Russia-China a Cimeira que não faz notícia

June 14th, 2019 by Manlio Dinucci

A  comunicação social mediática concentrou-se, em 5 de Junho, no Presidente Trump e nos dirigentes europeus da NATO que, no aniversário do Dia D, celebraram em Portsmouth “a paz, a liberdade e a democracia asseguradas na Europa”, comprometendo-se a “defendê-las quando ameaçadas”.  Referência clara à Rússia.

Os grandes meios da comunicação mediática ignoraram ou relegaram para segundo plano, às vezes em tons sarcásticos, o encontro ocorrido no mesmo dia em Moscovo, entre os Presidentes da Rússia e da China. Vladimir Putin e Xi Jinping, quase no trigésimo encontro em seis anos, apresentaram conceitos não retóricos, mas uma série de factos. O intercâmbio entre os dois países, que ultrapassou 100 biliões de dólares no ano passado, aumentou cerca de 30 novos projectos de investimento chineses na Rússia, particularmente no sector energético, num total de 22 biliões. A Rússia tornou-se o maior exportador de petróleo da China e  prepara-se também a sê-lo para o gás natural: em Dezembro entrará em função o grande gasoduto oriental, ao qual se juntará outro da Sibéria, mais duas grandes indústrias de exportação de gás natural liquefeito.

Assim, o plano USA para isolar a Rússia com sanções, também concretizadas pela UE, juntamente com o corte nas exportações russas de energia para a Europa, vai fracassar.

A cooperação russo-chinesa não se limita ao sector energético. Foram divulgados projectos conjuntos no sector aeroespacial e noutros sectores de alta tecnologia. Estão a ser incrementadas vias de comunição ferroviárias, rodoviárias, fluviais e marítimas entre os dois países. Existe um forte aumento também nos intercâmbios culturais e nos fluxos turísticos.

Uma cooperação em todos os campos, cuja visão estratégica emerge de duas decisões anunciadas no final do encontro:

Ø  a assinatura de um acordo intergovernamental para expandir o uso de moedas nacionais, o rublo e o yuan, nas transações comerciais e financeiras, como alternativa ao dólar ainda dominante;

Ø  a intensificação dos esforços para integrar a Nova Rota da Seda, promovida pela China, e a União Económica Euroasiática, promovida pela Rússia, com “a visão de formar, no futuro, uma parceria euroasiática mais alargada”.

Que esta visão não é simplesmente um projecto económico, confirma-o a “Declaração Conjunta sobre o Fortalecimento da Estabilidade Estratégica Global”, assinada no final da reunião. A Rússia e a China têm “posições idênticas ou muito próximas”, de facto, contrárias às posições USA/NATO, relativas à Síria, Irão, Venezuela e Coreia do Norte.

Advertem que a retirada dos EUA do Tratado INF (a fim de instalar mísseis nucleares de alcance intermédio perto da Rússia e da China) pode acelerar a corrida armamentista e aumentar a possibilidade de um conflito nuclear. Denunciam a decisão dos EUA de não ratificar o Tratado de Proibição de Testes Nucleares e preparar o local para possíveis testes nucleares. Declaram “irresponsáveis” o facto de alguns Estados, ao mesmo tempo que aderem ao Tratado de Não Proliferação, concretizarem “missões nucleares conjuntas” e exigirem que “devolvam aos territórios nacionais todas as armas nucleares instaladas fora das fronteiras”. Um pedido que diz respeito directamente à Itália e outros países europeus onde, violando o Tratado de Não-Proliferação, os Estados Unidos enviaram armas nucleares que também podem ser usadas pelos países anfitriões sob comando USA: bombas nucleares B-61 que serão substituídas a partir de 2020 pelas bombas nucleares B61-12, ainda mais perigosas.

De tudo isto não falou a comunicação mediática de destaque que, em 5 de Junho,  estava ocupada a descrever os trajes deslumbrantes da First Lady, Melania Trump, nas cerimónias do Dia D.

 

 

Artigo original em italiano :

Russia-Cina: il vertice che non fa notizia

il manifesto, 11 giugno 2019

Tradução : Luisa Vasconcellos

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“Activities of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem”: Britain Says Releasing a 1941 Document About Palestine Might ‘Undermine Security’

June 14th, 2019 by Tom Suarez

A two-part archive, labeled “Activities of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem” and dated 1940-1941, sits in Britain’s National Archives in Kew. This writer successfully had the first part declassified in 2014. The second part remains sealed. My 2018 attempt to have these ten pages declassified was refused on the grounds that the archive might “undermine the security of the country [Britain] and its citizens.”[1] None of its secrets are to be available until January, 2042; and if the paired file is any precedent, even in 2042 it will be released only in redacted form.

The ‘Grand Mufti’ in the archive’s heading is Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Palestinian leader whom posterity best remembers for his alignment with the Italian and German fascists; and the years 1940-1941 place him not in Palestine, but in Iraq — and if the second archive extends to late 1941, in Europe. What could possibly be hidden in a World War II document about a long-dead Nazi sympathizer that would present such a risk to British national security eight decades later, that none of it can be revealed? At present, only the UK government censors know; but the answer may have less to do with the fascists and al-Husseini than with British misdeeds in Iraq, and less to do with Britain’s national security than with its historical embarrassment.

When in 1921 votes were cast for the new Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini came in last among the four candidates. But votes in Palestine mattered as little then as they do now, and the British, Palestine’s novice replacement occupiers for the Ottomans, handed the post to al-Husseini. At first, he proved to be an asset to the British. But as the years passed, his opposition to Zionism, support for Palestinian nationalism, and ultimately his involvement in the 1936 Palestinian uprising, led to calls for his arrest.

Photograph labelled 'Arab demonstrations on Oct. 13 and 27, 1933. In Jerusalem and Jaffa. Return of Grand Mufti from India. Met by hundreds of cars at Gethsemane, Nov. 17, 1933.'

Photograph labelled “Arab demonstrations on Oct. 13 and 27, 1933. In Jerusalem and Jaffa. Return of Grand Mufti from India. Met by hundreds of cars at Gethsemane, Nov. 17, 1933.” Library of Congress, LC-M33- 4218.

In mid-October of 1937, he fled from hiding in Palestine to Beirut. Two years later and six weeks after the outbreak of World War II, in mid-October of 1939, he slipped to Baghdad, where his sympathies for the Italian fascists further alarmed the British. Fast-forward another two years to late 1941, and al-Husseini is in Europe, meeting with Benito Mussolini on the 27th of October, and on the 28th of November meeting with the Führer himself at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin.

Al-Husseini’s motivation for embracing the Axis was likely a combination of selfish political opportunism and the belief that the alignment would help safeguard against the takeover of Palestine by the Zionists. The reasoning, however grotesque, was the same used by Lehi (the ‘Stern Gang’) in its own attempted collaboration with the fascists: Britain was the obstacle both to Palestinian liberation, and to unbridled Zionism, and for both the Mufti and Lehi, defeating that obstacle meant embracing its enemies. Even the ‘mainstream’ David Ben-Gurion had no moral qualms about taking advantage of Britain’s struggle against the Nazis — a struggle for which his Jewish Agency was already conspicuously unhelpful — by exploiting Britain’s post-war vulnerabilities.[2]

Posterity has treated Lehi’s and the Mufti’s flirtations with the fascists quite differently. Lehi, the most fanatical of the major Zionist terror organizations, was transformed into freedom fighters, and ex-Lehi leader Yitzhak Shamir was twice elected as Israeli Prime Minister. In contrast, Zionist leaders quickly seized on al-Husseini’s past to smear not just him, but the Palestinians as a people, as Nazis.

The use of al-Husseini’s unsavory history to ‘justify’ anti-Palestinian racism continues to the present day. Most bizarrely, in 2015 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Hitler had not intended to exterminate the Jews — that is, not until al-Husseini planted the words in his ear — which translates as “got the idea from the Palestinians”. A private citizen would likely have been arrested under German law for this attempt to rewrite the Holocaust.

The mufti of Jerusalem, Sayid Amin al Husseini, meets with Hitler, November 1941.

The mufti of Jerusalem, Sayid Amin al Husseini, meets with Hitler, November 1941.

Iraq won limited independence in 1932, just before the Nazis came to power. When the Mufti ensconced himself in Iraq seven years later, the country was under nominally ‘pro-British’ Prime Ministers, and Regent ‘Abd al-Ilah for the four-year-old king, Faisal II. This uneasy British-Iraqi equilibrium ended on first day of April 1941, when four Iraqi officers known as the Golden Square, wanting full independence (and similarly aligning themselves with the fascists in the foolish belief that doing so would help them get it), staged a coup d’état. It lasted two months. British troops ousted the coup on the first day of June — and as they did, anti-Jewish riots rocked Baghdad. An estimated 180 Jewish Iraqis were killed and 240 wounded in this pogrom known as the Farhud.

Why would the momentary power vacuum of the British takeover lead to anti-Jewish terror? While doing research for my 2016 book, State of Terror, I was intrigued by the claim of one Iraqi Jewish witness, Naeim Giladi, that these ‘Arab’ riots were orchestrated by the British to justify their return to power.[3] Indeed, the riots seemed unnatural in a society where Jews had lived for two and a half millennia, and the “pro-Axis” Golden Square takeover two months earlier had not precipitated any such pogrom. Yet it was also true that Zionism had created ethnic resentment, and Giladi did not question that junior officers of the Iraqi army were involved in the violence. The evidence provided by Giladi was compelling enough to seek out clues among British source documents that were not available to him.

And that, along with the hope of shedding new light on the Mufti’s pro-fascist activities, brought me to the archive at issue and my qualified (redacted) success in getting the first part declassified– officially titled, CO 733/420/19. Not surprisingly, much of the file focused on legitimate worry over the Mufti’s dealings with the Italian fascists. Some of the British voices recorded considered him to be a serious threat to the war effort, and a report entitled “Inside Information” spoke of the Mufti’s place in an alleged “German shadow government in Arabia”. Others dismissed this as “typical of the sort of stuff which literary refugees put into their memoirs in order to make them dramatic” and suggested that the Mufti’s influence was overstated.

Whatever the case, by October 1940, the Foreign Office was considering various methods for “putting an end to the Mufti’s intrigues with the Italians”, and by mid-November,

it was decided that the only really effective means of securing a control over him [the Mufti] would be a military occupation of Iraq.

British plans of a coup were no longer mere discussion, but a plan already in progress:

We may be able to clip the Mufti’s wings when we can get a new Government in Iraq. F.O. [Foreign Office] are working on this”.

So, the British were already working on re-occupying Iraq five months before the April 1941 ‘Golden Square’ coup.

A prominent thread of the archive was: How to effect a British coup without further alienating ‘the Arab world’ in the midst of the war, beyond what the empowering of Zionism had already done? Harold MacMichael, High Commissioner for Palestine, suggested the idea “that documents incriminating the Mufti have been found in Libya” that can be used to embarrass him among his followers; but others “felt some hesitation … knowing, as we should, there was no truth in the statement.”

But frustratingly, the trail stops in late 1940; to know anything conclusive we need the second part’s forbidden ten pages: CO 733/420/19/1.

The redacted first part partially supports, or at least does not challenge, Giladi’s claim. It proves that Britain was planning regime change and sought a pretext, but gives no hint as to whether ethnic violence was to be that pretext. Interestingly, Lehi had at the time reached the same conclusion as Giladi: its Communique claimed that “Churchill’s Government is responsible for the pogrom in Baghdad”.[4]

Does the public have the right to see still-secret archives such as CO 733/420/19/1? In this case, the gatekeepers claimed to be protecting us from the Forbidden Fruit of “curiosity”: They claimed to be distinguishing between “information that would benefit the public good”, and “information that would meet public curiosity”, and decided on our behalf that this archive fit the latter.[1] We are to believe that an eight-decade-old archive on an important issue remains sealed because it would merely satisfy our lust for salacious gossip.

Photograph labelled “Visit of H.R.H. Princess Mary and the Earl of Harwood. March 1934. Princess Mary, The Earl of Harwood, and the Grand Mufti, etc. At the Mosque el-Aksa [i.e., al-Aqsa in Jerusalem].” Library of Congress, LC-M33- 4221.

Perhaps no assessment of past British manipulation in Iraq would have given pause to the Blair government before signing on to the US’s vastly more catastrophic Iraqi ‘regime change’ of 2003, promoted with none of 1940’s hesitation about using forged ‘African’ documents — this time around Niger, instead of Libya. But history has not even a chance of teaching us, if its lessons are kept hidden from the people themselves.

Notes:

According to Giladi, the riots of 1941 “gave the Zionists in Palestine a pretext to set up a Zionist underground in Iraq” that would culminate with the (proven) Israeli false-flag ‘terrorism’ that emptied most of Iraq’s Jewish population a decade later. Documents in Kew seen by the author support this. But to be sure, the Zionists were not connected with the alleged British maneuvers of 1941.

1. Correspondence from the UK government, explaining its refusal to allow me access to CO 733/420/19/1:

Section 23(1) (security bodies and security matters): We have considered whether the balance of the public interest favours releasing or withholding this information. After careful consideration, we have determined that the public interest in releasing the information you have requested is outweighed by the public interest in maintaining the exemption. It is in the public interest that our security agencies can operate effectively in the interests of the United Kingdom, without disclosing information that would assist those determined to undermine the security of the country and its citizens.

The judiciary differentiates between information that would benefit the public good and information that would meet public curiosity. It does not consider the latter to be a ‘public interest’ in favour of disclosure. In this case, disclosure would neither meaningfully improve transparency nor assist public debate, and disclosure would not therefore benefit the public good.

2. Ben-Gurion looked ahead to when the end of the war would leave Britain militarily weakened and geographically dispersed, and economically ruined. He cited the occupation of Vilna by the Poles after World War I as a precedent for the tactic.

For him, the end of WWII only presented an opportunity for the takeover of Palestine with less physical resistance; it also left Britain at the mercy of the United States for economic relief, which the Jewish Agency exploited by pressuring US politicians to make that assistance contingent on supporting Zionist claims to Palestine.

At a mid-December 1945 secret meeting of the Jewish Agency Executive, Ben-Gurion stressed that “our activities should be directed from Washington and not from London”, noting that “Jewish influence in America is powerful and able to cause damage to the interests of Great Britain”, as it “depends to a great extent on America economically” and would “not be able to ignore American pressure if we succeed in bringing this pressure to bear”. He lauded Rabbi Abba Silver in the US for his aggressiveness on the issue, while noting that he was nonetheless “a little fanatical and may go too far”. (TNA, FO 1093/508). The Irgun was more direct in 1946, stating that Britain’s commuting of two terrorists’ death sentences and other accommodations to the Zionists “has been done with the sole purpose to calm American opposition against the American loan to Britain”. (TNA, KV 5-36). Meanwhile, in the US that year Rabbi Silver’s bluntness on the tactic worried Moshe Shertok (a future prime minister). Although like Ben-Gurion, Shertok said that “we shall exploit to the maximum the American pressure on the British Government”, in particular the pre-election period (and in particular New York), but urged “care and wisdom in this” so as not to give ammunition to “anti-Zionists and the anti-semites in general”. Shertok criticized Silver for saying publicly that “he and his supporters opposed the loan to be granted to the British Government”. (TNA, CO 537/1715)

3. Suárez, Thomas, State of Terror: How Terrorism Created Modern Israel[Skyscraper, 2016, and Interlink, 2017]; In Arabic, هكذا أقيمت المستعمرة [Kuwait, 2018]; in French, Comment le terrorisme a créé Israël [Investig’Action, 2019]
Giladi, Naeim, Ben-Gurion’s Scandals: How the Haganah and the Mossad Eliminated Jews [Dandelion, 2006]

4. Lehi, Communique, No. 21/41, dated 1st of August, 1941

Update: This post originally referred to the “four-year-old Prime Minister, ‘Abd al-Ilah,” not the four-year-old King Faisal under Regent ‘Abd al-Ilah. Commenter Jon S. corrected us, and the post has been changed.

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Tom Suarez is the author, most recently, of State of Terror, how terrorism created modern Israel.

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‘Deja Vu’ of Iraq War Lies: Mike Pompeo Blames Iran for Tanker Attack Without A Shred of Evidence

June 14th, 2019 by Jake Johnson

In a press conference that immediately evoked memories of the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday claimed Iran was behind alleged attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman without presenting one single shred of evidence.

“This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high-degree of sophistication,” said Pompeo, who did not provide any details on the intelligence he cited.

After asserting Iran was also behind a litany of attacks prior to Thursday’s tanker incident—once again without presenting any evidence—Pompeo said that,

“Taken as a whole, these unprovoked attacks present a clear threat to international peace and security.”

Pompeo—who has a long history of making false claims about Iran—did not take any questions from reporters following his remarks, which were aired live on America’s major television networks.

“Mike Pompeo has zero credibility when it comes to Iran,” Jon Rainwater, executive director of Peace Action, told Common Dreams. “He’s long been actively campaigning for a confrontation with Iran. He has a track record of pushing bogus theories with no evidence such as the idea that Iran collaborates closely with al-Qaeda.”

“Once again Pompeo is not waiting for the evidence to come in,” Rainwater said, “he is picking facts to suit his campaign for confrontation with Iran.”

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of anti-war group CodePink, characterized Pompeo’s speech as a “deja vu” of former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s infamous weapons of mass destruction speech before the U.N. in 2003, which made the case for the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq.

“Secretary Pompeo gives zero proof but insists that Iran is responsible for ship attacks in Gulf of Oman this morning,” Benjamin tweeted. “Lies, lies, and more lies to make a case for war. Let’s not be fooled into another disastrous war!”

In a column following Pompeo’s speech, Esquire‘s Charles Pierce wrote that he is “not buying this in the least.”

“I remember the Iraq lies,” Pierce wrote. “I know this administration is truthless from top to bottom and all the way out both sides. I don’t trust the Saudi government as far as I can throw a bone saw. And this president feels very much like he’s being run to ground at the moment and needs a distraction.”

“And his Secretary of State is a third-rate congresscritter from Kansas who once advised American soldiers to disobey lawful orders, and who’s fighting way above his weight class,” added Pierce. “Also, too, John Bolton is eight kinds of maniac.”

On Twitter, Trita Parsi—founder of the National Iranian American Council—echoed Pierce, writing:

“A serial liar is president. A warmonger and a serial fabricator who helped get us into the disastrous Iraq war and who has sabotaged numerous attempts at diplomacy is the [national security] advisor.”

“But go ahead, media, treat Pompeo’s accusations as ‘evidence’…” Parsi added.

As Common Dreams reported earlier, critics warned that the timing and target of the tanker attacks on Thursday suggests they could have been a deliberate effort to “maneuver the U.S. into a war” with Iran.

Iranian officials denied any responsibility for the attacks.

In a tweet following the explosions in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said,

“Suspicious doesn’t begin to describe what likely transpired this morning.”

Rainwater of Peace Action said what is needed to calm the dangerous tensions of the current moment is an “impartial investigation” into the tanker incident.

But Pompeo’s statement only served to escalate tensions further and move the U.S. and Iran closer to a military conflict, Rainwater said.

“At a time when the world desperately needs cooler heads to deescalate tensions in the Gulf, the U.S. Secretary of State is instead fanning the flames,” Rainwater said. “Our elected officials need to push for diplomacy now to take us away from the brink of war.”

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Military History, Beyond the 1939 Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact: Germany and the Geopolitical Balance of Power

June 14th, 2019 by Adeyinka Makinde

The recent release by the Russian authorities of the Soviet copy of the infamous Nazi-Soviet Pact signed in August 1939 on behalf of Germany and the Soviet Union by Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov has led to a bout of rancorous discussion. In the West, the agreement is largely perceived as having had dire consequences for the peace in Europe, while in Russia it is largely seen as a last ditch attempt at staving off war. But while each perspective has its merits, analyses that is limited only to explaining the causes of the Second World War as well as which army played the greater role in defeating Nazi Germany miss a wider and enduringly crucial picture; this is the centrality of Germany to any calibration of the geopolitical power balance. 

The Nazi-Soviet Pact was an agreement which provided that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union would not attack the other or support aggressive third parties. It also provided each signatory state with spheres of influence. One week later, Hitler attacked Poland, occupying the western and central parts of the country, while the Soviet Union took over the eastern part. Hitler would later turn his military westward while Stalin would annexe the Baltic States.

The case for the pact as having served as a malign force in disturbing the peace among European nations would appear to be an open and shut one. The argument is that it enabled Hitler to attack and conquer much of Western Europe and thus start a colossal conflagration that would consume millions of lives. However, a compelling counter-argument to this from the Russian side posits that Stalin was forced into the unholy alliance simply because the Munich Agreement signed in September 1938 by Hitler and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had the motive of encouraging Hitler to embark on his anti-Bolshevik crusade.

It is, after all, widely accepted that many western politicians -and not only those who were right-wing conservatives- saw the Nazi regime as a bulwark against the spread of Soviet communism. Chamberlain’s declaration of “peace in our time” did not objectively include the Soviet Union whose western lands, Hitler regarded with envious eyes.

There is also evidence presented in a recently published Russian book, in which the Russian copy of the Nazi-Soviet Pact is reproduced, that Stalin had sought an anti-Nazi alliance with Britain and France, but that his overture was rebuffed. As revealed in 2008, the offer to move over a million troops to the border of Germany to deter Hitler was made in Moscow by senior military officials of the USSR to a visiting delegation of French and British officers two weeks before the Wehrmacht attacked Poland.

The truth is that the Western liberal democracies on the one hand, and the Soviet Union on the other, were trying to shift Nazi aggression onto the other side.

The back and forth was of course set against the background of the recent commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings from which the Russians were not invited. The not unreasonable assertion that the Soviet Union had borne most of the burden in defeating Nazi Germany was met by claims that the Soviets received massive material aid from the West which enabled them to resist the German invaders.

And while most serious scholars of military history would pinpoint the Soviet defeat of the Sixth Army and other axis armies in Stalingrad as the turning point in the war which set in motion the inexorable process of Germany’s defeat, the atmosphere among many Western analysts was not conducive to anything other than memorialising the sacrifice of allied soldiers who succeeded in the perilous venture of establishing a bridgehead in occupied Europe after the Normandy landings.

The point of this article is to put to one side the differing interpretations of the events which primed Nazi Germany to go on the attack as well as arguments pertaining to which side did the most to defeat Hitler and his axis allies, and instead to focus on the centrality of the German nation to the determination of the balance of power between the Western alliance and the Eurasian power of Russia.

The Cold War which followed Germany’s defeat after World War 2 as well as the present Cold War which has arisen since the emergence of Vladimir Putin place Germany as a focal point of the tension between east and west.

The German nation, which lost a great amount of territory, was divided into two countries because the Western allies and the Soviet Union realised that having a regenerated Germany in one of the post war camps would have given a monumental strategic advantage to one side. This issue remains at the heart of the contemporary east-west divide because a key condition; indeed, arguably the preeminent proviso which enabled the leaders of the old Soviet Union to consent to German reunification and German membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was the promise given by the leaders of the West not extend NATO “one inch eastward”.

This promise was not kept by the American-led Atlantic alliance which since the administration of President Bill Clinton has persisted in expanding NATO to Russia’s border. Guided respectively by the Wolfowitz Doctrine and the Brzezinski Doctrine, the United States has in the period since the ending of the ideological-based Cold War sought to impose a historically unprecedented form of global hegemony.

By this is meant that the ends sought by the brutal and perverted philosophy of Nazi Lebensraum was constricted in terms of the amount of territorial conquest and control of other nations. This was implicit in Hitler’s offer to Britain to keep its empire in return for giving Germany a “free hand in the east”.  The other belligerent of World War 2, Japan sought a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, imperialist by design, but not the global dimension suggested by the forged Tanaka Memorial.

But American worldly hegemony has its blue print in its domination of the global institutions of finance, namely the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, which were created after the post-war Bretton Woods agreement. Furthermore, the U.S. dollar emerged as the de facto world reserve currency.

The “end of history”, as Francis Fukuyama infamously put it, occasioned by the fall of the Soviet Union and its dominion states in eastern Europe, meant that the free-market economic system and liberal democracy had won out in a dialectical struggle with Marxism. This would, he prophesied mean that free-market orientated liberal democracies would become the world’s “final form of human government.”

This line of thinking fell neatly into place in the new world order envisioned by those who believed in the strand of “American exceptionalism” that embraces the spread of American values by force of arms and those who subscribed to the ideology of neoconservatism and its Trotskyite-like fixation on a form of “permanent revolution” involving the export of the American economic and political system through the instrument of the American armed forces or its proxies.

Thus was born a new age of American militarism. The Wolfowitz Doctrine insisted on imposing the will of the United States even at the cost of abrogating multi-national agreements, while the Brzezinski Doctrine made a specific case for preventing the rise of a Eurasian power that would challenge Anglo-American supremacy. The latter doctrine explicitly sought to intimidate Russia to a state of military impotence, while creating the circumstances whereby Russia -preferably a balkanised Russian state- would service the energy and resource needs of the West.

Where does Germany fit into this? The projection of American military power under the auspices of NATO and the use of the European Union (EU) by the United States  to provide legitimacy for a succession of disastrously implemented interventions has exposed the necessity for restraint on the desire for the imposition of a unipolar model of an international order insisted upon by the United States to be its historical right.

Apart from providing it with the legal cover for illegal military endeavours, the EU has been used by the United States to apply pressure on other countries through the imposition of trade sanctions even when such a course of action has been to the disadvantage of members states such as Germany. For instance, the United States provided covert support for the coup which forced out the democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovytch in Ukraine and brought to power ultranationalist, Russophobic parties who proceeded to threaten Russia’s vital strategic interests in the Black Sea.The not unreasonable Russian reaction of annexing Crimea after a plebiscite was construed by the United States as an act of aggression which necessitated a range of sanctions including, at US insistence, German sanctions; measures which many German business leaders opposed because they harmed the German economy.

Yet, for all its influence as the dominant nation within the EU, Germanyhas been unable to assert itself by putting a leash on American aggression. There are many reasons for this, not least of which is that after defeat in two world wars, Germany has remained somewhat in the thrall of the Anglo-American world. The presence of 32,000 American troops who are permanently based there, albeit reduced from the Cold War figure of 300,000, is officially part and parcel of the business of conducting a mutually beneficial military alliance. But for a sizeable segment of the German population, their continued deployment, far from providing an assurance of national protection, bears the aura of an army of occupation; a reminder of Germany being somewhat of a dominion state of the American empire.

The lack of assertion in Germany’s political leaders stem from an erosion of a form of national self-esteem that is based on fears that an assertive Germany may lay the seeds for a resurgence of German militarism. They are also conscious of the doubts which persist among allies. Margaret Thatcher, after all, was not initially in favour of German reunification because of this age-old fear. This fear, deeply rooted in the German psyche, was addressed by Goethe, who in the Napoleonic age cautioned his countrymen about their enthusiastic embrace of nationalism and militarism. He predicted that Germany would come to disaster if they followed that path and so called on them to invest in culture and the spirit: in other words, conquer the world with their talents in music, philosophy, trade and the sciences.

Today, shorn of its martial fixation and possessing the fourth largest economy in the world, Germany would appear to be firmly on the path of which Goethe advised. Many are inclined to view the EU as a German-dominated organisation, something made all the more glaring given the decline of French economic power. Germany imposes its values on economically struggling EU states by diktat. It is a state of affairs which some cynically view as the culmination of the ‘long desired’ German ‘conquest’ of Europe.

Yet, while Germany has forsworn the trappings and the burdens of militarism, some may lament that it does not use its economic might as the basis of tempering the excesses of the American empire. One way of achieving this is to manifest a greater resolve at casting away its inhibition at defying the malign enterprises pursued by the United States so far as consenting to the illegal military adventures pursued by the American, as well as the imposition of sanctions on those perceived to be the enemies of the United States.

Unfortunately, Germany has wilted under American pressure to maintain sanctions against Russia, and while a signatory to the Five Plus One Agreement with Iran, it has begun to buckle in regard to the Trump administration’s sanctions against Iran after Washington abrogated on the treaty. Many larger German commercial concerns have ceased trading with Iran as a result of the threats issued by the United States  that they would face repercussions.

There have been instances when the Germans have tried to act independently of American machinations. For instance, through the Minsk Accord of 2015 which was jointly brokered by Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Francois Hollande. It was a worthy effort aimed at creating the circumstances for peace between the warring sides in the Ukraine, but one whose failure owed a great deal to the opposition of the United States.

American animus towards Russia, something developed after the replacement of the pliant Boris Yeltsin by Vladimir Putin, poses a grave threat to world peace. It also serves as an impediment to the German national interest. Not only does NATO’s expansion eastwards, reneging of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty and deployment of a missile shield system imperil Germany, the United States has actively sought to impede the development of Nord Stream 2, the second offshore natural gas pipeline emanating from the Russian mainland which has its entry point to western Europe in Germany. The threat of sanctions issued in June 2019 by U.S. President Donald Trump against Russia is redolent of the sort of paternalism practised by the Americans after the ending of the Second World War. In the words of Trump:

We’re protecting Germany from Russia, and Russia is getting billions and billions of dollars in money.

These followed a letter writing campaign conducted in January 2019 by the US ambassador to Germany who urged the companies involved in the project to stop their work or face the possibility of sanctions.

The American claim -shared by some eastern European countries- that the project would increase Russian influence in the region, is one which Germany’s political and business leaders feel does not outweigh the benefits that will accrue once it is operational.

Nord Stream notwithstanding, the development of closer ties between Germany and Russia in a much broader sense is one which provides an existential threat of sorts to different parties. For the Anglo-American world, it would represent the beginning of the process whereby Germany jettisons out of their orbit of influence; severely weakening the basis by which British and American empires have sought to counterbalance and contain the rise of any Eurasian-centred power. The French may view it as a dynamic which would shift German focus away from Franco-German relations, which of course was at the heart of the creation of the EU project. The strengthening of Russo-German relations is also viewed with alarm by those nations in eastern Europe who have historically suffered from the projection of Russian and German power, not least of which relates to the implementation of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact.

Fears over an emerging power alliance were heightened in some quarters by the appearance of an article written in 2017 by a member of the Russian Izborsky Club. It called for a new geostrategic alliance between Germany and Russia which would serve as an updated version of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact by re-dividing eastern Europe between both countries.

Formed in 2012, and composed of a group of Russian intellectuals, the Izborksy club is a think-tank which disseminates strongly nationalist and anti-liberal views. The level of influence that it has in the Kremlin is something which is disputed. But the thoughts of Aleksandr Gaponenko, the head of the Baltic section of the club, were seized upon by anti-Russian think-tanks and media as evidence of what they believe would be the logical conclusion of a modern German-Russian axis.

Entitled “A Union of Russia and Germany”, Gaponenko argued that such an alliance would allow Germany to “recover” the Sudetenland, Silesia, East Prussia, Poland, Hungary and Romania as well as portions of Ukraine and Lithuania. Russia, on the other hand would take over the rest of the Baltics, Transdniestria and establish a protectorate over Belarus.

How such a fantastical enterprise could be made practicable was not addressed by Gaponenko.

What is more realistic and would be of benefit to the region is if Germany served as a bridge between the West and Russia; in the process diffusing the manufactured tension developed by successive administrations of the United States who are prodded along this path by the self-serving interests of its military industry and national security apparatus.

What is needed is a radical change in the political culture of Germany, one which has been for decades dominated by subservience to the United States, which is insistent on maintaining a form of global hegemony in regard to which Russia, China and Iran offer the last resistance.

Such a transformation of attitude and action through a new-style detente would not only serve German interests, but also the interests of the wider community of nations.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Adeyinka Makinde.

Adeyinka Makinde is a lawyer and academic based in the U.K. He writes on topics pertaining to Global Security. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research

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

June 14th, 2019 by Dr. Jack Rasmus

Read part I and II from the links below.

On Global Capitalist Crises: Systemic Changes and Challenges

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

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

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

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Mohsen Abdelmoumen: How to explain why the influence of neocons in the US continues despite changes in presidents and administrations?

Jack Rasmus: The neocons represent a particular right wing radical social and political base in America that has existed for some time. In fact, it’s always been there, going back at least to McCarthyism in the early 1950s, and even before. This is a radical ideological right, even pro- or proto-fascism base in the US. It was checked by the great depression and world war II temporarily but quickly arose again in the late 1940s with the advent of the cold war and China’s successful war for independence. It formed around Barry Goldwater in the 1960s. It arose again in the 1970s with Nixon.When Nixon was thrown out, it reorganized and set forth a plan to take over the American government and political institutions.It even developed position papers and internal proposals how this takeover might be achieved.

Ideologues like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and others assumed positions of power in the Reagan administration. Their movement took over the US House of Representatives in 1994 and vowed to create a dysfunctional government that would be blamed for gridlock and give their more radical proposals a hearing as to how to break the gridlock and govern again in their interests. We saw them reassert their influence when Cheney was made vice president in 2000. He was actually a co-president, and perhaps more, as George W. Bush, was the publicized president but really a playboy figurehead. Cheney and his radical right ran foreign policy, giving us Iraq and setting the entire Middle East afire in its wake.This radical right is also behind the decline of democratic and civil rights since 2000, using the 9-11 events as excuse to push their anti-democratic agenda. The Koch brothers, the Adelman and Mercer families, and scores of others are the moneybags in their ranks.They funded the teaparty movement that has since entered the Republican party, terrorized the party’s moderates and driven them out of office and the party itself. Without them, their money, their grass roots organizations, their control now of scores of states’ legislatures, their stacking of judgeships across the country, the Trump phenomenon would not have been possible in 2016. Ideologues like Steve Bannon, John Bolton, Navarro, Abrams, Miller and others are now running the Trump administration and its domestic (immigration) and foreign (trade fights, Israel, No. Korea, Venezuela, Iran) policies.

The point is they’ve always been there, a current in US politics below the radar, but since 1994 aggressively asserting itself and penetrating US institutions with increasing success—aided by media like Fox News and their analogues in radio and on the internet.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: Trump made promises of employment during his election campaign and was elected on the slogan “America first” by the disadvantaged classes, especially in rural areas. Isn’t Donald Trump the president of the rich in the United States? What is your assessment of Trump’s governance?

Jack Rasmus: That assessment must first distinguish between governance in the interest of whom? It’s been a disaster for working-class America. All Trump’s promises of bringing jobs back is just a manipulation of concerns by workers of massive job losses and wage stagnation due to offshoring of US jobs and free trade. While Trump talks of bringing jobs back, he opens the floodgates to skilled foreign engineers and workers taking more jobs based on H1-B and L-1 visas, covered up by cuts to unskilled workers entering from Central America.

Trump is a free trader, just a bilateral free trader not a multilateral one. Trump’s trade offensive is about the US reasserting its hegemony in global markets and trade for another decade as the global economy weakens. It’s a phony trade war against US allies. Just look at the deals made with South Korea, the exemptions given for steel and aluminum tariffs, the go slow and go soft with Japan and Europe. Contrast that with the increasingly aggressive attack on China trade relations—which is really about the US trying to stop next generation technology development by China in AI, cyber security, and 5G wireless. These are technologies that are also the military technologies of the 2020s. The neocons and military industrial complex in the US, along with the Pentagon and key pro-military chairpersons in Congress, want to stop China’s tech development. It’s really a two country race in tech now, with almost all the patents roughly equally issued by China and the US and everyone else way behind. So the trade war has delivered nothing for the working classes except rising prices now, and even for farmers who are the losers (but they’re given direct subsidies to offset their losses, unlike working families that have to bear the brunt of the tariff effects).

Look at the tax legislation of 2018 and the deregulation actions of 2017 by Trump. Who benefited. Business got big cost cuts. The rest of us got higher taxes to offset the $4 trillion actual Trump tax cuts for business and investors and wealthy households.US multinational corps got $2 trillion of that $4 trillion. And households will have to pay $1.5 trillion in more taxes, starting this year and accelerating by 2025. In deregulation, we get the collapse of Obamacare and accelerating premiums, while the bankers got financial regulations of 2008-10 repealed. As far as political ‘governance’ is concerned, what we’ve seen under Trump is widespread voter suppression, gerrymandering by his ‘red states’ to help him get re-elected next time, the approval of two conservative judges to the US Supreme court engineered by Trump’s puppy, McConnell, in the Senate. Then there’s the now emerging attacks on immigrants, including jailing their kids, and the attacks on womens’ rights that was once considered unimaginable.

Politically Trump has been engineering a bona fide constitutional crisis. He’s appeared to have gotten away with the Mueller investigation which should have led to his impeachment but hasn’t. He continually undermines US political institutions verbally. He clearly is moving toward bypassing Congress and governing directly by ‘national emergency’ declarations, refusing to allow executive branch employees to testify to Congress despite subpoenas, ordering the launching of a new McCarthyism by ordering his Justice dept. to start investigating opponents, etc.—i.e. all of which were the basis of Nixon’s impeachment.

In short, Trump’s governance has been a disaster for working-class America, immigrants of color, small farmers and even manufacturing companies, but a boon to far right and white nationalists whom he publicly supports. It’s been especially beneficial to wealthy households, businesses and investors, moreover. And maybe that’s the most important reason why the capitalists still tolerate him and let him remain in office. If they really wanted to impeach and remove him from office they could find a way. But he’s delivering for them financially and economically. He’s ‘good for business’, in other words. But so was Hitler.

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Campaigners Launch Legal Challenge over UK’s ‘Secret Trade Talks’ with United States

June 14th, 2019 by Global Justice Now

Global Justice Now has launched a legal challenge at the Information Rights Tribunal over the Department for International Trade’s failure to release details of numerous trade meetings it has held with the United States and other countries since the EU referendum in 2016.

It follows an outcry during last week’s state visit of US President Donald Trump over whether controversial areas like the NHS and chlorinated chicken will be on the table in negotiations over a post-Brexit trade deal between the US and UK.

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox has spent more than a year refusing to release attendee lists, agendas and minutes from the trade working groups, following Freedom of Information requests by Global Justice Now in late 2017.

At that time, the Department of Trade was known to have set up at least 14 working groups covering 21 countries including the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, China and India. While talks over new deals cannot formally be called negotiations until after the UK’s departure from the EU, regular quarterly meetings are nonetheless already taking place with the United States, for example.

A ruling by the Information Commissioner in March 2019 resulted in the release of hundreds of pages of documents relating to the working groups, but these were either entirely or heavily redacted on the basis of a variety of exemptions, including the “extremely sensitive” nature of international trade agreements.

However, minutes of UK-US Trade & Investment Working Group meetings in July 2017 and November 2017 did reveal that ‘Agricultural market access’ and ‘Services’ – potentially covering the NHS – as well as ‘Labour and environmental standards’, ‘Intellectual property’, ‘Financial services’ and ‘Data, digital and e-commerce issues’ have all been on the agenda in the talks.

Global Justice Now is working with barrister Dr Sam Fowles and law firm Leigh Day to challenge the ruling at the Information Rights Tribunal on ten grounds, including that the requirement for confidentiality has been exaggerated, and that the balance of public interest lies in favour of disclosure.

Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, said:

“Trade deals are supposedly the number one benefit of Brexit, yet Liam Fox is fighting tooth and nail to keep his plans for them out of the public domain. After more than a year of appeals, Fox’s department has only ‘released’ hundreds of pages of blacked out documents relating to these secretive trade talks – making a mockery of democracy and taking back control.

“Donald Trump may have let the cat out of the bag over a US-UK trade deal last week, but the public has a right to know whether this government has already put the NHS or chlorinated chicken on the table behind closed doors. It is outrageous that matters as important as the future of our NHS and our food standards should be being discussed in secret, especially with parliament currently having no powers to vote to stop a trade deal after Brexit. We are bringing this appeal to ask the simple question: what does Liam Fox have to hide?”

Dr Sam Fowles of Cornerstone Barristers said:

“The Secretary of State has contended that it is not in the public interest to disclose details of his trade negotiations. This raises an important constitutional issue. International Trade Agreements can have domestic impacts that are equivalent to legislation yet are not subjected to anything approaching an equivalent level of scrutiny. We will be asking the Tribunal to find, as the House of Lords Constitution Committee found, that there should be a “general principle in favour of transparency” in relation to materials relating to international trade agreements.”

Rowan Smith, solicitor at Leigh Day, said:

“The UK government argues that details about Brexit trade talks must be kept confidential. To do otherwise, they say, would prejudice negotiations. But this blanket approach to secrecy is unlawful. Trade deals bind successive governments. Many governments, the US and Canada for example, allow their citizens to know about their negotiations.

“UK citizens were told by the Leave campaigns that the UK government would be able to broker better international trade agreements than the EU. The public has a right to know whether this is in fact true; is the government managing to negotiate better terms in our name?

“The law requires the Secretary of State to look at the specifics of the information requested by the public. It should not be imposing a blanket exemption. Our client hopes the Tribunal will intervene and ensure the Secretary of State changes his approach on this issue.”

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Notes

1. Global Justice Now commissioned Brendan Montague of the Request Initiative to submit the Freedom of Information request in 2017. The following information was requested on trade working groups in respect of 17 specified states and in relation to any state for which a working group existed but was not listed in the request:

(a) “Confirmation that a working group exists for each of the countries listed, and any that have not been listed but where a working group exists.”
(b) “Information relating to any currently existing work-streams or plans for the establishment of working groups in the period leading up to Brexit.”
(c) “The name of any working groups described at a.”
(d) “The date of the first meeting of the working group named at c. and then the dates of all subsequent meetings of these working groups.”
(e) “The list of invitees for each of the meetings set out in response to d.”
(f) “The list of attendees for each of the meetings set out in response to d.”
(g) “The agenda for each of the meetings set out in response to d. The minutes of each of the meetings set out in response to d.”
(h) “Any schedule for forthcoming meetings of the working groups described at a and/or b.”

2. The appeal has been filed with the First-tier Tribunal (General Regulatory Chamber), case number EA/2019/0154. A hearing is expected in the autumn.

Featured image is from GJN

Timing of Gulf of Oman Attacks: Washington Aimed to Kill Historic Iran-Japan Talks in Tehran, Oil Tankers en Route to Japan

June 14th, 2019 by Ben Norton

Hell-bent on isolating and suffocating Iran, the Trump administration derailed Japan’s historic talks by accusing Tehran without any evidence whatsoever of attacking oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman.

***

Since entering office, the Donald Trump administration has been itching for a war on Iran. And it may have found an excuse to justify an escalation of military aggression — or at least kill independent international attempts at diplomacy with Tehran.

On the morning of Thursday, June 13, two oil tankers were allegedly attacked in the Gulf of Oman, just off the coast of Iran. The US government immediately blamed Iran for the incident, without providing any evidence.

The vessels happened to be en route to Japan at precisely the same time that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in Tehran. The first Japanese leader to visit Iran since its revolution 40 years ago, Abe was holding a historic meeting with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei when the incident took place.

This coincidence did not escape Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, who said,

“Suspicious doesn’t begin to describe what likely transpired this morning,” and reiterated a call for regional dialogue and cooperation.

Prominent Iran expert Trita Parsi noted that the timing of the suspicious attacks suggests that there is fear in Washington that efforts at Iran-Japan diplomacy might succeed in softening the de facto US-led economic blockade of Tehran.

Since Trump illegally sabotaged the international Iran nuclear deal (known officially as the JCPOA) in May 2018, the US government has striven to isolate Iran and suffocate its economy by preventing the country from exporting oil, importing food and medicine, and trading with foreign nations.

The Trump administration has even threatened close ally Japan, the world’s fourth-largest consumer of oil, with secondary sanctions, forcing the country to halt Iranian oil imports.

Concerns that the Trump administration has been fretting about a potential Iranian diplomatic breakthrough with Japan were validated by the US response.

Secretary of State and former CIA director Mike Pompeo immediately pointed the finger at Tehran, calling the alleged attacks “a threat to international peace and security, a blatant assault on the freedom of navigation, and an unacceptable escalation of tension by Iran.”

Saudi Arabia and its regime media went into overdrive amplifying the Trump administration’s accusations against Iran.

Many Western corporate media outlets, too, lazily echoed the US government’s unsubstantiated claims. The New York Times, for example, published a breaking piece headlined, “Pompeo Says Intelligence Points to Iran in Tanker Attack in Gulf of Oman.”

The Times did concede, however, that “Pompeo did not present any evidence to back up the assessment of Iran’s involvement.”

And several mainstream media outlets actually diverged from their traditional pro-war stances and expressed cautious skepticism about the secretary of state’s unproven accusations.

Surprisingly, CNN, NPR, and The Independent stressed that Pompeo provided no evidence for his claims.

Iran’s Press TV outlet published video of what it said were crew members of one of the tankers who had been saved by an Iranian rescue team.

The Iranian government-backed channel accused the Trump administration of exploiting incidents like this “to wage war.”

Press TV also tweeted photos of one of the tankers hours after the alleged attack, noting that the vessel was unharmed and the fire had been put out.

These facts nevertheless did not stop notorious war hawks and neoconservatives from beating the drum of war.

Fanatical anti-Muslim activist Brigitte Gabriel bizarrely described the incident as “an attack on the United States.”

Neoconservative commentator Michael Weiss, who has spent the past eight years pushing for regime change in Syria, implied the alleged attacks were proof that Iran is a “threat.”

Neoconservative Senator Marco Rubio, who has spent the past five months heavily lobbying for US military intervention in Venezuela, quickly turned his attention to Iran. He pointed the finger at the IRGC’s Quds Force, without citing any evidence.

Rubio also berated skeptics, insisting it would not “make sense” for any other actor to carry out the alleged attacks.

The US government has previously blamed Iran for alleged attacks on oil tankers, again without providing any evidence. In May, two Saudi vessels were attacked, and the Trump administration immediately accused Tehran — but in reality this attack was mostly likely carried out by Yemen’s Houthi movement, which governs northern Yemen and has been fighting a defensive war against US-backed Saudi and Emirati forces since March 2015.

Many observers noted how the Trump administration’s unsubstantiated accusations against Iran are eerily reminiscent of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which the US government and a compliant corporate press sold lies to the public to justify a war of aggression on Vietnam.

It is certainly possible that Washington could exploit these supposed attacks to justify a war on Iran. But it is just as likely that the Trump administration could hope to use this incident to try to pressure Japan to halt its historic negotiations with Tehran.

Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018, blatantly violating a UN Security Council resolution and sabotaging an international deal that had been negotiated by China, Russia, Britain, France, Germany, and the European Union.

The far-right president has also surrounded himself with anti-Iran hawks, including Pompeo and neoconservative national security adviser John Bolton, who has spent years lobbying for war on Iran.

Trump has made it clear that his goal is to pressure Iran to renegotiate a nuclear deal with the United States, and is using a “maximum pressure” campaign to force Tehran to submit to Washington’s diktat.

On June 13, Ayatollah Khamenei reiterated that he rejected Trump’s offer to discuss a new agreement, stating, “I do not consider Trump as a person worth exchanging any message with.”

In the meantime, longtime US proxy Saudi Arabia stands to benefit from the escalating aggression. Oil prices immediately spiked in response to the alleged attacks on the tankers, enriching oil producers such as the viciously anti-Iran Saudi monarchy.

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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.

Featured image is from The Grayzone

Russia, Serbia, Belarus: The “Slavic Brotherhood” Military Drills Are a Soft Power Boon for All Participants

June 14th, 2019 by Andrew Korybko

Russia, Serbia, and Belarus each derive certain soft power benefits from their participation in the “Slavic Brotherhood” military drills, with this year’s exercises taking on a greater significance for all of them due to the changed international context in which they’re occurring.

The annual trilateral “Slavic Brotherhood” military drills between Russia, Serbia, and Belarus are taking place this year right outside Belgrade and will last from 14-27 June. The aptly titled exercises reinforce the strong partnership between these three parties and have recently begun to generate substantial international media coverage because of the context in which they’re occurring, which is more important this year than ever before. Nothing of significance has changed in the New Cold War since last time, but there are signs that the relations between each of these three Slavic states are undergoing a period of uncertain reform, hence why they all derive certain soft power benefits from their participation in this latest drill.

To tackle the proverbial elephant in the room first, Russia’s Eurasian Union and CSTO ally Belarus has been “rebalancing” its ties with it over the past year after entering into a series of seemingly intractable disputes concerning energy and agriculture, which have occurred countless times before in the past but this time no solution has yet to be found. Making a long story short, Russia refused to continue subsidizing Belarus’ energy imports that Minsk was re-exporting for considerable profit abroad and also decided to crack down on the scheme that its neighbor was allegedly playing by acting as a lucrative backdoor for counter-sanctioned EU products to enter the Russian marketplace via the Eurasian Union free trade loophole.

Russia recently replaced its Ambassador to Belarus after less than a year following domestic pushback to some of his more controversial statements during this increasingly tense period, but both parties finally seem to have de-escalated the situation with the appointment of the new Russian representative and appear to be back on track to repair the short-term damage that was done to their relationship. Therefore, Belarus’ participation in the “Slavic Brotherhood” exercises is a reminder that the ties between these two fraternal states are much stronger than some observers might think, with both countries wanting to show the world that their military and cultural cooperation (the latter by virtue of the drills’ symbolic name) is still very close.

As for Serbia, it’s been practicing a complex “balancing” act for decades since the time of Yugoslavia at the dawn of the Old Cold War, but it’s recently tilted closer towards the West as it’s sought to receive EU membership as part of President Vucic’s bid to revive its struggling economy, though only on the condition of controversially “normalizing” relations with its NATO-occupied breakaway province of Kosovo & Metohija. It’s here where Russia is expected to play an enormous diplomatic role in legitimizing whatever decision Belgrade ultimately makes in this respect given the Great Power’s gigantic soft power appeal in both the country and the Balkans in general. Participating in military drills with Russia, let alone on Serbian territory itself, reinforces the notion that Moscow is Belgrade’s military ally.

That said, while the arms trade between the two is excellent, Serbia nevertheless cooperates more closely with NATO than Russia ever since entering into the so-called “Partnership for Peace” framework in 2006. Furthermore, there are obvious limitations to what Russia could do to militarily support Serbia in practically any scenario, but the country’s patriotic masses are easily guided by ruling party-controlled media into exaggerating the importance of the Russian-Serbian Strategic Partnership and imagining that Moscow would directly intervene in the event of worsening clashes in Kosovo despite it remaining on the sidelines during the latest ones when even its own UN official there was attacked by the Albanians.

This brings to mind the soft power benefit that Russia derives from the “Slavic Brotherhood” drills, which is that they signal to the West that Moscow is a stakeholder in Serbia’s security even if it’s realistically incapable of ensuring as much in the manner that many Serbs might expect. Nevertheless, it symbolizes that the Balkans are still within Russia’s limited “sphere of influence” and that it’s unwilling to surrender it entirely to the West, ergo the celebration of “Slavic Brotherhood” in Serbia for nearly the next two weeks. All in all, Russia, Serbia, and Belarus each benefit in the soft power sense from the ongoing drills, even if they have their own motivations for participating in them at the present moment.

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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.

Why I’m Optimistic About the ‘Deal of the Century’. “Palestinian Struggle Centre Stage of Arab Politics”

June 14th, 2019 by David Hearst

In selling the yet-to-be-published “deal of the century” (DoC), its principle authors have said the following:

That the Palestinians are not yet capable of governing themselves (US president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner); that Israel has a right to annex parts of the West Bank (US ambassador to Israel David Friedman); and that the deal itself is probably unexecutable (US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo).

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Killing the peace deal

In so brazenly and unashamedly entrenching Israel’s gains and trashing any possibility of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, in dealing with the heavy weight of refugees’ history by simply deleting it, the authors have done more than autodestruct.

They have killed too the idea that a peace deal can ever be constructed around the principle of a Jewish majority state living alongside a Palestinian one as an equal and stable neighbour.

This myth has spent too long in the intensive care unit of international negotiations. It has fuelled almost three decades of negotiations and it still lives on at the core of European policy.

It dominated and displaced all other ideas.

For 26 years after the Oslo accords there was no process other than the peace process. The Palestinian leadership, that recognise Israel, would never have declared it over on their own. But nor was Oslo’s demise the work of the rejectionist factions like Hamas, Islamic Jihad or Hezbollah. On the contrary, in rewriting its charter with the purpose of lessening the distance between it and Fatah, Hamas accepted the Green Line in 1967 as a basis for negotiations.

No, the gravediggers of the two-state solution are two zealots: Kushner and Friedman. They essentially believe Israel has won this conflict and all that the resolution of it requires is for the defeated party to accept this truth and take the money.

A ‘mission accomplished’?

The DoC is nothing more than declaring “mission accomplished”, as other invading armies have done in the Middle East. History teaches us that such pronouncements are premature.

Kushner, whose every public outing has turned into a PR disaster, has given the game away on several occasions.

Not least in his interview with Robert Satlov of the Washington Institute, where he declared that his quest was based on “truthing”. First truth: Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Second truth: Israel had the Golan Heights for 52 years, so he did not think there is “any question” that that it too should be part of Israel.

Does truth here mean recognising reality, or facts on the ground? Not entirely. He referred again to the truth in his joyous, messianic opening to his speech at the dedication ceremony of the US embassy in Jerusalem.

“I am so proud today to be in Jerusalem, the eternal heart of the Jewish people,” Kushner said, his face flush with revelation, adding, ”(President Trump said) he would finally recognise the truth, that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.”

Truth here means the fulfilment of divinely ordered destiny. Kushner and Friedman are the mortal enemies of liberal Zionism, which was a secular project, precisely because they believe they are on a mission from God. Listen to Kushner describing Israel, in the same speech, as paradise on earth  –

“the only land in the Middle East where Jews, Muslims and Christians participate and worship freely… the protector of women’s rights… one of the most vibrant nations of the world” – and you get the picture.

No truth, no self-determination, no national aspiration, no history, no water, no land, no olive groves, other than Israel’s, can exist in the land between the river and the sea in Kushner’s book and the Palestinians simply have to accept this truth.

What goes on in Kushner’s and Friedman’s head is being acted out in grotesque reality by settlers.  As the farmers of al-Mughayyir and Kufr Malek villages prepared to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, Israeli settlers set fire to their crops, repeatedly.

As if to underline this, while Kushner has been in the Middle East, Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, has been trying to prevent a bipartisan resolution from the Senate endorsing a two-state solution.

To say this so firmly and so clearly on behalf of Israel’s biggest sponsor is to hasten the day when the project to secure and seal a state based on the principle of religious supremacy comes to an end, and for that reason I am profoundly grateful to Kushner and Friedman. They are doing a good demolition job.

But there are other reasons too.

The Bahrain ‘workshop’

It has been a tough slog to get Arab leaders to attend the economic conference – now downgraded to a workshop – in Bahrain at the end of the month, when the money for this deal was due to be pledged.

Jordan, Egypt and Morocco have apparently agreed and Qatar will be there as well.

But their reluctance to do anything other than listen is based on the firm realisation that no Arab head of state could endorse such a plan. That’s as great a truth, as big a fact on the ground, as the fundamentalist Kushner himself can hatch.

Kushner was reported to be taken aback by the level of opposition his plan is getting among friends. Kushner’s WhatsApp date, Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, assembled a focus group of government officials, intellectuals and newspaper columnists to road test the DoC.

“He seemed to have been surprised when he learned that the majority of people in the room were critical of his plan and told him that King Salman emphasised the rights of the Palestinians,” a source told the Washington Post.

If Kushner thinks about this – which he will not, because this process is not cerebral, it’s an act of faith and then an act of force – it means the private conversations he has been having with Arab leaders are not a reliable source of information. He should not trust the things he is being told in private, precisely because they cannot be said in public.

Palestinian struggle back

Far from burying the Palestinian cause, after a long period where it was sidelined by the Arab uprisings of 2011, the counter-revolution, the rise of Islamic State group (IS), the deal of the century has managed to push this ancient struggle back where it belongs in the centre stage of Arab politics.

Once there, no Arab government can ignore it, or do anything other than say they can only support a deal that the Palestinians themselves accept.

That, again, is no mean achievement, and Kushner and Friedman are to be congratulated on that too.

The DoC however presents the biggest opportunity to those who have the most to lose from it.

Once they acknowledge they are never going to get a Palestinian state living in autonomy beside an Israeli one, the Palestinian leadership have their work cut out.

What should be done

The first task is to suborn petty rivalry, ego, and personal interest to the cause of unifying the leadership composed of all its parties. No Fatah leader can carry on treating Hamas as a bigger foe than Israel.

No Palestinian leader can represent his people if he is vetted first by Israel and Washington.

If the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, really wanted to send a signal to Israel about the DoC, he would stop, or even suspend, security co-operation with the occupation forces. They would get the message overnight.

The second task ahead is to develop a joint programme of protest, civil disobedience and action. If the occupation has never been cheaper for Israel, make it more expensive.

The third task is to use the embassies it has got round the world to lobby for the diplomatic recognition of the Palestinian state and lobby each political party in Europe to make recognition a reality. You can not fight a highly active pro-Israel lobby around the world with inaction. Get active.

End of conflict

There are many elements which would form the basis of an end of conflict – Hamas’s offer of a long-term hudna is one of them. A post-Oslo generation of Palestinian youth yearning for leadership is another. It does not have to be one person.

It could be collective.

A new generation of 1948 Palestinians whose demand for equality is the cornerstone of the next phase of this struggle is yet a third. The one state option, or some version of it, is the only one capable of unifying and ultimately liberating all Palestinians from their carefully constructed ghettos.

There is, however, one option that is not on the table. And that is doing nothing.

There has been an active debate among those who follow these events in granular detail about why a political declaration is needed at all, as Netanyahu is getting all he needs – Jerusalem, Golan Heights, defunding of UNWRA – without it.

This has been expressed in a number of ways, one of them being that the deal is designed to fail, to give Netanyahu and Trump the excuse of saying there is no partner for peace.

A line in the sand

I am still inclined to think that the DoC will be published, although the longer it is delayed, the more it interferes with Trump’s re-election campaign. For one reason. Like the Clinton Parameters before it, it will be a line in the sand, whose purpose is to bury all other lines before it, principally the Green Line of 1967, which has disappeared entirely.

Plans are just as lethal as bullets. Allow this line in the sand to be drawn and the Palestinians may just as well take the money, give up and watch Abu Dhabi rise on the shores of Gaza.

I don’t think the Palestinian people, who have been through hell in the last seven decades, will give up. They are less likely to give up now than at any time before. That’s why I am optimistic.

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David Hearst is the editor in chief of Middle East Eye. He left The Guardian as its chief foreign leader writer. In a career spanning 29 years, he covered the Brighton bomb, the miner’s strike, the loyalist backlash in the wake of the Anglo-Irish Agreement in Northern Ireland, the first conflicts in the breakup of the former Yugoslavia in Slovenia and Croatia, the end of the Soviet Union, Chechnya, and the bushfire wars that accompanied it. He charted Boris Yeltsin’s moral and physical decline and the conditions which created the rise of Putin. 

Featured image: President visit the Western Wall, Jerusalem, May 22, 2017. Credit: Photo credit: Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv.

US Government, NGOs Fuel and Fund Hong Kong Anti-Extradition Protests

June 14th, 2019 by Alexander Rubinstein

Protesters in Hong Kong attempted to storm the parliament on Tuesday in opposition to an amendment to the autonomous territory’s extradition law with mainland China. The protest’s messaging and the groups associated with it, however, raise a number of questions about just how organic the movement is.

Some of the groups involved receive significant funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a CIA soft-power cutout that has played a critical role in innumerable U.S. regime-change operations.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi weighed in on the bill, which is being considered in Hong Kong’s parliament, arguing that, should it pass, Congress would have to “no choice but to reassess whether Hong Kong is ‘sufficiently autonomous’ under the ‘one country, two systems’ framework.”

The State Department has also weighed in, saying it could “could undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy and negatively impact the territory’s long-standing protection of human rights, fundamental freedoms and democratic values.”

The Canadian and British foreign ministries have also thrown their weight behind those opposing the bill.

By all indications, protesters are just getting started. On Wednesday, some told international media that they would try to storm parliament again. Protesters have been met with the use of tear gas and rubber bullets by police.

The protesters appear to be trying to raise awareness among Western audiences, using the “AntiExtraditionLaw” hashtag and signs in English. In one photograph, a group holds dozens of the old Hong Kong flags, when the territory was under the control of the British crown, while bearing a sign that accuses China of “colonialism.”

Major protests greet a minor change in law

The amendment to the extradition law would “allow Hong Kong to surrender fugitives on a case-by-case basis to jurisdictions that do not have long-term rendition agreements with the city.” Among those jurisdictions are mainland China and Taiwan. Ian Goodrum, an American journalist who works in China for the government-owned China Daily newspaper, told MintPress News:

It’s unfortunate there’s been all this hullabaloo over what is a fairly routine and reasonable adjustment to the law. As the law reads right now, there’s no legal way to prevent criminals in other parts of China from escaping charges by fleeing to Hong Kong. It would be like Louisiana — which, you’ll remember, has a unique justice system — refusing to send fugitives to Texas or California for crimes committed in those states.

Honestly, this is something that should have been part of the agreement made in advance of the 1997 handover. Back then bad actors used irrational fear of the mainland to kick the can down the road and we’re seeing the consequences today.”

The U.S. agenda ripples through major NGOs

Like the U.S. government, the NGO-industrial complex appears to be wholly on-board. Some 70 non-governmental organizations, many of them international, have endorsed an open letter urging for the bill to be killed. Yet it is signed only by three directors: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor (HKHRM).

The protests mark the latest flare-up in longstanding tensions over Hong Kong’s relationship with the mainland. In 2014, many of the groups associated with the current movement held an “Occupy” protest of their own over issues of autonomy.

Hong Kong Democracy Protest

A police officer blows the whistle to the protesters as they remove the barricades at an occupied area in Mong Kok district of Hong Kong Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2014. Hong Kong authorities cleared street barricades from a pro-democracy protest camp in the volatile Mong Kok district for a second day Wednesday after a night of clashes in which police arrested 116 people.

Ironically, the issue of autonomy is not just of importance to Hong Kongers, but to the United States government as well. And it’s not all just harshly worded statements: the U.S. government is pumping up some of the organizers with loads of cash via the NED.

Maintaining Hong Kong’s distance from China has been important to the U.S. for decades. One former CIA agent even admitted that “Hong Kong was our listening post.”

As MintPress News previously reported:

The NED was founded in 1983 following a series of scandals that exposed the CIA’s blood-soaked covert actions against foreign governments. ‘It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the CIA,’ NED President Carl Gershman told the New York Times in 1986. ‘We saw that in the Sixties, and that’s why it has been discontinued. We have not had the capability of doing this, and that’s why the endowment was created.’

Another NED founder, Allen Weinstein, conceded to the Washington Post’s David Ignatius, ‘A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.’”

The NED has four main branches, at least two of which are active in Hong Kong: the Solidarity Center (SC) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI). The latter has been active in Hong Kong since 1997, and NED funding for Hong Kong-based groups has been “consistent,” says Louisa Greve, vice president of programs for Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. While NED funding for groups in Hong Kong actually dates back to 1994, 1997 was the year the territory was transferred from control by the British.

In 2018, NED granted $155,000 to SC and $200,000 to NDI for work in Hong Kong, and $90,000 to HKHRM, which is not itself a branch of NED but a partner in Hong Kong. Between 1995 and 2013, HKHRM received more than $1.9 million in funds from the NED.

Through its NDI and SC branches, NED has had close relations with other groups in Hong Kong. NDI has worked with the Hong Kong Journalist Association, the Civic Party, the Labour Party, and the (Hong Kong) Democratic Party. It isn’t clear whether these organizations have received funding from the NED. SC has, however, given $540,000 to the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions in the course of just seven years.

The coalition cited by Hong Kong media, including the South China Morning Post and the Hong Kong Free Press, as organizers of the anti-extradition law demonstrations is called the Civil Human Rights Front. That organization’s website lists the NED-funded HKHRM, Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, the Hong Kong Journalists Association, the Civic Party, the Labour Party, and the Democratic Party as members of the coalition.

It is inconceivable that the organizers of the protests are unaware of the NED ties to some of its members. During the 2014 Occupy protests, Beijing made a big deal out of NED influence in the protests and the foreign influence they said it represented. The NED official, Greve, even told the U.S. government’s Voice of America outlet that “activists know the risks of working with NED partners” in Hong Kong, but do it anyway.

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

Feature image: A protester bleeds from his face as he tries to stop a group of taxi drivers from trying to remove the barricades which are blocking off main roads, near a line of riot police at an occupied area, in the Mong Kok district of Hong Kong, Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014. Hong Kong student leaders and government officials talked but agreed on little Tuesday as the city’s Beijing-backed leader reaffirmed his unwillingness to compromise on the key demand of activists camped in the streets now for a fourth week.

Pompeo Blames Iran for Likely Gulf of Oman False Flag

June 14th, 2019 by Stephen Lendman

Cui bono is most important whenever an incident like Thursday attacks on vessels in the Gulf of Oman occurs.

Clearly, Iran had nothing to gain and plenty to lose from the incident. The Trump regime and its anti-Iran imperial partners benefit greatly by blaming the country for an incident no evidence suggests it had anything to do with.

Perception matters, not reality on the ground, especially when propaganda pounds the official narrative into the public mind — establishment media serving as imperial press agents.

It works time and again. No matter how many times the public is fooled by disinformation and Big Lies, they’re easy marks to be duped again.

Polls show Americans view Iran unfavorably. An early 2019 Gallup poll asked respondents: “What is your overall opinion of Iran? Is it very favorable, mostly favorable, mostly unfavorable or very unfavorable?”

Over 80% of respondents said their view of Iran is mostly unfavorable (46%) or very unfavorable (36%). Only 19% said their opinion of the country is mostly favorable (13%) or very favorable (3%). A scant 3% had no opinion.

Even in the aftermath of the JCPOA nuclear deal (effective January 2016), Gallup found similar results in its early 2016 polling — only 14% of respondents viewing Iran very (3%) or mostly (11%) favorable.

Yet Iran hasn’t attacked another country in centuries. The Islamic Republic is a leading proponent of regional peace, stability, and mutual cooperation with other nations, threatening none, stating only that if attacked it’ll defend itself as permitted by international law.

As expected after yesterday’s Gulf of Oman incident, Mike Pompeo falsely blamed Iran for attacking and damaging the affected tankers. Citing no credible evidence backing his dubious accusation, he said:

“It is the assessment of the (US) government that the Islamic Republic of Iran is responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Oman today” — a bald-faced Big Lie, adding:

“This assessment is based on intelligence (sic), the weapons used (sic), the level of expertise needed to execute the operation (sic), recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping (sic), and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication (sic)” — more bald-faced Big Lies.

Pompeo falsely blamed Iran for “attack(ing) four (UAE, Saudi, Norwegian) commercial ships near the Strait of Hormuz” last months despite no evidence indicating it had anything to do with what happened.

He lied blaming what he called “Iran-backed surrogates (for) strik(ing) two” Saudi pipelines, again presenting no evidence backing the phony claim.

He suggested Iranian responsibility for a May 19 rocket landing harmlessly in Baghdad’s Green Zone, a May 31 car bombing in Afghanistan wounding four US soldiers, and a missile attack on a Saudi airport — again presenting no evidence.

“Taken as a whole,” he said, “these unprovoked attacks present a clear threat to international peace and security, a blatant assault on the freedom of navigation, and an unacceptable campaign of escalating tension by Iran.”

At a UN Security Council session on the Gulf of Oman incident, acting US envoy Jonathan Cohen repeated Pompeo’s Big Lie, saying

“the United States assesses that Iran is responsible for these attacks (sic),” adding:

“No proxy group in the area has the resources or skill to act with this level of sophistication. Iran, however, has the weapons, the expertise, and the requisite intelligence information to pull this off.”

Accusations without credible evidence supporting them are baseless. Pompeo and Cohen presented none because nothing suggests Iran’s responsibility for what happened.

Israel and Washington’s military regional presence have plenty of “resources or skill to act with this level of sophistication” — where blame for the incident likely lies with lots to gain, not Iran with much to lose.

Its deputy UN envoy Eshagh Al Habib “categorically reject(ed) the US’ unfounded claim with regard to 13 June oil tanker incidents and condemn(ed) it in the strongest possible terms,” adding:

“Neither fabrications and disinformation campaigns nor shamelessly blaming others can change the realities.”

“The US and its regional allies must stop warmongering and put an end to mischievous plots as well as false flag operations in the region.”

“Warning, once again, about all of the US coercion, intimidation, and malign behavior, Iran expresses concern over suspicious incidents for the oil tankers that occurred today.”

“Definitely, those that accuse Iran have the main role in creating those incidents and it could be the United States itself.”

The incident occurred while Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in Tehran on a diplomatic mission. Was the incident planned to undermine it and sour bilateral relations?

Was its intent also to push Brussels back from taking any steps to circumvent unlawful Trump regime sanctions on Iran?

A dubious CENTCOM video claiming to show an Iranian patrol boat approaching one of the affected Gulf of Oman vessels should be taken with a grain of salt.

Videos are easily fabricated. No flag or other ID was visible on the small boat shown. Trump regime officials said the video showed Iranian personnel removing an unexploded mine attached to the hull of one of the struck vessels, suggesting evidence was removed.

Pompeo saying the US “will defend its forces, interests, and stand with our partners and allies to safeguard global commerce and regional stability” ups the stakes for possible Trump regime premeditate aggression against the Islamic Republic.

The incidents discussed above greatly heightened regional tensions. Not a shred of evidence suggests Iranian responsibility for them.

Based on the history of US false flags since the mid-19th century, 9/11 the mother of them all, the Trump regime was likely to blamed for staging Thursday’s Gulf of Oman incident — perhaps together with Israel.

Longstanding plans by both countries call for replacing Iran’s sovereign independent governance with pro-Western puppet rule.

Provocative incidents like what happened on Thursday advance things toward possible war in a region already boiling from US aggression.

Instead of pushing back against more possible US aggression against Iran based on Big Lies, establishment media failed to debunk the falsified official narrative — supporting the Trump regime’s malign intent against the country.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from LobeLog

150115 Long War Cover hi-res finalv2 copy3.jpg

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

Michel Chossudovsky

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

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

List Price: $22.95

Special Price: $15.00

Click here to order.

America’s Legacy of Regime Change

June 14th, 2019 by Stephen Kinzer

For most of history, seizing another country or territory was a straightforward proposition. You assembled an army and ordered it to invade. Combat determined the victor. The toll in death and suffering was usually horrific, but it was all done in the open. That is how Alexander overran Persia and how countless conquerors since have bent weaker nations to their will. Invasion is the old-fashioned way.

When the United States joined the race for empire at the end of the 19th century, that was the tactic it used. It sent a large expeditionary force to the Philippines to crush an independence movement, ultimately killing some 200,000 Filipinos. At the other end of the carnage spectrum, it seized Guam without the loss of a single life and Puerto Rico with few casualties. Every time, though, U.S. victory was the result of superior military power. In the few cases when the United States failed, as in its attempt to defend a client regime by suppressing Augusto Cesar Sandino’s nationalist rebellion in Nicaragua during the 1920s and 30s, the failure was also the product of military confrontation. For the United States, as for all warlike nations, military power has traditionally been the decisive factor determining whether it wins or loses its campaigns to capture or subdue other countries. World War II was the climax of that bloody history.

After that war, however, something important changed. The United States no longer felt free to land troops on every foreign shore that was ruled by a government it disliked or considered threatening. Suddenly there was a new constraint: the Red Army. If American troops invaded a country and overthrew its government, the Soviets might respond in kind. Combat between American and Soviet forces could easily escalate into nuclear holocaust, so it had to be avoided at all costs. Yet during the Cold War, the United States remained determined to shape the world according to its liking — perhaps more determined than ever. The United States needed a new weapon. The search led to covert action.

A news agency

During World War II the United States used a covert agency, the Office of Strategic Services, to carry out clandestine actions across Europe and Asia. As soon as the war ended, to the shock of many OSS agents, Harry Truman abolished it. He believed there was no need for such an agency during peacetime. In 1947 he changed his mind and signed the National Security Act, under which the Central Intelligence Agency was established. That marked the beginning of a new era. Covert action replaced overt action as the principal means of projecting American power around the world.

Truman later insisted that he had intended the CIA to serve as a kind of private global news service.

“It was not intended as a ‘Cloak & Dagger Outfit!’” he wrote. “It was intended merely as a center for keeping the President informed on what was going on in the world … [not] to act as a spy organization. That was never the intention when it was organized.”

Nonetheless he did not hesitate to use the new CIA for covert action. Its first major campaign, aimed at influencing the 1948 Italian election to ensure that pro-American Christian Democrats would defeat their Communist rivals, was vast in scale and ultimately successful — setting the pattern for CIA intervention in every Italian election for the next two decades. Yet Truman drew the line at covert action to overthrow governments.

The CIA’s covert-action chief, Allen Dulles (image on the right), twice proposed such projects. In both cases, the target he chose was a government that had inflicted harm on corporations that he and his brother, John Foster Dulles, had represented during their years as partners at the globally powerful Wall Street law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell. In 1952 he proposed that the CIA overthrow President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala, whose government was carrying out land reform that affected the interests of United Fruit. By one account, State Department officials “hit the roof” when they heard his proposal, and the diplomat David Bruce told him that the Department “disapproves of the entire deal.” Then Dulles proposed an operation to overthrow Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran, who had nationalized his country’s oil industry. Secretary of State Dean Acheson flatly rejected it.

White House resistance to covert regime-change operations dissolved when Dwight Eisenhower succeeded Truman at the beginning of 1953. Part of the new administration’s enthusiasm came from Allen Dulles, Washington’s most relentless advocate of such operations, whom Eisenhower named to head the CIA. The fact that he named Dulles’s brother as secretary of State ensured that covert operations would have all the necessary diplomatic cover from the State Department. During the Dulles brothers’ long careers at Sullivan & Cromwell, they had not only learned the techniques of covert regime change but practiced them. They were masters at marshaling hidden power in the service of their corporate clients overseas. Now they could do the same with all the worldwide resources of the CIA.

It was not only the Dulles brothers, however, who brought the United States into the regime-change era in the early 1950s. Eisenhower himself was a fervent advocate of covert action. Officially his defense and security policy, which he called the “New Look,” rested on two foundations, a smaller army and an increased nuclear arsenal. In reality, the “New Look” had a third foundation: covert action. Eisenhower may have been the last president to believe that no one would ever discover what he sent the CIA to do. With a soldier’s commitment to keeping secrets, he never admitted that he had ordered covert regime-change operations, much less explained why he favored them. He would, however, have had at least two reasons.

Since Eisenhower had commanded Allied forces in Europe during World War II, he was aware of the role that covert operations such as breaking Nazi codes had played in the war victory — something few other people knew at the time. That would have given him an appreciation for how important and effective such operations could be. His second reason was even more powerful. In Europe he had had the grim responsibility of sending thousands of young men out to die. That must have weighed on him. He saw covert action as a kind of peace project. After all, if the CIA could overthrow a government with the loss of just a few lives, wasn’t that preferable to war? Like most Americans, Eisenhower saw a world of threats. He also understood that the threat of nuclear war made overt invasions all but unthinkable. Covert action was his answer. Within a year and a half of his inauguration, the CIA had deposed the governments of both Guatemala and Iran. It went on to other regime-change operations from Albania to Cuba to Indonesia. Successive presidents followed his lead.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was once again free to launch direct military invasions. When it found a leader it didn’t like — such as Saddam Hussein or Muammar Qaddafi — it deposed him not through covert action, but by returning to the approach it had used before World War II: the force of arms. Covert efforts to overthrow governments have hardly ceased, as any Iranian or Venezuelan could attest. The era when covert action was America’s principal weapon in world affairs, however, is over. That makes this a good time to look back.

Metrics for covert action

Books about the Cold War heyday of covert action era are a mini-genre. Lindsey A. O’Rourke’s contribution is especially valuable. Unlike many other books built around accounts of CIA plots, Covert Regime Change takes a scholarly and quantitative approach. It provides charts, graphs, and data sets. Meticulous analysis makes this not the quickest read of any book on the subject, but certainly one of the best informed. Chapters on the disastrous effort to overthrow communist rule in Eastern Europe, which cost the lives of hundreds of deceived partisans, and on the covert-action aspects of America’s doomed campaign in Vietnam are especially trenchant.

O’Rourke identifies three kinds of covert operations that are aimed at securing perceived friends in power and keeping perceived enemies out: offensive operations to overthrow governments, preventive operations aimed at preserving the status quo, and hegemonic operations aimed at keeping a foreign nation subservient. From 1947 to 1989, by her count, the United States launched 64 covert regime-change operations, while using the overt tool — war — just six times. She traces the motivations behind these operations, the means by which they were carried out, and their effects. Her text is based on meticulous analysis of individual operations. Some other books about covert action are rip-roaring yarns. This one injects a dose of
rigorous analysis into a debate that is often based on emotion. That rigor lends credence to her conclusions:

  • When policymakers want to conduct an operation that they know violates international norms, they simply conduct it covertly to hide their involvement.
  • Covert missions typically have lower potential costs than their overt counterparts, but they are also less likely to succeed.
  • Can interveners acquire reliable allies by covertly overthrowing foreign governments? Overall, I find the answer is no. Covert regime changes seldom worked out as intended.
  • The new leader’s opponents often accused him of being a U.S. puppet and, in some cases, even took up arms against the regime. In fact, approximately half of the governments that came to power in a U.S.-backed covert regime change during the Cold War were later violently removed from power.
  • States targeted in a covert regime-change operation appear less likely to be democratic afterward and more likely to experience civil war, adverse regime changes, or human-rights abuses
  • Covert regime changes can have disastrous consequences for civilians within the target states. Countries that were targeted by the United States for a covert regime change during the Cold War were more likely to experience a civil war or an episode of mass killing afterward.
  • Even nominally successful covert regime changes — where U.S.-backed forces came to power — seldom delivered on their promise to improve interstate relations.

Although these conclusions are not new, they have rarely if ever been presented as the result of such persuasive statistical evidence. Yet even this evidence seems unlikely to force a reassessment of covert action as a way to influence or depose governments. It is an American “addiction.” The reasons are many and varied, but one of the simplest is that covert action seems so easy. Changing an unfriendly country’s behavior through diplomacy is a long, complex, multi-faceted project. It takes careful thought and planning. Often it requires compromise. Sending the CIA to overthrow a “bad guy” is far more tempting. It’s the cheap and easy way out. History shows that it often produces terrible results for both the target country and the United States. To a military and security elite as contemptuous of history as America’s, however, that is no obstacle.

Although covert regime-change operations remain a major part of American foreign policy, they are not as effective as they once were. The first victims of CIA overthrows, Prime Minister Mossadegh and President Arbenz, did not understand the tools the CIA had at its disposal and so were easy targets. They were also democratic, meaning that they allowed open societies in which the press, political parties, and civic groups functioned freely — making them easy for the CIA to penetrate. Later generations of leaders learned from their ignorance. They paid closer attention to their own security, and imposed tightly controlled regimes in which there were few independent power centers that the CIA could manipulate.

If Eisenhower could come back to life, he would see the havoc that his regime-change operations wreaked. After his overthrow of Mossadegh, Iran fell under royal dictatorship that lasted a quarter-century and was followed by decades of rule by repressive mullahs who have worked relentlessly to undermine American interests around the world. The operation he ordered in Guatemala led to a civil war that killed 200,000 people, turning a promising young democracy into a charnel house and inflicting a blow on Central America from which it has never recovered. His campaign against Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, which included the fabrication of a poison kit in a CIA laboratory, helped turn that country into one of the most violent places on Earth.

How would Eisenhower respond to the long-term disasters that followed his covert action victories? He might well have come up with a highly convincing way to excuse himself. It’s now clear, he could argue, that covert action to overthrow governments usually has terrible long-term results — but that was not clear in the 1950s. Eisenhower had no way of knowing that even covert regime-change operations that seem successful at the time could have devastating results decades later.

We today, however, do know that. The careful analysis that is at the center of Covert Regime Change makes clearer than ever that when America sets out to change the world covertly, it usually does more harm than good — to itself as well as others. O’Rourke contributes to the growing body of literature that clearly explains this sad fact of geopolitics. The intellectual leadership for a national movement against regime-change operations — overt or covert — is coalescing. The next step is to take this growing body of knowledge into the political arena. Washington remains the province of those who believe not only that the United States should try to reconfigure the world into an immense American sphere of influence, but that that is an achievable goal. In the Beltway morass of pro-intervention think tanks, members of Congress, and op-ed columnists, America’s role in the world is usually not up for debate. Now, as a presidential campaign unfolds and intriguing new currents surge through the American body politic, is an ideal moment for that debate to re-emerge. If it does, we may be surprised to see how many voters are ready to abandon the dogma of regime change and wonder, with George Washington, “Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?”

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Stephen Kinzer is an author and newspaper reporter. He is a veteran New York Times correspondent who has reported from more than 50 countries on five continents. His books include “Overthrow” and “All the Shah’s Men”.

Video: “The 5G Rollout Is Absolutely Insane.” How Wireless Technologies Affect Human Cells. Dr. Martin Pall

June 14th, 2019 by Dr. Martin Pall

During the “Health in Buildings Roundtable” sponsored by the NIH & co-organized by the US CDC and several other organizations, Dr. Martin Pall from the Washington State University (WSU) concluded that the “5G rollout is absolutely insane”.

In this short presentation, Dr. Pall confirms that the current 2G/3G/4G radiation the population is exposed to has been scientifically linked with:

  • Lowered fertility
  • Insomnia, fatigue, depression, anxiety, and major changes in brain structure in animals
  • Cellular DNA damage
  • Oxidative stress
  • Hormonal disruption
  • Cancer
  • And much more

Dr. Pall briefly explains the mechanisms of how the electrosmog emitted by our cell phones, wifi routers, cell phone antennas and other wireless technologies affect human cells.

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False Flag Incident in the Gulf of Oman?

June 14th, 2019 by Stephen Lendman

The Gulf of Oman lies east of the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, bordering Iran, Oman, and the UAE. It’s close to Saudi territory and Pakistan.

It’s a potential flashpoint area because around two-thirds of world oil passes through these waters en route to world markets.

According to Iran’s Arabic-language Al-Alam television, blasts affected two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday.

Initially it was unclear under what flags the vessels operate. Citing shipping and trade sources, Reuters said they’re the Marshal Islands-flagged Front Altair and the Panama-flagged Kokuka Courageous.

A statement by Kokuka’s Singapore-based BSM Ship Management company said 21 crew members abandoned ship following the incident damaging its hull on the starboard side, the vessel “not in any danger of sinking. Its cargo of methanol is intact.”

Carrying naphtha, the Front Altair is reported “on fire and adrift,” cause of what happened to the Kokuka not explained so far.

Chartered by Taiwan’s state oil refiner CBC Corporation, the company said it’s “suspected (that the vessel was) hit by a torpedo…”

According to the Tradewinds shipping broadsheet, a Norwegian-owned Front Altair was struck by a torpedo off the UAE coast, no further details mentioned.

Pakistani sources reported that distress calls were sent by the affected tankers, crews aboard evacuated and safe.

The incident reportedly occurred about 70 nautical miles from the UAE and 14 nautical miles from Iran.

Press TV said “(t)wo oil tankers c(ame) under attack (by explosions) in the Sea of Oman.”

Britain’s military-run United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations issued a Thursday alert related to the incident, urging “extreme caution” given heightened US/Iran tensions.

All of the above comes after John Bolton and Mike Pompeo falsely accused Iran of attacking vessels belonging to the UAE and Saudi Arabia in early May, as well as striking Saudi pumping stations.

Last month, the UAE called incidents affecting its vessels part of a “coordinated” operation likely carried out by a state actor, without directly blaming Iran.

Tehran was falsely blamed for a rocket hitting Baghdad’s Green Zone last month, causing no casualties or damage.

What possible benefit could Iran hope to gain by involvement in the above incidents? Clearly nothing whatever.

Its ruling authorities want provocations avoided — what the US, NATO, Israel, and their imperial partners are responsible for time and again, not Iran or other sovereign independent countries seeking peace and stability, not conflict.

It’s unclear how much damage was caused to tankers affected by the Thursday incident — very possibly a US or Israeli false flag, heightening tensions more than already.

It’s reminiscent of the August 2, 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, a US-staged false flag, initiating full-scale conflict in Southeast Asia.

At the time, Lyndon Johnson got the war he wanted. Congressional passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution empowered him to take all measures believed necessary to repel aggression (that didn’t occur) — without formally declaring war.

Incidents in May were minor, causing little damage, no reported casualties. If Iran was responsible for what happened with malign intent, significant damage would have been likely, perhaps sinking the affected vessels and striking a Green Zone target accurately instead of amounting to nothing more than a harmless bang.

A US Baghdad embassy statement at the time said there were no casualties or damage. Falsely blaming Iran for incidents it had nothing to do with escalates tensions, upping the stakes for possible war.

Washington’s longstanding objective is to return Iran to US client state status — so far under Trump waging war by other means alone.

Regime tactics include hostile rhetoric, illegal sanctions, saber-rattling and threats. John Bolton wants war on all nations the US doesn’t control.

A critic once slammed him, saying “(h)e never met a country he didn’t want to destroy.” Another observer said he’s much more than “a run-of-the-mill hawk…He’s never seen a foreign policy problem that couldn’t be solved by bombing.”

His longstanding hostility toward Iran is well known, earlier calling for bombing the country to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons it abhors, doesn’t have or seek, and wants eliminated everywhere.

Pompeo reportedly favors war on Iran by other means, wanting its economy crushed, falsely believing its authorities will cave to US demands.

Trump reportedly told Joint Chiefs chairman General Joseph Dunford he’s against attacking the country militarily.

Netanyahu and other Israeli hardliners dream of war on Iran to eliminate the Jewish state’s main regional rival.

Longstanding US/Zionist plans call for redrawing the Middle East map, replacing sovereign independent governments with pro-Western puppet regimes.

It’s a divide, conquer and dominate strategy, wanting control over the region’s valued energy reserves, creating a so-called new Middle East, a region earlier carved up post-WW I by partitioning the Ottoman Empire.

The US global empire of bases is all about using them as platforms for endless wars and gaining control over world nations. That’s what the scourge of imperialism is all about.

A Final Comment

Citing the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), Press TV reported that “an Iranian rescue vessel had picked up the 23 crew members of one of the tankers and 21 of the other from the sea and had brought them to safety at Iran’s Jask, in the southern Hormozgan Province,” adding:

Details of what happened remain sketchy. This is a developing story. More on it when further information is known.

The Trump regime no doubt will blame Iran for what it surely had nothing to do with — likely increasing its “maximum pressure” on the country in the wake of the Gulf of Oman incident.

It ups the stakes for possible war in a part of the world already devastated by US aggression.

Is Iran next on its target list for greater greater war then? Do Trump regime hardliners intend making the region boil more than already?

Given their rage to transform Iran into a US vassal state, anything is possible, even war on a nation able to hit back hard against US and Israeli targets if attacked.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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

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Brooklyn, Spring/Summer ’69: On Neighborhoods and the Vietnam War

June 14th, 2019 by Philip A Farruggio

You live in the burbs, or what they call so many small cities nowadays. Strip malls, shopping centers and it seems a Wal-Mart is everywhere. We don’t live on streets, we live in subdivisions now. You want a bottle of pop… oh sorry, now they’re in cans or those plastic environmental killers. Or if you want a loaf of bread or quart of milk or whatever, you get in your car and you drive to the supermarket or convenience store.. usually where you pump your gas. There are no such things as avenues with lines of retail shops.

In ’69 in my Brooklyn neighborhood you walked up to Avenue U and sat at the luncheonette and had your soda… a real fountain one if you desired. You walked along to the bread store and got your loaf or fish as the shoppers in the Italian bakery called it. The corner grocery store had the milk you needed. The butcher shop is where you bought your meat. The produce store your veggies. The fruit store, all the bananas you needed or fresh in season peaches, apricots or watermelon if it happened to be June or July. That was then and this sadly is NOW.

On any evening from early Spring right up until late Autumn the stoops and front yards were filled with your neighbors… some you liked and some you didn’t. But, they were out there each and every non rainy evening after dinnertime. Some folks had their beach chairs (as we called them) set up with cigarettes (and some cigars) dangling from their lips, or perhaps a beer was chugged as the sun slowly exited the day. The boys were in the street playing ball as the young girls played jump rope or other games that young girls played.

People would walk up and down the street and mingle with neighbors, or maybe argue with them, especially on the subject of Vietnam, but there was this energy and vitality of the neighborhood. Then, when it got dark only the teenagers would be out there, with transistor radios humming rock and roll and guys coming on to the girls with lots of BS being slung back and forth. Around the corner at the nearest luncheonette or ‘Candy Store’ as many were still called, the adult men would hang out, comparing notes on the local sports teams interspersed with more debate on Vietnam. Plenty of Egg Creams and Lime Ricky sodas were being consumed, along with the usual cups of coffee or maybe a malted milk or two. When it got real late and the morning editions of tomorrow’s daily papers were delivered, most of the gambling types would wait to see what the daily number was. In those days it was obtained by the last three digits of the racetrack’s pari-mutuel handle.

In the spring of ’69, with Nixon being elected and an anti war movement taking hold, the neighborhoods really became as polarized as the nation. The draft was in full swing and more and more college students became radicalized. Some of the guys serving in the military from our neighborhood starting coming home, either on leave, or in pine boxes. Vietnam was each evening’s number one news story, and we all could watch the war right on the six and eleven o’clock news. ‘Kill counts’ became the new numbers game being played. Vietnam may have been thousands of miles away, but to many of us it was right next door… literally! If one of our neighbors got drafted, he sure as hell would wind up there real quick.

By the summer of ’69, despite the Apollo moon landing, the friction of this war was becoming really flammable. One neighbor, a student at NYU Dental School, came home one evening and joined us on our regular street corner. Amongst we college students was another neighbor, Don, a 32 year old Fire Marshall. Don bragged about how he had ‘served’ in the late 50s in the Army. His claim to fame was being so close, in his words, to being sent to the Middle East for some conflict that Uncle Sam initiated. “We were marching through the sands of the local New Jersey beach to get practiced at desert warfare. We were THAT close to being shipped over.” Don began parroting his love for both Nixon and country (in that order) and how those ‘beatniks’ were undermining our democracy. Gus, the dental student, jumped all over him. “I was at the dental clinic today, and you probably heard about the construction workers who broke up an anti war march and beat the shit out of the protestors. A whole bunch of us ran down to give medical aid to the victims… blood was all over the streets!” Don called Gus a Commie lover and the rest of us had to separate them before we had more blood on our street. From that day on I avoided Don as much as I could… Another chicken hawk! Marching on the sands of a New Jersey beach… give me a **** break!

In August of ’69 the horrific Sharon Tate and friends murder story made national headlines when the ‘Helter Skelter’ Charles Manson case replaced the Vietnam War as item number one. Those of us who understood how bad vibes can spread knew that things like this were part of the whole evil empire. Like attracts like and wanton killings come in streaks. Yet, the neighborhood kept chugging along. People got up each morning that summer and went to work. In the evenings they still sat outside and hung out with each other. The beaches were still filled with bathers and sun worshippers each weekend.  The movies were packed on Friday and Saturday nights, as were all the bars and discos. Life went on, for better or for worse. Maybe it was the whole Woodstock concert event later that month which really offered a ray of hope. Hundreds of thousands of young people, from literally all over the country, came together without violence, and just enjoyed each other and the music…and of course a few drugs of choice. Mellow was the color of the day, and yes, it did open up many eyes. Not enough to end the madness of the Nam, but perhaps ….

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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].

The Unipolar Moment Is Over. The Xi – Putin Relationship

June 14th, 2019 by Pepe Escobar

Something extraordinary began with a short walk in St. Petersburg last Friday.

After a stroll, they took a boat on the Neva River, visited the legendary Aurora cruiser, and dropped in to examine the Renaissance masterpieces at the Hermitage. Cool, calm, collected, all the while it felt like they were mapping the ins and outs of a new, emerging, multipolar world.

Chinese President Xi Jinping was the guest of honor of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was Xi’s eighth trip to Russia since 2013, when he announced the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

First they met in Moscow, signing multiple deals. The most important is a bombshell: a commitment to develop bilateral trade and cross-border payments using the ruble and the yuan, bypassing the U.S. dollar.

Then Xi visited the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), Russia’s premier business gathering, absolutely essential for anyone to understand the hyper-complex mechanisms inherent in the construction of Eurasian integration. I addressed some of SPIEF’s foremost discussions and round tables here.

In Moscow, Putin and Xi signed two joint statements – whose key concepts, crucially, are “comprehensive partnership”, “strategic interaction” and “global strategic stability.”

Xi and Putin cruising into a multipolar world: Aurora Cruiser Museum (Wikipedia)

In his St. Petersburg speech, Xi outlined the “comprehensive strategic partnership”. He stressed that China and Russia were both committed to green, low carbon sustainable development. He linked the expansion of BRI as “consistent with the UN agenda of sustainable development” and praised the interconnection of BRI projects with the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). He emphasized how all that was consistent with Putin’s idea of a Great Eurasian Partnership. He praised the “synergetic effect” of BRI linked to South-South cooperation.

And crucially, Xi stressed that China “won’t seek development to the expense of environment”; China “will implement the Paris climate agreement”; and China is “ready to share 5G technology with all partners” on the way towards a pivotal change in the model of economic growth.

So what about Cold War 2.0?

It was obvious this was slowly brewing for the past five to six years. Now the deal is in the open. The Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership is thriving; not as an allied treaty, but as a consistent road map towards Eurasia integration and the consolidation of the multipolar world.

Unipolarism – via its demonization matrix – had first accelerated Russia’s pivot to Asia. Now, the U.S.-driven trade war has facilitated the consolidation of Russia as China’s top strategic partner.

Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs better get ready to dismiss virtually everyday statements coming, for instance, from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, when he alleges that Moscow aims to use non-strategic nuclear weapons in the European theater. It’s part of a non-stop process – now in high gear – of manufacturing hysteria by frightening NATO allies with the Russian “threat.”

Moscow better get ready to dodge and counteract reams of reports such as the latest from the RAND corporation, which outlines – what else? – Cold War 2.0 against Russia.

In 2014, Russia did not react to sanctions imposed by Washington. Then, it would have sufficed to merely brandish the threat of default on $700 billion in external debt. That would have killed the sanctions.

Now, there’s ample debate inside Russian intelligence circles on what to do in case Moscow faces the prospect of being cut off the CHIPS-SWIFT financial clearing system.

With few illusions about what may pass at the G20 in Osaka later this month, in terms of a breakthrough in U.S.-Russia relations, intel sources told me Rosneft’s CEO Igor Sechin is prepared to send a more “realistic” message— if push eventually comes to shove.

A 1936 map of Eurasia. (Flickr)

His message to the EU, in this case, would be to cut them off, and link with China for good. That way, Russian oil would be completely redirected from the EU to China, making the EU completely dependent on the Strait of Hormuz.

Beijing for its part seems to have finally absorbed that the current Trump administration offensive is not a mere trade war, but a full fledged attack on its economic miracle, including a concerted drive to cut China off from large swathes of the world economy.

The war on Huawei – the Rosebud of China’s 5G supremacy – has been identified as an attack on the dragon’s head. The attack on Huawei means an attack not only on tech, mega-hub Shenzhen, but the whole Pearl River Delta: a $3 trillion yuan ecosystem, which supplies the nuts and bolts of the Chinese supply chain for high-tech manufacturers.

Enter the Golden Ring

Neither China’s technological rise, nor Russia’s unmatched hypersonic know-how have caused America’s structural malaise. If there are answers they should come from the Exceptionalist elites.

The problem for the U.S. is the emergence of a formidable peer competitor in Eurasia – and worse still, a strategic partnership. It has thrown these elites into Supreme Paranoia mode, which is holding the whole world hostage.

By contrast, the concept of the Golden Ring of Multipolar Great Powers has been floated, by which Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and China might provide a “stability belt” along the South Asia Rimland.

I have discussed variations of this idea with Russian, Iranian, Pakistani and Turkish analysts – but it sounds like wishful thinking. Admittedly all these nations would welcome establishing the Golden Ring; but no one knows which way Modi’s India would lean – intoxicated as it is with dreams of Big Power status as the crux of America’s “Indo-Pacific” concoction.

It might be more realistic to assume that if Washington does not go to war with Iran – because Pentagon gaming has established this would be a nightmare – all options are on the table ranging from the South China Sea to the larger Indo-Pacific.

The Deep State will not flinch to unleash concentric havoc on the periphery of both Russia and China and then try to advance to destabilize the heartland from the inside. The Russia-China strategic partnership has generated a sore wound: it hurts – so bad – to be a Eurasia outsider.

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Pepe Escobar is a veteran Brazilian journalist, is the correspondent-at-large for Hong Kong-based Asia Times. His latest book is “2030.” Follow him on Facebook. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research

Featured image: Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands during their meeting at the Grand Kremlin Palace on Wednesday in Moscow. (Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)

Video: Cruise Missile Strike on Saudi Airport Marks Start of New Round of Escalation in the Middle East

June 14th, 2019 by South Front

On June 12, the Ansar Allah movement (also known as the Houthis) launched a cruise missile at Abha International Airport in southern Saudi Arabia. The movement said that the missile had successfully hit the airport, which has a large military part to it.

Brig. Gen. Yahya Sari, a spokesman for the pro-Ansar Allah part of the Yemeni Armed Forces, said that “advanced U.S. air-defense systems” deployed inside the airport were not able to intercept the missile.

In their turn, the Saudi side said that the missile had hit the arrival hall in the airport injuring 26 civilians, including three women and two children. Most of the injured civilians were treated on the spot. Eight were transported to nearby hospitals.

A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, Col. Turki al-Malki, called the Yemeni movement a terrorist group and described the attack as a war crime.

Later, Ansar Allah’s TV channel AlMasirah released an infographic claiming that the launched missile has a maximum range of 2,500 km. the warhead a weight of 450kg and uses GPS guidance.

According to experts, the used missile may have in fact been an Iranian Soumar cruise missile assembled from parts in Yemen. The Soumar is a developed on the basis of the Soviet-designed Kh-55 subsonic air-launched cruise missile. Iran obtained the Kh-55 from Ukraine in the 2000s.

Ansar Allah has a track record of using precision-guided weapons. In 2017, they launched what is suspected to be an Iranian Soumar cruise missile at the Barakah nuclear power plant in the UAE.

The June 12 strike is not unexpected. Yemeni forces resisting the Saudi-led invasion have repeatedly warned Saudi Arabia and the UAE they are ready to retaliate by targeting vital infrastructure of these two countries.

On March 16, Brig. Gen. Yahya Sari said that “legitimate targets” for missile and drone strikes extend to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. On May 14, a drone strike by Ansar Allah forced Saudi Arabia to halt temporarily the pumping on its 1,200km-long East-West pipeline.

Nonetheless, Saudi Arabia and its allies seem to be unwilling to halt their military invasion in Yemen, launched in 2015, and move towards a political solution with Ansar Allah, which controls key parts of the country, including the capital of Sanaa and the port of al-Hudaydah. The main reason being that any kind of such solution is seen by the Saudi leadership as an acceptance of the failure of its costly foreign policy in the region.

At the same time, Saudi Arabia and the US position the developing conflict in Yemen as a part of their campaign against Iran describing Ansar Allah is as an Iranian proxy. So, June 12-like developments may well lead to further attempts by the US and its allies to increase pressure on Iran.

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A Life Well-lived: Reforming the Bank of Canada. William Krehm Passes Away at 106

June 14th, 2019 by Bryant Brown

In December 2011, William Krehm, Anne Emmett, and COMER (The Committee for Monetary and Economic Reform filed a lawsuit in Federal Court with a view forcing a restoration of the Bank of Canada to its mandated purposes. “In essence, they want the Bank of Canada to provide interest-free loans to the federal, provincial, and municipal governments, as provided for in the Bank of Canada Act.”

Has William Krehm’s lifelong project of democratizing the Bank of Canada born fruit?

In late May, Senator Diane Bellmare in consultation with a group of 61 progressive economists introduced a debate in Canada’s Senate to reform the Bank of Canada, and restore its historical mandate as envisaged by William Krehm.

 

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This past April 11th William Krehm died peacefully. He was in his 106th year.

I had met him about a decade ago when I started attending meetings of the lobby group COMER. He founded it, the Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform to force the Bank of Canada to go back to doing what it once did, finance government projects.

How Bill Krehm got involved in such a project is the story of his life. He was born over a century ago in 1913 in Toronto. He was a promising violinist and sent to Chicago to study. From there he went to New York until the depression hit and he returned to Toronto studied math and physics at the University of Toronto till the money ran out.

He was truly a Renaissance man. He became fluent in nine languages, studied music, mathematics and Marxism, went to Spain in 1936 to assist as a translator and journalist in the fight to defeat the fascists. There he met the man we know as George Orwell (author of 1984) who was among the many dedicated recruits who joined the cause like Ernest Hemmingway, Pablo Picasso, Norman Bethune and W. H. Auden. For his efforts Krehm spent the summer of 1937 in a Spanish jail.

During the second world war he lived in Mexico and South America earning his living as a freelance journalist until 1943 when Time Magazine hired him as their Latin American correspondent. They fired him in 1947 after he wrote a book critical of American foreign policies.

He then returned to Canada, worked as a journalist for awhile but with his Trotskyite past had trouble earning enough income. He had married and now had a growing family so he took on a new career in the real estate business. He founded a company that today owns 2400 rental units that his sons now manage.

He retired from business in the 1980’s and wrote about economics in several books the last of which was A Power Unto Itself; The Bank of Canada; the threat to our nation’s economy published in 1993. The book explained something few Canadians knew, that the Bank of Canada in the mid seventies gave up its role financing government projects, the role it was created for. The result was ever increasing debt and that unnecessary condition continues today.

I didn’t fully understand and appreciate Bill’s extensive background at the several COMER meetings I attended… he was then in his late nineties and was still alert and showing up to fight the fight for financial justice.

For further details on the lawsuit and the substance of COMER’s initiative led by William Krehm, see

Monetary Policy, Money Supply and The Bank of Canada

By Professor John Ryan, March 29, 2018

 

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Video: Bernie Sanders Defines His Vision for Democratic Socialism

June 14th, 2019 by Sen. Bernie Sanders

On Wednesday June 12th, 2019, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) spoke about his views on democratic socialism and why it would be good for the USA in a speech at George Washington University in Washington, DC.

Bernie Sanders represents a powerful voice in US politics. The publication of this text and video does not signify an endorsement of Bernie Sanders by Global Research. It’s purpose is to inform our readers.

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Transcript is as follows.

My friends, we are in the midst of a defining and pivotal moment for our country and our planet. And, with so many crises converging upon us simultaneously, it is easy for us to become overwhelmed or depressed – or to even throw up our hands in resignation. But my message to you today is that if there was ever a moment in the history of our country where despair was not an option, this is that time.

If there was ever a moment where we had to effectively analyze the competing political and social forces which define this historical period, this is that time.

If there was ever a moment when we needed to stand up and fight against the forces of oligarchy and authoritarianism, this is that time.

And, if there was ever a moment when we needed a new vision to bring our people together in the fight for justice, decency and human dignity, this is that time.

In the year 2019, the United States and the rest of the world face two very different political paths. On one hand, there is a growing movement toward oligarchy and authoritarianism in which a small number of incredibly wealthy and powerful billionaires own and control a significant part of the economy and exert enormous influence over the political life of our country.

On the other hand, in opposition to oligarchy, there is a movement of working people and young people who, in ever increasing numbers, are fighting for justice.

They are the teachers taking to the streets to make certain that schools are adequately funded and that their students get a quality education.

They are workers at Disney, Amazon, Walmart and the fast food industry standing up and fighting for a living wage of at least $15 an hour and the right to have a union.

They are young people taking on the fossil fuel industry and demanding policies that transform our energy system and protect our planet from the ravages of climate change.

They are women who refuse to give control of their bodies to local, state and federal politicians.

They are people of color and their allies demanding an end to systemic racism and massive racial inequities that exist throughout our society.

They are immigrants and their allies fighting to end the demonization of undocumented people and for comprehensive immigration reform.

When we talk about oligarchy, let us be clear about what we mean. Right now, in the United States of America, three families control more wealth than the bottom half of our country, some 160 million Americans. The top 1% own more wealth than the bottom 92% and 49% of all new income generated today goes to the top 1%. In fact, income and wealth inequality today in the United States is greater than at any time since the 1920s.

And when we talk about oligarchy, it is not just that the very rich are getting much richer. It is that tens of millions of working-class people, in the wealthiest country on earth, are suffering under incredible economic hardship, desperately trying to survive.

Today, nearly 40 million Americans live in poverty and tonight, 500,000 people will be sleeping out on the streets. About half of the country lives paycheck to paycheck as tens of millions of our people are an accident, a divorce, a sickness or a layoff away from economic devastation.

While many public schools throughout the country lack the resources to adequately educate our young people, we are the most heavily incarcerated nation on earth.

After decades of policies that have encouraged and subsidized unbridled corporate greed, we now have an economy that is fundamentally broken and grotesquely unfair.

Even while macroeconomic numbers like GDP, the stock market and the unemployment rate are strong, millions of middle class and working people struggle to keep their heads above water, while the billionaire class consumes the lion’s share of the wealth that we are collectively creating as a nation.

In the midst of a so-called booming economy real wages for the average worker have barely risen at all. And despite an explosion in technology and worker productivity, the average wage of the American worker in real dollars is no higher than it was 46 years ago and millions of people are forced to work two or three jobs just to survive.

And here is something quite incredible that tells you all you need to know about the results of unfettered capitalism. All of us want to live long, happy, and productive lives but. in America today the very rich live on average 15 years longer than the poorest Americans.

In 2014, in McDowell County, West Virginia, one of the poorest counties in the nation, life expectancy for men was 64 years. In Fairfax County, Virginia, a wealthy county, just 350 miles away, life expectancy for men was nearly 82 years, an 18-year differential. The life expectancy gap for women in the two counties was 12 years.

In other words, the issue of unfettered capitalism is not just an academic debate, poverty, economic distress and despair are life-threatening issues for millions of working people in the country.

While the rich get richer they live longer lives. While poor and working families struggle economically and often lack adequate healthcare, their life expectancy is declining for the first time in modern American history.

Taken together, the American Dream of upward mobility is in peril. In fact, if we don’t turn things around, our younger generation will, for the first time in living memory, have a lower standard of living than their parents. This is not acceptable.

Globally, the situation is even more shocking with most of the world’s wealth concentrated among a very few, while billions of people have almost nothing. Today, the world’s richest 26 billionaires now own as much wealth as the poorest 3.8 billion people on the planet – half of the world’s population.

But the struggle we are facing today is not just economic.

Across the globe, the movement toward oligarchy runs parallel to the growth of authoritarian regimes – like Putin in Russia, Xi in China, Mohamed Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, and Viktor Orbán in Hungary among others.

These leaders meld corporatist economics with xenophobia and authoritarianism. They redirect popular anger about inequality and declining economic conditions into violent rage against minorities – whether they are immigrants, racial minorities, religious minorities or the LGBT community. And to suppress dissent, they are cracking down on democracy and human rights.

In the United States, of course, we have our own version of this movement – which is being led by President Trump and many of his Republican allies who are attempting to divide our country up and attack these same communities. How sad it is that President Trump sees these authoritarian leaders as friends and allies.

This authoritarian playbook is not new. The challenge we confront today as a nation, and as a world, is in many ways not different from the one we faced a little less than a century ago, during and after the Great Depression in the 1930s. Then, as now, deeply-rooted and seemingly intractable economic and social disparities led to the rise of right-wing nationalist forces all over the world.

In Europe, the anger and despair was ultimately harnessed by authoritarian demagogues who fused corporatism, nationalism, racism and xenophobia into a political movement that amassed totalitarian power, destroyed democracy, and ultimately murdering millions of people – including members of my own family.

But we must remember that those were not the only places where dark forces tried to rise up.

Today, we are all rightly repulsed by the sight of neo-Nazis and Klansmen openly marching in Charlottesville, VA, and we are horrified by houses of worship being shot up by right-wing terrorists. But on February 20, 1939, over 20,000 Nazis held a mass rally – not in Berlin, not in Rome, but in Madison Square Garden, in front of a 30-foot-tall banner of George Washington – bordered with swastikas – in New York City.

But back then, those American extremists could not replicate the success of their authoritarian brethren across the ocean because we in the United States, thankfully, made a different choice than Europe did in responding to the era’s social and economic crises.

We rejected the ideology of Mussolini and Hitler – we instead embraced the bold and visionary leadership of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, then the leader of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

Together with organized labor, leaders in the African American community and progressives inside and outside the Party, Roosevelt led a transformation of the American government and the American economy.

Like today, the quest for transformative change was opposed by big business, Wall Street, the political establishment, by the Republican Party and by the conservative wing of FDR’s own Democratic Party. And he faced the same scare tactics then that we experience today – red baiting, xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism.

In a famous 1936 campaign speech Roosevelt stated,

“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace – business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
“They had begun to consider the government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob.
“Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me – and I welcome their hatred.”

Despite that opposition, by rallying the American people, FDR and his progressive coalition created the New Deal, won four terms, and created an economy that worked for all and not just the few.

Today, New Deal initiatives like Social Security, unemployment compensation, the right to form a union, the minimum wage, protection for farmers, regulation of Wall Street and massive infrastructure improvements are considered pillars of American society.

But, while he stood up for the working families of our country, we can never forget that President Roosevelt was reviled by the oligarchs of his time, who berated these extremely popular programs as “socialism.”

Similarly, in the 1960s, when Lyndon Johnson brought about Medicare, Medicaid and other extremely popular programs, he was also viciously attacked by the ruling class of this country.

And here is the point. It is no exaggeration to state, that not only did FDR’s agenda improve the lives of millions of Americans, but the New Deal was enormously popular politically and helped defeat far-right extremism.

For a time.

Today, America and the world are once again moving toward authoritarianism – and the same right-wing forces of oligarchy, corporatism, nationalism, racism and xenophobia are on the march, pushing us to make the apocalyptically wrong choice that Europe made in the last century.

Today, we now see a handful of billionaires with unprecedented wealth and power.

We see huge private monopolies – operating outside of any real democratic oversight and often subsidized by taxpayers – with the power to control almost every aspect of our lives.

They are the profit-taking gatekeepers of our healthcare, our technology, our finance system, our food supply and almost all of the other basic necessities of life. They are Wall Street, the insurance companies, the drug companies, the fossil fuel industry, the military industrial complex, the prison industrial complex and giant agri-businesses.

They are the entities with unlimited wealth who surround our nation’s capitol with thousands of well-paid lobbyists, who to a significant degree write the laws that we live under.

Today, we have a demagogue in the White House who, for cheap political gain, is attempting to deflect the attention of the American people away from the real crises that we face and, instead, is doing what demagogues always do – and that is divide people up and legislate hatred. This is a president who supports brutal family separations, border walls, Muslim bans, anti-LGBT policies, deportations and voter suppression.

It is my very strong belief that the United States must reject that path of hatred and divisiveness – and instead find the moral conviction to choose a different path, a higher path, a path of compassion, justice and love.

It is the path that I call democratic socialism.

Over eighty years ago Franklin Delano Roosevelt helped create a government that made transformative progress in protecting the needs of working families. Today, in the second decade of the 21st century, we must take up the unfinished business of the New Deal and carry it to completion.

This is the unfinished business of the Democratic Party and the vision we must accomplish.

In order to accomplish that goal, it means committing ourselves to protecting political rights, to protecting civil rights – and to protect economic rights of all people in this country.

As FDR stated in his 1944 State of the Union address: “We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.”

Today, our Bill of Rights guarantees the American people a number of important constitutionally protected political rights. And while we understand that these rights have not always been respected and we have so much more work to do, we are proud that our constitution guarantees freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, a free press and other rights because we understand that we can never have true American freedom unless we are free from authoritarian tyranny.

Now, we must take the next step forward and guarantee every man, woman and child in our country basic economic rights – the right to quality healthcare, the right to as much education as one needs to succeed in our society, the right to a good job that pays a living wage, the right to affordable housing, the right to a secure retirement, and the right to live in a clean environment.

We must recognize that in the 21st century, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, economic rights are human rights.

That is what I mean by democratic socialism.

As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all of God’s children.”

To realize this vision, we must not view America only as a population of disconnected individuals, we must also view ourselves as part of “an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny,” as Dr. King put it. In other words, we are in this together.

We must see ourselves as part of one nation, one community and one society – regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or country of origin.

This quintessentially American idea is literally emblazoned on our coins: E Pluribus Unum. From the many, one.

And, I should tell you, it is enshrined in the motto of our campaign for the presidency – Not me, Us.

Let me be clear. I do understand that I and other progressives will face massive attacks from those who attempt to use the word “socialism” as a slur. But I should also tell you that I have faced and overcome these attacks for decades – and I am not the only one.

Let us remember that in 1932, Republican President Herbert Hoover claimed that Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was, “a disguise for the totalitarian state.”

In 1936 former Democratic New York Governor and presidential candidate Al Smith said in a speech about FDR’s New Deal policies, “Just get the platform of the Democratic Party and get the platform of the Socialist Party and lay them down on your dining-room table, side by side.”

When President Harry Truman proposed a national healthcare program, the American Medical Association hired Ronald Reagan as their pitchman.

The AMA called the legislation that stemmed from his proposal “socialized medicine” claiming that White House staff were, “followers of the Moscow party line.”

In 1960, Ronald Reagan in a letter to Richard Nixon wrote the following about John F. Kennedy: “Under the tousled boyish haircut is still old Karl Marx.”

In the 1990s, then Congressman Newt Gingrich claimed President Bill Clinton’s healthcare plan was “centralized bureaucratic socialism.”

The conservative Heritage Foundation has claimed that the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) was “a step toward socialism.”

Former Speaker of the House John Boehner claimed the stimulus package, the omnibus spending bill and the budget proposed by President Barack Obama were “all one big down payment on a new American socialist experiment.”

In this regard, President Harry Truman was right when he said that: “Socialism is the epithet they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years…Socialism is what they called Social Security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.”

Now let’s be clear: while President Trump and his fellow oligarchs attack us for our support of democratic socialism, they don’t really oppose all forms of socialism.

They may hate democratic socialism because it benefits working people, but they absolutely love corporate socialism that enriches Trump and other billionaires.

Let us never forget the unbelievable hypocrisy of Wall Street, the high priests of unfettered capitalism.

In 2008, after their greed, recklessness and illegal behavior created the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression – with millions of Americans losing their jobs, their homes and their life savings – Wall Street’s religious adherence to unfettered capitalism suddenly came to an end.

Overnight, Wall Street became big government socialists and begged for the largest federal bailout in American history – some $700-billion from the Treasury and trillions in support from the Federal Reserve.

But it’s not just Wall Street that loves socialism – when it works for them. It is the norm across the entire corporate world. The truth is corporate America receives hundreds of billions of dollars in federal support every single year, while these same people are trying to cut programs that benefit ordinary Americans.

If you are a fossil fuel company, whose carbon emissions are destroying the planet, you get billions in government subsidies including special tax breaks, royalty relief, funding for research and development and numerous tax loopholes.

If you are a pharmaceutical company, you make huge profits on patent rights for medicines that were developed with taxpayer funded research.

If you are a monopoly like Amazon, owned by the wealthiest person in America, you get hundreds of millions of dollars in economic incentives from taxpayers to build warehouses and you end up paying not one penny in federal income taxes.

If you are the Walton family, the wealthiest family in America, you get massive government subsidies because your low wage workers are forced to rely on food stamps, Medicaid and public housing in order to survive – all paid for by taxpayers.

If you are the Trump family, you got $885-million worth of tax breaks and subsidies for your family’s housing empire that is built on racial discrimination.

When Trump screams socialism, all of his hypocrisy will not be lost on the American people. Americans will know that he is attacking all that we take for granted: from Social Security to Medicare to veterans healthcare to roads and bridges to public schools to national parks to clean water and clean air.

When Trump attacks socialism, I am reminded of what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor.”

And that is the difference between Donald Trump and me. He believes in corporate socialism for the rich and powerful.

I believe in a democratic socialism that works for the working families of this country.

What I believe is that the American people deserve freedom – true freedom. Freedom is an often used word but it’s time we took a hard look at what that word actually means. Ask yourself: what does it actually mean to be free?

Are you truly free if you are unable to go to a doctor when you are sick, or face financial bankruptcy when you leave the hospital?

Are you truly free if you cannot afford the prescription drug you need to stay alive?

Are you truly free when you spend half of your limited income on housing, and are forced to borrow money from a payday lender at 200% interest rates.

Are you truly free if you are 70 years old and forced to work because you lack a pension or enough money to retire?

Are you truly free if you are unable to go to attend college or a trade school because your family lacks the income?

Are you truly free if you are forced to work 60 or 80 hours a week because you can’t find a job that pays a living wage?

Are you truly free if you are a mother or father with a new born baby but you are forced to go back to work immediately after the birth because you lack paid family leave?

Are you truly free if you are a small business owner or family farmer who is driven out by the monopolistic practices of big business?

Are you truly free if you are a veteran, who put your life on the line to defend this country, and now sleep out on the streets?

To me, the answer to those questions, in the wealthiest nation on earth, is no, you are not free.

While the Bill of Rights protects us from the tyranny of an oppressive government, many in the establishment would like the American people to submit to the tyranny of oligarchs, multinational corporations, Wall Street banks, and billionaires.

It is time for the American people to stand up and fight for their right to freedom, human dignity and security.

This is the core of what my politics is all about.

In 1944, FDR proposed an economic bill of rights but died a year later and was never able to fulfil that vision. Our job, 75 years later, is to complete what Roosevelt started.

That is why today, I am proposing a 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights.

A Bill of Rights that establishes once and for all that every American, regardless of his or her income in entitled to:

  • The right to a decent job that pays a living wage
  • The right to quality healthcare
  • The right to a complete education
  • The right to affordable housing
  • The right to a clean environment
  • The right to a secure retirement

Over the course of this election my campaign has been releasing – and will continue to release – detailed proposals addressing each of these yet to be realized economic rights.

We will also address the attacks that are being launched each day against the civil rights and civil liberties of our people.

And let me be absolutely clear: democratic socialism to me requires achieving political and economic freedom in every community.

And let me also be clear, the only way we achieve these goals is through a political revolution – where millions of people get involved in the political process and reclaim our democracy by having the courage to take on the powerful corporate interests whose greed is destroying the social and economic fabric of our country.

At the end of the day, the one percent may have enormous wealth and power, but they are just the one percent. When the 99 percent stand together, we can transform society.

These are my values, and that is why I call myself a democratic socialist. At its core, it is a deep and abiding faith in the American people to peacefully and democratically enact the transformative change that will create shared prosperity, social equality and true freedom for all.

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Julian Assange and the Scales of Justice: Exceptions, Extraditions and Politics

June 14th, 2019 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

The Home Secretary of the United Kingdom did his thing, which was little in the way of disagreement.  The superpower has issued a request; the retainer would comply.  This week, the US Department Justice Department formally sought the extradition of Julian Assange.  The process was certified by Sajid Javid, a man rather distracted of late.  He is, after all, seeking to win the hearts of the Conservatives and replace Theresa May as Prime Minster.  Boris Johnson, not Wikileaks and press freedom, is on his mind.   

The WikiLeaks front man had failed to satisfy Javid that there were exceptions warranting the refusal to sign off on the request.  A spokesman explained the matter in dull terms.  “The Home Secretary must certify a valid request for extradition… unless certain narrow exceptions to section 70 of the Extradition Act 2003 apply.”  Robotic compliance was almost expected.

The exceptions outlined in the section note that the Secretary may refuse to issue a certificate in circumstances where it may be deferred; where the person being extradited is recorded as a refugee within the meaning of the Refugee Convention; or where, having been granted leave to enter or remain in the UK, Articles 2 or 3 of the Human Rights Convention would be breached if removal of the person to the extraditing territory would take place.

The European Convention on Human Rights expressly prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, with Article 3 also prohibiting the extradition of a person to a foreign state if they are likely to be subjected to torture. 

Massimo Moratti, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Europe, is certain that the Wikileaks publisher will suffer grave mistreatment if extradited to the United States. 

“The British government must not accede to the US extradition request for Julian Assange as he faces a real risk of serious human right violations if sent there.” 

This will further add substance to the potential breach of Article 3 of the Human Rights Convention, a point reiterated by Agnes Callamard, Special rapporteur on extra-judicial executions.  Ecuador, she argues, permitted Assange to be expelled and arrested by the UK, taking him a step closer to extradition to the US which would expose him to “serious human rights violations.”  The UK had “arbitrary [sic] detained Mr Assange possibly endangering his life for the last 7 years.”

On May 31, Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on torture, concluded after visiting Assange in detention that the publisher’s isolation and repeated belittling constituted “progressively severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as psychological torture.”  

The issue of Assange’s failing health is critical.  An important feature of his legal team’s argument is the role played by the UK authorities in ensuring his decline in physical and mental terms.  The argument in rebuttal, disingenuous as it was, never deviated: you will get treatment as long as you step out of the Ecuadorean embassy. 

There is also another dimension which the distracted Javid failed to articulate: the sheer political character of the offences Assange is being accused of.  Espionage is a political offence par excellence, and the UK-US extradition treaty, for all its faults, retains under Article 4 the prohibition against extraditing someone accused of political offences, including espionage, sedition, and treason.  As John T. Nelson notes in Just Security, “Each of Assange’s possible defences are strengthened by the 17 counts of espionage”.

The prosecutors heading the effort against Assange were not content with keeping matters confined to the single count of conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.  Had they done so, the narrow scope would have made the challenge from Assange’s legal team more difficult.  Hacking is an artificial fault line in the world of publishing and revealing classified material; such individuals have been quarantined and treated as standard middle-of-the-road vigilantes who fiddle computer systems. 

Assange, as he has done so often, blurred the lines: the youthful hacker as political activist; the more mature warrior of information transparency.  The Justice Department’s efforts, at least initially, involved divorcing Assange the publisher from Assange the hacker.  According to Steve Vladeck, a legal boffin versed in national security law, “the more the US is able to sell the British government, sell British courts the idea that [the CFAA charge] is the heart of the matter, I think the more of a slam dunk it will be for extradition.”

Assange’s legal team were ready for the Home Secretary’s decision, but their case has been hampered.  Supporters such as the Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei have been perturbed by the way Assange has been hamstrung in case preparations.  “The big problem there is that Julian has no access to the means to prepare his case.  And his case, I think, has another two months before its full hearing.  He needs more access to the means to prepare his defence against this terrible extradition order.”

The enormity of the case against the Assange team, prosecuted by an assemblage of security machinery wonks and a sociopathic establishment, has presented WikiLeaks with its greatest challenge.  In the information war environment, it has thrived; in the legal warfare environment, the circumstances are upended. But the legal grounds are there to defeat the case; the question, more to the point, is where Britain’s scales of justice, rather unbalanced on the issue of dealing with classified information, will be tipped.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

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Convenient “Tanker Attacks” as US Seeks War with Iran

June 13th, 2019 by Tony Cartalucci

“…it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it.”  (emphasis added)

– Brookings Institution, “Which Path to Persia?” 2009 

For the second time since the United States unilaterally withdrew from the so-called Iran Nuclear Deal, Western reports of “suspected attacks” on oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz have attempted to implicate Iran.

The London Guardian in an article titled, “Two oil tankers struck in suspected attacks in Gulf of Oman,” would claim:

Two oil tankers have been hit in suspected attacks in the Gulf of Oman and the crews evacuated, a month after a similar incident in which four tankers in the region were struck.

The article also claimed:

Gulf tensions have been close to boiling point for weeks as the US puts “maximum economic pressure” on Tehran in an attempt to force it to reopen talks about the 2015 nuclear deal, which the US pulled out of last year. 

Iran has repeatedly said it has no knowledge of the incidents and did not instruct any surrogate forces to attack Gulf shipping, or Saudi oil installations.

The Guardian would admit that “investigations” into the previous alleged attacks in May carried out by the UAE found “sophisticated mines” were used, but fell short of implicating Iran as a culprit.

The article would note US National Security Advisor John Bolton would – without evidence – claim that Iran “was almost certainly involved.”

All Too Convenient 

This news of “attacked” oil tankers near the Stait of Hormuz blamed by the US on Iran – comes all too conveniently on the heels of additional steps taken by Washington to pressure Iran’s economy and further undermine the Iranian government.

The US just recently ended waivers for nations buying Iranian oil. Nations including Japan, South Korea, Turkey, China, and India will now face US sanctions if they continue importing Iranian oil.

Coincidentally, one of ships “attacked” this week was carrying “Japan-related cargo,” the Guardian would report.

Also convenient was the US’ recent designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) just ahead of this series of provocations attributed to Iran.

AP in a May 2019 article titled, “President Trump Warns Iran Over ‘Sabotaged’ Oil Tankers in Gulf,” would claim:

Four oil tankers anchored in the Mideast were damaged by what Gulf officials described as sabotage, though satellite images obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday showed no major visible damage to the vessels.

Two ships allegedly were Saudi, one Emirati, and one Norwegian. The article also claimed:

A U.S. official in Washington, without offering any evidence, told the AP that an American military team’s initial assessment indicated Iran or Iranian allies used explosives to blow holes in the ships.

And that:

The U.S. already had warned ships that “Iran or its proxies” could be targeting maritime traffic in the region. America is deploying an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf to counter alleged, still-unspecified threats from Tehran. 

This more recent incident will likely be further exploited by the US to continue building up its military forces in the region, applying pressure on Iran, and moving the entire globe closer toward war with Iran.

The US has already arrayed its forces across the Middle East to aid in ongoing proxy wars against Iran and its allies as well as prepare for conventional war with Tehran itself.

All of this amounts to a renewed push toward a more direct conflict between the United States and Iran after years of proxy war in Syria Washington-backed forces have decisively lost.

It is also a continuation of long-standing US foreign policy regarding Iran put into motion over a decade ago and carried out by each respective presidency since.

Washington’s Long-Standing Plans 

Continued sanctions and the elimination of waivers are part of Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or the “Iran Nuclear Deal.” The deal was signed in 2015 with the US withdrawing in 2018.

While the decision is portrayed as political differences between former US President Barack Obama and current US President Donald Trump – in reality – the plan’s proposal, signing, and then withdrawal from by the US was planned in detail as early as 2009 as a means of justifying long sought-after war with Iran.

In their 2009 paper, “Which Path to Persia?: Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran” (PDF), the corporate-financier funded Brookings Institution would first admit the complications of US-led military aggression against Iran (emphasis added):

…any military operation against Iran will likely be very unpopular around the world and require the proper international context—both to ensure the logistical support the operation would require and to minimize the blowback from it.

The paper then lays out how the US could appear to the world as a peacemaker and depict Iran’s betrayal of a “very good deal” as the pretext for an otherwise reluctant US military response (emphasis added):

The best way to minimize international opprobrium and maximize support (however, grudging or covert) is to strike only when there is a widespread conviction that the Iranians were given but then rejected a superb offer—one so good that only a regime determined to acquire nuclear weapons and acquire them for the wrong reasons would turn it down. Under those circumstances, the United States (or Israel) could portray its operations as taken in sorrow, not anger, and at least some in the international community would conclude that the Iranians “brought it on themselves” by refusing a very good deal.

And from 2009 onward, this is precisely what the United States set out to achieve.

First with President Obama’s signing of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal, up to and including President Trump’s attempts to backtrack from it based on fabricated claims Iran failed to honor the agreement.

The 2009 policy paper also discussed “goading” Iran into war, claiming (emphasis added):

With provocation, the international diplomatic and domestic political requirements of an invasion [of Iran] would be mitigated, and the more outrageous the Iranian provocation (and the less that the United States is seen to be goading Iran), the more these challenges would be diminished. In the absence of a sufficiently horrific provocation, meeting these requirements would be daunting.

Unmentioned directly, but also an obvious method for achieving Washington’s goal of provoking war with Iran would be the US simply staging an “Iranian provocation” itself.

As the US had done in Vietnam following the Gulf of Tonkin incident, or US fabrications regardings “weapons of mass destruction” Washington claimed Iraq held in its possession, the US has a clear track record of not just simply provoking provocations, but staging them itself.
The Brookings paper even admits to the unlikelihood of Iran falling into Washington’s trap, lamenting (emphasis added):

…it is certainly the case that if Washington sought such a provocation, it could take actions that might make it more likely that Tehran would do so (although being too obvious about this could nullify the provocation). However, since it would be up to Iran to make the provocative move, which Iran has been wary of doing most times in the past, the United States would never know for sure when it would get the requisite Iranian provocation. In fact, it might never come at all.

The alleged sabotaging of oil tankers off the shore of the UAE in May and now additional “attacks” this month could be the beginning of a series of staged provocations aimed at leveraging the recent listing of the IRGC as a “terrorist organization” coupled with increased economic pressure as a result of US sanctions re-initiated after the US’ own withdrawal from the Iran Deal.

Synergies Toward War 

The US has already attempted to leverage allegations in May of “Iranian sabotage” to further build its case against Iran. Washington hopes that either war – or at least the impending threat of war – coupled with crippling economic sanctions, and continued support of political and armed sedition within Iran itself will create the synergies required for dividing and destroying Iran’s political order.

In a wider regional context, the US has seen political losses particularly in Iraq where Iranian influence has been on the rise. Militarily, US-backed proxy forces have been defeated in Syria with Iran and Russia both establishing permanent and significant footholds there.

Despite the setbacks, the success of Washington’s designs against Tehran still depends mainly on America’s ability to offer political and economic incentives coupled with equally effective threats to friend and foe alike – in order to isolate Iran.

How likely this is to succeed remains questionable – decades of US sanctions, covert and overt aggression, as well as proxy wars have left Iran resilient and with more influence across the region now than ever. Still, Washington’s capacity for sowing regional destruction or dividing and destroying Iran should not be underestimated.

The intentional creation of – then withdrawal from the Iran Deal, the US’ persistent military presence in the Middle East, and sanctions aimed at Iran all indicate that US policymakers remain dedicated isolating and undermining Iran. It will continue to do so until its geopolitical goals are met, or until a new international order creates conditions in the Middle East and throughout the global economy making US regime change against Iran impossible.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Please Let NATO Disappear. What They Have Done to My Country? Unspoken Cancer Epidemic in Serbia

June 13th, 2019 by Prof. Dr. Danica Grujicic

Please let NATO disappear, is the wish of neurosurgeon and chairman of the Serbian Cancer Society  Dr. Danica Grujicic

What have they done to my country?

Who has to decide that I may have to die?

The war itself is a crime, but far beyond that, the soil, people and nature are damaged for billions of years by the use of depleted uranium (DU ammunition with depleted uranium).

This affects not only the Serbian population, i.e. the citizens of Serbia, but also neighbouring countries such as Bulgaria, Greece and Romania, which are NATO members.

In addition, there is the bombardment of chemical industries regardless of a map of places of danger whose release of toxins damages the environment for generations.

We are talking here – as the Senegalese UN rapporteur Bakari Kante did in 1999 – about an ecocide. After 20 years, the time is ripe for a scientific investigation of the damage caused, which has nothing or nothing to do with a “humanitarian operation”.

 

 

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Russia’s “Pivot to Africa” Encroaches upon France’s Traditional “Sphere of Influence”

June 13th, 2019 by Andrew Korybko

The quiet success of Russia’s “Pivot to Africa” over the past few years has seen Moscow begin to encroach on France’s traditional “sphere of influence” in the continent, which in turn piqued Paris’ interest in negotiating a “New Detente” with its Great Power counterpart in order to rebalance relations between them in the New Cold War.

French President Macron surprised the world earlier this week when he unexpectedly told the Swiss television channel RTS that he wants to restore relations with Russia. RT quoted him as saying such bold statements as

“Europe… must build new rules of trust and security with Russia, and should not only agree with NATO”

and that

“We need to have a strategic debate, so this week I will have another, long and intense conversation with Vladimir Putin, as the president of France and the G7.”

Other highlights of his interview included his warning that “It would not be good to leave Russia to China” as well as a pleasant recognition of the Soviet Union’s sacrifices in World War II after the UK’s recent D-Day commemorative event completely airbrushed its notional ally’s enormous contribution to the defeat of fascism out of history.

Macron is clearly trying to get on President Putin’s good side, and with good reason too, because the Russian leader has presided over his country’s quietly successful “Pivot to Africa” over the past few years that’s seen Moscow begin to encroach on France’s traditional “sphere of influence” in the continent. The author elaborated on this more in depth in his recent piece about how “Russia’s Military Deal With The Congo Completes Its African Transversal“, which asserts that Moscow’s deft application of “military diplomacy” has seen it establish a bi-coastal belt of influence from the Atlantic to the Red Sea via the Congo Republic, the Central African Republic, and Sudan, which therefore places it in a prime position to “balance” continental affairs and provide countries there with a “third choice” between the West (US/France) and China.

France feels threatened by this development because it naturally reduces its influence in this part of the world that it had hitherto taken for granted through its extremely profitable post-colonial policy of “Françafrique”, which in turn has piqued Paris’ interest in negotiating a “New Detente” with Moscow in parallel with the larger one that might achieve some degree of progress during this month’s Jerusalem Summit between the Russian, Israeli, and American National Security Advisors. With the US signaling serious interest about restoring relations with Russia, it only makes sense that the EU begins probing the opportunities to do so too, and France believes that it should take the lead in this respect due to the political uncertainty in the continent’s traditional German and British leaders due to the Greens’ unexpected European Parliamentary success and Brexit, respectively.

By comparison, and recognizing that the ongoing Yellow Vest protests haven’t had much of a tangible effect on French domestic and especially foreign policy like the aforementioned developments have for Germany and the UK, France is actually the most politically stable Western European Great Power. This makes it extremely attractive from a Russian perspective too because of the certainty with which Moscow expects Macron to remain President Putin’s main negotiating partner for the next couple of years unlike the unpredictable situation with his German and British counterparts. Despite the speculative behind-the-scenes progress on a clinching a “New Detente” between the US and Russia, Europe (taken as a collective whole) probably wouldn’t have gotten on board with this initiative in as independent of a way as it’s presently trying had it not been for the African impetus that forced France to act.

Bereft of a confident leader after the Greens’ impressive European Parliamentary showing and the seemingly never-ending chaos of Brexit destabilized the continent’s traditional Great Power leaders, France saw the once-in-a-century opportunity to fill this void and finally have the chance to once again position itself as the most important European country, with its significance rising by the day as the odds of the US and Russia eventually reaching a “New Detente” increase as well. Russia’s been looking for a stable partner to deal with in negotiating the European dimension of this possible geopolitical thaw in the New Cold War, and its “Pivot to Africa” greatly assisted it in piquing France’s attention and helping Paris play this long-sought-after role, with it being possible to more accurately assess the prospects for success after the upcoming but yet unscheduled meeting between Macron and President Putin.

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

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Selected Articles: Towards “NATO-Exit”? Shift in the Structure of Military Coalitions

June 13th, 2019 by Global Research News

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Pence Goes to War: America Will be Fighting Forever

By Philip Giraldi, June 13, 2019

Pence may or may not have known that military academy graduates have only a five-year active duty commitment after graduation. Many do not stay in the service after that point, instead using their security clearances and resumes to obtain well paying positions with defense and national security contractors.

US to Jail 1,400 Immigrant Children at WWII Japanese Internment Site

By Eric London, June 13, 2019

The decision to re-open the internment camp at Fort Sill is a further milestone in the breakdown of democratic forms of rule and a sign that the government is reviving the worst crimes in American history as official state policy. It is a signal to Trump’s extreme right-wing supporters that the government is prepared to enact more openly dictatorial forms of rule.

Insidious Discrimination Against the Roma Is Europe’s Shame

By Prof. Alon Ben-Meir and Arbana Xharra, June 13, 2019

Two weeks ago, a 29-year-old Roma woman was physically attacked in the middle of the day in Kosovo, after a false accusation spread that the victim had been kidnaping children. Social media provided a platform for hate speeches and misleading information, which often precipitates violence against innocent Roma people.

US Senators Meet with Jewish Leaders in Semi-secret Annual Event

By Alison Weir, June 12, 2019

Several of the organizations participating are focused on preventing the erosion of support for Israel among Democratic voters. Recent polls show that the large majority of progressive Americans now support Palestinian human rights.

Towards “NATO-Exit”? Shift in the Structure of Military Coalitions. Turkey’s Alliance with Russia, China and Iran?   

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, June 12, 2019 

Contemporary developments point to a historical shift in the structure of military alliances which could contribute to weakening US hegemony in the Middle East as well as creating conditions which could lead to a breakup of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Japan’s Prime Minister Abe Is Trump’s Informal Ambassador to Iran, but He Wants More Than to Mediate

By Andrew Korybko, June 12, 2019

Japanese Prime Minister Abe is functioning as Trump’s informal ambassador to Iran during his two day trip to the Islamic Republic, though he has much greater strategic interests in mind than just being the US President’s proxy such as expanding his island nation’s footprint in the Mideast as part of its attempt to “contain” China.

The Last Bastion of Al Qaeda in Syria: US Propaganda Blitz Ahead of Idlib’s Liberation

By Tony Cartalucci, June 12, 2019

A concerted effort is being made to once again flood Western headlines with now familiar and long-since discredited war propaganda as Syrian forces and their Russian and Iranian allies move in on Idlib in northern Syria to liberate it from US-backed terrorists.

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Poland Prepares to Introduce 5G Wireless Technology

June 13th, 2019 by Julian Rose

The Polish Ministry of Digitalisation has denied (June 11) that Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki signed the Global Appeal to Stop 5G on Earth and in Space.* 

The refutation was put out by the Ministry of Digitalization, the government department that deals with telecommunications. The same department put out a related statement

“The opponents of 5G are heating-up the mood, serving customers fake news – we want to give Poles a reliable source of information about 5G so that no one misleads them.”

Hopes raised that Prime Minister Morawiecki might have some genuine humanitarian concerns for his people appear to have been proved unduly optimistic. 

This week, according to the present parliamentary schedule, Mateusz Morawiecki will lead his government into presenting a new Act that will annul the existing law on ‘acceptable levels’ of Electro Magnetic Frequencies (EMF) in order to introduce microwave frequency transmission levels 10 to 100 times more intense than current levels. This is being done to satisfy the telecommunications industry’s ambition to install  thousands of 5G transmitters across the length and breadth of the Country. 

If this Act is passed, the Prime Minister and government parliamentarians will be complicit in introducing a completely untested technology which over 2,000 scientists and 1,400 medical doctors from all over the World have described as presenting a direct threat to the health of humans, animals, insect and plant life.

The government of Poland appears determined to ignore such medical and scientific warnings. Also to ignore the safety-net known as ‘the precautionary principle’ in which anything judged as causing potential harm cannot be put in the public domain without first undergoing independent assessment for its safety. 

This refusal to follow responsible principles demonstrates that the Prime Minister is ready to sell the freedom of Poland, the health of the  electorate and the welfare of future generations, to corporate interests. The fact is that all decisions on 5G are made without any public consultation or any opportunity to object. 

Awareness of the threat that 5G poses is rapidly growing.

Protests in different parts of Poland are demonstrating the anger people feel at being forced to accept this highly controversial technology.

Some protesters held-off for a while in the hope that Prime Minister Morawiecki had shown a human face. But since it is now officially denied that he supports stopping 5G, resistance will undoubtedly grow, with the effect that in the Autumn election the Polish government (Pis) is likely to be shown a red card for its refusal to listen to the people.

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

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*https://www.5gspaceappeal.org/

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Pence Goes to War: America Will be Fighting Forever

June 13th, 2019 by Philip Giraldi

On May 25th Vice President Mike Pence was the featured speaker at the United States Military Academy commencement. His speech was predictably an encomium celebrating both the diversity and the success of the newly commissioned officers as well as of the system at West Point that had produced them, but it also included interesting insights into how he and the other non-veterans who dominate the policy making in the White House see the military.

Most media commentary on the speech was either shocked or pleasantly surprised by Pence’s prediction that the graduating officers would soon be at war. He said

“It is a virtual certainty that you will fight on a battlefield for America at some point in your life. You will lead soldiers in combat. It will happen. Some of you will join the fight against radical Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of you will join the fight on the Korean Peninsula and in the Indo-Pacific, where North Korea continues to threaten the peace, and an increasingly militarized China challenges our presence in the region. Some of you will join the fight in Europe, where an aggressive Russia seeks to redraw international boundaries by force. And some of you may even be called upon to serve in this hemisphere. And when that day comes, I know you will move to the sound of the guns and do your duty, and you will fight, and you will win. The American people expect nothing less. So, wherever you’re called, I urge you to take what you learned here and put it into practice. Put your armor on, so that when — not if — that day comes, you’ll be able to stand your ground.”

Pence may or may not have known that military academy graduates have only a five-year active duty commitment after graduation. Many do not stay in the service after that point, instead using their security clearances and resumes to obtain well paying positions with defense and national security contractors. If Pence was aware of that five-year window, he was implying that he expects multiple wars will involve the United States during his own remaining time in office, assuming that he and President Donald Trump are reelected in 2020. He might even be assuming that war is inevitable no matter who is in the driver’s seat in the White House because America’s numerous enemies, which he identified, cannot otherwise be dissuaded from their “nefarious behavior.”

Pence’s choice of words is revealing. There is a “virtual certainty” of “fight[ing] on a battlefield for America” and that battlefield is global, including both transnational Islamic terrorism and the western hemisphere. The language implies that American security requires “full spectrum dominance” everywhere. It encompasses traditional national enemies, with a Pyongyang that “threatens peace,” a China that is “militarized,” and a Russia that is both “aggressive” and expansionistic. The soldiers must be prepared to fight “when – not if – that day comes.”

First of all, it is discouraging to note that Pence believes that a war or wars must take place, and further, one must have to wonder exactly what scenarios are envisioned by Pence, and also presumably by his boss and colleagues, regarding precisely how war against other nuclear powers will play out. Nor does he entertain what would happen when the rest of the world begins to perceive the United States at its enemy due to its willingness to interfere in everyone’s politics. And the American soldiers would die not knowing what they were fighting for, since they would understand from the onset that it had nothing to do with the defense of the United States.

The speech is, in short, a recognition that the Trump Administration sees perpetual war on the horizon, a viewpoint that is particularly alarming as one can quite easily make the case that the United States is not seriously threatened at all by anyone on Pence’s enemies list and is therefore the aggressor. China is a regional power, Russia does not have the resources or will to reestablish the Soviet Union, and North Korea has only limited capability to attack anyone, even if it should choose to do so. Islamic terrorism is largely a creation of the United States in the first place and maintains its potency by the adverse impact of the continued US presence in Muslim lands. And the suggestion that Venezuela and/or Cuba might be a threat to America is, quite frankly, laughable.

If Mike Pence is seriously interested in looking around to see who has been most interested in starting new wars, he should look to gentlemen named Bush and Obama, not to mention his own colleagues John Bolton and Mike Pompeo. And then there are Washington’s feckless allies Israel and Saudi Arabia, who are keen to advance their own interests by means of piles of dead American soldiers.

Is there no one around to question why exactly American soldiers are sent to die in so many places that can hardly be found on a map? Or to ask what the compelling national interests might be to require sending soldiers to such God-forsaken death pits? One can be sure that the newly minted Army officers that Pence addressed have no desire to be killed in Mali, but it would take a brave young man or woman to speak the truth if asked by a senior officer.

And Pence unfortunately has many friends who believe in force majeure as he does on Capitol Hill. Senator Lindsey Graham appeared on Fox News Sunday the day after the Vice President spoke and said “I would give Cuba an ultimatum to get out of Venezuela. If they don’t, I would let the Venezuelan military know, you got to choose between democracy and Maduro, and if you choose Maduro and Cuba, we are coming after you. This is in our backyard.”

It should be clearly understood Pence, Graham and Pompeo are all calling for wars of choice, where the military is being used as an option rather than diplomacy in a situation where there is no imminent threat. Iraq, Syria and Libya are examples of such wars and all three have turned out very badly. And then there is the moral dimension. By the standard set by the Nuremberg Trials after World War 2, initiating an armed conflict in that fashion is a war crime. Indeed, it is the ultimate war crime as it brings so many evils with it. Mike Pence’s vision of America the perpetual war criminal is not something to be proud of.

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Philip Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer and a columnist and television commentator. He is also the executive director of the Council for the National Interest. Other articles by Giraldi can be found on the website of the Unz Review. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Brexit Trade Delusions Show Why Britain Needs to Confront Its History of Empire

June 13th, 2019 by Rahul Verma

On 7 December, 2016, nearly six months after the referendum, Prime Minister Theresa May gave a speech to the Gulf Cooperation Council in Bahrain. She said:

“As Britain leaves the European Union so we intend to take a leap forward, to look outwards and seek to become the most committed and most passionate advocate of free trade in the world.”

May also cited the East India Company and while it may seem a peculiar and tone deaf reference – historian William Dalrymple describes ‘The Company’ as, “the supreme act of corporate violence in world history” – she was joining the dots between post-Brexit Britain, free trade and empire.

Why? Because May understood that the glories of Britain past – empire and free trade – underpin the fantasies of many Brexiteers. We’ve seen plans to build trade with Commonwealth African countries called ‘Empire 2.0’ and ministers including Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove and Liam Fox champion a new Royal Yacht Britannia (at a cost of ￡120 million) to rule the waves as Britain strikes trade deal after trade deal.

Where do we begin – or end – with explaining why evoking empire as the inspirational vision for Brexit Britain is grotesque? We could start with how Britain’s imperialism was founded on racist ideologies, white supremacy and brutal violence that racked up a black and brown bodycount in the tens of millions in a ruthless quest for power and capital.

We could explain that our empire’s vision of free trade was built on protectionism, with tariffs and duties imposed according to British interests and enforced by military might and naval supremacy. Looting – a Hindi word for ransacking – raw materials, labour and food, better describes the extractive and exploitative character of Britain’s empire.

Britain’s history of ‘free’ trade is a fantasy. The reality is a long, dark history of putting profit before people. It’s something which continues today, with the UK supplying billions of pounds of arms to Saudi Arabia that have been used to bomb civilians in Yemen and have contributed to a humanitarian crisis where an estimated 85,000 children have died from starvation.

Spiridione Roma’s The East Offering Her Riches to Britannia, 1778, commissioned by the East India Company for the ceiling of East India House in London, a panegyric to British colonial domination | Credit: British Library

Weavers to beggars

In a 2015 address to the Oxford Union, Indian MP and historian, Shashi Tharoor outlined how India’s world renowned textiles industry was dismantled by Britain. “Britain’s industrial revolution was premised on the deindustrialisation of India. For example, the handloom weavers, whose products were  exported around the world.

The British came in, smashed their thumbs and broke their looms, imposed tariffs and duties on their cloth and began flooding the world with manufactured cloth, the products of the dark and satanic mills of Victorian England,” said Tharoor. “That meant the weavers became beggars and India went from being a world famous exporter of finished cloth to an importer. India’s share of the world economy when the British arrived on its shores [1600] was 23%, by the time it left [1947] it was down to less than 4%. Why? Because India was governed for the benefit of Britain,” explained the author of Inglorious Empire, a sobering account of the British Empire in India.

Trading in humans

However, it’s the transatlantic slave trade that is the most shocking example of the British Empire’s sacrificing of black lives at the altar of profit. Between 15 million and 20 million Africans were shackled and forcibly transported from West Africa to the Caribbean, central America and South America. When Britain abolished its trade in human beings in 1833, 245 years after it began, the government compensated British slave owners £20 million (£17 billion in today’s money), for ‘loss of property’.

Slavery devastated the continent, causing depopulation and wars and instability, while the loss of tens of millions of men stunted agricultural production, leading to underdevelopment. Just 20 years after America abolished slavery in 1865, the ‘scramble for Africa’ began and by the early 20th century the vast majority of the entire continent was colonised – and looted – by European powers.

Trade and war

The mid-19th century Opium Wars capture how Britain’s ‘free trade’ crusade overwhelmingly served Britain’s interest. Britain declared war on China to protect the eyewatering revenues of its merchants who monopolised the lucrative opium trade. The East India Company forced desperate farmers in India to grow poppies (when they could be growing food to sell and eat), ran vast opium processing factories and the trade with China, where millions were ravaged by opium addiction. When Britain’s warships defeated China in 1842, China was forced to accept free trade, including the damaging, morally bankrupt trade in opium. This is a glimpse of what British ‘free trade’ looked like and why it’s deeply troubling to see it and empire being lauded by politicians.

Colonialism and its free trade zealotry established the framework of globalised neoliberalism today, with inequality and pillaging of the global south its defining traits.

Empire state of mind

Since the sun set on empire, Britain has failed to have a meaningful and open discussion about it and how it’s shaped the world today, whether migration in Britain, the slave trade, free trade, its marauding nature, the Opium Wars, concentration camps in South Africa, the Partitions of Ireland, Palestine and India, or why regions of West Africa were known as the gold coast, ivory coast, grain coast and slave coast (as 20-year-old rapper, Dave, notes in his track ‘Black’).

Instead our institutions display an empire state of mind – it’s evident in the treatment of Windrush citizens, British citizens illegally turfed out because of their skin colour, the Foreign Office’s recent recruitment drive with adverts asking, “Fancy an African adventure?”, and a racist criminal justice system.

This mindset is damaging trade talks: today Indian companies own Jaguar, Land Rover and Tetley, and thousands of steel workers’ jobs in Port Talbot are in the hands of Indian multinational giant Tata. And yet sources close to trade talks between India and the UK describe Britain’s stance as “we want your business, we don’t want your people”.

Cape Coast Castle, one of about forty ‘slave castles’ built on the ‘Gold Coast‘ of West Africa (now Ghana). Its large underground dungeon held up to 1,000 slaves | Credit: Julius Cruickshank/Wikimedia

Education, education, education

Education would help to redress the impact of the colonial propaganda project, Operation Legacy, which systematically destroyed millions of empire documents, and is surely a contributing factor in a near majority of Britons saying empire was a good thing in public polling today.

Teaching empire in schools and universities from myriad perspectives is not only a necessity to unpick the empire fantasies inherent in Britain’s national character, but because nearly one in ten people in Britain has heritage in places Britain plundered; it isour collective history.

There are grassroots initiatives doing this work and stimulating much needed discussion and analysis of empire, such as the decolonising movement in universities, Colonial Countryside and Our Migration Story. In time we might see the end of empire nostalgia being used to sell us stuff, such as Marks & Spencer ‘Empire Pie’ and Gourmet Burger Kitchen ‘Old Colonial Burger’, and slave auction worksheets being used in a secondary school. Brexit may have bored us to tears, but it’s revealed 21st century Britain is haunted by the ghosts of empire and rather than being used to Make Britain Great Again, surely they need to be laid to rest.

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Featured image: Edward Duncan’s painting of the East India Company iron steam ship Nemesis destroying Chinese war junks in Anson’s Bay, 1843 | Credit: National Maritime Museum, London

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US to Jail 1,400 Immigrant Children at WWII Japanese Internment Site

June 13th, 2019 by Eric London

The Pentagon announced yesterday that the Trump administration will detain 1,400 immigrant children at the site of a World War II-era Japanese internment camp, Fort Sill Army Base in Lawton, Oklahoma.

The decision, announced Tuesday as Trump denounced immigrants and socialism at a rally in Iowa, is a calculated political maneuver.

“Immigration really is the defining issue of 2020,” Trump said in Des Moines shortly after the Pentagon announcement. “When it comes to immigration, Democrats no longer represent American citizens. … The Democratic Party is really now the socialist party.”

The decision to re-open the internment camp at Fort Sill is a further milestone in the breakdown of democratic forms of rule and a sign that the government is reviving the worst crimes in American history as official state policy. It is a signal to Trump’s extreme right-wing supporters that the government is prepared to enact more openly dictatorial forms of rule.

“It’s a gut punch to us to repeat history like this,” David Inoue, executive director of the Japanese American Citizens League, told the World Socialist Web Site.

“Those who were incarcerated under Japanese internment often return to the camps on pilgrimages to demand that such places be recognized for the egregious wrongs that took place there. Now, further injustices will be happening at these same locations. The trauma inflicted on these immigrant children will last for generations.”

Fort Sill housed some 700 Japanese-Americans, including US citizens and first-generation immigrants, known as issei, during World War II. During Japanese internment, Fort Sill was known for its fierce windstorms and its unbearably hot temperatures. Average highs in July are 97 degrees Fahrenheit.

Between 1942 and 1946, the US government jailed 120,000 people at internment camps across the country without trial. Internment was initiated via Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 on February 12, 1942.

Interned children, 1943

Mass internment had been statutorily “legalized” by the Alien Registration Act of 1940—also known as the Smith Act. Months before the mass internment of Japanese-Americans began, the act was first used to prosecute 29 members of the Socialist Workers Party during the Minneapolis Sedition Trial of 1941. The trial ended less than eight weeks before Executive Order 9066 when 18 Trotskyists were sentenced to federal prison for opposing US intervention in World War II.

Fort Sill was the site of one of the many murders conducted by US Army prison guards during internment. The Encyclopedia of Japanese American Internment explains:

“On May 12, 1942, Kanesaburo Oshima, a barber from the island of Hawaii, climbed the outer barbed-wire fence in broad daylight reportedly shouting, ‘I want to go home!’ A guard barked out a warning, while another shot Oshima dead in front of his friends who had urged they be allowed to help him get down from the fence and return to the camp. Oshima was depressed, his friends revealed. He had been forced to leave his wife and 12 children who had little means of support.”

Oshima’s funeral “was attended by all of Fort Sill’s Japanese Americans. Also present were Army guards with machine guns pointed at the mourners because they feared an uprising.”

In Life Behind Barbed Wire, an internee recalled,

“that night a mentally disturbed internee from the Mainland died from shock as a result of Mr. Oshima’s death. The camp grew even more melancholy.”

Manzanar Internment Camp, California

The military calls the new internment camp a “temporary emergency influx shelter,” a dystopian echo of the US Army War Relocation Authority’s decision to label Japanese internment camps “relocation centers.”

Unlike the internees during the Second World War, the new internees will be isolated from their parents and denied basic visitation rights. They will also not be provided with education or recreation during their detention. While Japanese internees famously organized their own baseball leagues to lessen the isolation and boredom of their illegal detention, the Trump administration has refused to allow immigrant children outdoors to play soccer at today’s internment camps.

The decision underscores that no democratic rights, no matter how basic, can be defended by the Democratic Party. In 1993, then-President Bill Clinton issued a statement offering “a sincere apology to you for the actions that unfairly denied Japanese Americans and their families fundamental liberties during World War II. … In retrospect, we understand that the nation’s actions were rooted deeply in racial prejudice, wartime hysteria, and a lack of political leadership.”

Twenty-five years later, these statements have been exposed as meaningless. The Democratic Party has responded to the Pentagon announcement with silence. The Democrats are driven by their own pro-war hysteria, directed chiefly at Russia. The locking-up of immigrant children under a presidential declaration of “national emergency” by Trump is the logical product of permanent national security state established in the bipartisan “war on terror.”

It was Democratic President Barack Obama who temporarily detained immigrant children at Fort Sill in 2014 and who deported more immigrants than all previous presidents combined. At press time, Democratic “socialists” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders had not spoken or tweeted about the internment of immigrant children at Fort Sill.

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Fort Sill Internment Camp

To the faces of my children sleeping, I will not say goodbye nor will I forget… Taken prisoner by the dark and furious. On this night of endless rain. -Muin Ozaki, Fort Sill internee

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Obama Admin Purged 12 Years of ICE Speeches on Immigration Crisis Hours Before Trump Inauguration

June 13th, 2019 by Zero Hedge

Hours before President Trump took office, the Obama administration scrambled to purge 12 years worth of transcripts spanning hundreds of speeches from the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) website, according to the Daily Caller‘s Jason Hopkins. 

An Internet Archive Wayback Machine capture of the “Speeches and Testimonies” page from late in the evening of January 19, 2017. (via the Sunlight Foundation)

A collection of 190 transcripts of speeches on ICE’s website was deleted on Jan. 18 and late in the evening on Jan. 19, 2017, according to research conducted by the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for government transparency. Statements made by high-ranking ICE officials regarding controversial immigration topics such as sanctuary cities, E-Verify, treatment of detainees, and other issues were included in the reported deletions. –Daily Caller

“With a couple of clicks of a mouse, access to a federal government web resource containing 12 years of primary source materials on ICE’s history was lost,” wrote the Sunlight Foundation, adding that speeches dating back to 2004 were included in the purge.

The Caller notes that speeches from former acting ICE Director Thomas Homan were “prominently included in the deletion list,” including a February 2016 speech in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in which Homan discussed that “Unaccompanied Minor Crisis,” which the Obama administration was grappling to manage at the southern border.

Another example cited by the Caller was a transcript from May 2016 in which Homan explained why sanctuary cities (and counties, and states) put “the public at risk,” according to the report.

The Sunlight Foundation offered the following commentary to explain the purge: “It is not inconceivable that an outgoing Democratic administration might want to avoid preserving these public stances for future scrutiny,” adding “The removal of the ICE speeches collection represents the loss of a primary source history of the early days of ICE, dating back to its creation during the George W. Bush administration in 2003.”

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Grenfell Tower Deaths: A Gross Failure of UK Government and Justice

June 13th, 2019 by Hans Stehling

Survivors and families of the Grenfell Tower disaster in London, in 2017, in which 72 people were either burned to death or poisoned by lethally toxic fumes of hydrogen cyanide gas, are this week reported to have instructed lawyers to file one of the largest class actions for product liability in US history, against the manufacturers and suppliers of allegedly fire-accelerant cladding and insulation materials.

How is it then conceivable that the police and/ or Crown Prosecution Service, in Britain, have indicated that it is most unlikely that the current investigation will result in any prosecutions for either corporate manslaughter or gross criminal negligence against any architect, surveyor, building inspector, local authority, manufacturer or supplier who were involved in the external cladding contract for Grenfell Tower?

This would appear to be a scandal of very serious consequences and a gross failure not only of the criminal justice system but for this government and its fire/ building regulations and also for the local authority building inspectorate.

There would appear to a be strong case for a judicial review of any failure by the CPS to prosecute those alleged responsible for the worst civilian loss of life in a residential building fire since World War 2.

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Hans Stehling (pen name) is an analyst based in the UK. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Video: Hard Brexit Makes Scottish Independence ‘More Urgent’

June 13th, 2019 by Samuel Stolton

The scenario of a hard Brexit would “increase the likelihood of Scotland becoming independent,” Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has told EURACTIV in an exclusive interview. Her comments come as hard and soft Brexit Conservatives start jockeying for the vacant UK prime minister role.

Touching down in Brussels on Tuesday (11 June) for bilateral meetings with EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier and Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, a spirited Sturgeon said that the possibility of a hard Brexit would make the option of Scottish independence more feasible for voters in the country.

A hard Brexit, Sturgeon said, “will lead many people in Scotland to consider that independence is not just desirable, but that it has become more urgent to protect ourselves from the damage that a no-deal Brexit would do.”

EURACTIV pressed Sturgeon on whether she thought the key to Scottish independence could, in fact, be hardline Brexiteer Boris Johnson as the next UK prime minister.

Johnson has said he will refuse to hand over the £39bn EU withdrawal payment until the bloc offers the UK a better deal, and has committed in no uncertain terms to withdrawing from the EU by the deadline of 31 October 2019.

“The key to Scottish independence is a majority of people in Scotland confidently deciding that we should be an independent country,” Sturgeon said.

“Brexit, or the prospect of Boris Johnson or any of these hardline Brexiteers being prime minister, will undoubtedly further illustrate the divergent paths politically that Scotland and the rest of the UK are on,” she added.

With the race for the next UK Prime Minister firmly underway, other Conservative candidates for the job have been running their campaigns the UK’s future relationship with the EU. There are currently 10 candidates in the running for the position.

Alongside Johnson, one of the other favourites to obtain the job, Environment Secretary Michael Gove, has said he would consider a further delay to the Brexit deadline and would attempt to negotiate changes to the ‘backstop’ – an insurance policy agreed between the EU and the UK to avoid a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Matt Hancock, the current health secretary, is considered one of the more  ‘softer’ Brexit candidates. For him, the choice is between leaving the UK with a deal or not leaving at all. Hancock would seek a free-trade agreement signed off by the EU and the UK, as well as the rights of EU citizens enshrined in law.

On the harder side of the Brexit debate, the former leader of the House of Commons, Andrea Leadsom, has said leaving the EU by 31 October is  her “hard red line”, and in order to achieve this, Leadsom would lead a delegation of government ministers to Brussels in September to ensure that everything is in place for the UK’s exit by the end of October.

Meanwhile, many on the ‘Remain’ side of the Brexit debate are continuing to show frustration with the Labour leadership for its lack of a coherent position on the issue of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union.

Reports surfaced on Monday (10 June) of a ‘heated’ meeting between Jeremy Corbyn and fellow Labour Party MPs, with pro-EU MP Peter Kyle reportedly holding Corbyn to account over his failure to back a second referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU.

For her part, Sturgeon was unambiguous in saying that should the UK leave the EU on 31 October without a deal, the Labour party must be held responsible for its inability to support the notion of a second referendum and form a Remain-coalition in the House of Commons.

“Jeremy Corbyn is the roadblock barrier to building a coalition behind a second referendum,” Sturgeon said. “If the UK crashes out of the EU with no deal at the end of October, the primary responsibility lies with the Conservatives and those that advocated Brexit, but not far behind there will be Jeremy Corbyn, whose prevarication will have made it harder to avoid that outcome.”

“I hope that we see Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party finally come off the fence and get behind a second referendum. I think history will judge them very harshly if they don’t.”

More broadly, Sturgeon also reassured Scottish citizens living in the EU that SNP politicians would seek to protect their rights as the 31 October deadline approaches.

“To Scots living across Europe, we want to protect your ability to live and work and study freely across Europe, just as we want to protect those from other European countries who live in Scotland,” Sturgeon told EURACTIV.

She added that when and if the UK withdraws from the European Union, she would expect Scotland’s path back into the bloc to be straightforward.

“I think it is inconceivable that the path [of Brexit] doesn’t end with Scotland being warmly welcomed as an independent member of the European Union,” she said.

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Featured image: Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon sat down with EURACTIV on Tuesday to discuss future EU-Scotland relations after Brexit.

Insidious Discrimination Against the Roma Is Europe’s Shame

June 13th, 2019 by Prof. Alon Ben-Meir

Two weeks ago, a 29-year-old Roma woman was physically attacked in the middle of the day in Kosovo, after a false accusation spread that the victim had been kidnaping children. Social media provided a platform for hate speeches and misleading information, which often precipitates violence against innocent Roma people. Generally, the hatred and disdain toward Roma by the Balkan and wider European population is sadly embedded in their psyche and cultural orientation. This largely explains why a Roma woman was beaten on a city street while a crowd of young people watched with utter indifference. One wonders why European governments are not taking all the necessary measures to stop this type of appalling behavior, especially in countries that aspire to join the EU.

According to the European Commission, there are 10-12 million Roma living in Europe, out of which one million live in Western Balkan countries. They are the largest ethnic minority in Europe, largely live in poverty, and are victims of prejudice, violence, social exclusion, child abuse, and sexual slavery. It was reported in 2018 that hundreds of Roma children have been trafficked in the Netherlands alone as sex slaves. Even though EU countries have banned discrimination against the Roma community, they still face major obstacles in education, access to healthcare, and certainly job opportunities.

Image result for roma people

Source: Around the O – University of Oregon

In reaction to the attack on the Roma woman, Kosovo’s Ambassador to DC, Vlora Citaku, shared a personal anecdote describing how Kosovo society has discriminated against Roma people for decades. She wrote,

“Nurije and Fitimi were in my class. They always sat in the back of the classroom even though the teacher asked them to sit with us. But we made fun of them, we wouldn’t touch them, play, or talk to them. One day when Nurije fell sick and didn’t come to school for weeks… our teacher tried to make us play together and would punish us if we hurt or made fun of them. They stopped going to school because we became intolerable … and it is all our fault”.

Representatives of the Equal Rights for All Coalition (ERAC) in Kosovo strongly condemned the attack and the misinformation that led to it, and beseeched the community not to encourage acts of violence.

The World Bank report “Breaking the Cycle of Roma Exclusion in the Western Balkans”, published in March 2019, explains how Roma face multiple barriers and constraints that hinder their ability to amass human capital, participate in the labor market on an equal basis, and benefit economically.

“The insufficient stock and accumulation of human, physical, financial, and social capital have hindered the ability of Roma households to generate income over the life cycle”, says the report.

Many Roma live in isolated communities and are often unaware of or unable to access social services and programs available. Illiteracy, lack of access to information, absence of trust in local authorities, and even lack of perceived need (as in the case of childcare) are among the barriers faced by Roma.

Sadly, it is not only in the Balkan countries where Roma communities face discrimination and physical violence. In many EU states, including Hungary, Italy, and the United Kingdom, Roma are confined to segregated areas, denied basic education and job opportunities, and routinely suffer racist assaults in city streets and campsites, often with police complicity.

Attackers have sought out and violently assaulted whole families, burned their homes, and nearly wiped out a whole community in settlements across Europe. Violence against Roma is gravely underreported, and Roma are often viewed as scapegoats for broader societal ills, often characterized as outsiders who are inferior citizens and are unwanted in their respective communities.

The Roma community was persecuted by the Nazi regime, viewed as a threat to the “superior Aryan” race. Himmler declared that the Roma were to be placed on “the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps.” Seventy-four years after the fall of the Nazis, the situation of Roma in Europe hasn’t improved much. Although Roma are no longer victims of genocide, they still face high levels of discrimination, abuse, and violence.

In Hungary in 2009, a Roma man with his 5-year-old son were shot and killed while fleeing their home, which was set on fire by attackers. In March 2019 in Paris, a series of vigilante attacks were sparked by false reports of attempted kidnappings. A violent attack last summer on a Roma encampment outside of the city of Lviv in Ukraine left one dead and four others injured, including a young boy and a pregnant woman.

The situation is not improving, even though for many years the EU has focused action on preventing Roma discrimination. In 2011, the European Commission produced an EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies, assessing each country’s strategy and integration policy measures. Since 2013, the European Council adopted a recommendation on effective Roma integration measures in the member states—a first ever EU-level legal instrument for Roma inclusion.

Xhemal Ahmeti, a journalist and historian originally from Macedonia, says that according to the latest reports published by human rights organizations, the Roma are most affected in Romania and some Balkan countries such as Serbia and Macedonia.

“They are also used by the politicians, especially during the election campaign. When [politicians] need crowds of people, they instrumentalize the Roma community with little money to get their electoral support”, says Ahmeti.

Given the systematic human rights violations of Roma people, top-ranking EU officials in particular must prioritize addressing the routine ill-treatment of Roma because it is a core violation of basic human rights, which the EU is supposed to espouse. Civil society, the media, and NGOs should be mobilized to campaign against Roma discrimination, raise awareness about the gross discriminatory practices, and the damages it causes to society.

The Roma community issue and their treatment must seriously be addressed by the European Commission, and especially by the prospective Balkan candidate countries who wish to join the EU. The EU must make it clear to these countries that they must take immediate and significant measures to address the discrimination against Roma in all aspects of life, particularly in the fields of education, healthcare, and professional skills. Otherwise, they would risk the continuing accession process, if not the prospect of joining the EU altogether.

According to the World Bank’s latest report in March 2019,

“Roma inclusion is not only a moral imperative… This is particularly important in aging societies because absorbing Roma entrants into the labor force can help counteract shrinking working-age populations. Roma are a young population, and this youth bulge can be turned into a demographic dividend through proper investment in education and basic services.”

Discrimination based on race, sect, religious belief, or gender is sadly ingrained in our system as human beings. Distinguishing ourselves from the “other” largely because of our belief in our superiority or exclusivity gives us a sense of false empowerment that we enjoy exercising, even, if not especially, by inflicting unbearable pain and suffering onto the other.

Whereas we cannot change human nature, we can change our behavior and become more tolerant and facilitate Roma integration in all walks of life. We should do so not only for the sake of social harmony and peace, but for the overall productivity and progress that can be made when equality and justice prevail.

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Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies. [email protected] Web: www.alonben-meir.com

Arbana Xharra authored a series of investigative reports on religious extremists and Turkey’s Islamic agenda operating in the Balkans. She has won numerous awards for her reporting, and was a 2015 recipient of the International Women of Courage Award from the US State Department.

Featured image is from KALLXO.com

Video: Israeli Military Continues Strikes on Syria

June 13th, 2019 by South Front

During the night of June 12, warplanes of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched a barrage of missiles at targets near Tell al-Hara in southern Syria. According to the Syrian state media, the IDF employed electronic warfare measures to suppress Syrian air defense systems. Despite this, at least some of the missiles were intercepted and the strike caused material damage only.

Tell al-Hara is known for being one of the positions of the Syrian Air Defense Forces in the area. Pro-Israeli sources as always speculate that the target of the attack were some ‘Iranian targets’.

The June 12 attack was the third Israeli strike on Syria in June. The previous strikes targeted the T4 airport on June 3 and Syrian Army positions east of the Golan Heights on June 2.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Houras al-Din and their allies once again repelled an attack by the Syrian Army on their positions near Kbani in northern Lattakia. On June 11, pro-government troops, backed up by battle tanks, seized several points near the town and were about to enter it. However, by June 12, they had been forced to retreat suffering some casualties. According to pro-militant sources, at least 4 soldiers were killed.

Clashes also continued near Jubain and Tal Malah in northern Hama. Pro-government sources claim that the army had recently destroyed a vehicle and a battle tank belonging to militants in this area. Multiple foreign militants are now involved in the standoff against the Syrian Army there. For example, the Uzbek group Katibat al Tawhid wal Jihad linked with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham released a photo report with its members on the frontline.

Units of the Syrian Army repelled an attack by ISIS cells in the area east of Palmyra in the province of Homs. According to pro-government sources, the army eliminated at least 3 militants. Casualties among pro-government forces were also reported.

The desert area in the provinces of Homs and Deir Ezzor is flooded with ISIS cells. However, the complicated situation in northwestern Syria and the continuing security operations in southern Syria do not allow Damascus to allocate the necessary forces to deal with this threat right now.

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

June 13th, 2019 by Dr. Jack Rasmus

Read part I from the link below.

On Global Capitalist Crises: Systemic Changes and Challenges

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

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Mohsen Abdelmoumen: In your very interesting book, Epic Recession: Prelude to Global Depression, you make a wise review and provide solutions. Why is the crisis inevitable?

Dr. Jack Rasmus: Because the solutions applied to the last crisis will inevitably lead to a more generalized, and potentially deeper and more serious crisis next time. Here’s how: the excess liquidity injected by the central banks to stabilize the financial markets after 2008-09 has been generating even more debt and debt leveraged investment. That has created financial asset bubbles today in global stocks, junk bonds, leveraged loans, triple BBB (junk) rated investment grade bonds, bubbles in derivatives and other asset markets, commercial real estate, etc. The debt levels have reached a magnitude such that once asset market prices begin to unwind and contract (some of which are now occurring), servicing of the excess debt will fail.

That unwinding will contract asset prices further, causes defaults and bankruptcies, and generates a credit crash. The contagion then spills over to the real economy. Non-financial sectors of the economy then begin to contract in turn, as credit availability disappears. Production cutbacks, cost cutting, and layoffs follow. Households, already carrying severe debt loads ($13.5 trillion in US alone) default on their loans. Banks with existing severe non-performing loans (more than $10 trillion globally, centered in Europe, Japan, and India will have to write them off en masse. Business and household defaults result in the collapse of bank lending.

Business confidence plummets, real investment dries up further, and prices for assets, goods, and inputs deflate, causing a still further deterioration. In other words, the excess liquidity injected into the global economy by central banks after 2008 (more than $25 trillion) temporarily stabilized the financial system. But in doing so it generated more even cheaper credit and debt that flowed into highly leveraged investment in both financial assets and real assets. The solution—i.e. excess liquidity and more debt and leveraging—thus becomes the basis for renewed bubbles and financial crisis. The now even greater debt and leveraging intensifies contagion effects, amplifies the scope and magnitude of the next crisis, and accelerates the propagation across markets and economies.

The solution to the last crisis becomes the fundamental cause of the next. That’s why it’s inevitable. Again, watch the most fragile financial markets associated with junk bonds, leveraged loans, BBB corporate bonds, stock markets, already non-performing loans in Europe and Asia, and government bonds of economies like Argentina, Turkey, and others. I’d throw in exchange traded funds, a form of derivatives, probably as well once stock markets correct more than 20% next time. Another problem is that central banks in Europe and Japan already have negative interest rates. Once the next crisis appears they will be limited as to what they can do. They’ll likely double down on even more QE (note: Quantitative Easing), interest free loans to businesses and other banks, and even more draconian measures like bail-ins of depositors money where depositors are forced to convert their cash to near worthless bank stock.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: In your book Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy, you explain that traditional economic policies have failed and that the next crisis may be worse than 2008-09. Is not the capitalist system out of breath and unable to regenerate itself?

Jack Rasmus: Thus far, it has been able to regenerate—but only temporarily. As the economy is restructured following a major crisis—as it was in 1909-14, 1944-53, and again 1979-88—the restructuring regenerates the leading capitalist economy (e.g. the US) but at the expense of working classes and some capitalist competitors. The recovery thereafter dissipates and the crisis then reappears in more severe form. This has been the case since the early 1970s in particular. Reagan’s restructuring succeeded in generating a recovery—at the expense of Europe, Japan, and American working class—but the same restructuring led to financial instability and crises in all three sectors of global capital and culminated in the crash of 2008-09. The US recovery thereafter was rapid for capital incomes, but slow and tepid for wage incomes. And the recovery never really took hold in the weak links of Europe and Japan where subsequent recessions occurred after 2008-09, in a kind of ‘stop-go’ slow and shallow recovery punctuated by recessions—i.e. what I’ve called a classic ‘epic recession’.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: You also wrote Central Bankers at the End of Their Rope?: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression. Your analyzes and your work constantly warn about a major economic crisis to come. Why, in your opinion, can’t the capitalist system learn the lessons of previous crises?

Jack Rasmus: After a crisis capitalists do find a way to restore profitability and expand capital. However, the restoration is only temporary, as I’ve said. But that’s acceptable for them. They’ll take a temporary recovery for all so long as it’s a significant temporary recovery for capital incomes. An alternative, longer term solution to the crisis would not as quickly restore profitability and growth, so they do not undertake it. A broader based, longer term restoration also risks strengthening opposition (to capitalism) forces and they don’t want to ‘go there’, as they say. For example, the US policy makers after 2008-09 embarked on a massive central bank money injection to bail out the banks and large corporations to the tune of more than $10 trillion, half of which was QE direct subsidy by the Fed buying bad securities. Tens of trillions in tax cuts for corporations and investors followed as well. Profits and capital incomes accelerated, as the bailout by the Fed (monetary) and Congress (fiscal tax cuts) was redistributed by corporations to shareholders.

More than $1 trillion a year was thus redistributed in the form of stock buybacks and dividend payouts just from the Fortune 500 alone. In 2018 it was $1.4 trillion. In 2019 it’s running at more than $1.5 trillion. Meanwhile, wage incomes are stagnating for the bottom 90% of the 162 million labor force in the US due to the restructuring of labor markets to the disadvantage of working class folks. So the ‘lesson’ capitalists have learned is how to quickly ensure they recover from a crisis by using monetary and fiscal policies to directly subsidize their incomes. Such policies in the 21st century are more about the State subsidizing capital incomes than they are about stabilizing the unstable, crisis prone economy.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: You wrote The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy from Reagan to Trump, to appear this September 2019. Why in your opinion can the capitalist system only generate crises?

Jack Rasmus: Crisis generation is embedded in the very ‘economic DNA’ of 21st century capitalism. It constantly over-expands (externally & geographically and internally & technologically). The over-expansion gets away with itself and results in severe global imbalances of various kinds: financial investment over real investment; money capital outflow excesses from the advanced capitalist core economies (US, Europe, Japan) to the emerging market economies; labor inflows from the periphery economies to the advanced core; trade imbalances or goods flow imbalances; technological change imbalances within the advanced economies; imbalances in the price systems as asset bubbles expand faster than goods or factor input prices; employment imbalances as need for skilled labor goes unfulfilled as unskilled labor accumulates on the sidelines as unemployed, underemployed, and contingent-gig service workers. All these, related imbalances generate the crises.

But capitalism feeds off the crises it creates. It feeds off its ‘dead and rotten’ destruction it creates during the. It creates a kind of ‘carrion capital’ during the crisis which it then devours in order to jump start a re-expansion process once again. Capital is by nature cannibalistic. It needs periodic destruction in order to resuscitate itself. The problem is the destruction is growing in magnitude and severity and causing increasingly severe consequences for the working classes, while leading to more intense competition among capitalists sectors globally as well. To use a metaphor, Capitalism is like sharks. It is reborn after a crisis like fetal sharks in the belly of the mama shark. The larger devour their smaller brethren while still in the womb. The few then emerge and reborn even stronger, larger, and more voracious than before.

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Syrian Families Released from the Infamous Rukban Concentration Camp

June 13th, 2019 by Arabi Souri

Dozens of Syrian families have been released from the US-controlled Rukban Concentration Camp in Al-Tanf, southeast of Syria.

The released families arrived at the Jaligam crossing in Homs eastern countryside after spending years in forced displacement and detention by the US forces illegally in that remote desert area and their terrorist groups of ISIS and its Maghaweer Thawra affiliates.

US forces and their alternative armies of terrorists hold thousands of Syrian civilians in the Rukban Concentration Camp in the worst humanitarian conditions who fled ISIS invasion to their villages to be directed by the US-sponsored FSA terrorists to a makeshift disgrace of humanity concentration camp at the furthest corner of Syria where they have been held for years now.

Syrian news agency SANA interviewed a number of the released residents who have expressed their extreme joy and happiness for their ‘freedom after years of humiliation, poverty, diseases, coldness, and unjust treatment by the terrorist groups operating the Concentration Camp under the US protection.

Many families have been released, especially in the past couple of months, those were able to pay the high bounty for Donald Trump non-uniformed Al-Qaeda troops, some pay up to $1500 per person to be allowed to exit the concentration camp into the open desert. Luckily for those, the Syrian government and the Russian Reconciliation Center have already provided buses to pick them up from the roads into safety.

The freed families are being hosted in a temporary center where they will be receiving medical care, proper human-safe food, and clean drinking water, they’ll also receive humane treatment by the Syrian authorities in the camp, the Syrian Red Crescent, with the help of the Russian Reconciliation Center. Later on, the families will be taken back to their homes in the villages and towns the Syrian Arab Army has cleaned from the terrorist groups and secured from landmines and IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) the terrorists usually plant behind them in the areas they infest.

Syria and Russia have repeatedly called on the USA to end the suffering of thousands of Syrian families held against their will in disastrous conditions in the concentration camps of Rukban in the southeast of Syria and Al-Hol in the northeast which in turn is controlled by the US-sponsored SDF Kurdish separatist militias.

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Featured image is from Syria News

US Senators Meet with Jewish Leaders in Semi-secret Annual Event

June 12th, 2019 by Alison Weir

An article in the Times of Israel reports that “Jewish leaders are meeting with Senate Democrats today.” According to the report, this is an annual event. A quarter of the Senate was in attendance (see list below).

All except one of the organizations represented by the Jewish leaders at the meeting advocate for Israel.

Several of the organizations participating are focused on preventing the erosion of support for Israel among Democratic voters. Recent polls show that the large majority of progressive Americans now support Palestinian human rights.

Many of the meeting participants, both Senators and Jewish leaders, are particularly known for their pro-Israel work. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer calls himself a “guardian of Israel.”

Time, location, & agenda hidden from US voters

The meeting does not seem to have been announced publicly ahead of time, and staffers at Senate offices contacted for this article were not aware of it.

The chair for the meeting is Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a 2020 presidential candidate.

Klobuchar is a strong Israel supporter and announces on her website that she supported the $38 billion package to Israel. (This amounts to about $7,000 to Israel per minute; approximately $20,000 per Israeli family of four.)

Klobuchar’s office would not reveal the location or time of the meeting. It also would not provide the agenda.

The offices of other Senators reportedly participating in the meeting that were contacted for this article – Tim Kaine, Patty Murray, and Chris Koons – also refused to provide this information to the American public.

Jewish Insider terms the event “Meeting of Machers” (wheeler dealers).

Nathan Diament, Executive Director for Public Policy for the Jewish Orthodox Union, posted a photo about the meeting on his Twitter account (see above), but didn’t clarify when the photo was taken.

Following are the meeting’s participants, according to Jewish Insider:

Senators:

Amy Kloburchar (D-MN)

Chuck Schumer (D-NY),

Ben Cardin (D-MD),

Tim Kaine (D-VA),

Chris Coons (D-DE),

Bob Menendez (D-NJ),

Patty Murray (D-WA),

Jacky Rosen (D-NV),

Ed Markey (D-MA),

Michael Bennet (D-CO),

Richard Blumenthal (D-CT),

Maria Cantwell (D-WA),

Tom Carper (D-DE),

Bob Casey (PA),

Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV),

Dick Durbin (D-IL),

Maggie Hassan (D-NH),

Mazie Hirono (D-HI),

Chris Murphy (D-CT),

Patty Murray (D-CT),

Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH),

Debbie Stabenow (D-MI),

Tom Udall (D-NM),

Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)

Ron Wyden (D-OR).

The Jewish leaders

AIPAC’s Howard Kohr

J Street’s Jeremy Ben Ami

ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt,

JNFA’s Mark Wilf

Conference of President’s Arthur Stark

Democratic Majority for Israel’s Mark Mellman

Jewish Democratic Council of America’s Ron Klein

Israel Policy Forum’s Susie Gelman

The Rabbinical Assembly’s Rabbi Julie Schonfeld

Union for Reform Judaism’s Rabbi Rick Jacobs

Orthodox Union’s Avi Katz

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society’s Mark Hetfield

National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry’s Mark B. Levin

Jewish Women International’s Loribeth Weinstein

Jewish Council for Public Affairs’ David Bernstein

Bend the Arc’s Stosh Cotler  (Unlike the other organizations represented at the meeting, Bend the Arc has not taken a public stand on Israel-Palestine. A member of Bend the Arc’s executive board, Howard Welinsky, is active in AIPAC and chairs Democrats for Israel, Los Angeles. Stosh Cotler, on the other hand, once demonstrated against Israeli policies.)

Millions more dollars to “nonprofits”

JTA Washington DC bureau chief Ron Kampeas reports in his email news letter that in addition to discussing Israel and antisemitism, “The Orthodox Union and the Jewish Federations of North America talked up legislation that would increase funding for security grants to nonprofits. A bill under consideration in the Senate ups the current $50 million to $70 million, and one in the House brings it to $90 million.”

A 2014 article in the Jewish Forward reported that Jewish institutions got 94 percent of such grants.

 

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This article has been updated based on the Jewish Insider article’s update after the meeting, which listed more Senators than originally listed. It has also been updated with information from JTA’s The Tell email report, by Ron Kampeas. Although the meeting is now being called “off the record,” it appears that Jewish Insider had access to it and has provided some details here.

Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.

All images in this article are from If Americans Knew

Trump Regime Formally Requests Assange’s Extradition to the US

June 12th, 2019 by Stephen Lendman

A total of 18 charges against Assange, with reportedly more to come, are all about wanting truth-telling journalism the way it should be on vital domestic and geopolitical issues silenced.

Trump regime hardliners want information about US wrongdoing suppressed. They want the official narrative alone to be reported.

Establishment media are complicit by sticking to it, operating as press agents for wealth, power and privilege — especially when the US goes to war, plans one, or wages it by other means against nations on its target list for regime change like Iran and Venezuela.

Speech, media, and academic freedoms in the US and West are threatened by Trump regime actions against Assange, what totalitarian rule is all about.

Reportedly last Thursday, the Trump regime’s Justice Department formally requested Assange’s extradition from the UK to the US.

On June 14, his first extradition hearing will be held in a London court, a likely protracted battle against it to follow.

His lawyers vowed to contest handing him over to US authorities on trumped up charges and virtual certainty of being judged guilty by accusation in rubber-stamp judicial proceedings.

What’s at stake goes way beyond his fate. It’s whether truth-telling journalism can be criminalized in the US and West.

It’s whether fundamental US constitutional rights are enforced or rendered null and void, especially First Amendment ones,  all others threatened if lost.

Assange attorney Jen Robinson said his legal team will be “contesting and fighting” extradition to the US. If unsuccessful in UK courts, his case will likely be appealed to the European Court of Human Rights and/or European Court of Justice, the highest EU court.

If extradited to the US, he’s doomed. He’ll likely face torture and abuse, mistreatment similar to what Chelsea Manning endured for nearly seven years, more of the same ongoing for invoking her constitutional rights to stay silent.

According to WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson, Trump’s Justice Department will present its so-called evidence against Assange during his extradition hearing in London, the first of more sessions to come for weeks or months.

Hrafnsson called his case a “watershed moment…in the attack on journalism.” Charges against Assange are politically motivated.

The US/UK extradition treaty prohibits handing over individuals in Britain to Washington for political offenses.

It states that

“(a)n offense shall be an extraditable offense if the conduct on which the offense is based is punishable under the laws in both States…”

“Extradition shall not be granted if the offense for which extradition is requested is a political offense.”

Extraditable nonpolitical offenses in the treaty include the following:

“(a) an offense for which both Parties have the obligation pursuant to a multilateral international agreement to extradite the person sought or to submit the case to their competent authorities for decision as to prosecution;

(b) a murder or other violent crime against the person of a Head of State of one of the Parties, or of a member of the Head of State’s family;

(c) murder, manslaughter, malicious wounding, or inflicting grievous bodily harm;

(d) an offense involving kidnaping, abduction, or any form of unlawful detention, including the taking of a hostage;

(e) placing or using, or threatening the placement or use of, an explosive, incendiary, or destructive device or firearm capable of endangering life, of causing grievous bodily harm, or of causing substantial property damage;

(f) possession of an explosive, incendiary, or destructive device capable of endangering life, of causing grievous bodily harm, or of causing substantial property damage;

(g) an attempt or a conspiracy to commit, participation in the commission of, aiding or abetting, counseling or procuring the commission of, or being an accessory before or after the fact to any of the foregoing offenses.”

“(E)xtradition shall not be granted (for) politically motivated reasons (or) for offenses under military law that are not offenses under ordinary criminal law.”

None of the above offenses apply to Assange. In UK extradition cases, “the Requesting State (must provide) assurance that the death penalty will not be imposed or, if imposed, will not be carried out.”

Until US Justice Department officials present their charges against Assange during his extradition hearing, it remains unclear if they’ll exclude politically motivated ones prohibited by the US/UK extradition treaty.

Clearly the case against him is entirely politically charged. No evidence suggests “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion,” espionage, or other wrongdoing occurred.

WikiLeaks publishes material from reliable sources it believes to be credible, how journalism is supposed to work – a vital public service, not a criminal offense.

Assange is a prisoner of conscience. UK authorities arrested and detained him solely for extradition to the US. DOJ spokeswoman Nicole Oxman acknowledged it, sayin

“I can confirm that Julian Assange was arrested in relation to a provisional extradition request from the United States of America.”

His persecution has a long way to go. If UK courts grant the extradition request and his case goes to the European Court of Human Rights and/or European Court of Justice, will either or both judicial bodies overrule it on grounds of charges prohibited by the US/UK extradition treaty?

If not, he’ll likely be imprisoned in the US until he perishes behind bars — for truth-telling journalism about US high crimes of war, against humanity, and other wrongdoing.

Given his greatly deteriorated physical and emotional health, is Britain slowly killing him in confinement at London’s high-security Belmarsh prison?

According to a prison source, he lost “dangerous amounts of weight. (He’s) unwell generally but has recently been struggling to eat which has made it worse. He looked near to collapse, gaunt and frail so they have got him in (the prison’s medical ward) as a precaution.”

“And his state of mind is not great, either.” He’s too frail to give testimony by video link from Belmarsh.

If mistreatment behind bars continues in Britain or if extradited to the US, he may perish in confinement — for the “crime” of truth-telling journalism the way it’s supposed to be.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

World’s Largest Plant Survey Reveals Alarming Extinction Rate of Seed Bearing Plant Species

June 12th, 2019 by Heidi Ledford

The world’s seed-bearing plants have been disappearing at a rate of nearly 3 species a year since 1900 ― which is up to 500 times higher than would be expected as a result of natural forces alone, according to the largest survey yet of plant extinctions.

The project looked at more than 330,000 species and found that plants on islands and in the tropics were the most likely to be declared extinct. Trees, shrubs and other woody perennials had the highest probability of disappearing regardless of where they were located. The results were published on 10 June in Nature Ecology & Evolution1.

The study provides valuable hard evidence that will help with conservation efforts, says Stuart Pimm, a conservation scientist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. The survey included more plant species by an order of magnitude than any other study, he says. “Its results are enormously significant.”

A careful compilation

The work stems from a database compiled by botanist Rafaël Govaerts at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London. Govaerts started the database in 1988 to track the status of every known plant species. As part of that project, he mined the scientific literature and created a list of seed-bearing plant species that were ruled extinct, and noted which species scientists had deemed to be extinct but were later rediscovered.

In 2015, Govaerts teamed up with plant evolutionary biologist Aelys Humphreys at Stockholm University in Sweden and others to analyse the data. They compared extinction rates across different regions and characteristics such as whether the plants were annuals that regrow from seed each year or perennials that endure year after year.

The researchers found that about 1,234 species had been reported extinct since the publication of Carl Linnaeus’s compendium of plant species, Species Plantarum, in 1753. But more than half of those species were either rediscovered or reclassified as another living species, meaning 571 are still presumed extinct.

Source: Humphreys et al.

A map of plant extinctions produced by the team shows that flora in areas of high biodiversity and burgeoning human populations, such as Madagascar, the Brazilian rainforests, India and South Africa, are most at risk (see ‘Extinction pattern’). Humphreys says that the rates of extinction in the tropics is beyond what researchers expect, even when they account for the increased diversity of species in those habitats. And islands are particularly sensitive because they are likely to contain species found nowhere else in the world and are especially susceptible to environmental changes, says Humphreys.

‘Massive scale of destruction’

Even though the researchers carefully curated the plant extinction database, the study’s numbers are almost certainly an underestimate of the problem, says Jurriaan de Vos, a phylogeneticist at the University of Basel in Switzerland. Some plant species are “functionally extinct”, he notes, and are present only in botanical gardens or in such small numbers in the wild that researchers don’t expect the population to survive.

“You can decimate a population or reduce a population of a thousand down to one and the thing is still not extinct,” says de Vos. “But it doesn’t mean that it’s all ok.”

And few researchers have the money or time to launch a comprehensive effort to find a plant species that they think might have gone extinct. Landscapes can change a lot in a relatively short amount of time, so it’s difficult to know whether a species has truly disappeared without an extensive follow-up, de Vos says.

He recalls his own hunt through Cameroon to gather species of yellow-flowering begonias for DNA sequencing. De Vos visited several sites where records indicated that other researchers had collected the plants in decades past. But sometimes he would arrive at a site only to find a radically changed landscape.

“You know that it’s a rainforest species, but you’re standing in a city,” de Vos says. “Then you realize just how massive the scale of destruction or land-use change has been over the past 50 or 80 or 100 years.”

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Note

1. Humphreys, A. M. et al. Nature Ecol. Evol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-0906-2 (2019).

Featured image: Hawaii (pictured) has the highest recorded loss of seed-bearing plant species of anywhere in the world since 1900.Credit: Design Pics/Shutterstock

Toxic Air Leads to Premature Death in New York, Paris, London, Beijing, Berlin and Moscow

June 12th, 2019 by Hans Stehling

There is today a major health crisis due to toxic air pollution exposure in every city in Europe, America, China and around the world.

Whilst there is now some regulation that has recently been introduced to control toxic exhaust emissions there is no regulation whatsoever regarding the public’s exposure to polluting, non-exhaust, microscopic particulate matter from millions of metallised-rubber tyres and brake pads.

This particulate matter causes heart and lung disease particularly in children, also cancer and premature death. It not only damages lung growth and brain development but affects every stage of our lives.  It can cause asthma and death in susceptible children and those who are elderly.

The scale of the problem of toxic pollution exposure in every major city around the world is unknown and unappreciated. It is, without doubt, the single most important challenge to health worldwide, today. Despite this, there is no regulation either by governments or by motor manufacturers.  The urgency of the matter and the scale of the problem requires urgent action on both an international level and on a national level, globally.  This is a major, modern health crisis that is damaging all of our children who live in urban conurbations anywhere on the globe.

An estimated 1.1m tonnes of toxic tyre waste including highly dangerous, polluting particulates are discharged into the environment/atmosphere each year from a combined total of about 590 million cars currently in the United States and Europe, alone.*

Currently, the toxicity of the air that we and our children breathe, increases every day from both the nitrogen oxide (NO2) in exhaust emissions and from the highly toxic, non-exhaust particulate matter that we breathe.

It is an international scandal in which currently no government accepts a duty of care to ensure its citizens are not irreparably damaged by polluted air. We are all entitled to clean air and clean water. That is our right!

Otherwise, we ourselves, our children and our society will become more sick with every passing year.

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Hans Stehling (pen name) is an analyst based in the UK. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Note

*Where Is the One Million Tonnes of Toxic Tyre Dust and Particulates Discharged into the Environment Each Year in the US and Europe?

Featured image is from Greenpeace

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Japan’s Prime Minister Abe Is Trump’s Informal Ambassador to Iran, but He Wants More Than to Mediate

June 12th, 2019 by Andrew Korybko

Japanese Prime Minister Abe is functioning as Trump’s informal ambassador to Iran during his two day trip to the Islamic Republic, though he has much greater strategic interests in mind than just being the US President’s proxy such as expanding his island nation’s footprint in the Mideast as part of its attempt to “contain” China.

Japanese Prime Minister Abe’s trip to Iran is the first time that one of his nation’s leaders visited the Islamic Republic since its 1979 Revolution, and it carries extra significance because of how he was recently tasked by Trump to be his informal ambassador to the country. This is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the agreement that they made during their last meeting to have Abe try to encourage the Iranian leadership to re-enter into dialogue with the US, something that they vehemently refused to do after being so brazenly disrespected by the American President since the beginning of his tenure. It’s curious that the two allied leaders publicly spoke about Abe’s ambition to play this peacemaking role since other indirect channels of communication already exist between the US and Iran, so involving Japan in this process is seemingly redundant.

If one steps back and appreciates the bigger strategic picture, however, then it makes more sense why this is happening. The US and Japan are on the same page when it comes to “containing” China, with the Pentagon praising it as the “cornerstone of peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific” in its recently published “Indo-Pacific Strategy Report”. Japan has had a quiet strategic presence in the greater region ever since it opened its first-ever overseas military base in Djibouti in 2011, but it aims to do much more with American assistance. Seeing as how Iran is poised to become a joint Russian-Chinese economic condominium as the most realistic form of sanctions relief in the coming future, there’s a certain logic to Trump encouraging Japan to give the country a third choice that would indirectly tie the Islamic Republic to the Western-led unipolar system.

It might sound a bit convoluted at first listen but the fact of the matter is that Trump’s weaponization of sanctions as America’s reinvigorated form of economic warfare is highly selective and based on double standards, so it’s very possible that while his administration might sanction Russian and Chinese firms operating in Iran, they’ll probably turn a blind eye to Japanese ones doing the same. This would give Japanese companies a competitive advantage over Russia and China’s because they wouldn’t have to fear the potential isolation that would accompany primary and secondary sanctions. As such, Japan could help expand the incipient influence of the “Asia-Africa Growth Corridor” (AAGC) transregional initiative in Iran that it’s jointly constructing with India all throughout the “Indo-Pacific”, thereby laying the basis for countering China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI).

This “competitive connectivity” is at the core of the New Cold War, but it’s still a far way’s off from posing a tangible threat to China’s interests. Nevertheless, the ground is already being built for this to become a long-term challenge to China if one considers the selective application of the US’ sanctions regime (both primary and secondary) and the geostrategic importance of the Greater “Indian Ocean” Region in which this competition is poised to play out. Abe’s role as Trump’s informal Ambassador to Iran is being heavily promoted in order to justify the US turning a blind eye to the forthcoming Japanese investments in the Islamic Republic that its leader hopes to clinch during his visit. In addition, positioning Japan as the US’ preferred “mediator” with Iran is also a rebuff to the earlier offer made by China’s close partner Pakistan to fulfill this role instead.

That observation reinforces the notion that this is all about directly and indirectly “containing” China on the diplomatic, infrastructural, and overall influence fronts. Japan is China’s historic rival so supporting its presence in Iran is deliberately designed to inflame the competition between these two Asian Great Powers, with Tokyo having an edge over Beijing in the sense that its companies could possibly be exempt from American sanctions on a case-by-case basis in order to give them a competitive advantage. That said, while these are the strategic opportunities that most realistically present themselves, Trump will likely demand that Abe enter into more concessions on trade in order to be given these other economic benefits in exchange as a part of a quid-pro-quo that keeps the US calling the shots in this unipolar game.

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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.

A Russian-American-Israeli Meeting of National Security Advisors in Jerusalem: Syria and Iran on the Table

June 12th, 2019 by Elijah J. Magnier

This month of June, the National Security Advisors of Russia, the US, and Israel, Nikolay Patrushev, John Bolton and Meir Ben-Shabbat, respectively, are expected to meet in Jerusalem to talk about Iran and Syria and what Israel considers the “threat to its security” in the Levant.

Well-informed sources believe the meeting will bring nothing new, mainly due to continued Israeli violations of Syrian sovereignty and its bombing of Iranian targets far from the borders. Israel cannot expect any support from Russia in this regard, and this is why. The Kremlin’s hands are tied, and it is unwilling to take a stand against the wishes of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his allies.

However, this meeting is significant only because it has no precedent and is a concession to a request by Netanyahu to President Vladimir Putin last February during the Israeli Prime Minister’s visit to the Kremlin. Also, it shows US compliance with Netanyahu’s request to President Donald Trump during the visit to the White House last March.

High-ranking sources among decision-makers say this:

“Netanyahu runs to his allies to cry on their shoulders when he is the aggressor, as in every single problem in the Levant, particularly when the Israeli military exceeds the limits and crosses red lines. Last year, Russia agreed with Iran to create a kind of safety perimeter for the Russian military to take control along the Quneitra-Golan Heights front. That would have made it possible to ease the situation on the borders and allow President Assad and his allies to concentrate on other fronts. Iran responded positively to the Russian request, following the approval of President Assad”.

“It is important to point out that Russia is not part of and doesn’t adopt the objectives of the “Axis of the Resistance”. It has excellent relations with Israel, Iran and Hezbollah, and considers Syria a strategic ally. Moscow tries to keep a balance in its relations with the countries of the Middle East. Nevertheless, Russia has rushed to support the integrity of Syria, its government and army. It has acted as a second Syrian Air Force, bombing all Syria’s enemies and helping the Syrian government recover the control of its territory. Of course, the situation in the north-east under US occupation and the north-west under al-Qaeda-like groups and pro-Turkish militants is more complicated and confusing. The destiny of these two areas is connected and mature political and diplomatic efforts at coordination will be necessary before moving towards a military option to liberate the north”, said the decision-maker.

Concernant the Iranian deployment in Syria, the source said:

“Israel took advantage of Russian efforts and bombed Iranian positions in the heart of Syria and on the coast. These positions are valuable and linked to the organisation of the Syrian army’s strategic armaments (missile production industrial objectives and strategic military warehouses). Thus, it was Israel’s choice to change the Rule of Engagement (ROE), triggering the return of Syrian allies, i.e. Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), to the borders with the occupied Golan Heights annexed by Israel. Russia found itself in no position to intervene and prevent their return because it was Israel which dismantled what Russia had tried to achieve on these borders”.

As to why Syria and its allies did not respond to Israel’s aggressive violations of Syrian sovereignty and its bombing of hundreds of objectives in Syria, the source answered:

“Iran’s National Security responsible Admiral Ali Shamkhani has said his country and President Assad will respond by bombing objectives (in Israel) if the Israeli Air Force bombs Syria. Nothing has happened, true. The late Secretary General of Hezbollah Sayyed Abbas al-Moussawi (assassinated by Israel in 1992) used to say that it is important to concentrate on the main objectives and avoid wasting time and energy, regardless of what Israel might do. Israel’s objective is to divert attention from Syria’s main strategic goals. Today Hezbollah and the IRGC have returned to the borders and Russia is no longer in a position to ask for another withdrawal. The destiny and the front of the Shebaa Farms (a Lebanese area occupied by Israel) and the Golan Heights are intertwined, and Syria and its allies are actively working on these objectives”.

Today in Syria there are priorities which take precedence over a battle with Israel. Fighting Israel is not an option for the Syrian President even if several high-value targets have been destroyed. Israel is conscious of the situation and feels disoriented and angry even though it is aware that Syria and its allies are not willing to open a wide military front during this critical period in the Middle East. What is also highly probable is that Israel cannot expect Hezbollah and Iran to remain silent for very long.

To any ordinary observer, it looks like Israel is mocking the Syrian leadership and its allies, enjoying an unstoppable free ride in Syria with no accountability for its actions. Nevertheless, it is President Assad who believes there is no compelling reason for Syria and its allies to bomb Israel. Idlib has priority, as does the reconstruction of Syria and the delivery of fundamental necessities to its inhabitants (energy, schooling, rebuilding societies and cities). The war with Israel can wait and is going nowhere, President Assad believes.

Russia is not in a position to offer Israel what it needs, simply because Netanyahu is unreliable. Netanyahu had his opportunity and has decided to throw it out of the window, prioritising the bombing of Iranian objectives in the country. This may well reduce the Russian-American-Israeli meeting to a picture-taking opportunity. The Israeli Prime Minister will have the opportunity to take credit for staging an unprecedented meeting and will temporarily benefit from this propaganda. However, he will definitely come away empty handed.

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India Now Supports Israel at the UN against Palestine. Are They Allies?

June 12th, 2019 by Andrew Korybko

India broke with decades of its post-independence political traditions by unprecedentedly supporting “Israel” at the UN and voting against granting consultative status to a Palestinian NGO that allegedly has ties with Hamas, therefore formally allying with the self-professed “Jewish State” at the this global body and confirming that Modi’s second term in office will see his country more determinedly siding with the fading Unipolar World Order at the multipolar one’s expense.

India just made history at the UN earlier this week, but in what’s sure to be interpreted as an ignoble way by the supporters of the emerging Multipolar World Order. Encouraged by the massive mandate that he received after his resounding re-election last month, Modi gave the go-ahead for his government to break with decades of its post-independence political traditions by unprecedentedly supporting “Israel” at the global body and voting against granting consultative status to a Palestinian NGO that allegedly has ties with Hamas. The self-professed “Jewish State’s” deputy chief of mission in India praised this diplomatic pivot by tweeting “Thank you #India for standing with @IsraelinUN and rejecting the request of terrorist organization “Shahed” to obtain the status of an observer in #UN. Together we will continue to act against terrorist organizations that intend to harm”, in what certainly signifies that Modi’s second term in office will see his country more determinedly siding with the fading Unipolar World Order at the multipolar one’s expense.

India had hitherto been trying to make inroads with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), but its hopes for future progress on this front have likely been dashed by the self-inflicted soft power damage that it just did by diplomatically allying with “Israel” at the UN. Although Resistance leader Iran continues to beg India to reconsider its decision to abide by the US’ unilateral sanctions regime against it, it’ll now be doing so with the full knowledge that the South Asian state is officially one of its hated “Israeli” foes’ key allies in thwarting the attempts of the Palestinians to have a greater global voice in publicizing their plight. This would make the Islamic Republic’s further outreaches to India even more humiliating than before, possibly raising the chance that it might finally give up in order to save “face” and protect its hard-earned and very proud reputation as the world’s leading anti-Zionist state.

In parallel with this, the global pivot state of Pakistan is now by default the most prominent pro-Palestinian voice in South Asia, especially after Minister for Human Rights Dr. Shireen Mazari recently promised that her country will continue supporting the Palestinians and urged all her Muslim counterparts to do so as well. The fact of the matter is that the Palestinian and Kashmiri causes are inseparable because they’re essentially one and the same — the indigenous Muslim majority of each region have been oppressed by foreign occupiers for decades and have yet to be granted the right to democratically decide their own political futures. Actually, it’s precisely because of these interlinked conflicts that India and “Israel” initially began to ally with one another because they play the same roles in each of them. Accordingly, they’ve increased military cooperation to such a point that “Israel” is now India’s second-largest military supplier and India is “Israel’s” top arms destination.

It therefore shouldn’t be any surprise that India decided to add an official diplomatic dimension to its already-existing military-strategic alliance with “Israel” by supporting it at the UN against the Palestinians. Seeing as how the Indian side hasn’t protested the “Israeli” deputy chief of mission’s tweet thanking it for “rejecting the request of terrorist organization ‘Shahed’” and vowing that “together we will continue to act against terrorist organizations that intend to harm”, it can be logically assumed that New Delhi informally regards Hamas and all those allegedly affiliated with it as “terrorists”, which is only natural considering how fast its alliances with the US and “Israel” are progressing. As such, whether it concerns Russia, China, Iran, or even the Palestinian cause nowadays, India is no longer practicing its over-hyped policy of “multi-alignment” but is instead decisively pivoting against each of the aforesaid multipolar forces despite still clinging to this slogan in an unconvincing attempt to cover its tracks.

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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.

Featured image is from India TV

Video: The Seven Biggest Failures of Trumponomics

June 12th, 2019 by Robert Reich

Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress keep crowing about the economy, when in reality Trumponomics has been a disaster. Here are its 7 biggest failures:

1. Trump promised to bring down America’s trade deficit “as fast as possible.” Instead, the trade deficit has hit an all-time high. The United States is now purchasing more goods and services from the rest of the world than we sell abroad than at any time in history.

2. As a presidential candidate in 2016, he said he could completely eliminate the federal debt in 8 years. Instead, the federal debt has exploded thanksto Trump and the GOP’s $1.9 trillion tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. They’re already using the growing debt to threaten cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

3. He promised to boost the wages of American workers, including a $4,000 pay raise for the average American family. Instead, wages for most Americans have been flat, adjusted for inflation. Meanwhile, over the same period, corporate profits have soared and the rich have become far richer, but the gains haven’t trickled down.

4. His administration said that corporations would invest their savings from tax cuts. Instead, corporations spent more money buying back shares of their own stock in 2018 than they invested in new equipment or facilities. These stock buybacks provide no real benefit for the economy, but boost executive bonuses and payouts for wealthy investors.

5. He promised a tax cut for middle-class families. Instead most Americans will end up paying more by 2027.

6. He promised to keep jobs in America and crack down on companies that ship jobs overseas. Instead, his tax law has created financial incentives for corporations to expand their operations abroad. Trump’s trade wars have also encouraged companies like Harley Davidson to move production overseas.

7. He promised to “drain the swamp” of Washington lobbyists. Instead, he’s put them in charge of health, safety, and environmental protections–which has endangered most Americans while increasing corporate profits even further.

The real recipe for economic growth is to invest in Americans–in their health, education, job training, and infrastructure.

But Trumponomics has exploded the deficit, hurt ordinary Americans, and lined the pockets of the wealthy and corporations.

Don’t let Trump and Republicans claim otherwise.

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Robert B. Reich is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century.

Featured image is from SCF

The U.S. Has Been Eclipsed in Every Sphere but War. China’s Competitive Edge

June 12th, 2019 by Glen Ford

US rulers promised that technology would bring the return of the millions of jobs that were outsourced to low-wage countries, but America has lost the hi-tech race and excels only in weapons of war.

“The early U.S. global hi-tech lead was squandered in the chaotic and criminally wasteful corporate capitalist game of all-or-nothing.”

If you can’t pronounce Huawei (Wah-Way), then you won’t be able to explain to your grandchildren how the United States definitively lost the race for planetary technological supremacy, the last non-military contest with China that American capitalism had any chance of winning. The inherent inferiority of the chaotic U.S.-led system is now manifest – even to the thick-skulled Donald Trump, who only three months ago held off on banning U.S. companies from doing business with Huawei, the China-based world leader in 5G technology.

Back in February Trump tweeted that he wanted American companies to win the ultra-high speed mobile telecommunications race by competition and “not by blocking out currently more advanced technologies,” meaning Huawei. “American companies must step up their efforts, or get left behind. There is no reason that we should be lagging behind.” But Trump is expected to sign the Huawei banning order this week , having finally despaired of making U.S. hi-tech “great again” by peaceful means. The only card the U.S has left to play, is war.

“The inherent inferiority of the chaotic U.S.-led system is now manifest.”

The U.S. 5G eclipse by China is permanent, rooted in the systemic mayhem of the imperial economic (dis)order. Although the U.S. virtually invented the Internet as a byproduct of military technology, the early U.S. global hi-tech lead was squandered in the chaotic and criminally wasteful corporate capitalist game of all-or-nothing. As recounted by the South China Morning Post (“How US went from telecoms leader to 5G also-ran without challenger to China’s Huawei”) the U.S. refused to set national standards for mobile carriers, allowing tech companies to choose between wireless networks like TDMA, CDMA and GSM. Since 1987 — the year Huawei was founded — Europe has mandated that all its wireless systems use the GSM standard. But the Americans allowed U.S. corporations to wager billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of competing jobs on rival mobile systems. The deregulation of U.S. telecommunications in 1996 further fueled the high-tech capitalist pandemonium. “The US was like the Wild West,” said Thomas J. Lauria, a former AT&T employee, telecoms analyst and author of the book The Fall of Telecom. “Europe managed itself more contiguously than the US, they did not have a lot of disparate networks and picked the [GSM] standard that everyone had to agree to.”

“The deregulation of U.S. telecommunications in 1996 further fueled the high-tech capitalist pandemonium.”

U.S. high-tech firms fought it out among themselves tooth and nail, ignoring the GSM standard and betting that, once one of them won dominant market share and bankrupted or absorbed the others, their corporation would be king of the monopoly capitalist hill, and that U.S. global clout would then propel them to the top of the world. “In many aspects, the era from the early 1990s to mid 2000s was lost time for the US mobile industry,” said Bengt Nordstrom, chief executive of Northstream, a Stockholm-based consultancy. But in the hi-tech arena, a decade is a lifetime. The rise of China would not allow the U.S. the privilege of imperial technological resurrection.

There’s more to this story, but let’s stop right here before some of our readers start mourning the loss of jobs and capital that will result from America’s fall from preeminence in technology — the competitive edge that was supposed to compensate for the systemic outsourcing of the nation’s manufacturing jobs to the low wage South and East of the planet, including China. Throughout the nineties, Americans were told not to worry, because those gritty industrial jobs would be replaced by clean, well-paid hi-tech employment for everyone willing to learn new skills like computer programming and code-writing. But we soon discovered that most of those jobs would be outsourced, too, or performed by low-paid, hi-tech imported workers from the global South and East. Technology is not the cure for U.S. capitalism’s ills. To paraphrase a clichéd term, “It’s the system, stupid.”

“The era from the early 1990s to mid 2000s was lost time for the US mobile industry.”

Under late stage capitalism, high technology is a tool of accelerated economic consolidation — monopolization — and marginalization of workers. Armed with hi-tech tools, Jeff Bezos now wages a war of annihilation against retail commerce, one of the last remaining mass employment sectors in the U.S., while other digital oligarchs publicly proclaim their intention to deploy “the internet of things” – based on 5G technology — to wipe out much of the rest of existing employment. Silicon Valley plutocrats scheme to create a world with few workers, where trillionaire owners of technology rule. A subsistence wage would be doled out to the masses, so they can pay for hi-tech connectivity to the networks that surveil and disinform them. And that’s the least dystopian of our prospects under late stage capitalism. In a racist United States, the worst scenario is always the most likely for the descendants of Africa.

As chief executive of the U.S. capitalist (dis)order, Donald Trump will try to “make America great again” by playing the only cards remaining in the imperial deck: military coercion and the weaponized dollar. The corporate Democrats that hope to succeed Trump will rattle the same missiles and sanctions, blaming China’s command economy for the contradictions of U.S. capitalism in decline. Both corporate parties are singing the same death dirge for the nation and the world. There is only one escape: overthrow the rule of the rich. Under their reign, the U.S. is no longer the “greatest” at anything but mass incarceration, the amassing of weapons of destruction, and the maintenance of a worldwide system of surveillance that hears and watches everyone with a telephone or computer.

A Russian news analyst had an interesting take on America’s eclipse in the race for 5G: “US universal surveillance of everyone outside of America is in serious trouble.”

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BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at [email protected].

Featured image is from CGTN

Russia-China: The Summit Which the Media Ignored

June 12th, 2019 by Manlio Dinucci

On 5 June, the media projectors zeroed in on President Trump and the European leaders of NATO, who, for the anniversary of D-Day, auto-celebrated in Portsmouth “peace, freedom and democracy in Europe,” vowing to “defend them at any time, wherever they may be threatened”. The reference to Russia is clear.

The major medias have either ignored, or somewhat sarcastically relegated to the second zone, the meeting that took place on the same day in Moscow between the Presidents of Russia and China. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, for their thirtieth meeting in six years, refrained from presenting rhetorical concepts, but noted a series of facts.

The exchanges between the two countries, which last year exceeded 100 billion dollars, are now extended by approximately 30 new Chinese projects for investment in Russia, particularly in the energy sector, for a total of 22 billion dollars.

Russia has become the largest oil exporter to China, and is preparing to do the same for natural gas: the largest Eastern gas pipeline will open in December, followed by another from Siberia, plus two huge sites for the export of liquefied natural gas.

The US plan to isolate Russia by means of sanctions, also applied by the EU, combined with the cessation of Russian energy exports to Europe, will therefore be rendered useless.

Russo-Chinese collaboration will not be limited to the energy sector. Joint projects have been launched in the aero-space and other high technology sectors. The communication routes between the two countries (railway, road, river and maritime) are being heavily developed. Cultural exchanges and tourist flows are also expanding rapidly.

This is wide-scale cooperation, whose strategic vision is indicated by two decisions announced at the end of the meeting:

  • the signature of an intergovernmental agreement to extend the use of national currencies, (the rouble and the yan), to commercial exchanges and financial transactions, as an alternative to the still-dominant dollar ;
  • the intensification of efforts to integrate the New Silk Road, promoted by China, and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), promoted by Russia, with the “aim of creating a greater Eurasian partnership in the future.”

The fact that this aim is not simply economic is confirmed by the “Joint Declaration on the reinforcing of strategic world stability” signed at the end of the meeting. Russia and China share “identical or very similar positions”, which are de facto contrary to those of USA/NATO, concerning Syria, Iran, Venezuela and North Korea.

They are issuing a warning: the withdrawal by the USA from the INF Treaty (with the goal of deploying intermediate-range nuclear missiles around Russia and China) may accelerate the arms race and increase the possibility of nuclear conflict. They denounce the US refusal to endorse the total ban on nuclear testing.

They also deem “irresponsible” the fact that certain States, although they are signatories of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, practice “joint nuclear missions,” and request the “return to their national territories of all nuclear weapons deployed outside of their frontiers”.

This request directly concerns Italy and other European countries where, in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the United States have based nuclear weapons which may be used by the host countries under US command : B-61 nuclear bombs which will be replaced from 2020 by the even more dangerous B61-12’s.

The major medias have said nothing about this, but were busy on 5 June describing the splendid costumes worn by First Lady Melania Trump for the D-Day ceremonies.

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

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

Featured image: Pool, Reuters | Chinese leader Xi Jinping was in Russia from June 5 to 7.

The Last Bastion of Al Qaeda in Syria: US Propaganda Blitz Ahead of Idlib’s Liberation

June 12th, 2019 by Tony Cartalucci

A concerted effort is being made to once again flood Western headlines with now familiar and long-since discredited war propaganda as Syrian forces and their Russian and Iranian allies move in on Idlib in northern Syria to liberate it from US-backed terrorists.

A recent New York Times article titled, “Inside Syria’s Secret Torture Prisons: How Bashar al-Assad Crushed Dissent,” dusts off, combines, and repackages now nearly 8 years of Western war propaganda aimed at demonizing the Syrian government and paving way for regime change.

While the article claims it now has “memos sent to Syria’s head of military intelligence” to back up previous claims, it admits “some information was blacked out to protect the integrity of evidence for possible prosecutions.”

Yet in order to accuse a government publicly of maintaining “secret torture prisons,” evidence must be provided. Instead, the NYT presented recycled accounts from “activists” and opposition figures as well as Western-funded fronts including the “Syrian Network for Human Rights” and the  “Commission for International Justice and Accountability” (CIJA).

The CIJA in particular is claimed by NYT to have collected the alleged memos. Nothing about the CIJA’s background is provided by the NYT, nor can any website with background information be found.

However, the US government’s Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) interviewed CIJA director of investigations and operations, Chris Engels in 2018. In the interview, CIJA’s funding was discussed:

[CSCE:] Who funds CIJA? 

[Chris Engels:] We have had a number of donors over the years. Our current donors include the United Kingdom, Canada, the European Union, Germany, Demark, the Netherlands, and Norway.

Engels also openly admits that the CIJA works directly with the US government. In the interview he admits:

By design, CIJA has a strong relationship with U.S. law enforcement.

When asked if members of the US Congress have supported the work of CIJA, Engels would enthusiastically confirm so – citing proposed laws pertaining specifically to Syria.

In other words – nations committed to the overthrow of the Syrian government fund and support the CIJA’s work in Syria – casting doubt on both their integrity and their motivations. Just as the NYT would be remiss to write an entire article based on claims made by the Syrian government itself – it is remiss in uncritically reporting the claims made by its opponents.

The fact that the CIJA’s “evidence” is so heavily redacted that the NYT merely mentions it before building the rest of its article around older hearsay-accounts from its regular circle of “activists” and opposition figures, including the now notoriously discredited informant – “Caesar” – casts even further doubt.

The NYT appears to instead be contributing merely to the latest chapter of US-driven war propaganda aimed at undermining the Syrian government, protracting the Syrian conflict, and further dividing and destroying the nation.

Idlib is Al Qaeda Central  

A renewed barrage of war propaganda has been launched by the West in tandem with Syrian government efforts to move in on Idlib – the last bastion of Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist organizations west of the Euphrates River.

But it was the Western media – not the Syrian government or its Russian and Iranian allies – who have definitively exposed the overwhelming presence of terrorists in Idlib.

In 2015, it was the Wall Street Journal that reported in its article, “Assad Loses Final Idlib Stronghold to Al Qaeda-led Insurgents,” that:

After a two-year siege, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria and other insurgents on Wednesday captured the one remaining Syrian army air base in Idlib, a development that activists said effectively expelled the last of President Bashar al-Assad’s military from the northwestern province.

Since 2015, Al Qaeda and its various affiliates have expanded and consolidated their control in the region. A more recent article published earlier this year by the BBC titled, “Syria war: Jihadist takeover in rebel-held Idlib sparks alarm,” would explain (emphasis added):

The Islamic State group may have lost all its territory in Syria but a rival jihadist group has been making gains in the last remaining opposition stronghold in the north of the country – and it has got residents nervous. 

In a dramatic takeover last month, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) swept through towns and villages in Idlib province, as well as adjoining parts of Aleppo and Hama. 

The group – which was known as al-Nusra Front before it broke off formal ties with al-Qaeda three years ago – expelled some rebel factions and forced others to surrender and recognise a “civil administration” it backs.

In reality – US State Department-designated foreign terrorist organizations like al-Nusra – have dominated fighting against the Syrian government since the conflict began in 2011 with the notion of “moderate rebels” a propaganda ploy to obfuscate the true nature of US-backed militants.

And while the BBC attempts to disassociate al-Nusra from Al Qaeda in its article by claiming it “broke off formal ties” three years ago – the US State Department itself in a 2018 amendment to its terrorist designation of al-Nusra would explicitly state (emphasis added):

In January 2017, al-Nusrah Front launched the creation of HTS as a vehicle to advance its position in the Syrian uprising and to further its own goals as an al-Qa’ida affiliate. Since January 2017, the group has continued to operate through HTS in pursuit of these objectives. 

The Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Ambassador Nathan A. Sales, noted that “today’s designation serves notice that the United States is not fooled by this al-Qa’ida affiliate’s attempt to rebrand itself. Whatever name Nusrah chooses, we will continue to deny it the resources it seeks to further its violent cause.”

The candor of the US State Department’s amendment – however – is demonstratively contradicted by current, ongoing US support for the terrorists themselves as well as the current Western propaganda campaign aimed at protecting Al Qaeda under its various aliases from efforts by the Syrian government to remove them from Idlib and restore order there.

Idlib Propaganda Blitz: Barrel Bombs, Secret Torture Prisons, and Chemical Weapons 

If Idlib is admittedly overrun by terrorists – according to the West itself – then Syrian government efforts to remove them is justified.

Yet familiar themes from similar efforts aimed at preventing Syrian forces from liberating other cities and regions from terrorists are being dusted off and reused. This includes the rehabilitation of the so-called “White Helmets,” a war propaganda troupe working side-by-side Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations – often aiding and abetting war crimes including summary executions.

The “White Helmets” are also key in promoting claims of “chemical weapon attacks.” The “White Helmets” played a key role in staging the chemical weapons attack on Douma, Syria in 2018 which served as a pretext to a US-led military strike on Syrian forces.

There is also the constant din of Western propagandists citing “barrel bombs,” a term invented to describe unguided munitions – unguided munitions being neither against international conventions nor considered controversial by any standing military force, East or West – now or at any other time in the history of warfare. They are simply ordinary bombs given an ominous title in the service of otherwise dishonest Western-driven war propaganda.

The NYT’s recent article recycling stories of “secret torture prisons” seeks to lump itself in with this propaganda blitz and more should be expected to follow.

Among the propaganda there is nothing new – no new information, no new accusations, no new or inventive ways to repackage or resell it. Redacted pages of what is supposed to be “evidence” of the Syrian government’s crimes looks instead like the NYT and its Western-government funded source – the CIJA – have something to hide – not something to expose.

However – war propaganda alone cannot win a war. It can only enhance the strengths of a government or coalition who must already possess the means of winning any given war. The United States and its collaborators in its proxy war on Syria have already long-since lost. Ongoing propaganda campaigns only further undermine Washington’s credibility and the credibility of media organizations serving its agenda.

The NYT posting pictures of illegible, nearly fully redacted pages and claiming it is “evidence” comes across as self-inflicted satire.

US government and corporate foundation-funded fronts like “Human Rights Watch” repeating these dubious accusations and outright lies also indefinitely cripple their own credibility.

However dubious – ongoing propaganda still seeks to at the very least hamper and slow down Syrian security operations. The retaking of Idlib and the destruction of Al Qaeda’s last significant base of operations in the country is key to stabilizing the region.

As the US continues positioning itself for war with nearby Iran – a festering terrorist foothold like Idlib would serve as a serious liability for Iranian efforts to defend itself at home while dealing with a serious, sudden offensive launched out of Idlib against its Syrian allies.

Thus it is key to expose and confront Western war propaganda at every juncture – no matter how ineffective it appears – to minimize its impact in this war – and every other Western war of aggression to come.

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

Featured image is from NEO

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Radio Frequency Radiation (EMF) Threatens Plant and Animal Species with Extinction

June 11th, 2019 by Lisa Henkes

“Despite widespread denial, the evidence that radio frequency (RF) radiation is harmful to life is already overwhelming.” 

But in a recent BBC article, they basically did just that: completely ignored the ridiculously large volume of evidence, which any ‘respectable’ news outlet should know exists and which if reviewed, reveals the major cause of the rapid decline of biodiversity, and the potential soon-to-come total destruction of all life on Earth:

“The accumulated clinical evidence of sick and injured human beings, experimental evidence of damage to DNA, cells and organ systems in a wide variety of plants and animals, and epidemiological evidence that the major diseases of modern civilization—cancer, heart disease and diabetes—are in large part caused by electromagnetic pollution, forms a literature base of well over 10,000 peer-reviewed studies.

“If the telecommunications industry’s plans for 5G come to fruition, no person, no animal, no bird, no insect and no plant on Earth will be able to avoid exposure, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to levels of RF radiation that are tens to hundreds of times greater than what exists today, without any possibility of escape anywhere on the planet. These 5G plans threaten to provoke serious, irreversible effects on humans and permanent damage to all of the Earth’s ecosystems.”

“Damage goes well beyond the human race, as there is abundant evidence of harm to diverse plant- and wildlife and laboratory animals, including: Ants, Birds, Forests, Frogs, Fruit flies, Honey bees, Insects, Mammals, Mice, Plants, Rats, Trees.

“Negative microbiological effects have also been recorded… Effects in children include autism,  attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and asthma.“. – The International Appeal ‘Stop 5G on Earth and in Space’

“Microwave weapons expert, Barrie Trower, warns that within 3 generations only 1 in 8 children will be born healthy; and within 5 generations animals and insects will be wiped out.” – Julian Rose, “Synthetic Electric Shock”

Former UN staff editor, and co-author of The International Appeal ‘Stop 5G on Earth and in Space’, Claire Edwards, writes:

“Along with birds and insects, children are the most vulnerable to 5G depredation because of their little bodies.”

And in a recent Anti-5G rally speech in Stockholm, Edwards stated:

“It’s interesting to note that in the last 20 years we have lost 80% of our insects. And if we get 5G, we’re going to lose 100% of our insects.  When the insects go, we go too.”

Our beloved house pets have also been forced to absorb our electro pollutions. B.N. Frank, writes how “… exposure can cause various health problems in animals – including cancer.  If your pets become sick, many vets will not take exposure to any of these sources into consideration when diagnosing and treating them.  Even if you address your concerns about exposure, they may still discount research that has already proven harm.”

Hope S. Good details 22 common illnesses from which electro-smog and RF are harming our fur-babies.

The known effects continue to be evidenced, as seen in field tests this past year in The Netherlands, where dairy farmers in Stitswerd-Groningen witnessed the extreme effects 5G is creating in livestock:

“… Several hundreds of cows from the 5 dairy farmers simultaneously started running riot without a clear cause… their behavior really looked like agony, so it was not just a moment of frustration for the cows, it was really a life or death situation… the most logical conclusion is that the panic attacks are caused by the recent testing of 5G Wi-Fi in the North of Groningen, exactly where Stitswerd is located!”

“The phenomenon has occurred since last fall. “Suddenly you see that they jump and start running at the same time,” says dairy farmer Jan Oudman. “As they do, the walls of the stable are almost out. They sweat from the unrest. It’s really anxiety.”  – RTVNoord, “Wat mankeert de koeien?”

“… at The Hague, many birds died spontaneously, falling dead in a park. You likely haven’t heard a lot about this because it is being kept quiet. However, when about 150 more suddenly died – bringing the death toll to 297 – people started to notice.

“And if you are looking around that park you see what stands on the corner of the roof across the street from where they died: a new 5G mast, where they had done a test, in connection with the Dutch railway station, to see how large the range was and what environmental impact would occur on and around the station.

“If they all got heart-failure despite having healthy bodies, no signs of any virus, no bacterial infection, healthy blood, no poisons found etc. etc, then the only reasonable explanation is that it is from the new 5G Microwaves interfering with all the birds hearts! … The 5G mast heavily resonates with certain ERRATIC PULSED Microwaves (millions per second!) which can be proven to have biological effects on organs!” –Erin Elizabeth, “Unexplained Mass Bird Deaths During Dutch 5G Experiment”

Scientific Reports

“Published peer reviewed science already indicates that the current wireless technologies of 2G, 3G and 4G – in use today with our cell phones, computers and wearable tech – creates (create) radiofrequency exposures which poses (pose) a serious health risk to humans, animals and the environment. – Scientific Research on 5G, 4G Small Cells, Wireless Radiation and Health

“Future wavelengths of the electromagnetic fields used for the wireless telecommunication systems will decrease and become comparable to the body size of insects and therefore, the absorption of RF-EMFs in insects is expected to increase.” – Exposure of Insects to Radio-Frequency Electromagnetic Fields from 2 to 120 GHz

“The authors of the EKLIPSE review conclude that there is “an urgent need to strengthen the scientific basis of the knowledge on EMR and their potential impacts on wildlife. In particular, there is a need to base future research on sound, high-quality, replicable experiments so that credible, transparent and easily accessible evidence can inform society and policy-makers to make decisions and frame their policies.”

“The increase of electromagnetic radiation and its potential effects on wildlife has recently been identified by an international expert group led by Professor Bill Sutherland of Cambridge University as one of the fifteen emerging issues that could affect global biodiversity, but that are not yet well recognised by the scientific community. – (Sutherland, 2018).

“‘We apply limits to all types of pollution to protect the habitability of our environment, but as yet, even in Europe, the safe limits of electromagnetic radiation have not been determined, let alone applied.  This is a classic case of out of sight out of mind, just because humans cannot see electromagnetic radiation this does not mean that animals cannot ‘see’ the pollution or be significantly impacted at a neural or cellular level.  A proper research programme and clear policy measures are long overdue”. Said Buglife CEO Matt Shardlow.” –Buglife

Alsfonso Balmori asserts,

“Studies have shown effects in both animals and plants. Two thirds of the studies reported ecological effects. There is little research in this area and further research is needed. The technology must be safe. Controls should be introduced to mitigate the possible effects… Despite the widespread use of wireless telephone networksaround the world, authorities and researchers have paid little attention to the potential harmful effects of mobile phone radiation on wildlife. This paper briefly reviews the available scientific information on this topic and recommends further studies and specific lines of research to confirm or refute the experimental results to date. Controls must be introduced and technology rendered safe for the environment, particularly, threatened species.”  –Electrosmog and species conservation

“…Ferdinand Ruzicka, scientist and beekeeper himself, reports: “I observed a pronounced restlessness in my bee colonies (initially about 40) and a greatly increased urge to swarm. As a frame-hive beekeeper, I use a so-called high floor, the bees did not build their combs in this space in the manner prescribed by the frames, but in random fashion. In the summer, bee colonies collapsed without obvious cause. In the winter, I observed that the bees went foraging despite snow and temperatures below zero and died of cold next to the hive. Colonies that exhibited this behaviour collapsed, even though they were strong, healthy colonies with active queens before winter. They were provided with adequate additional food and the available pollen was more than adequate in autumn. The problems only materialised from the time that several transmitters were erected in the immediate vicinity of my beehives” (RUZICKA, 2003).”  –“BEES, BIRDS AND MANKIND”, Ulrich Dr. Warnke

[further published (peer-reviewed) studies on Bee Colony Collapse (BCC)]:

Margaritis LH, Manta AK, Kokkaliaris KD, et al. Drosophila oogenesis as a bio-marker responding to EMF sources. Electromagn Biol Med. 2014;33(3):165-189. doi: 10.3109/15368378.2013.800102. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23915130

Kumar NR, Sangwan S, Badotra P. Exposure to cell phone radiations produces biochemical changes in worker honey bees. Toxicol Int. 2011;18(1): 70-72.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3052591/.

“Plummeting insect numbers ‘threaten collapse of nature’: Insects could vanish within a century at current rate of decline, says global review.”

“Warning of ”ecological Armageddon” after dramatic plunge in insect numbers: Three-quarters of flying insects in nature reserves across Germany have vanished in 25 years, with serious implications for all life on Earth, scientists say.” –Damian Carrington

Conclusion

Ignoring electromagnetic radiation pollution allows corporate agendas to manifest through NGO’s “suggestions” toward global policy makers. C02 produced “climate change”, originally heralded as “global warming”, is provably caused by intentional climate manipulation.

 “All available evidence (including 750 page senate documents, presidential reports, and climate engineering patents) indicate global geoengineering/solar radiation management programs were first deployed at a significant scale in the mid 1940‘s.” –Dane Wigington

There are scores of independent scientists who have put their names and careers on the line in appeal petitions, countering the ‘science’ of the IPCC climate model used by the UN and proliferated throughout environmental groups, educational institutions, national governments and NGO agendas.

Dr. Tim Ball displays the contrived sleight of hand which created the C02 premise, and points squarely at the UN’s IPCC as the culprit.   He does it so convincingly that he was sued by three interested parties, and eventually won the 6 year-long defamation lawsuit in just a three week trial.

One final and unprovable personal observation I’d like to note: approximately 5 months ago, there suddenly appeared a new thick, solid-metal cell tower not 100 yards from my home, in a wooded suburb of the provincial capital city.  This new monstrosity is itself not 100 yards from an already long-existing taller and more traditionally seen cell tower.  Shortly after noticing the new tower, perhaps another month later, there appeared a new third tower, opposite the taller original, again not 100 yards from it.

So, these three now stand in a row, exceptionally close to residences, schools, sports fields, and a small tree-laden nature area, complete with its own tiny deer herd, jack rabbits, field rabbits, owls, hawks, musk rats, and assorted water fowl.   Except the water fowl are mysteriously missing.  We have ponds and canal banks all through the area, which in prior years were chock-full of ducks and geese and swans.  But they’re not to be found since last summer sometime.  I’ve lived here for 15 years, and am an avid lover of nature and critters, so I search as I walk.  But they’re simply not in any of their normal places.  I’ve seen a few here and there, but there are dozens suddenly missing.

The seriousness of these issues are becoming unavoidably visible and real.  We’re all busy with our lives, but it behoves us to look around and take note, and then act.  Do a bit of outside the box research; talk to neighbours and city council member; write emails to commissioners and mayors, asking uncomfortably assertive questions, because if we do nothing, EVERYTHING will change.

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Russia-Cina: il vertice che non fa notizia

June 11th, 2019 by Manlio Dinucci

I riflettori mediatici si sono focalizzati il 5 giugno sul presidente Trump e i leader europei della Nato che, nell’anniversario del D-Day, autocelebravano a Portsmouth «la pace, libertà e democrazia assicurate in Europa» impegnandosi a «difenderle in qualsiasi momento siano minacciate». Chiaro il riferimento alla Russia.

I grandi media hanno invece ignorato o relegato in secondo piano, a volte con toni sarcastici, l’incontro svoltosi lo stesso giorno a Mosca tra i presidenti di Russia e Cina. Vladimir Putin e Xi Jinping, quasi al trentesimo incontro in sei anni, hanno presentato non concetti retorici ma una serie di fatti.

L’interscambio tra i due paesi, che ha superato l’anno scorso i 100 miliardi di dollari, viene accresciuto da circa 30 nuovi progetti cinesi di investimento in Russia, in particolare nel settore energetico, per un totale di 22 miliardi.

La Russia è divenuta il maggiore esportatore di petrolio in Cina e si prepara a divenirlo anche per il gas naturale: a dicembre entrerà in funzione il grande gasdotto orientale, cui se ne aggiungerà un altro dalla Siberia, più due grossi impianti per l’esportazione di gas naturale liquefatto.

Il piano Usa di isolare la Russia con le sanzioni, attuate anche dalla Ue, e con il taglio delle esportazioni energetiche russe in Europa, viene in tal modo vanificato.

La cooperazione russo-cinese non si limita al settore energetico. Sono stati varati progetti congiunti in campo aerospaziale e altri settori ad alta tecnologia. Si stanno potenziando le vie di comunicazione ferroviarie, stradali, fluviali e marittime tra i due paesi. In forte aumento anche gli scambi culturali e i flussi turistici.

Una cooperazione a tutto campo, la cui visione strategica emerge da due decisioni annunciate al termine dell’incontro: la firma di un accordo intergovernativo per espandere l’uso delle monete nazionali, il rublo e losyuan, negli scambi commerciali e nelle transazioni finanziarie, in alternativa al dollaro ancora dominante; l’intensificazione degli sforzi per integrare la Nuova Via della Seta, promossa dalla Cina, e l’Unione economica eurasiatica, promossa dalla Russia, con «la visione di formare in futuro una più grande partnership eurasiatica».

Che tale visione non sia semplicemente economica lo conferma la «Dichiarazione congiunta sul rafforzamento della stabilità strategica globale» firmata al termine dell’incontro. Russia e Cina hanno «posizioni identiche o molto vicine», di fatto contrarie a quelle Usa/Nato, riguardo a Siria, Iran, Venezuela e Corea del Nord.

Avvertono che il ritiro degli Usa dal Trattato Inf (allo scopo di schierare missili nucleari a raggio intermedio a ridosso sia della Russia che della Cina) può accelerare la corsa agli armamenti e accrescere la possibilità di un conflitto nucleare. Denunciano la decisione Usa di non ratificare il Trattato sulla messa al bando totale degli esperimenti nucleari e di preparare il sito per possibili test nucleari.

Dichiarano «irresponsabile» il fatto che alcuni Stati, pur aderendo al Trattato di non-proliferazione, attuino «missioni nucleari congiunte» e richiedono loro «il rientro nei territori nazionali di tutte le armi nucleari schierate fuori dai confini».

Una richiesta che riguarda direttamente l’Italia e gli altri paesi europei dove, violando il Trattato di non-proliferazione, gli Stati uniti hanno schierato armi nucleari utilizzabili anche dai paesi ospiti sotto comando Usa: le bombe nucleari B-61 che saranno sostituite dal 2020 dalle ancora più pericolose B61-12.

Di tutto questo non hanno parlato i grandi media, che il 5 giugno erano impegnati a descrivere le splendide toilettes della First Lady Melania Trump alle cerimonie del D-Day.

Manlio Dinucci

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Canada’s ‘Liberals’ Have a Disturbing Imperial Streak, Express Support for Regime Change in Venezuela

June 11th, 2019 by Prof. Vijay Prashad

Canada’s embassy in Venezuela will—at the end of this month—close. The spur for this closure is an open attempt by Canada’s Justin Trudeau to overthrow Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. Canada is one of the leaders of the Lima Group, a network of countries that came together in 2017 with the express purpose of regime change in Venezuela. Canada’s diplomatic corps has played the role of facilitator for the Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó. Trudeau and Guaidó speak regularly. Their plot against Venezuela thickens.

The Canadian government held the meeting of the Lima Group this year. It helped organize the speaking tours of Venezuelan opposition figures. But, most controversially, Canada’s ambassador to Venezuela—Ben Rowswell—held an annual dinner and delivered a human rights award to people who amplified the voices of those opposed to the Bolivarian Revolution.

“The tradition here,” Rowswell said sanctimoniously, “is that Canada believes in the principles of human rights and democracy and takes pragmatic measures on the ground to unblock political situations.”

Unblock political situations is a uniquely Canadian way of saying promoting regime change.

Venezuela has been—as the most recent dossier from Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research argues—the target of a hybrid war. Canada has not been a bystander in this hybrid war, but it has functioned to give the entire maneuver the sheen of Canadian liberalism.

Canadian Weapons

Countries work hard to protect and promote their self-image. No state likes to be associated—for instance—with arms sales. Sweden, which gives out the Nobel Peace Prize, and Switzerland, which promotes itself as a neutral country, are leading sellers of arms—both in the top twenty list. Canada sells fewer arms than Switzerland and Sweden, but the places that it sells arms to should raise eyebrows.

For all the talk of “human rights” and for all the hoopla about the human rights award from the Canadian embassy in Caracas, it is Canada’s Justin Trudeau who championed a $15 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia despite the many criticisms of the Saudi war on Yemen. It is one thing to talk about human rights. It is another to live by that credo. Canada does not.

The Canada-Saudi arms deal did not take place in another century. It was signed in 2014 and executed this year by the liberal government of Trudeau. The list of arms sold to Saudi Arabia by Canada’s General Dynamics Land Systems includes the kind of Canadian-made weapons that Saudi Arabia is already using against the people of Yemen. It is quite one thing for a pompous Canadian Parliament to sanction people associated with the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi (as they did in November last year) and another to sell arms to a regime that has killed thousands of civilians in a brutal and unending war.

Evidence of the brutality of the Saudi war does not necessarily need to be assembled for the Canadian foreign ministry. In July 2017, Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said that she was “deeply concerned” by the videos of Canadian weaponry used against the Yemeni people.

“If it is found that Canadian exports have been used to commit serious violations of human rights,” said the Canadian foreign ministry, then Canada “will take action.”

This is a curious standard. Only if Canadian weaponry is used to commit violations is this a concern. It is acceptable to sell weaponry to a country that is in the midst of prosecuting an inhumane war.

In June 2018, the Canadian Parliament’s Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights produced a key report. Three Canadian senators—a liberal, a conservative and an independent—found that “even though the Government of Canada advocates for the protection of human security abroad, it too often appears willing to compromise its values in order to advance economic and other foreign policy interests.” In this report, the senators note that it is more than likely that Canadian weaponry was used by Saudi Arabia against the Bahraini population in 2011 and against the Saudi public. This—the standard developed by Freeland and underscored by the Canadian Senate—did not bother Freeland’s department when it eventually provided export licenses.

No need to unblock the political situation in Saudi Arabia. No talk of “principles of human rights and democracy” when “Made in Canada” becomes the last phrase seen by a Yemeni child before the lights go out.

Canadian Mining

If you think about Canada, you don’t always think about mining companies and their human rights violations.

But these mining companies play a fundamental role in driving much of Canadian foreign policy, notably when it comes to South America, Africa and Southern Asia. Some of the world’s largest mining firms—as is noted in this briefing from Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research—are Canadian. Many of them operate in South America.

From one end of Latin America to another, Canadian mining companies have been involved in scandals upon scandals. The Working Group on Mining and Human Rights in Latin America filed a report with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that is damning. “The Impact of Canadian Mining in Latin America and Canada’s Responsibility” (2014) should have shaped the way the world sees Canada. But it has had almost no impact.

The report notes that “the mining sector plays a fundamental role in the Canadian government’s efforts” in Latin America, to the extent of interference in the domestic affairs of a number of countries. In Colombia, Honduras and Peru, the Canadian government drove the drafting of the mining policies.

Anger at Venezuela has got to be understood in terms of Canada’s mining interests. In 2007, Barrick Gold’s Peter Munk wrote a letter to the Financial Times that summarized the view of the entire Canadian mining sector toward Venezuela. The letter called Hugo Chávez a “dangerous dictator” and called for intervention—“let us not give President Chávez a chance to do the same step-by-step transformation of Venezuela.” What bothered Munk and his class of mining executives was Venezuela’s push against foreign firms that sought to drain the wealth from countries like Venezuela.

Why was Munk so annoyed? Chávez’s government had just pushed for foreign companies to surrender their majority control over Venezuela’s oil reserves. This bothered Munk, but he was not alone. Canadian embassy officials in Venezuela told James Rochlin, a professor of the University of British Columbia, that they felt “burned” by Chávez. The Canadian government began to get cozy with Colombia against Venezuela. The roots of the Lima Group go back to the anger of the mining firms with Chávez’s desire to use Venezuela’s resources for the Venezuelan people. The Canadian mining bosses and the Canadian government wanted the Bolivarian Revolution overthrown so that they could take advantage of Venezuela’s resources.

So much for high-minded principles. For those who want to understand Canada’s foreign policy, don’t spend years studying its human rights statements. Put your hand into the dirt, touch the ore under the soil—that’s where Canadian foreign policy is rooted.

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This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT. His most recent book, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, won the Muzaffar Ahmad Book Prize for 2009; Red Star Over the Third World (LeftWord, 2017) and The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution (University of California Press, 2016); and the Chief Editor of LeftWord Books.

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Media Paints Jihadist Commander Who Pledged Allegiance to ISIS as a Soccer Star with the Voice of an Angel

June 11th, 2019 by Alexander Rubinstein

If you’ve read the headlines about the death of “Syrian activist” Abdel Basset al-Sarout, you probably think he was a pretty cool guy. Headlines referring to him as a “Syrian footballer, singer and rebel” make him seem like he could have been the love child of Pelé and Freddie Mercury with the politics of Che Guevara.

Sarout may have sang, played soccer, and rebelled, but he was certainly no peace-loving hippie. A more accurate version for the descriptor would read “Syrian footballer, singer [of al-Qaeda’s hymns] and [CIA-backed jihadist] rebel [commander].”

Sing it with me: “The World Trade Center is a pile of rubble.”

It is true that Sarout, as the media suggests, became the face of the revolution. So, fittingly, Sarout sang songs glorifying al-Qaeda’s destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City, a terrorist attack that left 3,000 innocent civilians dead.

In one video, Sarout led a group of America’s beloved “moderate rebels” in singing al-Qaeda’s most famous song:

We destroyed America with a civilian airliner. The World Trade Center is a pile of rubble. The World Trade Center is a pile of rubble.”

Osama Bin Laden — the one who terrorizes America. With the strength of our faith and our weapon is the PIKA [PK machine gun]. With the strength of our faith and our weapon is the PIKA.”

In another video, Sarout is among a group singing about how they intend to kill Alawites, a religious minority to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs:

If they say terrorist, it is an honor to me. Our terrorism is a blessing and a divine call. Alawite police, be patient, oh Alawites. We are coming to slaughter you without an agreement.”

In other videos, Sarout calls not just for genocide against the Syrian Alawite minority but also for the expulsion of Shias:

We are all jihadists! Homs has taken the decision. We want to exterminate the Alawites. Shias must leave!”

That was from a rally in Homs, Syria, where Sarout made a name for himself as a supposed “rebel icon.” Shortly before he left the city before it was liberated by the government, Sarout recorded a video of his analysis of where the opposition to Assad should go next. In it, he calls for an alliance between the rebel groups of Homs and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate, and Daesh.

We know that these two groups are not politicized and have the same goals as us and are working for God and that they care about Islam and Muslims. Unfortunately some among them consider us apostates and drug addicts, but God willing we will work shoulder to shoulder with them when we leave [Homs].

We are not Christians or Shia, afraid of suicide belts and car bombs. We consider those to be strengths of ours. God willing they will be just that. This message is to the Islamic State and our brothers in Jabhat al-Nusra: that when we come out [of Homs] we will all be as one, hand fighting Christians and not fighting internally.”

After leaving Homs, Sarout went even further than before, personally pledging allegiance to ISIS, according to an Al-Jazeera Arabic report. Photos even show him holding their infamous flag.

Sarout would go on to become a commander in the Jaysh al-Izza (Army of Glory) group. Once a branch of the nebulous Free Syrian Army, Jaysh al-Izza was reportedly supported by the Central Intelligence Agency with training and equipment under its program. Weapons supplied to the group reportedly include anti-tank missiles. Underscoring Jaysh al-Izza’s close relationship with Jabhat al-Nusra, which later rebranded as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), HTS has reportedly used the CIA-supplied weapons in its fighting with the Syrian government and bombings against civilians.

From pledging allegiance to ISIS to “rebel icon”: anatomy of the media’s whitewashing

Despite his terrorist affiliations, the mainstream media has rewritten Sarout’s legacy to their liking. Even al-Jazeera, which reported Sarout’s pledge to ISIS, called him a “rebel icon” in its English-language video report on his death. That video made no mention of any of Sarout’s terrorist ties.

Other news outlets from gulf petro-monarchies funding the proxy war on Syria even call Sarout a “martyr.” Meanwhile, an analysis from Israel’s Haaretz newspaper worried over the fate of other “fighting poets.” While the BBC’s headline played it straight, opting to just provide his name and that he died, the British public broadcaster called him “a symbol of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad” and quoted another commander in Jaish al-Izza calling him a “martyr” in the article’s body.

Did media fact-checkers all take the day off?

Below are a sample of headlines whitewashing Sarout’s jihadist “activism:”

American publications:

New York Times — Syrian Soccer Star, Symbol of Revolt, Dies After Battle

The Daily Beast — Syrian Soccer Goalie and Rebel Icon Killed in Northwestern Syria

NBC News — ‘Guardian of freedom’: Syrian soccer goalie who became rebel icon dies in battle

SFGate — Soccer goalie who joined Syrian rebel fighters dies in battle

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — World briefs: Syrian soccer goalie who became rebel icon dies in battle

Israeli publications:

Haaretz — The Syrian Nightingale Is Dead, and Soon Other Fighting Poets May Be Silenced

Haaretz — Syrian Soccer Player and Icon of anti-Assad Movement Dies From Battle Wound

Jerusalem Post — Star Footballer Turned Rebel Icon Dies in Syria Fighting

Times of Israel — Hundreds attend funeral of Syrian soccer goalkeeper who became rebel icon

British publications:

Daily Mail — Hundreds of mourners attend funeral of Syrian goalkeeper who became figurehead of the opposition before being killed by Bashar al-Assad’s forces

The Guardian — Syrian footballer and ‘singer of revolution’ killed in conflict

Middle East Eye — Syrian footballer, singer and rebel Abd al-Basset al-Sarout killed in northern Syria

United Arab Emirates publications:

The National — Abdelbaset Sarout: Syria’s ‘singer of the revolution’ dies defending Idlib

The National –– Abdelbaset Sarout: showman Syrian rebel who declined adulation

Wire services (publications that provide other outlets with syndicated services, allowing them reprint their articles):

Reuters — Syrian rebel town buries goalie who became ‘singer of the revolution’

Associated Press — Syrian soccer goalie who became rebel icon dies in battle

Rudaw (Kurdish publication) via Agency France Presse — Syrian soccer goalkeeper killed in Idlib clashes — Rudaw

Turkish publications:

Anadolu Agency — Syrian revolution hero martyred after Hama clashes

Daily Sabah — Hero of Syrian revolution killed after Hama clashes

Hong Kong:

South China Morning Post — Abdelbasset Sarout, star soccer player turned rebel icon, dies in Syria fighting

Qatar:

Al Jazeera — Syrian goalkeeper who became rebel icon dies in Hama battle

While Sarout’s open calls for genocide and sectarianism were totally whitewashed by the press, his case takes its place in a long tradition of deception regarding the proxy war. In perhaps the most sophisticated propaganda campaign in the history of modern warfare, Syria’s White Helmets have worked hand-in-glove with jihadists while on the payroll of Western governments, while Western journalists have upheld ISIS recruiters as “experts” on the war. Sarout’s death is a sober reminder that citizens must fact check the media, since they refuse to do it themselves.

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

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Asylum-Seeking Children from Central America Suffer Multi-Dimensional, Recurrent, Sustained Trauma

June 11th, 2019 by Physicians for Human Rights

Since 2014, the number of children arriving at the U.S. border has risen dramatically, as unaccompanied children, adolescents, and young families have fled gang and other forms of violence in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. In a new report, “There Is No One Here to Protect You: Trauma Among Children Fleeing Violence in Central America,” Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) presents the first case series of child and adolescent asylum seekers arriving in the United States, detailing their trauma experiences and resulting negative health outcomes. The report demonstrates the acute physical and psychological impact of domestic, gang, and gender-based violence on these children, as well as the failure of authorities in their home countries to provide effective protection or to prosecute abusers. The findings in this report and the relevant legal standards demand an effective and humane policy response both in countries of origin, to prevent the violation of child rights, and in the United States, to fairly recognize claims of persecution and end practices that expose these young migrants to further trauma.

The report is based on forensic evaluations of 183 individuals age 18 or under conducted by PHR’s Asylum Network, a national network of expert volunteer clinicians who evaluate individual cases of physical and psychological trauma from torture or persecution experienced by asylum seekers involved in U.S. immigration proceedings. The report’s findings identify the features of an escalating child rights crisis, from persecution in countries of origin to compounding trauma experienced by the children while in transit and at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Children are being met at the U.S. border with harsh, punitive policies that both violate their rights and severely affect their wellbeing,” said Kathryn Hampton, PHR’s network program officer, who coordinates the Asylum Network. “U.S. immigration officials have justified such policies in the name of deterrence. However, if violence is a major factor driving children to seek refuge in the United States – as demonstrated by the people PHR’s clinicians evaluated, and whose cases were utilized for this study – harsh border enforcement will not serve as an effective deterrent and will only cause more harm to an already traumatized population.”

The report analyzes data from child and adolescent asylum seekers who recount experiences of extreme violence and sexual abuse at the hands of gangs, family members, and even law enforcement in their home countries. Children reported being forced to join gangs or be murdered, told to kill their families if they did not want to be killed by gang members, or forced to endure sexual assault at the hands of gang members or their own family members. With states’ consistent failure to protect children, investigate crimes, or prosecute or punish perpetrators, and the existence of both gang intimidation of police as well as gang infiltration into the police, the children expressed fear and lack of trust in local authorities.

One young woman “reports having been beaten all over her body including her head, being dragged through the woods, being tied to her friends, blindfolded and raped by multiple people.”

Among the children evaluated, the vast majority were from the Northern Triangle countries (89 percent). 78 percent of the children evaluated reported that they survived direct physical violence. Eighteen percent reported surviving sexual violence, 71 percent experienced threats of violence or death, and 59 percent witnessed acts of violence. This violence was most often gang-related (60 percent), but a significant portion of children (47 percent) faced violence perpetrated by family members. PHR’s clinicians documented negative physical aftereffects of this abuse, including severe head injuries and musculoskeletal, pelvic, and dermatologic trauma. More than three quarters (76 percent) of children were suspected to have or were diagnosed with at least one major mental health issue, including post-traumatic stress disorder (64 percent), major depressive disorder (40 percent), and anxiety disorder (19 percent). These statistics show that these children experience not only experience high rates of trauma, but often are subjected to multiple forms of trauma by multiple perpetrators. These results add additional context for the extraordinary suffering and abuse described in our qualitative findings.

PHR’s research shows that children arriving in the United States are fleeing severe forms of harm which may amount to persecution if their home government is unable or unwilling to control the perpetrators, and if their persecution is based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. In accordance with international and U.S. law, people with a credible fear of persecution arriving at the U.S. border have the legal right to apply for asylum. Child asylum seekers are entitled to additional protections, including accommodations in the asylum process which consider their level of development and maturity and their specific health and mental health needs.

Dr. Joseph Shin, co-medical director of the Weill Cornell Center for Human Rights, said that obtaining asylum in the United States offered significant relief for children.

“Despite the extreme trauma these children have experienced, and the resulting developmental, psychological, and physical harm, many demonstrated remarkable resilience and significant physical and psychological improvement once they were safe from physical harm and had the opportunity to begin rebuilding their lives in the United States.”

The report includes comprehensive recommendations to U.S. government agencies, Congress, the governments of Northern Triangle countries, international refugee and migration bodies, and international bodies mandated to protect children’s rights.

PHR advises the U.S. administration to safeguard access to asylum in order to meet immediate protection needs of asylum seekers, as well as maintain aid to Northern Triangle countries to address gang-related violence, corruption, and impunity. PHR calls on the administration to ensure that all children receive pediatric medical screening on arrival and uphold child protection standards in custody, prioritizing least restrictive settings and increasing use of alternatives to detention. It is not safe for any child to be detained for longer than 24 hours in Customs and Border Protection holding cells. Children should be transferred to enhanced reception centers with access to appropriate medical care and other essential services, from which they should be released within 20 days as per the Flores settlement agreement.

PHR calls on the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico to ensure resources for violence prevention measures as well as resources to investigate, prosecute, and punish violent acts committed by state and non-state actors, while ensuring due process protections for the accused, and establishing or maintaining independent investigatory bodies to address corruption and impunity.

The remainder of the recommendations can be found in the report.

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Beijing’s Strategic Option? China Reduces Its Exports of “Rare Earths”

June 11th, 2019 by Stephen Lendman

Rare earths are essential to the production of high-tech and other products. China is the world’s leading producer by far. See below.

According to the US Geological Survey (USGS),

“(r)are-earth elements (REE) are necessary components of more than 200 products across a wide range of applications, especially high-tech consumer products, such as cellular telephones, computer hard drives, electric and hybrid vehicles, and flat-screen monitors and televisions,” adding:

“Significant defense applications include electronic displays, guidance systems, lasers, and radar and sonar systems.”

REEs are essential for the above products, devices, and systems to work. In the early 1990s, China accounted for 38% of world production, the US 33%, Australia 12%, India, Malaysia, and several other countries the remainder.

According to the USGS,

“in 2008, China accounted for more than 90 percent of world production of REEs, and by 2011, China accounted for 97 percent of world production.”

While these figures may be overstated, it’s clear that users of REEs are heavily dependent on China as a supplier, by far the world’s largest producer, refiner, and exporter.

According to China’s General Administration of Customs data, REE exports from January through May were 7.2% less than the comparable 2018 period.

In May, they were down 16% from the year ago period, the decline likely related to the Trump regime’s trade war with China, the US by far the world’s leading importer of these elements.

It produces around 20% of its REE needs, making it heavily dependent on imports gotten mainly from China.

According to US International Trade Commission figures, China supplied 59% of REE imports to American users in 2018. The USGS said China accounts for around 80% of US imports of rare earths.

Last week, a US Commerce Department report discussed measures Washington is taking to reduce its “strategic vulnerabilities” caused by dependence on imports of rare earths and other essential materials.

Secretary Wilbur Ross said the Trump regime “will take unprecedented action to ensure that the United States will not be cut off from these vital materials.”

Rare earths are abundant but hard to mine because they’re available as compounds and oxides, the process expensive and environmentally harmful.

According to the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency’s Jason Nie, a material engineer, talks are being held with REE miners in Malawi and Burundi, an effort to reduce the dependence on China as a key supplier. Yet these countries can only supply a small portion of US needs.

Cutting off supplies to the US by China would be what analysts call Beijing’s “nuclear option.” It wants normal relations with the US and other nations — short of sacrificing its sovereign rights to achieve them.

It’s prepared to respond as it considers necessary to unacceptable Trump regime actions. Imposing 25% or higher duties on all Chinese exports to the US would be his nuclear option, what he threatened if Beijing doesn’t yield to his demands.

In late May, a Chinese economic planning agency official warned that

“if anyone were to use products that are made with the rare earths that we export to curb the development of China, then the people of (south Jiangxi province where rare earths are mined), as well as all the rest of the Chinese people, would be unhappy.”

Editor-in-chief of China’s Global Times Hu Xijin tweeted:

“Based on what I know, China is seriously considering restricting rare earth exports to the US. China may also take other countermeasures in the future” to retaliate if the Trump regime goes too far.

China considers REEs a strategic resource, most world users heavily dependent on the country as a supplier.

US policy toward China is all about containing the country economically, financially, technologically, and militarily, what Trump’s trade war aims to achieve, seeking US hegemonic control over its part of the world and everywhere else.

Wanting China’s sovereign rights subordinated to US interests is an objective doomed to fail. It risks confrontation if things are pushed too far.

The same goes for Russia and Iran. Washington’s aim for dominance over other nations, their resources and populations risks possible global war.

Major media ignore the greatest threat of our time, what could happen by accident or design.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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Top Brazilian Judge Clears for Trial Lula’s Request for Freedom

June 11th, 2019 by Telesur

The Supreme Federal Court (STF) judge, Gilmar Mendes, cleared for trial on Monday the request for freedom of former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, according to Brazilian media. 

The habeas corpus (HC) was presented by Lula’s defense last year when then-judge Sergio Moro accepted Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s appointment to lead the Justice Ministry. This time around it is expected that the request will be analyzed on Tuesday or June 25, by a Second Panel of the STF.

The procedure had already entered the agenda of the Supreme Court on December 2018, yet the trial was suspended on December 4 after Mendes requested a hearing. At the time of the halt, the score was two votes against Lula’s HC by rapporteur Edson Fachin and judge Carmen Lucia.

With the partial vote, and as the trial has been cleared, judges Mendes, Celso de Mello, and Ricardo Lewandowski still have to vote.

According to Brazilian journalist and analyst, Breno Altman, the result of the vote presented by Lula’s lawyers will be 2-2 tomorrow, with the decision falling on the hands of justice de Mello.

Another request for Lula’s release, which questions the performance of Lava Jato’s judge at the STJ, Felix Fischer, also entered the Supreme Court’s agenda on Tuesday.  Mendes asked for a judgment in the plenary session.

The recent update on Lula’s case comes a day later The Intercept Brazil published an extensive and hard-hitting expose on the alleged political motivations behind Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato) task force against the former president and the Worker’s Party (PT), as well as the unethical involvement of current Minister of Justice, Moro.

The documents were released in a three-part series where according to The Intercept, it is proven, based on leaked documents and Telegram messages between prosecutors and Moro that the “apolitical” and “unbiased” team spent hours internally plotting how to prevent the return to power by Lula and his party. As well as the lack of hard and documented evidence to establish a case against the former head of state. ​​

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America’s “Gun Violence Archive”. Data on Incidents and Casualties, Geographic Distribution

June 11th, 2019 by Gun Violence Archive

The Gun Violence Archive is an online archive of gun violence incidents collected from over 2,500  law enforcement, media, government and commercial sources daily in an effort to provide near-real time data about the results of gun violence.

GVA is an independent data collection and research group with no affiliation with any advocacy organization.

Below are selected charts from the Archive.

For more information, access the complete archive.

Geographic Distribution

Incidents in 2019

Incidents in 2019

Number of Deaths in 2019

Number of Deaths in 2019

Read more on gun violence, access the complete archive.

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Here’s Why the US Has No Right to Interfere in Nicaragua

June 11th, 2019 by John Perry

It’s been almost 200 years since the US declared that it would allow no more European colonies in the western hemisphere. A 100 years later this was twisted into a declaration that Latin America is exclusively the US’s sphere of influence, giving it a self-proclaimed right to interfere in other countries’ affairs.

The ‘Monroe Doctrine’, as it was known, deservedly fell into disrepute. But under President Trump it’s been revived. John Bolton, his national security adviser, announced in April that ‘the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well’. In May, he went even further: ‘This is our hemisphere!’ he told reporters after the failed coup in Venezuela.

‘Troika of tyranny’

The new version of the doctrine gives it a further twist. Bolton now claims to stand in defence of ‘democracy, sovereignty, security, and the rule of law’, aiming to make the Americas ‘free’ from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Of course, he’s the one who decides what ‘free’ means.

It won’t, for example, mean withdrawing support from a Honduran president who won a fraudulent election a year ago and runs one of the most repressive regimes in Latin America. Why? Because he is a Trump ally. No, Bolton intends to focus on what he calls the ‘troika of tyranny’: Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, all the subject of sanctions because their heads of state are ‘the three stooges of socialism’ who look to Russia and China for support rather than the US.

So Trump has reversed most of the reforms initiated by Obama in US-Cuba relations, recognised an unelected head of state in Venezuela and blocked loans from international agencies for poverty-reducing projects in Nicaragua.

Of the three countries in Bolton’s ‘troika’ the oddest is Nicaragua. It has a president, Daniel Ortega, who won an election in 2016 recognised as fair by the Organization of American States; unlike its northern neighbours it barely contributes to the ‘migrant caravans’ that so annoy Trump and it effectively inhibits drug smuggling. Until a year ago it was also the safest country in the region.

Return of the Reaganites

What angers Bolton (and his special envoy Elliott Abrams) is Ortega himself. Bolton was part of the Reagan administration and helped to find ways to hide the funding of the ‘Contras’ that were attacking Nicaragua’s Sandinista government in the 1980s; Abrams was indicted for his role in covering up that scandal but was later pardoned by Reagan’s successor, President Bush. For both of them, a resuscitated Monroe Doctrine is not about freedom, it’s about getting rid of leftist governments.

Because this is what is at stake in Nicaragua. Ortega may have stretched the country’s constitution by standing for a third successive term of office, and he endorsed the ban on abortion, but even his enemies can’t deny that he’s systematically reduced poverty, has achieved the lowest inequality levels in Central America and fifth-highest ranking for the gender gap in the world according to the World Economic Forum, reduced illiteracy and increased life expectancy.

He ended the daily power cuts that occurred under his predecessor while doubling the proportion of homes that have electricity. Nicaragua is now one of eleven countries said to be leading the charge on renewable energy, aiming for its electricity supply to be 90 per cent renewable within the next year.

Settling old scores

Rather than pursuing freedom, it’s pretty obvious that Bolton and Abrams are settling historic scores. Ortega bounced back from electoral defeat in 1990, so now he’s denounced as a brutal dictator. Yet the US administration is targeting sanctions not just at Ortega himself but at the programmes funded by the World Bank and other agencies that have been part of his drive to end extreme poverty.

Far stranger than the Trump administration’s policies, though, is that they are encouraged by progressive media, international NGOs and a good proportion of leftist opinion in both the US and Europe. How has this come about?

Ortega’s opponents in Nicaragua itself have never mustered much support in elections. So for several years they’ve instead accepted US funding for programmes that ‘promote democracy’ but which instead undermine it. As the website Global Americans put it (it’s funded partly by the Reagan-established National Endowment for Democracy), they were ‘laying the groundwork for insurrection’.

When student protests took place in Nicaragua last April against government social security reforms, US-funded NGOs were ready to manipulate social media to make sure the unrest spread as quickly as possible. Not only did this succeed, but international media bought wholesale the stories of ‘peaceful’ protesters suffering government attacks.

This continued even when the ‘peaceful’ protesters set up roadblocks in major cities and highways and began to kidnap, torture and kill police and government supporters (providing the evidence via their own horrific social media posts). It took until mid-July for the government to regain control. The conflict produced 253 deaths, including 22 police, 31 protesters (half were students), 48 Sandinista supporters and 152 members of the public.

By then, whatever popular support the protesters had gained had been largely lost after people had experienced the violence of the roadblocks. Not only that, but after the leaders of the protest had demanded Ortega’s immediate resignation they travelled to the US where they were welcomed by rightwing Republicans like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and, of course, by the Trump administration itself.

Given the history of US intervention in Nicaragua, such tactics were doomed to cost the opposition much of their local support. Since last year, opposition protests have dwindled, the violence has largely ended and Nicaragua has returned to something like normality. Since February, a ‘national dialogue’ has resumed between government and opposition, which is steadily implementing a programme of reforms.

Last leftist standing

This is all well and good, but these developments are largely ignored by the international media and much of the Left. Headlines like The Guardian’s Ortega clings to power still appear even as a respected opinion poll showed he has support from 55 per cent of the population. Amnesty International campaigns for the release of those arrested in the protests while refusing to acknowledge that any were responsible for violence (such as the attack on a police station in Morrito on 12 July, which left five dead and in which nine were kidnapped).

Even New Internationalist, when it says that Nicaragua’s good guys have turned bad, refers to the Sandinistas but not to the opposition thugs who may have tortured them. Supporters of the protests who don’t live in Nicaragua have been blinded into thinking the opposition still has widespread support. It doesn’t. But the message that Ortega is a repressive dictator is music to the ears of Bolton, Abrams and the others who want to extinguish one of the few remaining leftwing governments in Latin America.

Correction: this article originally misstated John Bolton’s moniker for Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela; it is ‘troika of tyranny’, not ‘troika of terror’. 

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Repeal the Espionage Act

June 11th, 2019 by Jacob G. Hornberger

World War I is the gift that just keeps on giving. Although the U.S. government’s intervention into this senseless, immoral, and destructive war occurred 100 years ago, the adverse effects of the war continue to besiege our nation. Among the most notable examples is the Espionage Act, a tyrannical law that was enacted two months after the U.S. entered the war and which, unfortunately, remained on the books after the war came to an end. In fact, it is that World War I relic that U.S. officials are now relying on to secure the criminal indictment of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks head who released a mountain of evidence disclosing the inner workings and grave wrongdoing on the part of the U.S. national-security establishment, especially with respect to the manner in which it has waged it undeclared forever wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Some news media commentators are finally coming to the realization that if the Espionage Act can be enforced against Assange for what he did, it can be enforced against anyone in the press for revealing damaging inside information about the national-security establishment — i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA. Therefore, they are calling on the Justice Department to cease and desist from its prosecution of Assange.

Of course, they are right, but the problem is that they don’t go far enough. Their mindsets reflect the customary acceptance of the status quo. The mindset is that we Americans simply have to accept the way things are and plead with the government to go easy on us.

That’s just plain nonsense. It is incumbent on the American people to start thinking at a high level, one that doesn’t just accept the existence of tyrannical laws and instead calls for their repeal. After all, isn’t that what our Declaration of Independence says — that when government becomes destructive of the legitimate ends for which it was formed, it is the right of the people to alter or even abolish it and form new government?

What does that mean with respect to the Espionage Act? It means that the law should simply be repealed and that Americans need to start demanding repeal rather than simply pleading with the Justice Department to enforce it in a more judicious manner.

Let’s keep in mind that the law is the fruit of a rotten foreign intervention. Hardly anyone defends the U.S. intervention into World War I. That war was, quite simply, none of the U.S. government’s business. President Wilson, however, was hell-bent on embroiling the U.S. in the conflict. Wilson believed that if the force of the U.S. government could be used to totally defeat Germany, this would be the war to finally end all wars and to make the world safe for democracy.

Wilson’s mindset, of course, was lunacy. Sure enough, the U.S. intervention resulted in Germany’s total defeat, which was then followed by the vengeful Treaty of Versailles, which Adolf Hitler would use to justify his rise to power. Nazism and World War II soon followed. So much for the war to end all wars and to make the world safe for democracy. Tens of thousands of American men were sacrificed for nothing.

Moreover, Wilson had to force American men to fight in World War I. He conscripted them. Enslaved would be a better word. When a government has to force its citizens to fight a particular war, that’s a good sign that it’s a bad war, one that shouldn’t be waged.

In fact that was one of the reasons for the Espionage Act—not to punish people for spying but rather for criticizing the draft and the war. The law converted anyone who publicly criticized the draft or attempted to persuade American men to resist the draft into felons. And make no mistake about it: U.S. officials went after such people with a vengeance, doing their best to punish Americans for doing nothing more than speaking.

One example was Charles Schenck, who was prosecuted and convicted of violating the law after circulating a flier that opposed the draft. When the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court upheld the conviction, one of the earliest examples of judicial deferment to the military, a deference that would become virtually complete after the U.S. government was officially converted to a national-security state after World War II.

Another example was Eugen Debs, who got convicted for criticizing the war and for encouraging men to resist the draft. President Wilson called Debs “a traitor to his country.”

How in the world can such prosecutions and convictions possibly be reconciled with the principles of a free society? Freedom necessarily entails the right to criticize government for anything, including its wars, its enslavement of people, its tyranny, and anything else. Perhaps it is worth nothing that both Schenk and Debs were socialists, something that today’s crop of Democrat presidential candidates might want to take note of.

Longtime supporters of FFF know that one of my favorite stories in history is the one about the White Rose, a group of college students in Germany who, in the midst of World War II, began distributing pamphlets calling on Germans to resist their own government and to oppose the troops. (See my essay “The White Rose: A Lesson in Dissent.” Also, see the great movie Sophie Scholl: The Final Days.) When they were caught and brought to trial, the members of the White Rose were berated by the presiding judge, who accused them of being bad German citizens and traitors, just as Wilson, the Justice Department, and the U.S. Supreme Court had said of Americans who were violating the Espionage Act.

Today, any U.S. official would praise the actions of the White Rose, but that’s just because it was foreign citizens opposing an official enemy of the U.S. government. The fact is that if the White Rose members had done the same thing they did in Germany here in the United States, U.S. officials would have gone after them with the same anger and vengeance as German officials did. And they would have used the Espionage Act to do it.

It’s time to acknowledge that the horror of U.S. intervention into World War I and the horrible consequences of that intervention. It’s also time to rid our nation of the horrific relic of that intervention, the Espionage Act. We need to continue  demanding the dismissal of all charges against Assange. But let’s not stop there. Let’s repeal the tyrannical World War I-era Espionage Act under which he is being charged to ensure that this cannot happen to others.

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Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. Send him email.

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‘How Will I Feed My Son?’: British Government Workers Fighting Back Against Poverty Pay

June 11th, 2019 by Nathan Akehurst

In the heart of one of the world’s oldest and richest democracies, the staff keeping government offices functional are forced to turn to food banks because they cannot afford to eat.

Cleaners at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) in London are unable to afford the bus to work. One worker was unable to give their wife transport money to take their sick son to the GP, forcing her to walk for ninety minutes; others have faced eviction over late rent.

“How can we live like this?”

“How will I feed my son?” asks one worker. “I have worked here 10 years and it has never been this bad. Some of my colleagues have been paid zero. Some have been paid only 40 hours when they worked 120 hours. One colleague is missing thousands of pounds and can’t travel to work. They promise they will pay and it keeps going and going. How can we live like this?”

This is not the first so-called payroll issue at International Service Systems (ISS), a huge facility service company for numerous multinationals and the government. The Communication Workers Union sounded alarms in February over ISS’ planned move from monthly to fortnightly pay, meaning housekeepers would have to wait a month to receive two weeks’ money, along with a pay review date which could mean no 2019 pay award at all for those transferring into the company. In April, three unions began separate protests as the scale of the problem became clearer; security guards at Barclay and Goldman Sachs and porters and caterers at NHS hospitals faced being left without pay as the system was ‘upgraded’. The problem has now rolled into the heart of government.

The new contracts with ISS state that workers will be paid every fortnight. However, this pay will not be for the fortnight just worked, but for the previous one. In practice, ISS withholds two weeks’ pay from the first month of work – because in this month workers are only paid for two weeks’ work. ISS offered bridging loans, but these are not enough: once they have been paid back (over four pay cycles – eight weeks) the workers are once again left with two weeks’ less pay than they are due. It also means that workers must repay the loan over a short period of time, reducing their take-home pay by up to £250 every fortnight.

“It’s now about moving from charity to solidarity”.

These are workers with little or no disposable income. “They work 60 hour weeks and still barely have anything”, says a union source inside BEIS. This month the cleaners – mostly Latin American and North African migrant workers – have been on strike, most of them, for the first time. They are calling for a living wage. When the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union organised the food banks, BEIS staff were supportive and gave generously, with many joining the union as well – although “no one from senior management donated”, the source says. “It’s now about moving from charity to solidarity, getting people to donate to the strike fund.”

“Media attention and outrage from civil servants in the department helped bring [management] to the table,” the source explains, “They’re holding out on paying a living wage, because as the department that sets the minimum they don’t want to admit that their policy is a failure. They’ve told us as much.”

Organisers’ next steps are to increase pressure on ISS and BEIS, and security staff are being balloted to join the strike. Management have offered an increase below the unions’ terms which they believe shows that opposition “is on purely ideological grounds.” Management have now agreed to meet workers, although the chaos engulfing government with Theresa May’s resignation poses strategic problems for the union.

In the time since outsourcing giant Carillion’s collapse, which cost thousands of jobs, even more outsourcing scandals have hit Whitehall. Cleaners at the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) – as well as Kensington & Chelsea Council (RBKC) – picketed in August last year against outsourcing giants Amey and OCS’ refusal to pay them the London living wage. In those cases both the MoJ and RBKC blamed the outsourcers, which is of course technically correct but disguises the structural reason outsourcers are hired; precisely so messy functions like industrial relations and responsibility for decent pay and conditions are farmed out to outsourcers. It is not merely services that are privatised; passing blame from the publicly accountable authority to the unaccountable corporate entity is part of the institutional arrangement. In this case, BEIS did not discuss the issuing of the contract with the PCS staff union, who learned after the contract had been signed that it did not include proper living wage provisions. PCS had a relevant recognition agreement – but ISS unilaterally stopped recognising the union just before problems began in earnest.

“The workers were powerless. Now they’re not.”

Organisations like ISS, which is currently planning to cut its workforce by 100,000, are concerned only with the bottom line. At the state’s end of the equation, the austerity drive to reduce ‘government waste’ and ‘red tape’ causes giants like Carillion to not merely cut corners, but offer costings that are out-rightly misleading and institutionalise an unsustainable business model. It’s not just a matter of an unscrupulous employer causing an incident that happens to, on this occasion, involve the civil service. It’s a consequence of a realignment of the relationship between market and state and the torpedoing of not only public services but public service delivery, in which the austerity regime has been only an instrument in pursuit of a broader plan to remake the economy in the interests of the few.

But on this occasion, the outsourcers may have pushed their workers too far. The ISS payroll dispute has contingently affected hugely disparate sections of organised labour. Large ‘conventional’ unions like Unite and the GMB union, middleweight and more militant unions such as the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union and PCS and small, flexible left unions like Independent Workers of Great Britain and United Voices of the World are all involved. It’s an important opportunity for collaboration between organisers working among marginal contract workers and the traditional heavily-unionised ranks of the public sector. “[The workers] were genuinely powerless and now realise they’re not”, says the BEIS source, who also praised the energy brought to the picket line, with music and attempts at making it a communal experience. He adds that Whatsapp groups have enabled lines of communication between workers that are being moved around rapidly. This includes rebutting disinformation, such as  one incident when a manager claimed that if more than seven workers joined a picket line they would incur legal action.

The BEIS workers understand what is happening in a broad sense.

“If they can do this inside a government department imagine what they can do outside government. I hope the minister can see this and be ashamed at what he is putting [us] through”, says one worker.

They have linked their missing payslips, their low pay and their intimidating management to the broader issue of outsourcing and are calling for BEIS to bring them back in house. If it is significant that this situation is taking place in the heart of our political institutions, it is equally significant that popular resistance is growing there too.

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Turkey’s “Military Multipolarity”: US Ally and NATO Heavyweight to Purchase Russia’s S-400 Air Defense System

June 11th, 2019 by Andrew Korybko

The progress made on furthering the military dimension of Turkey’s multipolar grand strategy might be irreversible by this point after the US suspended the country from the F-35 training program and increased the odds that it’ll seek replacement warplanes from Moscow instead.

Acting Secretary of Defense Shanahan decided over the weekend to begin the phased suspension of Turkey’s participation in the F-35 training program after sending a letter to his counterpart detailing the steps that will be undertaken to finalize this process by the end of July, but then the US unexpectedly moved the schedule forward and reportedly banned Turkish pilots from flying these planes on Monday. It’s unclear why this abrupt change was made but it might be because the US figured that it’s better to begin removing Turkey from the program as soon as possible after Ankara made it clear that it won’t reconsider its earlier decision to purchase Russia’s S-400 air-defense systems, claiming that American analogues don’t satisfy its needs but that this doesn’t necessarily mean that it intends to worsen ties with the US.

The Pentagon obviously feel very differently about that and regards Turkey’s moves as threatening because it believes that the S-400s could endanger the F-35s that might fly over its notional NATO ally’s airspace. Therein lies the crux of the problem, however, because a serious security dilemma has begun to affect American-Turkish relations after the US started providing military support to Syrian Kurdish groups that Ankara regards as terrorists and then shortly thereafter was accused of being involved in the failed summer 2016 coup attempt against President Erdogan. Turkey can’t trust the US anymore, and purchasing Russia’s S-400s might be seen by it as an “insurance policy” for averting the worst-case scenario of American or allied airstrikes in the event that it goes to war with “fellow” NATO member Greece and/or Cyprus over disputed but reportedly energy-rich maritime territory.

There’s a suspicion that the US might be able to secretly reprogram any air-defense systems that it sells to Turkey to mask Greek, Cypriot, and its own own warplanes in the event of a conflict and therefore make them invisible to the defending forces, while Washington obviously couldn’t do this when it comes to the S-400s, hence why it’s so afraid of Ankara purchasing them. With Turkey on its way out of the F-35 program as punishment for its refusal to reconsider its agreement with Russia, it’s since been reported that it might go a step further in buying Su-57s from it as a replacement, which would make the progress that it’s achieved in the military dimension of its multipolar grand strategy irreversible by more closely tying it together with its northern Great Power neighbor.

The Russian-Turkish Strategic Partnership is therefore strengthening at the expense of the American-Turkish one, which is obvious to all objective observers and was made possible through Moscow’s deft application of “military diplomacy“, or in other words, its ability to peacefully leverage military means to advance diplomatic goals. In this instance, simply agreeing to meet Turkey’s military needs with the S-400s following its fallout with the US was enough to set into motion a larger chain of events that worked out to its grand strategic interests, though it must be remarked that Turkey is merely in the midst of this larger process and has yet to fully succeed with it. As such, the country is extremely vulnerable to externally provoked instability attempts designed to offset its “rebalancing” act, ergo the economic crisis of the past year for example.

Going forward, the military aspect of Turkey’s multipolar grand strategy appears to be a fait accompli, with the S-400 deal likely going down in history as a watershed moment for both Mideast geopolitics (due to the Russian-Turkish Strategic Partnership that it advanced) and NATO (seeing as how the aforementioned came at the expense of the American-Turkish one). It’s still theoretically possible that the US might pull out all the stops and resort to some Hybrid War trickery in a last-ditch attempt to either stop this process before it’s finalized or punish Turkey for its success, but the fact of the matter is that this might inadvertently lead to the further strengthening of the Russian-Turkish Strategic Partnership in response and the acceleration of what might now be Ankara’s irreversible pivot to the East.

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

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Canada’s ‘Srebrenica Genocide Denial Law’: When Even the Truth Is No Defense

June 11th, 2019 by Stephen Karganovic

Never mind the slow but steady dismantling in the fabled West of the “welfare state”, that temporary horror the elites grudgingly used to tolerate. But that was only as a means of pacifying their subjects and winning over credulous hearts and minds in the competing socialist camp, while it still existed. To be fair, concern for public well-being never was an ideological item in the Western “value” system to begin with. It was dissimulated for a while merely as a tactical measure to confuse the masses. But one assumes that at least the various personal “freedoms” that Western countries used to be famous for indeed were an integral element of their political institutions, values deeply ingrained in their culture.

Canada is the latest champion of Western, trans-Atlantic values that is sending a clear message to the world that such assumptions are poppycock.

Image result for brian masse

A major scrupulously legal assault on freedom of speech and conscience as well as scholarly research (and we are not talking here about the rampaging of informal terror squads such as Antifa) is in the works in Canada. A Srebrenica genocide denial law is coming up soon for parliamentary vote in Ottawa. It is being sponsored by MP Brian Masse ([email protected]) (image on the right). The pending bill is the result of a petition filed by a Bosniak lobby group in Canada, “Institute for genocide research.”

The “institute” is not known to have published a single serious and academically viable book or scholarly paper on any subject whatsoever, including Srebrenica. It is a comically misnamed ethnic pressure group financed, as usual, by mysterious patrons. But given the manufactured climate of opinion, unless this bill is strongly and competently opposed, there is little doubt about the outcome.

Here is some basic information about this parliamentary project, now known as Petition No. 421-03975, presented to the House of Commons on May 29, 2019: click here.

And here are the words of the sponsor, Brian Masse, at Canada’s House of Commons as he put the matter before his colleagues:

“Madam Speaker … the House unanimously declared April as ‘Genocide Remembrance, Condemnation and Awareness Month’ and named genocides, which have been recognized by Canada’s House of Commons, including the Srebrenica genocide.

“It is time for the government to extend resources to commemorate the victims and survivors of genocide, educate the public and to take specific action to counteract genocide denial, a pernicious form of hate which reopens wounds and reinvigorates division. Truth is justice; honesty is the path to reconciliation and peace.”

Just so that no one is taken in by this fine rhetoric, the geopolitical significance of Srebrenica (forget about truth, justice, reconciliation, and peace) should briefly be recalled. The alleged failure in July of 1995 of the  collective West to come to the rescue of 8,000 “men and boys” in Srebrenica was transfigured into the pretext for the “Right to protect” (R2P) doctrine. That fraudulent rationale was used for subsequent “humanitarian interventions” which wrecked and plundered at least half a dozen countries and cost about two million mostly Muslim lives.

But contrary to interventionist propaganda and the simplistic cant of politicians, always campaigning to attract a few more ethnic votes and to impress the political correctness brigade with their loyalty to the right causes, in the real-world there exist complex issues not given to simplistic reductionism. Srebrenica is one of them. (Also here,  here, and here.) To paraphrase Polonius, there are indeed “more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of by politicians,” eager to please special interests.

One of the major pertinent issues here, of course, is the factual question of what actually happened in Srebrenica. A staggering amount of research has been done on that subject that one supposes busy politicians, long out of school, may be excusably ignorant of. Canadian politicians in particular may be generously excused for not keeping up with  Srebrenica developments because their hands are presumably full sorting out genocides closer to home.

A fundamental issue that comes to mind straightaway, and voters anxious to protect their liberties might want to bring it to the attention of their parliamentary deputies, has to do with freedom of speech and conscience, not whether or not genocide occurred in Srebrenica. Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms rather unambiguously guarantees “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication” as fundamental rights. May the supreme law of the land be taken at face value?

How do MP Masse and colleagues who are contemplating to vote for his “genocide denial” bill propose to reconcile its language with the liberties which are constitutionally guaranteed to all citizens of Canada (and presumably also to foreign nationals on Canadian territory)? Or with the fact that Canada is also party to international agreements which guarantee freedom of conscience and expression, such as the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Articles 18 and 19 of the Declaration, which deal with freedoms of thought, opinion, and expression should in particular be pondered by Canada’s lawmakers.

The ghastly thing about this is that the Srebrenica genocide denial law would not even change anybody’s mind about Srebrenica. But it would suppress (have a “chilling effect,” as they aptly put it in neighboring America) public discourse on the subject and would therefore constitute a serious infringement of Canadian citizens’ human rights. That is the issue of principle. All but zealous Balkan combatants should manage easily to agree on this much, and it ought to be gently stressed to befuddled Canadian legislators. A member of parliament is free to think whatever he or she wants about Srebrenica, with or without adequate information on the subject, including that it was genocide. But for Canadian citizens of all stripes and backgrounds, including those who happen to be legislators, their fellow-citizens’ freedom of expression should take absolute priority over the agenda of a Balkan lobby. A legislator who sincerely thinks that Srebrenica was genocide can and should still vote against Petition no. 421-03975 on freedom of speech and conscience grounds alone. Assuming that  those values matter in countries that boastfully claim to have copyrighted them.

It so happens that the aforementioned bogus “Institute for genocide research” has a record of attempts at free speech suppression, targeting those who think differently about its pet projects. In 2011 the “institute” made an unsuccessful attempt to steer a Srebrenica genocide denial law through the Canadian parliament. “Institute” scholars then took their revenge on American-Serbian professor Dr. Srdja Trifkovic, preventing his entry into Canada to deliver a lecture in Vancouver by falsely alleging to immigration authorities that he was a dangerous hatemonger, or something to that effect. The incident at the time was amply covered by Global Research. Prof. Trifkovic fought the spurious allegation against him energetically in Canadian courts and won. The upshot of it was that Canadian taxpayers lost considerable treasure in a wasteful judicial confrontation instigated by agenda-driven lobbyists.

The proposed law, be it mentioned in passing, is also manifestly discriminatory in relation to the Canadian-Serbian community. Considering the cultural role of spitefulness (inat is the native word) in the region that the lobbyists come from, that may well be its true and ultimate inspiration. Is there a single Canadian Serb who thinks that what occurred in Srebrenica was genocide? The proposed law would nevertheless have a discriminatory effect on the ability of members of the Canadian Serbian community, as such, to enjoy the freedom of expression guaranteed to them and to all Canadians by Canada’s constitution. As Canadian Serbs, they would be obliged to either maintain public silence about an issue they regard as being of vital interest to their nation and community or, were they to speak up in accordance with the dictates of their conscience, to face criminal prosecution. So much for all the “Atlantic Charters” and their associated “freedoms.”

Canadian legislators should ponder the fact that Canada does not have a Holocaust denial law protecting the dignity of six million victims, yet its parliament is contemplating a massive curtailment of its citizens’ civil rights in a matter involving 8,000 unverified deaths. That is a degradation and in-the-face mockery of the pain of the Jewish community. But it gets even worse, or tragicomic if one prefers. In its Tolimir judgment in 2012, the vaunted Hague Tribunal ruled that the killing of three individuals in the nearby enclave of Zepa (which is part of the same conceptual package with Srebrenica) constituted genocide (Trial Judgment, Par. 1147 – 1154). That was allegedly because those individuals were endowed with such extraordinary importance within the community of Zepa that, as a result of their demise, the community was rendered unviable, hence subjected to genocide. The point is that denying this absurd and tortuously reasoned finding of the Hague Tribunal concerning Zepa (a place that assuredly no member of the Canadian parliament had ever even heard of) by operation of the projected genocide denial law would also subject the careless speaker who took his rights seriously to criminal liability. That is the absurd level to which the “genocide denial” rhetoric has degenerated.

As an American citizen, this writer is quite prepared to stand in any public square in Canada and to proclaim that Srebrenica was not genocide. It would in fact be a pleasure to be detained by Her Majesty’s authorities in order to accomplish a lofty civic purpose that should benefit all Canadians. The resulting proceedings would ultimately enhance Canada’s judicial culture by testing the constitutionality of this legal travesty before the Canadian supreme court.

In the immortal words of Diana Johnstone, the “denial” of Srebrenica “genocide” is sufficiently justified by the fact that it is not true. The Srebrenica lobby and its eager acolytes in Canada’s Federal Parliament in Ottawa should grow up and accept that.

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This article was originally published on Srebrenica Project.

Stephen Karganovic is president of “Srebrenica Historical Project,” an NGO registered in the Netherlands to investigate the factual matrix and background of events that took place in Srebrenica in July of 1995.

The Various Shades of Black… and Green

June 11th, 2019 by Philip A Farruggio

The hit film of 2018 was Peter Farrelly’s Green Book. The film takes place in 1962, and was based on a true story about an Italian American bouncer, from the famous Copacabana NYC nightclub, securing a temporary job as the chauffeur/bodyguard for a popular black musician. He is needed because the trio anchored by the star is going on a tour of the Midwest and Deep South.

Despite some overdone stereotypes of NYC Italian American families, the film captures the dark mood of racism in our country, especially in the South. Those not old enough to recall the extent of this racism of that time, the film delivers 100000%! In the beginning of the movie we also see a ‘touch’ of the Anti Semitism of that day (and now too) when an Italian mob boss refers to the owner of the Copa, Jewish American Jules Podell, as a ‘Jew bastard’. Sadly, prejudice did and does flow from one ethnic group towards others. Those who run this empire count on that to keep with their age old plan to ‘Divide and Conquer’ the working stiffs they control. “Keep them hating each other and they’ll forget about hating us so much.”

During their trip down south, the pair gets stopped one night during a heavy rain by two local cops. With guns drawn the older of the two deputies shouts to the driver, Tony Lip, to get out of the car in the pouring rain. He then yells to his partner to get the passenger, the black musician, out also. The young deputy states that there is no need to have the passenger get out, but is shouted down by his partner. As  Doc Shirley, the musician, and Tony Lip are standing in the monsoon, Tony Lip asks the deputy why they were pulled over. He is told, at gunpoint, that there is a ‘Sundown’ rule in that town which forbids ‘Niggras’ from being out past sundown. The deputy questions why Tony Lip is driving a ‘Niggra’ and what they are doing in his town. When the deputy finds out that Tony Lip is Italian he tells Tony that by being  Italian he is ‘Half a Niggra’, whereupon Tony Lip floors him with one punch… and the pair are arrested.

The film captures the extent of Jim Crow segregation at that time. The black star is treated with flattery by the places he is hired to perform in. Yet, he is not allowed to use the bathrooms reserved for whites, or to eat in the regular dining room. His dressing room is really just a closet compared to those he would use up north. Or course, heaven forbid if he were to stay in anything but rundown ‘Colored Only’ hotels. This all is a revelation to someone like Tony Lip, yet he himself begins to realize the ‘subtle segregation’ and obvious racism that had always existed in his own Bronx neighborhood. Both men slowly draw closer to each other through this horrific experience.

There are various levels to this great film. What attracted this writer was the message, as covert as it may have been, that all working stiffs are really just ‘Niggras’ to those who run things. No matter how much prestige or monetary gain one has accumulated, if one is NOT born and bred within the blue blooded club… acceptance is futile. The movers and shakers of empire will co-opt the few who climb that ladder of accomplishment, yet never allow them to eat in their upper class dining room. This Anglophile system has been with us since perhaps our inception as a republic. They allow the other ethnic ‘servants of empire’ to do just that. Behind all the Jews of finance and banking, Dagos, Micks, Krauts, Spics and Niggras in politics, the military, media, sports, hi tech, agriculture and manufacturing are the descendants of royalty who have always run things Amerikan.  They pull the strings of this phony ‘Two Party/One Party’ system, and always have. A scene in Robert De Niro’s film The Good Shepherd echoed this fact. When Matt Damon, as the Blueblood CIA man, pays a visit to the Joe Pesci character, playing a mafia leader, Pesci asks “We Italians we got our families and we got the Church, the Irish got their homeland, the Jews their tradition, even the Niggers they got their music… what do you people have?” Damon answers him “The United States of America and the rest of you are just visitors.”

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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].

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