council’s list of terrorist organizations and entities, being Al-Qaeda Organization in Syria, these crimes must be clearly and inexplicably condemned by the Security Council.

Mr president,

Here are some of the crimes that led to the death of dozens and injuring hundreds of innocent civilians, including many women and children, I will limit the talk here about the civilian victims and will not mention the military victims:

• The targeting of the town of al-Sakilibiya and the town of Ein al-Krum and the village of Bilhsein on May 25 with dozens of shells.
• The targeting of the cities of Silhib and al-Siklibiya on 26 May with more than 30 rockets.
• Targeting the town of Qamhani on 29 and 31 of May with a number of rockets.
• Targeting the towns of the Qalaat Al-Madiq, Karakat, and Shat-ha in the northern and northwest of Hama countryside with dozens of shells and missiles.
• Targeting multiple areas in the province of Aleppo and its countryside frequently with dozens of rockets and missiles.
• Targeting the city of Jablah with several missiles.
• The targeting of the city of Mhardeh frequently, and the most recent was the dawn of this day with dozens of rockets.

This is in addition to the continuous targeting of the positions of the Syrian Arab Army and the locations of the allied Russian forces, especially the Hmeimim airport, with rockets and booby-trapped drones.

As some like to ask questions, a good question arises for you and for all of us: Who provides these terrorists with all these weapons? Where do these weapons come from? By parachutes? from another planet? Or from member states of this Council and outside it? Who provides terrorists with rockets, tanks, missiles, and mines? Where does all this momentum of weapons and terrorists come from? Did not we get 100,000 foreign terrorists through our border with Turkey? How many times have we mentioned this in this Council and outside it? A subcommittee of the Security Council confirmed the validity of our statement that 101 Member States of this Organization are exporting pure terrorism to Syria.

Mr. President,

The statements we heard in this room today indicate that there is a common realization that there is a problem to be dealt with in Idlib, that’s what we understood from the talk of the colleagues that there is a problem in Idlib. The Syrian Idlib of course, I am not talking about an Idlib in Florida and I am not talking about an Idlib in Britain or about an Idlib in Germany. I am talking about the SYRIAN Idlib.

I explained to you earlier on May 17, last month, in detail that the problem was the continuation of the Turkish regime and its accomplices by providing various forms of support to terrorist groups and this (Turkish) regime’s abrogation of its commitments under the de-escalation agreement and the Understandings of Astana and Sochi.

This has allowed HTS terrorist organization (Nusra Front), which includes tens of thousands of foreign terrorists in its ranks, including of course more than 15 thousand Europeans, which allowed the HTS terrorist organization control completely on the city of Idlib and some of its neighboring areas in north-west Syria and create a terrorist outpost that blackmails the Syrian state and take hundreds of thousands Civilians as human shields, committing the most heinous crimes against them, spreading death and destruction, and confiscating civilian facilities, including hospitals and schools, and turning them into military barracks and centers for the detention, torture and killing of those who reject extremist Takfiri and its retard rulings.

By the way, when some colleagues are talking, Mr. Lowcock was unfortunately one of them, and Mrs. de Carlo, I do not know where they got their information, but when they said there were 27 medical facilities in Idlib that were targeted, actually they said hospitals, I would like to tell all of you that Damascus, the Syrian capital, where 8 million people live in has 8 public hospitals only, and 9 public hospitals in Damascus countryside, this means 9 + 8 = 17, meaning Damascus, the capital, where 8 million people live, has only 17 public hospitals, add to it 10 private hospitals, if you like, the number does not reach 30 hospitals. Aleppo has 11 public hospitals, add to them another 10 private hospitals: 21 hospitals in Aleppo, which is the second largest city in Syria, in which 5 million people live.

And when we come to talk about Idlib, Idlib has 4 public hospitals only, we add 4 more private hospitals, the total is 8 hospitals. Where do these figures come from that there are 27 hospitals targeted in Idlib? Let us know and give us the sources from which they draw this information.

I tell you here publicly that what has been said is misleading and false whatever the source that provides this information is a misguided source. There are no 27 hospitals in Idlib. Huh, now for our colleague the British Ambassador, 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.

Another scandal, as human feelings are overflowing today, do you know that after 8 years of imposing sanctions, or what they call unilateral coercive measures, because they are not imposed by you and are not legal, after 8 years, and with such overflowing human feelings we heard today, the United States and the European Union prohibit the export of medical devices such as the MRI and CT Scan to Syria until today, and the surgical procedures required by Syrian doctors for surgical operations? What is this overflowing human feeling that prevents the export of medical devices such as MRI and CT Scan and surgical thread for surgical operations? This is a blemish, it is a defect, the least what we can describe it, if not a crime, and OCHA does not see of course, and Ms. de Carlo does not see the Humanists pen carriers do not see this.

The Syrian government and its allies do NOT target hospitals or schools, at all, because these are our hospitals and our schools.

Mr president,

The implementation of the principles of international law, the provisions of the Charter and the decisions of this Council concerning the fight against terrorism requires, in this case, support the efforts of the Syrian State and its allies in combating terrorism and to build a partnership with it as the party concerned to end the existence of terrorism in Syria and improve the humanitarian situation in general, instead of calling for these show-off sessions, and spread misleading information and to charge accusations against my country and its allies, in order to rescue the terrorist groups and obstruct the legal measures taken by the Syrian government to protect its citizens and rid them of the control of terrorist organizations which use them as human shields.

What is required is a complete departure from attempts to undermine the sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic, and from any attempts to exploit the crisis to serve the destructive agendas of some States and their clients, and to desist from selective policies and systematically biased approaches that are unequivocally reflected in some Member States ignoring of the crimes the terrorist organizations are committing, and ignoring the role of the known countries that support terrorism, as well as the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the International Coalition in Raqqa, Deir Al-Zour, Alhajin and Al-Baghouz, which were mentioned by my dear colleague the Ambassador of the Russian Federation, and in other areas in my country as well as the detention of tens of thousands of Syrian civilians by the American occupation forces in Al-Rukban Camp. Al-Rukban camp, of course, is Syrian land. We repeat it for the 100th time: Al-Rukban camp is a Syrian land occupied by US forces, where it sponsors a terrorist group called Maghaweer Al-Thawra. This faction collects 100 thousand Syrian Lira from each Syrian civilian who wants to leave the Rukban camp, extortion money, with the knowledge of the US forces, of course. a father, his wife and five children have to pay 700,000 Syrian Liras, only to get out of the camp.

Mr. President,

Ending the suffering of the Syrians in Idlib and other Syrian areas requires:

First: Addressing the main causes of the suffering of the Syrians: the policies of the governments of the state sponsors of terrorism and the practices of their armed terrorist organizations and the continuing crimes committed by the so-called international coalition and its proxy militias, including the deliberate burning of wheat and barley crops.

Since we’re talking about the burning of agricultural crops of wheat and barley, two or three days ago an announcement was issued in Turkey in Arabic addressed to Syrian farmers indicates the willingness of the Turkish government to buy their wheat and barley in Turkish Lira, what is not burned is sold to Turkey at a quarter of its price. Then they tell us that we are falsely accusing Turkey of wrongdoingس, we are falsely accusing Erdogan’s regime of wrongdoings, no, it’s not false accusations, no.

The Turkish regime has absolutely no regards to the neighborhood value If it had an atom of political wisdom, this regime would have been thinking about the future, let alone the international law and the agreements governing our good neighborly relations with Turkey. This regime must look to the future. We and they are in this region by virtue of geography and history, the Erdogan regime should not open up its border with Syria for hundreds of thousands of foreign terrorists and the smuggling of all kinds of weapons into Syria, including the chemical weapon, which they brought from Benghazi (Libya) through Istanbul and then to Aleppo, Khan al-Asal, the story I told you about before, it was transferred by a Syrian terrorist working for The Turkish intelligence, his name is Haitham Kassar, all of this is mentioned in official letters with you, 800 official letters full of information we sent you, but some do not want to read.

Second: Ending the illegal presence of US and Turkish forces on the territories of the Syrian Arab Republic and ending the suffering of millions of civilians in the areas controlled by these forces.

Third: the immediate and unconditional lifting of the illegal unilateral coercive measures imposed on the Syrian people, which constitute economic terrorism and collective punishment for the Syrian people.

Fourth: To put an end to the deliberate and systematic politicization of humanitarian affairs and attempts to exploit it by some States for purposes that are in total contradiction with the principles of humanitarian action.

Fifth: Supporting the efforts of the Syrian state in the process of reconstruction, reconstruction of what has been destroyed by terrorism, which is opposed by the USA, Britain, France and some other countries, these countries are against the reconstruction of what has been destroyed by terrorism in Syria and I leave for you to figure out the reason behind that. To facilitate the safe and dignified return of the Syrian displaced to their homeland and to direct donor pledges to serve this objective.

In conclusion, Mr. President,

Despite the adoption by this Council of more than 46 resolutions on the combating terrorism, and the passing of nearly 9 years on the terrorist war waged against my country Syria and the exposure of the dimensions of this war and the role played by the governments of some countries to enrich and prolong it, in spite of all this, some members of this council, and outside of it, are still investing in terrorism and see in it a partner to target the Syrian state, instead of building a partnership with the Syrian state to combat terrorism. I also leave you the trouble to draw the conclusion from this.

I reiterate here that the Syrian Government will not bow down to the terrorist war imposed on it and will not allow the endangerment of the lives of its citizens.

The Syrian Government will continue to exercise its sovereign and constitutional right and to implement the provisions of the Charter and the principles of international law in defending its land and its citizens, combating terrorism and ending the illegal foreign presence on all the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Government of my country is committed to achieving a political solution in which the Syrians, alone, will decide their future and choices through the Syrian-Syrian dialogue and with Syria’s leadership without external interference and guaranteeing the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Syria.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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The passing of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi presents the perfect opportunity for reflecting on his controversial legacy and the real impact that this Muslim Brotherhood leader had on the region.

Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi passed away on Monday due to what are largely thought to have been health complications arising from his poorly treated blood pressure and diabetes while in custody. The country’s brief leader was overthrown in a 2013 military coup by now-President Sisi in response to rising protests against his rule driven by many of his secular compatriots who were extremely uncomfortable with a member of the previously and once-again banned Muslim Brotherhood as their head of state. Morsi narrowly won the presidency by less than a one million vote margin in a country of over 90 million people, so his mandate was always questionable and gave rise to rumors about its legitimacy.

Importantly, Morsi shared the same ideology as both the Qatari and Turkish leaders, so his rise to power provoked fears among some regional security stakeholders that a new axis of influence was forming in the Mideast, one that could threaten both the remaining secular governments and the monarchic ones as well, both of whom shared little in common other than their agreement that the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization. It’s due to this strategic consideration that many believe that the Gulf Kingdoms secretly played a role in Sisi’s 2013 coup, which led to the Brotherhood being banned once again and Morsi charged with a bevy of crimes that resulted in an overturned death sentence.

Supporters of the coup believe that it prevented the country from descending into civil war given the dangerous polarization that it entered into following the onset of the so-called “Arab Spring“. They also point to Morsi’s anti-Assad stance and believe that he was planning to play a leading role in the War of Terror on Syria had he not been stopped by the military. Critics of the coup, however, denounced it as a foreign-backed anti-democratic seizure of power that merely replicated the same Color Revolution tactics that brought Morsi himself into power in the first place. They’re also very unhappy with with Sisi’s presidency because they don’t see much of a difference between him and Mubarak.

Morsi’s alleged mistreatment and ultimate death in custody are also being interpreted by some as a message to Turkish President Erdogan of the fate that could befall him if he’s ever overthrown as well, such as what was unsuccessfully attempted during the summer 2016 coup events. The two leaders are ideological brothers-in-arms with a vision of Islamifying their decades-long officially secular societies, which Erdogan has already almost fully succeeded with whereas Morsi never really had much of a chance. Granted, there are serious differences between both societies that facilitated and impeded those leaders’ plans, but with Morsi out of the picture and Qatar largely “contained”, Erdogan’s Turkey is now the Muslim Brotherhood’s last main torchbearer.

Interestingly, although Russia officially regards the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization and wasn’t on good terms at all with Morsi, it nowadays has no problem with Erdogan and is actually in a fast-moving strategic partnership with his country. This seemingly contradictory stance can be explained by contemporary geopolitics and the prevailing fears around the time of the “Arab Spring”. Russian General Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov wrote in February 2013 that Moscow regards the aforementioned events as a series of Color Revolutions that catalyzed regional conflicts, whereas President Putin just praised Turkey the other day during the SCO Summit in Bishkek for contributing to Russia and Iran’s joint victory over Daesh in Syria.

Quite clearly, Russia doesn’t consider Erdogan’s embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood to be as threatening as Morsi’s was, most likely because Turkey nowadays cooperates real closely with Russia in Syria after its geopolitical volte-face since the failed summer 2016 coup attempt while Egypt was supposedly getting ready militantly export its model to Syria and elsewhere in the region before Sisi’s successful 2013 coup. The thought exercise of comparing and contrasting Morsi’s Egypt with Erdogan’s Turkey therefore reveals that geopolitical calculi were the main reason why Russia eventually came to treat these two very ideologically similar states differently in spite of their nearly identical regional visions.

With this in mind and reflecting on the rest of Morsi’s legacy, most observers would agree that this fallen leader elicits very strong partisan political reactions from the average person, who either strongly supports him as the best of Egypt’s post-independence leaders or vehemently opposes him as its worst, believing that he embodied a brief period of hope or epitomized the chaos of the times, respectively. Some will insist that he was brought to power by the people and taken down by a foreign plot, while others maintain that his rise was due to a foreign-influenced Color Revolution and only ended with a patriotic coup. Whichever way one looks at it, the myth will always overshadow the man, for better or for worse, making Morsi’s legacy all the more contentious.

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

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The War of Oil Tankers

By Dr. Elias Akleh, June 19, 2019

The economic war waged by Trump’s administration against Iran seems to have been escalated to involve false flag attacks against oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump Regime Planning War on Iran Based on Big Lies and Deception?

By Stephen Lendman, June 19, 2019

Iran remains the US/Israeli prime target for regime change, the Trump regime waging all-out war by other means, threatening to turn hot because sanctions and related hostile actions haven’t toppled its government for the past 40 years and won’t likely ahead.

Why Russia’s S-400 Is a More Formidable Threat to US Arms Industry than You Think

By Federico Pieraccini, June 19, 2019

Their deployment in Syria has slowed down the ability of such advanced air forces as those of the United States and Israel to target the country, increasing as it does the embarrassing possibility of having their fourth- or fifth-generation fighters shot down.

Who Are the Arsonists of the Petrol Tankers in the Gulf?

By Manlio Dinucci, June 19, 2019

While the United States prepares a new escalation of tension in the Middle East by accusing Iran of attacking petrol tankers in the Gulf of Oman, Italian vice-Prime Minister Matteo Salvini met with one of the artisans of this strategy in Washington, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, assuring him that “Italy wants to regain its place as the major partner on the European continent of the greatest Western democracy”.

“Heightened Tensions With Iran”: Provoking the Bear and the Dragon – And Hoping for the Best?

By Peter Koenig, June 19, 2019

Controlling Iran, means basically controlling not only the entire Middle East with all its riches, but it’s also contributing to the Chosen People’s – Israel, the Zionists’ – overall goal to exert hegemony over the world’s finances – controlling the globe’s economy.

False Identities Become the New Weapon: War with Iran Promoted by Fake Journalists

By Philip Giraldi, June 18, 2019

A prime example of a false internet persona has recently surfaced in the form of an alleged “activist” invented by the Iranian terrorist group Mojahedin e Khalq (MEK).

NATO Consolidation: The “Baltic Reassurance Act” Is a Ruse for Provoking Russia

By Andrew Korybko, June 18, 2019

The proposed “Baltic Reassurance Act” aims to more closely integrate the Baltic countries into NATO, but its most controversial clause is the suggestion that “the United States should lead a multilateral effort to develop a strategy to deepen joint capabilities with [those three countries], NATO allies, and other regional partners”, strongly implying that this legislation is a ruse for provoking Russia by facilitating non-NATO-members Finland and Sweden’s military interoperability with the bloc under the pretext of protecting the Baltics.

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Russia’s “Return to South Asia” was supposed to see it build the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline as a means of promoting peaceful multipolar regional integration, but the US is about to jeopardize this plan after it was disclosed just days before Pompeo’s upcoming visit to India that America has suddenly become the South Asian state’s top trading partner.

Regional integration processes are one of the defining features of the emerging Multipolar World Order, and in spite of India sabotaging the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), there was recently hope that Russia could play a pivotal “balancing” role in reviving this organization through the energy component of its “Return to South Asia“. The Eurasian Great Power envisaged building the long-discussed Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline after having already clinched memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with the first two-mentioned states for this $10 billion regional connectivity initiative , with negotiations currently ongoing with the Indian side to ensure their support as well. Therein lays the weak link in this vision, however, since India is unlikely to go along with Russia’s plans, or if it does unexpectedly end up signing a MOU in this respect, it would only be doing so to buy time and save face before eventually creating a pretext to pull out of the project.

It’s not that India doesn’t need reliable access to gas — it does, and urgently — but that the intense pressure being brought upon it by its new American military-strategic ally might make it impossible for it to seal a deal with Russia, let alone one that would see Moscow guaranteeing the export of Iranian resources to what is predicted to be the world’s most populous country before the end of the next decade. The US has imposed unilateral sanctions against both of those multipolar Great Powers, and India is already complying with the ones against the Islamic Republic. It’s very likely that it will soon do the same when it comes to purchasing Russia’s S-400s, especially if Pompeo’s upcoming trip sees his promised “surprise” being an official offer to place India on its International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) list as a reward for replacing those systems with THAADs, Patriots, and possibly even F-35s instead. Russia can’t offer India the treasure trove of high-tech military equipment that the US could through that arrangement, so it’s a no-brainer which of the two New Delhi will probably go with.

Perhaps the most important factor, however, is that it was just disclosed days before the Secretary of State’s trip that the US is now India’s top trading partner, which Sputnik reports is due to the increase of American energy exports after New Delhi ditched Tehran. Part of the reason why the US wants to replace Russia as India’s preferred military partner just like it’s already succeeded in doing with Iran as regards its target’s energy needs is to more deeply entrench its comprehensive economic influence over the South Asian state so that it can more effectively weaponize the market access on which New Delhi is increasingly growing dependent, leveraging sanctions and tariff threats in order to completely control its new “Lead From Behind” “Indo-Pacific” proxy prior to clinching a forthcoming free trade deal with it to institutionalize this relationship. Seeing as how the US already got India to stop purchasing Iranian energy and might very well get it do to the same when it comes to Russia’s S-400s, it’s extremely unlikely that it would just sit back and accept its new vassal signing a regional pipeline deal with both Great Powers that are under its current international sanctions regime.

The scenario therefore arises that Russia might not be able to rely on India as the largest and final customer of its prospective IPI pipeline, thus compelling it to plan for the possibility of having this project either fully servicing the global pivot state of Pakistan or extending across the country to China via the energy corridor of E-CPEC+. Both solutions are economically and strategically viable, with the latter one understandably being much more expensive but ultimately resulting in the strengthening of the new Multipolar Trilateral between Russia, Pakistan, and China in the event that it’s ever completed. As such, Russia shouldn’t be too concerned about India possibly pulling out of the project or insincerely committing to it for the time being in order to buy time and save face before fully pivoting towards the US since the proverbial “silver lining” is that Moscow’s “Return to South Asia” will inevitably adapt to these changed circumstances and nevertheless still contribute to restoring “balance” to regional affairs in one way or another.

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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.

“Well, friends, that’s it for today. You have to live in uncertainty and get ahead no matter what it takes. A hug as always, full of dreams and hopes.” – Marta

With these words Marta Harnecker bade farewell to all her friends in her last mail on April 24th, after giving us her last brave report on the course of her illness. In these lines lies also her personal philosophy of life: even if we live in uncertainty, our steps must never stop because it is our duty to make this world full of dreams and hopes a reality, where peoples will finally reach justice, peace and full realization.

On Friday June 14, Marta, surely against her will, had to cross the threshold from this concrete plane to that of historical immortality. Her ideas, her tireless proposals for the construction of new worlds, her unshakable faith in the capacity of people to fight against the suffocating forces of the capitalist model and to make a real, substantive democracy prevail from an economic model, aimed at satisfying the material conditions of life for all without exception, are already part of the history of Our-American thought.

That was always the télos of her intellectual trajectory; a thought that was born from the oppressed South and was a forceful counter against the colonizing and exploiting forces of the North. That is why she tirelessly sought the keys to the new paths that would lead us to that world we must build: from her experience of decentralized participatory planning in Kerala, India, to participatory and protagonist democracy, proposed and activated by Hugo Chávez in Venezuela through 21st Century Socialism, and to which Marta Harnecker dedicated her years of greatest intellectual strength.

Along with her beloved companion, Michael Lebowitz, an equally brilliant intellectual mind, Marta managed to sketch to a great extent the coordinates of that world to which all thinkers committed to the struggles of our peoples aspire. In this struggle, we will always have the rich arsenal of ideas that Marta left embodied, even in her last days, in the great number of works she published (and those in preparation) several of which received international recognition through distinctions such as the Liberator Award for Critical Thinking in 2013.

For all these reasons, the Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity, of which Marta Harnecker is one of its founders and was an active participant in all its meetings, forums and public expressions, we honor her. And although today we feel her physical departure, greater is the feeling of being more committed to reinforce the passage that is in transit through the new roads marked by Marta towards that world that between all of us, together with the peoples, we are obliged to build as the only way to safeguard humanity and the planet.

Dear Marta, wherever you are, we join you in an embrace, one full of dreams and hopes.

In Our America, this June 16, 2019.

Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity

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A Political Instrument Appropriate for Each Reality

by Marta Harnecker

A. Why Is a Political Organization Necessary?

1. The recent mobilizations occurring in Latin America and in the world confirm what Lenin wrote in 1914¹: “Without organization the masses lack unity of will” and without that they cannot struggle against the “powerful terrorist military organization” of the Capitalist states.

2. In order for political action to be effective, so that protests, resistance and struggles are genuinely able to change things, to convert mass uprisings into revolutions, a political instrument capable of overcoming the dispersion and fragmentation of the exploited and the oppressed is required: one that can create spaces to bring together those who, in spite of their differences, have a common enemy; that is able to strengthen existing struggles and promote others by orientating their actions according to a thorough analysis of the political situation; that can act as an instrument for cohering the many expressions of resistance and struggle.

3. The history of triumphant revolutions clearly demonstrates what can be achieved when a political instrument exists that is capable of raising an alternative national program to unify the struggles of diverse social actors behind a common goal; that helps them to cohere and that elaborates a path forward for these actors based on an analysis of the existent balance of forces. Only in this manner can actions be carried out at the right place and the right time, always seeking out the weakest link in the enemy’s chain.

4. The political instrument is like a piston in a locomotive which transforms steam power into the motion that is transmitted to the wheels, driving the locomotive forward, and with it, the whole train. Strong organizational cohesion does not alone provide the major objective capacity for acting, but at the same time, it creates an internal climate that makes possible energetic interventions into events, profiting from the opportunities these offer. It must be remembered that in politics one does not only have to be right but one must also be timely and rely on strength to achieve success.

5. On the contrary, not having clear ideas of the reasons to struggle and the feeling of not relying on solid instruments that permit adopted decisions to be put into practice, has a negative influence, resulting in action being paralyzed.

ii) A Workshop for Strategic Thinking

6. A political instrument is required because we need a body that sets the scene for the first draft of a proposal, a program or national project that is an alternative to capitalism. This programme or project serves as a sea chart for finding the way, for making sure we don’t get lost, for putting the construction of socialism on the right road, for not confusing what has to be done now with what has to be done later, for knowing what steps to take and how to take them; in other words, we need a compass to ensure the ship doesn’t run adrift, but rather, reaches its destination safely.

7. This task needs time, research and knowledge of the national and international situation. It is not something that can be improvised overnight, much less so in the complex world in which we live. This project must be set out in a programme that serves as that sea chart we talked about earlier and that becomes something concrete in a national development plan.

8. The initial preparation will always have to be done by the political organization, but I believe we must be very mindful that, as it progresses, this project should be enriched and modified by social practice, with opinions and suggestions from the social actors because, as previously stated, socialism cannot be decreed from on high, it has to be built with the people.

9. Rosa Luxemburg never tired of repeating that the path to socialism was not laid down in advance and that neither were there predetermined formulas and blueprints, since the “modern proletarian class does not conduct its struggle according to any blueprint reproduced in a book or a theory. The modern workers’ struggle is a part of history, a part of social evolution and we learn how we should fight in the midst of history, in the midst of evolution, in the midst of the struggle.”²

10. The political instrument must stimulate a constant debate on the big national issues so that this plan, and the more concrete programs that stem from it, are constantly enriched. I agree with Farruco Sesto that these debates cannot be limited to a simple confrontation of ideas but should “lead to the collective construction of ideas and of answers to the problems […] Arguments added to or raised against other ideas will allow a shared truth to be created.”³

11. The political organization should be – according to Sesto – “a huge workshop for strategic thought, deployed all over the country.” I in particular think that the political instrument should not only encourage an internal debate but should also endeavour to facilitate active participation in spaces for public debate – such as those we have previously mentioned – on subjects of more general interest in which all concerned citizens can take part.

12. For this reason, I find myself once again in agreement with Farruco that since the party is not something apart from the people but rather has to make “its life within the people” the ideal place for this debate is “in the bosom of the popular movement.” Moreover, “if one of the strategic lines of the revolution is to transfer power to the people, that implies transferring not only the ability to take decisions but also that of working out the bases for that decision [because] producing ideas and making clear the road to take is the most important activity in the exercise of power.”

iii) A Guide that Details the Steps to be Followed

13. The political instrument is necessary, not only to coordinate the popular movement and promote theoretical thinking, but also for defining strategy. A political guide is needed that details the steps to be followed for implementing proposed theory, in conjunction with the analysis of the existing correlation of forces. Only in this way can actions be launched at the most opportune time and place, always seeking the weakest link in the opponent’s chain, taking advantage of the steam contained in the boiler at the decisive moment, converting it into an impelling force, and avoiding it being wasted. Of course, as Trotsky said, what moves things is not the piston, but the steam; that is the energy that surges from mobilized masses.

14. And if a political instrument is necessary for success in taking power, it is also fundamental in the construction of the new society, an alternative to Capitalism, as we spoke about before.

B. Overcoming the Subjective Block

15. We are aware that there are a number of apprehensions toward such ideas. There are many who are not even willing to discuss them. Such positions are adopted because they associate this idea with the anti-democratic, authoritarian, bureaucratic and manipulative political practices that have characterized many left-wing parties.

16. I believe that it is very important to overcome this subjective block because I am convinced, as I said earlier, that there can be no effective struggle against the current system of domination, nor can an alternative socialist society be built, without the existence of a body capable of bringing all the actors together and of unifying their will for action around the goals they set.

17. It is paradoxical that Hardt and Negri who admit that we live in a ‘global state of war’, that the full democracy we want has yet to be built, who justify the use of violence as self-defence against imperial power, who say that the multitude, “is a project of political organization and thus can be achieved only through political practices,”⁴ and that “the multitude must be able to make decisions and act in common,” do not accept the idea, however, that there should be a “central point of command and intelligence”⁵ and have no suggestions whatsoever of how to implement the decisions taken by common action.

C. Why a Political Instrument and not A Political Party

i) Lenin Against a Universal Vision

18. Owing to the growing disparagement of politics and politicians, many people tend to reject the term ‘party’. That is why I prefer to speak of the political instrument.

19. But this is not the only reason; there is a more fundamental reason that seeks to emphasize the instrumental character that all political revolutionary organizations have to have.

20. If what is at issue is the leading of the struggle of popular sectors, organizational questions cannot become the objective itself, just a tool that enables this objective to be reached.

21. And the form which this struggle takes depends on the reality of each country. One cannot have a single formula for the organization; it must be defined to fit the characteristics of each social reality.

22. Contrary to many of his followers in their first attempts to create a revolutionary party in Russia, Lenin was absolutely clear that it was not a question of developing a universal formula. He knew well how European social democracy, functioning under bourgeois democratic regimes, was organized: in order to fight electorally, it was organized into strong legal parties; therefore, their characteristics could not be transferred mechanically to czarist Russia, whose autocratic regime prevented all open revolutionary political organizations. And neither could the model of the old Russian clandestine revolutionary organizations be used, although it was necessary to learn from them about certain conspiracy techniques.

23. What was to be done to create a revolutionary party in Russia – a country in which a terrorist state existed, which relied on a very minimal, highly concentrated and very combative working class? According to the Bolshevik leader, what had to be done was to create a closed party of disciplined militants – true revolutionary groups – and with them go “in meeting with the spontaneous movements of popular sectors, or more precisely, the proletariat of the factories, to create an organization for this movement which was necessary for the conditions” of the country.⁶

ii) The Third International and the Communist Parties

24. For Lenin, it was absolutely clear that there is no universal formula. He always saw the party as the political subject par excellence of social transformation, as the instrument that would provide political direction to the class struggle – a struggle that always takes place under specific historical, political and social conditions. He therefore believed that the party’s organic structure should be adapted to the reality of each country, and modified according to the concrete demands of struggle.

25. These early ideas of Lenin were ratified at the 3rd Congress of the Communist International in 1921. In one of his works⁷ he argues the following: “There is no absolute form of organization which is correct for Communist Parties at all times. The conditions of the proletarian class struggle are constantly changing, and so, the proletarian vanguard has always to be looking for effective forms of organization. Equally, each Party must develop its own special forms of organization to meet the particular historically-determined conditions within the country.”

26. Nevertheless, in spite of the International’s instructions, communist parties in practice followed a single model in spite of the differences between the countries where they were founded.

27. That could be explained in some way if two criteria are taken into account that Lenin considered of universal application. The first referred to the concept of the revolutionary party as a party of the working class and the second, the demand that in order to belong to the Communist International, each one of these parties must necessarily adopt the name Communist Party.

28. Such assumptions were applied dogmatically by the Latin American section of the International, whose influence was extremely damaging. Their leaders devotedly copied formulas invented for an undifferentiated Third World and ignored the specificities of Latin American countries. We don’t have to go too far back to be reminded of the problems Mariátegui faced when he did not respect the International’s decision about the name of the working class party he founded; he called it the Socialist Party and not Communist Party, a prerequisite for joining the International.

iii) Important Popular Sectors are Ignored

29. The acritical emphasis placed on the working class led to Latin America parties ignoring the specific characteristics of that continent’s revolutionary social subject and to not understanding the role that indigenous people and Christians can play in revolutions in Latin American.

30. It is obvious that, at this time in our countries, the popular struggle is developing in very different circumstances from those of czarist Russia. But it is also obvious that Venezuela is not Cuba nor Nicaragua, nor is Bolivia the same as Ecuador. In each country, there are different circumstances that mediate the strategy and modify the forms of popular struggle. Consequently, I do not believe it is useful to propose a template with a formal structure that the revolutionary instrument would have to be.

31. The mistake of many parties and movements in Latin America is that they have prioritized the problem of organizational structure over the needs of the struggle, when it ought to be the reverse.

32. One way in which this can be seen has been the tendency to apply very sophisticated forms of organization that do not correspond to the development of the revolutionary movement itself, copying them from other experiences that very few see as their own. One extreme deviation of some groups of the Left in Latin America, defining themselves in favour of armed struggle, was that of creating structures and military rule without possessing any military force.

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Marta Harnecker (1937 – 2019) is originally from Chile, where she participated in the revolutionary process of 1970-1973. She has written extensively on the Cuban Revolution and on the nature of socialist democracy. She lived in Caracas and was a participant in the Venezuelan revolution. Her latest book is A World to Build: New Paths toward Twenty-First Century Socialism.

Notes

1. V. I. Lenin, “The Collapse of the Second International,” Ch. 6.
2. Rosa Luxemburg, “The Politics of Mass Strikes and Unions.”
3. Farruco Sesto, Que Viva el Debate!
4. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire, New York: Penguin, 2004, p.226.
5. Ibid p. 222.
6. V.I. Lenin, “Our Immediate Task,” 1899.
7. V.I. Lenin, “Thesis on the Structure, Methods and Action of Communist Parties,” in Alan Adler (ed.), Theses, Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congresses of the Third International.

Scientists say there is no acceptable dose to avoid brain damage. Its use is banned in several European countries. Yet its residues are found in fruit baskets, on dinner plates, and in human urine samples from all over Europe. Now producers are pushing for a renewed EU approval – perhaps in vain.

The name is chlorpyrifos. Here is why the chemical and its risks are almost unknown to the public.

Chlorpyrifos kills insects on growing vegetables and fruit.

Thomas Backhaus, professor for ecotoxicology and environmental science at the University of Gothenburg, says that the substance took a long time to be recognised as one of the “nasty” ones.

Image on the right: Philippe Grandjean, professor in environmental medicine at the University of Southern Denmark and Harvard School of Public Health in the US, notes that brain damage connected to chlorpyrifos have been found at the lowest detectable dose (Photo: Marcos Garcia Rey)

“In comparison with glyphosate, the active substance in Roundup, chlorpyrifos has been flying under the radar. When we talk of herbicides like glyphosate that kill weed humans can cope because we don’t have chlorophyll and don’t get directly affected. When we talk about insecticides, you have the problem that they affect all developing animals, including humans,” he says.

Backhaus’ concerns are well known in academic circles and shared by other researchers.

Philippe Grandjean, professor in environmental medicine at the University of Southern Denmark and Harvard School of Public Health in the US, notes that brain damage connected to chlorpyrifos have been found at the lowest detectable dose.

“That means by definition that you can’t define a dose tolerable for consumption – that dose must be zero,” he says.

The poisonous effect of chlorpyrifos on insects is not disputed.

The unresolved question is to what extent the usage of chlorpyrifos is dangerous to all living organisms like fish in nearby waters or farm workers in the fields, or to anybody eating the treated products.

The spread

Tests of food samples in all EU countries in 2016 show chlorpyrifos and chlorpyrifos-methyl in 5.5 percent of the 76,200 samples, as recorded by EU institution EFSA (European Food Safety Agency).

If we look only at randomly-sampled unprocessed plant based food products in EU, the percentage is 6.2 according to Pesticide Action Network Europe.

In the samples recorded by the EFSA, 847 contained chlorpyrifos or chlorpyrifos-methyl above the Maixmal Residue Limit (MRL).

However environmental scientists believe residue levels for chlorpyrifos should be zero.

In countries where the use of chlorpyrifos is banned the pesticide nevertheless reaches consumers through the free movement of goods in the internal market.

In 2013, Swedish researchers reported findings of chlorpyrifos and other pesticides in urine from middle-aged women, a group with a high intake of fruits and vegetables.

Chlorpyrifos has never been registered for agricultural use in Sweden.

In 2016, studies for the Danish ministry of environment found chlorpyrifos in the urine from nine out of ten children and their mothers.

The researchers suggested a possible connection between chlorpyrifos and development of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).

In Wallonia, the French-speaking part of Belgium, the Public Service Scientific Institute in 2018 found residues of chlorpyrifos in 100 percent of urine samples from 258 schoolchildren aged 9-12.

A recent study in California connect autism and early brain damage in children with prenatal and infant exposure of chlorpyrifos.

A child’s risk of brain damage increases if its mother had been exposed to the pesticide by living nearby sprayed fields, the study found.

The Californian study published in March 2019 has triggered a ban of chlorpyrifos in the US’s largest agricultural state. Five other US states; Hawaii, Oregon, New York, Connecticut and New Jersey have announced or decided similar bans.

On a federal level a ban on chlorpyrifos has been blocked by the Trump administration since 2017.

In April 2019, a court ordered the US Environmental Protection Agency to decide by mid-July if it will permanently ban the chemical.

The European confusion

In Europe the scientific debate over chlorpyrifos is hardly known outside expert circles and the decision process about allowing or banning pesticides is difficult to track and to follow.

EU countries follow common decisions on whether to approve a substance like chlorpyrifos or not.

Chlorpyrifos has been approved on an EU-level since 2006 while decisions to allow products with the active substance, and the use of them, are up to the member states.

Eight member states have banned, or never authorised the use of chlorpyrifos products: Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia and Sweden.

The United Kingdom banned the use of chlorpyrifos, with one exception, in 2016. Chlorpyrios is not authorised in Norway, nor in Iceland. The Swiss government decided to withdraw permissions for 12 chlorpyrifos and chlorpyrifos-methyl products 12 June, according to newspaper Tagblatt.

As goods within the EU are supposed to move freely across national borders, treated food thus gets spread around. That’s why consumers might find vegetables and fruit treated with chlorpyrifos in their grocery stores even if such treatment has never been allowed in the country.

A pan-European alert system has been set up for national authorities to notify other authorities on findings of hazardous food. These alerts often come after suspicious products have been sold – and consumed.

How companies have a say

Evaluation of possible health and environmental hazards are primarily based on studies paid for by the producers.

In the case of chlorpyrifos the main producer has been Dow Chemicals, now Corteva Agriscience, the agricultural division of DowDuPont. Corteva Agriscience turned into a standalone company on 1 June 2019.

“The producers’ role is obvious and well known to the scientific community. The present EU assessment of chlorpyrifos is to a large extent based on hundreds of studies financed and submitted by Dow,” says Axel Mie, associate professor at the Karolinska Institute, Department of Clinical Science and Education, Stockholm.

With colleagues Christina Ruden and Philippe Grandjean, Mie has initiated a scientific debate.

The three environmental scientists claim that data from Dow Chemicals’ own research back in 2000 actually showed that chlorpyrifos has an impact of the development of cerebellum (‘little brain’) in rats. These findings had however not been recorded in the conclusions filed to the EU authorities.

The scientists behind the criticised studies reject these claims. They argue the loss of brain weight in rats can be explained by the brains’ fixation in formaldehyde before being measured, and that no pesticide control product has been more thoroughly evaluated.

In the debate published by scientific journal Environmental Health, where Grandjean is one of the editors-in-chief, the defenders of chlorpyrifos first stated they had no competing interests.

In a correction posted in May 2019, they declared that at the time of their submission to the journal, they were employed by Dow Chemicals, the primary registrant and manufacturer of chlorpyrifos.

Corteva Agriscience responds

We have asked Corteva Agriscience for comments on the allegations above specified in the following questions:

1. Is the description of the debate in Environmental Health accurate?

2. Was the hiding of the employment status of the scientists an intentional omission? Could it have been handled differently to minimise perceptions of impropriety?

3. How does Corteva see challenges with the current system where companies finance research that the US, EU and others base decision on?

4. Does Corteva have any other comments about criticism from environmental scientists and NGOs opposing its products, or comments you want to make on the benefits of protecting all kinds of crops.

From its headquarters in Johnston, Illinois, US, Corteva Agriscience chose to answer with two statements in writing:

“Chlorpyrifos is one of the most widely studied crop protection products in the world and is currently registered in roughly 100 countries, including the US, all major US trading partners and in the EU. Policy should be driven by sound science and data and follow a predictable and transparent regulatory review process.

“Labelled uses of chlorpyrifos rest on five decades of experience in use, health surveillance of manufacturing workers and applicators, and more than 4,000 studies and reports examining the product in terms of health, safety and the environment.”

Not for us to know

The present EU approval of chlorpyrifos expires on 31 January 2020. This could indicate the story of chlorpyrifos is coming to an end.

Yet that is not necessarily the case.

Market analysts project that the sale of chlorpyrifos will see significant growth in the next five years, according to Persistance Market Research which will release a new report in August.

Experts from EU member countries Spain and Poland have since May 2017 prepared a reassessment of chlorpyrifos and related chlorpyrifos-methyl for a possible new acceptance in the autumn, before the present approval ends.

There are five companies producing chlorpyrifos registered in Spain including Dow, now Corteva.

One of the five is FMC Corporation which until 2016 manufactured chlorpyrifos at its plant Cheminova in Denmark where chlorpyrifos is not allowed to use.

The bulk of a draft reassessment report has been open for comments. It consists of some thousand pages filling close to 90 megabits of data when downloaded from the homepage of EFSA (European Food Safety Agency).

Not all of it is readable though. The proposed decision by Spain and Poland is not accessible, as it has been redacted.

This redaction of central information is done by EFSA which has the job of preparing the forthcoming EU decision.

The redacted document

But is EFSA legally justified in keeping this information under wraps? The Aarhus convention, a pan-European UN-convention from 1998, has been binding EU-law since 2003.

This law says information related to emissions to the environment must not be withheld on the ground of protecting commercial interests.

This was underlined by the EU court in Luxembourg in March 2019. The court said information concerning the herbicide glyphosate, known under the product name Roundup, could not be held back by EFSA.

The anonymous lawmakers

On top of the known spread, the scientists’ warnings, the producers’ role, and the restricted public information there is one more aspect of chlorpyrifos to be decided; what the EU will decide – either to ban, or to approve, the future for the disputed pesticide.

Followers of EU politics will know the two legislative institutions are the EU Council, representing the member states, and the European Parliament representing the peoples of Europe. This does not apply for approval of pesticides.

Here the final decision will be taken by a committee of national experts on the suggestion of the European Commission, a non-elected body of civil servants.

Lithuanian Vytenis Andriukaitis is commissioner for health and food safety. Below him is the commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety headed by Anne Bucher, and below her the directorate for health and food audits and analysis, and so on.

The actual evaluation of chlorpyrifos will be done by the unit for pesticides and biocides, at the sixth level from the top in the hierarchy.

“But, other directorate-general will also be consulted before the final decision, ” says an EU commission spokesperson.

This committee can reject the commission’s proposal if its members can form the necessary majority. Should that happen the commissions can turn to an appeal committee for a re-assessment.

At the time of writing it is known when meetings are scheduled for the relevant committee. The agenda for these meetings is not.

We are not supposed to know who the participants in these meetings are. What suggestion they will be asked to consider is still unknown.

Nevertheless, a commission source indicates that “The commission won’t go forward with the renewal of the authorisation because the health concerns are very clear”.

The NGO Pan Europe told us: “We’ve heard in the corridor that chlorpyrifos doesn’t meet the approval criteria”.

EU system alerts consumers – after they have eaten

Documents released to us indicate that the EU-wide reporting system called RASFF (Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed) gives European consumers a weak protection, if any.

In April 2018, Austria notified 19 other countries of imported basmati rice from Pakistan that contained chlorpyrifos in a level deemed to pose a serious risk to human health.

The rice was withdrawn from the market by importers in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands.

In Switzerland, Sweden, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and parts of Italy, the rice was nevertheless reported sold – and most likely consumed – in spite of the alerts in the RASFF system. This was shown in a detailed RASFF report, not detectable in the public RASFF portal run by the European Commission.

Civil servants working with RASFF say the system is aimed to inform other EU-states of potential risks but not designed to detect shortcomings of control. The responsibility for safe products always lays with importers and resellers, we are told.

They also point out that alerts go to the national food safety authorities, while the work in the field like inspections often is done at the municipal level. This creates yet another time lag between alerts and consequences.

Ingunn Haarstad Gudmundsdottir, senior adviser at the Norwegian Food Agency, Mattilsynet, notes:

“When fresh fruit, berries and vegetables are tested randomly the batches are often already sold and consumed when we get the results from the laboratory analysis.”

This observation is echoed by Philippe Grandjean professor in environmental medicine:

“The sad thing about the Danish Food Authority’s control is that the food is eaten at the time the analysis is made, and if the three percent [of chlorpyrifos findings in food samples] in Denmark is representative, then it must mean that there is thus three percent of our products which are in fact unsuitable for human consumption, ” he says.

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Featured image: Spanish vegetable growing in El Ejido, Almeria province. Chlorpyrifos has been approved on an EU level since 2006 – but eight states have banned, or never authorised, its use: Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia and Sweden (Photo: Marcos Garcia Rey)

The political party of Juan Guaido — Voluntad Popular (Popular Will) — was never all that popular to begin with. The sixth largest political party in Venezuela, Popular Will is heavily financed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Now, a recently exposed embezzlement scandal in Colombia risks to further alienate the party from the Venezuelan people.

What was supposed to be Guaido’s watershed moment has instead turned out to be a public-relations failure far worse than his quickly quelled attempted military coup, which MintPress News reported caused even the New York Times to describe Guaido as “deflated.”

What happened in Colombia appears to be so damning that not only is the Colombian intelligence service leaking documents exposing wrongdoing by Popular Will representatives appointed by Guaido, but the Organization of American States (OAS) — which is typically just as pro-opposition as the Colombian government — has called for an investigation.

In a tweet issued June 14 at 10:47 p.m. Venezuela time, Guaido called on his ambassador to Colombia — whom he had shut out of the aid event — to formally request an investigation by Colombian authorities, whose already-existing investigation is the reason the story came out in the first place. That was more than four hours after Secretary General of the OAS Luis Almagro called for an investigation that would clarify the “serious charges,” identify those responsible and effectuate accountability.

But Guaido had already been well aware of the charges, having dismissed his appointees who appear to be ringleaders of the embezzlement scheme. According to the report, he was contacted by the journalist who exposed the scandal 30 days before the story was published.

What happened in Cúcuta isn’t staying in Cúcuta

There’s barely a peep about the scandal in the Western press. A Google News search for “Juan Guaido scandal” and “Popular Will scandal” turned up nothing of relevance at the time of this article’s writing. But on Latin America social media, everyone is buzzing about it. American journalist Dan Cohen appears to be the first to highlight the scandal to an English-speaking audience.

It started with a request from Juan Guaido to billionaire investor and regime-change enthusiast Richard Branson.

Associates of Venezuelan coup frontman Juan Guaidó embezzled funds raised in Cúcuta, Colombia for humanitarian aid and lavishly spent it on hotels, nightclubs and expensive clothes. This is a monumental scandal! Great work by @OrlvndoA. https://t.co/W8Rm3o306N

— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) June 15, 2019

The stated purpose of the concert was to help raise funds for humanitarian aid and spotlight the economic crisis. At least that’s how it was billed to Americans. To Venezuela’s upper class, it was touted as the “trendiest concert of the decade.”

It was to be a congregation of the elite with the ostensible purpose of raising funds for the poor. One director of Popular Will told Vice News in 2014 that “the bulk of the opposition protesters are from the middle and upper classes and are led by Venezuela’s elite.” The class character of the opposition has not changed since.

Meanwhile, USAID was to coordinate the delivery of aid alongside Guaido; and Elliot Abrams, who in Guatemala used “humanitarian aid” as cover for the delivery of weapons into the country, is running the White House’s policies toward Venezuela. And so the aid was widely criticized, even by the International Red Cross, as politicized. By others, it was called a Trojan Horse.

The concert was held in Colombia across a bridge linking the country to Venezuela. International media had claimed Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro had the bridge shut down to prevent the delivery of aid, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded that the “Maduro regime must LET THE AID REACH THE STARVING PEOPLE.” But the bridge, in fact, has never been opened for use.

Nonetheless, Richard Branson sought to raise $100 million and promised that Guiado “will be coming to the other side of the bridge with maybe a million of his supporters.” In the end, it was a little more than 200,000 who came.

Meanwhile, Guaido told the President of Colombia, Ivan Duque, that more than 1,450 soldiers had defected from the military to join them. But that figure was also inflated. A new report by PanAmPress, a Miami-based libertarian newspaper, reveals that it was just 700. “You can count on your fingers the number of decent soldiers who are there,” one local told the outlet.

Despite the low turnout, organizers lived it up in Colombia. Representatives from Popular Will, which rejects the socialist leadership of Venezuela, found themselves living like socialites across the border.

There were earlier signs of excess and debauchery. One Popular Will representative was hospitalized and his assistant found dead after overdosing while taking drugs with prostitutes, although Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) claims they were poisoned.

FyreFest walked so Richard Branson's aid concert could run. https://t.co/ZBaDaFq9Wm

— celine and julie go bowling 🌈 (@MissPavIichenko) June 15, 2019

The inflated soldier count meant more funds for the organizers, who were charged with putting them up in hotel rooms. Guaido’s “army was small but at this point it had left a very bad impression in Cucuta. Prostitutes, alcohol, and violence. They demanded and demanded,” the report said.

They also left a bad taste in the mouth of the authorities. The Colombian government was supposed to pay for some of the hotels, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees was to cover the costs of others, while Guaido’s people were only going to pony up the cash for two of the seven hotels.

But Popular Will never paid, leaving one hotel with a debt of $20,000. When the situation became completely untenable, the hotel kicked 65 soldiers and their families to the curb. One soldier anonymously told the outlet that the party was not taking care of their financial needs as promised.

Guaido’s ambassador to Colombia took money out of his own pocket to try to resolve the dispute, but the check bounced.

The responsibility of taking care of the needs of the defectors went to Popular Will militants Rossana Barrera and Kevin Rojas, as decreed by Juan Guaido in a signed statement. They were also charged with overseeing the humanitarian aid.

Barrera is the sister-in-law of Popular Will member of Congress Sergio Vargara, Guaido’s right-hand man. She and Rojas were managing all the funds.

But the pair started to live well outside their means, a Colombian intelligence source told the outlet.

“They gave me all the evidence,” writes PanAmPress reporter Orlando Avendano. “Receipts that show excesses, some strangely from different check books, signed the same day but with identical writing styles.”

Rojas and Berrera were spending nearly a thousand dollars at a time in the hotels and nightclubs. Similar amounts were spent at times on luxurious dinners and fancy drinks. They went on clothes shopping sprees at high-end retail outlets in the capital. They reportedly overcharged the fund on vehicle rentals and the hotels, making off with the extra cash. Berrera even told Popular Will that she was paying for all seven hotels, not just the two. And they provided Guaido with the fake figure of more than 1,450 military defectors that needed accommodation.

In order to keep the funds flowing, Rojas and Berrera pitched a benefit dinner for the soldiers to Guiado’s embassy in Colombia. But when the embassy refused to participate, Berrera created a fake email address posing as a representative of the embassy, sending invitations to Israeli and U.S. diplomats. They canceled the event after Guaido’s embassy grew wise to the scheme and alerted those invited.

“The whole government of Colombia knew about it: the intelligence community, the presidency, and the foreign ministry,” writes PanAmPress, calling it an “open secret” by the time Guaido dismissed the pair.

But that was after Guaido had been defending them staunchly, trying to avoid a firing by transferring responsibilities to the embassy.

Berrera was called to the embassy for a financial audit, represented by Luis Florido, a founding member of Popular Will. She turned in just a fraction of the records uncovered by Colombian intelligence, accounting for only $100,000 in expenditures. “The [real] amount is large,” the outlet reports, citing an intelligence agent who says far more was blown.

Meanwhile, “at least 60 percent of the food donated” by foreign governments “was damaged.”

“The food is rotten, they tell me,” the PanAmPress reporter said, adding that he was shown photographs. “They don’t know how to deal with it without causing a scandal. I suppose they will burn it.”

It isn’t yet known exactly how much was embezzled by Popular Will, but it is likely the truth will come out in due time, and more investigations are likely underway. On Monday, Venezuelan defectors said they will hold a press conference in Cucuta, showcasing more corruption by Popular Will. For now, however, the fallout remains to be seen.

Guaidone?

One thing is certain: the scandal threatens to end Juan Guaido’s 15 minutes of fame. The de facto opposition leader had little name recognition inside Venezuela and never won a political position with more than 100,000 votes behind him. But the overnight sensation never had a lengthy life expectancy anyway.

Though he received so few votes (Venezuela’s population is nearly 32 million), Guaido became the president of the National Assembly because the body is controlled by a coalition of opposition groups, despite President Nicolas Maduro’s PSUV Party being the largest in the country. That was in January, and the length of the term lasts only one year. In 2015, the opposition coalition decided that after each term, the seat would be rotated to a representative of a different opposition party. While there is no law barring Guaido from being appointed president of the National Assembly again, tradition runs counter to it and another party may want to seize on a chance to get into the limelight.

Supporters of the coup — and Guaido’s self-declaration as interim president — claim that Maduro is derelict of his duties, which justifies a transition of presidential power according to the constitution. But the article that allows for such a transition in certain cases stipulates that ”a new election by universal suffrage and direct ballot shall be held within 30 consecutive days.”

To date, Guaido has run 145 days past his deadline to have elections held, and the opposition has made it clear they are not willing to accept new elections if Maduro runs.

This, of course, makes little dent in Guaido’s legitimacy in the eyes of the U.S. and other countries that have recognized his presidency. U.S. allies in Latin America have shown over the past few years that they have little regard for the sanctity of their constitutions. In 2017, a U.S.-backed candidate in Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, ran for re-election in explicit violation of that country’s constitution and only wound up winning through fraud. Last week, Ecuador made the decision to allow the U.S. military to operate from an airfield in the Galapagos Islands despite a constitutional provision stating that the “establishment of foreign military bases or foreign facilities for military purposes shall not be allowed.”

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Alexander Rubinstein is a staff writer for MintPress News based in Washington, DC. He reports on police, prisons and protests in the United States and the United States’ policing of the world. He previously reported for RT and Sputnik News.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced so-called “emergency” approvals today to spray sulfoxaflor — an insecticide it considers “very highly toxic” to bees — on nearly 14 million acres of crops known to attract bees.

The approval includes 2019 crops of cotton and sorghum in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Ten of the 11 states have been granted the approvals for at least four consecutive years for the same “emergency.” Five have been given approvals for at least six consecutive years.

“The only emergency here is the Trump EPA’s reckless approval of this dangerous bee-killing pesticide,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s sickening that even amid the current insect apocalypse, the EPA’s priority is protecting pesticide industry profits.”

The approvals include 5.8 million acres in Texas, which is home to more than 800 species of native bees. Monarch butterflies and eight species of bumblebees, including the rare American bumblebee and variable cuckoo bumblebee, live in Texas counties where cotton or sorghum are grown.

The EPA may approve temporary emergency uses of pesticides, including unapproved pesticides, if it determines they are needed to prevent the spread of an unexpected outbreak of insects.

But the agency has routinely abused this authority, as chronicled in the Center’s report, Poisonous Process: How the EPA’s Chronic Misuse of ‘Emergency’ Pesticide Exemptions Increases Risks to Wildlife. The report found that the alleged “emergencies” cited are foreseeable occurrences.

Last year the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General released a report finding that the agency’s practice of routinely granting “emergency” approval for pesticides across millions of acres does not effectively measure risks to human health or the environment.

In response to a lawsuit by beekeepers, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the EPA’s original registration of sulfoxaflor in 2015. The EPA’s 2016 registration for sulfoxaflor — purportedly designed to ensure essentially no exposure to bees — excluded crops like cotton and sorghum that are attractive to bees.

“The Trump EPA is allowing potentially catastrophic harm to imperiled insect populations,” said Burd. “It’s hard to imagine how much more evidence could possibly be needed for the agency to wake up to the damage they are causing.”

A study published last year in Nature found that sulfoxaflor exposure even at low doses had severe consequences for bumblebee reproduction. The authors cautioned against the EPA’s current trajectory of replacing older neonicotinoids with nearly identical insecticides like sulfoxaflor. A major study published earlier this year found that more than 41 percent of the world’s insect species are on the fast track to extinction, and that a “serious reduction in pesticide usage” is key to preventing their extinction.

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In 1965 songwriter PF Sloan wrote the lyrics for ‘Eve of Destruction’. The most famous recording was by singer Barry McGuire in the summer of that same year. Some of the lyrics obviously address the issue of the Cold War between the US, Russia  and China, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and the thrust for integration in the South. Other of the song’s lyrics seem to be timeless:

Don’t you understand what I’m trying to say?
Can you feel the fears that I’m feeling today?
If the button is pushed there’s no running away
There’ll be no one to save with the world in a grave.
Take a look around you boy, it’s bound to scare you boy
And you tell me over and over again my friend
That you DON’T believe we’re on the eve of destruction.

 Yeah, my blood’s so mad, feels like coagulatin
I’m sittin here just contemplatin
I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation
Handful of Senators don’t pass legislation
When human respect is disintegratin
The whole crazy world is just too frustratin… 

The poundin of the drums, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead but don’t leave a trace
Hate your next door neighbor, but don’t forget to say grace…
No, you don’t believe we’re on the EVE OF DESTRUCTION!

Since that song came out in the mid 60s this empire of ours has gotten more and more bold. The Vietnam debacle forced the movers and shakers of this republic, the economic and military predators, to take a pause to regroup.

Boy, did they ever?

By the time Bush Sr. took over a White House that he most likely ran for the eight years under Reagan, the Cold War seemed to be over. The infamous Berlin Wall came down and even the (controlled) mainstream media talked about a “Peace Dividend”. Imagine, money that usually went down the rabbit hole of Pentagon spending could now be redirected for things like better infrastructure, better schools and of course maybe even viable National Health Care for ALL. Sorry!

The bag of (dirty) tricks was opened up and whallah we had the “new Hitler”, Saddam Hussein, as villain number one. You see, he made the error of listening to Ambassador April Glaspie who assured him that the US does not get involved in disputes between two other nations. One must also think that Glaspie got Hussein to buy a piece of a bridge in Brooklyn.

Image Rumsfeld and Saddam (1980s)

Fast forward to 11 years later in 2002, when once again Saddam Hussein, with his (invisible) WMDs, had us all on another ‘Eve of Destruction’ watch list. Well, we all know how the Bush Jr./Cheney gang took care of that problem.

History then instructs us that from that phony war on Iraq, our illegal invasions and occupations of both Afghanistan and Iraq, our carpet bombing of Libya and now our intrusions into Syria, the tens of thousands of terrorists we helped create and nurture are here to stay. Thus, another ‘Eve of Destruction’ takes away our focus from what really ails our republic. Factor in the new (phony) threats from Iran and Venezuela and you have great fodder for the National Security State to chomp on.

Oh, did I forget the new Cold War with the same old players from bomb shelters past: The Russkies and the Chinks?

What better way to keep the suckers feeding on the pabulum of money for security and not for a better life for all Americans?

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Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust and Off Guardian sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 300 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid‘ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at [email protected].

Featured image is from teleSUR

Food is not a commodity. It is not ‘stuff’ put together mechanically and artificially in labs and factories. Food is life.

Food holds the contributions of all beings that make the food web, and it holds the potential for maintaining and regenerating the web of life.

Food also holds the potential for health and disease, depending on how it was grown and processed. Food is therefore the living currency of the web of life. 

Industrial agriculture 

As an ancient Upanishad reminds us: “Everything is food, everything is something else’s food.” Good food is the basis for good health. But bad food, industrial food, fake food is the basis for disease.”

Hippocrates said: “Let food be thy medicine”. In Ayurveda, India’s ancient science of life, food is called ‘sarvausadha’ the medicine that cures all disease.

Industrial food systems have reduced food to a commodity, to ‘stuff’ that can then be constituted in the lab. In the process both the planet’s health and our health has been nearly destroyed.

As much as 75 percent of the planetary destruction of soil, water, biodiversity, and 50 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from industrial agriculture, which also contributes to 75 percent of food related chronic diseases.

Chemical agriculture does not return organic matter and fertility to the soil. Instead it is contributing to desertification and land degradation. It also demands more water since it destroys the soil’s natural water-holding capacity.

Food security

Industrial food systems have destroyed the biodiversity of the planet both through the spread of monocultures, and through the use of toxics and poisons that are killing bees, butterflies, insects, birds, and leading to the sixth mass extinction. 

Biodiversity-intensive and poison-free agriculture, on the other hand, produces more nutrition per acre while rejuvenating the planet. It shows the path to Zero Hunger in times of climate change. 

The industrial agriculture and toxic food model has been promoted as the only answer to economic and food security. However, globally, more than a billion people are hungry. More than three billion suffer from food-related chronic diseases. 

Industrial agriculture is based on fossil-fuel intensive, chemical-intensive monocultures, and produces only 30 percent of the food we eat despite using 75 percent of farmed land. Meanwhile, small, biodiverse farms using 25 percent of that land provides 70 percent of the food.

At this rate, if the share of industrial agriculture and industrial food in our diet is increased to 45 percent, we will have a dead planet. One with with no life and no food.

GM

The mad rush for fake food and fake meat is a recipe for accelerating the destruction of the planet and our health. It’s ignorant of the diversity of our foods and food cultures, and the role of biodiversity in maintaining the our health.

Pat Brown, CEO and founder of Impossible Foods, stated in a recent article, ‘How our commitment to consumers and our planet led us to use GM soy’, that: 

“We sought the safest and most environmentally responsible option that would allow us to scale our production and provide the Impossible Burger to consumers at a reasonable cost.” 

Using GMO soya is hardly an “environmentally responsible option” given the fact that 90 percent of monarch butterflies have disappeared due to pesticides including Roundup Ready Crops, and we are living through what scientists have called an ‘insectageddon’.

In writing this, Pat Brown reveals his total ignorance that weeds have evolved resistance to Roundup and have become superweeds now requiring more and more lethal herbicides.

Bill Gates and DARPA are even calling for the use of gene drives to exterminate amaranth, a sacred and nutritious food in India, because the Palmer Amaranth has become a superweed in the Roundup Ready soya fields of the USA.

At a time when the global movement to ban GMOs and Roundup is growing, promoting GMO soya as ‘fake meat’ is misleading the eater both in terms of the ontology of the burger, and on claims of safety.

Ontological confusion 

Recent court cases have showcased the links of Roundup to cancer. With the build up of liabilities related to cancer cases, the investments in Roundup Ready GMO soya is blindness to the market.

There is another ontological confusion related to fake food. Fake meat is about selling meat-like products.

Pat Brown declares: 

“We use genetically engineered yeast to produce heme, the ‘magic’ molecule that makes meat taste like meat — and makes the Impossible Burger the only plant-based product to deliver the delicious explosion of flavor and aroma that meat-eating consumers crave.”

I had thought that the plant based diet was for vegans and vegetarians, not meat lovers.

Indeed, the promotion of fake foods seems to have more to do with giving new life to the failing GMO agriculture and the Junk Food Industry, and the threat to it from our increasing awareness that organic, local, fresh food regenerates the planet and our health.

In consequence, investment in plant-based food companies has soared from near zero in 2009 to $600m by 2018. And these companies are looking for more.

Profits and control

Pat Brown declares:

 “If there’s one thing that we know, it’s that when an ancient unimprovable technology counters a better technology that is continuously improvable, it’s just a matter of time before the game is over. I think our investors see this as a $3 trillion opportunity.”

This is about profits and control. He, and those jumping on the Fake Food Goldrush, have no discernible knowledge, or consciousness about, or compassion for living beings, the web of life, nor the role of living food in weaving that web.

Their sudden awakening to ‘plant-based diets’, including GMO soya, is an ontological violation of food as a living system that connects us to the ecosystem and other beings, and indicates ignorance of the diversity of cultures that have used a diversity of plants in their diets.

Ecological sciences have been based on the recognition of the interconnections and interrelatedness between humans and nature, between diverse organisms, and within all living systems, including the human body. Ecology has thus evolved as a systems science, not a fragmented and reductionist pursuit of profit. 

Food imperialism

Diets have evolved according to climates and the local biodiversity the climate allows. The biodiversity of the soil, of the plants and our gut microbiome is one continuum.  

Technologies are tools. Tools need to be assessed on ethical, social and ecological criteria – they need to be deployed in service to our wellbeing. 

Through fake food, the web of life is being redefined as an “ancient unimprovable technology”. This view is ignorant of the sophisticated knowleges that have evolved in diverse agricultuaral and food cultures, and in diverse climate and ecosystems, to sustain and renew biodiversity and health.

The Eat forum which brought out a report that tried to impose a monoculture diet of chemically grown, hyperindustrially processed food on the world has a partnership through FrESH with the junk food industry, and Big Agriculture such as Bayer, BASF, Cargil, Pepsico amongst others.

Fake food is thus building on a century and a half of food imperialism and food colonisation of our diverse food knowledges and food cultures.

Food cultures

Big Food and Big Money is behind the fake food Industry. Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are funding startups.

We need to decolonise our food cultures and our minds. The industrial west has always been arrogant, and ignorant, of the cultures it has colonised. Fake Food is just the latest step in a history of food imperialism.

Soya is a gift of East Asia, where it has been a food for millennia. It was only eaten as fermented food to remove its anti-nutritive factors.

But recently, GMO soya has created a soya imperialism, destroying plant diversity. It continues the destruction of the diversity of rich edible oils and plant-based proteins of Indian dals that we have documented.

Women from India’s slums called on me to bring our mustard back when GMO soya oil started to be dumped on India, and local oils and cold press units in villages were made illegal.

That is when we started the ‘sarson (mustard) satyagraha’ to defend our healthy cold pressed oils from dumping of hexane-extracted GMO soya oil. Hexane is a neurotoxin.

Food sovereignty 

While Indian peasants knew that pulses fix nitrogen, the west was industrialising agriculture based on synthetic nitrogen which contributes to greenhous gases, dead zones in the ocean, and dead soils.

While we ate a diversity of dals in our daily dal roti, the British colonisers, who had no idea of the richness of the nutrition of pulses, reduced them to animal food. Chana became chick pea, gahat became horse gram, tur became pigeon pea. 

We stand at a precipice of a planetary emergency, a health emergency, a crisis of farmers livelihoods.

Fake Food will acclerate the rush to collapse. Real food gives us a chance to rejuvenate the earth, our food economies, food sovereignty and food cultures. Through real food we can decolonise our food cultures and our consciousness. We can remember that food is living and gives us life.

Boycott the GMO made Impossible Burger. Make tofu. Cook dal.

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Vandana Shiva is an Indian scholar, environmental activist, and food sovereignty advocate. Read a response from Impossible Food here.

Featured image is from News Ghana

The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is once again in the doghouse with the British media and the political establishment. 

His offence? Once again it’s for doing his job.

According to the political editor of the Sunday Times, Tim Shipman, Corbyn is speaking up for the “theocratic terrorists” of Tehran.

Common sense

According to Tory leadership candidate and home secretary, Sajid Javid, Corbyn is “never on the side of the country he seeks to lead”. Javid adds that Corbyn “wouldn’t even qualify for a Home Office building pass”.

Another leadership contender, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, called Corbyn “pathetic and predictable”. Hunt added:

“Why can he never bring himself to back British allies, British intelligence or British interests?”

The purpose of my column this week is to come to the defence of Jeremy Corbyn. I believe that he is doing his job as leader of the opposition by standing aside from the growing clamour for war against Iran.

Corbyn is right to challenge claims emanating from the White House about Iran. His call for Britain to “act to ease tensions in the Gulf, not fuel a military escalation,” is common sense.

A voice of caution

This is not the first time that the Labour leader has been the voice of caution when the British political class have rushed towards war. He took a brave and lonely stand when the British political establishment followed George W Bush into the Iraq disaster.

He was vindicated by events when he warned against the invasion of Afghanistan. He was one of only a dozen MPs who voted against David Cameron’s terribly misjudged intervention in Libya.

Remembering that, by contrast, Sajid Javid, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, Jeremy Hunt, Rory Stewart and others fully supported that foolish and disastrous adventure.

There is no question in my mind that Corbyn (and his shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry) are making important and urgent points.

It’s only in the UK that expressing alarm about the bellicose Iranian policy of Donald Trump is regarded as unpatriotic. Germany and Japan have both made it clear that they don’t regard the evidence of Iranian involvement produced so far as conclusive.

No appetite for war

Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, made similar remarks to Corbyn’s over the weekend.

She told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that Americans have “no appetite for conflict with Iran”, adding that President Trump was being provocative:

“He comes in and undoes [the nuclear deal] and inflames the US-Iranian issue. Why? What is the purpose? I am not going to accuse anybody of instigating anything, but for not having a policy that would smooth the waters.”

I detect no appetite for war here in Britain either. So why is the Tory party collectively determined to back Donald Trump and his national security adviser, John Bolton, at a time when it looks very much as if they are seeking to engineer a war in the Gulf?

Haven’t we learnt our lessons? We, in Britain, made a terrible mistake when we backed George W Bush over Iraq. I find it difficult to understand why we should be so determined to uncritically support Donald Trump as he embarks on his latest nightmarish experiment in the Gulf.

Of course, the British press is partly to blame. Tim Shipman, political editor of the Murdoch-owned Sunday Times, tweeted that Corbyn’s policy was to “blame America, speak up for theocratic terrorists and dismiss credible evidence from our Intel partners”.

This is a grotesquely unfair misrepresentation of what Corbyn actually said. The Labour leader was essentially urging caution.

Defying FCO

I am a Conservative, but I am afraid that this failing Conservative government is open to the charge that it has ceased to act in the British interest. Here is an important example: earlier this year, Hunt and Javid joined forces to designate the political wing of Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation.

I can reveal that Hunt made the designation in defiance of official FCO advice. According to senior sources inside the Foreign Office, officials warned Hunt that the decision would damage British interests and create difficulties for British diplomats serving in Lebanon.

It would reduce Britain’s influence. Hunt was reminded that Hezbollah form an important part of the elected Lebanese government.

Not only that. I can also reveal that officials in DFID say that their work has been made close to impossible. They say that you have to work with Hezbollah officials in the government if you want to get things done. They can’t any more.

As one close observer told me: “The situation wasn’t perfect but it reflected the reality on the ground because Hezbollah is a core part of the Lebanese system which cannot be ignored. If you cut off all ties to Hezbollah you cut all the ability to influence it or cajole it.”

The decision to designate the political wing of Hezbollah was therefore not in the British interest. It looks like it was made in order to please the United States as well as our allies in the region – above all the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.

No lessons learnt

The determination of parts of the Trump administration to launch a war against Iran may lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths and cause fresh chaos in an already vulnerable region.

War can potentially lead to the closure of the Straits of Hormuz, causing the oil price soaring to several hundred dollars or more and precipitating a depression in the West. Do we really want that? If Jeremy Hunt was doing his job properly he would be following the example of Corbyn by urging caution.

I do accept that Corbyn could have been more careful in his language. He should have expressed scepticism rather than hinting at disbelief at what the United States is saying.

But the fact remains that the only British politician who has issued a sensible word of warning against the rush to war against Iran is the Labour leader, and he is being pilloried as a result.

The Conservative government, like the Bourbons after the French Revolution, has forgotten nothing and learnt nothing from the Iraq invasion of 2003.

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Peter Oborne won best commentary/blogging in 2017 and was named freelancer of the year in 2016 at the Online Media Awards for articles he wrote for Middle East Eye. He also was British Press Awards Columnist of the Year 2013. He resigned as chief political columnist of the Daily Telegraph in 2015. His books include The Triumph of the Political Class, The Rise of Political Lying, and Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran.

The Persian Gulf region has turned into a new hot point in the Middle East.

On May 12, a supposed sabotage attack targeted very large crude carrier Amjad and crude tanker Al Marzoqah (both owned by Saudi shipping firm Bahri).  The UAE-flagged fuel bunker barge A Michel and Norwegian-registered oil products tanker MT Andrea Victory were also targeted, all off of UAE’s Fujairah. The attack did not cause any casualties or an oil spill.

Jaber Al Lamki, an executive director at the UAE’s National Media Council, claimed that the attack was “aimed at undermining global oil supplies and maritime security.” Mainstream media outlets came out with various speculations regarding the incident providing contradictory claims from ‘anonymous sources’. Most of these speculations were focused on supposed Iranian involvement in the situation.

The US de-facto blamed Iran for the situation with National Security Adviser John Bolton claiming that the attacks were the work of “naval mines almost certainly from Iran.” Adm. Michael Gilday, director of the Joint Staff, issued a statement saying that “the leadership of Iran at the highest level” ordered a spate of disruptive attacks in the region.

In its own turn, Iran stated that it played no part in the attacks and said that it was a false flag fabricated by the US. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif stressed that Iran “had previously predicted that such actions would occur to create tensions in the region.”

On June 12, a fire broke out on an Iranian oil platform of the South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf. The fire was subsequently contained and no fatalities were reported. State TV said the cause of the fire was under investigation.

On June 13, another suspicious incident took place in the Gulf of Oman. Marshall Islands-flagged Front Altair and Panama-flagged Kokuka Courageous oil tankers were rocked by explosions. This development also appeared to be surrounded by multiple speculations immediately after first reports about the situation. Initial versions varied from a torpedo attack to naval mines with the aforementioned tendency regarding supposed Iranian involvement. Nonetheless, once again, no casualties were reported in the supposed attack.

On June 14, Washington claimed that it had evidence confirming Iranian involvement in the June 13 incident. According to a statement by US Central Command, Iranian forces were spotted removing “a probable unexploded limpet mine” from Kokuka Courageous. Central Command also released photos supposed to confirm the claim regarding the non-exploded mine.

Iran denied involvement in the incident labeling it a provocation. The US version of the story was met with serious skepticism among more or less independent media outlets, and even by the owner and operator of the Kokuka Courageous and some European allies of the US.

Yutaka Katada, the president of Kokuka Sangyo, called reports of a mine attack “false”.

“A mine doesn’t damage a ship above sea level,” he said “We aren’t sure exactly what hit, but it was something flying towards the ship.”

He added that sailors on board the ship saw “flying objects” just before Kokuka Courageous was hit. This is further evidence suggesting the vessel wasn’t damaged by mines, but by objects that could have been fired from a distance.

On June 16, Central Command claimed that Iranian forces attempted to shoot down an MQ-9 Reaper drone in the Gulf of Oman hours before the attack on the tankers.

Such reporting is a logical continuation of earlier hysteria over supposed Iranian preparations to attack US forces and infrastructure in the Middle East. The “Iran is readying for an attack” propaganda campaign was used by the US to justify its ongoing military buildup in the region.

Taking into account the military and political situation established in the region, and the obvious loopholes in Washington’s version of the June 13 ‘attack’, it’s quite possible it was a pre-planned provocation. The main party standing to benefit from such a development is the US.

• Rising tensions in the Persian Gulf region allow the Trump administration to continue exploiting the “Iranian threat” to justify its internal and foreign policies. Inside the US, it allows Washington to increase military-industrial complex spending even further. In terms of foreign policy, it gives the US an additional justification to continue its hard-core anti-Iranian and pro-Israeli policy as well as to boost its military and diplomatic presence in the Middle East.
• The geo-economic goal of this provocation is to create tensions in the Persian Gulf region and near it (the western part of the Indian Ocean). The growing threat to maritime security would increase logistical costs for key oil consumers. DHT Holdings and Heidmar, two of the biggest oil tankers operators in the world, have suspended new bookings to the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. The oil price rose. Insurance rates for logistical operations in the region are also expected to increase. This situation directly impacts China, one of the key oil consumers, as well as European states with large industrial potential, such as Germany. The pressure on possible economic competitors through economic tariffs and sanctions, military and diplomatic means are the consistent policy of the Trump administration.

The recent escalation of the conflict in Yemen also plays a role in the current tensions. Over the past months, Ansar Allah (the Houthis) have drastically increased the number of missile and drone attacks on key infrastructure objects in Saudi Arabia, which still continues its military invasion of Yemen.

At the same time, the Iranian leadership uses the threat of an aggressive and artful enemy (the US-Israeli alliance) to justify its policies and boost influence on Shia armed groups and movements across the Greater Middle East.

Ansar Allah, supported by Iran, will likely continue these strident attacks on Saudi Arabia.  In the event of further escalation of the regional situation, it is conceivable that groups allied with Tehran could attack US forces or infrastructure objects. Despite this, the chances of a new open hot war in the region remains low.

Strategically, Iran will focus on developing asymmetric means and measures, including tactical missile forces and its mosquito-craft fleet. Any chosen asymmetric responses will be in line with Iran’s economic capabilities and designed to cause maximum damage in the event of military confrontation.

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The economic war waged by Trump’s administration against Iran seems to have been escalated to involve false flag attacks against oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz. Within a one-month period two terrorist attacks; Emirati Al Fujairah attack in May 12^th and the Gulf of Oman attack in June 13^th, were perpetrated against large oil tankers.

After an hour of each attack Trump’s administration and its Gulf stooge countries; Saudi Arabia and UAE, hastened to point their accusing fingers towards Iran without any evidence and even before any independent investigation of the attacks. Britain joined the US accusation of Iran through its Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, who accused Iran calling on it to stop all forms of destabilizing activities that pose serious danger to the region.  Jeremy Corbyn, the British Labour leader, warned Hunt not to fuel a military escalation that began with the US withdrawal from Iran nuclear deal without any credible evidence. Russia, China, Germany and the EU called for self-restrained and not to rush into conclusions and accusations of any party until the end of investigation.

Although the Gulf of Oman is the most guarded and monitored area by the most sophisticated surveillance equipment yet no strong evidence was produced to substantiate the American accusations. The footage that CENTCOM had produced to incriminate Iranian IRGC of removing an unexploded limpet mine; an alleged evidence of Iran’s involvement, is so blurry that one cannot distinguish whether it was really an Iranian boat or what its crew was doing. It is hard to believe that the sophisticated surveillance system could not produce a clear picture of the boat. Ambiguity is intentional here.

When Yutaka Katada, the president of Kokuka Sangyo, the owner of damaged Kokuka Courageous ship, explained that a mine does not damage a ship above the see level, and that his crew saw “flying objects” hitting the ship, CENTCOM produced other stories to divert attention away from the footage. Originally officials claimed that the USS Bainbridge, a guided missile destroyer, picked up the crew members of the oil tankers. When Iranian TV broadcasted all 44 crew members in its hospitality after rescuing them, American officials changed their story claiming that tanker crew was detained by Iran after first being rescued by “un-named” another vessel.

To gain more credibility to its accusations US officials told CNN that hours before the tankers attack on Thursday the Iranians spotted an American drone flying overhead and launched a surface-to-air missile but missed the drone, which reportedly observed Iranian vessels closing in on the tankers. Yet no video of this allegation was introduced to confirm that these boats had conducted any attack.

These unsubstantiated accusations reminded me of the lies of 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident, the lies of the 2003 Iraq war and the lies of Syrian Assad’s chemical attack against his own people among many other lies. In 1964 President Lyndon Johnson’s administration lied to the Congress that North Vietnamese forces attacked the USS Maddox boat in order to get the Congress authorization to wage war against innocent Vietnam. In 2003 the lies of “weapons of mass destruction” and “the mushroom cloud” lead to the destruction of a whole country; Iraq. In 2017 Assad was accused of using chemical weapons against civilians of his own people when he was winning the war against American/Israeli/Saudi ISIS terrorist groups. The US bombed Syrian bases in response.

The credibility of successive American administrations had long been lost, and their flagrant lies throughout their history had been clearly exposed. Mike Pompeo, the present US Secretary of State, has recently proudly confessed to this fact:

“I was the CIA director. We lied … we cheated … we stole. We had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”

Yet this lying cheating thief had the audacity to face the whole world and to deceptively accuse Iran of attacking the oil tankers: 

“It is the assessment by the United States government that the Islamic Republic of Iran is responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Oman today. This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication.”

The resources proficiency to act with high degree of sophistication Pompeo has mentioned are characteristics of the American and Zionist Israeli underground Special Forces.

The question of “who benefits” will lead us to the real perpetrators. It is highly unlikely and illogical for Iran to attack Japanese owned ships while the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, was visiting Iran in a mediating mission between the US and Iran.

Unlike the western powers it is not a character of the Iranian government to attack the ship, Front Altair, belonging to one of Iran’s closed allies and friend, John Frederiksen, the owner of the Frontline Tanker Company, who helped Iran deliver its oil to its destinations during the “tanker war” with Iraq in the 1980’s.

Iran seeks peace and security in the region, which explains it’s signing the 2015 nuclear agreement accepting the international monitoring of its nuclear facilities unlike nuclear Israel who has not signed the NPT agreement. Also Iran had given European countries ample time to comply with the nuclear deal after the American withdrawal. Peace and security in the Persian Gulf area, the heaviest oil traffic, is very important for Iran. Iran had approached all the Gulf States with a call to sign a non-aggression pact and a partnership to form a local unified security system in the Gulf.

To prove its innocence Iran had called for independent international investigation in the 12^th May Al-Fujairah attack against four oil tankers that must include all surveillance records of the area in order to expose the ‘state actor’ behind the attack. Fear of the results of such an investigation led UAE, Saudi Arabia, Britain and US to reject such call demanding the world to accept their accusations of Iran without any substantial evidence.

On the other hand we see Trump unilaterally withdrawing from the Iran nuclear agreement and imposing sanctions threatening the whole world not to buy Iranian oil in order to impose a new agreement; a mafia style technique. Iranian refusal to re-negotiate the deal and it’s brushing off all Trump’s direct and indirect invitation for negotiation gradually dropping off all pre-conditions, led Trump eventually to deploy the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf to increase the pressure on Iran.

Trump’s administration does not want war with Iran. Such a war would devastate the region as well as the whole world. In the case of a military war every country without exception in the Middle East would be severely affected. All the American military bases in the region would be an easy target for the Iranian missiles. All the American naval ships would also be easy targets to the many Iranian speed torpedo boats. The casualties and the destruction would be astronomical.

The real goal of the Trump’s administration is to increase tension and enmity between Iran and the Gulf States. This policy started in 1979 after the Islamic Revolution in Iran with the expulsion of the Shah regime, the American hostage crises, the closure of the Israeli embassy and turning its building over to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). This enmity developed when the US encouraged Iraqi Saddam Hussein to wage the eight years’ war against Iran with the financial support of the Gulf Arab States.

The spread of Iranophobia within the Gulf Arab oil producing states has become a priority in the American foreign policy since Iran had extended its financial aid and military expertise to Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian resistance groups against Israeli occupation, supported Syrian Assad regime against Israeli/American/Saudi created terrorist group ISIS, and supported Yemen against Saudi/Emirati military aggression.

This Iranophobia led the Gulf Sunni Arab States to open their countries to American military bases ostensibly to protect them from Shi’ites Persian threats, such as the alleged nuclear threat. These bases have also served to replenish Israeli weapons stockpiles used in its wars of aggression against Egypt, Lebanon and Palestinians. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are the biggest buyers of American weapons. It is estimated that between 35% – 40% of American weapons sale go to these two Gulf States; many of which had rusted in the desert in the past, others were diverted to terrorist groups in Syria, while others are being used to destroy Yemen. The American military industrial complex rakes hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons sales to these countries.

The oil tankers attack had also relieved Trump from Congressional pressure opposing the $400 billion weapons sale to Saudi Arabia. The sales deal would go through now under the justification of “exceptional security circumstances” in the Gulf.

Those Gulf Arab states are America’s milking cows as Trump had described Saudi Arabia many times. The proposed Iran’s Gulf non-Aggression Pact and Gulf Unified Security System would free these milking cows from the American grip. Thus no war against Iran but false flag attacks in and around the Persian Gulf would serve to increase Iranophobia and keep those milking cows in the American barn.

The US is recently extracting enough shale oil for local consumption. Yet the cost of this shale oil is more expensive than the Gulf oil and it is still not marketable. The attack incidents on the oil tankers have raised the price of oil. The price will go even higher in order to cover the expenses of American naval vessels escorting oil tankers for security reasons.   The price of Gulf oil barrel would match and at times may exceed the price of American shale oil barrel. Thus, American shale oil will become marketable.

There is another aggressive player in the region, who could be the perpetrator of false flag attacks besides the US; and that is Zionist Israel. Israeli military hegemony in the region extended from 1948 to 2000, a period were the Israeli terrorist army had accomplished one victory after the other against its poorly armed Arab neighbors. This had changed in 2000 when Hezbollah was able to expel Israeli forces from occupied Lebanese territories.

Prior to 2000 Israel was able to wage wars, whose victims were Arabs, and whose destructions were Arab cities and neighborhoods. The year 2000 ushered a rebirth of strong Arab resistance axis. After 2000 Israel was never able to achieve planned goals of its aggressive wars against Lebanon or even against besieged Gaza, let alone achieve complete victory. Israeli army faced defeats and more casualties than it can afford. Israeli major cities and colonies have become easy targets to accurate and more powerful Gaza’s and Hezbollah’s missiles.

Israel resorted to AIPAC and to 911 false flag attack to push the US to fight its wars against Arabs and to have American young troops die for Israel. After 911 attacks Islamophobia spread in the US, who waged war against Iraq, and created and armed ISIS groups to destroy Syria. Iraq and Syria were strong supporters to the Palestinian cause.

Iranian strong support to Arab resistance axis made it a big obstacle to the Zionist Greater Israel Project. Despite the fact that president Trump and many military officers in the Pentagon are opposed to war on Iran, some Zionist stooges in the White House such as Evangelical Vice President Pence, warmongering John Bolton, and secretary of state Mike Pompeo are pushing for war against Iran. Zionist Israelis as well as American Zionist Christians want a devastating war in the Middle East that would destroy or at least weaken all Arab countries allowing Zionists to accomplish their Greater Israel Project no matter who or what the casualties are.

Zionist Israelis are high suspects in the attacks on the oil tankers. They have “the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication” to quote Pompeo.

The first Al Fujairah false flag attack hardly provoked any mentionable international reactions. The second Gulf of Oman false flag attack provoked some international reaction as well as calls for self-restrain and real investigation. A third false flag attack would be more intense and may take place within the Persian Gulf itself, and could provoke impulsive military reaction that could spark a larger military confrontation, especially now after the US is sending initially 3,000 additional troops as part of 13,000 to the Persian Gulf, while Britain is sending 100 more special forces marines to join their 500 soldier comrades in the new British naval base in Mina Salman in Bahrain.

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Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab American writer from a Palestinian descent born in the town of Beit Jala, Palestine. His family was first evicted from Haifa after the “Nakba” of 1948, then again from Beit Jala after the “Nakseh” of 1967. He lives now in the US, and publishes his articles on different websites. He writes mainly about Middle Eastern and Palestinian related issues.

Featured image: Smoke billows from a tanker said to have been attacked off the coast of Oman at un undisclosed location. The crews of two oil tankers were evacuated off the coast of Iran after they were reportedly attacked in the Gulf of Oman.
Image Credit: AFP

Fast-moving events suggest that an unthinkable US preemptive war on Iran is possible, a reckless act if launched — like all wars, based on Big Lies and deception. More on this below.

Years earlier, former NATO commander General Wesley Clark said the US underwent a post-9/11 transformation. A “policy coup” occurred.

With no public debate or acknowledgement, hardliners in Washington usurped power. Days after 9/11, Clark learned from Pentagon commanders that plans were made to “destroy the governments in seven countries.”

Besides Afghanistan, Yemen, and partnering with Israeli wars on Palestinians, they include Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.

Weeks after the Soviet Union’s December 1991 dissolution, the so-called Wolfowitz doctrine shaped US geopolitics, stating:

“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union.”

“This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”

His doctrine was a declaration of endless wars against all sovereign independent countries. The 1990s featured the Gulf War, followed by over a dozen years of genocidal sanctions on the Iraqi people, a decade of Balkan wars, culminating with the 1999 rape of Yugoslavia waged by the Clinton co-presidency.

The 9/11 mother of all false flags opened the gates of hell for wars of aggression against one nation after another.

Iran remains the US/Israeli prime target for regime change, the Trump regime waging all-out war by other means, threatening to turn hot because sanctions and related hostile actions haven’t toppled its government for the past 40 years and won’t likely ahead.

Plan B may be preemptive hot war on the country. Unfolding events bear close monitoring.

On Monday, acting US war secretary Patrick Shanahan said the following:

“In response to a request from the US Central Command (CENTCOM) for additional forces, and with the advice of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and in consultation with the White House, I have authorized approximately 1,000 additional troops for defensive purposes (sic) to address air, naval, and ground-based threats in the Middle East” — despite only invented ones exist, adding:

“The recent Iranian attacks (sic) validate the reliable, credible intelligence (sic) we have received on hostile behavior by Iranian forces and their proxy groups (sic) that threaten United States personnel and interests across the region (sic).”

Not a shred of credible evidence links Iran to May and June, or other regional hostile acts. Clearly its ruling authorities have nothing to gain from aggressive actions, everything to lose.

The US, NATO, Israel, and their imperial partners benefit greatly from the Gulf of Oman and weeks earlier incidents by falsely linking Iran to them.

Shanahan turned truth on its head claiming the US “does not seek conflict with Iran” while Trump regime war by other means against the country rages, along with hot wars in multiple theaters against nations threatening no one.

Deploying more Pentagon combat forces to an oil-rich part of the world US seeks unchallenged hegemony over has nothing to do with “ensur(ing) the safety and welfare of our military personnel working throughout the region,” everything to do with pursuing US imperial interests.

On Sunday, Netanyahu broke his near-silence on the Gulf of Oman incident, saying “(a)ll peace seeking nations need to support the efforts of the United States and President Trump to stop this dangerous (Iranian) aggression (sic) and to ensure freedom of navigation in international waterways” — despite nothing threatening them except defensive Tehran actions in response to US belligerence if occurs.

On Tuesday, Israeli military intelligence-connected DEBKAfile said the following:

“US intelligence learn(ed) from a highly credible source (sic) that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have completed preparations for a large-scale assault on an important Saudi oil facility within days (sic),” adding:

The Trump regime “is gearing up for a military response.” The Islamic Republic seeks confrontation with no other nations. It’s the region’s leading peace and stability proponent.

No credible evidence suggests it’s planning a preemptive attack against the Saudis or any other regional countries. False claims otherwise are part of the escalating propaganda war on the country.

They represent a dangerous development. Trump is being mislead by disinformation and Big Lies about nonexistent hostile Iranian intentions.

Preemptively attacking selective or more extensive targets in the country would virtually assure retaliation, risking full-scale war  on a nation able to hit back hard against belligerents and block the Strait of Hormuz, through which over a third of seaborne oil shipments pass en route to world markets.

Hostility toward Iran by Trump, Pompeo, Bolton, and their henchmen showed up clearly when the regime pulled out of the JCPOA nuclear deal, an international agreement adopted by Security Council members, making it binding international and US constitutional law under its Supremacy clause (Article VI, clause 2).

Withdrawal was a shot across the bow for hostile actions to follow, things perhaps coming to a head following May and June regional incidents with likely US, and perhaps Israeli, fingerprints all over them.

Clearly Iran had nothing to do with what happened. No credible evidence suggests it. Accusations without it are groundless.

On Monday, the Pentagon released new images of a small vessel approaching the Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous tanker, claimed to be Iranian, allegedly removing an unexploded limpet mine attached to the vessel, a statement saying:

“Iran is responsible for the attack based on video evidence and the resources and proficiency needed to quickly remove the unexploded limpet mine (sic).”

Videos and other images are easily doctored. It happened many times before to fake evidence, used as pretexts for unjustifiable hostile actions.

Last week, Trump lied claiming the Gulf of Oman incident had “Iran written all over it.” Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said the US was likely responsible for attacking two tankers in gulf waters, citing its tradition of staging “false flag(s)” to justify naked aggression against nonbelligerent countries, adding:

Accusations about May and June regional incidents and “are supplementary to economic sanctions because (the Trump regime) did not reach (its) goals through the sanctions.”

He mocked Pompeo’s statement about pursuing diplomacy with the Islamic Republic. “Is it diplomacy to start a face-off with a revolutionary nation with acts of economic terrorism, which they themselves call the toughest ever,” he asked?

“Is it diplomacy, Mr Pompeo, to renege on one’s promises in the nuclear agreement?”

Hostile US actions supported by Britain, Israel, the Saudis and UAE are advancing things perilously toward possible war on Iran.

Attacking the nation would risk having the region boil over more than already. If Russia intervenes as it did to combat US-supported terrorists in Syria, global war could follow.

These and related events are why today is the most perilous time in world history. The risk of possible US-launched nuclear war is real — able to destroy planet earth and all its life forms if happens in earnest.

While these dangerous events are unfolding, the US public is largely unaware and perhaps indifferent to what threatens their welfare, security and lives.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from TruePublica

The Pentagon announced on Monday that the US is sending 1,000 additional troops and other military resources to the Middle East amid belligerent threats against Iran by the Trump administration. The troop movement follows the previous deployment of the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier and its battle group to the Persian Gulf, along with a bomber strike group led by nuclear capable B-52s.

An article from the Israeli website Maariv Online, republished in the Jerusalem Post, reported that the Trump administration is actively preparing a “tactical assault” on Iran. The report, based on diplomatic sources at the UN in New York, stated that “since Friday, the White House has been holding incessant discussions involving senior military commanders, Pentagon representatives and advisers to President Donald Trump.”

According to Maariv Online, the unnamed officials said that “the military action under consideration would be an aerial bombardment of an Iranian facility linked to its nuclear program.” A Western diplomat commented: “The bombing will be massive but will be limited to one target.”

Announcing the troop deployment, acting US Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan stated:

“The recent Iranian attacks validate the reliable, credible intelligence we have received on hostile behaviour by Iranian forces and their proxy groups that threaten United States personnel and interests across the region.” He then absurdly added: “The United States does not seek conflict with Iran.”

In reality, the current explosive situation in the Persian Gulf is entirely of Washington’s manufacture. In breach of UN resolutions, the Trump administration unilaterally abrogated the 2015 deal between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany to limit its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.

The US subsequently re-imposed and strengthened its crippling sanctions on Iran aimed at cutting off all oil exports and collapsing the Iranian economy. It also threatened to take punitive economic measures against companies breaching its unilateral sanctions. Washington’s actions amount to an economic blockade of Iran and an act of war.

With US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the lead, the Trump administration is exploiting attacks on two tankers in the Persian Gulf last Thursday as the pretext for threatening to strike Iran. On Sunday, Pompeo declared that the US was “considering a full range of options,” including “a military response.”

The US Central Command, which would oversee any attack on Iran, released a video which it claims shows a small boat of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) approaching and removing an unexploded limpet mine from one of the damaged tankers—the Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous. It followed up yesterday with photos of the same alleged activity.

US officials have continued to blame Iran for the attacks despite a declaration from the tanker’s owner that the vessel was hit by a flying object according to its crew members. Both Japan and Germany have questioned Washington’s claims and called for further evidence, saying the video did not constitute sufficient proof. Iran has denied any involvement in the attacks.

The UN sources quoted in the Jerusalem Post article claimed that Trump himself had not been enthusiastic, but had lost his patience and given the green light to Pompeo, who has been pushing for action.

Pompeo is due to travel today to US Central Command (CENTCOM) headquarters in Florida. He will meet with two top military leaders—CENTCOM commander General Kenneth McKenzie and General Richard Clarke, head of the Special Operations Command—to “discuss regional security concerns and operations.”

CNN noted that the visit was “unusual” as Pompeo was not accompanied by acting US Defence Secretary Shanahan, who was remaining in Washington to “continue to develop options.”

The US has also seized on Iranian statements on Monday warning that its low-level enrichment of uranium will exceed the limit set under the 2015 agreement within 10 days to further wind up tensions. Speaking to the media on Monday, US National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis branded Iran’s actions as “nuclear blackmail” and insisted it must be met with “increasing international pressure.”

What staggering hypocrisy! The US has torn up the 2015 agreement, is crippling Iran’s economy and menacing war. Less than a month ago, Trump declared that if it came to conflict, it would be “the official end of Iran”—implying that the US would use its full arsenal including nuclear weapons to obliterate the Iranian population of more than 80 million. Yet when Tehran suggests that it will no longer be bound by the deal, it is declared to be “blackmail.”

Marquis also reiterated Trump’s lie that the US pulled out because “the horrible nuclear deal left their capabilities intact.” In fact, the 2015 agreement, which Iran only agreed to under the Obama administration’s threat of war, severely curtailed its nuclear programs, placing them under highly intrusive inspections. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly found Iran in compliance with the agreement’s stringent requirements.

Iran has only tentatively moved towards abrogating the agreement, even though it would be fully justified in doing so by Washington’s illegal actions. In early May, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani set a 60-day deadline for the other signatories—Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China—to put tangible measures in place to enable Iran to export oil and transact with international banks. The deadline expires on July 7.

The European powers have sought to save the agreement, but so far have taken little action. An alternative payment system, INSTEX, which that would circumvent the existing US-dominated international financial and banking system, has been launched but is not yet operational. Even if it were up and running, it would initially only apply to trade in food and medicine. A fully operational system would bring the European powers into open conflict with the United States, which would undoubtedly retaliate.

The Trump administration’s warmongering in the Persian Gulf is opening up divisions in Europe. While German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has openly questioned US “evidence” of Iranian involvement in last week’s tanker attacks, Britain has quickly fallen into line. On Monday, Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the fascist Lega, signalled Rome’s support for Washington’s war drive against Iran.

The Trump administration is recklessly preparing for a war against Iran. Any US airstrike on Iran, even if limited to one attack, would rapidly escalate into an all-out war that would not only involve other US regional allies such as Saudi Arabia and Israeli, but also threaten to drag in other major powers to defend their vital interests.

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Featured image: An American guided missile cruiser fires a tomahawk missile during the 2003 US invasion of Iraq [Credit: US Navy]

Generally, when discussing air-defense systems here, we are referring to Russian devices that have become famous in recent years, in particular the S-300 (and its variants) and the S-400. Their deployment in Syria has slowed down the ability of such advanced air forces as those of the United States and Israel to target the country, increasing as it does the embarrassing possibility of having their fourth- or fifth-generation fighters shot down.

Air-defense systems capable of bringing down fifth-generation aircraft would have a devastating effect on the marketability and sales of US military hardware, while simultaneously boosting the desirability and sales of Russian military hardware. As I have often pointed out in other analyses, Hollywood’s role in marketing to enemies and allies alike the belief that US military hardware is unbeatable (with allies being obliged to buy said hardware) is central to Washington’s strategies for war and power projection.

As clashes between countries in such global hot spots as the Middle East increase and intensify, Hollywood’s propaganda will increasingly struggle to convince the rest of the world of the continued efficacy and superiority of US weapons systems in the face of their unfolding shortcomings.

The US finds itself faced with a situation it has not found itself in over the last 50 years, namely, an environment where it does not expect to automatically enjoy air superiority. Whatever semblance of an air defense that may have hitherto been able to pose any conceivable threat to Uncle Sam’s war machine was rudely dismissed by a wave of cruise missiles. To give two prime examples that occurred in Syria in 2018, latest-generation missiles were intercepted and shot down by decades-old Russian and Syrian systems. While the S-400 system has never been employed in Syria, it is noteworthy that the Serbian S-125 systems succeeded in identifying and shooting down an American F-117 stealth aircraft during the war in the Balkans.

There is a more secret aspect of the S-400 that is little disclosed, either within Russia itself or without. It concerns the S-400’s ability to collect data through its radar systems. It is worth noting Department of Defense spokesman Eric Pahon’s alarm over Turkey’s planned purchase of the S-400:

“We have been clear that purchasing the S-400 would create an unacceptable risk because its radar system could provide the Russian military sensitive information on the F-35. Those concerns cannot be mitigated. The S-400 is a system built in Russia to try to shoot down aircraft like the F-35, and it is inconceivable to imagine.

Certainly, in the event of an armed conflict, the S-400’s ability to shoot down fifth-generation aircraft is a huge concern for the United States and her allies who have invested so heavily in such aircraft. Similarly, a NATO country preferring Russian to American systems is cause for alarm. This is leaving aside the fact that the S-400 is spreading around the world, from China to Belarus, with dozens of countries waiting in line for the ability to seal their skies from the benevolent bombs of freedom. It is an excellent stick with which to keep a prowling Washington at bay.

But these concerns are nothing when compared to the most serious threat that the S-400 poses to the US arms industry, namely, their ability to collect data on US stealth systems.

Theoretically, the last advantage that the US maintains over her opponents is in stealth technology. The effectiveness of stealth has been debated for a long time, given that their costs may actually outweigh their purported benefits. But, reading between the lines, what emerges from US concerns over the S-400 suggests that Moscow is already capable of detecting US stealth systems by combining the radars of the S-400 with those of air-based assets, as has been the case in Syria (despite Washington’s denials).

The ability of the S-400 to collect data on both the F-35 and F-22 – the crown jewels of the US military-industrial complex – is a cause for sleepless nights for US military planners. What in particular causes them nightmares is that, for the S-400 to function in Turkey, it will have to be integrated into Turkey’s current “identification friend or foe” (IFF) systems, which in turn are part of NATO’s military tactical data-link network, known as Link 16.

This system will need to be installed on the S-400 in order to integrate it into Turkey’s defensive network, which could potentially pass information strictly reserved for the Russians that would increase the S-400’s ability to function properly in a system not designed to host such a weapon system.

The final risk is that if Turkey were to fly its F-35s near the S-400, the Link 16 system would reveal a lot of real-time information about the US stealth system. Over time, Moscow would be able to recreate the stealth profile of the F-35 and F-22, thereby making pointless Washington’s plans to spend 1.16 trillion dollars to produce 3,000 F-35s.

What must be remembered in our technological age is that once the F-35’s radar waveform has been identified, it will be possible to practice the military deception of recreating fictitious signals of the F-35 so as to mask one’s own aircraft with this shape and prevent the enemy’s IFF systems from being able to distinguish between friend or foe.

Of particular note is the active cooperation between China and Russia in air-defense systems. The S-400 in particular has already been operational in China for several years now, and it should be assumed that there would be active information sharing going on between Moscow and Beijing regarding stealth technology.

It turns out that the S-400 is a weapon system with multiple purposes that is even more lethal than previously imagined. It would therefore not be surprising that, were S-400s to be found in Cuba and Venezuela, Washington’s bellicose rhetoric against these two countries would come to an abrupt halt.

But what US military planners fear more than the S-400 embarrassing their much-vaunted F35 and F22 is the doubts they could raise about the efficacy of these stealth aircraft in the minds of allies and potential buyers. This lack of confidence would deal a mortal blow to the US arms industry, a threat far more real and devastating for them than a risk of conflict with Moscow or Beijing.

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

Featured image is from Sputnik/ Sergey Malgavko

While the United States prepares a new escalation of tension in the Middle East by accusing Iran of attacking petrol tankers in the Gulf of Oman, Italian vice-Prime Minister Matteo Salvini met with one of the artisans of this strategy in Washington, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, assuring him that “Italy wants to regain its place as the major partner on the European continent of the greatest Western democracy”. Thereby he has allied Italy with the operation launched by Washington. 

The “Gulf of Oman affair”, a casus belli against Iran, is a carbon copy of the “Gulf of Tonkin affair” of 4 August 1964, itself used as a casus belli to bomb North Vietnam, which was accused of having attacked a US torpedo boat (an accusation which was later proved to be false).

Today, a video released by Washington shows the crew of an alleged Iranian patrol boat removing an unexploded mine from the hull of a petrol tanker in order to conceal its origin (because the mine would allegedly have borne the inscription “Made in Iran”).

With this “proof” – a veritable insult to our intelligence – Washington is attempting to camouflage the goal of the operation. It is part of the strategy aimed at controlling the world’s reserves of oil and natural gas and their energy corridors [1].

It is no coincidence if Iran and Iraq are in US crosshairs. Their total oil reserves are greater than those of Saudi Arabia, and five times greater than those of the United States. Iranian reserves of natural gas are approximately 2.5 times those of the USA. Venezuela finds itself targeted by the USA for the same reason, since it is the country which owns the greatest oil reserves in the world. 

The control of the energy corridors is of strategic importance. By accusing Iran of attempting to “interrupt the flow of oil through the Straights of Hormuz”, Mike Pompeo announced that “the United States will defend freedom of navigation”.

In other words, he has announced that the United States wants to gain military control of this key area for energy supplies, including those for Europe, by preventing above all the transit of Iranian oil (to which Italy and other European countries cannot in any case enjoy free access because of the US embargo).

• Low-cost Iranian natural gas might also have reached Europe by way of a pipeline crossing Iraq and Syria. But the project, launched in 2011, was destroyed by the USA/NATO operation to demolish the Syrian state.
• Natural gas might also have arrived directly in Italy from Russia, and from there to be distributed to other European countries  with notable economical advantages, via the South Stream route through the Black Sea. But the pipeline, already in an advanced stage of construction, was blocked in 2014 by the pressure of the United States and European Union itself, with heavy prejudice for Italy.

In fact it was the reproduction of North Stream which continued, making Germany the centre of triage for Russian gas. Then, on the basis of the “USA/UE strategic cooperation in the energy field” agreement stipulated in July 2018, US exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the UE tripled. The triage centre is in Poland, from which the “Freedom Gas” will be distributed to Ukraine.

Washington’s objective is strategic – to hurt Russia by replacing Russian gas in Europe with US gas.

But we have no guarantees, neither on the price, nor on the time-scale for US gas extracted from the bituminous shale by the technique known as fracking (hydraulic fracturation), which is disastrous for the environment.

So what does Matteo Salvini have to say about all that?

When he arrived in the “greatest democracy in the Western world”, he proudly declared – “I am part of a government which in Europe is no longer satisfied with breadcrumbs”.

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This article was originally published on Il Manifesto. Translated from Italian by Pete Kimberley.

Award winning author Manlio Dinucci is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

“We are urging all the sides to show restraint,” said President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, to avoid escalation in the Middle East after the US said it was deploying additional troops due to heightened tensions with Iran” 

“We would prefer not to see steps that could introduce additional tensions in the already unstable region.”

According to press reports:

 

The United States said Monday it has approved the deployment of 1,000 additional troops to the Middle East. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said the troops were being sent “for defensive purposes” as the US has blamed Iran for last week’s attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Tuesday that US plans to increase its troop presence in the Middle East were aimed at provoking armed conflict. Such actions “cannot be seen otherwise than as a deliberate course to provoke war,” … He said that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo while visiting in Russia last month had stated that US troops were in the region not to start war but prevent it.  Pompeo said at a news conference with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Sochi on May 14 that “we fundamentally do not seek a war with Iran.” (AFP, June 18, 2019)

Sergei Ryabkov’s pointed response:

“If that’s the case, the US should refrain from further reinforcement of its presence and from other steps, including dragging and pushing its allies in various parts of the world into stepping up pressure on Iran,” 

In this Press TV interview geopolitical analyst Peter Koenig comments on the nature of US threats and the unfolding crisis.

***

PressTV: Could you please comment on Moscow’s position and Sergei Ryabkov’s statement. 

Peter Koenig: What Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Tuesday that US plans to increase its troop presence in the Middle East were aimed at provoking armed conflict – is very true; and is very important to take note of.

To me it looks like the commando behind Trump has decided to put Venezuela on the backburner, that, for now, Iran is more important.

Controlling Iran, means basically controlling not only the entire Middle East with all its riches, but it’s also contributing to the Chosen People’s – Israel, the Zionists’ – overall goal to exert hegemony over the world’s finances – controlling the globe’s economy.

Domination of people by military power and domination of the economy by financial power, go hand in hand.

Let’s face it, to engage in war – or provoke war – were also the two ‘false flag’ attacks on the Norwegian and Japanese oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. Only an absolute moron, or someone who has never lived on planet earth, would not understand that these were two flagrant “false flags”; and Pompeo’s immediate accusations without a shred of proof, were the usual “Pompeoisms” – lying, deceiving, stealing, – or as he said literally what they did at the CIA, “We lied, we cheated, we stole”. Well these people do not change.

By engaging Iran in a war, Washington knows they would also engage Russia and China – and that’s what they want. The two super powers are their last stronghold to conquer.

And people who are narcissistic and full of themselves, as are the characteristics of neoliberals and neofascists, who want to run the show, they do not see their own limits – they see only their own power with impunity.

Its like a drug for them. They act under addiction… addiction for power and dominance. They are even ready to destroy themselves for power and dominance.

If we analyze one particular incident on this globe, like the announcement to deploy a 1000 more troops to the Middle East – have they said where? – not that I know – then we always have to see the entire picture.

It’s part of a Chess game – a Chess game they – the US and the international handlers behind them – only are allowed to win. That’s why they never give up an objective. They may put it on the backburner for a while, like what they are likely doing with Venezuela, but in the long run, as the they see the Big Picture only, Full Spectrum Dominance, they will continue – until their collapse.

And why is the collapse the logical outcome? – Because such a war cannot be won. By nobody.

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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^st Century; 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.

This incisive article by award winning author Manlio Dinucci was first published in May 2019

The decision by the United States to exit the Iranian nuclear agreement – signed in 2015 by Teheran with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany – causes a situation of extreme danger not only in the Middle East.

To understand the implications of such decision, taken under pressure by Israel that describes the agreement as “the surrender of the West to the axis of evil led by Iran”, we must start from a precise fact: Israel has the Bomb, not Iran.

For over fifty years, Israel has been producing nuclear weapons at the Dimona plant, built with the help mainly of France and the United States. It is not subject to inspections because Israel, the only nuclear power in the Middle East, does not adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran signed fifty years ago.

The evidence that Israel produces nuclear weapons was revealed more than thirty years ago by Mordechai Vanunu, who had worked in the Dimona plant: published by The Sunday Times on October 5, 1986, after being screened by leading nuclear weapons experts. Vanunu, kidnapped by the Mossad in Rome and transported to Israel, was sentenced to 18 years of hard jail time and, after being released in 2004, subject to severe restrictions.

Israel has today (though without admitting it) an arsenal estimated at 100-400 nuclear weapons, including new generation mini-nukes and neutron bombs, and produces plutonium and tritium in such quantities as to build hundreds more.

The Israeli nuclear warheads are ready to launch on ballistic missiles, such as the Jericho 3, and on F-15 and F-16 fighter bombers supplied by the USA, to which the F-35 are now added.

As confirmed by the numerous IAEA inspections, Iran has no nuclear weapons and commits not to produce them, according to the agreement under strict international control.

However – writes former US Secretary of State Colin Powell on March 3, 2015 in an email that has come to light –

“the boys in Tehran know Israel has 200 nuclear weapons, all targeted on Tehran, and we have thousands”.

The US European allies, which formally continue to support the agreement with Iran, are basically aligned with Israel. Germany supplied Israel with six Dolphin submarines, modified so as to launch nuclear cruise missiles, and approved the supply of three more.

Germany, France, Italy, Greece and Poland participated, with the USA, in the Blue Flag 2017, the largest international aerial warfare exercise in Israel’s history. Italy, linked to Israel by a military cooperation agreement (Law No. 94, 2005), participated in the exercise with Tornado fighters of the 6th Wing of Ghedi, assigned to carry US B-61 nuclear bombs (which will soon be replaced by B61-12). The US participated with F-16 fighters of the 31st Fighter Wing of Aviano, assigned to the same function.

The Israeli nuclear forces are integrated into the NATO electronic system, within the framework of the “Individual Cooperation Program” with Israel, a country which, although not a member of the Alliance, has a permanent mission to NATO headquarters in Brussels.

According to the plan tested in the US-Israel Juniper Cobra 2018 exercise, US and NATO forces would come from Europe (especially from the bases in Italy) to support Israel in a war against Iran. It could start with an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, like the one carried out in 1981 on Osiraq nuclear reactor in Iraq. In the event of Iranian retaliation, Israel could use a nuclear weapon by starting a chain reaction with unpredictable outcomes.

Source: PandoraTV

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This article was originally published by Il Manifesto.

Manlio Dinucci is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

---

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

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

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

Reviews

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

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

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

Read part I, II and III from the links below.

On Global Capitalist Crises: Systemic Changes and Challenges

By Dr. Jack Rasmus and Mohsen Abdelmoumen, June 09, 2019

On Global Capitalist Crises. Debt Defaults, Bankruptcies and Real Economy Decline

By Dr. Jack Rasmus and Mohsen Abdelmoumen, June 13, 2019

On Global Capitalist Crises: US Neocons and Trump’s Economic and Social Agenda

By Dr. Jack Rasmus and Mohsen Abdelmoumen, June 14, 2019

***

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: You have worked on trade union issues and you have been a trade unionist yourself. In the face of the fierce neoliberal offensive, do we not have a vital need for a very strong trade union movement to defend the working class?

Jack Rasmus: Absolutely. One of the great tragedies in recent decades is the destruction and co-optation of what’s left of that trade union movement. The destruction was planned in the 1970s and the implementation of a strategy of union destruction began in earnest under Reagan and has not ceased ever since. One of the greatest and most successful union strike waves in the US occurred in 1969-71 (second in scope only to 1946). Workers won wage and benefit gains of 25% in the first year of contracts at that time (1970-71). First construction trades, then teamsters, then auto and steel, then port dockworkers. Employers could not stop them. They were too well organized and remembered how still to fight from the traditions left over from the 30s and 40s. That’s when a plan was developed first to destroy the building trades. That was implemented back in the late 1970s, even before Reagan. Under Reagan the attack was directed at manufacturing and transport unions. At its core was the offshoring of their jobs and the deregulation of their industries to intensify competition to drive down wages. The beginning of the ‘contingent’ labor transformation began in the 1980s as well, then accelerated. Free trade wiped out more jobs, especially under Clinton in the 1990s. Pensions were destroyed in the private sector in the 80s and 90s. Minimum wages were allowed to lag. Healthcare costs were privatized and shifted to workers. Some workers fought back, a rear-guard action.

But the explanation for the demise of unionization in America in the private sector cannot be understood as solely the result of capitalist offensives. That was important. But so was the lack of leadership by unions at the top. They thought it would temporary, under Reagan, and they could recoup losses thereafter in membership, wages, and benefits. But it was not temporary. It continued under Democrats in the 1990s. The problem was that unions, as they weakened, turned to the Democratic Party to save them. It didn’t. As they got weaker they pleaded with Democrats even more, but the latter simply took their support for granted and did little in return. The Democrat party insisted the Unions not embarrass them by strikes, especially under Clinton. The leadership abided by the party’s request. And got weaker still, losing more members. Then came NAFTA, China, and H1-B visas giving hundreds of thousands of jobs to skilled labor coming to the US. Millions of jobs were lost after 1997 to trade. Then came tax cuts for business that subsidized the replacement of labor by capital and machinery. That devastated at least as many jobs as free trade deals. Then came the collapse of housing markets and permanent loss of millions of construction jobs. Filling the gap of jobs were more low paid service employment and more contingent part time, temp work, at lower pay and no benefits. All the while the leaders of unions pleaded with Democrats to help them. Obama promised reforms to help unions organize new members in 2008, then buried the promise once elected and having received union members’ contributions in the millions for his campaign.

The problem of declining unions is a problem of capitalist restructuring and change, of capitalist offensives to de-unionize and weaken collective bargaining. But it’s also a consequence of wrong union strategies, especially becoming more dependent on Democratic party leaders who abandoned unions once they took their campaign contributions. If unions are to resurrect themselves, and I believe they will, it will have to be an independent union movement, not depending on either wings of the corporate party of America—aka the Democrats and the Republican wings of this single, essentially capitalist party. It will probably have to assume a new kind of organizational form as well. Not organized along lines of ‘smokestacks’, for this or that industry, and not placing contracts as its key objective but forming alliances and new organizations that include allies outside of work and pursuing political-legislative objectives as equally important strategies.

Having personally lived and worked in unions when they were at their peak, and then experienced and witnessed the decline, from within and from afar, it is clear union labor will have to undergo a major organizational and strategic restructuring of its own if it is to become a force it once was. But this is not the first time historically it has undergone such a transformation and arose to resume its critical economic and political role. I’m convinced it will do it again. But only if that resurrection attempt is done independently and it breaks as an appendage of either of the wings of the corporate party of America.

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Enquanto os Estados Unidos preparam uma nova escalada no Médio Oriente, acusando o Irão de atacar petroleiros no Golfo de Omã, o Vice-Primeiro Ministro,  Matteo Salvini, encontra, em Washington, o Secretário de Estado, Mike Pompeo, um dos arquitectos dessa estratégia, assegurando-lhe que a “A Itália quer voltar a ser, no continente europeu, o primeiro parceiro da maior democracia ocidental”. Liga, assim, a Itália à operação lançada por Washington.

O “incidente do Golfo de Omã”, casus belli contra o Irão, reproduz o “incidente do Golfo de Tonkin” de 4 de Agosto de 1964, usado como casus belli para bombardear o Vietnam do Norte, acusado de atacar um contra-torpedeiro dos EUA, (acusação que depois acabou, demonstrada como falsa).

Hoje, um vídeo divulgado em Washington mostra a tripulação de um pretenso barco-patrulha iraniano que, em plena luz do dia, remove do lado de um petroleiro, uma mina não explodida para esconder a sua origem (já que a mina tinha a inscrição “made in Iran”). Com essas “provas”, que constituem um verdadeiro insulto à inteligência, Washington tenta camuflar o objectivo da operação.

Faz parte da estratégia do controlo das reservas globais de petróleo e gás natural e dos corredores de energia relacionados. Não é por acaso que os Estados Unidos têm como alvo o Irão e o Iraque, cujas reservas totais de petróleo excedem as da Arábia Saudita e são cinco vezes maiores do que as dos EUA. As reservas de gás natural iranianas são cerca de 2,5 vezes superiores às dos Estados Unidos. Pela mesma razão, a Venezuela  está na mira USA – o país com as maiores reservas de petróleo do mundo. O controlo dos corredores energéticos é da maior importância.

Acusando o Irão de querer “interromper o fluxo de petróleo através do Estreito de Hormuz”, Mike Pompeo anuncia que “os Estados Unidos defenderão a liberdade da navegação”. Por outras palavras, anuncia que os Estados Unidos querem controlar militarmente esta zona fundamental para o aprivisionamento de energia da Europa, acima de tudo, impedindo o trânsito do petróleo iraniano (ao qual a Itália e outros países europeus não podem, entretanto, aceder livremente, devido à proibição dos EUA).

Do Irão, também teria podido chegar à Europa o gás natural a baixo preço por intermédio de um gasoducto através do Iraque e da Síria, mas o projecto, lançado em 2011, fracassou após a operação USA/NATO para destruir o Estado sírio.

Da Rússia, poderia ter chegado directamente à Itália, e daqui poderia ser distribuído por outros países europeus com vantagens económicas consideráveis, gás natural por meio do South Stream através do Mar Negro, mas o gasoducto, já em estágio avançado, foi bloqueado em 2014, sob pressão dos Estados Unidos e da própria União Europeia, com grandes prejuízos para a Itália. Em vez disso, foi avante a duplicação do Nord Stream, que faz da Alemanha o centro de distribuição do gás russo.

Posteriormente, com base no acordo de “Cooperação estratégica USA-UE”, assinado em Julho de 2018, triplicaram as exportações de gás natural liquefeito (GNL), dos EUA para a UE. O centro de distribuição é a Polónia, onde o “gás da liberdade” também chegará à Ucrânia. O objectivo de Washington é estratégico: atingir a Rússia, substituindo na Europa, o gás russo pelo gás dos EUA. No entanto, não há garantia nem sobre os preços, nem sobre a duração do fornecimento de gás dos EUA, extraído do xisto betuminoso por meio duma técnica ambientalmente desastrosa de fracking.

O que diz de tudo isto Matteo Salvini que, ao chegar à “maior democracia ocidental”, declarou orgulhosamente:  “Faço parte de um governo que, na Europa,  não se contenta mais com migalhas”?

Manlio Dinucci 

 

Artigo original em italiano :

Chi sono gli incendiari di petroliere

ilmanifesto.it

Tradutora: Maria Luísa de Vasconcellos

Mentre gli Stati uniti preparano una nuova escalation in Medio Oriente, accusando l’Iran di attaccare le petroliere nel Golfo di Oman, il vice-premier Matteo Salvini incontra a Washington il segretario di Stato Mike Pompeo, uno degli artefici di tale strategia, assicurandogli che «l’Italia vuole tornare a essere nel continente europeo il primo partner della più grande democrazia occidentale». Aggancia così l’Italia all’operazione lanciata da Washington.

L’«incidente del Golfo di Oman», casus belli contro l’Iran, ricalca «l’incidente del Golfo del Tonchino» del 4 agosto 1964, usato come casus belli per bombardare il Nord Vietnam, accusato di aver attaccato un cacciatorpediniere Usa (accusa risultata poi falsa).

Oggi, un video diffuso da Washington mostra l’equipaggio di una presunta motovedetta iraniana che, in pieno giorno, rimuove dalla fiancata di una petroliera una mina inesplosa per cancellare la sua provenienza (dato che la mina avrà avuto la scritta «made in Iran»). Con queste «prove», che costituiscono un vero e proprio insulto all’intelligenza, Washington cerca di camuffare lo scopo dell’operazione.

Essa rientra nella strategia per il controllo delle riserve mondiali di petrolio e gas naturale e dei relativi corridoi energetici. Non a caso nel mirino degli Stati uniti vi sono l’Iran e l’Iraq, le cui riserve petrolifere complessive superano quelle dell’Arabia Saudita e sono cinque volte superiori a quelle Usa. Le riserve iraniane di gas naturale sono circa 2,5 volte quelle statunitensi. Per la stessa ragione è nel mirino Usa il Venezuela, il paese con le maggiori riserve petrolifere del mondo.  Di primaria importanza è il controllo dei corridoi energetici.

Accusando l’Iran di voler «interrompere il flusso di petrolio attraverso lo Stretto di Hormuz», Mike Pompeo annuncia che «gli Stati uniti difenderanno la libertà di navigazione». In altre parole, annuncia che gli Stati uniti vogliono controllare militarmente questa zona chiave per l’approvvigionamento energetico anche dell’Europa, impedendo anzitutto il transito del petrolio iraniano (a cui l’Italia e altri paesi europei non possono comunque accedere liberamente a causa del divieto Usa).

Dall’Iran avrebbe potuto arrivare in Europa anche gas naturale a basso prezzo per mezzo di un gasdotto attraverso Iraq e Siria, ma il progetto, varato nel 2011, è saltato in seguito all’operazione Usa/Nato per demolire lo Stato siriano.

Dalla Russia avrebbe potuto arrivare direttamente in Italia, e da qui essere smistato in altri paesi europei con notevoli vantaggi economici, gas naturale per mezzo del South Stream attraverso il Mar Nero, ma il gasdotto, già in fase avanzata, è stato bloccato nel 2014 sotto pressione degli Stati uniti e della stessa Unione europea con grossi danni per l’Italia. E’ invece andato avanti il raddoppio del Nord Stream, che fa della Germania il centro di smistamento del gas russo.

Successivamente, in base all’accordo di «cooperazione strategica Usa-Ue in campo energetico» stipulato nel luglio 2018, le esportazioni Usa di gas naturale liquefatto (Lng) nella Ue sono triplicate.

Centro di smistamento è la Polonia, da dove il «gas della libertà» arriverà anche in Ucraina. L’obiettivo di Washington è strategico: colpire la Russia sostituendo in Europa al gas russo quello statunitense. Non c’è però alcuna garanzia né sui prezzi, né sulla durata delle forniture Usa di gas, estratto dagli scisti bituminosi con la tecnica del fracking ambientalmente disastrosa.

Che cosa dice di tutto questo Matteo Salvini che, arrivato nella «più grande democrazia occidentale», ha orgogliosamente dichiarato «faccio parte di un governo che in Europa non si accontenta più delle briciole»?

Manlio Dinucci

 

 

“Racism is one of the main engines and expressions of the current counter-revolution. In Venezuela the revolutionary struggle to end white supremacy and for self-determination is slow, and complicated by white elites, backed by US imperialism, and by the denial of many that racism persists.” Quote from Venezuelanalysis.com, “Racism Without Shame in the Venezuelan Counter-Revolution”

The US and Canada are not supporting “the return of democracy” in Venezuela as they claim. Instead, they are following in their histories of colonialism, imperialism, exploitation, illegal wars of aggression, and overthrowing governments. They are crushing democracy in Venezuela by exploiting class and race warfare, being carried out by an elite white-supremacist minority against the poor, Afro-Indigenous, and other Venezuelans of color.

A white-minority has dominated commerce and politics in Venezuela since the days of slavery in the 19th century. Venezuela had slavery, just as did the rest of the Caribbean and Latin America. Slavery went back to the early 16th century Spanish conquistadors. More abducted Africans were trafficked to the Caribbean and Latin America, than to the USA.

[Map, South African History online]

Slavery was officially abolished in all of the Americas in the 19th century. The history of slavery in the Caribbean and Latin America has left a legacy of prejudice, discrimination and class conflict, which has largely gone unresolved.

Different skin complexions of Latin Americans are due mostly to various mixtures of European, Spanish and Indigenous bloodlines. The darker the skin color, along with other ethnic features, the more there is of discrimination in education, employment, and opportunity. Discrimination against blacks and people of color perpetuates poverty and class conflict. In Venezuela, as elsewhere in the Caribbean and Latin America, political power, commerce and wealth is largely in the hands of a minority of upper-class elites, whom are mostly whiter and lighter than those with darker skin complexion.

One can get a sense of how much class and race affect Latin American society by watching Spanish language movies and soap operas. Here are just two examples below: the setting for the TV series “The White Slave” is 19th century Colombia; and the setting for “Teresa” is contemporary Mexico.

[One can get a sense of how much class and race affect Latin America society by watching Spanish language movies and soap operas. The setting for “La Esclava Blanca” is 19th century Colombia. The setting for “Teresa” is contemporary Mexico. Photos Wikipedia.]

Hugo Chavez and his successor Maduro are exuberantly despised by the elite white-supremacist minority. They still call Chavez negro, savage, monkey and ape. Maduro gets the same; and the media never fails to remind the public that he was a former bus driver, which is code for “low-class”. Maduro is proud of his humble beginning as a bus driver and his Afro-Indigenous ethnicity. Chavez was proud of his poor Afro-Indigenous background too, and his final resting place is in the barrio where he and Maduro came from.

In 1998 the elite white minority was voted out of the presidential residence Miraflores Palace. Instead of being purged by Chavez, as an authoritarian dictator would have done, the elites maintained their political power base, dominance in commerce, and control of the media. They have been trying to get back the Miraflores Palace, and indignantly consider it their birthright. They have used every means at their command, and even invited the US to invade the country, which would result in thousands of deaths.

In April 2002 the elite white minority tried a coup against Chavez, backed and financed by the US, which failed. In December 2002 they tried a strike by the management at the Venezuelan oil company Petróleos de Venezuela. They tried a recall referendum against Chavez in 2004, and lost at the polls. They tried to unify the opposition political parties with the sole purpose of defeating Maduro in 2013, and failed. They tried to delegitimize the 2018 presidential election by organizing a boycott. They tried to assassinate Maduro with a drone in 2018. Their attempts have failed.

The white elites have sabotaged the economy, used mass demonstrations, and organizeD violence. The self-appointed Juan Guaido declared himself the interim president, and called for a military coup d’etat, that failed miserably. Even with their control of the media and commerce they have failed to oust Maduro.

The elite upper class has millions of dollars of financial support from the US and Canada. Some of the EU countries, following pressure from the US, have thrown their support for the Guaido coup plotters too. The UK froze $1.2 billion of Venezuela’s much needed reserves for life-saving food and medicine. Spain turned its back on the people of Venezuela.

The above political caricature of Afro-Indigenous Hugo Chavez, is titled “Ape Commander”, an obvious racial slur. As the article Racism Without Shame in the Venezuelan Counter-Revolution from Venezuelanalysis explains:

”In Venezuela, the revolutionary struggle to end white supremacy and for self-determination is a slow slog, complicated by two forces: One, the white elites, backed by U.S. imperialism, and many of the middle class who support them, cling tenaciously to their power and privilege. Two, the denial by whites, and nearly everyone else that racism persists.”

Above is a caricature of Nicolas Maduro as a donkey, which is a racist slur. Animalization of black and brown people is a common theme in the white media. Maduro is pictured as a dumb animal being driven by a white Cuban. Ironically, one of the early achievements of the Cuban Revolution was to pass strong antidiscrimination laws, and largely end the racial divide in Cuba.

The US and Canada have opposed the government of Venezuela since the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998. Chavez won the election by a landslide on his platform of participatory democracy, local governance, frequent elections, rewriting the constitution, social reforms, healthcare for all, free education, adult literacy programs, and other basic economic freedoms. He called his platform the Bolivarian Revolution, his movement is called Chavismo, his followers are called Chavistas and they are fiercely loyal to Maduro. Maduro is fiercely loyal to Chavez’s memory, and the Bolivarian process. The country is renamed The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, after el libertador Simon Bolivar.

The Bolivarian process has had dramatic success in reducing inequality, cutting poverty in half, providing adequate housing, fighting child malnutrition, improving public education, practically eliminating adult illiteracy, reducing unemployment, and providing social security. (See appendix A for economic charts of the success of the Bolivarian Revolution, or click the link HERE.) The US and Canada are trying to destroy the successes of the Bolivarian process with an illegal economic blockade and violent subversion.

Before his death, Chavez endorsed his Vice President Nicolas Maduro as his successor. Chavez died in March of 2013, and a new election as required by the constitution was held in April. Maduro won by a surprisingly small margin of 1.5% against the pro-business opponent Henrique Capriles. The opposition cried foul as they always do when they lose.

Venezuela has a voting system with both an electronic ballot and a hard copy, which Jimmy Carter called the best voting technology in the world in 2012. In that election, which Carter monitored, Chavez beat Capriles by a landslide, 55.1% to 44.3%. Still, the US and the mainstream media called Chavez a dictator. Now they call Maduro a dictator.

In the 2018 presidential election Maduro won easily with 67.8% of the vote against his two opponents Henri Falcón and Javier Bertucci. Maduro had invited the United Nations to send election observers, but the UN declined because the opposition told the UN not to come. Why would the opposition disinvite the UN if they thought the election was going to be rigged? Answer, because they have given up on democratic elections. They are outnumbered by the politically awakened poor, Afro-Indigenous, and people of color who live in the barrios.

Barrio de Caracas (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The US and Canada are violating international law and the UN Charter by interfering in the internal affairs of Venezuela. The fact that Venezuela has tremendous wealth in oil, gold, precious earth, minerals and abundant natural and human resources is the obvious lure in whetting their greed.

The killer economic blockade that the US and members of the Lima Group (a US-controlled international cabal designed as a propaganda prop to legitimate attacks on Venezuela’s government) have imposed is causing tens of thousands of deaths, needless suffering, and is destroying Venezuela’s economy. The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) estimates that 40,000 Venezuelans have died as a direct result of the economic blockade. Since the blockade is intentionally targeting civilians, it is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, and a crime against humanity.

The CEPR disputes the US, Canadian, and mainstream media narrative that Nicolas Maduro is the blame for the current economic crisis. Mark Weisbrot of CEPR says that denying that the blockade is the cause of Venezuela’s economic crisis is like “climate change denial”.

The US and the mainstream media blame Maduro for “wrecking” the economy. They blame the Bolivarian process for having spent too much on social programs for the poor, not diversifying the economy, not fighting crime, and not putting away reserves in anticipation of low oil prices. The problem is that it is not true. Watch the 17-minute interview of Mark Weisbrot below:

Denying Impact of Venezuela Sanctions is ‘Like Climate Denial’

According to a United Nation’s analysis, and 150 experts and activists, the economic slump from falling oil prices was exacerbated by Obama’s economic sanctions in 2015. The blockade imposed by Trump and the Lima Group in 2017 has sent the economy into crisis. That is what economic sanctions are intended to do, as is well-known (e.g. “make the economy scream.”).

Other oil dependent countries in the region are struggling through the depression in oil prices. Venezuela could have too, except for the economic blockade, confiscation of Venezuela’s US oil company Citgo, and the freezing of assets by the US, Canada, and the EU countries. The constant threat of a US invasion diverts needed resources to increased defense spending, which is another drain on the economy.

What the US and Canada are doing to Venezuela meets the definition of terrorism. They are using violence against civilians, starving them to death and preventing life-saving medicine from getting through, for political and economic purposes. It is robbery in plain sight, but many people believe the mainstream media propaganda, rather than their own “lying eyes”. The blindness is caused by “blockade denial”.

The elite white minority of Venezuelans want control of the vast wealth of Venezuela’s natural resources, and the US and Canada are helping for their own imperial designs. It is a historical pattern. The US and Canada have long supported dictators and opposed anti-colonial and democratic movements in the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa and Asia. Before the rise of the US Empire, Canada backed the British Empire in the Caribbean, and even considered annexing its own colonies in the West Indies. Now the UK and Canada are the US Empire’s junior imperial partners.

After the 1898 Spanish-American war the US colonized Cuba and Puerto Rico, as well as the Philippines. The US invaded Mexico in 1914 to support the oligarchy against the nationalists. The US refused to recognize Haiti’s government until 1862, even though it had gained independence from France in 1804. The US militarily occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. During the Spanish Civil War, the US supported the fascist dictator Franco.

Some of the most notorious dictators that the US has backed are Batista in Cuba, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Pinochet in Chile, Noriega in Panama, and “Papa Doc” and “Baby Doc” Duvalier in Haiti. During the 1980’s the US sponsored death squads in Central America. The US backed the French in Indochina and Africa, the British in the Middle East and the 1982 colonial Falkland Island War. The US backed Suharto of Indonesia in his genocidal invasion of East Timor. The US backed apartheid South Africa, and had Nelson Mandela on its terrorist list until 2008. Is this the picture of a country that loves democracy and human rights?

Just as the US overthrew a democratic government in Guatemala in 1954 for United Fruit Company, the US is now trying to overthrow a democratic government in Venezuela for the benefit of US oil companies, and Canadian mining companies. And just as neocon Elliot Abrams was in charge of the death-squads in Central America during the 1980’s, he is now Trump’s special envoy for Venezuela. To believe that the US wants to “restore democracy” in Venezuela takes cognitive dissonance.

The US is supporting a cabal of elite white supremacists in Venezuelan to push the Washington Consensus of IMF loans, privatization of state-owned enterprises, invasion of foreign capital, Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP) by the IMF, neoliberal debt slavery and austerity for the poor, Afro-Indigenous, and people of color. Even Monsanto is behind the coup because Venezuela is one of the few countries that bans cancer causing Roundup and GMO seeds.

An article in the Journal of the US Army from 2005 laid out in detail the US’s objections against the Bolivarian process. Even when there was no question about the legitimacy of the elections and the economy was doing great, the US was planning a coup d‘etat. One reason is oil, and the US Army article is blunt about it:

So, the US and Venezuela disagree on their “preference” for “this strategic asset”. The Venezuelan people want to use their oil wealth for the benefit of Venezuelans, and the US objects? Of course, Canada’s “preference” is for Canadian mining companies to control Venezuela’s gold too.

Venezuela is a sovereign country, a member of the United Nations, and Maduro is the internationally recognized president. (A status the US and its vassals and allies in crime continually work to undermine).  Venezuela has the right to choose its own preferences. What the article calls “this strategic asset” is not up for grabs. The US and Canada don’t have a right to vote on it. The fact that the US and Canada even think that they can dictate ownership of “this strategic asset”, shows how arrogant and bullying they are. This is the 21st century, the Monroe Doctrine should be dead, and the Caribbean and Latin America ain’t nobody’s “backyard”.

The US Army article further whines that Chavez and Maduro encouraged the unity of South America, challenging US hegemony. Venezuela has a right to its own foreign relations. Other invented crimes are that Venezuela backed a stronger OPEC, and opposed the illegal Invasion of Iraq, and the Worldwide War on Terror. Venezuela has good relations with Cuba and Nicaragua, thus irritating the US further.

Strangely, the US Army article finds the Bolivarian process of “participatory democracy” rather than “representative democracy” to be nefarious? It’s odd that the US would object to the Venezuelan people having more democracy and local control, rather than less. Try explaining to Chavistas how Trump became president even though he got fewer votes than Clinton, and they will laugh in your face about “representative democracy”.

What is depressing is that most of the North American public is still fooled by the US propaganda that it is motivated by democracy and human rights. The historical evidence is to the contrary. The US is a serial predator of illegal wars of aggression, which have killed millions of people, and Canada has been right there side-by-side. They have invaded at least a half-dozen countries in the past few decades, and they are threatening a half-dozen more. The US has imposed illegal economic sanctions on Russia, Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Venezuela. The US State Department has bragged that the sanctions are “working” because civilians are dying. That is not concern for human rights. It is coercion, hostage taking and demands for ransom.

The US often violates international law, reneges on treaties, ignores the United Nations, defies the International Criminal Court, and breaks domestic laws. It conducts illegal wars of aggression, drone assassinations, night raids, and covert operations . The US supplies weapons, logistics and ammunition that are used by Israel and Saudi Arabia to kill civilians. The US supports 70% of the world’s dictators. Does any of that fit with a country that is concerned about democracy and human rights? The US and Canada are recklessly instigating a bloody civil war in Venezuela.

A State Department official named Brian Hook in a leaked memo disabused his boss at that time, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, about the actual aims of US foreign policy. The memo tutored Tillerson that the US is only interested in weaponizing democracy and human rights to destabilize adversaries. The US should treat friendly dictatorships, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Honduras, “different and better”, according to Hook.

As Hook explains, agitating countries about democracy and human rights is destabilizing, and the US does not want to do that to friendly dictators. With adversaries though, the US wants to destabilize them even if they are democracies, like Venezuela. For adversaries, they are never democratic enough to please the US. They should be destabilized and kept off balance, according to Hook.

It is false that US foreign policy objectives are for the benefit of the US public. US foreign policy is for the benefit of corporations, special interest groups and oligarchs. The beneficiaries of US foreign policy are the elites, and they grease US foreign policy with campaign contributions, bribes and other perks to government officials.

What drives US foreign policy is the quest for absolute military superiority, preservation of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency, maintaining the capitalist world order, controlling the world’s natural and human resources, promoting a stable business-friendly environment for Western transnational corporations, and seeking opportunities for windfall profits for cronies.

In other words, the US wants to control the whole world. If that means overthrowing non-compliant democratically elected governments and supporting military coups and dictators, killing millions of people, then as far as the US is concerned, so be it. That is criminally insane.

It is the US public that pays for US foreign policy and wars, either through taxes or by the lack of government programs, such as universal healthcare, education, mass transit and a “Green New Deal”. US foreign policy does not keep the American people safer. Wars and the threat of wars make the American people less safe.

The foreign policy elites, also called the “power elite”, which is a phrase coined by C. Wright Mills in his book The Power Elite, are a closely knit alliance of “military, government, and corporate officials perceived as the center of wealth and political power in the US”. The power elite usually come from wealthy families. They all went to Ivy League schools, they belong to the same country clubs, they are members of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg group. They sit on the boards of corporations, the media, banks, foundations, universities, and think tanks; and they become Senators and Presidents.

The power elite is a clique. The members all go to the same cocktail parties, their spouses are friends, and their children go to private schools together. Those not born into the power elite have to earn admission by being faithful servants, and climb to the top while they gain experience, power and influence. The power elite is the Deep State. The Deep State makes US foreign policy and declares war; not the American people. The American people pay, but do not get to “play”.
The Deep State, and those that serve it, such as John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, have no moral and legal restraints.

Humanitarian interventionists, the right to protect (R2P), American values, democracy and human rights are weaponized, as Hook explained to Tillerson. It is all about US hegemony and world domination. Under three US presidents, Bush, Obama and Trump, the US has been trying to overthrow the government of Venezuela.

Twenty years ago, the democratically elected president of Venezuela became a target of the US. There was no question that the election was fair, democratic and it was declared so by international observers, including the Carter Center. Hugo Chavez won the presidency by a landslide. Instead of cheering for democracy at work, the US and Canada soon started plotting to overthrow the elected government.

In 2002 the US backed an unsuccessful military coup d’etat. The US immediately endorsed the coup government, and the mainstream media cheered. The coup failed because the people demanded a return of their kidnapped president. Within 48 hours Hugo Chavez was back in the Miraflores Palace.

Below is a 15-minute documentary on the 2002 coup attempt and the US involvement. The video features Eva Golinger. Golinger is a US attorney who has followed events in Venezuela for decades, she was a legal advisor to Hugo Chavez, and she has written several books. The most well-known is The Chavez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela.

How America Overthrew The Venezuelan Government

So, how does the US square what it now says is its concern for democracy, when the US tried to overthrow the government in 2002, regardless of it being a democratically elected government? The US’s fallback argument is that an adversary is never democratic enough, as Hook explained.

It is the same answer the US gave in 1954 when it overthrew the democratically elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Árbenz. It is the same answer the US gave in 1973 when it overthrew and assassinated Chile’s democratically elected president, Salvador Allende. It is the same answer it gave in the 1980’s when it was backing the Contras in Nicaragua. It is the same answer the US gave when it overthrew the democratically elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti in 1994, and then overthrew him again when he was elected in 2004. It is the same answer that the US gave when it backed the military coup in Honduras in 2009. For the US, an adversary is never democratic enough, and it must go.

Maduro must go because he is costing US and Canadian corporations and banks money. He challenges the Washington Consensus. Maduro threatens US hegemony in Latin America and the Caribbean. Those are unforgiveable sins in the eyes of the US. It is like putting a great big bull’s eye on your back. Being a US target has nothing to do with democracy and human rights.

Vice President Pence and Prime Minister Trudeau met in Ottawa at the end of May. In their joint statement they spoke about many issues that the US and Canada share. They chitchatted about their peaceful borders, joked about basketball rivalry, and spared about trade. One issue that they agreed on was Venezuela. Both said that President Nicolas Maduro must go. When the US says “must go”, it includes assassination.

Here is what Trudeau had to say on Venezuela:

“This afternoon, the Vice President and I spoke about the concerning situation in Venezuela. Our government remains committed to the importance of finding a peaceful return to democracy and stability for Venezuelans.”

Pence followed with his statement on Venezuela:

“Canada has imposed sanctions on 113 of the dictator’s cronies. You’ve promoted the cause of freedom and a free Venezuela inside the Lima Group and the OAS. And the two of us have said, with one voice, that Nicolás Maduro is a dictator with no legitimate claim to power, and Nicolás Maduro must go.”

Restoring democracy in Venezuela is a red herring. The US and Canadian foreign policies are not concerned about democracy. It is lip service for the home folks. US foreign policy has always preferred strong dictators and puppet governments in their “back yard”. The US and Canada have historically exploited their backyard for its natural resources, tropical monocrops, cheap labor, and schemes to get rich. Those that have opposed the US and Canada can be found in mass graves all over the Caribbean and Latin American.

Trump is refreshingly crude, compared to the smooth-talking Obama. Reportedly when Trump first took office, one of his first questions was why is the US not at war with Venezuela, since they have all that oil and they are right in our backyard?

International law is meaningless to the US, and that is not new with Trump. The US has a long history of ignoring international law. Both Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton have a vision of the world as the wild west, with no international law, just anarchy. It is the cynical view that might-makes-right, and that the US is above the law.

It was the Bill Clinton administration that injected new currency into the phrases American exceptionalism and the indispensable nation. That was the polite way to say that the US is above the law. It is just that Trump, Bolton, Pompeo, and Abrams do not have good manners. That is not a policy change, it’s Trump stepping into an imperial presidency that was left to him by Bush and Obama.

Oh, the Trump administration still speaks out of both sides of its mouth with platitudes that the US is a force for good in the world, and that its values are democracy and human rights. Only fools believe that anymore.

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Appendix

Venezuelan Economic and Social Performance Under Hugo Chávez, in Graphs

1. Growth (Average Annual Percent)

Source: Banco Central de Venezuela

This graph shows overall GDP growth as well as per-capita growth in the pre-Chávez (1986-1999) era and the Chávez presidency.

From 1999-2003, the government did not control the state oil company; in fact, it was controlled by his opponents, who used it to try to overthrow the government, including the devastating oil strike of 2002–2003. For that reason, a better measure of economic growth under the Chávez government would start after it got control over the state oil company, and therefore the economy.

Above you can see this growth both measured from 2004, and for the 1999-2012 period. We use 2004 because to start with 2003, a depressed year due to the oil strike, would exaggerate GDP growth during this period; by 2004, the economy had caught up with its pre-strike level of output. Growth after the government got control of the state oil company was much faster.

2. Public vs. Private Growth – 1999-2012 (Average Annual Percent)

Source: Banco Central de Venezuela

This graph shows the growth of the private sector versus the public sector during the Chávez years.

3. Inflation: Pre-Chávez vs. Chávez Years

Source: Banco Central de Venezuela, INEC / Inflation in Venezuela, consumer price index.

4. Unemployment Rate: Before and After Oil Strike

After the oil strike (and the deep recession that it caused) ended in 2003, unemployment dropped drastically, following many years of increases before Chávez was elected. In 1999, when Chávez took office, unemployment was 14.5 percent; for 2011 it was 7.8 percent.

5. Poverty and Extreme Poverty Rate

Source: INEC

Poverty has decreased significantly, dropping by nearly 50 percent since the oil strike, with extreme poverty dropping by over 70 percent.

6. Gini Coefficient, 2001-2003 – Latin America

Source: Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean

The Gini coefficient, measuring income inequality, fell from 0.5 to 0.397, the lowest Gini coefficient in the region.

7. Social Spending as a Percent of GDP

Source: SISOV

Social spending doubled from 11.3 percent of GDP in 1998 to 22.8 percent of GDP in 2011.

8. Education: Net Enrollment

Source: SISOV

9. Graduates from Higher Education

Source: Ministerio del P.P. para la Educación Universitaria

10. Child Malnutrition- Age 5 and Under

Source: Instituto Nacional de Nutrición

11. Venezuelans Receiving Pensions

Source: Instituto Venezuela de los Seguros Sociales

The number of Venezuelans receiving pensions has increased from less than 500,000 in 1999 to nearly 2 million in 2011.

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This article was originally published on The Greanville Post.

David William Pear is a columnist writing on U.S. foreign policy, economic and political issues, human rights and social issues. David is a Senior Contributing Editor of The Greanville Post (TGP) and a prior Senior Editor for OpEdNews (OEN). David has been writing for The Real News Network (TRNN) and other publications for over 10 years. David is a member of Veterans for Peace, Saint Pete (Florida) for Peace, CodePink, and the Palestinian-led non-violent organization International Solidarity Movement.

One of the claims made about alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election was that Kremlin-controlled entities were using fake identities to create dissension and confusion on social network sites. This should surprise no one, if it is true, as intelligence operatives have been using false names since Sumerian times.

The concern over fake identities no doubt comes from the deception involved, meaning that if you are dealing with a real person you at least have some handle on making as assessment of what something means and what is likely to occur. A false persona, however, can pretend to be anything and can advocate or do something without any yardstick to measure what is actually taking place. In other words, if Mike Pompeo says something you know that he is a liar and can judge his words accordingly but if it is someone otherwise unknown named Qwert Uiop you have to wonder if he or she just might be telling the truth. You might even give them the benefit of the doubt.

A prime example of a false internet persona has recently surfaced in the form of an alleged “activist” invented by the Iranian terrorist group Mojahedin e Khalq (MEK). MEK is a curious hybrid creature in any event in that it pretends to be an alternative government option for Iran even though it is despised by nearly all Iranians. At the same time, it is greatly loved by the Washington Establishment which would like to see the Mullahs deposed and replaced by something more amenable to western and Israeli worldviews.

MEK is run like a cult by its leader Maryam Rajavi, with a number of rules that restrict and control the behavior of its members. One commentary likens membership in MEK to a modern day equivalent of slavery. The group currently operates out of a secretive, heavily guarded 84 acre compound in Albania that is covertly supported by the United States, as well as through a “political wing” front office in Paris, where it refers to itself as the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

MEK, which is financially supported by Saudi Arabia, stages events in the United States in Europe where it generously pays politicians like John Bolton, Rudy Giuliani and Elaine Chao to make fifteen-minute speeches praising the organization and everything it does. It’s paying of inside the Beltway power brokers proved so successful that it was removed from the State Department terrorist list in 2012 by Hillary Clinton even though it had killed Americans in the 1970s. MEK also finds favor in Washington because it is used by Israel as a resource for anti-Iranian terrorism acts currently, including assassinations carried out in Tehran.

MEK’s fake journalist, who has recently been exposed by The Intercept, is named Heshmat Alavi. He, or if you prefer “it,” has very successfully gained access to a considerable body of generally conservative mainstream western media, including Forbes, The Hill, the Daily Beast and The Federalist. Alavi has placed scores of articles as “an activist with a passion for human rights,” aimed at discrediting Iran and its government while also subtly praising MEK as an alternative to the current regime. His bona fides have never been questioned, even by Forbes, which placed no less than 61 articles under the name between April 2017 and April 2018. The pieces appearing allegedly by Alavi are reportedly composed at a “troll factory” as a so-called “group account” in Albania where MEK members who belong to the organization’s “political wing” toil under tight security.

Alavi’s contribution to the damning of Iran has not been insignificant. An article written by him/it that appeared in Forbes claiming that the Mullahs had been able to increase their military budget due to having money freed up by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement. The article reached the White House and reportedly helped convince the Trump Administration to withdraw from the pact.

*(MEK members working in the ‘Twitter troll factory’ in Manez Camp, Albania)

To supplement the Alavi propaganda effort, MEK’s Albania operation uses banks of computers manned by followers, some of whom are fluent in English, who serve as bots unleashing scores of comments supporting regime change in Iran while also directing waves of criticism against any pro-Iranian pieces that appear on social media, to include Facebook and Twitter. By one account,more than a thousand MEK supporters manage thousands of accounts on social media simultaneously. The objective of all the chatter is to convince the mostly English-speaking audience that there is a large body of Iranians who are hostile to the regime and supportive of MEK as a replacement.

While the Iranian government and MEK might well be regarded by most Americans as a far-away problem, there was considerable shock expressed even by congress and the media when it was learned shortly before The Intercept’s revelations that the United States government had been funding a so-called Iran Disinformation Project that was employing tactics remarkably similar to those of MEK in an attempt to control the discussion over Iran policy.

Hooshang Amirahmadi, @tparsi's former boss, told @AbdolrezaDavari:
"Yes, Zarif put together NIAC – honestly, sincerely – and gave it strong support, politically and non-politically."
Amazing that no journalist asks Amirahmadi & Parsi & writes about this. https://t.co/3s1PPyrKBu

— Saeed Ghasseminejad (@SGhasseminejad) May 31, 2019

The project, run by the State Department’s global engagement center, consisted of a trolling campaign which targeted online American citizens critical of the government’s Iran policy, labeling them as disloyal to the United States and tools of the Iranian government. It used, for example, the website IranDisInfo.org and the hashtag #NIACLobbies4Mullahs. Iranian-American activist and long-time State Department contractor Mariam Memarsadeghi headed the program, receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars to “relentlessly attack critics of the Iran policy on social media…accusing them of being paid operatives of the regime in Tehran.” In all, the “Iran Disinfo” operation received over $1.5 million through the Memarsadeghi contract entity the oddly named E-Collaborative for Civic Education.

“Constant studying & constant reading”—how @nikkihaley tells @CliffordDMay she got herself so very ready & able to take on everything, not least the tyrants, represented at the UN. So much respect for her. @FDD #FDDSummit pic.twitter.com/TJFGo00Ffl

— Mariam Memarsadeghi (@memarsadeghi) August 28, 2018

The investigation of Iran Disinfo also revealed that the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), which has been leading the charge for war with Iran, had at least one employee working with E-Collaborative. FDD, which has been advising the Trump White House on a more aggressive policy towards Iran, has also been actively involved in the State Department effort and cross-posting material from the Disinfo campaign.

FDD has long been targeting Iran. It received $3.63 million in 2017 from Bernard Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot. Marcus is a hard-core Zionist who hates Iran and once referred to that nation as “the devil.” FDD has also received billions from Las Vegas casino mega billionaire Sheldon Adelson, the GOP’s largest individual donor, who has advocated dropping a nuclear bomb on Iran to send a message. The link between major Republican donors supporting FDD and an increase in FDD quasi-overt cooperation with the Trump Administration in demonizing Iran should not surprise anyone.

Even though the State Department operation was relatively insignificant compared to similar initiatives undertaken by Israel, the idea that an ostensibly democratic government should propagate lies to defend its own policies was definitely unsettling. Some might think that disinformation on Iran is of little importance, that it has little impact on actual policy, but they would be wrong. Bad information that is allowed to circulate freely creates its own reality. Most Americans believe that Iran actually threatens the United States, though they would be at a loss to explain exactly how that could be the case. Dubious stories that originated with Reuters about corruption in Iran have been used by Mike Pompeo to justify sanctions against the regime on humanitarian grounds, measures which have ironically hurt average Iranians disproportionately. The same story was also used in at least four books to discredit the Iranian leadership.

To be sure, the mainstream media is itself largely at fault, as it was with Heshmat Alavi, for not vetting their sources more carefully, particularly when a story is clearly providing unique information or representing a point of view that might be considered controversial. In some cases, of course, the news outlet wants the story to be perceived as true even when it knows that it is not, so it becomes an accomplice in the propaganda effort. A recent attempt to create a mechanism to establish standards by determining the reliability of online news content has, in fact, been little more than a neoconservative scheme to discredit sites that do not support the neocon point of view.

Since governments and various non-governmental constituencies now, by their own admission, are heavily into the game of providing false information and discrediting critics, most Americans will completely tune out of the process, meaning that there will be little or no measurable difference between truth and lies. One already hears complaints from all across the political spectrum that most news is fake. When one reaches the point where such skepticism becomes the consensus, both elections and democracy itself will be rendered pretty much meaningless.

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This article was originally published on American Herald Tribune.

Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

In the spring of 2018, teachers and school staff across the United States fought back and won. By walking out for better pay and school funding, hundreds of thousands of educators etched their imprint onto the course of history. The strike wave sparked by West Virginia produced a range of major victories. It also produced some great stories. While interviewing school employees during and after the walkouts, I’d always make sure to ask about their favorite moment of the struggle so far.

Some recounted the exhilaration of personally confronting a conservative politician. Many emphasized how proud they were of having become an organizer. Others told me about the joy of their first day back at school, when students thanked and high-fived them for taking a stand. More than a few were just relieved that they could now pay the rent.

I was particularly moved by stories about small acts of support from strangers. Abby Broome, a teacher in Putnam County, West Virginia, wrote to me about one such experience. Her letter poignantly describes how the strike imbued routine interactions with a spirit of solidarity:

“I was walking to my car probably 4 or 5 blocks from the state capitol. I was alone, have to admit kind of insecure as I’m a young woman and I was alone in unfamiliar territory and it was getting late. I was wearing my strike sign around my neck, had on my red bandana and red strike shirt. I passed a bus stop where a couple people were waiting for the shelter. Under different circumstances, I don’t think any of us would have acknowledged each other. (We should have.) But this time one of the men spoke and said, ‘I support you. It’s awesome what you all are doing. Keep fighting.’

“Honestly, I was shocked. For weeks we had been ridiculed by some of our elected officials, the media, our own governor. But I learned that night that we had the support of hardworking people who know the struggle, working people probably having to take the city bus to work, people who fight every day to make ends meet, people who truly cared about what we were doing. It really changed things for me. I was tired like everyone else. I wanted things to get back to normal. But I felt energized and respected like I never had. I was proud. We were doing something bigger than ourselves. I think we were giving other people a little hope.”

Giving Hope

West Virginia’s walkout gave hope to working-class people well past state lines. Inspired by the Mountain State strikers, school employees in Oklahoma, Arizona, and beyond followed suit. Confounding all expectations, these actions erupted in Republican-dominated regions (‘red states’) with relatively weak labor unions, bans on public sector strikes, and electorates that voted for Donald Trump in 2016. And considering the fall 2018 work stoppages in Washington and a looming strike in Los Angeles, there is no sign that this militant educator upsurge will be short lived – nor confined to so-called red states.

This is a book [Red State Revolt] about the power of strikes. It tells the story of the thousands of educators like Abby Broome who took workplace action for the first time and were profoundly transformed in the process. It’s also a behind-the-scenes account of how militant teacher-organizers – most of them young radicals inspired by the 2016 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign – initiated these illegal rank-and-file rebellions and guided them to victory in alliance with their trade unions.

Finally, this book is an attempt to extract the main political lessons of the 2018 upsurge, the first wave of U.S. work stoppages in multiple generations. Our side doesn’t win very often; for decades, workers, organized labor, and the Left have been losing a one-sided class war waged by billionaires and their apologists. If we want to build an effective alternative to Trump and the Far Right, we can’t afford to ignore the experience of the red state revolt.

A Historic Upsurge

At most times and in most places, the norm is working-class resignation, rather than resistance. But the first few months of 2018 were one of those rare instances in U.S. history when ordinary people forced their way into the political arena, seeking to take their destinies into their own hands. In so doing, they transformed themselves just as much as they shaped their workplaces and society.

To quote Oklahoma teacher Gabrielle Price, educators “took a crash course in politics and government and will never be able to unsee what they have seen.” There is more than a little poetic justice in the fact that many strikers belonged to the “white working class” that liberal elites blamed for Trump’s election.

Teacher after teacher recounted to me epiphanies produced in the heat of struggle, ranging from disillusionment in Republican politicians to a newfound sense of individual and collective power. In the words of one Arizona educator: “Rallying at the capitol was one of few moments in my lifetime where I felt I stood exactly where one ought to – it was unequivocally purposeful, courageous and joyful.”

Teachers and support staff were not the only ones to reach new political conclusions. Millions of workers in each of these states witnessed a major social battle in which workers, for once, came out on top. A whole generation of young people, in particular, just learned firsthand that mass action is both legitimate and effective. To quote Oklahoma high school student Ravi Patel, “Our teachers are setting an example of bravery by standing up to ignorance and inaction … Our teachers are setting a better example than our legislators have for the past decade.”

Stepping Up and Rocking the Boat

To make these strikes a success, rank-and-file educators were obliged to step up in dozens of ways. Though labor unions played an important role in the walkouts, movement activities were often improvised from below, with all the strengths and limitations that this entailed. Their contributions included unglamorous tasks like making signs, collecting food for students, reading up on legislation, speaking with confused parents, texting a coworker to remind them to participate in the strike vote, or driving a group of peers to the capitol. Other actions required a bigger leap; for many teachers, this was the first time they’d made a speech at a rally, convinced coworkers to participate in a political action, spoken to the press, chaired a mass meeting, or confronted a politician.

In the span of a few months, tens of thousands of educators confronted and overcame personal fears, physical exhaustion, Republican bullying, and employer disciplinary intimidation. Initially, most doubted that a work stoppage was possible, because public sector strikes are prohibited in each of these states. As teacher Rebecca Garelli recalls, “People in Arizona were scared to rock the boat – and then West Virginia happened. All of a sudden, the catalyst was there. ‘They’re doing it, why can’t we?’”

Though breaking the law was not a decision easily undertaken, teachers eventually embraced their defiance. Highlighting the long tradition of taking illegal action to win a righteous cause, many strikers made homemade signs that read, “Rosa Parks was not wrong.” One West Virginia teacher posted the following to Facebook: “The way I look at it, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. took a stand, I’d be in great company [if the state tries to throw us in jail].”

Legal threats were not the only ordeals they faced. In West Virginia, educators rallied for hours in the frigid rain; in Arizona, they marched and demonstrated in ninety-five-degree heat. Many also stressed the emotional turmoil associated with their participation in such a political rollercoaster. According to Azareen Mullins: “Our feelings were extreme from one minute to the next because of things that were happening inside the capitol doors. You’d feel exhilarated next to your chanting coworkers, but the very next moment you’d be crushed because of disappointing news from the Legislature. And then it’d start all over again.”

Specter of Labor Unrest

The Supreme Court’s anti-union Janus decision in June 2018 – throwing all public employees back into the open shop era – has given the red state revolt an added degree of momentousness. Pundits across the political spectrum announced that Janus would be the nail in organized labor’s coffin. But the walkouts clearly showed the potential for the revitalization of trade unions, even in the face of “right to work” laws and legal bans on strikes.

In fact, if the walkouts in Arizona, Oklahoma, and West Virginia are any indication, this Republican offensive may prove to be counterproductive for the ruling rich: by destroying the last remnants of public sector union security, the Supreme Court decision may thereby make militant workplace actions more likely. As a union lawyer for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) warned the court on February 26, Janus risked raising “an untold specter of labor unrest throughout the country.”

Though not all of their demands were met, striking educators in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona achieved more in the span of two months than had been won over the previous two decades. That they wrested these concessions from intransigent Republican administrations – who for years prior stubbornly insisted that there was no money available to meet the teachers’ demands – made their achievements all the more significant. Both Oklahoma and Arizona, moreover, require legislative supermajorities to pass new taxes. Mass strikes have a remarkable knack for helping employers cough up concessions.

In West Virginia, the push for a work stoppage forced the state to freeze healthcare costs, cancel the imposition of invasive mandatory medical trackers, and drop both pro-charter school and anti-union legislation. Then, after almost two weeks of shuttered schools, West Virginia’s legislature caved to the strikers and granted a 5 per cent raise to all public employees – not only teachers. When I spoke with teacher leader Jay O’Neal in Charleston a few hours after victory was announced, he was ecstatic: “I’m thrilled, I feel like my life won’t ever be the same again. It sounds like hyperbole, but it’s not.”

The gains won in Arizona were also impressive. Through two months of mobilization and six school days of strikes, the ‘Red for Ed’ movement put sufficient pressure on the legislature to stop new proposed tax cuts, keep an anti-voucher referendum on the 2018 ballot, and win hundreds of millions of dollars in additional school funding. Teachers, moreover, obliged the state to grant them an immediate raise of roughly 10 per cent, with the promise of another similar increase a few years down the line. No less importantly, Arizona’s strike reversed Governor Doug Ducey’s attempt to tie any funding increase to cuts from Medicaid, the arts, and students with disabilities.

The achievements of the red state walkouts were not limited to the formal policy arena. Even more important than gains in pay and funding were the advances toward revitalizing the trade unions and rebuilding a militant workers’ movement. The illegal strikes in West Virginia and Arizona reflected, and spurred, a dramatic increase in working-class consciousness and organization, setting the stage for the conquest of further victories in the months and years ahead. To quote Garelli: “The movement and the walkout really increased people’s political awareness and our level of grassroots organization. Fifty per cent of the win here has been that we now have a strong, organized mass movement. And we’re not going away. People now have the courage to fight.”

In a marked reversal of fortunes for West Virginian organized labor, over 2,000 educators joined the unions in early 2018. Arizona – in which the union represented only 25 per cent of school employees before the strike – experienced an even deeper sea change. Roughly 2,500 new members have joined. On a Facebook thread concerning the lessons of the strike, a teacher explained: “The word ‘union’ does not scare me anymore. I joined [the Arizona Education Association] and plan on continuing to fight for what is right for educators and students. I feel the most empowered I have ever felt as an educator and now do believe that change is possible.”

Reversal of Trends?

This revolt shares important similarities with the last great round of rank-and-file radicalism in the United States, the strike wave of the late 1960s and early 1970s. But there are some critical differences. Whereas labor struggles four decades ago came in the wake of a postwar economic boom and the inspiring successes of the civil rights movement, this labor upheaval has erupted in a period of virtually uninterrupted working-class defeats and neoliberal austerity. As such, political scientist Corey Robin was right to call 2018’s educator upsurge the “most profound and deepest attack on the basic assumptions of the contemporary governing order.”¹

The stakes are high. Public education remains one of the few remaining democratically distributed public goods in the United States. For that very reason, corporate politicians have done everything they can to dismantle and privatize the school system. As political economist Gordon Lafer documents in his book The One Percent Solution, this isn’t only about immediate profits. Big corporations, he writes, are trying “to avoid a populist backlash” against neoliberalism “by lowering everybody’s expectations of what we have a right to demand as citizens”:

“When you think about what Americans think we have a right to, just by living here, it’s really pretty little. Most people don’t think you have a right to healthcare or a house. You don’t necessarily have a right to food and water. But people think you have a right to have your kids get a decent education.”²

Struggles to defend public education, in other words, have political implications that reach far beyond the schools themselves. Each of the teacher strikes raised the question of whether the tremendous resources of the richest country on earth should be used for meeting human needs or for deepening corporate profits. In a context marked by deepening social crisis and widespread popular anger, we should not underestimate the urgency of this issue. To counter the racist fearmongering of Trump and his supporters, moral condemnations are not enough. A credible political alternative must be provided.

Since West Virginia’s strike erupted in February 2018, it’s become clear that a new labor movement is not only necessary, but possible. To quote Arizonan music teacher and Red for Ed organizer Noah Karvelis: “The types of attacks we’ve seen in Arizona are common to the working class across the whole country. If educators in Arizona could stand up and fight back, anybody can stand up and do the same.”

To the surprise of all, this frontal challenge to austerity and neoliberalism came in the form of illegal statewide strikes in Republican “right to work” bastions. Since unions in these states were relatively weak and collective bargaining virtually nonexistent, the strikes took on an unusually volcanic and unruly form. In an unprecedented historical development, much of the organizing for these actions took place in secret Facebook groups where teachers could share their fears, hopes, personal stories, and action proposals (as well as countless silly memes). And with union officials reluctant to call for illegal mass action, rank and filers stepped into the leadership vacuum and filled it to the best of their abilities.

Lessons Learned

One of the main lessons from the red state revolt is that the Left needs labor just as much as labor needs the Left. Fortunately, socialists and the labor movement are beginning to overcome their decades-long divorce. In an interview conducted over celebratory beers, an hour after West Virginia strikers won their demands, Emily Comer – a socialist teacher, union member, and strike leader in Charleston – put it well: “If you have enough working people who are pushed to the breaking point, and who are angry about a specific grievance, then it’s the duty of activists to let them know that they deserve better – and that their lives can get better if they take action on that issue. If you lead the way, people will respond.”

This book describes the development of the strike wave through the words and perspectives not only of its rank-and-file participants, but also those of its main grassroots organizers. For both diplomatic and tactical reasons, activists in 2018 were reticent to publically speak about the internal conflicts that drove these movements forward. As such, the full story of their development has not yet been made public.

To understand how I was able to get this insider’s take, some background information might be helpful. Last spring, Jacobin magazine sent me to be its on-the-ground correspondent for the strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona. Truth be told, my journalistic credentials at that point were nonexistent. My parents are both union activists, and I was a high school teacher – and leftist public education organizer – in the Bay Area until 2017. Like so many of my colleagues, my meager teacher wages pushed me to go back to school; the strike wave popped off during my second semester as a doctoral student in sociology at New York University.

Upon arriving in each of the strike states, I’d immediately explain my personal-political background to the local organizers. I told them the truth, which was something to the effect of: “I’ve got to write some articles about what’s going on, but, mostly, I want you all to win – so, please, put to me work if you can.” Ultimately, I spent the bulk of my time organizing national solidarity for the strikers and talking politics with the core teacher activists over nightly beers.

The upshot was that, although I missed more than a few article deadlines for Jacobin, I ended up earning the trust of key rank-and-file leaders. They gave me access to their internal meetings, their secret Facebook groups, and even many of their personal texts. Without that inside information, there’s no way this book would have been possible.

To supplement these personal observations and the abundant primary sources embodied in the Facebook groups, I scoured the local press and also interviewed over one hundred teachers, service personnel, organizers, students, union staffers and top officials, and superintendents. Politically, these individuals ranged from Trump supporters, to liberal trade unionists, to socialist cadre – and I suspect that each will agree and disagree with aspects of my analysis. Though this is an unabashedly partisan account, I’ve tried hard to remain scrupulously committed to the facts, fair to those I criticize, and critical of those I support.

And one final note on geography: this book deals with the West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona strikes, which were by far the most important actions of the spring 2018 red state movement. The strikes in these three states were multiday work stoppages, unlike the one-day, mostly symbolic walkouts that took place in Kentucky, North Carolina, and Colorado. Likewise, I don’t delve into the recent work stoppages in Washington and other blue states – these actions, developing as they did in Democratic-run regions where strikes are not illegal, merit their own separate study.

It’s a welcome complication that by the time this book hits the shelves, there could very well be new educator struggles erupting in unexpected places throughout the United States. In the same way that teachers in West Virginia and Arizona learned from the successes of Chicago’s 2012 school strike, the 2018 experience should be of considerable use to public education workers and their allies in these battles to come.

From Trump’s vicious scapegoating to the looming threat of climate catastrophe, rays of political hope are few and far between. At this dangerous and volatile juncture in U.S. history, it’s easy to fall into despair. But the 2018 education strikes not only underscore the immense potential for mass working-class politics; they also provide important insights into how this latent power can be tapped.

Working people are angry and looking for alternatives to business as usual. In the least likely of circumstances, school employees in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona rose up and dealt a serious blow to the forces of reaction. For everyone across the country who is eager to do the same, there’s no better place to start than by learning about the red state revolt.

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This article is an excerpt from the book Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics, Verso (2019).

Eric Blanc is an activist and historian based in Oakland, California. He is the author of Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics. Follow his tweets at @_ericblanc.

Notes

1. Corey Robin, “Striking Teachers Are ‘Real Resistance’ to ‘Incoherent’ Republicans and ‘Gutted’ Dems,” interview by Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, April 12, 2018.
2. Cited in Lynn Parramore, “The Corporate Plan to Groom U.S. Kids for Servitude by Wiping Out Public Schools,” Institute for New Economic Thinking, April 6, 2018.

The proposed “Baltic Reassurance Act” aims to more closely integrate the Baltic countries into NATO, but its most controversial clause is the suggestion that “the United States should lead a multilateral effort to develop a strategy to deepen joint capabilities with [those three countries], NATO allies, and other regional partners”, strongly implying that this legislation is a ruse for provoking Russia by facilitating non-NATO-members Finland and Sweden’s military interoperability with the bloc under the pretext of protecting the Baltics.

Texas Republican Congressman Michael Conaway introduced the so-called “Baltic Reassurance Act” into the House earlier this month, which recently drew the attention of Russian Chairman of the Committee on International Affairs Leonid Slutsky who alleged that its true purpose is to push American arms onto the countries abutting Russia’s borders. While that’s certainly true, there might actually be a bit more of an anti-Russian provocation brewing if this bill ultimately enters into law judging by its ultra-controversial clause that “the United States should lead a multilateral effort to develop a strategy to deepen joint capabilities with Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, NATO allies, and other regional partners”, with a key emphasis being placed on the last-mentioned “regional partners”.

The only realistic countries that this could refer to are non-NATO-members Finland and Sweden, making it suspiciously seem like this legislation is a ruse for facilitating those countries’ military interoperability with the bloc under the pretext of protecting the Baltics from so-called “Russian aggression”. The case being made in the text is that these former Soviet Republics are supposedly vulnerable to a lightning-fast military attack from their neighbor, one which might be so quick that it overwhelms NATO’s troops there and succeeds before the bloc can call in reinforcements. In the extremely unlikely chance that this fringe scenario comes to pass, the only real recourse that the US believes it can have is to rely on its its nearby “NATO allies, and other regional partners” to buy time before its own forces can arrive en masse to the area of operations.

It’s here where Poland (the US’ top NATO ally), Finland, and Sweden are envisaged as having a role to play. The first-mentioned country used to be part of the same historical Great Power as Lithuania during the centuries of their Commonwealth, so it naturally has an interest in expanding its growing “sphere of influence” into the Baltic region. Being the most populous country and best-performing economy out of all the former communist satellites, it makes sense for the US to consider Poland as its “Lead From Behind” ally in the Central European space and use it as its hub for military activity in the broader region, as it’s now planning to do following the latest US-Polish military deal that was clinched last week during President Duda’s visit to DC.

As for the other two countries — Finland and Sweden — the former has close cultural connections to Estonia while the latter used to be the one-time hegemon over the aforementioned two and Latvia prior to Russia’s victories in the Great Northern and Napoleonic Wars spelling the end of its regional dominance. Finland shares a very long land border with Russia while Sweden has been involved in phantom Russian sub hunts invented solely for the purpose of preconditioning its public into accepting eventual NATO membership on this basis. The US’ grand strategic vision in the Baltics is to form the so-called “Viking Bloc” of “Greater Scandinavian” states (traditional Scandinavia plus Finland and the Baltics) aimed at “containing” Russia, which is exactly what Conaway’s clause about “deepening (NATO’s) joint capabilities with…other regional partners” is aimed at.

At this point, there’s no telling whether or not the so-called “Baltic Reassurance Act” will pass, but its importance nevertheless lies in the intent that it conveys. Not only is it all about selling more American arms to the Baltic countries, but it’s a veiled attempt to strengthen Finland and Sweden’s military interoperability with NATO under the pretext of defending the three countries that jointly form part of their combined historical “spheres of influence” in coordination with regional leader Poland. It’s difficult to predict how Russia would respond to this latest provocation if it ultimately ends up happening, but it could of course always continue its military buildup in the Kaliningrad exclave and improve the snap preparedness of its Baltic Fleet and the forces of its Western Military District.

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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.

One country, two systems. One event, two interpretations. The crisis in Hong Kong was sparked by chief executive Carrie Lam’s efforts to champion an extradition bill that would allow both residents and visitors to be sent to China for trial.

It backfired. Beijing is furious for two reasons. First the massive demonstrations it ignited and secondly the central government insists it gave no instruction or order concerning this issue. It looked, Beijing officials insist privately, that Lam was trying to curry favour and had overstepped the mark. This was not a prime example, according to this narrative, of Beijing again trying to stamp its authority on Hong Kong.

The mountains are high and the emperor is far away. This is an old saying in southern China. But the reverse is also true. From Beijing, Hong Kong is far away. Antigovernment protests in the former British colony are not a cause for emergency meetings though Lam’s future is under serious discussion.

At the time of the rain-drenched handover in the summer of 1997, Hong Kong accounted for about 20 percent of China’s GDP. Today it accounts for 3 percent.

This statistic does not cause sleepless nights in Zhongnanhai, the leadership compound off Tiananmen Square. If anything, it provides reason for a good night’s sleep. It proves, from Beijing’s perspective, not Hong Kong’s decline, but the healthy development of the national economy. The Hong Kong economy has grown since the handover but China’s growth has been supercharged.

This is the crux. China’s economy has to keep growing, not just for the betterment of the people but to ensure stability.
Human rights are viewed through a different prism in China than in the West. The imposition of, and here it gets complicated, what China considers the West considers as human rights, is feared. Support for the corrupt regimes of South Vietnam, the Philippines under Marcos and the so-called War on Terror are a small but telling sample and proof, in Beijing’s eyes, of a less than fully altruistic approach to human rights by Washington.

Many in China believe that without strong central government the country would descend to mass violence and disintegration. This does not let the government off the hook. Chinese people want corruption to be tackled with greater determination and focus. They want to be rid of the scourge of pollution, linked to corruption through the bribing of officials. They want the ruling party to be more accountable. What they do want from the West is teachers, engineers, specialists and trade.

The unwritten deal between the government and the people is you will be better off, leave the politics to us.

With 10 percent of the world’s arable land, China feeds 20 percent of the planet.

But the Ministry of Agriculture admits that 40 percent of this land is poisoned by pollution and the decline of nutrient rich top spoil.

If it keeps on industrializing food security could be further eroded. This is one of the reasons China is trying to turn to green energy, not to lessen dependency on fossil fuels but to protect its food sources. China is in pole position globally in renewable energy production. The world’s largest producer of wind and solar energy, China is also the largest domestic and outbound investor in renewable energy.

But now for the great contradiction. It has not turned its back on cheap coal. Beijing plans to build at least two large coal power stations a month for the next 12 years. This translates to between 300 and 500 new coal power plants by 2030. Beijing needs an energy source it can rely on. Oil imports must navigate maritime chokepoints, the Strait of Hormuz and the Malacca Strait. Green energy is not yet up to the task. King Coal is economically cheap but it comes at a political cost.

About 1,000 “mass incidents” (protests involving more than 100 people) take place every day in China. Many of these are pollution or climate related.

The economy is stuttering and facing the possibility of a sharp downturn as trade with the US is ruptured. Such a downturn would see these mass incidents rising sharply, endangering the basic structures of the country. More coal-fired power stations, more mass incidents. Hong Kong is not the burning issue for Beijing. Pollution and a faltering economy is what is keeping those who reside in the leadership compound awake at night.

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Tom Clifford is an Irish journalist based in China.

Over a hundred groups and more than 800 individuals from Pennsylvania signed onto a letter to Governor Tom Wolf calling for an official investigation into recent reports of rare cancers in counties heavily impacted by shale gas development over the last decade. The letter also calls for the governor to suspend all gas drilling permits until the investigation shows that fracking is not the cause of this emerging public health crisis.

The letter was prompted by an investigation by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which documented at least 46 children in four counties in southwest Pennsylvania who have suffered from rare forms of cancer since 2008– including at least 27 cases of Ewing sarcoma, a form of bone cancer that only affects between 200 and 250 people across the entire country each year.

“The Wolf administration’s approach to the impacts of shale gas development has been ‘If you don’t want to see something, don’t look,'” said Karen Feridun, co-founder of the Better Path Coalition. “There’s no better evidence of that than the fact that it took reporters to identify 46 children diagnosed with rare cancers in just four counties at the epicenter of the shale gas boom. It’s time for Governor Wolf to remove his blinders and get on top of this unfolding public health crisis.”

The letter was signed by five state representatives—Elizabeth Fiedler, Danielle Friel Otten, Sara Innamorato, Summer Lee and Chris Rabb—and national leaders in the fight against fracking, including actor Mark Ruffalo, Gasland director Josh Fox, Dr. Sandra Steingraber, actress Shailene Woodley, and 350.org founder Bill McKibben.

“We have known for years that fracking presents clear threats to our drinking water, our air quality, and to the health and safety of residents in these sacrifice zones,” said Emily Wurth, Organizing Co-Director of Food & Water Watch. “But this investigative reporting points to an even more serious and heartbreaking toll on Pennsylvanians. Governor Wolf must take immediate action to protect the health and safety of his state.”

As the letter states,

“Scientific evidence about the harmful toxic chemicals used in gas drilling and fracking activities strongly suggest a connection. Many of the chemicals used in these activities are known carcinogens and many pose a particularly high risk to children and at-risk populations. Numerous peer-reviewed public health studies have found gas drilling and fracking activities associated with low birth weight babies, birth defects, asthma and other respiratory issues, increased rates of hospitalization, and various other health impacts.”

The letter also states:

 “This is a public health crisis that requires immediate and significant action.”

The organizations signing the letter include 350.org, Berks Gas Truth, Better Path Coalition, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, Food & Water Watch, Frack Action, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Southwest Environmental Health Project.

The letter will be delivered in person to Governor Wolf on Wednesday after a briefing in Harrisburg on new reports assessing the health and climate impacts of shale gas development, which will include a recap of a public meeting on the spike in cancer diagnoses in the Canon-McMillan school district.

The letter was previewed in a report today in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

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The US is planning to include India on its International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) list in order to place it at par with its NATO allies, “Israel”, and a few others for the export of high-level military technologies, which could be the perfect carrot for Pompeo to dangle in front of Modi’s mouth during his visit to the South Asian state next week in order to get him to ditch Russia, and it might actually end up being part of the “surprise” that he recently hinted he has in store for his hosts.

The Indian press is full of reports about the country’s possibly forthcoming inclusion on the US’ International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) list after two senators inserted the relevant amendments into a draft of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 2020. Should it pass into law by the end of the year, then India would be legally at par with America’s NATO allies, “Israel“, and a few others for the export of twenty categories of high-level military technologies including ballistic missiles, drones, spacecraft systems, nuclear weapons simulation tools, and directed energy weapons, et al. This could be a real game-changer for its military capabilities and help it to more confidently “contain” China at the US’ behest per their shared “Indo-Pacific” vision, though the Pentagon probably won’t allow India to have this privilege so long as it retains its military partnership with Russia.

Alice Wells, the head of the State Department’s South and Central Asia bureau, implied as much last week in a testimony to lawmakers about the possible consequences of India’s refusal to reconsider its S-400 deal with Russia, which she said could include both CAATSA sanctions and the imposition of severe limits on the country’s military interoperability with the US. If India bends to American pressure and ditches Russia in exchange for THAADs, Patriots, and possibly even F-35s like its Ambassador to the US strongly hinted New Delhi is deliberating doing, then it can avoid this self-inflicted harm to its new military-strategic alliance with Washington though at the expense of its old one with Moscow. The “surprise” that Pompeo suggested that he has in store for his hosts during his upcoming visit to the South Asian state next week might be a formal offer to put India on the ITAR list if it decisively pivots away from Russia.

Truth be told, that would be a pretty attractive carrot for Pompeo to dangle in front of Modi’s mouth and might even get the re-elected leader to finally bite the bait. India is obsessed with China and the global pivot state of Pakistan, and it’s the excessive fearmongering about the latter in response to the suspicious Pulwama incident and subsequent Bollywood-like “surgical strike” that’s largely believed to have been responsible for Modi receiving such a huge mandate at the polls last month, so it can’t be underestimated just how important New Delhi would regard this unprecedented expansion of its military-strategic alliance with Washington. Russia can’t provide India with the game-changing capabilities that it’s seeking in its quest to “contain” China and “punish” Pakistan, ergo why it began its pro-American pivot in the first place because the US is more than eager to meet New Delhi’s needs in order to advance their shared strategic objectives.

Even though the two allied Great Powers are presently in the midst of what the Mainstream and Alternative Medias are misinterpreting (and in some cases, deliberately misreporting) to be a so-called “trade war”, their economic disagreements with one another are completely separate from their military-strategic commonalities. It’s therefore very likely that Modi would be extremely receptive to Pompeo’s possibly proposed offer to place India on the ITAR list in exchange for it pulling out of the S-400 deal with Russia, especially since the US’ unique “Major Defense Partner” already clinched the LEMOA and COMCASA interoperability pacts with it, so the next natural step is to prepare it for receiving high-level military technologies in order to take their alliance to the next level. India’s playing “hard to get” in order to receive the best terms possible, but it seems to have already made up its mind about the necessity of agreeing to a deal, so all that’s left is to finalize the details.

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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.

Last week, the House of Representatives voted in favor of a Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill amendment to repeal the prohibition on the use of federal funds to create a “unique patient identifier.” Unless this prohibition, which I originally sponsored in 1998, is reinstated, the federal government will have the authority to assign every American a medical ID. This ID will be used to store and track every American’s medical history.

A unique patient identifier would allow federal bureaucrats and government-favored special interests to access health information simply by entering an individual’s unique patient ID into a database. This system would also facilitate the collection of health information without a warrant by surveillance state operatives.

The health records database could easily be linked to other similar databases, such as those containing gun purchase records or education records. If mandatory E-Verify becomes law, the health records database could even be linked to it, allowing employers to examine a potential employee’s medical history.

The possibility that the unique patient identifier system may be linked to a database containing information regarding gun ownership is especially disturbing given the bipartisan support for “red flag” laws. These laws allow the government to deny respect for someone’s Second Amendment rights without due process and based solely on an allegation that the individual is mentally unstable and likely to commit an act of gun violence. Combining red flag laws with the unique patient identifier system would leave a gun owner who ever sought psychiatric help for any reason at risk of losing his ability to legally possess a gun.

Unscrupulous government officials could use medical information to harass those whose political activities challenge the status quo. Anyone who doubts this should ask themselves what a future J. Edgar Hoover or Lois Lerner would do with access to the medical information of those involved in political movements he wishes to silence.

The unique patient identifier undermines one of the foundations of quality health care: the doctor-patient relationship. Accurate diagnosis requires that patients share intimate details about their lives — ranging from details about their diet and exercise habits to their sexual history and alcohol and drug use — with their physicians. If patients legitimately fear information shared will be compromised, they will be unwilling to be completely honest with their physicians, making it impossible for physicians to effectively treat their patients.

Proponents of the unique patient identifier claim it will improve efficiency. But, in a free society, the government should never endanger privacy or liberty for efficiency. Besides, when has any government intervention in health care ever improved efficiency or increased patients’ or health care providers’ satisfaction with the system?

The unique patient identifier system puts the desires of government bureaucrats and politically powerful special interests ahead of the needs of individual patients and health care providers. Instead of further intervening in health care and further destroying our privacy and our liberties, Congress should give patients control over their health care by giving them control over health care dollars through expanding access to Health Savings Accounts and health care tax credits. In a free market, patients and doctors can and will work tighter to ensure patients’ records are maintained in a manner that provides maximum efficiency without endangering privacy or liberty.

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While the mystery of who is responsible for sabotaging the two tankers in the Gulf of Oman remains unsolved, it is clear that the Trump administration has been sabotaging Iranian oil shipments since May 2, when it announced its intention to “bring Iran’s oil exports to zero, denying the regime its principal source of revenue.” The move was aimed at China, India, Japan, South Korea and Turkey, all nations that purchase Iranian oil and now face U.S. threats if they continue to do so. The U.S. military might not have physically blown up tankers carrying Iranian crude, but its actions have the same effect and should be considered acts of economic terrorism.

And this isn’t the only place suffering from US economic terrorism. The Trump administration is also committing a massive oil heist by seizing $7 billion in Venezuela’s oil assets — keeping the Maduro government from getting access to its own money. According to John Bolton, the sanctions on Venezuela will affect $11 billion worth of oil exports in 2019. The Trump administration also threatens shipping companies that carry Venezuelan oil. Two companies–one based in Liberia and the other in Greece–have already been slapped with penalties for shipping Venezuelan oil to Cuba. No gaping holes in their ships, but economic sabotage nonetheless.

Whether in Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea or one of the 20 countries under the boot of U.S. sanctions, the Trump administration is using its economic weight to try to exact regime change or major policy changes in countries around the globe.

Deadly

The U.S. sanctions against Iran are particularly brutal. While they have utterly failed to advance U.S. regime change goals, they have provoked growing tensions with U.S. trading partners across the world and inflicted terrible pain on the ordinary people of Iran.  Although food and medicines are technically exempt from sanctions, U.S. sanctions against Iranian banks like Parsian Bank, Iran’s largest non-state-owned bank, make it nearly impossible to process payments for imported goods, and that includes food and medicine. The resulting shortage of medicines is sure to cause thousands of preventable deaths in Iran, and the victims will be ordinary working people, not Ayatollahs or government ministers.

U.S. corporate media have been complicit in the pretense that U.S. sanctions are a non-violent tool to inflict pressure on targeted governments in order to force some kind of democratic regime change. U.S. reports rarely mention their deadly impact on ordinary people, instead blaming the resulting economic crisis solely on the governments being targeted.

The deadly impact of sanctions is all too clear in Venezuela, where crippling economic sanctions have decimated an economy already reeling from the drop in oil prices, opposition sabotage, corruption and bad government policies. A joint annual report on mortality in Venezuela in 2018 by three Venezuelan universities found that U.S. sanctions were largely responsible for at least 40,000 additional deaths that year.  The Venezuela Pharmaceutical Association reported an 85% shortage of essential medicines in 2018.

Source: CEPR

Absent U.S. sanctions, the rebound in global oil prices in 2018 should have led to at least a small rebound in Venezuela’s economy and more adequate imports of food and medicine. Instead, U.S. financial sanctions prevented Venezuela from rolling over its debts and deprived the oil industry of cash for parts, repairs and new investment, leading to an even more dramatic fall in oil production than in the previous years of low oil prices and economic depression. The oil industry provides 95% of Venezuela’s foreign earnings, so by strangling its oil industry and cutting Venezuela off from international borrowing, the sanctions have predictably – and intentionally – trapped the people of Venezuela in a deadly economic downward spiral.

A study by Jeffrey Sachs and Mark Weisbrot for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, titled “Sanctions as Collective Punishment: the Case of Venezuela,” reported that the combined effects of 2017 and 2019 U.S. sanctions are projected to lead to an astounding 37.4% decline in Venezuela’s real GDP in 2019, on the heels of a 16.7% decline in 2018 and the over 60% drop in oil prices between 2012 and 2016.

In North Korea, many decades of sanctions, coupled with extended periods of drought, have left millions of the nation’s 25 million people malnourished and impoverished. Rural areas in particular lack medicine and clean water. Even more stringent sanctions imposed in 2018 banned most of the country’s exports, reducing the government’s ability to pay for imported food to alleviate the shortages.

Illegal

One of the most egregious elements of U.S. sanctions is their extraterritorial reach. The U.S. slaps third-country businesses with penalties for “violating” U.S. sanctions. When the U.S. unilaterally left the nuclear deal and imposed sanctions, the U.S. Treasury Department bragged that in just one day, November 5, 2018, it sanctioned more than 700 individuals, entities, aircraft, and vessels doing business with Iran. Regarding Venezuela, Reuters reported that in March 2019 the State Department had “instructed oil trading houses and refiners around the world to further cut dealings with Venezuela or face sanctions themselves, even if the trades made are not prohibited by published U.S. sanctions.”

An oil industry source complained to Reuters, “This is how the United States operates these days. They have written rules, and then they call you to explain that there are also unwritten rules that they want you to follow.”

U.S. officials say that sanctions will benefit the people of Venezuela and Iran by pushing them to rise up and overthrow their governments. Since the use of military force, coups and covert operations to overthrow foreign governments have proven catastrophic in Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti, Somalia, Honduras, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen, the idea of using the dominant position of the U.S. and the dollar in international financial markets as a form of “soft power” to achieve “regime change” may strike U.S. policymakers as an easier form of coercion to sell to a war-weary U.S. public and uneasy allies.

But shifting from the “shock and awe” of aerial bombardment and military occupation to the silent killers of preventable diseases, malnutrition and extreme poverty is far from a humanitarian option, and no more legitimate than the use of military force under international humanitarian law.

Denis Halliday was a UN Assistant Secretary General who served as Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq and resigned from the UN in protest at the brutal sanctions on Iraq in 1998.

“Comprehensive sanctions, when imposed by the UN Security Council or by a State on a sovereign country, are a form of warfare, a blunt weapon that inevitably punishes innocent citizens,” Denis Halliday told us. “If they are deliberately extended when their deadly consequences are known, sanctions can be deemed genocide. When U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright said on CBS ‘Sixty Minutes’ in 1996 that killing 500,000 Iraqi children to try to bring down Saddam Hussein was ‘worth it,’ the continuation of UN sanctions against Iraq met the definition of genocide.”

Today, two UN Special Rapporteurs appointed by the UN Human Rights Council are serious independent authorities on the impact and illegality of U.S. sanctions on Venezuela, and their general conclusions apply equally to Iran. Alfred De Zayas visited Venezuela soon after the imposition of U.S. financial sanctions in 2017 and wrote an extensive report on what he found there. He found significant impacts due to Venezuela’s long-term dependence on oil, poor governance and corruption, but he also strongly condemned U.S. sanctions and “economic warfare.”

“Modern-day economic sanctions and blockades are comparable with medieval sieges of towns,” De Zayas wrote. “Twenty-first century sanctions attempt to bring not just a town, but sovereign countries to their knees.”  De Zayas’s report recommended that the International Criminal Court should investigate U.S. sanctions against Venezuela as a crime against humanity.

A second UN Special Rapporteur, Idriss Jazairy, issued a forceful statement in response to the failed U.S-backed coup in Venezuela in January.  He condemned “coercion” by outside powers as a “violation of all norms of international law.”  “Sanctions which can lead to starvation and medical shortages are not the answer to the crisis in Venezuela,” Jazairy said, “…precipitating an economic and humanitarian crisis…is not a foundation for the peaceful settlement of disputes.”

Sanctions also violate Article 19 of the Charter of the Organization of American States, which explicitly prohibits intervention “for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State.”  It adds that it “prohibits not only armed force but also any other form of interference or attempted threat against the personality of the State or against its political, economic, and cultural elements.”

Article 20 of the OAS Charter is equally pertinent: “No State may use or encourage the use of coercive measures of an economic or political character in order to force the sovereign will of another State and obtain from it advantages of any kind.”

In terms of U.S. law, both the 2017 and 2019 sanctions on Venezuela are based on unsubstantiated presidential declarations that the situation in Venezuela has created a so-called “national emergency” in the United States. If U.S. federal courts were not so afraid to hold the executive branch accountable on matters of foreign policy, this could be challenged and very likely dismissed by a federal court even more quickly and easily than the similar case of a “national emergency” on the Mexican border, which is at least geographically connected to the United States.

Ineffective

There is one more critical reason for sparing the people of Iran, Venezuela and other targeted countries from the deadly and illegal impacts of U.S. economic sanctions: they don’t work.

Twenty years ago, as economic sanctions slashed Iraq’s GDP by 48% over 5 years and serious studies documented their genocidal human cost, they still failed to remove the government of Saddam Hussein from power. Two UN Assistant Secretaries General, Denis Halliday and Hans Von Sponeck, resigned in protest from senior positions at the UN rather than enforce these murderous sanctions.

In 1997, Robert Pape, then a professor at Dartmouth College, tried to resolve the most basic questions about the use of economic sanctions to achieve political change in other countries by collecting and analyzing the historical data on 115 cases where this was tried between 1914 and 1990.  In his study, titled “Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work,” he concluded that sanctions had only been successful in 5 out of 115 cases.

Pape also posed an important and provocative question: “If economic sanctions are rarely effective, why do states keep using them?”

He suggested three possible answers:

• “Decision makers who impose sanctions systematically overestimate the prospects of coercive success of sanctions.”
• “Leaders contemplating ultimate resort to force often expect that imposing sanctions first will enhance the credibility of subsequent military threats.”
• “Imposing sanctions usually yields leaders greater domestic political benefits than does refusing calls for sanctions or resorting to force.”

We think that the answer is probably a combination of “all of the above.”  But we firmly believe that no combination of these or any other rationale can ever justify the genocidal human cost of economic sanctions in Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela or anywhere else.

While the world condemns the recent attacks on the oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman and tries to identify the culprit, global condemnation should also focus on the country responsible for the deadly, illegal and ineffective economic warfare at the heart of this crisis: the United States.

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

Nicolas J S Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq and of the chapter on “Obama At War” in Grading the 44th President: A Report Card on Barack Obama’s First Term as a Progressive Leader.

Featured image is from iStock

On June 16, Turkey said on that its forces had struck positions of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in response to an attack on one of its observation posts in the Idlib de-escalation zone.

According to the Turkish Defense Ministry, the SAA shelled one of its posts near Murak in northern Hama. The defense ministry described the attack as “deliberate” and said that it had caused a material damage.

Syrian pro-government sources confirmed that the SAA positions near Tell Bazzam and al-Kabariyah were shelled by Turkish artillery. The sources claimed that the Turkish observation post near Murak was the source of the fire.

On June 14, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the Turkish Armed Forces will strike the SAA in the even of attacks on Turkish observation posts in the Idlib zone. He also described the Russian-Syrian aerial campaign against militants’ infrastructure in Greater Idlib “inexcusable”.

On June 13, four Turkish soldiers were injured in a mortar attack on an observation post south of Idlib. Turkey blamed the SAA for the attack while Russia said that the post had been shelled by Idlib militants. The Russian side added that its warplanes had delivered airstrikes on four militants’ positions in the aftermath of the attack upon an official request from Ankara. Later, the Turkish Defense Ministry denied the Russian statement. The situation remains unclear.

Nonetheless, Turkey seems to be in a strong opposition to any counter-terrorism efforts in the Idlib zone. It event reinforced its observation posts in the area with additional troops and equipment.

On June 16, Jaysh al-Izza announced that its fighters had targeted a “Russian base” near the town of al-Kabariyah in northern Hama with rockets.

Military sources told SouthFront that some Russian advisors may be deployed near al-Kabariyah. However, there is no “Russian base” in the town or in its outskirt.

A delegation of the US-led coalition, accompanied by commanders of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), inspected the Tabqa airbase on June 15 as a part of ongoing preparations to deploy troops there, according to pro-opposition media outlets.

Reports speculated that the coalition wants to move its troops and helicopters from a base located in the al-Karin reserve to the Tabqah airport due to its larger space and better protection. This is how Trump-declared withdrawal of forces from Syria looks on the ground.

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[False flag operations:] “The powers-that-be understand that to create the appropriate atmosphere for war, it’s necessary to create within the general populace a hatred, fear or mistrust of others regardless of whether those others belong to a certain group of people or to a religion or a nation.” James Morcan (1978- ), New Zealander-born Australian writer.

[Definition: A ‘false flag operation’ is a horrific, staged event—blamed on a political enemy—and used as pretext to start a war or to enact draconian laws in the name of national security].

“Almost all wars begin with false flag operations.” Larry Chin (d. of b. unknown), North American author, (in ‘False Flagging the World towards War. The CIA Weaponizes Hollywood’, Dec. 27, 2014).

“Definition of reverse projection: attributing to others what you are doing yourself as the reason for attacking them.” John McMurtry (1939- ), Canadian philosopher, (in ‘The Moral Decoding of 9-11: Beyond the U.S. Criminal State’, Journal of 9/11 Studies, Feb.2013).

“That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of nations, is as shocking as it is true; but when those who are concerned in the government of a country, make it their study to sow discord, and cultivate prejudices between nations, it becomes the more unpardonable.” Thomas Paine (1737-1809), American Founding father, pamphleteer, (in ‘The Rights of Man’, c. 1792).

“I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, and we stole. It was like — we had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.” Mike Pompeo (1963- ), former CIA director and now Secretary of State in the Trump administration, (in April 2019, while speaking at Texas A&M University.)

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History repeats itself. Indeed, those who live by war are at it again. Their crime: starting illegal wars by committing false flag attacks and blaming other countries for their own criminal acts. On this, the Donald Trump-John Bolton duo is just like the George W. Bush-Dick Cheney duo. It is amazing that in an era of 24-hour news, this could still going on.

We recall that in 2002-2003, the latter duo, with the help of U.K.’s Tony Blair, lied their way into a war of aggression against Iraq, by pretending that Saddam Hussein had a massive stockpile of “weapons of mass destruction”and that he was ready to attack the United States proper. On October 6, 2002, George W. Bush scared Americans with his big Mushroom Cloud analogy.  —It was all bogus. —It was a pure fabrication that the gullible (!) U.S. Congress, the corporate media, and most of the American public, swallowed hook, line and sinker.

Now, in 2019, a short sixteen years later, the same stratagem seems to being used to start another illegal war of aggression, this time against the country of Iran. The masters of deception are at it again. Their secret agents and those of their Israeli and Saudi allies, in the Middle East, seem to have just launched an unprovoked attack, in international waters, against a Japanese tanker, and they have rushed to the cameras to accuse Iran. They claim that the latter country used mines to attack the tanker.

This time, they were unlucky. —The owner of the Japanese tanker, the Kokuka Courageous, immediately rebuked that “official” version. Yutaka Katada, president of the Kokuka Sangyo shipping company, declared that the attack came from a bombing from above the water. Indeed, Mr. Katada told reporters:

Source: The Washington Post

“The crew are saying it was hit with a flying object. They say something came flying toward them, then there was an explosion, then there was a hole in the vessel.”

His company issued a statement saying that “the hull (of the ship) has been breached above the waterline on the starboard side”, and it was not hit by a mine below the waterline, as the Trump administration has insinuated. —[N. B.: There was also a less serious attack on a Norwegian ship, the Front Altair.]

Thus, this time the false flag makers have not succeeded. But, you can be sure that they will be back at it, sooner or later, just as they, and their well financed al-Qaeda allies, launched a few false flag “chemical” attacks in Syria, and blamed them on the Syrian Assad government.

Donald Trump has too much to gain personally from a nice little war to distract the media and the public from the Mueller report and from all his mounting political problems. In his case, he surely would benefit from a “wag-the-dog” scenario that John Bolton and his friends in the Middle East could easily invent. As a matter of fact, two weeks ago, warmonger John Bolton was coincidently in the Middle East, in the United Arab Emirates, just before the attacks!

Besides the Japanese ship owner’s denial, it is important to point out that  at the moment of the attack on the Japanese tanker, the Japanese Prime Minister, Mr. Shinzo Abe, was in Iran, having talks with the Iranian government about economic cooperation between the two countries about oil shipments. Since Iran is the victim of unilateral U. S. economic sanctions, to derail such an economic cooperation between Japan and Iran could have been the triggered motivation to launch a false flag operation. It did not work. But you can be sure that the responsible party will not be prosecuted.

Conclusion

We live in an era when people with low morals, sponsored by people with tons of money, can gain power and do a lot of damage. How our democracies can survive in such a context remains an open question.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay.

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).

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million.  Online videos uploaded to the internet and shown around the world via news media, as well as social media, are telling a visual story, but missing the context and explanations which could only come in the form of words.

In the past, manipulated video scenes would have been an expensive Hollywood film industry product; however, deepfake is a video format that uses Artificial Intelligence and programs which are now inexpensive and readily available everywhere.  The political implications of using deepfake could lead to a global war, or perhaps manipulating an election through the use of a damning video on a candidate. Creating an event for the purpose of blaming a country is called a false flag operation.  During the Vietnam War era, a famous incident at the Gulf of Tonkin led to U.S. escalation, and the comparisons to the current Gulf of Oman event is unnerving.

Videos are the new gold-standard in believability.  When people see a video over and over again, as what happened in the Douma chemical video uploaded in 2018 in Syria, they begin to believe the story being shown to them, even though there is no investigation or evidence presented.  Later, when the real investigations and evidence are being presented, most people will not bother to read the text but will continue on believing what they saw in a few seconds, or minutes in the original video, which acts as indelible ink on the brain.

President Trump believes the U.S. military video proves beyond a doubt that Iran attacked two tankers in the Gulf of Oman.  “Iran did do it. And you know they did it because you saw the boat. I guess one of the mines didn’t explode and it’s probably got essentially Iran written all over it,” Trump said during the early morning FOX interview. “You saw the boat at night trying to take the mine off unsuccessfully. Took the mine off the boat. And that was exposed. That was their boat. That was them. And they didn’t want the evidence left behind. I guess they didn’t know that we have things that can detect in the dark that work very well.”

The owner of the Japanese ship attacked disputes the story of any torpedo being used, as his crew reported to him that a flying object was the source of the attack.  A torpedo attack would be below the waterline, but in this case, the damage was above the waterline.

An investigation will be needed, speak to all the crew and the captain, and assess the damages of the ships. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said, “The video is not enough.”  Nathalie Tocci, a senior adviser to the EU, said,

“Before we blame someone, we need credible evidence. Iranians are deeply rational actors,” she said.

And for Iran to have attacked a Japanese ship when the Japanese prime minister was in Tehran “is not an especially rational thing to do.”

The previous attacks in Fujairah on two ships are still a mystery.  Even after an investigation, no proof has been found as to who is responsible.  Plenty of accusations have been made, but the evidence has eluded investigators. National security adviser, John Bolton, had promised to provide evidence that Iran is the culprit, but has failed to do so; however, Bolton said,

“It’s clear that Iran is behind the Fujairah attack. Who else would you think would be doing it? Someone from Nepal?”

In any criminal investigation, we know the first question asked is, “Who will benefit most by this crime?”  The obvious answer is often the culprit; however, there is no substitute for real investigation skills and techniques and the time they require.

Many analysts feel that the Fujairah attack and the recent Gulf of Oman attack have been carried out by some actor who is motivated to create the conditions for a U.S. attack on Iran.  The list of the possible actors is numerous.   Though the proof is lacking, it would appear that Iran is the last actor who would benefit from a rush to an attack on itself, which could spark a regional Middle East war, which would pull in NATO and all of Europe, not to mention the full participation, and losses of the United States of America.

Perhaps, the end goal is not war, but another layer of pressure on Iran to accept the 12 conditions that Sec. of State Mike Pompeo delivered to them as an ultimatum.   Sec. Pompeo was himself exposed in a video; however, it was not a deepfake, but instead, it was authentic in a speech he gave at Texas A&M University, in which he admitted as CIA director, “We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal”.

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This article was originally published on InfoRos.

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

Michel Chossudovsky

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

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

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

List Price: $22.95

Special Price: $15.00

Click here to order.

Even though the ending is known, Max Blumenthal’s book The Management of Savagery draws the reader through an intriguing tale of media management, political management, financial management all with the goal of achieving the management of savagery.  The title derives from a 2004 al-Qaeda document of the same title which advises “jihadist groups to exploit the chaos that resulted from the destabilization of previously stable states.”

The savagery is to eliminate all opposition and as per the author Abu Baker Naji,

“If we succeed in the management of savagery, that stage will be a bridge to the Islamic state….”

In a sense, these sentiments reflect the neoconservative agenda to destabilize and fragment the Middle East in order to “manage” the petrodollar, oil resources, and to allow Israel to “manage” the region as the neocon outpost of civilization.

The story starts in Afghanistan, the first war in the series of managed wars by the U.S. hoping to trap the Soviet Union in its own Vietnam.  It is a mix of CIA, ISI (Pakistan’s intelligence service), a variety of warlords, arms merchants, the Pakistan army, and the newly created Taliban.  It follows swiftly through areas suffering the fallout from these activities – Bosnia, Yugoslavia, Chechnya.

In “The dawn of the forever war” – pre 9/11 – CIA collusion with the Taliban was “swept away” – allowing a “close knit band of neoconservatives to build the case of a full scale military confrontation with Iraq.”  The CIA’s long standing “sordid history of collusion with jihadist elements” created “colossal failures of judgment….”  The push behind the U.S.’ attitude came from the neoconservatives – Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle, Kagan, Kristol et al – whose essays “A Clean Break” and “Project for a New American Century” outlined the case for a “benevolent global hegemony,” but it would require a long “process of transformation….like a New Pearl Harbour.”

On the other side, al-Qaeda’s strategy was essentially the same, Brzezinski’s “Afghan trap” in reverse, a “strategy to trigger a series of American interventions and bleed an overstretched empire.”  For both sides, 9/11 was the critical factor.

After 9/11 the world was polarized, “with us or against us.”  It became a religious war, a civilizational war, and a sectarian war.  From there the story continues its winding, twisting, convoluted path through Afghanistan again, into Iraq, and increasingly with its blowback effects into the U.S. and its allies, in particular Great Britain.

One of the blowback results from this were the refugees/migrants suddenly flooding over into Europe.  Domestically in the U.S. Islamophobia was nurtured by Stephen Bannon and other “monomaniacal” and “trash-talking” Islamophobes.  The stage was set for the rise of right wing  populist forces,”counter-jihadists”, establishing a “comfortable, mutually reinforcing symbiosis that relied on a constantly escalating sense of antagonism.”

Much of the story concerns the most recent war, the war in Syria.  It is at the extreme end of convoluted affairs with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf states supporting al-Qaeda/ al-Nusra/ISIS in its various formations.  The U.S. and its NATO allies while pretending to be against the savagery of ISIS and its related groups, provided military and training assistance along with its Middle East surrogate Israel.  Israel created what was essentially a safe zone around the Golan Heights, helping ISIS with supplies, medical and military support.

Turkey played a double game, supporting ISIS, countering Kurdish forces and interests, controlling to some degree the mass movement of refugees from the fighting.  Lebanon played a passive role providing a protective international air space for Israeli and NATO air incursions while  unwillingly harbouring ISIS forces on the Syrian border.  Iran provided military and logistic support to Syria, broadening its influence in the “Shia crescent”.

And then along came Russia, a long time Syrian ally that proved the lies about U.S. interests in defeating the jihadists.  Once the U.S. recognized its waning influence, Russia’s role took on its old familiar place within U.S. mainstream media as the bad guy.  The “moderate rebels”, who never really existed, and the supposedly humanitarian White Helmets who assisted ISIS became the good guys in western media.

Blumenthal manages to weave his way through all these storylines, highlighting the manner in which the chaos of savagery was not truly controllable.  The main U.S. domestic result of these long wars, the media rants, Islamophobia, worked out to the advantage of the neoconservative agenda.  “With the strange and sudden transformation of the democrats into a paranoid war party, a quiet neoconservative campaign set into motion a decade before was being realized.”

Hearkening back to the post Soviet 1990s, “the goal was clear:  to encircle the largest and most militarily powerful nation in Eurasia and gradually transform it into a toothless, economically dependent vassal of the United States.” U.S. actions, the “shock doctrine” imposed by the “Harvard boys”, “should have stood alongside some of most titanic crimes of the twentieth century.”  After years of slow understated resurgence,  Russia re-entered the global political scene via Georgia, Libya, Ukraine and on into Syria.

The Democratic party has positioned itself now on the side of the neocon warhawks, and as the Syrian war settled into a simmering aftermath, the old Cold War Russia haters dominated supposedly liberal thinkers, stoked by the ultimate blowback from all the military and political muckraking – the election of Donald Trump.

With Trump painted as Putin’s puppet, with both sides calling out “fake news”, with the national security state under the influence of John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, “the reality of America’s waning influence on the world stage” is obvious.  “In the face of their own failure, America’s national security elites had successfully engineered a new Cold War, wagering that the reignited conflict would preserve their management savagery….As the dust cleared from two decades of regime change campaigns a new cast of evil doers was coming into focus.”

Most people know the superficialities of this history, mainly the mainstream media broadcasts of the U.S./NATO/western obfuscation, omissions, and contrivances around events.  Max Blumenthal’s The Management of Savagery clearly exposes the many twists, turns, and convolutions of the various actors.  In spite of its complexity, this book is a fascinating read into the many aspects of how the initial setup of support for the Afghan mujahideen has morphed into today’s Russophobic, Islamophobic, right wing security state, with the savagery expressed more and more domestically while it is still pushed into foreign countries.  It needs to be on everyone’s bookshelf in order to understand the roots and pathways of our current global situation.

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Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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The Management of Savagery – How America’s National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Donald Trump

Author: Max Blumenthal

Hardcover: 400 pages

Publisher: Verso (April 2, 2019)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1788732294

Click here to order.

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With the dogs of war on full alert, something extraordinary happened at the 19th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) late last week in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Virtually unknown across the West, the SCO is the foremost Eurasian political, economic and security alliance. It’s not a Eurasian NATO. It’s not planning any humanitarian imperialist adventures. A single picture in Bishkek tells a quite significant story, as we see China’s Xi, Russia’s Putin, India’s Modi and Pakistan’s Imran Khan aligned with the leaders of four Central Asian “stans”.

These leaders represent the current eight members of the SCO. Then there are four observer states – Afghanistan, Belarus, Mongolia and, crucially, Iran – plus six dialogue partners: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and, crucially, Turkey.

The SCO is bound to significantly expand by 2020, with possible full membership for both Turkey and Iran. It will then feature all major players of Eurasia integration. Considering the current incandescence in the geopolitical chessboard, it’s hardly an accident a crucial protagonist in Bishkek was the ‘observer’ state Iran.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani played his cards masterfully. Rouhani speaking directly to Putin, Xi, Modi and Imran, at the same table, is something to be taken very seriously. He blasted the US under Trump as “a serious risk to stability in the region and the world”. Then he diplomatically offered preferential treatment for all companies and entrepreneurs from SCO member nations committed to investing in the Iranian market.

The Trump administration has claimed – without any hard evidence – that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which Washington brands as a “terrorist organization” – was behind the attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman last week. As the SCO summit developed, the narrative had already collapsed, as Yutaka Katada, president of Japanese cargo company Kokuka Sangyo, owner of one of the tankers, said:

“The crew is saying that it was hit by a flying object.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif had accused the White House of “sabotage diplomacy” but that did not derail Rouhani’s actual diplomacy in Bishkek.

Xi was adamant; Beijing will keep developing ties with Tehran “no matter how the situation changes”. Iran is a key node of the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It’s clear for the leadership in Tehran that the way forward is full integration into the vast, Eurasia-wide economic ecosystem. European nations that signed the nuclear deal with Tehran – France, Britain and Germany – can’t save Iran economically.

But then Modi canceled a bilateral with Rouhani at the last minute, with the lame excuse of “scheduling issues”.

That’s not exactly a clever diplomatic gambit. India was Iran’s second largest oil customer before the Trump administration dumped the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, over a year ago. Modi and Rouhani have discussed the possibility of India paying for Iranian oil in rupees, bypassing the US dollar and US sanctions.

Yet unlike Beijing and Moscow, New Delhi refuses to unconditionally support Tehran in its do-or-die fight against the Trump administration’s economic war and de facto blockade.

Modi faces a stark existential choice. He’s tempted to channel his visceral anti-Belt-and-Road stance into the siren call of a fuzzy, US-concocted Indo-Pacific alliance – a de facto containment mechanism against “China, China, China” as the Pentagon leadership openly admits it.

Or he could dig deeper into a SCO/RIC (Russia-India-China) alliance focused on Eurasia integration and multipolarity.

Aware of the high stakes, a concerted charm offensive by the leading BRICS and SCO duo is in effect. Putin invited Modi to be the main guest of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in early September. And Xi Jinping told Modi in their bilateral get together he’s aiming at a “closer partnership”, from investment and industrial capacity to pick up speed on the stalled Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor, another BRI stalwart.

Imran Khan, for his part, seems to be very much aware how Pakistan may profit from becoming the ultimate Eurasia pivot – as Islamabad offers a privileged gateway to the Arabian Sea, side by side with SCO observer Iran. Gwadar port in the Arabian Sea is the key hub of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), much better positioned than Chabahar in Iran, which is being developed as the key hub of India’s mini-New Silk Road version to Afghanistan and Central Asia.

On the Russian front, a charm offensive on Pakistan is paying dividends, with Imran openly acknowledging Pakistan is moving “closer” to Russia in a “changing” world, and has expressed keen interest in buying Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and Mi-35M attack helicopters.

Iran is at the heart of the BRI-SCO-EAEU integration road map – the nuts and bolts of Eurasian integration. Russia and China cannot allow Iran to be strangled. Iran boasts fabulous energy reserves, a huge internal market, and is a frontline state fighting complex networks of opium, weapons and jihadi smuggling – all key concerns for SCO member states.

There’s no question that in southwest Asia, Russia and Iran have interests that clash. What matters most for Moscow is to prevent jihadis from migrating to the Caucasus and Central Asia to plot attacks against the Russian Federation; to keep their navy and air force bases in Syria; and to keep oil and gas trading in full flow.

Tehran, for its part, cannot possibly support the sort of informal agreement Moscow established with Tel Aviv in Syria – where alleged Hezbollah and IRGC targets are bombed by Israel, but never Russian assets.

But still, there are margins of maneuver for bilateral diplomacy, even if they now seem not that wide. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has issued the new rules of the game; reduce imports to a minimum; aim for less reliance on oil and gas exports; ease domestic political pressure (after all everyone agrees Iranians must unite to face a mortal threat); and stick to the notion that Iran has no established all-weather friends, even Russia and China.

St Petersburg, Bishkek, Dushanbe

Iran is under a state of siege. Internal regimentation must be the priority. But that does not preclude abandoning the drive towards Eurasian integration.

The pan-Eurasian interconnection became even more glaring at what immediately happened after Bishkek; the summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. 

Bishkek and Dushanbe expanded what had already been extensively discussed at the St Petersburg forum, as I previously reported. Putin himself stressed that all vectors should be integrated: BRI, EAEU, SCO, CICA and ASEAN.

The Bishkek Declaration, adopted by SCO members, may not have been a headline-grabbing document, but it emphasized the security guarantees of the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone Treaty, the “unacceptability of attempts to ensure one country’s security at the expense of other countries’ security, and condemning “the unilateral and unlimited buildup of missile defense systems by certain countries or groups of states”.

Yet the document is a faithful product of the drive towards a multilateral, multipolar world.

Among 21 signed agreements, the SCO also advanced a road map for the crucial SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group, driving deeper the Russia-China strategic partnership’s imperative that the Afghan drama must be decided by Eurasian powers.

And what Putin, Xi and Modi discussed in detail, in private in Bishkek will be developed by their mini-BRICS gathering, the RIC (Russia-India-China) in the upcoming G20 summit in Osaka in late June. 

Meanwhile, the US industrial-military-security complex will continue to be obsessed with Russia as a “revitalized malign actor” (in Pentagonese) alongside the all-encompassing China “threat”.

The US Navy is obsessed with the asymmetrical know-how of “our Russian, Chinese and Iranian rivals” in “contested waterways” from the South China Sea to the Persian Gulf.

With US conservatives ratcheting up “maximum pressure” trying to frame the alleged weak node of Eurasia integration, which is already under total economic war because, among other issues, is bypassing the US dollar, no one can predict how the chessboard will look like when the 2020 SCO and BRICS summits take place in Russia.

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This article was originally published on Asia Times.

Featured image: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (right), Chinese President Xi Jinping (center), and Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) pose for a photo after the 19th summit of the leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on June 14, 2019. (Photo by president.ir)

In the last week, the realities of US foreign policy have been exposed by a leaked audio tape, a leak about a US attack on the Russian electrical grid, and US attempts to extradite Julian Assange. All the information points to a foreign policy that violates international law and standards, perpetrates wars and conflict and seeks to undermine press freedom in order to commit its crimes in secret.

This is not new information to those of us who closely follow US foreign policy, but these new exposures are broad and are in the mass media where many millions of people can view them and gain a greater understanding of the realities of US actions around the world. Join the People’s Mobilization to Stop the US War Machine this September.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Exposes Himself To Jewish Leadership

Image on the right: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addresses a closed-door meeting hosted by the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations on May 28, 2019. Credit: Ron Przysucha/U.S. Department of State.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a foreign policy speech to the presidents of major Jewish organizations. The speech was remarkable because it shows the special attention this group receives. Very sensitive secrets of US foreign policy were provided to the audience. Thankfully, someone in the audience audio-taped the conversation, and as a result, millions of people in the US and around the world now know the truth about some critical US foreign policy issues. Here are some of the topics he discussed:

US Seeks To Stop Jeremy Corbyn Before He Is Elected: The audio includes Pompeo promising to do his “level best” to stop Corbyn from ever being elected as Prime Minister of the UK. Pompeo was responding to a question, “Would you be willing to work with us to take on actions if life becomes very difficult for Jews in the UK?” This was about the false claim that Corbyn is anti-Semitic because he favors the rights of Palestinians and criticizes Israel. Pompeo responded:

“It could be that Mr. Corbyn manages to run the gauntlet and get elected. It’s possible. You should know, we won’t wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best. It’s too risky and too important and too hard once it’s already happened.”

The Secretary of State describing how the US would attempt to influence British elections comes despite all the claims of Russa allegedly influencing US elections. A Labour spokesman responded: “President Trump and his officials’ attempts to decide who will be Britain’s next prime minister are an entirely unacceptable interference in the UK’s democracy.”

US Coup in Venezuela not going well: In another US interference in democracy, Pompeo discussed the US coup in Venezuela. Pompeo described the opposition to Maduro as divided and acting in their own self-interest. He said: “Our conundrum, which is to keep the opposition united, has proven devilishly difficult.” Pompeo said in the meeting,  the image of unity was really only useful as a “public” facade.

Pompeo also admitted that he has been working on the coup in Venezuela “since the day I became CIA director.” He explained creating unity among the opposition “was something that was at the center of what President Trump was trying to do.” Pompeo became CIA director on January 23, 2017.

Despite the US saying in public that Juan Guaido was president of Venezuela, he admitted in the audio tape that Maduro was still president and he could not predict the timing of when he would leave, but he assured the audience that the economic war and other actions against the government and against the Venezuelan population would result in his leaving.

The efforts of the Embassy Protection Collective continue in court. The US is seeking to convict four protectors of federal crimes that could result in one year in prison and a $100,000 fine. The US has unlimited resources, we need enough resources to put on a strong defense. A jury verdict acquitting us of these charges will be another blow against the US coup in Venezuela. Donate here.

Kushner Peace Plan Unlikely, Iran Too Sensitive To Discuss: Pompeo told Jewish leaders that the Trump administration’s soon-to-be-released Middle East peace plan will be considered “unworkable,” and might not gain traction. Pompeo acknowledged the plan’s perceived favoritism to Israel and was not optimistic saying, “It may be rejected. Could be in the end, folks will say, ‘It’s not particularly original, it doesn’t particularly work for me.’”

Pompeo was about to get into other Middle East issues like Iran but expressed concern that someone might be taping the conversation and the information could be too sensitive.

Iran Threats Heat Up Based On Unproven US Allegation

On June 13, two outbound tankers in the Gulf of Oman suffered from explosions on the side facing international waters. Iranian rescuers rushed to assist the two oil tankers, transferring all 44 crew members to Iran’s southern shores.

The US is claiming the attacks came from mines placed on the boats by Iran. The president of Kokuka Sangyo Marine, (shipowners), Yutaka Katada, said: “there is no possibility of mine attack as the attack is well above the waterline” and the crew described a flying object hitting the tanker.

The US blaming Iran gives us a “Remember the Maine!”/Gulf of Tonkin feeling, examples of false claims that led to war. The US provided a grainy, hard to understand video of a boat allegedly removing a mine from a tanker hours later. The US claims it was the Iranian Revolutionary Guard removing evidence of Iran’s involvement. There are many problems with this theory that raise more questions than answers.

The attack against the Japanese-owned tanker came at the moment that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was meeting with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. The meeting was a historic one, the first Japanese leader to visit Iran since its revolution 40 years ago. Would Iran attack an oil tanker and sabotage its own meeting with the Japanese leader? This theory strains credulity. The US accusation against Iran seems designed to undermine Iran-Japanese diplomacy. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, said in a tweet, “Suspicious doesn’t begin to describe what likely transpired this morning.”

These attacks seem to be against the interests of Iran as they provide an excuse for escalation against Iran by the US and its allies. Neocons and US armed regimes who oppose Iran, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, would all benefit from this attack.

Even though much of the media repeated the allegations, the suspicion that this was a false accusation against Iran was so strong that many media outlets noted the lack of evidence, e.g. the New York Times,  CNN, and NPR. The Saudi media immediately amplified the US accusation. US intelligence experts questioned the claim, raised doubts about the video and noted the US history in “ginning up” attacks for political purposes. Japan has asked for more proof, European governments questioned the claim. The lack of evidence for the US claim and the reality of how it makes little sense for Iran to make such an attack seem to be exposing the US more than undermining Iran.

US Cyberattack on Russian Electrical Grid

On June 15, the New York Times reported on interviews with military officials over the last three months that showed the US stepping up digital incursions into Russia’s electric power grid. The US has deployed computer code into the Russian electrical system for future cyber attacks. The actions are a warning to President Putin and a demonstration of how the Trump administration is using new authorities to deploy cybertools more aggressively, according to current and former government officials.

The Times reports the US “strategy has shifted more toward offense…with the placement of potentially crippling malware inside the Russian system at a depth and with an aggressiveness that had never been tried before.”

Last year, new authorities were granted separately by the White House and Congress to United States Cyber Command, an arm of the Pentagon, to conduct offensive online operations without receiving presidential approval. The Times reports that Trump has not been briefed on the details of these actions for fear of his reaction. Trump denies the report and accused the Times of “a virtual act of treason.”

It is not clear how far the US has gone into the Russian electrical system. Could it cripple Russia’s electrical system or shut down its military? This may not be known until it is activated. Attacks on power grids by the US are not new, as shown in the attack on the Venezuelan electrical system in March, but boring into a system in preparation for war seems to be new.

US Behind Conviction Of Lula and others in Brazil

Glenn Greenwald obtained thousands of pages of communications between the people involved in the conviction of Lula da Silva, a popular politician in Brazil. It appears now that Lula was falsely convicted to prevent him from winning the presidency in 2018 and that the US was behind it. Brazilian judges are now calling for the conviction of Lula and many others who were targeted to be thrown out and an investigation into the massive corruption. Greenwald says there is more to come.

Assange extradition protested at Westminster Magistrates Court June 2019. Photo by Gareth Corfield

The US Hates When The Truth Is Exposed

Officials in the US government and leaders of transnational corporations are well-aware that they are violating or skirting international and domestic laws. When an official is caught on tape in a private meeting, leaks of documents are provided to the media or an off-the-record interview reveals US strategies for war, the government gets upset.

We do not have to look any further to see this than the attempt to extradite Julian Assange to face prosecution in the United States. The US has issued a formal request for the extradition of Assange on 18 charges, 17 of which are violations of the Espionage Act, that could incarcerate him for the rest of his life. The Magistrate’s Court scheduled a five-day extradition hearing beginning on February 24, 2020.

The video in this tweet shows the hatred prominent people have for Julian Assange for merely publishing the truth about US war crimes, State Department operations, the Guantanamo Bay Prison and corporate corruption.

The facade is being lifted on US foreign policy. It is no longer possible for the US to get away with its crimes. And global power is shifting. Last week, Russia and China signed two major agreements, thus ending the US as the dominant superpower and creating a multipolar world. Alliances are changing – India may partner with Russia and China.

We are facing a historic crossroad. Will the US continue to try to dominate the world using economic, cyber and military weapons, further isolating itself and wasting resources that are needed to meet human needs and protect the planet, or will the US become a partner in good faith with other great powers? It is up to us to determine which path is taken. Join us this September during the United Nations General Assembly to call for the US to be held accountable in the People’s Mobilization to Stop the US War Machine. Click here for more information.

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Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers co-direct Popular Resistance where this article was originally published.

Twitter has declared victory over disinformation, deplatforming thousands of pro-Iranian Twitter accounts this week to coincide with US Secretary of State “Rapture Mike” Pompeo’s evidence-free declaration that Iran had attacked two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. But the mass deletion is merely an effort to distract from the implosion of two anti-Iran troll campaigns dedicated to smearing pro-peace Americans, both tacitly Twitter-approved. And there’s plenty more where those came from. As US media and politicians continues to hyperventilate about Russian bots, who’s the real troll-master?

Pompeo was out front with the blame hours after the attack, absent a shred of proof beyond unspecified “intelligence” and a few other dubious incidents in the Middle East that the US has previously pinned on Iran (also absent a shred of proof). But even mainstream media has initially been reluctant to take his word for it, mostly because the narrative is so improbable – Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe was in Tehran when it happened, promising to make the “utmost effort” to de-escalate tensions, when, as if on cue, one Japanese ship and another carrying Japanese cargo were hit? What are the odds?

When even CNN acknowledged that the attack “doesn’t appear to benefit any of the protagonists in the region,” and Bloomberg admitted “Iran has little to gain” from blowing up the ships of its esteemed guest, Pompeo clearly understood another route of influence was required. Who better to call in for reinforcements than Twitter, which has demonstrated time and again its willingness to serve the US’ preferred narrative with mass deplatformings? 4,779 accounts believed to be “associated or backed by Iran” were removed – less than an hour after Pompeo’s declaration of Iranian guilt – for nothing more than tweeting “global news content, often with an angle that benefited the diplomatic and geostrategic views of the Iranian state.” This was deemed “platform manipulation,” and therefore unacceptable.

One troll down, thousands more to go

Tweeting with an angle that benefits the diplomatic and geostrategic views of the American state, however, is perfectly acceptable – at least, it wasn’t Twitter that brought the “Iran Disinformation Project” crashing to a halt earlier this month. The State Department officially ended its @IranDisinfo influence operation after the social media initiative, ostensibly created to “counter Iranian propaganda,” went rogue, smearing any and all critics of Trump’s hawkish Iran policy as paid operatives of the Iranian government. Human rights activists, students, journalists, academics, even insufficiently-militant American propagandists at RFE/RL, Voice of America and other US-funded outlets were attacked by @IranDisinfo – all on the US taxpayer’s dime.

Congress only learned of the project in a closed-door hearing on Monday, when the State Department confessed the troll campaign had taken $1.5 million in taxpayers’ money to attack those same taxpayers – all in the name of promoting “freedom of expression and free access to information.” The group contracted to operate Iran Disinfo, E-Collaborative for Civic Education, is run by an Iranian immigrant and claims to focus on strengthening “civil society” and “democracy” back home, though its work is almost exclusively US-focused and its connections with pro-war think tanks like the Foundation for Defense of Democracies have alarmed congressional staffers.

“What rules are in place to prevent state-funded organization from smearing American citizens? If there wasn’t public outcry, would the Administration have suspended funding for Iran Disinfo?” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) tweeted after the mea culpa meeting. While the State Department was long barred from directing government-funded propaganda at its own citizens, that rule was quietly repealed in 2013 with the passage of the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, which gave its narrative-spinners free reign to run influence operations at home. And while the Pentagon is technically forbidden from running psychological operations (“psy-ops”) against American citizens, that rule goes out the window in case of “domestic emergencies” – and the domestic emergency declared by then-President George W. Bush days after the September 11 terror attacks remains in effect, 18 years later.

Trump’s favorite anti-Iran troll

Nor was the State Department’s trolling operation the only anti-Iran psy-op to be unmasked in recent weeks. Heshmat Alavi, an anti-Iranian columnist promoted by the Trump administration and published in Forbes, the Hill, and several other outlets, was exposed by the Intercept as a propaganda construct operated by the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a controversial Iranian exile group often called a cult that has only recently lobbied its way off the US’ terror list. The MEK is notorious for buying the endorsement of American political figures, and national security adviser John Bolton, Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani are among those who have spoken at its events.

Heshmat Alavi’s stories were used to sell Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran deal to the Washington Post and other more reputable outlets, as well as to promote the MEK as a “main Iranian opposition group” and viable option for post-regime-change leadership of Iran – even though it is very much fringe and hated by the majority of Iranians for fighting on the side of Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Indeed, Alavi’s relentless advocacy for the MEK may have scared off a few of the sites that initially published his work.

None of the editors who’d published Alavi’s work had ever spoken to him and none could provide the Intercept with any evidence that he was not, in fact, “a persona run by a team of people from the political wing of the MEK.” Defectors confirmed that Alavi is a small part of a massive US-directed propaganda campaign.

“We were always active in making false news stories to spread to the foreign press and in Iran,” a Canadian MEK defector told the Intercept, describing a comprehensive online propaganda operation run out of the group’s former base in Iraq that sought to control the narrative about Iran on Facebook and Twitter. Alavi may be gone, his account quietly suspended by Twitter in the wake of the Intercept’s unmasking and his stories pulled from Forbes and the Diplomat, but there are more where he came from. The Intercept delivered Twitter all the evidence they needed to take down the MEK’s trolling network, a swamp of “coordinated inauthentic behavior” in which Alavi was a prominent node, but the social network sat on its hands.

Friends funding fiends

Add to this toxic US-approved stew the Israeli astroturf operation Act.IL, which in 2018 took $1.1 million from Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs to troll Americans critical of Israeli policies, including its hostility toward Iran. Initially founded to combat the Iran nuclear deal, the Ministry’s mission has pivoted to combating the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, for which it receives significant US funding (Israeli Lt-Gen Gabi Ashkenazi admitted in 2012 that American taxpayers contribute more to the country’s defense budget than Israeli taxpayers). Act.IL boasts it has gotten Americans fired from their jobs, and the app encourages users to accuse American students and journalists who support BDS of antisemitism, mass-report their posts, and otherwise engage in what would be called “coordinated inauthentic behavior” if any other country did it.

Act.IL is by no means the only Israeli trolling campaign aimed at American eyeballs, either. Psy-Group, the Israeli private intelligence company that infamously pitched a social media influence operation to the Trump campaign, ran a multi-pronged online smear operation to influence a local election in California in 2017 and has pitched dozens more. The Israel on Campus Coalition attacks pro-Palestinian student activists and professors through coordinated social media campaigns, while The Israel Project operates a network of Facebook groups whose admitted purpose is to smuggle pro-Israeli propaganda into users’ newsfeeds by concealing it among bland inspirational messages.

Such clear-cut deception by state-sponsored actors is a blatant violation of Facebook’s policies as they’ve been applied to other users, but the site claims the Israeli groups are kosher. Yet of the pro-Iran accounts deleted by Twitter, one “set” included 248 accounts “engaged with discussions related to Israel specifically” – these were shut down for nothing more than their country of origin, even as inauthentic accounts run by Israel were given carte-blanche to spew propaganda. Twitter and Facebook don’t mind being weaponized in the propaganda wars, as long as they’re working for the “right” side.

As 21st century wars are fought more and more in the informational sphere, the brightly-colored propaganda posters of the previous century have been replaced with relatively sophisticated social media influence operations. What Pompeo can’t accomplish by lying to the American public, the State Department will attempt to achieve through the slow and steady drip of disinformation.

US politicians, meanwhile, remain so fixated on the “Russian trolls stole the election!” narrative they’ve been flogging for the last three years that the Senate last week unanimously passed a bill to restrict entry to any foreign national convicted of “election meddling,” a toothless piece of legislative virtue-signaling that reveals their utter disconnection from reality. It’s more than a little ironic that they’d embrace and even pay for foreign meddling as long as they believe the trolls are working for them.

As Friedrich Nietzsche said,

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.” Or a troll.

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This article was originally published in abbreviated form on RT.

All images in this article are from the author

The Japanese state news agency NHK has revealed that workers on the tanker saw a plane flying toward the tanker before the explosion. United States is pinning the blame for the tanker attacks on Iran. Tehran denies the accusation.

The Japanese state media agency has taken the line: “Tanker hit by flying object, not mine”, in quoting Japanese workers on the vessel.  Now the Japanese operator of one of the tankers is providing new details about what happened, in a major revelation which refutes the claims of the U.S’s Mike Pompeo.

The president of the Tokyo-based shipping firm Kokuka Sangyo says its tanker was hit by an incoming projectile. He says several crew members witnessed the source of the second blast. Yutaka Katada, president of Kokuka Sangyo said,

“I’ve received reports that they saw something come flying toward them, then there was an explosion, and then there was a hole in the vessel.”

He denied that the tanker was hit by a floating mine, torpedo or an attached explosive as had been previously reported. He said the damage was way above sea level.

Screenshot    CNBC, June 14, 2019

This version of events entirely refutes the claims made by the U.S’s Mike Pompeo, who says that Iranian mines are to blame:

“This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high-degree of sophistication,”

Pompeo for his part has not released any evidence to back his claims.

“Kokuka Courageous” and another tanker owned by a Norwegian shipping company were attacked on Thursday in international waters near the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping route, as reported by FRN.

Crew-members from both vessels were rescued, but one person was injured. The Japanese tanker is now on its way to the United Arab Emirates.

The US is blaming Iran. Its military has released a video which allegedly shows the country’s Revolutionary Guard removing an unexploded mine from one of the tankers. It’s believed to be a limpet mine which can be detonated remotely.

Tehran is denying any involvement. The Iranian Foreign Minister tweeted that the US is making allegations without a shred of factual or circumstantial evidence, accusing the US of “sabotage diplomacy.”

The UN Security Council held an emergency closed-door meeting on Thursday at the request of the US.

Acting US Ambassador Jonathan Cohen said,

“I’ve asked the Security Council to remain seized of this matter. And I expect that we will have further conversations about it on how to respond in the days ahead.”

Kuwait’s ambassador, currently the rotating president of the Council, told reporters that they “didn’t discuss any evidence” that may have shown Iran was behind the action.

The attacks came as Japan’s prime minister was in Iran to try and ease tensions between Tehran and Washington.

Experts speculate that the U.S was behind the attack, and pushed it through in order to sour Japan-Iran relations, and to create a cause for war or further hostile action against the Islamic Republic.

In Tokyo, Japanese ministers are debating what to do next. Transport Minister Keiichi Ishii said,

“We do not know details of the attack, including who is responsible. we are gathering information from the people concerned and we have alerted the Japanese vessels sailing in the region through a related business association.”

Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya said,

”At this moment, we haven’t been asked to send Japan’s Self Defense Forces. So, we don’t have a plan to send the units to the region near the Strait of Hormuz to respond to this incident.”

Iwaya added that Japanese citizens are not at risk right now, but if that changes the government would make a different judgment.

NHK’s position in itself reveals that Japan-US relations are strained, as Japanese authorities would neither encourage NHK nor allow workers of the vessel to make public reportage and claims which contradict those of Pompeo and the American administration.

The manner in which the Japanese media-intelligence sphere has handled this event so far lends credence to Japanese Prime Minister Abe’s claim that his mission to Tehran was to look for real solutions, and not to deliver a list proposed or desired by the United States.

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Featured image: Smoke billows from a tanker said to have been attacked off the coast of Oman at un undisclosed location. The crews of two oil tankers were evacuated off the coast of Iran after they were reportedly attacked in the Gulf of Oman.
Image Credit: AFP

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Say Hello to the Russia-China Mobile Operating System

By Pepe Escobar, June 16, 2019

Google cuts Huawei off Android; so Huawei may migrate to Aurora. Call it mobile Eurasia integration; the evolving Russia-China strategic partnership may be on the verge of spawning its own operating system – and that is not a metaphor. 

Poland Just Became America’s Most Important NATO Ally

By Andrew Korybko, June 17, 2019

The US’ decision to dispatch 1,000 additional “rotational” troops and even a squadron of surveillance drones to Poland makes the Central European country its most important NATO ally because of the threat that this poses to Russian strategic interests in Kaliningrad, Belarus, Crimea, and Eastern Ukraine, which in turn revives the historical rivalry between these two regional powers over the shared space between them.

Behind the Scenes and Elections: Koch-Oil Big Lies and Ecocide Writ Large in Canada

By Prof. John McMurtry, June 17, 2019

A US Big-Oil backed juggernaut of Conservative provincial governments and the federal Opposition are well advanced in a Canada campaign to reverse longstanding parliamentary decisions, environmental laws, climate action initiatives, Supreme Court directions, first-nations negotiations, and bring down the government of Canada.

Will China’s Automobile Market Trigger Next Economic Downturn?

By F. William Engdahl, June 17, 2019

Sales of new cars in China, today the world’s largest automobile market, plunged a dramatic 16.4% in May, making the worst month in the history of the relatively new China auto industry.

The War Hoax Redux

By Edward Curtin, June 17, 2019

After the Gulf War in 1991 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003, it slowly became apparent what alternative media and war critics had insisted was the case before and during these wars: That the U.S. government had achieved a propaganda coup by tightly controlling the media access to the truth and by getting the mainstream media (MSM) to do their bidding.

Trump and the Taiwan Gambit

By Peter Koenig, June 17, 2019

Trump wants to make Taiwan an ‘ally’ – dreaming of setting up a US base on the island, thus further encircling China. It is the old game, divide to reign.

False-Flagging the World to War: A Gulf of Tonkin Incident in the Gulf of Oman

By Timothy Alexander Guzman, June 17, 2019

It is the same script that was once used on August 2nd, 1964 in what was to become the ‘Gulf of Tonkin Incident’ which based on a false claim of an alleged attack by North Vietnam on a U.S. ship, the USS Maddox.

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Russia and the US are engaging in tit-for-tat hacking of each others’ power grid, the New York Times is reporting, in what is really a kind of cyber “cold war” where the hackers from each country’s military and intelligence services load electronic “explosives” in the computer systems of critical infrastructure of the other, that in a crisis or war could be “detonated” to create chaos or bring down electric grids.

The Times article, the publication of which President Trump decried in a tweet as “close to treason,” was disturbing for a number or reasons. One was that sources told the Times the hacking by the US Cyber Command of Russia’s power grid had been conducted without the president’s knowledge, for fear that he might act to prevent it or might disclose it.

In other words, an action — the hostile hacking of another rival country’s essential infrastructure, which the US government has warned other nations would be viewed as an “act of war,” is being taken by the US military, without the President’s or Congress’s knowledge!

That should be enough to send shivers down the spine of any sane person. In fact, the  that could lead to a US “military response.”

If the Times is correct in both its articles, the current US hacking of Russia’s power grid is evidence of a US military establishment run amok.

Congress should be outraged and calling for immediate hearings to determine the chain of command that allowed this to happen. Either Trump is lying, and knows all about the hacking, or some high-ranking military officers who acted without his knowledge should be fired the way President Truman fired an insubordinate Gen. Douglas McArthur during the Korean War.

But of course that won’t happen. Trump might fire Gen. Jim Mattis as war secretary, and might fire Gen. H. R. McMaster, as National Security Advisor, but he’s not going to fire anyone for hacking Russia’s power grid, whether it’s Acting Secretary of “Defense” Patrick Shanahan or National Security Advisor John Bolton, the known war-mongerer who may well have been behind the order to do it. The Times itself didn’t even deign to run an editorial calling for heads to roll over the news of the dangerous provocation.

But the Times article was disturbing for another reason too. The lengthy investigative piece, while it talked all about the secret cyber war already being fought by the internet forces of the US and Russia, never mentioned Venezuela.

Recall that at the height of opposition militancy a few months ago, when middle-class Venezuelan backers of calls for President Nicolás Maduro’s resignation were taking to the streets of Caracas and confronting police and army soldiers, virtually the whole country was thrown into darkness and chaos by the collapse of its power grid.

Maduro’s government claimed to have solid evidence that the grid had been hacked by the US. Meanwhile the US, which was openly calling for a coup to oust Maduro, and seeking to build support for it by blocking food imports to Venezuela and oil exports from the country, squeezing its economy in every way possible, and working underground to try and persuade senior military leaders to turn on the government, denied that it was hacking the country’s power grid. The US claim was that it was “corruption and mismanagement” that had led to the grid breakdown and the repeated blackouts (that were only stopped when Russian troops reportedly began guarding the dams from physicial sabatoge and foreign technicians fixed the damage done by hacks to the controls).

Many US Americans probably assumed that the idea of the US using cyber tool to bring down a country’s power grid was science fiction, or a paranoid fantasy. But now we know it’s reality. If the Pentagon’s Cyber Command has the capability to plant remote-controlled cyber weapons in the software of Russia’s power grid computer systems, it certainly has the capability of using them to bring down the power grid of a Third World country like Venezuela.

But such an act of sabotage and war has deadly consequences. When Venezuela was out of electricity, hospitals were without power, street lights no longer functioned, frail old people were left in darkness where they were at risk of deadly falls, people in multi-story apartment buildings were without elevators and forced to use dark stairwells to go to and from their apartments, and water, which relies on pumps to reach faucets, became scarce. The list of risks to life and health are endless. If the victims of such an attack were added up, I’m sure it would be staggering.

Did the US bring down the Venezuelan power grid?

Given the depth of US involvement in the opposition movement against Maduro, which included creating and propping up the ludicrous self-proclaimed “legitimate President” Juan Guaidó (who self destructed in a fake “coup” attempt orchestrated by the US with help from the US media, when Guaidó was caught pretending to be in control of a “liberated” air force base when he was really with a handful of soldiers standing on a bridge outside the base), it seems harder to believe that the US was not behind the rid collapse than that it caused it.

How could the Times, which clearly had excellent sources inside the Cyber Command to have produced its current story of the successful if deadly risky hacking of Russia’s power grid, not have also mentioned the hacking of the Venezuelan grid, which many observers have already accused the US of being behind?  Surely it was relevant to the story. If the reporters left it out, why didn’t an editor say to ask about, and to include a reference to it?  If the reporters did their jobs and did ask about and try to include the Venezuela grid story in their piece and it was deleted by the editors, why didn’t the reporters complain publicly?

Well, we know the answer to that. The Times is a “responsible” news organization. It might take sides over a disputed issue within the foreign policy establishment, which surely is why the paper learned about, and decided to report on the hacking of the Russian power grid. The article even mentions that some government and military officials have opposed using cyber attacks on Russian infrastructure to counter alleged Russian hacking of US campaign related organizations and social media platforms. But as a “responsible” news organization, the paper would not publish any information about a cyber attack on a country that its editors agree is led by an “autocrat” who opposes US interests. US backing of a coup to oust the Maduro government, after all, has the backing of the whole US foreign policy establishment.

That, of course, is not real journalism. It’s propaganda.

It’s important to know, which we now do, that our country is at war with Russia in cyberspace. But we need to know too that cyberwars have real flesh-and-blood victims, and that the cyberwar the US almost certainly launched against Venezuela earlier this spring is also underway and killing innocent people.

Meanwhile, here’s a crazy idea:

Since the US claims Russia and China are hacking into US computers, including infrastructure-controlling software and military mainframes, and since we now know the US is doing the same thing in both of those countries, and since the likelihood is that tit-for-tat retaliation will eventually get out of hand and do some real damage, or possibly even lead to military retaliation, as the US has warned, how about trying diplomacy? How about an international negotiation to end mutual cyber attacks that would include international controls and monitoring, and penalties for violations? This is a perfect time to do it, since unlike in many other fields, the abilities of Russia, China and the US are pretty much the same in the area of cyber war.

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Featured image is a US government photo

Murray Segal, former Deputy Attorney General of Ontario, has delivered a report of his review of the extradition of Dr. Hassan Diab to the Minister of Justice, David Lametti. The Minister’s office has confirmed receipt of the report but has not indicated if – and when – the report will be made public.

Following the dismissal of Diab’s case by French investigating judges and his return to Canada in January 2018, Hassan and numerous human rights organisations have been calling for a full, independent public inquiry to investigate his wrongful extradition to France in 2014. CBC News revealed that Department of Justice (DOJ) officials played a role in advancing Diab’s extradition when the case against him was falling apart, and that exculpatory fingerprint analysis that could have helped clear Diab was never shared by the DOJ with Diab’s defence or with the Canadian extradition judge.

In July 2018, Segal was asked to undertake an external review – instead of a public inquiry – to assess whether DOJ officials followed the law and departmental procedures while pursuing France’s request to extradite Diab.

Remarking on the delivery of Segal’s report, Don Bayne, Hassan’s lawyer, said,

“The mandate of Mr. Segal was deliberately too limited – to avoid the hard questions and issues. Mr. Segal’s powers were too circumscribed compared to a judge’s who can compel witnesses and documents. There was no challenge or cross-examination of the DOJ’s version of their conduct. There was no true examination of the dangers and shortcomings of the Extradition Act and procedure (and jurisprudence). We had no access to the behind the scenes letters and documents, thus there was no transparency which this government always championed. Dr. Diab and his family deserve better than this closed door, carefully controlled external review.”

Hassan Diab said:

“After suffering a decade under virtual house arrest and near solitary confinement in Canada and France, we need to make sure that wrongful extraditions do not take place again. I urge the Minister of Justice to order a serious, independent, and transparent public inquiry. Anything short of that will only extend the suffering, and miscarriages of justice will continue.”

Tim McSorley, National Coordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG) reiterated the call of ICMLG for a public inquiry into Hassan Diab’s extradition and the failings of the Extradition Act. He stated,

“The mandate of Mr. Segal’s review was too narrow. The severity of what Dr. Diab has gone through merits the scope and thoroughness of a public inquiry. Only this will ensure a full accounting of the facts, full redress for Dr. Diab, and the information needed to make the necessary reforms so that no Canadian faces the same travesty again. Given the gravity of what Hassan Diab has been through, Mr. Segal’s report should be immediately released. Hassan and the public deserve answers and clarity after his ten-year ordeal.”

Josh Paterson, Executive Director of the BC Civil Liberties Association, stated,

“Mr. Segal’s report must be provided to Dr. Diab and his family, and it must be made public without editing or redaction – period. It is also well past time for the government to commit to a full review of the outdated Extradition Act, which allowed this mess to happen in the first place.”

Background:

Dr. Hassan Diab is a Canadian citizen and sociology professor who lives in Ottawa. He was extradited from Canada to France in November 2014, even though the Canadian extradition judge, Robert Maranger, described the evidence presented against Diab as “very problematic”, “convoluted”, “illogical”, and “suspect”. However, given the low threshold of evidence in Canada’s Extradition Act, the judge felt compelled to order Diab’s extradition.

Diab spent more than three years in prison in France while the decades-long investigation in his case was ongoing – this despite the fact that Canada’s Extradition Act only authorizes extradition to stand trial, not to continue an investigation.

In January 2018, the French investigating judges dismissed all charges against Diab and ordered his release. They stated that there is consistent evidence that Diab was not in France at the time of the 1980 bombing in Paris that tragically killed four people and injured dozens. They also notably underlined the numerous contradictions and misstatements contained in the anonymous intelligence, and cast serious doubts about its reliability. The investigating judges also stressed that all fingerprint and palm print analysis excluded Diab.

Shortly thereafter, Diab was released from prison in France, and returned to his home and family in Canada. He had spent almost ten years of his life either imprisoned or living under draconian bail conditions, including more than three years in near solitary confinement in a French jail.

In June 2018, CBC News reported that a key fingerprint analysis exonerating Diab was not disclosed to the court in Canada during the extradition proceedings. The court in Canada was told that no such evidence existed, when in fact the fingerprint analysis that excluded Diab was done in early 2008, many months before France requested Diab’s extradition. CBC News also reported that in 2009 a senior lawyer at the Canadian Department of Justice (DOJ) urged the French authorities to obtain new handwriting ‘evidence’ against Diab when the extradition case was about to collapse. In another effort to shore up the case, the DOJ lawyer requested another fingerprint analysis of a police document signed by the suspect as he believed that the evidence would be very powerful in getting Hassan extradited. When the RCMP fingerprint analysis excluded Diab, the DOJ lawyer never disclosed this fact to the court in Canada or to the defense.

Numerous human rights and civil society organisations – including Amnesty International Canada, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, Canadian Association of University Teachers, Criminal Lawyers Association, and the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG) – have called on the Canadian government to conduct an independent public inquiry into Diab’s extradition, as well as to undertake a complete review of the Extradition Act so no other Canadian would go through what Hassan Diab and his family had to endure.

Diab has a lifelong record of opposition to bigotry and discrimination, as attested by family, long-time friends, and colleagues. He has always maintained his innocence and strongly condemned the 1980 crime. He has unequivocally stated, “My life has been turned upside down because of unfounded allegations and suspicions. I am innocent of the accusations against me.”

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Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo conveyed a message from US President Donald Trump to the Iranian leadership, asking the release of 5 US prisoners and inviting Iran to sit around a negotiation table, adding “he [Donald Trump] would be ready to suspend all sanctions only during the negotiations”. No guarantee was offered to freeze or revoke the sanctions. Sayyed Ali Khamenei, the Leader of the revolution, rejected the message and any dialogue with the US President and told his guest that he considers Trump unworthy to “to exchange a message with”.

Informed sources close to Iranian decision makers repeated the words of President Hassan Rouhani and the Iranian advisor to Sayyed Khamenei for international affairs, Ali Akbar Velayati, namely that  “if Iran can’t export oil through the Persian Gulf, no-one in the Middle East will be able do this”. The source “expects further attacks in the future, given the US decision to stop the flow of oil by all means at all costs. Thus, oil will stop being delivered to the world if Iran can’t export its two million barrels per day”.

Two tankers  – Kokuka Courageous and Font Altair – were attacked in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday, putting at risk the supply of oil to the West and making oil tanker navigation in the Middle East very unsafe.

“One more attack and insurance companies are expected to increase their fees. More attacks and no insurance company will agree to cover any oil tanker navigating in Gulf waters, putting Iran and other oil-exporters at the same level. Moreover, let us see what justifications Trump and Europe will offer their people when the price of oil becomes unaffordable”, said the source.

“Tensions in the Gulf can be eased only when sanctions are lifted on Iran. Otherwise, more objectives may be targeted and the level of tension will gradually increase. The US is selling weapons which are inadequate to protect oil tankers or to protect oil pipelines delivering oil to harbours. If Iran is in pain, the rest of the world will suffer equally,” said the source.

“The selling of oil was compared to a horde of wolves hunting together: when one is unable to hunt, others replace him. When Iran was under sanctions unable to sell its crude oil production daily, Saudi Arabia and Russia replaced Iran and increased their production and delivery. This is why Sayyed Ali Khamenei told the Iranian leadership to no longer consider any country as a durable friend and ally.”

Today, the Gulf of Oman has become the operational stage to attack oil tankers. The oil tankers suffered multiple attacks. Had the attackers aimed to sink the oil tankers, this would have created an ecological disaster in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean. Iran wants everybody to sit around the negotiation table, including the Gulf countries, but only once the sanctions are lifted.

“President Trump is betting on maintaining the status-quo. This doesn’t suit Iran, because its economy will suffer dearly. Binding the deep economic wound and holding on until Trump ends his first mandate is playing into Trump’s hand and this is not going to happen. The tension in the Gulf was generated when Trump decided to pull out of the nuclear deal (known as the JCPOA). Let him pay the price now. If Iran cannot export its crude oil it means the country must be ready for war”, continue the source.

Russia advised Iran to remain within the JCPOA and Iran promised to withdraw only gradually. The Iranian leadership believes Trump would like to see Iran pull out completely from the nuclear deal so he can accuse Tehran of moving towards a nuclear bomb.

It is a real war that is unfolding in the Middle East today, a war where oil tankers and oil delivery to the world (30% of world oil supply goes through the Gulf) are the targets. President Trump and his Middle Eastern allies will have to bear the responsibility of the losses and the increase in the oil price worldwide due to attacks on oil tankers that are not likely to stop even in the face of US threats.

If Iran considers the sanctions detrimental to the survival of its population in the medium term, it means Iran is ready to go to war and accept the consequences. It is not possible to threaten a country that is already foundering economically. However, for Trump to lift sanctions would provide ammunition for the Democrats to attack Trump in his forthcoming campaign.

The other choice would be to lift sanctions and invite Iran to negotiate. And the last choice would be to challenge Iran, confront it and accept that the entire Middle East will go up in flames. After all, the Iranian leadership welcomed the US aircraft carrier coming to the Gulf and called it a “shooting gallery”. The ball is firmly in the US court.

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All images in this article are from the author

The US’ decision to dispatch 1,000 additional “rotational” troops and even a squadron of surveillance drones to Poland makes the Central European country its most important NATO ally because of the threat that this poses to Russian strategic interests in Kaliningrad, Belarus, Crimea, and Eastern Ukraine, which in turn revives the historical rivalry between these two regional powers over the shared space between them.

International commentators usually debate which of the US’ NATO allies is its most important one, but there should be no question nowadays that it’s Poland after the recent military deal that it clinched with the Pentagon last week. The US will dispatch 1,000 additional “rotational” troops on top of its already-existing presence of 4,500 ones and even deploy a squadron of surveillance drones to the Central European country in response to its request to beef up its military capabilities, which blatantly violates the 1997 Russia-NATO Founding Act by expanding the already-existing de-facto permanent NATO military presence in the region under the unconvincing cover of it only being “rotational”. Furthermore, it poses a serious threat to Russian strategic interests in Kaliningrad, Belarus, Crimea, and Eastern Ukraine, which in turn revives the historical rivalry between these two regional powers over the shared space between them.

Its not the author’s intent to fearmonger that “war is imminent” like a lot of Alt-Media analysts are prone to do when discussing this issue  (in which case a few thousand troops anywhere in the world wouldn’t make much of a difference if the conflict goes nuclear), but just to point out the larger strategic impact of this decision, especially concerning the surveillance drone announcement. The US routinely attempts to violate Russian airspace with its spy planes, so it’s not unforeseeable that it’ll do the same with the Polish-based drones when it comes to Russia’s neighboring region of Kaliningrad, which is fast transforming into a fortress in response to the growing security threats unleashed by the US since 2014’s reunification with Crimea. In fact, the same type of surveillance missions could be undertaken from the US’ de-facto military bases in Poland against Belarus, Crimea, and Eastern Ukraine, thus making the country a hub for regional provocations.

Poland’s reinvigorated assertiveness towards its eastern periphery is due to a large part by its desire to restore its historical hegemony in the region that it regards as being within its so-called “sphere of influence”, which overlaps with the US’ strategic objective of “containing” Russia and therefore makes the country its natural “Lead From Behind” partner in this respect, a leadership position that’s vastly improved by the fact that it has the largest population and economy of the former communist satellites. Furthermore, the Polish-led “Three Seas Initiative” aims to expand the country’s soft power influence all throughout this domain, attractively presenting an alternative sub-regional development model between the “traditional” EU and the Eurasian Union. Now, with the US’ military support, Poland is attempting to expand its hard influence and might even possibly be planning to provoke Russia through the aforementioned scenario of violating its airspace with surveillance drones.

It’s difficult to predict what Russia’s response to this development will be apart from increasing its military capabilities in Kaliningrad like it’s usually done whenever something of this sort has occurred. While some people think that it’ll boost its military presence in CSTO-ally Belarus, there are realistic limits to what it can do given Minsk’s geopolitical “balancing” act between East and West. It’s technically true that the US’ new military deployments to Poland pose a security threat for the so-called “buffer state” between it and Russia, but Lukashenko knows that allowing his eastern neighbor to open up its long-sought-after airbase in the country would immediately jeopardize his relations with the West and might be a “crossing the line”, so it’ll remain to be seen how the Russian-Belarusian Strategic Partnership is leveraged in this respect (if it even is to begin with).

Nevertheless, from an American strategic perspective, the scenario of provoking a self-sustaining cycle of revived historical rivalry between Poland and Russia is already being advanced through this latest military decision and will therefore create a somewhat predictable regional model that the US can continue to work with going forward. It’s to the US’ benefit more so than anyone else’s to see Poland and Russia once again compete for the shared space between them, which therefore enables Washington to “contain” Moscow by proxy via Warsaw, or at the very least force its competitor to contend with yet another problem on its borders as it seeks to overwhelm it with security challenges. It’s for this reason why Poland is incontestably the US’ most important NATO ally and will likely remain so for the indefinite future because of the irreplaceable role that it fulfills for American grand strategy.

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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 NEO

On May 27^th, Europe awakened to what seemed to be like a new stage in the resurgence of the populist right and reactionary forces, and a major retreat for the radical left in the elections to the European parliament. In Italy, the growing political hegemony of Salvini’s project was solidified with his party’s clear victory across northern and central regions of the country, while the Left effectively ceased to exist on the institutional level. In Spain, Unidas Podemos returned only 6 out of 11 MEPs, the same amount as La France Insoumise, whose lacklustre performance saw them achieve only 6.31% of vote. Similar losses were observed for left-of-centre-left parties across Germany, Greece, Holland and the Czech Republic, while the left vote across Portugal and the Nordic countries remained stable compared to 2014. 

In 2014, Syriza had been one of the big stories of the European elections and, with strong performances for Podemos in Spain and Sinn Féin in Ireland, the rise of the Nordic-Green Left bloc (GUE-NGL) was one of the stories of the election. Five years on, these left-wing alternatives have faded against the backdrop of an increasingly-strong populist right. But one country stands as an exception to this trend, providing a stark contrast to the failures elsewhere on the radical left.

May 26^th was a political earthquake in Belgium as the Workers’ Party (PTB/PDVA) won big across the regional, federal and European elections, and firmly established itself as a left alternative to both the centre-left and green parties across the country. It more than doubled its vote share in the federal elections, increasing its number of representatives from 2 to 12, while at the same time scoring major victories across Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia, obtaining a total of 29 seats in the various regional elections. At the same time, the party elected its first member of European parliament, Marc Botenga, in the French-speaking regions. Moreover, in the region of Flanders, they succeeded in capturing a political foothold despite dominating cultural and political hegemony of the conservative nationalist political forces throughout the past decade and the electoral success of the far-right Flemish Interest (Vlaams Belang), which obtained 18 federal seats. 

An Emerging Force

Founded out of Belgium’s radical student movement in the 1960s, the Workers’ Party at first adopted a Maoist platform and focused on anti-imperial and anti-colonial struggles. In its early years it was very much on the fringes of Belgian politics, drawing only tens of thousands of votes through the 1990s and into the early 2000s. But by the mid-2000s, as the party moved towards a broader Marxist platform, its fortunes began to change. After the financial crisis, its vote increased sharply in the 2009 European elections and this was followed, in 2010, by a breakthrough federal election in which the party received over 100,000 votes. This grew to 250,000 in 2014, bringing with it two members of parliament. But their latest results are far more impressive: drawing 584,621 votes (8.62%) federally, with particular success in regional elections in Brussels (13.47% and 10 seats) and Wallonia (13.68% and 10 seats). 

The reorganisation of the party and the process of renewal during the congress of 2009 played a crucial part in allowing it to emerge as a credible alternative, offering both a social and an ecological narrative as well as practical solutions to the economic issues created by the financial crisis. This allowed the party to build a distinctive approach during its breakthroughs in the Walloon and Federal parliaments in 2014, with campaigns promising to “bring the voice of the working people” to politics.

The interventions made by PTB politicians, particularly Raoul Hebedouw, during parliamentary sessions, and the clear and consistent articulation of everyday problems faced by the population, further increased the party’s appeal across both traditional and social media in recent years. Despite its relatively meagre size, its parliamentary performances meant it often ended up leading debates on important social and economic issues such as pensions, retirement age, unemployment figures and insecure work.

The Workers’ Party also played a supportive role for the waves of industrial action throughout late 2018 and early 2019, which culminated in general strikes in parts of the country in October, February and May. At the same time, the resurgence of the climate change movement allowed the party’s eco-socialist message to gain traction, with its proposal of a green transition funded by new taxes on multinationals. The protests and the social movements for an increase in the pensions also helped the party to tap into the popular anger against both the ruling coalition of N-VA, Christian Democrats and liberals, and the centre-left’s track record of applying cuts to social spending. 

All of these factors were crucial in the party winning over parts of the electorate in the poorer and formerly industrial regions such as Henegouwen and Luik, scoring an unprecedented 15.64% and 16.45% in the two regions respectively, as well as significant parts of the progressive electorate in Brussels, where it achieved 12.28%. 

Flemish Breakthrough

On the surface, the results from the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders appeared to show a similar pattern of the rise of the reactionary nationalist and populist right forces across the continent. The New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), a member of the government coalition until December 2018, won almost 25% of the vote in the region and returned 25 seats, despite losing 8 federal seats to re-emerged Flemish Interest (Vlaams Belang), which re-emerged with its best result since 2003. 

On May 29^th, King Phillippe met with the Flemish Interest’s Tom Van Grieken, the first time the Belgian head of state held an official meeting with a leader from the far-right of the country’s politics since 1936. Furthermore, Bart De Wever, the NV-A leader appeared to be willing to break the long-standing taboo of holding coalition talks with the party, considering the NV-A’s own narrow list of possible coalition partners for the next federal government. 

However, the success of the Workers’ Party bucked the right-wing trend. By breaking through the 5% threshold and electing its first four representatives in the Flemish parliament, the party has established an institutional foothold. It can now follow a similar strategy in the Dutch-speaking region to the one adopted by Raoul Hebedouw federally. This will allow it to advance motions on issues that the party campaigned on in Flanders, such as a demand to raise pension levels to €1,500 per month, to introduce free public transport, and to crackdown on tax evasion by multinational corporations.

The party hopes this will mean that a radical left-wing project that’s already gathering pace across Wallonia and Brussels can be extended into Flanders, combining institutional presence with an established space in the media. This foothold may also end the profiling of the party as a “phenomenon of the south” and strengthen its position as a genuine bi-national political force. 

The Flemish regions where the Workers’ Party saw its highest vote, particularly the large economic areas and old industrial heartlands of Antwerp and Ghent, shared a common pattern of social and economic problems that the party’s program was specifically designed to address – high unemployment or otherwise high levels of insecure work, poor public transport, high pollution, lack of affordable housing and low levels of pensions.

The electoral campaign built on a number of tactics previously utilised during the October 2018 local elections, when the party won a total of 157 local council seats across the country. Chief among these was a grassroots campaign utilising thousands of volunteers and a system of “vote by vote” cards designed to secure individual votes across neighbourhoods, participation in the debates in high schools and local branches of the ABVV and ACV trade unions, as well building an anti-establishment message to rival the Flemish far-right. 

In the latter case, the Workers’ Party’s message that multinationals, rather than workers, should pay for the climate and social crisis allowed it to simultaneously tap into the climate action movement while positioning itself against to some of the market-friendly and economically regressive proposals put forward by Green parties. Given the crisis precipitated by environmental reforms that penalised working-class and poorer segments of society across the border in France, the party sees this approach as especially important.

The current situation provides a stark contrast with the historical experience of the 1990s and early 2000s, which saw the decline of the centre-left Flemish Socialist Party (SPa) and other established political forces in favour of Flemish Interest. The Workers’ Party has sought to challenge the xenophobic politics which are the legacy of recent years by focusing on the origin of the refugee crisis–wars and intervention in the Middle East–rather than feeding scare stories about its management, while offering an economic agenda which threatens nationalist and right-wing dominance of the anti-establishment narrative.

The Future

The election of Marc Botenga as a Member of European Parliament (MEP) in the country’s French-speaking region was also a landmark for the PTB. 14.5% of vote catapulted the 38-year old to one of Belgium’s 21 allocated seats, the first time that a radical leftist had been elected in a Belgian European election. On election night, Botenga said the result meant there was a “left locomotive that [would be able] to offer an alternative to the far-right and to the policies of Macron or Merkel, who opened the door to the far-right with their Europe of competition, austerity and money”. 

The Workers’ Party will join the European Nordic-Green Left (GUE-NGL) formation in the European parliament, now deprived of some its recent support base across the Mediterranean. If the left is to regain the ground it has lost in recent years, it would do well to learn the lessons of the Belgian Workers’ Party, which looks set to become one of the country’s most impactful political forces just at the moment the threat from the far-right is growing.

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Denis Rogatyuk is a writer, journalist, and researcher based in London. He’s written for Jacobin, Green Left Weekly, TeleSUR, LINKS, International Viewpoint and other publications.

Featured image is from Tribune

It’s 10 years now since US president Barack Obama made his famous Prague speech, committing to a nuclear weapons-free world. I remember hearing his words broadcast, amid the tumultuous cheers of the crowd in Hradčany Square, as if it were yesterday.

I stood with peace activists in glorious spring sunshine outside the ‘No to NATO’ counter-summit in Strasbourg and our speculations ran riot. US nukes out of Europe? An end to Britain’s Trident system as part of a global disarmament deal? What heady days those were, what days of hope.

Then as president Dmitry Medvedev of Russia added his voice to the call, hopes were high that real progress would be made towards that goal.

Those were truly inspiring moments, and although, over the year that followed, there were times when I felt hope was receding, finally words were turned into actions.

The New START treaty was signed, which made significant reductions to US and Russian nuclear weapons, limiting their deployed strategic nuclear warheads to a combined total of 1,550. It wasn’t everything we wanted, but it was a step in the right direction.

How far away those days seem now. It’s not just that moves towards arms reduction and disarmament have stalled – they have actually gone into reverse.

INF finished

Since Donald Trump entered the White House, there have been sustained attacks on the treaty architecture that underpins the rules-based system that most countries struggle to uphold and extend. The whole principle of multilateralism has faced successive onslaughts, and with John Bolton at Trump’s right hand as US national security adviser, non-proliferation and disarmament treaties are not long for this world.

The Trump administration is doing its very best to destroy the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, while also banging the drums of war. Its withdrawal from the ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’ and its attempts to reintroduce sanctions on Iran can only lead to greater instability in the Middle East and increase the likelihood of more countries in the region pursuing nuclear weapons.

This move by Trump is not a popular one: all the other signatories to the Iran nuclear deal are trying to uphold it – including Britain – but it’s not clear how long this will be sustainable.

And now president Trump has announced that the US will withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Force (INF) treaty with Russia. Russia has since done the same.

This treaty has been a cornerstone of nuclear arms control since the Cold War, having eliminated thousands of nuclear missiles in Europe, playing a crucial role in ensuring that US missiles are not situated on our continent.

There are many possible dangers as a result of its cancellation: a new nuclear arms race, US missiles back in Europe – and that includes Britain – trained on Russia, US missiles in Okinawa trained on China, nuclear war.

As if it can’t get much worse, US withdrawal from the INF treaty also calls into question whether Washington will work with Moscow to renew Obama and Medvedev’s New START treaty in 2021, when it is due to expire. If Bolton has his way, once the treaty expires there will be no restraints on nuclear weapons left. A grim prospect indeed.

Cheering Trump

In Britain’s parliament, our house of commons defence committee has recently unveiled its report into the breakdown of the INF treaty.* As this is so vital to peace in Europe and beyond, it was disappointing to find this report a most unedifying read.

Indeed, it turns the committee into a cheerleader for president Trump – far from the actual role designated to it, which is essentially scrutiny and accountability. The parliament website describes it thus: ‘The Defence Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Ministry of Defence and its associated public bodies.’

Instead, it produced a disappointing and unbalanced report which fails both to address the reality of a US president who is abandoning the international rules-based system, and to consider what this means for Britain – particularly in light of the so-called special relationship.

The report sweeps aside any US responsibility for the breakdown of the INF treaty, despite Trump initiating US withdrawal, stating in its summary that ‘if the Treaty fails, the sole responsibility for its failure will lie with Russia’.

Trump’s withdrawal from the universally-applauded Iran nuclear deal was perhaps the clearest sign of his dangerous new approach to international legal norms, but the report doesn’t deem it relevant even to mention it.

The report also fails to point out how US withdrawal from the INF treaty will effectively legalise the activities for which Russia stands accused by president Trump, and removes the framework through which they could be investigated and resolved.

The truth is, both Russia and the US had concerns about each other’s compliance with the treaty – but how will these concerns be addressed when the treaty is gone?

This failure of critical thought by the defence committee is all the more disappointing because the committee has, in the past, played a valuable and objective role in scrutinising government actions.

In 2006, when the Blair government was trying to press ahead with Trident replacement without a full public and parliamentary debate, it was the defence committee which initiated a series of inquiries into Britain’s nuclear weapons that were probably the most in-depth and serious to date. That independence of thought now seems lacking and this is particularly dangerous.

Whereas the UK government seems to be vigorously supporting Trump on this issue, elsewhere in Europe deep reservations have been expressed.

Other European leaders seem to have a clearer recognition of the dangers that may ensue – a new nuclear arms race and the acceleration of a new cold war. Of course, it’s not just Europe that will be affected – China is being brought into the frame here, as with all US foreign and military policy.

It is necessary for the peace movement internationally to defend the treaties that restrain arms production, deployment and potential use. Without this security framework, we face a much more dangerous world.

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Kate Hudson is general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Founded in 1958, CND campaigns for British nuclear disarmament and for a global ban on nuclear weapons: www.cnduk.org

Featured image: Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed a landmark nuclear arms control treaty in 1987. (Photo: White House Photographic Office/National Archives and Records Administration)

In a move aimed at gaining more support from the already-enthusiastic Donald Trump for their policies of land expropriation and expansion, Israeli authorities on Sunday established a new development they coined “Trump Heights”, with Binyamin Netanyahu presiding over the unveiling ceremony alongside U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.

The location for the new colony is on land stolen by Israel from Syria in the 1967 war, an area known as the Golan Heights, and illegally occupied by the Israeli military since that time. Donald Trump recently announced that he recognizes Israel’s claim to the territory – despite no internationally-recognized treaty or agreement ever having been signed ceding the territory.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held a ceremony on the site on Sunday, renaming the colonial settlement of Bruchim to ‘Trump Heights’.

In his statement, Netanyahu said,

“We are going to do two things — establish a new community on the Golan Heights, something that has not been done for many years. This is an act of Zionism and it is paramount. The second thing is to honor our friend, a very great friend of the State of Israel — President Donald Trump, who recently recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.”

Next to Netanyahu stood David Friedman, the Trump-appointed U.S. Ambassador to Israel who has long been criticized for his blatant support of Israel’s illegal annexation of neighboring territory (including heading an organization in the U.S. that helps to fund this illegal colonization activity).

Friedman has also been criticized for a complete absence of diplomatic experience — his only apparent qualifications for the job of Ambassador being his work as Trump’s bankruptcy lawyer and his virulent support for Zionist expansionist politics.

“It’s absolutely beautiful,” said Friedman, adding, “I can’t think of a more appropriate and a more beautiful birthday present [for Donald Trump, who just had a birthday].”

Israeli journalists have pointed out that the ceremony is likely little more than a political maneuver aimed at feeding Donald Trump’s ego, since no action has actually been taken to establish the colony.

If action were taken to settle the area with Israeli civilians, it would be a direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention on the obligations of an occupying power.

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Featured image is from IMEMC

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) today launches the findings of SIPRI Yearbook 2019, which assesses the current state of armaments, disarmament and international security.

​​​​​​The modernization of nuclear forces continues

SIPRI Governing Board Chair Ambassador Jan Eliasson, former Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, says:

‘A key finding is that despite an overall decrease in the number of nuclear warheads in 2018, all nuclear weapon-possessing states continue to modernize their nuclear arsenals.’

At the start of 2019, nine states—the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)—possessed approximately 13 865 nuclear weapons. This marked a decrease from the approximately 14 465 nuclear weapons that SIPRI estimated these states possessed at the beginning of 2018 (see table below).

Of these 13 865 nuclear weapons, 3 750 are deployed with operational forces and nearly 2 000 of these are kept in a state of high operational alert.

The decrease in the overall number of nuclear weapons in the world is due mainly to Russia and the USA—which together still account for over 90 per cent of all nuclear weapons—further reducing their strategic nuclear forces pursuant to the implementation of the 2010 Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START) while also making unilateral reductions. In 2018, Russia and the USA announced that they had achieved the final New START force reduction limits by the specified deadline.

New START will expire in 2021 unless both parties agree to extend it. There are currently no discussions about extending New START or negotiating a follow-on treaty.

‘The prospects for a continuing negotiated reduction of Russian and US nuclear forces appears increasingly unlikely given the political and military differences between the two countries,’ says Shannon Kile, Director of SIPRI’s Nuclear Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-proliferation Programme.

Both Russia and the USA have extensive and expensive programmes under way to replace and modernize their nuclear warheads, missile and aircraft delivery systems, and nuclear weapon production facilities. In 2018, the US Department of Defense set out plans to develop new nuclear weapons and modify others to give them expanded military roles and missions.

The nuclear arsenals of the other nuclear-armed states are considerably smaller, but all are either developing or deploying new weapon systems or have announced their intention to do so. China, India and Pakistan are increasing the size of their nuclear arsenals. ‘India and Pakistan are expanding their military fissile material production capabilities on a scale that may lead to significant increases in the size of their nuclear weapon inventories over the next decade,’ says Kile.

North Korea continues to prioritize its military nuclear programme as a central element of its national security strategy, although in 2018 it announced a moratorium on the testing of nuclear weapons as well as medium- and long-range ballistic missile delivery systems.

Absence of transparency in reporting on nuclear weapon capabilities

The availability of reliable information on the status of the nuclear arsenals and capabilities of the nuclear-armed states varies considerably.

The USA and the UK have disclosed important information about their stockpile and nuclear capabilities, and France has also declared some information. Russia does not make publicly available a detailed breakdown of its forces counted under New START, even though it shares this information with the USA.

The governments of India and Pakistan make statements about some of their missile tests but provide little information about the status or size of their arsenals. At present, North Korea has acknowledged conducting nuclear weapon and missile tests but provides no information about its nuclear weapon capabilities. Israel has a long-standing policy of not commenting on its nuclear arsenal.

* ‘Deployed warheads’ refers to warheads placed on missiles or located on bases with operational forces.
** ‘Other warheads’ refers to stored or reserve warheads and retired warheads awaiting dismantlement. Total figures include the highest estimate when a range is given. Figures for North Korea are uncertain and are not included in total figures. All estimates are approximate.

50 years of the SIPRI Yearbook

The 2019 edition is the 50th Yearbook that SIPRI has produced. Among other topics, SIPRI Yearbook 2019 provides analysis on armed conflict and peace processes, nuclear disarmament, arms control (conventional and nuclear) and non-proliferation—including key developments in Russian–US nuclear arms control, Iran and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Last year, SIPRI made the 2001–16 editions of the Yearbook freely available to download. In the next few months, SIPRI will make all 31 editions prior to 2001 available online for free. A 50-day social media campaign leading up to the launch of the complete back catalogue will start in July.

See some of Dan Smith’s reflections on the key findings of the SIPRI Yearbook 2019 in the latest episode of Peace Points:

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