Over the past few days, the Syrian military has deployed a new batch of reinforcements to the Homs-Deir Ezzor desert following a recent series of ISIS attacks in the area.

ISIS cells operating in the desert in central Syria pose a serious security threat to the government-controlled area conducting attacks on checkpoints of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). The SAA has carried out several operations near Palmyra, Deir Ezzor and al-Mayadin in an attempt to get rid of the ISIS threat. However, so far with only limited success.

Pro-government sources circulate speculations that large numbers of ISIS members, who had fled from the eastern bank of the Euphrates, which is controlled by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), are preparing for major attacks on SAA positions. The towns of al-Sukhnah and Palmyra are named among the possible targets. This scenario remains unlikely because any such attack would trigger a wide-scale military operation of the Syrian-Iranian-Russian coalition in the Homs-Deir Ezzor desert.

A similar situation was observed in 2018 when an ISIS terrorist attack in eastern al-Suwayda resulted in the major SAA effort that eliminated ISIS cells in the southeastern Syrian desert.

At the same time, the SDF is developing its security operation against ISIS remnants in the area of al-Baghuz. This development comes amid increased activity of the ISIS cells along the entire SDF-held bank of the Euphrates. ISIS attacks have recently been reported in the areas of Al Tayanah and the Omar oil fields. Pro-ISIS sources report multiple SDF casualties. The SDF media wing remains silent.

Last week, the head of the Russian reconciliation center in Syria, Maj. Gen. Viktor Kupchishin warned that French and Belgian special services are preparing a chemical provocation in the Idlib de-escalation zone.

In order to organize the provocations, agents of French and Belgian special services have arrived in Idlib. They met with field commanders of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and Hurras al-Din terrorist groups and representatives of the White Helmets pseudo-humanitarian organization,” he said adding that the goal of the effort is to create a fake video “demonstrating Russia and Syria’s use of chemical agents against the civilian population”.

The general warned that real chemical substances may be used against the civilian population in the area in order to gain more realistic footage.

*

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

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

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Video: Syrian Military Sends Reinforcements to Fight ISIS in Central Desert
  • Tags: , ,

Where does Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo get his inspiration? From Jesus Christ.

Mike’s version of Jesus Christ may not be the same one millions of others know. The Pompeo version of Christ is a psychopath and a full-throated defender of endless war abroad and open-ended surveillance at home. 

The Christ followed by Pompeo believes the official enemies of America should be starved to death, go without electricity, have their industries sabotaged by sanctions and mEndless alware, and expect to have their leaders brutally assassinated. 

Pompeo is a non-Jewish neocon. His adoration for the apartheid state of Israel is boundless. 

Trump’s secretary of state would be more comfortable in the Old Testament where an eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth is advised in response to transgressions, both real and imagined. It’s difficult to believe Mike follows the Sermon on the Mount. Christ teaches that if slapped on your right cheek, turn the other cheek in response. For Mike, an adversary doesn’t need to slap a cheek before he is killed by a fusillade of cruise missiles and white phosphorus. 

Mike doesn’t follow Christ. Jesus said love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. Christ’s advocation of peace and nonviolence spans four Gospel accounts. Is it possible Mike missed this instruction during Sunday school? 

Mike Pompeo is a self-professed Christian of the Zionist strain. The Christian Zionists believe Christ will return and establish the Kingdom of God, and this will only be possible after Israel declares a state on stolen land gained through violence and ethnic cleansing. 

Israel’s daily demonstrated racism and violence gets a free pass because the Christian Zionists in America believe any criticism of the Jewish state is criticism of God. Instead of citing Jesus, they turn back to the Old Testament and the blessing of Isaac in Genesis—“Those who curse you will be cursed, and those who bless you will be blessed.” 

The Palestinians are cursed for the sin of having lived on the land for centuries. Iran is cursed because it dares defend itself against US-Israeli sabotage, assassination, and terrorism. Lebanon is cursed because it is home to Hezbollah, the Lebanese political party that began as organized resistance to Israeli invasions. Syria is cursed because it defends its national sovereignty and decries the Israeli theft of its Golan Heights. 

For Christian Zionists like Mike Pompeo, the New Testament is something that either must be ignored—or selectively read and interpreted—and Christ’s promise of world peace must be shelved until the work of killing Palestinians, Syrians, and Iranians is complete. Mike isn’t a normal Christian, he’s a Judaic-Christian, a Christian neocon. 

“Christians are not political Zionists,” writes Tom Usher. “Real Christians can’t stand the political Zionism of Herzl and Jabotinsky and the various terrorists who brought this anti-Jacob state called Israel into being.”

Pompeo is preaching to the choir and rallying the troops to fight the next Israeli war, this time targeting Iran. The US has already assisted in the “Greater Israel” effort to undermine and destroy all those who oppose Jewish racism and nationalism. 

Iran is not targeted because it poses a threat to Israel. It is targeted because it dares to speak truth to Israeli crimes and has built defenses against the endless violence of the Zionist state. 

Mike Pompeo will work toward this end—the destruction of Iran. He will strive to accomplish the work of destroying Syria. This is the long-standing neocon agenda. Destroy the enemies of Zionism and Jewish supremacy. Ethnically cleanse Gaza and the West Bank—the latter now in motion due to the efforts of the Kahanist Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) Party, an unabashedly racist offshoot of the Likud Party that will likely be included in next Israeli coalition government. 

Yes, as Pompeo declares in his tweet, his “belief in [a distorted and perverse] Jesus makes a real difference,” not for peace, but for endless war stretching from Iran and Syria to Venezuela and beyond. 

*

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

This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Another Day in the Empire.

Kurt Nimmo is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

More than 40 organizations from around the United States are demanding their Congress put an end to U.S. intervention in Venezuela saying that, in particular, the illegal and “extensive economic sanctions, imposed unilaterally by the Trump government since August 2017, have caused great hardship and loss of life” in the South American country.

The organizations, including Codepink,  and dozens of other civil and religious society organizations, sent a letter to Congress Monday asking for them to encourage peaceful dialogue within Venezuela and to denounce the U.S. Republican administration’s dangerous economic sanctions and threats of military action in Venezuela.

“These threats are absolutely unacceptable, particularly towards a country that does not represent a threat to the United States,” said the authors of the letter that include Demand Progress, Peace Action, Sisters of Mercy Justice Team, American Friends Service Committee, Vote Vets, Common Defense, Alliance Americas, and CASA of Maryland, among others.

President Trump has gone so far as to say that Venezuela is the “country with which we should go to war, they have all that oil and they are right in our backyard.”

The letter was delivered to all Congressional elected officials Tuesday morning.

“The pressure from these grassroots organizations could not come at a more critical time for Venezuela,” said Alex Main, Director of International Policy for  Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).

Main pointed out:

“The latest round of sanctions launched in January is worsening the current crisis and generating more suffering as it slows down imports, including food and medicines, and blocks the roads allowing economic recovery.”

So far, U.S. President Donald Trump and his hawkish advisors, including John Bolton and Elliot Abrams who have led the U.S. into drawn out and illegal wars under previous presidencies, have enacted over 20 sanctions against the Venezuelan government and individuals in the country in order to bring down the democratically-elected Nicolas Maduro presidency.

Hassan El-Tayyab, Co-Director of Just Foreign Policy, which organized the petition told CEPR:

“There is really no military solution to the crisis in Venezuela and more than 40 groups believe that our best chance to achieve peace is through dialogue, the lifting of sanctions and the total elimination of unauthorized war.”

Just Foreign Policy helped to pass legislation in December to end the U.S.’s congressionally unauthorized involvement in the war on impoverished Yemen.

The complete letter follows:

Dear (member of Congress),

We, the undersigned groups, wish to express our deep concern regarding the dangerous and destructive strategy of regime change directed at Venezuela by the Trump Government. The extensive economic sanctions imposed unilaterally by the US Government since August 2017 have caused great difficulties and loss of life for many Venezuelans.

The latest round of sanctions announced in January is expected to worsen the current crisis and cause even greater human suffering across the country. Although many onlookers have noted that civil war is an increasingly likely possibility, Trump government officials are strongly opposed to peaceful dialogue between the country’s political representatives, and have openly threatened military intervention.

We ask you to take a firm and public stand against these immoral, reckless and illegal policies, and to support efforts to promote a peaceful dialogue, before it is too late.

We urge you to:

  • Oppose economic sanctions: Although the mismanagement of the Government and the fall in world oil prices are the causes of much of the deep crisis in Venezuela, the economic sanctions of the U.S. Government – both the financial sanctions of August 2017, like the sanctions of January 2019 to the Venezuelan oil industry – are generating additional losses of billions of dollars of foreign currency needed for essential imports, according to experts and even U.S. officials, as National Security Advisor, John Bolton. In the current context, these sanctions will inevitably lead to greater human suffering, including many deaths due to lack of medicines and other essential imports. Unilateral economic sanctions are illegal under the U.N. Charter and the Charter of the OAS; and research shows that they are generally ineffective in achieving the desired political results.
  • Oppose threats of military intervention : President Trump has advocated military intervention in Venezuela since the beginning of 2017, while he and other government officials have declared repeatedly that “all options are on the table” with Venezuela.

These threats are absolutely unacceptable, particularly towards a country that does not represent a threat to the United States, and only the immense political polarization in Venezuela is increasing. Members of Congress must strongly denounce these threats and make the adoption of the “Law for the Prohibition of Unauthorized Military Action in Venezuela” one of the top priorities, and they must also commit to that, in case President Trump and his Government to involve the military in any action directed at Venezuela, will invoke the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and, consequently, will give rise to a debate and a vote in Congress to end any unauthorized use of force.

  • Support for dialogue : Members of the US Executive have rejected the possibility of dialogue and, instead, have pressed for an immediate regime change in Venezuela, asking the Venezuelan Armed Forces to rebel against the Maduro Government. Experts have warned that this strategy could trigger a division within the Armed Forces of the country, with a potentially violent and catastrophic result. Members of Congress must oppose this dangerous zero-sum game led by the White House, and advocate for peaceful dialogue. The Vatican, the Secretary General of the U.N., Mexico and Uruguay have offered to help mediate in the dialogue and political negotiations to resolve the current crisis in a peaceful manner. Congress should support these efforts.

With the recent appointment as special envoy to Venezuela of the veteran American advisor and condemned by the Iran-Contra scandal, Elliott Abrams, and with the increasingly aggressive rhetoric of the White House, his support could not come at a more crucial moment. There is no moral, legal or political justification for this collective punishment against the Venezuelan population, based on economic sanctions. There is no solution that is military; Venezuela’s crisis must be resolved through dialogue and negotiations. Therefore, Congress must insist on eliminating destructive economic sanctions and removing any possibility of an unauthorized war from the board.

*

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

The Syrian state will not be in a position to liberate the occupied Golan for decades to come.  US President Donald Trump made a gift of the territory to Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu last month. The move was Trump’s support for Netanyahu’s domestic election campaign; Netanyahu is facing severe accusations of bribery and corruption. No government in Damascus can regain the occupied Golan in the next decades due to the hefty price the Syrian government would pay for any war with Israel to recover the territory. The only hope for Syria would be to copy the Lebanese experience and delegate power to a Syrian resistance. However, the Lebanese experience is unique and would be difficult to imitate, unless Syria were to regain good ties with the west and with Arab countries allied to the US.

Yes, the Lebanese resistance managed to impose on Israel in the year 2000 a humiliated unconditional unilateral withdrawal of most occupied territories. Ehud Barak, then the Prime Minister, decided to end over two decades of occupation and abandon his allies in the “South Lebanese Army” (SLA), withdrawing from Lebanon following repetitive attacks of the resistance that left over 1000 Israeli officers and soldiers killed.

Moreover, in the second Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006 (the first war was the 1982 invasion), Israel refrained from destroying the capital Beirut, the Ministry of Defence and many official institutions and infrastructure (bombing some official targets and destroying many bridges). The reason Israel held back from using its destructive firepower from these and other targets – even if it failed to achieve its goal of limiting Hezbollah’s military capabilities – is also due to the split within the Lebanese government between friends and enemies of the hegemony and dominance of the US and its allies.

Image result for Prime Minister Fouad Siniora

The presence of Lebanese friends of the US such as Prime Minister Fouad Siniora (image on the right), and many ministers and political leader’s hostile to Hezbollah, led the US to exert pressure on Israel and prevent it from destroying the country. The US believed its allies in Lebanon might achieve by political influence what Israel has failed to do in 33 days of war against the group.

The situation in Syria today is different: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Turkey, Europe and the US all worked together to change the Syrian regime and create a failed state controlled by Takfiri jihadists. The Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said he would rather see ISIS on Israeli borders than the Syrian army. Many Israeli top military commanders shared this view.

Indeed, Israel tried to promote a “Syrian security zone”, like the one created in Lebanon in the ‘80s, to de facto permanently annex the Golan and to move a few kilometres further into the southern Syrian territories occupied by al-Qaeda and ISIS. In such a scenario, no country in the world would have contested Israel’s move.

To Israel’s consternation, the Syrian army and its allies managed to retake the momentum and turn the situation upside-down, recovering all southern territories from Israel’s friends in al-Qaeda and “Jaish Khaled Bin al-Waleed,” a group that professed loyalty to ISIS. This is what pushed Israel in 2019 – when all countries who had bet that Syria would fall into a chaos in a matter of months were obliged to recognize their mistaken judgment – to ask Trump to offer the Golan, the property neither of Israel nor of the US, as a gift to Netanyahu’s election chances.

The danger in such recognition is the fact that, notwithstanding the world’s rejection of Trump’s illegal move, the international position towards the Golan may change in the years and decades to come. This is exactly what happened to Palestine, now reduced to a small territory surrounded by Israel where no Palestinian can return to his abducted home. Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and many leaders followed. The US move, regardless of the words spoken by world leaders in defence of international law, will face no effective resistance nor any serious opposition from the supposed leader of the Islamic World, i.e. Saudi Arabia, nor from other Arab and Islamic countries (apart from Iran and its close allies).

Thus, Israel is playing a waiting game to gain further recognition of its occupation of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. However, what if Syria decides to recover the occupied territories?

The Israeli military is capable of bringing Syria back to the stone age. Its Air Force can destroy Syria’s electricity, dams, bridges, military and civilian infrastructures if Syria were to declare war on Israel in the name of recovering the Golan, as it did in the 1973 war.

Unlike Lebanon, Syria doesn’t have US allies within its government, legislative and military apparatus because power is in the hands of the President. Neither does Syria have ties with Arab states who could rebuild the country in case of severe damage or exert enough pressure to stop Israel from bombing Syria.

The late President Hafez Assad knew all this when he agreed to negotiate and went to Geneva after years of negotiation to sign a peace deal. Assad led a delegation of over 100 people, under the auspices of US president Bill Clinton, prepared to make peace with Israel on the basis of land for peace. It was Prime Minister Ehud Barak who withdrew from the deal because domestic pressure and public opinion did not allow him to withdraw entirely from Lebanon and the Golan. He wanted to keep some control over Tiberias and the water that flows into the lake from upper Jordan, Banyas Spring and other streams. Barak simply failed to honour Yitzhak Rabin’s commitment to Assad (and later Shimon Peres) that Israel would withdraw to the June 4 line. He wanted to keep a permanent Israeli presence on Mount Hermon and made security demands that could not be met by Assad. Barak thought he could twist Assad’s arms to the last minute and was unaware that the Syrian president was not bluffing and not ready to compromise on any inch of Syrian territory.

In 2010, ten years following the death of his father, President Bashar al-Assad was also willing to engage in peace talks with Israel in exchange for the Golan and return to the June 4 line, but Netanyahu, then Prime Minister, rejected the offer.

Israel is not looking to exchange land for peace. It holds tightly to David Ben Gurion’s strategy of exerting hegemony over the Middle East by military might. Only Syrian resistance groups who have gathered warfare experience in the last eight years of war could engage in guerrilla warfare to regain the Golan, similar to the Hezbollah experience in defeating Israel in the year 2000. Nevertheless, Syria can expect a violent Israeli response if this path to liberate the Golan is adopted.

Japan failed to regain the northern Kuril Islands occupied by Russia following the Second World War. The United Arab Emirates is unable to regain control of the two Islands of Tunb and Abu Mussa from Iran. China, to date, is not retaking Taiwan due to US protection of the Island. Ukraine will not recover Crimea from Russia and Septa and Melilla will not be given back to Morocco, remaining under Spanish control. There are territorial disputes between African countries, Pakistan, India, Australia, Cambodia, Korea and many other countries.

Even superpowers such as China and other powerful countries have not forced the recovery of their territories, because the price is not worth it. This is the situation of the Golan today. This is why Israel is likely to hold the land for decades to come.

*

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

In the wake of RussiaGate: Where Is the World Headed?

April 4th, 2019 by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Since 2016 the United States has been in the Russiagate box, a hoax created by the US military/security complex to prevent President Trump from normalizing relations with Russia.  Normalized relations would devalue THE RUSSIAN THREAT, an orchestration that protects the $1,000 billion annual budget of the military/security complex.

The Democratic Party, which most certainly is not democratic, supported the hoax hoping to do Trump in for their own reasons and pulled the presstitute media into the conspiracy against Trump.

Now that all the assurances from the Establishment that Trump was a traitor to America who conspired with Russian President Putin to steal the election in order that America could serve Russian interests have been exposed as lies by the Mueller report, American attention is free to take up some other nonsensical campaign. The succession of these stupidities is destroying America’s reputation.

True, some of the most crazed of the Democrats and media cannot let go of Russiagate.  The presstitutes are saying that Trump would be impeached for his non-crime except the unworthy Democrats had rather go back to the business of spending other people’s money.  A crazed professor or two have declared that Mueller was part of the “Trump coverup” and that Mueller needs to be investigated.  But these claims simply underline that the United States wasted three years of its existence.

Meanwhile, other countries moved on.  The Russians, for example, discovered that Washington’s sanctions had a silver lining.  Russia became more self-sufficient economically and moved out of the box of being an exporter of raw materials to the West, a box into which the Americans and the American-brainwashed Russian economics profession had put the Russian government.

The fulminations and threats from Washington against Russia brought forth new Russian weapon systems for which the US has no match or defense, weapons that demote the US to a second-rate military power.

On an adjusted basis, China now has the world’s largest economy and increasingly ignores Washington’s blustering.  As does Iran.

Even Venezuela stands up to Washington.

The world is concluding that Washington is not the power it thinks it is.

Washington’s abuse of its reserve currency role and violations of international law have encouraged a movement away from the use of the dollar in international transactions. This is perhaps even a more serious threat to Washington’s power than Russia’s superior military capabilities.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was happy to see World War II because he understood that it would leave Britain bankrupt and without an empire.  Roosevelt understood that the gain would be America’s, because the US would take over the reserve currency role.  The reason this is important is that the reserve currency country can pay its bills by printing money.  Thus, the government has no budget constraints.

For a country as indebted as America, to lose this role would be a crushing blow.  It is this blow that Washington faces as a result of its idiotic policy of sanctions and disrespect of international law.

And there is another blow. Just as the Roman Empire fell to invaders who crossed the frontiers of the empire, so is Washington’s empire is falling.  Europe, the crown jewel of the empire, is now overrun with millions of unassimilable peoples to the extent that Europe is no longer European. The President of the US has so far been powerless to defend the borders of the United States.  Indeed, the Democratic Party and the presstitute media are totally opposed to any defence of American borders.  Why does a government unwilling to defend its borders spend $1,000 billion annually on defense?

The American Neoconservative Zionists, who have controlled US foreign policy in Israel’s interest since the Clinton regime, continue to operate as if we still live in an unipolar world.  For some reason the National Security Advisor to President Trump has poor sources of information.  He speaks as if he rules the world, but even Washington’s pathetic European vassals did not go along with Trump’s gift of the Syrian Golan Heights to Israel.

As for moral authority, after, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yeman, Ukraine, Honduras, and now Venezuela, all moral authority has vacated the West.

Washington is not only losing its economic and military power but also its soft power that rested in Washington’s propaganda about making the world safe for democracy.  Democracy is not even safe in the United States as Democrats and the presstitutes have done their best to overturn democracy and to drive the elected president from office, which is precisely what the Trump regime is trying to do to Venezuela.

All of the lies and propaganda that have portrayed the West as God’s gift to humanity have fallen away as the result of Washington’s irresponsible use of power, leaving the West morally naked.

The world no longer thinks that the West is something to look up to and to emulate.  Instead, the world sees a great evil, in the words of Matt Taibbi, “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”

A great promise was betrayed by those trusted with the promise.  A government accountable to law and to the people requires a united people, not the disunity of multiculturalism and Identity Politics.  With the indigenous ethnic base of all of the Western countries under attack as “white supremicists,” the West can no longer defend its culture from the immigrants who do not share the culture.

The tension between an indigenous culture and imported cultures can be seen in the tensions between Hungary and the EU and Italy and the EU.  Hungary has refused to accept its quota of non-European immigrants and faces punishment by the EU.  In Italy the government is in the hands of a coalition of leftwing and rightwing parties that are united in their opposition to the EU and non-European immigration.  In Europe the situation is one in which the EU government, as well as the governments of member states such as France and Germany, have taken the side of immigrants against the indigenous people.  In other words, the governments of Europe are not committed to their own cultures.  This is the unmistakable sign of a dead culture.

In the United States there is so much disunity that to call the states united is a misuse of words.  Hillary voters hate Trump voters, and vice versa.  The presstitute media and universities are uniformly anti-white.

Countries without unity are not strong.  Consequently, the Western world is losing its leadership of the world.

Of course, the rest of the world also suffers from disunity.  The Sunni and the Shiites cannot unite, with the consequence that the Muslim world is weak.  The tribes in Africa cannot unite.  India and Pakistan stay at each other’s throats. Animosities exist among Asians.  Russia herself is a federation.  China has a Muslim province.  But the disunities are different from those in the West.  Japan and China have differences but the population of Japan is homogeneous and China largely is.  Arabs are Arabs whether Sunni or Shiite. The Russian Federation is the remains of an old empire, largely assimiliated, not the result of recent immigrations.

The consequence of disunity perhaps precludes any leadership.  But the collapse of the West into diversity and multiculturalism definitely means that Western leadership has been lost to the weakness of disunity.

Is it chaos that awaits?

*

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

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

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

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on In the wake of RussiaGate: Where Is the World Headed?

The statement was made by Céline Fremault, the Minister of the Government of the Brussels-Capital Region, responsible for Housing, Quality of Life, Environment and Energy. From an interview last Friday, with L’Echo:

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

– Céline Fremault, Minister of the Government (Brussels-Captial Region), responsible for Housing, Quality of Life, Environment and Energy

Ms. Fremault accurately identified that a 5G pilot project is not compatible with Belgian radiation safety standards (9 V/m, or 95 mW/m2 according to this online converter), and stated that she does not intend to make an exception. (In the Building Biology guidelines, the threshold for extreme concern is 1 mW/m2. However, many government agencies still only consider thermal effects, instead of the cumulative body of thousands of peer-reviewed scientific studies.)

Perhaps with Brussels heading up the European Union, and with one of the two major 5G appeals being addressed to the EU, officials there are better informed and motivated to protect themselves.

May support increase for Ms. Fremault and all officials who are hearing the call to sanity and prioritizing the people over the technocratic oligarchy.

2-MINUTE ACTION: To send a brief note of support to Ms. Fremault, go here; and to Brussels city councilors, go here. Encourage them of the importance to keep this ban permanent, despite industry’s forthcoming pressure.

The 5G Situation in Summary

There is almost no question that a 5G-world would place us all under an unprecedented level of surveillance and control; granting unheard-of powers to soulless corporate algorithms.

That should be enough to permanently delete the agenda right there, filed under “useful technology gone bad.”

Though perhaps an even bigger question for our time is: does 5G pose a major threat to all biological life? The independent evidence overwhelmingly indicates that it does.

That is, unless you ask wireless industry sources, who own the FCC and who recently put out this CNBC propaganda/commercial in a thinly-veiled attempt to quash pushback.

The talking heads of the wireless industry even brashly admit — when forced, in a US senate hearing — that they have not done any safety studies… and they don’t plan to.

The fact is, hundreds of scientists are trying everything to sound the alarm.

One such voice, Dr. Martin Pall, the WSU Professor Emeritus whose research actually lays out the mechanism of how wireless radiation causes harm in our cells, calls 5G “the stupidest idea in the history of the world.”

However, within the corporatized halls of government, there is a well-worn pattern of voices of reason being drowned out by the frothed frenzy of technocratic corporations, who envision 5G as an unprecedented economic opportunity for the full-on commercial exploitation of reality.

But 5G pushback is starting to get viral. The compilation of truth assembled in videos on 5G like this one provides a much-needed reality-check on the shocking state of greed and depravation among the agenda-pushers in our world.

While it may sound stark, after observing this for a long while, to me it honestly now appears that those pushing this agenda are stuck in a type of hive-mind syndrome, so frenzied with dollar-signs and “us-versus-them” progress-obsessions that they are in a mode incapable of self-corrective thought. Or at the very least, incapable of seeing where all of this is obviously heading — for them and their kids, too.

When the industry sheep are being presented with an avalanche of scientific evidence for a catastrophe-in-the-making, and yet they refuse to listen and instead continue to tow the profit-pushing line, what becomes visible is the shadow-expression of utter disdain for life. That may sound harsh, but I encourage you to consider this deeply.

Perhaps it’s the global, unconscious ‘death wish’ that is at the core of the 5G push. Perhaps this is also at the core of the desire to darkly exit the human condition via AI and transhumanism. Apparently this thought-form sees its escape and salvation through technology, instead of through humanity and/or our connection with divinity.

In any case, to any sane human with normal values, the situation is indeed bewildering. Though once we get over the distress, we are called into a kind of soul-led response. Perhaps it’s first a resolve to be sovereign in our thoughts, and to be steward of our mind. Then, inspiration and true Connectedness come when we become involved in manifesting the bigger solution — the choice of a positive future.

On this path, our root challenge is to remember: the power in our individual reality is truly within each of us, because who we are is not limited to the realms of duality and separation that we experience here.

*

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

Featured image is from Collective Evolution

 

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Brussels Becomes First Major City to Halt 5G Due to Health Effects
  • Tags: ,

“Russia is an inalienable and organic part of Greater Europe and European civilization. Our citizens think of themselves as European. That’s why Russia proposes moving towards the creation of a common economic space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, a community referred to by Russian experts as ‘the Union of Europe’ which will strengthen Russia’s potential in its economic pivot toward the ‘New Asia.’” Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, February 2012

The allegations of ‘Russian meddling’ only make sense if they’re put into a broader geopolitical context. Once we realize that Washington is implementing an aggressive “containment” strategy to militarily encircle Russia and China in order to spread its tentacles across Central Asian, then we begin to understand that Russia is not the perpetrator of the hostilities and propaganda, but the victim. The Russia hacking allegations are part of a larger asymmetrical-information war that has been joined by the entire Washington political establishment. The objective is to methodically weaken an emerging rival while reinforcing US global hegemony.

Try to imagine for a minute, that the hacking claims were not part of a sinister plan by Vladimir Putin “to sow discord and division” in the United States, but were conjured up to create an external threat that would justify an aggressive response from Washington. That’s what Russiagate is really all about.

Image result for The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives

US policymakers and their allies in the military and Intelligence agencies, know that relations with Russia are bound to get increasingly confrontational, mainly because Washington is determined to pursue its ambitious “pivot” to Asia plan. This new regional strategy focuses on “strengthening bilateral security alliances, expanding trade and investment, and forging a broad-based military presence.” In short, the US is determined to maintain its global supremacy by establishing military outposts across Eurasia, continuing to tighten the noose around Russia and China, and reinforcing its position as the dominant player in the most populous and prosperous region in the world. The plan was first presented in its skeletal form by the architect of Washington’s plan to rule the world, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Here’s how Jimmy Carter’s former national security advisor summed it up in his 1997 magnum opus, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives:

“For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia… (p.30)….. Eurasia is the globe’s largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions. …. About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world’s GNP and about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources.” (“The Grand Chessboard:American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives”, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Basic Books, page 31, 1997)

14 years after those words were written, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took up the banner of imperial expansion and demanded a dramatic shift in US foreign policy that would focus primarily on increasing America’s military footprint in Asia. It was Clinton who first coined the term “pivot” in a speech she delivered in 2010 titled “America’s Pacific Century”. Here’s an excerpt from the speech:

“As the war in Iraq winds down and America begins to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot point. Over the last 10 years, we have allocated immense resources to those two theaters. In the next 10 years, we need to be smart and systematic about where we invest time and energy, so that we put ourselves in the best position to sustain our leadership, secure our interests, and advance our values. One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment — diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise — in the Asia-Pacific region…

Open markets in Asia provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge technology…..American firms (need) to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia…The region already generates more than half of global output and nearly half of global trade. As we strive to meet President Obama’s goal of doubling exports by 2015, we are looking for opportunities to do even more business in Asia…and our investment opportunities in Asia’s dynamic markets.”

(“America’s Pacific Century”, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton”, Foreign Policy Magazine, 2011)

The pivot strategy is not some trifling rehash of the 19th century “Great Game” promoted by think-tank fantasists and conspiracy theorists. It is Washington’s premier foreign policy doctrine, a ‘rebalancing’ theory that focuses on increasing US military and diplomatic presence across the Asian landmass. Naturally, NATO’s ominous troop movements on Russia’s western flank and Washington’s provocative naval operations in the South China Sea have sent up red flags in Moscow and Beijing. Former Chinese President Hu Jintao summed it up like this:

“The United States has strengthened its military deployments in the Asia-Pacific region, strengthened the US-Japan military alliance, strengthened strategic cooperation with India, improved relations with Vietnam, inveigled Pakistan, established a pro-American government in Afghanistan, increased arms sales to Taiwan, and so on. They have extended outposts and placed pressure points on us from the east, south, and west.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been equally critical of Washington’s erratic behavior. NATO’s eastward expansion has convinced Putin that the US will continue to be a disruptive force on the continent for the foreseeable future. Both leaders worry that Washington’s relentless provocations will lead to an unexpected clash that will end in war.

Even so, the political class has fully embraced the pivot strategy as a last-gasp attempt to roll back the clock to the post war era when the world’s industrial centers were in ruins and America was the only game in town. Now the center of gravity has shifted from west to east, leaving Washington with just two options: Allow the emerging giants in Asia to connect their high-speed rail and gas pipelines to Europe creating the world’s biggest free trade zone, or try to overturn the applecart by bullying allies and threatening rivals, by implementing sanctions that slow growth and send currencies plunging, and by arming jihadist proxies to fuel ethnic hatred and foment political unrest. Clearly, the choice has already been made. Uncle Sam has decided to fight til the bitter end.

Washington has many ways of dealing with its enemies, but none of these strategies have dampened the growth of its competitors in the east. China is poised to overtake the US as the world’s biggest economy sometime in the next 2 decades while Russia’s intervention in Syria has rolled back Washington’s plan to topple Bashar al Assad and consolidate its grip on the resource-rich Middle East. That plan has now collapsed forcing US policymakers to scrap the War on Terror altogether and switch to a “great power competition” which acknowledges that the US can no longer unilaterally impose its will wherever it goes. Challenges to America’s dominance are emerging everywhere particularly in the region where the US hopes to reign supreme, Asia.

This is why the entire national security state now stands foursquare behind the improbable pivot plan. It’s a desperate “Hail Mary” attempt to preserve the decaying unipolar world order.

What does that mean in practical terms?

It means that the White House (the National Security Strategy) the Pentagon (National Defense Strategy) and the Intelligence Community (The Worldwide Threat Assessment) have all drawn up their own respective analyses of the biggest threats the US currently faces. Naturally, Russia is at the very top of those lists. Russia has derailed Washington’s proxy war in Syria, frustrated US attempts to establish itself across Central Asia, and strengthened ties with the EU hoping to “create a harmonious community of economies from Lisbon to Vladivostok.” (Putin)

Keep in mind, the US does not feel threatened by the possibility of a Russian attack, but by Russia’s ability to thwart Washington’s grandiose imperial ambitions in Asia.

As we noted, the National Security Strategy (NSS) is a statutorily mandated document produced by the White House that explains how the President intends to implement his national security vision. Not surprisingly, the document’s main focus is Russia and China. Here’s an excerpt:

“China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity. They are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence.” (Neither Russia nor China are attempting to erode American security and prosperity.” They are merely growing their economies and expanding their markets. If US corporations reinvested their capital into factories, employee training and R and D instead of stock buybacks and executive compensation, then they would be better able to complete globally.)

Here’s more: “Through modernized forms of subversive tactics, Russia interferes in the domestic political affairs of countries around the world.” (This is a case of the ‘pot calling the kettle black.’)

“Today, actors such as Russia are using information tools in an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of democracies. Adversaries target media, political processes, financial networks, and personal data.” (The western media behemoth is the biggest disinformation bullhorn the world has ever seen. RT and Sputnik don’t hold a candle to the ginormous MSM ‘Wurlitzer’ that controls the cable news stations, the newspapers and most of the print media. The Mueller Report proves beyond a doubt that the politically-motivated nonsense one reads in the media is neither reliably sourced nor trustworthy.)

The Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community is even more explicit in its attacks on Russia. Check it out:

“Threats to US national security will expand and diversify in the coming year, driven in part by China and Russia as they respectively compete more intensely with the United States and its traditional allies and partners…. We assess that Moscow will continue pursuing a range of objectives to expand its reach, including undermining the US-led liberal international order, dividing Western political and security institutions, demonstrating Russia’s ability to shape global issues, and bolstering Putin’s domestic legitimacy.

We assess that Moscow has heightened confidence, based on its success in helping restore the Asad regime’s territorial control in Syria,… Russia seeks to boost its military presence and political influence in the Mediterranean and Red Seas… mediate conflicts, including engaging in the Middle East Peace Process and Afghanistan reconciliation….

Russia will continue pressing Central Asia’s leaders to support Russian-led economic and security initiatives and reduce engagement with Washington. …Russia and China are likely to intensify efforts to build influence in Europe at the expense of US interests…” (“The Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community”, USG)

Notice how the Intelligence Community summary does not suggest that Russia poses an imminent military threat to the US, only that Russia has restored order in Syria, strengthened ties with China, emerged as an “honest broker” among countries in the Middle East, and used the free market system to improve relations with its trading partners and grow its economy. The IC appears to find fault with Russia because it is using the system the US created to better advantage than the US. This is entirely understandable given Putin’s determination to draw Europe and Asia closer together through a region-wide economic integration plan. Here’s Putin:

“We must consider more extensive cooperation in the energy sphere, up to and including the formation of a common European energy complex. The Nord Stream gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea and the South Stream pipeline under the Black Sea are important steps in that direction. These projects have the support of many governments and involve major European energy companies. Once the pipelines start operating at full capacity, Europe will have a reliable and flexible gas-supply system that does not depend on the political whims of any nation. This will strengthen the continent’s energy security not only in form but in substance. This is particularly relevant in the light of the decision of some European states to reduce or renounce nuclear energy.”

The gas pipelines and high-speed rail are the arteries that will bind the continents together and strengthen the new EU-Asia superstate. This is Washington’s greatest nightmare, a massive, thriving free trade zone beyond its reach and not subject to its rules. In 2012, Hillary Clinton acknowledged this new threat and promised to do everything in her power to destroy it. Check out this excerpt:

“U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described efforts to promote greater economic integration in Eurasia as “a move to re-Sovietize the region.”…. “We know what the goal is and we are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it,” she said at an international conference in Dublin on December 6, 2012, Radio Free Europe.”

“Slow down or prevent it”?

Why? Because EU-Asia growth and prosperity will put pressure on US debt markets, US corporate interests, US (ballooning) national debt, and the US Dollar? Is that why Hillary is so committed to sabotaging Putin’s economic integration plan?

Indeed, it is. Washington wants to block progress and prosperity in the east in order to extend the lifespan of a doddering and thoroughly-bankrupt state that is presently $22 trillion in the red but continues to write checks on an overdrawn account.

But Russia shouldn’t be blamed for Washington’s profligate behavior, that’s not Putin’s fault. Moscow is merely using the free market system more effectively that the US.

Now consider the Pentagon’s 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) which reiterates many of the same themes as the other two documents.

“Today, we are emerging from a period of strategic atrophy, aware that our competitive military advantage has been eroding. We are facing increased global disorder, characterized by decline in the long-standing rules-based international order—creating a security environment more complex and volatile than any we have experienced in recent memory. Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security.”

(Naturally, the “security environment” is going to be more challenging when ‘regime change’ is the cornerstone of one’s foreign policy. Of course, the NDS glosses over that sad fact. Here’s more:)

“Russia has violated the borders of nearby nations and pursues veto power over the economic, diplomatic, and security decisions of its neighbors…..(Baloney. Russia has been a force for stability in Syria and Ukraine. If Obama had his way, Syria would have wound up like Iraq, a hellish wastelands occupied by foreign mercenaries. Is that how the Pentagon measures success?) Here’s more:

“China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model…

“China and Russia are now undermining the international order from within the system…….

“China and Russia are the principal priorities for the Department… because of the magnitude of the threats they pose to U.S. security.” (National Defense Strategy of the United States of America)

Get the picture? China and Russia, China and Russia, China and Russia. Bad, bad, bad.

Why? Because they are successfully implementing their own development model which is NOT programed to favor US financial institutions and corporations. That’s the whole thing in a nutshell. The only reason Russia and China are a threat to the “rules-based system”, is because Washington insists on being the only one who makes the rules. That’s why foreign leaders are no longer falling in line, because it’s not a fair system.

These assessments represent the prevailing opinion of senior-level policymakers across the spectrum. (The White House, the Pentagon and the Intelligence Community) The USG is unanimous in its judgement that a harsher more combative approach is needed to deal with Russia and China. Foreign policy elites want to put the nation on the path to more confrontation, more conflict and more war. At the same time, none of these three documents suggest that Russia has any intention of launching an attack on the United States. The greatest concern is the effect that emerging competitors will have on Washington’s provocative plan for military and economic expansion, the threat that Russia and China pose to America’s tenuous grip on global power. It is that fear that drives US foreign policy.

And this is broader context into which we must fit the Russia investigation. The reason the Russia hacking furor has been allowed to flourish and spread despite the obvious lack of any supporting evidence, is because the vilifying of Russia segues perfectly with the geopolitical interests of elites in the government. The USG now works collaboratively with the media to influence public attitudes on issues that are important to the powerful foreign policy establishment. The ostensible goal of these psychological operations (PSYOP) is to selectively use information on “audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of… organizations, groups, and individuals.”

The USG now sees the minds of ordinary Americans as a legitimate target for their influence campaigns. They regard attitudes and perceptions as “the cognitive domain of the battlespace” which they must exploit in order to build public support for their vastly unpopular wars and interventions. The relentless Russiagate narrative (which was first referred to the FBI by the chief architect of the Syrian War, former-CIA Director John Brennan) represents the disinformation component of the broader campaign against Russia. Foreign policy elites are determined to persuade the American people that Russia constitutes a material threat to their security that must be countered by tighter sanctions, more sabre-rattling, and eventually war.

*

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

This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Shutterstock

Why Is the Fed Paying So Much Interest to Banks?

April 4th, 2019 by Ellen Brown

“If you invest your tuppence wisely in the bank, safe and sound,
Soon that tuppence safely invested in the bank will compound,

“And you’ll achieve that sense of conquest as your affluence expands
In the hands of the directors who invest as propriety demands.”

Mary Poppins, 1964

When Mary Poppins was made into a movie in 1964, Mr. Banks’ advice to his son was sound. Banks were then paying more than 5% interest on deposits, enough to double young Michael’s investment every 14 years.

Now, however, the average savings account pays only 0.10% annually – that’s 1/10th of 1% – and many of the country’s biggest banks pay less than that. If you were to put $5,000 in a regular Bank of America savings account (paying 0.01%) today, in a year you would have collected only 50 cents in interest.

That’s true for most of us, but banks themselves are earning 2.4% on their deposits at the Federal Reserve. These deposits, called “excess reserves,” include the reserves the banks got from our deposits, on which they are paying almost nothing; and unlike with our deposits, there is no $250,000 cap on the sums banks can stash at the Fed amassing interest. A whopping $1.5 trillion in reserves are now sitting in Fed reserve accounts. The Fed rebates its profits to the government after deducting its costs, and interest paid to banks is one of those costs. That means we the taxpayers are paying $36 billion annually to private banks for the privilege of parking their excess reserves at one of the most secure banks in the world – parking their reserves rather than lending them out.

The banks are getting these outsized returns while taking absolutely no risk, since the Fed as “lender of last resort” cannot go bankrupt. This is not true for other depositors, including large institutions such as the pension funds that hold our retirement money. As Matt Levine notes in a March 8 article on Bloomberg:

[I]f you are a large institutional cash investor—a money-market fund, a foreign central bank, things like that—then in some sense you have no way to keep your money perfectly safe…. The closest that big non-banks normally get is “overnight general collateral repo”: You give your money to a bank, and the bank gives you back a Treasury security as collateral, and you can get your money back the next day.

This arrangement is reasonably safe for the institutional investor, which can withdraw its money on a day’s notice; and it gets interest that is close to 2.4%. But the bank is using the investor’s money to run its business, and the bank is leveraged. The money it gets from repoing Treasuries is used to buy other things and to trade in stocks, bonds, derivatives and the like. This makes the repo business highly risky for the market as a whole, as was seen when a run on the repo market triggered the credit crisis of 2008-09. As Jennifer Taub explained the problem in a 2014 article in The New York Timestitled “Time to Reduce Repo Run Risk”:

An overnight repo would be like you having a car loan that is due in full every morning and if the lender does not renew your loan that day, you need to find a new one, each and every day or they take your car away.

When trust is strong and cash plentiful, repos are rolled over. When trust reasonably erodes, or there is a panic, cash is demanded from the repo borrowers who might have to sell the collateral or relinquish it…. Indeed, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has repeatedly warned of the repo “fire sale” risk.

Taub cited FDIC officials Thomas Hoenig and Sheila Bair, who warned that the banks remain dangerously interconnected and vulnerable to sudden runs due to their dependence on short-term, often overnight borrowing through the multitrillion-dollar repo market.

For large institutional investors, one proposed alternative is something called “The Narrow Bank” (TNB). TNB would take large-depositor money and park it at the Fed, and that’s all the bank would do. The Fed would pay 2.4%, TNB would take a small cut, and the rest would be passed to the depositors. But the Fed has refused to open this sort of pass-through account, and in a recent notice of proposed rulemaking it explained why. As Matt Levine summarized its concerns:

[T]he Fed worries that having too safe a bank would be bad for financial stability: In times of stress, everyone will flee from the regular banks to the super-safe narrow banks, which will have the effect of bringing down the regular banks.

Besides impairing its ability to target interest rates, the Fed is worried that narrow banks will take funding away from regular banks, making it harder for those banks to trade stocks and bonds (a business largely funded by repo) as well as jeopardizing their lending business. All of which shows, says Levine, that the Fed is not a neutral arbiter. It is working for the banks:

The Fed just gets to decide who gets to compete in the banking business, and how that competition will work, and what their business models can be, by virtue of its control of access to reserve accounts…. There is no modern banking that is independent of the sovereign’s power to control money, and the question is just who the sovereign shares that power with.

The European Approach: Negative Interest Rates

While US banks are being paid an unprecedented 2.4% for leaving their reserves at the Fed, the European Central Bank is taking the opposite tack: it is charging banks a negative interest rate of 0.4% for holding their reserves. The goal is to get banks to move the reserves off their books by making new loans. If they lend money on to the real economy, and particularly to companies, this interest payment may be rebated to the banks under a facility called “targeted longer-term refinancing operations” or TLTROs. In 2016 and 2017, the ECB returned a total of 739 billion euros to banks through TLTROs, and it is expected to renew that program, in an effort to avoid an even greater economic downturn than Europe is suffering now.

Negative interest rates were supposed to be a temporary emergency measure, but in comments on March 27, ECB President Mario Draghi hinted that they could be around for a long time if not permanently. The “new normal” is evidently a chronically abnormal state of emergency in which central banks can experiment with the formerly unthinkable and get away with it.

A Public Option for the Rest of Us

Even if large depositors were allowed to participate in the perks of Fed accounts through TNB, small depositors and small businesses would still be left with a meager 1/10th of 1% annually on their deposits. But some interesting proposals are on the table for opening the Fed’s deposit window to everyone, allowing us all to collect 2.4% on our deposits.

One such plan was presented in a June 2018 policy paper titled “Central Banking for All: A Public Option for Bank Accounts” by a trio of law professors and former Treasury advisors headed by Morgan Ricks. They suggested that for the physical infrastructure to handle so many accounts, the Fed could use the post offices peppered across the country. Postal banking has been popular for two centuries in Europe and was offered in US post offices from 1911 to 1967. Postal banks were in their heyday in the 1930s, when private banks were going bankrupt and were vulnerable to crushing bank runs. The postal banks were government-backed, paid 2% interest on deposits, and were very safe. Congress could have expanded that system into a national public utility that safely and efficiently served the banking needs of local communities. But instead it chose to back the private banking system with federal deposit insurance, guaranteeing private bank deposits with taxpayer funds – again showing how the winners and losers are picked by government officials, depending on whose lobbyists have the most clout.

To prevent public banks from competing with private banks, Congress capped the amount of interest postal banks could pay and strictly limited their lending. As a result, in 1967 the postal banking system was shut down as being no longer competitive or necessary. But efforts are now underway to revive it. In April 2018, US Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand introduced legislation that would require every US post office to provide basic banking services.

A movement is also afoot to establish state- and city-owned banks that would have the ability to lend for infrastructure and other local needs. Local governments cannot get a risk-free 2.4% from the Fed for their demand deposits, but city- or state-owned banks could. Combining postal banks with a network of local public banks having affordable access to the Fed’s deep pocket could provide a safe and efficient public banking option for individuals, businesses and local governments.

*

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

This article was first published on Truthdig.com.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books including Web of Debt and The Public Bank Solution. A 13th book titled Banking on the People: Democratizing Finance in the Digital Age is due out soon. She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 300+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Committee: Israel Testing Medicines on Palestinian Prisoners

April 4th, 2019 by Middle East Monitor

Head of High Follow up Committee for Arabs in Israel Mohammad Baraka has warned that Palestinians being held in Israeli jails are being used as guinea pigs for new medical trials, Arab48reported yesterday.

“This is a clear war against humanity and international rights groups must take Israel to the ICC over its crimes against prisoners,” Baraka said.

He added:

“There are reports that the Ministry of Health issued licenses to several international companies to carry out medical tests on Palestinian and Arab prisoners in Israeli jails without their knowledge.”

He concluded:

“This crime is added to the record of crimes against the Palestinians, mainly the prisoners inside Israeli jails, who are being denied their basic rights.”

In February, Israeli Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian revealed that the Israeli occupation authorities had issued permits to large pharmaceutical firms to carry out tests on Palestinian and Arab prisoners.

*

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

Featured image is from Jerusalem News/Facebook

China’s PLA Troops in Venezuela Is Game Changer

April 4th, 2019 by M. K. Bhadrakumar

The reported arrival of Chinese military personnel in Venezuela last weekend is undoubtedly a major event in world politics. 

Unlike Russia, which has a history of force projection abroad, this is an extremely rare Chinese move. Although vital Chinese interests are at stake in the war against terrorist groups in Afghanistan and Syria, China refrained from publicising any such deployment. 

The reports mention that the group of Chinese military personnel is 120-strong and arrived on the Margarita Island in the Caribbean Sea off the Venezuelan mainland on March 28 ‘to deliver humanitarian aid and military supplies to the government forces.’ After delivering the humanitarian supplies, the Chinese PLA troops were apparently transferred to a Venezuelan military facility.

While the delivery of aid is one of many expected shipments, according to government officials, the arrival of Chinese military personnel was under-reported in international press.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Venezuela imported $349 million worth of arms from China between 2010 and 2014 alone — initially, with less sophisticated equipment such as radars and aircraft to train pilots, reinforced vehicles and replacement parts, etc. but military goods that arrived in 2017 including armoured tanks, ammunition, uniforms and infantry equipment, as well as replacement and service parts for Russian-made pieces. 

A week ago, around 100 Russian military personnel were deployed to Venezuela to instal a military helicopter training facility, but details of the Chinese PLA mission have not been disclosed. There is close coordination between Moscow and Beijing on foreign policy issues and it is entirely conceivable that the two countries’ deployments are synchronised moves.  

Both Russia and China have heavily invested in Venezuela, the latter by far outstripping the former. According to a recent report in the LA Times,

“Over the decade ending in 2016, China loaned Venezuela approximately $62 billion, much of which Caracas could repay with oil. Moscow in the last several years gave Venezuela $17 billion in loans and investment, and in December the two governments signed a new deal in which Russia will invest $6 billion in Venezuela’s oil and gold sectors.” 

“China and Russia are Venezuela’s two main creditors, and they have been the principal economic force keeping the Maduro government afloat, making the difference between solvency and bankruptcy, financial experts say.”

Interestingly, the LA Times report, however, made a distinction that China and Russia pursued different attitudes toward their financial commitments in Venezuela, with China being “more pragmatic” and Russia “more ideological”. Whereas for its investment, Beijing sought to receive raw materials, cheap oil and other returns, Moscow was credited with having greater interest in “in extending its military presence and setting up a beachhead in the Americas — and within spitting distance of the United States…”

“For Russia, investments and military saber-rattling about protecting Venezuela has always been about showing strength in America’s neighbourhood… The Kremlin has tried to mimic what it sees as U.S. and NATO foreign policy of entering and meddling in Moscow’s perceived sphere of influence, such as Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, particularly Ukraine.” 

Indeed, Moscow’s condemnation of US interference in Venezuela has been conspicuously more forceful than that of China, which actually called for dialogue and a negotiated resolution to the crisis. Many US analysts assumed that China might even be losing faith in President Nicolas Maduro and decided to keep its head beneath the parapet preferring to focus on its lending practices in Venezuela and even scouring for bargain-basement deals. 

But such facile hypotheses have been turned on their head with the sudden arrival of the Chinese PLA troops on the languid Margarita Island famous as a popular holiday destination for its sand and mangroves, windsurfing and kiteboarding. One reason could be that in the Chinese assessment, although tensions are rising in Venezuela and uncertainties remain due to the duality of power, and a criticality may well be reached in the nearest future with the refugee problem causing disaffection among neighbouring countries and with no signs of Washington easing the pressure for regime change in Caracas, there is also at the same time an inherent balance or equilibrium that has come to prevail in the situation insofar as neither side in the conflict enjoys a decisive advantage. 

A war of attrition is under way which can end only if either side loses patience and forces a showdown, which seems unlikely as things stand. 

In the assessment of the Russian experts, while a lot of shadow boxing is going on from the American side with the US’ Latin American allies even expecting swift and tough action by the US, the fact of the matter is that there is no stomach for anyone really for demanding an outright military intervention to change the regime in Venezuela. 

Washington seems to fear that any military intervention may prove to be counterproductive and could have chaotic outcome, and, worse still, even unite the Venezuelan people against the US, apart from causing turbulence among Latin American countries. 

Nonetheless, the arrival of Russian military personnel in Venezuela “caused a nervous reaction in Washington”, as the foreign ministry in Moscow noted on March 30 in response to a sharply-worded statement by the US National Security Advisor John Bolton the previous day strongly cautioning the Kremlin against “deploying military assets to Venezuela, or elsewhere in the Hemisphere, with the intent of establishing or expanding military operations.” Bolton warned Moscow, “We will consider such provocative actions as a direct threat to international peace and security in the region.” 

But the Russian foreign ministry brushed off Bolton’s warning and claimed that although geographically, Russia’s Chukotka Peninsula is located in the Western Hemisphere, Moscow had no intentions to “establish or expand military operations” in Venezuela. Having said that, “any (US) attempts to intimidate Russia with sanctions for its legitimate cooperation with Venezuela look absurd.” 

The foreign ministry underscored that the US “plans for a rapid change of regime in Caracas have failed. By its self-assurance, Washington has let down those in Latin America and Western Europe who unwisely hastened   to recognise an impostor, whom the people had not elected, as the head of Venezuela. By taking this step, they have deprived themselves of any room for diplomatic manoeuvre.” Furthermore, Moscow asserted that it proposed to do “everything within our power” to promote a national dialogue in Venezuela. However, Moscow has also signalled indirectly that any ideas of establishing a military base in Venezuela so close to the US shores is far from its thoughts.

Clearly, the firm but prudent Russian stance went a long way to encourage China to shift to an overt proactive role. Needless to say, Russia (and Cuba) will welcome this Chinese shift. 

(China’s PLAAF conducted its first airdrop and air delivery training exercise using the Y-20 strategic transport aircraft last year circa May.)

If the Russian and Cuban presence in Venezuela has been bad enough for the Trump administration, the arrival of the PLA troops will be a bitter pill to swallow, given extensive Chinese involvement in Latin America. Indeed, China is joining Russia to assert the intention to safeguard its vital interests in Venezuela. 

To be sure, both Moscow and Beijing have taken note of President Trump’s recent remark that he intended to talk things over with his Russian and Chinese counterparts regarding Venezuela, which is as good as saying that he isn’t considering any military intervention, no matter the rhetorical remarks by US officials. 

No doubt, the PLA deployment to Venezuela is at once a game changer in the crisis situation surrounding that country. At a substantive level, China has conveyed its readiness and capability to salvage the besieged Maduro government. Beijing has not only underscored that it is a stakeholder but also asserted its expanding global influence. Of course, China firmly repudiates the Monroe Doctrine. Thus, in many ways, this becomes a watershed moment in world politics.

*

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

All images in this article are from Indian Punchline

What Monroe Doctrine?

April 4th, 2019 by Philip Giraldi

Because there is a presidential election coming up next year, the Donald Trump Administration appears to be looking for a country that it can attack and destroy in order to prove its toughness and willingness to go all the way in support of alleged American interests. It is a version of the old neocon doctrine attributed to Michael Ledeen, the belief that every once in a while, it is necessary to pick out some crappy little country and throw it against the wall just to demonstrate that the United States means business.

“Meaning business” is a tactic whereby the adversary surrenders immediately in fear of the possible consequences, but there are a couple of problems with that thinking. The first is that an opponent who can resist will sometimes balk and create a continuing problem for the United States, which has a demonstrated inability to start and end wars in any coherent fashion.

This tendency to get caught in a quagmire in a situation that might have been resolved through diplomacy has been exacerbated by the current White House’s negotiating style, which is to both demand and expect submission on all points even before discussions begin. That was clearly the perception with North Korea, where National Security Advisor John Bolton insisted that Pyongyang had agreed to American demands over its nuclear program even though it hadn’t and would have been foolish to do so for fear of being treated down the road like Libya, which denuclearized but then was attacked and destroyed seven years later. The Bolton mis-perception, which was apparently bought into by Trump, led to a complete unraveling of what might actually have been accomplished if the negotiations had been serious and open to reasonable compromise right from the beginning.

Trump’s written demand that Kim Jong Un immediately hand over his nuclear weapons and all bomb making material was a non-starter based on White House misunderstandings rooted in its disdain for compromise. The summit meeting with Trump, held in Hanoi at the end of February, was abruptly canceled by Kim and Pyongyang subsequently accused Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of making “gangster-like” demands.

The second problem is that there are only a few actual casus belli situations under international law that permit a country to attack another preemptively, and they are usually limited to actual imminent threats. The current situation with Venezuela is similar to that with North Korea in that Washington is operating on the presumption that it has a right to intervene and bring about regime change, using military force if necessary, because of its presumed leadership role in global security, not because Caracas or even Pyongyang necessarily is threatening anyone. That presumption that American “exceptionalism” provides authorization to intervene in other countries using economic weapons backed up by a military option that is “on the table” is a viewpoint that is not accepted by the rest of the world.

In the case of Venezuela, where Trump has dangerously demanded that Russia withdraw the hundred or so advisors that it sent to help stabilize the country, the supposition that the United States has exclusive extra-territorial rights is largely based on nineteenth and early twentieth century unilaterally declared “doctrines.” The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 and the Roosevelt Corollary of 1904 de facto established the United States as the hegemon-presumptive for the entire Western Hemisphere, stretching from the Arctic Circle in the north to Patagonia in the south.

John Bolton has been the leader in promoting the Monroe Doctrine as justification for Washington’s interference in Venezuela’s politics, apparently only dimly aware that the Doctrine, which opposed any attempts by European powers to establish new colonies in the Western Hemisphere, was only in effect for twenty-two years when the United States itself annexed Texas and then went to war with Mexico in the following year. The Mexican war led to the annexation of territory that subsequently became the states of California, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Colorado. In the same year, the United States threatened war with Britain over the Oregon Territory, eventually accepting a border settlement running along the 49th parallel.

Meanwhile the march westward across the plains continued, forcing the Indian tribes back into ever smaller spaces of open land. The US government in the nineteenth century recognized some Indian tribes as “nations” but it apparently did not believe that they enjoyed any explicit “Monroe Doctrine” rights to continue to exist outside reservations when confronted by the “manifest destiny” proponents who were hell bent on creating a United States that would run from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

The Roosevelt Corollary of 1904 amended the Monroe Doctrine, making it clear that the United States believed it had a right to interfere in any country in the western Hemisphere to maintain good order, which inevitably led to exploitation of Latin American nations by US business conglomerates that could count on a little help from US Marines if their trade agreements were threatened. In 1898, Washington became explicitly imperialist when it defeated Spain and acquired effective control over Cuba, a number of Caribbean Islands and the Philippines. This led to a series of more than thirty interventions by the US military in the Caribbean and Central America between 1898 and 1934. Other states in the region that were not directly controlled by Washington were frequently managed through arrangements with local autocrats, who were often themselves generals.

Make no mistake, citing the Monroe Doctrine is little more than a plausible excuse to get rid of the Venezuelan government, which is legitimate, like it or not. The recent electrical blackouts in the country are only the visible signs of an aggressive campaign to destroy the Venezuelan economy. The United States is engaging in economic warfare against Caracas, just as it is doing against Tehran, and it is past time that it should be challenged by the international community over its behavior. Guns may not be firing but covert cyberwarfare is total warfare nevertheless, intended to starve people and increase their suffering in order to bring about economic collapse and take down a government to change it into something more amenable to American interests.

*

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

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

Featured image is from SCF

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg delivered the first-ever address by a leader of the US-led imperialist alliance to a joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday, promoting a military buildup against Russia under conditions in which ever greater fissures are threatening to tear NATO itself apart.

Stoltenberg, whose pedestrian speech was interrupted by 18 standing ovations from the assembled US Senators and Representatives, claimed that he was not pushing a new Cold War, but nonetheless made it clear that the central axis of the NATO alliance remained preparation for a military confrontation with Moscow.

“For the first time, we have combat-ready troops deployed in the east of our alliance,” he said. “We have increased the readiness of our forces, tripled the size of the NATO Response Force, modernized our command structure, bolstered our cyber defenses, and we have stepped up support for our close partners, Georgia and Ukraine, sovereign nations with the sovereign right to choose their own path.”

This boasting over the deployment of armed battalions on Russia’s very borders came as a summit of NATO foreign ministers being held in Washington approved plans for the dispatch of NATO warships to the Kerch Strait. This passageway between the Black and Azov Seas was the scene last November of a provocation by Ukraine that ended in an armed confrontation in which Russia seized three Ukrainian ships and some two dozen sailors.

“We are going to make sure that we have the capability to deter a very aggressive Russia,” US ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison told reporters on Tuesday on the sidelines of the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting.

She said that the upcoming NATO intervention was designed “to assure that there is a safe passage for Ukrainian vessels through the Kerch Strait.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov condemned the planned action, declaring:

“It’s negative. We do not understand what they mean. The situation surrounding the Kerch Strait and shipping is well known, and in line with international legislation, with international laws, Russia’s position is quite consistent, and it is well known too.”

Stoltenberg also solidarized himself with Washington over the Trump administration’s ripping up of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, noting that “NATO allies have supported the US position on that strongly.” Washington’s action, justified on the basis of unsubstantiated claims that Russia has violated the accord, opens the way to a dangerous new nuclear arms race.

US officials have acknowledged that a principal motivation for Washington’s action is that China, which is not bound by the treaty, is deploying missiles to counter Washington’s military encirclement carried out under the banner of the “pivot to Asia.”

One Russian television commentator described Stoltenberg’s speech as a “familiar bundle of threats and phobias” based upon the concern that Russia “had placed its borders too close to NATO.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a photo-op with Stoltenberg in which she gushed that the NATO chief’s appearance on Capitol Hill was a “jubilant occasion” and thanked him for his “leadership in making the world a more peaceful place.”

Democratic lawmakers were the most enthusiastic in cheering the NATO secretary general, clearly seeing their praise for him as a rebuke to Republican President Donald Trump, who in his 2016 election campaign described the NATO alliance as “obsolete,” and has repeatedly charged that European members are taking advantage of the US by relying on its military might while achieving unfair trade advantages.

At the same time, with the report by special counsel Robert Mueller failing to confirm incessant Democratic claims of Trump’s “collusion” with the Kremlin in alleged interference in the 2016 elections, the Democrats’ embrace of Stoltenberg is part of the continuing drive by the party to oppose the Trump administration from the right with demands for an even more aggressive militarist policy against Russia.

While Stoltenberg tried to portray the increasingly acrimonious divisions within NATO as “a sign of strength” and “democracy,” US Vice President Mike Pence, speaking at a NATO anniversary event in Washington, delivered what amounted to ultimatums to both Turkey and Germany to submit to Washington’s diktats, or else.

“Turkey must choose,” Pence said. “Does it want to remain a critical partner in the most successful military alliance in history, or does it want to risk the security of that partnership by making such reckless decisions that undermine our alliance?”

The US vice president was referring to Ankara’s decision to buy S-400 missile defense systems from Russia, against which Washington has retaliated by stopping delivery of F-35 fighter jets that are being provided to other NATO countries.

Turkey’s vice president, Fuat Oktay, delivered a stinging response to Pence’s ultimatum, tweeting:

“The United States must choose. Does it want to remain Turkey’s ally or risk our friendship by joining forces with terrorists to undermine its NATO ally’s defense against its enemies.”

Oktay’s reference was to the Pentagon’s continued arming and support for the Syrian Kurdish separatist YPG militia, which Ankara views as a branch of the Turkish Kurdish PKK movement, against which it has fought a bloody counterinsurgency campaign for decades.

Earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, speaking at another event in Washington, made it clear that Ankara was not about to bow to Washington’s demands.

“It’s a done deal,” he said in relation to the S-400s. “Turkey doesn’t have to choose between Russia and any others, and we don’t see our relationship with Russia as an alternative to others.”

Pence also turned his fire against Berlin, condemning the German government for refusing “to make the necessary investment of 2 percent of its GDP to our common defense.”

While the German government is rearming on a scale unseen since the downfall of Hitler’s Third Reich—increasing military spending by 40 percent since 2014—Pence cast Berlin as shirking its responsibilities.

More pointedly, he denounced the German government for moving ahead with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, bringing Russian natural gas to Germany through the Baltic Sea, insisting that Germany ran the risk of becoming a “captive of Russia.” Washington has pressed for Germany to accept liquefied natural gas, delivered by US companies, as an alternative to Russian gas.

In his meeting with Stoltenberg on Tuesday, Trump pressed on the same issues, while apparently attempting to soften the tone of the nakedly imperialist interests being pursued by Washington by declaring his “great respect” for Germany.

“My father is German, was German,” Trump said. “Born in a very wonderful place in Germany, so I have a great feeling for Germany.”

This was the third time that Trump has publicly claimed that his father, Fred Trump, was born in Germany, when it is public record that he was actually born in New York City in 1905.

*

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

Featured image: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg addresses Congress [Photo Credit: C-Span]

Pro-Israeli Power Rolls over Washington

April 3rd, 2019 by Philip Giraldi

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has just completed its annual summit in Washington. It claims that 18,000 supporters attended the event, which concluded with a day of lobbying Congress by the attendees. Numerous American politicians addressed the gathering and it is completely reasonable to observe that the meeting constituted the most powerful gathering of people dedicated to promoting the interests of a foreign nation ever witnessed in any country in the history of the world.

There are a number of things that one should understand about the Jewish state of Israel and its powerful American domestic lobby. First of all, the charge that the actions of The Lobby (referred to with capital letters because of its uniqueness and power) inevitably involves dual or even singular allegiance based on religion or tribe to a country where the lobbyist does not actually reside is completely correct by definition of what AIPAC is and why it exists. It claims to work to “ensure that the Jewish state is safe, strong and secure” through “foreign aid, government partnerships, [and] joint anti-terrorism efforts…,” all of which involve the U.S. as the donor and Israel as the recipient.

Being a citizen of a country is not just an accident of birth. It requires loyalty to the interests of that country and to one’s fellow citizens. No two countries have identical interests, something that is particularly true when one is considering Israel, an ethno-religious autocracy, and the United States, where The Lobby works assiduously to compel American government at all levels to adopt positions that are beneficial to Israel and almost invariably harmful to U.S. interests. Asserting that the two nations have nearly identical interests is little more than a fraud.

Second, there is the claim that Israel benefits American security. That is also a lie. Washington’s relationship with Israel, which is now more subservient than it ever has been, is a major liability that is and always has been damaging to both American regional and global interests. The recent decisions to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights were ill-conceived and have been condemned by the world community, including by nearly all of America’s genuine close allies.

The harm done by the Israeli connection to policy formulation in Washington and to U.S. troops based in the Middle East has been noted both by Admiral Thomas Moorer and General David Petraeus, with Moorer decrying how “If the American people understood what a grip those people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our citizens certainly don’t have any idea what goes on.” Petraeus complained to a Senate Committee that U.S. favoritism towards Israel puts American soldiers based in the Middle East at risk. He was quickly forced to recant, however.

Former CIA Deputy Director Admiral Bobby Inman has also rejected the claim that Israel is a security asset by observing that

“Israeli spies have done more harm and have damaged the United States more than the intelligence agents of all other countries on earth combined… They are the gravest threat to our national security.”

Image on the right: Milchan and Netanyahu (Source: David Silverman/Getty Image via Haaretz)

Image result for Arnon Milchan

Inman was referring to American Jewish spy Jonathan Pollard, who stole for Israel an entire roomful of the most highly classified defense information. Israeli spies, including current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hollywood movie producer Arnon Milchan, also participated in the systematic theft of weapons grade uranium and nuclear triggers in the 1960s so Israel could secretly create a nuclear weapons arsenal. The FBI, for its part, in its annual counterintelligence report, consistently identifies Israel as the “friendly” country that spies most persistently against the U.S. FBI Agents have testified that there are very few prosecutions of the swarms of Israeli spies due to “political pressure.”

Third, there is the myth that the United States and Israel have “shared values,” which is meant to imply that both are liberal democracies where freedom and human rights prevail, beacons of light offering enlightened leadership in a world where tyranny threatens at every turn. This was stressed in the opening remarks last weekend by AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr, who described Israel as

“A nation always striving to be better, more just and true to the message of its founders, a nation dedicated to freedom of religion for people of all faiths. We do our work for all to see. What unites our pro-Israel movement is the passion for bringing American and Israel closer for the benefit of both and the benefit of all. We look like America because we are America.”

Kohr is, of course, preaching to an audience that wants desperately to believe what he says in spite of what they have been able to see with their own eyes in the media when it dares to publish a story criticizing Israel. Jewish hypocrisy about one standard for Israel and Jews plus another standard for everyone else operates pretty much out in the open if one knows where to look. Zionist Organization of America’s Morton Klein, who once tweeted regarding a “filthy Arab,” was interviewed by journalist Nathan Thrall and asked why he believed it was “utterly racist and despicable” to support a “white nationalist” ethnic group but not racist for Israel to do the same. He responded

“Israel is a unique situation. This is really a Jewish state given to us by God. God did not create a state for white people or for black people.”

Senator Charles Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, who calls himself the Senate’s “shomer” or guardian for American Jews, had a slightly different take on it:

“Of course, we say it’s our land, the Torah says it, but they don’t believe in the Torah. So that’s the reason there is not peace.”

But Kohr, Klein and Schumer all know as well as anyone that Israeli Jews, fortified by their conceit of being a “Chosen people,” are not interchangeable with contemporary Americans, or at least not “like” the Americans who still care about their country. There are hundreds of mostly Jewish pro-Israel organizations in America, having a combined endowment of $16 billion, that are actively propagandizing and promoting Israeli interests by ignoring or lying about the downside of the relationship. The University of Michigan affiliate of the Hillel International campus organization alone has a multistory headquarters supported by a budget of $2 million and a staff of 15. It hosts an emissary of the Jewish Agency for Israel, an Israeli government supported promotional enterprise.

So, what is the meaning of the “American” in AIPAC? Requiring a religious-ethnic litmus test for full citizenship and rights is Israeli, not American. Having local government admissions committees that can bar Israeli-Palestinian citizens based on “social suitability” would not be acceptable to most Americans. Demanding a unique Israeli right to exist while denying it to Israel’s neighbors; demolishing homes while poisoning Palestinian livestock and destroying orchards; shooting children for throwing stones; and inflicting death, terror and deprivation upon the imprisoned people of Gaza are all everyday common practice for the Israeli government.

Israel and AIPAC have relentlessly pursued their agenda while also corrupting the Congress of the United States to support the Israeli government with money and political cover. Israel and friends like Kohr routinely make baseless charges of anti-Semitism against critics while also legislating against free-speech to eliminate any and all criticism. This drive to make Israel uniquely free from any critique has become the norm in the United States, but it is a norm driven by Israeli interests and Israel’s friends, most of whom are Jewish billionaires or Jewish organizations that meet regularly and discuss what they might do to benefit the Jewish state.

And the fourth big lie is that the American people support Israel on religious as well as cultural grounds, not because mostly Jewish money has corrupted our political system and media. Indeed, many Christian fundamentalists have various takes on what Israel means, but their influence is limited. The Israel-thing is Jewish in all ways that matter and its sanitized Exodus-version that has been sold to the public is essentially a complete fraud nurtured by the media, also Jewish controlled, by Hollywood, and by the Establishment.

Mondoweiss reported recently that

“This weekend the New York Times breaks one of the biggest taboos, describing the responsibility of Jewish donors for the Democratic Party’s slavish support for Israel. Nathan Thrall’s groundbreaking piece repeats a lot of data we’ve reported here and says in essence that it really is about the Benjamins, as Rep. Ilhan Omar said so famously. The donor class of the party is overwhelmingly Jewish, and Jews are still largely wed to Zionism– that’s the nut.” Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national-security adviser to ex-President Barack Obama recounted in the article how “a more assertive policy toward Israel” never evolved “The Washington view of Israel-Palestine is still shaped by the [Jewish] donor class.”

And the support for Israel goes beyond money. The Times article included an October 2018

“Survey of 800 American voters who identify as Jewish, conducted by the Mellman Group on behalf of the Jewish Electoral Institute, 92 percent said that they are ‘generally pro-Israel.’ In the same poll — conducted after the United States closed the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Washington, moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, appointed a fund-raiser for the settlements as U.S. ambassador and cut humanitarian aid to Palestinians — roughly half of American Jews said they approved of President Trump’s handling of relations with Israel. On what is considered the most divisive issue in U.S.-Israel relations, the establishment of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, a November 2018 post-midterm election poll of more than 1,000 American Jews that was commissioned by J Street, the pro-Israel lobby aligned with Democrats, found that roughly half said the expansion of settlements had no impact on how they felt about Israel. According to a 2013 Pew survey, 44 percent of Americans and 40 percent of American Jews believe that Israel was given to the Jewish people by God, [a] fact that Jews believe they have rights in historic Palestine that non-Jews do not.”

Image result for steny hoyer

And one only has to listen to the AIPAC speeches made by leading members of the U.S. government establishment to appreciate the essential hypocrisy over the U.S. wag-the-dog relationship with the Jewish state of Israel. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (image on the left) led the parade of Democrats on the first evening of AIPAC, thundering

“When someone accuses American supporters of Israel of dual loyalty, I say: Accuse me, I am part of a large, bipartisan coalition in Congress supporting Israel—an overwhelming majority of the United States Congress. I tell Israel’s accusers and detractors: Accuse me.”

Well, Steny there is a certain irony in your request and to be sure you should be accused over betrayal of your oath to uphold the constitution against all enemies “domestic and foreign.” Hoyer is a product of the heavily Jewish Maryland Democratic Party machine that has also produced Pelosi and Senator Ben Cardin. Pelosi told the AIPAC audience about her father in Baltimore, a so-called Shabbos goy who would perform services for Jews on the sabbath and who would also speak Yiddish while at home with his Italian family. Cardin meanwhile has been the sponsor of legislation to make criticism or boycotting of Israel illegal, up to and including heavy fines and prison time.

Hoyer, widely regarded as one of the most pro-Israel non-Jewish congressman, also boasted to AIPAC about the 15 official trips to Israel he’s made in forty years in Congress, accompanied by more than 150 fellow Democrats. “This August, I will travel with what I expect will be our largest delegation ever—probably more than 30 Democratic members of Congress, including many freshmen.”

Steny Hoyer will be on an AIPAC affiliate sponsored trip in which any contact with Palestinians will be both incidental and carefully managed. He also clearly has no problem in spending the taxpayer’s dime to go to Israel on additional “codels” to get further propagandized. He is flat out wrong about Israel in general, but don’t expect him to be convinced otherwise, which may be somehow related to the $317,525 in pro-Israel PAC contributions he has received.

There was much more at the AIPAC Summit. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi denounced “the pernicious myth of dual loyalty and foreign allegiance” while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, fresh from selling out U.S. interests on a visit to Israel, declared that“We live in dangerous times. We have to speak the truth. Anti-Semitism should and must be rejected by all decent people. Anti-Semitism – anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, and any nation that espouses anti-Zionism, like Iran, must be confronted. We must defend the rightful homeland of the Jewish people.”

Vice President Mike Pence, like Pompeo an evangelical Christian, piled on in his Monday prime time speech, declaring that

“Anyone who aspires to the highest office of the land should not be afraid to stand with the strongest supporters of Israel in America. It is wrong to boycott Israel. It is wrong to boycott AIPAC. Anti-Semitism has no place in the Congress of the United States of America. Anyone who slanders this historic alliance between the United States and Israel should never have a seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee.”

Clearly, there is considerable evidence to support the theory that one has to be completely ignorant to hold high office in the United States. Rejecting Zionism and/or questioning Israeli policies is not anti-Semitism and the Jewish state is in fact no actual ally of the United States. Nor is there any mandate to defend it in its questionable “rightful homeland.” Furthermore, dual-loyalty is what the relationship with Israel is all about and it is Jewish money and political power that makes the whole thing work to Israel’s benefit.

But the good news is that all the lying blather from the likes of Steny Hoyer and Howard Kohr reveals their desperation. They are running scared because “the times they are a changing.” Sure, Congressmen will continue to be bought and sold and Jewish money and the access to power that it buys will be able to prevail in the short term in a conspiratorial fashion. But, in the long run, everyone knows deep down that loyalty to Israel is not loyalty to the United States. And what Israel is doing is evil, as is becoming increasingly clear. It is trying to convince Washington to make war on Iran, a country that does not threaten the U.S., while the willingness of the American people to continue to look the other way as Benjamin Netanyahu uses army snipers to shoot down unarmed demonstrators who are starving will not continue indefinitely. It must not continue and we Americans should do whatever it takes to stop it.

*

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

This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

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

Featured image is from The Unz Review

Selected Articles: US Puppet Guaido Stripped of Immunity

April 3rd, 2019 by Global Research News

Our objective at Global Research is to recruit one thousand committed “volunteers” among our more than 50,000 Newsletter subscribers to support the distribution of Global Research articles (email lists, social media, crossposts). 

Do not send us money. Under Plan A, we call upon our readers to donate 5 minutes a day to Global Research.

Global Research Volunteer Members can contact us at [email protected] for consultations and guidelines.

If, however, you are pressed for time in the course of a busy day, consider Plan B, Consider Making a Donation and/or becoming a Global Research Member

*     *     *

Terms of Asylum and Distraction: Ecuador’s President Moreno’s “Assange Problem”

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, April 03, 2019

The Ecuadorean response was a crowing one, arguing that the state’s treatment of Assange was in accordance with international law, and that their guest’s situation “cannot be extended indefinitely and (Ecuador) expects it to be resolved as soon as possible.”

Don’t be Surprised by the Latest Outbreak of Xenophobic Violence in South Africa

By Andrew Korybko, April 03, 2019

Rioters destroyed several migrant-owned businesses in the South African port city of Durban last weekend and drove some of them from their homes in an outbreak of xenophobic violence that many feared might portend a return to the infamous events of 2008.

US Puppet Guaido Stripped of Immunity

By Stephen Lendman, April 03, 2019

On Monday, Venezuelan Chief Supreme Court Justice Maikel Moreno called on the nation’s Constituent Assembly to strip Guaido of parliamentary immunity for flouting a High Court order, banning his foreign travel without court permission, illicit financial activities, inciting street violence, and other offenses.

Belt and Road Initiative in Full Swing in Europe

By Federico Pieraccini, April 03, 2019

Xi Jinping‘s visit to Europe confirms what many of us have been writing about over the past few months and years, namely, the reality of an ongoing global transformation of a world dominated by the United States to a pluralistic one composed of different powers collectively shaping a multipolar world.

The South Dakota Legislature Has Invented a New Legal Term to Target Pipeline Protesters

By Andrew Malone and Vera Eidelman, April 03, 2019

The government of South Dakota has made it very clear that it does not like people who protest the Keystone XL pipeline. The state’s governor has dismissed them as “out-of-staters who come in to disrupt.”

Trump-Barr’s Manipulation of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller Report of March 22, 2019: The Political Cover-up of the Century?

By Prof Rodrigue Tremblay, April 02, 2019

We live in a very corrupt era. A case in point is the current and scandalous manipulation of the Mueller report by the Trump administration, with hardly any outcry from people in authority.

The Financial Transaction Tax (FTT)

By Kavaljit Singh, April 02, 2019

Currently, the idea of a financial transaction tax (FTT) is gaining in popularity within the Democratic Party of the United States as a policy tool to curb excessive speculation and high-frequency trading that destabilizes markets; and to generate a significant amount of revenue to finance social programs such as free college tuition.

*

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

  • Posted in NO READ MORE LINK
  • Comments Off on Selected Articles: US Puppet Guaido Stripped of Immunity

Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Next Stop: Freedom

April 3rd, 2019 by Noelle Hanrahan

The first question on everyone’s lips is “What is in those old boxes?” Remember the boxes the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office “found”  in a storage closet late last year from Mumia Abu-Jamal’s original trial?

The answer could be previously undisclosed new evidence and the “key” to a new trial.  If there is just one piece of evidence that the prosecutor failed to turn over to the defense which could have altered the result of just one juror’s vote, then it is a “Brady violation,” (a US Supreme Court precedent). If that happens the court would overturn the criminal conviction, and that is a whole new ballgame.  Mumia has one year from the discovery of the evidence to file a petition.

Innocence, Evidence & Misconduct

For decades it was the routine practice for Philadelphia police and prosecutors to illegally strike minority jurors, manufacture evidence, coerce false witness testimony and surpress evidence of innocence.

The Castille appeal which currently sits before the PA Superior Court faces an unsympathetic appellate court and potentially years of litigation.  Where as, an amended petition or a new complaint that includes Brady evidence could be a bullet train to a new trial and freedom.

Stunning Words from Philadelphia Judge Leon Tucker 

This just in 3/27/19, Common Pleas Court Judge Leon Tucker (Supervising Judge of the Criminal Division)’s  supplemental ruling.  Click here.

Justice is being conformable, human, divine, fair, impartial, honest …no matter what.  Not sometimes or most of the time, but at all times, be it at trial or on appeal“.

And it gets better. 

“[Defendants] appeal has established by a preponderance of the evidence that…there was an unconstitutional potential for bias……[the] claims should be reviewed in the interest of justice.”

The Pennsylvania Courts are a Star Chamber

Kafka could have taken notes from these folks.  It is even possible that they would rule that the Castille petition has to be decided before the suppressed evidence can be offered in a subsequent PCRA.  For someone that has spent nearly four decades in prison and is arguably innocent, it would be par for the course in this state, for a court to make that argument.  Amnesty International has condemned Mumia’s original trial, and he has spent 36 years unjustly in prison.

While Philadelphia DA and Larry Krasner might not feel a sense of urgency, we need to.  Mumia Abu-Jamal will be 65 years old in a few weeks. His eyesight has been severely compromised making it hard for him to read, because he is suffering from as yet untreated cataracts and serious glaucoma.  He is recovering from life threatening complications of Hepatitis C and diabetic shock caused by a reaction to treatment for debilitating skin rash conditions.

The Tide is Turning- People are Rising

The grassroots movements in Philadelphia are surging.  Abolition will be the reality, this is ground zero and a tetonic change is coming.   You can just feel it.   Mumia Abu-Jamal’s quest for freedom is part of that, but in a far more universal and fundamental way the community is all rising. Because Philadelphia is so “up south”, the impact has galvanized, inspired and birthed a powerful grassroots movement that is advocating in the state capital Harrisburg and in cities in every county for decarceration.  Google any one of these groups [Human Rights Coalition, CADBI, Decarcerate PA, Lifelines, Abolitionist Law Center, Amistad Law Project].  You will see, feel, and hear thousands of people advocating for their loved ones inside.  These are the very people who swept Larry Krasner into power. They are mobilized, they are strategic and they will not be satisfied util their family members are free.  It is incredible to see they are bringing the heat, demanding real change, and holding folks accountable.

Resistance Writ Large!

“Power concedes nothing without a demand.  It never did and it never will.”  – Frederick Douglass

Mumia Abu-Jamal is closer to freedom than he has been in a quarter of a century,   When Mumia comes home, it will be historic.  Surviving is the first step, and now real fundamental revolutionary change, abolition is the next step.

*

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

Yes, the latest research confirms that Venezuela is so rich in natural resources, that it could single-handedly satisfy all global demand for oil, for over 30 years. And it has much more than oil to offer, in its Orinoco basin and in other areas of the country.

But it is not all ‘about oil’; actually, far from it.

Those who believe that what propels the spread of Western terror all over the world, are just some ‘business interests’ and legendary Western greed, are, from my point of view, missing the point.

I noticed that such individuals and analysts actually believe that ‘capitalism is responsible for everything’, and that it creates the culture of violence of which, both victims and victimizers, already became hostages to.

After working in all corners of the world, I am now more and more convinced that capitalism is actually the result of Western culture, which is predominantly based on expansionism, exceptionalism and aggression. It is also constructed on a deeply rooted desire to control and to dictate. Financial/monetary greed is just a by-product of this culture which has elevated its superiority to something that could be defined as religious, or even religiously fundamentalist.

Or in other words: belief in its own superiority is actually now the main religion in both Europe and North America.

*

What makes the Libyan, Syrian and Venezuelan scenarios so similar? Why was the West so eager to viciously attack, and then destroy these three, at the first glance, very different countries?

The answer is simple, although it is not often uttered in the West; at least not publicly:

‘All three countries stood at the vanguard of promoting and fighting with determination for such concepts as “pan-Africanism”, “pan-Arabism” and Patria Grande – essentially Latin American independence and unity.’

Gaddafi, Al-Assad and Chavez have been, regionally and internationally, recognized as anti-imperialist fighters, inspiring and giving hope to hundreds of millions of people.

Gaddafi was murdered, Chavez was most likely killed as well, and Al-Assad and his nation have been, literally and for several long years, fighting for their survival.

The current Venezuelan President Maduro, who is determinedly loyal to the Bolivarian revolutionary ideals, has already survived at least one assassination attempt, and, is now facing direct mafia-style threats from the West. At any moment, his country could get attacked, directly or through the Latin American ‘client’ states of the West.

It is because Africa, the Middle East and Latin America have been considered, and for centuries treated, as colonies. It is because whenever people stood up, they were almost immediately smashed into pieces by the iron fist of Western imperialism. And those who think that they are in control of the world by some divine design, do not want things to change, ever.

Europe and North America are obsessed with controlling others, and in order to control, they feel that they have to make sure to exterminate all opposition in their colonies and neo-colonies.

It is a truly mental state in which the West has found itself; a state which I, in my earlier works, defined as Sadistic Personality Disorder (SPD).

To get the complete picture, one also has to recall Indonesia, which was literally liquidated as an independent and progressive nation, in 1965. Its internationalist president Sukarno (father of the Non-Aligned Movement, and close ally of the Communist Party of Indonesia – PKI) was overthrown by the handpicked (by the West), treasonous, intellectually and morally deranged, General Suharto, opening the door to turbo-capitalism, and to the unbridled plunder of the natural resources of his nation. Once a guiding light for the entire Asian independence struggle, after the US/UK/Australia-orchestrated extreme genocide, Indonesia has been reduced to nothing more than a lobotomized and dirt-poor ‘client’ state of the West.

The West has an incredible capacity to identify true regional independence leaders; to smear them, to make them vulnerable by inventing and then upholding so-called ‘local opposition’, and later, by liquidating them and with them, also their countries and even their entire regions.

Sometimes, the West attacks particular countries, as was the case with Iran (1953), Iraq, or Nicaragua. But more often, it goes directly for the ‘big fish’ – leaders of regional opposition – such as Libya, Indonesia, Syria, and now, Venezuela.

Many defiant individuals have literally been murdered already: Gaddafi, Hussein, Lumumba, and Chavez, to name just a few.

And of course, whatever it does, the West is trying to destroy the greatest leaders of the anti-Western and anti-imperialist coalition: Russia and China.

*

It is all far from only being about oil, or about profits.

The West needs to rule. It is obsessed with controlling the world, with feeling superior and exceptional. It is a game, a deadly game. For centuries, the West has been behaving like a fundamentalist religious fanatic, and its people have never even noticed that their world views have actually became synonymous with exceptionalism, and with cultural superiority. That is why the West is so successful in creating and injecting extremist religious movements of all denominations, into virtually all parts of the world: from Oceania to Asia, from Africa to Latin America, and of course, to China. Western leaders are ‘at home’ with Christian, Muslim or even Buddhist extremists.

*

But Syria has managed to survive, and up to today it is standing. The only reason why the government forces are not taking the last terrorist bastion, Idlib, yet, is because the civilian population would suffer tremendous losses during the battle.

Venezuela is also refusing to kneel and to surrender. And it is clear that if the West and its allies dared to attack, the resistance, the millions of people, would fight for the villages and countryside, and if needed, would withdraw to the jungle and wage a guerilla liberation war against the occupiers, and against the treasonous elites.

Washington, London, Paris and Madrid are clearly using an extremely outdated strategy: one that worked against Libya, but which failed squarely in Syria.

Recently, in Syria, near the frontline of Idlib, two top commanders told me that they are fighting “not only for Syria, but for the entire oppressed world, including Venezuela.” They clearly detected that the West is using precisely the same strategy against Caracas, which it tried to use against Damascus.

Now, Venezuela is also suffering and fighting for the entire oppressed world.

It has ‘no right to fail’, as Syria had no right to surrender.

The destruction of Libya had already brought a tremendously negative impact on Africa. And it has opened the doors to the renewed and unbridled French plunder of the continent. France was promptly joined by the U.K. and the U.S.A.

Syria is the last bastion in the Middle East. It is all there is now, resisting the total control of the Middle East by the West. Syria and Iran. But Iran is not yet a ‘front’, although often it appears that soon it might become one.

Venezuela cannot fall, for the same reasons. It is at the northern extreme of South America. Below, there is an entire continent; terrorized by Europe and North America, for decades and centuries: brutalized, plundered, tortured. South America, where tens of millions used to be exterminated like animals, forced to convert to Christianity, robbed of everything and ordered to follow bizarre Western political and economic models.

In Brazil, the progressive socialist government of the PT had been already overthrown.

If Venezuela falls, everything could be lost, for decades, maybe even centuries.

And so, it will fight. Together with those few other countries that are still left standing in this ‘Western Hemisphere’; countries which the dictators in Washington D.C. openly describe as ‘their backyard’.

Caracas stands and fights for the vast slums of Peru, for destitute millions in Paraguay, for Brazilian favelas, for privatized aquifers and the murdered rain forest in Brazil.

As Syria has been fighting for the Palestine, for the destitute minorities in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, for Yemen, for Iraq and Afghanistan – two countries robbed of almost everything by NATO.

Russia has already showed what it can do for its Arab brothers, and now is demonstrating its willingness to support its another close ally – Venezuela.

China is rapidly joining the coalition of anti-imperialist fighters, and so is South Africa.

*

No – Venezuela is not only about oil.

It is about the West being able to close access to the Panama Canal, by Chinese ships.

It is about the total control of the world: ideological, political, economic and social. About liquidating all opposition in the Western hemisphere.

If Venezuela falls, the West may dare to attack Nicaragua, and then the bastion of socialism and internationalism – Cuba.

That is why it – Venezuela – should never be allowed to fall.

The battle for Venezuela is now already raging, on all fronts, including the ideological one. There, we are not only fighting for Caracas, Maracaibo or for Ciudad Bolivar: we are fighting for the entire oppressed world, as we did and are doing in Damascus, Aleppo, Homs and Idlib, as we may soon have to do in many other cities, all over the world. For as long as Western imperialism is alive; for as long as it is not going to give up its dreams of controlling and ruining the entire planet, we cannot rest, we cannot let down our guard, we cannot celebrate final victory in any part of the world.

Therefore, this is all far from being ‘just about oil’. It is about the survival of our planet.

*

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

This article was originally published on New Eastern Outlook.

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Four of his latest books are China and Ecological Civilization with John B. Cobb, Jr., Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism, a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.

Featured image is from CADTM

Much of current political news swirls around President Trump and his persistent and somewhat pathological prevarications about the Mexico-U.S. border and the need to build a border wall.  While Greg Grandin’s The End of the Myth leads up to this current preoccupation it goes well beyond it, surveying the whole of the empire and its history to reveal the foundational myth of the U.S. empire.

And it is done superbly.  This is a wonderful work of history, drawing the reader in through anecdotal stories and comments combined with a strong factual research background.  Grandin’s style of writing avoids the pitfalls of a dry history, creating a theme and a storyline that consistently exposes the creation, reworking, and alterations to the imperial myth as it crosses time and place.

The frontier

In a single word, the myth is that of frontier.  It is one word that carries cartloads of baggage and contains many other subordinate but necessary mythical structures that support and extend the idea.  The idea of ‘frontier’ necessitates the idea of boundaries and borders.  As the frontier moves, so do the boundaries – mythological, psychological as well as physical.

It carries along with it the whole mythology most frequently recognized in our modern era with Ronald Reagan, Ayn Rand, Clint Eastwood, Margaret Thatcher and others of their ilk as “rugged individualism” and individual liberty unconstrained by governments and rules of society.

Another important associated idea is that of a safety valve.  This idea was recognized early by the political leaders of the day – and still in use today – where the frontier served as a release for antagonisms created by the massive influx of immigrants into the already crowded and frequently poverty laden regions of the burgeoning east coast cities as well as antagonisms aimed more directly at their own lies and misdeeds.

Superimposed on it all is racism.  This invokes more than the racism of slave labour, more than the racism of Indian ‘removal’ then military slaughter, more than the racism of incoming migrants from many different homelands, more than the racism concerning religion and nationalities.  It is a synergy of them all into a white “anglo saxon” supremacist ideal, where the ‘other’ really does not matter, extending from the rugged individual to corporate internationalism and then, yes, the wall.

Features of the frontier

The frontier and its myths are explored through history of actions and ideas combined. It is a fixed  physical construct with forts, rivers, trails and transportation routes and maps to identify them;  but it was also a “blurry, indistinct place where white settlers fled to escape routinization,” a place that goes on forever.  It is a multistoried affair where the Royal Proclamation of 1763, the Indian Removal Act of 1830, and the conflicts with slavery and abolition pushed the boundaries of the frontier into Mexican territory and the invasion of 1846.  All these wars “came to be both valve and throttle, with each conflict simultaneously venting the hatreds produced by the last while creating the conditions for the next.”  And as war begets war, a state “born out of ceaseless expansion…could only be maintained through ceaseless expansion.”

1898 marks a redefinition of the frontier.  The frontier reached a physical limit in North America and by necessity expanded overseas creating an “American history…fast turning into an endless public parade of war and more war….Overseas war had the effect  of unifying the country, this time not some sections against others but the whole nation.”  The military became “the primary means of social mobility, allowing both whites and…blacks shelter from the capitalist market.”

Grandin’s history continues through the Roosevelt era and into the New Deal pre-war era.  After the Second World War the frontier was rejuvenated as a “future that might be obtained.”  It involved a U.S. security frontier, already established in the western hemisphere, now expanded to a global position.  A major part of that was linking the Cold War and its anti-communism to a “new politics of expansion” in particular the global economy as a new frontier – globalization in all its manifestations.

This expanded with Reagan with his promises of freedom “from restraint” with “no limits to growth.”  Individual and economic rights – markets – overpowered human and social rights.  The violence and racism ongoing along the Mexican border was redirected to Cold War counter insurgencies, leading to many more immigrants.  The U.S. was still “a beacon…a magnet for all the pilgrims from all the lost places….”  Reagan’s successor, GWH Bush expanded on the frontier idea, “In the frontiers ahead, there are no boundaries.”

NAFTA

One of the big surprises in the book – and if I had thought about it carefully, should not have been – was the emphasis Grandin placed on the North American Free Trade Agreement. Even before the agreement was enacted there were already 1925 work plants in Mexico taking advantage of the low wage labour and the lack of labour and environmental regulations.

With the  huge increase in interest rates in 1980 to an average of seventeen per cent many U.S. businesses and farmers lost their livelihoods.  Those same interest rates created  a huge debt repayment problem in Mexico leading to the IMF shock doctrine of austerity – privatization, cut spending, lax foreign investment controls, weaken labour laws, and stop land reform.  In short, even before NAFTA Mexico had succumbed to U.S.economic expansion and control.

NAFTA affected the poor farmers as subsidized U.S. corn, dairy, and pork killed their subsistence living.  They were forced into cheap wage labour for U.S.corporations, into drug trafficking, and into the urban sprawl of Mexico City.  The “corporations had their new frontier.”

The blowback to this was increased immigration and the rapid rise in border patrol actions.  The border patrol was “a frontline instrument of white supremacist power.”  The U.S. became a country “that increasingly defines itself by what it hates.”  A decade of free trade “neither created an international community of prosperous, peace loving nations nor overcome domestic political divisions.”  With the administration of George Bush, the 9/11 attack “offered a chance to turn away from the border and look out at the world anew,” now clarifying the mission as “We will extend the frontiers of freedom.”

Turning inwards

But as with the Vietnam War and the many other smaller counterinsurgencies, foreign wars produce domestic disruption as the “struggle turns inwards.”  “The backlashes to decades of disastrous policies piled up, one after the other, until the backlash to the backlashes came,” Trump.

The Mexican border wall fits into the underlying racism of U.S. culture.  It is a “valve” that needs to be turned off or on as convenient for political purposes.  It is also a valve for the many war vets to release their frustrations against a targeted ‘other’.  Along with the veterans it allows many others to practice their rugged individualism as vigilantes along the border, expressing their racist white supremacism against groups of aliens created in the most part by U.S. imperial actions.

Trump’s new freedom is freedom from constraint, his cruelty and hedonism giving permission to many others to accept those actions and also to practice them.

Still more frontiers.

While Grandin focuses on the image of the Mexican border wall as a sign of the closure of the frontier, he does not delve into contemporary U.S. military actions around the world.  The imperial frontier is faltering in many respects as events in Ukraine, and Syria, and the failure of past actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya have well demonstrated.  But it is still there, perhaps more as bluster and rhetoric as witnessed with Venezuela  than a true frontier, a rhetorical ideological rant to redirect domestic concerns and attempt to somehow keep the empire alive and its frontiers still an active zone.

The strength of The End of the Myth is that it does not take any imagination to extend the myth into other areas of U.S. foreign policy.  Grandin has explored the myth very effectively, highlighting the idea of frontier as it changed over time, leaving us with Trump as the ultimate characterization of the state of the union at this point in time.  A fascinating work, it defines the psychological/mythical constructs of the U.S. imperial mind very well.

*

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

Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Jane Byrne: Chicagoans Elect First Black Female Mayor

April 3rd, 2019 by Stephen Lendman

The late Harold Washington was Chicago’s first Black mayor, elected in 1983, serving until his premature death at age-65 on November 25, 1987, the day before the Thanksgiving holiday that year.

No one before or since was like him, affectionately called Harold by admirers, his time in office Chicago’s finest hour.

Of the 14 Dem aspirants competing in the February 26 primary, six were Black, two winning more voter support than others.

On April 2, Lori Lightfoot (Chicago’s first openly gay mayoral candidate) and Toni Preckwinkle met in the runoff election, the winner becoming Chicago’s first Black female mayor, Jane Byrne the only other woman to hold the city’s highest office, serving from April 1979 – April 1983.

With nearly all votes counted, Lightfoot won a landslide victory with 74% of the vote.

“Today, you did more than make history,” she told supporters. “You created a movement for change.” The proof will be in her performance.

She was a federal prosecutor, earlier involved in investigating Chicago corruption. She formerly served as chief administrator of the city’s Department of Professional Standards, a defunct police oversight group.

Most recently, she serving as a senior equity partner in the Litigation and Conflict Resolution Group at Mayer Brown LLP, providing services for the firm’s clients. Her responsibilities included involvement on its Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

Preckwinkle is president of the Cook Count Board of Commissioners, a former Chicago City Council member and alderman, an advocate of affordable housing, a living wage, and other social issues, a strong opponent of notorious city police brutality and use of excessive force against least advantaged residents.

According to University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) Political Science Professor Dick Simpson, Preckwinkle’s self-declared progressiveness is dubious, calling her part of the infamous Dem-dominated Chicago machine.

Closely tied to longtime Chicago pol Edward Burke, aged-75, the machine got him reelected despite facing an ongoing FBI probe into his activities.

In January, an unsealed federal criminal complaint charged him with attempted extortion for allegedly using his position as alderman to try steering business to his private law firm from a company seeking to renovate a fast-food restaurant in his ward.

If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison. The complaint also alleged he asked one of the company’s officials in December 2017 to attend a fundraiser for Preckwinkle, a cross she bore for close association with Burke.

Earlier, she supported former  Cook County Democratic Chairman Joe Berrios, responsible for discriminatory property tax assessments during his time in office.

Supporters praised Preckwinkle’s involvement in working with community organizations. Ties to the Chicago machine defeated her.

Lightfoot is machine connected as well, but less so than Preckwinkle. Supporters consider her a disruptor of the status quo, not seen in Chicago since Harold Washington’s time in office.

Promising police and public safety reforms, some activists consider Lightfoot’s time as a federal prosecutor a matter of concern, questioning whether she’ll follow through on pledges made.

Her ties to city criminal justice and police operations make her suspect. She can dispel concerns by changing status quo politics in city hall.

When serving as chief administrator of the city’s Department of Professional Standards, she acted against few complaints of police abuse.

She called for increased prosecutions of gun-related violence as a way to reduce it, targeting Black youths, a way to increase incarcerations instead of reducing them.

According to the Citizens Police Data Project, as Office of Professional Standards head from 2002 – 2004, only 1.8% of complaints made by civilians against police were sustained – the city infamously known as the police repression capital of the nation.

If elected, she said on day one, she’d call Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson to support his “mission to serve and protect,”, notably to reduce gun violence.

The most effective way is by increasing city social services, including affordable housing, improved public schools, and police respect for all Chicagoans, especially its most disadvantaged residents, polar opposite how things are today.

Will Lightfoot make a difference as city mayor? It’s long overdue. She’s got a lot of proving to do. Corporate interests backing her campaign made her suspect.

She’s beholden to what got her elected. Grassroots Collaborative and Grassroots Illinois Action executive director Amisha Patel expressed concern, saying:

She failed to clearly articulate a progressive vision for city governance, believing she’s “deeply flawed,” adding:

Corporate and similar “(c)ontributions tell a pretty clear story” about who she’s beholden to. They sent “a pretty clear message about where business thinks they’ve got their best shot of maintaining an agenda that puts them at the center and the rest of us on the margins.”

It’s the way it’s mostly been throughout city history, notably under father and son Daley for 40 years and outgoing mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Still, Dick Simpson hopes for “a new day in (city) politics.” Any positive change from the dismal status quo will improve things.

*

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

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Yesterday, President Trump scrapped an Obama-era regulation forcing the government to publicly report the number of civilians killed in US drone strikes outside war zones. The National Security Council dismissed the regulation as an annoying bit of paperwork, describing it as a “superfluous reporting requirement”.

The move is just one more in a long line of steps President Trump has taken to move America’s drone programme back into the shadows where there is no accountability to the public or to victims. While the President has been tweeting his every thought to the world, behind the scenes he has quietly expanded America’s counterterrorism operations overseas, eliminated safeguards intended to protect civilians and rolled back what little transparency existed.

“Trump removed the requirement that strikes target only high-value terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the US”

Within a year of President Trump coming into office, US drone strikes in Yemen tripled in his first two years, while those in Somalia increased substantially. Large parts of both these countries were declared “areas of active hostilities,” loosening protections for civilians.

At the same time, Trump removed the requirement that strikes target only “high-value terrorists” who pose a “continuing and imminent” threat to the US. Instead, the target list was expanded to include “foot soldiers…with no special skills or leadership roles.”

In other words: kill as many as you can, rank or responsibility be damned.

For those innocent people, and the thousands of others who have been wrongly harmed by US drone strikes, the requirement that the US publicly disclose the civilian casualty count was anything but “superfluous”. Those numbers were at least some small, though imperfect, signal from the most powerful nation on earth that it was willing to not just acknowledge its mistakes, but to try and stop them happening again.

Through our work investigating these strikes, Reprieve has seen the devastating toll America’s drone killings have wreaked on the individuals behind the numbers. People like Faisal bin ali Jaber, whose brother-in-law, Salem was killed in a drone strike in Yemen just days after preaching against al-Qaeda. For years, Faisal has fought for one thing – a simple acknowledgement that Salem was innocent and that the US made a mistake.

Faisal has been offered secret bags of cash as an apology, but has refused. Bags of cash aren’t accountability – all he and his family want is an apology. They also want to stop others suffering the same fate as them. With this in mind, Faisal, with the help of ECCHR and Reprieve, will be in court next Thursday in Germany arguing about the role Ramstein Airbase plays in the US drone programme. The court will consider, among other things, whether President Trump’s continued efforts to erode transparency and safeguards should be factored into the German Government’s responsibility to protect people’s right to life.

Back in 2016, President Obama passed the Executive Order requiring reporting of civilian casualties. The accompanying statement acknowledged that “if we cannot explain our efforts clearly and publicly…we erode the legitimacy of our actions…and undermine accountability in our own government.”

President Trump’s latest move has done just that. Faisal once said, “a mere body count is not the end of the story,” – but without it, the story cannot even begin.

*

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

Featured image is from TruePublica

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on US Drone Strikes “Outside War Zones” in Somalia, Yemen: Why Trump’s Actions Have Put Civilians at More Risk
  • Tags: , ,

Political asylum is an accepted if often ignored right. It is also at the mercy of those interests that grant it.  Ecuador’s repeated insistence on conditioning Julian Assange’s stay in its London abode is tantamount to corroding the idea of asylum to vacuity.  You are granted asylum as a political dissident, but political dissident you shall not be, especially when it comes to exposing the secrets of your landlord.

Assange has ventured to test the onerous limits on his conduct that have been imposed by embassy protocols, taking the matter to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.  His argument has been that the strict rules applied to his stay, entailing a monitoring of visits, control of medical bills, communications, expenses and pet care were a violation of “fundamental rights and freedoms”.  The Commission, as it transpired, did not bite.

The Ecuadorean response was a crowing one, arguing that the state’s treatment of Assange was in accordance with international law, and that their guest’s situation “cannot be extended indefinitely and (Ecuador) expects it to be resolved as soon as possible.”

Ecuador’s Attorney General Íñigo Salvador, summed it up in smug fashion.

“The decision was based on the fact that the request filed by Assange did not comply with the requirements of gravity, urgency and irreparable harm provided for in Article 25 of the Rules of Procedure of the IACHR.”

The peculiar twist to this, however, was that such impositions could be justified as protecting, not impairing, Assange’s rights.

“With this decision [by the Commission], the Special Protocol of Visits, Communications and Medical Care remains in force, which guarantees the rights of the asylee.”

Assange has been accused of muddying the stables throughout his stay, but the calls have become more strident over the last eighteen months.  A year of muzzling and limiting Assange’s conduct has become both cruel and comical.  President Lenín Moreno seems to be waiting for the moment where a final stroke of agitation will release him from any sense of restraint.

On Tuesday, that moment might have come. Moreno insisted that Assange had been a serial violator of his terms of asylum.

“We should ensure Mr Assange’s life is not at risk but he’s violated the agreement we have with him so many times.”

The Ecuadorean president, in pained tones, claimed that “photos of my bedroom, what I eat and how my wife and daughters and friends dance” had been doing the buzzing rounds on social media.  While Moreno did not explicitly accuse Assange of being behind that spray of material, the accusing voice was unmistakable.  The Vice President Otto Sonnenholzner confirmed it, loudly proclaiming that what WikiLeaks had done was “repugnant”.  The Minister for Foreign Affairs, José Valencia, focused on Assange’s means of communication, arguing that he had been biting the hand that had fed him.

The office of the President has also made a formal, if risible complaint to Joseph Cannataci, the special rapporteur for the right to privacy based at the UN Human Rights Council, accusing WikiLeaks and other “possible authors” of disseminating private photos and personal information obtained from Moreno’s own computers, tablets and a miscellany of devices.  Cannataci’s good offices are being used, in turn, to deal with claims by WikiLeaks that Ecuador is spying on him.  The dark face continues.

The entire show of puffed indignation seemed an enormous distraction.  Last week, the Ecuadorean National Assembly passed a resolution calling for a corruption probe into Moreno’s affairs regarding the INA Papers.  The INA Investment Corp of Panama fame specialises in minimising (dare one say evading?) tax, and it took a publication by digital news platform La Fuente on February 19 to suggest a link between Moreno, his family and the company.  From that particular haven, it is alleged, ample funds were used from an offshore account to make an assortment of payments covering gifts, furniture purchases, and an apartment in Spain.

In the words of an official statement,

“With 74 votes, the National Assembly approved a resolution that requires the Inspection Commission to carry out an analysis of the publication dated Feb. 19, 2018, in a digital platform called ‘The Offshore Labyrinth Of The Presidential Circle.’”

A close reading of the resolution hardly suggests that Moreno is going to be in much trouble; the focus, as María José Carrión of Moreno’s own party, Alianza Pais, has explained, will involve “an analysis of this journalistic publication.  It won’t be an investigation, as it’s not possible for the President to be summoned because the law is clear and for that to happen it must be within the framework of a political trial, which is not the case.”

Fidel Narváez, former consul at the Ecuador embassy in London, has a working and plausible hypothesis: the entire spectacle is being engineered to throw the curious and vigilant off the scent, one that is becoming rather piquant.  Not a single document connected with the INA Papers matter has ever been personally leaked or published by Assange or WikiLeaks.  The Assembly, he charges, has become a place of ludicrous activity in attempting to investigate Assange in the name of protecting “national interests”.

While the increasingly crotchety approach from the Moreno government suggests an imminent decision on his fate, Assange has not been left without some legal ammunition.  The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in a ruling issued on May 30 last year, made it clear that Assange should not only be released but granted safe passage to Ecuador as part of the right to asylum.  The advisory opinion considered the right to seek and receive asylum in a foreign country pursuant to the American Convention on Human Rights (Article 22(7)) and Article XXVII of the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man.

The protection against refoulement, in which a person’s life, integrity, security and/or liberty might be at risk, was held to bind States extraterritorially “whenever authorities exercise their authority or effective control over such persons, as may happen in legations, and that, by their own nature, may be in the territory of another State with that State’s consent and authorization.”  But Moreno, and his colleagues are a desperate bunch, and their latest efforts suggest that scapegoating Assange and readying him for the fall might offer some measure of therapeutic relief, however brief.

*

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

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

Rioters destroyed several migrant-owned businesses in the South African port city of Durban last weekend and drove some of them from their homes in an outbreak of xenophobic violence that many feared might portend a return to the infamous events of 2008. President Ramaphosa railed against the rioters and demanded that they be brought to justice, pointing out how their heinous acts endanger the development of all of Africa and are absolutely unacceptable in his “rainbow nation”. For those in the country and the broader Southern African region, what happened wasn’t necessarily anything new but was just the latest manifestation of long-simmering tensions that finally bubbled over into the public sphere once again.

South Africa is one of the continent’s best-performing economies and a favored destination of migrants from all over Africa who are drawn to its comparatively stable currency and many job opportunities, though the latter sometimes come at what some locals regard as their expense. Furthermore, there are already preexisting tribal issues within South African society as it is, so adding the large-scale influx of migrants to this already tenuous mix was bound to cause problems sooner than later, though explaining these dangerous dynamics by no means excuses them. All of this is just to help the non-African audience better understand why this is happening since many folks might have been surprised by these developments.

At the risk of provoking a “politically incorrect” controversy, many non-Africans who only have a casual interest in following African events might either be deluded by ignorance or racist misperceptions into wrongly assuming that “all Africans are the same” and overlooking the continent’s rich diversity. The reality is that Africa is home to many different people who sometimes look very different, speak different languages, practice different cultures, and follow different religions, with many of this unfortunately being lost on many non-AfricanS who can’t look beyond the fact that most of Africa’s people are of a darker-skinned complexion. Accepting Africa’s rich diversity, it’s easier to understand how xenophobic violence could suddenly explode in South Africa.

*

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

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

Featured image: POLICE moved 50 people, including babies, displaced in a xenophobic attack at Burnwood informal settlement in Durban to Sherwood Hall. Leon Lestrade African News Agency (ANA)

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Don’t be Surprised by the Latest Outbreak of Xenophobic Violence in South Africa
  • Tags: ,

Venezuela is home to the largest oil deposits in the world, which makes the political stakes involved much higher than they would be otherwise. Enter Juan Guaidó, Washington’s puppet leader in Caracas, who will be attempting to rally the country against legitimate (i.e., democratically elected by the people) President Nicolas Maduro next month.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó has announced that April 6 will kick off a nationwide “tactical actions” as part of the so-called Operation Freedom protests, which are designed to oust President Nicolas Maduro.

“On April 6 will be the first tactical actions of the # Operation Freedom across the country,” Guaidó declared over Twitter this week. “That day we must be ready, prepared and organized, with the Aid and Freedom Committees already formed. The rescue of Venezuela is in our hands!”

Is this the start of Maidan 2.0?

But first, who is Juan Guaidó? That’s a questioning worth pondering momentarily because just a few months ago, the overwhelming majority of Venezuelans – 81 percent of the population – had never heard of the young man before. That all changed when Guaidó, 35, was awakened by a phone call from none other than US Vice President Mike Pence. Literally overnight he had become the poster boy of the political opposition in Venezuela and leader of the National Assembly. “Juan Guaidó is a character that has been created for this circumstance,” Marco Teruggi, a sociologist and leading observer of Venezuelan politics, told the Grayzone. “It’s the logic of a laboratory – Guaidó is like a mixture of several elements that create a character who, in all honesty, oscillates between laughable and worrying.”

Is Washington Preparing the Groundwork for a Maidan Scenario in Venezuela?

Source: SCF

In fact, Washington recognized Guaidó more than just an opposition leader; it recognized him, without a drop of legality, as the de-jure president of the Latin American country (Just this week, Guaidó’s wife Fabiana Rosales was the guest of honor at the White House, as the media referred to her as “first lady” and “first-lady-in-waiting”).

Meanwhile, the US media has wasted no time placing the laurels on Guaidó’s young, inexperienced head, declaring the quiet coup d’ etat the “restoration of democracy” in a land where the election process, which provides its voters with a digital receipt, is considered to be the most transparent and reliable in the world. In other words, if Maduro is in office, which he is, it is due to the will of the people, not the will of Mike Pence.

So what should Venezuela expect on April 6 with the commencement of Guaidó’s organized protest? Anything is possible, but the likelihood of some sort of event or incident that will heighten the tensions in the country cannot be discounted. It certainly does not help that Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton warned in the past of “serious consequences” if any harm comes to Guaidó.

“Let me reiterate – there will be serious consequences for those who attempt to subvert democracy and harm Guaidó,” Bolton tweeted back in January. Those sorts of threats must be treated with extreme caution and due consideration. Suffice it to recall what followed like clockwork in Syria after such red-line threats were delivered about what would happen in the event of a chemical attack. Unsurprisingly, a chemical attack would eventually occur, whereupon the United States would immediately blame the event on the government, as opposed to the ragtag terrorist rebels who had infinitely more reason for resorting to such methods, and more so following such declarations from the US. In other words, should anything untoward happen to Guaidó, the West would have its perfect pretext for whatever follows next, which are better left to the imagination.

Although it appears as though Juan Guaidó’s popularity is on the wane – his motorcade was attacked by a pro-Maduro crowd just this week, while turnout for his anti-government marches has been reportedly dwindling – Caracas took the step of barring him from holding public office for 15 years due to irregularities in his financial records. According to the State Comptroller, Juan Guaidó has taken 90 international trips without indicating who provided the estimated $94,000 in expenses.

“We’re going to continue in the streets,” Guaidó responded.

Meanwhile, back in the United States, a number of government officials are taking a very unhealthy interest, if not suspicious interest, in what is happening in Caracas. Senator Marco Rubio, for example, sounds worse than any opposition figure in Venezuela, and tweets about practically nothing else than what is happening south of the border. On one particularly lamentable occasion, Rubio was delusional enough to actually post before-and-after images of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The first showed him in power, the second just moments before being brutally murdered by a street mob. It boggles the mind to think that this man, who has a strange penchant for quoting Bible verse while fomenting for violent upheaval, stood on a platform as a Republican presidential hopeful.

In any case, there have been several events that strongly suggest that the United States has some sort of plan to bring about the crisis that could lift Guaidó into power, as well as open up the Latin American oil industry to foreign private interests, as he has already promised to do.

First, there is the well-documented incident from last month in which a ‘humanitarian supply’ truck, attempting to cross into Venezuela from Colombia, was torched. The US quickly blamed the incident on Maduro, however, video footage seems to indicate that it was actually anti-government protesters who carried out the attack with the use of Molotov cocktails.

Meanwhile, the beleaguered Latin American country has suffered a spate of electricity blackouts this month, which Maduro has been quick to blame on the United States. Guaidó, of course, blamed the outages on the “incompetence” of the Maduro government. However, Maduro may be forgiven for seeing the hand of the United States every time the lights go out. In fact, such things were discussed years ago, as revealed in a Wikileaks email dump that show even during the reign of Hugo Chavez, the problem of energy supplies was considered as a crowbar to break down the government. The following email was from Stratfor, which provides intelligence analysis.

“A key to Chavez’s current weakness is the decline in the electricity sector. There is the grave possibility that some 70 percent of the country’s electricity grid could go dark as soon as April 2010… This could be the watershed event, as there is little that Chavez can do to protect the poor from the failure of that system. This would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate.”

Now, to what degree, if any, the United States may be tempted to hack/attack the Venezuelan power grid is anybody’s guess, but it certainly does not seem to be beyond the realm of possibility. And this could explain why the United States is so rattled by the presence of some 100 Russian cyber specialists in Venezuela, which arrived last week.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia’s relations with Venezuela are conducted “in strict accordance with the Constitution of this country and in full respect of its legislation.”

Understandably, the last thing that Moscow would like to see is yet another regime change fiasco, this time in Caracas, similar to the one that occurred on its border in Ukraine with the Maidan uprising, which continues to wreak havoc on global relations. In that sense, the global community can only hope that common sense and scruples wins out over opportunism and rogue politics, all in the name of oil profits.

*

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

Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist.

Featured image is from Grayzone Project

US Puppet Guaido Stripped of Immunity

April 3rd, 2019 by Stephen Lendman

Usurper in waiting Guaido is a front man for the Trump regime’s coup attempt to topple democratically elected  President Maduro. 

Most of all, the scheme aims to eliminate Bolivarian social democracy, wanting Venezuela transformed into a US vassal state, gaining control over its world’s largest oil reserves and other valued resources.

Tactics include naked aggression, color revolutions, and old-fashioned coups like what’s ongoing in Venezuela – so far failing to achieve its objective because Maduro increasingly enjoys popular support. The nation’s military backs him.

Around three-fourths of world community nations and the UN refused to recognize imposter Guaido as interim Venezuelan president.

He’s increasingly drawing smaller crowds, according to observers on the ground. Most Venezuelans want Bolivarian social democracy preserved and protected. They oppose foreign intervention in any form, overwhelmingly against it militarily.

On Monday, Venezuelan Chief Supreme Court Justice Maikel Moreno called on the nation’s Constituent Assembly to strip Guaido of parliamentary immunity for flouting a High Court order, banning his foreign travel without court permission, illicit financial activities, inciting street violence, and other offenses.

Established by national referendum to revise or rewrite Venezuela’s Constitution, restore and maintain order, as well as serving everyone in the country equitably, the Constituent Assembly is the Bolivarian Republic’s highest legal authority.

According to Article 349 of Venezuela’s Constitution, no other power can “in any way impede the decisions of the National Constituent Assembly” – not the president, National Assembly legislators and Supreme Court justices.

In 2016, Venezuela’s High Court declared National Assembly actions “null and void” for illegally seating three members accused of electoral fraud.

Article 200 of Venezuela’s Constitution states the following:

“Deputies of the National Assembly shall enjoy immunity in the exercise of their functions from the time of their installation until the end of their term or resignation.”

“Only the Supreme Tribunal of Justice shall have competence over any crimes may be charged as committed by members of the National Assembly, and only the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, subject to authorization in advance from the National Assembly, shall have the power to order their arrest and prosecution.”

“In the case of a flagrant offense committed by a legislator, the competent authority shall place such legislator under house arrest and immediately notify the Supreme Tribunal of Justice of such event.”

Because National Assembly actions are “null and void,” Venezuela’s Constituent Assembly assumed its powers.

On Tuesday, the body acted on Justice Moreno’s request, stripping Guaido of parliamentary immunity, its President Diosdado Cabello saying:

“Constituent Assembly rules…permit further investigation against (Guaido). Under normal circumstances, this request would have been sent to the National Assembly, but at present it is nonexistent as a functioning state body.”

“The ruling permits prosecution of (Guaido) in accordance with the provisions of Article 200 of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.”

“The continuation of the trial is formally authorized and that our justice, in accordance with the Constitution and the law, is in charge of applying the mechanisms established in the different criminal procedural codes.”

“Justice is necessary for the guarantee of peace…Sometimes the law takes time, but let’s not despair.”

The unanimously adopted measure ruled the following:

“The National Constituent Assembly of Venezuela allows the continuation of a judicial investigation against Juan Guaido.”

Assembly deputies called for creating a people’s court to prosecute individuals involved in the Trump regime’s coup plot, wanting them held accountable for their lawless actions.

So far, no warrant was issued for Guaido’s arrest. He remains under investigation, pending whatever actions Constituent Assembly members intend to pursue against him.

*

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

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

We’re developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won’t be able to think.”—Rod Serling

Have you noticed how much life increasingly feels like an episode of The Twilight Zone?

Only instead of Rod Serling’s imaginary “land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas,” we’re trapped in a topsy-turvy, all-too-real land of corruption, brutality and lies, where freedom, justice and integrity play second fiddle to political ambition, corporate greed, and bureaucratic tyranny.

It’s not merely that life in the American Police State is more brutal, or more unjust, or even more corrupt. It’s getting more idiotic, more perverse, and more outlandish by the day.

Somewhere over the course of the past 240-plus years, democracy has given way to idiocracy,  and representative government has given way to a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves) and a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens).

Examples abound.

In Georgia, political organizers posted a “Black Media Only” sign outside a Baptist Church, barring white reporters from attending a meeting about an upcoming mayoral election.

In Arizona, a SWAT team raided a family’s home in the middle of the night on the say-so of Child Protective Services, which sounded the alarm after the parents determined that their 2-year-old—who had been suffering a 100-degree fever—was feeling better and didn’t need to be admitted to the hospital.

In Virginia, landlords are requiring dog-owning tenants to submit their pets’ DNA to a database that will be used to track down (and fine) owners who fail to clean up after their dogs poop in public.

In Texas, a police officer who allegedly gave a homeless man a sandwich with dog feces won’t be held accountable for his actions.

In Illinois, Chicago police used a battering ram and a sledgehammer to crash into a family’s home with weapons drawn, terrorizing the young children gathered for a 4-year-old’s birthday party, only to find that they were at the wrong house.

In Kansas, a 61-year-old back man in the process of moving into his new house found himself held at gunpoint and handcuffed by police, who refused to believe he was a homeowner and not a burglar.

If you’re starting to notice a pattern here, it speaks to the fact that nearly 50 years after Serling’s creative brainchild, The Twilight Zone, premiered on national television, we’re still fumbling around in the dark, trying to make sense of a world dominated by racism, cruelty, war, violence, poverty, prejudice, intolerance, ignorance, injustice and a host of other social maladies and spiritual evils.

The Twilight Zone was an oasis in television wasteland: a show that captured imaginations; challenged moral hypocrisy and societal prejudices; and railed against inhumanity, racism, prejudice, the mechanization of human beings by way of their technology, tyrants of all shapes and colors, a passive populace, war, injustice, the surveillance state, corporate greed.

Fifty years later, with so much having changed legally, technologically and politically, so much still remains the same. Fear is the same. Prejudice is the same. Ignorance is the same. Hate and war and tyranny are unchanged. Police officers are still shooting unarmed citizens. Bloated government agencies are still fleecing taxpayers. Government technicians are still spying on our communications. And American citizens are still allowing themselves to be manipulated by their fears and pitted one against the other.

All of these themes can be found in The Twilight Zone.

Serling, a truth-teller who pulled no punches when it came to calling out the evils of his day, channeled his moral outrage into storytelling. As his daughter Anne explained, “The Twilight Zone was more than just the strangest show on TV, with the best theme song, but back in the 50’s Rod Serling was serving up social commentary through science fiction.”

That social commentary disguised as entertainment tackled some of the most pressing issues of Serling’s day. “It dealt with human issues which I guess is why it’s lasted so long, because it dealt with racism and mob mentality and scapegoating and things that are still very, very prevalent and relevant today sadly,” said Anne. “We don’t seem to be able to move ahead and change.”

Serling would have no shortage of material to draw from today, given the government’s greed for money and power, its disregard for human life, its corruption and graft, its pollution of the environment, its reliance on excessive force in order to ensure compliance, its covert activities, its illegal surveillance, and its blatant disdain for the rule of law.

“I can tell you [my dad] would be absolutely apoplectic about what’s happening in the world today. And deeply saddened,” said his daughter Anne Serling. “There are moments that I’m glad he’s not here to see.”

It boggles the mind how relevant The Twilight Zone and its unique brand of truth-telling are to an age in which truth has become a convenient fiction for those in power, what researchers refer to as “Truth Decay.”

As a report from the Rand Corporation explains, “Truth Decay is defined as a set of four related trends: increasing disagreement about facts and analytical interpretations of facts and data; a blurring of the line between opinion and fact; an increase in the relative volume, and resulting influence, of opinion and personal experience over fact; and declining trust in formerly respected sources of factual information.”

Serling would have had a lot to say about the lies that masquerade as truth today.

I’m not sure that Serling would have been surprised by current events, though. After all, this was the man who concluded that people are alike all over: that was the kernel of truth in one of Serling’s episodes about a pair of astronauts who journey to Mars only to find that while they may have landed on an alien planet, inhabited by alien creatures, the ignorance, fear and prejudice of the “foreigner” was the same.

So many truths, packaged in 156 episodes that aired from 1959 to 1964.

Serling took pride in the writing, penning 92 of the 156 episodes himself. For the rest, he enlisted some of the best writers of the 20th century to lend their talents to Zone episodes: Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, Earl Hamner, to mention a few. As such, the Twilight Zone became the embodiment of great story-telling.

If you want to watch something that fuses time and space into reality by way of a fictional setting, then I suggest that you tune into The Twilight Zone.

Director Jordan Peele has taken Serling’s material out for a new spin in a reboot airing on CBS All Access, but if you haven’t experienced the original series, do yourself a favor and spend some time with them.

There are so many to choose from, but the following are 12 of my personal favorites:

Time Enough at Last: Mild-mannered Henry Bemis (Burgess Meredith), hen-pecked by his wife and brow-beaten by his boss, sneaks into a bank vault on his lunch hour to read. He is knocked unconscious by a shockwave that turns out to be a nuclear war. When Bemis regains consciousness, he realizes that he is the last person on earth.

I Shot an Arrow into the Air: Three astronauts survive a crash after their craft disappears from the radar screen. They find themselves on what they believe to be a dry, lifeless asteroid. Only five gallons of water separate them from dehydration and death. And temperamental crew member Corey (Dewey Martin) goes to great lengths to ensure his survival.

The Howling Man: During a walking tour of Europe after World War I, David loses his way and comes to a remote monastery. He is turned away but passes out, and the monks take him in. David regains consciousness and hears a bizarre howling. He eventually finds a man in a jail cell who the monks say is the Devil himself, kept in his prison by the “staff of truth.”

Eye of the Beholder: Janet lies in a hospital bed, her face wrapped in bandages, hiding the hideous face that has made her an outcast all her life. This is her eleventh hospital visit and the last allowed by the government. The faces of the doctors and nurses are also hidden by shadows and camera angles. Janet’s bandages are finally removed, and the medical staff retreat in disgust.

The Invaders: A haggard woman (Agnes Morehead) hears a strange sound on the roof. She climbs up to see a miniature flying saucer and tiny spacemen who invade her home. Their small ray guns sting, but she fights back.

Shadow Play: Adam (Dennis Weaver) is on trial, and the judge gives him the electric chair. Adam chortles that it’s all a joke, a recurring nightmare in which all the participants are bit players in a scripted play. But will anyone listen?

The Obsolete Man: Romney (Burgess Meredith) is a God-fearing librarian in a totalitarian state in which books and religion have been banned. Romney is judged obsolete by the government chancellor but is granted several requests before he dies. He chooses to have a television audience watch his execution. Forty-five minutes before he is to die, he invites the chancellor to his room and locks them both inside.

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet: Robert (William Shatner) boards an airplane after having been discharged from a mental hospital for a nervous breakdown. He looks out his window during the flight and sees a weird creature on the wing. Alarmed, he alerts others. However, when they look out, the creature disappears. Robert eventually realizes that what he sees is a demon trying to dismantle the plane so it will crash. Robert decides to act.

Living Doll: Erich (Telly Savalas) is angry at his wife for buying his stepdaughter an expensive doll. Erich has a nasty disposition and soon discovers that the doll has a life of its own and it dislikes him. In fact, the doll tells him so. Talky Tina says emphatically “I hate you” and “I’m going to kill you.”

The Masks: On his deathbed, Jason Foster calls his four heirs to his side on a Mardi Gras evening. Each heir has a character flaw—self-pity, avarice, vanity or cruelty. Foster demands that each wear a mask he has fashioned for them. If they refuse to keep the masks on until midnight, they will be disinherited. The masks are hideous, and the heirs do not want to don them. But out of greed, they slide them onto their faces.

It’s a Good Life: Peaksville, Ohio, a small community, has been “taken away” from the so-called normal world—ravaged by 6-year-old “monster” Anthony (Billy Mumy). By mere thought and/or wishes, Anthony can make things and people disappear or turn into hideous creatures. All of the adults kowtow to his every desire.

To Serve Man: The Kanamits—nine-foot-tall, large-headed creatures—come to Earth from outer space, bringing gifts, spouting peace and promising to end famine. After some initial resistance by earthlings, the world relents and humans become entranced by the visitors. However, government agent Mike (Lloyd Chambers) soon discovers a sinister and shocking plot being hatched by the Kanamits.

The Twilight Zone was a paradox.

Although the series is often seen as science fiction, ultimately it was not science fiction.

Whatever weird or far out setting may have been involved in a particular episode, the focus was always on the angst, pain and suffering we face in the so-called “real” world. As author Marc Scott Zicree writes:

The Twilight Zone was the first, and possibly only, TV series to deal on a regular basis with the theme of alienation—particularly urban alienation…. Repeatedly, it states a simple message: The only escape from alienation lies in reaching out to others, trusting in their common humanity. Give in to the fear and you are lost.

Fifty years after the original The Twilight Zone series questioned whether we can maintain our humanity in the face of authoritarian forces trying to reduce us to mindless automatons, we’re still struggling with the demons of our age who delight in fomenting violence, sowing distrust and prejudice, and persuading the public to support tyranny disguised as patriotism.

Yet as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we don’t have to be stranded in this alternate universe, this twilight zone of tyranny, brutality and injustice.

We still have the power to change our circumstances for the better.

However, overcoming the evils of our age will require more than intellect and activism. It will require decency, morality, goodness, truth and toughness.

As Serling concluded in his remarks to the graduating class of 1968:

Toughness is the singular quality most required of you… we have left you a world far more botched than the one that was left to us… Part of your challenge is to seek out truth, to come up with a point of view not dictated to you by anyone, be he a congressman, even a minister… Are you tough enough to take the divisiveness of this land of ours, the fact that everything is polarized, black and white, this or that, absolutely right or absolutely wrong. This is one of the challenges. Be prepared to seek out the middle ground … that wondrous and very difficult-to-find Valhalla where man can look to both sides and see the errant truths that exist on both sides. If you must swing left or you must swing right—respect the other side. Honor the motives that come from the other side. Argue, debate, rebut—but don’t close those wondrous minds of yours to opposition. In their eyes, you’re the opposition. And ultimately … ultimately—you end divisiveness by compromise. And so long as men walk and breathe—there must be compromise.”

*

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

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  (SelectBooks, 2015) is available online at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on American Idiocracy: 50 Years Later, We’re Still Stranded in the Twilight Zone
  • Tags:

The government of South Dakota has made it very clear that it does not like people who protest the Keystone XL pipeline. The state’s governor has dismissed them as “out-of-staters who come in to disrupt.” And other officials have similarly leveraged long-debunked and harmful tropes, mischaracterizing those speaking out as “paid protesters.”

In this atmosphere, South Dakota enacted a new law last week, the Riot Boosting Act. The law seeks to suppress protests before they even start and prohibits people from engaging in full-throated advocacy. It does so by creating a new, ambiguous term: “riot boosting.”

If you’re wondering what that means, so is everyone else, including those who want to speak out. And that’s a big problem.

The new law gives the state the authority to sue individuals and organizations for “riot boosting,” but it does not clearly describe what speech or conduct it considers to be “riot boosting.” The law is written so broadly that even a tweet encouraging activists to “Join a protest to stop the pipeline and give it all you’ve got!” could be interpreted as “riot-boosting” should a fight break out at the protest. The law joins two existing state criminal laws that also target such speech, meaning that advocacy could now result in up to 25 years of prison time, fines, or civil penalties — or a combination of all three.

Let’s be very clear: States are within their rights to prohibit incitement of violence — a narrow category of unprotected speech that refers to words intended and likely to cause imminent violence. But these laws go far beyond that by criminalizing impassioned advocacy that lies at the core of our political discourse. They instill a fear among peaceful organizers that their actions or words could be misconstrued by the government as “riot boosting.” As a result, activists are now forced to think twice before even encouraging others to join a protest, let alone train, educate, or advise those who plan to protest. And, because of these laws, they may forgo such speech and association altogether.

That is a clear First Amendment violation — and why we are in court to challenge the laws on behalf of the Sierra Club, NDN Collective, Dakota Rural Action, and the Indigenous Environmental Network.

According to the state’s website, the Riot Boosting Act is a result of Governor Kristi Noem’s discussions with TransCanada — the company that is set to build and operate the Keystone XL pipeline — and other stakeholders. Notably, the state did not meet with Native American tribes or environmental groups.

This comes across loud and clear in the final law, which not only gives the state the authority to sue anti-pipeline groups and activists but also gives third-parties — including TransCanada — the ability to join in. Further, the money seized from protesters through these lawsuits can be used to fund the very thing they are protesting, thereby giving the company an added financial incentive to go after pipeline protesters.

If this attack on protest sounds eerily familiar, that’s because it is.

In just the last two years, we’ve seen a rise in government efforts to stifle protests, particularly those led by Indigenous and environmental activists, often in opposition to pipelines. There have been attempts to equate protesters with domestic terrorists and saboteurs. Law enforcement authorities have partnered with private security companies to surveil activists and control protests. Known FBI informants have infiltrated activist spaces and camps. The federal government has implemented “no-fly zones” to black out media coverage during heightened police crackdowns.

And if Governor Noem’s rhetoric on “shut[ting] down” “out-of-state people” who come into South Dakota to “slow and stop construction” of the pipeline sounds familiar, it should. It echoes government attempts throughout our history to justify anti-protest actions by delegitimizing protesters as “outside agitators.”

In 1964, infamous segregationist George Wallace said racial tensions did not exist in the South “except in a very few isolated instances” caused exclusively by “outside agitators.” He was not alone in attempting to frame the civil rights movement in the South as the work of “outside agitators.” Southern authorities frequently attempted to discount legitimate grievances and protests by Black people as nothing more than an attempt by radical outsiders to sow dissent. They even called Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. an “outside agitator.”

More recently, in 2014, after the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, the police blamed “outside agitators” for the majority of the unlawful activities. Not only were these claims later debunked in a scathing report by the Department of Justice, they also allowed the police to minimize the harmful impact of their own improper practices that caused the citizens of the city to protest in the first place.

What’s happening in South Dakota is no different. The government has dismissed Native Americans, state farmers and ranchers, and residents of nearby states who opposed the pipeline as outside agitators. But the pipeline, if constructed, would have a substantial impact on all of their lives – including our clients, many of whom are South Dakotans. Moreover, the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline is a national issue, and it deserves a national debate.

Opposition to the construction of the pipeline may agitate Gov. Noem, but the First Amendment guarantees the right to voice that opposition. Those affected by the pipeline’s construction deserve to be heard even if Gov. Noem and TransCanada want them all to shut up.

*

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

Andrew Malone, Staff Attorney, ACLU of South Dakota and Vera Eidelman, Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project

Featured image is from ACLU

A Threatening Monster

April 3rd, 2019 by Christopher Black

President Trump used to attack President Obama as being weak with regard to Syria for not being more ruthless in the American led war of aggression against Syria, a prelude to war with Iran; that he had drawn red lines in the sand and dared the Russians to cross. That the Russians had called his bluff and nothing happened, he said, as if the death of hundreds of thousands and destruction of entire cities are nothing. Trump bragged that when he was in power and America “was great again” Russia would be forced to dance to the American tune because, of course President Putin would respect him more, making the mistake of thinking that Vladimir Putin respects brutality and arrogance rather than good intentions and intelligence.

But now, in Venezuela, Trump is in the same position as Obama, having drawn red lines in the sand only for them to be ignored by the Venezuelan government and people and by the Russians and the Chinese. In a feeble fury the American government has issued one warning after another against “Russian intervention” forgetting that Venezuela can have any friends it wants, and forgetting that the United States is not the ruler of the planet. The warnings are issued the more sternly the less effective their plans and actions become. They hope every day for the Venezuelan army to change sides. They hope their selected hand puppet Juan Guaido will somehow catch on with all the people who hate him. They hope God is on their side. They have no hope.

When 100 Russian military technicians arrived in Caracas with tons of equipment last week, Trump’s national security adviser, that is, war adviser, claimed that Russian support of a popular and legitimate government to guarantee its peaceful development was “a direct threat to international peace and security in the region,” an astounding claim from a man who had just conducted an attempted armed coup against the government of Venezuela and whose boss was threatening to bombard and invade it if their economic war and sabotage was not enough to destroy the country. When he made this absurd statement Bolton echoed the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which was just as much a statement of American arrogance then as Bolton’s statements are now.

The more President Maduro proves his resilience, against rising economic warfare and sabotage of the electricity grid, and other infrastructure, and the more Russia and China increase their support of the government of Venezuela, the more frustrated the Americans become. There is no indication that a big military action is planned, nevertheless the “all options are on the table” card is still being played in statements and the media. “We may not do it, but let’s scare the hell out of them anyway” is the type of psychopathic thinking we are dealing with. But the main strategy is not a direct military one. Instead they are intending to conduct a long hybrid war on Venezuela to wear the people down. Elliott Abrams, a notorious American war criminal, the State Departments’ special representative for Venezuela, whose crimes span Latin America, stated,

“I don’t imagine that Juan Guaido is deeply worried because the Maduro regime, while it may be around in 15 days, is not going to be around in 15 years.” He threatened to cut oil sales and threatened Russia by saying “It would be a mistake for the Russians to think they have a free hand here-they don’t.”

But of course they do. Russia will conduct its affairs as suits its interests and that means support of Venezuela. It is instead the Americans who are making the mistake, because it is a fact that they no longer have a free hand in the region. Trump’s opponents in the Democratic Party and their allied media, still dazed and confused about the Mueller investigation’s inability to produce any evidence at all of Trump being a Russian agent, are still calling him weak on Russia because he is not doing enough to oppose Russia.

But the truth is they have tried to oppose Russia in every way at every possible opportunity, from Germany to Ukraine, to Turkey, from Syria to Venezuela, and failed at every point. Trump is the scapegoat for the real decline in American power and prestige and all they can do is fall back on their nuclear threat, to demand more nuclear weapons and fight wars they cannot pay for and cannot win in the vain hope, that somehow, just by brute force, they can regain their former power ad prestige. But they can’t because brute force is not enough to win the ultimate political objectives of the war. Power means little if everyone thinks you’re a thug.

In August 2011, Obama declared that “for the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside’ Yet Obama is now history while President Assad leads his people still. It was Obama who stated “the use of chemical weapons” is a changer, and then had his proxy and special forces stage several chemical attacks to be followed by big attacks on the Syrian forces. But he was stopped every time by the skills and resistance of the Syrian, Russian and Iranian forces resisting the American aggression. Obama was accused of stepping back from decisive action, the old “stabbed in the back” claims made by the Germans to explain their defeat in World War One and used by many American to explain their defeat in Vietnam, and Trump was one of those to make that claim.

But the truth was not about having the moxy to confront the Russians. It was about what the Americans knew would happen to them if they did. The Americans have suffered defeat in Syria though they still cause trouble for example for the refugees they hold hostage at the Rukban refugee camp, located in the American occupation zone at Al Tanf near the Jordanian border, where they block food and medicine from relieving the suffering of the Syrians held hostage there, and where they refused access to senior dignitaries of the UN and Red Crescent to inspect conditions in the camp. They try to cause trouble among the tribes and other groups with the few remaining forces illegally in the country, The Russians report the French and Belgian special forces are plotting to stage yet another chemical attack provocation and British lawyers, with close links to British and NATO intelligence, are attempting to have the ICC label President Assad a war criminal. These actions are planned with the USA. So Trump and his men can still cause a lot of trouble in the pain of their Syrian defeat.

They have suffered another defeat in Venezuela but their war goes on. They intend to cause a lot more trouble. The Americans are going to apply, besides all types of sabotage, political and economic pressure, as well as quasi-legal actions. They think they have a strength the Russians do not have, their proximity to the regions against Russia’s distance. But again, they misjudge the situation and Russia has demonstrated that it is in the region to stay not only being able to fly in aircraft from great distances, but has expanded military training and flight schools, S300 missile battery training, and other areas of cooperation.

The coup attempt failed. Guaido has failed. Sabotage and sanctions have failed. Political pressure has also failed, despite the fact that Canada led the Lima Group in support of the US aggression against Venezuela. But they do not have Mexico on their side and it is making them furious. President Obrador has proven more independent than they expected. He refused to join the Lima Group, refused to condemn Maduro, and has demanded reparations on behalf of the Mexican people from Spain and The Vatican for all their crimes committed during the colonial period. There is already talk in Washington about what actions to take against him. The Americans seem to have lost the art of making friends and know only how to make enemies for now Trump has cut aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, as if he wants the entire region to be opposed to the USA and in support of the Venezuelan people.

President Trump, on behalf of the United States of America, keeps drawing red lines in the sand. He has paralyzed the US government to build one along the Mexican border, a hostile act towards Mexico, he has drawn them in Ukraine, in Turkey, in Syria, in the Pacific, in Korea, and now Venezuela but the trouble with red lines is they’re never the right lines. Red lines issued by a nation that acts as a neo-colonial power are violations of international law. They are ultimatums. The peoples of the world rejected this type of aggression from militaristic, chauvinist powers at the end of World War Two when the militarism of Germany and Japan was destroyed, the United States claimed it’s role in the world was to “bring democracy,” the United Nations was formed. A Charter was adopted, to which they agreed, which makes everything the USA is doing a crime against peace. We don’t need more red lines, we need the leaders of the American state to read and understand and adhere to the lines written in the Charter of the United Nations, to join the society of nations that wants to live in peace and respect with each other, instead of standing outside the society of nations; a threatening monster everyone fears.

*

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

Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel “Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.” He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from NEO

Belt and Road Initiative in Full Swing in Europe

April 3rd, 2019 by Federico Pieraccini

The multipolar transformation that is occurring across the Eurasian continent confirms the industrial and diplomatic cooperation between China and the European continent in spite of strong opposition from the United States.

Xi Jinping‘s visit to Europe confirms what many of us have been writing about over the past few months and years, namely, the reality of an ongoing global transformation of a world dominated by the United States to a pluralistic one composed of different powers collectively shaping a multipolar world.

Europe therefore finds itself in fortuitous position, balanced as it is between its old world links to the United States on the one side and the fledgling Eurasian one being ushered in by Russia and China on the other.

Countries like Germany and France, but even the United Kingdom, have long implemented commercial policies that encourage integration between the countries of the Eurasian supercontinent. In 2015, the United Kingdom was among the first Western countries to join the Chinese Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which finances projects of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The Chinese BRI mega project kicked off in 2014 with the ambitious goal of integrating trade between China and Europe by sea and by land, in the process incorporating all the countries in between. The idea, as a natural consolidation of trade, is to shorten the delivery times of goods by rail and integrate sea routes. The project covers not only ports and rail lines but also the construction of technological infrastructure to achieve global interconnectivity using the 5G technology developed by the Chinese tech giant Huawei.

Germany and France have over the years deepened their partnerships with Beijing. Paris in particular boasts historical ties with China stemming from the nuclear cooperation between China General Nuclear Power Group (CGNPC) and Électricité de France (EDF) stretching back to 1978, as well as the aerospace one between Airbus and the Chinese aviation companies that has been ongoing since 1985.

Belt and Road Initiative in Full Swing in Europe

Source: SCF

Italy has in recent months approached the BRI as a result of the new government consisting of the Lega Nord and Five Star Movement (M5S). The decision to sign a memorandum of understanding between Beijing and Rome underlines how the new government wants to maintain a balanced position between Washington and Beijing in certain sectors. This is exactly the approach of Germany, which has elected to continue deepening its ties with Moscow vis-a-vis hydrocarbons and Nord Stream 2 in the face of pressure from Washington. Moreover, both Germany and Italy have confirmed that they want to rely on Huawei for the implementation and management of 5G traffic, which is fundamental to a world dominated by the internet of things.

The decisions of Germany, France and Italy to continue their cooperation with Moscow and Beijing in various fields flies in the face of the narrative advanced by the American-controlled scaremongering media controlled that attempts to discourage European politicians from acting in the interests of their countries and engaging with Russia and China.

What Washington continues to misunderstand is why certain European countries are so determined to embrace the opportunities offered by the East. Italy’s recent example is quite easy to understand. The Italians hope that the BRI will provide much needed stimulus to their production industry, which has been in the doldrums in recent years. The desire for Chinese capital to give a boost to the export of Italian-produced goods is the driving force behind the proposed agreement between Beijing and Rome.

In addition to the obvious and natural desire for capital, there is also the idea of ​​ensuring energy supply, as Germany is doing with the construction of the Nord Stream 2 with Russia. Despite strong US opposition, Berlin has favored its own national interest in energy diversification, avoiding giving in to pressure from Washington, which wanted Germany to rely on LNG supplied all the way from the US at an exorbitant price when compared to Russian-supplied gas.

There are striking divergences between Europe’s politicians, especially if we look at the relations between Macron and Salvini in Italy, or those between May and her European colleagues. Even between Merkel and Macron there seem to be notable frictions surrounding energy independence. However, in spite of these apparent divergences, the prevailing theme in the final analysis is that of wishing to escape Washington’s suffocating dominance in favor of a greater participation in the concept of a multipolar world.

No European capital – whether it be Paris, Rome, Berlin or London – intends to break the Atlantic pact with Washington. This is confirmed at every possible formal occasion. However, as Beijing becomes more and more central to questions concerning technology or the supply of liquid capital for investments or business expansion, the changes to the global order seem unstoppable.

The last obstacle remains those countries still closely linked to pro-Atlantic policies, those who find in Beijing, and above all Moscow, an excellent excuse to invite Washington’s greater intrusion into the sovereign affairs of Europe. The Baltic countries and Poland seem to offer the best inroads for US policy makers to try to influence the debate on the old continent regarding ties with the East. The artificial crises created in Ukraine, Syria and Venezuela also serve as tools to divide European leaders into opposing camps, creating the conditions to scupper European cooperation with the East.

It is no coincidence that for US strategists the two greatest dangers lie in the possibility of Moscow and Beijing, or Moscow and Berlin, cooperating and coordinating their efforts. The Berlin-Moscow-Beijing triangle, with the addition of Rome and Paris, represents a scenario for Washington that is unprecedented in terms of its challenge to US hegemony in Europe.

Wang Yiwei, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, during Xi Jinping’s historic visit to Rome expressed in concrete terms the changing global order

“With the 16+1 cooperation plan between Central and Eastern European nations and China, several countries signed memoranda of understanding with China to jointly build the BIS. So far, the governments of 16 Central and Eastern European countries have signed memoranda of understanding on BIS cooperation with China. Currently, 171 cooperation agreements have been reached with 123 countries and 29 international organizations under the BIS “.

*

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

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

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Belt and Road Initiative in Full Swing in Europe

Venezuela’s Comptroller General Elvis Amoroso announced Thursday that the opposition politician Juan Guaido has been barred from holding public office for 15 years over irregularities in his financial activities.

This decision was taken “considering that the deputy Juan Guaido has refused to present his sworn statement (…) has systematically violated our Constitution (…) has usurped public functions and has performed actions with foreign governments which have harmed Venezuela’s People,” the Comptroller General said explaining his agency’s decision.

The sanction against the U.S.-backed opposition politician stems from violations of the Organic Law of the Comptroller General, all of which could not be dismissed because the lawmaker refused to justify his income sources. More specifically, it is the consequence of a “fiscal fraud,” that is, the legally unjustified use of more than US$100,000 to fund more than 91 trips inside and outside Venezuela.

Image result for Comptroller General Elvis Amoroso

In compliance with his public functions, the Venezuelan State Comptroller initiated an audit of Guaido’s financial activities in February. Amoroso’s authority and capabilities are defined by the Organic Law of the Comptroller General and the National System of Fiscal Control, whose Article 78 defines that the state Comptroller may request affidavits of assets from any public official.

The Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic of Venezuela is the institution that monitors and controls the nation’s income, expenses, public goods and assets. According to the lawyer Ana Cristina Bracho, Guaido as a congressman is a public official who has specific functions, rights and prohibitions.

“Upon assuming his term, he vowed to respect the country’s laws and institutions,” Bracho said and added that “he also vowed to respect the absolute prohibition of accepting honors, charges and rewards of foreign countries.”

Article 187 of the Constitution of Venezuela states that members of Congress are obliged to perform tasks for the benefit of the Venezuelan people and cannot receive additional income, or hold positions other than their parliamentary functions.

Guaido was out of the country for a total of eight months. So far, however, he has not explained the origin of the money used to finance his international political tour.

Summing up, the U.S.-backed opposition politician has been disqualified from holding public office for the following reasons:

1. Guaido hid and falsified data at his affidavit of patrimony. He received money from natural or legal persons, either national and international. These resources were not declared or justified before the Comptroller’s Office.

2. Guaido did not respect legal and constitutional standards which specify that the congressmen must comply with law-defined tasks and cannot perform other jobs or receive other income.

3. Guaido usurped functions, performed actions backed by foreign governments against the Venezuelan people and accepted honors or rewards of foreign governments.

*

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

Featured image: Juan Guaidó speaking in Caracas on January 21, 2018 (Luis Dávila/República Bolivariana de Venezuela).

Even if you think you know all about the Chagos story – an entire population forcibly removed from their island homeland at British gunpoint to make way for a US Air Force nuclear base, the people dumped destitute over a thousand miles away, their domestic animals gassed by the British army, their homes fired and demolished – then I beg you still to read this.

This analysis shows there could be no more startling illustration of the operation of the brutal and ruthless British Establishment in an undisguisedly Imperialist cause, involving actions which all reasonable people can see are simply evil. It points out that many of the key immoralities were perpetrated by Labour governments, and that the notion that either Westminster democracy or the British “justice” system provides any protection against the most ruthless authoritarianism by the British state, is utterly baseless.

Finally of course, there is the point that this is not only a historic injustice, but the injustice continues to the current day and continues to be actively promoted by the British state, to the extent that it is willing to take massive damage to its international standing and reputation in order to continue this heartless policy. This analysis is squarely based on the recent Opinion of the International Court of Justice.

Others have done an excellent job of chronicling the human stories and the heartache of the Islanders deported into penury far away across the sea. I will take that human aspect as read, although this account of one of the major forced transportations is worth reading to set the tone. The islanders were shipped out in inhuman conditions to deportation, starved for six days and covered in faeces and urine. This was not the 19th century, this was 1972.

The MV Nordvaer was already loaded with Chagossians, horses, and coconuts when it arrived at Peros Banhos. Approximately one hundred people were ultimately forced onto the ship. Ms. Mein, her husband, and their eight children shared a small, cramped cabin on the ship. The cabin was extremely hot; they could not open the portholes because the water level rose above them under the great weight of the overloaded boat. Many of the other passengers were not as fortunate as Ms. Mein and shared the cargo compartment with horses, tortoises, and coconuts. Ms. Mein remembers that the cargo hold was covered with urine and horse manure. The horses were loaded below deck while many human passengers were forced to endure the elements above deck for the entirety of the six-day journey in rough seas. The voyage was extremely harsh and many passengers became very sick. The rough conditions forced the captain to jettison a large number of coconuts in order to prevent the overloaded boat from sinking. Meanwhile, the horses were fed, but no food was provided for the Chagossians.

Rather than the human story of the victims, I intend to concentrate here, based squarely on the ICJ judgement, on the human story of the perpetrators. In doing so I hope to show that this is not just a historic injustice, but a number of prominent and still active pillars of the British Establishment, like Jack Straw, David Miliband, Jeremy Hunt and many senior British judges, are utterly depraved and devoid of the basic feelings of humanity.

There is also a vitally important lesson to be learnt about the position of the British Crown and the utter myth that continuing British Imperialism is in any sense based on altruism towards its remaining colonies.

Image result for Prime Minister Harold Wilson

Before reading the ICJ Opinion, I had not fully realised the blatant and vicious manner in which the Westminster government had blackmailed the Mauritian government into ceding the Chagos Islands as a condition of Independence. That blackmail was carried out by Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. The court documentation makes plain that the United States was ordering the British Government on how to conduct the entire process, and that Harold Wilson deliberately “frightened” Mauritius into conceding the Chagos Islands. This is an excerpt from the ICJ Opinion:

104. On 20 September 1965, during a meeting on defence matters chaired by the United Kingdom Secretary of State, the Premier of Mauritius again stated that “the Mauritius Government was not interested in the excision of the islands and would stand out for a 99-year lease”. As an alternative, the Premier of Mauritius proposed that the United Kingdom first concede independence to Mauritius and thereafter allow the Mauritian Government to negotiate with the Governments of the United Kingdom and the United States on the question of Diego Garcia. During those discussions, the Secretary of State indicated that a lease would not be acceptable to the United States and that the Chagos Archipelago would have to be made available on the basis of its detachment.

105. On 22 September 1965, a Note was prepared by Sir Oliver Wright, Private Secretary to the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister, Sir Harold Wilson. It read: “Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam is coming to see you at 10:00 tomorrow morning. The object is to frighten him with hope: hope that he might get independence; Fright lest he might not unless he is sensible about the detachment of the Chagos Archipelago. I attach a brief prepared by the Colonial Office, with which the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office are on the whole content. The key sentence in the brief is the last sentence of it on page three.”

106. The key last sentence referred to above read: “The Prime Minister may therefore wish to make some oblique reference to the fact that H.M.G. have the legal right to detach Chagos by Order in Council, without Mauritius consent but this would be a grave step.” (Emphasis in the original.)

107. On 23 September 1965 two events took place. The first event was a meeting in the morning of 23 September 1965 between Prime Minister Wilson and Premier Ramgoolam. Sir Oliver Wright’s Report on the meeting indicated that Prime Minister Wilson told Premier Ramgoolam that “in theory there were a number of possibilities. The Premier and his colleagues could return to Mauritius either with Independence or without it. On the Defence point, Diego Garcia could either be detached by order in Council or with the agreement of the Premier and his colleagues….”

I have to confess this has caused me personally radically to revise my opinion of Harold Wilson. The ICJ at paras 94-97 make plain that the agreement to lease Diego Garcia to the USA as a military base precedes and motivates the rough handling of the Mauritian government.

Against this compelling argument, Britain nevertheless continued to argue before the court that the Chagos Islands had been entirely voluntarily ceded by Mauritius. The ICJ disposed of this fairly comprehensively:

172. …In the Court’s view, it is not possible to talk of an international agreement, when one of the parties to it, Mauritius, which is said to have ceded the territory to the United Kingdom, was under the authority of the latter. The Court is of the view that heightened scrutiny should be given to the issue of consent in a situation where a part of a non-self-governing territory is separated to create a new colony. Having reviewed the circumstances in which the Council of Ministers of the colony of Mauritius agreed in principle to the detachment of the Chagos Archipelago on the basis of the Lancaster House agreement, the Court considers that this detachment was not based on the free and genuine expression of the will of the people concerned.

A number of the individual judges’ Opinions put his rather more bluntly, of which Judge Robinson gives perhaps the best account in a supporting Opinion which is well worth reading:

93. … The intent was to use power to frighten the Premier into submission. It is wholly unreasonable to seek to explain the conduct of the United Kingdom on the basis that it was involved in a negotiation and was simply employing ordinary negotiation strategies. After all, this was a relationship between the Premier of a colony and its administering Power. Years later, speaking about the so-called consent to the detachment of the Chagos Archipelago Sir Seewoosagur is reported to have told the Mauritian Parliament, “we had no choice”42It is also reported that Sir Seewoosagur told a news organization, the Christian Science Monitor that: “There was a nook around my neck. I could not say no. I had to say yes, otherwise the [noose] could have tightened.” It is little wonder then that, in 1982, the Mauritian Legislative Assembly’s Select Committee on the Excision of the Archipelago concluded that the attitude of the United Kingdom in that meeting could “not fall outside the most elementary definition of blackmailing”.

The International Court of Justice equally dismissed the British argument that the islanders had signed releases renouncing any claims or right to resettle, in return for small sums of “compensation” received from the British government. Plainly having been forcibly removed and left destitute, they were in a desperate situation and in no position to assert or to defend their rights.

At paragraphs 121-3 the ICJ judgement recounts the brief period where the British government behaved in a legal and conscionable manner towards the islanders. In 2000 a Chagos resident, Louis Olivier Bancoult, won a judgement in the High Court in London that the islanders had the right to return, as the colonial authority had an obligation to govern in their interest. Robin Cook was then Foreign Secretary and declared that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office would not be appealing against the judgement.

Robin Cook went further. He accepted before the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva that the UK had acted unlawfully in its treatment of the Chagos Islanders. And he repealed the Order in Council that de facto banned all occupation of the islands other than by the US military. Cook commissioned work on a plan to facilitate the return of the islanders.

It seemed finally the British Government was going to act in a reasonably humanitarian fashion towards the islanders. But then disaster happened. The George W Bush administration was infuriated at the idea of a return of population to their most secret base area, and complained bitterly to Blair. This was one of the factors, added to Cook’s opposition to arms sales to dictatorships and insistence on criticising human rights abuses by Saudi Arabia, that caused Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell to remove Robin Cook as Foreign Secretary.

Robin Cook was replaced by the infinitely biddable Jack Straw. There was never any chance that Straw – who received large donations to his office and campaign funds from British Aerospace – would stand against the interests of the arms industry or of the USA, particularly in favour of a few dispossessed islanders who would never be a source of personal donations.

Straw immediately threw Cook’s policy into reverse. Resettling the islanders was now declared “too expensive” an option. The repealed Order in Council was replaced by a new one banning all immigration to, or even landing on, the islands on security grounds. This “coincided” with the use of Diego Garcia, the Chagos island on which the US base is situate, as a black site for torture and extraordinary rendition.

Straw was therefore implicated not just in extending the agony of the deported island community, but doing so in order to ensure the secrecy of torture operations. I don’t have the vocabulary to describe the depths of Straw’s evil. This was New Labour in action.

The estimable Mr Bancoult did not give up. He took the British Government again to the High Court to test the legality of the new Order in Council barring the islanders, which was cast on “National security” grounds. On 11 May 2006, Bancoult won again in the High Court, and the judgement was splendidly expressed by Lord Hooper in a statement of decency and common sense with which you would hope it was impossible to disagree:

“The power to legislate for the “peace order and good government” of a territory has never been used to exile a whole population. The suggestion that a minister can, through the means of an Order in Council, exile a whole population from a British Overseas Territory and claim that he is doing this for the “peace, order and good government” of the Territory is, to us, repugnant.” (Para 142)

The judgement did not address the sovereignty of the islands.

Unlike Robin Cook, Jack Straw did appeal against the judgement, and the FCO’s appeal was resoundingly and unanimously rebuffed by the Court of Appeal. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office then appealed again to the House of Lords, and to general astonishment the Law Lords found in favour of the British government and against the islanders, by a 3-2 judgement.

The general astonishment was compounded by the fact that a panel of only 5 Law Lords had sat on the case, rather than the 7 you would normally expect for a case of this magnitude. It was very widely remarked among the legal fraternity that the 3 majority judges were the only Law Lords who might possibly have found for the government, and on any possible combination of 7 judges the government would have lost. That view was given weight by the fact that the minority of 2 who supported the islanders included the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Bingham.

The decision to empanel only 5 judges, and the selection of the UK’s three most right wing Law Lords for the panel, was taken by the Lord Chancellor’s office. And the Lord Chancellor was now – Jack Straw. The timing is such that it is conceivable that the decision was taken under Straw’s predecessor, Lord Falconer, but as he was Blair’s great friend and ex-flatmate and also close to Straw, it makes no difference to the Establishment stitch-up.

If your blood is not now sufficiently boiling, consider this. The Law Lords found against the islanders on the grounds that no restraint can be placed on the authority of the British Crown over its colonies. The majority opinion was best expressed by Lord Hoffman. Lord Hoffman’s judgement is a stunning assertion of British Imperial power. He states in terms that the British Crown exercises its authority in the interests of the UK and not in the interest of the colony concerned:

49. Her Majesty in Council is therefore entitled to legislate for a colony in the interests of the United Kingdom. No doubt she is also required to take into account the interests of the colony (in the absence of any previous case of judicial review of prerogative colonial legislation, there is of course no authority on the point) but there seems to me no doubt that in the event of a conflict of interest, she is entitled, on the advice of Her United Kingdom ministers, to prefer the interests of the United Kingdom. I would therefore entirely reject the reasoning of the Divisional Court which held the Constitution Order invalid because it was not in the interests of the Chagossians.

It is quite incredible to read that quote, and then to remember that the British government has just argued before the International Court of Justice that the ICJ does not have jurisdiction because the question is nothing to do with decolonisation but rather a bilateral dispute. Thankfully, the ICJ found this quite incredible too.

You may think that by the time it fixed this House of Lords judgement the British government had exhausted the wells of depravity on this particular issue. But no, David Miliband felt that he had to outdo his predecessors by being not only totally immoral, but awfully clever with it too. Under Miliband, the FCO dreamed up the idea of pretending that the exclusion of all inhabitants from around the USA leased nuclear weapon and torture site, was for environmental purposes.

The propagation of the Chagos Marine Reserve in 2010 banned all fishing within 200 nautical miles of the islands and, as the islanders are primarily a fishing community, was specifically designed to prevent the islanders from being able to return, while at the same time garnering strong applause from a number of famous, and very gullible, environmentalists.

As I blogged about this back in 2010:

The sheer cynicism of this effort by Miliband to dress up genocide as environmentalism is simply breathtaking. If we were really cooncerned about the environment of Diego Garcia we would not have built a massive airbase and harbour on a fragile coral atoll and filled it with nuclear weapons.

In retrospect I am quite proud of that turn of phrase. David Miliband was dressing up genocide as environmentalism. I stand by that.

While the ruse was obvious to anyone half awake, it does not need speculation to know the British government’s motives because, thanks to Wikileaks release of US diplomatic cables, we know that British FCO and MOD officials together specifically briefed US diplomats that the purpose was to make the return of the islanders impossible.

7. (C/NF) Roberts acknowledged that “we need to find a way to get through the various Chagossian lobbies.” He admitted that HMG is “under pressure” from the Chagossians and their advocates to permit resettlement of the “outer islands” of the BIOT. He noted, without providing details, that “there are proposals (for a marine park) that could provide the Chagossians warden jobs” within the BIOT. However, Roberts stated that, according to the HGM,s current thinking on a reserve, there would be “no human footprints” or “Man Fridays” on the BIOT’s uninhabited islands. He asserted that establishing a marine park would, in effect, put paid to resettlement claims of the archipelago’s former residents. Responding to Polcouns’ observation that the advocates of Chagossian resettlement continue to vigorously press their case, Roberts opined that the UK’s “environmental lobby is far more powerful than the Chagossians’ advocates.” (Note: One group of Chagossian litigants is appealing to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) the decision of Britain’s highest court to deny “resettlement rights” to the islands’ former inhabitants. See below at paragraph 13 and reftel. End Note.)

Incredible to say, that is still not the end of the ignominy of the British Establishment. As the irrepressible Chagossians continued their legal challenges, now to the “Marine reserve”, the UK’s new Supreme Court shamelessly refused to accept the US diplomatic cable in evidence, on the grounds it was a privileged communication under the Vienna Convention. This was a ridiculous decision which would only have been valid if there were evidence that the communication were obtained by another State, rather than leaked to the public by a national of the state that produced it. For a court to choose to ignore a salient fact is an abhorrent thing, but it allowed the British Establishment yet another “victory”. It was short lived, however.

Mauritius challenged the UK to arbitration before a panel constituted under Article 287 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, a Convention I am happy to say I was directly involved in bringing into force, by negotiating and helping draft the Protocol. Mauritius argued that the UK could not ban fishing rights which it enjoyed both traditionally, and specifically as part of the agreement to cede the Chagos Islands. The UK brought four separate challenges to the jurisdiction of the panel, and lost every one, and then lost the main judgement. It is pleasant to note that acting for the Chagos Islands was Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the FCO Legal Adviser who had resigned her position, telling Jack Straw that the attack on Iraq constituted an illegal war of aggression.

Which brings us up to the present Opinion by the International Court of Justice after the government of Mauritius finally took resolute action to assert sovereignty over the islands. Astonishingly, having repudiated the decision of the Arbitration Panel on the Law of the Sea, very much a British-inspired creation, Jeremy Hunt has now decided to strike at the very heart of international law itself by repudiating the International Court of Justice itself, something for which there is no precedent at all in British history. I discuss the radical implications of this here with Alex Salmond.

This is apposite as throughout the 21st Century developments listed here in this continued horror story, the Chagossians’ cause was championed in the House of Commons by two pariah MPs outside the consensus of the British Establishment. The Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on the Chagos Islands was Jeremy Corbyn MP. His Deputy was Alex Salmond MP.

Chagos really is a touchstone issue, a key litmus test of whether people are in or out of the British Establishment. The attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, the manufactured witch-hunt on anti-semitism, all are designed to return the Labour Party to a leadership which will continue the illegal occupation of the Chagos Islands; the acid test of reliable pro-USA neo-conservative policy. The SNP, at least under Salmmond, was an open challenge to British imperialism and hopefully will remain so.

Chagos is a fundamental test of decency in British public life. If you know where a politician – or judge – stands on Chagos, most other questions are answered.

*

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

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government, which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.Edward Louis Bernays (1891-1995), (in ‘Propaganda’, 1928, ch. 1)

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), (as quoted in Thinkexist.com)

In politics, stupidity is not a handicap!” Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), (as quoted by http://www.parismarais.fr)

***

We live in a very corrupt era. A case in point is the current and scandalous manipulation of the Mueller report by the Trump administration, with hardly any outcry from people in authority. Indeed, of the close to 400 pages (excluding  tables and appendices) of the Mueller report delivered to the U.S. Attorney General on Friday March 22, 2019, not a single page has yet to be made public, as of the Tuesday April 2 deadline established by the House of Representatives, either to the elected Congress and/or to the American people to see for themselves the real content of the full report.

The only thing made public, so far, is a four-page memo written by Attorney General William Barr, a recent appointee of Donald Trump, which says nice things about his boss and contains a vague promise to release a heavily censored version of the Mueller report sometime in the future (see below). To take at face value what a Trump’s appointee says, especially a lawyer, could be a big mistake.

This is an administration known for its serial lies. It has no respect for the truth whatsoever. —It has only partisan interests. In fact, Donald Trump is a believer in the “Big Lie” political theory, a propaganda technique first advanced by Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) in his 1925 book Mein Kampf. According to this theory, the bigger a politician’s lies and the more out of the ordinary, the more part of the population will be ready to believe them.

Donald Trump was at it again on Thursday March 28, when he wrongly claimed in a speech in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that the Mueller report “fully exonerated him” of any wrong doing. This is curious since no part of the report has yet been made public and Barr’s own opinion and brief interpretation were only that “Mueller had reached no conclusion about whether Trump had obstructed justice”! This is an example of stretching the truth, if I’ve ever seen one. Trump’s political career has been a long series of lies, falsehoods, untruths, exaggerations and misrepresentations, and there is no reason to think that the future would be different from the past.

But, there is something fishy here. —If the 400-page report by the Department of Justice’s special Counsel Robert Mueller (about Donald Trump cheating and obstructing justice in his relations with Russia) really does contain positive conclusions about the current occupant of the White House, his family and associates, don’t you think the tandem Trump-Barr would have rushed to make it public? At the very least, wouldn’t they have delivered copies of the full report to Congress? Why are they willing to fight to keep it secret from the elected Congress? The only logical answer is that the complete Mueller report contains very damaging material about Trump, his family and his administration, and William Barr does not want Americans to see it.

In any case, even if some media have jumped onboard Mr. Barr’s presentation of the contents of the report, a net majority of Americans are not falling for the Trump-Barr sleight of hand trick of hiding the report Nor do they accept their game of hide and seek, claiming that the report contains conclusions favorable to them, but keeping those conclusions secret. A NPR/PBS NewsHour/Maris poll, for example, indicated that only Trump’s gullible political base, just 36 percent, believe the Trump-Barr manipulation of the report, i.e. that Donald Trump has been “cleared” from wrongdoing. What is more, 56 percent believe the contrary, and 75 percent want the full report, uncensored, un-redacted, unedited and with no blackouts, to be made public ASAP.

Attorney General Barr has lately pulled a rabbit, or maybe a red herring, out of his hat to stall things further, in an obvious attempt to ‘drown the fish’ and take the sting out of the Mueller report. Indeed, on Friday March 29, Mr. Barr wrote a letter to the chairmen of the relevant committees of both the House and the Senate offering to rewrite the Mueller report on his own in order to exclude some so-called “sensitive” sections, some of which no doubt referring to his boss and his immediate family working in the White House. It is doubtful that such censorship is really necessary because it is most likely that special counsel Mueller and his team, knowing full well that their report will be made public, have been very careful not to include any sensitive or classified intelligence or any other touchy legal information. —This could be the political cover-up of the century.

Indeed, the Attorney General now wants to make public his own censored version of the Mueller report by excluding four broad categories of information from the official report:

  1. Grand jury material;
  2. Information that could compromise sensitive intelligence sources or methods;
  3. Details related to ongoing investigations; and
  4. Information that would unduly infringe on ‘the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties’.

This is an obvious attempt to gut the entire report.

In conclusion, it appears that the Trump administration is very busy making sure that anything in the Mueller report found damaging to the president, his immediate family and associates will be purged from the censored version, to be released in a few weeks. I doubt very much that the Democratic leadership in Congress will acquiesce to such blatant censorship of a report about political figures and originally designed to be made public in its entirety.

Mr. Adam Schiff’s indictments of Republicans

Considering this development, it may be useful to recall House Intelligence Committee chairman  Adam Schiff’s admonitions to his Republican colleagues, on Thursday, March 28, about their lack of probity and honesty and their “immoral,” “unethical,” “unpatriotic,” and “corrupt” behavior:

Transcript of Adam Schiff’s Statement:

“You [the Republicans] might think that it is okay:

  • That the Russians offered dirt on the Democratic candidate for president as part of what’s described as the Russian government’s effort to help the Trump campaign. You might think that’s okay.
  • That when that was offered to the son of the president (Donald Trump Jr.),who had a pivotal role in the campaign, that the president’s son did not call the FBI, and that he did not adamantly refuse that foreign help — no, instead that son said he would ‘love’ the help of the Russians. You might think it was okay that he took that meeting?
  • That Paul Manafort, the campaign chair, someone with great experience running campaigns, also took that meeting. You might think it’s okay that the president’s son-in-law (Jared Kushner) also took that meeting. You might think it’s okay that they concealed it from the public. You might think it’s okay that their only disappointment after that meeting was that the dirt they received on Hillary Clinton wasn’t better. You might think it’s okay. — I don’t.
  • That, when it was discovered a year later that they had lied about that meeting and said it was about adoptions, you might think it’s okay that the president is reported to have helped dictate that lie. You might think it’s okay. — I don’t.
  • That the campaign chairman of a presidential campaign would offer information about that campaign to a Russian oligarch in exchange for money or debt forgiveness. You might think that’s okay. — I don’t.
  • That [Donald Trump’s] campaign chairman offered polling data, campaign polling data, to someone linked to Russian intelligence. — I don’t think that’s okay.
  • That the president himself called on Russia to hack his opponent’s emails, if they were listening. You might think it’s okay that, later that day, the Russians in fact attempted to hack a server affiliated with that campaign. — I don’t think that’s okay.
  • That the president’s son-in-law (Jared Kushner)sought to establish a secret back-channel of communication with Russians through a Russian diplomatic facility. — I don’t think that’s okay.
  • That an associate of the president (Roger Stone) made direct contact with the GRU (the Military intelligence service of Russia) through Guccifer 2.0 and WikiLeaks, that is considered a hostile intelligence agency. You might think it’s okay that a senior campaign official was instructed to reach that associate and find out what that hostile intelligence agency had to say, in terms of dirt on his opponent.
  • That the national security adviser-designate (Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn) secretly conferred with a Russian ambassador about undermining U.S. sanctions, and you might think it’s okay he lied about it to the FBI. You might say that’s all okay. You might say that’s just what you need to do to win. — But I don’t think it’s okay.

I think it’s immoral, I think it’s unethical, I think it’s unpatriotic and, yes, I think it’s corrupt, and it is an evidence of collusion…

[Moreover], I don’t think it’s OK that during a presidential campaign Mr. Trump sought the Kremlin’s help to consummate a real estate deal in Moscow that would make him a fortune — according to the special counsel, hundreds of millions of dollars. I don’t think it’s OK to conceal it from the public. I don’t think it’s OK that he advocated a new and more favorable policy towards the Russians even as he was seeking the Russians’ help, the Kremlin’s help to make money. I don’t think it’s OK that his attorney lied to our committee. There is a different word for that than collusion, and it’s called ‘compromise’.” (Adam Schiff)

*

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

International economist Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay is the author of the book “The Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles”, of the book “The New American Empire”, and the recent book, in French “La régression tranquille du Québec, 1980-2018“. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

A future without independent media leaves us with an upside down reality where according to the corporate media “NATO deserves a Nobel Peace Prize”, and where “nuclear weapons and wars make us safer”.

.

.

If, like us, this is a future you wish to avoid, please help sustain Global Research’s activities by making a donation or taking out a membership now!

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

*     *     *

Electoral Dirty Tricks in Israel. Fake Social Media Promoting Likud and PM Netanyahu

By Stephen Lendman, April 02, 2019

According to Haaretz, the Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post and other Israeli media, hundreds (maybe thousands) of fake social media accounts are promoting Likud propaganda, Netanyahu’s party, according to the Big Bots Project online watchdog group.

China’s President Xi Jinping in Italy: It’s the Maritime Ports!

By F. William Engdahl, April 02, 2019

To the concern of Germany, France, Holland and other EU countries, Italy’s coalition has just signed a Memorandum of Understanding with China to join China’s Belt Road Initiative, the so-called New Economic Silk Road.

The CIA Takeover of America in the 1960s Is the Story of Our Times. The Killing of the Kennedys and Today’s New Cold War

By Edward Curtin, April 02, 2019

When Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated on June 5, 1968, the American public fell into an hypnotic trance in which they have remained ever since. The overwhelming majority accepted what was presented by government authorities as an open and shut case that a young Palestinian American, Sirhan Sirhan, had murdered RFK because of his support for Israel, a false accusation whose ramifications echo down the years.

Corporate Media Propaganda: Protecting the EU from ‘Russian Influence’ – by Manufacturing History

By Nina Cross, April 01, 2019

It is now apparent with the release of the Mueller investigation findings, that the great storm that has embattled the US government and establishment since 2016 over supposed Russia-Trump collusion during the US elections, originates not from a genuine tangible source, but a constant stream of rhetoric  driven by partisan corporate media.

Syria: Suspected Al-Qaeda Chemical Attack in Northern Hama and Al Skeilbiyyeh Bells Ring in Defiance

By Vanessa Beeley, April 01, 2019

HTS is a poorly disguised rebrand of Al Qaeda or Nusra Front in Syria and now controls the majority of Idleb province and terrorist-held areas of Northern Hama bordering Al Skeilbiyyeh.

Lawyers Worldwide Urge International Court: Investigate Israeli Crimes

By Prof. Marjorie Cohn, April 01, 2019

On the eve of the first anniversary of the “Great March of Return” at the Gaza border, lawyers and jurists around the world are calling on the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate and prosecute Israeli crimes against the Palestinians.

Bolton Torpedoed the Trump-Kim Hanoi Summit

By Mike Whitney, April 01, 2019

Bolton presented Kim with an offer he knew Kim would reject, the same offer that led to the destruction of Libya and the savage murder of Gaddafi. Bolton wanted the talks to fail so he could push for tougher sanctions that would pave the way for regime change.

*

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

  • Posted in NO READ MORE LINK
  • Comments Off on Selected Articles: Lawyers Worldwide: Investigate Israeli Crimes

The Financial Transaction Tax (FTT)

April 2nd, 2019 by Kavaljit Singh

The financial transaction tax is an issue that never goes away from the public agenda completely. It keeps coming back to the policy and political discussions in different forms across the world. Currently, the idea of a financial transaction tax (FTT) is gaining in popularity within the Democratic Party of the United States as a policy tool to curb excessive speculation and high-frequency trading that destabilizes markets; and to generate a significant amount of revenue to finance social programs such as free college tuition.

On March 5, Democrats in both houses of Congress introduced bills to introduce a financial transaction tax in the US. Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii introduced a bill titled, “The Wall Street Tax Act of 2019”[1] in the Senate while Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon introduced a companion bill in the House of Representatives. The bill proposes a 0.1 percent tax (i.e., 10 cents on every $100 financial transaction) on stocks, bonds, foreign exchange, derivatives and other financial assets traded in the US markets. While initial public offerings (IPOs) and short-term debt of fewer than 100 days would be exempted from the proposed FTT. Further, the proposed tax would apply to the actual payment for the derivatives contracts between the seller and the buyer, rather than to the notional value of derivatives contracts.

The bills are co-sponsored by more than a dozen lawmakers (including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Kirsten Gillibrand) from the House and Senate. Besides, labor unions, civil society groups, and progressive economists have also supported the idea of an FTT.

The likelihood of proposed bill becoming a law in 2019 seems remote because not a single Republican in either chamber of Congress has extended support besides there is strong resistance from the powerful financial lobbyists in the US. Despite these obstacles, the financial transaction tax may become a part of progressive tax ideas with the approach of the 2020 presidential and congressional campaigns. Some Presidential candidates – including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren – have supported versions of an FTT in the recent past.

The History of Financial Transaction Taxes

Contrary to popular perception, financial transaction taxes are not new. Many countries including the US, the UK, Australia, Belgium, France, India, Italy, Sweden, and Taiwan have already implemented similar taxes on a variety of financial transactions with mixed outcomes.

In the UK, investors pay a Stamp Duty Reserve Tax of 0.5 percent on the purchase price of shares of a company incorporated in the UK or shares of a foreign company that has a UK share register.

From 1914 to 1965, a federal FTT was levied on sales and transfers of stock in the US. At present, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) levies a modest “Section 31 fee” on stock transactions, and the proceeds are used to fund the agency’s regulatory costs. In 2018, about $2bn were collected by the SEC from this fee.

In 1984, Sweden introduced a tax of 1 percent on stock transactions. The tax was doubled in 1986, and it was extended to fixed-income securities and derivatives in 1989, albeit at lower rates. In 1991, the tax was abolished. There is a broad consensus in the economic literature that the Swedish FTT was a failure. There are three key reasons why the Swedish FTT failed. First, the tax rates on stocks and some derivatives transactions were too high. Second, the tax was poorly designed as it was levied only on registered Swedish brokerage services that encouraged foreign investors to avoid the tax by moving their trading in Swedish stocks to non-Swedish brokers based in London. As a result, more than half of equity trading volume migrated from Sweden to London. Third, some fixed-income securities were exempted from the FTT due to its narrow scope. Nevertheless, there are many important lessons to be learned from Sweden’s failed experience with the FTT in the 1980s.

The Potential Revenue from an FTT

There is no denying that the revenue potential of any financial transaction tax would depend on its specific design. However, the potential revenue that could be raised with an FTT is very large in the US because more than $1 trillion in stocks and bonds is traded on each business day in its financial markets.

As several FTT proposals have been floated in the US in recent years, the revenue potential estimates vary depending on the design of the FTT and modeling assumptions. Also, it is difficult to predict precisely how the behavior of financial market participants will change due to a small transaction tax. Besides, actual revenue collections can fall short of the estimates if market conditions deteriorate.

Nevertheless, most estimates show that an FTT in the US could raise between $35bn and $100bn annually. These are not trivial amounts. A recent Congressional Budget Office report[2] calculated that a 0.1 percent tax on the value of the securities and 0.1 percent tax on payments flows under derivatives would increase revenues by $777 billion over ten years (2019-2028), based on an estimate by the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (see Table 1). This estimate takes into account offsets in income and payroll tax revenues.

Table 1: FTT Revenue Estimates by Congressional Budget Office (2018)

Source: Staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation. *A loss in revenues is expected in 2019 because the transaction tax would immediately lower the value of financial assets.

Apart from reducing the federal budget deficit, part of proceeds of an FTT could be used to fund the Green New Deal (proposed recently by congressional Democrats), healthcare and other welfare programs.

Further, the FTT is a progressive way to generate tax revenues as the top 10 percent of American households, own 84 percent of all stocks. Therefore, anyone concerned about the growing income and wealth inequality in the US should welcome the financial transaction tax as it would be progressive in nature.

Will the FTT drive trading away from the US to FTT-free jurisdictions? Not necessarily. An FTT in the US may encourage other countries to adopt a similar tax thereby reducing the scope of tax avoidance. As discussed below, some EU member-states are supportive of implementing an FTT within the bloc. If both the US and the EU agree on tax harmonization, international cooperation on the FTT is also feasible in the long run.

Taxing the Bloated Finance Sector

It is widely acknowledged that the financial sector in the US has remained undertaxed despite achieving unprecedented growth in the last three decades. For instance, most financial services are exempted from value-added tax (VAT) in the US. Same is the case with other developed countries. At its peak in 2007, the financial sector contributed 8.3 percent to the US GDP and accounted for 41 percent of total corporate profits. Eleven years later, Wall Street profits are heading back to pre-crisis levels.

Strange it may sound, but too much finance could be bad for the economy as a growing body of economic literature shows that financial development benefits economy only up to an optimal point, beyond which the costs begin to rise.[3]

While analyzing the relationship between financial development and growth, the IMF Staff Discussion Notes 15/08 (May 2015) stated that “the effect of financial development on economic growth is bell-shaped: it weakens at higher levels of financial development.”[4]

On whether real economy has benefited from the recent growth of the financial sector, Adair Turner, the then chairman of the Financial Services Authority of the UK, wrote in 2010: “There is no clear evidence that the growth in the scale and complexity of the financial system in the rich developed world over the last 20 to 30 years has driven increased growth or stability, and it is possible for financial activity to extract rents from the real economy rather than to deliver economy value.”[5]

Not only excessive finance can increase the frequency of boom-bust cycles thereby undermining financial stability, but it can also divert resources, talent and human capital from productive sectors of the economy to the financial sector.

The 2008 financial crisis and the ensuing bank bailouts have clearly shown that the bloated financial sector can impose significant costs on the broader economy and society. Hence there is a strong rationale for seeking a “fair and substantial contribution” from the financial sector to the fiscal costs of bank bailouts.

The 2008 crisis has also raised legitimate questions about the benefits of an oversized financial industry in the US. There is a growing consensus that a stable and well-regulated financial sector is vital for the achievement of long-term sustainable economic growth and developmental objectives. Post-crisis, there has been a great deal of discussion on curbing the short-term speculative trading in the US financial markets. In this context, a financial transaction tax could be a part of the policy toolkit to dampen the unproductive parts of the financial sector.

Curbing High-Frequency Trading

Another key objective of a financial transaction tax is to curb high-frequency trading of doubtful social value.

In the last two decades, the landscape of stock market trading has changed drastically with the high-frequency trading (HFT) came into vogue during the 2000s. On Wall Street, the high-frequency traders rely on high-speed connections to trading platforms, use high-powered computers to execute trading orders, and take very short-term positions.

HFTs belong to a broader group of traders called algorithmic traders. Algorithmic trading is based on a technology-driven pre-programmed mathematical model that allows execution of trading orders at a very high speed (without human intervention) to benefit from the smallest movement in the prices of stocks, commodities, and currencies. Computers execute the buy or sell orders, not in seconds, but microseconds. The high-frequency traders take advantage of tiny differences in prices to book profits at the expense of retail investors with slower execution speeds.

Fears have been expressed that HFT could be a source of market instability as witnessed during the 2010 Flash Crash when a rogue algorithm sparked a sudden 9 percent fall in Dow Jones index and wiped out nearly $1 trillion in market value within few minutes. There are also legitimate concerns that the high trading volumes generated by HFT firms can push prices away from fundamental values.

The supporters of HFT often highlight its important role as providers of liquidity. However, that role is increasingly being questioned by experts in the light of evidence which shows that high-frequency traders can withdraw from their market-making role if the volatility rises abruptly or if they detect markets are becoming more one-sided.

As most high-frequency traders employ similar algorithms and adopt similar strategies, a simultaneous withdrawal by HFTs can pose a systemic risk to the entire market, as happened during the 2010 Flash Crash. As pointed out by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou of JPMorgan: “A simultaneous withdrawal by HFTs not only amplifies the initial market move, but also creates step changes or gapping markets as liquidity provision gets impaired and quotes are withdrawn.”[6]

In a relevant research paper, Didier Sornette and Susanne von der Becke noted that

“HFT provides liquidity in good times when it is perhaps least needed and takes liquidity away when it is most needed, thereby contributing rather than mitigating instability.”[7]

After the 2010 flash crash, regulatory authorities in the US and Europe have introduced new measures (such as circuit breakers) to regulate the harmful HFT. A financial transaction tax could also complement such regulatory measures to rein in high-frequency trading in the US markets. An FTT will make transactions with a shorter time horizon costlier, hence curbing aggressive short-term trading that benefits high-frequency traders more than ordinary investors.

What is good for high-frequency traders is not necessarily good for ordinary investors.

Europe Leads the Way

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the idea of introducing a financial transaction tax has gained momentum in Europe.

After the G20 leaders failed to endorse an FTT for raising new resources for poor countries, the European Commission in 2011 proposed a European Union financial transaction tax (EU FTT) that would apply to all financial transactions, except the bank loans and primary markets. The base of the proposed EU FTT is very broad covering a wide range of financial instruments and transactions such as securities, derivatives, repos, and money market instruments. Under this proposal, the trading of shares and bonds would be taxed at a rate of 0.1 percent while derivative contracts would be taxed at a rate of 0.01 percent. Further, the FTT would have to be paid if one party to the transaction is located in the EU.

The proposed tax was supposed to be launched in January 2014, but it got postponed several times due to lack of unanimity among all EU member states on how this tax would be implemented. In 2013, an attempt was made to introduce an FTT in 11 member-states through the instrument of ‘enhanced cooperation’. After that, the UK’s 2016 referendum to leave the European bloc has further delayed this process.

It is important to note that some member-states such as France, Belgium, Italy, and Greece have already introduced a tax on financial transactions within their jurisdictions. France introduced an FTT on equities in August 2012 while Italy introduced it in March 2013. These member-states have confirmed their commitment to introducing an EU-wide FTT, despite strong opposition from European financial firms and some member-states such as the UK and Sweden.

In the coming years, the FTT is likely to remain on the EU agenda even though the bloc is currently grappling with the potential Brexit fallout.

Financial Transaction Taxes in India: Alive and Kicking

India introduced a securities transaction tax (STT) on stock market transactions in 2004 and based on its success, a commodity transaction tax (CTT) on trading of non-agricultural commodity futures contracts in 2013. From 2018 onwards, the CTT has also been imposed on commodity options contracts which were introduced in the Indian markets.

The rate of STT varies with the type of transaction and security. Table 2 provides the STT rates applicable to various types of securities transactions in India for FY 2019-20.

Table 2: Securities Transactions Tax Rates in India for FY 2019-20

In a recent op-ed article in Financial Times, Kirsten Wegner, chief executive of Modern Markets Initiative, an advocacy group sponsored by high-frequency traders, claimed that India’s experiment with the FTT had failed badly.[8]

Contrary to Ms. Wegner’s assertion, financial transaction taxes are alive and kicking in India. From a revenue generation perspective, India’s STT has been a success story with the average collection of $1bn for the past eight fiscal years. During 2017-18, the STT collection touched Rs.118bn ($1.6bn), not a trivial amount in a country with a narrow tax base.

The Indian experience shows that both transaction taxes are an efficient instrument of tax collection as the tax is collected by the exchanges which then pay it to the exchequer, thereby overcoming cumbersome bureaucratic processes.

Some of the concerns raised by the critics of India’s financial transaction taxes have not yet materialized in the Indian markets. The critics had anticipated a lower trading volume would reduce liquidity, and thereby market quality. There is no evidence to suggest that the transaction taxes have triggered a liquidity squeeze in the Indian markets.

Ms. Wegner refers to fall in trading volume in the Indian commodity markets during 2013-14 and puts the blame solely on the CTT. There is no denying that the commodity trading volume dropped during 2013-14, but the principal reason behind the drop was the Rs.6bn payment scam that broke out at National Spot Exchange Limited in July 2013, not the CTT of 0.01 percent as argued by Ms. Wegner. In this scam, some 200 big commodity brokers alleged to have colluded with the exchange to defraud investors. Since 2017, trading volumes and liquidity at the Indian commodity exchanges have gone up despite the CTT.

Besides broadening the taxation of the financial sector, these taxes can enable Indian authorities to trace certain transactions that undermine market integrity. The transaction taxes could be particularly valuable to the authorities as alternative mechanisms to track the flow of illicit money into the Indian financial markets are weak. Besides, a centralized database of money flows helps fill the large information gaps about the real ownership of financial assets.

Is the FTT a Silver Bullet?

Of course, an FTT is not a panacea to all the ills plaguing Wall Street but its potential to raise substantial tax revenues and to curb high-frequency trading of doubtful social value cannot be overlooked.

The success of an FTT in the US would largely depend on the design of the tax. The tax should be levied widely, covering a wide range of financial instruments, transactions, and institutions to prevent tax avoidance. The US authorities need to design the FTT in such a manner that maximizes revenue and minimizes the distortions. Achieving multiple policy objectives through an FTT will always be a balancing act. To make it effective and responsive, the proposed FTT may need additional fine-tuning as nowadays market conditions change rapidly.

The US is in an advantageous position as it can learn from different countries experiences (both positive and negative) with the STT. It can design the proposed tax based on some successful examples while avoiding the design flaws of the Swedish FTT.

If carefully designed, and used in conjunction with other regulatory measures, an FTT has the potential to rein in casino mentality and short-termism that characterize the US financial markets.

*

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

 Kavaljit Singh is Director, Madhyam, a public policy research institute, based in New Delhi. 

Notes

[2] Congressional Budget Office, “Budget Options: Impose a Tax on Financial Transactions”, December 13, 2018. Available at https://www.cbo.gov/budget-options/2018/54823.

[3] See, for instance, Stephen G. Cecchetti and Enise Kharroubi, “Reassessing the Impact of Finance on Growth”, BIS Working Paper No. 381, Bank for International Settlements, July 2012; Stephen G. Cecchetti and Enise Kharroubi, “Why Does Financial Sector Growth Crowd Out Real Economic Growth?”, BIS Working Paper 490, Bank for International Settlements, February 2015; Ratna Sahay & others, “Rethinking Financial Deepening: Stability and Growth in Emerging Markets”, IMF Staff Discussion Notes 15/08, International Monetary Fund, 2015.

[4] International Monetary Fund, p.5.

[5] Adair Turner, “What Do Banks Do? Why Do Credit Booms and Busts Occur and What Can Public Policy Do About It?”, The Future of Finance, The LSE Report, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2010. Available at https://harr123et.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/futureoffinance5.pdf.

[6] Quoted in Tyler Durden, “JPM Explains How HFTs Caused Friday’s Sterling Flash Crash”, Zero Hedge, September 10, 2016. Available at https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-09/jpm-explains-how-hfts-caused-fridays-sterling-flash-crash.

[7] Didier Sornette and Susanne von der Becke, “Crashes and High Frequency Trading”. Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper No. 11-63, August 2011. Available at https://ssrn.com/abstract=1976249.

[8]  Kirsten Wegner, “US Financial Transaction Tax would put Unfair Burden on Savers”, Financial Times, March 11, 2019. Available at https://www.ft.com/content/5a0c9816-41b9-11e9-9499-290979c9807a.

The structures of politics have become so rigid, so distant, and ultimately so irrelevant to those who vote for them that a trend through countries can now be confirmed.  Brittleness has set it.  The part and election strategists have few answers, they, who saw the voter as yet another subject, another follower, another convert of a faith. The churches and their following have been turned into secular sceptics and the disenchanted.  The non-politician who, nonetheless practices a craft of politics (we are all Aristotle’s creatures), has become a burning disruption. 

It started as series of shocks and disruptive announcements in 2016, confusing and upending the psephology across the establishment.  That year yielded results that might seen the abolition of the entire witchcraft.  The Brexit referendum outcome; the US presidential vote – both were predicted as victories for the politician, the experienced practitioner.  Along the way, there were a few pompous, gilded pretenders – Emmanuel Macron managed to give the impression of lacking the sheep’s clothing he always donned.  While his political achievement from the grind of the French political machine was impressive, he could never hide his establishment credentials.  These are now revisiting him with brute reality.

Recent electoral developments to the centre and east of Europe suggest that not all populism need be filled with the toxins of violent divorce and nationalist disagreement.  In recent days, a Slovakian lawyer and the comedian in Ukraine have added their spots to this new form of anti-political exuberance.  Of these, the former is more conventional, though she remains salad green in experience.

Image result for Zuzana Čaputová

While it is necessary to exercise caution in seeing a spectacular, rippling movement in the exceptional and irregular, the election of Zuzana Čaputová (image on the right) after Slovakia’s presidential runoff on Saturday against establishment choice Maroš Šefčovic is seen as a veritable toot of approval for a new approach.  “Perhaps,” she claimed, “we thought politics was only a sign of weakness, and today we see it as a sign of strength.”

Čaputová had been boosted by the mood which took a turn in February 2018.  That month saw the killing of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak, who had been rummaging through Slovak links with the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta crime syndicate, and his fiancée Martina Kušnírvá.  Their deaths propelled people to the streets with a zeal not seen since the anti-Communist demonstrations of 1989.  While having a whiff of the hyperbolic, the killings have been remarked upon as having the momentous influence of the fall of New York’s Twin Towers in September 2001.  This gave sufficient and shuddering notice to Prime Minister Robert Fico to hand in his resignation papers.  The murkiness of the whole business was profound; the individual said to be responsible for directing the killings, Marián Kočner, purportedly had ties to Fico’s SMER Party and various government officials.  The rot had set deep.

In what might be seen as a characteristic neuroses of Central European politics, the reaction to the killings came in parliamentary laws affecting journalistic practice rather than political corruption: a right of reply would have to be given to politicians; in the event this was not done, a fine might be imposed.  The ghost of Fico had made its unwelcome appearance.  “It’s the opposite of what should have been done,” lamented former Slovakian prime minister Iveta Radičová.

In a sense, this made the inroads by Čaputová, who defeated SMER’s choice, Šefčovic, even more striking.  Far from seeing the European Union as an anti-nationalist bugbear to be slain or fled from, the new president shows a desire to bring Slovakia closer to its bosom.  “My main focus is to bring about change in Slovakia, and for Slovakia to be a reliable and predictable partner of the European Union.”

The Ukrainian example is even more fitting, tinged with a degree of the exemplary absurd.  A comedian whose main act is to play the good president finds himself in the running to become one. In politics, the comedian is usually inadvertent, an accident arising from a miscalculation of factors.  He is magnificently idiotic (US Vice President Dan Quayle on thinking Latin was spoken in Latin America), or dangerously ignorant (US President George W. Bush: the French have no word for entrepreneur).

In Ukraine, with half the ballots counted, Volodymyr Zelenskiy was leading with some 30 percent.  Incumbent Petro Poroshenko was lagging at 16 percent.  Not even the usual electoral violations could sway the vote dramatically, despite assertions by the third placed “gas princess” Yulia Tymoshenko that she might have nabbed the second spot.

Zelenskiy’s satirical television show Servant of the People features the antics, and efforts of an Ordinary Citizen and history school teacher turned President.  The dragon he slays, or at least aspires to, is that of corruption.  Invariably he is accused of lacking political mettle and clear policies, though he is open to conversing in both Ukrainian and Russian, a point that has earned some traction in the Russian-speaking east of the country.  The establishment tend to critique the politician from the perspective of seasoning: like fermented fish, he must have pungency and long experience.

Not Zelenskiy who, for the moment, has a certain sense of rude freshness about him.  “People want to show the authorities the middle finger, and he is playing the role of this middle finger,” surmised political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko.  Like other figures hostile to the political formula, he has abandoned any semblance of orthodoxy.  He is not interested in interviews; he eschews rallies for the most part.  But he is something of a social media junkie.

For all that, he is not immune to that tradition of patronage, having ties with Igor Kolomoisky, one of Ukraine’s wealthiest and sketchiest oligarchs.  Think Kolomoisky, think the collapse of PrivatBank.  Depending on viewpoints, Kolomoisky was simply incompetent in causing the loss of $248 million; or he was a ruthless marauder who raided the bank’s assets to the tune of billions of dollars.

Zelenskiy’s retort to claims that he is merely Kolomoisky’s closely controlled puppet has been simple: attacking my oligarch necessitates attacking your dubious business dealings and even more dubious business partners; “are you,” he asked pointedly of Poroshenko, “Mr. Synarchuk’s puppet?”  The Ukrainian defence sector is pickled by the stench of the association between Poroshenko’s former business partner Oleh Svynarchuk and son Ihor.

Such instances supply notes of truly dark humour in the age of the finite politician, and one that promises to play out in the second, run-off election.  And will debating Poroshenko matter in a now promised debate?  No, claims the comedian.  “What difference does it make?”  A fond farewell has been made to political tradition – for the moment, at least.

*

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

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

Why not! Elections in the US, other Western countries and Israel are rife with dirty tricks. 

According to Haaretz, the Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post and other Israeli media, hundreds (maybe thousands) of fake social media accounts are promoting Likud propaganda, Netanyahu’s party, according to the Big Bots Project online watchdog group, saying:

Despite no clearly identifiable links to Netanyahu, the accounts are promoting the same message in cahoots with Likudniks.

Facing bribery, fraud and breach of trust charges, Netanyahu is desperate to cling to power, hoping to mitigate his post-election indictment and prosecution.

The suspect accounts got over 2.5 million hits, activity increasing five-fold since Netanyahu announced April 9 elections last December.

According to the report, the fake accounts are linked to Yitzhak Haddad. A YouTube channel he’s associated with offered money for “responding on Facebook and on the internet with political messages,” he said, adding:

“You just get political messages and you post them,” admitting he created videos, saying he “post(s) them to Twitter (and) all kinds of places.”

“I don’t want to say tens of millions, but loads of money is being invested here. It takes money. There’s no volunteering here,” adding he’s connected to “very senior people” in Likud.

His attorney denied “what was attributed to him” and threatened a million-dollar libel lawsuit against anyone publishing otherwise.

The Hebrew-language report claimed the network of fake social media accounts “operates through manipulations, slander, lies and spreading rumors.”

“On its busiest days, (it) sends out thousands of tweets a day…mobilized at climactic moments for Netanyahu, such as the announcement of the indictment against him.”

According to the report, the network of fake accounts may violate Israeli electoral, campaign finance, privacy and tax laws. A Likud spokesman denied the existence of fake accounts, saying:

“All (party) digital activity is entirely authentic and is based on the great support of the citizens of Israel for Prime Minister Netanyahu and the great achievements of the Likud.”

Image result for Benny Gantz

Big Bot Project’s report was prepared together with a so-called Israeli Alliance group. A suspect network account posting called main Netanyahu rival Benny Gantz a rapist, the accusation reposted on other network accounts.

Another posting was by a woman claiming Gantz sexually harassed her in high school, no evidence cited proving it. Gantz denied the accusation. He sued Israel Hayom’s editor-in-chief Boaz Bismuth for publishing the claim.

He sued him and correspondent Danielle Roth-Avneri for “a series of false reports concerting fictitious charges…published about him.”

Longtime Netanyahu supporter billionaire Sheldon Adelson owns Israel Hayom. Separately, Gantz published videos on social media, accusing Netanyahu of supporting Hamas by backing Israel’s 2005 Gaza disengagement, along with Israel’s high cost of living and healthcare system problems.

Both figures are in a tight race that can go either way, each seeking to get a leg up on the other, dirty tactics part of their strategy.

*

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

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

On Saturday (23 March) the Syrian Defence Force announced that ISIS’ last stronghold, the small town of Baghuz on the banks of the Euphrates, had been captured. With that, ISIS’ so-called Caliphate was at an end.

When British MPs voted for resolutions supporting strikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, these had specific aims. Firstly, in 2014, strikes were authorised to aid Iraqi security and then in 2015, to eliminate ISIS’ safe haven in Syria. Now, more than four years later, Iraq has declared victory over ISIS, and the so-called ‘safe haven’ for ISIS has been removed

Over the weekend however, British ministers have been quick to insist that the battle goes on. In a clearly coordinated message, both British and US Defence Secretaries argued that while the caliphate is over, the ideology remains. British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, wrote in The Telegraph:

“We cannot say this fight is over. The terrorists are as much an evil ideology as a geographical entity. We’ve always known that cutting off one head of the snake could lead to others springing up elsewhere. We’re painfully aware of the threat these extremists still pose whether to Iraq, the wider region or to our own shores.

And lest his intent to launch air strikes wherever deemed necessary was not clear enough, he went on:

As I said to RUSI recently, a Global Britain must to be ready to intervene, using all the hard power at our disposal to defend the international rules-based system.

Meanwhile, acting US Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan welcomed the “critical milestone,” but warned that “our work is far from complete. We will continue our work with the global coalition to deny Islamic State safe haven anywhere in the world,”

It may be true of course to say that the ideology remains and that ISIS will continue to launch attacks despite the loss of territory. However, it is far from clear whether continuing air strikes by US and British drones and other aircraft will do anything to weaken such an ideology. Likely just the opposite.

Despite some making bellicose noises, it is not clear at this point whether British drones and other aircraft will continue to launch strikes now the ISIS has lost its territory.  But efforts to stretch four-year old parliamentary resolutions to legitimise air strikes against an ideology – perhaps even beyond Iraq and Syria – would be laughed at if politicians and the public were not so distracted by Brexit.  Some, thankfully, are paying attention. Last month, shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry insisted in the House of Commons that MPs did not vote for an open-ended military commitment and that once ISIS has lost their territory, “the 2015 mandate for military action will need to be renewed if our engagement in Syria is going to continue.”

While the US has long deemed itself to be in a global war on terrorism, the UK – along with most of the international community and international law experts – has taken a different view. Attempts by some ministers to join the US in a boundary-less war on an ideology – no matter how abhorrent – must be resisted.  British drones and other aircraft should now cease launching air attacks and the UK should instead turn its attention to aiding post-conflict stabilisation and reconstruction in region.

*

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

Over 50 ISIS members were eliminated by strikes of the US-led coalition in the outskirt of the town of al-Baghuz al-Fawqani in the Euphrates Valley over the past few days, local sources reported. The airstrikes were a part of the operation of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the coalition in the area, which is ongoing despite a formal US statement declaring defeat over ISIS.

According to local sources, a notable number of ISIS members is still hiding in a network of caves and underground tunnels in the area.

Besides this, ISIS cells within the SDF-held area have recently carried out a series of attacks killing at least 10 SDF members near the town of Diban and in the area of the Omar oil fields, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates.

On March 28, General Commander of the SDF Ferhat Abdi Sahin claimed that the group, which includes the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and their all-female faction, the Woman’s Protection Units (YPJ), had made a decision to capture the area of Afrin from Turkish forces.

“We are preparing and making arrangements in order to liberate Afrin … Because this is a military matter, everyone should know that when the time is suitable, the liberation phase will begin,” he said in an interview with Sterk TV.

Currently, the SDF has no land route to Afrin from northeastern Syria while YPG and YPJ control only a few positions to south and southeast of the area. Therefore, SDF statements regarding the military advance on Afrin should are just a political move designed in an attempt to buy support of the Syrian population. The group, which deeply relies on the foreign support to control northeastern Syria, is currently facing notable problems with the control over the Arab-populated areas seized from ISIS.

While the SDF has no real chances to capture Afrin itself, YPG and YPJ cells conduct attacks on Turkey-led forces on a regular basis. On March 31, a Turkish service member was killed and one was injured an attack by Kurdish rebels, according to Turkey’s Ministry of National Defense.

Following the announcement, the Turkish military artillery fired more than 100 shells at YPG positions in the towns of Tatmrsh and Shuargha. No casualties as a result of the shelling were reported.

The US-led coalition and its proxies from the so-called Revolutionary Commando Army continue to prevent evacuation of civilians from the Rukban refugee camp. They even held a live-fire drill involving High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems near the US garrison of al-Tanf located in the same area.

The situation in the Idlib de-escalation zone remains unchanged. The ceasefire regime is violated almost on a daily basis. Firefights and artillery dues are especially intense in northern Hama and southern Idlib.

On March 28, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came with a new statement claiming that his  country will continue working against Iranian presence in Syria. The statement shows that the Israeli military is set to continue its military campaign in Syria.

In own turn, the US did not limit its recent actions in support of Tel Aviv to recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory. It also demanded the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) to withdraw from the separation line area established in the framework of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement. US-Israeli efforts to force the SAA to do so could easily turn the Golan Heights into a new hot point and fuel the Syrian conflict further.

*

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

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

To the concern of Germany, France, Holland and other EU countries, Italy’s coalition has just signed a Memorandum of Understanding with China to join China’s Belt Road Initiative, the so-called New Economic Silk Road. Italy is the only industrial G7 country so far to opt in to the BRI. The China deal has the potential to change the geopolitics of not only the EU but also most of the world.  It’s about who controls which major maritime ports of world commerce.

While much attention has focused on the role of high-speed rail infrastructure as the backbone of the ambitious China BRI project, little attention has been so far given to what may be a far more strategic geopolitical development in China’s BRI, namely China’s ability to own or control the most vital ports of Asia, of Africa, major parts of Latin America and now,evidently, of the European Union.

During Xi Jinping’s Italy talks, the two sides signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for various business deals between Italian and Chinese state companies in agriculture, finance and energy. The actual deals signed totaled $2.8 billion for 29 projects, with possible expansion up to $20 billion, hardly yet a game-changer for economically distressed Italy.

The heart of the MOU for China, however, is the potential for Chinese investment in Italian ports, notably Genoa, possibly Palermo and Trieste where China’s Communications and Construction Company will be given access to the port of Trieste on the Adriatic Sea to enable links to central and eastern Europe.

The Chinese inroads with the Italian government are strongly opposed by not only Washington, but also by Brussels, especially Germany and France. They argue that the bilateral Italy-China BRI agreements for port and infrastructure development run counter to the larger established EU transportation strategies. The more honest reasons perhaps are growing alarm in Hamburg and Rotterdam and Antwerp, Belgium over potential loss of shipping trade to southern Europe. By expanding its port presence from Greece into Italy, China potentially gains a huge trade infrastructure advantage in EU trade terms via southern Europe.

The Greek Precedent

Apparently, the Italian government is hoping for a repeat of what they see with Chinese investment in a run-down Greek port,as a way to revitalize the Italian economy as a transit hub between Europe and Asia.

In 2016 the China state-owned China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) bought Piraeus port in Greece as part of the Maritime Silk Road plan. COSCO is the world’s fourth largest container shipping company and the second largest port operator. The deal included construction of a new dock, with new cranes installed, increasing the annual container traffic dramatically. Since 2009 when China first came, the cargo volume of the Piraeus container terminal has increased fivefold, and general commercial activity tripled.

Ports of the World

With little fanfare, over the past several years China has invested in or bought key ports around the world as part of its vast Belt, Road Initiative infrastructure strategy. According to China’s Ministry of Transport, Chinese companies have participated in the construction and operation of a total of 42 ports in 34 countries under its Belt and Road initiative.

In the EU,China has made substantial investment aside from Piraeus. In 2018 COSCO became a major investor in Belgium’s second largest container port at Bruges (Zeebrugge). The Belgian port of Zeebrugge is expected to become a new hub of the Belt and Road initiative. Zeebrugge, or the port of Bruges, is the second largest container port in Belgium after Antwerp, and the sixth in the Channel-North Sea region (2016). It is also the leading European port for car transportation.

On January 22, 2018, China’s COSCO officially secured the concession of Zeebrugge’s container port, the first terminal in Northwest Europe in which Cosco Shipping Ports holds a controlling stake. They are also engaged in Antwerp and Rotterdam.

Extending the map of China’s Maritime Silk Road, in the five years since the BRI was officially announced, China has invested in port projects across Africa from Tanzania to South Africa to Morocco. The keystone is their investment in Egypt’s Suez Canal, the strategic passage from China via the Indian Ocean and Red Sea into the Mediterranean on to the markets of the European Union. China is the major investor in the joint China-Egypt Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone.

In China, the country today has seven of the world’s largest container ports, all of them modern, with state-of-art automation. The Port of Shanghai is the world’s biggest by volume, far larger than Rotterdam, Antwerp or Hamburg in the EU. While high-speed rail networks catch the imagination around land links between China and Eurasia in the BRI, sea shipping is far the most vital for China trade. Some 90% of all world trade today is by ship.

EU Angst?

The latest China interest in investing in ports in Italy should be seen in this light. Recently the EU and large states such as Germany and France have expressed alarm over the extent of Chinese infrastructure and corporate investment in the EU. On March 12 the EU Commission issued a position paper titled, “EU-China – A strategic outlook.” Among other points it struck a new, alarmist note in the economic relations of the EU’s second most important trading partner after he USA. The report stated, “China is, simultaneously, in different policy areas, a cooperation partner…an economic competitor in the pursuit of technological leadership, and a systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance.”

It marks the first time at that level that the EU has labeled China a “systemic rival.” The new EU China paper recommends among other things that the WTO be reformed to force China to eliminate state industry subsidies; develop an EU Industrial Policy that would allow EU firms to better compete with the huge China state enterprises. The EU paper echoes a January paper by the German industry federation, BDI, which, declared that China, using its central state industrial policies, was now a “systemic competitor.”

The German government is planning to introduce new laws that could block foreign takeover of any German company considered strategic. That’s a radical departure from their postwar market policies, and came after a Chinese state company bought the advanced German automated machine tool company Kuka. Kuka is one of the world’s leading suppliers of robotics as well plant manufacturing and system technology and a pioneer in Industrie 4.0 on which China bases much of its Made in China 2025 strategy to become world leader in ten advanced industrial sectors.

German and French economics ministers have joined to call on the EU to allow member states to approve industrial mergers that Brussels presently bans on narrow EU grounds. When China joined the WTO in 2001, German industry exported quality German cars and machine tools in return for Chinese mass textiles and cheap consumer goods. Those days are gone. Today China carmaker Geely owns Sweden’s Volvo, and is a major shareholder in the Mercedes Daimler group where they are finalizing purchase of the Mercedes Smart car division. China’s state ChemChina chemicals giant recently bought Swiss Syngenta, a major force in GMO patented seeds and agriculture chemicals. The list is long.

The growing EU concern with the emergence of China as an industrial rival with Chinese companies, making and exporting goods that EU companies long held the advantage, is only beginning to be discussed openly. It has in part to do with the realization by large parts of EU Industry that the much-touted “Made in China:2025” national industrial strategy is not just about upgrading China to a modern state-of-the-art industrial producing nation, but, by between 2030 and 2040, into the world leader, the economic El Supremo.

There is a growing alarm across the EU that that rise would be at the expense of leading EU industrial groups.  It takes little to imagine within several years that the container ships from China’s mega ports will be shipping Chinese-owned and manufactured cars or machine tools to compete in the EU market using their ultra-modernized ports in Greece and Italy.

When Xi Jinping went from Italy to meet France’s embattled President Macron on March 26, Macron took an unusual step and invited German Chancellor Merkel and EU Commission President Juncker to join to form appearance of a united bloc to the overwhelming economic challenge of the Chinese.

Two days before the Xi visit to Paris Macron told the press that, “the period of European naivety” regarding the EU’s relations with China is over. He cryptically added, “The relationship between the EU and China must not be first and foremost a trading one, but a geopolitical and strategic relationship.”

France and Germany to date have resisted any formal EU cooperation with China’s Belt, Road Initiative and have pressured individual EU countries such as Italy not to make bilateral deals with China. But the reality is that the EU is largely dysfunctional in terms of modern industrial strategy. In this sense the Xi Jinping Italy BRI agreements can well be a trigger for a global geopolitical tectonic shift. How that will look in the future is impossible to say. At present, it appears Beijing is holding the stronger cards.

*

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

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from NEO


seeds_2.jpg

Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

Author Name: F. William Engdahl
ISBN Number: 978-0-937147-2-2
Year: 2007
Pages: 341 pages with complete index

List Price: $25.95

Special Price: $18.00

 

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

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

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

Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro was received warmly by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday during his first visit to Israel, greeting Netanyahu with a Hebrew “I love Israel” at a welcoming ceremony in the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv.

The Brazilian leader said that it was an “ honor” visit “Israel,” while “firmly” committing to “strengthen the partnership” between the two entities.

During the scheduled four day visit, the two far right politicians are expected to sign a number of economic and political agreements aimed at consolidating Brazil and Israel’s alliance before the upcoming April 9 Israeli elections.

The proposed plans included increased military and security cooperation with Israel, having signed several agreements that would enable further cooperation between the two nations on defense, cyber security and joint police collaboration.

The agreements also entailed plans or Brazil’s Petrobras to engage more closely with Israeli offshore oil and gas exploration. In recent years, Israel has been eyeing the oil reserves of the eastern Mediterranean, infringing upon Lebanon’s territorial zone and providing one motivational actor for the occupation and US backed recognition of its claim to Syria’s Golan.

The meeting will also anticipate the Brazilian leader’s stance on moving the Brazilian embassy to Israel to Jerusalem, a step Bolsonaro promised in January yet failed to formalize.

According to reports, the move was vehemently opposed by military officers in his cabinet.

On Thursday, Palestinian news outlet Ma’an reported that the Brazilian president decided against opening an embassy in Jerusalem, yet agreed to open up a trade office in Jerusalem.

Thus far, the US and Guatemala are the only two countries to have officially moved their embassies to Jerusalem.

Yet the Bolsonaro’s brief decision to backtrack on a formal embassy declaration was challenged by Sunday’s visit.

The agreement to open up the trade office, in establishing diplomatic status between the two, is expected to ultimately pave the way for an official embassy move.

In December, Netanyahu said that this was a matter of “when, not if.”

According to a Sunday statement by Brazil’s Foreign Minister, Ernesto Araujo, the trade office was a decision made ‘as part of its embassy.’

The Palestinian foreign ministry responded Sunday with condemnations against the trade office between Brazil and Israel.

Stressing that the agreement was a “blatant violation of international legitimacy” the ministry constituted the establishment of the commercial office with diplomatic status a “direct aggression against the Palestinian people and their rights.”

The president also accompanied Netanyahu to the Noble Sanctuary, the holiest site in Jerusalem, where he joined the prime minister in prayers on the Western Wall Monday as the first head of state to do so. The plaza, containing al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, has been the site of repeated violence and tresspass by settlers, Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) in their claims to east Jerusalem.

The visit was a political statement reaffirming Israel’s claim to the east Jerusalem territory it resides in, illegally annexed by the occupying entity in a post 1967 move not recognized by the international community.

The Second Intifada in 2000 launched with then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made a provocative visit to Al-Aqsa, an action widely replicated by Zionists reinforcing Israeli hegemony over the territory.

*

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

Julia Kassem is a Lebanese writer and M.U.P.P student based in Beirut.

Featured image is from Deccan Herald

Trump regime designated puppet/usurper in waiting Guaido is a serial law breaker.

He’s Trump regime front man for the ongoing coup attempt to topple democratically elected and reelected President Maduro, along with aiming to replace Bolivarian social democracy with US-controlled fascist tyranny.

Guaido openly called for toppling Maduro, the highest of high political crimes against a legitimate government. Urging support for the coup attempt from Venezuela’s military and most ordinary people fell flat.

He flouted a Supreme Court order, prohibiting him from traveling abroad. He illegally accepted foreign funding. By his own admission, he’s been involved in sabotage attacks on Venezuela’s electricity grid.

He betrayed his country and vast majority of its people. They want Bolivarian social democracy preserved and protected. He’s allied with US dark forces to eliminate it.

Polls show Venezuelans strongly oppose foreign intervention. They’re overwhelmingly against military force for regime change.

Guaido has been under investigation by Venezuela’s chief prosecutor’s office. So far, no warrant was issued for his arrest, no official charges made against him by ruling authorities. More on this below.

Last week, Maduro’s government banned him from holding office for 15 years for financial disclosure irregularities.

State comptroller Elvis Amoroso said he spent nearly $100,000 on 91 foreign trips, the amount way exceeding his income, funds illegally received from abroad and perhaps internal sources.

Venezuela’s Constituent Assembly was established by national referendum to revise or rewrite the nation’s Constitution, above all restore and maintain order, along with serving all Venezuelans equitably.

Article 349 of Venezuela’s constitution states no other power can “in any way impede the decisions of the National Constituent Assembly” – not the president, National Assembly legislators and Supreme Court justices.

On Monday, Venezuelan Chief Supreme Court Justice Maikel Moreno called on the Constituent Assembly to strip Guaido of parliamentary immunity for the above offenses, his statement saying:

The Supreme Court “orders to hand a certified copy of this decision to the head of the national Constituent Assembly in order to recall the parliamentary immunity of Juan Gerardo Guaido Marquez.”

“The court had previously banned Guaido from traveling abroad without the permission of the court. It is well known that he violated this ban.”

He’s been investigated for inciting rebellion against Venezuela’s legitimate government, along with promoting violence and receiving banned funding from abroad.

Enacted in 2010, Venezuela’s Defense of Political Sovereignty and National Self Determination Law prohibits political organizations and individuals from receiving foreign funding.

The law was enacted to protect the Bolivarian Republic from foreign interference through financial support from interests abroad.

It applies to political parties, other organizations involved in promoting political participation by individuals, as well as public officials and candidates running for office.

Penalties include fines of up to double the amount of illicit funds reached and exclusion from political involvement for up to eight years.

“52 US Code § 30121 – Contributions and donations by foreign nationals” prohibits US politicians, aspirants, parties and related organizations from receiving foreign funding or “other thing(s) of value” in connection with federal, state or local elections.

Short of ordering his arrest, President Maduro called for Guaido to “face justice” for involvement in the Trump regime’s coup plot.

A Final Comment

On Monday, unidentified armed figures in civilian clothes opened fire on an anti-government demonstration in Caracas’ Libertador district.

Two wounded individuals were hospitalized. Video images showed two gunmen, one with a rifle, the other with a pistol.

Venezuelan corporate media blamed what happened on Maduro. It had all the earmarks of US-orchestrated violence, similar to earlier incidents.

Much more of the same is likely ahead, part of the Trump regime’s plot to topple Maduro. So far, everything thrown at him and his government failed.

Support for Guaido is waning, evident by much smaller crowds turning out to hear him, according to eyewitnesses on the ground.

At times when searching for anti-government protests, they’re unable to find any ongoing, a positive sign, but by no means indicating Trump regime hardliners intend abandoning efforts to topple Maduro.

Polar opposite is true, further tough tactics ahead virtually sure to come.

*

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

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

The Russians Are Not Coming!

April 2nd, 2019 by Eric Margolis

Not since the witchcraft hysteria of the Middle Ages have we seen such a display of human idiocy, credulity and absurdist behavior.  I refer, of course, to the two-year witch hunt directed against President Donald Trump which hopefully just concluded last week – provided that the Hillaryites, Democratic dopes and secret staters who fueled this mania don’t manage to keep the pot boiling.

This column has said from Day 1 that claims Trump was somehow a Russian agent were absurd in the extreme.  So too charges that Moscow had somehow rigged US elections.  Nonsense.  We know it’s the US that helps rig elections around the globe, not those bumbling Russians who can’t afford the big bribes such nefarious activity requires.

What Mueller found after he turned over the big rock was a bevy of slithering, slimy creatures, shyster lawyers, and sleazes that are normally part of New York’s land development industry.  No surprise at all that they surrounded developer Trump.  Son-in-law Jared Kushner hails from this same milieu. The Kushners are pajama-party buddies with Israel’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Now that the Mueller investigation found no collusion between the Trump camp and the Kremlin, we Americans owe a great big apology to Vladimir Putin for all the slander he has suffered.  Too bad he can’t sue the legions of liars and propagandists who heaped abuse on him and, incidentally, pushed the US and Russia to the edge of war.

People who swallowed these absurdist claims really should question their own grasp of reality.  Those who believed that the evil Kremlin was manipulating votes in Alabama or Missouri would make good candidates for Scientology or the John Birch Society.

They were the simple fools.  Worse, were the propagandists who promoted the disgusting Steele dossier, a farrago of lies concocted by British intelligence and apparently promoted by the late John McCain and Trump-hating TV networks.  One senses Hillary Clinton’s hand in all this. Hell indeed hath no fury like a woman scorned.

It’s so laughably ironic that while the witch hunt sought a non-existent Kremlin master manipulator, the real foreign string-puller was sitting in the White House Oval office chortling away:  Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and, behind him, the moneybags patron of Trump and Netanyahu, American billionaire gambling mogul, Sheldon Adelson, the godfather of Greater Israel.

The three amigos had just pulled off one of the most outrageous violations of international law by blessing Israel’s annexation of the highly strategic Golan Heights that Israel had seized in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.  This usurpation was so egregious that all 14 members of the UN Security Council condemned it.  Even usually wimpy Canada blasted the US.

Giving Golan to Israel means it has permanently secured new water sources from the Mount Hermon range, artillery and electronic intelligence positions overlooking Damascus, and the launching pad for new Israeli land expansion into Lebanon and Syria.  Israel is said to be preparing for a new war against Lebanon, Syria and Gaza.

In contrast to this cynical business over Golan, the Trump administration is still hitting Russia with heavy sanctions over Moscow’s re-occupation of Crimea, a strategic peninsula that was Russian for over 300 years.  So Israel can grab Golan but Russia must vacate Crimea.  The logic of sleazy politics.

We also learned last week that according to State Secretary Mike Pompeo, Trump might have been sent by us by God, like ancient Israel’s Queen Esther, to defend Israel from the wicked Persians.  Up to a quarter of Americans, and particularly Bible Belt voters, believe such crazy nonsense.  For them, Trump is a heroic Crusading Christian warrior.

This is as nutty as Trump being a Commie Manchurian candidate.  We seem to be living in an era of absurdity and medieval superstition.  No wonder so many nations around the globe fear us.  We too often look like militant Scientologists with nuclear weapons.

Fortunately, the cool, calm, collected Vladimir Putin remains in charge of the other side in spite of our best efforts to overthrow or provoke him.

*

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

Eric S. Margolis is the author of War at the Top of the World and the new book, American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World. See his website.

The volume of international transfers of major arms in 2014–18 was 7.8 per cent higher than in 2009–13 and 23 per cent higher than in 2004–2008, according to new data on arms transfers published today by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

The five largest exporters in 2014–18 were the United States, Russia, France, Germany and China. Together, they accounted for 75 per cent of the total volume of arms exports in 2014–18. The flow of arms increased to the Middle East between 2009–13 and 2014–18, while there was a decrease in flows to all other regions.

The gap between the USA and other arms exporters widens

US arms exports grew by 29 per cent between 2009–13 and 2014–18, and the US share of total global exports rose from 30 per cent to 36 per cent. The gap between the top two arms-exporting states also increased: US exports of major arms were 75 per cent higher than Russia’s in 2014–18, while they were only 12 per cent higher in 2009–13. More than half (52 per cent) of US arms exports went to the Middle East in 2014–18.

‘The USA has further solidified its position as the world’s leading arms supplier,’ says Dr Aude Fleurant, Director of the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure Programme. ‘The USA exported arms to at least 98 countries in the past five years; these deliveries often included advanced weapons such as combat aircraft, short-range cruise and ballistic missiles, and large numbers of guided bombs.’

Arms exports by Russia decreased by 17 per cent between 2009–13 and 2014–18, in particular due to the reduction in arms imports by India and Venezuela. Between 2009–13 and 2014–18 France increased its arms exports by 43 per cent and Germany by 13 per cent. The combined arms exports of European Union member states accounted for 27 per cent of global arms exports in 2014–18.

Global arms trade: USA increases dominance; arms flows to the Middle East surge, says SIPRI

The trend in international transfers of major weapons, 1979—2018. Data and graphic: SIPRI

A small number of countries outside Europe and North America are large arms exporters. China was the fifth largest arms exporter in 2014–18. Whereas Chinese arms exports rose by 195 per cent between 2004–2008 and 2009–13, they increased by only 2.7 per cent between 2009–13 and 2014–18. Israeli, South Korean and Turkish arms exports increased substantially—60 per cent, 94 per cent and 170 per cent, respectively—between 2009–13 and 2014–18.

Middle Eastern arms imports almost double in the past five years

Arms imports by states in the Middle East increased by 87 per cent between 2009–13 and 2014–18 and accounted for 35 per cent of global arms imports in 2014–18. Saudi Arabia became the world’s largest arms importer in 2014–18, with an increase of 192 per cent compared with 2009–13. Arms imports by Egypt, the third largest arms importer in 2014–18, tripled (206 per cent) between 2009–13 and 2014–18. Arms imports by Israel (354 per cent), Qatar (225 per cent) and Iraq (139 per cent) also rose between 2009–13 and 2014–18. However, Syria’s arms imports fell by 87 per cent.

‘Weapons from the USA, the United Kingdom and France are in high demand in the Gulf region, where conflicts and tensions are rife,’ says Pieter D. Wezeman, Senior Researcher with the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure Programme. ‘Russia, France and Germany dramatically increased their arms sales to Egypt in the past five years.’

Asia and Oceania remains the largest importer region

States in Asia and Oceania received 40 per cent of global arms imports in 2014–18, but there was a decrease of 6.7 per cent compared with 2009–13. The top five arms importers in the region were India, Australia, China, South Korea and Viet Nam.

Australia became the world’s fourth largest arms importer in 2014–18 after its arms imports increased by 37 per cent compared with 2009–13. Indian arms imports decreased by 24 per cent between 2009–13 and 2014–18. Russia accounted for 58 per cent of India’s arms imports in 2014–18. Chinese arms imports decreased, but it was still the world’s sixth largest arms importer in 2014–18.

‘India has ordered a large number of major arms from foreign suppliers; however, deliveries are severely delayed in many cases,’ says Siemon T. Wezeman, Senior Researcher with the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure Programme. ‘In contrast, Chinese arms imports decreased because China has been more successful in designing and producing its own modern weaponry.’

Other notable developments:

  • Between 2009–13 and 2014–18 arms imports decreased by states in the Americas (–36 per cent), in Europe (–13 per cent), and in Africa (–6.5 per cent).
  • Algeria accounted for 56 per cent of African imports of major arms in 2014–18. Most other states in Africa import very few major arms.
  • The top five arms importers in sub-Saharan Africa were Nigeria, Angola, Sudan, Cameroon and Senegal. Together, they accounted for 56 per cent of arms imports to the subregion.
  • Between 2009–13 and 2014–18 British arms exports increased by 5.9 per cent. In 2014–18 a total of 59 per cent of British arms exports went to the Middle East, the vast bulk of which was made up of deliveries of combat aircraft to Saudi Arabia and Oman.
  • Venezuelan arms imports fell by 83 per cent between 2009–13 and 2014–18.
  • China delivered major arms to 53 countries in 2014–18, compared with 41 in 2009–13 and 32 in 2004–2008. Pakistan was the main recipient (37 per cent) in 2014–18, as it has been for all five-year periods since 1991.

*

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

NATO Propaganda Promotes War, Military Spending

April 2nd, 2019 by Yves Engler

Third in a four-part series on the 70th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The first two installments of the series showed how NATO was set up to blunt the European left and to justify European/North American dominance across the globe. Recently, the alliance has intensified pressure on Canada to increase spending on the military and participate in more wars.

As its Cold War pretext fades further from view, NATO has become more belligerent. In 1999 Canadian fighter jets dropped 530 bombs in NATO’s illegal 78-day bombing of Serbia. During the 2000s tens of thousands of Canadian troops fought in a NATO war in Afghanistan. In 2011 a Canadian general led NATO’s attack on Libya in which seven CF-18 fighter jets and two Canadian naval vessels participated.

In a dangerous game of brinksmanship, NATO has massed troops and fighter jets on Russia’s border. Five hundred Canadian troops lead an alliance mission in Latvia while the US, Britain and Germany head missions in Poland, Lithuania and Estonia. Over the past decade Canadian naval vessels have almost constantly engaged in NATO patrols in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean.

In addition to spurring deployments and war, militarists use the alliance to boost socially and ecologically damaging military spending. “Canada’s defence spending questioned at NATO parliamentary meeting”, noted a November CBC headline while a National Post editorial bemoaned “Canada’s continuing failure to honour our pledge to NATO allies to spend 2 per cent of GDP on defence.” In 2006 NATO countries adopted a pledge to put 2% of economic output into their military.

NATO has also been used to push weapons procurement. Calling for expanding the jet fleet, senior military officials told the Globe and Mail in 2017 that “Canada’s fighter fleet is not big enough to meet its NORAD and NATO obligations at the same time.” In a history of the first century of the navy Marc Milner describes a series of reports in the mid-1960s concluding that the Royal Canadian Navy was “too small to meet Canada’s NATO obligations” and should be expanded “to meet NATO and North American commitments.”

NATO has also been invoked to justify arming the US war machine. In 1967 the Prime Minister responded to calls by opponents of the war in Vietnam to end the Defence Production Sharing Agreement, the arrangement under which Canada sold the US weapons, with the claim that to do so would imperil NATO. Lester Pearson claimed this “would be  interpreted as a notice of withdrawal on our part from continental defense and even from the collective defence arrangements of the Atlantic alliance.”

In 2017 the Justin Trudeau government “hid behind Canada’s NATO membership”, according to NDP foreign critic Hélène Laverdière, when it opposed international efforts to ban nuclear weapons. At a time when he made a big display about “suffocating” the (nuclear) arms race Pierre Trudeau justified nuclear tipped cruise missiles testing in Canada. In 1983 the Prime Minister said, “having declared our support for the two track strategy, Canada should bear its fair share of the burden which that policy imposes on the NATO alliance.”

NATO is a nuclear weapons club. These monstrous bombs have been “a fundamental component” of the alliance’s military planning. Through NATO Canada has effectively committed to fighting a nuclear war if any country breached its boundaries. Additionally, the alliance does not restrict  its members from using nuclear weapons first.

NATO supports various militarist organizations in this country and operates a public diplomacy division. Founded in 1966 the NATO Association of Canada, formerly Atlantic Council of Canada, promotes the alliance. With an office in Toronto its staff and interns organize public events and publish different materials. A decade older than the NATO Association of Canada, the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association seeks “to increase knowledge of the concerns of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly among parliamentarians.”

A number of Canadian organizations receive NATO’s largess. Conference of Defense Associations conferences in Ottawa have received support from NATO while the Canadian Global Affairs Institute has held numerous joint symposiums with NATO. The annual Halifax International Security Forum, which brings together hundreds of academics and policymakers, is sponsored by NATO. In the late 1980s the Canadian Institute for Strategic Studies had “agreements with NATO’s Information Service to conduct a national/regional speakers tour.”

In other words NATO spends money (which ultimately come from our taxes) to convince Canadians that wars and military spending are good for us.

*

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

A military helicopter training facility, constructed by Russia’s Rosoboronexport, was revealed in Venezuela Friday, several days after Moscow deployed troops and equipment to the crisis-stricken South American country, reported TASS News.

“A modern helicopter training center was built under Rosoboronexport’s contract with Venezuelan state-owned defense manufacturer (CAVIM). Its opening ceremony took place on March 29,” Rosoboronexport said.

The statement added that the training facility had opened earlier in the week “with Russian and Venezuelan specialists participating.”

“At present, Russian helicopters supplied to Venezuela not only take part in operations against smugglers, but also successfully perform aerial survey of wildfires, take part in rescue and evacuation missions in areas hit by natural disasters and deliver humanitarian cargo to remote regions of the country,” Rosoboronexport added.

A source within Venezuela’s Army Aviation told TASS that the facility would make the training process more efficient for future helicopter pilots and crews.

Rosoboronexport will supply Russian-made Mi-35M multi-role combat attack helicopters for missions related to targeting illicit drug production facilities, the source said.

“One Mi-35M2 helicopter is capable of delivering a special group of five or six officers, providing fire support if necessary and evacuating the team after the task is fulfilled,” the source said.

The announcement came several days after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced the build-up of Russian troops and equipment in the country.

The Trump administration condemned President Maduro on Friday for what it said was his cozy relationship with Moscow.

President Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton and U.S. special envoy for Venezuela Elliott Abrams said Russia’s presence in the country is extremely destabilizing for the Western Hemisphere.

“We strongly caution actors external to the western hemisphere against deploying military assets to Venezuela, or elsewhere in the hemisphere, with the intent of establishing or expanding military operations,” the national security adviser said in a statement.

Russia responded over the weekend by indicating it had sent military personnel to the Latin American country based on a military-technical cooperation agreement from 2001.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said approximately 100 troops have been sent to the country “for as long as needed.”

Russia and China both support the Maduro regime. President Maduro has said,” American imperialists want to kill me.”

Moscow has recently accused Washington of engineering a violent coup in Venezuela in violation of the United Nations Charter.

*

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

All images in this article are from Zero Hedge

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: What is your analysis of the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories and in Gaza?

Abdel Bari Atwan: The Palestinian political scene is in a state of paralysis, which is a direct consequence of the disastrous Oslo process. Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is not in good health, so the stage is now set for the post-Abu Mazen period. But nobody has a roadmap for where to go. Abu Mazen is the last of the founding fathers, and his departure will cause the Fateh movement to fragment and lose influence, as happened to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) after the death of George Habash. So chaos and confusion prevail. I wouldn’t be surprised if people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip draw inspiration from the demonstrations in Sudan and Algeria.

MA: What about the Palestinians’ right of return to their lands stolen since 1948 and the deal of the century that removes the Palestinian right of return? Has the deal of the century been abandoned or is it still valid?

ABA: The ‘Deal of the Century’ cannot be pulled off. The murder of Jamal Khashoggi consigned it to an early death, as it plunged the deal’s broker into crisis. No Palestinian could accept it anyway. The Palestinian Revolution began in the refugee camps. It was all about the right of return. To abandon it would be to abandon the Palestinian cause. That right and others cannot be bought off with promises of investment or improved economic conditions, as the deal proposes. Palestine is not Northern Ireland.

MA: How do you explain that at the moment when in Europe and in the USA, we see rising a great critical movement of Israel, like the BDS which advocate different forms of boycott, Arab countries are normalizing their relations with the Zionist and criminal entity of Israel?

ABA: These moves towards normalization are not too worrying, as they are confined to the governments and do not extend to the peoples.The peoples reject normalization with Israel, as the cases of Jordan and Egypt show. It’s the same in every other Arab country. Israel is alarmed by BDS and how it may develop in future. This explains its frenetic efforts to brand all criticism and opposition anywhere in the world as anti-Semitic: it fears to become a pariah state and the only way it can avoid that is to criminalize and close down exposure and discussion of its behavior.

MA: What is your reading of the Warsaw conference of February 13 and 14, when we saw the alliance between Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Bahrain, etc. and the Zionist and criminal entity Israel against Iran?

ABA: The Warsaw Conference was a one-man show, starring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was staged for his benefit, but I believe it was a failure. Its original purpose was to launch a new US-led alliance — a so-called ‘Arab Nato’ — that would act as the spearhead of an international coalition against Iran and include Israel as a member, probably informally at first. But the Gulf States that the US is trying to turn into allies of Israel are not representative of the Arab world as a whole. They account for less than 5% of the Arab population, and their own peoples overwhelmingly reject normalization with Israel. In recent years these states have been able to play a dominant role in the Arab world due to their oil wealth and their manipulation of political Islam. But political Islam has been changing in nature, and the importance of oil in the global energy picture has been declining, so their ‘golden age’ is drawing to a close.

MA: How did we get to the fact that some Arab countries come to betray and sell themselves to the Zionist and criminal entity of Israel?

ABA: It’s not new, and mainly it’s a matter of perceived self-preservation. Regimes see the goodwill of the US as vital, and Israel as the key to the US’ heart. They talk about a shared interest in confronting Iran but that shouldn’t be taken at face value. Israel talks up the Iranian threat as a way of trying to sideline the Palestinian cause, and the Gulf States do the same to bolster the rule of their regimes. This also entails the poisonous fuelling of Sunni-Shii sectarianism.

MA: I did an investigation a few years ago about the activities of the Israeli lobby in Congo. What is your reading of Israel’s strategic redeployment in Africa?

ABA: Africa is currently an arena of rivalry for influence and competing interests involving many countries – the US, China, Turkey, Israel, Russia, and others. Israel does not have much to offer Africa, other than political influence in Washington. It is eager to establish a presence and exert influence on the periphery of important Arab countries like Libya, Algeria, Morocco, and Egypt.These countries are all in a weakened state at present and preoccupied with internal problems. But they will eventually recover and their governments will awaken. Sub-Saharan Africa is their natural hinterland and they cannot be prized apart in the long term.

MA: The people of Yemen is experiencing a criminal war waged by Saudi Arabia and its allies in total silence. How do you explain this silence of the international community and the media?

Abdel Bari Atwan 1 48e65

ABA: The West turned a blind eye to the Yemen war when it was launched four years ago because of Saudi influence and interests. It gave Saudi Arabia a chance to resolve the conflict in its favor. But neither Saudi Arabia nor the West appreciated the nature of Yemen or its people into account. They should have heeded the advice of the kingdom’s founder, King Abdelaziz, who ordered his sons Faisal and Saud to withdraw when they tried to invade the country. The latest war on Yemen has had a catastrophic effect, but in military terms, it has been a failure. The international silence is now beginning to be broken, and I hope that continues.

MA: What is your reading of events happening in Venezuela? Do you think that the United States will come to a direct military intervention?

ABA: What is happening in Venezuela is a US-sponsored coup attempt and I believe it will fail.

MA: There is no longer any mention of the Khashoggi case, which showed the true face of the Saudi regime and raised a worldwide outcry. How do you explain that?

ABA: The Khashoggi case is closely linked to Trump’s fate. Trump’s opponents in the US seized on it as a stick with which to beat him, due to his close association with the current Saudi leadership. That’s why there was such an outcry over the killing, however horrific, on an individual, but no similar reaction to Saudi actions that caused thousands of deaths such as the war on Yemen (until recently) and the proxy intervention in Syria. It should not be any surprise, however, that US and Western interests ultimately prevailed over human rights concerns, in this case like so many others. The Israel Lobby has also played a part in suppressing the outcry.  But the affair will have a longer-term impact. It laid bare Saudi Arabia’s high-handedness and dominance in the region.

MA: How do you analyze the events taking place in Algeria against the fifth term of Bouteflika?

ABA: The protests were not so much against Bouteflika as against the ruling elite that was using him as a front and was too divided to agree on a replacement for him, long after he should have been allowed to retire. The powers-that-be made three mistaken assumptions: first, that the fifth term could be pushed through; second, that Algerians would rather have stability than democracy; and third, that the terrifying memory of the bloody decade of the 1990s would deter demonstrations or protests, for fear of repeating what happened in Syria or Libya. They seemed to think, perhaps based on Syria’s experience, that concessions are a slippery slope and not compromising pays off in the longer term. But now they have had to give at least the appearance of backing down due to the strength of popular feeling. The question now is what comes next: a measure of genuine but controlled reform as in Morocco or an Egyptian-style scenario where the army runs things behind a facade of pro-forma elections?

MA: Intelligence reports indicate a redeployment of Daesh to Libya. Can we end the terrorism of Daesh and Al Qaeda without really fighting the ideological matrix of these groups? Is it enough defeating these groups militarily?

ABA: Daesh is finished above ground in the Arab world. But it will continue to exist underground because the conditions that incubated still exist. In my view, the challenge is not so much to fight the ideology as to address those conditions. The ideology, or at least its adoption or acceptance in some places and by some people, is a product of these ‘failed-state’ conditions and the marginalization they cause. In many cases – Libya, Iraq, Syria, Yemen – they are a consequence, in whole or in part, of direct or indirect Western military intervention. Putting an end to these interventions would be a step to tackling the problem.

MA: Are we not witnessing the continuation of the Cold War between the US administration on one side and Russia and China on the other? How do you explain the need for the United States to have an enemy?

ABA: The US can’t sleep unless it has an enemy. It has become an obsession, though creating or talking up external enemies has always been a means of advancing the interests of domestic power elites.But the picture is changing. America is no longer rules the world in matters of war and peace. Its real power is not its military might but the US Dollar. Its abuse of its financial and commercial power has become so extensive that an international alliance is taking shape to deprive it of this weapon.

*

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

Abdel Bari Atwan is a Palestinian journalist born in 1950 in Deir al-Balah, a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. He lived in a family of 11 children. After graduating from primary school in the refugee camp, he continued his studies in Jordan. He then studied journalism at Cairo University. After working for many Arab newspapers, he ran until 2013 al-Quds al-Arabi, a newspaper he founded in London in 1989 with other Palestinian expatriates. Today, he is the editor-in-chief of Rai al-Youm, an Arab world digital news and opinion website. He lives and works in London.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen is an independent Algerian journalist. He wrote in several Algerian newspapers such as Alger Républicain and in different sites of the alternative press.

All images in this article are from American Herald Tribune

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on The Palestinian Political Scene is in a State of Paralysis: “The People Reject Normalization with Israel”
  • Tags: , , ,

After every disaster, when a reporter asks the survivors about their experiences, some with the utmost honesty and astonishment answer: “We never thought it would happen to us.”

Americans are shocked to see that immigrant families, asylum seekers, babies being caged under a bridge in El Paso, Texas, in cold weather. Is this acceptable in the United States of America? The unfortunate reality is that the inhumane treatment (even temporarily) of the asylum seekers, (especially the children) has become a routine practice at detention centers for several years now.

However, most were conducted behind closed doors and out of plain site. Even after the anguishing stories of tortured teenagers in custody (such as sexual abuse, beating, long periods of confinement and in some instances keeping the children nude in a cold concrete cell) which were exposed by the people who either used to work in these centers or by the Human Right Activists and Progressive Attorneys who were in contact with these teens; the politicians – Democrats and Republicans – and their media only spent a few short days or hours talking about these abuses. By diverting the public attention to the other issues, the abused teens were generally left in the detention centers as they were found. However, today the bold and naked abuse against migrants’ families and caging them under a barbed wired bridge is done purposely in the public view to intimidate not just the immigrants but all dissent and democratic minded people.

Caging innocent people in cold weather with crying babies under a bridge in the richest country on earth simply is not a bad decision but a clear message to all working families by some fascist elements in the U.S. government. This fact is understandable when we look at the bigger picture. The forces in the U.S. who are advocating and implementing their fascistic ideology, know the solidarity between the immigrants and American working families are indissoluble. They know that soon or later with the economic downturn, all poor people (regardless of their backgrounds and social statues) will find themselves on the same side against the wealthy elites. The feud among the 1% that is played on the media every day is actually about what is the best way to control and pacify the working people.

They are afraid of a united and organized people. The fascistic minded President and his gang in the Congress, Judicial System, Law Enforcement and Military are propagating the POLICY OF FEAR here and abroad! Democrats are fearful of these policies that might backlash and undermine the whole system. That is why Mr. Trump calls the Democrats “weak”.

Under both Mr. Obama and Mr. Trump administrations, the immigrant children were detained in cages. No one can deny this fact any longer. However, Mr. Trump is proud of his “Zero Tolerance” policy against immigrants or anybody else for that matter. He wants the world to see how the migrants’ families are suffering under a bridge in the cold nights. This is the essence of the FEAR DOCTRINE. At the same time that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) were placing asylum seekers families beneath the Paso del Norte International Bridge in El Paso, Texas; Mr. Trump in Michigan at a rally as part of his usual fear mongering speech against the immigrants said: “Hundreds of thousands of people … are invading … our country …. last month alone, more than 76 thousand illegal immigrants arrived at our borders … many of which are rough people … we have people that have criminal records … we apprehend them, we capture them … I.C.E., these are great American patriots. [cheers and applause]”. Of course, as always, he wrapped his fascistic talk in the American flag.

Wealthy people, including the current U.S. President should be the last people to complain about the invaders! It was the greed of the American Capitalists and plundering of the natural resources and wealth of the countries in the Latin America for centuries which caused the inevitable break-down of all arbitrary national boundaries.

That is the root of migration. The working people from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras are seeking asylum in order to work and raise their families in peace. In fact in the 21st century, we have to recognize that they are the pioneers of our time, certainly not the invaders. The working people wherever they are or are forced to migrate; first and foremost they produce goods and contribute to their communities. On the other hand, “leaders” like Prime Minster May of UK / Netanyahu of Israel, President Macron of France /Poroshenko of Ukraine / Bouteflika of Algeria and of course Mr. Trump of the U.S. look like incompetent and useless politicians. They have nothing to offer except chaos, a group of people that look ridiculous in the world of politics.

The only miscalculation that the fascistic minded President Trump is not able to see is that the Fear Doctrine is effective only for a short time while the very people who are supposed to be fearful are rising up and are awakened by the 2016 election. That means the working families in the U.S. have the opportunity to get organized and unit for peace and prosperity for all by reaching to the history of the struggle of those who came before us, fought with their bodies and minds and left us with the most valuable heritage of unity and helpful guidelines.

End the Cruelty and Inhumane Treatment of Immigrants Families NOW!

*

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

Massoud Nayeri is a graphic designer and an independent peace activist based in the United States. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Fascistic Talks and Deeds Wrapped in the American Flag: “The Fear Doctrine”, Immigrant Families, Asylum Seekers, Babies Caged under a Bridge
  • Tags: ,

Russian-Chinese relations are excellent and the two Great Powers have never been closer to one another in history, but that doesn’t mean that their partnership is perfect and without its problems, as the Baikal water bottling scandal recently revealed.

A Sign Of Something Bigger?

Somewhat surprising news recently emerged from Russia after the authorities ruled that a Chinese-backed water bottling plant on the shores of Lake Baikal is illegal in response to an unprecedented social media awareness campaign that saw roughly one million people sign a petition against this project. Russian civil society is very different from the Western one, and it’s almost unprecedented that so many people in the country felt strongly enough to publicly voice their opposition to this foreign initiative that they fear (whether rightly or wrongly) will result in devastating environmental consequences in return for little to nothing of tangible benefit at all for the local communities there. Curiously enough, even Russian Prime Minister Medvedev publicly spoke about this issue during a recent question and answer session that he was involved in with VKontakte users, remarking that his use of social networks made him well aware of the public’s attitude towards this sooner than if he had relied on official channels.

Russia’s Underwhelming Progress On BRI

This interesting turn of events raises some questions about the true state of the Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership since it’s clear that it’s far from perfect and not without its problems, despite the “politically correct” narrative that Alt-Media regularly propagates about it. To be clear, there are no grounds for exaggerating the impact of this isolated event and speculating whether or not this might be the “beginning of the end” like some agenda-driven commentators might be tempted to do, though there are also no more grounds for pretending like this partnership is any different from any other strategic one anywhere else across the world either. As with all partnerships, this one also has its shortcomings and limitations, and it’s also sometimes affected by unforeseen circumstances such as possible corruption and the public’s intensely negative reaction to the aforesaid, which is more palpable and easily manifested in democratic systems like Russia’s than in non-democratic ones such as many of those in the “Global South”.

There’s no doubt that Russia’s 21st-century grand strategy envisions the country managing a Eurasian-wide “balancing” act greatly facilitated by its irreplaceable geographic location between Western Europe and East Asia astride the proposed Eurasian Land Bridge that might one day connect them both as one of China’s chief Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) megaprojects, but Moscow has thus far dragged its heels in this respect and has yet to make any tangible progress on this front. The “Power of Siberia” gas pipeline and two bridges across the Amur River are the only physical manifestations of Russia’s Silk Road future, being relatively small in comparison to the hefty investments that China has made in its neighboring global pivot state of Pakistan or even further afield in Africa. It’s therefore obvious that the state’s publicly proclaimed goal of embodying the geostrategic logic of Silk Road connectivity isn’t being implemented in practice, or at least not at the pace that the public would otherwise expect, prompting a much-needed explanation.

“What The US Really Wants From Russia”

Like the author wrote in his piece last year about “What The US Really Wants From Russia”, Washington is doing all that it can to pressure Moscow into scaling back its Silk Road cooperation with Beijing in exchange for a so-called “New Détente”, knowing that it can never realistically expect to get Russia to reverse its strategic relations with China (let alone turn the two into enemies like it did during the Old Cold War [India is supposed to fulfill that role this time around vis-à-vis China]) but can try to slow down the pace of their partnership instead. Whether connected to this strategy or not, it’s interesting that the Russian Finance Ministry is officially deliberating whether to divert funds from the Moscow-Kazan High-Speed Railway project that’s supposed to form part of the Eurasian Land Bridge upon completion and transfer them to the Novatek LNG project instead, as this basically aligns with the aforementioned paradigm.

Aware of this larger strategic context, it’s now possible to make more informed observations about the significance of the Baikal water bottling scandal and the possible consequences that it could have for Russian-Chinese relations. There’s no denying that the perception (keyword) of Chinese corruption, environmental degradation, and “neo-colonialism” is a powerful catalyst for Russian civil society in the Siberia and the Far East, where fears of these purportedly interconnected “three evils” are pervasive. Whether based on truth, lies, a manipulation of reality, or a combination of those three, it needs to be accepted that China suffers from serious reputational problems in that part of Russia that neither state’s authorities have been successful in fixing, which is why so many people signed the petition, protested, and even raised this issue to the level of the Prime Minister’s attention. In response, his government responsibly took action to investigate the claims and suspend the project for the time being.

There are those who might be inclined to seeing a more nefarious hand behind the latest events given Medvedev’s pro-Western and liberal proclivities that many might think would automatically make him predisposed to anti-Chinese policies and therefore function as the US’” useful (or willing) idiot” for “containing” China and ruining Russia’s Silk Road future, but that’s an entirely superficial reading of the situation in this instance because it overlooks the genuine opposition that the locals have to the water bottling project. It’s debatable whether their claims are legitimate or not, but denying the rapidity with which they were able to politically mobilize civil society in this far-flung but strategic borderland region would be the height of irresponsibility by the state. Furthermore, that interpretation over-exaggerates Medvedev’s influence and makes it seem like he’s directly defying President Putin, which isn’t the case at all. Rather, he seems to be Russia’s “bad cop” to China just like Putin is its “good cop”.

“Balancing” Between The “Good Cop” And “Bad Cop”

It shouldn’t be forgotten that Russia’s “balancing” strategy is complex and multifaceted, with the Eurasian Great Power harnessing all means of state power to influence its partners in pursuit of promoting supercontinental harmony, so it’s not amiss to suggest that Medevedev might have actually been encouraged by Putin to be the “bad cop” “laying down the law” in this respect while the President himself continues to be the “good cop” taking ties to the next level unabated. To be sure, even the “good cop” could do more to integrate Russia into the Silk Road, but considering how ultra-sensitive his people in the Siberian and Far East borderland regions are to all issues China-related (due to their fears of Chinese corruption, environmental degradation, and “neo-colonialism”), it makes sense in hindsight why he’s taking his time and not prioritizing this, to say nothing of the possible “balancing” act that he might be flirting with in regards to a “New Détente” with the US as previously explained.

Another important point is that Russia is currently trying to implement Putin’s “Great Society” socio-economic development program which prioritizes domestic infrastructure projects that would make the country more compatible with the Silk Road vision upon completion, so the case can be made that it’s better for Russia to take its time and not rush head-first into BRI until after it has the in-country capability to handle much larger capacities of trade on its own terms instead of disproportionately relying on Chinese foreign investment like Beijing’s many other partners do. This approach carries with it a touch of “Trumpist” protectionism but not enough to the point of derailing the Silk Road like the US hopes to do by weaponizing this strategy for use against China in other transit countries (most likely East African ones). It’s also not unprecedented by Russia either, considering that it recently decreed that only Russian-flagged ships can transport natural resources across the Northern Sea Route unless specific exceptions are made.

Concluding Thoughts

Returning back to the lead-in focus of this analysis, the Baikal water bottling scandal, it perfectly correlates with Russia’s real approach towards China, though it nevertheless comes off as surprising because Alt-Media misportrayed the true state of bilateral Silk Road affairs between them. The two Great Powers have never been closer to one another in history and the overall state of their relations is excellent, but Russia’s rhetoric of gloating about the West’s decline and glorifying China’s rise doesn’t always match up to reality as proven by the Kremlin’s reluctance to fully embrace BRI for domestic political reasons and out of strategic “balancing” calculations. These obstacles could be overcome if Russia and China guarantee tangible benefits to the local Siberian & Far East populations and succeed in more clearly articulating their shared Silk Road vision to one another, but groundbreaking progress probably won’t be made until after the “Great Society’s” completion at the end of Putin’s presidency.

*

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

This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

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

On August 2, 2018 an article in the Yomiuri shimbun broke the news that Tokyo Medical University has been systematically tampering with the scores of entrance exams to benefit male applicants. The news emerged in the course of an investigation into the university administration’s bribe of a high-ranking official at the Ministry of Education, Sano Futoshi.1* Officials at the university apparently boosted the entrance exam score of Sano’s son in exchange for his help in securing a grant to improve the university’s public image. Along with this case of cronyism, it came to light that the university routinely padded the scores of all male applicants except those who had been applying for four or more years. Apparently believing that women would not do as well in the medical profession, Tokyo Medical University systematically reduced their chances of admission for at least a decade. It seems that rising rates of successful female applicants prompted university officials to impose a system of automatically increasing male applicants’ scores to reduce the ratio of female students at their institution. The revelations prompted a government investigation of 81 schools, which revealed in December 2018 that at least nine other medical faculties engaged in similar practices.2

And yet, in 2013, the university began receiving a national grant to “support women.” Over three years, Tokyo Medical University was awarded over 80 million yen (about 720,000 USD) through this grant. Two university executives at the center of the admissions scandal – former chairman Usui Masahiko and former university president Suzuki Mamoru – played key roles in the Office to Promote Diversity, founded at the university in 2016. In Usui’s opening remarks at an event to celebrate the first anniversary of the Office in 2017, he called on the university staff to promote “diversity.”3 At the time, the school presented an increase in female admissions from 26.9% to 32.4% as evidence of its efforts, even as it was actively taking steps to deny admission to women with qualifying scores.4 That meant that the university was not only taking money from the government to promote female admissions but also taking money from individual female applicants whom it artificially failed (sitting a university entrance exam in Japan costs 40,000 to 60,000 yen, about 360 to 540 USD). A group of 24 women denied admission to Tokyo Medical University since 2006 have joined with a team of defense lawyers to build a legal case against the school, which includes a demand for compensation for these fees, and potentially for additional damages.5

The male officials and others that implemented systematic discrimination at Tokyo Medical University have framed their actions as a “necessary evil.” The key reason cited as a defense for Tokyo Medical University’s decision to depress female admissions was their concern that too many female doctors would result in too few doctors at their affiliated hospitals when women left their work for marriage or childbirth. In his testimony to the legal team currently investigating Tokyo Medical University’s discriminatory admissions process, Usui said that the university systematically depressed female applicants’ scores because “as women get older, their activities as doctors decrease.”6 This rhetoric echoed the sensationalistic “Coeds Ruin the Nation Theory” enunciated in the pages of the Japanese tabloids in the early 1960s. Then, Waseda University professor of literature Teruoka Yasutaka declared his desire to set quotas to limit the number of women admitted to humanities departments because women would waste their educations and ruin society.7 Now, male administrators at a number of medical universities secretly impose quotas fearing that too many women in the profession will ruin medicine.8

Tokyo Medical University’s administrators sought approval for their actions through appealing to legitimate concerns about a lack of medical professionals in Japan. But rather than lobbying to increase the quotas imposed by the Japan Medical Association on the number of doctors trained, or addressing many of the workplace issues facing overwhelmed and understaffed hospitals, these powerful administrators penalized individual women, holding them responsible for a multifaceted social problem that was not of their own making.9 On November 12, 2018, Education Minister Shibayama Masahiko noted that a government investigation had found evidence of gender bias in the admissions processes of multiple medical faculties.10 The results announced in December confirmed these suspicions, and the government has subsequently cut off subsidies to Tokyo Medical University and reduced those to Nihon University, Fukuoka University, Iwate Medical University, Juntendo University, Kanazawa Medical University, Kitasato University, and Showa University based on similar manipulations of entrance exams.11

A candlelight vigil held in front of Juntendo University on December 14, 2018 to protest the insitution’s discrimination against women in its entrance examination policies. Image courtesy of the Association to Support Victims of Entrance Exam Discrimination at Tokyo Medical University and Elsewhere (Source: APJJF)

This scandal is a case study related to several stubborn problems facing Japanese society today. It reflects how a more general context of gender discrimination threatens to impede solutions to the crises facing healthcare in Japan, and how recent efforts to counter discriminatory practices and encourage “diversity” lack accountability. This article addresses how the gender gap in the medical field points to deeper problems in the profession as a workplace, how recent research suggests that gender diversity may improve medical outcomes in terms of patient care, and how this entrance-exam scandal highlights the inadequacy and lack of accountability behind recent efforts to promote “diversity.”

Healthcare as Work

The conditions under which medical professionals labor in Japan are less than ideal. A study published in 2015 on the difficulties facing women in the medical profession found that it was not only women-specific issues, but also “poor working conditions involving long working hours” that result from “a chronic, nationwide medical workforce shortage” that negatively impacted female doctors’ physical and mental health.12 Indeed, the problems noted adversely affected men as well as women medical professionals. The stresses on the medical profession result from many factors, including government restrictions on the number of medical students, while female doctors face additional challenges. Women find their attention divided between their professional and their familial responsibilities because of longstanding assumptions about female domestic labor. Such social expectations hinder gender equality in many societies, but this is a particularly stubborn problem in Japan. The country consistently rates poorly in the Global Gender Gap Index. In 2018, Japan ranked 110 out of 149 countries in terms of gender parity, the lowest ranking of the Group of Seven industrialized nations.13 Anecdotal evidence about the entrance-exam interviews conducted at other medical universities suggests that prospective female students also face questions not only about their professional but also their personal goals, presumably because schools want to know if domestic commitments will interfere with their careers.14 Medical universities run hospitals, and they fear a staffing shortage if women – as they are often expected to do – leave the workplace to care for their families.

On the other hand, government policy depresses the number of doctors certified in order to control medical expenditures and prevent a possible surplus of doctors. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare restricts the number of physicians and imposes a medical student quota. Yet Japan’s problem is clearly a shortage of doctors. In response to severe shortages in 2007, the government increased the maximum medical school enrollment quota from 7,625 to 8,828. Shortages nevertheless persist. In terms of number of physicians per person, Japan has 2.4 per 1,000 people. This places it 27th out of 31 OECD countries surveyed, just behind the United States (2.6 doctors per 1,000 people) and on par with Poland and Mexico.15 At the same time, Japan currently vies with Israel for the lowest rate of medical graduates: 6.8 per 10,000 inhabitants in 2017.16 The specialties with the most severe shortages are obstetricians, pediatricians, emergency physicians, and surgeons. Even though current estimates predict that the number of physicians per 1,000 population will rise to 3.14 in 2035, corresponding rise in demand with Japan’s aging population’s medical needs have prompted calls for strategies to increase the number of doctors.17

A study conducted by Japanese researchers who examined trends from 1996 to 2006 to identify the primary causes of the shortage of surgeons in Japan concluded that many general surgeons at hospitals, both female and male, left their positions not to fulfill childcare responsibilities but for another job or another medical specialty in their 30s and 40s.18 This contributed to a general lack of hospital surgeons. The study noted that “poor working conditions facing hospital doctors” may account for this trend. Studies of doctors’ average working hours in Japan find a weekly median of 54.4 to 63.3 working hours. However, more hospital doctors in Japan work more than 60 hours per week than do workers in any other profession.19

Without expanding the number of physicians, it is difficult to maintain quality care standards while ensuring that women can take even the legally guaranteed maternity leave period of six weeks prior to the expected birth date and eight weeks after birth, let alone to support needs of medical professionals with childcare obligations. The most recent statistics published by the Japan Medical Association found that 50.1% of the medical facilities surveyed offered no childcare.20 Simply leaving the burden of understaffing to male and child-free female colleagues results in a culture of resentment when already heavy workloads become even more onerous if women take time away from work to have and take care of children. Because of this perceived inconvenience women may pose to co-workers when taking maternity leave, many of the physicians (65%) who participated in a survey after the Tokyo Medical University scandal broke responded that, although they did not necessarily approve of the university’s decision to actively tamper with scores, they understood the gendered logic in depressing the number of female applicants, since “it burdens others [in the workplace].”21

There is a gender gap in terms of working long hours in the medical profession, and this gap is used by some to justify depressing rates of female doctors to maintain staffing levels at hospitals. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Work found that 41 percent of male physicians and 28 percent of female physicians work 60 or more hours a week, and 11 percent of male physicians and 7 percent of female physicians work more than 80 hours a week. Among men in their 30s, 56.9 percent work over 60 hours a week.22

These long hours, however, are also linked to health problems among doctors. The government definition of karōshi [death from overwork] is the sudden death of an employee who works an average of 65 hours per week or more for more than four consecutive weeks, or for 60 hours or more for more than eight weeks. A recently published study of first-year residents at 250 training hospitals in Japan in 2011 found that residents working 80-99.9 hours per week had a 2.83-fold higher risk of developing depression than those working less than 60 hours a week, while those working 100 hours or more a week had a 6.96-fold higher risk. Of the 1,241 first-year residents surveyed by the study, 7.8 percent worked 100 hours or more a week, of which 45.5 percent displayed “clinically significant depressive symptoms” after three months.23 Another study conducted in 2004 found that residents in Japan worked a mean of 84.9 hours a week, and 16.4 percent worked more than 100 hours a week.24

Aside from sheer number of hours, doctors in Japan are often required to work extraordinarily long shifts. When working night duty, they may work a daytime shift on either end, sometimes working almost 36 consecutive hours at one go. In July 2015, when an obstetrics and gynecology resident physician in the Shinagawa Ward of Tokyo killed himself, a subsequent investigation of hospital records showed that he had logged 143 to 208 hours of overtime in the six months before his suicide, and the four monthly night shifts he worked sometimes contributed to 30-hour shifts.25

Of course these problems are not limited to the medical industry in Japan. In the United States, the conversation often focuses on “burnout” – emotional exhaustion and cynicism in one’s work. Studies have found that resident physicians in the United States, who also work long hours, reported rates of burnout symptoms (45.2% of the 3588 second-year resident physician respondents).26 Doctors in the United States have higher rates of suicide than any other profession.27 Critics of U.S. healthcare point out that Japan might serves as a potential model for the U.S., particularly considering how universal coverage and general affordability have benefited patients in Japan.28 But Japan also faces rising demand that will place more and more stresses on the system as it has existed so far, and on the doctors who work within that system.

There have been calls to reduce physicians’ workloads by distributing more tasks to nursing staff, but Japan’s aging society has created shortages in nurses as well. Even though Japan has a relatively large number of nurses – 9.06 per thousand residents, more than the 8.30 OECD average density – Japanese health care has faced a nursing shortage since the 1990s because of rapidly rising demand.29 Although demand for care workers is high, wages are relatively low for nurses and certified care workers, perhaps because it is also a feminized workforce, while extensive pre-employment training must be paid for privately. Fewer people see care work as an attractive career option. In 2007, only 16,696 people applied for 26,095 places at 419 training institutes for certified care workers.30 The government has agreements with Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam to accept foreign nurses, but the language and nursing training requirements set a high bar to clear; in 2016, among the participants in the “Indonesia-Japan collaboration on the enhancement of nursing competency through an in-service training” program, 104 of 209 (49.8%) who attempted the national exam to become a certified care worker passed, while only 65 of 447 (14.5%) who attempted the national nursing exam passed. These are both far below the national average pass rates of 72.1% for the certified care worker exam and 88.5% for the national nursing exam.31

There are only limited studies about burnout and job satisfaction among physicians in Japan, although both appear related to working conditions and seem to contribute to labor shortages at government hospitals and university hospitals.32 A 2007 found that burnout and poor mental health were directly related to job dissatisfaction and short sleeping time among doctors.33 Researchers examining physician retention at hospitals found a high correlation between frequent night duty shifts and a desire to change hospitals.34 The study found that almost 35 percent of the respondents to their survey wanted to change hospitals, and the rate was particularly high for physicians at government hospitals and university hospitals (44.3 percent and 41.5 percent respectively).35 While this study did not distinguish between male and female respondents, it did emphasize that the medical field needs to think about approaches that will allow it to retain its workforce and create a workplace in which doctors find their work satisfying in order to provide sustainable and high-quality health care.

The discussions coming out of the admissions gender discrimination scandals frame women as less committed to the workplace but does not cite the health hazards of overcommitment to the workplace. Gendered ideas about women’s responsibilities in the home and the current workplace demands in the medical field require women physicians with children to dramatically reduce their working hours. At the same time, in a work culture that encourages overwork, the demographic most vulnerable to accumulated workplace fatigue is actually male workers in their 30s and 40s. As Scott North has described in his study of death from overwork (karōshi), karōshi victims “come from all walks of life, all classes, and all occupational categories,” but are overwhelmingly male because of the gendered ideology linking masculinity and overwork.36 So a conversation about how to improve the conditions under which those in the medical profession labor is not just a conversation about improving women’s lives, although the discussion needs to include analyses of how women experience the squeeze between a workplace culture that demands long hours and societal expectations that they manage domestic and care obligations.

The pronounced M-curve in female doctors’ employment – a mid-career dip in rates of women working in the profession – is most often the result of life events like childbirth (responsible for 70 percent of female physicians’ decision to take leave) and child care (38.3 percent). According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Work’s statistics, this means that the employment rates for women doctors reach a low of 73.4% percent twelve years after becoming certified (male doctors have an 89.9 percent employment rate twelve years after certification), then creeps up but does not match the rates of male physician employment until both are in their seventies and employment rates for both are on a downward slope. At this point, interestingly, employment rates for women overtake those for men, and there are 5-10 percent more female doctors still working in their late 70s and through to their 90s than there are male doctors. The M-curve for lifetime female employment is not dissimilar from a wider gendered tendency in employment in Japan. In the case of female doctors, however, 60.4 percent return to work within a year of taking leave.37

Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare38 

In short, many female doctors reduce working hours when they gave birth to children. However, the majority of female doctors who work while raising infants still work full-time – 76.5% in 2017 – somewhat lower than the 88.8% of working female doctors without children who work full-time. However, the most significant difference between the working hours of female doctors with and without children is in the hours indicated by “full time.” In 2017, of the female doctors with children ages 6-12, almost half (49.3%) worked under 40 hours a week, while only 4.7% worked 65 hours or more a week. Only about one-fifth of female doctors without children worked under 40 hours a week, while 27% of female doctors without children worked between 48 and 60 hours a week, 18% worked between 60 and 65 hours a week, and 22.6% of them worked 65 hours or more a week.39

Domestic labor in Japan is assumed to be women’s labor, and working women with children find that housework burdens them with a “second shift.” A 2012 study found that even female doctors without children spent more of their time on housework (15 hours a week) than male doctors with children (three hours a week). Unsurprisingly, female doctors with children did the most housework (36 hours a week including childcare). Adding up total work time – paid medical work and unpaid housework – demonstrates that female doctors worked the longest weeks on average, putting in over 70 hours at home and at work. While men without children worked longer hours outside the home, their paucity of housework and childcare responsibilities put their total work week at just a little over 50 hours on average.40 A recent study found that female medical students in Japan feel pressure to accommodate family responsibilities, and by the time they finish their clinical internships in their final year of medical school, their understanding is that they must choose to prioritize either family or medicine, whereas their male peers feel no similar conflict and pursue their careers based exclusively on their medical practice.41 Tokyo Medical University’s logic in reducing female admissions reflects a calculated strategy based on current gendered divisions of labor and a culture of overwork in which men can participate most fully in their professions because they participate so little in the household.

Reducing female medical school students in an effort to retain hospital physicians is not the solution to a medical industry under stress. When we think of women as a liability because of their theoretical future childbirth and care leave, we focus on only one aspect of bodies and when bodies can or cannot work. Perhaps more importantly, by defining the value of work in terms of full-time work that is inherently exhausting, with punishing hours and high levels of stress, we accept working conditions that are not healthy for any bodies, female or male. As Kyoko Tanebe put it in her editorial calling for an examination not only of gender discrimination but also of a health care funding crisis: “The current system relying on doctors who can withstand overwork is vulnerable, both as a system of labor and in terms of medical safety.”42

Quality of Health Care

Japan is certainly not the only society facing a “crisis in care” that is simultaneously a labor problem and a public health issue as well as an issue of gender discrimination. The resounding criticism of the handling of gender issues in the Japanese health care system from the Western media, in particular regarding this issue, has prompted different reactions in Japan; there are expressions of shame at Japan’s failure to properly implement “modern” global standards for gender equality, but there are also accusations of Western, particularly American, hypocrisy. After all, while this scandal provides a headline-worthy smoking gun of most certainly illegal systematic sexism, the United States’ global rankings for female participation in the medical field are only slightly better than those of Japan. Japan ranks last among the 34 member countries that make up the OECD for share of female doctors (20.3% in 2015). But the United States is fourth lowest (34.1% in 2015), well below the OECD average of 46.1%.43

This is a pressing issue for those concerned about the quality of medical care, since there is evidence that more women in the medical field makes for better medicine. A study of hospitalized Medicare beneficiaries found that “elderly hospitalized patients treated by female internists have lower mortality and readmissions compared with those cared for by male internists.”44 This study estimated that, annually, “approximately 32,000 fewer patients would die if male physicians could achieve the same outcomes as female physicians.”45 Other studies have found that female doctors performed better than male doctors in the context of diabetes care.46

In an article in The Atlantic, Ed Yong introduced research showing that more US patients suffering from a heart attack, particularly female patients, die when treated by male doctors than by female doctors. It is uncertain why this is, but it suggests that female patients stand to gain most when they have access to female doctors, and that male physicians who work with female colleagues did better at treating female heart-attack sufferers. This is not to say that women are inherently more attuned to nurturing and care, but the findings do suggest, as the University of Chicago’s Vineet Arora noted, that a gender-diverse work environment is a plus and “that female physicians are an asset not just for their patients, but for their male colleagues, too.”47

The positive impact of gender diversity can also be found in medical research. A recent study that analyzed 1.5 million medical-research papers published between 2008 and 2015 found that female co-authorship increased the likelihood that research addressed gender differences. This is important because neglecting gender-related differences in disease and treatment outcomes affects health outcomes, sometimes with life-threatening consequences.48

Similarly, if crushing workloads are the expectation for all medical workers, that presents another issue for patient safety. Several studies have found a higher risk of medical error and also traffic accidents among medical staff who have been working long hours.49 Such studies expose the links between the quality of working conditions in the medical industry and the quality of healthcare.

The problems created by a shortage of hospital physicians and a maldistribution of those physicians in Japan are also particularly dangerous for some of the most medically vulnerable. One high-profile case, in which nine hospitals turned away a pregnant woman who suffered a miscarriage after the ambulance carrying her collided with a minivan on its way to a tenth hospital, prompted investigations about hospitals refusing to provide emergency care for pregnant women. A subsequent survey of 27 prefectures found that between 2004 and 2006, there had been 2,780 cases in which a pregnant woman had been denied admission by one or more hospitals. Of those, in at least 191 cases a pregnant woman transported by ambulance had been turned away by five or more hospitals because of a lack of specialist staff or beds.50

Gendered Stereotypes

As the points outlined above show, thinking about how to improve the healthcare industry in the future would benefit from thinking further about the healthcare industry as a workplace and about improving the overall quality of healthcare. This requires a deep questioning of gendered ideologies that assign women the roles of care and support, both in the home and in the hospital, while simultaneously dismissing women’s capabilities in what are considered more prestigious “specialist” positions. It would require recognition of women’s outstanding performance in significant areas of health care, as well as the burdens of discrimination under which they labor.

The consequences of gendered stereotypes are more serious than simply whether individual women entering the workforce can advance. Japan has the fourth-highest relative poverty rate among OECD countries, and the gender gap in wages and in full-time employment has created particularly vulnerable groups of women.51 Most single parents are mothers, and the poverty rate for working single-parent families is 56 percent. This is due in part to the gender wage gap, which is the highest in the OECD.52 The current public pension system offers generous benefits to married women and widows, but penalizes women who divorced or were never married, and hence are unable to access a pension based on a man’s “breadwinning” wages. A recent study noted that, since the 1980s, the marriage rate decreased and the divorce rate increased significantly, with the consequence that more and more elderly women will face the risk of poverty thus increasing poverty rates in general. Already in 2010, poverty rates for elderly women were almost double those of elderly men: 11.1% versus 6.1%. However, projections put the poverty rate of elderly women at 25% in the near future, more than double the predicted 10% for elderly men. For women who were never married or are divorced, the poverty rates are predicted to be 50%.53

The government-driven rhetoric of “creating a society in which women shine” does little to challenge a dominant narrative highlighting women’s unique relationship to care and femininity that perpetuates this kind of gendered and imbalanced poverty and precarity. In a September 2014 speech to the World Assembly for Women in Tokyo in which he outlined his vision for promoting women in the workplace, Prime Minister Abe Shinzō provided examples of the kinds of contributions he thought women could “bring to corporate management.” He cited examples of female employees who had suggested car doors that open wider to accommodate children, or had collaborated to design laptop computers that one can open without destroying a manicure. Abe concluded that “The most difficult part may be transforming the division of roles based on gender, something that is, unwittingly, firmly ingrained within us.”54 However, Abe’s own interpretation of that “certain perspective that only women can provide” – the woman’s touch – is precisely based on an ingrained stereotype of women’s abilities and women’s interests.

The admissions scandal at Tokyo Medical University also exposed the emptiness of various recent initiatives to promote greater gender diversity. As mentioned above, Tokyo Medical University received grant money to “promote women’s activities” and Suzuki Mamoru, then-president of the university and an initiator of the quotas on female admissions, publicly endorsed policies advocated by the Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office’s annual “General Assembly of Male Leaders.”55 The quotas Suzuki imposed sit uneasily alongside the “action plan” published on the Bureau’s homepage, which includes “disrupting the status quo” by taking “every chance to ask the questions below and advance changes in the mindset in the whole organization: Why are there no women? Why are women 30% or less? Why isn’t the ratio of men to women fifty-fifty (50:50)?” That he publicly subscribed to such initiatives while actively imposing a policy to cap female admissions at 30% required a powerful cynicism. Although he may have sympathized with the diversity ideal in the abstract sense, he sabotaged it in fulfilling his responsibility to train physicians.

It is in the gap between an often tone-deaf rhetoric at the level of the national gender equality initiatives and a complete lack of accountability in governance that this systematic gender discrimination persists. This story doesn’t seem limited to a few powerful men at one institution. Observers of the stubborn imbalance in acceptance rates between men and women to medical schools had already voiced suspicions that universities were controlling the student ratio. In an August 2017 report for the Japan Joint Association of Medical Professional Women, Kyoko Tanebe noted that the rates for female admissions to medical schools seemed artificially depressed over the last fifteen years in light of recent trends in other fields. So-called “cram schools” which prepare students for university admissions exams and obsessively track these statistics also observed similar gender gaps in the admissions rates at other schools. A representative from Ace Academy, a cram school for medical universities, noted the lopsided pass rate for young men and women at St. Marianna Medical University, Showa University, and Nihon University in the second round of entrance exams, which consist of interviews and written essays, in spite of general parity on earlier rounds of subject exams.56 Jutendo University was also suspected of rigging entrance exam results to favor male applicants.57 Others have called this depression of female acceptance rates to medical schools an open secret. The Ministry of Education’s nation-wide investigation into the admissions practices of 81 medical faculties confirmed these suspicions and found that several other medical faculties engaged in similarly suspect admissions’ practices, including Nihon University, Juntendo University, Showa University, Iwate Medical University, Kanazawa Medical University, Kitasato University, Kobe University, and Fukuoka University.58

Perhaps this scandal will offer an opening to debates about how to address long-standing gendered inequalities in the medical field and beyond. One hopes it will also initiate further debates about the social costs of such discrimination on the medical profession as a workplace and a place of care.

*

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

Our thanks to The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus for having brought this important article toour attention

Chelsea Szendi Schieder is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Economics at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan. She writes contemporary histories about contentious politics for academic and general audiences. Her book on the gendered politics of the postwar student movement in Japan, entitled Co-Ed Revolution: The Female Student in the Japanese New Left, is forthcoming with Duke University Press.

Notes

Japanese names are written according to Japanese conventions, with last name first, except in cases in which the last names are published last in scholarly journals and English-language publications.

“Japan medical schools ‘rigged women’s results.’ (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46568975) BBC News (December 14, 2018) (accessed January 31, 2019).

‘Daibaashiti suishin honbu kaisetsu kinen, Tokyo Ika Daigaku danjo kyōdō sankaku sokushin seminaa’ ga 1-gatsu 11-nichi ni kaisai saremashita [‘Commemoration of the founding of the diversity promotion headquarters, Tokyo Medical University gender equality promotion seminar’ held on January 11th]” Tokyo Medical University website (January 13, 2017) (accessed August 10, 2018).

Tokyo Idai ni ‘josei katsuyaku’ hojo 8000 man en genten giwaku no jiki, kuni kara 3 nen de kōfu [Tokyo Medical University received a government grant of 800 million yen for three years to support “women’s activities,” a period in which it is suspected of reducing scores]Tokyo shimbun (August 4, 2018) (accessed August 6, 2018).

Women demand compensation from Tokyo Medical University over rigged entrance exams” The Japan Times (October 30, 2018) (Accessed November 2, 2018)

Chōsa hōkokusho [Inquiry report]” Gakkō hōjin Tokyo Ika Daigaku naibu chōsa iinkai [Tokyo Medical University, Inc. internal inquiry committee] (August 6, 2018) (accessed August 10, 2018).

Hara Kimi, “Joshi kyōiku no tenkai to shakai hendō [The development of women’s education and social change]” in Shakai hendō to kyōiku [Social change and education] (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1976), 51–69; Nobuyuki Kuroda and Michiko Tanaka, Joshi gakusei [Women’ s education] (Tokyo: San’ichi Shobo, 1969), 158–161.

“Japan medical schools ‘rigged women’s results.’ (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46568975) BBC News (December 14, 2018) (accessed January 31, 2019).

Tokyo Idai no kokusai nintei torikeshi: hyōka kikō, nyūshi fusei de [Tokyo Medical University international certification canceled: citing evaluation mechanism, unfair entrance exams]Nikkei shimbun(November 22, 2018) (accessed December 4, 2018)

10 Fuksuu igakubu, nyūshi de danjo ni sa o settei daigakume wa meigen sezu [Multiple medical faculties established gender gaps in entrance exams, school names not announced]Asahi shimbun (October 12, 2018) (accessed December 4, 2018)

11 Government cuts off subsidies to Tokyo Medical Unviersity over entrance exam discrimination” The Japan Times (January 22, 2019) (Accessed January 30, 2019)

12 Kyoko Nomura, Yuki Yamazaki, Larry Gruppen, Saki Horie, Masumi Takeuchi, Jan Illing. “The difficulty of professional continuation among female doctors in Japan: a qualitative study of alumnae of 13 medical schools in Japan.” BMJ Open (2015), 5(3): 1-7.

13 Japan crawls up to 110th in global gender gap ranking but women’s participation still low Mainichi Japan (December 18, 2018) (Accessed January 30, 2019)

14 Tanaka Shino, Kinkozan Masako. “Tōkyō idai dake janai? Nyūshi de no danjo sabetsu. Ishira ga shōgen “idai zentai ni aru to makoto shiyaka ni uwasasareteita” [Not just Tokyo Medical University? Gender discrimination in entrance examinations. Doctors’ testimony: ‘There are plausible rumors that it happens at all medical universities’]Huffpost Japan (August 2, 2018) (Accessed January 30, 2019)

15 OECD (2018), Doctors (indicator). doi: 10.1787/4355e1ec-en (accessed on 20 November 2018)

16 OECD (2018), Medical graduates (indicator). doi: 10.1787/ac5bd5d3-en (accessed on 20 November 2018)

17 Koichiro Yuji, Seiya Imoto, Rui Yamaguchi, et al. “Forecasting Japan’s Physician Shortage in 2035 as the First Full-Fledged Aged Society” PLOS ONE (2012), 7(11).

18 Yasuhiro Mizuno, Hiroto Narimatsu, Yuko Kodama, Tomoko Matsumura, Masahiro Kami. “Mid-career changes in the occupation or specialty among general surgeons, from youth to middle age, have accelerated the shortage of general surgeons in Japan.” Surgery Today (2014) 44: 601-606.

19 Doctor’s suicide after monthly overtime exceeded 200 hours recognized as work-related” Japan Times (August 10, 2017) (accessed December 4, 2018)

20 Josei ishi no kinmu kankyō no genkyō ni kan-suru chōsa hikaku shōsai han [Investigation into present conditions of women doctors work environment: comparative detailed edition]” Nihon ishikai danjo kyōdō sankaku iinkai / Nihon ishikai josei ishi shien sentaa [Japan Medical Association gender equality plannning committee / Japan Medical Association women doctor support center] (June 2009) (accessed on 20 November 2018)

21 Ishi 65% ‘joshi genten rikai dekiru’ jinzai kaisha netto chōsa [65% of doctors: ‘understand reducing women’s scores’ on an HR recruitment agency’s online survey]Asahi shimbun (August 8, 2018) (Accessed August 30, 2018).

22 Josei ishi kyaria shien moderu fukyū suishin jigyō no seika to kongo no torikumi ni tsuite / shiryō 3 [On the results and future initiatives of the project to promulgate and promote career support for female doctors / document 3]” Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (March 14, 2018) (accessed November 20, 2018)

23 Ryoko Ogawa, Emiko Seo, Takami Maeno, Makoto Ito, Masaru Sanuki, Tetsuhiro Maeno. “The relationship between long working hours and depression among first-year residents in Japan.” BMC Medical Education (2018) 18: 50.

24 Tetsuhiro Maeno, Asumi Nakamura, Takami Maeno, et al. “Shinrinshō kenshū seido ni okeru kenshūi no sutoresu [Resident stress in the new postgraduateclinical training system].” Igaku kyōiku [Medical Education]. (2008) 39(3): 175–82.

25 Doctor’s suicide after monthly overtime exceeded 200 hours recognized as work-related” Japan Times (August 10, 2017) (accessed December 4, 2018)

26 Liselotte Dyrbye, Sara Burke, Rachel Hardeman “Association of Clinical Specialty with Symptoms of Burnout and Career Choice Regret Among US Resident Physicians” JAMA 2018 320(11): 1114-1130.

27 Brendan Murphy, “AMA seeks more data on physician, medical student suicide” AMA Physician Health(November 13, 2018) (accessed December 3, 2018).

28 Tomoko Otake “Japan’s buckling healthcare system at a crossroads” The Japan Times (Feburary 19, 2017) (accessed December 4, 2018)

29 Sakamoto H., Rahman M, Nomura S, Okamoto E, Koike S, Yasunaga H et al. “Japan Health System Review” Asia Pacific Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. Health Systems in Transition Series (Vol 8, No 1): 72, 86.

30 Ibid. 139.

31 Ibid., 90-91.

32 Makiko Ozaki, Seiji Bito, Shinji Matsumura “Developing a Japanese hospital physician satisfaction scale” International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance (2008) Vol. 21, Issue 5: 517-528.

33 Yasuharu Tokuda, Keiko Hayano, Makiko Ozaki, Seiji Bito, Haruo Yanai, Shunzo Koizumi “The Interrelationships between Working Conditions, Job Satisfaction, Burnout and Mental Health among Hospital Physicians in Japan: a Path Analysis” Industrial Health (2009) 47: 166-172.

34 Kato Ken, Kazunobu Yamauchi, Makoto Miyaji, et al “Factors relating to doctor’s desire to change hospitals in Japan.” International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance. Vol. 25, No. 1 (2012): 19-40, 35.

35 Ibid., 27.

36 Scott North, “Karōshi Activism and Recent Trends in Japanese Civil Society” in Going to Court to Change Japan: Social Movements and the Law in Contemporary Japan. Ed. Patricia Steinhoff (Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan: 2014): 45-72, p. 47.

37 Josei ishi kyaria shien moderu fukyū suishin jigyō no seika to kongo no torikumi ni tsuite / shiryō 3 [On the results and future initiatives of the project to promulgate and promote career support for female doctors / document 3]” Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (March 14, 2018) (accessed November 20, 2018)

38 Josei ishi kyaria shien moderu fukyū suishin jigyō no seika to kongo no torikumi ni tsuite / shiryō 3 [On the results and future initiatives of the project to promulgate and promote career support for female doctors / document 3]” Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (March 14, 2018) (accessed November 20, 2018)

39 “Josei ishi no kinmu kankyō no genkyō ni kan-suru chōsa hikaku shōsai han [Investigation into present conditions of women doctors work environment: comparative detailed edition]” (https://www.med.or.jp/joseiishi/2018hikakusyosai.pdf) Nihon ishikai danjo kyōdō sankaku iinkai / Nihon ishikai josei ishi shien sentaa [Japan Medical Association gender equality plannning committee / Japan Medical Association women doctor support center] (June 2009) (accessed on November 20, 2018)

40 Kosuke Yasukawa and Kyoko Nomura. “Ishi ni okeru seibetsu yakuwari bundan: shinryō jikan to kaji rōdō jikan no danjo kikaku [The division of labour by sex among Japanese physicians: comparison between men and women in time spent on clinical care a and time spent on housework]” Igaku kyōiku [Medical Education] (2012): 42: 315-319.

41 Aoki Hiroe, Hoshino Naoko, Kanda Asuka et al. “Danjo igakusei wa dono yōna kyaria ninshiki o yūshiteiru no ka? Intabyū chōsa kara miete kita mono [How do male and female medical students perceive their own career? Implications from a student viewpoint]” Nihon puraimari kea rengō gakkaishi [Journal for the Japanese Primary Care Association] (2016) 39(4): 191-204.

42 Kyoko Tanebe, “Japan’s medical school scandal must prompt health care funding debate,” Nikkei Asian Review. (August 17, 2018) (accessed August 31, 2018).

43 Women make up most of the health sector workers but they are under-represented in high-skilled jobs.” OECD (March 2017) (accessed November 20, 2018).

44 Yusuke Tsugawa, Anupam Jena, Jose Figueroa, John Orav, Daniel Blumenthal, Ashish Jha. “Comparison of Hospital Mortality and Readmission Rates for Medicare Patients Treated by Male vs Female Physicians.” JAMA Internal Medicine (Feb. 2017) 117:2: 206-213.

45 Ibid., 212.

46 Kim C, McEven LN, Gerzoff BR, et al. “Is physician gender associated with the quality of diabetes care?” Diabetes Care. (2005) 28(7): 1594-1598; Berthold KH, Gouni-Berthold I, Bestehorn KP, Böhm M, Krone W. “Physician gender is associated with the quality of type 2 diabetes care.” J Intern Med. (2008) 264(4): 340-350.

47 Ed Yong, “Women more likely to survive heart attacks if treated by female doctors” The Atlantic (August 6, 2018) (accessed August 15, 2018)

48 “Gender Perspectives” Nature. Vol. 553 (4 January 2018), 119.

49 Ken Kato, et al “Factors relating to doctor’s desire to change hospitals in Japan.” International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance. Vol. 25, No. 1 (2012): 19-40, 12.

50 191 multiple refusals of pregnant women found.” The Japan Times (Sept. 28, 2007) (Accessed Nov. 20, 2018) In the United States, the law requires all hospitals with emergency rooms to care for women in labor, although some rural facilities without obstetrics units violate this law. Julie Lasson-Fromowitz, “Despite law, hospitals turn away women in labor” Courier Journal (March 3, 2017) (Accessed March 1, 2019)

51 Relative poverty means that a household earns an income that is less than fifty percent of the average median incomes.

52 Alana Semuels, “Japan is no place for single mothers” The Atlantic (September 7, 2017) (accessed August 8, 2018).

53 Seiichi Inagaki. “Dynamic Microsimulation Model of Impoverishment Among Elderly Women in JapanFrontiers in Physics (March 14, 2018) (accessed September 10, 2018).

54 Abe Shinzō, “Opening Speech by H.E. Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan, at the Open Forum, World Assembly for Women in Tokyo” (presented at the World Assembly for Women, Tokyo, Japan, September 12, 2014).

55 There is not an equivalent group for “female leaders,” but the Gender Equality Bureau began holding events to train women for leadership in 2017. “Josei riidaa ikusei [Training female leaders]” Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office (accessed December 4, 2018).

56 Igakubu no josei sabetsu, tarōsei sabetsu mondai matome” Igakubu juken baiburu  October 18, 2018 (accessed December 4, 2018).

57 Jutendo and Showa universities’ medical faculties suspected of rigging entrance exam results based on gender” () Japan Times (October 14, 2018) (accessed December 3, 2018)

58 Yajima Daisuke and Doi Shinpei “Nichidai igakubu to kantō no shidai, futekisetsu nyūshi ka monkashōga shiteki [Ministry of Science and Education identifies inappropriate entrance exams at Nihon University’s medical faculty, private universities in the Kantō region]” Asahi shimbun digital (December 12, 2018) (Accessed January 31, 2019

It is now apparent with the release of the Mueller investigation findings, that the great storm that has embattled the US government and establishment since 2016 over supposed Russia-Trump collusion during the US elections, originates not from a genuine tangible source, but a constant stream of rhetoric  driven by partisan corporate media.  One certainty though is the Western narrative of Russia as a ‘malign influence’ will not go away. 

While America’s liberal establishment continues to rage at Trump, Europe allies, under the influence of Washington, maintain their aggressive stance towards Russia following the catastrophic US meddling in Ukraine in 2014 and the subsequent reunification of Crimea with Russia.  The question is how can the narrative of ‘malign Russian influence’ be kept going?  Mainstream media will continue its role in this,  but Western governments are also pouring resources into promulgating certain narratives while containing others.  This week, hackers released more documents from the UK government-funded project known as the Integrity Initiative, revealing British government plans to build an umbrella network of organisations across Europe to counter ‘Russian disinformation’.  The following is a look  at one of the EU projects already operating to ensure European populations do not stray from this constructed narrative that at times crosses over into real xenophobic racism, or Russophobia. While researching this phenomenon, it was impossible not to find some of the EU’s counter-propaganda material quite funny.

If we want to know the meaning of disinformation, the American think tank known as the National Endowment for Democracy which funds regime change in the service of US corporate interests, has its own definition, but it’s not important –  so long as we believe Russia or the Nazis invented the problem.  In fact, if we search the word ‘disinformation,’ a good number of the results tell us it originated in Russia and is the baby of Stalin or the KGB.  If we are not careful, we could end up thinking that dishonesty is an inherent characteristic of Russians, a view actually promoted by the former US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, who, coincidentally was caught ‘wilfullylying to Congress.

The view of Russians being hard-wired for corruption was also promoted by the New York Times in an article published in February, The Putin I knew; the Putin I know, written by Franz J Sedelmeyer, exposing deep prejudice behind the corporate media’s shallow identity politics.

But this narrative fails to credit the CIA, which has spent decades crafting skills carrying out the most grotesque deceptions in history targeted abroad and at home.  To leave out the role of the CIA in disinformation must be the equivalent of writing an omelette recipe and leaving out the eggs. In fact, the CIA doesn’t just carry out disinformation campaigns, as Victor Marchetti, former special assistant to the Deputy Director of the CIA described it:  the CIA manufactures history.  Not to recognise American intelligence services or government in the history of disinformation while painting Russia as its mother is to deprive America of the recognition it deserves for one of its most notable institutions.  Somewhat ironically, you can learn all about the history of disinformation from both Google and the National Endowment for Democracy which are two entities which have received financial support from the CIA.

What about the EU? Does Brussels think that Russia is an inherently dishonest nation? Are they aware that the CIA could be manufacturing Europe’s history this very moment?  Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) so concerned about disinformation might want to study the documented atrocities of the CIA, some of which were carried out in Europe. Perhaps they are not aware of the US intelligence services’ role  in the history of subterfuge in Europe:

…memorandum, dated July 26, 1950, gives instructions for a campaign to promote a fully fledged European parliament. It is signed by Gen William J Donovan, head of the American wartime Office of Strategic Services, precursor of the CIA.

Paradoxically, given the probability rate of the CIA meddling in the EU, MEPs should consider putting out a public warning:

The CIA is the most likely source of disinformation in Europe today. It manufactures crises – and we’ve plenty of those.

But none of it.  Instead, the European Parliament is fixated on ensuring its populations fear Russia and are accepting of the narratives pushed on them.  The EU released a new report this month repeating the narratives it has been accumulating to justify increasing actions against Russia, particularly since 2014 following the reunification of Crimea. It has passed a resolution stating that Russia could no longer be considered a strategic partner of the EU:

While condemning the illegal occupation and annexation of Crimea, as well as Russia’s continued violation of the territorial integrity of Georgia and Moldova, Members stressed that the EU cannot envisage a gradual return to business as usual until Russia fully implements the Minsk Agreement and restores the territorial integrity of Ukraine…

Members condemned Russia’s involvement in the Skripal case, and in disinformation campaigns and cyberattacks carried out by the Russian intelligence services aimed at destabilising public and private communications infrastructure and at increasing tensions within the EU and its Member States…

They are concerned about the relations between the Russian government and the extreme right-wing and populist nationalist parties and governments in the EU, such as in Hungary. They also recalled that the interference of Russian state actors in the referendum campaign on Brexit is currently under investigation by the UK authorities…

As Russia can no longer be considered a strategic partner in the current circumstances, Members believe that the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement should be reconsidered…

Ministry of Truth?

As well as the coordinated strategic isolation of Russia by the EU, members of the G7 have signed up to a Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) designed to:

see hostile states publicly ‘called out’ for their egregious behaviour – with coordinated international attribution of cyber and other attacks.

The agreement involves sharing intelligenceattribution of hostile activity and forming a common narrative and response, effectively a military-like propaganda coordination between the countries that can be applied for a chosen agenda.

To protect its version of history the EU has created mechanisms to fight off alternative realities, narratives, or truths – which ever word fits – claiming any fact or opinion contrary to those of the stated EU decree must be condemned as pro-Kremlin, pro-Russian, or ‘Putinist’, a derogatory depiction presently supported by the corporate media.  The EU claims these ‘alternative narratives’ are the product of a Russian disinformation campaign and has developed resources to ‘disprove’ that disinformation. These are the EU vanguards of truth set up and funded by the European Council in 2015: the European External Action Service East Stratcom Task Force or unaffectionately known here as Team East Stratcom.  A brief study of their work only leads to further concerns about who is manufacturing history, but also to the likely conclusion that Team East Stratcom is made up of media studies students who drink beer and watch RT all day.

Here’s how Team East Stratcom describes itself in a Q&A:

Does the team engage in counter-propaganda?

No. It …identifies and corrects disinformation

Counter-propaganda vs correct disinformation (you say tomatto, I say tomayto).

Julian King, the EU’s security commissioner, has described it as a counter-propaganda cell.  Come on Brussels, make up your mind.

What does Team East StratCom do, and what is the role of its website EUVDisinfo?

The Task Force reports on and analyses disinformation trends, explains and exposes disinformation narratives, and raises awareness of disinformation coming from Russian State, Russian sources and spread in the Eastern neighbourhood media space

RUSSIAN MEMES: Official EU conspiracy theory diagram explains how ‘Russian disinfo’ permeates mainstream western discourse (EU External Action 2017)

Firstly, who defines what is disinformation? Is it just assumed that any information emanating from a Russian media outlet is automatically disinformation?

Narratives and sources. Does this mean that any narrative which matches a Russian one is then classed as Russian in origin? If a Western alternative media outlet publishes a narrative which happens to match that of a Russian media outlet, does this then mean that the said alternative media outlet is ‘under Russian influence’, or ‘in league with the Kremlin’?  Could such a politicized method of labelling lead to potential McCarthyite targeting of independent journalists?

The Task Force does not target opinions and does not seek to “blacklist” anyone. It checks facts and identifies disinformation coming from Russian State, Russian language and Eastern Neighbourhood media. It focuses on the disinformation message, not the messenger.

Yet, individual journalists are identified in many of these so-called ‘disinformation cases’ and described as supporters of one leader or other on the EU’s list of bogeymen. Team East StratCom – there is no need to be shy about McCarthyism.   Certain mainstream media stalwarts of establishment narratives are more upfront about whom they do and do not want in the club, as Oliver Kamm of The Times has demonstrated:

For an agency already struggling with the concept of truth, Team East StratCom is not off to a great start.

So how does Team East StratCom protect EU narratives?  The European Council made it clear in 2015 they wanted to counter narratives about regime change in Ukraine and its consequences. In fact, about half of its ‘disinformation cases’ are about Ukraine:

Ukraine tops the EUvsDisinfo database as the most frequent target with 461 references among a total of 1,000 disinformation cases reported in the course of 2018.

So how does Team East StratCom counter propaganda… sorry… correct disinformation?  The following are a few case samples that help to illuminate their methodologies (although with a budget increase from €1.1 million in 2018 to €3 million in 2019,  it may find new and diverse ones):

Disinformation Example 1: Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe

Team East StratCom argues that undermining the credibility of Ukraine benefits Russia.  It reports that RT Deutsch described Ukraine as the most corrupt country in Europe.  It then tries to debunk this using Transparency International’s corruption perception index, a chart which is created and paid for by Western neoliberal governments – the same ones that help to keep corrupt governments in power so long as they provide opportunities to serve Western corporate interests.

Team East StratCom tries to disprove this case by drawing our attention away from corruption in Europe to corruption worldwide.  This puts 60 countries ahead of Ukraine.  That is sneaky Team East StratCom because, aside from Russia, which we must believe is the most corrupt country in Europe, Ukraine actually tops the list.  So why does the EU want to hide the extent of corruption in Ukraine and is it the only thing being hidden about the country?  According to Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova the West wants to stop the world from recognising Crimea as part of Russia’s territory.  In order to do this it must maintain a manufactured reality; the narrative of Ukraine being a victim of Russian aggression and in no way a liability due, at least in part, to the West’s meddling. This approach also entails downplaying any suggestion that the West planned and orchestrated a coup d’etat in Kiev in February 2014.

Disinformation Example 2: Far-right groups in Ukraine

This extract by Team East StratCom criticises the reporting of far-right groups in Ukraine:

Dehumanise, demoralise, make Ukraine the guilty party

Pro-Kremlin disinformation about Ukraine targets audiences in Russia, in Ukraine and in third countries, including the West.  Domestic audiences in Russia are e.g. faced with narratives which dehumanise Ukrainians and show the authorities in Kyiv as a cynical modern heir to 20th century Nazism. Such a strategy can turn Ukraine into an acceptable target of the Kremlin’s military aggression.

The involvement of far right groups in the run-up to and during 2014 Maidan events and since, has already been widely reported across much of the global mainstream media, for example, here, here, here, here and here, as well as in alternate media.  To suggest that this narrative is Russian disinformation is ludicrous. What’s more, the European Parliament have already recognised in 2012 the threat of the far-right parties like Svoboda and Pravi Sektor in Ukrainian politics:

Parliament goes on to express concern about the rising nationalistic sentiment in Ukraine, expressed in support for the Svoboda Party, which, as a result, is one of the two new parties to enter the Verkhovna Rada. It recalls that racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic views go against the EU’s fundamental values and principles and therefore appeals to pro-democratic parties in the Verkhovna Rada not to associate with, endorse or form coalitions with this party.

Team East StratCom, you are implying the EU dehumanised Ukraine! But then the EU did later drop its objection as members of the same racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic party gained positions in Ukraine’s government, so perhaps you will be forgiven. Perhaps sowing a little confusion of its own, is Brussels.

Disinformation Example 3: Russia is depicted as a ‘defender’ and a ‘peacekeeper’ and the West – as the villain.

Team East Stratcom likes using Twitter graphics as evidence when ‘disproving pro-Kremlin disinformation.’  Never mind history, reason and common sense – just bring out a nice Twitter graphic!  According to disinfo mavens, any spike in Twitter activity with the words ‘Russia’ ‘Moscow’ or ‘Putin’ in reference to Venezuela is proof of a ‘pro-Kremlin’ disinformation campaign, says Team East StratCom. Here is their graphical chart of Twitter traffic:


But Russia is an ally of Venezuela so why would this not be reflected on Twitter when there is a blatant attempt by a Western aggressor to impose its military and economic will on Venezuela? Such was the situation in February when the US tried to pressure the Venezuelan government into allowing in trucks, supposedly carrying humanitarian aid, into the country. Aid as a Trojan Horse for weapons has historical context, especially with regards to the US and its new special envoy to Venezuela, Elliot Abrams, a convicted war criminal who illicitly supplied weapons to death squads in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala on behalf of the Reagan presidency in the 1980s.  Now that he is special envoy to Venezuela, it is common sense to suspect foul play. Can such people really be seen as peacekeepers, Team East Stratcom? And using a Twitter graphic to divert attention from a flagrant coup attempt by an aggressive power is more than a little contemptible.  What’s more, a few days afterwards, one of those trucks carrying supplies was found to contain nails and other materials useful for making barricades:

And so to sum up the tactics used by Team East StratCom for ‘disproving pro-Kremlin disinformation’, based on the above cases alone, a list could include for starters:

  • Categorical denial of any wrongdoing by Western powers or NATO members
  • Label any information emanating from a Russia media outlet as ‘disinformation’ or ‘Kremlin propaganda’
  • Discredit alternate media journalists who stray from Official Washington/London/Brussels position
  • Diversion and distraction – dazzle the public with colourful Twitter graphics
  • Remove any key political, geopolitical context
  • Obscure or erase history
  • Use of online tools like the Corruption Index promoted by same Western governments that fund bloody imperialist wars
  • Use emotive, jingoistic themes
  • Associate perceived ideological opponents with leaders on Western bogeyman list
  • Repetition of pejorative terms and ad hominem smears such as ‘pro-Kremlin’ and’ ‘Putinist’ to create division
  • Infer that any dissenter in the West is a ‘traitor.’

But Team East StratCom can’t erase history or delete context or bore us half to death with those Twitter graphics and still expect to retain their credibility.

What’s more, given the Russia-Trump collusion narrative has been exposed as a hoax, Team East StratCom really ought to let that one go.

Anyone for a pint?

*

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

This article was originally published on 21st Century Wire.

Nina Cross is an independent writer and researcher, and contributor to 21WIRE. To see more of her work, visit her Nina’s archive.

All images in this article are from 21st CW unless otherwise stated

Farcical Ukraine Presidential Election

April 1st, 2019 by Stephen Lendman

Ukraine is a Nazi-infested police state, a fantasy democracy, not the real thing, fundamental freedoms eliminated.

In February 2014, democratic governance was abolished, orchestrated by the Obama regime, resistance against repressive ruling authorities not tolerated.

On Sunday, round one of the farcical presidential election was held, 39 candidates on the ballot.

Three alone mattered – US-installed billionaire/oligarch incumbent Petro Poroshenko, convicted felon Yulia Timoshenko, and comedian/entertainer Vladimir Zelensky.

More on the candidates below. Sunday results were as follows: With more than half the votes counted as of early Monday morning, Zelensky leads with 30% support, Poroshenko with 16.5 (despite his single digit approval rating), and Timoshenko with 13%.

Source: BBC

Days ahead of the so-called “election,” Zelensky was expected to poll highest, Timoshenko second with a five-point lead over Poroshenko, other candidates with scant support.

Two days ahead of Sunday’s vote, a dubious poll showed Poroshenko in second place ahead of Timoshenko. If final tallies show him finishing second to Zelensky, they’ll meet in an April 21 runoff, Timoshenko and other candidates eliminated.

As president, he enjoys immunity from prosecution. If defeated in the runoff, he could be held accountable for corruption and other criminality.

Reportedly on Saturday, the day before yesterday’s vote, he ordered Ukrainian security services and police to patrol streets and seize control of polling stations on the pretext of “protect(ing) the elections.”

Most likely it was to avoid elimination in round-one voting. With single-digit support, it appeared likely. As things now stand, he survived at least until April 21.

During the late 2013/early 2014 Obama regime-orchestrated Maidan coup, he was Washington’s man in Kiev, involved in bankrolling US-supported putschists.

Nicknamed the “chocolate king,” his Roshen Confectionery Corporation is the world’s 18th largest producer of these products.

His other business interests include automotive, shipping, and media. Like other oligarchs in Ukraine and elsewhere, he amassed wealth the old-fashioned way by grand theft and other devious schemes.

Billionaire/mega-thief Timoshenko earlier was imprisoned  for embezzlement and serious “abuse of public office.”

Charges included illegally diverting $425 million meant for environmental projects into pension funds. A second case involved stealing around $130 million for personal use.

She headed United Energy Systems (UES). Her shady business practices earned her the nickname “gas princess.”

As US orchestrated 2004 Orange Revolution prime minister, she operated extrajudicially, scorning economic reform, along with furthering her presidential ambitions, a platform if gained for greater abuse of power and corruption.

Zelensky has close ties to Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi. As appointed governor in eastern Ukraine, he oversaw the May 2, 2014 Odessa massacre, eliminating scores of coup opponents.

Kolomoyskyi and Poroshenko are bitter rivals. The incumbent accused him of supporting Zelensky “to take revenge against the” regime for nationalizing his Privatbank. 

Zelensky portrayed Ukraine’s president in a television series – now the frontrunner to assume the post after the April 21 runoff.

No matter who’s named Ukrainian president later this month, dirty business as usual will triumph like earlier in 2014.

It’s how things work in America, most other Western countries, Israel, and elsewhere. Powerful interests run things, elections farcical when held. Ordinary people have no say – for sure not in Ukraine.

Intermittent war in Donbass continues. No matter who’s anointed Ukrainian president, dark forces in Washington will control things, no breakthrough in Minsk peace talks with Kiev likely.

On Monday, Donetsk Peoples’ Republic operational command head Edward Basurin said “(t)here will be no dialogue with Zelensky,” adding: 

“I would like to remind you that he, along with his team Kvartal 95, visited the conflict zone, gave concerts, encouraged the Ukrainian servicemen-criminals to kill civilians. That is why there will be no dialogue with him. There will be also no breakthrough in the Minsk negotiating process.”

Basurin believes there’s a high probability that Poroshenko will order belligerence in Donbass ahead of the April 21 runoff, perhaps declaring martial law like earlier as a way to help him stay in power.

Separately, Timoshenko claimed the vote count her team tallied showed her finishing second with 16% support – ahead of Poroshenko.

She accused security forces of tampering with Sunday’s electoral process. For Life party candidate Yuriy Boyko made a similar accusation.

Ukraine’s Central Election Commission reported no serious irregularities on Sunday. The Interior Ministry said there were over 2,100 reports of violations, 39 criminal cases opened Sunday evening to investigate them.

Nothing in Ukraine is simple, its rule despotic, its electoral process deeply flawed. Moscow questioned its legitimacy, saying up to 10 million Ukrainian expats in Russia were denied the right to vote on Sunday.

They fled cross-border because of war on Donbass, forced conscription of military-aged men, economic hardships, out-of-control corruption, and despotic rule – clearly hostile to Poroshenko, why he disenfranchised them.

Given the disturbing state of things in Ukraine, no matter who serves as president, ordinary people in the country will be ill-served, exploited and abused.

*

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

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Imagine being emotionally blackmailed by your doctor to have your baby vaccinated with a lethal cocktail of 13 vaccines, which included two doses of the DTaP, three doses of the oral rotavirus vaccine and two doses of the polio vaccination. It sounds impossible, doesn’t it?

However, this is exactly what happened to Alisa Neathery when she took her six month-old unvaccinated baby to the doctor for the first time.

She told VacTruth:

“Prior to the shots being given, when the doctor was discussing the pros of getting vaccinated with me, he explained how he was from a village in Africa. That we were lucky in America to have the opportunity to receive vaccines because where he was from, the mothers had to have like 11 kids each, since most would die off from disease because they were not as fortunate to receive vaccines like we are here in America. He really pushed them on me hard. He spent a lot of time convincing me to give Bently the vaccines, but when it was done, we never saw the doctor again.”

According to Alisa, the doctor spent a long time deciding exactly which vaccinations Bently should receive and told Alisa that they shouldn’t give him too many. The doctor eventually decided on a total of 13 vaccinations, which Alisa now believes led to Bently’s death just five days later.

If this were not bad enough, the hospital then decided to blame Alisa for Bently’s death and called child protective services (CPS), who immediately removed her two year-old daughter from the home and gave her to the grandmother to care for her.

Fortunately, her daughter was returned a few months later.

Dr. Offit Says Babies Can Tolorate 10,000 Vaccines In One Day

In 2002, Dr. Paul Offit wrote a paper entitled Addressing Parents’ Concerns: Do Multiple Vaccines Overwhelm or Weaken the Infant’s Immune System? In his paper, he explained to parents that an infant can theoretically tolerate as many as 10,000 vaccinations at any one time and that a neonate could develop the capacity to respond to foreign antigens before they are even born.

He wrote that:

“A more practical way to determine the diversity of the immune response would be to estimate the number of vaccines to which a child could respond at one time. If we assume that 1) approximately 10 ng/mL of antibody is likely to be an effective concentration of antibody per epitope (an immunologically distinct region of a protein or polysaccharide), 2) generation of 10 ng/mL requires approximately 103 B-cells per mL,3) a single B-cell clone takes about 1 week to reach the 103 progeny B-cells required to secrete 10 ng/mL of antibody (therefore, vaccine-epitope-specific immune responses found about 1 week after immunization can be generated initially from a single B-cell clone per mL), 4) each vaccine contains approximately 100 antigens and 10 epitopes per antigen (ie, 103 epitopes), and 5) approximately 107 B cells are present per mL of circulating blood, then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 107 B cells per mL by 103 epitopes per vaccine).”

And he continued by adding:

“Of course, most vaccines contain far fewer than 100 antigens (for example, the hepatitis B, diphtheria, and tetanus vaccines each contain 1 antigen), so the estimated number of vaccines to which a child could respond is conservative. But using this estimate, we would predict that if 11 vaccines were given to infants at one time, then about 0.1% of the immune system would be ‘used up.’” [1]

Dr. Offit used the words estimate and predict throughout his paper, which leads many to believe that this paper was based upon POSSIBLE outcomes and contained very little scientific fact.

Sadly, it appears that Dr. Offit’s words were taken seriously by Bently’s doctor when he decided to vaccinate this previously unvaccinated baby with a total of 13 vaccinations in one day, in what can only be described as a bid to catch up.

The vaccinations included:

  • Two doses of the DTaP – diptheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine
  • Hib – haemophilus influenzae type B vaccine
  • IPV- inactivated polio vaccine
  • Pneumococcal vaccine
  • Three doses of oral rotavirus vaccine

Bently was also given three other vaccinations, which appear to be unidentified on his vaccination card, plus the hepatitis B vaccine and oral polio vaccine.

Little Bently died in his mother’s arms just five days later.

Bently-Neathery-3

Alisa told VacTruth:

“My son Bently was almost 6 months old when I took him to the doctor for a visit and to begin his first round of vaccinations. I had decided to wait on his vaccinations until he was closer to the age when the sudden infant death (SIDS) rate lowers to begin him on the recommended vaccinations.

That day was April 5, 2012. He did have some congestion in his lungs. The doctor stated it was a slight congestion and that everything would be just fine. He was completely healthy and above his percentile for his age.

The doctor gave him 2 rounds of DTaP in one shot. I did not know this at the time. I didn’t find this out until after my son passed away and I went up to the doctor’s office to ask for his medical report from our visit. That particular injection was the worst for him.

As soon as they stabbed him with the needle, he let out a giant scream. After that, he was not the same. This injection actually happened to turn into a hard red knot on his leg where they stabbed him with DTaP. Even until he was laid to rest one month later, he still has the same hard red knot. I was never asked about why it was there.”

She continued by stating:

“He wouldn’t let me touch his leg. He screamed and cried constantly. I knew babies were fussy after vaccines, but this was excessive. His little vein in his head would bulge out when he cried. I didn’t know what to do. I had nothing telling me this was in any way unusual.

Within a few days he stopped making eye contact with us and he began to twitch and jerk. One side of his body began to slump slightly. If he was not being held, he would scream and cry constantly.

On April 10, 2012, my son appeared to be exceptionally well and he and my daughter played and watched TV while I cleaned the house. Around noon, my daughter laid down for a nap. Around 2 o’clock, my son began getting very sleepy. So he and I sat in our big chair and he fell asleep on my chest.

Two hours later, my husband came home from work and thought my son wasn’t moving. He woke me up saying the baby wasn’t breathing. All hell broke loose from that point on. Bently was pronounced dead at 5:35 pm. Five days after receiving his first and only round of vaccinations.”

This leaves many of us to question whether Bently’s doctor acted in the best interests of his patient or whether his actions were totally irresponsible and amounted to medical negligence.

Bently-Neathery-4

Mother Did Not Give Her Full Informed Consent

In recent weeks, Dr. Lucija Tomljenovic was asked by activist parental groups in Texas and California to write an opinion in support of resisting the bills calling for abolishing all exemptions to vaccinations other than medical. [2]

In answer to their request, she wrote:

“Medical ethics demands that vaccination should be carried out with the participant’s full and informed consent. This necessitates an objective disclosure of the known or foreseeable vaccination benefits and risks. The way in which pediatric vaccines are often promoted by various health authorities indicates that such disclosure is rarely given from the basis of best available knowledge but rather, largely unproven and/or untenable assumptions on both, vaccine safety and effectiveness.”

Bently’s mother told VacTruth that she was never informed by her doctor exactly which vaccinations were going to be given to her son, nor was she informed of any risks associated with these vaccinations.

She told VacTruth that:

“The doctor asked me to bring him in each month after that April 5th visit to receive each round of shots in just a few months. He even stated that he didn’t want to give my sons little body too many. However the decision he made to give him 13 vaccines was completely excessive I believe.

Had I of known that’s what he was doing I would have refused. However he wasn’t completely forthcoming about what he was doing that day. As I said it wasn’t until I picked up his medical record a couple weeks later that I noticed the 3 separate sheets of paper with in his file stating what shots were ordered and I noticed that on each one it said DTaP twice.”

Many people may question the reason why Bently’s mother did not ask exactly which vaccinations her son was being given before her son was vaccinated, but she told VacTruth that she trusted her doctor and believed that he knew what he was doing.

Sadly, Alisa is one of thousands of parents trusting their doctors every day.

Many parents are unaware that every vaccination carries some risk of an adverse reaction and this is a fact that Dr. Tomljenovic made very clear in her letter to the members of the California Senate Committee. She wrote:

“All drugs are associated with some risks of adverse reactions. Because vaccines represent a special category of drugs which are by and large given to healthy individuals, and for prophylaxis against diseases to which an individual may never be exposed, the margin of tolerance for side effects is very narrow (in fact, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concurs with this point [1]) and careful assessment of risks versus benefits essential in deciding whether one should be vaccinated or not. Removing the parental rights to exemptions to childhood vaccinations will put vulnerable but otherwise healthy individuals at risk of serious adverse reactions to vaccinations. Such an outcome should be of concern since serious adverse reactions following routine vaccinations in children, including deaths, permanent neurological damage and disabling autoimmune and/or inflammatory conditions have been clearly described in the scientific literature [2-14]. Notably, cases of seizure attacks and deaths occurring as a result of routine vaccinations have occurred even in children and individuals without any relevant prior medical history [7, 15, 16] and in some cases a direct causal link was established between vaccination and the serious adverse reactions [16].”

In her letter, she referred to a paper written by Ken Tsumiyama et al. and stated that:

“It is further likely that an increasing number of individuals, regardless of their genetic background, will react adversely if exposures to compounds with immune adjuvant properties exceed a certain threshold. This concept has in fact been clearly demonstrated by Tsumiyama et al. [57] who in 2009 showed that repeated immunization with antigen causes systemic autoimmunity in mice otherwise not prone to spontaneous autoimmune diseases.” [2]

Interested by this statement, I decided to research their paper, titled Self-Organized Criticality Theory of Autoimmunity, and discovered that Tsumiyama et al. had concluded:

“Systemic autoimmunity appears to be the inevitable consequence of over-stimulating the host’s immune ‘system’ by repeated immunization with antigen, to the levels that surpass system’s self-organized criticality.” [3]

If they are correct, then their paper proves that Dr. Paul Offit is incorrect and that multiple vaccinations can overwhelm an infant’s immune system, causing a variety of adverse reactions and, in some cases, death.

In further reference to their paper, Dr. Tomlejenovic stated that:

“It is true that people are exposed constantly to infectious agent in the environment, however, there is a vast difference between natural exposure and that induced by vaccinations. The reason for this is that the immune response induced by vaccination is greatly amplified, owing to the addition of adjuvants with immune-stimulating properties.” [2] (emphasis added)

Her words make absolute perfect sense and parents should ask themselves whether or not their children are being over-vaccinated.

The Lasting Impact Of Bently’s Tragic Loss

I asked Alisa how she and her family have coped with the tragedy of losing a baby at such a young age, and if she had any words that she would like to share with other families. She said:

Bently-Neathery-2

“I wish he were still here! It kills me daily to see my daughter play ALONE. She shouldn’t have had to go through this kind of loss, none of us should. He was such a sweetheart. He adored his sister, father and I. All of that was stolen from us the day he received all those vaccines.

After that day, he was no longer the same. It completely ripped my entire family apart. Most of my family thought it must have been my fault because infants just don’t die like that, or so they thought.

All his short life he had been a healthy, happy and extremely content little boy. Ahead of his percentiles and then to just die … so, to my family, it must have been my fault somehow. They did not support my husband and I. We did nothing to deserve that and it’s all because some dangerous, ignorant doctor decided to ruin our lives and steal all the joy from us by killing our son.

I know without a doubt Bently WOULD STILL BE ALIVE if it weren’t for the vaccines and that damn doctor and the decisions he made that day. He caused my son to lose his life.

Since that day, my grandma, my mom and my husband’s mom have all died. They went to their graves being on bad terms with my husband and me. Again, something we can never get back, and we feel it’s all due to my son’s death being ruled as unexplained.

It was listed on his death certificate as ‘S.U.D.S. SUDDEN UNEXPLAINED UNEXPECTED DEATH SYNDROME.’ There has been no justice for my son whatsoever. We want answers, answers that we never got! All we have been left with is loss after loss after loss! That is not ok on any level! I will never vaccinate again, period! We cannot afford to lose any more.”

Conclusion

Deciding on whether to vaccinate your baby is never easy. In this case, Alisa decided to hold back on having her baby vaccinated until he was older. She was then emotionally blackmailed and forced into having her baby over-vaccinated with a massive cocktail of vaccines, by whom many would call an overzealous doctor.

She was not offered any information on the vaccinations being given to her baby, she was not given any paperwork and she was not offered any advice on any possible adverse reactions.

Alisa trusted her doctor to do the right thing and was let down in the worse possible way and believes that the doctor should be held accountable for the death of her son. She said:

“No one was ever held accountable for my son Bently’s death. That kills me every day.”

She is now bringing a case against her doctor.

If you would like to help Alisa and her family to get justice, please go to Baby Bently’s Support Campaign.

*

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

Sources

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/109/1/124.full.html

http://parentsandcarersagainstinjustice.weebly.com/professional-papers.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2795160/

All images in this article are from VacTruth.com

Al Skeilbiyyeh – on the 23rd March 2019 I entered the Syrian Christian town of Al Skeilbiyyeh. Between 4 and 5pm, at least four villages to the west of the town were attacked by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) forces embedded to the north of the villages.  HTS is a poorly disguised rebrand of Al Qaeda or Nusra Front in Syria and now controls the majority of Idleb province and terrorist-held areas of Northern Hama bordering Al Skeilbiyyeh. 

.


One of the child victims of the suspected chemical attack in Northern Hama, arriving at Al Skeilbiyyeh hospital. (Photo: local photographer)

The villages of al-Rasif, al-Aziziyyeh, al-Khandaq and al-Jayyid were hit by an estimated 5 mortars. 34 victims of a suspected chemical attack were brought to Al Skeilbiyyeh hospital after being treated at the scene of the attack. I spoke to pediatrician, Dr Modhesh Farha who informed me that three children were among the victims, one of whom was severely affected with breathing difficulties. By the time I arrived at the hospital at around 11pm, two of the children had been released back to their families.


One of the victims suffering with breathing difficulty – Sajiaa Abu Kahla, from the village of al-Khandaq (Photo: Vanessa Beeley) 

Medical staff and doctors told me that victims were washed at the scene of the attack before being brought to the hospital where doctors had administered oxygen, saline drips, antibiotics in some cases, and cortisone (steroids) for the shock. Symptoms described to me included – respiratory problems, sinus problems, skin blisters, damage to the cornea of the eyes and nausea. While I was speaking with doctors in front of one patient, she went into what appeared to be a toxic shock reaction (also confirmed by the doctor). The following video shows this moment – warning, it is distressing:

I spoke with some of the victims who were already starting to recover. They described the attack taking place between 4 and 5pm. They are used to regular mortar attacks from the extremist groups embedded in the surrounding countryside but this was the first time they had experienced what appears to have been a chemical attack. The nephew of one victim, Sajiaa Abu Kahla, from the village of al-Khandaq (see photo above), described his aunt struggling to breathe after inhaling the white “smoke” that was seen after the attack, he told me:

Smoke, white smoke, its color was white, it covered the land, this was in the village of al-Rasif”.

Another victim I spoke to, Nawfal Tawbar, described the same white smoke that hovered about one meter above the ground and was very thick and static. He told me that he had also had difficulty breathing, he reported a stinging in his sinuses. Tawbar also reported a strong smell of bleach from the smoke. This testimony was repeated almost without variation by all victims I manged to interview despite the chaos in the hospital as ambulances brought more patients for treatment. Tawbar’s interview is here:

We were told at the hospital that a Syrian/Russian team had been immediately despatched to collect soil samples etc and to ensure the area was safe for residents to return to once they had recovered sufficiently. HTS were being held responsible for the attack. To date, I am unaware if the OPCW has been mobilised to investigate this event. Previously, on 24th November 2018, so-called “moderate rebels” appeared to use chemical weapons in an attack on districts of western Aleppo, the OPCW has not produced a final report on this attack so far, despite having deployed the Fact Finding Mission (FFM) in December 2018 and January 2019.

As far as I am aware no colonial media outlet reported on this suspected chemical attack. A quick google search reveals two reports by SouthFront and AlMasdar News and local news agencies. There were no White Helmet theatrics to attract western media, no opportunity to further criminalise the Syrian government and its allies. The wrong kind of Syrians were affected by this attack – the villages and towns in this region are steadfast in their resistance against the U.S coalition campaign to destabilise Syria and to topple the Syrian government – their voices, their suffering does not serve the agenda of the NATO-aligned media.

Ongoing terrorist attacks

The towns of Al Skeilbiyyeh and Mhardeh, about 3o minutes apart, have been under sustained attack by the HTS-controlled extremist armed groups over the last few weeks. Despite a Russian/Turkish brokered ceasefire, the armed groups have systematically been targeting civilian and residential areas in both towns. In Mhardeh, the electrical power station is constantly under attack which has a detrimental effect on the whole country as it supplies electricity to an extensive area of Syria, including Damascus.

I had previously visited Al Skeilbiyyeh shortly after a particularly destructive series of attacks. Commander of the local, volunteer National Defence Forces, Nabel Alabdalla, told me that he believed the “rebels” were using a new, more destructive form of C4 explosive that was capable of causing much more widespread damage to entire neighbourhoods. Al Skeilbiyyeh had received more than 25 rockets/mortars over a three week period, invariably targeting schools, civilian homes and busy markets. Watch my full interview with Nabel just a few days after one of the attacks:

On September 7th 2018, the same armed groups supplied and promoted by the U.S coalition, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia had targeted Mhardeh with ground-launched cluster munitions. Two days later, the same munitions were used to target Al Skeilbiyyeh causing considerable damage to infrastructure but thankfully not claiming any lives.

In Mhardeh, 13 civilians were murdered in this attack, some dying later in hospital from the awful wounds they had sustained. Shadi Yousef Shehda lost his three children, his wife and his mother in the Mhardeh massacre. I met with Shadi over Christmas 2018 when he told me that he would never leave the “city of the sun”, Mhardeh, despite his unimaginable grief and loss.

Again, these attacks barely register in western media while the hysteria over retaliatory attacks by the Syrian Arab Army and allies is commonplace. Without these defensive measures by the SAA and Russia who knows how many more civilians would have lost their lives by now in the towns bordering terrorist-held northern Hama and Idleb. This threat to besieged Syrian towns appears to be of no consequence to media in the West.


One of the ground launched cluster munition rockets that targeted Al Skeilbiyyeh in September 2018. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

As one National Defence Forces soldier says in this video…. “the terrorists are cowards” – they will never face the soldiers of Al Skeilbiyyeh on the battlefield, they prefer to kill or maim the elderly, children, pregnant women – on 16th March 2019 three children were injured during one attack, one child later died from their wounds. Ayat Mahmoud, a young Palestinian woman from Damascus living in Al Skeilbiyyeh was also killed in this attack. She was pregnant, her child was due in one week. What did these children or an unborn child do that they should be targeted by western-sponsored terrorism in their own homes.

This shameful aspect of this externally fomented war is hidden from view by The Guardian, the BBC, CNN and Channel 4 and others, it is unreported and disappeared just as many of the terrorist atrocities have been conveniently ignored throughout the 8 year war that has been waged against the Syrian people.

The UK Foreign Office (UK FCO) has poured £ 2.8 billion into “humanitarian aid” for Syria. Aid that is supplied predominantly into areas controlled by HTS, including Idleb. On the 27th March 2019, Ambassador Jonathan Allen, UK Deputy Permanent Representative to UN, made a statement at the Security Council Briefing on Syria during which he proudly confirmed the expenditure of taxpayers money that has serious potential to be financing terrorism in Syria (emphasis added):

 At the Brussels Conference, the United Kingdom pledged £400 million – or $530 million. And indeed we have mobilised over £2.81 billion to the Syrian Crisis since 2012 – that’s over £3.7 billion. That’s our largest ever response

Allen makes no mention of the armed group attacks on the Syrian Christian communities in the region. Nor does he mention that the UK FCO intelligence asset, the White Helmets, are embedded with the armed groups (including HTS) in Madiq Citadel just 500m from the outskirts of Al Skeilbiyyeh town.

No reports have been issued by the White Helmets condemning the targeting of children and civilian areas by the armed groups, or the use of prohibited weapons including potential chemical weapons last weekend – meanwhile the UK FCO continues to claim that a primary role of the White Helmets is to document “war crimes”.  Apparently the White Helmets only report on alleged “war crimes” committed by the Syrian government, army or allies that coroborrate an aggressive UK FCO interventionist policy, and not on the daily crimes committed by the extremist armed groups against defenceless civilians.

Confronting terrorism with resistance and steadfastness


The newly restored bell-tower in Al Skeilbiyyeh. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

What enables these besieged towns to keep resisting and to weather the storm that has threatened them for more than 6 years since the armed groups consolidated in Northern Hama and Idleb?

According to Nabel Alabdalla, it is the steadfastness of the ordinary people, their refusal to abandon their land and their country. It is the belief in the “way of the martyr“, the ultimate sacrifice for their mother, Syria. The soldiers I have spoken to across Syria and their families genuinely believe that the greatest honour bestowed by God is that of dying for their country, dying to defend their families, their people and their way of life.


One of the volunteer NDF soldiers in Al Skeilbiyyeh. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

This belief in solidarity, unity, resistance and ultimate victory for the righteous forms the backbone of the fighting forces that have defended Syria for eight arduous and devastating years.


View from the Assumption of the Virgin Mary monastery that has been targeted many times by the terrorist groups less than 500m away. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

The morning after the suspected chemical attack we all gathered at the church in Al Skeilbiyyeh. The chaos of the previous night was still fresh in our memories, soldiers had been deployed to guard the hospital in case HTS decided to target it. This was a new day. The day of blessing the newly rebuilt bell-tower that had been destroyed in a previous terrorist attack, a project personally undertaken by Nabel Alabdalla.


Nabel Alabdalla in Al Skeilbiyyeh with commander of Mhardeh NDF, Simon AlWakil. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

The bell had been gifted to Al Skeilbiyyeh by the Russian Orthodox church almost 200 years ago. The church had been built around the bell. Now history came full circle as the bell was restored to its rightful place and a service was held to celebrate this momentous demonstration of resistance and to honour the martyrs whose bloodshed and sacrifice has made such events possible.


The Patriarch blesses the recently restored bell-tower in Al Skeilbiyyeh. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

The service in the simple  church was a moving and powerful recognition of the “way of the martyr”, tears were shed quietly by the families, mothers and wives of the soldiers who have given their lives to protect their loved ones. As I witnessed the sharing and outpouring of grief and pride, I began to fully comprehend why this town will never kneel to hatred and violent extremism.


Elderly lady wearing the traditional headdress of Al Skeilbiyyeh. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

In front of me sat an elderly lady almost bent double, perhaps with arthritis. She wore the traditional headdress of Al Skeilbiyyeh. During the service, despite her physical discomfort, she rose when required and prostrated herself on the floor to pray. Her unwavering belief in prayer and the power of the protection of the Virgin Mary seemed to sustain her throughout the hour long service.

In front of her sat another elderly lady, her hair pulled back in a silver twist. She sat next to a young child wearing a black bow in her hair. Both were transfixed by the ceremony, old and young absorbed in the making of history and the dreams of a future without war.


During the service in Al Skeilbiyyeh church. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

After the service, we all entered the courtyard to witness the blessing of the bell-tower and to hear the bells being rung by the sons of martyrs, the honoured few who are given this privilege. The town’s brass band accompanied the bell-ringers filling the air with the sound of music that echoed across the valley towards the gatherings of armed groups, defying them to attack on this glorious Sunday morning.

The guns and mortars were silenced. Despite all the threats and the impotent extremist rage, the people of this town still stand proud and strong – “carrying the candles of peace and love in one hand and with the other hand on the trigger of the gun” as Nabel Alabdalla has often said.

The following video is a compilation of the bell-ringing. The passion demonstrated by the bell-ringers is indicative of the love these people have for their history, their culture, their town and their country. This is why this war will be won by Syrians (and allies) defending Syria and why the U.S Coalition of terror will never be victorious, there is no place in this secular society for ideological extremism and tyranny.

*

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

This article was originally published on 21st Century Wire.

Vanessa Beeley is an independent journalist, peace activist, photographer and associate editor at 21st Century Wire. Vanessa was a finalist for one of the most prestigious journalism awards – the 2017 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism – whose winners have included the likes of Robert Parry in 2017, Patrick Cockburn, Robert Fisk, Nick Davies and the Bureau for Investigative Journalism team. Please support her work at her Patreon account. 

Everyone knows the reality in Venezuela. Assistance is based on medical ethics: No patient is asked about political affiliation or payment. Doctors are trained in the values ​​of the Revolution, which speak for themselves, no inoculation is needed

***

The history of Cuban international collaboration is marked by adherence to ethical precepts established in our state’s conduct and positions. Our government does not interfere in the internal affairs of any country and respects national sovereignty and international law. The hundreds of thousands of compatriots who provide their services on five continents believe in, and abide by, these principles. Thus, strengthened by these beliefs, we work in the homeland of Bolívar and Chávez.

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has welcomed the second largest number of internationalist Cubans, since January 1, 1959, surpassed only by the sister nation of Angola, which lived, worked, fought, and died with a great number of our sons and daughters. Venezuela is also the country in which Cuban collaborators participate in the widest range of sectors, including sports, culture, education, communications, agriculture, the food industry, science, energy, and transportation, among others.

With the popular victory and the arrival of Comandante Hugo Chávez Frías to the Presidency, the Bolivarian Revolution put human beings at the center of its work. For the first time, many marginalized and poor Venezuelans were treated like valued citizens, with access to social programs that the government implemented, backed by 73% of the GDP investment to benefit the majority.

Thus the social missions emerged, created and driven forward by Chávez as “the soul of the Revolution,” given their inclusive, popular, participative, democratic, human, solidary, and genuinely socialist nature.

Within this context, into the heart of the people and their revolution, came Cuban collaborators. Fidel delineated the fundamental principles of the cooperation: First of all: serve the Venezuelan people well, prepare those who will follow us, and care for our brigades. These premises have been, are, and will be what guides the Cuban presence in this sister country.

Misión Barrio Adentro Salud (Into the Neighborhood Health Mission) has had the greatest impact. Our collaborators are distributed in 24 states and 335 municipalities of the country. They live in all parishes and offer services in more than 1,500 facilities. They can be found on the steep hillsides, with the poor, and just as easily on the rolling hills where the rich and middle class bourgeois population lives.

Hearts in Venezuela

Everyone knows the reality in Venezuela; assistance is based on medical ethics.No one is asked about political affiliation or payment. They are people, patients, human beings … and that is enough to sensitize doctors trained in the values ​​of the Revolution, which speak for themselves, no inoculation is needed.

Examples abound in the daily work and at exceptional moments, such as those during the opposition thug violence (guarimbas) of 2017, or January 22-23 this year, and even more recently, on February 23, when those who suffered gunshots, blows, and even burns, both Chavistas and supporters of the opposition, were treated by Cubans at Comprehensive Diagnostic Centers, all with the same disposition and quality attention.

At these centers, after a clinical examination, the most direct, effective method of identifying an ailment, patients without distinction may undergo tests, receive treatment with medication, rehabilitation, or surgery, and, if necessary, specialized assistance in Cuba.

Supervision? Yes, it exists, but differs significantly in focus as compared to what the enemies of Cuba and Venezuela propose. As in any other part of the world, statistics are gathered, not in the mercantilist sense, but to evaluate the impact of treatment and preventative work on health and quality of life.

In the 18 years since Misión Barrio Adentro Salud was launched, 1.552 billion medical consultations have been provided, 1,473,317 lives saved, and 3,391,967 surgeries performed.

Among the 10,388 services offered are assistance to the disabled, orthodontics, ophthalmological treatments, and ongoing support for patients with chronic diseases like diabetes. In only ten years, 209,607 patients suffering from diabetic foot ulcers have been treated with HebertProt-P, a high-impact product of Cuban science, which has contributed to lowering amputations to 3% among those treated, while Venezuelan statistics show that 40 to 60% of patients who do not receive the Cuban product require amputation.

Something that distinguishes the work of the health system developed by the Bolivarian Revolution through the Barrio Adentro mission – first with Cuban doctors and now with the new generation of Venezuelan community doctors in the 13,617 popular clinics – is field work, door to door, with integrated teams and the participation of other community actors, not to seek votes or apply political pressure, but to practice social medicine, that which, from the soul, cures disease.

No Cuban Agents or Soldiers

Grateful Cubans remain in Venezuela, voluntarily and with a high sense of courage and revolutionary integrity. Those who fulfill a solidary duty remain united with Venezuelans in the face of aggression and threats from imperialism and its lackeys. Only those who came looking for the good life have abandoned the cause. There are no Cuban agents or soldiers on Bolivarian soil, only collaborators who value peace, love, and life, who teach and learn every day.

As in Cuba and through Mission Robinson – a name taken from the pseudonym of Simón Bolívar’s teacher – 3,095,546 Venezuelans have learned to read and write, using in this lofty cause Cuba’s “Yes, I can” method.

We can affirm with certainty that the Venezuelan people are now more cultured and freer; thinking, reasoning, and deciding their own future, thanks to the social missions of Venezuela and Cuba.

Constitutional President Nicolás Maduro Moros has strengthened the Hugo Chávez Frías Missions and Great Socialist Missions System, reaffirming that they constitute a source of social, economic, and political power. Shoulder to shoulder, for peace and love, Cubans will always accompany you.

In context:

  • No Cuban doctor denies service to a patient and much less risks the life of one to achieve political ends.
  • Cuban international medical collaboration has existed for over 55 years and has a presence in 124 countries, with more than 400,000 health workers providing services.
  • Since Cuban medical collaboration began in Venezuela, more than 140,000 health workers have participated, offering millions of medical consultations, while more than 24,000 Venezuelan community doctors have been trained.
  • The Barrio Adentro I and II missions have brought health to the people, altruistically, as characterizes our professionals.
  • Only those who support the coup from abroad would attempt to sully their honor.
  • Cuban collaboration in Venezuela is an expression of the solidarity defended by Fidel and Chávez.
  • More than 220,000 Cuban specialists from different sectors have served on Bolivarian soil over the years. This is the real Cuban army, not the one that coup leaders concoct.

*

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

Featured image: President Díaz-Canel visits Venezuelan patients being treated by Cuban doctors. Photo: Estudio Revolución

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Cuba’s International Collaboration Programme and Social Missions: Principles and Truths from Venezuela
  • Tags: ,

There is an inseparable connection between the pursuit of an ecological future and the pursuit of justice. We can have both or we will have neither. That needs to be our guide for the economic and ecological transformation to come.

Two underlying global dynamics are leading us toward self-destruction.

First, economic activity is relentlessly driving ecological damage through pollution, depletion, and habitat destruction. The result is the accelerating sixth global mass extinction of the Anthropocene. This is extraordinary.

A cataclysmic event with global geophysical consequences for the ecosphere is the result of self-conscious human action. In the past, periodic mass extinction were unleashed by forces like mass volcanism pouring gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, or the result of a huge meteor strike ending the age of dinosaurs killing most living creatures and leading to the extinction of 75% of all species.

The truth is that current human conduct is unsustainable. Unless substantially reformed, it will end as a consequence of ecological collapse and the great dying now underway. Mass death will be shared by humanity and not just by others, the insects and amphibians now vanishing globally at alarming rates. Mitigating the consequences of the great dying will require deliberate and quick action to eliminate fossil fuel pollution, to pursue a zero pollution, zero waste industrial ecology, to practice an ecological agriculture, forestry, aquaculture.

Second, is understanding that the practice of pollution, depletion, habitat destruction rests upon injustice, inequality, and enormous disparities of power between the few and the many. The world led by a billionaire class is incompatible with both the effective practice of democracy and an ecological turn. While some billionaires may harbor ecological sentiments, the existing market rules under which they have created and expand their wealth and power are based upon the practice of ecological pillage and inequality as usual.

Our central task is more than just installing solar panels and wind machines. The good news is that an ecological turn is both within our technical capabilities and can be guided by straightforward reforms of the price system and a legal mandate for fiduciary responsibility as the pursuit of ecological ends and justice. Our difficulties are largely political, and therefore amenable to democratic processes and insistent demands of millions, and soon to be billions, in the street.

Guiding the pursuit of profit or surpluses toward ecological ends, for a global market system to restore and protect the global ecosphere and the global commons of air, soil, ocean means first, comprehensive new ecological market rules that send clear price signals for sustainability where sustainable goods and services are cheaper gain market share and become more profitable, and second, a legally binding definition of fiduciary responsibility that the pursuit of economic growth results in ecological improvement in the context of social and ecological justice, for example, the replacement of fossil fuels with energy user owned renewables.

The social and economic context is a global convergence upon sustainable and just norms for all. The results are ecological sustainability, shared global prosperity, and building a global peace system that replaces a war system.

The rise of toxic nationalism, of Trumpism in the United States and similar excrescences globally are a reaction, in part, to the inequality and unfairness of business as usual. What is particularly pathetic in this expression of desperation is a willingness to embrace climate denial and polices of roll back of all ecological regulations as part of the relief promised by Trump et. al. whose message is wrapped in familiar racist tropes against dark skinned immigrants and the “danger” posed by desperate migrants seeking asylum.

The economics of efficiency and zero fuel cost renewables with falling capital costs and improving efficacy is leading by fits and starts toward a global renewable transformation. At the same time, the deepening and emergent consequences of climate change will lead to serious action. While elements of the Republican Party will continue to deny the reality of climate change, these policies have the same shelf life as denying gravity because falling down is unpleasant. Wild fire, floods, droughts, super storms, winter tornadoes, crop failures are making it clear that the clock is ticking louder and louder. The necessity to deal with the consequences of climate change before geophysical forces foreclose options is become clearer by the minute. The debate is now switching to what must be done, and how to do it.

Our key global challenge is to create the financial tools and market rules to encourage ecological economic growth in a way that supports social and ecological justice. We will have both ecological sustainability and social justice or we will have neither. That is the lens through which to scrutinize and pursue a Green New Deal and our future policies.

*

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

Roy Morrison builds Solar Farms. His next book (forthcoming) is EEG: Reversing Climate Change and Building an Ecological Civilization.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on An Ecological Future and the Pursuit of Justice: The Key Challenge of Our Times

Britain’s Mother of All Crises

April 1st, 2019 by Rob Sewell

The Mother of Parliaments is now home to the mother of all crises. Brexit has tested the UK’s institutions and unwritten constitution to their limits. We are in uncharted waters – and in Theresa May’s case, in a rapidly sinking boat without a life vest.

The Maybot – inept, and stubborn as a mule – is determined to push through her hated Brexit deal. This is despite the fact that she has racked up the first and fourth largest defeats in parliamentary history.

But she had a big shock, not from Michel Barnier, but from the Speaker of the House of Commons. Mr Bercow used a precedent dating from 1604 to block her plans. As a result, the Tory leader is unlikely to be able to batter her opposition into submission by endlessly re-submitting her deal to a “meaningful vote”. Bercow has become yet another thorn in the side of May’s government amid Britain’s constitutional drama.

Government in name only

Faced with a hostile parliament, May demagogically appealed to the “people” to help her to resolve the crisis. “You’re tired of the infighting, you’re tired of the political games,” she said, blaming the parliamentarians. “I am on your side.”

But the Prime Minister’s speech backfired, alienating everyone – Leavers and Remainers alike. It is looking extremely unlikely she will ever get her deal through. She has well and truly flogged the proverbial dead horse.

Weary MPs have rubbed salt in the Tory leader’s wounds by voting to “take back control”, giving themselves a say in how to resolve the parliamentary paralysis. But it is not clear if this is even possible. The only clear majority in Parliament is against a no-deal Brexit. Yet this is the default option if the eventual deadline (whenever that may be) comes without reaching a majority for any other alternative.

Tory Brexiteers are fuming at the thought of seeing a “Brexit in name only” deal being passed. Meanwhile, with the Prime Minister and her party now deprived of any power, Britain is left with a government in name only.

The EU is also getting increasingly frustrated, fearing the worst. “This is a circus that is beyond comprehension,” said one senior EU diplomat working on Brexit. Another senior Brussels figure involved in talks likened it to “dealing with a failed state”. Faced with a broken prime minister with a last minute dodgy plan, what can the EU offer?

Sharpening the knives

Many of May’s own side are loudly and publicly calling for her to resign. The Tories are at each other’s throats, fiddling while Rome burns. The only thing that unites them is the feeling that the current Conservative party leader should go.

“I’m afraid it’s all over for the PM,” tweeted George Freeman, Tory MP. “She’s done her best. But across the country you can see the anger. Everyone feels betrayed. Government’s gridlocked. Trust in democracy collapsing. That can’t go on.”

Dominic Grieve, another Tory MP and former Attorney General, said in the Commons debate that he had “never felt more ashamed to be a member of the Conservative party”. He then predicted that if the government did not get a grip, “we will spiral down into oblivion – and the worst thing is, we will deserve it”.

Nigel Evans, a former deputy speaker, said that as far as May’s leadership was concerned, “trust is waning, ebbing away”. Her own MPs have accused her of betrayal. Her authority is in tatters.

But there is no time for a leadership contest before the new 12 April Brexit deadline. And who would even replace May? The potential candidates are a veritable rogues’ gallery.

Ruling class panicked

Faced with further defeats in the House of Commons, May’s government could see itself on the receiving end of a no-confidence vote. The whole crisis could end in the fall of the government and a general election.

Even the gutter press is panicking about such a possibility, with an editorial in The S** headed: “Brexiteer and Remainer Tories are close to giving power to Marxist Jeremy Corbyn.” The article states:

“We do not believe the Tories will win an election if panicked Remain MPs have halted Brexit, especially with Mrs May in office. They will be punished by Leavers they have failed and Remainers who have already jumped ship. Corbyn is one of Britain’s most reviled politicians, in a crowded field. But his party… could win by default if Tory voters don’t turn out… Tory MPs must wake up. This is not a parlour game. An election has never looked closer. Handing power to Corbyn will define your careers.”

They are terrified by the looming prospect of a Corbyn-led Labour government. Their analysis of a defeat for the Tories is correct. The Tories are deeply divided and in a state of disarray.

For a socialist Labour government!

Out of desperation, big business have thrown their weight (and significant sums of money) behind the call for a so-called ‘People’s Vote’ over Brexit, doing everything in their power to mobilise a mass crowd for the recent pro-EU march in London.

But a second referendum will do nothing to address the burning issues facing working-class communities across the country. Instead, it threatens to divide workers even further.

Instead of a ‘People’s Vote’ over Brexit, we need a ‘People’s Vote’ over this government. The Labour leadership should press a vote of no confidence in the Tory government, which is hanging by a thread. A mass campaign – with rallies and demonstrations across the country – should be organised to force a general election.

Britain is in the midst of a deep economic, political, social and constitutional crisis. The ruling class has lost control. There has never been a better time to clear out the Tories and bring to power a Labour government committed to bold socialist policies.

*

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

Hawks Clamoring to Attack Iran

April 1st, 2019 by Dr. Emile Nakhleh

As Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Saudi crown prince and de facto ruler Mohammad bin Salman clamor for a war against Iran, they seem to have conveniently forgotten the destruction and mayhem wrought by the American invasion of Iraq 16 years ago.

These war drummers are underestimating the potential negative consequences of the war and overestimating the Iranian people’s dislike of their theocratic regime. They, like the advocates of the Iraqi invasion in the winter of 2002 and early spring 2003, are confusing Iranians’ dislike of the ayatollahs with their potential embrace of a foreign invader.

On the eve of the Iraq war, former President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, the Vice President Chief of Staff and Assistant to the President David Addington all claimed that the Iraqi invasion aimed at liberating the country from the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein. Removing Saddam from power, they maintained, would eliminate the threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and bring stability, security, and democracy to Iraq.

As developments unfolded over the past 16 years, the “liberation” claims proved to be bogus. The invasion and the decision to de-Ba’athify Iraq and dissolve the Iraqi military created an environment conducive to sectarianism, insurgency, and terrorism. The vacuum that followed the regime collapse, the incompetence of the American administration in the “Green Zone,” and the pervasive corruption of the new Iraqi governing councils was quickly filled by pro-Iranian militias, al-Qaeda, and later the Islamic State. The promise of stability and security was replaced by chaos, bloodshed, and mayhem.

The massive destruction of Iraq and the horrendous human and material cost the American “liberation” caused for the country will be child’s play compared to what could happen if Trump and his Israeli and Saudi allies decide to attack Iran. Unlike Iraq—which the British cobbled together after World War One out of the Shia, Sunnis, and Kurds under a minority Sunni rule—  Iran has been in existence for centuries with a vast territory and a huge population. If attacked, Iran has the capability to retaliate against its neighbors, especially Saudi Arabia. Its air and missile forces could quickly destroy the oil and gas facilities and the water and power grids on the Arab side of the Gulf. A war against Iran could easily spread to the Gulf and the Levant. The entire region could go up in flames.

Hubris and Ignorance

The Bush administration was not willing or interested in answering the “morning after” questions regarding the post-Saddam future of Iraq. Whenever I and others urged policy makers to consider the law of unintended consequences and what could go wrong in Iraq following the invasion, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld dismissed our concerns and arrogantly claimed that the U.S. military and civilian administration following the invasion would be able to control the situation in Iraq. Their hubris regarding America’s power and ignorance of Iraqi realities on the ground led to a total breakdown of Iraqi society following the demise of the Saddam regime.

The Trump administration seems to be equally arrogant and ignorant about Iran. It has displayed a similar disregard for strategic thinking about the future of Iran beyond the clerical regime. The Iranophobes within the administration seem to be more obsessed with Iran than the Bush administration was ever with Iraq.

Instead of relying on calm, expert-based analysis, Secretary of State Pompeo has made a series of trips to the region that have involved bullying, threats, and hilarious, if not tragic, mischaracterizations. In a recent conversation with Christian broadcasters in Jerusalem, Pompeo waxed eloquent about God’s presumed divine plan designating Trump as a possible savior of the “Jewish people,” Sunni Islam, Maronite Lebanon, Alawite Syria, and the rest of the world from the perceived modern-day Persian “Hamans.”

The American foreign policy process is in serious trouble if Pompeo truly believes that Trump could be the twenty-first-century version of Queen Esther or Hadassah and that this religious vision could chart the path to a grand strategy in the Middle East. When warped religious interpretations are offered as a substitute for rationally debated policy, whether by a radical Wahhabi Salafist, an evangelical Christian, or an ultra-Orthodox Jew, democratic governments should fear for their future. Invoking the divine as an inspiration or a justification for violence against another country, much as Osama bin Laden did on the eve of 9/11, is a rejection of rational discourse and a return to the barbarism of previous epochs.

Pompeo’s imagined “shuttle diplomacy” in the Middle East has been reduced to supporting Netanyahu’s upcoming election bid, threatening Hezbollah in Lebanon, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and lambasting any state that does business with Iran. His ambassador-designee to Saudi Arabia, John Abizaid, told Congress that the threat from Iran supersedes concerns for human rights in Arab autocracies.

Furthermore, Trump administration policy operatives, including John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani, have treated an Iranian group called the Mujahedin-e Khalq or MEK as a legitimate alternative to the clerical regime in Iran. The MEK, however, is a terrorist cult that has received funding from all sorts of dubious sources and is often used as a tool by outside groups, states, and organizations, including intelligence services of regional and international state actors, to further an anti-Iran agenda.

Similarly, the Bush administration viewed Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi émigré, and the organization he founded, the Iraqi National Congress, as the legitimate alternative to the Saddam regime in Iraq. Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld fully bought into Chalabi’s snake-oil sales. Chalabi was instrumental in instigating America’s invasion of Iraq at the cost of trillions of dollars and thousands of American and Iraqi lives. Iraq has never recovered from that ill-fated, unnecessary war. Bolton and Giuliani are as susceptible to MEK’s claims as Cheney and Rumsfeld were to Chalabi’s.

For the sake of whipping up regional animus toward Iran and preparing the ground for a war against the “Persian menace,” Pompeo in effect has told Arab autocrats that so long as they keep mouthing anti-Iran rhetoric, Washington will ignore their despicable human rights record and the continued repression of their people. The thousands of political prisoners in Egyptian, Saudi, and Bahraini jails will have to wait for another day.

Arab regimes have become masters in the art of communicating with their American benefactors. During the Cold War, they received American aid as long as they brandished anti-Communist slogans. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and with the rise of terrorism, these same strongmen were happy to adopt an anti-terrorism rhetoric in order to continue receiving American military and economic aid. Their current anti-Iran public posture is the latest phase in their communication with Washington and is as equally profitable as the previous two phases.

When some regional politicians demurred about getting tough with Iran, as happened during Pompeo’s recent visit to Lebanon, he did not hesitate to threaten them with a panoply of economic sanctions. Vice President Mike Pence used similar language at the recent meeting in Warsaw to berate and even threaten America’s European allies if they dared to take a conciliatory posture toward Iran. The European reaction to Pence’s speech showed that his pathetic performance backfired. Pompeo’s Warsaw meeting ended in utter failure.

Iran Nuclear Deal

Managing Iran’s malign behavior through the Iran nuclear deal or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was a stroke of diplomatic genius, which former Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz negotiated. The Obama administration placed Iran’s objectionable behavior in two baskets—a nuclear basket, which they addressed through the Iran deal, and a non-nuclear one, which the Obama administration was to address once the nuclear inspection became operational and Iran fully compliant. That approach would have worked: most experts judged Iran to be in compliance with the conditions of the nuclear deal. Unfortunately, President Trump decided not to recertify the agreement.

Trump’s decision contradicted the judgment of most nuclear and intelligence experts about Iran’s compliance. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), for example, affirmed Iran’s compliance in more than a dozen of its successive quarterly reports and as recently as earlier this month.

In his open testimony to Congress in January, the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats stated that Iran continued to comply with the deal even after Trump announced his intention to scuttle it. Coats said, “We do not believe Iran is currently undertaking activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device.” Iran was of course cheating in other areas, according to the DNI’s testimony, but not on the nuclear agreement.

In a statement issued April 25 of last year, over two dozen Israeli senior military and intelligence officials judged that it was “in Israel’s best interest that the United States maintains the nuclear agreement with Iran.” The Israeli statement went on to say that “The current deal is better than no deal” and that “Iran’s destructive regional policies and actions, its support for acts of terrorism, its presence in Syria, and its ballistic missiles program should be dealt with outside the framework of the agreement.” This was precisely the position of the Obama administration when it negotiated the deal in the first place.

The Path Forward

Fifty-plus retired American generals and diplomats, in a statement published earlier this month, urged the Trump administration to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal and work on resolving outstanding concerns with Iran diplomatically. They advised against a war because they saw no good outcome. The statement did not seek to exonerate Iran’s destabilizing behavior and its involvement in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, or Lebanon. Nor did the retired senior leaders ignore Iran’s link to terrorism. The statement, however, pointed out, among other things, that the 2015 nuclear deal “put limitations on Iran’s nuclear program that provided assurances that it would not be used to develop weapons, improved American intelligence about potential future development and significantly improved the security of the United States and our allies.”

Additionally, the retired generals and diplomats emphasized that Iran is complying with the agreement and that, under the JCPOA, Iran is barred from engaging in nuclear weapons development program, which prevents it from producing a nuclear device. “Reentering the agreement and lifting the sanctions will greatly enhance United States’ ability to negotiate improvements and enable us to address concerns with the existing agreement.”

Coming from these military and policy realists, who are dedicated to the security of this country, Israel, and America’s allies, this advice is grounded in sane strategic analysis, not in theological whimsy.

*

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

Dr. Emile Nakhleh was a Senior Intelligence Service officer and Director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program at the Central Intelligence Agency. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Research Professor and Director of the Global and National Security Policy Institute at the University of New Mexico, and the author of A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World and Bahrain: Political Development in a Modernizing State.

Featured image is from Shutterstock


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.

Empire of Chaos in Hybrid War Overdrive

April 1st, 2019 by Pepe Escobar

The Trump administration’s foreign policy may be easily deconstructed as a crossover between The Sopranos and late-night comedy, writes Pepe Escobar.

***

Is this the Age of Anxiety? The Age of Stupidity? The Age of Hybrid War? Or all of the above?

As right populism learns to use algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI) and media convergence, the Empire of Chaos, in parallel, is unleashing all-out hybrid and semiotic war.

Dick Cheney’s Global War on Terror (GWOT) is back, metastasized as a hybrid mongrel.

But GWOT would not be GWOT without a Wild West scarecrow. Enter Hamza bin Laden, son of Osama. On the same day the State Department announced a $1 million bounty on his head, the so- called “UN Security Council IS and Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee” declared Hamza the next al-Qaeda leader.

Since January 2017, Hamza has been a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the State Department – on par with his deceased Dad, back in the early 2000s. The Beltway intel community “believes” Hamza resides “in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.”

Remember these are the same people who “believed” former Taliban leader Mullah Omar resided in Quetta, Baluchistan, when in fact he was safely ensconced only a few miles away from a massive U.S. military base in Zabul, Afghanistan.

Considering that Jabhat al-Nusra, or al-Qaeda in Syria, for all practical purposes, was defined as no more than “moderate rebels” by the Beltway intel community, it’s safe to infer that new scarecrow Hamza is also a “moderate”. And yet he’s more dangerous than vanished fake Caliph Abu Baqr al-Baghdadi. Talk about a masterful example of culture jamming.

Show Me The Big Picture

A hefty case can be made that the Empire of Chaos currently has no allies; it’s essentially surrounded by an assortment of vassals, puppets and comprador 5th columnist elites professing varied degrees of – sometimes reluctant – obedience.

The Trump administration’s foreign policy may be easily deconstructed as a crossover between The Sopranos and late-night comedy – as in the whole episode of designating State Department/CIA regime change, lab experiment Random Dude as President of Venezuela. Legendary cultural critic Walter Benjamin would have called it “the aestheticization of politics,” (turning politics into art), as he did about the Nazis, but this time it’s the Looney Tunes version.

To add to the conceptual confusion, despite countless “an offer you can’t refuse” antics unleashed by psychopaths of the John Bolton and Mike Pompeo variety, there’s this startling nugget. Former Iranian diplomat Amir Moussavi has revealed that Trump himself demanded to visit Tehran, and was duly rebuffed.

“Two European states, two Arab countries and one Southeast Asian state” were mediating a series of messages relayed by Trump and his son-in-law Jared “of Arabia” Kushner, according to Moussavi.

Is there a method to this madness? An attempt at a Grand Narrative would go something like this: ISIS/Daesh may have been sidelined – for now; they are not useful anymore, so the U.S. must fight the larger “evil”: Tehran. GWOT has been revived, and though Hamza bin Laden has been designated the new Caliph, GWOT has shifted to Iran.

When we mix this with the recent India-Pakistan scuffle, a wider message emerges. There was absolutely no interest by Prime Minister Imran Kahn, the Pakistani Army and the Pakistani intelligence, ISI, to launch an attack on India in Kashmir. Pakistan was about to run out of money and about to be bolstered by the U.S., via Saudi Arabia with $20 billion and an IMF loan.

At the same time, there were two almost simultaneous terrorist attacks launched from Pakistan – against Iran and against India in mid-February. There’s no smoking gun yet, but these attacks may have been manipulated by a foreign intelligence agency. The Cui Bono riddle is which state would profit immensely from a war between Pakistan and Iran and/or a war between Pakistan and India.

The bottom line: hiding in the shadow of plausible deniability – according to which what we understand as reality is nothing but pure perception – the Empire of Chaos will resort to the chaos of no-holds-barred hybrid war to avoid “losing” the Eurasian heartland.

Show Me How Many Hybrid Plans You Got

What applies to the heartland of course also applies to the backyard.

The case of Venezuela shows that the “all options on the table” scenario has been de facto aborted by Russia, outlined in an astonishing briefing by Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, and then subsequently detailed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj at a crucial RIC (part of BRICS) summit in China,Lavrov said,

“Russia keeps a close eye on brazen US attempts to create an artificial pretext for a military intervention in Venezuela… The actual implementation of these threats is pulling in military equipment and training [US] Special Forces.”

Lavrov explained how Washington was engaged in acquiring mortars and portable air defense systems “in an East European country, and mov(ing) them closer to Venezuela by an airline of a regime that is… rather absolutely obedient to Washington in the post-Soviet space.”

The U.S. attempt at regime change in Venezuela has been so far unsuccessful in several ways. Plan A – a classic color revolution -has miserably failed, in part because of a lack of decent local intelligence. Plan B was a soft version of humanitarian imperialism, with a resuscitation of the nefarious, Libya-tested responsibility to protect (R2P); it also failed, especially when the American tale that the Venezuelan government burnt humanitarian aid trucks at the border with Colombia was a lie, exposed by The New York Times, no less.

Plan C was a classic Hybrid War technique: a cyberattack, replete with a revival of Nitro Zeus, which shut down 80 percent of Venezuela’s electricity.

That plan had already been exposed by WikiLeaks, via a 2010 memo by a U.S.-funded, Belgrade-based color revolution scam that helped train self-proclaimed “President” Random Dude, when he was just known as Juan Guaidó. The leaked memo said that attacking the Venezuelan power grid would be a “watershed event” that “would likely have the impact of galvanizing public unrest in a way that no opposition group could ever hope to generate.”

But even that was not enough.

That leaves Plan D – which is essentially to try to starve the Venezuelan population to death via viciously lethal additional sanctions. Sanctioned Syria and sanctioned Iran didn’t collapse. Even boasting myriad comprador elites aggregated in the Lima group, exceptionalists may have to come to grips with the fact that deploying the Monroe doctrine essentially to contain China’s influence in the young 21st century is no “cakewalk.”

Plan E—for extreme—would be U.S. military action, which Bolton won’t take off the table.

Show Me the Way to the Next War Game

So where do all these myriad weaponizations of chaos theory leave us? Nowhere, if they don’t follow the money. Local comprador elites must be lavishly rewarded, otherwise you’re stuck in hybrid swamp territory. That was the case in Brazil – and that’s why the most sophisticated hybrid war case history so far has been a success.

In 2013, Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks revealed how the NSA was spying on Brazilian energy giant Petrobras and the Dilma Rousseff government beginning in 2010. Afterwards, a complex, rolling judicial-business-political-financial-media coup ended up reaching its two main objectives; in 2016, with the impeachment of Rousseff, and in 2018, with Lula thrown in jail.

Now comes arguably the juiciest piece of the puzzle. Petrobras was supposed to pay $853 million to the U.S. Department of Justice for not going to trial for crimes it was being accused of in America. But then a dodgy deal was struck according to which the fine will be transferred to a Brazilian fund as long as Petrobras commits to relay confidential information about its businesses to the United States government.

Hybrid war against BRICS member Brazil worked like a charm, but trying it against nuclear superpower Russia is a completely different ball game. U.S. analysts, in another case of culture jamming, even accuse Russia itself of deploying hybrid war – a concept actually invented in the U.S. within a counter-terrorism context; applied during the occupation of Iraq and later metastasized across the color revolution spectrum; and featuring, among others, in an article co-authored by former Pentagon head James “Mad Dog” Mattis in 2005 when he was a mere lieutenant general.

At a recent conference about Russia’s military strategy, Chief of General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov stressed that the Russian armed forces must increase both their “classic” and “asymmetrical” potential. In the U.S. this is interpreted as subversion/propaganda hybrid war techniques as applied in Ukraine and in the largely debunked Russia-gate. Instead, Russian strategists refer to these techniques as “complex approach” and “new generation war”.

Santa Monica’s RAND Corporation still sticks to good ol’ hot war scenarios. They have been holding “Red on Blue” war games simulations since 1952 – modeling how the proverbial “existential threats” could use asymmetric strategies. The latest Red on Blue was not exactly swell. RAND analyst David Ochmanek famously said that with Blue representing the current U.S. military potential and Red representing Russia-China in a conventional war, “Blue gets its ass handed to it.”

None of this will convince Empire of Chaos functionary Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who recently told a Senate Armed Services Committee that the Pentagon will continue to refuse a “no first use” nuclear strategy. Aspiring Dr. Strangeloves actually believe the U.S. can start a nuclear war and get away with it.

Talk about the Age of Hybrid Stupidity going out with a bang.

*

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

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

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Empire of Chaos in Hybrid War Overdrive

Radical armed factions, including Al Qaeda off-shoot in Syria, are preparing a false flag chemical attack in Idlib, the last province under the control of the opposition forces, Russian Defense Ministry claimed. The preparations are supervised by French and Belgian intelligence and involve members of the notorious self-styled rescue group White Helmets, according to the Ministry.

Head of Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria Major General Viktor Kupchishin announced that a cargo of a poisonous substance, likely chlorine-based, has been already delivered to the villages of Khan Shaykhun and Kafr Zita located in southern Idlib. Another batch was sent to Maarat Misrin north of the eponymous provincial capital Idlib city. The substance was packed in canisters disguised as oxygen and natural gas tanks, Kuptchishin added.

Both Khan Shaykhun and Kafr Zita are close to an observation point established by the Turkish army, with the distance between the outpost and the villages less than 10 kilometers.

It is expected that the poisonous gas will be dispersed near the locations of military positions and warehouses of the armed factions that were recently hit by the Russian air strikes. Officers of French and Belgian intelligence who were covertly dispatched to the area have already filmed some of the strikes with the intention to present the footage as “proof” of Russia’s responsibility for the alleged attack.

Local residents were recruited to play the roles of chemical attack victims and received training in faking the symptoms of a choking agent poisoning. White Helmets members will be present in the area to “rescue” the victims and provide footage from the ground, while militants of Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, arguably the most powerful armed faction in Idlib and a former affiliate of Al Qaeda, will seal the area to secure the perimeter.

On an even more ominous note, the Russian general said that there is “a distinct possibility” that the perpetrators will subject a number of the local residents to exposure to chemical warfare agents to ensure casualties among them and make the footage more “authentic”.

This is not the first time Russia has issued warning of a false flag chemical attack by the opposition forces. Perhaps the most striking example of a similar plot is the attack that occurred in Douma city almost a year ago. Back then, the opposition blamed the Syrian Air Force for using chemical weapons against civilians and succeeded in pushing the US and allies to launch missile strikes at a number of Syrian army positions in Damascus and Homs provinces.

It would appear that due to systematic defeats suffered by the armed factions, the opposition has revived its attempts to play the “chemical card” at the approval of its foreign backers. Despite having been exposed multiple times, this tactic remains a valid threat to the fragile stability that is hesitantly returning to Syria.

*

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

Ahmad Al Khaled is Syrian journalist, Official Representative of Special Monitoring Mission to Syria.

Saturday, March 30, marked the 43rd anniversary of Land Day for Palestinians throughout the Occupied Territories.

The anniversary is all about Palestinian resistance against Israeli theft of their land, displacing them for exclusive Jewish development and use.

It’s against the systematic transformation of historic Palestine into a state affording rights to Jews alone, Arabs treated like nonpersons, Israeli Arab citizens, 20% of the population, treated like fifth column threats.

March 30 was also the one-year anniversary of weekly Great March of Return demonstrations in Gaza against Israel’s illegal suffocating blockade, an act of war without declaring it.

Two million Gazans are held hostage by Israeli viciousness, the world community doing nothing to relieve their suffering, nothing to hold Israel accountable for high crimes too serious to ignore.

They include three premeditated wars of aggression on the Strip since December 2008, along with intermittent terror-bombings and cross-border incursions, civilians threatening no one harmed most.

Razan al-Najjar, the 21 year old Gaza medic killed by an Israeli sniper on June 1, treating an injured man, undated photo from Palestine Live on twitter.

On Saturday, Sabreen al-Najjar, mother of 21-year-old Razan al-Najjar, commemorated her daughter’s murder at the hands of an Israeli sniper – an angel of mercy paramedic, a victim of Gaza’s killing fields.

Dressed in white attire, identifying her as a first responder medic, she was lethally shot in the neck and back, an exploding dum dum bullet destroying her heart, killing her instantly.

“My daughter…Razan…was (lethally) shot by an Israeli sniper while wearing her white uniform and trying to rescue those injured protesting for their rights,” said Sabreen, adding:

“During Razan’s short life, she was confined to a densely populated, prison-like strip of land, surrounded by Israeli blockades and walls.”

“She witnessed three Israeli military aggressions that wounded and killed thousands of innocent Palestinians. For her and for all Palestinians, the Great Return March is our cry for justice.”

“As we stand together peacefully, every weekend, for the rights and freedoms freely given to others without hesitation, it’s the obligation of the international community to act and stop supplying Israel with the weapons that it used to kill Razan and so many others like her.”

“I call on organizations and states to implement our Palestinian call for a military embargo against Israel so that we can live in freedom and peace.”

Gaza-based BDS community organizer Abulrahman Abunahel said

“(f)or more than seven decades, Palestinian people have been struggling to return to their homes from which they were uprooted in the Nakba in 1948.”

“Israel denies us our right of return. On the first anniversary of the ongoing Great March of Return in Gaza, we reiterate the call for boycott, divestment and sanctions for Palestinian rights.”

“It is high time to fully isolate and prosecute the Israeli regime of settler-colonialism, occupation, and apartheid. The bloodshed in Gaza and elsewhere in Palestine must be stopped.”

According to Gaza’s health ministry, Israeli soldiers killed 266 Palestinians, injuring over 30,000 others since Great Gazan March of Return demonstrations began one year ago.

On Saturday, Israeli snipers killed four Palestinians, injuring 316 others, including 86 children and 29 women, said Gaza’s health ministry – many seriously during all Great March of Return protests, including yesterday’s.

Razan and two other Palestinian medics were killed, 665 others wounded, and 112 ambulances damaged, Gaza’s health ministry explained.

At least two clearly identified journalists by their attire were killed, dozens of others wearing press IDs injured.

Israeli soldiers and other security forces routinely attack peaceful Palestinian demonstrators throughout the Territories with live fire, rubber-coated steel bullets, toxic tear gas, and other repressive tactics.

The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) condemned Israeli use of lethal force against peaceful protesters threatening no one – how its regimes confront all nonviolent demonstrations, falsely blaming Palestinians for high crimes committed against them.

Like ahead of all Great March of Return demonstrations, the IDF set up fortified positions on the Israeli side of the border, snipers positioned with orders to use live fire and other toughness against peaceful protesters.

Israeli media reported that the IDF deployed three brigades of combat troops and an artillery battalion along the Gaza border, along with 200 snipers.

PCHR:

“According to observations by (its) fieldworkers (on the ground in Gaza), Israeli forces…stationed in prone positions and in military jeeps along the fence with Israel continued to use excessive force against the (peaceful) demonstrators by opening fire and firing teargas canisters at them.”

As in previous weeks, tens of thousands of Gazans turned out on Saturday, including entire families. Threatening no one, Israeli soldiers fired on them for target practice, gunning down or otherwise injuring hundreds.

Reporting on what happened on Saturday, the NYT featured a photo of a Palestinian demonstrator using a sling shot to hurl a likely stone in the direction of Israeli forces, safely behind barricades, too far away to be harmed – instead of showing IDF snipers gunning down Palestinians in cold blood.

The Times turned truth on its head, calling Saturday events “mostly peaceful” – entirely so by Palestinians, nothing of the kind by IDF soldiers, attacking them unrestrained.

The photo published by the Times was unrelated to Saturday protests, showing black smoke from burning tires.

Haaretz reported the following:

“As part of understandings reached between Israel and the Palestinians through Egyptian mediation on Friday, Palestinians refrained from setting ablaze car tires at the protest sites.”

The Times (and other US media) falsely accused Gazans of hurling “dozens of homemade bombs” at Israeli soldiers. Nothing of the kind occurred. Demonstrators were entirely peaceful as during other Great March of Return protests.

The Times quoted IDF spokesman, Lt. Col Jonathan Conruus’ Big Lie, claiming

“(i)t’s clear that Hamas controls the level of violence (sic),” adding:

“When they want less violence (sic), we see that they can keep people back from the fence. And when they want more violence (sic), they get more violence (sic).”

The Times lied saying

“Israel made a point before Saturday of cautioning its soldiers against taking shots that might hit unintended targets.”

Fact: The Netanyahu regime and IDF consider civilians legitimate targets, including young children and women – 86 children and 29 women wounded by live fire, rubber-coated steel bullets, and toxic tear gas on Saturday.

Many thousands of Gazans have been protesting weekly and other times against their virtual incarceration in the world’s largest open-air prison.

Though unable to change things, their courage against a brutal occupier got worldwide attention. With nothing to lose, they’re unlikely to quit as long as their suffering continues.

A Final Comment

On March 29, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)  explained major media calls to renounce violence is almost exclusively directed at Muslims, saying:

“A FAIR survey of the phrase “renounce violence” in the New York Times over the past 10 years shows that 95 percent of the time the demand is made of Muslim organizations, people or political parties, the most prominent being the Taliban and Hamas.”

“There are zero instances of anyone in the Times — whether reporters quoting officials or columnists — from March 28, 2009, to March 28, 2019, insisting or suggesting that the United States, Israel or any white-majority country ‘renounce violence.’ ”

The above information should surprise no one. The self-styled newspaper of record and other establishment media operate as virtual imperial press agents – supporting US-led NATO and Israeli wars of aggression, along with their other hostile actions against targeted nations and people.

*

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

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Virginian State Senator Richard H. Black has told the Syria Times e-newspaper that besides influencing Israeli elections, the United States is financially vested in controlling the occupied Syrian Golan because Halliburton, an American oil company, is actively engaged in exploring for oil and national gas under the auspices of the Israeli government.

He has asserted that this act is being done in clear violation of International law.

The Senator’s remarks came in response to a question on the reasons behind US President Donald Trump’s recognition of the occupied Syrian Golan as ‘Israeli territory’.

“President Trump recognized the occupied Golan as Israeli territory because of the upcoming Israeli parliamentary elections on April 9. The Trump administration has done everything in its power to shift the election’s outcome in favor of Netanyahu,” Sen. Black said.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu faces a wide variety of indictments of criminal corruption. These have increased in substance and seriousness over time. In response, the Trump administration has done everything in its power to bolster Netanyahu, viewing him as an ally in the Middle East. It has reversed several long-standing U.S. policies in order to favor Netanyahu against his opposition in the pending elections. The recognition of Jerusalem was a similar attempt to bolster Netanyahu’s political viability, in the face of his criminal corruption scandals,” he added.

The US lawmaker made it clear that although President Trump has power, under domestic law, to recognize the annexation of the occupied Syrian Golan, the President’s action is inconsistent with international law. Following the 1967 Israeli War, UN Resolution 242 called for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the occupied territories. In 1981, Israel enacted legislation to annex the Syrian Golan, but the United Nations adopted Resolution 497, which said that their action was null and void.

“The domestic law was established by a United States Supreme Court decision in 2015. Ironically, the decision of Zivotofsky v. Kerry recognized President Obama’s authority to disregard a federal statute requiring him to recognize Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem,” Sen. Black stated.

He referred to the fact that the Arab League condemned U.S. recognition of Israel’s annexation of the Golan, while the 28 countries of the European Union unanimously affirmed that the Golan is occupied territories, which are not a part of Israel.

“Turkey, Iran, and Russia have all expressed disapproval of the U.S. recognition,” the senator added, stressing that the recognition of Israeli control of the Golan will have little practical effect.

US is interfering in foreign elections today

Asked about benefits US can get from such move, the Senator replied:

“For the most part, President Trump’s objective is to influence the elections of a foreign state. Ironically, President Trump was just exonerated by the Special Counsel on claims that he colluded with Russia to influence his own Presidential election. While no one can seriously believe that President Trump did so, there is no doubt that the United States is forcefully engaged in distorting the outcome of elections in many foreign countries.”

He went on to say:

“There is great irony in the United States interfering in foreign elections today. We have just spent two years with the United States in turmoil, as Special Prosecutor Robert Muller worked to discover evidence that Russia had attempted to influence this country’s elections. If the United States views interference in its own elections as a serious matter, it has no business subverting the electoral processes of other nations. The United States should not reverse long-standing Mideast policies simply to prevent Israel from conducting honest elections, free from foreign influence.”

Peace

The senator concluded by saying:

“Peace will not come to the Middle East until its nations focus their efforts on developing their own nations and their domestic resources without seizing the lands and resources of their neighbors. Nations benefit by mutually agreed borders that are respected and not continually violated by airstrikes, outside support for terrorists, and sanctions which cause suffering among the poor.”

*

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

Featured image is from The Syria Times

Second in a four-part series on the 70th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The first installment  in this series discussed how NATO was set up partly to blunt the European Left. The other major factor driving the creation of NATO was a desire to bolster colonial authority and bring the world under a US geopolitical umbrella.

From the outset Canadian officials had an incredibly expansive definition of NATO’s supposed defensive character, which says an “attack against one ally is considered as an attack against all allies.” As part of the Parliamentary debate over NATO external minister Lester Pearson said: “

There is no better way of ensuring the security of the Pacific Ocean at this particular moment than by working out, between the great democratic powers, a security arrangement the effects of which will be felt all over the world, including the Pacific area.”

Two years later he said:

The defence of the Middle East is vital to the successful defence of Europe and north Atlantic area.”

In 1953 Pearson went even further:

There is now only a relatively small [5000 kilometre] geographical gap between southeast Asia and the area covered by the North Atlantic treaty, which goes to the eastern boundaries of Turkey.”

In one sense the popular portrayal of NATO as a defensive arrangement was apt. After Europe’s second Great War the colonial powers were economically weak while anti-colonial movements could increasingly garner outside support. The Soviets and Mao’s China, for instance, aided the Vietnamese. Similarly, Egypt supported Algerian nationalists and Angola benefited from highly altruistic Cuban backing. The international balance of forces had swung away from the colonial powers.

To maintain their colonies European powers increasingly depended on North American diplomatic and financial assistance. NATO passed numerous resolutions supporting European colonial authority. In the fall of 1951 Pearson responded to moves in Iran and Egypt to weaken British influence by telling Parliament:

The Middle  East is strategically far too important to the defence of the North Atlantic area to allow it to become a power vacuum or to pass into unfriendly hands.”

The next year Ottawa recognized the colonies of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos as “associated states” of France, according to an internal report, “to assist  a NATO colleague, sorely tried by foreign and domestic problems.” More significantly, Canada gave France hundreds of millions of dollars in military equipment through NATO’s Mutual Assistance Program. These weapons were mostly used to suppress the Vietnamese and Algerian independence movements. In 1953 Pearson told the House:

The assistance  we have given to France as a member of the NATO association may have helped her recently in the discharge of some of her obligations in Indo-China.”

Similarly, Canadian and US aid was used by the Dutch to maintain their dominance over Indonesia and West Papua New Guinea, by the Belgians in the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, by the Portuguese in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau and by the British in numerous places. Between 1950 and 1958 Ottawa donated a whopping $1,526,956,000 ($8 billion today) in ammunition, fighter jets, military training, etc. to European countries through the NATO Mutual Assistance Program.

The role NATO played in North American/European subjugation of the Global South made Asians and Africans wary of the organization. The Nigerian Labour Party’s 1964 pamphlet The NATO Conspiracy in Africa documents that organization’s military involvement on the continent from bases to naval agreements. In 1956 NATO established a Committee for Africa and in June 1959 NATO’s North Atlantic Council, the organization’s main political decision-making body, warned that the communists would take advantage of African independence to the detriment of Western political and economic interests.

The north Atlantic alliance was designed to maintain unity among the historic colonial powers — and the US — in the midst of a de-colonizing world. It was also meant to strengthen US influence around the world. In a history of the 1950-53 US-led Korean war David Bercuson writes that Canada’s external minister “agreed with [President] Truman, [Secretary of State] Dean Acheson, and other American leaders that the Korean conflict was NATO’s first true test, even if it was taking place half a world away.”

Designed to maintain internal unity among the leading capitalist powers, NATO was the military alliance of the post-WWII US-centered multilateral order, which included the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, International Trade Organization (ITO) and the United Nations. (For its first two decades the UN was little more than an arm of the State Department.)

A growing capitalist power, Canada was well placed to benefit from US-centered multilateral imperialism. The Canadian elite’s business, cultural, familial and racial ties with their US counterparts meant their position and profits were likely to expand alongside Washington’s global position.

NATO bolstered colonial authority and helped bring the world under the US geopolitical umbrella, from which the Canadian elite hoped to benefit.

*

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

Featured image: National Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, centre, and Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance as Justin Trudeau holds a press conference at NATO headquarters. (Source: Yves Engler)

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Defence of European Empires Was the Original NATO Goal
  • Tags: ,