According to 33 national organizations, the project “raises profound questions about national sovereignty, corporate power, consumer protection, competition policy, monetary policy, privacy, and more.”
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In a letter Tuesday, a coalition of 33 consumer, privacy, economic policy, and other groups called on congressional leaders and top federal regulators to impose a moratorium on Facebook’s proposed global cryptocurrency “until the profound questions raised by the proposal are addressed.”
“The Facebook proposal to create a new cryptocurrency as part of its broader Libra project raises profound questions about national sovereignty, corporate power, consumer protection, competition policy, monetary policy, privacy, and more,” says the letter (pdf). “The U.S. regulatory system is not prepared to address these questions. Nor are the regulatory systems of other nations or international institutions.”
The letter—which is also addressed to Facebook and Calibra, its newly formed subsidiary to provide financial services—urges the tech giant “to put its implementation of its plans for the new cryptocurrency, Libra, on hold until the Congress and regulators have an opportunity to assess and react to a far more detailed presentation than has yet been made public.”
We and partners are demanding that Congress and regulators impose a moratorium on Facebook’s global currency, Libra.
The risks posed by Libra are too great to allow the plan to proceed with so many unanswered questions. https://t.co/sEP6EyYkzH
The organizations assert in the letter that there is “a very long list of questions” Facebook must publicly answer before moving forward with the project, and include more than two dozen examples—”a small subsect” of the full list—that are grouped into categories such as governance and privacy.
Public Citizen, one of the letter signatories, highlighted a few of the questions in a statement announcing the letter Tuesday:
How will national consumer protection laws apply to, be enforced against, and prevent misconduct by global sellers and lenders on matters relating to required disclosures, civil remedies, usury rules, access to credit, unfair and deceptive practices, and more?
Given Facebook’s record and stated views on privacy, why should anyone believe that the company’s claims and commitments about privacy will be upheld?
Will Facebook be able to use Libra and Calibra (a subsidiary involved in its cryptocurrency program) to pull consumers into a closed Facebook ecosystem that will disadvantage competitors and consumers?
Wouldn’t Libra provide an easy mechanism for money laundering?
Wouldn’t Libra similarly facilitate tax evasion and tax fraud?
What impact might Libra have on monetary policy in smaller and developing countries?
“We have too much recent experience with insufficiently regulated financial markets spinning out of control to let this happen again,” the letter concludes. “The Facebook proposal must be put on hold until these numerous and fundamental questions are resolved.”
Other signatories to the letter include Demos, the Economic Policy Institute, the U.S. chapter of Friends of the Earth, Global Witness, the National Consumer Law Center, RootsAction.org, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
The lawmakers addressed in the letter are the tops Republicans and Democrats on the U.S. Senate’s finance and banking committees as well as the U.S. House’s Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, and Financial Services committees. The regulatory entities named are the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission; U.S. Federal Trade Commission; Office of the United States Trade Representative; U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission; Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; Financial Stability Oversight Council; and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
The progressive organizations behind the new letter are far from alone in sounding the alarm about concerns related to Facebook’s efforts to create a global cryptocurrency—among them, American economist and Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz, who charged in a piece for Project Syndicate Tuesday that “only a fool would trust Facebook with his or her financial wellbeing.”
“In just a few short years, Facebook has earned a level of distrust that took the banking sector much longer to achieve,” wrote Stiglitz, who also raised questions about Facebook’s business model for Libra. “Time and again, Facebook’s leaders, faced with a choice between money and honoring their promises, have grabbed the money. And nothing could be more about money than creating a new currency.”
In an article produced by the Independent Media Institute’s Economy for All project and published Sunday by Salon, market analyst Marshall Auerback argued that although U.S. regulators have largely failed to rein in Silicon Valley giants—especially Facebook—when it comes to social media platforms, “it’s hardly likely” that financial regulators around the world will be “pussyfooting” around issues raised by the cryptocurrency project.
“If Facebook introduces a cryptocurrency that in effect seeks to privatize or displace existing central bank functions, it is inevitable that the company will face a ton of regulatory oversight crashing down on it,” Auerback wrote. “Social media might be a newfangled type of business that doesn’t lend itself easily to the regulatory strictures of the Sherman Act, but money is precisely the kind of thing guaranteed to bring the Federal Reserve, the IRS, and several other regulatory bodies crashing down on Facebook, given this systemic risk.”
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Over the past two years, the White House has initiated trade disputes, insulted allies and enemies alike, and withdrawn from or refused to ratify multinational treaties and agreements. It has also expanded the reach of its unilaterally imposed rules, forcing other nations to abide by its demands or face economic sanctions. While the stated Trump Administration intention has been to enter into new arrangements more favorable to the United States, the end result has been quite different, creating a broad consensus within the international community that Washington is unstable, not a reliable partner and cannot be trusted. This sentiment has, in turn, resulted in conversations among foreign governments regarding how to circumvent the American banking system, which is the primary offensive weapon apart from dropping bombs that Washington has to force compliance with its dictates.
Consequently, there has been considerable blowback from the Make America Great Again campaign, particularly as the flip side of the coin appears to be that the “greatness” will be obtained by making everyone else less great. The only country in the world that currently regards the United States favorably is Israel, which certainly has good reason to do so given the largesse that has come from the Trump Administration. Everyone else is keen to get out from under the American heel.
Well the worm has finally turned, maybe. Even the feckless Angela Merkel’s Germany now understands that national interests must prevail when the United States is demanding that it do the unspeakable. At the recently concluded G20 meeting in Tokyo Britain, France and Germany announced that the special trade mechanism that they have been working on this year is now up and running. It is called the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (Instex) and it will permit companies in Europe to do business with countries like Iran, avoiding American sanctions by trading outside the SWIFT system, which is dollar denominated and de facto controlled by the US Treasury.
The significance of the European move cannot be understated. It is the first major step in moving away from the dominance of the dollar as the world’s trading and reserve currency. As is often the case, the damage to US perceived interests is self-inflicted. There has been talk for years regarding setting up trade mechanisms that would not be dollar based, but they did not gain any momentum until the Trump Administration abruptly withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran over a year ago.
There were other signatories to the JCPOA, all of whom were angered by the White House move, because they believed correctly that it was a good agreement, preventing Iranian development of a nuclear weapon while also easing tensions in the Middle East. Major European powers Germany, France and Great Britain, as well as Russia and China, were all signatories and the agreement was endorsed by the United Nations Security Council. The US withdrawal in an attempt to destroy the “plan of action” was therefore viewed extremely negatively by all the other signatories and their anger increased when Washington declared that it would reinstate sanctions on Iran and also use secondary sanctions to punish any third party that did not comply with the restrictions on trade.
Instex is an upgrade of a previous “Special Purpose Vehicle” set up by the Europeans a year ago to permit trading with Iran without any actual money transfers, something like a barter system based on balancing payments by value. The announcement regarding Instex came as a result of last week’s meeting in Vienna in which the JCPOA signatories minus the US got together with Iranian ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi, who called the gathering “the last chance for the remaining parties…to gather and see how they can meet their commitments towards Iran.”
Iran is quietly pleased by the development, even though there are critics of the arrangement and the government is officially declaring that Instex is not enough and it will proceed with plans to increase its uranium production. This produced an immediate response from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week speaking in New Delhi “If there is conflict, if there is war, if there is a kinetic activity, it will be because the Iranians made that choice.” Nevertheless, Instex could possibly be a model for mechanisms that will allow Iran to sell its oil without hindrance from Washington. But a sharp reaction from the White House is expected. While Instex was in the development phase, US observers noted that the Iranian Special Trade and Finance Instrument, that will do the actual trading, includes government agencies that are already under US sanctions. That likely means that Washington will resort to secondary sanctions on the Europeans, a move that will definitely make the bilateral relationship even more poisonous than it already is. A global trade war is a distinct possibility and, as observed above, the abandonment of the dollar as the international reserve currency is a possible consequence.
Trump has already been “threatening penalties against the financial body created by Germany, the U.K. and France to shield trade with the Islamic Republic from US sanctions.” The Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Israeli Sigal Mandelker, warned in a May 7th letter that “I urge you to carefully consider the potential sanctions exposure of Instex. Engaging in activities that run afoul of US sanctions can result in severe consequences, including a loss of access to the US financial system.”
Indeed, the White House appears to be willing to engage in economic warfare with Europe over the issue of punishing Iran. The Treasury Department issued a statement regarding the Mandelker letter, saying “entities that transact in trade with the Iranian regime through any means may expose themselves to considerable sanctions risk, and Treasury intends to aggressively enforce our authorities.” Mike Pompeo also was explicit during a visit to London on May 8th when he stated that “…it doesn’t matter what vehicle’s out there, if the transaction is sanctionable, we will evaluate it, review it, and if appropriate, levy sanctions against those that were involved in that transaction. It’s very straightforward.”
It is perhaps not unreasonable to wish the Europeans success, as they are supporting free trade while also registering their opposition to the White House’s bullying tactics using the world financial system. And if the dollar ceases to be the world’s trade and reserve currency, what of it? It would mean that the Treasury might have to cease printing surplus dollars and the US ability to establish global hegemony on a credit card might well be impeded. Those would be good results and one might also hope that some day soon the United States might once again become a normal country that Americans would be proud to call home.
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Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Britain, France, Germany, and the EU breached their JCPOA nuclear deal obligations.
They failed to challenge Trump’s illegal pullout, supporting his regime’s unlawful sanctions instead of refusing to observe them, how Russia and China reacted, fulfilling their JCPOA obligations, supporting Iran’s fundamental rights.
Europe’s refusal to observe its JCPOA obligations may doom the deal. An international agreement requires its signatories to stand by their commitments.
Britain, France, Germany, and the EU effectively abandoned the JCPOA by only pretending to want it preserved after the Trump regime pulled out. Their actions tell a different story — breaching the international agreement they vowed to observe.
They promised to maintain normal political, economic, financial, and trade relations with Iran but haven’t done it.
Its promises turned out to be hollow, showing they’re as untrustworthy as the US.
Last summer, a joint statement by EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, together with UK, French and German foreign ministers, said “effective financial channels” with Iran remain open despite US reimposition of sanctions, adding:
“This is why the European Union’s updated (1996) Blocking Statute will enter into force on 7 August to protect EU companies doing legitimate business with Iran from the impact of US extra-territorial sanctions.”
“The remaining parties to the JCPOA have committed to work on, inter alia, the preservation and maintenance of effective financial channels with Iran, and the continuation of Iran’s export of oil and gas.”
The updated EU Blocking Statute is supposed to prohibit European businesses from complying with US sanctions on Iran, letting them recover damages from Trump regime imposed penalties if imposed.
A separate European Commission statement said “(w)e are determined to protect European economic operators engaged in legitimate business with Iran, in accordance with EU law and with UN Security Council Resolution 2231” – unanimously affirming the JCPOA.
All of the above was rhetorical posturing, implementation to maintain normal relations with Iran not forthcoming, nor is it likely ahead based on the EU’s record of the past near-14 month period.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) was supposed to finance investments of EU nations in Iran, the arrangement approved last July.
It never happened because the EIB refused to circumvent Trump regime sanctions, another promise made, another broken one, Brussels doing nothing to insure compliance to terms it agreed on.
Nor was pledged EU cooperation with Iran’s energy and related sectors, along with its small and medium-sized enterprises, (SMEs) fulfilled.
European banks failed to continue normal financial transactions with Iran’s Central Bank (CBI), even on US non-sanctioned goods.
The so-called EU Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) barter system to circumvent Trump regime sanctions didn’t work because no bloc nation agreed to host it.
The EU Instrument for Supporting Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), a financial transactions mechanism to conduct normal trade with Iran, became operational late last month but fell woefully short of its intended purpose.
What was supposed to be an oil for goods mechanism is only for what the Trump regime hasn’t sanctioned, failing to cover the export of Iranian energy resources and related products.
Even facilitating food, medicines, and medical equipment transactions isn’t working as pledged.
Iranian officials consider INSTEX accomplishing less that the scandalous oil for food program for Iraq from 1995 through Bush/Cheney’s 2003 aggression.
UN heads of the operation Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck resigned their posts. In a joint November 2001 London Guardian op-ed, they denounced sanctions on Iraq, “punish(ing) (its) people for something they did not do.”
“Does the UN security council only serve the powerful,” they asked? Embargoing Iraq “breach(ed) the UN covenants on human rights, the Geneva and Hague conventions and other international laws.”
Separately, Halladay said he was “driven to resignation because I refused to continue to take Security Council orders, the same Security Council that had imposed and sustained genocidal sanctions on the innocent of Iraq. I did not want to be complicit. I wanted to be free to speak out publicly about this crime.”
UN-approved sanctions war on Iraq was responsible for about 1.5 million deaths, on average about 7,000 monthly, including 5,000 children under age-five.
If a similar world community-supported sanctions war on Iran continues longterm, something similar could happen, its severity depending on how long it lasts.
The JCPOA is supposed to assure normal Iranian trade and international financial transactions. Breach of its provisions by EU countries prevents normalized relations between Iran and Europe.
No evidence suggests European countries will change policies toward Iran, siding with unlawful Trump regime actions instead of fulfilling their JCPOA obligations, while pretending otherwise.
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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.”
Ending bigotry has gone mainstream among the enlightened people of the developed world.
Did you spot the acceptable bigotry in that sentence?
We’re against racism, sexism, and more kinds of bigotry than I could ever list.
But the 96 percent of humanity that’s not within the United States is hardly worthy of concern.
Millions of lives in Yemen lack the value of one Washington Post reporter dismembered with a bone saw. A third of the United States would gladly murder a million innocent North Koreans, the pollsters tell us. Not a million handicapped Americans, not a million atheist Americans, not a million gay Americans. We’re above all that. A million North Koreans. Or a half million Iraqi children, judging by the respect still afforded to Madeleine Albright to this day.
On the Fourth of July I’m expected to celebrate a bloody, moronic, hubristic, and laughably failed attempt to take over Canada that instead got the White House burned, because at a battle in Baltimore lots of people died yet a flag survived, and somebody who owned other human beings as slaves wrote a poem glorifying the murder of people who dared to escape from slavery or who happened to be Muslims.
Oh say.
Can you see?
Seriously, can you? If you go to a supposedly national park in the United States you have to pay to get in, because only Evil Socialists tax their billionaires, and the money for getting in the park goes to provide tanks and jets and weaponry for a fascist parade in Washington D.C. openly celebrating profiteering off death, which is now carried on with zero shame. And if you were to let people into the national parks for free on condition that they were able to name all the nations the United States had bombed in the previous year, not a dime in funding for the patriotic trumparade threat to the world would be lost.
Please take your good patriotism or proper nationalism and stick it where you’ve stuck homophobia and ageism and religious bigotry. Don’t you love your family? Your neighborhood? Your town? Your region? Of course you do, but where are the flags and songs and weapons parades to prove it? You don’t need them, do you? Because you don’t need to be conditioned to support mass murder on behalf of your family, neighborhood, town, or region.
Someone recently told me that my effort to get a statue glorifying genocide taken down was suspect because I was “white.” Yet the same person, like every other person in the United States, would almost certainly have rendered news of a massive bombing of Iran by the U.S. military thusly: “We just bombed Iran.” There’s not supposed to be a “we” undivided by the stupidest possible means. We’re supposed to be divided and conquered by appearance and culture. But the world’s greatest criminal enterprise is supposed to unite us (and one-and-a-quarter trillion of our dollars each year) in the cause of Small Gummint and the liberty to do unto others before they can do it unto you.
Sorry. I will never attack Iran. Iranians are my family. The people of Hong Kong demanding their rights are my family. The people of China, for that matter, demanding their rights are my family. Every single person in Sudan who wants peace, and any who do not, are my family. People all over the world contending with rotten governments but preferring not to have their houses bombed in the name of defying their rotten governments are my family.
Those kids in concentration camps near the U.S.-Mexico border are my family. The rightful president of Honduras, thrown out ten years ago in a coup the United States supported and supports, is in my family. The thugs who orchestrated the coup are my family too. Nancy Pelosi, who apparently believes nothing short of withholding a “campaign contribution” from her political party is impeachable, is my family too.
Families sometimes have discord, disagreement, and conflict. Families don’t solve their conflicts with hellfire missiles. Former presidents who joked about murdering their daughters’ boyfriends with predator drones are in our family too. The leader of North Korea is in our family. The people of his country who would rather not die in a nuclear apocalypse are in the same human family. The rest of the world’s people who’d rather not die in a nuclear winter created in Korea are also family members. And those in the United States who are so ridiculously misinformed as to suppose that nuclear explosions in Asia would not effect them, and that the horror of having murdered a million people would not effect them — those beautiful men and women are us; they live in our home.
There only is one home. And we cannot replace it. We cannot escape it. We cannot expect aliens (the noble little green kind not from Honduras and therefore not illegal, but still guaranteed to be met with barbaric hostility) to arrive and save us. We cannot sit back and wait for the market or the plutocrats or the liberals or the conservatives to save us. Our hope lies in identifying with and loving our entire family, which extends far beyond our one bizarre species — and in taking power on behalf of our family, and reversing every type of destructive hateful behavior, including patriotism.
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In fact, it is merely an accounting office established due to lack of banking relations between Iran and Europe. The issue proves that INSTEX is not capable of meeting Iran’s least expectations considered in JCPOA.
After withdrawal of Trump from the nuclear deal in in May 2018, the Iranian government did not decide to reduce its commitments to JCPOA. Instead, on the way to guarantee its interests and preserve the nuclear deal, Iran preferred to act upon the deal unilaterally and kept negotiations with Europeans.
Talks with Europe started just a few days after withdrawal of the US from JCPOA. Europeans vowed that they would stand against US sanctions via fulfilling their commitments under JCPOA and to continue trading gold, precious metals and cars, purchasing oil and petrochemicals, having cooperation on ports and shipping sector, having banking ties and brokerage relations with Iran. Europe announced its four decisions to counter US sanctions, afterwards. The ones proved to be futile very soon.
Practicality of Europe’s four promises
1. Having Blocking Statute operational
The updated Blocking Statute- part of the EU’s support for the continued full and effective implementation of JCPOA- was implemented on August 8, 2018. The act, however, can be translated into a political gesture, since in practice it could not persuade European companies to stay in Iran and they started to leave the country one after another. The EU remained silent.
On November 10, 2018, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif explained the reason Iran remained in JCPOA. “It is a fact that Europeans have not been able to fulfill their commitments to JCPOA but this does not do any harm to the benefits of the JCPOA and to international and regional peace.”
2. Enabling European Investment Bank (EIB) to finance EU investment in Iran
The EU ratified a plan on July 5, 2018, to ease finance activities of EIB in Iran. But it was not put into practice since EIB did not accord to act upon due to US sanctions.
3. Reinforcing non-stop cooperation with Iran on energy sector and SMEs
Despite the made statements by Europeans, no specific result was obtained in this field.
4. Investigating possibility of banking transactions with Iran’s central bank
After imposition of US sanctions on Iran, European banks, concerned about US’ heavy fines and secondary sanctions, rejected all the banking transactions with Iran. They even quit doing transactions related to trade on non-sanctioned goods including food and medicine with the country.
Europeans took advantage of Iran’s inactiveness against US sanctions and could keep Iran in JCPOA without paying any specific cost.
Failure of SPV and Iran’s passivity
Europe established a barter system, Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), to ease oil and trade financial transactions with Iran. The channel was supposed to become operational before US oil sanctions imposed on November 4, 2018. But the plan was defeated since no European country accepted to host it.
Despite Europeans’ vows and announcements, SPV did not become operational even by the end of 2018 i.e. Iran spent months waiting for Europeans to make their promises.
INSTEX less than Oil-for-Food Program (OIP)
Europe minimized SPV into from an exchange mechanism to what is called INSTEX, which is merely a trade instrument. No money is exchanged in INSTEX but it acts as an accounting office in where mortgages and debts among European companies and Iran are registered. Goods are swapped with oil without having any monetary transaction done.
In their joint statement on the last day of January, France, Germany and UK introduced the INSTEX which was aimed at facilitating legitimate trade between European economic operators and Iran and making exchange of basic goods including food and medical equipment and medicine between Iranian companies and foreign ones by circumventing the American banking system and currency. This was neither put into practice.
Eventually after almost a year of Iran’s inactiveness, the country decided to reduce its commitments to JCPOA giving Europeans a 60-day ultimatum to fulfill their commitments.
On June 28, 2019, JCPOA joint commission announced that INSTEX had been made operational.
However, despite EU’s promises after US withdrawal from JCPOA, INSTEX is only practical for trade of non-sanctioned goods, including food and medicine, while such types of goods are exempted from all types of sanctions due to humanitarian reasons. If the US wanted to implement a system to put its sanctions into practice, its supposed system would definitely be something exactly the same as INSTEX.
The European mechanism is much worse than what was applied in Iraq to swap oil for food in 1990s.
It is much more humiliating. Today, Europe’s purchase of oil from Iran is near to zero and Iran should inject its oil revenues to INSTEX to be able to merely import food and medicine.
In addition, INSTEX is in contrast with JCPOA’s appendix 2, which urged it to facilitate trading gold, precious metals, cars, purchasing oil and petrochemicals, having cooperation on ports and shipping sector, having banking ties and brokerage relations with Iran. It does not facilitate sales of Iranian oil and is not capable of meeting the least expectations of Iran under JCPOA.
Europe big brother for Iran’s foreign trade
INSTEX would act as Europe’s observatory mechanism on Iran’s foreign trade in an economic war.
While its purchase of Iranian oil stands at zero, Europe requires Iran to inject its revenues from selling oil to China, Turkey, India ant etc. into INSTEX to provide the country with food and medicine. This would give Europe an upper hand in controlling Iran’s foreign trade transactions.
INSTEX an introduction to new banking, missile, regional JCPOAs
Europeans have established INSTEX under US sanctions and with humanitarian aims. They, however, have required Iran to implement FATF for having INSTEX fully implemented. In fact, Europe is using extortion against Iran.
This makes INSTEX an instrument for controlling Iran’s missile capabilities and regional power, as well.
Today, that the European INSTEX has failed to secure Iran’s minimum expectations in oil and banking sectors – as stated in the State Security Council’s statement.
The Islamic Republic of Iran should take the second step about JCPOA to make the other side fulfill its commitments. Otherwise, no achievements would there for Iran and its authority would be questioned.
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Independence Holiday in the USA becomes a time when citizens tend to reflect on the nations two hundred forty year history. It is a history typical of six European empires in the areas of genocide and plunder.
– genocide: 1. the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation. plural: genocides [Google Dictionary]
Americans hoping to make US mass murderous crimes against humanity that are prosecutable under Nuremberg Principles law appear to be less than genocide, attempt to employ the old and outdated dictionary meaning of genocide wherein its scope and intention is defined as the utter and complete extermination of a group, race or nation.
The USA, like its parent colonial power the British Empire, before it, has had its undeservedly wealthy elite through their private speculative investment banks continually investing in genocide in order to both maintain its power over society, accumulate capital and extend its power wherever and whenever regardless of laws, regardless whether religious, common or statutory.
Genocide means killing people of a group, race or nation until a desired profitable arrangement is accepted by them. US banks have invested in profitable genocide non-stop over the entire life of the nation up to today and have their CIA and Pentagon laying plans for more genocide as we read.
USA’s AFRICAN genocide 1776-1864: New England banks financed deadly but lucrative slave trade, forced labor in the North, before massive forced labor in South; a million died during seizure and transport from Africa and another million died in forced labor. (For the first time in recorded history of slavery, inhumanity toward slaves as practiced in the USA and Colonial Powers, eventually became based on having inculcating society with fear-fostered ignorance and a preposterous insistence of racial superiority, sanding on its head white feelings of inferiority in the face of the far more accomplished cultures pale-skinned Europeans had conquered. [5]
NATIVE AMERICAN 1776-onward: Genocidal theft of habitats of a thousand Native American nations instigated by banks speculating in land; forced captive marches, broken treaties, wars, deaths from malnutrition certainly reached more than one million deaths already long ago.
MEXICO 1836 US rapes away half of Mexico through merciless war. Mexicans are made aware that Americans will keep killing Mexicans until USA demands are met. “2014 U.S. ‘intelligence’ assistance is larger than anywhere outside Afghanistan” [Washington Post]
PHILIPPINES 1898-1902: Invasion and massacres during Filipino war for independence – upwards of a million lives savagely taken. The overseas investment community propagated the racist concept of ‘Manifest Destiny’ make genocide tolerable.
CHINA 1900 murderous sacking of Beijing, orgy of killing and stripping away of all the cultural treasures for sale that the American and British could load into a few boxcars of a train.
In EUROPE and in European colonies world wide many millions die as US banks through the Federal Reserve financing and entry of US Armed Forces enable WW I to go on an extra year and a half; 1934-36 Senate Nye Committee investigates allegations that the U.S. entered WW I to make big profits. Senator Nye created headlines by drawing connections between the wartime profits of the banking and munitions industries to America’s involvement in World War I; investigation of these “merchants of death” documents the huge profits that arms factories made during the war; found bankers had pressured Wilson to intervene in the war in order to protect their loans abroad; arms industry had been price fixing; held excessive war investor influence on American foreign policy leading up to and during the war.
SOVIET RUSSIA 1917-20: Two US Armies invade along with armies of thirteen other capitalist nations to foster, aid, support and participate in civil war; seven to nine million new Soviet citizens die, three million just from typhoid.
ITALY 1922 -1936: Fascist Mussolini frequently lionized in both the New York Times and Washington Post, Fortune Magazine; Morgan Bank’s Thomas Lamont, served as the international chief of Mussolini’s finances; Mussolini received great investment aid from US bankers; especially, Bank of America head A.P. Giannini and Otto Kahn, a leading banker with Kuhn, Loeb. Pres. Franklin Roosevelt expressed admiration for Mussolini. In 1935 Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia bringing death to more than a million Ethiopians, tens of thousands from mustard gas dropped from planes on civilian population. [Angelo Del Boca, The Ethiopian War 1935–1941 (1965)]
GERMANY 1933-37: US investments and joint-ventures of 50 largest US corporations build the Nazi Wehrmacht up to world’s #1, facilitating WW II and Holocaust, the magna return on investment making USA the single superpower, the investments and joint-venturing done in full knowledge of Hitler’s continually announced plans for ridding Germany of Jews and communists uand to fulfill Germany’s historic ‘Drang nach Osten’ [Push to the East] into the Soviet Union; of the 40 million dead in Europe 27 million are Soviet citizens. 1945 US makes sure Nuremberg Trials do not indict Nazi industrialists and bankers with whom American corporations, investors and banks had partnered.
CHINA 1944-49: US funding and military aid draws out civil war. CIA incursions; many millions starve.
JAPAN 1945: Two cities of civilians Atom-Bombed, sixty fire-bombed, nearly one million civilian lives taken. At Tokyo Trials of Japanese War Criminals, a US general of highest rank, commented off the record, “If the Japanese had won the war they would have tried us.”
VIETNAM 1945-1960: Truman criminally brings back French Army (which as Vichy French, had murderously run its Indochinese colonies for the Japanese Empire profit during WW II), in US ships to reconquer a Vietnam declared independent by US decorated ally Ho Chi Minh with US major in attendance. Tens of thousands of Vietnamese are killed by the French 80% funded by USA.
KOREA 1950-2014: Two and half million Koreas will perish as US bombs both south and north flat, after US Army invaded, criminally cutting the nation in two, overthrowing a democratic Korean government and installing a murderous dictator in the south, whose police and special forces would butcher nearly two hundred thousand before the army of the north swept south reuniting Korea. Perhaps another million deaths as a result of crippling sanctions on the northern part. [see Prosecutable US Crimes against Humanity in Korea “Dissident Voice.org click here]
PALESTINE 1947-2014: US forces through with threats a UN approval of a farcical and outrageously thieving plan to partition the Holy Land, a colonial crime against humanity against the residents of the Palestine, in full knowledge that permanent civil war would result and obviously intended to create deadly conflict, permanent hostilities, destabilization and facilitate Western imperialist penetration. The financial establishment in the US has its colony in the heart of Middle East oil reserves at the cost of tens of thousands of lives, some of which from families of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust denied US refuge before, during and after the Holocaust which itself would have been impossible without the heavy US investment and joint venturing in Nazi Germany. [US Economic Facilitation of Holocaust and Middle East Destabilizing Partition click here ]
USA ITSELF 1947 onward: Operation MOCKINGBIRD — CIA recruits news organizations and journalists to become spies and disseminators of propaganda. Washington Post becomes a major CIA player. Eventually CIA’s media assets include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Copley News Service and more so media can fear monger the public into accepting genocides.
IRAN 1953 & 1980-88 1953 Oil coup: CIA and British M16 false-flag overthrow of Iranian democracy, many deaths./1980 air attack/1980-88 US backs Saddam Hussein invasion-war – more than half million Iranians lives lost/CIA and British M16 false-flag overthrow of Iranian democracy, many deaths/1979- US sanctions and threats of nuclear attack from US presidents.
GUATEMALA 1954 President ‘Ike’ Eisenhower ordered CIA overthrow bombing of first elected democracy; decades of massacres, mass murders follow. [Author performing on tour, is told horrific in conversations behind closed doors.]
VIETNAM 1955-1975: Upwards of 4 million die. Twice the bomb tonnage dropped in all of WWII/1973 CIA Operation Phoenix murders 20,000 Vietcong/ [1993-99 Author periodic Assist. Conductor Ho Chi Minh founded National Symphony Orchestra in Hanoi and on tours; every member of orchestra lost family “killed by Americans” spoken with Buddhist equanimity.]””
TURKEY 1955: Istanbul Pogrom a false-flag plot by Turkish branch of Operation Gladio, a clandestine anti-communist initiative created by the US; many Greeks, Armenians die; Turkish communists arrested/[Author visiting Istanbul forced to room in safe UK WMCA during provoked riots]
Laos 1957-63: The CIA carries out approximately one coup per year trying to nullify Laos’ democratic elections. The problem is the Pathet Lao, a leftist group with enough popular support to be a member of any coalition government. In the late 50s, the CIA even creates an “Armee Clandestine” of Asian mercenaries to attack the Pathet Lao. After the CIA’s army suffers numerous defeats, the U.S. starts high-altitude carpet bombing, dropping more bombs on Laos than all the U.S. bombs dropped in World War II; Tiny Laos will become the most bombed country in history; A quarter of all Laotians will eventually become refugees, many living in caves. [Steve Kangas, A Timeline of CIA Atrocities]
ETHIOPIA 1960s: US huge military arms sales build up for Emperor Selassie /1977 US switches and backs and arms Somalia invasion of People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia/Late 1980s US Heritage Foundation involvement ending in bloodbath civil war; for using Ethiopia and Somalia as pawns in Cold War a million est. starve to death. [Author on film shoot for African Development Bank during Mingustu socialist government in 1983 before it was overthrown with great loss of life by CIA organized attacks.]
WORLDWIDE 1960s-2014: CIA involved in lives-destroying illegal drug cultivation and trafficking has cause impossible-to-estimate loss of life worldwide – also CIA hypocritical anti-narcotics programs mean to spread further CIA penetration and covert violence for political-economic control in Latin America.
CONGO 1961-2014: Assassination of popular Pres. Lumumba, CIA US Air Force Interventions, overt and covert operations, have fostered civil wars; it is estimated between 15 and 20 million have died from warfare and famine, and if one goes back to the US destruction of the new nation, all this was to retain Congo governance profitable88 for US investors.
Before and after July 4, 2015, genocide for profit (in speculative investment driven Western Colonialism there never any other reason for it) is taking place thanks to participating and cooperating Americans in uniform and CIA in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen, and surely further lives are being planned to be taken in the Ukraine and Venezuela and elsewhere as profits therefrom appear sure.
This article closes with a reminder that US genocides perpetrated after 1945 are prosecutable crimes against humanity under Nuremberg Principles law and as US economic power wanes in the world economy, lawsuits for indemnity, reparations and compensation by survivors can be expected to be so enormous in number as to make American investment in genocide unprofitable and thus inoperable.
Americans show zero interest that GIs brought death to a million and half innocent Iraqi men, women and children with bombing, invasion and occupation war prosecutable under international law even within the US Constitution. Celebrating on the July 4th is pure criminal insanity in a mesmerized TV worshiping inhumane and de-civilized society.
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Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents in 67 countries; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India, Sweden and the US; now resides in NYC.
When speaking about the United States’ blatant, constant and egregious violations of human rights, it is difficult to know where to start. That brutal, rogue nation, which disdains human rights and holds international law in contempt, is guilty on both the domestic and international stages.
In order to fully understand the depth and breadth of the United States’ many crimes against humanity, violations of civil and human rights, and violations of international law, we must look at its history. The nation was founded on the extermination of millions of Natives, peoples who had lived on the North American continent in peace for centuries. The government was established in the hands of white, male, wealthy landowners, with everyone else subservient.
After the genocide of millions of Natives in order to found the nation, it was built using slave labor. An estimated 12,000,000 Africans were kidnapped, forced to sail across the ocean in the most wretched conditions, and then forced to labor for long hours and little pay. About 600,000 of these victims wound up in the United States, where they were bought and sold the same way one might by a chair or car today; there was no regard for their humanity. Those who died on board, and there were many, were simply thrown overboard, considered nothing more than garbage, with no respect or consideration for the feelings of their family members.
As the two centuries of the U.S. unfolded, there was nothing but increased violence, always justified by the same racist attitudes that caused the slaughter of millions of Natives. A few examples will suffice.
During the Philippine-American War of 1899 – 1902, William Howard Taft, later elected to the presidency in the United States, was appointed civil governor of the Philippines after the U.S. demanded possession of that nation when it defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War. Taft said that the Philippine people were “a vast mass of ignorant, superstitious people.” The wife of another government official described them in this way:
“It looks to me as though it will take fifty generations of ‘line upon line’ and ‘precept upon precept’ before these natives will know enough to govern themselves. Many of them seem to be very stupid. The men here in this house who teach in Manila schools say the natives can’t reason.”
These attitudes were the underlying cause of the slaughter of the Philippine people as they resisted the imperial designs of the United States.
Sixty years later, the U.S. invaded Vietnam, where one unspeakable slaughter finally gained notoriety, despite U.S. efforts to keep it secret from the public. On March 16 of 1968, over 400 unarmed civilians were massacred by U.S. soldiers in the village of May Lai. Racism was foundational to this atrocity. One of the soldiers in charge that day was charged with the premeditated murder of ‘Oriental human beings’, rather than of ‘human beings’. One man who wasn’t accused spoke in defense of those who were. He said this:
“A lot of those people wouldn’t think of killing a man. I mean a white man – a human….”
Another said this when referring to the victims:
“It wasn’t like they were humans.”
In its long and violent history, the United States has ignored human rights, international law and even common human decency in its quest to become a world power. Just in the last 50 years, it has invaded, or supported anti-government terrorists in, at least 30 different countries, sometimes doing so multiple times. No other country on the planet can match that level of violence.
Now that we have taken a very brief look at the nation’s bloody and violent history, we will move to the current day, and first look at violations of human rights within its own borders.
Today, the U.S. is operating concentration camps along the U.S. – Mexico border. In these camps, children as young as 2 years old are ripped from their parents and put into cages with other children, some as young as 10, who are told to care for the younger ones. They sleep on concrete floors with only an aluminum blanket for warmth. They are provided with insufficient food, have no soap or toothpaste, and are often riddled with insects. They do not receive needed medical treatment. Guards mock them if they cry. Several have died in U.S. custody. Yet there is no major effort within U.S. governance to change this horrific situation.
All across the country, law-abiding, unarmed citizens of African descent are routinely shot and killed by members of the U.S. police force. It is rare that a white police officer is charged with any crime for these murders; rarer still that one is convicted.
When a U.S. citizen of African descent is lucky enough to be only arrested, they are arrested for such ‘crimes’ as driving their own car, walking in their own neighborhood, or entering their own home.
Additionally, access to voting, considered a fundamental right in the United States, is restricted, mainly, but not exclusively, based on race. Polling places in predominantly black districts have fewer available hours for voting, and often have more reports of voting machine malfunctions. Some areas demand identity cards before a citizen can vote; if a citizen doesn’t have a driver’s license, getting such a card can be difficult. This overwhelmingly impacts the African-American communities in the U.S.
Health care, housing, food and drinkable water are all available to the wealthy, but are not considered rights for anyone else.
While the violations of human rights of which the U.S. is guilty within its own borders could be further detailed in many volumes of books, we will move now to its current crimes on the international stage.
U.S. violence against Iran is just one of many current examples. In 2015, the U.S., Iran and several other nations and the European Union all signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). In exchange for limiting its nuclear development activities, Iran was promised relief from cruel and unjust sanctions. Before the U.S. could officially be a partner to this agreement, it needed to be approved by the U.S. Congress, which it was. It was also authorized by the United Nations.
During the administration of President Barack Obama, who spearheaded the agreement, the JCPOA was honored by all participants, with the United Nations periodically certifying Iran’s full compliance. But in May of 2017, the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the agreement, in violation of its own law and international law, and threatened the other signatories with economic sanctions if they maintained the agreement. Those other nations refused to stand up to U.S. bullying, and cruel economic sanctions against Iran were reimposed.
It is interesting to note that the U.S. government understands the impact of such sanctions, and yet issues them anyway. Prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the U.S. had issued sanctions which resulted in the deaths of at least 500,000 children there. When Secretary of State Madeline Albright was asked if the sanctions were worth this horror, she replied:
“…we think the price is worth it”.
People have also accused Albright of war crimes in Rwanda, Yugoslavia and Columbia, but the U.S. government continues to hail her ‘greatness’.
And what has Iran done to incur the wrath of the United States’ irrational and unstable president? The government refuses to surrender to U.S. demands which, if adhered to, would make Iran cease to be Iran. It must, in the eyes of the U.S. government, give up its right to defend its citizens. It must yield in all things to apartheid Israel. It must establish a government that will never oppose any crimes the U.S. commits.
The U.S. has always coveted oil-rich Iran. In 1953, the U.S. overthrew the democratically-elected government of Prime MinisterMohammad Mosaddegh, and installed the brutal Shah of Iran as monarch. For the next twenty-six years he oppressed the people of Iran, with complete U.S. support. During the Shah’s brutal reign, the U.S. supported his efforts to destabilize Iraq. Finally, he was overthrown by a popular people’s movement in 1979, against the wishes of the United States. The hypocritical U.S. government always says that it supports the self-determination of people around the world, but this is a blatant lie, and the overthrow of Iran’s government in 1953, and the continued hostility of the U.S. towards Iran since its people did, in fact, establish a government of their own choosing in 1979, is just one example of this hypocrisy.
Another is Palestine. The nation of Palestine has been occupied, blockaded, bombed, and terrorized by Israel since at least 1967, and all this has been financed and fully supported by the United States. The United Nations has issued more resolutions critical of Israel than it has of any other nation, but the U.S. still supports its war crimes and crimes against humanity. These atrocities are ongoing and continue to this day, with no end in sight.
Also currently, the U.S. is perpetrating economic terrorism against the people of Venezuela, demanding that the socialist president step down, so a leader more to the U.S.’s liking can take control. Rather than allow the people of Venezuela to choose their own government, the U.S. is doing all it can, short of bombing the nation, to force change.
Let’s look at one example of the U.S.’s ‘success’ in defeating a democratically-elected government. In 1964, Socialist candidate Salvador Allende seemed headed for electoral victory in Chile. The U.S.’s criminal, terrorist organization, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), spent more money supporting his opponent than was spent on the U.S. presidential campaign that same year, and Allende was defeated.
Six years later, however, he was victorious, but a Socialist leader in Chile could not be tolerated by the United States. The U.S. government first tried to prevent his inauguration and, failing that, U.S. president Richard Nixon said he would “make the economy scream”. But it wasn’t only brutal economic sanctions that the U.S. inaugurated; it spent millions to support violent opposition parties.
Before long, the U.S. was successful, and the Socialist Allende was overthrown, replaced by a man much more to the U.S. government’s liking, General Augusto Pinochet. He ruled for 17 long, brutally-oppressive years, during which time opposition political parties were banned, and at least 3,000 political opponents were killed, and at least 29,000 tortured. And during those 17 years of terror, Pinochet had the complete support of the U.S. government.
These are just a few examples, among many, of how the U.S. only demands that other nations abide by international law and human rights. We could also consider the decades-long, violent U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, or its support for the Saudi Arabia genocide of the people of Yemen.
The shocking murder of journalist Jamal Khoshoggi, ordered by Saudi Arabia’s leader, Mohammed bin Salman, is overlooked by the U.S. government, which has full and cordial ties with that nation. Also overlooked is Saudi Arabia’s blatant discrimination against women.
The Israeli government’s apartheid laws, its discrimination and brutality against Arabs and Africans, bring no opposition from the U.S. government.
The list goes on; it is estimated that, just since the end of World War II, the United States has been responsible for the deaths of at least 20,000,000 people.
This is the nation whose government dares to proclaim its moral superiority. This is the government that holds itself up as a model for the world to emulate. Its fantasies aren’t believed much outside its borders, and the fact that it is now alienating some of its oldest and strongest allies can only be beneficial to the world. Although its current leader is clearly unstable, its power in the world is decreasing, and while this makes it particularly dangerous in the short-term, it is hoped that President Donald Trump will not ignite a disastrous global war. Whoever succeeds him will find a weakened United States, and that can only help to make for a more peaceful world.
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Trump intends turning this year’s Independence Day commemoration into a show of US military might — reflecting a nation permanently at war against invented enemies. More on the July 4 DC display below.
Annual US Independence Day commemorations reflect hypocrisy, not democracy, a notion the nation’s founders abhorred, things no different today.
Discussing “Untold Truths About the American Revolution,” the late Howard Zinn asked the following:
Was waging war then really worth it, taking perhaps 25,000 – 50,000 American lives, the “equivalent today to two and a half million (at the lower estimate) to get England off our backs?”
Canada ended British rule without war. So did Western Massachusetts farmers, “driv(ing their forces) out without firing a single shot,” adding:
“They had assembled by the thousands and thousands around courthouses and colonial offices and they had just taken over (and) said goodbye to the British officials” nonviolently.
America’s revolution was much different, but who “gained what?” Most Americans were poor like today.
“(T)he Founding Fathers were rather rich” with much different interests than ordinary people. “Do you think the Indians cared about independence” or Blacks held involuntarily as slaves?
“Slavery was there before (and) there after. Not only that, we wrote slavery into the Constitution. We legitimized it,” Zinn explained, adding:
“What about class divisions?” America was and remains a racist society. “We try to pretend in this country that we’re all one happy family. We’re not.”
The revolution wasn’t a “a simple affair of all of us against all of them,” any more than ongoing US wars in multiple theaters today.
They’re waged for wealth, power and privilege. They’re unrelated to exporting democracy to yearning masses.
“We’ve got to rethink this question of war,” said Zinn. There’s never a justifiable reason to battle another nation except in self-defense if attacked — clearly not the reason for all US post-WW II conflicts, aggression against nations threatening no one, a never-ending cycle of violence, slaughter and destruction.
On July 4, 1776, America’s Independence Day, white male property owners alone could vote.
Blacks were commodities, not people, women considered childbearing, homemaking appendages of their husbands, no constitutional rights afforded them.
Women’s suffrage wasn’t achieved until the 1920 19th Amendment became law after nearly a century of struggle for the right — 144 years after the nation’s birth.
Exploitation of Black Americans continues in new forms from earlier — from chattel to wage slavery, Jim Crow to its modern-day version, freedom to mass incarceration.
Zinn called enslavement of Blacks “the most cruel form in history: the frenzy for limitless profit that comes from capitalistic agriculture; the reduction of the slave to less than human status by the use of racial hatred, with that relentless clarity based on color, where white was master, black was slave.”
Native Americans perhaps have least to celebrate on the nation’s birthday, victims of America’s genocide, at most around 3% of their original numbers surviving.
For centuries, they were “hacked apart with axes and swords, burned alive and trampled under horses, hunted as game and fed to dogs, shot, beaten, stabbed, scalped for bounty, hanged on meathooks and thrown over the sides of ships at sea, worked to death as slave laborers, intentionally starved and frozen to death during a multitude of forced marches and internments, and, in an unknown number of instances, deliberately infected with epidemic diseases,” Ward Churchill explained, adding:
“The American holocaust was and remains unparalleled, in terms of its scope, ferocity and continuance over time,” thereafter suppressed by denial and silence.
From the nation’s founding to today, “We the People of the United States,” the constitution’s opening phrase, meant America’s privileged class, not its ordinary people, things no different today.
Yesteryear’s free-wheeling/self-serving politicians reflect how today’s political class operates for much greater stakes globally than when America was founded.
In his memoir titled “Born on the Fourth of July,” Vietnam combat veteran, anti-war activist Ron Kovic explained how war left his “beautiful body destroyed, defiled and savaged.”
The experience left him “physically and emotionally haunted” — wounded, paralyzed, and wheelchair-bound.
He’s been arrested a dozen or more times for publicly opposing US wars of aggression, describing his Vietnam experience as “condemning (young men sent to fight) to their (physical or emotional) death.”
In his book, he said the following:
“I wanted people to understand. I wanted to share with them as nakedly and openly and intimately as possible what I had gone through, what I had endured.”
“I wanted them to know what it really meant to be in a war, to be shot and wounded, to be fighting for my life on the intensive care ward, not the myth we had grown up believing.”
“I wanted people to know about the hospitals and the enema room, about why I had become opposed to the war, why I had grown more and more committed to peace and nonviolence.”
“I had been beaten by the police and arrested twelve times for protesting the war, and I had spent many nights in jail in my wheelchair.”
“I had been called a Communist and a traitor, simply for trying to tell the truth about what had happened in that war, but I refused to be intimidated.”
Master of oral history, Chicagoan Studs Terkel (1912 – 2008) explained there was nothing good about WW II, mischaracterized as the good war.
In his book titled “The Good War: An Oral History of World War II,” he said it was good that America “was the only country among the combatants that was neither invaded nor bombed. Ours were the only cities not blasted to rubble,” adding:
The bad was it “warped our view of how we look at things today (seeing them) in terms of war,” and the notion that they’re good or why else fight them.
This “twisted memory….encourages (people) to be willing, almost eager, to use military force” instead of going all-out to avoid it.
There’s nothing good about mass slaughter, communities turned to rubble, and human misery affecting countless millions.
In the nuclear age, wars are “lunatic” acts, these weapons likely to be used one day when other means aren’t considered enough to triumph over another nation.
Trump’s 4th of July commemoration will feature militarism over a celebration of world peace.
His so-called Salute to America on Washington’s National Mall will feature a display of the nation’s military might, including flyovers of F-35 stealth warplanes, attack helicopters, and Navy Blue Angel stunt pilots, along with M1A1 Abrams tanks and other hardware on Washington’s street.
Pentagon commanders will stand next to Trump for the display of military might. He’ll be the first sitting US president to deliver a televised address to the nation on the commemoration of its founding.
One estimate suggests the spectacle will cost tens of millions of taxpayer dollars. Preparations have been ongoing for months.
Trump is the latest in a long line of US warrior presidents. What’s planned for the 4th of July in Washington intends to show it, along with a display of the nation’s might.
In modern times, many Americans celebrate the 4th with family, friends, at outings, picnics, barbecues, a day at the ballpark, or other activities far removed from militarism and warmaking.
Trump wants the nation to commemorate the holiday through the prism of the real national pastime — waging endless wars, smashing one country after another, letting the world community know who’s boss.
Violence defines America’s culture, glorifying wars in the name of peace its ruling authorities abhor.
Long ago, Albert Einstein and philosopher Bertrand Russell warned: “Shall we put an end to the human race, or shall mankind renounce war.”
The notion is rejected by US ruling authorities, risking eventual war to end all future ones because of mass annihilation if the madness continues.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
Souad Naji al-Azzawi, an Iraqi environmental scientist (and longtime contributor to Global Research), has devoted much of her professional life to studying one of the thorniest problems remaining from the years of war in her home country—the effect of depleted uranium weapons on the Iraqi environment and on human health.
Iraq’s environment suffered enormous damage in nearly four decades of war. Iraqi scientists, environmentalists and government continue to assess the extent of the effects of armed conflict on the country’s air, water, soil and on the health of its people.
Al-Azzawi, although she is technically retired and lives in Abu Dhabi, continues to publish research and to campaign on this issue, which has largely receded from public view, even though the problem has not gone away. In May, a private Qatar-based charity, the Arab Scientific Community Organization, published al-Azzawi’s paper, Modeling Depleted Uranium Contamination in Southern Iraq.
Depleted uranium—a waste product of nuclear power generation—is effective in anti-tank projectiles. The radioactive metal reaches high temperatures on impact with tank armor: hot enough to melt the armor into minute particles that are carried on the wind as dust. Environmentalists and many scientists argue that this radioactive dust contaminates air, water and soil, and has harmful consequences for human health—notably, conspicuously high incidences of cancer, leukemia and severe birth defects in areas where depleted uranium weapons were used.
“It’s not a subject that people are talking about much any more. I don’t know why,” said Renad Mansour, a research fellow in the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House who specializes in the reconstruction of post-war Iraq.
A Persistent Campaigner
While database and Internet searches indicate the number of papers published on the subject has dwindled in recent years, al-Azzawi has not stopped publishing and campaigning. She lectures worldwide, and in recent years has appeared on Iraqi TV as a political commentator.
“I’m not quitting,” she says.
After receiving a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Mosul in the early 1980s, she left Iraq—with her three children—for the United States, to study geology and environmental engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. The subject of her doctorate was the contamination of underground water by nuclear power generation.
Image on the right: Souad al-Azzawi speaking on Iraqi TV channel Alrafidain, in 2017 (Photo: Youtube)
Al-Azzawi returned to Iraq in 1991, in the middle of the war that followed Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. In 1996, as director of the doctoral program in environmental engineering at the University of Baghdad, she led a team that conducted a field survey to measure the effects of radiation on civilians and soldiers in southern Iraq in the aftermath of the war.
“People in the western part of Basrah city, and the Iraqi and American troops, received … a radioactive dosage about 200 times more than natural,” she wrote in an overview of the work.
At the same time, epidemiological studies conducted by faculty members of the Basra College of Medicine showed a correlation between depleted uranium contamination and disease. Cases of leukemia in children in Basra increased by 60 percent from 1990 to 1997, for example. In the same period, there was a threefold increase in the number of children born with severe birth defects.
“Nobody knew how to handle the problem,” al-Azzawi said. The wreckage of tanks and radioactive shrapnel lay near where people lived. “Kids were playing with the used bullets. The depleted uranium bullets were shiny and clean, and the kids would collect them and take them home.”
When the radioactive dust entered dust clouds, the contamination spread to cities.
Unpopular Findings
The team’s work took nearly seven years and faced obstacles that came from within and outside Iraq. Domestically, their work was unpopular for painting an unfavorable picture of conditions in the country.
“Our work was scientific work. We were saying this [debris] is radioactive, it’s not safe for civilians. Everyone was attacking us, even inside Iraq. They said, ‘Those people [researchers] will make people migrate from Basra, and nobody is buying our fruit [from fear of contamination].’ We were just telling the truth.”
At the same time, Iraq was still under United Nations sanctions which throttled the Iraqi economy and isolated the country from the rest of the world. Researchers could neither publish their results abroad nor receive scientific publications published outside Iraq.
When their work became too dangerous to continue, the research team disbanded. In 2003 Al-Azzawi fled the country and found refuge in Syria where she was appointed as an administrator at Mamoun University for Science and Technology near Aleppo, one of the private universities established in the early days of the rule of Bashar al-Assad. The same year, she was given an award for education by the Nuclear-Free Future Foundation, based in Germany. She remained in Syria for the next seven years.
A soldier examines an armor-piercing round using depleted uranium to be used in a U.S. tank during Operation Desert Shield in 1991 (Photo: U.S. Department of Defense).
Proving, beyond reasonable doubt, a direct causal relation between depleted uranium and health effects remains difficult. “It is like cigarettes and cancer,” al-Azzawi said, referring to the prolonged struggle between American tobacco companies and scientists on cigarette smoking as a cause of cancer. Until a critical mass of research was achieved, the link could always be denied.
A Shroud of Secrecy
Obstacles to conducting this basic research remain, said Doug Weir, former Coordinator of the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons, which campaigns for a ban on depleted uranium weapons.
“It’s hard to do the necessary research in Iraq,” Weir said. “Although there is civil society interest in Iraq about the effects of depleted uranium,” he said, the Iraqi environment ministry reduced the work of its radiation protection department when the rise of ISIS [the so-called Islamic State group also known as Da’esh] forced a change in their priorities.
Another obstacle facing research on the effects of depleted uranium weapons is the official secrecy that surrounds them. A stigma surrounds radioactive weapons that encourages government secrecy, Weir said. Data about where depleted uranium weapons were used must be painstakingly extracted from the United States government using Freedom of Information Act requests, he said.
Indeed, one of al-Azzawi’s remaining goals is to persuade the government of the United States to assume responsibility for the environmental impact of the depleted uranium weapons that were used in Iraq from 1990 onwards.
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Featured image: A U.S. tank of the type that carried depleted uranium shells fires its main gun into a building in Fallujah, Iraq, in December 2004. A Dutch study found the U.S. used the radioactive shells in civilian areas (Photo: U.S.M.C./Wikimedia Commons).
The antipodes has had a fraught relationship with the nuclear option. At the distant ends of the earth, New Zealand took a stand against the death complex, assuming the forefront of restricting the deployment of nuclear assets in its proximity. This drove Australia bonkers with moral envy and strategic fury. The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Act 1987 made the country a nuclear and biological weapons-free area. It was a thumbing, defiant gesture against the United States, but what is sometimes forgotten is that it was also a statement to other powers – including France – who might venture to experiment and test their weapons in the Pacific environs.
The Lange government had made an anti-nuclear platform indispensable to an independent foreign policy, one that caused a fair share of consternation in Washington. The satellite was misbehaving, and seeking to break free from its US orbit.
“If we don’t pass this law, if we don’t declare ourselves nuclear free,” insistedPrime Minister David Lange, “we will have anarchy on the harbours and in the streets.”
David Lange after winning the 1987 election. This was due in large part to the support the Labour Party received from their stance on the nuclear issue. (Source: Anti-Nuclear Protest in New Zealand)
An important provision of the Act remains clause 9(2):
“The Prime Minister may only grant approval for the entry into the internal waters of New Zealand by foreign warships if the Prime Minister is satisfied that the warships will not be carrying any nuclear explosive device upon their entry into the internal waters of New Zealand.”
The reaction from the US Congress was a cool one: the Broomfield Act was duly passed in the House: an ally had been recast as a somewhat disregarding “friend”. It urged New Zealand to “reconsider its decision and law denying port access to certain US ships” and “resume its obligations under the ANZUS Treaty.” Various “security assistance and arms export preferences” to New Zealand would be suspended till the President determined that the country was compliant with the Treaty.
As Anglo-American retainer and policing authority of the Pacific, Australia has had sporadic flirts with the nuclear option, one shadowing the creation of the Australian National University, the Woomera Rocket Range and the Snowy Mountains hydro-electricity scheme. Australian territory had been used, and abused, by British forces keen to test Albion’s own acquisition of an atomic option. The Maralinga atomic weapons test range remains a poisoned reminder of that period, but was hoped to be a prelude to establishing an independent Australia nuclear force. Cooperation with Britain was to be key, and Australian defence spending, including the acquisition of 24 pricey F-111 fighter bombers from the US in the 1960s, was premised on a deliverable nuclear capability.
During John Gorton’s short stint as prime minister in the late 1960s, rudimentary efforts were made at Jervis Bay to develop what would have been a reactor capable of generating plutonium under the broad aegis of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission. Gorton’s premiership ended in 1971; Australia slid back into the sheltering comforts of Washington’s unverifiable nuclear umbrella.
The influential chairman of the AAEC, Philip Baxter, who held the reins between 1956 and 1972 with a passion for secrecy, never gave up his dream of encouraging the production of weapons grade plutonium. It led historian Ann Moyal to reflect on the “problems and danger of closed government”, with nuclear policy framed “through the influence of one powerful administrator surrounded by largely silent men”.
Nuclear weapons have a habit of inducing the worst of human traits. Envy, fear, and pride tend to coagulate, producing a nerdish disposition that tolerates mass murder in the name of faux strategy. With the boisterous emergence of China, Australian academics and security hacks have been bitten by the nuclear bug. In 2018, Stephan Frühling, Associate Dean of the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University fantasised about adorning the Australian coastline with tactical, short-range nuclear weapons.
It was a fantasy he was happy to recommend to audiences tuning in to the ABC’s Late Night Live. “In air and naval battle on the high seas, nukes can now be employed without significant risk of collateral damage much like conventional warheads.” Such thinking has the hallmarks of redux insanity in the field of nuclear thinking, the sort that deems such weapons equivalent in their characteristics to conventional types.
And what of the much vaunted US nuclear umbrella? By stepping out of it, Australia was surely making a statement of cranky independence. Frühling’s suggestion is symptomatic of a field filled with syndromes and disorders. “Before investing in a nuclear program I think we would have to make a genuine attempt at trying to draw closer to the United States and its nuclear arsenal.” By stepping out, you have to be stepping in.
His work exudes a lingering suspicion that the ANZUS treaty binding both Australia and the United States remains foamy and indistinct on the issue of territorial defence. Since Vietnam, there has been little by way of joint operations in the Pacific between the two. The treaty’s preamble outlining the allies’ need to “declare publicly and formally their sense of unity, so that no potential aggressor could be under any illusion that any of them stand alone in the Pacific Area” remains distinctly free of evidence and logistical heft.
Other authors who claim to be doyens of Australian strategic thinking also fear the seize-the-prize intentions of the Yellow Peril and a half-hearted Uncle Sam keen to look away from “the Indo-Pacific and its allies.” Paul Dibb, Richard Brabin-Smith and Brendan Sargeant, all with ANU affiliations, call for “a radically new defence policy,” which might be read as a terror of the US imperium in retreat. For Dibb, Australia “should aim for greater defence self-reliance.” This would involve “developing a Defence Force capable of denying our approaches to a well-armed adversary capable of engaging us in sustained high-intensity conflict.”
Such writings suggest an element of the unhinged at play. The paternal protector snubs the child; the child goes mad and seeks comfort in suitable toys. Brabin-Smith broods over the end of extended nuclear deterrence, “not just for us but for other US allies in the Pacific, Japan especially.” This might well precipitate nuclear proliferation in the Pacific, requiring “Australia to review its own position on nuclear weapons.”
Not wishing to be left off the increasingly crowded nuclear wagon, Australia’s long standing commentator on China, Hugh White, has also put his oar in, building up the pro-nuclear argument in what he calls a “difficult and uncomfortable” question. (Age does have its own liberating qualities.) Having suggested in 2017 that the China-US tussle in the Pacific would eventually lead to a victory for Beijing, he has his own recipe for a re-ordering of the Australian defence establishment. How to Defend Australiasuggests what needs to be done and, as is the nature of such texts, what the bunglers in the security establishment are actually doing. It is also a paean about future loss. “We have been very fortunate to live under America’s protection for so long and we will sorely miss it when it is gone.”
White advocates an Australian Defence Force heavily reliant on sinking flotillas: “only ships can carry the vast amounts of material required for a major land campaign”. Sell most of the surface vessels, he urges; abandon existing plans to build more; build a fleet of 24 to 36 submarines and increase defence spending from the current levels of 2% to 3.5%.
Then comes the issue of a nuclear capability, previously unneeded given the pillowing comforts of the US umbrella, underpinned by the assurance that Washington was “the primary power in Asia”. White shows more consideration than other nuclear groupies in acknowledging the existential dangers. Acquiring such weapons would come at a Mephistophelian cost. “It would make us less secure in some ways, that’s why in some ways I think it’s appalling.”
The nuclear call doing the rounds in Canberra is a bit of old man’s bravado, and a glowering approach to the non-proliferation thrust of the current international regime. Should Australia embark on a nuclear program, it is bound to coalescence a range of otherwise divided interests across the country. It will also thrill other nuclear aspirants excoriated for daring to obtain such an option. The mullahs in Iran will crow, North Korea will be reassured, and states in the Asian-Pacific may well reconsider their benign status.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
In the nineteen seventies multinational corporations were buying all the Canadian businesses they could so the Pierre Trudeau government established the Foreign Investment Review Agency to try to control it. In Ontario we were seeing celebrities like Goldie Hawn buying up the best vacation properties in the lake district north of Toronto.
It caused me to wonder, if all the business and the best lands were owned outside the country, is there still a country left?
James Meek, a journalist who writes for The Guardian wonders the same thing.
Britain is the private island he writes about. In chapter after chapter he looks at the demise of the publicly owned Royal Mail, British railways, water services, electricity and healthcare. The book won the Orwell Prize which exists to perpetuate George Orwell’s ambition ‘to make political writing into an art’ and this book lives up to the award. It is superbly written, meticulously researched and wonderfully presented.
He begins by reminding us of the policies of Margaret Thatcher who oversaw, as she claimed, ‘the greatest shift of ownership and power away from the state to individuals.’ Meek points out that in fact what happened was faceless state bureaucracies were replaced by the faceless but better paid, corporate bureaucracies!
Meek spent hours tracking down and meeting key players in each of the areas he writes about. He makes it clear that privatization, the selling off of national assets makes no sense. He shows how the myths about the free market being fairer and more efficient were replaced in Britain by the reality of higher prices and poorer service.
In less than one generation a country that once managed its own destiny has sold its control of things that are fundamental to society. Today much of the money the English pay for water goes out of the country. As he wrote of the city of London alone, its water facility is half owned in Britain, the other half owned by investors in Australia, United Arab Emirates, Beijing, Canada and Holland. Half of the money paid to buy water which used to all stay in the country, is now exported.
His chapter on railways follows the recent history of British rail which went from adequate but neglected in the early nineties, to privatized (in 1997), to mismanaged into chaos and disaster and then renationalized in 2002. Five years of chaos. After British Rail was privatized, the new company Railtrack, went flat out for the newest technology to speed train travel and committed to a system called moving block. The problem was the technology was not proven. It had never been tried on any railroad anywhere in the world. The professional people who could have told them that, had all been sacked. Predictably there were crashes, one killing 31 people.
Meek entitles this chapter Signal Failure and what he learned after dozens or interviews was that the culture at Railtrack was ‘..a tale of incompetence, greed and delusion, driven by the conviction that profit and share value is the only true measure of success.’
Throughout the book, Meek shows that with privatization, the prices of water, electricity, train fares and chief executive salaries have gone one way; up. And the only thing that went down was wages!
Free market jargon promises people more choices of better products at lower prices. It delivers jobs offshore, lower wages for the jobs retained, less social protection, national cutbacks and higher executive salaries.
Thanet personifies the problem; its an area in England that juts out into the English Channel east of London. Meek writes, ‘Offshore are the spinning turbines of Thanet Wind Farm, the world’s third largest. It belongs to Vattenfall, Sweden’s state electricity company. The monopoly on the power cables under Thanet streets belongs to Asia’s richest man, Li Ka Shing. Thanet’s water supply and drainage system belongs to Southern Water which is owned by a consortium of Hong Kong investment funds and Australian and Canadian pension funds.’
Thanet and Britain are not the only places losing control of their assets. As I finish this review, the Canadian Parliamentary Budget Office released a report that says that in 2016 nearly a trillion dollars was moved offshore by Canadian Corporations. Whether money goes out of the country to pay for water or to avoid the taxman, the nation gets poorer. Meek’s book has lessons for us all.
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The Grayzone’s Anya Parampil sat down for an exclusive interview with Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, on the 10th anniversary of the US-backed right-wing military coup that overthrew him.
He discusses the extreme violence, drug trafficking, economic depression, migration crisis, Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH), WikiLeaks, Venezuela, and more.
Full transcript of the interview below.
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ANYA PARAMPIL: Thank you for your time, Mr. President. It has been 10 years since you were removed in a US-backed coup from your position as the democratically elected president of Honduras. What has the United States accomplished since then, what has changed in your country?
MANUEL ZELAYA: The rupture of a social contract, which we call the constitution of the republic, in the constitution of the state, when a social contract is broken, what logically comes next is the the law of the stronger (survival of the fittest). Crimes, killings, torture. Always the winning side against the opposition.
That has been a sacrifice for the Honduran people, because the side that took power had the support of the United States. The US is the major beneficiary of the coup. And there is a principle in penal law that says the beneficiary of a crime is the principal suspect.
How has it been the beneficiary? The US has almost complete control over Honduras. Control over justice through the OAS (Organization of American States). It controls security through US Southern Command. It controls the economy through the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and IDB (Inter-American Development Bank).
It controls the main media networks in Honduras; it has a big influence over the opinion of the main media outlets. It funds many churches, which receive donations from North American NGOs. And it finances Honduran NGOs. That is, it controls public opinion. It controls the powers of the state.
And in this way, it has a high interference in the decisions of states like Honduras, poor states, weak states, where their rulers, to receive protection, give up everything to the North Americans.
ANYA PARAMPIL: What has been the impact on the average Hondurans throughout these years?
MANUEL ZELAYA: Poverty increased. There are more poor people. The poverty level already surpasses almost 70 percent of the population. Crime increased. Drug trafficking increased. According to a report from the US State Department, the drug trafficking in Honduras after the coup increased by almost double. And the report says that Honduras became “the drug-trafficking paradise.”
External debt increased. When they took me out at gunpoint, we owed $3 billion. Today, in 10 years, we owe $14 billion. That is four times more. So this means the country has serious problems with a lack of economic growth, a lack of investment, human rights violations.
And I will present you with only one piece of proof: The [migrant] caravans heading to the US are from Honduras. Because the [US-backed] coup d’etat turned Honduras into hell.
ANYA PARAMPIL: How has this situation, what has happened over the last 10 years, contributed to the development of your party, Libre?
MANUEL ZELAYA: We are a party of opposition to the coup d’etat. And for 10 years those who carried out the coup have governed. They are the spawn of the coup. And the more errors they commit, the more they oppress, the more the opposition grows.
ANYA PARAMPIL: And this has led to the strengthening of the social movements here?
MANUEL ZELAYA: Well, social movements don’t grow for a sectarian political reason; they grow because electricity was privatized and they can’t pay for light. Many social services have been privatized. They have been given to private companies. And the problem is not just that they leave it to private enterprise. Private enterprise is efficient, but it’s expensive.
The most comfortable thing for a ruler is to say, “Security will be managed for me by US Southern Command.” “The economy will be managed for me by the IMF.” “The soldiers will manage internal security for me.” “And private enterprise will manage the money for me.” So, what does the ruler do? Nothing. Simply give benefits to his followers.
ANYA PARAMPIL: Who is Juan Orlando Hernandez (JOH) and why are we seeing now, 10 years after the coup, a re-ignition of unrest in the streets and a demand that JOH leave office?
MANUEL ZELAYA: He (JOH) is a son of the coup. He has serious personality problems. For example, I was president. And I walked in the streets. And people greeted me. And they told me, “Hi Mel! Hi President!” He (JOH) travels with armored cars, with helicopters. He travels with a huge security team.
In my opinion, he has a problem with mental illness. He believes that being president is a big deal. And the pastors come and tell him he is chosen by God. So it becomes even worse. And he begins to act like a person who is not in touch with reality.
The people are protesting because of hunger. And he thinks they’re protesting because of politics. And he tells to the United States a speech that the US, its right-wing, conservative governing class wants to hear. He says, “In Honduras there is terrorism. [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chávez’s people are there in Honduras. And they are affecting me, the drug traffickers.”
I think he is suffering from psychopathy.
ANYA PARAMPIL: And what about the accusations of corruption? Some Hondurans I spoke to today told me now JOH is one of the richest men in the region.
MANUEL ZELAYA: The corruption is public. They broke the social security system. Look, how do you sustain an illegal government? Paying people off. If they are legal, they don’t need to pay. Because they are the product of a social pact.
But when there is a coup d’etat, there is fraud. So they need to corrupt the institutions to sustain themselves. The fact that the United States supports a coup d’etat makes them support a dictator. And that is why corruption is surging. The corruption is the result of the dictatorship.
ANYA PARAMPIL: Hondurans have also told me that a small group of families control much of the country in terms of in terms of industry and specifically the media. Can you talk about the media’s role in the coup and also in sustaining the dictatorship, which you describe?
MANUEL ZELAYA: That is how capitalism works. In the US, France, anywhere. Capitalism is based on just one principle: accumulation of wealth. That is how it functions here and in the rest of the world.
A small elite of transnational [corporations] associated with people in countries who clean up for them. They do business, and that business creates the need to set up security for themselves.
They don’t tolerate competition. I brought in oil from Venezuela, with Hugo Chávez, and they insisted that they had to maintain their agreements. And they did not accept Venezuela. And that was one of the motives behind the coup.
ANYA PARAMPIL: And I believe the US ambassador at the time, Charles Ford, told you you’re not allowed to do this, as though he had the right to do this as a foreign ambassador.
MANUEL ZELAYA: The US gives advice that if you don’t follow, they act with reprisals. US President George W. Bush told it to me. John Negroponte told it to me. Ambassador Ford told it to me. And other government officials.
Bush said it to me in these words: “You cannot have relations with Hugo Chávez.” John Negroponte, his deputy secretary of state, told me, “If you sign the ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance), you are going to have problems with the US.”
And I signed the ALBA. And I would sign it again if I had the chance. Because it is to help Honduras progress.
I needed the support from Brazil, the support from Venezuela, the support from the US, the support from Europe. We are not able to depend solely on the US, because the US has its own interests. It’s another nation.
ANYA PARAMPIL: I would like you to comment on the significance of Wikileaks in the history of your country but also the region, and what you think about what is currently happening to Julian Assange with the with the help of the government in Ecuador?
MANUEL ZELAYA: Julian Assange is a symbol of freedom in the world today, tomorrow, and forever. He will be one of the people, in the future, like one of the great prophets. In their day, they are repressed. And later they become a symbol. That’s what Julian Assange will become.
Julian Assange proclaimed a world without secrets, an open world, a free world. Of course he affects the [powerful] interests of today. But in the future, I, and others in other generations, will follow the example of Assange.
ANYA PARAMPIL: We were speaking about Ambassador Ford, I believe after he finished his work in the embassy here he went to go work for SOUTHCOM, the military. Can you talk about how central the interests of the US military are to what happened with you and how its presence in the country has grown since you were ousted?
MANUEL ZELAYA: [Honduran] soldiers are trained at the [US] School of the Americas. All of their drills they do with the US. For the soldiers, the ideal of their life is to be like the US Marines, like the US soldiers.
And here, the US controls the armed forces and the police. They do what the US wants them to do. They are occupation forces.
ANYA PARAMPIL: I want to talk a little bit about the region, specifically Nicaragua. What do you think about the US-backed coup attempt he (Daniel Ortega) has faced over this last year? This month, I believe, is the one year anniversary since the government there defeated a US backed regime change operation.
MANUEL ZELAYA: When I returned [after the coup], I made several attempts to return to Honduras. In the return from Washington to Honduras, I was not able to land, because the military blocked me. So I had to come back through the Las Manos border crossing in Nicaragua. Then I secretly entered the Brazilian embassy. Two years later I returned from the Dominican Republic, from the Dominican Republic to Nicaragua, and from Nicaragua to Honduras.
In relation to the US trying to overthrow [Nicaraguan President] Daniel Ortega, I believe it already did it before, in the 1980s. The US armed Contras here in Honduras to fight against Nicaraguans. Since that time, I have always protested against this US occupation of Honduras to invade Nicaragua. And the people [today] voted for the Ortega government. He was elected.
Now, the US has been unable to overthrow him. Now, he is strong. Now Ortega has a lot of popular support. And I don’t think they are able to overthrow him, as they did in the past, from Honduras.
ANYA PARAMPIL: Can you compare your party, Libre, to the Sandinista Movement and what lessons you took from them?
MANUEL ZELAYA: They are two different historical moments. Sandinismo was developed by a military sergeant, who went to the mountains at the beginning of the 20th century, and he created an anti-imperialist force that created a party called the Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN). This party won a war, overthrew the Somoza dictatorship, and now organizes democratically to stay in power.
We (in Honduras’ Libre Party) are a party that did not come out of the armed struggle. We did not come out of a war. We were born out of a movement that is revolutionary and democratic, but peaceful. Against the coup d’etat. And against those who support the coup. The US supported the coup.
ANYA PARAMPIL: I want to talk about your personal political development because when you were elected you were considered part of a more center-left party and movement, and now you are speaking about socialism. Why did you change and how would you characterize yourself now?
MANUEL ZELAYA: Center-right actually. (Not center-left.) It has been an evolution. Because the right wing is done for. It sustains itself with weapons, with coups, with fraud, with deceptions.
The future of humanity has to be social. You are a social being. You. Aristotle says that we are rational beings. The human is a rational animal. But we think that the human being, today, is a totally social being. Without society, men and women can’t survive. Everything that we think and perceive is related to our social environment.
So where should humanity walk to? To individualism, to egoism? To individual interests, or social interests? It’s to social interests.
The future of humanity is socialist. We might have to struggle for 10,000 years or more. But in the future, if humanity does not advance to be social, we would be living in caves, according to the survival of the fittest. Human beings are advancing, progressing to become social.
I was raised in a liberal political philosophy. But now I evolved to a new politics: first liberal and pro-socialist, but now democratic socialist.
ANYA PARAMPIL: How were you influenced by other governments of the Pink Tide, specifically Hugo Chavez of Venezuela?
MANUEL ZELAYA: Well you would have to ask how Chávez, a soldier, became a socialist. If you find this explanation, then you will find an explanation for how I, a land-owner, went from being a capitalist to a socialist. It is a heightening of the spirit. It is the conviction of a human being.
Capitalism is so barbaric. It is not the future of humanity. If capitalism is the future of humanity, humanity is destroyed. It is defeated. It is doomed to fail. The same for the planet.
The future of the humanity has to be social. It’s simple. It’s not money. It’s not commerce. It’s not simply economic activities that should lead humanity. No, those should be subject to the social.
It’s fine that private enterprise exists, private initiative. It’s fine that capital exists. But it is not ok for capital to direct the world. No, it is the world that should direct capital. This is an upside-down world.
And when you reach the highest governmental position in a country, which I reached, even in a small nation like Honduras, I learned then that there is no way to deal with capital other than subjecting it to popular sovereignty. Capital should continue to exist, but subjected to a plan of popular sovereignty that is the people.
The voice of the people is the voice of God. You have to have faith.
ANYA PARAMPIL: Like Chavez, you were pursuing the process of a Constituent Assembly in your country the day of the coup, to change the character of the state here. Why do you think that specifically was so threatening to the oligarchy here and the US government?
MANUEL ZELAYA: The question is not well formulated. Do you know who Thomas Jefferson is? Do you know who George Washington is? They created the United States, with a constitution.
Why mention Chávez? Chávez is simply from the 21st century. Jefferson and Washington were from 1776. The American Revolution was anti-imperialist, against the British Empire. They developed a constitutional assembly. And you have your constitution in the US. It’s not Chávez who invented the constituent assembly; it’s Jefferson and Washington. So why be afraid of the way in which nations are formed?
When the social pact is broken, because there is a lot of poverty, there is a lot of hunger, many people in need, and the majority does not resist the economic and social situation, you have to return to the constituent dialogue. This is basic in a society.
Inside the US, there are no coups. No, there presidents have to be ready in case in any moment they are killed. Here, there are coups. And in these countries in Latin America there have been 170 coups. And the great majority of them were sponsored by the US.
And what do you do when the pact is broken? You start over with a constituent assembly.
ANYA PARAMPIL: When you were facing the coup, Maduro was the Foreign Minister of Venezuela and you worked very closely with him at that time. What did you think about him, what was your impression of Nicolas Maduro, and what do you think about what’s happening now with Venezuela?
MANUEL ZELAYA: Two things: One, Chávez did not seek me out. Chávez was never going to look for a far-right country like Honduras, almost totally governed by the US. And now more than ever. And me, a president who arrived with the center-right. Chávez would never have sought me out.
I reached out to Chávez. I have to clarify that. Chávez never had an interest in Honduras. This is an invention of right-wing activists in the US, like Otto Reich, Robert Carmona, and Roger Noriega. I had to convince him [Chávez] to come here to help us, with oil, with the ALBA alliance, with Petrocaribe.
Two: Nicolás Maduro, yes he is a socialist from birth. He is a worker, from the working class, from the class that is exploited by capital, from the class that sells its labor force, and that is denied the rights that capitalists enjoy. He is a socialist, like Chávez.
And moreover, the Bolivarian Revolution, that was initiated by Chávez, with his socialist convictions, was inherited by Nicolás [Maduro]. And he has led with a great capacity, sensibility, and conscience.
They don’t want you to recognize it, but Nicolás [Maduro] is a Latin American leader of great international stature.
ANYA PARAMPIL: We’re 10 years since the coup, since then, one by one other progressive governments have been picked off and changed back into pawns of the United States. What gives you hope that one day we will see progressive governments return to power in Latin America?
MANUEL ZELAYA: No empire is eternal. With the exception of God eternal. Since the end of World War II, the US has ruled over much of the world. But it has serious contradictions. It is a country with high levels of poverty. There are serious internal contradictions.
And sometime soon, the North American ruling class will learn that to survive in the world, it will have to reduce military spending, to give medicine, healthcare, education and a good quality of life to its people. Someday they are going to understand that being the soldiers of the world, that being the police of the world, does not bring them as many benefits as they think.
And one day they are going to understand that it is better to have democratic countries than military dictatorships. When they come around, let’s hope it’s not too late.
The world is going to applaud, and meanwhile they continue giving fascist and imperialist orders installing dictators in our countries, setting up multinational corporations that exploit our rivers, our seas, our forests, our lands, and our working class. Then they will be pointed at and called practices that do not suit our countries.
I don’t have anything against the North American people. Nor do I have anything against the North American society. I’m an admirer of Lincoln, Kennedy, Jefferson, Washington, of what the US had signified. But I condemn its imperialist practices toward small countries like ours.
Instead of strengthening democracies, it strengthens military dictatorships. And that impoverishes our nation, and immigrants move there. And when immigrants move there, they start to complain.
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Anya Parampil is a journalist based in Washington, DC. She previously hosted a daily progressive afternoon news program called In Question on RT America. She has produced and reported several documentaries, including on-the-ground reports from the Korean peninsula and Palestine.
As deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest reaches the highest level in a decade, the rainforest’s indigenous peoples and their supporters have called for action against the political and business interests they blame for a spike in illegal logging and other resource extraction.
A report released by Amazon Watch as part of its ongoing “Complicity in Destruction” campaign aims not only to spotlight the role of North American and Western European financiers, importers, and traders in the ongoing destruction of the Amazon, but also to mobilize support for a boycott launched by the National Indigenous Mobilization (MNI) against the Brazilian agribusiness and mining interests encroaching on the threatened region. The report says:
The MNI requests solidarity from the international community to support these efforts, which aim to leverage global markets in order to moderate the behavior of the agroindustrial sector, as a means to halt [Brazil President Jair] Bolsonaro’s assault, ultimately protecting and restoring environmental safeguards and human rights.”
Christian Poirier, Amazon Watch’s Program Director, told MintPress News that the inauguration of right-wing strongman Jair Bolsonaro as Brazil’s president on January 1 lent fresh urgency to the campaign.
“Bolsonaro has overseen the most significant rollback of, and full-on assault on, human rights and environmental protection in Brazil since the fall of the country’s military dictatorship and the reinstallation of democracy in 1985,” Poirier said, adding:
He’s hearkening back to an era of rampant environmental destruction and rights abuses that some would call genocide of indigenous peoples, by attacking socio-environmental policy that is responsible for indigenous land rights, that is responsible for the protection of forests in the country, and he’s doing so at a very rapid pace.”
Among his first moves as president, Bolsonaro stripped Brazil’s National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) of its authority to create new reserves for indigenous nations and transferred control of both it and the country’s forest service to its agriculture ministry.
“Human rights abuses and environmental rollbacks”
Satellite data released by INPE, Brazil’s space agency, earlier this month showed the clear-cutting of 285 square miles, or 739 square kilometers, of the Amazon in May, the highest level of deforestation in a decade and more than twice the rate two years ago.
Observers cite an escalation in illegal logging and land theft during the Bolsonaro administration, with the first raid on an indigenous reserve occurring December 30, two days before Bolsonaro took office.
Poirier added that the MNI campaign intended to target corporate interests culpable not only for their own abuses, but also for Bolsonaro’s presidency:
The ‘Complicity in Destruction’ campaign works to pressure the most important sectors in Brazil’s economy — which are also responsible for human-rights abuses and environmental rollbacks, and also bringing Jair Bolsonao to power.
By targeting these sectors, we also intend to influence the behavior of the Bolsonaro regime, because we are targeting a strategic economic actor that is also a strategic political actor behind Bolsonaro’s rise to power, and that is responsible for his socio-environmental policy.”
In April, Bolsonaro — who once paid a fine of $2,500 for illegally fishing in a forested coastal reserve — announced the dissolution of Brazil’s National Council of the Environment (CONOMA), a government body with over 100 members, including independent representatives of environmental groups, tasked with protecting the Amazon.
He proposed replacing it with a new committee of six: Ricardo Salles, his nominee for environment minister and a close ally, along with five other presidential appointees. Poirier noted:
These are a wish list of Brazil’s agribusiness sector and its mining sector, to penetrate into protected areas, and that’s precisely what Bolsonaro’s doing, to the detriment of the human rights of indigenous peoples and traditional peoples in the Amazon, and to the detriment of global climatic stability.”
As one of the world’s largest non-oceanic “carbon sinks,” the Amazon plays a significant role in tempering climate change, absorbing a large — though declining — amount of the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide, while also emitting 20 percent of its oxygen.
“By ‘worst actors,’ I’m talking about environmental criminals”
Despite their staunch backing of Bolsonaro and the ruralista caucus supporting him from within Brazil’s Congress, the companies profiled by Amazon Watch had achieved notoriety well before Bolsonaro’s rise to power. Poirier told MintPress:
The specific corporate targets in the report are commodity importers, traders, and financial institutions that are doing business with the worst actors in Brazil’s agro-industrial sector.”
An illegally deforested area on Pirititi indigenous lands in Brazil’s Amazon basin. Felipe Werneck | Ibama via AP
By ‘worst actors,’ I’m talking about environmental criminals, those who have been found guilty and fined by Brazil’s environmental agency, Ibama, for environmental crimes ranging from illegal deforestation, to improper paperwork for wood, to even slave labor in their supply chains, since 2017.”
While an earlier report also analyzed Brazilian mining interests and their international ties, the most recent focuses on agribusiness, particularly its beef, soy, leather, timber and sugar sectors. Poirier stated:
The corporate actors internationally — the 27 importing companies and commodity traders that we list, and the dozens of financial institutions — are essentially enabling the behavior of these actors, which we consider to be emblematic behavior of these industries.”
Through their campaign, Poirier added, Amazon Watch and the MNI hope to “call on these companies to become agents to moderate the behavior of the worst actors, which is to say that they should carry out their own due diligence with their supply chains, and cut ties with the worst actors.”
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Joe Catron is a MintPress News contributing journalist. He covers Palestine and Israel and other human rights issues. Catron has written frequently for Electronic Intifada and Middle East Eye, and co-edited The Prisoners’ Diaries: Palestinian Voices from the Israeli Gulag, an anthology of accounts by detainees freed in the 2011 prisoner exchange.
Featured image: IBAMA operation against illegal loggers in the Brazilian Amazon, courtesy of IBAMA.
This article was originally published in February 2018.
When I entered the Office of Pesticide Programs of the US Environmental Protection Agency in May 1979, I knew practically nothing about pesticides. Though I had taken classes in chemistry in college and had even written my first book about industrialized agriculture, nothing prepared me for the secrets I uncovered during twenty-five years of work in a bureaucracy designed and brought up to keep secrets.
My colleagues opened my eyes to the secret world of chemical sprays deceptively known as pesticides. They kept answering my questions and, more than that, they started giving me their memos, briefings, and scientific papers. They did not see much controversy in the “regulation” of pesticides. Most thought pesticides were necessary for farming.
In fact, EPA economists always defended pesticides, suggesting that without them food prices would go through the roof. Other EPA scientists like biologists, ecologists, chemists and toxicologists monitored those chemicals for ecological and health effects. They had read the pesticide law — The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act — and, some of them, were authors of regulations for their use on farms, lawns, homes, factories, and the natural world.
Who was going to object to the killing of “pests” like insects, rodents, fungi, and weeds?
It did not take me long to object to the use of pesticides, however. My knowledge about these chemicals increased rapidly. The writings of my colleagues and the discussions I had with them convinced me pesticides were more than pesticides. They are petrochemical biocides. They kill everything.
But there was something particularly insidious about certain farm sprays that were born about a century ago in the heat of WWI. The organophosphates parathion and malathion, for instance, are nerve gases related to chemical weapons. They are chemical weapons in diluted form.
I remember how EPA ecologists reacted to the news that parathion was killing honeybees in droves. They were very upset and urged senior officials to prohibit any more approvals of the deleterious nerve gas. The senior officials did no such thing. Honeybees continued to die from parathion poisoning for decades. EPA banned ethyl parathion in 2003. In 2015, the White House Energy-Climate Czarina and former EPA administrator, Carol Browner, announced the banning of methyl parathion on “all fruits and many vegetables.” Now, in 2018, honeybees die primarily from another version of neurotoxins, known as neonicotinoids, and manufactured in Germany.
Yet I don’t remember hearing EPA scientists connecting parathion and other neurotoxic pesticides to warfare agents. I found that strange because one heard of the horrible consequences they had in common: pinpoint pupils, sweating, convulsions, vomiting, asphyxiation, and death.
The military connection of many pesticides made their origins obscure and very difficult to decode. It was as if there existed a universal pact among experts in industry, academia and government not to question these extremely toxic compounds.
If Americans knew their food is contaminated by neurotoxic agents, what would they say and do? And how would the environmental movement act on the evidence of nerve poisons in conventional food?
According to Anna Feigenbaum, Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Media and Communication at Bournemouth University, modern tear gas also operates in the same mist of ignorance and fear that surrounds neurotoxic pesticides. Tear gas is not a gas at all. By tear gas we mean groups of chemicals, which are lachrymatory agents. This in Latin means they cause tears. Popular tear gases include CS (2-chlorobenzylidene malonitrile), CN (chloroacetophenone) and CR (dibenzoxazepine) – irritants released as smoke, vapor or liquid sprays. Another tear gas is pepper spray or OC (oleoresin capsicum). This is an inflammatory substance triggering tears.
According to Feigenbaum, tear gas started its warfare career in August 1914 when French troops fired grenades filled with methylbenzyl bromide into German trenches. The effect was to break the stalemate of trench warfare. Tear gas forced the German soldiers to run out of their protective trenches, only to be mowed down by French machine guns. This was the Battle of the Frontiers. In April 1915, at Ypres, the Germans retaliated with chlorine gas. The war of asphyxiating gases was in full swing.
Daan Boens, Belgian soldier-poet lived through this nerve gas war. In 1918, he published a poem, “Gas,” in which he caught the barbarism of chemical warfare. Feigenbaum cites the poem:
“The stench is unbearable, while death mocks back.
The masks around the cheeks cut the look of bestial snouts,
The masks with wild eyes, crazy or absurd,
Their bodies drift on until they stumble upon steel.
The men know nothing, they breathe in fear.
Their hands clench on weapons like a buoy for the drowning,
They do not see the enemy, who, also masked, loom forth,
And storm them, hidden in the rings of gas.
Thus in the dirty mist, the biggest murder happens.”
Like the pesticide merchants and lobbyists, tear gas advocates have buried this murder. They, according to Feigenbaum, reject the effects of their product: tearing, gagging, miscarriages, burning of the eyes, blindness, and death. They paint the military origins and use of tear gases into oblivion. The result of this successful propaganda is that tear gas faces none of the prohibitions against chemical warfare agents. A straightforward war gas – tear gas – has become a peacemaker. Innocent of harm.
Feigenbaum laments in particular the difficulties she faced in tracking sales and use of tear gas:
“There are just too many secrets and too many lies. The international trade in tear gas is buried under bureaucracy and often classified beyond the reach of Freedom of Information requests. There are files upon files that have been shredded and burned, deleted, altered and falsified.”
That’s to be expected of a chemical warfare agent dressed in civilian clothes.
Yet Feigenbaum succeeded eventually in her task. Her book is a lucid history that puts tear gas on trial. She exposed the profiteers, scientists, military buyers, arms dealers, police suppliers and editors trying to put a humane face on a dangerous weapon.
Neurotoxic pesticides are connected to tear gas by neurotoxicity. They are also products of chemical warfare. They kill by nerve poisoning and asphyxiation. They should be banned.
As Feigenbaum sees it, in its civilian life, tear gas does more than killing. It is designed “to torment people, to break their spirits, to cause physical and psychological damage.”
Read Feigenbaum’s book. It’s timely, well-written, and very important.
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Evaggelos Vallianatos worked on Capitol Hill for 2 years and at the US Environmental Protection Agency for 25 years. He is the author of hundreds of articles and 6 books, including “Poison Spring,” with McKay Jenkins.
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Syria suffered its second S-200 debacle after a stray missile landed in Cyprus less than a year since a previous one accidentally hit a Russian spy plane last September, with these two incidents showing just how desperate it is to respond to “Israel’s” increasingly intense strikes against Iranian forces in the country that it’s forced to depend on such an outdated and unreliable technology after Russia still refuses to allow it to have full and independent operational control over the S-300s.
“Israel’s” anti-Iranian strikes in Syria that it carried out around midnight on 1 July were particularly devastating and destroyed a wide range of targets from Homs to Damascus, but the operation was also marked by an embarrassing debacle after one of the S-200 anti-air missiles that the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) fired in self-defense went astray and ended up landing in Cyprus. This was the second accident in less than a year since a previous missile mistakenly hit a Russian spy plane last September, with these two events showing just how desperate Syria is to respond to “Israel’s” increasingly intense attacks that it’s forced to depend on such an outdated and unreliable technology all because Russia still refuses to allow it to have full and independent operational control over the S-300s.
The world was led to believe through a carefully crafted perception management campaign that the deployment of those units would deter future “Israeli” airstrikes but the reality is that they were never meant to be anything other than “status symbols” to fulfill the wishful thinking fantasies of the members of the Alt-Media Community who are afflicted with a savior complex and ridiculously expect Russia to ride to Syria’s rescue. Moscow’s military mandate strictly concerns anti-terrorist responsibilities, not anything to do with defending the country’s borders from conventional threats, let alone from “Putinyahu’s Rusrael“, but the fake news notion that there’s more to its intervention than just that has given rise to the most absurd theories about Putin’s motivation for getting involved in that conflict.
The most popular narrative is that Russia is an “anti-Zionist crusader state” that’s supposedly dedicated itself to destroying “Israel“, which is easily debunked by simply reading the many positive statements of support that Putin made about the self-professed “Jewish State” that are available on the official Kremlin website. Even so, there are many who can’t accept them as truth and remain convinced that Russia is simply waiting for “the perfect time” to let Syria use the S-300s despite the Arab Republic already suffering so much as part of this so-called “master plan” by not being able to do so. That train of thought is easily discredited after Syria was forced to depend on the outdated and unreliable S-200s to defend itself, something that it wouldn’t risk doing if it was allowed to use that system’s successor.
The run-up to the nighttime attack saw a flurry of false allegations that Russia was supposedly jamming GPS signals in “Israeli” airspace, something that Moscow immediately decried as fake news but which nevertheless fed into the Alt-Media Community’s wishful thinking fantasies that Russia was secretly subverting the self-professed “Jewish State” on behalf of its Syrian “ally”. It can now be asserted without any doubt that those claims were patently false because “Israel” was able to successfully carry out its widespread bombing campaign without any difficulties, but they were probably made in the first place in order to further distance Russia from the deal that it likely struck with “Israel” and the US during last week’s National Security Advisor Summit in Jerusalem to let the “Israeli Air Force” intensify its anti-Iranian strikes in Syria.
Understood in this way, “Israeli” officials therefore lied about the GPS jamming scandal in order to provide soft power cover for their entity’s new Russian ally, the same as RT initially ran a story suggesting that the stray S-200 missile that landed in Cyprus might have actually been a downed “Israeli” jet. Russia and “Israel” sometimes work together to sow the seeds of doubt about their alliance to the international audience such as in this instance, attempting to make it seem to the casual observer that there are serious differences between the two when in reality they’re mostly on the same page about everything in the region, especially the need to “encourage” Assad to request Iran’s dignified but “phased withdrawal” from Syria.
Although Damascus is under heavy Russian influence nowadays that’s only expected to grow in the coming years as Moscow’s concerted efforts to “reform” its “deep state” begin to bear fruit, it would be inaccurate to describe Syria as a “puppet state” at this point since its desperate use of the outdated S-200s in self-defense proves that “Putinyahu’s Rusrael” doesn’t have complete control over the country just yet. President Assad has thus far refused to request Iran’s withdrawal from the country, and elements of the SAA are still doing all they can to respond to “Israeli” aggression, even if it means lobbing unreliable and dangerous S-200s at its incoming missiles and aircraft. Seeing as how “Israel” will probably continue striking Syria all summer as part of Netanyahu’s re-election campaign, the region might see more such S-200 debacles in the coming months.
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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.
Western media are likely to jump on the ‘snapback mechanism’ wagon now that Iran has released details about the second stage of its reduction in commitments to the nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The snap back mechanism is a tool that allows the old United Nations sanctions to be reimposed on Iran without a vote on the Council, in the case of Tehran being found to be in serious violation of the terms of the nuclear agreement, under certain conditions and after following the predefined steps.
The other side wants to make it look as if the recent measures by Iran in reducing the level of its commitments to the JCPOA – which are in accordance with Article 26 and 36 of JCPOA – are a violation of the agreement in order to use the snap back mechanism against Iran.
But there are five reasons as to why the snap back mechanism cannot be used against Iran in this case.
One: The snap back mechanism has been designed to prevent Iran from violating the agreement. In other words, the mechanism has been set up in the case of Iran being the first party to withdraw from the nuclear deal. Of course, the first side to have left the agreement was the United States, and Iran’s compliance with its commitments have been confirmed time and again in all of the IAEA’s reports.
Two: According to the text of the JCPOA, the other side can use the snap back mechanism only when it “believes” that Iran’s performance is an instance of a major lack of compliance. According to a fundamental legal principle, this “belief” must be accompanied by “good faith”. This is while none of the remaining parties to the JCPOA can actually claim with “good faith” that they “believe” in Iran’s major lack of compliance, since all of Iran’s measures have been legal, and are clearly taken so that all sides to the deal would fully implement their own commitments.
Three: Europe’s resorting to the snap back mechanism would be in fact a mockery of the international law, the UN Security Council and the UN’s collective security system. In other words, it would be the first time in history when the Security Council would be used to punish a country that only intends to use its legal tools to force others to implement a Security Council resolution (2231), and an agreement endorsed by the body.
Four: In order to accuse Iran of a violation, European powers first need to prove Iran’s ill intentions. This is while they all know that Iran’s only motivation and intention to reduce commitments is a way to actually revive the nuclear agreement.
Five: What European powers promised under the deal was never a “ceremonial” removal of sanctions. Article 3 of Appendix 2 of JCPOA clearly tasks Europe with removing the “impacts” of economic and financial sanctions. This means that the European sides are now clearly in violation of their commitments.
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At one point in Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel, Les Miserables, Jean Valjean and Cosette lived, secretly, in a house on Rue Plumet, where a garden hid their house from passers-by. This garden had been left uncultivated for fifty years. The garden not only protected Jean Valjean and Cosette from Javert’s discovery, it served to teach them how to behave more kindly, wisely, and creatively—to more deeply appreciate each other and all of Earth’s living things.
Hugo’s description of the Garden:
“Horticulture had departed, and nature had returned. The trees bent over towards the briers, the briers mounted towards the trees, the shrub had climbed, the branch had bowed, that which runs upon the ground had attempted to find that which blooms in the air, that which floats in the wind had stooped towards that which trails in the moss; trunks, branches, leaves, twigs, tufts, tendrils, shoots, thorns, were mingled, crossed, married, confounded. Vegetation, in a close and strong embrace, had celebrated and accomplished there, under the satisfied eye of the creator, the sacred mystery of its fraternity, symbol of human fraternity. At noon, a thousand white butterflies took refuge in it, and it was a heavenly sight to see this living snow of summer whirling about in flakes in the shade. There, in this gay darkness of verdure, a multitude of innocent voices spoke softly to the soul, and what the warbling had forgotten to say, the humming completed. You felt the sacred intimacy of bird and tree; by day the wings rejoiced the leaves; by night the leaves protected the wings.
Nature, who disavows the Mean Arrangements of Man, always gives her whole self where she gives herself at all, as well in the ant as in the eagle.
Nothing is really small; whoever is open to the deep penetration of nature knows this. All works for all.
A flesh-worm is of account; the small is great, the great is small; all is in equilibrium in necessity; fearful vision for the mind. There are marvelous relations between beings and things; in this inexhaustible whole, from sun to grub, there is no scorn; all need each other.
In the above passage, Hugo describes a healthy ecosystem, which included a healthy social component. The plants, birds, insects, and other non-human life in the garden had developed a kind and wise Social Ecosystem—marvelous interdependent relations between beings and things—that benefitted all. In their garden there was no hierarchy, no upper class or lower class, no rich or poor, no caste system, no cliques, no individualism, no isolation, no predation, no segregation, no tension. In the “inexhaustible whole” of the garden, there was “no scorn.” All worked for all. All needed each other. All embraced, celebrated, and cared for each other, as if they fully understood their interdependence and thirsted for connection. All was in harmony, “in equilibrium, by necessity”—meaning that life in this garden would not have survived, individually or collectively, without the marvelous collaborative relations among its living things. This garden symbolized a healthy Social Ecosystem, maintained by the plants, insects, birds, and other living things in the Garden. It was a thing of Social Beauty—offered for emulation by Mankind.
Have we used Nature’s Garden as a model for development of a healthy human Social Ecosystem? Have we developed a human Social Ecosystem that is fully integrated with, and fully respectful of, Nature’s ecosystems? It does not appear so.1
In fact, it appears as though modern Human beings have been slow to even recognize that each of us lives in the context of an interdependent human Social Ecosystem—where all need each other and all need to work for all in order to survive and enjoy Social Beauty—and that the human Social Ecosystem must be harmoniously integrated with Nature’s ecosystems.
Instead of developing a healthy Social Ecosystem that is integrated with Nature’s ecosystems, what have we done? We have created what looks like a severely damaged and degraded social ecosystem. The social ecosystem in which most of us live exhibits little of the caring characteristics of Nature’s Garden. Largely because of the economic model that has been allowed to prevail (Capitalism), our social ecosystem is characterized by hierarchy, individualism, cut-throat competition, predation, exploitation, inequality, injustice, anger, scorn, isolation, tension, anxiety, depression, alienation, loneliness, segregation, and boredom—with its leadership exhibiting heartlessness, disdain for collaboration, and denial of human interdependence. Our Social Ecosystem has been harmfully subjected to a powerful economic model that is based on, justified by, gives practice to, and rewards the worst aspects of our human nature, instead of our best aspects. Furthermore, it is an economic model that shows little respect for Nature’s ecosystems, is not integrated with Nature’s ecosystems, and wantonly destroys Nature’s ecosystems. Our current social system, which is a direct product of our prevailing economic model (Capitalism), represents a Mean Arrangement of Man—certainly not a thing of Social Beauty. Our current social ecosystem looks as plundered and ugly as a clear-cut boreal forest, or the toxic tailing ponds and poisoned aquifer in the Alberta tar sands. For the sake of Nature, and for our own sakes, should we not create a better Arrangement? Have the plants, birds, insects, and other living things in Nature’s Garden been far wiser, kinder, and creative than has Mankind?
If we were to use Nature’s Garden as a model for development of a healthy human social ecosystem, what might we create? We would start by acknowledging our interdependency—that we all need each other, and that all need to work for all. We would ask, “What are the universal needs; and how can we kindly and collaboratively meet those needs?” We would create an economic model that disavows such Mean Arrangements as hierarchy, class, exploitation, supremacy, racism, cut-throat competition, profiteering, scorn, sabotage, violence, predatory debt, isolating individualism, and disregard for the environment. We would choose an economic model that is based on moral incentive (rather than monetary incentive), an understanding of the positive aspects of human nature, and a commitment to altruistically meeting the needs of others—a Public Economy with Vast Public Activity that employs all aptitudes and gives jobs to all who need work. It would be an economic model that up-regulates the best aspects of human nature and down-regulates the worst aspects of our human nature (instead of the other way around, which is the effect of capitalism). It would be led by the most altruistic natural leaders among us, not by the most diabolic and selfish.
In short, we would create a Public Economy and a Social Ecosystem that resembles one giant public children’s hospital, whose modestly salaried physicians, nurses, researchers, technicians, janitors, and other employees gladly “give their whole selves” to meet the needs of sick children. It would be a model that provides the most precious freedom of all—the freedom to enjoy widespread up-regulated expression of the human capacity for kindness—up-regulation both in oneself and in the larger society—the freedom that comes from participating in collective public efforts to genuinely look after others. It would be an economic model that is democratically regulated by the creative common sense of Nature’s Garden, as opposed to the rigid orderliness of the horticulturist, or, worse, the “clear cut” mentality of authoritarian timber industrialists. Such an economic model could create a healthy social ecosystem that would be in harmony with all of Nature’s ecosystems and with social ecosystems throughout the world. This would be a way to create human Social Beauty to complement and protect Nature’s Beauty. “Whoever is open to the deep penetration of Nature knows this.”
Postscript:
Apologists for Capitalism might accuse Victor Hugo of deliberately mentioning only the positive aspects of Nature and ignoring the ugly predatory activities in Nature—e.g. birds of prey killing innocent baby rabbits. But, Hugo was not denying the existence of violence and injustice in Nature—just as he does not deny the dark aspects of human nature. He was simply suggesting that we emulate the most positive behaviors in Nature, rather than its most ugly behaviors. Why would we want to model our economic system after the ugly predation and violence in Nature when, instead, we could model it after the “marvelous relations” exhibited in Nature’s Garden? Instead of flaunting a bird of prey (the eagle) as a national symbol, perhaps the USA could choose an innocent baby rabbit, or “vegetation in a close and strong embrace” as its symbol, with a Public Economy and a healthy Social Ecosystem to go with it.
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1In human history there have been peoples who have developed a human social ecosystem that has been in harmony with Nature’s ecosystems—for example, the First Nations people in North America. But, their social ecosystem and the sacred natural surroundings it respected were violently destroyed by those who insisted on a different model—a heartless, predatory, exploitative economic model and culture.
Latin America’s shifting geopolitics and the prolonged slowdown in China’s economic growth in recent years have led to a significant change in Beijing’s strategic approach to the region. The commodities boom at the beginning of this century coincided with a period of dramatic economic expansion in China. At the time, China seemed to buy everything, invest in everything and to welcome its new role as the principal geopolitical alternative to the United States for many of the countries in the hemisphere. And, the shift to the left in many Latin American countries – called the Pink Tide – invited the Chinese presence. Over the past year, however, China has adopted a more conservative approach to its role in the region. At the same time, in a number of the countries in the region, left-leaning government have been replaced by right-of-center ruling coalitions,
China has reduced its exposure in Venezuela and Ecuador, where it had accumulated significant shares of both countries’ sovereign debt in exchange for promises of petroleum at below-market prices. It has hit the pause button on several major infrastructure projects linked to its Belt and Road Initiative and has reduced its financing of private corporations, particularly in manufacturing. Most significantly, it has focused its investment in very specific strategic industries, such as lithium mining and renewable energy.
While China’s financial activity in the region over the past year has shrunk compared to the previous decade, it continues to see Latin America as an area where it must protect long-term strategic interests and where it can project power.
Overall, China’s relationship with Latin America continued to deepen during 2018, although at a pace slower than in previous years and with two significant shifts: in Venezuela concerning sovereign debt, and in Argentina, where it expanded its presence in lithium mining. China may be touting its role in the region less than it once did, but it continues to nurture the raw materials sources it needs and is building its stake in activities it considers crucial to its long-term interests. Perhaps the most significant in long term geopolitical terms is the increasing ownership stakes in the lithium and other rare earths mining on the fast salt flats that stretch across the borders of Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia.
Trade
China remains South America’s top export market and is second only to the U.S. as an export market for Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole. While the trade balance varies widely across countries in the region, Latin American exports were mostly boosted by modest increases in the four principal commodities traded with China: petroleum, soybeans, iron and copper. Prices for these commodities remain below their 2014 peak but have recovered from their lowest levels. There was a boost to Brazil’s soybean exports during the tariff dispute between the U.S. and China in the middle of 2018. Brazil’s soybean exports also benefited from the severe drought that reduced the U.S. harvest by nearly a third. The U.S.-China trade dispute also led to a significant increase in investment (by China and by other countries) in Paraguay’s rapidly expanding soybean production. While the bilateral tension between the U.S. and China has appeared to have reached a temporary plateau with a Trump-Xi “deal” to re-open negotiations on US-China trade and relaxation of U.S. sanctions designed to cripple the advance of Huawei, China’s leader in 5-G technology, China will be careful to protect its long-term interests by buying soybeans from alternative suppliers, such as Argentina, Brazil and now Paraguay.
China has become Cuba’s most important trading partner after Washington imposed more sanctions on the regime in Havana. China currently accounts for 30 percent of Cuba’s foreign trade. Despite Cuban efforts to attract more investment from China, the Chinese appear spooked by Cuba’s dual currency system and have not been able to figure out how to guarantee the value of their investments.
China’s trade with Latin America remains focused on mining industries: it accounts for 26 percent of the region’s extractive exports. China takes 16 percent of the region’s agricultural exports and only 3 percent of its manufacturing exports. These numbers all have increased by at least a factor of five over the past two decades. To look at these same numbers from another perspective, extractive commodities accounted for over half of the region’s exports to China. Over the past two decades, China’s demand has accounted for most of Latin America’s growth in the production of the four key commodities. Economists and government officials in the region are sensitive to this pattern and there is growing awareness of what is called the “new dependence” on China. For the moment, only Ecuador has acted to reduce this dependence.
Investment
Chinese investment in Latin America declined in 2018 after a robust 2017. The most significant acquisition was Tianqi Lithium’s purchase of Canadian firm Nutrien’s 24 percent stake in Chilean mining company SQM. That was complemented later in the year by a smaller investment in an Argentine lithium development, again through the acquisition of a Canadian mining company’s stake.
Chinese firms also made major moves in energy production: A state-owned Chinese consortium bought Peru’s Chaglla hydroelectric plant from scandal-plagued (and now in bankruptcy proceedings) Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht, while State Grid Corporation of China completed its purchase of CPFL Energias Renovaveis, a Brazilian energy company. There also were several modest increases in Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in various countries throughout the hemisphere.
Sovereign debt
When it comes to sovereign debt, the Chinese have recently shown caution. Although total Chinese financing to Latin American governments in 2018 increased slightly compared to 2017, it still was lower than any other year since 2012. Moreover, $5 billion of the $7.7 billion total for the year was an advance to the government of Venezuela in an attempt to protect its huge exposure – nearly US$50Billion – to Venezuelan sovereign debt. Although China has been accused of lending to weak states in Latin America at usurious rates or extorting petroleum exporting countries such as Ecuador and Venezuela, there is little evidence that either country could have secured better treatment from any other lender. Ecuador moved to reduce its dependence on China and in Venezuela it looks as if the creditor is at least as trapped as the debtor.
Finally, it is worth noting that Chinese efforts to win support from countries in Latin America for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) continue to deepen. Both gained new involvement from countries in the region.
There are two cases which help to understand the complexity of and long-term thinking behind China’s role in Latin America. First, there is Venezuela, which is in the slow, agonizing process of falling apart. Over the first decade of this century, China had built up a major position in Venezuelan sovereign debt, to the point where it is now the largest holder. The Chinese guaranteed payment through promises of petroleum at favorable prices. Over the past few years, however, gross mismanagement by the government of President Nicolas Maduro has undermined the national petroleum company (PDVSA) production capacity to the point where production in 2018 was one third of what it was some 25 years ago. It is now questionable that China can get enough petroleum from Venezuela at any price to cover its holdings of Venezuela’s sovereign debt.
Given PDVSA’s commitments to deliver oil to Russia, the U.S., India and other buyers, China can no longer be confident that its debt will be paid at all – in oil or otherwise. The bankrupt Venezuelan government owes China $20 billion in interest payments over the next decade, according to estimates by the country’s commerce ministry. China has refused to extend the grace period on the debt it is owed and advanced President Maduro a mere $5 billion to keep his government going for a few months.
At the same time, the Chinese are establishing ties to the pretender to the presidency of Venezuela, Juan Guaido, the president of the National Assembly who has declared himself interim president. The U.S. and 53 other countries have recognized Mr. Guaido as Venezuela’s rightful leader. China, along with Russia, have criticized the aggressive sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the Trump administration; but they have not taken any further steps to bolster Maduro.
Traditionally, China has not made its investments or loans conditional on political stances or macroeconomic policies. Its position has contrasted sharply with that of multinational agencies, which put numerous fiscal and budgetary conditions on the loans they offer, and the U.S., which frequently pushes for political changes. In Venezuela, China’s approach appears to have gotten its banks and investors into serious trouble. In Ecuador, it also created problems when the government changed and accused previous officials of taking bribes from the Chinese for infrastructure deals. Those projects are now on hold while the current government carries out investigations.
Lithium
Another factor that indicates China is holding onto its long-term strategic goals in Latin America is its focus on investments in the lithium deposits found in the vast salt flats of the “Lithium Triangle.” The region extends from northwestern Argentina to northeastern Chile and into southwestern Bolivia. In February, Tibet Summit Resources, a Chinese company, purchased a Canadian mining company’s holding in Potasio y Litio de Argentina S.A. (PLASA) which had a concession in the Diablillos area to the northwest of the city of Salta, the capital of the eponymous province.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Export-Import Bank is financing the largest solar field in Latin America in Jujuy, just to the north of Salta, in the Cauchari field. The goal is to install 1.2 million solar panels there, making it one of the largest solar plants in the world.
It is no accident that the solar plant overlaps with a Chinese investment in the lithium fields. Chinese presence in one area enhances its influence in the other. China’s lithium strategy in South America is extremely aggressive, as evidenced by Tianqi Lithium’s above-mentioned purchase of a stake in Chilean mining firm SQM, which produces significant quantities of the mineral. For decades, China has considered control of the global lithium market a strategic goal. It used its ability to sway the market as a weapon against Japan just 20 years ago when it was the principal supplier of the refined metal to the Japanese electronics industry. While bickering over the Senkaku or Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea, the Chinese government blocked exports of lithium to Japan for more than three months, closing the Japanese producers for that period. There is no reason to believe that it would not use its leverage again, if necessary. It is important to underline that the Chinese have done everything possible to block or slow refining capacity of rare earths in producing countries. Chile is the only country in Latin America that is discussing the possibility of establishing a refinery on its territory. Here, the Chinese have indicated they would like to be part of the action.
Scenarios
The most likely prospect is that China will continue the more cautious involvement in Latin America that it adopted in 2018. As long as commodity prices continue to recover from their recent lows, the major producers will be only too happy to maintain their close relations with their principal market, China. At the same time, one can expect strategic investments in smaller countries in the region from some semi-official Chinese lenders. Recent examples include such support for projects in the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica.
In a less likely scenario, the tariff dispute between China and the U.S. would flare up again in the coming months, causing Beijing to lower its profile in Latin America so as not to further aggravate its relations with Washington. In the short term, this will not bother any of the commodity producers in Latin America, several of whom are likely to benefit from the bilateral tension between the world’s two largest economies.
Chinese involvement in Latin America must be put into a larger geopolitical context. The ongoing trade difficulties with the U.S are far more significant than the stake in any single country in Latin America or the region as a whole. For the moment, the Trump administration has little interest in the region other than migration and what the Cuban-American advisors who dominate the formulation of Latin American policy in Washington insist are the critical issues, which for them would be Cuba, Venezuela, and, to a lesser degree, Nicaragua. Drug trafficking is also important to the U.S., so there is some pressure on Colombia to do more to reduce the flow of drugs north. However, the Chinese have no significant interests in Colombia. Political instability in Argentina and Brazil have led Chinese companies to slow their infrastructure projects in those countries, following the lead of other major investors, such as the U.S. and Europeans.
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Joseph S. Tulchin is a Latin Americanist specializing in hemispheric security and international affairs. After teaching for twenty-five years at Yale and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for sixteen years he directed a program of public policy research on Latin America at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
In another of his characteristic messages via Twitter, US President Donald Trump declared his army’s capacity to use “obliteration” fire power against Iran if necessary and in case of war between the two countries. Further, Trump’s claimed that such a war won’t last “very long”. Both statements suggest that the US administration recognizes its incapacity to defeat or face Iran with conventional fire power; hence Trump seems to advert to the possibility of using tactical nuclear bombs against Iran as the US did in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon 2006 (uranium based weapons). He also told the press that no exit plan, no Plan B is necessary.
Trump is telling the world that the US believes Iran will surrender in a short time after the beginning of a possible war, showing that history is meaningless to US officials who made the same assumptions in previous wars, particularly in Afghanistan and its attempted regime-change in Syria. But how will Iran respond and what options are left to Iran today?
There is little doubt that Trump’s administration is fixated on US military power, rather than exploring all possible scenarios and the prospects for Iranian retaliation. If Trump goes to war, the Middle East will face dire circumstances that Trump seems not to be taking into account.
When President George W. Bush launched “Operation Enduring Freedom” in 2001 he believed his war in Afghanistan would be a walk in the park; still today, President Trump is negotiating with Taliban a way to end this ongoing war. Moreover, President Barack Obama and UN officials believed the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s fall would be a “matter of time”. Trump is saying that he would bomb Iran rather than send troops to occupy any part of Iran, whether on the coast or inland, thus limiting his intervention to destroying a previously agreed-on bank of objectives.
Trump’s administration seems to believe that a quick and decisive bombing would be enough to convince Iran to swallow its pride, no matter how painful that would be, and drag its feet to the negotiation table. But it may be that Iran could absorb the first wave of bombing, no matter how painful, and launch cruise missiles against US targets, and the airports and oil facilities of the country from where the bombing was launched.
A US attack would no doubt destroy Iran’s oil facilities, missile launching bases, part of its military industry and would cause many Iranian human casualties. But US servicemen will also lose their lives and the price of oil will skyrocket, spoiling Trump’s electoral chances. The US is not taking into account Iranian missile capabilities, and the possibility Iran might have tactical nuclear missiles with enriched uranium, similar to those Israel used against Lebanon in the 2006 war. Moreover, if Iran is hit badly, how can the US stop Iran’s allies from bombing Israel, attacking US embassies and bases in Lebanon and Iraq, and targeting US troops in Syria? Significant retaliation is certain when all the gloves come off.
Iran has been supporting its allies in the Middle East for a decade now and it would be illogical not to expect their support to be forthcoming in the extreme case of a direct attack on Iran. There will be no concern about world reaction to the revelation of Iran’s hidden capabilities when the death toll starts rising and the destruction becomes devastating. That could very well be Iran’s Plan B, an option that Trump seems oblivious to.
The US may use unconventional weapons against Iran, which will elicit global indignation. The internet today makes possible instant access to information around the world. Using unconventional weapons will rekindle the world’s memory of the atomic bombs dropped by the US over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. During World War II, the US faced no accountability because the world was at war. Today the situation is very different and Trump is facing an internal political split, an electoral campaign, and the signatories to the JCPOA deal who oppose Trump’s revocation of the deal under the guidance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Iran is not alone even if its officials decide on the 7th of July to raise tensions and partially withdraw from the JCPOA. China has rejected the US sanctions on Iran. Russia is strongly opposing Trump’s decision by importing Iranian oil, and Europe may be moving to implement and activate its monetary system INSTEX before Iran makes a partial withdrawal.
So far, there is a debate in Iran whether to give Europe an additional short delay to see if INSTEX will be applied and will support the Iranian economy, or whether Europe, as the Iranian Leader warned his officials, “should not be trusted”.
Iran is stockpiling a large quantity of heavy water and centrifuges (even modernising these from IR-1 to IR-6 and heading towards IR-8). Trump is preventing Iran from exporting the excess so that Iran can be accused of violating the JCPOA. However, what Trump doesn’t seem to realise that he is giving Iran yet another card to play. Europe, eager to prevent Iran from attaining military grade nuclear capability, will offer to ease the export restrictions on the excess heavy water and centrifuges. But Iran will not accept this cherry-picking of what can be exported and what it can’t. This again will put the spotlight on Trump’s decision to shred the nuclear deal, unless sanctions are lifted on Iran or other partners emerge who will do business with Iran.
When Trump launched his threat of “obliteration”, he forced Iranian pragmatists and radicals alike to think twice about the Leader’s Fatwa that Iran should not possess nuclear bombs. Israel, Pakistan and India, countries proximate to Iran, all have nuclear bombs. On the other hand, the prevailing argument in Iran today is that a small group, like Hezbollah, stopped Israel, a nuclear country with dozens of bombs, from attaining its objectives in 2006. Technology, air superiority, a larger army and dozens of bases surrounding Iran do not guarantee a quick US victory, or even victory after a longer conflict. Afghanistan and Iraq are the best examples. The question is: for how long can Iran restrain itself and keep from acquiring nuclear bombs if its enemy – Donald Trump – continues to wave the threat of obliteration against it?
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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
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, during which the Ayatollahs took control of the country and brought down the Shah’s absolutist monarchy. The Iranian masses, who were undergoing various ideological changes at the time, overthrew the Shah’s corrupt and oppressive regime.
Much has been written over the years about Israel’s ties with Mohammad Reza Shah and his dictatorship. When it was convenient for the IDF censor and political and security officials in Israel, information — even secret documents from that period — was revealed to the general public.
Recently, files from the Foreign Ministry regarding relations with Iran have been declassified and can now be found in Israel’s State Archives. These include more than 10,000 pages from 1953 until 1979, which were heavily censored when compared to similar files in cases of other countries.
The documents expose Israel’s extensive and exceptional relations with a foreign country, not only because these political and security-based relations were with with a Muslim country, but because the relationship with the Shah’s dictatorship was strategic and central to the State of Israel from a security, economic and political point of view. At the time, Israel’s relations with many other countries were limited mainly to weapons sales in exchange for votes in international forums.
Thus, for example, Israel purchased a significant portion — and in some years all — of its oil from the Shah’s regime, while Iran used Israel as a middleman to sell its oil to third countries. The alliance over oil required that Israel and the Shah ensure the safety of shipping routes. This strengthened their partnership in the struggle against Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser’s repeated attempts to promote ideological and military alliances throughout the Middle East that were hostile to Iran and Israel, particularly in the Gulf states and the Arabian Peninsula.
Private and state-owned Israeli companies, ranging from textiles, agriculture, electrical appliances, water, fertilizers, construction, aviation, shipping, gas, tires and even dentures, had been operating extensively in Iran. In some years, Iran was one of the main destinations for Israeli exports. Meanwhile, Israeli academia also enjoyed relatively extensive cooperation with academics in Iran.
The Shah Never Officially Recognized Israel
Iran de facto recognized the State of Israel in March 1950, but in light of internal pressure by those who opposed Israel and the Shah’s pro-Western and pro-American policies — as well as external pressure by Arab states — Iran avoided officially recognizing Israel.
The Shah did have “secret” representation in Tel Aviv beginning in 1961, and Israel had permanent representation in Tehran, which at one point became an embassy that included military attachés. Due to the sensitive nature of the agreement, Israeli representatives in Iran generally refrained from conducting relations with the Shah regime through bureaucrats in the Foreign Ministry and other government ministries. Instead, it carried out its business through a narrow circle of Shah loyalists and politicians, as well as the top echelons of Iran’s defense establishment. Sometimes those relations were conducted directly with the Shah himself and his Royal Court minister.
Over the years, Israel attempted to hide its involvement in the security apparatuses and the suppression meted out by the Shah, yet the Iranian public was well aware of Israel’s aid to the regime. In particular was Israel’s close ties with the Shah’s security service, SAVAK, which was responsible for the political persecution, torture and murder of the monarch’s political opponents.
Given the breadth of relations between the two countries, I will focus on documents relating to Israeli assistance to the security apparatuses and the suppression by the Shah’s dictatorship, which would eventually lead to his downfall. These documents attest to the depth of Israeli involvement in the regime, Israel’s strategic importance to this relationship, and the fear of the consequences of the Shah’s fall — a concern that became palpable in the years before the end of his rule.
Stability Through Oppression
Israeli awareness of the Shah’s oppressive policies is evident from a telegram sent on April 22, 1955 by the Israeli embassy in London. The telegram describes an Iranian diplomat who tells his Israeli interlocutor that the Iranian government is banning communism everywhere, and that the Americans are satisfied with these actions.
Eight years later, on September 9, 1963, Director of the Middle East Department at Israel’s Foreign Ministry Nathaniel Lorch wrote that the traditional religious processions that took place that month had turned into mass demonstrations against the Shah’s regime, and that the government “was surprised by the use of religious demonstrations for political protest. The riots spread to a number of towns. The government used great force to suppress the riots and officially announced that 86 were killed and 193 were wounded. The last few days passed quietly. The regime controls the situation in both Tehran and its provinces.”
Lorch claimed that
“the anti-Israel chants by the demonstrators made up a small part of all the slogans, and in the meantime the anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli tone has completely disappeared.” Lorch further noted that “any attempt to present Israeli-Persian relations as a cause for events should be thwarted.”
According to a January 3, 1964 report prepared by Dr. Zvi Doriel, the head of the Israeli delegation in Tehran:
“The internal stability and exclusive reign of the Shah achieved by the suppression of religious and other opponents of the regime in June, as well as by what the regime views as a successful election season, continues without significant disturbance. The process of the disintegration of the National Front [the nationalist coalition that opposed the Shah — E.M.] continues.”
The Shah, according to Israeli reports, also leaned heavily on the ruling Iran Novin Party while fostering a semblance of opposition. According to a November 25, 1964 survey by Israel Haviv of the Middle East Department of the Foreign Ministry, instead of maintaining a one-state system ruled by Iran Novin, the Shah supported the continued existence of the People’s Party as a fictitious opposition party that would imbue parliamentary life in Iran with a more democratic character.
The Iranians Can Stifle Any Resistance Movement
In a meeting on December 19, 1964 between Foreign Minister Abba Eban and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aram, the latter praised the relations between Israel and Iran and said that there was no other country with which Iran’s relations were so close. Meanwhile, the Iranians preferred to keep the relationship quiet. Meir Ezri, an Israeli representative in Tehran, reported in a missive sent on May 5, 1965 about a meeting he held with the foreign minister, in which Aram complained about the public nature of Israel’s activities in the country, saying it may harm Iran’s relations with Arab countries.
Ezri replied to the minister, saying that
“Israel’s general interest in the Middle East is the existence of a sovereign and prosperous Iran headed by the Shah, who is considered a friend of Israel… We do not believe that the Arabs will ever be friends with Iran despite all Iranian efforts. Our friendship obliges us to bring to Iran’s attention what we know about the Arab efforts aimed at the most vital Iranian interests.”
Israel, as noted, was aware of the murderous suppression of the Iranian opposition. David Turgeman, who was part of the Israeli mission in Iran, reported on January 27, 1966 that the leaders of the communist Tudeh Party had been sentenced to death in absentia, part of a larger trend of putting opposition members on trial. A few months later on July 21, Turgeman reported that the Shah and the top echelons of the government were confident and that “there is no internal danger posed by left-wing oppositionists, and that security forces can stifle any resistance or underground movement.”
Top Iranian military officials Hasan Toofanian and Bahram Ariana with some Israeli officers in headquarters of Israel Defense Forces in 1975 (State of Israel via Wikimedia Commons)
Turgeman had no doubt about the nature of the regime. In a March 8, 1967 survey he wrote, in conjunction with the Shah’s family protection reforms, that “we must admit that the new law is a classic example of the benefits of a regime of enlightened absolutism.”
The IDF Attaché Is the Hero of the Day
This did not prevent Israel from seeing Iran as a matter of substance. In a survey prepared on February 23, 1966, Director of the Foreign Ministry’s Middle East Department Mordechai Gazit wrote that
“in some respects it was said that Iran-Israel relations are a kind of unwritten secret alliance that gives Israel a range of advantages in the fields of the economy, security, the Middle East and anti-Nasserism.”
Gazit added that Israel is engaged in “the renovation of Iranian Air Force planes and civil aviation aircrafts with full and large compensation… Israeli experts were employed in the anti-Nasser Persian propaganda… very close intelligence cooperation through taking full advantage of the Iranian territory… Close cooperation between the IDF and the Iranian army… The attachés are in daily contact with the Iranian general staff, and this is, in fact, without unnecessary modesty… An Iranian purchase from IMI Systems, in addition to the “Uzi” deals and the other acquisitions are in advanced stages of discussion.”
The published documents do not detail the content of the partnership between Israel and the notoriously despised SAVAK. However, the documents do include a breakdown of military cooperation. For example, according to a telegram from January 4, 1967, the Iranian prime minister asked the Israeli military attaché in Tehran, Colonel Ya’akov Nimrodi, to coordinate the training of the head of his bodyguards. In a conversation held a month later with Meir Ezri, the Israeli representative in Tehran, the prime minister told Ezri that “he instructed the commander of the gendarmerie to purchase an Uzi submachine gun and approved the necessary budget for doing so in accordance with the request of the IDF attaché in Tehran.”
Two months later, on April 13, then-Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin spoke with the Shah, who was interested in Israeli planes and tanks, and was “knowledgeable about what was going on and particularly on the security/military level” when it came to Israeli-Iranian cooperation.
A review by Israeli Ambassador in Tehran, Dr. Zvi Dorel, on August 29, 1967, read as follows:
“We have established a close, friendly, and practical partnership between the IDF and the security services and their Iranian counterparts, with joint execution of programs and missions of national importance, with continuous mutual visits by the heads of the armed forces and their senior officials.”
“Various security problems vital to Israel have been solved in close cooperation with the Iranians,” Dorel continued. “The military attaché is recognized by the general staff and the Iranian Foreign Ministry, it maintains extensive relations with the Iranian army and deals with an impressive list of issues of national importance and enjoys special fondness by the Iranian military circles… They conducted advanced negotiations regarding the purchase of Israeli-made products and BEDEC programs to the tune of millions of dollars… Israeli chiefs of staff and the head of the security services have met with the Shah several times… the Iranian army views the IDF and the security services as allies and those involved in making contact and professional issues… Colonel Nimrodi, an IDF attaché, was a hero today among the army circles.”
The Shah in Israeli Gossip Columns
According to a telegram dated December 27, 1967 (it is unclear who sent it):
“Prominent Israeli presence was accepted by the Iranian public as a fact that cannot be annulled… Iran views the ‘revolutionary’ Arab regimes not only as the source of extreme Arab nationalism but also as a threat to the royal regime. This is convenient and encouraging not only in the intimate relations between our security services and those of Iran, but also in the diplomatic realm in Western capitals, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom, and even in coordination and cooperation in the Middle East (vis-à-vis the Kurds and Yemen).”
Nevertheless, despite the close relations, the Shah’s regime did not particularly like these relations — or criticism of the regime — to be publicized. The Shah’s inner circle repeatedly objected to Israeli media reports about both the relationship between the two countries as well the hedonism of the royal family. For example, in August 1967 the Iranian Foreign Ministry protested a gossip article published in LaIsha, an Israeli lifestyle magazine for women, about the Shah’s family, even though the Israeli representative in Tehran explained that it was “a magazine of no importance that is mainly read by teenage girls.”
According to a telegram sent by Y. Margolin on September 13, 1967, the Foreign Ministry examined the possibility of appealing to the Attorney General to initiate criminal proceedings against LaIsha and to require any gossip published about the Shah’s family to first be approved by the IDF censor.
According to a telegram sent in August 1972 by Ambassador Ezri to the director general of the Ministry of Defense, the negotiations over the purchase of Israeli tanker aircrafts by the Shah’s dictatorship were progressing. A report prepared by the Foreign Ministry on Israel’s defense exports to the dictatorship on October 29 of that year reveals that between 1968 and 1972, IMI Systems sold $20.9 million worth of equipment to Iran; Israel Aerospace Industries sold $1.3 million; Soltam sold $16.9 million in mortars; Motorola sold $12 million; Tadiran sold $11.3 million and set up a radio equipment factory in Iran; and Israel’s Defense Ministry sold $700,000 worth of equipment.
A United Front against Communism
A letter dated June 28, 1973 by the Finance Ministry’s deputy supervisor of foreign exchange to the deputy director general of the International Defense Cooperation Directorate of the Israel Ministry of Defense stated that,
“Recently, Israeli officials have increased their activity in Iran, including: production units of the IDF and our Ministry of Defense, the Air Industry, Tadiran, Motorola, and others who are trying to sell their services and products to the Iranian army, the Iranian Ministry of Defense and similar government agencies.”
“The spectrum of activity is broad, ranging from the supply of military products and electronics manufactured by factories in Israel, to the export of systems for creating and assembling them on the spot, training, surveys, construction, assembling and maintenance of facilities on the ground through contractors. From what has been brought to our attention, we see that the activities of various Israeli bodies are similar and perhaps even overlapping,” the deputy supervisor wrote.
Iranian police received training in operating communications equipment at Motorola in Israel, but according to a telegram sent on July 2, 1975 by A. Levin from the Israeli mission in Tehran to the Foreign Ministry’s Agency for International Development Cooperation, the Iranians requested to “receive full training in Israeli police facilities.” Levin recommended that the request be accepted and eventually informed the Foreign Ministry that “Israel Police agrees to accept under its auspices and responsibility the course for Iranian liaison officers,” and that the theoretical part of the course will include “tours to police facilities.”
These relations existed at the highest level. Prime Minister Golda Meir met with the Shah in 1972, and in a May 19 report she said that the Shah “thinks that the relations and cooperation between countries that stand against communism should be strengthened: Persia, Israel, Turkey and Ethiopia.” Two years later, when Meir resigned and Yitzhak Rabin took over, the new Israeli prime minister also visited Iran. According to a telegram from December 8, 1974, Rabin met with the head of the Iranian security services.
The Beginning of the End
It was during those years that Israel began to believe that the regime was unstable. In a report prepared by the Foreign Ministry on September 11, 1972, shortly after Meir’s visit to Tehran, it was noted that “social unrest is manifest among students and intellectuals, and the stability of the regime is maintained through policing.” Four years later, in June 1976, Israel already understood that the Shah was in trouble.
A telegram sent at the time by Israeli Ambassador Uri Lubrani stated that the Shah’s liberalization policy, which included the assumption of powers from SAVAK, led to “the opportunistic elements that until recently had been underground or dormant to take advantage of this and begin expressing their opposition to the regime.” This forced the Shah to return some of SAVAK’s authority in an effort to control the situation.
Ambassador Lubrani added that
“the feeling of many in Iran today is that the status of the Shah has begun to be quickly undermined, a process that cannot be reversed and will eventually lead to his defeat and a drastic change in the form of government in Iran. It is very difficult to give a time estimate and my personal assessment, which is not based on any objective data, is that this will take place more or less in the next five years. There is no answer to the question of who or what will replace the current regime. It is reasonable to assume that the monarchy will end and that, at least in the first stage, the military officers will take its place. The big question is who will lead them and what direction he will take.”
As for the consequences for the State of Israel, Ambassador Lubrani wrote that
“the implications of a new situation for Israel-Iran relations should the Shah’s rule be undermined are grave, and the current regime of the Shah will be seen as the most positive one for Israel in Iran. Any change in this government will, to the best of our assessment, be to the detriment of our relations with this country.”
Lubrani also that Israel had extensive activities in Iran at the time, including “relationships surrounding the oil supply from Iran (both to supply itself and the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline), and oil sales such as security-related projects,” and that “the security arrangements that were recently signed create an Israeli commitment to Iran vis-a-vis sensitive areas, as well as Iranian financial commitments that are significant for our national economy.”
As time went on, Israel became increasingly concerned about the fate of the regime. Two years later, on August 14, 1978, Lubrani sent a telegram to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem in which he painted a bleak picture of the Shah’s future. The ambassador met with Deputy Police Chief Ja’afri, who told Lubrani that “in the short term he does not anticipate difficulties in maintaining law and order and believes that the military regime is capable of dealing with any attempt at rebellion. On the other hand, he believes that this situation cannot continue indefinitely and that if the government does not take far-reaching measure to change the system of governance and its priorities, the existing regime will collapse.”
Ja’afri believed that the Shah was unaware of his true situation. He also criticized the head of SAVAK for “not introducing changes into the system that the people themselves have hated for years.” Ja’afri claimed that the regime made a mistake when it used the army and “caused many casualties,” while noting “the special relations we had with him and promised to help if necessary.”
The Last Hope
A month and a half later, on September 28, Lubrani reported to the Foreign Ministry that he had met with the Shah in light of the huge demonstrations that sought to oust his regime, during which Shah reiterated his claims that the communists were responsible for the demonstrations. When the Shah asked Lubrani about the identity of his interlocutor, Lubrani answered that “on political matters I have always acted, if not in tandem the head of SAVAK, then through the Royal Court minister or Tufanian (Deputy Minister of Defense – E.M.).”
Lubrani summarized the meeting:
“I have a difficult impression of the man. He is not the man we were familiar with, he was distant and sometimes stares. There is no doubt that the man has gone through a nightmare from which he has yet to fully recover. He is full of terror and uncertain of the future. The most worrisome aspect is the sense that he seems to have made peace with his fate, without having found any strong desire to take matters into his own hands and change it. I will add that it is possible that I found the Shah in a temporary moment of gloom.”
Israel did not want to lose its stronghold in Iran under any circumstance. If the Shah was to be deposed, Israel hoped that a military regime would take his place. In a telegram from December 30, 1978, Director of the Middle East Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Yael Vered writes that the best option for the State of Israel is “extreme toughness by the army and the establishment of a military regime and a real military government. Whether initiated by the army in the form of a military coup or with the Shah through tacit consent on his part.”
On January 4, 1979, in a last-ditch attempt to bring calm to the streets of the country, the Shah appointed Shapour Bakhtiar as prime minister. Israel, however, had no illusions about his ability to govern. Four days later, Vered sent a telegram to Israeli missions around the world saying that Bakhtiar’s government had no public support and was in danger of collapsing.
Vered wrote that the Shah and Bakhtiar had reached an understanding about the Shah going on “holiday leave,” but “the length of time and who will decide on his return remains a question and may lead to crises in the future. The Shah continues to symbolize the unity of Iran, and the loyalty of the army to him, even today and despite the number of cracks, is undoubted.”
Vered estimated that if Khomeini and his supporters took power, relations with Israel would come to an end. Yet she maintained hope that the army would take over and that Iran would see “another form of government like the current one or a more convenient army, and it is likely that the presence (of Israel – E.M.) will initially continue under a lower profile.” Vered’s hopes did not come to fruition, and on January 16 the Shah fled Iran.
On February 11, about a week after Khomeini returned from exile to Iran, the Israeli government decided to evacuate its remaining representatives in Tehran, especially Ambassador Yossef Harmelin, while at the same time examining the possibility of leaving an Israeli representative so as to not completely sever ties with the new regime.
“The foreign minister instructed the director-general, after the Mossad announced the evacuation of our people, to examine the possibility of leaving a person in a diplomatic appointment so as not to cut the wire,” the cable said. “There will be no official announcement of leaving. If Harmelin leaves – he will be in danger should he be imprisoned, due to the fact that he was the former head of the Shin Bet.”
The Masses Can Bring Down a Regime with Tanks
Yet Israel still held out hope for the new regime. Three days later, Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan met with the Japanese ambassador to Israel. A report sent to the Israeli embassy in Tokyo shows Dayan told the diplomat that “the current stage (in Iran – E.M.) is not final and is a transition into a new period. There is concern that the influence of extreme leftists will grow, and that in addition to the religious sea change, xenophobia will also spread.”
Yet, according to Dayan, Iran will still need foreigners to operate its sophisticated weaponry, especially after the Americans had left. Minister Dayan further expressed his concern for the fate of the Jewish community in Iran, arguing that “one must worry about the influence of the events in Iran on other countries in the area, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Sudan, and Morocco, who also do not respect civil rights.”
On the same day, Dayan spoke with U.S. Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, who according to the protocol told the Israeli minister that “the United States does not feel guilt about what happened to the Shah, since the Shah failed to develop a managerial class below him that would shoulder some of the responsibility, and if everything in his country was in his hands, then his mistakes were his alone. There was also the problem of corruption. The revolution in Iran has reached the masses. There is a strong sense of nationalism. One can hope that the Iranians will understand the main factors in their national interest and act accordingly.”
But beyond concerns about the loss of an Israeli “outpost” in Iran, Israel had other no less serious concerns: the fear that the masses in the Middle East would imitate the Iranians and overthrow their own regimes. According to the minutes of a meeting of deputy directors-general held on the same day Dayan spoke with Brown, Pinchas Eliav, director of political research at the Foreign Ministry, said that the serious issue is that “the social-economic-public character of the upheaval proved that the street and the masses could bring down a regime with tanks, the most modern weaponry, and an air force.”
“All these forces stood before a street that is nevertheless a street (perhaps Khomeini had some agents and some communist intervention), incitement, and ideology, and the masses succeeded in overthrowing the regime. This is, in my opinion, a harbinger of danger to all the regimes in the region, including the radical ones.”
Neither Israel nor the United States have never taken responsibility for their continued support of the dictatorship and their support for the Shah in crushing the left and the progressive elements in Iran. Their conduct was instrumental in the establishment of the dictatorship of the Ayatollahs.
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Eitay Mack is an Israeli human rights lawyer working to stop Israeli military aid to regimes that commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. This article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here. Reprinted, with permission, from +972 Magazine.
It’s been a little over half a year since the right-wing leader took office, but already Bolsonaro has made Brazil a pretty bleak place to live, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to get better anytime soon.
Nobody denies that Bolsonaro inherited a terrible socio-economic situation upon entering office at the beginning of this year, but he hasn’t done much to improve it in the past half year since he’s been in power.
His unexpected rise to the country’s top political post came about as a result of the US’ Hybrid War on Brazil, which aimed to create the conditions that would make the country’s return to leftist leadership impossible while simultaneously turning the South American giant into Washington’s regional “Lead From Behind” proxy through the fast-moving military-strategic, and possibly soon even economic, partnership that’s made rapid progress during this time. Geopolitically speaking, Trump can’t fulfill his “Fortress America” vision of restoring the US’ unrivaled hemispheric dominance without controlling Brazil, hence the importance of keeping Bolsonaro in power, or at least long enough for him to carry out radical reforms that make this state of affairs irreversible.
Brazil is already on the path to becoming a “Major Non-NATO Ally” (MNNA), whether formally so or unofficially in practice, which will turn the rising Great Power into a platform for projecting the US’ military power all throughout the region. This has yet to directly affect the lives of ordinary Brazilians and has therefore gone largely unnoticed by most, but it’s this partnership with the Pentagon that could ensure that Bolsonaro’s neoliberal economic policies become set in stone. The right-wing leader is trying to push through a very controversial pension reform that’s already provoked massive protests and a 45 million-person strike a few weeks ago, but this explosion of grassroots resistance still might not be enough to get the government to reconsider even though the demonstrators have joined forces with anti-government ones who are enraged by The Intercept’s leaked revelations proving that there was indeed a conspiracy to convict former President Lula.
On top of all this, Bolsonaro also wants to slash university funding in order to eliminate what he believes are “communist cells” embedded in this institution but which might very well lead to less opportunities for Brazil’s already underprivileged population if less educational options become available to them in the future. The country’s economy is already stagnating according to the state’s latest official report in this respect, and while one might be inclined to think that the government’s neoliberal policies and promised privatizations might attract more outside investors, that actually hasn’t been the case thus far. The prevailing uncertainty unleashed after the US’ Hybrid War opened up the Pandora’s Box of political unrest naturally scares international businessmen who aren’t sure whether it’s worth the risk to get involved at this point.
The possible clinching of a free trade deal between the Brazilian-led Mercosur and the EU in the near future might restore some macroeconomic hopes to the country, but it might also endanger the US’ plans to reach its own with the South American bloc too, potentially leading to more Hybrid War pressure to derail this development. In addition, Bolsonaro’s Brazil has tried to distance itself a bit from “fellow” BRICS member China on the pretext that its partner is taking advantage of it through lopsided agreements but which many suspect might also be a sign of fealty to the US. Whether Bolsonaro likes it or not, trade ties with China are exceptionally important for Brazil, and this signal of intent (which to his credit he has yet to implement on the scale that he promised during the campaign) has raised further worries about his country’s economic future.
Forgotten amidst all this socio-economic and political fretting is the fact that rainforest deforestation has risen over the past six months since Bolsonaro entered office, probably driven by people who feel emboldened by his plans to axe an environmental panel that protects this global treasure and also allow the mining of a vast reserve of it. The consequences of this trend getting out of control could truly be catastrophic for the entire world, yet there seems to be little interest in stopping it, let alone any practical proposals for doing so. Altogether, it’s not an exaggeration to say that Brazil has become a pretty bleak place to live ever since Bolsonaro took power, and while he veritably inherited a real mess (which was preexisting but exacerbated by the US’ Hybrid War), he hasn’t done anything to fix it and has only made it worse.
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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.
First published by Global Research on June 24, 2017
“He [FBI Director James Comey] was fired because he was investigating the White House… This is the kind of thing that goes on in non-democracies.”Jeffrey Toobin (1960- ), legal analyst and former U.S. federal prosecutor, on CNN, Tues., May 9, 2017
“I’m trying to avoid the conclusion that we’ve become Nicaragua.” General Michael Hayden (1945- ), former head of the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, Wed., May 10, 2017
“War is too serious a thing to be entrusted to military men.”Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929), French Prime minister, 1906-1909 and 1917-1920, in 1932
On Monday, June 12 2017, in his first public cabinet meeting, Trump is seen accepting a North-Korean-style pledge from his sycophant Cabinet members, on live television, after he had praised himself profusely. This was eerie: Watching all these secretaries humiliating themselves in lavishly praising the self-appointed ‘Great One’. They all echoed Trump’s Chief of Staff Reince Priebus who said:
“We thank you for the opportunity and blessing to serve your agenda.”
This was quite a totalitarian show, rarely seen in a democracy, but common in a dictatorship.
These secretaries (billionaires, CEOs, generals, etc.) were not saying that they were serving the people of the United States and its Constitution, to the best of their capabilities. No, instead, in a junta-like style, they said that they were serving the person of Donald Trump, above. all, not unlike the Cabinet appointees in North Korea are serving dictator Kim Jong-un. And, what is even worse, maybe, none of them thought of resigning, after being asked to shred any sense of self-respect in public, in the most servile manner.
This marked the day when the most skeptical among political observers had to realize that president Donald Trump is officially a would-be dictator in the making. As the popular saying goes,
“if it looks like aduck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck”.
Very soon after his inauguration, Donald Trump began governing in authoritative way, issuing decree after decree, while attacking the press and the courts that stood in his way. Now, he seems to want the entire U.S. government to be at his personal service.
On February 17, I wrote a piece entitled “The Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump: a Threat to American Democracy and an Agent of Chaos in the World?” — Indeed, scandal after scandal, outrageous statements upon outrageous statements, insults after insults, falsehoods after falsehoods and self-serving idiosyncrasies after self-serving idiosyncrasies, Trump has confirmed the apprehensions of many, and he has clearly become “a threat to American democracy and an agent of chaos in the world”. One has to be blind or fanatically partisan not to see that.
A Possible Challenge to the U.S. Constitution
TheU.S. Constitutionwas adopted officially on September 17, 1787, 230 years ago, and came into force in 1789. That makes American democracy one of the oldest in the world. Its constitution’s main idea is the separation of powers and the rule of law, with checks and balances, a political doctrine originating in the writings of 18th century French social and political philosopher Montesquieu (1689-1755). More precisely, the U.S. Constitution states that the president, for example, can be removed for treason, bribery, or “other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” under the authority of the U.S. Congress.
However, the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates (c. 469/470 BCE–399 BCE) was reported to have said to Plato (428-348 B.C.):
“Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of liberty”.
What Socrates meant by these words, of course, is that democracy, notwithstanding its merits, is not a permanent form of government, but it is always threatened in its existence by the advent of tyranny, by autocratic or authoritative rule by a single person, a would-be dictator, by an oligarchy, which is the tyranny of a minority, or by the tyranny of a majority against minorities, when there are no legal protections for the individual or for groups, and it thus requires a constant vigilance on the part of citizens.
American Father of the Constitution George Mason (1725-1792) was also worried about democracy “when the same man, or set of men, holds the sword and the purse.” He feared that this could mean “an end to Liberty”.
Thomas Jefferson (Source: Pinterest)
Nevertheless, the writer of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), was more optimistic. He was confident that the U.S. Constitution was strong enough to prevent a would-be dictator or an oligarchy to usurp absolute power when he wrote, in 1798:
“in questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution”.
Was Thomas Jefferson too optimistic regarding the constraints a constitution imposes on people in power when the latter control money and the means of propaganda? Did he underestimate the possibility that political partisan interests, when a president is of the same political party that controls Congress, could, in fact, grant a sitting president, in advance, a statutory authority to violate the constitution at will, to govern by decree, or to wage wars of aggression abroad, at his discretion, without congressional due process?
Indeed, a constitution is a living document, which, as political history indicates, can be amended, circumvented or changed to fit the needs of power hungry men, when the circumstances are favorable to them. The U.S. Supreme Court, which is the final arbiter of constitutional changes, can also be subverted, or filled with persons hostile to the very principles they are sworn to uphold.
In other words, a constitution is as good as the people in power who believe in its principles. If people in power no longer believe in its principles, they will find a way to change it or circumvent it. This is major lesson of the history of democracy: Democracies do die and they can be replaced by tyrannies.
During troubled political times or dire economic times, indeed, it can be feared that charlatans, demagogues, impostors, and would-be dictators could have a field day promising the people in distress easy and quick fixes for the lingering social and economic problems, in exchange for relinquishing their freedom.
Two historical cases of “elected” dictators: In Italy in the 1920’s and in Germany in the 1930’s
Italian newspaper editor Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) ruled Italy as Prime Minister and de facto dictator for more than twenty years (1922-1943). He was elected to the Italian Parliament on May 15, 1921, and his party, thanks to an alliance with rightist parties, gained thirty-five seats. From then on, Mussolini used violent and intimidating tactics to gain power. His Fascist blackshirt-followers launched a campaign to unseat the Italian government and they organized a “march to Rome”. On October 28, 1922, the then King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, turned down the existing government’s request to declare martial law to prevent a fascist revolution. This led to the resignation of the elected government.
Then, in a most controversial decision, the King asked Mussolini to form a new right-wing coalition government, with the support of the military, and of the wealthy industrial and agrarian Italian establishments. Mussolini’s political objective was to eventually establish a totalitarian state, with himself as “Supreme leader”. Mussolini legally became dictator through a law passed on December 24, 1925, which declared him “head of the government, Prime minister and State Secretary”, with no responsibility to Parliament, but only to the King. Armed with absolute powers, Mussolini then proceeded to progressively dismantle all constitutional and conventional restraints on his power. The rest is history.
Let us also consider the case of Germany, some 85 years ago, a European democracy and the most advanced economy at the time. On January 30, 1933, in a Germany still mired in an economic depression, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was named German Chancellor and head of a coalition government, even though his political party, the National Socialist German Workers Party (the Nazi Party) had not won a majority during the 1932 elections. Nevertheless, he had profited politically from the general dissatisfaction of voters with the way things were in Germany, politically and economically, and had promised an ‘effective’ government, besides promising to stimulate the economy by rearming Germany and by establishing new alliances.
Hitler became a de facto legal dictator on March 23, 1933, when the German Parliament (the Reichstag) adopted a law (the Enabling Act), giving Hitler’s cabinet the power to enact ‘executive orders’ without the consent of the Reichstag for four years. —In effect, Hitler could govern by decree. —He became a true dictator on August 19, 1934, when a German plebiscite approved the merger of the presidency with the chancellorship, thus making Hitler Head of State and Supreme Commander of the armed forces in that country. Hitler could then freely prepare the German economy for war.
A 1934 article published in the Green Bay Press-Gazette in the U.S. explained the political rise of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) in these terms:
“Adolf Hitler… tооk advantage of the groans. Hе told people that he would make Germany ‘great’ again. Hе blamed Jews, Socialists, Communists, and others for the troubles of the land. Hіѕ blazing speeches gained followers for his ‘cause’.”
Can Donald Trump Override the U.S. Constitution?
Since the inauguration on January 20, 2017, incumbent President Donald Trump has shown a clear bent toward autocratic rule and has indicated his goal of boosting the U.S. military-industrial complex. For example, he declared on Thursday Feb 23, 2017, that he wants to build up the U.S. nuclear arsenal to ensure it is at the “top of the pack,” claiming that the United States has fallen behind in its atomic weapons capacity.
In my book, The New American Empire, I wrote,
“The same simplistic populism, the same anti-intellectualism, the same aggressive isolationism, the same xenophobia, the same militarism, and the same scorn of international laws and institutions are found in some U.S. Republican leaders today. The United States is perhaps in greater danger than many think.” (p. 224).
I believe that these words could appropriately apply to the current Trump administration. In the coming months, the United States may face its most important democratic test ever.
An ominous danger: Leaving important war and peace decisions to the military
US shoots down Syrian plane (Source: South Front)
A most reckless decision by Donald Trump was to grant American military chiefs overall control of U.S. military policy in Syria, thus leaving the U.S. military to operate in a political vacuum. Such a decision has greatly increased the risk of a military confrontation between the two main nuclear powers, the United States and Russia. A good example is the shooting down of a Syrian Air Force jetin Syria’s airspace, on Sunday June 18, 2017. This was presumably done to prevent the Syrian Army from getting directly involved in the liberation of Isis’s improvised capital Raqqa. The Syrian government is winning against the terrorist organization Isis, and that does not please the Trump administration at all.
Whatever the objective, besides the obvious hypocrisy, such an act of military aggression was clearly a violation of Syria’s sovereignty and a flagrant violation of not only international law, but also of U.S. law. It was, in fact, a premeditated act of war against a sovereign nation, with no involvement by the U.N. Security Council or by the U.S. Congress, as both international law and U.S. law require. And this was after Trump bombed, also illegally, a Syrian government air base, on Friday, April 7, 2017, on a false flag pretext. If this does not remind you of Hitler bombing Poland’s air fields on September 1st 1939, what does? Indeed, would-be dictators do not like the rule of law, domestic or international. They always look for pretexts to launch wars of aggression to fit their agenda.
The truth is that Syria does not represent a threat to the USA—just as Poland did not represent a threat to Germany in 1939—and it has not attacked the United States, just as Poland had not attacked Germany. If this conflict were to degenerate into something even more serious, Donald Trump would have to take full personal responsibility for the chaos and the human disasters to follow.
Is it necessary to point out that Russia is legally in Syria, a member of the United Nations, having been officially invited by the legitimate Syrian government to defend itself against external aggression, while the U.S. has no legal basis whatsoever to be in Syria, has no legal right to conduct military operations in that country, and, therefore, is in clear violation of Syria’s sovereignty. Why is Donald Trump anxious to escalate the civil war conflict in Syria, with the help of al Qaeda terrorists, a conflict that could evolve into WWIII? Do ordinary Americans really approve of such incoherence, knowing that al Qaeda was behind 9/11 and 3,000 American deaths?
This is another example of Donald Trump’s brinkmanship and irresponsibility in international relations. This is also a far cry from the U.S. Constitution, which vests war decisions in Congress. It is true that, since WWII, the power of the U.S. President to wage war on his own has grown appreciably. —This is no progress. But Donald Trump, who has brought numerous generals into his administration (Marine general James Mattis, Marine general Joseph F. Dunford, Marine general, John F. Kelly), is now transferring basic war decisions to military commanders. Notwithstanding the fact that the latter are clearly in a conflict of interests on this score, because the more wars they start, the more promotions they receive.
That coterie of generals now forms a sort of parallel government in the Trump administration. Donald Trump may want to hide behind them to shift the political conversation from his domestic predicaments in Washington D.C. And, a war abroad is often a convenient rallying point for an American politician who is low in the polls. In other words, an escalating war in Syria could be in Trump’s short-term personal political interest.
The main losers from Trump’s policies: the poorest among Americans
Moreover, after a presidential campaign during which he promised to help disadvantaged voters and improve social programs for the poorest Americans, once in power, Donald Trump did pretty much the reverse of what he promised. Indeed, his nominations and his policies have mostly been designed to enrich large corporations, the Military-Industrial complex and, through planned tax cuts, the super rich among Americans, while depriving average and poorer Americans of health care, education and other essential social services.
In fact, states and counties where candidate Trump received the largest backing from voters are precisely the ones set up to loose the most from the Trump administration’s proposed cuts in welfare programs. On this regard, it can be said that politician Trump could be considered an impostor, defined as
“a person who pretends to be someone else in order to deceive others.”
The newly elected president has also shown a serious lack of transparency and openness. He has tolerated that his immediate family’s wealth-seeking activities received favorable treatment from foreign governments, anxious to draw favors from the new administration. Similarly, he has not severed himself from obvious personal conflicts of interests, and he has not even released his tax returns as previous American presidents have done.
As a consequence of all of this, if the Democrats were to gain control of the House of Representatives in 2018, it is a virtual certainty that President Trump would be subjected to an impeachment procedure. Whether it will succeed is another matter. What is certain is that this will be most destabilizing for the economy.
Conclusion
Therefore, yes, a would-be dictator can be elected, most often, as history shows, with a minority of the votes. And no democratic constitution in the history of the world is totally protected against violations of its principles, if an oligarchy in power tolerates or welcomes them and when a substantial part of the population approves of them. That is why it would presumptuous for Americans to believe otherwise.
One of the issues in media reports about the looting is that no one had a firm grasp of just how much was at stake. The dollar figures amounted to guesswork.
We still don’t know exactly what’s missing. But no one had identified the value, using empirical data and systematic calculations, of the artifacts that were known to exist in these archaeological sites. Until now.
With two Near Eastern archaeologists and two art market researchers on our team, we recently published a paper in the International Journal of Cultural Property that offers the first attempt to quantify the market value of artifacts at the level of a site.
The excavated objects’ total value was larger than we had expected. We found that just a small portion of a site can yield thousands of objects, adding up to millions of dollars.
An archaeological gold mine
For the study, we examined two sites from different time periods that housed two different types of settlements. The first, Dura Europos, was a Roman garrison town on the Euphrates with a multi-ethnic population. Four years ago, when satellite images revealed that Syria’s archaeological sites were being looted on a massive scale, the shots from Dura Europos showed a Swiss-cheese landscape of pits.
The second town we studied, Tell Bi’a, in northern Syria, was a major Bronze Age capital in the second millennium B.C.
In the early decades of the 20th century, archaeologists excavated roughly 40% of Dura Europos. About 10% of Tell Bi’a was studied in the 1980s and 1990s. Records at these two sites list over 13,000 objects, excluding coins.
Using a machine learning model, we compared archaeological records and sales records of over 40,000 antiquities from auction houses, galleries and dealers to predict what these objects would sell for. The goal was to match objects observed for sale on the art market with similar objects documented in excavation records.
Based on our model, the total estimated value of all artifacts, not including coins, excavated from Dura Europos to date is US$18 million. At Tell Bi’a, the estimate is $4 million. This range is partly explained by the different sizes of the two cities and the area that was excavated. It’s also explained by market interest: Greek and Roman artifacts, which comprise the large majority of objects found at Dura Europos, fetch higher prices at auction than Bronze Age items, which make up the majority of artifacts at Tell Bi’a.
It’s important to keep in mind that these dollar figures represent just slices of two sites. The most comprehensive database of Syrian archaeological sites, assembled by archaeologist Jesse Casana and collaborators at Dartmouth College, has identified roughly 15,000 major sites in the country. Data examined by Casana’s team suggest that 3,000 of those sites experienced some looting from the start of the Syrian Civil War in April 2011 to mid-2015.
A 2014 satellite image of Dura Europos published by the American Schools of Oriental Research. The detail in the top-right shows looting holes. (Source:DigitalGlobe, Inc.)
Not every site has the artifactual density or richness of Dura Europos. But if a small portion of a single site like Tell Bi’a is capable of generating $4 million in sales – and there are 15,000 major sites – it doesn’t take much imagination to see just how much of an archaeological gold mine the country is.
Again, these dollar figures do not tell us what IS – or any other looters – actually pocketed. Our numbers project the total estimated value of recorded artifacts excavated at a particular site to date. In other words, over the past four years, IS had a treasure trove of artifacts at their disposal that they were able to pawn on a whim.
We may never know the full extent of the loss.
What’s getting sold?
What should we do with these estimates?
First, any policy that hopes to tackle archaeological looting needs reliable market estimates that highlight the scope and scale of the issue. Our findings get us closer to a point where everyone’s on the same page.
Second, our data show that small objects account for the majority of market share. At Dura Europos, 50% of the total market value was generated by objects under 13 cm long, and at Tell Bi’a by objects under 7 cm long.
These small treasures can pack a big punch on the market. We’re not the first to suggest that such finds have outsize importance in the antiquities trade, and our data indicate that policies to address the black market – at least for Syrian antiquities – should focus on objects that can fit in looters’ pockets.
Our estimates also hint at possible features of the supply chain. Pairing our observations of market sales with existing evidence of farm gate prices – the price paid to looters at the source – we found that looters are paid just a small fraction of what objects would earn at their final destination. While evidence of farm gate prices is limited, it indicates that much of the final price may be going to middlemen or dealers.
Beyond the Islamic State
However this isn’t a story solely about IS. We know that multiple groups participated in archaeological looting during the Syrian war, including the Syrian government’s own army. IS did not invent looting; the group tapped into an existing looting infrastructure and intensified its scale and productivity. Archaeological looting is a global problem, and Syria will continue to be of interest to hobby diggers, renegade excavators and thieves.
Furthermore, archaeological sites aren’t just threatened by looters: Urbanization and climate change pose just as great a danger.
Of course, the legacy of Syrian wartime looting can’t just be measured in dollars. It’s a loss of culture and of historical knowledge. Archaeologists use artifacts to connect people, ideas and customs and track historical change. When an item goes missing, the ability to braid together such a rich history becomes that much harder.
Calculating the market value of an entire ancient city might be helpful for policymakers and scholars. But it doesn’t change what Syrians and Iraqis already know all too well: You can’t put a price on history.
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Fiona Greenland is an Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Virginia
James Marroneis an Adjunct Lecturer of International Economics, Johns Hopkins University
Oya Topçuoğlu is a Lecturer, Northwestern University
Tasha Vorderstrasse is a University and Continuing Education Program Coordinator and Research Associate, University of Chicago
Featured image: A Syrian archeologist holds an artifact that was transported to Damascus for safe-keeping during the Syrian Civil War. (Source: AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Most years the annual gray whale migration along North America’s West Coast is a sure sign of spring. But this year something has gone wrong. Since January at least 167 dead whales have washed ashore from Mexico to Alaska. Scientists expect more in the weeks ahead.
One of the dead whales came to rest at the mouth of a river near my home. This was in May, in south-central Alaska. On a sunny evening my wife and I and our four-year-old daughter went out to see it.
A dead whale has a powerful stink to it, so we approached from the massive animal’s upwind side. It lays on its side in the sun, eyes closed and flukes resting flat on the silty beach. With ravens squawking from nearby cottonwoods and a bald eagle looking on from a riverside snag, we showed our daughter its blowhole, flippers, and the feathery baleen visible along the edges of its open mouth.
With the whale visible from a busy nearby road, a mix of residents and tourists came and went during our hour-long visit. Most stayed just long enough to snap a few photos. But others lingered to peer at the animal’s features or the square incisions biologists had made during their necropsy.
Scenes like this have unfolded up and down the West Coast in recent months. From Baja, Mexico, to Puget Sound to the remote shores of British Columbia, curious humans have strolled out to the continent’s edge to marvel at dead whales. Many brought their children. Some left behind flowers. And nearly everyone asked the same question my young daughter asked: “Why did the whale die?”
Why, indeed? We weren’t the only ones asking. Just a week earlier, the sudden spike led federal scientists to declare an “unusual mortality event,” triggering a special investigation.
Image on the right is from Steven Swartz/NOAA
Teasing out a common cause amidst all of these widely dispersed deaths can be daunting. Gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) have one of the longest migrations of any mammal, spanning 5,000 miles between Mexico’s Baja Peninsula and northern Alaska. This year’s dead whales have been found along nearly the whole length of their migratory route. At least 37 washed ashore in California, including twelve in San Francisco Bay. Thirty have been found in Washington. During the week of June 17 three whales discovered in Alaska brought that state’s total to ten.
Scientists say the whales on shore represent only a small portion of those that have died.
“It’s a rough calculation, but only about 10 percent of the mortalities are documented,” says John Calambokidis, a research biologist with the Cascadia Research Collective in Olympia, Washington. The remaining 90 percent, he says, either “sink, float out to sea, or otherwise go undocumented.” That means the death toll so far this year could actually be more than 1,000 individuals.
And we’re probably not done yet. Scientists expect more whales will wash ashore in the coming weeks as they continue north toward the Arctic, where they normally spend summers feasting in the rich waters of the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort seas.
Seeking Answers
Dave Weller, a research wildlife biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in La Jolla, California, says the investigation begins with examining as many of the dead whales as possible before they begin decomposing.
“If we can access a dead whale in time, we can look for evidence of disease, viruses, malnutrition, or human causes such as collisions with ships,” he says.
Scientists along the West Coast have been busy performing necropsies on the dead whales, as described in a recent video from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. They measure the body, identify the sex, and take samples of the organs, blubber and feces. Each sample is a puzzle piece, helping assemble a picture of what’s occurring along the migration route.
Weller says many of the whales show signs of malnourishment. Examinations of a female gray whale found north of Seattle in early May revealed that she had starved to death. Another dead whale in Washington had eel grass in its stomach, evidence of “desperation eating,” according to one observer.
Image below: Gray whale and calf. Steven Swartz/NOAA
So far no results have been released for the gray whale I visited near my home in Alaska.
It’s not just the dead. Observers have also reported many “extremely malnourished” gray whales swimming off the West Coast this year, according to Calambokidis. Some have detoured into inland waters such as Los Angeles Harbor or San Francisco Bay, where several have been struck and killed by vessels.
Malnourishment makes scientists look north for answers. Gray whales do almost all of their feeding in Alaska, primarily by scooping tiny shrimp-like crustaceans called amphipods from muddy sediments on the ocean floor. They then rely on the fat reserves gained in Alaskan waters to survive their southward migration and the winter mating and breeding season in Mexico.
In one theory, malnourished whales may indicate the animals have reached the natural population level for their Arctic food supply. Population surveys show a steady increase in recent decades, with estimates now at 27,000 animals. It’s a successful recovery from the early 20th century, when commercial whaling reduced numbers to less than 2,000. Some researchers speculate that this year’s mortalities simply reflect the population has outpaced its Arctic food supply, leaving some whales without the reserves needed to return to Alaska.
Another theory is that dramatic warming in the Arctic in recent years has affected the gray whales’ food source. Since 2014 sustained heating in the Bering Sea has triggered an unprecedented loss of sea ice, which may have decreased the productivity of amphipods.
It’s also possible the two theories could be working in concert with each other. When a population reaches its carrying capacity, Calambokidis explains, it can become more vulnerable to environmental fluctuations such as the sudden loss of Bering Sea ice.
If rapidly changing Arctic conditions do play a role, this year’s gray whale deaths will join a growing list of wildlife mortality events connected to warming in the north. They include a massive collapse of West Coast sea star populations, a dramatic decrease in Alaskan cod harvests, and the starvation of thousands of puffins and murres in Alaska, all related to an extreme marine heat wave that began in 2013 in the northern Gulf of Alaska and lasted more than two years. Federal scientists also suspect warming contributed to unusually high mortality among fin and humpback whales in northern waters between 2015 and 2016.
Adding to questions about food web conditions in the Arctic, scores of dead ice seals have washed ashore in recent weeks in northern and western Alaska. Federal scientists have not identified a cause, but a NOAA spokesperson said reports indicate possible malnourishment or abnormal molting among some of the seals.
Image on the right: Bearded seal. Photo: NOAA News
It’s worth noting that this year’s gray whale deaths are unusual but not unprecedented. In 2000, 131 dead gray whales washed ashore on the U.S. coast during spring migration. Scientists did not conclusively determine the cause, but at least some of the whales were malnourished. Warming from a strong El Niño weather pattern was identified as a possible factor.
While scientists seek answers to the current mass mortality, the gray whale I visited with my family a few weeks ago remains stranded at the mouth of the river. Like the ones found on shores in other states, scientists may let it decompose naturally, a process that could take all summer for this 41-foot-long male.
Before his death this whale likely spent his final months swimming north toward the promise of his Bering Sea feeding grounds. What conditions he would have found there, and how they may affect other arriving whales, for now remains a mystery.
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Tim Lydonwrites from Alaska on public-lands and conservation issues. He has worked on public lands for much of the past three decades, both as a guide and for land-management agencies. His writing has most recently appeared in High Country News, Terrain, The Revelator, The Hill and elsewhere.
The Trump-Kim meeting at DMZ on June 30 took the world off guard; it was theatrical; it was historical. It gave a glimpse of hope for long waited peace on the Korean peninsula and the falling-down of the last frontier of the unholy cold war.
Unfortunately, it seems that the media, think tanks and the political circles in the U.S. and elsewhere do not fully recognize the significance of the event.
I am asking two questions. What made the two world leaders to come to the meeting? What were the achievements of the meeting?
The objectives of the meeting can be different between Trump and Kim. We must remember how much Kim Jong-un was humiliated and angered by the failure of the Hanoi summit meeting in last February. We must remember that he took the one week-long painful train trip across China to show to the world how much he was sincere in solving the nuclear crisis.
But, he was betrayed by Trump. The Hanoi meeting has surely damaged his dignity, his pride and his leadership; he has lost his “face” in front of his people.
Since the Hanoi event, Kim had to do something to recover his leadership and find practical solutions to the nuclear issue and, at the same time, the problem of hunger and economic development.
He has taken some measures.
First, he has changed the negotiation team from the security team to the foreign affairs team possibly led by the first deputy minister of foreign affairs.
Second, this is important, Kim lost much of his faith in Washington; his mistrust about Trump, especially his advisors including John Bolton and Mike Pompeo has deepened.
Third, Kim might have abandoned the hope of freeing himself from never ending sanctions. It is possible that through the meetings with Xi Jinping and Putin, Kim has obtained the assurance for economic cooperation despite sanctions by Trump. In other words, Kim might have concluded that the relief from sanctions are not necessarily the first priority. This might have allowed Kim to meet Trump with a stronger bargaining position.
Fourth, Kim might have decided to focus, during the discussion with Trump on the preservation of his regime and national security. The regime preservation can be done through the establishment of liaison offices which will eventually become embassies.
It is likely to be easier for Trump to offer the regime preservation and security guarantee than the relief of sanctions for which the UN is involved.
If my assumptions regarding the sanctions and the regime preservation as well as security guarantee are correct, Kim might have come to DMZ without heavy burden; he might have come with a low level of hope. Therefore, he could be relatively easily satisfied with outcome of the meeting. In fact, after the 53-minute-chat with Trump, Kim looked pretty happy.
Fifth, it is important to know that it was not Kim who invited Trump; it was the latter who invited the former. This fact alone can contribute greatly the restoration of Kim’s dignity, his leadership and his “face” much tarnished in Hanoi.
In short, as far as Kim Jong-un was concerned, the DMZ meeting could offer decent rewards.
As for Trump, several factors seem to have led him to take the initiative for the meeting.
First, ever since the Hanoi event, Trump has not given up the hope for dialogue with Kim; in many occasions, he has been boasting about the good chemistry with Kim.
Second, he seems to regard the issue of North Korea differently from the Iran issue. Trump has taken much more belligerent approach to Iran, because Iran is capable of dominating the Middle East region, while North Korea has no capacity to dominate the region of East Asia. So, Trump could be more lenient toward Pyongyang.
Third, nuclear free North Korea could become friendly to the U.S. and it could be a part of China containment strategy.
Fourth, North Korea may be the true last economic frontier remaining in the region and the U.S. could participate, with ample benefits, in its economic development.
Fifth, owing to the devoted mediation of President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, the 70-year-old mutual mistrust between North Korea and the U.S. elite groups has been dissipated to some degree.
Sixth, the DMZ summit had the extraordinary timing to kill the huge impact of the second Democrats presidential election debate. The DMZ summit has completely eclipsed the media coverage of the Democrats debate. Thus, the summit was an important political gain for Trump.
Thus, both Trump and Kim had good reasons to come the summit meeting
Now, I am asking the question: “What are the summit’s accomplishments?” We may look at some possible positive results.
To begin with, the summit has proved that a summit could be organized with short notice, that it could take place with minimum cost and that it can take place often.
Moreover, the closed meeting of the two leaders lasted as long as 53 minutes, much longer than five minutes originally planned. Both Kim and Trump looked satisfied with the talk. Experts of Korean nuclear crisis suggest the following possible outcomes of the meeting.
First, Kim would have promised the dismantling of the Yongbyun nuclear facilities as well as missile launching pads. In exchange, Kim would have asked for his regime preservation and peace settlement. It appears that the relief of sanctions would have been given a lower priority.
Second, Trump might have accepted the “small deal” consisting of stepwise denuclearization in exchange of corresponding rewards by the U.S. That is, the Bolton’s idea of big deal could have been abandoned. By the way, Bolton was in Mongolia when the DMZ was taking place. This could mean a change in Trump’s strategy.
Third, it is true that the meeting did not produce concrete results; it is normal, because the meeting was not organized to produce them. The meeting was valuable in that it broke the stalemate of the nuclear dialogue and the reaffirmation of the mutual intention of continuing the dialogue.
On this point, the meeting was a success; new negotiation teams will be formed in a few week; the US team will be led by Stephen Biegun, US special representative for North Korea under Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State; the North Korea team could be led by Choe Son-hui, first deputy minister of foreign affairs under the direction of Ri Yong-ho, minister of foreign affairs.
Fourth, at the meeting, both leaders could have agreed to strengthen the top-down approach assisted by the bottom up consultations. It appears that the failure of the Hanoi summit was due to the lack of communication and coordination between the top and the bottom. It seems that now on, the top will more closely check the work of the negotiation teams.
Before closing my paper, I would like to add a few words about the reaction of media and politicians and brain-trust people. Most of these people are very negative about the meeting except Senator Bernie Sanders, leading Democrats president hopefuls and Pope Francis.
Their negative perception of the meeting is based on two main accusations, namely, the North Korea’s being not trustworthy and being a country of dictatorship.
As I pointed out in my previous Global Research papers, I am not sure which of the two countries is more untrustworthy. We must remember that the Framework Agreement of 1994 was broken by the U.S. and its allies, not by North Korea. In fact, if the U.S. and its allies respected the Agreement, North Korea would never have developed the nuclear weapons in the first place.
As for dictatorship, the history will tell you that the U.S. has supported countless terrible dictators all around the world. In South Korea, the U.S. has supported the merciless dictatorship of General Park Chung-hee and General Chun Doo-hwan. The argument that the U.S. would not deal with dictators is sheer hypocrisy.
The U.S. knew in advance that the government of General Chun would murder several hundred innocent citizens of Kwangju city on the 18th of May, 1980 with tanks and helicopters, yet the U.S. supported the criminals of the Chun government.
To sum up, I say this: I am glad that the DMZ summit took place. The FFVD (the Final Full Verifiable Denuclearization) is possible. But, Washington should abandon the “Big Deal” model and accept the stepwise denuclearization matched by relief of sanctions and other compensations leading eventually FFVD and lasting peace on the Korean peninsula. But the FFVD should guarantee North Korea’s self defence capacity.
However, to succeed in his attempt to denuclearize, Trump must free himself from the trap of demonization of North Korea perpetuated by the Washington Deep State oligarchy which goes for the maintenance of status quo of tension on the Korean peninsula so that they can sell more weapons to Korea.
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Professor Joseph H. Chung is co-director of the East Asia Observatory (OAE) of the Study Center for Integration and Globalization (CEIM) of Quebec University in Montreal (UQAM). He is Research Associate of the Center for Research on Globalization.
Featured image is a White House photo
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In recent developments, Ms. Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the IMF is slated to become the next president of the European Central Bank (ECB). France’s president Emmanuel Macron acting on behalf of powerful banking interests was instrumental in Ms. Lagarde’s candidacy.
What media reports fail to mention is that Lagarde is a corrupt official involved in financial fraud. Her appointment to head the ECB is not matter of political debate or concern. She is an obedient instrument of the financial and banking establishment which controls both the IMF and the European Central Bank.
On December 20, 2016, A French court found IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde guilty of “negligence” in relation to a multimillion dollar Euro fraud while she was France’s finance minister in 2008. She is said to have approved “an award of €404m ($429m; £340m) transfer to businessman Bernard Tapie, [a crony of president Sarkozy] for the disputed sale of a firm.”
“Ms Lagarde, who always denied wrongdoing, was not present in court, having left Paris for Washington DC.”
The IMF board said it retained “full confidence” in her leadership. (BBC, December 20, 2016)
No questions asked: Despite her involvement in financial fraud at tax payers’ expense, the French government at the time confirmed that they had full confidence in Ms. Lagarde.
Her leadership as head of the IMF has not been questioned. Christine Lagarde was reappointed in February 2016 to a second five-year term at the IMF.
Despite her record, she is now considered (July 2019) for the position of president of the European Central Bank (ECB).
Eight years ago, Flashback to May-June 2011. The Dominique Strauss Khan (DSK) Honey Trap Scandal was instrumental in Lagarde’s accession to the IMF. And her role in the Euro 400 million financial transfer was casually ignored.
Regime Change: Dominque Strauss Khan (DSK), managing director of the IMF was framed and Christine Lagarde was appointed to replace him.
Media focus at the time centered on the story of the alleged victim, the hotel housemaid, rather than on who was pulling the strings behind the scenes in what visibly was a political frame-up.
There was no firm evidence against Strauss-Kahn. This was known to prosecutors at an early stage of the investigation. Had they released it, Lagarde would not have been chosen to replace DSK.
France’s Finance Minister Christine Lagarde was confirmed as Managing Director of the IMF on June 26th 2016. The report from the prosecutor was released to the media three days later, on June 29.
Lagarde was chosen to succeed Strauss Khan at the IMF, a few days prior to a New York Court ruling which completely exonerated Dominique Strauss Khan on the basis of lack of evidence.
If this information had been revealed a few days earlier, Lagarde’s candidacy would no doubt have been questioned.
Regime change was implemented at the IMF, not to mention preparations for the French presidential elections.
While Strauss Khan was dismissed following the 2011 scandal (despite the ruling of the New York court case which abandoned all charges again him) the 2008 financial scam involving Christine Lagarde was known to the French government. This however did not prevent her 2011 June appointment to the IMF.
Needless to say, not only did she retain her position at the IMF despite having been involved in a financial scam, she was appointed for a second term.
The appointment of Christine Lagarde in 2011 marks a major political turning point. Since the DSK affair, Europe’s political landscape has become increasingly pro-American.
The Washington consensus prevails. The application of IMF economic medicine had already been applied in several EU countries including Greece and Portugal during DSK’s mandate. But in the course of the last few years, it has reached new heights. Drastic austerity measures have triggered unprecedented levels of unemployment. The entire European social landscape is in crisis.
In many regards the DSK scandal was a watershed in the evolution of EU-US relations, with European governments becoming increasingly subservient to Washington’s demands.
Regime Change at the IMF. The Obama administration had demanded DSK’s replacement by a more compliant individual.
In retrospect, the framing of Strauss Kahn and the appointment of Lagarde had an impact not only on EU economic restructuring including the crisis in Greece, but also on the State structures of the French Republic.
The “Honey Trap” is a powerful instrument. Had DSK not been framed, Francois Hollande — who largely served US interests– would no doubt not have been elected president of the French Republic and Christine Lagarde would not have acceded to the positon of Managing Director if the IMF.
Michel Chossudovsky, February 27, 2o15, December 21, 2016, July 3, 2019
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Regime Change at the IMF: The Frame-Up of Dominique Strauss-Kahn
by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, 19 May 2011
The arrest of IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn has all the appearances of a frame-up ordered by powerful members of the financial establishment, in liaison with France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, whose presidency has served the interests of the US at the expense of those of France and the European Union. While there is for the moment no proof of a plot, the unusual circumstances of his arrest and imprisonment require careful examination.
Immediately following Strauss Kahn’s arrest, pressures were exerted by Washington to speed up his replacement as Managing Director of the IMF preferably by a non-European, an American or a handpicked candidate from an “emerging market economy” or a developing country.
Since the founding of the Bretton Woods institutions in 1945, the World Bank has been headed by an American whereas the IMF has been under the helm of a (Western) European.
Strauss-Kahn is a member of elite groups who meet behind closed doors. He belongs to the Bildeberger. Categorized as one of the world’s most influential persons, he is an academic and politician rather than a banker. In contrast to his predecessors at the IMF, he has no direct affiliation to a banking or financial institution.
But at the same time he is the fall guy. His “gaffe” was to confront the Washington-Wall Street Consensus and push for reforms within the IMF, which challenged America’s overriding role within the organization.
The demise of Strauss-Kahn potentially serves to strengthen the hegemony of the US and its control over the IMF at the expense of what former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called “Old Europe”.
Blocking Strauss-Kahn, the Presidential Candidate
In recent years, a major shift has occurred in Europe’s political landscape. Pro-American governments have been elected in both France and Germany. Social Democracy has been weakened.
Franco-American relations have been redefined, with Washington playing a significant role in grooming a new generation of European politicians.
The presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy has, in many regards, become a de facto US “client regime”, broadly supportive of US corporate interests in the EU and closely aligned with US foreign policy.
There are two overlapping and interrelated issues in the DSK frame-up hypothesis.
The first pertains to regime change at the IMF, the second to Strauss-Kahn as a candidate in France’s forthcoming presidential elections.
Both these processes are tied into the clash between competing US and European economic interests including control over the euro-currency system.
Strauss-Khan as a favorite of the Socialist Party, would have won the presidential elections leading to the demise of “Our Man in Paris” Nicolas Sarkozy. As documented by Thierry Meyssan, the CIA played a central undercover role in destabilizing the Gaullist party and supporting the election of Nicolas Sarkozy (See Operation Sarkozy: How the CIA placed one of its agents at the presidency of the French Republic, Reseau Voltaire, September 4, 2008)
A Strauss-Kahn presidency and a “Socialist” government would have been a serious setback for Washington, contributing to a major shift in Franco-American relations.
It would have contributed to weakening Washington’s role on the European political chessboard, leading to a shift in the balance of power between America and “Old Europe” (namely the Franco-German alliance).
It would have had repercussions on the internal structure of the Atlantic Alliance and the hegemonic role of the US within NATO.
The Eurozone monetary system as well as Wall Street’s resolve to exert a decisive influence on the European monetary architecture are also at stake.
The Frame-Up?
Fifty-seven percent of France’s population, according to a May 17 poll, believe that Strauss-Kahn was framed, victim of a set-up. He was detained on alleged sexual assault and rape charges based on scanty evidence. He was detained based on a complaint filed by the Sofitel hotel where he was staying, on behalf of the alleged victim, an unnamed hotel chamber-maid:
The 32-year-old maid told authorities that she entered his suite early Saturday afternoon and he attacked her, New York Police Department spokesman Paul J. Browne. She said she had been told to clean the spacious $3,000-a-night suite, which she thought was empty.
According to an account the woman provided to police, Strauss-Kahn emerged from the bathroom naked, chased her down a hallway and pulled her into a bedroom, where he began to sexually assault her. She said she fought him off, then he dragged her into the bathroom, where he forced her to perform oral sex on him and tried to remove her underwear. The woman was able to break free again and escaped the room and told hotel staff what had happened, authorities said. They called police.
What is at stake in the immediate wake of Strauss Kahn’s demise is “regime change” at the IMF.
The Obama administration has demanded his replacement by a more compliant individual. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, former CEO of the New York Federal Reserve Bank is pushing for the replacement of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, “suggesting he can no longer perform his duties” as IMF Managing director.
“Geithner called for greater formal recognition by the IMF board that John Lipsky, the fund’s second-in-command, will continue serving as temporary managing director for an interim period. Although Strauss-Kahn has yet to resign, sources say the IMF is in touch with his legal counsel to discuss his future at the organization.”
What lies behind the frame-up scenario? What powerful interests are involved? Geithner had a close personal relationship with Strauss-Kahn.
On the floor of the US Senate (May 18), Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, called for the resignation of DSK while calling upon the IMF’s deputy managing director John Lipsky to “assume full responsibility of the IMF” as interim managing director. The process of “permanent replacement should “commence at once,” he said. John Lipsky is a well connected Wall Street banker, a former Vice Chairman at JPMorgan Investment Bank.
While the IMF is in theory an intergovernmental organization, it has historically been controlled by Wall Street and the US Treasury. The IMF’s “bitter economic medicine”, the so-called Structural Adjustment Program (SAP), imposed on countless developing countries, essentially serves the interests of creditor banks and multinational corporations.
The IMF is not the main architect of these devastating economic reforms which have served to impoverish millions of people, while creating a “favorable environment” for foreign investors in Third World low wage economies.
The creditor banks call the shots. The IMF is a bureaucratic entity. Its role is to implement and enforce those economic policies on behalf of dominant economic interests.
Strauss Kahn’s proposed reforms while providing a “human face” to the IMF did not constitute a shift in direction. They were formulated within the realm of neoliberalism. They modified but they did not undermine the central role of IMF “economic medicine”. The socially devastating impacts of IMF “shock treatment” under Strauss-Kahn’s leadership have largely prevailed.
Dominique Strauss Kahn arrived at the helm of the IMF in November 2007, less than a year prior to September-October 2008 financial meltdown on Wall Street. The structural adjustment program (SAP) was not modified. Under DSK, IMF “shock treatment” which historically had been limited to developing countries was imposed on Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
Under the helm of DSK as Managing Director, the IMF demanded that developing countries remove food and fuel subsidies at a time of rising commodity prices on the New York and Chicago Mercantile exchanges.
The hikes in food and fuel prices, which preceded the September-October 2008 Wall Street crash, were in large part the result of market manipulation. Grain prices were boosted artificially by large scale speculative operations. Instead of taming the speculators and containing the rise in food and fuel prices, the IMF’s role was to ensure that the governments of indebted developing countries would not in any way interfere in the “free market”, by preventing these prices from going up.
These hikes in food prices, which are the result of outright manipulation (rather than scarcity) have served to impoverish people Worldwide. The surge in food prices constitutes a new phase of the process of global impoverishment.
DSK was complicit in this process of market manipulation. The removal of food and fuel subsidies in Tunisia and Egypt had been demanded by the IMF. Food and fuel prices skyrocketed, people were impoverished, paving the way towards the January 2011 social protest movement:
“[The IMF] encouraged the [Egyptian] authorities to press further with food and fuel subsidy reforms, and welcomed their intention to improve the efficiency and targeting of food subsidy programs. [meaning the selective elimination of food subsidies].
Under the helm of DSK, the IMF also imposed sweeping austerity measures on Egypt in 2008, while supporting Hosni Mubarak’s “efforts to broaden the privatization program”.(Ibid)
The Frank G. Wisner Nicolas Sarkozy Connection
Strauss-Kahn was refused bail by Judge Melissa Jackson, an appointee and protégé of Michael Bloomberg, who in addition to his role as Mayor is a powerful figure on Wall Street.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. charged (using scanty evidence) Strauss-Kahn “with seven crimes, including attempted rape, sexual abuse, forcible touching and unlawful imprisonment”.
Who is Cyrus Vance Jr.?
He is the son of the late Cyrus Vance who served as Secretary of State (1977-1980) in the Carter administration.
But there is more than meets the eye. Nicolas Sarkozy’s step father Frank G. Wisner II, a prominent CIA official who married his step mother Christine de Ganay in 1977 served as Deputy Executive Secretary of State under the helm of Cyrus Vance Senior, father of District Attorney Cyrus Vance Junior.
Is it relevant?
In this courtroom drawing, Dominique Strauss-Khan, next to his lawyer
The Vance and Wisner families had close personal ties. In turn Nicolas Sarkozy had close family ties with his step father Frank Wisner (and his half brothers and sisters in the US and one member of the Wisner family was involved in Sarkozy’s election campaign).
While these various personal ties do not prove that Strauss-Kahn was the object of a set-up, the matter of Sarkozy’s ties to the CIA via his step father, not to mention the ties of Frank G. Wisner II to the Cyrus Vance family are certainly worth investigating. Frank G, Wisner also played a key role as Obama’s special intelligence envoy to Egypt at the height of the January 2011 protest movement.
Did the CIA play a role?
Was Strauss-Kahn framed by people in his immediate political entourage including President Obama and Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner?
What was the role of Sarkozy’s Step-father:
Sarkozy’s Step Father Frank G Wisner II, Deputy Executive Secretary of State (1976-79)
under Cyrus Vance Senior during the Carter administration
District Attorney Cyrus Vance Junior, son of the late Cyrus Vance, Secretary of State in the Carter administration
DSK and Timothy Geithner
DSK and Timothy Geithner
Fair Trial?
Innocent before proven guilty? The US media has already cast its verdict. Will the court procedures be manipulated?
One would expect that Strauss-Kahn be granted a fair trial, namely the same treatment as that granted to thousands of arrests on alleged sexual aggression charges in New York City.
How many similar or comparable alleged sexual aggressions occur on a monthly basis in New York City? What is the underlying pattern? How many of these are reported to the police? How many are the object of police follow-up once a complaint has been filed?
What is the percent of complaints submitted to police which are the object of police arrest? How many of these arrests lead to a judicial procedure? What are the delays in court procedures?
How many of these arrests lead to release without a judicial procedure?
How many of the cases submitted to a judicial procedure are dismissed by the presiding judge?
How many of the cases which are not dismissed are refused bail outright by the presiding judge? What is the basis for refusing bail?
How many are granted bail? What is the average amount of bail?
How many are imprisoned without bail based on scanty and incomplete evidence?
How many of those who are refused bail are sent to an infamous maximum security prison on Rikers Island on the orders of Michael Bloomberg.
Diplomatic Immunity
Press reports state that full diplomatic immunity does not apply to officials of the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions, namely that the US did not ratify the protocol.
“U.N. convention on privileges and immunities for international agencies that most countries have ratified. It gives the heads of U.N. agencies broad immunity in the countries where they are based. But the U.S. government never became a party to that treaty. Employees of international agencies are covered by a U.S. statute that gives only limited immunity.”
The relevant question is how has this limited immunity provision been applied in practice? Namely how many people with limited immunity (UN officials, officials of the Bretton Woods institutions) have been arrested and sent to a high security prison?
Has Strauss Kahn been given the same treatment as those arrested under the provisions of “limited immunity”?
Does the Strauss Kahn arrest fit the pattern? Or is Strauss Kahn being treated in a way which does not correspond to the normal (average) pattern of police and judicial procedures applied in the numerous cases of persons arrested on alleged sexual assault charges?
Without a frame-up instrumented by very powerful people acting in the background, the head of the IMF would have been treated in an entirely different way. The mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg and Timothy Geithner would have come to his rescue. The matter would have been hushed up with a view to protecting the reputation of a powerful public figure. But that did not happen.
The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order
In this new and expanded edition of Chossudovsky’s international best-seller, the author outlines the contours of a New World Order which feeds on human poverty and the destruction of the environment, generates social apartheid, encourages racism and ethnic strife and undermines the rights of women. The result as his detailed examples from all parts of the world show so convincingly, is a globalization of poverty.
This book is a skilful combination of lucid explanation and cogently argued critique of the fundamental directions in which our world is moving financially and economically.
In this new enlarged edition –which includes ten new chapters and a new introduction– the author reviews the causes and consequences of famine in Sub-Saharan Africa, the dramatic meltdown of financial markets, the demise of State social programs and the devastation resulting from corporate downsizing and trade liberalisation.
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics (emeritus) 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.
Published in 14 languages. More than 140,000 copies sold Worldwide.
In these unprecedented economic times, the world is experiencing as a whole what most of the non-Industrialized world has experienced over the past several decades. Michel Chossudovsky takes the reader through a nuanced examination of the intricacies of the global political-economic landscape and the power players within it; specifically, looking at how the World Bank and IMF have been the greatest purveyors of poverty around the world, despite their rhetorical claims to the opposite. These institutions, representing the powerful Western nations and the financial interests that dominate them, spread social apartheid around the world, exploiting both the people and the resources of the vast majority of the world’s population. As Chossudovsky examines in this updated edition, often the programs of these International Financial Instittutions go hand-in-hand with covert military and intelligence operations undertaken by powerful Western nations with an objective to destabilize, control, destroy and dominate nations and people, such as in the cases of Rwanda and Yugoslavia.
To understand what role these international organizations play today, being pushed to the front lines and given unprecedented power and scope as ever before to manage the Global Economic Crisis, one must understand from whence they came. This book provides a detailed, exploratory, readable and multi-faceted examination of these institutions and actors as agents of the ‘New World Order,’ for which they advance the ‘Globalization of Poverty.’
Hostile White House rhetoric against nonbelligerent Iran continues menacingly.
It should terrify everyone for pushing things toward possible war on the country, a nation of 81 million people, second in regional population size to Egypt, armed with sophisticated weapons able to hit back hard if attacked.
Trump regime hardliners Bolton and Pompeo want war on the country, pushing Trump in this direction.
He’s manipulated by hardliners in charge of his geopolitical agenda, including Pentagon hawks, somewhat restrained by their cooler head counterparts — knowing war on Iran would be a far greater undertaking than other nations the US attacked since Vietnam.
A similar quagmire could result, including body bags returning home, highlighted by media hostile to Trump, wanting him defeated in 2020.
At the same time, the fourth estate is militantly hostile toward Iran, on board for transforming the country into a US client state, wanting Israel’s main regional rival eliminated by restoring pro-Western fascist rule over Iranian sovereign independence.
The fullness of time will tell what’s coming. Will or won’t the Trump regime attack Iran preemptively?
If happens it’ll likely follow a significant false flag incident, most likely resulting in US casualties, the way to arouse public anger and enlist congressional support — the Islamic Republic wrongfully blamed for what it surely won’t have anything to do with.
Trump regime arrogance is breathtaking. A July 1 White House statement threatened Iran more than already.
It came in response to Tehran’s legal JCPOA right to increase its uranium enrichment beyond limits it voluntarily agreed to observe.
Foreign Minister Zarif said his nation “surpassed the 300kg (low-uranium enrichment) limit, and we had already announced” an intention to exceed it,” adding:
“(W)e have said very clearly what we are doing and consider this as part of our rights as per the JCPOA.”
He, President Rouhani, and other Iranian officials said uranium enrichment would increase because Britain, France, Germany, and the EU breached their JCPOA obligations.
If they fulfill them ahead, Iran will reduce the amount of uranium it enriches, so far not exceeding a 3.67 level, far below the 90% level required to produce nukes.
No evidence whatever suggests Iran wants to develop and produce these WMDs it considers hostile to Islam, wanting them eliminated everywhere.
Arms Control Association executive director Daryl Kimball explained that no international standard prohibits Iran from enriching uranium, saying it “is not the case” that Tehran is in breach of its nuclear obligations. “That is the (unjustifiable) American position.”
The White House called it “a mistake under the Iran nuclear deal to allow Iran to enrich uranium at any level” — its legal right, the same as 31 other nations with nuclear reactors, and over 50 others with nuclear research reactors.
The White House claim that
“(t)here is little doubt that even before the deal’s existence, Iran was violating its terms” sounded like a nonsensical (GW) Bushism adding:
“We must restore the longstanding nonproliferation standard of no enrichment for Iran” — legal under Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and JCPOA.
“The United States and its allies will never allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons” it clearly doesn’t want.
At the same time, US officials ignore nuclear armed and dangerous Israel, also maintaining illegal stockpiles of chemical, biological and other banned weapons.
A same-day State Department disinformation statement was more hostile than the White House.
It falsely accused Iran of “tak(ing) new steps to advance its nuclear (weapons) ambitions” — a bald-faced Big Lie.
Nor is the Islamic Republic the “world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism (sic)…us(ing) its nuclear program to extort the international community and threaten regional security (sic)” — dubious distinctions applying to the US, NATO, Israel, and their imperial partners.
These nations “pose (the) great(est) danger to the region and to the world,” mainly because of Washington’s hegemonic rage to control all other nations, their resources and populations.
Wars of aggression against sovereign independent countries threatening no one is its longstanding favored strategy — military Keynesianism on steroids.
Throughout most of the post-WW II era, Washington’s permanent war agenda has been and remains official policy by both right wings of the one-party state.
The late Seymour Melman explained that “every major aspect of American life is being shaped by our Permanent War Economy.”
Its horrific toll includes aggressive prioritizing wars over essential homeland needs, thirdworldizing the nation at the same time.
Half or more of US households are poor, disadvantaged, uneducated, “disconnected from society’s mainstream, restless and unhappy, frustrated, angry, and sad,” Melman stressed.
“State Capitalism” reflects the American way, an insidious government/business partnership.
It features permanent wars, debauched leadership, lost industrialization, crumbling infrastructure, and deprived millions on their own, uncared for, unwanted, ignored, and forgotten to assure steady funding for America’s wars and corporate handouts at the expense of peace, equity and justice.
Things have been on an ominous trajectory toward possible US war on Iran since Trump illegally withdrew from the JCPOA, an international agreement, unanimously adopted by Security Council members, making it binding international law, requiring all nations to observe its provisions.
Trump accusing Iran of “playing with fire” sounds ominously like his earlier “fire and fury like the world has never seen” threat against North Korea.
There’s no way to know for sure what’s coming, but some signs give hope. Pompeo and Bolton haven’t swayed NATO nations to join a US coalition for war on Iran — except perhaps for Britain, joined at the hip with Washington for all its wars of aggression.
Most Dems, some Republicans, and cautious Pentagon commanders oppose attacking Iran. Future events could change things dramatically.
Pre-WW II, Congress and the US public overwhelmingly opposed US involvement in Europe’s war. Japan’s Pearl Harbor attack transformed national sentiment from pacifism to raging anger against Japan.
House and Senate members near-unanimously approved a declaration of war, one congressional member alone opposing it.
As the saying goes, the rest is history. The 9/11 mother of all false flags was a second Pearl Harbor. Will a third one launch war on Iran?
False flags are a longstanding US tradition since the mid-19th century. No matter how many times Americans are fooled, they’re easy marks to be duped again.
War on Iran would be disastrous for the country, region, and world peace — why it’s crucial for nations and activists against it to go all-out to prevent US aggression against another nonbelligerent nation, supporting the rule of law, threatening no one.
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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.”
It’s officially summer. Time for a swim, a cold beer, and a new slew of catastrophic climate changes…
Temperatures in Greenland were 40 degrees above normal in June, causing 2 billion tons of ice to melt away in a single day. That’s the equivalent of 800,000 Olympic swimming pools.
Scientists observed that the Arctic permafrost has begun to thaw a full 70 years before they expected it to—indicating the climate is warmer than it has been in at least 5,000 years—and potentially unearthing vast quantities of greenhouse gases trapped underground.
Arctic sea ice coverage neared record lows this spring. Loss of arctic ice threatens plant and animal life, indigenous communities, and leads to extreme weather in other parts of the world.
It’s all alarming. But to officials in the Trump administration, it represents just another golden opportunity to profit. In April, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke to the Arctic Council—that’s the governmental group that gathers countries with territory in the Arctic region and indigenous peoples to cooperate on “issues of sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.” Pompeo didn’t seem concerned about sticking to the council’s formal mission statement; he could barely contain his excitement about the new waterways and resources opening up due to the accelerating sea ice melt.
“The Secretary is looking at this with blinders on,” says Ray Pierrehumbert, Halley Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford and lead author of the IPCC Third Assessment Report. For the latest installment of Say WHAT?—the Bulletin’s video series that casts a wry eye at wrongheaded policy—we watched the Arctic Council speech with Pierrehumbert and captured his reaction to some of Pompeo’s most flabbergasting statements.
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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has taken steps to ban the sale of Cuban cigars Cohiba in Brazil.
According to O Globo, Bolsonaro’s administration justified the measure saying that the cigars had “excessive sorbic acid” when evaluated by the Brazilian National Health Oversight Agency (Anvisa).
Yet the company, Emporium, which has been managing the cigars’ importations for the past two decades, denied the allegations.
“There is no additive of any kind in the cigars, this is a 100 percent natural product.”
As a result of Anvisa’s evaluation on May 23, the registration of Cohiba’s brand was not renewed, and the agency gave the company a 30-day deadline to collect the product, automatically prohibiting its sales across the country.
However, Cohiba contested the measure, temporarily lifting the ban until an administrative court judges the case.
Cohiba, as a brand, was born in 1966 and for decades it has been recognized worldwide as a top brand for cigars and cigarettes. The products are sold all over the world, except the United States, where its sale is prohibited by the commercial, economic and financial blockade imposed on Cuba for more than six decades.
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There had been earlier skirmishes, threats, talk of retaliation and warnings of dire consequences, but the trade war between the United States and China started in earnest on July 6, 2018 when Washington implemented its first China-specific tariffs. It ended just short of a year later, and though Chinese officials are too polite to publically proclaim victory, from their point of view, the outcome can be viewed in a favorable light.
At first glance, it hardly seemed a telling blow. No trumpets sounded, no flags were lowered, no treaties signed. But a meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to resume trade talks that had broken down in May. So? Hardly a surrender. Just a brief lull, a pause before hostilities re-commence? No. This is a moment of far more significance and one that many in the West do not fully appreciate. If the deal had been just to postpone tariffs Trump had threatened to impose on an additional $300 billion annually in Chinese imports then it could be considered a strategic retreat. After all, Trump will not overhaul the relationship with the world’s second-biggest economy as the 2020 election looms.
But lifting certain commercial restrictions in the US on Huawei, a computer firm seen as a Trojan Horse for the Chinese military, and reports that the Trump administration will allow North Korea to keep its nuclear weapons suggest a more defining moment has arrived. The Chinese have always denied that Huawei has links to its military. But then they would say that, wouldn’t they? But from the Chinese perspective, they believe many US companies operating in China have links to the US military. After all, did not Ike Eisenhower warn in his 1961 farewell presidential address of the threat posed by the industrial military complex. It hasn’t lessened since then.
This is a major reversal by Washington who had told its European allies, especially Britain, that any dealings with Huawei would endanger defense ties.
Just in May, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned London to prioritize its security interests and those of its allies when dealing with Huawei.
He hinted that the US could re-consider some of its extensive defense and economic interests in the UK.
This is the second time the Trump administration has backed down with a Chinese tech giant.
In June 2018, about the time the trade war started, the US Commerce Department lifted a ban on selling components to Chinese firm, ZTE Corps which had been accused of violating sanctions against Iran and North Korea. It coughed up more than $1 billion in fines. That came after a personal appeal from Xi to Trump.
North Korea seems less clear cut but the genie is out of the bottle. John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, dismissed media reports that claimed the Trump administration was considering negotiating a nuclear freeze by North Korea, rather than complete denuclearization.
Trump said in March that
“North Korea has an incredible, brilliant economic future if they make a deal, but they don’t have any economic future if they have nuclear weapons’’.
But crucially North Korean leader Kim Jong-un believes that he can have both a developing relationship with the US and maintain his nuclear arsenal. A nuclear freeze is on the table. Beijing may not like Kim but it views a stable and more prosperous North Korea as vital for its own security. And China knows that, when dealing with Trump, the art of the deal is not boasting about it.
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Tom Clifford is an Irish journalist based in China.
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The German government has lost track of scores of Germans who travelled to Iraq and Syria in recent years to join the Islamic State (IS). The revelation comes amid growing fears that some of these fighters are returning to Germany undetected by authorities.
Provoking Iran has become a favorite US pastime, it seems. The CIA, along with the Mossad and MI6, just can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to bullying, meddling with and provoking the Persian nation.
The Supreme Court has abdicated its responsibility to strike down partisan gerrymandering. This occurs when one party intentionally manipulates district boundaries to skew its voting power, notwithstanding the will of the voters. Although both parties engage in partisan gerrymandering, Republicans benefit from it far more than Democrats.
Donald Trump’s supposed “deal of the century”, offering the Palestinians economic bribes in return for political submission, is the endgame of western peace-making, the real goal of which has been failure, not success.
Wahhabism, grown and nurtured in Canada’s ally, Saudi Arabia, is an archetype of exclusivism and sectarianism. It is anti-Islamic, and instrumentalized by imperial powers, including Canada, to destroy prey nations such as secular, pluralist, democratic Syria, a country that takes pride in being inclusive and tolerant.
Tulsi, campaigning on her anti-war credentials, was indeed not like the other candidates, confronting directly the issue of war and peace which the other potential candidates studiously avoided.
With the JCPOA nuclear deal in place, not only was the shadow of war and destruction lifted, but after a long time, the people of Iran began to enjoy relative economic stability and security. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.) Iran has continued to carry out all its obligations under the JCPOA. But, in May of 2018, the United States government arbitrarily decided to abrogate the Agreement—disregarding the SCR 2231. Clearly, this action has caused crises for the world, the region and the people of Iran.
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The head of Mossad dispelled whatever doubt may have remained among some in the Alt-Media Community about the existence of “Putinyahu’s Rusrael” when he credited “channels of communication with the Kremlin” for contributing to what he described as the “one-time window of opportunity” to clinch an “Israeli”-Arab peace deal “for the first time in Middle East history”.
Russia and “Israel” are allies, so much so that one can even speak about them as a singular political entity nowadays using the neologism “Putinyahu’s Rusrael“. The hyperlinked source in the preceding sentence is chock full of proof supporting this assertion, but the smoking gun if one was even needed at this point came on Monday during the Herzliya Conference, a yearly security forum held in the self-professed “Jewish State”. Mossad chief Yossi Cohen made it clear just how important of an ally “Israel” regards Russia as being when he credited “channels of communication with the Kremlin” for contributing to what he described as the “one-time window of opportunity” to clinch an “Israeli”-Arab peace deal “for the first time in Middle East history”, with Reuters quoting him as saying the following:
“The Mossad today espies a rare opportunity, perhaps for the first time in Middle East history, to arrive at a regional understanding that would lead to a comprehensive peace accord. Common interests, the fight against rivals such as Iran and Jihadist terrorism, the close relations with the White House and channels of communication with the Kremlin all combine to create what might be a one-time window of opportunity.”
The outlet also reported that the spymaster “said his agency had formed a task force designed to spot peacemaking opportunities in a region where only two Arab states, Egypt and Jordan, have full ties with Israel”, thus suggesting close collaboration between the Mossad and its counterparts in Moscow, seeing as how the Eurasian Great Power is the most influential extra-regional actor in the Mideast since its 2015 anti-terrorist intervention in Syria. Russia’s 21st-century grand strategy is to become the supreme “balancing” force in Afro-Eurasia, to which end it’s entered into game-changing cooperation with non-traditional partners like “Israel”, with whom it shares the joint goal of ensuring Iran’s withdrawal from Syria. Whereas Tel Aviv seeks this outcome because it fears Tehran, Moscow sees it as the key to reaching a “New Detente” with Washington.
In terms of how “channels of communication with the Kremlin” relate to the “one-time window of opportunity” to clinch an “Israeli”-Arab peace deal “for the first time in Middle East history”, it shouldn’t be forgotten that President Putin is a staunch defender of the self-professed “Jewish State” as proven by the many statements of support that he’s made in this respect over his nearly two decades in office that are easily accessible at the official Kremlin website. In addition, the head of Russia’s National Security Council reaffirmed that “Russia puts special attention on ensuring Israel’s security” during the unprecedented National Security Advisor Summit that took place last week in Jerusalem, so with “Israel” believing that a peace deal with the Arab countries is a non-negotiable prerequisite for securing its existence, it’s natural that its Russian ally would support this in all ways.
Bearing in mind Moscow’s envisaged “balancing” role in the region and desire to replace Washington’s fading leadership there, it’s highly likely that its diplomats are frantically working behind the scenes to encourage as many Arab states as possible to publicly come out and normalize their not-so-secret ties with “Israel”, albeit ideally doing so without advertising this move as being aimed against Iran so that Russia’s ties with it aren’t further complicated any more than they already are because of this. The Mossad’s “channels of communication with the Kremlin” are therefore extremely important for facilitating the success of “Israel’s” plans, so much so that one could describe them as indispensable since the chief of this intelligence agency mentioned them in the same sentence as other seemingly more important factors such as “the close relations with the White House”.
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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.
The mainstream media was too busy obsessing over Russiagate to notice that, according to an annual Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees report, the Social Security trust fund will run out of money by 2035. The trustees also reported that the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund will be empty by 2027.
The trustees’ report is actually optimistic. Social Security is completely funded, and Medicare is largely funded, by payroll taxes. Therefore, their revenue fluctuates depending on the employment rate. So, when unemployment inevitably increases, payroll tax revenue will decline, hastening Medicare and Social Security’s bankruptcy.
Another dark cloud on the government’s fiscal horizon involves the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), which provides federal bailouts to bankrupt pension plans. The PBGC currently has an over 50 billion dollars deficit. This deficit will almost certainly increase, as a number of large pension funds are likely to need a PBGC bailout in the next few years. Congress will likely bail out the PBGC to avoid facing the wrath of voters angry that Congress did not save their pensions.
Unfunded liabilities like Social Security and Medicare are not included in the official federal deficit. In fact, Congress raids the Social Security trust fund to increase spending and hide the deficit’s true size, while leaving the trust fund with worthless IOUs.
The media also ignored last week’s Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report predicting the federal debt will increase to an unsustainable 144 percent of the gross domestic product by 2049. The CBO’s report is optimistic as it assumes interest rates remain low, Congress refrains from creating new programs, and there are no major recessions.
Few in Congress or in the Trump administration are even talking about the coming fiscal tsunami, much less proposing the type of spending cuts necessary to pay down the debt and have the funds to unwind the entitlement programs without harming those currently reliant on them. Instead, both parties support increasing spending and debt.
Republican control of both houses of Congress and the While House led to increased federal spending of over $300 billion dollars. The House Democratic majority now wants even more spending increases. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is threatening to not raise the debt ceiling unless President Trump and congressional Republicans agree to lift the spending caps put in place by the 2011 budget deal.
The Republican Congress routinely exceeded the caps’ minuscule spending limits. Therefore, Speaker Pelosi should have no problem getting President Trump and his Republic congressional allies to once again exceed the caps on welfare spending as long as Democrats agree, as they are likely to agree, to bust the caps on warfare spending.
America’s military budget already equals the combined budgets of the next seven highest-spending countries. Instead of allowing himself to be neoconned into wasting trillions on another Middle East quagmire, President Trump should bring home the nearly 170,000 troops stationed in almost 150 countries.
Unless Congress immediately begins making substantial spending cuts, America will soon face a major economic crisis. This crisis will likely involve the Federal Reserve’s debt monetization resulting in a rejection of the dollar’s world reserve currency status. Since the media and most politicians refuse to discuss this topic, it is up to those of us who understand the truth to spread the word, grow the liberty movement, and force politicians to make real cuts right now.
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The German government has lost track of scores of Germans who travelled to Iraq and Syria in recent years to join the Islamic State (IS). The revelation comes amid growing fears that some of these fighters are returning to Germany undetected by authorities.
The German Interior Ministry, in response to a question from the Secretary General of the classical liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), Linda Teuteberg, revealed that German authorities lack information on the whereabouts of at least 160 Germans who left to fight with the IS, according to Welt am Sonntag. The ministry said that while some had probably been killed in combat, others have gone into hiding and may be trying to resettle in Germany.
“In view of the very fragmented protection of the EU’s external borders, it is particularly worrying that the federal government appears to have taken no further measures to prevent the uncontrolled re-entry of underground IS fighters,” Teuteberg toldWelt am Sonntag. She added that the government “still has no concept” for dealing with former IS fighters from Germany, including “Germans detained in the war zone as well as the more than 200 former IS supporters who are now back in Germany.”
Teuteberg said that the Interior Ministry should come up with a plan for how to deal with IS returnees and how to hold them accountable, by, for example, strengthening the legal capacity to investigate and prosecute war crimes abroad.
Of the estimated 1,050 Germans who travelled to Iraq and Syria to fight in recent years, approximately one-third (350) have returned to Germany. Another 220 are believed to have been killed on the battlefield. According to government sources cited by the German television program Tagesschau, approximately 120 are being detained in Iraq and Syria. In addition, at least 138 children of German IS fighters are being held Iraq and Syria. The whereabouts of the others are unknown.
The German government downplayed Teuteberg’s concerns that IS fighters can return to Germany unnoticed:
“Given the different measures (including most-wanted lists or entry barriers) that make uncontrolled re-entry significantly more difficult, it is also assumed in the future that entry without the knowledge of the German security authorities should remain the exception.”
It is known, however, that IS fighters have entered Europe — including Germany — undetected by posing as migrants: a majority of the terrorists who carried out the November 2015 Paris attacks, in which 130 people were killed and 360 injured, entered Europe by posing as migrants, according to counter-terrorism investigators. Most of the attackers were well-known to police and at least nine were on terrorist watch lists. Once they passed through the EU’s porous borders in southern Europe, they were able to travel throughout the rest of Europe undetected.
Missing IS fighters are a Europe-wide problem. A July 2018 study by the International Center for the Study of Radicalization (ICSR) at King’s College London estimated that more than 5,900 people — 3,379 men, 1,023 women, 1,502 minors — from Western Europe joined the Islamic State. Another 7,250 people from Eastern Europe joined the group.
According to ICSR estimates, around 1,765 IS fighters have returned to Western Europe, and 784 have returned to Eastern Europe. At least 800 IS fighters are being held at Kurdish detention camps in northern Syria. Around 700 of the fighters’ wives and 1,500 of their children are also in camps, according to Reuters. It remains unclear how many of the unaccounted IS fighters have been killed on the battlefield, and how many have gone into hiding.
In Austria, for instance, of the 250 IS fighters, 93 have returned. In Belgium, of the 500 IS fighters, 123 have returned. In Britain, of the 850 IS fighters, 425 have returned. In Denmark, of the 145 IS fighters, 72 have returned. In France, of the 1,900 IS fighters, 400 have returned. In Italy, of the 129 IS fighters, 11 have returned. In the Netherlands, of the 300 IS fighters, 60 have returned. In Spain, of the 210 IS fighters, 30 have returned.
In Sweden, of the estimated 300 people who left the country to join the Islamic State, approximately 150 have returned, according to the Swedish Security Service (Säpo). Around 100 Swedish fighters are believed to have died on the battlefield; the government does not have information on the whereabouts of the others.
Between 35 and 40 Swedish IS fighters have returned to Stockholm, but the municipality has not made contact with a single returnee, and may not even know where any of them live, according to an exposé by Swedish Television (SVT), the national public television broadcaster.
SVT surveyed officials in the five Swedish municipalities — Gothenburg, Stockholm, Örebro, Malmö and Borås — that are home to most of the 150 IS returnees, and found that those municipalities combined only have knowledge of the whereabouts of a maximum of 16 adults and 10 children.
The apparent apathy has been attributed to Sweden’s lack of legislation.
“We are almost the only country in the EU that lacks legislation against participation and cooperation with terrorist organizations,” saidMagnus Ranstorp, a counter-terrorism expert at the Swedish Defense University in Stockholm. “We are of course vulnerable,” he added. “Those who are dangerous and out on our streets can recruit more, and they can even plan terrorist acts.”
Meanwhile, hundreds of foreign jihadi fighters who are being held in Syria represent a “time bomb” and could escape and threaten the West unless countries do more to take them back, according to the Kurdish-led, U.S.-backed authorities holding them.
“It seems most of the countries have decided that they’re done with them, let’s leave them here, but this is a very big mistake,” saidAbdulkarim Omar of the Syrian Democratic Forces. “Their home countries must do more to prosecute foreign fighters and rehabilitate their families, or else this will be a danger and a time bomb.”
In February 2019, U.S. President Donald Trumpcalled on European countries to repatriate and prosecute their foreign fighters:
“The United States is asking Britain, France, Germany and other European allies to take back over 800 ISIS fighters that we captured in Syria and put them on trial. The Caliphate is ready to fall. The alternative is not a good one in that we will be forced to release them…
“The U.S. does not want to watch as these ISIS fighters permeate Europe, which is where they are expected to go. We do so much, and spend so much. Time for others to step up and do the job that they are so capable of doing. We are pulling back after 100% Caliphate victory!”
“We have 1,800 ISIS Prisoners taken hostage in our final battles to destroy 100% of the Caliphate in Syria. Decisions are now being made as to what to do with these dangerous prisoners…. European countries are not helping at all, even though this was very much done for their benefit. They are refusing to take back prisoners from their specific countries. Not good!”
We have 1,800 ISIS Prisoners taken hostage in our final battles to destroy 100% of the Caliphate in Syria. Decisions are now being made as to what to do with these dangerous prisoners….
On June 24, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, called for all foreign fighters who are being detained in Syria and Iraq to be repatriated, investigated and prosecuted, or released.
“The continuing detention of individuals not suspected of crimes, in the absence of lawful basis and regular independent judicial review, is not acceptable,” she said.
Europe’s reluctance to take back their IS fighters is based on a mix of legal, financial and political factors. Some countries have begun repatriating the children of IS jihadis on a case-by-case basis but taking back foreign fighters and their families is deeply unpopular and carries political risk.
In France, for instance, Prime Minister Édouard Philippe recently said that he preferred that French jihadis were repatriated rather than them risk evading justice. They should be “tried, convicted and punished in France rather than disappearing in the wild to plan other actions, including against our country,” he said in a January 30 interview with France Inter. His comments sparked an immediate backlash. Valérie Boyer of the center-right party Les Républicains told parliament that the government must “prevent the return of jihadists who betrayed France and fought against our civilization.”
National Assembly MEP Nicolas Bay, who is also a member of the executive board of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN), added:
“The French jihadis, by their commitment alongside groups that declared war on our country, having committed ignoble attacks on our territory, these jihadists have deliberately chosen to break with France and there is no justification for granting them any protection.
“Rather than preparing for their return, the government should do everything possible to prevent them from returning to French territory! They must be judged by the competent Syrian and Iraqi authorities.”
Philippe subsequently did an about-face. In a March 6 interview with BFM TV, he said:
“We will not bring back anybody. The French doctrine has always been that the French fighters who are going to combat zones are fighting against us. When they are detained, they are to be judged and, if necessary, punished on the spot [in Iraq or Syria].”
The Wall Street Journal, in a recent editorial, “The West’s Foreign Fighter Problem,” noted that European governments face a “Catch-22” situation: either repatriate and prosecute their jihadis, or risk that they disappear off the radar and carry out new attacks in Europe. The Journal wrote:
“In February President Trump tweeted that the U.S. ‘is asking Britain, France, Germany and other European allies to take back’ their ISIS fighters and prosecute them at home. Indonesia, Morocco, Russia, and Sudan started the process months ago, but Western European governments are resisting.
“Bending to domestic political pressure, European politicians like U.K. Home Secretary Sajid Javid have vowed to reject ISIS members and even strip them of citizenship. German and French officials also publicly express skepticism about accepting imprisoned terrorists. Countries that criticized the U.S. over Guantanamo Bay now are turning a blind eye to the detention of their citizens elsewhere….
“The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have treated detainees humanely, but it can’t hold them forever. The group eventually will have no choice but to let the prisoners go — making a manageable security threat much worse. These battle-hardened fighters are especially dangerous given their practical knowledge and the respect they could command among would-be jihadists.
“Many released fighters would slip into Iraq, blend in with sympathetic Sunni populations, and prepare for an ISIS revival. Others could exploit security vacuums in Libya or Somalia or jump-start conflicts in other unstable regions. Perhaps the greatest risk is that some will return to the West undetected alongside refugees. Countries hesitant to take back their citizens now should realize they might return anyway—clandestinely.”
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Provoking Iran has become a favorite US pastime, it seems. The CIA, along with the Mossad and MI6, just can’t seem to help themselves when it comes to bullying, meddling with and provoking the Persian nation. From Operation Ajax in 1953 to the Iranian Revolution of 1979, from shooting down an Iran Air commercial passenger plane in 1988 to pulling out of JCPOA in 2018 to (last week) violating Iranian air space in 2019, the USG (United States Government) is engaging in extreme provocation of the Islamic Republic in the hopes of getting it to take the bait. If you’re relatively new to this topic and can’t quite figure out what to believe, or to understand who is provoking whom, read on to find out the shocking history of US interference in Iran.
Operation Ajax: US-CIA Coup to Oust Mosaddegh
How would you feel if your country democratically elected a leader (a prime minister), then foreign powers orchestrated a coup to overthrow his government and install a puppet dictator – and a king at that? That is exactly what happened in 1953 when then US President Eisenhower signed off on the CIA’s Operation Ajax, on behalf of the UK, multinational Western oil corporations and other rich powerbrokers who wanted control of Iran’s hydrocarbons. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi went on to rule with an iron fist after prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was ousted for wanting to nationalize Iran’s oil industry. With the help of the CIA/Mossad, Pahlavi created the SAVAK – a brutal secret police and intelligence service that reigned in Iran during his dynasty. According to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), SAVAK probably employed more than 15,000 full-time agents. It had virtually unlimited powers to surveil, arrest, torture and execute anyone it wanted.
Overthrowing the Shah, Supporting Iraq Against Iran and Shooting Down an Iranian Passenger Plane
The CIA was again involved in an overthrow in Iran in 1979. This time, the very same Shah Pahlavi was on the receiving end of the coup, having fallen out of US favor. The CIA backed Khomeini and the “Islamic Revolution” which changed Iran from a monarchical tyranny to a theocracy. US interference in Iran became highly politicized during the Iran hostage crisis, with the Republicans (Bush, Reagan, etc.) making behind-the-scene deals with Iran in what was ultimately a successful attempt to prevent Democrat Jimmy Carter from winning a 2nd presidential term. Later in the 1980s, the infamous Iran-Contra scandal became public, when we learned that the US was using funds from selling weapons to Iran to fund the Contras in Nicaragua. Also in the 1980s, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq attacked Iran, which began the Iraq-Iran War that lasted 8 years. The US was secretly helping Iraq during the start of the war. In 1988, the US audaciously shot down an Iranian commercial passenger plane – Air Iran Flight 655 – in Iranian air space, offering lame excuses. The US SM-2 surface-to-air missile killed 290 passengers, including 66 children. Imagine the US reaction if Iran had shot down a commercial American plane in US air space!
Trying to Get to War with Iran
Provoking Iran is one thing. War with Iran is another, and it has been a bad obsession for awhile, picking up speed in 2001. Recall General Wesley Clark’s famous admission that the Pentagon was planning to attack 7 nations in 5 years in the aftermath of the 9/11 false flag operation. The 7 nations (in the order they were to be invaded) were Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and finishing with … Iran. Recently, James Corbett put together a short video with examples of 4 times US officials or think tanks have openly discussed the idea of war with Iran. The first was Patrick Clawson, of the The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Zionist think tank, who suggested we need a false flag to get into war with Iran, just as other wars have started with false flag events. It’s all about crisis initiation. The second was the late arch-NWO insider Zbigniew Brzezinski, who suggested the US cold go to war with Iran as a “defensive measure.” The third is a former frontrunner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination, US politician Gary Hart, who wrote an article on HuffPost entitled Unsolicited Advice to the Government of Iran where he warned Iranian officials to “not tempt fate” and “not only not take provocative actions, [but also] not seem to be doing so.” The fourth is where journalist Seymour Hersh revealed ex-VP Dick Cheney’s plan to stage an incident in order to go to war with Iran.
The Brookings Think Tank Plan: Which Path to Persia?
Independent reporter Tony Cartalucci did a great job of drawing people’s attention to a 2009 analysis paper by the Brookings Institution (another Zionist think tank) entitled Which Path to Persia? The report considers the various ways that the US could “topple Tehran” (regime change) by means of a color revolution/supporting a popular uprising, allowing/encouraging Israel to strike first or outright invasion.
NGO-led Fake Color Revolution, JCPOA Pullout and MKO/MEK
On the topic of color revolutions, it was interesting to hear Trump, Pompeo and the other official US gangsters express their heartfelt care and compassion for the Iranian people during the “popular uprising” in January 2018. It’s funny how top US leaders always feel such sympathy and concern for people in other countries when the US leaders want those countries’ elected leaders to be toppled. In May 2018, in a unilateral move, the US withdrew from the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), an agreement among Iran, the US, the UK, Russia, China, France, Germany (P5+1) and the EU which prevented Iran from developing nuclear weapons while allowing them a path to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Trump gave the excuse that Iran was not keeping its part of the deal despite repeated assurances by the US intelligence community, Israel’s Shin Bet (internal security service) and the IAEA that Iran was in compliance, as covered in my article Iran is Fully Compliant in Nuclear Deal; Israel is Still a Rogue Nuclear State. The US began sanctioning Iran hard, again and again, trying to stop Iran from being able to trade and export on the international market. The US also threatened so-called allies (vassal nations) that they had better not try to bypass the sanctions and trade with Iran, but many nations ignored this and did anyway. The EU enacted a blocking statute in August 2018 to effectively nullify US sanctions. War hawks like the late John McCain and now John Bolton have openly admitted US support of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO or MEK), hoping it will conduct a coup against the current Iranian government. However, MKO is widely recognized as a terrorist group; they recently announced a plan to assassinate a senior Iranian military commander and a new judiciary chief. The latest is that the USG is now threatening to sanction any nation that imports Iranian oil!
Blaming Iran for Everything: 9/11, Nuclear Weapons and the ‘Biggest State Sponsor of Terror’
The Zionist neocons running the USG have been trying to pin everything on Iran. They keep accusing Iran of wanting to develop, or actually developing, nuclear weapons, when all the evidence suggests they are not. Iranian leaders have repeatedly stated nukes are against Iranian beliefs and Islamic religious tenets. US officials have repeatedly parroted the phrase Biggest State Sponsor of Terror while pointing the finger at Iran – despite the fact the US itself, as well as Israel and Saudi Arabia, win this award hands down. This is the real troika of tyranny which committed 9/11. In May 2018, even a US District court judge issued a default judgment against Iran in a lawsuit accusing the Islamic Republic of the deaths of 1000+ people on 9/11! The judge ordered Iran to pay over US$6 billion to 9/11 victims. Hmm … jurisdiction, anyone? A high percentage of the American public got confused and thought Iraq was behind 9/11, so why not try Iran too? There’s “bad guys” hiding “in caves” over there in the Middle East who “hate our freedoms”, right?
Iran downed a US RQ-4A Global Hawk drone, pictured above.
More Provoking Iran: The Story of 2 Tankers and 1 US Drone
Blaming Iran never seems to stop. In May 2019, 2 tankers were partially blown up in the Gulf of Oman. The US was quick to blame Iran, despite absolutely no motive and the fact that even the United Arab Emirates (usually hostile to Iran) admitted there was “no clear, scientific and convincing evidence” that Iran did it. However, evidence should never get in the way of good propaganda. On June 20th, 2019, Iran shot down a US spy drone (RQ-4A Global Hawk), illegally operating in stealth mode and violating Iran’s air space, though the US claimed it was international waters. Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of Russia’s Security Council, revealed Russia had military intelligence proving the downed drone was in Iranian air space when it was shot down by Iran. He also said that the “evidence” presented by the USA alleging Iran was behind attacks on ships in the Gulf of Oman was “poor quality and unprofessional.” Yes, of course – but that’s bound to happen when you mislead and deceive; it’s hard to make all the lie convincing.
3 Final Thoughts: It’s not Just About Provoking Iran
There are 3 important things to takeaway from this article. Firstly, the phenomenon of the US provoking Iran has a demonstrably long history based on historical fact, rather than the flimsy, evidence-free claims it makes against the Islamic Republic by trying to blame it for everything, from 9/11 to developing nukes to sponsoring terror to attacking oil tankers with no motive. US provocation of Iran is a long-held, 66+ year Deep State strategy.
Secondly, the US provoking Iran is not just about Iran. If you haven’t noticed, this is how the US treats everyone outside its orbit who isn’t ‘toeing the line’ or ‘doing what they are told.’ Look at all the Russophobia and blatant lies of Russian interference that were whipped up in the last decade against Russia and Putin. Look at the propaganda against Venezuela and Maduro. Look at the scheme to oust Assad and divide and destroy Syria. Look at the demonization of North Korea, Cuba and Nicaragua, and at how warmonger Bolton proclaimed Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua to be the “troika of tyranny.” Look at the game plan! Look at the NWO agenda! It’s all about using the US to bully, subjugate, oppress, interfere with and provoke any nation that won’t ‘join the Empire’ and submit to being a vassal in the coming New World Order One World Government. Keep that in mind whenever you read world news, geopolitics or international affairs. That is the endgame.
Thirdly and lastly, provoking Iran is the dangerous path to WW3. The US can knock off weak nations like Libya and Iraq. They can even attack smallish nations like Syria and afford to have things not go to plan. However, Iran is a formidable opponent with a considerable military, highly advanced weaponry and friends in high places. If the Zionist-led USG is foolish enough to start a war with Iran, Russia and China will come to its defense, and soon the world will be embroiled in a bigger world war than we have ever seen before. The rest is just details, just means towards that nightmarish goal. The question remains the same: are enough people aware of it so that it can be stopped?
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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.
In response to reports that Iran has surpassed the enriched uranium stockpile limit set by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iran nuclear deal, Jamal Abdi, President of the National Iranian American Council, released the following statement:
“The consequences of President Trump’s abandonment of the Iran nuclear deal continue to mount. Less than two weeks after the “maximum pressure” campaign nearly brought the U.S. into war, Iran has now exceeded nuclear stockpile limits that had been in place before Trump took office. President Trump inherited a successful nuclear deal and, with the goading of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton, shredded that agreement with no serious endgame in place besides war.
“Thanks to Iran’s continued voluntary adherence to other provisions in the nuclear deal, Iran remains far from an undetectable nuclear breakout capability. Yet the further fraying of the nuclear deal is a setback for those who support diplomatic solutions to the standoff with Iran, and risks providing fodder for hawks like National Security Advisor John Bolton who are eager for military action.
“Make no mistake: the Trump administration’s approach towards Iran has senselessly and recklessly restarted the Iranian nuclear crisis. The goal of hawks like Bolton has from the get-go been to collapse the deal, and according to recent reports Bolton is now seeking even more aggressive sanctions to goad Iran towards this end.
“When you’re in a hole, the best advice is to stop digging. Returning the U.S. to compliance with the nuclear deal would be the best way to reverse the damage of Trump’s withdrawal. At minimum, Trump should suspend the “maximum pressure” sanctions in exchange for Iran suspending recent breaches of the nuclear deal and to allow space for negotiations. The top priority of the Trump Administration should be to reopen communication channels with Iran and engage in serious talks. Unless and until he does so, the U.S. and Iran will remain on the path to war.”
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Conservation groups filed a federal lawsuit today challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ illegal approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline to be constructed through hundreds of rivers, streams and wetlands without evaluating the project’s impacts as required by the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act.
The groups also sent notices of their intent to sue President Donald Trump, the Army Corps and the companies seeking to build Keystone XL and its power line infrastructure over the project’s lethal threats to endangered species, including the whooping crane.
Late last year the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana ruled that the Trump administration violated bedrock environmental laws by issuing a permit for Keystone XL without adequately evaluating critical information on the project’s environmental impacts, including tar-sands oil spills and climate change. Although Trump effectively circumvented that ruling by issuing a new permit in March, the fact remains that no federal agency has yet completed the requisite analysis.
The new lawsuit, filed in the same federal court in Montana, challenges the Army Corps’ approval of Keystone XL under its streamlined “Nationwide Permit 12” process, under which the Corps avoids the transparent and comprehensive review normally required for major projects. In fact the Corps has approved the Keystone XL route completely behind closed doors, without evaluating the risk of oil spills into waterways. The lawsuit alleges that these approvals violate both the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act.
The groups sent notices to the Army Corps, President Trump, TC Energy (formerly TransCanada) and the power line companies that would construct the hundreds of miles of lines needed for the pipeline’s pump stations. These letters clear the way for future legal action under the Endangered Species Act by putting the parties on notice that their approvals and proposed actions to build the pipeline violate the law.
Construction activities and spills from the pipeline would threaten protected species like the pallid sturgeon, the American burying beetle, and the critically endangered whooping crane, which remains at the brink of extinction.
“The Trump administration has proven to be just as reckless with our Constitutional separation of powers as this dangerous Keystone XL pipeline is to the safety of our water and climate,” said Dena Hoff, a Northern Plains Resource Council member and Glendive, Mont. farmer. “The United States is still a country of laws, and this foreign corporation’s proposed tar sands pipeline has yet to prove it meets legal standards in the American court system. We will continue this fight for the safety of Montanans and the livelihoods of farmers and ranchers who depend on clean water.”
“We won’t stop fighting Trump’s underhanded attempt to dodge the courts and ram this dirty fossil fuel project down America’s throat,” said Jared Margolis, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “We’ll continue working to ensure this destructive pipeline never has the chance to ruin clean water that’s crucial to people and endangered species.”
“Though he seems to think otherwise, Donald Trump is not above the law, and we won’t allow him to endanger wildlife, clean water, and the climate to allow a Canadian company to move more tar sands through the United States,” said Sierra Club Senior Attorney Doug Hayes. “We’ve held off construction of Keystone XL for more than a decade, and we won’t stop until this dirty tar sands proposal is put to rest for good.”
“While Trump states over and over again the Keystone XL pipeline is already being built, those of us who live in the states know the reality and risks. Our scenic Niobrara River and the Platte River, where Sandhill and Whooping Cranes migrate, along with farmers’ water wells, are all at risk with this foreign, export pipeline. Trump may not believe in the rule of law, but we the people do, and we will take to the streets, courts and cornfields to ensure this pipeline is never built,” said Jane Kleeb, Bold Alliance founder.
“The Army Corps’ lack of transparency in their review process for the Keystone XL pipeline is deeply disturbing,” said Marcie Keever, legal director at Friends of the Earth. “On such a major project, the communities who are on the frontlines deserve a comprehensive environmental review to protect themselves and our environment. Rubber-stamping Trump’s attempt to build the dirty Keystone XL pipeline behind closed doors is devastating for the farmers, tribes and communities along its route. Stopping this pipeline is an environmental priority and will help put a stop to Trump’s ongoing corruption.”
“After we won in court, Trump tried to skirt the law by issuing an unjustified permit for Keystone XL,” said Jackie Prange, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “But as this new lawsuit shows, no president can, on a whim, unilaterally exempt the government from complying with our nation’s bedrock environmental laws. We will never stop fighting to protect the country’s wildlife, water, communities and climate from this disastrous tar-sands oil pipeline.”
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The Supreme Court has abdicated its responsibility to strike down partisan gerrymandering. This occurs when one party intentionally manipulates district boundaries to skew its voting power, notwithstanding the will of the voters. Although both parties engage in partisan gerrymandering, Republicans benefit from it far more than Democrats.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the conservative 5-4 majority in Rucho v. Common Cause, admitted that excessive partisan gerrymandering is “incompatible with democratic principles” and “leads to results that reasonably seem unjust.” But, the Court held, challenges to the practice “present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts.”
In her passionate dissent, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer and Sotomayor, Justice Elena Kagan noted that extreme partisan gerrymanders “deprive citizens of the most fundamental of their constitutional rights” — the rights of equal participation in the political process, “to join with others to advance political beliefs, and to choose their political representatives.” Kagan wrote,
“For the first time ever, this Court refuses to remedy a constitutional violation because it thinks the task beyond judicial capabilities.”
The Court consolidated two partisan gerrymandering cases for decision in Rucho. The North Carolina case involved gerrymandering by Republicans. In the Maryland case, it was Democrats who engaged in gerrymandering.
North Carolina’s Republican legislative leadership drew a congressional map to entrench long-term Republican majorities. Although they won roughly 50 percent of the popular vote, Republicans picked up a majority of available seats in the 2018 Midterm elections by the extreme margin of 10-3.
In Maryland, Democrats used voters’ histories and party affiliations to move 70,000 Republican voters out of a district and 24,000 Democratic voters in.
Federal district courts in both North Carolina and Maryland struck down the partisan gerrymanders. The high court reversed the district court decisions and concluded there are no standards for federal courts to use in gauging the constitutionality of partisan gerrymanders.
But federal courts have actually devised formulas to strike them down. “The majority’s abdication comes just when courts across the country … have coalesced around manageable judicial standards to resolve partisan gerrymandering claims,” Kagan pointed out. These courts used “neutral and manageable — and eminently legal — standards.”
Kagan cited the three-part test the federal district courts in North Carolina and Maryland, and other courts around the country, used to decide vote dilution claims. The test examines intent, effects and causation. First, plaintiffs must show that the state officials’ “predominant purpose” in drawing district lines was to “entrench [their party] in power” by diluting the votes of the rival party. Second, plaintiffs must establish that the lines drawn “substantially” diluted their votes. Third, the burden shifts to the State to posit a “legitimate, non-partisan justification to save its map.”
Applying that test to the North Carolina and Maryland cases, Kagan determined that illegal partisan gerrymandering had occurred in both.
“By substantially diluting the votes of citizens favoring their rivals, the politicians of one party had succeeded in entrenching themselves in office,” she wrote. “They had beat democracy.”
But the majority was willing to sacrifice democracy on the altar of partisanship. There is no case more impactful than this one, and it’s no accident that it was the right-wing Republicans who upheld partisan gerrymandering.
In a 2004 concurrence, Justice Anthony Kennedy signaled his openness to striking down extreme partisan gerrymanders, which amount to “rigging elections.” He wrote in Vieth v. Jubelirer,
“It is not in our tradition to foreclose the judicial process from the attempt to define standards and remedies where it is alleged that a constitutional right is burdened or denied.”
Kennedy’s retirement and Mitch McConnell’s replacement of Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland with Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch all but foreclosed the possibility that the Court would review partisan gerrymandering.
Kagan ended her powerful dissent by warning that this is not the moment for the Court to back down.
“Of all times to abandon the Court’s duty to declare the law, this was not the one,” she wrote. “The practices challenged in these cases imperil our system of government. Part of the Court’s role in that system is to defend its foundations. None is more important than free and fair elections. With respect but deep sadness, I dissent.”
Looking Ahead
Partisan gerrymandering is “far more effective and durable” now than in the past, Kagan observed, because advances in technology provide mapmakers with “more granular data about party preference and voting behavior than ever before.” They can utilize it “with unprecedented efficiency and precision.”
The Rucho decision “is almost guaranteed to facilitate massive election rigging in the future,” Ari Melber, senior writer at Mother Jones, told Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!. We can no longer look to the federal courts, to which the disenfranchised have traditionally turned for relief, he said.
Now that the high court has denied judicial review of partisan gerrymandering in federal courts, it is up to the people in the several states to remedy it.
Independent citizen-led commissions in states such as Michigan, Colorado, Utah and Missouri draw fair and representative district maps.
But in most states, “the party that controls the legislature draws districts for both the U.S. House of Representatives and the state legislature,” Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky wrote in the Los Angeles Times. “They inevitably do so in a way to maximize their political control.”
The Supreme Court has struck down racial gerrymandering as violative of the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. But after Rucho, claims of partisan gerrymandering will no longer be reviewed by federal courts.
The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, led by Eric Holder, attorney general in the Obama administration, plans to file racial gerrymandering claims in federal court and partisan gerrymandering claims in state courts. The organization is also considering support of constitutional amendments to establish independent redistricting commissions in Oklahoma, Arkansas and New Hampshire.
The House has passed H.R. 1 — the For the People Act — that would require states to draw congressional districts utilizing independent redistricting commissions. Members of these commissions would “represent diverse communities across the state, by establishing fair redistricting criteria, and by mandating greater transparency for the redistricting process,” according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colorado) has introduced the Fair Maps Act, which would establish baseline criteria for map-drawing and provide a private legal cause of action for voters to challenge skewed maps in court.
But, as Kagan noted,
“The politicians who benefit from partisan gerrymandering are unlikely to change partisan gerrymandering. And because those politicians maintain themselves in office through partisan gerrymandering, the chances for legislative reform are slight.”
The remedy for partisan gerrymandering lies with the people.
“The Supreme Court’s decision has made one thing clear,” Jessica Post, executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said. “The only way we’ll end partisan gerrymandering is by voting Republicans out of power in state legislatures.”
One-half of the states allow voter ballot initiatives. Voter advocates can organize campaigns to put measures on the ballot that require independent redistricting commissions rather than politicians to draw the maps. It is up to the people to make the voting system fair.
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Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and a member of the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent book is Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Demonstrators protest against gerrymandering at a rally at the Supreme Court during the gerrymandering cases Lamone v. Benisek and Rucho v. Common Cause on March 26, 2019, in Washington, D.C. (EVELYN HOCKSTEIN / FOR THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES)
For the third year in a row, the Democrats are voting for a massive increase in military spending, to put at the disposal of the fascistic Trump administration money it can use, not just to launch wars, but also to create a police state in America.
Senate Democrats voted overwhelmingly Thursday to approve the largest Pentagon budget ever, rejecting calls to stop President Trump from building “usable” nuclear weapons and retaliate for his misappropriation of Pentagon funds to carry out the crackdown on the border.
The biggest military budget ever
Under Trump, the US military budget has gone from $619 billion in 2016 to $700 billion in 2018, $716 billion in 2019 and the $750 billion passed Thursday by the Senate.
Image on the right: An American Arleigh Burke-class destroyer fires a missile. [Credit: US Navy]
Defense spending now accounts for nearly 60 percent of the government budget, with everything from education, roads and bridges to scientific research and space exploration squeezed into the remaining two-fifths.
If the Senate version of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act passes in the House of Representatives, Congress will have granted Trump a total annual increase in the military budget of $131 billion, a figure more than twice as large as Russia’s $61 billion annual military budget. The Democratic-controlled House, for its part, is proposing a military budget of “only” $733 billion—another US record.
Image on the left: US soldiers march in formation [Credit: US Army]
In Thursday’s vote, 36 Democrats joined 49 Republicans to pass the largest military budget in American history. Only five Democrats voted against the bill, while six others, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, were too busy running for president to vote one way or another on a bill granting massive war-making powers to the fascistic president.
War with China
The bill squarely targets China, placing sanctions on Chinese banks that do business with North Korea, while prohibiting federal funds from being used to purchase products from the world’s largest maker of passenger rail cars, the China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation.
Image on the right: F-15E Lightning fires a missile. [Credit: US Air Force]
In one of its most draconian restrictions, the bill places limits on the availability of visas to Chinese students and academics, treating them, in language reminiscent of the internment of the Japanese in World War II, as potential spies.
War with Iran
The day after they voted to pass the budget, Senate Democrats staged a farcical vote on a separate amendment, doomed from the start, to require Trump to obtain congressional approval before attacking Iran. Predictlably, the vote failed. Commenting on the defeat of the amendment, the New York Times wrote curtly, “Mr. Trump has said he has the power to launch a military strike against Iran without Congress’s permission, and in effect, the Senate agreed.”
No limits on nuclear weapons and Guantanamo Bay
Image on the left: Protests against torture of Guantanamo Bay prisoners in 2015. [Credit: Stephen Melkisethian, Flickr]
The Senate bill rejected all provisions in the House version that would place even the most token limits on the development of “low-yield” nuclear weapons, in effect giving Trump the go-ahead for his quest to develop “usable” nuclear bombs and missiles. The Senate version also rejected calls to ban new detainees from being placed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Rubber-stamping Trump’s border crackdown
In perhaps the most significant measure stealthily included in the deal, the Senate voted to “back-fill” the $3.6 billion Trump misappropriated from the Pentagon budget to build his border wall by proclaiming a state of emergency and bypassing congressional opposition.
Immigrant children detained in an impromptu concentration camp under an overpass [Credit: Nick Miroff]
With this measure, the Senate Democrats effectively endorsed the greatest violation by Trump of the US Constitution to date: using the Pentagon budget in his role as “commander in chief” to short circuit Congress’s power of the purse. These are grounds for not only immediate impeachment, but also criminal indictment for conspiracy to subvert the Constitution.
Democrats back Trump
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe, a Republican, made clear that the bill is aimed squarely at China, declaring, “The National Defense Strategy gave it to us straight” with its emphasis on “strategic competition with China and Russia.”
The top Democrat on the committee, Senator Jack Reed, agreed. “This is a very good bill,” he said. “It contains many needed authorities, funding authorizations and reforms that will help the men and women of our armed services.”
“The right place to be is ‘yes,’ said Democratic Representative Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who sits on the House Armed Services Committee. ‘Yes,’ an increase, ‘yes,’ a pay raise, ‘yes,’ a significant Defense Department budget.”
Image on the right: Donald Trump smiles with Nancy Pelosi. [Credit: US Air Force]
In last week’s debates, the 20 Democrats running for president spoke broken Spanish and pulled long faces to condemn Trump’s treatment of refugee children, grandstanded about Trump’s “erratic” threats against Iran, and demanded an expansion of government social programs, including “Medicare for all.”
But actions speak louder than words. For all their denunciations of Trump as a sexual pervert, Russia spy, or both, the Democrats function as though they were in a coalition government with the American Mussolini, rubber-stamping his illegal wars, green-lighting his attacks on democracy and funding his concentration camps.
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Donald Trump’s supposed “deal of the century”, offering the Palestinians economic bribes in return for political submission, is the endgame of western peace-making, the real goal of which has been failure, not success.
For decades, peace plans have made impossible demands of the Palestinians, forcing them to reject the terms on offer and thereby create a pretext for Israel to seize more of their homeland.
The more they have compromised, the further the diplomatic horizon has moved away – to the point now that the Trump administration expects them to forfeit any hope of statehood or a right to self-determination.
Even Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and architect of the peace plan, cannot really believe the Palestinians will be bought off with their share of the $50 billion inducement he hoped to raise in Bahrain last week.
That was why the Palestinian leadership stayed away.
But Israel’s image managers long ago coined a slogan to obscure a policy of incremental dispossession, masquerading as a peace process: “The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
It is worth examining what those landmark “missed opportunities” consisted of.
The first was the United Nations’ Partition Plan of late 1947. In Israel’s telling, it was Palestinian intransigence over dividing the land into separate Jewish and Arab states that triggered war, leading to the creation of a Jewish state on the ruins of most of the Palestinians’ homeland.
But the real story is rather different.
The recently formed UN was effectively under the thumb of the imperial powers of Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union. All three wanted a Jewish state as a dependent ally in the Arab-dominated Middle East.
Fuelled by the dying embers of western colonialism, the Partition Plan offered the largest slice of the Palestinian homeland to a minority population of European Jews, whose recent immigration had been effectively sponsored by the British empire.
As native peoples elsewhere were being offered independence, Palestinians were required to hand over 56 per cent of their land to these new arrivals. There was no chance such terms would be accepted.
However, as Israeli scholars have noted, the Zionist leadership had no intention of abiding by the UN plan either. David Ben Gurion, Israel’s founding father, called the Jewish state proposed by the UN “tiny”. He warned that it could never accommodate the millions of Jewish immigrants he needed to attract if his new state was not rapidly to become a second Arab state because of higher Palestinian birth rates.
Ben Gurion wanted the Palestinians to reject the plan, so that he could use war as a chance to seize 78 percent of Palestine and drive out most of the native population.
For decades, Israel was happy to entrench and, after 1967, expand its hold on historic Palestine.
In fact, it was Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat who made the biggest, unreciprocated concessions to peace. In 1988, he recognised Israel and, later, in the 1993 Olso accords, he accepted the principle of partition on even more dismal terms than the UN’s – a state on 22 per cent of historic Palestine.
Even so, the Oslo process stood no serious chance of success after Israel refused to make promised withdrawals from the occupied territories. Finally, in 2000 President Bill Clinton called together Arafat and Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak to a peace summit at Camp David.
Arafat knew Israel was unwilling to make any meaningful compromises and had to be bullied and cajoled into attending. Clinton promised the Palestinian leader he would not be blamed if the talks failed.
Israel ensured they did. According to his own advisers, Barak “blew up” the negotiations, insisting that Israel hold on to occupied East Jerusalem, including the Al Aqsa mosque, and large areas of the West Bank. Washington blamed Arafat anyway, and refashioned Israel’s intransigence as a “generous offer”.
A short time later, in 2002, Saudi Arabia’s Peace Initiative offered Israel normal relations with the Arab world in return for a minimal Palestinian state. Israel and western leaders hurriedly shunted it into the annals of forgotten history.
After Arafat’s death, secret talks through 2008-09 – revealed in the Palestine Papers leak – showed the Palestinians making unprecedented concessions. They included allowing Israel to annex large tracts of East Jerusalem, the Palestinians’ expected capital.
Negotiator Saeb Erekat was recorded saying he had agreed to “the biggest [Jerusalem] in Jewish history” as well as to only a “symbolic number of [Palestinian] refugees’ return [and a] demilitarised state … What more can I give?”
It was a good question. Tzipi Livni, Israel’s negotiator, responded, “I really appreciate it” when she saw how much the Palestinians were conceding. But still her delegation walked away.
Trump’s own doomed plan follows in the footsteps of such “peace-making”.
In a New York Times commentary last week Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, candidly encapsulated the thrust of this decades-long diplomatic approach. He called on the Palestinians to “surrender”, adding: “Surrender is the recognition that in a contest, staying the course will prove costlier than submission.”
The peace process was always leading to this moment. Trump has simply cut through the evasions and equivocations of the past to reveal where the West’s priorities truly lie.
It is hard to believe that Trump or Kushner ever believed the Palestinians would accept a promise of “money for quiet” in place of a state based on “land for peace”.
Once more, the West is trying to foist on the Palestinians an inequitable peace deal. The one certainty is that they will reject it – it is the only issue on which the Fatah and Hamas leaderships are united – again ensuring the Palestinians can be painted as the obstacle to progress.
The Palestinians may have refused this time to stumble into the trap, but they will find themselves the fall guys, whatever happens.
When Trump’s plan crashes, as it will, Washington will have the chance to exploit a supposed Palestinian rejection as justification for approving annexation by Israel of yet more tranches of occupied territory.
The Palestinans will be left with a shattered homeland. No self-determination, no viable state, no independent economy, just a series of aid-dependent ghettos. And decades of western diplomacy will finally have arrived at its preordained destination.
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A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
The Canadian government’s efforts to publicly oppose Islamophobia[1] and racism yet again belie sinister undercurrents that are the real “Canada”.
The real Canada supports Zionism and Wahhabism, and sectarianism. It supports exclusiveness rather than inclusiveness and tolerance.
Wahhabism, grown and nurtured in Canada’s ally, Saudi Arabia, is an archetype of exclusivism and sectarianism. It is anti-Islamic, and instrumentalized by imperial powers, including Canada, to destroy prey nations such as secular, pluralist, democratic Syria, a country that takes pride in being inclusive and tolerant.
The coalition currently committing daily war crimes against Syria uses ISIS, al Qaeda, and affiliates as proxies. Sectarianism is used as a tool to destroy and balkanize.Terrorist- occupied areas are blank slates where extremist, literalist derivations of Sharia law are imposed, where religious icons and institutions of all faiths are destroyed, where women have no rights.
There is no basis in the Qur’an, argues Zafar Bangash[2], for any of these depravities. Further, he adds, Wahhabism is at odds with the vast majority of Muslims, labelled “kaffirs” by Wahhabis, despite the influence of petrodollars and Western governments and agencies that propagate it.
One tactic used by deep state agencies to create the necessary domestic preconditions for slaughtering multitudes of all faiths in what is now an overseas holocaust, is the false flag. In Canada[3], for example, Canadian agencies set up a hapless couple to stage a bombing incident on Canada Day, July 1, 2013, with a view to creating Islamophobia.
Another tactic is to disappear the vast majority of Muslims from the Canadian mindset, hence Syrians – mostly secular and pluralist like most Canadians – are disappeared from the Canadian consciousness while the savage ISIS/al Qaeda terrorists (covert proxies) and the Saudi absolute Monarchy (allies) are presented as the norm. Nothing could be further from the truth, but the same Canadian agencies that commit war crimes as policy also control the public consciousness. The truth about the “Anglo/Zionist/Wahhabi” -led axis is submerged and disappeared at all levels in Western societies. Not only does mainstream messaging consist of war propaganda, but public libraries and book shops also submerge the truth.
Madeleine Albright, who intoned that killing 500,000 (the real number is closer to 600,000) Iraqi children was “worth it” is thought to be a reliable source to preach against fascism[4]— which the West supports and grows at this very moment in Kiev and beyond – and fake stories about a non-existent “revolution” in Syria are amplified.
Meanwhile, Zionist apartheid Israel, another strong supporter of the terrorists in Syria, is increasingly being protected by Canadian agencies and legislation. Canada recently adopted the Israeli lobby’s definition of anti-semitism which, according to the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, “is extremely vague, open to misinterpretation” and a “threat to freedom of expression.”[5]
So there we have it. The real Canada is largely misgoverned by an axis of unelected polities which intentionally fabricate Islamophobia and other hatreds so that globalized war and poverty and walls and concentration camps can continue to flourish. And the crimes are being committed behind the Big Lies of humanitarianism, freedom, democracy, and inclusiveness.
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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. Visit the author’s website at https://www.marktaliano.net.
Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.
Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes the mainstream media narratives on Syria.
Russia is making rapid progress in presenting a “balancing” alternative to French domination in Paris’ Françafrique “sphere of influence” in Africa after signing a military deal with the terrorist-plagued but geostrategically significant state of Mali during the visit of its Defense Minister to Moscow last week.
Russia’s “Pivot to Africa” is accelerating after the Eurasian Great Power just signed a military deal with the West African nation of Mali and pledged to help it eradicate the terrorists that have plagued it for most of the last decade. For those who haven’t been following events too closely, Moscow recently succeeded in creating a bi-coastal “African Transversal” between the Atlantic Ocean and Red Sea via the Congo Republic, the Central African Republic (CAR), and Sudan after it clinched a separate military agreement with Brazzaville in late May, which in turn caught France’s attentionand compelled it to seek the full restoration of ties with Russia. Paris has made some progress in this respect after hosting Russian Prime Minister Medvedevat the end of June, during which time his French counterpart announcedthat their Foreign and Defense Ministers will meet sometime in September for talks along the 2+2 format.
That couldn’t come at a better time either since Russia is further encroaching on France’s Françafrique “sphere of influence” in Africa after signing its military agreement with Mali, where Paris has deployed several thousand troops as part of its years-long anti-terrorist intervention from 2013 onward. The former colonizer has been unable to thwart these threats and the situation continues to spiral further out of control as the instability there begins to spreadto neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, ergo Bamako’s interest in seeking Moscow’s “Democratic Security” services. About the latter, this refers to Russia’s unique method of defeating HybridWarthreats through “military diplomacy”, which in the African instance concerns the sale of military equipment, the dispatch of advisors, and/or the employment of private military contractors (“mercenaries”), all of which combine to create a low-cost but highly effective solution that’s proven its success in the CAR.
Russia’s 21st-century grand strategic vision is to become the supreme “balancing” forcein Afro-Eurasia, to which end it’s utilizing creative methods to position itself in this role, which is becoming increasingly attractive for African countries who are willing to give Moscow lucrative extraction contracts in exchange for its state stabilization services. The surge of Russian influence in Africa over the past two years poses a threat to France’s neo-imperial dominance in the broad swath of the continent that comprises Françafrique, from where the European Great Power derives infathomable riches and exercises control over a myriad of countries. These vassal states veritably receive some token advantages such as the rare opportunity for their citizens to travel to the imperial center for education and tourism (provided that they can afford it), as well as low-paying jobs if they’re willing to risk the deadly journey across the Saharan Desert and Mediterranean Sea to get there illegally, but their basic needs aren’t being met and that’s created an opportunity for Russia to step in and replace France.
The explosion of terrorism in West Africa that followed Mali’s descent into civil war and short-term capture of two-thirds of the country by terrorists has forever altered the regional strategic dynamics, especially since it’s been proven beyond any doubt that Paris is powerless to reverse this trend and ensure security for the average citizen. Moscow, meanwhile, has already proven its effectiveness int his respect when it comes to the CAR, which was previously written off by the international community as a so-called “lost cause” prior to Russia’s UN-approved“Democratic Security” intervention. With that war-torn country’s successful stabilization (relative to what it used to be of course) as the crowning achievement showcasing the viability of Moscow’s “Democratic Security” model, it’s no wonder that similar conflict-beleaguered countries such as Mali are lining up to seek its services, which threatens France’s control of Françafrique and compelled it to enter into talks with Russia.
The upcoming 2+2 meeting sometime in September will come roughly a month before the Russia-Africa Summit in Sochiin late October, which is expected to formalize Moscow’s “Pivot to Africa” by comprehensively building upon is “Democratic Security” successes in order to expand the Eurasian Great Power’s influence in other domains such as the economic and political ones. France might understandably be interested in partnering with Russia in that case or at least reaching a so-called “gentlemen’s agreement” for an unofficial “New Detente” between the two in Africa, especially after Moscow demonstrated how quickly it can expand its strategic presence in the West African nation of Mali where Paris has already deployed several thousand troops, so they’ll either cut a deal with one another or their competition will inevitably rev up even further than ever before.
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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.
Born down in a dead man’s town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that’s been beat too much
Till you spend half your life just covering up
Born in the U.S.A., I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A., born in the U.S.A.
Got in a little hometown jam
So they put a rifle in my hand
Sent me off to a foreign land
To go and kill the yellow man
Born in the U.S.A.
Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man said “son if it was up to me”
Went down to see my V.A. man
He said “son, don’t you understand”
I had a brother at Khe Sahn
Fighting off the Viet Cong
They’re still there, he’s all gone
He had a woman he loved in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms now
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I’m ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run ain’t got nowhere to go
Born in the U.S.A., I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A., I’m a long gone daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A., born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A., I’m a cool rocking daddy in the U.S.A
The power of those lyrics resounds so well for a product of the turbulent 1960s. To have lived as a teenager morphing into a man during that Vietnam debacle and horror show, Springsteen’s lyrics cover lots of ground. He alliterates the plight of young, low income working stiffs from dead end towns across this nation…. then just substitute Afghanistan and Iraq for Vietnam, and nothing has changed. It is mostly the working stiffs and uber poor who kill and die in phony wars. The song implies that both the job market and our Veterans Administration didn’t give a rat’s ass for returning GIs from the Nam. The most saddened lyrics are those that remember the poor soul who returned home in a box. Nuff Said.
As the 4th approaches the movers and shakers of empire are making sure that the suckers are served a bundle of propaganda along with their burgers, dogs, soda pop and brew. The army of flags will appear, along with the others already hung up by worshippers in this temple of war. You see, our great MAGA is still fighting back against the terrorists and brown faced aliens, all who wish to destroy our great ‘Land of the 1/4 of the 1 %’. The great journalist Greg Palest renamed our country the ‘Armed Madhouse’. Yet, so few of our fellow citizens realize they are being had by phony celebrations of our military strength and resolve. Trump wants a mega ‘march of the Pentagon’ complete with even tanks on the Capital Mall, to frame this con that we are a nation at war. WE HAVE NOT BEEN AT WAR SINCE WW2!
When the effects of either your electronic gadgets, alcohol, cigarettes, 24/7 sports and news gossip, and of course opioids, wears off a bit, maybe then you working stiffs will see more clearly. The clock is ticking towards the end of this empire… morally, financially and physically. Those who rule always need the co dependence of their serfs. Put that in your firework and light it!
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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 Strategic Culture Foundation
Last Wednesday’s debate among half of the announced Democratic Party candidates to become their party’s nominee for president in 2020 was notable for its lack of drama. Many of those called on to speak had little to say apart from the usual liberal bromides about health care, jobs, education and how the United States is a country of immigrants. On the following day the mainstream media anointed Elizabeth Warren as the winner based on the coherency of her message even though she said little that differed from what was being presented by most of the others on the stage. She just said it better, more articulately.
The New York Times’ coverage was typical, praising Warren for her grasp of the issues and her ability to present the same clearly and concisely, and citing a comment “They could teach classes in how warren talks about a problem and weaves in answers into a story. She’s not just wonk and stats.” It then went on to lump most of the other candidates together, describing their performances as “ha[ving] one or two strong answers, but none of them had the electric, campaign-launching moment they were hoping for.”
Inevitably, however, there was some disagreement on who had actually done best based on viewer reactions as well as the perceptions of some of the media that might not exactly be described as mainstream. The Drudge Report website had its poll running while the debate was going on and it registered overwhelmingly in favor of Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. Likewise, the Washington Examiner, a right-wing paper, opined that Gabbard had won by a knockout based on its own polling. Google’s search engine reportedly saw a surge in searches linked to Tulsi Gabbard both during and after the debate.
On the following day traditional conservative Pat Buchanan produced an article entitled “Memo for Trump: Trade Bolton for Tulsi,” similar to a comment made by Republican consultant Frank Luntz “She’s a long-shot to win the presidency, but Tulsi Gabbard is sounding like a prime candidate for Secretary of Defense.”
Tulsi, campaigning on her anti-war credentials, was indeed not like the other candidates, confronting directly the issue of war and peace which the other potential candidates studiously avoided. In response to a comment by neoliberal Congressman Tim Ryan who said that the U.S. has to remain “engaged” in places like Afghanistan, she referred to two American soldiers who had been killed that very day, saying
“Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers who were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be engaged? As a soldier, I will tell you that answer is unacceptable.”
At another point she expanded on her thinking about America’s wars, saying
“Let’s deal with the situation where we are, where this president and his chickenhawk cabinet have led us to the brink of war with Iran. I served in the war in Iraq at the height of the war in 2005, a war that took over 4,000 of my brothers and sisters in uniforms’ lives. The American people need to understand that this war with Iran would be far more devastating, far more costly than anything that we ever saw in Iraq. It would take many more lives. It would exacerbate the refugee crisis. And it wouldn’t be just contained within Iran. This would turn into a regional war. This is why it’s so important that every one of us, every single American, stand up and say no war with Iran.”
Tulsi also declared war on the Washington Establishment, saying that
“For too long our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after the next, leading us into a new Cold War and arms race, costing us trillions of our hard-earned tax payer dollars and countless lives. This insanity must end.”
Blunt words, but it was a statement that few Americans whose livelihoods are not linked to “defense” or to the shamelessly corrupt U.S. Congress and media could disagree with, as it is clear that Washington is at the bottom of a deep hole and persists in digging. So why was there such a difference between what ordinary Americans and the Establishment punditry were seeing on their television screens? The difference was not so much in perception as in the desire to see a certain outcome. Anti-war takes away a lot of people’s rice bowls, be they directly employed on “defense” or part of the vast army of lobbyists and think tank parasites that keep the money flowing out of the taxpayers’ pockets and into the pockets of Raytheon, General Dynamics, Boeing and Lockheed Martin like a perpetual motion machine.
In the collective judgment of America’s Establishment, Tulsi Gabbard and anyone like her must be destroyed. She would not be the first victim of the political process shutting out undesirable opinions. One can go all the way back to Eugene McCarthy and his opposition to the Vietnam War back in 1968. McCarthy was right and Lyndon Johnson and the rest of the Democratic Party were wrong. More recently, Congressman Ron Paul tried twice to bring some sanity to the Republican Party. He too was marginalized deliberately by the GOP party apparatus working hand-in-hand with the media, to include the final insult of his being denied any opportunity to speak or have his delegates recognized at the 2012 nominating convention.
And the beat goes on. In 2016, Debbie Wasserman Shultz, head of the Democratic National Committee, fixed the nomination process so that Bernie Sanders, a peace candidate, would be marginalized and super hawk Hillary Clinton would be selected. Fortunately, the odor emanating from anything having to do with the Clintons kept her from being elected or we would already be at war with Russia and possibly also with China.
Tulsi Gabbard has let the genie of “end the forever wars” out of the bottle and it will be difficult to force it back in. She just might shake up the Democratic Party’s priorities, leading to more questions about just what has been wrong with U.S. foreign policy over the past twenty years. To qualify for the second round of debates she has to gain a couple of points in her approval rating or bring in more donations, either of which is definitely possible based on her performance. It is to be hoped that that will occur and that there will be no Debbie Wasserman Schultz hiding somewhere in the process who will finagle the polling results.
Yes, to some critics, Tulsi Gabbard is not a perfect candidate. On most domestic issues she appears to be a typical liberal Democrat and is also conventional in terms of her accommodation with Jewish power, but she also breaks with the Democratic Party establishment with her pledge to pardon Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. She also has more of a moral compass than Elizabeth Warren, who cleverly evades the whole issue of Middle East policy, or a Joe Biden who would kiss Benjamin Netanyahu’s ass without any hesitation at all. Gabbard has openly criticized Netanyahu and she has also condemned Israel’s killing of “unarmed civilians” in Gaza. As a Hindu, her view of Muslims is somewhat complicated based on the historical interaction of the two groups, but she has moderated her views recently.
To be sure, Americans have heard much of the same before, much of it from out of the mouth of a gentleman named Donald Trump, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years. It is essential that we Americans who are concerned about the future of our country should listen to what she has to say very carefully and to respond accordingly.
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
There is hope for some real progress in U.S.-North Korean relations after Sunday morning’s unscheduled meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, largely because Russia and China seem more determined than ever to facilitate forward movement.
Sitting down before the talks began, Kim underlined the importance of the meeting.
“I hope it can be the foundation for better things that people will not be expecting,” he said. “Our great relationship will provide the magical power with which to overcome hardships and obstacles in the tasks that need to be done from now on.”
Trump was equally positive speaking of Kim:
“We’ve developed a very good relationship and we understand each other very well. I do believe he understands me, and I think I maybe understand him, and sometimes that can lead to very good things.”
Trump said the two sides would designate teams, with the U.S. team headed by special envoy Stephen Biegun under the auspices of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to start work in the next two to three weeks.
“They’ll start a process, and we’ll see what happens,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who met individually with President Trump at the G20 in Osaka, have been singing from the same sheet of Korea music — particularly in the wake of Xi’s visit to North Korea on June 20-21. Putin’s remarks are the most illuminating.
In an interview with The Financial Times, Putin pointed to “the tragedies of Libya and Iraq” — meaning, of course, what happened to each of them as they lacked a nuclear deterrent. Applying that lesson to North Korea, Putin said,
“What we should be talking about is not how to make North Korea disarm, but how to ensure the unconditional security of North Korea and how to make any country, including North Korea, feel safe and protected by international law. …”
“We should think about guarantees, which we should use as the basis for talks with North Korea. We must take into account the dangers arising from … the presence of nuclear weapons,” he said, adding that if a way can be found to satisfy North Korea’s understandable determination to protect its security, “the situation may take a turn nobody can imagine today.”
“Whether we recognize North Korea as a nuclear power or not, the number of nuclear charges it has will not decrease. We must proceed from modern realities …” And those realities include fundamental, immediate security concerns for both Russia and China. Putin put it this way:
”[W]e have a common border, even if a short one, with North Korea, therefore, this problem has a direct bearing on us. The United States is located across the ocean … while we are right here, in this region, and the North Korean nuclear range is not far away from our border. This why this concerns us directly, and we never stop thinking about it.”
Xi’s ‘Reasonable Expectations’
Last week in Pyongyang, Chinese President Xi Jinping said China is waiting for a desired response in stalled nuclear talks with the United States.
“North Korea would like to remain patient, but it hopes the relevant party will meet halfway with North Korea to explore resolution plans that accommodate each other’s reasonable concerns,” he said.
A commentary in China’s official Xinhua news agency said China could play a unique role in breaking the cycle of mistrust between North Korea and the U.S, but that both sides “need to have reasonable expectations and refrain from imposing unilateral and unrealistic demands.”
There is little doubt that the Russians and Chinese have been comparing notes on what they see as a potentially explosive (literally) problem in their respective backyards, the more so inasmuch as the two countries have become allies in all but name.
On a three-day visit to Moscow in early June, President Xi spoke of his “deep personal friendship” with Putin, with whom he has “met nearly 30 times in the past six years.” For his part, Putin claimed “Russian-Chinese relations have reached an unprecedented level. It is a global partnership and strategic cooperation.”
A Fundamental Strategic Change
Whether they are “best friends” or not, the claim of unprecedented strategic cooperation happens to be true — and is the most fundamental change in the world strategic equation in decades. Given the fear they share that things could get out of hand in Korea with the mercurial Trump and his hawkish advisers calling the shots, it is a safe bet that Putin and Xi have been coordinating closely on North Korea.
The next step could be stepped-up efforts to persuade Trump that China and Russia can somehow guarantee continued nuclear restraint on Pyongyang’s part, in return for U.S. agreement to move step by step — rather than full bore — toward at least partial North Korean denuclearization — and perhaps some relaxation in U.S. economic sanctions. Xi and Putin may have broached that kind of deal to Trump in Osaka.
There is also a salutary sign that President Trump has learned more about the effects of a military conflict with North Korea, and that he has come to realize that Pyongyang already has not only a nuclear, but also a formidable conventional deterrent: massed artillery.
“There are 35 million people in Seoul, 25 miles away,” Trump said on Sunday. “All accessible by what they already have in the mountains. There’s nothing like that anywhere in terms of danger.”
Obstacles Still Formidable
Trump and Kim meet Sunday before Trump became first US president to step on North Korean territory. (White House photo)
Trump will have to remind his national security adviser, John Bolton, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, that he is the president and that he intends to take a firmer grip on reins regarding Korean policy. Given their maladroit performance on both Iran and Venezuela, it would, at first blush, seem easy to jettison the two super-hawks.
But this would mean running afoul of the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academe-Think-Tank (MICIMATT) complex, in which the corporate-controlled media play the sine-qua-non role today.
In a harbinger of things to come, The Washington Post’s initial report on the outcome of the Trump-Kim talks contained two distortions: “Trump … misrepresented what had been achieved, claiming that North Korea had ceased ballistic missile tests and was continuing to send back remains of U.S. servicemen killed in the Korean War.”
The Trump administration could reasonably call that “fake news.” True, North Korea tested short-range ballistic missiles last spring, but Kim’s promise to Trump was to stop testing strategicnot tactical missiles, and North Korea has adhered to that promise. As for the return of the remains of U.S. servicemen: True, such remains that remain are no longer being sent back to the U.S., but it was the U.S. that put a stop to that after the summit in Hanoi failed.
We can surely expect more disingenuous “reporting” of that kind.
Whether Trump can stand up to the MICIMATT on Korea remains to be seen. There is a huge amount of arms-maker-arms-dealer profiteering going on in the Far East, as long as tensions there can be stoked and kept at a sufficiently high level.
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Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His first portfolio at CIA was referent-analyst for Soviet policy toward China, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. In retirement he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
July 2nd, 2019 by The Lawyers' Committee for 9-11 Inquiry, Inc.
The executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry, David Meiswinkle, and the Lawyers’ Committee’s litigation director, Mick Harrison, spoke last month by telephone with Michael Ferrara, the chief of the terrorism unit of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Ferrara is one of two officials who signed the November 7, 2018, letter to the Lawyers’ Committee on behalf of Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
In this phone conversation, Mr. Ferrara confirmed that the November 7, 2018, letter he signed was sent with the intention of conveying to the Lawyers’ Committee that the U.S. Attorney’s Office had received the Lawyers’ Committee’s petition and amended petition (both of which reported federal crimes and evidence relating to the use of explosives at the World Trade Center on 9/11) and that the U.S. Attorney would comply with the federal statute regarding Special Grand Juries as it relates to the two petitions. He said, however, that he could not disclose any information regarding the status of the Lawyers’ Committee’s petition and amended petition due to the secrecy requirements for federal grand jury proceedings imposed by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e). Attorneys Meiswinkle and Harrison thanked Mr. Ferrara for taking their call.
Rule 6(e) does in fact impose substantial secrecy requirements on federal grand jury proceedings, although federal courts can order disclosure under certain circumstances. Given that the U.S. Attorney’s Office is reading this rule as preventing any disclosure to the Lawyers’ Committee (and all the petitioners) regarding the status of the Lawyers’ Committee’s petition and amended petition, the Lawyers’ Committee is preparing to file a mandamus petition and a petition for disclosure in federal court prior to the upcoming anniversary of 9/11.
Source: ae911truth.org
The goal of this federal court filing will be to have the court confirm that the U.S. Attorney’s Office has acted in good faith by presenting the Lawyers’ Committee’s petition, amended petition, and petition supplements with accompanying evidence to a federal Special Grand Jury or to confirm that this has not occurred — and, if the latter, to obtain a court order requiring the U.S. Attorney to present the petition, amended petition, and petition supplements with accompanying evidence to a federal Special Grand Jury.
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In this squalid era of compromised data and hollowed privacy, it would be fitting that the company largely responsible for such mishaps would steer another technological innovation. Distractions are needed, and while Mark Zuckerberg cannot launch missiles, as yet, he can certainly launch platforms and what can be coarsely termed “deliverables”.
Having become the object of derision and resentment from the political fraternities of many countries, Facebook has been brazen enough to launch a crytocurrency it hopes will be boosted by support from major currencies.
Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency generated more than a smattering of interest last month when its early-access code made its way to GitHub. By the end of the month, it had been “saved” by some 10,000 users, while a 1,000 clones of the codebase were also generated, very much in a playful effort to test its reliability.
The site for the new currency is spritzed by the usual immodest lingo we have come to associate with technology that is meant to assist, and transform (naturally). “A simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people,” toots the message. The vision is then broken down, staccato like: “Reinvent money. Transform the global economy. So people everywhere can live better lives.”
The world of cash is also given an unveiling. The cost of transferring money is seen as unnecessarily expensive, an impediment to smoothness. “Moving money around the world should be as easy and cheap as sending a text message.” Libra also promises to be free of the fluctuations afflicting Bitcoin using a variant of the “currency board”, described by John Hawkins as a “rule-based monetary policy regime, involving much less (or no) discretion than most other monetary regimes.” Volatility will also be dampened by the backing of Libra Reserve, a genuine asset base.
Leaving aside the staple bombast that accompanies such projects, there have been the usual reservations. Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, fears it.
“This currency would insert a powerful new corporate layer of monetary control between central banks and individuals.”
He persists in believing that the central banking system has merit, having been established through costly trial and error: “we want a central bank to act to increase or decrease the money supply in moments of contraction and expansion.”
The paradox with currency is that financial regulators can be fickle, almost tortiously so. Financial disasters arising out of the crisis of 2008 were as much a product of rapacious banking practices as they were regulatory sloth and boardroom sleepwalking. But come a new currency, notably in digital format, then the eyes widen and scurrying takes place.
Hardly unusual, then, that governments have given their standard line, usually congregated around the issue that Libra can never become, in of its own, an independent currency if it ever gets off the ground. Any currency threatening to knock on the door of acceptable legal tender is bound to be scorned or feared rather than tested on its own merits.
The G7, with France taking the lead, has decided to busy itself with a taskforce examining any attendant risks. The theme has already been set, and there is a feeling the conclusions have already being pre-empted.
“It is out of the question,” France’s finance minister Bruno Le Mairestated, that Libra would “become a sovereign currency. It can’t and it must not happen.”
Like pornography, the feeling of regulatory authorities is one tinged with a degree of cant: people will use it, and some form of circulation is bound to happen. Like sex, it is good to be principled in rationing it, but the laws doing so eventually become dead letters. The Promethean desire to subvert is perennial; innovation must be encouraged. François Villeroy de Galhau, governor of France’s central bank, exemplifies such a position: innovate, but regulate with steely determination.
The US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs has already booked a hearing on July 16. Within 48 hours of Facebook’s announcement of its Libra vision, House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Watersdemanded a cessation of development altogether – at least till things at her end could be sorted out.
“Given the company’s troubled past, I am requesting that Facebook agree to a moratorium on any movement forward on developing a cryptocurrency until Congress and regulators have the opportunity to examine these issues and take action”.
A cynic acquainted with the acerbic writings of H. L. Mencken might well take issue with “examine” and “take action” when it comes to inertia on the Hill, but Congress is as much there to entertain as it is to vacillate. In the meantime, Facebook will duck and weave, convinced it has the staying power to defer any genuine move to stop its inexorable momentum. In an environment of short attention spans, attrition and patience are cardinal virtues.
Waters is, on some level, sincere: the company’s record on privacy protections are not so much shoddy as horrendous, if only because they anathemize them altogether. Monetisation is premised on doing away with privacy, usually under the false impression that consent has been extracted in the process. Data is the secular version of religion’s soul, to be prized away from the human subject, and sold.
Other states are qualified in assessing the currency. The Russian Ministry of Finance, through deputy minister Alexei Moisseev, told reporters this week that Libra would receive the treatment afforded any other digital asset. Such regulatory treatment has legislatively stalled thus far, but the minister was emphatic enough. “Nobody is going to ban it.”
This was not be confused with the status of the currency: as with other crytocurrencies, legal tender was out of the question. Purchasing goods and services with such assets would be impossible, though it would “be possible to buy it, sell it, keep it”.
Like other behemoths of history, Facebook realises that a degree of dissimulation is necessary. Knowing privacy to be its Achilles heel in any regulatory scrap, it has come up with its own variant of a regulator, advertised as a cure-all. Libra Association, a non-profit, Geneva-based body is supposedly one step removed in keeping Facebook out of overseeing the currency. The digital wallet of the new currency, Calibra, is said to share limited data with the mother ship, even if it entails using Facebook’s Messenger and WhatsApp applications. (A standalone application is set to follow in 2020.) Protections such as fraud checks are also built in, including a consensus model described as a “proof of stake” featuring transactions authorised by those with a stake in the currency.
The Libra Association has been gathering the names, having 28 weighty co-founders. To Facebook can be added such corporate entities as MasterCard, Paypal, Visa, Spotify, Uber, Vodafone Group, Andreessen Horowitz and eBay. Notable absentees are the banks themselves, deemed the stuff shirts of the modern money market.
States, and their banking arms, are unlikely to have their currency gates stormed by this new cryptocurrency, though some nibbling of market share is anticipated. The main banking priority remains issuing loans to customers and companies. While electronic money payments, in their nature, can threaten the money lending function of banks, a point that would also affect interest rates, Facebook will have to do a bit more if it seeks an insurrection that lasts.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
The question of Peace and Nuclear War is upon us. This is the question of life and death. June 21st was an alarming day that demonstrated the narrow respite between war and peace. The decision to strike Iran by the U.S. President and then the abrupt cancelation, more than anything else alarmed all nations of the inevitability of a global war. We are living in an insane time in which 10 minutes can shake the world according to the whim of one person, the President of United Stated of America. This insanity has to end now and the only people who can bring about this change are the true peace activists and democratic minded working people around the world armed with a comprehensive Peace Program.
The aim of this short essay is to offer a program for peace for immediate debate and discussion, and create A Universal Program of Action for Peace.
The recent G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan which was supposed to “achieve global economic stability” did anything but that. According to The Guardian, the G20 Summit “magnified deep and potentially unbridgeable divides”. The meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong Un at the DMZ, just like the meeting between President Trump and President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit a day before, basically was an attempt to “hit the reset button”. While these “diplomatic” side shows are profitable for the commercial media, in reality they hide the U.S. drive for war.
On the day of G20 Summit, the U.S. deployed F-22 stealth fighters to Qatar for the first time to buildup the U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf against Iran. However, this important fact was not an interesting subject for the media “pundits” to discuss and inform their viewers. President Trump right after his DMZ show addressed the American soldiers, sailors and marines at the Osan Air Base near Seoul, South Korea and gloated that
“We are totally revamping and improving and in some cases getting brand new nuclear weapons – never wanna have to use them – but we have the most and the best in the world [the emphasis is added]”.
Of course this bellicosity makes the threat of ‘obliteration’ of Iran seem more real. The aim of Mr. Trump in imposing lethal sanctions on working people of “adversary” nations like Iran and Venezuela is to crush their sovereignty and independence. Terrorizing defenseless working families in different countries to be fearful of the U.S. nuclear bombs and continuous military preparation to implement these threats is the actual U.S. foreign policy of the 21st century. It is vital to understand that this aggressive and violent foreign policy is the policy of the U.S. government today and not just the Trump Administration.
The concept that Foreign Policy is the extension of the Domestic Policy is clear more than ever and proven again to be true and accurate. The concentration camps of the migrant children, the increasing numbers of homeless people, the farmers and workers’ job insecurity, the out-of-control police brutality and constant attack on women, youth, minorities and journalists’ democratic rights and freedom of speech; in short the unprecedented huge gap between the wealthy minority and impoverished majority in the U.S.; undoubtedly would reflect its injustice and cruelty in dealing with the “foreign” people abroad also. Again, this is not a Republican or a Democratic issue. When it comes to dealing the major domestic issues or major conflict and war, both parties act as one. The Democrats have no objection to the absurd and impractical “deal of the century” against Palestinians, nor were they concerned when the Israeli troops fired on the Palestinians who were protesting the so-called “workshop” in Bahrain headed by well-known Zionists like Jared Kushner (Trump’s son-in-law) and David Friedman (Trump’s ambassador to Israel).
So the facts are perfectly clear. How is it possible that the Democratic Party candidates in their debates for a better future do not talk about the impending war or take a firm stand against it? The answer lies in the fact that Democratic and Republican Parties are the same in their nature. Both parties do not represent the working people, both parties have shown over and over that they are representatives of the 1%, Wall Street and big corporations. The real voices of working people can only be heard on the streets, in the town halls, but not during the Democratic candidates’ debates or during Mr. Trump’s rallies which fascistic ideas are propagated. The working people have no representative in either camp, those phony “Socialists” like a colorful cover of an unhealthy and cancerous product in the market are only to deceive people eyes and give a feeling that with some “reform” America will be great! However, at the end of the day, these “Socialist”, “Progressive” Democrats always disappoint their naive political fans which go on until the next election cycle.
Source: author
While the powerful military armies around the world are digging their heels in; some irresponsible intellectuals and overpaid “pundits” are distorting the actual concern of the warmongers about their agenda of military confrontations. The mission of these “political analysts” is to plant the seeds of false hope that somehow the imperialist war could be averted if the certain “bad actors” behave and respond appropriately to the clear messages from Washington. Simply these “pundits” who pop up unexpectedly on the different News network these days have one goal in common and that is to pacify peace activists. Regardless of the abundant informative articles by the honest investigative journalists and writers which are available on the resourceful sites, still the powerful U.S. deceptive media is trying to distort the facts and confuse American public opinion about the inevitability of a world war in imperceptible ways.
Of course as always, there are many outright pro-war “journalists” also like Bret Stephens of the New York Times who can’t contain their excitement in propagating the need of a new war. As an Opinion Columnist in his article “The Pirates of Tehran”, Mr. Stephens instigates that “we should sink [the Iranian] navy” as “the U.S. Navy destroyed half the Iranian fleet in a matter of hours” in 1988! In the same article to make his argument more creditable, he says that “Trump might be a liar, but the U.S. military isn’t”!
True peace activists should bypass these minefields with utmost political awareness and clarity. To defeat the warmongers, to avoid a WWIII scenario, peace activists must look to create a global peace movement. Today, the focus of the warmongers is on Iran. But for the U.S. the ultimate aim is China as the main obstacle and Russia as the secondary problem in achieving world supremacy. Iran and the war in Persian Gulf will be only the igniting fuse.
True peace activists also must be alert about the damaging effect from the characters whom as peace activists try to consciously or unconsciously portray that China or Russia are pro peace forces! They are not; their concern is not about the Chinese or Russian people or people of any other country who will be the victims of a nuclear war. From the U.S., Japan and European countries to China and Russia, having the hegemony or upper hand over the world market is the ambitious goal of all major capitalist powers. For the same reason, today the old alliances after WWII are shifting, breaking up or at best look temporary. In this uncertain situation, the trade war between US and China will exacerbate the slowdown of global growth. The breakdown of the trading system certainly will raise the threat of war and ultimately will form new alliances for a global military conflict.
If one agrees with the above statements, the vital question now becomes what has to be done to prevent a nuclear war? Hopefully, the following plan of actions for peace could start a productive discussion -at least- among the true peace activists around the world in these crucial times.
A Universal Program of Action for Peace (an initial draft):
The inevitably of a war between major powers is highly probable.
While major military powers headed by the U.S. are preparing for the final war (a nuclear war), working people around the world seek peace and are not in the mood for the WWIII.
The lack of a strong anti-war movement necessitates an immediate and comprehensive Program for Peace.
The Program for Peace based on working people’s aspirations and power must be absolutely independent from the influence of the 1% in all countries.
Avoiding a global war requires a united global peace movement. There is no place for the “anti-war” groups which propagate chauvinism and nationalism.
The experience of the movement against the Vietnam War points out that building a successful and long-lasting peace movement cannot be based on a single demand against war. It has to be based on the working people’s immediate social, economical and political multi-demands in the different countries.
The working people of any country in unity with the working people around the world will organize their own peace movement on the national level based on their unique situation, either through struggle against imposed austerity or in opposition to inequality and injustice or by series of strikes against their own capitalist government.
A global union for peace will be a united front of all working people from the imperialist aggressor countries to the countries that basically scarify their soldier in the interest of one side of the conflicting military powers. The working people do not benefit from a war between the super powers for the world market hegemony.
The progressive and independent peace and justice activists from all walks of life are the main allies of the working people. A Program for Peace will be forceful when the working people hand in hand with the independent activists and organizations build a strong bound in the different communities and coordinate their anti-war actions in one voice.
A united working people of the different countries for peace in order to eradicate endless wars and poverty should energetically advocate People to People Diplomacy. Peace activists must travel to the different countries and share their experiences in Peace Seminars and Peace Forums in venues available within that community. People to People Diplomacy must be a constant effort and the main focus of the peace movement.
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Massoud Nayeri is a graphic designer and an independent peace activist based in the United States. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Universal healthcare for all Americans is a major cutting-edge issue of our time about a fundamental human right, along with food, shelter, and clothing.
Most patients and doctors support what providing healthcare for everyone is all about. Nothing less is acceptable for citizens and residents of the world’s richest country.
America is the only developed nation without some form of universal coverage. The cost of healthcare in the US is double the annual per capita amount in other developed countries because corporate profits matter more than social justice.
Insurer middlemen cost US households over half a trillion dollars annually. It pays for overhead, underwriting, billing, sales and marketing practices, excessive executive pay, and huge profits.
Yet no one visits their corporate or branch offices for treatment when ill or injured. Polls show over 70% of Americans support universal healthcare. Only 20% oppose it.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation,
“Medicare is a very popular program, so the idea of expanding it to everyone is popular as well,” adding:
“The advantage of Medicare-for-all, which is much closer to how the rest of the world provides health care to their residents, is that you can achieve universal coverage at a lower cost” — by eliminating unneeded insurer middlemen.
Not according to the American Medical Association (AMA), the largest organization representing medical professionals.
Its so-called “vision” is committed to “health insurance coverage,” along with letting Big Pharma and large hospital chains operate unrestrained.
It calls Obamacare, leaving millions uninsured, most others underinsured, and the world’s most expensive healthcare system by far in place, “preferable to pursuing Medicare-for-All.”
Most Americans are dissatisfied with the predatory for-profit healthcare system because of how insurers, drug companies, and large hospital chains exploit it for maximum profits, mattering more than human health and welfare.
By eliminating unneeded insurer middlemen and restraining predatory drug giants from price gouging consumers, hundreds of billions of dollars can be saved annually while delivering world-class healthcare for all Americans.
Most nations operate this way, providing some form of universal coverage. The idea of it coming to America has industry lobbyists in a frenzy to prevent it.
A new Public Citizen report titled “Fever Pitch: Surge in Opposition Lobbying and Advocacy Validates the Credibility of the Medicare for All Movement,” explained the following:
With support from members of Congress, “single-payer health care is at the center of the public debate like never before.”
As a result, industry lobbyists are going all-out to prevent a fundamental human right from becoming reality.
From Q I 2018 to Q I 2019, “lobbying on Medicare for All increased dramatically, almost entirely due to a surge in lobbying activity by organizations that oppose it. This indicates that opponents of Medicare for All are newly scared about its rising prospects,” adding:
“The diverse and powerful array of trade groups, conservative activist organizations, GOP-linked establishment groups and health care industry interests launching an all-out advertising blitz against Medicare for All further reinforces this reality.”
In the year-over-year period to Q I 2019, the number of lobbying organizations against Medicare for All increased from nine to 61.
In the same period, the number of individual lobbyists rose from 29 to 270.
The newly formed “Partnership for America’s Health Care Future (PAHF)” is a key industry supported group for preventing universal healthcare in America — funded by insurers, drug giants, and large hospital chains, prioritizing profits above all else.
Its mission propaganda falsely claims it aims “to build and improve upon what’s working in health care (sic) and fix what’s not (sic),” adding:
“We want to work together to lower costs (sic), expand patient choice (sic), improve access (sic), enhance quality (sic) and foster innovation.”
“And whether it’s called Medicare for all, buy-in, or a public option, one-size-fits-all health care will never allow us to achieve those goals” — a bald-faced Big Lie about what’s vital for all Americans, everyone in, no one left out of the US healthcare system the way it is now.
Public Citizen (PC):
“Some of the most visible opposition to Medicare for All comes from major players in American conservatism, including the US Chamber of Commerce, the Koch (Brothers) network, and GOP strategist and money-wrangler Karl Rove.”
According to PC’s Craig Sandler,
“the increase in lobbying against Medicare for All serves as validation from our opposition that this movement has arrived.”
Intense lobbying and advertising propaganda further verifies it. PC tweeted the following:
“Groups hiring the most lobbyists against #MedicareForAll:
Pharma Research & Manufacturers of America,
Chamber of Commerce,
American Medical Association,
Biotech Innovation Organization,
Federation of American Hospitals, (and) Blue Cross.
Here’s the best part – they’re still going to lose.”
Pharma Research & Manufacturers of America Chamber of Commerce American Medical Association Biotech Innovation Organization Federation of American Hospitals Blue Cross
PC’s Eagan Kemp said industry officials “are running scared. They know the public is lining up behind Medicare for All—which would improve coverage for every American.”
“Now big money opponents are trying to leverage their political power to beat back Medicare for All, not on the merits, but through insider lobbying and front groups” conducting a propaganda blitzkrieg against a fundamental human right.
The vast majority of registered Dem voters and most Republican ones want Congress to prioritize enacting Medicare for All. Dozens of Dem congressional members back it.
Key leadership members of both parties oppose changing the system to something far more equitable. So does Trump, certain to veto universal healthcare legislation if crosses his desk.
The struggle for all Americans to have affordable healthcare has miles to go to become reality — a super-congressional majority needed to override a presidential veto.
Clearly it’s an idea whose time has come, focusing on healing the sick and injured, benefitting doctors and patients alike, prioritizing health over corporate profits.
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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.”
Mainstream reporting on Syria has relied heavily on the work of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), a Western government-funded regime change group whose investigators collaborated with al-Qaeda and its extremist allies to drum up prosecutions of Syrian officials.
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Western corporate media reporting on the war in Syria has relied extensively on partisan and dubious research produced by a cottage industry of opposition-linked groups posing as neutral monitors.
In part one of this investigation, we explored one the key cogs in this disinformation machine: the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), a foreign government-funded, pro-military intervention opposition front group.
In this installment, we will probe a group that has not only helped shape Western media reporting on Syria, but which is at the forefront of an emerging strategy to bleed the Syrian government even as the war comes to a close. It is called the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, or CIJA.
CIJA is often presented as an “independent” legal group committed to dispensing justice for war crimes. Its work has been the subject of glowing profiles in The New York Times, NBC News, The Guardian, and The New Yorker.
A shocking report in May on “Syria’s secret torture prisons,” by the New York Times’ former Beirut bureau chief Anne Barnard, was based heavily on documents and research provided by CIJA. Barnard described the organization simply as a “nonprofit,” with no further information.
In reality, CIJA is bankrolled by the very same Western governments that have fueled the proxy war against Syria, and was founded to supplement the regime-change operation that those states initiated in 2011.
CIJA’s investigators in Syria collaborated with and even paid foreign-backed Salafi-jihadist militias – including members of the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra – to steal files from Syrian government buildings in areas that had been taken over by armed militants. These stolen documents are what lawyers hope to use in prosecutions of Syrian officials.
Indeed, top corporate media outlets like The New York Times have published major reports based on leaked Syrian government documents without disclosing the fact that these files were first stolen by Syrian al-Qaeda militants, and then handed over to a Western government-funded group committed to regime change.
Were this chain of custody publicized more widely, it would immediately call into question the reliability and veracity of the news reports that have relied on this group, and might even set off an international scandal.
But leading outlets have ignored CIJA’s methods of acquisition, depicting the group almost without exception as an impartial NGO whose leadership consists of noble humanitarians. A closer look shows the seamy side this organization.
CIJA’s executive director operates a for-profit consulting firm that has raked in lucrative contracts in conflict zones, including through CIJA’s work in Syria, while advising mining companies in Africa. And the commission’s deputy director openly touts their work with the US Department of Homeland Security and FBI on border security.
CIJA is also closely advised by a former State Department lawyer who has helped oversee the so-called “Caesar file,” a deceptive operation aimed at proving the Syrian government guilty of mass extermination, but which involved further collaboration with extremist militias in Syria as well as extensive funding from Qatar.
As the following investigation by The Grayzone will show, the Commission for International Justice and Accountability is anything but an independent group committed to human rights above all else.
‘Transitional justice,’ the latest tool in the regime-change toolbox
The Syrian opposition and its supporters abroad have spent the past eight years doing everything in their power to lobby the United States to launch a direct military intervention to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad. They have deployed red lines, White Helmets, and a constant stream of white lies to argue that the US military has a “responsibility to protect” Syrians from their government.
Despite billions of dollars poured into a cataclysmic proxy war, this monumental effort failed: Syria has largely been stabilized, and refugees are slowly trickling back in. In frustration, a motley crew of veteran regime-change warriors and lawyers are resorting to a new and largely untested strategy.
Their efforts amount to legal warfare, or lawfare, and the Commission for International Justice and Accountability is a key player in the new campaign.
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Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling Republican Gomorrah, Goliath, The Fifty One Day War, and The Management of Savagery. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, including Killing Gaza. Blumenthal founded The Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America’s state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions.
Ben Norton is a journalist and writer. He is a reporter for The Grayzone, and the producer of the Moderate Rebels podcast, which he co-hosts with Max Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com, and he tweets at @BenjaminNorton.
The current U.S. president’s bullying of Canada over trade issues is causing some Canadians to question just how close our relationship is with our neighbour to the south. Peter Bailey tells the tale of a time not so long ago when hawkish voices in the U.S. were plotting the ultimate hostile act – a full-scale invasion of Canada.
This is probably the damnedest story you’ll read all week. If you think our trade wars with the U.S. are bad, keep in mind that at one time things could have got a lot worse.
As the Great Depression started in late 1929, the American military drew up a top-secret project titled “War Plan Red,” a scheme to wage war with Great Britain. Under Joint Army and Navy Board codes, America was known as “Blue,” Britain was “Red” and Canada was called “Crimson.”
Oddly enough, the Americans also made plans for war against Japan, designated “War Plan Orange,” and Germany, “War Plan Black.” But once rumours got out about another possible war against a German regime, isolationists in the U.S. made clear their opposition to conflict in Europe and the military lost its enthusiasm. Indeed, later on, the “Plan Dog” memo came out with its analysis of a two-front war with Britain and Japan (War Plan Red-Orange), which the U.S. realized it couldn’t sustain. So by 1930 it decided to concentrate on one front, Britain.
Except almost all of America’s destructive power would be directed against Canada.
What led up to it?
When the U.S. entered the First World War in 1917, it fought as an associated power, not a British ally. At war’s end, the other allies reneged on paying their debts to Britain. The British owed America £9 billion. The U.S. demanded repayment, which tarnished the image of the U.S. in Britain. The American image of the British, in turn, was of an ungrateful nation that wanted their war debts cancelled.
Image on the right: Lockheed Martin B-10 bomber: Secret plans to build three air bases along the Canadian border were leaked.
Tensions between the two nations remained on edge for more than a decade. By 1927, talks at the Geneva Naval Conference went badly, actually increasing the possibility of war between the two great powers. America was determined to throw its weight around; it just wasn’t sure how.
According to Dr. Christopher Bell of Dalhousie University in Halifax, N.S., Winston Churchill considered that war was certainly a possibility “if we get ourselves into a position where the Americans can feel that they can push us around whenever they want to.”
Although on the American East Coast sentiments were with the British, in the Midwest and the West Coast, the feeling was decidedly anti-British. Some American strategists saw an opportunity to strike a decisive blow against war-weary Britain and to wrest control of some of her vast empire – including Canada – before she could revive her military strength. America’s flyboy hero Charles Lindbergh went so far as sympathizing with the growing Nazi movement and joined the America First movement.
Adolf Hitler, for his part, also thought a war between America and Britain was inevitable and he wanted the British to win. Bizarrely, he thought he could work with the British against the U.S.
The outline for War Plan Red shows the U.S. considered chemical warfare against Canadian and British troops. A memo signed by Gen. Douglas MacArthur approved the possibility, provided there was no treaty to prevent it. By 1935, authorization was granted for the use of poison gas.
The onset of the Depression only added to the feeling that war with Britain was almost inevitable. The depressed markets, mass unemployment, the Dust Bowl and political unrest made the possibility of a war a useful way to unite the people and get the economy working again.
How would the war be fought?
Image below: A quick invasion was planned to avoid giving Canada and Britain a chance to amass troops
The U.S. planned to start the conflict by moving 25,000 troops from Boston to hit Halifax, with a fleet bombardment of the harbour and an invasion. The plan was to prevent the British navy from shipping reinforcements to Canada.
Next, troops would cross from Fort Drum, N.Y., to strike Ottawa. A second army would cross from Buffalo into Niagara to shut down Ontario’s hydroelectric plants, to occupy Hamilton’s steel industries, and to head to Toronto by road.
We can assume the cities would have previously been attacked by the air force’s Martin B-10 bombers and perhaps bombarded by the U.S. Navy operating on Lake Ontario.
More troops would cross from Detroit and a third group would head north to Winnipeg. A fourth group would attack Vancouver.
The Americans assumed there would be a total of three million British and Canadian troops within a year, so they planned a quick invasion.
But Canada had a plan – Defence Scheme No. 1.
The scheme was created in 1921, probably due to murmurings and fears of a U.S. invasion of Canada. It was created by the director of Military Operations and Intelligence, Lt.-Col. James “Buster” Sutherland Brown. It called for a surprise invasion of the northern U.S. states to buy time so Britain could send reinforcing troops by sea.
Canadian raids would attempt to seize Seattle, Spokane and Portland in the west. In the prairies, troops would attack Fargo, N.D., and move on to Minneapolis, Minn. Soldiers from Quebec would seize Albany, N.Y., and Maritime soldiers would invade Maine. Once American forces grouped, the Canadians would return home, burning bridges along the way to slow the U.S. advance.
Sutherland Brown felt confident because he had scouted New England with a few military pals, spying on the Americans’ weaknesses. He reported that in Vermont the people were “affable” but could become serious soldiers “if aroused.”
However, his plans, which were not co-ordinated with the British, were scrapped in 1928, two years before War Plan Red was introduced. It is just as well, because we now know Canada’s raiders would have been doomed.
What prevented the invasion?
By 1935, the U.S. organized giant troop movements and war games at Fort Drum, N.Y., just east of Kingston, Ont. It was the largest American military movement of its kind, with more than 25,000 troops mobilized and 15,000 held in reserve in Pennsylvania. But top-secret plans became public knowledge when the government printing office mistakenly made the documents public.
Secret plans to build three air bases along the Canadian border were now leaked. Newsreel companies came to film the construction process. On both sides of the border, newspapers argued back and forth. On May 1, 1935, the New York Times broke the story on its front page that America was secretly building military air bases on the border with Canada in preparation for an invasion and aerial bombardment of its closest ally.
Oddly enough, the Times tried to diffuse the seriousness of the claim with its long, vague lead sentence:
“WASHINGTON, April 30 – President Roosevelt censured the House Military Affairs committee today for publishing secret testimony of army officers on the Wilcox Air Base Bill involving the United States’ relations with Canada, repudiated the views of the officers as not in line with administration policies, and gave assurances that this government would observe in letter and spirit its treaties with Canada that have meant unfortified frontiers for a century.”
The story goes on in that vein for nearly 1,000 words and ends on the turn page with an equally vague response from Canada:
“OTTAWA, April 30 – A report from the Canadian Legation in Washington regarding President Roosevelt’s repudiation of the construction of an airbase on the Canadian border was received today by the Department of External Affairs.
“Pending perusal of the report, Sir George Perley, Acting Prime Minister, was disinclined to make a statement. Unofficially, however, pleasure over the President’s prompt intervention was admitted.”
What about Britain?
What Canada and the U.S. hadn’t taken into consideration was that Britain had no intention of rushing troops to Canada’s defence. It planned to surrender its colony to the Americans since there was no immediate threat to Britain’s livelihood. It was still reeling from the devastation of the First World War, the Depression and growing unrest in its colonies.
From this point on, though, Franklin D. Roosevelt determined to keep the military under a tighter rein, and eventually what prevented two neighbouring nations from coming to blows was the combined statesmanship of the U.S. president and Churchill. Both realized the real threat would come from Germany and Japan, and that Britain and the U.S. would be far better off as allies in the coming struggle.
America gradually abandoned plans for an invasion of Canada and the project was finally shelved in 1939. The plan was released to the public in 1974, when it caused a minor political stir but was quickly forgotten.
And that’s for the best. Imagine for a moment that Canada had been invaded by the U.S. Our lives would be dominated by American influences, Canadians would now be inundated with American popular music, watching American films, reading American magazines, following American sports.
Canadian culture would be pushed to the sidelines and American businesses would dominate our … oh, never mind.
To learn more about War Plan Red
The original plans for War Plan Red are available to the public in the American National Archive in Washington, D.C.
President Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill: Eventually what prevented Canada and the U.S. from coming to blows was the combined statesmanship of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
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Peter Bailey is an award-winning newspaper editor and writer with more than 40 years of experience. He lives in Hamilton, Ont.
Featured image: Troops would cross from Fort Drum, N.Y., to strike Ottawa. A second army would cross from Buffalo into Niagara to shut down Ontario’s hydroelectric plants, to occupy Hamilton’s steel industries, and to head to Toronto by road. More troops would cross from Detroit and a third group would head north to Winnipeg. A fourth group would attack Vancouver. (Source: Troy Media); all images in this article are from Troy Media
You are well aware that in 2015 with the support of all permanent members of the UNSC (China, France, Russia, UK, and US) plus Germany and Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was drafted, upon which UNSC issued Resolution 2231, replacing all previous UNSC resolutions targeting Iran’s nuclear program.
With the JCPOA nuclear deal in place, not only was the shadow of war and destruction lifted, but after a long time, the people of Iran began to enjoy relative economic stability and security. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.) Iran has continued to carry out all its obligations under the JCPOA. But, in May of 2018, the United States government arbitrarily decided to abrogate the Agreement—disregarding the SCR 2231. Clearly, this action has caused crises for the world, the region and the people of Iran.
After the US recklessly abrogated the UNSC-backed agreement, all previous US sanctions against Iran were re-imposed even more rigorously, harshly affecting Iran’s economy and causing inhumane suffering of the Iranian people.
Because of the dramatic events following the US departure from the SCR-backed Agreement, the Iranian people are wondering as to why the permanent members of the UN and his Excellency have been basically passive on this significant and consequential matter? It is understood that the UN Secretary General works with limited parameters; nevertheless, Iranians expected that the Secretary General would investigate and respond intently to the outcomes of a unilateral action that clearly defies all international norms.
In spite of a profound concern from international agencies, the Trump Administration was never able to provide any convincing rationale as to why it undermined the international consensus. Subsequently, under the pretext of “national security,” the American government deployed military naval ships and personnel to the Persian Gulf—which comprised a naval carrier, B-52 bombers, F35 jets, Patriot missiles and announced dispatching few thousands of new military personnel. Doesn’t all this military build-up and provocations amount to threats of war? All major European countries, plus Russia and China, have strongly argued that JCPOA has adequately addressed the international nuclear proliferation concerns, has deescalated tensions, and were justifiably hoping that a successful implementation of JCPOA would lead to stability in an otherwise volatile region.
Economic sanctions, threats of military aggression and war, are very consequential and impact the lives of the ordinary people, to the extent that public advocates consider this a violation of their human rights. Civil society advocates in Iran see military threats to the country, as direct aggression against its people.
By now, keen observers know that the hawkish conduct of the American government in the past few decades has led to the general unsettling of the region and the weakening of local democratic movements. In the long run, haven’t these hawkish policies derailed the natural pace of democratic development in these countries?
Iranian people have struggled for the development of civil society and democratic institutions for a considerable time. In the past century alone, Iran witnessed three major historical events– the Constitutional Revolution of 1905, the democratic movement of Oil Nationalization of 1951, and the Revolution of 1979 that overthrew the Western backed dictator. The progress of an indigenous democratic movement requires a crisis-free environment to nurture. American-backed sanctions and threats of military aggression would undermine such a democratic movement, and create the grounds for increased domestic repression by the authorities.
In the past few weeks there have been some mediation efforts to stabilize the dangerous situation facing the Iranian people. We, the undersigned, appeal to you to use your position as Secretary General of the UN to request the US returns to its obligations under JCPOA, lift the economic sanctions, halt the military threats against the people and the country of Iran, and stop fictitious provocations that clearly could lead to military hostilities and expose the entire region to detrimental violence.
Regards,
cc: Mr. Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission
Mrs. Michelle Bachelet Jeria, High Commissioner for Human Rights
Mrs. Dunja Mijatović, Commissioner for Human Rights, Council of Europe
Signatories
Ervand Abrahamian, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History, Baruch College
Houshang Ardavan, Emeritus Fellow, the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, UK
Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, Professor in Global Thought and Comparative Philosophies at SOAS, University of London
Mohammad H. Ahmadi, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, University of Wisconsin
Tim Anderson, Senior Lecturer in Sociology (Sydney University), author, civil rights campaigner and peace activist
Bahar Bastani, MD, Professor of Medicine, St. Louis Univ. Medical Center
Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics Emeritus, MIT
Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Ottawa, Director, Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal
Hamid Dabashi, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia University
Reza Delghavi, Retired Brooklyn borough City Planner
Abbas Edalat – Professor of Computer Science and Math, Imperial College of London
Nuredin Gharavi, Former Governor of East Azerbaijan, freelance researcher
Hossein Hamedani, Professor of Mathematics, Marquette University
Tim Hayward, Professor of environmental political theory at the University of Edinburgh and director of the university’s Just World Institute
Fareed Marjaee – City Planner, Writer, Civil Society Advocate
Jamshid Marvasti MD, Asst Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of New England, School of Medicine.
Mahmood Monshipouri, Chair/Professor, Dept. of International Relations, San Francisco State Un (Univ.)
Behrad Nakhaee, Nuclear Engineer, NPT Group member, (American Nuclear Society)
Janan Najeeb, President of Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition
Azam Niroomand-Rad, Emeritus Prof. of Radiation Medicine, Georgetown Un Medical Center
Ali Jafarian, Emeritus Professor, University of New Haven
Farid Razi – Civil Society Activist
Piers Robinson, Co-Director, Organization for Propaganda Studies, UK
Asghar Rastegar, professor of Medicine, Director, Global Health Program,Co-Director, Yale-Stanford J&J Global Health Scholar Program
Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, Professor in Comparative Political Theory, Goldsmiths, University of London
Muhammad Sahimi, Professor of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science, and the NIOCChair in Petroleum Engineering, University of Southern California
Mehrnaz Shahabi, Psycho-Social Researcher
Ali Shakibai, MD, Cardiologist, Avon, CT
Majid Tavallaei, Sr. Agricultural Manager at California, Freelance Researcher, Former Editor-in-Chief of “NAMEH”magazine
Ashkebous Talebi, Educator at University of Maryland
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Well, it’s happened. It’s real. Mr. Jared Kushner, the son-in-law and Senior Advisor of President Trump has delivered 136 pages of lies, suppositions and conjuring tricks to seduce or compel us Palestinians to accept our fate and surrender our rights. What rights? As far as this document is concerned, Palestinians have no rights whatsoever, and, as for a Palestinian perspective, what is that?
The Palestinians were not even invited to Manama, let alone considered. What about the Israelis? Were they there? Were they invited? On the face of it, no. But, in reality, they were amply represented. What is Jared Kushner if not the team captain for the Greater Israel Project? After all, he is Jewish, an ardent Zionist, an investor in the illegal settlements in Palestine and an advocate, par excellence, for Israeli survival and supremacy.
TheLie Of The Century, as I call it, is just that. A lie. From beginning to end, every word, every supposition of this long-winded deception is to ensure that the Greater Israel Project will advance unhindered, and we, the Palestinians, are to accept the crumbs off the table of our land-lords. Or perish.
But, hang on a minute. How could an occupier who seized our land by brute force be made a legitimate land-lord over us? The answer is simple. In the Trumpian universe, all that matters are power and Mammon. Isn’t this what the ‘Deal of The Century’ is all about? American/Israeli power exercised over us Palestinians without mercy? And, what about the money? Oh, yes. There is money, but it is not American nor Israeli money. It’s Arab money — to be extorted from despotic, Arabic regimes in the Gulf, as per usual. Trump demands and the Arab Regimes of the Gulf and Saudi Arabia oblige. If they don’t, as Mr. Trump intimated, their shaky thrones wouldn’t last a week without US protection.
Mr. Kushner promised $50 billion in Arab money to be divided between Palestine, Jordan and Egypt. Nowhere in the document was there any mention of Palestinian political rights, the right of return of the Palestinian refugees or even the Israeli occupation of Palestine. All was conveniently kicked into touch because it doesn’t matter, you see. What matters is Israeli survival and supremacy and the continued, rapid march of the Greater Israel Project.
I say ‘rapid march’ because who is to stop it? The Palestinians do not have an army, an air force, a navy or even a coalition to stop this march. Jordan has already succumbed to American threats and promises of prosperity. The same goes for Egypt, especially under the hand-picked President Abdul Fatah Alsisi, whose sole purpose is to neuter Egypt and serve as a facilitator for American and Israeli hegemony in our area.
Syria? Western powers, Israel and despotic Arab/Muslim states have made sure that Syria is taken out of the equation by embroiling it in a 7-year long devastating war.
The Gulf States? Saudi Arabia? Instead of stopping this advance of Greater Israel they are facilitating it by making a frantic rush towards normalization with Israel and to form a coalition of the willing to combat a perceived threat from another Muslim country, Iran. The honorable exception is the State of Kuwait, who refused to attend this farce and reaffirmed their total support of Palestinian rights and aspirations.
Let’s look closely at the word, ‘surrender’. Many of you might remember an article I wrote recently, entitled, ‘Surrender Or Die’. It didn’t take too long for the Israelis to prove me right. There it is. From the Grand weasel’s mouth, none other than Danny Danon, the Israeli Ambassador to the UN. In an article entitled, ‘What’s Wrong With Palestinian Surrender”, published in the New York Times on June 24th, one day before the Manama ‘Workshop’. “Surrender”, he wrote,” is the recognition that in a contest, staying the course will prove costlier than submission.”
There you have it. To the victor the spoils.
And, then, comes the other Grand Weasel, Mr. Jared Kushner, to deliver the message of surrender to a room full of weasels. All of these aforementioned weasels, who have been gnawing at our heels for over a century, omitted to consider one vital point: The Palestinian character and pride.
Surrender is not in our character. We’d rather die standing up, defending our rights than exist, kneeling at the feet of our self-appointed land-lords and benefactors.
Just in case any of those weasels calling for our surrender might have any interest in what we Palestinians want, here is how Executive Member of the PLO, Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, put it:
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Washington’s recent attempt to use the tragic downing of Malaysian flight MH-17 over the Donbass region of Ukraine, which occurred on July 17, 2014 is nothing short of pathetic. Instead of making an attempt to bring to justice those responsible for this crime it tries instead to unleash yet another wave of anti-Russian hysteria. In this situation, it’s only logical that this latest attempt has gone down in flames yet again.
It would seem that everything was done in accordance with a carefully drafted script. We’ve had a major media show with the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) coming forward to announce that the investigation was nearing closure. It’s curious that among those countries that have sent their representatives to JIT one can find Ukraine, a possible perpetrator of the attack on MH-17, alongside the Netherlands, Australia, Malaysia, and Belgium. Then we had the typical bad guy – Russia, that in the opinion of the JIT was most certainly responsible for the downing of MH-17 and the untimely demise of 298 people. Western puppets would even go as far as to release the names of four people allegedly responsible for the attack.
As for the puppeteers, they would use the head of the US Department of State, Michael Pompeo for making appeals to Russia to immediately put in jail those people the JIT described as perpetrators.
However, this entire propaganda push would only work on day-to-day consumers of American media, who still believe that Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi “got what they deserved” and that Iran and North Korea somehow represent some sort of threat to the international community. However, there’s an ever growing number of people in the world who wouldn’t fall for such lies anymore, as they’ve seen them all too often before.
There’s little doubt that the Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad is among such people, as he made it pretty clear that there’s no proof whatsoever of Russia’s involvement in the downing of MH-17. In fact, he would claim that:
“We are very unhappy because from the very beginning it became a political issue on how to accuse Russia of the wrongdoing… So far there is no proof. Only hearsay.”
In turn, the founder of the conservative Dutch party Forum for Democracy, Thierry Baudet would announce that he has no confidence whatsoever in the JIT and its impartiality, while pointing out that Ukraine must be responsible for this attack.
According to Heise, there’s no doubt that Kiev is fully responsible for this tragedy, as it had failed to close the airspace over the contested territories of Donbass and withheld evidence from the investigation. It would add that the Dutch Safety Board was conducting its own investigation of the downing and at some point was convinced that Kiev was behind this attack, however it left a legal loophole for Kiev for it to escape any consequences. As for Russia, Heise argues, it was decided to name it responsible for this tragedy, since Ukraine was acting on Washington’s behalf in this downing and it will continue enjoying its protection.
It’s curious that the JIT final report has left a lot of questions unanswered, most of them emerge due to the absence of any actual evidence that could allow this body to allocate responsibility for the catastrophe to some party and could be used in court. Yet, the Netherlands and Australia were quick to announce that they had no doubt whatsoever, even though JIT would cite pictures and messages taken from social media as their sources of information. It didn’t bother those behind the so-called final report that they had no access to the Pentagon’s satellite images and any sort of data from Ukrainian radars, even though those could serve as actual evidence along with similar data Russia provided to shed light on the actual perpetrators of the attack.
The claims that certain Western media sources would make, about the downing of MH17 “rallying the West against Russia” can only be described as laughable, even though it’s clear that this was Washington’s initial intention which led to the release of the “final report”
Yet another attempt to present Russia as a bogeyman has garnered no sympathy in Europe, especially against the backdrop of revelations London has recently made about the role of its intelligence agencies in the downing of PA 103 three decades ago. Back then a bomb that exploded on board Pan American Flight 103, en route from London to New York was used to undermine Libya and warrant the overthrow of its leader – Muammar Qaddafi. What this false-flag essentially required was the falsification of evidence and the conviction in a rigged court proceeding of the wrong man. Theextentof thatoperationhas recently been exposedinapartialreleaseofBritishGovernmentdocumentsfromthe UK’sNationalArchives.
It’s been noted that those archive disclosures also show that the same modus operandi has been under way since 2014 to fabricate blame for the destruction of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine, and justify global sanctions against Russia, plus operations to overthrow Vladimir Putin.
That is why Malaysia must take the investigation into its own hands and receive all the necessary assistance from the international community to establish who was responsible for the MH17 downing. It’s clear that the JIT was more concerned with pleasing Washington than establishing the truth.
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Grete Mautner is an independent researcher and journalist from Germany, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”
Traditional diplomacy is being given a makeover – at least where it is not being abolished altogether and being replaced by a replica of The Apprentice. US President Donald Trump’s seizure of the art has been violent and molesting. Had Roman emperors had access to Twitter and the twenty-four hour news cycle, they might have had such moments, bothering the empire’s citizenry with their latest self-absorbed act. Imagine Caligula making his horse Incitatus consul and the hyperventilating postings of enthusiasm that would have followed.
In the summations of the G20 leaders’ summit in Osaka, scribes scrounged for meaning, hoping to bring magnifying glasses to insignificant detail; press attendees did their usual act, simulating interest or showing wonder at the spectacle. Caitlin Byrne of the Griffith Asia Institute pushed herself to find gains. “Significant breakthroughs including a pause in the escalating China-US trade war and the resumption of dialogue between US and North Korea”.
The conservative National Reviewyearned for a new Euro-American bloc against the Yellow Peril, which did not quite eventuate. “In reality, the United States needs Europe to confront China. Americans and Europeans would be able to hold China to account through existing multilateral trade structures and coordinated responses, rather than one-off bilateral ‘deals’.”
The communiqué was suitably imprecise. The G20 leaders met “to make united efforts to address major global economic challenges.” There was a promise to “work together to foster global economic growth, while harnessing the power of technological innovation, in particular digitilization, and its application for the benefit of all.”
There are acknowledgments of problems, albeit cushioned by assurances. Trade and geopolitical issues, or “tensions” had “intensified” but these would be addressed. The World Trade Organisation would be reformed; the “Osaka Tract” framework regulating the cross-border flow of data was endorsed, one described as “Data Free Flow with Trust”.
Peering through this glass darkly, and we see cracks of varying degrees.
“The digital economy is a crucial driver of economic growth,” Trump said, along with every other leader, but he was clear that “we must also ensure the resilience and security of our 5G networks”. (Huawei representatives, raise your hands.)
The enthusiasm for climate change action was lukewarm, lacking the sting of urgency that has found feet on the streets across countries, often led by young activists. In the leaders’ summit rooms, the adults had decided that the environment could be lessened in its immediate importance. This, it was suggested, was due to Japan’s efforts to placate the United States at a time both are negotiating a trade deal. The earth might as well go and fry: the powers shall have their trade pacts.
Global disruption is staple for the US president, and the rest of the G20 delegates in their Osaka meet had to mill about hoping for some letup in the recent push and shove between Washington and Beijing. A temporary suspension of hostilities was suggested: Trump would not be adding tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese imports. US companies would still be permitted to sell to Huawei – for the moment. Trump remains convinced that US hegemony is the knobkerrie and staff to wield, the top chieftain in the international relations show. Best make use of such implements before they lose force and shine.
No such summit could quite pass without the injection of slight farce. One of Trump’s brood, Ivanka Trump, found herself in the media lenses, an intrusive reminder of this administration’s keenness to push family into any conspicuous, and akward position. The White House was a trophy in a game from the start; egged on and mocked, Trump dedicated himself to seizing it for himself and his interests. The impedimenta followed. (His promise to clean Washington’s swamp was done with the selectively cleansing detergent of his inner circle.)
While not quite being in the big league of absurdity as Caligula’s consul stead, Ivanka still qualifies as an envoy in a role more akin to the despotisms of old than a modern diplomatic outfit. Trump’s nepotism tends to be filled with a distinct bravado. It rejects formality and embraces the politics of the malnourished playground. Given various Freudian flavourings that have attended his descriptions of his daughter, he was happy to flaunt the candy and seek compliments. Instead, an icy politeness, best expressed by IMF chief Christine Lagarde, was shown.
US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) dealt with the matter witheringly, attempting to draw Trump back from the world of the disruptive make believe. The subtext to her scolding: We are an empire, so behave properly as its big chief.
“It may be shocking to some,” she lamented, “but being someone’s daughter actually isn’t a career qualification. It hurts our diplomatic standing when the President phones it in & the world moves on. The US needs our president working the G20. Bringing a qualified diplomat couldn’t hurt either.”
Representative Ted Lieu (D-Calif) demanded an explanation from Ivanka Trump herself, showing the general consternation that continues to preoccupy the Democrats at Trumpist twist and turns. Additionally, he wondered “why Jared Kushner still has a security clearance.”
Other leaders were also scolded for their ineffectual contribution. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was taken to task by his opponents for being meek when having a chance to discuss disagreements with China’s Xi Jinping. (The chance was, admittedly, a brief one.) Conservative Party MP Erin O’Tooleobsessed about the Prime Minister’s body language with an amateur’s enthusiastic glare. “Some will note the later handshake and others the early hesitancy. My concern stems from foreign policy missteps that have left us isolated.”
Such complaints have a keeping-up-appearances relish to them. Trump, and some of his fellow leaders, have to be found wanting. But the G20 is hardly a gladiatorial stage of heavy breathing and chest beating, despite unconvincing endorsements that it is “the culmination of months of intense negotiations” that reinforce “the underlying habits of cooperation so desperately needed for ongoing global economic stability.” At the best of times, it remains a forum of little traction and achievement, leaving a degree of frivolousness to creep in.
In that way, Trump thrives. Shallowness is depth. The camera gives him life; social media pumps the blood and propels. Besides, he had North Korea on his mind and duly showed that shaking hands with others is something he enjoys almost as much as, well, other, more self-focused things.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
Early on July 1, Israeli warplanes carried out a series of airstrike on several military targets in the Syrian capital of Damascus and in the central governorate of Homs.
The Syrian Arab Air Defense Forces (SyAAF) intercepted several Israeli missiles over Damascus and south of Homs. However, most of the missiles hit their targets.
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According to pro-government sources, military positions in the districts of al-Mazzeh, al-Dimass and Jomrayah north and northwest of Damascus, as well as three bases in the outskirt of the city of Homs were hit.
One of the Israeli missiles hit a civilian area in the district of Sahnaya west of Damascus. The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said that 4 civilians, including a 3-month old baby, were killed as a result. 22 other civilians, mostly women and children, were injured.
This was the first time an Israeli strike on Syria led to civilian casualties. This is a dangerous development that may force Damascus to rethink its strategy towards Israel.
The Israeli strike was one of the biggest this year, which confirms that Tel Aviv is not only determined to go on with its attacks on Syria, but also to step-up their scale and intensity.
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Featured image: Syria’s Defense Ministry claims Assad forces have shot down Israeli missiles (Twitter)
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